May 2, 2025 • 35 mins
What makes a workplace culture truly effective? According to organizational change expert Laurie Clarke, it's found at the critical intersection of talent and design—where people and systems align to create meaningful impact. Join John and Greg as they interview Laurie on her insights of management as a consult for executive leaders.
Clarke brings powerful insights from her two decades working with global CEOs, revealing that supervisors and managers are the essential "glue" holding organizations together. These middle-level leaders face unique challenges, caught between executive directives and frontline realities that often seem misaligned. Her solution is refreshingly straightforward: people fundamentally want to make progress on meaningful work.
Throughout the conversation, Clarke shares transformative examples—like the disengaged call center employee who viewed his job as "just people wanting money" until he understood he was helping fulfill educational dreams and potentially changing life trajectories. This shift in perspective doesn't require additional resources, just clearer connections between daily tasks and meaningful outcomes.
The pandemic-driven remote work revolution forms another fascinating thread in the discussion. Clarke explains how remote work exposed weaknesses in organizational cultures that already existed, creating a "quilt" of individual home environments versus the consistent "corporate blanket" of office culture. While productivity metrics often improved during remote work, innovation declined—highlighting the irreplaceable value of spontaneous in-person collaboration.
Perhaps most valuable are Clarke's practical approaches to cross-training and flexibility. By allowing employees to experience different roles, organizations build versatility while helping people understand their impact across the system. For executives and managers implementing these ideas, she recommends embracing uncertainty—the most effective leaders acknowledge what they don't know, articulate desired outcomes clearly, and give teams autonomy to develop solutions.
Looking to transform your team's culture or navigate organizational change? Connect with Laurie Clarke on LinkedIn or at laurie@laurie-clarke.com for executive coaching, team development, and strategic consulting that builds capability from within.
Presented by John Wandolowski and Greg Powell
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hello everyone and welcome to Success Secrets and
Stories.
I'm your host, john Wynoloski,and I'm here with my co-host and
friend, greg Powell.
Greg, hey everybody, hey, yes,and today we're going to have an
opportunity to have aninterview with Lori Clark.
And a little bit about Lori.
(00:40):
Her degree is from TorontoUniversity and she has two
decades of experiencecollaborating with global CEOs
and founders of organizations.
She has worked in strategicchange, a catalyst of change,
organizational change.
She's done a lot of change andshe has focused on the
(01:01):
customer's experience,developing teams and to deliver
value.
A lot of what she has done isworking with the finesse of
human experience and to designnot only the cultural but the
effect of rapid growth andhaving people prepared to make
those changes and understandingthe concept of being a strategic
partner.
(01:21):
That's a wonderful backgroundof the things that you have done
, lori, but maybe you know,since I don't think a lot of
CEOs are listening to ourpodcast, we have a lot of
supervisors and managers thathave learned things from Greg
and I's perspective.
Welcome to the podcast and tellus a little bit about the
(01:44):
stories that you know about thesupervisory side.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Thank you for having me.
I think that the supervisorsand managers are the glue that
typically holds the organizationtogether.
So while you work with a lot ofCEOs and leaders to get what
they want done, it won't happenunless you have really strong
managers and supervisors withinthe company.
(02:07):
So I think that they're sort ofthe hardest worked and often
the least paid attention to areawithin a company.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
So, greg, maybe you can add something in terms of a
HR perspective, in terms of whatLori and her background relates
to as far as leadership.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Absolutely.
Thanks, john and Lori.
Fascinating phenomenal.
What you do, there's a need forit out there.
Don't stop doing it.
From my little HR perch I guess, working my way up doing the
entry-level jobs recruiter,trainer, employee relations and
all that work in the managementleadership, HR had a chance to
take a more profound role inhelping organizations get better
, deliver value, deliver morevalue and kind of untap or
(02:52):
unleash some of the things thatwere just kind of being hidden
behind, and I think a lot of itwas just taking the time.
And when I think of culture, Ithink of, yeah, we talk about
COVID and what was going on inthe States and whatever, and how
people not being in the sameoffice next to me and whatever
that meant.
But the culture thing has beenaround for a long, long, long
(03:13):
time.
And so can you take us backlike 20 years when you first
started getting involved in thiskind of work?
What were you working on atthat time?
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Yeah, so typically, companies come to me and leaders
come when they have a varietyof problems, whether it's from a
lack of growth, they need toreduce expenses, they want to
develop leadership, and, at theend of the day, they all have
this feeling like culture isreally important to success, but
it's not really something theycan quantify.
(03:40):
They don't really know how todo it.
Every time you look at acompany that's been successful
and they say, oh, look at theculture.
It's almost going backwards,trying to recreate it, and the
truth is that you can't.
Every company has a differentmix of resources, every company
has a different mix of talentand they exist in a different
(04:00):
time.
So I think that there is a greatmisunderstanding either of what
culture is and how to create it, and so the outcomes of
leadership development, customergrowth, expense reduction
really are all byproducts ofgetting things in line to get
(04:22):
the culture right, and for me,the culture is defined at that
intersection of talent anddesign.
It's right in that middle andthat balance that you go back
and forth with, and anytime theybecome disconnected or you're
working on them separately,you're going to start seeing
some of these challenges pop up,and then you start.
(04:46):
In my opinion, you start seeingleaders play what I call
corporate whack-a-mole, wherethey're just running around
trying to push down the problems, hoping they don't pop back up
again.
But they do, and so typicallywhat we do is just, first of all
, take a deep breath and try toget rid of all of the
distractions and go backdifferently and engage people on
(05:09):
the teams to be able to getexcited about being able to
(05:30):
fulfill those goals.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Thank you.
So that message in terms ofworking with different
individuals you've also workedwith CEOs and presidents of
organizations and they have thesame issues.
It's just that you'll see, theentry-level people don't
understand the mechanics of itand maybe a little bit about
helping them in terms ofself-awareness, in terms of your
(05:59):
coaching, maybe you can talkabout that a little bit for them
to be able to tune in andlisten.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Yeah, absolutely so.
I feel like it's actually a lotharder for them because they're
getting all of the informationfrom the frontline and from the
customers real time, and they'regetting all of these directives
and strategies and goals andhigh-level things that are
coming from executives andsometimes, when you put them
(06:23):
together, they don't make senseright.
And so I think the very firstthing is to understand that when
you become a manager or aleader, engagement of your team
comes from one person principleat its core.
People want to have progress onmeaningful work, and so when
(06:45):
you think about that and you saywhat's meaningful to them,
often we hear strategies andhigh level this is what we do,
this is our why and you hearstories of what goes wrong, but
what you don't often hear isthat that really this is what we
do and why we do it.
And that's where you, as youknow, as a manager and a leader,
(07:08):
a supervisor level you can goand you can make sure that your
team is constantly connectedwith why they're there and
what's meaningful in the workthat they do.
