5 Elements of Effective Change Management in Career Services

Meredith Metsker:

Hey everyone. Welcome back to the Career Everywhere podcast. I’m your host, Meredith Metsker, and today I am joined by Dr. Gerald Tang. He’s the executive director of the Career Services and Internships Office at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts. Thank you for being here, Gerald.

Gerald Tang:

Thanks for having me.

Meredith Metsker:

I’m super glad to have you and I am excited to talk to you today about how to effectively do change management in a career services context. And I know this is a big topic of interest for our listeners and it’s something that you personally have a lot of experience in and have been hired specifically to do. For example, I believe in your current role at Bridgewater State, you were brought in to oversee some pretty big transitions for the career center. I’m excited to dig into this topic with you and get your insights into what can sometimes feel like an overwhelming, intimidating thing for career leaders, especially if they’re a new career leader.

Gerald Tang:

Totally. I’m excited about this conversation, so yes.

Meredith Metsker:

It’s going to be great. Before I get into my questions, Gerald, is there anything else you would like to add about yourself, your background or your role there at Bridgewater State?

Gerald Tang:

Absolutely. I figure I’ll give you a little bit about my background and a little bit about the institution so that listeners can have a better context of what Bridgewater State University is and obviously from some of my experiences to frame our conversation today as well. A bit about my background, I’ve been in higher education for about 18 years and I was fortunate enough to have a variety of opportunity to work at different type of institutions, so some of them that I had opportunity to work in a public institution, which my current role is in a regional public university. And I had opportunity to work in private institution, graduate school, career services office, Ivy League type, and obviously to a technical institution and even a small Catholic colleges as well. Fun fact about me, I was born and raised in Hong Kong and was immigrated into US right when I started my graduate education, so I’m fortunate to have experiences in high education as a student myself and going through that transition to professional through undergraduate experiences.

And prior to my career in higher education, I had a little bit of not-for-profit background, particularly in community development and also in government sector as well. To transition a little bit about my current institutions, one of the things about Bridgewater State University, and I’ll preface the word BSU, so that’s referring to Bridgewater State, it’s a public institution in southeastern Massachusetts and a population of around 10,000 both undergraduate and graduate. We do not have a doctoral program or a doctoral level offering at the state institution in Massachusetts. And the office recently, like you had preview to do a little bit of merger with two offices that were beforehand, two separate offices on campus, which was the career services office and the internship program office. They were two separate spaces that focus on two different lens and focuses. Although they are very much similar, they were operating in a separate space.

And the unique thing is the institution went through a strategic planning process and one of the things that the president’s office has been really focused on is something we call BSU work initiative, which is a focus on how we can preparing students for the workforce. And with that, the institution decided to bring on a new executive directors to come in and really going through this process and merging two offices and really scaling career services operation across the institution. I was fortunate to went through the process and was able to be in my role. As a matter of fact, it’s actually basically in my one-year mark as we speak right now.

Meredith Metsker:

Oh, nice.

Gerald Tang:

I was really close to my anniversary date and being able to talk a bit about this one-year experiences here at BSU regarding some of the ways in which we have worked together to transform what career services looks like at Bridgewater State.

Meredith Metsker:

Awesome. Thank you for all of that context. I love hearing how people come to be where they are, especially in career services where the pathway is never the same between any two people. It’s always a different non-linear path into career services, and it sounds like it has been a very busy first year for you at BSU, so I’m excited to dig into that here in just a little bit.

Gerald Tang:

Interesting ride for sure.

Meredith Metsker:

Hey, that’s what keeps it fun, right?

Gerald Tang:

Totally.

Meredith Metsker:

Before I get into my more specific questions about our topic today, I do want to kick us off with a question that I ask all of our guests and that’s what does Career Everywhere mean to you?

Gerald Tang:

That’s a great question. For me, recognizing career conversations are happening around campus and even online and off campus and for some scenario and career everyone. For me, it means that everyone should be able to have the tools and the knowledge needed to ensure that students are career ready for the workforce. That’s a very loaded statement. I will recognize that and I want to emphasize the message that is a collective effort that we all need to have ourself prepared to ensure that we all have the tool and skills. But at the same time, career services for me play a role in thinking about us as a content expert and really a mastermind for this particular movement. How can we prepare everybody around campus to have meaningful career conversations so that we can help our students to navigate those transitions that sometimes happens in many part of their experiences at any time?

Meredith Metsker:

I love that it really touches on some of the core tenets of Career Everywhere, one of which came to mind as you were talking. And that’s that career services transitions from being the sole provider of career services to the facilitator, making sure as you said, that others across campus, the whole ecosystem is engaged, is prepared, can have those conversations with students because like you said, we know those conversations are happening outside the walls of the career center.

Gerald Tang:

Totally.

Meredith Metsker:

Perfect. Well, now I would love to transition into our topic for today, which is again, how to effectively do change management. To start off with some context and to just define what we’re talking about, what does change management mean to you?

