Semi-structured interview transcript with Interviewee #4 (Industry: Construction)
Interviewer(s): Interviewer
Interviewee(s): Interviewee E

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. When we observe your overall change experience, what would you say was the biggest challenge during this implementation?

Interviewee E: Laziness.

Interviewer: And if your organizational change project could be perceived as a story, and then I have like a couple of these... who would you say was the protagonist?

Interviewee E: (You mean) someone within the organization?

Interviewer: It doesn't have to be a person. It can be whatever you want it to be.

Interviewee E: Okay... (oh) boy... OK, Hercules.

Interviewer: Okay, so that was the hero, right? The protagonist?

Interviewee E: Yes.

Interviewer: Okay. Who would you say was the antagonist of the story?

Interviewee E: The establishment.

Interviewer: And what would you say was the inciting moment that kind of triggered the protagonist to go on this change journey? Maybe it's like something internals, maybe something external.

Interviewee E: Weak succession planning.

Interviewer: What would you say was the biggest conflict during this journey?

Interviewee E: Over engineering,

Interviewer: And what would you say was the genre of this story?

Interviewee E: Aha!... Oh, boy. A... Well like the movie imitation game. So it's like, crack the crack the code and solve the puzzle.

Interviewer: Okay, so it's like a mystery, right?

Interviewee E: Yes.

Interviewer: Okay. That's great. What would you say was the moral of this story?

Interviewee E: Collaboration, collaboration, collaborate. Yeah. Collaboration. That's one more. I think what that sums it up for you.

Interviewer: Was there a certain darkened version in this story where you know, something good, turned out to be bad or maybe something better not to be good?

Interviewee E: Conflict can be good.

Interviewer: Was there a certain metaphor that you frequently used to either, you know, talk to your people or maybe describe this whole change journey?

Interviewee E: The metaphor, I mean, more like... Employee agency, giving agency to employees. Them having a voice not taking over, but then being included.,

Interviewer: And what would you say was your biggest revelation from this story?

Interviewee E: Wow, okay... (pauses) I'd say it's an interesting of trying to find revelation for sure. A few more words, but cultural differences between wanting to be a dictator, and wanting a dictator (as your leader) or wanting a hands off leader.

Interviewer: Could you talk me through an anecdote which will demonstrate how did these change recipients behave before the change started?

Interviewee E: I think that everyone on the team recognize the need to do something different. So obviously, our project was to create a new talent identification and succession planning framework and process for the company to use. And... We were all on board with that mission. And we were excited to we were a global team, we are excited to work with each other and come up with something better.

Interviewer: Did you see any evidence of comfort or being at ease (uhm...) not perceiving that there's any change needed?

Interviewee E: I think everybody knew that change was required. I think we were excited to create the change.

Interviewer: Was there a certain awakening moment that you can recall?

Interviewee E: I mean, for me, I had my awakening moment, long before the project. In our individual country, I was responsible for using the old framework with leaders. And almost every leader either didn't really understand it, or used it differently. Or was confused by it. So for me, I was having the awakening moments long before we were called on to replace the framework. For me when I got the call to to to take action, I was like, I'm on board, we should we should absolutely be doing this.

Interviewer: And did you see any type of resistance in its when the change was initially announced? Did you see any type of resistance manifesting?

Interviewee E: Not that much. To be honest. We maybe had one team member internally, who resisted a little bit more than others. But we had we had our internal team, we have, we had a sounding board of high level HR people throughout the world. And we had our group HR, our corporate HR committee, the highest level people in the world. And almost always, they were positive about the need for change. And the way we were going about the change the new framework, so there were pockets of resistance, and maybe some individual elements of the new framework we were proposing, they didn't love. But we took that feedback and did it again and figured it out. So mostly is very much supported by almost everybody.

Interviewer: So how did you communicate this change to recipients? Is there a certain, train of thought that you shared maybe, you know, certain metaphors or certain communication patterns that were aimed that maybe... emphasize benefits or maybe addressing resistance or things like this? Could you walk us through that a little bit?

