Episode summary

Everyone thinks they know what change management means. Usually they picture a training session or a few all-staff emails. James Harrison has spent 25 years in technology and 15 of those deep in iMIS implementations, and he’ll tell you that’s barely scratching the surface.

In this episode, Riley Miller sits down with James, Bursting Silver’s Director of Client Success, to get into what change management actually requires. The short version: it’s the project management of the human side of change, and it’s happening on two tracks simultaneously. Your staff are navigating a new system. Your members are too. Most organizations put all their energy into the first group and forget about the second until someone calls to complain they couldn’t renew because the portal was down without warning.

James walks through the patterns he’s seen over 15 years, the iMIS champion who sets the tone for an entire team, the QA session that fell apart because everyone was nodding but nobody was actually ready, the client who launched their new website live at their annual conference as a deliberate reveal. He also lands on the one thing every executive should put on their Monday morning to-do list before any system change: document your processes. You can’t manage a change you haven’t mapped.

In this episode

• Why change management is not just training and communication, it’s project management of the human experience on both sides of your organization
• The bank teller analogy: your technology has taken on a personality, and a frustrating member experience lands exactly the same as a rude employee
• How to find and leverage your internal iMIS champion, and what to do when someone’s negativity is spreading through the team
• The QA panic story: what happens when you mistake nodding for understanding, and how to catch it before go-live
• The single most important thing to do before any system migration, and why most organizations skip it

The Modern Membership Org Podcast

Full Transcript

Riley Miller (02:48)
All right. Hey, thank you for tuning in today. My name is Riley here from the Modern Membership Org Podcast. I’m with Bursing Silver, and I am fortunate enough to be joined today by the extremely talented James Harrison. James Harrison is our Director of ⁓ Client Success. He’s got 25 years under his belt in tech, 15 of those in iMIS and is just a font of knowledge when it comes to this specific topic that we’re looking at today, change management. We’re going to be talking about

the highs and lows and all the in-betweens and who better to lead us through that path than Mr. Harrison. So I’ll hand it over to you James, maybe tell our listeners today a little bit about yourself and your background.

James Harrison (03:29)
Great, well thanks Riley, happy to be here. Thanks for having me on. And certainly with my iMIS background, goes back about 15 years now. And now I’m currently working in sales, but early days I used to do a lot of implementation work and even working on websites and iParts and things like that. So I’ve kind of worked my way up. Most of my time working with iMIS though was managing clients and projects, a little bit of sales. And then now I’ve moved into full-time sales, but I’ve got a good background.

on managing projects, how those projects go, working on the different modules within Imus really closely and knowing how each of them works and functions. So it’s been quite a great time here in the last 15 years working with Imus and different clients projects. Before that, I had my own company and since they’re freelance web design company, I was building websites for artists and small businesses. My big claim to fame is I built Anne Murray’s website, if you know the Canadian singer, a few other people too, photographers, fashion designers.

Lucie Amatisse was a fashion designer I did. story short, I mean, it was fun at the time, but I really saw there’s a lot more working with associations and certainly now you can build those websites easily in Wix and something else. So that was a good move back then, but it was fun in those days. Going back before that, I did work in the restaurant industry. I think I learned a lot working with staff in the restaurant industry. I was managing and working in the front of the house, they call it, and some nice restaurants here in Toronto. So that actually gave me a lot of experience, I think, working with people.

and working in stressful situations. So I did that while I was in school. But yeah, I stayed a little bit longer because I really enjoyed it. ⁓ But here we go. That’s where I am today.

Riley Miller (05:04)
That is an unappreciated fact. I think everybody needs to put some time in customer service or even the service industry in general. Not only is it humbling, but I think you get a lot of qualities that then translate into the business world.

are missed when they’re not there.

James Harrison (05:21)
I absolutely agree with you. And you know what? It’s interesting too, because I have people reminding me of that throughout the years after leaving that industry. And I always thought, Oh, maybe I spent too much time in there. And then I realized, Oh, you know what? It was actually really good that I did. You really learn how to deal with people, um, and high pressure situations. So especially in fine dining, people are going out for this really important dinner and they’re doing it once a year. And if you mess it up, they’re going to be really upset and they want it to go perfect. And so there’s that stress.

