You know how sometimes you just get this feeling? Like, deep down, something’s a bit off, but you can’t quite put your finger on it. It’s like a little vibe in the air, a subtle shift you pick up on. I’ve had that feeling a lot, especially when I’m trying to get a new project or an idea off the ground with a group of folks.
I remember this one time, a few years back, we were all geared up to roll out a brand-new internal tool. On paper, it looked like a no-brainer. Everyone needed it, or so we thought. It promised to make a bunch of clunky old processes way smoother. So, we dove in, headfirst. Put in the long hours, got the code all tightened up, tested it inside out. We were pretty proud of what we’d built, honestly.
Then came the big launch. We did the whole shebang – sent out a flurry of excited emails, held a couple of quick demos, even put up some helpful guides. And then we just… waited. And waited. For the usage numbers to shoot up, for the happy feedback to pour in. But mostly, crickets. Or at least, not the roar of success we expected. It wasn’t a total disaster, but it sure wasn’t the instant hit we’d envisioned. This really had me scratching my head. We built exactly what was asked, solved a clear problem. What was the actual deal?
That’s when I decided to switch gears and just start watching. Not just staring at analytics dashboards, but actually watching people. I started taking more walks around the office, lingering by coffeepots, just listening to casual chatter. I noticed a few folks still stubbornly sticking to the old, really cumbersome ways of doing things. Like, they were actively complaining about how long a certain task took, yet they weren’t touching the tool we’d built to fix exactly that.
The subtle clues started popping up everywhere once I paid attention. I remember seeing Jenny over in the operations team, always with a stack of printouts, meticulously making notes by hand. This was for a process that our fancy new tool was supposed to automate entirely! And then there was Mark, who worked in sales, he kept asking me directly for data that our tool was literally displaying right there on its main dashboard. It wasn’t like they were trying to be difficult, or that they weren’t smart. It was definitely something else, something deeper.
So, I thought, okay, observing isn’t enough. I needed to dig deeper. I started asking really simple, open-ended questions. Things like, “Hey Jenny, why the printout? Is there something missing in the new system?” Or, to Mark, “Did you try checking the new tool for that info? Just curious if it’s giving you what you need.” I wasn’t trying to accuse anyone or prove a point. I was genuinely curious. I’d even sit next to people for a bit, just watching them navigate their daily tasks, seeing firsthand where the friction points were.
What I started hearing and seeing was pretty eye-opening. “Oh, the old way? I just know where everything is, it’s muscle memory.” “The new tool? Yeah, it’s there, but I gotta click three times to get to the one piece of info I actually need, and that adds up.” “Sometimes it glitches, you know? So I just go back to my trusty spreadsheet to be safe.” These weren’t really bugs in the traditional sense, not things you’d find in a QA report. They were friction points. These were the “signs” I needed to read.
It really clicked for me then. It wasn’t about the tool being broken. It was about comfort, about speed, and ultimately, about trust. The old way, even if it was ridiculously inefficient, was familiar and felt reliable. The new tool, despite being technically superior, introduced small, annoying extra steps or moments of uncertainty. People weren’t actively resisting the solution we provided; they were resisting the change and the perceived hassle that came with it. They were giving off clear signals about their workflow and preferences.
So, armed with these “signs,” what did I actually do? First, I completely stopped pushing the “new is better” narrative. That clearly wasn’t working. Instead, I pivoted to identifying those specific, little friction points that people brought up. I started making really small, targeted tweaks. Could we reduce the number of clicks for Jenny’s report from three to one? Could we make that search button for Mark way more obvious? What if we added a tiny “undo” feature so folks wouldn’t fear losing their work if the tool hiccupped? We set up a very informal feedback loop – no big, official surveys – just me chatting people up, quickly showing them a small fix I’d just rolled out.
And those small wins, they really started to build something crucial: trust. I’d do a quick update, then I’d go over to Jenny and say, “Hey, check it out, now it’s just one click for your daily report.” Or I’d tell Mark, “Try this new search, I tweaked it to be faster.” These weren’t massive overhauls, but they were about acknowledging their specific feedback, their “signs,” and showing them we were actually responding. People saw their input leading to real, tangible improvements.
Slowly but surely, the usage numbers started to creep up. Jenny eventually stopped bringing those printouts to work. Mark actually started pointing other people to the dashboard instead of asking for data himself. It wasn’t some dramatic overnight explosion of adoption, but a gradual, steady integration into their daily work lives. It was beautiful to see.
The big takeaway for me from all of that was huge. It wasn’t just about building the thing right; it was about building the right thing, in a way that truly fit into people’s existing rhythms, and then being flexible enough to adjust based on their unspoken needs – the “signs” they were constantly giving off. It taught me that sometimes, the most important part of getting a project or an idea to truly stick isn’t the grand, perfectly engineered plan. It’s paying really close attention to those little signals: the quiet complaints, the frustrated sighs, the shortcuts people invent. Those are the real “signs” you gotta learn to read. It became crystal clear to me that if you want something to truly catch on, you’ve really got to listen, not just to what people say, but to what they do and how they react. That, right there, is your most reliable compass.
