In this day and age of instant communication and technological advances that can drive your company’s efficiency, how can you best leverage that? By embracing change. It sounds simple but it’s more complex than that. Join “Can You Hear Me?” co-hosts Rob Johnson and Eileen Rochford as they welcome Nellie Wartoft, the Founder and CEO of Tigerhall, to discuss “How to be an Effective Change Agent.”
About our guest:
Nellie Wartoft is a Swedish technology entrepreneur who launched Tigerhall in 2019, revolutionizing how large enterprises engage their organizations to drive change at scale. Under her leadership, Tigerhall has quickly gained traction with global Fortune 500 firms undergoing transformation, and today has users across 32 countries, and employees in 12 markets. Nellie has raised over $10 million in venture capital from visionary investors including Sequoia Capital and Monk's Hill Ventures, and Tigerhall's customers include well-known enterprises in technology, consumer goods, professional services, and financial services.
Prior to founding Tigerhall, Nellie was a top biller at Michael Page, where she led the Sales & Marketing practice and saw firsthand the issues in driving organizational engagement around change, and how the technology used in communications, knowledge sharing, change and transformation led to dissatisfaction, more confusion and increased disengagement. Her experience led her to launch Tigerhall, which bridges the gap between how organizations have traditionally shared information and knowledge (think ghost town Sharepoint sites, mass internal email overload and snooze fest town halls), and how people prefer to consume content and interact with each other today (think your internal Spotify, two-way live interactions and the right reinforcement in the right workflow).
Nellie has been named on the 2021 Gen T list of Leaders of Tomorrow by Tatler Magazine and was recognized as one of the Top Entrepreneurs to Watch in 2023 by the International Business Times. She was also a Swedish National Champion in skeet shooting and air rifle in her teenage years.
Nellie is an accomplished speaker and regularly presents at large events and global forums such as the Global CEO Exchange, Business Transformation Exchange, TEDx events, SaaSTech Asia, SMF, Cornell University and several leadership summits across the United States, Europe and Asia. She currently serves as a non-executive director on the boards of the Swedish Chamber of Commerce Singapore and the SGTech Digital Transformation Chapter - the largest industry association for technology companies in Singapore.
Outside of changing the way enterprises drive change, Nellie loves tennis, surfing and electronic house music. She has lived and worked in Singapore, London, Seoul and Los Angeles.
Rob Johnson: [00:00:19] Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Can You Hear Me podcast. I'm Rob Johnson, president of Rob Johnson Communications. [00:00:26][6.4]
Eileen Rochford: [00:00:27] And I am Eileen Rochford CEO of The Harbinger Group, a marketing and strategy firm. So here and can you hear me? We're always looking for new, fascinating guests who are leaders in their respective fields. Today we have someone who fits that description perfectly. Her name is Nellie Wartoft. She's the founder and CEO of Tiger Hall, a change activation platform that helps global businesses engage in transformation on a large scale. But there's more. Nellie is also the chair of the Executive Council for Leading Change, the number one industry association for change and transformation leaders in the US. She is also a fellow podcast host. Her show is called The Only Constant. Nellie, welcome to Can you Hear Me? Thanks for being here. [00:01:09][42.2]
Nellie Wartoft: [00:01:09] Thank you so much for having me. So glad to be here. [00:01:11][1.9]
Rob Johnson: [00:01:12] Well, Nellie, you have a fascinating background and I want people to be able to hear it. So before we dive deeper into the idea of your business, what it actually means. Why don't you give our listeners your background, your origin story? Because it's fascinating. It's diverse and it is expansive. [00:01:28][16.1]
Nellie Wartoft: [00:01:29] Sure. So I grew up in a small village in southern Sweden with more cows than people, so I wanted to get out as quickly as I could. So on my 18th birthday, I booked a one way flight to Singapore, and I was obsessed with Asia from a very young age and still am. So I did all my school projects around different countries in Asia, culture, Singapore and all the rest of it, to the point where my teachers were like, Nellie, you can't do anything more in Asia. Now, this is a. So I was like, What's the capital of Asia? How can I move there? So I moved to Singapore when I was 18 on my own, and I did university there, the internships, and then I worked in London for a bit. I continued some studies in South Korea and then back to Singapore again. And most of my corporate career is found in recruitment with a company called Page Group and was leading their sales and marketing practice for mid-level recruitment in Singapore. And that's where I when I saw a lot of the issues in driving change and transformation, especially from from a talent lens. And I had clients who asked me like, hey, I'm trying to drive this new initiative and we're trying to change the business and should I just hire everyone? I was like, No, you don't have to find one. That's that's not the solution to your transformation issues. So that led me to start thinking a lot about how do we better engage people, how do we better communicate? And that led me to start thinking about Tiger. So that's the very short version of where I came from and where Tiger. [00:02:54][85.2]
