Frontline Innovators

Episode Summary

Every rollout gets sold as a transformation. Torrence Smith makes the case that the word itself is part of the problem. In this episode, host Justin Lake sits down with Torrence, an operating executive and enterprise operational excellence consultant, to talk about what it really takes to make change land on the frontline.

Torrence argues that for the people in the field, most of the daily work stays the same after a new system goes in, often around eighty percent of it. Frame the change as a transformation and you hand workers a black cloud of the unknown, which is where fear and resistance grow. Frame it as a tweak, show them exactly what changes and what does not, and the anxiety drops.

From there the conversation moves through what makes that possible: involving the frontline while the plan is still being written, having the low stakes conversations before the formal meeting, changing only the four or five levers that matter, and remembering that the people across the table are usually carrying more worry than they let on. He closes with the most analog advice the show has heard in a while. Buy a notebook.

Key Topics

Episode Chapters

00:00 Intro

00:58 Welcome and guest introduction

01:35 The operational consequences of poor technology adoption

03:22 What lost credibility actually costs an organization

05:34 Overcoming the baggage from past implementations

07:47 Organizational memory and why the last rollout follows you

11:04 Nemawashi, the meeting before the meeting

14:32 Making people part of both the problem and the solution

17:03 Why the cost of a mistake is lowest at the start

21:01 The map is not the territory

27:04 How scale compounds the variables

29:51 The hybrid kit philosophy: change the levers that matter

31:41 We will give you a different spreadsheet

36:27 Digital tweak versus digital transformation

38:50 The anxiety people carry that you never see

48:28 Letting the field test workflows before go live

55:53 Compliance or commitment, alignment or consensus

57:34 One last piece of advice: keep a notebook

About Torrence Smith

Torrence Smith is an operating executive and enterprise operational excellence consultant who helps organizations improve supply chain performance, ERP implementations, and operational excellence. He works at the intersection of technology, business transformation, and the people responsible for making change successful on the frontlines. His approach is people centered and built over a long career leading operational programs, with a focus on involving the field early and keeping change small enough for people to carry.

Resources

Frontline Innovators Podcast: https://skyllful.com/podcast 

Episode Summary

Senior IT change and adoption consultant Janie McNeil joins host Justin Lake to talk about why new technology so often goes unused, and what it actually takes to change that. She makes the case that adoption is a people problem long before it's a technology problem: when workers aren't brought in early, tools that cost millions sit idle and the damage trickles downstream for months. Janie digs into using data to prove adoption is working, why frontline teams learn by doing and watching rather than reading dense documentation, and why change management and learning teams get the best results when they're pulled in from the start instead of the eleventh hour. She closes on AI, arguing that the way to get people to embrace it is to show them their worth, not warn them about restructuring, and she shares a simple task list anyone can use to see where AI helps and where a human is still the answer. It's a practical, empathetic look at keeping people at the center of technological change.

Key Topics

Episode Chapters

00:00  Introduction to the episode and guest

00:30  Janie McNeil's background and expertise

01:02  The operational impact of failed technology adoption

01:35  The importance of early stakeholder engagement

02:00  The cost of unused tools and systems

02:47  Downstream effects of poor adoption

03:25  The prolonged impact of adoption issues

04:25  Measuring adoption through metrics and data

05:24  The role of product managers in system success

06:21  Aligning success metrics with organizational goals

07:17  The importance of user behavior and process adherence

08:00  Challenges faced by product managers

09:07  Diverse user groups and their needs

10:01  Including change management early in projects

11:12  The late involvement of change management teams

12:24  The undervaluation of change management

13:32  The power of data literacy in adoption

14:54  Using data storytelling to demonstrate value

16:04  Microsoft's investments in adoption tools

18:06  The ongoing challenge of software adoption

19:50  Supporting frontline workers through community and education

22:21  Effective learning methods for frontline teams

24:36  The strategic role of L&D and change management

26:43  Defining responsibilities of change management vs. L&D

28:45  Streamlining project delivery with integrated teams

30:56  The risks of delaying documentation and training

32:40  Building relationships and trust in change initiatives

36:50  Managing overwhelm and delegation in change projects

39:03  Supporting AI adoption and addressing fears

44:52  The importance of human value in technological change

47:02  Embracing AI as a tool for growth and development

48:38  Closing remarks and key takeaways

About Janie McNeil

Janie McNeil is a senior IT change and adoption consultant who helps organizations turn new technology into lasting behavior change, working at the intersection of people and the tools meant to support them. She grew up in one of the world's largest manufacturing communities, and that experience shapes how she thinks about supporting frontline and deskless workers through change. Her work spans organizational change management, learning and development, product adoption, and using data to show that adoption is actually taking hold.