Interviewee E: It was definitely more about emphasizing benefits. I think I don't remember making a lot of metaphors, or using a lot of metaphors to tell the story. I feel like when you bring up rational persuasion, I believe that's what we were doing most of the time. I mean, you'll have to tell me if the this is what's in it for you. This is the benefit. This is how it's improving upon the old model. It was very much laying it out in... what we were aiming to lay it out in a clear way, that emphasized why this (new way) is better. Here's the problem with the old model and here's how our new model addresses those problems. You know, just in our business The most effective way I've seen to, to make change or convince people to do things is take a problem that they themselves have identified. And explain your solution to it. If you try to come to somebody and tell them there's a problem, they don't so much care or believe you, but if you can get it out of them in their own words, and then say, here's how I'll fix it, then they're on board, then they get it. So the rational benefits argument was what we used,

Interviewer: was there a certain communication effort from… from this upper echelon from this, like, you know, corporate HR already announcing change will be rolling out, (Change leader) will be letting you know etc.?

Interviewee E: Yeah, there. So at the highest level, they, they communicated it internally and to the various heads of HR in different countries. A long time ago, they essentially said this is coming (but) didn't give any details about what the change would be, because we were developing the new framework. But… but people were informed. And then periodically, we would touch base with representatives from different countries to make sure: "Are we on the right track? Are we creating a framework that countries can use? That makes sense? Is that actually an improvement? Or are we just doing this for the sake of doing something different?" But but there was ongoing touch points about this.

Interviewer: I'm interested in learning more about your experiences on how this this change was rolling out, you know, or this change resistance was being manifested by people. Were there some subtle ways of demonstrating resistance or resentment?

Interviewee E: Yeah, you can see that every now and then. We had one team member who would try to describe it in the correct way. So I think that, you know, the rest of us were, because we can only pick one global framework, we can only engineer one solution that works for everybody, or works well enough for everybody. What we're company with 90 countries, so it's not going to be 100%. Perfect for everybody. But you know, she was in charge of one of our large regions, Europe, Middle East Africa, and it seems sort of like early on maybe the framework we were going after isn't exactly what she would have developed for her region. And it was like: "Well, if you all are going to do this, that's good. But I don't know if it's going to work for my region". There was some resistance and honestly, it was never entirely clear to me why it wouldn't work or why wouldn't meet their needs... But that was that was stated in different ways. So we, you know, we want we want to involve that person because she's in charge of deploying this and really championing it for a large, large, large, our biggest region probably. So it's important that that person is on board. But at the same time you want to bring that person into the fold, but if they're resisting and they don't, they don't kind of meet you halfway and compromise like, will explain to me what won't work and... may... Maybe we can figure out a better way to do it. There wasn't as much of that give and take as I would have liked. So in the end, we sometimes kind of just had to move on with our, with our best idea.

Interviewer: And how did you address her comments? Is there a certain, you know, way that you try to approach it?

Interviewee E: Yeah. So, I mean, I would, I would say a lot of the same things like what I just said to you now, trying to compromise, right? Yeah, like, well, we can't be all things to all people. But your region is very important. So if you... like...: "Why do you say this isn't going to work for you? And what would you do instead? I mean, tell me what you would do. Maybe we could fix some of that stuff". And then, you know, I always I will go and talk to that person outside of the core team meeting to just to get their perspective where we can just sort of talk and maybe understand better. What… what the problem is what, why this why you think this isn't going to fit your needs,

Interviewer: I'm curious, why do you think she had issues with the solution?

Interviewee E: It's a good question. I'm trying to remember, because... what was it? (trying to remember) I think it might have been too general, to maybe not detailed enough for her. And you know, I think there, she has a lot of countries within her domain, I think the rest of us probably have fewer, you know, Europe, Middle East Africa, as a many more countries there. And I think she just thought the framework wasn't either detailed enough for her or... yeah... it's hard to remember. Maybe it didn't provide enough guidance on how to classify people or treat people or things like that. What... what's funny is that her, her region, head of HR really likes it. The first inch, her boss loves it. And even like took a minute in our presentation to say how much he liked it. So he's never been resistant, but she has been the main resistor. And that's manifested itself by her not attending all the meetings, and not participating as much after a certain period of time. Which, honestly, you make a lot of effort to bring her into the fold and listen to all perspectives and incorporate it. And eventually, it's like, well, if you're not going to be here, then we're going to do what we feel is best, because it's got pretty much universal support at all levels, except for except for you and a couple of other people with individual concerns about it. But not concerns we can’t overcome.

