0:00:00 - Betsy Jordyn
Hey there, welcome to the Consulting Matters podcast. I'm your host, patsy Jordyn. Let me ask you a couple questions. Are you a consultant or coach who cares deeply, deeply about creating organizations where employees are engaged and motivated to perform? Do you also wanna be positioned as a key strategic partner to help the leaders you work with create this type of organization? These are critical questions that purpose-driven, people-centered consultants and coaches like us need answers to right now, especially today when employee engagement across the board is in a free fall. According to a study published by Gallup in January of this year, it's at a 10-year low in the United States. To help us answer these questions, I brought on the show Beverly Crowell. She is the managing partner at Design Learning, which is the for-profit arm of Peter Block's work. She has deep expertise deep, deep expertise in what it really takes to create a thriving organization that works for everyone and how consultants and coaches can build their capacity to influence their creation. Consultants and coaches can build their capacity to influence their creation.
Today, we get into what too many of us consultants and leaders have gotten super wrong about employee engagement and how we've accidentally made it so much worse. How a culture of positive accountability where we ask employees to take responsibility for their own engagement is a far more respectful and sustainable way forward. We get into the shadow side of consultants wanting to be the expert in the room and how it stands in the way of making the impact that we want and the shifts that we can make to cultivate our relationship and our influence skills to create the partnerships our clients really need. Even if they don't ask for it, they really need it. And we get into so much more. Beverly is a kindred spirit and I am so grateful to have her on the show. So, without further ado, welcome to the show, beverly. So, before we dive into the conversation that is near and dear to both of us, which is a better approach to employee engagement.
Can you share a little bit more about your background and how you came to be a managing partner of design learning, and what has created your passion for this reimagined view of what employee engagement actually should be about?
0:02:30 - Beverly Crowell
Sure, I'd love to. So I started my career at Kennedy Space Center, worked there for 16 years. When I left Kennedy Space Center I left as the manager of professional development, so I led the learning and development for the space shuttle processing workforce. And, of course, around the time that I left it was nearing the end of the shuttle, the shuttle contract. So we were approaching shuttle fly out and at the time my boss, ceo Mike McCauley, a former astronaut, said you know, beverly, you need to do some work to prepare employees who are going to be leaving the program but also help keep our critical skill workforce engaged and productive through Shuttle Flyout. That's when I had the opportunity to read a book called Love them or Lose them Getting Good People to Stay by Dr Beverly Kay and Sharon Jordyn Evans, and, like most smart training professionals, I went to the back of the book and found out who to contact. And so we brought in.
The company was called Career Systems International. It was run by Bev Kay and we did career development and employee engagement training inside our program for our leadership and management team. And then, as it became time to leave, I approached Bev. Was just a big fan of her work and the methodology. I've always kind of been somewhere that someone that's gone, where you know the work, is that I believe in. And she said yes.
So I worked with Bev and Career Systems, I think, from 2007 to 2017, doing consulting and facilitation around employee engagement and career development and then, after you know that was a long time still love Bev, still you know great work decided to take a leave from there, do some independent consulting on my own for a while and came across Peter Block, who is now I work, who I work for now.
He's the author of many books, including Flawless Consulting, and because I was consulting that's how I came to know his book. And there was an open call for facilitators people who were interested in becoming facilitators of Flawless Consulting. So I applied for that, got the opportunity, went and became certified by Peter to facilitate Flawless and then after a while he said you know it would be great if you joined the organization. And I said no, I don't want to. And he said really, would you think about it? And I thought about it, said here's what it would take, and he said great. And so I've been in the organization as the managing partner, leading it for the past three years now and continuing to facilitate and consult, but also, you know, supporting Peter and our organization's. You know, quest to bring his work to the world and all the folks who don't know about it yet.
0:05:21 - Betsy Jordyn
And it's so interesting because you know it's like he's been around for so long and it's just interesting that we still have that mission, that we have to bring his work out to the world.
So you have a great background to speak to my audience because you have both the internal consulting side, you have working for somebody else's firm and you also have been on your own and, of course, being a part of Peter's work. So you have a lot of different perspectives that may have shaped your definition around what you think really employee engagement should be about. But before we talk about what it should be about, let's kind of get on the same page around what it is Like. What is the? What are people calling employee engagement and how is that different Like? So I know that you know in our similar backgrounds like the field has gone from employee satisfaction to employee engagement.
They're not necessarily the same, Not to say we have to go on a big history lesson, but if you can just set some context around, you know how did it go from employee satisfaction to engagement and what is the definition now.
0:06:21 - Beverly Crowell
I think you know many people, when they think of employee engagement, think of surveys. If we're being very honest, right, I think you know many people, when they think of employee engagement, think of surveys. If we're being very honest, right, what is what do most people consider employee engagement? They consider it to be a survey, or some large big firm like Gallup or others who go inside organizations. They do surveys to assess how people are feeling about the work, their current level of satisfaction. They're talking to managers about it. They're getting survey results that says here's your employee engagement index.
It's either somewhere in this continuum of highly engaged to highly disengaged and dissatisfied, and then crafting organizations, very well intended, crafting action plans on how to address those gaps. And you know there's been a ton of research around what it takes to engage people. Engagement doesn't necessarily equate to happiness. I think sometimes there's that, you know, feeling that, oh, an employee's engaged, they're happy. And that's not necessarily true. If somebody's engaged, it means that they are committed, they're focused, they are participating in and actively a part of the vision and the mission of the organization and their role in that organization. That doesn't always equate to, you know, every day I come to work and I'm happy and excited to be here.
