Lena (00:52):
Hello everybody, and welcome and thank you for joining our podcast, conversations of Agile Change. I’m Lena Ross from the Agile Change Leadership Institute, and joining me today as our guest is Kathy Piestrzynski. And Kathy was one of our early graduates of the Certificate of Agile leadership and helps organizations bring strategy to life. So with deep experience in organizational change and program management, Kathy helps design and implement the future state, and this includes organizational design, change leadership, organizational change, capability development and change delivery. So welcome to Conversations of Agile Change. Kathy, how are you today?
Kathy (1:38):
Yeah, pretty well. It’s pretty warm in Sydney and yeah, which I think it’s pretty warm in Melbourne too. It’s warm everywhere at
Lena (1:45):
The moment. That’s it. Yeah, absolutely. So for our listeners who might be on the other hemisphere, we’re in southern hemisphere in Australia, podcasting from there, and we are deep in the middle of our summer, which is quite warm for a little bit of context. Kathy, talking about context and what’s happening around the world and then getting to the universe, how did the universe conspire to get you into the current role you are in as head of change? And you can tell us a little bit about that and what you’re doing and how you got there. It would be great.
Kathy (02:16):
Yeah. Yes. Well, how did the universe conspire? It feels like it conspired absolutely, Lena, to get me as it
Kathy (02:28):
As it always does, and my path into change. Like everybody, I think working in change, it was pretty convoluted, not necessarily a straight path. I think that I’ve been really blessed in regards to I’m naturally curious, always have been, and so very much attracted to project work. I think that’s probably the first clue about a career in change, but that I really liked project work and really liked understanding how people worked in organizations. I originally started in Change way back in the early two thousands, believe it or not. 2001 was my first kind of real change gig at a time when change I would say was very unknown to me.
Lena (03:09):
Absolutely, yeah, unknown to a lot of people who are really kind of leading in the dark.
Kathy (03:15):
And I always laugh and say to people, the first job that I got working in change was actually in a change communication role and I totally bluffed my way into that. So I’d been given some advice about make sure that you speak confidently when you’re in interview. So I went in and when people said, can you create presentations and can you write newsletters and can you do things? I was like, absolutely. I can had to get in and really prove that I could do it. So I worked for a big organization on a large transformation program. I was really lucky in that there was a consulting company in there at the same time and they were skilled in change management. So I often laugh and say I worked for a bigger organization, but I was trained by consultancy and got in there and really kind started to learn about change management.
Kathy (04:05):
I then went off into the kind of solo change practitioner career where I worked as a soul change practitioner across a lot of projects. And then really I think the biggest way the universe gave me the nudge towards my current role is I took a role in a change team within an organization. And that really started to change things for me because I got to look at not only how do I practice change, but how do I practice change in a group of change people and how can we share information and really start to see the power of a group of change people in an organization sharing information rather than just being embedded within projects. So from there kind of learn as much as I could and have then taken all of those learnings and been lucky enough to be in a situation now where I can apply them as a head of change.
Lena (04:57):
And that’s good because taken me to the next question with head of change, but it sounds like your journey has taken you through many different lenses and perspectives too. So it’s been multifaceted, I mean, to get the best of both worlds and being an organization while learning from consultants must have been a little bit like doing two courses at the one time.
Kathy (05:17):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It was really good and I think that the opportunity to learn as much as I could as I went along, and there were definite times in my career where I’ve taken a deliberate decision to sidestep and go deep. So what else can I find out and really learn about the practice of change and be very deliberate in understanding, trying to understand all the nuances of change because the every organization is different. Every change program that we do is different. Every group of stakeholders that we work with are different. So the opportunities to really get curious and flex up around the differences has been really important and really key. Yeah,
Lena (05:58):
Absolutely. So with that, Kathy, that’s really interesting sometimes where you kind of go off a little bit horizontally and then dive deep and then come back to a more vertical career path. And some people stay horizontally, they like where they diverged to. Have you got an example when you diverged a little bit to do that deep dive deep?
