From Insight to Action: Redefining the Pace of Change with AI-Enabled Change Management with Tim Morton

Narrator: You're listening to the Change Management Review podcast, where we bring you the best tactics, strategies and actionable insights for organization change. We talk with impactful organizational change practitioners and leaders. And now your host, Teresa Moulton.

Teresa Moulton: Welcome to the Change Management Review podcast. My name is Teresa Moulton. I'm the editor in chief, and I'm very excited to have our guest, Tim Morton here today from PROMPT AI. Let me share a little bit about Tim with you. Um, Tim Morton is the co founder and President of PROMPLE AI helping organizations accelerate transformation with AI enabled change intelligence. With decades of experience leading and advising global change initiatives, he focuses on turning workforce sentiment, readiness and engagement signals into practical actions that improve adoption and reduce risk. Tim works with leaders and change teams to modernize traditional approaches through insight to action. Agile change sprints enable faster, more targeted interventions during complex change. And, uh, I've just had a brief chat with Tim and heard about some of the projects that he's, um, been working on. And it's absolutely fascinating information. So we definitely want to have a really robust conversation on how he works with change, uh, in his, uh, client organizations and how, um, he's able to actually dive right in and compress some of the timeframes in the change management journey. So, Tim, welcome to our show.

Tim Morton: Thanks so much, Teresa. It's great to be here and excited to, uh, get the opportunity to speak with you today.

Teresa Moulton: Yes. And, uh, just a little bit on the side for everyone listening. It was quite an opportunity because, um, the first time that we tried to talk, my speakers didn't work, and then today my video didn't work. So the fact that we actually made this all come together was quite a feat. So we're really happy to have this, uh, conversation. So, Tim, you know, um, one of the topics that you really wanted to talk about was why traditional linear change management can't match today's pace of disruption and what replaces it. Could you tell us a little bit about that?

Speaker D: Yeah.

Tim Morton: Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Uh, I've been living and living and breathing it, and my entire career has been as a change leader. And, uh, in 2018, was challenged by a global CIO who said, uh, we're really happy with the work you're doing, but why aren't you using data to drive change and transformation? And, uh, from, you know, from my perspective, it was, it was a real good awakening and a real good time to pivot because we had been using tools and information and ways of working as change people for, you know, for decades. And for me, too, I got into this after being part of a transformation that was uh, a was a huge failure. And my thought was it doesn't have to be like this. And we see over, you know, over the decades that we know how to manage change. We know. And um, a great change leader is, uh, is a, is, is an incredible, I don't know, conductor. Uh, you're pulling data from different, you're pulling data from different sources. You're, you're looking to uh, you know, stay ahead of, stay ahead of everything that's happening on the project. And, and, but what, what I found was we just needed better tools and better, better insights and better data.

Teresa Moulton: Yes.

Tim Morton: And we know that a lot of change people are very resistant to new ways of working because a lot of leaders feel like change is fluffy, it's soft, it uh, it's reactive.

Speaker D: Uh, right.

Tim Morton: It's kumbaya.

Teresa Moulton: Right.

Tim Morton: What, what, what for me has been really important is how do we, how do we get data into the hands quickly of change people so they can really drive change with effective tools? And I'll give you, I'll give you an example. We're supporting, we're supporting a client going through a big digital transformation. 3,000, uh, 3,000 people. And in this transformation, they had spent weeks and weeks um, creating strategies and plans for how they were going to support their people. And with, with prompt AI, what we were able to do was we were able to provide segmented and targeted information on what people wanted, what they needed, what was important to them. And for this leader, what they saw was we had created all of these plans. And when we looked at them, a lot of the things that we planned, people didn't want, they didn't need. It wasn't going to hit the mark. And there was a lot of things that we provided to them that were previously hidden, that they, that they hadn't thought about.

Teresa Moulton: And those were captured by your AI.

Tim Morton: Things were captured by the AI really understanding the sentiment of what people want, what they need, what are they fearful of? Where would they like to see the support?

Teresa Moulton: Mhm.

Tim Morton: And part of what we're doing from a change management perspective is we know that there's limited resource.

