Creating Purposeful Alignment
August 22, 2022 | On the Business Growth on Purpose Podcast
Katie Burkhart appeared on the Business Growth on Purpose podcast for a conversation with host Jose Palomino. She shared a different way of thinking about your business so you can create a different kind of energy. She also discussed one of the principles for running a purpose-driven business: It’s not about you.
Listen to the episode below.
read the transcript
excuse any typos as we tried to capture the conversation as it happened.
Jose Palomino: Hi, everybody. Welcome to Business Growth on Purpose. I'm your host, Jose Palomino, CEO of Value Prop Interactive. And our guest today is Katie Burkhart. And Katie is going to help us really see a different way of thinking about your business so that you can actually create a different kind of energy—a real transformation.
And the key thought here is, “It's not about you.” So listen closely as Katie joins our show right now. Well, welcome, Katie, to Business Growth on Purpose.
Katie Burkhart: Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited for this conversation.
Jose: Yeah. I'm looking forward to it as well. So, Katie, just to give our audience context, what do you do mostly? And who do you do it for?
Katie: So that's a fabulous question. So, I spend most of my time helping distributed teams find focus. And these are teams that overflow with ideas and ways to make impact. And without that focus, many of them are trying to do all of the things at the same time, which quickly leads to a priority problem, to an accountability problem, and to an execution problem. Then, we have a really frustrated team problem. So we really work to make sure that that focus is there. In one clean—starting to treat their business as one clean system.
Jose: So, a distributed team. Can you just give me some examples of what that might look like? Is there a typical type of function that tends to get distributed as you're describing?
Katie: So, when we look at different companies and organizations that are out there, we have a lot of people having this, “we do remote work”—you know—or “remote first.” And the issue with that term is it means you're remote from something. And realistically speaking, that's not what's actually happening. What you now have are centralized teams, teams that are all coming to an office. They're all coming to one location as a company or an organization, or they're distributed, whether that's distributed across physical locations, distributed across digital locations, or some combination therein. We're really looking to and spend most of our time working with those people who are distributed.
Jose: And of course that was—Technology was allowing for distribution of labor for a long time, but clearly COVID was like a social wake up call for everybody. And in the sense that across the board, now you had the majority of people working in a distributed fashion, right? So my two questions—really one—is, were there some negative impacts of that based on people not really ready for the magnitude of that? And two, is everything—and some people were thinking it's going to snap back to whatever it was pre-COVID—is that going to snap back, or is this a new normal?
Katie: So, no. I see no world in which this is snapping back. We are moving forward. We don't go back. And I think what you saw in what I like to talk about the—COVID and the whole pandemic is sort of the “Great Pause.” It was one of the first times in a long time that we collectively, as a human species, were given the opportunity to essentially all stop at the same time. Regular life stopped.
And for a lot of us, we were locked down at home and were given space to actually say, “Is this the life I want? Is this the work that I want to do? And is this the way that I want to do it?” And unfortunately for a lot of very traditional companies, the answer was no.
And it wasn't simply a matter of money, although that's certainly a factor. It was really a matter of “you have been kind of following the old way of doing business, a very mechanical approach, and not giving me the sort of human-centered experience that I'm really looking for.”
And I think we've seen some shifts in certain insertion of technologies to try to help with the fact that we're not all in the same office every day. And we can't rely on walking up to Bob's cubicle and being like, “So Bob, how you doing with that Q4 report?” But we haven't really gone deeper into the different skills and the different ways to think about our business. To deal with the fact that a) we aren't all sitting in the same place every day and b) we're looking to do work and yet the role of work has changed so much.
Jose: Now, does that just cut generationally? I mean, anecdotally, it sounds like when I talk to people, they assume, “oh yeah, all the younger workers want to work from home and all the older workers want to get into the office.” But when you go deeper, I haven't always found that to be consistently true. So, I'm just curious, does it matter? Is it about the role? Is it a personality issue? Are there some generational impacts?
Katie: Certainly we've seen trends out there that say the younger generations are looking for X, Y, Z. Realistically speaking, we don't always ask the older generations because everybody's trying to predict what's going to happen next. So, the way I like to look at it is, it isn't about generational lines. It's not about demographic lines. It's about time and the reality that those people—whether they're young and just totally looking to use their time and have freedom over their time in a way that we haven't seen in a very long time societally or they’re the parents of children—and they're saying, “I need to have freedom over my time so that I can be all the things that I need to be in my life.” Or if they're older and they're saying, “Look, I put in my time, now I want to be giving back in a consulting or a coaching role. And I want freedom over my time that way or to use my skills differently within a company.” That's really what's coming up much more, is “am I able to have that time freedom that I need to craft the life I want to live?”
