In this episode of "What If? So What?" Jim Hertzfeld sits down with Bradie Speller, a seasoned expert in the intersection of technology and organizational behavior, to dive deep into the concept of socio-technical systems. Bradie, who has a rich tech history going back to the early days of personal computing, discusses the evolution of technology from bulky mainframes to the sleek devices we use today. He emphasizes the crucial role of training and development in leveraging technology for business efficiency. The discussion centers on the essential integration of human capabilities with technological advancements to drive real change and productivity in any organization.
Meet our guest:
Bradie Speller is a seasoned executive with more than 25 years of experience in global strategy and transformation for Fortune 500 companies. He excels in leveraging human capital with business operational needs to drive bottom-line results for global enterprises. Bradie specializes in digital transformations, organizational restructuring, and M&A integrations, with a strong focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion.
His leadership in digital adoption and organizational change has spurred growth, streamlined productivity, and saved millions for both profit and non-profit organizations. A thought leader in change and growth strategies, Bradie is committed to philanthropy, sustainability, and poverty reduction, advising a non-profit NGO and a cleantech firm. He volunteers with Big Brothers Big Sisters, leads a radical mentoring community, and is an accomplished musician.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Bradie Speller (00:05):
Organizations downplay number one the fact
that the answer lies within yourpeople.
It doesn't lie within thetechnology and or the consulting
company that should systemsintegrate.
They have the expertise to helpyou implement it.
But what really we should betalking about is how do we
engage our people, how do wemake sure that they are
(00:27):
communicated with and how do wemake sure that we're providing
them with the skills, theknowledge and the ability to be
able to handle the future of thework that's coming down the
pipe.
Jim Hertzfeld (00:37):
Welcome to what If so what, the podcast where we
explore what's possible withdigital and discover how to make
it real in your business.
I'm your host, jim Hertzfeld,and we get shit done by asking
digital leaders the rightquestions what, if so what?
And, most importantly now, what?
All right with me today isBrady Speller, who introduced me
to the term socio-technicalsystems, and he's going to let
(01:00):
us all know what that means.
Today I'm having a little funwith you, brady, but this is a
man who's a witness to what Icall the dawn of digital, and
he's moved everything fromrecords to laptops to trucks.
But I'm going to let him tellus about it.
Brady, welcome to the podcast.
In your own words, give us alittle background on yourself.
Bradie Speller (01:18):
Right.
Hey, jim, thanks for having metoday.
I really do appreciate you andthe folks that are proficient
for doing this.
Just a quick thumbnailbackground on me.
I mean, I'm from New York, I'ma native New Yorker.
I went to school in the Midwestand I've traveled pretty much
all over the world.
But you know, starting a familyback in the day I wanted to
make sure that I had some sortof a real career and I wound up
(01:41):
going to Mars Group, eminem Mars.
Back in the 80s, when the firstcomputer, the first PC, was
introduced, I saw the guy.
This guy named Ken.
He was from Iran.
He's walking through the officeof about 100 people with this
box in his hand.
Right what?
Jim Hertzfeld (01:58):
is that.
Bradie Speller (01:59):
And I see the box and I was like I walk up to
him and I say, hey, what's thatyou got in there?
You know it looks prettyinteresting.
He said, oh, you don't knowabout that, it's an IBM PC.
I said I shall know about it.
Okay, and sure enough, you knowhe taught me everything I was
to know about it, and I wouldstay up at night and take it
apart and put it back togetheragain Next thing I know, the PCs
(02:20):
, you know, went from onecomputer on one guy's desk to
computers on just abouteverybody's desk.
But the problem was peopledidn't have any training in how
to use it, and so I took it uponmyself to stay up at night.
When I had two small kids, I'dbe at the office until 1, 2
o'clock in the morning takingthis thing apart, putting it
back together again,understanding DOS, understanding
(02:42):
a similar language.
And then they said you know Iget promoted to start teaching
everybody in the company how touse PCs.
And then later on Macs camealong, because people didn't
like PC, they wanted a Mac.
Jim Hertzfeld (02:53):
Right right.
Bradie Speller (02:55):
So yeah, that's how my career got started in the
technology world and it's beena lot of fun.
I can tell you a whole lot ofstories about that stuff.
Jim Hertzfeld (03:03):
I remember some of those days myself and yeah,
there was something about thatera.
You know, like you said, it'stangible, you unboxed it, you
could take it apart, like nownothing comes apart, right, the
phone's locked up, the laptop'slocked up, if it goes bad, you
get a new one, right.
So you know there was a lot ofand you know the tinkering.
(03:26):
Of course there's nothing likehands-on learning, let's be
honest.
But you know that's not noteverybody can do that.
But you know, we were kind ofgetting prepped for this.
Brady, you had a great questionyou posed, kind of in line with
the show here what if you didn'tneed people to make the
technology work?
So you were telling that story.
I was imagining what if we putall these computers on every
(03:46):
desk and then we didn't need tohire the people to come in and
do the work anymore?
You know, I think we still havethis pipe dream, right?
So the answer is like well, youcan't do that.
So you've had this focus ontraining and which I think is
really what I callorganizational development and
some might call it, you know,change management.
You know it's like so somebodygets an idea and they spend all
(04:08):
this money and the computersshow up and the software shows
up, but something has to make itcome together.
I mean that's kind of been yourworld right.
Like what does that mean to you?
Yeah, yeah.
Bradie Speller (04:19):
So I'll take you back a little bit further, jim,
into that, into a roundaboutway of answering that question,
because I think it's importantto understand the context of the
answer.
Okay, at Mars I was and thiswas in the mid-80s mentally
pretty much out of college firstbig job.
