Justin Lake (00:57.448): Welcome to Frontline Innovators podcast. I'm your host Justin Lake and super excited for today's episode. We are back up and running with this podcast series after a long hiatus that was much longer than I ever intended for it to be. But I'm happy to be relaunching in 2026. And I'm so excited to be welcoming a senior director of change management with over 15 years of experience.
somebody who I think we're going to have a fantastic conversation with today. Please welcome to the show Anna Caroussos. Hello, Anna.
Anna Karousis (01:29.955): Justin, happy to be here. Thanks for having me.
Justin Lake (01:32.596): I'm so excited to be ramped up with the show again. I really enjoyed the prep call as anybody who's been listening to the show for a long time before we actually have the interview. We always have a quick 30 minute conversation with our guests just to get to know each other a little bit and kind of riff on some topics and things like that. And from the minute that Anna and I started talking, I just felt like this was going to be such a great fit. And so I'm so excited to share her with you. And so let me get on with the first question.
And what do you think is the biggest operational consequence of poor frontline technology adoption?
Anna Karousis (02:09.426): It's a great question, Justin. When I think about it, I think about it coming down to return on investment, ROI, but not just in the dollar sense too, right? So if people in your organization aren't adopting the technology change that you're implementing, you typically got that, the dollar funding for that by saying you're gonna save money, right? There's a payoff with that. And so when people don't use that technology solution, you are not getting
the ROI that you promised your board or that you promised your CFO. But there's also a people ROI, right? So when we think about our frontline folks, when we do these big technological changes, we've told them you're gonna get this and you can expect this and it's gonna make your life simpler this way, right? And when we don't invest enough in how that's actually gonna go and we make all these promises, you really lose that ROI with your people, right? They can leave, they can check out, they can find workarounds and all of that diminishes
that trust and confidence that build your ROI with your frontline folks.
Justin Lake (03:14.976): So we're two minutes into this and you've already struck a nerve. So here we go. But only because I think we're aligned, but it leads me to a whole bunch of questions. So what you said makes perfect sense to me about we're making a decision to invest in technology. We expect some business outcome that typically is communicated internally in the planning phases as some return on that investment. It seems to me.
Anna Karousis (03:20.103): Great.
Justin Lake (03:44.853): that once we've made the decision to move forward, we stop measuring the ROI. And maybe this isn't 100%, but man, it sure does seem like it's close to 100 % of the projects and programs I've been around. That once the decision's been made, we say, okay, this is the ROI, this is the reason that we're doing this. And then we move forward with the actual implementation. And rarely have I seen teams go back and say,
Is this achieving the outcome that we expected? First, do you see that also? And if so, why do you think that is?
Anna Karousis (04:22.802): All the time. I think we live in a world now where technology is fast changing. AI has introduced a lot more speed to value here a lot of. And so we, in order to get the deal done and the investment done to get that technology tool, we say, okay, we expect this business outcome. We expect this ROI. And then we start moving forward with that and we're onto the next thing. And so I think there's a lot of people because there's a lot changing now in that technology space.
They're looking at that next shiny thing and they say, okay, go, go, go. So I think that's part of it. And also let's be honest, measuring success is not easy and it's not sexy, right? Like it's just not fun. And so when you get into these things, it's hard to tell that story.
Justin Lake (05:08.19): Yeah, I think that's something that we're in my day job, we're trying to help companies solve for that by asking some questions that on the front end might seem challenging or difficult to inspect how we're going to measure. But it's something that we're really passionate about figuring out is
you know, if the purpose was to get more output, if the purpose was to reduce costs, if the purpose was to improve customer experience, or in many cases, it's some amount of all of the above, then we all need to understand what is the baseline? What do we expect it to go to? And in what timeframe do we expect it to happen there? And then there needs to be some milestones where we implement and then we go and actually measure in the future.
And one of the things that seems like a bit of a disconnect and I'm really, want to ask everybody that will take time to listen to this question and maybe give me an answer to help me figure this out. It seems like IT ends up with the responsibility of the implementation. So there's the very technical IT side of the implementation, but the business results are not felt or experienced often in IT. To them, it's either the system's running or the system is not. The business impact
typically is experienced elsewhere in the business, but it seems like they're not measuring it. And it feels like that's the disconnect to me. Is that something that you've seen? Do you think there are other reasons for the omission of measurement?
