#78 Nellie Wartoft: The Chief Change Officer Behind Leaders and The McDonald’s Effect — Part Two
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What inspired Nellie Wartoft to start her company?
Hi, everyone. Welcome to our show, Chief Change Officer. I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host. Our show is a modernist community for change progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. Today, I'm joined by Nellie Wartoff, someone I'd like to call the chief change officer behind Change Leaders. Originally from Europe, she spent years in Asia, especially in Singapore, working across cultures. Now based in US, Nellie is the founder and CEO of Tiger Hall, a tech-driven platform helping organizations navigate change more effectively. This is part one of a two-part series. In these episodes, we'll dive into navigating cultural differences across three regions, why most change initiatives fail, and how to set up for success. If you've ever struggled with change, whether in your career, company, or life, this series is for you. Let's get started. What triggered you to start this company in the very first place?
Why do employees struggle with traditional communication tools?
I hate SharePoint. I think it's the most awful way of communicating. No, it was more like I was seeing how hard it was for employees on the ground to grasp what HQ wanted out of them and what they should be doing. And I saw this disconnect and how it was like both parties have really good intentions. People are trying to drive change and transformation and make their companies become better. But all it does is that it increases this change fatigue and resistance and fear in employees. And I was like, this is not necessary. And then employees also have good intentions. They really want to help. They want to support. They want to do a good job, right? No one shows up to work and thinks I'm going to do a really shit job today. Let me see how bad I can do this job.
People generally have good intentions. So it's good intentions on both sides, but it's the in-between that makes it get lost, right? And that's the complexity of the size of these companies, the communications and the lack of the availability of these tools. Like you can't target very well with email or SharePoint and it's hard to create high quality engaging content with these tools. Like it's mostly just written documents. So I was looking around and I saw what are people engaged with? They're really engaged with their TikToks and Instagrams and Spotify's and all of the consumer-grade technology and things that are social, things that have engaging content. It's like, why isn't change communications more like this?
Why can't we communicate change and transformation to employees? the way an influencer communicates about the latest fashion trend or whatever to their followers, right? So that was a big inspiration for it as well. And just how do we bring that content consumption, engagement and social aspects into change and transformation?
How do cultural differences affect reactions to change?
When it comes to change, a lot of it goes beyond technology. It's ultimately rooted in human behavior and cultural nuances. you've had the unique experience of living and working across Europe, Asia, and now the US, which brings with it an incredible range of perspectives. Given your background and your exposure to diverse clients, I'm curious, how do you see cultural differences play out when it comes to people's reactions to change, Even the concept of change itself, whether it is a mindset shift or a full-scale transformation, can vary dramatically across regions. Have you noticed any significant differences or similarities in how these cultures approach and perceive change? And how do you adapt your solutions to help clients tackle those cultural nuances more effectively?
I think there are a lot more similarities than differences, actually. At the end of the day, we're all pretty similar as humans, and the human psyche and human emotions, they don't differ that much across geographies, from my experience. And things like the fear, the chaos, the uncertainty, politics, emotions, all of these are in all of these cultures, right? So the human experience of change and including change resistance and fatigue and all of those are very natural and very human regardless of where you're from. I think the difference is that more than the cultural differences shows up in organizations more from A couple of ways, right?
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What inspired Nellie Wartoft to start her company?
0:11–1:59
2
Why do employees struggle with traditional communication tools?
1:59–3:43
3
How do cultural differences affect reactions to change?
3:43–6:23
4
What are common reasons for change initiatives to fail?
6:23–6:59
5
How can organizations successfully involve employees in change?
6:59–9:01
6
What role does leadership play in successful transformations?
9:01–14:19
7
How do short-term and long-term thinking differ across cultures?
14:19–14:37
8
What are the benefits of engaging a larger percentage of employees in change?
14:37–23:29
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Chief Change Officer™: Ensemble
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