Episode 55: Facilitating Culture Change with Douglas Ferguson
Melissa Perri welcomes Douglas Ferguson on this episode of the Product Thinking Podcast. Douglas is the President and Founder of Voltage Control, a change agency focused on helping teams implement new approaches to old systems. He joins Melissa to talk about the realities and challenges of influencing corporate culture, and shares his wisdom on how and where to start your own process of change at your organization.
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Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Douglas talk about:
Before getting started with any change initiative, companies should sit down and assess where they are in their change journey. Douglas always starts with the people - those who are on board with change, and the ones who are opposed to it. When you can identify who the key players are, you can tailor your approach to the specific climate of the company. [3:30]
Leaders need to ask themselves what kind of change they want to see in their organizations. Identify the most important change that you want to see, and focus there. Oftentimes leaders get distracted by changes that are alluring, instead of focusing on the smaller changes that are right in front of them. Focusing on the key outcomes the change is going to drive for the organization is far more important. [5:55]
"It's healthy to step back and even just look at why am I trying to do this culture change," Douglas tells Melissa. He adds that exploring the purpose of change can lead to some epiphanies about what can be done during a particular timeline, and what could not be done. [9:34]
When it comes to the detractors in the organization, it's better to understand that they operate on a spectrum. There will be individuals who oppose your suggestions simply because it's personal, but there are also the passive detractors. The passive detractors are neutral and are more skeptical. However, it is possible to bring them around to the changes you want to implement. They simply need a bit more detail and convincing but once they get it, they will become advocates for you. [14:45]
It is a lot harder to tell if an executive is committed to change, if you're an individual inside the organization. Consultants that are brought in are usually able to tell from the start. Douglas gives some practical tips on how employees can gauge how committed their employers and leaders are to change. He also shares some questions employees can ask. [17:35]
Team level product managers are capable of making change impacts in their organizations. Anyone, no matter where they are in the company, can make a change. Douglas illustrates this using points from the book "Start Within," that he co-authored with Karen Host. If you feel passionate enough about making a change in your company, just do it. [21:31]
Breaking through the mentality of 'We can't do this; it's not allowed' at organizations starts with inquiry. Start asking provocative questions about why certain processes aren't performed in the organization. Also go through the informal networks because it expands your knowledge and you can get even more insight. [25:45]
Douglas gives tips on what product managers and designers can do to challenge regulations that hinder them from productivity and innovation. One such tip is to befriend the legal department. [29:11]
Figure out strategy before you decide to implement change. Douglas and Melissa touch on OKRs and its role as a strategy deployment tool. "OKRs is a strategy deployment technique but if there's no strategy how are you going to deploy it," Melissa says. [35:58]
In his closing remarks, Douglas cautions against putting together a perfect vision of how you think the world should be when giving presentations. "You're not changing, you're not adapting, you're not verifying assumptions that you have about the organization or about how things could work," he says. Be willing to change, be willing to listen and tweak your vision as you go along, and you and the business will be a lot happier for it. [38:33]
Resources
Douglas Ferguson | LinkedIn | Twitter
Transcript:
Melissa:
Hello. And welcome to another episode of the product thinking podcast today. We're talking to Douglas Ferguson who is here to join us and talk a lot about culture. Welcome Douglas.
Douglas:
Hi, it's good to be here. Thanks for having me.
Melissa:
Great. Douglas, can you introduce yourself for the audience?
Douglas:
Yeah, of course. Douglas founder of Voltage Control. we're a change agency and essentially what we mean by that is that we help facilitate change. So we train on facilitation techniques and we facilitate lots of different moments for teams that are navigating or looking to accelerate or sustain change in different ways, whether it's strategy sessions or even just problem solving of any, any sort.
Melissa:
That's great. Yeah. Douglas and I know each other, we've been part of this little group of consultants for a while. I very much specialize in product management, but Douglas goes in and does everything. I feel like you, you really concentrate on the change aspect of stuff and no matter what that really entails. so I'm really excited to talk to you today about what that means, because I have product leaders all the time approaching me saying, how do I change my company culture? How do I usher this through? and I'm sure a lot of people listening to this are like, yeah, that's me. Like, I, I have to figure out how to change this organization from operating the way it has operated for the last 100 years, 20 years, however big you are, into a new thriving product org. And, and what does that entail? So I'd love to hear, how do you get started with change initiatives when an organization calls you up and says, Hey, like we're trying to, change your culture to be more product led. where do you even start? Like how do you even figure out where to begin with that?
