Change Management

When I started leading a high-powered recruiting team, I had the traits of the TYRANT leaders I now call out. Here's why: Despite my degrees, certificates, and ongoing professional development, nothing prepared me to transition into leading. I still had an individual contributor (IC) mindset, which unintentionally led me to compete with my very capable team. At the time, I engaged in behaviors like: Taking over projects instead of developing my team. Working long hours, thinking it showed commitment. Making unilateral decisions vs collaborating. Giving orders instead of providing clarity and context. Hoarding information instead of communicating transparently. Prioritizing my metrics over team goals. A month in, my boss at the time sat down with me and told me to own my transition and to stop taking over work when someone asked for help. (she's one of the best Leader's I've ever had) To transform my mindset, I sought out a few internal sponsors and observed how they managed their teams. I also asked my team for feedback on where I could do better. Once I made the changes: mindset and action, I began demonstrating new leadership behaviors: Coaching my team and developing their problem-solving skills. ↳Created an authorization matrix to empower them to make decisions. Promoting work-life balance through prioritization and delegation. ↳I stopped working on vacation to set a better example. Making collaborative decisions to increase buy-in. ↳They worked on the reqs, so I asked for their ideas and where I could implement them. Painting a vision and equipping the team to get there themselves. ↳I translated the organization's vision down to how it affected our team goals. Openly communicating to build trust and transparency. ↳I promoted democratic decision-making and explained when it needed to be autocratic. Aligning on and championing team goals over my individual metrics. ↳I held weekly reviews where I celebrated their success because it was OUR success. Here's what I want you to take from this: 1. Develop your team's skills rather than trying to be the expert. 2. Delegate decisions to increase buy-in and leverage diverse perspectives. 3. Openly share information rather than hoarding knowledge and insight. 4. Recognize and elevate your team's contributions rather than taking individual credit. #aLITTLEadvice #leadership

Recruitment needs to look different in 2024 than it did in 2019. 1. We need to pay less attention to current positions and focus more on longer term career trajectory. Many people have taken jobs unrelated to their careers to get through the past few years. Focusing only on their current position could cause employers to miss out on someone who is actually a really strong match. And for jobseekers, remember that there are many employers out there who do focus on your current job title. Try: 💡Highlighting your most relevant experience on your resume (a career accomplishments section at the top is one way to do this if your current title doesn't align). 💡Building out your more relevant experiences, and don't put as many bullet points under less relevant ones. 2. We need to provide more insight into our stability. Five years ago, I didn't really think to ask about what gives a company confidence in hiring at this time. Today, that is top of mind. Too many employers are rescinding offers, laying off people a few weeks into a new job, etc. So we need to be ready to share why this role is being hired, how our company is vetting the roles we're hiring to make sure they are needed, how we have supported employees when roles are eliminated, etc. And for jobseekers, companies may not proactively do this. It's OK to ask: ❓Why are you currently hiring for this position? ❓Have you gone through any restructurings? ❓How were those decisions made? ❓What supports did you provide your impacted employees? ❓How do you support the development of your workforce so you can meet your talent needs with your existing workforce? ❓What's your current financial situation and how does that compare to a year ago? 3. We need to focus less on formal education and more on looking for people who show they are adaptable and constantly learning. Transparently, I am always against degree requirements for most jobs, but they seem even less relevant in 2024. Pretty much no one in the workforce used generative AI as a part of their education so there's no correlation between that degree and someone's understanding of some of the more innovative technologies as an example. Instead of using shortcuts to take a guess at what someone's skill and aptitude are, we should be looking at how someone responds to change, builds new skills, flexes into other areas of the business, etc. - this is how we help build resilient, adaptable teams that can respond to the changing world we're in (and hopefully help us minimize layoffs as a result!) And for jobseekers, pay attention to the new innovations and technologies companies are using - the job description, company blog, and social media are great places to look for these. ✅ Highlight relevant skills and technologies used on your resume ✅ Share examples of how you've navigated change and applied new learnings in your interviews. The world looks very different in 2024 than it did in 2019, and our hiring should look different too.

