[00:00:00.070] - Chris
In this episode of Great Practices, we'll be talking with Larry Mohl, founder and chief Transformation
Officer of Rali, a company that helps shift mindsets and behaviors around initiatives that matter. Since
your PMO manages initiatives that matter, tune in to find out out about the four changeability factors that
should be included in your projects. How to transition change management from an individual sport to a
team sport, as well as learn a very succinct definition of what a PMO does. Plus, you'll find out what you
can do to avoid the Valley of despair and stay away from the dreaded spray and pray approach of change
management. So let's get right into this episode of Great Practices with Larry Mohl.
[00:00:44.370] - Narrator
It's hard to say when something is a best practice, but it's much easier to know when something is a great
practice. And that's what this podcast is all about. Interviews with TMO and project management leaders
who through years of trial and error, have discovered their own great Practices and are now sharing their
insights with you. Now sit back and enjoy the conversation as Chris Copp uncovers another great practice
in this episode.
[00:01:14.330] - Chris
Well, we'd like to welcome everyone today to this episode of Great Practices. And here's one thing that
PMO is all about. Pmo is all about projects, and projects are all about change, and the only way that you
can get changed on is through people. So that is just the reality of what projects are all about, is that we
need to get people involved and engaged and committed in order to realize the intent of what those
projects were about. So our guest today is Larry Mohl, who is the founder and Chief Transformation
Officer of Raleigh. And he is going to help us understand what role does change management have when
it comes to executing projects and in managing projects as a PMO. So, Larry, we'd love to welcome you
to this episode of Great Practices today.
[00:02:08.620] - Larry
Hey, it's great to be here. Great to be here. Thanks so much.
[00:02:12.290] - Chris
So we'd like to start out with just a little bit about who you are and what you do. You want to tell us a little
bit about Rali and kind of get the conversation started for sure.
[00:02:22.800] - Larry
So we call ourselves a change experience platform. Sounds pretty fancy, right? So what the heck does
that mean? At the end of the day, what we do is we help companies accelerate their ability to shift
mindsets and behaviors around what we call initiatives that matter. So, for example, if you're a company
and you're trying to shape your culture to be more inclusive, so there's behaviors you're trying to get really
adopted in your company, or you're trying to build a culture of quality improvement or some of these
things where mindset and behavior shifts are really important. Our platform can take content from really
well known experts in their field and then put it in our platform. So it drives group based interaction,
communication and learning journeys, along with a whole bunch of really cool analytics that helps that
organization shape their culture and deliver the impact that they're trying to impact for the company. So
that's kind of what we do in a nutshell.
[00:03:26.290] - Chris
Okay, excellent.
[00:03:27.170] - Larry
Now.
[00:03:29.930] - Chris
How long ago did you found Rali.
[00:03:33.710] - Larry
For any of you out there who have been on the entrepreneurial journey yourself? It's been a twisted
turning road that started in around 2015 with a first thing on a napkin that actually I started to get going.
So it was from 2015, and we've been going through several different iterations and just really excited
about where we are now.
[00:03:56.650] - Chris
All right. So clearly this isn't your first job, right? So what's a little bit more of your background that you've
been through over the years?
[00:04:05.930] - Larry
Well, I actually started my career in engineering at this little company in Chicago called Motorola, and I
was doing R and D work at that time, and we had moved into engineering management, and that was at a
time when our CEO came back with this idea that there was this thing called Six Sigma that was really
important and we needed to pay attention. And so this, for some reason just caught my interest, and I
kind of volunteered and became really involved with the folks that helped lead the transformation on Six
Sigma and continuous improvement for Motorola through that experience. Quite frankly, Chris, I have
started to get frustrated that a lot of the changes that we're trying to make, like we had these great
process redesigns and all this cool stuff, but was it really getting implemented? And I was starting to get
frustrated with that. So I really became a student of organizational learning and eventually left engineering
and took a role as the head of knowledge management for the company, which was that for those of you
out there who are old like me, that's a term you've probably heard in your past. But I helped run
Communities of Practice for the company, which was very new at the time.
