June 17, 2025 • 39 mins
Rolling out a new tool or process sounds simple—until you try it. In this episode, Galen Low sits down with Frances Odera Matthews, founder of The Notion Bar, to unpack why change management is so hard, even with the best intentions and the best tools. From shiny object syndrome to culture gaps, they explore why tool adoption often fails and what project leaders can do to set their teams up for long-term success.
Frances shares practical insights from the front lines of Notion implementations, including how phased rollouts, internal champions, and intentional design can make or break adoption. They also dig into the cultural side of change—how open sharing, avoiding silos, and even acknowledging when to rip the band-aid off can help teams navigate tool fatigue and create lasting transformation.
Resources from this episode:
- Join DPM Membership
- Subscribe to the newsletter to get our latest articles and podcasts
- Connect with Frances on LinkedIn
- Check out the Notion Bar, The Notion Zeitgeist newsletter, and the Coffee & Oysters podcast
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Galen Low (00:00):
You open your new tool.
(00:01):
You've got your new processup on your second monitor.
You've got your eightpages of handwritten notes
from that one trainingsession you had last week.
You are ready.
You take a deepbreath and you log in.
But instead of the dashboardyou were expecting, you're
presented with an exam thatyou haven't studied for.
Also, everyone in the room ispointing and laughing at you.
Also, you are naked.
(00:23):
For a lot of folks, bigchanges to tools and workflows
is their worst nightmare.
It's one of the biggestbarriers to adoption.
And as a result, it's oneof the biggest barriers to
positive productive impact.
So what's to be done?
In an age of tool overwhelm,change fatigue, and AI related
anxiety, how can you give yournew tool or process the best
(00:45):
chance of being embraced bythe very folks whose lives
it was meant to improve?
That's exactly what we'regoing to dive into today.
Hey folks, thanks for tuning in.
My name is Galen Low withThe Digital Project Manager.
We are a community of digitalprofessionals on a mission
to help each other getskilled, get confident, and
(01:06):
get connected so that we canamplify the value of project
management in a digital world.
If you wanna hear moreabout that, head on over
to thedpm.com/membership.
And if you're intofuture-looking conversations
and practical insights arounddigital project leadership,
consider subscribing to theshow for weekly episodes.
Okay, today we are talkingabout the challenges of
(01:27):
rolling out new tools and newprocesses in an age of tool
fatigue, change fatigue, AIfatigue, and quite possibly
just general physical fatigue.
Like how can you get your teamsonsite with tools and processes
that will ultimately help themwhen they're already mistrustful
of technology, already doubtfulof their job security, already
(01:49):
feeling pressured to do more,and already fed up with the
accelerating pace of disruptionsto their professional life.
That was a lot.
With me today is Frances OderaMatthews — certified Notion
consultant, process designer,culture builder, speaker,
storyteller, founder of TheNotion Bar, and host of Coffee
& Oysters, the podcast for andby London's Business Babes.
(02:10):
Poof, those creds!Those creds are a lot!
Frances, thank you forbeing here with me today.
Thanks for comingback on the show.
Frances Odera Matthews (02:17):
Yeah, super, super excited to be here.
I have a lot ofthoughts on today.
I have a lot of goals.
Galen Low (02:27):
I sense that.
I know that we had a greatconversation in the green room.
This is something that, youwere on the show, gosh, it's
probably a couple years ago now.
Frances Odera Matthews (02:36):
Yeah.
Galen Low (02:37):
Time has been flying by.
But you have been keeping busyand in terms of what you do,
tool implementation, processimplementation, like it's
just such a hot button rightnow because everyone's in the
midst of some kind of change,some kind of transformation,
some kind of optimization.
They're looking at tools.
They're looking at processesfor ways to scale, to grow, to
(02:57):
streamline all those things.
But maybe let me just zoom out.
So for folks listening,depending on when
you're listening at timerecording, it's 2025.
And not only are there hundredsof tools on the market to
help you lead your projectsand run your business, but
there's also reams of new AItools to help you work faster,
smarter, and frankly beyondyour natural capabilities.
(03:20):
And not only that, butthat also means that our
processes are changingmore frequently and more
drastically than ever before.
Yet so many initiativesto implement new tools and
new processes still failat the adoption stage,
which ultimately stuntsorganizational transformation.
It removes businessescompetitive edge, like it does
the exact opposite of what theseinitiatives were actually, or
(03:43):
what these tools and processeswere initially meant to do.
So I thought maybe I'd juststart with the hot question,
which is, do tools andprocesses fail because humans
suck at change management.
Or is it that we justexpect too much from
our tools and processes?
Or maybe is it justthat we're all tired?
Frances O (04:02):
So it's a combination of all of it really.
So ultimately humansdon't change evolutionary.
We like things that we know, welike things that keep us safe.
And so that's an issue.
And so if you want to doany kind of change, you
need to make it as easy.
Seen as beneficial ashumanly possible, which a
(04:23):
lot of the time just isn'twhat ends up happening.
And then the other side of it isthat a tool is not a magic wand.
A tool isn't gonnachange the culture.
A tool isn't gonnachange how chaotic you
are as an organizationthat comes from real.
(04:44):
In depth culture change and alook at your values and a look
of what, even just getting agrasp of what your processes
are like, is this new thingthat you are adding, moving the
needle for you legitimately?
Or is it actuallycausing more work than.
You need and you are justdoing it so you can sound
cool in front of your otheragency owners and be like,
(05:06):
oh, we're using this tool now.
And I'm like, okay, that's nice.
Cool.
Like we're tracking this KPI.
And I'm like, okay, nice.
Who cares?
Galen Low (05:14):
Which are real conversations that happen
between agency folks by the way.
Frances Odera Matthe (05:18):
Literally.
And then, so there's that justwanting to jump on the hype
train so you can seem cool andthen people were trying to do
things too quickly and theywant everything now, but that's,
again, that's not how our brainswork because we're too tired.
We can't do everything nowso my whole tagline with
my Notion consultancy iscreating cultures of intention.
(05:41):
And I really recognize thatNotion is such an incredible
to what's so powerful.
It's so flexible.
But just because you can'tdo everything with Notion
doesn't mean that you should.
And so I'm only gonna build.
Things that like move theneedle for you specifically.
And a lot of the timeclients come to me because
they've downloaded this crazytemplate, which is super
(06:02):
over complicated and they'rejust overwhelmed by it.
And so I have to be likea psychologist and be like
what do you actually need?
What matters to you?
And let's start there.
Which is pretty much what youshould do with not just Notion,
but like any tool, really.
Galen Low (06:16):
I really like that it starts with that
silver bullet that theypicked up along the way.
And they're like, I'mconfused, Frances.
Can you help?
And you're like, actuallythere's no silver bullet.
But the other thing Ireally like about it is just
like hurriedness, right?
This rush, right?
This sort of like wantingit to be instant or fast.
And a colleague of minejust posted today about
eating a whole bag of chips.
(06:38):
You open a bag of chips, you'relike, may as well finish it.
It's open, but it'sprobably not a good idea.
And sometimes what you're sayingin terms of when people think.
Tool, a new process.
We think, okay, yeah,we'll just buy a new tool.
We'll just set it up.
We'll just create some newprocesses and then seven
days later, everything'sgonna be perfect.
But what you just described tome is yeah, maybe don't assume
(06:58):
that you're going to eat thiswhole bag of chips in one go.
Maybe let's like takeour time with it.
And I guess how doyou deal with that?
Like impatience.
Hype and pressure to findthis magic bullet and then
you're like, actually it'sgonna take a long time.
And I'm imagining that a lotof folks are like, whoa, I
haven't got that much time.
Frances Odera Matthews (07:18):
Yeah.
So I've actually forced myclients into this now by
how I've shaped my packages.
So I. Instead of just likeoffering like massive build
outs, I now offer a five dayworkspace program, which is
a condensed amount of time,of 25 hours, five hours
(07:39):
per day, where I'm like,we are going to prioritize.
So you've got a listof a hundred things.
Sure.
Tell them to me, but likewe are gonna prioritize
from that list what we canreasonably fit into this chunk
of build out of five days.
And more often than not.
The amount that we canfit into that amount of
time is the things thatactually matter to them.
(08:00):
And I'm like, okay, letyou go off digest this bit.
Once you're comfortable with,then we'll do another five days.
And so I deal with people noteating the whole bag of chips by
literally putting it into bowls.
Galen Low (08:13):
Yeah.
You get one chip, which ofthese, you get one chip,
one chips do you wantto do in the five days?
Exactly.
Arguably humans arebetter at small change.
We're not good at any change.
You're absolutely right.
But like they're better at smallbite-size change than like broad
sort of destabilizing change.
(08:34):
I like that it becomesI don't know, iterative,
incremental, right?
Like it's like sprints,Notion sprints.
Frances Odera Matthews (08:39):
Yeah.
Exactly.
Exactly.
And that's not just Notion.
