Change Enablers, a podcast by Tango

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Latest Episodes:

Introducing Tango Nuggets; Atlassian State of Teams; Whatfix Round | State of Change Enablement Oct 31, 2024

In episode 23 of the Change Enablers podcast, hosts Ken Babcock and Rocco Seyboth share Tango's big news: the release of Nuggets, post-it notes for your business applications. What's covered:

Top News (where Ken and Rocco bring the most relevant Change Enabler stories to discuss)
- Atlassian State of Teams Report (1:43)
- Whatfix announced their series E fundraising round at $125 million (12:59)
- Tango launches Nuggets! What does this mean? Users of Tango will be able to use Nuggets for unstructured text links to your knowledge base, Tango workflows right on the page where you can start a guided (Guide Me) experience, links to Loom or how-to videos, and more (18:39)
The Ops Hotline (our very own advice column for Change Enablers).
- Audience member submission: “ The things Joey from Cox said about the “forgetting curve” really resonated with me. Everyone here complains about trainings, turns their video off, multi-tasks and pretty much ignores me. Then I end up answering the same questions over and over. I want to do something different but I’m not sure how to explain that I’m just not doing training sessions anymore. Any suggestions?”

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Where to find your host, Ken:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenbabcock/
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/bigredbabz
Where to find cohost Rocco Seyboth:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roccoseyboth/

Like what you heard? Subscribe, leave us a review, and let us know who in Operations, IT, and Enablement should be our next guest.

Tech Meets Talk: A Consultative Approach to Digital Adoption | Matthew Belli, Nestlé Sep 24, 2024

In this episode of Change Enablers, host Ken Babcock dives deep on digital adoption with Matthew Belli, the global IT product owner at Nestlé.

From the Bay Area to Milan, Matthew experienced a life-changing move during Covid as Nestlé brought him on to expand WalkMe's utilization within the company from a single app to over 200. Throughout the conversation, Matthew shares his strategic approach emphasizing the need to understand team and individual goals, identify daily pain points, and improve processes through a consultative sales-esque approach.

Rather than aggressively push for an "internal sale", Matthew focuses on listening to user experiences to determine if solutions like WalkMe are a good fit at all. The two also highlight the dynamic nature of digital ecosystems and the need for effective change management within large orgs like Nestlé, which need to balance user training and tech improvements while addressing the rapid changes in apps and processes.

Tune in for:
• Matthew's story relocating from California to Milan for Nestlé
• Navigating corporate marketing complexities
• Understanding team needs and addressing pain points with a therapy-like approach
• The importance of customization amid common hesitations and challenges
• Creating value slides to summarize project objectives and outcomes
• Personalized use cases with KPI metrics samples
• Navigating stakeholder engagement amid role transitions
• Matthew's initial opposition to hiring external consultants for support
• The necessity of digital adoption beyond UI and training
Where to find Matthew Belli:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-belli-25bb041a/
• Nestlé: https://www.nestle.com/
Where to find your host, Ken:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenbabcock/
• Tango: https://www.tango.us/

Like what you heard? Subscribe, leave us a review, and let us know who in Operations, IT, and Enablement should be our next guest.

Top ERP Failures; SAP Acquires WalkMe; DAP vs. LMS; and Cats Slapping Each Other | State of Change Enablement Sep 10, 2024

We're back with another State of Change Enablement with your host, Ken Babcock and special guest, Rocco Seyboth.
In this episode, the two dive deep in the world of Digital Adoption Platforms (DAPs) starting with:
Top News ranked on the Mango scale (where Ken and Rocco bring the most relevant Change Enabler stories to discuss)
• SAP's acquisition of WalkMe (2:04)
Not-Obvious News
• 12 famous ERP disasters, dustups and disappointments (17:11)
The Ops Hotline (think of it like Tango's advice column. Real questions submitted by real people)
• Submission 1: Can a Digital Adoption Platform replace our Learning Management System? (30:02)

Spicy Nuggets (featuring the funniest and most relatable comments on Tango's top Instagram and TikTok posts)
• The lonely life of a Change Enabler, portrayed by cats slapping each other of course

"In these moments my mantra fills my head "I have bills, alcohol is not free, they don't have Red Bull in jail, stay calm"
"The problem also stems from frequency of the process. If you do it once in a blue moon, people forget. Best to have clearly written instructions on your policy manual."
"I'm embarrassed to say, I'm that coworker. working memory issues from ADHD is a real thing."

