Let's Talk, People: Episode 35

WHEN CHANGE FEELS LIKE IT'S HAPPENING TO YOU

RECLAIMING AGENCY TO LEAD THROUGH CHANGE

[00:00:00]  Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Hi, I'm Emily Frieze-Kemeny, host of Let's Talk, People, where leaders come to bridge humanity and profitability. Informed by a couple decades of work as a head of talent and leadership development, I'm here to amplify leaders so they can exalt everyone and everything they touch. Are you ready? 'Cause it's about to get real.

[00:00:28] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Let's talk, people.

[00:00:35]  Emily Frieze-Kemeny: If you, like me, are here because of your passion for talking leadership and growing your impact and those around you, I want to invite you to check out our new leadership model, Pivot Player. Pivot Player is informed by our research working with thousands of global leaders over the last two decades.

[00:00:52]  Emily Frieze-Kemeny: You can learn more about Pivot Player by heading to pivotplayer.com, where you can also take our free leadership survey and find out which leadership suit or suits you've likely been wearing. Okay. Let's get into the episode.

[00:01:09] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: It's my pleasure to have Kiabi Carson on Let's Talk, People. 

[00:01:14] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Kiabi is the head of Human Resources for North America at Turner and Townsend, a 1.4 billion Euro global professional services company with more than 20,000 employees across 60 plus countries. It specializes in large scale construction and infrastructure programs across real estate, energy and natural resources.

[00:01:35] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: In her role, she sets the HR strategy and is accountable for all the HR functions across the United States and Canada. Throughout Kiabi's career, she has led people strategy and organizational transformation across large, complex organizations, especially while leading people through major change like mergers and acquisitions.

[00:01:57] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Prior to joining Turner and Townsend, Kiabi held senior HR leadership roles at Bristol Myers Squibb and Prudential Financial. She also serves as a partner on Turner and Townsend's US, Canada, Americas, and Global people boards, and is the Vice Chair of the Board of Directors for New Jersey Transit.

[00:02:18] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: All right, we are gonna get into it and talk about how do we reclaim our agency when change feels like it's happening to us and our teams.

[00:02:29] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Kiabi, I'm so happy to have you on Let's Talk, People.

[00:02:32] Kiabi Carson: I'm so excited to be here.

[00:02:34]  Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I was thinking about our topic around change, and in some ways I feel like change has just become normal, that that is just the everyday life. And I wanna be honest and realistic, there's moments in time where the change feels a little bit more acute.

[00:02:49] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And we feel like it's happening to us, there's all sorts of feelings, sometimes not so pleasant ones that come up like, why me? Why is this happening? I didn't ask for this. 

[00:03:00] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And then sometimes we even go to a dark place where we show up, but we really don't wanna be there. And so we're acting present, but we're not really feeling present. And really what I find that it comes down to for people is the feeling of not having control. 

[00:03:19] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: One of my favorite quotes from Ronald Heifetz goes way back, but it still really resonates and speaks to me, is "People don't fear change. They fear loss". 

[00:03:30] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And to me, I was like, that nails it. Am I gonna lose control, power, flexibility, respect, comfort, whatever. There's an underlying, usually unspoken feeling that something's gonna be taken away from me.

[00:03:45] Kiabi Carson: Yeah.

[00:03:46]  Emily Frieze-Kemeny: So that's what got us here. And we know there's an opportunity to help ourselves as leaders and our teams to make peace with it, connect with the change, find our power, our autonomy, our agency, our excitement in the change, versus feeling like victims of it. 

[00:04:07] Kiabi Carson: Absolutely. So that resonated a lot with me, and I think part of it is the empowerment piece of it because oftentimes when I've experienced change or I've led teams or groups to change, there's this view that we're powerless in the change, because if it wasn't our decision and we're not in control, there's nothing we can do about it.

[00:04:25] Kiabi Carson: And you feel quite powerless. And I've done a lot of work in this space and trying to help people understand there is always power in the change. There is always an element that you control in that change. 

[00:04:34] Kiabi Carson: You may not control the ultimate decision that got us here, but there are things along that journey that you do control and how do you keep people focused on that as a way to navigate and move forward?

[00:04:44]  Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Totally agree. And sometimes it takes a moment to get to that place where you can accept that, but that is where the positive part of it is, is finding your location in it. 

[00:04:56] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: One of the things that I find so helpful about the work that we do as people leaders is we're not just here to design and help others, but we get to have the experience ourself as leaders of going through the things that the leaders were coaching and advising or going through.

[00:05:12] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Is there a moment in your own career that really stands out to you where it felt like the change was happening to you was not within your control, maybe not even something you would have chosen? 

[00:05:23] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: 'Cause I find that usually these personal experiences give us so much wisdom to be able to help others.

[00:05:28] Kiabi Carson: So there's actually a moment earlier in my HR career that probably defined my perspective on change that actually helps me to be more resilient in change now than I probably ever would've been. I was an HR manager, maybe about three or four years into the HR space and my leader at the time was like, you need a different perspective of the business. 

[00:05:49] Kiabi Carson: So at that time we had a union and labor relations were a big part of that business. It was not the area people typically wanted to go unless you were building a career in labor relations. That's definitely not where you wanted to go. You didn't wanna deal with union negotiations or grievances or anything labor relations, and her view was if you're going to be really good in your craft of HR, you have to have diverse experiences.

[00:06:11] Kiabi Carson: And at the time I was in the areas that were the most attractive areas. I was supporting the sales and marketing teams and all the places people wanted to be. It was definitely not labor relations. 

[00:06:21] Kiabi Carson: So I did not want to do that opportunity, 'cause in my mind, I'm not trying to grow my career in that way. That's not where I see my career going, so why do I need that particular experience? 

[00:06:33] Kiabi Carson: But I trusted her leadership and I really didn't have a choice. 

