Author: lesliesnavely

My Top 10 Lessons in Making Organizational Change Succeed

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This week at work I heard the phrase “just because you didn’t plan well, that doesn’t make it my emergency.”  It brought me back to my last job where seemingly everything was an emergency due to lack of planning. We were launching 300-400 different products every year and most of them got out the door only with sheer grit and determination at the 11th hour.  There was no plan on what to launch, why to launch a particular product and how to launch the products successfully.  They had been amazingly successful despite this based on some amazing products and an amazing team who was committed to putting in the effort required to make it happen despite the barriers in their way.  This approach brought a lot of good:  a camaraderie within the team, a commitment level within the people to succeed, and an amazing creative spirit to solve what seemed to be unsurmountable problems.  With those good things, came many bad: higher costs of manufacturing, excess inventory costs, incomplete retail launch plans due to insufficient time, ineffective marketing plans given limited lead time for planning and perhaps most importantly – organizational stress and pain.

So, the senior leadership team set on a journey to introduce business and marketing plans to this team.  And, when I say journey, I mean journey…an ever-winding journey.  Our goal was to evolve to a company with a plan so that our launches would be more successful and our business more successful.  We talked a lot about doing this while maintaining the strengths that the organization demonstrated throughout its history.  It sounded good, and per all of the business school lessons and the experience our management team had in prior companies, it should’ve worked.

What I underestimated, and can only see clearly in arrears, is how the culture of this company impacted the degree of change that would be accepted.  The culture was built as an entrepreneurial startup team – doing anything needed to make things successful.  It was built for variety, unpredictability and wacky, late stage brilliant ideas winning the day.  Even the slightest move toward an annual operating plan felt so imposing to this team.  Their skills were not set up to succeed in this environment and it not only felt overwhelming, but it did the exact opposite of what we desired.  We simply doubled the pain.  Now, there was a fair amount of organizational stress and strife about the product planning process in addition to the stress (and cost) we incurred for late-stage changes that put our shipment dates at risk.  So – double the pain, no gain.

Ultimately this journey was one of the factors that made me leave this job.  Sitting here 5 years later, after hearing someone refer this week to a lack of planning driving unnecessary organizational stress and cost, I wonder out loud (is that possible on a blog?) what lessons I have learned (mostly through mistakes) in the last five years about introducing change into a team or company.  Nothing like a list to make you think about it.

My top 10 lessons in Change Management:

  1. Don’t underestimate the story of an organization. This story often time helps you uncover the culture, the values that the team lives by and the strengths the organization has to help you succeed.
  2. That said, don’t be scared of change.
  3. If people don’t understand the reason for the change, the context as to why it is important, and they don’t buy-in, the change will not be broadly successful.
  4. Just because something is written in a textbook or theoretically the right thing to do, doesn’t mean it will work.
  5. Having a plan is important….being willing to adjust the plan as it meets barriers is essential.
  6. Creating allies in your change, particularly those with high organizational influence, is critical for your success.
  7. Don’t just change for change’s sake. You don’t have to make your impact through large change and innovation. Strength is often found in accepting what already is and making minor improvements that drive high value.
  8. Be inquisitive in everything that you do.  There is most often a great rationale for why things are as they are, and understanding this rationale will help necessary change be adopted more smoothly.
  9. Every person accepts change through the lens of their personality. Identifying an individual’s state of mind and meeting each where they enter a conversation on change will help reduce fear of change.
  10. There isn’t one way things should happen. Your way is often wrong, and can be made better through leveraging the strengths of the people around you.

Commitments: No Fear. Put Yourself Out There.

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So, what is it?  After about two months of posting on this blog stress-free, I decided to go public on facebook and at work that I was doing the blog.  What was an outlet for me to write and just be me, became all of a sudden stressful.  What is it about putting yourself out there that brings pressure?

It stems from expectations.  Prior to going public, the only expectation that I had of myself was to enjoy what I was writing.  I started to write this blog as a place where I can be as real as I want to be…a place to bring together the parts of my life.  Prior to blogging, I found myself having so many things that I wanted to say and so many stories that I wanted to tell.  I never had a place for it in my life.  My relationshps, my job and my lack of vulernability just didn’t allow for it.  This blog became a place to channel this energy with no fear and no expectations.

