Most technology projects don’t fail because the software broke.
They fail because trust did.
That’s not a philosophical observation. It’s what SparkEffect’s own research keeps showing. In the Trust Study, only 36% of organizations that faced significant disruption emerged with stronger trust. The other 64% lost ground, and most of them never saw it coming until the project was already in trouble.
SparkEffect has seen this pattern play out across organizations of every size. The system goes live. The workarounds start. And somewhere in the aftermath, someone says what everyone already knew: the people side should have come first.
When Kim Bohr, President of SparkEffect, first connected with Bob Wallis, she recognized immediately that he had built his entire consulting practice around solving exactly that problem.
The Consultant Who Reads Rooms
Bob Wallis is a fractional CIO and project fixer. He gets called in when technology transformations are stalling, failing, or heading for disaster. And he’ll tell you the same thing every time: the software is rarely the real problem.
His path to this work is unusual. Before complex ERP implementations, there was music running a rock music school, developing young performers, teaching kids how to read an audience, and deliver something worth listening to. Before that, years inside a Fortune 500 organization where developing people wasn’t just encouraged. It was the measure of every leader.
“You learn how to read an audience and try to deliver something that’s going to keep them engaged. That absolutely plays into the same kind of experience in a boardroom.”
Those two worlds, music and enterprise technology, collide more than you’d expect. Both require presence. Both demand that you pay attention to what’s actually happening in the room, not just what’s on the agenda. And both punish leaders who mistake process for progress.
About Bob Wallis
Bob Wallis is a fractional CIO and project fixer who brings equal parts head and heart to complex technology transformations. With a background that spans music education, Fortune 500 leadership development, and multi-million dollar ERP implementations, Bob helps organizations de-risk major projects by building the trust infrastructure that makes change actually stick.
His sweet spot is upper small to mid-market organizations that are serious about getting transformation right. Bob’s goal in every engagement is to develop the internal leaders who will carry the work forward long after he’s gone.
🎧 LISTEN: Hear Bob’s Full Story
Want to hear the complete conversation? Listen to Bob Wallis’s episode on Courage to Advance, including Bob’s discussion on the aircraft carrier curve, his take on individual contributors in design decisions, and what he looks for in the leaders worth developing. [Listen to Episode →]
Why Most Transformations Fail Before They Begin
Ask Bob what separates the transformations that hold from the ones that fall apart, and he’ll give you a list that has very little to do with software.
The Vendor Problem Nobody Talks About
Most organizations evaluate vendors on features and price. Bob evaluates them on something harder to measure: the people.
“Choosing the vendor matters more than choosing the platform.”
He interviews vendor team members individually before any agreement is signed. Not to test their technical knowledge, but to assess whether trust is possible. Because when things get hard (and they always get hard), the vendor relationship is either an asset or a liability. There’s rarely a middle ground.
The 80% Problem
Organizations routinely give vendors about 80% of what they need. The other 20% surfaces during implementation, and the rework cycle that follows damages the relationship before the real work has even begun. By the time both sides need to trust each other most, they’re already frustrated.
The Expectations Gap
Bob uses what he calls the aircraft carrier curve to set expectations with every team he works with. Every system rollout has an inevitable productivity dip before liftoff. Most leaders know this. Few say it out loud before it happens.
The ones who do, who name the dip, normalize it, and commit publicly to the next phase of investment, give their teams something rare during disruption: permission to trust the process even when it feels like it’s failing.
The Human Infrastructure Most Projects Skip
Two decisions Bob pushes on in every engagement stand out as the most consistently overlooked.
HR at the Table – With Authority
In most organizations, HR gets notified of technology decisions after they’ve already been made. Bob sees this as one of the most expensive mistakes a leader can make.
HR’s ability to assemble cross-functional teams, build culture across a project group, and develop talent during an implementation makes them a natural partner in transformation, not a downstream stakeholder. The organizations that bring HR in early don’t just run better projects. They come out of them stronger.
The End Users Nobody Asked
End users will always find a workaround if the system doesn’t fit their workflow. The question is whether you discover that before go-live or after. Bob’s answer is straightforward: bring individual contributors into design decisions early. Give them the authority to flag what doesn’t work. It’s orders of magnitude cheaper to find the problem in the prototype than after launch.
The Know-Feel-Do Framework: Communicating Through Uncertainty
One of the most practical tools Bob brings to transformation work is a communication framework a trusted colleague taught him: Know, Feel, Do.
- What do we want people to know?
- How do we want them to feel?
- What do we want them to do?
Three questions. But they force a discipline that most project communications never achieve: intentionality over reactivity. Leaders who use this framework stop communicating when they have something to say and start communicating when their people need to hear something.
It also solves one of the most common trust mistakes in transformation work: overcommunicating too early. Bob is direct about this, talking about a system that’s months away creates fatigue, not readiness. Timing matters as much as content.
The Measure of Success Nobody Talks About
Ask Bob how he knows an engagement has been successful and he won’t point to the go-live date or the budget. He’ll point to the door.
“I love it when I can go in, help course correct, get someone center stage, then call me if you need me.”
In every engagement, Bob is looking for the internal leader worth developing, the person who has the trust of the organization, the instincts to spot risk, and the potential to carry the work forward. He builds development plans. He creates opportunities. He puts people center stage and steps back.
That’s a different kind of ROI. And it’s the kind that compounds long after the consultant is gone.
What This Means for Leaders Right Now
If your organization is navigating a major technology project or is about to, Bob’s approach offers a checklist worth running through before the go-live date is set.
- Is trust already present with the people who need to believe in this change? If not, build it before you ask for it.
- Have you interviewed your vendor team members as people, not just evaluated their platform?
- Does HR have genuine authority in this project, or are they being informed after decisions are made?
- Have you named the inevitable hard parts out loud before they happen?
- Who is the internal leader you’re developing during this project? What happens to the work when you’re gone?
Bob has been asking versions of these questions at the start of every engagement for years. In his experience, the organizations that can answer them confidently are the ones that come out of transformation stronger than they went in.
Download the Complete Research
Get the full SparkEffect Trust Study with detailed breakdowns by industry, organization size, and leadership level. [Research link]
Hear Ted’s Full Story
Listen to the complete Courage to Advance conversation with Kim Bohr, including how Bob navigates the aircraft carrier curve with real project teams, what he looks for when interviewing vendor team members for trust and fit, and his advice for HR leaders who want a genuine seat at the table before the technology decisions are already made. [Podcast link]
Work with SparkEffect
If your organization is facing the kind of crisis Tammy inherited, or you want to build trust infrastructure before crisis hits, we can help. Schedule a conversation to explore how: [Contact link]
Ready to explore executive coaching for your leadership team?
Schedule a complimentary leadership development consultation. We’ll learn about your organization’s context and goals, and help you think through whether coaching is the right fit and what a well-designed program would look like for your leaders.
Web: www.sparkeffect.com | Phone: (877) 755-5504 | Email: success@sparkeffect.com
About SparkEffect
SparkEffect helps organizations build trust that bends without breaking. Our Trust Performance Index and consulting services give leadership teams the tools to diagnose trust gaps and build the infrastructure required for lasting transformation.
The Courage to Advance podcast features leaders building the organizations they wish existed, proving that business doesn’t have to be dehumanizing.
Looking for more on what effective leadership development actually looks like in practice? Explore these conversations on the Courage to Advance podcast.
