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Welcome to the Wired to Lead podcast with Julia LeFevre!
Julia LeFevre (00:00)
Hi everyone, I'm Julia Lefevre and around here we talk about leading with clarity, rewiring our mindset and growing from the inside out. So let me ask you something. What if the most powerful change you could lead starts not with a new plan, but with who you are? So today's guest, Nisi Ozigbu, has built her career helping leaders answer that question. As a coach, consultant and speaker, she champions integrated leadership.
where who you are, what you believe, and how you lead are fully aligned. Storytelling is at the heart of her work. Whether she's on stage, in the boardroom, or in a one-on-one, Nisi helps leaders connect the dots between their past and their presence, their values and their voice, their identity and their impact. Change is coming, ready or not. The real question is, will you lead it without losing yourself or your team?
Nisi, welcome. I'm so glad you are here. I am so excited to hear what you have to say on this topic.
Nissi Ozigbu (01:07)
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Really excited to have this conversation.
Julia LeFevre (01:12)
Absolutely. Well, Nisi and I met on LinkedIn. We were, we found ourselves in some common spaces and it has just been such a joy to get to know you. And I wanted to just start our conversation with a confession. So a year ago, I was just entering into this whole LinkedIn world and
Nissi Ozigbu (01:33)
What?
Julia LeFevre (01:41)
⁓ just starting to kind of become familiar with more of the business world and so on. And I kept seeing all of these titles called Change Managers. And my confession is that I had no idea what that was.
I'm sure I'm the only person in the whole world that was ignorant about this, but just in case there are others, would you just share a little bit? What is a change manager?
Nissi Ozigbu (02:10)
Absolutely and first of all just to reassure you so it's more common that people don't know what we do than they do and actually what you see is there's a lot of misconceptions around what we do as well so a lot of people think they know what change managers do and that's usually ⁓ okay change manager they're here to do communication and training on a project within a corporate space when actually our role is so much broader than that.
Julia LeFevre (02:12)
We'll see you later.
Okay.
you
Nissi Ozigbu (02:36)
a change manager, a great change manager will work within your project and program spaces. So whenever an organization is going through a transformation, that's where you'll find a change manager. And actually our role is to examine and dig deep into the landscape and look into how do we make sure that the environment is created to make this change sustainable. So obviously communication and training is a large part of that. If you're going to take people from...
A to B, B to C, whatever it might be. They need to know what's going on. They need to be skilled in order to do it. But you also need to have a look at the processes, the policy, the stories that are being told within the organisation explicitly and implicitly so that when you are putting in a change, all of that, which we usually call the culture of the organisation, isn't working against what you're doing.
Julia LeFevre (03:28)
That sounds like a really hard job. Because most people that I know, they don't like change. And so I'm just curious, how do you, yeah, where do you even start?
Nissi Ozigbu (03:30)
Hahaha!
Yes.
So the beautiful thing and why I'm in change 15 years later is you start with conversations. People don't like change. Number one, if they don't have any control over it. Number two, if they can't see themselves in it. Number three, if they don't see any benefit for themselves. But if I told you now, Julie, I'm going to give you a million pounds, that's a change. Are you not going to like it? I don't know. I feel like maybe you would.
Julia LeFevre (04:08)
love it.
Nissi Ozigbu (04:09)
Exactly.
you know, the blanket that people don't like change, it depends, you know, and so it's about understanding what those different levers are and how do we create their environment so that people see this as a positive change and something that they want to do usually and why there's change as a bad rep is because people don't pay attention to those levers and so change is introduced as a threat.
you know, and then that then sets people on guard and you'll know from your neuroscience space what that does to the body, the mind and how everything shuts down and that's what usually happens. So change isn't introduced properly and then there's this narrative of actually change is bad, it's scary, we don't like it.
Julia LeFevre (04:53)
Wow. And you know, as you're just kind of explaining some of this, I'm thinking what a gift to an organization to bring a change manager in because if everyone has their role, they're busy doing their job. And when you bring a new change in, whether it's, I'm assuming most of the changes are technology upgrades maybe, or are there other types of
changes that you work with.
Nissi Ozigbu (05:23)
Yep, so the
biggest spectrum that you can think of. So you've got policy changes, you've got changes where organizations are going through a rebrand, know, new marketing, you've got ⁓ operating model changes. So where teams are being
Julia LeFevre (05:28)
Okay.