Anna Karousis (06:45.714): Yeah, that's something I love from our prep call, Justin, that you and your company really look at those outcomes and what is success, right? How do we know we're winning? And I think, you know, things live in IT because the technical implementation and the coding and the building and all the behind the scenes infrastructure stuff, Companies say, okay, that's who's gonna own this. But to your point, it's really, we're putting this tool in to help the business, right? There's some kind of efficiency to be gained.
theoretically, right? And thus we think that's gonna help our customer, that's gonna help our people, and that's gonna help our processes. And I think if you don't already know what success looks like in the business, that muddies it, right? So like if you already really don't know how to tell your story, know what goes into what good looks like, that can already exacerbate that, right? But I think it's also, a lot of times what I have found in my experience is we don't take the time to make the invisible visible.
And when you're looking at bringing on a technology solution, you should always start with the process. Who's involved from end to end? How does this process that this tool is going to help start with? Who does it end with? And how are they using that tool from a process standpoint? Because that's really going to help you say, OK, here's where there's non-value added activity. Here's where there's stuff not working, right? Here's how this tool can help us, right?
And so to your point, like if we're seeing errors in this one part of the process, how is the tool going to address that? Well, that's a great measurement, right? So we can say we saw, you know, X amount before the tool, after the implementation, we're seeing this. And obviously you'd want to see a decrease in an issue, right? Or now we see our volumes going up because we've made something on the front end much easier for people to actually input information. But something that always blows my mind is most of the time these
technology implementations have a real financial impact, good or bad. And I often find we don't have good measurements of what that impact is when we do these technology solutions. So once again, I think that was something from our prep call that I was so impressed with is that you and your team take the time to say, okay, what does this look like? And how are we gonna know that we're winning? And I don't really see that in my experience when I work with companies or consulting companies.
Anna Karousis (09:09.22): It's oftentimes measuring just did we implement it? Was it on time? Was it on budget for the implementation costs? But there's so much more that goes into that to measure success.
Justin Lake (09:20.384): last year, actually this year in 2025, depending on when you're listening to this. But for you and I recording this in 2025, I guess it was earlier this year. We had a conversation we hosted a bit of a focus group of sorts. And it was a lot of business leadership that we were asking questions to about digital transformation initiatives and the pain points that they experience, how they measure some of the very things that we're talking about today.
One of the most interesting things that came out of that session with these business leaders was they're not thinking a lot about ROI of the technology. What they are thinking mostly about almost, if I recall correctly, it was the highest rated survey response that came back was minimizing disruption to the business. So it's really interesting to me that, and it makes sense, right? They are, in this case, it was primarily field service leaders. They're very focused on the execution.
many of these leaders are dealing with national or sometimes international teams. So they have logistics, you know, nightmares and geographic distribution of their people all around the world, or at least the country. And so when they think about digital transformation, that decision about hey, should we implement or not this new thing? Okay, that question was asked and answered previously, the decision was made, yes, let's move forward.
And now that business leader is put in a situation where they have to absorb all of this change into the business and they still have to execute the business at the same or better levels as they were before this change. And so it seems like the focus goes back to like preserving, just keeping your head above water as an organization. And it felt in that conversation like, well, wait a second, what about all the great things that we wanted to see happen from this new tech innovation?
And nobody dismissed that, but it was kind of like, yeah, yeah, yeah, but I'm still trying to keep the business running. So I'm kind of fascinated by this process because if you really look at where you end up in that state, then it begs the question, like, should we bother implementing any new technologies if all we're doing is trying to absorb that and tolerate this change so that we can keep things running the way that they were before? Well, that's a shame. I don't think that that's really what anyone is saying.
Anna Karousis (11:19.986): Yep.
Justin Lake (11:44.747): but it sure feels like that's what kind of happens as we resort back to that behavior. So as a change management professional, how do you think about, you know, guiding the leaders that you work around to say, how can we think bigger picture and say, yes, both are true? Yes, we need to keep the business running. Yes, we need to minimize the disruption. But we also need to aspire to take full advantage of all the change that we hope to take advantage of. are your thoughts on that?
