Holistic Thinking in Digital Transformation with Pia Wendelbo

Welcome to Definitely Maybe Agile, a podcast with Peter Maddison and Dave Sharrock to discuss the complexities of adopting new ways of working at scale. Hello and welcome to another exciting episode of Definitely Maybe Agile with your hosts Peter Maddison and Dave Sharrock. And joined today by Pia Wendelbo. So uh hey Peter, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Hey, so nice to be on your uh show here. Um I am actually a change agent, uh and I uh have I'm a CEO and an entrepreneur uh working for Scandinavian change agents, so so it's definitely right in the field of where we feel very uh comfortable what we're discussing today, I would say.

Well, it's a it's a pleasure to have you on. So what what is the topic of today? Where would we like to start?

Yeah, I think that it could be interesting to explore a bit, maybe um going around this holistic thinking in terms of change. I think that's uh a really interesting um topic when you are talking about how to actually bring successful transformations.

And uh Pia, when you're talking about holistic the side of it, it's it's almost the bringing the human aspect into change. So very often, especially when we're in front of our screens and we're pulling things together and we've got to worry about roadmaps and deadlines and what's coming at us, we're thinking in terms of widgets and moving parts and not always thinking about uh the impact it will have on people.

Exactly.

Maybe from your side, what experiences you what stories have you got where you've seen that mismatch, if you like, really come out and become very obvious that there's a problem there.

I I actually often see that uh when I work with transformation projects. I will say it's it's it's it's more that I see than not uh on top of it is still. Uh so it's it's there's a long way to go still here. Uh but of course, more and more people start to get aware that it is exactly this holistic thinking where you need to go much more broader and really look at the impact that you're creating when you're trying to change something. But what I often see is that you're very hooked on some kind of new technology. Uh that's usually where transformation starts, or it's the customer journey, like you want to improve your customer experience or the journeys from there on. But then what you tend to forget is exactly the culture and the staff happiness, and then often also that there's a lot of structures and processes that are impacted by these changes, and that relates back to the organization and the people in it. So, so understanding that you actually are working with people and it's that the each person in the organization that needs to change, uh, do things differently, work differently, understand new things, build new capabilities, that kind of thing to make this work. It's is really important, actually, to have that understanding and that more holistic view on your change.

Yeah, that mismatch between, hey, we've got this brand new technology, it's easy. Like you just press these three buttons and all of a sudden all of your organization is gonna be different and it's gonna get all of this productivity. And actually, I think productivity is probably one of the worst words out there because it gets misused so badly. But the the idea that you're just gonna roll out the tool and everybody's gonna understand it and they're gonna bring it in and they're gonna change how their behavior and all of this with without really thinking about what is the impact to the people involved in all of this and how is my organic.

And how difficult it is to change, even right? Uh because that that's the the other element of this. People think that it's just, as you said, really easy. But even though we want to, even though we are very motivated for doing something over life, oh, this is a really awesome thing, even even if we reach that point, it's still really hard to change because it's habits, it's way of working, it's stuff that we have done maybe for many years in a different way, we have a different mindset, that kind of thing. So you really have to respect that uh there's a lot of steps behind making this happen, actually. And then also if you make it happen, then the continuity of then uh following up and really scaling it as well. Yeah, and that goes back again to the to the people and understanding how we as human actually take in uh changes, how we understand, how we take decisions, how we perceive things.

It's what I'm always as we touch on these topics of under of sort of bringing that human you know, expectations and what that that changes, yeah, I'm always reminded of economics and behavioral economics, the emergent. I mean, now it's a you know, every business university is studying behavioral economics as part of their whole understanding how economic theory is applied in the real world, but it started from this idea that there are rational, you know, human beings are rational, you know, they they kind of make decisions based on zeros and ones in terms of environment. Right. What I find it uh what I find it fascinating is in economic theory, we're beginning to see this understanding of behavioral economics and the irrational behavior of people, right? And yet in change management and transformations, that has is not part of the conversation necessarily. It's something that that you know people who have that experience and expertise bring to the table. But as um someone planning that change, it isn't an automatic, how do we you know people manage their way through the change and go through that? It's just not something that is part of the conversation necessarily.

