Strategy may be important but change involves people. An environment where everyone is motivated to engage individually and as a team requires a threshold of trust. Trust is based on where we are going, how we are progressing and is it in the best interest of all parties involved. Reduced trust can adversely impact the change process and offset the value it may deliver. How can leaders build, measure and improve the level of trust in their organizations and maintain it above a threshold as they go about leading change?

Contributor

• • Sangy Vatsa, Chief Information Officer and Executive Vice President, Comerica Bank

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Transcript

Sanjog Aul [00:00:00]:
Hello and welcome to this segment on CTN, which is CIO Talk Network. To learn more, please visit ciotalknetwork.com as always, we invite you to join the discussion on twitter and look for this show as #leadership and #change. So the topic here today is Change at the Speed of Trust, and we have Sangy Vatsa, who’s the Chief Information Officer and Executive Vice President with Comerica Bank. Hey Sangy, how are you?

Sangy Vatsa [00:00:24]:
Hey. I’m doing great Sanjog, and thanks for having me on the show. Thank you.

Sanjog Aul [00:00:28]:
Honors all ours. The reason we wanted to do this show more than anything else is because we know everything. We look at business, our lives, everything is moving at a pretty warp speed. Now when we look at an environment where we want to bring about change and yes, we can announce it at the top that the change is coming, but to make it happen, we need to have some sort of trust, and if there is a lack of synchronization in terms of the level at which the trust is in an organization, plus compared to what the level or speed at which you want to bring the change, when there is a lack of synchronicity, we will see that there would be a problem. So how do we first make sure that our trust is at an level? And subsequently and consciously we take all change initiatives and measure and rationalize and prioritize to make sure they really hit the mark. That being said, the first question for you is about trust. So we always look at trust as okay, yes, that’s something which is fluid and we wanted to talk about that as an organization organizational development issue or leadership issue,

Sanjog Aul [00:01:34]:
but since it is an underpinning for almost what happens to an organization and it becomes important, do you think there is a way to actually measure in a more tangible manner versus just being a soft factor?

Sangy Vatsa [00:01:49]:
I think that’s an excellent question, and before I start, I am to be invited to this session and have the opportunity to share my thoughts on change at the speed of trust. I believe it’s a great topic and that means so much when it comes to driving real change, and so what I’ll share with you on the call today are my perspectives that have been shaped by my own experiences and my failures and by also observing the successes and failures of others around me. The point you made about trust is fluid. I’m going to actually maybe start with responding to that remark. I actually do believe trust is fluid. However, I also believe that it does solidify over time with the positive actions and proper care and feed.

Sangy Vatsa [00:02:37]:
So in my mind there are a few deliberate things that could be done in order to create and solidify trust in an organization, and I’ll quickly share some of those thoughts with you and then I’ll share my thoughts on probably how do we measure and how do we create some benefits. Does that sound reasonable?

Sanjog Aul [00:02:53]:
Definitely.

Sangy Vatsa [00:02:55]:
So I would say, I think the first one I believe is centered on transparency and communication, and that one I believe where leaders need to be transparent, they need to provide an environment where I would say fearless two way dialogue flourishes. So we need to regularly share the purpose. We need to encourage people asking hard questions and providing feedback. Making timely changes is very important, and then sharing the rationale behind those changes and how those changes benefit people I think becomes very, very important. I would also say having genuine interest in people’s development and showing that interest with compassion goes a long way. Now I’ve got two children, one soon to be 20 and other is 17,

Sangy Vatsa [00:03:50]:
and I’ve always felt that when you take the same interest in developing your employees as you do with your own children, you are well guided in your actions, and then the other piece I would say is taking actions that create business outcomes that are big, sustainable and they got no respect. I think those are things that motivate people even when they’re going through a change, and very importantly, acknowledging when you make mistakes as a leader and showing how you learned from that again goes a long way. So those are some of the parts I feel help you create trust in your organization and they solidify trust over the course of time. I think your other question is how do you measure it? There are three things I would say that come to mind. The first one I would say is that are the employees in your organization attracting their colleagues and friends to come and work in your organization? In other words, is there a high net promoter score or nps? That would be the use. The second would be do leaders in the organization have a track record where people are reaching out to those leaders to come and work for them? In other words, is there a high net attractor score? And that would be the net measure,

Sangy Vatsa [00:05:13]:
and then the third one I would say is how well does the organization respond to failures and uses those as learning opportunities? In other words, what is the organization’s learning quotient? So those are the three things come to mind. How would you really track your progress against building and sustaining trust?

