"Last year I was assigned as the lead on a client M&A project. The main client used Salesforce and we were transitioning the smaller company they purchased to their system. The CTO of the smaller company was displeased about the shift as his team had built a custom CRM system over the years. He made several attempts to deter the project and caused a lot of disruption in our meetings. The leads at the larger company were frustrated, and I knew the project would be at risk if we were unable to turn things around with him.

I traveled to the CTO's office and spent a week there with his team. I asked to review their systems and processes and I spent time shadowing his team, their sales staff, and their operations group. I also held meetings with him to dive into his concerns and understand the gaps he felt his teams would be left with if they were forced to transition.

He really appreciated my taking the time to get to know his staff and watch their operational model in action firsthand. He said he felt heard for the first time during the transition and that meant a lot to him. Ultimately, some gaps needed to be addressed and I was able to convince the project sponsors to give the top-priority items the attention they deserved. We couldn't give him everything he wanted, but the transition went smoothly and they are doing well on Salesforce today. His teams were able to leverage several new features they didn't previously have and the solution has added a lot of value overall."