Ever felt overwhelmed by the endless tide of change initiatives at work? You're not alone. A staggering leap from 2 to 10 – that's the average number of planned enterprise changes employees faced in 2022, up from merely two in 2016, Gartner research finds. Whether it's chasing efficiencies, transforming cultures, or overhauling legacy systems, the pace is dizzying. And here's the wall we've hit: While change accelerates, willingness to embrace it has plummeted. The same survey reveals a dramatic drop – only 43% of employees are willing to support enterprise changes in 2022, a steep fall from 74% in 2016. The kicker? Not every change is worth chasing. Organizations benefit when they sharpen their focus and channel energy into the changes that truly matter. Leaders benefit when they pivot from quantity to quality, from confusion to clarity. Strategic, meaningful transformation can energize teams, not overwhelm them. In the landscape of organizational change, less is often more. #ChangeFatigue #StrategicChange #FocusOnWhatMatters #Leadership #Growth #Learning

One reason why major record labels should support AI: it can generate demand for their valuable back catalogs. Remember that viral AI song with Drake and The Weeknd? It went viral because it sounded like them. And any time that happens, it increases the streams for the artist’s actual songs. Streams are a reflection of interest, but it’s also a reflection of timely media influences. If an artist performs at the Grammys or Super Bowl, they will have a sales bump. If a song is featured in a popular TV / movie, there’s a streaming bump for that song and artist too. And if an artist releases a new album, it drives demand for their old music. The rights holders of back catalog should support this. Streams reflect attention. AI can boost that attention, especially if a great song gets made. One of the common pushbacks on AI’s adoption in music is figuring out attribution, consent, and payout methods. But not too long ago, the industry had similar concerns around attributing revenue from user-generated content in YouTube that include’s an artist’s music. Well, YouTube figured out how to tag the songs and compensate the rights holders. Today, YouTube is the second-largest source of revenue for the industry. I believe that the same is possible for AI. I’m excited to see how it plays out. This was one of the topics I discussed on my recent chat with economist Will Page. We also covered why the recorded music and publishing may soon be worth closer to $40 – 45 billion, how to improve streaming royalty rates, and the boom in both vinyl and CD sales. Check it out here: https://lnkd.in/g-hvDkuF What’s the best way for the music industry to manage AI?

Traditional ML completely transformed media and advertising in the last decade; the broad applicability of generative AI will bring about even greater change at a faster pace to every industry and type of work. Here are 7 takeaways from my CNBC AI panel at Davos earlier this year with Emma Crosby, Vladimir Lukic, and Rishi Khosla: • For AI efforts to succeed, it needs to be a CEO/board priority. Leaders need to gain firsthand experience using AI and focus on high-impact use cases that solve real business pain points and opportunities. • The hardest and most important aspect of successful AI deployments is enlisting and upskilling employees. To get buy-in, crowdsource or co-create use cases with frontline employees to address their burning pain points, amplify success stories from peers, and provide employees with a way to learn and experiment with AI securely. • We expect 2024 to be a big year for AI regulation and governance frameworks to emerge globally. Productive dialogue is happening between leaders in business, government, and academia which has resulted in meaningful legislation including the EU AI Act and White House Executive Order on AI. • In the next 12 months, we expect to see enterprise adoption take off and real business impact from AI projects, though the truly transformative effects are likely still 5+ years away. This will be a year of learning what works and defining constraints. • The pace of change is unprecedented. To adapt, software development cycles at companies like Salesforce have accelerated from our traditional three product releases a year to now our AI engineering team shipping every 2-3 weeks. • The major risks of AI include data privacy, data security, bias in training data, concentration of power among a few big tech players, and business model disruption. • To mitigate risks, companies are taking steps like establishing responsible AI teams, building domain-specific models with trusted data lineage, and putting in place enterprise governance spanning technology, acceptable use policies, and employee training. While we are excited about AI's potential, much thoughtful work ahead remains to deploy it responsibly in ways that benefit workers, businesses, and all of society. An empowered workforce and smart regulation will be key enablers. Full recording: https://lnkd.in/g2iT9J6j