Resources

Episode Summary

Carly Greenwald has spent more than 20 years in IT leadership and change management, leading global transformation work that connects new technology with the people who actually use it. In this episode she and host Justin Lake dig into why frontline adoption succeeds or fails, and they keep landing on one word: confidence. The conversation moves from the frontline worker handed a change they never asked for, to the customer across the counter, to the project team that has lived inside the implementation for months. Carly argues for honesty over polish. Do not sugarcoat the change, do not oversell benefits that are not there, and do not save feedback for a big reveal that rarely goes as planned. Her sharpest point reframes who needs confidence: it is not only the frontline. Project teams often delay user feedback because they are not yet confident in what they are building, and bringing users in early, in small increments, raises everyone's confidence at once.

Key Topics

Episode Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Change Management in Technology

About Carly Greenwald

Carly Greenwald is an IT change management and user engagement leader with more than 20 years of experience in IT leadership and change management. She specializes in global transformation initiatives that bridge technology and people, helping organizations move past implementation into genuine adoption with a practical, people-centered approach.

Resources

Business changes fast and people change slow. That gap, Steve Reiner argues, is where most change efforts quietly fail, and closing it is one of the few real competitive advantages a company has left. In this episode, host Justin Lake sits down with Steve, VP of Sales at Southern Glazer's Wine & Spirits and author of Leaders Created and Business Changes Fast, People Change Slow, to unpack why adoption stalls on the frontline and what leaders can actually do about it.

Steve walks through his Change Stamina Framework, a four-step approach that puts the work back on leaders rather than the frontline. Leaders learn the change first, well before launch. They bring in managers, then frontline champions, staying in the room the entire time. They host the training themselves instead of kicking off a meeting and slipping out the back. And they reinforce the change for far longer than anyone expects, because sustainment, not go-live, is where adoption is won or lost.

Along the way, Steve explains why the small daily changes sting frontline teams more than the big platform launches, why people resist change for reasons rooted in how our brains conserve energy, and why nine and a half times out of ten people do not need pressure, they need more time and attention. He also ties it all back to the P&L: if a change is worth making, it is worth supporting all the way through, because every day a team spends stuck in the change curve is a day the business pays for it.

00:00  Introduction to leadership and change management

02:56  Connecting change to performance and profit

06:01  The role of leaders in change execution

09:14  The Change Stamina Framework

11:59  Building confidence in leaders

14:58  The importance of field engagement

18:11  Understanding resistance to change

21:00  The leader's responsibility in change

23:53  The impact of communication on change

27:02  The need for continuous engagement

30:01  Conclusion and call to action

32:04  Challenging routines and embracing change

34:44  Understanding the adoption curve

36:00  The importance of time and attention in leadership

39:46  Winning the game of chicken with resistors

43:45  The long road of change sustainment

49:12  Change as a continuous process

57:08  Engaging with leadership and resources

Steve Reiner is VP of Sales at Southern Glazer's Wine & Spirits, with more than two decades of experience rising from consultant to senior leadership across multiple markets. He focuses on building leaders who build engaged, high-performing frontline teams. Steve is the author of two books, Leaders Created and, most recently, Business Changes Fast, People Change Slow, which lays out his Change Stamina Framework for leading change faster than the competition.

Episode Summary

Good customer service begins with the frontline worker, not at headquarters. In this episode, Dan Cefaratti, North American Dynamics Lead at Velrada, joins host Justin Lake to explain why that person is the organization's service ambassador, why technology adoption in the field is still treated as an afterthought even though it often decides whether a large investment succeeds, and why ride-alongs and on-site time have quietly faded since the pandemic at exactly the moment adoption matters most. It is a practical, honest conversation for anyone rolling out technology to the people who keep operations running.