Kathy (06:18):
Well, I guess in terms of project, working in projects, and I would say I am a change professional, but more than that, I’m a project professional. So I have worn other project hack, so had stints as a project manager, but also working in reporting and governance. So an opportunity to put on that governance hat as part of A PMO. I think really getting deep in the practice of change, a lot of that was so, as I say, I was working as a sole practitioner and then went and joined Sydney Water and the change practice at Sydney Water. And that was an opportunity to really get deep into the way an organization had a methodology to implement change in the organization and really understand that. And I think from there really start to test the edges as to what do I think worked and didn’t work. I think a lot of the time when I was operating as a soul change practitioner, that was my own toolkit. I was very much relying on what I’d learned and what I’d built as throughout my history. Yeah,
Lena (07:23):
That’s a good point. I think I’ve learned more when I’ve worked with a group than solo. Solo is a different introspective kind of work. And in that journey, because you’ve done so much with those different perspectives, you’ve probably seen agility interpreted in different ways too with relation to change. So what’s your take on that? What does agility and change mean to you in your workplace now? How does that play out?
Kathy (07:50):
Yeah, it’s a really good question because I think that’s one of the things that I should call out and make clear. I’ve not actually worked in an organization that I would say is pure in regards to agile methodology. So a lot of what I have done is picked up pieces of agile ways of working and applied that to a change lens. I have been in some projects that have run a kind of agile methodology, but nothing that I would say is a pure are a pure way. So for me, I think that being agile and agile change is first and foremost about practicing change in a different way. So it’s actually, I say that it’s not desktop change, so we are not sitting at the desk and doing a lot of things. It’s really getting out and about using the tools in your toolkit to really apply them to the specific situation. And it’s the ability to pause and pivot. So when projects change as they do, projects absolutely always change. What agile change or agility brings is that opportunity to really, without trying to sound trite, but it’s actually responding rather than reacting. Of course, how do we actually respond to what’s happening and do it quickly.
Lena (09:21):
And when you brought up a good point, you mentioned that you hadn’t worked in organizations where they might be agile purists or that a project hasn’t been pure agile, which I think we’re still trying to work out what that means because there’s so many versions of that. But has that ever got in the way of deploying agile change practices or how does that play out do you think, for change or in your experience for change and agility?
Kathy (09:50):
So for me, what I’ve always found is that even working in an organization where they have a methodology, like a project methodology that might have change, integrated very waterfall kind of style, a lot of the templates that need to be completed from a governance perspective I think help frame up and document what’s happening. But it doesn’t mean that you can’t practice change through agile tourism practices. So I guess I try and separate out what are the pieces that need to be documented and completed from a governance perspective and what’s the role of that. So understanding the purpose of that and then understanding how I practice change and what tools I use to help with that practice. And I actually find that when you get out and do change in an agile way, stakeholders respond to it. And I try not to talk about it in the sense of saying, well, what I’m doing is agile change. This is just the way I do it.
Lena (10:54):
Yeah, that’s a really good point because I have found that helps as well rather than labeling it because as soon as you label it, they tend to anchor it to a past experience, which might not be what you are trying to deploy. So it sounds like you’ve had good success with that. That’s great to hear that. Have you got some favorite agile change practices?
Kathy (11:15):
Yeah, yeah. Well, so I guess first of all, in terms of just the practice of visual management, making things visual, absolutely. And putting things into that kind of brain friendly approach where it’s more like on a page infographic style, absolutely love that. I think in terms of then other practices or tools, lean coffee without a doubt. And I just like that also from a leader perspective because I think it just takes the weight off. You can just go. So having an agendaless meeting where people get to vote, and to me it is a real game changer and I think just really helps engage people and bring up conversations In terms of working with stakeholders, my absolute favorite would be the blast radius because I think that’s, I’ve always found in the past doing a stakeholder session, like stakeholder analysis that when you put up the matrix and you’re kind of talking about impact and influence, that influence conversation can sometimes feel a bit clunky because it’s kind of putting a bit of a political lens over an organization or you’re kind of trying to talk about, well yeah, who’s influential or what groups are influential or how can we do that?
