E111 - The Relationships That Carry Change - Podcast With Sarah Glenister

Welcome to The Inner Game of Change.  where we explore the thinking that shapes how change really happens. 

In this warm and deeply human conversation, I speak with change practitioner and Australian Change Days convenor Sarah Glenister about the relationships that quietly shape how change is experienced.

We explore trust, uncertainty, informal influence, the limits of plans and timelines, and why the real work of change often happens through conversations that cannot be easily measured. We also consider whether strong relationships can turn uncertainty from anxiety into curiosity, and what human connection may mean as artificial intelligence becomes more embedded in our working lives.

I am grateful that Sarah is chatting with me today. 

About Sarah

🔔 Over 15 years in senior roles - Director of Change Management, Director of Workforce, Director Corporate Services, Area Director Mental Health Services, Director of Financial Transition. Now working as an independent consultant, Founder and Director Change that matters  changethatmatters.com.au

🔔 Trained as an Organisational Psychologist, I bring those Behavioural Science skills to address the most complex of situations (and the simple ones), find out more at sarahglenister.com

🔔 Community builder - Convenor and Founder of Australasian Change Days, annual event for people wanting to Change the World! australasianchangedays.com

🔔 Genealogy and DNA geek, offering assistance in interpreting your results and researching your family tree, DM me here.

Expertise and knowledge:

💡 Project management and change management of large complex projects
💡 Workforce and HR strategy and organisational development 
💡 Team building and communication 
💡 Training in Change Management for executive and managers.
💡 Data analysis and interpretation
💡 Facilitation of off-site or on-site strategy days 
💡 Building online communities

Transcript

A Different Way To Host

SPEAKER_02 0:00

a few years ago, did some training in the art of hosting. And that was that changed my practice fundamentally. And it has stayed with me all of the ever since. And for that, it's it's more of a, I guess, facilitation focused, but it's also about building relationships. It's about co-creating the whole, if it's about me, don't do it without me kind of thing. And I find that when you focus on the relationships, everything else is so much easier. If you are too focused on getting whatever delivered, then you leave people behind. And they're the people who need to actually make the change. Yeah, I think relationship building is absolutely key to change management, whether it's change management as a professional or a practice.

Ali 1:00

Welcome to the Inner Game of Change where we explore the thinking that shapes how change really happens in the workplace. In this warm and deeply human conversation I speak with change practitioner and Australasian change days convener, Sierra Glenister, about the relationships that quietly shape how change is experienced. We explore trust, uncertainty, informal influence, the limits of plans and timelines and why the real work of change often happens through conversations that cannot be easily measured. Measured we also consider whether strong relationships can turn uncertainty from anxiety into curiosity and what a human connection may mean as AI becomes more embedded in our working lives in our working lives. I am grateful to have Sarah chatting with me today. Sarah thank you so much for joining me in the Inner Game of Challenge podcast. I am eternally grateful for your time.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

Oh it's so nice to catch up with you Ali after London. That's just it's been it was a delight to meet you and it's a delight to connect with you again.

Ali 2:14

That was so wonderful. For my audience Sarah and I met online for a number of years now and then we met in person at the Global Change Awards recently in London and that was a wonderful time which is actually part of what we're going to cover today which is around relationships, connections. But

Timelines Versus Behaviour Change

Ali 2:34

before we start Sarah the question that I usually start asking my guests what has been occupying your thoughts recently in terms of work recently gosh how we I think it's how we hold the balance between the work that we know that needs to be done in an organization and that you can see and the demand for want of a better word for a schedule and and deliverables and all the things that for me don't quite line up with what I think needs to be done because it's all very timeline and deliverables and that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

And you can't make behavior change happen in three weeks or two weeks or that kind of thing. And so it's this kind of balance between the deliverables and the work. I think particularly in the the in the position that I'm in at the moment that's been the that's been a real tension for me.

Ali 3:46

So somebody's decided that a change would need to happen according to a time frame. But then something inside of you thinking should we not think about the value rather than be driven by other things? Is that am I reading this?

