Consultant Insights: The Power of Building Relationships
In this Consultant episode, Sara talks with George, a consultant and coach specializing in HR and DEI consulting. They discuss DEI practices, the importance of mental health in the workplace, and the role of feedback in leadership development. George shares his approach to coaching and training, emphasizing the need for leaders to create a safe and inclusive environment for their employees. They also discuss the power of networking and building relationships in the HR and DEI space. Subscribe to the podcast for new episodes weekly!
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Sara: Welcome to a special episode of, Can I Offer You Some Feedback? My name is Sara, and this is the podcast for those who have a complicated relationship with feedback and are looking to hear from real people across levels and industries with their ideas, perspectives, and best practices on feedback.
Today, I want to share this special episode where I talk with another consultant and coach who specializes in HR and DEI consulting. In this episode, we'll be hearing their insight across industries and what they wish they could give their clients feedback on. I want to welcome George to the podcast today. He's a principal consultant at Blue Streak Consultants. Welcome to the conversation today.
George: Thanks for having me. Pleasure to be here.
Sara: Awesome. I'd like to dive into our conversation with a little bit about your specific perspective. Can you share a little bit of your primary areas of practice and how they kind of intersect in your work?
George: Yeah, I'd love to. So, three primary buckets. So I do presentations and trainings, mostly on diversity, equity, inclusion. The second bucket is coaching. So both for folks who are in their career search or managers. I've done a lot of coaching for managers, helping them figure out how to get the best out of themselves and their teams while they're leading teams. And the third part is fractional HR. Because there is much more need for that than there is supply. So I can always go out and say, "Hey, I can help you with that." And folks are like, "Yes, please."
Sara: Excellent. And I think that you are someone who has such a range of experience, both in a variety of sectors as well. I'm curious what feels different for you, either in HR or in the DEI landscape post-COVID. And I know for some of us, we're still in COVID. It's only been four years, but I'm just curious if there's an area that maybe you've been focusing on a bit more, getting more requests for, or something just feels tangibly different about it.
George: Well, for me, the biggest thing is I went on my own post-COVID. I was working in corporate America until last year. So I've been on my own as a consultant for just about a year now. The biggest difference for me is the size of the organization that I'm working with. So now working with much smaller organizations, helping to augment their efforts.
But one of the things I can say that is consistent across the larger organizations that I worked for and the smaller organizations I'm working with now is there's much more awareness in regards to the mental health and how people are experiencing the workplace than there was before. Before it was just kind of a leave your problems at the door. We were evolving from leave your problems at the door, but I believe us going through COVID accelerated the need for us to see people as complete humans and not just leave your personal stuff at the door because if we really think about that, that's impossible.
Sara: Yeah. I have a couple of years I worked with and I currently partner with an employee assistance program. And unfortunately, the industry has really been shifting to a very free model and less support-based. But some of the employee assistance programs that are out there really have connected for their employers the benefit of seeing and supporting your employees 100%. Not just as folks who provide or productive, but also what does it take for them to be productive?
And that mental health is a huge aspect and whether it's access to free counseling or coaching or other support systems that can be hugely beneficial. And a lot of employees don't even know they have access to mental health resources that are sometimes free and can make a huge difference for them.
George: Yeah. And that's a challenge for organizations because they will often interface with these organizations to sell them pretty robust packages and say, here goes all the bells and whistles, and a few HR folks sitting in the room saying, "That sounds amazing. I can envision our employees using all these things." Then they get it and the employees don't. And a number of different factors go into that. Sometimes folks are so busy in that stuff. They don't have the time to get their head above water to even say, "Hey, what other resources are even available?"
So it's so important for us as organizations to be able to come over and over and over again and sell the things that we've already paid for as a company. Make sure we're selling those tools to our employees because it's going to better their life. And if employees see us as employers, as being organizations that care about bettering their life, they're more likely to stay at our organizations. So yes. Go ahead and boost your retention numbers by making sure you promote your EAP.