Nissi Ozigbu (05:38)
reorganized and processes are being moved. So there's a wide spectrum of change. What we are seeing now is technology is driving a lot of that. I if you introduce a new system that's automating processes, you'll then have to reimagine the way the team works, which then means you need to reimagine the culture. So also, there's this whole interconnected ecosystem of change. And people go wrong when they think actually, we're just introducing tech. It's never just tech, because what does that tech
linked to and that's the role of a change manager to stand beside you and partner with you and say, hold on a minute. Let's have a look at the ripple effect of this one change across the rest of your organization.
Julia LeFevre (06:18)
So it really is kind of having a hundred foot view of being able to see the whole process where one thing comes and the domino effects and being able to prepare people for that. Yeah. So what do you feel like is the most difficult part of your job?
Nissi Ozigbu (06:31)
Exactly that. ⁓
funny enough, it's intro that we just started with people understanding what the job is, you know, because
usually change managers are brought in at the midnight hour. And at the midnight hour is not when you want somebody to be saying, step back a minute. You're just like, let's just do it. Tell me what I need to tell the people. Let's get the people trained. And so when you're brought into environments like that, you also have to be quite strategic and balanced on the one hand.
this business has to deliver what they said they would. So you have to partner with them to do that. At the same time, you want to be building the capability so that going forward, they don't make the same mistake. The reason why I do what I do is because currently we're seeing within organizations, and this is globally, the rate of change is causing burnout. People are stressed, they're tired, they're overwhelmed. We cannot keep doing this wrong.
you're like, okay, once a year, let me go through this painful thing. Now it's every single day. You cannot be putting people through life-changing surgery every single day and expecting them to cope and be better the next time. All you're doing is you're making them weaker and weaker and weaker and more tired each time. you ⁓ know, my goal and the goal you'll see within the change management community, there's a big push in terms of building...
Julia LeFevre (07:36)
him.
Nissi Ozigbu (07:58)
change management capability and understanding and competency so that more people understand what we do, we're brought in earlier, and then over the years you'll see this gradual movement of change being embraced in organizations.
Julia LeFevre (08:13)
Okay, well, you just moved into my love language when it's coming to this that we're now aiming for capability, for capacity, for the change muscles, so to say, instead of just getting people through it, we're trying to really equip them with the presence, the regulation abilities and
You know, this is the work that, this is where we kind of overlap because this is where, you know, knowing and understanding how our brains work. And the beautiful thing is that what we're finding is that people have much more potential for growing their capacity for change than we've ever realized before. And we're learning more and more about how that works. So.
Nissi Ozigbu (09:09)
Absolutely.
Julia LeFevre (09:11)
Yeah, I love that. Well, before we keep, know, part of what Wired to Lead is for is to be able to just highlight different leaders and recognize the truth that we are often wired to lead in certain ways. so leaders who have found some success, we want to be able to highlight that, but also
⁓ to be able to tie their current success to what experiences in the past have have wired you for this because that's what we're finding is that our capacities are directly tied to our experiences and so I'm just curious how how did you get to this place and just tell us a little bit of your leadership journey and and we'll just go from there
Nissi Ozigbu (10:05)
This is great. So this is exactly what I'm about as well, because I believe that if you're going to lead people through change, they need to trust you and trust is built by authenticity and people understanding who you are and knowing your story and your makeup. So I love this. That's it. me tell you a bit about me. So I got into change management because of my love of stories. And I think you and I both studied literature. Am I?
Julia LeFevre (10:12)
you
Nick.
We did! It was crazy to find
that.
Nissi Ozigbu (10:31)
And so the reason I love stories so much is because of how it gives you that ability to kind of go to different worlds and different places and walk in different people's shoes and expose you to what you wouldn't be able to maybe physically. But we know that our brains are really, powerful. And in some instances, my understanding is your brain can't tell the difference between an imagined experience if it's kind of rerun and an actual experience, you know.
And so that love of stories led me to study literature and I was thinking, well, what am going to do ⁓ with this? And then I got my first job and it was in sales. And obviously within sales, storytelling is incredibly powerful.