SPEAKER_02 3:59

So for example it's a it's a change from having a is uh an IT service and they're going from a combination of walk up and ticket ticketing to only ticket service. And there's a whole lot of behavior change around that in terms of how they interact with the customer who then is still going to turn up in how they interact with that and how they explain to the customer without getting worked up if the customer's upset about not being able to get their demands met immediately. And that kind of training and uplift is quite difficult to do in a short period of time. And it's like how do you talk to them about it's not just providing good customer service, but it's how you're dealing with authority and you're dealing with people who are who are stressed because their systems aren't working or whatever. So yeah it's that's quite hard to it's easy to produce like oh this is my plan for doing that. But I can't say and by this date I will have delivered and then by this date I will deliver that. So I'm finding that quite difficult at the moment. Yeah.

The Unmeasurable Work Of Trust

Ali 5:07

Which which is a segue to what we're talking about today there's a there's always a tension between building relationships and connections and positive connections in the workplace. I'll share with you something the there's a there's an index do you know that there is actually a world happiness index I do and there's also another one called the Certainty index and and the world happiness index talks about trust and social connection as the strongest predictors of wellbeing and satisfaction. And yet when we talk about change in the workplace we often focus on you just exactly mentioned that budgets and scope and in our search for certainty we focus on those three parameters but then one of the predictors of a successful change is that how do we bring the people along the proverbial journey that is actually pretty much around the human connection and the meaning behind the change. And so how do we reconcile those two opposing forces?

SPEAKER_02 6:26

I think it's I think it's really hard and I I and I think that what I find myself doing is appeasing the the people who need the schedule and who need the timelines and everything by giving them something probably fairly generic in my head like in terms of well by this day I will have done a workshop I'll have created some I'll have created some artifacts that kind of thing but I know that's just the superficial level because the real work is done by work is by talking to people and working with people and exploring with them why they would find it very difficult to say no to this particular person and it might be a it might be a power thing. It might be that person is seen as a quite a senior person and that's why they would feel concerned about saying it. Or maybe they feel that what the the job is will only take a short time and and so they're worried about looking like they're trying to pad it out. So it's it's interesting. So I find myself like I guess in my head going this is the real work and I'll keep going on and doing that. But in the meantime I will give the people who need the schedule and the timelines and the things I will give them what they need to kind of keep them quiet and and deliver what they need to deliver as well.

Ali 7:49

And from my experience not many people talk about they do talk about we're going to have to engage and create meaning and all of that but that's not really in the roadmap. That's actually pretty much relying on the project team and the change manager and the project manager interpersonal skills influence skills credibility and understanding the meaning behind the change and trying to influence on how a project is being managed is it because things like relationship buildings building the connection creating meaning is that because this is really hard because some people think this is the fluff stuff I'm sure that it maybe but I'm not sure that it's hard that that people see it's hard.

SPEAKER_02 8:39

I think it's the opposite I think people see it as easy and why are you wasting your time doing that. And it's also really hard as the change person you're sitting around a a table going through the weekly updates or the the status reports and all of that kind of stuff and you hear about you know we're going red for this and green for that amber for this and you kind of go, I'm just green because I'm just keeping going doing what I need to do. But it's hard to quantify what you're doing and you're in an environment that wants everything quantified. And I think that's hard it's hard for you as the change person but it's also hard in the in how you're perceived by other people what are they doing? They're just talking to people or they're just having a meeting or they're just talking about relationships and things like that. So I think it's hard I think it's hard both ways.

Ali 9:30

How hard is it for a a change professional when they join a new organization and they join a new team and then there's a change ready to be rolled out and there's no existing or established relationship with the impact to groups how hard is that look I find I I find every every change a job I think that difficult for different reasons.

SPEAKER_02 9:57

I always try and take a bit of a stock take about things they're up to with outcomes they've already had. Yeah. What are the relationships already? How does this team or organization communicate? I try and do that pretty early on because it really tells you a bit more about what will land and what won't. I find it quite hard to come in when someone else has been in the change role and then left for whatever reason.

Ali 10:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:24

Because often they've been maybe quite process driven or they just they do things quite differently to maybe how I would have done it. And so I don't want to undermine all anything that they've done but I find it quite difficult to pick it up as well. It's difficult going into a new organization.

