Getting your team locked in starts with connecting every person to a goal they actually care about, not just telling them to work harder. Lia walks through how to set a rallying goal, show each team member why their role matters, and use a simple weekly wins practice to sustain momentum through year-end. This episode is especially useful for owners and leaders who feel their team coasting after summer.
This episode is part of the Communication, Vision & Buy-in series. Browse all episodes →
Mic drop moments
“…these breakdowns in rolling out change weren’t in the change itself. It was in how we rolled it out.”
“…the resistance to change is very rarely from the people that are going to receive the benefits of it.”
“If you are asking someone else to roll it out, you have to give that person air cover.”
“…when we make it easy to implement these things, your team will start to see what’s in it for them. And then everybody starts to reap the benefits.”
Episode highlights
Why good changes fizzle before they stick
The breakdown almost never lives in the change itself. After a decade driving team operations at Bank of America, Apple, Microsoft, and Google, Lia saw the same pattern repeat: the idea was solid, but the rollout lost momentum because the leader stopped championing it. Teams watch their leader constantly. The moment the energy wavers, people read it as permission to opt out.
Secret 1: Own the change loudly and visibly
The first move is to frame the change with genuine excitement before a single question gets asked. That means saying something like: “I’ve been looking at places where work feels harder than it needs to be, and I’m really excited to experiment with this.” Owning the problem, naming why you care, and signaling you are already convinced raises the cost of dissent. People who want to push back now have to go uphill against a leader who has already committed.
Lia points to a VP she worked with who had a clear vision for a new quarterly business review process but let her leadership team relitigate every template detail when they pushed back. The result was churn, compromise, and a final product that did not deliver what the VP actually wanted. The lesson: collect feedback as you go, but hold firm on the direction.
Secret 2: Give the implementer real air cover
If you are asking someone else to drive the change (an ops person, project manager, VA, or consultant), you must publicly deputize them before they start asking questions. That means telling the team: “I have asked this person to own this space. When they ask you for something, treat it as if I am asking.” Without that introduction, team members will smile, agree, and then quietly ignore every email. Lia is direct: if you skip this step, you are setting that person up to fail, and the change will stall.
Before the implementer kicks off, have a private conversation with them. Share your concerns, the outcomes you want, and the escalation path for tough questions. Set them up to run, then get out of the way.
Secret 3: Find internal champions at the peer level
No owner or implementer can carry the whole narrative alone. Find one or more people already on the team who can see the upside of the change and will advocate for it organically. When a skeptical team member asks a peer “do we really have to do this?”, a champion can answer from lived experience rather than from authority.
Lia shares a marketing firm example: they rolled out time tracking by first winning over account managers who genuinely valued it. When the broader team had questions, those account managers were ready with real answers. That peer credibility accelerated adoption far faster than top-down pressure alone could have.
The surprising source of resistance
Here is the counterintuitive thing Lia has observed repeatedly: the people who resist change most are rarely the ones who will benefit from it. On a design team she supported, the designers were the ones asking for better work-tracking. The friction came from the program managers and producers around them. Before assuming your whole team will push back, figure out exactly who is slowing things down and why. That diagnosis changes the conversation entirely.
Putting it together
Three moves, in order: set loud expectations that you are on board, give your implementer air cover so the team treats their requests as yours, and find internal champions who can advocate at the peer level. Skip any one of them and you are back to watching a great idea fizzle. Do all three and the people who benefit from the change will start pulling it across the finish line with you.
Related episodes in this cluster
- Ep 234: How to get your team to actually adopt any new process or tool. When a new tool or process stalls, the problem is almost never the tool. It is the framing. Lead with what each person specifically gets out of it, and adoption follows. This episode is most useful for owners and team leads who have introduced something new only to watch their team keep doing it the old way.
- Ep 211: How to communicate vision so your team actually buys in. Teams disengage from vision not because the strategy is wrong, but because the message is only delivered once, from one person, without connecting to daily work. Lia breaks down the cascade problem, the repetition principle, and how to equip every level of your leadership chain to carry the message. This episode is essential for founders, executives, and team leads heading into a new planning cycle.
- Ep 204: What your team is really asking for when requests feel frustrating or confusing. When a team member’s request feels entitled or annoying, there is almost always a deeper need underneath, usually around recognition, clarity, or belonging. Lia’s move is a two-minute pause to ask what the person actually means before deciding how to respond. This episode is most useful for founders and operators navigating the contradictions of growing a team.
