ADJUSTED
ADJUSTED
Digital Transformation - Rebroadcast with Ema Roloff
Digital transformation starts with people, not technology. Emma Roloff, Director of North American Property and Casualty Sales, shares her journey from aspiring teacher to insurance technology leader. She emphasizes a people-first approach to digital transformation, advocating for technology to enable process improvements rather than dictate them.
Emma discusses the challenges carriers face, such as balancing backend system improvements with customer-facing experiences, and provides practical advice on engaging stakeholders, choosing the right technology partners, and fostering digital literacy. Her insights on change management highlight the importance of converting skeptics into advocates to accelerate adoption.
Season 9 is brought to you by Berkley Industrial Comp. This rebroadcasted episode is hosted by Greg Hamlin and guest co-host Sam Neer, Group Product Manager with Berkley Alternative Market Technology (BAMTECH).
Visit the Berkley Industrial Comp blog for more!
Got questions? Send them to marketing@berkleyindustrial.com.
For music inquiries, contact Cameron Runyan at camrunyan9@gmail.com
Hello everybody and welcome to Adjusted. I'm your host, Greg Hamlin, coming at you from Sweet Home, Alabama and Berkeley Industrial Comp. And I'm excited to share with you this rebroadcast. This episode is with my friend, Emma Roloff, who I met at a technology conference a number of years ago and we had a great discussion about how technology is transforming the industry and how does a carrier or a leader map out the process that takes your company from where it is now to a new level through technology and the importance of gaining cooperation with the employees, gaining buy-in, thinking through all of the steps so that we don't have bumps along the way. I really enjoyed our discussion together and I hope you do as well. Way, I really enjoyed our discussion together and I hope you do as well. Remind you to like, follow and share this podcast and love it if you could go on to favorite platform and leave us a five-star review so that others can find their way to this podcast and enjoy the same content you're enjoying. So, with that, I'll remind you to do right, think differently and don't forget to care and enjoy.
Greg Hamlin:Welcome to Adjusted. I'm your host, Greg Hamlin, coming at you from beautiful Birmingham, Alabama and Berkeley Industrial Comp. And with me is my co-host today, Sam Neer. Sam, do you want to introduce yourself today, hey?
Sam Neer:everybody, sam Neer, coming from Raleigh, north Carolina, where it's gotten way too hot, way too fast, group product manager with Berkeley Alternative Markets Tech and really excited about today's conversation.
Greg Hamlin:Yeah, it's going to be fun. We had Sam on as a guest recently and since today we're going to be talking about digital transformation, I thought I'd bring him on to be our expert co-host. So he's here today and with us. We have our special guest today, emma Roloff. She's the director of North American Property and Casualty Sales and host of her own YouTube series called Leading Change. So, emma, we're glad to have you here.
Ema Roloff:Thank you for having me, guys. I'm excited for the conversation.
Greg Hamlin:Well, I am too. I had the opportunity to do a short interview with you on your podcast, so I thought it was time to turn the tables, so glad to have you. I always like to start by asking this question how did you end up in the industry? Because I'm guessing, like when you were in your career day, in like second grade, you weren't like this is it? I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to be in the insurance space, am I right?
Ema Roloff:You are right. I wish that I was one of the like. I've met a couple of people that actually do have those stories and now I'm almost a little jealous of them because it's like so much more unique than everybody else who kind of stumbled their way in. But you're right. So I actually, back to those second grade days, was planning on being a teacher and went to school for education. So I actually have a certification to teach sixth through 12th grade social studies, okay, and I started that down that path and was planning to do that and really truthfully, it was because I really enjoyed public speaking and liked kids. And you know, that was kind of the initial like this is a great career for you, go for it. And so that was just kind of like my operating assumption for a long time. And then again, kind of like twisty, windy to get me here, but I ended up taking a position out of college as a corporate trainer.
Ema Roloff:So I had done a couple of internships while I was finishing out my student teaching and realized like hey, I actually kind of like business and there's a lot of stuff that's applicable to what I do in the classroom. It's just bigger people that you're teaching. Now I was like, okay, I kind of like this, and it's not necessarily that I just love kids, I like people. And so that was kind of my first step into the business world. And I did that for a couple of years and then was ready for a change and wanted to get into technology. And I always joke that my husband, my father-in-law and my husband's uncle sat me down for an intervention one year at Thanksgiving and they told me to go into sales. And at the time that was something that sounded like really not appealing to me. But they were like, if you find something that you're passionate about and you're actually helping people solve problems while you're in sales, you're going to really enjoy it and you can do all of the things that you're good at from like your other positions and your other jobs that you've had in the past. And so I applied to one sales job to get them to be quiet and ended up finding a very wonderful company that was focused on process automation and enterprise software implementations and I was with them for about 8 years and really caught the bug for transformation and technology.