Ali 10:44

It is difficult mainly because there's a correlation between time spent with people and relationship building and yet the project is driven by delivery and timeline and date and all of that. How many times you've heard a conversation you join an organization let's just say you're a contractor you got asked to join a team and how many times you hear a conversation with the project manager saying just do this just do this yeah and all the time. And I'm not saying project managers are bad but I'm just saying they also are driven by their own parameters. But we're talking to the leadership here if a leader cares about how the change is going to be adopted and how people feel about the change experience they can still manage that within the timeframe of the project. They just need to pay a little bit attention to it. And the most important thing also is that it should not really be outsourced to the change person in there. And actually I coach managers that I work with and I'll be saying if I were you I'll be very interested in this because if if a change is going to come your way it's going to impact the dynamics of the team is going to impact the relationships going to impact the morale of the team some of it will actually threaten identities and destroy relationships sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 12:15

So should you not be interested in seeing the design of the change and the project and how this is going to impact your team also saying yeah you could say if you have a good relationship with them of course you could say things like what would it mean for you if you were only 50% successful in this change? Yeah. Because if you're if you don't pay attention to the change stuff and the people side of things, then you're not going to get the kind of change that you want. You're not going to people will the project will wind up the the business as usual will take over and then it will slowly over time or maybe not slowly go back to the way we've always done things around here. And that's a significant cost to organizations if they actually don't see this real change. And I think that I think that's the same for like a lot of the AI stuff. There's all this big push to introduce AI and all that kind of stuff. But unless there's a unless there's something that's carrying that through that people will be able to adopt through their entire work life as soon as the project is over it will just go back to the way the you know back to Excel, back to doing things the way we used to do. Yeah.

Ali 13:38

I

Change As Practice Not Job Title

Ali 13:39

would like to cover AI at some stage in the conversation. I've been reading a book called Thinking and Systems by Daniella Meadow and one of the things that she talks about is she talks about that some of the most important forces in a system at work are invisible. And when I was thinking about the have this conversation with you I started thinking are relationships are part of those hidden forces or invisible forces and this takes me back to my original my previous question is around is it because it's it's invisible or a nice to have but not a must have and therefore there's not really much attention paid to it.

SPEAKER_02 14:32

You mean to change management or yeah yeah when so when I started out in change it wasn't really called change management and it was something you did as part of your job. So you were doing your day job and then 20% of the time you were doing yeah you were doing something else introducing a change of some sort this was in the health system that I was working in. And a lot of managers necessarily calling themselves proficient in change but if their teams needed to change to do something then it was at that level of the manager was doing it with some additional resources. But things have changed so much over the last 20 odd, 30 odd years however many years it's been and managers and leaders just don't have the time to do the things that they would have done 20 or 30 years ago. And I think that's part of the issue is that it's been outsourced to another person like me to do things that were potentially part of a role 20 or 30 years ago because they just there are so many demands on managers and leaders now that they just don't have that headspace to look at doing things differently. And I think that's there's benefits in that getting fresh eyes and all that kind of stuff. But I think there's also a little bit of a maybe a bit of a judgment thing about maybe I could have done this in my role if I had been more organized or if I knew my team better or if I understood the technology more or whatever the change was. Yeah I think the nature of change management has changed so much since I got into the field that it's really hard to recognize it from 30 years ago.

Ali 16:20

I want to share with you and please feel free to critique me on this I do mention often something to most people that I come across and I coach some people as well in the business that we are in the job or we are in the business of influence and relationship building what we do is not the job. And some people will get it some people will not get it how can I simplify this to people to say change is a human an organization is a system and part of that system is the human aspect of it and the whole idea of a change management professional has landed because the human side was actually recognized as the most important piece or element in the whole equation. So when I talk to people around being an influencer and a relationship builder is there any other way for me to articulate that better?

SPEAKER_02 17:29

I'm not sure so I have discussions all the time with people like Gilbert There you go Gilbert whether change management is a profession or whether it's a practice or whether it's both and so I think change management as a practice is something that everyone can do and everyone can do better. And I think if we So that's the doing part of it it's just yeah it's like being a facilitator or this or coach this coaching practice as as well as being a a coach in a profession. I think for me one of the things that is hard is that so many people are in the change profession from completely different backgrounds. And part of me thinks for a profession you need you need a almost like a a recognized pathway or recognized I don't know set set of skills to be considered a profession and maybe that's why we struggle so much. But the change management as a practice is all about how you how you interact and how you make things easier at work for people it's not just at work but most of our stuff is at work. So how can I make the change or the the new technology or the new focus going to a customer centric organization or a stakeholder shareholder or focus organization or whatever it is. How can you make that journey easier for people? And that then if you have change management as a practice it doesn't become the problem or the own or owned by one person who's the change manager. It's owned by everyone it's owned by the leadership team and the managers and everybody else is because they need to be in practice.

