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Barbara Wittman: Lost in Transformation
26 Plays8 days ago
In this episode, Eric talks with Barbara Wittmann, founder of the Digital Wisdom Collective, about why digital transformation so often fails despite good intentions, smart leaders, and expensive technology.
Barbara argues that most change initiatives don’t collapse at the top or the bottom of organizations. They collapse in what she calls “the juicy middle” — the layer where strategy meets execution, where quiet experts carry institutional knowledge, and where complexity actually gets absorbed or resisted.
Drawing on more than 25 years in enterprise technology and transformation work, including time at SAP, Barbara explains why transformation is rarely a technology problem and almost always an orientation problem. Leaders add tools, frameworks, and methodologies, but fail to upgrade the human capacity for judgment, sense-making, and collective intelligence.
The conversation explores why consultants often surface knowledge that already exists inside organizations, why the most valuable contributors are frequently overlooked or burned out, and how change accelerates when leaders identify and empower the right people rather than rolling out one-size-fits-all programs.
Eric and Barbara also discuss trust, diversity, and community, drawing connections to Putnam’s research on social capital and to How We Talk Can Change the Way We Work. They examine why complaints often signal care rather than resistance, how reading the room is a critical leadership skill, and why transformation is better understood as evolution rather than a project.
This is a grounded, experience-driven conversation for leaders navigating digital change, AI adoption, and organizational complexity — especially those who sense that progress depends less on new tools and more on how people think and work together.
Topics Covered
- Why transformation fails in the “juicy middle” of organizations
- The difference between digital change and human evolution
- How quiet experts hold disproportionate influence and risk burning out
- Why consulting often reveals internal knowledge rather than replacing it
- Sense-making, judgment, and collective intelligence as leadership skills
- Complaints as signals of care, not just resistance
- Trust, diversity, and why belonging precedes collaboration
- Why methodology and tooling haven’t fixed transformation
- How leaders identify the coalition of the willing
- What AI reveals about human readiness rather than replacing it
Episode Links
- Barbara Wittmann and the Digital Wisdom Collective: https://www.digitalwisdomcollective.com
- Join Digital Wisdom Collective: https://digitalwisdomco.typeform.com/to/tJn0Hbsi
- Barbara’s Substack: https://digitalwisdomcollective.substack.com/
- Connect with Barbara on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barbarawittmann/
- Join Barbara’s waitlist: Link coming soon
- Robert Putnam’s research on trust in diverse communities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_D._Putnam
- How We Talk Can Change the Way We Work (Keegan & Lahey): https://www.amazon.com/How-Talk-Change-Work-Transformation/dp/B08BSY37HJ/
For more episodes: https://unfoldingthought.com
Questions or guest ideas: eric@inboundandagile.com
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Transcript
Introduction to Barbara and Her Work
00:00:02
Speaker
Barbara, thank you for joining me. Where does today's recording find you? I am in Loveland, Colorado, and I am just trying to get ahead of a very full inbox after um i started working again last week. um I took a little bit of a New Year's and Christmas break. um So, yeah, it's a sunny day, a little bit windy, but good to be here.
Digital Wisdom Collective and Leadership Training
00:00:29
Speaker
Would you mind telling me about yourself? I'm the founder of the Digital Wisdom Collective. um And what we do is we train leaders with what we call a new business sense. um That's essentially...
00:00:45
Speaker
being able to um to bring judgment to a very complex conversation these days and to align people and technology. And with that, we also go into companies and help them install a human infrastructure on top of the digital stack.
Journey from Germany to Accidental Technologist
00:01:05
Speaker
So that in a nutshell of what I do today, um I am born and raised in Germany, been living in the U.S. for 10 years, moved here for love.
00:01:18
Speaker
um And, you know, I would describe me as an accidental technologist and a recovering consultant, Because for over 25 years, I always went in when digital transformation projects failed.
00:01:34
Speaker
And it was never um a technology problem. It was always um ah people alignment problem or an orientation problem.
Misconceptions in Digital Transformation
00:01:44
Speaker
So I got tired of fixing the same thing over and over again and turned into actually enabling organizations and people to do it better.
00:01:53
Speaker
When you say a new business sense, are you referring to something around those digital transformations? Like, for example, a leader thinking that the solution is always the technology and maybe that the problem is always the people?
00:02:11
Speaker
That is one angle of it, um but that is a little bit too narrow because we also have to learn to play amongst the departments a slightly different way. We have to think more fluid um and really make the the the technology discussion a little bit bigger because fact of the matter is that technology is not a department anymore. It's
Complexity of Digital Transformations
00:02:36
Speaker
part of every company's DNA.
00:02:38
Speaker
So we have to organize accordingly around it, but also learn to um exercise judgment and what I would call sense-making. And that really is connecting the dots that are ever moving.
00:02:52
Speaker
and You, if I recall correctly, have fair amount of experience with, is it SAP? Yes. Yes, yes, a long, long time ago, you know, in ah in a faraway land, literally. ha i was ah I was hired by SAP and I was working for them for a little bit of time, ended up in their top innovation team, got to deal a little bit with Hasselbladner, have my name on some technology patents. So, yeah, I've i've seen the inside. Yeah.
00:03:28
Speaker
Okay. And so since it's been a while, then you probably have exposure to many different kinds of things. But I suppose in my head, when I saw SAP, I was thinking, you know, having some experience with yeah ERPs and even somewhat simpler technologies in some respects, like doing database conversions or CRM transitions or whatever else it is.
00:04:00
Speaker
I was
Leveraging Internal Organizational Knowledge
00:04:01
Speaker
thinking, okay, you've dealt with some really complex projects. things that almost never finish on time or on budget. And a lot of people end up unhappy. That's not to say that the client ends up unhappy with the software vendor or the implementation partner necessarily, but it's not unusual. And and in my experience, a lot of it is that these kinds of projects broadly are just very complex.
00:04:30
Speaker
And so when I saw SAP, I guess that was a broad stand-in in my mind for, oh, you have dealt with the most complex digital transformations. But you said it's been a while.