Again, that should behow you should approach
any tool as yourself intoit and start with them.
Galen Low (08:48):
Isn't that just a thing too, right?
You mentioned yeah, Notionis a very versatile tool.
Loads of tools are veryversatile tools in terms
of they do a lot of things.
It's easy to get that overwhelmto be like, oh, I meant to like.
Imprint this over top of justoverlay it over top of my entire
business or my, all my projectsand it's overwhelming of what
to decide to use it for even.
So even that Notion ofprioritizing where there's pain
(09:10):
and need and like also just likewe're just gonna focus on this
like one bit of the capability.
To solve a problem, not try andoverhaul everything at once,
because yeah, a lot of thesetools do everything practically,
short of mowing your lawn, likethere's a lot of productivity
tools, collaboration tools,project management tools.
They just, they do everythingunder the sun because
they're trying to staycompetitive and useful, but
(09:30):
you don't have to use allof the, all the features.
Frances Odera Mat (09:33):
Exactly that.
Galen Low (09:34):
I wondered if I could zoom out a little bit even
further because at the NotionBar as we've been talking about.
You're helping organizationsimplement the right tools,
design the right processes.
I'm imagining now that a lot ofcompanies are seeking out that
AI advantage or at least tryingnot to get left in the dust.
So I imagine you're talkingto a lot of people right
now, I think we've beentalking about a little bit.
(09:55):
But I'm just wonderingwhat some of the biggest
obstacles or maybe that onebig obstacle or challenge
that you see organizationsrunning into these days.
That keeps them from gettingtheir people on board with
new tools and processes andalso what are some of the
consequences that you're seeingfrom that from the front lines?
Frances Odera Matthews (10:11):
I would say, again, a tool isn't a magic
wand and they don't actuallyknow what their processes are.
They're just like, we're justgonna get this new thing.
There's no like thought or.
Time being put into like whythey need this tool, how they're
gonna roll out this tool.
They try to do everything atonce, and most importantly,
(10:34):
there's not any training.
There's not actually anytime aside to train people on
how to use the thing and notjust the one-off training.
You need consistent training.
You need consistent sessionswhere people can drop in and
essentially ask questions.
Whether it's from a designatedchampion on your team,
(10:56):
maybe you have a championper department or in like
monthly team wide sessions.
And that's what I offer as well.
And my, I know them, butpeople don't value training.
They just expect peopleto know how to use things.
But that's just not how,that's just not realistic.
Galen Low (11:14):
Yeah, and especially I think folks listening as
well can probably relate.
You get that one time training,it's like part of a scope
of some kind of engagement.
They're like, cool.
You get your like one dayof training and you drink
from the fire hose, like foreight hours straight, and
then the next day you forgetit all and then the rest of
it's like help center, right?
It's then just search itin the knowledge base.
And I'm not that kind of person.
(11:35):
I'm like the please show me thatthing that I have a question
about now or like this week.
Versus oh yeah, I retainedeverything from that
one training session.
Or, oh, that's fine.
I'll just search untilmy face goes blue.
Trying to find theanswer for myself.
That's the friction for me.
It is like that's thequickest way to lose me on
(11:55):
like a tool or a new process.
It's like the RTFM andgo read the manual.
I'm like, yeah, okay.
I get it.
That's fine.
And that works forsome people, but.
I dunno, I'm I am someone whowould appreciate that sort of
like ongoing availability oftraining from ideally a human
to because it's like, it'sthe change as well, right?
It's not likeknowledge transfer.
(12:17):
I. It's my discomfort withchange that I want help with.
And reading a manualdoesn't help me get there.
My aha moments are usuallywhen somebody's oh, have
you seen this thing?
I'll be like, oh yes.
Oh, that's perfect.
Okay, great.
Like I didn't see that bigblue button there that says
do the thing that I want.
Because it's not because I'm notsmart, I hope, but because I'm
uncomfortable with the changethat's been made in my life.
(12:38):
To have to figure this outbecause in the old tool I
would've been done already.
Frances Odera Matthews (12:43):
Exactly.
Yeah.
Or maybe not because the oldtool wasn't good enough and
that's why we need a new tool.
But that's true tomind, the discomfort is
all you can focus on.
Galen Low (12:51):
One thing that I love your thoughts on actually
is just like this Notionthat sometimes like process
design and tool selection,the gestation period.
It's kinda like it happens overa period of time to decide,
yes, we need a new tool or weneed to redevelop this process.
We gotta bring on some people.
We're gonna do these thingswith plan and execute and
(13:11):
iterate and that happens inthis like smaller circle.
I. And then it's like cool.
All those decisions thatwe made, they're done.
Now you can just take thething that we made and
start using it, but actuallythey've shortchanged the
actual time it took them toget on board with the change.
'cause they've got severalmonths of thinking about
it and like planningit and like getting
accustomed to the change.
(13:32):
And then, on the other end,they think they're doing
their people a favor byjust being like, you don't
even have to think about it.
Just take this glassof water and drink it,
as fast as you can.
And they're like, waita minute, why do I have
a new glass of water?
Yeah.
Do you find that in some casesorganizations and leaders are
actually like, well-meaning,but still stuck at change
management because of that?
Frances Odera Matthews (13:52):
Yeah.
I. They haven't investedenough time in wooing the rest
of the team about, or beingseeming really excited about
this new thing that's coming.
They just, it's just surprise,we're doing this now.
I think you've gotta keep,you've gotta breadcrumb, keep
in, get their thoughts andfeedback on what they want
(14:15):
in the new thing as well.
So yeah.
Galen Low (14:19):
I love that word wooing.
Because there is sometimes weuse the word transparency, but
there is such thing as too muchinformation and also creating
anxiety and fear by sharing youranxiety and fear along the way.
But I do like that word wooing.
And I guess it comes backto that culture thing too,
which is, I mean is thatsomething that I guess
people are thinking, okay,yes, I wanna implement a
(14:41):
new tool and a new process.
And you're like, but culture,like what is the first step to
identify where there might bejust a few like shortcomings
in the culture that might bebarriers and like what are
some ways that you've seensome of those rough patches
paved over in the culture?
(15:01):
I. To kind of start makingchange in these iterations
in five day chunks.
Frances Odera Matthews (15:05):
One thing that I would say is like
the concept of being siloed.
Do people feel siloed generally?
Like how often does your teamtouch base with each other?
Async is great, but I think.
It's really important to havelike even touch points where
you feel like you can havereal conversations with people
and share information openly.
(15:26):
So if you don't have a cultureof openness, it's really hard
to get everyone to start usinga new tool, which is supposed
to make you be more open.
'cause they're like, oh, Idon't need to share this thing.
I don't need toshare this thing.
You need to like havethat offline first.
Galen Low (15:44):
It's really interesting because yeah, a
lot of the tools are aboutsort of collaboration.
In some ways we're usingthese tools together, but if
the culture is siloed, thenthe adoption is also siloed.
Frances Odera Matthews (15:54):
Exactly.
And then there's also thisthing of constant change and
moving goalposts, and you arechanging direction all the time.
So if that is your stateof being, there is no point
in trying to adopt at all.
Because everyone's mindsetis frantic and changing.
(16:15):
There's no stability.
Galen Low (16:16):
That's really interesting.
Frances Odera (16:17):
There's no point.
There's literally no pointbecause you will fall off
with this new thing that youare trying to adopt as well.
Galen Low (16:24):
That blows my mind a bit because I know a
lot of organizations thesedays in response to the
pace of change have built aculture of continuous change.
But what you said at thetop, I think rings true, is
that we've as humans, right?
We've evolved to want a bit ofboth, but like we want to arrive
at stability and security.
(16:45):
We know we need tochange to get there.
You might be, I'm taking thismetaphor way too far, but you're
like whatever, surviving outin the woods and you're like,
this spot isn't safe anymore.
I gotta go somewhere else wherethere's food, less predators,
I'm gonna have to change, butI'm gonna land somewhere stable.
And I think sometimes.
The cultures that I've beenseeing in some organizations
that are admirably rapidin terms of getting stuff
(17:07):
done, but they never land.
They've just been like circlingthe the airstrip the whole
time and everyone's okay, Iguess we're not gonna land.
And therefore to your point,we don't really adopt anything
fully 'cause it's gonna change.
That's actually, it's a reallyinteresting reason to be
resistant to change that Ihadn't really thought about.
Frances (17:24):
Yeah, because if you've never landed, how do you know
what the ground feels like?
Galen Low (17:28):
Yeah, exactly.
What does good look like there?
We're thinking about adoption,thinking about change, thinking
about someone you've workedwith, you don't have to name
names, but someone you'veworked with where yeah,
they did have some thingsto fix with their culture.
Then once they did, theywere able to land a plane and
that change stuck and it feltstable and adoption felt good.
Frances Odera Matthews (17:47):
Yeah.