Sanjog Aul [00:05:34]:
That’s great. So when we talk about the trust and we always say that, okay, if you show the right behavior because nobody’s sitting in your mind the way you behave, the way your demeanor is and how you react to certain things is what engenders trust, but then if you are not going to have the required trust level, you can only fake for so long, you will give it away and that will break the trust forever. So what should come first? Would you think you have to start deliberating first or first you say I’m going to clean everybody’s mind in every team member first so that they start trusting? I mean this becomes like boil the ocean or trying to do too many things at the same time. It may never even see the daylight.

Sangy Vatsa [00:06:23]:
And I would say I think like in many other areas, I think what really matters is how you to what you do and really focusing on demonstrating high integrity when you’re trying to build trust in an organization so that your actions follow your words, and I would say I think that very much applies in this area as well, and if I think about kind of the comment and the question you just asked is I would still be on the side that you should be focused on consistently exhibiting the desired behaviors, and the goal here is to essentially create a positive reinforcing cycle through positive actions that will essentially grow the trust account of your organization. So I mean when I say trust account of your organization, what I basically mean by that is increase in trust further leads to desired behaviors in form of higher empowerment, higher creativity and that results in higher productivity. So essentially go ahead. Essentially you reach a stage that if any failures occur in your organization, you build that depth to absorb that impact, and so it becomes very important that your actions are going to create the level of foundation in the organization,

Sangy Vatsa [00:07:45]:
and just a speech on trust I believe doesn’t last for too long. Actions do create layers of trust and it’s not a short journey.

Sanjog Aul [00:07:56]:
So your response, it’s interesting the way you approach this is where someone has to kind of show the behavior because that’s going to start creating trust among others. Now that could be true for a top down or a boss talking to a reportee. There is no incentive for one coworker to show a specific desired or expected behavior towards other when the trust doesn’t exist. So at that point you are not thinking your co workers productivity, you simply wanted to interact with that person. Basically even for the work, even a project needs to get done and you reach out to say okay, I need a resource that you can give me or I think we have to work together, but that dialogue, even if it stays at work, they really are not thinking of making that other person successful. Especially when you may not have that high degree of trust already somehow built. How would you crack that problem? Because in that case, that person, you cannot watch that one co worker to be demonstrating a certain behavior,

Sanjog Aul [00:08:59]:
and you cannot be saying, okay, you did not show that behavior. This could have further worsened it. So that’s why you are either demoted or fired or something else happens. You don’t use the sticks to engender trust, and the trust, frankly is less of an issue in many cases. Yes, with leaders and the reportees. It is most probably at the peer level. When the trust, when is not existing, it percolates and it has its bigger damages.

Sanjog Aul [00:09:27]:
Would you agree?

Sangy Vatsa [00:09:27]:
I would say anytime you’re driving a change that is significant and sometimes these issues that you talked about that form over the course of time or they exist in organizations that you say join or you take over those organizations, they’ve been outcomes of actions that may have happened in the past, and so I believe that when you are really trying to drive that change in a way that you want to drive it in a very sustainable way, you have to think about a segment of one you cannot sit there and make at an organization level as a whole. We would be able to become productive and effective all at one time. So I think really focusing on segment of one, really understanding that the change that you’re driving, what is the impact of the change on every individual? To me, I think getting to that level of personalization of understanding the implications and impacts of the change and also at the same time, how do you really motivate and inspire the organization to really connect with the strategic plans of the organization, the future of the company. So I agree with you that if you leave it up to a top down view, then again the effect would not be as strong and it has to be both bottoms up and top down. You have to really understand at every level of the organization. As a result, you don’t just as a leader drive the change, you actually create a network of leaders in the organization, and irrespective of band or raid or a title, you’re actually really inspiring leaders to step up and lead for the organization.

