Rizing Evolution – The Future Proofed Enterprise Podcast
Episode 4 Transcript: Organized for Success: Technology Alone Won’t Make You a Hero
(Editors note: this transcript was machine generated then lightly edited. You can read a summary, watch the original episode on LinkedIn or see the list of all podcast episodes.)
Bonnie Graham
According to the computer. We’ve been warned and let me start the zoom and we are live streaming. Everybody, behave yourselves. I say that on every show. Thank you very much, Andrew. We are streaming waiting for zoom to come up. Come on, LinkedIn.
Intro
Welcome to a fresh perspective on business technology. This Rizing evolution. The future proofed enterprise presented by Rizing a Wipro company you’ll hear from business and technology innovators. To know how to use the latest technologies and business strategies to transform industries and importantly, how these technologies and strategies can be shaped to your business needs in your way, help your organization move and exciting new directions. Now here’s your host and moderator, Bonnie D Graham.
Bonnie Graham
That’s me, Bonnie D in the house. Thank you, lady. Who’s in disembodied voice. We appreciate the intro. I want my panelists all to smile. Welcome to Rizing evolution. We are a couple weeks into this brand new series, and we’ve been covering some very exciting topics and we will not fail you today. In the US, I know you’re all getting ready for something called Thanksgiving. Well, I’m giving thanks for the privilege of being able to produce and host this show. So I will start as I usually do with a little poem. Panelists. Don’t be scared. It’s OK, Dean. I’m talk. To you. So I want you all to listen up for a minute. I collaborated with something we know familiarly as ChatGPT. It’s an LLM. Large language model. AI. You put it all together and it helped me write this poem about today’s topic. When I say your name, please just wave. Because we are live streaming and everybody can see you on LinkedIn. And everybody can see you. I think one of my Facebook channels and they can hear you on The Voice of America business channel. So here we go in the binary dance of circuits. Apps A tail unfolds where technology maps enterprise software escape coat, often named for performance issues. It’s frequently blamed. Uh-oh. Steve, this a warning to all of our yeah, we know. Yet the reality is a complex terrain where success is woven, A delicate chain, not just in the realm of lines and code. But in the challenge of humans on R bestowed ooh, on this episode we embark on a quest, searching the dynamics where a success find its nest. People processes, technologies, embrace a trifecta of power in the enterprise. Face join us today for a discussion in lightening and bold dispelling misconceptions. Truths will unfold. Insights for seekers for a performance, refined efficiencies. Secrets are the tech landscapes fined here comes the part where I mentioned your name, Dean Edmondson way below, and Lawrence Bergman with wisdom to sow. Meghan Marie Butler and Doctor Stephen Hunt, leaders in the know. See I got you all with Bonnie D as host, the conversation glides will cover the landscape and its many. Guides listen or watch on our virtual stream. Organize for success. A tech driven dream. Can technology alone make you a hero, you ask? Stick around for the insights we are up to the task. OK, let’s rate it. I didn’t tell you this, but we want to. Laura liked it a lot. He’s still smiling. Megan, what do you think?
Lawrence Bergman
Oh, I get it.
Megan Butler
10 out of 10 yeah. Fantastic.
Bonnie Graham
Oh my goodness, Steve, you good?
Steve Hunt
It was like Doctor Seuss crossed with Josh. Burson was beautiful.
Bonnie Graham
Person will be very pleased.
Dean Edmondson
I’m holding up the 10 card as well.
Bonnie Graham
For this episode I take that text and then I take a little bit about each of you and I just feed it and I say ChatGPT, please write me a poem in a business tone of language using this text. And I just plop it all in and hit return. And then I count Steve. I start the count 1. Two by the time I hit the number three, I have gotten the full poem. It is there on my screen. Sometimes if I say I’d like you to do this, change that whatever, it’ll give me two versions side by sides and pick the one you like. It’s that’s a fist. I know. I know. And then I go to work and take some time and change it. Clean it up. Move some words around and make sure that you’re all. Very, very highlighted. So welcome everybody. Now, you know our topic and our topic officially for today is as I scroll up organized for success will technology alone make you a hero, and the two operative words. There are the phrases are technology alone and hero because you want to be a hero. Let’s go around the table and welcoming my guests, and we’d like you all to introduce yourselves. Starting out with Dean Edmondson. Dean, I’m putting you on full screen speaker view. Would you please regale us with your background and what this topic means to you? Welcome.
Dean Edmondson
hanks everyone for joining today. My name is Dean Edmondson. I’m a senior executive with over 30 years experience driving business transformation across many different industries. I’ve worked a lot in the oil and gas utility, engineering, construction industries to help transformation around technologies I’ve held CXO roles in software companies as well as servicing cloud hosting companies and most importantly to me, what these roles and what these experiences across different companies have helped me with is to understand transformation and how transformation happens and the organizational change management that we need to be precious about it as any organization helping others to go through that transformational process. There’s a there’s a lot of insight that we gain each time we do this and that internal 360 review and that transfer of that knowledge back to the customer is imperative and it’s why customers ask us for help and. In that we do this hundreds of times over and no organization has the ability to do it hundreds of times within themselves, so they benefit each time from that and I really appreciate the opportunity to take those successes, help other organizations see the benefit of those successes and drive that. And it’s not. Just about technology. So when we go through transform. Information. It’s about human transformation as well. Understanding how to move people to a different capacity, a different capability and put them into places that they never might have thought of being before based on technology based on business processes based on where organizations want to go and competitively differentiate themselves. So that’s a really exciting part of transformation, if you will. And I, I’ve done this, as I mentioned before with many other organizations I’ve Rizing. I’m responsible for the BTP practice, the business, technology platform practice. And that business technology platform is a platform as it as the name came out. The notes where when you roll out a standard SAP product for example or there’s a fit for standard type of deployment, what the BTP solution allows you to get to is fit for perfection. And that’s really exciting because as I mentioned earlier, this about technology, but it’s also about people and it’s about processes and weaving all of those components together to provide the end customer with a better story, a better experience. When they’re working in their organization across many different systems and aswe talk about these different topics today, I’ll be coming from it from a mindset of many different customers, many different business processes and a technology perspective that allows you to weave together all of those different components into one. One solution that. It’s the custom. Needs.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you, Dean. Lovely. And I like the word transformation that’s we’re talking about is technology the end, all the be all we used to have the word called panacea. Right. Oh, get this app. Put this process in. Everything will be great. And the person who raised that green flag and said, let’s go go to market, go wherever you want. They were the hero. Well, it’s not that easy. Anymore. And that’s we’re here to talk about today. Lawrence Bergman, delighted to see you. I’m putting you on Speaker view. Please. Let’s have a brief bio. And where are you excited about our topic? Welcome, Lars.
