Mastering Change Management: Strategies for Success with Allie Hartman

Speaker A: This is sas therapy. Hello everyone and welcome to Another edition of SaaS Therapy, the show where we help you save your most important business relationships, your customers. I'm Todd Kirk, your host. I'm joined by my co host Casey Trujillo and he just pointed out that I am very much in the burnt orange today. I'm sorry about that. Uh, everyone, if you're watching this, uh, but you know, it, it's a, it's getting closer to football season and so I feel like I'm in very good football colors. So that's.

Speaker B: Okay. Okay. I was just gonna say you dressed yourself there. There was no partner assist on the. That's true too.

Speaker A: I would not say this is, I would not say this is a, ah, spouse approved outfit.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. This, this is Todd Kirk living out of the house of his parents, why his house is being remodeled and the chaos of some summer life. I think that's, that's what we're wearing today.

Speaker A: Yes, that is, that is accurate. That is accurate. But Kasey, we're joined today by an a phenomenal guest I'm excited to have on today. Ali Hartman. Welcome to SAS Therapy.

Speaker C: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. And I say the orange works for my, one of my uh, company's colors so that's perfect.

Speaker A: Actually I was gonna, I. Instead of me maybe since you teed uh, that up, instead of me introducing yourself maybe why don't you go ahead and tell our audience a little bit about yourself and your background.

Speaker C: Sure. So my, uh, day job is as the AI Transformation Project Manager and Change Lead at Agile1. We are a company that is in the talent, intelligence and workforce space. So we do everything from recruiting and staffing, um, consulting, technology, everything that has to do with the workforce basically and work solutions. And so I help run all of the AI projects and work there both internally and with some external clients. That's my day job. I also just started my company, uh, the Change Curiosity Lab where I am bridging the gap between technology and humans, uh, leaning in on the human side because my background is actually in change management. I also sit on the board of directors, uh, for the association of Change Management Professionals globally. And I have some change management credentials. I am a certified change management professional, a master change management professional. And so that's really my background. And then of course in the last few years AI has come into that space quite a bit too. So I really find myself at the intersection of, of AI data and change on the human side.

Speaker B: Has there been any accidents at that intersection?

Speaker A: Never Probably.

Speaker C: Probably. It's AI.

Speaker B: Probably. Well, Ali, I'm gonna, I'm gonna start out with probably a little bit different than ever been interviewed in something like this. I'm going to take a different approach at the beginning and then we're going to get into all the fun stuff and we're going to geek out, nerd out on all those wonderful things that you're talking about. Do you find that with this background in change management, are you able to help people personally change in their life outside of technology?

Speaker C: Now I'd say, uh, that makes sense.

Speaker B: What I'm asking is we talk about change management and the whole purpose of change management and we hear it in a business talk, right? Is how do I get a user to change their behavior in regards to technology? Have you found that those same principles apply in my personal life? If I'm not motivated to be healthy and I want to start to get healthy, the change management principles apply to that. And, and do you feel that being someone that's in change, that that helps you be curious in all aspects of change or you just beat yourself up because you're like, I should know better, I should be able to change in any, uh, aspect of my life. I'm curious. I want to take it from a personal perspective as we begin. Always start with business and tech talk and things like that. Let's get, let's talk about us here for a second. Let's. What's in it for us? Ally, what do you think?