Jose: Now, that's interesting, and I love the phrasing of it. Freedom of time, freedom of my time, right? So, time is the one thing you—we all get the same 168 hours a week. Bill Gates gets it. And I get it. Doesn't make any difference how much money you have or make, but certain roles—and I'm thinking this organizationally, right? So, thinking of a CPA firm, traditional office-based work—they have deadlines. There's a certain amount of group sharing. An attorney's office would fall into the same category. I could think of a lot of services like that. If everybody has all this flex time, isn't that—isn't there possibly, and aren't people asking—isn't there a consequence in actual productivity for the organization?
Katie: It's an interesting question. And the way we would look at it is to step back and look at why work is changing. So, we get very into, are people still being productive? And in a lot of cases, we're asking the wrong questions because we're working in the wrong order. And the way I like to look at this is to say the focus of business has changed and needs to continue to change for those that haven't figured it out yet. Which is... To sort of give you an example, one of my favorite movies is Forrest Gump, and there's a great moment in the film where he's taught how to play ping-pong. His teacher gives him a ball and says, “Never take your eye off the ball.”
And as a result, Forrest ends up being—because he can take that objective and stick to it with very little deterrent—quite successful. And what we've seen historically is that it's not that businesses didn't have a purpose. It's that the purpose was to make money above all else. And as a result, everything they did was finely tuned to produce that end result.
And I think that's where this question of productivity comes in. And even in the way that we calculate productivity, which is how many hours went into how many products, which works with a very mechanical business. But it very much does not work well for knowledge-based businesses, or even technical businesses, and the different types of things that we're now creating, which are much more outcomes based. And this is where you get into the focus of business needs to shift to being one where we deliver value.
What is it that we do and why do we exist? Why does it matter? And it matters because it's improving somebody's life. And that's actually the focus of why we're here, and everything we're doing needs to orient around that point. And all of a sudden, you start to look at things in an outcomes capacity, and you get to our favorite question, which is, “What's the point? Why are we all here as a company? Why are we launching this new product? Why are we sitting in this meeting today?”
And all of a sudden we get a real strong case of alignment and a worthwhile use of our time. That better enables people to say, “Well, I really work better in the evenings. You really work better in the mornings.” But we're really all clear about the point of what we're doing here and the benchmark we need to hit. So now it's a matter of organizing the logistics of when and how we come together as a team, and then maximizing our work independently.
Jose: Now, Katie, I actually love that approach. A big part of the work we do with people is just really asking the question, “What is the value you bring?” And are your people at every stage of interaction with customers? For example, cause I tend to focus on more of the sales and marketing side of things, are they really showing up with that type of mind—especially in B2B sales. If you show up as a salesperson hungry for the order because of what it means to me as a commission person, for example, the customer realizes I'm not there for them and maybe... No one's naive. They know that ultimately, I wouldn't do this as a hobby. So, I'm doing it because I want to make a living. But there is a sense that you prefer to deal with a businessperson that you think has at least some weight of interest in your well-being and what you're trying to accomplish.
So, I love the idea of aligning everybody to those kinds of thoughts. It's not a new idea. It's a new, fresh way you've presented it. And I didn't mean by that to diminish it in any way because it's... Not enough people talk about it the way you're talking about it. And you're right. If you just focus on... Dollars obviously aren't cutting it for a whole swath of people working for a living, just saying it in those terms is not enough. They want more purpose, more meaning, and so on.
Katie: And what we miss in this is like, “Oh, okay, that's great. And it'll probably lead to more sales, a hundred percent correct.” Effectively fulfilling your purpose will. The outcome of doing that successfully is increased profits, which gives you resources. Money is a resource to invest back into the business so that you can support your people, pay them well, help them build their skills, and do what you do even better. To fuel that growth.
But the piece that people so often miss in this, which I want to add this layer to the conversation because you're right. It isn't a new idea. But the piece that really gets lost is when you make the point of your business making money at all costs. You have infinite options that you can throw against the wall in the attempt to reach that end. But if I need to deliver this value to this person to improve their life in these ways, all of a sudden you now have a laser-sharp focus that really narrows in what it is that you're here to do and gives you the opportunity to make very strategic choices about how you go about delivering that value, which really allows you to be much more thorough and much more distinct as a business.