Exactly. And that's exactly why I do what I do. So that is my sort of uh field area because I saw that missing link as well in in many uh organizations and companies, uh, both from those companies like fintechs or other technology companies that want to implement something to other bigger organizations. They know that they need to implement this, but how to then make it stick and how to make it successful uh within the company that they are implementing, and then the other way as well, uh like bigger organizations that want to do a huge transformation uh of something, again, they don't really take this into account. And you're very right, people are not as rational, but that's the funny part that most strategies and stuff made is made with with kind of your with that thinking, but when people receive it, they receive it much more from from uh like this. I don't know if you guys know system one and two in terms of brain, where how you how we actually perceive things. And the funny part is that most strategies are made from system two, which is actually the part of the brain where you use more energy, it's more abstract thinking. You don't have that much capacity through a day in your system two. So much of what we use actually in our brain is system one, it's where all our habits lie, all the stuff that we do every day, biking, brushing your teeth, that kind of thing. But but many strategies or transformations or things we want to change is made very abstract and not really sort of fitted uh to how people generally behave. So that that is an area that is quite interesting in terms of uh organizational digital change to live into that and the frictions and and understanding that.

Can can you I I I'm interested as you're describing that, I'm interested in how do you move something then system two, the abstract idea, which can be great ideas and they can be wonderful opportunities. How do you uh move that into system one thinking? What practices because you can't do this with a quick email and a let's walk around and tell the tell everybody what we're up to. There's something that has to make that transition.

Exactly. And I would actually never often never use that much email. Of course, it's fine to prompt something, but you you actually need to make it very operational. So the first thing I would do uh in a case like that is that I will start to look for frictions. So I'll figure out okay, what is it that we exactly want to implement here? Uh and then I'll start to understand deeply what kind of frictions are around this implementation, what could go wrong? So if that particular person, for instance, needs to change something in their way of working or a process or something, okay, what could make them stick to what they do today? What could actually go wrong? So really understand all of these frictions. And then when you have a really good picture of the frictions, then I will start to search for uh resolutions. So, how can you solve these specific problems? And I would be very, very, very concrete and very operational. So now taking a very simple example here, uh, let's say that organizations want to be more effective in their meetings. So instead of having like one-hour meetings, like many organizations use so much time on meetings, right? So it's it's it's most people can actually relate to, yeah, we actually want to be more effective, right? But then when what you see is that people keep just booking these one-hour meetings, nothing really happens, even though they are quite interested in changing it. So, what I would do in that's uh just to make a really simple, uh concrete example, is that I would actually go into the meeting system and then I will hack it and then I would say, okay, as a default, all meetings are now 30 minutes. You can't book a meeting that is 60 minutes because that small little thing uh that is an in event sort of an external trigger will actually help you say, Ah, yeah, you're right. Yeah, I need to go with 30 minutes meetings and not one-hour meeting. So that is one example. So so when you're looking for these resolutions for the frictions, you you try to be very operational. It can be like put some posters on, it can be visualizing something, it can be removing stuff so people don't do what they were supposed to do. So really think about okay, is there something people always do? Can we somehow remove it or can we change it? Can we do something else? So it leaves so it becomes very, very operational. That is actually the effective way of working with something like that. And it's quite simple, right? But it's of course a bit harder when you then start to do it. But when you work around this, you can actually quite easily come up with a lot of examples if you actually take the time to do these exercises. So it's not so hard actually, but a lot of people never do it because they're not realizing that it's not enough to talk about a nice strategy or new product innovation or whatever. You really need to look at how to sort of make these external triggers and and change stuff in their operational uh daily uh life. Doesn't make sense.