You know, even the best of jobs have frustrating days. So I think you know that's really how people look at engagement today.
0:07:54 - Betsy Jordyn
Can I ask you a question before we go on to the next part? Like I know I want to get to the definition a little bit, but what you're saying is kind of interesting to me because when I was still a consultant and I was still working at Disney and moving into my own consulting practice at that time it was a really big shift in the market. Like the corporate leadership council was talking about like oh is satisfaction is, like how satisfied are you? Engagement is about performance, intent to stay and discretionary performance. But it sounds like where things are at now, it's almost like it seems like it's become a smish mosh of both of them. It gets kind of about a performance and kind of about satisfaction. It seems like that distinction is sort of like not there anymore and it's just this overall thing of like okay, how good are employees? I don't even know. It seems like the definition is not clear in my mind.
0:08:42 - Beverly Crowell
I think the definition isn't clear and it's dependent on who you talk to, because there's multiple schools of thought around what engagement is, what it's not, and there's a lot of. You know. There's a lot of well-intentioned myself being one in the past, you know facilitating workshops, consulting, having conversations around how to create an environment where people are able to bring their best selves to work every day and, as part of that, deliver the best possible results for themselves and for the organization, which is what I believe engagement really is designed to try and do, right. What's fascinating is that, despite all of this work, all of these surveys, all of the books and all of the efforts, people are still disengaged, and current metrics say they're disengaged more now than they have been in a very, very long time, and I think that's an interesting thing and I can't imagine how it's not worse now.
0:09:46 - Betsy Jordyn
But no matter what, you know like what, like you have in your you have an e-book that's out there and I know you have a lot of thinking around this is you stay very clearly just when you start off, your promise in your e-book is like we might have gotten it all wrong. So what have we gotten wrong? Like what's this narrative that we believe that drives all of the misconceptions that is leading to employee engagement not really doing anything that we thought it should.
0:10:12 - Beverly Crowell
Well, you know it's taken me a while to get here and I will say that my thinking has evolved over time and part of it, part of the evolution, has come from working inside organizations and trying to create solutions that really do create, that have a lasting impact and lasting change, and as someone who has gone into organizations around the world Fortune 500s and talked to them about employee engagement and retention, without fail.
There was a group that was missing from the conversation every single time, and the group was employees. We have equated and placed so much emphasis on employee engagement and retention being a leadership responsibility, a leadership imperative, a leadership leadership being 100% accountable for the engagement and retention of their team, and have placed so much emphasis on the influence that they have, and by doing so, we have given employees a pass to take ownership for their own satisfaction, to take ownership and accountability for their engagement. And I don't care what you do. You can deploy all of the best, give me things, everything that you can do, and you can have momentary moments of an employee being satisfied with what's happening. Leaders can do that, but the moment you take away those things, or the moment those things, whatever they are, stop, the disengagement can return because we have in many ways treated our employees as children.
As long as our children are being rewarded for good behavior, then they'll continue to behave that way, and so I think what's happened is we've just created this multi-billion dollar industry that places so much of the responsibility and the burden of engaging employees on leaders, when, in fact, leaders really don't have that much influence. At the end of the day, it's up to me as an individual to take responsibility and accountability for myself and for the contribution that I want to make inside an organization.
0:12:41 - Betsy Jordyn
And that is such a radical shift because we do feel like even the Gallup would say like I have a leader who knows my name, I have a leader who cares about my development, I have a leader who has these things and it is putting a lot of responsibility. And I would want to differentiate, like sometimes, like I think a leader is not responsible for an employee's motivation. You know, like, but what we can do is like that's just assuming, like all things are basically decent. You know, like there's some organizations that I worked with, like I think all organizations are messed up in some ways, where you know there's pros and cons and you know nobody, no organization's perfectly functional Right, some of them are super toxic.
You know, and I think we're not talking about the situation where employees are responsible for a toxic work environment, where leaders are narcissistic and abusive and not providing the basics, like we're not talking about that. We're talking about like a basically normal organization with the strengths and weaknesses, and that employees should be able to feel responsible. So you said that a lot of times, employee engagement turns into surveys. So what's the impact? Because if you're, if I'm an employee and I'm responsible for my own, it feels like there's two problems then with the surveys there's the questions you ask and the processes that you use around that survey. So can you speak to?
0:13:58 - Beverly Crowell
that, yeah, I mean, if you look at most employee engagement surveys, very few of them have statements or questions that people evaluate where somebody is assessing themselves. I take responsibility and accountability for learning and developing new skills so that I can position myself for the next career opportunity. It's usually my manager provides me opportunities for learning and development. So a lot of our surveys and the way in which they're written are very much focused on what others are doing to me. So it is we are doing by and for our employees in those surveys, instead of having them be the active participants in their engagement. So just the nature of the questions in a lot of the surveys that are put out there allow me to abdicate any responsibility as an individual for what happens in my level of engagement inside the organization. No, it's the organization, it's my director, it's my manager, it's the process, it's the procedure. All of those things are evaluated and not as much emphasis is placed on what I am doing as an individual to own that. So in many ways I think the surveys which, by the way, are only just representative of a point in time You're hoping that the moment that that survey hits that employee's desk they happen to be in a good mood that day and that just maybe an hour before their manager said so. What can I do to engage you? You know it's it's dependent on a lot of environmental and external factors in order for you to get, you know, some good results. So we're counting on just so much to be right in that moment to ensure that we get the results that we want, which is virtually impossible.