Douglas:
So where to start. That's always a good question. Right? and often that can be the moment that many people are struggling with just even how to get begin, begin with the change. Right. I think our classic situations, or, there's this analysis paralysis, like, I don't even know how to start. Other times people are stuck in the messy middle where they got this momentum but then it's just like they got in the weeds and then trying to get untangled is, is difficult. And then sometimes, maybe they got outta the messy middle and they're just, they can't seem to like wrap it up, they can't seem to just get it done. And so I think the first thing that we do is try to figure out where they are in the journey.
We're kind of in fact finding mode and usually that'll happen when we're first, meeting them. but when we're actually really starting to engage and, and work with a client, it always starts with the people, right. And that will, we'll be learning quite a bit in the discovery pieces around what the key players are. We're trying to identify the folks that are totally on board with this change, like who are excited about it and the champions of the change, but also where are the people that are against the change, like the detractors, and then who are the people in the middle and where do they fall in the spectrum? real big fan of a book called cascades by a good friend of mine, Greg Satell, where he talks about the spectrum of allies.
So that's a really nice model to think about, but ultimately, refocusing in on who the key players are and who are the people that are against this, and what's really motivating their perspective as to why this is not a good change. And then you can start unpacking, okay, these, these are the detractors to change. This is where the resistance is, and we can start kind of analyzing, and putting together approaches. Right. And, and maybe I should step back and say, sometimes there's the situation where we shouldn't be making the change at all. And so that will sometimes surface in the workshops we're doing with clients as we're starting to explore the needs and explore the problem.
Melissa:
Yeah. That's a great question. When do companies actually really need to change? Like I guess what have you seen in a mismatch when you come into an organization and people are like, oh my God, we need to change. And you question that like, do they actually need to change? What's usually pushing it.
Douglas:
Yeah. You, the thing that comes to mind was the example that you posed in the pre-chat when we were just kind of getting on around hearing from a lot of product leaders that maybe they got a new, new job or promotion and they had this vision of how product could be so much better this organization. And it's like, I gotta change this culture to make a difference to get where we need to go. And that is, potentially problematic. because, if you focus on the change of the culture, then that's the decision you're making. that is, that is not a small feat. And so that means is you're not gonna be able to accomplish other things that you might be interested in accomplishing. And so really kind of prioritizing what is the change that we want to see?
Is it that, is this broader cultural change or is it that we want to see these benefits in the product or these, or, these needs that are unmet for the customers starting to get met? what is the most, important change that we wanna prioritize? And let's focus on that first cause sometimes like this, we focus on or we get distracted by a real big change that's interesting or like alluring in some way. And it's sometimes the small change or the things that we have in front of us that we can, we can go and implement. That's the very thing that we should be focusing on. And the beautiful thing about that is it creates momentum because if we make a change that has a positive impact, then we can point to that as a case study to say, this is the success I was able to create.
And, and that's much more powerful than saying that, well, I came from Amazon and we did it at Amazon like this, and we need to do it that way here, because so many people can dismiss that in the organization by saying, well, we're not Amazon, we don't work like Amazon. And so, so I think the key is focusing in on, what are the key outcomes that this change is gonna drive for the organization and are there other things that we may need to accomplish first or instead of this change because, when we're talking about changing the way that people be operate or come together and work, that can be a lot of work and sometimes there are other goals, there are other reasons we were hired.
Melissa:
Yeah. Like what you're talking about. and as you mentioned, we were talking about this before we jumped into recording. but what I see is tons of new chief product officers or, they could even be experienced chief product officers. They come into organizations and they look around and they go, wow, they haven't been doing product management. Well, that means that I need to go change the culture. Right. That's how people put it. and I hear from a lot of, of product leaders that they spend like 80% of their time, 90% of the time changing the culture, right? Like whatever that is in quotes. And from my experience, a lot of the people who do that, don't do exactly what you were talking about, what they were hired for, right? Like they, they spend so much time kind of like walking around and telling people, doing presentations that are like, Hey, you need to be focusing on outcomes and Hey sales, you need to be not dictating to us what to do.
This is the way we wanna work. And you need to change the way that you approach and what they're not doing is like building the product strategy that they were hired to build for so that people aren't reactive. So that sales has a pipeline of features that they could actually sell to new customers. and they don't do that. And they spend so much time trying to get other people to change that they don't change the parts of the organization they actually have control over. and that's one of the big reasons I see people fail in product management roles. And that's also why, I, I think I try, I try to screen for that in, in a lot of, calls. And when people say like, well, I changed this whole organization. It's like, well, what did you do, tactically? Right?
