Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Welcome everyone. Today we’re joined by a very special guest all the way from Virginia, Ernest Davis (Guest), creator of the cord. Oh, see, there we go. That didn’t sound very good. I’m gonna start over. Okay.
Ernest Davis (Guest): No worries.
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Welcome everyone. Thanks for joining us on the culture profit podcast. Today we’re joined by a very special guest all the way from Virginia. Ernest Davis (Guest), creator of the chord framework, will be sharing with us how to navigate change in our organizations without losing harmony. And this is a very important topic for HR and people leaders. So we’re excited to have him here. Ernest, thanks for joining us.
Ernest Davis (Guest): Thank you for having me, Matt. Uh it’s a pleasure to be on and an honor to be on uh the culture profit. So uh to Matt and Christa, thank you guys so much for giving me this opportunity to talk to you guys about the core framework, what it is and um you know why I created it and how it could be beneficial for organizations.
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): We’re excited too and I’m the lucky one. I get to share a little bit about Ernest. So Ernest is the creator of the cord framework which we just mentioned is a multidisciplinary approach to human- centered change management that empowers organizations to lead with empathy, clarity, and strategy. As principal at Chapel and Wolf, he helps companies drive sustainable change adoption by focusing on the people most impacted. With a background in IT enablement, enterprise learning, and consulting, Ernest transforms complex transformations into practical people first strategies that deliver lasting impact. Pretty impressive.
Ernest Davis (Guest): Guys, make me sound so good.
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): That’s all you. That’s all you, Ernest. So
Ernest Davis (Guest): Thank
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): tell
Ernest Davis (Guest): you.
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): us
Ernest Davis (Guest): Thank
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): a little
Ernest Davis (Guest): you.
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): bit about yourself. What you have is quite the background. So tell us a little bit about what led you here and a little bit about yourself personally.
Ernest Davis (Guest): Oh, wow. So, um well, I’ll start personally, then I kind of jump into uh how I got to court.
Ernest Davis (Guest): So, I’m originally from Baltimore, Maryland. I’m born and raised. So, you may hear that Baltimore accent come out, slip out ever so often. Uh so you know that that’s just my home, my home turf. Um I have been in the IT enablement um uh learning and development change management space now for well over 20 years. And how I got to this point was in that time the one thing that I noticed that was a consistent problem amongst all places that I worked was that there was misalignment between the people who were making the change which I was one of them right and the people who actually had to absorb those changes right so that could be the employee uh or a stakeholder or even a customer, right? And I noticed that this was causing a lot of rework and failure and things like that. And as I continued to go, I found a very popular study by McKenzie that says that over 70% of all change initiatives fail. And I thought that was a staggering number.
Ernest Davis (Guest): And you know if if if you guys are are sports fan I know it’s during that time now but the only way you can be three for 10 in anything is baseball and still be good right so and that doesn’t really work in business unfortunately and I said it is time that something changes right um and I created I created court because I believe that change management was focused, it was created to manage the change, right? I mean, it’s literally in the name. Um, but I think the part that is missing is understanding the alignment, right? And understanding the need for alignment because that’s one of the most important things that you can have in any change initiative. So, I created a core framework. cord stands for uh change harmony for organizational readiness and development. Um it has four stages. Um and what I’m doing is I’m not necessarily creating anything from scratch per se, but what I’m doing is that I’m taking eight proven disciplines that have all shown to provide some uh incredible um uh just uh I’m getting lost here.
Ernest Davis (Guest): some some some incredible uh contributions to change management and I have applied those eight disciplines into and weave them into the four stages. Right. Um so that that’s a little bit about me and kind of how I got here.
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): That’s awesome. That’s great. So tell us about the eight disciplines and then how that leads into the stages of the chord framework and what the chord framework is.
Ernest Davis (Guest): Excellent. That’s an excellent question. So the eight stages that I’m referring to are around human- centered change management right um and this is a relatively new term that has come as a result of these eight disciplines. So the eight disciplines that I’m talking about are one tradition of our change management. I’m going to say traditional change management so we know you know what we’re talking about right that of course provides the structure um and the organization the need for uh stakeholder analysis the need for communications plan to let people know about the change the need for training feedback loop right um there’s also employee experience right uh that of course talks about the need for the employees and how this change will impact their perception ion amongst the actual organization, right?
