Hey, Megan, let's do a podcast. Great idea.

One

of the things I love about my job, about

this podcast is that I get to talk to some really interesting people

that I meet through my work and get to share that conversation with a

broader community because I'm incredibly fortunate in my role that I get

to talk to so many amazing thinkers and doers out in the space.

And so that's part of the goal of this conversation.

Fraser Lockhart and I go back probably almost a

decade when he was actually a client of mine, when he was leading sales performance

at Dawn Foods and had just located into Michigan.

And I watched his career take some

really interesting turns and maneuvers since then.

So, Fraser, welcome. Glad to have you here.

How about you introduce yourself to everybody? Sure. Thank you, Megan. And

that's what I love about knowing you and engaging with you is you talk

to so many people that every time I do, I get a different perspective from

you. So it's great. So as far as me and my background,

I was just last with Dawn Foods. I now run my own organization

in the focal point world being a business and leadership coach.

But my history is all around working with larger

organizations to drive performance and whether that's in

the sales environment — I kind of say I've got four areas that I focused

on in the past to make it easy because I've switched a ton of jobs

and companies — so really around sales

leadership and capability. So working for companies like

Pepsi and Coke and Campbell Soup and Cisco and Dawn Foods and

being in the trenches with sales leaders and coaching and leading them

to be more effective with their teams. And then

I moved into this capability world where I was a full-time

training facilitator for a couple years for a consulting company and really worked

with sales teams, and sales organizations, and broader

executive organizations and really fell in love with this

whole idea of helping people be more effective and doing

that regularly. And so I went back into the sales world and

started to get connected with sales and leading

L&D teams, leading sales L&D teams, sales

capability teams, and seeing that I had a

real opportunity and some credibility in the sales world where I could

really engage teams effectively and help them be more effective.

And then I moved into sales operations and really

supported teams in understanding what are the analytics they

need to help them be more effective. And then the

other thing that I've done lately is really get into change management and

have become now a certified change practitioner

and helping teams really navigate through this world of change

in — really helping them figure out what's the best way

for us and what's the right path for us to take in

driving adoption within change? So large

teams moving into some capability and

then now into running my own coaching organization

where I'm really coaching a

lot more than I would in the corporate environment and really enjoying that.

Super cool. And I think that's kind of what caught

my attention about what you're doing right now. You spent

decades in some very

high profile names, right? Big companies that I either know

or are the companies behind the companies I know, right? In sales

and operations and all this. And you, you

became really engaged right now around this

moment where a company rolls out new technology and it's

just not taking, right? Why

does that challenge interest you so much

of all the challenges out there, right? Like, why that one? Yeah,

well, it. It's because I've been in so many situations

in my corporate life that I — there's been these

massive investments in systems and tools,

and the ROI is really... is either very

low or it's extremely delayed. It takes a

year longer or two years longer to realize the ROI

that they want and to get the money back from their investment. So

I started thinking about that while I was working with these companies, and then I

really started to think about it when I started to get into the coaching world,

because I thought as well on the coaching side to say, you know, I

was, I was teaching and helping people and leaders

understand, you know, what are the

right tools and conversation techniques to have and still getting

limited adoption of those. So it was

really all about "how do I help now?" So, you know,

I got really interested in understanding what are the ways and techniques

we can use to drive adoption faster, get faster ROI.

And so I started to research and I realized you can get

certified. And I realized very quickly that I was very uneducated

in this world of change, which I thought I was actually pretty good

at. And I realized very quickly that

I need to learn more about change management. I did that. I got certified to

do it. And now, now really seeing light bulbs go off

for, you know, the people that I'm working with to understand that there is

actually a method to our madness of engaging them in the right way and them

engaging their audiences in the right way to drive change and adoption.

You know, like, let's dig down a rabbit hole a little bit here because

I feel like what you're saying about change — in that I

thought I knew about it and I learned that I really didn't, you know, there

was something... there's actually a structure and a method and a science behind

it — it sounds a lot like learning and development, right?

Everybody thinks like, "oh yeah, I could, I could talk to people, I could stand

up in front of PowerPoint, I can make some cool things. I'm just going to

tell them what they need to do." Do you see, since you've

now been in both worlds, do you see a similar parallel?