[00:05:22.740] - Larry
And then eventually I became the head of learning and development for the cell phone division of
Motorola. Then I became the chief learning officer for the American Express Company and moved here to
Atlanta, where I am today to be the chief learning officer for Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, the largest
pediatric system in the country. And so just had a wonderful corporate experience, but wanted to take
what I was doing and hopefully impact more folks.
[00:05:50.160] - Chris
Yeah, absolutely. Well, that's good. So it sounds like you've been through a lot of change and a lot of
projects over the years, so you definitely know what you're talking about when it comes to the change
management piece. So one of the questions, Larry, that we ask everybody that comes onto the show is
what's your definition of a PMO? How would you define what a PMO is?
[00:06:09.810] - Larry
Or does, you know, it's a great question. And I've had a lot of experiences with PMOs in my role as a
change leader at these companies. And the way I think of it is I think of a group of folks that are governing
a very complex set of projects, with the goal being to drive results against a period of time, obviously. But
to do that in a way where risk gets managed in a thoughtful way, where redundancies are being
eliminated because you're going on and doing many things at the same time, you're kind of leveraging
assets, people and processes and resources, and you're stopping what I tend to call mutual disablement.
That's when two parts of the organization are actually somehow disabling each other. And actually, Chris,
when I was doing a lot of the quality improvement, we had somewhere around 50 to 60 continuous
improvement projects going on at the same time somewhere in the company. And to start to see that
many people were solving the same problem over and over again was one of the reasons why I started to
work on the whole idea of knowledge management. And we had kind of a PMO for quality improvement in
the company.
[00:07:27.240] - Larry
But it was kind of a beast unto itself at that time.
[00:07:32.570] - Chris
I love that. That's a really precise functional definition of a PMO there. Right. So you get risk
management, redundancy elimination, leveraging assets, and then preventing mutual disablement. Love.
That where you're canceling. Right. The two functions can just.
[00:07:50.130] - Larry
Absolutely.
[00:07:50.800] - Chris
You got matter antimatter just canceling each other out is what could be just lucky something didn't
explode, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. And sometimes it does.
[00:07:59.260] - Larry
It does. Right.
[00:08:00.560] - Chris
But no, that's exactly right. The mutual disabled is a problem a lot of companies experience. So a PMO
that's set up. Right. Can prevent that from happening for sure.
[00:08:13.440] - Larry
Yeah. And I mean, the PMO has the ultimate think about this for a second. The definition of stress is
accountability without control. That's like the definition of stress. So you think about a PMO now trying to
drive these things forward, and this ability to influence without the actual authority is, wow.
[00:08:38.390] - Chris
So let's talk about these initiatives that matter. Right. That's what you kind of started out the conversation
with today. So hopefully PMO is driving initiatives that matter. But these initiatives are going to require
change. So why is it that most of us dislike, dare I say, hate change? Why is that such a problem for us?
[00:09:02.570] - Larry
Obviously, as you know, it's a fairly complex question, but I think about it. Let's make it simple. And so
think about yourself, for example. And Chris, do you like to feel competent at what you do?
[00:09:17.250] - Chris
I like to have a clue, yes.
[00:09:20.670] - Larry
Do you like to feel kind of in charge of your environment in some way? Sure.
[00:09:25.060] - Chris
Absolutely.
[00:09:25.860] - Larry
Yeah. Makes you sleep better at night, right?
[00:09:28.220] - Chris
That's right.
[00:09:29.790] - Larry
And as adults, this is one of our defining principles in fact, our brains are kind of wired for this. And I think
really, we do like to feel confident. We do like to feel in charge, and we establish these habits and these
patterns in our lives that do several things. They make us really efficient. Like, I don't have to think about
how to drive home from work. I just drive home from work. Right. It actually would take an effort for me to
drive home a different way. And our brains designed to keep us safe. Any change kind of gets perceived
as a threat. And so look at change is by definition, destabilizing. It creates uncertainty. It can feel risky.
