EPISODE 174 | Guest: Sean Matthews, president and CEO of Visix
Change is inevitable in business, but with 70% of change initiatives failing due to poor communication, organizations need strategic approaches to guide their teams through transitions successfully. This episode explores how internal communications serves as the cornerstone of effective change management, breaking down the critical phases from pre-change preparation through post-implementation reinforcement.
Digital signage and multi-channel communication strategies play a vital role in reducing resistance, building trust and maintaining team alignment during organizational shifts. Discover practical content examples and communication frameworks that turn potentially disruptive changes into opportunities for growth and employee engagement.
- Learn why structured communication reduces change resistance and increases success rates.
- Discover pre-change strategies that build anticipation rather than anxiety.
- Understand real-time progress updates and visual reinforcement during transitions.
- Explore post-change communications that reinforce new behaviors and celebrate wins.
- Get practical digital signage content ideas for each change management phase.
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Learn more in our Guide to Better Communications in the Agile Workplace
Transcript
Derek DeWitt: The only constant in life is change, so it has been said. Think about the last time there was a major change at your company or organization. How smoothly did it go? Did it go smoothly at all? There’s a statistic that says 70% of change initiatives fail. And a major contributing factor to that failure is poor communication.
Today, I’m fortunate enough to be able to talk with someone who knows a lot about this, Sean Matthews, president and CEO of Visix. Today, we’re going to explore why communications is really the cornerstone of successful change management, and we’ll give some practical content examples to help make your next major change initiative a big success. Thanks for talking to me today, Sean.
Sean Matthews: It’s good being here, Derek. This is a subject I find of significant interest just because I believe you’re correct, change is inevitable. You know, it’s death and taxes but real life that you can see.
Derek DeWitt: And death and taxes both also involve change, at least on some level. And of course, thank you everybody out there for listening to this episode of Digital Signage Done Right. I remind you, you can subscribe, like, share, review, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you can follow along with a transcript of the conversation we’re about to have on the Visix website.
Okay, Sean, so you’ve been the head of Visix since 2004, and in that time, you’ve seen a fair amount of change, I think it’s safe to say.
Sean Matthews: Oh, yeah, most definitely. You know, I arrived at this company, as you noted, in 2004. It was an electronics manufacturing company that had been around since 1980, building little black boxes for audiovisual signal routing and switching, right? So, very heavy on electrical engineering, manufacturing processes. And at the time I arrived, that technology was dying out. Not only was it getting old, but newer technologies that were coming into the market, particularly related to network infrastructure, were quickly cannibalizing those older technologies.
So, we had one product that was a software product. It was a digital messaging system, digital signage product. And we basically pivoted from electronic manufacturing, changed our hiring practices, and went down the path of software development.
And then, oddly enough, just before the pandemic around 2019, software as a service was really catching on, even though that approach to delivering software had been around for 15, 20 years. It goes back to the mainframe days where you had green screens at remote sites. That’s really software as a service when you get down to it.
But in 2019, with the advent of the word “cloud”, believe it or not, that whole market, like, pivoted and software was no longer on premise. It was no longer a perpetual license. And everyone went to software as a service delivery and subscriptions. And man, that was a big change.
And even in the process of all this, particularly going from hardware to software, we changed our name to better reflect where we were going and what we were doing. So, a lot of experience with this, and, yeah, it’s been quite the ride for sure.
Derek DeWitt: So, let’s talk about what change management is. What does that mean? Managing change, I guess?
Sean Matthews: Yeah. And you know, I read the book several times, and I’ve given it to employees, Who Moved My Cheese?, which is about change. Nobody really likes change, which is interesting. But, so I picked up this summary before our meeting here, and I picked up this summary from Gemini, and so this is kind of a multi-web-source answer to your question. But you know, change management’s like a roadmap. It’s a navigational tool for organizational change, shifts. You know, it’s a structured approach. It helps companies successfully make that transition, any kind of change, whether it’s software to restructuring, even a change in marketing strategy, right?