I had stayed there for about 10years and what wound up
happening is I learned the PCswell enough and started teaching
(04:41):
everybody WordPerfect, lotus 1,2, 3.
Okay, and then there was someother, a couple other programs,
remember.
That goes all the way backright To the beginning and the
fact that people were stillusing their companies, were
still using big mainframecomputers, but the power of
computing was not where it istoday.
(05:03):
But what was beginning to happenwas this transition from this
big air-conditioned room withthe false floors of all this
supercomputing going on withpunch cards and all that kind of
stuff was now beingtransitioned into the hands of
the everyday person who knew howto use the computer.
So my teaching everybody atMars how to use it, and then the
(05:23):
company basically saying, ok,well, if you're going to get
promoted into the.
Then the company basicallysaying, okay, well, if you're
going to get promoted into theIT group, you need to learn
Fortran, pascal and some otherlanguage.
I was like you don't need thatguys, that's not where things
are going.
It's going in a completelydifferent direction and I wound
up leaving that company in 89.
But what wound up happening is Igot picked up by a couple of
(05:43):
buddies of mine who were atMotown Records after Barry Gordy
sold Motown.
Barry Gordy sold Motown Recordsfor, I think, $60 and $61
million.
The MCA Records and AustinVentures Group and my two
buddies were there and they werelike OK, we need computers in
this place and there's only oneguy in Los Angeles that we know
(06:05):
that knows how to do this stuff.
So I get a phone call Nextthing I know I'm at Motown
Records.
We're buying Apple computersfor everybody in the company,
from the president on down right.
The key is you can put acomputer on somebody's desk, but
if you don't train them how touse it and if you don't teach
them the benefits and theblessings that they can get from
(06:27):
the utilization of thetechnology, what you're winding
up doing is you're saying, yeah,we've got all this great
technology, but nobody knows howto use it.
Nobody really knows how to getout of it.
What's possible, what thepossibilities?
Jim Hertzfeld (06:40):
are.
Bradie Speller (06:41):
So at the end of the day, you can buy the
greatest technology.
You can put SAP in, you can puta workday, you can put it in
Oracle cloud, you can put it,you can implement any of the top
big box technology softwaresolutions out there to run your
business.
But it's the people who run thebusiness and without that
(07:03):
connectivity between your peopleand your technologies, on the
social and the technical aspectsof it, there we go.
Okay, now we're going to talkabout social technical systems.
Back in the day, when I wascoming through that's what I
learned about social technicalsystems from a consultant guy by
the name of Robert DeFilippis.
He had a company called RTD outof Chicago.
(07:25):
Anyway, he took me under hiswing and taught me pretty much
everything I know aboutorganizational development.
But the first thing I gotintroduced to was this term
called social technical systems,and the theory is basically
it's an approach to complexorganizational work design that
recognizes the interactionbetween people and technology in
(07:45):
the workplace.
So it's interrelated the socialand the technical aspects of an
organization.
They're interrelated, they'renot part and parcel separate,
and so that term actually isrelated to how human beings and
human relations interact withtechnical objects.
How do you go about the processin a large, complex
(08:06):
organization with many differentbusiness processes?
Get that stuff to harmonize, towork together so that you can
move the company forward inwhatever direction you want to
go in, whether it's market share, whether it's revenue, whether
it's just improving yourbusiness processes, becoming
more efficient, et cetera.
So that's how I got started innow what's called organizational
(08:28):
development, and then itmorphed into change management.
Jim Hertzfeld (08:32):
Okay, so that's the lineage.
That's the lineage.
Bradie Speller (08:35):
That's the history.
Jim Hertzfeld (08:36):
Yeah, and you saw it from the beginning?
Sure did, and I'm trying to putin a Motown song reference.
That's just escaping me at themoment, but I'm trying.
Bradie Speller (08:46):
The tears of a clown.
Jim Hertzfeld (08:48):
That's what I was doing, but it didn't seem
appropriate.
Alright, here's the clown.
Okay, the clown, in this caseBrady, is the guy who thinks
they can just it's alltechnology, right?
Those whose tears we're talkingabout, we all see this.
We all know, like when, when ateam is working together, you
just know it right, things click, we finish each other's
(09:09):
sentences, you know, youanticipate three, four moves
ahead of time, and that's to methat's, that's Nirvana.
I love seeing that.
There's moments I have with myteam or I see with project teams
, when it all just kind ofclicks.
But I think there's still thatconcept out there.
We're going to buy technologyand it's technology is the
answer, like why you know againthe tears of that clown, like
(09:30):
why do you know?
That's just?
Why are people enamored bytechnology, the technology as
much as they are?
Because I think sometimes thechange management element is
forgotten, right?
Bradie Speller (09:41):
No question about it, and, jen, throughout
the course of my career, it hasbeen what I would call truly a
pushing a boulder up a hill by aslough, Unless you're in a
really enlightened organizationthat understands the value of
providing your people with thesupport, with the intellect,
(10:03):
with the tools and with theresources that they need to be
able to understand theapplication of this technology
and then be able to utilize itfor what it was originally
intended for.
So let me give you an exampleMost companies that are going to
spend $100 million which is thetypical price tag on big box
(10:25):
implementation over the courseof two years, they're more
focused on the data, which theyneed to be.
You know you got to have cleandata.
They're more focused on thetools and what the tools can do,
the possibility of the toolsitself and the original business
case.
When they developed thebusiness case at the executive
(10:45):
leadership level or with thelayer underneath that, which are
the guys or girls that areresponsible for the business
units, they typically want tosee things work better in their
division, for a lot of reasons.
Number one it's their job.