Jose: So, if I... I'm a simple guy, so I like to equate things to simple things that I can relate to. But for example, if I, if my restaurant, if I run a restaurant—I don't, but if I did—and I wanted it to be like the...my outcome is I want people to have the best home-cooked meal they've ever had outside of home. And I want it to feel really taken care of. So right away, how I staff the front desk, greeting people, the kind of napkins I put out, the menu, the choice of foods, I'm not... And so, when I have somebody say, “You could save a lot of money if you use ordinary paper napkins,” I say, “Yeah, but that's not what you would have as a home-cooked experience.” So, you make better decisions and so on.
Right. Okay. So that's great. I love it.
Katie: And once you have that as a system-wide, then what you start to do—and this is sort of the third piece of changing this focus as the business—is you also change the logic that your team is using for how they go about making decisions, just like you did. Oh, well, we're doing this for this reason, which is one of the things that has been very absent from the way that we have looked at business in the past.
This is a machine. This person comes to a job for a paycheck and that's it. I can make his job really tiny. He can put the head on a pin, which is the really old-fashioned example. And he's just going to do this for eight hours a day and go back tomorrow, ‘cause he only cares about the paycheck. We're human beings. We actually care about much more than that. And once you start to give people that logic, that reason, they start to understand, “Oh, here's why we're doing this.” And they can put it into context and actually pull that thread through the organization. Now you're starting to get everybody in alignment and really moving in the same direction together in a way that isn't simply aspirational. It's highly practical.
Jose: But you are going to have people, Katie, who actually want the simplicity of “just tell me where the head goes on the pin,” right? So, are they going to be able to navigate, or do organizations have to find a way to connect with that person, or does that person essentially make themselves obsolete in a world where people are very purpose-driven?
Katie: So, we assume that purpose-driven means that you have to be out saving the world. And I cannot stress this enough: You do not have to save the whales to be a purpose-driven business. All you need to do is be here to improve somebody's life—period. Once you start looking at how do I connect, making sure that people understand what's happening at an organization and why is good for everybody, even if it is just the person putting the head on the pin.
Because they inevitably have questions. They may be more practical. Like “Why is this structured this way? Why do I show up on a shift from this hour to this hour?” And you can better answer those questions when they come up. But once you go past that level and actually start thinking about, well, how do I connect our corporate purpose to this person's individual purpose?
You do have to recognize that individual purpose is more complicated. And it shifts, and there are going to be people on your team who are very excited to save the whales. There are also going to be people on your team who are like, “Look, I want to show up; I want to do a really good job. And I want to be able to get home to spend time with my family. And that's super for me.” And being able to recognize that both of those people can help to advance your business, and understanding who those people are and where they sit and helping to position them to be most effective, is part of your role as a leader.
Jose: Right? So that's a whole lot of alignment has to...you have to be an alignment thinker continuously because person A could be a great worker, for other reasons than person B, and you have to find the common ground with what we are trying to do as an organization. So, it seems to suggest that managers across the board in this new reality are going to have to, in many cases, adopt a whole new way of thinking about things. New skill sets and things like that. Which is—on paper—I could draw that on a whiteboard and say, “That's what has to happen; managers change.”
But in reality, it's a little different. Outside of some chip that we could put into their head, it's going to be kind of challenging. So, just curious, because this is what you do, what you help people do. What have you found to be the biggest hurdle for a leadership team to really—let's say the very top leadership team—to buy into it. They're bringing you in; they love what you're talking about basically. But my people…do I have to change everybody? Or how do I get them to see this?
Katie: So, you're... The question you just asked is definitely the question that they ask. And part of that question, the answer is “We need to make sure that we're giving them the same education and the same guidance that we're giving to you, the leadership team.” So, one of the things that's a little different about our group is we've created what we call MatterLogic, a system. And our biggest focus is how do we teach you how to think about your business differently, how to ask better questions, and how these pieces work together? And our focus is actually on the education because we want not just the CEO and not just the C-suite but the entire business to understand how this works.
We recognize some people will be more fervent than others, but everyone has a part to play in keeping the business aligned. And if Paul over there is continuously rowing the boat in the opposite direction, it's not helping everybody else. So, we do need to get everybody moving in that same direction.
