What’s The Point (WTP): Strategies For Delivering Maximum Value To Your Team
November 2023 | On the People Strategy Forum
Katie Burkhart appeared on the People Strategy Forum for a conversation with host Sam Reeve. She discusses the importance of understanding the target audience you are serving and the best way to deliver the right level of value at all times. She presents the steps on drawing alignment between value and purpose, as well as the power of helping people experience individualized value. Katie also talks about getting flexible with the rise of hybrid workplace setups and the three layers of asking the right questions to reach actual applicable solutions.
Listen to the episode below.
read the transcript
excuse any typos as we tried to capture the conversation as it happened.
Sam Reeve: But I would love to introduce our main speaker today, Katie Burkhart. And so, she is the CEO of MatterLogic, and she's going to talk to us a lot about creating value for your people and companies. And so, she's a driver of the value economy here. And she definitely has the theme of saying, “what is the point?” What's the point of the things that we do and how we act? That really drives meaning at the places that we work. So, with that, thank you so much, Katie, for joining us. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how this all started for you, this journey and this effort?
Katie Burkhart: Absolutely. thank you so much for having me. Really excited to join such a great lineup of other thinkers and people here in the forum today. So, my work and really, how I spend my time is, in fact, rooted in a real interest in making my own time matter. My first work experience was as a lifeguard. And as much as I was excited to do it--it was the cool thing to do when I was a kid swimming in the same pool which I guarded--I spent a lot of time looking at empty pool water, either because nobody was there yet or nobody was coming. It depended on the day. But that meant I really spent my shifts watching the clock tick by, time I would not get back.
And I walked away from that experience saying, “this is not how I want to live my life. I want to make sure that I can be deliberate with how I spend my time. And ultimately, I want to see if there's a way that I can help other people do that.” And that's really where this question of “what's the point” came from. Of really trying to understand the reason for why I'm doing what I'm doing, but in a truly pragmatic way. To be less existential, more grounded in my own work and then in my work with clients.
Sam: And so what are the--When your clients come to you, what are the big things that they're trying to solve overall?
Katie: So, our clients are typically coming to us and saying, “Hey, it's that time in the lifecycle of our organization to look at our strategy.” And most of them are then also saying simultaneously, “we know this time around, we need to think about how we're actually doing work differently in a really pragmatic way. Because we've realized that our team is looking--we've done a survey, we've talked to people, we are seeing rumblings at large, whatever. We've realized that people are looking for something different. And we've tried some things. Some have worked clearly, some have not. We're not sure that this is all feeding together. Can you help us with that?” And the answer is yes.
When we work with teams, we start with, “what's the point of this business? Why does it exist? Why are you asking all these people to come in, get out of bed and spend their time every day contributing to this business?” And really for us, that's about the value you deliver and who you deliver it to. And I think a lot of people can hear that and think, “oh my God, I have to save the whales in order to be doing something really meaningful.” That's not true.
There are a lot of ways in which you are delivering meaningful value into the world. I just got a pair of shoes the other day that I think are fabulous. And I am getting value out of them actively at the moment. So really under--the point is to be clear on what that is and to make that the point of the business and to ensure that everything you're doing is driving towards that.
And the big shift there, I think, for a lot of businesses, is that it's no longer sort of about throwing resources around every idea that crosses your path or every potentially interesting project and sort of seeing what sticks in the goal of simply making more money. It becomes much more about being deliberate in filtering through “what is the point of doing this thing? Is it going to deliver the value that we exist to deliver?”
And as far as how that ends up helping your people, work becomes meaningful because your team members understand the reason of what they're doing in the first place. Which I think is a huge challenge still faced by many businesses, of “how do I help the person several tiers down, or several positions over to the left, really understand how their contributions fit in?” And this question goes a long way to helping make that happen. It also goes a long way towards one of the themes that we see with a lot of our clients, which is an increasing interest in their teams of looking for more empowerment. That if we are all are clear on the point of the business and have the core developed around that, we're all on that same page. We can all use that as a lens for our decisions, which makes it much more effective as everybody is going about making choices as they're doing work for the company.
Howard Nizewitz: You know, companies have been talking now for years about their mission, their value statements. What are they getting wrong, in terms of what you just discussed?
