Welcome back to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business! Looking for Marketing Smarts? You’re in the right place. After almost 4 years of helping to make you savvier marketers, we decided to broaden this podcast to include more business-oriented topics that will make you savvier business leaders.
In this episode of Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business, we’re discussing how to rebuild accountability in the workplace. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your other favorite podcast spots – follow and leave a 5-star review!
- Episode Summary & Player
- Show Notes
- Strategic Counsel Summary
- Transcript
How to (Re)Build Accountability in the Workplace
Every time we turn around lately, we’re having discussions about accountability – with our clients, in our coaching sessions, and now on this podcast! A lack of accountability can be one of the biggest downfalls of an organization – it erodes trust and culture, causes even top performers to suffer, and leads to an overall lack of focus and delivery of business goals. In this episode, we’ll reveal how to build (and rebuild) accountability in the workplace, including doing a company-wide reset, detailing the behavior that needs to change, and keeping the focus on why you’re having these discussions. Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:
- A few indicators that your team has an accountability problem
- When micromanaging might actually be helpful
- How to set your rules of engagement
- Why there has to be consequences
- Understand what motivates each person
And as always, if you need help in building your Strategic Counsel, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at: ForthRight-People.com.
Check out the episode, show notes, and transcript below:
Show Notes
- Classics: How to (Re)Build Accountability in the Workplace
- [0:29] Welcome to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business
- [1:00] This can be one of the biggest downfalls of organizations
- [1:33] The starting point is a conversation about the lack of accountability
- [3:09] How do I know my org has an accountability problem?
- [6:31] Get to work right away – do a company-wide reset
- [10:22] It’s important about these changes are that they have to be tangible
- [15:22] As leaders, you are very clear about what you will and will not tolerate
- [17:29] Don’t obsess over getting it right the first time and cause inaction
- [19:02] When micromanaging might actually be helpful
- [22:07] There have to be consequences
- [24:42] Identify each person’s currency
- [27:08] Understand the generational differences of incentivization
- [32:07] Setting expectations will feel like punishment for some and relief for others
- [37:47] Reframe the conversation to what is necessary for the business
- [41:12] Share some of the pain to get people invested in the long-term Why
- [47:33] Make sure to follow Strategic Counsel on your favorite podcast spot and leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts
- [47:45] Learn more at ForthRight-People.com and connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn
What is Strategic Counsel?
Welcome back to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business! Looking for Marketing Smarts? You’re in the right place. After almost 4 years of helping to make you savvier marketers, we decided to broaden this podcast to include more business-oriented topics that will make you savvier business leaders.
Thanks for listening Strategic Counsel. Get in touch here to become more strategic.
Transcript
00:01
Welcome to the Strategic Council by Forthright Business podcast. If you’re looking for honest, direct and unconventional conversations on how to successfully lead and operate in business, you are in the right place. In our discussions, we push on the status quo and traditional modes of thinking to reveal a fresh perspective. This unlocks opportunity for you, your team and your business. Now let’s get to it. Welcome to the Strategic Council podcast.
00:31
I am Anne Candido. And I am April Martini. And today we’re going to tackle two aspects of our business, organizational development and coaching, and why they are most powerful when organizations leverage them together. Much of our work these days focuses on teams within businesses and the individual people on those teams and how to get everyone to perform effectively on behalf of the business.
00:56
and getting the right structure to serve the business paired with the right people in each of the seats and then ongoing attention and coaching for each person is the key to a highly functioning team. Yes, and I want to reiterate this as the person that focuses more on the strategic business planning part is that if you do not have the right team, the right organization to support that plan, it doesn’t matter what kind of plan you have and the best lay thinking is going to go awry because
01:26
the organization is not gonna be the right organization in order to develop it and to actually see it into action. So it’s really, really important that you look at organizational development and then as well as the coaching and combine it with that trifecta of the strategic planning in order to get the best benefit for your business. Yes, all of that. And so with that, let’s get into getting to organizational transformation quicker, organizational development and coaching.
01:53
So first, let’s start with a deeper look at why these two things are so important or borrowing from Ann. Let me get on my soap box or Tide box for a minute. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, just a second. You didn’t ask to borrow the Tide box. You always say we share a brain and I gave you credit. All right. You can have a little bit of time on your Tide box, but I’m timing you. OK, that’s fine. That’s that’s a fair compromise. OK.
