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Chief Change Officer
#399 Nellie Wartoft: Global Fix—Change Management Without the Migraine — Part Two
00:23:46
Most people dodge change. Nellie Wartoft built a company around it. As the CEO of Tiger Hall, she’s rewriting the rules of corporate transformation—with global grit, zero jargon, and no patience for PowerPoint.
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- [00:16]
Vince Chen
Hi everyone. Welcome to our show. Chief Change Officer. I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host. Our show is a modernist community for change, progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. Today I'm joined by Nelly Watoff, someone I like to call the Chief Change Officer behind Change Leaders. Originally from Europe, she spent years in Asia, especially in Singapore, working across cultures. Now based in U.S. nellie is the founder and CEO of Tiger Hall, a tech driven platform helping organizations navigate change more effectively. This is part one of a two part series. In these episodes we'll dive into navigating cultural differences across three regions, why most change initiatives fail, and how to set up for success. If you've ever struggled with change, whether in your career, company or life, this series is for you. Let's get started. What triggered you to start this company in the very first place?
- [02:10]
Nelly Watoff
I hate SharePoint. I think it's the most awful way of communicating. No, it was more like I was seeing how hard it was for employees on the ground to grasp what HQ wanted out of them and what they should be doing. And I saw this disconnect and how it was like both parties have really good intentions. People are trying to drive change and transformation and make their companies become better, but all it does is that it increases this change fatigue and resistance and fear in employees. And I was like, this is not necessary. And then employees also have good intentions. They really want to help, they want to support, they want to do a good job, right? No one shows up to work and thinks, I'm going to do a really shit job today. Let me see how bad I can do this job. People generally have good intentions, so it's good intentions on both sides, but it's the in between that makes it get lost, right? And that's the complexity of the size of these companies, the communications and the lack of the availability of these tools like you. You can't target very well with email or SharePoint. And it's hard to create high quality engaging content with these tools. Like it's mostly just written documents. So I was looking around and I saw what are people engaged with? They're really engaged with their TikToks and Instagrams and Spotify and all of the consumer grade technology and things that are social, things that have engaging content. I was like, why is unchanged communications more like this? Why can't we communicate change and transformation to employees the way an influencer communicates about the latest fashion trend or whatever to their followers? Right? So that was a big inspiration for it as well. And just how do we bring that content consumption, engagement and social aspects into change and transformation?
- [03:54]
Vince Chen
When it comes to change, a lot of it goes beyond technology is ultimately rooted in human behavior and cultural nuances. You've had the unique experience of living and working across Europe, Asia and now the US which brings with it an incredible range of perspectives. Given your background and your exposure to diverse clients, I'm curious, how do you see cultural differences play out when it comes to people's reactions to change? Even the concept of change itself, whether it's a mindset shift or a full scale transformation, can vary dramatically across regions. Have you noticed any significant differences or similarities in how these cultures approach and perceive change? And how do you adapt your solutions to help clients tackle those cultural nuances more effectively?
