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Breaking down everyday workplace issues and diagnosing the hidden sickness, not just the obvious symptom. Our hosts, James and Coby.
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Did we lose a patient?
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No, that's just my lunch.
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Hey, thanks for joining us. I'm Coby, he's James. And let's get started with a question. What needs to exist before organizational change can succeed?
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so my completely on brand and entirely unhelpful answer is a whole bunch of things. the reality, I mean, the reality of this question is that it's basically what we seek to answer for our clients in virtually every aspect of our business. whether we're taking on full interim executive functions or playing an advisory role, we help navigate. We help businesses navigate and figure out what needs to exist for whatever opportunity or challenge is in front of them. So what I think would actually be more helpful, or helpful in this conversation is. I don't know that we can actually answer the scope of this question in a single conversation. Instead, I think this is going to be what will become a guiding question through that we're going to seek to answer throughout all of Season five.
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Yeah, I think that like you say, this is, this is kind of a. I think this is the heart of what we try to do with our, work. Because you're right, you know, whether we're, you know, in our traditional management consulting roles, whether we're providing advisory support to industry or to organizations or associations around, kind of around trends and big shifts, whether we're taking over organizations and leading them while they try and rebuild and stabilize or expand or whatever it is, this has become what needs to exist first before this will be successful has been the cornerstone of our work. And I think us, talking about this now is going to be, like you said, kind of an ongoing theme for a lot of Season five. But I think season five is going to be a real peek behind the curtain of Roman 3 and the work that we do.
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And, and that's where I think this, like, we're, we're not, we're not intentionally avoiding the question. it's. It seems like a fairly easy, straightforward question to answer that actually has a, ah, significant amount of nuance to it. And the type of, ah, change that you are going through determines the answer that we would give you, along with the scope and scale of the disruption or the growth or the whatever opportunity or challenges in front of. So to answer this question, I think we need to give people more context and transparency around how we approach answering this question for clients. So we are actually planning to answer the question just perhaps not in the way that the original framing would suggest.
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Yeah. And I think that this is also a great opportunity for us to kind of say that. Welcome to season five of our podcast. And every, every season we try and do something a little bit, a little bit different. and this year I do think that we want to again we want to provide you our listeners a more behind the scenes look at the work that we do. and be able to kind of share a lot of our learnings from the, from the situations and the kind of crazy work that we end up finding ourselves in by you know, stepping in, in various roles or working with different companies. Because really the work that we do, we work with companies across North America. we work in just in lots of different sectors. we play various roles. Whether we're providing fractional leadership and kind of. And supporting kind of supporting teams as a member of the team, whether we completely take the organization over and we're leading it as an interim basis, whether we're supporting teams, and leadership or management teams or or boards through advisory roles or kind of whatever it is. There's always lots of you know, like there's always lots of different things going on. There's always lots of very nuanced, very subtle, very, very micro situations and problems and challenges and changes but also very big picture macro changes and implications and cause and effect and long term big picture stuff that often gets missed by those in the weeds every day, those focused on the, on the business, the operation that only the outside perspective that we know, the consultants like us are able to bring to the picture but we also can bring like a roadmap to stability through our just learned experience, our diagnostic tools, our approaches that I think that we want to share m more of that with you our listeners during season five.
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Yeah. And so we've got a couple ways of doing that. I also want to say like last season we introduced kind of the the three buckets, the around m. The the types of episodes that you could So our workplace, psychology, the leadership, development and culture pieces, those, those want. We want to maintain while also kind of adding a, A central theme throughout that kind of unifies everything around this big question of you know, what actually needs to exist before organizational change can succeed. So this season we also as Coby was kind of saying, really want to provide more than just information. so we are also really excited to announce that we have relaunched our website Roman uh3ca and you can check us out there we are. We will be providing more free diagnostic tools that you can use that are self assessments that are interactive that will help you to kind of figure out where you, you may be depending on what type of specific problem or challenge you might be experiencing. So the idea is to kind of, as we were saying, you know, give you a peek behind the curtain but also give you more tools that you can use to figure out where the best place for your efforts, will be.
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Yeah. So if we have a conversation, we talk about something that you know, could be very helpful and reflective of some of the diagnostic tools that we have. We're going to make a, a version of that available to you for free on our website. and plan would be like, if we talk about it in the podcast, it'll be available to you as you know, while listening to the podcast kind of right now. And then we also want to also help those on their leadership development journey by creating a workbook that people can download that will be, they'll be updated kind of as we talk about stuff on the podcast as well. with some like self reflective questions, some self, some self learning or some sort of, some independent learning strategies and stuff like that to help someone that is on this leadership path and trying to develop their leadership and management skills be able to turn some of the stuff that we talk about on the website. Sorry. Or on the podcast to be actual actionable things that you can actually use in your work by downloading it off our website. So largely we want to, with season five, we want to give you more to work with. We want to give you more real, tangible, practical things that can help you in your work. and we also want to continue these great discussions, engagements with you. so we really want to encourage more opportunities for conversations from our listeners to ask us for episode topics or, or if we're like, hey, we said that we were going, you guys were going to do a diagnostic around the competition and you didn't. Could you make one that reflects it? Let us know and we're happy to to find more ways to support you and connect with you, our listener, while also making fun of each other.
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And well, the fact that people still tune in to listen to you and I rant about stuff just absolutely blows my mind. So if, if people are putting up with us for you know, 45 minutes to an hour every couple weeks, we need to do something to thank them for it. Absolutely. Make it worth their while.
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That's right.
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Yeah.
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Ah, yeah. And, because, I mean, like, you know, we thought about doing something different this year. I was like, hey, maybe I should need. I should have a new guest host that might be more attractive to people. But, get rid of James. but that didn't seem to be in the cards next year.
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You keep trying, but you haven't been able to get rid of me yet.
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No, we keep showing up. All right, so, getting back to our question, I do think that there's probably again, some helpful insight from just the way that we talk about how we talk about change kind of internally, like, you know, our internal in house shorthand and kind of like perspective that we, that we use, when we're doing those discovery calls with new clients or when we're talking with partners on referrals and helping get to the bottom of their situations. So one of the things that we wanted to share with you is, and we've talked about this in episodes before, about the three main kinds of change that we tend to work with in organizations. and those three changes are really kind of like growth and expansion and scalability is one, mergers and blending of teams and situations and program the structures as number two position. Yeah, as number two. And then the third is disruption or chaos or calamity and sometimes, and as number three. and we kind of in our in house refer to these as like stability fractures. That's just kind of the, like the, you know, instead of saying buckets or instead of saying kind of types, we just kind of call them like the three fractures. and really a lot of like almost all of our work falls into one of those three things. But it's kind of. Because I think most organizational change, well, most organizational situations also kind of fall into those three things because they're not just like growth is not just expanding to a new market or doubling your footprint. Mergers are not just M and A. and disruption is not just like, you know, the, you get hacked. It's not just like one thing. There's lots of different layers and lots of different things that some of you may experience but may not think about as change or as, something that may need to be taken as seriously as having a strategic plan around them or asking yourself what needs to exist first before we can get through this situation is actually a form of change.
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Yeah, and I mean, obviously we're going to keep going back to that question, but I think it's important, like we talk about these as the stability fractures because typically what we aim to, provide to Our clients is stability. We want to help bring organizations to a point where they can regularly and reliably grow, meet their operational objectives, meet their sales, their growth targets without constantly feeling like they are in a state of uncertainty and stress and anxiety and all the rest that goes along with the lack of stability or consistency. So those are, that's how we. All of these kind of pieces tie together. And the language that we've used in podcasts over the last several years is what we are really. The, the fractures are kind of the, the three big buckets or the, the three big areas that our clients tend to be experiencing when they bring us in for supports. But what we're trying to get to is we are trying to get them through this change, disruption, growth, whatever it may be, but with the point of bringing to. Bringing with it a level of stability in expectation, consistency in the way that problems are handled and while also giving them the internal capacity and data that they need to be able to continue the stable trajectory, after. Long after we've left.
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Yeah, right. Because I mean, I think that, I think that you're right. I think that if people were to be like, hey, what do you guys sell? I think that if we had to say that in one word, I think it would be we sell stability. I think it's really kind of the main thing that we try to provide people, and we try to provide people that are again going through those three fractures when you are growing, change can be very positive. It can be very optimistic. But it's still tough, it's still stressful, it's still awkward. New demands and new things to learn and new ways of doing things. And sometimes it's a matter of undoing the. Your processes and your approaches to things because they're. They. They can't scale. Right. So it's.
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Well, growth disrupts stability. You typically in a positive way. But just because the, the result is positive doesn't mean that the journey is going to be the And the way that people experience change often yes, it, it is influenced by the type of change that they are experiencing, but the effects can be very negative on the people while also being very positive for the organization. I know that sounds like a really simplistic and obvious statement, but it's important to actually make that statement because we see it play out very often in the way that organizations approach change, particularly when that change is framed from a positive standpoint like the ability to grow their business. That's what we all Want as business owners, as managers, as leaders, we. We are empowered to help, this organization grow, scale.
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Yeah.
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Achieve their outcomes.
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Well, one of the things that, like, so we've got a number of different, clients and projects that we've taken on that have had to do with replication. we're working with the client right now that we may be looking at rebuilding their operational model and then working with other similar entities across a region and potentially turn that model into a
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repeatable, and scalable across the entire.