Gerald Tang:

Well, first of all, I will recognize that I’m not an expert in change management. I just somehow have had experiences in navigating different kinds of change management experiences in different type of institution that I mentioned earlier. And for me, change management is an ever-changing mindset. It’s not a check off the box, cookie cutter, here’s a step process that you can just go through from one institution to the other. The goal is really help an organization to move through a change effort and initiative. It could be a particular task and so forth. And because it’s not a checklist, it needs everybody to have a mindset of constant assessment, reframing, adjusting, and really reflecting on what’s happening at the moment. And also making data informed decision if data is available. To me, it is also being okay as a leader to think about what may be something that is uncertain.

And you may not know and you may not have data and access of any information, but you have to still make that decision on how you can transition and change. And sometimes those changes may come with emotions and feelings. And like I said to many of my colleagues, no one likes to be uncomfortable. No one likes to stick in that. More movements that, I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know when I’m going. I’m fear of what the uncertainty will be. An example of it is COVID, everybody doesn’t know what’s going when the COVID is going to end, but it’s able to manage that process of changes happening, so how can we be able to navigate that and really constant framing, reframing, adjusting, and adopting. And I think those to me is what it means when change management from that particular context, at least from my mindset.

Meredith Metsker:

That makes a ton of sense. And I love what you said about it’s not a cookie cutter thing, it’s not just some checklist you can go through where change management is the same process at every institution because we know that’s not true. Every institution is different, every career center is different, every team is different, so I love your point about being flexible and just taking it one step at a time based on the situation that you’re in.

Gerald Tang:

Totally.

Meredith Metsker:

You touched on this earlier when you were introducing yourself, but Gerald, what is your experience with change management throughout your higher ed career?

Gerald Tang:

Something about me is I always like to try things differently. There’s something about me that I always gravitate towards and how can I try to make things work better? How can I try to explore different initiative? Organically I gravitate towards places in which I can use my innovative mindset or creativity at work or at places. I was fortunate, like I mentioned earlier in my introductions, that there are multiple places that I worked at and I have had positions where I was hired where I don’t do the same job that the persons prior to me was being hired for. I was being hired as a associate director in one of the roles and the persons was a career counseling focused. And I completely changed the job to marketing, to social media, to graphic design to operation. And it’s organic process, but that’s what excites me because I could do the traditional career counseling, career coaching appointments, but it doesn’t fill my excitement when I’m say, “Oh, these are things that we can help and I can help benefiting the organization even though I have no marketing background.”

And for me it’s a change management mindset and process where I’m just going to try it and see what happened. And if I see there’s a need, let’s see if I can fill it or I can find our expert to fill those faces. And also I’ve been in an environment where there’s so many changes above me, there’s so many transition, there’s so many pivot, there’s so many ups and downs in leadership where sometime change is not self-imposed, but is being imposed by the environments around us. Those scenario can happen as well. I’m fortunate to have… Fortunate and unfortunate I will say, to have those experiences as well. And there are things where I work in places where there are lack of correlations between leadership and management and there are people who are resisting to change, they just don’t want it. Whether or not how much you can advocate, ask for it, and recognizing the need, there are people that should just say, no.

I call them the no… Those individual that who always say no, that’s their thing, “No, no, no, no, no, I don’t want this. This is not a good idea. This is not.” And sadly, those places still exist in higher education. And so I think that reflecting on my experiences, it’s like I mentioned earlier, adapting based on where the needs are. And what I’m sure we’ll talk about later on, how you assess and navigating those environments so that change management could mean something small. It could be your role, it could be your position or places that you can have access to make those changes. It could be systemic pieces where other people are telling you that we need to change or there may be changes that are happening unintentionally that you have to adjust. And also resistance that comes along with those process and experiences. One thing I always go back to is my own strengths and my own approaches. Like I mentioned earlier, I love to do things differently.

I like to try problem solving and if I’m able to do that. I also want to think about what would have happened if this thing happened, what might be creative things that I can also come up with. And I enjoy that process. And I also love the implementation aspect of it, so it’s not just about I’m throwing out the idea, I don’t care what happened versus I’m throwing an idea and I may have some thought about how we can potentially move us towards that approaches and that implementation and what might be outcomes of it. I’m someone always like to explore things and then let’s play together, see what happened, experience it, and then we can reframe and navigate and adjust and reconsider if that doesn’t work the way we want it to be. That’s just something about me that I always love.

Meredith Metsker:

I am so glad you shared that. And it’s funny, as I hear you talk about your experience with change management, how you approach it, I’m thinking it makes so much sense that Gerald gravitates towards jobs that involve change because you have embraced it in your personal life too. You immigrated here from Hong Kong, you’ve worked in all different types of institutions, different types of jobs. You’re always looking for ways to optimize or do things differently. I’m like, this makes total sense. This is a theme throughout your life.

Gerald Tang:

Thank you.

Meredith Metsker:

Well, cool. How do you approach change management, particularly when you’re starting a new leadership role in career services? I know this is a big question here.

