Episode transcript The transcript is generated automatically by Podscribe, Sonix, Otter and other electronic transcription services.
Ricardo (4s): Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Five Minutes PM Podcast. Today I'd like to talk about the Fear of Change. Fear it's one of the basic principles of human existence. So when we talk about Fear, we need to understand that fear it's not or something that someone teaches you at the school, or you need to be cautious. No, It's part of our own DNA. And when we think about project management, strategic initiative management, talking about implementing things and getting things done, one of the key components of that, probably more than budget, probably more than the schedule.
Ricardo (44s): Is how you will manage human behavior and how you will manage Fear and Why and saying this? Because what We can see easily. Go to your company and see that. You will see that most of the people, not all of them, they love to go to the cafeteria and say, everything is wrong. We need to change. Change is imperative. We need to change, change, or die. If you don't change your company, we'll go bankrupt. Right? You heard this, but when you say, okay, so let's Change, know what happened? Most of the people said, oops, ups, no, no, no, but, it's, it's going too fast. No, it's going to, so, because we're talking about change, it's easy.
Ricardo (1m 27s): It's easy that you say, Oh, I disagree with everything. But when someone says, okay, let's do it now. People are not so looking to change because people try being on this basic instinct of self-preservation saying, God, what is in there for me? Is this, am I capable to survive the change? Am I capable to use my own competencies to be alive after the Change will I be more powerful or maybe less powerful? This is a natural human behavior. So the first thing you need to understand, and when you are under these circumstances with your project, or if you are an executive applying and doing massive changes, you need to understand that Fear is natural.
Ricardo (2m 15s): You have Fear. I have Fear So what do you think? For example, I'm Brazilian. When I moved to Denmark, what do you think was my feeling? Do you think that I was saying, Oh, I'm so safe. So protected. No, of course, you are sometimes in panic because you are doing a journey. towards the unknown even technology. When you see a new kind of social network, when you see a new kind of social media, and when you see your kids doing something very different, you get afraid. And say during my time, it was not like that. And this is a normal thing. So the first thing you need to understand and this will happen.
Ricardo (2m 55s): If someone does not have this basic instinct of survival. You are also in trouble because you have someone that is crazy enough to be unconsequential, so what you need to do first understand that this is a Fear. And talk about that. Talk about the fear of change, because when you change, not everybody will adapt to the new circumstances. We need to stop, this fallacy of saying, Oh lets, Change everything. But at the same time, keep everything. This does not exist. Let's suppose that your organization is moving to digital. How you will say, Oh, I want to move to digital, but I want to keep the same administrative structure this will never work.
Ricardo (3m 38s): It's like let's implement bold changes without changing anything. The second thing is talk about it. Talk, understand, and communicate in an honest and clear way. Sorry for being sometimes brutal here. Don't cheat on your communication. Be honest, be honest. Say look. I'm afraid. You're afraid, being afraid It is part of the game, but let's go together trying to do the best because what is the problems that if you don't change if your organization does not transform itself, there is a high risk that organization will become completely irrelevant in the future. And this will, at some point hurt you in a much worse way.
Ricardo (4m 21s): Then just doing the transformation. So you need to be bold. You need to think about that with like a strong thought, with like a strong drive. And you need to bring everybody with you and look, let me tell you, you need also to understand that speed is critical. You need to have the right base. Sometimes you go too fast and then you don't bring on board. People on board with you. Sometimes you go too slow, that your change becomes irrelevant. So there is a perfect step that you combine the need for change and the human adaptation to change. Remember, one thing Change technology is easy.
Ricardo (5m 2s): On the technology standpoint, we have computers that are faster, faster, faster, but remember people don't follow Moore's law. We don't upgrade ourselves at the speed of computers. We need to understand that our brain or behavior, our fears, our instincts, they don't move at the same speed. And this is why we see many times this clash of cultures, this clash of new incumbent companies just disrupting completely, very large companies. I wrote an article about that. Talking size matter, smaller it's better. And I was saying this exactly that I was saying that why smaller companies are faster because they have a changing mindset, nothing it's like cement or concrete.
Ricardo (5m 51s): It's a wet concrete. So you can shape it much better than a hundred thousand employee company. But what do you do if you are a hundred thousand employee company, you need to be aware that people have fear and you need to guide them to manage this Fear otherwise you create such, a stagnation that no changing program will be in place. It's just impossible in then the tragedy may come. When you feel that you produce a product or a service, that is absolutely irrelevant. So remember when you are talking about your project, you are talking about the scope the time, the cost thinking about how do you put in place your budget.
Ricardo (6m 32s): You need to understand how I work on changing the cultural aspect, how I can manage the fear of the unknown of my colleagues, other teams, and the whole stakeholders around my project. If you don't get that, you will spend money. You will spend time and get to nowhere. I hope you enjoyed this podcast. See you next week with another five minutes PM Podcast.
