What if You Didn’t Need People To Make Your Technology Work?  An Interview With Bradie Speller.

Bradie (00:05):

Organizations downplay number one, the fact that the answer lies within your people. It doesn't lie within the technology and/or the consulting company that systems should integrate. They have the expertise to help you implement it. But what really we should be talking about is how do we engage our people, how do we make sure that they are communicated with and how do we make sure that we're providing them with the skills, the knowledge and the ability to be able to handle the future of the work that's coming down the pipe.

Jim (00:37):

Welcome to What If? So What?, the podcast where we explore what's possible with digital and discover how to make it real in your business. I'm your host, Jim Hertzfeld, and we get s**t done by asking digital leaders the right questions: what if, so what, and most importantly, now, what? All right with me today is Bradie Speller, who introduced me to the term socio-technical systems, and he's going to let us all know what that means. Today, I'm having a little fun with you, Bradie, but this is a man who's a witness to what I call the dawn of digital, and he's moved everything from records to laptops to trucks. But I'm going to let him tell us about it. Bradie, welcome to the podcast. In your own words, give us a little background on yourself.

Bradie (01:18):

Right. Hey, Jim, thanks for having me today. I really do appreciate you and the folks that are Perficient for doing this. Just a quick thumbnail background on me. I mean, I'm from New York; I'm a native New Yorker. I went to school in the Midwest, and I've traveled pretty much all over the world. But you know, starting a family back in the day, I wanted to make sure that I had some sort of a real career, and I wound up going to Mars Group, M&M Mars. Back in the 80s, when the first computer, the first PC, was introduced, I saw the guy. This guy named Ken. He was from Iran. He's walking through the office of about 100 people with this box in his hand. Right, what is that?

Bradie (01:59):

And I see the box, and I was like I walk up to him, and I say, hey, what's that you got in there? You know, it looks pretty interesting. He said, oh, you don't know about that; it's an IBM PC. I said I shall know about it. Okay, and sure enough, you know, he taught me everything I was to know about it, and I would stay up at night and take it apart and put it back together again. Next thing I know, the PCs, you know, went from one computer on one guy's desk to computers on just about everybody's desk.

(02:27):

But the problem was people didn't have any training in how to use it, and so I took it upon myself to stay up at night. When I had two small kids, I'd be at the office until 1 or 2 o'clock in the morning, taking this thing apart, putting it back together again, understanding DOS, understanding a similar language. And then they said you know I get promoted to start teaching everybody in the company how to use PCs. And then later on, Macs came along because people didn't like PC; they wanted a Mac.

Jim (02:53):

Right, right.

Bradie (02:55):

So yeah, that's how my career got started in the technology world, and it's been a lot of fun. I can tell you a whole lot of stories about that stuff.

Jim (03:03):

I remember some of those days myself, and yeah, there was something about that era. You know, like you said, it's tangible, you unboxed it, you could take it apart, like now nothing comes apart, right? The phone's locked up, the laptop's locked up, if it goes bad, you get a new one, right? So, you know, there was a lot of, and you know, the tinkering. Of course, there's nothing like hands-on learning, let's be honest. But you know that's not everybody can do that. But you know, we were kind of getting prepped for this.

Jim (03:32):

Bradie, you had a great question you posed, kind of in line with the show here: what if you didn't need people to make the technology work? So, you were telling that story. I was imagining what if we put all these computers on every desk and then we didn't need to hire the people to come in and do the work anymore? You know, I think we still have this pipe dream, right? So the answer is like, well, you can't do that. So, you've had this focus on training and which I think is really what I call organizational development, and some might call it, you know, change management. You know, it's like, so somebody gets an idea, and they spend all this money, and the computers show up, and the software shows up, but something has to make it come together. I mean, that's kind of been your world, right? Like what does that mean to you?