Number two they want to seethings work better in their
division for a lot of reasons.
Number one it's their job.
Number two they want to reducecost Number three.
They want to increaseproductivity Exactly, and in
some cases, you know, reducingcosts might mean reducing hits,
(11:09):
right.
So, there's a vision on that.
Well, the ability or thepropensity that's the word I
want to use propensity forgetting enamored with the
technology happens to be just athing.
It's like a shiny object.
People have a tendency to movetowards the shiny object and
that shiny object becomes theobject of desire.
(11:31):
This is what we want.
This is what we want.
We're the soul of the fact thatthis technology will help us
save $3 billion in the next fiveyears.
Great business case.
Got it, no problem.
The problem is people who havebeen doing a job for any number
of years and the most longerterm, companies that have been
(11:54):
around 30, 40, 50, 60 years.
The people are entrenched in theway that they do things,
especially if the technologyhasn't kept up.
If you haven't kept up, andtypically when you introduce
change within an organization,people will normally resist
because you haven't explained tothem why it's important to
change.
Why are we doing this?
Why are you doing this to us ismore.
(12:15):
That's really what they'resaying to you.
They're not saying why are youdoing this to us is more.
That's really what they'resaying to you.
They're not saying why are youdoing this.
They're saying why are youdoing this to us Okay.
So unless companies that areenlightened, or the management
team or the leadership teams areenlightened around the fact
that your people are yourgreatest asset, don't just give
me the lip service.
You can do lip service all daylong, okay, but all day long lip
(12:38):
service does not a problemsolved.
Get your people who do the workcan tell you better than
anybody else on the planet, andbetter than even AI, what the
problem is.
Jim Hertzfeld (12:51):
Yeah, I thought we were going to go as the kind
of what's in it for me.
But that question, like whatare you doing to me?
Why?
Why are you doing this to me?
I I've never heard it.
I've never heard it put thatway, and it's reveals a lot to
me.
You know, I mean I think we'veall, many of us but we've been
in the room where you.
There's an announcement, you'rein a meeting, you're out on the
(13:11):
full shop floor wherever, andyou got that.
Look, that's what they'resaying.
They're now looking at you.
But that's a big reveal, brady,that is really powerful.
Like, why are you doing this tome?
Bradie Speller (13:22):
Why are you doing this to me?
Why are you doing this to us?
Jim Hertzfeld (13:25):
Okay, that's what you got to get around.
That's maybe part of theessence of change is like you
got to address that.
That concern may be out thereand I don't mean to steal what
you're going to say, but I thinkwhat you're saying is you've
got to get in front of that,right.
Bradie Speller (13:37):
You've got to anticipate that you better
anticipate it.
As a matter of fact, before youever announce a major change
initiative, you need to surveyyour people.
You need to talk to them andengage them in the process early
on.
This is what we mean bystakeholder engagement around
change management.
Stakeholder engagement does notcome after you've decided
you're going to spend $100million and you're going to do
(13:58):
change to the organization.
Yeah, stakeholder engagementmeans that, hey, joey, mary, sue
, bob, fred, call me to ameeting here.
This is what the company isthinking about.
Okay, here's what we're lookingat.
Here's the problems that youguys have seen for years.
Let's document what you see andthen let's talk about it and
(14:22):
figure out what is the best wayto be able to solve that problem
.
Do you know of any tools ortechnologies that we may be able
to look at as we're thinkingabout how do we get better at
what we do?
Because in that way, then, whatyou're doing is you're giving
them the ownership of it.
Okay, and so, like you'reanswering the question with them
what's in it for me?
So, instead of them saying whyare you doing this to me, you're
(14:44):
saying this is what's in it foryou, but I need you to tell me
what you need.
If companies would just spendthe time on the front end
instead of sitting in asmoke-filled ivory tower
figuring out how well they canspend $ hundred million dollars
of the company money because wesee the market conditions
changing and we don't know.
We just got to have this newshiny object.
(15:05):
Talk to your freaking people.
Jim Hertzfeld (15:09):
It's a cornerstone of empathy.
That's something we talk abouta lot about, brady.
Like you need empathy with yourcustomers and you need it with
your employees, right, you needit with your teams, you need it
with your partners.
Like, empathy with yourcustomers and you need it with
your employees, right, you needit with your teams, you need it
with your partners.
Like you know, there's thismovie I like called up in the
air.
I think we meet, you know, andand.
Bradie Speller (15:25):
I think we mentioned it to me.
I looked it up, I've got it.
Jim Hertzfeld (15:27):
Yeah, I think we talked about that and that's
that's kind of like they were.
They have to go out and youGemba, that's where you got to
go.
You got to go to the Gemba andthe Gemba is like where the real
work happens.
Right, that's on my mind a lot.
So, yeah, another great empathystory, but great questions.
(15:50):
So I get yeah, they getenamored.
I, you know the how fast can wespend this money?
Or how much can we spend?
That's not hard to do, but howdo you get the most most out of
it?
What do you?
What do you think you know,when you you've you've been in
these situations with executivesor with project sponsors, or
maybe you've been at the otherend of that look on that guy's.
You know the the what are you?
(16:11):
Why are you doing this to mesituation?
I mean what, what have you seenthat works?
Like, how do I mean, aside fromyou know, maybe taking some
really key steps here, but likethere may be more to it, right,
because I imagine you've got todo a lot of convincing what do
you think are some things thatreally work for organizations
that buy into what you're saying, right, and they want to do the
(16:32):
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 Speller (16:41):
Jim, what I've seen over the years.
It goes a little something likethis when people, the water
cooler is where the action is.
The water cooler could be thecafeteria, it could be the bar
at the end of the day for happyhour.