Interviewer: Yeah, so there's no showstoppers, right?

Interviewee E: Yeah, there's really not, which is great. Obviously, we'll see. The only other general feedback we hear multiple times is the changes that managers, succession plans will be overall more visible to more people. Whereas before, since it wasn't, it was just PowerPoint slides. And it was all in individual documents that people didn't have access to. Now, it's going to be in our HR information system, where people can log in and see it like you would your own profile. Not everything is visible, like employees can't see where they are in succession plans. But different managers can see managers can see their own succession plans, they can see who other people have put in their succession plans. And that's the biggest thing that people are resistant to because they feel that. I mean, they wouldn't phrase it this way. I don't think a lot but they don't feel like their organizations are mature enough to say that. So let's say my boss puts a successor in my succession plan, who I don't like or I don't agree with. I used to not be able to see that. Now. If somebody above me put somebody in my plan, I will be able to see it and I'll be essentially responsible for developing that person or at The very least not getting in their way. No, yeah. And now that will be known, whereas that would have been a shadow thing in the past. And many people shared concerns about that. They didn't openly say, we don't want that functionality, we won't do that. But they expressed concerns, and it was a task to overcome that. That concern to convince them that we're trying to be more open, inclusive. We're trying to do better with this. And that's, we don't want to hide things from people anymore. We need to if we're going to truly be a mature organization and do this correctly, this is a step we have to take. And you know, some people wanted it to be different for country CEOs and their executive committee, they're like, well, we can do that for people like (me) and the lower level people. But at the top, you know, we still need to be able to like, hide successors from people. And it's like, why are we treating them differently than other people? What does that say about us as an organization? So different? That was the other main thing of resistance? Otherwise, it was just sort of like: "Hey, what about that we could do this better? Okay, good idea. Let's do that".

Interviewer: Could you maybe recollect an incident, and maybe talk us through how you addressed the loudest objector or overall complainer? And how did you address this type of comments?

Interviewee E: So there were a couple ways to do sounding board webinars for like, HR directors from different countries. And it was it was that audience that would speak up, so I'm pretty sure one of them was from India, maybe one from Canada? I think. And these are like, high level HR directors who probably report to the HR VP and that that country. So they're just... I mean... they said, like... like I said, you know... "We don't think we're ready for that". Basically, we don't want you to know... Like, what… what if? What if (I) disagree (with the proposal) that this person should be a successor? Something like that, I mean, I... it's hard for me to understand that or recollect accurately what they literally said. Because to me, it was just like: "Yeah, they want us to hide this from people". And I think I just sort of inherently disagreed. So it's hard for me to recollect exactly what the actual argument was. I don't even I think it scared them. Honestly. It scared them because it's going to lead to... it's going to force (difficult) conversations to be had, that were not going to be had before (the implementation). And they don't want to deal with that. (Generally) We have a problem because these succession plans are not widely known. So we're not really accountable to them. I mean, there's no penalty, there's no problem if someone is in your succession plan one year, and just not the next year, or when you need to fill that position, you just don't hire that person. There's no like that. So few people knew of the succession plan that there's no accountability for it. So... Or it's hidden. So you know, who cares? But... (uhm...) then why are we even doing it? (both laugh)

Interviewer: Did you notice some signs of regression despite your mostly successful run?

Interviewee E: Well there was a little bit the regression of like, a) "we've got this good framework, it works. We want it to be open", and then it's like, b) "we nare ot going to be able to do that"... Like you put out here's the best solution. And then people just chip at it. And they're like, so your your best solution turns into an OK, solution. When you know how good it could have been, luckily, we didn't have to do that we were able to overcome people's concerns, I think unless they start complaining later on when it's implemented and force us to change it. But that hasn't happened yet. So maybe that's a new step for down the road. What we'll see, okay, that's possible. I mean, it's totally possible that this openness, will cause too much conflict, and some countries will rebel and force change, but I hope not. And maybe that's something we can overcome, then. But we'll see. Another thing that benefited us with that is that an overarching part of this was that the framework had to be simple. Had to be simple, had to be easy to understand. So I would have to continually remind people when they start You know, we would come up with definitions of, of it's like, we need to classify every employee according to these five categories. Here's the definition definition of each category. And people always want to add more clarifying detail and put more in and more caveat, and I'm like, can't do it. We this has to be simple. Yes, countries are going to have to interpret this little on their own and decide how they want to use it. But that's going to be true no matter what kind of solution we engineer so... that that helped us. And also, I think, so... I just thought of a metaphor with the Lord of the Rings. So for us, this is more of a trying to convince Lord Dennethor that he needs to rouse the armies and get ready to defend his lands seriously. (both laugh)