Sanjog Aul [00:11:10]:
So when you spoke about change and when you’re coming in, suppose you inherit an organization which doesn’t have a high degree of trust, and that’s where you needed some trust to begin with when you mentioned you even would create a team of leaders so suddenly those leaders would not magically appear unless otherwise you recruit from outside at all times, but it doesn’t happen when you are trying to get in and Trying to get started. So if you had to come in and try to even think about change, you need to be able to trust someone or enough people so that it could have a critical mass for it to percolate throughout the organization. So when you’re getting started, if you had a playbook, what would that starting point look like?

Sangy Vatsa [00:11:50]:
That’s definitely a very, I would say, very powerful set of points you’ve just shared and you kind of point about. How do you really create a playbook? And I’ll share my thoughts on how do I re envision a playbook in the space, and anytime you go through organization changes or as you said, coming in and trust does not exist, anytime you go through a change, change does basically take a debit out of your trust account. Because changes are not easy and people will read into some changes differently than what may have been perceived. So having a clear purpose and ensuring that purpose is being shared with people on an ongoing basis becomes very important. If I think about what would you maybe methodically go about doing in order to really drive that level of development of trust and then how do you sustain it? I think, as I said, clearly establishing the purpose for the change and what are some of the key principles that are the foundation for the change. An example could be if you are really embarking on building customer centric digital products with faster speed to market.

Sangy Vatsa [00:12:59]:
I think being very clear about why are we doing that and what’s the purpose behind that. Thoughtfully planning the change. So for example, what cascades in what order, within what time frame, what concerns need to be anticipated and mitigated? The next one, I would say as a leader and as an organization which is a basically a team of leaders, being authentic and compassionate and being sensitive about the impact the change is having on people, and that’s what I basically mean is that you’re, and I’ve had the opportunity of being through enough changes. Either they have been done that I’ve been part of it, or I’ve been the one who had been the architect of that change. Being out there, being visible, having these town halls on a very regular basis, being there to answer the tough questions. So I think that’s a point to point about being sensitive.

Sangy Vatsa [00:13:52]:
The other piece would be being able to clearly articulate the change timeline. So for example, time boxing the people impacts is very important so that you can in a timely way shift from a state of anxiety to a state of productive growth, and just the related point I would basically make is that people are really at the time that you’re going through a change. I think being timely in sharing perspective, even some people who would be adversely impacted by change and may not appreciate that impact, but what they do appreciate is that being timely, being transparent, being open about communicating, and then for the rest of the organization that is very much looking forward to what does this mean? When do we start to exercise the new strategic priorities so that way they can basically be inspired and feel the connection to the future of the company. So those are the things that come to mind where you would go methodically about doing things in an iterative way and be able to drive both the top down and the bottom up. Message.

Sanjog Aul [00:14:55]:
Let’s take a quick break, listeners. We’ll be right back. Sangy, since you mentioned the word being open, my next question when we come back from the break is about being open and authentic at all times, but then we have also seen that there are certain strategies or certain environments or certain situations in which we are, it is suggested to not be completely open and authentic because that would break the level of trust that currently exists in the organization, whatever those situations are, but we get these conflicting messages, if you will, about what we should be doing, and this doesn’t only exist in the ivory tower, but it also exists within the group. Sometimes we say, oh, this is open culture and everything other time is we are asked to contain that information within that group because we don’t want it to come out, which in turn could be misinterpreted and or undermine the overall trust in the organization. So what is the right approach so that we do not, for the sake of a situation or for the sake of a given, jeopardize by introducing this conflicting priorities and conflicting messages or mindsets that we are trying to develop because people get confused.