Anna Karousis (12:12.856): Yeah, a lot of thoughts on that. I think when you think about keeping your head above water, I think that's so true, right? Like they're just trying to keep the lights on and we're bringing this in. There's a dirty word in my opinion that we use when we talk about technology solutions and it's automate. I think that's a dirty word in the sense that most people say, let's automate it.
Let's automate this, we can automate this. It's not working and we aren't getting what we want. It's not what we're expecting to do. We're trying to keep the lights on so we'll automate it. And I always say, if it's a bad process and you automate it, you're just automating a bad process. And so then if you think about to what you just said, okay, we're trying to keep the lights on so we're just, we're gonna implement this tool. Well, if that tool is only putting a bad broken process into a technology solution,
you're just gonna see those same results. And once again, you're not gonna hit the ROI that you would expect or promise to people or to your board. And so when I hear automate, when I'm in discussions, I like to say, okay, tell me more about why you wanna automate this. And start really asking those more root cause type questions and starting to say like, tell me what...
problem we're trying to solve here and why you want to automate or what system are you looking at because why did you decide to look at that? So it's really getting inquisitive and trying to just learn a little bit more about what's driving that need for automating because sometimes I found that it really is people might not know the process. They might not have training documentation readily available after training goes live, right? And so
Do we wanna automate something or is it just that people just didn't know where to go to get the information? So they're just kind of doing what they can. And did we equip them and their leaders with the right tools so that they're able to do that? So I'm really trying to assess and see, is this a people processor tool driven decision? And then that has different pathways we can take. But I hate what people say, let's just automate. I very rarely is that the answer to.
Justin Lake (14:26.898): Yeah. Well, you mentioned something before about non-value add activities. Describe that for us. What did you mean by that?
Anna Karousis (14:35.8): Or so non value added activities are anything you're seeing in your day to day processes that take away from value to your customer value to the next team that you're working with anything that detracts from getting to point A to point B with speed and quality. So you're hearing my Lean Six Sigma background come out. I live for continuous improvement and marrying that with change management. So when we really talk about that non value activity, it's things that slow you down that are not quality driven and are not.
making that process as simple as possible from A to B.
Justin Lake (15:07.594): Do you think that the perception of value as users of a system in process is different?
Anna Karousis (15:17.518): yeah, it really depends on the audience you're talking to, right? And what they see value and quality as, right? Like what a frontline user of a technology solution or process might value could look very different than what their senior vice president values from that process. And so that's important to understand, especially when you're doing change, because how you work with and emphasize what's in it for someone on the frontline
can look and feel very different than a senior vice president. So understanding, I love that question of understanding the value is really key.
Justin Lake (15:54.677): from the different personas perspective, right? And I think that that's what I actually thought you were referring to before. And I think it caught my attention because I think a lot of times things that we're asking people to do, you my entire world is focused on the frontline team members and a large organization. And many times the things we're asking them to do, I think are seen by them as low value.
Because in the context of them getting their job done, that data collection, the information that they're capturing does not aid them in doing that job any faster. And in fact, it's sometimes many times actually costs them time. And so we deliver this message to the field and we say, hey, we're implementing this new technology so that our company can be more efficient. And then we give them this process that makes them less efficient.
In many cases, it's by design, not that we're trying to slow them down, but we are asking for more information to be collected. Perhaps it's an inquiry with the customer. Maybe there's a customer satisfaction survey at the end of work performed and things like that. And they're saying, that's great, but this is slowing me down. takes me five minutes for extra five minutes at every customer stop, right? But somebody else in the organization is saying, yeah, but we're collecting this treasure trove of data that we can now use to really maximize the performance of the company overall.
And I always feel like there's a disconnect between the people that make the decisions to collect that information and the people that were asking to collect it. And so that's why your comment caught my attention because I just feel like we owe it to them to at least explain. And perhaps part of the miss is that we're not giving them the time that they need. And so I'm just curious to get your take on that and what observations you've had on that.