- [05:13]
Nelly Watoff
I think there are a lot more similarities than differences. Actually at the end of the day, we're all pretty similar as humans. And the human psyche and human emotions doesn't. They don't differ that much across geographies from my experience. And things like the fear, the chaos, the uncertainty, politics, emotions, all of these are in all of these cultures, right? So the human experience of change and including change, resistance and fatigue, and all of those are very natural and very human, regardless of where you're from. I think the differences then more than the cultural differences shows up in organizations more from a couple of ways, right? So one is the role of talent and how it's viewed and the kind of like how you view talent as a resource versus an investment, for example. And that also influences the leadership culture. So if we take Asia, where it's more generally more top down work cultures, you don't really question your boss, you don't really speak up to authority. There are other cultural nuances that drive other kinds of behaviors. Whereas in the US it's very common to challenge authority and speak up against your manager and say what you think and voice your concerns. So that's leading to differences in communication. And we also see that because we have clients across 32 countries, work with around half a million employees worldwide that are using the platform. So across those differences in geography, you can see that leadership style and the hierarchical nature of organizations different than in the two way feedback loops, for example, and the kind of feedback that people share and how they share that. And you also see it in things like trust in leaders. So in Asia, people are much more prone to trusting their leaders. I would say maybe not blind, oh, but he's the boss, so he knows best because of someone's level of seniority that that person automatically has power and authority and knowledge. Whereas that's not the case in the US where people are more like yeah, just because he's the chief whatever or she's the senior something. It doesn't matter that they always know best. I also have my opinion and they matter as much as theirs. So that's a big difference in how communication is handled and how people trust and follow and view their leaders. And then I think the other difference is the long term versus short term thinking. So leaders in Asia are much more long term thinking in the US is much more short term. So the US is much more around quarterly results for Wall street and showing earnings and all of the numbers every three months. So they don't really have long term visions when it comes to thinking about change. It's more like trend hopping, like AI for example. Everyone is on AI and everyone needs to implement it now and everyone wants to show it to Wall street next quarter. Whereas in Asia it's a little bit more, let's see what we're going to do in the next 10 years. And especially the Asia headquarter companies are very much more long term vision and like how does this play into our heritage and the longer term view of who we are as a company and our identity? So that's also another approach to change which I've noticed where changes happen slower in Asia, but perhaps more intentional. I would say like it's a bit more visionary and like thinking through more instead of just like jumping into execution right away. And all of those sides have both pros and cons. It depends on how you want to do it. Right. Like I think for example, Asia could be much more faster in execution given the top down hierarchical culture it has. But then this long term vision, which is great in my view that kind of makes it not as fast. But if you had for example the short term vision of the US with the top down hierarchy of Asia, that could potentially be extremely intense and fast execution. Right? But I think both of them balance themselves out in interesting ways. But those are some of the differences that I've noticed in just the work that we've done.
- [09:12]
Vince Chen
When we first met, you told me some intriguing insights from your experiences. Specifically why certain changes initiatives fail while others succeed. He pointed out that there are common pitfalls that lead to failure and that understanding can uncover valuable opportunities to set the stage for success. Could you share with us some of those common reasons for failure? Maybe you've seen recurring patterns or perhaps you can recall specific examples without naming names of how these failures played out. And on the flip side, what approaches have you found to be especially effective in laying the groundwork for a successful change initiative?
- [10:14]
Nelly Watoff
Yeah, I don't think some fail. I think most fail, depending on how you define failure. There's a very well known statistic that 70 or even 80% of transformations fail. Right. And the definition of failure in most of those studies is not achieving the untouched outcome, so not delivering the value that it was supposed to deliver, not reaching the milestones on time, so getting dragged and dragged for time and budget or just like being abandoned, like, it didn't work and we have to stop and go another way, which I also like wouldn't necessarily call failure. We live and we learn, and I think that's completely fine. And to just say this didn't work, we're going to try something else, I don't think there should be any fear around failing. But if you want a transformation initiative to really succeed, there are a couple of things that I notice between the customers that we work with and just like, what makes them successful versus the ones who are less successful successful, what do they do instead? The number one thing, the number one. But like, the first thing to think about in the journey of a transformation is when do you start involving people? That's a big difference. I see there are some companies that are really good with involving people early. You know, instead of having three people in the ivory tower deciding everything and then starting to roll it out, and then at the very last minute, when it comes to execution, that's when they go, hey, like Tom, Dick and Harry, like, why don't you need to do this differently now? So go ahead and do it differently and change your workflows. That's usually not received very well. And on the other side of that, I see companies involving employees early, like at the formation stage. And even if the you can decide the strategy and what the change is going to be, let's say you're going to have all renewable energy by 2030, okay, that's