May 28, 2025 • 22 mins
Sometimes it takes an outsider to say what everyone on the inside is thinking but can’t express. In this episode, Indra and Amanda unpack the value and complexity of bringing in consultants, agencies, and subject matter experts to say the quiet thing out loud. They explore how power dynamics, organizational culture, and fear of professional consequences can keep internal voices silent and why external perspectives can cut through the noise.
Through real-world examples from their careers, they highlight:
- The benefits of outsider objectivity and “fresh eyes”
- When and how to bring in external voices for maximum impact
- The risks and resentments that can arise in these dynamics
- Practical tips for using consultants without eroding team trust.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Indra Klavins (00:00):
Hey everyone. Before we get into today's
episode, we've got some excitingnews. Our messy middle matters
merch store is live at shop. Dotthemessymiddle matters.com. This
is all thanks to everyone whowanted their own Don't make me
regret trying to be helpfulsweatshirt. But we didn't stop
there. We've got threecollections. Don't make me
(00:21):
regret in honor of thesweatshirt that started it all,
words matter, inspired by ourmost popular episode, and
embrace the messy to celebratethe beautiful chaos.
Everything's print on demand, sobe sure to double check your
size before ordering. But ifanything goes wrong with the
printing, our vendor will workwith you to make it right,
(00:43):
sweatshirts, T shirts, stickersand more. If you're looking for
a different cut or style, justemail us at podcast at the messy
middle matters.com, and we'll dowhat we can to bring your vision
to life. All right, now, let'sget into today's episode from
the messy middle matters.
(01:07):
I'm Indra
and I'm Amanda,
and we'd like to welcome you tothe messy middle matters. Hey,
Amanda, how are you today? I'mgood. How are you Indra? I'm
good. I'm good. Today, we'regoing to get to talk about
insiders and outsiders, which isa bit of a theme that's been
(01:27):
showing up and creeping intosome of our past episodes, but
we're going to talk about it alittle bit more deeply today,
and I'm sure we'll talk about itacross a number of episodes,
because there are so many facetsto it. So before we jump into
the conversation, let's makesure we clarify for everyone
listening, what do we mean inthis specific episode, in this
specific context, what do wemean by insiders and outsiders?
(01:49):
So insiders are the permanentemployees of a particular
organization. They have to abideby certain rules and regulations
and cultural norms for thatspecific organization, these
folks are more likely to be fulltime employees. It might be, you
know, the people within yourcompany, the people within your
team, but that the wordorganization is a little
flexible there, but there arepeople who are there all the
(02:11):
time with you. And for thiscontext, outsiders, we're
saying, are the agencies,consultancies and high paid
subject matter experts alsocalled SMEs, that organizations
bring in for a specific purposeor a fixed period of time, and
1/3 the last level settingbefore we jump into the topic,
(02:31):
is I want to make sure that it'sclear insiders are not better
than outsiders. Outsiders arenot better than insiders. They
just have different strengthsand opportunities to engage in
conversations, and that's whatwe're going to be talking about
today. And I'm I've been luckyenough to be both an insider and
an outsider. Now we areoutsiders, which is kind of why
we're able to do this podcast,which is kind of awesome. I
(02:54):
don't think we could have everdone this if we were if I at
least I couldn't done it. If Iwas working for a company, I
wouldn't be able to speak halfas freely as I'm able to now.
But,
Amanda Jane Lee (03:03):
yeah, yeah, I think it'd be a lot trickier to
do this if we were insidersworking full time at a company.
Indra Klavins (03:11):
Yeah, because, I mean, because it's, I'm just
imagining, like they'd be afraidthat you're like, are they going
to talk about that meeting? Orare they? Are they? Are they
going to like, oh, that musthave been that thing. Is she,
that person she's complainingabout? They don't know that.
It's like five jobs ago, thesethere are patterns in the world.
There are patterns in the world.
Amanda Jane Lee (03:30):
But yeah, because I'm because we're
outsiders, we get to, we get to,we get to talk as freely as we'd
like to, right, for sure,without, without as many
consequences or repercussionsfrom our employers, right? Yeah,
like, like, like, you just said,oh, you know, tomorrow you're
gonna get called to the officeand, you know, reprimanded for
(03:53):
saying that thing on the podcastabout that meeting, which
actually wasn't even about thatmeeting, wasn't
Indra Klavins (03:57):
about that meeting at all. So let's talk a
little bit about and also talkabout, like, when organizations
would bring in outsiders. I've,like I said, I've had the
experience of being on bothsides of this, and the reasons
for bringing in outsiders,these, this particular flavor of
outsiders, can be due tobandwidth constraints to fill a
(04:18):
skills gap, or they have an theyneed an objective party to take
the lead on something. I thinkthat's where we're going to
probably lean in on thisconversation. And the reason
that I've been the outsiderbrought in or have asked for an
outsider, as you know, we needwe need our partners. Need a
(04:40):
objective voice to hear thething, right? And we might even
need an objective voice to hearthe thing just to validate or
invalidate our understanding ofthe situation. And like we were
just saying earlier, the outsidevoices can say the quiet thing
out loud without getting as manyrepercussions. So we'll dig into
that a little bit more. Yeah.