Sanjog Aul [00:16:07]:
Let’s talk more about this when we come back. Please stay tuned.

Break [00:16:10]:

Sanjog Aul [00:16:56]:
Welcome back. So we are referring to Sangy these situations where we hear on one hand that we have to be open and authentic at all times because that’s the key to building a great culture and trust and everything else. On the other hand, we do see there are situations where we are being hush hush within a group or within the organization or within our department, you name it. So is this happening because some people don’t buy into that overall approach or this is how a culture can be defined, which is a hybrid culture, open and authentic, but at the same time do what is needed to get the job done, even though it’s not maybe in the best interest, long term interest of the company.

Sangy Vatsa [00:17:37]:
So I would say, and thanks for the question. Sanjog. The more I think about this topic more it becomes even clearer and more I have had a chance to be in those experiences. It has become more clear that there are no double standards in this space. This is all about being consistent, and when you think about having a bias for being open, honest, being transparent, being timely in sharing the information, then it becomes very important that the information, when it’s ready, you’re not holding back that information because if you do hold back, there are other different channels through which the information will eventually get out, and if people in your organization realize that there was information that was ready but was not shared, you may get some short term benefits, but eventually it will deplete the organization’s trust,

Sangy Vatsa [00:18:29]:
and having said that, there are always protocols to be followed. There is a certain order to organizational communication so that people who need to know first are fully informed and the information is shared when it is ready to be shared, but I guess I can think of an example. We were in one of the organizational changes and what it involved was we had people whose jobs were being impacted due to consolidation. At the same time we had other people who had taken on additional responsibilities and that came with some promotions, and one set of advice that we got was to move the announcements that were pertaining to people who were getting promoted as they were taking on additional responsibilities, and at that point as a leader you have to make a decision, and since spirit of transparency and recognition, we decided to respectfully thank our colleagues whose jobs were being adversely impacted,

Sangy Vatsa [00:19:31]:
and we chose to recognize colleagues who were taking on higher responsibilities and things that they had been working towards their career aspirations and career goals.

Sanjog Aul [00:19:41]:
So if you are looking at an organization and given where we are as commercial enterprises, I would point to at this time we are all trying to please the Wall street versus and shareholder value is more important than what employee welfare is and what culture we develop results based type of organizations. When we go there, we want productivity, and when we talk about productivity, we want to find out ways by which we incent people, and that could even include competition, and when we talk competition, that means we are saying you fend for your own rights, you fend for your own success in your career. Yes, you will talk about the team goals and departmental, but essentially it becomes lone warriors versus a team and which in a way, as long as everyone is running, trying to run faster than the other, the whole company moves forward. That’s great, but it can come to a point where it starts or it can cannibalize trust and openness because people would want to back information or avenues where the other person could succeed.

Sanjog Aul [00:20:48]:
So in this case, when we are trying to say we want to instill trust, on the other hand, we also want to advocate heavily whatever we can get done or get the most productivity out of people, even including supporting competition. Isn’t that a little counterproductive?

Sangy Vatsa [00:21:05]:
I would say you have to be productive both in the short term term and in the long run, and there are ways to be thinking in terms of how do you iteratively create productivity, but if your sole focus gets on productivity and not to really be investing in trust development, it will absolutely have repercussions. Repercussions where in the long term your productivity would be difficult to sustain. So I believe you start with the trust focus, and the reason I feel that way is that the authenticity and the right behaviors that you exhibit, they actually lead to higher trust and that leads to higher organizational productivity. We win or we lose as a team. I would say the individual that you talked about and those recognitions are clearly important.

Sangy Vatsa [00:21:57]:
However, when we create an organization that has a clear purpose and shared goals that I would say are centered on employees, customers and shareholders, we actually end up creating a bigger pie and everyone’s share of that pie actually grows. On the other hand, you could get into a situation where you do not produce the expected outcomes and there is no pie to share. So I would basically share. My perspective on that would be teams you basically think about. Teams are not only people working together, but these are instead people who are trusting one another, and when you have the focus on teams, teams win, and as a result, individuals win. So my view would be yes, start with the focus on trust and productivity follows both in the short term and in the long term.