And as you know, Derek, there’s lots of companies that have failed to make these kinds of changes, right? Like, I don’t care if it’s Kodak in the film era, they invented the digital camera, couldn’t capitalize on it, right? Lots of companies, even think about even today, you know, automotive, combustion engine companies trying to make that change to electric, right? Some like Porsche are having to like, stop and rethink because they’re not doing it well, it’s not happening the way they envisioned it, right?
You know, when you get down to it, it’s kind of like guiding a ship, you know, particularly through some uncertain waters, right? You’re navigating, you need a plan. You need some clear communication. You need visual reinforcement, audible reinforcement. And, you know, you’ve got to address the rough seas on the way because it’s not easy. And, you know, change management is that framework.
Derek DeWitt: It sounds like it’s really coming up with some kind of a plan and thinking strategically, which, okay. And yet I think there are a lot of people out there, especially sort of people who consider themselves to be a bit of, you know, maybe a bit of a maverick, like, hey, man, I, you know, I have an intuitive sense for this stuff, I think with my gut, I think tactically, I don’t think, strategically. Why not just roll with it and, and deal with each little bump or, you know, stormy wave as it comes up? Why have some kind of an overarching plan? Doesn’t that make you too rigid?
Sean Matthews: I mean, it sounds like it might be a little rigid up front, Derek, but the reality is, you are trying to get a bunch of people, right – I don’t care if it’s 50 or 5,000 – you are trying to get a bunch of people to move in a very specific direction.
I mean, yeah, I hate to use, like, war analogies, military analogies, right? You’re trying to move a bunch of people from country A to country B, right? New environment, culturally different, you know, lots of supplies and logistics and major changes. And all of these people, even though they might be from a particular country, they’re individuals. They’re not all a hundred percent the same, right? There’s different professional backgrounds, experience backgrounds, they all come from all walks of life, and you’ve gotta get them from A to B.
And you’re gonna lose some people in the process. There’s gonna be fear, uncertainty. Some people are flat out gonna resist. They’re gonna say, I’m not doing it. I’m fine with the old way. They don’t wanna change. And that’s honestly where the communication piece comes in. You’ve gotta tackle that fear head on. You gotta build trust. Hey, this is better than what we were doing before. It is! If you just set that aside and embrace the new, you’re gonna move forward and have even a better experience.
Some people are gonna quit, some people you’re gonna have to let go, because they won’t make the change. But that’s where you have this opportunity to find new people that will reinforce, you know, the new experience, the new change, because you want to minimize that disruption because you can’t let all the old go and hire all new, right? You’ll probably go bankrupt if you went that route. So, you wanna reduce that friction, reduce the resistance, and therefore your chance of success is just higher.
Derek DeWitt: Yeah, I know. I think for some people, for many people, in fact, it turns out, even small changes can be kind of overwhelming, especially, say, in the workplace. You know, at home I made the decision to make the change, or my significant other did, and I better shut up if I know it’s good for me.
But at work, you know, like, we get into these kind of patterns, and they become comfortable, and life becomes predictable. And I think that’s one of the reasons why this communications factor is so important in it. Or I mean, try and imagine if you have bad communications on this stuff, or just no communications. Here’s the change. That’s it. We’re not giving you any other information, you know?
So, then they might not even know what’s happening because it’s not being very clearly articulated. They certainly don’t know why it’s happening or how it will affect them. And so then, of course, they begin to do what humans do, humans are storytellers, and they begin to speculate. And that’s how you get inaccurate information. You get rumors, you get all this kind of stuff, which I think increases resistance, it increases frustration, and it really just creates a really almost toxic environment around the change.
