Sell the Tweak, Not the Transformation - #145 - Torrence Smith

Episode Summary

Every rollout gets sold as a transformation. Torrence Smith makes the case that the word itself is part of the problem. In this episode, host Justin Lake sits down with Torrence, an operating executive and enterprise operational excellence consultant, to talk about what it really takes to make change land on the frontline.

Torrence argues that for the people in the field, most of the daily work stays the same after a new system goes in, often around eighty percent of it. Frame the change as a transformation and you hand workers a black cloud of the unknown, which is where fear and resistance grow. Frame it as a tweak, show them exactly what changes and what does not, and the anxiety drops.

From there the conversation moves through what makes that possible: involving the frontline while the plan is still being written, having the low stakes conversations before the formal meeting, changing only the four or five levers that matter, and remembering that the people across the table are usually carrying more worry than they let on. He closes with the most analog advice the show has heard in a while. Buy a notebook.

 

Key Topics

• Why poor adoption costs credibility before it costs money
• Organizational memory, and why the last failed rollout follows the next one
• Nemawashi, the meeting before the meeting
• Surfacing resistance early, while it is still cheap to fix
• Why the cost of a mistake is lowest at the very start
• The hybrid kit philosophy: change the levers that matter, leave the rest alone
• Reframing a transformation as a tweak
• The anxiety people carry that never shows up in a status meeting
• Compliance versus commitment, alignment versus consensus
• Letting the field test workflows before go live

 

Episode Chapters

00:00 Intro

00:58 Welcome and guest introduction

01:35 The operational consequences of poor technology adoption

03:22 What lost credibility actually costs an organization

05:34 Overcoming the baggage from past implementations

07:47 Organizational memory and why the last rollout follows you

11:04 Nemawashi, the meeting before the meeting

14:32 Making people part of both the problem and the solution

17:03 Why the cost of a mistake is lowest at the start

21:01 The map is not the territory

27:04 How scale compounds the variables

29:51 The hybrid kit philosophy: change the levers that matter

31:41 We will give you a different spreadsheet

36:27 Digital tweak versus digital transformation

38:50 The anxiety people carry that you never see

48:28 Letting the field test workflows before go live

55:53 Compliance or commitment, alignment or consensus

57:34 One last piece of advice: keep a notebook

 

About Torrence Smith

Torrence Smith is an operating executive and enterprise operational excellence consultant who helps organizations improve supply chain performance, ERP implementations, and operational excellence. He works at the intersection of technology, business transformation, and the people responsible for making change successful on the frontlines. His approach is people centered and built over a long career leading operational programs, with a focus on involving the field early and keeping change small enough for people to carry.

 

Resources

Frontline Innovators Podcast: https://skyllful.com/podcast 
Skyllful: https://skyllful.com