02:21
So why are these two things so important? All right, so businesses and organizations today move fast, faster than ever with the digital world and the always on culture we live in now. And unfortunately, what ends up happening is the people or the human factor in all of this gets lost. Not to mention there’s other things at work here. There’s more generations in the workforce together than ever before. There’s hybrid work environments. There’s remote employees. The list goes on and on and on.
02:50
So the complexity is there all the time, depending on which of these lenses or all of them you’re looking through. Not to mention then the reactive nature of business. So positions are added to teams. People are hired, people leave, business needs shift, and it all becomes an exercise at plugging holes instead of looking at the bigger picture. So, okay, I’m stepping off the tide box now and letting you react to that before I keep on going. I was gonna say, I was gonna start counting you down from five. No, I knew, I saw the look on your face.
03:21
Color commentary. What do you think about all that, Well, think it’s really, really important distinction because what I will say is people usually get this whole thing back ass words, right? Right. So they’ll start with who they have in their organization and then they’ll develop their strategies accordingly. And I hear this all the time when I go into for strategic action planning.
03:46
Oh, I don’t know if we can do that. We don’t have the right people who do that. We don’t have the right talent to do that. We don’t have the right capability to that. We don’t have the right talent. I’m you name the excuse. And it’s like, okay, so you’re telling me that you’re going to basically hamstring your business because you don’t have the right people in the room. Right. And so that automatically is like a back-ass words way of really thinking about overall growth of your business. I mean, if you, I hope it sounds absurd to say it.
04:14
Outside of context, I know in context it’s a very real thing, but outside of context, it’s like, yeah, why would I not do what’s best by my business because of the people I on my team? And the reason why you don’t, it’s usually for two things, is because one, you don’t wanna go through the whole hassle of redoing your organization because it usually involves some sort of negative feelings with regards to hiring, firing, moving, recognizing, and maybe you…
04:39
made a bad hire, recognizing something that you’ve probably been dragging along for a lot longer than you should, or realizing that maybe you’re not having been as top of mind as you should be with regards to how the whole industry or how your business is evolving and are you behind the eight ball. So it brings a lot of those feelings to the forefront when you like do something as simple as look at your organization and be like, Hey, do I have the right people here to move my business forward?
05:04
And in order to actually answer that, you have to have a strategic plan in order to go do that. But I know this is not what we’re supposed to be talking about today. So I’ll park that one. I was going to say, don’t you hop on the tide box. It’s my tide box. But that all being said, the other reason why is because again, it becomes down to the people, like the excuses I was making before.
05:29
I don’t have the right people. That’s not the right capability. I don’t have the right talent. The person’s not senior enough or I have too many senior people. I don’t have enough junior people to do the work. That’s where the coaching piece comes in. And I’m not saying everybody can be coached into a role and April will be the first one to say that is not possible. But what I’m saying is a lot of times in this day and age, we hire for aptitude more than we hire from skill. When you hire for aptitude, you have to coach the aptitude in.
05:57
You can’t just expect to take somebody, put them in a role in knowing even if they’re really super talented and they’re super smart and they’re super ambitious and all those like things that you think are going to help them acclimate quicker, you can’t do that and then just expect them to survive and thrive, right? You have to coach it in. So if you think about the fact of, hey, I want to do this with my business, I need an organization in order to support it. And by the way, I can build a ton of capability capacity.
06:25
by coaching my people in the way that’s going to help them grow and be able to then work within this organizational development. It’s a trifecta of power. So that’s my commentary. All right. You might be firey or more fiery than me on this one today. Well, it’s just because I know what it needs in order to execute a strategic plan. So this is true.
06:51
So I want to go back, said a lot of things there, but before I said the thing about the people or the human factor, and I hope you guys really did hear when Anne said, like, I’m going to say this and I hope you hear it for what it is, because it is completely ridiculous. But we get those excuses, like Anne said. And so the way that I think is best to do this, and this is how we do it with our clients, is to take everybody off the chart completely.
07:20
and use Anne’s, well, if it’s Anne’s, it’s a beautiful strategic plan. I can’t speak for everybody’s, but take the strategic plan and take a look at what positions need to exist in order to fulfill that versus the people that you currently have already within the organization. Because you heard Anne say, it gets really dicey really quickly, right? Because we’re talking about people.