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Where to find your host, Ken:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenbabcock/
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/bigredbabz
• Tango: https://www.tango.us/
Where to find cohost Rocco Seyboth:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roccoseyboth/

Like what you heard? Subscribe, leave us a review, and let us know who in Operations, IT, and Enablement should be our next guest.

From Rollout to Results: Elevating L&D to Drive Organizational Change | Joey Papania, Cox Media Aug 27, 2024

In this episode of the Change Enablers, host Ken Babcock dives deep with Joey Papania, the Senior Manager of Learning & Development (L&D) at Cox Media. Joey shares his unique career trajectory, moving from an account consultant to a key player in L&D, highlighting his enthusiasm for coaching and teaching.
The conversation focuses on the critical role of L&D in software implementations and new initiatives. Joey stresses the need for early involvement of L&D in strategy and budget discussions to influence successful rollouts.
He shares the common challenges during implementations, like data migration issues and communication hurdles, urging the focus to be on improvement rather than perfection. He also highlights the importance of using quantitative data to create compelling cases for L&D initiatives, ensuring they align with business goals and solve real problems, rather than just providing generic training.
What's covered:
• Effective sales and marketing training
• How (and why) to build a learning organization
• Aligning front-end training with business goals
• Challenges in sustainable training strategy implementation
• The impact of an empathy-driven approach to training
• Adapting to the modern age (the end of memorization?)
• Maximizing mental energy with Tango
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Where to find your host, Ken:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenbabcock/
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/bigredbabz
Where to find special guest, Joey Papania:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joeypapania/
• Cox Media: https://coxmedia.com/

Like what you heard? Subscribe, leave us a review, and let us know who in Operations, IT, and Enablement should be our next guest.

Self-Sufficient by Design: Workday Enablement Done Right | Aaron Cheney, PCG Aug 13, 2024

In this episode of Change Enablers, the spotlight is on Aaron Cheney, a Digital Media Producer at Public Consulting Group (PCG) and an avid tech enthusiast.
Aaron's career journey is quite fascinating; he transitioned from working at a religious nonprofit to taking on roles at PCG, initially in marketing and Salesforce training before moving to the corporate tech department. Aaron's approach to work fundamentally revolves around empowering individuals to solve their own problems.
This episode focuses on Aaron's experience with multiple Workday rollouts at PCG (human capital management and financial management products). He shares the intricacies of both transitions, noting the prior chaotic state of their financial management systems with multiple disconnected systems and fragmented reporting.
The implementation of Workday brought a dramatic increase in efficiency and productivity, although not without its challenges. Aaron shares the extensive preparation involved, including over 50 team members working for about 18 months.
Listen for insights on:

ways to empower through understanding and inclusion
managing complex systems and lessons in patience
effective content creation by identifying your target audience
combatting challenges in change management and training implementation
how a streamlined documentation process eliminated Aaron's support concerns
how Aaron and PCG use Tango as their go-to training and rollout tool

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Where to find your host, Ken:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenbabcock/
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/bigredbabz
• Tango: https://www.tango.us/
Where to find special guest, Aaron Cheney:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-cheney-3a1b3411/
• Public Consulting Group: https://www.publicconsultinggroup.com/

Like what you heard? Subscribe, leave us a review, and let us know who in Operations, IT, and Enablement should be our next guest.