Sara: Absolutely. One of the things that I really enjoy about being a consultant is being able to be an outside perspective for the clients that I work with. And I think that when clients, and I'm sure you see this too, when they share what it is that they're looking for, the challenge that they're facing, they may not be able to see the gradual problem that has been slowly building, or they may not have thought about what might be that elephant in the room that we're ignoring or the thing that might've really gotten under the skin. But it feels obvious for us as they're describing it to us. What are some ways that you help the client see what you're seeing and what you might think be going on in that situation?
George: For me, I have the vantage point and the privilege of sometimes I'm doing training for an organization. Matter of fact, a couple of organizations right now I'm doing training for all their employees. So we're doing it in different sessions. So while I'm doing the training. I'll be able to capture feedback in regards to how those employees are experiencing the organization. And there are common themes that pop up that sometimes leaders at the highest levels they just don't see. Because if you're a CEO of a 200-employee organization, your job is much different than the individual contributor who's dealing with your clients or dealing with your production floor every single day. So those are two different levels of experience.
So when I'm able to come in as a trainer and to be able to hear some of the aggregated experiences of folks who are working at different levels in the organization, I'm able to be able to share with those leaders at the organization a vantage point of their organization they just don't have time to access. And then also it's easier for me to be able to tell that story because they can stop working with me but they can't fire me. I mean, they can say, "Look, we're not bringing you in anymore."
So for me to be able to aggregate all that feedback and information from employees across the organization, be able to use the knowledge and experience I have from over two decades of HR and DEI leadership positions, and then be able to lean on my coaching skills to be able to share a message with the leadership team in a way they can receive it has been something I think has been helpful for the organizations that I've really partnered with.
Sara: I think that's one of the things where once you have the facilitator skills, it's hard to turn them off, right? Teaching at a core level is imparting knowledge about a specific topic or area. And I can do that, right? I can sit in front of the room, I can teach you about the thing. But as you're saying, I'm getting an extra layer of information, right? I'm getting, how's the audience responding? Am I seeing nods? Am I giving opportunities for folks to participate and am I hearing their voices?
And I try to encourage when I do have leadership present in the room, I'm like, "You need to be taking notes. You need to be really listening to what folks are saying. Or if you're not in the room and I'm sharing with you, we just did a two-hour focus group on this topic. And I'm sharing insights with you. And sure, it wasn't a focus group with interview questions and a classic kind of model, but I can tell you what folks are feeling. And I can tell you how they're taking it. And I can tell you that information if you think that might be valuable.
And so I think that that's the difference between being an instructor with a training mindset versus a facilitator who also happens to do training. We hear and look for something a little bit different in the audience. And that is so valuable to the client because we've had them with us for one, two, three hours sometimes.
George: Yeah, and I love the way you say that. Being a facilitator who was doing training, because once you have some business acumen, and you've been in different environments, and I've had the privilege or curse of being in a few different environments, you see those things happening. And I'm mentally translating while these sessions are going on, how are these different problems or situations that are being brought to the conversation impacting the bottom line of the business? Because that's why the leader or whoever brought me in the first place is to help them with some skillset, some perspective that's going to help them in their business function better. Either they're going to be able to interface with each other at a better level or interface with their clients at a better level.
So while I'm there, I'm also saying, what other things can we add in here that might be helpful to your organization? Because if your organization has problems and you sit there for two hours talking about skills and conflict communication or DEI, some of those underlying root issues will come out and I will dive into those things to make sure that you understand what's going on.
Sara: Right. Because most of the times, the topics that I'm teaching or I'm sure you're teaching, it's not that they don't know it. It's something is getting in the way from them being able to do it. So when I go to a customer service team and I'm going to come in and teach them customer service? No. They know customer service. It's, why is there the perception that this team needs customer service training? Because they're qualified. Everyone knows what good service is. But what's getting in the way preventing you from being able to deliver that good service?
