The Analytics Power Hour · 2026-06-09 · 1h 1m
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
46 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
This episode explores the collision between AI adoption and organizational change management, arguing that technical capability alone cannot drive successful transformation. Yehonatan Schwarzmer, director of business intelligence at Networx and organizational psychology expert from Columbia, joins hosts Michael Helbling, Val Kroll, and Tim Wilson to unpack why analytics teams building dashboards with AI tools often fail to gain stakeholder buy-in. The conversation maps critical change management fundamentals - defining vision, securing sponsorship, addressing resistance - onto the specific challenge of AI-driven initiatives. Schwarzmer frames change readiness across two dimensions: complexity of change and anticipated organizational resistance, drawing on frameworks from Prosci and his dual background in analytics and organizational development consulting. This episode serves analytics leaders, BI directors, and data teams wrestling with how to position AI tools not as technical wins but as organizational transformations requiring stakeholder alignment, clear vision, and deliberate handling of resistance across different organizational cultures.
Because building dashboards is the technical component, but securing stakeholder buy-in and organizational adoption is a separate change management challenge that AI cannot solve - you need vision clarity, sponsorship, and resistance management alongside the tool itself.
The complexity or significance of the change, and the anticipated resistance - how much work will be required to push the change through the organization.
Readiness reflects whether people have the skills or experience for change, while resistance is active opposition to it - they are not two sides of the same coin and require different management approaches.
Driven change (teams self-motivated), internally imposed change (new leadership or capability pushed internally), and externally imposed change (no choice) - each faces different levels of resistance and requires different management intensity.
Observable signs include whether the organization values open conversation about what's working and what isn't, has free flow of ideas, prioritizes learning, or is more calcified and committee-driven in decision-making.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
The episode surfaces a few genuinely useful distinctions - e.g., that resistance and readiness are not the same thing, and that people resist tool changes partly because they fear losing expert status - but these are buried in extended meandering, incomplete answers, and standard change-management truisms. The AI angle promised in the title barely gets developed before time runs out.
In the old tool. I was the hero. I knew where everything was. I knew how to look good. Maybe in the new way, I won't know how to look so good.
the benefit of change management is it minimizes the length and degree of the dip
The bulk of the conversation is a recitation of well-worn change management frameworks (Kübler-Ross, ADKAR, Kotter, McKinsey 7S) with light analytics seasoning. The 'hero in the old tool' framing is a nice specific observation, but there is no contrarian or first-principles argument anywhere in the episode.
When everybody's special, then no one is.
the original model was actually the famous model that we all know, which is the five stages of grief...after that, it evolved into a model of change management
Schwarzmer has a genuinely distinctive cross-disciplinary background - industrial/organizational psychology from Columbia applied to real analytics leadership roles - and speaks as a practitioner rather than a pure thought leader. That said, he is Director-level at a non-prominent company, and his insights, while grounded, do not reflect experience operating at unusual scale or in a landmark context.
Yehonatan Schwarzmer is the director of business intelligence at Networx. He's also held analytics leadership positions at Search Discovery now further. He has done organizational development consulting and he has a master's degree in industrial and organizational psychology from Columbia University.
when I joined Search Discovery, he was running teams, he was running meetings, and he always started the meetings the same way.
The episode names real frameworks, tools (Power BI, Tableau, Adobe Analytics, GA4), and a handful of individuals (Tony DeKemper, Noah Levin, Jared Horvath), which provides some anchoring. However, there are virtually no numbers, adoption timelines, or case-study outcomes - examples consistently remain hypothetical ('a thousand people,' 'a startup of six or seven').
Kotter has a famous model. McKinsey has their 7S model. The ProSci has an ADKAR model.
There's a guy named Jared Horvath who recently gave a congressional testimony...he's just recently come out with a book called The Digital Delusion.
Tim Wilson makes genuine attempts to push toward specificity (forcing a concrete tool-migration scenario, invoking GA4 as a real example) and Val poses a substantive two-part question about scaling individual resistance management. However, the conversation drifts badly, key questions go explicitly unanswered by the hosts' own admission, and there is no meaningful pushback or productive disagreement with the guest.
I want to kind of dive into something a little more specific...moving from Power BI to Tableau or moving from Adobe Analytics to Amplitude
And really Val's question never really got answered.
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
There are roughly a thousand ways to roll out a new analytics platform, a BI tool migration, or an AI initiative to your organization. Most of them involve a town hall, an email with a link to some training materials, and the quiet hope that everyone figures it out. Most of them also don't really work. On this episode, Yehonatan Schwarzmer joined Michael, Val, and Tim to bring some long-overdue organizational change management thinking into the analytics conversation. Yehonatan has the unusual combination of real-world experience in both change management consulting and data leadership, which makes him exactly the right person to explain why the technical rollout is the easy part. The harder part is understanding that when someone says "this tool doesn't have what I need," they might really be saying "I was the hero in the old system and I don't know who I'll be in the new one." The Kübler-Ross grief model shows up. Psychological safety shows up (reluctantly). And Val's question about who analysts should recruit to help them manage change at scale almost gets answered. This episode is brought to you, in part, by our sponsors, Stape and Prism from Ask-Y .
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
[Announcer]: Welcome to the Analytics Power Hour. [Announcer]: Analytics topics covered conversationally and sometimes with explicit language. [Michael Helbling]: Hi, everybody. [Michael Helbling]: Welcome.
[Michael Helbling]: This is the Analytics Power Hour, and this is Episode 299. [Michael Helbling]: You know, in the movie Godfather, Michael Corleone takes over the family in a time of [Michael Helbling]: crisis. [Michael Helbling]: And he quickly moves Tom, his adopted brother, out of his role as consigliere. [Michael Helbling]: His reason for this was because Tom wasn't a wartime consigliere.
[Michael Helbling]: In times of great change, I guess it's important to recognize the need for different styles [Michael Helbling]: of leadership and approaches to our work. [Michael Helbling]: And, oh, I mean, AI is kind of putting every company on a, quote, wartime footing, I guess, [Michael Helbling]: in that survival, our ability to predict and normal cycles of growth, even our own understanding [Michael Helbling]: of the levers of business are kind of being transformed. [Michael Helbling]: And how do you manage it all?
[Michael Helbling]: All of this filters down to analytics because AI is making some things much easier, but [Michael Helbling]: potentially creating some downstream challenges that could be very, very damaging. [Michael Helbling]: So it's time to put on your wartime consigliere hat and embrace the change. [Michael Helbling]: I mean, it's already underway. [Michael Helbling]: So let me introduce you to my co-hosts, Val, "Ground Truth" Kroll.
[Michael Helbling]: How are you doing? [Val Kroll]: I'm good. [Val Kroll]: Now that I've Googled consigliere and those roles from the Godfather. [Val Kroll]: Yeah.
[Michael Helbling]: Just keep doing it the Chicago way. [Michael Helbling]: That's right. [Michael Helbling]: Got it. [Val Kroll]: Got it.
[Val Kroll]: And, of course, Tim, the last word, Wilson, how are you doing? [Tim Wilson]: Doing quite fine. [Michael Helbling]: And I'm, my goal, the diplomat, Helbley. [Michael Helbling]: All right.
[Michael Helbling]: We needed a guest. [Michael Helbling]: Somebody could walk us through what's happening, how to react to it, and I think we found a [Michael Helbling]: great one. [Michael Helbling]: Yehonatan Schwarzmer is the director of business intelligence at Networx. [Michael Helbling]: He's also held analytics leadership positions at Search Discovery now further.
[Michael Helbling]: He has done organizational development consulting and he has a master's degree in industrial [Michael Helbling]: and organizational psychology from Columbia University. [Michael Helbling]: And today he is our guest. [Michael Helbling]: Welcome to the show, Yehonatan. [Michael Helbling]: Thank you.
[Val Kroll]: I'm very happy to be here. [Michael Helbling]: Great to have you. [Val Kroll]: Okay. [Michael Helbling]: So I think there's a lot to get into here, but I think, you know, in your world, you've [Michael Helbling]: kind of lived across two different distinct worlds in your career.