Speaker D: Right.

Tim Morton: And it's really important that we can pinpoint exactly where decisions need to be made, where change, resource needs to be, uh, needs to be allocated. And if we can segment and target change to where it's required, it really helps us as change leaders to really focus and drive people forward.

Teresa Moulton: And I would think based on some of the research that I've been doing on how change management work is going to evolve even over the next 12 months. I would think that anything that shortens the cycle time of the change process and allows, um, much more acuity in applying change resource to the right problem at the right time would increase the ROI on change management investment dollars. And that's something that we've been trying as a profession to really, um, articulate for 30, 40 years.

Tim Morton: Indeed, indeed. And what we're seeing like, is, for me as a change person, we can do things that we couldn't do before, we couldn't even dream about before. And I'll give you an example with, uh, a change sprint, uh, at a client. So I'll give you, uh, this example, uh, uh, from a recent client. And what we were able to do was, and it's insight to action sprints.

Teresa Moulton: Uh-huh.

Tim Morton: Because of course, we're taking people on a journey and making sure as we go that they're ready for the launch. So it's no surprise. But in one of the initial change sprints, what we were able to do was on a Monday with the insight, we're able to meet with the project team and the leadership team. We talked to the leadership team on that Monday, uh, and we highlight these are the key areas across the organization that people need support. Here are the decisions that need to be made now. And uh, what is your commitment as a leadership team over the next eight weeks?

Teresa Moulton: Okay.

Tim Morton: And on the Wednesday, so two days later, we've got all the data. We're able to go to people, managers across the organization and be able to say, this is what leaders will be doing. Here's how you need to support your people over the next eight weeks. And it's targeted and segmented to their location, to their function, and to certain activities within the transformation. So they have a realistic plan based on data for the next eight weeks of how they're going to support. And then Friday the same week, we have the, the CEO of the organization leading people through a town hall saying, this is what you're going to see from us, your people manager. And here's how you get involved and engaged over this next period. And we're moving people along, we're creating a movement over those, you know, those two months. And then we do it. So we see how people have moved. We see, uh, where the friction is, where the resistance is, where people aren't adopting. And we can focus on tweaking the change plan as we go based on the data we've got. So it becomes incredibly valuable in moving people Forward.

Teresa Moulton: It sounds amazing. And one question I had is, um, when you met with the leadership team on that Monday, where did the data come from to start that journey? Was that where the data was input from the leadership team or did you have a data collection ahead of that?

Tim Morton: We, we had a data collection ahead of it. So we're ingesting, we're ingesting different uh, documents and different, you know, different materials from the client and from the project. But we're also listening at scale and okay. Ability to understand what people want and what they need and understand where the differences and the variances are and really pinpoint from a change perspective with incredible accuracy what's required in different places in different uh, segments. And it becomes incredibly powerful and timely because we can turn it over within hours and we can really leverage this data exactly based on what people need and want.

Teresa Moulton: And so, you know, you mentioned that some of the most resistant stakeholders are the change folks themselves. And I'm wondering what are some of the challenges uh, that you're experiencing putting in a tool like this to help them do enable their work?

Tim Morton: Yeah, I think the biggest, uh, the biggest thing is uh, understanding why change people are resisting.

Teresa Moulton: Yes.

Tim Morton: And, and a big part of it too is that uh, so often change, uh, change people feel like they have to justify their existence.

Teresa Moulton: Right. Been there, done that.

Tim Morton: Yeah. We're uh, are. We make others, we make others, uh, look great. We are uh, where we're working tirelessly to make sure that uh, uh, that change happens. And it's a non, it's a non event. People don't even know a lot of times that it's happening. So for change people, they've honed their craft. They know how to successfully drive change and transformation within an organization. And suddenly when you introduce a new platform or new tools or new ways of working, it takes change people out of their comfort zone because I know what I'm doing. And you know, the big thing for us is we're not here to replace change people.

Teresa Moulton: Right.