And so sure, I can share some best practices and some techniques and strategies, but I want to hear from the folks in the room what is hard about it? What's getting in the way? What would better support look like? What do you need from your leadership? That's a different conversation than just, here's how to listen to your customers, which is again very like, I'm going to impart knowledge on your mindset rather than I want to hear you and I want to understand and acknowledging the expertise that's already in the room.
George: And I love the way that you're talking about that in regards to really hearing them and bringing them in. Because like, I'm not an expert on whatever thing that I'm coming in to talk about. There are organizations, whatever they do, I'm not an expert on that. But for instance, one of the sessions I'm doing right now is a conflict communication class. Everyone knows how to communicate and everyone's had plenty of arguments. So now it's, how can we, to your point of seeing what are kind of the roadblocks or what's some of the things underlying that's making communication during conflict challenging for the organization.
And now as I'm having these sessions, I'm being able to see the themes that are there. Sometimes it's a lack of respect, a lack of trust has been built up because maybe you have supervisors or managers who are not equipped with being able to have these conversations when things get kind of dicey. So they'll shut conversations down. So now people don't feel heard. So, like you're saying, what can I do to ensure that I am exposing, the different challenges that are here specific to this organization, and then equipping them with tools to navigate, mitigate, and step out of those challenges.
Sara: Yeah, absolutely. I'm curious if you could share with us an example of either a client you currently have or a partner you work with, you can keep them anonymous if you'd like, who you really feel is committed to doing the work, as it were. Whether they're really showing up in the DEI space or they're really supporting their employees in an above-and-beyond kind of way. I'm wondering if you could share kind of a recent example that you're working with.
George: Yeah. And it's an interesting thing because I have a couple of organizations that I'm doing training sessions for all their employees. Now, both of them are around the 200-employee mark. So we're doing classes of like 25 employees. So that's a commitment. Because you talk about pulling those folks out of the work they're doing to bring them to these classes. That's a commitment within itself. So then it's my challenge of some of these folks who are like, "Well, why am I having to sit in this two-hour class?" So can I engage those folks who don't want to be engaged initially when they come into the room?
And I have to make it credible to them. I have to make it valuable to them, useful to them. Because these are adults. It's not like I'm going to some junior high school and they have to listen because that's a thing. These are folks that have been in their careers 20, 30, 40 years. So these organizations are committed to making sure that they come to the class, now it's my job to make sure I can share with them why this is valuable for them to enhance their skill set to be better, not only in the workplace, but also in their entire lives as well.
Sara: Yeah, absolutely. And that I think is the challenge when there is a room, especially if it's a mandatory training. I know some people don't want to be there. But I let it out like, this is your opportunity. I can't make you participate. I can't make you learn anything. I can't make you engage. What I can do is open the door. If you don't want to do my breakouts, that's fine. But I want to let you know that you have that choice.
Now every trainer and facilitator is a little different with that. But I've been in too many hostile rooms to force people. Because you can't make people learn. You can't make people change. And that I think is hard for some folks, some of the direct clients that I have to hear. They're like, No, just make them do it." And I'm like, "How." I mean, we can exert power and authority and then what? They're not going to stay. Sure you can make people do something, but I don't want it like that. I want them to want to do the thing and let's talk about how we could get that started.
George: And it's funny, I also use the parallel because I've been coaching soccer. I have a couple of daughters and I've been coaching soccer. It's my seventh year coaching soccer. I can't make them want to do that thing. Even for the ones who really enjoy the sport, some days they're just having a bad day sometimes. It's the same thing with adults. Adults are just taller kids. They just are. Like 95% of the behaviors are the same. They're just like taller and they do those behaviors.
So when that adult professional walks into the room, maybe they're having a bad day. Maybe they didn't want to come to this class. They don't care about the topic. How can I give them a value proposition that gives it the most chance to be successful? A value proposition because I know you had to be here, but now, can we make these two hours valuable? And sometimes I'm successful with that, sometimes I'm not. Sometimes they're just going to sit there for two hours and just stare at me blankly. That is what it is. My opportunity and chance is to for as much as I can, make this as valuable as I can to them. And sometimes they get sucked in just because.