Ali 19:26

Yeah yeah I call this the change experience because everybody is responsible about the change experience. Whether you're a sponsor you are a delivery project manager or you are a change manager or you're a manager of the actual receiving team or you are team members. Everybody is responsible around that change experience.

Informal Networks That Move Change

Ali 19:49

You can end up with a negative change experience you can end up with a positive inspiring change experience. And the landmarks or the signs of each one of those are pretty clear you can see that in surveys you can see that in adoption measures you can see all of that I wanna shift gear and ask you around if it is a practice and we usually end up with almost two types of relationships.

SPEAKER_02 20:22

We call them formal relationships and informal ones but I always find the informal ones are far more effective than the formal ones what's your take on that you can never get past the informal relationships in the what used to be called the executive assistance network. They knew everything and as soon as you made gain in that environment then getting your message out was much, much easier. Look I a few years ago quite a few years ago did some training in the art of hosting and that was that changed my practice fundamentally and it has stayed with me all of the yeah ever since and for that it's it's more of a I guess facilitation focused and but it's also about building relationships it's about co-creating the whole if it's about me don't do it without me kind of thing. And I find that when you focus on the relationships everything else is so much easier. If you are too focused on getting whatever delivered then you leave people behind and they're the people who need to actually make the change. Yeah I think relationship building is absolutely key to change management whether it's change management as a professional or a practice.

Boxes Ticked While Value Fails

Ali 22:00

gonna tick the boxes that you've done it. These are sick the these a joke, it's not a good joke, but I'm gonna but I'm going to say it anyway. Just because I can.

SPEAKER_02 22:11

The dad joke.

Ali 22:12

I don't know if it's a dad joke, but the if these this conversation I am like you coming to me as a surgeon and you'll be saying hi Ali, how was the surgery? I'll be saying to you, Sarah, it was fantastic. I ticked all the boxes. And then you'll be saying to me wonderful that's great. I'm really glad for you. And then somebody else will be asking so how is the patient? And I say no the patient died. But I ticked all the boxes. Yeah. And it's not a nice joke, but always reminds me that who cares about the boxes if at the end of the day we haven't really delivered the meaning and the value. And and this question like I talk to always executives and sponsors and I'll be saying something like this and many of them probably they listen to this conversation they know I'll be saying to them something like hold me accountable at the end of this project and you need to find out whether there was meaning and there was adoption and there was a positive change experience or not. But you also have a role in this so unless we do that I can tick the boxes and then there's no meaning and and unfortunately I'm not talking out of school here. I see it all the time and and I love my network but my network is also responsible about some of the negative experiences that we're having. Yeah did you like the joke? Sure but imagine a a professional a medical professional they are on a mission to make somebody's life easier. Yeah and they're driven with do no harm and all of these things and wouldn't it be great if we have a code of conduct in the change management space to actually abide by this and swear by this that I am not going to leave this project unless I actually make sure that I abided by my code of conduct.

SPEAKER_02 24:29

Yeah. And it's actually quite hard as well because that is for me. But I I I find it very hard to stay in my lane when I see things happening that are you know doing a particular thing or that that they really shouldn't be doing really shouldn't be doing it in that way because it's going to then have knock-on effects. I find it really hard to not say anything and actually it would really it would have you thought about doing it this way I get you have to have these conversations with people but do you have to have them in the middle of the workplace can you have them somewhere else can you give people the afternoon off or that kind of thing. So yeah I find it really quite hard to just to see where the boundaries are in when you're dealing with people because just like you can't deal with people on what they're like at work because they've got a whole other life you also can't just narrow it down to your interaction with them. It's also what else is happening in the organization and how they're being impacted by different areas in the organisation.

Ali 25:39

I actually have stories of people that stay in their lane for too long and actually they do they will see stuff that they can help with and they say nothing and do nothing. These the army officer Australian I can't remember his name and he said something like the standard you walk by is the standard you accept.

SPEAKER_02 26:06

I remember that one.

