Episode 91 — Leading Effective Change: Neelesh Harmalker
Have you noticed transformation fatigue in your organization? The feeling that you run faster and faster, and have to do more with less, while you don’t accomplish the results of the changes that you were out for?
Well, one aspect of that might be that you haven’t “picked up” the folks in your organization where they are, and now they are working silently against the positive change that you want to instill. In the past, this was a simple concept, but today it is difficult to manage. That is why we invited Neelesh to our show so that he can share his years of org change management experience with us.
Neelesh is an Operational Excellence Leader with 18+ years of experience driving enterprise-wide transformation, automation, and performance optimization for Fortune 500 firms in financial services, banking, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, and high-tech.
He’s a proven expert in end-to-end process improvement, digital transformation, intelligent automation, and large-scale operational strategy, leading global teams to streamline workflows, enhance efficiency, and reduce costs. Neelesh specializes in scaling process excellence initiatives, integrating AI, process mining, and automation to drive sustainable business impact.
In this episode of the podcast, we are talking about:
- Neelesh’s background
- The resistance to change — the “why” … and the lack of a “change muscle” in organizations
- Did the approach to OCM change over the years?
- The change curve and the “never-ending change” today — take a break and celebrate milestones
- How can change be decelerated to a more “human pace”? (Spoiler alert: not likely)
- Best practices in OCM
- Setting up communities / safe space
- The role of managers in change — bottom-up vs. top-down changes
Neelesh is active on LinkedIn and can be reached here: linkedin.com/in/neeleshharmalker.
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Additional information
- The concept of the “Change Curve” (graphic from Roland’s book)
Credits
Music by Jeremy Voltz, www.jeremyvoltzmusic.com
- CP1 (Welcome)
- Interludes to be added
- South Wing (Outro)
Roland Woldt is a well-rounded executive with 25+ years of Business Transformation consulting and software development/system implementation experience, in addition to leadership positions within the German Armed Forces (11 years).
He has worked as Team Lead, Engagement/Program Manager, and Enterprise/Solution Architect for many projects. Within these projects, he was responsible for the full project life cycle, from shaping a solution and selling it, to setting up a methodological approach through design, implementation, and testing, up to the rollout of solutions.
In addition to this, Roland has managed consulting offerings during their lifecycle from the definition, delivery to update, and had revenue responsibility for them.
Roland has had many roles: VP of Global Consulting at iGrafx, Head of Software AG’s Global Process Mining CoE, Director in KPMG’s Advisory (running the EA offering for the US firm), and other leadership positions at Software AG/IDS Scheer and Accenture. Before that, he served as an active-duty and reserve officer in the German Armed Forces.