Ema Roloff:And finally, this really windy path to lead us into insurance when I was like 24 years old, just took this job, brand new to tech, brand new to sales. They said you know what? There's a big need for process automation within the insurance industry, but we don't have anybody that's a specialist in that area. Would you like to learn about it? And the answer to that is like, well, you're giving me an opportunity. So, yeah, I'm going to take it and I'll figure it out. From here and over the course of the last handful of years, I would say that the insurance industry has done what it does to a lot of people. It's pulled me in Again my affinity for people. There's so many wonderful people and the business is so relationship driven that I feel like now I'm stuck and I'm just not going to make my way out.
Sam Neer:You can't get out you can't get out.
Sam Neer:That's a lot like your story, sam too, because I think you kind of got pulled in sideways too. Yeah, very much. So again it wasn't like again, my podcast a few episodes ago wasn't like I grew up thinking about insurance, but again you start getting in here and you start getting the people, you get seeing the change that's being affected and, like you said, emma, it's you know, once you're in you can't see yourself going anywhere else, which is the exciting part about it. It so love the journey to get there Right. And the one application, just the one application, and then the rest is history correct.
Ema Roloff:Yep exactly.
Greg Hamlin:So the big topic for today is digital transformation, and I know that the concept of digital transformation is being talked about all the time and I don't know if a lot of our listeners even know what that is or what that means in relation to the insurance industry, so I thought maybe we just start there. What do you define digital transformation as, and where is it fit in the insurance industry?
Ema Roloff:Yeah, so I would say my definition when you Google it. Part of the reason that it's this big, ambiguous buzz term is if you look at Wikipedia, it just says process optimization through the use of technology, which is a great place to get started. But where I really look at it and I'll give you the soundbite definition and then dive in a little bit further into why I'm so passionate about the way that I phrase this so to me it is making your people more efficient and improving your processes through technology and I lead with people in process, because those should ultimately be the area of focus and we're enabling them with technology. And when you start to kind of again unpack this idea of people and process tied to it, the reason that I think it gets so fuzzy is because we start to bring in these really big intangible ideas like improving our culture or customer experience, again through this lens of how do we improve it with technology, and those things are kind of buzz terms in their own right as well, and so it gets really muddy when you start to think about it through that lens of like we're enabling these big, intangible things through technology, and that's why I always like to bring it back to people first and foremost in all of it, and because we get tricked by the use of digital on the front of the term. So we opt directly towards technology.
Ema Roloff:But if you go with a solution-led approach, you're going to lose sight of the fact that your people or your technology is being used by people. Your customers are people, your employees are people, your partners and I can go on and on and on. The people that are deploying it are people. So it all comes back to that idea and it's enabling that all through technology and the tools are there. I promise that there's wonderful, and I mean maybe I shouldn't say this as a software salesperson, but there's a lot of platforms that will meet your need if you focus on the people and the process side of it first and you know what you're actually trying to enable. But if you lead on the people and the process side of it first and you know what you're actually trying to enable, but if you lead with the technology, you forget about that other stuff and then you get frustrated that it didn't do what you wanted it to do because you started it with the wrong part.
Sam Neer:Yeah, I love that, emma. I think it's really the idea of extension beyond the software, right, it's the idea of it's not just you can all get saying the program, the code, the lines of code, the product as a product manager myself, it's like look at the cool button and look what they can do. But how you go beyond that next step in the people-centered approach or the human-centered approach, I think is really awesome. I think the build on that a follow-up question maybe is is there anything else that extends besides the software? I know you mentioned people and process, but have you found anything else that helps complement the technology that most people wouldn't think of off the bat?
Ema Roloff:That's a good question. I obviously just went on my monologue about people, but, coming from my starting point, within a process consulting company, I cannot stress the importance of also tying your technology implementation to process improvement at the same time, to your point again, we can opt towards like look at what this really cool button can do, but are we building a button to do a step that's unnecessary in the first place? And I think that that question sometimes gets sped past too. And within the insurance industry, I guess I didn't address this part of the question at the beginning of how does it relate to our industry.