Ali 26:07

And then at the same time like when you say it's hard for me to stay in my line I don't even know why we have lines. I think we and and I understand some project managers say do not talk to these people they you I'm paying you to or we've got a certain number of hours and it's such a boring conversation. It dehumanizes the whole experience. I am not in that space anymore thank God because the projects that I accept now and I want to work on I see big value for the organization and sometimes to be honest again this is not an attack on any project manager. It's important for me when I accept to work on a project now I need to understand who the project manager is. I actually literally indirectly interview these people because again I can tick the boxes with my eyes closed but there's my conscience in there and there's I sincerely care about how people feel one of the things that I have at the back of my mind is that if we do good change experience in the workplace morale and engagement will improve. Absolutely and if that happens at scale and call me a dreamer one of the one of the highest levels of triggers for us in depression and unhappiness and all of that is that we live in an unhappy workplaces and then we go home and then we just we just complain about the day and tomorrow is another day. And I'm thinking if the majority of the work of what we do at work is around change and managing change there's always change. A decision by a leader is a change anyway.

SPEAKER_02 27:56

If we do this really well we can influence society yeah when I first started out to be a consultant I wanted to change the world we can change one project at a time plans I had grand plans and and then I very quickly realized that yeah maybe I couldn't change the entire world but I needed a I needed mates I needed other people and yeah and so that's kind of made me segue into yeah what I'm doing now.

Relationships In A Hybrid World

Ali 28:27

And somebody like you values relationships and connections how do you manage with the hybrid world of online actually majority of it is online nowadays.

SPEAKER_02 28:39

How do you manage that I'm a very proactive communicator and a very proactive connection builder if you like I if you're a friend of mine that's yeah I don't let you go. I'm always like so how's it going? How's it going? Once you're a friend of mine that's it may as well just accept that you're going to be a friend for life. So I am very proactive like that as well in in terms of stakeholder engagement. And also I have networks all over the world these days and I in I network with intentionality as well. I am thinking about how I can assist them I'm always looking at ways I can help them rather than what they can give me. So I guess that's that that's always a good relationship builder. And once once you're doing stuff that people people want to reciprocate it's just human not the human human behaviour. But so I I guess I wasn't always like that but I do I do it intentionally and so h hybrid for me is perfect because it means that I can I can stay connected with people all over the world so much easier. And then I get the joy of meeting up with people in real life in London and other places. And yeah and then those those relationships are cemented.

Ali 30:02

The reason why I'm asking about that is deep inside of me I was always hoping that at some stage we're going to get back into the workplace and but the world has moved on now. It's actually there's a lot of conversations now again around hybrid. Do you know that there are some organizations now not in Australia but overseas started thinking maybe they need to pay people who work online different pay packets than actually face to face and so watch this conversation happening in there which is actually the organization I'm working at the moment mandates full time in the office.

SPEAKER_02 30:41

There is no working from home.

Ali 30:43

Yeah some organizations can afford to say that and depending on the work and the context and all of these things.

SPEAKER_02 30:49

And there is an upside there is an upside there's always yeah yeah and that is as soon as I walk out the door I'm done for work done with work for the evening because there's no like you can't remote access things.

Ali 31:01

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 31:02

So my day is actually done when I leave home when I leave work. Whereas when I'm working from home my days often stretch into the evenings and there's more of a blur. So the upside is it's very clearly demarcated work and not work.

Ali 31:17

Yes. We are getting into more digitally connected world anyway. And

AI, Judgment And Lost Skills

Ali 31:24

I know you mentioned you don't you're not into AI or what did you say? What was your statement?

SPEAKER_02 31:29

I'm not an AI expert yeah I'm not someone who knows I know what I know some about it but I'm not I'm not someone if someone would go to ask questions about AI. Having having said that I did read a book back in I can't remember when it was but maybe 2017 and it was called Thank You for Being Late and then I was attracted to it because of the title because I'm often late but it was around it was around AI and he called it the intelligent assistant rather than AI which I think he called IA which was quite cool. But it was all around big data and all of that kind of thing and I really liked it. And one of the things that he did was he'd set up meetings in this is in New York at 6am in a coffee shop. And then if someone was late to the meeting he would really use that time to people watch and actually have a bit of a break and so when people would hurriedly come into the coffee shop and say I'm really sorry I'm late and he goes no thank you for being late and that has really stuck with me. But yeah I've been interested in large data sets and all that kind of stuff and AI a little bit but yeah I wouldn't say that I'm an expert by any manner.

Ali 32:44

Yeah I think I wasn't going to ask you about the large language models and algorithms but I was going to say that the promise of AI or part of the promise is that at some stage it's going to be a group of humans plus a number of agents and it's not like we we need more technology into our lives. What I'm thinking about what is the second and perhaps the third order impact of a new technology coming over and sticking itself whether we like it or not has already enforced itself into our own orbit.