On the other side though, it’s a really amazing feeling to be part of special occasions for people. know, that 30 year anniversary, you can kind of be part of that. So both sides, it’s yeah, really, really humbling is a good word. I like that.

Riley Miller (06:00)
Yeah,

nothing more humbling than hospitality. I mean, as we’re drawing parallels, a lot of that translates to work you’re doing in associations because there’s the big wins that go live, the success and the happy client. And then there’s also

the missed expectations or the pitfalls or the oopses that happen along the

James Harrison (06:20)
Yes, absolutely. And, and I’ve learned over the years that the, difference is not as different as you think because it comes down to people and it’s really not the technology, but it’s the people in behind that technology. And you’re working with people when, for example, when we’re working with our clients, but clients are working with people when they’re working with their members. ⁓ one analogy I really like, and somebody told me this years ago, or maybe I read it years ago, but if you think back to the days now, we’re really going back, but

In the old days, you’d go to the bank and you’d always speak with a teller. Now today, we go online, we go and use our app. But the reality is, is if your experience with a teller was bad or they had a bad attitude, you’d think badly of that bank. If the teller was really happy to see you and really helpful, you would think, well, of that bank, you know, I want to go back. Well, that’s actually what happens with technology now. So if I have a good experience on one of my clients’ websites, I’m going be happy about it. But if I’m a member and I have a frustrating experience, it’s the same as having a rude person speak with me.

So I think it’s really interesting how technology is sort of taken on in a sense away that personality and in behind the people that are running that association, they’ve got this sort of wall of tech between them and their members and they really, their attitude comes through as well too. everybody’s, know, we can tell when someone’s happy to be, when a customer is sort of can tell when their company is happy to have them. But I think the technology can help show that yes, we do like having our members and we can help make sure that happens.

I think there’s lots of little parallels there, but it really comes back down to that. You know, every interaction is so key ⁓ and is important, not just the big ones. And some of that comes back to the restaurant industry as well, too. One of the things that I was taught back then was every single interaction is the most important one, ⁓ which you know what? That’s true. And I think that if you forget that one page on your website and people keep going back to it and they have a bad experience, that’s the thing that they remember. They don’t know about all the other things. So yeah, I think.

Riley Miller (08:00)
.

James Harrison (08:17)
There’s lots of parallels there.

Riley Miller (08:19)
Yeah, and I’m sure we’ll pull out a couple of those examples here today, but I mean, all of this too, whether we can draw parallels to hospitality or draw parallels to our topic today, change management.

there’s nuances in technology from a client relationship as well as expectations to members that you just need to get it right and you need to make sure that they’re well thought out. So with change management then, when you’re looking at that, what does that mean to you and what do you think leaders or association, ⁓ client, staff members as they’re going through this modernization process get wrong about it?

James Harrison (08:42)
Yeah.

Oh, great, great question. mean, change management, a lot of people think they know what it means. And I mean that in the nicest kind of way. But they’re going to assume that, OK, it’s just sort of some communications that are going out or just making sure people are doing training. But it really is that level of project management around a project where you’re managing the human side of the change in your organization. And specifically, you’re managing the human side on your members’ side and on your staff.

James Harrison (09:29)
So sometimes I think we can get caught up and, we’ll just make sure the staff have a nice change over. We do lots of things to make sure the staff are involved. We make sure that they’re doing training early on. So the system is in the shock when it goes live. They’ve had a chance to see it, but we don’t give a lot of thought to the members’ experience. ⁓ And maybe for them, there’s a whole new system that they’ve now got to navigate and they’ve just received this one email, maybe a day before they have to do something important. We didn’t give them warning about the fact that the system will be down for a few days.

And hey, we all leave things to last minute. And I thought, oh, I could go on this weekend and sign up for that course. And now I can’t. So I think it’s really important. We’re managing the people, but we’re managing both the people inside our organization and outside of our organization. And we’re really managing that change for them. And I think it’s a way of holding people’s hands and walking them through, but also following up and circling back. We can get into the details. Training’s a big one. Different communication is a big one. But I think if you kind of…

have a phrase that encompasses all of that. It really is the project management of the people managing that change that they’re experiencing.