SAP Acquires WalkMe: What This Means for Enablement & AI Jul 30, 2024

In this special edition of Change Enablers, Tango Co-Founders Ken Babcock and Daniel Giovacchini explore SAP's recent acquisition of WalkMe for $1.5 billion and it's strategic value. They also dive deep on transformative potential of AI and enablement tech on workforce productivity.
They emphasize the evolving role of IT and Operations, who now see themselves as productivity architects within their organizations. The hosts dive into the state of AI adoption and how AI enables rapid information retrieval and process automation. They also highlight two paths for enablement tech: information-centric tools (like Glean and ChatGPT) and process-centric tools focused on task assistance and copilot functions.
Keep listening for:

a deep dive in what SAP's acquisition means for Change Enablers and end users alike
insights into the trend where enterprises are increasingly blending human and software labor (leveraging AI to automate workflows while still requiring human oversight)
the importance of IT and operations professionals in orchestrating this human-AI mix to optimize productivity
a story about an enterprise media company who revolutionized its approach to software training by adopting AI-enabled tools like Tango

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Where to find your host, Ken:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenbabcock/
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/bigredbabz
• Tango: https://www.tango.us/
Where to find special guest, Dan Giovacchini:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-giovacchini/

Like what you heard? Subscribe, leave us a review, and let us know who in Operations, IT, and Enablement should be our next guest.

Managing Employee Change: Lessons From Salesforce and Zendesk Migrations | Ben Gardner, Salesloft Jul 16, 2024

In this episode, Ken Babcock welcomes Ben Gardner, VP of Customer Experience and AI Strategy at Salesloft onto the podcast. Ben brings extensive experience in SaaS and leadership, with a unique background transitioning from a high school math teacher to the software industry.
With 8 years of experience in SaaS, 10+ years in leadership and 3 years in education, Ben has his fair share of leadership and team building experiences under his belt.
This episode centers around an ongoing Salesforce migration Ben led at Salesloft, which aims to consolidate and unify data across platforms from recently acquired companies. This migration is handled meticulously, with an eight-month lead time and a sandbox environment for user acceptance testing.
Listen for insights on:

ways to get a deep understanding for your end users day-to-day processes through ride alongs, involving employees in decision-making, and clearly communicating the reasons behind changes to gain buy-in
the importance of ensuring a smooth transition by enlisting a diverse team and maintaining legacy systems as a fallback option
Lessons on what not to do from personal software rollout experience at past companies
the role of ongoing monitoring, feedback mechanisms, and open communication to address issues promptly.
the challenges in adopting new software, the necessity for thorough testing, and the common pitfalls of underestimating change management.

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Where to find your host, Ken:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenbabcock/
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/bigredbabz
• Tango: https://www.tango.us/
Where to find special guest, Ben Gardner:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/driftwithben/
• Salesloft: https://salesloft.com/

Like what you heard? Subscribe, leave us a review, and let us know who in Operations, IT, and Enablement should be our next guest.

Tech layoffs, Okta's Businesses at Work Report, and The Ops Hotline | State of Change Enablement Apr 23, 2024

In this edition of our The State of Change Enablement series, listen to a variety of segments:
Top News ranked on the Mango scale:
• Tech layoffs; over hiring; Instacart & Salesforce (1:57)
• Okta Businesses at Work 2024; 66% of people starting the year burnt out (10:39)
Not-Obvious News:
• Follow of the day with Jeff Ignacio (22:57)
• Quote of the day with, "We’re living in a tab apocalypse.” (24:30)
The Ops Hotline:
• Submission 1 (25:58)
• Submission 2 (39:01)
On Second Thought:
• Debating past podcast quotes from conversations with Jamie Meyerson of Maven Clinic (46:06)
Adventures of an "Ambivalent Adopter":
• Navigating 1Password (51:57)

Where to find your host, Ken:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenbabcock/
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/bigredbabz
• Change Enablers, a community by Tango: https://www.tango.us/change-enablers-community
Where to find cohost Rocco Seyboth:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roccoseyboth/

Like what you heard? Subscribe, leave us a review, and let us know who in Operations, IT, and Enablement should be our next guest.