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, for sure. My husband often will be like, are you change managing us right now? What are you doing? Trying to, you know, I do a lot of coaching with my children. I'm doing little kind of micro habits and prompting along the way. So absolutely it plays into my personal life. I'm very self aware, empathetic and I think those are a lot of kind of those underlying changes skills where you're just understanding what that human is going through. And it, it definitely makes me a better parent, spouse, friend, daughter, all of those sorts of things because you have that human lens on everything you do. And so, you know, I can also quickly call out, hey, it would be really cool if they had a change manager on this project or this technology or this new app change or you know, whatever. I was just talking to my husband about some tool that his company is rolling out. I was like, sounds like there's no change in there. And so it, it definitely intersects with every part of my life and I think that plays to other people too because there's that underlying um, you know, motivational factor that you want to change, you have to have that motivation. Um, you also have to have the ability to change. So if you want to get healthy, you need access to healthy food, you need to be able to at least, you know, have the physical capabilities to maybe move your body to get healthier. So you need that ability in some way. If it's something in a technology space. You need the training and the uh, hands on experience. And then you also just need those little kinds of pieces of reinforcement to help you sustain whatever that change is. So if it is staying healthy, you need the little rewards when you, um, you know, maybe it's look on the scale, maybe it's your, you're stronger and so you can, you lift your kids more easily or you're lifting stuff more easily, whatever that kind of success factor looks like for you. And so you need those, those little p. To kind of nudge you along the way. And you need that accountability by others to say, hey, you know, maybe there's a different choice you could make here. And so I think those are underlying change mindsets and behaviors. Um, and then I think as change practitioners, we often are the ones who are building trust with our, you know, stakeholders or sponsors, our end users, in the same way that you're trying to do that with your family and friends, to really understand and listen to them and hear what they're going through and, and to help them through that transitional phase of, from what, uh, whatever is old through to whatever is new, whatever that change looks like. And that can be a technology change, that be a cultural change, that could be a change in, you know, school, that could be a change in a job, that could be moving, that could be, you know, changing your phone, like any sort of thing. You know, we're going through change all the time, whether it's big or small. And so to have those kind of underlying truths as a change person, I find that I'm, I'm always applying those kind of strategies throughout my day and to the point where my family is like, stop change managing me. Although I'm trying to move away from the term really change management to change empowerment is because we're all doing those things all the, all the time. And you're able to become healthy because you want to. You don't need a person there, you know, kind of prodding along. We're really here to help empower everyone else around us to help make those changes in their lives and whatever that change is. And so I like to, to think of it More as a uh, empowerment and handing it back to the individual person to want to change, to try to change. Then a change manager that comes in with that title that is kind of like the, oh, like a scary person to come in to change up, break up my whole life here. So, so yeah, I think uh, for sure that's a part of my day to day in working out of work.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think uh, it. You, you, you made me think of something that I, I don't know that I've really considered fully in the past. I think probably this is implicit in the way we mostly think about change. But like when you, when you think about uh, any, any change effort that you're trying to have, that you're trying to support. Right. So I'm trying to help someone else change their behavior. There's a lot of principles that are really important. You mentioned a few already. Right. If I'm trying to coach or support or mentor or guide somebody to change their behavior in their life, there's a lot of principles associated there. But is there benefit in understanding those principles yourself if you are the person going through the change? Meaning, uh, like I think oftentimes you can get someone to change their behavior and, and they don't understand at all the science behind what actually caused them to change that behavior. But is there benefit in understanding that behavior? Because that's something that like for yourself individually, right. Like you understand these principles and apparently your husband does too because he feels like he's being change managed a lot. But in this concept, is there benefit in the person going through the change or being asked to go through the change to also understand those principles or is it like totally fine for them not to?

Speaker C: Yeah, I think that's part of that kind of change management to change empowerment piece that I was just talking about. Because you're really handing over the reins to the people going through it. Because it's going to look different for every single person now for some kind of. Maybe it's technology change, maybe it's whatever, you just need them to do that new task in a new way. And so it maybe doesn't matter so much that it's like, hey, instead of clicking that button, you click this button or it routes this way instead of this way. And if, if it's more of a bigger behavioral change that you're looking to, to do with the person, you do want them to understand that you're also a human trying to help them along the way. And so by understanding kind of those change principles, you're, you're maybe more open to hearing and having a discussion about the change versus just saying, ah, uh, here's a new person that's trying to make me do something. But if you're, if you're really understanding, like, hey, I'm trying to help you move to the future and the new way of doing things that would be beneficial to you in the long run because it's going to save you time, it's going to save you energy, you know, less errors, less, um, back and forth handoffs, all of those sorts of things. If you understand, hey, this person is actually here to help me, to help me shuffle through this journey that we're on, then it'll be a better relationship between you and the end user because they understand your purpose and goals versus just, hey, here's a new person that's trying to come in and change my life. And so I think it is helpful for most changes, especially the bigger transformation type changes, for everyone to really understand what those kind of behavioral science based things are that are going on because it also will apply, like we said, outside of work. So if I'm, you know, if it's on the weekend, you're not going to ping your change manager and say like, hey, help me do this thing. I don't know how to do it. You're going to come up with new reasons, you're going to go to your family, you're going to ask A.I. uh, you're going to do all these other things and if you have those kind of base level understandings of what am I trying to actually accomplish with this new thing, it'll be easier of a transition to get there because you're already on board the train that's moving.