And I think most importantly, as I try new things, I have to be a beginner again. And man, I hate that. I
think a lot of people really struggle with that, especially if they have to do it in front of other people.
[00:10:29.220] - Chris
Yeah. So that's really pretty profound. We do not like change because change makes us feel insecure.
We're losing that solid footing that we're on, and we're going to have to try something new. So now let's
complicate this even more. So now we've got the PMO who's responsible for these projects that drive
change, and now they may also have that accountability without control. So now what challenges does
this bring to a PMO now that we've put all of this together?
[00:11:06.090] - Larry
Yeah. So what's fascinating about this now is you take a project and you have to start to say the big
question is when this project is implemented, you have to start to ask yourself the question up front and
what will have changed in the company and the people involved that have been part of this thing or as a
result of this thing. So I'm not sure we think about that that much. I mean, I know we think about, like,
here's the steps and all the work breakdown and the tasks and all these kinds of things. But if you just sit
there and say, is anything really shifting in the company, or are we just executing something we already
know how to do, execute it well, that's valid. Right. But I think as we see the bigger change happening,
the demands on the PMO and the issues for a PMO become even more profound. And I think about it this
way. I mean, I have seen in the extreme well, let me put it this way. If somebody on the project and
there's a pretty big, what I'd call change load in the project, if somebody on the project who's leading the
project itself or something isn't really steeped in some of these things around change, then a lot of times
I've seen it default to the PMO as part of their role.
[00:12:23.860] - Larry
And so I have seen great PMOs come to the table with methods and tools and models and actually not
just drive the tracking of milestones, but actually proactively create opportunities to talk as part of the
plan? What's happening? How do we manage this change? Who are stakeholders? What's going to
happen and doing that as part of their practice? It's not something extra for them, I guess, is what I'm
saying.
[00:12:54.370] - Chris
Yeah, it's interesting you're saying that we just recently had a guest on Paul Williams who was talking
about more of a strategic PMO, because like you just mentioned there earlier, you said it's not about just
tracking the schedules and the resources and costs and budgets and that type of thing. But it is going to
be more about did this project realize business value that it was intended to do? And that will encompass
change, because if it's not implemented well, you're not going to get that. You're not going to get that
result.
[00:13:23.930] - Larry
So that is a real challenge then that the PMOs need to deal with these days and taking it back again to
this six sign experience I had. We trained lots of people to become very technically proficient at the math
and the analysis related to Six Sigma, but getting people to actually change their process is a whole other
animal. And we found that if you want it to be, like you said, like a super duper Six Sigma person, you
needed to have the change management capabilities and sensibilities as well. And then you could do
amazing things. You really could because you're aware.
[00:14:06.150] - Chris
So there's a whole lot of methodologies out there when it comes to change, but you've been crafting your
own over the years. Now you want to tell us a little bit about what is your view of change? What is your
process for getting changed within an organization?
[00:14:22.110] - Larry
Well, I've been thinking about this for a while, and it turns out part of my role in these companies. I've
helped write what you would call change methodologies, the steps in which you go through and make
change happen and to tilt it toward more success. I mean, I'm not sure if everybody understands that. Still
70% of change initiatives fail to achieve their desired expectations. That's just kind of not a very good
batting average, right?
[00:14:49.690] - Chris
No.
[00:14:51.150] - Larry
So there's work to do here. But the thing that's been troubling me about it is that change is just messy.
And I think as humans, we want to kind of apply a linear thought process on top of a nonlinear dynamic.
And so what I've been thinking more about is what are the factors that if we do them well, we can tip the
scales more to success. And I've come up with from my research and work anyway, four things that if we
could build I'm calling them the changeability factors, like if we can do them, we have an ability to do
these things. The theory is or my hypothesis is that our probability of success goes up. Right. And so
those four things get bucketed into two big areas. So if you think about a project you're working on.