Sean Matthews: Well, we’ll take the American political system as just one good example. In our world here in the States, you know, everything changes either every four years or every eight years, right? And so, there’s not a lot of stability, with the exception of there’s some sort of, we’ll call it customary stability, right? You don’t go in and fire the entire FEMA organization or strip it in half, or you don’t make these wild radical changes overnight, right? And that’s how you maintain some level of stability.
Well, you know, when you throw in this chaotic, you know, level of just change, and there’s no communication, it does what you just said, it feeds the rumor mill. And in the world of politics, it feeds the TV news cycle, and there’s no stability, whether it’s just chaos. And some people like to lead or manage by chaos. They do, right? That’s an approach that some people take. But by and large, most organizations can’t function that way.
And you need a good communication path. And you know, you want to communicate specific goals and objectives, because it reduces the uncertainty, right? It’s transparent, right? You could have done what, we’ll call it the DOGE people did, you could have done that with a different level of communication, right? You could have just said, I’m sorry, we are doing this for the good of the taxpayer, whatever, right?
And you could spell it out but at least say something, right? Then you could reinforce the future vision, right? You wanna keep all the teams aligned. And you wanna keep, who’s left, you wanna keep them motivated, right? You want them to celebrate the progress. You want them to celebrate the change. You don’t wanna be the lone cheerleader, right? And without good communication, you can’t do any of that.
Derek DeWitt: Yeah. I think that’s true. And using your example, that’s exactly what we saw. We saw the flip side of that, right? If you’ve got unclear or even worse, inconsistent communications, people become alienated. And now your whole strategy if you had one, is in danger of failing, you know?
So, let’s break down some internal communication strategies across different phases of a change, let’s say. Obviously, I think the first phase is, we might want to call it pre-change. Before the change, you need to sort of prepare the ground for what’s coming.
Sean Matthews: Yeah. And in our case, you know, we were a digital signage, well, we were becoming a digital signage company, right? We’re electronic manufacturing. But, you know, we had the opportunity back in those days to put some TVs up in our facility, right? And this, back in the days when really nobody was remote, everybody was in like one facility, right? So, we could use digital signs. Today, we could use digital signs, we could use desktops, mobile devices, all kinds of things, right, to get in front of people. But, you know, back then we were putting CRTs up in the break room and the hallways at intersections of hallways, that kind of stuff.
And so, our goal then was to, you know, initially begin to tout the change that was coming as we moved away from electronic manufacturing. Because you do have to know, I mean Derek, unfortunately some people that were electronic engineers and oriented towards that market, they didn’t have a place, you know, going forward. There was certainly some uncertainty. Who’s gonna be left? You know, who’s gonna be new, you know, who’s gonna leave?
And so, you know, our goal was to really project what that change was gonna look like. You know, we produced some videos about what the technology looked like. Us conveying the message to employees and the team the reasons for the change, and the reasons were quite obvious, you know. New technologies were going to cannibalize our business, and we wouldn’t be a business, right?
And so, you know, you get back to that, the other book Start with Why, right? So, we’ve got Who Moved My Cheese?, Start with Why, right? And those two kind of help guide you in this process. And, you know, we wanted to create awareness, understanding. Of course, then we had other mediums that we were putting information out on. FAQs, links to pages. Back then there weren’t QR codes, but we could do that today to link people’s stuff. And of course, ultimately, we wanna, you know, create this excitement and anticipation.
I mean, if you think about this, in 2004, when we started to make this change immediately, we did not have a help desk. There was no help desk because there was no real software, right? There were no online help tools, because that’s not really what you did in the hardware business back then. And really think about this, back then, there was no such thing as recurring revenue in the form of a software maintenance agreement. All new, right? So, dude, we got, you know, there was all new things people could get excited about, right? Because new and shiny? Dude, that’s pretty, it’s fun.
Derek DeWitt: I know that when the day comes, ’cause there is a day, especially if you’re changing completely what your company does or the name, or even if you’re just, you know, updating and altering your brand colors and things like this; there is a day where, and now everything’s different. Usually, it’s a Monday. A lot of companies like to make it kind of an event, whether that’s internal, external, both, and so on. Like, some kind of a launch event. Like how big a deal should this transition event be?