Speaker B: TK I love that question by the way. Like I think, I think we sometimes hide in the shadows and don't really explain to people, I'm here to make your life better. That's why I'm buying this product or implementing this solution. Is it's all designed to help you? Yes, there's a business problem that I'm gonna make more money or reduce risk or reduce costs, whatever that might be. But the end user change is what we're really gunning for and I just think we hide behind it and don't tell people really what we're trying to do. So I love that question, by the way. Ali. So I dabble and a little change pro size is what I followed. And they have that ad car model right. Of uh, hey, I first got to make users aware of why they would want to change and hopefully that creates a desire and then if I have a desire then I want to know. So that's the knowledge part and then the ability and then the reinforcement. From a change management standpoint, what's, what's the hardest component of change? Is it just getting users attention because we're so freaking busy all the time? Is it helping them create a desire? Is it now knowledge transfer because there's so much knowledge coming out everywhere? Is it testing someone's ability? Is it reinforcing? What Again that's just a model. I know there's a bunch of models out there with change, but in that model, in that process, if, if we were to give some advice to our listeners, what aspect of the change would would you really caution people? You got to spend some time here. Which one would it be in?

Speaker C: Yeah, that's a really good question because just like you mentioned, there's, there's stops and blockers along the way that you could identify. And you know the thing with change and enterprise change is that it really comes down to the individual. And so any individual could be stuck at any one of those places. Maybe they weren't aware of what was happening because no one sent the email or they weren't included in the all hands desire I think is probably where I would vote because you can't necessarily help that so much from an external perspective. Um, you can give them the benefits, you can give them the what's in it for me. You can give them all the things they're going to get out of this new thing. But it is ultimately the individual person's motivation to want to change and to not get stuck on just a. I have to do this because my, you know, I'll get fired if I don't or I won't get promoted if I don't. More of like a compliance sort of situation. You want people to take the jump with you. And so I think with awareness to your point, you have to be clever with um, how you're communicating because there's just so much skipping over to knowledge. Knowledge is at our fingertips everywhere. Again, you have to curate and rein it in a little bit. Probably for people ability you need that hands on learning aspect, not just sit through a webinar, not just hear the training. But you really need that hands on experience. And then of course you need to you know, reinforce and keep that momentum going along the way because as soon as you kind of let it slide, people are going to go back to the old way because it's comfortable and it's familiar. So I do think probably desire and that, huh, motivational factor is probably the hardest because it's so intrinsic almost because it's, you know, you can give them all the tools to help them move them along, but ultimately it's going to fall to that individual to want to do the change and to, to get on board. So I'd probably say that's the hardest. Although, like I said, you've got kind of potential blockers along the way. At any point of that, you may have to be clever, especially because there's just so much change all the time. Um, and so you're constantly sitting in some different spot. Here I'm in awareness. Here I'm stuck in desire. Here I'm over here in reinforcement. You know, there's so many pieces moving. And so I think desire is also the one that maybe gets stuck with all of that change where you're like just fatigued and you're just like, I can't learn anything. I am just so overwhelmed. And so I don't want to do this other one more change to the task. So I would kind of stick with probably the desire motivation side.

Speaker B: I was, I was hoping you're going to say that because give us some tips on how to do that because that one seems the hardest. So is there any stories that you could share and how you've seen people do that? Because again, the desire is, like you said, it's from Todd, having that desire to change. So any, any best practices stories you could share with the audience to say, hey, if you feel like you're getting stuck and helping people have a desire to change, here's, here's some ideas or here's a story that you might want to reference.