Key Topics

• Frontline workers are your service ambassadors

• Why technology adoption gets treated as an afterthought

• What ride-alongs reveal that a conference room never will

• Unwinding old muscle memory, the real work of change

• Why adoption stalls when everyone owns it and no one does

• The post-COVID decline of field visits

• What Microsoft Dynamics brings to field service

Episode Chapters

00:00 Meet Dan Cefaratti

01:25 The ripple effect of poor frontline adoption

04:09 How many customers actually resource adoption

05:37 What good looks like: analysis, design, and ride-alongs

07:09 Ride-along stories from the field

14:24 Giving people time to absorb change

17:17 Where change management breaks down

19:09 Who owns end user adoption

22:28 Unwinding muscle memory

24:52 The post-COVID decline of field visits

31:23 What to look for in a field service partner

33:05 What people miss about Microsoft Dynamics

36:49 Adoption is a frontline problem in every industry

38:47 Where to find Dan

About Dan Cefaratti

Dan Cefaratti is the North American Dynamics Lead at Velrada, where he designs and delivers Microsoft Dynamics 365 solutions that help organizations streamline operations and empower their teams. With deep expertise in enterprise technology architecture, Dan brings a practitioner's perspective on how thoughtful technology design can transform the way frontline and field-based workforces operate. His work spans field service and beyond, including custom mobile and PowerApps solutions for industries from healthcare to not-for-profit.

Resources

Connect with Dan Cefaratti on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-cefaratti-b11776/

Velrada: https://www.velrada.com

Skyllful: https://www.skyllful.com/

Episode Summary

What happens when you deploy new technology that works great for your leadership team but actively makes life harder for the people using it every day? According to David Bishop, the answer is attrition, and it costs more than most service leaders realize.

In this episode, Justin Lake sits down with David Bishop, Managing Partner at Twin Bishop Strategies, LLC., to talk about the real cost of poor frontline technology adoption in the HVAC service industry. David brings more than 45 years of industry experience, including time as a general management executive at an OEM where he built high-performance service teams before co-founding Twin Bishop Strategies with his twin brother.

The conversation covers what attrition actually costs in dollars, why technicians will voluntarily take a pay cut to escape job stress, and the specific practices David uses to close the gap between a technology deployment that looks good on a dashboard and one that actually serves the people doing the work.

Key Topics

Episode Chapters

00:00  Introduction to Twin Bishop Strategies

02:11  Consequences of Poor Technology Adoption

04:57  Understanding Attrition in the HVAC Industry

10:02  A Day in the Life of a Technician

12:51  Overcoming Resistance to Technology

16:03  Building Confidence in Technicians

20:49  Measuring Confidence and Competence

23:31  The Impact of Technician Satisfaction on Customers

24:06  Empowering Technicians for Success

27:45  Scaling Employee Engagement and Feedback

30:23  Innovative Approaches to Employee Satisfaction

33:30  Bridging Learning Gaps in Service Industries

36:48  Navigating AI and Technology in the Field

39:37  The Future of Work: People, Process, and Technology

42:11  Understanding and Solving Real Problems

About David Bishop

David Bishop is Managing Partner at Twin Bishop Strategies, LLC., a consulting firm he co-founded with his twin brother after both retired from executive roles in the HVAC and building automation industry. David spent more than 45 years in the field, including time as a general management executive at an OEM where he focused on building high-performance service teams, improving customer satisfaction, and driving operational results. Twin Bishop Strategies takes a problem-first approach: they go in to find the pain point, and if there isn’t one, they move on. The company name comes from the chess piece (strategic, decisive, and careful about the moves it makes) and from the brothers’ shared surname.

Resources

Host Justin Lake sits down with Leza Isadora, Organizational Change Manager at Puget Sound Energy, who brings more than a decade of experience guiding digital transformations across healthcare, entertainment, government, nonprofit, and energy. Leza makes the case that frontline rollouts rarely fail because of the technology. They fail because leaders move fast on change and rarely stop to see it through the workforce's eyes.

Justin and Leza dig into the operational consequences of broken trust, the metrics that translate "warm fuzzy people issues" into the language leadership actually responds to, and the practical mechanics of building support that lasts past go-live. Along the way, Leza shares a true story about a help desk turnover spiral, why 30-60-90 day follow-up plans matter, how to reach frontline workers who never read email, and why a willingness to pause an initiative is often the most strategic move a change leader can make.

Leza Isadora is an Organizational Change Manager at Puget Sound Energy. She has spent more than ten years supporting digital transformations across healthcare, entertainment, government, nonprofit, and energy sectors, with a current focus on frontline workers navigating wave after wave of new technology. Her background in strategic communications and branding shapes a change approach grounded in trust, transparent dialogue, and respect for the field employees who actually carry the work.