Oh, I would say it's a clientI'm currently working with
right now, so they are a fastscaling drink supplement brand
in the Middle East and a fewthings, like all of my favorite
things, they've started ata point where there's not
a crazy amount of people onthe team, so there aren't too
(18:07):
many cooks in the kitchen.
There's not a lot toUN's angle there really.
They've also identified achampion, so this is a person
who works very closely withme, who they've also signed up
to my monthly group training.
So this is someone who'sgonna get continuous
training on ocean, alwaysknow what's going on.
(18:27):
And they've got a phase rollout,so they're very much aware
of we're rolling out thisbit first or this team first
before we get the full teamfully onboarded, essentially.
And they're very clearon what they want.
And they don't wanna fillNotion with things that
aren't ES useful to them.
They're not tracking like randomKPIs for the sake of tracking
KPIs or trying to integrate thisrandom AI tool that they saw
(18:51):
some other agency owner likebecause shiny objects stuff.
Yeah.
There's no shiny objects.
Like they're very clearon what they want and how
things should work, andI'm like, this is great.
Galen Low (19:00):
How is that feeling on the ground for the team?
I don't know if you'relike as close to that, but
in terms of folks who arereceiving on the receiving
end of this change, what aresome of the sentiments been?
Frances Odera Matthews (19:12):
I wouldn't know that actually
if we're working our way up tothe bit where we're rolling it
out to the rest of the team.
But it would be interestingto hear when that happens.
Galen Low (19:21):
I really like that approach.
I really like the sort of like.
Definitely the like sortof discipline to avoid
shiny object syndrome.
I love any kind of localizedsort of pilot before
rolling out a big change.
It just gets everyonecomfortable, including
ourselves as, change agentsand I really like that.
I know it's not gonna workfor everybody, but that like
moment of scale, 'cause likechange has this sort of I
(19:44):
don't know, multiplicity.
In terms of complexity,when you're like seven
people change is not easy,but it's a lot easier than
when you're 700 people.
Frances Odera Matthews (19:53):
Yes.
Galen Low (19:54):
I like that sort of moment of recognition of when
to make a change before doinga big sort of growth sprint
and then, hoping for the best.
Frances Odera Matthews (20:03):
Exactly.
Exactly.
And then it becomes frustratingbecause in these big companies,
there's not as much of aretention rate and then people
leave halfway through theproject and then it just gets
lost in the ether and Yeah.
Galen Low (20:17):
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And then, and I think we'll getthere eventually too, but and
the larger the organization,the more you have like rogue
tools and rogue processes thathave come about because it
took a while to get around toimproving some of the processes.
So they're like.
Oh yeah, I'm usingthis other tool.
I just expense it.
And you're like, oh yeah,where does that data go?
What is the process?
(20:37):
Could you train someone on that?
It's is this, in some cases it'swell intentioned again, right?
They're like, I want tobe better at doing my
job and stay organized.
So I, I downloaded this thingand that's how my team works.
And then it's yeah.
Again, this sort of notboneyard, I was gonna
say boneyard, but Yes.
It's these little fiefdomsof like tools and processes.
Whereas the biggest impactwould be to have, some cohesion.
Frances Odera Matthews (20:58):
And ironically, I. Maybe if someone
took some time to map thingsout in the beginning, they
wouldn't have needed to hireso many people because things
would just be straightforward.
I see that happen a lot as well.
Galen Low (21:14):
Fair.
And like from my perspective,AI functionality is
something I think like Notionjumped on it very early.
I'm remembering like itwas like before this, I'm
talking like pre at least myknowledge of ChatGPT, and it
was like, okay, yeah, we'regonna leverage generative AI.
And of course like someof it is like exactly
what you're saying, right?
It's your operating model mightactually be different, right?
(21:36):
The way you lead projectsmight be different if you've
got an AI tool in your cornerand maybe you need fewer
people or different people orpeople doing different things.
And that's somethingto plan out ahead.
I'm gonna use this to pivot alittle bit because I think you
raised a really good point aboutalmost like being organizations
(21:57):
setting up the frameworks earlyenough so that people aren't
going rogue, so that we'renot, scaling unnecessarily.
But one thing I wanted toconnect it to was like this
Notion of AI tools and likefreestanding all sorts.
I'm not, I'm I'm not gonna Idon't think this is isolated
to just a few, I find that alot of individuals on their
own, they're doing theirown adopting of new tools
(22:20):
because their friend toldthem, or because they feel
pressured to stay up to speed.
Maybe their organization hasn't.
Set up any governance or anypolicies around what tools
can and cannot be used.
So then that's becoming it'salmost like accelerating
towards this sort of free forall tool and process land.
What are just some of the risks,but also maybe what are some
of the opportunities posed byhaving folks bring in their own
(22:44):
unofficial tools with no sortof formal or formality, like
formal structures around it.
Frances Odera Matthews (22:51):
I think this again goes back to what is
your culture as an organization?
Do you have a culture wherepeople are openly sharing
information with each other andfeel like they're comfortable
with bringing in new ideas?
Do you have thatin the first place?
And I don't.
Sometimes shiny new objectsare good if they're helpful.
(23:14):
Do you have a culture wherepeople feel like they can
share and you are willing tolisten to them and investigate
their idea as a team at least?
And that's the bit that'simportant because when
people start just doingthings on their own.
What ends up happening is thata lot of the time they might
(23:34):
be duplicating a process thatthey don't need to duplicate.
Then all of a suddenthey've doubled their work
and waste their time, andthat's time that they could
be using from a businessperspective to earn money.
And then suddenly you're like,ah, we've got too much work.
We need to hire someone else.
No, you've just got anefficient place in your
process, essentially.
So from a business sense,you are losing money.
(23:54):
From a personal level, youare probably someone who feels
like you've got too much workand so you've constantly got
to play catch up, and so youburn out a leap from a business
sense that costs you money'cause then you now have to
go and recruit someone else.
Galen Low (24:06):
Really interesting as like a symptom, right?
It is like people going outand proactively getting their
own set of, I'll say rogue,but not in a bad way, their
own set of rogue tools.
Might actually be a symptomof them feeling like they're,
under pressure or feeling,unstable in their sort of role
and yeah, maybe overworked.
(24:27):
I think that'sreally interesting.
I also really like thatNotion of the culture.
It's like such a, like I knowwe like, it's, I arguably
a word that means a lotof different things to a
lot of different people.
But the thing that yousaid there about the
culture of sharing.
To make sure we're notreduplicating stuff or that
there isn't a better way, whichoriginally should have been
the reason for sharing anyways.
(24:48):
But sometimes, a sharingculture, sometimes you see like
culture of not knocking it,but some organizations they're
like, I. No dms, if you'regonna have a chat, have it in a
public channel so that everyonecan share, and then suddenly
everyone's just overwhelmedor flooded with information.
Whereas the sortof risk management
standpoint is like, cool.
If you're like,we encourage you.
Maybe it's not even alike policy quote unquote,
but it's like a Yeah.
(25:08):
Our culture is yeah, we wantyou to experiment with stuff.
Share what you're learning.
Our job is gonna be to likeidentify where there's need
and where we need to gofurther and pursue it and
make it a bit more formal.
Where we're like duplicatingeffort because we don't really
want everyone to find theirown tool and solve the same
problem when we actually had700 other problems to fix.
(25:30):
And that's it's pragmatic.
Do you know what I mean?
It's not like gatekeeping,it's not policing, it's
just pragmatic business.
Fra (25:36):
And I've worked at a lot of agencies and worked with a
lot of agencies, and what I'vealways seen is that the best.
Environments that I've beenprivy to of those environments
that in the same way that youhave capacity for client work,
you have structured capacityfor internal improvement and
discussions about processesand giving people time to do
(25:59):
things like cardiac files ordiscuss new tools or 'cause
that's just as importantas your billable hours.
Galen Low (26:06):
I love that.
How do you frame the ROIto folks who might be a
bit resistant to that idea?
Because I've been there as well.
Like I know that there's valuein being organized and doing
internal improvements, whenthere's money on the table
from client work, I've found,multiple organizations, it's
really hard thing to kindof balance or say no to.
Frances Odera Matthews (26:26):
If you need a metric to put it up
against, work out what that timeis and what that would cost you
against your recruitment costs.
Because people don't likechange, but they definitely
do not like chaos.
They will leave.
They will leave.
Galen Low (26:43):
I like that Notion of yeah, the cost of
not doing it actually Yeah.
Is something that's prettyeasy to at least ballpark.
I know I've been talkinga little bit like like at
a sort of change agent,decision maker sort of
leadership kind of level.
A lot of the time thischange like is delivered or
managed by middle management.
(27:03):
And I'm just thinking in youropinion, what's the best way
for folks who are like stuck inbetween like project managers.
How can folks in the middledeal with teams that are
like resistant to changeand won't adopt a tool?
Maybe because they just havelike tool or change fatigue?
Frances Odera Matthews (27:21):
I think.