Like, but did you help the organization still achieve its goals? Did that change result in what it was doing? So very, very similar to what you're talking about. And I love the concept of like, to me, people ask how do I change a culture? And I was like, I don't know, I'm not an expert on this. So let's go talk to Douglas on the podcast about it instead. but what, what would you say to those people who are listening to this who are questioning like, is it a culture change that's really needed versus do I just need to do my job and show people what good looks like, cuz I'm in that position? How do you know when it's really a culture change? And like what does it mean to actually change a culture?
Douglas:
Here's here's the thing though. It's you want to change the culture? You had to do that stuff first anyway. And so my, my little kind of example or my, well, let me just say this. The point I was trying to make was that it's, it's healthy to step back and even just look at, why am I trying to do this, this culture change. Cause often that exploration around the why and the purpose will lead to some epiphanies around, wait a second. Like if I'm really going to accomplish these things, then, then there might be some precursors for, for that change. And because if we don't show those examples, if we don't have the case studies, if we can't demonstrate that, Hey, I found a salesperson who is working in a way that's conducive to more better customer discovery and to building product in the best way.
Then, then we, we built out this example of how we got something done in record time and pleased the customer in a really amazing way. And then also what did we not do? What did we, what did we think we were gonna build and then end up not having to build because of these discoveries made along the way. And then we can make a really strong case around this is this is the direct impact we made to the organization. Also the stuff I was talking about earlier around these notion of allies, like who is on board and who is on, who is against us. And I wanna kind of come back to anchoring on some really solid facilitation found because everything we do is based on facilitation. In fact, I used to refer to us as a facilitation agency until I realized that no one really understood what that meant.
And then B every time we're helping customers, it's in clients, it's when they're in a moment of change. And so, so we just kind of honored that fact, right? it was, is just a, just a reflection of what we noticed and, and at the bedrock of this notion of facilitation is that, we're gonna approach the people as the source of the solutions, and we're gonna, we're gonna, create safe environments for people to speak their minds and let the truth, emerge. And rather than being advocates, we're going to inquire. And so if someone is a product leader, whether they're new in the organization or not, and they want to see the organization change to adopt better, more productive product behaviors and techniques, I think, an inquiry approach will be much more effective than an advocacy approach. And so when you talked about the slides and, and going around and pitching sales on new behaviors and stuff, that's can see they're going around and saying, this is how it should be done.
Whereas inquiry is much more about why haven't we done it this way before, cuz then you're understanding not only who your advocates are, cuz you'll cuz the people that respond to that question with yea, it's ridiculous. We haven't done it that way before now, you know? Okay, Michelle, she's on board with us and then, you talk to someone else and, and they're like, well, we don't do it that way because we're not Silicon valley startup and da, da, da. And they have all these reasons and then, and then you, you realize, okay, they are, they are not for, for us, they're against us. And, and understanding that's really important. So knowing that Steve's against us means that we need to listen very carefully to Steve, but we don't want to be, we don't want to be presenting and advocating to Steve because if we do that now we're arming Steve with all of our knowledge and all of our, know-how and all of our approaches and all of our techniques.
And then he can go use it against us. He can, he can shift it and translate it in ways, distort it, make it not make it sound bad. And we definitely don't want that. So we wanna listen intently to Steve and everything that he has to say so that then we can learn from it. And we can think about how we want to now go talk to Michelle and arm her with more data on, on how, we can spread a better message so that Steve can't then convince other people to, to like go against us. Right. This is just classic, like, advocacy, without having to, to go and present and advocate like directly on a position. And then the other thing that we can learn from Steve is what he values, right? So as he is telling us all these things that he like thinks are important and like why we haven't done it that way, we can start to understand nuanced things about the way that he feels about these things.
And a great example is around the agile manifesto, right? If we come in and we were like, Hey, we should adopt agile and check out the agile manifesto. It's awesome. Well, CEO is not gonna not gonna really, they're just gonna be like agile manifesto. What are you talking about? And they might read it or glance at it and they're like, whatever. But if you realize like that, there's something they value deeply and it's super important to them. And especially if they're doing OKRs or some kind of like strategy deployment approach where you know exactly what's important and you can align with those and then also align with other things they personally value then, wow, you're really gonna get somewhere with, with, with, with people. And that's when you can start to turn on a little bit of advocacy, but if we don't really go through that inquiry first and apply just general kind of people understanding techniques, just like we would for, for understanding where the problem is and opportunity for a product, then we're gonna fail.