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Yeah, so, yeah, so. So, I mean, so like that idea of, well, what's working for us here today is. Is great and we want to be able to turn that into that success that we're having locally into something that someone else could take our playbook and make it happen in their location and in their place and build off that success. And I mean, that's the same kind of, function as like, like franchising. Like franchising kind of operates in a very similar model, but it's a matter of like, well, if something is working for you now, what is domain specific to your location, to your people, to your corporate knowledge and everything else like that, and how do you build something that will be able. Someone else could, you know, that is not dependent on your location, your people. Right. And this is one of those things too, is that the idea of kind of taking that replication model as a form of. Is a form of change. Because what you have to do is you have to be like, okay, well, how do you take what is in people's heads? How do you take what is just past practice or unspoken norms? And how do you convert that into something that is stable enough, that it is repeatable enough? Because we talk about in a lot of our episodes, difference between complicated and complex. Right. It is something that you can make a plan and. And it will. It's easy to repeat because it's just, you know, it's just there may be
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a lot of steps and there may be a lot of work involved, but once you have a formula, once you have a system in place, a, complicated system can be repeatable.
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Yeah. And an example we give about that is corporate taxes. Your taxes are very, There's a lot of steps, a lot of expertise, a lot of nuance. But an accountant can lead basically any company through, you know, through their taxes because the processes is annoying and expensive as often is also not that we
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just went through having to get our taxes done, like everybody else recently.
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Yeah, yeah. Let's be clear. We're Venting. but the idea of it is
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that that's the point of the podcast, so buckle up.
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But again, an accountant can lead very varying companies across very different sectors and very different, you know, scopes and sizes through the same process. Because the process is complicated, whereas complex is when it is unique to the situation. Your plan will not necessarily work for, that works for you, will not necessarily work for someone else. And the plan that might work for you today may not work for you in six months or, you know, or if one thing changes, then you have to change the entire thing. Complicated is very sorry. Complex is like, it's custom, it's bespoke. And the reality is when your system change your system, standardization, your system, you know, stability efforts are impacting people and people's expertise and people's actions and people's processes. That inherently makes them complex. Yeah, so that is one of the things that, you know, when we talk about because again, even looking at it from that I mentioned before, kind of the macro and micro perspective, when you're replicating something, you're. You're thinking, well, from a. Everyday on the ground, you m. Know, experience for employees, it's a, it's a number of steps of taking things out of someone's head and putting it down on paper. That seems like a very, you know, like, micro way of trying to create that stability. But, but they're looking at how does the entire system structure, organization, orientation, structure impact, you know, the, the complete standardization of processes and looking at, if you want to expand into different areas, what is the cultural significance if you want to go to a different country or what is it if you want to go to even a different region that may have different, you know, like, taxes and norms. And so. And that's the macro piece that also has to be considered too. So it's, it's very. So growth is something that these are, these are again examples of kind of instability that happens during growth that have to be looked at from this idea of what needs to exist first for this type of growth to actually land and be effective and actually be scalable and sustainable.
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Yeah, I mean, for me, what always comes up for me when we're talking about this is, I mean, I, I like to give cheeky, simple answers. so my cheeky, simple answer would be data. Right? What needs to exist first is you need to have data. You need to actually understand, what's changing, why it's changing, and what needs to change along with it. Who needs to change along with it. What processes that need to change along with it. And this is the area that we see organizations, stumble on, most frequently because. And it's why we've developed so many diagnostic tools. It's why we go so hard on the, investigations as being the most important thing that we can do first. When we step into a new, to support a new organization. We need to get the data. We need to understand what's happening at different levels within the organization, within different departments, within different teams that are going to be affected by whatever, whatever opportunity, challenge, whatever that has that the organization is facing. That they brought us in to help support them with data is not just your employee engagement survey results that can be a source of data. But that's again, another stumbling block that we see. A lot of organizations rely very heavily on saying, we have data, we know what's going on because we've surveyed our staff. That's not enough.
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Yeah.
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And that's why understanding the interconnected systems that need to change along with whatever focal point you're looking at, there is a lot of nuance involved in terms of figuring out not only where do we. Well, it's not only figuring out where you want to go or what the end result is that you're trying to get to. You need more than one data point in order to make a plan. You need to know where you are right now, where you, and where you want to be ultimately at the end of all of this. But even just those two data points doesn't give you a pathway, it gives you a direction. The data that we, that you need to collect is going to tell you, okay, here's where we are, here's where we want to go. Here are the different systems that need to change, the people, the, the processes, the approaches that need to change along with it. It really needs to become more ingrained in how we approach our organizational structures and our change management to rely more on the. Just on the outcome.
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Yeah. And what's really kind of funny is that when we work with different types of organizations going through the, the, you know, one of the three types of fractures is that the ones that actually are the most like, unhappy with the first step being an investigation and data collection are the ones going through growth because they're the mind of like, well, things are working for us, so why you need to like, look under the hood if, you know, we don't, we don't have problems, we're growing and, and it's, and they're like, don't, don't Waste time by looking under the hood. Just, just here's what we want you
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to just repeat the model that we've built and everything will be fine. Yeah, well, you can grow taller while growing more in state, more, less stable. I mean we, it's like Jenga, right? You can pull you can grow taller with using the same resources that you've always had by pulling pieces, by rearranging where they. But it creates inherent instabilities if you're not looking at it from a m. Structural framework.
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And the reality is I would say 95% of businesses out there that are doing well and that are growing are not operationally designed for scalability.
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If we're talking about small and medium businesses, absolutely. I agree with you 100%. They're not. it's funny because it follows, right? Yeah. They get to a ceiling and the ceiling could be very high, but the ceiling is there. And the ceiling often has to do with the technical abilities of the leadership. And if this flows very well into concept that we've talked about many times, which is our technical founder paradox around how the skills and abilities of a founder that makes a business successful early on they're usually they hit a plateau. If you don't grow with your business, if your skills and your knowledge and context don't grow alongside the, the growth that your business experiences, you're going to hit a wall. And what I've found m time and time and time and time again is that especially in the small medium business environment, kind of the, the sub 304 hundred employee point usually led by people who are experts in their product or service but not necessarily have the broad base of knowledge and expertise around systems design, around structural design and operational design.
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Yeah. I mean like when we are talking to businesses like in that, in that realm, looking at this kind of growth, you know, one of the things that they're like again they're often require more convincing to look at the investigative pieces and stuff like that too. Because they don't want us to waste time. They just want us to kind of do what they think it needs to get done. But then we kind of say well then what happens when you know your sales are, are scaling and then, and you're, you're hitting kind of operational max. Then what? Like, well then we'll look to figure that out then.
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Or say hire more people.
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Yeah, or what kind of.
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Because that's always been so easy.
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Yeah. Or what kind of stuff. So what happens when you know, like, when it comes to training your employees on this very, on this process, it's kind of, that seems to be very, very unique to you. Kind of your committed advantage. Like, oh, well, we just, and we just rely heavily on Carol M. Or on, you know, someone else to just who, who knows the stuff. Well, I'm like, well, what happens if Carol leaves? Or what happens if, you know, when they had their max of work? Like, you know, like. So it's always very funny to me when a company does not want to talk about like standard operating procedures or kind of like, or scalable structural, processes, but our, not wanting to waste time because they're, they're wanting to capitalize on their growth. I, I always kind of feel like, okay, you're actually not wanting to take your own growth seriously if you're not willing to do it right. If you're prioritizing, doing it fast and not doing it right, you're not really taking it seriously. You're, you're willing to, you know, put this whole thing at risk because you don't want to do the job right. And that's a tough scenario for, for a business to be in. and, but like, again, we don't work with everybody. and one of the things that, you know, tends to be, be a tough thing is if they, if they don't want to. Because, because often, like what you said, we collect data. So why do we need more data? I'm like, well, do you know what data you're collecting? If you're just serving your employees, that's, that is a form of data, but has nothing to do with what we're talking about. So all data is not the same. All data is not equally useful. And collecting data for data's sake, if you don't. Because again, one of the things you're often like, what are you doing with that data you're collecting? Well, we don't really know. Okay, then why are you collecting it? We know we're supposed to, so we do. Well, that's cool. And again, sometimes it's that technical founder because like you said, they are trying to do the right thing. They read books, they're trying to do it the right way. And so they.
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But data collection in that environment becomes performative. Right? It's a. And we see this performative nature of data data collection often in in corporate environments where the, the sole metric that a team is looking at is the, in the engagement score for a band of questions that relates specifically to their Function. That's fine, I guess. But does the engagement score going up one point, going down one point actually tell you why it's gone up one point or down one point? Yeah. Can you actually draw a direct line between the work that you've done over the last year and that change in one point? Or are you in an environment that has a high degree of turnover and you're catching people on a good day, a bad day, you're surveying them once a year or once every six months and maybe you're in. You're surveying an entirely different crop of people because you lost, you know, 70% of your staff in the last six months. Right. I'm looking at you retail.
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Yes. It's not. And as you can tell, this is. This has been a conversation that James has had a number of times with a number of people.
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but I have to be, I, I have to be professional when I'm talking with clients. So this is my outlet.
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Right. Okay. So I think that we, I think that we gave some, again, we gave a very good example of what growth and how it's, how its stability is often, you know, like fractured during growth. so I think most people kind of understand that kind of conceptually. I want to move on, talk a little bit about merger because again, this is a language that we use internally, but. And then we've used the podcast, but when we talk to people about kind of this work, they often have a picture in their mind of what they think we mean when we say merger. And usually it's mergers and acquisitions or M and A. And that is something that we do see. That is something that is a common, A, common type of, of stability fracture. but I think it's really important for us to kind of say there's a whole lot more that falls under the merger and blending kind of, stability fracture than just M and A.
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Yeah, and the, the blending is doing a lot of heavy lifting, in this language. And I think it.