Gerald Tang:

That is a very big question, so I’m going to try to process it a little bit more with you. Obviously just like any other senior leaders or chief career services officer will tell you, you need to understand the position, you need to go through the process. And one thing I always say to even my mentees or my mentor will tell me, you need to understand the process from the interview process and from the job description. Even that on its own tells you a lot about what they’re looking for. If you review let’s say 10 different job posting at the same level, the way how they describe the position, what the priorities are, tell us you a bit about what they’re really looking for. And also during the interview process, did they focus on certain aspects of the job? Do they ask for your vision? Do they ask for your strategic plan experiences? Do they ask for success indicators and experiences in navigating or implementing change?

If those questions have been brought up during the entire interview process that on is own already telling you a lot about what they’re looking for. From a new leader perspective is finding the right fit, finding whether or not are you someone like me that I want to try to work in places that are asking for those changes or versus some place that you like to just go in and continue to build what is built, but it’s more on the status quo mindset, maintaining the status quo or the good operation that is happening. And second of all, obviously assessing and observing during the first couple of weeks once you get hired means they like what you’re presenting to them during the interview process. They want to see actually are you intending to actually go through that, what you have mentioned in the interview process.

For me, I always say what might be something that I call the easy fix or the quick wins. That might be something that I can start with to showcase what are some of the things that might be easy to implement or easy to just make changes. And that is also a good way to assess is the culture truly ready for that experiences or are they truly asking for change and if so, what level of change they are looking for ready for it? Those are the beginning process of the change aspect of it. I remember during our prep call we always talk about, are there elements that we should emphasize on? This is, I call them my own versions of change management strategies or I call the five element. It’s not necessarily some reference from a theory, but it’s a accumulation some of my experiences in different places that I work at. I’ll spend some time unpack that with you if that’s okay with you as well.

Meredith Metsker:

Before we get into the five strategies, I did have one follow-up question. You were talking about the importance of starting in the interview process, which I think makes a ton of sense because that tells you all you need to know about whether they will be receptive to change or resistant, which as we know both things can be possible in higher ed. I’m curious in your recent experience having interviewed at BSU in the last year or so, what was it that stood out to you that made you think, okay, they are ready for change. I am interested in this position?

Gerald Tang:

That’s a good question. First of all, like I mentioned earlier, the institution went through a strategic planning process, so there’s a little bit of that indicator of what they’re looking for already and their interest in really merging two offices. When you merge to offices means they organic asking for change, asking for some sort of centralized experiences if you might. To me, it doesn’t necessarily be innovative but that could be something they’re already asking for, one aspect of it. Leadership piece has been supportive throughout that journey asking me to talk about what that vision looks like, which is not an uncommon question by the way when you are interviewing at the level that I’m at many places, but oftentimes there are different versions of it that people might be asked to actually explain more when I go through different interview process as well.

But I think just a right alignment. My immediate supervisor, which is the vice president, her name is Diane, shout out to Diane if you listen to this podcast, she has been very supportive. She’s been excited about those positivity and creativity that was being presented to her during the interview process. And one of the things that I’ll mention later on, I’m fortunate to know some people in the organizations so it’s getting a good sense of what they might be looking for and what the campus climate is during the interview process or even beforehand. That is helpful when you are navigating what type of places you want to move forward, finding those connections to get a sense of what’s going on in the institutional organization that you want to work for and what is the environment and climate like. That could be an indicator and for me it just comes naturally.

And I would say the lessons learned there from anyone who want to move into those spaces is sometime you interview places it’s like, “I don’t think that’s a good fit.” Because based on what you’ve presented to them, it’s not what they’re looking for. It’s not about why don’t they hire me? It’s more like this is not the right place for your talent to be benefiting what they’re looking for. Which if you think about in that concept, it takes away that why don’t they offer me the job, I’m so good? Versus if they even offer the job, it doesn’t mean you’ll be successful because the structure is not built for you to be doing what you are presenting yourself that you want to do.

Meredith Metsker:

I think it’s a good parallel between what I’m sure career coaches talk with students about all the time and that interviews are a two-way street. It’s not just the employer trying to get to know you, it’s you trying to figure out am I a good fit for this employer as well. I think that makes a ton of sense and I thank you for focusing on that because I think that is important to… As far as change management goes, it’s setting yourself up for success from the get-go. It’s not trying to push a boulder up a hill once you’re already in the position. It’s like looking for roles where change is welcome, is celebrated even.

Gerald Tang:

Absolutely.

Meredith Metsker:

Now that we’ve talked about how you set yourself up, let’s talk about that your five step or just the five things you look at when you are in a new role, you’re looking to make some changes. What are those five steps for you?

Gerald Tang:

Absolutely. I call it five elements because I think steps is very linear versus sometimes it’s not linear.

Meredith Metsker:

That’s true.

Gerald Tang:

You can think about this aspect will be in congruence what you’re thinking, but that area might need more attention first, so I always call it five elements. I’m going to start with the first one, which to me is the most important part of it is the people. The first element is people, who are the people? What’s the dynamic of the team that you are involved with and the people that you’re working closely with? What are their strengths? What are their area for growth? What is the appetite for any transition and change? And you can get that, like you said earlier, could be even as early as interview process. What’s the vibe when you asking questions about changes, creative idea and solutions, how do they respond to that?