Melissa:
Yeah. What's like these detractors that pop up, don't, don't try to sell them. Can you ever sway them to your side? And if so, what have you seen work?
Douglas:
You can sway them. I think the trick is to understand it's a spectrum. So there's gonna be some folks on the far, far, far end that are just against you, cuz they it's like personal. For some reason, they just don't like you, and they're gonna make up any which reason to, to, to, be against whatever you stand for. So those people, you best, you can listen to em, because they're gonna be spending some arguments and you're gonna wanna be prepared to like, talk to your, to your team. and, and the people you're wanting to support and are with you so that they don't, they don't get swayed. Now then you've got folks that are neutral or folks that are kind of passive detractors. They're kind of like, eh, I don't, they're skeptical. those are the ones that I think you can, you can sway over and, and think of it like a, a domino effect, right?
If you convince the passive supporters, Michelle's all about it. She's like, yeah, I get it. Like she's, she's showing up to all the meetings and the rallies, but like there's probably someone, just adjacent to her on this spectrum that you want to talk to and pull toward your, toward your, your side. And then, then once you have those on board, then you can, you're starting to pull, pull more toward the neutrals and the passive detractors. That's how you kind of build a momentum right. And really focus in on the folks that kind of get it, but they need a little bit more detail, a little more convincing and then guess what those folks become advocates for you. And then that has a ripple throughout the organization. And I think as much as you can kind of, activate these sleeper cells, if you will.
But also you gotta be willing to be receptive to what they're saying. Just like we're building agile products. We should be building agile process when we should be co-creating along the way. And so if one of our neutral, or our passive supporters has a real issue with some way that we're thinking about rolling out this new process or the way that we're the way that we're gonna be innterviewing customers. For instance, let's just say something similar as that. Or maybe it's some like some way where we're gonna roll out like JIRA, cuz they're not using or, JIRA or some other tool that, that you're thinking about rolling out. And someone has a bone to pick about it. Well, understanding that and really listening and then internalizing and thinking about how you respond to that is really powerful. Cause then you build trust that you care and you listen and that there's going to be like, improvements and changes made to support everyone. And then it's just like, it builds and builds and builds and grows.
Melissa:
So one of the issues I've run into and I think a lot of people have too, and they've tried to embark on change in a large organization. I've seen a lot of executives come in and be like, we should be doing agile. We should be doing product, right. Like we need to do this, but then when it comes time for them to act or, or change their behavior, they don't do it. How can you tell if an executive is really dedicated to that change, if they understand the change, like what do you do when you walk into an organization and you run into that issue?
Douglas:
Well, I'll say this it's a lot more difficult if you're inside the organization and it can go both ways. Right. Because it can be really challenging if you're trying to, convince if you're the lone designer in a startup that kind of like was growing fast and they just hired you because they're like, we need some design and they didn't really invest in design and you're trying to convince them of the real value design. It can be like really a, like really tough, right. Because it's like, they're just, they're not really investing. And it's almost like they're just checking a box because they read an, fast company that they needed to do it or something. Right. And, and, and then, so specifically what you were asking around the executives actually saying we're gonna do it, but it's just kind of lip service.
And then, everyone's kind of waiting around and do it. it's a lot tougher if you're on, if you're just on the team kind of being like, okay, when are we gonna see this? Whereas for us, the fact that we got brought in means they're committing, they're clearly dedicating budget to make this happen. But the thing that we're looking out for is do they, there's a, kind of signals for us. Right. I don't know if you've heard the term sheep dipping, but Daniel Stillman and I were talking about it recently, this idea of just like, let's just dunk a few sheep and some training, and then they'll just, it's not really gonna transform anything. Right.
Melissa:
That's hilarious.
Douglas:
So, if, when we're talking to them about this change and what their goals are, and they're like really kinda skewing this down to like something really small, like a one like a, like a couple day workshop and they're, they're clearly not interested in any ongoing coaching, whether in group work and of visual work and they don't seem to really have a good handle on who, who might the cha who the change makers might be then, then that is, that's problematic, right. Because it's clear that like, they're probably not in it for the right reasons. and we're kind of in a special seat because we can, we can ask about what is the purpose, like, why do you want to do this and unpack that with them? So we're already applying a lot of our techniques, the minute that, a biz dev conversation happens, right.