Kathy (12:35):
The thing I like about the blast rate is it’s a totally different view and it’s kind of like if here’s the change who’s directly, who’s indirectly hit, and then you even go to the observer level. So who’s looking at this as well? And I just think it’s rich. It gives you so much information, so much to talk about with your stakeholder groups starts to frame change up in the change process totally differently. And I think goes from a kind of expert mindset because the stakeholder, that kind of traditional stakeholder analysis is very us as a change person, having this expert view on how are we going to navigate this and where do our highly impacted and highly influential people sit and what’s the strategy around them? Whereas with the blast radius, it becomes a much more, we’re all in this together, this is the change that’s coming.
Lena (13:26):
You’re right. I mean even the circles and just the whole visual around that sets a different tone, doesn’t it? A matrix is so, I mean a box and this, there’s not many other places I can go to because I’m already labeled. So that’s a really good point. I’m really happy to hear that. So when you start with a new team where you’ve got team members, Kathy, who haven’t been exposed to these practices, which you work so well, how do you get them engaged in that and to see things differently perhaps from what they’ve done the same way for a long time?
Kathy (14:08):
So I’ll always talk to people about with change, I think we need to be very conscious that there’s two things that we need to do. There’s the tools that we use for our own sense making. And for me, that’s actually where a lot of those more traditional impact analysis come from. If you think about your Excel spreadsheet of your impact analysis, I think that that can take you through a very structured thinking, a very structured way of thinking. And I know for myself that I’ll still go back to that if I really want to think something through, how do I matrix it up and how do I work through that? But then there’s the tools that we use to engage stakeholders, and that’s how I started playing with agile change. And that’s how I talk to my team about starting to play with it is think about what’s the artifact that we are using to help engage people in the change process versus the artifact that you might use as a change practitioner to help you make sense of something. And then I think the more you get used to using the tools like the Agile tools, the easier it is to let go of some of those older tools.
Lena (15:12):
That’s a great way to do it. And you’re providing kind of an anchor for them of safety to things that have worked well for them. So you are not really saying, let go of that. Now it’s time to do this. You’re giving them a little bit of that and a little bit of this and almost weaning them away. And sometimes you don’t need to wean away, like you said, some of those sense-making tools still have their value. They we just don’t need to use them as the only way.
Kathy (15:42):
Yeah, and they’re not, I’m sure that for some people, I shouldn’t say for everyone, I’m sure for some people an Excel spreadsheet is very engaging, but I am not one of those people.
Lena (15:52):
Neither am I. And I think with information overwhelm now, I seeing just through conversations that people are really embracing more of the visual, even information. You can even see it in the media and everything. Or when you watch the news the way information’s being consumed now, it’s not just a news reader telling you stuff. They’ve always got to be backed up with their visuals and the charts and things like that. So I think everyone’s being primed to process information a lot faster at that rate. So it’s good that change practitioners are doing it and probably have been doing it ahead of the curve, which has been great. Nice, nice. So Kathy, now you mentioned to me that you have made a shift from heat maps to journey maps. Can you tell us a little bit more about this? This sounds like a nice agile, more agile practice too.
Kathy (16:44):
Yeah, absolutely. Sorry, is it really noisy or is it just noisy for me? Can you hear that?