And also people besides you, maybe you can be very innovative and creative in your organizations in your own respective department, but other people outside might not. Even in an interview where you can get the chance to talk about that with other committee member that who are not part of your current organization, ask them those questions. What is on their agenda? What do they see you doing versus what you’re being hired to do? Sometimes that perceptions versus what is on the job descriptions can be very different and maybe they are craving for those changes versus you might not be wanting to do those changes within the organization as well. And also do they have a timeline they want to deliver? Is it an imminent change that they want to happen versus it’s a long change that it takes some time to get everybody involved before you actually deliver those.

And also as to think about that as a new leader coming to organization or any time doesn’t matter you’re director level or not, who are the key players? Who are the individual that you want them to be part of the process? And also what are the buy-ins? Do you get any buy-in from people that you report to? And maybe for me it would be the cabinet or trustees and so forth and what people that who will champion your work? I can give certainly example of that. One of the example will be when I was in one of the institutions, my boss prefer a very consensus-based leadership style, so every time when there’s some decisions like, can we do this, X? She will then go around just get everybody’s feedback on it before make a decision, which is a perfectly fine approach.

But sometime if it is a small specific detail or that change may be needed that can delay the process and that could potentially misaligned if the other directive coming from higher up and so forth want that timeline to be delivered sooner but yet your leadership style is not congruent and barriers for those change to happen as well. Sometimes you might have to be the one to navigate how can I push and pull to get my leadership to go through that process, but yet in a case that will be helpful for the rest of the team or for that particular change to happen if you have been told a more urgent timeline for that. Another example is at BSU, at Bridgewater State, we are fortunate to work with uConnect this year and that will be an example of when you get the right buy-in and right timing things can happen magically faster than what you can anticipate. And I was proud to say that we were able to get the contract signed in three days.

Meredith Metsker:

Wow.

Gerald Tang:

Go through the entire legal process in three days.

Meredith Metsker:

Wow, that’s pretty fast.

Gerald Tang:

And then get the whole month… Within a month we get the website up and running. Part of it is not because just Joe is great at what he does because I can be the one signing the contract, but it’s finding the right time. At the time I was able to get the ears of the president and say, “How can we make sure we can get a centralized resources for the institutions so that every one of our constituents can benefit from that one centralized hub, which uConnect deliver that?” And in the past I’ve been hearing some of my staff members say, “We want uConnect, we want to do that.” But we never really get the right time to do that, until I arrive and they say, “Okay, if we want uConnect and I understand the reasoning behind it, let’s find the right time to get those done and find the right people.” I organized calls with presidents of my current institution and I intentionally work with my VP to see who are the cabinet members and keep players across campus that should be on a call with a demo with you guys.

I was able to get our VP of marketing and getting our head of IT. I was able to get presidents and the chief of staff and our VP and myself, so when we are doing a demo, I want them to understand what the power and the possibilities will be. When we actually ready to talk about wanting to onboard that, they get it. They don’t have to say what is you asking for and why you asking for that, so setting the stage for what is needed and that was an example of sometime you need to get the buy-in in advance of what you are ready for those change. Those are examples that might give people an audience some context. Sometime people is the most important part of your formula because it gives the power to really trying to drive the change in a meaningful way so that you’re not on your own trying to push the boundary within your own respective space only, but collectively the impact can be a faster, longer and more scalable from that lens. That’s the first part of it.

Meredith Metsker:

That makes a ton of sense that people is one of the main elements because who is going to help you implement change? The people.

Gerald Tang:

Absolutely. The second one is, I call it the culture and environment. They go hand in hand, so I’m going to give it a little bit more context of it. What are the organizational culture, institutional culture? I always say this maybe from the vision statement that you can get from a organization, how people describe their environments they work in and also how things are being done. I call it the hidden rules. Sometimes you come in places it’s like this is what is said on the website, but this is how you can actually get things done. And this is how you can change process and policy and procedure through this particular approach. And also what are shared values that might not necessarily listed publicly. I call it the hidden protocol that you sometimes discover when you realizing something that does not work what you thought it is, but it’s still a different way but everybody knows it except you because you’re the new guy on the block and new kid on the block to come into an organization.

Take some time to reflect that with the culture piece. And one of the key area that I want listeners to be aware of, what may be considered gravity problem? Things that you can change how you want, it just does not work just because. And I can give example in just a second there. And lastly I’ll recommend that you think about what are some of the dynamics among key leadership? What’s the political dynamic between your office and the rest of the campus and also players that are above you? Whoever you report to, what is their unique footprint in relationship among other people who viewed the persons or the division or department you’re in? That can play an important aspect of how you can move things faster and slower or you may anticipate some sort of boundary or barriers that you have to tackle that were not part of your change process as well.

I mentioned earlier, BSU was going through a strategic planning process, so that to me is the right time to start to think about change because the new direction and new visions and was built into that process as BSU work was part of the indicator, so I can capitalize that as part of the change process to think about staffing, organizational structure, programming and even rebranding if needed. That’s one example of understanding the culture of the organization that are ready for those change. And that’s one indicator that I can give example. Another place I’ve worked at where they don’t have process and especially in a smaller environment, sometimes the process is the person, maybe you have only one person in that office and all you do is asking the person to say how do I do this versus what is on paper? And some of them listen, relate to that is if the person’s gone now we are in complete chaos because the process goes with the person rather than a document, the evidence or system or some sort of procedure piece.