And I've I've tell this storysometimes about a young
gentleman in a contact centerand we were doing this big
design change and he was, youknow, checking the football
(07:29):
scores when I went to go ask hima question and I said you know,
I'm sorry.
Uh, you know, I will come backwhen you're not on break.
And he is that I'm not on break.
And I went and he said I'm noton break.
And I went there's 55 calls inqueue.
I mean this is a differentproblem and I said so, why
aren't you answering the phone?
And he said it's just peoplewanting money.
(07:51):
And this was a student lendingcenter and it was just very
apathetic.
It's just, you know, I'm anadministrator, I take the
application and I throw it offto the side, and so what it
realized there is there was ahuge disconnect to what they
were actually doing and so goingout and telling the stories you
know it's.
(08:11):
It's sally, who had to take timeoff to to raise, you know,
their her children always wantedto be a nurse is going back to
nursing school.
It's.
It's jack, who was sick as achild and now wants to be a
doctor, is going back to nursingschool.
It's Jack, who was sick as achild and now wants to be a
doctor and he needs to have thisto fund his education.
You're not giving them money,you're fulfilling their dreams
and in fact, when you answerthat phone, you might be one of
(08:34):
the most life-defining peoplefor them, because you might
change the trajectory of theirlife.
And how do you then get thatstory out?
How do you get that reminderout to people?
And sometimes people will saywell, well, yeah, that works if
you're, you know, customerfacing.
But what if I'm a risk manager?
And it's sort of the samemessage.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Look, you're super important.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
You have to be able to work with the business to
fulfill customer needs, but youneed to make sure there is a
business to fulfill customerneeds.
It's an incredibly importantjob.
You can't say no all the time,you're not expected to say yes
all of the time and you starthaving those conversations.
That defines meaningful work.
(09:21):
That's the first part.
Then we have to look atprogress.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
But what is your reaction to that?
Yeah, finding meaningful workand understanding the importance
.
My career was from facilitiesand housekeeping, and usually
two organizations that get verylittle respect.
During COVID, all of a sudden,it was 100% changed because we
were saving lives on the thingsthat we were doing.
But you brought up a veryinteresting point and I would
(09:51):
just want to go backwards alittle bit.
One of the interesting thingsthat I found during the process
of leading was taking a look ata person's job description and
sometimes they would repeat thejob description to me and how it
was impersonal and outdated anddidn't mean anything, and it's
an interesting exercise in whatare you asking them to do
(10:14):
specifically?
What kind of reference?
Well, it shouldn't be just ajob description.
There should be more to that.
Maybe the process of a jobdescription, maybe more.
What kind of setup should therebe to get employees to
understand the importance oftheir job?
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Yeah, I mean, I think there are a couple of things
you can do that you can showthem, first of all, the full
experience of the customer froma business, so that they have
context to where they fit in andhow it fits in.
And if ever you find yourselfsaying we don't fit in, that's a
good question to go to yourleader with and say I don't
(10:55):
understand where we fit in, sohow am I supposed to engage a
team if I don't understand it?
Right so, really making surethat you understand the full
picture, how you fit in, um,because that creates that
ability for you to bring forwardthe success stories and
feedback to other areas of thecompany as well, right so?
(11:16):
you don't feel like you're justdoing that checklist of a job.
I haven't really seen too manyjob descriptions where the
person actually does that Right.
So you know, like the jobdescription in a contact center
answer the phone, take theapplication, push the button to
submit, hang up phone.
Answer the phone.
That's not what you're askinghim to do, right.
(11:38):
You're asking him to be theface to your company You're
asking him to do right.
You're asking him to be theface to your company.
You're asking him to engage andunderstand a little bit more of
their needs.
In the end, with that particularclient, we asked them to maybe
not even give them a loan.
We asked them to help themfigure out the financial journey
to education, which sometimesmight be leading them to sites
(12:00):
that the government gave grantsor private ways to get you know
some scholarships, versus sayingyour job is to take
applications and close loans.
So I think once you becomereally clear about what the full
journey is, what you're tryingto achieve for customers where
you fit in, then you have thoseconversations with your team
(12:23):
that say you know this is whatsuccess looks like.
We often get really focused onwhat people aren't doing well,
but what you focus on grows.
So if you start focusing onthis is you know this is a bad
call.
Listen to how bad this call is.
Everyone's going to startfinding the bad right.
But if you go, listen to this isa great story, this is a great
(12:46):
call.
This isn't conventional, youknow.
They actually did.
They went off script.
I had one experience recentlywhere I had a terrible customer
experience and I tried to cancelmy service and throughout the
call the person kept sayingthank you for being a loyal
customer.
It drove me insane and I saidjust skip it.
(13:10):
Just skip that part.
If you had context to itinstead of a script, you
wouldn't keep thanking me.
It's really frustrating me andhe's like I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
And then he goes through the next little thing
and he's like and I just want toonce again thank you for being
a customer.
I was like.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
I'm trying really hard to not be your customer,
and so that's where thesedifferences come in, right.
If you say here's your jobdescription, follow the script,
answer the phone, submit thebutton, that's the kind of thing
you get, and I think there's somuch pressure on you.
Know, first-time managers andleaders that they have to hit
(13:49):
these quotas and the goals thatthey have set are all very
time-driven and quantitativethat they lose sight of those
qualitative pieces that actuallyquantitative, that they lose
sight of those qualitativepieces that actually help you
get those outcomes better right.
Or at least go back to yourleaders and say this doesn't
(14:09):
work.
You can't tell me to fulfilltheir need and do it in a minute
and a half.
I can't say yes to everythingthat comes on my desk and
protect our company frompotential harm.
And that's where I think thatat that level of the
organization, they getexpectations from both sides.
(14:32):
That grounding it again andhere's what the company does,
here's what we're here for,here's what matters most Allows
you to go back to your leaderwith some really good questions,
but also then guide your ownteam in figuring out how best to
feel that sense of value andmotivation with what they're
(14:53):
contributing to the company.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Greg, this is fascinating and I'm going to
throw you kind of a trickquestion, but I know you know
the answer to it.
When John and I were coming up,there was a group of people
called the Baby Boomers andthere was a group before us as
well and they told us theleadership, told us how we were
going to act, what clothes towear.
They defined the culture andeither you were part of the
culture or you were out of thecompany.
Well, we're older now, we outof the company.
(15:18):
Well, we're older now We've gotkids, grandkids, whatever, in
the workplace, right, and guesswhat?
They have voices.
There are some Gen X and Gen Zwho have kind of said no, no, I
don't feel like that today.
What do you mean?
I come in the office every day.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
I want hybrid minimally.
I'd rather be fully remote.
Have you seen that come intoplay?
Yeah, so I mean, I think thatthere's so many um ways that we
can work, and I think thatsometimes we get really
prescriptive on how we're goingto work and we say it's three
days, it's these days, it's notthis.
You can work from home, butdon't work from home and do this
, and what we're losing sight ofthere again is you're not
giving people the autonomy toknow what to work, when to work,
where to work.
