Transcripts
Hey, Megan, let's do a podcast. Great idea.
Speaker:One
Speaker:of the things I love about my job, about
Speaker:this podcast is that I get to talk to some really interesting people
Speaker:that I meet through my work and get to share that conversation with a
Speaker:broader community because I'm incredibly fortunate in my role that I get
Speaker:to talk to so many amazing thinkers and doers out in the space.
Speaker:And so that's part of the goal of this conversation.
Speaker:Fraser Lockhart and I go back probably almost a
Speaker:decade when he was actually a client of mine, when he was leading sales performance
Speaker:at Dawn Foods and had just located into Michigan.
Speaker:And I watched his career take some
Speaker:really interesting turns and maneuvers since then.
Speaker:So, Fraser, welcome. Glad to have you here.
Speaker:How about you introduce yourself to everybody? Sure. Thank you, Megan. And
Speaker:that's what I love about knowing you and engaging with you is you talk
Speaker:to so many people that every time I do, I get a different perspective from
Speaker:you. So it's great. So as far as me and my background,
Speaker:I was just last with Dawn Foods. I now run my own organization
Speaker:in the focal point world being a business and leadership coach.
Speaker:But my history is all around working with larger
Speaker:organizations to drive performance and whether that's in
Speaker:the sales environment — I kind of say I've got four areas that I focused
Speaker:on in the past to make it easy because I've switched a ton of jobs
Speaker:and companies — so really around sales
Speaker:leadership and capability. So working for companies like
Speaker:Pepsi and Coke and Campbell Soup and Cisco and Dawn Foods and
Speaker:being in the trenches with sales leaders and coaching and leading them
Speaker:to be more effective with their teams. And then
Speaker:I moved into this capability world where I was a full-time
Speaker:training facilitator for a couple years for a consulting company and really worked
Speaker:with sales teams, and sales organizations, and broader
Speaker:executive organizations and really fell in love with this
Speaker:whole idea of helping people be more effective and doing
Speaker:that regularly. And so I went back into the sales world and
Speaker:started to get connected with sales and leading
Speaker:L&D teams, leading sales L&D teams, sales
Speaker:capability teams, and seeing that I had a
Speaker:real opportunity and some credibility in the sales world where I could
Speaker:really engage teams effectively and help them be more effective.
Speaker:And then I moved into sales operations and really
Speaker:supported teams in understanding what are the analytics they
Speaker:need to help them be more effective. And then the
Speaker:other thing that I've done lately is really get into change management and
Speaker:have become now a certified change practitioner
Speaker:and helping teams really navigate through this world of change
Speaker:in — really helping them figure out what's the best way
Speaker:for us and what's the right path for us to take in
Speaker:driving adoption within change? So large
Speaker:teams moving into some capability and
Speaker:then now into running my own coaching organization
Speaker:where I'm really coaching a
Speaker:lot more than I would in the corporate environment and really enjoying that.
Speaker:Super cool. And I think that's kind of what caught
Speaker:my attention about what you're doing right now. You spent
Speaker:decades in some very
Speaker:high profile names, right? Big companies that I either know
Speaker:or are the companies behind the companies I know, right? In sales
Speaker:and operations and all this. And you, you
Speaker:became really engaged right now around this
Speaker:moment where a company rolls out new technology and it's
Speaker:just not taking, right? Why
Speaker:does that challenge interest you so much
Speaker:of all the challenges out there, right? Like, why that one? Yeah,
Speaker:well, it. It's because I've been in so many situations
Speaker:in my corporate life that I — there's been these
Speaker:massive investments in systems and tools,
Speaker:and the ROI is really... is either very
Speaker:low or it's extremely delayed. It takes a
Speaker:year longer or two years longer to realize the ROI
Speaker:that they want and to get the money back from their investment. So
Speaker:I started thinking about that while I was working with these companies, and then I
Speaker:really started to think about it when I started to get into the coaching world,
Speaker:because I thought as well on the coaching side to say, you know, I
Speaker:was, I was teaching and helping people and leaders
Speaker:understand, you know, what are the
Speaker:right tools and conversation techniques to have and still getting
Speaker:limited adoption of those. So it was
Speaker:really all about "how do I help now?" So, you know,
Speaker:I got really interested in understanding what are the ways and techniques
Speaker:we can use to drive adoption faster, get faster ROI.