Riley Miller (10:35)
Yeah, and you hit a couple beats, for working with teams and working with people, there’s also a matter of instilling, working with one contact as well.

most often training the trainer that is going to take over a lot of the intellectual property that they’re adopting, you’re working with one point of contact who is essentially the leading point for teams. Now, when it comes to that leader relationship, if you’ve identified one individual as your point of contact, how would you say that relationship usually works when you’re dealing with people along the way?

James Harrison (11:15)
So I think what you might be picking out there is sort of that one person on the inside who’s a team lead or a champion that ⁓ we often can call them, say, an iMIS champion, right? So if you have somebody on the inside who’s, first of all, just really excited about the project, that’s super helpful because their attitude will just sort of lead on to the others. And also the other way around, if you have someone who’s very negative about the project, that attitude will spread as well too.

I think it is really important when you’re managing a large project, and especially if it’s a move to a new system, that you pick a couple of key people on the inside who are both positive ⁓ and eager to work on the project. They’re excited about the project. They’re excited about the technology. ⁓ And also too, other people listen to those people. Or ⁓ they don’t necessarily have to be leaders, but they’re able to influence other people in a way where, okay, yeah, you know what, hey,

John likes to go and try new things out. And I always kind of like to check in on him and see what he’s doing, you know, that, that sort of thing. just, they like people and other people get along with them. Now it’s not always easy to find that person, but they do often put their hand up kind of early on in the project. If you kind of get yourself in a situation where you have a number of staff, uh, within the, within the client’s team. Uh, for example, we have discovery sessions in the beginning. Usually you can find the person who’s kind of eager to participate and you can add to that, you know, those people do like being involved in the project.

So I think finding those people early is really key and giving them the ability to have some influence on the project so their participation is valued to you. They’ll feel valued. But in addition to that too, they can kind of be a little bit of a front runner or a frontier for the others where they can report back about things. They have a chance to look at things a little bit early and you want them kind of communicating those positive things back. So yeah, I would say it’s almost critical to find at least one key person

James Harrison (13:10)
on the client side who has those traits and also signal out anybody who’s negative to make sure they kind of make sure sure they don’t have too much influence as well.

Riley Miller (13:20)
Yeah, it’s ⁓ keeping all of those stakeholders essentially ⁓ feeling heard, whether it’s from your own champion and they’re able to feel that internal ⁓ communication because they’re going to hear regardless when that ⁓ go live happens, they’ve now run off with their system, they’re going to be in charge and if they’re not addressing those points, I think that’s a really good… ⁓

really good callback to say that even the defectors or the people that feel like they are really being threatened by this new change ⁓ are also being addressed. Do you have any examples, not to call it any specifics, on that note where you have some people that are really ⁓ not for project and are making that known or not feeling heard?

James Harrison (14:15)
I definitely have examples of both. Both keep people that were very positive and key and had them sort of take that spot where they’re doing the training and learning and passing it on to others. And you can see it, it’s obvious. The other way around though, sometimes it’s more of a, you’re stuck with somebody or they’re stuck with a certain job that they didn’t necessarily want within the project and they don’t have a positive attitude around it. ⁓

So there’s kind of two different ways where you have that experience. One can be you have these, what they call business process review meetings often or discovery sessions. But in general, what it is is you kind of take each department, you’ll have staff from their department. That’ll be their only participation is that day until we get into closer to training and go live, right? ⁓ And so it’s easy to kind of manage somebody who’s negative within that ⁓ context because they’re just there for the few hours, let’s say. But if someone’s been assigned to managing for their department, this part of the project and they have a bad attitude,

James Harrison (15:12)
And they’re kind of feeling like, I’m stuck working on this project when I have other things to do, or they’re not positive about it. You definitely want to address that right away. And a lot of the time it is a matter of listening to their concerns and addressing them and turning them around. ⁓ And also helping them see the perspective of the system where they can gain, their staff are going to gain. And a lot of the time I haven’t found any yet where you can’t end up turning their position around by having some discussions with them.

really listening to what their concerns are and answering those concerns and reflecting back to them as well too, the decisions that other departments and other people have made and the reason they’ve made those. And often too that one person might feel like, yeah, this is a bit hard on my department. but now that I know that it’s really benefiting the other department who’s actually been having a much harder time, they’re all of a sudden going to change their attitude and be more positive around it. So those are some of the things that I’ve had happen and techniques I’ve used and yeah, definitely very important.