Now, I have lifted the my expectations of myself.  In the process, I became afraid of exposure and failure.  I am hoping that writing about it tonight helps to alleviate this fear and to release my expectations.  Introduce uncomfortable.

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As I worked on blog topics for this week (which I hope will all show the light of day), this one was the one that I thought I could do. My commitment for this week is to work hard to not fear putting myself out there.  Step 1:  This blog post.

So Thankful…Relationships Make Me Stronger

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Time with my girlfriends is what my soul needed this weekend.  I was able to sneak away from Park City to Denver to meet my sister (Hilary) and one of my best friends (Laurian).  It had been about 18 months since our last girls weekend and probably months since I had time for longer than a 5 minute conversation with either of these ladies.  Life just seems to get in the way on a daily basis.  That said, it is amazing that despite this, girlfriends just pick up where we left off.  There is a lot of life to catch up on, but it always feels like it was just yesterday that we did this on a regular basis.

So, after a weekend of food, drink, dance, spa, catching up and as much sleep as we could squeeze in, I head home thankful.

First, thankful for my dear friend and my sister.  These are amazing women who take on life’s daily challenges with confidence.  Time together makes me realize how lucky I am to have kind, strong women around me.  By no means do we have it all figured out, but we get along so well because we aren’t ever scared to try to figure it out.  The other thing I realize when I am with these strong ladies is how infrequently I let my guard down whether on purpose, or by accident.

Second, thankful for my husband and my kids.  All weekend, I got updates from them and they seemed truly happy.  In one conversation with them, Katharine said “we have an action-packed day planned.”  Jon is a remarkable person, husband and father.  He truly went all-in with our kids this weekend to help them have fun and to help me not worry.  It takes so much effort to entertain a feisty 2 and 4 year old for a weekend, and he does it with grace and true care.  The reason I have these wonderful kids is because I found a partner who is truly a partner.

Finally, thankful for this life of mine.  Although it feels sometimes like I am just hanging on for dear life, dear it certainly is.  I often wonder how this all happened.  How did this shy girl from small-town Ohio, who didn’t seem to know what she wanted, get what she wanted?  I still truly don’t have an answer for that, but after a weekend like this I realize that much of it comes from the relationships that I have with amazing people who help create strength.   I am thankful for this strength around me.

Commitments: The Pursuit of Clarity

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The power of clear thoughts, words and writing.  As a marketer,  I have built my life’s work about making words (amongst other things) work to drive a purchase or a response.  That said, almost every day I feel as if I learn about how to make my words more effective.  Much of this learning comes through the pursuit of clarity.  In every facet of my life, clarity is critical and difficult to achieve.  As a constant learner, I feel like it is something at which the learning will never end.

In marketing:  Often times when we are working hard so create the most effective marketing, we miss the obvious.  You can get too close to the work, review the copy too many times, overthink the headline, or forget to look at the marketing exection with your customer in mind.  Just this week, I was looking at an email campaig where we were trying to be too cute with a headline, and it just wasn’t clear.  A lack of clarity is often driven by not stepping back and looking at your work with fresh eyes.

In leadership:  My most difficult work experiences have been times where I wasn’t being clear to my employees.  The worst of these has typically been whe an employee is underperforming, and I needed to let them go.  This is never a situation you want to find yourself in, as either a leader or employee, but it happens.  The first time I had to do this, I thought I had been explicitly clear with the employee both verbally and in writing of the gaps in their performance.  The day came that I was going to fire them.  They were shocked, angry and sad.  Angry and sad were to be expected, but SHOCKED?!?  We had been having conversations for going on six months about their lack of performace.  I was taken aback, and decided to just ask why they felt so surprised.  Verbatim…”You never told me that wasn’t doing what you wanted me to.  Isn’t that unfair?”  Ugh.  Despite my best attempts, and even a belief that been clear, I hadn’t.  A lack of clarity is often driven by not confirming that what you think you said was heard.

In being a mom:  The power of words.  In no place in my life is this more apparent than with my two year old Matthew (and prior to him, Katharine).  Matthew is learning words everyday, and it is so refreshing to be able to communicate with him.  Only a short 3 months ago, he was getting frustrated all the time because despite what he was thinking, he couldn’t form the words to tell us what he wanted.  Now, the smille on his face when he tells a little joke, or can tell us he loves us.  Priceless.  A lack of clarity is often driven by not understading each other.