Surviving the “Tab Apocalypse” | Patrick Monnot, Pod Apr 09, 2024

How many tabs do you have open right now? 10? 20? 50?
If you feel personally attacked for having one-too-many tabs up, welcome to the "Tab Apocalypse", a phrase coined by Patrick Monnot, Founder & CEO of Pod, the AI workspace for B2B sellers.
"It's the concept that knowledge workers are overwhelmed with using too many applications, which leads to a lot of inefficiencies, lack of productivity, and cognitive overload."
To take it one step further, according to a Harvard Business Review study, digital workers toggle between tabs and apps 1,200 times a day, on average. That adds up to four hours of context switching in just one week. In other words, we're wasting about 10% of our work week, every week.
The solution? According to Patrick, it comes down to having the information that you need to be productive when and where it's most helpful.
In this episode, you’ll hear about:
• The status quo of sales–and where Enablement is missing the mark
• The effects of the "Tab Apocalypse" (and how to survive it)
• What real time enablement (RTE) looks like in practice
• How an RTE approach can transform the traditional employee onboarding experience
Where to find Patrick Monnot
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickmonnot/
• Pod: https://www.workwithpod.com/
Where to find your host and Tango's CEO, Ken Babcock
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenbabcock/
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/bigredbabz
• Tango: https://www.tango.us/modern-training-and-enablement-tech-stack

Like what you heard? Subscribe, leave us a review, and let us know who in Operations, IT, and Enablement should be our next guest.

A Tale of Two Salesforce Instances | Demar Amacker, The Muse Mar 26, 2024

Today’s software training methods make it nearly impossible to get an entire sales force to perform the same behaviors.
And they make it really, really painful to navigate what Demar Amacker, Vice President of B2B Operations at The Muse and Top 25 Revenue Operations Leaders by Revenue.io, calls “a tale of two Salesforce instances.”
Prior to his start, The Muse acquired Fairygodboss. The existing team merged the two Salesforce instances into one, leaving Demar with a huge (not to mention, first) task of reconciling two sales teams + two Salesforce instances and 11,000,000 different ways of doing things.
Without the ability to standardize—and quickly teach reps how to follow a unified process—Demar’s operations team felt the ripple effects of messy data for months.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
• The risks to sales reps and sales managers in a merge like this
• How Demar went about untangling the big ball of yarn that was the new Salesforce schema
• Ways companies can avoid scenarios like this in the future
• Why more software might add more problems than it solves
Where to find Demar Amacker:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dlamacker/
• The Muse: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-daily-muse/
Where to find your host, Ken:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenbabcock/
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/bigredbabz
• Tango: https://www.tango.us/modern-training-and-enablement-tech-stack

Like what you heard? Subscribe, leave us a review, and let us know who in Operations, IT, and Enablement should be our next guest.

Out With Memorization, in With Application | Aaron MacDonald, Faire Mar 12, 2024

“A lot of people have a tendency, especially earlier on in their L&D career, to show the value of training by creating a lot of it. I actually think of it the opposite way.
The less time I need to pull people out of their flow of work to do something, I'm actually proving my ROI as an L&D professional that much more. I'm showing that I have a skill set where I can transfer critical and important knowledge with the least amount of disruption.
You're going to do yourself a better job of showing your worth by providing less training, but doing it right.”
What is “right” in this scenario? Well, that’s up to interpretation (and the teams you support, your company size, what your tech stack looks like, the level of process adoption you’re seeing… you get the point. The list goes on.).
But something most L&D leaders can likely agree on – and something Aaron has perfected in his role as Senior Manager, Customer Experience Enablement at Faire – is that less really is more. And that often means moving away from traditional training methods that require memorization and embracing (and allowing) more time for real-time application.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
• How Aaron approached his first project at Faire: revamping the entire onboarding program
• Why L&D leaders are shifting to a success model where application is more important than memorization
• The change management necessary to make people comfortable with a new way of discovering and sharing knowledge
• The many ways L&D leaders can get out of the way
Where to find Aaron MacDonald:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronmacd12/
• Faire: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fairewholesale/
Where to find your host, Ken:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenbabcock/
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/bigredbabz
• Change Enablers, a community by Tango: https://www.tango.us/change-enablers-community

Like what you heard? Subscribe, leave us a review, and let us know who in Operations, IT, and Enablement should be our next guest.