Anna Karousis (17:51.07): Justin, was hoping you a driver there. We never give frontline enough time to really play around with the change we're going to make and have a two-way feedback loop that's meaningful, right? We might survey them or do a road show and say, how's it going? But what I often find is we, organizations will have these great communication plans and we as change management practitioners, know, the why and what's in it for you. And we have a flawless training plan, right?
but that missing piece is ability when you think about the change management framework. And ability is really, can you go from the current state to the future state and do what you need to do with very minimal intervention, right? So I've given you the training, now you're actually going to do this new future state, can you do it with minimal coaching or guidance? And a lot of times organizations just go, we trained you, we sent you the emails, have a nice day, right? And so then to your point, the frontline worker is going,
okay, this is adding time or I don't think I'm doing this right or now I've got a call so and so and then I've got to figure out what I'm supposed to do because yeah, I took that training but it was two weeks ago. It didn't quite make sense and it was really quick and now I'm expected to just go do this and so we don't give enough time, space and thought typically to that ability piece and then to your other point like you've got to explain why that's value added to leadership because oftentimes they're going to see that as money being spent and time being spent.
not dealing with keeping the lights on. But I would argue you will never reach your ROI for your people or your bottom line if people aren't using the system and aren't comfortable and confident in it. And that their leaders are comfortable and confident in the system to be able to coach them when needed. And so I think that's a big miss. And it's something that I really focus on in my kind of change management practice when I'm working with groups is what's the ability look like? How are we going to then say, okay, here's kind of the transition to the full
go live and here's the time we're gonna pull you off the shop room floor. We're gonna pull you off the phone. We're gonna pull you off from your typical routes and give you some time to sit down and play around with what you're gonna be doing. And then that's an important time for us to get feedback to see if there's a supplemental training documentation we need, supplemental communications, or was there a miss, right? User acceptance testing's great, but maybe there's something in that transition to going live that we didn't account for.
Anna Karousis (20:17.383): So I think that's a critical missing piece that is really, really helpful in reaching the full value of what you're trying to.
Justin Lake (20:26.432): Should it be the change management professional that is counseling senior leadership on this topic? Is that the right person in the mix?
Anna Karousis (20:41.253): now you're getting deep, Justin. Yeah. No, I would argue that you would really want that middle leadership bubbling that up and talking about we need time. But I do think it's kind of chicken and the egg because I think part of that as a change practitioner is if I'm doing my job right and I'm coaching my middle leadership, my VIPs and any technological change we're going to do, if I'm coaching up my VIPs, they're going to naturally start bubbling up. They're going to say, OK, I see what you're putting down.
we're gonna train and then we're turn around and just flip the system the next week. Well, whoa, whoa, whoa, can we have a little extra time because it's gonna help us do X, Y, and Z. And then it's, we're coming from all fronts. It's, hey, you've got the leaders that are gonna lead through this change telling you this. Ideally, you are also having upper leadership of that area of the business then also bought in saying, look, you know, I agree. And it's kind of a group conversation. In a perfect world, an organization values that so much that it's just how you do business, right?
So in a perfect world, yeah, it wouldn't be me saying, hey, you need to do this, but building that muscle so that that just becomes how we do business.
Justin Lake (21:47.499): Yeah, I think the other element of time that I'm thinking about is even after go live, many times the new process and system may take longer for certain people in the organization. So as we're having this conversation, I'm realizing there's at least two areas where time comes into play. First is on just the change.
process, the process of going from the current state to the future state, and that journey as we transition from one state to the other, we need to afford those people the opportunity to absorb that change and begin to transition into their new state. But I also think that there's has to be a budget for time in the new process. Sometimes when we're implementing new technology, particularly if we're going from paper based processes, which is still happening, believe it or not.
into using technology and things like that. There is a net gain in efficiency in the long run. There may not be right out of the gate, right out of the gate for the first 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, whatever it may be. There may actually be a degradation in efficiency. But then once that thing gets up to steady state, there may be some efficiencies gained. But I have seen situations where there's more data collection. We're capturing more serial numbers. We're capturing lot numbers. We're capturing more information. And so we're doing that for a reason.
we might be doing that to improve our supply chain efficiency on the back end. So net-net the business experiences gains from this, but at an individual user level, not everybody is going to be faster and more efficient. And so it's clear based as we're talking this through today that there are at least two times. Am I missing any other times like time budgeting that needs to be thought of here?
Anna Karousis (23:25.619): Yes.