Surveys say over half of companies have deployed a GenAI app or feature and I’m not buying it. Deployed = adopted, and I can tell you from experience, adopted is the harder problem. Half of companies still don’t trust their data enough to act on it. Now you’re telling me that they have magically deployed and gotten users to adopt GenAI? Every AI problem is a data problem until the model hits user and customer hands. Then it transforms into a people problem. Users only adopt GenAI when it’s seamlessly integrated into the apps they already use. Don’t underestimate the difficulty of getting users to change. AI Product Design 101: The closer the model supported experience is to the original workflow, the better adoption rates. For example, most business workflows that involve data, use tabular data and LLMs don’t handle that well. SAP only released 1 LLM this week…and it works with tabular data. It has a conversational interface for users to ask questions about spreadsheets, price quotes, and financial reports because that’s what customers are used to doing. Users can work with familiar data types and still get the ease of the new interface and simpler data querying. Familiarity is the smartest approach to adoption. In the LLM-supported products I have worked on, once users adapt their workflows to leverage the new interface, they quickly form new habits. The hard part is getting them to start, and most companies don’t realize how big that behavioral change barrier is. I’m an SAP partner because they build stuff that works and gets adopted. Those surveys would be believable if more companies followed its lead. #GenAI #SAPSapphire

Your Leadership Blueprint for the Future 🔛 If you're an executive grappling with the fast-paced evolution of Tech, AKA #ai, you're far from alone. But while some see a challenge, I see an unprecedented opportunity. #GenerativeAi isn't just the future—it's your next competitive advantage. As someone who has spearheaded major technological integrations at AT&T, embracing AI today is not an option but an imperative. >>Key Leadership Strategies in the AI Era 1. "Active Listening: Your Secret Weapon in AI Adoption" Begin by conducting internal audits or surveys to understand the current perception of AI within your organization. Address concerns openly in town-hall meetings. 2. "AI: Augmenting Human Excellence, Not Replacing It" Implement pilot projects that clearly show how AI can improve but not replace human tasks. 3. "A Vision Well Communicated is a Vision Half Realized" Develop a transparent roadmap for AI adoption and share it across all organizational levels. 4. "Collective Learning: The Cornerstone of AI Success" Organize regular training sessions and encourage cross-functional teams to collaborate on AI projects. 5. "Human Potential: The X Factor in Your AI Strategy" • Celebrate and reward creativity, problem-solving, and other uniquely human skills that AI can't replace. >> Reshaping Corporate Roles for an AI-Driven World • "From Rote to Remarkable: Entry-Level Roles Reimagined" Invest in training programs that allow entry-level employees to upskill and take on more creative or strategic roles. • "Middle Management: Your New Role as the Talent Nurturer" Pivot from task managers to talent developers, focusing on guiding teams to maximize the use of AI tools effectively. • "Senior Leaders: Data-Driven Culture Architects" Lead by example. Utilize AI to make informed decisions and set a precedent for a data-driven culture. >> Organizational Structure: The New Shape of Success • "Flat is the New Up: Why Project-Based Teams are Tomorrow's Winners" Move toward a more agile structure that encourages rapid decision-making and adaptation. • Strategic Partnerships: Your Path to AI Superiority "Don't Just Compete, Dominate: Partner to Innovate" Seek partnerships with AI solution providers or academic institutions to stay ahead of the curve. This tech shift and paradigm change will redefine leadership, organization, and strategy. The AI revolution is already here—how you respond today will determine where you stand tomorrow. Are you leveraging AI to solve real-world problems, or are you still in the exploratory phase? •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Mariana Saddakni, ★ Digital Product Innovation, Operational Mastery, and Customer Experience Excellence ★ Former Global Head of Product and Customer Experience, AT&T– Fractional Executive, Service Industry Growth and Retention Expert 🌐 Let's connect! ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Early in my career, I faced a moment many of us dread: A sudden, unexpected company reorganization. It seemed like overnight ➟ my role ➟ my team ➟ my daily tasks were all up in the air. I remember the anxiety. The flurry of rumors. The uncertainty. They clouded my thoughts about the future. But it was in this chaos that I found clarity. I realized that change, though daunting, also brings opportunities for growth. I wrote an article on this for Harvard Business Review. Here are 5 actions you can take when your professional life is unpredictable: 1. Embrace the Uncertainty Use periods of change as a catalyst for introspection. Reflect on what truly matters to you and your future. 2. Define Your Identity Think about who you need to be... Not just what you need to do. 3. Focus on the Process Establish and commit to positive career behaviors. It gives you a sense of control and leads to results. Examples: • Contribute in each team meeting • Expand your network every week  • Offer a strategic idea to leadership monthly • Take on a stretch opportunity once a quarter • Thank a coworker for something helpful every day 4. Cultivate Learning Agility Be ready to adapt. Stay curious. Embrace new ideas. This mindset isn't just to survive; it helps you thrive. 5. Ask for and Act on Feedback Regularly seek feedback. Take time to reflect on it. It's crucial to know where you're growing. And where you need to improve. Change can be scary. But it's also a chance to reset. To pivot. You may discover new paths you hadn't noticed before. Remember... It's not the strongest or most intelligent who survive. It's those who can best manage change. Lean into the uncertainty. Use it as a stepping stone. Build a career that's not just successful, but also aligned with who you truly are. Find this valuable? Repost ♻️ to share with others.  Thank you! P.S. What keeps you going when things get uncertain?