Speaker C: Sure. So I'd say you have to, you know, position the change as a, uh, what's in it for me? Why, why do you want me to change? Why do you want me to do this? Not just it's a company wide thing, we have to do it because I said so. But you have to really understand each individual. Maybe it's a line of business, maybe it's different parts of the organization, maybe it's different clients. Whatever that story is for each individual group is going to be different because what makes me want to use this new system is different than what someone in finance might want to use it for or what someone in HR is going to want to use it for. So you need to really like hone in on what is that story. Um, and that message for that in particular. Group. So now it's, it's attaching more to the individual person's needs versus just some blanket, hey, here's this new thing we're rolling out to everyone. I would consider, you know, what are the true benefits for that group? Again they're going to be different. So maybe it's time savings, maybe it's productivity boosts, maybe it's better ideas, better quality, maybe it's um, fewer handoffs, maybe there's some automations, all of those sorts of things you can curate into a story about why this is beneficial. Beyond just the company's bottom line. And especially when we think about AI, a lot of the conversation is hey, we're just going to automate this part of the role or the task or the job or the tool. And when you start to talk about just productivity or efficiencies, people's alarm bells start to go off in the back of their head. To say that means job loss, that means my job is changing drastically, that's going to affect my, my life. And so as much as you can kind of hit that head on to one, acknowledge the, the potential fear or the loss or the grief of whatever that role looks like because of this new technology, of this new change, I think you're really starting to hit on people's um, nerve of just kind of saying, hey, you know, we're adding this new tool. It's going to add, you know, add efficiency, it's going to help you do your job, foster people, hear, okay, well now I have to do more with less or they're going to cut jobs. And so then there's this fear part and then you get uh, you lose that desire to want to change. And you may even get some people that go the other way too far where maybe they sabotage whatever the new changes because they know it's going to affect them. So I think hitting the fear aspect or the loss head on and not kind of beating around the bush is super helpful. Listening to people and hearing their concerns and then really acting on them, whether it's in a communication, a uh, training and all hands in, one on one coaching, all of those sorts of things to say, hey, I hear you, you're concerned about this. Here is why we're doing this. Here is some piece of the puzzle that you still have control over. If a person is invited into that change and help helping to co create whatever the new solution looks like, they're going to buy in and want to share that with others. If they have kind of a piece of the, the Pie and the, you know, piece of skin in the game. So I think the more you can really listen and understand people and bring them along the journey with you and not just having change thrown at them constantly, you're going to get people to understand, okay, there's a bigger purpose and that will, you know, that new productivity, efficiency, whatever, that now allows me to do the stuff I actually want to do and not just these boring tasks or these low value or low impact tasks that I have to do. And now they understand. Ah, uh, okay. Like I see why this is a bigger purpose beyond just the company's bottom line. It's for me personally, I am going to gain XYZ out of this thing. And so then you, you can meet them where they are, you listen to them, and then you help them understand and co create with them along the way so that they have the desire and are also sharing it out to others to try to bring maybe other, uh, resistors along the way with them.

Speaker A: I, I love that. I think a lot of times we tend to want to paint the most rosy, optimistic picture in the entire world with a change initiative and oftentimes people just sniff that out as something that you're trying to feed me and it actually can under undermine and erode the trust that you're actually trying to build. So I love that point about being honest and transparent and addressing the fears head on rather than just trying to diminish them or hide the fact that those fears are there. I think that's really, really meaningful. You know, I think that the point there around like desire being difficult is, is a really interesting one. And I loved your, your comment about like, well, what do you do when someone has desire but they just feel fatigued or they feel tired? Like maybe they believe you that it's beneficial. Maybe, maybe they believe you that it's going to be helpful. But at the same time, like, I look at my own life, right? I don't. I'm in meetings with clients all day, I'm recording podcast episodes, I'm trying to get a report out to a customer from two weeks ago or whatever, right? So my life is so busy and so burdened with all of the things that I have on my plate right now that even if I do believe that this initiative or this idea or this new technology is going to be meaningful to me, I still have to somehow figure out a way to work that in with all the other priorities that are on my shoulders already. And one of the things that I think is, uh, there's a There's a really, I've always been a really big fan of the framework u taught. I don't know if you've ever heard of that. It's the universal theory of the adoption of acceptance and usage of technology is what it stands for. And it's just a, it's just a bunch of academic theory that has been studied a lot around why people are willing to buy into technology. And the core idea at its, uh, at the, at a high level is that people change when they intend to change. Right. Which means desire is the most important kickstart. If I can uh, get you desiring to change, that's really important. And there's all kinds of mediating factors for, for that. Right. Like I think it's going to be valuable. I think the effort is, is worth the value that I'm going to get out of it. I see my peers doing things that all has a big impact. Right. So my peers and my champions and social pressure is all going to have an impact. But one of the things that I oftentimes see is, uh, is overlooked is all of those things really just impact your desire, but that doesn't necessarily facilitate the actual change. And so one of the pieces that's hard is the facilitating motion. And oftentimes we think of facilitating motion as like, I gave you access to the technology or I trained you on the technology. But I think there's a lot of facilitating actions that we miss out on. Like how do you clear my calendar so I have enough time, uh, right. So I can actually do it. I'm curious, from your perspective, when it comes down to actually like clearing the road, right. Getting a lot of the blockers out of the way, are there things that we overlook, like how much time I actually have to change and how am I going to make it easier for the person to dedicate the time to make the change? Like what do you think? Where are the kind of blind spots of obstacles in the road that we sometimes miss? Because we always think, well, we just train them, duh. If we train them, it'll be great.