Yeah, there's there's there's a piece of gap, yeah. Yeah, there's this bit of getting people involved in actually making some of this stuff happen, right? It's so they've got to they've got to be a part of it and it's gotta be tangible because if they're not then uh definitely if you just provide a this if you just radiate information, uh then it's just gonna wash over people and they're gonna go back to doing what they were doing if they if they haven't got something that's going to actually get them involved in the process of doing this, right? It's of of making the change. Exactly. Uh and they uh so yeah, that that type of hands-on piece is is absolutely necessary. It's especially necessary in the the early stages too. Um because if you don't have the buy-in from people, uh when your system uh whatever you're calling out breaks and you need to fix it, then uh then people aren't going to be as um amenable to the uh the consequences of that. So so often, uh especially in any kind of large complex system, it's the integrations that become the problem. And what the what was marketed to you as a solution where these two things talk both ways, bidirectional communication, because that always works in computer systems and never breaks. And so and there's always some kind of uh part of this which will uh eventually come back and bite you. So you need the the people who are involved uh engaged in that because otherwise, as soon as it does break, they're just gonna go back to the way that they used to do it.

Exactly. And that's so easy again, actually system one and two. So so because we are lazy, we want to do things as easy as possible. So it takes a lot to break those uh those really deep-rooted habits that you have. And then another thing, as you were saying there as well, is that of course, depending on which kinds of changes you are talking about, people can also sit and be nervous. You know, what's gonna happen with my job, or will I be good enough for this new thing, or can I even manage this new solution or system as you were just talking about? Uh, that kind of feeling will definitely also be part of this. So creating an environment where it's safe, uh sort of safe uh to grow and learn and fail is crucial in this as well. And then also giving the slack. That is that is another thing that I usually talk to to many ships about. That when you have these these new big projects that you want to implement, then you have maybe worked with it when you sit in the management group. You have worked with it maybe half a year or a year or something. You have had lots of uh thinking around it, and then you present it to your teams, and then they need first to grasp what is this about. They might not even understand at first hand what are you talking about, or they might perceive it very differently, right? And then the next step there as well is also, oh, what is happening to me? Can I find out, you know, all these things going on in their head as well? And then if they buy into it, then they also need to now have some some, they need to really change, right? They need to do things differently, and all of what we just discussed. So, so the Slack part is really, really important. So you need to really understand that it will take time and you need to give time for people to actually take this in. So if you're fully booked with other projects, don't expect your organization to take in new stuff. You have to create space to take in the new stuff as well, and that is often forgotten, actually.

I find it it so I mean, there's a lot of sort of popular press around things like the bookman nudge and various other things that talk about these really simple ideas to allow people to accommodate change. But what's interesting is we spend so much time on the strategy and the solution on where we're going. Yeah, and then um, because you're absolutely right, these ideas are simple, but they don't, they're not, you can't just pick them up and go with them. You the simplicity is what makes them work, but there's time and effort and deliberate understanding necessary to find the simple things that make those things work, right? And and I think that's that's such a bad thing. I mean, part of it is is piloting and rolling out in small pieces so that you can get those changes, you know. I always I always remember um on the complexity science side that the the size of the change correlates directly to the size of the unintended consequences. So you want small changes so that I get small unintended consequences that I can work with versus big changes, which just is is a very different place to be. And so yeah, that's that learning bit of let's try and make a change, observe what happens, be deliberate, come up with those simple changes. And so how much effort is required or time in order to be able to fully I mean, because organizations they have a finite capacity for attention to changes, for budget associated with it. So, what is your sort of guidance on how much time should be spent on that rollout bit, the the understanding and the the you know the planning of the changes?

Yeah, more than you spend on making the strategy, I would say.

Okay, right.

Yeah.

So you just double the cost of strategy in every organization, right? Strategy rollout.

