AR2021-Research as a Catalyst for Organizational Transformation (Robin Beers, Wells Fargo)
—> Excited to be hear to talk about organizational transformation and role researchers can play
—> Come from academic background of organizational psychology, for user-centered design and research
—> Specialized in diversity, equity, and inclusion
—> While doing doctoral research went to South Africa , with a focus on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs and how South Africa was setting up their programs, relative to the United States
—> At this time I became familiar with ubuntu
—> Directly translated, ”I am because we are”
—> Means that we don’t really know our own human-ness unless it’s in relationships with other people
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It’s an interconnected and interdependent worldview
—> Ubuntu touched me personally, and I realized relationship between humans allow us to effect change in world, organizations, and personal lives
—> I’d like you to go within for a moment, and think of time in life where you felt amplification of your own humans through relationship with others
—> For me, ubuntu, is something I have brought in with my role as a leader
—> Business is changing, as we are in a VUCA world marked by features of Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity, for over a decade
—> Organizations continue to operate from old assumptions and rules
—> Set of assumption rooted in the industrial era, where we lived in a predictable, controllable environment
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How we approach problems in orgs is very mechanistic
—> Another idea, orgs operate from is Milton Friedman, and his thoughts on the social responsibility of business
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Shareholder value as primary value businesses needed to focus on
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But this has been changing in recent years
—> The Business Roundtable is an industry org of 150 US Based CEOs.
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Previous principles were rooted in shareholder primacy
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The members came together in 2019 to radically redefine what they thought what a corporation was
—> The new of purpose of the corporation is to promote an economy that serves all Americans
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A shift from shareholder to stakeholder capitalism
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Many CEOs signed agreement including Wells Fargo
—> Statement stressed commitment to all stakeholders from customers to affected communities
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Marc Benioff of Salesforce said business is about improving state of world
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Larry Fink of BlackRock said that businesses must make positive benefit to society and benefit all stakeholders
—> Researchers have role in making business more human
—> We have special superpowers for new capabilities into organization
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We all need these powers to navigate a VUCA world
—> Powers follow research arc of an engagement
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Learning: What data tells us
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Connecting: Making meaning from the data and conversations across functional areas
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Generating: What we will do with our new insights
—> Gone is the myth that the future is predictable. Only thing orgs can do, is control how quickly we learn, and research helps us learn quickly
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We up level the entire org, by making everyone learn
—> Do this though deep listening, empathy, synthesis, making connections
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Capabilities all people need to cultivate today
—> The image represents concept of out-there vs in-here
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Came up with turning research lens onto the organization itself.
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To help us and org see reality out there, and whether it’s in alignment with our internal assumptions and business objectives
—> We researchers occupy unique vantage point since we see end-to-end customer experience
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This is not how organizations are typically reflected
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They are sliced into departments line of business, and product areas
—> Research is a platform for silo-busting and conversations across disciplines
—> I orchestrate research for cross functional organizations
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People will come up to me after research workshops and they’ll say it was fantastic to talk to each other, and see their perspective
—> Allow cross-functional conversations, otherwise they don’t happen
—> Due to orgs breaking things into small parts, we don’t know how it fits into a bigger whole
—> As researchers we see big picture, and how things are seen holistically
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Since we are asking business to consider customer experience in concert with internal assumptions and decision making processes, makes the work truly powerful
—> Now what? Let’s start grappling with what this all means and what’s in and out of alignment
—> This picture is intentionally fuzzy to convey ability to hone in on what really matters
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Coined frame of “Experiential Significance”
—> Experience is this feeling when you are in the field, and something hits you as right and important, and needs to be addressed to make a difference
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Example includes understanding the importance of how race impacts how people interact with healthcare system
—> Feeling is about “rightness” and awareness
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It also gives us cool term similar to terms quantitative researchers use
—> When we think about learning, connecting, and generating, we can bring to research endeavor to the whole organization
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We all have experienced the feeling of studying one thing, and discovering a host of issues outside the work
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We need to ask how organizations are designed
—> Need to know how levers will be pulled as a result of research,
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Can be studying something that calls org to re-examine where it stands on any point of org structure, such as:
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Strategy
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Structure
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Pressures
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Rewards
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People
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—> Strategy connotes business direction