I was working at a property investment company that was transitioning to a state agency, the director, a great salesman, and I saw how stores were so powerful in the business context, and especially for the transition. But it was a small organization. I worked there for two years. I helped with their designing their new target operating model, putting in place a new website and new CRM. At that time, I didn't know that change management and project management
Julia LeFevre (11:12)
Thank
Nissi Ozigbu (11:41)
were jobs but somewhere along the way I got that exposure I can't remember exactly where. Anyway from there my next position was as an operations manager at Financial Ombudsman Service that's a regulator here in the UK and at the time the Ombudsman Service was doing this massive digital transformation from paper to e-file.
Julia LeFevre (11:45)
you
Nissi Ozigbu (12:00)
Now as an operations manager, you have your own team that you manage. was managing about 15 people, but they also gave me training in change management and project management. So that's where I got my first formal qualification in projects and change management. So super early on in my career, was kind of 23 managing a team in financial services, had this great training, really great leaders at the time who believed in me and poured so much into me. And I think that's also what enabled me to accelerate.
my journey. From then on, I've pretty much worked in change management ⁓ forever and always. Half of my career has been in financial services. The other half of my career has been in just random things, oil and gas, engineering, large ⁓ tech consultancies, small independent consultancy. I've led my own, well, I started one of the first change teams at the
National and Savings and Investment Bank here. So that's our national bonds bank here in the UK. But then I thought that whole time, so across about a 10 year period, what I saw is that this understanding of change management was very limited. And every time I'd go into an organization, I'm having to kind of prove my worth, explain my value. So four years ago, I made a decision to step out independently and start building this change management.
Capability, know sharing with people. Why is it you need a change manager? What value do we bring? And I just share with you one kind of tipping point within that time I feel like it's so cliche but becoming a mom, you know I became a mom quite young as well. Well, it is really young is relative 27 look back I think was young at the time I didn't feel like I was young, you know
Julia LeFevre (13:43)
Yes, I agree. We think we know
it all when we're that age.
Nissi Ozigbu (13:48)
It's my
actually, yeah. And so having started my career in financial services and selling, you know, the property background, I was very kind of black and white, very hardline, very target driven. This is what we're doing, whatever the cost. And then I was pregnant with my first child.
And for whatever reason, I don't know how this happens because I know a lot of people who are kind of female CEOs or female leaders. They also talk about motherhood transforming their leadership style. But for me, how that manifested was I was pregnant and I found performance management really, really hard. You know, I started thinking this is somebody's child. How would I feel if somebody was to treat my child like that? Now, that's a warning, a red flag, because, well, how am I treating people? But I have to stop and think.
Julia LeFevre (14:35)
Bye.
Nissi Ozigbu (14:36)
Well, this is somebody's child. Why wasn't I thinking this way before, you know? And number two, well, what's brought me here? Because it's not like I'm an inherently wicked person. So how am I showing up at work, which doesn't align to who I fundamentally believe I am and how I should be treating people. And so during that period of being pregnant and giving birth, that's when I started to understand that actually you can have, you know, such a soft and compassionate heart.
Julia LeFevre (14:41)
Right.
Nissi Ozigbu (15:06)
and still have really high standards. You know, the two can coexist. It's not one or the other. Whereas before I was very kind of binary, you know, I had a fixed mindset around what performance management looked like, what leadership looks like. But motherhood has made that so much more fluid. And now I'm like, well, do you know what leadership is you leading in whatever sphere you're in from who you are, as opposed to trying to slip into these binary and very rigid definitions.
Julia LeFevre (15:35)
Wow, and don't you think that that's part of the difficulty with the business world right now is that so many organizations forget that it's people that are working for them. And we become so focused on the production, the performance that we miss. Yeah, these are humans who...
And I think the interesting piece of this, and I'll bring out my fun little brain model now, is that the problem is that our prefrontal cortex is the smartest part of our brain. So when we're evaluating people, we're evaluating them based on that part, like how their prefrontal cortex is performing in action.
Nissi Ozigbu (16:05)
Bye.
Julia LeFevre (16:25)
problem is that when there's an evaluation and there's critique, what it does is it triggers fear or shame in our subconscious, which then hijacks your smart brain and keeps you from being able to perform well. And so when you can have an integrated approach, because our brains work from the bottom up, not the top down.