Katie: In most cases, they're misdefined. And in a lot of cases, they're putting together what is a wonderful, fluffy, and highly aspirational marketing message, and their goal is “this is somehow an extra tactic, a tag-along to what we're doing, and that it's going to make people feel really good and feel really inspired.” But the bottom line is, it has nothing to do with how our business actually runs. It's not really center to the strategy of the actual business versus saying, “we are going to exist and drive everything towards delivering this particular value.” And then saying the way that we make money. Because this is usually where people say, “well, wait a minute. Don't we have to make money?”
Yes, you do. Saying that, the way that we make money, the way that we bring in the resources that we need to pair people well, to bring in the talent we need to do the things that we need to do, is by inextricably linking the value you deliver to the way that you make money.
So, this is why it's so important to understand who you serve, the value that they're looking for from you, and discovering ways to deepen delivering that value. So really, transitioning it from sort of an extra, a tag-along, a nice fluffy statement, to really thinking about this as the core of your business strategy.
And then developing all five pieces, which for us is purpose--Why do we exist? What's the ultimate value we deliver? --vision; what is the world that we're trying to create? Where are we going? —outcomes; what do we have to help our people do or achieve in order to experience that ultimate value and get to that vision? --mission; what actions--interrelated actions, your business takes multiple--do we take to deliver that value? And then your values, which are the practices. The “how do we actually take those actions in a way that is distinct to us, that ultimately deepens our ability to deliver that value?”
Sam: Well, I like all those pieces that you mentioned. I think we should dive into each one of 'em. But I have a question for you. For instance, there's some companies out there that have this really easy, right? And their mission is to solve for global warming, or “save the whales,” as you put it <laugh>.
Katie: Yeah.
Sam: But then there's others that, “hey, we make sheet metal, and this is what we do,” and so forth. And it's a little bit tougher for a person that is working the line, or the press, or whatever it may be, to really draw that alignment to that purpose-driven organization. So, what do--I mean, let's go through your steps on how a company can really draw that alignment. So the, the first thing you mentioned was just purpose overall.
Katie: So, this--So where you're really thinking about is sort of moving from kind of the “super aspirational” to thinking about value more broadly, which is something that I think we all can, as part of being in the value economy--starting to really ask those questions in different ways than perhaps we have before. But in this case, I would take something like… My father's an electrician, and I think that that's something where--I think people see that very much as “it's a trade, it's a thing you do.” And I can almost guarantee that this may not be a conversation that their company is actively having. But I think that they can, because when you-- And my dad, in a funny way, actually has a really good answer, which is that all of these amazing things that the world is creating, all this new software and your AI and everything else, it all stops the minute that you can't plug your machine into the wall.
So, there's a wonderful story there about the value you're delivering. But to keep it from being this huge, crazy, world-changing thing that doesn't make sense, I would be sitting with that company. And the way we work with teams is a little different. We create working groups of their C-suite. We create a working group of their staff. We create a working group of their customers, we create a working group of our partners, if that's important to the business. And then donors, if they're a nonprofit, and we actually engage these working groups in the development of this core, because we don't want the C-suite kind of, “well, we think they care about this.” Well, why do we have to think? Why don't we just ask them what is it that they're really looking for from you to deliver value?
And in the case of that business, I'd want to understand, who specifically are you serving, and what value are they really getting from you? Is it that it's about speed? In which case, you can take that and really get specific that it's not just that we need the power to do the things that we do, but that you are able to do it in a faster way that's allowing us to more quickly do the things that we're—like, there's a way to do that, but it does require actually sitting down and instead of sort of navel-gazing, actually going out and being really curious to understand the people that are attached to your organization. And really, looking for the truth of the matter as far as what value they need. What do they need to do and achieve? And they're looking for you to help. And then tapping into the collective brainpower of your whole team to say, “what's the best way for us to go about doing that? What's going to most effectively get them where they need to go?”
Char Miller: Oh, you're on mute.
Sam: <Laugh>. Oh, missed my button there.
Char: <Laugh>
Sam: So Katie, you mentioned the next step. What’s the next step?
Katie: So, that's really where we go as far as starting to build that strategy. And then what you're starting to do, which I think gets to--Once you have that core, the next piece is really teaching your entire team “how do I make choices based upon it?” Because I think a lot of us work very hard to distinguish “this is my strategy, and this is my execution.” I don't quite look at it that way. To me, strategy is about making choices. And whether you're making choices at the absolute core level, or you're making choices way down here, you're still making choices. And we need to be making them in a strategic manner and in a way that's ultimately driving the value that we exist to deliver as a business. And this was where that “what’s the point” question starts to come in, because we're allowed to look at that throughout the internal workings of the business.