Sara: Yeah. And that's a little bit of the fun of it. The folks who are a little more challenging, you're like, "Aha, I got them to smile."
George: Exactly. Those are wins.
Sara: I got them interested. I got them talking. That feels like a different kind of victory.
George: Yeah. Those are wins.
Sara: Yeah. And you work with clients both at the enterprise level and then I'm sure at the small team level and even at the individual level. Sometimes when folks, we know they're trying their best, they are giving A for effort, but somehow it is just not working. And they could be potentially even holding themselves back. What are some ways or your kind of go-to strategy when you need to tell someone some really hard-to-hear feedback about how they're doing?
George: I like to start with facts, observable, measurable facts. Because for me, and even before that, it starts with some relationship building. Even in the training session, when I'm meeting a person for the first time, before the class, I'm walking around the class, asking folks, how was your day? Where did they drive from? Just things they'll understand I'm not just there to treat them like robots. So for me, starting off, I want to show them that I really do care. Because I'm in this work because I do care. My mission in life is to have a positive impact on as many careers as I can. And I want to make sure people feel that because that's how I really feel. I get out of bed in the morning, I'm like, this is what I'm doing.
So the first part for me is making sure people understand that I'm there and I care about the folks who are in this room even if I just met you five minutes ago. Then when I start to have that conversation with them, starting with whatever facts I have. So I need to have measurable, observable facts. Stuff that wouldn't prompt an argument about those facts of like, "Hey, today is such and such a day. Outside it's such and such degrees," stuff that's concrete facts.
And then I'll get into, with these facts, this is the story that I'm getting from these facts. So now I'm moving from facts to story. And I make it clear. These are the facts I have. Here's the conclusion I'm drawing. Give me your perspective on that. Because I don't want people to come into a conversation like, "Oh, George is just going to drop the hammer on me of what he thinks and that's the end of it." I want them to understand we are having a conversation, I have a perspective, you probably have information about this thing that I don't have. Let me hear that information you have. Let me hear your perspective so we can have a conversation as opposed to just being a one-way street.
Sara: I was in a client training and I love that you said you help them understand the dots you're connecting. I was giving them an example of, when we don't know, we guess when we connect the dots. And if you imagine, when you were a kid, you used to do those connect the dots puzzles. Imagine if they didn't have numbers and you didn't know what you were drawing.
George: That's a great Analogy.
Sara: We would come up with some stuff. The benefit of the conversation, let's say you're meeting with that person and you're like, I got four dots, I'm making a square. And they're like, yeah, but you don't know about these three other dots. Now it's a different shape. But if I don't have your three dots or if one of my dots is wrong, I'm going to build the wrong shape. I'm going to build the wrong thing and that bird turns into a dragon. It can easily get kind of shifted in that way because I'm coming with my dots and help me know what you're bringing or else we're going to have some crazy drawing growing on.
George: That's a fantastic analogy. I'm going to borrow that. I will credit you.
Sara: Absolutely. It helps that I've got kids who are doing Connect the Dots at home. Sometimes from our perspective, we have a different wish and a different plea not just cause we're business owners. But I think we get into this work because we care so deeply about, you mentioned changing leaders' lives or changing organizations. I'm curious, what is something that you wish other people just understood about how impactful it could be to invest in HR and DEI initiatives?
George: One of the things I would say, when you talk about leadership, leadership sometimes they kind of understand the impact, but they don't really understand their impact. You got to think about the way that most of us in the country are schooled, the way that we are raised. It is a very hierarchical, listen to authority, listen to the teacher, listen to this person. That is how we are programmed. That's how the assembly line rolls us out here.
So when people get into organizations and the CEO is wondering, how can people don't come bring me feedback or how come this, that, this. It's because we've been conditioned a certain way for very, very long. It is very hard to unlearn that for some folks. And that's how sometimes you'll see folks who didn't ace school, but they're exceptionally successful when you come to talk about being a business owner or leaders because they think outside of the box that we've been put in pretty often.