Yeah, that's why it was such a natural fit in. "I'm going to go be

a coach and I'm going to continue leveraging all the great work that

I've done to now go coach for my own clients." That's

why it was such a natural uptake and a natural fit for me to say,

"okay, well let's, let's actually spend more time on this change piece"

because I find now it's crossing over all over the place. So when we're

doing training, I'm starting to, you know, for anything that

we do, anytime you ask humans to do something different, you realize

that the concepts around change and change

coaching, change management, those concepts, you can apply anywhere.

And you know, we'll, we'll talk through some of those models. But you know,

when you use ADKAR where it's Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and

Reinforce, when you use that model, it really applies

to anything I did. I was on a networking session this

morning with some groups and you know somebody, we were talking about

something different, somebody asked about, "well, I've been trying to do this in my company.

Any ideas why it's not, not, not taking hold?" And right

away I referenced the ADKAR model and they were like, "oh, I see, I

skipped a step." So, you know, that's what's important

to, to think about both when you're thinking about L&D and thinking about

even implementing a system or technology, thinking

about the audience and how they're going to — how they

need to receive it and who they need to receive the message

from is so important that we just take for granted that we're doing.

Yeah and I'm feeling a little chagrined here myself as a leader

trying to also bring new things into my own tiny company that you think

would be very easy to maneuver. So

I'm feeling quite seen here, even

audio-only podcast. And when I think about

change approaches and learning approaches and those

projects, there's both a Venn diagram and a lot of

handoffs and coordination between those two processes as

something comes out and that feels like what you're doing

now, then, at Demand Chain AI, right? So you're kind of like embedded in the

middle of like a big technology rollout. And what does

change coaching mean in that context? Like what is, what is it different

than what traditional change management would be? Yeah. So

what I would... I wish I could show you a slide here because I've got

a slide that describes this really well. So there's two sides of

a project, if you will. One side is the technology side and the

solution that's being delivered. And a project manager

runs all of that. Like what are the milestones in the project? Are we on

time? All of those things. There's the other side of a,

of a project and it's the people side.

And in between here is the journey that they're going to go on from

current state through the transition to the future state.

So what we need to make sure — and the people side

is run by a person like me called a change coach.

So there's three people in this equation. You talk about your Venn diagram. So there's

three people in this equation. There's the sponsor within the client or the

project owner, there's the project manager that's running the project, and then there's the

change coach. And those, all three of those circles need to come together and

the sweet spot is in the middle. And all three of those

individuals are focused on this journey that the

number one individual is going through is the people with the highest impact.

And how are we making sure that we're articulating the current state,

we're articulating the future state, and then the transition they go through is the

smoothest transition possible for them to drive to success

and adoption is where I would consider

this difference between.... Change management people would

think of as, you know, because you can hire large companies to

do change management for you and they'll give you a checklist of things to do

and say, "okay, well these are all the things you need to go through to

make sure you prepare your people for change and do all that." Well, the

change coach actually is in, you know,

in the foxhole with you and the project manager

and making sure that you've got the right support,

making sure that the, me, as a change coach, is working directly

with the people managers on not only "you got to go have

this conversation," but "how do you have it?" And a resource for those people

managers to come back and say, "well, I had it, but it didn't go so

well" or "it did go well" and me being able to help them through that,

no matter how well it goes. So those are the differences you see

between just the regular change management process that people

would follow and the idea of having a change coach with them.

Well, what's fascinating about that is that there's

positive externalities in that work. Not only are you getting the

technology or whatever change it is rolled out more effectively in a smoother

journey, but you're building the skills and resilience of the

managers themselves or the leaders themselves to be able to do this again next

time. Because this is not the last change. Yes,

that's exactly the way I articulate it to, you know,

individuals and clients that I work with. There's a lasting effect

here. So this is transferable across every project that you are going to —

now, doesn't make sense — it doesn't necessarily always

happen that every skill gets transitioned, and people need refreshers

and all that. So we work on that too. But you're

building, creating a foundation of

skill sets for individuals to be able to adopt

change quicker and more thoroughly in the future.

Okay, that's some good stuff to chew on.

Let's dig in a little bit. Most of the people who are

listening to this are probably learning leaders, or Learning

& Performance, Learning & Development, Learning Enablement. Something around

that learning function that's related to change, but

not quite. In many organizations,

the learning folks is going to just get handed an AI rollout of some sort

and said go build training for this. What's a

conversation that you would recommend that they have

before they start building? What should

they do next? Yeah, no, great question. So

where I would say they need to spend time right away is with the

executive sponsor and making

sure you're engaging. Because there's, there's two

people or positions, if you will, that are the most important in this communication.