- Ep 196: How to get your team locked in and finish the year strong. Getting your team locked in starts with connecting every person to a goal they actually care about, not just telling them to work harder. Lia walks through how to set a rallying goal, show each team member why their role matters, and use a simple weekly wins practice to sustain momentum through year-end. This episode is especially useful for owners and leaders who feel their team coasting after summer.
Want to go deeper?
The New Manager Playbook. Lia’s bestselling guide to leading a team for the first time.
Full transcript (click to expand)
A lot of times we get an idea as a business owner or team leader, and we’re really excited about it. And then we get somebody on board to roll out the change, and then it fizzles out and we’re like, well, what happened? And I want to talk about the common things that often get in the way from a successful change that you want to make on your team and super simple ways to mitigate those. Welcome to the Managing Made Simple podcast.
I’m Leah Garvin, your host and team operations consultant. Through this show and my signature Ops Playbook, I condense a decade of experience driving team operations in some of the most influential companies in tech to save you time, money, and stress. It doesn’t matter if you’re a business owner who realized that running a team isn’t as easy as you thought it would be, or a new manager looking to learn the ropes, or a seasoned manager ready to up their game, everyone is welcome to hang out with Managing Made Simple.
From conflicts to feedback to delegating and more, we leave no stone unturned when it comes to what makes us love managing, kind of hate it, and everything in between. Let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s go. Welcome back to the show. Let’s talk about managing change on your team. And the reason I want to talk about this is because this is something that a lot of times we get an idea as a business owner or team leader, and we’re really excited about it.
And then we get somebody on board to roll out the change, and then it fizzles out and we’re like, well, what happened? And I want to talk about the common things that often get in the way from a successful change that you want to make on your team, and super simple ways to mitigate those. All right? So this is going to be a fun one. And you know, why is this so near and dear to my heart?
Well, because driving team operations for over a decade in the corporate world, doing this work at Bank of America, at Apple, at Microsoft, at Google, what I found more often than not was these breakdowns in rolling out change weren’t in the change itself. It was in how we rolled it out. And specifically around that leader, the person that really, you know, that really we needed out there, championing the change to actually stick through it and hold folks accountable.
Okay? I want to start by sharing, you know, you listening to this as that business owner, as that leader, it is so paramount that you champion this change all the way through. Whether we’re talking about rolling out a task tracking system on your team or tracking time, whether we’re talking about how to get everyone aligned around a new working norm, maybe around, you know, days in the week for return to office, whatever it is, big or small.
Because your teams are looking to you. They are looking to you to say, hey, do we really want to do this? Are we on board with this? And so if you don’t kind of keep that narrative really consistent throughout the whole thing, then that’s where things are going to break down. And so what I want to talk about today are these three things, okay, that we can do to get away the challenges of something fizzling out along the way.
You know, so I mentioned already needing to have that air cover. Another thing that often can go a little bit sideways is when you start having those naysayers that are questioning everything to allow a reopening of a decision that’s been made. To say like, okay, well, let’s wait, let’s hear more people out when you’ve already heard people out and come to a decision that you’re feeling good about. Okay? And so this is something that can really break down the integrity of a decision.
It can create, it can chip away, and not create, it chips away at accountability because we see, oh, well, once we decide something, we can just question if we don’t like the plan. No, that’s not what we want to do. Right? We are setting up a professional work environment. We want people to be accountable to the work, to the decisions that are made that are for the best of the company and also for the team members.
So another thing to be really mindful of is, is that reopening decision and letting dissenting opinions that kind of surfacing and surfacing and surfacing keep coming back up. One kind of simple way to mitigate that is to decide as a team, as a company, well, what is our decision making framework? Are we a decide and commit kind of team? I would strongly suggest that. Disagree and still commit. We pilot something and we share feedback and we adjust if needed once we’ve tried it.
Whatever that looks like, really kind of holding your ground around that. That’s another one that I think can really get in the way of, of this getting people on board around a change. And again, I’m not talking about huge broad sweeping changes like what your company is focused on, like doing a strategy pivot. I’m talking about changes into how work gets done, because honestly, these can be the toughest ones. Well, sure as hell were for me, you know, driving operations around things like planning, how we track time, what our goals are for the quarter, how we’re reporting status on projects, how we’re communicating to upper management, all of these kinds of things can create such sticking points that make it so hard for folks to get the work done.