your plan. But then how do you start involving people in the thinking, in the formation, in the how to, in shaping the transformation? And I see companies who are really successful have involved more people earlier. And there's a study from McKinsey on this as well. Where most organizations involve and engage on average 2% of their organization. McKinsey argues that's equivalent to around a 20% success rate of change and transformation initiatives. Whereas if you have just 7% engaged, that's already 50% success rate. So really you only really need 7% of your organization to be fully engaged for you to have a 50, 50 chance of success. And then if you start climbing up to 30%, having 30% of your organization engaged, that's when you get realistic success rates up to 80, 80, 85%. So it's not about having 100% on board, but it's about how can you have more than just the ivory tower people involved and getting people involved very early. So that's one big difference. I see. Then the other one would be how much effort they put into the wythm. So what's in it for me? The language and the words that they use with different audiences. Do you go to a factory floor, for example, with very formal headquarter corporate language that's usually not flying very well, or do you actually meet people where they are? So the amount of effort that they put in to target the different audiences, understanding their needs, using the words, the language that they use, and speaking their language both literally and metaphorically, that's another big difference. That's everything from vocabulary and words used. And then I think almost the biggest one is actually the ego and fear of the leaders. It's almost a direct correlation between the level of or inverse correlation, I should say, with the ego of the CEO and the success of transformation. And the higher the ego of the CEO is, the lower the success of your transformation. I've seen this in multiple companies and heard about it as well from change leaders that I talk to every day. And it's always the high ego, high fear type of leader that makes transformation very difficult because usually what that means, it's not the ego in itself that is a challenge, but the ego means that usually they are less open to feedback, they take things more personally, and any negative feedback or information, they take it very personally. They think it's all about them. So high ego and high fear in leaders is usually a very bad combination because it stifles any and all conversation and feedback that you can have around it. And that is what creates these top down, do as I say and if you say anything, I'm going to punish you or I get very scared or I take it personally. And that kind of approach in leaders is just not beneficial at all for a transformation type of environment. So that might have worked in the old days where you needed a leader to just tell people what to do and then they go execute it. But in 2024 and beyond, it's not going to be that type of leadership that succeeds. So that's another reason I see companies fail is when Senior leaders have that high ego, are very sensitive to feedback, or don't even want to hear any feedback at all, or not interested in what people think on the ground. That's another big challenge. So those are some differences that I've seen, and both of these hold true both across asia and the U.S. yeah.
- [15:29]
Vince Chen
Like you said, human nature is universal. Fear, ego, emotions and office politics exist everywhere, regardless of culture, gender or age. My friend's story about working in a big bank in Asia captures a common sentiment, that is frustration about change management tools or processes that feel imposed rather than embraced. She mentioned how the software forced employees to fit into its framework rather than adapting to their needs. And the feedback process. She described it as a formality where no one feels safe or motivated to speak the truth, just filling in responses for the sake of it. That sense of disengagement is palpable. I'm curious, from your perspective, have you encountered similar resistance in your work? How do you ensure that tools or processes don't just check the box for change, but actually engage and empower the people they are meant to serve?
- [16:58]
Nelly Watoff
Yeah, I'm sure that happens in a lot of places and that's not good. I think for us it's very different because employees like it. And we actually started B2C, so we actually started as a consumer platform to ensure that engagement was high. People liked it, it was an experience that suited them, which I think many platforms don't do. So that's of course, one differentiator when it comes to how we've approached it. But then I think also it's like people tend to. It's not helpful to have generalizations like a piece of software is bad. It's not about the software, it's not about the technology, it's not about the platforms. It's about what problem are you trying to solve and how are you solving it. And that's actually on the leaders in the organization to decide that. So in your friend's case, I would challenge the chro and say, what problems are you trying to solve by bringing in all of these different software platforms? Like, it's clearly not delivering the value or delivering the results that they had intended for it to do. So it's never about the platform, it's about what does that platform, software, technology, whatever you're bringing in, what is that intended to solve? And that's up to the business leaders to decide. Because it's not about the amount of technology is never a problem. Right. Think of our phones like how many apps do we have I think the average is like 400 or 450 apps in your phone. But some number of apps is not a problem with the ones you use. Right? So people who use WhatsApp and Instagram and LinkedIn, and I'm a big user of all of those three, I don't have an issue with having three platforms because they all fill their own purpose and they all have solve a need or a problem or they have a purpose. Right? So I think that's the approach you have to take as an enterprise buyer as well. It's not about the software or the number of platforms. It's about are you reaching the goals that you intended to reach. And software is always a means to an end. It's never the end. So I think for your friends, you probably have to take this conversation to the people who are bringing in the software and better understand what is the problem they're trying to solve and is it solving that problem? If not, then throw it out. If yes, then keep it. That's how I would approach it.