That could be an example of if the culture and environment is dependent upon the individual, then you to go back to the people and say, “How can I learn the ins and outs,” the hidden rules that I mentioned earlier to figure that out. And thirdly, I mentioned about the gravity problem. An example of it in my at BSU right now doing a credit bearing course, a career course is to me currently as a gravity problem because there’s a distinction in public institutions about who is teaching, is it faculty, is it staff? Is it librarian, administrator? There’s certain function is designed in public higher education for what their role and responsibility. And we are a unionized environment, so that creating a second barrier of if we want an idea of a career class and if I can push all I want, it’s going to be a lot more complicated because multiple factors externally will be involved in that process.

Is it worth the fight? Potentially, but you have to be very patient in that process. But the way I’ll suggest leaders and colleagues to think about is what would be an example of something that looks like a class, they like a class but you don’t have to call it a class. Maybe building your resources into a class-like so you don’t have to call a class, it won’t create conflict, but you can still implement change in the outside the box thinking approach in addressing the gravity problem. Or if that still doesn’t work, you move on, we can change gravity, so your focus should be think about something else that you would rather do instead and fix out a problem that is not a gravity problem that you can now get more joy out of it and excitement out of that as well. That’s the culture and environment piece.

Meredith Metsker:

That’s all super tangible advice so I appreciate your focus on that. I did have one follow up question. You mentioned that one of the things you look at when you’re evaluating the culture environment that you’re working in, are the political dynamics, things like that between your key players like senior leadership, how do you go about figuring that out? Are you doing listening tours? Are you meeting with these people? Are you talking with others who’ve worked with them? How does that work for you?

Gerald Tang:

And we’ll go back to the idea of people. You need to build relationship and you need to build trusted relationships so that people starting to share information that could be helpful for you. And you also need to think about the feedback and input that you gather from campus colleagues or others and thinking about that approach is that their agenda versus what is actually happening? You need to put on your thinking hat and say, let me just put a close eye on that and see how that play out and to validate or to question their perception because people might have different reaction based on whatever reasons and prior history that they might have with each other. You need to step back and say, “Okay, I need to build those capital and relationship across campus and pay attention to that.” Sometimes it’s sitting and observe if you’re able to in cabinet meetings or open meetings and sometimes that interaction in social event. Even as simple as welcome back barbecue, who are the players to talk to each other all the time?

Think about their body language and their reaction. Are they talking about the best friends ever or are they sort of collegial and seeing their reaction and approaches? Who are on what committee on campus? Do you see certain task force tapping certain individuals who are leading them and they’re being invested in resources in those? That tells you a lot about the dynamics, what type of priorities and who are the people driving those priorities with being recognized. And that could give you some indicator as… It doesn’t matter you’re leaders or you are a advisor or you are a mid-level manager to pay attention to that type of work. And one thing I’ll say get involved, committees, organization will give you pretty good insight because that’s where you can assess the dynamic of the environment and culture.

Meredith Metsker:

That’s some great advice. We’ve covered what element people, we’ve covered culture and environment, so what’s a third element?

Gerald Tang:

The third element is time. I mentioned earlier the time. Sometimes you have great ideas, sometime you have the people buy-in, but that’s not the right time to implement that change. You’re asking yourself the question, is it the right time? Are there any urgency to deliver that change if it’s not being told to you that we need to make that happen overnight? In my case is they expect me to merge office from day one, so that’s an external timeline that comes in play. And a classic example that I always use is COVID. You can’t control that. It’s a pandemic. You have to pivot and many colleagues experience that whether or not you want to change or not you have to change. That’s an example of how do you now think about change and idea and concept? Maybe you have a fabulous fair plan, you have this creative programming you designed right before COVID happened and then that really disrupts everything, so it doesn’t matter how creative or how genius your idea is and how much you really enjoy that change, that external factor can throw a complete drench into your plan.

It’s being able to reframe and adapt and adjust as you goes along. That’s why I say it’s an element, it’s not a procedure because you have to change whatever information at the time and focus on adjusting that. And I think that is something that you need to think about. And also time could be financial, you could have a great idea but it costs a lot of money. Maybe then the focus is let me plan for that implementation a couple of years out so that you can start to build up the financial aspect to cover those idea or to think about what might be needed. And it can also tie back to the culture. If an institution is struggling, that idea that you might have that change process can help save the institution or that can also cost a lot of money for the institutions and that might not be a good time when they’re struggling financially.

It’s being in tune with what’s happening and think about is it the right time, is it the right environment, is it the right people buy-in to be able to implement those change? Like I mentioned earlier, when I come here I ask our colleague, what’s one thing that you really want that you’ve been talking about? They’re like, “Oh, gosh. I need a better website.” Now I can already know they have the buy-in, so it’s an easy ask to deliver to them the gift of uConnect and connections on one centralized virtual career resources. And it’s part of my process to streamline operations so it has aligned with the right timing, with the right movement and the right people getting excited of it. That’s why things can move very quickly because they’re excited about that.