[Michael Helbling]: One is sort of this idea of change management as its own practice and then analytics as its [Michael Helbling]: own sort of discipline within the business. [Michael Helbling]: So like, as you see those two things sort of come together in this moment, like what [Michael Helbling]: are the things you're noticing in the community that you're in? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: The idea of change management is one that we all focus on as a topic by itself. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: You know, we have an issue or we see that there's a company or organization struggling [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: with shifting or a change that they know is coming and the feelings that come along with [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: that.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And so there's a lot to talk about with change management. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Some people think about it like organizational therapy or some other label that we stick [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: on it, but separate from the question of what is change management, it also has to [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: do with what it is that you're managing a change of. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And specifically when you talk about the management of change in the world of analytics, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: it really focuses on a lot of the big questions that come up that you typically explore in [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: the world of data and analytics, just with an eye towards what is happening on the people [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: side of these changes?
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: How are the people being affected? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: How are they going to approach it? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: How do we think about that so that the change is seamless and gets us to where we want to [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: be and we've gotten everything we want out of it? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: You know, when I shifted, kind of talk about two worlds, so when I shifted into the world [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: of analytics from the world of pure change management, right?
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Pure change management. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: So we were doing consulting to companies and talking about, you know, leadership development. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: There was like conflict resolution, especially when you have those like family companies [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and you know, lots of the issues that come up with those types of things. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And then you shifted to the world of analytics and it starts with what's the number, talk [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: about the numbers, just the numbers, but then really, really quickly, you get to the understanding [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: that it's not just about the numbers.
[Val Kroll]: And if you only focus on the numbers, you're going to miss a big part of the value that [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: can be delivered. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: You really have to understand the people involved in it. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And that's where the cross between the two topics became very exciting. [Tim Wilson]: It does seem like you said something in that that the one change, figuring out how to get [Tim Wilson]: where you're trying to go to.
[Tim Wilson]: And I guess, is it fair to say in the world of data and analytics, it seems like often [Tim Wilson]: there is where we want to go to is being data driven or being it's kind of like this squishy [Tim Wilson]: aspirational, we want to use the data to make decisions. [Tim Wilson]: But that's not really like the future state hasn't been fully formed. [Tim Wilson]: It's kind of more of this aspirational idea. [Tim Wilson]: Does that not bring challenge?
[Tim Wilson]: Because if you haven't really defined the destination, which I guess is also a temporal [Tim Wilson]: thing, because the destination is always going to keep moving. [Tim Wilson]: Is that a particular challenge if you're doing change management and you're not [Tim Wilson]: acknowledging how the future should look different from today? [Tim Wilson]: Yes, of course. [Val Kroll]: There's a couple of the typical or the classic issues that you're going to bump [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: into either when you are doing change management or that come up that make you [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: realize we should really be managing this change.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: So one of them for sure is we don't really have a vision for what this change is [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: supposed to be. Of course, we don't have people on the bus. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Nobody knows where the bus is going or we have 10 different buses and they're going [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: in 10 different directions and people have to decide which ones they want to get on. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: So for sure, defining it is one of the critical components.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: There's a number of critical components. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: You talk about things like defining the vision. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: You talk about things like making sure that you have buy-in that you've dealt [Val Kroll]: with resistance, that you have a organizational sponsorship. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Let's say a primary sponsor, someone who's really going to make sure that this [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: thing is managed the way that it needs to be.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: So there's a bunch of them. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: But for sure, having a vision or where it is that we're supposed to be is one of the fundamentals. [Val Kroll]: I love the way you put some of that introduction. [Val Kroll]: It has me thinking like whether I should adjust my definition or how I think about it [Val Kroll]: a little bit.
That is something that happens separate. [Val Kroll]: So I guess there's the concept of like changes happening, whether you're managing it or not. [Val Kroll]: And so you have to make the choice for it to be an active part of whatever is in scope. [Val Kroll]: But do you think of it as like if it were one of several work streams, if you will, [Val Kroll]: on a project, is that missing the boat because it's not like interwoven [Val Kroll]: with the other activities on the project?
[Val Kroll]: Or is that healthy because then you can kind of give it its own time and attention [Val Kroll]: and like the capital letters of the name of the work stream? [Val Kroll]: Or like how do you kind of consider that in the scope of or in the context, [Val Kroll]: I should say, of like a larger initiative or project? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I think that as with most of these types of questions, the answer is going to be it depends, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: which is only because there are so many pieces that come into it.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: You know, we talk about a change. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: So you think about a small startup that's quickly shifting, you know, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: every month, it seems to focus on something new and different. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: You talk about a very large bureaucracy where someone has come in and says [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: that the way that we've been doing things for the past 20 years just isn't working. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: You talk about a company that's turned around and said, oh, my goodness, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: we're falling behind in the AI bandwagon and we better get everybody [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: on board as quickly as we can.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: You know, these the changes that we're talking about, they there's not one type. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And because there's not one type, there really isn't one answer. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: People who love change management [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: sometimes tend to think of it as a hammer and everything is a nail. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And it's a terrible hammer because there there are so many things [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: that happen separate from the people side and the people's [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: dealing of the change.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: You know, we say change management is so important because if you don't deal [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: with the people, then you're going to really struggle. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: That's true. But if you're just dealing with the people and let's say [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: you've forgotten about the strategy, for example, or the vision, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: then you're not really much better off. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: So when I say it depends, I think of really [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: a couple of different axes that you'd you'd want to think about that.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: It depends factor on, so, for example, what type of change is it an incremental [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: change, something small changing, probably doesn't need a lot of management. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Is it a transition or shifting something underlying or much more [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: critical to our regular operations? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Or on the other end of the spectrum, is this a huge fundamental shift? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And we have to redefine our identity, let's say we have to become something [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: that we weren't before.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: So that's one way to think about it. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: What's the motivation? Where does it come from? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: You know, you have these, especially now, you know, you get some less startup [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: that pops up and they're very excited and, you know, they're running in one [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: direction and they know that they're working in an uncertain world and then [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: things change around and they're like, this is amazing, a new challenge.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And they turn around and they go in that direction. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And then they, you know, and it's a group of, you know, six or seven or eight [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: people and they're charging in this direction, they're charging in their [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: interaction and we can talk about whether that's good or not good. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: But the management of the change and the willingness of the people to [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: go along is 100% as opposed to the next level up, which is a change [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: imposed, but it's imposed internally.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: So let's say you have a new leadership and they come in and they say, from now [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: on, we're going to do it this way. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I've looked at how we're doing it. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: It's not going to work. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: We got to do something new or I found a new capability.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And so there are some people pushing for it inside and some people have to [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: kind of get along with that. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And then the third kind is you've got an externally driven change that the [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: people on the inside never really asked for, but they don't have a choice. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: So all three of those categories are going to react to the change in a very [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: different way.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And so the, the management of it, how necessary that is, really does defend [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and depend, and then there's the, the organization itself, you know, you've [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: got some organizations that are oriented towards learning. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: They love learning. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: They love conversations. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: They love that free flow of what's working.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: What's not working. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Let's be honest with each other. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Let's move the ideas forward, et cetera. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: You have others that are a little bit more calcified and not as willing to move [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: things along.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Um, and then you have some that are just, let's take it as it goes. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: You know, we, we, we don't necessarily point to those as the, uh, the way [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: things are supposed to be, but there are some places where management is, is [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: kind of a committee and decisions are made by committee. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And we all know what that looks like. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: So there are lots of ways that a change could be imposed and lots of ways [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: to respond to it.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And so depending on that determines the level at which you have to manage [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: change as a separate thing from your project or as integrated within the [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: project itself. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I'm going to stop there and see if that makes sense. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I could, I could talk about that for far too long. [Val Kroll]: So I'm going to stop there.
[Val Kroll]: Well, we have a whole episode to dive in. [Tim Wilson]: Michael, exciting news. [Tim Wilson]: Claude, co-work is here for prism. [Michael Helbling]: Finally, because I've got some GA for BigQuery exports and frankly, they [Michael Helbling]: look like somebody shredded a website and taught the various pieces [Tim Wilson]: accounting.