You need to be receptive tojust everyone's feedback,
first of all, and it will bespecific to every team, but
based on the resistance, youcan judge how much you need
to phase your rollout bike.
(27:43):
If there's a ton ofresistance by everybody,
then you need to like reallylike baby step people in.
But if you have, I don'tknow, maybe 70% of people who
are like, yeah, relativelyokay with it, then maybe
have a relatively, okay,like slower rollout, but then
you identify champions fromthose 70 people, maybe the
(28:05):
top 10% who hold the handsof the lower 30% essentially.
And so you don'tleave them behind.
Basically, but ifeveryone's going home,
then yeah, go for it.
Galen Low (28:18):
I like that Notion of champions at every level.
I think a lot of theconversations around change are
like, yeah, find your champions.
And usually the example is yeah,someone from your C-suite, I.
Should be an advocate of thischange or someone influential
who's like head of departmentshould be, doing X or Y. But
I love what you just saidabout like within your team
and like for my audience,like within your project team
(28:39):
folks that you might not evenbe the direct manager over
top of, if you can find thosechampions, that also is a
strategy that will work for youat this sort of middle layer.
And also that, yeah, thevalue of the feedback.
I know it's like.
I framed the questionas a sort of, yeah.
Stuck in that don't shootthe messenger sort of role.
(28:59):
We are like, sorry, leadershipsays we need to use this new
tool and use this new process,and my job is to deliver the
message, but actually it'sbi-directional and that's
actually one of the most usefulthings in change management.
Especially if there's the rightculture to be like, listen.
Also, can you tell ushow it's going, like
down there on the ground?
We're not there, we're notseeing people won't even
(29:20):
tell us the truth because,X or Y that's there's
hierarchy and there's likepressure and they're worried
about their job security.
But can you be that personwho relays feedback to us, in
a meaningful way and or canwe empower you to make some
changes or recommendationson how we do this?
And the pacing thing islike something that like,
I think doesn't get talkedabout enough, right?
(29:42):
Which is oh yeah, 90%of the team is like
really upset about this.
And instead of trying to forceit faster or like just stick
to a plan, which, projectmanagers are great at, it's
listen, there's a risk thatthis could all fall apart and
all this investment and noone's gonna adopt this change.
Everyone's gonna be unhappy.
We're gonna see churn.
Can we just stretchit out a bit?
Can we like change thepacing of this so that
(30:04):
we give people more time?
To ask questions and givefeedback and we can refine these
things and just all togetherjust get on board and get
comfortable with this change.
I think it's a lever thatdoesn't get pulled enough,
frankly, where it's not binary.
It's okay, people are upset.
Throw out this tool we boughtand like just burn all the
documentation for the process.
(30:25):
That never happens, but alsojust like slowing the pace.
I find not a lotof folks do that.
Think of it.
I think it's a really niceway to, to go about it.
Frances Odera Matthews (30:33):
Yeah.
That is the most ideal world.
Although I do recognize thatwe are unfortunately under
the pillars of capitalismand if the change does need
to happen quickly, somethingquite radical but does work
is you literally have toget rid of the old tools.
You have to not give peoplea choice but to using the new
(30:55):
tool and in that case, theywill be pissed, quite frankly.
But what you do to counteractthat anger is that you identify
your champions and alongevery step of the way, you
have people hold each other'slike hands along the way, but
you have to get rid of it.
Galen Low (31:12):
That's really interesting actually.
I didn't think you were gonnasay that, but you're right.
There is sometimes the realityis change needs to happen fast.
Adoption needs to happenfast for reasons, external
to like your team culture.
There is a right way to doit and do it empathetically.
(31:33):
I sometimes find myself involvedin conversations that are like,
it's not exactly what I callchange management more than
what I would consider to be aplan to cram this change down
people's throats, which is likethe far, the other side of the
extreme, but I like the sortof middle ground where it's
listen, we need to change fast.
We are gonna cutoff the old tool.
We're giving a brief window,but we can't have people
(31:55):
slip back into the old tool.
Maybe there's like licensingcosts, like we did a CRM
transition and like CRMs,like if you can afford
to have two at the sametime, you're doing great.
Most people can't.
So there's this transitionperiod and then we need
to stop using it and we'reall in this together.
And we have built a cultureof sharing and safety
and empathy to know that.
(32:16):
Yeah.
We do need to just push aheadand fast and it's not gonna
be comfortable, but that'srecognize that at least
and be all in it together.
Frances Odera Matthews (32:25):
Exactly.
Like high school musical.
Galen Low (32:29):
There you go.
When in doubt, revisit the highschool musical set of films.
Frances Odera Ma (32:37):
Yeah, exactly.
Galen Low (32:40):
I would be remiss not to ask.
The Notion expert, in myopinion, what is the most
popular project related usecase for Notions AI features?
That your clientsare asking you about?
Frances Odera Matthews (32:52):
I can tell you what it is right
now and what it's about tobe actually with a new lease.
So what it is right now is yousay you've got all of these
SOPs everywhere across Notion,but maybe across other apps
like Google Drive, et cetera.
You can just ask Notion like AIHey, tell me about our vacation.
(33:13):
I. Policies and then itwill scan everything and
it'll give you a summary.
So that is what Notion peopleare using Notion AI a lot
for is just to get highlevel information across
information that is scatteredacross different places.
But I think the most excitinguse of Notion AI is basically
(33:37):
I have access to it 'causeI'm a Notion ambassador
slash consultant, but a lot.
They're starting to phase it outto people is AI meeting notes.
So there, there will be AImeeting note blocks that you
can just put into any page.
It's actually really good.
Like the summariesare very good.
(33:58):
And so I think teamswill use that a lot.
Galen Low (34:01):
That is one of my favorite use cases for
AI in general right now.
Partly because it'sthe most mature.
Partly it's 'cause it's AIright now, the generative
stuff is good at naturallanguage processing.
Guess what?
Note taking andsummarizing is it's natural
language processing.
And then I like that itplugs into Notion 'cause
like context is king.
(34:21):
And yes, there's like lotsof note takers out there.
AI note takers, but having asort of separate tool that's
gonna send you an email thatthen you need to copy and
paste back into Notion isI don't know, it's clunky.
And I like this idea thatthere's probably, section
you've got like your pagein Notion where you've got
all these details and thenthe context of the meetings
that we've had around it.
(34:41):
And there's summarized andthen coming back to the
original thing about just thepower of aI powered search.
I'm calling it search.
I don't know ifthat's the right word.
Functionally, wesee it as search.
It's gonna look at allthe information that
it's been training on.
Bring you back answers fromwithin Notion, but also if I'm
understanding you correctly,from outside of Notion as well.
(35:01):
I think that's so cool.
Honestly, we spend so muchtime, I was gonna say alt
tabbing between tools andthen I realized I've been a
Mac user for 20 years, but,we like switch between all
of these apps and all thesetabs in our browser and coming
back to that ROI of efficiencyor like having good internal
process or good tools like.
Some of it is just like timewasted context switching or like
(35:25):
finding that tab amongst your43 tabs and then remembering
what it is that you weregoing to do and not getting
distracted by something else.
There's an ROI to that kindof efficiency as well, but
also there's a comfort tothat kind of efficiency.
Yeah, like it's more, it'sless destabilizing to be
like, cool, I know where togo and I can just ask a thing
and then will bring it backto me and I can carry on
(35:46):
with My day is almost like.
The opposite of what I normallythink of for like tool adoption.
Normally it's I'mgonna be slower.
I'm gonna have to figureout how to use it.
I'm going to have to teach itall this stuff and connect all
these apps and all these things.
It's gonna make me slower.
Whereas I like that some ofthis is like almost, it's pretty
quickly gonna make you faster.
I love that.
(36:06):
For folks who are liking whatthey're hearing, where can
they learn more about you?
Frances Odera Matthews (36:09):
So you can find me, if you go to
my website, theNotionbar.com.
You can find links outto all of the things
that I do across social.
So I'm most active on LinkedInat the moment, and then I also
have a weekly newsletter, TheNotion Zeitgeist, where I drop
weekly tips about Notion and newreleases, and is also the home
(36:30):
of my monthly group coaching.
Galen Low (36:32):
Love that.
That sounds like a great way tokeep your finger on the pulse.
Things are changing so fast.
Yes.
It's overwhelming.
Yes.
Change is continuous.
It's always happening.
But I think, we needpeople like you to help
us make sense of it all.
Frances Odera Mat (36:44):
Yeah, thanks.
Just doing what Ican, doing what I can.
And of course if you area London Business Babe, go
listen to Coffee & Oysters.
Galen Low (36:51):
Yes.
Coffee & Oysters.
I'm a big fan.
I love what you're doing there.
It's really important and yeah,I think you're nailing it there.
Just a fanboy a little bit.
Frances Odera M (37:02):
Appreciates it.
You're a London Business Babe.
Galen Low (37:04):
Yeah.
There you go.
Yeah.
Honorary.
Awesome.