Lawrence Bergman
Yeah. Great. Thanks. Thanks, Bonnie and welcome to everyone and thanks for. Mining I I grew up in the electric and gas utility industry and I’ve led many organizations mostly in operations and I’ve had the opportunity over the years to to lead business transformation efforts at utilities and utilities aren’t known for being out on the cutting edge there. At times, a little bit sleepy in their implementation, so you’ve really got to find a way to energize the base, get folks interested in transformation, get them engaged. When I first started doing business transformation at utilities 20 plus years ago. Somebody described it to me as the equivalent of setting your hair on fire and putting it out with the rock. Now that’s pretty graphic in terms of the effort, but it it’s fairly accurate. Now the good news is there’s a lot of tricks and tips and ways to engage the folks. Closest to the work to make sure that their input is heard, it’s acknowledged. I’ll refer to it as those adult conversations. They’re not going to get everything that they want. Change is. But you want them standing shoulder to shoulder with you when you go live, and they understand it’s not going to be perfect, but it is going to transform the way they do their work, the way they execute it, and frankly, the value that they get out of it as employees and business transformation has been a passion of mine. For years and its business transformation and technology implementation with a purpose, the mere act of just putting something in a new piece of software doesn’t interest me. But actually getting benefit and value and changing the way that business is executed, that’s what really excites me. So at Rizing I I lead our business development practice for enterprise asset management globally and I’m really happy to be. Here today.
Bonnie Graham
Well, we’re really happy to have you and I have to do a sidebar that were talking about Thanksgiving recipes and plans for this week. And Laura shared with me that he’s bringing a fresh. Ricky and I’m very envious that might have to get your recipe because next year I think that’s where I’m going to go. Thank you, Lars. I can’t forget that. Thank you very much. Glad you’re here. Let’s go to Megan Butler. I named you Megan Marie Butler in my opening because I know there’s a middle name in there somewhere. Megan, I’m putting you on speaker. If you we’re so happy to have you, please introduce yourself. And where are you here today? You’re welcome.
Megan Butler
Hi, Bonnie. Thank you for having having me here. So I’m a future of work strategist at Rizing, and I bring together over 15 years of professional experience and nearly a decade of post secondary education. So obviously I have no life. My whole focus for the last seven years has been looking at artificial intelligence in HR and what really comes along with those questions are how are people adopting these technology or how people are using them and what we really notice is that regardless of the technology, the adoption rate is different. So why? Why can we use the same technology? And adopt it differently in organizations. And it comes down to understanding the social technical processes that are going on. And so it’s not just the technology, but what are the social processes happening in organizations that are allowing or not allowing adoption of new technologies to happen. And so my research has been focusing on that area and have some really interesting unique insights on how leadership. Impacts adoption. How strategy impacts culture and the way we adopt. Etcetera. So I’m really fascinated to hear what everyone thinks, especially coming from that industry side and bringing that expertise and then blending it with the story that we have from the academic side to be able to provide a more holistic look about what’s happening in organizations and why are some organizations so successful and how can we replicate that.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you very much. I like the idea that you the notion of bringing in the academic side Megan and bringing the people side and a word after Steve introduces himself. I’m just going to question the word hero because what is that? Who is that? Do we need that hero should everybody win? We’ll leave that one alone. So Steve Hunt, you and I’ve known each other for years. We worked together at ASAP for a long time. I’m so happy to see you again. Everybody else is new to me and eye to them. So, Steve Hunt, what do you want? Speaker, if you love the glasses, by the way, Steve, please introduce yourself. I’m guessing there are a lot of people around the world who may already know you as through your various roles. But talk to everybody please and tell us also, why are you happy to be here? I think you are Steve. Welcome.