One is the executive sponsor because the executive

sponsor — and that's got to be one of the highest people in the organization

— the executive sponsor needs to deliver the organizational message

to the team on why this is good, why are we doing

it, how's it going to affect your role. And then the other people

are the people managers. So the

people that are the highest impacted in the organization,

they need to hear from their manager why

it's happening, how's it going to impact them. So those are the two most important

people. So you've got to start with the executive sponsor

and the conversation has to be centered around what does success look

like. So what in your mind

does the executive sponsor think about "how do we, what does it

look like when we achieve our highest return on investment?" And

what does that timeline look like, and putting

together what we call the "success plan" for change

or for the project. And once you

have that, you'll get tired of talking about it once you have it. But once

you have it done, you need to share that broadly with

your... everyone that's being affected. And not necessarily

you, the L&D person, but empower people to share

that message across because that's the first A of

ADKAR is awareness, and you absolutely have to

have awareness with everyone that is being affected, whether it's an

extended team or a high-impact individual. So and

then from there the people managers. But it's that conversation with the

executive sponsor on "what does good look like, what does success look like?" That it's

the most important right away, and you can't have that early enough. Having

that late in the game, once implementations all, you know,

you kind of, they're building it already and going back and saying "okay, what is

this supposed to look like?" That's usually too... that doesn't mean you can't clean

it up from there. But it's usually too late or later than you need.

Yes. And it's, it's interesting. I just came off a learning

and performance conference or performance and learning conference and

there's a consistent refrain of

folks who have a hard time getting there, getting access

enough to the leadership to be able to articulate what that success looks

like, what those metrics might be, what we expect to see different at

the end. So I love seeing us

double down on "that's an important relationship, an important set of

conversations to have before you do anything." Yeah.

No, and it's funny how it's the hardest person to

get time with, but it's the most important person to get time with. Yeah.

And I just started an engagement with a

250-million dollar client and I was very fortunate

because I... one of the people I work with actually knows him

well, and I was able to get time with him pretty quickly in

this setup. And it was, it helped the

whole, it greased the skids on the whole thing, and

I had only had a half an hour with him and he came back and

within 10 minutes said "this approach is different. I've

never had anybody talk this way about implementing

a system within my organization. So you have access to

everyone you need just let me know." Right. I mean how

powerful is that? Both for you, right,

but also for him to be able to see that. And I think that's amazing.

We in our own — at TorranceLearning, we have a learning project ignition, and

we don't do the ignition if the business sponsor isn't

there. And we schedule around their needs, and if

we've only got an hour, then we spend that hour talking about what is the

goal and how do we measure that. So tons of alignment.

Super cool. Super cool. This has been

fascinating. I'm going to finish up with the question I ask everybody. This is

where we get weird, Fraser. Where we get weird.

What's a work habit or a quirk or a fidget or

some sort of productivity ritual that is like yours.

That's your go-to. And it might be your go-to right now and it might change

two weeks. And it's nothing overly strange.

One thing that I've been doing now more than ever as a

full time coach is starting every engagement

with my clients around "what is a win

since we last talked?" And it's

interesting how... I'm kind of dumbfounded every

time that people can't come up with a win. And

you know, they get a lot better at it as we move on.

And it's amazing how it starts the conversation with a great tone.

Then we

focus on one thing as well. Like don't try and over — I find

that I try and do too many things with my clients, and you know, it's

focus over volume is what I try and do. Not too many

things. And then also if you

make everything too... everything's important to do, then nothing changes as well,

is what I've discovered. So just a couple things that I try and keep

in the back of my mind to keep moving forward

with my clients and seeing them progress, which

is super exciting. I love it. That start with

wins. It's not weird, but it is definitely wonderful. So it's another W word

and I think actually I want to try that with my next one on ones

with my team. Right. What are our wins? I'm

looking forward to that. Fraser Lockhart, thank you so much for

spending time with me. I think this has been fantastic. Will be super useful

for folks and I'm looking forward to continuing the conversation.

Awesome. Thanks Megan. I appreciate your time.

This is Meg Fairchild and Megan Torrance and this has

been a podcast from TorranceLearning. Tangents is the official

podcast of TorranceLearning (as though we have an unofficial one). Tangents

is hosted by Meg Fairchild and Megan Torrance. It's

produced by Dean Castile and Meg Fairchild. Engineered

and edited by Dean Castile. With original music

also by Dean Castile. This episode was fact

checked by Meg Fairchild.