[00:06:37] Kiabi Carson: So I remember I went into that experience, not very open-minded, very much had a view that this is not gonna be the greatest, but I'll do it for a period of time. I'll get what I need to get, and then I'm gonna get outta here as quickly as I can to go on back to the things I'm interested in. 

[00:06:52] Kiabi Carson: But what I found is that it was at a really unique time in the business where we were going through our collective bargaining agreement. It was time for the renewal. So I was going to get the opportunity to actually write articles for the new contract and get experience in that, that I never would've gotten anywhere else. And at the time, the union that represented that employee group had made a decision that they were no longer going to represent that group. 

[00:07:14] Kiabi Carson: And they had been the union for maybe 30, 40 years. It was completely unheard of. It wasn't expected that that was ever going to happen, so we weren't anticipating it. But here it was, this crisis to some extent and complete change for the organization that we didn't expect. And so I was able to get an experience around how do you deal with change that is completely unexpected, you have to pivot really quickly. 

[00:07:38] Kiabi Carson: As a leader, I had to guide both the management team through 'what does that mean?', as well as think about from a union perspective, 'what does that mean for the employee base?', and got such an amazing experience going through that. 

[00:07:50] Kiabi Carson: I got experience in negotiations, I got more experience in employee engagement on a different level, 'cause you're looking at communication and you're looking at experiences. And at that time, of course they did not want the employees to try to unionize again, 'cause they felt, listen, we can have a great management employee relationship without that, but you have to be really good at articulating well, what does that look like? What's the benefit for the employees at that time? 

[00:08:14] Kiabi Carson: And I remember coming out of that experience, when I look back on it, I'm like, I never would've had that experience at all. It wasn't anticipated. I never would've had that probably any other place if that state where I was, and it taught me that I have to be more open to looking at the opportunities and change.

[00:08:32] Kiabi Carson: And that helps me a lot when I'm coaching people, 'cause I've gone through a lot of change since then and I'm still going through it in our organizations, but I use that as a platform to say, great. Didn't anticipate it, didn't expect it, didn't want it. But now that we're here, what is the opportunity in this? What can you learn out of it on the other side? 

[00:08:50] Kiabi Carson: And helping people to focus in that way as a way to help them navigate change. 'Cause I've been there. You don't always get to choose it, but there are things within your control and you gotta think about it from that perspective.

[00:09:01] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah. It reminded me how I think about how we evaluate success because when you look forward, there's always a gap, right? The more you need to do those goals, those objectives that you're still chasing, it's only when you look back that you see what you've gained. 

[00:09:19] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And that's such a leap of faith that we have to help others when we're leaders to make, which is sometimes it's like, "Trust me". 

[00:09:26] Kiabi Carson: Mm-hmm. 

[00:09:27]  Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And that's what you did with your leadership at the time, is you were like, okay, this is not what I would've chosen, but I'm gonna say yes. And it's interesting, I think back to my own career, and I have two moments like that that sound very familiar, and I said no.

[00:09:41] Kiabi Carson: Mm-hmm.

[00:09:42]  Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Whether it was the right decision or not, I don't know, but I didn't wanna do it.

[00:09:46] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And I said no to the change. And again, I always had a pretty clear vision of where I wanted to go next, I didn't expect that I was gonna become an entrepreneur and build a company, so this was definitely not planned, but I knew it was more in like that talent organizational development, succession planning space. And so I stuck to deepening as a practitioner there. 

[00:10:05] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: But this idea of how do we, as leaders, say to somebody, and be able to hear them, that it doesn't feel good, it doesn't feel right. It's not what they would've chosen, regardless, to your point of whether it's a job change or a merger or a change in business direction for the organization, whatever it may be.

[00:10:24] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: But that, let's give it six months, 12 months, like let's give it a period of time so that there's enough space that we can be able to look back together and to see what came from it. Because I think you're right, that's usually where they're gonna have the reflection that you now have and have been able to teach others, which is, when I look back, I can see how much growth and how much skill and how much opportunity came from a moment that I didn't want to say yes to. 

[00:10:49] Kiabi Carson: Yeah. Definitely. I think about where I am now and the firm that I'm working for. You know, we went through a major shift about five years ago, and we were merged with a much larger organization. So about 70% of our company was bought out.

[00:11:05] Kiabi Carson: And I remember at that time there wasn't a lot of information 'cause we knew it was gonna take us about a year or so to think about what does that mean? How do we integrate and all the things that we do. But my team and all the other team members were just panicked because the other company who had acquired us, they were bigger. 

[00:11:22] Kiabi Carson: They were significantly bigger than what we were. They had better systems. There were more employees, more resources. And so our teams view that as, we're gonna be obsolete because there's no way that you're gonna keep the organization of our size when you have this big, massive organization that could absorb it and do what we do. 

[00:11:40] Kiabi Carson: And so at that time I did not have all the answers as the leader. I didn't know what the decisions were or where the ultimate impact could be or could not be. So I didn't hide the fact that I didn't have all the answers. I was quite honest. Here's what I do know today, 'cause there were some information we had today, there were some things we could answer and I was really clear about what I did know, but I was equally clear about what I didn't know, but very committed to what we were gonna do to get there and what were some of the steps we were gonna take to try to get those answers. And when we'd have more information, what's that timeline look like, so people are not sitting in the dark. 

[00:12:16] Kiabi Carson: And I think to the point you made earlier, part of it was, you know, I have great rapport at my team, so they trusted me as a leader that I'm not gonna tell them something that's not true or we're not gonna make things up as we go along.

[00:12:26] Kiabi Carson: So there is a trust element of that where your people have to trust that what you're telling them is true. But it was an unsettling time for everyone, because you didn't know. But again, going back to that early lessons that I learned about the opportunity, I did know what it was going to bring.

[00:12:41] Kiabi Carson: It's going to bring more investment in the business than what we have today. It is going to bring more opportunities and a different type of business, which means more career opportunities than we've ever had before. So I really focused on those opportunities 'cause I knew that was coming.

