Semi-structured interview transcript with Interviewee #7 (Industry: FMCG)
Interviewer(s): Interviewer
Interviewee(s): Interviewee G

Interviewer: Hi (participating change leader), thanks again for finding the time and energy to participate in our followup research on change leadership in your organization. This time you get to tell your side of the story, and complement your change recipients’ reported perceptions. Just as last time, all GDPR actions still apply, and this interview is being recorded. The only purpose for this meeting being recorded is the transcript which is required for the qualitative analysis, however neither the video nor the audio of this meeting will ever be publicly displayed, nor will your identity or the identity of your organization be disclosed. If you do not agree to this, please let me know and we will stop the recording and our interview. Other than that, today’s protocol is fairly simple. First, we will go through a round of so-called “quick- draw” questions, which is designed as a warm up exercise. I give you a quick question, and then you answer with one or two words max. After we complete this round, we move onto the actual stories, where I will ask you to recollect a certain incident, and to retell it to us in as much detail as you deem appropriate. I may ask you a followup question, but the general idea is to give you enough space to tell us a story without being interrupted. We are not interested in names, and in case some of these names find their way into our transcript, I’m going to redact them and use a generic term to replace them. If you agree with the aforementioned, let’s get started. What was the biggest challenge during implementation?

Interviewee G: Proving myself to the more senior employees that have to start using this cloud software

Interviewer: And if your organizational change project could be perceived as a story… Who was the protagonist?

Interviewee G: Board of directors

Interviewer: Who was the antagonist?

Interviewee G: HR

Interviewer: What inciting moment motivated the protagonist to start the journey (the what if…)?

Interviewee G: Unfortunately, nothing “sexy” here, just following trends and meeting the requirements of the supervisory board requesting higher profitability and cutting cost

Interviewer: What was the biggest conflict?

Interviewee G: Between the HR who was sponsoring the change project and people that have witnessed their friends and colleagues being laid off because of this new software.

Interviewer: What would be the genre of this story?

Interviewee G: A documentary

Interviewer: What would be the moral of this story?

Interviewee G: Big money doesn’t care if you like change or not.

Interviewer: What was the dark inversion of this story (good gone bad, or bad gone good)?

Interviewee G: My ethical principles were heavily scrutinized and I started seeing the world through the eyes of big corporations, not interested in anything but the bottom line.

Interviewer: What is your most frequently used metaphor?

Interviewee G: We’re here to nip the bud.

Interviewer: What is your biggest revelation?

Interviewee G: A good way to cut people cost is to implement a new software which will “improve productivity”

Interviewer: Talk me through an anecdote which demonstrates how change recipients were behaving when they had no knowledge of the upcoming organizational change.

Interviewee G: Well you could think of a traditional post-transition rich corporation where people have big offices and everyone enjoys their workday as an excuse for being paid to socialize. A lot of these people weren’t capable of doing much work at a high level anyway…

Interviewer: Could you recall how the knowledge of organizational change was initially started?

Interviewee G: It was kicked-off with a typical corporate email, but we were able to secure a strong budget for promotional efforts. So we set up a company-wide event with professional entertainment to make a big event out of it. I can’t recall the actual phrasing though, but it wasn’t anything special.

Interviewer: How did you articulate the “awakening” moment where the organizational change was formally initiated?

Interviewee G: Well I did my best to convey the message of transformation, how this is the best possible thing and how that is going to ensure that people still keep their jobs, despite the fact that a lot of people actually got fired.

Interviewer: How did change recipients express doubt towards the change project?

Interviewee G: They were pretty vocal about it, saying that this was all just a conspiracy to launder money, reduce costs and justify layovers.

Interviewer: Could you recall an anecdote of how you addressed this challenge?

Interviewee G: Well I’ve tried my best in explaining that this is the direction in which this organization was moving in, and assured them that I will make sure that nothing is lacking and that noone will be put in danger. I’ve even reached out to HR in order to ensure some guarantees that no additional layovers will be done.

Interviewer: Talk me through an example of growing reluctance to accept the change.

Interviewee G: Well there was definitely an excess of people who were resistant to change and opposed the software usage. They were participating in testing sessions and frequently complained about various meaningless specifics that were supposed to portray the software as useless. The more people got involved in testing sessions, the stronger this alliance building activities grew.

