Transcript: How to Lead Change at Your A/E/C Firm – Part 1

Hello. Welcome back to another episode of the marketers take flight podcast. And I am very, very honored today to have one of my colleagues on, Miss Rana Blair. She’s another senior consultant with Full Sail Partners. So thanks for being here today, Rana.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

And before we get started into today’s topic, why don’t you tell our listeners a little bit about your background and your career path and how you help our clients today?

Okay, well, first of all, I am not in the function of marketing or business development. I am a consultant as a consultant, I am is seller doer. So that does put me in the position, quite frequently, in a variety of ways in which I’m reaching out, to earn new business. I’ve been a consultant, your colleague for several years and I’ve been in this business for about six, at this point. Previously, I was working in the AEC industry as the financial manager for an engineering firm. That was 13 years and I thought that I could maybe take the jump and help more people. Previous to that I worked in software and also not for profit organizations. I was born an accountant. I used to play with a tin key instead of Barbie dolls. So it was always sort of destined right? For this type of job, but really in the last six years, what I’ve taken on is project and production management. So I can’t tell you the last time I’ve helped someone with a debit or credit, but what I am helping with is project delivery. And over time we’ve seen lots of changes in, in the approach to, not only the business of delivering projects and design industry but also how we conduct a business around that. And that is what’s really brought me into talking with you over the last few months about change. Really wanting firms to understand it and see it as a part of the effort. Not, not as an aside.

Yeah. And like you mentioned, we’ve both been working well, I’ve been working with Full Sail Partners for over three years now. And I would say we didn’t really work that closely up until about eight months ago, I would say probably at the beginning of 2020. We’ve had a lot of joint client projects together and implementations and transitions and how I’ve seen you interact with clients and help them work through these changes. That’s when the light bulb moment went off and I was like, Oh my gosh, I’ve got to have Rena on the show because from a marketing and BD perspective, I’ve worked at several firms where I’ve tried to bring in a new BD process or just a BD process and trying to get change. Implement change that we know is good for us but is oftentimes very difficult. So that’s through our interactions with our clients and working closely together. The last, I don’t know, eight or nine months now. You bring some valuable insight, I think through your experience, on the project delivery side. And teaching and guiding our clients through that. That’s why I wanted to bring you on the show today to help other marketers and business developers.

Great idea. Thank you for having me. I mean, we are experiencing ourselves in our own business, a great deal of change. Just the fact that you and I, spent the first two years of our working relationship, hardly interacting. And now we talk to one another daily at this point is really a great example of what’s happening on a macro level. We are finding that organizations are willing to look at things more holistically. You and I have typically been in our own disciplines, myself and project delivery, you in business development. And here we are finding ourselves together, talking to the same people in the same meetings, on the same projects, and that in itself is a huge change for us and for you. And I, I think we’ve gotten on very well. I think we’ve learned some things from one another, and are really using that to move clients forward. So it’s been, it’s been exciting. It’s not always easy, right? There’s more coordinating, right. You’re organized and I’m a little bit hair on fire but it has been a really great experience. And I, I think we should have a roadshow and kind of show people how it’s done because no one expects projects and business development to get along and we are proof that we can.

That we can be friends and work together. So let’s get right into it. So when we think about changing processes or systems in our AEC firms, why is it so hard for our firms to make these changes?.

I have a joke for you. So you can apply it to any profession, but it goes something like this. What are the two things that design professionals hate the most? The first is the way things are. And the second is change.

Yeah. Yeah.