Riley Miller (15:49)

Yeah, because I think investigating a little bit further to figure out what that pushback is about, you find new opportunities that maybe weren’t considered. Have you found any

times in your experience where you turn that negative into a positive and it really ⁓ steers the ship in another direction.

James Harrison (16:27)
Absolutely and actually you end up finding this buried issue that that basically wasn’t part of the RFP or wasn’t part of the original scope but ⁓ maybe this person’s been kind of You know guarding it Let’s say or you get to the bottom of their complaints and their concerns and you realize that okay. There’s hold on They’re doing something in a really inefficient way. There’s a much better way to do that with the new system So yes, we’ve certainly had that experience where

And I think it’s taking time to get to know the different people that you’re going to be working with during this implementation and really reaching out to them, getting their feedback and what they think about the system. And then if they have something negative, dig a little bit further and find out why. Because if you just kind of ignore that negative note, then you never end up uncovering the why behind that. And then often that’s where the new opportunities are. And you might even realize there’s a lot of energy being spent on what management thought would be a good idea.

James Harrison (17:23)
but they’re ignoring actually an improvement that’s more critical to the staff, which would be better to address with iMIS and the new software that’s being implemented for them. So yeah, there’s a lot of value there to talk to those frontline people. Yeah, definitely.

Riley Miller (17:36)
Yeah,

that’s all part of trusting the process as well. I think change management is built on a system of processes. maybe a good example here then when we’re talking about those wins to

polarize that or look at the other way, ⁓ where are times that you’ve seen this maybe go off the rails? Or some examples of maybe what felt like a win actually ⁓ didn’t turn out that way.

James Harrison (18:06)
You know what? It’s so interesting because I think we all have that one bad experience that then taught us to not just not repeat that, but actually was the reason that we’ve actually perfected a certain area or skill that we have. And I think that would be the case for certain with me with change management. And you get used to things after a while, you kind of get, it’s easy to overlook or you feel like, we’ve done this kind of a project before.

And it’s, this one seems the same and you sort of feel like, okay, everything must be going well. And, because it seems like it is, and then we just, we’re to go onto the next thing. And I had a project that involved basically, it was a new client on time. There was about 15 of their staff. We were going through the project and the project timeline right on time. It seemed like every meeting we were having, they were pretty happy with things. And then there was some feedback that would be expected, but.

no real gotchas or red flags. And it felt like, okay, this is, know, they’re getting the system. They like it. And, and let’s just continue on with our schedule. And when we came to the QA portion, so this is where we really need the staff’s involvement again. And, and actually we’re doing our, so what I recommend is we always do training first, then QA. So everyone’s learning or refreshing, even some learning, then they’re testing the system out for three or four weeks before they go live. And when you go live, it’s not the first time they’ve seen the system. Well, this, this group of staff,

actually panicked when we got into QA because it just, that’s when we started to find out that they were actually overwhelmed with a new system. And the meetings we were having during our sprints, they were very much like, it’s almost like watching a TV show. It’s very distant, you know, okay, this is that, this looks neat. Looks like it’s gonna be fun. But then finally he asked them to kind of, okay, now it’s your turn to get in the driver’s seat. There was just a lot of anxiety on their side and they really didn’t feel like they were ready. ⁓ And they didn’t also feel like.

James Harrison (19:56)
they could test and sign off on these things being done. ⁓ So we actually brought in an additional consultant who was an expert in this area and managing people and change management specifically ⁓ who then came in and we redid the timeline for go live. We added in a lot of additional steps to make sure that all these different staff members have the time and training that they needed. ⁓ And in addition to that, we had a system where each team had a point person who was then able to

James Harrison (20:26)
direct the other team members and was in charge in signing off. you know, kind of George, the user didn’t feel like, don’t want to be the person to say this looks okay. That’s too much responsibility for me. So we, made it so that the heads of each department had that responsibility. gave them that extra training that they needed. And you know what? was one of the most successful goal lives we had after that. And they were okay with us changing the timeline. They saw that we were responding to their anxiety.

we could have said, hey, let’s just, you know what? The train’s leaving at four o’clock. Let’s keep on going. And I think that would have been not a good go live at all. But whereas by changing the schedule, listening to them, I think it was very, important. But for me, the lesson learned was, OK, don’t assume things are going well. Really check and poke. And if people are nodding during sprint meetings, maybe ⁓ double, double check. ⁓ So yeah, that was a good example there.

