Squid #14 - The Challenge of Adoption

Peter gets sneaky and challenges DAS to talk about a subject that DAS promised to write about in Peter’s new book (2,500 words due by mid-June)

Change Adoption is not Change Management – but the two go hand in hand – DAS and Peter explore the differences and ponder the art of making ‘adoption’ a reality in business transformation

DAS suggests that without Adoption 'it' (insert Change of your choice) is all a waste of time really - and he further proposes Adoption is the most ignored part of Change

Transcript

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Nice computer. Okay. All right, good. Hello, guys. Hello, Peter. How are you? I'm good. Thank you. I'm good. I'm good. I'm quite excited about today's topic. I'll be honest with you. Well, you were quite excited at the weekend, weren't you? I know when you celebrated the coronation go down. Yes, yes, we have King Charles a third. And, yeah, we did have a bit of a fun party. There was some dressing up involved. But that's, of course, the different story. Of course, it was. So we I'm guessing we don't have time to go there today. Because I suspect that our list and would like to hear more about that. Well, I Well, I don't know whether listed like that or not really. There was a I mean, there was a party, there was a theme red, white and blue. And there was lots of fancy dress outfits that were quite spectacular. And there wasn't drinking. So. Okay, yeah, you're right, we probably should leave it there. It's not like correlations come around very often, you know, certainly not in our lifetime. Anybody know that's true. That's true. So do I get to ask the question, you get to ask the question. All right, Peter. So yeah, I've been looking forward to this, too. So what's the squid of the day? Well, that's this episode topic begins with an A, but it's not the one you might have been expecting. I was thinking that you were going to take us down an AI path today. Not Not yet. This one's still hanging out there. I feel but no, no, I'm going to take you down a path of adoption. And now I don't want you to adopt me, it's all too late for that. Now, I'll be honest listener, or listeners, possibly. I'd be a bit sneaky here. Because I know we've mentioned it before. But I occasionally write a book. And I'm writing a brand new book right now, which is all about what I feel is the kind of the new model of pMOS project management offices. And that is agreed to write a chapter on adoption. So what I'm doing here, by quite sneakily, is I'm kind of getting primed to actually write that chapter for me in the very near future. So that's why I've gone for adoption, you know, I forgotten that. Oh, there's a commitment. I've got it in writing. Yeah, a good a good topic PDF, because it's very, it's very appropriate for what we spend our lives doing, isn't it? It is, it is. So I thought I'd throw some initial thoughts out there, and then we'll start the conversation. So I guess for a lot of people, it's understanding the difference between if like change management and change adoption, because if you think about it, you know, change is a movement from current state to future state. And there's some kind of transition that happens in the middle there. And, you know, we spend a lot of time talking about managing change. And through these phases, kind of a lot of what project management is all about is managing the change. But it there's another part to it, which is around change adoption, and it's all about, you know, not just managing change, but because you can't force people to change, it's a matter of driving the imperative to adopt change and make that kind of transformation, a core aspect of an organization, if you if you're thinking about big transformational stuff that's going on, which is kind of our world right now. So change adoption is, is kind of critical for actually optimizing the impact for new initiatives, strategic objectives, motivation of the organization, encouraging, differentiated results, all of those sorts of things. And so, yeah, I thought it was a really, I thought it could be a really interesting conversation, because it's yeah, it's subtle as well, isn't it? Because I'm going to ask you to define it in a minute, actually, because you sort of You sneakily compared it to change management, which, you know, I'd like you to sort of perhaps just clarify what you mean by it? Because it has it does, it does have different meanings in the English language. And so, I think we should define what you mean by that. But I would agree with you that, you know, for all the technology improvements and opportunities that our extended by evolving into a future state, at the end of the day, it comes down to people basically, wanting to do the new thing. And so, without adoption, it's all a waste of time, isn't it? So it's probably, it's probably the most overlooked part of change in the sense that you can get everything right and deploy a perfect solution to a problem. But if it's not adapted, it's not going to work. No, no, I, I came up with I came up with an example of my in my own life. So in many ways, I'm very progressive, but I'm also a bit of a digital dinosaur. So, there are certain members of my tea are desperate for us to work in a completely different way using the kind of collaborative tools the kind of team stuff and all the rest of it. So I want to kind of explain this is I have been I have been managed through change into what it is that that part of the team, certainly the majority of people that showed my team wants to work, but it's not natural to me. And, you know, on that basis, I'd say, you know, the change has been managed in and, and I tried very hard to perform and work in that way. But I naturally regress rapidly to email, which I am, you know, I feel phenomenally fast on them for normally accurate on and a lot of my team don't understand that. So, if you like the change has been managed, but I haven't completely as yet adopted the