Interviewer: Who was challenging you the most?

Interviewee G: Interestingly, engineers from Production, whose colleagues were dominantly laid off during the first phase of the project. One of their comments was: “There is no amount of perfume that can hide the stench of death coming from people working in HR”.

Interviewer: How did you manage to achieve “acceptance”?

Interviewee G: Well we were moving back and forth, it was more of a continuum instead of a positive and definite state. We coerced these resistance members to participate in formal events, and threatened to report them to their superiors, which quickly yielded results.

Interviewer: What exactly did you communicate to change recipients?

Interviewee G: My team included managers from different levels and we agreed on how we would like to approach the general audience in terms of communication. We emphasized that this was just the first phase and that there will be extensive education available for people to learn how to use the software. Kotter’s model helped a lot here, as it was the foundation for our implementation plan.

Interviewer: Could you recall how change recipients experimented with available knowledge after accepting change?

Interviewee G: Well once they started clicking through the system, they were quickly thinking of ways to furthermore improve the software, since our on-site consultants were coordinating the work with the third party development company. It was more about “what’s wrong with this software” than it was about selling its benefits.

Interviewer: What would you say was the moment of “big change” that initiated this positive change in attitudes of change recipients?

Interviewee G: Definitely the formal go live deadline that I intentionally communicated with a buffer, giving the team an extra couple of days to pull the workload and get things done. I guess it showed the team that I was on their side and they wanted to repay the favor.

Interviewer: Who did you reach out to first when experimenting after this “big change”?

Interviewee G: Well I went to talk with my biggest opponent, a fairly influential manager from Production in an effort to clear the air. I wanted to showcase respect and try to get her onboard by openly trash talking the software and asking for her expert opinion on furthermore improvement.

Interviewer: Could you recall an anecdote of how these events went?

Interviewee G: It didn’t really go as I planned as emotional reactions were still pretty strong. I had the feeling that the more I pushed, the less I was able to achieve and the more I was feeling exhausted. Now that I think about it, I think I never really managed to get her onboard despite my best efforts, I was probably doing something wrong.

Interviewer: What exactly did you communicate to your change recipients after they expressed doubt for the second time?

Interviewee G: I tried my best in showing that this doubt was a normal part of the process and that I was experiencing a similar sensation, simply because there was just too much work to do, and the deadlines were really stiff and hard to manage. Projects like this tend to take a turn for the worse for some inexplicable reason, and I guess it’s my job to mitigate this effect and make sure that people who are supposed to use this software don’t get burned with it.

Interviewer: Could you recall who was the loudest and how you addressed these comments?

Interviewee G: After this second doubt phase after our go-live, one of my biggest allies from our inhouse business solutions department started publicly expressing doubt in a fairly aggressive manner, leaving some of my bluffs exposed. This played out pretty bad for me, but I was thinking that I already lost, so I might as well try to pull off something dramatical and try to reconcile this conflict. I think the effect was 50:50, in a sense that I’ve gone into a conflict with this manager, then publicly reconciled the conflict, but the scars still remained and the people weren’t all that convinced.

Interviewer: Talk me through how you handled this second round of growing reluctance among change recipients.

Interviewee G: As these influential managers started openly discussing the purpose of this project, I was under the impression that there was quite a lot of work being done on keeping the resistance energized. So I started provoking reactions implying that their energy wasn’t well spent and that we could have done better if they had focused on the implementation instead of ranting. I was aware that I couldn’t handle this myself and by talking individually to the core team members, so I asked for support form the senior leadership. CFO was a fairly strong ally and a powerful ally, however her perception within the organization wasn’t all that good, since she was pinned as the “criminal” behind layovers. In the end I managed to get some support from the Sales director, who proved to be the voice of reason and stabilize the riot.

Interviewer: What were the biggest obstacles during this stage?

Interviewee G: I guess the biggest obstacles were the fact that people started doubting all those benefits that I was proclaiming at the beginning, and started focusing on all the faults of the projects. They all shared a common sensation of being threatened and suffering from survivor's guilt or some PTSD, I don’t know. There were some strong emotions involved definitely, and me advocating for the project wasn’t received as genuine or authentic, but was perceived as being the messenger of death.

