Justin Lake (00:57.928)
Okay, welcome to frontline innovators podcast. I'm your host Justin Lake, and we've got another great episode lined up for today. Today's guest is a veteran change management consultant with decades of experience partnering with C-suite executives and frontline workers across banking, mining, aerospace and manufacturing industries. Known for her courageous coaching approach, she specializes in delivering the frank strategic feedback that leaders need to hear, not just what they want to hear.
to drive authentic adoption and create cultures where change happens with people, not to them. Please welcome to the show, Leslie Downing. Hello, Leslie.
Leslie Downing (01:37.14)
Hello, Justin, it's really great to be here, thank you.
Justin Lake (01:40.064)
I'm so excited that you're here. We our audience knows we have a prep call to kind of get ourselves aligned a little bit and I came off the call and I was I was excited today preparing for this session with you looking back over the notes from our conversation and I think you have some things to offer our audience today that I think are going to be super special and it's really around the communication with senior level leaders in the organization. And so I can't wait to share.
this conversation with our guests or with our audience. So let me ask you the first question, which is, what do you see as the biggest operational consequence of poor technology adoption on the front lines?
Leslie Downing (02:23.092)
Yeah, that's a heavy question and it's a valid question. And when we think about talking with leadership and speaking their language around operational consequences of change not being adopted, there's for me a magical question. I can't take credit for it. It's the pro-sci methodology, but it is how much of the success of your project
depends on people actively adopting it. So that pause, that question creates pause for thought around, there's no effect if people don't adopt this. But generally, if we're in the picture and anybody's in the picture, it puts a percentage, it puts a number in a leader's head, which is really this space that we're
going to communicate the most effectively, in my opinion. So if they say anything above 50%, then we know as practitioners that we can affect a higher adoption rate by including them. So that's the positive side. So if a leader or if that thought is that operationally, there's
a 90 % thought that if people don't, we have to have at least 90 % adopt this and use it effectively. Otherwise it's wasted technology. So then we started to work backwards from that and talk about the numbers, the dollar signs, the actual impacts that that could have. Not only because the technology operationally wasn't used.
Justin Lake (04:16.761)
.
Leslie Downing (04:18.268)
in the introduction of it, but also the fact that we have to reinvest and restart over and get inside a person's head again and spend the money to say, sorry, oops, this really is good. We need to do it again. And, you know, people are jaded. They get skeptical. So that has a real cost.
Justin Lake (04:38.951)
Yeah.
Well, just in the first question, you've already kind of struck a nerve. mean, this is the entire theme of the frontline innovators podcast. And so I want to just continue to drill down on that a little bit more. And when we talk about the people element, it just reminds me that so many programs that I've been around seem to have such an over emphasis on the technology and the business process redefinition, which is also obviously important, but not enough attention.
being paid to the people and to the adoption challenges. And I still continue to struggle to understand how those decisions can be made and not place the appropriate emphasis on the human side of these programs. I am curious. You and I touched on this a little bit when we first met, but I'd like for you to just share with our audience. Why do you think it is that there's this tendency
to skip over the human adoption element and just get so exclusively focused on the technology and the business process change element and the documentation and all of those other things without paying enough attention to the humans. Why do you think that happens?
Leslie Downing (06:03.008)
I really, in most cases, Justin, I don't know that it's intentional. I think it's unknown. I think it's a gap in understanding the process of how we change, how we accept change. And I'll give a little story. Can I tell a little story about a Viking ship? I'm Norwegian. So, you know, the Queen says we're going to build a ship.
Justin Lake (06:19.67)
Please. Please.
Justin Lake (06:24.502)
I love it. I love it.
Leslie Downing (06:30.066)
And the Vikings are going to build it. They're the best in the business. And so she hires project managers and gets all the supplies. The project manager gets everybody. They build this gorgeous ship. And how do we make it go? Well, there's oarsmen. Okay, let's go. Everybody, let's get the villagers. We've trained. Let's get them all trained. Let's get them all on the boat. And this is the best, the best Viking ship ever made. We've got the best oarsmen there ever were.
Justin Lake (06:51.596)
you
Leslie Downing (06:57.632)
Well, they're villagers. haven't used this particular ship yet, but they're oarsmen. Of course, they'll get it. then, okay, so let's go. So day one, here we go. And so the guy in front of the oarsman goes, row, let's go. And they're like, well, we know how to row, but I mean, all of us at once, I mean, who's my partner? do I, well, you had training, you got the job aid. You just put your hands on the oar and you pull.
Yeah, but when, how, what do we do? So these are things when I say I don't think it's intentional, that subtle step, which is massive in effect on the success, is that there wasn't somebody sitting with the oarsman going on site, okay, the change is happening now, you had the training, but they're like, I haven't done this. I need help right now. I need somebody to sit with me. I need somebody to talk to me. I need somebody to show me.
Justin Lake (07:48.692)
.