Amanda Jane Lee (05:00):
Yes. And I think you know, the outsiders,
the consultants, the subjectmatter experts, bring this
external credibility to thetable. Yeah, right, they're not
as ingrained in the company'snorms and processes and power
dynamics. And all of you knowhow things are done at this
(05:22):
company. They bring thisexternal like, Here, here's what
I've seen in the outside world,and here's what I can here's
what I've learned, and here'swhat I can bring to you. Yeah,
they
Indra Klavins (05:31):
have different skin in the game. Like, they
have different skin in the game,like they the performance of
this project is not going toimpact it. Well, it well, it
depends on how the contract isstructured, but let's just for
simplicity, say the outsiders,whether they get paid or not,
doesn't matter if the projectsucceeds or it doesn't like in
(05:52):
many, many cases, that's thecase. They're going to get paid
no matter what. And when you'reinternal, you really do care
about the follow through andthings that are the end results,
right? But the outsider, theoutsider is not completely like
flip and carefree, right, right?Because they want to stay in
your good graces. They areincentive. They're intrinsically
(06:13):
incentivized to do a good job sothat everyone in your
organization, you the directstakeholder, the person who
literally signed the contractwith that outsider is satisfied
with their work and bringsbrings you back in again for
another project or another pieceof time, or whatever it might
be, or a partner might choose tobring you in, like one of the
(06:34):
other people within thatorganization said, Oh, I like
what they did over there. Indradid a kick ass job on that one.
Let me bring her in for thisother thing. So, yeah, yeah,
Amanda Jane Lee (06:44):
yeah, for sure. Or, you know, and, and not and,
you know, I give you, like, agood testimonial, right, like on
LinkedIn or your portfolio, ifyou're a consultant, like
working for yourself, there arejust so many incentives for the
outsiders to do a good job.
Indra Klavins (07:03):
Yep, yep. Because word of mouth, I think, I mean,
this work world is so muchsmaller than anybody realizes it
is. Even when we talk about,like, global communities, the
number of times I've run intosomeone like, oh, like you
again. Cool. Didn't think I'dsee you again. But, and, you
know, let's also talk about, sowe talked a fair bit about
(07:24):
outsiders, but let's talk aboutinsiders too, right? So, you
know, insiders, I think thereare some, and some of the power
dynamics that are, some of theelements, or the aspects that we
can talk through are, there's,there's a challenge for insiders
to speak up, right? I thinkthat's one of the challenges
that insiders face, thatoutsiders can help with, right?
(07:47):
Because there's power dynamicsin the organization. There's
risk of like, you know, they'rethey don't want to risk their
bonus, let's say, or, you know,the culture within the
organization may not allow forthe type of feedback that you
would like to offer right there,there could be a lack of
psychological safety, rightpeople, you know, the insiders,
(08:10):
don't feel comfortable or safeto share their opinions or to
speak up against, you know,something, whatever it may be
right, a process going wrong, aleadership not like being
aligned and just being a hotmess. Whatever it may be, there
just may not be thatpsychologically safe environment
within the corporation, youknow, related to that. I think
(08:34):
there, there could be, you know,historical baggage, right? Like
there's always
Amanda Jane Lee (08:40):
people may speak up and, you know, do their
best to push for a change. Andno matter how hard they they
push, no matter what they do,nothing changes. And so it
becomes a learned behavior, likea learned silence.
Indra Klavins (08:57):
It's a muscle memory you develop kind of,
yeah,
Amanda Jane Lee (09:01):
yeah. And something else that came up,
right? Like, it just popped intomy head there, there might be
emotional labor, like fatiguerelated to that, right? Like,
I've got so much going on, like,Project wise, people management
wise, all of the things. Andit's just like speaking up and
(09:21):
trying to push for change. It'sjust one more thing to add to my
plate. And like, I just can't Ineed, you know, going back to
one of the reasons you bring inan outsider, resource
constraints,
Indra Klavins (09:35):
yeah, and, and one of the things that I've seen
when outsiders do get broughtin, and it's often enough for
resource constraints, like as aleader, bringing in an outside
voice, you know, you do want tomake sure that the work is
within the wheelhouse of theoutsider that's coming in and
(09:57):
doing the thing. So you need tocraft their. Scope their the
sphere of their work, to alignto their strengths so they can
succeed, so that you and yourteam can inevitably succeed due
to that. You know, it's acascading set of successes, but
what can happen is that yourinternal team starts to get a
little resentful, right? They'relike, they see, oh, like, Oh my
(10:21):
gosh. They're bringing inoutsiders, the things that I've
seen that show up, like, the thethe alarm bells that show up for
some people can be, oh my gosh.They don't think I have the
skills. Oh my gosh. Is my job atrisk? Oh my gosh, you know,
like, all the different thingsthat can show up,
Amanda Jane Lee (10:38):
yeah? Like, oh my gosh. Like, who does Amanda
thinks she is, like, coming intothat meeting, like saying those
things, right? Like that, thatcan breed resentment, right?