There's a phase at which you're initiating the change to happen. And there's two things that come under
that. One is your ability to create what I'm calling directional commitment with the people involved. And
the second thing is how can they just see or how can you demonstrate what I'm calling rational progress?
In other words, the left side of our brain, so to speak, says, hey, man, we're making progress.
[00:16:04.180] - Larry
I can see it. So those are two things. Directional commitment, rational progress. And then a lot of times
what happens is change gets initiated, but it falls into what we call the Valley of despair, and it goes away.
And so the question is, how do you sustain it? And I think there's two things. There one, we call powering,
emotional engagement. How do you get people really engaged emotionally with it? And then fourth, how
do we get the organization aligned around the change? And there are different things you can do there.
So four big things that I'm thinking about right now and writing models around and implementing in our
platform.
[00:16:41.650] - Chris
Well, let's dig into this a little bit further then, if you don't mind, we'll just kind of break this down. So again,
high level, you've broken it down into an initiate change phase and a sustained change. Right. So those
are the two big ones. So let's talk about directional commitment. What does that look like? What's
involved there? Yeah.
[00:17:01.700] - Larry
So think about your role, maybe think about this as your role as a PMO, and you've somehow now got to
lead the change or you're involved with the change that you're trying to drive. So the things that you would
be doing is creating clarity, super clarity about what is actually going to change. What are the shifts? Are
they process shifts? What's going to actually happen and why are they needed? It's amazing that
sometimes you'll ask people, why are we doing this? And what does it mean? They really can't tell you.
Second, is there a compelling business case? You would help people see the numbers from the business
standpoint around this. Third, you would find out or you would help people see that this is a priority for the
company. And how does it become a priority for the individuals? Because if either one of those isn't true,
you can agree with the direction, but you're not committed. And then finally you'd be helping people and
testing people to understand what's their attitude towards this change is. It a positive, neutral or negative
in the way that they just see the change in whatever way that they see it.
[00:18:07.040] - Larry
Chris like just trying to understand attitudinally what are they thinking and feeling about that change. If
you get those things to line up, people will start to move because they feel committed to the direction,
even if they don't know all the details. Yeah.
[00:18:23.740] - Chris
No, that's good. It is the what's in it for me? Questions, basically that comes out of it. Right. So that's a
good place to start. So then you said rational progress. What does that mean?
[00:18:35.820] - Larry
So this means several things. Number one is, do I have the ability am I starting to see that I can do new
things or people around me are doing new things that more align with the future versus the past? And I
can see them. They're visible to me. One of my favorite people, obviously, in the change world is John
Cotter, and he talks about getting early wins. And I think that's an important part of this. It lets people
know that there's progress being made, but I think it goes a couple of steps further. One another one is,
am I involved in conversations with people that help move us forward, not move us backwards? Right. So
is there a lot of that going on? Third, am I consuming information and learning that helps me make
progress toward the future, me and my team? And then finally, there's always barriers, right. Is somebody
barrier busting around me? Do people know what my barriers to progress are? Again, it's not about
perfection. It's about progress in the early phases of change.
[00:19:43.110] - Chris
Yeah. I mean, it's like you could take and it's one slow, steady step at a time. But you look back, you're
looking at rearview mirror, and you've made some good progress.
[00:19:52.670] - Larry
Right.
[00:19:53.180] - Chris
And it may not seem fast necessarily, but it is steady and it is solid. So that's good.
[00:19:59.850] - Larry
All right.
[00:20:00.260] - Chris
So now we move into sustaining change, right? So we've initiated the change. Those are the two pieces.
There emotional engagement. Now, how does that help sustain the change?