Riley Miller (21:21)
I’m sure I’ve been guilty going through training videos being like, yeah, I totally get this. Then jump in, it’s all Greek. It’s like that bike ride too. You’re finally going on your two wheels. The parent lets go and ⁓ you think that’s it. You start going for the curb. At least I know I did.

James Harrison (21:27)
⁓ absolutely. It’s very human. Yeah.

I definitely did. yeah, I had some bruised knees and, and it is, it is different watching someone do something and then doing it yourself completely different. ⁓ and one thing that I have learned, I think too, over the years with different projects is to, and it’s a good, a good analogy is not jumping in the deep end in a pool and one big splash, but actually slowly walking in.

and going from the shallow end. And most people say, know, like it’s the water’s too cold and you’re going to torture yourself going in step by step. Well, in this scenario, it’s actually better to do it step by step and just kind of slowly walk in from the shallow end. And all the incremental changes are just a little bit more than what you knew last week instead of a big change all of sudden. So yeah. And the earlier you can get staff who are the users involved, the better. ⁓ Even just them having some input on things. ⁓ If you get their input early on,

and they’re a bit of a detractor, well, they’re at least they’re going to feel listened to. And then when it comes time for them to do training, they’re not going to feel like, well, I don’t like this new system. I don’t care. They don’t, they don’t care what I think. You’ve actually asked them their opinion early on. They’ve been involved in some of those steps. So now they’re going to take the training seriously and they’re going to be involved. So I think really, I keep making sure the staff are on board and addressing any concerns around that. If they’re not with the new project, with the timing, sometimes staff, it’s not that they do or don’t like the new system, but they feel like, well,

James Harrison (23:03)
Why are we going live during our annual renewal or during our big conference? Right. So they’ll feel like it’s their department maybe is being affected and the other departments don’t care. And so you’ve really got to manage all those little pieces. And if now they know that, well, we’re picking this go live date because of other reasons and we’ve really got to pick, but Hey, why don’t we help your department out a little bit more by doing X. ⁓ and that’s really, think change management comes down to that. really is helping each of those departments and then also to your members.

about them as well too. But really listening and paying attention I think is key.

Riley Miller (23:37)
Yeah, with that testing comes practice and with that practice you also have the chance to ask questions, I think, before it’s good to go.

James Harrison (23:45)
⁓

Yeah, well, it’s funny too, because I think we’re all very similar. If we have a flight coming up, some people will book, sorry, pack a week before. And some people will be like, well, I got a couple more hours before I have to leave. I don’t need to start packing yet. All right. So I think it is good to find ways to make sure everyone participates. I do like the idea of training before QA and you start that six weeks before you go live. So

James Harrison (24:12)
Even people that aren’t necessarily too involved with the project earlier on, they know that, this training is coming up. And one of the nice things, for example, ⁓ the iMIS training learning hub, can now, as one of the staff who are in charge at an association, you can track and monitor your staff using that system and their learning. So have they been finishing their courses, for example? But I think one of things that really is good is to hold people accountable and say, okay, you’ve to do one course a week.

And once they realize early on, they, you know, they’re checking, they’re following up. They do that one or two courses a week. You get into the testing, you give them testing to do. They’ve got four weeks to do it, but check in every week to make sure they’re getting it done. And again, it’s that kind of that slow walking into the shallow end rather than, they’re, they’re going to cram and leave it to the last minute. And they said everything’s fine, but they haven’t actually been doing their work. So I think following up with staff can be really good. ⁓ and back on the other side too, making sure your members know about these changes that are coming up. So I really like early on.