Meredith Metsker:

That makes a ton of sense. Timing is everything right?

Gerald Tang:

Totally.

Meredith Metsker:

What’s the fourth element?

Gerald Tang:

I know. Two more so I’ll keep getting more information to you all and especially listeners out there. Visions and leadership, that’s a big topic. You cannot implement change if you don’t know where you’re going. You can’t implement change if you can’t realize what the possibility is about. Spending some time thinking about what could have, what you might want to instead of what should. But the first thing I always say is you have to reflect on your own leadership style. If you don’t know about what your approaches looks like, you can’t implement change. If you are, like I said, consensus, leadership style, then you think about how I can approach it from that lens and what might be biases or additional information I need to gather to help me with the change process. And I think that’s one thing that a lot of the time people don’t think about and sometimes they’re buying into person but they may not like the actual change process.

I always say, “You’re a nice person but I don’t want to work for you.” And that can happen in places as well. Just because you like that one style doesn’t mean that by default you can always use the same style in every place as you go. That leadership and vision piece is played hand in hand when you think about your change process. And I always say people want to know where they go before they ready to commit to that process. Just like vacation I want to know what the destination is and you can sell the destination before we pack our bag and buy our ticket and actually plan that logistic because they want to know so they can have a feeling of navigating that uncertainty and that fear that sometimes can happen so that they can normalize that process and give them some hope and direction that they may be asking you to offer.

And obviously like I mentioned earlier, you need to constantly assess because things doesn’t happen according to your plan all the time. If things are coming to your way that might hinder your process or may be accelerating your process, you can constantly assess and reframe if needed or continue to do more if you think it’s going well so that you’re not just stuck in that this is what it’s supposed to be but it happened earlier. What do I do now? Then do more because you can see a larger impact or it doesn’t go well then should we scrap the plan? Should we reframe this? Should we ask for additional guidance? Should we put a pause on it? Those are things that you need to constantly thinking about if you’re part of the architect of change management process. I’ll give an example, like I mentioned earlier, in order for you to be a successful leader, you need to give a little bit of guidance and idea.

That’s why many institutions will ask, “What’s your vision? What’s your leadership style?” But at the same time as a new leader, you need to pay attention to people around you to see are they ready for that change. Earlier when we are merging two offices into one place, people are going to have many feelings. I’m doing things this way, our office doing things the other way. How can I blend those two together? Or if blending is not a good idea, then how can I create something new that everybody buy into that process? For me when I start, I need to think about who are the staff member, what are they saying to me? What are the feelings involved in that process? How can I either one normalize that or even at least at minimum acknowledge that using the empathy through that process and spending more time?

Spending more time implementing retreat staff. I even take them out for an offsite breakfast to take them out of the element to again to know them, to hear them out about what are their concerns, experiences, challenges. What’s something they like in the past that goes well with them and they enjoyed? That tells me a lot of information. Then before I start to come in and say, “Here’s a little bit of vision that I mentioned to you in the interview process, but these are the stages that I might expect from you if I’m continue work together in that journey together.” That’s an example of it. Some other practical things I use, people who knows me will know that I love tech, so I will use whatever technology out there to figure something out. If I don’t know, I need to know that I don’t know. If I’m not expert in it, I’m not going to try to own it and pretend to be.

One thing I would say is I like to use the word Google. Google yourself with whatever problems will be or go to uConnect in the community place and say, “How do I do this?” One thing I started to use a lot when I starting my current job is workflow. I use workflow chart a lot, so if I don’t understand something I’ll like wait, let me just map it out. This is what I’m hearing from you about this, but this is the direction I would like for us to move into, so how do we do that? Am I hearing this correctly? This is the process and procedure or the protocol you guys adopt to? But if this is my thought that we could potentially get to it, how can we make this better? That’s a very practical piece for people who are visual or people who are very structured to think about what the change or action and getting them to invest into the process and I think that could be a win for others as well.

Meredith Metsker:

That makes a ton of sense. Seems like there’s a lot of tie back between this vision and leadership element and people and culture. Okay, cool. All right, well what’s the fifth and final element?

Gerald Tang:

Well, I would say fifth because there’s never final element.

Meredith Metsker:

That’s true.

Gerald Tang:

There’s always new answers of things. The last things, I’ll keep it short, is the resources. Obviously you can create a great idea, but if you don’t have the people resources, the financial, the technology, even physical space, if you want to grow the office and you have no space to put these people in there, or if people are wanting to be completely virtual but you don’t have the infrastructure to be able to set them up to be successful in those implementation and change, then you have a resource issue. How can we continue to think about the resources you might need to execute a particular change process, whether or not you’re doing it on your own or you’re doing it on a small project or a large scale project, departmental or institutional change, it costs resources. It does not need to be financial only.