Bradie (04:19):

Yeah, yeah. So, I'll take you back a little bit further, Jim, into that, into a roundabout way of answering that question because I think it's important to understand the context of the answer. Okay, at Mars, I was, and this was in the mid-80s, mentally pretty much out of college, first big job. I had stayed there for about 10 years, and what wound up happening is I learned the PCs well enough and started teaching everybody WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3. Okay, and then there was some other, a couple other programs, remember. That goes all the way back right to the beginning, and the fact that people were still using their companies, were still using big mainframe computers, but the power of computing was not where it is today.

Bradie (05:03):

But what was beginning to happen was this transition from this big air-conditioned room with the false floors of all this supercomputing going on with punch cards, and all that kind of stuff was now being transitioned into the hands of the everyday person who knew how to use the computer. So, my teaching everybody at Mars how to use it, and then the company basically saying, ok, well, if you're going to get promoted into the. Then the company basically saying, okay, well, if you're going to get promoted into the IT group, you need to learn Fortran, Pascal, and some other language. I was like, you don't need that, guys; that's not where things are going. It's going in a completely different direction, and I wound up leaving that company in ‘89.

Bradie (05:40):

But what wound up happening is I got picked up by a couple of buddies of mine who were at Motown Records after Barry Gordy sold Motown. Barry Gordy sold Motown Records for, I think, $60 and $61 million. The MCA Records and Austin Ventures Group and my two buddies were there, and they were like, OK, we need computers in this place, and there's only one guy in Los Angeles that we know that knows how to do this stuff. So, I get a phone call. Next thing I know, I'm at Motown Records. We're buying Apple computers for everybody in the company, from the president on down, right. The key is you can put a computer on somebody's desk, but if you don't train them how to use it and if you don't teach them the benefits and the blessings that they can get from the utilization of the technology, what you're winding up doing is you're saying, yeah, we've got all this great technology, but nobody knows how to use it. Nobody really knows how to get out of it. What's possible, what the possibilities are?

Bradie (06:41):

So, at the end of the day, you can buy the greatest technology. You can put SAP in, you can put in Workday, you can put it in Oracle Cloud, you can put it, you can implement any of the top big box technology software solutions out there to run your business. But it's the people who run the business, and without that connectivity between your people and your technologies, on the social and the technical aspects of it, there we go.

Bradie (07:11):

Okay, now we're going to talk about social technical systems. Back in the day, when I was coming through that's what I learned about social technical systems from a consultant guy by the name of Robert DeFilippis. He had a company called RTD out of Chicago. Anyway, he took me under his wing and taught me pretty much everything I know about organizational development.

Bradie (07:31):

But the first thing I got introduced to was this term called social technical systems, and the theory is basically it's an approach to complex organizational work design that recognizes the interaction between people and technology in the workplace. So, it's interrelated the social and the technical aspects of an organization. They're interrelated, they're not part and parcel separate, and so that term actually is related to how human beings and human relations interact with technical objects. How do you go about the process in a large, complex organization with many different business processes? Get that stuff to harmonize, to work together so that you can move the company forward in whatever direction you want to go in, whether it's market share, whether it's revenue, whether it's just improving your business processes, becoming more efficient, et cetera. So that's how I got started in now what's called organizational development, and then it morphed into change management.

Jim (08:32):

Okay, so that's the lineage. That's the lineage.

Bradie (08:35):

That's the history.

Jim (08:36):

Yeah, and you saw it from the beginning? Sure did, and I'm trying to put in a Motown song reference. That's just escaping me at the moment, but I'm trying.

Bradie (08:46):

The tears of a clown.

Jim (08:48):

That's what I was doing, but it didn't seem appropriate. Alright, here's the clown. Okay, the clown, in this case, Bradie, is the guy who thinks they can. Just it's all technology, right? Those whose tears we're talking about, we all see this. We all know, like when, when a team is working together, you just know it right, things click, we finish each other's sentences, you know, you anticipate three, four moves ahead of time, and that's to me that's, that's Nirvana. I love seeing that. There's moments I have with my team or I see with project teams, when it all just kind of clicks. But I think there's still that concept out there. We're going to buy technology and it's technology is the answer, like why you know again the tears of that clown, like why do you know? That's just? Why are people enamored by technology, the technology as much as they are? Because I think sometimes the change management element is forgotten, right?