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Be it.
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As we talk about this more, from the framework of, you know, the, the growth, the merger, the disruption merger and blending is really what we're talking about. and the acquisition piece is like we, we have several clients that have a, ah, solid acquisition strategy as their growth strategy. And so it can blend the lines somewhat. But the reason why it really lives in this bucket is because of the level of complexity that comes with bringing together, multiple organizations under a shared or standardized set of, organizational expectations, cultures and frameworks. And so we, we Talk about it from the, the broad large scale impacts. But the blending is something that I, I, we don't talk as explicitly about at least and we haven't in the context of the podcast. And it can. A merger and blending can be combining two similar programs or departments under a unified service. Right. You're still taking the same types of complexities that are seen in the large scale acquisition, merger or merger and acquisition, traditional framework on a much more localized level within your organization. But the impacts on individuals can be the exact same. And the way that people experience that change within, in terms of how it's going to impact their work, how they are, you know, their department may be merging or blending with another department. Now we have to work with people that we're not as familiar with. Maybe the management teams have had very different approaches to how they lead and manage and organize work amongst their teams. There's still a lot of nuance that you need to be aware of even though the scale of the change is significantly smaller.
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Yeah. Because I mean, you know that's a common thing when we start digging into breaking down silos. within organizations is often you know, as part of that merger and blending piece. and sometimes it's a matter of like, you know, there's also some of that happens kind of internally also. There's, there's things when organizations are partnering with a, either a similar organization or an organization that offers a complementary kind of service. Like the idea of a manufacturing company collaborating with like a logistics company, to kind of help kind of kind of COVID more of the supply chain pieces and stuff like that too. Those kind of larger collaborative pieces are also another form of merger. one that we're more familiar with too is like, you know, when you're looking at a unit, a single service that has that's shared between
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or has multiple delivery partners.
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Yeah, multiple. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And then, and their unique operational structure and then that requires a lot of like memorandums of understanding and it requires a lot of like you know, the different reporting pieces and custom like custom SOPs that cover both entities and
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yeah, that's been a fun one. you know, multiple organizations coming together to provide a single unified service. But the staff have three different HR guidelines that they and are responsible to. One may be unionized, the others may not like it. Yeah, that, that has been a frequent topic of conversation in the last,
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yeah, oh yeah, yeah. Year, year and a half.
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Yeah.
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Another one too is like you know, kind of. Which often has a bit of blending with the growth one too is when a company launches a pilot program or like they're dipping their toe into a new market or into a new area or providing a new service and they've built it as a contained pilot with its own unique staffing. And, and it's kind of like an, it's kind of a bit of a, bit of a. Because of the nature of a pilot, it's a bit of an appendix to the rest of the organization. But the pilot goes really, really well and they want to, they want to roll the pilots, outcomes and services and products into his core operations. That requires a significant amount of navigation around merging something that may have been nimble and impactful and sometimes even a little bit, a little bit off brand into the full brand into the full operation pieces that does require. Again, that is a really good example of blending as well.
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Yeah, the. It's funny because we could list a dozen different ways that blending happens, through organizations. I'm sure that listening to this, you can probably think of experiences in your own work life. like we've seen whether it's shared executive between, that's responsible for multiple departments or organizations bringing them together. we've seen departments that have been merged and the staffs have brought together. Even there's less so today. But we're still seeing, you know, the, the desire to collapse, layers of management. Right. The large. As you kind of. We've. What we see some quite often with organizations that have experienced fairly consistent and sizable growth over an extended period of time is that it naturally creates a, multiple layers of bureaucracy or management for lack of a better term. And there, there comes a time when you need to collapse some of those. When you need to look at how administratively heavy you've become because you've kind of built pieces, well, piecemeal. those are all examples of blending that require a significant amount of context to understand. While they all fall under the same general bucket, they require very different information to understand. So how do you collect that information? Why do you, when do you collect that information? I mean it's not always feasible to have collected all of that data up front because you don't know. I mean it goes back to the question of well, why are you collecting it in the first place if you're not currently using or if you don't have any plans to use it. So what we typically, the way that we typically approach this and the way that we, when we leave an organization, the, the way that we try to build the capacity internally is to help our clients understand that data collection is an ongoing activity and you're, it's really important to be able to ask the same questions over a period of time as long as you are continually continuing to need the data and the results. Right. You do want to be able to have some sort of benchmark and be able to monitor progress over time. But if you just rely on the same questions all of the time for all of your data collection activities, you're not going to necessarily get to the new nuance or the change specific data that you need in order to understand the realities, what needs to exist for this particular change to be successful.
00:39:47.599 --> 00:41:51.519
I think it's important for us to also look at too. I think that you listening to this may think that a lot of the data we're talking about, a lot of the systems, a lot of the structures are very operational as far as like SOPs policies, safety guidelines, those kinds of that. And that is something that we look at too. But the cultural assessments, understanding the workplace environment, the team dynamics, those are just as impactful, especially when you're looking at mergers. Like another example that popped into my mind when you're kind of listing off some of the examples of mergers was like bringing satellite offices kind of under a central leadership or trying to like, you know, like when, when you're seeing the expansion and you're seeing the, the, the departments trying to like, you know, look at adding more people to the team or, or, or be more productive, like I say with, with management, the cultural impacts of that. We're looking at satellite offices, especially different states or if they're across different provinces or whatever. It might be that looking at being able to understand the cultural impact of that or even going back to traditional M and A, looking at the, you know, like when, when there's an acquisition happening, understanding the cultural dynamics and norms and expectations of company A, that's purchasing company B, knowing that what company A's norms are, what their, their thoughts on like employee autonomy and on psychological safety and on inclusion and then having company B also be assessed for those. Look at what is the matching of that, what's going to be the, the cultural blending that has to happen too. So that way productivity, employee engagement and kind of efficiencies and are also being able to be shuffled in a way that's going to allow for as little disruption to service and product delivery and everything else. Like that as well. So we're talking about data. We're not just talking about something that is an operational piece or that is just around your SOPs, your policy. We're also talking about again looking at how do you assess those really hard to assess pieces around psychological safety and workplace culture and inclusion and those kind of things as well because those have just as much impact as how good your again your safety protocols are, for example.
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Yeah, I'm glad you made that distinction because one of the biggest, one of the most interesting pieces of data, not even just piece of, but frameworks for collecting data that I really enjoy in the work that we do is that we and I, we've talked, probably mentioned it before but maybe not explained it on the podcast is we. I really find an incredible amount of insight available at the intersection between policy practice and perception. that tends to be for me one of the richest early sources of data that will actually allow us to understand what is happening. Because you're not, when you ask a question, when you're framing your data collection, activities, you're rarely going to get a direct response from your employees or from whomever you are serving or you know, whatever data you are collecting that's going to accept perfectly answer the question that you have in mind. Usually you're going to have to collect a broad swath of data and then come to use that to actually find the insights available. And that's where the policy, practice and perception can be really important and really valuable because understanding the difference between what the official rules of the organization are, what's written down and in policy in SOPs, and comparing that with how managers actually put that into practice on a day by day basis, and then adding in the additional intersection of how do employees actually experience that, what is their perception of how, of how the rules are written, constructed and formalized and how the manager puts those into practice on a day by day basis. That has consistently been a really rich source of data for us.
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Yeah, absolutely. And I mean again and this is all the stuff that we kind of go back to when we're looking at the whole idea of what needs to exist first around mergers and blending is that level of insight. And usually like I say so our, our P3 assessments of policy practice and perception is one of the diagnostic tools that we often, that we often start, do do a lot of our early engagements with. And again as far as interest, the ones going through mergers tend to, tend to be really welcoming to that kind of assessment early on because they're like, yeah, we would like to know kind of what the norms are. We would like to be able to have a better understanding because we think we're doing everything right, but we have no idea really what the, what the employees are, are thinking. And we don't know what they. But we also are not quite clear on what is the normal practice, of the everyday. We know we want, but is that actually what's happening?
00:44:45.199 --> 00:45:52.119
But it also provides a really good benchmarking and measurement of success when you're going through M and A to actually get your benchmark early and then measure adoption, over time, repeat the process, see where the growth is happening, show improvements, test a new initiative, follow up to see has that had an impact on the overall. This is, it's a process. It's not a single activity. and that's. If, if I could, well, if I could make one change in organizations, I don't know if how I would choose, but this is one, one major thing that I would, with a magic wand, just change the perception or the, the way that we approach data collection. Not as a, M box to check. We've done it for this year, let's move on. But as a recurring activity that informs, guides and creates, our strategic intent.
00:45:52.119 --> 00:46:42.951
Yeah, because again, going back to the stability part of this is that this type of blending causes instability in people's everyday work. Again, often from a very macro or starts from a very micro level on people, like, you know, people's daily interactions and their stress of their workloads like that. But understanding getting, getting a temperature check or a pulse check for where everybody is, and then being able to kind of help make a plan that you can effectively communicate to people so they know that they're being considered when the stuff's being rolled out. And that is being rolled out as carefully and as tactically as possible is, helps create that stability during this very, you know, often, you know, challenging time of going through a merger or going through a blend and going through a lot of uncertainty. So there's, there is a piece of it as well. But I do want to move on. We're running short on time. I want to.
00:46:42.951 --> 00:46:44.559
Aren't we always running short on time?
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Yeah, I mean, well, the problem is getting you and I talking and having this be some type of coherent conversation can, be tough. So I do want to talk about disruption. And disruption is one that I feel like that's been a big portion of our conversations over the last, like Year and a half have been around.