[00:12:57] Kiabi Carson: How we were gonna get there, maybe a little bit of a time, and it may be a bumpy road, but there definitely was an opportunity on the other end. And I think that's what you have to do as leaders, you have to be honest, first and foremost. If you make it up, people will read through that. 

[00:13:10] Kiabi Carson: And if you make commitments that you cannot live with when the reality hits, everything you've said becomes false. 

[00:13:17] Kiabi Carson: You lose the trust factor.

[00:13:18] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah, I really appreciate that, 'cause I've noticed that sometimes we wanna provide full clarity and we'll wait until we know more. And it doesn't feel easy as a leader to provide incomplete information, but I really agree with you that saying what you know and what you don't know brings people along with you.

[00:13:40] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: So when you're confronted with change, like what you're describing when it's organizational change or career change, those are the moments where you step into uncertainty. But the truth is we're always in uncertainty and how do we make friends with it? 

[00:13:54] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: That's the space that we hold for our teams, is it's okay. And the belief system that we have, and how we talk about leadership, it's about incremental progress. 

[00:14:04] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And so it really felt that in what you were saying, this idea that we're always just one step away from being able to keep going and growing and making progress.

[00:14:14] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: So this big thing that none of us know the answers to, we can't solve for that right now, but you know what we can do, we can do this next step. This next decision. Take this action. We refer to it as the Pivot Play, like what is that next move that you always can make. Just like an athlete? It's like you never know you're gonna win. 

[00:14:32] Kiabi Carson: Right. 

[00:14:32] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: That's the challenge of it. 

[00:14:33] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: But you know that with skill and with practice and with collaboration with colleagues, you can find that next step. And that is what shrinks the overwhelm down into something that feels much more manageable for all of us.

[00:14:47] Kiabi Carson: Absolutely.

[00:14:48] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: So Abby, I'm gonna turn it to you. I know we have a bunch of questions that we are ready to jump in and unpack. 

[00:14:56] Abigail Charlu: Yeah, we do. This topic was pretty resonant. I think many of us, especially after the pandemic, realized that nothing is certain, except for maybe change and navigating that can be hard, as we've discussed here. Our first manager situation, the leader, shared: "From what I understand, a decision has already been made and it put my team at risk. Leadership says they're open to feedback, but the last time someone pushed back, it didn't go well. Is it my responsibility to keep my mouth shut and be a good soldier or to speak up? How do I navigate that tension without burning political capital?"

[00:15:33] Kiabi Carson: That's a really good question. A couple of things from my perspective is, I think you've gotta be really clear about what you can or cannot influence in a decision. It doesn't mean you can't share the impact of that decision. And when I'm talking to my leaders and there's big decisions that are happening and we know there's going to be impact across the business, I'm not always able to change the ultimate decision 'cause sometimes as HR professionals, it's a business decision, right? 

[00:15:59] Kiabi Carson: My job is there to make sure that we're navigating through that or we're preparing for that or managing it. But what I do talk to my leaders about is, fine, but there's an impact to that decision. And I help them understand what is the impact to that decision ultimately, 'cause sometimes that does influence them to think differently or it does influence them to make a different decision. Sometimes it doesn't. And I think you have to understand that more because if you are just challenging the decision because we don't like the decision or we don't understand the decision, you will burn political power in that way. 

[00:16:30] Kiabi Carson: But if you talk about the impact of that and how we can navigate that sometimes influences that in a different way. 

[00:16:37] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: It's interesting, sometimes I find in these situations, because the leadership is probably already under a lot of pressure, this is where it may not be about not speaking up, but it may be that you have to come at it with real positivity, 'cause sometimes they just don't want to be told no or for people to complain because it is a tough decision when you have to make a strategic choice that is gonna put people at risk.

[00:17:08] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And leaders are confronted with this a lot, probably more than they even tell us about, 'cause there are scenario planning. 

[00:17:14] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: So what I have found is the more senior leaders get, especially at that C-suite level, they don't want the negativity.

[00:17:22] Kiabi Carson: No. 

[00:17:23] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And sometimes that annoys us because it's like, they just wanna pretend everything's okay when it's not.

[00:17:29] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And that is a true feeling, they really don't mean that. So what was coming to mind for me is if there is a way to speak up, I would just really encourage people to come at it from like, "I know this was an important strategic decision that we had to make", or "I can imagine how much thought went into this" and come from a place of appreciation and empathy, like trying to put yourself in their shoes, that they have really done what they felt was best. 

[00:17:58] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: My favorite word is "I'm looking for some guidance". 

[00:18:00] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Because when you say I'm looking for some guidance, you're not putting yourself in an adversarial position with your leadership, you're saying "I need you, your wisdom, your perspective". 

[00:18:10] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: It's almost like it sets them into more of a coaching and mentoring tone to say, "I need some guidance on what I can say or can't say to my team". 

[00:18:18] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: They're asking me should I start looking for a job... what do I do? 

[00:18:21] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I mean, I'm gonna be fully honest, I have had times as a leader where I have said to somebody silently like, "I can't tell you what's gonna happen, but there's a lot at play and just network, you know, I think it's a smart thing to do".

[00:18:33] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And I still have relationships with some people that I did that for, and again, I wasn't disclosing anything that they didn't already know, it's just they knew things were unstable. 

[00:18:42] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And it's like, yeah, everyone's gotta take care of themselves. You have yourself and people you love to support, you need benefits, whatever it may be.

[00:18:48] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: So I think you can kind of say, all right, where are the boundaries of what's already been decided or where's the boundaries of what I can say to my team, because I wanna be honest with them. So it's like you're enlisting your boss, your leadership, in being a thinking partner with you, and I really believe that calms your boss's nervous system enough that they can come and be present with you, to think that through. 

[00:19:11] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: When you come all fired up and agitated and carrying the anxiety and frustration of not only what you're feeling, but of your team, your boss is like, "Grow up. You're a leader. This is why I pay you the big bucks. Don't bother me". 