00:04:47
Speaker
So think coming back around to transformation and leaders business sense and how we work together, I i really want to do my best to understand what it is that you see and what and what you mean when you're talking about these things.
00:05:07
Speaker
In my time I've dealt with with many software um names. i I think it doesn't really matter what's on the box as an acronym because it always deals with the same issues. um It is connecting business functions. It ends up in a process.
00:05:24
Speaker
It has data as a backbone and somebody needs to use it and actually understand how to use it. um
Role of Consultants in Organizational Change
00:05:31
Speaker
So it is ah pretty universal thing.
00:05:35
Speaker
But um one thing that I repeatedly saw is that, you know, essentially the um the go-to for many companies is to hire a big consulting firm to bring in the experts. And then they are guiding along the people in the organization. But truth be told, every organization has many more people than they think that actually know a ton.
00:06:01
Speaker
And they may not be experts in the software, but they're experts in their business. So essentially, they are way ahead to the consultant. The consultant is just smart enough to come in and ask them the right questions, and then turns around and presents it it happy in happy PowerPoints.
00:06:19
Speaker
Do you think that a consultant in you know some sort of digital transformation... is more than likely doing their job or they're doing a better job when they figure out how to surface or unlock some of that knowledge in those people, as opposed to the stereotype that the consultant comes in and they have their five-step process and they just follow that without, I guess, asking any questions.
00:06:47
Speaker
They would. And there's, um you know, don't get me wrong, I don't want to stereotype. um There's many out there that do a great job at at doing that. um But we also have to rethink the function of a consultant a little bit.
00:07:01
Speaker
um And it's more of a ah person that comes in to question and surface
Empowering the 'Juicy Middle' for Change
00:07:07
Speaker
um and, you know, then actually works alongside the people in the organization.
00:07:14
Speaker
um So consulting still has its space, but I guess from what we have known it to be, where you know a whole armada of people is, or you know the bus stops in front of your um office and you know they all swarm in every day for about two years, that's not going to happen anymore.
00:07:36
Speaker
So the question to me is how do we empower the people that are actually, um you know, doing this, executing all these grand projects? And how do we give them the skills, not the technology skills, um but the skills to actually um stand up for themselves and surface what's important?
00:07:59
Speaker
um And that to me is the hidden gem.
00:08:05
Speaker
Because what I have seen in my time is that usually it's the most quiet ones in the room that really have a ton of information. They would not speak up in a group because they would be like, well, what do I have to say?
00:08:22
Speaker
i I'm not IT. And we have all these cool people here, right? Where does the work that you do then interface with what we're talking about? Essentially, what I found is transformation starts with one.
00:08:36
Speaker
So in order for your business transformation to be massively successful, the people driving it need to be transformed first.
00:08:49
Speaker
And that means that, you know, you look at what you believe about things to be true. What are the limiting beliefs that the people carrying the work on the organ in the organization, um you know, how could they hold them back potentially?
00:09:07
Speaker
So when I'm talking about digital wisdom as a new business sense, it essentially starts with with a house cleaning of um the transformers in the organization.
00:09:19
Speaker
um Because only when you're not biased about what you think or you know your insecurities, that's when you can be a good listener, good dot connector, sense maker, facilitator.
00:09:33
Speaker
When you say the transformers,
Importance and Impact of the 'Juicy Middle'
00:09:36
Speaker
yearre are you referring to someone that sparks or leads or, you know, is, they could be a a VP of innovation for all I know, or that maybe they're that a consultant that comes in and helps transformation? Or are you talking about a bigger group of people like some of these people that are quiet or have that knowledge that we're just traditionally not surfacing?
00:10:08
Speaker
It's hard to pinpoint it onto one function. um I generally empower um what I call the juicy middle of the organization because that's where the magic happens. um That's where strategy meets execution. And that's where usually the friction is.
00:10:23
Speaker
So that could be on a director level, that could be on a manager level. um It is the people that are in the trenches of transformation, that are in that in that power crunch of strategy and execution.
00:10:39
Speaker
And you're saying that, or I think it's implied then by what you're saying that if we are doing some kind of transformation, whether it's implementation of a new technology or my CEO has come along and said, it's going to be all AI. We're going to be AI first. or I don't know what.
00:10:59
Speaker
I think you're saying that if that transformation, if that effort is not going to succeed, a high likelihood is that it collapses or that it fails in that juicy middle.
00:11:14
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. And that juicy middle would would be able to tell you straight up, pretty much. you know If the CEO comes around and says, hey, tomorrow we're going to do all AI.
00:11:26
Speaker
um If you have that layer empowered um and if you have the top level sensitized, that they would listen to them. um They will tell you straight up that, hey, it's not going to be that easy.
00:11:39
Speaker
Let's sit down and think about it where it actually makes sense to start, for example. I think I understand Barbara, why the juicy middle would have an important role that or a clearly a different role from the leadership.
00:11:59
Speaker
But is there then a distinction between the juicy middle and the bottom or whatever we might call it? Or is there a different role for, is it entry level people or I don't know what to play?
00:12:13
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, the entry-level people, they are informed and, ah you know, inspired by the middle um and likewise. So if you are um empowering the middle, it would basically radiate out in both directions.
00:12:29
Speaker
Does that make sense? Yes. And I guess part of what you're saying is that the majority of people in an organization are in the middle. The majority are in the middle. And, you know, the the interesting piece is that exactly that middle is totally undervalued, mostly um also covered by, you know, what would fall into the millennial category. They are somewhat established in their job. You know, they have some experience under their belt, but they don't quite fall into the high potential category or, you know, into the, hey, you're the hotshot beginner anymore.
00:13:07
Speaker
So what they are getting is a standard communication training and a couple of standard things that are just getting rolled out. And um what that does is it just packs knowledge on top.