I remember I had facilitated, I had gone into an organization to facilitate a program on employee engagement. Managers were in the room, you know, and they were just really distressed about the results of their survey. The employee survey just did not reveal all of the actions that they had taken. They had done that, you know, the extensive action planning and had all of those steps outlined. And they put out the survey and like it just was, you know, we did not get the results we wanted. We did this, this, this and this and this and then, in talking to them further discovered that just prior to them releasing the survey, they had closed the employee parking lot and shifted it off-site and had them arriving on buses because they were redoing the employee parking lot.
So all of their efforts that they had done preceding that were negated by frustrated employees who had to go further to park when they're coming to work, and so just so much of it is dependent on those circumstances, the environment that's so well outside of you know. It's just out of that control versus me as an individual. Do I have the ability, when I'm here, to create the environment in which I want to work? Yeah, it's a different mindset when it comes to thinking. I call it, we call it, you know, positive accountability. Yeah, accountability by its nature doesn't have to be bad. It shouldn't be bad.
0:17:29 - Betsy Jordyn
There's positive aspects about being accountable to some of this as well is we might go in and think of employee engagement as that annual survey. You know where? Is that really the right process? You know, like when I was at Disney, we did an annual survey and then it was expected to do feedback on action planning at the local level and then everybody action planned the survey, and then there was like continuous feedback loops, like that felt like that kind of worked.
But then when I went to other organizations that it was just the survey, I could think of two clients that I worked with One they did their really bad work environment super toxic. I'm not going to get into that one because it was like really, really bad, because that was one of those where they were. I mean, there were suicides in the workplace. It was that bad. That's bad, but you know. But when I gave the feedback to the leaders, it was just one of those things where it's like that didn't really happen. Let's just do a training, you know, and we'll just do a training for leaders. I'm like, yeah, you might just, like you know, destroy your population. They'll be super beside themselves.
But then I had another client where, like they just didn't feedback that people are saying you know this was a company that trained first responders, and they were very adamant that they wanted to have a voice in decisions that affected them, sure, but the leaders didn't want to give that. So it's like I think that there's another part, is we do the surveys and we don't do the feedback and action planning, or we do the surveys and the leaders don't like the results, so then they won't do anything about the results. It's like the survey becomes the initiative rather than what is the point of the whole thing in general. Right, that makes sense.
0:19:18 - Beverly Crowell
Absolutely. And the survey by you know, in and of itself is not bad. The action planning is not bad. The actions that come out of those surveys are not bad. They're, I would say, in many cases they're good. And organizations that work really hard at that, they will have a momentary bump, right, you know, it's like, okay, there's going to be a bump right now, and as long as you continue to feed that beast, the beast will be satisfied. But the moment you stop feeding the beast, then people go. Well, there's, there's just like this hole that emerges, this chasm that emerges. And in order, you know, I've learned that in the absence of information or the absence of something, people make things up or they fill it.
And what they fill it with is very rarely positive. It's usually the opposite, you know, it's negative, or it's challenging, or it's questioning, or it's frustrated. So it's just this relentless kind of wheel that we've allowed ourselves to get on. More and more clear to me that that's why people continue to be dissatisfied, because that beast cannot be fed 24, seven, every single day of every single year.
0:20:37 - Betsy Jordyn
There's it just can't, and then the people who are the high performers, who are naturally motivated, will be very demotivated in that type of environment.
We don't need that. I did an interesting employee engagement project where we did the survey but we aligned it to the performance what the performance ratings were, and we identified that whoever was considered the most engaged were the highest performers and the most vocal yeah, the most vocal complaints. So they were the lowest in the employee satisfaction but they were highest in performance. The ones who were satisfied, you know, felt like they had the friend at work, they had the leader who cared about them. They were the lowest performers and I think that that's somewhere in there is I think it said in your e-book is that that there's the prevailing narrative is that people are disengaged and that they're not necessarily motivated and that employees are problems to be fixed.
0:21:33 - Beverly Crowell
Yes.
0:21:34 - Betsy Jordyn
You know, can you speak a little bit more to what is? Why is that like? Because that feels like the root cause of why traditional employee engagement isn't working.
0:21:43 - Beverly Crowell
Well, it's a way in which to frame it that I had never thought of before. Right, in looking at, you know, part of being a part of Peter's world of flawless consulting, what we do is always look to try to get away from the symptoms of something. We call those the presenting problem. Right, it's what's above the waterline. If you're looking at an iceberg, there's just what's most obvious, and then there's the underlying issues or the underlying dimension of any problem. You could call it root cause if you're, you know, continuous and frequent lean six sigma, whatever. I think, with employee engagement, we've been treating the symptoms right, the presenting problems, the things that are above the surface, if you will, and we are treating employees as if they're a problem to be fixed. We are doing something to them and for them, not by and with them. There is a very big difference between doing to and for and by and with, and that's the shift that I believe has to occur in order for true engagement of all parties.
It's stop doing things to and for me and do things by and with me, because then, I'm a part of the solution, I am a part of the conversation and because I'm a part of it, I am accountable to it as well, and, as such, as an employee, that makes me a little nervous and a little scary. Sure, it may require me to do things differently, which will ultimately require my leadership to do things differently too. So it is a real mind shift and it can cause. You know, it's not, I don't think it's one that will easily occur, but I think it's one that has to happen, or we're just going to continue, you know, doing the same thing and getting the same result.
0:23:44 - Betsy Jordyn
It's really just moving the power for decision making to the right levels for the right reasons at the right time. You know that it's not. It doesn't even make sense. Like if you're, if you have leaders sitting in around a room and you want to improve the frontline employee I mean the frontline customer experience what do they know? They're not there day in and day out. Like that doesn't even make sense. But we want to strategize like that.
