Mastering Leadership Adaptability and Change Through Coaching with Stefanie Krievins

Unlock the hidden rhythms of leadership adaptability and change management with Stefanie Krievins on our latest Leadership Vision Podcast. Stefanie, a seasoned life coach and HR consultant, weaves her narrative through the Change Architecture framework, demonstrating how leaders can balance driving change and valuing the guardians of institutional memory. Prepare to engage with the idea that adaptability is both a shield of resilience and a chameleon of responsiveness, empowering you to navigate the ever-shifting landscapes of organizational dynamics with confidence and agility.

Have you considered yourself a 'pro troublemaker' or a 'benevolent disruptor'? Stefanie Krievins challenges you to embrace these roles to pursue positive organizational change. Our conversation traverses the epiphany of one's aptitude for change management to the enduring power of peer support, injecting Marie Forleo's wisdom that "everything is figureoutable" into the heart of leadership. We bring to light the transformative influence of coaching on an IT leadership team, dissecting how trust-building, communication and a centered coaching presence can revolutionize team culture and bolster professional efficiency.

As we wrap up, celebrate with us the hallmarks of successful coaching engagements and the profound impact of personal growth on leadership. With Stefanie's expert insights, we underscore the art of creating spaces where authenticity breeds a thriving culture. Listeners keen on nurturing such environments or seeking further guidance are invited to connect. Join us for this thought-provoking journey, and equip yourself with the tools to foster resilience and strength in your organization.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Everything can be learned and figured out. And, brian, I'm just going to continue with this whole adaptability fabric that you taught I just I love that notion, this idea of being adaptable and understanding how adaptability is ingrained in you, I think, is really an amazing self-awareness point for any leader Like you have to understand your relationship to change, and that's a lot of what we teach people is what's your relationship to change? How can you leverage it? Because the fact of the matter is is I am too adaptable to change. I can drive change so, so quickly, that's not always the right solution. The people that hold stability in organizations hold institutional knowledge, hold. This is what needs to stay the same so these other pieces can grow. They are equally as valuable in this world. They still need to understand the relationship to change. And then the people who move too fast need to be able to work with the people who move quote unquote too slow, because that's what makes the world work move quote unquote too slow, because that's what makes the world work.

Speaker 2: 1:11

Hello and welcome to the Leadership Vision Podcast, our show helping you build positive team culture. Our consulting firm has been doing this work for the past 25 years, so the leaders are mentally engaged and emotionally healthy. Hello everyone, my name is Nathan Freeberg, your host, and today in the podcast, we're delighted to welcome Stephanie Kreevans. Stephanie is a trained coach and facilitator with experience in HR consulting and business coaching. She's also the host of the Hot Mess Hotline, a podcast for ambitious leaders who want to drive impactful change. She's also the creator of the Change Architecture, which provides a new framework for driving transformation in the 21st century, and today in our conversation, stephanie shares insights into her career journey, her shift towards becoming a life coach and her innovative approach to organizational change and pro-troublemaking, which we'll talk about. We'll also discuss some other things along the lines of adaptive fabric and how teams can become a little bit less of a hot mess. This is the Leadership Vision Podcast. Let's get started.

Speaker 1: 2:14

Business-wise master's degree in nonprofit management, really wanted to go into that world to save the world and change the world and worked for Catholic Charities in the Archdiocese of Indianapolis as a marketing person and then sweet talked my way into a HR and leadership development consulting firm in the mid, late, late 2000s. So that's where I got to be the behind the scenes associate consultant writing comp plans, performance management plans, competencies training, seeing what executive coaching could do. Got to experience a little bit of all of it. And then they asked me to be sales, because woo is one of my top 10 strengths, in case you didn't pick up on that real fast.

Speaker 3: 3:00

That's awesome.

Speaker 1: 3:01

Yeah, it comes gushing out like glitter out of my eyeballs.

Speaker 4: 3:04

Right.

Speaker 1: 3:11

But got to learn a little bit about consultative sales there and then went to go work for a national nonprofit that did Christian social justice training and development. So I basically wrote training curriculum so that lay leaders inside of Catholic parishes could help lead a group you know eight, 10 people on the tenants of Catholic social teaching. Um, something I'm just devoted to. Um, I converted to Catholicism as an adult because of Catholic social teaching. It's, it's my jam, it's the thing that drives me Like, my top value is to like, bring bold compassion to the world. Um, and so I love that organization and then grew to hate all of my colleagues and work there because I signed up for a Salesforce conversion project and so I had a tech consultant who was customizing Salesforce for our organization. I was the business strategist.