Eileen Rochford: [00:02:54] All came from. We could do an entire episode just on the different places you've lived. I think that that's incredible. So do you have a favorite? Before I move on and ask you a really meaningful question, I'm just curious about of all the places you lived. Do you have a favorite? [00:03:09][14.5]
Nellie Wartoft: [00:03:09] I wouldn't say I've lived there, but my favorite countries, India. I absolutely love. There have been like 45 times. I was there like every month during the time when we launched Tiger Hall. All my best friends are Indian. Like, I just love traveling in India. So that's my favorite country in the world. Out of the places I've lived, like comparing Sweden, Singapore, London, Seoul and now I'm based in Los Angeles. I think all of them are so different and so great to meet in different ways. But I mean, it's it is hard to compete with Singapore. Like from a lifestyle perspective, the diversity of the international crowd, the safety, the quality of restaurants and conferences like Singapore is an incredible place to be. But I do also really, really love Los Angeles, actually much more than I thought I would. [00:03:50][40.6]
Rob Johnson: [00:03:50] So what was it about India? You said even though you didn't live there, what was it about? Aside from the friend thing, I get that. What was it about all amid all these other great places that you've lived? Why was India at the top of your list? Or why is it at the top of your list? [00:04:04][13.5]
Nellie Wartoft: [00:04:04] So India just house this incredible energy. Like, it's such a buzzing energy for a lot of different reasons. And you have very ambitious, intelligent people. All the best people I've ever worked with have all been Indian and very high energy and kind of like an underdog mentality of like wanting to improve, wanting to do better, wanting to get a better life for themselves. Like that energy sips through everything. And then you have this very interesting, very interesting mismatch, much mismatch, no match, mishmash. Mishmash. Much. Thank you. Thank you. [00:04:35][31.2]
Rob Johnson: [00:04:36] Both were words and I was like, Yeah, yeah. [00:04:38][1.9]
Nellie Wartoft: [00:04:39] I was like, It's definitely not a mismatch. We have this very interesting mishmash of culture and spirituality and history and very deep roots in things like spirituality, yoga, Buddhism, like all of those components of the same at the same time as you have a very vibrant startup ecosystem, lots of young, ambitious, hungry founders, lots of technology. Like you have this very interesting combination of history and future. And then combined with just like the culture of of India being very high energy and very fun, like great sense of humor, great intelligence. Yeah, those are all some of the very some of the few reasons why I love India. [00:05:16][37.6]
Eileen Rochford: [00:05:17] Wonderful. Thank you. That's a. I just love hearing all the things that you've said and just your interest in the experiences places. [00:05:25][7.6]
Nellie Wartoft: [00:05:25] And I think actually the reason that I really like the US is also because I actually think India and the US have a lot of things in common. And I've said this multiple times and people would be like, No, like it's like the most different countries in the world, like the US and in there couldn't be more different. But I think they have a lot of things in common, like both those like ambitious, hungry, like work hard kind of mindset, but also the way the companies market themselves is very similar in these two countries. So if you look at how companies market themselves in the US, everything is like America's greatest. America is number one. The number one in the US is very much about like being the best in America. And that's very similar in India. It's like India's number one, the top in India, the number one in India, whereas in Europe you would never have it in a company going out and saying like, we're the number one in Sweden or like Sweden's best mattress, like, that's not a way that you're market, but that's a reflection I had when I was doing a road trip across the US. But actually there is some similar in the way that your market of being the number one in the US and that's similar in India and the smartest. [00:06:23][57.3]
Eileen Rochford: [00:06:24] Yeah, I've never heard that before. That's fascinating. Well it's got to be true because, you know, they're researching before they spend those ad dollars for similarities. [00:06:31][6.9]