Indra Klavins (10:47):
Or Amanda said, like, Amanda said the thing, and
they listened to her, and theydidn't listen to me, like,
what's that all about? Right?It's not a it's just, you know,
people are funny. People arefunny. I had a yoga teacher
years ago who taught me that,you know, the eyes that we look
through those are just cheapcameras, the ears that we listen
(11:08):
with are just cheap microphones.And, you know, like our brains
are cheap computer processingdevices. And you know, the
reason I love thinking aboutthat metaphor is that when your
ears can only pick up certainthings, maybe it needs to be
said in a different tone or adifferent tenor, and suddenly it
penetrates and you're like, orit might have been just that the
timing was different, and thatthat stakeholder, your partner
(11:29):
in the organization, couldactually finally hear. So you
know, I think that making sureif you are the leader, or if you
are a leader within the team,when a partner is being brought
in when an outsider is beingbrought in, making sure that you
are very aware of the anxietythat that will kick up, not if
it's a, if it's, yeah, it's awhen, when and how you're aware
(11:53):
of it. You're tuned to it. Youhave people watching out for it,
and you're mitigating that riskalong the way and giving all the
appropriate reassurances, youknow, yeah, for sure.
Amanda Jane Lee (12:07):
I mean, like, I'm just thinking of so my
experience is mostly as aninsider. I know you have
experience
Indra Klavins (12:17):
equally, something like that. I don't
know something like that. I gotsomething I don't know, but
yeah, yeah.
Amanda Jane Lee (12:24):
And I just as you were going through, you
know, the types of resentmentand, like, how, how that that
can show up when you bring it inan outsider. I'm thinking of all
the times I've seen an outsidercome in, like, as an insider
myself, and I'm just like, yeah,the piece that resonated for me
(12:46):
was the wait I've been sayingthis for so long, so long this
person comes in and they sayexactly what I've been saying,
and all of a sudden, Wow, so andso. Like, Great, let's go
implement.
Indra Klavins (13:02):
Yeah, it's it is frustrating. It is frustrating.
And so, like, you know what Ithe behavior that I've
encouraged is in my team, whenthat's happened, or if I'm the
partner, like, hey, use thatoutsider. What do you want to
have said? What are you tryingto advance? And you know, a good
outsider won't necessarily belike this, just instant
(13:23):
microphone that just pirateseverything that other people
say, but you know, they willtake it in and they will insert
it where, where needed, where itcan advance the larger strategy
for the greater good. So, yeah,yeah, yeah,
Amanda Jane Lee (13:37):
I think you hit it right. Like, learn how to
leverage that Outsider's voice,
Indra Klavins (13:44):
and you don't know how they're I mean, so
funny, some of my best, likeprofessional friendships, have
come from partnerships withoutsiders on both sides. Now, as
I'm sitting here thinking back,like a lot of them are actually
from the other side. So like,you can forge those friendships
and those long relationships.And why that's so useful is that
you're you're able to tap intoeach other throughout the course
(14:10):
of your career as things advancein one way or another. And you
know, it's, you know, maybe atsome point you want to explore
going to the other side. I putthat in air quotes, you know,
and shifting to a differentlandscape and going from the
inside to the outside, or theoutside to the inside, you can
have, you have somebody you cantalk to and be like, hey, what's
it like? Tell me more about Iknow it's like to work with you
(14:32):
guys, but what is it like on theinside? So that's a really nice
way to leverage that to a littlebonus, something, right?
Amanda Jane Lee (14:39):
Yeah. And not just, you know external to work,
not just on a friendship level,but just learn how to work with
each other and collaborate onwhatever project engagement that
this outsider is is on and andlike join forces for the greater
good, as corny as that sounds.
Indra Klavins (14:59):
No. But I think that that's it. I mean, I think
that so many of our episodestalk are have this, like
community oriented something,because you and I both believe
that the human beings we workwith are humans, and we do form
communities around projects,around teams, around
organizations. And I'll say oneof my proudest professional
experiences. So I was working, Iwas, I was, I was in house, and
(15:22):
I was working with an incredibleagency. It was called moment
design. They've, they've,they've since been acquired by
Verizon. They're really theywere really good, really good.