00:13:19
Speaker
But then no one shows you how to actually connect
Digital Wisdom Collective's Approach to Leadership
00:13:23
Speaker
things. You know, how do I use that in in ah practical terms? And on top of that, um you know, if you think about software analogies,
00:13:33
Speaker
We would never roll out a new version of the software without testing it. But we expect for people to go to a communication training and then be just happy and skip along and apply it.
00:13:49
Speaker
So what I'm offering them in the Digital Wisdom Collective is basically a test ground. And I put them together with other industry leaders, with other people in the same exact pickle. um It's also cross-hierarchy because, like I said, in some companies it's the director and some others it's um you know maybe the business analyst.
00:14:11
Speaker
And um they have a place where they can solve real issues together and where it can where they can make sense of the mess they are in together.
00:14:23
Speaker
um So essentially what I've established is a testing ground and a practice ground, and I give them the tools to go back into their organization and to apply it.
00:14:36
Speaker
Okay, so the
00:14:40
Speaker
value proposition or the elevator pitch, you know, the headline type statements, I guess, that might be given to a prospect of yours would be something like, let's say, Barbara, you go to a conference or a networking event.
00:15:03
Speaker
Somebody says, what do you do? At some point in that conversation, you're going to say something like, and please tell me if I'm wrong, you're going to say something like, have you tried to make change?
00:15:15
Speaker
like real substantial change, and it didn't work. Now, you probably know CEOs might very well tell themselves stories like, why do I have to do everything around here or ask themselves questions? Why is it that nobody thinks for themselves or doesn't take responsibility or whatever else? But have you, prospect, tried to make change?
00:15:37
Speaker
Well, ah from my perspective, you know, as Barbara, I'm telling you, that a very ah high likelihood is that you have not taken into consideration these things that we're talking about.
00:15:53
Speaker
Exactly. And I would lead with, have you ever had a technology project fail in your organization? And, you know, 90% out of the times it's like, oh yeah, that cost me a lot of money.
00:16:06
Speaker
Um, Yeah. And I mean, everything is linked to two technology. So what if you could make the the next project smoother with less consultant dependency?
00:16:19
Speaker
You know, what if you had innovation capability in-house rather than go outside for ideas? What if you could leverage the expensive tech stack you have in-house and really maximize it?
Practical Experience vs. Theoretical Approaches
00:16:33
Speaker
How does this differ from... you know, some of the statements that you'll hear from, uh, you know, Simon Sinek type person or Adam Grant or whoever that forgive me if I am being ungenerous here, but I feel like the, if I hear a lot of what those folks say with a cynical ear, that it really just kind of comes across like be nice Or you need to listen to people. or And I'm not saying that there's no intelligence or value to their approaches. I think actually there is a lot. I think it falls apart in implementation.
00:17:13
Speaker
But does this differ substantially from messages like that? Well, first of all, I'm honored that you would throw me in the same pot with these people. So, yay um Yes, it does differ because what i have to say, it was literally born from the trenches. So what you are getting is not just, you know, happy things that you can also read in my 10 books I wrote, sorry, or here on on a keynote I give. um It is 100% lived experience.
00:17:48
Speaker
And everything I have packed into what I do today is something that helped me as a consultant. So essentially you're getting best practice package of how I have evolved as a person and also very, very practical things on how to make things easier for the people navigating um transformation in your org.
00:18:09
Speaker
um So yeah, it's ah it's the best of of many worlds, I want to say. And um you can also, you know, buy that in pieces. You can you can get ah a company in that helps you with transformation. You can get an IT consultancy in or a coach. But then you still have to connect all these things together. You have to figure out the puzzle.
00:18:36
Speaker
So, yeah, I mean, what I'm doing may not be the fast way, but it is the organic way that's sustainable. Speaking
Benefits of Empowerment in Consulting Costs
00:18:44
Speaker
of your experience, do you specialize in or do you just have greater knowledge of certain verticals or industries?
00:18:54
Speaker
So most of my experience is in the e-commerce retail um and the consumer products field. But essentially what I am talking about is pretty universal to any industry.
00:19:07
Speaker
But, you know, if you're looking at being very consumer first and consumer front, that's usually the industries that have the biggest churn, the biggest need for innovation, So um in general, a lot of e-commerce companies would would resonate highly with what I'm doing.
00:19:25
Speaker
How do you measure the the effectiveness or the success of what you would like to be doing with your clients versus, you know, but whatever the alternative is? You know, the that that they're constantly doing transformation or implementation, but right I don't know if things are changing or not.
00:19:47
Speaker
So the simplest measure you can take, and that's what I have seen in the past two years where I was doing this, on average, the clients that I work with save about 20% on consulting spend.
00:20:00
Speaker
And that is a pretty penny. It's harder to measure um how much money you would have saved on rework of projects because you're simply more specific in defining a problem and also you're better at collaborating. That's a little bit harder to measure, but you can um go into PMI studies and and others um to see how much money is usually wasted in that.
00:20:26
Speaker
um On average, people come to joint decisions much quicker and can shorten the runtime of projects by about 20 to 30 percent.
Success Stories and Quick Improvements
00:20:39
Speaker
So that is the measurables. And usually only with the the real thing that I can hit and say, this is how much external consulting spend they have saved.
00:20:52
Speaker
That's already a huge selling point because essentially what they're investing with what I'm doing and what they're saving is a one to five ratio. Is that typically something that you would tell a client, you know, we're going to have to do a certain amount of work before you start to see those savings or results? You know, like, because it sounds to me like this has to become ingrained in an organization where it becomes part of the culture or the standard way of working before they're going to see a lot of those cost savings. So is it going to take, you know, a year or whatever before they start to see that?
00:21:29
Speaker
You're going to make it much more complicated than it is. um So it actually goes much faster. um and And there's also a little bit of a misconception that, you know, when you're talking about transformation or people upgrade, that it's going to involve like 50% of your organization. And that is not the case because you just have to pick the right ones.
00:21:52
Speaker
So, um you know, I have cases where, um for example, a test manager in an organization, um which is not like the most rewarding bit to do usually, you know, you're like the end of the food chain and then you're crunched for time and everything. Yeah.