Nellie Wartoft: [00:06:31] So it seems to work. You are the number one in the US, right? [00:06:35][3.6]
Eileen Rochford: [00:06:35] So yeah, totally. Well, I'd love to hear you talk to us about Tiger Hall specifically. So Tiger Hall for our listeners is a change activation platform that helps large businesses achieve their transformation goals. What does that mean and how do you accomplish it? [00:06:52][16.9]
Nellie Wartoft: [00:06:52] Yeah, so change activation tends to be the missing piece in successful change and transformation. Or is the missing piece and being successful in change and transformation? And if you look at the three parts of driving change in business, you have the strategy part. Then you go into planning and then you go into activation. And just looking at the dollars being spent in these areas, if you look at strategy and planning, it's about $160 billion a year that is being spent on strategy and planning. Mostly consulting firms, expensive PowerPoint decks and so on. Then if you look at the activation piece, which sometimes is called delivery, sometimes it's called execution, it's basically where change happens, right? That gets around $10 billion. So out of the $170 billion being spent, you have 160 of those going into beautiful plants and about 10 billion of those going into making the plan happen. And that sounds like pretty common sense. But yeah, that's sounds like a setup for failure, right? So that's what activation is, is about. How do we make it happen on the ground? And still it's about 78% of transformation initiatives that do fail for the reason that they don't do activation successfully. And when you don't do activation successfully, what happens is that you're met with a lot of resistance, a lot of change circumvention, meaning people start doing something else than what they're supposed to do. A lot of people leaving. You have talent, attrition, and you have people just being unproductive and spreading rumors like not doing what you want them to do right. And getting people to change and change their workflows, change their behaviors is the most difficult part. And it's really hard to get that right on email. And that's historically what organizations have been doing. The way they're doing change activation is let's send 500 emails to every person in this organization, the same email server one, regardless of who they are, where they work, what they do, how long they've been there or the organization. So let's spam them with the emails and hope they get it for them. You know, the open rate is 6% on average for internal emails in large organizations are 94 to 100. People are not even going to see your information. And then you say, okay, let's set up SharePoint site number 50,000, because that's where people go, because people just love SharePoint. And then let's put up this big graphic on our intranet where people visit once a year to submit their annual leave, and then you say, let's put it on early months where people never go, not even once a year, and then let's have someone talk about it in a town hall. So what this means for the employee is that they miss around 95% of communication, Some engagement around transformations, and the ones that they do see is usually not for them. So that is what leads them to ignore the rest of it. Right. And organizations rely on employees to make sense of all of this and also put it in the right sequence, which never happens. So for employees, it's kind of like you're seeing if we equal this, a Netflix show is like you're seeing half of episode eight and that's everything you see. And then you're expected to know the entire series and who's the protagonist, who's the antagonist. But you've seen half of episode eight, the how are you supposed to make sense of that? [00:09:48][175.9]
Rob Johnson: [00:09:48] So so without giving away company secrets, because what you're doing is very in-depth. You're just giving you were just giving us the roadmap of how not to do it in a very kind of brief sense. What would be some of the things that would be employed instead of emails intranet that nobody's looking at, you know, the disengagement thing, What would you know? Then you go to the town hall and discuss it, what it may be like. I know it's I'm taking something complicated and trying to, you know, trying to make it quick, but what would. What would you say would be a different strategy? [00:10:19][30.6]
