Podcast: Change management without the bull****

Jonathan Davies

21 mins read

Table of Contents

A new year does something to you. It’s a chance to start fresh. Leave behind the old, march on with the new.

But, in some cases, you have things you were particularly proud of. Things you just have to keep doing. Our podcast is one of those things. With an initial five-episode pilot program, we managed to reach an audience of more than 2700 Internal Communicators worldwide. That’s something we’re proud of. That’s a reason to continue.

We’re incredibly excited to kickstart a new series of The Internal Communications Podcast, with our first guest of 2020 – Rum Ekhtiar. He is the founder and partner of Rum & Co, a collective of super smart brand consultants that focus on getting $#!% done instead of endless PowerPoint presentations. He’s experienced, highly opinionated and very entertaining. He also packs a big wallop of knowledge, and a love for Internal Comms. See, Rum was a senior consultant at Citi and in his time there, led the “200 years Citi” campaign – an initiative that was vital to restoring employee pride in the organization. Something that reinvigorated Citi’s reputation among 100 million clients in a post-recession world.

How did he do it? Look no further: press the play button below or listen to the podcast in an audio-only format on your favorite platform. If reading is more of your thing, you can also find a full transcript right beneath.

The Internal Communications Podcast - Episode 6 from Happeo on Vimeo

How leadership changes affect company culture

Jonathan Davies: All right. First, you mentioned some very big names. We also teased a little bit when we were talking about this leaders of Internal Comms thing. You mentioned there's been a couple of very big leadership shifts recently. Just to name a couple of examples: we've got AT&T and senior leadership, McDonald's is obviously a big one, Boeing also went for a big one. Unilever, Apple, GM. All of these happened very recently towards the end of 2019. So, we're here to talk to you about what you think happens, when such a senior part of your company changes. What happens to the culture of the company. What can Internal Comms do with that?

Rum Ekhtiar: It's a big deal. We could be blasé about it, and say "Hey, I don't work in headquarters, or I just work in this corner of the company." But it definitely has an impact. I think that the companies that you just mentioned, the culture was probably impacted before these leaders actually left. Look, they weren't dismissed. They didn't leave on the best terms all the time. It was probably a matter of an inflection point for the company. It needed the change to happen anyway. You can look at it in two ways. You can look at it being scary or you can look at it as an opportunity to do a reset, and to get back to what the company culture was all about. It's a big deal, but it's also a huge opportunity if you do it the right way.

The challenges of change management

Jonathan Davies: Having dealt with some change management before as well, one of my biggest challenges was always that change happens at a very high level. This means that the most important parts that need to get signed off are also at that very high level. And because there's that uncertainty, there's a delay. I always felt that the lack of speed impacts change negatively. Do you agree? And have you dealt with that before?

Rum Ekhtiar: A hundred percent. Depending upon what level you are, you're going to have various levels of access to senior leadership, etc. A lot of times, there's going to be the general counsel, the CFO. That kind of people. This weird group of executives that are cut, that you're not used to engaging with on a day-to-day basis. Speed is essential. Because, either you're going to get the message out and you're going to control the story, or you're going to let other people do it. So, in terms of getting to them and saying look guys, we have to have our messages in place. We have to go through a Q&A session ASAP, and think about all the miserable unchartered territory kind of questions that employees, journalists, and analysts and all these different people can ask. We have to have an answer for them. I'm not saying it has to be a hundred percent baked. But, we have to have a framework to work with, and then that way, we can create those toolkits and onboarding of those champions and managers, so we can all be singing from the same hymn sheet. Speaking the same message. It's very important for consistency, in terms of messaging and speed. I think it is absolutely essential because if journalists start calling employees, employees will start sharing memos, and tape-record town halls, and things like that. If you don't have your act together, it's not a good look.

