Plumbing for Success: How Building Infrastructure Enables Organizational Change

Brain Aware Podcast

JD Dillon takes us on a fascinating journey from Disney theme park manager to learning and development leader, sharing powerful insights about enabling frontline workers and navigating workplace change. Drawing from his 25 years of experience "being a frontline worker, managing frontline teams, or enabling support for frontline employees," JD offers a refreshingly practical perspective on organizational transformation.
The conversation explores a pivotal moment in JD's career when his L&D position was eliminated during recession cuts, forcing him to return to operations management literally overnight. Rather than asserting authority, he built trust by working alongside his new team members, creating relationships that proved invaluable when operational challenges arose. This experience shaped his philosophy that "the best way to manage change is to help others do the same."
JD shares three fundamental strategies that guide his approach to workplace transformation: providing meaningful context that connects to daily realities, over-communicating while keeping messages simple, and practicing genuine transparency that treats employees as trustworthy adults. He advocates for L&D professionals to think of themselves as "organizational plumbers," focusing on creating adaptive infrastructure rather than just producing content.
The conversation takes a particularly powerful turn when JD reveals his ongoing struggle with public speaking anxiety - something you'd never guess from his polished presentation skills. Rather than eliminating fear, he learned to channel that energy productively - a metaphor for how we might approach organizational change more effectively.
Looking toward the future, JD discusses his upcoming book, "The Frontline Enablement Playbook," which aims to elevate conversations about the 70-80% of global workers on the frontlines. His message throughout is clear: by understanding the day-to-day realities of frontline workers and creating systems that support them through change, organizations can build more resilient, adaptive workforces ready for whatever comes next.

Chapters

1. Introducing JD Dillon (00:00:00)

2. From Disney to L&D Career Journey (00:07:15)

3. Managing Through Unexpected Change (00:10:35)

4. Building Trust During Transition (00:19:50)

5. AI Transformation in the Workplace (00:27:20)

6. Fear and Public Speaking Journey (00:32:55)

7. L&D as Organizational Plumbing (00:33:05)

8. Key Strategies for Managing Change (00:37:55)

9. The Frontline Enablement Playbook (00:39:25)