Efficiency Series #5 – Transcript

Episode details

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, business, advisor, change, training, technology, software, process, decision, implement, clients, advice, practice, fraser, team, hear, change management process, fantastic, persona, communicating

SPEAKERS

Fraser Jack, Ivon Gower, Mitchell Ramsbotham, Jodie Douglas, Vicky Andrews, Phil Thompson

 

Fraser Jack 

Welcome back to this the fifth and final episode in our series on innovation using technology brought to you by Morningstar. And if you haven’t, if you haven’t started the series, the first episode, then I recommend you go back and start at Episode One of this series. This is Episode Five, we really cover up on all things to do with the change management side, this change management process of implementing new technology into an advice practice. welcome back to this episode, Phil Thompson,

 

Phil Thompson 

thank you, Fraser.

 

Fraser Jack 

Jack, I don’t even know where you’re gonna say you’re always like I’m on. Edge, we are talking about all things change management, when it comes to software and you know, efficiencies and putting things in place. And you’re somebody who, as you mentioned in the previous episodes, like to, you know, continually review your software, make sure it’s right, continually upgrade if it’s necessarily in total, put that two year time frame in place to say, well, even if, even if it’s working. Alright, it’s been a couple of years. So we need to upgrade it. Talk to us about change management.

 

Phil Thompson 

Yeah, change management. It’s funny, because for me, the way I think about it is how do I communicate to the team now, it forever surprises me that people can’t read my mind. It’s very disappointing that my team can’t read my mind. But it is true. So for me, I just I think about and keep and need to remind myself all the time that I’ve got to keep communicating what I’m doing and just like, just drilled into my team and the broken record about anything, because I think I’ve spoken about it 10 times and and I still get team members going on what’s going on there might have not communicated this No, because I’ve communicated. I said it once in all team meeting. And then I said it three other times with other team members. So just be like a broken record when I’m when I’m talking about the expectation that when when using the software, what’s the plan is moving forward? So for me, it’s all about how do I improve my communication as a leader?

 

Fraser Jack 

Yep. And do you have a bit of a culture in your business? Obviously, if you if you’re constantly improving stuff, I think I guess your team will sort of get used to the idea that there was a bit more, a bit more disruption or momentum change coming along the pipeline?

 

Phil Thompson 

Yeah, I mean, we’ve grown a lot in the last few years. So we’re bringing on team members and change and like everything we’re doing has been changing every week for the last two years straight. So it’s kind of been good. Now, as we start to mature his business a bit more I am thinking about how do we keep? How do I keep communicating that we are wanting to change where I want to do things differently? And so, you know, October 1, with this income protection deadlines, like we were crazy busy, and we weren’t able to make many changes when there were issues. Well, we’re going to put up with it. And so post October or post first, first of October, it’s a matter of going okay, how do we read, reset it and go, right, we need to change things, you know, these are all the issues, this is how we’re going to improve what we’re doing. Yeah, I mean, that the team thing are amazing. They also want to improve the process as well. Like no one wants to do the same thing the wrong way, all the time. So yeah, for me, it’s just keep communicating what what we need to change and why we need to change it.

 

Fraser Jack 

And as I said, improving the process, I guess, as the if everybody’s focused on that, then, you know, the culture of continual change is okay.

 

Phil Thompson 

Yeah. And I keep on saying to my team, or probably I say it enough, I keep on thinking it and they don’t read my mind, but I keep thinking that, you know, I just want to hear about the issues like I don’t want you to winch to me, I mean, you can winch on the back, but I want you to communicate, what are the issues, you don’t need a solution to that issue. I just want to know what you’re finding difficult. And what you’re doing all the time because there’s, you know, really one of three outcomes from that. I’ll say, Yep, go fix it yourself. Or Yes, let’s work on this together and we can work on how to fix it. Or no, we’re not changing it. Because, you know, there’s five other pieces of the puzzle that impacts and it will negatively impacted. So I just read, I always just want to hear what are the issues were? What are you struggling with? And so I can kind of work with them and try and solve their problems.

 

Fraser Jack 

Yep. So you work with them solve the problem, work out what what the solution might be make a decision. And then then there’s the onboarding process, I guess, talk us through how that can work? Yes, sometimes

 

Phil Thompson 

there’s can be reluctance, like, yeah, I use an analogy, once we maintain that was, it was pretty gruesome. But it was like, there is an issue that we have in their business. Now, it happens for one of every, like, 10 clients where they don’t disclose that they should. Now our solution has been to, you know, you can, the saying is you can always, you know, lead a horse to water, but you can’t let them drink. Now, what we do in our business in my analogy was, we’re not just leaning into the water, asking the drink, picking up a bucket, shoving him in their mouth and forcing them to drink. If they still don’t drink, we walked two hours, get a hose, bring it back and shove it in their mouth and force the water down their mouth with our clients. And so let’s just also just reinvent the way we sometimes do stuff. Because even though sometimes my team don’t think it’s really a problem, it’s just something that needs to happen. Well, actually doesn’t need to happen. Let’s just always question do we actually need to do this? Is it a, helping the clients have already experienced? is it helping us be more efficient? And is a compliance issue? If it’s not one of those three things, and we actually might not need to do it. So like, team members may not think it’s an issue. They just think it’s what we need to do?