It could be any one of thoseplaces.
Jim Hertzfeld (16:58):
Now it's in Snapchat.
Bradie Speller (16:59):
by the way, it's in Right, yeah, it could be a
Snapchat too, you know, or itcould be online and social media
.
It's like they don't know whatthe heck they're doing.
What I will say is, I thinkthat organizations downplay
number one the fact that theanswer lies within your people.
(17:20):
It doesn't lie within thetechnology and or the consulting
company that your systemsintegrate.
Okay, and they have theexpertise to help you implement
it.
But what really we should betalking about is how do we
engage our people, how do wemake sure that they are
communicated with and how do wemake sure that we're providing
(17:42):
them with the skills, theknowledge and the abilities to
be able to handle the future ofthe work that's coming down the
pipe Knowledge, skills andabilities.
So ProSci talks about.
Prosci is one of the researchcompanies around change
management.
Their methodology talks moreabout ad code.
You call it ad code, which ismaking sure that people are
(18:02):
aware of whatever change andthen creating the desire for
change.
So how do you create the desirefor change?
You talk to people about howmuch better, or how much you
think it can be better for themby doing their jobs in a
different way, new ways ofworking okay, by allowing them
to take the power and makingsomething, making things so hard
(18:25):
, and make it a little biteasier so that they can spend
time on things that are realproblems within the organization
, instead of being focused onthe day-to-day grind of you know
, I just keep dealing with thesame problem year after year
after year after year, right,and then?
So the K part of that formulahas to do with knowledge.
Okay, providing people with theknowledge and the abilities.
(18:48):
That's the A's.
So knowledge and then abilities, and then making sure that it's
sustainable, or you're makingsure that you've got people,
which you train them, youcommunicate with them and you
provide them the platform thatthey're engaged and involved in.
That change is being done withthem and not to them.
You really wind up with a muchbetter scenario in terms of how
(19:12):
management can really reap thebenefits of their people being
engaged in these projects sothey can overcome those
challenges by simply making surethat your new project teams are
being formed, because, simply,you can't involve everybody,
because then you get into a roomof 100 people who's death by
consensus.
It's not going to be the case,right, right, my approach has
(19:35):
always been small groups, focusgroups, allowing people the
opportunity to vent.
Number one, okay, yeah.
Then we change the way.
Let them listen, yeah, andlisten, because the people who
you think are going to be thebiggest resistors are probably
the people with the mostknowledge, and they may be.
What may appear to beresistance is really more of.
(19:56):
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 iteasier for you.
But typically, what topmanagement does?
We're the geniuses in the room,we're the smartest persons in
the room, and our way is goingto be the highway, and if you
(20:16):
don't like the highway, goanother highway.
That's not a solution, man.
That's not a solution, you know.
And as the human, though, youuse the word empathy, which I
think is absolutely critical.
The empathetic part of changemanagement really has to do with
engaging your people, listening, feeding back, giving them the
(20:37):
vision.
If you don't have a vision,don't talk to them, wait till
you get a clear vision, or letthem help shape the vision.
So the CEO and the C-suite aresupposed to have the vision for
the company what direction theywant to go in, and how do you
get people all into the boat orrow together instead of
everybody looking out forthemselves.
That's a big deal.
Jim Hertzfeld (20:58):
Man, that's a lot .
I mean, you gave me some thingsI never heard of and I'm
sitting here thinking, I don'tknow, I have probably five or
six internal projects going onright now and I kind of want to
put them all on pause until Iget through this checklist.
I'm serious, this is good.
I'm trying to check myself herebefore I go off the rails.
(21:19):
This is great.
This is great advice, Brady,and you earned it.
You've been there.
You've seen what's worked andwhat hasn't worked.
Bradie Speller (21:26):
Yeah, jim, it's been a tough road to hoe, but
it's been a rewarding onebecause I was in on this thing.
Really it's just pretty muchthe very beginning.
Yeah, okay, and I saw it backin the 80s and the funny thing
about it, and just a caveat Iwas working on my master's
degree.
I finished it in 87, but mymaster's degree was done on the
(21:49):
case study of the change intransformation Africa we were
doing at Mars at that time.
If you go into the archivessomewhere online there you'll
see a thing called a case studyin organizational development
and plan change by Brady Speller, and it was on CalCAN foods.
Jim Hertzfeld (22:09):
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 thinkabout.
I'm also thinking you know thatthere's your everyday change,
how you.
There's so many applicationsfor this right In the business
world.
Everyday change I've got to getmy team to change.
I've got a big project.
I've got a large digitaltransformation.
(22:31):
I've got just a small release,so I've got one feature that's
going to get out there andchange the world.
But I'm thinking about how doyou work?
How do you use this in yourschool?
How do you work this, use thisin 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'sall about people.
At the end of the day, peoplehave to relate to each other.
People have to make it happen.
(22:53):
So, brady, speaking of changes,we're going to end it.
We're going to end it here.
I think this is just thebeginning.
Really appreciate you coming on.
This is great advice.
I've been really excited tohear this because I know you've
got years, years of wisdom upthere, so I really appreciate
you sharing with us today.
Bradie Speller (23:15):
Jim, I want to thank you and the folks at
Proficient for the opportunityto be able to speak on this
particular subject.
Jim Hertzfeld (23:18):
It's a passion of mine for sure.
Bradie Speller (23:19):
I love other things that I've got going on in
my life, but this has been it'sbeen almost like a mission for
me to be sure that we understandwhat change management is all
about.
And it's not just a word, ittruly is a method, and it's a
method where people can reallygrow and really develop and stay
relevant in their jobs,particularly with the advent of
(23:42):
everything that's changing atthe pace that's changing today.