Ema Roloff:But when you look at the insurance industry, we have this concept that what we do is so complex that there's no way we can simplify it, and we have this propensity to use that, I think, as an excuse to keep us from asking the hard questions of why are we doing it that way anyhow, and is there a simpler way for us to manage this?
Ema Roloff:Now don't get me wrong. There are so many layers and there is complexity. We can't escape that, and part of that complexity comes from things like regulation and all of the rest of that. But I can't tell you how many times I've been in a meeting where I've asked the question of like okay, so why are we doing it that way? And someone will start to tell you a story about like well, 25 years ago. And you're like okay, well, I get that, but have you thought about maybe doing it differently now? And so I mean again, I went on my big people conversation, but I also can't stress how important it is for you to really truly stop and think about what's the most effective way that we should be managing this and then bringing in the technology to enable that efficient process.
Greg Hamlin:I couldn't agree more, emma, and what you said really stood out to me in that one of the employers that I worked for in a different life. I remember that people were so married to a certain way we used to do things. The example I always gave is like if you had done everything in Word and then I gave you Excel and then you tried to take everything that was in that Word document and put it in one cell and you were frustrated that it wasn't working the way that you wanted it to. It's like well, that's actually not how this tool works and we're so married to doing it this one way. We're not even looking at the possibility. So I think that's hard for people to do, just in general, as we get comfortable with how we do things and then thinking about it a different way can be hard. From your experience, where do you think digital transformation can make the largest impact?
Ema Roloff:So I think, within again, going back to like kind of where we're at within the insurance industry, I think a lot of carriers and this is not saying that this is the wrong approach, but a lot of carriers felt intense pressure to improve their customer experience. And we're still seeing that today. A lot of the conversations that I'm having, whether it's speaking at conferences or talking to customers during discovery and that kind of thing, it's this idea that we have to have a digital first approach to customer experience and I think that many carriers have at least some component of a digital experience on the front end of how they're interacting with their customers, because they were told that that was the ultimate spot to start. The Amazon effect is real. We're all used to dealing with technology and if you didn't do that, you'd probably be in a lot of trouble. But where I think many, many companies have an opportunity right now is on the back end and fixing what those processes look like and improving their employee experience to ultimately impact the customer experience down the line. Because, again, if you've done all of this work and it's massive lifts in many scenarios to build the digital experience and integrate it back to the back end but if you're not also in tandem looking at are we updating those core systems that are in the background of everything? Do we have the appropriate integrations and connections to make this as seamless as possible for our employees to be effective? There's still a lot of room for you to improve that customer experience by shortening your claims lifecycle with how you manage things in the backend. So I think that that is going to be something that we start to see, also tied to many of the things that are just kind of happening.
Ema Roloff:At a macro level. I think we're out of the great resignation but that mentality of workers really seeking a different experience from their jobs, whether that's remote work but also inefficiencies. I see a lot of stuff popping up and we could maybe go into a different, but I do a lot on TikTok. I create a lot of content there, I see comments there and then also interacting with people when it's not tied to their employer, and being in that management leadership side of TikTok is very interesting because there's a lot of conversations about people in my generation having zero ability to deal with inefficiency and just getting angry and deciding to leave jobs because they can't handle inefficient processes, and so I think as we start to see those younger generations that are used to those seamless experiences as customers coming into leadership positions. We're going to see a shift toward that seamless employee experience being more important as well.
Sam Neer:Yeah, to really double-click on something you said there, emma, I really liked what you said around, not just the shiny veneer, not the Again. Digital front-ends and the customer-first experience is important we all agree on that, but sometimes what I'll say is the non-scintillating way is the backend right? So the data processes, the APIs, the data transfers right, but that's really what can impact the things that you do think about with speed Right now. Again, we're blessed to be able to have websites that load like that. So if you're waiting for like two seconds, or going back to your TikTok example, if you're waiting, and it's waiting like three seconds, the short form content this is a lifetime right.
Sam Neer:So it's sometimes the importance of not necessarily having hey, we've got the cool front end, which everyone likes to see, but then if you hear it's taking too long or it's not integrating, and now you have five of these systems, it all really does tie together. So I really liked what you double-clicked on that area.