Nellie Wartoft: [00:10:20] So the different strategy is what we've built all around. It's five four components that you can do differently and that we allow change leaders to do. So the first one is how you communicate, what formats that's in. So people don't want more emails and PowerPoint decks, right? But looking at how people engage with content outside of work, it's short form videos. It's podcasts like this format that's livestreams of everything that is engaging and personal and authentic and built on like human interaction and human personalities. It's not another stiff PDF document. So that's the first part, is that it's very engaging and interactive and it's built on consumer preferences. So whereas you have email open rates of about 6% on Tiger Hall, you have about 80% of people that actually consume the content in the first place. So that's already a big one. And then the second is the audience targeting the fact that we allow you to be very targeted with who you speak to and what you say to whom. So you can use data like everyone who reports to. Peter in Canada has been with a company for three years and is positive to this change. For example, they should receive a text message and then all of that is automated. So a big piece of it is how you target them. And I usually say that you can get around like 40% of personalization with just your static data, like just having geography, how long people have been with a company who they report to, what function they're in. Like just that level of personalization usually takes you 40 or 50%. And then beyond that, you have metadata, feedback, data, sentiment, data and so on that you can also use for personalization. And then the third is to deliver it in the work. So not having to send people to 17 different destinations and places which they don't go to anyways, but rather have it delivered in the workflow. So Microsoft Teams is our most popular integration, which is where many people spend more than half of their workday in Microsoft teams and Tiger Hall is delivered directly with that team so people don't have to go anywhere else. It's timed where you're at and based on what you're doing, so people get it in the flow of work. And then the fourth, which is the most critical component, is the two way feedback loop. So this is something that most organizations are missing where they don't have a way to collect feedback and input and response from the people on the ground. And this makes it really hard to drive change, right? If you don't know how it's received, what people's concerns are, what their questions are like, how can you address them? So allowing for those two way feedback loops is a very big part of the platform. And then the fifth is all the data and analytics. So actually getting insights on what are people thinking, what are they saying, who's consumed what, where are people in the change curve and where are they in the change journey so that you can address different parts of it in different ways as well. So so that's an overview of how the platform works and what it does and why it works better than sending 500 e-mails. [00:12:59][159.4]
Eileen Rochford: [00:13:00] Yeah. [00:13:00][0.0]
Rob Johnson: [00:13:01] Just when you say 500 emails, you go, that's not going to work. [00:13:04][2.2]
Eileen Rochford: [00:13:04] Makes me laugh. [00:13:04][0.5]
Nellie Wartoft: [00:13:05] So many people do it though. [00:13:06][0.8]
Eileen Rochford: [00:13:07] Isn't it funny to think of? I know. It just makes me truly, like, not just laugh, but roll my eyes. When are you going to get it? No. I spend so few minutes of my day on email. It's just our entire team anymore. Just isn't the thing fascinating? I can totally see that point that everybody would miss the message. So how do you. [00:13:24][17.2]
Nellie Wartoft: [00:13:24] Study by it was on the did a study on like people below 40 and where the outcome of the study was if their organization is using email 47% of people below 40 think that you're already behind. So you're behind the technology. If you're using email email, it's already like your old school. If you're using email, that's what young people think. [00:13:44][19.1]
Eileen Rochford: [00:13:44] I'm so happy to hear that that really it just warms my heart. We moved away from it probably five years ago and it was one of the best things we ever did. Getting back to number one for just a minute, because first of all, that the whole approach that you described, it's so clear, you know, you've made all the points. That's why this is such an effective approach compared to email, town hall mentioned here and there, all of the things that you cited earlier, the communication piece of it, the it sounds like that's a big lift for companies. So like doing livestreams, creating podcasts, delivering the short form video, does Tiger Hall help make that easier? [00:14:21][37.2]
Nellie Wartoft: [00:14:22] It does, yeah, exactly. So you have many different options of how you create your content. You can create the way that you describe, but most commonly what you can do is you can actually upload a PowerPoint and it turns into a podcast. [00:14:34][12.3]
Eileen Rochford: [00:14:35] Like. [00:14:35][0.0]