07:50
and people don’t want to have to admit whether they made the bad hire or a person’s not good for a seat or we don’t have the right people, all of these things. And so when you take the time to do the organizational development work and invest in taking that strat plan and lining it up with people that quote unquote don’t necessarily exist, then you’re being really honest with yourself about what is needed for that team and for the delivery of the business.
08:19
And then from there, you take an honest assessment. And this is the uncomfortable part that Anne mentioned. And look at everybody on that list and decide who very honestly fits from that aptitude perspective, who you can grow, who you want to keep, who’s going to be able to deliver, who may not. And then also what open positions you have. And then I also will talk about coaching, but I’m going to let Anne respond, especially because she was on a roll before. Yeah. So we’ll continue the roll.
08:49
I mean, I think this is a really important exercise, but a lot of people are gonna sit there, a lot of leaders are gonna sit there and go like, oh, I can’t do that. I know, I know. so uncomfortable. so leaders, you need a coach. You need a coach that’s gonna help be objective and they’re gonna help you, help walk through the really difficult decisions and the choices that you’re going to need to make. I say this, even if you don’t feel like there’s anything wrong with your organization, right? So…
09:18
A lot of times we will get complacent and we’ll continue to kind of ride the tide. See what I did there? Yeah. So, yeah, I’m here all week, to continue to ride the tide. And then we’ll like get to some point and we figure out we’re not growing anymore because we get very complacent and we get very comfortable in the fact that, you know, we’re growing at our 10 % year upon year and that feels very good. And then all of a sudden it
09:42
grow stops and it’s like seven and then it’s like five and then all of sudden we’re in crisis mode, right? Because we took our eye off our organization. We took our eye off the continued growth. We took our eye off developing our people and we focused on other things, right? So leaders, need to make this an important part of your day to day with regards to how is my organization operating? Do I still have the right organization in order to be able to?
10:07
consistently deliver my short-term goals, but then also my long-term growth against my strategic plan. And where am I falling short? And what do I want to build for current capability and future capability? I mean, everybody is talking right now about AI. And how important it is in the development of work, I mean, across the board. I am not seeing anybody staff up for AI.
10:34
They’re still want to believe in and live in their current paradigms of like, well, this is how the work gets done. And this is, you know, what, how we do it now. And this is what’s paying the bills now. You guys, and I’m using AI as an example, there’s a multitude of other examples here, but AI is here to stay. If you’re not thinking about how to build that into the capability of your organization and how that’s going to become part of your work, then you’re behind. And
11:01
That is why it’s so important to kind of keep your eye on industry and where the industry is going, where the world is going in general, and continue to reevaluate your organization against your strategic plan to see if it’s sufficient. Yeah, I mean, I think all of those are really good points. I feel like when you use the coaching and the organizational development together, you get
11:26
the best of both worlds, meaning you start with an objective look from the standpoint of that organizational development chart and sure you have the right people. And then like Anne said, the coaching really becomes pivotal because every individual person needs something different. And so when we go through coaching with folks, it’s not that we don’t have tools and processes and things like personal brand that we really, that are really foundational to the way in which we coach.
11:56
But that’s where people really get the one-on-one attention and the evaluation of what they need. So Anne already said with the organizational development piece, you really need an outside partner. And yes, we are selling ourselves with this episode, but even if it’s not us. Oh, it is our podcast. That’s true. We should be doing that. I tell all of our coaching clients to do that. So practicing what I preach here. But I think it is a matter with the coaching too of having someone that is in
12:25
each individual’s corner and their success is solely tied to the success of that person. And we see a lot of times organizations say, well, we have mentorship or we have, you know, these programs within the organization. We do some trainings, all of those types of things. Those are really not a substitute for the actual coaching and the fact that those people get ongoing work.
12:51
And the other thing that I’ll say about this too, which Anne touched on is this is not a set it and forget it exercise. In the beginning, we talked about how quickly the world is moving. And even if it wasn’t moving as fast as it is now, this is something that’s important to make sure you maintain. But once you do that chart, you still have to be evaluating and reevaluating who you have and how they’re doing and keep a pulse on that in order to ensure that ongoing, you have the right people. Yeah. And I want to bring up
13:21
two things that we hear commonly um and kind of put those to rest. One is coaching is not just for executives. Yeah. Especially in this scenario, when you’re trying to transform the way that your business operates and you’re changing an organization in order to support it, the coaching is for everybody. the coaching again, so this is the second piece of this, you know, things I’m going to put to bed right now is that it doesn’t have to be forever. Right.
