In this segment, the speaker outlines a practical approach to change management for technology roll‑outs. First, he stresses that securing user buy‑in starts by identifying and addressing the daily frustrations that the new tool will eliminate, positioning the technology as a solution rather than a mandate. Next, he highlights the need to map the organization’s range of technological capabilities—from software‑savvy engineers to users with minimal computer experience—so that change strategies can be matched to skill levels. He then discusses two complementary tactics: (1) providing training that varies in depth and style, recognizing that some users may never fully internalize the new system, and (2) adapting the system itself to be more intuitive for less‑experienced users, rather than forcing everyone to conform to a one‑size‑fits‑all design. Finally, he warns that if a system remains confusing, adoption will falter, underscoring the importance of usability as a prerequisite for successful change.
Chapters
With change management, like you mentioned, getting buy-in from people is very important, which is another reason why it's a good idea to go to people first and say like, okay, it's not that we're just implementing this technological solution and you're going to learn how to do it. You're saying, what is annoying to you, right? Like, what is taking up a lot of your day that you don't want to spend time doing? Okay, I'm going to bring in a technology that solves that problem. That's going to get a lot more buy-in from the people that are trying to adopt the system. Another thing that's really important with change management, especially with technology, is understanding what everyone's technological capability is. Because at a company, there's going to be a lot of different skill levels when it comes to technology. There's going to be some people that pick up the new technology right away and they're used to it. Maybe they have like software engineering background and they just are used to using platforms like that. And then there's going to be some people that struggle, that it's not intuitive to them. And so another consideration kind of on the change management side is understanding, okay, what's everyone's level of capability? What are they likely to struggle with, with the new system or excel at? And then how can you shape the system to accommodate those skills, right? So there's a couple ways you can go at it. You can obviously train people, right? Training people is going to have different levels of effectiveness. Some people just Like it's not going to click with them, and that's, that's okay. And so if you are kind of at a point where it's like, okay, this is not really going to click with this person, then the next question is, how can I adjust the system to make it more user-friendly for someone, right? So like making a system for someone that's really well-versed in using Excel and dashboarding and all of these things, it's going to be a very different thing than trying to make a system that is useful for someone that has never used Excel before. Right. And so you wanna make sure that you are accommodating everyone's levels when you are creating a system. Mm-hmm. At the end of the day, if someone's too confused by it, they're just not gonna use it.
