Introduction
A warm welcome to another episode of TJS Technology Tuesday. Not only to the Baltic Sea coast, where dear Tobias is with us today, but also to all those who are either joining us live today or watching the whole thing afterwards in the recording on LinkedIn or as you know. The whole thing will then always become my Digital Productivity Podcast, and you can always listen to this podcast, for example, via your mobile device, iPhone, Android device, as you like, and if you like, you can even watch the whole thing again on YouTube and even read it again as a blog post on my site. So you can stay up to date on the channels you like.
The reality of work between flexibility, technology and new forms of work
Once again live today. Good morning and hello from Bremen too. Wonderful. My dear colleague from Transgourmet, Bernd, is really, really great here today with a slightly different setting, because I have three settings here at TJ live.
My streaming settings
The one setting is that I’m in the office, with a professional green screen and so on.
The second setting is that I’m somewhere in person on Tuesdays at 12:30, and then I record it beforehand, usually at home in the studio, and then I play the whole thing via stream. Here we have the third variant today, the third variant. I’ll show you what it looks like right here. Behind the scenes. This is what it looks like here on the other side today. So behind me is practically what you can see. That’s the wardrobe behind me and the made-up bed in Motel One, and in front of me it looks like this. In other words, I have my MacBook on one of them, like a bookend. And then I have the MacBook on this bookend so that the camera is a bit at eye level. Here I have the Litra Glow, I have it as a lamp on top, and then I have a three-part screen arrangement. So I fold that on top. Then I have two ears that I can open up on the left and right with two cables.
And then I have three monitors. On one side, I have the charts on the left, which I can view. I have one on the right, one on the left, so that I can also see the comments, i.e. questions, such as here from Robert, from Bernd etc., and in the middle I have my live streaming solution. So maybe that’s because I’m often asked, what does it look like? And for those who might be listening to the podcast in the car, it’s worth listening to the original again on LinkedIn or YouTube. Yes, but today we have a different topic. The topic is: How do we get employees on board with change processes? As a personal coach for managers, I support managers and organizations. So Bernd knows me from the project where I was able to help Transgourmet move from notebook computers to iPads in the field. And of course we also had two ears folded out by Robert. Wonderful. So from the side: one analog, the other digital.
Use of technology in change processes
I do both, I think. Yes, we always have the issue of technology in such change processes, of course. And experience shows that technology is always the easier topic. So, of course there are also challenges, not an issue at all. But in my experience, it’s usually the case that taking employees along on such change processes is extremely stressful. What experience and, above all, what biggest mistake have I made? Namely: I wasn’t born a consultant, but – and I’m happy to comment on my own experiences. I always keep an eye on the chat when I look to the left. My experience was that I asked the wrong question at the beginning, namely, what did I do? I assumed that everyone was just as excited about the new solution as I was. And they are all immediately saying switch it on and it works. Yes, the problem I had was that I asked the wrong question, and I borrowed a cartoon that I saw on Facebook.
How much technology do you actually need or how much technology is “annoying”?
On the subject of saying like you by the way, so today. The question was: How much stuff, how much do you always have with you? Well, when I travel by train, I have a slightly larger trolley that I couldn’t take with me in my hand luggage. But otherwise, if I’m flying or don’t need much luggage, I often only have hand luggage, a trolley and a clothes bag with me, and that’s enough, a briefcase. So it works. It’s relatively compact to pack everything small. On the subject of change: I used to always say: Who wants change? So who wants something different? And everyone said: Yes.
And then the question: who wants to change? And if you ask: Who wants to change?, then it usually looks different. Why is that? People will change if the reward is big enough. And that’s often not very attractive in a business environment. Or they change when the pain is great enough. And that’s exactly the part because: What I’ve always done, I’ve – I remember I was in the coffee service at Tchibo.
Yes, for five years. And I was also responsible for the whole turnaround business for a while. And I was responsible for the service technicians. And I built a wonderful service management system for service reports and so on. And that was really good, as my colleagues told me, but I always said: these are the benefits, that’s great, that’s great. What I didn’t do – I made a big mistake. I didn’t ask the question: What’s annoying? And that is the magic question. In other words, in change processes like this, when you say it’s about new processes, the idea is not to go in: We have a new system, super cool topic, but to say: What’s annoying? When I look at the project, they previously had a Windows box, for example, it was annoying that the battery kept dying because it was a Windows device. The battery didn’t last that long.
It was relatively small, so relatively thick and large, and there were a few things, then it got stuck, sometimes it crashed and so on. So when you say: “What are the things that annoy you about your current system?” and then please shut up. I always find it really difficult to draw conclusions from myself to others. Dear Svetlana, also a great addition, it happens to me from time to time. It always happens to me in this area, but I’ve learned from my own leadership failures. And fortunately, I’ve occasionally had employees who were significantly older. So I was in my late 20s, and then I really did have some employees who were already over 50 who said: ‘Jäkel, in his youthful recklessness, it’s okay if I give you some unsolicited feedback. And I really needed that several times, because then they would say: You’ve got a great idea, but ask us where we’re on fire today.
You might even get three or four points that you hadn’t even thought of, that make it even easier for you. Because you work your way through the topics and say: Man, that’s cool, that’s cool, that’s cool. That might not even be relevant for us. We have other points that you haven’t even thought about. They are highly relevant for us. I just gave an online training session this morning for one of my clients, and we also discussed this online.
The point was: they have introduced Microsoft 365, but use it a bit like 95% of all companies. It’s like driving a 911 Porsche at 60 km/h in first gear in the right-hand lane. So that causes me physical pain, where I always say: Wow, Microsoft 365, such an awesome tool, I can just do so much more with it. And that’s why I always say: Okay, you can do more. That’s why I consistently say: Guys, what’s bugging you?