[00:19:27] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: It's just a different energetic dynamic. 

[00:19:29] Kiabi Carson: If I can add to that, Emily, 'cause I totally agree with you. I mean, if you put yourself in your leader's shoes and the amount of decisions or challenges or business things you have to deal with and someone comes and puts just one more other thing on your plate, here's the problem, yeah, it doesn't bode well, right? It doesn't put you in a good place. 

[00:19:47] Kiabi Carson: But if you're using the technique you talked about, which I think is fantastic, "I need guidance", it does start to open the door for our dialogue and conversation. And there could be more solutions or recommendations or things you can do that maybe get it to a better point.

[00:20:01] Kiabi Carson: But if you come with more problems as leaders, we don't need more problems. What we need is, are more solutions and recommendations and maybe there's things we have not thought through in a different way, but we don't need more problems, and I totally agree. 

[00:20:12] Kiabi Carson: I love that approach.

[00:20:13] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah. And I like what you were saying, it's "How do we brainstorm together? Like I was thinking maybe I could approach it this way" or "What do you think if I tried this?" 

[00:20:22] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: So you are bringing some material to the dialogue that helps to spark them, 'cause some of the best leaders, we feel like, wow, that's such a great perspective, or that's such a great suggestion. 

[00:20:35] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: They have more experience than us or have been through other situations, you are likely to get some value back, but you're right, you have to create the conditions for it to be like, we're in this together, versus, what are you, 'they'- the 'they'- doing to the 'us'?

[00:20:51] Abigail Charlu: I think we already touched a bit on this in terms of communication, how much to communicate and when, but let's dive into it even further. For the next situation, the leader shared: "Change is happening quickly, and I don't have full clarity yet, but my team is already looking for direction and reassurance.

[00:21:11] Abigail Charlu: I don't want to overreact, speculate, or give false certainty. I also don't wanna go quiet and create more anxiety. How do I communicate with my team in this moment?" 

[00:21:24] Kiabi Carson: So we brought up a couple of things in our last question, but there was one thing that I would add, and it's something, Emily, that you said about just the absence of information. And so we've had another significant change in our business where we have merged a huge business unit from our parent group into our original business.

[00:21:42] Kiabi Carson: So it was 8,000 people globally. In my area, it was almost 3,500 people. So it was a significant influx of people, and at the time that was done there were some answers that we did have, and there were answers that we didn't have. 

[00:21:55] Kiabi Carson: So we used the things that I just talked about in terms of, we were out front, we were clear with people like, listen, we're not gonna have all the answers for all your questions. We knew that the balance of that year was really about learning, getting information, doing discovery, and that it wasn't going to mean changes to policies or processes or anything in year one, but by the fourth quarter, we're gonna have more information about what does that mean for the following year.

[00:22:20] Kiabi Carson: And so we were very clear and upfront with people on timelines of when we would have information, we were very clear about what we won't have information on and by when, and so in our minds we were like, great, we were really clear about it. We did a great job. 

[00:22:35] Kiabi Carson: What we didn't anticipate is that the time between when we made those announcements and when the first milestone was hitting was a couple of months. And so in our view is okay, we told people. There's nothing new, nothing's changing, everything stays the same, until we get to this month and we'll give you more information. 

[00:22:51] Kiabi Carson: And so we did not do a whole lot of communication in the in between because we thought we were real clear about the milestone and the plan. And that was the absolutely wrong decision. Because even though we were clear on timeline, if you don't give people information, they'll make up stories in their mind, in the midst of having nothing to go on. And so people started thinking, 'Well, wow, it is a really long time. Why is it such a long time? I think there's bad news coming. There must be bad news coming'. 

[00:23:16] Kiabi Carson: And so they began to make up their own scenarios around what is happening, even though we were crystal clear about when we're gonna say what we're gonna say and we didn't say much in between because we didn't have new information. And we kept thinking, well, people get frustrated. We keep getting in front of them with no information and just say, "Hey, we don't have information". 

[00:23:37] Kiabi Carson: But what we found is that in the midst of that time, people want to understand the progress.

[00:23:42] Kiabi Carson: They want to know, yes, we're still on track, and they want to know that yes, the plans that we have in place to get to September of 25 are still the same plans. We have not deviated from them. We're still doing all the things we need to do to prepare for that. 

[00:23:58] Kiabi Carson: And that was the biggest lesson I think we've learned in that process, that in the midst of no information, you still have to give information.

[00:24:05] Kiabi Carson: You cannot go silent, especially when there's a significant change in play because anxiety builds. 

[00:24:11] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah. It's festering in the silence. 

[00:24:13] Kiabi Carson: Absolutely. 

[00:24:14] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: It's so funny, I didn't know what you were gonna say, but what immediately was coming into my head was a variation on a theme, which is the structure of engagement. 

[00:24:25] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: So a weekly voice memo, video, email, staff meeting, whatever it is, structurally build it in.

[00:24:35] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And even to your point, Kiabi, if you're saying, "We're on track, we're making progress. There's not something tangible yet to show for it, but please know, there's a lot of work going on behind the scenes". 

[00:24:45] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And then the other thing that was coming up for me, our natural default when we think about change as leaders is to tell, what am I communicating?

[00:24:55] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: But we forget that there is equal, if not more power in the listening.

[00:24:59] Kiabi Carson: Absolutely. Absolutely.

[00:25:00] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And so let's pretend that there really is a three week sprint where there's just a group working on it and either it's so confidential they can't share it, or it's just technical in nature and those three weeks are part of the listening tour.

[00:25:15] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: How are things going? What wins have you gotten this week? What challenges have you been faced with? How have you overcome them? 

[00:25:22] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: There's so many good questions, both positive and where things don't go as well. There's also tremendous learning. 

[00:25:29] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: So either you can ask your direct reports, if you're a leader of leaders, you can ask them to bring those to you on a weekly basis, bring those stories. "What are you hearing? Tell me some things that had happened", and then you can even summarize back your reflections on them for a broader audience, or just, the listening. 