Once we get started with our project, what’s our plan of communication for the members? So for example, ⁓ sure, we’re gonna go live in October. yeah, that’s months away, it’s just March now. But hey, maybe we should put out some communications, for example in July, maybe we should put some notifications on the website. You really don’t want your members to all of a sudden get this shock and the surprise that the website’s not available or there’s been a change and I’m not expecting it.

So I think that’s an important thing to do is when are we going to start letting our members know about these changes coming up? Some clients will say, well, we don’t want to tell them anything until we know the go live date, which is fair. But I think you do want to at least come up with what’s the plan? How many emails are we going to send? How many posts on the website are we going to send? Are we going to talk about it at our conference? We had one client who’s go live actually involved launching their new website, which was iMIS and system at their conference. So that worked out well because all the people at the conference were now

able to see this new launch and unveil while they were there and they were part of the excitement and they were really excited about all the new features and what they were launching. So they actually did that on purpose and they didn’t want to say anything beforehand and they wanted to make it a reveal. So they found out at the conference, but actually it was still, for example, a month away or a little longer before the launch happened. yeah, think keeping your members engaged. But also too, we were talking about somebody who’s a keener or somebody who could be an IMAH champion, let’s say on the inside.

Look for those people too on the outside and your members. There’s always members that participate a little bit more and seem to just be a little bit more active or interested. Sometimes they’ll volunteer for things. Those can be really good people to have come in and do early testing or be part of a pilot and actually take advantage of that. So they can come in and let you know what things look like from the members perspective early on before you launch and can help you find if there’s issues.

Do look for those champions even within your members as well. Yeah.

Riley Miller (27:03)
Very

wise words. I still got sweaty palms when you’re talking about packing late for a flight. ⁓ I mean, calling back to another episode I was talking to Al about maintaining relevance, one thing too ⁓ about maintaining that relevance is involving your members. If they have the opportunity to rubber stamp or give their

their shot at the new website or give their feedback, I think that’s huge. Because now they have just a deeper connection with the going-ons and if they had some really strong opinions about how your website was working in the past and now they can be involved, I think that’s a huge opportunity.

James Harrison (27:28)
Yes.

Absolutely, yeah. And you’d be amazed actually how many members will be not just interested, but sort of feel chuffed that, they asked me. ⁓ And they want to give feedback. So if they’ve been a member of an association for 10 years, and that association has really helped them with their profession, and they have an opportunity to give back in a different way, where they’re actually a beta tester or somebody you’re letting on the system a little bit early and doing pilot testing, you’d be amazed how many members would be actually quite stoked and excited to do that.

So sometimes it’s a matter of finding them. But yeah, I think those can be key people. You can even let them in a little bit early on some of your ideas and things you were looking to do, get their feedback. When you launch, they can be.

a very key person, with ⁓ testing, where, you know what, we missed something. They’re gonna be a little more resilient if they find something rather than somebody who’s a member that’s maybe not as involved, and again, running behind schedule just wants it to work. They don’t wanna find an error. So yeah, you definitely, think, you can use those people actually to your advantage a lot more, and they also feel good about it too. You could even give them a discount at an upcoming event, or give back to them somehow and say, hey, if you wanna participate, we’ll give you this, this,

James Harrison (28:55)
iMIS has a new promotion codes and you can say, Hey, at the conference, you can use this promotion code, get 20 % off. Um, so yeah, you don’t want to feel like you’re taking up too much of their time without giving them something. There’s lots of ways to compensate them as well. Yeah. But very key. Oh yeah. I’m like, Ooh.

Riley Miller (29:07)
Yeah, everybody likes that early access. Exclusive. Walk around

like Wayne’s World with my press badge. Well, so I mean…

James Harrison (29:13)
Yes.

Riley Miller (29:18)
Like I said, I preface it here, you’ve fought the knowledge that based on your experience now, because we deal with so many different organization types, sizes, shapes, ⁓ where would you see change management applying to between associations, regulatory bodies, colleges, unions? Do see it pretty much the same? Is it ⁓ pretty equal across the board and it treats no one differently or is it there are nuances to it?