And one of the things that weworked on is so my partner,
Alexa Curtis, amazing humanbeing and leader. She She was
(15:44):
really good at conceptualizingcertain types of tools and novel
ways of approaching designprojects and research projects
and what it might be. And so oneof the tools used in the UX
world, user experience world iscalled the persona. It's an
archetype of a human being,right? And it's used to ground
(16:06):
the work that you do and makesure that you're always
designing with a particularperson in mind, and you're not
designing just for yourself, oryou're not building the app just
for yourself. And so she hadthis concept that she tried out
with other clients before ofcreating these cards that would
allow you assemble an entirepersona based on a set of
(16:28):
attributes. And so she's like,Hey, do you think we could do
that here? I'm like, Hey, Ithink that would be really
awesome. And so she and her teamdesigned a beautiful set of
cards. I actually should postsome pics online. Maybe I'll do
that at some point in time ofour deck of cards. But where my
part came in, and what made thispartnership so strong, and this
(16:53):
implementation of this approachso much stronger than anything
she'd done in the past, was wehad a deep, long relationship, I
was able to do a few things. Iwas able to do the stakeholder
management within theorganization, and roll out the
cards to not just the designteam, but to partners all across
(17:14):
the country, and do a little bitof a road show. That was one
piece of it, but the otherpiece, which was even richer,
was I was able to access thedata of our clients and
understand which attributes getpaired in which sorts of ways,
so people, when they wereassembling these cards, would
know which pairings were themost likely scenarios. And you
(17:37):
know that, to me, is not onlywas it just such a impactful
project that people stillrandomly message me about on
LinkedIn. Like, oh my gosh, Iwas using the cards. Or, oh my
gosh, I was thinking about thecards. My new place could
totally use them. So like, notonly do I get that, but like,
and the value of the product,but it was just, like, such a
beautiful partnership. Like, andit's just it was, and that's
(18:00):
that, that's what I think, thatthat's not that exact project,
of course, but that's the kindof relationship, that's the
that's, like, the pinnacle ofinsider, outsider partnership.
Yeah, that's such a great story.
Amanda Jane Lee (18:12):
Um, it's a long story. Sorry about that. No,
it's a great one. Um, because,like, it one, it tells the story
of the partnership, and like,what was important from each
side, right? Like you, you hadthe access to the data and like
the internal, proprietaryinformation, right? And you had
(18:33):
the you also had the access tothe network, the the stakeholder
management. You had built theserelationships with people
internally that Alexa did nothave because she's Yeah right,
because she was so she was ableto leverage those things that
you had to offer, and you wereable to leverage her expertise,
(18:53):
her experience, like rolling outthese cards before, her ability
to Say the quiet things outloud, and like you, each brought
these these different likeskills and things to the table
that made this partnership work,and it led to a successful
rollout of a thing that it'sawesome, that people still
(19:17):
message you about that they
Indra Klavins (19:18):
do, and I want to give credit to the rest of the
team, and I'm not gonna remembereverybody's names, but cast
names, but Cassie was on it andSean was on it, and, like, there
was a lot of, like, Alexa hadher own awesome team on the
other side, so, but yeah, yeah,so yeah,
Amanda Jane Lee (19:32):
and she, you know, that's another thing,
right? Like, she has access to anetwork and a set of experts on
her side too, right? If therewas something that came up that
she herself didn't, you know,wasn't the most well versed in
or didn't have the mostexpertise, she could tap into
her network and her team on herside to find someone who did
(19:56):
have the answer 100%
Indra Klavins (19:58):
and what's beautiful about working with.
I'll just focus in on themspecifically, like they had a
lot of clients across and theyhad all the right propriety,
like they they never, they neverdisclose anything that they
shouldn't have, just to beabundantly clear. But you know,
they could tell us about trends,right? Because they had clients
in, like, a major client, whichwas, like, they had a major
client, which is ESPN. They hada lot of clients in the
(20:21):
healthcare sector. They had alot of clients in the financial
services sector. And they couldreally so the various teams that
they had on that agency side,they could, they could learn
from the different industriesand see where the trends are the
shockingly, there's somethingthere. There's a there's a fun
fact, there is a commonalitybetween fantasy football or
(20:45):
fantasy sports and financialservices trading systems, right?
Like, and doesn't
Amanda Jane Lee (20:51):
surprise me at all, actually,
Indra Klavins (20:53):
like, but who would have thought of it if I
hadn't said it out loud? Right?Should they're like, Oh, those
two things are equally complex.So Anytime somebody's like,
trying to create somethingthat's like, oh, it's like, kind
of like, this. Kind of likefantasy football. I'm like, it's
as complex as financial servicestrading. They're like, I'm like,
I'm not trying to burst yourbubble. I just want you to know
what you're, you're, you'recharging a mountain. I want you
to know how tall that mountain,right? But I know that because
(21:16):
of them, because they're like,oh, you know. And that was just,
you know, without having todisclose anything. They're like,
Oh, that's a complexity. I'mlike, like, Oh, that's
interesting. So then whenever wewere recruiting more talent for
in house, we were like, oh, youknow, people who have experience
with that could be a really goodfit for us, and we would have
never thought about tapping intothat particular market of
talent.
Amanda Jane Lee (21:35):
Yeah, it's it just opens up a world that you
can connect more dots, 100%
Indra Klavins (21:41):
100% so, I think covered a lot of good ground.
And I think you know, anythingelse that you wanted to touch
on, or Amanda to bring into thisconversation?
Amanda Jane Lee (21:52):
No, I think, you know, I think we really
nailed it. What, where wefocused on the partnership,
yeah, between the insiders andthe outsiders, right? And like,
What things does each partybring to this engagement and and
what, how can we leverage eachother to ensure success in the
(22:15):
thing? We'll call it the thing.100%
Indra Klavins (22:18):
we're not adversaries. We need to figure
out, how can we play our playthe game from different
positions on the field? I love agood sports ball metaphor, from
different parts of the field,but how can we play the game to
our collective advantage? Right?And I say, yeah, so I hope
everyone got something reallygood out of it, and I'm glad we
(22:40):
got to dig into this one. I'mglad that we got to dig in this
one, and I hope that everyonelistening got something good out
of it, too, and that you'll joinus next time for when we discuss
another topic from the messymiddle. Bye, everyone.
