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Ariana Poirier is a highly regarded change management consultant and the founder of Ariana Poirier, LLC, based in Austin, Texas. With nearly a decade of experience in Learning & Development, she holds a Doctorate and is a Certified Change Management Professional (CCMP). Ariana specializes in empowering organizations through tailored change management and learning solutions, focusing on human-centered approaches that foster resilience and agility. Learn more about her on her expert page.
In this episode of the Org Design Podcast, hosts Amy Springer and Tim Brewer welcome Ariana Poirier, a seasoned Change Strategist and consultant. Ariana shares her journey into the world of organizational design, emphasizing the importance of understanding and managing change within organizations. She discusses the challenges leaders face when implementing change, including the psychological barriers that individuals encounter. The conversation highlights the significance of emotional intelligence in leadership and the necessity of strategic planning in change management initiatives. Ariana also offers practical advice for leaders to assess engagement within their teams, fostering a culture of agility and adaptability. With insights drawn from her extensive experience, Ariana provides listeners with valuable tools and frameworks to navigate change effectively, ultimately enhancing organizational performance and employee engagement. Tune in to discover how leaders can cultivate a healthy change culture and drive meaningful transformation within their organizations.
Contact Ariana via her LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/arianapoirier/
[00:00:00] Amy Springer: Hi, welcome to the Org Design Podcast. You're listening to Amy Springer and Tim Brewer, co-hosts of the Org Design Podcast. And our guest for this episode is Ariana Poirier. She's joining us from Austin, Texas. Thanks for joining us.
[00:00:17] Ariana Poirier: Thank you so much for having me, Amy and Tim.
[00:00:20] Amy Springer: We love to jump in to this conversation by hearing your story. Org design is a term that not everyone knows about. There's a lot that goes into it. People are often doing it without realizing they are. Can you tell us a bit about your story and how you ended up in the org design space?
[00:00:40] Ariana Poirier: Yeah, I think that I also fell into it just like many other folks. So in terms of organizational design, I work on mostly in the learning and development space within that. I've been working in learning development for 10 years. After undergrad, I worked in human services. And of course, when you're working at the grassroots level, you're wearing many hats. And so you're fulfilling different roles. And so within that, I was asked to do a lot of projects. I was asked to train a lot of people. And so over time, I, I said to myself I guess I'm in learning and development, I guess this is what I'm doing now. it found me. Through that journey, I also, stumbled upon a role here in Texas where I did have to be the team lead. And so I was asked to, stand up this team, organize them, restructure accordingly to make them as efficient as possible.
It it was during the pandemic and it was one of those roles that was very time sensitive. And so things had to happen very quickly. And so I saw a lot of positives through that experience. And then I also saw some barriers and challenges that people had with rapid change. And from there, I really wanted to go into change management and help people navigate change more effectively and help leaders implement change easier, throughout their organization with their people. And so that's how I've, come to this passion of mine. And looking to work with more people in this space.
[00:01:58] Tim Brewer: Ariana leading off what your passions are, can you share with us a little bit about, why do you think change is so difficult for leaders, to undertake, and me and Amy have observed, talking to different people that sometimes they're avoidant of the change. Sometimes it's just incredibly high stakes. For the leaders listening in now that are considering a big change. What do they need to consider when they're looking at that, what's the undercurrent that prevents people making changes more easily? What have you learned doing that in your work?
[00:02:41] Ariana Poirier: So I think us as people as a species we clinging to the familiar neurologically, that's what we do. We develop behaviors that make us feel safe and, protect us from, the unknown and the potential dangers. Right. But then we do it to like a degree where it can really, our personal growth.
And so I think that when you take that concept of the individual, like how do individuals handle change, and then you plug it into an organization where you have multiple people who have their own relationship with change, you have some people who are like super gung-ho let's do it.
You have that saying you either like jump in the pool, like you don't even test the water. You just jump right into it. You have some people who are like that. Some people who like dip their toe in the water and some people who just wanna sunbathe on the side of the pool. And so they're like, "no, I don't really wanna do this. I just, let's keep things, same, it's easier, it's, safer". And especially when you're making business decisions. These decisions are not, they're not easy ones, right They're, you don't take these things lightly because you have your business. You have to think about you have to think about the people that you work that you work with who work under you. Yes, it can be really challenging and scary to make a change. But there's always the other side of that. So, what do you really want strategically for your company and what steps can you take that are the least disruptive for your folks and for the business?