Frances, thank you somuch for taking the time
to chat with me today.
It's been a lot of fun.
It's always loads offun chatting with you.
Fra (37:15):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Galen Low (37:17):
All right folks, there you have it.
As always, if you'd like tojoin the conversation with
over a thousand like-mindedproject management champions,
come join our collective.
Head on over tothedpm.com/membership
to learn more.
And if you like what youheard today, please subscribe
and stay in touch onthedigitalprojectmanager.com.
Until next time,thanks for listening.
You open your new tool.
(00:01):
You've got your new processup on your second monitor.
You've got your eightpages of handwritten notes
from that one trainingsession you had last week.
You are ready.
You take a deepbreath and you log in.
But instead of the dashboardyou were expecting, you're
presented with an exam thatyou haven't studied for.
Also, everyone in the room ispointing and laughing at you.
Also, you are naked.
(00:23):
For a lot of folks, bigchanges to tools and workflows
is their worst nightmare.
It's one of the biggestbarriers to adoption.
And as a result, it's oneof the biggest barriers to
positive productive impact.
So what's to be done?
In an age of tool overwhelm,change fatigue, and AI related
anxiety, how can you give yournew tool or process the best
(00:45):
chance of being embraced bythe very folks whose lives
it was meant to improve?
That's exactly what we'regoing to dive into today.
Hey folks, thanks for tuning in.
My name is Galen Low withThe Digital Project Manager.
We are a community of digitalprofessionals on a mission
to help each other getskilled, get confident, and
(01:06):
get connected so that we canamplify the value of project
management in a digital world.
If you wanna hear moreabout that, head on over
to thedpm.com/membership.
And if you're intofuture-looking conversations
and practical insights arounddigital project leadership,
consider subscribing to theshow for weekly episodes.
Okay, today we are talkingabout the challenges of
(01:27):
rolling out new tools and newprocesses in an age of tool
fatigue, change fatigue, AIfatigue, and quite possibly
just general physical fatigue.
Like how can you get your teamsonsite with tools and processes
that will ultimately help themwhen they're already mistrustful
of technology, already doubtfulof their job security, already
(01:49):
feeling pressured to do more,and already fed up with the
accelerating pace of disruptionsto their professional life.
That was a lot.
With me today is Frances OderaMatthews — certified Notion
consultant, process designer,culture builder, speaker,
storyteller, founder of TheNotion Bar, and host of Coffee
& Oysters, the podcast for andby London's Business Babes.
(02:10):
Poof, those creds!Those creds are a lot!
Frances, thank you forbeing here with me today.
Thanks for comingback on the show.
Frances Odera Matthews (02:17):
Yeah, super, super excited to be here.
I have a lot ofthoughts on today.
I have a lot of goals.
Galen Low (02:27):
I sense that.
I know that we had a greatconversation in the green room.
This is something that, youwere on the show, gosh, it's
probably a couple years ago now.
Frances Odera Matthews (02:36):
Yeah.
Galen Low (02:37):
Time has been flying by.
But you have been keeping busyand in terms of what you do,
tool implementation, processimplementation, like it's
just such a hot button rightnow because everyone's in the
midst of some kind of change,some kind of transformation,
some kind of optimization.
They're looking at tools.
They're looking at processesfor ways to scale, to grow, to
(02:57):
streamline all those things.
But maybe let me just zoom out.
So for folks listening,depending on when
you're listening at timerecording, it's 2025.
And not only are there hundredsof tools on the market to
help you lead your projectsand run your business, but
there's also reams of new AItools to help you work faster,
smarter, and frankly beyondyour natural capabilities.
(03:20):
And not only that, butthat also means that our
processes are changingmore frequently and more
drastically than ever before.
Yet so many initiativesto implement new tools and
new processes still failat the adoption stage,
which ultimately stuntsorganizational transformation.
It removes businessescompetitive edge, like it does
the exact opposite of what theseinitiatives were actually, or
(03:43):
what these tools and processeswere initially meant to do.
So I thought maybe I'd juststart with the hot question,
which is, do tools andprocesses fail because humans
suck at change management.
Or is it that we justexpect too much from
our tools and processes?
Or maybe is it justthat we're all tired?
Frances O (04:02):
So it's a combination of all of it really.
So ultimately humansdon't change evolutionary.
We like things that we know, welike things that keep us safe.
And so that's an issue.
And so if you want to doany kind of change, you
need to make it as easy.
Seen as beneficial ashumanly possible, which a
(04:23):
lot of the time just isn'twhat ends up happening.
And then the other side of it isthat a tool is not a magic wand.
A tool isn't gonnachange the culture.
A tool isn't gonnachange how chaotic you
are as an organizationthat comes from real.
(04:44):
In depth culture change and alook at your values and a look
of what, even just getting agrasp of what your processes
are like, is this new thingthat you are adding, moving the
needle for you legitimately?
Or is it actuallycausing more work than.
You need and you are justdoing it so you can sound
cool in front of your otheragency owners and be like,
(05:06):
oh, we're using this tool now.
And I'm like, okay, that's nice.
Cool.
Like we're tracking this KPI.
And I'm like, okay, nice.
Who cares?
Galen Low (05:14):
Which are real conversations that happen
between agency folks by the way.
Frances Odera Matthe (05:18):
Literally.
And then, so there's that justwanting to jump on the hype
train so you can seem cool andthen people were trying to do
things too quickly and theywant everything now, but that's,
again, that's not how our brainswork because we're too tired.
We can't do everything nowso my whole tagline with
my Notion consultancy iscreating cultures of intention.
(05:41):
And I really recognize thatNotion is such an incredible
to what's so powerful.
It's so flexible.
But just because you can'tdo everything with Notion
doesn't mean that you should.
And so I'm only gonna build.
Things that like move theneedle for you specifically.
And a lot of the timeclients come to me because
they've downloaded this crazytemplate, which is super
(06:02):
over complicated and they'rejust overwhelmed by it.
And so I have to be likea psychologist and be like
what do you actually need?
What matters to you?
And let's start there.
Which is pretty much what youshould do with not just Notion,
but like any tool, really.
Galen Low (06:16):
I really like that it starts with that
silver bullet that theypicked up along the way.
And they're like, I'mconfused, Frances.
Can you help?
And you're like, actuallythere's no silver bullet.
But the other thing Ireally like about it is just
like hurriedness, right?
This rush, right?
This sort of like wantingit to be instant or fast.
And a colleague of minejust posted today about
eating a whole bag of chips.
(06:38):
You open a bag of chips, you'relike, may as well finish it.
It's open, but it'sprobably not a good idea.
And sometimes what you're sayingin terms of when people think.
Tool, a new process.
We think, okay, yeah,we'll just buy a new tool.
We'll just set it up.
We'll just create some newprocesses and then seven
days later, everything'sgonna be perfect.
But what you just described tome is yeah, maybe don't assume
(06:58):
that you're going to eat thiswhole bag of chips in one go.
Maybe let's like takeour time with it.
And I guess how doyou deal with that?
Like impatience.
Hype and pressure to findthis magic bullet and then
you're like, actually it'sgonna take a long time.
And I'm imagining that a lotof folks are like, whoa, I
haven't got that much time.
Frances Odera Matthews (07:18):
Yeah.
So I've actually forced myclients into this now by
how I've shaped my packages.
So I. Instead of just likeoffering like massive build
outs, I now offer a five dayworkspace program, which is
a condensed amount of time,of 25 hours, five hours
(07:39):
per day, where I'm like,we are going to prioritize.
So you've got a listof a hundred things.
Sure.
Tell them to me, but likewe are gonna prioritize
from that list what we canreasonably fit into this chunk
of build out of five days.
And more often than not.
The amount that we canfit into that amount of
time is the things thatactually matter to them.
(08:00):
And I'm like, okay, letyou go off digest this bit.
Once you're comfortable with,then we'll do another five days.
And so I deal with people noteating the whole bag of chips by
literally putting it into bowls.
Galen Low (08:13):
Yeah.
You get one chip, which ofthese, you get one chip,
one chips do you wantto do in the five days?
Exactly.
Arguably humans arebetter at small change.
We're not good at any change.
You're absolutely right.
But like they're better at smallbite-size change than like broad
sort of destabilizing change.
(08:34):
I like that it becomesI don't know, iterative,
incremental, right?
Like it's like sprints,Notion sprints.
Frances Odera Matthews (08:39):
Yeah.
Exactly.
Exactly.
And that's not just Notion.
Again, that should behow you should approach
any tool as yourself intoit and start with them.
Galen Low (08:48):
Isn't that just a thing too, right?
You mentioned yeah, Notionis a very versatile tool.
Loads of tools are veryversatile tools in terms
of they do a lot of things.
It's easy to get that overwhelmto be like, oh, I meant to like.
Imprint this over top of justoverlay it over top of my entire
business or my, all my projectsand it's overwhelming of what
to decide to use it for even.