Interviewer: Could you recall the most difficult conversation you’ve had to manage during this phase?

Interviewee G: Honestly, I can’t put my finger on a specific one, since they were pretty similar. I had to endure ad hominem attacks on me and the project, without having the liberty to respond in a fully open and honest way. I guess the part about me being from HR and smelling like death really struck a chord with me and rubbed me the wrong way, especially coming from a person with low emotional intelligence.

Interviewer: Could you recall an anecdote covering the regression of change recipients from the stage of accepting change towards resisting change again.

Interviewee G: Well that’s definitely an extension of this growing resentment and questioning if we’ve even done anything or if we were just clicking through all of those excel sheets. The biggest regression moment was when we had to report our progress and we realized that the rest of the organization in other countries was facing similar problems, where this project didn’t really make sense on a larger scale. All that work appeared to have been done for nothing, and all those people were laid off without a meaningful reason. Everything quickly turned into a meaningless effort.

Interviewer: What were the most important insights from this stage in your opinion?

Interviewee G: I guess I wasn’t aware of how important it was to manage expectations on a more frequent basis, instead of just rushing through results and “riding the momentum”, as Kotter suggests in the model. I guess that momentum was actually just the first spark which needed a bit more tending to, instead of rushing into the project. I guess a bit more ownership could have made this phase more successful, or at least minimize the damage done.

Interviewer: Who was the most resilient and how did you handle this challenge?

Interviewee G: Quite a lot of people showed tremendous resilience, and I think the biggest surprise was how HR was useless and had enjoyed the perception of “incompetent bad guys that only think about money”. There wasn’t a lot that I could do honestly, I felt that the whole world was against me, and that there was simply no way that I could win this project. I sincerely thought about quitting as it didn’t make any sense for me.

Interviewer: Talk me through the process of reawakening change acceptance within change recipients.

Interviewee G: To tell you the truth, I think this was only reported for political reasons, and wasn’t truly happening when I was working on that project. In fact, retrospectively, I think that this change acceptance is still going on, even though the project has been “finished” for over 9 months now. A political acceptance and formal end of implementation was completed, but I’m thinking it will be accepted when there won’t be any other options available.

Interviewer: How did you manage to achieve it and what were the early signs of them experiencing reawakening?

Interviewee G: There was not formal reawakening, it was just a formal checkpoint where employees had to demonstrate their software use know-how, and that’s where the story ended.

Interviewer: Who was your strongest ally at this stage?

Interviewee G: I guess HR, coincidentally the most despised department in the organization, was my strongest ally since we were relying on formal coercion, which forced the people to start talking about actual results and getting things done. Sadly, but I guess they never got a clear understanding of what the benefits were supposed to be…

Interviewer: Could you recall an anecdote which could illuminate how this final stage of reacceptance was unfolding within the organization?

Interviewee G: Nothing special, to be honest… Coercion was in full motion and everyone played along, nominally complying, but continuing to report all the negative aspects of the software.

Interviewer: What were the first signs of successful transformation with change recipients?

Interviewee G: I can’t say the transformation was successful, it was more of a facade…

Interviewer: How did you recognize the occurrence of true mastery in accepting change?

Interviewee G: This true mastery you mention wasn’t present, I guess my mastery was more relevant, since I managed to control my emotions and deal with these people who were continuously sabotaging my project. But this is a company that has no true consequences for blockers, as long as you demonstrate “some” work and effort, you’re good to go.

Interviewer: What is the main point you managed to get across?

Interviewee G: I’m just doing my job, and you are punishing me because of the issues you are having with the management team. Your dissatisfaction shouldn’t be manifested by blocking my project…

Interviewer: What do you think is the most important thing to highlight here?

Interviewee G: Allies are super important, however they don’t guarantee success. You have to manage to portray yourself as one of them, and not as another pawn that the management has installed to control the mass. Politics, politics.

Interviewer: OK, I think we got everything, thanks again for taking the time to do this.

Interviewee G: No problem, my pleasure and let’s keep in touch to... to talk more details about this.

Interviewer: Sure thing, happy to keep you update. Have a great rest of the day.