[00:25:46] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: We know, for example, when you do an engagement survey or focus groups, whatever it may be, you get an uptick in engagement just from listening.

[00:25:54] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: You don't even have to take an action. Now, of course, taking action's even better, but people feeling heard actually makes them feel better.

[00:26:01] Kiabi Carson: It's so interesting you say that, 'cause we do an annual engagement survey. We've always done it. And I remember, we had done our typical engagement survey, we get probably at that time maybe 70, 75% response rate and we're like, okay, that's good.

[00:26:13] Kiabi Carson: And we were happy about it and one year we said, let's feed back to people what we've heard, because we do do listening sessions. We follow up on the survey feedback, but we don't really necessarily play it back. 

[00:26:24] Kiabi Carson: So we took an opportunity to say, "Here's what we've heard from you and here's what we did". 

[00:26:29] Kiabi Carson: We just played it back to people maybe a month before the next survey was gonna come out, so they can understand that we heard you and all the things that you're seeing are related to what we're doing. 

[00:26:39] Kiabi Carson: The year we did that, our survey response ticked up by 15%. I mean, it just shot up. People then participated even more, and it wasn't that we weren't sharing the things we were doing around the business before, but we hadn't played it back in the way that says, "We heard you and here is why we did this, it's because we heard you". 

[00:26:58] Kiabi Carson: Night and day in terms of the response rate.

[00:27:00] Kiabi Carson: And we still tend to have pretty high survey response rate as a result of that.

[00:27:04] Kiabi Carson: You are absolutely right. 

[00:27:06] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: It's very rare in an organization where things stop. So it might be that there's a massive change going on, like you were describing, like when you're integrating even an equal size, in your case, an even bigger entity, like that's massive. 

[00:27:19] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: But the truth is I bet almost every single one of those people still has a day job that they need to get done. 

[00:27:25] Kiabi Carson: The business as usual doesn't stop. Absolutely.

[00:27:27] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Right.

[00:27:28] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: So it's almost like, yeah, yeah, yeah. We have all this stuff that is coming. How's this project going? How's this client situation going? How do you presence them in the actual work they need to get done and still taking interest in it, still bringing curiosity, so that you bring them back into the presence, because they still have a lot of work to do.

[00:27:51] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: We all do.

[00:27:52] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: So, yes, yes, yes. That thing that is looming, we know it's there. I'm not ignoring it, but tell me a win that you had or something that you're really excited about from last week. Or tell me something that we can improve. 

[00:28:03] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I think we forget that there's still work we can talk about with people that brings them back into like, oh, I actually do have something that I need to do right now versus worrying about the future.

[00:28:13] Kiabi Carson: Absolutely. I mean, so for my organization, what I've tried to do is I try to protect, we call it BAU. So our business as usual versus our integration or our transformation projects is what they get distinguished as. 

[00:28:26] Kiabi Carson: And I try to protect the space of, if we have weekly standing meetings where we're going through what's happening in the business, I'm very clear about protecting that space and keeping that space around what is going on right here and now. 

[00:28:40] Kiabi Carson: And then I carve out separate time or different time where we can talk about the transformation that's going on. 

[00:28:46] Kiabi Carson: Because if you don't carve out that time and dedicate it in that way, that transformation will absolutely take over all things and you won't have time for it. And there are points in our transformation where that becomes the conversation, 'cause we're at a key milestone and so everything that week is about the transformation of the business. But you have to find time to get back to the BAU as part of your standard business, and I try to keep lanes distinct, because if I don't, your transformation will take over every single time.

[00:29:17] Kiabi Carson: So I am very intentional about that in terms of when we're going through that type of integration across our business.

[00:29:23] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah, I like that. And sometimes I like even naming stuff, so it's like, okay, we're putting on our BAU hat, still showing up trying to get our job done, or, okay, let's hat switch, either in the same meeting or as you said in a separate meeting, we're now thinking future, we're thinking transformation.

[00:29:41] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I think sometimes then people know how to orient to it. I think that's super helpful to bring that type of clarity structurally and identity based.

[00:29:52] Abigail Charlu:For our next manager situation, the leader shared: "Our organization is going through a major change and I sense that my team is anxious. I don't have all the answers, and honestly, I'm still processing it myself and trying to figure out what's within my control as I lead my team through this." 

[00:30:11] Kiabi Carson: It's a good one. A couple of things come to mind for me in what I typically do, I am pretty authentic with my team. You know, I'm open with my team about, "Listen, I get it, this is unsettling. We may feel a bit untethered to the organization that we knew or that we have been used to".

[00:30:28] Kiabi Carson: And I don't hide from that and saying that, but I'm careful about the sharing because if I panic or I show any signs of, oh, this is not good. Or, this is going to be really bad for everyone, your team will absorb that and panic as well.

[00:30:42] Kiabi Carson: And so there's a balance in terms of being authentic versus oversharing as a leader. 

[00:30:48] Kiabi Carson: I had a leader, when I was working in the pharma industry, Frida Lewis Hall, she was amazing.

[00:30:53] Kiabi Carson: Frida used to always say, "You need your own personal board of directors, as a leader". Somebody who can talk to you about your commercial acumen, or somebody who can talk about your behaviors, your board, that kind of helped you navigate as a leader. 

[00:31:06] Kiabi Carson: And you can go to your board of directors, your personal board of directors, your advisors, your confidants to share, "I'm scared" or "I'm nervous", or "I don't know what this is going to mean".

[00:31:15] Kiabi Carson: My husband is one of my personal board of directors where I usually use him as a sounding board to say, "This is crazy! Can you believe we're bringing on 8,000 people this next year?!" because you need an outlet as a leader, right? We are human. We are not robots. But it's not your team. 