Speaker C: Yeah. And I think those are the more typical, check the box types activities when you know an organization is either less mature in change or you've got new leaders or sponsors that are just kind of unfamiliar with the breadth of the change management, uh, profession as a whole. And so a lot of times people will say, oh well, change is just communications and training. And I just, I sent out the email and I did the training. So check, check. Why aren't they using this New thing. And it's, it's so much more than that, as we all know. And so I think as much as you can inform and coach and work with the leaders in these organizations to say, actually there's so much more that goes into an individual's desire to actually want to change and to have the space and capacity to be able to do that. So let's work through that because I think time is, is the biggest one. I hear it from everywhere. Everywhere. You know, every, every conversation I have is just like, I know I want to use AI, I know I want to try this new thing. I just don't have the time. And so it's really up to the leaders to. There's a piece that's understanding what kind of KPIs or metrics are you actually measuring that matter. If you want the team to do the new change or to try the new thing, are you measuring the performance on that thing? Or are you looking at the old kind of school metrics where it's just number of sales and bottom line? Or are you actually looking for maybe it's, you know, fewer errors reduce. You know, errors are reduced because we're doing this new process. Maybe it's less time it's taking because there are fewer handoffs because we've automated some pieces. If it's maybe an AI related thing, maybe it's more innovative ideas. If it's, uh, you know, if you think about meetings, it's maybe better prep time ahead and better action taking after the meeting versus just how many meetings do we have in a day? And so I think there's some piece that we need to think about how we're measuring this new thing in a new world versus what we're set on in the old world. I think as leaders we need to. And um, as change managers and change people, we need to help coach the leaders on this, but to work with them to give that space to their employees. So one thing I do from an AI perspective is I hold monthly ask me anything sessions where I do a little bit of training and then I do usually some kind of demo of like, I try it, you watch me do it, and now you try it and we're doing it live together. And then there's just open questions. Totally, you know, safe space. They can ask any question. And so we're trying to kind of bring them along. I have that space where they're supposed to attend and come and do that. I coach leaders to say, hey, do you have a standing weekly, bi weekly, monthly call with your whole team, spend the first 10 minutes saying, Here's a problem we are all having right now. Let's all go into AI and try it together and see what answers we can come up with or solutions we can come up with. So that you're, you're building in that new behavior within the, the frameworks and forums and places that the people already exist because they don't want to go to another tool, another place, another meeting to have those conversations or to do that experimentation or try those new things. You want to try to embed as much as you can into the existing places. So if that's already a standing meeting with your boss, if that's on a certain SharePoint site, if it's a certain tool, help do those things right where they already are and then give them really the tools that will make them successful. So that kind of hits on that ability piece. If it's, um, you know, sometimes it's a user guide or it's, hey, here are some examples, Copy paste. Here are some mindset shifts that you want to start thinking about different practices to try. Because even to get started sometimes is hard. If it's just kind of, um, a technology change where it's like you used to click this button A, B, C, D, and now it's D, E, F, G, uh, that's a little more straightforward. But if it's a different way of thinking, like AI, for example, you really need to handhold a little bit as a leader to say, hey, here are the actual businesses problems we're trying to solve. Let's throw it into AI and try it together. Just because it's a totally new way of working. And so that would apply to any kind of big transformational change is that you need to, um, give them the avenues to try and experiment and also create that psychological safety and trust in that environment to fail at the new thing. Because it's going to take time to do change, uh, to change into a new process, to think a different way. And so you want, you want to make sure that people have the space to safely experiment and try new things without kind of repercussions. And then you, once the behavior is starting to kind of kick in, you want to make sure you're measuring those things and rewarding and reinforcing those good behaviors so that it sticks and you don't go back to the old way. So I think there's a couple of things, but a lot of times it comes down to the leaders and coaching from others that understand, excuse me, all the different pieces that go into that to create that space for their employees who just, who may have the desire, who have the ability, who have the knowledge, but they just don't have the space to try. And so as much as we can remove those blockers, maybe those meetings that can be asynchronous, maybe it's just an email, um, all of those sorts of things to give them time back on their calendar, to really move the needle forward on whatever this new change is.