Yeah, yeah, because that that's what people expect, really quick results, right? But you have to to understand that this is a process that you're starting, and exactly as we have just been discussing, it's people who need to change and move and do things differently. And so, and it takes time. You know yourself if you want to do something new that you haven't done before, you you don't pick it up like right away, right? It will take you some time to do it. So, so it's really about celebrating those small steps all the time, like small victories, taking next steps, taking next steps, taking next steps. So if you are going for a really big transformation, it will you you have to be patient as well. Say, well, it's not something that happens in two, three months or something. It can be one, two years sometimes. But of course, what you should do is that you should have just as you said, a lot of small things along the way that you can celebrate and you can definitely feel that this is this is worth doing. I I feel that uh the change in a positive way, uh, and each person needs to feel that. So, of course, it depends on the the the size of the transformation. Stuff can you that can happen a lot if you if you for instance look now you were also talking uh talking at dil at lean. If you're like wanting to to for instance sprint or work a lean, you will see results um quite quickly with some parts of it, but then other things will still sort of have to adjust. So, of course, it's important to see where where where do you see the quick wins, and that's why always when you start up a project, I would always be really curious in the beginning, going in the holistic as we we started out by talking about, and then seeing where do you see the low-hanging fruits, where are the win quick wins, and then start out with some of those so you you create success from the beginning, and then you start to create followers as well because people think, okay, this is really interesting. It it makes a difference to do this new thing or way or whatever it is, use this new system, or we have changed this process, or what it is that you're hunting a new product, or yeah, whatever it is.

Yeah, yeah, the finite ability for an organization to unlearn their current practices. It's beyond even learning something new. It's that if if I've it's gonna take even longer if I have to unlearn the thing that I already know how to do. Uh the the common example I always see in the agile spaces is the backwards bike. I know how to ride a bike, but if I turn the handlebars to the other way, exactly then uh I have to uh unlearn what I knew already. I have to change my existing practices, I have to uh open up my mind to learn the new pathways to create the new ways of doing things.

And uh that's exactly system one and two, actually, there that you're describing, uh Peter. That is exactly an example of that in the biking. Yeah, it's uh but actually just one more comment actually from what we were just discussing there with with what you just said, because I think there's another interesting thing that people now with with the agile and with with lean and everything else, it's it's not necessarily just a practice. So when you have the strategy part, people think, okay, we go in, then we do a strategy, and then we out again. But I would actually like to to create an environment where the whole sort of innovation, transformation, change, everything is something that is natural. It's just a daily thing, a daily life, and sort of just a ceremony as everything else we we do. So it's not something special that we now and then do, and then we make a huge impact on the organization. It should be continuously put in there, and then it wouldn't be also these like huge big banks uh all the time. Then we would be more achieved these like smaller waves. So I think that's another interesting thing. How you make a create an environment where you actually allow everybody to sort of work with this and be comfortable and resilient to towards the change thing.

I Pierre, I think you you've you've kind of pulled two things in there, which are really interesting from a change perspective. And I know Peter and I have discussed many aspects of this on a number of the um episodes that we've done. One is the idea that change is not an event, but it's a habit, right? It's not this big thing that happens because two years ago we did the last big thing and we're about doing a habit. And that yeah, that really um uh is it's quite terrifying on the one hand, because we invest so much time in change as the event, and the idea of doing that as a habit becomes really overwhelming. But it's actually making small changes continuously is is is something we do all the time, of course.

Exactly.

But then the other side was was getting that volunteer up and bringing people in. And I was just thinking about penguins and the conversation that that Peter and I had recently around um my iceberg is melting and the role played by the evangelists, the people who really jump in on and love the change that's happening and become that, you know, take that and propagate it through the organization. So that continuous sort of positive reinforcement, if you like, and how you bring those people to the table and and empower them to get out and drive change. Can you speak to to uh like what do leaders, if you're sitting in a room with leaders around the holistic change, what do they need to what's two or three things they need to either change about their behavior or take away and understand this is what we need to focus on through this change?