[Tim Wilson]: That's why ask dash y.ai built the prism, co-work connector, which is [Tim Wilson]: quite a literative. [Tim Wilson]: Your GA for BigQuery now has a smart analyst that actually speaks GA for. [Tim Wilson]: That includes having funnel and cohort analysis baked in ready to run right [Tim Wilson]: out of the box.
[Michael Helbling]: Oh, that's huge because I mean, half the time GA for speaks in riddles, [Michael Helbling]: event parameters and frankly, emotional damage. [Tim Wilson]: I don't think that's what it has, but co-work ships with sessionization [Tim Wilson]: built on GA for his own methodology as a baked in skill. [Michael Helbling]: Okay, I do love that because my session start final actual real query can [Michael Helbling]: finally be sent to the farm upstate. [Tim Wilson]: And every analysis becomes a shareable page.
[Tim Wilson]: Prism auto generates a dashboard page directly from within co-work. [Michael Helbling]: Oh, no copy paste, no screenshot archeology, no, please ignore the column [Val Kroll]: named temp fix to nope. [Tim Wilson]: And co-work brings the whole prism brain, the analytics agent, harness skills, [Tim Wilson]: memory engine, everything. [Michael Helbling]: I like an organized analysis and it sounds like it provides that traceable, [Michael Helbling]: audible and ready to use with your other data sets.
[Tim Wilson]: Exactly. [Tim Wilson]: You might have to do some adjusting to your personality and standard way [Tim Wilson]: of working. [Tim Wilson]: Well, I do feel threatened, but you know, in a growth mindset way. [Tim Wilson]: All right.
[Tim Wilson]: We'll go to ask-y.ai. [Tim Wilson]: That's ask-the-letter y.ai and sign up for the waitlist.
[Tim Wilson]: Use code APH to jump to the top. [Michael Helbling]: Yeah, that's ask-y.ai code APH. [Michael Helbling]: Hey, Tim.
[Michael Helbling]: How confident are you that your website tracking setup is actually [Michael Helbling]: giving you usable data? [Tim Wilson]: Well, confident is a strong word with browser changes, cookie limits, [Tim Wilson]: tag conflicts and messy marketing stacks. [Tim Wilson]: Measure pet can get complicated pretty fast. [Michael Helbling]: I agree.
[Michael Helbling]: That's why we've partnered with STAPE. [Michael Helbling]: STAPE is an all-in-one solution for server-side tagging, helping teams [Michael Helbling]: improve quality and the reliability of their data collection. [Tim Wilson]: And if your tracking is incomplete, duplicated or misconfigured, your [Tim Wilson]: reports may be pointing you in the wrong direction. [Michael Helbling]: Yeah, but you can use STAPE to clean up your server-side data [Michael Helbling]: collection, improve your conversion attribution, and that'll help you [Michael Helbling]: make better use of your marketing budget.
[Tim Wilson]: They also have a free website tracking checker. [Tim Wilson]: Enter your domain, scan your site, and in under two minutes, you get a [Tim Wilson]: personalized report. [Michael Helbling]: Yeah, I like how it has prioritized recommendations, some competitor [Michael Helbling]: comparisons, and AI-powered suggestions. [Tim Wilson]: So before the next is-the-data-wrong meeting, go get your free report.
[Tim Wilson]: Visit STAPE.IO, that's STAPE.IO, and use the free website tracking [Tim Wilson]: checker to get your personalized report. [Michael Helbling]: All right, and now back to the show.
[Tim Wilson]: When you talk about, like, the organization, whether the organization [Tim Wilson]: is kind of geared towards learning or geared towards being static, like, [Tim Wilson]: do you run into the people within an organization? [Tim Wilson]: Like, people who are saying we should always be, we should keep [Tim Wilson]: adjusting and changing the way that we're doing things versus the extreme, [Tim Wilson]: you know, who move my cheese, people. [Val Kroll]: Like, what defines, like, the organization's nature or culture or [Tim Wilson]: whatever the right label is for that to say, how much is change accepted [Tim Wilson]: as part of something that's always going on versus change is something [Tim Wilson]: that we want to minimize?
[Tim Wilson]: How does that work? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: You were going to walk into an organization, you would have no idea. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: So there's kind of the abstract part of your question, which is what is [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: the reality of an organization? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And then there's the question of, how do we figure out what the reality [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: of the company is so we can actually work with them?
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Um, I'm more comfortable with the second one because that's the way [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: that I typically think about it, is if we're going to work with a group [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: of people, let's try to figure out where they are. [Tim Wilson]: So what, so I guess what are the, what are the tells there? [Tim Wilson]: Cause I think, I mean, a lot of people are in an organization. [Tim Wilson]: So I've never really thought about my organization through that lens.
[Tim Wilson]: What kind of organization am I in? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: One of the topics I think that's going to come up whenever you talk about this, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: either you talk about it as kind of the basic definition of organizational [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: change, or you think about it as one of the fundamentals that you [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: have to address is resistance. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: So we talk about readiness, but we also talk about resistance.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And they're not necessarily two sides of the same coin, right? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Some people could be not ready because they just aren't skilled or they [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: don't have the experience while others are actively resistant to a change. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And so there's, when there's an organization called prosci, which has [Val Kroll]: a lot of resources related to organization change and managing the change. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And they have a lot of models.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And one of the models that's really simple, but I found really useful is look [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: at two spectrums to get a sense back to your question of how much [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: management of the change do we need? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: One of the spectrums that we look at is the degree or the complexity of the change. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Is it a significant change? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Is it a small thing?
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And then the second one is what is the anticipated resistance? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Meaning how much work will we have to do to push this change through? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And that really opens up the whole question to what is the [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: barrier to change management and how do you address that barrier? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And the way that I think about it is that within change management, this is [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: a discrete question, meaning it's a, it's a topic within change management, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: but you could easily see how this can kind of blend into every question [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: that has to do with managing a change, which is at the end of the day.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: All right, what about those people that aren't going to come along? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: So I'd rather think about it in the way that it is a topic within change [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: management, because there's a lot else that we could talk about separate [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: from the resistance, but let's, let's focus on that part as a topic by itself, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: which is what are your barriers and how do you address them? [Val Kroll]: So there could be a lot of barriers, meaning when I said before that [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: resistance is not necessarily the opposite to being ready.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: When a lot of times you see a big change being pushed at a company, you get [Val Kroll]: the mindset of, well, I was really clear on what we're trying to do. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And I had a town hall and I spoke to people about it and I have training [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: available and I probably have office hours ready. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And there's a lot of crickets, meaning either people just aren't interested [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: or people are still kind of doing their own thing.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Or it seems to me that they're just waiting for this initiative to pass [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: by just like all the other ones so they can get back to their real jobs, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: you know, whatever it might be. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And there's a lot of confusion. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I don't understand. Like we invested a lot.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: You know, we bought this new platform or we've got this new training [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: or the company has to make some sort of a shift or we've got a new strategy [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: or whatever it is. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I expected maybe not a rallying cry, but at least people to be aware [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and show that they're moving along with us. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And I don't feel that either. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: They've got their heels dug in or they've just kind of put their head down [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and they're they're waiting for it to pass.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: So what why is that? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: What's what's happening here? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: A lot of times when you start the conversation, it can be useful to talk [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: about this this curve of change management. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: It's it's a model, actually.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: They're trying because of you. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: The the Kübler-Ross model of change. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Kübler-Ross model, right, which which is great. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Like it's a great, simple way to talk about here's something that we can [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: anticipate so that we all have our expectations pointed the same direction.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Meaning if we are going to introduce a change and the change is going [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: to be somewhat disruptive, again, we're not changing, you know, the the the water [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: cooler, we're changing something that's going to make a difference to people. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And so we can expect that that's going to affect people and the effect is [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: likely going to mean that there is going to be number one, a decrease [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: in productivity for a time as we shift over and we acclimate ourselves to the [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: change and there are going to be people who need to become comfortable with the [Val Kroll]: change and potentially during that process of discomfort, you will see [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: productivity decline or you will see ancillary things.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: People might look a little bit more disgruntled. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: They're more whispering. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: You may see whatever it is. [Val Kroll]: So how do you what do you do about that?