Anna Karousis (23:37.588): No, because I think you're making a point of like, there's usually time to go, you you have your current state, build out your future state and implement that. And that takes time there. And that's usually where people are pretty good about, you know, this, it's going to take X amount of hours to do this and this. Right. And I think that's a space that people are pretty comfortable and confident in. And then it's that second piece of then really transitioning into the future state that I just don't think we always think about enough and give that time to and sell that time to your point.
and tell the story. Most people think when you go live, that's the end. We did it, right? Like we implemented this new system. We've got this new tool and yay, business as usual. And I think there's a need to really have the story told to, especially that leadership level, that executive leadership level. You're not gonna see the gains and benefits like you were saying for X amount of months. And then you walk them through, right? You switch it on. We're gonna see a dip in productivity typically. Like most of the time, that's what happens.
And we're going to have some data information we have to work out because it's not probably going to be apples to apples from the future, know, current state to the future state. And so this is the time we're anticipating and this is normal. This is what we expect to see. And then by this point, X point, like month two, you will start to see those efficiency gains start. And I think if that story can be told better, it gives the right expectation. But oftentimes people just want it done. And so when you're selling, you know, when the technology solution selling that,
They're going to sell the story of like, yep, we're going to do it. We go live and you're going to see it right away. And I don't begrudge them with that, right? Like they're selling a product. And maybe one time that did happen, right? But the 99 % of the time that's not there. So it's kind of understanding as a leader that it's not realistic to expect week two to see these drastic ROI payoffs. And it's also then when working with companies saying, me realistically, like what have you seen? And giving them the space to say, okay, realistically,
It takes about three months to do this and see the results. And then that's a better conversation. And then it's that's the messaging you really sell to upper leadership typically.
Justin Lake (25:43.233): Yeah. Well, and I think to the field as well, you know, on both sides of that, because everyone is going to experience this disruption, whether it's mild or severe. So setting an expectation that hey, we think by the second day, you ought to be proficient at this is probably going to set yourself on a bad course, right? Versus if we say no, our expectation is that it's going to take you 3060 or 90 days to get comfortable and confident and competent with this new system in process.
Anna Karousis (25:46.119): Yeah. Yeah.
Justin Lake (26:12.424): then it relieves some of that pressure. Yes, we still need to serve the customers. Yes, we still need to be profitable. Yes, of course, we need to keep the business running. But we anticipate during this time of change that there is going to be some slowdown, right? And I think that's that's part of what develops a relationship of trust between the leaders that are pushing for this change and the people on the receiving end of that change. But I do think sometimes this falls into what I always call the the the myth of simplicity.
We look at this tech innovation and vendors push it. I've probably said this myself. I've probably been guilty of this. It's going to be so easy. You're hardly going to need to train people. You're hardly going to need to think about change management, but none of those things are true. And it's never as easy as it seems. And most of the organizations that we serve are big, hairy, complex organizations where there are people all over the place, locations all over the place. And so it's just not that easy. But if we accept that and communicate accordingly,
then I think it puts us on a path where we can increase the odds of success. So what are some of the tools? You and I, when we got to meet briefly, just talked about some of the processes and some of the things that are different about frontline team members versus those of us that are mostly in knowledge worker roles sitting behind a desktop most of the day. And obviously, with the title of our show, Frontline Innovators, I am
fascinated and passionate about these challenges as they relate to frontline team members. So I'd be interested to hear from you about tools and strategies and ways of communicating with frontline team members that acknowledge the differences there. And I always say, I feel like I have to say this as a disclaimer to all my change management folks, I realized that
Humans are still humans, they are also humans and so there are a lot of elements of this that should be the same. They have a lot of the same fears and anxieties and all of those things are similar. But I do think when it comes down to the tactics and you and I talked about this a little bit before, there are differences. Simple things like we just can't assume that they're gonna be checking email because they're not in front of their inboxes all day like you and I might be, right? So when we think about those differences, how can we acknowledge them and support?
Justin Lake (28:27.72): our team members who are on the front lines who have a different set of tools have a different day in the life of their role than maybe some of us that are knowledge workers.