 

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, yeah. Fair enough. No, you’re right, with the three, the three different areas. And, and the analogy, I think, I think I heard that saying before, the idea of, um, you know, you take a really bad, really bad process, and you make it more efficient. It’s just bringing that bad, bad thing sooner. Yeah. So it’s about sitting back and working out whether the experience is going to be good first, and then and then and then creating the efficiencies around it. Yeah, that’s it. Now talk to me about how when when you’re implementing a new, you know, the training side of it, because obviously, if the amount of I would imagine, in your practice, a fair amount of time goes to training for new software and new new processes?

 

Phil Thompson 

Yeah, no, not as much as we should, that’s definitely an area that I can be doing heaps better in, is, is training on software, because that’s, I guess, our core software team, do it really well. But that ongoing training of like, hey, these are features that you can use, we don’t do anywhere near as well. And again, my team should really just read my mind, and that’ll that’ll help. But outside of that, definitely dedicate more time on training. And you know, there’s there’s few things like in the last week or two, I’ve kind of just recorded a loom video and say, Hey, guys, like, Did you know you can do this, this is an easy way to track this information that when they and you know, a lot of the team members may not have realized they could do that. So that’s the way I’m thinking about all these little things, because we have another capacity all the time to sit down and have a group Kumbaya and our session to talk about training on software. But just little tidbits here, I can just record a video and show them how to do it.

 

Fraser Jack 

Yep, fantastic. And apart from mind reading software, for yourself, and maybe they can listen to this podcast, and then find out what’s happening in the business. Yeah. Tell us about what the future holds. Have you got any big plans or big changes coming?

 

Phil Thompson 

Ah, we got huge plans want to take over the world? Now, I will not give you the world. But I mean, we, we really just think about how do we, okay, as a business, we want to be the preferred partner to financial planners with their insurance. My view is insurance advisors are gonna get out of recommending insurance too hard, make less money, too much of a risk. And how do we be that preferred partner for those advisors. So that’s kind of the way I think about it is our our end client is always going to be our client. But communicating to those referral partners on an ongoing basis at a time of which suits them is also an area that and we already do that is with referral partners. But that’s kind of an area of growth for us. That’s where I see see a big part of my growth.

 

Fraser Jack 

Yep. Fantastic. So obviously, part of the efficiencies is there. The idea of scale, how are you going with being able to scale your business,

 

Phil Thompson 

I’m pretty good every day. I think there’s a list as long as my arm other things we need to improve and we can do better. But we’ve been able to scale really well. Better than I ever thought was possible.

 

Fraser Jack 

I would say in what your growth, you’ve come a long way and you’re at a point where you’re able to you know, talk about helping clients just the numbers you’re talking about is is far outweighs anything I’ve ever thought of from a brisk business. Yeah. Fantastic bill. Thanks for coming on. Really appreciate if somebody wants to continue the conversation what’s the best way for them to reach out to you

 

Phil Thompson 

just connect with me any way you want. Philip? James Thompson is my name. I’m on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google Plus my space.

 

Fraser Jack 

That’s a great technology using the that your Hotmail account as well as it Oh, yeah,

 

Phil Thompson 

that’s it. I do feel j Tama No, I don’t know my old hotmail email address.

 

Fraser Jack 

Sure enough to Thanks, mate, or they can send you a letter. Probably that’s probably

 

Phil Thompson 

Yeah,

 

Fraser Jack 

I won’t really appreciate it. Thanks, man. Awesome. Thanks, man. Thanks for joining us again, Jodie Douglas.

 

Jodie Douglas 

Thanks, Fraser.

 

Fraser Jack 

Thank you for being here. Now let’s let’s dive in. We’re talking about change management. And obviously, you’ve got some pretty great systems in place already that we’ve kind of covered off on when it comes to change management.

 

Jodie Douglas 

Yeah, I love change me myself, I get bored and less things are changing. So change management, for me is all about embracing change. being adaptable, being ahead of the change, is where it’s so much easier to deal with change if you know it’s coming.

 

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, the old the old constant, I guess, I guess what I can, what I can hear from talking to you, as it’s really a culture within your business.