A Balancing Act in Ops: Personalization vs. Standardization | Pomi Tefera, Cofertility Feb 27, 2024

There's a natural tension between services that are streamlined for scale and services tailored to the unique needs of members and customers.
No one knows this tension better than Pomi Tefera, Head of Ops & Strategy at Cofertility, a human-first fertility ecosystem and platform that empowers everyone to own their own family-building timeline and journey.
In her role, Pomi lives and breathes the need to deliver on personalization without compromising on the promised benefits of standardization like efficiency, fairness, and quality assurance.
Prior to Cofertility, she was responsible for bringing products to life at Uber, where her and Ken first met. It was her curiosity for tech that transforms how people live and manage their most basic needs in the physical world that led her career from mobility to fertility.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
• The biggest learnings going from an Enterprise org to leading Ops at a startup
• The #1 thing Ops teams overcomplicate
• How to balance personalization and standardization
• Strategies Pomi uses to best enable her member advocates to spend more mental energy on the personal and emotional aspects of their job
• Methods for evaluating the impact on member and user experience
• How to build an “Operations moat”
• How to make your CEO care about operational excellence
Where to find Pomi Tefera:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pomi-tefera-16a47224/
• Cofertility: https://www.cofertility.com/
Where to find your host, Ken:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenbabcock/
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/bigredbabz
• Change Enablers, a community by Tango: https://www.tango.us/change-enablers-community

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Trust is a Straight Line to Enablement | Chad Trabucco, Go1 Feb 07, 2024

“When something breaks at our house, we’re not going to read all about our furnace and how it exhausts and does all this stuff. I need to know the problem so I can fix it and move on.”
The same goes for Sales. The “bucket” of information, as our guest Chad Trabucco calls it, is noisy enough, so it’s the job of Enablement to cut down the noise and straight line a rep to finding what they need when they need it.
With over 10 years of experience in enablement, Chad has built and hired teams across the US, EMEA, and APAC at companies including Guru, Dixa, and LinkedIn. In his current role as Senior Director, Sales Enablement at Go1 he’s focused on making sure his reps have what they need when they need it via strategic development and implementation for the entire global Revenue organization.
In this Change Enablers episode, Chad sat down with Ken to talk about:
• How he’s effectively operationalized sales enablement at a global scale
• The small company learnings he’s applied in his role at a larger org
• Centering enablement efforts around empathy
• The slippery slope of losing what your reps really want
• Peer-to-peer learning vs. over-polished training
• Building confidence and creating trust with your sales reps
• How enablement leaders can get out of the way
Where to find Chad Trabucco:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chadtrabucco/
• Go1: https://www.go1.com/
Where to find your host, Ken:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenbabcock/
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/bigredbabz
• Change Enablers, a community by Tango: https://www.tango.us/change-enablers-community

Like what you heard? Subscribe, leave us a review, and let us know who in Operations, IT, and Enablement should be our next guest.

On the Frontlines: Scaling a Tech-Enabled Care Model | Jamie Meyerson, Maven Clinic Jan 26, 2024

If you've ever wondered what it'd be like to run Operations at a virtual services startup at the start of Covid, look no further than Maven Clinic's Vice President of Network Strategy & Operations, Jamie Meyerson (named TIME's list of the 100 Most Influential Companies in 2023).
Launching an expedited application for Covid priority physicians, developing in-app Provider resource for clinical guidelines and Covid triage support, operationalizing clinical guidelines through revamped provider communications and training. Those are just a few of the projects Jamie spearheaded in her first six months at Maven.
And while that might be an extreme example, she's well aware that the reality of start-ups means roles, expectations, and environments change quickly.
In the latest episode of Change Enablers, Jamie and Ken cover:
• Growth strategy, business development, and scaling virtual healthcare services
• Taking a decentralized Operations approach when she first joined Maven
• The inflection points to start centralizing and specializing her team
• Shifting from serving providers to scaling and enabling member-facing teams
• Scaling her team one role at a time
• How she used documentation during the company's different tipping points
Where to find Jamie Meyerson:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamiemeyerson/
• Maven Clinic: https://www.mavenclinic.com/
Where to find your host, Ken:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenbabcock/
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/bigredbabz
• Change Enablers, a community by Tango: https://www.tango.us/change-enablers-community