Sanjog Aul [00:22:46]:
Now let’s talk about those folks who are essentially not necessarily always noise makers, but they are the ones who would raise their hand first look the most excited and try to be actively participating in every. Whether or not they eventually deliver the final result, yes, of course is also noticed, but they somehow take the cake or are given more opportunities. That’s at least been the complaint of many who may be otherwise very motivated, have shown consistency. They’ve always been helpful to their team members. They’ve always been offering constructive feedback and or adding value, but they feel their growth or forward movement is stifled by those other noisemakers, and that in a way creates animosity and even unknowingly creates distrust that these guys are trying to sabotage our growth because they have a way to get noticed and get more opportunities or get rewarded.

Sanjog Aul [00:23:45]:
How do you prevent that from happening? As part of instilling trust,

Sangy Vatsa [00:23:51]:
And I’ve had my firsthand experience being on the side of feeling that at times early on in my career where I was not as outward and as active in demonstrating what I had produced, and I would feel sometimes similar kind of challenges that you just talked about that other colleagues may feel. So I do have some passion on that topic to really help everybody not to get and feel left behind. I feel first of all the creation, the realization and I would say recognition of business outcomes is very important. So business outcomes do matter and their creation, realization and recognition is very important, and there is also a very important difference between being aggressive and being assertive. So as leaders, I believe we should be very actively nurturing assertiveness as it creates higher productivity for an organization. Everyone needs to become assertive, not necessarily aggressive,

Sangy Vatsa [00:24:53]:
and the value that he or she then creates can be articulated and could be then felt and realized, and what it does is actually adds to the confidence and the fulfillment of an individual’s interest. At the same time, this doesn’t come easy. This doesn’t just happen by pressing a button to say let’s become assertive. This happens when you invest in that goal. You actually as a leader and through your network of leaders in your organization create a trust based safe zone where you are actually giving people a chance to practice assertiveness. They are basically being groomed for that skill, and that way everyone in an organization feels that they can compete openly,

Sangy Vatsa [00:25:43]:
and with that level of positive energy we actually having a chance to be recognized for their contributions. So my kind of view on that is focusing on assertiveness is absolutely more important, and at the end of the day business outcomes matter, and it becomes clear the one who’s actually driving the change.

Sanjog Aul [00:26:04]:
Let’s take a quick break listeners. We’ll be right back and let’s talk about any major disruptions that happen in the business and that may be voluntarily invited because you could have mergers and acquisitions happening and then as a result of that you may have to do some correction. Nothing wrong with that, but the way they are carried out is the moment M and A happens, people start shaking because they don’t know which Friday will they be invited into HR’s office and be told that your job has been terminated? I am firsthand. I have met with so many people who would always go into the office whether or not they have been invited to the HR’s office or not, but there’s an inherent distrust that the organization doesn’t care for me. It just cares for that continuous growth, continuous MA or whatever that they are doing, but the trust is not going to come this person because at any given time they could be invited into that HR’s office. So the way this is being carried and while M and A is happening, that’s great for the company,

Sanjog Aul [00:27:06]:
but I think we could do something better to not undermine or undo all the trust building that we did before M and A or before any such disruption. What’s a better way to handling this? But please stay tuned listeners. We’ll be right back and explore today,

Break [00:27:22]:

Sanjog Aul [00:28:09]:
Welcome back. So when we talk about M&As or any such issues where the either company is going through financial trouble or it could have M and A as a disruption, any of those cases have to be handled gracefully and ideally making sure that all the trust that we built over the years is not undermined not only among the people who are leaving, but also the ones who are left in the company because you’ll have to literally start all over, but it seems like it has not been handled well. So where do you think people may be going wrong and what’s a better way to approach it?

