How Leaders Overcome Resistance To Disruptive Technology | Matt Quinn

Speaker A: Hi there, I'm Ben Pearce and welcome to the Tech World Human Skills podcast. Every episode we talk through how to thrive in the tech world, not just survive. Now if you want me to work with your team, just give me a shout. I love to help teams be more influential, memorable and successful with their stakeholders. Head over to www.techworldhumanskills.com to book a ch. Hey folks, and welcome to the Tech World Human Skills podcast. It is wonderful to have you with us. Now loads of people that listen to the show haven't followed or subscribed or rated the show. Can you believe it? So, so could I ask a massive favor? Could you do that? Can you give us a follow and a rating? It really helps the show become more discoverable and, and reach even more people. So thanks for that. Uh, well today's episode is another really interesting one. We are in a pretty fast paced world at the moment and um, when new disruptive tech comes, how do you defuse that change resistance? How do you get people to adopt new ideas and embrace new approaches? Well our guest today to help us with the topic has ah, spent a lot of time putting this into practice with tech companies and uh, with customers and he's founded startups, he's worked at Oracle, at Microsoft and uh, now he's the senior vice president of sales and go to market at uh, IFS Industrial Intelligence. So please welcome to the show, Matt Quinn. Matt, it is lovely to have you with us.

Speaker B: Ben, thank you for the invite and thank you for the great introduction. I look looking forward to a great conversation and always follow the podcast and looking forward to it. So I'll make sure I'm subscribed channel I should be.

Speaker A: Thank you. I'm, you know, I'm glad you're listening. Um, but no, the pleasure is all mine and, and thank you so much for, for, for joining us on the, on the podcast. We've been trying to get you on for ages and you're hopping around. You're such a very important person these days, you see, and you're hopping around and so you've managed to hop in a booth in a, we work somewhere in Canary Wharf and, and join us to go through this topic.

Speaker B: It's a pleasure to be with you and it's a topic I know you and I are both passionate about. We had the joy of crossing paths uh, when we were at Microsoft and some of the things that we talked about then are relevant today. Right. Change is the only constant but some things don't change and I really looking Forward to diving into this a little bit today.

Speaker A: Yeah. Well, so for folks that haven't met you before, do you want to give us a quick overview of uh, your background?

Speaker B: Got it. So I'll kind of work backwards if that makes sense. So I'm currently, as you said, working at a company called ifs. IFS is like Industrial Financial Solutions is the unpack of the uh acronym. Uh, my job is to take the AI technologies that we have. Some of those responded best of breed products in the market, we've acquired them, some of those we've incubated and built inside in the business. But really it's about taking innovative disruptive tech and building that into established very well stable ERP type systems and field management systems. So we're in that cutting edge of disruption. Right at the edge we've got core systems that are established for years and we're transforming those through the power of AI to unlock value for customers. Customers. And that journey really is a great role for me. I'm only four months in but I get to be um, part of the sales organization thinking about, go to market thinking about how we connect the value to customers, how do we do the storytelling, how do we help our own people who've maybe sold traditionally RP systems for many years and many decades understand how to articulate value in a world where that is disrupted and changed. And that's one of the things I'm really keen to talk about, um, how we do that as organizations when we're selling. But also what does that mean as an organization embracing this change and buying technology that solves these problems. And the issue exists at both sides. You mentioned I've had a varied career from big tech Microsofts of the world, um, through to uh, doing startups. And uh, my key um, I guess blessing is I always like the innovative, the change, the disruption. I'm lucky enough that typically when change happens I'm one of those people who runs towards it. I love that change and I embrace it quickly and I move on. What I've learned to do better is that not everybody is in the same boat. Some people take a little bit of time to warm up. Some people really resist change hard. And actually as a leader it's really important to think about not just how we react to change, but how do we bring people with us and how do we lead people through change. And we're all aware it feels like change is just getting faster and faster and faster. Um, so it's a really important component. Uh, so from startups to innovation ends of big tech companies through to the role that I'm in now, which blends a bit of both. Um, really, really interesting journey and looking forward to sharing some hopefully useful insights.

Speaker A: Yeah, and it's interesting as you were introducing yourself there, you know, and you were saying things like erp, finance systems or, you know, uh, you know, my business starts going to these big core business platforms that have been in pro in place for years that are, uh, the core essence of the business, that process all the revenue, all the business process, all the, all the things that make the business work. And you know, there's still lots of people with lots of very old technology because it works and it does a job and it, you know, and then when you insert the words AI into that kind of landscape, you go, oh, it's almost like chalk and cheese. You've got these really established, really ancient, effective business processes. And now this really disruptive bit that may or may not have some great benefits. And you know, we can sort of get into that. Um, but, but that's a difficult world to kind of try and energize.