13:48
And a lot of people will get stuck in that as like, Oh, I get them a coach. And then, you know, that lasts for years. could last for a couple of weeks. It could last for a couple of months. It could last for a couple of years. That all being said, what you’re doing is making sure you’re setting up your organization for success. When we go back to the title, this is all about creating transformation more quickly. Right? So if you just want to kind of like, you know, hobble along at your, just your, gradual ramp up of, of transformation and you know, fine, but
14:17
If you put all these pieces together, it significantly impacts your ability to get this transformation going in a much more productive way and get that traction going in a much more efficient way because you have everybody engaged and everybody knows what their role is. Everybody knows their expectations for the piece of the puzzle or the piece of the pie that they’re playing in.
14:41
It starts to work all together where we start to work through the dynamics of the team too, right April, where you start to understand where are we going to have conflict in this new structure, even your existing structures and where are we going to have to optimize? What’s our new rules of engagement? What’s the new expectations for how we communicate all of the social important things that when somebody has a coach, they have somebody to go ask. It’s like, okay, so my new expectation is that we have frequent and open conversation.
15:10
I don’t feel comfortable with that. I’m a junior person in the context of this full team who all these people have been here a whole lot longer than I have. I don’t know how to have a voice in this room. That is a really important conversation for somebody they have that it doesn’t matter if you’re a junior person or a senior person. Senior people have the same issue, right? So, you know, this is what…
15:33
what’s important and how the two things really work together so harmoniously in order to really fuel that transformation. I chuckle every time I think about this, but to your point about it not having to be permanent, I had one of our coaching clients describe me as Mary Poppins. Drop in, drop a little bit of magic, it, and then off I go. A spoonful of sugar. A spoonful of sugar. But I do think that
16:01
when you propose this work to people and you heard us say it before about people being like, oh my gosh, that’s gonna be a lot of work or I don’t have to revisit everything. I think that quickly after there is that fear that, my gosh, I’m gonna have to pay for this forever. I wanna make sure you guys hear that this is not something that becomes a line item forevermore. It’s meant to put you on the fast track.
16:28
And then there’s, of course, all kinds of reasons. And in a minute, you know, I’ll give some examples of what’s the type of situations very specifically so you can evaluate for your organization. But this should be a situation where you have a partner come in, help you, get you on the right track, and then exit. And then there’s always opportunity to come back in. I mean, we do tune-ups all the time or quarterly evaluations or whatever.
16:54
but you’re not signing yourself up for a permanent handholding situation. In fact, if that’s what it ends up being, then the work has not been done effectively. Yeah, and I want to just pile on a little bit in saying that there is never a right time to do this work. So that’s the other thing that we always hear. Oh, when, you know, it could be a point in time when we do our quarterly planning. uh
17:17
or when I reach this position or after I’ve been here for a little bit longer or I’m gonna be filling this position when this person comes in, there’s never a right time to go do this work. Your organization’s constantly influxed, right? You don’t know who’s going to leave tomorrow. So if you’re waiting for the quote unquote right time, this is where you know for a fact that you’re relying more on the people in their seats, their current seats, than you are in really thinking about what your organization needs.
17:47
Because if you were thinking about, as April laid out, what the seats are, it doesn’t matter then if you have those people in the room at that moment. It’s almost irrelevant because you’re doing it from the context of what is best for the organization. Honestly and frankly, I’m talking to you right now, leaders, is that it can mean everybody goes. It can mean everybody stays. But the thing is, is you have to be willing to acknowledge that.
18:17
And if you’re willing to acknowledge that it doesn’t matter what the current situation is. Yeah. Because you’re doing it from a strategic standpoint of what the business needs. And that’s the most important part. You’re there to actually support the business and be able to move the business. Now, seeing all that, a lot of times your organization is going to get a little squirrely because when, organization development comes, that generally means that there’s changes, right? My suggestion in April might have one here too.