Amanda Jane Lee (22:52):
Thanks. Bye. .
Hey everyone. Before we get into today's
episode, we've got some excitingnews. Our messy middle matters
merch store is live at shop. Dotthemessymiddle matters.com. This
is all thanks to everyone whowanted their own Don't make me
regret trying to be helpfulsweatshirt. But we didn't stop
there. We've got threecollections. Don't make me
(00:21):
regret in honor of thesweatshirt that started it all,
words matter, inspired by ourmost popular episode, and
embrace the messy to celebratethe beautiful chaos.
Everything's print on demand, sobe sure to double check your
size before ordering. But ifanything goes wrong with the
printing, our vendor will workwith you to make it right,
(00:43):
sweatshirts, T shirts, stickersand more. If you're looking for
a different cut or style, justemail us at podcast at the messy
middle matters.com, and we'll dowhat we can to bring your vision
to life. All right, now, let'sget into today's episode from
the messy middle matters.
(01:07):
I'm Indra
and I'm Amanda,
and we'd like to welcome you tothe messy middle matters. Hey,
Amanda, how are you today? I'mgood. How are you Indra? I'm
good. I'm good. Today, we'regoing to get to talk about
insiders and outsiders, which isa bit of a theme that's been
(01:27):
showing up and creeping intosome of our past episodes, but
we're going to talk about it alittle bit more deeply today,
and I'm sure we'll talk about itacross a number of episodes,
because there are so many facetsto it. So before we jump into
the conversation, let's makesure we clarify for everyone
listening, what do we mean inthis specific episode, in this
specific context, what do wemean by insiders and outsiders?
(01:49):
So insiders are the permanentemployees of a particular
organization. They have to abideby certain rules and regulations
and cultural norms for thatspecific organization, these
folks are more likely to be fulltime employees. It might be, you
know, the people within yourcompany, the people within your
team, but that the wordorganization is a little
flexible there, but there arepeople who are there all the
(02:11):
time with you. And for thiscontext, outsiders, we're
saying, are the agencies,consultancies and high paid
subject matter experts alsocalled SMEs, that organizations
bring in for a specific purposeor a fixed period of time, and
1/3 the last level settingbefore we jump into the topic,
(02:31):
is I want to make sure that it'sclear insiders are not better
than outsiders. Outsiders arenot better than insiders. They
just have different strengthsand opportunities to engage in
conversations, and that's whatwe're going to be talking about
today. And I'm I've been luckyenough to be both an insider and
an outsider. Now we areoutsiders, which is kind of why
we're able to do this podcast,which is kind of awesome. I
(02:54):
don't think we could have everdone this if we were if I at
least I couldn't done it. If Iwas working for a company, I
wouldn't be able to speak halfas freely as I'm able to now.
But,
Amanda Jane Lee (03:03):
yeah, yeah, I think it'd be a lot trickier to
do this if we were insidersworking full time at a company.
Indra Klavins (03:11):
Yeah, because, I mean, because it's, I'm just
imagining, like they'd be afraidthat you're like, are they going
to talk about that meeting? Orare they? Are they? Are they
going to like, oh, that musthave been that thing. Is she,
that person she's complainingabout? They don't know that.
It's like five jobs ago, thesethere are patterns in the world.
There are patterns in the world.
Amanda Jane Lee (03:30):
But yeah, because I'm because we're
outsiders, we get to, we get to,we get to talk as freely as we'd
like to, right, for sure,without, without as many
consequences or repercussionsfrom our employers, right? Yeah,
like, like, like, you just said,oh, you know, tomorrow you're
gonna get called to the officeand, you know, reprimanded for
(03:53):
saying that thing on the podcastabout that meeting, which
actually wasn't even about thatmeeting, wasn't
Indra Klavins (03:57):
about that meeting at all. So let's talk a
little bit about and also talkabout, like, when organizations
would bring in outsiders. I've,like I said, I've had the
experience of being on bothsides of this, and the reasons
for bringing in outsiders,these, this particular flavor of
outsiders, can be due tobandwidth constraints to fill a
(04:18):
skills gap, or they have an theyneed an objective party to take
the lead on something. I thinkthat's where we're going to
probably lean in on thisconversation. And the reason
that I've been the outsiderbrought in or have asked for an
outsider, as you know, we needwe need our partners. Need a
(04:40):
objective voice to hear thething, right? And we might even
need an objective voice to hearthe thing just to validate or
invalidate our understanding ofthe situation. And like we were
just saying earlier, the outsidevoices can say the quiet thing
out loud without getting as manyrepercussions. So we'll dig into
that a little bit more. Yeah.
