Leading through uncertainty with Özlem Yavuz

Thomas Kohler:
Today’s guest, Ozlem Yavuz and we talked about leading through uncertainty.

Ozlem Yavuz:
Start with yourself first. First, see how you are reacting to change and how you can flex your approach, how you can have your mind open. Second thing is, yes, you may not influence everything, you may not have everything under control, but you can always influence your direct environment. Just create those happy items around you and to really help people to go through that change still with a positive mind and with an open mind. And the third thing is starting with the individual and personal level. But then you need to build the resilience at organizational level. You need to ensure the transparency at organizational level, the flexibility at team level, organizational level. Always remember that you have those different layers and you have the chance to influence yourself, people around you, but then also across the organization as well. So those were the three takeaways from my own experience and hopefully it will help.

Thomas Kohler:
What about transparency in change? Because I think what is always a case that people not feel really confident or are maybe a bit of afraid of what’s coming because they don’t know what to expect. And this could then also influence, as you said, maybe not just them personally, but also the people around them. It could be family, it could be team members. Right. So there are all sorts of things to partner. But with the transparency question, I think it’s always the case at what level and also what type of change, where is it too much? And also how close do you want to be with people and how much you want to share. Right. So this is maybe something what is also interesting. What is your take on that?

Ozlem Yavuz:
Yeah, it’s a very interesting question actually because a multi change communication is a very, very critical dimension. And it’s another learning that you really see good and bad examples. What works well for you, how do people respond to certain situations? And transparency, there is no recipe. Of course I want transparency. I believe during uncertainty all leaders have to be transparent. But how much transparency, you really need to judge yourself. Sometimes we share too much information and this may backfire. People, people may get nervous about that if you can’t explain the details behind that or if you can’t answer the questions.

So transparency is okay, but you really need to find the right level of transparency in each and every situation. And I try to ask myself, is this information really useful for the people? Is this the final information? Is it okay that I share it or is it an interim information and maybe it will only increase the nervousness of the people? Is it really clear enough? And can I also, with that transparency I created Can I also, am I setting the right expectation with you? And I think it’s also important to observe the reactions of people when you are being transparent. Sometimes when you are giving a bad message and how it is landing with people and how you are still keeping a positivity in it, or how you can support them, how Victor gets around or how we work with that bad news and what does it mean for them. So and the timing is also important. Sometimes it can be too early, too transparent with people, but it may again create nervousness. In other situations you might be too late when there is already too much noise around them and people already hear or they even read sometimes in the press this happening and then you might be too late for really situation you need to judge it.

Thomas Kohler:
That’s a good example. So I think being too late means when information that is impactful to an employee like okay, the company is, I don’t know, doing layoffs or has a strategic change or just got funding or just got acquired. If this is coming through the news and then the people know hey, what’s going on and don’t hear this upfront from the company officially in an internal all hands, for instance, I think that’s a problem. But what could be maybe an example of where transparent communication could be too early? Do you have some ideas?

Ozlem Yavuz:
I think sometimes you share the plans too early. And at the end this is creating expectations with people and companies or organizations or business units. It doesn’t have to be always at the very strategic level. You set a wrong expectation and things may go when you were planning to go to left, things may turn to right. And when you already set the expectation we will go to the left, then change you think it then again getting divine off to people and you may frustrate people in that vein. So it’s for me or my experience, what I have seen is when things become more clear, then it is better to share only after the interim steps are not always useful. I know people get curious and I know people get also nervous when there is this radio silence around them. So it’s important to give in between information but not too much assumptions in it. I think when the clarity is there and when the decision is made, it is much more safer to really share a concrete information with people.

Thomas Kohler:
I would be super curious on how you structure what to share when with maybe managers and employees at your complexity level. Because you’re responsible for around 70 countries, right? Plus thousands of employees and probably hundreds to maybe thousands of managers. So do you have a framework, a communication framework on how you communicate changes.