So definitely make sure you'rebringing people along.
Jim Hertzfeld (23:48):
All right changing today, so definitely
make sure you're bringing peoplealong, all right.
Well, thanks a lot, brady, youbet.
Thanks, jim, you have a goodone you too.
You've been listening to what,if so what?
A digital strategy podcast fromProficient with Jim Hertzfeld.
We want to thank our Proficientcolleagues JD Norman and Rick
Bauer for our music.
Subscribe to the podcast anddon't miss a single episode.
(24:09):
You can find this season, alongwith show notes, at
proficientcom.
Thanks for listening.
Organizations downplay number one the fact
that the answer lies within yourpeople.
It doesn't lie within thetechnology and or the consulting
company that should systemsintegrate.
They have the expertise to helpyou implement it.
But what really we should betalking about is how do we
engage our people, how do wemake sure that they are
(00:27):
communicated with and how do wemake sure that we're providing
them with the skills, theknowledge and the ability to be
able to handle the future of thework that's coming down the
pipe.
Jim Hertzfeld (00:37):
Welcome to what If so what, the podcast where we
explore what's possible withdigital and discover how to make
it real in your business.
I'm your host, jim Hertzfeld,and we get shit done by asking
digital leaders the rightquestions what, if so what?
And, most importantly now, what?
All right with me today isBrady Speller, who introduced me
to the term socio-technicalsystems, and he's going to let
(01:00):
us all know what that means.
Today I'm having a little funwith you, brady, but this is a
man who's a witness to what Icall the dawn of digital, and
he's moved everything fromrecords to laptops to trucks.
But I'm going to let him tellus about it.
Brady, welcome to the podcast.
In your own words, give us alittle background on yourself.
Bradie Speller (01:18):
Right.
Hey, jim, thanks for having metoday.
I really do appreciate you andthe folks that are proficient
for doing this.
Just a quick thumbnailbackground on me.
I mean, I'm from New York, I'ma native New Yorker.
I went to school in the Midwestand I've traveled pretty much
all over the world.
But you know, starting a familyback in the day I wanted to
make sure that I had some sortof a real career and I wound up
(01:41):
going to Mars Group, eminem Mars.
Back in the 80s, when the firstcomputer, the first PC, was
introduced, I saw the guy.
This guy named Ken.
He was from Iran.
He's walking through the officeof about 100 people with this
box in his hand.
Right what?
Jim Hertzfeld (01:58):
is that.
Bradie Speller (01:59):
And I see the box and I was like I walk up to
him and I say, hey, what's thatyou got in there?
You know it looks prettyinteresting.
He said, oh, you don't knowabout that, it's an IBM PC.
I said I shall know about it.
Okay, and sure enough, you knowhe taught me everything I was
to know about it, and I wouldstay up at night and take it
apart and put it back togetheragain Next thing I know, the PCs
(02:20):
, you know, went from onecomputer on one guy's desk to
computers on just abouteverybody's desk.
But the problem was peopledidn't have any training in how
to use it, and so I took it uponmyself to stay up at night.
When I had two small kids, I'dbe at the office until 1, 2
o'clock in the morning takingthis thing apart, putting it
back together again,understanding DOS, understanding
(02:42):
a similar language.
And then they said you know Iget promoted to start teaching
everybody in the company how touse PCs.
And then later on Macs camealong, because people didn't
like PC, they wanted a Mac.
Jim Hertzfeld (02:53):
Right right.
Bradie Speller (02:55):
So yeah, that's how my career got started in the
technology world and it's beena lot of fun.
I can tell you a whole lot ofstories about that stuff.
Jim Hertzfeld (03:03):
I remember some of those days myself and yeah,
there was something about thatera.
You know, like you said, it'stangible, you unboxed it, you
could take it apart, like nownothing comes apart, right, the
phone's locked up, the laptop'slocked up, if it goes bad, you
get a new one, right.
So you know there was a lot ofand you know the tinkering.
(03:26):
Of course there's nothing likehands-on learning, let's be
honest.
But you know that's not noteverybody can do that.
But you know, we were kind ofgetting prepped for this.
Brady, you had a great questionyou posed, kind of in line with
the show here what if you didn'tneed people to make the
technology work?
So you were telling that story.
I was imagining what if we putall these computers on every
(03:46):
desk and then we didn't need tohire the people to come in and
do the work anymore?
You know, I think we still havethis pipe dream, right?
So the answer is like well, youcan't do that.
So you've had this focus ontraining and which I think is
really what I callorganizational development and
some might call it, you know,change management.
You know it's like so somebodygets an idea and they spend all
(04:08):
this money and the computersshow up and the software shows
up, but something has to make itcome together.
I mean that's kind of been yourworld right.
Like what does that mean to you?
Yeah, yeah.
Bradie Speller (04:19):
So I'll take you back a little bit further, jim,
into that, into a roundaboutway of answering that question,
because I think it's importantto understand the context of the
answer.
Okay, at Mars I was and thiswas in the mid-80s mentally
pretty much out of college firstbig job.
I had stayed there for about 10years and what wound up
happening is I learned the PCswell enough and started teaching
(04:41):
everybody WordPerfect, lotus 1,2, 3.
Okay, and then there was someother, a couple other programs,
remember.
That goes all the way backright To the beginning and the
fact that people were stillusing their companies, were
still using big mainframecomputers, but the power of
computing was not where it istoday.
(05:03):
But what was beginning to happenwas this transition from this
big air-conditioned room withthe false floors of all this
supercomputing going on withpunch cards and all that kind of
stuff was now beingtransitioned into the hands of
the everyday person who knew howto use the computer.