Tim Morton: Change people are incredibly important and AI is not going to replace that. Our whole job was how do we give better tools, better data, better insights to inform, inform quicker, more insightful decision making. And we just don't have the time anymore to spend 6, 8, 10 weeks upfront planning and creating strategies that nobody's necessarily going to read. We need to use the tools that we've got as change leaders and all of that experience we've got and, and then use the data and the insights in order to really drive incredible transformations and we're seeing it. Uh, I had one change leader who said, I will never work as hard as I did before because I don't have to. I actually can go to a, uh, project manager, uh, and a sponsor and say, I've got this data, I've got this, this insight and we need to follow, we need to follow the data and it becomes incredibly valuable. And then what we end up seeing is at uh, launches or go lives, we end up seeing that project managers are shaking their head because they're used to being these firefighters, right? The hero that's going to rush in to save the day. But when we create a movement with AI and data and change intelligence, it

Speaker D: becomes a non event.

Teresa Moulton: Well, and what you said right there, change intelligence, that's one of the major shifts is that um, in the research that I've been doing is that we're really moving from um, all this data that we collect on these spreadsheets to pulling it together real time and interpreting that white space around sentiment analysis and um, knowing uh, exactly like real time stakeholder analysis and really understanding where the organization is. What are the key, um, messages that need to be put out at the same time. So we are to your point, as you mentioned before, becoming orchestrators, we don't have to be doers, uh, as much. Right. We could be more orchestrators and working with a system that way.

Tim Morton: Yeah. Oh, it's, it's, it's so true. And uh, and the, and you know, the first few years that I was talking about prompt AI, people looked at me like I had two heads.

Teresa Moulton: I, I know, I know they were looking at me like that last year.

Tim Morton: Yes. And now, now a lot of the resistance we get is, well, why wouldn't I just use copilot or chat GPT

Teresa Moulton: or, or what do they say to that?

Speaker D: Name it.

Tim Morton: You name it. And I think the biggest part of that is, um, we've been training our models since 2018. We've been in the market for six years. It's all about change and transformation. You're only going to get so much from a ChatGPT or a Gemini because um, of you're inputting data, you're of course going to get something back. You've got to be careful where um, um, you gotta make sure the data is protected. That's so important. But also right. If it hasn't been trained from a change and transformation perspective, it's going to be pretty generic. And what you're going to see is very limited as opposed to how do you know how Do I quickly and with great information really drive that conversation? And our focus has been how do we make change more strategic with better data? And that's been, it's been a game changer because change people have fought to be at the table, but now with better data and better insights, we have to be. And leaders are saying, where's Theresa? We're missing a huge component. Right. So that's been essential.

Teresa Moulton: And you know, it's amazing because it um, really, as you said. I love what you said. You know, it provides change professionals with a tool that enables them to have a real strong role and value proposition at the table in this change adoption in this AI adoption world. And that's where it's all going right now. Um, so that's, I mean that's huge.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Tim Morton: And even, even some real examples we're seeing is once we come back and say, here's what the data is telling and to a leader, here are the activities that you need to drive. Yeah, it's incredible what we're seeing. Suddenly we're seeing employees who are like, I didn't even know this leader, uh, what this leader looked like. I'd never heard from them before other than emails. And suddenly, suddenly they're understanding where I need support. Um, and it really changes, it really changes that conversation. And even the relationship between the change person and the implementation team and the project team, suddenly we're starting to see leaders making sure that the best people are involved and engaged to be either change champions or to uh, be at the workshop. So we, what we're seeing too is because of change intelligence, we're seeing less rework that has to happen because people are involved and engaged and uh, through what's coming through with prompt AI, we're seeing that those gaps are being closed because right away if something hasn't been discussed or somebody hasn't, uh, seen what's, you know, seen their area covered, suddenly it's.

Teresa Moulton: Yeah.

Tim Morton: And the big thing that's amazing, the big thing too from the data is it's not in a, it's not in a place of uh, of um, blaming, uh, or shaming or anything like that. What's coming is this is new data. You didn't have it, we didn't see it before was previously what do we do about it now? What do we do to make sure that we're closing those gaps, that we're involving and engaging people and getting them uh, to adopt and addressing that resistance head on so it becomes more um, uh, predictive as opposed to reactive.

