Ep. 144: Sarah Hoxie - The People Side of Business Transformation

Contact Sarah Hoxie:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-hoxie-38b54133/


FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTMitch:
(00:05)
Welcome back to Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things
affecting the accounting and finance world. This is your host
Mitch Roshong, and I'm here to preview episode 144 of our series.
Today's featured guest speaker is Sarah Hoxie. Sarah is the Chief
Accounting Officer at LSC Communications. In this role, she is
responsible for all aspects of accounting and has overseen
various projects impacting the organization. Throughout this
episode, Sarah talks about her experience with business
transformation projects and focuses on the people involved.
Transformations can greatly affect culture, and Sarah explains
how to best manage that. So keep listening as we head over to the
conversation now. 


Adam: (00:54)
Sarah, thanks so much for coming on the podcast today. And our
focus today is going to be around business transformation. And so
just to kind of start off, what is your take on business
transformation? 
 


Sarah: (01:05)
So in my opinion, you know, business transformation, isn't a
straight line journey. It's not a matter of starting at, you
know, "A" and working your way to "Z", and then, and then you're
done. It's really about, you know, looking at the opportunities
that are out there in the environment, and adapting to those,
whether it's, you know, social, economic, environmental, they're
all things that need to be considered. And as you're on that
journey, incorporating them as, as they change. You know, in my
experience, it's a lot of business transformation is about making
the business or making your area of the company continue to
remain, you know, relevant and I think the scope can be, you
know, as narrow or as broad as, as needed, you know, I think you
see a lot of companies that do business transformation well, look
at all levels of a business and they never stopped looking for
the changes that are out there. 


Adam: (02:08)
So when we look at business transformation, what approach do you
take when you're leading a transformation? 


Sarah: (02:15)
I think the first thing that I really focus on is his tone at the
top. I think to get everyone in a part of the business or even
the whole company engaged in business transformation, they need
to view it as a priority from the leaders of the, of the
business. And I think it should, you know, my approach has been
to involve all levels of the organization, right from, you know,
people that have just joined the company or your interns, you
know, right through people that are, you know, more senior in
individuals, and getting their input. I think they have got to be
helping drive some of the, the change, help identify, what the
issues are, what the problems are, and then work together to find
solutions for them. I think when you get all levels of the
business, working behind this kind of transformation, it really
does drive better solutions. You've got people that are doing
some of the things on a day-to-day basis that can see how they
can resolve the issues are they know what the issue is, and maybe
don't know how to resolve it, but if you get everyone involved,
then all those ideas are coming together and everyone's working
towards them. I think another key piece of it is really
accountability. Once you have that tone at the top set, and, you
know, people are right behind that, then, you know, you can start
to encourage everyone to be accountable for the areas they're
getting involved in. From an accountabilities perspective,
tracking some of the progress on the areas of transformation is
really helpful as well, because, you know, if you're three months
into this kind of process and you can precisely communicate to
everyone, the progress that has been made, you know, and you're
doing that through being able to track the progress, it starts to
build the momentum for everyone to really get behind, the
project. But, you know, it's in, you know, in the organizations
I've been with it's, the tracking can take over. You really want
something that's simple. That's not taking time away from the
actual transformation activity. It kind of going back to what I
was saying about getting all levels involved. I think if you're
going to get true business transformation, you really need to
give people a, you know, a lot of free reign to come up with
those ideas. You know, don't set kind of restraints on projects
or ideas that can be investigated. And I think that's, that's
where I've had the most success when you've really given people
a, you know, a free range, maybe hold up a brainstorming session
to identify all potential suggestions of how we can do
transformation out there and then start to investigate them
rather than, you know, giving very tight restrictions on what can
be proposed. That's something else that I've seen work well is
not losing track of ideas and suggestions that don't necessarily
make sense today, but may make sense in the future. Keeping an
eye on those is always helpful because you know, the world is
continually changing and that that idea or suggestion might be a
great in, you know, two or three years time. 


Adam: (05:47)
It almost sounds like you're referring to like a cultural shift
within an organization, where, you know, you're changing the tone
at the top and you're listening to ideas, even writing them down
and keeping them for two to three years, maybe because that idea
may be different later. How would you execute like a cultural
shift in an organization to make sure that the transformation is
successful? 


Sarah: (06:07)
When you think about making it stick? It has to be something that
continually comes up in everyone's day to day activities. It's
not something that just people focus on for a month and that it's
never mentioned again. It's, you know, really keeping it in the
forefront of everyone's mind, even if it's small, day-to-day kind
of, activities, really, you know, any chance of, you know, small
meetings as a team or a larger kind of town halls, really having
it as an agenda item that people talk about, that people
celebrate. Some of my teams have had a great success in that.
And, you know, there's been, you know, recognition and reward for
those kinds of, activities, which then starts to drive more, more
change within the organization. 


Adam: (07:05)
That makes complete sense. But then how do you avoid people from
falling back into the old habits? Because, you know, you can, put
it in front of people's faces, but then over time, you know, it's
easy to go backwards. 


Sarah: (07:18)
Yeah. Absolutely true. And I think it's very easy when
individuals are not seeing the, kind of the fruits of their
labors, right. If they don't understand what impact their
projects or their involvement is having in, driving change or
maybe improving results, then it's very easy to slip back. So the
more that businesses and groups can communicate successes, I
think it's easier to stop them falling back into the old habits,
you know, and I think it's listening to all viewpoints within an
organization as well. People that have been with organizations a
long time, have a very different viewpoint, than people who, you
know, have only been with the company a short period of time. I
think it's making both of those groups feel like their thoughts
are, and input is valued. You know, people that have been with
the organization, you know, a longer time may think, oh, we tried
this, it didn't work. and so a lot of it is encouraging those
individuals to, you know, be more open to trying again, but also
listening to them and say, Hey, why didn't this work previously
and trying to l...