Leslie Downing (07:57.128)
So that's not training. That's not materials. That has nothing to do with good project management. So what does change management or what do we do as practitioners come in to help those people, help those oarsmen adopt, is we come in with a drum and we go, OK, on this beat, you row the boat. And it's just a subtle.
shift that makes a huge difference in adoption and how that massive shift project moves. So that's my little anecdote around that, but there's got to be somebody on the front line, thrumming the drum and saying, and all of a sudden they can't pay us enough because we coordinated that human factor of change to doing.
Justin Lake (08:32.878)
Well.
Justin Lake (08:50.683)
Yeah, you know that the visual of all the people rowing together, that's a powerful way to describe it because I think maybe sometimes we think about the change as
Leslie Downing (08:53.898)
Thank
Justin Lake (09:06.166)
hundreds or thousands of individuals when really it's about the attempt to create a bunch of individuals work together as a cohesive team through this change. And so that rowing metaphor is really perfect for some of those challenges that we face because one person, two people, three people can do this thing the way that we need them to.
but it's really not about that. It's about the whole organization adopting this change as a cohesive unit. And so I love that rowing metaphor.
So let's talk about some of the strategies that you would advocate for. The first thing I think that I'd really like to explore with you is understanding, you actually just talked about an element of this, which is then the leaders are more willing to spend on change management. So let's talk about that because there's actually a real world program that I'm.
getting close to right now and I think very mature, pragmatic organization, they have a massive global program on the horizon that begins this year and it will go into next year. And I understand their goal was to have a single OCM consultant come in and I think kind of wave the change management magic wand around this a little bit, right?
And I think there's risk in thinking that change management is like a box checking exercise. So I think that the first thing that I'd love to explore with you is how we go back in position the value and the resources required to help those of us who were not change management practitioners really understand not just what's at stake, but then what it's going to take.
Justin Lake (11:05.932)
to put a proper program in place to solve for this.
Leslie Downing (11:11.37)
So.
I'm if I may paraphrase that back to you. The question is for leadership to create that value statement to say.
Justin Lake (11:15.732)
Yep.
Leslie Downing (11:26.314)
Perhaps your requisition is coming across as a figurehead to have an OCM person. And when in fact, to properly execute and do what's best for your employees, it will take a team or internal resources assigned as change agents, cetera. Is that a good way to, okay. Okay, well, and we can move on to the next question. No.
Justin Lake (11:27.384)
Yes, that's exactly it. Yeah.
Justin Lake (11:53.785)
Well, I'm curious to hear how you how you help position that because I guess really what I'm asking is I think there's even with folks who are open minded to the need to think about change management more proactively. I think there's a tendency to minimize what's required that hey, we can just pluck one person put them in if they have Ocm or change management or pro sign in there.
Leslie Downing (11:56.67)
Yeah.
Justin Lake (12:20.824)
you know, on their LinkedIn profile, then that's this is a box checking exercise. And that's really not what that role should be about. And I know I'm preaching to the choir when I say that, but I guess what I'm really asking you is, how do we reframe then, what the role of change management is as a strategy on a major program so that we can then right size the investment and right size the resources and think about not just the resources that have change management in their title, but how that permeates throughout the entire program to make sure that it can be effective.
Leslie Downing (12:51.412)
Yeah, it's an excellent question. And I have been in that situation, by the way. Large global organization, one OCM person. And when you're coming in as a consultant and or an employee into this sort of thing, I'm a glass half full person. So I think foot in the door. Opportunity.
Justin Lake (12:54.304)
you you
Mm-hmm. you
Leslie Downing (13:20.692)
to share, to create value. Also, mind numbing fright because I know the implications of just one person and what I'm probably introducing myself to. So with all that as a baseline groundwork in my head, these are my thoughts, I will default to, if I'm interviewing or if I'm talking with C-suite leaders, I'll default to 10 areas where change
can affect an associate, an employee. And I'll say, I've got this worksheet that I go through to kind of gauge the depth of the change. And then I say it's low, medium, or high, depending on if it affects an associate or an employee in these 10 areas. And I do have them in front of me, if you want me to read them.
Justin Lake (14:18.729)
I would love to hear it, yeah.
Leslie Downing (14:20.498)
Right. So the 10 aspects, and this is ProSci also, but these are, but it's, it's a great baseline for what to begin, because when you're speaking with leadership and you say, well, is it going to affect location, compensation, performance reviews, reporting structure, mindset, attitude, beliefs, huge section there, processes, systems, tools, job roles, will they be added, reduced?
Justin Lake (14:41.832)
you you
Leslie Downing (14:49.779)
job reduction, and then critical behaviors, another huge one for a change management to really get a hold of. Critical behaviors, in my opinion, critical behaviors and mindset attitude beliefs are those gray fuzzy areas where leadership knows that that has to change for this to work. know. They just don't know how to, behaviors and mindsets seem so deeply ingrained when they're in an organization that if somebody can come in and show me how to change that.
It's worth it to me. But as we go through these different 10 aspects, just in a casual conversation, it begins to unveil the depth of this, the potential depth of this change where, well, there could be job roles in XYZ division, but this, and then they begin to realize all the different aspects. so that does open up the, it opens up a mind to, my gosh.
