Change Management

Change that is intentional and carefully managed over time is essential for the long term survival of a business. Katie Hopkins is the third generation President & CEO of her family’s business, Truck Centers, Inc. (TCI), and she has experienced this reality first hand. After many years of slow and steady growth, TCI entered into a partnership with their primary supplier, Daimler Trucks, and they have seen growth increase a great deal in the last decade. This rapid growth has required an increased focus on change as well.

In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Katie shares how TCI drove change, in their own business and across the Daimler group, by doubling down on their commitment to Change Management. The initial objective was to make the customer experience more standard across all Daimler locations, but the results reached far beyond this goal. In addition to serving as an example to the other dealerships in the group, above all else, Katie and her team have leaned into Change Management and Continuous Improvement as an effective and highly Evergreen® path to change and growth.

Listen and be inspired to be more intentional about driving and making change in your organization.

Heidi Helfand is the author of Dynamic Reteaming, which outlines practical strategies for orchestrating successful team and company org changes. Her work is informed by more than 20 years in the tech industry at notable companies like AppFolio, Procore, and Expertcity/GoToMeeting. Today, she dedicates her efforts to sharing her knowledge through workshops, comprehensive courses, and consultative services, helping organizations navigate and optimize their team structures. In this episode, we discuss:

• The importance of reteaming and reorging

• The benefits of embracing reteaming

• The five patterns of reteaming: one by one, grow and split, merging, isolation, and switching

• Examples of successful reteaming

• Why stable teams are not always ideal

• How change can lead to great career opportunities

• The RIDE framework for decision-making

• Advice on how to set up isolated teams for success

• The anti-patterns of reteaming and the challenges that can arise

• Tactical tips for becoming a better listener

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Brought to you by:

• Productroadmap.ai—AI to connect your roadmaps to revenue

• Hex—Helping teams ask and answer data questions by working together

• Ahrefs—Improve your website’s SEO for free

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Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/the-art-and-wisdom-of-changing-teams-heidi-helfand-author-of-dynamic-reteaming/

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Where to find Heidi Helfand:

• X: https://twitter.com/heidihelfand

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidihelfand/

• Website: https://www.heidihelfand.com/

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Heidi’s background

(03:40) How Heidi got involved with reteaming and reorgs

(07:37) Advice for people dealing with reorgs

(11:56) The benefits of change and the RIDE framework

(17:11) The five patterns of reteaming

(20:00) The power of isolation

(27:38) Advice on how to be successful by isolating small teams

(33:27) Supporting and protecting internal startups

(34:33) The one-by-one pattern

(36:44) The grow and split pattern

(39:20) The merging pattern

(42:14) The switching pattern

(50:18) Anti-patterns of reteaming

(52:49) Embracing change and growth

(58:48) How to become a better listener

(01:01:28) Lightning round

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Referenced:

• Dynamic Reteaming: The Art and Wisdom of Changing Teams: https://www.amazon.com/Dynamic-Reteaming-Wisdom-Changing-Teams/dp/1492061298

• O’Reilly: https://www.oreilly.com/

• Procore Technologies: https://www.procore.com/

• Kristian Lindwall on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristianlindwall/

• Chris Smith on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrissmithagile

• Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes: https://www.amazon.com/Transitions-Making-Changes-Revised-Anniversary/dp/073820904X

• Pat Wadors on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patwadors/

• The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products That Win: https://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Successful-Strategies/dp/1119690358

• GoToMyPC: https://get.gotomypc.com/

• Teamwork: https://www.amazon.com/Teamwork-Right-Wrong-Interpersonal-Communication/dp/0803932901

• AppFolio: https://www.appfolio.com/

• SecureDocs: https://www.securedocs.com/

• Citrix: https://www.citrix.com/

• The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups: https://www.amazon.com/Culture-Code-Secrets-Highly-Successful/dp/0804176981

• Tuckman’s stages of group development: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuckman%27s_stages_of_group_development

• Rich Sheridan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/menloprez/

 • Menlo Innovations: https://menloinnovations.com/

• Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us: https://www.amazon.com/Drive-Surprising-Truth-About-Motivates/dp/1594484805

• Toyota Kata: Managing People for Improvement, Adaptiveness and Superior Results: https://www.amazon.com/Toyota-Kata-Managing-Improvement-Adaptiveness/dp/0071635238

• Paulo Freire: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Freire

• Jon Walker on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jwalker/

• Managing Corporate Lifecycles: https://www.amazon.com/Managing-Corporate-Lifecycles-Ichak-Adizes/dp/9381860548

• The Adizes Institute: https://www.adizes.com/

• John Cutler on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/what-differentiates-the-highest-performing-product-teams-john-cutler-amplitude-the-beautiful-mes/

• Co-Active Training Institute: https://coactive.com/

• Co-Active Coaching: The proven framework for transformative conversations at work and in life: https://www.amazon.com/Co-Active-Coaching-Fourth-transformative-conversations/dp/1473674980

• Creating Intelligent Teams: https://www.amazon.com/Creating-Intelligent-teams-Anne-R%C3%B8d/dp/186922583X

• The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures: Simple Rules to Unleash a Culture of Innovation: https://www.amazon.com/Surprising-Power-Liberating-Structures-Innovation/dp/0615975305

• Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-Making: https://www.amazon.com/Facilitators-Participatory-Decision-Making-Jossey-bass-Management/dp/1118404955

• The Bear on Hulu: https://www.hulu.com/series/the-bear-05eb6a8e-90ed-4947-8c0b-e6536cbddd5f

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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

In this special compilation episode, we delve into failure—an overlooked source of wisdom. From freezing onstage in front of thousands of people, to coworkers staging an intervention, to huge product investments that went to zero, we’ve pulled our favorite stories of failure from 100+ podcast episodes. I hope these stories serve as a gentle nudge to view failure not as a setback but as a crucial detour toward growth.