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Why why is that? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: What do you expect? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: So when we think about it and the nice thing about the the model is it's [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: really a simple visual where you've got pretty much a line coming across on [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: your time axis and then it dips down and then it slowly curves back up to [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: where it was and then it continues up to be higher than where it was when you [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: started and that's the idea of what we're trying to do here.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: The reason that we're making a change is because we believe it will improve our [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: performance. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: So if you look at the y-axis as performance and you say I want my [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: performance to be higher, I'm going to go through this period of change, get [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: my performance higher, even though that means that the cost will be for a [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: period of time, there's going to be a drop.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: There's going to be a dip in performance and we're going to have to work [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: our way through that. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And one way that we can think of change management is the benefit of change [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: management is it minimizes the length and degree of the dip. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: So either you will be in a period of decreased productivity for a shorter [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: period of time or it will have less of an effect.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: It won't fall down as much. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: You know, in an extreme case, you get some people who just say, I don't know [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: what to do, I give up and they sort of clock out and you really get nothing for [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: quite some time until they finally realize what's going on or the fact that [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: their jobs depend on it or whatever it is. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And it's time to get on board with the program.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Typically, it's not that type of thing, but the question of what will it take [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: for someone to understand the value of this change and why we all have to get [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: on board and what we need to do about it is where you get to getting back to the [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: line that you were before and then getting higher. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: The other reason it's useful to think about it in that model is because [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: the person who created that model, that model was actually the second model.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: The original model was actually the famous model that we all know, which is [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: the five stages of grief, which is fascinating because they came up with [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: this idea of the stages of grief. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And then after that, it evolved into a model of change management. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And there's an implication there. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: What does it mean that we learn from grief to what change management is?
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: But it's very helpful to think of it in those terms, not because change is [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: devastating all the time, but because you have to understand that change has a [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: real impact on people. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And when you think about grief and the stages that people go through, right? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: So that, again, that classic model that people generally are familiar with, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: you've got your denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, right?
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: So in change also, you've got your shock or denial. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: You've got your resistance, then you get maybe exploration or testing. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And then finally, acceptance and then commitment. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Right?
[Tim Wilson]: Can we pause for a minute so listeners can kind of think about like the [Tim Wilson]: migration to do their own explore, perhaps that explains so much. [Tim Wilson]: There was, I mean, that was like the industry change management and the anger part. [Val Kroll]: Say, where are we stuck? [Tim Wilson]: That's a very helpful.
[Tim Wilson]: It could be a long process as long as it's a process. [Tim Wilson]: But just to pick on and we keep coming out of like, well, [Tim Wilson]: there's like a million different types of change, a million different forces, [Tim Wilson]: a million, I'm a little concerned. [Tim Wilson]: I want to kind of dive into something a little more specific. [Tim Wilson]: I mean, because my concern, it's like, well, gee, it's all over the place.
[Tim Wilson]: So I want to push, I made the GA4 crack, but I feel like there have been [Tim Wilson]: platform changes. [Tim Wilson]: We're moving from Domo to Power BI or moving from Power BI to Tableau or [Tim Wilson]: moving from Adobe Analytics to Amplitude, which there is some motivation [Tim Wilson]: to the change in the framing of the performance going up. [Val Kroll]: That's like the change is either the licensing is getting out of hand or [Tim Wilson]: there's a gap in what we can access.
[Tim Wilson]: But I think of that dip on the Kübler-Ross curve is always somebody saying, [Tim Wilson]: I mean, the way you were talking through the crickets and it's rolling out, [Tim Wilson]: it seems like what often is getting heard by the organization is, [Tim Wilson]: it's going to be better. [Tim Wilson]: And then they just kind of wait until it's there and it's tangible. [Tim Wilson]: And then they look at it and they're like, where's that number that I used to [Tim Wilson]: get every Moenday morning and they're reacting to it.
[Tim Wilson]: So in that context of this is a change is being imposed because some subset [Tim Wilson]: in the company made a decision, or I'm sure in Google Analytics for the [Val Kroll]: vendor made a decision, but the change is happening and it's going to happen [Val Kroll]: on a certain timeline. [Tim Wilson]: Like, what do you do when you're thinking through what those barriers are? [Tim Wilson]: Like, it does feel like the organization thinks of the barriers as being [Tim Wilson]: the technical cutover and training and office hours are kind of, they're like, [Tim Wilson]: well, this is overcoming the technical barriers and it's going to overcome [Tim Wilson]: the people don't know how to use the new tool.
[Tim Wilson]: And it sounds like you were saying, yeah, but there's like other barriers [Tim Wilson]: that those components don't address. [Tim Wilson]: So like, how do you identify those barriers and then address them? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: One of the things that you said is really critical to this. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: The idea that I knew where my number was and now I don't know where to find it.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And it's funny, like when I when I talk about the the concept of a [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: change management model flowing from a grief model. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And there's like an extreme there. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: But in a sense, people are maybe mourning is a strong word, but they feel sad. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: They feel like something is missing.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: They feel like something important is no longer here. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: It might be the way that I was used to doing something was really comfortable. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And now it's gone and I have to do something uncomfortable. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: It may be much more fundamental than that.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: It may be in the old tool. I was the hero. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I knew where everything was. I knew how to look good.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Maybe in the new way, I won't know how to look so good. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: So I'm giving up something much more fundamental, much more critical to myself. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I make it about the tool. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Well, this tool doesn't have XYZ, but I'm really a little bit concerned.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Number one, I may not be so good at it. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Or number two, let's say we move to a platform where everybody's just as good. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And then when everybody's special, then no one is. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I lose that there are so many things that are lost in a change [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: that every person experiences differently.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Understanding those individual changes goes a long way [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: towards understanding what can be done about it. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: So it's not just about something like, hey, here's the training. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Here's what can be done. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: But it might be something like you are the expert.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And the reason you're the expert is because you've got all this experience. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And because of that, you are primed to be the one [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: that can take on this new tool and help everybody move along [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and be seen as the one that really helped us make this significant change as an example. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: But it's addressing what is it that this person is losing [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and how do you fill something in that can give them something that build them up?
[Val Kroll]: So two part follow up to this, because this is exactly what I hope [Val Kroll]: we would be getting into, too. [Val Kroll]: So one is the high level, you know, process or arc that you guys have both [Val Kroll]: referenced, like whether it's, you know, the town hall announcement [Val Kroll]: followed by an email with a couple of links to FAQs on some Confluence page. [Val Kroll]: A couple of dates included brown bag lunches and like, let me know if you have [Val Kroll]: any questions is the most common way that I've seen change managed [Val Kroll]: across a lot of organizations.
[Val Kroll]: And if you're talking about, you know, a tool changer, something like that, [Val Kroll]: you're talking about hundreds of users. [Val Kroll]: So how do you, so this is the two part, how do you address the individual [Val Kroll]: and like what their resistance is or like the loss that they're mourning at scale? [Val Kroll]: And then two, how, like, who, who could an analyst recruit to help them [Val Kroll]: through some of this? [Val Kroll]: Because a lot of times we're doing that program, not because we don't care [Val Kroll]: about managing the change well, but we really haven't seen it modeled [Val Kroll]: other ways necessarily.
[Val Kroll]: And so is there someone else in the organization that people should be tapping [Val Kroll]: into, or is this another muscle that analysts really need to build themselves? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: So that's my two for it is a challenging question. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: One of the reasons it's a challenging question is because even again, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: going back to this organization, ProSci, who talks a lot about sort of the [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: fundamentals, like what are the pieces that you want to make sure are in place?
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: If you're going to roll out a significant change, meaning you're going to roll [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: out a new tool and it's going to affect a thousand people, right? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Like that's not a simple thing. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: It's not something that can be solved with lunch, nor is it something [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: could be, you know, solved by sitting down with every one of them and saying, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I understand your pain.