Sean Matthews: I’ll point to two. One was a singular event, almost like a wedding, right? And then after the wedding, you’ve got the marriage, right? But the wedding is nothing more than an event, right? Well, changing from electronic manufacturing and migrating to software development, you know, that’s an extended change, right? Which required progress updates. You know, we were able to put items out on screen, and so we could show the phase out, which included the decline of hardware sales, but then the growth of software sales. So, you have this KPI data that, you know, it looks negative on the one hand because it’s going down, but then you have this positive thing that’s happening, like, thumbs up, five stars, you know. A great opportunity to project what the future’s looking like, right?
And we can motivate people with that kind of stuff. Because the negative decline in hardware sales, the reinforcement there is, we are doing what we set out to do. And if we said it was gonna take us six months to wean ourselves off of this hardware, we could plot that and show it. So that was awesome.
And that way, not only could we do it visually, but audibly, we could address rumors and misinformation, right? Like if you see two graphs and one’s going up and one’s going down, and the one that’s going down is what we wanted to see anyway, right, then we’re addressing misinformation. Like how can you argue that the good chart is going up?
And so, not everything you can put on screens, but you can have dedicated communication channels for questions and answers, intranets about, you know, what’s happening today, what’s next in the change process. Celebrating milestones, you know, and successes, right? I mean, that’s a big deal for us. And, like, when we got to the end, we celebrated the fact that, I don’t know, Derek Dewitt is the last buyer of our hardware widget. He’s the last guy, right? In the meantime, we’ve had a hundred new software guys.
Derek DeWitt: So yeah, that’s absolutely right on the money. It may be, you may have a, hey, it’s beginning! But it, like you said, the change is, it’s a process. And it can sometimes take months or even years, depending on how big and how complicated the whole thing is. I’m thinking specifically of like mergers of companies, you know, like that can take ages to get done.
And then, okay, so we get to that, we did it, we said we’re gonna go from hardware to software pretty much only. We just made our last sale of that. We’re not making any more of that hardware. It’s done; it’s gone. We’re outta that business. But that doesn’t mean everything has to stop. You should still keep communicating.
Sean Matthews: Yeah. Because I mean, once you get past that mid-change, in process change, you get to this post-change phase, and you know, there, like, our name change certainly becomes an event, right? So, on this day, we changed our name. But for the next year Derek, there’s all these things that we did one way in the past, but now we’re doing a different way – different colors, different message, different look, different feel. And it shows up in the form of newsletters, marketing materials, trade shows, right?
And so now we have this sequence of pictures and images of this change in progress after the fact, right? Like, so it’s happened, you know, now we have a new normal, and we need to ensure that everybody adopts what the new normal is.
So, when we made the change from software to software as a service, you know, we had to convey and reinforce, we need for you to think like a SaaS company, right? Which is different. We need for you to behave like a SaaS company. Because in the perpetual license days, you sell product, and you make features only for selling new product. I’ll be honest with you. You don’t have as much of a commitment to the existing install base because they already bought it. They get the luxury of some new features, right?
But in the world of software as a service, because they have lower investment upfront, they don’t have as much commitment to the product over the long haul. So, you have to keep them renewing and staying on board, renewing those subscriptions. You wanna reduce the negative churn that they churn out of your business, and they stay with you. So, retention becomes a new focus, and you have to behave like, part of your job is to retain those people that we already sold to.
You know, you gotta spotlight employee success, and you can do that with leaderboards. You wanna keep that feedback channel that loop open, you know, not just for the immediate, but like months after the change. A lot of feedback, focus groups, what’s working, what’s not working. Like, we have to ask those questions.