[00:20:10.550] - Larry
Yeah. So now we're into more of the let's call them the feeling parts of things. Right. Where an
engagement many times comes from a feeling versus a thinking concept. And so the factors I'm looking
at there are, do I feel a personal investment? So even the what's in it for me? Are they becoming full for
me? Am I understanding my personal investment in this? Do I feel like I can make a contribution to the
impact we're trying to achieve, or am I just a bystander? Because if I'm a bystander, I'm not as
emotionally engaged, right?
[00:20:46.540]
No.
[00:20:47.670] - Larry
Third, which I think is probably the most important, is do I have a voice in the change about things that
matter to me? Right. If I don't feel the whole idea that if I weigh in, I'm probably going to buy in, but if I
don't get a chance to weigh in, I'm probably going to fight you to the death because you just didn't ask
me. And then are there benefits for me and my team? And the last one, I think I put in this idea of, am I
inspired enough to overcome the obstacles that are going to come my way personally? There's always
going to be obstacles. But what gets me over those things, if I'm really emotionally engaged I find
inspiration from places and I get over them. For people that have lost a lot of weight, they've changed
smoke, a lot of habit changing. They have found ways. They found inspiration to overcome. Yeah.
[00:21:43.210] - Chris
Because there's going to be obstacles no matter what, whether it's the technology itself, whether it's your
peers that are around you, whatever it may be, there's going to be obstacles. So you need to be able to
have a mechanism to overcome that.
[00:21:54.840] - Larry
Absolutely.
[00:21:55.950] - Chris
Now finally, and I'm going to ask about the order of this one at the end, because I'm curious about why
this one is at the end. It's organizational alignment, it seems to me. Tell us what that is. And why is that at
the end and not the beginning?
[00:22:08.490] - Larry
Well, again, think of this less as a process. Step one, step two, step three, step four.
[00:22:13.850] - Chris
Okay.
[00:22:14.420] - Larry
As four factors that need to be managed all at the same time. And the higher you if you could score them,
which we can, the higher you score on all four, the more probability of success you're going to have.
Right. Got it. So think of it that way versus I'm going to do that. Now, in practice, it's pretty hard to get
people emotionally engaged if they're not directionally committed. Right. Because they don't know the
direction. I can't engage with something I don't know. But once you've got this change up and running a
little bit, these four factors start to all kick in together to make things happen. And that's why think of them
as a variable model versus a process model. Does that make sense?
[00:22:57.530] - Chris
Yeah, it makes perfect sense. And I fell victim to that trap itself of just saying this is a linear approach, but
it's not. Tell us what that organizational alignment is about. What does that mean?
[00:23:09.920] - Larry
So I look at that as like four or five simple but hard to do things. One is I have found that most people
change within the context of their team and their manager. In other words, I will change personally based
on what I think I have permission to do. There's a smaller group of people, let's call it maybe 10% to 15%
that will go and do anything. They don't need permission. They ask for forgiveness. Right. So the degree
to which my manager is engaged with me and my team is engaged with me is really important to this
alignment thing. Now, there are two factors for that I call them, and this has been well written about by
others, but challenge and support. So if my manager and team can challenge me and support me, both of
those things, think of those as a high challenge, high challenge, high support. I tend to grow. It may be
hard, but I tend to grow and I tend to do really well. So those are really important. Another one is Where's
the initiative, leadership in all of this, the people in the organization that said we needed to do this.
[00:24:27.230] - Larry
Are they visible to me? Do I see them talking to me? Can I engage with them? Right. Or is there seven
layers of management to go through before I can ask the change leader a question? Those kinds of
things are really important. Another one I feel is and we talked about this a little bit with why do people not
like to change? Is this idea, can I create a safe environment to try new things? So organizational
alignment is about creating those safe environments for people because you're aligning the environment
to what you're trying to do. And then finally, one of our favorites is processed people is are the processes
and systems aligned with the behaviors of the future or the behaviors of the past? And that's a big area of
work for a lot of people as they make change.
[00:25:18.430] - Chris
So all of this is a big area of work. Right. When you take all of this and this is the challenge for the PMO.