This is large. And then they're like, well, how would you go about this? So I start talking about a change impact survey, or assessment rather. And just speaking with their key leaders about these 10 areas, now I'm getting in the weeds. I don't know if that's where you want to go, Justin. But when you're asking a key leader for your division, one might say, only three of these are effective. And so then we can.
Justin Lake (16:05.872)
No, keep going, keep going.
Leslie Downing (16:16.829)
balance the change impact in different areas. And you know, it might be that, you know, out of all the branches or all the factories or all the locations or the mines or the banks or the tire stores, they're only going to have one change because it's really just a corporate behind the scenes change. And that's where all the big happening is. But if it's frontline, I'll tell you what, people perk up because that's
That's the people that are making it happen, that are building it, selling it, et cetera. So that helps. Put a measure to it. Again, I go back to numbers with leaders.
Justin Lake (16:57.672)
You know, the devil. Yeah, well, OK, so these are the two things that I want to pursue on that now. You already jumped ahead to the second one, but let me cover the first one first, which is the roles. You just made me realize that.
In so many of the programs I've been around, the result of the technology implementation is that there is a normalization of roles or an attempt to normalize the roles throughout the business, throughout geographies. Sometimes it's just titles and slight modifications to the job descriptions and things like that. So when you're building a system, many times,
the one of the purposes of the system is to standardize the approach or standardize the business process across the enterprise. And so as we go do that discovery and we start to think about the implement the implementation, the next thing that comes up as well in this region, they call this role this thing and this is their job description. And in this region, they call it something different because they also do these three other things. And all of a sudden now it comes back to the system implication.
Leslie Downing (17:50.815)
Absolutely.
Justin Lake (18:11.799)
And it's like, wait a second, there's not a role for a person that does that. And the other three things, there's only a role that does this, right? And so it just creates all of this chaos. And for some reason, it seems like this stuff all comes up fairly late. I can never figure out because I know the teams that are doing this implementation have done discovery. They've done the current state business process analysis, they've done the to be state, they've done all that assessment. But for some reason, it seems like these things come up late in the process in the 11th hour.
And so all of a sudden, that's when things come back to the people impact. Because now we're not just talking about the technology and which form, you know, fields do I fill out on the forums, but it's like, hey, you're telling me my job is changing. And that is such a big impact. And it seems like it is under addressed because we have focused so much time and energy trying to put all these workflows together in the new system that we've missed how that's going to impact the humans. So you've triggered something to me that I don't think I've really spent much time thinking about.
yet I've seen it come up time and time again. And so I just wonder to kind of bring it back to you. Why do you think we missed that? Or first of all, do you even agree that we missed that in some of the early discovery phases of our program? And if so, why does that happen?
Leslie Downing (19:26.843)
Absolutely. In my opinion, in roles, happens because HR is a sacred part of any corporation. And I want to say, as it should be, a role clarity, a pay scale, a performance review, these are generally hands-off things for a technology change.
You know, no, that's HR. But I, and so I want to say one of the first things that I've learned to do is connect with an HR leader and say, has this been discussed? And so, well, that's my opinion. My opinion is that it's, it's, there's an assumption within an organization, not right or wrong. It's,
Justin Lake (19:57.349)
Yeah.
Justin Lake (20:16.914)
Mm-hmm.
Leslie Downing (20:23.783)
It's valid, but there's an assumption that, HR will handle that. We don't get into pays and, you know, unless there's a reduction in play. But even then it's shrouded in, you know, HR processes apart from, you know, what maybe a project would take on, in my experience.
Justin Lake (20:34.91)
Right, right. But what you just said is actually really interesting. The overwhelming majority of the programs I've been around did not involve a reduction in force.
And yet, I think because the people and roles issues that we just talked about weren't addressed proactively or well, it feels to the people that are going to be impacted that they're going to be affected in that way, right? That there is going to be a reduction of force, that they are trying to eliminate my job through this tech transformation. That must be why they're not explaining the impact to our roles because they're going to eliminate some of these jobs.
mean, if you go and look on forums online where some of these folks are chatting, and you look on Facebook, you look on Reddit, and you see where some of these conversations are happening behind the scenes, you don't have to dig too deep to see some of the ways that employees are talking about these circumstances. And I see this stuff come up all the time. I browse those forums just to try to get my finger on the pulse of that employee sentiment.
Leslie Downing (21:30.857)
So, sorry.
Justin Lake (21:54.867)
And it's fascinating. And so I think it is something that's overlooked, despite the fact that having talked to many of the leaders, I know they weren't implementing this to reduce the size of their force. Yet everybody ends up with a bunch of anxiety and stress as a result of feeling that that's part of the plan.
Leslie Downing (22:11.369)
So true. it's so, it can be so easily remediated by one sponsor, one leader in a town hall saying, and saying this is not going to result in a reduction of force. You will learn new skills. Some of you may be stretched. Some of you may have role clarity and some of your current responsibilities drawn back, but rest assured there's new ones that,
Justin Lake (22:18.105)
Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Leslie Downing (22:39.89)
are going to continue to grow and we want to keep you in this organization that can that that conversation can so easily happen. Also, I feel in the last 24 months, AI is just an undercurrent of fear for a lot of people in and just so any mention of technology I feel comes with the AI suitcase along and then if you mention AI.