00:47:00.639 --> 00:47:03.639
It's been a big portion of our work over the last year and a half too.
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Yeah. And again disruption like we often we. It's funny, we originally would always refer to it as chaos but that seemed a little bit, I don't know, judgy
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with some of our clients.
00:47:12.440 --> 00:47:13.840
So we decided to.
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It's not great client facing language you are experiencing just pure chaos is not exactly the language that gets people motivated to work with you.
00:47:25.719 --> 00:48:56.199
No. Even though, even though eventually they're like yeah, we absolutely are. so. Yeah, so disruption tends to be a, tends to be ah, an easier way for us to talk about this kind of work. But again this is often when again like when there's a sudden departure of a crucial leader or when there's a massive change in the, the, the market or, or the business working conditions, tariffs, anybody. when there's again like major technological shifts, some of the impact of AI on some sectors can fall into. Under disruption. one of the things we talked about a lot too last season which we talked about the business law of the linchpin where you are intentionally creating risk based on a single All your business relying on one contract or all your kind of internal corporate knowledge or efficiencies relying on one single person. Then when that one person, that one contract goes away, you're into massive disruption. So these are, these are the kinds of examples of what disruption looks like. And often our. This is where a lot of. I think this is where a lot of our interim work tends to, tends to live. We don't always go in and take over organizations but often when they're going through a massive disruption it usually kind of ripples out into massive Disruption
00:48:56.199 --> 00:50:18.800
usually means that you need more resources available for a shorter period of time. So maybe you know, hiring another internal manager, or expert to come in isn't feasible. But bringing in a fractional leader, to manage through the change that's. We do a lot of leadership roles through disruption, where it's. Something has happened, a leader has left, a major external factor is significantly changing the nature of the business. And we need, we have two competing priorities. Maintain operations and continue to produce whatever product widget we are or deliver whatever service we are delivering, while also navigating through this massive disruption. And so usually you already have your internal experts who are able to build your product, deliver your service, lead through the normal operations. You need somebody who can come in and manage that disruption. And that tends to be the larger share of where our work in the disruption realm.
00:50:18.800 --> 00:50:37.599
yeah, I'd say actually, I mean, to be kind of clear too that I say under growth and under disruption or where we tend to step into specific leadership roles, where we do more fractional work or more interim work, whereas with merger we tend to do mostly just typical management consulting, change management, navigation.
00:50:37.599 --> 00:50:39.039
Because often diagnostics.
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Diagnostics. Yeah, because usually during growth, and disruption, like you say, there's. There's a void in expertise or a void in some type of leadership capacity and they need someone to help, to help build capacity or to help stabilize kind of this, you know, this ever evolving situation, whether that's expansion or whether it's chaos. but, we tend to. Yeah, so it is something that, you know, like when it comes back to go back to disruption, when it comes to disruption, one of the things that we sometimes do is when there's a sudden again, loss of an executive that they. One of the things we say, we say that when you have a very sudden loss of an executive, one of the worst things that companies tend to do is they tend to rush to fill that void and recruit a new executive, you know, like, you know, as soon as possible to make that voice as small as possible. And again, sometimes that is a good idea. but sometimes if it's a matter of why they're leaving, if they're leaving because of an external piece or they're, or they're leaving and it's causing, and it's causing ripple effects and shockwaves throughout the organization or there's some if, or if they're leaving and it's causing an exodus of other people leaving, hiring, recruiting somebody for what looks to be a sinking ship is never easy and never sustainable. I cannot think of many examples where we've seen companies that have done that and it's worked out great. Often what we've seen of companies that have said, okay, we are losing people, or we lost our leader and we're losing a key staff. So we'll hire someone that can come in. And they come in and go, this is not what I thought this was. This was not the company that was presented to me when I interviewed. And they start looking immediately for a new job and then you're back to square one.
00:52:44.719 --> 00:55:04.000
Yeah, there are a few factors that play into this, right? Like it's. If you are in the midst of a major disruption, you've lost a key leader or maybe the CEO has left and the organization is feeling like it is unstable. The, you may even correctly identify that the organization is feeling unstable and you want to hire somebody who can come in and provide that stability. But then you're, you're recruiting for the short term, right? You're recruiting an executive, somebody who ideally is going to be in place for years and provide the stability but you're recruiting them based on an immediate need rather than a future need need. You're recruiting them with the understanding that the skills that you're looking for over the next six months or a year is somebody who can pro, who can stabilize the organization. It tends to be very, very difficult to find a senior level executive who has a broad scope of skill sets that allows them to both be able to step into an organization in the midst of a crisis, in the midst of a disruption, and provide that level of clarity and stability and structure in the short term and then shift gears when the organization has regained stability and focus on growth, which is usually what an organization wants, what a board wants, what a, what an owner wants. because once you are stable, if you don't move, you stagnate.Stability is not an end. Stability is a means to an end. And unless you, and this is where we often get into discussions with prospective clients around well, do you actually want, I know you want to hire somebody right away and fill that gap, but is that actually what you need in the short term or do you need somebody who can step in for six months, in a year, provide the stability and then help you recruit the executive who is actually going to be able to take the organization once there is some stability to the next level?
00:55:04.000 --> 00:55:40.079
Again, the disruption piece isn't always just with losing executive, but it's often one that we're seeing more and more because when there's some of these major issues that come with shifting markets or with kind of like you know, the companies having to, trying to live, actually trying to walk the walk with their mission statement and they're trying to make hard decisions and, and you end up seeing people being pushed to the point of like, you know what, I don't know if I could stay here because of these, these expectations or because of this, you know, this is only going to get crazier and I'm close to retirement so why don't I leave now?
00:55:40.079 --> 00:55:43.840
And we said like 15 minutes ago we were getting close to the end of our time.
00:55:43.840 --> 00:55:45.039
yeah.
00:55:45.039 --> 00:57:28.800
So we should probably not harp on the disruption piece too much. But the there is. What I do want to reiterate is that season five, this. So this is our first episode of season five, which is in and of itself kind of amazing that, people are still listening to us. So we have to start off season five. We wanted to make sure that we had a really practical, useful tool that is, consistent with what we have been talking about today. So on our website, Roman3ca, you, can find a what needs to exist first? diagnostic tool that will help you run through, answering this question of what needs to exist first, whether you are looking at growth, whether you are looking at merger and blending, whether you were looking at, some sort of disruption, or whether you're just not sure. So check it out. we are going to be adding more and more free tools, throughout the rest of this season and in all likelihood until we decide not to. which is not a helpful timeline, but I was going to say in perpetuity, but no, we're not doing this forever. we're gonna retire at some point. We're gonna retire someday. well, maybe retire or death one of them. but anyways, we really wanted to make sure that this season we are not only providing you with useful information, but we are providing you with practical tools that you can start to use yourself for free to, make changes within your organization.
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And we do want to encourage more opportunities for you to connect with us directly, have more questions, whether you want to run ideas by us, whether you want to just be like, hey, you guys talked about this and made me think about this. In our workplace, we're always happy to have those discussions and, and we, and we just love connecting with our listeners. So your best way to get a hold of us is going to be to email us at, Inforomon 3 ca. And we again, will. We really appreciate the fact that you are listening to us now, that you probably listen to some of our other conversations that you've not been been, turned off by the sound of James's voice. Because, hey, we really want to make.
00:58:11.280 --> 00:58:12.159
It's a real challenge.
00:58:12.159 --> 00:59:33.800
It is. But we really want to make sure that you're getting more out of engaging with, with our podcast, engaging with us because again, we want to. We are learning cool stuff in the work that we do that we do such a unique kind of work, that work that, the more we talk about with our peers and partners, the more we find out how different a lot of our work is. And, we get exposed to stuff that not Everyone does. So the podcast and the opportunity to share this stuff and our insights and our lessons, because we legitimately want workplaces to be better. We want employees to have jobs that they are not drained by, that they, feel fulfillment in and that they're not. It's not hard and stressful, especially when they're going through things like growth and merger and disruption, that they can have as much, you know, like, mental clarity and ideally, like, you know, and supportive environments that they possibly can. And we know that can't happen with just our work, which is why we want to share this kind of stuff. So please take advantage of our free tools. Please take advantage of, opportunity to chat with us and troubleshoot and problem solve with us. We're always up for those kind of engagements. And thank you again for listening, all this time. All right, so I think that about us for us. For a full archive of the podcast and access to the video version hosted on our YouTube channel, visit Roman3.ca/podcast. Thanks for joining us.
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For more information on topics like these, don't forget to Visit us at Roman3.ca. Side effects of this podcast may include improved retention, high productivity, increased market share, chair employees breaking out in spontaneous dance, dry mouth, aversion to the sound of James's voice, desire to find a better podcast…
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Breaking down everyday workplace issues and diagnosing the hidden sickness, not just the obvious symptom. Our hosts, James and Coby.
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Did we lose a patient?
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No, that's just my lunch.
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Hey, thanks for joining us. I'm Coby, he's James. And let's get started with a question. What needs to exist before organizational change can succeed?
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so my completely on brand and entirely unhelpful answer is a whole bunch of things. the reality, I mean, the reality of this question is that it's basically what we seek to answer for our clients in virtually every aspect of our business. whether we're taking on full interim executive functions or playing an advisory role, we help navigate. We help businesses navigate and figure out what needs to exist for whatever opportunity or challenge is in front of them. So what I think would actually be more helpful, or helpful in this conversation is. I don't know that we can actually answer the scope of this question in a single conversation. Instead, I think this is going to be what will become a guiding question through that we're going to seek to answer throughout all of Season five.