Lena (16:51):
No, I’m okay. Oh, I
Kathy (16:54):
Can’t. Sorry. Yes. So the shift from heat maps to journey maps, so in one of my earlier roles, especially when I started to get into enterprise change roles, so being responsible for looking at change at the enterprise level, like everybody trying to get that enterprise view and starting to have a look at heat maps and how we can use these maps. For me, a challenge with that always came down to the rating criteria for impact, because the rating criteria for impacts is really difficult to get universally across all three. Sometimes you might have a team that very small that hasn’t been subjected to a lot of change, and so even a small change might be a big impact for them. Conversely, you might have a really big team that’s really good at change, and so the impact’s not the same. They can kind of absorb things more easily. So for me, the change to journey maps has been an absolute, it’s been a game changer because the first piece for this for me is around, obviously with the journey map, you start with that kind of think field do, right? So
Kathy (18:04):
You’re starting to put the person into the chain. And once we’ve got that think field do and the think field do across a number of change initiatives and putting it into a journey map, we start to talk about the change experience rather than the heat of an impact. So for me, that shifts the entire conversation about what we are doing to navigate change because the heat of an impact is the impact assessment that kind of, so the organizational heat map, we want to get to the conversation of so what, right? By using the journey map instead the conversation. So how are we navigating this change journey? I just think that it is a really impactful tool to change the conversation that we are having about leading people through the process of change.
Lena (18:51):
And would you do a journey map? Are you doing, when you apply this, are you’re doing a journey map for each change initiative or are you taking people through at a program level or a team level to understand collective impacts? How does that
Kathy (19:06):
Yes, collective impacts. So what I’m doing is actually getting the impacts from different projects I think you’ll do from different projects, putting that onto a journey map, rolling it right up to a really high level, so it might be at a business unit level, and then breaking that down for each leader manager to talk to their teams about. The other thing I like is that it’s a visual that managers can then to, and I also talk about change stages of awareness, action and adoption. And I think that again, using a journey map helps bring along a conversation around, at the moment we’re talking about the change and we just at awareness stage, and then you can talk about when we should be getting into action phase. And then this is when the go live is. That’s a go live milestone, but it’s not the end of the change journey. We still need to move through adoption.
Lena (19:57):
So do you get all the people involved across the enterprise to, is that how you collect the data from?
Kathy (20:07):
Yeah, it’s change managers. So within the change team, the change managers are working with stakeholders and they’re pulling together that view and then we work together to put it into that journey map.
Lena (20:16):
That’s really cool. And I guess by doing that with the change managers, doing it with their stakeholders, they’re getting that view, like you said, Kathy, the think, act feel, which is what people are feeling and what they’re thinking, which would often be missed in most other processes that do that.
Kathy (20:35):
Yeah, I think the value of the think field do is that so often when we start having conversations with leaders, particularly leaders or people impacted by change, and we go to the do, this is what people need to do, and you miss out on the think, which is obviously then the think a lot of the time is around that context. And then when we get to the how people feel, this is also where I find it’s easy to have a change leadership conversation because I can talk to leaders and say, this is where you really come in. I need you to help get your people, your teams to connect, to change in, connect to what we are doing and help lead them through that change. So for me, it’s a game changer. I think you’ll do absolute game changer. Yeah, I love
Lena (21:17):
It. Yeah, I love it. I’ve used it a lot, but not in that context. And I love how it’s because I agree with you, enterprise change, heat maps, every time I’ve worked with them or I’ve been asked to help introduce them, I think I’ve experienced the same pain points as you is. How do you get people to define the same impact and then the focus tends to go on the technical application of it, doesn’t it? Rather than like you said, what it’s there for. What do we want to hear from it?
Kathy (21:44):
Yeah, that’s what you end up arguing about methodology.
Lena (21:48):
You do. Yeah. What tool do we use? Do we do Excel or be the BI tool or what do we do? And a lot gets lost in that.
Kathy (21:56):
Yeah. And then it’s even conversations around, depending on how you illustrate that heat map, if you are using the kind of red, Amber Green and there’s a conversation about, well, what does that mean? So yeah, I’ve found that in terms of getting to the conversation that we want to have, which is actually around change experience and how we are moving people through the process of change that think people do journey maps, they get us to that point of conversation. Which again, for me, a lot of the time, I think in change, I always say that the purpose of the artifact is to have a conversation.
Lena (22:32):
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.