You know, and so that's a whole that's a whole podcast, isn't it? Just just talking about that undercurrent of how that could affect me. Will I be replaced by that? How am I going? I don't want to learn in it, you know, and so, yeah.
Justin Lake (23:28.089)
I want to come back to the AI topic because I agree with you completely. I think that that's changing a lot of things. But before we get to that, the other thing that you mentioned before that I wanted to kind of pull on this thread a little bit is the behavior change element. You talked about that as one of the 10 areas.
Leslie Downing (23:28.83)
Yes.
Justin Lake (23:48.109)
where change is going to happen or might be happening in the business. And I think the behavior change is one that I am really fascinated with because...
I think it's difficult to measure the before and after and understand the gap. And I'd really like to get better at that. And I'm wondering what you can offer in terms of helping us understand. When we talk about behavior change, there's especially in a large complex organization, particularly where there's a lot of geographic distribution and things like that. How do we measure that? Like we say, okay, yes.
We are implementing this technology. We hope that everybody's going to follow the standard practice. We're looking for consistency and accuracy and the performance of these roles. But how do we really get down to that behavior measurement? And I'm curious what you have to advise me on there.
Leslie Downing (24:48.861)
Yeah, yeah.
When I hear behavior change, I'm just going to ask a few clarifying questions, if I may. When I hear behavior change, so there's culture. There's a culture that comes with every project or company. And that culture is proud and deeply ingrained. sometimes it's culture.
Justin Lake (24:57.289)
Yeah. Okay.
Leslie Downing (25:17.97)
Well, let's face it, generally when we introduce a technology that's well known and everything, the technology is not really going to cause fits and starts. There's going to be the implementation of it. But generally, that technology is proven. But in the head, so I like to discern between a culture change and the technology adoption. So what I feel like
Justin Lake (25:23.994)
Yeah. Thank you.
Leslie Downing (25:48.543)
generally I'm dealing with is a culture change. That this has always worked. I am the queen or king of this process. Now I'm going to be at an even playing field with everybody else. I got to, you I don't have this special status that I didn't even know I liked until I realized I might be losing it. you know, there's so many of those, you know, different human feelings. And then there's the 180 degrees where
This was always okay, and now it's not. And so what I, I'll give an example broadly of an instance of behavior change, because I think you've hit it right, hit the nail right on the head, Justin, in that when we want to change a culture or a mindset, the way that we as practitioners do that is by creating and providing behaviors that support
Justin Lake (26:20.645)
Right.
So, I'm going to with the
Leslie Downing (26:46.964)
the mindset for which we're going towards, right? So rather than saying we're changing a behavior, we're saying we're changing a culture by implementing behaviors, right? Does that track? OK. So those behaviors. So if I, instance, to move from, let's say that I'm in an organization where
Justin Lake (26:53.593)
That makes perfect sense, yes. you
Leslie Downing (27:14.119)
Risk management has always been handled by the risk department. And so if I have an issue with a risk, it is my process to fill out this form and send it to risk. then I did my job. Now the culture says, we have this new software. I'm going to use that. And I have to fill out the own risk. And I have to tell what the risk is. And then that risk is going to be assigned to me and a risk manager in my unit.
And that manager is going to come back to me and I have to do all this. so I was hired as this, not a risk manager. So my challenge now is to say there is not a risk management department. We are all risk managers. It's part of everybody's role now. So I am going to create behaviors that support that mindset.
Justin Lake (27:52.57)
and Mm-hmm.
Leslie Downing (28:10.314)
Frankly, filling out the form and working with risk, that's not the big hurdle here. It's like, is now my own this now. They're asking me to own a risk that I see. And there might be a consequence if I am willfully blind. Willfully. well. That I pretend like I didn't see it. So with that instance, that's a real instance.
Justin Lake (28:31.918)
Yeah. Right.
Leslie Downing (28:39.165)
We created from leadership that you highlight risk, you know, where somebody brought up a risk, how they track through it, and you praise them. And every time we do that, we bring that up to the leader. And so we measured how many people brought stories forward. So when Mary sees Joe get praised for doing that, I'm influencing the behaviors. So that's one instance. Another instance is, well, I could go on and on.
a whole list, I'd have to pull it out.
Justin Lake (29:08.479)
No, no, please, please give me another one. But this is exactly where I wanted to go with this. So I'd love to hear another example of that.
Leslie Downing (29:15.72)
OK, I don't have it pulled up. But let me think about what other. So we also created within. So first of all, it's a fact that frontline employees accept change and change coaching the best from their immediate manager.
Justin Lake (29:38.905)
Yeah. .
Leslie Downing (29:41.385)
So that's always something to leverage. mean, they want to hear the vision and the overall, this is important from senior leaders, but from their manager, it's the how. And we're doing this together. So we set up that every manager had to catch a person in their group, you know, kind of going, huh, I wonder what this is about. And in their, you know, their huddles or however you want to call them huddles, daily staff meetings, weekly, they,
They said, you know, I watched. So we had a manager be a hawk. Just watch for a behavior that supports this new culture. And so it was refreshing, and it really worked. So how did we measure that? And actually, these results that we did had to be auditable. So we had to have real numbers and real information.