 

Jodie Douglas 

It definitely is 100% culture. Anyone that works at mad about life and is a part of the team knows that mad about life is always striving to be different. We are a practice. I mean, I have a slogan on my LinkedIn profile, which is all about the future of advice mad about life is about the future. And that’s about building an advice practice that has been adaptable, and is adaptable to anything that’s coming towards us in the future.

 

Fraser Jack 

Yes, that change or that you’re moving from the status quo just means not only your staff, you know, adaptable to change as it comes. But also Is it something you also talk to your clients about?

 

Jodie Douglas 

It definitely is. So our clients also love that about us, they love that we’re always striving to be more efficient, they know that that’s part of our culture. So it’s, it’s within our team, it’s also within our clients, they know that, you know, we’re we’re there with them. We’re a partner for life. And as things change in the industry, we’re there to help them through those changes, and to guide them through those changes. Quite often they they know, you know, mad about life is all over that because they’re ahead of it, you know, it doesn’t affect them, because we already know about it.

 

Fraser Jack 

Yep. Fantastic. Now, obviously, when it comes to having, you know, 10 different pieces of technology and your technology stack from time to time, I guess you’ll probably change them out as as new technology comes along. How do you go about the process of say, and I love that what you said before about, I’m not holding on to the hold, if you’re gonna make a change, commit to the change and do it and then go through the process? And then don’t hold on to the old system as well. You don’t you don’t need it. Talk to us about that your process that maybe in the past, or what you do around, you know, changing or swapping out one piece of technology for another. Yeah, definitely.

 

Jodie Douglas 

So it’s all part of the testing process. So it’s quite obvious when there becomes a need that we need a new tool. And there’s that question first, well hang on a minute, does the current tool have the ability to change? Do we know enough about it to be able to use it, and then if not, let’s look at what we can replace it with. And then we replace it whilst it’s also sitting there. And we train our team members and we start using the new tool. And then once everybody is using that, which is usually only a matter of, you know, weeks that we notice that nobody is logging into the old one anymore, and add our monthly meetings, we then go through our list and make a decision to turn off any old subscriptions.

 

Fraser Jack 

Tony turning off, I guess, as you’ve already mentioned, that you don’t store any data in the in the systems as your source of truth is within the CRM. So you know if that’s the case, you know, maybe please sign or, you know, or a text magic or anything like that, that all ends up in your source of truth and you delete anything out. So if you do choose to move on from a particular software and replace one with a newer technology that offers you better benefits, you know, you’re not having to lose any data.

 

Jodie Douglas 

That’s right, exactly. Like please son, for example, could you know not work tomorrow, if it didn’t work, it wouldn’t affect us. We’ve got everything stored within the clients file in advisor logic, we just need to quickly find another digital signature software that we could put our documents into. So our our documents, our templates, our client file information is all within a vital logic. These systems just allow us to be more efficient. And that’s a decision that we’ve made is not to rely on them in terms of losing any data or anything like that. They’re just a tool for efficiency.

 

Fraser Jack 

Yep. Brilliant. And you’ve already mentioned training, we will cover off and again on training in this particular episode, because training is such a big important part to that change management process. Tell us about, tell us about that. You mentioned the time you that your staff are put into training and how much time you ask your staff to put into training and software.

 

Jodie Douglas 

Yeah, that’s right. So it’s something that we do as a team, because change and training are not things that you will prioritize, you’ll you’ll always prioritize the business as usual, and go, Oh, yeah, I must do that training. And if you do that, you’ll never ever get around to it. So instead, we approach it as a team, we do team training, whenever there’s any changes, like this week, I will be sitting down with the whole team to take them through the new ddo requirements. I’ve obviously is the responsible manager all over that. But we’ll sit down together to then break it down. It’s not individual learning, I find that training as a team is always much better to how I learn as well. I love to do team training rather than one on one training. So yeah, embracing it as a team culture, I think is the key.

 

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, that’s incredible. And you know, I know you mentioned your testing process before, but talk to us about the the step by step process, part of that if we need to get into the nitty gritty of what does the testing process look like? And it exactly the time and the end, and you run it as a project? Yeah, that’s

 

Jodie Douglas 

right. So it becomes a widget within our Planner Tool. And Mike, our head of it is in charge of that. And what he will do is if any of us, say within a team, we’re getting really frustrated with this process, this is what we need, he will sit with us, so that we can show him exactly what we needed to do and where our frustrations are. And his knowledge may be very limited in terms of that that process. But he’ll sit down and understand exactly what our user requirements are, he will then go away and have a look at the current software we’re using, and then do some resource research into other tools, and then come back to us, usually individually to let us know where he’s at. And then again, at that monthly team meeting to update everybody in terms of what he’s found. And sometimes it’s not what we want to hear sometimes it’s Sorry, I can’t fix that problem. This is the best we can do with these couple of you know things not being possible.