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What do we need to do to capture competitive advantage
—> In past example, I grabbed designers, product people and went to three cities to do ethnographic research to see how people manage their finances
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At the time, the business focused on budgeting tools for people in response to tools like Mint, and other fin-tech tools
—> Product people designed tools that were complex and asked people to put in a lot of data
—> We kept seeing though that people weren’t keeping strict budgets, and instead they did constant tracking of money
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Online banking helped facilitated this tracking
—> Our research highlighted that strategic trajectory of business creating tools with a lot of input, needed to shift towards automation and ease of use, and focus on surfacing information for the customer
—> Now let’s talk about structure, or where location of design making power is
—> We had Merchant Services come to us, and ask us to reduce step businesses took for taking credit cards for small business
—> Wells Fargo was losing market share, and thought it was that application was too arduous to complete
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Mental model of competitors was radically different, i.e. just sign-up and start using the service
—> The “application” mentality came out of rules of underwriting and risk at Wells Fargo
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They did research with all kinds of small businesses
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Came in and had sense making session and multi-functional group of folks, including Underwriting
—> Underwriters treated every merchant with the thought their credit card volume would explode
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This caused them to ask lots of questions during the application process
—> Underwriters also hoped “I hope nothing bad happens”
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Few curious partners in the organization
—> But engaging with customer data led underwriters to embrace design thinking question and reduce steps in credit card application, and being ambassador safeguards of risk
—> Next, let’s talk about process: the flow of information and how it’s supported by the business
—> Example of customer journey map to digitize SBA application, which required lot of back and forth between back office workers at Wells Fargo, and the customer
—> Emotional up and down throughout the process
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Research with team members and Wells Fargo employees
—> Internal employee pain points were related and led to customer pain-points, so we went back to the product team
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Pointed out that digitization of bad process would be insufficient, and that we needed to redesign process holistically
—> We had to figure out how to meet MVP date with something simple for the customer, but the change was eventually embraced
—> Rewards: Or how incentives motivate behavior
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Wells Fargo Sales Scandal is example of this, where customers received Wells Fargo products they didn’t want or even knew that they had
—> Prior to the scandal, I co-led an ethnographic study with data-science partner to understand how customers new to bank used different channels
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Very political project, and external insights clashed with internal mental models
—> From bank’s view, the “store” or bank branches were the center of the universe of the company.
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We were barred from changing incentives or how branches worked
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Meanwhile, customers thought of Wells Fargo as just their bank, not a sales center
—> All channels existed to provide services that managed finances
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We were scared to challenge sales vs. service view of the world, and had to grapple with people’s mindsets before people could embrace findings
—> We wanted to avoid political trouble, so were cautious about presenting considerations
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But senior folks commissioning study kept saying findings should be more actionable
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We realized business people were not interested in engaging with the issues raised by sales/service schism
—> We had to move away from the view of bank’s service as being a cost-center
—> Said this was an issue, and had to focus on creating new conversation and hearing people speak in different ways and language
—> Over all of the levers described is culture
—> We need craft skills, and organizational consulting skills and having an understanding of how orgs are designed and levers that may be tripped as we go about our work
—> We are in time of cultural revolution with the pandemic and social inequality- I believe and hope that orgs in coming years needed to ask deep questions
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Why we exist?
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Who we include?
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Are we benefiting all stakeholders?
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Are we harming some?
—> So take your seat at the table, and research will be predictive in helping the future
—> We have superpowers of listening, connecting, generating, and human-centered perspective rooted in Ubuntu
—> We are interdependent and our relationship with humans drives businesses
—> Thank you!
Q&A
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When you are uncovering things in research that are directly against the company’s cultural norms or effigies, how did you contextualize findings to avoid tripping reflexive responses??
A: Spend time upfront to define research goals and priorities
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Ask for all stakeholders to be in session where they explicitly state their assumptions about what they think is true
—> Through exercise can pinpoint core beliefs and feed the beliefs back to people
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Have it documented
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If we hear something out of alignment with assumptions, we can do comparison of what we see/what we belive
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I’m curious how Wells Fargo signing the agreement to promote an economy for all Americans changed and trickled down to the day to day culture (if at all).
A: Like a lot of companies there is more commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion
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On Enterprise council working to put action plans in place, workforce outcomes and recruiting
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Advocacy and creating culture of belonging
—> It is happening, and are under regulatory scrutiny, and growth crap, as we work through the issue
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So it is a start/stop pattern