And of course, then we wanna recognize, you know, and celebrate what everybody’s doing. And that’s, you know, events, awards, promoting people on screens. That’s a great way. Everybody loves to be on TV. And certainly, recognizing people on TV, shout outs, thank you messages, you know, all the data visualization now. Of course, it’s much more elaborate than it was, but it, you know, is designed to reinforce what’s good, what’s bad.
In our own town hall meetings, you know, we use sad faces versus smiley faces on certain KPIs, right? Keep it simple. I have learned in this process, Derek, that most people don’t like, in my case they don’t like Sean’s graphs, right? All the financial graphs, they kind of tune them out. They’re like, oh my gosh, he’s got another graph. So, everybody gets tired of the graphs. So, keeping it simple and positive and reinforcing, I mean, it’s a great way to do it.
Derek DeWitt: Though, I would caution positive, yes, but that doesn’t mean sweeping issues under the rug, obviously. Just find a way to word them that isn’t doom and gloom, obviously. You know, like you said, it’s the way when you change from software as a product, essentially a one-off product, and then yeah, you should keep updating it because if you don’t update your software, you’re just foolish and you’re asking to get hacked.
As opposed to software as a service, which in my mind, I’ve always thought is much more akin to like the food and beverage and hospitality industry. You’re trying to create loyal customers who are like, I can go to any hotel. I can go to any steak restaurant. Why do I keep coming back to your steak restaurant? Because you give me this, this, this, this and this. And that’s all great.
So, using digital signage for example, to remind people, hey, this is, this is what we’re doing. This is what’s been successful in the past. This particular employee innovated that, or does it better than anybody else, and so, you know, talk to them. And it just kind of becomes this whole, you know, we’re all in it together. We’ve gone through the change, and yet, hey, there’s more change. And especially, like you said, in this particular instance with Visix, you’ve transitioned from a pretty stable business model of we make stuff and then sell that stuff to one of constant change, software as a service.
Sean Matthews: Yeah. And in fact, you hit on it about your, you know, restaurant and, you know, hotel analogy, Derek. You know, you go back to that same steak restaurant, not only because they have a good steak, and every once in a while, they sprinkle in a special that you’re like, oh, wow, I’m gonna do something different tonight ’cause this special looks good, right? So, they sprinkle in some new stuff on occasion, but not only do they have good product, but my guess is they also have good service, right?
And so, because you can’t have one without the other and have that level of commitment, right? You know, I’m gonna keep going back to this, but that’s the same thing when you move to software as a service. It’s not just a good sales pitch and a good product. Now it’s a good sales pitch, a good product that’s always evolving, and a support team and a professional services team that’s always there to handhold you and guide you through the new features. Completely different model, even though most people don’t think of it that way up front, because it’s still just, and I quote “software “.
Derek DeWitt: Here, let me summarize all this very briefly using an example. So, let’s say a company’s implementing a new CRM system, right? So like, before you launch, before the change, that pre-change phase, you’re using the digital signage to tell people not only what you’re doing. And again, they probably have been told this in a meeting, in an email and so on, so the digital signage is just there to remind and reinforce. But hey, here are the benefits. Don’t forget, these are the benefits of the new system. Here’s how things are gonna be structured. Here’s the new project team and so on.
Then while you’re going through that change, you’re showing tips and tricks for how to use the system and highlight early adopters. I think that’s always nice. Like, look, people are using it and here’s what they say.
And then afterwards, you’re using your digital signs to show the positive impact that all of this has wrought, and both on sales and customer satisfaction and all the rest, and kind of point the way forward to what’s coming down the road after that.
Sean Matthews: Yeah, I mean, and so there’s probably a lot that you could do with screens. And when I talk about screens, I’m not talking about just big screens in buildings, but, you know, desktops, intranets, mobile devices, you know, all those things. You want to get as much of that consistent content in front of people as many times as you can.