What actions is it choosing to take? How is it choosing to take them? Not only what it sort of spits out at the end of that process, whether it's a service or a product. So really, working that through, asking those questions, and getting people to think about their business and their team as one living, breathing organism versus kind of studying it as disparate or separate parts really becomes a big part of the process. And teaching them, sort of the “final step” is calibrating that. While we're working with them on sort of that “first pass,” it's not set in stone forever. You should be constantly calibrating your business, checking, “did that choice we made, or that experiment we run, how did it pan out? What did we learn? Is that--Do we want to double down? Do we not?”
And starting to have that type of thinking and doing that more regularly makes that question of, “what's the point” really important so that you can be checking in on “should we even be doing it in the first place?” Which is, I think, where you start to get to, “how does that drive value for our people?”
And there's two specific examples that sort of whack me in the face. One is meetings, the number of people that are sitting in just completely pointless meetings. We called a meeting, and I had somebody say--the adage is, “we call a meeting to determine why we should have a meeting, then we call a meeting to determine what should be in the meeting. And then we actually have the meeting that we should have had.” Versus saying, “why don't we determine that there's a really good point to this meeting, make sure that the people on the call are only the ones that are essential to actually have this conversation and make really good use of the time that we come together.” Because coming together is, you know, an important part of work. There are times where you need to talk to other people.
The other one that sort of strikes me as how we understand productivity. And I think the focus there is also misaligned and has a tendency to go towards, “how many hours did you spend,” which is where so much of the—"should we be working in a distributed fashion? Should we all be sitting in the office?” --ultimately it comes down to that issue. And getting people to say the number of hours isn't the point. The point is, “did you make the contributions that I need you as a team member to make in order for us to be delivering that value? What's the point of your role being here?” That then becomes the thing that I want to be monitoring and making sure is happening, versus checking whether or not you're typing on your keyboard for enough hours every day, which just boggles the mind as far as useless and poor use of energy. I would hate to be the keyboard monitoring person.
Sam: Right? Yeah. But then you have leaders that are going “well, hours, they're easy to track. You know when somebody did an hour.” It’s like when, I know that some--If Char moved the needle from here to there, that's… I don't really know. So how do--what do you advise your leaders in that situation?
Katie: So much of this is about creating and sitting down, and again, really looking at that business as a whole. So, one of the things we look at is your workflow, and really understanding “what are the roles and contributions to that workflow.” And one of the sort of “mindset shifts” here is that a role can be occupied by an employee, but it can also be occupied by a vast number of other things. Maybe the role needs to be occupied by an agency. Maybe it's occupied by an independent contractor. Maybe it's occupied by technology. There is a role that that needs to be in here, something that needs to be done, because there are contributions attached. What contributions, that we're putting a bunch of them together. We now have a role that is going into our workflow, and really taking the time to design that thoughtfully and making sure that we're asking “what's the point that it's tying back to our core” is we are seeing, at least in our work with clients, is becoming an increasingly important part of what we're doing.
And we've had a couple clients elect to not engage in that work with us for a variety of different reasons. And they're usually the ones that aren't being quite as successful because they're essentially in their own way. They in many cases don't--still have sort of misaligned measurement because they're sticking with whatever they were doing before. They've got people that are, in some cases, running into each other, and then they've got things stuck in their workflow that maybe at this point they really shouldn't be doing because it's not delivering the value that they actually exist to deliver. So, being really clear on what those roles and contributions are and having those conversations.
We often build profiles for the humans in the system, but we want to know what the roles and contributions of technology and other things are as well, so that we can actually look at and say, “Hey, these are the things that we're expecting you to contribute, are you actually doing them?” And understanding that there are some roles and contributions or businesses where this can get a little more challenging. But in a lot of cases it's pretty straightforward. If you take my studio agency, which does storytelling. It's pretty quick to know, if your contribution is to capture the video footage and edit it, and you don't do those things. I don't really need to know how many hours you sat there. I need to know how far along you've actually moved the things that you're executing. That's really the point.