Bradie (09:41):

No question about it, and, Jim, throughout the course of my career, it has been what I would call truly a pushing a boulder up a hill by yourself. Unless you're in a really enlightened organization that understands the value of providing your people with the support, with the intellect, with the tools, and with the resources that they need to be able to understand the application of this technology and then be able to utilize it for what it was originally intended for.

Bradie (10:16):

So let me give you an example Most companies that are going to spend $100 million which is the typical price tag on big box implementation over the course of two years, they're more focused on the data, which they need to be. You know you got to have clean data. They're more focused on the tools and what the tools can do, the possibility of the tools itself, and the original business case. When they developed the business case at the executive leadership level or with the layer underneath that, which are the guys or girls that are responsible for the business units, they typically want to see things work better in their division, for a lot of reasons. Number one it's their job. Number two, they want to reduce costs. Number three, they want to increase productivity. Exactly, and in some cases, you know, reducing costs might mean reducing heads, right?

Bradie (11:10):

So, there's a vision on that. Well, the ability or the propensity, that's the word I want to use. Propensity for getting enamored with the technology happens to be just a thing. It's like a shiny object. People have a tendency to move towards the shiny object, and that shiny object becomes the object of desire. This is what we want. This is what we want. We've been sold on the fact that this technology will help us save $3 billion in the next five years. Great business case. Got it, no problem.

Bradie (11:45):

The problem is people who have been doing a job for any number of years and the most longer term, companies that have been around 30, 40, 50, 60 years.

Bradie (11:57):

The people are entrenched in the way that they do things, especially if the technology hasn't kept up. If you haven't kept up, and typically when you introduce change within an organization, people will normally resist because you haven't explained to them why it's important to change. Why are we doing this? Why are you doing this to us is more. That's really what they're saying to you. They're not saying why are you doing this.  They're saying why are you doing this to us? Okay. So, unless companies that are enlightened, or the management team or the leadership teams are enlightened around the fact that your people are your greatest asset, don't just give me the lip service. You can do lip service all day long, okay, but all-day long lip service does not a problem solved. Your people who do the work can tell you better than anybody else on the planet, and better than even AI, what the problem is.

Jim (12:51):

Yeah, I thought we were going to go was the what's in it for me. But that question, like, what are you doing to me? Why? Why are you doing this to me? I've never heard it. I've never heard it put that way, and it reveals a lot to me. You know, I mean, I think we've all, many of us, but we've been in the room where you. There's an announcement, you're in a meeting, you're out on the full shop floor wherever, and you got that look, that's what they're saying. They're now looking at you. But that's a big reveal, Bradie, that is really powerful. Like, why are you doing this to me?

Bradie (13:22):

Why are you doing this to me? Why are you doing this to us?

Jim (13:25):

Okay, that's what you got to get around. That's maybe part of the essence of change is like you got to address that concern may be out there and I don't mean to steal what you're going to say, but I think what you're saying is you've got to get in front of that, right?

Bradie (13:37):

You've got to anticipate that you better anticipate it. As a matter of fact, before you ever announce a major change initiative, you need to survey your people. You need to talk to them and engage them in the process early on. This is what we mean by stakeholder engagement around change management. Stakeholder engagement does not come after you've decided you're going to spend $100 million and you're going to do change to the organization. Yeah, stakeholder engagement means that, hey, Joey, Mary, Sue, Bob, Fred, call me to a meeting here. This is what the company is thinking about.

Bradie (14:11):

Okay, here's what we're looking at. Here's the problems that you guys have seen for years. Let's document what you see, talk about it, and figure out the best way to solve that problem. Do you know of any tools or technologies that we may be able to look at as we're thinking about how do we get better at what we do? Because in that way, then, what you're doing is you're giving them the ownership of it. Okay, and so, like you're answering the question with them, what's in it for me? So, instead of them saying why are you doing this to me, you're saying this is what's in it for you, but I need you to tell me what you need.