Managing change represents significant challenges for leaders due to the complex dynamics of organizational behavior, resistance, and the need for strategic planning and communication. During transitions, leadership must navigate the diverse reactions of team members, who may fear the unknown or worry about how changes will affect their roles and job security.   But here is a little-known secret: Disabled leaders excel at managing change. The way we, Disabled professionals, manage change is an untapped resource. And Non-disabled leaders could learn a great deal from Disabled leaders about managing change. To begin, having navigated numerous personal and professional challenges, Disabled leaders often have a profound understanding of resilience. Our ability to adapt to changing circumstances and overcome barriers can teach other leaders about the importance of flexibility, perseverance, and creativity in the face of change. Secondly, Disabled leaders are likely to prioritize inclusivity, recognizing the value of diverse perspectives in decision-making processes. This approach ensures that changes include the impact on various needs and backgrounds, leading to more comprehensive and effective solutions that benefit the entire organization. Next, Disabled leaders tend to adopt a strengths-based approach, recognizing and leveraging the unique strengths of each team member. This perspective can teach other leaders to focus on the assets and potential of their teams, rather than perceiving change from a deficit-based viewpoint. Finally, Disabled leaders are often skilled problem-solvers, finding innovative solutions to overcome daily challenges. This skill can be particularly useful in navigating the complexities of organizational change, offering fresh perspectives and strategies that others might overlook. The multifaceted nature of change management, combined with the inherent uncertainty of new directions, makes it a particularly challenging endeavor for leaders aiming to achieve successful and sustainable transformations. By observing and learning from the approaches of Disabled leaders, Non-disabled leaders can evolve and enhance their change management practices, fostering a more inclusive, adaptable, and resilient organizational culture. Looking for more ways to create AND sustain #DisabilityInclusion in the workplace? Hit the ‘follow’ button! I’m an openly Autistic #DEIB Facilitator and Speaker on a mission to close the disability leadership gap. Want to make your organization truly #inclusive? For Consulting, Speaking, Training & Workshops, email me at Becca@TrulyInclusiveLeadership.com or visit my website https://lnkd.in/ggFshWks Images description: a textured dark green background with a quote from text that reads "Non-disabled leaders could learn a great deal from Disabled leaders about managing change." #leadership #workplace #DEIleaders #TrulyInclusiveLeadership

Change Communication is not sending an email. It’s understanding how the change fits with the business strategy. It’s creating a strategic plan with objectives that support the goals of the change. It’s showing up to the change leadership team meetings to actively participate.   It’s providing strategic counsel to executives and the change team. It’s using your knowledge of the organization to ask the right questions.       It’s knowing who your key stakeholders are and what is important to them. It’s understanding what you need each stakeholder group to do to make the change a success. It’s crafting the key messages that will resonate with each of your stakeholder groups and get them to take action. It’s determining which existing channels are the best way to reach your key stakeholders and creating new ones if the right one doesn't exist. It’s managing the calendar to get the right information out to the right people and the right time.    It’s gauging the success of the communications. It’s listening to the stakeholders. It’s providing stakeholders the tools they need to be a part of the change.      It’s pivoting quickly when you recognize there is an area that needs more information and attention. It’s thinking creatively about how to reach your stakeholders. It’s storytelling to help the stakeholders envision themselves after the change. It’s connecting the dots between the business need for the change and work that your stakeholders do. It's celebrating the success and mitigating the challenges. It’s sending an email if that’s the best way to reach your stakeholders. Having a change communicator on your change team from the beginning will bring all of this and more to the team.  Thanks to Parry Headrick and his PR Isn’t post for inspiring this list. If you aren’t following him, you should be! ✊ #ChangeCommunication #StrategicCommunication #ChangeManagement #InternalCommunication #SwingCommInsight