Char: You know, I appreciate what you're saying. And yeah, I think it's very vital that we do acknowledge the value and the purpose of other positions. So, as an example, I worked in healthcare. A physician does really appreciate the sterile processing. Or a surgeon: sterile processing is doing their job to sterilize that equipment. And if that sterile equipment is not, or tools are not cleaned properly, that can lead to disease and all kinds of adverse reactions. So I think a physician would appreciate that particular department. Or another example is the environmental services department. Obviously we have to have our hospitals clean. This is the janitorial department, but that--I'll just say janitor for lack of a different title--but they are valuable. Oh my gosh. I mean, that's like--One of the most important things in a hospital setting is that we have a clean, sterile environment for our patients, or else it'll lead to diseases in other adverse actions.
And in my opinion, I think it's important to involve those other “perceived not as important” departments into how we can break down those silos and ensure that we're working together. I call it breaking down the barriers to success. Because if those people are not doing their roles appropriately and efficiently and on time, that can adversely affect my productivity in my current position. So every single part of this organism or culture has to be have their part. And I have sat down with leaders that could not figure out how to articulate what the value of that position is. So you're saying one-on-ones are important, to really sit down with each staff member and say that this is your role and this is your value and your purpose and why you're so vital. Is there other communication methods, or… What do you think?
Katie: So, one, actually what you were just covering, which is, you also need to be talking about the entire workflow and what those broad roles and contributions are to everybody. Because it's so easy to get stuck in your particular area, because that's what you look at every day, right? Most of us aren't stopping and being like, “right, I'm playing for a bigger team.” But could anybody imagine a football team where the kicker's just not paying any attention to any--you know what I mean? Like, the offensive line is paying no attention to the defensive line, or the guy--I don't do sports--the guy who catches the ball is out to lunch while the quarterback is throwing it down the field, and then the ball's hitting the floor, and it's like, “dude, what are you doing?”
And it's because they're not paying attention to the fact that it's one team. And this is a small but mighty mindset shift for a lot of the clients we work with. Which is, they're so accustomed to having teams within teams, like “my team” and “your team.” And we're like, please stop saying that. You have one team, and we all have a role playing for that team, and we need to understand how we support each other in doing all of our best work. Because if you drop the ball, it's inevitably going to affect everybody else on the team. So, we need to make this an actual “one team” effort, versus creating accidental additional silos in different ways throughout the organization. So, the individual ones are really important for clarity so that, from a performance aspect, they're not like, “well, I didn't know this was the thing I was supposed to be doing.”
But as far as really getting full team clarity and getting that mindset shift to “everyone's role here delivers value and is what is allows us to be successful as an organization in delivering value to the people we serve,” having that big picture conversation, going over that workflow on a more regular basis, even though it sounds very granular and technical and unpleasant. If you're doing it at a high level and looking at those key roles… I can do mine for my studio on two PowerPoint slides, but it's really important for people to understand how those pieces fit together.
Char: Yeah. Last week, Kansas City, I think, lost because of a field goal mishap. Literally lost by one point.
Katie: That is my mother's favorite team. And she was most distressed by our inability to catch balls.
Char: <Laugh>. But that little one point would've made all the difference, right?
Katie: Yes. Yes. A hundred percent.
Sam: What do you think, Sumit? I see you're wearing your favorite team shirt today. Tell us.
Sumit Singla: In fact, I did have a soccer related example which what Katie was saying brought to mind. And so, apparently, when the game evolved--So of course, you've got 11 people in a team, and one of them is the goalkeeper. Initially to begin with, all the 10, they would run to wherever the ball was and they would chase it and try to get control of it, and then try to score. And then eventually somebody figured out it's a waste of effort. And just because you're chasing the same purpose, which is to win the game, it doesn't necessarily mean that all 10 have to do precisely the same job. And that's when they started organizing into defense, midfield, and attack. And everyone was assigned a role.
But again, depending on what you're doing, the rules are a little fluid. So it's not like if you're a defender, you only stay in one corner of the field, and when the ball comes to you, that's when you act. So depending on whether your team is defending, that's when everyone comes back and tries to defend and launch the next attack. I think that's--what Katie was saying kind of brought to mind about the objective or the purpose, which you were mentioning earlier. The purpose is not to be the best defender that there is. The purpose is to help the team win. So if your team loses by one point, the purpose gets defeated, and you might have had a hell of a game defending, or in offense, but it’s kind of pointless. It might earn you a little bit of an extra bonus, or you might become more valuable to other teams. But in the long run, it's kind of useless.