And so when you can address the relational need first, in other words, the human parts of people, our human need for safety, connection, belonging is just as important as having food and water. And if we can, as leaders, address that and fulfill that, help our people to feel safe relationally.
regardless of their performance, it will actually energize their prefrontal cortex, their smart brain, and they'll produce more. And so that just plays into exactly what you started discovering, I imagine.
Nissi Ozigbu (17:35)
massively, because I think once you're able to also like drop the pretense, there's something that happens kind of in your body, your mind, you relax, you connect with people deeper, you're able to have conversations that are so much more real and constructive and people really let you into their pain points because they're not feeling the need to protect themselves. You're talking about, you know, protection and belonging. So absolutely.
Julia LeFevre (18:01)
I, yeah. So one of the things that we started talking about before we hit record and I said, hold on, we need to stop and start recording is just the reality that
The doors are being opened in HR and HR companies or divisions are recognizing the value of bringing in change managers. And yet what is the biggest obstacle to being able to help an overall organization by offering your services?
Nissi Ozigbu (18:42)
So the biggest obstacle is
the support is coming at the wrong level. And what I mean by that is change management really, in order for it to succeed, needs to be a capability that's developed from the inside out, from senior leaders, junior staff, everybody needs to get on board.
At the same time, when you have more junior members of staff, they need to see that change management capability role modelled and thought out and stepped through from their senior leaders in the everyday moments. Otherwise, they don't prioritise it. It's just seen as this other thing. One of the biggest challenges now is getting change managers functioning and having dialogue at the right level. I'm talking about meaningful dialogue. Yes, have change managers going to board meetings and people say,
got
senior leadership exposure there. But yeah, minute to bullet point updates is not the exposure I'm talking about, know, building relationships, coaching these senior leaders, helping them to kind of reshape their priorities and reimagine how they show up so that they can embody and it's such a cliche, but so that they can be the change. If all of that's not happening, change just becomes another tick box exercise where
me who's on the outside really, I'm not the one who's going to live through that change. It's kind of like, okay, I've enjoyed what you've had to say, but so what? That so what has to be leaders role modding, Linda change, talking about change management, just as involved in equipping their organisations to lead through change. So yeah, that's that's the biggest challenge at the moment.
Julia LeFevre (20:21)
Isn't it interesting? It's almost like a change manager's biggest job is to change how the senior leader sees the process or sees the change and maybe even to invite them into the story of change in a way that's compelling and that they buy in.
Nissi Ozigbu (20:31)
Exactly.
Yeah.
Julia LeFevre (20:44)
Yeah. So how have you found success in doing that? How does that work?
Nissi Ozigbu (20:52)
It's a multi-channel approach. That's what
I'll say. The number one is confidence. It's such an underrated thing. The reason why I say that is because you need to be bold enough to push back and to take up space. If you are more than happy to just go through the tick box exercise and do what people are telling you to do, because also, oftentimes, change is seen as a line in a project plan. Now, for you and I, that sounds a bit crazy. How can you...
how can rural change be one line in a project plan? We know that that's not feasible, but for people within the transformation space, especially if they have got tight deadlines and they need kind of KPIs to tick off against, they want to be able to say we've produced a communication plan, we've produced an engagement plan, we've done the training, but you can do all of that and nothing shifts in the culture. We know that, right? So one of the ways is to form better relationships with my
program and project management teams to understand I'm more than happy to give you your deliverables on your project plan, but you also need to give me room to move kind of broader than that. know, access to stakeholders, being happy for me to take up senior leadership time. So what that looks like is usually a project manager will meet with exec teams at least once a week. That time should be shared.
Okay, let's spend half the time looking at the operational and the tactical and the other half looking at the strategic and the relational. Because without all those four elements, you know, actively firing, we are not going to get the return on investment that we will hope. You'll deliver the project so you'll go live, but adoption will tank and you will not get your return on investment. Absolutely not. It's not going to happen. So that's number one. Number two is being bold enough once you get that time with the senior leaders.
to be able to kind of constructively feed into the conversation. So you don't just go there and be like, yes, this project plan is great. You're doing everything as you were supposed to. No, it's pushing back. Okay. So I can see from your diary, you only spend one hour every three months with operational teams. How exactly they going to see you role modeling the change? You know, not everybody is confident enough to push back and have those conversations.