Teresa Moulton: Yes. Yes. So what do you think is next for change professionals?

Tim Morton: Well, for me, I really hope there's, uh, an openness and embracing to different tools, to using leveraging data and realizing it doesn't take away from who I am and the skills I have, it actually enhances it. Because as a great change leader, you know how to have conversations that are effective and difficult with leaders.

Teresa Moulton: Yeah.

Tim Morton: You know, you've got that skill. We just need to give you better data and better insight to really help so that you're going into these conversations. Not with, based on my X years of experience, the following. You're going in and saying, here's what the data is telling me, based on my experience, here's how we address it and here's how we move forward. So really, um, as change people, if we can get in and leverage data and insights and information, we're going to reduce those numbers of program failures. And uh, you know, it doesn't have. It's that on time, on budget, on scope. But why didn't they want to work with us again? Well, because your people weren't involved and engaged and uh, so, so really it's that change to a different way of working and a different way of leading change.

Teresa Moulton: Right. So we're going to disrupt the 70% failure number. Finally.

Tim Morton: Finally. Finally.

Teresa Moulton: That's awesome. That's awesome, Tim. And what do you anticipate some of the, um, timing to be in terms of this role shift for change? Uh, professionals,

Tim Morton: we're seeing it, but as we talked about, there's still so much resistance. Uh, and I think as we start to share more case studies, as we start to share more stories about how successful something was, how, um, we could limit the amount of linear change and really have targeted, you know, targeted, uh, delivery that's going to really create that groundswell. And I think it's really important if we can create that groundswell. And as it happens, we don't want people left behind because.

Teresa Moulton: Right.

Tim Morton: There's other ways to do things that don't take away. We're still using our amazing skill as change people, but, uh, it just becomes this is how we do change now. This is how we lead change.

Teresa Moulton: Yes. And I'm afraid that, um, people will be left behind if they don't look up. Now, I was worried about it in September, but now I'm really starting to see, you know, the, the research move in that direction and people, it's not just how, how we shift what we do, um, but it's how we think and what we know. I Mean, there's a, there's a major paradigm shift.

Tim Morton: Yeah. And as change people, we get leaders to be courageous and we get leaders to get out of their comfort zones.

Teresa Moulton: Right.

Tim Morton: And it's hard for us, but we've gotta, we've got to jump out of that too. We've got to be able to embrace, hey, is there a different, is there a different way of working? Are there, are there new tools that I can embrace?

Speaker D: And.

Teresa Moulton: Right.

Tim Morton: It's just, it's, it's so essential.

Teresa Moulton: And with what you're saying, you know, um, I've always experienced that. You know, uh, one of the motivating factors for change professionals is how do you manage or engage with sponsors? And with a tool or an approach like this, you can really change your executive narrative, your approach to the executive narrative, and help them be much more accurate, help them be, um, better at setting expectations that the team can follow through on. Because it's when you, when they overpromise and under deliver. Yeah, because they don't. They, they're doing what they think they need to do to lead change. But, you know, sometimes it's a 50, 50 shot that the project's going to be able to actually deliver on what they say.

Speaker D: You're, you're.

Teresa Moulton: So this is bringing the gaps closer. Um, yeah, it's so true.

Tim Morton: And the relationship is completely different because, uh, I bet you're actually come, you're actually coming, coming to them. You've got, you've got fresh insights and you're, you're supporting them on the decisions that need to be made effectively and how to lead, but you're also giving them, you're also, you're giving them information on the reason behind and where, where it's coming from and then actually how to, how to deal with it, how to effectively deal with it in a time. And you're giving them insights into things that aren't yet visible.

Teresa Moulton: So that's amazing.

Tim Morton: Some of the resistance that's going to show up in two or three months, we now understand in advance, hey, this is brewing. You need to get ahead of it right now. So you become that trusted, that really trusted agent that's saying, here's what the data's telling us, here's where you need, here's where you need to dig in. Here are the specific areas. And we have, we've got, uh, um, CEOs who are, who are a project sponsor and they're leveraging the tool with each one of their direct reports.

Teresa Moulton: Interesting.