We're starting to ask them like, and workshop them. and, but if you're internal, which is probably what most listeners are, and they're kind of in this situation where like, thinking, how do I deal with this, this, leader? And, it's, it's probably gonna differ quite drastically depending on the level of seniority and confidence levels and whatnot. But as much as you can from the very early on, start to ask pointed questions around intention and purpose, desired outcomes, what are the plans, how are they budgeting for this stuff? and I would say like, if you're getting hired and into an organization and there's promises made around this kind of stuff, or if you're, or if you're even contemplating leaving, but they're making promises about this stuff, then treat it like you would, your, like your, your equity, negotiations and your salary negotiations let's get real specific, like a, what, what is, what is your intention, how you're planning on rolling this out?
Like, do you have, do you have plans around, completion dates, kickoff dates, who's gonna, who's gonna be in charge of, rolling this out, how much you're gonna spend on it, these kinds of things, because if they don't have answers for those kinds of questions, it probably means that they haven't put any thought into it or that they don't have any intention of doing it. And, and if they, if it's still a little too early in a process for them to have like concrete answers, like numbers and figures and things, you should still be able to, Intuit based on the way that they're, responding, you just kind of like really just have to listen to your gut. Like, are they, are they spinning some yarn or are they do they seem to really be giving me answers that give me confidence.
Melissa:
Yeah, that's really wise. I like, I like that, treat it like you're negotiating any other part of your compensation package to come on, make sure that they're committed. I think that will really help. Well, let's pretend too, you're not a leader, cause this is, this is probably the most frequent question I get asked on the podcast, at, at conferences and stuff. It's always from a team level product manager who says my organization doesn't work the way that you said in Escaping the Build Trap. How do I change it? Can they change it? Like if you are a team level, product manager, can you be successful in changing an organization?
Douglas:
It's possible, Karen Holst wrote a book and I was the co-author with her on that, called Start Within, and this is the whole concept, of that book is how someone, no matter where they are in the organization can make change. And, I've already talked about a few of the things that we mentioned that book, which is, definitely be clear about the change that you're seeking. don't just say I'm gonna change the way that we do, do work. And in fact, one of the things, one of the chapters is called house rules and, we kind of made this analogy to monopoly, Karen talked about play monopoly a lot when she was young and, and when she'd visit a friend's house, if they had different rules than they had at her house, she just played by the rules at that house.
It would be a lot more painful to be like, well, we played this way at my house. And so definitely don't wanna roll in and just say, Hey, well, Melissa said this in her book, really pay attention oto the way that things are done there. And are there ways to adjust and nuance and iterate, really, I wanna encourage people to look at kata, right? Like, what is this big mountain of a change that we're hoping to make? And what's a little incremental thing we can do, I want to lose a bunch of weight, so I'm gonna to start walking every day. Well, the only thing I had to do today is go for a walk, you know? And so what's the version of that for your organization. When you look at Melissa's book and you think about all the things that instead of looking at all the things that, that, that you're not doing today, what's something that you're doing today that resembles something in the book, but maybe you're not doing as good as you can, or maybe there's just like some slight modification that if you were to change it, then you, you would start seeing some benefit and then people will see that benefit and appreciate it.
And then, and then so on and so on and so on. And so what's that first domino that you can flip and also encourage you to also think about what you have within your are locus of change. Like what is under your control that you can say, I'm gonna go do this without asking for permission and just change the way I'm doing it. So, so many times I hear people saying, well, our company doesn't talk to customers. And my response is always like, well, what's stopping you. You know? Like, usually not because they don't care about what the customer is saying. It's usually because there's processes and there's a flywheel spun up and there's certain meetings on certain days and people are just inundated with all this crap that's coming at 'em and they're doing all the things. And, and just this notion of like introducing a new thing to do is like just difficult.
Right? And so if you feel passionate and you're annoyed that you're not talking to enough customers, then why don't you just start doing it? You know? And, and you may think, well, I don't know which customers to talk to, or I don't really have access to the right ones. It doesn't matter. Just start somewhere because if you start building, well, if you start saying, well, I, I heard from this customer, people are gonna start listening to you. Right. Cause they're gonna, it's inherently, people are gonna care about that statement. So that's just one example, but what are the things that your company's not doing and what are the things you could just start doing? Even if it's a little tiny version or even, an imperfect version, don't let, don't let this pursuit of perfection stop you from doing something good.