Speaker 1: 4:02

I asked for one additional resource and that was for someone to help me clean 10 years of Excel data and make it consistent, and they said no. So then Stephanie was cleaning Excel data, copying and pasting parish data off of publicly available websites to basically take 10 years of Excel files. So 17 Excel files, one access database, an old fundraising database that was. It was luckily, the data was very clean. Uh, there were 30,000 people in there and then all the parishes around the company so I could connect all the data from diocese to parish to participant to program. 28 columns wide, 26,000 rows long. Scarred me for life but I cleaned it all. It was super consistent Got it into Salesforce, wrote the training manuals and said I'm out.

Speaker 3: 4:57

Nice, that's awesome. I've had those moments too.

Speaker 1: 5:01

Good luck, yeah, yeah. So the good part of that is yes, yes, and it didn't. That's not. That was my inside voice. The outside voice was um, I would like to have one job with you all and that is to sell you not to do the other three things that I'm doing, and I'm going to become a life coach. So I did that and so, in the process of hating my job and my colleagues, I went to a life coach and I was like help, like I don't know why I'm in this position, like I said yes to something that's very meaningful to me and I hate it. Like what is wrong with me and, as we all know as coaches, there's nothing wrong with me.

Speaker 1: 5:49

I was in the wrong environment, environment and I wasn't yet brave enough to say what am I really made for in this world? And what I'm made for is to be a truth teller. I'm an eight on Enneagram, I'm a female eight, right, like the thing that the world cannot comprehend. But how do I use that? As a gift and not as a detriment or a distraction from the team? And so, by becoming a coach, I realized how to hone those gifts. To do that Started out as a life coach 10 years ago, brought in my experience writing, training and development, working for the HR consulting company, started doing executive coaching, self-taught team coaching, just started adding the tools that you do and was looking for a differentiator, because I feel like a lot of coaches say they're in leadership development and I feel like the folks that are really good at it make a really great business out of it and I didn't want to compete in that space.

Speaker 1: 6:33

And so I realized really what we have is a book of business and work around change management. So, doubled down on change management, wanted to put some of my own spends on it. So the literature calls it positive deviancy, I call it pro-troublemaking. You know positive change agents you actually want to work with. And then I had a former boss tell me that my specialty is fixing hot messes, creating order out of chaos, like what I learned when I was five. And so we do that for businesses. Now You've got those programs, those projects, where you're like God, this is icky and weird and terrible and I don't know what to do with it. We know how to get people to start solving those problems, not just because of coaching, not just because of development programs, some project management, some communication elements, some self-leadership, some team leadership, some change readiness elements. That's what the change architecture is, is those in talent. Experience too is we say let's take all of those elements and unify them as a strategy so you can accomplish your strategic plan and create daily action and priority from it.

Speaker 3: 7:43

That's amazing. I have a question right away when you transitioned or had this revelation that change and change management was your thing, was that a client experience? Was that a season of your life Like in your business? Did you see things going that way or were you caught by surprise saying, oh, this is it. We have to pivot.

Speaker 1: 8:06

Yeah. So, god's honest truth, there I was in a mastermind and a woman, a friend of mine in that group, a dear friend, she has an MBA. I would say at that time much more seasoned in traditional business context than I was because I was very used to the small consulting firm. That's been a lot of my clients in the past. That's where I've worked. I understand that model, that way of working. She understands the larger organizations. She goes and I would bring this question, like I'm really struggling with, like what my position is, what my differentiator is what do we do beyond leadership development? She's like you do change management. I was like, oh, okay, duh, yeah, it is. It was super powerful. It was got hit over the head with dust Stephanie moment.

Speaker 4: 8:51

Yeah, but it's I, that's the power of the peer groups, that that's the power of the voices outside of the own, your own one in your head or on your team, and so, yeah, I think it's. I think it's just aha, you were who you were, and then someone just called that out in you. I love it, yeah.

Speaker 3: 9:10

And so when that transition happened because I'm hearing your story and part of our practice is we listen to thousands of stories a year it seemed like you were being like you said yourself there's change, change, change in your life. Did you realize that you were, like so well equipped to even handle the topic?

Speaker 1: 9:35

No, I felt very ill equipped, but one of the. I believe there are very few truths in this life, and but one of the ones that I hold dear is everything is figureoutable. I can learn to do anything, and that's you know. Marie Forleo says that, but every problem has a solution.