Justin Lake (30:35.984)
you
Leslie Downing (30:36.82)
that supported that we did this. So we named names, we had managers. So there were maybe 500 staff meetings. In those 500, 350 managers recognized 450 associates for raising a risk. This is the, this is, know, because it was new technology, so we had that to support it. And those were numbers. Those were numbers that proved a change.
in culture by supporting, you know, the behaviors that supported the mindset change.
Justin Lake (31:15.614)
And that is objective and measurable. Where and so this is a perfect example because I think culture feels like one of those things that's warm and fuzzy and is very difficult to like pin down, right?
versus attaching the culture, the way to think about culture is a collection of all the behaviors and actions that we want that culture to entail, right? And so that story is a perfect one. I am curious, how did you measure? So when you talk about there being 500 staff meetings and 300 managers called out 400 some odd, you know, incidents, how was that all being measured? Was that actually a part of the technology implementation you were working on?
Leslie Downing (32:00.53)
Yes, but it was more so one of the edicts was that the culture was lacking in risk awareness. the fact that it was a new technology to report that risk was a sideline, actually, to the real edict of everybody becoming a risk manager. did I answer that question?
Justin Lake (32:11.764)
Mm-hmm.
Justin Lake (32:23.978)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, well, no, not exactly. I but but I want so I want to come back to my actual question. But I think that this is the part that I'm loving about this, because I think at the highest level, there is an objective, which is we want to
improve the culture as it relates to risk, we want to have a very risk aware culture in our organization, right? Or however that was written up is as a high level statement. But the thing that I always find difficult to help my customers with and I find it that they struggle with this too, is taking that high level vision off of the C suites deck, and then saying, Okay, when we actually get out into the trenches now,
How do we actually go make this real? And I think your example is a way that we make this real. This is the behavior that we have right now, which is no one is ever reporting any of these risk incidents, right? So our baseline is zero or close to zero. Okay, what would success look like? Right, so.
Leslie Downing (33:28.832)
Correct. You talk about your basement. Absolutely. Yeah.
Justin Lake (33:33.4)
Then we say, okay, well, what does success look like? Does that mean we have 10 of these events after a period of six months or 10,000 or 10 million? Like what is this number that we think that is reasonable to achieve? If we set out to do 1,000 and we only did 10, then I would say that that was a miserable result. We didn't get anywhere near where we wanted to be. If we set out to get 1,000 and we had some math that backed it up and we got to 890 or 1,100, we'd say, okay, we nailed it, right? This is pretty damn good. And I think that's where things for some reason,
in large complex organization seems to break down is that we may have talked a little bit about the baseline in the beginning, but we haven't really talked about what good looks like. And that's something that I want to continue to get better at this so that the people that I work with, I have something more to offer to help them through this process. And I think you've given us a good example of how we can be doing
Leslie Downing (34:28.746)
Yes. And I love that statement, what good looks like, because I start with that a lot. Let's talk about what good looks like. And that's one of my first conversations, if not the first, is what is success? But what does good look like? And then if I might add to what you said along a baseline, and we want to go from zero to 1,000, and you get 90, that's miserable. So we're working with people. So let's talk about milestones. We always have milestones. So maybe milestone one is.
You know, 100. You know, we get 100. And then milestone two is 500. And then milestone three is what good looks like. But you know, it's fair to say that, or to lay the expectations that we're going to work along milestones. It takes time. It takes structure. And it takes consistent application.
Justin Lake (35:08.129)
Yeah.
Leslie Downing (35:25.971)
That's so important too, in that we talk about a timeline in a realistic way.
Justin Lake (35:34.252)
Yeah, we'll talk about that. Where do you think that goes awry?
Leslie Downing (35:39.546)
I.
I think we have to be articulate enough in our craft to say what is a realistic timeline in the behavior changes of people apart from a technology timeline or an agile, you know, I mean, people, can communicate with people the results of an agile project and how those changes are affecting them, you know.
Justin Lake (35:56.737)
Mm-hmm.
Leslie Downing (36:10.848)
Sprint one, sprint two, sprint three, sprint four. But we can't, it's unrealistic to expect people to be a sprint, right? So the largest factor in any change is consistency. I mean, did you start making your bed one day and then drop off? know, it becomes a behavior when you do it consistently and that's
Justin Lake (36:13.368)
Yes. Right.
Leslie Downing (36:40.819)
where with a senior leader and with our frontline managers, let them know this is not going to happen overnight. I mean, we wish it would. Great for you early adopters and you guys, but let's be realistic. I'm going to come along after milestone one and say, here's what our goal was. Here's what we hit. And you know what? This is all the cliches. It's a marathon, not a sprint.
Justin Lake (36:53.612)
Right.
Justin Lake (37:00.761)
Yeah.
Leslie Downing (37:10.11)
All those things, but we are progressing, and you are progressing. And we're going to be realistic about how it happens. And we also have to answer to the technology. It can't be in process forever. There comes a point where the old is going to end. All this.