But the other big question that they ask is—and some of my groups because they serve people already, the transition is not as huge. But it can be a huge transition for a lot of people. Which is, one of our key principles is “it's not about you.” And that's a huge mental shift for a lot of managers and a lot of leaders to make that, even though they'll say, “Well, I really want my employees to be engaged.” We’ll say, “Well, why?” And they'll say, “Well, I need them to be doing more work.” And I'm like, “Well, that's really about you.”
How do you start to think about not just the value you deliver to the biggest group of people you serve—your customers, your clients—but how do you really think about the value that you're delivering to your team? Number one. Paying them is always number one because they're investing time out of their life into working at your company. Two. Making sure that you're using their time well is the second way that you value them, but really digging into “what does ‘using time well’ mean?” This is your opportunity to help them to grow their skills, which is a huge ask of people coming into work. I myself hire people and, consistently across the board, it's “I'm really looking for an opportunity where I can learn and I can grow.”
So, if you're not doing that, you're missing it. If you're asking questions, like “How can I help you? What do you need from me?,” you're starting to think a little bit more about how can I help these people to be the most successful? Because it's not about micromanaging them to make me look good. This is a recognition that I've brought these talented, skilled people together. And my job, just like a coach on a sports team or a conductor of an orchestra, is to help them do what they do the best that they possibly can.
Jose: And, and so it seems like—and I love the sequence of that. And I love, “It's not about you,” which, by the way, it's probably a good way to live life, to not think it's all about—
<Katie laughs>
No, really. I’ve been married 34 years. And I know whenever I've gotten to think it's about me is when I—that's when I get in trouble. But it's not. Raising kids and the whole bit. So, you start to think, well, this has huge applications.
“It's not about you.” So, I love that. The reality is, there are people who get into leadership roles not because they have small egos but, quite the contrary, because they have very big egos that demand. They push. So, they... Ironically there could be some very productive people who've “put points on the board” who won't make the turn into the kind of culture you're talking about. They just, they won't because they think it is about them. And that's the headspace they live in right now. So, it seems like there has to be a lot of courage on the part of really top leadership to start making a shift into this way of thinking.
Katie: Yes. and it does take some courage on their part. And I'm working with a group right now who has a wonderful team of leaders who are onboard. They've done the hard work. I've asked the hard questions. They're so excited to share with everyone, but they've been so deliberate in making sure that that share isn't, “We're doing this because we said.” So that it's about “We're doing this because it's going to allow the organization to make the impact that we've set out to make. It's going to enable you to do your work better than you've been able to do it before. And we're really all in this together.” Because that's one of the biggest shifts that we're starting to make is business is not defined as a money-making machine. Business is really defined as a group of people choosing to come together to pursue a common purpose, a common reason for being here.
That's a very different way, I think, for a lot of people to think about it. But it does absolutely take courage. It takes being comfortable getting input from not only your customers but your team, maybe your partners, and being able to make strategic decisions and build strategic direction that actually takes that into account and is using that to inform where you're going. Because again, it's not about “We're gonna be the biggest business in our category.” I'm like, (sarcastic) “What an original thought.” But it's about, “Here's where we need to be in three years because this is what our people need from us.”
Jose: Wow. Well, Katie Burkhart, we could keep going on this. This is fantastic. But we are at time right now. So, I do want to just ask you because I'm sure somebody listening's going to want to know more about you and what you're doing and how you bring about these transformations. Where should somebody listening go to learn more about you in the work you're doing?
Katie: So, the best place to find me is actually on LinkedIn. I am one of the people that does use it for networking. I will accept every connection request that I'm given and will happily talk to just about anybody for a few minutes.
But if you say you heard me here on this podcast and really wanted to talk to me and learn more, I will happily give you 45 minutes of my time to learn more about what's going on. If you don't actually want to meet me and you just want to see what what's happening, LinkedIn is still a great place to follow me because I post Monday through Friday really try to get something useful out there.
And if you want to take that a step further, I do encourage you to think about joining our newsletter community, which we call the Weekly Logic. And you just need to go to matterlogic.co/weekly. And you will get, every Monday, one point delivered into your inbox under 500 words that you can actually apply to your business right away.
Jose: I love it. And, Katie, we'll put all those show notes with all those references as well so people can link to it, but if somebody’s just listening, they can go there as well. So, Katie Burkhart, thank you once more for stopping by Business Growth on Purpose.
Katie: Thank you so much for having me. This was just an absolutely energetic conversation.
Jose: Fantastic. All right. Take care.