Steve Hunt
Thank you. Well, Bonnie, thank you so much for enjoying this and great to be part of this group. I mean, just hearing the stuff that people were mentioning, you know, Dean, human transformation and technology. The purpose socio technological change. Megan. That’s like, boy, we speak the same language. The what I do. I am the chief expert for work and technology for SAP. And my focus on my background. I have a PhD in a field called Industrial Organizational psychology, which is not clinical psychology. It’s the psychology of work and my career. That’s focused on how to use technology to create more effective work environments, more adaptable work environments, more inclusive work environments, more productive, healthier. And I’ve been doing this for a long time. I’ve actually was recognized, as I’ve talked to more SuccessFactors customers and almost probably any person on the planet, it’s in the thousands now. And the thing that I think is interesting in the work that I do is technology changes radically all the time. The basic functionalities, I mean like generative as interesting 1, the mathematics we have had for generative AI is that’s not new. The concept of like machine learning skills, ontologies, all that stuff we had that we just didn’t have the processing speed and the data. And so the technology really radically changes based as we build these new capabilities. But the thing that doesn’t change about work is people, the fundamental psychology of people, the way I put it is technology evolves very fast as we develop new. Abilities. People don’t evolve very fast. We don’t change, we do adapt, and a lot of the work that I do focus on how do we use technology to create more effective workforces to adapt to a changing world, taking into account the one constant that we have in an organization, which is the fundamental psychology of people, I mean. Are there differences on generations? There are surface levels in terms of some attitudes and stuff, but the way I put it is my kids listen to very different music than I do, but we both listen to music we both like to dance. The fundamental things that make us human don’t. And that’s, you know, very excited to have this conversation about the role of technology because it can make our lives better. It can also make the lives a lot worse. I’m also Bonnie, obligated to say, I wrote a book on this topic called Talent Tectonics. So if you guys like what I hear today and you want to hear me go on and on about it in great detail, pick up a copy.
Bonnie Graham
I’ll get you on one of my other shows where we talk to authors. Steve, thank you. Just got an invitation, Steve. I was very intrigued when you mentioned about the different generations, the demographics and that the thin differences. I read a couple of years ago, it might have been when I was at SAP that we had at that time was pre pandemic. We had five different generations cohorts, we call them right in the workforce. At the same time. Can you imagine the 21 year olds or younger just coming into the workforce talking to the boomers at the time? And all of the generations in between. Interesting. What is success? What is a hero? What is technology? The people of dynamic Steve. Go ahead, say something.
Steve Hunt
Say something. Yeah, I think. I mean, we could probably get a generational stuff, but one thing I would say, why there are differences, we have to be really careful, I say. You don’t need a PhD in psychology to know that grouping people based on their demographic characteristics. Slapping a label on them, and making generalizations about them is bad. It’s called stereotyping, and most of the generational stuff is kind of a formalism formula for ageism. So yes, there are differences, but by and large. Were more similar across generations, and what changed? This people don’t change. Our attitudes change based on the technology that’s available in the current labor market, but it’s not like people have fundamentally changed, although as long as there have been people we’ve been complaining about different generations, those kids these days.
Bonnie Graham
Well, technology scapegoat that was in my introduction. There you go. So we blame tech from time to time. Thank you all for your buyers. You’re all interesting, fascinating people. Very, very learned. And very expert in this field and I’m very happy to be having all of you here today happy to be. I’ve never said that. OK, so let’s go around the table. I have asked each of you to please send me and we’ll keep this part brief. Send me a fictional quote from a movie or a TV character or a song lyric that has nothing to do with technology and heroes and success, I hope. And you’re going to relate. Your quote to the topic in your own words, I will read the quote with a little bit of background and then go for it two to two to three minutes would be fine. So Dean Edmondson? Has picked a quote from the wonderful so sad. The show ended after three seasons. They only wrote a three season arc. It’s Ted Lasso, Ted Lasso played by the wonderful Jason Sudeikis. It’s an American sports comedy drama TV series, and this particular quote is from Season 2 episode 11 called the Midnight Midnight Train to Royston. It aired on Apple TV Plus on October 1st 20. 21 brief background Ted Lasso is based on the character of Sudeikis played. He created in promos for NBC Sports coverage of England’s Premier League and Ted Lasso was an American football coach who is unexpectedly recruited to go coach, a fictional English Premier League soccer team. AFC Richmond. And there are a lot of dynamics in there, and we won’t go into it, but it was a lovely show. And here’s one of the Bon Mojo Dean. That’s a good words in French. Excuse me that he says in the show and you’re going to relate it. So he says, you say impossible. All I hear is I’m possible. OK. Dean, take it away. How does that relate? Make it like that. How does it relate to our topic? Go ahead, Dean.
Dean Edmondson
Yeah. So I I I really like Ted Lasso for a number of different reasons, but I the eternal optimism that comes out of his character in this show makes everything possible. And when we’re doing transformational change management, organizational change management. If we take the approach of being the tiger versus the EOR in this case and look at the possibility and be very open minded to, you know what the future has in store for us and how we can participate in that with a little bit of change, a little bit of reforming our mental attitudes about change. I think that it’s as simple as you know the characterization of impossible to impossible and it and it’s really that. Part of this whole process and you know as we talk about organizational change management is helping people to understand that and we can do it again through technology, we can do it through discussion, we can do it through finding early adopters who just have that formula in their head so that they can help the rest of the organization see that. But it’s our job as an organization. Working with other senior leaders across the across the companies that we work with to help them understand how we get rid of the valley of despair that some people go in and we can put bridges across that we can put ladders into it to pull people out of it. Because inevitably there are some tones that make people think. That this could be a change that I don’t like, but we can change that with a couple of tools and exercises. And I love Ted Lasso for all the tools and the trite little quotes that he gave to help us really rethink how we approach change.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you. Dean, I’m at a loss for words, which is very. Rare. Steve knows that was so beautifully said about the value, the importance of the writing of the delivery of Ted Lasso, and we all miss him and usually a show like that takes seven or eight years of an arc, but they just decided three was enough. I think we should allow me to get it back for a season four. I’ll sign that petition. OK, let’s go to Laura. Let’s go to Lawrenceburg. And Laura’s has picked a very classic quote from a movie from, oh, My goodness, 1992. Do the math. It’s stated by the character Jimmy Dugan, played by the wonderful, so many wonderful actors Tom Hanks yelling at Evelyn Gardner, and she was played by an actress named Bitty Schram. And if any of you followed the TV series monk with Tony Shaloub, I believe Bitty Schramm played his secretary during several of the seasons of Monk quite a show. The movie here we’re talking about as a league of their own. 1992 American sports comedy drama film It’s the fictionalized account of the real Life All American Girls, Professional League Baseball League AG, PBL. Directed by Ohh Penny man. Tom Hanks, Geena Davis Madonna. Lori Petty, John Lovitz, David Strathairn, Gary Marshall and Bill Pullman. What it was it it’s 19. I’m sorry. In 2012, it was selected for preservation in the US National Film Registry by the. Library of Congress. Woo, here’s the quote. 5 words Laurence, let’s go for this. There’s no crying. In baseball, who doesn’t love that quote? Laura, what does this have to do with our topic?