Greg Hamlin:What are some of the challenges of a digital transformation? I think you fit on a few of those, but I know that if you're creating a roadmap as an organization, realizing we need to do some things different from your perspective. What are some of the pitfalls or challenges that you've seen that carriers go through?
Ema Roloff:So I would say the first piece is maybe lacking a strong vision at the leadership level.
Ema Roloff:Now, that's not like into all of the details of exactly how we execute on our digital transformation strategy, but even just that clear vision from your leadership team of these are the most important things and how we're going to enable them through the use of technology, in a way that gives each and every department leader and each and every person in the company a trendle to pull from of.
Ema Roloff:We're all steering in this direction and some companies do that really, really well, and other companies will have the imperative to digitally transform. Or we're going to become a digital carrier or we're going to. But that's too vague in the way that it doesn't help your team prioritize what's going to be most important for you and it doesn't help your team pull out their own individual initiatives and then down to that individual level to make sure everyone's going in the same direction. And if you just have a very vague vision, what's going to happen is everyone's going to interpret that their own way and each department is going to start innovating in a silo, and then what you're going to get? Going back to a little bit of that conversation of lack of integration and lack of continuity, you're going to have everybody going in these same directions and then, just even coming down to the IT level of it, they might not even know all the systems that are being used.
Ema Roloff:They might not even know what's happening and that nasty little shadow IT thing starts to pop up. And so I think that all bubbles back up to that vision at the top and it needs to be specific enough where everybody can use it to start heading in the same direction. And then I would say that's closely tied to and already ranted about people. So here I go again. But I think change management is another piece that I'm very, very, very passionate about being a part of a transformation strategy and that ties really closely to that vision. So part of the reason that I feel so passionate about that vision being something that people can latch on to is your team, every single person on your team, needs to understand what's in it for them if they're going to support an initiative, and they can't do that if they don't have the end vision in mind and if they don't know how that relates back to their job and how it's going to improve their job, make their job easier, help them, make more. Whatever that what's in it for me statement is for that individual, and I feel like everybody knows change management is important and everybody knows that they should be focusing on how to help their people adapt.
Ema Roloff:But even just like the conversation that you were having with like Word versus Excel that's attached to we have a thought process, we're creatures of habit and we're scared of change because we don't know what it means.
Ema Roloff:And if that change feels threatening, we're going to resist it. If that change feels like a mandate, we're going to resist it. And so there's all of these different directions that if you don't manage that change appropriately across your team, suddenly you're going to start to see all of these behaviors and it's really easy to chalk those behaviors up to like oh, our team is so unwilling to change when it's like well, really, if you just did the piece of making sure that they understood where you're going, why you're going there as a company, and then help them figure out how it was going to impact them, you probably wouldn't have this issue, and we overcomplicate change management sometimes too. So I think it can be that vision that why having a strong communication strategy and then celebrating small wins along the way so that they know you recognize the work that they're doing, and just that can help you get so much more adoption towards your transformation as you're going through the process.
Sam Neer:I love that, especially with the recognition right, it's the first step to recovery, as everyone says. So again, silos, change management, clear leadership really connect with a lot of that, Emma. But sort of taking this to the next step is we as carriers and insurance organizations can't do this all of ourselves right. As much as we want to solve world hunger, we can't be specialists at everything. So I think that leads to maybe building off the idea of challenges. I think that leads to maybe building off the idea of challenges. How do carriers successfully choose who to partner with, who to assist with this process? Because it always seems easy, you know it's like, hey, everyone just plug and play, It'll just be a quick spin up. But I think there's more than meets the eye in regards to that partnership. So, building off the challenges, how do you know who to work with at a broad level?
Ema Roloff:Well, I would say one thing very frankly, and I will tell my customers this too Transformation is not easy, it's not for the faint of heart, and if somebody is telling you that something is going to be like so easy, don't worry about it. There's likely something lurking under the covers. So I mean, when I'm talking to my customers, I will regularly say, like well, you know, we need to dive into that a lot more detail to understand. Like, in theory, we should be able to use an API to integrate there, or we've integrated in this capacity in the past.
