Overcoming fear and uncertainty with technology

MCS Influencer Randy Chaffee says that communication is the key to adopting new technology. 

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Randy Chaffee of Source One Marketing. You can read the interview below, listen to the podcast or watch the recording.

Emma Richardson: Hi everyone, I'm Emma Richardson here with MetalCoffeeShop.com, and I'm here with our metal influencer Randy Chaffee to talk about our August influencer topic. Randy, how are you doing today?

Randy Chaffee: Emma, I'm doing wonderful, yourself?

Emma Richardson: I'm doing great, thank you. And I hear have some stuff to tell us about managing change through communication and training during tech rollouts.

Randy Chaffee: Well, we are in such a world of change today, right? And it's not going away with AI, with all the technology, all the digital, everything that's going on. Change has always been inevitable, but it comes at us at a pretty fast pace today. And that's not gonna change. It's not gonna go anywhere but faster.

I think two things I would say about the subject. One, accept it, adapt to it and understand it's coming and quit being afraid of it. Learn what you need to learn. Dive in, but because if you don't, you're gonna get left behind and very fast. Years ago, when something changed with technology, you might have weeks, months, years to adapt. It's almost nanoseconds now, right? It's it's so changing so fast. So we got to stay on that leading edge of that. It's just ultra important. And as I think a lot of subjects that that we talk about today, communication is key. If you're management, make sure you communicate. Because the biggest hurdle with people downstream in an organization is fear of the unknown. We all hate it. And I'm a pretty adaptable guy, but let's face it, at the end of the day, you still fear change. What's that mean? What's it gonna do? So I think the sooner we communicate that at all levels: here's what we're doing, here's why we're doing it, here's how it's gonna help us, here's why you don't need to worry about it, here's what we're gonna how we'll help train you.

If we do those things, and once you take the fear out, I think most people don't mind change. They mind the fear of change, right? They mind the concern about what that means. So if we take that away, then let's go have fun with this thing a little bit. Because some of these changes that we have with technology are pretty fun, right? You you learn new stuff. It's just kind of exciting. It's not the same-old-same-old that we that we've done. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. So my key there is to manage the change with your people as soon as you know what's going to be. Keep them in the loop, help them understand what it is, give them the training they need.

One of the biggest factors I think most people have as employees have, is the fear, but also not being trained properly, so they can't do the job that you want them to do. And then they get frustrated, then they get nervous and they get angry, and all those things that happen. We can take a lot of that away by just managing that up front. Bring them in early. You know, this is what we're doing. We're going to put this new CRM program, or we're going to do this new designs program. Don't just spring it on everybody one day in a meeting, if you knew about it four months ago or eight months ago. Talk to your people early and often and get their input. So that's what I would say is the key to that whole thing is manage it. Don't just spring it on people, and manage the fear, because once we know that we're gonna be okay, we're probably not gonna die doing this new thing, we're sort of okay with it, and then we get on board, right? And that's human nature.

Emma Richardson: Yeah. I think that through line of communication is so important. .

Randy Chaffee: It is. It's always about communication. And we all could be better, right? At every level. And the same thing as an employee or somebody downline. Don't be afraid to push back on your management, and your ownership and say, hey, I'm concerned about this, what's this mean for me? I I don't think I'm understanding. I don't think we got the training we need. Because I think most management, whether they're owners or managers, they want everybody downstream to suceed. Why wouldn't they? So they may not know what you're afraid of. They may not know what your fear is. They may not know that you don't have the right training. They may not know what you don't know, right? So it's it goes both ways, as good communication does.

Emma Richardson: Awesome, yes. Well thank you so much Randy. That was a really wonderful response. I'm excited to hear what some responses are to it. We will catch you next month for September. 

Randy Chaffee: Okay, awesome. Appreciate ya.