In being a wife:  In my life, everything seems to be planned.  So, a moment without a plan typically means something is wrong (unfortunately!).  One morning as I was running out of the house to work, I yelled back to my husband, “You are picking up the kids from school, right?”  To which he responded with, “I can’t, I have an appointment.”  Unfortunately, I didn’t hear him.  I had asked a question without listening for the answer, and thus our kids were awaiting a pick up at daycare with no parent headed that direction.  After a few calls from the teacher, we got it figured out.  But, a lack of clarity is often driven by not listening.  Particularly detrimental if you were the one who asked the question to gain clarity (and when your kids end up stuck at daycare!).

So, the pursuit of clarity is my commitment for the week.  In the way that I communicate and in the way those around me commuicate with me.

‘Femvertising’: Authenticity Sells? Let’s Hope So.

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I was interested to see at the AdWeek 2014 conference this week that they had a panel on ‘Femvertising’ moderated by Samantha Skey, the Chief Revenue Officer of SheKnows.  A few definitions if you haven’t hear about this.

Feminism – the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities.

Advertising – the act of producing an advertisement which is something that is shown or presented to the public to help sell a product or make an announcement.

Femvertising – defined by Samantha during that panel as pro-female messaging within advertising.

Although conceptually I get it, and support the rise of advertising that shows women and girls in authentic ways, I sit here feeling frustrated about this new term.  For some reason it gets me asking why we need a ‘slogan’ to simply communicate what seems like what should be common sense?  Shouldn’t pro-female messaging sell without needing a movement?  Shouldn’t this be what marketers bring out of the gates in our work?  Okay – insert idealistic groan.  This just isn’t how it works no matter how much my idealist wants it to be that way.

So, how does it actually work?  As marketers we are accountable for advertising within an organization.  Per above, this means we are responsible for producing advertisements that sell a product or service or help to make an announcement.  Generally, in organizations we are considered ‘spenders’ of money.  We work long and hard to come up with ideas that sell, and then to sell our ideas internally to our organizations so that they can get funded to be produced and distributed via a media buy which is again a part of funding we must secure on the inside of an organization.

As we do these marketing plans and work on aligning the leaders of our organization, especially in a world where digital marketing is a predominant force in the spend wars of advertising, we talk about measurement.  How are we going to measure if our advertising is working?  What are our expectations for return on investment from the money we invest both in the production of the idea and the media buy?  In order to answer this, we look to historical performance as a benchmark.  How has our audience responded to our advertising in the past, and how much has it helped to sell our products or services?  Often times this gets us back to applying what has worked in the past to sell stuff.  Generally, this is the retouched image removing some inches around a waistline, the aspirational (read that as unrealistically beautiful) model flipping her hair over her shoulder and other unattainable visualizations of what being a woman/girl (and a man for that matter) is supposed to be.

So, as marketers (and advertisers) we have generally been either creating the problem, or are simply doing our jobs which is to sell stuff.  The less progressive position is to assume the latter…to assume that the only way to sell things is to present these ‘aspirational’ images assuming that is what sells.  The more progressive position is to change things.  To not look back at history to direct the choices we make in our current advertising.  Instead, to take on ‘femvertising’ as presented in the panel despite the potential difficulty this brings in making your case in the internal sale for funding of your advertising.  This may require a shift away from a direct sales link of our advertising (like television advertising had a direct link!) and cause us to think differently about how positive reputation of our brands will drive sales over time.  The work from Always in the #LikeAGirl video gives us measurable hope (48 millions YouTube views and counting) that this idealistic view of success is achievable.  But, does it sell product?  Let’s hope so.

So instead of being frustrated that we need a new term like ‘femvertising’ to bring authenticity in advertising out, I am channeling that frustration into action within my marketing team.  Let’s hope other marketers out there are on board.

Commitments: Create Space for New Ideas

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This week I was at the CMO Club Summit in Beverly Hills. It is a great event, drawing 150+ heads of marketing from across the country for a few days of networking, inspiration and learning from each other. This is the second time I have attended, and something I am excited to continue to be a part of in future years.