You can substitute any profession. You can, you can just pretty much put that in terms of all humans, we know we don’t like a situation, but we are actually more reluctant to change it. It’s easier to just go with what, you know. In our industry and the AEC industry, we are very attached to our traditions. We look at the masters of design, like Frank Lloyd Wright. We take tours of ancient structures, gothic structures. We’re really based in tradition, even the way that the business organization itself is very structured in tradition. So it’s difficult for us to move outside of that. And in this industry, we’re taught a lot of things, a lot of standards and principles and if you go about changing those in some ways it feels like you’re invalidating those standards and principles. It feels like a rebellion or a rejection of those. And that makes us very reluctant to change. Oftentimes we are having to change and being faced with change. while our mentors are sitting there watching. Right? So it’s not, it’s not something that we want to take on easily, especially if there are emotional attachments to what we’ve come up with and what we’ve come to know. Look, humans are humans, right? Everything that we learn from the moment we are born up through the time we become professionals is a part of our fabric. And to change these things is difficult. It’s in our muscle memory. I teach planning, with one of the software products and I find myself saying to the groups a lot, look, eventually, you’re going to keep doing this thing until your muscles know what to do. Long before your brain has to think about it. Now that’s an advantage. The problem with that is, is then we get stuck in our ways, right? Where there are a million different terms that we have. Can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Yeah, you, you have it because even though our brains are fully capable of thinking, I mean, we’re very highly intelligent animals. Our bodies want to do what they’re used to. You see that, everywhere that you go, it totally fights us, but here’s the thing about the design industry, the AEC industry. We actually do change quite a bit. We change to save human lives, right? Our, our designs get smarter, more efficient, more, safer for us. We change in response to, the environment and then things that we have found scientifically to make it better. We are harnessing the power of the sun, using windows. I mean, these are things that were definitely not part of the norm 30 years ago, let alone a hundred years ago when some of the foundations of this industry were put together. So some ways I think that gives us a unique opportunity to just go full-on with it. just just say, look, we are changing the world through design. Let’s change our own world and let’s redesign the way that we do things for the betterment of ourselves personally, for the organization itself, which then does translate into how the world operates. Nothing is done on this planet without design. We should be the leaders and embracing that change.

 Absolutely. Wow, that was just so inspiring. I’m just awestruck. So when you’re working with a new firm, we engage with clients. Clients come and hire Full Sail Partners to help them with their resource planning, their accounting, their CRM systems. So when you’re working with a new firm, whether it’s a client or at a new firm, and you know that you have to change their process or their process needs to change. What is your philosophy or how do you approach that?

Well, before I get to the philosophy will tell you, there is always this initial fear, even though I’m like, all about change and yeah, you can do it. There’s always this initial fear. Is this the time when it doesn’t go so well? What if I can’t help this group move across the line? So I always update my resume just to make sure this is, you know, that I’m ready in case this is my last, but in general, I think the first thing I do is just, recognize that there is a lot at stake for, for the individuals involved, on the team. They’ve got to learn something new. They’ve got to turn old habits on their ears really. It makes everyone uncomfortable. Right. It, Doing this for firms oftentimes is walking in the door, knowing that at some point with everybody in the room, I’m going to become the least loved person on the team. Right? Because I am the embodiment of the change that they’re going to have a reaction to. And yeah, so, so knowing that upfront, right? Knowing that humans don’t like change, knowing that, The are reluctant for a lot of reasons, and we’ll kind of explore some of those reasons later on, but, knowing that there’s reluctance, I think the first thing that has to happen is understanding where individual members are on what is commonly called in the industry tehat change curve. Where are they? This change curve actually looks a lot like the seven stages of grief, depending on which books you read. Because honestly, it goes all the way from denial through and beyond acceptance. So finding out where the individual members are on this curve and where the group as a whole is on the curve and understanding that, people may move back and forth along that curve a little bit until you hit a certain point. And then, really helping them understand, that changes are going to happen, that it needs to happen or assessing whether or not they’ve actually, they themselves realize the change needs to happen. Okay. There’s a gentleman out there Dr. William Bridges, who started writing about change before it was a buzzword in our industry before change management was, was something that we look at as a discipline. And he’s been saying for a long time that, your emotions and your attitudes as they move from that denial to confusion, to impatience and enthusiasm, he’s saying that everybody goes through all of these, at some point in the process and so the first thing that we have to understand is that even with the people that are willing. The people that have called me in and said, Hey, we want to change and we want you to help us change. They’re going to have an adverse reaction and that we have to pay attention to it, acknowledge it, face it head-on, work with it. Right. So the first thing that we want to do is make sure that people understand. They understand the need for change, what they’re responding to, why it is that this change is being proposed, right? And understanding why isn’t enough. Because just because I know why we need to change, even if I want the change, there’s some anxiety that comes along with that Lindsay. First of all, Maybe if it’s a new piece of software or a new process, maybe I’m afraid that I can’t do it. Like I’m unable to do it, that I don’t have the skills, or maybe a feel like it will make me obsolete. These are some pretty major anxieties for people to have and everyone has them. Right. You know how to do the job that you’re doing today. And now somebody tells you they’re going to change your job or your responsibilities to something you don’t quite know how to do yet. It’s a natural reaction. Right? So, that initial shock to the system is a bit rough and at that point, when you were in the context of change, you can’t answer all of the questions. Sometimes you can’t say, well, the change is this. And this is exactly how your life is going to post the change. Sometimes you’re discovering, right? This is really tough for people because think it causes a lot of frustration and this is one of the places that we need to be very, very careful knowing that we’re still conceptualizing what the end goal is or what the end result is going to be, and also the journey to get there. It’s important to communicate with people. that is what they’re there to help you do. That they’re involved in that process, confirm with them that you don’t know exactly what the end result looks like. Confirm with them that we’re trying a few different things. But we know we want to be better for one reason or another.