Amanda Jane Lee (05:00):
Yes. And I think you know, the outsiders,
the consultants, the subjectmatter experts, bring this
external credibility to thetable. Yeah, right, they're not
as ingrained in the company'snorms and processes and power
dynamics. And all of you knowhow things are done at this
(05:22):
company. They bring thisexternal like, Here, here's what
I've seen in the outside world,and here's what I can here's
what I've learned, and here'swhat I can bring to you. Yeah,
they
Indra Klavins (05:31):
have different skin in the game. Like, they
have different skin in the game,like they the performance of
this project is not going toimpact it. Well, it well, it
depends on how the contract isstructured, but let's just for
simplicity, say the outsiders,whether they get paid or not,
doesn't matter if the projectsucceeds or it doesn't like in
(05:52):
many, many cases, that's thecase. They're going to get paid
no matter what. And when you'reinternal, you really do care
about the follow through andthings that are the end results,
right? But the outsider, theoutsider is not completely like
flip and carefree, right, right?Because they want to stay in
your good graces. They areincentive. They're intrinsically
(06:13):
incentivized to do a good job sothat everyone in your
organization, you the directstakeholder, the person who
literally signed the contractwith that outsider is satisfied
with their work and bringsbrings you back in again for
another project or another pieceof time, or whatever it might
be, or a partner might choose tobring you in, like one of the
(06:34):
other people within thatorganization said, Oh, I like
what they did over there. Indradid a kick ass job on that one.
Let me bring her in for thisother thing. So, yeah, yeah,
Amanda Jane Lee (06:44):
yeah, for sure. Or, you know, and, and not and,
you know, I give you, like, agood testimonial, right, like on
LinkedIn or your portfolio, ifyou're a consultant, like
working for yourself, there arejust so many incentives for the
outsiders to do a good job.
Indra Klavins (07:03):
Yep, yep. Because word of mouth, I think, I mean,
this work world is so muchsmaller than anybody realizes it
is. Even when we talk about,like, global communities, the
number of times I've run intosomeone like, oh, like you
again. Cool. Didn't think I'dsee you again. But, and, you
know, let's also talk about, sowe talked a fair bit about
(07:24):
outsiders, but let's talk aboutinsiders too, right? So, you
know, insiders, I think thereare some, and some of the power
dynamics that are, some of theelements, or the aspects that we
can talk through are, there's,there's a challenge for insiders
to speak up, right? I thinkthat's one of the challenges
that insiders face, thatoutsiders can help with, right?
(07:47):
Because there's power dynamicsin the organization. There's
risk of like, you know, they'rethey don't want to risk their
bonus, let's say, or, you know,the culture within the
organization may not allow forthe type of feedback that you
would like to offer right there,there could be a lack of
psychological safety, rightpeople, you know, the insiders,
(08:10):
don't feel comfortable or safeto share their opinions or to
speak up against, you know,something, whatever it may be
right, a process going wrong, aleadership not like being
aligned and just being a hotmess. Whatever it may be, there
just may not be thatpsychologically safe environment
within the corporation, youknow, related to that. I think
(08:34):
there, there could be, you know,historical baggage, right? Like
there's always
Amanda Jane Lee (08:40):
people may speak up and, you know, do their
best to push for a change. Andno matter how hard they they
push, no matter what they do,nothing changes. And so it
becomes a learned behavior, likea learned silence.
Indra Klavins (08:57):
It's a muscle memory you develop kind of,
yeah,
Amanda Jane Lee (09:01):
yeah. And something else that came up,
right? Like, it just popped intomy head there, there might be
emotional labor, like fatiguerelated to that, right? Like,
I've got so much going on, like,Project wise, people management
wise, all of the things. Andit's just like speaking up and
(09:21):
trying to push for change. It'sjust one more thing to add to my
plate. And like, I just can't Ineed, you know, going back to
one of the reasons you bring inan outsider, resource
constraints,
Indra Klavins (09:35):
yeah, and, and one of the things that I've seen
when outsiders do get broughtin, and it's often enough for
resource constraints, like as aleader, bringing in an outside
voice, you know, you do want tomake sure that the work is
within the wheelhouse of theoutsider that's coming in and
(09:57):
doing the thing. So you need tocraft their. Scope their the
sphere of their work, to alignto their strengths so they can
succeed, so that you and yourteam can inevitably succeed due
to that. You know, it's acascading set of successes, but
what can happen is that yourinternal team starts to get a
little resentful, right? They'relike, they see, oh, like, Oh my
(10:21):
gosh. They're bringing inoutsiders, the things that I've
seen that show up, like, the thethe alarm bells that show up for
some people can be, oh my gosh.They don't think I have the
skills. Oh my gosh. Is my job atrisk? Oh my gosh, you know,
like, all the different thingsthat can show up,
Amanda Jane Lee (10:38):
yeah? Like, oh my gosh. Like, who does Amanda
thinks she is, like, coming intothat meeting, like saying those
things, right? Like that, thatcan breed resentment, right?