Ema Roloff:But I don't know enough about your environment and I don't know enough about, like, what endpoints you're going to have have, because everybody's environment is different and there's unique challenges that come with every organization. If you're not hearing acknowledgement of what those potential challenges could be and hearing the things that you need to hear to know that they're going to work through challenges and not just be there when it's like the happy path, then I think that that might be a signal to you that you need to dig deeper into that relationship to understand what it's going to be like if something doesn't go according to plan. No salesperson is ever going to say you know, of course, this is going to be like the worst experience of your life, and so, like that's not, a realistic thing and I would never say that to a customer, because you never want that to be the scenario.
Ema Roloff:But they should be willing to talk through with you like, okay, so if we run into a challenge, what does your mediation process look like? Or what would be potential pitfalls that you see, based off of our timeline and our scope that we're talking about? They should be comfortable talking through that with you. So that again, it's kind of like a marriage. You shouldn't get married without talking to them, like your spouse, about how you're going to work through conflict and what that's going to look like and figuring out how to communicate effectively with one another.
Ema Roloff:When you're going in, especially for something like a core transformation or a really big project, you almost have to go through that due diligence of like, okay, what do our communication strategies look like? What are our cadence for check-ins going to be? How do we escalate on both ends? So if you're not getting what you need from us, you know who to go to and vice versa. And just working through some of those components I think can be really important. Of those components, I think can be really important, but I also think part of it is like culture of the carrier and culture of the company that they're partnering with. There's going to be software companies that work really well with a specific culture of a carrier but might not mesh well with another. So you also kind of have to be honest with yourself, of like, who are you as a company and what does your culture look like, and who are the vendors that you've seen be effective from a cultural fit in that perspective, and how do you replicate that with other relationships?
Greg Hamlin:I think that's great and I think one of the things you hit on is making sure that you are picking the right partner and planning for things that might not go right, and making sure you have the open communication channels. Things are going to go sideways. Change is hard. Some of the places or carriers that I've talked to think of trying to do it all themselves. So there's always that approach right, like well, we'll build it ourselves, which is great if you have the resources to do that. I often think that we're in the insurance space and that's where we're experts at. So when we try to be experts at everything, it doesn't go well. So when you're thinking about a partner, let's say you've gotten to the point where you realize, okay, we can't do this all ourselves. We do need somebody else to help us with that. What's the danger in seeking a single partner for that, opposed to looking at, maybe, multiple different partners for different solutions?
Ema Roloff:Are we talking like implementation, thought process, or like one software solution to rule them all, so to speak?
Greg Hamlin:I'd say maybe both, but I was thinking more along the lines of one software solution.
Ema Roloff:So I mean there is there, just like anything in life. We'll start with the software side. There are benefits and drawbacks to either approach. So when you're looking at like a software solution suite to bring in and there are economies of scale that come with having one platform and extending it into multiple areas as long as it has those capabilities, but no software platform is going to be the best of breed across every single category. That's just not realistic to expect that. So you do have to almost 80-20 it in your mind to realize that they might have 80% of what you're looking for and there might be something that you're going to feature, functionality-wise, potentially need to be willing to make sacrifices on if you want one platform to go across everything. So that would be kind of like the drawback. The benefit of that is like you were talking about, like from a resourcing perspective, from a training perspective. You have the ability, if you've got one platform, to specialize in that platform and figure out how to use that platform incredibly effectively, to maybe even make up for some of that 20%. That didn't have all of the bells and whistles that you were looking for from a feature and functionality perspective and your team can support that platform with a lot more ease than if you go kind of best of breed approach and bring in a collection of different solutions. The other benefit that comes from having that one solution as we continue to talk about this theme of an integrated experience If you're buying from one provider, they better have that integration figured out between their components of their solution and so you minimize the risk that comes with that communication back and forth between those different components of the solution. Now, on the flip side, if you go with the collection of software platforms, you're likely going to be able to go out and I mean it's a bigger time investment for you to search out that best of breed capability in every category and bring in those platforms.
Ema Roloff:But then you do have integrations across the board the board, even if they, you know again, even if it's like an accelerator or something that someone's done before, there is a gray area on what that'll look like and the effort that it could take for you to string those applications together.
Ema Roloff:But also, integrations aren't one and done, and that's, I think, something that people forget sometimes, and so you need to have the bandwidth on your team to keep those integrations up to date, so every time that something upgrades, you need to be able to do regression testing to make sure that that integration didn't break.
