You Can’t Control Change, But You Can Lead Through It

Bill.com is what? 15 years old now or more, Rene?

15 and a half. Yeah.

Wow!

We’ll be driving next year, there you go.

Well, I have a 15-year-old, so I’m kind of petrified of that thought. But Bill.com is now 15 and a half years old, most companies and the tech industry in particular, have to constantly navigate change. You’ve gone through a lot of changes in those 15 years. What’s your secret for getting people on board with new changes?

I think change is a way of life, right? It’s something that we have to accept. And if you just take personal changes, the hardest is always going to be losing somebody you care about. And if you take that analogy of, how do you get through that? And some of it is time. But mostly, I think, the grieving process, if you will, it’s being transparent, you don’t hide, you feel, you have empathy, you connect, you don’t run away from those feelings. And so I think with change, you know, if you take it to the business now, it’s the same thing, you don’t run away from the change, you can’t control it, you can influence it, and you can lead through it, but you can’t control it. Right? And I think that’s the same thing I would say, in somebody’s personal life.

One of the great family trips we did is we went to Bhutan. And in Bhutan, we got to go through some of the monasteries and get to hear some of the Buddhist philosophies. And one of the things I think in the first monastery we went to, we said, “You know, so how would you define Buddhism?” And the guide gave us this really wonderful analogy, “Well, Buddhism is about losing your attachment to ignorance, anger, and materiality. Material events.”

And so if you think about change, if you lose your attachment to all those three things, you’re going to get through it just fine. One of my first coaches said to me, “You know, the day that you’re hired as a CEO is the day that you’re fired, just accept it and move on.” And it’s true. Like, we all have that, right, the day you’re born, you’re going to die, right? It’s just understanding that and appreciating that and I think that’s a big part of change management, is just accepting it, and it’s not easy. But the sooner you accept it, the easier it is to grow with it. And you can’t grow with it unless you accept it.