Justin Lake (37:36.138)
Right. Well, and I think, you know, the challenge for leaders and why I think sometimes they don't afford some of these transformational programs, the time that is necessary is because let's face it, we're trying to run a business at the same time. So
Leslie Downing (37:39.411)
Table setting, I call it.
Justin Lake (37:57.986)
you know, it's not like we just get to stop all of these operations while we were are changing our processes and changing our role definitions and setting new milestones and looking for some, you know, achievements to celebrate along the way, like we're actually still running a business. And in the case of the scenarios that you and I are talking about, we were probably talking about multi billion dollar
global organizations or at least nationwide organizations that just have a lot of complexity, right? So they don't get the luxury of just turning their customer spigot off for 60 days and saying, hey, we're just going to fast track all this and get this done. And then we'll get back to that whole manufacturing and customer stuff later, right? And so I do understand that the timeline challenge and as somebody who is guilty of being over optimistic on timelines, pretty much every single day, I still haven't gotten very good about this. I do find that time.
the time component of goal setting, I personally find very difficult, because I feel that if I'm not setting a an aggressive goal, then I'm not being as ambitious as I think I could be or should be. And so I struggle with this. This is something that comes up in a lot of my leadership meetings in my day job when we're doing goal setting activities. I love what you talked about, which is accepting that there are humans in the mix here.
They are not just going to turn on a dime. So we're not just going to wake up Monday morning and all of a sudden all this is going to be different. I do love the idea of breaking this into bite sized chunks that we can look at as milestones over time. And I think that's good for accepting of the humans and the change saturation that they're already going through in a big program like this and giving ourselves time to truly look at those successes. This does bring me back to the question. I think I asked it poorly before. So I want to try again on this.
when we were talking about the example of the behavior changes and calling out those the incidents where somebody called out the risk circumstance and we're being recognized for that. How did you actually measure objectively like you threw out some numbers you obviously had some mechanism for this because you said there were 500 meetings there were 350 managers or 450 incidents like where were you tracking all that? Did somebody just have a big spreadsheet? Or was there some mechanism in place?
Justin Lake (40:19.074)
that was gathering that data because I think that's actually a part of the problem is that we often don't have a system for tracking these incremental measurements.
Leslie Downing (40:28.413)
Yeah. In that case, we did have a magnificent spreadsheet, unfortunately. how it started, how it was delivered was that we met with the division leaders and did our presentation and said, we started with a survey, Justin, that said we measured the risk mindset of the employee.
Justin Lake (40:35.584)
Okay.
Leslie Downing (40:57.149)
Those questions that we created for the survey took 60 days to refine to 15 questions about risk. I feel comfortable going to my manager with a risk. I feel that sort of thing. So then dissected that information. And to each division head, we went with their employees' responses. And we said, where your areas are is your employees are at 10%.
Justin Lake (41:11.296)
Right.
Leslie Downing (41:26.079)
feeling comfortable talking to their managers about risk. So the behaviors that we're recommending that you do. OK, so with that, so it began with a survey. I didn't give you that background. But with that information, then I created worksheets that they wrote this, captured the behavior.
Justin Lake (41:51.736)
Yeah. Yeah.
Leslie Downing (41:54.019)
on X date in this meeting. so they had to turn those in and then that number was put in and those were all artifacts that were auditable with names, dates, and what the behavior that was recognized was. there was, mean, I didn't, they had to keep the artifacts, but I captured the data. That was all moved up to me. So, but there were. Yeah.
Justin Lake (42:16.379)
Yeah. Well, and I think from an overall performance management standpoint, somebody had to be soliciting that information from the frontline leadership, right? And I think that's where I hope everyone that's listening, you know, pays close attention to that. That's an important element. We can't just put this in motion and then not
Leslie Downing (42:30.345)
that. Yeah.
Justin Lake (42:37.929)
ask for the results from these changes that we're making. And I think as a technology vendor, you're making me wonder if, you know, tech vendors like us have a role to play in helping our customers collect this kind of data about behavior change. I think maybe sometimes I'm guilty as a technologist of thinking, hey, there's a, there's like a system trigger that we can use to go capture this data. But maybe sometimes it's just surveying the managers and having them have a way to submit these types of circumstances.
that would be evidence for the behavior change in the business. And so I think that's a really good example that I really want to think a little bit more about how we can implement that with our customers.
Leslie Downing (43:19.307)
I would have paid a lot of money to anybody that had that system that I could have used instead of paper.
Justin Lake (43:26.64)
Yeah. Yeah, I think we literally were just talking about this over the last couple of days in some of our product meetings, because at the end of the day, you know, we have a training platform, and it is all ultimately about behavior change. But this is why I'm so fascinated with this topic, because at the end of the day, somebody consuming training content is not the goal. That is the means to the end, right? And so we want to help
Leslie Downing (43:28.617)
That's brilliant.