Speaker B: And it's a real balance. Right. So. And you know, when you think about erp, you think about core business processes, you want those to be rigorous, they need to be auditable. They've probably got compliance rules in them.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So that structure, that governance, that control you want to maintain.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But at the same time, you want this agility of AI, you want the power to adapt and to innovate and so bringing that, that balance together, identifying what parts of this system can I keep well controlled and governed and auditable? But I don't want that to slow me down and stop me from innovating. And so finding that right balance for your organization. And for which parts of a process do I want to keep constant and which parts of a process can I disrupt? And the bit that's really interesting in the world that I work in, ifs always focused on industrial customers. And so one of the things that, uh, the AI cycle for the last three, four years has been very focused on people like you and me, Ben, who work at a desk. Right. We sit with a computer and a chair and, you know, probably have a cup of coffee by our side. 70% of the world's workforce don't sit at a desk. They work in a production line, they work in a mining facility, they work in an industrial setting where they don't necessarily interact with compute in the same way. And the ability to, uh, how do you change those kinds of core robust Industrial processes infuse the power of AI into them and bring the power and benefits that AI has to people at the industrial edge of a process, not just the folks back at the headquarters sitting at a desk. I think that, again, is how do you build change? How do you change structure? How do you bring people with you? Because I think as much as we talk about AI, AI is an enabler of people. That's where it's more successful than the kind of disruptive, um, uh, kind of messaging that's out there.

Speaker A: Okay. And so I guess the disruption, the change in these 70% of all these other jobs is only going to get more and more and faster and faster. Uh, is that what you're sort of thinking over the coming years?

Speaker B: Yeah, it absolutely is. And you can see that snowballing. And it's about how do you team, you know, how does change happen? We saw this in manufacturing, with robotics, doing lots of heavy lifting, doing lots of dangerous jobs in very structured processes. You can see that now as AI can be infused into processes. And it might be things about how do we organize and orchestrate labor, like how do we make sure that we're optimizing our logistics networks in order that the right parts are on place, ready for a field service engineer is going to turn up? How do we, um, drive efficiency and cost into a process that still has manual bits of paper and that perhaps has multiple suppliers and we need to aggregate data from lots of places. That's everything from a scrap of paper to emails, to weird and wonderful formats to some structured API integration, bringing all of that together in order to give insights to transform how work gets done at head office hq, set a desk. But equally, how does that diffuse to optimizing what we can do in a production line in a facility? How do we make sure. Or we're arming our people to do the highest value tasks that they can do and that helps, um, lift people in that. But it's not a tool, right? It's not just about, here's a piece of technology, good luck. The tool enables this change to happen. But the tech's not the bottleneck people and adoption of that tool, the kind of clarity on how do I embrace it, how do I change a process? What does this mean? That's where, uh, AI projects tend to stall. That's where innovation projects tend to stall. Right. If you don't bring the people with you, they'll pocket veto it. And then suddenly the shiniest tool in the world, even if it in theory could do great things, doesn't deliver value. So how do you manage change? How do you embrace this and embed technology and people and processes together? I think that's an ongoing, uh, piece. And, uh, one of my favorite quotes is change is the only constant, right? So it's not just about doing this once. It's about building that organizational muscle to be ready to embrace ongoing innovation and change. This will be an iterative process that continues for decades. And I think that's a real cultural leadership challenge to build the readiness and to embrace change and make it happen.

Speaker A: So change is the new constant. Disruption is the new constant. Um, why does it matter to listeners of this podcast? Why is it important to understand that and to think about, um, how we navigate that world?