Like what you heard? Subscribe, leave us a review, and let us know who in Operations, IT, and Enablement should be our next guest.

The State of Change Enablement | A Look Back on 2023 Jan 15, 2024

Welcome to The State of Change Enablement, a new episode series coming to you on a quarterly basis. The goal? To bring Change Enablers the most up-to-date and relevant industry news, best practices, and advice on Operations, Enablement, Training, and more that we see on a daily basis.
Listen to a variety of segments:

Top News ranked on the Mango scale: Slack's week-long training (2:59) and Atlassian acquiring Loom (13:30)
Not-Obvious News: Peter Walker at Carta's chart on startup shutdowns (22:09), the success of a four-day workweek pilot (29:28), follow of the days: Sean Lane and Cassidy Shield (41:44)
On Second Thought: Debating past podcast quotes from conversations with Hillary Curran of Guru and Kristin Kaiser Mulligan of Heard (53:51)

Like what you heard? Subscribe, leave us a review, and let us know who in Operations, IT, and Enablement should be our next guest.

6 Phases of an Ops Career Maturity Model | Jeff Cullimore, Coalition, Inc. Jan 02, 2024

If you've ever thought, "Hmm.. I'd love to 10x my Ops career," Jeff is your guy. Literally.
With his OpsScale newsletter with a "10x your Ops career" tagline, Jeff regularly shares advice that he has picked up along the 15+ years in Marketing and RevOps roles. Over the years, he's built operations teams that utilize tech and process in innovative ways at companies like Workfront, Whistic, Hopin, and now, Coalition, Inc.
In the latest episode of Change Enablers, Jeff and Ken cover:
• the six phases of Jeff's Ops career maturity model and how they span across a tactical vs. strategic spectrum
• ways ICs can start thinking about enablement impact well before they’re in the next phase of their career
• being a strategic partner and change agent in Operations
• measuring success when you shift from order-taker mode to highly strategic and high-value work
• prioritizing real-time enablement for your end users
Where to find Jeff Cullimore:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffcullimore/
• Newsletter: https://opsscale.substack.com/
Where to find your host, Ken:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenbabcock/
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/bigredbabz
• Change Enablers, a community by Tango: https://www.tango.us/change-enablers-community

Like what you heard? Subscribe, leave us a review, and let us know who in Operations, IT, and Enablement should be our next guest.

Complexity Killed the Process Star | Robin Spencer, Purpose Built, Clearbit, Google Dec 12, 2023

Robin Spencer has the kind of career trajectory that makes people nod their heads admiringly—even if they can’t *really* explain what she did as 1) Clearbit’s Chief Operating Officer, or 2) Google’s Head of Strategy & Operations.
Suffice it to say: Robin has had some big jobs. And despite her success, she’s more likely to talk about how bad she is at karaoke than about how good she is at building operationally excellent companies and teams.
In the latest episode of Change Enablers, Robin opens up and reflects on the highs and lows of scaling operations at Clearbit—with advice for operators at all levels.
Robin and Ken cover:
• how much in Operations is process and how much is people
• not getting ahead of yourself at a small-stage company
• Robin's experience joining Clearbit when they had more tools than people, and how she approached her role to simplify things
• processes are processes, no matter how informal (and sometimes the simplest solution = the most elegant one)
• the influence that team dynamics play in making or breaking operations at a company
• how to effectively set up a team early on to achieve optimal productivity
• documenting your playbooks, even if you're the only player
• what her team was able to focus on once she freed up their time to be creative
Where to find Robin Spencer:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinbspencer/
Where to find your host, Ken:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenbabcock/
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/bigredbabz
• Change Enablers, a community by Tango: https://www.tango.us/change-enablers-community

Like what you heard? Subscribe, leave us a review, and let us know who in Operations, IT, and Enablement should be our next guest.