Kathy (22:35):
So how do we create an artifact? And that’s what I also like about the whole idea of having more brain-friendly visual tools to use is that it’s a guide to the conversation because change at the end of the day, a people thing. So we need to be talking about people,
Lena (22:54):
Right? Kathy? And when I use visuals, I even like it if a stakeholder or an end user asks a question like, oh, why did you use that icon or picture for that? Because even that in itself is a conversation and a way to just reach a middle ground and reach a common understanding, because sometimes I do visual exercises where I ask people, pick the card or the visual that represents the change you’re in, and then they come up with different things. So sometimes their interpretation. So even just the process of sometimes explaining the visual is valuable because then you’re getting them engaged in the visual. And sometimes when I’ve done that, I’ve got completely different perspectives which have helped me change the visual. That might be a better way to represent that. So it’s really cool. Yeah,
Kathy (23:42):
Absolutely.
Lena (23:43):
Yeah, no, I really like that it opens up, I think pathways in the brain that they’re not used to using as well. I think it just, and by doing that, by presenting that information in a different way does open those conversations. As you said, Kathy, I know you’re a lifelong learner because you’ve told me you’re curious. I already knew that you are super curious and a brilliant learner and love trying out new things and doing things really bravely as you’ve demonstrated. What are some things you’ve learned recently through your curiosity or through formal learning that have stood out for you that you’ve been able to apply straight away?
Kathy (24:20):
Oh, look, probably so many. So I think for me, probably the first thing is with anything that I’m learning, trying to think about how do I apply it and give myself safe spaces and safe opportunities to apply it. So I’ve been really super interested in, I guess the process of change, and especially in organizations around how I think traditionally change has been a very cognitive exercise. We’ve kind of gone down this path of that. We’ll explain it to people and then tell them what to do, and then people would do it. And the longer I am working in change, the more I realized that there’s a huge emotional component to that as well. So I did, last year I actually did a course a bit of an introductory course into drama therapy, believe it or not, because that was all around emotions and finding ways to access those emotions. So there’s been bits and pieces that I’ve picked up from doing that try and think about, well, how can I carefully and safely integrate this into some of the aspects of things that I’m doing at work? I usually try and start with people that are really close to me so I don’t feel good,
Lena (25:40):
Like you said, start say very smart.
Kathy (25:47):
Yeah. But I also find that I’m sure you do as well. I have a list. I usually have a list of different things that I’m curious about and that I want to go and find out more about. Sometimes that’s reading articles. Sometimes it’s just trying to dive into different courses. There’s so many opportunities to attend webinars and different things. And then trying to find courses that are kind of easily consumed so that I can learn and apply. I think that really it’s the application. I always, if that old IT help desk saying, when you used to call up help desk sometimes, and if you know anyone in IT that’d say the problem exists between the chair and the keyboard. So that’s what I’m very conscious of is that it’s one thing to learn and it’s another thing to apply. So you’ve got to try apply.
Lena (26:42):
That’s interesting you say that about it because I’ve sold a lot of my own IT problems just by experimenting sometimes out of frustration or lack of time or lack of resources to help me. But it’s a great way to learn just navigating that and trying things out. But Kathy, look, you are one of our poster child or children for agile change. So if you were to share your wisdom or speak to your younger self, or you were coaching someone like entry level change, what’s the best advice do you think you could give them about just getting better at agile change or exploring it or delivering it?