Tim Morton: And what they're doing with their direct Reports is they're saying that based on the data, here are the areas that you should be focusing on and they're following up with them to see what they're doing to address those things to keep people engaged and move adoption forward.

Teresa Moulton: And that's because they now have something to actually measure by.

Tim Morton: Indeed. Yeah. They've got the tools and they've got the insights and it's segmented. It's not amazing, it's understanding in a specific location. Here's what's happening or for your specific function, here's what's happening, here's what's not happening. Here's where you lean in. So too as leaders they're more informed and they're actively driving their people forward as well. So the change, what we're doing is we're, we always felt like uh, with as change leaders everything was on us, on our shoulders.

Teresa Moulton: Right.

Tim Morton: We are creating, we're creating movements because we've got specific activities and specific insights that others now need to drive and if they don't, it's going to show up in the next change sprint that we've got more of a problem here. So we dedicate more resource here. We're going to actually see what's moving real time and predict it um, becomes incredible and predicted. Yeah. And that's, that's how this is, this is, this is change and it's, it's a game changer for change. People like us.

Teresa Moulton: It really is. It changes our role into um, that of a trusted advisor.

Tim Morton: It really does. It really does. And that's why we've said we're taking change and we're making it more strategic. Not that we weren't strategic before, but we've got the insights now that you know, uh, leaders have to listen to because if they don't, it's at their peril. But they also know um, we're coming from a place of knowledge. We're not wasting their time. We're not. We think we should do this. No, this has to be done for the following reasons.

Teresa Moulton: Right. It's no longer um, do change management because every project needs change management in order to be considered due diligence.

Speaker D: Right.

Teresa Moulton: It's do change management because you're going to get value that you can measure and put your finger on and you actually can leverage the help that it provides you. Uh, on a day to day business, uh, day to day, um, basis.

Tim Morton: Yeah, that's amazing. What we're seeing too is it's changing culture. So for example, in a digital transformation where they Always did change and project management a certain way. And leaders had a following role suddenly because of the data and what people need and want.

Teresa Moulton: So Tim, just continuing on our conversation about leadership in AI and having all this data, uh, now available to the change professional, being able to really go and give direction to leadership on where to troubleshoot, um, what to say. It brings up the concept of culture. And I'm just wondering what are you seeing in terms of changes in culture, um, with the impact of AI?

Speaker D: Yeah, uh, it's really, really amazing what we're seeing. And I'll give you an example. We were supporting, uh, technology transformation and this organization had been leveraging traditional change. And when we introduced AI enabled change, it was incredible what we saw. There was a few key things. One, we saw leaders who suddenly, with the data in front of them, started to actively get engaged and involved. They saw, um, employees who had never met some of the leaders before, didn't know who they were, knew that from an org chart they existed. But suddenly they're hearing from these folks.

Teresa Moulton: Wow.

Speaker D: We saw project managers who had really focused on the technology suddenly leveraging the data to understand what employees wanted and needed and why they were putting up certain resistance. And it really, from a culture perspective, it changed how they look at change and transformation. It changed how they're operating as a group. Completely, completely flipped it that um, instead of we have a project, it's going to operate like this. Leaders are going to do the following project managers. Suddenly everybody was shifting how they operated and it all became focused on the process, the ways of working and the employee experience.

Tim Morton: Wow.

Speaker D: And it was something that, for that organization, they didn't expect. We always know that when there's a big technology transformation, you're going to impact culture and ways of working and all of that. But this completely transformed their organizational culture and how they approached even working together.

Tim Morton: Yeah.

Teresa Moulton: So, so some of these deep, um, these deep beliefs around resistance must have shifted.

Speaker D: Yeah. You know, did, did they ever. As opposed to that fear of leaders saying, oh, people are just, people are just complaining, here they go again, or this is just going to reflect poorly on me. No, uh, it was key themes, key insights that they could actually use. And it was moving, the data was moving, um, leaders from no longer guessing what people need. They have the data that helps them to act early and precisely. And that's really, ah, really amazing from a leadership perspective and from a change sponsorship perspective, it changed their behavior, it changed people manager behavior and it really increased trust with employees because suddenly employees felt heard and engaged they felt involved and it really, it creates a movement. So instead of just, instead of just, okay, we're going, we're going, uh, through this linear process. It really created a cycle. So they now work differently together. And there was no going back. There was no going back because they had been living and breathing this movement where everybody was involved and engaged. And it's something even from my perspective, working in the field forever, that I didn't realize was actually going to be as impactful as it was.