Ernest Davis (Guest): Um there’s organizational development. Um the purpose of this of course is to ensure that the employees feel that they are a part of the change and that you know that this is a part of them um being a contributor to the change, right? Um you also have um neuroscience and behavioral science, right? Um and of course those are the parts that are understanding the people that are absorbing the change and knowing how to do things that allow them to feel encouraged and feel motivated and feel you know uh ready to to absorb the change. um human- centric design which is a uh you know that’s a new buzzword now right uh where we are the the change makers are cocreating the change with the actual employees or the stakeholders um and then we have systems thinking which is huge which talks about the understanding the interconnectiveness of the chain so um for example If someone wants me to change something in Salesforce, they may, you know, want it for analytics, right? But that change will have an impact on sales, right?
Ernest Davis (Guest): So being able to understand and map that um design thinking uh which again kind of also falls under the human- centered uh design piece, but uh kind of goes a little bit deeper. And yeah, so those are the eight disciplines that all fall within the human center change management and the core framework.
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Okay.
Ernest Davis (Guest): Okay,
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Interesting. And then so CORD is an acronym, correct? So
Ernest Davis (Guest): it
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): take
Ernest Davis (Guest): is
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): us through that acronym.
Ernest Davis (Guest): so um core stands for change harmony for organizational readiness and development. So the reason why I say change harmony is again to go back to the point of uh things being misaligned, right? Um, I can’t tell you how many times I have been a part of a change initiative where no one, the people who have to actually do the change, knew the change was coming. they would uh there’s been things as as as um you know as egregious actually as them working in the system on a Friday and then they come in on a Monday and something has changed and that and they now have to stop what they’re doing or what they was about to do to now figure out this change that’s you know buried somewhere in their email right um or they are being asked to take you know an
Ernest Davis (Guest): hour away from their time which is okay you know if you are let’s say HR right but if you’re in sales not so much right where your job is dependent on how many conversions you’re able to get how many sales you’re able to get right um so that kind of leads into organizational readiness um organizational readiness is ensuring that this is the right time for the change to even happen, right? So, I can’t tell you how many times um to go back to the sales uh piece where um there a change would happen in the middle of a blitz for the sales team where they’re trying to, you know, they’re getting towards the end of the quarter and they want to ramp things up. And now, not only are they now, you know, blitzing and they’re trying to get sales, they’re trying to win some prize and, you know, all that stuff, but now they have to worry about a system change on top of that. So, that’s where the organizational writers come in. And then the development part just kind of ties everything in because I believe that change is an engine for competitive advantage, right?
Ernest Davis (Guest): Um, and I mean you think about it with any company, you think about it with any sports teams. Um, everyone changes and they don’t you you can’t stay the same or else you’re going to fall behind, right? So, I think that, you know, all of that when you put it together is how I came up with the idea of court in addition to the fact that I have a musical background. So um so chord of course is the uh of is a play on words because it is the uh connection of multiple musical keys right so to me that represents harmony that represents togetherness um and it ensures that companies work together. Uh so often companies operate in silos and that is I I I I don’t even know how to begin to say how that is a silent killer for any company, right? Think about it. If a band all worked, if a band all played their own music and did their own thing, how would the song sound,
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Mhm.
Ernest Davis (Guest): right? um or if a football team, you know, the left check was going this way, the running back is going backwards, the receiver is going forward, how successful will they be, right?
Ernest Davis (Guest): companies unfortunately are operating like this and I can’t tell you how persistent it was just in my experience and you know working in companies and seeing how they were a how they were doing things and and again
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Serious.
Ernest Davis (Guest): all of this is leading to$ two trillion dollars that are being wasted annually right I don’t know about you but I don’t have two trillion dollars I probably would talking right now. Uh if I did, but um but yeah, but I mean that that’s a lot of money. That’s a lot of money that’s being wasted, right? So, it’s time it is it’s it’s um it’s time that we address this. It’s time that we, you know, really get to the root of why, you know, these changes are failing and figure out how to um make it work.
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah, I think you’re hitting on some really big and important pieces here, Ernest. You know, I’
Ernest Davis (Guest): Merry
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I’ve
Ernest Davis (Guest): Christmas.
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): seen this same thing that you’re talking about with departments and teams working in silos and one department adopt adopts a new process or maybe they bring on a new vendor and another department already has a vendor that does that same thing and there’s just these disjointed processes.