0:24:08 - Beverly Crowell
So and we say that we're doing it by inviting them to a focus group, right, right, so come to this focus group, tell us all of the things that need to occur, and I and typically because we are accustomed to what are more traditional kind of models of work we say here's all of the things I need you to do to fix all of these problems. So we, as employees, are conditioned to just give it all over to leadership and expect them to fix it, versus truly being collaborative partners in trying to understand not only what is leadership management organization doing, what is their contribution to the problem, but what is my contribution to the very problem of which I find myself complaining about. And that's a level that we don't go to because we are concerned about creating, you know, we don't want to seem too pushy, we don't want to scare people, all of those things. And in organizations that I worked with, you know Bev Kay, who is a wonderful, you know expert around engagement and retention. She understood this.
She had two books. She has two books Love them or Lose them Getting Good People to Stay, written for managers 26 Ways to Engage your Employees. She also had another book Love it, don't Leave it 26 Ways to Get what you Want Out of Work. It's written for the employees to be self-empowered to do that, without question. Organizations would pay, and they would pay great amounts of money to train the employee or train the managers, but they would never, ever invest in their employees.
0:25:51 - Betsy Jordyn
And it was always something they'd have to give up power, to give up control.
0:25:55 - Beverly Crowell
What? Oh my gosh, you know it would be like teach your employees to ask what they want. I what?
0:26:02 - Betsy Jordyn
No, I need to tell them what they want. They don't know their children, I mean. That's why they don't listen. It's like I don't them to want what I, what they want. I want them to want what I want them to want. So therefore I'm going it's it's about a power and control thing, it is. It's kind of that parent child relationship.
0:26:19 - Beverly Crowell
It's the traditional kind of mindset model that organizations have operated in for years and and and I just don't think it works anymore. Evidence shows it doesn't. It's not working.
0:26:33 - Betsy Jordyn
So describe. You call it a culture of positive accountability. So can you describe the definition of what is positive accountability?
0:26:43 - Beverly Crowell
Positive accountability is moving away from this traditional model of operating, traditional model of leading, where leaders and managers are responsible for engaging and retaining their workforce 100% right, essentially, wholly saying here's. It's moving away from kind of that parental model that says I'm here to do for you, I'm here to provide for you, a lot of which is done in all of the best intentions. Right, you know, it's that service mindset. I'm here to serve you, I'm here to help you. And it's shifting away from that. And it's moving away from that two and four to by and with, from that two and four to by and with Working by and with employees, and saying you have far more power and I want you to have far more power in creating the organization that you want to be a part of, being accountable for your choices, being accountable for what it is that you want from work and asking for it, being accountable for how you will be measured and then holding yourself accountable to that standard of measurement. It is saying I have the capacity as an individual to create the organization that I want through how I do my work and what I ask for. And in order for that to work, you have to have leaders who are willing to have that conversation, who are willing to invite that. It is shifting almost to an entrepreneurial mindset, where I am in the business of me, where I am in the business of me, not from a selfish perspective, yes, yes, but I want to be able to do my best work, be my best self, because in doing so I'm able to do that for you and in service of you and in the organization.
And it requires individuals to get clear on who they are, their values, what's important to them, what matters to them to be able to say here is what I want you know, and articulate that language very clearly and succinctly so that others understand that it means recognizing that when you are in a room of people, how you show up impacts that room and having accountability for being a positive impact in the room, bringing yourself there, saying I want this room to be a space of learning. I will show up as a learner. You know I will show up as a learner. You know I want to support the learning of all others.
So holding ourselves, you know, to a standard that perhaps we've never held ourselves, to holding ourselves accountable, to achieving higher levels of performance, of not waiting for someone else to tell us what the bar is, but us establishing that bar for ourselves and taking satisfaction from being able to deliver upon that and creating impact around us, not necessarily from getting a pat on the back, a bonus assessment. Those things are nice and I'll never turn it. I'll never turn it down. No, no, no, don't give me more money.
Exactly I'll accept it, but being able to, just you know, be empowered to create and make a difference in the space in which I inhabit. And and the truth is, is we're doing it already. We just don't know we may not be doing it in the way we want. You are already showing up, but are you showing up in the way that you want to show up? Is the experience that others are having with you the experience you want them to have?
0:30:45 - Betsy Jordyn
Okay, I got to jump in here because there's two separate trajectories.
0:30:50 - Beverly Crowell
I want to take you on with what you're saying here.
0:30:53 - Betsy Jordyn
Okay, so um cause I want to talk about, like how you're showing up and taking responsibility and the entrepreneurial mindset I definitely want to get to that. But, I want to. Before I do that, I know that my my lean clients, who are listening in, are being like yes, this is what we've been saying all along about creating that culture of problem solving at the right level, empowering employees at the right level, the culture of learning. And one of my biggest frustrations as a branding person, you know, an OD person turned turning a branding person.
I've been an OD for like 30 years and I always thought lean was nothing more than OD for like 30 years and I always thought lean was nothing more than just process improvement. Yeah, and I'm pissed because their name lean is like it's a horrible name. It needs to change. But what I've discovered through working with several of my clients, it's like I'm super passionate about, like because what you're talking about from a culture standpoint is very aligned with what they're talking about.
And as an OD person. We're doing that old model of what you're talking about employee engagement and if we do an employee engagement project, we have with to make this happen. But we need to shift our thinking around how that power is really distributed and what the lean people would say I'm late in life to this whole lean thing, so I'm super excited about it but the foundation of respect for people and I think that that's what you're talking about is the fundamental shift into a culture of positive accountability is I respect the adulthood and the dignity and the agency of these employees. I'm not going to treat them like children, you know. I'm not going to scold them when they do something that doesn't work. I'm going to treat them with the respect of an adult and I think that's the foundational.