If I really knew my contributionand I understood it, and I
(16:05):
understood that it's importantfor me to be in the office at a
specific time for a specifictype of work, I would.
But if I lose sight of what it,if I'm just saying, why are you
forcing me to do this?
You're not really trusting meto know when and how to do it,
Then that's you know, thatbecomes this lack of engagement.
(16:26):
That's where people want tocome in even less.
But I think the companies thathave the most problem with you
know, figuring out how to makehybrid and remote work is
because they already had a veryweak or inconsistent culture.
Because they already had a veryweak or inconsistent culture.
So if you think about it likethe way you described it before,
you left home and you almostput on your work uniform it
(16:55):
might've been a suit, whateverit was and you go in and there's
a culture in the office andthat that has a set of rules of
engagement, ways that you speak,how you work, who you work with
all of that times, et cetera,and then you would go home and
then you're home, you right.
And then what we did is in inCOVID we had everyone was home,
them at work, and so we wentfrom having like the corporate
(17:16):
blanket that was prettyconsistent to a quilt and we
were just like we don't knowwhat's going on with quilts.
Like quilts are reallychallenging and I don't.
I'm seeing like kids and dogsand home life and and who you're
around really impacts how youbehave.
And so you know there are timeswhere, like I go into work, I'm
(17:36):
very patient with my clients,I'm very patient with my teams.
I come home and if you see mewith my team, sometimes I'm just
like I the dishwasher, thedishwasher is right, you put it
on, not in like it's right there, you know, Um.
And so I think what we starteddoing is we.
We lost what the culture of thecompany was and we kind of
(17:59):
brought our home cultures in,which is not bad, it's great.
It's just we didn't know whatto do with it.
And so when the companystandards, the company kind of
vision of this is who we are andwhat we expect of our company
wasn't strong enough.
It just got so messy withpeople, and that's when you got
(18:22):
the edicts to come back, that'swhen you were just like I don't
know what's happening, Everyoneback in, and that's not the
right answer either, I would sayto those leaders I would say
your culture is pretty weak.
You should really work on that.
Maybe you need everyone back tofix it, but probably not.
(18:43):
You just need to put time andeffort into it right.
So you know, and that's thedesign part, that's why the
talent and design, that piece inthe middle, that's what defines
your culture.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
So for me, I think that there's a social element
that's missing with all this athome element and they don't know
how to actually verbalize thatthe whole thing about talking
about the water cooler, and canyou emulate that?
Can you, can you duplicate that?
Is there ways to try to get asocial exchange of ideas from
(19:21):
just you know, differentdepartments that have an
opportunity just to share casualconversations, and it's kind of
hard to do that artificially.
And some of that is if you havea company that is more
engineering based and it'sproduct based and you don't have
that kind of social environment.
Okay, but I think it's reallyhard for a lot of organizations
(19:43):
not to have some element ofsocial exchange and that whole
thing about being isolated andpeople feeling lonely.
I think that's part of the piecethat they can't seem to
verbalize.
I find that some organizationslike engineering teams that
gives you context and give youcontacts in order to meet people
(20:05):
and ask questions about theindustry.
Nobody attends the meetings anylonger.
They'll do it virtually andthat's a poor way to try to
create those connections.
But I think that's the piecethat I found really challenging.
I don't know if there's anycomment that you want to make on
that observation.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Yeah, I'd like to make two.
Actually that came to mind.
So during COVID in Canada, wewere at home for about three
years and the kids werehomeschooled for a lot of that
(20:50):
and is.
One day we were out in thefront of the house and a kid
from his class and the mom waswalking by and the mom started
talking to me and my son wasreally rude to him and I they
left and I said I don't, I don'teven know what that was.
And he said well, we don't getalong, I don't like him.
And I said you don't have toget along, you don't have to be
friends, but you can't be rude.
You need a base level ofrespect for the fact that this
(21:11):
is a human being.
And so when he was going backto school, he struggled and he
said I don't want to go, I don'tlike half the people in my
class.
And what I realized is, forthree years, the only people we
hung out with were people weliked, because it was that's
(21:31):
what you did.
And I said well, you need to goback to school and you need to
learn how to work with andrespect people you don't
necessarily like.
Like that's not a great thing,and I think we've done that in
work a lot.
Our tolerance level fordifferences has declined.
We hang out in ourneighborhoods and with our
friends and with our family andpeople we choose, but actually a
lot of innovative ideas andcreativity and even just
(21:55):
thinking about ways that anengineer learning from a
marketer is a brilliant thing,and we don't actually engage in
that way of different industriesand different way of thinking
and people we don't particularlylove, like we're not going to
go hang out with them on theweekend.
We still can learn from them andwe need to learn how to work
(22:16):
with them.
So the challenge with purelyremote work is I find people
lose that ability and that is areal disadvantage.
When we look at theproductivity numbers,
productivity improved butinnovation declined, product
launches declined and part ofthat is they're messy.
(22:36):
I design a lot of things andit's a messy, messy, messy,
messy environment.
People are talking over eachother, people are reaching over
each other.
I don't know how you do that.
Virtually you also feel anenergy, because humans give off
a natural energy and thatpositivity just doesn't come
across the screen and I don'tfeel that.
(22:57):
You know, you don't feel thatvibe when you're in a room.
That's a that's a reallyimportant component to remember.
Now, if the company you workfor is saying, nope, we're
hybrid, make sure that youfigure out a way to to engage
people, to want to come back atleast some of the time, to have
that feeling, to gain thatinsight, to bump into somebody I
(23:20):
don't know, even just whenyou're down getting lunch and
you're out and you're engagingwith all of these people.
Some of the best lessons I'veever had in my life have come
from the most bizarre places.
You know the, the sandwichperson or my taxi driver or and
I go.
that was so profound, and likethe universe conspired to get me
(23:41):
that message today.
Um, the messages I would get inmy house might just be from my
teenagers and I'm not surethat's going to enhance a lot.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
I just want to make a little bit of a point.
What you have just said is sohard for other people to
understand that is so on themark of why there's a real hard
time of people making atransition.
I'd love to put a star in thatif I could verbally, but
wonderful explanation.
The other piece I saw that youhelp people with was
(24:17):
cross-training, Similar to whatwe're talking about having the
ability to understand otherpeople's perspectives.
If I'm reading it correctly,you help that concept of
cross-training.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
Yeah.
So the other part from wheneverwe're talking about the talent
and how people know what they'redoing and how they know what a
good job looks like and how theycommunicate and meet and make
decisions the other aspect of itis what I call design, and
design is a design of the work,design of the organizational
(24:50):
structure, design on how thework flows, technology, how it
comes into play, and so whenwe're really looking at it from,
how do I build the bestcustomer experience and
everybody that's supporting it?
Then you can look at that andsay, well, how do I make sure
that?
That progress part you knowpeople are engaged and motivated
(25:11):
when they make progress onmeaningful work that progress
piece is the other part thatleaders generally don't, don't
look at.