00:22:13
Speaker
She was working with me for six months and basically she established a system within the organization that upped the software developed the software delivery quality by a massive amount. So just by doing that, um she had recouped the investment um multifold.
00:22:35
Speaker
So it it really is the juice lies in picking the right people and that can make an impact. And usually
Continuous Empowerment and Transformation
00:22:44
Speaker
once you are giving them tools to take themselves out of the victim corner, it sounds a little bit dramatic, but if they are becoming strategic thought partners and they are actually proactive and, hey, we could do this to make things better, that's when it becomes interesting.
00:23:01
Speaker
How does someone who is a test manager, for example, how do they get connected to what you're doing? Do they bring you in or is it that the leadership gets bought in and then it gets, you know, the focus is the test manager's team?
00:23:20
Speaker
So um people come to me in in different ways. And what you described as the first option that somebody is working exactly in that, you know, pressured middle and ah they are looking for essentially ah a mentor in a bigger sense. um That would be the standard way.
00:23:40
Speaker
um And ah from there, it could go into, you know, hey, I know somebody else in my organization and that's how it usually goes.
00:23:51
Speaker
But the more sustainable way is when leadership is is bought in and they're like, hey, you know, we are seeing that we need to move faster um and ah we cannot just keep adding new software bits. We got to learn how to use what we have.
00:24:09
Speaker
That's when it becomes interesting. So people always think you need to have some defining event to to go and take that first step. And that's how i used to operate. I was always the fixer.
00:24:23
Speaker
But, you know, transformation happens always. You don't have to have a huge project project that you're pushing. um
Strategies for Problem Reframing and Empowerment
00:24:30
Speaker
So the time is now basically to get started.
00:24:34
Speaker
It sounds like kind of the alternative picture that we're painting is that that test manager in you know in this other picture did not decide that they wanted to improve technology.
00:24:50
Speaker
output, quality, whatever, but rather the leadership team came around and said, we're going to change things. Now here's your consultant. And so to come back around to the question in the, in that sort of picture that I'm painting, there's less responsibility that the, or desire that the test manager is,
00:25:18
Speaker
expressing and so maybe there's a higher chance of failure of this change this transformation yeah if you would just say hey you know here's a consultant that's going to help you that's not sustainable because it didn't you know it didn't come ah from that person on wanting to change things so if you are um enabling that individual to think on their feet and actually, you know, understand that they are carving out their own little niche in an organization. um
00:25:55
Speaker
That is pretty amazing because usually it's it's ah it's a delegating of complexity. You
Empowering Key Change Agents
00:26:01
Speaker
know, the top is just kicking it down. And um if you go into most organizations and you talk to somebody who's in execution, they would say, well, you know, it's a strategy. I can't change it.
00:26:17
Speaker
Oh, we didn't get more resources. Oh, but I can't change that. So what if we reframe the problem and what if they are learning how to reframe the problem for themselves and again, get out of the victim corner and say, all right, I didn't get another resource, but how can make things better so I have more free time to think strategically?
00:26:40
Speaker
And they may come around and say, well, you know, I do have that AI tool that may really help me here. How does a leader with, you know, the best of intentions to facilitate their people, to give them what they need for them to progress and make change and all that, how does a leader with the best of intentions ensure that the juicy middle then is able to make change or that they're able to work with this consultant or ah succeed, I guess?
00:27:14
Speaker
So you need um the coalition of the willing, in a way. um You know, if you're waiting for things to happen, it will not. um And ah even if you have one person that really wants to move the needle in there, they will likely feel very alone.
00:27:33
Speaker
So even if you are a manager and you have somebody that's highly motivated in your team and you're like, well, I don't, you know, I don't. I understand what you want to do, but right now, you know, we can't move at the pace that you want to.
00:27:47
Speaker
that person would be amazing to be part of the collective because they feel seen, they feel heard, and then they can bring back that spark into the organization.
00:27:59
Speaker
One person that's thinking different is not going to change the needle. Ideally, you have a couple of people that then, you know, in turn can form their own little mastermind and group in the organization and, ah you know, make it work from there.
00:28:15
Speaker
When you say digital wisdom and or a new business sense is part of what you're referring to the leadership then having this sense for finding like the coalition of the willing or identifying those key people that are going to be able to, i guess, make change quickly, but real change at the same time.
00:28:45
Speaker
Exactly. It's about, you know, seeing your world in a slightly different angle and maybe not look at limitations first and foremost, ah but see, you know, who do I need at the table um and what do I need to connect?
00:28:59
Speaker
So it it really is rather than, you know, honing in and always dealing with the the gory detail, it's really zooming out um and ah and being more of of a connector.
Risks of Losing Unrecognized Talent
00:29:13
Speaker
So how does a leader go about identifying these people that they have, they already have, and yet they need them, but they're not identified yet?
00:29:25
Speaker
That's essentially a very simple exercise. And and ah I can tell you that you don't want to go and talk to HR about it because that may be a dead-end road. um Because the people that you want to empower are the ones that are hidden and um in the quiet ones.
00:29:45
Speaker
So I would go about looking for if things go sideways, where do people in execution go to for advice? And it may be the production planner in the factory.
00:30:00
Speaker
Or it may be ah sales manager who just has so much experience um that you know he just always has something to say. So who are the people that um others gravitate to to ask for advice? And who are the people that others others us gravitate to because they are trusting them?
00:30:21
Speaker
It seems like these people that we need to identify are very likely to get frustrated and either leave or become not like the person that we want when they just were a year or two ago.
00:30:36
Speaker
And that likelihood is is very high because if they really want to drive change at the start, they will be hot and heavy about trying it and they will um get a bloody nose, you know, more than once in the organization and then potentially quit and just go elsewhere.
00:30:52
Speaker
So, um and that's a huge loss. That's a ton of money lost and a ton of potential change power lost. um So again, they leave because they are frustraed frustrated with the system, but they also are lonely.