change. And I do go back to my old behavior quite rapidly. What are what would you say? Are I mean, taking that example? Perhaps well, what are the what are the factors that cause people to be resistant to change? Or to not adopt change? What, what are some of the factors you think that are at play there in your example? Well, I think there's kind of comfort with the status quo is probably where I kind of start off with, you know, I'm very happy. And I think I'm incredibly efficient in the way I work. But that doesn't necessarily fit all the way other people want. So I just prefer to work in the way I've always worked. And that is positive and productive, as far as I'm concerned. To learn a new way and to stop unlearn the old way, I guess, is part of this as well is, it's very disruptive actually, to kind of, you know, I feel my performance, quite clunky. On the other side of the world, in the sense of the kind of digital world anyway, you said it better you heard it here, first listener. I am I am. You're not telling me you're on a line that up to Oh, behave, behave? Are we going to throw ourselves back to episode number one? And so I think I gotta go with comfort for the status quo was definitely one point. I think, perhaps there is. Well, I guess there's always, always changes fear of the unknown, isn't it? Yeah, I think so. I mean, I understand those comments. You've talked about your discomfort with change, you've talked about, yeah, maybe the fear of the unknown. I mean, this isn't the case. But I mean, there are factors to do with, you know, sometimes change requires people to either unlearn something or learn something, and they're unable to do it. I mean, there's, you know, there's a, there's a, you know, if you look at the use of technology in different generations, how, at some point, you know, the the generations actually struggle to understand the technology, the previous generation, or the past interaction, in it, to the extent that they're unable to learn, or perhaps I'm willing to learn would be perhaps slightly better. And that whole point about being disruptive about wanting, you know, I suppose that's fear of change, isn't it about not wanting to, I think there's a fear, as you call it drifted into perhaps your lack of lack of skills or knowledge or capability or belief that they can't learn? Yeah. And it's interesting in the sense that the example you use, you know, you've got authority in this position, and yet you've acquiesced to the team's request. So you're obviously seeing something there that causes you to understand there is a benefit from this? Well, they told me there's a benefit from it. Personally, I think I'm just as efficient without it, but your hunger, I'm going with a majority in this area? Absolutely. I'm not going to go I'm going to call you out. Because I don't think I'll have, you know, I don't think I'm generally resistant to change or have a fear of change. And while I've, while I've just been very changeable. So, you know, in this particular area, I guess I find my own way of being what I feel very, very efficient. And I need to learn that that may not be efficient for a larger team. Yeah, yeah. Well, in this case, you know, this example you are in a team, aren't you and the team are telling you that if you carry on working the way you're working, it actually holds them back. And so are you perhaps taking one for the team here in the sense that you understand that the the need of the many is bigger than the need of the one even though the one in which cases? You? I yeah, I think I think the word you're looking for is noble here. Going back to resistance, I think there's also there's gonna be a trust issue here, isn't it? You know, when change is, is thrust upon people, there's a lot of cynicism in in the world in general, but a lot of cynicism in business, I'd say, Oh, God, you know, and I'm one of those corporate initiatives, another transformation. Another major change. What's it for me? Nothing at all. Apart from XR workers, obviously. There's got to be that to it. Yeah, well, I think I think you said it, didn't you? I think the the what's in it for me, description of the results of the change is a very important factor in terms of communicating why you're doing it. And maybe in your example, the team hadn't given that to you. So you've seen no benefit whatsoever in changing your archaic working practices. Okay, fine. I did say dinosaurs are nice. So you're using? Yeah. So I mean, but that's that's a thing, isn't it and change management that you communicate in the voice of the listener in the sense that you try and put the requirements to change in a context that makes sense for someone that's having to affect that change. Yeah, absolutely. And I think there's a lot of one, which is, you know, you've touched on the fact that we will get to talk about AI at some point in the very near future, but and that's, you know, what's the big worry about with the AI? It is it is, if you like the impact on people that this particular change could completely negate the need for the, you know, for people from roles from responsibility for whatever. And I think any change has that potential to worry people that the end result might be that their lives are fundamentally different, and there is nothing in it for them. Yeah. And there's that dynamic isn't that which we see a lot in our world where the benefit actually is not at the level of the individual that's being affected by it. And so you've got a change that is, let's say, globally, or let's say, at a macro level deemed to be advantageous for the the organization or for the group or for the objective for the project. But at an individual level, it's a truism, isn't it, that actually, actually, individuals may well being negatively impacted by it. Yeah. And so I think there's an honesty that's required here associated with adoption, which is that it's true that not everyone will benefit from change. Because there's a, you can argue, you take a situation where perhaps an organization is making a change for it to be more profitable. And perhaps that change results in a group of the people within the organization not being required anymore. And that's where the increased profitability comes from by the reduction in costs. So the bigger truth is that without that reduction in costs, perhaps an organization won't continue. And so there's a much larger population of people that actually may not be gainfully employed in the future, this change isn't put into place. I mean, I'm exaggerating for effect. But that's often true on a transformation, isn't it that there is a subset of the population that this is not going to benefit at all? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think the other resistance I've seen, particularly with the big programs, that transformation is that, you know, there's there's usually some kind of exciting, Buzzy rah rah kickoff celebration, we're gonna go through a major change, etc. But the reality is, it is so distant in its impact on people that they kind of like, well, it's actually nothing to do with me, and maybe it will become to do me one day, but I really have to worry about, I'm just gonna go get on with life. And so, you know, it's kind of an area of be like, the kind of communication but also kind of why the change is necessary, and when the change will impact all levels. Yeah, no, I think that's right, it's very important, isn't it to make sure that a population understands the relevance of the change. So it's not just what's in it for me, which sometimes is a bit difficult for certain subsets of the population, but there's a relevance in terms of, you know, what, what's important to me. And when you think about relevance in a, in an organizational construct, I think there's two sides to this, which I don't know whether you wanted to go here, but there's one which is sort of what are the benefits and it can be individual benefits, it could be, you know, reduction of time, you can spend more time on, you know, more interesting work, it could be benefits in terms of you get, you get to keep your job, because the company is going to prosper as a result of this change in the way we we work. It might be a benefit in the sense that you get to do something new, or there might be promotions in it, or that you get to learn new skills. But there's also a component of relevance, which is, this is relevant to you, because you're part of an organization. And we're obliging you to do it. Yeah, yeah, there's a sort of an autocratic side to transformation, which I think is tricky, because I don't know whether you'd agree with this. But, you know, I think in my working life, you're very, you've been in a position where you've got to instruct someone to do something, it never land. Well, really, I think it's always much more purposeful. If people willingly adopt a role or a task or a mission or an activity because it's a recognition that it's part of their responsibility, or it's part of their job, or it's part of something that they want to do because they know it needs to be done or they want to do it because you want it to be done and they respect the fact that you've got an insight here which is important to them. But if ever You get to the point of actually having to dictate an action that someone doesn't want to do. I don't think it ever ends. Well, no, no, I agree. I agree. And you got to set it goes back to the what's in it for me. I mean, I just remember I had a big project. Long before we met, actually. And it was, it was there was there was distribution centers all over the UK I was involved in, and we were deploying a whole new system. And you know, there was naturally the sort of people who worked at these these sort of small trade based offices, really, they were, they're more like, sort of stores with warehouses behind. They had no time or anything. And really, they just wanted to get on with their job and not be bothered by anything at all. But I first kind of went along the lines of like, well, you know, this is a wonderful new system, look at it, it's glorious, it's fantastic. It's going to be, and they have no interest in this. And then in the end, we pitched it for the fact that we could double your WT brakes based on this. And they started listening to that. I'm not sure I'm sure I was allowed to do that. But it certainly you certainly got their attention if you like. Well, I think that's a legitimate tactic, isn't it to you know, it is thinking about the what's in it for me. Okay. And it's, it's something to do with looking looking at the transformation through the eyes of the people who are going to be affected by it, I think, which is, I think, a very powerful a powerful position to take. I think it's about active listening, isn't it to understand to, to hear the concerns, and to find ways in which a lot of them can be addressed? Because it's often the case, isn't it? When you're in a situation that people are objecting to a transformation? There's often fear involved, and that fear often comes from the unknown. But how many times have we been in a situation where the unknown for the individual actually presents something that as a leading transformation, we didn't know, either? Yeah. So actually, it's well worth well worth spending. Spending time there. I mean, there's a there's a sort of a small example, perhaps not a good example. But it just came to me as we were thinking about this point, there's going to be a major road that is going to be put near the village where I live. And it's a it's an extension of a main road, but it's changing its direction slightly. So it's coming slightly closer to the, to the village. And there's been a lot of concern in this very small village about having Heavy Construction traffic coming down the village, because it's a very old village, and there's beautiful old stone walls that won't survive the vibration, and they certainly won't survive a hit from a truck. And all the village turned up at