- [19:08]
Vince Chen
I see you as the chief Change officer behind all the change leaders you work with, guiding them to maximize the success of their initiatives. But as the founder and CEO of your own firm, you're also managing change within your own organization, including hiring, scaling, and evolving as you grow. So how do you approach change management within your own firm? Do you bring in independent consultants to guide the process, or do you rely on your own expertise to lead and execute these changes? What does change look like from your side of the table?
- [20:03]
Nelly Watoff
So we have Tiger hall, right? So we use Tiger Hall. So that's the software that we use for it. Then within change, you have three stages, right? You have the strategy, you have the planning, and you have the activation. And we focus on the activation side of it. When it comes to the strategy and the planning side of Tiger hall, that's where I, from time to time absolutely use advisors and experts and speak to people in different fields and so on. But when it comes to activation, then that's what Tiger hall was built for. So then we use Tiger hall. And we use Tiger hall for everything from new employee onboarding to change communications, leadership, information, customer feedback is on Tiger Hall. When we do live streams with our own customers. So we have. What we're seeing is, especially with the customer interviews, bringing that directly into the business. That's a very big piece of it in our sense. The transformation that I'm driving internally is more, I would say, like market education, customer education, having everyone in the business understanding what is Chief Transformation Officer. What do they do? What are their priorities? What is change management? And like having everyone across engineering and product and all the other departments understanding what that is. So that's a big piece and all of that is done on Tiger Hall. So all the education around the space and different industries and customers and their pain points and that's where we have very high engagement levels, especially on the live streams with live customers and then getting that direct feedback on onboarding, for example, when they do their onboarding journeys in Tigrawall, having that direct feedback and ultimately it just saves a lot of time. In my previous startups as well, where obviously we didn't have Tigrewall because it wasn't built, it became a lot of me repeating myself on a lot of zoom calls and doing a lot of trainings and information and sharing sessions and typing long messages on Slack and producing documents and all over. That's what I don't have to do anymore. So it's a big save of time where I can. And there is no whispering game where like I tell the leadership team, then the leadership team tells their direct reports and then they tell their direct reports and so on. This is just like straight from the horse's mouth. So I can be coming out of a customer meeting, pick up my phone, record a short message to the team or whichever department or audience that I want to send it to and it's just done and there right away. So it's much more faster for me as a leader and all my leadership team and everyone else who communicates internally and not having these like one hour town halls and long trainings and so on. And that goes for onboarding and training as well. Like in my previous company I used to do all the onboarding with everyone and that took a very big part of my time. Whereas now they do that on Tiger hall and then we have a Q and A session and then they ask me any questions that they want to ask. So yeah, so anything in change, we definitely use tigerhule for it.
- [22:49]
Vince Chen
I call this Walk the Walk and Top the Talk Leadership. I would like to bring you back and talk more about change. Next time it will be on video. We're launching the YouTube channel very soon, so after the holidays please come back. Nelly, thank you very much for your time today.
- [23:08]
Nelly Watoff
Yeah, that sounds great. We'll be happy to.
- [23:17]
Vince Chen
Thank you so much for joining us today. If you like what you heard, don't forget, subscribe to our show, leave us top rated reviews, check out our website and follow me on social media. I'M Vince Chan, your ambitious human host. Until next time, take care.