Indra Klavins (10:47):
Or Amanda said, like, Amanda said the thing, and
they listened to her, and theydidn't listen to me, like,
what's that all about? Right?It's not a it's just, you know,
people are funny. People arefunny. I had a yoga teacher
years ago who taught me that,you know, the eyes that we look
through those are just cheapcameras, the ears that we listen
(11:08):
with are just cheap microphones.And, you know, like our brains
are cheap computer processingdevices. And you know, the
reason I love thinking aboutthat metaphor is that when your
ears can only pick up certainthings, maybe it needs to be
said in a different tone or adifferent tenor, and suddenly it
penetrates and you're like, orit might have been just that the
timing was different, and thatthat stakeholder, your partner
(11:29):
in the organization, couldactually finally hear. So you
know, I think that making sureif you are the leader, or if you
are a leader within the team,when a partner is being brought
in when an outsider is beingbrought in, making sure that you
are very aware of the anxietythat that will kick up, not if
it's a, if it's, yeah, it's awhen, when and how you're aware
(11:53):
of it. You're tuned to it. Youhave people watching out for it,
and you're mitigating that riskalong the way and giving all the
appropriate reassurances, youknow, yeah, for sure.
Amanda Jane Lee (12:07):
I mean, like, I'm just thinking of so my
experience is mostly as aninsider. I know you have
experience
Indra Klavins (12:17):
equally, something like that. I don't
know something like that. I gotsomething I don't know, but
yeah, yeah.
Amanda Jane Lee (12:24):
And I just as you were going through, you
know, the types of resentmentand, like, how, how that that
can show up when you bring it inan outsider. I'm thinking of all
the times I've seen an outsidercome in, like, as an insider
myself, and I'm just like, yeah,the piece that resonated for me
(12:46):
was the wait I've been sayingthis for so long, so long this
person comes in and they sayexactly what I've been saying,
and all of a sudden, Wow, so andso. Like, Great, let's go
implement.
Indra Klavins (13:02):
Yeah, it's it is frustrating. It is frustrating.
And so, like, you know what Ithe behavior that I've
encouraged is in my team, whenthat's happened, or if I'm the
partner, like, hey, use thatoutsider. What do you want to
have said? What are you tryingto advance? And you know, a good
outsider won't necessarily belike this, just instant
(13:23):
microphone that just pirateseverything that other people
say, but you know, they willtake it in and they will insert
it where, where needed, where itcan advance the larger strategy
for the greater good. So, yeah,yeah, yeah,
Amanda Jane Lee (13:37):
I think you hit it right. Like, learn how to
leverage that Outsider's voice,
Indra Klavins (13:44):
and you don't know how they're I mean, so
funny, some of my best, likeprofessional friendships, have
come from partnerships withoutsiders on both sides. Now, as
I'm sitting here thinking back,like a lot of them are actually
from the other side. So like,you can forge those friendships
and those long relationships.And why that's so useful is that
you're you're able to tap intoeach other throughout the course
(14:10):
of your career as things advancein one way or another. And you
know, it's, you know, maybe atsome point you want to explore
going to the other side. I putthat in air quotes, you know,
and shifting to a differentlandscape and going from the
inside to the outside, or theoutside to the inside, you can
have, you have somebody you cantalk to and be like, hey, what's
it like? Tell me more about Iknow it's like to work with you
(14:32):
guys, but what is it like on theinside? So that's a really nice
way to leverage that to a littlebonus, something, right?
Amanda Jane Lee (14:39):
Yeah. And not just, you know external to work,
not just on a friendship level,but just learn how to work with
each other and collaborate onwhatever project engagement that
this outsider is is on and andlike join forces for the greater
good, as corny as that sounds.
Indra Klavins (14:59):
No. But I think that that's it. I mean, I think
that so many of our episodestalk are have this, like
community oriented something,because you and I both believe
that the human beings we workwith are humans, and we do form
communities around projects,around teams, around
organizations. And I'll say oneof my proudest professional
experiences. So I was working, Iwas, I was, I was in house, and
(15:22):
I was working with an incredibleagency. It was called moment
design. They've, they've,they've since been acquired by
Verizon. They're really theywere really good, really good.
And one of the things that weworked on is so my partner,
Alexa Curtis, amazing humanbeing and leader. She She was
(15:44):
really good at conceptualizingcertain types of tools and novel
ways of approaching designprojects and research projects
and what it might be. And so oneof the tools used in the UX
world, user experience world iscalled the persona. It's an
archetype of a human being,right? And it's used to ground
(16:06):
the work that you do and makesure that you're always
designing with a particularperson in mind, and you're not
designing just for yourself, oryou're not building the app just
for yourself. And so she hadthis concept that she tried out
with other clients before ofcreating these cards that would
allow you assemble an entirepersona based on a set of
(16:28):
attributes. And so she's like,Hey, do you think we could do
that here? I'm like, Hey, Ithink that would be really
awesome. And so she and her teamdesigned a beautiful set of
cards. I actually should postsome pics online. Maybe I'll do
that at some point in time ofour deck of cards. But where my
part came in, and what made thispartnership so strong, and this
(16:53):
implementation of this approachso much stronger than anything
she'd done in the past, was wehad a deep, long relationship, I
was able to do a few things. Iwas able to do the stakeholder
management within theorganization, and roll out the
cards to not just the designteam, but to partners all across
(17:14):
the country, and do a little bitof a road show. That was one
piece of it, but the otherpiece, which was even richer,
was I was able to access thedata of our clients and
understand which attributes getpaired in which sorts of ways,
so people, when they wereassembling these cards, would
know which pairings were themost likely scenarios. And you
(17:37):
know that, to me, is not onlywas it just such a impactful
project that people stillrandomly message me about on
LinkedIn. Like, oh my gosh, Iwas using the cards. Or, oh my
gosh, I was thinking about thecards. My new place could
totally use them. So like, notonly do I get that, but like,
and the value of the product,but it was just, like, such a
beautiful partnership. Like, andit's just it was, and that's
(18:00):
that, that's what I think, thatthat's not that exact project,
of course, but that's the kindof relationship, that's the
that's, like, the pinnacle ofinsider, outsider partnership.