Like, if you want to move from a culture an old employee engagement model with the surveys and the leaders own it to this other model, it's just a shift of perspective. Is I don't have broken employees who are demotivated, who are like children that need to be led and they cannot do anything without the carrots Like they won't do anything without the carrots and the sticks, you know to this new model is my perspective on these people is they're adults, they want to do good work, they want to have a career. It's just my job to give some sort of structure towards whatever that end is, but it's not my job to motivate them. It's not my job to make them happy. That's their job. I mean, it's my job to not be toxic and crazy Correct and it's my job to make them happy.
0:33:31 - Beverly Crowell
That's their job. I mean, it's my job to not be toxic and crazy Correct and it's my job to create an environment in which that can thrive. Yes, that you know, to create that space where that mindset can begin to thrive and people go oh okay, that's different.
0:33:47 - Betsy Jordyn
Now what do I do? So, going on the second part, because I think this really taps into my passion around like flawless consulting they really, and and how I wound up as a position, a brand positioning person anyway is you're talking about this entrepreneurial mindset, like I believe, like my whole thing. When I read your e-book and it's like, hey, I've been thinking that and I didn't tell anybody. How in the world does she know? But I've been thinking about the employee engagement model is from an entrepreneurial state space is like I'm just creating my own brand and my own book of work and I do great work, not because I am necessarily committed to the organization, but I'm building my reputation and the better work I do, the more opportunities I will get. Like that's the return on investment. Like I take responsibility for my performance because good performance will pay off in opportunities period.
You know, and I think the same thing with consultants, like why it makes me batty, you know around, like how we show up in an organization is like Peter would say. We have the choices as like do we want to go in as these experts or do we want to go in as a collaborator? It's a choice of how we show up. So can you like extrapolate this whole me Inc idea you know from? You know both the standpoint around what we as consultants and coaches should do differently when we engage our clients. But how do we, as consultants and coaches need to show up in our branding and how we are positioning ourselves when landing work. You know all of the stuff that's in flawless consulting and how we're engaging our client systems. Can you speak to that?
0:35:25 - Beverly Crowell
Yeah, so a couple of paths. I'll start first with you know how we show up as consultants. I think you know that for me has been a learning over years and I had, you know, when I was younger, when I was less experienced, I had this belief that I had to prove myself, that I had to demonstrate my value to be worthy of being invited into whatever room that it was that I was invited into. And in my head, the only way I could demonstrate my value was to show how smart I was, all of this expertise that I had to offer, how much I had learned, how much I knew I had to offer, how much I had learned, how much I knew. And so oftentimes I would go into organizations not necessarily I would say I'm collaborative, but really what I was doing is I'm coming in and I'm going to look at everything and I'm going to tell you everything that's wrong and then share all of my expert wisdom right and how to correct it and how to fix it. And I really was not partnering with clients. I would say those words and we would talk, we would have meetings together and you know, we would chat and I might ask them what they thought, but really what I was there to do was to solve the problem that I believe needed to be solved, whether or not it truly was the underlying issue that was happening. And I think many consultants do that right.
We kind of have this it's around our, it's our ego Sometimes that's impacted. There's a, there's a. You know, not everybody thinks of consultants in a positive way, right, they're, they hear the word consultant and there's kind of this negative connotation around it. So we have some baggage that we try and contend with and we walk in in that expert space and that works, you know, it can work and you can position yourself in that way. But I would say you're really not being consultative. What you're doing is you're just a hired person. You've just kind of made yourself a hired supplement to their team, whatever that looks like. So if you've gone into consult on engagement, you've just been, you're an external contract hire to do employee engagement. You're really not consulting.
So as I've evolved and as I've thought more about it just this idea around being consultative and the brand called me, if you will and being entrepreneurial, it is trying to understand what is it that I am trying to accomplish for my clients and it is a complete detachment from your ego in some ways, because the goal of every good consultant should be to work themselves out of the job, right? And once you've realized that, then then you can't be so attached to your expertise, right? I can't go in there and hope to. I don't want them to be so dependent upon me that the idea of me leaving causes concern and whatnot. So I do need to show up in a very different way and a way that's going to give you my best self when I'm here.
But, more importantly, my goal is to help bring out your best self at the same time, so that we can come to. You know we can solve this issue, solve this problem so that it stays solved. I don't want to come back for the same problem. That should never be my goal as a consultant to come back for the same problem. Nor do nor should I ever want them to ask me to stay. If they want me to stay, that tells me I probably haven't done my job in the way that I should have. So I don't know if that answered part of the question. I feel like I've kind of taken off a little bit.
0:39:17 - Betsy Jordyn
No, we're like completely aligned, and I think that what I would tell people is like where you try to visualize yourself on the org chart is like you're not under the leader and you're not above the leader and you're not even next to the leader, like there's a boundary around it and you skate on the edge of the system. Yeah, that's where you're positioning and that's where the power role is.
But, I think I don't know if it's like all ego, but I think some of it is is if I came up through a leadership career and I'm used to having positional authority, like I don't have a conception of doing it otherwise yeah. Authority like I don't have a conception of doing it otherwise yeah. Or if I'm an internal consultant, you know, you see, like oh, if there's a downturn, you know there's all the people who are having the formal responsibility, like I'm going to be on the chopping box, so there's like a concern around that. And then I think, if we believe, like what I imagine that Peter and you would believe is like we are the instrument, it's on our relationship, that's how we show up, it's like we are. Our relationship is the container or the delivery mechanism of our expertise. Well, that's very vulnerable because it's about me. But the but the fact is our clients never hire us for expertise.