Right. Is that now it's like if you don't have an expert that's looking after this stuff and is taking care of this
stuff, it may by default fall on the PMO or it just may not happen there. We end up with these failed
projects because they could be great, but they're just not adopted the way that they should have been
adopted because of lack of change management there. So it's very interesting as far as the PMO needs
to be aware of the fact that they need to at least know that this is in the plan somewhere. Right.
[00:26:01.020] - Larry
Right. And one of the things that I'm doing because I completely agree and hear you like, there's a lot
here, right? Yeah. I mean, human changes is a lot. Right. We're not that easy. So what I'm trying to do
and have created is a little survey that even like a PMO could use with their team and be able to identify
people's opinions about these things and then focus on the factors that would create the biggest lift for
them. So they may find that everybody we're making progress and everything it's doing well. People know
where we're going. But I just can't seem to get engaged with this thing enough. Like when it gets hard, I'm
not sure I'm still going to be here.
[00:26:42.560] - Chris
Right.
[00:26:42.840] - Larry
So let them focus in the areas that will make the biggest difference and not have to address, like you said,
Chris, trying to address this all at one time. Yeah. Thanks. No effects.
[00:26:54.280] - Chris
Yeah, exactly. It's a lot. And you call these the change ability factors.
[00:27:00.680] - Larry
That's what I'm calling them. Yeah.
[00:27:02.020] - Chris
If you're aware of these four, then it's going to heighten the probability of success for your project.
[00:27:09.990] - Larry
Yeah. And what I've seen for people who are change monsters really have driven a lot of changes. They
build this what I'm calling this change muscle. They just get better and better at saying, okay, we need to
go in and in my words, create directional commitment. Here's how we're going to do that. And they got it
all figured out. And it doesn't always work because maybe the change isn't the right change. But you
know what I'm saying? But they've built this capability that helps them drive no matter what the change is.
The change, quite frankly, the content of it doesn't matter.
[00:27:44.140] - Chris
Yeah. They're going to just drive that aspect of that project and make sure that that becomes a success.
[00:27:51.310] - Larry
That's right.
[00:27:52.050] - Chris
Now, you've also come up with a pithy three word mantra that maybe your company lives by. Maybe you
live by. What are those three words that you kind of Bandy about here?
[00:28:06.190] - Larry
Yeah. And really, the very short story on this is that when I was really looking at how are things going as a
chief learning officer, one of your roles is to drive learning and development in the organization. And
again, as more of a continuous improvement guy. I was very frustrated by what I would call the kind of
spray and pray mentality of just putting out a lot of content and then hoping people will do something with
it. I started to really look at with other people. It wasn't just me. What is it that gets people to move from
knowing to doing? What is that big gap in the middle? And I came up with this little mantra that I called
Learn, do, inspire. So very simple idea. The idea that I could learn things in short segments and very
interactive, but then I need to put those things into practice and have support from a coach or a mentor
and then inspire others by sharing stories and encouraging other people to create that environment of
sharing. So that simple little mantra then became, let's call it the methodology by which I built my first
platform to implement and learn to inspire in companies.
[00:29:17.710] - Chris
Got it? Well, that's good. And I like that. Would you say spray and pray?
[00:29:23.690] - Larry
Pray and pray, man.
[00:29:26.530] - Chris
And somebody brought to my attention earlier this week that said distribution is not communication just
because of the fact that you throw the collateral out there and you say, here it is. Right. It's not going to
affect change unless there's some kind of buy in and feedback and acceptance and all that kind of thing,
because that is the spray and prey. Right. You just hope that it's going to you hope it's going to get out
there and work.
[00:29:50.730] - Larry
That is I like to call that kind of the big bang theory of change, where we spend a lot of energy getting
together all this cool stuff to throw out there into the environment. And then quite frankly, we're so tired.
I'm just tired. It took me six months to get this thing off the ground. Like, is anybody using this stuff? I
have no idea. It's just thinking about where to put the emphasis on the right syllable, so to speak.
