Moving to the public cloud is a major transformation for most telcos. There’s a lot at stake, and failure can spell disaster for an organization and its leaders. But the hard truth is that 70% of big transformation projects fail according to research from McKinsey & Company. In this episode, I sit down with Teena Piccione, a change management expert at Google, to dig into what telcos can do to keep their public cloud journey on track. Click play to hear our conversation about:

• The reasons big projects fail [03:15]; 
• How to build support for change in your organization [04:14];
• What to do to get a derailed project back on track [07:59]; and
• How to handle resistance to change [12:14].

Listen to our conversation by clicking play above or subscribe through your favorite podcast platform – see the links in the right column above. You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Links and Resources

• This episode combines two topics I love – transformation and human resources. Here are other great TelcoDR insights on these topics: 
  • The first episode of Telco in 20! It starts with transformational leadership
  • Episode 7, Telcos, get ready for workforce transformation
  • Learn how Verizon has navigated its public cloud journey
  • Read my blog about how to start your move to the cloud 
• Teena and I talked before she left for Alaska – the last of the US states she had left to visit. Here’s a picture from her trip. 
• Check out this trailer from Insomnia, starring Al Pacino, Robin Williams, and Hillary Swank. It’s a great movie about a veteran detective sent to a small Alaskan town to investigate the murder of a teenage girl.
• Watch this fun scene from the 1987 movie, Overboard, with Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell. 

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

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This week’s guest

About Teena Piccione
Teena Piccione joined Google's corporate engineering team in February 2022 to lead the Technical Engineering Teams. She previously led Google Cloud’s Telco, Media & Entertainment, Gaming (TMEG) Industry Sales and Customer Engineering teams. She has served as the EVP/CIO for RTI International, a non-profit research institute, and held leadership positions at Fidelity Investments (COO) and AT&T (running the Big Data Center of Excellence startup). Teena sits on advisory committees with NC State University, the Digital Transformation Committee for the Governor of NC, and The Kenan Institute.

Podcast Credits

●  Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR

●  Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo

●  Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing

●  Editing: Andrew Condell

●  Music: Dyami Wilson