Melissa:
I love that. And that's one of the ones I use as an example, too, like the talking to customers piece, I've run into organizations, a lot of financial organizations that are like, well, we're not allowed to go talk to customers. Right. And they get stopped by bureaucracy. And so I spent a long time as a consultant going to the next level, up from that person and being like, okay, there's saying they're not allowed to talk to customers. Like, can they go talk to customers? We're like, no, we're not allowed to, okay. Who says that? And just like tracing it up the path to whoever's like the last person. And it's really interesting because it's usually like, oh no, you are allowed to go talk to customers. Like, that's fine. It's just that, you have to do it X, Y, Z, before you go do it. And I feel like these stories get told in these organizations about like, why we can't do things and, and, how it, how it's, it's the status quo, right? It's always been this way. This is how we operate. And that's how we get there. how do you break through some of that barrier at the beginning? Right. Like some of that immediate, oh, we can't do that. Right. If you are, if you're trying to introduce this into organizations, how do you react to that? How do you, how do you kind of break that down a little bit?
Douglas:
Well, it's always the same, right? It comes back to the inquiry and, and it's conversations and it's digging into why, it's like, you just get really good at asking why in so many different ways is, it's pretty obnoxious just to say, why, all the time, it'll sound like a three year old and, annoy everyone. But you just with practice, you get really good at, finding new ways to rephrase the question why, and, even, even stuff like, let's take that example. We can't talk of customers. And it was like, oh, has that always been the case? Was there ever a time when you could, it's like, you know what I mean? Like then it's like, then you start to get stories. Cause a lot of times when people are in, if people are defeated, they give you that whole just like, can't do that kind of answer.
But if you start to ask really good questions and I really recommend Warren Berger, his book, a more beautiful question. There's also, he has a companion, the book of questions that's really good. And we have a free download, called the facilitators guide the questions. It's like lot of really good ones in it. But, if you start asking provocative questions, then you start getting stories. And when people start telling you stories, then you start getting to the root of things. And I like your, your, your advice around following the following the thread of truth. And sometimes often that goes up the chain. But I do want to encourage people to think about the fact that there's informal networks, cuz what you're describing as following the formal network up up the chain of hierarchy. But there's also informal networks too. That can be very knowledge rich.
And there's been a lot of study around informal networks. it's things like if, if, if the company's gonna shut down where there's gonna be layoffs or you think there's gonna be low layoffs, who do you call? Like who's in the know, but isn't necessarily part of the chain, those kinds of folks, like really great to ask questions to, because they'll start giving you insights that maybe even that maybe even pierce through this frozen middle where stuff tends to get clogged up. and then to add on to your story, I run into that a ton as well and a hilarious variant or maybe a sad variant of that is when it's a regulated space and the regulation says one thing, but the organization is enforcing an entirely different thing because they're taking a more aggressive view of the regulation just to be safe, which is ridiculous because I would argue it's pretty unsafe to, to restrict yourselves in ways that don't allow you to innovate.
Melissa:
Yeah. They, that has happened to me so many times. there was a regulation when I was working in this, kind of e-commerce type startup. I was helping it out and it said in the regulation that you have to put a notice for everybody in California, in California, they have all the warnings about plastic and stuff like that, somewhere where they could read it and the lawyers interpret it as right before you hit the buy button, it has to be really big size 24 font. And I was like, where does it say that in the law? And it doesn't, it just says like it has to be readable to the person before they buy it. but they were trying to enforce it as like, it must look like this. And of course conversion tanked. Like if we enforced it there that way, because everybody was like, oh my God, what is this warning like? And all saying, is that like, your thing will be shipped in a plastic bag. Right. Which is not like not abnormal to a seasons, but it's crazy how many times that happens and you're right. Like everybody tries to look at those regulations and then enforce it in completely different ways. What, what would you say? Like what's something a product manager could do or design a or anybody to challenge those regulations and really understand like where do they even look for that? How do they understand like what's really required and how do you challenge it?
Douglas:
Yeah. I think that, there's, there's a few things. One is, quite often I, I feel like, there's maybe it's a challenge or confidence issue where, they just get told, this is how it is and they just accept it. Right. whereas it's not that hard to like go find the regulation and read it, you know? and also I would say that I always like to tell people that that legal, is innovation's best friend because, if you don't take that stance, they will become your worst friend, your worst nightmare. So befriend those people let them know that you have good intentions. And, and then when you, when you come up against some challenge, cuz it's not always legal, that's interpreting it weird. It could be a VP or a director or someone and some other, some risk or compliance group.