Julia LeFevre (23:07)
And I'm
always sad because this is a podcast and so it we do put it out on YouTube and so some of the YouTube viewers get to see our faces but you know as Nisi was saying that I was like you know my face was expressing itself for two reasons because I thought two one yeah like that has to be spoken and how many
people are going to have the confidence to be able to lean in and be that clear. So.
Nissi Ozigbu (23:40)
Yeah, absolutely.
⁓ And then the third one is
just about generally building relationships. So also you as a change manager, you need to be close enough to the operational teams to really understand what it is that they do, what it is that's changing. So that and that's two prongs. So that number one, you're giving your senior leaders advice based on kind of real life experiences you want to make it that when they show up, it is meaningful, you know, it's not tokenism. It's not just, I turned up and
the team couldn't understand why I was there because I didn't show up at an appropriate time. You want to make sure that you're slotting them in in places that it really makes sense and in order for you to do that you need to be close enough.
Julia LeFevre (24:14)
Bye.
Nissi Ozigbu (24:22)
to the operational teams and understand their daily rhythms, but also so that you can build those relationships. One thing I can guarantee you when you're going through any transformation is things will get hard, things will get tricky. People are going to lose things. Not everything is going to be great. They will lose functionality or they'll lose certain freedoms or their relationships will change or processes will mean that their routines are disrupted.
And all of that feels like a personal attack. It's not, but it feels like a personal attack. And you want to make sure that you've got the relationship in place, that when you're having those hard conversations, your presence is comforting and not threatening. Like we're in this, we get that Nisi completely understands what we're going through. She knows our processes and she wouldn't be talking to us about this and what it's going to mean.
if it was just going to be harmful. She gets the big picture, she knows it's painful, we're still doing it and we trust her. If you haven't spent enough time with the teams, your very presence then just becomes threatening because then you're only showing up when you're telling them something bad.
Julia LeFevre (25:28)
I love that you just went here because yeah, when people are experiencing pain, they want it to stop. And so they go into fix it mode, maybe attack mode because they're like, I don't like this. Let's stop it quick. let's, you know, what can I do to feel better? And if the change manager gets triggered by those
stress responses, it just creates a cycle. And yet I hear you saying that, you know, being able to have this level of confidence at all these different levels to confidence to step in to spaces, confidence to speak into hard situations, and then the confidence and the presence to be able to stay regulated.
when everything feels like it's kind of coming unraveled. And so, again, part of what we're exploring here on Wired to Lead is what experiences in the past have helped you build that capacity in your own life? Because we're not born with that capacity, and sometimes we learn it
through success and sometimes we learn it through failure, but I'm just curious what experiences in the past have helped you to stay regulated today when everything kind of seems like a big mess.
Nissi Ozigbu (27:03)
So getting it wrong
and being dysregulated. It's been my biggest learning curve. So thankfully I had a lot of these experiences quite early on. When I had my first role as an operations manager, was very, as I get, this is pre-pregnancy, I was very much, this is my plan, this is what I need to do. ⁓ Tell, tell, tell, you know, like I'm gonna tell you what to do.
And my team pushed back really heavily. I got terrible 360 feedback, you know, about how I'm not very flexible. Everything has to be done my way. And that was really, really painful. You can imagine. It just felt like an attack, like, why can't they see that I want the best for them, especially when we're in a target driven environment? And then I had some coaching from my manager at the time, who was also actually a female leader. And she said, look,
If you can step away from the emotion of this, look at what they are saying and lean into that, you know, so try a different approach. The worst that can happen is you're right back where you are. Like you're on ground zero now. They're saying you're terrible at what you're
Julia LeFevre (28:10)
Thanks.
And I imagine that was a shock to you because at the
time you would have thought, look, we're hitting our goals or we're performing and yet the personal piece, yeah, you're like, okay, I'm terrible at this.
Nissi Ozigbu (28:26)
Exactly.
Exactly. So, know, sitting with those feelings of discomfort and betrayal in a way, because remember, this is my team, that was my team. So sitting with those feelings of discomfort, betrayal, humiliation, you know, like when you're being told all of those and just digging deep into well, what does it mean? And actually, what's the ultimate aim here? So is it for me to have my ego intact?
Or is it for me to build a team who are able to work really well together, who respect me and who are able to shape their outcomes because I'm drawing upon their collective excellence, which also means that maybe I don't need to work as hard to prove myself. It's about collectively us winning. And so that moment was pivotal for me because number one, I learned to separate my feelings from kind of like the feedback that I was getting.