Anna Karousis (28:35.973): I love that question and I think the key word that you already said is acknowledging there's differences. Right. And so like just given that email example, when you're working with frontline folks, they're often busy for 10 hours straight. Right. Sometimes you have to wonder when they use the bathroom because they are constantly doing the work that is ultimately feeding the bottom line. That's why I get paid. Right. And so I have a big respect for our frontline workers as you do, Justin. And so for me,
I think what's really important is there's a, you'll hear a tool float around in the Lean Sixing world called Gimba Walks. And Gimba is a fancy term, right? Like go where the work is happening. I don't always use that term because it can be off-putting. And depending on the audience, like you're saying, we're gonna Gimba. But I think the premise of a Gimba Walk is so powerful. Go where the work is being done and you're not judging. You are simply there to just observe and really see how things are actually happening.
Not what the manual says, not what should happen, not what people are afraid of getting caught of doing something wrong. So they tell you what they think you want to hear. Go where the work is happening and spend that time just observing, maybe asking a few just like questions like, tell me a little bit more about, you know, why you did that on this stop. Why did you approach it this way when you did this? And really make it clear them. You're just curious. You just want to know. I think the more time you can spend going where the work happens,
you're really going to get an appreciation and understanding for what's going on. I also think that you'll catch on really quick if you go to the work who the unspoken leaders are. They might not have the title and the pay and the credentials. Those are the folks too that I love to learn a little bit more because they're gonna tell you exactly what should happen or what needs to be done. And they're gonna share with you, hey, English is the second language for most of my team, right? So in this area, in this grouping,
we have typically a language barrier when we roll out new products. Well, that's really key for me to learn, right? So like, doesn't matter what my training communication plan is, if it's not in a language that's gonna be easily understandable for the frontline worker, that's a big miss, right? So making sure that you're figuring that out. I think the other thing that I often think about is, you know, these roles may have folks that have different reading levels and that's okay and they have different education levels.
Anna Karousis (31:00.367): It's, am I making this clear enough that I'm not just sending an email and putting it how I would look at it? Would this make sense if I had to explain this to my husband tonight at dinner, who knows nothing about the industry I might be in or working with, does he follow it and what am I missing? And so really thinking about what is my readability level? What is my educational level for these teams to make sure that if there's something I can be doing that really helps them get it, especially during that ability phase, that's important.
But a lot of times it's making sure that you're seeing the work and that they have a connection to the change. And that could come as me as a change practitioner, that connection to the change could come from their leader. And in a perfect world, you're working with your VIPs, right? And those middle leaders so that they have a lifeline to the change that's happening. And that's that person that's going to help them through. And so it's kind of like a team approach. Me and their middle leader should make sure that they understand that they have a connection to the change and that we don't want those to feel like it's always just happening to them.
that they are a part of it. And that's easier said than done. But I think the most powerful thing I've always learned is go where the work is happening and just spend time with folks so that you can have an understanding and appreciation for the things that they're going to do once you roll this new technology tool out.
Justin Lake (32:14.208): Can I put you on the spot on that question? Because I love that. That's something I'm passionate about is getting out into the field. I've often said you can't build technology for the frontline workforce from a conference room at headquarters. Like you have to go out in the field. And I'm just curious, is there an example of something that you've witnessed that maybe surprised you that you wouldn't have been aware of? think the language one was already one example that you talked about. I'm curious if there are any others that
Anna Karousis (32:24.883): Yup.
Justin Lake (32:43.358): you witnessed something or you heard something when you went out in the field, that when you came back into planning and the execution process, you said, we have to do this differently because of something I observed out there.
Anna Karousis (32:54.557): Yeah, I think several years ago in a complex change that I was working on, technology literacy was something that I, in my role, didn't realize I needed to take a step back in. And so when you're talking about technological changes, there are folks, like we've talked about, don't have email, they might not use a mouse, let's say, in their everyday work.
And now we're gonna make them use this workstation that has a mouse and we're gonna say, okay, put your mouse, move your mouse to this spot. They might physically pick up their mouse and put it on the screen. And that's how, like, cause that's what I'm saying. Like, put your mouse here, right? And I have found in some of those changes or hey, you're gonna now get an Excel spreadsheet and it'll give you the information. They may have never used Excel, right? And they don't wanna look silly. So they might not say anything. And so I think,
that technology literacy is really important to understand. And it's something that I had to learn and adjust to that. I thought I was making this really simple and easy, but I have to realize that in some populations there may still be flip phone use. still may be, their banking experience isn't mobile. They might still go to the bank, put their, you know I mean? And that's totally fine. But that's very different than how I interact with technology every day. And so it's taking a step back and saying, okay,
What is that literacy? Because that needs to guide everything I do.