Sangy Vatsa [00:28:44]:
I would say Sanjog. That one is very important as well, and when organizational changes happen, M and as happened, joint ventures happen and other changes happen. There are these changes are never easy, and they do take again, as I said earlier, they do take a debit out of your trust account, and first of all, really putting that focus on what does it mean to our colleagues who are not going to be with us and really working that in a very respectful way and really recognizing people for their contributions that they have made to the company. Really understanding how would that level of separation be experienced by those employees. Getting our HR partners very actively engaged with us to really ensure or to ensure that the level of understanding is felt at an individual level, not at a team level,

Sangy Vatsa [00:29:40]:
and to me, I think that that is one piece is that how do you really exercise those actions during that level, that phase of separation for some of the colleagues and the actions that you take will determine that are you really helping sustain the brand equity or are you depleting from the brand equity? Because we work in a network which is very close network in this industry and people work and go and work in other places and it’s word of mouth, and so how do you treat people goes a long way. At the same time you have to balance it out by ensuring that people who are part of the organization, who are going to be part of the strategic change are absolutely feeling inspired and motivated and they can really put clearly what does the go forward plan look like and how does the actions of that organization support the overarching goals of the of the bank or of the company. So to me, I think those would be the two pieces to highlight that doing and taking actions with high respect for the colleagues who would be leaving and for insure and also at the same time ensuring that you are taking the right actions to keep your employee force your workforce fully motivated and inspired. Having a playbook always helps, and I shared some thoughts with you earlier on. How would you go about methodically ensuring that you are consistently adding to that trust account and not depleting from it? I can highlight one, one quick example. When I was engaged with one of the very large joint ventures and I was actually managing the technology for the joint venture, it was almost close to a billion dollar joint venture,

Sangy Vatsa [00:31:27]:
and I would say the initial phase of that joint venture did not go as expected, and part of the reason was that the people who are part of the change, including the vendors, were not fully informed about the benefits and impacts practices that I shared with you earlier in the playbook question that you asked. As we really, in a very deliberate way, apply some of those practices of openness, transparency, being assertive in Articulating the benefits to the organization and to the individuals. I think as those actions are applied, it helped raise the trust amongst the team members, and the subsequent phases that followed were very, very successful, and overall the joint venture was a huge success, and so there were some significant learnings, but the course correction happened very quickly,

Sangy Vatsa [00:32:22]:
and some of these things then became even more clear in my own mind that this is a repeatable set of practices that you can apply in other situations as well.

Sanjog Aul [00:32:32]:
When we look at trust as. As an issue or a softer issue, for the most part, perhaps it becomes like taking a Tylenol for the pain versus going for surgery means you do not really end up spending a whole lot of time or no deliberate action has been taken to restore trust within the organization. Suppose there’s a leader who sees I’m coming in for bringing about change and I see the trust level low, so you start working towards it. Now, if this was a little more institutionalized approach versus one person walking in as a lone warrior, then you would have HR involved, you would have other people involved versus just a few leaders or that one leader who’s trying to restore trust. If that requires you to do activities, if that were required to do certain special projects which would have, among other tangible outcomes, a major objective could be to restore trust, then those investments would be worthwhile. It does it in real life. Since you live this every day, do you think the organization has an appetite to formalize trust building as actually an investment? Because if you have lower trust, you will take more time for making decisions, you will have issues related to challenges. So in a way, it’s going to cost you money.

Sanjog Aul [00:33:48]:
Can we invest towards?

Sangy Vatsa [00:33:50]:
Yeah, and I would say that’s a deep thought and I appreciate you kind of expressing it the way you expressed it, and I will tell you, some organizations do a more effective job of putting the focus on this very important priority, and others may not be able to do it as effectively, and then what you see in the outcomes of those changes and it becomes clear which of the two organizations were more successful depending on what practices were actually applied, but if I think about this very, very critical and strategic word, trust, to me it is by far the most critical success factor for an organization to grow and thrive. So as a result, I do not believe that you need to do a thorough business case to restore trust. You simply do it through practices that I have shared. Some of those I’ve shared just from my own experience and my own perspectives. I’m sure there are better ideas out there, but the ones that I’ve shared.