Teresa Moulton: Yes. And so what's going through my head right now is, um, how employees felt, listened to. But were they concerned about Big Brother kind of going through their information to get the sentiments?

Speaker D: Yeah, um, there is a level of, there's a level of fear and anxiety that we normally see. And it depends on the culture. It can be, okay, it can be bigger in, it can be bigger in certain organizations, but it's something for us to overcome and it's something that we take really seriously from the start. So we explain and we reinforce that no personable, identifiable information, no PII will be used. We explain how their, uh, data will be leveraged. And it really is about the key themes and key insights. And as opposed to this person has an ax to grind or anything like that, it really is focused on what are the key themes, the key areas of resistance, the key things that need to be actioned and doesn't get into those details that would ever identify anybody. And that's really, really important because what we see over time as we go through these insight to action change sprints is the level of trust really increases. And I'll give you one example. We had one organization and there was a great deal of fear and apprehension upfront. And we really did have to go at it from various fronts and put some things in place. And really we went even to the point of having, um, other clients, previous clients, share videos and share insight about how this worked. But with one, it had been an organization that was very hierarchical and, uh, there was a real fear both from leadership, but also from employees. And even one employee who had said, I've been here 20 plus years and they've never asked for my honest opinion. And I know what happens to, I know what happens to people when they do share their, their honest opinion. And we were able over time to start, to start to break down those barriers.

Teresa Moulton: Right.

Speaker D: But it takes time to build that, build that trust.

Teresa Moulton: And. Yeah, I'm sorry. So, uh, my mind's just going so fast with what you're saying. I'm getting so excited. So when we first started talking about time compression, you were talking about the initial. You were talking about the process of actually, um, doing the work in the sprint, the time compression, and then this front end piece on how to get the trust in place between the people and the data. How long was that, or does it average?

Speaker D: Uh, it does average, I would say. I would say we've really got to work on it for, um, two to three weeks minimum, where we're coming at it from different. And then we really do a lot of time. No, but we really do have to reinforce it. And part of that too, is when we're actually understanding workforce sentiment. We can see if there's still resistance out there to people holding back and then also work to address that as part of the next sprint. That becomes an important element as well, where we know enough to see the signs and see what's really happening. Because everything we've been doing, uh, from a natural language processing and machine learning has been focused on change and transformation over the last seven years. So there's a, there's an incredible understanding of, of what's being said, what's not being said, where, where we need to help leaders to use those insights and turn them into action.

Teresa Moulton: That's, that's amazing. And, um, the fact you've been doing it for seven years, given that ChatGPT just came out, really came out in 2023 to, to public, um, is, is. Is really cool.

Speaker D: Yeah, it's so true. And one of the things, One of the things that, uh, I dealt with before ChatGPT was nobody had any clue what I was talking about from until 2020.

Teresa Moulton: Thought leadership, Tim. Thought leadership.

Speaker D: And then suddenly they're like, oh, yeah, oh, like, uh, chatgpt. And, and the, the, uh, the Prompt AI team was like, no, no, no. But it's a reference point for people to really understand because they understand what they can get out of ChatGPT, even if it's not the same focus from a change and transformation lens.

Teresa Moulton: That's wild.

Speaker D: Yeah. But, yeah, uh, I've had a few people come and said, oh, now I know what you were talking about.

Teresa Moulton: Right.

Speaker D: Meanwhile, I guess they were just nodding. Uh, uh. But for us, it was so important that. Just providing those better tools and better insights for change leaders.

Teresa Moulton: Yep. So when you talk about Prompt AI, how would you describe your company and its service?

Speaker D: Wow. Well, I would, uh, shoot. Yeah. There's a couple things that come. There's a couple of things that come to mind. One is an AI enabler, um, or Enterprise AI enabler that's focused on change and transformation. That's one. We've got change people who are using it that say, it's my change management coach.