Speaker B: I think there are two ways to think about change. And we're all aware of the kind of adoption cycles. I think it's Roger's adoption cycles. You've got your early adopters, your, uh, early majority, late majority, and laggards. The reality is, um, we have all, either directly or through colleagues, friends, family, seen people who were at the top of their game, like they, they absolutely owned their expertise in whatever it was that they were an expert at. And then something changes in a market. A new technology comes along, a new economic dynamic happens. Uh, you know, priorities shift in a particular industry or in an economy as a whole, and the rug gets pulled, right? And suddenly that person goes from being like, top of their game expert, like fully autonomous at a task, to they're a beginner at this new world, right? The new way of doing that thing is now radically different. So this for developers, um, in the world of the traditional waterfall software, development became agile. Actually, you needed to become a very different thinker about how do you do development. It's not about cranking out loads of code, but about having good testing, good automation, good structure. So you saw this iteration happen as we moved to cloud. That's happened on steroids in the last few years. There's actually development is now a kind of AI fueled task. Actually. Many leaders in that space are writing less and less code. They're directing agents who write that code. So suddenly the skills of cranking code are not the important part. It's the ability to think about the outcome and do the systems thinking and think about the architecture that becomes the real critical skill. So it changes what is the important critical skill can change. And I think individuals who are, uh, either comfortable to embrace change or recognize the need to put themselves out of their comfort zone to be able to adapt fast, to recognize that Things are changing and have that constant learning. Every day is a school day. Change, learn, move fast, invest in your own skills that will help make sure that you're more valuable in today's market, whatever it is that's there. But if you make that a habit for life, you'll be ready and able to embrace future shocks to whatever the roles and markets that we live in that makes you more valuable, more promotable. And ultimately, as leaders in organizations, it's not just about how an individual does that. How do we set up our teams for success to enable them to embrace change, to kind of foster a culture where they're ready to move fast when change happens, to embrace it. Because as leaders, that means our teams are able to adapt to changes quicker. That means as an organization, we can be more agile, we can deliver value. So I think it's really important that we think about it from both lenses. As an individual, how do I make myself more relevant? Ready as a leader, how do I make my team or my organization ready to embrace the constant change and challenge that's likely to come in whatever industry work?

Speaker A: Yeah, and just as you were saying that, I was just thinking, uh, there's been a lot of redundancies, more released in the press every week. I was just thinking personally, in the last year, five, five good buddies. So not people I knew, but, but people that are genuinely my good buddies that I see regularly in different organizations, all been made redundant because of. Every business is changing, is being disrupted for a variety, for a variety of different factors. And so this idea that from a selfish perspective, actually I'm going to make myself now as able to cope and thrive in this period of disruption, uh, as possible, is really important. And then often, you know, in these sort of more leadership roles, like you say, we need to be able to take people with us. Uh, and that's such a core skill. And more and more the role sort of become leadership skills as more of the, the grunt work, the toil becomes AI ified. It's, you know, the roles that we need are more of these sort of leadership sort of roles. They're going to be, um, you know, really important. Right. Well, so we frame what we're talking about. Change is constant. It's important for individuals to be able to deal with change and to lead others through change.

Speaker B: Um,

Speaker A: let's maybe dig into some of the meat and the potatoes, some valuable bits for people. So what would be your sort of top, your top tips? Maybe we could look through some of those on how to get better at, uh, this managing disruption, managing change, leading people through change.