 

Fraser Jack 

I think one of the benefits of this as he brings it to a resolution really brings it to a decision. So not just sitting in limbo sitting in I’ll get to that. He goes no, here it is, here’s the requirements it does or doesn’t The answer is yes or no The decision is do or don’t. And then when you know you’ve made the decision, you can move on.

 

Jodie Douglas 

It’s so good to be able to delegate it that’s the key like it because otherwise you’ll be sitting there as an advisor doing things the same way getting frustrated going. I wish this was better to be able to actually delegate that to a mike, for example. And he goes away and sees what’s possible and comes back and gives you a solution. Yeah, it’s worth its weight in gold.

 

Fraser Jack 

Yep. Fantastic. Now talk to me about any future ideas or efficiencies that you’ve got in your mind that you might you might see us in the years to come saving us a lot of time and the advice process

 

Jodie Douglas 

Yeah, I think the statement of advice statement of advice has been around for a very long time. And a statement of advice was always a written document. It’s a statement. However evolving that now to still be a statement of advice, but in a more digital manner. Which we’re already starting to do so we’re well equipped for when this does happen I believe the statement of advice is going to evolve away from a paper document into something more digital like a video something that people can understand without doing too much reading people nowadays don’t want to read 100 page documents they would prefer someone explain that to them. So how can we do that in the future I believe that’s going to be the biggest The biggest change and one that’s welcomed by many in an advice practice where that statement of advice development just the document itself is taking so much time I think that’s gonna be a very welcomed change in the near future.

 

Fraser Jack 

I couldn’t agree more and I think he just made a statement right there without writing a single word. Which is exactly what we can do and statements of advice use use video use voice use other means means of of providing information to state your case, I guess is the the key to it. My very thing thank you so much for coming on the series and talking about all things you know efficiency and technology. If somebody wants to get to do the conversation with you or find out more about your ideas and opinions, what’s the best way for them to find you?

 

Jodie Douglas 

Sure thing, I’m on LinkedIn. So please connect with me if you just search Jody Douglas, you’ll find me on there. I’ve also got my contact details on there and you can also email me which is as simple as Jodi Jodi IE at mad about life.com. Donate you. Wonderful. Thank you so much. Thanks, Fraser.

 

Fraser Jack 

Welcome back, Mitch,

 

Mitchell Ramsbotham 

thank you very much, Fraser, good to speak to you again. Fantastic.

 

Fraser Jack 

And in this episode, we’re talking a lot about the the human side of it, the change management that goes on within the business when, when the business does go through some some change and some software change. Sure. So tell us about your business, you’ve obviously been through this, there’s a lot of change going on a lot of growth going on? How’s the change management process going?

 

Mitchell Ramsbotham 

Yeah, so for us, when we look at change management, I’ve alluded to this in the in the previous episodes, our business is going through a significant state of flux, right. So we’ve gone from a small business and the ability to pivot and be extremely dynamic in what we do, and there being very limited detriment to to then backing out of whatever decision was made to because the, you know, when you’ve only got a couple of lines out, it doesn’t, it doesn’t take much to sort of bring them back in. But the pace for us has really increased due to the changing size and scale of the business. And it’s become more and more crucial for us to ensure that there’s a really specific project management framework in place. With, with timelines and implementation journey that’s really outlined, when any of these sorts of things can come up. And when we’re looking to roll them out. A lot of that has met, making way for specialists in the business because you know that myself and the management team are only a couple of, you know, a couple of people, and we don’t attest to know all things, it’s probably really sound to spread some of this load around between different value sets, goals, sets and key competencies of the people around me. And just letting people it’s no good just letting people loose on the technology that you need to be employed so that the project management are getting in place, making sure that there’s a specialist in the business and really setting up some clear guidelines around it has been extremely important for us.

 

Fraser Jack 

Yep. And at the end, you sort of touched on the the idea of training there and getting new staff across New systems. How do you go about that, you sort of mentioned that you’ve had, you know, you get a one person really trained up on it first, and then and then what do they take the rest of the team through.