So even that Notion ofprioritizing where there's pain
(09:10):
and need and like also just likewe're just gonna focus on this
like one bit of the capability.
To solve a problem, not try andoverhaul everything at once,
because yeah, a lot of thesetools do everything practically,
short of mowing your lawn, likethere's a lot of productivity
tools, collaboration tools,project management tools.
They just, they do everythingunder the sun because
they're trying to staycompetitive and useful, but
(09:30):
you don't have to use allof the, all the features.
Frances Odera Mat (09:33):
Exactly that.
Galen Low (09:34):
I wondered if I could zoom out a little bit even
further because at the NotionBar as we've been talking about.
You're helping organizationsimplement the right tools,
design the right processes.
I'm imagining now that a lot ofcompanies are seeking out that
AI advantage or at least tryingnot to get left in the dust.
So I imagine you're talkingto a lot of people right
now, I think we've beentalking about a little bit.
(09:55):
But I'm just wonderingwhat some of the biggest
obstacles or maybe that onebig obstacle or challenge
that you see organizationsrunning into these days.
That keeps them from gettingtheir people on board with
new tools and processes andalso what are some of the
consequences that you're seeingfrom that from the front lines?
Frances Odera Matthews (10:11):
I would say, again, a tool isn't a magic
wand and they don't actuallyknow what their processes are.
They're just like, we're justgonna get this new thing.
There's no like thought or.
Time being put into like whythey need this tool, how they're
gonna roll out this tool.
They try to do everything atonce, and most importantly,
(10:34):
there's not any training.
There's not actually anytime aside to train people on
how to use the thing and notjust the one-off training.
You need consistent training.
You need consistent sessionswhere people can drop in and
essentially ask questions.
Whether it's from a designatedchampion on your team,
(10:56):
maybe you have a championper department or in like
monthly team wide sessions.
And that's what I offer as well.
And my, I know them, butpeople don't value training.
They just expect peopleto know how to use things.
But that's just not how,that's just not realistic.
Galen Low (11:14):
Yeah, and especially I think folks listening as
well can probably relate.
You get that one time training,it's like part of a scope
of some kind of engagement.
They're like, cool.
You get your like one dayof training and you drink
from the fire hose, like foreight hours straight, and
then the next day you forgetit all and then the rest of
it's like help center, right?
It's then just search itin the knowledge base.
And I'm not that kind of person.
(11:35):
I'm like the please show me thatthing that I have a question
about now or like this week.
Versus oh yeah, I retainedeverything from that
one training session.
Or, oh, that's fine.
I'll just search untilmy face goes blue.
Trying to find theanswer for myself.
That's the friction for me.
It is like that's thequickest way to lose me on
(11:55):
like a tool or a new process.
It's like the RTFM andgo read the manual.
I'm like, yeah, okay.
I get it.
That's fine.
And that works forsome people, but.
I dunno, I'm I am someone whowould appreciate that sort of
like ongoing availability oftraining from ideally a human
to because it's like, it'sthe change as well, right?
It's not likeknowledge transfer.
(12:17):
I. It's my discomfort withchange that I want help with.
And reading a manualdoesn't help me get there.
My aha moments are usuallywhen somebody's oh, have
you seen this thing?
I'll be like, oh yes.
Oh, that's perfect.
Okay, great.
Like I didn't see that bigblue button there that says
do the thing that I want.
Because it's not because I'm notsmart, I hope, but because I'm
uncomfortable with the changethat's been made in my life.
(12:38):
To have to figure this outbecause in the old tool I
would've been done already.
Frances Odera Matthews (12:43):
Exactly.
Yeah.
Or maybe not because the oldtool wasn't good enough and
that's why we need a new tool.
But that's true tomind, the discomfort is
all you can focus on.
Galen Low (12:51):
One thing that I love your thoughts on actually
is just like this Notionthat sometimes like process
design and tool selection,the gestation period.
It's kinda like it happens overa period of time to decide,
yes, we need a new tool or weneed to redevelop this process.
We gotta bring on some people.
We're gonna do these thingswith plan and execute and
(13:11):
iterate and that happens inthis like smaller circle.
I. And then it's like cool.
All those decisions thatwe made, they're done.
Now you can just take thething that we made and
start using it, but actuallythey've shortchanged the
actual time it took them toget on board with the change.
'cause they've got severalmonths of thinking about
it and like planningit and like getting
accustomed to the change.
(13:32):
And then, on the other end,they think they're doing
their people a favor byjust being like, you don't
even have to think about it.
Just take this glassof water and drink it,
as fast as you can.
And they're like, waita minute, why do I have
a new glass of water?
Yeah.
Do you find that in some casesorganizations and leaders are
actually like, well-meaning,but still stuck at change
management because of that?
Frances Odera Matthews (13:52):
Yeah.
I. They haven't investedenough time in wooing the rest
of the team about, or beingseeming really excited about
this new thing that's coming.
They just, it's just surprise,we're doing this now.
I think you've gotta keep,you've gotta breadcrumb, keep
in, get their thoughts andfeedback on what they want
(14:15):
in the new thing as well.
So yeah.
Galen Low (14:19):
I love that word wooing.
Because there is sometimes weuse the word transparency, but
there is such thing as too muchinformation and also creating
anxiety and fear by sharing youranxiety and fear along the way.
But I do like that word wooing.
And I guess it comes backto that culture thing too,
which is, I mean is thatsomething that I guess
people are thinking, okay,yes, I wanna implement a
(14:41):
new tool and a new process.
And you're like, but culture,like what is the first step to
identify where there might bejust a few like shortcomings
in the culture that might bebarriers and like what are
some ways that you've seensome of those rough patches
paved over in the culture?
(15:01):
I. To kind of start makingchange in these iterations
in five day chunks.
Frances Odera Matthews (15:05):
One thing that I would say is like
the concept of being siloed.
Do people feel siloed generally?
Like how often does your teamtouch base with each other?
Async is great, but I think.
It's really important to havelike even touch points where
you feel like you can havereal conversations with people
and share information openly.
(15:26):
So if you don't have a cultureof openness, it's really hard
to get everyone to start usinga new tool, which is supposed
to make you be more open.
'cause they're like, oh, Idon't need to share this thing.
I don't need toshare this thing.
You need to like havethat offline first.
Galen Low (15:44):
It's really interesting because yeah, a
lot of the tools are aboutsort of collaboration.
In some ways we're usingthese tools together, but if
the culture is siloed, thenthe adoption is also siloed.
Frances Odera Matthews (15:54):
Exactly.
And then there's also thisthing of constant change and
moving goalposts, and you arechanging direction all the time.
So if that is your stateof being, there is no point
in trying to adopt at all.
Because everyone's mindsetis frantic and changing.
(16:15):
There's no stability.
Galen Low (16:16):
That's really interesting.
Frances Odera (16:17):
There's no point.
There's literally no pointbecause you will fall off
with this new thing that youare trying to adopt as well.
Galen Low (16:24):
That blows my mind a bit because I know a
lot of organizations thesedays in response to the
pace of change have built aculture of continuous change.
But what you said at thetop, I think rings true, is
that we've as humans, right?
We've evolved to want a bit ofboth, but like we want to arrive
at stability and security.
(16:45):
We know we need tochange to get there.
You might be, I'm taking thismetaphor way too far, but you're
like whatever, surviving outin the woods and you're like,
this spot isn't safe anymore.
I gotta go somewhere else wherethere's food, less predators,
I'm gonna have to change, butI'm gonna land somewhere stable.
And I think sometimes.
The cultures that I've beenseeing in some organizations
that are admirably rapidin terms of getting stuff
(17:07):
done, but they never land.
They've just been like circlingthe the airstrip the whole
time and everyone's okay, Iguess we're not gonna land.
And therefore to your point,we don't really adopt anything
fully 'cause it's gonna change.
That's actually, it's a reallyinteresting reason to be
resistant to change that Ihadn't really thought about.
Frances (17:24):
Yeah, because if you've never landed, how do you know
what the ground feels like?
Galen Low (17:28):
Yeah, exactly.
What does good look like there?
We're thinking about adoption,thinking about change, thinking
about someone you've workedwith, you don't have to name
names, but someone you'veworked with where yeah,
they did have some thingsto fix with their culture.
Then once they did, theywere able to land a plane and
that change stuck and it feltstable and adoption felt good.
Frances Odera Matthews (17:47):
Yeah.
Oh, I would say it's a clientI'm currently working with
right now, so they are a fastscaling drink supplement brand
in the Middle East and a fewthings, like all of my favorite
things, they've started ata point where there's not
a crazy amount of people onthe team, so there aren't too
(18:07):
many cooks in the kitchen.
There's not a lot toUN's angle there really.
They've also identified achampion, so this is a person
who works very closely withme, who they've also signed up
to my monthly group training.
So this is someone who'sgonna get continuous
training on ocean, alwaysknow what's going on.