I I learned this, I did as um. I did a survey of some of the executives I used to work with when I was transitioning into the work I do now and I was asking them, like, what motivates you to hire a consultant? And I talked to this one guy who I worked with when he was at Disney. When he left Disney, he used me for so many different things and he was saying it's like oh, you have this ability to sort and organize ideas.
And I'm like but, brad, like what about my OD expertise? What about my master's? Like? Oh, I didn't care at all about that. I'm like what Like? But what about like like this, you know all that stuff that I did and the research and the. You know the feedback report. He's like no, it was because you were helping me organize it and you can corral all the stakeholders and get us on the same page. I'm like this is fascinating. Yeah, like all of this money, this effort, all this anxiety that I'm going to put into my expertise. And the clients don't care about it, because they really do want a partner. They don't know that they want a partner, but they do need somebody to collaborate, help them clarify what is it that they want, and then we could bring in ideas around.
0:41:36 - Beverly Crowell
well, how do we get you to where you want to go? But I'm not telling you where you want to go. And oftentimes what they also want is for you to tell them the things that everybody else is afraid to. Yes, I mean it is. They get enough guessing inside the organization or with other partners direct reports. Sometimes. What they need is for you to tell them the hard stuff and not be afraid to do that. It doesn't mean that they're going to like it, it doesn't even mean that they may welcome it initially. But that's where our true value, I think, really can demonstrate, or that's where our true value comes into play in partnering with clients is being able to give them some of those hard truths and and tell them Usually what they're doing or not doing to manage the very problem that they continue to have issue with and point out. You know Peter will say that unfortunately we were born on the wrong side of our eyes, so we are oftentimes eyes for the client to help them see things that they can't see for themselves.
0:42:42 - Betsy Jordyn
So I know that Design Learning offers flawless consulting programs and I'm not trying to have you share everything, but could you give like a couple tips from I know you have like masterclasses, you have live workshops, you have custom workshops that go into organizations, you have custom workshops that go into organizations, but is there anything in the training that you teach consultants who want to learn that skill set around? How do I move from sort of like that pair of hands trap into this collaboration trap, like what are some of the tweaks or changes that you would suggest for them?
0:43:14 - Beverly Crowell
It begins with the agreement and we call it contracting and for many of us we think of contracting very much, especially if you're an external consultant, going internal, working with a client. You're thinking about it from the formal contract right. Here are the key deliverables, here's where everything is due and that's important, certainly. But whether you're an internal or an external consultant, our definition and the definition that I lean into, is consulting is influencing for change where you have no direct authority or control. Can you say that again?
0:43:48 - Betsy Jordyn
Because that's really good.
0:43:49 - Beverly Crowell
Yeah, so say it slow, because this is good Consulting is influencing for change where you have no direct authority or control for change. Where you have no direct authority or control, whether you are an internal consultant or an external consultant and there are two ways we influence. So we influence people two ways. First, we influence through our technical expertise. It's the what of work and typically that's what gets us in the front door. Right, our technical expertise is what opens the door for us. But it's not our technical expertise oftentimes will get us the job and get us in the door.
But the other way in which we influence people is through our relationships. It is our relationships that will ensure the recommendations we offer are implemented, not our technical expertise. So when we think about influencing for change, we need to reach agreements on how we're going to partner around the what of work, which is our technical relationship. We also need to reach agreements on how we are going to partner, because that builds the relationship. So what consultants don't realize is they have the capacity to create the type of relationship they want if they establish it and continue to establish it through the agreements they build with their clients, not only on what they're doing but how they're going to partner.
0:45:23 - Betsy Jordyn
You know, and it's really making the relationship like almost like more valuable than anything else. Like you have to contract, like one of the things that I learned early on at Disney around. Like the contracting is like you have to ask for the things. Maybe this is, is this, Peter?
or maybe this was somewhere else that we got it is that you asked for. You asked for the three things of like I want to be able to have an independent point or access to people and resources, and independent point of view and an ability to raise difficult issues. Is that, peter? Is that somewhere else?
0:45:52 - Beverly Crowell
That's it, those are the yeah, it's at least Peter. We call them wants and offers. So part of having an agreement is you do a contracting meeting. You start with here's kind of this personal acknowledgement we always begin with connection before content. Relationship building begins in connecting around. How do you feel about working together? What is this feeling like for you?
And then it's asking questions to understand what the client believes the issue or problem to be, not to solve the problem, yet not to jump into diagnosing and solving. And then ask the client what do you expect from this partnership, what do you want from me? And we listen. And then, as we listen, we share. Here's what I want from you, not from a position of give me what I want, what I really really want. I think that's a real song and not trying to be, you know, it's just all about me. It's here's what I want from you in order to be a accountable to myself and and to be accountable to you and delivering the best possible results so that I can help you solve this problem, so that it stays solved.
So we're asking for those things that we want in the spirit of building and creating a relationship that is founded on trust, it's authentic and that by the time we get to the point where I come back and say, here's what you need to do or here's some suggestions, you'll listen, I'll ask you what you think is possible, what are your options, and the two of us will continue to talk and something will be done. It won't just be a case of I found um. I have to show this sign. I show it a lot of times when I teach. I found this at Ollie's bargain barn. I don't work here.
0:47:46 - Betsy Jordyn
I'm a consultant.