And the second thing that I was thinking of when you were mentioning purpose was--again, I don't know if it's a true story or not. The one about when John F. Kennedy went to the NASA facility and met somebody who was carrying a broom and said “hi, I am Kennedy, what do you do here?” And he said, “I'm trying to put a man on the moon.” So that was the purpose. The person didn't say, “I empty 50 trash cans a day,” or “I sweep these halls for eight hours every day.” So, aligning the person to that purpose of the larger organization would, I think, automatically make them look at productivity without you having to drill it into them by saying, “no, your target is--Forget men on the moon. You are responsible for the trash cans. And the trash cans don't really seem clean.”
Katie: Yeah, yeah. A hundred percent. And I think what you're getting at with that particular story is something that I run into periodically. People who will say, “well, not everybody can go out and solve world hunger. We just need people to do the other jobs.” And I always--I usually respond by saying, “well, what other jobs?” And they come up with things like cook food, become a waiter, be a janitor. Things that seem more normal. And my response is always the same. Without those people, these organizations, these teams would not be successful. So how do we start to move away from purpose and meaning and work and value in work? Yes, there is an individual component to that 110%, but to be more comfortable recognizing that your contributions--The point of being on a team is that your contributions are going towards a larger whole. And that's a big part of what makes being part of a team so valuable. Humans are very social creatures. That's actually very exciting. And one of the things that sometimes I see people working as solo consultants miss, as much as they like being a consultant and doing the work that they're doing, they’re not on a team in the same way. They don't have that social power, those relationships that, I think, add additional meaning and value to the individual work that you're doing.
Howard: So, Katie, let's say a company goes through and they define their “what's the point.” They go through all those steps. How do they then translate that into getting buy-in from all the employees? People come to work for a whole range of different reasons. And it's like, how do you get everyone on board? Or do you need to get everyone on board?
Katie: So, there's a couple of things you can do. One: the fact that you are working to define your core based on the value you deliver to the people you serve, your customers, your beneficiaries, whatever. That in and of itself, and being able to say, “Hey, we engaged them in the process.” This is what we heard from them. This is the reasoning behind the choices that we're making. That goes a very long way to getting people on board. Because it's not about whether Barbara thinks this is a cooler idea than Steve. We're actually using their input and their insights. And very quickly that has a tendency to be a large leveling playing field to be like, “oh, okay. I see that. I can get on board with that. I can get really excited about that when it comes to how we execute.” I like to talk about “your customer and your team are two sides of the same coin.” You need both.
But there are always gonna be moments of trade-off. Somebody on your team may say, “well, I think this is a better way to deliver the value that they're looking for.” And Steve over there may say, “but I think my way is the better way.” At some point, you will have to make tough choices and figure out how to communicate why we chose to do something. But also, and sometimes more importantly, why you chose not to do something, which is often left out of communications. We are inherently additive in leadership, to look like you're doing something. There needs to be a new something. Versus really talking about, “actually we chose not--we totally heard Steve's argument. We heard Barbara's argument. We ultimately went with Barbara's. Here's why. Here's why we didn't choose Steve's argument as well.” So that people understand the reasoning behind what's going on.
And working to build a culture where people--and this does take some time, it does not happen overnight—people are comfortable with the fact that you're going to say no a lot. Because a lot of running a business this way means you're going to say No probably more often than you say Yes. And getting people comfortable with the fact that we need to do that because doing all of the things is not going to make us successful. But we're going to communicate about how we're making those choices so that we're being really transparent in our logic, in our reasoning to move through our work. So that's a big piece of sort of two ways to get through that as you move through.
As far as the third piece, which is “people come to work for different reasons,” you're a hundred percent correct. So, those additional personal things that I'm looking to get out of work as an individual, you're correct. They're totally individual. And having those one-on-one conversations and building that individual profile and understanding what that is is really important when it comes to delivering value to your team member, which is part of this equation. If you've got somebody on your team who's saying, “I really want to learn this new skill,” and you know that you've made the choice to pilot a new project where this person would have the opportunity to learn from people with that skill or to develop that skill, it would be wise to find a way to get them involved with that particular initiative or give them an opportunity to spend a little extra time with somebody in a different role, because they really see themselves switching from their current role to a different role.
So that's another level of things to manage that goes into, more specifically, helping that person to experience individualized value. Which is, yes, an extra level of value delivery that businesses get to do. It's not, it's--First and foremost, we need to deliver value to the people we serve so we can continue to exist as a business. We're really going to be successful, and we're going to have the best people on our team. Which, presumably we want to be able to cultivate and keep them here. Then we need to deliver value to them also.