And so it really is basically weighing the benefits and risks involved when you're going through a whole transition. Sometimes you have leaders who they see the A they're at point A and they see point B, they wanna get to point B, but they don't know how to get there. And so that unknown territory is, really difficult. Or you have some leaders who see the point B and they don't care how they get there. There's just get us there. But then with that comes a lot of challenges and barriers. And, sometimes those transitions aren't successful because there's no plan in place.
[00:04:33] Tim Brewer: Yeah. I think statistically a lot of transitions, a lot of change, ends up not being successful, which is crazy given how expensive and risky making some of those changes to an org structure are.
[00:04:46] Ariana Poirier: Exactly. I the last statistic that I read and I could be, so don't quote me on this, but I think around 66% of change initiatives fail because there wasn't a proper plan in place. I think that sometimes we just, expect change to be super organic, which is a good thing. Like change can happen organically. But also when you're working with multiple stakeholders, when you're working with multiple different people and departments, there has to be some sort of systematic strategy in place in order for it to be successful and to, make sure you're not, overspending or making mistakes that are, time consuming or what have you. So that's where change management can come into play.
[00:05:26] Amy Springer: Ariana, there's lots of different types of change management within a company. They're gonna be different scales different parts of the organization. Would you say a large percentage or a small percentage do tend to include some kind of change to the organization, whether at department or team or even individual design level.
[00:05:49] Ariana Poirier: I think there is. Wherever there's change. there's people involved. So people have to be involved and when you are implementing, whether it's a new software that you're trying to implement system-wide, If you are trying to do an org design change, if you're trying to stand up a new project, whatever that is, there's people that are involved in that. And so making sure that your people are prepared, whether it's through training, whether it's through communication, like what's your communication strategy, there's so many different variables that you have to consider. get people ready to adopt that new change or that new project and make it successful. So I think it is in every single type of change that you have, because wherever changes, they're people.
[00:06:33] Amy Springer: I guess with your previous learning and development hat on, with your previous experience as a team leader, it sounds like these are really important skills for every leader to have because it it is in almost every business change. From your experience, do you feel like most leaders are given a chance to develop those skills? or do you feel like they are left to find their own way and make errors and get it right sometimes?
[00:07:00] Ariana Poirier: Yes, I think that's definitely a part of a leader like the leadership development journey. Yes, change management can be very strategic, right? There can be processes in place. It can be very tactile. But there's also this human element, this almost, people say soft skills, I like to call them human skills that go along with change management where you have to really have this level of emotional intelligence, if I'm a leader and I have my own relationship with change, right, I might adopt change really well and I'm very adapt. Like I adapt really well. I'm very agile in my role, but maybe my team members aren't, or maybe certain other leaders that are under me are not as agile.
So recognizing, okay, I might be fine with this, but maybe some other people might not be. vice versa, maybe I really struggle with change, I really struggle with, the process of navigating the unknown and how to lead others into the unknown. But some other people that I work with might be fine with it.
So it's really this interesting dynamic. I think that happens among leadership. And I think that a lot of leaders are put into their roles, especially if they're promoted from within, that don't get a lot of training. That's one big conversation within the training space is that we have a lot of leaders who are really great individual contributors, who get put into a leadership role, but don't really have a lot of leadership training how to lead others or manage others. And so when you have a change that comes along. That's where it can be really challenging for leaders who don't have a lot of support or training in leadership development. And so I think it definitely can be a very layered process of trying to develop your people, yourself and the people around you.
[00:08:44] Amy Springer: Is there a tool or some steps that you recommend to people that are undergoing a big change like that that can help them understand those different variables within themselves and within their team.
[00:08:57] Ariana Poirier: I'm a certified change management practitioner through the ACMP, which is the Association of Change Management Professionals. And so they provide a Standard that you can build off of. So if you're interested in pursuing change management for yourself or your team, you can look into to that certification. There's different trainings you can take for that. And what's great about this Standard is that it's adaptable so you can scale it no matter what, project you're working on. It's similar to Prosci. That's another one that is very popular in the change management space. So you can be certified in Prosci as well. And there's a couple other ones that that are out there.