18:46
I’m sure she’s going to have one down. don’t know why I said she may. She’s definitely going to have one is I think you need to be honest, right? Say, Hey, we have a strategic action plan and we’re going to organize accordingly and we’re going to see where that goes. I appreciate and I acknowledge all of you. And I think you all contribute to the business and you know, different ways and meaningful ways. And we’re going to take a look at that as we can consider how the future of the organization holds, but people who are wanting to
19:15
hold on to people so tightly because they have a personal relationship with them or they’ve been there forever or. We’re a family is what we hear. Yes, that’s what’s good to go. Like they’re afraid like, you know, they have young kids and they’re supporting or they’re supporting kids through college. And those are all really great human attributes. But the thing is, guys, your people are there to build the business. Yep. I mean, that’s why they’re there.
19:43
You know, so you have to remember that in the whole context of what you are there to do as a leader and what those people are there to serve. Doesn’t mean you’re not kind. It doesn’t mean that you don’t help them through or you don’t give them the coaching that they need to potentially live into something more. But it does mean that you have to look at it a little bit objectively, as April said, that I need an organization to support my business. The people I have right now may or may not be the right people in order to do that.
20:13
Yeah, and I want to go back to the start of this where you talked about the leadership and not waiting for some reason to do it. I think one of the mistakes that we see organizations make most often is that leadership knows there’s something not right or something not going the way that it could or should and it could be.
20:36
We’ve mentioned a few of these big changes in the organization. could be a big change. The market has shifted. We have new goals. It could be just a desire to elevate and you keep hitting your head on a ceiling, right? Or you’re not achieving the strap plan like we talked about, or there’s interpersonal problems or there’s lack of accountability. The point of what I’m saying now, but also doing this work is you as the leadership should be able to identify at the very least that there’s something not going the way that it should.
21:06
And to Anne’s point, if you wait for the right time when these people are here, whatever it is, you’re only going to make the situation worse. And how do you know they’re the right people? And how do you know they’re the right people? Exactly. And so absolutely, think the transparency is important. The big thing we always say is
21:30
People are smart. know when something’s going on. They can sense when the organ, there’s rumblings, right? I mean, this was like one of my favorite things at the agency was they would try to hide the fact that there were gonna be layoffs and any of you that worked at agencies, there always were, right? And everyone would know not only that there were going to be, but a good portion of the list of people who were going by the time it actually happened, because nobody would be honest about the fact that there were issues in the business and we needed to make changes and all of those types of things.
22:00
Anne’s point is spot on of you need to make sure people understand what is happening and it needs to start from the top down. And so another piece of this that we talk about with people is there needs to be a mandate with folks that this is happening and it’s not up for negotiation. And the reason for it is the whole idea of what got us here isn’t going to get us there. And so people can either
22:30
say, okay, I get it and act accordingly or not be happy, but either way, it’s not their decision. And coming out of this, there needs to be a hard reset. I was with one of our clients last week and they’re having some struggle with this of people wanna go back and revisit and make cases for why we’ve always done it this way. I know how to do it. I’ve been here longer, all of these types of things. And I keep having to reiterate the point of, no, we’re not having those conversations anymore.
22:58
What got us here isn’t going to get us there. This is a reset. And from now on, these are the expectations with the people in place and the support we’re going to give as an organization. Yeah, I think that’s really, really important because what we’ll tend to do is drag the past along with us. Yep. And then all that does is confuse the organization. Right. So you said this, I mean, it starts with the leader and the leader needs to set the tone for how the organization is going to operate when all of these pieces are in place.
23:27
And that’s also the role of the coach too, because leaders, you can’t dictate how the coaching is gonna go, but you can set the expectations for the coaching because you’re paying for it, right? So you can help your people acclimate through their coach and help them understand then what their challenges are gonna be. What is their… em
23:52
the tensions that they’re feeling, anxieties they’re feeling and have the coach help to assuage that. It may be really hard for you to do that as the leader because you are the impetus for all the change. And it’s a really hard role to play to play both sides of that fence. So the coach can be the bit of a buffer because it shows one that you care, but it also has another voice that helps to move this along in a productive way. So
24:20
What the thing, and then it’s just kind of a little bit of a side, but I think it’s important for this conversation that I and you do too, April, is we really strongly don’t advocate for is for the leader to do this themselves, right? No, absolutely not. Right. Because you can’t act as a independent third party. I’m part of the organization. If you are facilitating all of this work. So similar to what I said in the beginning where leaders need a coach in order to help them facilitate through their own thinking and their whole
24:50
mindset when it comes to organizational development, you need somebody who is a third party to help the team go through this so the team can feel that, and you can participate with the team and feeling that this is a all in kind of exercise, right? And so I wanted to stress that part too, because the biggest mistake I think you can make in this whole thing is by trying the leader, trying to do it themselves.