Speaker 1: 9:55

Like you all didn't pop out of the womb knowing about StrengthsFinder Like. It's all an evolution, you know, and we can learn faster by learning from our mentors and from books and from courses and classes Like I have, I have never not. That's where my confidence comes from, is I know I can figure it out. I don't have to have all the answers, because why? Because everyone else does Like, let's learn about it and figure it out. So that's really at the heart of what I knew to be true was oh well, if that's the area, if that's the label, that's the thing that speaks to other people. I can learn that, no problem. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 10:36

I have layers, but ask her why you asked her.

Speaker 4: 10:40

I know there's a reason.

Speaker 3: 10:41

I asked you because if you, according to your story, if you're in an environment where you've had to consistently figure things out, there's probably an adaptive capacity there that you have. That's part of your inner fabric, Like it's part of like your internal mapping, it's just you know how to work around construction zones. And if you have that, sometimes people don't even realize that their ability to navigate change is so ingrained in them. They think that's what everybody does. Then when they find a career that aligns with that, it's like rocket fuel. Um, and so sometimes people that have that natural adaptive tendency for change do not realize it because it's just how they are. And that's why I asked was there like this synergy of like, oh, I just know how to do this because that's just how I live? Doesn't everybody think like that? So that's why I'm tracking because I've heard similar stories of leaders with tremendous capacity is because they were in survival mode in the earliest stages of cognitive formation and they just know how to adapt to situations and change on a dime and that's just normal.

Speaker 1: 11:44

That's why I asked adapt to situations and change on a dime and that's just normal.

Speaker 1: 11:47

That's why I asked yeah, that's a beautiful way to put it I I in the past, I would have used the word resilience, but I think adaptive fabric adaptability is, it's definitely a part of resilience, but it's um, it's a different kind of muscle, um, and there's actually, I would say, more flexibility there, because you use the word fabric right, and it flows and it moves and it adapts and it lays on things and takes its shape and that's different than resilience. I love that. Can you tell, like, say more about adaptive fabric? On its own is a sidestep.

Speaker 3: 12:26

It's not forward, not necessarily, and so sometimes people adapt really well, but they don't act after they've adapted and so, like an adaptive fabric, it moves with your body wherever it's going, but there's a forward lean to it as well. Maps can be used as a destination, like to find a destination or to lead you somewhere. Some people just find their destination, they stay. Now other people use the same fabric or the same mapping system to get somewhere, to connect to other people, to bridge other cultures, and there's a motion there. And so I think about adaptive capacity, especially with Linda's doctoral work. There are just certain leaders where they're always adapting forward, but it's two to the left and one forward. They're, they're moving, and there's there's something about the liquidity of adaptive capacities that just lends itself to change navigating, accepting change, and whatever the timing is around. How that person navigates, that's kind of up to them.

Speaker 4: 13:24

Because sometimes we don't think that people have you know that they're just stubborn or they're just dug in and they don't want to change. We often say this is your opportunity to grow your adaptive capacity, working with people to help them practice that adapting and not dying and realizing oh, this change can be good, and we are drawn to people like you that are benevolent disruptors. That's the language that we use.

Speaker 2: 13:58

Yeah, I believe the term is pro troublemaker, right, but just the same thing. Yeah, the same thing. Like someone who is coming into an organization who sees this thing needs to be changed or we can do things better, or this is broken and someone should fix it, and you're kind of that agitator that annoys everybody until something happens. Is that even close?

Speaker 1: 14:36

to how you're using that term.

Speaker 3: 14:41

I'll frame it slightly.

Speaker 1: 14:44

Please do. Yeah, it's not about the change per se. It's about how the change is done or how people are included in the change. The reality is is we all change every single day. Otherwise we'd have the same pants on since 1979.

Speaker 1: 15:00

That's a good pants, yeah, but it's how the change is done, and so we are very familiar with the devil's advocate, the let me. Let me nitpick all of your ideas and tell you how you're going to get, how all of this is wrong and it's not going to work. Now, that kind of forward thinking is actually very positive. How it's framed is troublemaker or pro troublemaker? Positive. How it's framed is troublemaker or pro troublemaker? But it never feels good when you come in to present an idea and and Karen over in marketing tells you all the reasons that won't work. Like no one wants to hear. That right, you put creative energy into something, but so you know that's the troublemaker, the pro troublemaker. So Karen in marketing, as the pro troublemaker, is going to say things like Nathan, thank you so much for putting this thought and energy into this and bringing us together so we could have this conversation. May I share with you some of the roadblocks that I think we need to think about before we get into this project to make it as successful as possible.