0:47:48 - Beverly Crowell
I love that, which I died when I saw it, because it's the absolute opposite of what we want to be Right, but it is the perception many people have of what it means to be a consultant. I do work here, right, and I work here in the spirit of helping you do something that you haven't been able to do on your own, and I want to be a partner in that and I hold myself accountable to helping you achieve that no-transcript.
0:48:49 - Betsy Jordyn
Have the objectivity.
I like what you said about the accountability. So I want to go back to that because it feels like contracting for joint accountabilities is a part of that positive accountability culture. Yes, you know, like it's just really modeling and the one-on-one level of like with the consultant and coach, with the consultant, coach and the leader, is this is your role, this is my role. You know, this is how we're going to work together to achieve this outcome. I think it's similar is with the leader, manager and the team is like this is your role, this is your role, this is your role, this is your role. Now we're going to all work together and I'll hold myself accountable for my role, you know, for fulfilling that. So we all have a role in the show here, and that seems to be the through line between both of them is it all begins with accountabilities and I'll take responsibility for my part. You take responsibility for yours.
0:49:41 - Beverly Crowell
Absolutely and articulating what that responsibility looks like, right, being able to, to share it, being able to ask for things that enable you to do that, and not requiring somebody else to always do it for you. If if that's the case, then then you're a you're not consulting, right. You're not really consulting, or or you're not being self self-powered or empowered around your engagement and around your satisfaction. You are are just allowing everything, everything to happen to you, versus being an active participant in your life and in your work. And the amazing thing about all of this is we fuss all the time about this lack of choice. We have this lack of I can't do anything right, my so-and-so won't let me, I can't do this, I can't do that.
And what I find is, more often than not, we have just so easily handed that over and handed over our happiness to others, instead of saying, no, I can do these things for myself, I can. I can. I can show up and ask the questions. I may not get the answer I want, I may ask. I may not get exactly what I want, but I can ask and maybe I can negotiate and get part of it. But before we even get there, we just abdicate. You know everything all too often, and and our cultures have created that, and that's what's so interesting about employee engagement and why, you know, organizations are so frustrated. We have created this culture encouraging employees to abdicate their accountability and responsibility, and now we're asking why aren't they being responsible and accountable? And it's just this relentless circle that we continue to find ourselves in.
0:51:34 - Betsy Jordyn
I feel like the through line of what we're talking about here is it relates to even how I show up with my clients or what I'm trying to create in the organization is. Employee engagement is the wrong word, and I don't even think it's employee empowerment. I think it's organizational empowerment because it's looking at it more holistically and it's really about changing our relationship with power. I think that we flip flop like there's the power over and then there's the power under versus the power with. So employee engagement as a model has like power over, power under. Leaders think they take, they're controlling everything and the employees are supposed to submit, and then employees are sort of like in that power under, like oh, I have nothing to do here. But similarly, like when a consultant goes into an organization, it's like well, they don't know where their power, where to find their power, so they're going to go in as a surrogate leader. So it's like I got to grab my power that way, or they're going to be the pair of hands, because I'll abdicate, do whatever the leader wants.
The answer to both problems and to all the problems is power with, is that my power doesn't come from the org chart, even the leader. My power is't come from the org chart, even the leader. My power is not coming from the org chart. If I did that's kind of more coercion is power over. But if my goal is is to be a good steward of power my own power and other people's power, then I can create that environment.
And similarly, when you're contracting with a client, it's about managing where's the source of my power and having a vision for co-creation of the relationship and that we are collaborating. We're partners.
0:53:05 - Beverly Crowell
Yes, Absolutely Amen. Amen.
0:53:13 - Betsy Jordyn
You know, it's just been so interesting for me to hear it and and reek into connect with Peter and now with you is I? Um? I didn't realize how much Peter has influenced, like not just the work I did as a consultant but everything that I do as a brand positioning person. And I would get. I had one um. One colleague asked me a few years ago she's like you call everybody a partner, everybody's a partner to you. Like, why are they all partners? You know you say, like everybody you work with, we're partners. You say you know we're going to partner together. My approach to sales I call it partnership setup. I don't call it sales, I don't even call it contracting.
I call it partnership setup and I think that that's the whole idea is like you have your gifts, I have my gifts. We don't have the same gifts but to gather, one plus one equals 64. Like if we bring all of our gifts, that stone soup metaphor, you know where, you know the. You know that story where the little kid came into the neighbor, into the town, and he had, like I'm making stone soup, and everybody brought their thing.
And then they made this feast that's what organizational empowerment looks like is. I bring in my carrots, you bring in your potatoes, you know, and we make something better.
0:54:18 - Beverly Crowell
Well, it's all about relationship, right? Relationships are the mechanism of getting anything done anywhere, and relationships require two people. Any, any, you know, healthy relationship require two people bringing their skills, their, you know, their best selves, everything to that, to that conversation, to that conversation, to that opportunity, to whatever it is. And we have, we've cultivated the wrong kind of relationships in the world of work.
And it's time to cultivate different ones, relationships built on the word partnership, relationships in partnership, where we stop doing things to and for and by and with people, and it's a completely different way of thinking and showing up with others. And it begins with for us as individuals, sitting with ourselves and being very honest about who we are and how we currently show up. And what do I need to do differently to authentically invite this new way of being with others?
0:55:31 - Betsy Jordyn
So good, so so good. Okay, I could talk to you all day long about all this stuff, but I do want to. I do want to make sure that we're really clear, because there's a lot of consultants my podcast is for consultants and I know that there's a lot that design learning has to offer Can you share a little bit more about your mission, its programs? I know that there's an upcoming master class that Peter's offering. Can you give us the deets what your web address is? Sure, give us the deets on how everybody can engage with you all.