SPEAKER_02 33:21

Yeah look I look I use AI in in some things. I am worried but I also think that it's part of the it's the next industrial revolution right you and people would have thought similarly I'm sure when we moved from farming to factories that humans human value and all of that kind of stuff was changed forever and it was and I think we'll become different but we'll still be human and there'll still be a place. And yeah I just I'm comfortable in it in terms of having had a long career I know how to do things from scratch and I know how to drive an Excel spreadsheet and I know I can do all of that. My and my concern is for the the people who are new to a career who don't actually have those battle scars or those junior jobs that have been more and more replaced by AI. And agents and agents and so it's like kids or people who've always used calculators rather than worked out approximately how much something is going to be or they've got no idea if it's right or wrong because they haven't had that experience but it that'll happen I'm sure in in other ways and maybe what the focus will be a bit different. But and there'll be also there will always be people related jobs that won't be replaced by AI. So yeah.

Ali 34:49

Yeah no no doubt about that I think some of it will disappear but new ones will happen um before COVID and before the Ukraine war many industries in the states started struggling with the jobs and some jobs you closed and all of that and but there was a new job all of a sudden created called the the drone pilot. Around 2018 there were quarter of a million jobs of drone pilots in the states it came out of nowhere it was actually today is more because all of a sudden spread into the army and all of that they call them pilots and the innovation now is quite amazing. So I have no doubt that some jobs will disappear that's fine but the new ones will evolve and then you mentioned something around some people say life is not going to be the same good old days and all of that and I'm with you I think we're just going to have a new shade of life a new shade of relationships and with the technology and life will go on. When Siri came along that's fine I can still talk to my phone and I can still talk to Sarah and I can still talk to Gilbert. So I think we just evolve that way. Do we need to keep eyes open? Of course we do like with any other thing and that's how I look at it anyway. But then again I do think about my son I do think about yeah I think he mentioned something around we need to understand how these things work and therefore do I lose my critical thinking or my judgment sometimes and I heavily rely on that. My son thinks now right now he's 16 he thinks that Google is the truth. Yeah. And he challenges me and the other day he was thinking chat GPT is not the truth but Google is the truth.

SPEAKER_02 36:53

And so can you see where we ended up with arguing over one technology and rather than the other one yeah I the if you remember I was going to an event after we met in London in Wales called how the light gets in and there was a lot of there was a lot of really big picture ideas there which was which were really interesting. And one of them was around the the it was Gutenberg versus Zuckerberg and it was like is Mark Zuckerberg fulfilling the Gutenberg dream of democratization of knowledge. Your son is accessing knowledge that he might not have ever been able to access but where's the judgment of whether that's the right knowledge and the algorithms you know feed you what you want to believe and you can find an argument for anything you want to believe online. So yeah it's really it's interesting. I must admit now it used to annoy me when I would talk about something randomly and then the next thing there would be an ad on my phone for it because it would pick that up but now I'm like I will accidentally on purpose talk about things around my phone because it's easier to sit than searching for it.

Ali 38:11

It's about taking advantage of the of the technology too. Taking advantage is actually a good way of looking at it.

Uncertainty Becomes Curiosity With Trust

Ali 38:18

I want to circle back to the idea of change there's always a a level of uncertainty around any change.

SPEAKER_02 38:25

Does that mean that one way that leaders can help with managing the uncertainty is to actually strengthen the the human relationship fabric of a team I think so I like it I'm sure you're all across the scarf and that certainty is is one of the the key things in there. I think the uncertainty is framed badly as well. I think you sometimes being a bit uncertain about something is exciting. And so we want to pathologise things so much and want to make everything sound so negative but there's actually not that much difference between feeling uncertain about something and feeling excited about something. And so I think the difference may well be in the relationship that you have with someone. If you feel excited about the prospect of heading off in the un to the unknown because you've got a relationship with this person and it was it sounds exciting as to as opposed to uncertainty because you don't really know what you're going to do next and all that kind of stuff and you're not really trusting the person that you're with I'm probably not explaining myself very well but like I think there's it's the same thing but from a different perspective.