Yeah, I think, too, I know that’s a really important piece because I know even when I was at my previous firms and now I help with CRM implementations, making sure that we’re working on the process as we’re going through the journey. So we, we don’t know what it’s going to look like and making sure that to communicate that I think that’s key because some people I know even have clients and they’re like, well, what’s our process going to be when we implement CRM? And it’s like, well, I don’t know, because I don’t know what you’re following their processes to get that out together. And so having that clear level setting expectations and communicating that at the beginning, because I know, sometimes at least on the marketing side, we might have a brand new, like, okay, we’re going to have this new inbound content marketing strategy in it. These are going to be the results and this is what it’s going to be. And so follow this process and we’ll, we don’t kinda know, you know, they’re kind of aspirations at that point, and let’s try it. It might be harder to get people to be on board with that.

Right, exactly. And some of the writers the big thinkers on this will put it in terms that we’re uncomfortable with. But, it is true. You have really got to spend time establishing what’s in it for me. And there’s no better way to put that. We do it with our children. If you’re taking care of your parents, you’re doing it with your parents. You’re always having this sort of negotiation. If you do this, I will do this. Right. And really establishing what’s in it for people is, is very important. And you actually do that all along the process. There, there are some, thinkers that say, Hey, from, from the start of this, when we’re, when we’re in that initial shock all the way through and past the stage where the change has been completed and everyone is fully across it, you have to reinforce that change with the, with addressing the what’s in it for me, principle. To keep it going too. And to also encourage the next change to happen when it’s important for it, to happen. But before we, before we get there, there are some pretty low points.

Yeah.

I kind of, I’m thinking of, I’ve got a situation right now where everybody is across the change. They know why they need to do it, we’ve even called in experts to confirm that they need to do it. And it doesn’t help that there’s some regulation from an accounting standpoint that dictates we need to do it right. It’s still a change and it’s still different from what, what they, they want to do. But, there’s still this stage when this is the one we’re in right now where they’re trying to negotiate away from the change. I like to call it creative opposition.

I love that phrase.

Creative opposition is where we start to throw a bunch of what-ifs, into the mix. Well, what if we were to establish this and then you insert some really elongated, very confusing process that they’ve dreamed up in their heads, just to avoid the simpler process. But the ones that change in that is actually very difficult because it’s actually at the bottom of this change curve. That I’m totally behind, it’s like a, it’s like an upside-down bell curve if I can describe it. Right. And this is at the bottom. Some writers call it, approach-avoidance. I like to call it creative opposition. And it’s almost as if they’re bargaining. They’re trying to find a way or a method by which this change can occur in the same way that is more comfortable for them. And you can get stuck there and you have to understand as you are, as you’re going along that curve, that sometimes you spend some time, it is important to hear out those what-ifs that’s important too, to kind of entertain them because what you’re doing with that is you’re actually going on a journey with the individuals, as they bargain with themselves.

Yeah. And let me give you another example because when you said approach-avoidance or creative opposition, a perfect example came into my mind. That happens a lot with CRM implementations instead of trying to get their doers, sellers, or seller doers, to just enter a contact into the database, they have that person email an admin. And then have entered a contact into the database. And I said, okay, well now a PM or project manager or architect is now sending an email to an admin, which will probably take that person the same amount of time to enter the contact into the database. And now is now spending time. So instead of just Mr. Or Mrs. Architect, you’re going to go into this database or use the outlook integration or use the app and enter it yourself. So I think that’s kind of a good example of your creative..