Lawrence Bergman
Go ahead. Well, it it’s not just the way that that the words that were said, but the way that Tom Hanks delivers it is just classic. There’s no crying in baseball, you know, and he’s just impassioned about it and. I I was reminded of a time when I was rolling out a transformation program amongst a bunch of utility folks, and these are guys in the field that are their world is being changed and we’re going to measure their performance different ways. We’ve got scorecards, we’ve got ways to monitor how well they’re doing. We’re going to force rank their performance against their peers. And one of those very foreman broke down and started crying and to myself, I thought. Wait a minute. There’s no crying in baseball and there’s no crying in construction and maintenance. And then I I got to thinking. About. It you know what this? Change and change is deep and it’s intense and it’s very personal. They say politics is local. Well change and change management is very personal. And there’s loss and there’s other things that factor. Into it and to myself, I thought of that movie and I thought, you know, this from the 30s and 40s, I think was the era when men didn’t cry, for example. So Tom Hanks was translating that to a woman crying. But as I think about it in sports today, there’s a lot of crying in sports today, football. Basketball, baseball, golf. Everyone’s crying when they win. When they lose. When they did great, when they did poorly. It just says.
Lawrence Bergman
That there’s a fair amount of whining, I’ll. I’ll give you that I’ll give. You that, but what it? Says to me is our emotions are a heck of a lot closer to the surface than we realized, and I think we need to tap into those emotions. We need to acknowledge them. We need to value them. We need to have again those adult. Conversations with folks to say I understand where you are. I’m meeting you where you are. I know this intense. Let’s talk it through. And so that was a roundabout way of saying I’ve actually seen that quote in a meeting. And. There’s a lot more to it than just Tom Hanks rating. One of his players.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you, Lars. Thank you. That was beautifully put. Yes, and Steve, there is whining and usually that’s the ones who aren’t crying or whining because somebody else says I’m just going to throw that out there. Let’s go to Megan. Marie Butler has picked another classic quote. This just classic quote day here on Rizing evolution. She’s picked a quote from Forrest Gump. What another Tom Hanks movie is this Tom Hanks? Classic day. A 1994 American comedy drama when you put comedy drama as genres together, by the way they get a dash in between for us come. Directed by Robert Zemeckis, written by Eric Roth. Based on the 1986 Winston Groom novel and Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Gary Sinise, Mielecki Williamson, and Sally Field. Oh, what a good movie. Story to pick several decades in the life of Forest Hank, Forrest Gump, played by Hanks Forest. Hank. There you go a slow witted and kind hearted man from Alabama who witnesses an unwittingly influences several defining historical events in the 20th century US. And by the way, the film differs substantially from the original novel. Here’s the quote Megan has picked. My Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get. How’d I do, Megan? Is that OK?
Megan Butler
Beautifully done, beautifully done. So why? Why? I decided to pick that quote for today’s show was the biggest thing that I’ve learned over the years is for organize like organizations looking for success with technology. It’s more about knowing about yourself than about the technology. Too often people look for technology solutions that work somewhere else and expect it to work for themselves. And if you start by understanding what your what’s going on in your own organization, you can find a solution that will probably work better. And the biggest thing is every organization is different. They’re so unique and we need to honor that uniqueness to be able to find the right solution. So that was my pick of quotes for today and plus I don’t watch a lot of television, so I didn’t have a lot of choices.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you. Very much, by the way. I keep a collection of quotes that I found in radio, TV, movies, cartoons, songs. I have about 50 or 75 now in a document I keep in my drafts in my outlook mail. So if anybody is ever looking for a quote from popular culture, I’ll call it broadly. Just come to me and I’ll be glad to share a whole bunch. That’s a real, real doozy’s there. Thank you very much. Doctor Steve Hunt has picked a quote from. Well, this not a Tom Hanks movie. How dare you quote from Brian Stimpson? And played by John Cleese. Anybody thinking about that to Laura wisely, his students played by an actress named Sharon Maiden. Just like it sounds. Clockwise, 1986 British absurdist comedy Rd. Film, please. Won the 1987 Peter Sellers Award for comedy at the Evening Standard British Film Awards. I’m sure that means something to somebody. Brian Stimpson, headmaster of Thomas Tumpey. Comprehensive school has been elected to chair the annual Headmaster’s conference meeting in Norwich. Not Connecticut careless as a young man, he is now compulsively organized. Steve, this would make a good thing for you. To do in. One of your books. He’s strictly punctual and he runs his school like clockwork. Hence the name of the movie. He is the first headmaster. Blah blah blah to chair the conference and honor deserved reserved for heads of more prestigious. Private schools and everything goes wrong. So Steve, I’m going to read the quote you got to unpack this for. It’s not the despair, Laura. I can take the despair. It’s the hope I can’t stand. This sounds very interesting. I don’t do a good John Cleese. Steve, go ahead, rescue me.