[00:30:18.850] - Chris
So what have you found that encourages people to engage? It's not something you can force people to
do. Right. So what have you found to be the case there?
[00:30:30.430] - Larry
What's really interesting about it is that our brains really love a little bit of a challenge and a little bit of a
reward. And I think these gaming people have really figured out some things pretty interesting. And I use
a lot of these things in the work that we do in our platform. So not to say that gaming things is
gamification is the answer to everything. But very simply, the methodology that I'm finding is working
really well to engage people is thinking of change as a journey and not an event. Thinking of it as a lot of
times we think of the unit of change as an individual. Like, I'm going to change each individual. Well, it
turns out that takes a long time, and quite frankly, it's not as effective. So think of change as a group sport
where people are changing together, learning from each other, sharing, and that's Chris, what gets them
engaged is the other people, not the information, it's the other people and the relationships. I find that
getting people to engage with, being able to really interact with content, it's interesting and providing the
ability, again, to be challenged in the content, but then give them little rewards.
[00:31:51.970] - Larry
So, for example, in our platform, every activity you do does have a point value, and the more you do, the
more points you get. And it's amazing how much engagement that actually does drive. I mean, there's
always 10% of people who say this thing. I don't like points. I don't like that kind of stuff. But the lion's
share of folks really kind of like it. It's fun, it's interesting. It gets people engaged, like you said, and quite
frankly, just people seeing progress, people like to see there. So making progress super visible. So if we
can make progress, really visible, people get engaged, they stay engaged, they keep going. And those
are some of the things. So it's just a combination of the things that we've talked about so far.
[00:32:40.810] - Chris
And I love it's a group sport. It's like whenever you talk to people about how do they learn or how do they
accept change or who do they go to for information, it's going to be their peers or colleagues. That's going
to be number one, right? That's going to be the first, and then maybe they'll go look something up online
or whatever. But it's like that group dynamic that really helps bring that change to the table for people to
embrace.
[00:33:10.330] - Larry
Yes. And I think you can't underplay how important the why is in all of this. When we do change in
organizations, we very much need the leadership team or people in the organization to state their why.
But what we find, I guess I would say it this way. Content distribution. Think of that as the start of the
conversation and not the end of the conversation. So what gets people engaged is that you give them
interesting things and then ask them questions. So here's why we think we need to do this Diversity,
Equity and Inclusion initiative. What do you think? Why do you think this was important? Do you not think
this is important? Again, people want to have a voice more and more and more. They're not willing to just
take my word for it. They want to engage. The cool thing is for change leaders that is just Manna from
heaven when you're getting all this feedback and input from people and you can use it to really navigate
your process.
[00:34:14.650] - Chris
So you're basically saying take the monologue and turn it into a dialogue, is what you're saying?
[00:34:19.770] - Larry
Absolutely. Number one principle, don't do change to people. Do change with people.
[00:34:25.200] - Chris
Yeah, that's fantastic. Well, I tell you what, Larry, this has been a great conversation today, and we really
appreciate you sharing your experience with us. And I'm excited about the changeability factors, the
directional commitment, the rational progress, the emotional engagement, the organizational alignment. I
think that's something that any PMO leader really needs to take away and make sure that those pieces
are embedded in their plans and their projects and that it's not just something that's going to be like.
Yeah, it would just happen by itself because it's a lot of work there and it's not going to happen by itself.
It's something that they need to be very deliberate about for sure.
[00:35:06.890] - Larry
Well, you passed the test already. Look at that.
[00:35:09.790] - Chris
Well, I wrote it down.
[00:35:11.720] - Larry
Okay.
[00:35:12.630] - Chris
That's how that works right there.
[00:35:13.860] - Larry
You're allowed to do that.
[00:35:15.850] - Chris
So, Larry, what is the best way for people to connect with you and Rali and get to know more information
about what you've got going on and perhaps what you could do for them?