Justin Lake (43:55.809)
our customers have some baseline, we want to have a measurement mechanism, and then we want to know that the things that we're asking people to participate in, are having the intended outcomes. That's really what this all boils down to. And so I think that the more ideas that we can have about how we can go about doing that, think the better that the better we can all be the better these programs can be. And quite frankly, I think
Going back to something you and I talked about when we also first met is I think empathy for the men and women on the front lines is also good for business. think even these things that sound like we're holding them accountable, what we're doing is we're setting the expectations about what we expect in the business and then we're putting systems and processes in place to go measure against that. And I think that also is a cultural component of building trust and confidence in each other.
in that, hey, the things that we say are important, we're actually going to put a process in place to then go measure them. And we're going to report back on that, right? So that as a team, we can all have have a part to play here. So anyway, I'm ranting and I'm going to run out of time. And I want to come back to this topic. This is we're going to finish up on this topic here. But as you said, when you brought this up before, we could have an entire episode and a dedicated conversation just about the impact of AI and how it is affecting the psychology of the people.
that work in large organizations, you cannot turn on the news or look at you know, you wherever you get your news source, and not see some article about the impact of AI on jobs, hiring kids out of college or young adults out of college, right? All of these things are happening right now. And so no one in an organization can hear AI, and probably not yet excited for a moment and then petrified for another moment, right? And there's this
probably like little bit of tension on those emotions there. So what are your thoughts on this? Maybe start off with, you know, what do you think would be an opportunity for improvement in how we are thinking about and communicating with all of the people that can be affected about the advent of AI in large enterprise and it becoming pretty commonplace.
Leslie Downing (46:03.431)
Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's, I mean, I'm, I want to say that I'm in the, the middle stage of, of, of thinking about this too. It's really consumed a lot of my thoughts because, Elliot Mazze, he's a well-known instructional person. but about 15 years ago, he said something that stuck with me and, it's so true. said, you know, our, our, our world is turning from
Justin Lake (46:10.244)
Okay. Okay.
Leslie Downing (46:32.006)
learning and absorbing knowledge to being navigational. All we need to know really in our brains now is how to get to the information, not to keep it. We don't have to keep it in our head. We don't have to keep it in a book. We know we need to know how to navigate to it. And that was so prescient because here we are. And that's what AI is. AI is about how we get to the information we want in its best possible form.
Justin Lake (46:34.505)
you you
Leslie Downing (47:01.854)
in our mind. So when I think about
how to communicate that as an advantageous item. My most recent experience has been in healthcare and in, well, anyway, it's been with engineers, I'll put it that way, with engineers. And when you think about a clinical mind, these are clinical minds, these are minds that,
Justin Lake (47:23.352)
Okay. Right.
Leslie Downing (47:34.589)
You know, I need the facts. need to understand what's happening and I need to prove it with my act, you know, with how I, what I put out, needs to be accurate. I don't have room for an error. Really. It could be life threatening or contract loss. So.
Leslie Downing (47:57.48)
When I've communicated around the benefits of AI and how it's not, really it's about time. It's about time saving. It's about, look, all of these things that you look up in books right now or that you go to the internet or you go to your own files for, AI is going to call for you within seconds. You're getting time back so that your mind can do what it needs to do and what it wants to do.
Justin Lake (48:17.237)
Yeah.
Leslie Downing (48:24.541)
You can create new things. You can go outside of those bounds. It's unlimited when you can get what you need to make these thoughts or decisions happen in seconds. That's been a real thrust, but I think that's, it's becoming common to me. I want to find more special things to say, but it's so roles. can be so role specific, Justin. but, that's where I start in that it's not
Justin Lake (48:49.869)
Yeah.
Leslie Downing (48:54.143)
tying you down, it's freeing you when used correctly. And then the whole thing about how to write a prompt and that sort of thing.
Justin Lake (49:03.089)
You know, you just reminded me and this is gonna really date me. In the first job that I had as an adult, I was in the paging business. So those little black boxes that we used to wear on our belt or maybe on your purse, you know, and a phone number popped up on your screen and that told you needed to call somebody back. That's the pager that I'm talking about. So some of you won't even know what I'm talking about. But what's funny is people used to say to me all the time, I don't want one of those things. I don't want to be tied down.
And that was always a fascinating objection to me because I said, this is actually the exact opposite. The way I saw it was exact opposite. Like today, if you want to be able to serve your customers or be available to your employees, you actually have to stay by a telephone, right? Like you have to be stationary at a desk where that phone and that wire goes into the wall. And what I'm giving you is something that gives you at the time, it was the ultimate freedom, you can leave
and still be in touch. You can be where you need to be doing the things that you want to and need to be doing and still be accessible. It was the opposite. It was the exact opposite of the way that people thought about it. And so I think now it's funny to hear you say that because this is like 30 something years later. And we as humans have a tendency to sometimes look at the pessimistic side of those things. Where in reality, I think most of these technologies unlock
a whole bunch of freedom and flexibility that we wouldn't have had before. And I think with frontline workers in particular, I think 0 % of them are in the job that they're in because of all the administrative stuff that they have to do on their tablet or their smartphone and all the documentation they have to do and stuff like that, right? They're there because they like fixing things. They like driving trucks. They like being out in the open that you know, there's all those other benefits. 0 % of the people I've talked to said I really love spending all that time in technology.