Steve Hunt
I’ve always liked that quote cause actually, I guess it relates to me personally. You know, with technology particulars I sometimes joke could, if you’ve worked in this field for a long time, technologies about a lot of false hopes and expectations that we keep thinking is going to do stuff that it doesn’t do. But that goes both ways. It’s false hopes and expectations positively, but also negatively. People think it’ll make things worse. And I think Lars. That I really like that you shared about these people’s emotional reactions. If you look at how people are reacting to like generative AI, there is false hopes going all over the board. And like I’m also one thing I can almost guarantee about all the predictions of generative AI is they’re probably all wrong. You know, knowing both ways. And I think the. The I think a lot of when you look at using technology kind of going back to what I focus on, which is the fundamentals that don’t change are people. People actually are really good at change in the right conditions, but we’re kind of wired to be skeptical about change. And so when technology comes out, we almost. Intrinsically look at it. This going to try to get me to do something I don’t want to do or it’s going to take something away from me that I like and that’s kind of how we first start and I think really looking at using technology to show how it’s going to improve people’s lives, how it’s going to meet their goals. And if you look at the world of like, HR technology, so much of it, if we’re really honest in the past, it wasn’t deployed to improve. Well, the experience it was deployed to reduced administrative costs by projecting pain and suffering at scale on employees and managers. How many of us like self-service technology? I mean, it’s if it works great, but a lot of it really historically didn’t work very well. I mean, how many of us when we call on the phone are like, oh, good, I got a phone tree. I didn’t want to talk to a human. I wanted to press 7, you know, so. So much of the historically the use of technology has been focused on cost reduction and efficiency. It hasn’t been helping the actual end user in the case what we’re talking about. Its employees now happily and actually is one of the things that I booked on with tectonics talks a lot about is that’s changed. It’s changed for a variety of reasons. It’s changed because of a scarcer labor market. It’s changed because the nature of work requires people to be creative, collaborative, caring, and you can’t do that stuff if you feel exploited, burned out, or frustrated. So we’ve had a lot of positive changes, but I think a lot of what we need to do when we’re implementing technology and both the design of it and the deployment. Is be far more empathetic to the user that’s going to use it. Look at it from their perspective and be far more realistic and conservative about, yeah, this going to change stuff. But it’s not going to transform the nature of work. There’s very few technologies that completely change the nature of work. They do happen, but they’re few and far between.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you very much, Steven. My experience, my vast working experience, it’s usually a manager, a boss, a leader whose behavior. There changes the nature of work immediately, indelibly, irrevocably, for the people around that person to whom who report to that person, or who manage that person, and that can just be as disruptive as any kind of new technology. One comment, Steve, and then we got to move on. Go ahead.
Steve Hunt
Yes. Well, and I think you raised a really good point actually about the impact of humans on employee experience. There’s a really interesting thing on generative AI where I read a study by a clinical psychologist and not a clinical psychologist. But they said how generative AI can never do count. It can tactically do it. It can provide, like the advice and the guidance. But they said part of the key part of counseling is knowing there’s another human who’s devoting their life in the form of time and attention to thinking about you. And I think that Bonnie, on your point – technology can never be empathetic. It can never care and part of a good employee experience is knowing that there’s other people that you work with that think of you as a human. And I think that’s one of the things where you look at sort of false hopes and expectations about technology. Let’s not try to make it something that. It will never be.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you. And I will tell you that ChatGPT has wonderful etiquette skills. It was trained so that if it sends me a quote that I tell, it was not that person, it was not at Tom Hanks in that movie or somebody else said it will say I apologize for any inconvenience I caused you. You are right. It was somebody else, Lars. It really says that to me. So it’s been well trained. Which is? It’s not sentient, but it does have certain actual skills. I use that word advisedly. Let’s move on. Thank you very much, Dean. I put into the chat for you. I don’t. If you had a chance to look at it, your statement, number one, we’re going into our formal round table. Part of the show. Although we have been around the table several times already. Dean, I’m going to read this statement. It’s just a one liner. Take about two minutes, please. And then everybody. Megan. Steve and Laura, I want you to sit at the edge of your chair and pay attention because that’s it, Steve. Yeah, I got you. We heard that book reference against Steve. We’re counting. It’s very appropriate. So what I’d like you to do is after Dean finishes, I will ask Laura’s to agree or disagree with Dean. Don’t be afraid. Dean’s in a very good mood today. He told me the menu was great for Thursday and then Megan, I’ll go to you and ask you to agree or disagree with Dean and or with Lars. And then, Steve, you get to wrap up the go around on agree or disagree. Let’s try to keep it brief because I want to pick one statement from each of you when we’ve got 21 minutes left, so let’s see. We can do this, Dean Edmondson said the following in his statement to me before the show, the best business results occur if organizations approach technology projects with a top down view and a bottoms up execution strategy brief into the point. Dean, go ahead, unpack it 2 minutes for us, please.