Sangy Vatsa [00:34:58]:
I’ve seen them work in the past, and so I believe that this is something you do it, maybe you put a Nike sign and put trust development right next to it. I also feel that each individual in the organization needs to hear clearly and understand what does that change mean to them and how it supports their career aspirations. That’s part of the kind of the mechanics of how do you go about in that playbook, and I would say finally, when you’re driving that kind of a change at an organizational level, it does require hard work and it requires some deep thinking. Think about that as a program. It’s not a side effect of trust development happening. It’s actually a very deliberate focus upfront.

Sangy Vatsa [00:35:41]:
So you’re actually in a very deep way, you’re thinking, you’re planning, you’re designing that change, you’re actually executing the change. You’re constantly monitoring the change and the effects to make sure that any adjustments that need to be made are being made in a timely way. You will inevitably take some hit to your trust account when you go through a large change. The goal, however, is to minimize the debits out of your trust account, and when you’re serious about it, you will look at every possible opportunity that presents itself where you actually then have a bias to double up the credit building and adding back to your trust account. So that’s basically my view would be you don’t need a business case, but what you do need is you need a really well thought through design, delivery and execution of that plan.

Sanjog Aul [00:36:36]:
Let’s take a quick break listeners. We’ll be right back, and let’s talk about the actual results which a leader could potentially demonstrate. Because when a leader comes in and even their own department heads, they are supposed to instill trust that whatever we are saying actually makes sense, and those results could be tangible results in terms of what you did for the company and also other results which could be bringing some softer impact on the organization, but regardless what type of results softer or tangible should leaders, at whatever level they are, have to deliver in order to earn the initial respect and the trust that whatever they’re going to try to tell going forward should be taken on its face value and be followed. Please listeners, stay tuned. We’ll be right back and explore today.

Speaker C [00:37:24]:
Enterprise technology is both strategic and global. Each week on CTN CIO Talk Network IT thought leaders from around the world share their experience with listeners as they discuss with sunjoke all how they are trimming costs and partnering with business to innovate and help it become more competitive, better care for customers and improve the corporate bottom line. If you want to keep up with it thought leadership, listen to CTN CIO Talk Network with Sunjoke all at CIO Talk Network, you are listening to CTN CIO Talk Network with Sanjo Gaul. Now back to the show.

Sanjog Aul [00:38:05]:
Welcome back. So we are talking about results and frankly, nothing speaks louder than results. So Sangi, when we look at the type of results that a leader need to showcase, whichever level in the organization they are, what would those be? So that they create the foundation of trust, at least people in terms of people trusting them so that whatever they do going forward is recognized, is respected and followed.

Sangy Vatsa [00:38:31]:
And as I had mentioned earlier, when you are designing and delivering a change like this one, and change could be at a team level, could be at a department level, could be at an entire organization level, starts with you as an individual who is the leader setting up the tone for the change, but then at the same time, you as an individual can never fulfill the change for the entire organization or for the entire team. So you need everybody to, to share that responsibility and to share that passion. So it starts with the individuals who are leading by example, and as you said, actions are much louder and they are much louder than words, I would say. The leader then needs to quickly create a highly empowered organization and leverage the creativity and the will of the colleagues to drive the transformation. You are basically going to be measured by not only the path you took to get to the destination, but did you actually arrive at the destination.

Sangy Vatsa [00:39:32]:
So arriving at the destination is also very, very important and the journey that you take is very important. So the leader needs to be knowledgeable. They need to show experience in the important details. They need to demonstrate their comprehension of the organization’s strategic goals, and your goal you may have set up for the organization could be something like you’re going to drive x percent higher revenue growth by cutting the time to market by 5% and with a focus on delivering customer centric digital products. So if that’s the kind of the strategic goal, getting everybody to really understand the significance of that goal and the leader being able to not only comprehend but being able to articulate the so what of that, of that goal. The other piece that becomes very important in that outcome generation is that you’re creating a flat organization where every colleague, irrespective, as I said earlier, of their brand and title, is able to feel the empowerment to take that initiative and to lead that important organizational level of change without basically a lot of oversight. So that level of empowerment goes a long way.