a meeting a planning meeting to talk about the fact and the the construction organization very proudly said Oh, no, no, no, don't worry about the construction traffic, the the construction track of we routed down this particular road here. So it won't go down the village. And, and so we were sort of initially relieved by the fact they thought about that. And actually, that wouldn't impact the village. And they would have pointed out the fact that had they ever been down that road because it was a single track highway, we grasped going down the middle of it. And no one had visited. You know, they've made the plan about this relief roping used to take the construction traffic. They'd seen the road on the map, but it was a village road, which was absolutely not capable of taking trucks. And so, you know, our fear and uncertainty, which was raised as an objection to a transformation actually calls to be a vital bit of data for them which they'd missed. Oh, yeah, that's probably true. I suspect that enough Trump go down there it'd be much bigger round that's already finished. But yeah, yeah, good point. Good points. I've just I've now got this image of you standing in your smoke at the end of the village with a pitchfork and warding off all these horrible construction people is that your view of my village life Peter? Well, I get I've got you've got very village native I understand. Yeah. And how did the How did the vegetables go in the end? This is a sighted ladies and gentlemen listeners. I know dads would actually work in well I know you were shouted at visuals last I spoke to you about getting them ready for some kind of show. It wasn't shouting your face because we have we have the village fete, which is as middle class and English as you might imagine it to be. And yeah, I'm I'm growing and manning the plant store. So if any of our listeners would like to donate any plants, I'd be grateful because they've been a bit slow to grow this year. But anyway, I think we're getting off adoption page. Oh, that was that was an intermission because it was getting quite serious. So we're going on return so okay, you chose me with like talking about points of resistance if you like or you know, the challenges against change. I'm gonna challenge you to go the other way thing so so what can we do about it? You know, what things should we be doing in order to Get people to adopt change, obviously, I'm very interested because this is going to form part of a chapter of my new book. Yeah, I love the way you do this video because I was gonna teach you because I thought you were gonna do AI. And I was gonna say, we're only doing this because you've written a book. So we're only doing adoption because you're going to write a book. Yeah, my publisher reminded there's a deadline. So I bet crack on with it. Okay, so sorry, your question was, what can we do about it? Yeah. So what should we do? What's the stuff that we should be doing to negate the resistance? Because Resistance is futile. We know that, don't we? Yeah, that's a completely different book. But it's a very, very good book, but the Resistance is futile. But yeah, I mean, I mean, obviously the opposite. You know, whatever, three citizens kind of negatives resistance, you do the opposite. But there must there must be some things in in, in your experience and your wisdom about change adoption, to kind of get people to think differently, and behave differently during the kind of this kind of a transformation period. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think I think adoption is very personal to the situation you find yourself in, you know, we we've been deploying sort of enterprise software solutions throughout our life. But it is so interesting, isn't it that adoption is, is one of those probably top three reasons projects fail, I would think, backing that out of the air. But I think a very fair assessment. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's up there with, with bad data and lack of sponsorship, isn't it, I think, is sort of probably the big, the big three. And so I think you've got to spend way more time thinking about adoption, than you would ordinarily think you'd have to. So I think people do plan well, they, they, you know, they prepare their organizations for change, they communicate what's going to happen, but I think adoption is a phase of a deployment or an implementation often happens after go live, doesn't it, it's often it's often, if you look at it, you know, look at the software world where you, you have a project that gets designed, it gets implemented, it gets tested, and then it goes live very often. Often, from an executive point of view, that's deemed to be the end of it, you know, because you've got a new technical solution, you've got new processes and the organization's up and running, I actually think that the technology changes, that's where the hard work starts, because that's where that's where adoption is required. And, and often, it's where the benefits come in to you, you don't get the benefits from these sort of changes, the moment you start to use them, you get them over time. And if adoption isn't rapid, then the benefits that you've perhaps proposed that to justify the investment in the transformation actually are not going to come and so there's, there's a, there's a, there's a phase of a project, after you've gone live, where I think, in many respects, the hard work really happens. Because during a project, you've got a team that's well briefed, hopefully, that are very, you know, they're living and breathing it, everyone's on the same page, you will know why you're doing it, you've got a consensus from an executive team through to the the end users, perhaps that have been co opted onto the project to make it work. So everyone is very, very, very clear about the outcomes. I think when you get into a mode of adoption, I think that all that energy momentum often dissipates. And you've got frontline users, if I can describe it in that