And not to say that I've become unemotional. Obviously, when you get feedback, it's still really painful. But to not let that cloud my judgment, you you can have the pain, have the sting, and then lean into but actually what's being said here. And if we're able to correct some of these things, what's going to happen in the long run. So that has helped me to show up now as you know, a way stronger change manager and change leader in helping other people to go through that process. You know, I think maybe if I had
you know, nailed it from the beginning. I wouldn't be able to empathize with, you know, you're going to announce these changes. It's going to suck because you're going to feel betrayed when you're going to push back. But that's just part of the, like, it's part of the journey. You know, when you get through to the other side and your team will work a lot better, you'll have more respect for your team and for yourself and you'll have better outcomes for your organization. So yeah, that's really, really helped. ⁓
I try to encourage that feedback going forward now. Now I'm really actually excited, I would even say, for more constructive feedback, because I just I know how much better it makes you going forward. And I guess, you know, in the sports world, they already know this, you know, like when you're training, your coach will tell you all the things you're doing bad or that are not as great, so that you can refine your technique and approach somewhere along the line in the corporate space that has been
Julia LeFevre (30:33)
Thanks.
Nissi Ozigbu (30:40)
kind of aligned with actually you're not doing a good job as opposed to you've got the potential to be great. you know exactly that reframing is really powerful.
Julia LeFevre (30:46)
I believe in you.
Well, and because our brains are so attuned to people's postures toward us, we weigh that so much more even than the words that are said. And so I imagine as I listen to you tell your story that your boss who kind of said, well, let's look at this, her being able to be present with you.
while she saw like she saw all of your failures and yet her posture towards you was still I believe in you and let's look at this because I'm pretty sure you can grow from this. so it really you know earlier in our conversation you said you you had to learn that it's it's people and performance and you don't have to give up one for the other.
Nissi Ozigbu (31:30)
Yeah.
Julia LeFevre (31:43)
She didn't have to coddle you and say, Nisi, and yeah, they just don't know what they're talking about. And she didn't have to just say, you need to look at this. If you can't look at this, then you need to leave. She modeled what it looks like to integrate both, to be present with in a failure and to say, and I believe that you can do better.
And so that's really what I hear you saying, you know, that experience with her has now helped you to have the capacity to do it with the people that you interact with.
Nissi Ozigbu (32:25)
Absolutely.
Julia LeFevre (32:25)
So that's one of the things that I want to help our listeners remember or recognize is that some of us have been lucky to have those experiences. So yeah, it comes through failure and we have a really great boss who was able to model kind of a different way to see failure. And there are some of us who didn't have that. And so, you they may feel like, well,
I've never experienced that. And so, you at the end of the day, I cannot step into a space because I do not have the confidence to make space or I do not have the confidence. And I would just tell them, you don't have it yet. But what you can do is you can proactively find interactions and experiences where someone can do that for you.
And we're never left to just what life gives us. We do have agency to be able to invite people into that. And you even said, now I'm looking forward to 360s. And I even see you still proactively inviting feedback in a way that is helping you.
if,
The real measure of our leadership, especially during change, isn't so much about what we achieve, but about how we show up, because that's going to have an exponential effect. How have you seen that to play out? Absolutely. So, the that I see that's going play out is
Nissi Ozigbu (34:08)
Absolutely. So the way that I've seen play out is number
one, and I'll focus in from a kind of change leadership perspective here is when
I'm in an organization, I'll talk about organizations that I've been in for a number of years. it might be that when I'm first brought on board, I'm having to do everything. I'm having to explain that when you're introducing a change, there's all these different aspects, know, people, process, data, information. Have you tracked the changes across all of them? Have you done this? Have you done that? You know, like your hold, your hand holding them through every single step and not easily. It's kind of like you're having to push your way into all of those conversations. And it's very uncomfortable.
comfortable for people, feeling like, why are you broadening my scope? You know, it's just this that I wanted to do. You're now making it all about X, Y and Z. And I'm like, no, it's not me making it about X, Y and Z. It's always been about all of these things. If you're choosing not to see it's different. And the step change that I see is by the time we're moving into the next phase of the project, or it might be a completely new project entirely.