Ema Roloff:And if you've got multiple platforms, you're almost always going through something along that spectrum of updating. And then your team has to be dangerous enough against each one of those platforms to be able to keep up with that maintenance that's in place. Or you have to have partnerships and solution integrator relationships that have the bandwidth to be able to keep up with that, which comes with additional cost as well. So I don't think that there's a right or a wrong answer, and typically what I would see is that larger carriers who have that bandwidth and have that budget will opt towards that best of breed approach because they have the appetite for it. But then mid-tier to smaller carriers recognize that they might not get all of the bells and whistles of those best of breed, but it's going to be more manageable for them on the long-term scale.
Sam Neer:Yeah, as someone who deals with a variety of different vendors, emma, it's really that trade-off Because, again, it's a great idea of one size fits all and have one person to go to one set of contacts, but at the same time you can sometimes be boxed in there.
Sam Neer:For instance, we've all had work done on our houses or apartments where there's the general contractor who can do literally everything, but then they're great at half of what it is, and then you see later, oh my gosh, what the heck was this? And while it's great to get specialists in each area, but then you've got the nightmare of coordination and I've got to call and where's the plumber versus where's the roof guy, right? So again, I think it's fighting, like you've talked earlier, about your culture of your organization. What's your culture? Do you prefer just have the one point of contact in the old school let's pick up the phone and call this one person or is it okay having a variety of contacts and being able to get the best of breed? So I do like that idea of being able to mesh how your culture fits with what you're looking for there and then, like you said, also size considerations as well.
Greg Hamlin:Yeah, from my end, I think one of the things I've seen from the claims perspective is, when there is change, when the frontline employees and I think you talked about this a little bit, about the importance of vision when they have unrealistic expectations of how things are going to work, it can cause a lot of tension between either your vendor and the company or from, if you have an IT department of some kind, them and your staff, as expectations are not realistic. So, emma, have you seen that play out, and what's the best way to avoid getting down a path where there are unrealistic expectations which will follow with frustration?
Ema Roloff:So another area that I would say I'm pretty passionate about is this idea of building digital literacy within an organization, and I think that that is the best way to combat unrealistic expectations and also to help spur what the art of the possible is. Going back to that conversation that we had before to start to get people to be able to think in different paradigms than they have before before, to start to get people to be able to think in different paradigms than they have before, and so when I say digital literacy, I mean a basic understanding of what is possible with technology and where are the bounds in which it's going to offer us benefit to the business. And that's not to say that your executives or every single person working in your claims department needs to learn how to code or needs to learn how to be a technical resource. I don't think that that's appropriate and I don't think that that's the right path. But you do have to understand how technology works at at least a foundational layer or level, to be able to set the right expectations for your team, to be able to understand what is realistic from a business outcome perspective, to be able to set the right timelines and the right budgets and all of the rest of that comes from having that basic understanding of, again, that category that I call digital literacy.
Ema Roloff:And if you are spending time, even if it's a small amount of time, learning about emerging technologies, going to conferences and learning about what other carriers are doing and having conversations where you're just understanding that digital landscape at a better level, then you're going to be able to come back and then work with your experts that you have in-house to start to ask the right questions, to set the right expectations, because I don't think it's intentional that we don't set the right expectations. I think we're overly optimistic and we don't know how to ask the right questions, to set ourselves in the right lane, and so that's why I'm so passionate about the executive team and leaders within an organization learning that but then also building those skills on your team so that they can support your digital initiatives Again, kind of all rowing in that same direction. Back to your vision again.
Greg Hamlin:That's great. I think you know that's one of the things I've seen in my own staff different places that I've worked is just if they can understand what's coming and they have enough of an understanding of how it gets done. You don't have to be experts, like you said. But if you don't know how it gets done, then it makes it really hard. And I can even think of times where we've had somebody suggest well, why can't we have a button that if I click it'll do this, and then we talk about okay, we could do that, anything's really possible.
Greg Hamlin:But do you realize how much time that would take? Let's talk about, if we were to spend this much time doing that, what other things could we be doing for you that might benefit you more in understanding that piece, because I think for a lot of frontline employees they may look at the technology side as almost wizardry, right, like somebody is waving a wand back there and just making it happen, and they don't understand that. Like, well, that ask is possible, but we would have to sacrifice some other things because there's going to be trade-offs in how much time we have to make the magic happen Anything. You want to add to that, sam, you're on that other side.