[00:31:29] Kiabi Carson: Authenticity with your team, yes. Oversharing, no. But find your own personal board of directors where you can have that outlet and that release for yourself.

[00:31:38] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: The thing that I picked up on this one is that I sense that my team is anxious.

[00:31:43] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: So what that meant to me is that your team may not be telling you how they're feeling because they wanna be professional, or they don't know if it's appropriate. Or sometimes when we're scared we just close up a little bit. 

[00:31:55] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: So there was something that I felt that might be helpful to name it, like "We are going through something that is tough and it can make us feel anxious and that's really normal". 

[00:32:06] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: So I think sometimes just naming what's unsaid allows people to have a moment. 

[00:32:12] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: The other thing that is related to that, so if you think about what anxiety does, it's this feeling of things accelerating out of control inside of our own systems and it's potentially an observation of what's going around us.

[00:32:25] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: So there's something about, how when you're with someone, back to this presencing point, how do I settle my own body and my own mind before I sit down with my team or with a direct report, even with my boss, 'cause they're probably going through it too. 

[00:32:42] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Little techniques of feeling grounded, actually feeling your feet against the ground or feeling yourself seated in your chair. You can even do something a little bit lighter and be like, "Alright, I don't know about you, I've been sitting on Zoom the whole day, or I've been sitting in meetings all day. Let's just start the meeting with a stretch" or "Let's start the meeting with, what's something good that happened within the last week for you?"

[00:33:01] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Just something that shifts the energy. 

[00:33:04] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: So those were just some ideas that were coming to mind of allowing a little bit of an energy either shift, or acknowledgement, because anxiety is so real. The majority of people feel it in work-related circumstances for sure.

[00:33:18] Kiabi Carson: There's a couple things you said, if I can add to that. What I took away is creating the space for people to let that out. When we were merged with the parent company, five years ago, I remember sitting in team meetings with my leadership team and just giving them the space like, so how are we feeling?

[00:33:35] Kiabi Carson: Because you're right, you can sense anxiety or you can hear the water cooler talk that people aren't quite happy about it. But I think as leaders, you can't be afraid to go there head on. You can't be afraid to open the door and open the wound and saying, "Let's talk about it".

[00:33:49] Kiabi Carson: And so I did. I said, "How are we feeling? What's going on?" 

[00:33:52] Kiabi Carson: And my team, they are not shy. They will tell you what's going on. And this is just my leadership team, but they were really open, right? They were really concerned. What does this mean for us as a business?

[00:34:03] Kiabi Carson: And so if you create the space to let it out and hear it, then you can be prepared to address it.

[00:34:09] Kiabi Carson: But I think sometimes leaders shy away from that because if I don't have all the answers that's not gonna be a good thing.

[00:34:14] Kiabi Carson: You don't have to have all the answers, but you gotta let it out, 'cause if you don't, it'll fester and it'll grow. And then anxiety grows behind the scenes, and then you're not empowered to address it.

[00:34:25] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah, I agree with you. It's almost easier to work with it if you know the language that people are using and the tone. I think what people fear is the addressing it part, and I think what addressing it can mean is just paraphrasing back what I heard:

[00:34:40] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: "So what it sounds like you're saying is, or what I'm hearing is, or what I'm picking up on is... Is that right? Am I reflecting it back correctly?" 

[00:34:49] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And then people can build on it. It allows 'em to go deeper if they want to or to say, "Well actually it's less about this and it's more about that". And you're like, "Thank you".

[00:34:56] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And you take notes and you just write it down. So I think that that is a response. 

[00:35:02] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I think we worry as leaders, especially when it gets to more emotional topics, that we have to know how to work with it. That we have to fix it. We're not therapists, we're not their partner, their friend. 

[00:35:13] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: We do have a responsibility of the organization.

[00:35:16] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: But in terms of being a kind human, the listening and the taking the time doesn't always need an answer. You can just say, "I really appreciate that you shared that", or "I'm really curious to learn more about that", or, "I'm really gonna reflect on that thing that you said, and that's something for me to take away". 

[00:35:37] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: You don't have to workshop it all in the room. 

[00:35:39] Kiabi Carson: Absolutely. And I think it helped me as a leader because I had insight into how people were feeling or where the concern was, 'cause I thought the concern was in one place and it really wasn't. That wasn't the issue was over here. But it helped me as a leader as we went along the journey in terms of, okay, what do we need to communicate or what decisions we need to make.

[00:35:58] Kiabi Carson: That informed a lot of that because I had that insight and knowledge, versus me just going off what I think it may be and I wasn't always correct where some of the concern came from.

[00:36:07] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: So true.

[00:36:08] Abigail Charlu: Just holding the space is really powerful, right?

[00:36:12]  Kiabi Carson: Definitely.

[00:36:12] Abigail Charlu: For our final situation, the leader shared: "We've gone through major changes that have fundamentally altered how this organization operates. I can feel some of my strongest people pulling back. This isn't the organization they joined, and they're questioning whether they still belong. Is it my responsibility to actively re-enroll them in the new direction, or do I need to accept that for some, this may no longer be the right fit?

[00:36:41] Abigail Charlu: How do I know when to rally and when to let go?"

[00:36:45]  Kiabi Carson:  Ooh, that's a really good question. 

[00:36:47] Kiabi Carson: I'm gonna be a bit controversial here. 

[00:36:48] Kiabi Carson: To me, I think it's a bit of both. 

[00:36:50] Kiabi Carson: It's definitely about re-engaging, because your job as a leader is to help people to navigate that change and understand, again, back to my earlier points, that opportunity may look different than what it was before.

[00:37:00] Kiabi Carson: And I think that is your role as a leader, it is really important. 

[00:37:04] Kiabi Carson: But I think as leaders you also have to accept that you may not be able to get everyone back on track. And some people may make a different decision, and I think that's okay. I think you have to accept it. 

[00:37:15] Kiabi Carson: With change, you do have some fallout, that's inevitable.