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): But really being able to implement a change that can create as you said that harmony between teams and between departments can accelerate growth and it’s a huge piece to business and unlocking greater performance. When it comes to people leaders and HR leaders, maybe one specific people leader in a department or an HR manager, they’re not the instigator of making that change or deciding that a change is needed, but they’re a critical piece because they’re involved in helping roll that change out. Like to
Ernest Davis (Guest): Exactly.
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): your point, you get there Monday morning and the systems have changed and you’re saying, “Well, what is this? I need to do my job and I’m getting stopped from doing my job because I don’t know how this new process works or why it’s there. And then they’re going to their manager or their HR leader saying, “Well, why is this here? Why are we doing this?” And and if they don’t have the answer, then that really can crumble the employee experience and can lead to turnover.
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): it can lead to loss of productivity and it can lead to frustrations and and having that system for change management in place I think is critically important and I honestly love the chord acronym um starting with with change harmony um organizational readiness I think that’s that’s amazing I and I love the music then I I have a music background as well and I was curious what your music background this.
Ernest Davis (Guest): So for me, um, I was a college marching band participant. Um,
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Wow.
Ernest Davis (Guest): I play,
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Sweet.
Ernest Davis (Guest): yeah, so I actually performed in two NFL halftime shows and you
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Wow.
Ernest Davis (Guest): know, uh, you know, marched all around the United States. Uh, so, um, if I may give a shout out to the, uh, Magnific Magnificent Marching Machine, M3 at Morgan State University. Uh, but yeah, that is that that’s my background. Um, and
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And
Ernest Davis (Guest): I
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): what
Ernest Davis (Guest): I
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): instruments
Ernest Davis (Guest): love music.
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): did you do it?
Ernest Davis (Guest): I played the tuba.
Ernest Davis (Guest): Look at me. I’m a big guy.
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I mean, I could have guessed it, but I just wanted to Hey, that’s fantastic.
Ernest Davis (Guest): I didn’t play the flute. It wasn’t the flute. It wouldn’t go well with me and my body size. It just wouldn’t work.
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah, you got to have the wind capacity.
Ernest Davis (Guest): Exactly.
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Oh, man.
Ernest Davis (Guest): Exactly.
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): That is great. But I do. I love that thing and the harmony. It all makes perfect sense to be working in harmony with your with your team members but then as with the company as a whole. That’s that’s so important and and I think that analogy makes it pretty clear. So, I’m curious, have you had some specific experiences that either led you to this or that you’ve seen now that you’ve established this framework that makes it just so obvious this way?
Ernest Davis (Guest): So I actually have been doing this um before I wrote the framework. So I uh did and if uh I have a white paper so uh please go to courtframework.com and read the white paper.
Ernest Davis (Guest): But in that white paper, I talk about an example where I was brought on to provide Microsoft certification training for veterans that have just come out of the military. And um the problem was that no one was getting certified, right? Um and and and when I say no one, I mean 0% pass rate. So, one of the first things that I did was I first talked to the people that um of course brought me in and to kind of figure out where the problem was. Uh looked into why uh or what resources they currently had. Uh they are the students, right? Um had a chance to talk to students and understand, you know, from the past class, past classes, you know, what was the experience like, right? I then was able to take that and, you know, do some uh some things including working with the actual um working with the actual certification body uh to get like assessment tests and things like that that could help reinforce learning. And um after implementing everything, I’m not going to go into the full implementation process, but after implementing everything, I was able to achieve a 85% passing rate and I maintained that um throughout the entire time that I was there, right?
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Wow.
Ernest Davis (Guest): Um, so that’s just one example of chord working. And I’ve always had this, but I just didn’t know, you know, how to kind of tie it all into a framework, right? Um, so as I began to, you know, continue through my career, I was able to learn more things, right? understand um things such as um human centered design and seeing exactly well wait I I did that right um understanding employee experience and and and making sure that people feel seen people feel heard people feel valued right um and I was like I did all of that right so and as I kept reading and kept finding more things I said wait I think that there is something that I can do to you know bring it um to organizations to say hey there there there is something that you can do to ensure that your culture is cultivated. There’s something that you can do to ensure that you’re not wasting money. Right? There’s something there’s actual action that you can do and it doesn’t take anything that is you know you gotta start all over from what you already know.