Speaker B: Allie, we used to play a game at the start of SAS therapy to get to know our, our guests. It was called this or that. I don't know if you ever done that with your kids. So I'm going to give you a this or that. I'm going to do a fun one and then we're going to do a business one. The fun this or that is, would you rather always be thirsty or always be hungry? Now that, now you could drink as much as you want. You'll just always be thirsty. You can eat as much as you want, but you'll always be hungry. It's not a. You're not having that. You do have access to it. It's just like every minute you're like, oh, my gosh, I am so thirsty.

Speaker A: Or oh, my gosh, probably want thirsty.

Speaker C: I don't think I could, could live if I was just always hungry all the time and never satisfied. I don't know if I could do that.

Speaker B: All right, so here's the this or that. And, um, it's going to be a this, that or that. Would you rather have an enthusiastic executive sponsor or a very awesome middle, uh, middle, uh, level managers that are great coaches or super curious, engaged end users? You could have one of those three. Which one do you want and why?

Speaker C: Gosh, that's a really hard one. I think I have to go with the sponsor. Visible and active sponsorship is one of the, you know, research finds, like the, the top driver of success, of transformation and change. So I have to go with that. Although, I mean, obviously you want all of those things, but to have the leader showing up and not just a mouthpiece to say, hey, we have to do this change, because corporate says we have to do this change. But actively showing up, engaged, helping their people, that becomes infectious to the rest of their team. And they understand why it's important to that leader and their business. And so I think that one has to be the top. It was leaning towards the middle managers because they really are the superpowers to go both ways.

Speaker B: You can only choose one you go like.

Speaker C: And they're usually the ones left behind. So I feel bad for those middle, middle people, but I have to go with the sponsor because that is just the driver of successful change, is to have that active, invisible leadership.

Speaker B: Tk who you going with?

Speaker A: It's. It's a really. It's a really mean question to ask, Kasey. It really is. You know, I think if I were to put myself in the shoes of our audience. Right. So, Ali, I think you know this, but what. Part of the reason why I was interested in bringing you in is because most, uh, most of our listeners are actually SaaS, vendors who are motivated and interested in getting their customers to change their behavior, but they're not necessarily directly driving the change. And I don't think they always have visibility into what the, you know, what changes actually looks like. How. How do you get an enterprise to actually get not. Not just one person or sometimes it's 50 people. That's. That can be really hard. But then imagine now you're doing that in an organization with 20,000 or 100,000 employees.

Speaker B: That, that.

Speaker A: That sometimes can be insane and difficult to actually see happen. So if I were to. If I were to take the lens of what I think my software vendor customers would say is they would actually say the user being motivated. And the reason being is because they oftentimes don't have control to force the sponsor or force the manager. But if the end user is motivated, then they. I think they feel like that's going to get more of the metric that they want to see. And that's the hard part is for like, like the end goal of the change is that the end user changes their behavior. So if they're super motivated and excited and there aren't any other blockers, well, then I'm going to have a better hit rate overall. But that's because I think in their minds, the hit rate is going to be garbage anyway. Right? I'm going to get 15% of my user base to go in, but if they're motivated, maybe I get 20%. Right? And so the part that I think's fascinating here in this conversation, and I. I'm going to turn this back to you, Ali, instead of listening, letting Casey calm.

Speaker B: Like, Todd's always a politician. You notice, Al, he didn't even.

Speaker A: That wasn't a politic. That wasn't a political answer.

Speaker B: Oh, my gosh, bro.

Speaker A: I took the answer. I took the answer of, uh, the end users being motivated.