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Yeah, I think that like you say, this is, this is kind of a. I think this is the heart of what we try to do with our, work. Because you're right, you know, whether we're, you know, in our traditional management consulting roles, whether we're providing advisory support to industry or to organizations or associations around, kind of around trends and big shifts, whether we're taking over organizations and leading them while they try and rebuild and stabilize or expand or whatever it is, this has become what needs to exist first before this will be successful has been the cornerstone of our work. And I think us, talking about this now is going to be, like you said, kind of an ongoing theme for a lot of Season five. But I think season five is going to be a real peek behind the curtain of Roman 3 and the work that we do.
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And, and that's where I think this, like, we're, we're not, we're not intentionally avoiding the question. it's. It seems like a fairly easy, straightforward question to answer that actually has a, ah, significant amount of nuance to it. And the type of, ah, change that you are going through determines the answer that we would give you, along with the scope and scale of the disruption or the growth or the whatever opportunity or challenges in front of. So to answer this question, I think we need to give people more context and transparency around how we approach answering this question for clients. So we are actually planning to answer the question just perhaps not in the way that the original framing would suggest.
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Yeah. And I think that this is also a great opportunity for us to kind of say that. Welcome to season five of our podcast. And every, every season we try and do something a little bit, a little bit different. and this year I do think that we want to again we want to provide you our listeners a more behind the scenes look at the work that we do. and be able to kind of share a lot of our learnings from the, from the situations and the kind of crazy work that we end up finding ourselves in by you know, stepping in, in various roles or working with different companies. Because really the work that we do, we work with companies across North America. we work in just in lots of different sectors. we play various roles. Whether we're providing fractional leadership and kind of. And supporting kind of supporting teams as a member of the team, whether we completely take the organization over and we're leading it as an interim basis, whether we're supporting teams, and leadership or management teams or or boards through advisory roles or kind of whatever it is. There's always lots of you know, like there's always lots of different things going on. There's always lots of very nuanced, very subtle, very, very micro situations and problems and challenges and changes but also very big picture macro changes and implications and cause and effect and long term big picture stuff that often gets missed by those in the weeds every day, those focused on the, on the business, the operation that only the outside perspective that we know, the consultants like us are able to bring to the picture but we also can bring like a roadmap to stability through our just learned experience, our diagnostic tools, our approaches that I think that we want to share m more of that with you our listeners during season five.
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Yeah. And so we've got a couple ways of doing that. I also want to say like last season we introduced kind of the the three buckets, the around m. The the types of episodes that you could So our workplace, psychology, the leadership, development and culture pieces, those, those want. We want to maintain while also kind of adding a, A central theme throughout that kind of unifies everything around this big question of you know, what actually needs to exist before organizational change can succeed. So this season we also as Coby was kind of saying, really want to provide more than just information. so we are also really excited to announce that we have relaunched our website Roman uh3ca and you can check us out there we are. We will be providing more free diagnostic tools that you can use that are self assessments that are interactive that will help you to kind of figure out where you, you may be depending on what type of specific problem or challenge you might be experiencing. So the idea is to kind of, as we were saying, you know, give you a peek behind the curtain but also give you more tools that you can use to figure out where the best place for your efforts, will be.
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Yeah. So if we have a conversation, we talk about something that you know, could be very helpful and reflective of some of the diagnostic tools that we have. We're going to make a, a version of that available to you for free on our website. and plan would be like, if we talk about it in the podcast, it'll be available to you as you know, while listening to the podcast kind of right now. And then we also want to also help those on their leadership development journey by creating a workbook that people can download that will be, they'll be updated kind of as we talk about stuff on the podcast as well. with some like self reflective questions, some self, some self learning or some sort of, some independent learning strategies and stuff like that to help someone that is on this leadership path and trying to develop their leadership and management skills be able to turn some of the stuff that we talk about on the website. Sorry. Or on the podcast to be actual actionable things that you can actually use in your work by downloading it off our website. So largely we want to, with season five, we want to give you more to work with. We want to give you more real, tangible, practical things that can help you in your work. and we also want to continue these great discussions, engagements with you. so we really want to encourage more opportunities for conversations from our listeners to ask us for episode topics or, or if we're like, hey, we said that we were going, you guys were going to do a diagnostic around the competition and you didn't. Could you make one that reflects it? Let us know and we're happy to to find more ways to support you and connect with you, our listener, while also making fun of each other.
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And well, the fact that people still tune in to listen to you and I rant about stuff just absolutely blows my mind. So if, if people are putting up with us for you know, 45 minutes to an hour every couple weeks, we need to do something to thank them for it. Absolutely. Make it worth their while.
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That's right.
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Yeah.
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Ah, yeah. And, because, I mean, like, you know, we thought about doing something different this year. I was like, hey, maybe I should need. I should have a new guest host that might be more attractive to people. But, get rid of James. but that didn't seem to be in the cards next year.
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You keep trying, but you haven't been able to get rid of me yet.
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No, we keep showing up. All right, so, getting back to our question, I do think that there's probably again, some helpful insight from just the way that we talk about how we talk about change kind of internally, like, you know, our internal in house shorthand and kind of like perspective that we, that we use, when we're doing those discovery calls with new clients or when we're talking with partners on referrals and helping get to the bottom of their situations. So one of the things that we wanted to share with you is, and we've talked about this in episodes before, about the three main kinds of change that we tend to work with in organizations. and those three changes are really kind of like growth and expansion and scalability is one, mergers and blending of teams and situations and program the structures as number two position. Yeah, as number two. And then the third is disruption or chaos or calamity and sometimes, and as number three. and we kind of in our in house refer to these as like stability fractures. That's just kind of the, like the, you know, instead of saying buckets or instead of saying kind of types, we just kind of call them like the three fractures. and really a lot of like almost all of our work falls into one of those three things. But it's kind of. Because I think most organizational change, well, most organizational situations also kind of fall into those three things because they're not just like growth is not just expanding to a new market or doubling your footprint. Mergers are not just M and A. and disruption is not just like, you know, the, you get hacked. It's not just like one thing. There's lots of different layers and lots of different things that some of you may experience but may not think about as change or as, something that may need to be taken as seriously as having a strategic plan around them or asking yourself what needs to exist first before we can get through this situation is actually a form of change.
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Yeah, and I mean, obviously we're going to keep going back to that question, but I think it's important, like we talk about these as the stability fractures because typically what we aim to, provide to Our clients is stability. We want to help bring organizations to a point where they can regularly and reliably grow, meet their operational objectives, meet their sales, their growth targets without constantly feeling like they are in a state of uncertainty and stress and anxiety and all the rest that goes along with the lack of stability or consistency. So those are, that's how we. All of these kind of pieces tie together. And the language that we've used in podcasts over the last several years is what we are really. The, the fractures are kind of the, the three big buckets or the, the three big areas that our clients tend to be experiencing when they bring us in for supports. But what we're trying to get to is we are trying to get them through this change, disruption, growth, whatever it may be, but with the point of bringing to. Bringing with it a level of stability in expectation, consistency in the way that problems are handled and while also giving them the internal capacity and data that they need to be able to continue the stable trajectory, after. Long after we've left.
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Yeah, right. Because I mean, I think that, I think that you're right. I think that if people were to be like, hey, what do you guys sell? I think that if we had to say that in one word, I think it would be we sell stability. I think it's really kind of the main thing that we try to provide people, and we try to provide people that are again going through those three fractures when you are growing, change can be very positive. It can be very optimistic. But it's still tough, it's still stressful, it's still awkward. New demands and new things to learn and new ways of doing things. And sometimes it's a matter of undoing the. Your processes and your approaches to things because they're. They. They can't scale. Right. So it's.
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Well, growth disrupts stability. You typically in a positive way. But just because the, the result is positive doesn't mean that the journey is going to be the And the way that people experience change often yes, it, it is influenced by the type of change that they are experiencing, but the effects can be very negative on the people while also being very positive for the organization. I know that sounds like a really simplistic and obvious statement, but it's important to actually make that statement because we see it play out very often in the way that organizations approach change, particularly when that change is framed from a positive standpoint like the ability to grow their business. That's what we all Want as business owners, as managers, as leaders, we. We are empowered to help, this organization grow, scale.
00:15:27.840 --> 00:15:28.919
Yeah.
00:15:28.919 --> 00:15:30.320
Achieve their outcomes.
00:15:30.320 --> 00:15:58.559
Well, one of the things that, like, so we've got a number of different, clients and projects that we've taken on that have had to do with replication. we're working with the client right now that we may be looking at rebuilding their operational model and then working with other similar entities across a region and potentially turn that model into a
00:15:58.559 --> 00:16:03.519
repeatable, and scalable across the entire.
00:16:03.519 --> 00:17:45.759
Yeah, so, yeah, so. So, I mean, so like that idea of, well, what's working for us here today is. Is great and we want to be able to turn that into that success that we're having locally into something that someone else could take our playbook and make it happen in their location and in their place and build off that success. And I mean, that's the same kind of, function as like, like franchising. Like franchising kind of operates in a very similar model, but it's a matter of like, well, if something is working for you now, what is domain specific to your location, to your people, to your corporate knowledge and everything else like that, and how do you build something that will be able. Someone else could, you know, that is not dependent on your location, your people. Right. And this is one of those things too, is that the idea of kind of taking that replication model as a form of. Is a form of change. Because what you have to do is you have to be like, okay, well, how do you take what is in people's heads? How do you take what is just past practice or unspoken norms? And how do you convert that into something that is stable enough, that it is repeatable enough? Because we talk about in a lot of our episodes, difference between complicated and complex. Right. It is something that you can make a plan and. And it will. It's easy to repeat because it's just, you know, it's just there may be
00:17:45.759 --> 00:17:56.519
a lot of steps and there may be a lot of work involved, but once you have a formula, once you have a system in place, a, complicated system can be repeatable.