Sangy Vatsa [00:40:48]:
Once people have understood the purpose and they have gotten behind the shared priorities, then you want to let them basically free, and so that’s the couple actions. What also matters a lot is that are you really creating some quick wins? And are those quick wins being celebrated as a foundation for your next set of outcomes to come? And I think, if I think about it, maybe just very quickly, an example where I’ve always felt that connecting with anybody in the organization, whether they are the millennials, they are the Gen Xs, Gen Y people who are baby boomers in an organization who bring immense knowledge and experience, being able to connect with every segment of your employee base and giving them the empowerment to show that at the possible is what really sets organizations from others, and in a way, what you’re doing is you’re truly crowdsourcing your organization transformation through your colleagues and creating basically an organizational growth engine. So crowdsource, basically, for some of the members in the audience may not fully appreciate it. That’s where you’re leveraging every colleague in your organization to demonstrate that are possible and giving them the empowerment to go and deliver, and that will be my kind of approach to how do you really then create sustainable outcomes?

Sanjog Aul [00:42:13]:
So that said, the fun final question I have for you is basically connecting back to the very topic which is change at the speed of trust, which was essentially about kind of throttling the change in such a way, controlling the pace of change, so that at no point it basically maximizes the value it can get out of the trust that exists in the organizations, but at no point should it become counterproductive or undermine the trust. Because whenever you make a change, it kind of trust takes a hit one way or the other. So how do you kind of play this balancing act? What would you do to have the best balance possible? The perfect pairing, if you will.

Sangy Vatsa [00:42:54]:
So I’m not sure I’m fully there to share with you a perfect balance, but what I would. What I aspire to do is to really have a sense and respond kind of a culture where you’re constantly sensing and you’re making adjustments as required, and truly very agile and iterative way to think about change management, and so you do need to strike the right balance. You want to ensure that the pace of change, as you said, is not too fast or too slow for that matter, because the pace of change is too slow, you could leave a lot of anxiety in the environment, and if the pace of change is too fast, you could create a lot of chaos in the organization, and so a few things that I shared earlier, having some quick wins and being able to learn from those quick wins, having a culture that basically supports a fast fail and provides ways for people to learn from those opportunities, fast failures are actually good because you don’t really lose a whole lot of investment. At the same time you’re able to learn and and apply the learning to your next set of actions.

Sangy Vatsa [00:44:01]:
As you go through this level of change, you also want to make sure that the measures of success that I shared earlier that you’re closely monitoring those things and are people attracting talent. So in other words, is your net promoter score staying high during the change? Are people basically wanting to come and work for leaders? Is your net attractor score staying high and is your learning quotient staying high? Are people willing to come and share bad news and not have any kind of concerns about sharing bad news with the positive intent that they’re really trying to make it a win win for themselves and for the organization. So I think having some of those constructs in play and constantly using those tools to me is a way to ensure that we are going to have the right balance and then there’ll be missteps along the way, and I tell you, I have had my fair share of those missteps. I think what’s more important is do you have that sense and respond culture where you as a leader as well can acknowledge a misstep and be able to show the change and the learning from that misstep.

Sanjog Aul [00:45:08]:
So that’s what we have on the show and our listeners. I’d really like to thank you Sangy for sharing your insights about how we can establish high trust environment and ensure that that change always happens at the speed of trust. I really thank you so much Sangy for taking the time today. Listeners please like us on Facebook search for CTN, CIO Talk Network and please be sure to follow us on Twitter and join our LinkedIn group. Thank you again for listening to segment on CIO Talk Network. This is Sanjog Aul your talk show host till next week. Take care and God bless.