Justin Lake (34:22.548): Yeah, I think you're spot on. also think
It's almost like the opposite of what you're describing can also be true sometimes. And what I mean by that is sometimes we have users that would appear to be proficient with technology as it relates to the use of consumer applications and tools. So a business leader told a champion that I was working with, I don't understand why this is even a problem. All of our guys know how to check their bank balance from their phone.
So why can't they just use this enterprise app on their phone? And that distinction to me is massive. I think to this leader, I'm sure he was a smart guy. And I can understand sort of how people can feel that way. But that gap between doing something for our personal needs where there are no consequences. That example in particular, if I check my bank balance and it's low,
Maybe the consequences that my bank balance is low, but like nothing bad happens as a result. If I don't do it correctly, nothing bad happens. But in an enterprise software solution, there can be consequences. And so my approach to that, yes, I might know that there's a button on the screen that I'm supposed to push. But if I'm nervous, or if I don't understand the business context around why and when and how I'm supposed to press it, and what data am I supposed to put here?
Anna Karousis (35:26.675): Right.
Justin Lake (35:51.795): And I feel like if I do something wrong here, it's going to go into some system and mess something else up. That like ramps up the anxiety and stress. So yes, it's still pushing a button on a screen or doing a query or putting in a piece of information. But the consequences are vastly different between those scenarios. And I think we under appreciate how different that can be for one of the frontline users. And so we just expect them to absorb the change without really putting ourselves in their shoes.
We know that we're not going to fire them for making a simple mistake, but they don't always feel the same way. What are your thoughts on that?
Anna Karousis (36:27.965): Right? Yeah, I think you've really hit on that, that when you look at an enterprise system and now you're telling someone, let's say that you're going from paper and pencil, like you said, right? And that's, that could be the case to now this juggernaut IT solution that is everything you do connects to something else. I think you're exactly right. That, that level of fear of making a mistake is only amplified. Whereas before, well, I just go erase it on the piece of paper, right? Now,
Justin Lake (36:54.356): Yeah.
Anna Karousis (36:55.953): I don't know how to back out if I made a mistake. And so I often think too, you gotta be really clear that we can always fix it. That it's okay. Very rarely are you gonna be in a system where if you hit the wrong thing, it's catastrophic, right? So I think that's an important message to really share. And so that's important. Sorry. Hopefully you edit this out.
Justin Lake (37:20.864): Yeah, so I want to go back to something here. You mentioned unspoken leaders. And I think that's an interesting topic. Did I capture that right? Is that the way you said that unspoken leaders? And to me, what I think I'm hearing from you is, you know, kind of super users that are out in the field or change champions, you know, I guess there's a few different terms that they that we may use to describe them.
And I'd like to pull on that thread a little bit because I think they play an incredibly important role, especially in an organization that's very geographically distributed, where we can't expect like just a pure top down communication model, we have to really expect that there are going to be champions in the field that can help be the ambassadors of change, you know, at a local level. So
Talk to me about that. What are your thoughts and what strategies do you put in place and do feel like this is any different with frontline team members versus using the same approach inside kind of knowledge worker scenarios of change? Just curious to get your take on that.
Anna Karousis (38:31.633): Yeah, anyone you can find that's going to influence for the better, you've really got to treat as your other VIP. So if we think about middle leaders as our VIP, our second VIPs are those change champions, super users, influencers, whatever you kind of call them. know, those are the folks that you want to pour in resources and time into so that they are evangelizing and going out and sharing and
problem solving and they're your two way feedback, right? Like they're your lifeline to that change as well. And I love when you identify folks, whether it's on the frontline or more in like a knowledge based space that love the change that's coming and they want to be a part of it. What a gift to have folks that you can, you know, work with and pour into that are only going to make this that much more successful. So to me, it is a gift and a privilege to have that group.