So progress for me would be Idon't want to do the same thing
every day, so I want to learndifferent aspects of the work
and I want to be able to bepulled in as needed.
By the way, that's really goodfor the company, especially if
(25:31):
it goes through ebbs and flowsand workflow, to be able to
shift people to where they'reneeded, when and how they're
needed, and it's not just youknow frontline what we think
about in a, a processing centeror contact center.
We've built that design in in ahospital, in a cancer um center
(25:52):
, where nurses can change, sothey're not always the primary
care nurse.
They can move to differentareas and get a little bit of an
emotional and mental break, butalso can be called into areas
of need when they're needed.
That is not a typical viewbecause it's usually the more
you can do something exactly thesame way, the better.
(26:13):
But it's also when we'relooking at progress for these
individuals, it's their abilityto have that sense of value
where they can give feedback andcontribute into the change in
the design and the innovation.
If you're constantly doing thesame thing over and over again,
you're reinforcing that.
The status quo is thelimitation of this job.
(26:35):
You can have complaints, youcan be upset, you can say this
doesn't work and someone saysjust do it anyway, Right.
But when you kind of startfloating around and seeing
different perspectives of thebusiness, you may even realize
you know it's something I do inthat other role it really makes
this job harder for these peoplehere and I can go change that
(26:56):
and this gets easier.
It gives a lot more engagementtoo from just a mental.
You know the way that they'rementally engaged and they're
learning.
Because we love humans, love tolearn.
I mean, I try to convince againmy kids this.
They don't always agree, butthey but we do Right, cause when
they're, when you're notlearning, you don't feel, you
(27:18):
feel like there's somethingmissing.
So to be able to give theprogress, they have to be able,
your team has to be able to havethe ability to make
recommendations for the designand how things work and you need
to facilitate it working reallywell for them If they feel like
it's being impeded they'redoing.
You know the infamous TPS reportthat someone just shreds and I
(27:42):
actually even saw that once themailroom would put one document
in a mailbox to be mailed andone in this other one, and one
day we watched where that bigstack went and it literally went
to the third floor to beshredded and it was just like
everything I just did was toshred, like there was no point
to it.
You don't see those things ifyou don't give people the room
(28:04):
to follow it through, to look atdifferent areas to interact and
then give them the autonomy totry things right, safely.
Try things, you know,experiment with something
different, try to change it up.
And so I guess for this levelof leadership, there's sort of a
(28:25):
bit of a I don't know what theright word is but maybe there's
a fear of allowing the team tokind of try different things,
because you're getting all thispressure from above.
But you know, just rememberwhat it was like when you were
there and also give structure toit, right?
So you know the the theultimate goal would be to teach
(28:46):
your team how to think aboutproblems and how to think about
the way you want them toapproach things, not what to
think and what to do, if thatmakes sense.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Oh it does.
I'm pretty sure your experiencewith CEOs and presidents there
isn't someone who is sosingle-minded, that didn't have
experiences that were moreinclusive in terms of different
departments and different waysto grow that they ended up being
CEOs.
That's very limiting.
Some people have thatorientation.
(29:19):
Engineers are kind of noted forstaying the course and not
really wanting to stretch out,but the people who are at an
executive level, cross-trainingisn't really a shock.
It's sometimes expected.
So, dealing with executivesthat you've dealt with who
seemed to have done the best interms of growing his team,
(29:42):
growing his department, doingthat element of cross-training
or whatever the mechanics werethat you were able to help them
with, mechanics were that youwere able to help them with.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
So I being open to not knowing the answer and
saying I don't know.
You know, most of the time theyhave an idea of what the answer
should be.
But if you want to set thereally bad tone to the company,
it's to constantly tell peoplethis is what and this is how.
Um, because, quite frankly, youmay not be right.
You may be right, but what'sthe harm in having people
(30:16):
actually come to that conclusionon their own?
So the best ones are the onesthat say I don't know.
Here's my experience, here'sthe problem, here's what I want
to see happen as an outcome.
Figure it out.
Then they have to allow them.
They allow them the autonomy togo out and do it.
So that's often where you knowI help, I go and I help define.
(30:38):
What do you think the problemis?
What do you think, what do you,what is your outcome you need?
And then I take that and I helpcreate cross-functional teams
that will go and look atdefining that problem.
Sometimes the executives havethe problem wrong.
We were working, this team wasworking on an e-commerce and
(30:59):
they said okay, we want to do atwo-day delivery, we want to be
just like Amazon.
It's got to be two days.
And we went out and talked tocustomers, and the customer said
I don't care if it's two days,but I just want to.
When you say it's going to come, it has to come.
It wasn't a time issue, it wasan accuracy issue, and so, then,
uncovering what causes theaccuracy issue is a totally
(31:22):
different thing than figuringout two days that led to all of
these new discoveries, asolution that fixed the problem
but no one would have assumed upfront.
So, giving them the room to goout and explore and understand,
being willing to be wrong, beingwilling to say I don't know,
bringing experience, but beingopen to it not being the answer,
(31:47):
and then allowing them tochange it, then allowing putting
the money and the resourcesinto changing it.
Nothing will frustrate a teamfaster than giving them the
autonomy to come up with thebest solution to a problem and
not implementing it Right.
Because, then you will neverhave them come up, even if they
(32:08):
have a million good ideas.
What's the point?
Never have them?
Speaker 2 (32:12):
come up, even if they have a million good ideas.
What's the point, greg, youhave any other questions?
Speaker 1 (32:18):
I probably have a bunch and I'm going to drive
Lori crazy, so I just want tothank her for the time and the
expertise she shared with us.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
I'm good, so, lori, tell our audience a little bit
about how they can contact youand the different things that
you can do and help them ifthey're looking for some support
yeah, so I'm currently onlineon linkedin or you can uh laurie
at laurie-clarkcom.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
You can email me there too.
Um, I do executive coaching.
I do design work with teams.
So if you have a problem andyou want to be able to have a
team of yours to go solve it, Iwork on customer experience and
leadership development, figuringout ways to help your team,
like I said before, know how youwant them to think about
(33:05):
problem solving and criticalthinking.
So, yeah, really redesigningand structuring, transitioning a
company.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
And the whole idea of your organization is that
you're there to help.
Especially, you're talkingabout, maybe, some middle
managers and they're looking forresources.
It's what you've done, soawesome yeah it's build the
capability internally, it's it's.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
You know, it's usually never a people problem.
In my experience, I thinkpeople come to work wanting to
provide value and really wantingto do a great job.
I think most of them have everyskill they need to be able to
do it and often it's justdistraction and miscommunication
(33:53):
and too much work with toolittle time that puts people
into positions where they don'tfeel like they can succeed.
So helping remove that andhelping figure out exactly how
to put in place the structure tosucceed is everything for me
for my job.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Awesome, awesome.
We learned a lot, but more sowe learned that there's an
element of what you've done toencourage people and the
background that you have to helpthem be able to step back and
see.