Dean Edmondson
Yeah. So this it’s a tough one. So when we when we work with organizations and some of the best in class organizations how I see them looking at transformation and how they want to adopt something new is that they do need the executive sponsorship. So from a top. Down perspective, they definitely want to have executive sponsorship participation from that team and a broad brush. It’s kind of like what we talked about earlier. When you know when you’re in, when you’re, when you have changes coming in the organization. Steve mentioned that technology really doesn’t. There’s very few technology transformations. And Bonnie D You mentioned that, you know a person can come in and make change happen. In this case, the top down incentives, the top down, you know leadership can really begin to make change happen across an organization. And but that doesn’t happen without the bottoms up approach and the bottoms up approach is you know what’s in it for me. What? How can I contribute to this? And if you’re going to push change across the organization or you’re going to enable, I think is a better term change across an organization, then you have to really think about. How do I get buy in across that organizational team? What motivations are there for the rest of the team to want to participate in this? How do I identify some wins and those wins usually come through small, regional or you know. Group wins where you identify an early adopter, somebody who wants to be at the tip of the spirit, who wants to lead the change effort, and who wants to help define what success could look like, and then the rest of the team can, you know, begin to work with that group to understand what aspects that they went through to make the change. Up and how that benefited the organization and they jump on that bandwagon or ride that wake, if you will, of the success wave. And that goes through there. So it’s not just, you know, starting with a problem at a level, it’s starting with an understanding of what the potential problem is, what the solution could be. And then partitioning the levels of the organization so that we’re talking it from both sides and we’re enabling leadership to. Help and support the change and. The doers of the organization to initiate and fill the satisfaction of that change so that that buy in actually happens. And the broader organization adopts it and we move on to the next phase and it’s not a Big Bang by any stretch. These are, you know, micro changes along the way where people become more satisfied. More inclined to jump on and support that bigger initiative and has all of its NGO’s and everything set up because the organization has taken both the top down and bottoms up approach. So a lot, a lot was said there. I know, but it is as simple as being making sure that both the top and the bottom understand what the change is, how the change can affect his or her role within the organization and giving them the tools to enable the broader organization to come together. 1.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you, Dean. Very well put. Let’s go around the table briefly. Agree or disagree, Mr. Bergman? You’re up talk.
Lawrence Bergman
I agree completely. I would add though, that that meeting in the middle where the top down and the bottom up comes together is vitally important. And those conversations and that how that plays out, that’s probably where the where the secret sauce is and. Got it.
Bonnie Graham
Hmm. Interesting. Megan Butler talk to me.
Megan Butler
It was really interesting while I was listening to Dean, I was thinking there’s a piece of research and it’s killing me because I can’t think of the author it. I believe it was an MIT review paper and it talked about the need for having what they quoted as big eye innovation. Management driven type innovation alongside small eye innovation which is employee LED innovation and that it it’s not just about having that that organization changing that technology all the time but enabling employees through that technology to come up with local ideas on how to implement it. Asked for how it works in the organization, and that’s what it really made me think of as like, how do you bring together that management, that management, big eye innovation that’s driving that’s able to drive a new technology across the entire organization while still fostering and be able to enable the small line. Innovation as local employees being able to come up with applying the solution to the best possible way for how they’re doing business.
Bonnie Graham
Interesting. And in the real world, outside of the corporate walls, we call that grassroots. Right is what do people have to say? Steve, join us. Agree or disagree with anybody or everybody?
Steve Hunt
Yeah, yeah, I agree. But I think one of the things too is recognizing that what employees want from a job is not necessarily what companies want employees to do all the time. They don’t always align like. And I think the one of the things I always talked about is like companies can’t get what they need from employees if employees don’t get what they want, but employees won’t get, they want. If companies don’t get what they need because good employee experiences don’t come from working for failing companies. So it’s about really about how to balance these two. And I think it’s interesting how technology is having a big impact on this. Really good example. Is that I I work a lot of companies that have large shift driven scheduled workforces and they’re all struggling to fill the shifts because of broader demographic, labor market changes and what’s happening now is people are realizing that the biggest thing that impacts hiring is job design. Are you designing jobs that people actually want? And the biggest thing that impacts shift schedule? Jobs, one of the biggest, is the shift itself, and so now we’re seeing technologies develop to give employees a lot more control over their shift schedule. You know, and be able to swap shifts and take time, which from a company perspective, just, oh, this makes things more complicated. But from a life perspective for employees, it’s like, no, I’d like to be able to take two hours out and see my kids play sports. Thank you very much. You know, so it’s this balance and I think that’s where. When they’re looking at this, I think part of it is it used to be the company would come up what it wanted Dean, to your point. And then they tried to pitch it and sell it to the. Employees, I think there’s a shift now where companies are saying, well, this what we need. But let’s spend more time understanding what employees want and find a way to balance these two as opposed to the more top down big I I force the small, I do it as opposed to putting them on the same level. And I think that’s where technology really is enabling significant change. It’s remote work is another good example. A lot of employees, a lot of leaders, don’t want remote work because. You know, they I don’t know why they don’t want it. I think they’re just because I didn’t grow up. With it. But.
Lawrence Bergman
I like. I like your management voice though that you’ve taken on there. Though.
Steve Hunt
But the yeah, yeah. Always say if you have to see your employees to manage them, unless you’re managing ballet dancers, you’re a crappy manager. So.
Bonnie Graham
Wait a minute. Is that a portable moment? Thank you, Steve.
Steve Hunt
That point of technology is enabling us to have a lot more of this balance between those two perspectives and have more flexibility in the way that we accomplish things. And I think it is going back to, I totally agree with you, Dean. It’s looking at both. Gives. I think the change is. Historically we didn’t put nearly enough focus on the what, Megan, I guess you referred to as the small eye innovations in work, so.
Dean Edmondson
If I was to add one additional comment for this because I think I think we talked about management styles and you know how do we manage people and this has nothing to do with management, this 100%.