Sam: Well, I like what you said about explaining why we say no in particular situations. I think that there's such a huge opportunity that's missed in a lot of organizations because they don't take time to explain why they did not choose a certain methodology. I mean, because a lot of times, there's a lot of merit. Or you might forego going in a certain direction because it may not make sense because of one little detail, but a detail that, if we explain why we didn't choose that, may be able to be overcome at a future date. And it could be a better idea ultimately. And so I think that's something that really drives that innovation.
Katie: Yeah. Yeah. It's a big one. And it is absolutely a part of being more strategic and working to come up with hopefully better ideas and refining your thinking. And, if you're doing it well, we try to encourage clients. We're working to build a tool to do this more seamlessly, keep some of those things. Just because you said no now may not mean that in the future you might not say yes, but understanding why you said no in the past may inform a future decision, depending on what comes up again. Because it's not uncommon that there are certain ideas that resurface, whether because they've got somebody who is going to die on that hill or because, to your point, it actually is potentially a good idea. But at this time, as presented, the answer has to be no for this reason.
Sam: So, let's talk about a different issue that I often see in organizations. And—So, a lot of times, because of either tradition or culture or so forth, certain layers in or levels in the organization may receive different types of treatment because of--maybe they're more senior and maybe you have this new type of benefit or whatever, maybe that's attributed to them. And so that kind of gives us a natural sense of segregation in a way. But--And what's developing now that's more relevant is that there's those that work at home and those that are in the office, and the hybrid nature of all those there in between. And so, organizations in the past have had am “us versus them” mentality. So how can we switch that now to ensure we don't go back to that mentality?
Katie: That's an interesting one, because I think some of it's going to vary very much, company to company, and in what's creating the us versus them feeling. Because they come about, sometimes because I'm feeling like I'm in a preferred position and you're in a not preferred position, which is one particular challenge. Sometimes it's because we've created, I'm gonna say false meaning. We've simply created these divider lines between different parts of our team that are now, for whatever reason, frictioning each other. But I think the one that you are particularly getting at is this sense of “I'm in a perceived better position than you.” And how do we deal with that? And I think some of what we were talking about earlier can help with that, recognizing that we're all on one team and we need everybody to do those things.
I think leadership also has to recognize that. Let's stick with, I get to work hybrid. You have to come into the office. Which I think is a top-of-mind sticking point for a lot of people. There are businesses where there are components where you have to come in. There is no way for me to make your job totally virtual. It's just not going to happen. But we are dependent upon you to come in. And I think starting to think about if that piece of value that this person wishes they had, which is the ability to be more flexible--Look at what you can do to achieve that within perhaps the narrow confines that you can. And then talk to them about, “well, if I can't get you working from home, what else would help you to do your job better? And to know how much we value you as a team?”
Again, don't try to make it up. Go ask and find out what you can do to help make them not feel like they're somehow second class within your organization. And be mindful of that. There are some ways to add in. For example, Chick-fil-A put in this really neat, like, they're now working for tens or something. They put in an interesting schedule where you still have to come in in person, but it added a vast amount of flexibility for their people. And it was done very thoughtfully to support the type of people that are typically on their team, who are often looking to put time towards school and being able to complete a college degree, if I remember the article correctly. And I thought, “geez, they're really trying to think outside the box and figure out how to make sure that these incredibly essential people to their business model and the way they do work feel valued.”
And, if I remember the article correctly, they did that by actually talking to them. So, having that conversation and really understanding that, I think, is going to be really important. And recognizing that there are some sort of universal thorough lines. Like, I think just about everybody is looking for more flexibility. So if you can't allow Fred to work from home, and Diana can understand that Fred may not like that, what else could you do for Fred to make sure that he's feeling valued? Because he is a valuable part of your team. I don't know if that quite helps.
Sam: It does, thank you. So I'd like--But I'd like to revisit one--just the core message that you have, “what's the point?” Because I think that that really gives a lot of leaders a first place to start. But it's also a way to really dive in and understand. What are the--how can we become more strategic? How can we drive more value? How can we be more efficient? And a lot of pieces there. So is that what your intent was when you kind of--when you're coining that particular phrase?