So it's wonderful work.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Thank you yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Well, that concludes our interview and we want to
thank Lori Clark for her time.
It has been fun and I really,really have found it engaging.
Thank you, Lori, for taking thetime.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
Thank you, lori.
Thank you for having me, yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
So, if you like what you've heard, yeah, my book is
available on Amazon and Barnesand Noble.
The podcast is available onwhat you're listening to, thank
you.
It's also available on Googleand Spotify and Apple.
A lot of what we talked aboutis really coming from a book
from Dr Durst and his managementby responsibility program.
(35:06):
That really inspired us to dothe podcast and it's something
that you can find onsuccessgrowthacademycom and if
you want to get a hold of us,there's my website, authorjwcom,
and the music is brought to youby my grandson.
So, thank you for taking thetime and, laurie, thank you so
(35:26):
much for being on our programand thanks, greg.
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
John, as always next time yeah.
Hello everyone and welcome to Success Secrets and
Stories.
I'm your host, john Wynoloski,and I'm here with my co-host and
friend, greg Powell.
Greg, hey everybody, hey, yes,and today we're going to have an
opportunity to have aninterview with Lori Clark.
And a little bit about Lori.
(00:40):
Her degree is from TorontoUniversity and she has two
decades of experiencecollaborating with global CEOs
and founders of organizations.
She has worked in strategicchange, a catalyst of change,
organizational change.
She's done a lot of change andshe has focused on the
(01:01):
customer's experience,developing teams and to deliver
value.
A lot of what she has done isworking with the finesse of
human experience and to designnot only the cultural but the
effect of rapid growth andhaving people prepared to make
those changes and understandingthe concept of being a strategic
partner.
(01:21):
That's a wonderful backgroundof the things that you have done
, lori, but maybe you know,since I don't think a lot of
CEOs are listening to ourpodcast, we have a lot of
supervisors and managers thathave learned things from Greg
and I's perspective.
Welcome to the podcast and tellus a little bit about the
(01:44):
stories that you know about thesupervisory side.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Thank you for having me.
I think that the supervisorsand managers are the glue that
typically holds the organizationtogether.
So while you work with a lot ofCEOs and leaders to get what
they want done, it won't happenunless you have really strong
managers and supervisors withinthe company.
(02:07):
So I think that they're sort ofthe hardest worked and often
the least paid attention to areawithin a company.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
So, greg, maybe you can add something in terms of a
HR perspective, in terms of whatLori and her background relates
to as far as leadership.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Absolutely.
Thanks, john and Lori.
Fascinating phenomenal.
What you do, there's a need forit out there.
Don't stop doing it.
From my little HR perch I guess, working my way up doing the
entry-level jobs recruiter,trainer, employee relations and
all that work in the managementleadership, HR had a chance to
take a more profound role inhelping organizations get better
, deliver value, deliver morevalue and kind of untap or
(02:52):
unleash some of the things thatwere just kind of being hidden
behind, and I think a lot of itwas just taking the time.
And when I think of culture, Ithink of, yeah, we talk about
COVID and what was going on inthe States and whatever, and how
people not being in the sameoffice next to me and whatever
that meant.
But the culture thing has beenaround for a long, long, long
(03:13):
time.
And so can you take us backlike 20 years when you first
started getting involved in thiskind of work?
What were you working on atthat time?
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Yeah, so typically, companies come to me and leaders
come when they have a varietyof problems, whether it's from a
lack of growth, they need toreduce expenses, they want to
develop leadership, and, at theend of the day, they all have
this feeling like culture isreally important to success, but
it's not really something theycan quantify.
(03:40):
They don't really know how todo it.
Every time you look at acompany that's been successful
and they say, oh, look at theculture.
It's almost going backwards,trying to recreate it, and the
truth is that you can't.
Every company has a differentmix of resources, every company
has a different mix of talentand they exist in a different
(04:00):
time.
So I think that there is a greatmisunderstanding either of what
culture is and how to create it, and so the outcomes of
leadership development, customergrowth, expense reduction
really are all byproducts ofgetting things in line to get
(04:22):
the culture right, and for me,the culture is defined at that
intersection of talent anddesign.
It's right in that middle andthat balance that you go back
and forth with, and anytime theybecome disconnected or you're
working on them separately,you're going to start seeing
some of these challenges pop up,and then you start.
(04:46):
In my opinion, you start seeingleaders play what I call
corporate whack-a-mole, wherethey're just running around
trying to push down the problems, hoping they don't pop back up
again.
But they do, and so typicallywhat we do is just, first of all
, take a deep breath and try toget rid of all of the
distractions and go backdifferently and engage people on
(05:09):
the teams to be able to getexcited about being able to
(05:30):
fulfill those goals.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Thank you.
So that message in terms ofworking with different
individuals you've also workedwith CEOs and presidents of
organizations and they have thesame issues.
It's just that you'll see, theentry-level people don't
understand the mechanics of itand maybe a little bit about
helping them in terms ofself-awareness, in terms of your
(05:59):
coaching, maybe you can talkabout that a little bit for them
to be able to tune in andlisten.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Yeah, absolutely so.
I feel like it's actually a lotharder for them because they're
getting all of the informationfrom the frontline and from the
customers real time, and they'regetting all of these directives
and strategies and goals andhigh-level things that are
coming from executives andsometimes, when you put them
(06:23):
together, they don't make senseright.
And so I think the very firstthing is to understand that when
you become a manager or aleader, engagement of your team
comes from one person principleat its core.
People want to have progress onmeaningful work, and so when
(06:45):
you think about that and you saywhat's meaningful to them,
often we hear strategies andhigh level this is what we do,
this is our why and you hearstories of what goes wrong, but
what you don't often hear isthat that really this is what we
do and why we do it.
And that's where you, as youknow, as a manager and a leader,
(07:08):
a supervisor level you can goand you can make sure that your
team is constantly connectedwith why they're there and
what's meaningful in the workthat they do.
And I've I've tell this storysometimes about a young
gentleman in a contact centerand we were doing this big
design change and he was, youknow, checking the football
(07:29):
scores when I went to go ask hima question and I said you know,
I'm sorry.
Uh, you know, I will come backwhen you're not on break.
And he is that I'm not on break.
And I went and he said I'm noton break.
And I went there's 55 calls inqueue.
I mean this is a differentproblem and I said so, why
aren't you answering the phone?
And he said it's just peoplewanting money.
(07:51):
And this was a student lendingcenter and it was just very
apathetic.
It's just, you know, I'm anadministrator, I take the
application and I throw it offto the side, and so what it
realized there is there was ahuge disconnect to what they
were actually doing and so goingout and telling the stories you
know it's.
(08:11):
It's sally, who had to take timeoff to to raise, you know,
their her children always wantedto be a nurse is going back to
nursing school.
It's.
It's jack, who was sick as achild and now wants to be a
doctor, is going back to nursingschool.