Kathy (27:25):
So I think for me, the two main keys really is, well, probably three actually. Number one, get curious and get curious with what you don’t know. And when there’s things that intrigue you and you’re a bit uncomfortable about it, that’s a pretty good sign to go find out more, right? Yeah. Then find ways to apply it. Absolutely. And start off small. It doesn’t all have to be big. It’s like small and experimenting and testing. And probably the other piece that I haven’t really spoken about, but I should say is a really important practice as well is get a reflective practice, whether that’s on your own or with a group of people. Start reflecting and start reflecting often because I think that it’s been the review of learn, apply, reflect, think about what you could do differently the next time for me, if I could go back and do anything. I think starting up a reflective practice and I have with my team, we have a reflective, at the end of each week, we have a
Lena (28:32):
Reflective, I was going to ask you that and I knew you’d tell me, so that’s great. So you and your team get together and do a weekly, like a retro
Kathy (28:40):
Spectrum? Yeah, it’s a kind of retro, it’s probably, sometimes I structure it as a retro. Sometimes I’ll structure it more as a question to answer for the week. Sometimes we’ll use it as a bit of an opportunity to share knowledge amongst the family because different people have different pieces. Sometimes we’ll run that as a bit of a lean coffee.
Lena (29:00):
Yeah, great.
Kathy (29:02):
But I think it’s because to me, the most important thing is actually having the practice of reflecting and starting to, and it’s not only self-reflections, great, but it’s where we start to pull in information from other people as well, which is, that would be another piece of advice that I’d give myself earlier is go and find out more about the impact of what you’re doing and get comfortable with getting feedback.
Lena (23:31):
That sounds great. It sounds like it’s a great team you’ve got there and building the safety amongst them as well as the sharing. It sounds like a really good productive learning culture that you’ve built within that group.
Kathy (29:47):
I am very blessed. Look, I coach, I coach sports teams as well, which I know, and I think that like any coach it, it’s always the players. It’s not the coach. We can set up the environment and we can coach and encourage and provide feedback and do all of those kind of things, but it really is the people in the team that rise and do the job
Lena (30:13):
Well. It sounds like they’re benefiting from all that. So it sounds fantastic. Kathy, I’m sure after people have heard us chatting about this that they might want to know how they could connect with you or find out more about what you do. What should we tell the listeners?
Kathy (30:29):
So yeah, probably the best place is LinkedIn. Everyone. That’s my home, my online home, my social media home.
Lena (30:38):
And the spelling of your name will be on the podcast show notes anyway.
Kathy (30:45):
Yes. Well, that’s always, I tell everybody that anyone that ever knows me or talks about me, they just say, Kathy P. So I say you just say Kathy or Kathy PI
Lena (30:54):
Know Jen and I do Jen and I do, but I’m glad I know how to, well, I hope I know how to pronounce your surname a lot better than the one I did yesterday anyway. Okay. Do you have a website as well? You spoke about coaching and sports, something that you want to share.
Kathy (31:10):
Yeah, I do. I do. I actually have my own website, which is Agile sports, so it’s agile sports. That’s a company that I have to attempt to take some of my learnings and share them with others. Obviously, I’m probably not as active in that space all the time as I would like to be, but trying to get more information out there so that I can share with people, share the learnings of what I’m doing and what I’m learning. Yeah,
Lena (31:39):
That’s fantastic. Come next. Lovely. Well, it’s been great to find out more about you, Kathy. Kathy PI know that we’ve known each other for a long time, but we haven’t done a deep dive like this into what you’re actually doing and how you’re applying things, and it’s been great to hear them, particularly from the agile change lens and lens and your own perspective and the journey you’ve taken to get there. So I know our listeners are going to find this so fascinating because I think I’m going to go back and listen to it again myself.
Kathy (32:14):
And I will say from my perspective, it’s been such a blessing and so welcoming to have the learnings that are delivered by yourself and Jen, all of the content that’s developed and delivered I think is absolutely fantastic and gives me the opportunity to take ideas and then go and apply it. So thank you.
Lena (32:35):
We love knowing about the gap or no gap between knowledge and application. Like I said, you’re the poster child for that. I know that you experiment so bravely and you’re curious and it’s working well for you, and this is the message we want to spread, that it can work well. But it’s fantastic to hear that it’s working well for you. Yeah,
Kathy (32:53):
It’s brilliant.
Lena (32:55):
Okay, Kathy, thank you so much.
Kathy (32:59):
No worries. Thank you for your time.