Speaker:And so I started to research and I realized you can get
Speaker:certified. And I realized very quickly that I was very uneducated
Speaker:in this world of change, which I thought I was actually pretty good
Speaker:at. And I realized very quickly that
Speaker:I need to learn more about change management. I did that. I got certified to
Speaker:do it. And now, now really seeing light bulbs go off
Speaker:for, you know, the people that I'm working with to understand that there is
Speaker:actually a method to our madness of engaging them in the right way and them
Speaker:engaging their audiences in the right way to drive change and adoption.
Speaker:You know, like, let's dig down a rabbit hole a little bit here because
Speaker:I feel like what you're saying about change — in that I
Speaker:thought I knew about it and I learned that I really didn't, you know, there
Speaker:was something... there's actually a structure and a method and a science behind
Speaker:it — it sounds a lot like learning and development, right?
Speaker:Everybody thinks like, "oh yeah, I could, I could talk to people, I could stand
Speaker:up in front of PowerPoint, I can make some cool things. I'm just going to
Speaker:tell them what they need to do." Do you see, since you've
Speaker:now been in both worlds, do you see a similar parallel?
Speaker:Yeah, that's why it was such a natural fit in. "I'm going to go be
Speaker:a coach and I'm going to continue leveraging all the great work that
Speaker:I've done to now go coach for my own clients." That's
Speaker:why it was such a natural uptake and a natural fit for me to say,
Speaker:"okay, well let's, let's actually spend more time on this change piece"
Speaker:because I find now it's crossing over all over the place. So when we're
Speaker:doing training, I'm starting to, you know, for anything that
Speaker:we do, anytime you ask humans to do something different, you realize
Speaker:that the concepts around change and change
Speaker:coaching, change management, those concepts, you can apply anywhere.
Speaker:And you know, we'll, we'll talk through some of those models. But you know,
Speaker:when you use ADKAR where it's Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and
Speaker:Reinforce, when you use that model, it really applies
Speaker:to anything I did. I was on a networking session this
Speaker:morning with some groups and you know somebody, we were talking about
Speaker:something different, somebody asked about, "well, I've been trying to do this in my company.
Speaker:Any ideas why it's not, not, not taking hold?" And right
Speaker:away I referenced the ADKAR model and they were like, "oh, I see, I
Speaker:skipped a step." So, you know, that's what's important
Speaker:to, to think about both when you're thinking about L&D and thinking about
Speaker:even implementing a system or technology, thinking
Speaker:about the audience and how they're going to — how they
Speaker:need to receive it and who they need to receive the message
Speaker:from is so important that we just take for granted that we're doing.
Speaker:Yeah and I'm feeling a little chagrined here myself as a leader
Speaker:trying to also bring new things into my own tiny company that you think
Speaker:would be very easy to maneuver. So
Speaker:I'm feeling quite seen here, even
Speaker:audio-only podcast. And when I think about
Speaker:change approaches and learning approaches and those
Speaker:projects, there's both a Venn diagram and a lot of
Speaker:handoffs and coordination between those two processes as
Speaker:something comes out and that feels like what you're doing
Speaker:now, then, at Demand Chain AI, right? So you're kind of like embedded in the
Speaker:middle of like a big technology rollout. And what does
Speaker:change coaching mean in that context? Like what is, what is it different
Speaker:than what traditional change management would be? Yeah. So
Speaker:what I would... I wish I could show you a slide here because I've got
Speaker:a slide that describes this really well. So there's two sides of
Speaker:a project, if you will. One side is the technology side and the
Speaker:solution that's being delivered. And a project manager
Speaker:runs all of that. Like what are the milestones in the project? Are we on
Speaker:time? All of those things. There's the other side of a,
Speaker:of a project and it's the people side.
Speaker:And in between here is the journey that they're going to go on from
Speaker:current state through the transition to the future state.
Speaker:So what we need to make sure — and the people side
Speaker:is run by a person like me called a change coach.
Speaker:So there's three people in this equation. You talk about your Venn diagram. So there's
Speaker:three people in this equation. There's the sponsor within the client or the
Speaker:project owner, there's the project manager that's running the project, and then there's the
Speaker:change coach. And those, all three of those circles need to come together and
Speaker:the sweet spot is in the middle. And all three of those
Speaker:individuals are focused on this journey that the
Speaker:number one individual is going through is the people with the highest impact.