And so for example, one of the large complex changes that I had in my past, we actually brought our super user group. We brought them in from multiple locations to the corporate headquarters and we let them have a week where we did simulated, you know, things that they would see in the technology and they got to work with the team and ask questions. And the really nice thing that I didn't even think about is this was the first business trip and maybe the only business trip.
that those frontline workers may go on in their journey with the company. And they were so excited that they got to fly on a plane, some of them for the first time. They were so excited that they got to come to the headquarters of the company they work for and get to learn about this cool new tech solution coming. What a gift and what a great connection to have. And so I can't emphasize enough that if there's an opportunity to bring those folks together and there's a cost,
you're going to see that 10 times over when they go back across your network and they are there every day invested in helping this change happen. So I think that's so important.
Justin Lake (40:35.86): think having another set of voices out in the field that can communicate about what they're seeing, you know, the the reason for the change to arm them with the information to go and talk to their colleagues, so that it's not just you from headquarters telling that story. But it's it's one of them telling each other about when they were headquarters. They saw this and it's exciting. And this is how it's going to affect us, right?
doesn't mean there won't be some negative communication that comes out with that too, but it'll be real, it'll be authentic. And if you can create an environment of trust with those communications, then I think once again, you can kind of stack the odds in your favor to see some success.
So we're already out of time as I knew was gonna happen here. Actually, we're past time. But I do want the audience to hear maybe one piece of advice from you. If you, you've already given us a few. So you had this concept of act and transact that we talked about. It was one of my favorite things that came from our quick prep call. And I would just like to hear.
kind of how you bundle that phrase together, like how did you apply that phrasing? Tell us a little bit of the story about how and when you've used that and what that really meant in the context of a change program for you.
Anna Karousis (42:02.182): Or so when you think about the act and transact concept, if you were moving to an enterprise solution and most of the time that's what our tech solutions are, right? They're connecting the dots from entry all the way through the life cycle of the product or service we're offering, right? And so when you bring this system to frontline workers and you say, okay, everything's connected now and we're integrated and everything, you know, what you do impacts the next team. We talked about that, that can be scary.
But the other big change is typically if you haven't been in a real time system that's enterprise and connected where the data matters at your one point of time matters down the line, you're not in the habit of acting and transacting. And so that was a big tagline that we used in one of the changes I was involved in of when you act, so when you do your part, you have to transact. So when you act, you transact in the system. So it could be the same thing you were doing before the system came.
The only difference is now I need you to just transact it. So you're going to do it, put it in, do it, put it in. So act and transact. And we put that everywhere on this change. It was on t-shirts, it was on billboards, it was on their, you know, daily management system boards. It was on water bottles. And the premise was, you know, you have to transact because if you don't transact everything downstream gets off course, right? And that could be anything from our book of business to just the next team needs to know how much
of a product to order based off of what we've consumed. And so that act and transact became just, it was the core saying of how this change was gonna go. And I think you can apply that to a lot of things, right? People are adjusting to having to use a new system to transact some kind of information. And so it really can be that simple of when you act, you transact. So act and transact and saying that over and over to them of, hey, you gotta go in now and do that in the system and that's the big difference. And so I love that it was that simple.
But it is very complex. Those two words are simple and complex.
Justin Lake (44:01.301): love it. cannot think of a better way to encapsulate what is so important or how to communicate what is so important because I think what I have witnessed in almost every case where I've been out in the field and had the opportunity to witness frontline workers in in the flow of their work. They're doing a really good job of doing their job. And I think what sometimes is missing
Anna Karousis (44:23.997): Yes.
Justin Lake (44:29.65): is that if they're not also then transacting in the enterprise systems, the good work that they're doing is not being captured accurately. And in this day and age, and this is only going to get more true, is that if it's not in the system, it may as well have not been done. So it has to be accurate, it has to be consistent, they need the ability to work independently. And so that that
theme of just act and transact as if they must go together because it's true, they must go together. It's not good enough just to do the job. It's not good enough just to make the delivery or to service the equipment or to finish the process on the line. You then have to transact in the system so that the rest of the people in this large complex organization can do with that information what they need to do. And so they have such a critical role. And I think it's up to us to support them.
to educate them to understand why this is important, how it affects them, and then obviously how they need to do that work. So act and transact, think that is a fantastic way for us to wrap up today's conversation. And I thank you so much for taking the time today. This has been such a great discussion as I knew it was going to be from the minute that we met, and I appreciate you joining me.
Anna Karousis (45:45.907): Justin, thank you so much. This has been great. Thank you. Yes.
Justin Lake (45:48.852): Let's do it again. All right