Katie: You know, it was so funny. It was an accident. It's a phrase that I use all the time, naturally. Whether I am—Like, earlier in my career, where I was on the team or I was the contributor in one role or another consultant, whatever. I would often be sitting in meetings and they'd be talking about, “well, we should do this.” And my gut reaction was almost always, “well, what's the point?” And then people would sort of lock up in a lot of cases, because they weren't sure. They were tossing out a thing to do versus saying, “well, we really need to do--this is the point of doing something. If that's the point, what's the best something to do?” And really, it gets back to my own deliberate nature and thinking that way of—I don't--Some people would say minimalist, I prefer the term essentialist. If it doesn't need to be there, why are we putting time towards it?
There's only so much time in one day to be able to put things towards, and I know everybody's, “AI will do it because it works when you sleep.” It's all lovely. But for human beings, there is only so much time in one day. So if we're going to be bringing people in, bringing people together, working on things, let's really make sure that we understand the point of this. Not just because a lot of people will say, “well, why don't you just ask? Why are we doing that?” My answer is always the same. It can get very existential. I'm not looking for the existential answer. I'm looking for the pragmatic answer. What do we really want? Whatever we're doing to achieve before we sit down to do it so that we can make sure that the choices we make are actually going to achieve what it is that we're setting out to do.
And I think often we miss this step, and we don't talk about that very much. So that's really where the question came from. And all of my work and ultimately developing a framework. We're now exploring developing technology tools to support it. It really comes from—is--how do I help people to ask questions, which is such a human thing to do. Asking better questions is about as simple a tool as you can get to hopefully be more deliberate, be more strategic in what it is they choose to do. And as we talked about, choose in so many cases not to do because they didn't really need to do it in the first place.
Sam: Well, I--On your blog, I was doing some reading and you mentioned--You were just talking about asking questions, and then in your blog you're referring to asking those three layers of questions. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?
Katie: Oh, that's funny. You ask--Sometimes what you find--and this is sort of specific to my role as an outsider working with a team, but I think leaders can do the same thing. And sometimes as a member of a team, so can you--is to sort of take a step back and really listen to what the person's asking. And what you'll find is that people will ask a question, and in a lot of cases, they ask almost the question they intended to ask. And you can help them clarify what it is that they're actually--this is what I hear you saying. Let me make sure that we're there and help them clarify their own thinking, and answer question one, right? What they actually asked, help them clarify their thinking to the question they were really trying to get to.
And then there may even be a question they didn't think to ask. What is this aspect? What is this perspective, perhaps, that they're not considering? Because that's not the vantage point from which they're sitting. This is one of the pieces of having a team, I think as a leader, that--the more that you get excited about the fact that I don't have to have all the answers, I don't have to occupy all the perspectives. I have a room full of talented people who can help me to do that, who can help me to check in on that question I didn't think to ask because that's not how I was looking at the issue, or that's not my role in the greater team. So, I don't know that I would, even if I tried to put myself in your shoes, come up with the same questions that you would come up with.
So, working through those three levels is something I like to do with clients. In fact, I'm preparing for a session tomorrow, and I'm working through some of those questions as far as, “here's what's coming up, directly. Here's what I think they're actually asking about based on what I'm seeing. And here's a couple of things that maybe they didn't consider, but I think would really help to fuel a more well-rounded conversation.”
Sam: That's really fascinating. You know, I think that's one of the reasons asking good questions is so important. And I think that's one of the benefits that we can get from, actually, this onset of AI coming our way. Learning how to become a prompt engineer and ask the right questions to AI is--brought a lot of interesting realization to me. Because sometimes we're--we ask the question, it's in simple terms, and we don't really think about it. It's like “what is the answer to X?” And we get something that is definitional, or something that's very limited and not in context. But the more we dive in and really think about, “okay, well what is the question I really should be asking?” And in what context and to what person and who's--and all those things that you're thinking about brings much, much more better answers, and more understanding. So I find that fascinating.
Howard: The other side of it too, I think is--and maybe it's a US thing--we're very quick to want to answer, solve the problem, where sometimes you need to pause and, as you said, try and get to the question that they want to ask, or that they haven't thought about asking, versus just reaching for the quick solution.
Katie: Yeah. The--It's such an essential thing that you just said. Which is taking that--just that bit of extra time to actually think. Which I think is something that, for as much as we're all--people get very excited about being knowledge workers and the laptop class and whatever else—it’s kind of amazing how much even those people are not actually given space to think before they go about trying to do work. Leaders, especially. I read a report recently that was “we put in very little time to actually just thinking strategically, and there's such a pressure, we'll spend even less time on it.” And I'm like, “wait a minute, what if the problem is that we're not spending enough time on it?” Not that we need to do it faster.