Ernest Davis (Guest): But there are things that you can do and tweaks that you can make and and and and um you know other uh assessments that you can do and conversations that you can have to ensure that the adoption sticks. And here we are and here I am talking to you guys about it.
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah. So, take us a little more into that action and in the four stages of your chord framework.
Ernest Davis (Guest): Absolutely. So, um the core framework has four stages as I mentioned. Um the four stages are ground, right? This is where we basically identify what’s working, what’s misaligned, um and what the people are saying about the culture, what they are saying about change. Right? So that kind of gives us uh um the foundation that gives us a map if you will of where everything is who who the stakeholders are what they’re feeling what they’re thinking what they’re saying right um and then there is uh in that we are working with them to say hey if we can show you a different way right would you be open to it right because we don’t want to just say okay well we heard we’re still going to keep doing the same thing, right?
Ernest Davis (Guest): So, again, that’s part of the grounding, right? And not just the change absorbers, but it’s also the change makers. Hey guys, um you’re about to release a change. Um, let’s make sure that the people are actually ready for the change. You know, what major events are coming, you know, and talking to them and making sure that everybody is on the same page, right? From there, we go to design, right? And with design, this is where we kind of define the behaviors and um we’re making sure that they’re realistic. We are defining the systems that reflect the desired culture and we are ensuring that this design isn’t just a top down approach. It isn’t just coming from up high, but it’s with the people who actually work in the systems every day. There is so much that you can learn from um people that use a system every day, right? And one of and one of the reasons why I see it as a misalignment is because I feel that people especially when you get to a corporate level and and and we become a head of director sometimes you can um get a little bit too high if you will and not really come down and learn from the actual people that are using the system every day because they can help you with things that you may not
Ernest Davis (Guest): be thinking of. Right? So that’s why the design, that’s what we do in design. Right. From there we kind of go to activate and activate is kind of this is you know when we think of activating people normally think of training. Okay. This is where we do the training right? Yes. But we do things a little beyond that right. Um this is where we equip the leaders the you know frontline managers the um the managers managers right? um with training and coaching and and um with the employees with nudges, right? To um encourage them to be prepared for the change and even after the change, hey, you know, here’s a little twominute, you know, snippet on this new update that the system is having instead of having a whole one another one hour training, right? Um embedding, you know, things into the workflow of the user. So they don’t have to go outside of, you know, where they’re working. They can get a message.
Ernest Davis (Guest): They could click a button. They could take them through a quick walk through of an update, right? Um, and this is where we use all of these tools to activate the mind, the skill set, and the behavior shifts, right? And we do that through reinforcement, right? Because I believe that awareness without activation is just theory. If I’m just training you and there’s no followup um outside of one survey, then you know where the change really sticks? And you know it’s as simple as hey um Mike I’m I’m just well I’m using a person’s name Mike in this example but hey Mike um you know uh what do you think about the new update? Like how’s it been? Like um I I see that you know um in your usage you’ve been really using it. Oh yeah, this has been great. Blah blah blah. Okay. Hey, Mike, how about you tell that to the team? Let’s go. We’re gonna make you a champion. Little things like that, right?
Ernest Davis (Guest): To encourage people to continue to use the change, right? And then finally, we anchor um or or we sustain the change, right? And um the reason that I I use anchor and sustain um interchangeably because I believe that it it’s important to embed the culture into the systems into the leadership behaviors into the feedback loops right and and what this does is that this makes the invisible visible right and what I mean by that this makes the the feelings the thoughts the the certainties or uncertainties known own so we could then improve, right? Um and begin a feedback loop cycle, right? So those are the four stages. Um I hope I was able to explain that uh clearly. Uh but yeah, like I I truly believe that these four stages um one they again doesn’t it don’t require you to be a neuroscientist or it doesn’t require you to be a behavioral scientist. It just requires you to want to see your company win, want to see the team win, um, and want to see greater profits.
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Some of the best models and frameworks are ones that just make sense, right? They’re not overly complex or complicated, but they make sense and they help guide the actions that you take as an organization. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And honestly, I think the grounding principle really stands out to me to first challenge things like how things are going to begin with a certain process or system and then questioning first if the timing is right, if it’s needed, like asking all those preliminary questions. Very powerful. Um I think this is an amazing approach and you know I was so excited to have you here especially with your framework like at mo our company one of our company values is harmony u play your part win as a team and have fun along the way to which shows you know as everyone plays their part and does their job collectively you can achieve a win together.
