How the Managing Director Finance Transformation of Moody's Corp Mastered the Key Aspects of Change

If you’re a regular reader of the Intelligent Automation Network you’ve certainly seen this phrase before, “scaling intelligent automation and RPA isn’t about technology, it’s about people.” That’s because it couldn’t be more true. 

While we don’t want to dismiss the importance of building a modern IT infrastructure, doing so is not nearly as complex and difficult as enabling your workforce to innovate with technology investments especially during times of upheaval, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. 

With this in mind, we invited Jeff Klebanoff, Managing Director Finance Transformation, GBS, Analytics, Moody's Corp. to share his perspective on driving change amidst unprecedented circumstances. 

If you’re interested in hearing more from Jeff, we invite you to attend his session on “Mastering The Key Aspects Of Change” at the Scalable IA LIVE, a free virtual event, taking place February 15 - 16, 2022. 

Seth Adler, Editor-In-Chief, Intelligent Automation Network: 

Can you tell us a bit about how you approach driving RPA and IA adoption? 

Jeffrey Klebenoff:

You can’t scale intelligent automation and RPA without the people and the culture. No good process was ever successful without good people. No bad process was ever unsuccessful without people. No system ever ran without some semblance of people. You can automate, but there's always some combination of people involved. 

It's one thing to keep up with innovation when it comes to tools and technology. It's another thing to make sure you're keeping up with upskilling your folks. 

I would say project and process execution, especially, require a special skillset. We need more people to be able to do this. So upskilling people, get them to baseline skill sets, but then the people who want to go to the next level, you want to make sure you offer the training, the experience, the capacity, so they can showcase those skills. After all, I don't have data science without a data scientist. I don't have automation without an RPA person building something. I don't have process improvement without process engineers or experts that can help drive that. So you really want to make sure that you have people not only upskilled, but focused on problem solving.

You also want to make sure you have the right culture in place. But what does that look like? We talk about building a culture of innovation. We talk about creating a culture of change. But how do you make sure it's the right culture to challenge the status quo? To drive change? And how do you make sure that you have a culture where people are encouraged to try and where people know problem solving is a core competency. So you want to make sure that your leadership and your teams all feel empowered. That they have both the skills and desire to drive change.  Because scaling technology goes nowhere without people and culture.

Seth Adler:

What about in times of turmoil such as a pandemic or other types of upheaval? How do you manage culture in that type of environment? 

Jeffrey Klebenoff:

Three keywords: adaptable, flexible, and perseverance. 

If you get stuck on the idea that you can’t change, you're never going to survive. We all just went through something pretty major. One day everybody was in the office and the next day nobody was in the office and we're still working through all of that.

And what did I see? I saw us get creative. I saw people figuring out new ways. I made sure I found new ways to stay connected. You have to just find new ways to adapt to whatever's sort of thrown at you.

So it's really important to make sure... I don't think there's such a world anymore where you can just sort of rest on the laurels of, nothing's going to be different tomorrow. We're always going to be able to do things the way we've done things. I tell people a lot... I've read this, the most expensive statement in business is, “we've always done it that way.” It's not okay, because there are going to be other people, companies that are going to figure out how to stay in line with that change. And if you're not, you're going to fall behind in a big way.

Don't forget to register to attend Jeff's session on “Mastering The Key Aspects Of Change” at the Scalable IA LIVE, a free virtual event, taking place February 15 - 16, 2022.