Teresa Moulton: Okay.

Speaker D: So, uh, that's one of, uh, uh, the key things. Also, uh, we've got somebody who's been using prompt AI for the last few years and she, as a practitioner has just said, I will not go on our project without prompt AI by my side. And part of why she says that is I never want to work that hard again. I never want to have to prove and say, uh, I believe this. It's really about, this is what the data is telling us and moving from I believe to this is what's really happening. And change people have great intuition and great knowledge, but this even provides those things that are, you know, previously hidden or it reinforces and provides you the data to be able to go and say, this is what's really happening. And also that ability to target and segment. And for me, what's really, what's really important is we used to spend so much upfront time working on plans and strategies and having those interviews and all of that and the assessments and the templates. And the big thing now with the change sprints is we can get, we can get so much of the plans and um, the documentation already there based on the sentiment of the workforce. And then during, after each one of the sprints, we actually have updated plans that help to guide us over the, over the, you know, the next two or three months, however long the sprint is, so that the plans, the plans are changing as we move from different phase of the project. And that becomes very, very impactful too. Instead of one plan over the next 12, uh, to 15 months, it helps us to create those initial plans and then up the plans that are segmented and targeted as we move people along, um, with better adoption and better engagement and readiness. So it's actually segmenting and targeting the plans based on where we are and what updates are happening. From an employee and workforce sentiment perspective.

Teresa Moulton: That's cool. So as AI is impacting change management in terms of the way change is becoming continuous, this is kind of the next step before it's a, uh, continuous flow that happens in the organization.

Speaker D: Yeah, yeah.

Teresa Moulton: So if you are, um, pardon my brainstorming in the middle of the conversation, um, I find it intriguing, um, in terms of pivoting the plan, what are some examples of pivots that you've made in a plan?

Speaker D: Yeah, well, I'll give you, I'll, I'll, I'LL give you, uh, I'll give you, give you one. We were working with, uh, we were working with an executive sponsor and a change and a change lead. And they had, they had spent so much time building out a strategy and a plan for how they were going to support their people.

Teresa Moulton: Yeah.

Speaker D: And once, once Prompt AI was done that initial insights to Action Sprint, what we were able to see right away was a lot of what they had planned to put in place wasn't what people wanted, what they needed.

Teresa Moulton: Okay.

Speaker D: And there was a lot of things that were hidden that they didn't have on their radar. So in that case we were really, it was, it was really uh, a gutting of a lot of the work that they had done.

Teresa Moulton: They, the change team.

Speaker D: They, the change team along with, along with the executive sponsor. Because there was a lot of that that wasn't going to hit the mark. And the big thing as well is when we're building change plans, I know we always look at impact assessment and different stakeholder groups. But what we're able to do with the output from Prompt AI is we can actually understand where the risk and the resistance are in different segmented areas, in different functions for different roles. So we're targeting the change where the change is needed and we're able to pinpoint with that accuracy where to dedicate resource.

Teresa Moulton: Okay.

Speaker D: And it's not necessarily, do you think about, you know, big SAP implementation where we're going to put somebody in this uh, process to pay area and we're going to have somebody, have somebody at this specific plant. We're actually able to dedicate change resource to where it's needed and where it's focused.

Teresa Moulton: Yes.

Speaker D: And it's a different deployment of resource. Uh, I will give you one specific example. We're working with an organization and there was a real anomaly at their plant in Kansas City.

Teresa Moulton: M.

Speaker D: They couldn't figure out what had happened and why it was like this. Through Prompt AI, what we were able to see and then it actually came back, talking with one of the leaders is that previously there had been uh, a general manager for that location who was a bully and harassing, uh, and had been removed. But there was things that were lingering that were impacting resistance and trust and the new leadership because there had been a leader in between. Right. Wasn't aware and didn't understand how to address and how to move that. So we were able to put that information into the hands of both that leader and the change person and supporting people managers to help their people through. And it was Incredible. One other big takeaway was we were working and this was an end to end ERP transformation. And one of the documents that we ingested along with understanding the sentiment was from the design workshops, the current state and future state design workshops. And because of understanding the sentiment, we were able to identify that a whole sub process was missed. And we were able to identify it early. Get back to the project team and what they had said is if we hadn't identified it at that point, it would have been found in testing and uh, it would have delayed the go live four to six weeks. So because, uh, because we actually understand what people want, what they need, we're getting things from people, we were actually able to see, identify and work with a project team to mitigate that risk, which we would never have seen as traditional change.