00:31:09
Speaker
Um, you know, they don't really have an alliance within the organization, um, because they are just a little bit the odd ones out. Um, and hey, I've been there more than once.
00:31:22
Speaker
Um,
00:31:25
Speaker
But, you know, essentially, then I changed jobs over and over again, but it didn't make me happier because I found the same thing in other organizations. So if you think the external thing is your issue, you know, you know you may want to change your internal system to maybe look at things a different way. And then there is a crack that you may want to come in, you know.
00:31:47
Speaker
So, you know, I think it's a little premature to always blame the system because if you wait for a system to change, it's going to be a long time coming. You said something like they're the odd man out or they don't have a team or I forget exactly how you put it, but you reminded me of think it is in a book called
Overcoming Commiseration for Progress
00:32:16
Speaker
how we talk can change the way we work by keegan and leahy and though it may be a different one but i think it's in that book where they say that there are really two types of organizations and i'm forgetting what one of them stands for but it's
00:32:35
Speaker
the initialisms are ABC organizations and I think it's BMW organizations and BMW is bitching moaning and whining and that is sort of the nature of the culture or something like that and ah now you're maybe not saying the same thing but what you what came to mind was that If I have some experience, so i I don't just have some knowledge, I have wisdom, right? That I can, I have a sense of, real legitimate sense of what is right in certain situations or what's going to work because I've experienced plenty of things. Yep.
00:33:19
Speaker
I also then have to have a desire and or a vision to implement that wisdom and such that we can do better work or transformational work or whatever it is.
00:33:36
Speaker
But if I get frustrated and then I start complaining and other people around me are complaining, then I'm not necessarily the odd man out.
00:33:51
Speaker
But um I may very well be contributing to this BMW culture. But i also... I'm a part of a team then that is just dragging this this organization down.
00:34:07
Speaker
I don't know if i'm I'm curious because I have another question actually about complaining. But um because you you talked about the quiet people yeah that that I do want to get to. But I don't know.
00:34:22
Speaker
It seems like there's something in here about that when like commiseration when people get frustrated they look for other people that are also down and out or mad and and when i get to that point i may very well get stuck there and ah organization has now lost the chance to change or progress Yeah, exactly. And once you are in the commiserating crowd, you cannot see the others anymore that may have a different stance.
00:34:59
Speaker
So it really is about um you know changing your angle of what you see. um So by taking these people out of their echo chamber, for lack of ah of a better word, and ah put them into a practice environment, and God, it sounds like they're going for children's camp or something, which...
00:35:20
Speaker
um It's about, it's two hours ah a month. It really is a practice ground. But if you can see a different dynamic, um and if you are practicing in this dynamic, it rubs off.
00:35:33
Speaker
And you are starting to change how you are viewing things. So by getting more positive yourself or by seeing more opportunities rather
Trust Dynamics and Shared Purpose
00:35:44
Speaker
than problems, you may gravitate to other peoples in your organization and you know also find collaborators that you may have not seen before.
00:35:54
Speaker
Sometimes people will make statements like, I think quality is obvious or people just naturally recognize quality or whatever. And I don't mean to straw a man anyone here or any individual statement, but I think that there's a lot about being human that, you know, and, and, and making your way through the world that is just so complex that at sort of the conscious level we are, well, it's been, it's been proven, you know, sort of the neuroscience that your conscious narrative is constantly doing PR for what your unconscious mind is sort of deciding You know, so words come out of your mouth.
00:36:38
Speaker
Someone says, why'd you say that? And your conscious mind makes up a story so that you don't feel crazy. And, you know, so that whatever you said or did makes sense.
00:36:49
Speaker
And so when people make statements like, well, people recognize quality or whatever else, I... very often will sort of think, I mean, I think generally that's not true, but I do think that Barbara, when you put me in a group of people that are a lot like me, that, you know, we kind of think similarly or we have a similar drive, like maybe we're totally different. We laugh at different jokes or we have different hobbies, but we're really...
00:37:26
Speaker
productive, driven people, you know, whatever it is that we need to be like in this scenario. When you put me with those people, that it's not necessarily quality that I recognize.
00:37:42
Speaker
that I just click with them. There's just something that feels right. And as you're describing, you know, i think you said it's like two hours a month and you have this playground or whatever, where you get together with like people.
00:37:58
Speaker
I feel like that's a part of what you're looking for is that you're, I guess maybe you're not necessarily looking for the most experienced or the smartest or whatever you're looking for in one way, behavioral traits of the people who desire to, as I've said, make change or have a vision.
00:38:21
Speaker
And more diversity is is better. You know, the the broader angles we can have at the table for a conversation, the better. The amazing piece that, you know, they get to listen to others that they may have never thought of asking, you know.
00:38:39
Speaker
So it also enforces um going out and being curious in your own own organization. Yeah. And ah the other pieces, of course, we ah we show them simple ways of, you know, understand the problem first before you jump to a conclusion. So it really is a problem-solving muscle that you um are training and repeating. And it really is about the repetition. It's a practice.
00:39:05
Speaker
um It's not something you read once. It's something you are seeing every month, how it's done. And that is ingrained over time and you bring it back naturally in the way you're doing things. Or, you know, questioning assumptions is a very common thing we do um in our sessions. So when you say quality is given, or i don't know how you phrased it,
00:39:30
Speaker
maybe that person in the next meeting will speak up and say, so what exactly is quality? You know, if you if you see, um because, we you know, our subconscious is telling us constantly, if we ask a question that's stupid, we're going to get shot or something.
00:39:46
Speaker
um But you experience that nothing happened, you know, you dare to ask. That, you know, empowers you to do the same thing in your work environment.
00:39:57
Speaker
You're reminding me of some research that I'll reference in certain talks that I give. And so a lot of people are familiar with the book Bowling Alone
Digital Transformation as Organizational Evolution
00:40:09
Speaker
by Robert Putnam.
00:40:11
Speaker
And that was published in, i think it was 1999. And, you know, the basic idea of bowling alone is that there's a breakdown of community in the United States. There's a lot more that can be said, but that's the very basic idea.