Speaker B: You didn't. You did not answer. You go, well, my Software vendors would say, and you said, but the software vendor.

Speaker A: Nobody cares. Nobody cares about my responses.

Speaker B: My gosh. Okay, keep going, keep going.

Speaker A: Sorry. We're, we've known each other way too long, Allie. So, but yeah, uh, so from my perspective, I think what's interesting is like if you were to, if you were to now say you have an invested external party, right? An invested external party that wants to see the change occur, but doesn't necessarily feel like they have direct control over all of the factors that exist, what advice would you give to them to try to help the organization change the behavior? Right. So let's say I'm a, you mentioned SharePoint earlier. Right. So I'm, I'm a Microsoft rep and I want to drive copilot adoption internally. What, what, what would you recommend they think about to try to make it easier for the customer to be successful?

Speaker C: Sure. So I think again, it's, you know, it's building that trust with the, uh, the sponsors, the people that you are actually talking about, the leaders and I think giving them the tools in the language that they are going to speak in. So if it's, you know, a C suite leader, they're going to think about the bottom line, they're going to think about, you know, the investment, what the return is. But as more you could, you know, partner with the sponsor at the organization to help them understand that the users want to click the buttons after you've set them up to be successful, to click the button. So I think for, you have to kind of give them dual lenses a little bit. Part of it is going to be, hey, to talk to your CEO CFO to get this new product, uh, onboarded and things like that. But then another aspect is, and here's the kind of conversation you have with your end users to get what they're looking for. And so they don't care about clicks or, you know, things that they're doing. They want to get that thing done faster than without it. They want to get to the other parts of their day. And so I think there's like a dual purpose here of where you can partner and also, you know, use benchmarks or other client stories, success stories. People love to hear what, what other company did or what their competitor did, um, that's worked so that they can sell it up to whoever, uh, holds the purse strings. And then also in a way that hits those end users because for the SaaS company, say they're looking at those clicks and usage. But from us as a change perspective, the actual clicks of the button don't necessarily mean the tool is adopted or the change has happened or the behavior has changed. And so it's kind of one of those discussions about, again, like new metrics that maybe would matter. So, you know, from a SaaS company, third party perspective, they want to see the usage, but the end user doesn't care anything about that. They want the thing done faster and better. The middle manager wants the least kind of chaos. They want the thing to just go so they're not getting questions from this way or this way. And then the leader wants to understand how does the person at the bottom who's using and clicking this button, how does that contribute to our business outcomes that we're trying to drive towards? And so there's multiple kind of lenses to think about. What does success look like for each of these different groups? And so if the third parties can help with that discussion based on other benchmarks or other customers or things like that, and help really partner to understand that person's business or that company or clientele or whatever it is to understand how do I partner with this person to make them successful so that it's beyond just the clicks or the bottom line. It's somewhere, you know, across the spectrum kind of hitting all those pieces and that, that storytelling aspect to make sure that, you know, all of your customers are successful because they're one, clicking the button so that helps you two, they're actually getting the process completed faster with less errors. That's helping the middle. And then the higher level, you know, it's actually getting the return. And we're, you know, making more sales or we're having fewer errors that are, you know, causing fewer IT tickets or whatever that looks like from a, from a kind of data metric perspective.

Speaker B: So, Ali, I've, I'm a big believer in change. Uh, I love it. I think it's so great. I'm talking to, uh, the salespeople that we have that listen to this podcast. One of the things that they get concerned about is I'm just trying to close a deal. So when it comes up to introducing change management and saying, hey, you need to also invest in this and be aware of this, they don't want to do that. And sometimes they've been told not to do that because our product's so simple, everybody will just adopt it. It's just fantastic. And you don't even have to worry about this. One of the pieces of advice I give when a customer says, hey, so how m do you do training? I always like to reply Back with saying, hey, I know every customer is unique, and I know your company is unique. What have you done in the past to help you get the results out of the technology change? What have you seen be successful there? And then I'll give you some of my recommendations. But I know every customer is different. I think off of that question, you get people that actually tell you where they sit with change management. Like, do they invest in it? Do they not invest? Do they see it important or not important? And then you can be the expert and say, okay, here verticals like you, I see this is what they do inside of this. So who's going to be our executive sponsor? That's number one, you know, and then you can get into that. So just a little tip out there to my salespeople that are listening to saying, hey, I love this. This sounds great, but, oh, man, that's hard to do. I don't know how to do it. That's a simple reframe and how to do that. Allie, with our guests, this is called SAS therapy because we believe it should be designed to be therapeutic, where people can sit in the pain of other people and say, oh, my gosh, that happens to me all the time, too. That was so good. And oh, I love that tip that Ali just shared there. So any good therapy session, it always ends with the homework assignment. Allie, what would be the homework assignment you would give to our audience today? If you could make sure and force not, not empower, but force people to do this change, what would be the one bit of homework you would give them to go do that? DK wants to ask.