 

Mitchell Ramsbotham 

So we run a we run a fairly significant training schedule in our business. And it’s probably a bit of a function of the times at the moment that we really need and want to have everybody together, it’s quite cathartic to have a group of people on a call that you can speak to other other than the couple of people that you stuck in a little box with bought in at home. But we’re on a fairly strict I wouldn’t say strict, but a fairly regimen, regimented to the training schedule, where we have regular catch ups every week, with the ability for individuals to put new training aspects of training. And so whatever potential lacks in in their their skill set or whatever it might be, be that individual or as a group, into the mix for training. So we will then so this, this, this is not just technology, this is just the way that we conduct the business, we create forums where if there is a deficiency across anything that we have, we have the ability for the specialist to come in and do that. And we and we see that quite often. But the training structures that we tend to run is you’re exactly right in our in our specific areas and regions will tend to have one specialist in the office that at any stage can be employed to be that troubleshooter or to be that subject matter expert. But we’ve been we’ve been really conscious of that, because coming from the Small Business mindset, to now a business where we’ve got 12. And soon to be more advisors 40 plus staff in total, we need to make really considered decisions now. Because if we don’t roll this out properly, and we don’t really put our best foot forward, we find ourselves in a position where to unpick something like this, if we can’t get it to work is that much harder now, with size and scale comes some serious benefits. And we can lean into this stuff because we have, you know, the capacity to do it from a number of different aspects. And we can look to do it initially, without seeing a return right? We can we can do things with a real future lens and not have to see a return straightaway. But if we do that, and we wade into it, and we don’t manage it into place effectively to unpick that once you’ve integrated into everything that you’ve done is probably more costly than the initial activity that you’ve undertaken in the first place.

 

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, you’re absolutely right then I like the idea that you sort of mentioned this as a project management process. To create a project out of it and implement it and and then track I guess track it along that process and say right now you know this is we’re gonna take some time here to make sure this gets done properly.

 

Mitchell Ramsbotham 

Oh absolutely. And we’ve we’re, we’re really, that’s one thing that I would say that we’re really quite good with could get better. And I spoke about it, I think it was either in our last chat or the one before the data aggregation piece and getting that zoomed out lens of the business, that’s going to become even more important as we start to try to, as we start to employ more of these other ancillary and, and periphery type solutions, because there’s another aspect to this as well, irrespective of how hard it might be. And I know anybody in the tech world that that may listen to this isn’t, you know, might not necessarily be happy with what I’m about to say. But you’ve got to be ready to rip the pull the ripcord if it’s not working, and the synergy is not there. And it’s not making the boat go faster. The square peg into a round hole never works. And it’s no it’s you’ve got to cut through the fog sometimes and cut through the relationship and the promises that were made and, and the potential, you know, financial loss that you may need to recoup. And you really just need to know when it’s time to pull the ripcord and it’s not working and it’s actually slowing the whole thing down. And, and and how to look then for a new solution rather than just persisting and persisting potentially to your detriment.

 

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, that’s a really good point. Thanks. Thanks for that one. And now the next thing, I guess we’ll probably finish on this. But tell us about the any future ideas around, you know, what are the things that you’d love to see happen in the business from efficiency and technology point in the future?

 

Mitchell Ramsbotham 

Well, I think it’s probably I think now, we’re at a in a position where we’ve focused, we are focusing a lot on the advisors and the increase the advisors and support within the business, and making sure that we have all of the data coming in. So I have a lot of raw data. Now, I’m not that good with Excel. So from a management perspective, the next step is it’s great to have the data there, but synthesizing that into something that is easy to use and manipulate, pertinent, and one touch accessible at any stage for live data, so that we can really track the efficacy of some of the things that we’re doing be that on the technology front, or any of the other changes that we’re making. That’s probably the next step in the evolution of where we’re going to go with technology, I’d say forever.

 

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, that makes sense. Having having a great dashboard at your fingertips. I image. Thanks so much for coming on this series. If somebody wants to continue the conversation with you, what’s the best way to reach out to yourself, or personally or as part of our coastal advice group?

 

Mitchell Ramsbotham 

LinkedIn would probably be the best way. Mitchell Ramsbotham on LinkedIn on probably friends with a lot of the people based on my, my background in the in the industry, I’m probably connected with a lot of the people online anyway, but always happy to chat about anything that we’re doing any questions that anybody might have any suggestions to, you know, as I’ve said, throughout this whole thing, we’ve done a test to know everything. So if there’s anybody that is a couple of steps ahead of me in the evolution of their business, I’m absolutely happy to have an olive branch extended and, and to share the love and to hear some of the successes that the other people are having too. So please reach out. Thanks, Mitch. Thanks for joining.

 

Fraser Jack 

Welcome back, Vicky. Welcome back. Thanks for welcoming me back. Look at this episode, we’re talking about all different things around change management. And we all know that, from small business to large business, when it comes to, you know, a decision has been made, we now have to now dive into a process where we’re going to implement the change. And that comes with a whole lot of ideas and personalities and people and processes to implement. Obviously, it’s it’s, it’s so for small business as well as large business tell us about how you go through the change management process within Telstra.