Speaker B: So there's a couple of things that I would think about, and the first of them is to avoid the temptation to just jump. So look before you leap. Um, and if you diagnose what's really the issue here, what's really the problem for you here, I think that was from a coaching habit course. I remember. Um, so if we think about where in our organization, where is friction happening? Is there, uh, is the resistance to change that's happening in our organization or in our roles or in our personal lives? What is it that's stopping me from embracing this change? Is it that I don't like it, don't believe it? Is it that I don't have the skills and I'm reacting out of fear and protecting the old way. I liked the old way of it worked. And I want to go back to how it used to work. It doesn't tend to be very successful. Right. Time tends to move in one direction and it's a kind of slow, steady march, whether we like it or not. Um, and having just celebrated a birthday, that slow, steady march seems to get faster. And so I think the aim here is to understand what's the real problem. And sometimes it will be around culture. So I use the framework, um, of Adkar a lot, and I'm sure it's a topic that's familiar, but kind of in order to embrace change, people need to have awareness of the change, they need to desire that change, they need to want to change. If you don't want to change, it's not going to happen. They need to have the knowledge of how to change, they need to be able to change, and they need reinforcement to kind of iterate it so they don't fall back into the old habit. So you can't just throw out a training manual and say, this is the new way. Good luck. Um, so I think awareness of change, like how do we take people through that? But actually what you might find is for different cohorts, different people in your organization, or different tasks in your life, um, the problem might be different things. Uh, sometimes you're just not aware that the change is happening. It's kind of not being communicated very well. It's kind of things are moving around you and you don't quite know what it is. It gives you a sense of fear, uh, and you're not quite sure what's happening. Well, that's not going to set you up for success. But if we're communicating clearly, this is why things are changing. This is what is happening that helps get people past chapter one. There needs to be some motivation. You need to understand and motivate people to have a desire to embrace this change. Um, I guess one of the things of having worked in sales organizations, the beauty is there's a pretty linear, ah, they tend to be very motivated people. They tend to be people who have, uh, to coin a phrase, coin operated. Um, they have a very specific goal that's well defined and it has an attribute. So that tends to create desire if motives are properly aligned to the change. Sometimes we find that actually reward structures in an organization for recognition, whether that's compensation or just uh, internal pr, are aligned to the old way. And so no matter how much we talk about the new way and how great that is, if I get paid for doing the old way, guess what? My desire to change is going to be minimal. So again, that happens. That's in a sales organization. It's pretty open and transparent that motivation is there. In any organization, in any role, there are reward structures. Whether they're the pat on the back or they are the promotion or the visibility or whatever it is in the job job, it needs to align to the change we're trying to work for. Then that will motivate people to move. So when I talk about desire or diagnose before you mandate, like looking before you leap, you need to understand where is the friction? Is it that we haven't communicated the problem? Is it that our reward structures aren't creating the desire for people to move towards the destination we want them to be? Have uh, we not armed them with the knowledge about why this new way is better and the tools and how to work and how to operate in that new space? Have we trained them and given them the ability? Are ah, we reinforcing the new way? Because habits don't change overnight. You know, I kind of, um, you know, get up and go to the gym is not. You can do it for a while, but if you don't kind of get into a real habit and make it a daily thing or a weekly thing and a routine, you kind of fall out of it again. So that reinforcement, that leadership that goes there is really important. So if you're an organization building product that you need to sell, or you're an enterprise organization and you're managing processes, if those processes are changing, diagnose where the friction is. What is it that's stopping people from embracing whatever change it is that I'm advocating or seeking in my organization? And when you've done that Then you can think about how do you design making the new way the most rewarding? Like create the desire structures that mean people want to go there and enable them and remove risks. Like, uh, what's the risk for people in changing from how it used to be to how you want it to be? How do we. How do I diagnose where the risks are for people, whether they're real or perceived? And then I can start to identify ways to improve a process and make it lower risk to. For people to come with us on that journey. They understand, they want to do it, they know how to do it. And now we've got the support structures in place to go do it. So I think being really incisive about that rather than just, you know, here's the target state, like, meet you there, good luck.

Speaker A: So, um, so I love this. I'm a massive fan of a car, um, used it lots, talked to people about it, massive fan. And, and I. That awareness and desire piece, so important. Um, yeah, it's almost like Simon Sinek. Start with why isn't it? You know, start with why awareness and desire. Now this is the question. I'm interested now maybe as we start to set this in the AI world. Certainly when I was a graduate, right. And I. Sorry, when I was interviewing for graduates, I remember interviewing for grad. Uh, and part of the, the interview was do these people feel that the, you know, that tech change is positive? You know, are they tech advocates? We're looking for people that are passionate about tech advocates. The implicit being that this change, this tech was good. We're seeing at the moment things like, um, social media, perhaps banned for, for teenagers. We've seen that in Australia. We're looking at that coming in into the uk. There's now sort of maybe more of a. Ah. Actually some of this tech isn't always for good and maybe giving social media foot to kids is a bad idea for, for example. So this awareness and desire piece, it feels like it get. It's got a bit more tricky recently, you know, um, there's been lots of graduate speaks, uh, speeches I think, in the us where young people are booing AI when anybody mentions AI. So what about this where it's perhaps not so clear? Is this a good way forward or is this an experimental way forward that may work and may not work? How does Adkar sort of fit in this perhaps a little bit more difficult world?