[Val Kroll]: What is it then that will overcome someone's resistance? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And within those thousand people, we have to assume we're not going to have [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: a thousand people resisting, but we have to know who is. [Val Kroll]: And so maybe starting with what is it that overcomes that resistance in the [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: first place, and then how do you translate that into an actual plan for [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: a thousand people? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: So when you think about overcoming the resistance, assuming that you have [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: genuine resistance, you know, typically you'll be able to overcome it in one [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: of three ways.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: You'll either get your, your desire, your entranted desire, you know, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: everybody talks about, you know, well, if it's changed, it's kind of a focus [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: on the what's in it for me, which is cliche and it's true at the same time. [Val Kroll]: Right? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Hey, with this tool, you will no longer have to deal with, right? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Again, a lot of times we roll out a new tool and people immediately see, hey, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: this is really beneficial.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: That's great. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: If people don't see that, maybe you can sell them on it. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Hey, let's talk about the benefits. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Let's talk about the trade.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Let's talk about what we're exchanging and what we're trying to do. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: We're exchanging and why we're doing this and what benefits you get out of it [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and why that might be better for you. [Val Kroll]: There are, there is a one group that could be influenced by that because it's [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: really true for them. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: There is a benefit.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: They didn't see it before. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: They may not have understood it before. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And so it's not to say that the lunches and the trainings and everything else [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: are useless. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: They're not useless.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: They just tend to be that we focus on the areas that they didn't work. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: But for a lot of people, it does work. [Val Kroll]: So you've got, you've got, you've got two more. [Tim Wilson]: But I feel like even calling that out, I think there's a tendency to one parrot.
[Tim Wilson]: What, in a tool perspective, it just parrots what the vendor has said the [Tim Wilson]: benefits are, which aren't necessarily resonant with the company. [Tim Wilson]: The other is the people who are implementing often get so caught up in the, I [Tim Wilson]: think the logistics of how is this transition going to happen that does to [Tim Wilson]: me sounds like a, yeah, that is a miss. [Tim Wilson]: Like probably repetition of these are the benefits that are meaningful for you is [Tim Wilson]: actually that this is the little light bulb went on that it's, it's easy for [Tim Wilson]: that.
[Tim Wilson]: It's like, well, they just assume everybody knows, like, sure, everybody knows [Tim Wilson]: why we're doing this. [Tim Wilson]: We told it when we sent out the first email and it sounds like that's something [Tim Wilson]: that really should be restated with an opportunity for somebody to ask follow [Tim Wilson]: up questions. [Tim Wilson]: Like you said this benefit, but what does that really mean? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I think, right?
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I, I, I say yes. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And actually that sort of blends into the second way, which is not such a distinctive [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: way, but it's the, you know, the, the FOMO approach, the, you know, the, the missing [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: out, meaning if you do get a group of people and they are making significant [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: progress or they do experience some real benefit, then very often that will kind [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: of push the people on the other side to say, I didn't realize this was, but now [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: that I see what it actually looks like once people are doing it.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And this could be because, listen, if you explain it to me at a town hall versus [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I see someone that's actually doing it, totally different thing. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Um, but as more people start using it, as you start building a little bit of a [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: snowball, again, it's funny because a lot of these things are sort of seen as [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: cliched and we roll our eyes, but this actually is where people get influenced.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: When I see someone is doing something and I understand how that translates [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: directly to me, I am much more likely to want some of that. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: So whether you can build that consciously or you get enough of a [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: groundswell going, then you have a significant leg up from where you were [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: when you were just again, having that brown bag lunch where it was very [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: theoretical to people and most people were not thinking about how amazing [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: this will be for them.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: It's morning, what they're losing. [Tim Wilson]: So, so is this one related? [Tim Wilson]: I'm thinking through a client that actually three of us worked on together [Tim Wilson]: that that is, that is picking the people who are getting on board and kind [Tim Wilson]: of stacking the deck for them to be not just successful themselves, but [Tim Wilson]: successful and elevated in public way. [Tim Wilson]: I mean, and it's a little bit of getting them to be champions amongst their [Tim Wilson]: peers, but also it's like, well, yeah, help them, let help them be successful [Tim Wilson]: with it.
[Tim Wilson]: And they're still going to be talking about what the job is. [Tim Wilson]: It's just if whatever the change, whatever the process or technology [Tim Wilson]: change slips into that, then it sort of becomes the subtext. [Tim Wilson]: I mean, you know, oh, I thought about this stuff differently and here, look, [Tim Wilson]: now I'm actually saying something that's useful and interesting and actionable. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Yes, is the answer.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And I actually, I want to address it, but I want to take one slight detour first [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: because you're actually, you're also talking about the third way, which is [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: going to transition right into this. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: So if the first way is, you know, what's in it for me? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And the second way is kind of the pull as people fear that they're missing out [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and they see benefit and they want part of it.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: The third way is the push, the authority, let's say, meaning at the end [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: of the day, there are some people that will say, well, I don't like it. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And, you know, whatever it is. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And then to have a leadership to say, this is something that is important [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: enough for us as an organization that we will, we need to make this change [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: for whatever reason.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And so you have to make a choice. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: You got to get on board because this is the direction that we're going in. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Meaning there are some people who have the mindset, I'm just going to keep [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: doing it the way that I'm doing it and it'll probably be fine. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: At a certain point, that's not going to work.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And so you don't want it to become a conflict if you can avoid it. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: But the reality, call it a last course, if you will, but if people aren't [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: going to buy into it and they're not going to see the benefits, then they may [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: see, all right, listen, it's at least better for me to go along with it than [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: the alternative, which I would rather not have. [Michael Helbling]: Okay, so I want to pull in AI now because a lot of organizations are getting [Michael Helbling]: this mandate like forcing function with very little instruction on what that [Michael Helbling]: actually means because no one really understands what all the parameters are.
[Michael Helbling]: So you sort of have this existential force, right? [Michael Helbling]: So this externality, this forcing change, the leadership is saying, we're going [Michael Helbling]: to become an AI driven organization. [Michael Helbling]: We got everybody report back on, I mean, in the most extreme examples, [Michael Helbling]: like how many tokens you're using every day, which, wow. [Michael Helbling]: But like, so bringing that into the world of analytics, it's like, oh, [Michael Helbling]: so what am I supposed to be doing now that there's a dictate to make a change [Michael Helbling]: but no instruction for what change is exactly to make or how to make them [Michael Helbling]: or that kind of thing.
[Michael Helbling]: So like that creates sort of like, I feel like a failed structure in a way [Michael Helbling]: of like running change management. [Michael Helbling]: So like, how do you sort of, how do you exist? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: This is just as fun as I thought it would be just for the record. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: So I want to, let me, let me do this then.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I want to get to your question, but I'm going to take a detour first, which is [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: to go on to Tim's question, which was what the original detour was from [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: because that's going to get back to your question. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Right. So, so Tim. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Well, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: so, you know, you were talking about how do you get those thousand people [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: or what does a leadership group do or how do you get beyond the lunch and learn [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: to whatever it is.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And there really are a couple of ways. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And then Michael, this is going to get directly to your question, because when [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: you talk about AI, we're really hitting, you know, every single one of these things, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: right? It's a, it's a huge change. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: It's fundamental.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: It potentially undermines and creates this real fear for people of what am I giving up? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Am I going to be able to do it? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Will other people get there before me? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And what will that mean for me?