 

Vicky Andrews 

Sure, and we were probably steering away now from those formal change management processes. There’s there’s departments in HR that obviously give us some change mapping and decisions, but really like to do things like a journey or an experience map. So I do that with the star festival, we’ll do that using a lot of persona mapping. So that’s basically using person x. You know, 20 year old who’s been in Telstra for a year is about to go through this. And we’ll we’ll run that persona through and all sit there and evaluate how that experience may be for them. And that shows us then the places where that change may be more difficult or sort of red flag to us for that particular co thought of how it’s going to be mostly.

 

Fraser Jack 

So then is there says, Does it mean that you would look at a whole lot of different personas? And say, Yes, yeah,

 

Vicky Andrews 

and even with the customers, we probably have 250 or so persona profiles that you can use, that are based on factual data of our customers, or our staff, or our Yeah, our future workforce. And we can run them through these journey maps. pretty important, because we tend to just decide we know what’s going to affect them. Whereas when you do a journey map, and you actually sit back and take the journey of what it’s going to be like, it actually pulls out a lot of different factors that you may want to consider.

 

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, that’s absolutely interesting. And so you at this point, often we’ve made a decision I haven’t weighed, we’ve made the decision. Now we just need to implement the change. Do those personas come into it when it comes to the decision making process as well.

 

Vicky Andrews 

Now, once you’ve sort of decided, I think we go live, and we’ll probably use things now we try to do a lot hold a lot of sessions are things like a rose bond, bad process. So even though we say it’s going to happen, we’d love to hear those little gems, the rows, the things that you think are positive about what’s about to happen. And we try to use the word so on a bit prickly, I mean, maybe a bit negative to you, but we probably use the word prickly, so it’s still there on the rows, and it’s not going away, we want to try and see if we can make it as painless as we can. And then the body is the big one. That’s where people feel like they can add to it or add to the potential of the solution you’re offering them. And those bugs quite often can get implemented. So it’s like we’re not gonna we’re still going to do the rose. But you know, we’ve got other things that you think could blossom or make it better, we’d love to hear from you. And that comes out in our employee satisfaction scores and things like that, where people feel they’ve been heard or that they had the opportunity to be heard. So yeah, we try to use those really simple techniques. And it finishes on a really nice note of the bud being the potential of the idea.

 

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, well, that’s really good. That’s right structure rose, the one that

 

Vicky Andrews 

rose you don’t wanna go rose buds on because in the end on the prickly stuff,

 

Fraser Jack 

yeah, yeah. It’s it’s the it’s the sandwich, isn’t it? It’s the picket line in the middle. And then this was the old conference, and we start with the deck, and then yeah, they’re in Roseville. And but because obviously a lot of change tends to disrupt momentum, it’s, it’s like taking one step back, and then two steps forward. How do you quantify or qualify that sort of momentum loss versus the gain.

 

Vicky Andrews 

So the people change is normally the harder one out of those, we can change direction with what we’re building, and our people tend to be quite dynamic is saying, I can’t get it. And we’re gonna go solution x, because they’re quite technical. But people change, even just who’s managing my leave? And my time, or where am I going to see those things have a massive downtime. So hence, why we try to make those in those quarterly cycles, and everyone has an expectation. So expectation management, is the biggest one, and probably really changes the the fear of what the consequences. So if there’s no consequences to you, personally, for this change, it can define people have less fear, and then they behave in a much more open way. So we try to call out the business consequences, you’re moving big, you’re going to move from Team A, Team B. And it’s an amazing opportunity, there is no consequences, you’re not losing your job, you’re not going to be working in another state. So my fear goes down, and then I embrace the opportunity, the way we try to do it.

 

Fraser Jack 

Fantastic. And any any sort of big future ideas or plans, and obviously we talk about the bad the opportunities at the end, what sort of things do you see in the future with incomes to change or the process around change that they that you see coming out?

 

Vicky Andrews 

Yeah, and the pastor have not implemented this, but I did some private consulting work with another lady who were looking at agile in every form. So imagine being able to almost like an air Tasker, I think it is where, for example, a Virgin Airlines pops up all the flights that are available to be flown, and the pilots pick and choose and draw down the schedule that they would like. And obviously, we need X number of flights between Brisbane and Sydney, eventually memorable out of lockdown. So maybe you have to choose six from column A, and that’s a mandatory requirement. But then you pick and choose your workload. And if we could bring that into these big businesses where people actually draw down the work they want, again, everyone has to do some from column A and some from column B. But in general, you’re choosing the work you bring into your sprint, and you get paid accordingly. So I see the future being agile in its absolute purest form, across everything down to what hours I work, what tasks I choose, and how I’m remunerated for that.

 

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, this is a really interesting topic for small businesses as well. And if I’m overlaying this concept, have you looked at all the tasks required to run a small business and to run a financial advice practice and then in that concept, to be able to put it out to your staff and say, what’s your what are all the parts that you Do you want to do rather than saying this is your job?