So my teaching everybody atMars how to use it, and then the
(05:23):
company basically saying, ok,well, if you're going to get
promoted into the.
Then the company basicallysaying, okay, well, if you're
going to get promoted into theIT group, you need to learn
Fortran, pascal and some otherlanguage.
I was like you don't need thatguys, that's not where things
are going.
It's going in a completelydifferent direction and I wound
up leaving that company in 89.
But what wound up happening is Igot picked up by a couple of
(05:43):
buddies of mine who were atMotown Records after Barry Gordy
sold Motown.
Barry Gordy sold Motown Recordsfor, I think, $60 and $61
million.
The MCA Records and AustinVentures Group and my two
buddies were there and they werelike OK, we need computers in
this place and there's only oneguy in Los Angeles that we know
(06:05):
that knows how to do this stuff.
So I get a phone call Nextthing I know I'm at Motown
Records.
We're buying Apple computersfor everybody in the company,
from the president on down right.
The key is you can put acomputer on somebody's desk, but
if you don't train them how touse it and if you don't teach
them the benefits and theblessings that they can get from
(06:27):
the utilization of thetechnology, what you're winding
up doing is you're saying, yeah,we've got all this great
technology, but nobody knows howto use it.
Nobody really knows how to getout of it.
What's possible, what thepossibilities?
Jim Hertzfeld (06:40):
are.
Bradie Speller (06:41):
So at the end of the day, you can buy the
greatest technology.
You can put SAP in, you can puta workday, you can put it in
Oracle cloud, you can put it,you can implement any of the top
big box technology softwaresolutions out there to run your
business.
But it's the people who run thebusiness and without that
(07:03):
connectivity between your peopleand your technologies, on the
social and the technical aspectsof it, there we go.
Okay, now we're going to talkabout social technical systems.
Back in the day, when I wascoming through that's what I
learned about social technicalsystems from a consultant guy by
the name of Robert DeFilippis.
He had a company called RTD outof Chicago.
(07:25):
Anyway, he took me under hiswing and taught me pretty much
everything I know aboutorganizational development.
But the first thing I gotintroduced to was this term
called social technical systems,and the theory is basically
it's an approach to complexorganizational work design that
recognizes the interactionbetween people and technology in
(07:45):
the workplace.
So it's interrelated the socialand the technical aspects of an
organization.
They're interrelated, they'renot part and parcel separate,
and so that term actually isrelated to how human beings and
human relations interact withtechnical objects.
How do you go about the processin a large, complex
(08:06):
organization with many differentbusiness processes?
Get that stuff to harmonize, towork together so that you can
move the company forward inwhatever direction you want to
go in, whether it's market share, whether it's revenue, whether
it's just improving yourbusiness processes, becoming
more efficient, et cetera.
So that's how I got started innow what's called organizational
(08:28):
development, and then itmorphed into change management.
Jim Hertzfeld (08:32):
Okay, so that's the lineage.
That's the lineage.
Bradie Speller (08:35):
That's the history.
Jim Hertzfeld (08:36):
Yeah, and you saw it from the beginning?
Sure did, and I'm trying to putin a Motown song reference.
That's just escaping me at themoment, but I'm trying.
Bradie Speller (08:46):
The tears of a clown.
Jim Hertzfeld (08:48):
That's what I was doing, but it didn't seem
appropriate.
Alright, here's the clown.
Okay, the clown, in this caseBrady, is the guy who thinks
they can just it's alltechnology, right?
Those whose tears we're talkingabout, we all see this.
We all know, like when, when ateam is working together, you
just know it right, things click, we finish each other's
(09:09):
sentences, you know, youanticipate three, four moves
ahead of time, and that's to methat's, that's Nirvana.
I love seeing that.
There's moments I have with myteam or I see with project teams
, when it all just kind ofclicks.
But I think there's still thatconcept out there.
We're going to buy technologyand it's technology is the
answer, like why you know againthe tears of that clown, like
(09:30):
why do you know?
That's just?
Why are people enamored bytechnology, the technology as
much as they are?
Because I think sometimes thechange management element is
forgotten, right?
Bradie Speller (09:41):
No question about it, and, jen, throughout
the course of my career, it hasbeen what I would call truly a
pushing a boulder up a hill by aslough, Unless you're in a
really enlightened organizationthat understands the value of
providing your people with thesupport, with the intellect,
(10:03):
with the tools and with theresources that they need to be
able to understand theapplication of this technology
and then be able to utilize itfor what it was originally
intended for.
So let me give you an exampleMost companies that are going to
spend $100 million which is thetypical price tag on big box
(10:25):
implementation over the courseof two years, they're more
focused on the data, which theyneed to be.
You know you got to have cleandata.
They're more focused on thetools and what the tools can do,
the possibility of the toolsitself and the original business
case.
When they developed thebusiness case at the executive
(10:45):
leadership level or with thelayer underneath that, which are
the guys or girls that areresponsible for the business
units, they typically want tosee things work better in their
division, for a lot of reasons.
Number one it's their job.
Number two they want to seethings work better in their
division for a lot of reasons.
Number one it's their job.
Number two they want to reducecost Number three.
They want to increaseproductivity Exactly, and in
some cases, you know, reducingcosts might mean reducing hits,
(11:09):
right.
So, there's a vision on that.
Well, the ability or thepropensity that's the word I
want to use propensity forgetting enamored with the
technology happens to be just athing.
It's like a shiny object.
People have a tendency to movetowards the shiny object and
that shiny object becomes theobject of desire.
(11:31):
This is what we want.
This is what we want.
We're the soul of the fact thatthis technology will help us
save $3 billion in the next fiveyears.