Breaking Habits and Building Trust | Hillary Curran, Guru Nov 28, 2023

If we had an award for “best terminology from a guest”, Hillary would take the gold.

Coining the phrase, "content cowboys" (the people we all know and love who keep knowledge to themselves and use it however they please), Hillary is quite familiar with the painful realities of knowledge sharing.
With over 6 years at Guru, the AI-powered enterprise search, wiki, and intranet software company, Hillary considers herself “a catalyst or connector of different departments”. Connecting the dots between the customer experience, revenue, go-to-market, enablement, and product teams, she leads efforts to gather valuable customer insights and elevate the customer's voice in key strategic business decisions.
On this episode, Hillary and Ken discuss:
• the importance of balancing two sides of the knowledge coin: process and human nature
• creating trustworthy documentation
• the basic rules of documentation
• the risks of not having access directly in your workflows
• making knowledge available where people are doing their jobs
• the key to quality documentation (*hint hint* brevity, being in the flow, and staying extremely tactical)
• why sometimes too much process stifles creativity and innovation
Where to find Hillary Curran:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hellohillary/
• Guru: https://www.linkedin.com/company/getguru/
Where to find your host, Ken:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenbabcock/
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/bigredbabz
• Change Enablers, a community by Tango: https://www.tango.us/change-enablers-community

Like what you heard? Subscribe, leave us a review, and let us know who in Operations, IT, and Enablement should be our next guest.

The Fast Lane to Learning in Ops | Kristin Kaiser Mulligan, Heard Nov 14, 2023

We’d run late to just about any meeting for five more minutes with Kristin Kaiser Mulligan, Chief Operations Officer at Heard (previously Uber and Lime). With experience at Series A, B, C, *and* D startups, Kristin is a Swiss army knife of an operator.
In her 10+ years as an Operations leader, Kristin's managed global business strategy and execution, partnered with executive teams to develop and implement company-wide policies and OKRs, opened new markets, and much more.
On the latest episode of Change Enablers, Kristin and Ken (previously Uber) go beyond their shared history of transforming how people get from Point A to Point B and dig into seven tactical tips to build a learning organization.
In this episode, they discuss:
• how to approach learning differently
• when to centralize vs. decentralize learning
• how to incorporate a hybrid approach
• tactics to double down on (better) documentation
• embracing healthy competition internally
• why hoarding knowledge is bad for your company and bad for you
Where to find Kristin Kaiser Mulligan:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristinkaiser/
• Heard: https://www.linkedin.com/company/joinheardinc/
Where to find your host, Ken:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenbabcock/
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/bigredbabz
• Change Enablers, a community by Tango: https://www.tango.us/change-enablers-community

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The Power of Community in Education & Enablement | Joshua Zerkel, Asana Oct 31, 2023

With a casual (we're joking) 20 years under his belt building community programs at B2C and B2B companies and nonprofits, Joshua Zerkel is leading the charge on how to create community programs, bring like-minded folks together, AND get your power users to work for you.
At Asana and previously Evernote, he's responsible for the creation, implementation, and success of their global community programs. If you've ever considered building community but not sure where to start, kicked one off but feel like you're at a standstill, or thought about ways to take some of the enablement burden off of your Support and Ops teams, this one's for you.
In this episode, we discuss:
• how to source high-quality information for education
• ways to enable your community with the right knowledge to help others achieve the best results
• the long-term effects of customer and community enablement and involvement
• creative ways to get customers more deeply involved with community and knowledge sharing
• catering to shorter attention spans by creating shorter content
• identifying what types of content to create and what resonates best
Where to find Joshua Zerkel:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuazerkel/
• Asana: https://asana.com/
Where to find your host, Ken:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenbabcock/
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/bigredbabz
• Change Enablers, a community by Tango: https://www.tango.us/change-enablers-community