 

Vicky Andrews 

Yeah, no valued you know those 10 points for this one, you must make up 50 points to get your your paycheck. And these ones are valued at five, they might be quick, but they’re risky. So you pick and choose. And in the end the pile that’s left, you sort of all go into it and say, Okay, well, these ones have got to be done. So we’re just going to divvy them up. But it’d be amazing to see that everything was gone, that people chose and if I wanted to a light week, I could choose a few easier ones. And the following week, I might be feeling quite energized and feel like on the list, there’s a lot of things that resonate with me. So I pick more

 

Fraser Jack 

fantastic enter the concept as you mentioned week, the concept is that you it’s not just a here’s your job set and forget it. You know, what, here are all the tasks that required to be done in that week or the month or whatever the sprint period, hey, to, to, to be able to then say this is our This is our, you know, what are all the jobs that these people want to do? And it might change.

 

Vicky Andrews 

And we got asked about, you know, how would that work, though with attrition and making sure someone else is skilled in the things I’m skilled in. So you could have that as a bonus card. If you train someone else in something they’ve never done before, that’s a bonus card so that we’re bringing on those skills. And so someone else gets half a point for doing something they’re not so good at. But as they’re good at it, they move through it and get the full bang for buck.

 

Fraser Jack 

Fantastic. Thank you, Vicki, for coming on and sharing your wisdom with us. If somebody wanted to continue the conversation with you, what’s the best way for them to reach out to you?

 

Vicky Andrews 

Yeah, I think LinkedIn would be a fantastic platform to start with. And I’d love the joint sharing. So it’d be amazing to have a chat and learn from each other in that space.

 

Fraser Jack 

Thank you.  Welcome back, Ivon. Gower.

 

Ivon Gower 

Thank you, Fraser,

 

Fraser Jack 

thank you for being here. Now, this is the final final episode in the series. But we’re really getting deep into the idea of change management, which obviously happens to be a lot around both systems processes, and the humans involved in the change management. Quite often we sort of get stuck in in the way that we’re doing things. And sometimes we can be in this status quo and going okay, great. Well, isn’t it easy just to leave it the way it is?

 

Ivon Gower 

We can the old saying the grass is always greener on the other side? I think that it’s true when you get to the other side as well. Sometimes you look back at where you were, and you say, Okay, how are we going to move forward? Are we have we made the right decision? And change? I feel is the most important element of any software decision implementation and and your ongoing use of the software?

 

Fraser Jack 

Do you think change needs to be a culture within a business first?

 

Ivon Gower 

Yeah, I do. I do. I think it’s something that needs to be taken much more seriously, with more discipline than it currently is. Changes something that really impacts people on an individual level. So you know, for, for the well being, and the general job satisfaction of staff for the profitability of the business, getting changed, right? And ensuring that people are going on that journey with you is so critical. There’s this view that changes coffee, and training, you know, how do we implement change, let’s have a coffee with somebody will tell them that there’s some change, and then we’ll give them a bit of training. And if you acknowledge this, there’s people whose career is made out of change management, there’s a role in a lot of organizations. And so there’s a lot of science behind change and how we can, how we can effectively implement change in any organization have, regardless of size, and in any individual. And there’s a bunch of different models around how you can do it. I don’t know there’s there’s one called add car, and I’m not sure whether you’ve been familiar with it, but I’ll take the opportunity to talk you through it’s from a business called process. So this is this is not something that I’m clever enough to come up with. But adkar ad k R stands for awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, and reinforcement. So awareness is the whole What are we doing? And why are we doing it. And in the context of, you know, financial planning software, we’re changing software, we’re going from A to B. The reason we’re doing it is x. People need to hear the the message five times we talked about that previously. So this is something you kind of got to repeat to people so that they do take it on board and they understand. D is desire, do people actually accept this change? You’re kind of have a very, very tough time implementing change. If people don’t accept the change, and people don’t have the desire to do it. So this is really this is the pros and cons list where you work through it, and you it made might even have to acknowledge that at an individual level, this change may not be in someone’s best interests. But at the team level at the business level, it does make sense. So you’re kind of acknowledging cons, acknowledging disadvantages for various people, and for various functions and outcomes. But exploring that in the overall context of, of what we’re doing, and saying, well, this is really going to be beneficial for us for these reasons, building that desire up k knowledge. This is the training piece. So this is this is how you actually educate people around what they have to do. And this is the point where if you don’t have awareness and desire, you’re going to have people just close minded in the training session and they’re not gonna not gonna take anything on board and a his ability, right, this is where you actually execute and you teach people in a practical sense how to do that the classic example is it look at any kind of hobby or any sport, right? I’ve done so many surfing lessons in the past, I’ve been on the beach, on a board on the sand, I’m told how to stand up, I know how to do it put me in the water with a wave, I cannot do it to save my life it is so the the the knowledge versus the ability the ability really helps you to kind of reinforce how you do it and make sure that people can can walk away with the capability and then reinforcement is I think the area that really needs to be focused on because you It’s so easy to slip up right we know that now day to day lives start the start the exercise program and I’m doing it diligently until all of a sudden I don’t have the energy one day so I stop and then I fall back into my old habits the the take up of technology is exactly the same you’re going to experience hiccups there’s gonna be some some instance and even if it’s just something like you know the clients coming in tomorrow we’ve got to get the statement of advice written and printed and presented you could do this in the old system but you’ve only done it twice in the new one and it takes you a bit longer in the pressures there and you start going Why can’t we use the old system but reinforcing we’re using the new system for this reason right you’re almost going back to that awareness and desire phase and going through and repeating and every time there’s a change as practices that are requiring other practices at the moment they’re bringing in new people to the business that’s a change let’s go through that ad car model again and start to really try and support people through that process so that they they’re not left behind and not struggling to be as effective as they once were.