Great business case.
Got it, no problem.
The problem is people who havebeen doing a job for any number
of years and the most longerterm, companies that have been
(11:54):
around 30, 40, 50, 60 years.
The people are entrenched in theway that they do things,
especially if the technologyhasn't kept up.
If you haven't kept up, andtypically when you introduce
change within an organization,people will normally resist
because you haven't explained tothem why it's important to
change.
Why are we doing this?
Why are you doing this to us ismore.
(12:15):
That's really what they'resaying to you.
They're not saying why are youdoing this to us is more.
That's really what they'resaying to you.
They're not saying why are youdoing this.
They're saying why are youdoing this to us Okay.
So unless companies that areenlightened, or the management
team or the leadership teams areenlightened around the fact
that your people are yourgreatest asset, don't just give
me the lip service.
You can do lip service all daylong, okay, but all day long lip
(12:38):
service does not a problemsolved.
Get your people who do the workcan tell you better than
anybody else on the planet, andbetter than even AI, what the
problem is.
Jim Hertzfeld (12:51):
Yeah, I thought we were going to go as the kind
of what's in it for me.
But that question, like whatare you doing to me?
Why?
Why are you doing this to me?
I I've never heard it.
I've never heard it put thatway, and it's reveals a lot to
me.
You know, I mean I think we'veall, many of us but we've been
in the room where you.
There's an announcement, you'rein a meeting, you're out on the
(13:11):
full shop floor wherever, andyou got that.
Look, that's what they'resaying.
They're now looking at you.
But that's a big reveal, brady,that is really powerful.
Like, why are you doing this tome?
Bradie Speller (13:22):
Why are you doing this to me?
Why are you doing this to us?
Jim Hertzfeld (13:25):
Okay, that's what you got to get around.
That's maybe part of theessence of change is like you
got to address that.
That concern may be out thereand I don't mean to steal what
you're going to say, but I thinkwhat you're saying is you've
got to get in front of that,right.
Bradie Speller (13:37):
You've got to anticipate that you better
anticipate it.
As a matter of fact, before youever announce a major change
initiative, you need to surveyyour people.
You need to talk to them andengage them in the process early
on.
This is what we mean bystakeholder engagement around
change management.
Stakeholder engagement does notcome after you've decided
you're going to spend $100million and you're going to do
(13:58):
change to the organization.
Yeah, stakeholder engagementmeans that, hey, joey, mary, sue
, bob, fred, call me to ameeting here.
This is what the company isthinking about.
Okay, here's what we're lookingat.
Here's the problems that youguys have seen for years.
Let's document what you see andthen let's talk about it and
(14:22):
figure out what is the best wayto be able to solve that problem
.
Do you know of any tools ortechnologies that we may be able
to look at as we're thinkingabout how do we get better at
what we do?
Because in that way, then, whatyou're doing is you're giving
them the ownership of it.
Okay, and so, like you'reanswering the question with them
what's in it for me?
So, instead of them saying whyare you doing this to me, you're
(14:44):
saying this is what's in it foryou, but I need you to tell me
what you need.
If companies would just spendthe time on the front end
instead of sitting in asmoke-filled ivory tower
figuring out how well they canspend $ hundred million dollars
of the company money because wesee the market conditions
changing and we don't know.
We just got to have this newshiny object.
(15:05):
Talk to your freaking people.
Jim Hertzfeld (15:09):
It's a cornerstone of empathy.
That's something we talk abouta lot about, brady.
Like you need empathy with yourcustomers and you need it with
your employees, right, you needit with your teams, you need it
with your partners.
Like, empathy with yourcustomers and you need it with
your employees, right, you needit with your teams, you need it
with your partners.
Like you know, there's thismovie I like called up in the
air.
I think we meet, you know, andand.
Bradie Speller (15:25):
I think we mentioned it to me.
I looked it up, I've got it.
Jim Hertzfeld (15:27):
Yeah, I think we talked about that and that's
that's kind of like they were.
They have to go out and youGemba, that's where you got to
go.
You got to go to the Gemba andthe Gemba is like where the real
work happens.
Right, that's on my mind a lot.
So, yeah, another great empathystory, but great questions.
(15:50):
So I get yeah, they getenamored.
I, you know the how fast can wespend this money?
Or how much can we spend?
That's not hard to do, but howdo you get the most most out of
it?
What do you?
What do you think you know,when you you've you've been in
these situations with executivesor with project sponsors, or
maybe you've been at the otherend of that look on that guy's.
You know the the what are you?
(16:11):
Why are you doing this to mesituation?
I mean what, what have you seenthat works?
Like, how do I mean, aside fromyou know, maybe taking some
really key steps here, but likethere may be more to it, right,
because I imagine you've got todo a lot of convincing what do
you think are some things thatreally work for organizations
that buy into what you're saying, right, and they want to do the
(16:32):
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 Speller (16:41):
Jim, what I've seen over the years.
It goes a little something likethis when people, the water
cooler is where the action is.
The water cooler could be thecafeteria, it could be the bar
at the end of the day for happyhour.
It could be any one of thoseplaces.
Jim Hertzfeld (16:58):
Now it's in Snapchat.
Bradie Speller (16:59):
by the way, it's in Right, yeah, it could be a
Snapchat too, you know, or itcould be online and social media
.
It's like they don't know whatthe heck they're doing.
What I will say is, I thinkthat organizations downplay
number one the fact that theanswer lies within your people.
(17:20):
It doesn't lie within thetechnology and or the consulting
company that your systemsintegrate.
Okay, and they have theexpertise to help you implement
it.