It's Jack, who was sick as achild and now wants to be a
doctor and he needs to have thisto fund his education.
You're not giving them money,you're fulfilling their dreams
and in fact, when you answerthat phone, you might be one of
(08:34):
the most life-defining peoplefor them, because you might
change the trajectory of theirlife.
And how do you then get thatstory out?
How do you get that reminderout to people?
And sometimes people will saywell, well, yeah, that works if
you're, you know, customerfacing.
But what if I'm a risk manager?
And it's sort of the samemessage.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Look, you're super important.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
You have to be able to work with the business to
fulfill customer needs, but youneed to make sure there is a
business to fulfill customerneeds.
It's an incredibly importantjob.
You can't say no all the time,you're not expected to say yes
all of the time and you starthaving those conversations.
That defines meaningful work.
(09:21):
That's the first part.
Then we have to look atprogress.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
But what is your reaction to that?
Yeah, finding meaningful workand understanding the importance
.
My career was from facilitiesand housekeeping, and usually
two organizations that get verylittle respect.
During COVID, all of a sudden,it was 100% changed because we
were saving lives on the thingsthat we were doing.
But you brought up a veryinteresting point and I would
(09:51):
just want to go backwards alittle bit.
One of the interesting thingsthat I found during the process
of leading was taking a look ata person's job description and
sometimes they would repeat thejob description to me and how it
was impersonal and outdated anddidn't mean anything, and it's
an interesting exercise in whatare you asking them to do
(10:14):
specifically?
What kind of reference?
Well, it shouldn't be just ajob description.
There should be more to that.
Maybe the process of a jobdescription, maybe more.
What kind of setup should therebe to get employees to
understand the importance oftheir job?
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Yeah, I mean, I think there are a couple of things
you can do that you can showthem, first of all, the full
experience of the customer froma business, so that they have
context to where they fit in andhow it fits in.
And if ever you find yourselfsaying we don't fit in, that's a
good question to go to yourleader with and say I don't
(10:55):
understand where we fit in, sohow am I supposed to engage a
team if I don't understand it?
Right so, really making surethat you understand the full
picture, how you fit in, um,because that creates that
ability for you to bring forwardthe success stories and
feedback to other areas of thecompany as well, right so?
(11:16):
you don't feel like you're justdoing that checklist of a job.
I haven't really seen too manyjob descriptions where the
person actually does that Right.
So you know, like the jobdescription in a contact center
answer the phone, take theapplication, push the button to
submit, hang up phone.
Answer the phone.
That's not what you're askinghim to do, right.
(11:38):
You're asking him to be theface to your company You're
asking him to do right.
You're asking him to be theface to your company.
You're asking him to engage andunderstand a little bit more of
their needs.
In the end, with that particularclient, we asked them to maybe
not even give them a loan.
We asked them to help themfigure out the financial journey
to education, which sometimesmight be leading them to sites
(12:00):
that the government gave grantsor private ways to get you know
some scholarships, versus sayingyour job is to take
applications and close loans.
So I think once you becomereally clear about what the full
journey is, what you're tryingto achieve for customers where
you fit in, then you have thoseconversations with your team
(12:23):
that say you know this is whatsuccess looks like.
We often get really focused onwhat people aren't doing well,
but what you focus on grows.
So if you start focusing onthis is you know this is a bad
call.
Listen to how bad this call is.
Everyone's going to startfinding the bad right.
But if you go, listen to this isa great story, this is a great
(12:46):
call.
This isn't conventional, youknow.
They actually did.
They went off script.
I had one experience recentlywhere I had a terrible customer
experience and I tried to cancelmy service and throughout the
call the person kept sayingthank you for being a loyal
customer.
It drove me insane and I saidjust skip it.
(13:10):
Just skip that part.
If you had context to itinstead of a script, you
wouldn't keep thanking me.
It's really frustrating me andhe's like I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
And then he goes through the next little thing
and he's like and I just want toonce again thank you for being
a customer.
I was like.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
I'm trying really hard to not be your customer,
and so that's where thesedifferences come in, right.
If you say here's your jobdescription, follow the script,
answer the phone, submit thebutton, that's the kind of thing
you get, and I think there's somuch pressure on you.
Know, first-time managers andleaders that they have to hit
(13:49):
these quotas and the goals thatthey have set are all very
time-driven and quantitativethat they lose sight of those
qualitative pieces that actuallyquantitative, that they lose
sight of those qualitativepieces that actually help you
get those outcomes better right.
Or at least go back to yourleaders and say this doesn't
(14:09):
work.
You can't tell me to fulfilltheir need and do it in a minute
and a half.
I can't say yes to everythingthat comes on my desk and
protect our company frompotential harm.
And that's where I think thatat that level of the
organization, they getexpectations from both sides.
(14:32):
That grounding it again andhere's what the company does,
here's what we're here for,here's what matters most Allows
you to go back to your leaderwith some really good questions,
but also then guide your ownteam in figuring out how best to
feel that sense of value andmotivation with what they're
(14:53):
contributing to the company.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Greg, this is fascinating and I'm going to
throw you kind of a trickquestion, but I know you know
the answer to it.
When John and I were coming up,there was a group of people
called the Baby Boomers andthere was a group before us as
well and they told us theleadership, told us how we were
going to act, what clothes towear.
They defined the culture andeither you were part of the
culture or you were out of thecompany.
Well, we're older now, we outof the company.
(15:18):
Well, we're older now We've gotkids, grandkids, whatever, in
the workplace, right, and guesswhat?
They have voices.
There are some Gen X and Gen Zwho have kind of said no, no, I
don't feel like that today.
What do you mean?
I come in the office every day.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
I want hybrid minimally.
I'd rather be fully remote.
Have you seen that come intoplay?
Yeah, so I mean, I think thatthere's so many um ways that we
can work, and I think thatsometimes we get really
prescriptive on how we're goingto work and we say it's three
days, it's these days, it's notthis.
You can work from home, butdon't work from home and do this
, and what we're losing sight ofthere again is you're not
giving people the autonomy toknow what to work, when to work,
where to work.
If I really knew my contributionand I understood it, and I
(16:05):
understood that it's importantfor me to be in the office at a
specific time for a specifictype of work, I would.
But if I lose sight of what it,if I'm just saying, why are you
forcing me to do this?
You're not really trusting meto know when and how to do it,
Then that's you know, thatbecomes this lack of engagement.
(16:26):
That's where people want tocome in even less.
But I think the companies thathave the most problem with you
know, figuring out how to makehybrid and remote work is
because they already had a veryweak or inconsistent culture.
Because they already had a veryweak or inconsistent culture.
So if you think about it likethe way you described it before,
you left home and you almostput on your work uniform it
(16:55):
might've been a suit, whateverit was and you go in and there's
a culture in the office andthat that has a set of rules of
engagement, ways that you speak,how you work, who you work with
all of that times, et cetera,and then you would go home and
then you're home, you right.