Speaker A: Well, I just want to, I want to add something to it because I, I, I think if I were to put myself in the shoes of our listeners, they don't always have the chance to talk to somebody who is internally responsible for driving the success of the tool. Right. Sometimes they don't even know who that team member is. Right. Because they're talking to CIO and the CIO isn't telling them about the project team responsible for the change management. So if you could. So if you take that homework assignment and you could say, if I, if I could, Casey always love to say, wave the magic wand. If I could get them to do one thing differently. The external, like I'm Dr. Rolling out this AI or I'm rolling out this new technology, and you have the vendor who provided that technology. If you could ask them to do one thing differently, to empower you in your role to help drive the change or the change manager within the organization, what would that dream thing be that you wish the provider of the solution was doing differently when they interact with you?

Speaker C: Sure. So I think one could be to hand off because I think you're totally right that the um, the vendor is not usually the one talking to a, uh, change people person potentially. And so I think handing over beyond just here's the training, here's the guide, here's our frequently asked questions website. Something that really gets beyond the button clicking to the real benefits and from multiple perspectives of different user groups or whatever so that they can hand off. Because even, you know, a lot of the companies themselves maybe don't have a dedicated change team or it's someone that's kind of putting on a change hat at the time. And so I think if there's any sort of almost self service kind of, hey, here's our toolkit of different benefits for different groups beyond just the, uh, click it, click this button and now you know the process. But hey, you're doing this process because it will help you do X and to have that conversation because then you're, you're, you're helping empower the sponsor or the leader of that company to understand I'm not just buying a tool to do X, Y, Z, I'm buying this tool so that my people can now do abc. And so I think the more kind of dual empowerment from both sides from if you have a change person and they're able to come in and help really do the human side. But if you also have the vendor side helping provide some of those materials beyond just the basic, here is the one training book for the one use case to think about all of those different scenarios that any leader that is, you know, empathetic and has trust with their team could apply. Um, because I think we're building out really, uh, leadership capabilities with change in our space these days is really making that a leadership capability versus a change capability and to help empower that leader at that company to say, ah, uh, here is the goals of this company and how I can use it to help my team do X, Y, Z better. I think that is, that is helpful than more than just having kind of the one version of the one playbook and the one training guide that's kind of just a rinse and repeat from every other potential customer.

Speaker A: Man, what a beautiful answer that was. I love it. You know, actually providing each customer their own toolkit to, to apply the change in a relevant way that will resonate with their user base. So good.

Speaker C: And of course you know, of course I can help help do that very easily. Um, hey, pivot this for this client and this industry with this size with like, um, whoever said Kasey, I think of, hey, this is what's worked in the past for our company. We really like hands on workshops. We really like open door sessions, we really like whatever, whatever. I think with that little bit of context, it's really easy to kind of pivot that story for others because again, that leader doesn't have time to think about it and look into it either. So as much as you can kind of shape, help shape that beyond just the button clicks helps that leader be more informed and help their people get that desire to change.

Speaker A: So good. Ali, thanks again so much for joining us today. I think you can find her on LinkedIn as Alexandra parentheses, Ali Hartman.

Speaker C: Yeah, I think it's Alexandra J. Hartman, technically.

Speaker A: So go find her on LinkedIn. Thanks for joining us, Allie. And thanks everybody for joining us. As always, we post new episodes every Wednesday. Come and enjoy if you like this type of, uh, conversations to learn more about how you can educate and support your customers to be successful. We'd love to have you join us on this journey. So, Ali, thanks again for joining us. And thanks everybody to our audience for being here. Sas therapy is brought to you by brainstorm, the SaaS platform for SaaS adoption. Learn more at brainstorminc.com.