But if you are, in the space of trying to look for different tools. I don't really have any software specifically off the top of my head right now to utilize, but really thinking about the strategy around change. So what are what is your vision? Like really starting with your vision. And then from there, thinking about what the strategy is around your vision, planning it, thinking about your communication plan, your learning plan, who are the stakeholders involved? Who's gonna be your champion? Who's gonna be the one who's gonna drive this change? That's also really important. So thinking about your players, it's very strategic process. It's really helpful when you see everything from a big picture when it comes to a change and how are people affected by it? And what are the risks involved?
[00:10:16] Tim Brewer: Ariana, thinking about something that we heard from another guest on the podcast and I talked about the Cost of change. and they referred to their thinking on "you either invest into building conviction early or you'll pay the same or more in having to convince people all the way through" change. How do you think about this change will be fine. and the bigger the change, obviously the more complex it is the harder that Is to do And the more pieces there are at play. What practical things you do or what practical things can a leader do in their organization to improve the level of conviction about a change?
[00:10:57] Ariana Poirier: My first thing would be to say what motivates your people? Also assessing the engagement factor. I would say first is assess how engaged your workforce is. And you can definitely see that through not only performance, but there's different ways holistically that you can uncover that. You can do, I really encourage leaders doing one-to-ones. I know it's really hard to fit those one-to-ones in or even skip level meetings too. That's a great way to assess the level of engagement your people are where your people are at, 'cause you wanna get a baseline okay, where are we at right now?
And things that we can do to increase engagement and increase commitment from our people? And with that is also uncovering what motivates them. And really just building that rapport, and it seems like really holistic, like it's, it is a holistic approach, but building rapport and taking it a vested interest on your people is a huge way to make them as agile as possible.
And, know, because when you're making those big decisions high up, you'll remember the conversations that you have with your people and you're gonna remember what's going motivate them and what's going to make the change successful. So that's just, my opinion and my advice to that. It's hard to make a whole workforce agile, especially when they're not agile from the beginning. But with time and different strategies in place, and, especially in your hiring practices, what do you really want your business to be like? What is your vision? What do you want? And from there, you build your plan. And it's not gonna be an instant, it's not gonna be instant gratification. It's gonna take time to build an agile workforce. But it is possible.
[00:12:33] Tim Brewer: When you talk about an agile workforce, would, do you think about that being a culture thing So that you can have a healthy change culture that can you take human aspect of change that's hard and high friction and high stakes? For change or a different ability to be agile changes that are either forced upon them or strategic decisions that need to happen internally, like building out another product line.
[00:13:00] Ariana Poirier: Yeah. It is very much based on the culture of the organization. I've worked in industries where, change does come very natural for people just because I think that when you build a culture that's agile, you're allowing people to make mistakes and they're not gonna be penalized or there's no punishment for making a mistake.
When I was running my teams, I'm like, there's nothing you can do that we can't fix. So let's try to do our best to like navigate through this and that's okay. So when you give that support and that feeling of like psychological safety, people can be more agile, I've also worked in areas where, the stakes are very high. So it depends on the industry, it depends on the culture of the organization. But you can take your people from a very high risk, high stakes to a more agile culture. It just takes some time and it there's different, there's so many variables in involved.
So you'd have take it by case. It's not a one size fits all solution. It's really just identifying what are the challenges, what about your work culture is not working? Is it toxic? Are people, leaving in droves.
So what is it that is this kind of friction where it change is so difficult. And then also thinking about how often are you changing? I know that change saturation is a huge factor when it comes to whether or not your people are agile. If you're overloading them with changes, it can be really challenging for them to keep up and for them to adopt and to have the buy-in from those people too. So there's just a lot of different factors to consider.
[00:14:33] Amy Springer: I guess thinking of that change saturation, we've seen business change really rapidly in the last, I wanted to say last year, but really it's the last four years and so I imagine there's a lot of change fatigue in organizations. Have you experienced in that time, maybe an example you could share of it, or can you see a way forward that we can manage that change fatigue in this new context where it's a much higher risk?
[00:15:03] Ariana Poirier: Yes. Yes I've definitely experienced a lot of change fatigue. So, during the pandemic, I worked in emergency management here in Texas, and that is where I experienced the most change. And that's where I ran some teams and I was team lead for a couple different of our groups where change was every moment, every day where you're pivoting at any moment.
And think that because you're in emergency management, that's the business that you're in, you have to be able to pivot, you have to be able to be agile because, you have a directive that comes down from leadership and you have to do like, you have to make it work. And people did get fatigued and people got really burnt out from that.