[00:37:18] Kiabi Carson: Hopefully your ultimate goal is try to limit that as much as possible, but you can't bury your head in the sand and you also can't go out and think you're gonna convert everybody to see it. But you do have to stay the course and be really clear about what this is going to bring. 

[00:37:31] Kiabi Carson: So I think it's both.

[00:37:33] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: That's exactly what struck me when I was hearing this one. And I just wanna reiterate what you said, Kiabi. I completely agree with you. 

[00:37:41] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I think you always start from a place of possibility that you can bring people along, but I think that it's important to make sure there's clarity of what's changing and what's staying the same and what the implications are for a person's way of operating or their role or the cross team collaboration dynamics.

[00:38:02] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And then if you really believe and can hear them repeat it back with clarity and they know it and they don't like it, I think that's when I start to have the tougher conversation. 

[00:38:11] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Because usually it's not as bad as you think. I think we go to the place of what am I gonna lose?

[00:38:17] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: But once you start to realize that it's not often so dramatic, then you know that they're making an informed choice about whether they're signing up or not. And then the truth is, because people need a paycheck and they need the benefits, they may not tell you they're starting to look for another job, but you can feel it energetically.

[00:38:36] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: They participate less in meetings. They're a little bit more neutral in their responses. Like they don't bring either positive or negative energy 'cause they start to just disengage a little bit. And in some cases that's okay. 

[00:38:48] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And I, as a leader, would recommend you start scenario planning. You're gonna feel the people who are just not gonna come along on this next stage of the journey with you.

[00:38:58] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: That is okay. 

[00:38:58] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: If they're your strongest performers, then I would have a much more straight talk about how much you value them, what you think are the potential opportunities for them going forward. I think we don't often proactively initiate that talk. 

[00:39:11] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: That's the only thing I would say is different if I'm worried and it's somebody I really wanna retain.

[00:39:16] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Otherwise, if it's somebody who's like kind of a mid- performer and you could probably repurpose some of the responsibilities or backfill them, then it might be better for the organization to allow a little bit of turnover.

[00:39:27] Kiabi Carson: I agree. And it's something you said, Emily, around the disengagement. I think as leaders when change happens, there's always a group that's very vocal about the change and they're not happy about it, they're vocal about it, and that's the group we tend to look at or worry about.

[00:39:39] Kiabi Carson: But honestly, in my experience, that's usually not the group that's gonna be the one that's gonna turn over because they're trying to make this change work for them while they're there. It's the ones that disengage and the ones that go quiet are the ones you need to watch the most, because that's usually the ones that may be making a different decision.

[00:39:55] Kiabi Carson: And I think we often go where the noises are and forget about the ones that have gone passive.

[00:40:00] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I think that's really important. And then in terms of how do you engage them? Either you, or again, if you are the leader of leaders and you have your leaders do it for their direct reports for their team, but that to me happens best in one-to-ones. 

[00:40:13] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: You don't even have to name it unless you think that's gonna be helpful, it could just be like, "What's important to you?" 

[00:40:19] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I always come at it from a career conversation, because ultimately that's how you're gonna save them. "Tell me where you feel like you're at. What are you still enjoying about what you're doing? What is it that you're hoping to do more of going forward? What makes you feel valued? What do you think you're best at?" 

[00:40:34] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I think having that career coaching conversation allows you to come in like a side door of the issue, because you might find some data in that conversation that helps you to retain that person without having to say "Are you looking for another job?", which may make them feel uncomfortable, right? Because all of us have to have a plan A, a plan B, and a plan C, because there is only uncertainty, right? There is no such thing as certainty as we talked about. 

[00:41:02] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: In closing, we wanted to open it up. So you can talk change, you can talk anything that sparks you.

[00:41:09] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: We find that all of us have these challenges we confront at different points in our own leadership journey, and they give us opportunities to either buckle down and stay the same course and stay in our mode of operating, or what we believe is the strength of leadership is to find the pivot moment.

[00:41:29] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: To find that opportunity to just come at it in a different way. 

[00:41:34] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: What's one that really stands out for you, in your own career journey? How did you navigate it? How did you pivot? What was the learning?

[00:41:41] Kiabi Carson: I'll give you a recent example because I've had to do that more recently with the merger. But as part of that, we were looking at our operating model and shifts in the model and where we're gonna make some leadership changes and because decisions had not been fully understood, I was asked to take on not just running the regional function for HR, but also to pick up the marketing and communications function because we had had a leadership vacancy at that time. 

[00:42:06] Kiabi Carson: And so for me, the challenge was, I've supported marketing of course, and communication functions, but I've never led that function. And when I did support it much earlier in my career, very different industry. Everything was completely different and new from that perspective. 

[00:42:20] Kiabi Carson: Now, I had been with our business for a long time, but it's very different when you are coming from your own area of expertise and specialty in supporting it versus you leading that function on an interim basis.

[00:42:33] Kiabi Carson: And so that was coming in the midst of, and we're doing the integration and we have these new team members. So all these things are coming at me in terms of, there's a lot of change happening at once. So there's a personal leadership change, there's a business change that I'm guiding leaders through and there's changes to my team that I'm also helping them get through.

[00:42:53] Kiabi Carson: So it was a really challenging time for me 'cause everything was happening at all times. But I had to take the perspective back again, back to my early experience in learning is, okay Kiabi, there is something you will learn from this. There's just something you'll get out of this.

[00:43:08] Kiabi Carson: I always find, whether change is good, bad, ugly, unexpected, expected, there is something that I'm going to grow from this experience and just trying to get my mindset in the right place. And then we have a phenomenal team in marketing and comms. So they're also like, why is the HR lady now our boss?

[00:43:27] Kiabi Carson: So, you know, you've got all these dynamics going on. But I started to come in with that mindset 'cause that's the pivot for me. For me, it's the mindset first. Because if I can't get my mind in a place that allows me to experience the change in the right way, it makes it that much more difficult. 