Speaker B: Well, I think the first part is as somebody trying to advocate for change, that's part of awareness, right? Awareness of the reality this is potential friction to our change. So if I'm trying to roll out AI into a production line and I'm trying to do that, if I've got fear and uncertainty and my workers don't know what that means and are afraid of it, I need to know that. I need to understand what is the potential blocker that might be slowing adoption. And it might be real, it might be a genuine, like actually, I've not understood the unintended consequences of, of this action. Have I fully thought this through? So diagnosing, what's the real friction? Where is it coming from? Why are people resisting that? That and helping people understand or helping us understand. It works two ways, right? It's not that we're in the ivory tower and have got all the answers. Ah, um, what's the reality of this change? What does it mean for the business? But what does it mean for um, the people that are in that business? Because ultimately a business runs on people. M machines might help automate some of those tasks. And I always think of accountants. As soon as I say that, that pops into my head. In a world where accounting systems came into being 30, 40 years ago and spreadsheets appeared in the 80s, the act of bookkeeping and adding up all the numbers, it didn't make accountants redundant. In fact, I'd argue there's probably more accountants now than there ever were. The reality is where it did, it removed some of the drudgery from accountancy. So accountants now focus on higher order tasks. They focus on value, they focus on making the right investment decisions. They talk about net present value of investing in a solution and making sure that we're doing revenue recognition in the right way and we're making sure our capital reserves are in the right. They're doing higher value tasks than just adding up the numbers because lots of the automation, the tasks that used to be manual are now automated. Now the optimist in me sees that as the path of, of uh, the trend for AI remove the drudgery from people, to free them from some of the, you know, manual tasks in order to enable them to do higher value. Is that hugely disruptive? Is that change that people may or may not want to embrace? Yeah, ah, absolutely. So an awareness of that and then how do I motivate and create the desire in my team that they want to come on that journey, that they want to embrace it? It's a really important path that we need to, to be considerate about as we, we drive change. Because, you know, it depends where you are in the world. But, you know, workers councils will have a lot of power in that, certainly in some, some of the European countries. What does that mean for change? And it forces a, uh, very thoughtful process in other, lowest, less regulated markets that there might be a more like, let's run 100 miles an hour and see what we break. Um, and that has a different impact, but it still means you need to be aware of what that means. And how do you put that into practice?

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, this whole bit, it sort of reminded me of one of the seven habits of highly effective people, which is seek first to understand and then to be understood. So it's understanding and then going, right, well, now we've understood it and this is the way we need to go forward now, now, now we can be understood. And this is the way the business is going, this is the way tech is going, this is the way the world is going. It is being disrupted now. You need to get on board because this is sort of where it's going. But you've got to do that understanding part first to make sure that you're going in the right direction.

Speaker B: Definitely. And I always say communication isn't what you say, it's what people hear.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And so, so, so if you want people to hear the message, you need to understand why they're not hearing it or, you know, how they will interpret it.

Speaker A: It. Yeah.

Speaker B: So I think, you know, really important that first step.

Speaker A: Yeah, right. So that, that's the first thing that sort of. So the first tip on this is looking before you leap. I think that was sort of how you, how you described it. What's the next thing you got for us, Matt?

Speaker B: The next piece is about, um, not having one way of doing it. So the style needs to fit the task, not the person. And I saw this a lot. You kind of, you, you've. If you've worked in a large team, a large organization or even a small team, you probably have heard people say, oh, that person is our super. Like they're our, you know, they're our go to. They're our hero. But that's situational. Right? That's, that's about the things that they are good at in that context. And you do have some people that just appear to be very good at things and they have that natural piece and they get that aura of the superstar. Um, it's probably because.

Speaker A: Drive me that way, Matt.

Speaker B: It's, well, you know, better. Compliments get you everywhere. Right. So, um, I think that, you know, the key part is, it's that that all rounder is good, good. The reality is, under the hood, they're probably just very good at embracing change and adapting to new things and be very conscious about how they operate. But there will undoubtedly be tasks that they are still not great at. Right. They are situationally in different places. And so as leaders, we need to think about how are we changing our leadership style, not just by the person, but by the task. So what are we asking somebody to do and how do we lead and manage them? So the model for situational leadership, um, that I've been through a few pieces of training, training and have kind of iterated and found a piece. Um, you know, there's different styles that you have. And so for certain tasks, when somebody's a beginner at something, you need to be very directive, you need to be very outcomes oriented. You need to be very specific. You need to kind of do A, then B, then C. And as they mature in their ability for that, as they get more familiar with the task, you need to continue micromanaging them. You're going to drive them nuts, right? And you're going to waste lots of time doing that and they're going to get fed up. So at the appropriate moment, you need to recognize that now they've become, you know, they're still a beginner at it, but they've got some competence in that task. So then you can step back to kind of coaching them. Well, actually, now I'm not teaching you to do it. I'm not saying do A then B then C, but I might say, hey, you know, in the Alphabet. I know, like, is there other ways that these letters could be organized? Like, maybe the task could be done differently. You can challenge, you can coach. Is this the best way for you? What's the real problem? So I think you change that leadership style as someone matures. And I think it's one of those things, to some extent, you do that intuitively. You know, if you have children, you kind of like, you hold their hand and make them step one in front of the other, and then they kind of become a toddler and they can wobble around on their own, and you just kind of stay there to make sure they don't fall over. And then, you know, suddenly they're a teenager and, like, you delegate the task of, like, go fill the dishwasher and do your homework and you leave them to it and just check in on them. So I think adapting that style as someone, um, gets used to a task, it's not that it's the person is good or bad. It's that for individual tasks they will go through various different levels of competency. I think one of the things that's easy to forget is if a core part of what we do changes, we might need to reset that. So somebody goes from being the expert on a particular thing like a seller of software in an enterprise uh, kind uh of business, suddenly the whole model of that switched to be cloud and it's SaaS instead of installed based software. And it's sold on value, not number of users and it's sold in a different way and it's got new features and new functions. Like they might go from like completely autonomous and I can just run with this and I know how to do my job to actually I need some more coaching. I've kind of come back to, you know, I've got to learn to walk again and kind of get ready to crawl and run. So I think how we, how we lead people needs to change based on the task and we need to recognize that it's not constant when change happens. The way that we lead for some of those tasks might need to adapt again in to where they are. And, and that's a constant reflex that we need to have. As a leader, am I coaching this person the right way? Am I micromanaging somebody who's autonomous? Am I leaving somebody who's, who needs more coaching just to run with it? And I've let them, let them run feral.