I think the first thing I would would probably talk to them about is actually making this slack, like making the space for the change, because that's often what I see goes wrong just in the beginning of it, because they expect that this there can happen a lot in a very short time period, and then they don't understand that most organizations, right, they are quite busy with a lot of other stuff. So so understanding that you have to to create space to actually make something new come in here is is really important, and that goes through the whole organization. So also understanding that they have maybe a middle layer of other managers as well that needs to understand this, take this in, and also have the space to to cope with this is actually really, really, really important. So that is one of the things I usually always start by discussing. Um and many people don't really get that you can't have a system that is 100% uh filled out because that's not effective. You kind of really have to have some slack if you want to make things work faster, and that is also part of like uh if you're working with Safe or Agile, that there can only be one number one priority. But usually when I meet with with the like the top management teams, they have so many things that they want to do, and they have a lot of uh things in their strategy that they want to get implemented, so so people kind of get a bit stuck in uh in that and don't really often know how to actually prioritize, you know. Okay, they say this and they also say that that and that where where should I start and how should I relate this to my work and that kind of thing. So even though it might be seems really simple, it's it's actually really worth discussing and really making people understand what it does to their organization if they just keep pushing things down. So I think that's That's a really important thing, and then the other thing is actually really as we started out talking about, like trying to understand the impact of whatever you're trying to change. So going back and really looking at these frictions here, spend some time on looking at the frictions, and then really learn about finding solutions that is very operational and be creative, like really think out of the out of the box here. And it can be the smallest, simplest little things that has a huge impact. So so that is actually where I would start, I think. And it sounds really like nothing like that, but but it's it's uh it's actually really worth uh taking things very down towards and making it very simple and operational.

It it always amazes me that uh people uh uh leaders often don't realize it. They're they're aware of it. They know that they have a lot of and in systems think it's like common cause and variance inside of the system, right? So there's there's a lot of stuff always happening uh and that that causes variance system, but they never make accommodation for it. So they run as close to 100% utilization as they possibly think they can get, uh, not realizing that that basically grinds everything to a halt. Uh and as soon as anything happens, everything goes off the rails. As soon as whatever it is in the system, like uh somebody says that somebody has to leave for a reason or somebody gets sick and can't show up to work or lottery. And and all of a sudden uh all of that just goes out the window. And uh the the ability to manage this in there because there isn't enough slack in the system to understand like what does it actually take for us to get this done.

Exactly. And that's what exactly what you were saying, that well, that it's like they they don't really count that in, but it's it's it's very likely, of course, they can't say exactly what will happen, but they know that something like that is happening at some point, right? So so there needs to be slack in a system to to operate uh optimal.

Yeah, yeah. Well, they take the 60% rule and uh but not realizing that it that 60% is a hundred percent because the rest of that is actually just the common variance in the system.

Exactly.

So it's like that that's a common one.

Yeah, that's another one. Yeah, yeah. So when I work with teams, uh especially if they need to learn new stuff, I exactly I go in and then we actually say, okay, we we divided, and then they're not allowed to to uh actually use more of the capacity than the 60% to begin with, because they need to have time to absorb even what they're learning as well and all of this. So it's it's it's quite effective and make it as visual as possible. So actually making people sit down and then say, okay, what do I actually do on a weekly basis in my my calendar? What is what kind of task do I actually normally have? Okay, what can I take away to make this happen and so forth? So it's again it's it's actually making things like very, very visual and very operational, and that forces sort of each person to think, how can I maybe change this around? Maybe I can skip these meetings, do I really need to be there? It's it's quite effective also because you really forces people to reflect differently on how they can optimize their own time. So, usually what you see as a side effect of all of this also is that you generally see um much more productive uh organization if you dare actually to go uh into this.

Right. I'm just a man so so um as a leader in that, I'm just trying to think the consequences you you kind of propagate that forward. Is there a situation where a leader has to step in and actually say no, the change can happen? And outside of which maybe there's boundaries that need to be described or or agreed. Is that something that happens um over time? Does it come out, or is that something the leader might start with and say within these boundaries is where you're expected to um you know to uh apply some autonomy and try things? I don't know what experience you might have around that.