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I don't even know what it looks like. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: We haven't defined the vision. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Nobody is even telling me what it's supposed to look like. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: They're just giving me some basic mile markers of more and no one knows what that is.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: How will I even know if I was successful? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: How will they know if I was successful, right? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: There's, there's so many areas for that concern. [Val Kroll]: And that's even before we get to, you know, the complexity of AI.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Really, this could be with any large change, but it's only exacerbated when we talk about AI. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: So overall, when we talk about making a significant change and you're trying to [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: understand how do you, how do you connect the dots, right? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I've got a lot of people who don't understand. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I've got a lot of people who are afraid and I've got a lot of people who are resistant.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: What am I supposed to do? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: So there's a much longer discussion that I'm sure, you know, we can have. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: But in a nutshell, it really does go back to even some of the things that you were saying, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: which is maybe don't hit everybody at the same time or maybe think about [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: who it is that you want to talk to first and not think about this as one monolithic change. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: That could either mean something like, let's find the early adopters, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: the people who are going to be excited and let's talk to them about their role.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Your, your role is not here because I want to teach you first. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I want you to learn this faster than everyone else and then show everyone why you're the star [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: of the company of our most stinks. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: That's not going to generally create the, the rainbow is feeling that you're looking for. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: But if it is, listen, you, these people that I'm having a conversation with you, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: because I feel like you not only can be extraordinarily valuable to help our company [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: elevate, but you can bring everyone along with you.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And so the role that you're going to play is to learn as much as you can, [Val Kroll]: demonstrate as much as you can, potentially be a resource for others. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I don't know if that means that they have to have, let's say office hours. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I've seen that where, you know, if you learn it well, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: then you can offer your services as it were to others or just let them know that your door is open.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: But be that person that shows everyone what the potential looks like, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: where the excitement comes from, why we thought this was beneficial, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and then help them along. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: That's one potential way you can do it. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Another way you can do it is by focusing on a different group. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I've got a thousand people.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Okay, out of these thousand people, you know, I have a certain number, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: which are, let's say the managers, and then everyone else is the [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: primary users that are going to be. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: So let me start with the managers. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Hey, listen, we're going to make this change. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: It's going to be a really significant change.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: People are going to feel that impact and it's going to be jarring. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: So I'm talking to you first, number one, let you know where we're coming from, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: how you can best prepare, how you can enable your teams, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: how you can have conversations with them. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: A lot of times the conversation from leadership [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: is best received when it's something about the vision [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: or the strategy or something like that.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: But reality is that when I, as a, you know, I'm on the front lines, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I'm doing the work, I don't want to hear from, you know, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: the person who sits on a screen and is, you know, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: the person I watch while I'm eating my lunch. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I want to hear from my manager, the person I talk to every day. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: So sure, the leader, lay out the vision, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: help me understand where the company's going, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: why this is beneficial, why this is a great thing, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: give me confidence in the company.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: All right, like, let me know this. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: But then when it comes to how is this going to affect me [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and how am I going to deal with these things that I'm struggling with? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I want someone who knows me. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: So ideally it should be the person that I report to.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: So if the leader first talks to those people [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and then they're better prepared to have that follow-up conversation. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: So you have the big lunch and then immediately after that, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: the manager sits with their group of eight people and says, [Val Kroll]: all right, everybody, these are some big things coming. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I'm sure there are some big feelings. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Let's talk about it.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Or if you have questions or you need specific help, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: or if he said some things that weren't so clear, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: or she mentioned something and you didn't know what that means, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: let me, because the manager has already had the conversation [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: with the leadership and doesn't, it's not the manager sitting, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and a lot of times, the manager sits there [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: just as clueless as everyone else, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: but they're the manager, they've got no choice, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: they've got to take the hit.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: It's like, okay, everybody, let's talk about it. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Those are great questions, I'll get back to you. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: That is not going to instill confidence in anybody. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: But it means that rolling this out in not a, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: here's the training that we will provide to everyone, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: but really being thoughtful about who can help us [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: get everybody else on board, who is more likely to buy in, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: who is more likely to demonstrate the benefit, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: who is a manager who could really talk to people [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: about their concerns.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: That's one tactic if you're talking about a change at scale, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: so that it's not just this huge thing [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: that you have to swallow all at once. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I will say that another piece of this [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: really does have to do with, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I was trying to see if we could avoid the word culture [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: in this entire conversation. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And of course we can't, but it's difficult [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: because culture means different things, different people, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and it's almost like an excuse word.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I don't want to use it as an excuse word, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: but the companies that have established a culture [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: or work to establish a culture [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: then enables these types of conversations [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and that orients everyone towards a very productive, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: aligned conversation will have a completely different experience [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: than the ones in, let's say, where there is no communication [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: or everyone is fighting for themselves [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: or there's a lot of internal competitiveness [Val Kroll]: or there's silos and turf [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and very, very different conversations.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I will tell you that in this, the concept itself [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I think is one that we can all understand. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Practically, anyone who has seen it [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: will understand the difference night and day [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: in creating a culture in which these things are real [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: versus where they're not. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I'll give you just two quick examples. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I have a mentor.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: He's been a mentor of mine since like 20 years. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: One of those people that is just giving [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and kind and thoughtful and wise. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: His name is Tony DeKemper, lives in Baltimore. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And when I was just trying to figure out [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: what I wanted to do with my life, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I had some conversations with him.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: He was fantastic. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And ever since then, he has been just incredibly guiding [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and he ran a company for a while. [Val Kroll]: And in that company, it was bizarre to me. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: But any new hire who joined that company [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: had to join a two-day course [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: called Fundamentals of Communication.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And it was all about how do we communicate? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: What is communication? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: What is the relationship between communication [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and establishing relationships with other people? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: How do you grow those?
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: How do you value those? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: How do you make sure that you're actually [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: communicating what you mean? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: How do you make sure that you've heard [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: what the other person is communicating? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: How do you make sure that your communications [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: are designed to build something up [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: instead of just to make your point [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: or whatever else it might be?
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: It was a real commitment on the part of the company [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and it changed everything. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Because everybody who went through that experience, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: first of all, you go through that experience, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: you understand what the company is about, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: you understand that they really mean when they say, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: we really want to hear from you or something like that.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: But it also levels the playing field, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: which is another thing that I think is critical. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: You all, I think, know. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Noah is a guy that I worked with for quite some time. [Tim Wilson]: He will make an appearance later on in this episode, [Tim Wilson]: by the way, just so you know.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: You can only do well when he joins. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: But one of the things that I learned from him, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and I mean, just working with him, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: you can learn something every day. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: But one of the things I learned from him is, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: when I joined Search Discovery, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: he was running teams, he was running meetings, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and he always started the meetings the same way.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: He said, the purpose of our meetings [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: to achieve something, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and we will only be able to achieve it [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: if all of us are guided by being open and transparent. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: If we are open and transparent with each other, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: then we can have real conversations [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: that move things along. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Otherwise, we're going to get locked in, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: we're going to get stuck.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: In those couple of words, that little preamble, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: he did so many things, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and this is important for any kind of management of change. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: One of the things that he did [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: is he did away with roles. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: In this meeting, sure, some of us have more experience, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: some of us have less, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: but we're not coming in this in a hierarchy.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: We're coming at this because we need to solve a problem. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And if you have something that can contribute [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: to solving the problem, and you keep that from us, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: all of us lose out because of that. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: You are valuable. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Saying to someone that they are valuable [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: versus telling someone they are valuable, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I'm sorry, versus showing them that they're valuable, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: meaning demonstrating it by saying, [Val Kroll]: I don't think we have enough in this conversation [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: because we haven't heard from this person [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and the experience that you're going to bring is unique [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and no one else has it.
[Val Kroll]: That changes the entire feeling of the conversation. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: When we talk about overcoming the barriers [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: to change management, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I guess I'm just talking about a lot of different ways [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: we could come at this, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: but the overall idea that, first of all, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: it doesn't have to be one big thing that you have to crack [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: with this entire group of as many people as it is [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: that's very challenging.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And the other one is the norms that you establish [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: from the beginning that you will then use [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: to manage through the change [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: instead of dropping it on people through the change [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: because that is likely to end up with more resistance. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And I mean, most of us have seen this, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: a big change is rolling out, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and the company, the leadership, whatever it is, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: says, all of your opinions are important to us.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: We want to hear from all of you. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: What does that mean? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: It means that we made a little slot in the door. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: You could put that little paper in there, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: something we'll find the key and we'll get into the door.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: But for right now. [Tim Wilson]: We set up a special email address [Tim Wilson]: for you just in your questions too, [Tim Wilson]: so we don't want to load a blind box. [Tim Wilson]: You could feel like you're bringing people in [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and you're drawing people in [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and you're bringing people together [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and you're creating the alignment, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: but there is a difference between the kind of paper cut ways [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: that don't actually do it [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and the ways that make people feel, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I want to be part of this.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And even if I am nervous, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: you know, the term psychological safety, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I don't like it because you can hide so much under it. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: But there is a principle there [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: where people really feel like [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: if I am uncertain or I'm concerned about something, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: that's valid because that is how I will learn. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And the point here is that we are all learning [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: so we can all benefit [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and we can all get better [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and we can lift each other up.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: You can't do that if you're hiding behind things. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: All right. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Nope. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: We got it.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Sorry, Val. [Val Kroll]: It's episode 184, [Tim Wilson]: psychological safety and analytics with JD Long, [Tim Wilson]: just to, you know, plug that, which was a fun episode. [Michael Helbling]: I didn't think we would have a shortage of things to talk about [Michael Helbling]: and really the shortage is the amount of time [Michael Helbling]: we have to explore this issue. [Michael Helbling]: You had a 10.