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Unlearning L&D | Ryan Kruger, Lucid Motors Oct 17, 2023

As the Senior Supervisor of Learning Systems & Development at Lucid Motors, Ryan Kruger has a mouthful of a job title—and a lot to say about electric luxury sports cars, heavy metal, and local libraries (see if yours has a 3D printer!). But his number one passion? Designing and delivering more effective learning solutions.
It’s worth tuning in, literally or figuratively, if you believe L&D has changed and is changing. If you’re struggling to deliver effective training, curious about user experience design, and tired of bouncing between knowledge management tools. And if your personal success hinges on 1) understanding the efficacy of your work, and 2) driving behavioral change.
In this episode, we discuss:
• What L&D is and isn’t
• How time-starved teams consume content
• The ADDIE framework—and why “A” and “E” need more focus
• Evaluating L&D impact with the Kirkpatrick Model
• How Lucid Motors minimizes siloed work and maximizes knowledge sharing
Where to find Ryan Kruger:
• Lucid Motors: https://lucidmotors.com/
• Tango's Community: https://www.tango.us/change-enablers-community
Where to find your host, Ken:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenbabcock/
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/bigredbabz

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The Road to Operational Excellence | Travis Cormier, Aethereal Oct 03, 2023

Whether you’re interested in the path from chemist to Chief Operating Officer, where to go in a zombie apocalypse (scuba diving, obviously), or how to travel the world on a dime, Travis Cormier is your guy.
Starting as a freelance writer for Aethereal to becoming the company's COO, Travis is all about process, improvement, and implementation. One area he's most passionate about: making your job easier. If you've ever felt like the majority of your time at work is eaten up with repetitive tasks, taking you away from more valuable work, you won't want to miss the framework he came up with for a company-wide task and process audit.
Whether you’ve had a colleague or direct report share that they have too much work but can't identify what that is or you’re a business leader who realized that it's time to take some work off of your plate, you'll take a lot away from this episode.
In this episode, we discuss:
• The most underrated Operations function
• People as primary motivators
• Travis' process and task audit process and the positive results he's seen at his company
• Relatability as the key ingredient for building processes (building something that anyone can do, not just one person)
• Why more people should adopt the mindset to make your job easier, not harder (and why that's ok)
• The future of Operations
• How Travis uses Tango in conjunction with other tools like Notion for just-in-time knowledge transfer and training
Where to find Travis Cormier:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/travis-cormier-4b168049/
Where to find your host, Ken:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenbabcock/
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/bigredbabz
• Change Enablers, a community by Tango: https://www.tango.us/change-enablers-...

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Internal Enablement and Async Communication | Brittany Soinski, Loom Sep 18, 2023

Brittany Soinski, otherwise known as the Captain of Onboarding Awesomeness, has served as a trusted advisor to several CS organizations over the last 10 years. She has a special passion for building best-in-class customer onboarding programs from the ground up, which is exactly what she’s busy doing as a Manager of Onboarding at Loom, the video and screen recording software we and probably a lot of our listeners use daily.
At Loom, she takes a consultative approach to onboarding that extends to two distinct groups: the internal CS team and Loom's customers. Notable projects include re-architecting the Sales to CS handoff process, creating a comprehensive change management toolkit, and being emcee and webinar presenter every single week.
In this episode, we discuss:
• internal enablement and why it's the most underrated Operations role
• redesigning customer onboarding programs
• Brittany's framework for human-centered design: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test
• getting buy-in through feedback loops
• async vs. synchronous communication
• when to use Loom vs. when to use a Tango vs. when to hold a meeting
Where to find Brittany Soinski:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brittany-soinski-83a70056/
• Loom: https://www.loom.com/
Where to find your host, Ken:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenbabcock/
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/bigredbabz
• Change Enablers, a community by Tango: https://www.tango.us/change-enablers-community

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