Nellie Wartoft: [00:14:35] So yeah, that's the beauty of it. Yeah, right. But you know, like if I upload a deck on like, say I have a 150 page slide deck from McKinsey on our ESG transformation, I can upload that into Tiger Hall. And then you get these micro podcasts designed for different parts of the business. So if you're a blue collar worker in a factory, it might be different language like compared to if you're the CFO, for example, like different vocabulary, different words use and so on. And then that gets created as like ten minute soundbites and that gets distributed to the different people. So that converts your boring corporate content into consumable, engaging content. And then a lot of organizations actually use the change champions. This is also a big UGC component, user generated content where you can leverage your change champion network and leaders and middle managers and people out in the field who are very into this chain trade and have them then say that he like this is the success story I had, this is how I leveraged it and how it worked for me and then spread look to their peers because on the platform you can see who's influenced by who and who should you leverage to deliver which message. So you might see that only is very influenced by Rob. So Rob should do this short video and then send that to Nelly instead of having the change management team centrally do something. But Nelly doesn't care at all about so. So that's how many people leverage it as well. [00:15:54][79.0]
Rob Johnson: [00:15:54] Really customized. That's amazing. That's. Well, we could go we could go 20 minutes just on that part. But that's that's really fascinating. So, Nellie, you're you're really successful international businesswoman. And what made you say we need to go to the states and when did you get here? [00:16:10][15.8]
Nellie Wartoft: [00:16:11] So actually, I never planned on launching the states. I was like, this is probably the last market we're going to go to. And for the reason that I thought there were going to be 5000 tiger holes in the US and I wouldn't think that we would be able to compete actually. So I was very focused on Asia and where we're headquartered in Singapore and still are. And when we launched, most of our customers were large American companies. So that's really how it started. So we started the enterprise part of the business, which is now 100% of the business in 2020. And all the early customers we got were the Fortune five hundreds, New York Stock Exchange list, the kind of brands there was large American companies. And then after working with them in Asia for 1 to 2 years, a lot of them started saying like, hey, like they started knowing about it internally and said, Hey, can we try this in the US too? And I was like, sure, you know, be my guest. I don't think it's going to work, but why would you try it out? Because it was so like adopted to that. It was so adapted to having, you know, like the different languages, the different cultural nuances, because Asia is not one culture, right? It's so unique and a big part of the platform is built for that. It's built for cultural nuances and unique languages, etc. And I was like the US's one language and pretty similar culture between the different states. I thought. So I was like, okay, I don't think it's going to be a big USP now. I know it isn't, but but that was my impression, just like this big hamburger land, right? [00:17:30][79.7]
Rob Johnson: [00:17:33] And in some places it is, yes. [00:17:34][1.3]
Nellie Wartoft: [00:17:35] I thought it was great. But then we had and it was actually a large, very large technology company that we signed a seven figure deal with virtually during Covid in the US. And I was in Singapore. I never I've been to the US once before. We launched here on like a high school trip to New York and that was it. And I was like, these signed these deals over Zoom, like, are they crazy and fame? And at that time it had been a big discussion with investors. And I'm like, let's try Australia, because if it could work in Australia, then we might at some point in the future maybe be able to do the US. So now is the conversation. But then this big deal came in just as we were like very, very early in Australia. So I was like, Screw Australia, no point going there, let's just go straight to the US. So it was really the deal that gave me confidence. And then of course we did a full we had a three month go to market research project where I flew over here and I spent three months driving through 27 states and meeting prospective customers, and I drove from Miami to New York, then New York to San Francisco, then San Francisco to L.A. and just driving through and meeting a lot of people and just doing customer discovery and just be like, Is this something that you would use? Would you find this helpful? And just doing a lot of research. So that was my first three months, and then I was in 2022 and now it's been over two years. [00:18:50][75.2]
Rob Johnson: [00:18:51] And I think it's fascinating that that with all this technology, you're just, you know, blowing us away with that. You did it old school. You like drove from here to there. You met with people face to face, which goes to show that the old inter-personal way of doing it is still a great way to do it. So anyway, you get here in 2022 and now the US, the revenue accounts for 80% of your business here in the US. Yeah, you knew that you signed up some of these big companies and that sort of thing, but you had such a great foothold internationally. What do you attribute that such a large portion of your revenue coming from inside the United States? [00:19:26][35.1]