That, that is a perfect example because one of the things that I think we, all of us on the planet do when we’re trying to address the what’s in it for me is we talk about how efficient it will be. If they just do it the way that’s been prescribed, right. That, that change will just make your life so much easier because you know, in the, in the case where, why don’t we just email reception and they put it in and then email me back,. The same person will tell you that they don’t want to get excess emails. Right. And they don’t want to have to stop what they’re doing. and wait for somebody else to work, but yet they prescribe a solution that is probably less efficient than what they were doing before. Which was dropping off a business card. Right? So that’s where telling them just how efficient it is doesn’t always work because that is a clue that their mind is not with efficiency. Their mind is I have to do something in a place that I don’t know how to do it. And I am the one that’s going to have responsibility. That’s really tough Lindsey. To accept the responsibility and it’s almost like you have to have a psychology degree or like, I don’t know, practice doing CIA clearances or something to try to see what people’s motivations are when they come up with some of those crazy.

Yes. And that’s just a simplified one. I’ve had all other, I like to call creative opposition, in bargaining suggestions, come up in some of my CRM implementation meetings.

Yes. It’s a skill that I think we master somewhere around two and a half. Some become like doctorates in it by the time they get into their thirties. And you don’t know what’s happening to you, but, again, just sort of stopping, assessing where this, where this individual or group of individuals might be on the curve and realizing where they are now, the good thing about your example. I love your example. Is when they start saying, well, we could just email someone down at the front desk and they could put the contacts in. There’s a hidden thing in there. They finally have accepted that the contacts need to go into the system. Right. So one of the things that we want to do is be very grateful, recognize when we’ve had those tiny, tiny wins with groups of people. If you can get folks to say, well, somebody else, other than me ought to enter contacts in the system or somebody else, other than me ought to put in the estimate to complete hours. You’ve got the understanding that someone needs to get that into the system. So you’ve actually made progress.

 I never even thought about it that way. So that is great, that’s a great point.

It’s hard to stay positive. Cause often we’ve been hovering in that section for a little bit.

And a low point. Yeah. And the low point of the curve.

Yes, yes.

Since you said it was a low point, does the curve ever go up, like what’s the upside of this management curve?

So after the creative opposition, we start to lose the opposition part. Maybe we’re not fully sure. We want to make the change and that we want to do what it takes, but we’re actually listening at least with one ear. At that moment where we’re turning from the past and albeit very slowly turning to the future, that that is what some people call the reorientation or the exploration mode they’ve seen the light. All of their crazy ideas for implementing it have been appropriately and peaceably redirected into the right solution, right. They actually start to contribute. And, this is where the curve starts to go up. And it’s almost maddening. How quickly it can go. Because once they get over this hump, suddenly they’re contributing in ways that you didn’t even solicit. I don’t know if you’ve had situations where, you know, you’re trying to do one thing. And then all of a sudden somebody goes home overnight. They have an epiphany, the clouds open, the angels are singing and they come back with a 15 point list of what else we should do.

yes. Yeah. I’ve had a couple of clients like that and they come back with, okay, we’re ready for the automated go-no-go form, setting up the automated promo number, you know, like just all sorts like anti-process to now we’re processed,

Yeah, we want everything automated. Now that that’s actually a fun phase, but sometimes. We can actually lose sight of the goal. The one thing that we changing may come back to haunt us if we don’t control it. So this is where, and you know, you’re super organized where you start to sort of parking things and having this visual list of what we want to accomplish, what we have accomplished and what is parked, for later goals, when we start the exercise or the journey of change all over again. Because you have excitement in people. If you will, you know, as they get creative and maybe you come up with some solutions and you feel like you have a setback, because somehow they get in a trench again, right? We’re not sliding back down the curve but they get a little skeptical. We’re not together often in rooms anymore but it’s the point where the group is agreed you need to change and you reasonably agreed to what the solution is. You begin to run through it. It’s almost done, right? You’ve documented it. Got it structured. And the arms are crossed. Right. And it’s very disheartening. What they are doing at that moment is, is they are finally saying goodbye to the old way of doing things. Now they’re not going to go down without a fight. Right. So that’s, that’s, that’s what that body language is about. And that’s what I miss about being in the room with people because there are so many more tells than just what people say. And, you know, we’re finding those tells, you know, on our Zoom meetings and things like that. But it’s a little bit harder to predict and we have to work a little harder, but it’s right there at that moment is an opportunity. You gotta address that skepticism. You gotta, let it run its course. You have to manage it. Right. And, and you have to, you just really have to acknowledge it for what it is kind of internally, but give it a little bit of energy because that quickly turns it’s usually just one little detail or one set of situations that they’re stuck in, that maybe haven’t been addressed.