But at the same time, if you think about what are the internal and external resources, looking at your team, what are their unique asset besides their talent, maybe their connection, their insight, their relationship with others across campus or outside of campus. Don’t forget people wanting to help externally, maybe your alum, maybe the donors that can influence those change as well. I always say to colleagues, if a company want to give me money, I’m not going to say no to it unless it’s completely disconnect with the mission of the institution that can itself, a donor, a donation impact change because now another person’s agenda now being put into your place. How do you navigate those change as well? Maybe they want to build something that might not be part of your plan, so should you say no, should you try and explore, you’re try and adapt and adjust.

That itself is also a change process. It doesn’t have to be like, I’m going to now do change management and this is what we need to do versus it could be a small scale and systematic pieces, but external forces can make a huge difference if that’s what it means to help supply and provide you resources that you need. And sometime you don’t have a choice, you just have to go forward and take actions and move on to others. If that doesn’t go well, if you have to say no to external resources because it’s not your expertise or your team expertise or the direction that you believe that we should move forward with, it’s okay to say no. Even the resource may throwing at you that might not work to your advantage in the long run.

Meredith Metsker:

That makes a ton of sense. All right, so just to recap so that your five elements that you look at when you’re beginning change management in a role is people, culture and environment, time, vision and leadership and resources.

Gerald Tang:

Totally.

Meredith Metsker:

There you go folks. If you’re watching or listening, make a note of that five elements that you can take from Gerald’s approach here. Well Gerald, you shared several really great examples as you were explaining those elements. But are there any other examples of how you’ve implemented change management, whether it’s at BSU or elsewhere that you would like to share?

Gerald Tang:

Yeah, and I think I give a lot of different example already throughout my time, but again, I want to recap that change can be small. It could be your own lifestyle change that’s change management on a nutshell or a relocation. I relocated from New York to Massachusetts. That’s a change and I have to manage that process, so the gaining the experience of change can be normalized to your day-to-day experiences itself. It doesn’t have to be a work related, but you need to constantly reflect on what’s my preference and my style that links to those experiences. I’m sorry, I can give you many, many more example, but I’ll just give you that because sometimes people are like, “I’m not in a position to change.” Well everyone in position to change, they don’t know. You call it what it is or you experience it without recognizing that that is actually part of the change experiences and change process.

Meredith Metsker:

That’s a great reminder and I was just thinking as we’re doing this interview now, I’m preparing for a major life change. I’m going to have a baby here in about a month, so by the time-

Gerald Tang:

Congratulations.

Meredith Metsker:

Thank you, so by the time this episode comes out, I will be in the middle of some major change management.

Gerald Tang:

Totally. Hopefully you can now adopt some of the element in your personal life for sure.

Meredith Metsker:

I’ve got my five elements.

Gerald Tang:

There you go.

Meredith Metsker:

All right. Well Gerald, what advice would you give to other career leaders who want to improve their approach to the change management?

Gerald Tang:

That’s a great question, Meredith. I think the first thing I’ve mentioned a multiple times throughout this conversation so far is you need to really understand your own strengths and your leadership style and your management style. Those are two different things, but at the same time, those are the fundamental. If you don’t know what your unique offering is, it’s harder for you to figure out what else may be needed or maybe what are the biases and blind spot that you need to now asking other people to cover. Having understanding of your unique offering and your own skill set is the fundamentally to me most important part of that experience. Tied the people piece, you need to really know what is good at what is missing. Then you can start thinking about how you can explore those change whether or not you implement or not, at least from the exploration, you now know what your preference will be.

Biggest things I would say is also be patient with the process. Things might not go the way that you want it to be. Things might not be as fast as you want it to be. Things may be way too rapid than you want it to be sometimes. Sometimes you can’t control that. Focus on things you can control and be patient with the change process. And maybe I always say enjoy the ride rather than figure out how can I get to point A to point B fast, quick, effective. Those are great ideas. But sometime, like I said, a missing element that I mentioned earlier can throw a complete perspective. And COVID, like I said, is an example of it. You can’t control pandemic and how do you being patient and with that it’s okay, my project is halfway through but it doesn’t get done because it doesn’t work during the COVID time.

And that’s an example that I feel that everybody can relate to. And I would say be open-minded with new ideas. Sometime as you go through the journey you’re like, “Wow, I just realized something else better than what I thought it is.” Or your team member, your key player would tell you something completely different than what you thought like, that’s a better idea than I think. Acknowledge that and explore that option could help you a long way to navigate that. Again, going back to, I call it the life design piece and we’re life design tool as well. The reframing, okay, now this information and data and I have presented information now how can I make this more better and more efficient? If that’s an example of it. And lastly, I would say managing your own emotions and I mentioned earlier is important and also people around you, what the feelings through that process.

Maybe people love the buy-in and get the buy-in upfront. Halfway through they’re like, “No, no, no, no, I’m done. I don’t want that because it’s not really… I’m ready for it.” You need to recognize those and you need to think about how it can either bring them along that process still and trying to work with them. Maybe that could be delaying your process or replacing or adopting your approaches, what you need from those individuals or being more efficient, taking the time to address those emotions that other people or your own feelings that may come through throughout the process.

Meredith Metsker:

Perfect. That’s some great advice And I’ll start wrapping us up because I know we’re getting close to time here, but Gerald, is there anything else you would like to add that we haven’t covered anything about our topic?