00:17:56.519 --> 00:18:21.039
Yeah. And an example we give about that is corporate taxes. Your taxes are very, There's a lot of steps, a lot of expertise, a lot of nuance. But an accountant can lead basically any company through, you know, through their taxes because the processes is annoying and expensive as often is also not that we
00:18:21.039 --> 00:18:24.759
just went through having to get our taxes done, like everybody else recently.
00:18:24.759 --> 00:18:29.440
Yeah, yeah. Let's be clear. We're Venting. but the idea of it is
00:18:29.440 --> 00:18:32.559
that that's the point of the podcast, so buckle up.
00:18:32.559 --> 00:20:36.359
But again, an accountant can lead very varying companies across very different sectors and very different, you know, scopes and sizes through the same process. Because the process is complicated, whereas complex is when it is unique to the situation. Your plan will not necessarily work for, that works for you, will not necessarily work for someone else. And the plan that might work for you today may not work for you in six months or, you know, or if one thing changes, then you have to change the entire thing. Complicated is very sorry. Complex is like, it's custom, it's bespoke. And the reality is when your system change your system, standardization, your system, you know, stability efforts are impacting people and people's expertise and people's actions and people's processes. That inherently makes them complex. Yeah, so that is one of the things that, you know, when we talk about because again, even looking at it from that I mentioned before, kind of the macro and micro perspective, when you're replicating something, you're. You're thinking, well, from a. Everyday on the ground, you m. Know, experience for employees, it's a, it's a number of steps of taking things out of someone's head and putting it down on paper. That seems like a very, you know, like, micro way of trying to create that stability. But, but they're looking at how does the entire system structure, organization, orientation, structure impact, you know, the, the complete standardization of processes and looking at, if you want to expand into different areas, what is the cultural significance if you want to go to a different country or what is it if you want to go to even a different region that may have different, you know, like, taxes and norms. And so. And that's the macro piece that also has to be considered too. So it's, it's very. So growth is something that these are, these are again examples of kind of instability that happens during growth that have to be looked at from this idea of what needs to exist first for this type of growth to actually land and be effective and actually be scalable and sustainable.
00:20:36.359 --> 00:22:18.039
Yeah, I mean, for me, what always comes up for me when we're talking about this is, I mean, I, I like to give cheeky, simple answers. so my cheeky, simple answer would be data. Right? What needs to exist first is you need to have data. You need to actually understand, what's changing, why it's changing, and what needs to change along with it. Who needs to change along with it. What processes that need to change along with it. And this is the area that we see organizations, stumble on, most frequently because. And it's why we've developed so many diagnostic tools. It's why we go so hard on the, investigations as being the most important thing that we can do first. When we step into a new, to support a new organization. We need to get the data. We need to understand what's happening at different levels within the organization, within different departments, within different teams that are going to be affected by whatever, whatever opportunity, challenge, whatever that has that the organization is facing. That they brought us in to help support them with data is not just your employee engagement survey results that can be a source of data. But that's again, another stumbling block that we see. A lot of organizations rely very heavily on saying, we have data, we know what's going on because we've surveyed our staff. That's not enough.
00:22:18.039 --> 00:22:18.960
Yeah.
00:22:18.960 --> 00:23:33.200
And that's why understanding the interconnected systems that need to change along with whatever focal point you're looking at, there is a lot of nuance involved in terms of figuring out not only where do we. Well, it's not only figuring out where you want to go or what the end result is that you're trying to get to. You need more than one data point in order to make a plan. You need to know where you are right now, where you, and where you want to be ultimately at the end of all of this. But even just those two data points doesn't give you a pathway, it gives you a direction. The data that we, that you need to collect is going to tell you, okay, here's where we are, here's where we want to go. Here are the different systems that need to change, the people, the, the processes, the approaches that need to change along with it. It really needs to become more ingrained in how we approach our organizational structures and our change management to rely more on the. Just on the outcome.
00:23:33.200 --> 00:24:07.200
Yeah. And what's really kind of funny is that when we work with different types of organizations going through the, the, you know, one of the three types of fractures is that the ones that actually are the most like, unhappy with the first step being an investigation and data collection are the ones going through growth because they're the mind of like, well, things are working for us, so why you need to like, look under the hood if, you know, we don't, we don't have problems, we're growing and, and it's, and they're like, don't, don't Waste time by looking under the hood. Just, just here's what we want you
00:24:07.200 --> 00:24:40.799
to just repeat the model that we've built and everything will be fine. Yeah, well, you can grow taller while growing more in state, more, less stable. I mean we, it's like Jenga, right? You can pull you can grow taller with using the same resources that you've always had by pulling pieces, by rearranging where they. But it creates inherent instabilities if you're not looking at it from a m. Structural framework.
00:24:40.799 --> 00:24:56.480
And the reality is I would say 95% of businesses out there that are doing well and that are growing are not operationally designed for scalability.
00:24:56.480 --> 00:26:25.559
If we're talking about small and medium businesses, absolutely. I agree with you 100%. They're not. it's funny because it follows, right? Yeah. They get to a ceiling and the ceiling could be very high, but the ceiling is there. And the ceiling often has to do with the technical abilities of the leadership. And if this flows very well into concept that we've talked about many times, which is our technical founder paradox around how the skills and abilities of a founder that makes a business successful early on they're usually they hit a plateau. If you don't grow with your business, if your skills and your knowledge and context don't grow alongside the, the growth that your business experiences, you're going to hit a wall. And what I've found m time and time and time and time again is that especially in the small medium business environment, kind of the, the sub 304 hundred employee point usually led by people who are experts in their product or service but not necessarily have the broad base of knowledge and expertise around systems design, around structural design and operational design.
00:26:25.559 --> 00:27:02.880
Yeah. I mean like when we are talking to businesses like in that, in that realm, looking at this kind of growth, you know, one of the things that they're like again they're often require more convincing to look at the investigative pieces and stuff like that too. Because they don't want us to waste time. They just want us to kind of do what they think it needs to get done. But then we kind of say well then what happens when you know your sales are, are scaling and then, and you're, you're hitting kind of operational max. Then what? Like, well then we'll look to figure that out then.
00:27:02.880 --> 00:27:04.599
Or say hire more people.
00:27:04.599 --> 00:27:05.799
Yeah, or what kind of.
00:27:05.799 --> 00:27:07.359
Because that's always been so easy.
00:27:07.359 --> 00:29:14.106
Yeah. Or what kind of stuff. So what happens when you know, like, when it comes to training your employees on this very, on this process, it's kind of, that seems to be very, very unique to you. Kind of your committed advantage. Like, oh, well, we just, and we just rely heavily on Carol M. Or on, you know, someone else to just who, who knows the stuff. Well, I'm like, well, what happens if Carol leaves? Or what happens if, you know, when they had their max of work? Like, you know, like. So it's always very funny to me when a company does not want to talk about like standard operating procedures or kind of like, or scalable structural, processes, but our, not wanting to waste time because they're, they're wanting to capitalize on their growth. I, I always kind of feel like, okay, you're actually not wanting to take your own growth seriously if you're not willing to do it right. If you're prioritizing, doing it fast and not doing it right, you're not really taking it seriously. You're, you're willing to, you know, put this whole thing at risk because you don't want to do the job right. And that's a tough scenario for, for a business to be in. and, but like, again, we don't work with everybody. and one of the things that, you know, tends to be, be a tough thing is if they, if they don't want to. Because, because often, like what you said, we collect data. So why do we need more data? I'm like, well, do you know what data you're collecting? If you're just serving your employees, that's, that is a form of data, but has nothing to do with what we're talking about. So all data is not the same. All data is not equally useful. And collecting data for data's sake, if you don't. Because again, one of the things you're often like, what are you doing with that data you're collecting? Well, we don't really know. Okay, then why are you collecting it? We know we're supposed to, so we do. Well, that's cool. And again, sometimes it's that technical founder because like you said, they are trying to do the right thing. They read books, they're trying to do it the right way. And so they.
00:29:14.106 --> 00:30:20.440
But data collection in that environment becomes performative. Right? It's a. And we see this performative nature of data data collection often in in corporate environments where the, the sole metric that a team is looking at is the, in the engagement score for a band of questions that relates specifically to their Function. That's fine, I guess. But does the engagement score going up one point, going down one point actually tell you why it's gone up one point or down one point? Yeah. Can you actually draw a direct line between the work that you've done over the last year and that change in one point? Or are you in an environment that has a high degree of turnover and you're catching people on a good day, a bad day, you're surveying them once a year or once every six months and maybe you're in. You're surveying an entirely different crop of people because you lost, you know, 70% of your staff in the last six months. Right. I'm looking at you retail.
00:30:20.440 --> 00:30:28.000
Yes. It's not. And as you can tell, this is. This has been a conversation that James has had a number of times with a number of people.
00:30:28.000 --> 00:30:34.759
but I have to be, I, I have to be professional when I'm talking with clients. So this is my outlet.
00:30:34.759 --> 00:31:30.951
Right. Okay. So I think that we, I think that we gave some, again, we gave a very good example of what growth and how it's, how its stability is often, you know, like fractured during growth. so I think most people kind of understand that kind of conceptually. I want to move on, talk a little bit about merger because again, this is a language that we use internally, but. And then we've used the podcast, but when we talk to people about kind of this work, they often have a picture in their mind of what they think we mean when we say merger. And usually it's mergers and acquisitions or M and A. And that is something that we do see. That is something that is a common, A, common type of, of stability fracture. but I think it's really important for us to kind of say there's a whole lot more that falls under the merger and blending kind of, stability fracture than just M and A.