One of my favorite sessions was one from novelist and screenwriter Justine Musk on “Finding Your Creative Voice.” Justine authors a blog that I have followed for sometime about embracing your creative badass. During her time at the CMO club event, she spent time discussing the hero and the heroine’s journey in a story. You can find her take on it in a recent post.. One thing that really stood out for me was in her account of the heroine’s journey. She spoke of how the heroine goes internal to her (or his) own space to to deal with whatever internal demons are there, and emerges in a better place. She describes this journey in a story as enclosure, transformation and re-emergence. Gender aside, Justine shared that as a heroie goes to this private place to think it is a place of “creative incubation.”

This speaks so much to me because I feel like to truly accomplish creative solutions in my job and my life, it takes me moving into a quiet, internal place of my own to be able to think clearly and to figure things out. Often times I find this quiet (internal) spot on my mountain bike, at the gym, or when traveling alone. However most times, I find that I crave for more time in my “own” place. This could be the ultimate example of marketing meeting motherhood. I need that place to think both for my success as a marketer, my own sanity as well as to be a better mom. And.there.just.isn’t.time. Or at least that is how it feels.

So my commitment for this evening is to create space (time) for new ideas and for my own transformation of ideas to happen so that I (as a heroine) re-emerge with strength. I don’t know how I am going to make this happen, but it needs to happen. I need my creative incubator running. Continue reading →

My Love You

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One of the cutest things my little Matthew is saying right now is “My Love You.”  At almost 2 1/2, he has so many new words coming daily but this phrase and the smile behind his eyes as he says it make me melt.  Today when I was putting him down for nap, he leaned up to my ear and whispered it to me while nuzzling up for hugs and kisses.  It makes me wonder when you truly begin to understand love.  I could swear to you that Matthew understands.  But, how?  and what?

I think what he understands is the connection and unconditional emotion that we share.  It is authentic, simple, unassuming and not influenced by the world.  The more that I think about this love I have for my kids, the more remarkable it is.  I try to tell them and show them as much as I can….through my words, and my supportive action, discipline if needed, and sneaking hugs and kisses as much as possible.

Matthew is the sweetest of little guys.  His sister Katharine was (and is) my first experience at truly unconditional parental love. “My Love You” little ones.

Commitments: Enjoy What I Have

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Had a wonderful weekend with just our family.  I realize sitting here on Sunday night that we had literally no plans this weekend other than Katharine’s soccer game which was ultimately cancelled due to rain.  I can’t remember the last time our weekend was so unplanned.  And, it was wonderful.  Just a few days of enjoying what I have and feeling lucky.  So, a commitment for this evening….keep enjoying.

Creating a System

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I am excited to report that after two weeks straight of Jon traveling, our new system seems to be working.  What a difference a year makes, and it is a good thing.

Last year (2013/2014 school year), both of our kids went into a great daycare/preschool for the first time.  For Katharine (our then 3 1/2 year old), it was her second year, and for Matthew (our then 16 month old) it was his first time in any kind of away from home child care.  We were super excited about getting both kids a spot in the school as there aren’t many to go around, but worried about balancing two busy work lives with daycare schedule.  Once we got through the drama of the first two weeks of Matthew’s adjustment to the school, we felt like we were settling in.  Oh, but we were wrong.  The next 8 months proceeded to be full of sick days, Jon traveling more than he ever had and me trying to hold on for dear life.  On the positive side, the kids absolutely loved the school and were growing so much every single day.

As the end of the school year approached last June, we were thrilled to be planning on a full-time nanny for the summer.  It felt like it was going to be a vacation.  Not rushing to get two kids out the door in the morning, not dealing with sick kid coverage and unplanned time off work.  We had a great summer but those brief 9 weeks between school years moved faster than I could have imaged.  As this school year began approaching and our fall travel schedules began to fill in, I started to freak out  I seriously didn’t think I could survive another year like last year.

Enter problem solving mode….we ended up deciding to build a system.  We hired a wonderful babysitter help with the kids.  She helps us both with the kids and doing odds and ends around our house including a weekly grocery store run.  We are two weeks in to our new system and I feel like I may survive.  That this small choice to get some help has built more sanity in my schedule than I ever could have believed.  The downside – guilt.  I feel like I am yet again outsourcing my life.  What is it about guilt?  It seems to haunt me despite the positive energy the system is helping me to build.  Another topic for another day….

For now, I am highly recommending a system.  It is helping to bring order to chaos and allowing my time with my kids to be as positive as possible.