25:15
Well, yeah, and I gave the, you know, Rosie example of me being compared to Mary Poppins on the other side. You love to call me the hatchet woman. Yeah, you are the hatchet woman. And that might hurt your future organizational development acquisition. But, you know, let’s call a spade a spade. No, but I bring that up. Right. And we joke. the intention is never to. Well, it’s great if you don’t fire anybody if you know, but it’s
25:43
That’s not ideal. If you have to fire everyone, you probably have a much bigger problem. But I bring this up because I think that the bad guy can be the outside resource. Now, I say that, not that the angst and energy and negativity and blame is transferred to the team that you bring in. But I do think that to the point of…
26:12
eventually over time, the people you bring in go away, you’re still staying as the leader of the organization. And so there has to be some level of, not that you don’t own it and not that you don’t lead it, but that you have a partner for yourself and for the organization that can deliver hard messages in a way that it may not be conducive for the leader to do. And I think this is one of the mistakes that we do see where it’s like,
26:42
I know the organization better than anyone. I’m in it all day long. Why would I bring an outside resource? But I think it is so powerful to have voices that are bringing the message to life differently, but also can help buffer and carry some of the burden of the situation so that
27:04
the employees of the organization can learn and grow in different ways versus keeping it all self-contained and then having the culture kind of blow up as a result. Yep. And I will bring in two different perspectives on that too, as to why you need somebody else. One is if you are the leader of the problem, you’ll never, you’ll never know and you’ll never find out. And you know, you guys, I know we don’t like to think of ourselves as the problem, but a lot of times we are.
27:32
And it’s because we don’t get the feedback that we need or the really honest feedback we need. And we can’t see it. But somebody who has a third party and a well, like somebody who really does a really good job of uh facilitating organization development will see that in a second. And second. And they will call it out and it will be brought to the table and it will be discussed. You will never be able to do that. And you’ll never see that if you don’t bring in a third party. The second.
28:00
part of that is too, is the biases you carry though you don’t even know you have. So we mentioned that before, if you tend to be like somebody who’s very empathetic, it’s really hard for you to get rid of people. It’s really hard to acknowledge that the people in the roles are not the right people. It just is. And so if that is your bias, you’re going to play to that bias and it’s gonna be a struggle for you to be able to do this exercise in a very objective way because you’re going to
28:30
have that just that nagging feeling of how it’s making you feel. And you’ll still have feelings as you go through the process. We are all people. We are all people and you’ll have to address those feelings. But you can at least see them in a objective environment versus you already applying those biases in the pursuit of the work. And if you do that, you will not get anywhere. And that we’ve seen that happen a uh lot.
29:00
Yes. Okay, so we have covered a lot today and hopefully we have made a strong case and all of you now understand why organizational development and coaching can help transform your organization more quickly. But as you know, we like to do without naming names, you know, I don’t want to get in trouble, but I think taking, walking you through the steps we took with a recent client so that you get.
29:25
the sense of how this would work in action can be really helpful. And I’ll take a first run at it. And then I’m sure Anne will have lots to say as well. But we were working with an organization. And to my point about recognizing that something wasn’t working, this was a situation where I feel like the client was really at their wit’s end. And to the point of not doing it yourself, we were maybe too far down a path of
29:54
Well, they actually did try to do it themselves. Oh, I know. I know of working, working themselves to death, trying to fix it with internal partners, other teams, et cetera, et cetera. And so there was a moment where a timeout was called and the leader that had stepped in said, okay, I think we need to get some outside help. And so when we came in, we actually decided from a
30:21
an overall process standpoint to do the organizational development work and start coaching of the leadership at the same time. And the reason for doing that was to assist in some development of some key players, as well as take a look at the overall organization and what we actually needed there. Well, I just think it’s important just to add that, to interrupt April here for just a whole hot second.