So to your initial question in regards to how should we be tying into like HR, how can we leverage HR and DEI, the number one piece is leaders in organizations starting to understand their impact on the people who are around them. And how can you create more safety, trust? How can you create an environment where actual conversations are allowed to happen? There was a management book, I'm forgetting which one it was, but it was a person, they did training sessions and they finally asked their frontline folks for input. And one of the people who had been a maintenance worker for 25 years in this organization said, "For 25 years, you had my hands when you could have had a brain in addition for free." So it's incumbent upon leaders of organizations to create environments where all their employees feel like they can add their expertise skill sets and be valued when they speak up.
Sara: Yeah. And that's such an important connection. I think we forget that it's not just the work that folks produce. They have ideas, they have perspectives, and I see so many leaders that forget that, unfortunately. And I love that some of what we get to do is to help them open their eyes to that. For our last question in our time together, George, can I offer you some feedback?
George: Oh, absolutely.
Sara: One of the things, and we've known each other for a couple of years now, we keep running into each other at different events and always in the HR space. And Cleveland is one of those beautiful, small, but big cities. I've always been so impressed and you've spoken on this both in talks and then also at other events. And your ability to form deep network relationships, and I know you've spoken about connecting with others and building partnerships, but the way I see you do networking and relationship building, I don't want to say you make it look easy. You make it look intentional.
And you make it look like it really matters and that it's serious. And not that it's hard or that it's something that is difficult to accomplish, but I really feel when you either connect with me or when I introduce you to others, you are really, focused on hearing that person's name, understanding their perspective. You tell other people, please follow up with me. I'd love to meet with you. I'd love to connect. And I believe it. And I know this because I know you, but I also believed it the first time I heard it. And I was like, "Is he for serious?" And I'm like, "No, he is."
Obviously, I also agree relationships are such a cornerstone to just being able to serve our community better and be able to be better kind of stewards of the relationships that we have. But I found that when I think about the outreach and the connections, I just I'm like, I got to be more like George. I'm so impressed. And it's a really thoughtful, intentional, and focus on the impact of creating networks and creating systems. Again, you don't make it look easy. You make it look purposeful. And I think that that's different. Because when people say, "Oh, you know, networking is easy. Just meet a bunch of people, hand out your card." That doesn't feel purposeful. And I really admire and I know I think about it when I'm preparing to go and meet people. I'm like, "Okay, how would George do it?" So, I really admire that. I just want to thank you for being that example that I get to see quite frequently in our connected spheres.
George: Well, I appreciate that. And I have to give a lot of credit to my mom. When I was a kid, our mom had me at the rec center, we played every sport. So we were always at the rec center and we were also always at the church. So I played drums for my church. We were there for Wednesday Bible studies, Saturday kids, youth choir, then choir practice, and I was there Sunday for the first service and the second service. So, my mother was really intentional about making sure we were always around people who cared for us. I would say we weren't poor but we didn't have a whole lot extra.
I grew up inner city Cleveland. I had three different grandparents who were in walking distance so I could go to their houses. We saw them all the time. So I was raised in an environment that really cared about the folks around you and I had so much care and loving around me earlier. That was just how to me the world has always been. And so I guess I'm just reflecting that back to everyone I have the opportunity to meet because I had so much of that community early in life. That's just what I always want.
Sara: Yeah. And I love that. And I think so many people don't know the support network that they could have available to them. They don't know how wide their net reach is. They don't know who's just waiting to help them. So many folks who sincerely want to connect people. But I love that you do that and I really appreciate it.
Well, George, thank you so much for taking the time to speak to me, and thanks to you for joining us in a special episode of Can I Offer You Some Feedback? You can reach me at [email protected]. We would love to hear from you on your thoughts on feedback or any other perspectives that you'd like to hear from next. As always, give us a quick rating on your platform of choice and share this podcast with a friend. And I'm hoping that tomorrow you take a chance and offer some feedback when it's needed most.
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