Speaker 2: 16:00

It's much more gracious.

Speaker 1: 16:01

Nathan, would you like to hear the answers to?

Speaker 2: 16:03

that. I would love to hear the answers to that, Stephanie. Thank you.

Speaker 4: 16:06

Great Tune in next time.

Speaker 1: 16:11

It's those pieces. It's one of the things that I've really been thinking on lately is everything is an invitation. Everything in our life is an invitation, an invitation to show up to work, to engage yourself in the work, to be motivated by the work. And I think pro-troublemakers realize that and understand that so many people come into work and they use slavery type language and it's like that's so inappropriate. Actually, this is a workplace. You are an adult, you choose to be here. Should you not choose to be here, let's help you find that place. But I think a pro troublemaker invites people into the process, invites people to see the possibilities and allows people to opt in and out. Right, like that's. It's either a hell yes or a hex no. Let me get out of here and that's okay.

Speaker 1: 16:59

But the pro troublemaker sees possibilities, invites people in, connects with the work, with joy versus burden, understands that we do the work together. No one does this work alone. It's the person that when they walk into the meeting they're like I can't wait to hear what she has to say. The troublemaker is oh my gosh, she's going to bring up everything that's not working again and tell us how much we suck. That's the troublemaker People don't want to work with those people. They want to work with the people that bring joy to the workplace and understand their own strengths and their own weaknesses and others, and know who to bring into the working group to make it better. Not because there's politics involved. So that's how I see the pro troublemaker.

Speaker 2: 17:44

I just wonder how do you create a pro troublemaker, Because I know lots of troublemakers. Can that be taught?

Speaker 1: 17:48

Raise your hand. If you used to be one, I've been one.

Speaker 2: 17:51

That too, we all got to be honest here Is it a mindset, is it just a reframing of an approach? Or is there like a 12-step program you can send this troublemaker through to become a pro troublemaker.

Speaker 1: 18:02

Become a pro troublemaker. Yes, send me $1.99 and there's a 47-step process.

Speaker 2: 18:06

That is a bargain.

Speaker 1: 18:06

It is a bargain. Yeah, so it has four components you need new actions, you need new tools, you need a new mindset and you need to connect to the meaning of the work. So the ATMM is the framework that I have there, to the meaning of the work. So the ATMM is the is the framework that I have there. Um, but I think in order to be a pro troublemaker, you need to upgrade your skillset in all of those areas.

Speaker 3: 18:33

Can you say them again?

Speaker 1: 18:35

Uh, actions, tools, mindset, and then meaning.

Speaker 3: 18:39

Well, Stephanie, this has been absolutely fascinating. I have several things in my mind, but I just want to maybe summarize it this way Do you have an example of pro-troublemaking in a team context or with an individual?

Speaker 1: 18:52

Yeah, so first I like to start with. That's why I think self-leadership is different than team leadership In order to lead a team, you have to lead yourself first. They are two different sets of tools, and so some examples there. I did recently get to work with an IT team, and so this is the senior leadership team responsible for overseeing close to 700 IT folks in this IT function, and we worked with the team itself team slash working group.

Speaker 1: 19:22

There's some thin lines there with this group, but basically we went through a six month process with them to help them understand. One they had to build trust among themselves. Two, they had to see and learn and assume positive intent from their colleagues and others, because they were assuming that some of the questions that they were getting from those that they managed were coming from a not great place. And instead I help them reframe it of. You have a very curious group that asks a lot of questions. They may be nitpicky questions, but let's reframe it as curiosity, helping them understand that their jobs as leaders was to educate those that reported to them about how things really worked around here, versus oh my God, why can't they get their act together and just show up with accountability. It's like well, they need education in order to do that, and I would argue that that is your role as a leader currently, based on their areas of development, and so we would do that. We helped them understand that they had to increase the frequency, depth and repetition of their communication as strategic leaders.

Speaker 1: 20:30

And then, when we coached individuals on the team, one leader in particular, you know, on the disc style. He was the complete opposite of their new CIO. So he was S on disc, so high on steadiness and stability. The CIO was super high D and I. So all about action and activating, so high in dominance and influence. For those that don't know discs, that are listening in Completely opposite styles, completely high conflict, because they just communicated on two very different levels. So the S leader that we were coaching, we helped him understand why and how his message wasn't landing with his manager so that he could adapt it and he could reshape what action looked like to him so that he could reframe it with his CIO. So the CIO understood the action that he was taking and how it was connected to the goals.