Yeah, that's such a great story.
Amanda Jane Lee (18:12):
Um, it's a long story. Sorry about that. No,
it's a great one. Um, because,like, it one, it tells the story
of the partnership, and like,what was important from each
side, right? Like you, you hadthe access to the data and like
the internal, proprietaryinformation, right? And you had
(18:33):
the you also had the access tothe network, the the stakeholder
management. You had built theserelationships with people
internally that Alexa did nothave because she's Yeah right,
because she was so she was ableto leverage those things that
you had to offer, and you wereable to leverage her expertise,
(18:53):
her experience, like rolling outthese cards before, her ability
to Say the quiet things outloud, and like you, each brought
these these different likeskills and things to the table
that made this partnership work,and it led to a successful
rollout of a thing that it'sawesome, that people still
(19:17):
message you about that they
Indra Klavins (19:18):
do, and I want to give credit to the rest of the
team, and I'm not gonna remembereverybody's names, but cast
names, but Cassie was on it andSean was on it, and, like, there
was a lot of, like, Alexa hadher own awesome team on the
other side, so, but yeah, yeah,so yeah,
Amanda Jane Lee (19:32):
and she, you know, that's another thing,
right? Like, she has access to anetwork and a set of experts on
her side too, right? If therewas something that came up that
she herself didn't, you know,wasn't the most well versed in
or didn't have the mostexpertise, she could tap into
her network and her team on herside to find someone who did
(19:56):
have the answer 100%
Indra Klavins (19:58):
and what's beautiful about working with.
I'll just focus in on themspecifically, like they had a
lot of clients across and theyhad all the right propriety,
like they they never, they neverdisclose anything that they
shouldn't have, just to beabundantly clear. But you know,
they could tell us about trends,right? Because they had clients
in, like, a major client, whichwas, like, they had a major
client, which is ESPN. They hada lot of clients in the
(20:21):
healthcare sector. They had alot of clients in the financial
services sector. And they couldreally so the various teams that
they had on that agency side,they could, they could learn
from the different industriesand see where the trends are the
shockingly, there's somethingthere. There's a there's a fun
fact, there is a commonalitybetween fantasy football or
(20:45):
fantasy sports and financialservices trading systems, right?
Like, and doesn't
Amanda Jane Lee (20:51):
surprise me at all, actually,
Indra Klavins (20:53):
like, but who would have thought of it if I
hadn't said it out loud? Right?Should they're like, Oh, those
two things are equally complex.So Anytime somebody's like,
trying to create somethingthat's like, oh, it's like, kind
of like, this. Kind of likefantasy football. I'm like, it's
as complex as financial servicestrading. They're like, I'm like,
I'm not trying to burst yourbubble. I just want you to know
what you're, you're, you'recharging a mountain. I want you
to know how tall that mountain,right? But I know that because
(21:16):
of them, because they're like,oh, you know. And that was just,
you know, without having todisclose anything. They're like,
Oh, that's a complexity. I'mlike, like, Oh, that's
interesting. So then whenever wewere recruiting more talent for
in house, we were like, oh, youknow, people who have experience
with that could be a really goodfit for us, and we would have
never thought about tapping intothat particular market of
talent.
Amanda Jane Lee (21:35):
Yeah, it's it just opens up a world that you
can connect more dots, 100%
Indra Klavins (21:41):
100% so, I think covered a lot of good ground.
And I think you know, anythingelse that you wanted to touch
on, or Amanda to bring into thisconversation?
Amanda Jane Lee (21:52):
No, I think, you know, I think we really
nailed it. What, where wefocused on the partnership,
yeah, between the insiders andthe outsiders, right? And like,
What things does each partybring to this engagement and and
what, how can we leverage eachother to ensure success in the
(22:15):
thing? We'll call it the thing.100%
Indra Klavins (22:18):
we're not adversaries. We need to figure
out, how can we play our playthe game from different
positions on the field? I love agood sports ball metaphor, from
different parts of the field,but how can we play the game to
our collective advantage? Right?And I say, yeah, so I hope
everyone got something reallygood out of it, and I'm glad we
(22:40):
got to dig into this one. I'mglad that we got to dig in this
one, and I hope that everyonelistening got something good out
of it, too, and that you'll joinus next time for when we discuss
another topic from the messymiddle. Bye, everyone.
Amanda Jane Lee (22:52):
Thanks. Bye. .
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