Nellie Wartoft: [00:19:26] Well, I think a factor of it is just the how the US. This is a market where I like the depth of the US market, the scale, the like. I mean, it is the biggest economy in the world with the highest GDP in the world for a reason. And sometimes the thing is in the US people, everyone makes a lot of money but also spends a lot of money. So sometimes I'm thinking the GDP is more like the same dollar, switching hands quicker than it does in other countries and it just goes around much faster. But it's definitely a factor of that. And then the number of large companies, I mean, what is called an enterprise in Asia would be like a mid-market company in the US. There were so many experiences I had where I would go to a conference and I would be chatting with someone like, yeah, what do you do? And they were with a like small regional bank, like three states in the Midwest, like, how many employees? I mean, like 75,000 employees. That's like the biggest company you would have in. Most countries in the world. And I met, you know, companies that I've never heard of before. I went to the US, like State Farm. I never heard of State Farm before I started launching Tiger Hall. It was like State Farm, like 93,000 employees. And I've never heard of it. This as a European, you think that you know the matters, the Googles, the Wal-Marts. I'm like, That's a right for them. Just like the level two beyond those brands like Massive. So I think we just like be how the US market is as a market. I mean that's definitely plays a role in it and it is the biggest market and it's therefore not we are that is also the biggest market for us. Then specifically with Tiger Hall, I would say that one US company is a very mature software buyers and they see the value in technology and they understand innovation and technology and how that contributes and especially at scale. So very sophisticated software buyers, I would say. And then also just the the four months like it is the biggest podcasting market in the world, for example, which I'm sure the two of you know as well, like it's such a common format and people really take to podcasts and they value content. Like in Asia, for example, it's a little bit more like, but I can just Google it and I can get it for free on YouTube. So there's willingness to pay for like high quality content and pay for software. Like it's just a different mindset. So some of those things I think also contributed to American companies being like, it's technology, it's scalable, it's four months of people like and that resonated with Americans. And then like seeing the scalability in it, I think most of all because in in Asia you also have like, I mean, talent is not as expensive as it is in the US, very far from. So it's easier in Asia to just hire more people to solve problems. Whereas in the US, given talent is so expensive, it's almost like you have to solve problems with technology. So I think that's also what makes the US such a good market for technology adoption because it's so much more inexpensive than just hiring people are now. [00:22:08][161.6]
Eileen Rochford: [00:22:08] That's a great observation. Okay. Do you mind if we shift into a question that is a little more about your personal experiences observation? Because I think it's pretty interesting how you spent your entire life and career overseas and you've been here, you know, for kind of in the United States for a shorter, very short period of time. What are some of the cultural differences you weren't aware of that may guide your decision making, perhaps that you didn't realize? So that would be a thing? Yeah. [00:22:34][25.7]
Nellie Wartoft: [00:22:35] So many things. So many things. And it's been like it's funny because I've like, I'm a Westerner. I like growing up in Europe, like I'm a classic Westerner, but I've never ever worked in the West. So all my work experience until launching the US market was Asian, which like a fish, doesn't know it's in water, right? So you don't really question like you don't really know that this is the Asian way of business. You just think this is the way of doing this. Which means when I came to the US, I was doing the same things, like the same things as I was doing in Asia. And I thought that that's how you do it in the US, right, as well, right? Because I didn't know those differences and some of those things would be I mean, one is like name dropping. For example, when you do sales and business development, like that's something you do quite a bit in in Asia because is a very relationship driven culture. It's a lot about who you know and how you know them. And that's something I brought to the US until I started getting a lot of really weird looks and those you probably stopped those name dropping game. This is not flying. And then I thought the biggest thing that I've gotten a complete one thing on is I thought that we're going to have a massive challenge with the fact that we're not American. I thought it was going to be such a big obstacle that we're headquartered in Singapore, that we are global, that