[00:43:45] Kiabi Carson: And so that's my pivot.

[00:43:47] Kiabi Carson: I don't have to have all the answers, right? I am not a marketer by expertise. That's not my expertise. I'm not a salesperson by expertise. So I was very clear about that's not what I'm bringing to the table. 

[00:43:56] Kiabi Carson: What I am bringing to the table is really good leadership.

[00:43:59] Kiabi Carson: I'm bringing my executive board seat into the table so I can help the team navigate through changes and remove barriers and do all those things. And that's what I did. 

[00:44:08] Kiabi Carson: And that was the value added for that team, versus if I had come in and said, "Oh my goodness, I gotta learn marketing, I gotta learn sales, I gotta be the technical expert", that would've been a waste of effort, time. 

[00:44:18] Kiabi Carson: So it was a great experience, I've done it now for almost a year plus. We're now transitioning on that team to a proper leader. But the feedback I got from some of the leaders on that team was they found that it was a great experience for them. 

[00:44:30] Kiabi Carson: So I think that's the piece, think about your mindset shift first. That's the first pivot. And then think about what do I bring to that table and what experience can I bring versus the loss. Like, what don't I have? Like I don't have that experience. 

[00:44:43] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah. And you didn't say this, but what I was picturing, which reminds me of how we think about the form of power we believe in. We call it Pivot Power, is get connected. 

[00:44:53] You didn't see yourself in this isolated role with all this responsibility. You're like, I'm working with all these amazing people.

[00:45:00] Kiabi Carson: Absolutely. 

[00:45:00] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And that's why you don't have to be the subject matter expert to be a leader, because you're not alone. You didn't have to have all of the answers, and that is how I felt you coming into that. It felt very connected and community oriented, versus distanced.

[00:45:16] Kiabi Carson: And I think it's because as leaders, it's not about navigating perfection. And I'm with you, I think as leaders, we always feel like, well, I'm the leader, I have to come really buttoned up and I have to be perfect and I have to have all the answers. 

[00:45:28] Kiabi Carson: But it's not about perfection, it's about adaptability.

[00:45:31] Kiabi Carson: It's about helping people navigate those changes and all those things, but it's not perfection. And I think if we can be a bit vulnerable and let that go and say, "I don't have all the answers, but here's what I can bring", I think leadership feels different, even in the midst of change.

[00:45:44] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: That's exactly right. Love it. Love it. Love it. 

[00:45:47] Kiabi, this was so helpful and amazing. Thank you so much for having this conversation with me and for all the wisdom shared. Really appreciate it.

[00:45:57] Kiabi Carson: Thank you so much for having me. This has been fantastic, Emily. Thank you.

[00:46:03] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: So many things to take away. We all love to hate change. So let me try to unpack what I took away from it. 

[00:46:11] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Understand that your leaders, while you may be frustrated with them and the decisions that they're making, they are under a lot of pressure. And it's likely not gonna be the best time to work through your frustrations and complaints with them.

[00:46:26] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: They're gonna need from you, even if it feels hard to muster up the energy to do it, they're gonna need positive feedback. Meaning appreciation for what they're doing, for the work that's gone into making these decisions, and that you're able to relay feedback with a positive tone, and this mindset that you're bringing it to them so that you can help to make things work even better.

[00:46:51] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: They're not gonna have the capacity, I think, to go other places with you in these kind of more intensive moments of change. 

[00:46:59] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: The other one was, you've gotta be really communicative when change is happening, even if you feel like nothing particularly new has happened, over a matter of weeks, silence creates stories and usually not good ones.

[00:47:11] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: So have a rhythm of communication and stick to it, likely on a weekly basis. Share what you know, what you don't, what you can about what's been happening behind the scenes, and when you'll share more. 

[00:47:24] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: The other part of this is remember that people are feeling anxious, and so not only are they looking for information, but also they're looking to be understood, to feel heard and held in the discomfort, and in the unknowing. So the power we have as leaders is not always what we say, but it's how we listen. So asking how things are going for them, what they're feeling, what they're noticing, and instead of fixing it and trying to problem solve times, it's better to just reflect back what it is you are hearing them say. 

[00:47:56] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And when you need your own support and to be listened to, we encourage you to find that trusting colleague that you have who you can listen to one another or people in your personal life so that your team doesn't have to carry our emotions as leaders as well. 

[00:48:13] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And then I think the other thing is, no matter what changes going on, there is usually still so much business as usual that your teams are managing, so help them to do both. 

[00:48:23] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Help them to really stay focused on delivering results and performance with their day-to-day work. You have to name that, that's the kind of BAU meeting or the BAU topic and keep transformation where you can as a separate agenda item or in its own separate lane, so that way the work doesn't slip while you're going through the change, and people know that they have to be able to wear both hats. 

[00:48:46] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: As you know, this is something we believe very strongly in as a part of our pivot player leadership model. It is always about that next move, that next decision, that next action. That's what makes leaders effective and that's what shrinks from that kind of fear and overwhelm of not wanting to make the call, to something that you can do. That next move, that pivot play. 

[00:49:19] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: On Let's Talk, People, what we love to do most is help you unpack your toughest people management challenges. So send them in. Send in the situations you're struggling with, the questions that you have about leading your teams, and we will anonymize them and give you answers and our advice on an upcoming episode.

[00:49:44] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: You can write in an email or attach a little audio message with your scenario to abigail@arosegroup.com That's Abigail, A-B-I-G-A-I-L at arose group A-R-O-S-E-G-R-O-U-P.com 

[00:50:05] Emily Frieze-Kemeny:  Thanks for joining today's episode of Let's Talk, People. For more info and insights, visit arosegroup.com and find me, Emily Frieze-Kemeny, on LinkedIn and Instagram. If you're enjoying the show, please follow, share on social and leave a rating or review in your podcast app- it helps other listeners to discover us.

[00:50:26] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Well, that's a wrap, friends. Until next time when we come together to talk people.