And then what we did is in inCOVID we had everyone was home,
them at work, and so we wentfrom having like the corporate
(17:16):
blanket that was prettyconsistent to a quilt and we
were just like we don't knowwhat's going on with quilts.
Like quilts are reallychallenging and I don't.
I'm seeing like kids and dogsand home life and and who you're
around really impacts how youbehave.
And so you know there are timeswhere, like I go into work, I'm
(17:36):
very patient with my clients,I'm very patient with my teams.
I come home and if you see mewith my team, sometimes I'm just
like I the dishwasher, thedishwasher is right, you put it
on, not in like it's right there, you know, Um.
And so I think what we starteddoing is we.
We lost what the culture of thecompany was and we kind of
(17:59):
brought our home cultures in,which is not bad, it's great.
It's just we didn't know whatto do with it.
And so when the companystandards, the company kind of
vision of this is who we are andwhat we expect of our company
wasn't strong enough.
It just got so messy withpeople, and that's when you got
(18:22):
the edicts to come back, that'swhen you were just like I don't
know what's happening, Everyoneback in, and that's not the
right answer either, I would sayto those leaders I would say
your culture is pretty weak.
You should really work on that.
Maybe you need everyone back tofix it, but probably not.
(18:43):
You just need to put time andeffort into it right.
So you know, and that's thedesign part, that's why the
talent and design, that piece inthe middle, that's what defines
your culture.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
So for me, I think that there's a social element
that's missing with all this athome element and they don't know
how to actually verbalize thatthe whole thing about talking
about the water cooler, and canyou emulate that?
Can you, can you duplicate that?
Is there ways to try to get asocial exchange of ideas from
(19:21):
just you know, differentdepartments that have an
opportunity just to share casualconversations, and it's kind of
hard to do that artificially.
And some of that is if you havea company that is more
engineering based and it'sproduct based and you don't have
that kind of social environment.
Okay, but I think it's reallyhard for a lot of organizations
(19:43):
not to have some element ofsocial exchange and that whole
thing about being isolated andpeople feeling lonely.
I think that's part of the piecethat they can't seem to
verbalize.
I find that some organizationslike engineering teams that
gives you context and give youcontacts in order to meet people
(20:05):
and ask questions about theindustry.
Nobody attends the meetings anylonger.
They'll do it virtually andthat's a poor way to try to
create those connections.
But I think that's the piecethat I found really challenging.
I don't know if there's anycomment that you want to make on
that observation.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Yeah, I'd like to make two.
Actually that came to mind.
So during COVID in Canada, wewere at home for about three
years and the kids werehomeschooled for a lot of that
(20:50):
and is.
One day we were out in thefront of the house and a kid
from his class and the mom waswalking by and the mom started
talking to me and my son wasreally rude to him and I they
left and I said I don't, I don'teven know what that was.
And he said well, we don't getalong, I don't like him.
And I said you don't have toget along, you don't have to be
friends, but you can't be rude.
You need a base level ofrespect for the fact that this
(21:11):
is a human being.
And so when he was going backto school, he struggled and he
said I don't want to go, I don'tlike half the people in my
class.
And what I realized is, forthree years, the only people we
hung out with were people weliked, because it was that's
(21:31):
what you did.
And I said well, you need to goback to school and you need to
learn how to work with andrespect people you don't
necessarily like.
Like that's not a great thing,and I think we've done that in
work a lot.
Our tolerance level fordifferences has declined.
We hang out in ourneighborhoods and with our
friends and with our family andpeople we choose, but actually a
lot of innovative ideas andcreativity and even just
(21:55):
thinking about ways that anengineer learning from a
marketer is a brilliant thing,and we don't actually engage in
that way of different industriesand different way of thinking
and people we don't particularlylove, like we're not going to
go hang out with them on theweekend.
We still can learn from them andwe need to learn how to work
(22:16):
with them.
So the challenge with purelyremote work is I find people
lose that ability and that is areal disadvantage.
When we look at theproductivity numbers,
productivity improved butinnovation declined, product
launches declined and part ofthat is they're messy.
(22:36):
I design a lot of things andit's a messy, messy, messy,
messy environment.
People are talking over eachother, people are reaching over
each other.
I don't know how you do that.
Virtually you also feel anenergy, because humans give off
a natural energy and thatpositivity just doesn't come
across the screen and I don'tfeel that.
(22:57):
You know, you don't feel thatvibe when you're in a room.
That's a that's a reallyimportant component to remember.
Now, if the company you workfor is saying, nope, we're
hybrid, make sure that youfigure out a way to to engage
people, to want to come back atleast some of the time, to have
that feeling, to gain thatinsight, to bump into somebody I
(23:20):
don't know, even just whenyou're down getting lunch and
you're out and you're engagingwith all of these people.
Some of the best lessons I'veever had in my life have come
from the most bizarre places.
You know the, the sandwichperson or my taxi driver or and
I go.
that was so profound, and likethe universe conspired to get me
(23:41):
that message today.
Um, the messages I would get inmy house might just be from my
teenagers and I'm not surethat's going to enhance a lot.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
I just want to make a little bit of a point.
What you have just said is sohard for other people to
understand that is so on themark of why there's a real hard
time of people making atransition.
I'd love to put a star in thatif I could verbally, but
wonderful explanation.
The other piece I saw that youhelp people with was
(24:17):
cross-training, Similar to whatwe're talking about having the
ability to understand otherpeople's perspectives.
If I'm reading it correctly,you help that concept of
cross-training.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
Yeah.
So the other part from wheneverwe're talking about the talent
and how people know what they'redoing and how they know what a
good job looks like and how theycommunicate and meet and make
decisions the other aspect of itis what I call design, and
design is a design of the work,design of the organizational
(24:50):
structure, design on how thework flows, technology, how it
comes into play, and so whenwe're really looking at it from,
how do I build the bestcustomer experience and
everybody that's supporting it?
Then you can look at that andsay, well, how do I make sure
that?
That progress part you knowpeople are engaged and motivated
(25:11):
when they make progress onmeaningful work that progress
piece is the other part thatleaders generally don't, don't
look at.
So progress for me would be Idon't want to do the same thing
every day, so I want to learndifferent aspects of the work
and I want to be able to bepulled in as needed.
By the way, that's really goodfor the company, especially if
(25:31):
it goes through ebbs and flowsand workflow, to be able to
shift people to where they'reneeded, when and how they're
needed, and it's not just youknow frontline what we think
about in a, a processing centeror contact center.
We've built that design in in ahospital, in a cancer um center
(25:52):
, where nurses can change, sothey're not always the primary
care nurse.
They can move to differentareas and get a little bit of an
emotional and mental break, butalso can be called into areas
of need when they're needed.
That is not a typical viewbecause it's usually the more
you can do something exactly thesame way, the better.
(26:13):
But it's also when we'relooking at progress for these
individuals, it's their abilityto have that sense of value
where they can give feedback andcontribute into the change in
the design and the innovation.