Speaker A: Yeah. And it's interesting as I, as you're talking there, my mind keeps flicking between me as an individual and then me as a leader and sort of going well actually there are skills that are changing all the time. I need to now be good with using AI for certain tasks to remove the toil, to become more productive. You know, for example, things like, there are things like that. There are also some things that change perhaps a little bit less like how you listen to people or engage with people. You know, people are people and have been people for several, you know, a lot a long, a long time, thousands and thousands of years is, and the nature of humans hasn't changed that much. The core and essence, even though this, the situations we find ourselves in has. So whereas some parts of me as an individual going right, I need to just be constantly adapting this part of myself, I need to be good at learning. Some parts can perhaps be a little bit more constant and, and count as experience that, that I can use. So as an individual I'm sort of thinking like where am I, Am I that early beginner or am I the mature? Mature and parts of me are going to be I'm a beginner in this area but parts of me, uh, I'm very motivated and very mature in this other area. So I'm sort of thinking of myself as an individual like that. But then thinking about well, and then how would I lead people that are in these different categories um, so that I can lead them more effectively.

Speaker B: And I think that the first part there is to be self aware on it and I think being open and transparent about it and, and I know and I, I'm not a great rigor, uh, and disciplinarian. Right. So I know that I love the creative bits of the job, I love the customer facing, I love like ideating and workshops and like let's make this work and, and run to the innovation end. I have to force myself and I find ways to do that by kind of getting other people to hold me to account on like each week doing the admin things that I need to do and refreshing the kind of updates that I need to do and like I need to be managed in that space. So some things I need, you know, a push and some things I'll just automatically go and do. So the self awareness for that helps you set yourself up for success. But it's also as I've become aware of that I then start to see it in others and how I lead and work with other people. Like you know, you, the more aware of something you are, you suddenly go oh yeah, okay, I maybe understand why they're having a challenge with that and I mean need to just reset. I'm no longer delegating that task to this person. I need to switch into more of a coaching mode or be more prescriptive on a particular set of tasks until they get back up and running because something's changed. Um, you touched on a point that flashed a piece in my memory. One of my favorite kind of random quotes is um, everything's changed and nothing's changed. The technology of AI has radically changed huge amounts of the way that things can be done. It has the opportunity to rapidly disrupt all sorts of industries that we just didn't think were going to be tech enabled or touched by tech five years ago. But the very human components of that, the way that people interact, the way that economics works, is fundamentally very similar. And actually enterprises, as much as they embrace technology and embed it into key components of their technology, they will still work on 30 year investment cycles. Long term planning, cost of capital is a huge component of how they plan projects and what they all prioritize and how they engage with customers and how they buy products and services from vendors. So I think some of those things haven't fundamentally changed. How you do them might have changed.

Speaker A: Yeah, right. So your first tip was about looking before you leap. Second one was about thinking about the situation. Things are changing. How you as an individual change and how you lead people that are to going, going from incompetent to competent or uh, enthused, unenthused. The situation they're in, uh, that's really important. What's the third thing you want to talk to us about?