Whereas he's, you know, sitting on his throne and eating his chicken and tomatoes and just sort of sitting there and it's like: "Yeah, we don't need to like, don't call the allies, we're fine... Like... whatever". That's sort of like, a little bit like, our CEOs and our leaders who are just sort of like this. Like: "I, you know, I've got my guy and blah, blah, blah, like we were, you know, we don't really need to change". So I'm like: "look at our succession pipeline, dude, the orcs are running through our borders freely. Like this is a problem. It's good. But getting people to act like that is hard". So that's our main challenge. You try to not add any more work for people, or at least make them believe you're not adding work, make them believe that and then make them believe that this helps them that you're solving a problem for them that they've stated as a problem. So that's what we're trying to do. I mean, overall, we're creating more overall work, because now employees and like, lower level managers are all in all involved, where it used to be just sort of... I would talk to the highest people at the company and do their succession plans. And that was succession planning. Now everybody will have the opportunity to name a successor to their role. So it's much more complete workforce planning now. And it's much more open, and it's much more effective and useful. But it's going to be more work for most of the population, because they had zero to do before starting from present to convince them that it's worth it.

Interviewer: And being mindful of your time, I'm curious to see, if you've seen some of the, you know, obviously, they're going to be maybe subtler, but signs of knowledge mastery. Do you feel that people involved in your core team of these change agents have shown some ways of knowledge, mastery of this change?

Interviewee E: I think, yeah, I think a lot of them have, I think because some of them were involved in our presentation to country HR. And, and a couple of them did a really excellent job. Presenting, explaining the framework explaining the benefits, answering questions about it during q&a, a couple of them did a really good job. A couple of them didn't want to be involved as much in the presentation. One of them was kind of the resistor person. And the other one I you know, is shy at presentations and but actually did a good job too, and, and answered questions. So, those people have done great as part of the core team, they will go out and be ambassadors now, and we will rely on them for that. So I think they have because those people, the people who did really well have been involved from the very beginning have attended our weekly meetings, have suggested ideas stayed involved. You know, that’s like… four out of the seven core team have demonstrated mastery? Yes. The others haven't been quite as involved, but I do still think they will.

Interviewer: So you would say that them manifesting some sort of mastery is like their willingness to cooperate and convey this to the rest of your organization?

Interviewee E: Well yeah, that's going to be the ultimate test. Yeah. And when it when it goes, now, it's with the countries to implement, we can only do so much as the project team that created this, we can answer all the questions we can give advice. We could even help them present it to their CEOs if they wanted to, as long as we don't get too many of those requests, but it will be on them to communicate this and hold people accountable now. And that's going to be the real test. And we build all kinds of materials and communications and training to support them, email templates, presentations, really trying to give them the infrastructure they need. But ultimately, it’ll... it'll be that test, and hopefully (uhm...) through our sounding boards and our meetings with group HR building, buying along the way that that will work.

Interviewer: And what would you say is the most important thing that you would like to highlight from this knowledge of mastery, maybe like a summary of all of the experiences above?

Interviewee E: Just that... I'm hoping through all of this, we created ambassadors who can implement this at the country level. You know, for instance, one of these people is based in India, huge country, tons of employees, I'm hoping that he can now do what I did as the project leader... He can be the new project leader for India and get it deployed. That's what I'm hoping that knowledge mastery leads to (across countries).

Interviewer: That makes sense and with that being said, I think we're done with this formal part. I'm going to stop recording now. And thank you once again for your time and overall engagement with this study.