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that we didn’t do this work in a vacuum either. We did do a strategic planning several sessions in order to get them to a place where they were clear on what they were doing, why they were doing it, what the short-term and long-term goals were and what actions needed to take place. So they knew how to fill the seats. They knew what the seats could look like or should look like so they could really address that. I just, sorry, I wanted to add that. We came in and, you know, Anne,
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Made sure to say this isn’t today about strategic planning, but we do want to make the point that that is where we start traditionally because there wasn’t a clear view on what work actually needed to happen, how that was going to be executed and an overall direction forward for why the team existed, quite frankly, and what they were trying to do each day. That work, I won’t go into detail because maybe that’s a topic for another day. We’ll be here forever.
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But then quickly on the heels of that, we came in to do the organizational development work and coaching. And it was pretty quickly identified that the leadership team, they were valuable team members, they were going to stick around. So that’s a nuanced piece there where we actually started some immediate coaching in order to get that team operating in lockstep, develop each individual on that team and make sure that
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They all got that individualized attention that I talked about before to put them on a path for the future to really lead effectively. From an organizational development standpoint, we did exactly what I talked about before. There were a lot of emotions and feelings and differing opinions, just like we talked about around which people should stay, go, who wanted to keep who, productive nature of each person. And so we took everybody off.
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looked at the strategic plan, and then outlined the chart for exactly who and what we needed. And there were some key learnings there that were pretty pivotal to the whole experience around exactly what we said before, the aptitude, hiring people that were more positioned to be go-getters and learn skills and work autonomously versus having direct, call it social media experience, right? And so really getting honest and clear about
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what that structure was gonna look like, and then how leadership was gonna work together to really cultivate an effective team. And we made the hatchet example before. We did have to then as a result, let several folks go. um My side note here is always, we do believe that it is a kindness to assist someone out of a role that they are not a good fit for in the long run, and that should give everybody peace of mind.
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for doing that, although it was never fun and it was not fun in this situation. But fast forward six months and to Anne’s previous point, we have put that team on a road to success. We touch base periodically to see how things are going. Leadership is really effective. One of the team members has been promoted and is excelling and they’ve got all those positions filled to really operate at that highly effective level.
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that we’ve talked about throughout the organization. So really good example of stepping in at a pivotal moment, the identification that things just were not working well, and then in short order, cleaning things up and fixing them and letting that team really lead and thrive from there. I think that’s a really fabulous synopsis of everything we’ve talked about. I’m just going to highlight a couple of details that I think are really important to bring out. One is, and you mentioned this, this hiring for aptitude.
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It’s also hiring for culture. So this was a big issue they had was their culture. And everybody had a different definition about what the culture should look like from the leader of the team to the leadership team itself, to the people that worked there, all had a different definition of the kind of work environment they wanted to actually live in. So when April took them through, what does that culture look like? What are the operating principles? What are the values that we’re going to have?
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What are the rules of engagement, the roles of engagement, all those sorts of things. It allowed to have some really real conversation about what they wanted the organization to look like. Once they were able to align to that, they were able then to set criteria for hiring. That became more than just, well, what kind of skills do you have? It became more probing questions to really understand, are they going to be a cultural fit? And that has been a game changer for them.
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Because the people then once they understood what they wanted, the kind of culture they wanted to have, everybody was given an opportunity to opt in or out. And a lot of those people chose to opt out, right? Call it for multiple different reasons. I think the leader would be very honest in saying, there was a lot of bad behavior and that bad behavior was tolerated for a very long time because there was nothing to evaluate it against.
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Right. And so the other thing about organizational development, strategic planning, gives you a criteria to actually evaluate against people know what the expectations are. They know what the business schools are. They know what the milestones look like. You don’t have any room for saying, well, I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t know, I didn’t know, which was a lot of behavior that when it’s very nebulous and we have a very unclear set of criteria, then you can skirt around them. You can play around them. It’s very hard.
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to hold anybody’s feet to the fire because there isn’t any criteria to hold people’s feet to the fire too, right? A lot of times this is an opportunity for people to, like you said, April, opt in or opt out. And so I don’t want you guys to think that automatically, you know, the person doesn’t fit the box they go. lot of times they’re given an opportunity, right? And I also think, I mean, and I think the leader would be okay in admitting that the leader was part of the problem.