And I think that it was unprecedented. I think that there's sometimes you can't really help, when emergencies happen, that's, you're faced with, all right, we have to get this done somehow. And so just really looking at the talents of the people around you and leveraging people's natural abilities and skills is really important. And, I think that's how you can push through. But then there is a breaking point. That's, it's natural. And I think I'm using the pandemic as an example, and it was, it's a major example. I think it's that's the one that's coming to mind right now. But you have to figure out how people can be resilient. I think that's where I saw the most resilience was through that position and that experience. Yeah, it was an incredible experience, but I think that you see people have moments of burnout and then you and they, figure out how to bounce back.
[00:16:29] Amy Springer: When we hit stop record every leader on earth suddenly becomes excellent at one part of change management, what would you like that to be?
[00:16:39] Ariana Poirier: that's a good question. I would encourage leaders to I think just reconnect with their people. I think that it can be really easy to get busy with the day-to-day because there's so many, there's so many things that we ask leaders to do. And so, you have like multiple meetings and you just competing priorities, but really reconnecting with your people is going to be the, the most holistic way of building an agile company or culture within your organization, but also it allows you to not only reconnect with your people, but also reconnecting with yourself. And so, I think that if leaders took more time to have a holistic approach to their leadership style and explored their abilities as a leader it will affect the people around them greatly.
I think more than they realize. I think that leaders have a more of an impact than they give themselves credit for. When it comes to culture within the workplace. And so that would be one thing that I would skill that I would have them walk away with that level of emotional intelligence for sure.
[00:17:43] Amy Springer: If that connects with the, the change exhaustion conversation before as well, I feel like 'cause a key part of that must be being willing to have that vulnerability and say, Hey, I know there's a lot going on and you really need to have that connection to have that conversation.
Yeah,
[00:18:01] Tim Brewer: Yeah, I think it also connects right across with having a healthy change culture as well. Because that burnout, I would assume there's a correlation that when there's a poor change culture or people have experienced very bad change outcomes or impacts of change to themselves before and they feel unsafe.
You end up burning a lot of extra energy in an organization through your changes, let alone the poor outcomes to the organization itself, not being successful at the change. So you end up with an entire sunk cost of the change or something more disastrous than that.
[00:18:38] Ariana Poirier: Yeah, I think that if leaders are able to like tap into their humanity and their humility and say, what, this is really hard, just really level with their people and call it for what it is hey, this is a really tough situation that we're all in, I really appreciate all of your efforts.
This is not easy and just call it for what it is. It validates a level of that, that burnout that people are experiencing. Because I've worked in environments where leaders brush it off, like too bad we have to just keep going, figure it out and just, keep muddling through and people just feel so invalidated from, not really having that connection with their leader and having their feelings dismissed and their experience dismissed. And that I think that lends to even more burnout. So if you have a leader who is "this is really hard. I know this is not what we planned, or, it's not working out the way that we want, but we're gonna figure it out". Then it gives that sense of psychological safety and security that people are looking for in their workplace.
[00:19:37] Tim Brewer: I think that's that's the perfect way to lead into an outro, which is us being super grateful for you joining us, Ariana and chatting about a healthy change culture in a leaders organization. We appreciate your humility for coming and sharing what you've learned. For those people out there with change challenges or org design problems that probably don't even know that's what they're called. and I just love, chatting and hearing about the upside on investing into change. And to learning that as a skill, as a leader. So we just really appreciate you coming along, both me, Amy, and I know our whole listenership. So thanks so much for joining us today.
Before we go, we did wanna ask something of our audience. We produce this podcast for leaders that have change and org design problems. And the way they hear about it, like you did, Ariana is listening along on one of the podcast channels, but it's pretty likely you've got someone in your world that is going through a change or considering or on the cusp of some big change in their organization.
Feel free to grab a podcast episode that you think will matter to them and share that with them on the back of this. If you haven't already subscribed and follow our podcast and get the podcast update, please do so as well. It helps us when we are justifying the efforts and spend on continuing to publish and promote the podcast internally, which me and Amy love to do.
We think it makes a really big difference helping introduce experts like you, Ariana to the thousands and thousands of leaders that are with change and org design every day in their organizations. Amy, thanks so much for joining us again today and spearheading our podcast episodes. Ariana, thanks for joining us and to everyone, have a fantastic week. This is the Org Design Podcast.
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