Leadership and how do we lead people and how do we participate and roll up our sleeves to be part of that team and get out there and do it. And so to Steve’s point, it’s not really a management style. This a leadership style. And that’s the transformation that I think is going on in business and has been going on for a number of years now.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you, Dean. That was a great conversation started and I want to give my two cents sidebar here. Steve, you mentioned job design. Well, I don’t know if anybody here on the panel besides me has answered a job or a job gone for an interview, gotten the job, arrived and found out that the other employees in the Department of the team had no interest in having that employee there. They didn’t want that. Junction filled. They thought it was theirs. They didn’t want you. They didn’t like you. And a rug was literally pulled out from underneath you on the first day. And it was Battle City. And that was so job designed to me is has to be speak the truth of what the what, the organization, the people in the organization, not Megan. The big eye wants that job filled. But how does the organization feel about it? Maybe that’s a way to look at that bottom up. Dean of how do you say? What do we need in terms of new talent and new possibilities? Is. What do other people think about that? So anyway, I don’t want to get too personal, but I’ve seen that happen in several places and it’s not very pleasant as a new cover to a big company. Let’s leave that one on the floor there. So let’s go around. Dean. That was wonderful. Lars. I have put into the chat for you statement #2 from your list here. This interesting, so let’s do a 2 minute from you, unpack, and then we’ll go around the table. It’ll be Megan, and then Steve and then Dean. So Laura says leaders like to have an off putting air quotes open door policy, which is great, but they’re inner problem solver and rescuer takes over and they invariably start to tinker, micromanage, rescue and do someone else’s job.
Lawrence Bergman
Yeah. So first hand experience, when I started my business transformation journey 20 plus year. Years ago I had a 360 coaching engagement with all of my management team. We were doing some large initiatives at a utility and so everyone was getting coached. We had feedback from our peers and everything and we had our first report out session and I arrived there along with everybody else with my management team and they said well, that’s your chair in the middle of the room. I said oh, that’s interesting. And they said we have some feedback we want to share with you. You have this open door policy and you are a rescuer, tinkerer, problem solver. And when you do that, what you’re doing is making the rest of us not irrelevant. But it’s like that. That’s my Job and I can’t force multiply and get the most out of the folks that I’m working with and we can’t contribute the most if we’re not all doing our part and leaders oftentimes we’ll say ohh, I hear that problem. Let me work on that for you. And there’s there might be two or three levels in between them and the employee where they’ve just made them. Irrelevant. And so I think in order to get the real value out of changing. Natives. You have to engage and you have to do it very carefully. They need to be heard, but you don’t need to be solving everybody’s problems and doing their jobs. Otherwise you end up with just the thinking of one individual. And that’s not the optimum solution.
Bonnie Graham
Very, very well. Put brief into the point. Let’s go around the table fast. Megan, what do you think? Agree or disagree?
Megan Butler
I totally agree with Lars and I think that it’s becoming a much more important fact as we move forward in that senior management in the past needed to be the most technical person in the room where now they need to be the consensus builder in the room and bring together the expertise that they have. And as we as we have more knowledge worker and more trained employees. And especially in a more digital world, that’s going to become more important and the core role of senior leadership will be to bring those X or not senior leadership. But managers will be to bring those people together and understand from them what the best approach is not to be telling them what the best approach is.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you, Steve hunt. Join us.
Steve Hunt
Yeah. And so I think building on that too, that one of the things we need much better tools for leaders to actually understand the experience that employees are having. I remember talking to one of our customers and they said that leaders without some form of technology actually can’t really understand what’s going on with their employees because one, they can’t possibly. Talk to every single employee. If it’s a large organization, but they also say. That you know, if you’re a leader and you go out, especially when you’re higher up the way employees interact with you is it’s not authentic. It’s not disorienting. But, you know, I remember 1 colleague of mine that like a very senior level person was having a really significant challenge. There was a thing the company had done that really didn’t make sense. And I, you know, I asked, what did you talk to this executive about? It goes, no, I don’t want to be the only time this person. Beats me. I’m whining about some problem. That you know, when you’re a leader, you’re living in a bubble and socially intelligent employees who don’t interact with you very often aren’t going to be, like, necessarily being candid with you about what their work is actually like because they want to put on a good face, right, you know. And so I think one of the biggest challenge is, you know. Finding a way for leaders to understand the experiences their players are having and then show that empathy and that acts. And because I think historically a lot of leaders assume they know and they. Don’t. They don’t, and it’s no fault of their own, but they just don’t. And so that’s where we need probably and where technology is helping. It’s helping us get better understanding, but it’s it is going back to Dean, what you said, it’s mindset of leaders being realistic to say I don’t, I don’t have a clear picture. I don’t live in these people’s shoes.
Bonnie Graham
Let’s put empathy in the job description. Dean turning it over to you. Go ahead 2 minutes.
Dean Edmondson
So there’s a lot here. There’s a couple of different ways to approach this from my perspective it’s coaching, and if you’re a coach, you’re not doing it as much. You can still roll up your sleeves and be a great coach, but if you start doing it, you limit their career progression. You limit their productivity, you limit their job satisfaction and that that’s limiting to the not just that person, but the whole team, because it becomes systemic across the team that you know you’re going to take this approach. There’s a great book that was written about this topic. One minute manager meets the monkey by Ken Brancher he talks about this and this comes at us from two different ways. One, the manager could be at fault for this, or the leader could be at fault for this or two the employee could be a fault for this because he or she just wants to keep going to somebody else to get the answers and it’s our responsibility as leaders within the organization to be coaches. When it’s appropriate we, we need to coach from the sidelines, we don’t get in the. I mean, until you know, it’s absolutely necessary, but the team out there executing the play should be the team responsible for executing the plays and the ones that get patted on the back for a nice win or a nice play throughout the process and not equity that that they get from those Pats on the back is something that they can put in their pocket. And we take that equity away when we do it for them.