I'm not American. I was like, I need to start practicing my accent now. I need to sound more American. So that was what I thought because I had this wrong idea that Americans would be very much like it's the US and nothing else. And if it's from outside of the US, we don't care because the US is the only thing that matters. That was my wrong perception, but my experience actually been the opposite in that so many customers that have brought this up to us that we love that you're a Singapore headquartered. And I was like, Do you even know where Singapore is? Like what it was? And then Crazy Rich Asians was definitely helped. So that move is great. That has helped put Singapore on the map. So people love that we're diverse, that we're international, that yeah, we have that different background. So, so that's something that I was totally wrong in as well. So in the in the beginning I was very much hiding love and I was very much trying to like look American. And even when I was doing business from Singapore and I was doing all these late night calls like 4 a.m., 5 a.m., I had 2000 ring lights set up around me because I wanted to look like I was in daylight, that I was in the US. Like now I can. I'm somewhere in Texas pretending like I'm here and making it look like I'm in daylight. And then I realized, like people actually really value international experience as well. So I was stopped trying to pretend that I'm American. So I find the US has been very, very open to diversity, open to different experiences and just extremely, extremely welcoming and that I did not expect at all. [00:25:10][155.2]
Rob Johnson: [00:25:10] So when you acknowledge these differences you just talked about and realized you need to pivot for, for instance, the name. Dropping, You're like, okay, can't do that. How difficult is it, though, to have done something for your entire life or your entire professional life? And then you realize you have to embrace the culture change that exists in this country and you didn't have to worry about it before. How how hard is that? [00:25:30][20.1]
Nellie Wartoft: [00:25:31] It's more like I mean, it doesn't become so hard when you see how everyone else is reacting around you. I think it's quite easy when you get weird reactions to not want those weird reactions anymore. So that makes you pivot faster. And it's been so many things that I've been like, my God, this is great. Like, for example, the American efficiency of like, you have 30 minutes meetings, 30 minute meetings, you get into it right away, you get to the point you're exciting to get things done. That was such a relief in many ways. So that was very easy to adjust to. Like, Yeah, I can do this. I'm a very direct and succinct person and this resonates with me. So it was many of those things that were easier also that made me look back like, this was actually something I had grown accustomed to, that maybe it wasn't something that I did find us like easy or like did find as relevant to me as some of the new things. Yeah, things like name dropping. Like when you see people's faces, it just makes you stop right away. So that take me a long time. [00:26:23][52.0]
Eileen Rochford: [00:26:23] It's good you picked up on the cues. Yeah. Yeah. [00:26:25][2.0]
Nellie Wartoft: [00:26:27] And America is very expressive, right? Like, you can read their faces much more than, like, it's easier to see when people are engaged and happy and when they're questioning you. [00:26:35][7.7]
Eileen Rochford: [00:26:35] So, yeah, I once had a client who couldn't stand the fact that I listen so hard that I was like furrowing my brow and actually told my boss to tell me to stop doing that. So we are very expressive with our faces. You're right. Yes, we are. I think your point about it makes it easier is a good one. I mean, that's what's wrong with that. [00:26:53][18.1]
Nellie Wartoft: [00:26:54] It's so much easier. Like people say what they mean and they mean what they say and they tell you if they want to buy, they tell you if they don't want to buy, they tell you what they like. They give you proper feedback. It's it's incredible. No gain. [00:27:04][9.7]
Eileen Rochford: [00:27:05] I'm so happy to hear that your experience is as good as what you describe me. That's wonderful. But real quick, before we wrap up the show, because, gosh, I cannot believe how much time has elapsed because I have about ten more questions. But that just means maybe we could have you back on another time. That's how I look at it. Do you have for our listeners any advice or perhaps or beliefs that would help be helpful for those who may want to adopt change, transformation and any, you know, anything, any advice related to change activation as well? We'd love to hear your closing thoughts. [00:27:37][31.7]
Nellie Wartoft: [00:27:37] From an enterprise perspective or from a personal perspective. [00:27:40][2.6]
Eileen Rochford: [00:27:40] Whom you pick. Dealer's choice. [00:27:42][1.7]