Speaker 4: 21:19

That's great, that's a great example.

Speaker 1: 21:40

That's a great example, because I'm thinking about of all the like, the new actions, new tools, new mindset, new meaning, which one of those components is often the biggest lift Like, which I feel like the mindset one is the one that takes the longest, but once it clicks, it activates everything else. That's good.

Speaker 4: 21:55

I thought the same. Thing.

Speaker 3: 21:57

When I was like mind lean, when I looked at your list, I thought the mindset probably is the tightest knot of all four of those Cause we as human beings naturally search for meaning. That's just part of how we're we're, we're wired, but that mindset piece, that seems to be a much different lift, especially when it comes to change, and the brain doesn't want to change.

Speaker 1: 22:20

So yes, the limbic brain doesn't want to change yeah. When we let it take over.

Speaker 3: 22:27

Absolutely. Do you have an example? This is going to. It sounds strange in my head.

Speaker 1: 22:36

Nathan, I can totally see you laughing at me?

Speaker 3: 22:38

I can see you.

Speaker 1: 22:39

He's practicing his new mindset.

Speaker 3: 22:43

This is self what I'm hearing in your description of your process. It involves a collaboration with a coach and an individual, and my question is directed at you, as you're working through some of this information in this material with your clients, how do you find yourself responding to it? Are you reminded of the need for pliability in your own mindset? Are you, you know, like, does doing the work instigate a new, a deep request for meaning? Does that make sense Like cause? Sometimes we're not immune to the work we're doing ourselves, and this seems like such important work.

Speaker 1: 23:26

Oh my God, I couldn't agree more. Here's how I will articulate this and tell me if I'm reflecting what you're articulating as well. So, baseline if you're going to call yourself a coach, I believe strongly that you must be trained as a coach, because a coach mindset is unlike any other resource on this planet, and one of the top things that we learned in my coach training program was how to get into the coach mindset, and I believe very strongly that that is a very neutral place where I intentionally go to the center of the wheel on disc right, like as a human being. I have no strengths, I have no disc style. I am a mirror. I am to bring processes and tools and new perspectives to my client.

Speaker 1: 24:10

In the moment, the greatest gift of coaching is my human presence to another human Period, full stop. That's what coaching is. Obviously, as a human, I'm still a human. I have my biases. I have my things right, so that's my work to do. When I stop up leveling, I stop up leveling. I find that my clients get stuck too because I'm stuck. So every time I, as a human, up level, I start seeing my clients take off, and it's a thing of beauty. I don't know if you guys have experienced that, but to me I'm like this is why I do what I do.

Speaker 3: 24:43

It's so amazing. Yeah, yeah, because the work creates a level of vulnerability. Is there something that you do as a practice to prepare you to be present?

Speaker 1: 24:52

Yes. So my process is 10, 15 minutes before the meeting. Even if I'm physically making small talk, I'm going inside of myself, kind of into my soul, into like the center part of my being. If you will, I kind of picture myself like sitting on my soul, into like the center part of my being. If you will, I kind of picture myself like sitting on my chest maybe, I guess, and that's where I center my sense of self is right there, because that to me represents neutrality. I will intentionally then kind of do some kind of rapport building exercise. You know, let's go around the room, let's do a check-in word for how you're feeling right now.

Speaker 1: 25:27

As folks are doing that, I'm centering myself and then we start with the outcome for the session. Either it's either been preset before we get to the team coaching or the client brings it up in the moment and as the as that person or persons is answering that, or we're setting that up. That is the moment I am in coach mode, and so when I'm in coach mode I am nonjudgmental, I am not interpreting what they are saying through any other lens than what they're trying to convey, and you know I've heard some real ridiculous things in coaching sessions and then when I'm back in human mode, you know 20,. You know 12 hours later I'm like, oh, that ain't right, oh, shoot, but that's how nonjudgmental I get is. I'm not hearing that through any kind of context or filter, I am just hearing and feeling their words on their face and then Later I might need to go into consulting mode. That's different, but in the moment I do not because I am honoring that presence right there.