Speaker B: I think the third thing I kind of touched on it with, with having people who hold me to account on the things that I know I'm, I'm weak at. Like I use this phrase, uh, probably too much about good cop and bad cop and being intentional about the roles that different people play. Um, so, so the story cue there, the thing that I'm thinking about is within any leadership team, and I've had this, when I ran small businesses, deliberately sought a business partner who was the opposite of me. And what that meant was they were very process orientated, they were very detail oriented, they were very down into the weeds of run a process and ad structure, whilst I tended to be quite creative, more innovative, more let's just pick this up and run with it. And the balance is important. So as you lead change, you need to bring people through this kind of denial, get them over their frustration, help them explore what that change looks like and get them to accept it. And through that process there's often dips. And the reinforcement part of Adkar is really important. So sometimes you'll need a leader, uh, who can help set the vision in that awareness piece and the kind of creating the desire to move. You want someone who can create the vision, paint the picture of the destination. Like make people want to do it and understand why they're going to do it and really have the, okay, I'm going to go do that. When it comes to ability and knowledge, that's a detail oriented piece. That's a, here's the process. Take them through that beginner phase of those Ds, like the early stages of um, uh, directive behavior and then reinforcement to turn it into a habit. That's a rigor, that's a routine, a rhythm of business that is relentless and continues to do it again. Tell them, tell them, tell them, tell them what you just told them. Um, like to do that. And so I think building a structure where you're conscious of where you naturally fit. Are you good cop, are you bad cop? And again, that might be situational. Right. In different areas, you might want to consciously be good cop and identify who else in your leadership team can play bad cop that can make sure that the rigor and the diligence and the repetitive nature can be hammered out. Whilst you're setting that tone, if you're one person and you have to kind of flip flop between being both, you feel authentic at neither of them. People start to like not really understand how you're working. So in order to be authentic in those tasks, identifying how you as a team and that might be, you know, if you're a CEO of a business then you might need to have somebody on your leadership team that you hire in. That's, that's that disciplinarian and you build that. If you've got a wider team, you know, four different roles, how do you do it? And there's people, you know, some people have been immense demand gen leaders that I've worked with who are just relentless on like this is the routine, the rhythm, the kind of process, like, where are you in this? Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Have you done these five things? What's the next five things you're going to do? And that detail person for me,

Speaker A: that

Speaker B: drives me crazy, but I know it needs to happen. So finding that balance, who's the good cop for this task, who's the bad cop for this task? Um, being intentional about the roles that we each play in reinforcing that, um, that's often where ad car fails, right? You get people halfway through that journey, they came out of the training course and said, yeah, get it, um, I'm on board, let's go. And then you just left them to it and slowly, guess what, they drift back to the old way of doing things. They don't fully embrace the new way. And it kind of stops being a habit that change unwinds. So having that person who's going to be that rigor, the antithesis of that, to reinforce and make it the habit, like keep going, keep pushing. I think that's why people like personal trainers, right? They keep beating you up every week to say no, push harder, push harder, push harder.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Interested, interest, how you framed it like sort of good, good cop, bad cop, you, you can tell you like the vision and not the rigor. Otherwise you might have done it the other way around. It might have been, yeah, soft and fluffy saying this, yeah, these marketing people

Speaker B: who, that's me, that's me.

Speaker A: But I, I, I, I, I completely agree with the, you, you need the opposite. You need the vision, you need the government confidence and the execution. But again, it goes yin and yang.

Speaker B: Might be a different, a better, a better way of phrasing it. Less, less, uh, controversial.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I'm only teasing. It's all good fun. But no, I, I, I'm with you a hundred percent in that you need that, that creativity, then you need the detail. And both of them are absolutely essential. And they need to work in lockstep. And if you can get those two things to work, to work together in lockstep, um, that, then that, that, that is so powerful. Um, but, and it's also that bit about governance, isn't it really, where if you go too hard on it, it becomes that micromanaging and who wants the micromanager? But then if you, if you do, none of it chaos rules, nothing changes. So it's getting that balance right, isn't it? Of sort of going right. We're setting the vision and we're putting the routine in and um, people feel engaged and we're directing some people with maybe lower competence, but we're setting other people, people free with more. God, it's a, this leadership business is a complicated thing. It is.

Speaker B: And I, I think it ever was right. And I think it comes back to that, you know, some, some things just haven't changed. And, and so people are complex and we need to, you know, to lead. We need to understand people first and then bring them on the journey. And I think that that's a really important recognition that, you know, that, that, that science is never finished. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: Fascinating. Love it. Love it. Right. I've just glanced the clock. We are out of time, I'm afraid, Matt. Um, so as we start to summarize this, what would be the key takeaways that you'd love people to take from this episode?