Teresa Moulton: Yeah.

Speaker D: And it was just an incredible insight that, um, uh, it was a big celebration for the team. It wasn't, it wasn't pointing fingers that something was missed. It was really, look at this, we can go back and we're solving what would have been a big problem early. So it's again, taking that change from being very, um, reactive to very proactive. And even from a resistance perspective, what we're seeing is that resistance that wouldn't show up till closer to go live. We're actually starting to see it early. We see what people are concerned, we can start to address it. And it doesn't become that issue that causes people to, um, either stress out, uh, actively or passively resist.

Teresa Moulton: Right. Because they're not sitting there, you know, kind of percolating for six months waiting for it to happen.

Speaker D: And leaders, uh, I had no idea. We just started to see different behavior. We started to see work for work for rule, like work. I don't think I said that right.

Teresa Moulton: It gives you, it gives you like. Well, it gives me like, faith back into like, human nature. Like if you give people the information they need, when they need it, um, and it's logical and they understand, then they'll move with you.

Speaker D: It's so true. It's so true. And really we're just giving the best change leaders. Uh, we're just giving them more information that they can still act with their good judgment, their intuition, their courage, empathy, and leveraging their experience. And I think that's the biggest, that's the big part of it too is it's all about giving, you know, giving, um, better tools or more information to change people, to really allow them to shine.

Teresa Moulton: Yes. I love it. I love it. So we're about out of time. Um, and I wanted to, uh, see if there was one thought or a kind of bunch of thoughts that you wanted to kind of consolidate and leave the listeners with. Um, regarding what. What we've talked about today on the podcast.

Speaker D: Yeah, I think the biggest. I think the biggest takeaway is that we're moving change from being reactive and generic to predictive and strategic.

Teresa Moulton: Oh, I love that. From reactive and.

Speaker D: From reactive and generic and generic, predictive and strategic, because.

Teresa Moulton: Oh, I love that.

Speaker D: We know that. Great change. People are strategic, but quite often they're not seen as strategic. And they are. And this makes sure they have that seat at the table which they already deserve. And they don't have to fight as hard to get there because they've got information and data that is going to change and does change everything within the transformation.

Teresa Moulton: Yeah, it's a big credibility booster.

Speaker D: It's a huge credibility booster. Yeah, it's taking that from, I believe, to. This is it. This is actually what's happening.

Teresa Moulton: Oh, wow, that's awesome. So how do people get ahold of you, tim?

Speaker D: Well, um, LinkedIn. Of LinkedIn. Uh, and, uh, and also my email is timrompta. Ah.

Teresa Moulton: AI and prompta is P O P R O M M P T A. Yeah. AI Prompta. Uh, okay.

Speaker D: And our web. Our website. We actually had our website before as Prompta. AI. Oh. But some of our clients were blocking it because they were blocking. They were blocking every site that wasn't a.com.AI so we have actually. We've actually had to move our website to prompt AI.com and of course, uh, they can also just reach out. Give me a call. My. My phone number is, uh, uh, 416-575-7737. Happy to jump on a call or, uh, respond to an email to anybody, anytime.

Teresa Moulton: Oh, that's fantastic. All right, well, thank you for being on the show, Tim. I really enjoyed this conversation and, um, I think people are going to get a lot of information and, um, stories to tell from it.

Speaker D: Awesome. Thank you for having me. It's been such a pleasure.

Narrator: We hope you enjoyed this episode of the Change Management Review podcast. To get alerts for new episodes, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn, subscribe to our weekly newsletter, or subscribe to follow on Apple, Spotify, and wherever you find great podcasts.