Sam: True. So, Katie, I know we're reaching the top of the hour here. When you think of the main takeaways that you want our listeners to be thinking about right now, how would you summarize that?
Katie: What I would definitely say is, “what's the point” is a really key question, even for yourself and your own life as a human being. Really looking at all the things that get your time and really understanding what's the point of them. And do all of them together, create a life I want to live. It's equally as applicable there as it is to thinking about how businesses are running and what that means for the team members that are a part of that business and how work actually gets done. So taking away that “what's the point.” Of the business, it should be the value that it delivers to someone. And the understanding that you can then ask that question of every action the business takes so that you're delivering that value, which in turn makes the work you're asking your people to do more meaningful and therefore more valuable to them.
And then, being able to then apply that question to some of the things that they're looking for out of work and being able to be personal about. Maybe it's growth that they're really looking for in addition to the particular things that they're doing. Maybe it's relationships, maybe it's a leadership opportunity, maybe it's something else. But taking the time to also understand that you deliver value to your team members, first and foremost by paying them. Second, by respecting their time and really thinking about that “what's the point” question to make sure you are. And then third, by finding those other, potentially more personal points that they're hopefully looking to get out of the time they invest in their work with you.
Sam: All right. Well, for our listeners out there, if you have any questions for Katie, now's the time to think about those. But I do want to mention our sponsor here, TMA USA. So TMA is a tool that can help us increase communication with our people. So, we're talking about a lot here is basically—diving in, really, I’m asking “what's the point?” And in TMA’s particular situation, it’s, what is the talents that people really--what's most meaningful to them and how they do their best work? And so, as we are engaging with our people and learning more about them, you can use Katie's framework as well. What's the point in your career? And to really get set some good conversations going forward.
Also, I want to mention our speaker coming up. Next week, we're going to have Crystal Robinson joining us, and she's going to be talking about listening to your employees. And so what does that mean? And in the context of the past, present, and future. But Katie, so we're going to be asking Crystal a lot of questions, and what, question do you think you would have for Crystal on this topic?
Katie: I would love her to talk about her thoughts or approach to how to have listening be a two-way conversation rather than a one-way conversation. And let me explain what I mean by that briefly. Which is, I think a lot of times, what happens is we send out surveys to our team. I do not have anything against surveys. They are an important tool. But we take the information and then we go on, and sometimes we do stuff about it, but nobody really closes the conversation and actually gets back and says, “okay, here's what we heard. Based on what we heard, here's what we're going to do, here's what we're not going to do.” Which I think is step one. I'm also curious for where she may see, or if she sees room for more co-creation conversations, versus sort of one-way “listening and then I'm going to make a decision,” versus “can we do that listening in something that looks more like a conversation.” And just understanding her approach to all of that and how that plays into what she's seeing in past, present, and future.
Sam: No kidding. I mean, I think a big thing of--It's--A lot of listening is part of that first step towards conversation, right? Having that effective communication. Well, does anybody have any final questions for Katie before we break today?
So, Katie, with those of our listeners that are looking to learn more about you and so forth, how can they contact you?
Katie: There's two really easy ways to sort of be part of my community or network. One is to go over and find me on LinkedIn. You saw my picture earlier. I look mostly the same in all of my pictures. So I'm pretty easy to find. And feel free to connect if you have any questions, or you want to chat with me for any reason, or just get to know me better, please feel free to drop me a direct message. Let me know that you heard me here on the forum. And I'm happy to make that time for you and have that conversation. I also post pretty regularly, so if you found any of this remotely interesting that's a way to hear a little bit more about it.
I also write WTP, which does stand for “What's the Point,” which is a Substack publication. And you're welcome to give that a follow. It's totally free. But I try to publish once a week with articles about this, about work and business, but also the larger value economy and what does that mean for us as people and participants, and how do we actually move ourselves in that direction? Clearly, we're interested. How do we get from where we are now to over there, and what does that look like? So a way to find that is wtpfocus.substack.com.
Sam: Great. Well, thank you so much, Katie. It's been a wonderful conversation. Thank you for joining us.
Katie: Yes, thank you so much for having me. And thank you to everybody who asked really thoughtful questions and added really intelligent contributions. It's always great to be with a crowd of people who clearly care about people and work.
Howard: Thank you.
Char: Well, thank you very much, Katie.
Sumit: Thanks Katie.
Sam: Well, we'll see everybody next week on the People Strategy Forum. Take care. Bye bye.