But what really we should betalking about is how do we
engage our people, how do wemake sure that they are
communicated with and how do wemake sure that we're providing
(17:42):
them with the skills, theknowledge and the abilities to
be able to handle the future ofthe work that's coming down the
pipe Knowledge, skills andabilities.
So ProSci talks about.
Prosci is one of the researchcompanies around change
management.
Their methodology talks moreabout ad code.
You call it ad code, which ismaking sure that people are
(18:02):
aware of whatever change andthen creating the desire for
change.
So how do you create the desirefor change?
You talk to people about howmuch better, or how much you
think it can be better for themby doing their jobs in a
different way, new ways ofworking okay, by allowing them
to take the power and makingsomething, making things so hard
(18:25):
, and make it a little biteasier so that they can spend
time on things that are realproblems within the organization
, instead of being focused onthe day-to-day grind of you know
, I just keep dealing with thesame problem year after year
after year after year, right,and then?
So the K part of that formulahas to do with knowledge.
Okay, providing people with theknowledge and the abilities.
(18:48):
That's the A's.
So knowledge and then abilities, and then making sure that it's
sustainable, or you're makingsure that you've got people,
which you train them, youcommunicate with them and you
provide them the platform thatthey're engaged and involved in.
That change is being done withthem and not to them.
You really wind up with a muchbetter scenario in terms of how
(19:12):
management can really reap thebenefits of their people being
engaged in these projects sothey can overcome those
challenges by simply making surethat your new project teams are
being formed, because, simply,you can't involve everybody,
because then you get into a roomof 100 people who's death by
consensus.
It's not going to be the case,right, right, my approach has
(19:35):
always been small groups, focusgroups, allowing people the
opportunity to vent.
Number one, okay, yeah.
Then we change the way.
Let them listen, yeah, andlisten, because the people who
you think are going to be thebiggest resistors are probably
the people with the mostknowledge, and they may be.
What may appear to beresistance is really more of.
(19:56):
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 iteasier for you.
But typically, what topmanagement does?
We're the geniuses in the room,we're the smartest persons in
the room, and our way is goingto be the highway, and if you
(20:16):
don't like the highway, goanother highway.
That's not a solution, man.
That's not a solution, you know.
And as the human, though, youuse the word empathy, which I
think is absolutely critical.
The empathetic part of changemanagement really has to do with
engaging your people, listening, feeding back, giving them the
(20:37):
vision.
If you don't have a vision,don't talk to them, wait till
you get a clear vision, or letthem help shape the vision.
So the CEO and the C-suite aresupposed to have the vision for
the company what direction theywant to go in, and how do you
get people all into the boat orrow together instead of
everybody looking out forthemselves.
That's a big deal.
Jim Hertzfeld (20:58):
Man, that's a lot .
I mean, you gave me some thingsI never heard of and I'm
sitting here thinking, I don'tknow, I have probably five or
six internal projects going onright now and I kind of want to
put them all on pause until Iget through this checklist.
I'm serious, this is good.
I'm trying to check myself herebefore I go off the rails.
(21:19):
This is great.
This is great advice, Brady,and you earned it.
You've been there.
You've seen what's worked andwhat hasn't worked.
Bradie Speller (21:26):
Yeah, jim, it's been a tough road to hoe, but
it's been a rewarding onebecause I was in on this thing.
Really it's just pretty muchthe very beginning.
Yeah, okay, and I saw it backin the 80s and the funny thing
about it, and just a caveat Iwas working on my master's
degree.
I finished it in 87, but mymaster's degree was done on the
(21:49):
case study of the change intransformation Africa we were
doing at Mars at that time.
If you go into the archivessomewhere online there you'll
see a thing called a case studyin organizational development
and plan change by Brady Speller, and it was on CalCAN foods.
Jim Hertzfeld (22:09):
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 thinkabout.
I'm also thinking you know thatthere's your everyday change,
how you.
There's so many applicationsfor this right In the business
world.
Everyday change I've got to getmy team to change.
I've got a big project.
I've got a large digitaltransformation.
(22:31):
I've got just a small release,so I've got one feature that's
going to get out there andchange the world.
But I'm thinking about how doyou work?
How do you use this in yourschool?
How do you work this, use thisin 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'sall about people.
At the end of the day, peoplehave to relate to each other.
People have to make it happen.
(22:53):
So, brady, speaking of changes,we're going to end it.
We're going to end it here.
I think this is just thebeginning.
Really appreciate you coming on.
This is great advice.
I've been really excited tohear this because I know you've
got years, years of wisdom upthere, so I really appreciate
you sharing with us today.
Bradie Speller (23:15):
Jim, I want to thank you and the folks at
Proficient for the opportunityto be able to speak on this
particular subject.
Jim Hertzfeld (23:18):
It's a passion of mine for sure.
Bradie Speller (23:19):
I love other things that I've got going on in
my life, but this has been it'sbeen almost like a mission for
me to be sure that we understandwhat change management is all
about.
And it's not just a word, ittruly is a method, and it's a
method where people can reallygrow and really develop and stay
relevant in their jobs,particularly with the advent of
(23:42):
everything that's changing atthe pace that's changing today.
So definitely make sure you'rebringing people along.
Jim Hertzfeld (23:48):
All right changing today, so definitely
make sure you're bringing peoplealong, all right.
Well, thanks a lot, brady, youbet.
Thanks, jim, you have a goodone you too.
You've been listening to what,if so what?
A digital strategy podcast fromProficient with Jim Hertzfeld.
We want to thank our Proficientcolleagues JD Norman and Rick
Bauer for our music.
Subscribe to the podcast anddon't miss a single episode.
(24:09):
You can find this season, alongwith show notes, at
proficientcom.
Thanks for listening.
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