Ernest Davis (Guest): Exactly. Exactly. I think that um against too many times the leaders they will do things, excuse me, they they they will um do things that again kind of creates the misalignment.
Ernest Davis (Guest): For instance, if I get an email that a change has happened um and I didn’t know that a change was going to happen, it’s too late, right? Um because
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Don’t think about
Ernest Davis (Guest): as
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): this.
Ernest Davis (Guest): someone that that as we all I mean think about the day when you first use a smartphone right from the you know the older push button phones. I may be showing my age here. I don’t know if you can see the grades but um uh I don’t know I don’t know how old you guys are but for me I remember those days. Right.
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I No, I totally I I had a flip phone, too. I didn’t get a cell phone till college. So, I
Ernest Davis (Guest): Oh
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): hear
Ernest Davis (Guest): wow.
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): you.
Ernest Davis (Guest): So, exactly. Exactly. So, imagine, you know, switching from a flip phone to the first iPhone that had zero buttons and there was no guide and there was no and you didn’t know that this new phone was even coming, but yet you still got
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): X.
Ernest Davis (Guest): to make calls, right? You still got to um, you know, be able to reach out to your wife and your family and those of your friends and everyone else, right? So, you figure it out. You may not, you know, use it uh the way it’s intended to be used. Um you you may uh have a piece of paper that you write down all of your numbers on it because you don’t know how to save numbers, right? That’s the way employees are using systems. That’s the way employees are, you know, uh, dealing with the change because it’s not clearly mapped out, right? So I think this is why the grounding part is so important. And the reason why I called it ground is because you have to lay the foundation before you can do any change. And you have to understand the effects of the change that you’re even proposing and how it’s going to impact your teams.
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Love that. Yeah. Thank you, Ernest.
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And I you’re very good with the analogies and I love your earnestness
Ernest Davis (Guest): Thank you.
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): topic. But um yeah, I think it makes perfect sense. So cord once again change har har har har har har har har har har har har har har har har har har har har har har har har har har har har har har har har har har har har har har har har harmony organizational readiness and development and those four stages grounding design activate sustain these are are ways that you can take back to your organization and make sure that when you have changes happening which every organization does that you implement that in a way that will go smoothly and and create harmony throughout the organization. So, thank you so much Ernest for your time today. And to our listeners, we will include uh cord we will include the link at the bottom as well as nest’s LinkedIn and any other resources. Uh just check our highlight article. So, thanks Ernest.
Ernest Davis (Guest): My pleasure. And if I may, just one last thing.
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah, of course. Yeah, 100%.
Ernest Davis (Guest): Um the one thing that I love about you guys’ podcast is you asked a simple question and it’s consistent across every uh episode, right? How do we engineer culture, right, to drive profit, right?
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.
Ernest Davis (Guest): And the one thing that I would say with cord and culture is that the people’s culture is like the blood flow of an organization, right?
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Okay.
Ernest Davis (Guest): You can’t have a company um and without that critical piece, right? I think that um a lot of companies want to be clients first, right? Um and I think that in order to be a client first, you have to be an employee first because they are your most important asset, right? You can have the greatest product, you can have the greatest
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Jesus
Ernest Davis (Guest): service,
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Christ.
Ernest Davis (Guest): but if you don’t have the employees, you only can go but so far, right? Um, so I think that, you know, with CO and with people, you know, and podcast like you guys, um, that there is a change that’s coming that’s saying, “Hey guys, um, we need to ensure that we really look to invest into our people outside of cha uh, snacks and chips and things like that, right?
Ernest Davis (Guest): We need to make sure that we’re investing into um their not just their well-being uh but into the who they are as an employee in this company. Make sure we give them the best tools in the best processes and you know ensure that we can all win. So thank you guys so much for having me.
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah, as you said earlier, $2 trillion dollars goes into and and is wasted throughout these processes. And you know, we have turnover, we have people that are quite quitting and so many issues that way. So, this is important. Yep. 100%. Thank you, Ernest. And we’re excited to share your resources on the highlight article. And thanks everyone for tuning in. And make sure to leave a review. We’re glad that you’re part of the community here. So, thanks.
Ernest Davis (Guest): Thank you guys. You guys have a great day.