And of course, it always depends on your organization, the goals, the audience, right? And a lot of times people talk about mobile devices, Derek, and they forget about the fact that people in warehouses or manufacturing lines, they can’t use their mobile devices while they’re in the process of working. In fact, in many cases, they’re forbidden from having them on the floor. They have to be in lockers or stuff because it is a distraction, right? It’s hard to make something while I’m watching TikToks, right? I mean, it’s just hard to do that, right?
And so, you know, you wanna reinforce on screens the change that you’ve implemented, you know, because it’s going to spur all kinds of new libraries of content, which include goals, motivation, recognition, KPIs, things you just referenced, right? In this case, it’s not tailored just to the salesforce because it’s your customer relations tool, right? So, everybody that touches clients, pro services, finance, sales, everyone, everyone with the exception maybe of development, they’re all touching it. And so, it’s good to see the KPIs and the change that we’re making.
Derek DeWitt: So, effective communication really is the lifeblood of successful change management. It’s about being proactive and transparent, but mainly it’s about being consistent. Tailor your communication strategies to whatever specific change you’re going through and to your specific audience. We say this again and again on here, and I just can’t say it often enough. There’s no one size fits all for communications.
And remember that communications, especially with today’s technology and today’s expectations of the way that people use all forms of communications technology, it’s a two-way street. Always figure out a way to get some kind of feedback and to use, even your audience, as content sources in some way, shape or form. Listen to what your employees say. And if they’re not saying anything, ask them. Address any concerns they have and get that feedback and either incorporate it or if you don’t incorporate it, let it be known why. Because otherwise people just kinda go, oh, well, I guess they just don’t care. They say they do, but they don’t. We do. It’s just that there are a lot of reasons why we’re not gonna do that particular thing you suggested there, Bob. So just relax.
Sean Matthews: And I was just gonna say, I think that, you know, when you start assessing like your current communication practices and you begin to identify things that maybe you can do better. You know, what you just said is interesting because I did happen to see a, it was a TikTok, but it was an interesting approach to, and I think about stuff like this. This was an auto mechanic shop, and the guy that was, you know, creating the TikTok, he was walking around to different mechanics inside the shop, and he was like, hey, Derek, what’s the most bulletproof engine ever invented, right? And so, this guy answers the question, he goes to the next guy, and he asks the same question, like four different mechanics, right?
And I’m thinking to myself, interesting. Like that approach in the digital signage realm of what we’re talking about here. So Derek, how’s the change going for you? You know, moving from software to software as a service. You know, you get to answer that question and you know, it doesn’t matter if I’m the press secretary or whatever, right? I get to hear your response, and there’s an opportunity for me to address, particularly if you have a negative aspect to your response, right? Like, I can address it right there. And not only did we get your feedback, but to the viewing audience, we got to address particularly what’s wrong, from your perspective, what’s wrong with the procedure or the process that we’re going through.
So, you know, I think really assessing how you might better engage employees, create some more collaborative engagements, you know, certainly a much more supportive environment for change. That all goes into how you might take advantage of digital signs as another layer in your communication strategy as you go through change.
Derek DeWitt: Indeed, and change, as we said, it’s certainly gonna happen. There’s no way to avoid it.
Sean Matthews: Yeah. And you know, it’s interesting. I have kids, Derek, and even my kids to this day, they’re in their twenties, and I ask them, you know, they’re like, man, this isn’t going the way I thought, or whatever. And I always ask, I’m like, let me ask you something. Are you the same person? Is the world the same today as it was when you were 12, right? And they’re like, uh, no. I’m like, well. You better get used to change.
Derek DeWitt: Yeah, you better get used to it. You better have some kind of communication strategy in place to be able to help others through it as well.
Well, super interesting stuff. Thank you, Sean Matthews, president and CEO of Visix, for talking to me today about how to use communications to affect change and manage that change. Thanks, Sean. Super interesting.
Sean Matthews: All right. Thank you, Derek.
Derek DeWitt: And of course, I remind everyone again that there is a transcript of the conversation that we just had on the Visix website.