[Michael Helbling]: Yeah, so we do have to start to wrap up. [Michael Helbling]: You should feel bad. [Michael Helbling]: We didn't even get to talk about the measurements side. [Michael Helbling]: Shame.
[Michael Helbling]: Shame, shame. [Michael Helbling]: I should feel bad. [Michael Helbling]: I know. [Michael Helbling]: So, well, obviously that indicates [Michael Helbling]: that there's much more to talk about on this topic.
[Michael Helbling]: But yeah. [Tim Wilson]: And really Val's question never really got answered. [Tim Wilson]: Oh, well. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: We need one minute to try to answer it.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: 60 seconds. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Number one, if you don't have a lot of change going on [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: or it's not a big group [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: or change management is not a big concern, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: don't worry about the measurement. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: You'll overkill it. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: You'll hammer it to death and it's not a nail.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Don't do that. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: But if it is the type of thing [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: where either you expect resistance or as big [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and you do need a lot of measurement, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: then yes, there should be change [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and there should be measurement of that change. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: How do you do that? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Either you can do that integrated within the process [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: so that if you integrate the change in the process [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: then as you measure the project itself [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: you're also measuring the change [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: or you measure the change as a parallel work stream [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: in which there should be phases.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: So, in example, Kotter has a famous model. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: McKinsey has their 7S model. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: The ProSci has an ADCAR model. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: There are lots of models [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: where they walk you through phases of changes.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Each of those can be broken down [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and as you go through the change, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: you can actually measure [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: how well are we approaching each of those [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: so that we are ready for the change, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: we're implementing it correctly [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and we've embedded it correctly. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Those can be measured because you can break them down [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and then they become a separate work stream [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: that will be measured [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and when you see that that going successful, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: the project is done.
[Val Kroll]: Nice, yeah. [Michael Helbling]: That was actually pretty good. [Michael Helbling]: You were very close to 60 seconds on that. [Val Kroll]: Yeah, that was very close.
[Michael Helbling]: Yehonatan, what a pleasure. [Michael Helbling]: This is so good. [Michael Helbling]: Interestingly, I feel like we just started [Michael Helbling]: on what I call the top layer of the conversation [Michael Helbling]: and I feel like there's so much more exploration [Michael Helbling]: people can do from here. [Michael Helbling]: So, thank you so much for opening the book a little bit [Michael Helbling]: and I think there's a lot of applicability right now [Michael Helbling]: for people in this conversation.
[Michael Helbling]: So, really appreciate you coming on and doing that. [Michael Helbling]: One thing we do is a last call. [Michael Helbling]: Something go around the horn, [Michael Helbling]: share what might be interesting. [Michael Helbling]: Yonatan, you're our guest.
[Michael Helbling]: Do you have a last call you'd like to share? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I will tell you that one of the things [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I've been thinking about for a long time [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: is how technology, specifically AI now, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: but technology in general adds a benefit, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: but then very often there is a cost that comes with it [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: that you don't think about until later. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And whether that's a note taker, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: that's really great because you have a great record, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: but then you didn't do the physical work [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: of writing something down [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: so you just don't remember things as well.
[Michael Helbling]: Did Tim prep you ahead of time for this? [Michael Helbling]: No, actually. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: This is like a hobby horse of his right now. [Tim Wilson]: Okay, that might have been a moan, moantim.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: But specifically I think about it [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: in the context of education. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Education is an area where we are using a lot of technology [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and there's the technology [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: that we think is detrimental to children's growth [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: or students' growth. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Should they have phones in the classroom? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Should they get their own Chromebooks?
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Things like that. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: But then there are also questions about [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: what about the technology we are using [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: to actually drive that education? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And there are some companies that are coming out [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: that want to just have education be only through technology. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And I think it's a big open debate.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: There's a guy named Jared Horvath [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: who recently gave a congressional testimony, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I think it was, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and he's just recently come out with a book [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: called The Digital Delusion. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: He was a teacher for quite some time [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and he's talking about how education done through technology [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: comes with a lot of benefits, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: but you have to be aware of what you're giving up.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: And then how do you thoughtfully get ahead of those [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: so that you don't lose as you're gaining? [Tim Wilson]: It's so funny. [Tim Wilson]: He is actually in our queue as a potential... [Tim Wilson]: I recognize that name because he bounced around somewhere.
[Tim Wilson]: All right. [Tim Wilson]: I think he's a little controversial though, [Tim Wilson]: so if I'm correct, right? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Yeah. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: I mean, none of this is straightforward.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: It's more, like I said, [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: it's something I'm thinking about for a lot [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: because the question is not clear. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: What are you giving up before you pick up your pitchfork? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: You got to be relatively clear about that. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: But people like picking up pitchforks.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: All right, Val, what about you? [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: What's your last call? [Val Kroll]: Mine is actually semi-related to the topic, [Val Kroll]: so I'll be taking those brownie points for that. [Val Kroll]: It is a medium article from none other than Eric Sandosham, [Val Kroll]: one of our favorites.
[Val Kroll]: And this one in particular is about how AI is redefining [Val Kroll]: the role of analytics leadership. [Val Kroll]: And he does link, as he does in a lot of his posts, [Val Kroll]: to past articles that plant the seeds of some of that thought, [Val Kroll]: and they're all worth reading as well. [Val Kroll]: But one of the things that I think is really interesting [Val Kroll]: is he's talking about this paradigm shift [Val Kroll]: and how we're thinking about the new chief analytics officer [Val Kroll]: and what makes a good one is to redefine [Val Kroll]: one of the core competencies.
[Val Kroll]: Instead of focusing on solving problems, [Val Kroll]: it's going to be more about the ability to problem find, [Val Kroll]: problem find and problem define versus the actual solution of it. [Val Kroll]: And he goes into the T-shaped skills [Val Kroll]: and operating as decision scientists. [Val Kroll]: And so anyways, it was a really thoughtful read, [Val Kroll]: and I just found myself highlighting a bunch of excerpts in it [Val Kroll]: and shooting it off to random people.
[Val Kroll]: So I was like, I need to share it here as well, [Val Kroll]: but it was definitely a good one. [Michael Helbling]: Nice. Very cool. I'll check that out.
[Tim Wilson]: Tim, what about you? [Tim Wilson]: So I alluded to it earlier that our former coworker of all of us, [Tim Wilson]: Noah Levin, has started a sub-stack that he has posted some stuff on that [Tim Wilson]: is, Jonathan, as you said, he is super thoughtful. [Tim Wilson]: So the one that really triggered me [Tim Wilson]: also sort of relates to this topic. [Tim Wilson]: He had a piece called Let My People Code, [Tim Wilson]: the part of the AI debate nobody wants to say out loud, [Tim Wilson]: which maybe sounds a little clickbaity [Tim Wilson]: because he does have a marketing background.
[Tim Wilson]: But the essence of it is he's kind of making the case [Tim Wilson]: that one of the real tensions around AI, [Tim Wilson]: it's not just about declining quality, [Tim Wilson]: it's about experts grappling with the loss of exclusivity [Val Kroll]: as a way many more people can be competent. [Tim Wilson]: So even Jonathan, as you were talking about, [Tim Wilson]: the person who was the Power BI guru, [Tim Wilson]: and now they're moving into Tableau and they're losing that, [Tim Wilson]: and he has, it talks about Wikipedia, [Tim Wilson]: it talks about the printing press, [Tim Wilson]: and a little bit of it is a little bit of like, [Tim Wilson]: you know, check yourself.