[00:35:24.280] - Larry
Yeah. So to connect with me personally, the best is my email, which is just Larry [email protected] that
gets to me directly. You can always get to me on LinkedIn. I'm trying to have more of a presence on
LinkedIn. And in fact, for anybody that's interested there, I've actually been doing a series of videos under
a title I'm calling the Change Leader Lab. I'm trying to get people to really talk about this stuff. And so I put
up a video series that's continuing on there, and it's also on YouTube. And then our website is just
getreally.com you can come and check out what we're doing, and all of that information is there as well.
But yeah, the whole goal here is just that there's so many people who have done so much great work in
these areas, and I'm just trying to help bring it together for people to put into practice.
[00:36:19.010] - Chris
Yeah. Well, you brought it together for us today, so we do appreciate that. And spell Rali for us so that
everybody knows how to get there.
[00:36:27.480] - Larry
It's actually R-A-L-I.
[00:36:30.130] - Chris
Okay.
[00:36:30.820] - Larry
And it sounds like I'm rallying.
[00:36:33.550] - Chris
Okay. Got it. I just want to make sure everyone can get to your site if they need to, if they're interested in
getting to there.
[00:36:39.090] - Larry
Absolutely.
[00:36:40.330] - Chris
All right, Larry. Well, it's been a pleasure and thanks for the conversation today, and we'll talk to you soon.
[00:36:46.340] - Larry
Thanks so much, Chris. Great to talk to you.
[00:36:54.710] - Chris
Well, this was another great conversation on great practices, this time with Larry Mohl of Rali. Here are
some of the great practices I gleaned from today's episode. First, I loved his definition of a PMO. Here's
the four things that he says a PMO should be doing manage risk, eliminate, redundancies, leverage
assets, and finally, prevent mutual disablement. And how true is that is sometimes we may just find
ourselves working against each other in an organization, and a PMO can really have that governance and
that jurisdiction to prevent that mutual destruction from happening. What about those four change ability
factors? Remember, he broke those into two main areas, the initiate phase and the sustained phase
under initiate. And I'm just paraphrasing at a very high level here because certainly he covered more, but
there was the directional commitment. Do we know where we're going? And there was the rational
progress. Am I seeing change happening? Do I feel good about what's happening as I'm looking behind
and I can see that we're making steps forward? So that was the initiate portion. And then he also talked
about the sustained piece. This is where the emotional engagement came in.
[00:38:13.530] - Chris
Do I feel as if I'm part of this change? Are people listening to me? Have they listened to me? Are they
listening to me as far as my concerns in whatever change state we're in right now? And then finally, that
organizational alignment are my peers and manager, are they on board with this change? Am I being
challenged and supported now that little trough between the initiate and that sustained phase, that's what
he called that Valley of despair. So again, these aren't necessarily a process that you do one, then the
next, then the next, then the next. But you just need to be mindful of the fact that when you transition from
initiation to sustaining, you want to be very mindful to move away from the Valley of despair because
that's very hard to get out of. Also, we just talked about exercising that change muscle, something that
should become just part of what we do, learn, do inspire and move your team from knowing to doing. So if
change management is not a service that your PMO currently offers and maybe nobody else in your
organization is doing it, it's well worth looking into this further.
[00:39:28.930] - Chris
And Larry Mohl would certainly be a great place to start as far as research and applying some of these
great practices to your PMO. So again, we appreciate Lee being on today and sharing some of these
great practices with us. He'd love to hear from you by visiting getraille.com or visiting him on LinkedIn and
that's Larry Mohl. That's M-O-H-L. Now do you have a great practice you want to share? We encourage
you to jump onto the PMOLeader.com, click on content then great practices and scroll down to the
bottom. You'll see a form there where you can submit your name and your idea and someone will get
back to you shortly. We also ask that you be sure to subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss one
episode and of course share it with your friends who could benefit from hearing about these great
practices. So thanks again for listening listening to this episode and keep putting great practices into
practice.