If you're constantly doing thesame thing over and over again,
you're reinforcing that.
The status quo is thelimitation of this job.
(26:35):
You can have complaints, youcan be upset, you can say this
doesn't work and someone saysjust do it anyway, Right.
But when you kind of startfloating around and seeing
different perspectives of thebusiness, you may even realize
you know it's something I do inthat other role it really makes
this job harder for these peoplehere and I can go change that
(26:56):
and this gets easier.
It gives a lot more engagementtoo from just a mental.
You know the way that they'rementally engaged and they're
learning.
Because we love humans, love tolearn.
I mean, I try to convince againmy kids this.
They don't always agree, butthey but we do Right, cause when
they're, when you're notlearning, you don't feel, you
(27:18):
feel like there's somethingmissing.
So to be able to give theprogress, they have to be able,
your team has to be able to havethe ability to make
recommendations for the designand how things work and you need
to facilitate it working reallywell for them If they feel like
it's being impeded they'redoing.
You know the infamous TPS reportthat someone just shreds and I
(27:42):
actually even saw that once themailroom would put one document
in a mailbox to be mailed andone in this other one, and one
day we watched where that bigstack went and it literally went
to the third floor to beshredded and it was just like
everything I just did was toshred, like there was no point
to it.
You don't see those things ifyou don't give people the room
(28:04):
to follow it through, to look atdifferent areas to interact and
then give them the autonomy totry things right, safely.
Try things, you know,experiment with something
different, try to change it up.
And so I guess for this levelof leadership, there's sort of a
(28:25):
bit of a I don't know what theright word is but maybe there's
a fear of allowing the team tokind of try different things,
because you're getting all thispressure from above.
But you know, just rememberwhat it was like when you were
there and also give structure toit, right?
So you know the the theultimate goal would be to teach
(28:46):
your team how to think aboutproblems and how to think about
the way you want them toapproach things, not what to
think and what to do, if thatmakes sense.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Oh it does.
I'm pretty sure your experiencewith CEOs and presidents there
isn't someone who is sosingle-minded, that didn't have
experiences that were moreinclusive in terms of different
departments and different waysto grow that they ended up being
CEOs.
That's very limiting.
Some people have thatorientation.
(29:19):
Engineers are kind of noted forstaying the course and not
really wanting to stretch out,but the people who are at an
executive level, cross-trainingisn't really a shock.
It's sometimes expected.
So, dealing with executivesthat you've dealt with who
seemed to have done the best interms of growing his team,
(29:42):
growing his department, doingthat element of cross-training
or whatever the mechanics werethat you were able to help them
with, mechanics were that youwere able to help them with.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
So I being open to not knowing the answer and
saying I don't know.
You know, most of the time theyhave an idea of what the answer
should be.
But if you want to set thereally bad tone to the company,
it's to constantly tell peoplethis is what and this is how.
Um, because, quite frankly, youmay not be right.
You may be right, but what'sthe harm in having people
(30:16):
actually come to that conclusionon their own?
So the best ones are the onesthat say I don't know.
Here's my experience, here'sthe problem, here's what I want
to see happen as an outcome.
Figure it out.
Then they have to allow them.
They allow them the autonomy togo out and do it.
So that's often where you knowI help, I go and I help define.
(30:38):
What do you think the problemis?
What do you think, what do you,what is your outcome you need?
And then I take that and I helpcreate cross-functional teams
that will go and look atdefining that problem.
Sometimes the executives havethe problem wrong.
We were working, this team wasworking on an e-commerce and
(30:59):
they said okay, we want to do atwo-day delivery, we want to be
just like Amazon.
It's got to be two days.
And we went out and talked tocustomers, and the customer said
I don't care if it's two days,but I just want to.
When you say it's going to come, it has to come.
It wasn't a time issue, it wasan accuracy issue, and so, then,
uncovering what causes theaccuracy issue is a totally
(31:22):
different thing than figuringout two days that led to all of
these new discoveries, asolution that fixed the problem
but no one would have assumed upfront.
So, giving them the room to goout and explore and understand,
being willing to be wrong, beingwilling to say I don't know,
bringing experience, but beingopen to it not being the answer,
(31:47):
and then allowing them tochange it, then allowing putting
the money and the resourcesinto changing it.
Nothing will frustrate a teamfaster than giving them the
autonomy to come up with thebest solution to a problem and
not implementing it Right.
Because, then you will neverhave them come up, even if they
(32:08):
have a million good ideas.
What's the point?
Never have them?
Speaker 2 (32:12):
come up, even if they have a million good ideas.
What's the point, greg, youhave any other questions?
Speaker 1 (32:18):
I probably have a bunch and I'm going to drive
Lori crazy, so I just want tothank her for the time and the
expertise she shared with us.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
I'm good, so, lori, tell our audience a little bit
about how they can contact youand the different things that
you can do and help them ifthey're looking for some support
yeah, so I'm currently onlineon linkedin or you can uh laurie
at laurie-clarkcom.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
You can email me there too.
Um, I do executive coaching.
I do design work with teams.
So if you have a problem andyou want to be able to have a
team of yours to go solve it, Iwork on customer experience and
leadership development, figuringout ways to help your team,
like I said before, know how youwant them to think about
(33:05):
problem solving and criticalthinking.
So, yeah, really redesigningand structuring, transitioning a
company.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
And the whole idea of your organization is that
you're there to help.
Especially, you're talkingabout, maybe, some middle
managers and they're looking forresources.
It's what you've done, soawesome yeah it's build the
capability internally, it's it's.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
You know, it's usually never a people problem.
In my experience, I thinkpeople come to work wanting to
provide value and really wantingto do a great job.
I think most of them have everyskill they need to be able to
do it and often it's justdistraction and miscommunication
(33:53):
and too much work with toolittle time that puts people
into positions where they don'tfeel like they can succeed.
So helping remove that andhelping figure out exactly how
to put in place the structure tosucceed is everything for me
for my job.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Awesome, awesome.
We learned a lot, but more sowe learned that there's an
element of what you've done toencourage people and the
background that you have to helpthem be able to step back and
see.
So it's wonderful work.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Thank you yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Well, that concludes our interview and we want to
thank Lori Clark for her time.
It has been fun and I really,really have found it engaging.
Thank you, Lori, for taking thetime.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
Thank you, lori.
Thank you for having me, yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
So, if you like what you've heard, yeah, my book is
available on Amazon and Barnesand Noble.
The podcast is available onwhat you're listening to, thank
you.
It's also available on Googleand Spotify and Apple.
A lot of what we talked aboutis really coming from a book
from Dr Durst and his managementby responsibility program.
(35:06):
That really inspired us to dothe podcast and it's something
that you can find onsuccessgrowthacademycom and if
you want to get a hold of us,there's my website, authorjwcom,
and the music is brought to youby my grandson.
So, thank you for taking thetime and, laurie, thank you so
(35:26):
much for being on our programand thanks, greg.
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
John, as always next time yeah.
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