Speaker 4: 26:36

And do you like the mix of doing both the coaching and consulting, like the kind of the ebb and flow, as maybe coaching informs the consulting is for staying in that neutral place, but then also we're paid for our know. We get into this because people look at you with wisdom, with authority, Um, so do you see them playing? You see them going hand in hand?

Speaker 1: 27:03

They do go hand in hand, and I would throw in training in there. You know other development methodologies. I do prefer to be a coach. My soul was meant to be a coach.

Speaker 3: 27:11

I do prefer to be a coach.

Speaker 1: 27:13

My soul was meant to be a coach. Consulting is not my most favorite thing to do. I do it because the clients need it, but I would prefer to be a coach virtually all of the time. I'm also a president of a company that's another role. I'm also a business development person that's another role and I accept those roles. And I accept the consultant role in order to get to the what about consulting?

Speaker 2: 27:38

Don't you like or is not your favorite? For all the world Right?

Speaker 4: 27:45

Dear client, we should cut that out. No but it's honest no, I think the question may inform the follow-up question right there are some things that if I took this role out of my day I might feel better, but I actually still like it right or still, I'm good at it yeah, you can be good at something, but it maybe doesn't fuel me in the same way exactly

Speaker 1: 28:09

I think for me, here's what I really don't like. I feel like the consulting industry is. So there's such a weird relationship that clients and consultants have and we come into that baggage and I don't like it. Most consultants are not known for delivering on time, on budget, with quality and those are three non-negotiables in my life. And so then when you step into the consulting relationship with clients, I just feel like stuff gets bajiggity and I just don't like it.

Speaker 3: 28:50

How do you spell that Big B-A-J-G-I-G-I-G-I?

Speaker 4: 28:51

I might try to use that she will.

Speaker 3: 28:54

She'll weave it into our conversation.

Speaker 4: 28:55

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 28:56

I need a ton of self-awareness around it, cause I can't really put my finger on it. It just it feels strivy. It feels you know a lot of management consultants will say things like well, let's double click on that. I'm like what?

Speaker 4: 29:11

So is it inauthent what?

Speaker 2: 29:12

so is it inauthentic.

Speaker 4: 29:14

Is it inauthentic like sometimes? Uh, I remember we came into a consulting job, maybe it's 12 years ago even what and someone said I've never seen, and brian just comes into the room and as I do, and one of the women was like I've never seen a consultant walk in without shoes on, and it was this, my feet were hot. I think, and I think for me it was this awareness of we're going to bring the best of who we are, but if we're not authentic, then I don't want to be in this business.

Speaker 3: 29:48

Yes, stephanie, to my, just to defend myself. We were in a country that was close to the equator so it was on the warmer side and I thought that you know shoes were optional. That client called me the barefoot consultant from that point forward, and so I own that.

Speaker 2: 30:09

I think you had socks on though.

Speaker 3: 30:11

I don't remember, so I say that to say I think he had socks on, though I don't remember, no, so I say that to say.

Speaker 4: 30:15

I think we've bumped into that as well and I think we've wrestled with. Okay, how is this our calling? To sit with people and begin to reveal their brilliance of beauty and transform how they think about that so that it can benefit humanity. Not just so that you know. It's our shtick, it is, it is rather.

Speaker 1: 30:34

So you can get in the billable hour by the quarter of the hour.

Speaker 4: 30:37

Yeah, yeah, and I and I hear, I hear your heart there to really that you really want to help people. At the end of the day, you want to be with people because, like we all know, you can't do this world by yourself. You can't do the work. You need the voices of others to help refine you and grow you into new places.

Speaker 3: 30:56

I think that loops back around to something that we said earlier about your natural adaptive capacities for change that wrestling with the authentic expression of who you are in the midst of stereotype and bias that a client may bring that reflects a value of yours and bias that a client may bring that reflects a value of yours. And part of the reason why I asked you like how you prepare was like how do you get in the place of presenting your authentic self to invite your own words, to invite people to present their authentic self? Because that leveling, then, is another further invitation to bridge someone into the actual plan of change. Further invitation to bridge someone into the actual plan of change, because I believe that there are sometimes that people are wrestling with their expression of themselves and how change may impact that. Then their authentic understanding of who they are as they engage change and that protecting of the mask will sometimes try to deflect the necessary change that you have to engage. Does that?

Speaker 4: 31:55

ring true? Yeah, what part resonates with you?