And if you can get those individuals talking when, when they’re in that mode, You will start to finally dissolve the rest of the reservations, right? And that, that skepticism actually goes into an acceptance. Believe it or not. So you went from being oppositional to all of a sudden contributing with all this energy and creativity to being a skeptic and all of a sudden you’re accepting. And it is at that point where the productivity starts to rise the morale over the whole thing starts to rise up. And then you get to another magic point and that is where they are impatient for it to just be over with.

Yeah.

You know? And sometimes your cuts are made. And this just so they can get it done. But it’s important to understand that some of that impatience, that energy is, is some of it is I think, fatigue, Of going through the process. maybe, maybe they’ve seen the light, they get it. Let’s do it right. Also possible that back there, when we were sort of contributing all those random ideas, that weren’t a part of the change, or weren’t a part of the objective at the moment, once you get them to accept that they’re actually ready for the next.

Yeah, they’re ready to move on.

Yeah. Yes. Yes. And so during this stage is actually where you might actually begin pulling out some. Of those, those parked ideas and starting a new curve because you’re, you’re getting pretty high on the current change curve. And you want to use some of that momentum. To start another change. Right? So it’s a wave rather than just a curve and right? And so you can use that to your advantage, some of that impatience. Some of that impatience is actually going to help you finish what you need to finish. And, in what I do, usually, it’s the first time that we can complete a month-end. Using estimate to complete numbers. They begin to see it. Now we know, in the background, that we’ve had to do a lot to be able to provide that, that it’s not a hundred percent there yet. But we’ve provided this information to them in a way that they hadn’t had before in a way that challenges them really, holistically. And now they’re ready to be done with it. They’re not wanting to put in that extra work. So then we sort of, Kind of help them understand all of the underlayment, that still has to happen. And we’re building hope. We’re taking them along. This we’re still curving up, right? We’re not at the pinnacle yet. But we’re working to build the hope and we’re saying things like, well, you can have this on a regular basis, but to make it happen 10 days sooner, you need to do this. At this point, they already have the tools. You’ve, you’ve done a really good job of making sure that you’ve addressed the skepticism in those creative options that are not really options. Are no longer in their minds. So you can, sort of work with the group to understand that there is hope that you will get full there. And in what I do the second month of projects, financials produced using the estimate to completion except for, or it’s five days sooner. Okay. Right. So they have the information, they have the feedback that they need. And they’re ready to go. They’re ready to really finish it. And this is when you come kind of to the top part of the curve, which, some say is energy. Others say that it’s enthusiasm. It’s that last bit of a push to finally roll the change out, whatever it is. Now, I make this sound like a months-long process. Right. But it’s the same curve in something that takes a week as it is and something that takes two years.

 And for our listeners, I think of what this curve looks like. For those who are visual, obviously, we’re on a podcast, so we don’t have the visual that Rana shared with me a couple of months ago. And I just that’s what prompted this whole podcast episode. So I just, I never have seen it laid out that way and went, and it’s like psychological aspects of change management. And once I understood that it really helps me, work with my clients and I wish I would have known it kind of had this understanding years ago when I was working at firms trying to implement processes.

Okay, so I’m gonna stop our discussion with Rana right here because we are out of time for today’s show. But I’m going to continue part two of this conversation that rain and I had about leading change at your firm. In the second part of this episode, we’re going to talk about how to get the buy-in you need at your firm to make your changes and some, quick ways that you can take if you really need to make a change inside your firm. So Rayna gives us some suggestions on both of those. That’ll be coming up in episode 33 and just a few weeks after this episode airs. So make sure you hit that subscribe button. So you don’t miss part two of our interview. And that’s it for me today.

Okay. Bye. For now.