And when you get through that and you’ve gotten these things implemented, these are the things that make it so freaking easy to get work done. That’s why this is so important to me. That’s why I’m like literally yelling at you right now, because when we make it easy to implement these things, your team will start to see what’s in it for them. And then everybody starts to reap the benefits. Okay. So, you know, the whole point is making a change.
So to not be afraid of it, to not be like, oh, we’re kind of like doing this because no, go in really excited. Okay. So the first thing that I want to ask you to do to ensure that you have a successful change, whatever process option, whatever it is, is to present and set expectations with your teams that like, you are excited about this. Saying something like, hey, I’ve been looking at some of the places that work just feels harder than it needs to be in this team.
And I’m really excited to experiment with this change or, and because of that, I wanted to try out rolling this new process out. Or because of that, I’ve asked Joe over here to take the charge in rolling this thing out. Okay. And you frame it in being excited that you’re aware of the problem, that maybe you’ve heard feedback from people that you are taking an active role in championing this change. Now the change maybe didn’t come from you originally.
Maybe someone had shared some feedback and that’s why you’re rolling out. That’s okay. Okay. But saying, hey, it’s come to my attention. This thing’s really tricky on our team. Or we’re not tapping into as much revenue opportunities as we could be. Or hey, we’re leaving money on the table over here or customers are frustrated with this. Whatever it is. And so I want to do something about it. You owning it and you saying, me as a business owner, I want to do something about this.
And I’ve enlisted support in this way. I’ve hired someone to come in and help us with our ops. Hired a project manager here. I’ve, I’ve tasked, like I just mentioned, I’ve tasked Joe with really, really owning the space. This is going to set you up for success. So again, the first, first, first thing we got to do, set the expectation that you want this change and you’re on board because not only does it show like the modeling that we want to have, it shows people that, you know, if they’re going to start dissenting or saying, I don’t know about this, do we have to do this?
That they’re going to be going against a little bit of an uphill battle because you’ve already said you are bought in. So you’ve already been convinced of it and that’s why it’s so important to say that. So let me give an example. Years ago, I was rolling out like a quarterly business review process on our team. And it was something that our VP and our team really, really wanted. We met about it numerous times, how we wanted the flow of the meetings to go, how we wanted the templates to go to preparing for them, what kind of content we want to talk about.
And she was really, really bought into it. But when we presented it to her leadership team, a lot of people were humming and hawing saying, yeah, do we want to do this or this way? And unfortunately she didn’t eat up. She allowed all of those dissenting opinions. Even though she had shared with me, she had a pretty clear vision of this. And what happened was it created a ton of churn and we actually didn’t get to an end state that was giving her the result that she wanted from those meetings.
So her as that leader really sacrificed the goal that she had in mind because she was allowing all these just different debates about like what the template should look like and all these really trivial details. And so what I wish she could have done that situation, I really urge you to do is to hold firm and saying, no, I’m excited about this. We’re going to do this. And if we’ll collect feedback as we go, we can totally change and tweak it, make it better.
But this is the plan we’re going to run with. Okay. And going with that. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve been talking with a business owner or manager and they’ve said, I want to be a better manager. I just don’t know the steps. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it. And frankly, I’ve felt that way too. Even when I had been managing people for a while because this stuff is hard and it changes all the time.
So the last time someone asked me for the steps, I made a cheat sheet. Head to LeahGarvin.com slash scorecard for 20 things you can do this month to be a better manager. This is literally your tell me what to do and I’ll do it steps to motivate your team and get better results. There’s no time like the present. Grab the scorecard or right freaking now, LeahGarvin.com slash scorecard. Now number two, okay, this is especially important if you are tasking someone else, which as a business owner, you’re probably always doing right to roll out a change again, whether it’s an ops person, a project manager, program manager, an account manager, an admin, a virtual assistant, you’ve hired a consultant, whoever it is.
If you are asking someone else to roll it out, you have to give that person air cover. Okay. And what I mean by that is saying, Hey, I am so excited. I have asked Leah to come in here and take a look at where these things are kind of causing more stress than they need to be and really help you guys and implement this change. And so when Leah asks you about this, please answer her questions, sit down with her, meet with her, right?