Bradie (14:49):

If companies would just spend the time on the front end instead of sitting in a smoke-filled ivory tower figuring out how well they can spend a hundred million dollars of the company money because we see the market conditions changing and we don't know. We just got to have this new shiny object. Talk to your freaking people.

Jim (15:09):

It's a cornerstone of empathy. That's something we talk about a lot about, Bradie. Like, you need empathy with your customers, and you need it with your employees; right? You need it with your teams; you need it with your partners. Like, empathy with your customers, and you need it with your employees, right? You need it with your teams; you need it with your partners. Like you know, there's this movie I like called “Up In The Air.” I think we met, you know, and I think we mentioned it to me. I looked it up; I've got it.

Jim (15:27):

Yeah, I think we talked about that, and that's kind of like they were. They have to go out and get out in the field. I love that concept. I worked at a company years ago and they introduced me to a Japanese term called the “Gemba,” that's where you got to go. You got to go to the Gemba, and the Gemba is like, where the real work happens. Right, that's on my mind a lot. So, yeah, another great empathy story, but great questions. So I get it. Yeah, they get enamored.

Jim (15:52):

I, you know the how fast can we spend this money? Or how much can we spend? That's not hard to do, but how do you get the most out of it? What do you? What do you think you know when you've been in these situations with executives or with project sponsors, or maybe you've been at the other end of that look on that guys? You know the what are you? Why are you doing this to me situation? I mean what, what have you seen that works? Like, how do I mean, aside from you know, maybe taking some really key steps here, but like there may be more to it, right, because I imagine you've got to do a lot of convincing what do you think are some things that really work for organizations that buy into what you're saying, right, and they want to do the right thing Like what do they? What are some, would you say, is sort of the-value tricks of the trade that you see employed?

Bradie (16:41):

Jim, what I've seen over the years. It goes a little something like this when people, the water cooler is where the action is. The water cooler could be the cafeteria, it could be the bar at the end of the day for happy hour. It could be any one of those places.

Jim (16:58):

Now it's in Snapchat.

Bradie (16:59):

By the way, it's in right. Yeah, it could be a Snapchat too, you know, or it could be online and on social media. It's like they don't know what the heck they're doing. What I will say is, I think that organizations downplay number one the fact that the answer lies within your people. It doesn't lie within the technology and or the consulting company that your systems integrate. Okay, and they have the expertise to help you implement it. But what really we should be talking about is how do we engage our people, how do we make sure that they are communicated with, and how do we make sure that we're providing them with the skills, the knowledge, and the abilities to be able to handle the future of the work that's coming down the pipe Knowledge, skills and abilities. So Prosci talks about.

Bradie (17:52):

Prosci is one of the research companies around change management. Their methodology talks more about ADKAR. They call it ADKAR, which is making sure that people are aware of whatever change and then creating the desire for change. So how do you create the desire for change? You talk to people about how much better, or how much you think it can be better for them by doing their jobs in a different way, new ways of working okay, by allowing them to take the power and making something, making things so hard, and make it a little bit easier so that they can spend time on things that are real problems within the organization, instead of being focused on the day-to-day grind of you know, I just keep dealing with the same problem year after year after year after year, right, and then? So the K part of that formula has to do with knowledge.

Bradie (18:45):

Okay, providing people with the knowledge and the abilities. That's the A's. So, knowledge and then abilities, and then making sure that it's sustainable, or you're making sure that you've got people, which you train them, communicate with them, and provide them the platform that they're engaged and involved in. That change is being done with them and not to them. You really wind up with a much better scenario in terms of how management can really reap the benefits of their people being engaged in these projects so they can overcome those challenges by simply making sure that your new project teams are being formed because, simply, you can't involve everybody, because then you get into a room of 100 people who's death by consensus. It's not going to be the case, right right? My approach has always been small groups, focus groups, allowing people the opportunity to vent. Number one, okay, yeah.