Speaker:And how are we making sure that we're articulating the current state,
Speaker:we're articulating the future state, and then the transition they go through is the
Speaker:smoothest transition possible for them to drive to success
Speaker:and adoption is where I would consider
Speaker:this difference between.... Change management people would
Speaker:think of as, you know, because you can hire large companies to
Speaker:do change management for you and they'll give you a checklist of things to do
Speaker:and say, "okay, well these are all the things you need to go through to
Speaker:make sure you prepare your people for change and do all that." Well, the
Speaker:change coach actually is in, you know,
Speaker:in the foxhole with you and the project manager
Speaker:and making sure that you've got the right support,
Speaker:making sure that the, me, as a change coach, is working directly
Speaker:with the people managers on not only "you got to go have
Speaker:this conversation," but "how do you have it?" And a resource for those people
Speaker:managers to come back and say, "well, I had it, but it didn't go so
Speaker:well" or "it did go well" and me being able to help them through that,
Speaker:no matter how well it goes. So those are the differences you see
Speaker:between just the regular change management process that people
Speaker:would follow and the idea of having a change coach with them.
Speaker:Well, what's fascinating about that is that there's
Speaker:positive externalities in that work. Not only are you getting the
Speaker:technology or whatever change it is rolled out more effectively in a smoother
Speaker:journey, but you're building the skills and resilience of the
Speaker:managers themselves or the leaders themselves to be able to do this again next
Speaker:time. Because this is not the last change. Yes,
Speaker:that's exactly the way I articulate it to, you know,
Speaker:individuals and clients that I work with. There's a lasting effect
Speaker:here. So this is transferable across every project that you are going to —
Speaker:now, doesn't make sense — it doesn't necessarily always
Speaker:happen that every skill gets transitioned, and people need refreshers
Speaker:and all that. So we work on that too. But you're
Speaker:building, creating a foundation of
Speaker:skill sets for individuals to be able to adopt
Speaker:change quicker and more thoroughly in the future.
Speaker:Okay, that's some good stuff to chew on.
Speaker:Let's dig in a little bit. Most of the people who are
Speaker:listening to this are probably learning leaders, or Learning
Speaker:& Performance, Learning & Development, Learning Enablement. Something around
Speaker:that learning function that's related to change, but
Speaker:not quite. In many organizations,
Speaker:the learning folks is going to just get handed an AI rollout of some sort
Speaker:and said go build training for this. What's a
Speaker:conversation that you would recommend that they have
Speaker:before they start building? What should
Speaker:they do next? Yeah, no, great question. So
Speaker:where I would say they need to spend time right away is with the
Speaker:executive sponsor and making
Speaker:sure you're engaging. Because there's, there's two
Speaker:people or positions, if you will, that are the most important in this communication.
Speaker:One is the executive sponsor because the executive
Speaker:sponsor — and that's got to be one of the highest people in the organization
Speaker:— the executive sponsor needs to deliver the organizational message
Speaker:to the team on why this is good, why are we doing
Speaker:it, how's it going to affect your role. And then the other people
Speaker:are the people managers. So the
Speaker:people that are the highest impacted in the organization,
Speaker:they need to hear from their manager why
Speaker:it's happening, how's it going to impact them. So those are the two most important
Speaker:people. So you've got to start with the executive sponsor
Speaker:and the conversation has to be centered around what does success look
Speaker:like. So what in your mind
Speaker:does the executive sponsor think about "how do we, what does it
Speaker:look like when we achieve our highest return on investment?" And
Speaker:what does that timeline look like, and putting
Speaker:together what we call the "success plan" for change
Speaker:or for the project. And once you
Speaker:have that, you'll get tired of talking about it once you have it. But once
Speaker:you have it done, you need to share that broadly with
Speaker:your... everyone that's being affected. And not necessarily
Speaker:you, the L&D person, but empower people to share
Speaker:that message across because that's the first A of
Speaker:ADKAR is awareness, and you absolutely have to
Speaker:have awareness with everyone that is being affected, whether it's an
Speaker:extended team or a high-impact individual. So and
Speaker:then from there the people managers. But it's that conversation with the
Speaker:executive sponsor on "what does good look like, what does success look like?" That it's
Speaker:the most important right away, and you can't have that early enough. Having
Speaker:that late in the game, once implementations all, you know,
Speaker:you kind of, they're building it already and going back and saying "okay, what is
Speaker:this supposed to look like?" That's usually too... that doesn't mean you can't clean
Speaker:it up from there. But it's usually too late or later than you need.