You are setting the stage for that person who’s implementing it to be successful. And I’m going to tell you right now, if you don’t do that, it is going to be so hard for that person. And you’re setting up for failure because change is tough for folks. And if we don’t say, Hey, this person is tasked with doing this. Other team members are going to look around and be like, Hey, why is Leah asking about like my timesheet?
Why is Joe over here? Like asking me to be tracking my work in this tool, like, no, I’m not doing that. Right. And you may have a team where everyone’s like, okay, great. Whatever is on board. But more often than not, you see people are kind of like, sure, Leah, sure, Joe, I’ll do it. And then they actually just like, don’t do it. They don’t respond to the emails or they ignore it, you know, and they kind of just like, you know, agree publicly and privately dissent.
And this is something that I’ve seen a lot in teams that have hired an ops person or hired someone to kind of get some of their process into shape is that person starts and there may be meeting with people one-on-one and they have some good conversations. But when it’s time to hit, like put the rubber to the road and they’re trying to implement some change and roll something out, people are like, nah, I don’t think so.
That is honestly like later than I’d want for you to give air cover. You want to give air cover when that person starts teeing it up again with those expectations you set that you’re excited about this. And that’s why I got Leah here implementing this change. So I’m asking you to talk to her. She is deputized with making decisions about this stuff. Of course you can come to me with questions, but you know, when she’s asking, think of it as me asking.
When you give that air cover, oh my gosh, you have set that person up so much for success. And again, you’re showing you’re bought into this. Okay. And so that’s going to make sure the person feels like, you know, they can bring their own ideas to it. Maybe in that air cover, you know, you have a pre-conversation with that person implement and you say, Hey, these are some of my concerns. These are some of the things I want to see.
If these kinds of questions come up, please bring them to me. You should totally set expectations of that person, but you have to tee that person up to be able to run with it effectively. Okay. So that was the second one. Now the third one, and this is so, so important and really a major step in any change management rollout, really even large scale, massive organizational change about enlisting an internal supporter or set of folks internally that will champion this.
And why is this so important? Well, when we’re rolling on a massive change, like maybe a company strategy or a reorganization, you know, a larger company where you change what people were working on or the roles have, there’s going to be a lot of folks like, Oh, I don’t know about this. Like, is this the right thing? And so having people that can really kind of at all levels of your organization of your team share, well, what are the upsides?
What are they excited? What are they enthusiastic about? What do they see as a win here? That’s going to start to quiet some of that chatter. That’s really just fear of change in general. So this isn’t about like rain washing people and telling them everything’s fine if it’s not. No, this is about having people that already can see through to the other side of the change and are able to advocate for it. So for example, in a marketing firm that I work with that had rolled out tracking time, it was really, really, they did a fantastic job of this by first enlisting their account managers and other folks across the team that were really bought into tracking time and really saw the value in it.
So when they rolled it out on the broader team, when people would come with questions to the account managers like, ah, what level of detail do I have to do this? Those account managers were able to be like, oh yeah, like here’s why this is awesome. Here’s how it’s going to help you make sure that you’re not overloaded with work. And they could be championing this change, not just the one person rolling it out or not just the business owner having to convince people to get on board.
So you know, this finding people in kind of at all level organization within the team, if you have a small team finding one person, you know, that can be there, that’s really not the person implementing it. So a second person at least that can be championing the change. This is going to be so helpful to help give you that boost over the line when, when there is some concerns about, you know, do we need to do this and why?
And again, you know, I’m not, I’m not talking about rolling out a change, like paying people less or something like that’s going to be super controversial or like that we don’t really want to do. Right? No. What I’m talking about is minor incremental changes that will just accelerate the way work gets done in your team. And these are the places I have seen for a decade plus people get most stuck. Literally I’m telling you, what should we call the name of the quarterly review?
How many pages should the template be? What font should we use for the client briefing? You know, should we put this paragraph before this one? These are the things that can make us so, so stuck. That can cost so much time and pain and agony because we’re working through them, entering over and over and over again. Okay. So, you know, thinking about what are the places where you see bottlenecks in your team? Always start with how can you simplify?
What are the steps you can remove? And then who is that person that’s going to run with it? And then again, giving that person air cover, finding that internal champion and always, always sticking firm on the fact that you are bought into the change. You’re not doing it secretly. You’re not doing it under the radar. You’re not trying to have it just be like, ta-da, we did this. Isn’t it easier? No, because that person implementing is going to get so much resistance.