[Tim Wilson]: For me, looking at it, I'm like, I don't want, [Tim Wilson]: I don't want code, code, code, writing R [Tim Wilson]: because I work so hard. [Tim Wilson]: If everybody can write R, what am I doing? [Tim Wilson]: So it does force a little bit of what's really going on [Tim Wilson]: when you're resisting, when you're much more democratizing [Tim Wilson]: an ability to a base level of competence. [Tim Wilson]: Which just to add on to that, Michael, it was two plus years ago [Tim Wilson]: when we were at Measure Camp New York, [Tim Wilson]: when you made the comment about generative AI [Tim Wilson]: making, getting everybody to average on stuff.
[Tim Wilson]: Like that, that really stuck with me then. [Tim Wilson]: Noah's piece is saying, people get, [Tim Wilson]: experts get upset that people can do average, [Tim Wilson]: but average is often, you know, good enough. [Tim Wilson]: It doesn't mean you don't need the expert. [Tim Wilson]: So, and it's, he has all sorts of historical references and stuff.
[Tim Wilson]: And he's a fantastic writer. [Tim Wilson]: So it's a great read. [Tim Wilson]: Michael. [Michael Helbling]: So, yeah, I, so there's a person who frequently in my career has [Michael Helbling]: somehow said something much more succinctly [Michael Helbling]: than I've been able to enunciate it.
[Michael Helbling]: And this happened again a couple of weeks ago at. [Michael Helbling]: Okay, it wasn't me. [Michael Helbling]: Mark, you know, no, it's not you, Tim. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Sorry.
[Michael Helbling]: I don't think anybody was taking that one. [Michael Helbling]: Not guilty either. [Michael Helbling]: Yeah, I see the keyword was succinctly. [Michael Helbling]: Yeah, no, so I was having this conversation [Michael Helbling]: at marketing a little something about some of my concerns [Michael Helbling]: about how anthropic is kind of doing some of the things [Michael Helbling]: they are behind the training and the adjustment of the model [Michael Helbling]: and how they're kind of giving it sort of like this [Michael Helbling]: sense of self kind of concept and everything.
[Michael Helbling]: And then Mark, David McBride, [Michael Helbling]: pointed me to an article by Gary Angel who is that person. [Michael Helbling]: And it's the articles called Can You Teach an AI Ethics? [Michael Helbling]: And he basically dove into specifically, [Michael Helbling]: there's a Wall Street Journal article about Amanda Askell [Michael Helbling]: who's their philosopher kind of training the AI on ethics and [Michael Helbling]: morality and he kind of got into a very interesting [Michael Helbling]: examination of that and I really benefited from reading it [Michael Helbling]: and sort of helped me kind of like bring my thinking more [Michael Helbling]: to a point on some of the things that were just sort of like [Michael Helbling]: hanging out at the edges of like, I don't know if I really [Michael Helbling]: agree with that and I'm not sure why.
[Michael Helbling]: Like Gary's thinking has always been really helpful to me [Michael Helbling]: in that regard. [Michael Helbling]: So I highly recommend it. [Tim Wilson]: Gary started publishing more frequently on Medium [Tim Wilson]: which is always a highly recommended read. [Michael Helbling]: He's fun to read since forever and so yeah.
[Michael Helbling]: So that's, I would highly recommend that. [Michael Helbling]: All right, well we've been chatting and I think it's for sure. [Michael Helbling]: You're going to have questions, you're going to have thoughts, [Michael Helbling]: you're going to have comments. [Michael Helbling]: We would love to hear from you.
[Michael Helbling]: The best way to do that is to reach out to us. [Michael Helbling]: We could do that via our LinkedIn page. [Michael Helbling]: You could do that to the Measure Slack chat group [Michael Helbling]: or by email at contact at analyticshour.io [Michael Helbling]: and if we're re-listen, leave a rating and review on the show as well.
[Michael Helbling]: And if you would like stickers for your laptop [Michael Helbling]: because even in this day and age of AI, [Michael Helbling]: we still need stickers on our laptop [Michael Helbling]: to show what tribes we belong to, [Michael Helbling]: you can reach out to us on analyticshour.io. [Michael Helbling]: There's a page and request form for that. [Michael Helbling]: All right, Yehonatan, thank you.
[Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Thank you so much. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: Thank you. [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: It is always nice to talk to each of you [Yehonatan Schwarzmer]: and all of you together as a real treat. [Val Kroll]: I know, I know.
[Michael Helbling]: This is good. [Michael Helbling]: This is really good. [Val Kroll]: All right, and I think we're all facing change [Michael Helbling]: and no matter what kind you're facing [Michael Helbling]: and whatever stage you're in and change that change curve, [Michael Helbling]: one thing you should always do [Michael Helbling]: and I think I speak for both of my co-hosts when I say keep analyzing. [Announcer]: Thanks for listening.
[Announcer]: Let's keep the conversation going with your comments, [Announcer]: suggestions and questions on Twitter at [Announcer]: @analyticshour on the web at analyticshour.io, [Announcer]: our LinkedIn group, and the Measure Chat Slack group. [Announcer]: Music for the podcast by Josh Grohurst. [Announcer]: Those smart guys wanted to fit in.
[Announcer]: So they made up a term called analytics. [Announcer]: Analytics don't work. [Charles Barkley]: Do the analytics say go for it no matter who's going for it? [Charles Barkley]: So if you and I were on the field, [Charles Barkley]: the analytics say go for it.
[Charles Barkley]: It's the stupidest, laziest, lamest thing [Charles Barkley]: I've ever heard for reasoning in competition. [Michael Helbling]: I feel like I might have hit a nerve there. [Tim Wilson]: I was trying to be, would that come through? [Tim Wilson]: Would that work if I did?
[Tim Wilson]: You're fine. [Tim Wilson]: It's totally fine. [Tim Wilson]: Yeah. [Val Kroll]: No, it's good.
[Tim Wilson]: Okay. [Tim Wilson]: I had a few other. [Tim Wilson]: I was going to do Kubla Ross five stages of grief [Tim Wilson]: or detours for the other three. [Val Kroll]: Yeah, I thought you were, I always try to guess [Val Kroll]: you know what he's going to say.
[Val Kroll]: I thought you were going to say stuck in what, what, what [Val Kroll]: anger? [Val Kroll]: He said, Michael, with the GA4, I think I'm such an anger. [Val Kroll]: Oh yeah, I'm still stuck in anger. [Val Kroll]: Yeah, I'm still stuck in.
[Charles Barkley]: I have an immersion in anger. [Charles Barkley]: Still stuck in anger. [Val Kroll]: Yeah. [Val Kroll]: Yeah.
[Val Kroll]: Still stuck in anger. [Michael Helbling]: Yeah. [Michael Helbling]: We've done a number of the things in that document. [Michael Helbling]: So.
[Tim Wilson]: Well, episode number 299, take three in which Michael [Tim Wilson]: has followed the recommendations. [Michael Helbling]: Why don't we, not all, but I've got all the recommendations. [Michael Helbling]: Oh, like I rebooted my Wi-Fi point, which has been functioning flawlessly [Michael Helbling]: for weeks, right up until today. [Michael Helbling]: And then I rebooted Chrome too.
[Michael Helbling]: So hopefully that's enough to get us through. [Michael Helbling]: Oh, we're not going to do a full system restart. [Michael Helbling]: No, we don't want to. [Tim Wilson]: No, we'll say that's our episode 300.
[Val Kroll]: We have to have something to celebrate. [Michael Helbling]: Yeah, yeah. [Michael Helbling]: And I don't think that's the issue here. [Michael Helbling]: I've been putting my computer through a lot of change lately.
[Michael Helbling]: I like it. [Michael Helbling]: Have any of your GPUs? [Val Kroll]: Yeah, just I'm doing a lot of stuff. [Michael Helbling]: Okay, let's get this show on the road.
[Michael Helbling]: Okay, here we go. [Michael Helbling]: Here we go in five, four, three. [Tim Wilson]: Rock flag and succinct refers to the expression of ideas, [Tim Wilson]: information, or arguments in a manner that is remarkably brief, clear, and to the point. [Tim Wilson]: As a succinct statement or piece of writing, [Tim Wilson]: I've always unnecessary words, fluff, and excessive detail, [Tim Wilson]: capturing the core essence of a message with maximum compression.
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