Sam Neer:Yeah, and again, it's like we wish we had our magic wands. I wake up every morning wishing for the genie and just asking for a magic wand for product development, and then my wife would say you should probably get better wishes next time. All that to say is from the technology side. It's like expectation setting is so important. I love what you said, emmanuel. You as well, greg is we need to pick apart these items. The big red button that solves my world hunger. Well, maybe you don't know about the regulatory reporting component underneath that. Maybe you don't know.
Sam Neer:Hey, downstream vendors rely on this step to be able to fill in this field. And maybe, greg we talked about this when I was on the podcast maybe there's 11 steps, maybe we don't need all 11, but maybe we still need these three, right? So sometimes we think about absolutes, like it has to be an all or nothing, but can we pick it apart just to try to get underneath the surface there? So, sort of building on this, I would sort of ask, like selfishly, I'm very interested to think is are there any practical ways that you can use to ensure this user adoption? Right, like again, it's like you know there's, everyone wants it, everyone says, yeah, I'm on board. But then you know when rubber meets the road. Sometimes there's a big gap between everyone verbally buying in and then actually making the commitment to do so. So have you seen anything that's worked in the past to be able to actually rally around that idea of actually putting boots on the ground and getting her done?
Ema Roloff:So again, I kind of mentioned that there's a couple of things from a change management perspective that I boil it down to and I've said those before and I can dive into specifically where I think they'll support this idea. So again, it's having that clear vision and a why behind the change, and that is going to be, honestly, I think that that's the biggest piece. And as an executive, you set that vision. You are not solely responsible for making sure that that why gets down to every level, and so you have to have tight alignment with your leaders and your managers within your business to help make sure that they're doing the work to get that why actually down to every individual within the company. And so once you have that again, you've got that why.
Ema Roloff:Then the communication piece is again where I think the rubber hits the road in terms of how to truly make sure that you're getting that adoption. And I always say you have to communicate the good, the bad and the ugly along the way, and I don't think you can over-communicate during an implementation. And I think part of that communication has to be bi-directional communication as you're going through an implementation. That's not to say because it's not realistic to have every employee provide their feedback. It's not realistic to say that everybody's in design meetings, because we know that you'd never get anything done if that was the case. But where I do think that you need to be thoughtful is as you're working with departments pulling key people in that you know have that kind of like. We all know that person in the department that everyone goes to to ask questions that has all of this institutional knowledge and knows the why behind everything, and we all know who that person is in a department and they're usually also a big part of getting adoption. So if you can get that person that has that institutional knowledge and has all of that gold inside of their mind into the engagement in some capacity, even at like a testing or planning you know, planning sessions, whatever portion of that process that you can bring them into and genuinely take their feedback not everything you don't have to, like you know, do exactly what they're telling you, but genuinely take their feedback, hear it and adopt some of that into the solution, then you have the most important advocate for adopting that solution on your side.
Ema Roloff:And the reason that I say that this is so effective is that sometimes those people are the people that are the hardest to win over to the change because they're the ones that are used to the way that it's done. They don't want it to change. They don't want their status as that knowledge source to be questioned or taken away, and that can be a scary thing. But if they feel like they've been a part of shaping that solution, some of that fear starts to dissipate and again it's kind of like the leader of the pack all of a sudden starts to see the value in it and then, once they feel that the solution is going to make their job easier and that it's developed in a way that's going to help, all of a sudden starts to see the value in it. And then, once they feel that the solution is gonna make their job easier and that it's developed in a way that's gonna help them be effective, they're going to adopt it and they're gonna tell other people why they should do it and they're going to help you get that why communicated across the department far more effectively than you ever could as a leader, without living and breathing in their shoes every day.
Ema Roloff:So that communication, that bi-directional communication, I think is the most important part, but then also kind of going to that celebrating small wins along the way, celebrate the fact that they were involved in being a part of shaping the solution, thank them for the time that they put forward into making it something that's going to be really effective for the rest of the team. Forward into making it something that's going to be really effective for the rest of the team and use that as an additional communication mechanism to get people to know that you didn't do it in a silo and that you had that bi-directional communication to make sure that you were ending up with the best product that you could. And it sounds really Again, to me it sounds kind of easy. It's not necessarily easy to do, but it's also not the most difficult part of your transformation that you're going to have. And when you can win over those hard personalities, it makes the rest of it so much easier.