00:31:30.951 --> 00:31:37.039
Yeah, and the, the blending is doing a lot of heavy lifting, in this language. And I think it.
00:31:37.039 --> 00:31:37.559
Be it.
00:31:37.559 --> 00:33:56.880
As we talk about this more, from the framework of, you know, the, the growth, the merger, the disruption merger and blending is really what we're talking about. and the acquisition piece is like we, we have several clients that have a, ah, solid acquisition strategy as their growth strategy. And so it can blend the lines somewhat. But the reason why it really lives in this bucket is because of the level of complexity that comes with bringing together, multiple organizations under a shared or standardized set of, organizational expectations, cultures and frameworks. And so we, we Talk about it from the, the broad large scale impacts. But the blending is something that I, I, we don't talk as explicitly about at least and we haven't in the context of the podcast. And it can. A merger and blending can be combining two similar programs or departments under a unified service. Right. You're still taking the same types of complexities that are seen in the large scale acquisition, merger or merger and acquisition, traditional framework on a much more localized level within your organization. But the impacts on individuals can be the exact same. And the way that people experience that change within, in terms of how it's going to impact their work, how they are, you know, their department may be merging or blending with another department. Now we have to work with people that we're not as familiar with. Maybe the management teams have had very different approaches to how they lead and manage and organize work amongst their teams. There's still a lot of nuance that you need to be aware of even though the scale of the change is significantly smaller.
00:33:56.880 --> 00:34:52.880
Yeah. Because I mean, you know that's a common thing when we start digging into breaking down silos. within organizations is often you know, as part of that merger and blending piece. and sometimes it's a matter of like, you know, there's also some of that happens kind of internally also. There's, there's things when organizations are partnering with a, either a similar organization or an organization that offers a complementary kind of service. Like the idea of a manufacturing company collaborating with like a logistics company, to kind of help kind of kind of COVID more of the supply chain pieces and stuff like that too. Those kind of larger collaborative pieces are also another form of merger. one that we're more familiar with too is like, you know, when you're looking at a unit, a single service that has that's shared between
00:34:52.880 --> 00:34:54.760
or has multiple delivery partners.
00:34:54.760 --> 00:35:11.880
Yeah, multiple. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And then, and their unique operational structure and then that requires a lot of like memorandums of understanding and it requires a lot of like you know, the different reporting pieces and custom like custom SOPs that cover both entities and
00:35:11.880 --> 00:35:39.639
yeah, that's been a fun one. you know, multiple organizations coming together to provide a single unified service. But the staff have three different HR guidelines that they and are responsible to. One may be unionized, the others may not like it. Yeah, that, that has been a frequent topic of conversation in the last,
00:35:39.639 --> 00:35:42.960
yeah, oh yeah, yeah. Year, year and a half.
00:35:42.960 --> 00:35:43.280
Yeah.
00:35:43.280 --> 00:36:43.920
Another one too is like you know, kind of. Which often has a bit of blending with the growth one too is when a company launches a pilot program or like they're dipping their toe into a new market or into a new area or providing a new service and they've built it as a contained pilot with its own unique staffing. And, and it's kind of like an, it's kind of a bit of a, bit of a. Because of the nature of a pilot, it's a bit of an appendix to the rest of the organization. But the pilot goes really, really well and they want to, they want to roll the pilots, outcomes and services and products into his core operations. That requires a significant amount of navigation around merging something that may have been nimble and impactful and sometimes even a little bit, a little bit off brand into the full brand into the full operation pieces that does require. Again, that is a really good example of blending as well.
00:36:43.920 --> 00:39:47.599
Yeah, the. It's funny because we could list a dozen different ways that blending happens, through organizations. I'm sure that listening to this, you can probably think of experiences in your own work life. like we've seen whether it's shared executive between, that's responsible for multiple departments or organizations bringing them together. we've seen departments that have been merged and the staffs have brought together. Even there's less so today. But we're still seeing, you know, the, the desire to collapse, layers of management. Right. The large. As you kind of. We've. What we see some quite often with organizations that have experienced fairly consistent and sizable growth over an extended period of time is that it naturally creates a, multiple layers of bureaucracy or management for lack of a better term. And there, there comes a time when you need to collapse some of those. When you need to look at how administratively heavy you've become because you've kind of built pieces, well, piecemeal. those are all examples of blending that require a significant amount of context to understand. While they all fall under the same general bucket, they require very different information to understand. So how do you collect that information? Why do you, when do you collect that information? I mean it's not always feasible to have collected all of that data up front because you don't know. I mean it goes back to the question of well, why are you collecting it in the first place if you're not currently using or if you don't have any plans to use it. So what we typically, the way that we typically approach this and the way that we, when we leave an organization, the, the way that we try to build the capacity internally is to help our clients understand that data collection is an ongoing activity and you're, it's really important to be able to ask the same questions over a period of time as long as you are continually continuing to need the data and the results. Right. You do want to be able to have some sort of benchmark and be able to monitor progress over time. But if you just rely on the same questions all of the time for all of your data collection activities, you're not going to necessarily get to the new nuance or the change specific data that you need in order to understand the realities, what needs to exist for this particular change to be successful.
00:39:47.599 --> 00:41:51.519
I think it's important for us to also look at too. I think that you listening to this may think that a lot of the data we're talking about, a lot of the systems, a lot of the structures are very operational as far as like SOPs policies, safety guidelines, those kinds of that. And that is something that we look at too. But the cultural assessments, understanding the workplace environment, the team dynamics, those are just as impactful, especially when you're looking at mergers. Like another example that popped into my mind when you're kind of listing off some of the examples of mergers was like bringing satellite offices kind of under a central leadership or trying to like, you know, like when, when you're seeing the expansion and you're seeing the, the, the departments trying to like, you know, look at adding more people to the team or, or, or be more productive, like I say with, with management, the cultural impacts of that. We're looking at satellite offices, especially different states or if they're across different provinces or whatever. It might be that looking at being able to understand the cultural impact of that or even going back to traditional M and A, looking at the, you know, like when, when there's an acquisition happening, understanding the cultural dynamics and norms and expectations of company A, that's purchasing company B, knowing that what company A's norms are, what their, their thoughts on like employee autonomy and on psychological safety and on inclusion and then having company B also be assessed for those. Look at what is the matching of that, what's going to be the, the cultural blending that has to happen too. So that way productivity, employee engagement and kind of efficiencies and are also being able to be shuffled in a way that's going to allow for as little disruption to service and product delivery and everything else. Like that as well. So we're talking about data. We're not just talking about something that is an operational piece or that is just around your SOPs, your policy. We're also talking about again looking at how do you assess those really hard to assess pieces around psychological safety and workplace culture and inclusion and those kind of things as well because those have just as much impact as how good your again your safety protocols are, for example.
00:41:51.519 --> 00:43:54.920
Yeah, I'm glad you made that distinction because one of the biggest, one of the most interesting pieces of data, not even just piece of, but frameworks for collecting data that I really enjoy in the work that we do is that we and I, we've talked, probably mentioned it before but maybe not explained it on the podcast is we. I really find an incredible amount of insight available at the intersection between policy practice and perception. that tends to be for me one of the richest early sources of data that will actually allow us to understand what is happening. Because you're not, when you ask a question, when you're framing your data collection, activities, you're rarely going to get a direct response from your employees or from whomever you are serving or you know, whatever data you are collecting that's going to accept perfectly answer the question that you have in mind. Usually you're going to have to collect a broad swath of data and then come to use that to actually find the insights available. And that's where the policy, practice and perception can be really important and really valuable because understanding the difference between what the official rules of the organization are, what's written down and in policy in SOPs, and comparing that with how managers actually put that into practice on a day by day basis, and then adding in the additional intersection of how do employees actually experience that, what is their perception of how, of how the rules are written, constructed and formalized and how the manager puts those into practice on a day by day basis. That has consistently been a really rich source of data for us.
00:43:54.920 --> 00:44:45.199
Yeah, absolutely. And I mean again and this is all the stuff that we kind of go back to when we're looking at the whole idea of what needs to exist first around mergers and blending is that level of insight. And usually like I say so our, our P3 assessments of policy practice and perception is one of the diagnostic tools that we often, that we often start, do do a lot of our early engagements with. And again as far as interest, the ones going through mergers tend to, tend to be really welcoming to that kind of assessment early on because they're like, yeah, we would like to know kind of what the norms are. We would like to be able to have a better understanding because we think we're doing everything right, but we have no idea really what the, what the employees are, are thinking. And we don't know what they. But we also are not quite clear on what is the normal practice, of the everyday. We know we want, but is that actually what's happening?
00:44:45.199 --> 00:45:52.119
But it also provides a really good benchmarking and measurement of success when you're going through M and A to actually get your benchmark early and then measure adoption, over time, repeat the process, see where the growth is happening, show improvements, test a new initiative, follow up to see has that had an impact on the overall. This is, it's a process. It's not a single activity. and that's. If, if I could, well, if I could make one change in organizations, I don't know if how I would choose, but this is one, one major thing that I would, with a magic wand, just change the perception or the, the way that we approach data collection. Not as a, M box to check. We've done it for this year, let's move on. But as a recurring activity that informs, guides and creates, our strategic intent.