And I’m telling you because it was me. It is me. Right. And I’m also telling you because what’s so funny that I’ve found over the years is that the resistance to change is very rarely from the people that are going to receive the benefits of it. For example, on a design team in a corporation I worked at, they didn’t have a really seamless way of tracking work. And the designers were really, really frustrated about that. And they were asking me like, hey, we need to track our work better.
And so I brought this to the team of other, you know, design program managers, producers and all the disagreement around how to track the work. It was there across my peer group. It was not from the people in the receiving end. So I want you to really think about it. If you’re encountering disagreement and kind of some, you know, slowing of decision making different things on your team to look at who is this coming from? Is it coming from the people on the receiving end of this process or is it coming from potentially middle managers or your leadership team who is kind of just kind of being nitpicky about how the way how work gets done?
Because we always want process to be as simple as possible for the people who are utilizing the process. Right. And this is something that I think can be a little bit tricky to discern. And this is one of the places I really like to dig in with folks with my team ops consulting or with the SOS calls is looking at, well, where are things getting stuck that you’re trying to implement? Where does it feel harder than it needs to?
And actually, who is driving that narrative and how do we want to get that person on board or those people on board? OK, so if you’re finding that you’re like, hey, everything I said sounds awesome, but there’s some key people on my team that like I know just aren’t going to be on board with this. Let’s do that SOS call in that conversation. It’s a one hour call. We will dive into exactly where things are getting stuck, what the messages has been to date and how you can fine tune and reframe that messaging a little bit to get that person on board.
OK, so if you want support, head to Leah Garvin dot com slash SOS. If you want to look at this in the broader framework, the ops playbook, you know where to go. Leah Garvin dot com. You can set up your free scale up strategy call. We’ll really dive into details of, you know, what makes sense to roll it on your team, what stage you’re in, how many team members you have. But again, if you follow these three steps, again, setting expectations that you’re on board on that plan, that you give that person implementing an air cover, right, deputize them to make decisions and you find that internal or those internal champions to really help accelerate the adoptionist process, you are going to be good, OK?
And I am here to support you along the way. See you next time. That’s all I have for today. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Managing Made Simple podcast, where my goal is to demystify the job of people management so that together we can make the workplace somewhere everyone can thrive. With that said, let’s spread the word. If you love this episode, please pass it along to someone who might benefit from it. See you next time.
Questions this episode answers
Why do team changes fizzle out before they stick?
Most of the time the change itself isn't the problem, it's how it gets rolled out. The biggest culprit is a leader who stops championing the change partway through. When you go quiet or start entertaining every dissenting opinion, your team reads that as a signal that the change is optional. They look to you to know whether this is real. If your energy and commitment stay consistent from announcement to full adoption, the change has a much better chance of actually sticking.
How do I get my team on board with a new process without a lot of pushback?
Start by announcing the change with genuine excitement and a clear reason: what problem does it solve and why do you care about fixing it. Own the decision out loud. When your team sees you are already convinced and already committed, they face an uphill battle if they want to push back. Then find at least one internal person who already sees the value in the change and can answer peer questions with enthusiasm. You don't have to be the only one selling it.
How do I set up the person I've tasked with rolling out a change so they actually succeed?
Give them air cover before they ever ask their first question. That means telling your team directly: this person is here, here is why, and when they ask you for something, treat it as if I am asking. Deputize them to make decisions in that space. If you skip this step, team members will smile and agree in meetings and then quietly ignore every request. The person you hired ends up hitting a wall not because of their skills but because no one signaled that their work actually has your backing.
Should I reopen a decision every time someone on my team disagrees with a change?
No, and reopening decisions repeatedly is one of the fastest ways to kill accountability on your team. Once you have heard people out and landed on a direction you feel good about, hold that line. A simple way to make this work is to agree upfront on a decision making framework, something like disagree and commit, or pilot it and adjust based on real feedback after trying it. Endless debate over details like what to name a template or which paragraph comes first is where teams lose weeks of momentum.
Who usually resists process changes the most, and what should I do about it?
It is rarely the people who will benefit most from the change. The loudest resistance often comes from middle managers or peers debating how the work should get done, not from the people actually doing the work who are frequently the ones asking for the change in the first place. If you are hitting friction, look at where it is coming from. If it is not coming from the people the process is designed to help, that tells you something. Focus your energy on getting those specific people on board rather than reopening the whole decision.