So I think it's interesting that there's an opportunity to let them get back to the things that they're good at and that which they enjoy. But yet at the same time, our heads as people, we tend to go drift to, oh my God, this feels really constraining. It feels risky. It makes me nervous. It makes me anxious. And then we kind of create this entire story. And I think it's on the shoulders of people like you and me to help communicate with them proactively to help them understand that that's not
Leslie Downing (51:08.083)
Yes.
Justin Lake (51:29.932)
purpose here, but we have to figure out a way to communicate with them better and more effectively so that they can see that. That's my two cents. Okay.
Leslie Downing (51:35.967)
Yeah, and that's, I agree. absolutely agree, which is a great segue to the second part of communicating the benefits of AI or, know, acceptance is use cases. I mean, where, you know, you, an engineer, you take the most complicated equation and process or something, and you, of course you tested it, but that's what we've done with AI with engineers is taken one of their most complicated processes.
thrown it into AI and it spits out something in seconds and it's just a game. They're like, well I would do that. Well, that's AI. well, that's not so bad. So use cases are especially effective with the skeptics. That's.
Justin Lake (52:15.468)
Right. I think that is a great example of how we can give them a taste and let them see that we actually need them to still be at the controls. I think that's the thing that we miss the opportunity to do.
is to really be proactive with the communication that this isn't here to replace you. This is here to be another power tool in your toolbox. And it's just going to make those things better and faster. And in a lot of cases, take work off your shoulders that you would otherwise have to do so that you can then be put forward to do the things that you're best at.
Leslie Downing (53:04.969)
Yeah, yeah. And I love what you said around, you know, I don't know anybody that says, I can't wait to do my administrative tasks today. So that's powerful. Very powerful.
Justin Lake (53:16.877)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I, I think, again, like so many things that you and I've talked about, it comes down to communication. And something I believe very strongly in and this probably isn't just limited to frontline workers, it's probably every all the stakeholders in the mix. In the absence of proactive communication. People tend to kind of shift to the worst case scenario for
And it's like this protective mechanism that I think kicks on they create, they paint this picture in their head, that's going to be the worst case scenario. And so I think it's incumbent on us, those of us that know that that's not the intended outcome, we have to be more proactive and know that if we're not, then the default is probably going to be a circumstance that will create a lot of resistance to the change that we're trying to implement.
Leslie Downing (54:07.231)
Yeah. Yeah. go ahead.
Justin Lake (54:11.84)
Well, I way over time here, and I knew this was gonna happen. even I'm over the extended time at this point. So I want to wrap this up. But I want to give you one last chance because I feel like you and I could have another episode or two. I would just like to ask for your take on, know, if you could give other change practitioners one piece of advice, particularly around the challenges with
Leslie Downing (54:15.615)
All right.
Justin Lake (54:41.216)
change adoption by frontline team members, what would you offer up to the community?
Leslie Downing (54:48.703)
Gosh, one piece of advice. I touched on it earlier.
Justin Lake (54:53.8)
We'll take two. We'll take two if you'd like to do two if you can't narrow it down.
Leslie Downing (54:59.807)
Well, I, you know, for front, for frontline people, and I, I think largely we all have a heart for the frontline folks because they really do, you know, take the,
the brunt of a change and are brave. So as I said, I touched on it earlier. I think that the middle manager, the person that is actually responsible to manage the how of that change, is a crucial, crucial person or group that oftentimes is
Justin Lake (55:18.516)
Mm-hmm.
Leslie Downing (55:40.167)
Well, and I probably am guilty of it too. It's just like, well, we'll have our managers do that or we'll have them discuss that in staff meetings. But when, when, when I have taken the time, to target communications specific to what to know and in timed communications, what or, or tips and tricks, what to know, what to do, what to share and say, here's just something that you can read and it will
Justin Lake (55:46.053)
you you
Leslie Downing (56:09.236)
deliver the messages of the project, it'll deliver the leadership messaging, and it's a little game or task in here that you can do with your folks to drive a behavior. I went in the weeds with that, but what I want to say is remember to engage uniquely with the managers that are responsible for the how of the change.
Justin Lake (56:12.121)
you .
Leslie Downing (56:39.099)
a game changer. It really is.
Justin Lake (56:41.304)
I think that's a great place for us to wrap up. And I think just one thing I would add to your point, just to share my observation, I think they want to be better leaders. They need some mentorship as to how to be a better leader. And what you just talked about was a perfect example about that. Actually give them ideas on how they can be more effective in their job.
And not only is that uplifting for them, it gives them the tools that they need to be more successful. But then the downstream effect is that that person is impacting six, eight, 10, 12 people that report to them. And so it has a magnifying effect throughout the organization. So I think that's a great place for us to leave this today. Leslie, thank you so much for taking the time. I do think we could come back and have a dedicated session on the impact of AI. So as we continue through 2026, I think we'll continue to kind of morph our opinions about this.
And maybe we can come back later in the year and share some of the things that we've learned.
Leslie Downing (57:40.895)
I'd love to do that, Justin. Thank you for what you do for Frontline.
Justin Lake (57:44.556)
Excellent. Thanks again for joining today.