(18:27):
And they've got a phase rollout,so they're very much aware
of we're rolling out thisbit first or this team first
before we get the full teamfully onboarded, essentially.
And they're very clearon what they want.
And they don't wanna fillNotion with things that
aren't ES useful to them.
They're not tracking like randomKPIs for the sake of tracking
KPIs or trying to integrate thisrandom AI tool that they saw
(18:51):
some other agency owner likebecause shiny objects stuff.
Yeah.
There's no shiny objects.
Like they're very clearon what they want and how
things should work, andI'm like, this is great.
Galen Low (19:00):
How is that feeling on the ground for the team?
I don't know if you'relike as close to that, but
in terms of folks who arereceiving on the receiving
end of this change, what aresome of the sentiments been?
Frances Odera Matthews (19:12):
I wouldn't know that actually
if we're working our way up tothe bit where we're rolling it
out to the rest of the team.
But it would be interestingto hear when that happens.
Galen Low (19:21):
I really like that approach.
I really like the sort of like.
Definitely the like sortof discipline to avoid
shiny object syndrome.
I love any kind of localizedsort of pilot before
rolling out a big change.
It just gets everyonecomfortable, including
ourselves as, change agentsand I really like that.
I know it's not gonna workfor everybody, but that like
moment of scale, 'cause likechange has this sort of I
(19:44):
don't know, multiplicity.
In terms of complexity,when you're like seven
people change is not easy,but it's a lot easier than
when you're 700 people.
Frances Odera Matthews (19:53):
Yes.
Galen Low (19:54):
I like that sort of moment of recognition of when
to make a change before doinga big sort of growth sprint
and then, hoping for the best.
Frances Odera Matthews (20:03):
Exactly.
Exactly.
And then it becomes frustratingbecause in these big companies,
there's not as much of aretention rate and then people
leave halfway through theproject and then it just gets
lost in the ether and Yeah.
Galen Low (20:17):
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And then, and I think we'll getthere eventually too, but and
the larger the organization,the more you have like rogue
tools and rogue processes thathave come about because it
took a while to get around toimproving some of the processes.
So they're like.
Oh yeah, I'm usingthis other tool.
I just expense it.
And you're like, oh yeah,where does that data go?
What is the process?
(20:37):
Could you train someone on that?
It's is this, in some cases it'swell intentioned again, right?
They're like, I want tobe better at doing my
job and stay organized.
So I, I downloaded this thingand that's how my team works.
And then it's yeah.
Again, this sort of notboneyard, I was gonna
say boneyard, but Yes.
It's these little fiefdomsof like tools and processes.
Whereas the biggest impactwould be to have, some cohesion.
Frances Odera Matthews (20:58):
And ironically, I. Maybe if someone
took some time to map thingsout in the beginning, they
wouldn't have needed to hireso many people because things
would just be straightforward.
I see that happen a lot as well.
Galen Low (21:14):
Fair.
And like from my perspective,AI functionality is
something I think like Notionjumped on it very early.
I'm remembering like itwas like before this, I'm
talking like pre at least myknowledge of ChatGPT, and it
was like, okay, yeah, we'regonna leverage generative AI.
And of course like someof it is like exactly
what you're saying, right?
It's your operating model mightactually be different, right?
(21:36):
The way you lead projectsmight be different if you've
got an AI tool in your cornerand maybe you need fewer
people or different people orpeople doing different things.
And that's somethingto plan out ahead.
I'm gonna use this to pivot alittle bit because I think you
raised a really good point aboutalmost like being organizations
(21:57):
setting up the frameworks earlyenough so that people aren't
going rogue, so that we'renot, scaling unnecessarily.
But one thing I wanted toconnect it to was like this
Notion of AI tools and likefreestanding all sorts.
I'm not, I'm I'm not gonna Idon't think this is isolated
to just a few, I find that alot of individuals on their
own, they're doing theirown adopting of new tools
(22:20):
because their friend toldthem, or because they feel
pressured to stay up to speed.
Maybe their organization hasn't.
Set up any governance or anypolicies around what tools
can and cannot be used.
So then that's becoming it'salmost like accelerating
towards this sort of free forall tool and process land.
What are just some of the risks,but also maybe what are some
of the opportunities posed byhaving folks bring in their own
(22:44):
unofficial tools with no sortof formal or formality, like
formal structures around it.
Frances Odera Matthews (22:51):
I think this again goes back to what is
your culture as an organization?
Do you have a culture wherepeople are openly sharing
information with each other andfeel like they're comfortable
with bringing in new ideas?
Do you have thatin the first place?
And I don't.
Sometimes shiny new objectsare good if they're helpful.
(23:14):
Do you have a culture wherepeople feel like they can
share and you are willing tolisten to them and investigate
their idea as a team at least?
And that's the bit that'simportant because when
people start just doingthings on their own.
What ends up happening is thata lot of the time they might
(23:34):
be duplicating a process thatthey don't need to duplicate.
Then all of a suddenthey've doubled their work
and waste their time, andthat's time that they could
be using from a businessperspective to earn money.
And then suddenly you're like,ah, we've got too much work.
We need to hire someone else.
No, you've just got anefficient place in your
process, essentially.
So from a business sense,you are losing money.
(23:54):
From a personal level, youare probably someone who feels
like you've got too much workand so you've constantly got
to play catch up, and so youburn out a leap from a business
sense that costs you money'cause then you now have to
go and recruit someone else.
Galen Low (24:06):
Really interesting as like a symptom, right?
It is like people going outand proactively getting their
own set of, I'll say rogue,but not in a bad way, their
own set of rogue tools.
Might actually be a symptomof them feeling like they're,
under pressure or feeling,unstable in their sort of role
and yeah, maybe overworked.
(24:27):
I think that'sreally interesting.
I also really like thatNotion of the culture.
It's like such a, like I knowwe like, it's, I arguably
a word that means a lotof different things to a
lot of different people.
But the thing that yousaid there about the
culture of sharing.
To make sure we're notreduplicating stuff or that
there isn't a better way, whichoriginally should have been
the reason for sharing anyways.
(24:48):
But sometimes, a sharingculture, sometimes you see like
culture of not knocking it,but some organizations they're
like, I. No dms, if you'regonna have a chat, have it in a
public channel so that everyonecan share, and then suddenly
everyone's just overwhelmedor flooded with information.
Whereas the sortof risk management
standpoint is like, cool.
If you're like,we encourage you.
Maybe it's not even alike policy quote unquote,
but it's like a Yeah.
(25:08):
Our culture is yeah, we wantyou to experiment with stuff.
Share what you're learning.
Our job is gonna be to likeidentify where there's need
and where we need to gofurther and pursue it and
make it a bit more formal.
Where we're like duplicatingeffort because we don't really
want everyone to find theirown tool and solve the same
problem when we actually had700 other problems to fix.
(25:30):
And that's it's pragmatic.
Do you know what I mean?
It's not like gatekeeping,it's not policing, it's
just pragmatic business.
Fra (25:36):
And I've worked at a lot of agencies and worked with a
lot of agencies, and what I'vealways seen is that the best.
Environments that I've beenprivy to of those environments
that in the same way that youhave capacity for client work,
you have structured capacityfor internal improvement and
discussions about processesand giving people time to do
(25:59):
things like cardiac files ordiscuss new tools or 'cause
that's just as importantas your billable hours.
Galen Low (26:06):
I love that.
How do you frame the ROIto folks who might be a
bit resistant to that idea?
Because I've been there as well.
Like I know that there's valuein being organized and doing
internal improvements, whenthere's money on the table
from client work, I've found,multiple organizations, it's
really hard thing to kindof balance or say no to.
Frances Odera Matthews (26:26):
If you need a metric to put it up
against, work out what that timeis and what that would cost you
against your recruitment costs.
Because people don't likechange, but they definitely
do not like chaos.
They will leave.
They will leave.
Galen Low (26:43):
I like that Notion of yeah, the cost of
not doing it actually Yeah.
Is something that's prettyeasy to at least ballpark.
I know I've been talkinga little bit like like at
a sort of change agent,decision maker sort of
leadership kind of level.
A lot of the time thischange like is delivered or
managed by middle management.
(27:03):
And I'm just thinking in youropinion, what's the best way
for folks who are like stuck inbetween like project managers.
How can folks in the middledeal with teams that are
like resistant to changeand won't adopt a tool?
Maybe because they just havelike tool or change fatigue?
Frances Odera Matthews (27:21):
I think.
You need to be receptive tojust everyone's feedback,
first of all, and it will bespecific to every team, but
based on the resistance, youcan judge how much you need
to phase your rollout bike.
(27:43):
If there's a ton ofresistance by everybody,
then you need to like reallylike baby step people in.
But if you have, I don'tknow, maybe 70% of people who
are like, yeah, relativelyokay with it, then maybe
have a relatively, okay,like slower rollout, but then
you identify champions fromthose 70 people, maybe the
(28:05):
top 10% who hold the handsof the lower 30% essentially.