Instead of them coming to me and saying, can you create comms and training for this? And then I'm having to broaden. They're saying, look, we can see that there's going to be impacts across all these areas. Can you work with us in terms of forming the relationships and doing the groundwork to make sure that we understand what those impacts mean?
keep going through and through how that transition kind of manifests in that deeper knowledge and understanding. So that's one of the ways, know, just in terms of from a process point of view, people understand those impacts. Another thing that you see is people being more present. So what I mean by that is for changes, what you can have is you've got a project team. And what usually happens is as you go along, attendance drops, you know, because people see that meeting.
Julia LeFevre (35:56)
Thank
Nissi Ozigbu (35:57)
you ⁓ I come here, I say hello, and I go. Once people understand that actually who you are, well, number one, you've been invited into this conversation because you have a very unique perspective that is going to help kind of craft and shape this change going forward. And that mental kind of switch for people means that we see it, we're seeing less of that dip.
you know, or if people are not able to attend, they're letting you know beforehand and saying, look, I'm not able to come along, but can you send me the papers so that I can feed in my comments? Because I know you're going to want to hear my voice in this conversation. So people understanding that their voice carries weight during change and that nobody is there as a kind of tick box exercise. So those are kind of the two most powerful kind of practical shifts that I'm seeing in the space.
Julia LeFevre (36:47)
I so agree, you know, and what's driving, I think, a lot of this, and one of the things that you've implied is that when you create a sense of authentic relational connection, when you're meeting that need for people to belong to matter, then they're drawn in and they want to be a part of that. And so what a beautiful thing to aspire to as a change leader.
Well, before we close, just want you to have a chance to tell us about what you're doing currently. if anyone, yeah, tell us about what you're doing and who you're helping. And if people who are listening and they're like, I just want to learn more. How can they get ahold of you? So.
Nissi Ozigbu (37:34)
Yeah, so the easiest way to get
hold of me is probably via LinkedIn. I'm Nisi Ozigbu.
on there, otherwise there's my website, thegrowthhuts.co.uk. And what we're doing through the Growth Hut is to give change makers. And the reason why I say change makers is because number one, the role of managing and leading change goes way beyond a change manager, just in case I haven't made that clear enough. You know, goes way beyond. So anybody who is making change in an organization, and I would argue that's everyone, we all have a role to play within.
making change in an organization, but we all don't necessarily have the skills or haven't built those skills in order to do so. Or sometimes we have the skills, but we lack in the confidence. We want safe space to kind of exercise those and to get that training. What you're talking about me having my manager who was able to sit with me and coach me through that experience. Some of us don't have that. So the Confident Changemaker program is that space for people to come together with a kind of like-minded professionals and myself.
to gain the skills and the confidence to trust your voice, to challenge professionally and profoundly to shape the conversations within your organization so that change is more meaningful and sustainable. So that's kind of an online program, on demand, you can do it anywhere, anytime. So that's one side of the work that I do. But the other side is actually going into organizations and partnering with your chief execs, with your senior management team.
to build that understanding of actually this is your role within change, how to kind of de-mask yourself. One of the things that I say when I work with senior leaders one-to-one, they're filled with so much color and joy and they're so interesting. And then I see them on town hall or all hands meetings and all the colors have been drained. They become this really bad professional archetype. And I'm wondering, what are you doing? You know, to help them to break out of that really kind of toxic pattern.
the reasons that we've just mentioned around when they're showing up in ways that are inauthentic, it doesn't give other people permission to be themselves, it evokes threat responses in other people, so that they are embodying that creating kind of safe spaces, so I partner with organisations to do that. So yeah, would love to have conversations with anybody interested.
Julia LeFevre (39:53)
Well, we will put all of those links in the show notes and yeah, just thank you so much for being here. It has been so fun to connect again for a whole 45 minutes and we just wish you all the best. Thank you for sharing your personal stories and getting vulnerable and just showing up as you are.
Nissi Ozigbu (40:03)
Thanks.
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I love what you're doing in this space. I love what you do on LinkedIn. I find all your information so helpful and so informative and it's constantly reshaping the way that I think as well. So just thank you for being a wonderful change maker.
Julia LeFevre (40:34)
You are welcome. Well, thanks everyone. We will see you next time.
Nissi Ozigbu (40:39)
Take care.