When a rollout lands badly on the frontline, the cost isn't just lost productivity. It's the people who quietly start looking elsewhere. And it's rarely the people you'd guess.

In this episode, Justin talks with Kapil Dua, Associate Director of Change Management and Issues Management at a Fortune 100 company, who has spent over a decade leading large-scale SaaS implementations, including current rollouts impacting more than 20,000 stakeholders. Kapil makes the case that the real downside of a poor change isn't the immediate friction, it's the slow erosion of trust that follows: your strongest performers have options, and when they decide a workplace has a "taxed relationship" with change, they leave.

From there, the conversation moves into what actually works at scale. Kapil walks through why he chases down cynics instead of avoiding them, why most change communications fail at the language layer (not the strategy layer), and why the best implementations he's been part of were the ones nobody talked about afterward. He also shares the "two wolves" story, his "right things, for the right reasons, in the right ways" rule, and a memorable line about why ignoring how something feels for the user is like designing toilet paper out of sandpaper, it gets the job done, but it hurts.

If you're rolling out anything that touches the frontline this year, this one is worth your time.

00:00 Introduction to Change Management and Adoption

01:56 The Consequences of Poor Adoption

04:33 Measuring the Impact of Employee Satisfaction

07:32 Generational Perspectives on Work and Change

10:09 Balancing Macro and Microeconomic Perspectives

12:13 The Pressure of Public Companies

15:50 The Importance of Employee Experience

18:19 Aligning Associate Experience with Profitability

20:46 The Emotional Impact of Change

24:44 Filling the Gaps in Communication

25:32 Engaging Skeptics in Change Initiatives

29:40 The Reality of Change and Data Collection

31:32 The Importance of Honesty in Change Management

38:07 Navigating Change at Scale

46:58 Building a Change Network

57:50 The Human Element in Change Implementation

Kapil Dua is Associate Director, Change Management and Issues Management at a Fortune 100 company, where he leads enterprise transformation focused on process alignment, operational excellence, and user adoption. With over a decade of experience driving large-scale SaaS implementations, including rollouts impacting more than 20,000 stakeholders, he brings a practical, people-first, data-driven perspective on leading change across complex organizations.

Summary

When frontline technology misses the mark, workers don't fail. They adapt. But those workarounds come at a cost.

In this episode, Justin talks with Maria Feay, a healthcare operations executive with over 30 years of experience spanning operations, quality, data analytics, and customer experience. Maria unpacks the real operational fallout of poor technology adoption: the widening gap between strategy and execution, the dangers of "everyone owns it, so no one owns it," and what it actually takes to move from compliance to true accountability.

They also dig into the often-overlooked power of quality roles inside operations, why workforce enablement looks fundamentally different from traditional training, and how tools like speech analytics and AI are helping organizations surface risk before it becomes a crisis. If your org keeps running the same project plan and getting the same results, this one is for you.

Key Topics

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Frontline Innovators and Guest Background

02:37 Operational Consequences of Poor Frontline Technology Adoption

05:29 Measuring the Impact of Technology Gaps

08:03 Quality Roles in Operations

10:21 The Importance of Quality in Healthcare

12:00 Investment Justification for Quality Roles

14:19 Healthcare Metrics and Customer Experience

16:18 Complexities of Healthcare Customer Experience

18:46 The Role of Empathy in Healthcare

22:04 Technology's Impact on Patient Interaction

28:09 Balancing Technology and Human Interaction

31:03 The Ease of DIY in Healthcare

32:19 Training vs. Enablement: A Shift in Perspective

35:18 Workforce Enablement: Beyond Traditional Training

39:08 The Knowledge Base Dilemma

43:52 Dynamic Enablement: Personalizing Learning

47:27 The Role of Accountability in Training

51:20 Transparency in Change Management

57:34 Final Thoughts on Frontline Adoption

Resources

Summary

In this episode, Keri Corbin shares her extensive experience in enterprise transformation, focusing on frontline technology adoption, making a compelling business case for improvements, and sustaining change. She discusses real-world stories, the importance of planning, confidence, and continuous improvement in operational success.

Key Topics

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Frontline Innovators Podcast

Resources

Decision Point Technologies - https://decisionpointtech.com

Supply Chain Management Best Practices (Book) - https://www.amazon.com/supply-chain-management-best-practices

Keri Corbin LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/keri-corbin/

Skyllful - https://www.skyllful.com/