Bonnie Graham
Interesting. Lars, you want to wrap this up because I’ve got I’ve teed up a statement from Megan I want to cover. Go ahead, Lawrence.
Lawrence Bergman
I love the insights and the and the different perspectives that people bring on this. It’s a very near and dear subject to me.
Bonnie Graham
Good, very good conversation starter Megan Butler. I’m looking at your statement. #1 here. Megan says going back to our topic of technology, can it make you a hero alone? Here we go. Organizations can invest in the same technologies and have different outcomes. She puts in parentheses, success rate of adoption using qualitative measures. Because of social differences, Megan 3 minutes and then I think we’ll just have enough time to go around the table. And Steve, you’ve had plenty of comments, so I’m not worried about you. Go ahead and Megan, yours.
Megan Butler
Thank you. So this so this came from a few years ago. There are a couple of organizations put out some research that was looking technology investment and even though you know majority 70 around normally around 75% of organizations are investing in reaching technologies. We repeatedly see that leaders keep saying only about 10 to 15 to 20% are reporting that they’re actually having any success with the technologies. And so it started to make me ask. Questions. Why? Why is it? There’s the success rate in adoption and we start to look at what’s happening and the differences between the organizations and that’s where we start to realize that there are existing social differences and organizations. So how an organization is run, how strategy, how the strategy is written, how? Procurement of technology occurs the level of awareness and education of senior leadership. All these social factors are what’s either allowing organizations to innovate and to be able to adopt technologies and to bring them in or it’s actually hindering them. Obviously there are some factors that are have more impact than others, such as leadership is going to have a huge impact on adoption rates, but it is, it’s those social measures that are really what’s creating the difference between organizations and the our ability to adopt. And if we can start understanding that as leaders, if we can start understand. Saying that in business, we can start thinking about those social factors and helping to improve them to become an innovative organization, or at least an organization that’s willing to listen to new innovative ideas and not wait 2-3 years until it’s forced on us or until something like the pandemic happens and all of a sudden you have to use teams. Because it’s in need. You don’t want to be waiting until it’s a need or an absolute must for your business to be adopting a technology.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you, Megan. Let’s go around the table fast. Steve. I put a note in your chat here for you if you want to weave that in. It’s one of your statements.
Steve Hunt
So really quickly, it goes back to my quote about false hopes and expectations. But I think part of it, Megan, you’re talking about on, I agree with what you said. But I think part of the issue people say the technology wasn’t successful.
Steve Hunt
It’s so they have the wrong the wrong view of it. No technology is going to solve all of your people problems like for example you no company will ever have a perfect performance management process. It’s impossible. It’s inherently hard and by the time you develop one process, the world will have changed and you’ll need something different and people’s expectations change as things get better. People want better. Is your Internet speed ever fast enough you? Know and so the faster it gets, the faster we want, and so I think really part of this also recognizing that when we look at technology, what we really should focus on is we want to tools that tell us what’s going on now. And give flexibility and the ability to change it, I reminded of customers that have shared that with me, that they’re like we didn’t know how bad were doing something till we had the technology in place. Then we knew it was. We’re doing it bad, but then we could change it. I always like to say approach technology deployment. You’re not building a house that’s going to be static. You’re planting a garden, particularly with cloud technology and you and a healthy garden is constantly changing and if you’re not constantly growing it, it’s gonna wither away and die. So that’s kind of I think part of that success rate is we’ve defined success the wrong way when it comes to technology in many ways.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you, Steve Dean, I can give you one minute for a response. Let’s go.
Dean Edmondson
Real quick. So it’s not, it’s not about tech, it’s about function in this case and the function is how does the end user want to or should they use it and if it’s designed for the end user and it’s role based, then functionally they’ll want to use it and the adoption that Megan was talking about should prevail. That there’s a lot involved in that and it’s not as easy as just as what I just said. But if we keep the mindset about function and role based and making sure that that fits the end user, we should be OK or better.
Bonnie Graham
I think we need a Part 2 on this show. Laura, as you get the last word, 30 seconds. That’s all I got.
Lawrence Bergman
Well, what struck me with what Meghan was saying was we need to know thyself first and really understand our core capabilities, our attitudes, our cultural differences that we have throughout the company and boy, I would love it if there had to be a test that you got to take before the fact to say. Are you ready? Are you mature enough? Can you take on this difficult and challenging assignment? It starts with being honest. A lot of times people are in denial. Ohh yeah. We could do this. We can knock this out of the park and then they’re disappointed when it doesn’t happen. I love the. Fact that we would be actually doing a objective self-assessment 1st and meet them where they are.
Bonnie Graham
EQ Enterprise, emotional quotient. I’m going to stop there or enterprise intelligence quotient. I don’t know. I want to thank all of you. I’m sorry we ran out of time. It’s been a very, very interesting and robust conversation. I hope you all enjoyed it.
Lawrence Bergman
I love it.
Bonnie Graham
Dean Edmondson waved. Goodbye Lars Bergman. Wave goodbye. Megan Marie Butler. Wave goodbye, doctor. Steve, don’t go away. We gotta take pictures. And to Andrew, our engineered voice, America. Thank you very much. This Bonnie Dee and saying don’t forget to tune in next Tuesday for another edition of Rizing Evolution. The future proofed enterprise. And remember, the future didn’t happen yet.
Lawrence Bergman
See ya.
Bonnie Graham
People tell you what’s already here. That was yesterday’s future. That was the sentence. I just finished it. It’s gone already. Everybody waved goodbye. Happy Thanksgiving. Gratitude around the table on Thanksgiving. Day. Thank you, Andrew. We done.
OK. Thanks. All, thank you.