Bradie (19:42):

Then we change the way. Let them listen, yeah, and listen, because the people who you think are going to be the biggest resistors are probably the people with the most knowledge, and they may be. What may appear to be resistance is really more of. You need to listen to me, because I know how things work. I may not want to see a change, but if you were to ask me, then I might be able to make it easier for you.

Bradie (20:06):

But typically, what top management does? We're the geniuses in the room, we're the smartest persons in the room, and our way is going to be the highway, and if you don't like the highway, go another highway. That's not a solution, man. That's not a solution, you know. And as the human, though, you use the word empathy, which I think is absolutely critical. The empathetic part of change management really has to do with engaging your people, listening, feeding back, giving them the vision. If you don't have a vision, don't talk to them, wait till you get a clear vision, or let them help shape the vision. So the CEO and the C-suite are supposed to have the vision for the company what direction they want to go in, and how do you get people all into the boat or row together instead of everybody looking out for themselves. That's a big deal.

Jim (20:58):

Man, that's a lot. I mean, you gave me some things I never heard of and I'm sitting here thinking, I don't know, I have probably five or six internal projects going on right now and I kind of want to put them all on pause until I get through this checklist. I'm serious, this is good. I'm trying to check myself here before I go off the rails. This is great. This is great advice, Bradie, and you earned it. You've been there. You've seen what's worked and what hasn't worked.

Bradie (21:26):

Yeah, Jim, it's been a tough road to hoe, but it's been a rewarding one because I was in on this thing. Really it's just pretty much the very beginning. Yeah, okay, and I saw it back in the 80s and the funny thing about it, and just a caveat I was working on my master's degree. I finished it in 87, but my master's degree was done on the case study of the change and transformation effort that we were doing at Mars at that time.

Bradie (21:56):

If you go into the archives somewhere online there you'll see a thing called "A Case Study in Organizational Development and Plan Change" by Bradie Speller, and it was on CalCAN foods.

Hey, kids are using that with generative AI to get their thesis done today. I'm sure so am I. You've given us a lot to think about. I'm also thinking you know that there's your everyday change, how you. There's so many applications for this right In the business world. Everyday change I've got to get my team to change. I've got a big project. I've got a large digital transformation. I've got just a small release, so I've got one feature that's going to get out there and change the world.

Jim (22:34):

But I'm thinking about how do you work? How do you use this in your school? How do you work this, use this in your church? How do you use this, you know, in your softball league this summer? You know we're all humans. We said at the beginning it's all about people. At the end of the day, people have to relate to each other. People have to make it happen. So, Bradie, speaking of changes, we're going to end it. We're going to end it here. I think this is just the beginning. Really appreciate you coming on. This is great advice. I've been really excited to hear this because I know you've got years, years of wisdom up there, so I really appreciate you sharing with us today.

Bradie (23:15):

Jim, I want to thank you and the folks at Perficient for the opportunity to be able to speak on this particular subject.

Bradie (23:18):

It's a passion of mine for sure.

Bradie (23:19):

I’ve got other things going on in my life, but this has been it's been almost like a mission for me to be sure that we understand what change management is all about. And it's not just a word, it truly is a method, and it's a method where people can really grow and really develop and stay relevant in their jobs, particularly with the advent of everything that's changing at the pace that's changing today. So definitely make sure you're bringing people along.

Jim (23:51):

Well, thanks a lot, Bradie, you bet. Thanks, Jim, you have a good one, you too.

Joe:

You've been listening to What If? So What? A digital strategy podcast from Perficient with Jim Hertzfeld. We want to thank our Perficient colleagues JD Norman and Rick Bauer for our music. Subscribe to the podcast, and don't miss a single episode. You can find this season, along with show notes, at perficient.com. Thanks for listening.