Ozlem Yavuz:
We do have a communication framework. We have a communication team as well. And obviously depending on the level of the decision or the content of the decision, different people are being involved. But like usually there are times where I am one of the decision makers, then there is a different communication plan and different engagement from my side. But there are also decisions made by the top management, by the board of directors. Then you are a messenger of that communication. So it really depends on what is your role exactly in that. But every day we need to share certain information with our people.

And usually what I am also experiencing nowadays, it’s not just us, it’s all around. In many companies, also in the market, the changes are so fast that you don’t have too much time to really think through a lot. You really need to act in a very fast way, but still in a very careful and sensible way how you are communicating the message. So it’s really, I would say it depends on the situation, it depends on the topic, and it depends on the also content that you have to prepare. But again, you need to be ready also to communicate and to plan the communication in a very quick way during COVID times. Maybe I can give you an example. We were taking the decisions at 6, 7 o’clock in the morning. I think all companies experienced that.

And then we had to communicate it to the employees already around nine, maybe be it short time work at that time, be it a change in the current situation and so on. Sometimes you don’t really have time to think through too much and you have to adapt in a very fast way. Does that answer your question?

Thomas Kohler:
Yes. And I think this is also the next question, emotions. So when you are maybe the translator or the messenger of a message, and you maybe personally don’t even feel confident with what needs to be communicated, but your role requires to communicate it, for instance, right? Or a receiver, like in your team or so on, does not really receive a message well, but it has. But you then also need to make sure that they also communicate the message further in a certain way and not in their personal opinion way. So how do you manage the conflict of emotions versus messaging in management? Because I think this is, especially in bigger organizations with different incentives, with different implications of changes. A really big challenge.

Ozlem Yavuz:
It is a challenge. And we are all human beings. It doesn’t matter if you are just a graduate, first job. It doesn’t matter if you are 20, 30, 40 years of experience, senior leader, top manager in the organization. I think we first need to remember we are all Human and each and every individual is impacted with these challenges. And sometimes we try to be or to ignore our emotions, how we respond to certain situations. I think this is among the biggest mistakes. Again, at each level of the organization.

Doesn’t matter what is your role. You need to first reflect about yourself. You are right. Sometimes there are decisions which you don’t understand. Why is that decision taken? Or your reaction might be you might be frustrated with certain aspects of the decision. What I have experienced is first you need to understand why that decision is taken. Because there are certain situations where I hear an information, I don’t like it, but then I try to find a bit more information around it. Then I can understand it.

When I understand why that decision is taken, then it’s also easier for me to spread that information in the organization. So that’s for me the first step. Rather than reacting negatively or too positively. It could be both ways. First you need to really get a bit more insight and understand the full picture and the context of that decision. And then what are the implications of this decision and dealing with only emotions. Yes, there are times you need to digest a certain decision. And I also propose that you take some time yourself to digest that information, to reflect yourself, to have a better understanding about the full picture.

And it is better to communicate that. Again, this may. What I am saying is it may sound like weeks. No, sometimes really this is only a 10 minutes that you need to do that reflection, calm down yourself and share that information. But sometimes it may take a bit more days till you are comfortable. Also faith and for leaders we need to be authentic. And yes, human beings are vulnerable, we can all be vulnerable. But I think the leaders still need to keep that realistic positivism or positive realism or whatever you would call it. Because it’s always important that you can’t destroy the mood of the organization. You need to make sure that this is it. But what are the consequences and how we are going to overcome with it? And that includes also your emotions and emotions around it.

Thomas Kohler:
Definitely makes sense. I think what I want to highlight, what you said is that okay, there is the message, but the most important thing I think is what is the implication of the message. And maybe in the messaging this already included, if it’s well communicated and structured. But I think one overall message has so many different implications and depending on the audience, the implications are different. So I think part of a very good communication is managing what is actually the implication of the change and then also translating the overall messaging into these small sub messages that really are understood and relevant to the perceiving audience. For instance, if there is a reorganization or an acquisition plan of a company or a product, then it has different implications for product, for instance to integrate it or also for sales. Okay, do we now sell that? What is the commission model? What is… What are the targets and so on, right? How do we structure it on existing versus new business? What’s the territory, for instance?