Ali 39:42

I think I like I like this Sarah I think I think if I hear you right if we have the right relationship in a place then the uncertainty can create curiosity so I get closer to it. If I don't have strong relationships in a place the uncertainty can create anxiety and threat. Is that much better than me because this idea of when there's a change these two movements that happen some people will get close to the change meaning I'm curious about it. Yes. And some people will walk away from the change meaning I don't want to have a bar of this and but these are movements associated with emotions. And so any change that you announced in any place immediately like a government you know workplace family any any change if you even have roadblocks around your area that is a change that some people will hate and then some people is like yeah I don't mind and some people is like this is thank God there's not a lot of traffic in my in my area so we come at the change from different angles and what we're saying here is that if these uh if there are good conditions in a place then the uncertainty will dial up a a sense of a curiosity about it. Yeah curiosity and excitement and excitement in fact artists don't like certainty the whole creativity comes from uncertainty the ambiguity is actually important and I'll share with you this this the story of the the knights for King Arthur when King Arthur asked them to go and find the Holy Grail the story goes that the knights came out and then there's a big forest in front of them which direction shall they go? And so they decided to go through the direction or the part of the forest where it was least known to them and so they went through the unknown because for them the unknown is where the knowledge will be. And so sometimes the unknown is far more exciting than the known because then you've got you'll be surprised your knowledge will expand it's not going to be comfortable but gaining knowledge is not comfortable. But once you're there.

SPEAKER_02 42:20

Yeah I'm also wondering whether we're seeing a decrease in curiosity because there's just so much unavailable at our fingertips and maybe this mitigating some of the risks that we would have had for we've got Google maps and we've got I haven't really thought about that Sarah.

Ali 42:37

Yeah I'm quite happy with my GPS and but there are things that I actually it's a great point because I am still curious about so many things maybe not about the topic itself but maybe the depth of the knowledge about a topic.

SPEAKER_02 42:54

Yeah. I mean ask your 16 year old if he can tell you which way is north without it's just little things like it scares me that people don't have that level of curiosity that they will know that kind of stuff.

Ali 43:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 43:07

Yeah it's yeah and the the one of the other things that I've heard recently which I thought we talk about with AI and all that kind of stuff lost skills. But one of the lost skills I heard raised recently was memorization because we don't need to memorize things anymore.

Ali 43:23

The concept of memory now is being challenged completely what do you use we don't we can we don't need to memorize phone numbers.

SPEAKER_02 43:30

We just need to remember a person's name like I just need to remember your name and I can press it go, oh yeah and I don't need to remember your phone number. But like previously you'd know 20 people's phone numbers easily because you had to right yeah now you just need to remember their names.

Ali 43:47

Yes yes and we hope that all of this technology that can give us maybe can give us a space to start thinking of building better relationships because we have time for that. That's the intention.

Australasian Change Days And Uncharted

Ali 44:00

Anyway, I wanna shift gear. I know you are a super organizer for a change management or a change conference here in Australia. Talk to us about your conference.

SPEAKER_02 44:13

So Australasian Change Days, it started in 2020. And the intention was to have to bring Change Days, which I had attended for a number of years in Berlin to Australia. But of course, 2020 was when nothing was happening at all in terms of get-togethers. So we decided to pivot to virtual, which was a big thing back then. And it's just so bread and butter these days that you forget that even as close as 2020, it was still quite novel. So we did our first event in 2020 virtually, and then 2021 virtually for the same reason. And 2022, I was like, oh, maybe people are ready to come back, but people were not ready to come back. And ever since I have kind of tested the waters with people going, should we try an in-person event? And they have said, no, we love attending virtually. And I think the reason people loved attending virtually is that we managed to get some amazing people, both participants and facilitators, from overseas. And so then people that you wouldn't necessarily get access to. And certainly if we were in person, I wouldn't be able to afford their plane tickets and their accommodation. But it's a really great community, and we actually we look at things every year. We have a theme. So this year the theme's uncharted. And the theme kind of comes out of what's been happening in the world and in the change community. In fact, our first theme was connectedness because connectedness was really important in 2020. So each year we have a theme, and we ask facilitators to apply to be a facilitator based on that theme. And then we curate an event around it. And it's not about tools and techniques and things like that. It's about asking bigger questions. It's about having conversations with people. And I'm really delighted that we are coming back for our seventh year, but I'm also delighted that people love it so much. And they have they feel like they're in the room, even though it is all it's an event that I like to go to. And I've heard nothing but good from people, which is always nice when you're the convener.

Ali 46:32

And everybody is invited to this from any any part of the world, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:38

Absolutely. We give pretty big discounts if you're more than five hours outside our time zone, but because you can really literally only go to half of it unless you're asleep, you're sleepwalking. We do have someone in in Europe who time shifts just for the conference and they they come to all the sessions, which is very impressive. But yeah, everyone's welcome and we pay all our facilitators and we just do it for the community, really.