Gerald Tang:

Yeah, I will give two things. Those people who know me knows that I’m pretty involved in professional associations, whether or not I was NAS or any other regional organizations or even in my own community. I think that is a helpful place to also test out your change approaches and getting to know your own style, but also most importantly, finding people that you can bounce off ideas with or finding those cheerleaders that will be outside our organization to say, “I’m frustrated. I’m feeling this way in that change process, but let me just chat with you so that they can cheer you back up.” And that could be important factor as well, so change management doesn’t have to be on your own. Sometimes it can feel like I’m the only one understand it and get it, sometime it doesn’t have to be that way. How can we now use the collective outside of it to run off your idea to say, is that what I think it should be at?

And some people might have more expertise than you are in those topic and they give you some insight like, “You’re on the right track or nah, you need to reframe and repackage your approach in that way.” And last thing I would say, even for myself being hired for quite some time, imposter syndrome is a real thing and can come up pretty often, so tell yourself it’s okay. Things can happen for a reason and if you truly are passionate about that outcome, hopefully positive outcomes or change, stick with it, own it. And if it’s not going the way you want it, learn from it. It’s okay to even walk away if you’re halfway through, this is not the right thing, but importantly ask yourself, it’s not about your skill set. Just because that process worked in your previous institution doesn’t mean that will work in your current job.

Just because things that happened last year doesn’t mean that it’ll happen again this year, that it will be the same impact and outcome, so it’s okay to do that. It’s okay to tell yourself, “I know what I’m doing, I need to keep going at it.” If you so strongly believe in that process and you’re getting all the elements that I earlier, stick with it. But at the same time, if there’s a mistake that happens along the way, own it and say, “Hey, I make a mistake and we make a mistake collectively.” And sometimes failure can come in new innovations, look at Apple as an example of it. For those of you don’t know, iPhone is an example of it. Think about this element, failure can turn into more exciting opportunity for change. Those are two things I would say get involved and imposter syndrome can happen at all level.

Meredith Metsker:

I love that. I think it’s a mark of a good leader too when you can acknowledge that a mistake was made, own it, learn from it, and adjust how you approach things in the future. I think that’s what leadership is about because no one’s perfect. Well Gerald, you have shared so much good stuff here, but if people would like to connect with you or learn more from you, where’s a good place for them to do that?

Gerald Tang:

Find me on LinkedIn, reach out to me and happy to chat with anybody who reach out and wanting to have a conversation about this topic or any others. I love to learn from our colleagues and if anything they can offer, happy to have a conversation.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay, great. And for those who are watching our listening, I’ll be sure to include a link to Gerald’s LinkedIn in the show notes, so you can go and find him on there. Gerald, at the end of every interview, I like to do this answer question, leave a question thing, so I’ll ask you a question that our last guest left for you and then you’ll leave a question for the next guest. Our last guest was Claire Klieger of Swarthmore College, and she left the following question for you. When you unplug, what do you do when you can’t be on screens or connected to work? What are the ways that you unplug without technology?

Gerald Tang:

Ooh, I love Claire. She and I are good friends. Totally appropriate question from Claire, so shout out to you if you’re listening to this episode. And she knows that about me, I love doing yoga, I love swimming as well. Go shooting. I’ll instantly do, if I don’t have access to technology, I don’t have to work. I’ll just go into that. Fun fact, I’m a certified yoga instructor because of that because I just love it and wanting to share those perspective and obviously that can keep me grounded and keep me fit as well, so that would be my answer.

Meredith Metsker:

Love that. What question would you like to leave for the next guest?

Gerald Tang:

Whoever the next guest? I have thought about many options that I come up with, even collectively I asked my team about that, “What would be an interesting question to ask.” Here’s the question for the next guest. If you could write a humorous memoir about your career experience, what would the title be and what would be the funniest part or funniest chapter?

Meredith Metsker:

Ooh, that’s a good one. I’m curious, what would your answer be to that?

Gerald Tang:

I have changed so many times about what might be the funniest title, but I don’t know if it’s funny enough. My title would be Chaos through the Lens of a Comedian.

Meredith Metsker:

Some good alliteration in that one.

Gerald Tang:

Totally.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay, cool. I am excited to hear the next guest’s answer to that. I think it will actually be someone you know, Dave Merry from Suffolk.

Gerald Tang:

Oh, Dave. Shout to Dave. I look forward to hear what his answer for this particular questions will be.

Meredith Metsker:

Yep. It should be a good one.

Gerald Tang:

Awesome.

Meredith Metsker:

Well, Gerald, thank you so much for taking the time to join me on the podcast today. This was such a fun conversation. There’s so much tangible, actionable advice here that I know our listeners will really appreciate, so just thank you again for sharing your time and your wisdom.

Gerald Tang:

Well, thank you for having me. I hope the listeners will find something helpful from my conversation with you, but I really enjoyed this conversation. Thank you for having me.

Meredith Metsker:

Yes, of course. All right, thank you again and have a good rest of your week.

Gerald Tang:

Take care.