 

Fraser Jack 

Yeah that’s a very good better very good system in fact you know the idea of coffee and training I think you’re I think that’s a definitely a lot of advisors are listening to this going yeah that’s pretty much what we normally do and the answer but that doesn’t that doesn’t think about them the the the core underlying human values around safety and certainty and is this going to make change I’m going to lose my job all these Am I going is this going to be hard for me and just that that I care process you know is a great one for advisors to be able to put in place fairly simply and easily. You know, when you’ve got to the ability part I was thinking about my son learning to drive in 100 hours that’s the thing in 100 hours is sort of a a number that I’ve heard bandied around a few other times you know 100 hours of of ability before you you know you learn a lot in the first 20 hours but you do also learn a lot in the second 80 hours and the reinforcement I really resonated with the idea of it becoming a habit as you mentioned dropping back into old habits is very easy to do and so for a new habit to to be formed we really need to to make sure that that you know we get that time in this time in the saddle i guess

 

Ivon Gower 

i think so and this and I love coffee as much as everyone else right? So I’m not averse to a cup of coffee every now and then. But I think what is really important in in this piece and what what helps me to kind of step back and understand is that every single person in the practice is going through going through this change and everyone will experience it differently. You know, you’ll you’ll have your people who, who who are really being impacted, they’ve got different processes to follow and and in life is quite disruptive. There’s others who are going to have been experts in the old system and they you know, their value to the practice is based around I’m really good at this and everyone comes to me with with the questions and you know, I’m the champion inside But all of a sudden, I’m back on on level terms with everyone else. So how does that affect my worth to the practice? Everyone will experience it differently. And I think being able to understand that and acknowledge it, and help each individual through the processes, is ultimately going to support the practice because we like these people, we don’t want them to feel disaffected, we want them to feel like they’re valued, and we want them to continue adding value, and we want the practice to be successful. So, you know, having committed to a change, how do we really embed that now and support everyone through it? Yeah, that’s

 

Fraser Jack 

a really good point, you’re raised around that the stat the loss of status that somebody might be suffering from, get when going through the change.

 

Ivon Gower 

It happens across so many businesses, and, and I think, you know, the reality is this, people feel a lot of pride in what they’ve created and in, in what they can bring to the table. So threatening that pride or being perceived to threaten that pride can can be disruptive for somebody and can put them in a position where they’re almost actively working against the change. Not necessarily consciously, but but but not supportive, you know, and that that’s the desire piece that you’ve really got to get right. And often, you know, throughout that adkar piece, you’ll get to a point and you’re going up, we’ve got to go back and we got to recommence.

 

Fraser Jack 

Fantastic. Thank you for sharing that with us. I haven’t really appreciate it. Well, that’s sort of brings us to the end of the series. How can people get hold of you if they wanted to continue the conversation

 

Ivon Gower 

with me personally. LinkedIn is a great way to get in touch. I love meeting people throughout the industry, and hearing ideas and comparing notes. I do my very best to talk to everyone who, who I come across whether they’re considered a competitor, got a very, very strong network across all of the people that were perceived to work against. And I think the reality is, this industry is full of wonderful people who want to drive it forward and want to deliver the best outcomes for everyone. Who’s here. So for me, personally, LinkedIn is great if you’re a current client of advisor logic. We do lots of webinars and we have healthy CSM for us who work with our clients and who I’ve asked to bring me into any conversation that I can help with. So always happy to always happy to connect and always happy to share ideas.

 

Jodie Douglas 

Wonderful. Thanks, Ivan. Thanks, Fraser.