And if you've got folks that you can trust and you can go to that can help you maybe navigate some of the more trickier parts of like the legalese then, then you're really set up for success cuz then they can help you, make a stronger argument. But I mean, I would just say, oh, crack it open, read it. That's a, that's a good first start. and then also again, the inquiry, just asking, Hey, what, why, what is the impact to the organization, for doing this right. Cause it it's really funny to me when, when, you, you talk about, making a change, that's gonna impact conversion rate in some, really negative way. And you can have actually, tie that back to a monetary loss and a, and, and a poor experience for, for users.
And then, okay. Then let's look at the intent of the regulation and, there's, there's kind of the spirit of the law and the letter of the law, right? So in the spirit of the law, are you really hurting users in some way? So we don't, there's ethics of like, we don't want to like push too far towards, just the letter just so that we can improve, click through rate just, just to like, grow the business when it's hurting people. But if it's not hurting anyone and, and we know that like the other going the other routes gonna tank our conversions, what is the potential risk? Like, like literally what's the fine that we would get, like, and it's ridiculous to me when I see people doing things that like, are gonna take a, a half a million dollar hit on something that would be like a $10,000, fine.
It's like, Hmm, the math on that's pretty easy, unless we're doing something really just evil, then I would kinda steer toward more. Let's just like do the thing that's better for the user. And then, then find out, because quite often we're dealing with stuff that's never been litigated. we, when I was one of my startups where I, when I was CTO, we were doing a project that, where we were collaborating with, with AT&T and they, the product, was targeted at, at children and, and families really, cuz it was creating secure environments inside of Android devices. And to the limited extent, apple devices as well, more of a content play there. But we were subject to kapa the child's online privacy and protection act and the issue is that it never been litigated.
And so the reverse risk assessment thing that I was the thing I was just describing to you was the reverse was applied to us because the AT&T lawyers were looking at any potential revenue they might have with us tiny little startup. And they were like, that's a rounding error. But because cop has never been litigated, they didn't wanna have a target on their back. And so they were, they were, they literally made us, require that if the app gets installed on a device, an email gets sent to whoever installed it. And they had to click except in the email within 24 hours of the app won't work because they were worried about children installing the app and the parent not giving permission. Oh, wow. So, so like talk about like impeding the first time used experience it's like, but there was nothing, we, that wasn't a situation where we were like, okay, I get, I can reason about why we're dealing with this because they're, they, this puts a big target on their back and the potential revenue for them while it's very consequential for us is, it's a rounding error for a big company, like AT&T.
Melissa:
Yeah, that's fascinating. Wow. I like that. I never thought about it with the flip side too. Like I've, I've been in situations where the CEO has literally been like, stop it, like stop spending, a million dollars trying to fix that one thing that's gonna cost me a thousand dollars. If they find me for it, like stop whenever, jumps through the compliance hoops to do it. But I've never thought about the flip side, which is really fascinating. I like that idea of, it could go both ways. I've also got a question on on this part, as we were talking about CEOs in my experience, I find that a lot of change initiatives or change period, like it comes down to the CEO, right? Like it comes down to whoever is the leader of the organization, saying, yeah, I wanna go this way or that way, is that true?
Like, it's, it's been my experience for it, but I I'm wondering if you've ever seen a time where, a CEO has been the detractor, right. We talk about, attractors and detractors when they come, to this. And I think I've seen a lot of CEOs be like passive detractors and get on board. But how do first of all, I guess too, if your CEO is an attractor or detractor, especially if you're, a couple levels down in the organization and do you find that a lot of the change, starts or ends with them? and what do you do about that? Or how do you find out if they're gonna be on board?