And so you don'tleave them behind.
Basically, but ifeveryone's going home,
then yeah, go for it.
Galen Low (28:18):
I like that Notion of champions at every level.
I think a lot of theconversations around change are
like, yeah, find your champions.
And usually the example is yeah,someone from your C-suite, I.
Should be an advocate of thischange or someone influential
who's like head of departmentshould be, doing X or Y. But
I love what you just saidabout like within your team
and like for my audience,like within your project team
(28:39):
folks that you might not evenbe the direct manager over
top of, if you can find thosechampions, that also is a
strategy that will work for youat this sort of middle layer.
And also that, yeah, thevalue of the feedback.
I know it's like.
I framed the questionas a sort of, yeah.
Stuck in that don't shootthe messenger sort of role.
(28:59):
We are like, sorry, leadershipsays we need to use this new
tool and use this new process,and my job is to deliver the
message, but actually it'sbi-directional and that's
actually one of the most usefulthings in change management.
Especially if there's the rightculture to be like, listen.
Also, can you tell ushow it's going, like
down there on the ground?
We're not there, we're notseeing people won't even
(29:20):
tell us the truth because,X or Y that's there's
hierarchy and there's likepressure and they're worried
about their job security.
But can you be that personwho relays feedback to us, in
a meaningful way and or canwe empower you to make some
changes or recommendationson how we do this?
And the pacing thing islike something that like,
I think doesn't get talkedabout enough, right?
(29:42):
Which is oh yeah, 90%of the team is like
really upset about this.
And instead of trying to forceit faster or like just stick
to a plan, which, projectmanagers are great at, it's
listen, there's a risk thatthis could all fall apart and
all this investment and noone's gonna adopt this change.
Everyone's gonna be unhappy.
We're gonna see churn.
Can we just stretchit out a bit?
Can we like change thepacing of this so that
(30:04):
we give people more time?
To ask questions and givefeedback and we can refine these
things and just all togetherjust get on board and get
comfortable with this change.
I think it's a lever thatdoesn't get pulled enough,
frankly, where it's not binary.
It's okay, people are upset.
Throw out this tool we boughtand like just burn all the
documentation for the process.
(30:25):
That never happens, but alsojust like slowing the pace.
I find not a lotof folks do that.
Think of it.
I think it's a really niceway to, to go about it.
Frances Odera Matthews (30:33):
Yeah.
That is the most ideal world.
Although I do recognize thatwe are unfortunately under
the pillars of capitalismand if the change does need
to happen quickly, somethingquite radical but does work
is you literally have toget rid of the old tools.
You have to not give peoplea choice but to using the new
(30:55):
tool and in that case, theywill be pissed, quite frankly.
But what you do to counteractthat anger is that you identify
your champions and alongevery step of the way, you
have people hold each other'slike hands along the way, but
you have to get rid of it.
Galen Low (31:12):
That's really interesting actually.
I didn't think you were gonnasay that, but you're right.
There is sometimes the realityis change needs to happen fast.
Adoption needs to happenfast for reasons, external
to like your team culture.
There is a right way to doit and do it empathetically.
(31:33):
I sometimes find myself involvedin conversations that are like,
it's not exactly what I callchange management more than
what I would consider to be aplan to cram this change down
people's throats, which is likethe far, the other side of the
extreme, but I like the sortof middle ground where it's
listen, we need to change fast.
We are gonna cutoff the old tool.
We're giving a brief window,but we can't have people
(31:55):
slip back into the old tool.
Maybe there's like licensingcosts, like we did a CRM
transition and like CRMs,like if you can afford
to have two at the sametime, you're doing great.
Most people can't.
So there's this transitionperiod and then we need
to stop using it and we'reall in this together.
And we have built a cultureof sharing and safety
and empathy to know that.
(32:16):
Yeah.
We do need to just push aheadand fast and it's not gonna
be comfortable, but that'srecognize that at least
and be all in it together.
Frances Odera Matthews (32:25):
Exactly.
Like high school musical.
Galen Low (32:29):
There you go.
When in doubt, revisit the highschool musical set of films.
Frances Odera Ma (32:37):
Yeah, exactly.
Galen Low (32:40):
I would be remiss not to ask.
The Notion expert, in myopinion, what is the most
popular project related usecase for Notions AI features?
That your clientsare asking you about?
Frances Odera Matthews (32:52):
I can tell you what it is right
now and what it's about tobe actually with a new lease.
So what it is right now is yousay you've got all of these
SOPs everywhere across Notion,but maybe across other apps
like Google Drive, et cetera.
You can just ask Notion like AIHey, tell me about our vacation.
(33:13):
I. Policies and then itwill scan everything and
it'll give you a summary.
So that is what Notion peopleare using Notion AI a lot
for is just to get highlevel information across
information that is scatteredacross different places.
But I think the most excitinguse of Notion AI is basically
(33:37):
I have access to it 'causeI'm a Notion ambassador
slash consultant, but a lot.
They're starting to phase it outto people is AI meeting notes.
So there, there will be AImeeting note blocks that you
can just put into any page.
It's actually really good.
Like the summariesare very good.
(33:58):
And so I think teamswill use that a lot.
Galen Low (34:01):
That is one of my favorite use cases for
AI in general right now.
Partly because it'sthe most mature.
Partly it's 'cause it's AIright now, the generative
stuff is good at naturallanguage processing.
Guess what?
Note taking andsummarizing is it's natural
language processing.
And then I like that itplugs into Notion 'cause
like context is king.
(34:21):
And yes, there's like lotsof note takers out there.
AI note takers, but having asort of separate tool that's
gonna send you an email thatthen you need to copy and
paste back into Notion isI don't know, it's clunky.
And I like this idea thatthere's probably, section
you've got like your pagein Notion where you've got
all these details and thenthe context of the meetings
that we've had around it.
(34:41):
And there's summarized andthen coming back to the
original thing about just thepower of aI powered search.
I'm calling it search.
I don't know ifthat's the right word.
Functionally, wesee it as search.
It's gonna look at allthe information that
it's been training on.
Bring you back answers fromwithin Notion, but also if I'm
understanding you correctly,from outside of Notion as well.
(35:01):
I think that's so cool.
Honestly, we spend so muchtime, I was gonna say alt
tabbing between tools andthen I realized I've been a
Mac user for 20 years, but,we like switch between all
of these apps and all thesetabs in our browser and coming
back to that ROI of efficiencyor like having good internal
process or good tools like.
Some of it is just like timewasted context switching or like
(35:25):
finding that tab amongst your43 tabs and then remembering
what it is that you weregoing to do and not getting
distracted by something else.
There's an ROI to that kindof efficiency as well, but
also there's a comfort tothat kind of efficiency.
Yeah, like it's more, it'sless destabilizing to be
like, cool, I know where togo and I can just ask a thing
and then will bring it backto me and I can carry on
(35:46):
with My day is almost like.
The opposite of what I normallythink of for like tool adoption.
Normally it's I'mgonna be slower.
I'm gonna have to figureout how to use it.
I'm going to have to teach itall this stuff and connect all
these apps and all these things.
It's gonna make me slower.
Whereas I like that some ofthis is like almost, it's pretty
quickly gonna make you faster.
I love that.
(36:06):
For folks who are liking whatthey're hearing, where can
they learn more about you?
Frances Odera Matthews (36:09):
So you can find me, if you go to
my website, theNotionbar.com.
You can find links outto all of the things
that I do across social.
So I'm most active on LinkedInat the moment, and then I also
have a weekly newsletter, TheNotion Zeitgeist, where I drop
weekly tips about Notion and newreleases, and is also the home
(36:30):
of my monthly group coaching.
Galen Low (36:32):
Love that.
That sounds like a great way tokeep your finger on the pulse.
Things are changing so fast.
Yes.
It's overwhelming.
Yes.
Change is continuous.
It's always happening.
But I think, we needpeople like you to help
us make sense of it all.
Frances Odera Mat (36:44):
Yeah, thanks.
Just doing what Ican, doing what I can.
And of course if you area London Business Babe, go
listen to Coffee & Oysters.
Galen Low (36:51):
Yes.
Coffee & Oysters.
I'm a big fan.
I love what you're doing there.
It's really important and yeah,I think you're nailing it there.
Just a fanboy a little bit.
Frances Odera M (37:02):
Appreciates it.
You're a London Business Babe.
Galen Low (37:04):
Yeah.
There you go.
Yeah.
Honorary.
Awesome.
Frances, thank you somuch for taking the time
to chat with me today.
It's been a lot of fun.
It's always loads offun chatting with you.
Fra (37:15):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Galen Low (37:17):
All right folks, there you have it.
As always, if you'd like tojoin the conversation with
over a thousand like-mindedproject management champions,
come join our collective.
Head on over tothedpm.com/membership
to learn more.
And if you like what youheard today, please subscribe
and stay in touch onthedigitalprojectmanager.com.
Until next time,thanks for listening.
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