Speaker:Yes. And it's, it's interesting. I just came off a learning
Speaker:and performance conference or performance and learning conference and
Speaker:there's a consistent refrain of
Speaker:folks who have a hard time getting there, getting access
Speaker:enough to the leadership to be able to articulate what that success looks
Speaker:like, what those metrics might be, what we expect to see different at
Speaker:the end. So I love seeing us
Speaker:double down on "that's an important relationship, an important set of
Speaker:conversations to have before you do anything." Yeah.
Speaker:No, and it's funny how it's the hardest person to
Speaker:get time with, but it's the most important person to get time with. Yeah.
Speaker:And I just started an engagement with a
Speaker:250-million dollar client and I was very fortunate
Speaker:because I... one of the people I work with actually knows him
Speaker:well, and I was able to get time with him pretty quickly in
Speaker:this setup. And it was, it helped the
Speaker:whole, it greased the skids on the whole thing, and
Speaker:I had only had a half an hour with him and he came back and
Speaker:within 10 minutes said "this approach is different. I've
Speaker:never had anybody talk this way about implementing
Speaker:a system within my organization. So you have access to
Speaker:everyone you need just let me know." Right. I mean how
Speaker:powerful is that? Both for you, right,
Speaker:but also for him to be able to see that. And I think that's amazing.
Speaker:We in our own — at TorranceLearning, we have a learning project ignition, and
Speaker:we don't do the ignition if the business sponsor isn't
Speaker:there. And we schedule around their needs, and if
Speaker:we've only got an hour, then we spend that hour talking about what is the
Speaker:goal and how do we measure that. So tons of alignment.
Speaker:Super cool. Super cool. This has been
Speaker:fascinating. I'm going to finish up with the question I ask everybody. This is
Speaker:where we get weird, Fraser. Where we get weird.
Speaker:What's a work habit or a quirk or a fidget or
Speaker:some sort of productivity ritual that is like yours.
Speaker:That's your go-to. And it might be your go-to right now and it might change
Speaker:two weeks. And it's nothing overly strange.
Speaker:One thing that I've been doing now more than ever as a
Speaker:full time coach is starting every engagement
Speaker:with my clients around "what is a win
Speaker:since we last talked?" And it's
Speaker:interesting how... I'm kind of dumbfounded every
Speaker:time that people can't come up with a win. And
Speaker:you know, they get a lot better at it as we move on.
Speaker:And it's amazing how it starts the conversation with a great tone.
Speaker:Then we
Speaker:focus on one thing as well. Like don't try and over — I find
Speaker:that I try and do too many things with my clients, and you know, it's
Speaker:focus over volume is what I try and do. Not too many
Speaker:things. And then also if you
Speaker:make everything too... everything's important to do, then nothing changes as well,
Speaker:is what I've discovered. So just a couple things that I try and keep
Speaker:in the back of my mind to keep moving forward
Speaker:with my clients and seeing them progress, which
Speaker:is super exciting. I love it. That start with
Speaker:wins. It's not weird, but it is definitely wonderful. So it's another W word
Speaker:and I think actually I want to try that with my next one on ones
Speaker:with my team. Right. What are our wins? I'm
Speaker:looking forward to that. Fraser Lockhart, thank you so much for
Speaker:spending time with me. I think this has been fantastic. Will be super useful
Speaker:for folks and I'm looking forward to continuing the conversation.
Speaker:Awesome. Thanks Megan. I appreciate your time.
Speaker:This is Meg Fairchild and Megan Torrance and this has
Speaker:been a podcast from TorranceLearning. Tangents is the official
Speaker:podcast of TorranceLearning (as though we have an unofficial one). Tangents
Speaker:is hosted by Meg Fairchild and Megan Torrance. It's
Speaker:produced by Dean Castile and Meg Fairchild. Engineered
Speaker:and edited by Dean Castile. With original music
Speaker:also by Dean Castile. This episode was fact
Speaker:checked by Meg Fairchild.