Douglas:
Yeah, that's a good question. And I guess it doesn't, I mean, this could be a GM. It could be a director department head. I mean, it really depends on where this, whoever is kind of think going through these motions, sits in the org and, and then who's a few rungs above them. Right. Cause ultimately whoever that person is sitting up there could shut all this down. Right. And, and so the question is, maybe more broadly, like how do I deal with like these people that could just, shut it down or stop it all. and I think that, again, a lot of what, what I've spoke about before is, are, are great techniques for, hedging against that. Right. If we understand what's what's going on because we're talking to everyone, we understand who the supporters are. And we're, going through those informal networks, someone might have the ear of that person, if it is the CEO, some, somebody might just be, like really good friends with the CEO and knows all about her. And, you can learn a lot through these informal networks. but, and then also it's, there's, there's also timing, around when you can maybe approach them. Right. but I think that the trick is like not, not approaching them too early because, you ideally, there's some momentum and you've done some homework, you understand what the goals are and what the interests are. also, if it's a, if it's a dark mystery on what the values of the CEO are and what the priorities of the company are, they're probably bigger concerns than this change.
In fact, I would say if, if the values of the CEO and and, are not clear and the priorities of the organization aren't clear, that would be that would be, my advice would be to get out or to focus on that, that being your change, like if there is there a way that you can help them with strategy definition. and I threw out OKRs a little earlier, if, if they're trying to do OKRs and they haven't figured out strategy yet you should shut that down too, and have them figure out the strategy before they're trying to deploy it.
Melissa:
Oh Man. So, so many people think strategy is OKRs too. And I like that, that point that you bring up. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's, I think that's important to like talk about too. Yeah.
Douglas:
Yeah. That's that is Christina Wodtke’s point. so if anyone has not seen her book, it's fantastic. Radical Focus, I think.
Melissa:
Yeah. That's a great book. Yeah. And I, I love that. I love the thought of it, but I, I encourage everybody to go read it for themselves with Christina's book. But, yeah, I mean, strategy is not, OKRs is, OKRs is not strategy. OKRs is a technique, but if there's no strategy, how you gonna deploy it.
Douglas:
Which is that's right. And, and the it's, it's rough, I, but I'll, I'll come back to the point around cause all, all points aside. If, if you are in that point and the priorities are clear, the values are clear. That should be some really strong signals or whether or not they're gonna align. And if not, what the issues might be. And if you do need to adjust what you're doing, cause what I would not do is go read a book and say, oh, this is this is the Eureka U be a of how things should be done and try to just like jam that in, despite the values of the organization, values of the CEO, the priorities of of the organization, but how can you adapt? How can you cherry pick some things over that will fit within those priorities within those values?
well, I would caution people though when you're cherry picking, be very careful because if anyone's ever seen the article, I tried baseball and it sucks. then, then you understand that just kind of piecemealing process, any which way that suits your favor is, is, is not a good approach, right? There's, there's, there's reasons why people over the years have, have honed things to work a certain way. but also I would say that, so do your homework and understand why they work the way they work, but also understand that, you don't have to just like steam, everything we can bring in the stuff that works and aligns with our needs and, and start building those use cases. but, yeah, the leaning in on the CEO's, priorities I think is a very smart approach.
Melissa:
Yeah. I really like that. I think that's a great place to start. And it's like you said at the beginning too, right. It's change is not just changing hearts and minds and cultures. It's actually like changing what you do. And if you don't do strategy right now and you don't do priorities right now, it's a good thing to start changing and actually do those actions and move it forward.
Douglas:
Something else popped into my head that I think is really important for folks. And, you can't change an organization unless you are willing to change. Yeah. And I think maybe that's the biggest message that people should take with them. Cuz if you are in that mode of taking some slide decks and putting together this perfect vision of how you think the org should be, and you're just going around and presenting that, then you're not listening. You're not changing. You're not adapting. You're not verifying assumptions that you have about the organization or about how things could work. And so be willing to change, be willing to listen, tweak your approach, tweak your vision as you go, bring people in as you go. And you'll find that the change, you may end up in a totally different place than you anticipated, but you'll probably be a lot happier and it'll probably be a lot better place.
Melissa:
Yeah. I think that's fantastic advice for everybody listening. So thank you so much Douglas for being on our podcast today, where can people learn more about you and about voltage control?
Douglas:
Yeah. voltage control is at voltagecontrol.com. definitely check it out. We we're very active on our blog and on, is releasing lots of templates and things on our website, lots of free content to engage and, I'm on LinkedIn, pretty active there so people can find me there as well.
Melissa:
Great. Well thank you so much for joining us and thank you for listening to the product thinking podcast for everybody out there. If you like this podcast, please go and subscribe so that you can hear more every Wednesday. next Wednesday, we'll have another dear Melissa at this episode where we're answering all of your questions about product management. So make sure you go to dear melissa.com and submit those questions and we'll see you next time.