James Harrison (29:46)
Well, there’s nuance for sure to the different verticals, but I would say that it’s very important for each of those verticals to have change management. Just like it’s very important to have project management, it’s very important to have testing. You don’t want to have a project to go live without having some change management that you apply to it. So I think it’s an easy one to kind of forget because it sounds a little bit like project management. So you’re just assuming it’s in there. But I think with the different verticals, there’s going to be some nuances that are different.

unions will be maybe a lot different, for example, from associations if it comes down to a certain time of year, if there’s certain strike actions or things happening, or maybe when the system, you when they’re going to use it, or if they’re in general, maybe more resistant to change or then others are excited. There might be different ways that you want to invoke that. But I think it’s still important. It doesn’t matter which vertical. And I think the most important thing is, are we taking time to think about the experience that they’re having?

and to make sure we’re walking them nicely towards the new system and taking their concerns in mind. So I think both for your staff and your members, that’s really, really important. And then the answers for your particular vertical or your association, you’ll find those as soon as you’re asking those questions, you’ll find the right way to do that.

Riley Miller (31:00)
Yeah. All right. So, I mean, let’s put my…

Executive Director Capon here. I’m a association leader. We’re a year out from a major change and I’m now starting to think about all the things that’s happening. If you were approached by me, the executive leader, and I had one thing that I needed to put on my Monday morning to-do list, what would that be? Something to start considering for a major change here.

James Harrison (31:31)
You know what, that’s a great question. And actually, my answer to that would be to make sure, and this is a little bit away from change management, but it is involved in it because I would say to make sure that all of your processes are documented. And you might not know what those processes are, but actually it’s really, really key at this point in time when you’re changing from one system to another.

that you don’t have some processes that are locked inside of some of your staff’s heads, and they’re the only ones who know about it. You want to make sure that everything’s documented and it’s understood the way we do things. Not, ⁓ Charlie knows how to do things, Rebecca knows how to do things, and go check with her. I think making sure all your processes that are documented is really, really important. And then when you’re looking at all those processes, you can better evaluate as well, too, how is changing this system.

James Harrison (32:20)
going to affect our users and it’s going to affect our staff and then help manage them. But without that written down first, you kind of really don’t know the change management you’re trying to manage around what exactly. So the what is your processes? And I would say that would be the most key thing is for an ED to look at a new project with a new system. If we don’t have those things written down, is there a step within the process that our staff are going to write those processes down? They’re going to be well documented. So everyone’s aware on both sides.

on our side, the implementation team, but also on their side, the staff to know exactly, yeah, this is the way we’re gonna do it, and this is how we’re doing our process in the new system. So yeah, I think that would be key.

Riley Miller (33:00)
Yeah, absolutely. The best way to know where you want to go is to first know where you are.

James Harrison (33:04)
Yes, I like that. I think there’s a book I read when I was younger along those lines actually.

Riley Miller (33:08)
I was just going to take

credit for that myself. all right, well, we’ll try and get that quote in the show now. Well, James, it’s been absolutely lovely having you on the podcast here. Thank you so much for your wisdom. And that brings to modernizing organizations. Is there anything pertaining to this topic that you think we may have left out, like a gem that you would hand off to our listeners here who’ve been on?

James Harrison (33:13)
Perfect.

Nailed it.

wow, that one little gotcha, that one little piece of wisdom. You know what? I think we really kind of covered everything, but I think the most important thing would be, all right, what are you doing for change management in your project? And if you don’t have an answer for that, then I think you should go and find an answer. And the answer isn’t just training or just communication. It’s really, what are we doing to make sure that this change that we’re doing, which is very beneficial, is going to be a smooth change for our members.

And what are we doing to make sure that this change is gonna be a smooth change for our staff? So yeah, I think that’s a smart question to ask for any project.

Riley Miller (34:07)
Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, James. You take it easy, and we’ll catch you on another episode, I’m sure.

James Harrison (34:14)
Thanks Riley, thanks for having me on. Really enjoyed the show. Talk to you soon, enjoy your day.

Riley Miller (41:38)

Alright, that was James Harrison talking about change management. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed this content here, please feel free to leave us a like or subscribe, do any of that stuff. And if there’s some topics you want us to cover, reach out anytime. info at burstingsilver.com. We’ll catch you at the next episode.