00:40:25
Speaker
Well, not long after he published Bowling Alone, he and some of his collaborators did this research on trust in very homogeneous or heterogeneous communities. So basically, the question is is are there higher levels of trust in diverse or non-diverse communities in the United States?
00:40:53
Speaker
And in a very simply, what they found, this was in the early 2000s, very simply what they found was that in the most diverse communities, the levels of trust, you know, me trusting my neighbor, for example, or me just generally saying like people are trustworthy, making a general statement,
00:41:16
Speaker
The levels of trust in the most diverse communities were about half of what they were in the least diverse communities. So that go to, you know, let's just,
00:41:31
Speaker
paint with every color on our palette here and say you have that community right everybody's socioeconomic backgrounds uh gender whatever it is it's a totally 100 diverse community whatever that means versus a community that everybody is the same you know they're all the same skin color they all go to the same church or whatever and Well, in that latter community, according to their research, trust levels were much, much higher. And Putnam and his collaborators, they spent years digging into this before they would publish because they were really concerned that
00:42:15
Speaker
people that The headlines basically would be, see, diversity has failed. And essentially what they found after they did all of their research was that when you get people together, even if it's just neighbors, it's not like necessarily a meeting at work where we're getting a bunch of diverse people around the conference room table, but that applies too.
00:42:38
Speaker
But when you get, you know, me, who's a 40 something, you know, white middle class guy who grew up on the West Coast, English speaker, whatever, next to a rich black woman or whatever it is, you know, that the the one of the biggest contributors to low trust is not feeling like you're a part of something together and so in diverse communities if somebody's different from you it's a little bit harder to go and talk to them yeah because like what am i going to talk to that person about is is very often what we'll ask ourselves right whereas if they look like me they sound like me
00:43:25
Speaker
where You know, Barbara, so you ah you grew up in Germany. I have a master's in German. That's a connection, right? And so it makes it so much easier for me to say hi to you.
00:43:38
Speaker
But if we have if we lack something, then I'm a lot less likely to feel like we're a part of something together, which raises the bar for me to try or you to try and get over to start those conversations.
00:43:51
Speaker
But If we can get some of these people together at work and do it in such a way where they feel like they're actually a part of something together.
00:44:02
Speaker
You know we are actually a part of the future of this company or doing work that aligns with a vision that we share. then some of what we call diversity right now becomes less kind of like tokenism, you know, and instead becomes more of like, no, this person, they grew up in a different country or, you know you know, male, female, whatever.
00:44:30
Speaker
Actually, they value the same or enough of the same things that we understand we're going to the same place. Now we can benefit from those differences.
00:44:41
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I would say everyone who is ah joining my body of work would um be struggling in either complexity or transformation project that's not going so hot. But essentially, we all have the same desire that we make technology really an enabler for the people.
00:45:02
Speaker
um That it's, you know, it is part of of who we are, who are we becoming, and how do we... um How do we make the human technology connection really good?
00:45:15
Speaker
You said something earlier about technology being involved in everything that we do. So when you said that, and given some of the things that you were just saying, I'm curious, are you basically saying that, i don't know, digital transformation is culture transformation or that digital projects are no longer these things that just part of the organization can do? What do you mean when you say this, I guess?
00:45:45
Speaker
man you know it's like And I think that's why why we're failing at this whole transformation game, because we're trying to pigeonhole it into something. Oh, it's culture. Oh, it's technology. yeah um i I think we have done a really bad job um in you know the last 20 years in in anything transformation. We failed at digital transformation, and now we call it AI transformation. you know We just kind of painted a different color. It's like really cool.
00:46:12
Speaker
But where we need to get to is that... um Transformation is really evolution. um
Complaints as Catalysts for Change
00:46:19
Speaker
And it is evolving an entire organization, its people, its technology, and it all goes in unison.
00:46:27
Speaker
um Digital transformation fails because what is done is basically the caterpillar remains a caterpillar, but they take the legs off and they give them wheels.
00:46:39
Speaker
So, you know, we claim that we're transforming, but we're not. So how do we get to the butterfly? Yeah. Okay. I want to come back around to, you I referenced having a question about the, about complaints and and quiet people.
00:46:54
Speaker
So this is also, I believe a Keegan and Leahy thing. i don't remember if it comes up in their book, how we talk can change the way we work or whatever the title is, but They say something like, inside of every complaint is a conviction.
00:47:12
Speaker
And the idea, at least as I recall it, is that If you really listen or ah just if you really listen to people complaining, that they will tell you what it is that they really care about.
00:47:31
Speaker
And so ah thanks to some people that I have worked with in the recent past, I'm very sensitive to this when I work with my clients that, you know,
00:47:45
Speaker
often when we will try to implement something, you know, we're trying to make change in one way or another, we'll look just for the people who really want to participate. But there might be people who, when you say, does anybody have any input, you know, in a big staff meeting, or does anybody want to participate?
00:48:06
Speaker
Lots of people say nothing. But then when it comes time to use that new project management system, or to use the new standard operating procedures or whatever. That's when people come out of the woodwork and they say, well, you never asked us. You don't know what it's like on the front lines. This is never going to work. And they have all these complaints.
00:48:26
Speaker
And so there's some former colleagues of mine have this process that they go through that focuses on mining the group for experiences that they've had in the past where they,
00:48:43
Speaker
basically what were all of the things that went wrong why didn't you like it and but what we're listening for is what must they really care about if those are their complaints and then we reflect back to them you know these are the it these were your problems and so This, these must be the things that we have to do well in order for this to succeed.
00:49:09
Speaker
And I really like the process. It's very fascinating when they have led it and I've gone through it. But when you've mentioned very often the people that are quiet or whatever,
00:49:22
Speaker
one of the groups that came to mind for me are the people that are sitting at the back of the room and their arms are crossed and you say, anybody have any questions, yeah critiques, whatever? And they say nothing, but then they come up later on.