0:56:01 - Beverly Crowell
So the company is called Designed Learning. You can engage with us on LinkedIn. We're always posting new content. You can also visit our website, wwwdesignedlearningcom. We are a company founded by Peter Block, who is an author.
He's written a dozen or so plus books, the most well-known being Flaw, is an author. He's written a dozen or so plus books, the most well-known being Flawless Consulting. He's written another book called Community, the Structure of Belonging, and the third book which is called the Empowered Manager. Of those three books, we have three training classes, three learning solutions and experiences and opportunities. Our goal is to bring the books to life. It's great to read a book, but reading a book doesn't give you the practical experience and help you learn how to apply all of those principles. So we have Flawless Consulting Workshops. That's designed for external, internal people, anyone who's in the position of influencing for change, where they have no direct authority or control, which is pretty much.
0:57:01 - Betsy Jordyn
All you OD consultants, all you L&D consultants are listening. You're, you're lean consultants. You all need to have this. We learned this at Disney early on transformational.
0:57:12 - Beverly Crowell
Yeah, we teach the process. We teach a very, you know, a process of building relationships. Actually we say it's a process of accelerating relationships. We have another program called Leader as Convener, and you know it's based on Peter's book Community, the Structure of Belonging, and it's to help organizations move away from meeting, traditional meeting, to more convening, bringing groups of people together in very different, very different ways around six conversations in small groups.
And we do a lot of work with global foundations, nonprofit organizations. It's also a great program if you're corporate social responsibility and you're engaging with communities as well. And then we have another class called Empowered at Work and it's creating a culture of positive accountability. So that program is designed, based on the Empowered Manager, to help individuals and organizations create that positive accountability culture that we've been talking about. And then we have experiences, and then we have a master class coming up with Peter, beginning July 9th Five sessions with Peter talking about various topics, from what HR needs to look like in the world of work today to community partnerships and economic revitalization so pretty diverse, you know, portfolio things. If you have never heard Peter, it's a great way to get exposed to him and his activism what he calls himself a relational activist and learn more about that.
And yeah, just check us out. We love to chat with folks.
0:58:51 - Betsy Jordyn
I know some people are wondering because you mentioned how you got involved with Peter is like there was an open call for facilitators. Some people are saying I want to facilitate this stuff. Is that something that is still open or is that like you're filled up, we're always?
0:59:04 - Beverly Crowell
looking for great people who are interested in growing their own portfolio. People who have been consultants inside organizations are typically who we like to partner with, because a lot of our clients are internal consultants. That's a different methodology, a different mindset, but if anybody's interested, reach out. You never know. You know right now we don't have any specific needs, but we are always interested in meeting great people and expanding our list of facilitators around the globe.
0:59:35 - Betsy Jordyn
Awesome. Okay, so we talked about a lot of different things. We talked about the free fall of employee engagement, why everybody's gotten it wrong. The alternative to employee engagement efforts is all about positive accountability within the organization. We talked about how consultants become more flawless consultants and use their influence to make a difference. Is there anything else that you wanted to talk about today? And I'm just not asking you the right question.
1:00:04 - Beverly Crowell
I don't think so.
I just love that we had the opportunity to connect and to visit, and I would say that this is just a testament to the power of connection and the power of reaching out and meeting new people, and you never know when those lines or threads can connect and you make new friends.
And as consultants, I think it's tremendously important that we're constantly expanding our network and we're connecting with others and continuing to learn and grow. And Peter said something to me once that was really meaningful and it's something I continue to remember as a consultant. He says you know, the moment you say you're experienced, you've stopped consulting. The moment you say you're an expert, you're no longer a consultant. You're an expert, you're no longer a consultant. Consulting means that you approach your work with just this insatiable curiosity and a recognition that you don't know it all, and the moment you begin to think you do, you're no longer consulting. So I would just challenge anybody who uses that title of consultant to remain insatiably curious and to consistently seek to learn from not only your clients but from others. That's what will make you not just a good consultant but a great one, and I keep trying to do that myself.
1:01:37 - Betsy Jordyn
I love that and I feel like this has been such a blessing for me, like it was a big deal for me, like stepping outside of my comfort zone to ask Peter to be on the show. You know, because it's not always, you don't always have the opportunity to talk to your heroes and meet them and really pick their brains and Peter's on, you know, involved in this activism stuff that I care about, and that was amazing. But then I got this extra bonus. Like I have somebody now where it's like wow, like you're, you are thinking thoughts and several steps ahead of things that I sort of had germs of an idea and that's where sometimes, like you never know where things are going to go like lead with your curiosity. But I got this extra gift.
Like having you on the show is this extra bonus that I was not expecting to have when I reached out to Peter in the first place, and now I know all about design learning. Now I'm super excited and and I feel so like it's like such a full circle moment, you know, for all the things that you were talking about. To go back to the roots of saying I was really blessed all those years ago to have that opportunity to have these thoughts, and who knew that, that it was going to lead to where this is today? So I am so grateful to have you on the show. Thank you so much, please check out design learning.
For sure, and for those of you who are listening, I am going to follow this episode up with an interview with a couple of lean consultants and we're going to continue the conversation around employee engagement and how to actually do it at the right level, just like Beverly was saying, and I'm probably going to continue to express my ongoing frustration with lean's branding, because I'm so in love with this field and what it does and how it really reflects this whole vision around positive accountability and respect for people, and so definitely tune in to the next episode. So be sure to hit subscribe wherever you're listening and follow along, and until next time. Thanks so much for listening, thank you.