00:45:52.119 --> 00:46:42.951
Yeah, because again, going back to the stability part of this is that this type of blending causes instability in people's everyday work. Again, often from a very macro or starts from a very micro level on people, like, you know, people's daily interactions and their stress of their workloads like that. But understanding getting, getting a temperature check or a pulse check for where everybody is, and then being able to kind of help make a plan that you can effectively communicate to people so they know that they're being considered when the stuff's being rolled out. And that is being rolled out as carefully and as tactically as possible is, helps create that stability during this very, you know, often, you know, challenging time of going through a merger or going through a blend and going through a lot of uncertainty. So there's, there is a piece of it as well. But I do want to move on. We're running short on time. I want to.
00:46:42.951 --> 00:46:44.559
Aren't we always running short on time?
00:46:44.559 --> 00:47:00.639
Yeah, I mean, well, the problem is getting you and I talking and having this be some type of coherent conversation can, be tough. So I do want to talk about disruption. And disruption is one that I feel like that's been a big portion of our conversations over the last, like Year and a half have been around.
00:47:00.639 --> 00:47:03.639
It's been a big portion of our work over the last year and a half too.
00:47:03.639 --> 00:47:10.800
Yeah. And again disruption like we often we. It's funny, we originally would always refer to it as chaos but that seemed a little bit, I don't know, judgy
00:47:10.800 --> 00:47:12.440
with some of our clients.
00:47:12.440 --> 00:47:13.840
So we decided to.
00:47:13.840 --> 00:47:25.719
It's not great client facing language you are experiencing just pure chaos is not exactly the language that gets people motivated to work with you.
00:47:25.719 --> 00:48:56.199
No. Even though, even though eventually they're like yeah, we absolutely are. so. Yeah, so disruption tends to be a, tends to be ah, an easier way for us to talk about this kind of work. But again this is often when again like when there's a sudden departure of a crucial leader or when there's a massive change in the, the, the market or, or the business working conditions, tariffs, anybody. when there's again like major technological shifts, some of the impact of AI on some sectors can fall into. Under disruption. one of the things we talked about a lot too last season which we talked about the business law of the linchpin where you are intentionally creating risk based on a single All your business relying on one contract or all your kind of internal corporate knowledge or efficiencies relying on one single person. Then when that one person, that one contract goes away, you're into massive disruption. So these are, these are the kinds of examples of what disruption looks like. And often our. This is where a lot of. I think this is where a lot of our interim work tends to, tends to live. We don't always go in and take over organizations but often when they're going through a massive disruption it usually kind of ripples out into massive Disruption
00:48:56.199 --> 00:50:18.800
usually means that you need more resources available for a shorter period of time. So maybe you know, hiring another internal manager, or expert to come in isn't feasible. But bringing in a fractional leader, to manage through the change that's. We do a lot of leadership roles through disruption, where it's. Something has happened, a leader has left, a major external factor is significantly changing the nature of the business. And we need, we have two competing priorities. Maintain operations and continue to produce whatever product widget we are or deliver whatever service we are delivering, while also navigating through this massive disruption. And so usually you already have your internal experts who are able to build your product, deliver your service, lead through the normal operations. You need somebody who can come in and manage that disruption. And that tends to be the larger share of where our work in the disruption realm.
00:50:18.800 --> 00:50:37.599
yeah, I'd say actually, I mean, to be kind of clear too that I say under growth and under disruption or where we tend to step into specific leadership roles, where we do more fractional work or more interim work, whereas with merger we tend to do mostly just typical management consulting, change management, navigation.
00:50:37.599 --> 00:50:39.039
Because often diagnostics.
00:50:39.039 --> 00:52:44.719
Diagnostics. Yeah, because usually during growth, and disruption, like you say, there's. There's a void in expertise or a void in some type of leadership capacity and they need someone to help, to help build capacity or to help stabilize kind of this, you know, this ever evolving situation, whether that's expansion or whether it's chaos. but, we tend to. Yeah, so it is something that, you know, like when it comes back to go back to disruption, when it comes to disruption, one of the things that we sometimes do is when there's a sudden again, loss of an executive that they. One of the things we say, we say that when you have a very sudden loss of an executive, one of the worst things that companies tend to do is they tend to rush to fill that void and recruit a new executive, you know, like, you know, as soon as possible to make that voice as small as possible. And again, sometimes that is a good idea. but sometimes if it's a matter of why they're leaving, if they're leaving because of an external piece or they're, or they're leaving and it's causing, and it's causing ripple effects and shockwaves throughout the organization or there's some if, or if they're leaving and it's causing an exodus of other people leaving, hiring, recruiting somebody for what looks to be a sinking ship is never easy and never sustainable. I cannot think of many examples where we've seen companies that have done that and it's worked out great. Often what we've seen of companies that have said, okay, we are losing people, or we lost our leader and we're losing a key staff. So we'll hire someone that can come in. And they come in and go, this is not what I thought this was. This was not the company that was presented to me when I interviewed. And they start looking immediately for a new job and then you're back to square one.
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Yeah, there are a few factors that play into this, right? Like it's. If you are in the midst of a major disruption, you've lost a key leader or maybe the CEO has left and the organization is feeling like it is unstable. The, you may even correctly identify that the organization is feeling unstable and you want to hire somebody who can come in and provide that stability. But then you're, you're recruiting for the short term, right? You're recruiting an executive, somebody who ideally is going to be in place for years and provide the stability but you're recruiting them based on an immediate need rather than a future need need. You're recruiting them with the understanding that the skills that you're looking for over the next six months or a year is somebody who can pro, who can stabilize the organization. It tends to be very, very difficult to find a senior level executive who has a broad scope of skill sets that allows them to both be able to step into an organization in the midst of a crisis, in the midst of a disruption, and provide that level of clarity and stability and structure in the short term and then shift gears when the organization has regained stability and focus on growth, which is usually what an organization wants, what a board wants, what a, what an owner wants. because once you are stable, if you don't move, you stagnate.Stability is not an end. Stability is a means to an end. And unless you, and this is where we often get into discussions with prospective clients around well, do you actually want, I know you want to hire somebody right away and fill that gap, but is that actually what you need in the short term or do you need somebody who can step in for six months, in a year, provide the stability and then help you recruit the executive who is actually going to be able to take the organization once there is some stability to the next level?
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Again, the disruption piece isn't always just with losing executive, but it's often one that we're seeing more and more because when there's some of these major issues that come with shifting markets or with kind of like you know, the companies having to, trying to live, actually trying to walk the walk with their mission statement and they're trying to make hard decisions and, and you end up seeing people being pushed to the point of like, you know what, I don't know if I could stay here because of these, these expectations or because of this, you know, this is only going to get crazier and I'm close to retirement so why don't I leave now?
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And we said like 15 minutes ago we were getting close to the end of our time.
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yeah.
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So we should probably not harp on the disruption piece too much. But the there is. What I do want to reiterate is that season five, this. So this is our first episode of season five, which is in and of itself kind of amazing that, people are still listening to us. So we have to start off season five. We wanted to make sure that we had a really practical, useful tool that is, consistent with what we have been talking about today. So on our website, Roman3ca, you, can find a what needs to exist first? diagnostic tool that will help you run through, answering this question of what needs to exist first, whether you are looking at growth, whether you are looking at merger and blending, whether you were looking at, some sort of disruption, or whether you're just not sure. So check it out. we are going to be adding more and more free tools, throughout the rest of this season and in all likelihood until we decide not to. which is not a helpful timeline, but I was going to say in perpetuity, but no, we're not doing this forever. we're gonna retire at some point. We're gonna retire someday. well, maybe retire or death one of them. but anyways, we really wanted to make sure that this season we are not only providing you with useful information, but we are providing you with practical tools that you can start to use yourself for free to, make changes within your organization.
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And we do want to encourage more opportunities for you to connect with us directly, have more questions, whether you want to run ideas by us, whether you want to just be like, hey, you guys talked about this and made me think about this. In our workplace, we're always happy to have those discussions and, and we, and we just love connecting with our listeners. So your best way to get a hold of us is going to be to email us at, Inforomon 3 ca. And we again, will. We really appreciate the fact that you are listening to us now, that you probably listen to some of our other conversations that you've not been been, turned off by the sound of James's voice. Because, hey, we really want to make.
00:58:11.280 --> 00:58:12.159
It's a real challenge.
00:58:12.159 --> 00:59:33.800
It is. But we really want to make sure that you're getting more out of engaging with, with our podcast, engaging with us because again, we want to. We are learning cool stuff in the work that we do that we do such a unique kind of work, that work that, the more we talk about with our peers and partners, the more we find out how different a lot of our work is. And, we get exposed to stuff that not Everyone does. So the podcast and the opportunity to share this stuff and our insights and our lessons, because we legitimately want workplaces to be better. We want employees to have jobs that they are not drained by, that they, feel fulfillment in and that they're not. It's not hard and stressful, especially when they're going through things like growth and merger and disruption, that they can have as much, you know, like, mental clarity and ideally, like, you know, and supportive environments that they possibly can. And we know that can't happen with just our work, which is why we want to share this kind of stuff. So please take advantage of our free tools. Please take advantage of, opportunity to chat with us and troubleshoot and problem solve with us. We're always up for those kind of engagements. And thank you again for listening, all this time. All right, so I think that about us for us. For a full archive of the podcast and access to the video version hosted on our YouTube channel, visit Roman3.ca/podcast. Thanks for joining us.
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For more information on topics like these, don't forget to Visit us at Roman3.ca. Side effects of this podcast may include improved retention, high productivity, increased market share, chair employees breaking out in spontaneous dance, dry mouth, aversion to the sound of James's voice, desire to find a better podcast…