Change-management process

Jonathan Davies: I think the most beautiful parts are when those two come together. I think everybody who works at the company works there because they have a certain thing they want to achieve. The company is a certain thing that once you achieve them, you create magic. You actually just touched onto something interesting. When you become endearing to leaders, and this is when they start listening to you, you're in. In change, you're navigating a very complex, either restructuring in people. Or even the entire organization. You have to navigate through a lot of layers of leaders. There's no way that you were buddy-buddy with everyone. How do you gain the trust of those people that you need?

Rum Ekhtiar: It's a lot. Hopefully, you're not doing this on the day of the change. So, you know it's hard to establish relationships, and it's hard to establish trust overnight. It's something that I would say to you. You reap what you sow. Again, I'm full of cliché examples today. But, if you're putting the seeds of I'm really good at my job, and I really give a shit...people see that. People respect you, and people trust you. With all those other stakeholders, again, you have to put yourself in their mindset. When you're speaking to them, it's about persuading them that you understand their interests. That you're able to support their interests to a degree, mas o menos (more or less). Sometimes you can't do that all the time. But, it's really about showing them one "I got my shit together, you can trust me, and then to understand, being empathetic for where they're coming from. Where are they feeling threatened? What are their needs? What do their stakeholders need to know? This is a true service job. This is almost like being in the hospitality business. We're here to serve all of these other stakeholders, as opposed to ourselves, so we have a lot of masters to serve. It's really about doing your job before. Networking within the company, and understanding who the key players are, and developing those relationships. It's somewhat doing your own PR, as well internally. Whether you're merchandising the kinds of things that you're doing; not in a vulgar, obnoxious sort of life; but there's ways to make people aware of the kind of work that you're doing. You establish that credibility. You establish your credentials, so I trust you and I will believe you. I think that that's probably the most authentic way to go about it.

Internal Communications and change management

Jonathan Davies: You just named two things that are actually big issues within the Internal Comms industry. One is to be proactive and let things happen to you. The other part, which is a recurring theme throughout our podcast, is confidence. It must be so tough if you're somebody who's in the house, for a change, you've been there for five years, change starts happening, and you've been the person who always gets roped in. Last-minute, it's this at that moment in time where you say okay... buckle up, buddy. It's done cashing in on all of the credibility that I've built up with my peers, my stakeholders, and such. Then, how do you flip that switch? It's almost like I'm talking from a psychology perspective, but how do you suddenly gain that confidence?

Rum Ekhtiar: It's your time to shine. It's an opportunity. I view everything as an opportunity. As an opportunity to learn a lesson, so hopefully you've been able to establish a trust on the way out there. Hopefully, you've built out an organization, where you're not being reactive. Hopefully, as an Internal Comms person you're actually building out content calendars with milestones. Let's say the company is going to have a product list that will launch in six months or so. There's going to be these kinds of activities: being as proactive as possible, and gaining the measurement from the communications and the talking will help you activate in that moment of need. Sometimes, you know you're gonna be successful. Sometimes you're gonna completely screw up. If things are gonna go very badly, it's an opportunity. If they're like, okay, either I can beat myself up, or I can learn from this opportunity. That can change it, and turn it around. It's hilarious, because the things that I'm talking about today, there's no magic. You see, it's all Captain Obvious stuff, right? It's just going back internally and trusting what you know. Having the right intention, when you walk into that meeting and saying this is what I can do.

Rum Ekhtiar: I'm not a spring chicken anymore. I've done this for a while, and I've been in very stressful situations, where I'd like to panic attack and the whole thing. My biggest advice is to breathe, and to use your logic. Put yourself in the other person's shoes, and think about what I would want to hear. What would I need to see to help me feel like everything's not falling apart, that everything is gonna be okay. How would I want to be reassured myself authentically? And then, have fun. It's an opportunity to be part of a turnaround, to be a part of a new management structure. To relaunch a company and to do creative programs. Even if it is just a newsletter, you can put your own spin on it. You can download really cool royalty-free images, and make it look much more slick than the average email blast. It's truly an opportunity for you to express yourself. It's an opportunity to have an impact on the company.