Speaker 1: 31:58

Yeah, oh, I agree. One of the things that I see people wrestle with the most is it's not the change itself, it's the protection of something the lack of awareness of what masks they are wearing. The lack of awareness of what masks they are wearing, the inability to articulate themselves, causes such a high degree of frustration for them that then gets projected around the room and everywhere. People's inability to manage their egos At their heart. Everyone is a good human being, everyone is there for all the right reasons, and it's the stuff in between that creates the friction. It's not them as a human, and so I do feel like it's part of my calling to show up with like, basically like my soul bearing itself in all the right ways, not in like complete, inappropriate vulnerability, but to be like like I bring my soul and my heart to the world, because I want you to see how awesome it is, um, I want you to see the power and the freedom in not wearing shoes into a client meeting, cause damn, it feels good.

Speaker 2: 33:06

It's definitely I don't this. This might kind of follow up with maybe part of the reason you don't like consulting or one of the things that I've Thanks for the free coaching, by the way, you guys, I appreciate this.

Speaker 1: 33:16

Well, I'm curious.

Speaker 2: 33:17

Something that has always struck me as odd about consulting is that part of part of the goal is to to continue consulting, to like keep working with people, to keep going to fix them, just enough to know that they need more of you. Yeah, it's like marriage and it's like maybe, maybe not. That's a weird marriage, but so.

Speaker 3: 33:40

I'm curious Hot mess, hotline yeah hot mess hotline.

Speaker 2: 33:43

My question here is around success or around, like, how do you kind of identify or maybe you can even answer this by way of a story Like when you've had a successful consulting engagement or coaching situation? What does that success look like? And how do you know when you have helped someone to a point of not just not being a hot mess anymore but maybe a medium mess or something? What does success look like? How do you define that? What does success look like? How do you define that? Because often I feel like in the work that all of us do, it's just like it goes on forever and ever and there's no completion. So you've got to kind of look for you know, different markers of success along the way.

Speaker 1: 34:23

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I do believe that there's always an opportunity to make you know 100% awesome, 110% awesome Doesn't mean that you have to pay the change architects for that for forever. You know, in fact, our goal is to be out within 18 to 24 months because we want to walk alongside you and equip you with what we know so that you can continue to do that in the future. Because, again, we've learned this. That means you can learn it. That's right. You know that's our mentality and so markers of success are. There's definitely an element of you know it. When you see it, you know like the team is just gelling, the trust is there, the right communication at the right time is coming through the organization. They also, as part of the coaching process, always name their outcomes that they want to see, and then I reference those at every coaching session as kind of markers in time to say are you making progress, yes or no? And there's always two steps forward, one step back, and that's the human condition to learning. As part of the coaching, the team is always, or the individual always, names their own goals and outcomes and we use every session to check in on those outcomes that they say that they want, I will offer my input as to how good those goals are or if they can amplify them or clarity that is needed or how they might translate out. But they're always checking in with themselves about their own goal progress, so they get to name how satisfied they are. I also like to be very realistic about program budgets as it relates to learning and development. You know, scopes like mine and the project work that we do are not written into budgets to the large degree, and so they're finding money to pay for this work, and so I do like to be conscientious of that and not take advantage of that, but make sure they know like, here's the return on investment you are going to get by working with us, Because, if you know, the speed of trust is real. I believe in the speed of trust and that's hard to articulate and understand on the front end of coaching, but when you're on the back end of a six month engagement they're like, oh, we get it. We couldn't have got that project out without having that hard conversation.

Speaker 1: 36:40

I was with a client and you know the very practical person. In coaching it doesn't always jive until it just it clicks and they get it, and there were two coaching sessions that we could point back to that were the impetus for launching projects that the CIO had been asking them to launch for the past year and a half that they were finally able to accomplish. How do you represent that? For a year and a half and in this one two hour session, you finally created a game plan and we worked together and I stepped in as their consultant to help them do it as well. We finally got it off the ground and we implemented it. Like that's success. That is success because the amount of and what I point to right you get senior leaders together in a room and you're easily spending $3,000 an hour of company time and you have 17 meetings about this project that you never get off the ground, or you could pay us a fraction of that amount of money to help you speed that up. That is real. Like that is real.

Speaker 3: 37:49

Right, no, that's so true, that rings true.

Speaker 1: 37:52

It doesn't sound humble, but it's real like it's that's what we do. We can propel people to action by working together more effectively and in a knowledge service economy. You know, there is no other choice in my mind.