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Right. And it was the coaching that she received that allow her to see that and to be able to show up differently and to be the true steward for the team that she really wanted to be. Her intentions were good. Yep. Absolutely. Yeah. Execution, not so good. Right. And she embraced that and she wanted to make sure that as the leader of this team, that she was doing right by the team and she was doing right by herself, frankly. And now it’s a totally different organization. And so
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There’s a lot to be said again for the leaders really understanding that they have a role to play and that culture is a huge part of performance. And that is what organizational development is all about and coaching in order to make sure your organization is prepped for the kind of culture you want to have. that the people that you want to keep build the tools that they need in order to stick around.
37:52
Which I think we did well in that situation. Okay, we’re gonna try one quick turn the lens on us here at the end. Okey dokey. I know. We’re testing and learning. Bring it on. Well, because I missed the quick fires for us, right? So we’re testing it out. see how it goes here.
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I mean, first I will say, and I said this before the case study, hopefully now there’s more clarity around organizational development and coaching and really why they’re so pivotal to transforming an organization quickly. And then like Anne did her job, pointing out that it’s always first with a strategic plan. For all the reasons we said, it does get sticky, you guys, but hopefully you heard throughout this episode that there’s moments of pain for sure, but the success on the other side is exponential.
38:47
And it’s such a relief when you have those right people in the right seats, what can happen in the organization. Turning the lens on us and creating my own segue there. I’m asking of both of us, what is the best testimonial you’ve received from a client from doing this work? And I’ll go first here. So for me, it is actually the point where we can exit
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in organization and feel confident that the team will be able to carry forward and feels like they’re ready for it. And my favorite quote is, I mentioned that someone got promoted in that example. The comment back to me when I sent some congratulations was, without the work we did with you guys, I would never have had the confidence to be able to even put my name in the hat for a role like this. Yeah, that’s a really good one.
39:48
I think for me, and I do, like I said, more the strategic planning side, although that does like bleed into organizational development. uh So maybe I’ll kind of think about one of my coaching. I think the biggest compliment I get when I’m doing this work is when people say, you got me to see things that I wasn’t able to see before. That’s what I believe the true opportunity is, is that we get stuck in our day to day.
40:15
And we can’t always see the opportunity. So when I can get them to see the opportunity and they live into it and they lean into it and they believe it and they start making traction against it, that’s what I think that’s the biggest like compliment that I could get from the work I do. Okay. And then we’ve made some big business changes and pivots to focus on this work.
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I know we have difference of opinions of why we’re so passionate about this work. for me, and it is ironic because we, you know, we just recently had another episode talking about our vulnerabilities in developing as leaders over time. And I had been given the feedback in past lives, past decades, I guess you would say, about not bringing other people along. But I think for me, the thing that I’m so passionate about
41:09
is being alongside people that want to do the very best by the organizations they’re in. But for all of the reasons we talked about today, feel like they can’t perform at the level that they want to and are capable of and being able to break down those barriers and help them set the path forward so that they’re excited about their jobs and what they do again. I love that. For me, it is, I truly believe
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in an organization’s and a business’s ability to transform and grow and know that people don’t always have the right tools in order to go do that. And I feel like with the way that we approach this work, we really, again, opportunities to grow in exponential ways that was very much hidden.
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And it’s not because we come and we tell people what to do, but it’s because we know what’s the right questions to ask. We know when people are holding back, we can sense that there is tensions or conflicts that aren’t being voiced. We can sense that people aren’t being used at their full capability or capacity. We just have the experience that we can talk about it from a business mindset.
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because of all the businesses that we have either supported or run or been in. And we know how to facilitate. And usually when you’re doing it, you have to pick one or the other. If you’re going to want somebody to facilitate work and they’re going to send facilitate, but they’re not going to participate in, or you pick a business strategist that knows how to go do a strategy or fill in a plan on a page, but doesn’t know how to facilitate. So it’s very rare that you get both and that you get both with the broad m
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just the experience that we’ve had and all the things that we’ve seen and all the things that we’ve been in and all the successes we’ve had. So it’s a really nice testimonial for ourselves, but I think it’s a true one. And that’s why I’m so passionate is because I believe we can really, really help, especially small medium sized businesses. All right. We’ve covered a lot today. So we will say with that, we encourage you to take at least one powerful insight you heard and put it into practice. Remember, strategic counsel is only effective if you put it into action.
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Did we spark something with this episode that you want to talk about further? Reach out to us through our website, forthright-people.com. We can help you customize what you have heard to move your business and make sure to follow or subscribe to Strategic Council on your favorite podcast platform.