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Brought to you by Sendbird—The (all-in-one) communications API platform for mobile apps | Eppo—Run reliable, impactful experiments

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Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/failure/

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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In this episode, you’ll hear from:

(00:00) Lenny: Why I’m focusing on failure

(03:25) Katie Dill: The single meeting that changed how Katie leads forever

(08:03) Paul Adams: Freezing onstage in front of thousands of people

(18:38) Tom Conrad: Lessons from Pets.com and Quibi—two of the most famous product disasters of all time

(33:19) Sri Batchu: When you fail, make sure you fail conclusively

(39:00) Jiaona Zhang (JZ): One of the biggest product misses at Airbnb

(44:32) Gina Gotthilf: Everyone has an “A side” and a “B side,” and we should all share our B sides more

(57:57) Maggie Crowley: Her favorite interview question about failure, and lessons from a personal failure

(1:00:33) Thanks for listening

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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

Inbal Shani is the chief product officer at GitHub, where she leads core product management, along with product strategy, marketing, open source, and communities, including the development of GitHub Copilot. Prior to joining GitHub, she led engineering and product teams at Amazon and Microsoft. In today’s conversation, we discuss:

• What Inbal believes is overhyped and underhyped in the rapidly changing field of AI

• How AI-driven code generation is changing software development

• Her take on whether AI will replace developers

• How software development looks in 3 to 5 years

• How product teams operate at GitHub

• GitHub’s Next team, and other ways the company fosters a culture of innovation

• The success metrics and philosophy behind GitHub’s Copilot

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Brought to you by Jira Product Discovery—Atlassian’s new prioritization and roadmapping tool built for product teams | Sanity—The most customizable content layer to power your growth engine | HelpBar by Chameleon—The free in-app universal search solution built for SaaS

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Find the transcript at: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/the-future-of-ai-in-software-development-inbal-shani-cpo-of-github/#transcript

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Where to find Inbal Shani:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/inbalshani/

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Inbal’s background

(04:17) Why generative AI is not going to replace developers in the near future 

(05:54) Why AI-driven testing is underhyped

(07:48) What the next 3 to 5 years will look like

(10:13) Stats around the use of GitHub Copilot 

(12:07) How Copilot enables engineers to work more efficiently

(13:38) Common mistakes when adopting AI into your workflows

(16:42) How GitHub operationalizes “dogfooding”

(18:46) The philosophy behind Copilot

(20:24) Copilot’s success metrics

(24:54) How Copilot encourages collaboration

(26:37) What we lose when AI writes code for us

(29:35) A retrospective on the generative AI space

(30:47) Inbal’s thoughts on the future of AI

(32:35) How to make space for innovative product ideas

(34:37) How GitHub stays on the cutting edge of innovation

(36:44) The GitHub Next team

(39:20) Advice for early product managers

(42:17) Inbal’s “biggest learning” from her career

(45:34) Inbal’s closing thoughts

(46:19) Lightning round

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Referenced:

• How to measure and improve developer productivity | Nicole Forsgren (Microsoft Research, GitHub, Google): https://www.lennyspodcast.com/how-to-measure-and-improve-developer-productivity-nicole-forsgren-microsoft-research-github-goo/

• DORA: https://dora.dev/

• The role of AI in product development | Ryan J. Salva (VP of Product at GitHub, Copilot): https://www.lennyspodcast.com/the-role-of-ai-in-new-product-development-ryan-j-salva-vp-of-product-at-github-copilot/

• GitHub Universe 2023 day 2 keynote: The productivity platform for all developers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_o9kFPVeiw

• Satya Nadella on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/satyanadella/

• TomTom: https://www.tomtom.com/

• Failing Forward: Turning Mistakes into Stepping Stones for Success: https://www.amazon.com/Failing-Forward-Turning-Mistakes-Stepping/dp/0785288570/

• Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t: https://www.amazon.com/Good-Great-Some-Companies-Others/dp/0066620996

• Turning the Flywheel: A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great: https://www.amazon.com/Turning-Flywheel-Monograph-Accompany-Great/dp/0062933795

• Dare to Lead Like a Girl: How to Survive and Thrive in the Corporate Jungle: https://www.amazon.com/Dare-Lead-Like-Girl-Corporate/dp/1538163527

• All the Light We Cannot See on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81083008

• The Wheel of Time on Amazon Prime: https://www.amazon.com/Wheel-Time-Season-1/dp/B09F59CZ7R

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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

With companies wrestling with the question of returning to the office or to continue working from home, there are so many questions around the future of work. How do you maximize your team’s creative output and entice them to want to come back to the office, while navigating the opportunities and challenges of working with AI? WPP CEO Mark Read believes that working together in an office is better – for collaboration, for training new employees, and for company culture. In this episode of Rapid Response, host Bob Safian speaks with Mark about the hurdles companies face in bringing folks back to the office, adopting generative AI, and leading during an era of disruption.

Read a transcript of this episode: https://mastersofscale.com/

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