Yeah, that's a good question. I see I I think it depends a lot on on the on the specific journey, uh, but I would say generally, especially if you're you're working with like specialists, and so I would involve people quite much in that dialogue because again, going back to having this as a safe journey, an interesting journey, so you kind of need to have to follow people. And usually when you have a lot of good specialists sitting there, they have a lot of inputs on how this can be optimized or work more differently effectively. So involving them and really discussing, and then they feel that they can come with their input and concerns or ideas and everything is is quite important in that part of the process, I would say. So, and then another thing that you can also do in that is that saying, okay, let's try this out. So now we we uh we try to implement this, but if it doesn't work, we can always go back. So that's kind of a a way of communicating, also. Uh, so people generally feel more safe of stepping out into something that is really unknown to them. So they know, okay, if it doesn't work after let's see, we we agree, let's try this out for two months or something, and if it doesn't agree, we can always go back again. That that is a way of communicating. Well, so I think for me personally, I wouldn't set too strict boundaries because that will also sort of um hinder people in being creative. So sometimes you even as a leader or something, you you you're not necessarily able to create all the different perspectives that could come in here. So you might uh get some really good ideas uh in the process if you actually open up and being quite open to to what can kind of happen. And it usually also mitigates the people's resist resistance uh towards going in another direction.

Yeah, so so I think I think we're almost at time and uh I'm enjoying the conversation, but uh we would like to try and wrap this up at uh uh at some point. So if we were to do that, uh what would what one point would you uh pull out of this, Pierre, that you would want the audience to take away with?

Um I think that uh you should be more people oriented actually, that that you should really uh embrace and understand that when you're working in transformation in general, we are just people and being curious of how we as persons actually work in our brain and in our mind. And and and I think that's uh that's what organizations should be more curious uh about.

And Dave, what would you add?

I really liked what Pierre's describing around Slack. So I and and I think it's it's something that um we're all we've discussed this sort of thing before. It is easy, it's a little bit like limiting work in progress. We can talk about it, we can all conceptually agree with it, totally understand it, and yet the moment we look at our calendar, we look at our emails, there's no control of work in progress. And Slack is that same thing, it's almost it's I was having a conversation this weekend um around work-life balance and trying to understand what that looks like. And a lot of that is uh, you know, bringing so work is just builds every nook and cranny in our lives it can do if we're not aware of it. And you've introduced this idea that not only do we need to manage that work, but we also have to have find time with balance within the work to have those slack as well. I I love that. I mean, it's always one of those things that I'll take away and think more about. Great, great questions.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but try to see if you can implement maybe a day where you don't have meetings. That's something that that I often suggest that have a Monday free meeting.

I was just gonna say, you don't want to look at my calendar for the next 10 minutes, but I know what you mean. Yeah. No, but it's absolutely it's I think there's it's so and yet so many conversations I've had recently are we're almost lightheartedly discussing the fact that we're having a meeting on the day we're not supposed to have meetings. I so it's it's I I think that's a really uh an idea to really explore. I really love that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're usually not that productive when you have meetings, right? So it's often things that happen often. So of course there can be those meetings where you really crunch things, but in many meetings, you are not necessarily that productive. So I think many can be skipped. Uh, and then you should find time to really work uh instead. So brilliant.

So bring us home. Bring it home. Yeah, or do I pick up curiosity and slack? I think the uh so absorbing uh all of that into the work, I think, is is critical. So I I do I agree with both of you that uh those are very critical points that um which you need for the learning. I think that's that's the part of it. It's reducing the time to learning. That's the the critical part here, so that we can continuously build that into the system. Uh and the the shorter that cycle, the faster that we can go. But also the the more used to it we get. It's like uh it's like a muscle as we the more we work the muscle, the more we uh get good at working that muscle. So I think it's uh an important piece. I like the way you were describing that, uh Pierre. Uh so with that in mind, uh for for all our listeners, uh don't forget to hit subscribe. And if you have any feedback, you can send it to us at feedback at definitymabyagile.com. And uh I'd like to thank you, Pierre. Thank you for a wonderful conversation, and thank you, Dave, as always. And uh I'll say goodbye for today. Pia, thanks again. Thank you so much, you've been listening to Definitely Maybe Agile, the podcast where your hosts Peter Maddison and Dave Sharrock focus on the art and science of digital, agile, and