Speaker B: So I think, you know, we talked about the three things, but I think, you know, what does it mean? And what can I do like tomorrow? What can I do? Wake up on Monday morning and say, what am I going to do this week? So I think if you, you know, we talked about diagnose. What's the, if I think about the change I want to happen in my organization and I think about that ad car model within that is awareness. Is it desire? Is it knowledge? Is it activation or uh, ability? Is it reinforcement? Diagnose what the gap is before you start throwing more training and comms out there. So I think lots of organizations. Temptation is, oh, I just need to do one more training course, one more piece of comms that'll do. Diagnose what the real problem is. Step back from the detail. And then if you're thinking about the outcome, what's the reward structure in my organization and, and ensure that the new way, the thing I want, the target state when I've done this change, that's the thing that people will be recognized and rewarded for. Make sure that the rewards align, uh, with the outcome that we want to achieve. If you're in a sales role, that's, you know, the new way is the fastest way to your number. If you're in a different business, that might be something completely different, but like, that kind of alignment, um, is really important. Then when you think about, what does this mean from how I lead change, make sure I'm resetting that style by initiative. It's very easy to fall into the habit of, I'm speaking to this person, I behave like this. And if I'm speaking to this person, they're a beginner, I behave like this. But, like, just think about four different tasks. Do I need to flex that? Um, think about that. Good cop, bad cop, yin yang, whichever way around, we do it, like, be intentional about who holds me to account on the things that I know I'm weak on, and am I setting my team up with a balance of skills to make sure we've got all of these pieces in place. And, uh, be aware that a dip will happen when change is being embraced. People will be excited about it, and then the reality will kick in. Uh, am I stuck in that trough? How do I reinforce rather than just launching and walking away. So mobilizing your innovators and your early adopters, letting people who want to embrace change go fast and then making them the heroes so they see their peers doing the right behaviors. That's a good way to embrace changes. They're a little bit woolly at the edges for some of those, but they're things to be really intentional, Reflect upon within your business. And then if you look at one change that you want to drive in your business, what's really missing? Where is it falling down? Is it awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, or reinforcement? Where is the gap? Be introspective. Maybe ask people, survey them in a trusted, safe space to say, look, we're trying to get this change done, done. What is it that's holding us back? It's difficult to do that unless you do have a safe space where people will really tell you what's wrong. Otherwise they're just going to blow smoke and say oh yeah, it's all great. So you need to have those people that trust and that culture in the organization. Find one who's willing to do that, take some risk, be that early adopter, help them prove the value of the change that you want to enact and then make them the hero to showcase to everyone else. And I think that's a really uh, powerful structure. So I encourage everybody to think about some change. It could be something, anything practical that you want to change. Could be a whole scale change in your organization. Pick one thing, diagnose before you leap.

Speaker A: Yeah, love it. And from my perspective, so just as, as we have this conversation, the whole look before you leap, you know, seek first to understand, then to be understood. I think that's really, really good, valuable thing to think about. Uh, I really like the way you talked about people are in different situations and I as an individual are in different situations. So I need to adapt and learn and think about being self aware and then how, ah, and how I can lead the team in that and then the whole good cop, bad cop, yin yang, opposites. You know, you need every side in order to be successful. So true. It's diversity, isn't it really? You need that diversity of thought, of character, of ability approach and when all that comes together it's a, it's holistic effect. It's sort of greater than the sum of the parts. So yeah, really, really interesting. Thank you so much for, for taking us through that, Matt. Now um, if people want to get hold of you or anything like that, how's the best place if people have loved what you've been talking about?

Speaker B: LinkedIn is the place for me. Find me on LinkedIn. Reach out via a direct message or a connect request. Um, it tends to be the quickest route for me to uh, find what's going on, have great conversations with people, um, and build that network. There is no um, magic bullet to this. So it's about an ongoing dialogue. Like I would welcome feedback right again to that point of you know, know what you don't know, like get feedback of. Oh yeah, but this didn't work in my organization or how does it work? Like totally open to that and like Ben, thank you massively for the opportunity to share some thoughts and um, and to catch up. It's been, it's been a while.

Speaker A: No, it's been wonderful. So thank you so much for your time, your energy, your insight. Uh, it's been a pleasure, thank you so much Matt, don't go yet. Remember to subscribe to the podcast and rate the show. It really helps us grow and book new great guests. And remember, if the podcast isn't enough for you and you want weekly microlearning delivered straight to your inbox, sign up to the Tech World Human Skills Weekly. Head over to www.techworldhumanskills.com to sign.