way, dealing with the challenges of things not working the way they did before. And then actually, perhaps, things not working properly anyway, because something's been missed. So I think it it warrants as much time as can be given to it as part of a project plan focused on adoption. So to start with, I would suggest, that resonate with you, it does for me, and it's, you know, again, thinking about it, it's an interesting one, you know, kind of, again, in our, in our history or experience, you know, we've done many transformations of new technology going in and it's always that, do you go big bang, do you go are kind of parallel periods, how to get people to get off old systems onto new systems. It's, it's quite challenging to do that. And, in fact, you know, you know, we got one in my world coming up, where we're kind of moving across to a new way of overseeing or managing governing our projects. And, you know, we know that we're going to we're going to ask our project manager to live in two worlds for a period of time. We don't know how long that is, but he's like, you know, the old way of working in the new way. working. And adoption is going to be quite quite fun during that period of time. And I think the other thing is, nothing stays still, I'm gonna go back to that, that that company I talked about, and I convinced them that I can double their, their coffee breaks or tea breaks. You know, the other advantage I had was the old system was incredibly slow. And so it was very easy to demonstrate. But the problem I found was that there were somebody that if I remember, right, like 40 of these depots that had to be rolled out. And the bit I completely and the rest of my team completely missed. What's when we got to halfway point, the old system became very, very responsive, because we're taking people off it. That advantage I had disappear completely. So yeah, I think change tactic tactics again, on that one? Yeah, well, you often see that don't do with implementation of new technology, which, perhaps at a macro level benefits an organization or a department, but at an individual level, perhaps is a little bit harder to do. We sometimes we talked about this during the global podcast, didn't we that actually there's a, there's a benefit of standardization for the organization as a whole. But at the front line, and individual actually has to work harder to do their job, because the standard system actually isn't quite as what's the word customized is the wrong word. But you know, it's not quite as easy to handle as the previous system. And so you often you often find that dislocation, don't you between what's good for the organization against what's good for the individual. And, and then the, you know, often the old system, which has been replaced, is looked upon very favorably all its faults are, are forgotten about because, because there's a new problems. I would, I would think, you know, if if you accept the premise that you've got to spend, you know, as much time on the adoption, that to say, as you as you, as you plan on the project itself, I think that says, then you've got to manage adoption. You've got to have a, you've got to have a perspective on elements of what is adoption. And, you know, just top of my head, I think there's three things I was thinking about there. One is, there's a, there's an operational side of adoption. So you can you can, you can mechanistically, manage adoption culture, you can, you can measure how many people are using the new functionality or who are logging on or using the new process. So you can, you know, you can count things to recognize whether new processes, systems or techniques have been used. So I think there's an operational management of adoption, which is mechanistic, but it's about it is about control, actually, it's about ensuring that what you wanted to have happen is happening. So there's something there isn't there. There's something about measuring the benefits of adoption, which go back to the the value proposition that calls you to do this transformation in the first place. And that's the one that I think is, is is often overlooked at the end of a project where it's assumed it's going to happen. But I think you have to continue to drive adoption, because actually, the benefits often don't come automatically. And so there's something to do with measuring the outcomes you expected from the transformation as part of this phase. And then there's a there's the people factor, which I probably should have said first, which I think, you know, it's I think it's to do with surveys, you know, it's to do with asking, and listening about how people are getting on because it is at that detailed frontline user, if I can just use that term where the wheels often come off, isn't it where there's something unexpected, that's, that's come up, that hasn't been hasn't been designed into the system. And so it's, it's vital that there's a conduit back through the organization to deal with those myriad of challenges that that happened during early adoption. So that, you know, there's got to be, there's got to be access to experts, there's got to be access to, you know, frequently asked questions to help to training. There's a whole slew of operational things that need to be made available to individuals, I think, to support them during a transformation to help adoption. Yeah, yeah, I think I agree. I think I agree with that. And I think we've talked about measuring the benefits. I think you got to track Yeah, I mean, you know, an organization goes through change for for some purpose. But I think you get back down again, it's kind of it talks to the people side of things and what's in it for me, it's like, how can you track any benefits at multiple levels? I think, you know, in trying to understand if if this changes is not helping or improve certain people's lives, as opposed to it is helping in other ways. I mean, I think it's really just the kind of multi level An assessment of benefits is important.