Speaker 4: 38:06

I don't comprehend so yeah, I think you can be humble, confident and realistic all at the same time. And so that just sounds like no, that just sounds like the confidence of yes, it worked. And um, yeah, we celebrate that because the world needs more of that.

Speaker 1: 38:23

To me, this whole conversation really can be summed up with talking about every problem has a solution, right, everything can be learned and figured out. And, brian, I'm just going to continue with this whole adaptability fabric that you taught. I just I love that notion, this idea of being adaptable and understanding how adaptability is ingrained in you, I think is really an amazing self-awareness point for any leader Like you. Have to understand your relationship to change, and that's a lot of what we teach people is what's your relationship to change? How can you leverage it? Because the fact of the matter is is I am too adaptable to change. I can drive change so, so quickly.

Speaker 1: 39:09

That's not always the right solution. The people that hold stability in organizations hold institutional knowledge, hold. This is what needs to stay the same so these other pieces can grow. They are equally as valuable in this world. They still need to understand the relationship to change. And then the people who move too fast need to be able to work with the people who move quote unquote too slow, because that's what makes the world work, and so that's what I wish people would hold on to is it takes, just like it takes all the strengths to make a strong organization, it takes all the relationships to change to make a strong and resilient organization as well.

Speaker 2: 39:46

See, definitely, that was perfect and brilliant and beautiful. Mic drop, thank you so much.

Speaker 3: 39:53

These are expensive mics, we're not dropping them. Fair enough, earbud drop.

Speaker 1: 39:58

It's not as cathartic as dropping earbuds.

Speaker 4: 40:01

No it is.

Speaker 2: 40:03

You need a little bit of weight that way, I'm going to stop recording unless Brylin wants to say anything.

Speaker 4: 40:08

Well, no, I know, stephanie, you'll be inspirational to our listeners.

Speaker 3: 40:14

Why.

Speaker 4: 40:16

Because we have listeners that are navigating change on a regular basis and sometimes to hear that other people are helping others not just with a change management process, helping others not just with a change management process but to develop the capacity to even unlearn and then receive the new, whether it's a new action or new mindset or new meaning or new tools.

Speaker 4: 40:45

I did out of order, but sorry. I'm grateful for this conversation and for you to just step into the mess of who we are and the joy of who we are and just feel like we've known you for a while. So thank you.

Speaker 3: 40:59

And thank you for your attitude. The levity that you approach sincere topics is a neutralizing agent that I'm sure your clients feel but may not be able to name what it is.

Speaker 4: 41:15

So that.

Speaker 3: 41:16

I can feel through the camera. I can't imagine what that's like in person, but that's something distinct about your style that I'm absolutely positive it's.

Speaker 2: 41:28

it's influential and invitational at the same time, I imagine, disarms people to be able to enter into these conversations when they maybe showed up as troublemakers and they leave as pro-troublemakers.

Speaker 1: 41:40

So it's got to be.

Speaker 3: 41:42

Nice, nathan, see how I wove that in there I see Good job. You guys are great learners. High five, thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 41:50

Your hospitality is just bar none here. I've never experienced something like this.

Speaker 2: 41:56

Tell all your friends, smash the like button, click subscribe. Oh wait, that's a different part.

Speaker 3: 42:00

High five your neighbor, send us money.

Speaker 4: 42:04

You know, I think the hospitality piece is that we want to create spaces for people to be themselves and not just come in and be a host or be an expert, and for us to be themselves and not just come in and be a host or like or be a you know expert and for us to be the host. It's like, how do we have this conversation together? How do we create the spaces for these kinds of conversations to happen?

Speaker 2: 42:24

Thank you for listening to the Leadership Vision Podcast, our show helping you build positive team culture. Thank you so much to Stephanie Crevins for coming and just chatting and just having such a delightful time. It was so fun to talk and riff. There is a bunch that I cut out of this, as I've been doing lately in some of these interviews, because there's just a lot of fun banter that I don't know is interesting for our listeners for you to listen to, but if you like the banter, let me know.

Speaker 2: 42:52

And if you have questions about anything you heard in this episode or you have a very specific question about how we can maybe help your team with something, with anything, please reach out at connect at leadershipvisionconsultingcom or you can visit us on the web at leadershipvisionconsultingcom. If you'd like to learn more about Stephanie and some of the work that she does, you can visit her on the web at thechangearchitectscom and there's a bunch of other links and places to connect with her and with us. In the show notes, my name is Nathan Freeberg. On behalf of our entire team. Thanks for listening.