Nellie Wartoft: [00:27:43] So I would say across both of those, actually a big part of your self identity and how you speak to yourself, both of them as an enterprise and as an individual. So let's be quite a lot about like self-talk and it's your ability to handle change and drive change successfully is how you view yourself. And some people call it the fixed mindset, the growth mindset. But just a simple thing, like if you see yourself as the best person to work with this tool, it's going to be very difficult for you to then have a tool of replacement. But if you see yourself as the most adaptable person, it's going to be very easy for you to make that replacement. So the way you identify yourself or your organization and the way you speak to yourself about who you are, that's a very big one in being successful in change. And then from a leadership point of view, communications is so underestimated or underrate there is so much easy, so many easy things that people can do in communications that would make them easily in the top 1% style of leaders driving change, which are things like be transparent, be authentic, tell the truth and communicate on a regular cadence. And even when there are no news to report, just go out and talk to people. So for people to go out and talk and listen to people, that's yeah, you're already in the top 1% if you just do those simple things. And then I would say the, the last one, if I make it free, would be thinking through how you're because like how you, how you adopt, how you adapt to your feedback that you're getting. Because many organizations are very scared of these feedback loops because they think they need to act on everything, which you actually don't. People just want to be heard and making sure that they feel like they have a voice. If you look at research across change for systems change circumvention, the biggest number one reason that people do those things is because they don't feel like they have a voice. They don't feel like they are heard. So it's not so much about taking action on the feedback, but more about acknowledging the feedback, acknowledging their existence in the first place, that they have a voice, that they are heard and that they are part of the journey. And then you can address the saying like we heard A, B and C, we're still deciding to do D and E or these reasons and just explain it and address it. But you don't have to do. Abernathy Just because people give you the feedback that you should do ABC. That's another big misconception that I hear that I think is wrong. [00:30:05][142.2]
Eileen Rochford: [00:30:06] That's an excellent point. Thank you. I love that. Just because you heard it doesn't mean you have to act on it. So true. So true. Wonderful. That's those are awesome closing points. And I love that you went for the bonus round adding a third. That's fantastic. So Nellie, we're talking founder and CEO of Tiger Hall. Thank you for joining us. It has been an absolute pleasure to have you on the show today. And I just wanted to ask for our listeners benefit. What would be the easiest way for someone to get a hold of you if they wanted to connect, learn more, etc.? [00:30:36][30.2]
Nellie Wartoft: [00:30:37] Thank you. It's been great to hear. So I think it's been great to be here two ways. So one is LinkedIn. So Nelly walked off. Find me there on LinkedIn. I'm pretty active telling them, feel free to connect with me and hire me. And then also email. Feel free to email me directly. I'm on Nelly at Tiger. Com, so that's a neat double i.e. a tiger. [00:30:55][17.7]
Rob Johnson: [00:30:55] All that's when email would be, you know acceptable. Right? You would allow it. [00:30:59][4.2]
Nellie Wartoft: [00:31:00] Unless it's 500 or 500. [00:31:01][1.5]
Rob Johnson: [00:31:03] I will allow email for this, but not for the other work that we're doing. [00:31:07][4.1]
Eileen Rochford: [00:31:08] And your show, The Constant, your podcast, the only one that that can be found everywhere. [00:31:14][5.9]
Nellie Wartoft: [00:31:15] Apple Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Good point. Yeah. You have the only constant. That's the name of the show and it's on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and all your common podcast channels. [00:31:24][8.8]
Rob Johnson: [00:31:24] That's awesome. That's so much wisdom. Just fascinating every minute of this conversation. Nellie Unbelievable. Thank you so. [00:31:31][6.7]
Nellie Wartoft: [00:31:31] Much. Thank you for having me. Great to be. [00:31:33][1.5]
Rob Johnson: [00:31:33] Here. And so that's going to do it for another edition of Can You Hear Me? I'm Rob Johnson. If you want to weigh in on the podcast or give us an idea for a topic, please contact us at our Can You Hear Me podcast page on LinkedIn. [00:31:45][11.8]
Eileen Rochford: [00:31:45] And Eileen Rochford. We thank everybody for listening. We hope you learn something. And of course, if you like the show, please consider giving us a review on any of the platforms where you find your podcasts and especially those where you can find. Can you Hear Me? Your reviews help other listeners find us and enjoy our show as well. So thanks, everybody. [00:31:45][0.0]
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