I think there are so many things that need to be considered of big changes and I think a stable messaging and clear messaging is crucial there. So how flexible should you be during changes? For instance, when the leadership team changes in a large organization, how flexible do you need to be with reorganizations? How much ambiguity do you want to give in certain changes and how close do you want to manage changes? So do you have a framework for that or some insights.

Ozlem Yavuz:
Before that, maybe your point around the communication and tailoring it according to the audience. I think that’s a very important one. If you don’t mind, I would love to start with that one. Because usually when there is a change, there are also, like you said, communication packages that you receive and. Or I mean there is also public information. Sometimes the information might be too technical, sometimes it might be too high level. And depending on whom you are talking, you need to adjust and tailor that information.

You need to always ask yourself what is relevant. I hear a lot there cannot be too much communication. And you are usually recommended to communicate more often and regularly. Yes, that’s true. But I think you can also overload people with too much communication. Sometimes you can also overwhelm people because you need to make the judgment. Like you said, is it really. If I’m talking to a sales population, is it really relevant for the sales organization or which parts of this information is relevant for that organization and how can they use that information? You really need to make that judgment because sometimes you talk to people like it might be very technical information.

And you see in the eyes of people, they started to get confused, they cannot anymore hold of you because it is not necessarily impacting their day to day life in their business as usual. And the content of the communication might be really also too far away from their own reality. I think it’s very important to make that judgment and to make that filtering and customization according to the audience. And also again observing the people carefully so that you can adapt even through the conversation, maybe certain messages or formulated in a different way. And always leave room for questions because you need to check and verify. People also understand your Messages, I think that’s also quite an important one. So thank you for touch basing also that topic. I think is very important.

Thomas Kohler:
Definitely, yes. And on the flexibility side, how much ambiguity within change do you want to let happen or foster and how much do you want to prevent?

Ozlem Yavuz:
I think being flexible with change helps you a lot. If you are very robust in your ideas. If you don’t want to change your mindset, you are impacted in a bad way. Usually because you have this stagnancy. You don’t wanna sometimes under you put some barriers to really understand the information that has been shared. I always, I can understand at the beginning if there is a message which doesn’t fit what you were expecting, which doesn’t fit your view. You need some time. There is the normal change process.

People first reject actually, but then within time you accept that. And when you come to a change with an open mind, with a flexible mindset, I think there is more potential that you can accept it quicker and then you can also adapt in a quick way. And usually when I look back to my 20, 25 years, there were the changes that I have gone through myself as my individual next or carrier on enroll. There were certain situations I wasn’t too happy with what I have been offered or what I was taking over or a project that I have been involved. But looking back, sometimes after two years, sometimes after two months, you realize that why you have been there actually you see the benefits sometimes later. So that’s why I think sometimes having that belief that things will sort itself and you will see the benefits of that change and why it has happened after many years ago could be or after some days you will already realize. So flexibility in that sense, I think it is super required. And also the teams are observing their managers, observing their leaders.

And if they see you are flexible and you are relaxed with what is coming, it has a domino impact, a positive dominant impact. If they see that you are resisting with what is coming, then I think you are already building a collective resistance towards the change. And if you start already with a positive, with an open mindset, then this has also the dominant impact within the organization and within the people within the teams around you. So this is what i belief.

Thomas Kohler:
Cool. Yeah, thanks. Do you have any final words on learnings when leading through change?

Ozlem Yavuz:
Just to maybe sum it up again, start with yourself first. See how you are reacting to change and how you can flex your approach, how you can have your mind open. Second thing is, yes, you may not influence everything, you may not have everything under control, but you can always influence your direct environment. Just create those happy items around you and to really help people to go through that change still with a positive mind and with an open mind. And the third thing is starting with the individual and personal level. But then you need to build the resilience at organizational level. You need to ensure the transparency at organizational level, the flexibility at team level, organizational level. Always remember that you have those different layers and you have the chance to influence yourself, people around you, but then also across the organization as well. So those were the three takeaways from my own experience and hopefully they help.

Thomas Kohler:
Yes, thank you.

Ozlem Yavuz:
Thank you.