00:49:39
Speaker
And oddly enough, if you believe what I'm saying here, Barbara, then they do have something valuable to contribute. I just might not identify them at first because all I've experienced in the past is their complaints and they're throwing a wrench into the gears.
00:49:56
Speaker
I don't know if you how that comes up in your work or if at all. It does, as a matter of fact, because that is also a hidden skill um that is reading the room.
00:50:08
Speaker
And, uh, you know, even if you are, you know, squeaky clean as a, as a facilitator and it's like, okay, I don't, I don't have anyone that pushed my buttons here.
00:50:19
Speaker
You have to be vigilant of what's going on. Reading the room means, you know, what are the subtle shifts? It's almost like honing the spidey senses you have for who's in, who's out. How is the dynamic evolving?
00:50:32
Speaker
Um, um, And that's what I mean with, you know, the the dots are are moving. So essentially, we need to get better at kind of, you know, reading that room.
00:50:45
Speaker
And
Upgrading Collective Intelligence
00:50:46
Speaker
if you have somebody sitting like that in the back of a room, I always grab that person at the end of a meeting. And I'm like, hey, you know, i I think you bring a ton of experience. You know, you've been with the company for quite some time.
00:51:00
Speaker
And I would really like to get your take on things here. You know, make them part of the process. Because if you let that one slide, it's going to undermine quietly.
00:51:12
Speaker
Barbara, you said a few minutes ago that over the last 20 years or so, we collectively have handled transformation poorly or we failed or something like that.
00:51:27
Speaker
And you know you have, your career has been a couple of decades now. So I'm curious, looking back across your career or even just that 20 years,
00:51:39
Speaker
Are there things that have changed in a, in a positive way about how most organizations operate related to sort of what you're saying that you would call out?
00:51:52
Speaker
And I suppose, let let lemy let me give you an out here, Barbara, as well. Maybe alternatively, what hasn't changed at all? First of all, I think the speed of change has just massively increased.
00:52:06
Speaker
um When I started working in technology, you know yeah every blue moon you would have a big project that um was great. taking up resources in the organization.
00:52:19
Speaker
um And now that cadence is just crazy. You have multiple things going on always. And you have, you know, different directional powers tugging on the same people.
00:52:34
Speaker
So um the speed has increased massively, um which also led to we don't have time to take a breath anymore. We don't have time to really do a proper retro on what worked, what didn't work, because we are yet again jumping to the next thing. Yeah.
00:52:58
Speaker
We have added a crazy amount of methodology and we have added even more tools, but I can say that neither of them has actually fixed the issue.
00:53:12
Speaker
So the one constant that hasn't changed is that we have continuously neglected in upgrading our people on how to be collectively intelligent. Are there questions that you would want a leader to ask themselves before they go into, I hesitate given some of what you've said, but before they go into their next transformation initiative, because you're kind of saying it's going on all the time. yeah But but yeah are there questions you wish that leaders would ask themselves so that they could upgrade their humans or like the collective wisdom?
00:53:49
Speaker
I wish leaders would really look um at their big strategy roadmap um a little more holistically and say, okay, so in five years I want to be here. Translate that into what does that mean for my digital landscape?
00:54:06
Speaker
You know, really do that mapping because most companies are failing there. They're talking about what sales channels to tackle, what marketing strategies, you know, what markets potentially And then you have to think what is holding these things together. You know, I always refer to it as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. If you have just two slides of bread, it ain't sticking.
00:54:31
Speaker
So you have your your business model and you have your IT. That's basically the two layers of bread. So what do you have to put in the middle to actually make it work.
00:54:45
Speaker
And that would potentially be a couple of things where you would find gaps in your business, just with maybe an architecture function. um But also in terms of, you know, skills and collaboration, how would my company have to function? You know, can I still be the big tanker or do I have to really be a speedboat? Maybe not with the entire organization, but with, you know, one or two teams.
00:55:12
Speaker
So I wish those questions would be asked more. um What I see a lot in organizations is that even at top level, there is a lot of silo thinking, you know, um and the CEO really needs to ask better questions first and foremost of the C-level team and their leadership team align.
00:55:35
Speaker
to
AI as a Co-Creator, Not a Replacement
00:55:36
Speaker
align it seems clear to me that you believe that for some indeterminate amount of time, maybe forever, that the humans aren't going away in your business, so to speak.
00:55:54
Speaker
And so I'm, I'm curious, you know, like, do you have a position on, given whatever your knowledge is of the way that, you know, businesses use generative AI or advances in technology or whatever, do you have a prediction about how messy working with the juicy middle is going to remain and how much opportunity there is or is it you know i'm gonna guess you're not going to say to me barbara no eric you know give it 18 months and all those messy human beings they'll be gone
00:56:35
Speaker
i I think we're very far away from that. um And the how companies and leaders are looking at AI right now is a little bit dangerous because they are looking at it in a linear way. It's an either or, right?
00:56:50
Speaker
Oh, everything gone. We don't need customer service people anymore. AI is going to do it. So first of all, we need to get out of that corner. um And, ah you know, it needs to be more of a, okay, so how can we make our humans better with um with AI or how can we free capacity here?
00:57:10
Speaker
So i think that, first of all, I find AI absolutely fascinating. It's here to stay. And it's a matter of how we embrace it and how we take fear of people away um in our organization. How do we make them part of it?
00:57:25
Speaker
You know, how do we make them part of the solution? Yeah. That to me is the big crooks, because there will be a place where the leaders in in economy, the leaders in in the business world, will have um tackled the coexistence of AI and humans. And it is about co-creation, co-empowerment. So, yeah.
00:57:53
Speaker
Yeah. I think it's here to stay and we have we have to define how we play with it because essentially AI agents are going to be the new co-workers. And, you know, how do we work with them on eye level?