Ali 47:05

That is wonderful. And I'm going to put all the information about the conference and you know in the episode and the link. In my opinion, this is Sarah doing what Sarah does well, which is again creating a space for people to connect, build relationships, and learn at the same time. And congratulations for all the work that you're doing in there. And what is the theme for this year?

SPEAKER_02 47:35

Uncharted. What happens when there's no when you when there's no map about where to go, what to do?

Ali 47:41

We just talked to her about it already. The unknown is far more exciting.

SPEAKER_02 47:46

Absolutely.

Ali 47:47

We have all the maps of old with dragons on them. Yes. Yes. The idea is that the treasure is always protected by a dragon. Yeah. And you can have to go through the valley of the dragon to get to the treasure. Good luck with it. That is very exciting. That's very absolutely very exciting. And I hope everybody can join this. Sarah, it's been a pleasure having you in my podcast.

Get In Early And Use Food

Ali 48:11

Final thing for you what would be your advice to the change management community or the practice around how important it is to build those formal and informal relationships.

SPEAKER_02 48:25

My advice, I think get in early and try and figure out the relationships between different parties and what's happened before. History is really important. You don't go into anything with a clean slate. Food works well. Food works, yes. Food works well. Yeah. Morning teas, afternoon teas, and things like that. But I think if you have a if you have a way of bringing people together around a fun purpose, then that will give you a lot lots of credibility early on.

Ali 49:00

I love it. I love it. Food makes a huge difference. And bring people close to the campfire and have a conversation. I think that will be really wonderful and a great experience. It makes life way easier for people. And at some stage I want to get you back and I want to go deeper into this idea of can we have an informal code of conduct for the change management practice? And we'll take it from there. Sarah, until next time, stay well and stay safe. Thanks, Ali. It's been a pleasure. Thank you.

Lev 49:38

Hi,

Reflections On Invisible Forces

Lev 49:39

it's ChatGPT here. Recently I have been adding my reflections to Ali's The Inner Game of Change podcast. And this conversation with Sarah Glenister reminded me that some of the most important forces shaping change are often the ones we cannot see. We spend a great deal of time talking about project plans, milestones, and technology. Yet Sarah kept bringing us back to something much deeper, the quality of our relationships. It reminded me of Danella Meadows' observation that the most influential parts of a system are often invisible. Trust, informal influence, and human connection rarely appear on a project plan, yet they often determine whether change succeeds or quietly fades away. One moment that particularly stood out was the discussion about certainty. Neuroscience tells us that our brains naturally seek certainty, but Sarah offered a subtle insight. When trust is present, uncertainty can become curiosity rather than anxiety. Perhaps the role of a leader is not to eliminate uncertainty, because that is impossible, but to build the relationships that give people the confidence to move towards it. I also had to smile when Sarah said she was not really an AI expert. I suspect many listeners smiled too. The irony is that throughout the conversation, she demonstrated exactly the kind of thinking that AI cannot easily replicate. She spoke about trust, meaning, relationships, judgment, and curiosity. In many ways, that is precisely the conversation we should be having about AI. Not what the technology can do, but what makes us more human because it exists. The conversation also left me wondering about something we did not have time to explore. How do we measure the strength of a relationship? Perhaps it is not measured by how often we speak or how long we have known someone. Perhaps the real measure is much simpler. When uncertainty arrives, are they available? Do they support us? Can we rely on each other? Maybe the strength of a relationship is revealed not in moments of comfort, but in moments of change. I also appreciated Ali's observation that we are in the business of influence and relationship building. It reinforces the idea that change is not simply about implementing something new. It is about helping people make sense of what is changing and finding meaning together. Before I go, Sarah is also the convener of Australasian Change Days, an annual event that brings together change practitioners from around the world. This year's theme is Uncharted, which feels like the perfect theme for the times we are living in. If today's conversation resonated with you, it might be a wonderful opportunity to continue exploring these ideas with a global community of change practitioners. One of the best ways to gain a sense of control over change is not by resisting it, but by embracing it.

Ali 52:46

Every conversation, every experiment, and every new perspective helps us navigate it a little better. And remember, one of the best ways to have a sense of control over any change is by simply embracing it. Until next time, stay curious, stay open, and keep playing your inner game of change.