And feel free to write here in the comments on LinkedIn: Tell me, what are the things that annoy you or that annoy you? Some of the viewers see themselves – yes, some certainly do. What are points that annoy you? And I’ll tell you what the points were that came up. For example: I have CC emails all the time. Then came: I have a planning file, I plan it, I send it to someone, they revise it, but it takes them so long, I’ve already processed it further. Then I have to somehow cobble together two or three versions again. What annoys me about CC emails is that I get 1000 CC emails. It annoys me that I say: Now I’m not just getting an email, now I’m getting another chat message, now I’m getting another post message. Now someone is calling me again, now I’m getting lots of additional channels. So it’s often the case that we introduce new systems and then it’s not a case of less is more, but then it just goes on and on.
So, and that’s always where I say: does it make sense, or is it rather exhausting? And that’s why this question, which is so central: “What’s annoying?”, is also an open question. In other words, I just say: Does it annoy you? Then I get a yes or no back. But if I say: What’s annoying? And now, for example, topics came up that I hadn’t even thought about. Microsoft annoys me anyway. Countless teams and channels in which it’s easy to get lost. Here’s another comment on that: Absolutely. And I wouldn’t have thought about the topic of countless teams and channels in which you constantly get lost, for example. But if I’m doing a training course now and I talk about teams, channels, etc., it’s completely different from saying: Gee, you know what? Eduard said earlier: “Man, these countless Teams channels are really annoying.
What is annoying is the first question you often ask yourself
Are there two or three others who find it annoying? And then usually a few stretch and say: That’s right, it really annoys me too. And then you can say: Okay, what’s annoying, that’s the first question. The second question is then to say: Okay, if I say now, what’s the next question, is it okay if we change that? So not the solution straight away, but getting commitment first. You said it’s annoying. Is it okay if we change that? Well, if we do it differently somehow. Because Albert Einstein is supposed to have once said: The purest form of insanity is to always do the same thing and expect different results. So somehow that doesn’t really make sense. So, that is, the idea of picking yourself up first: What annoys you? Collecting, listening, keeping your mouth shut. So I sometimes find that difficult too. I’m a speaker and not a listener. That’s why I sometimes find it difficult to be there.
And that’s exactly what annoys me the most here, Tobias: most programs are too much, too complicated, etc., this topic. By the way, I’d be happy to do an episode on this next week. And that is: There are now solutions in the field of AI where I can solve this user interface issue very, very well. I’ve already mentioned Apple, for example, as a platform. For example, I can use AI to say: I want to build a web app here, build a program, and then I can tell it: please make it in the design of the Apple iPhone page, and bang, it comes in the design of the Apple iPhone page. And that’s very important to say: if nobody has a problem with the user interface, then I don’t make an issue of it. And maybe there are even times when I say: I can’t get Teams to look nice either. I can’t get Microsoft to look good either, sorry. Sometimes there may be certain things, and then it’s also necessary to be clear: there is no such thing as the perfect IT system.
So that’s like the women who are listening here: There is no such thing as the perfect man. That doesn’t exist either. My wife loves me anyway, I always say. So it’s the same with software. And there are things where I say: Yes, there are many points where I say that we can use modules such as different versions, that you have emails somehow. You can work on things at the same time, you can work on Kanban boards. In other words, if I then offer solutions, but only say after the question: “What’s annoying?”, is it okay if we change something there, and then say: “Let’s get started first, then we’ll practically go into the points first. So that’s the idea, that you go in in that order. And then also very clearly – yes, exactly, but then also very clearly that I say: Then it’s always part of it: Yes, there are also a few points where I can’t change it, where there isn’t the perfect system, where it’s like this.
And then it also takes clarity as a manager to say: We can’t build the perfect system. Just as I always say: in everything I do, there is always a mixture of compensation and remuneration. Ideally, the fee component is higher than the compensation component. And you simply have to go through that, and then we have to be clear and say: we have opted for this system. And then comes the final question, which I always add by saying: What do you need? In other words, to say that we are doing this, no question. But what do you need to work with this system? And then there are employees who say: I need more training, I need a bit more time, let me fiddle around a bit on my own. I might need another colleague to help me in this area. That’s practically the next thing: what do you need? But that doesn’t mean saying: “What do you want to do or do differently?”, but rather, as I always like to quote Ulrich Meyer:
Just Vikings. Number one: We can discuss everything, but not the goal. But we can discuss the measures, the question of what support you need. And that’s consistent leadership, that I say: Okay, we’re setting a clear goal here as a management team. We say: How do we achieve this? We then make decisions on how we do this, to a certain extent of course, with the involvement of our employees. That’s why: What’s annoying? and, to be honest, listen and pick up on it. To address the things that are perhaps not so nice, to say: they are part of it, there is no perfect system. And then to say: How can I support you, or perhaps how can colleagues support you, and to ensure that this support is there, and then to demand it and say: Okay, now it’s being done. Because in the corporate context, it is of course nice if we all like each other. But ultimately it’s about achieving the goals. This requires clarity. But the whole thing must also involve the employees.
Conclusion
I was also very pleased about the comments that were included. The nice thing about LinkedIn is that we can continue the discussion after the talk, so feel free to keep commenting. I’m also pleased that I know some of you personally. Unfortunately, I don’t see them or you in this area, but I definitely keep an eye on them in the chat. With this in mind, have a successful week with and without technology, and as a personal coach for managers, as always: first switch on your brain, then your technology.
Yours, Thorsten Jekel
Also available in: Deutsch