Greg Hamlin:I think you're spot on. Each place that I've gone to work, I've had to come in and part of the reason I was brought in was to make change. And each time and maybe not on the digital side, but each time there's some real challenges with that and I think you hit on. One of the keys that has helped me is you do have to find that really knowledgeable skeptic and get that knowledgeable skeptic on your side. And I can remember a couple of times.
Greg Hamlin:I remember one specific time we had laid out the vision of what things were going to change to make things easier for people. So they had time and they weren't so overloaded and they weren't so overworked. And this one particular employee came into me and she was like she looks so mad and she was waving her finger at me, going I'm going to hold you accountable that this is going to happen. And I said I want you to, I want you to come in my office each week and let's talk about it. And it was amazing to see it took time, because these things don't get fixed overnight. But when she started to feel like you know what it is changing and it is happening and I'm part of that things got a lot better.
Ema Roloff:I like that. She waved her finger at you. Oh yeah.
Sam Neer:We all know that Finger pointing.
Greg Hamlin:I remember thinking, oh boy, what have I got myself into? But it it. Things got tremendously better after that time. But you know, there there does need to be some trust. That has to be built and for change to be successful. So I think we've talked about this a lot already, but just maybe to to top it off, we've talked about what makes change hard versus easy, and I think we've we've hit that pretty pretty well. But I wanted to end each episode this year talking about something that people are grateful for. I'm really a big proponent about putting good vibes in the universe. I feel like there's so much negativity out there, and so if the one little thing that Greg can do is to make sure we put something good out there every couple of weeks, I want to do it. So I wanted to ask you that question what's something that you're really grateful for?
Ema Roloff:Well, I mean, I could give like the really obvious answer of my family, which I hope everyone knows is also a part of my gratefulness practice, but I so this is going to sound a little woo woo, but again, going back to putting good into the world, right, I am really thankful for a TikTok that I found a couple of months ago. That was about like kind of like this idea of manifestation and gratefulness wrapped into one, and I made a post about it on LinkedIn and a TikTok and it's called lucky girl syndrome, okay, and it was this TikTok that these like college girls made and it became a trend on online. That was this idea of like if every day, you say to yourself, I'm the luckiest girl in the world, or guy or whatever phrase you want to use for yourself, but like, I'm the luckiest person in the world and things are always working out for me, even if I don't realize that the way that you see the world changes. And just even saying that statement, when you say that statement, you immediately start to reflect on the things that you're very grateful for in the world and it just like starts your day off in the right direction and then also just kind of manifesting that belief that things will come back to you in a positive matter and that mindset is something that, like I would say, has been in place for the last couple of months and it just makes you appreciate the things that are happening in your life.
Ema Roloff:It makes you see opportunity where you might not have seen it in the past and it makes you again kind of going back to that idea of what you're grateful for. It gives you a reminder every single day on why you're the luckiest person in the world and if you can reprogram your brain to think that way, I think it's a really powerful thing. So when I'm thinking about that, immediately what pops into my head every day is my family, and then it goes to something really positive that happened the day before, or people that I have relationships with, that in the industry that I know building me up, friendships that I've had for years. You know, each day your brain will go in a slightly different direction, but it's just this like really nice mindfulness activity, and my husband thinks it's really funny because I go for a walk around our neighborhood and I say it out loud.
Ema Roloff:I'm not being a crazy person talking to myself.
Greg Hamlin:No, I think it's so important. What we say out loud and how we think about the world changes who we are, and that's why I'm a really big proponent of trying to put those good things out there. One of the people I interviewed in a podcast oh, it's been a couple of years ago is a partial polygic quadriplegic and helps people deal with pain, and the one thing she said and I don't know if she came up with it or got it from somewhere else, but I've thought about it so many times since then is that which we focus on, we enlarge and empower, and I really believe that. So if you're going to focus on pain, you're going to make that pain bigger. If we're going to focus on the things we're grateful for, we're going to blow those things up and make them bigger, and so I love that idea of being the luckiest person in the world. So I might try that, See how that goes.
Sam Neer:I'll say luckiest guy I'm going to stop stealing that as well, trust me. There's a lot of good mileage on that one.
Greg Hamlin:Well, emma, thank you so much for spending some time with us. Sam, thank you for co-hosting with me today. I think this is a great topic and we were able to talk about some things that are really important in the industry. Just remind people to do right, think differently and don't forget to care. And that's it for this one. Thanks everybody. Thank you.