00:58:06
Speaker
I agree with you broadly. i mean, might there be a future where... that human beings are not necessary within companies or whatever. i I suspect that there will be at some time. i don't know when it could be five years from now. It could be a hundred years from now. I, I, I don't feel like I could make a strong prediction there, but I feel like our runway humans, you know,
00:58:34
Speaker
is long enough that it's worth working pretty dang hard to make sure that we do as great of a job as we can. And I feel like the tools that we have at our disposal, AI or otherwise, enable us to individually do more and better work. And then if we can figure out how to work together,
00:58:59
Speaker
that I mean, not just the human and the AI, but the group of humans, then that's a way to have, you know, compounding or exponential results.
00:59:10
Speaker
Absolutely. But we also have to name that we are lagging behind quite a bit. If you look at AI models and how quickly they change and evolve, um you know, we've got to get going on upgrading us humans.
Advantages of Mid-Sized Businesses in Change
00:59:26
Speaker
I'll ask you the final two questions that I can think of right now. Who knows if I'll have more. The first is, where do I go to learn more?
00:59:37
Speaker
I'm aware of one of your websites. I think you have more than one, but I might be wrong. So where do I go to learn more, follow, connect, or whatever, Barbara? And then the second thing is Is there anything we've said that you would want to double down on words of wisdom or maybe things that haven't been said that you would want me to be thinking about after this conversation?
01:00:02
Speaker
So let's do the easy one first. Where can people find more about me? um The default would be go to the website digitalwisdom.co. But I also have to say that what's on there is quite static. If you want to follow more of what I'm thinking about, um how future talent evolves, you know how wisdom and technology actually goes together, go to my substack website.
01:00:29
Speaker
Digital Wisdom Collective is where I write every week. So that was the easy one. and And then what what is there that has not been said? Gosh, you know, it's um I think every business owner lives in in an amazing time right now.
01:00:45
Speaker
um I actually think that small and medium businesses have almost an unfair advantage. ah because they have less um rigid structure implemented. um They may have less overhead, um and not in people, but more in you know limiting beliefs, and we've always done it this way, thinking.
01:01:10
Speaker
So, um as a mid-sized business owner, if you're playing your cards right right now and upgrading your technology as well as your humans, you can be one of the market market leaders. It's a little bit of a David and July-eth moment, I believe.
01:01:30
Speaker
um And I think that is very exciting myself. I agree with you. And I may state the same thing in a different way, but if I don't, then please tell me what you think.
01:01:46
Speaker
It sure seems to me like in a lot of businesses that, you know, especially knowledge work sort of businesses that the kind of person that you need to make the best possible use of generative is but also maybe even Barbara, to some of the stuff that you've talked about, about making the best possible use of the humans around you.
01:02:13
Speaker
But I'm going to speak to AI though, that the kind of person that you need, it has probably not, is probably not the kind of person that fits well in a top-down command and control scientific management sort of structure.
01:02:31
Speaker
And, you know, some of us are predisposed to, I just want somebody to send me the task and it's very well defined and I'm going to follow it. And I'm not saying that this is not a values laden thing. That person's not bad because they are that way.
01:02:46
Speaker
But I think that yeah that person at whatever level they are in an organization that is willing to try with Copilot or ChadGBT or whatever that, hey, what if I did this and what if I did that and not get frustrated when the first results are not good.
01:03:06
Speaker
it You know, frankly, this might be a similar sort of person to the the type of person that is willing to go and try things with a group of others and say, you know, and then not get frustrated and say, ah, those people are morons.
01:03:19
Speaker
But, you know, the kind of person that you need to 10x your results, you know, that kind of those statements is very different, I think, from the person that you need in a top-down traditional structure.
01:03:34
Speaker
That is very true. And I also want to say that you may not be just judging a person by accolades and, you know, MBA and whatnot. Yes. i Well, and I think that that speaks to, it works.
01:03:49
Speaker
It's different, but it works at not just the individual level, but also with some organizations, you know, so think of the big brands that you can recognize.
01:03:59
Speaker
I don't want to pick out any anyone and say, oh, it's definitely going to be like this, but let's just pick an, you know, an Amazon or something, a brand so that just about all of us will recognize How hard do you think it is for one of these big brands to change when they need just about all of their people to now do their work differently? Because they have these tools that can help them be more creative or get work done faster or and you know analyze data faster.
01:04:29
Speaker
faster or whatever. But you have to be willing to try things and have them not work. And we've been so habituated to, it has to work. And if it doesn't work, something is broken.
01:04:41
Speaker
And so now how does an Amazon pivot and change? Now, maybe they will do it because I don't know, maybe they're great at change, but the next organization I think it is nearly impossible unless you can do some of the things that you're talking about. I'm not saying your work, Barbara, is a silver bullet, but that it sure would make it easier if we're willing to do the hard work to deal with some messiness and to find you know people who are willing to lead, even if it's not from the top.
01:05:18
Speaker
But that organization that is 10 people that doesn't have a long history of doing things a certain way, as soon as they hire one more employee or two more employees, they're 10 or 20% bigger.
01:05:32
Speaker
And to those people will have a could have an immense impact on this organization's ability to use the technology and grow and change faster than, you know, this ah this this straw man Amazon that I'm putting forth.
01:05:49
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, Amazon may may be a bad example because they're actually pretty quick on their feet. um But what I was ah describing works best up to organizations of, let's say, 12 to 1500 people. The sweet spot lies somewhere in the middle. It's also great for scale-ups.
01:06:11
Speaker
They just have less baggage. They have less hierarchy levels. um So, you know, they're more open-minded of trying these things out. um And, yeah, I mean, from experience, once you have about 10% to 15% that are thinking in a new way in that execution level, that's when you really get momentum and that's where you can create a tipping point.
Conclusion and Acknowledgments
01:06:36
Speaker
Well, Barbara, I feel like we have enough shared interests that while not every conversation has to go for an hour or two or three, that fortunately we could probably have many conversations because, you know, it kind of have some shared philosophies, but very different experience. So I really appreciate you making the time and being here. And I'm looking forward to getting this recording out. So thank you for joining me, Barbara.
01:07:06
Speaker
Thanks for having me.