Transcript
Speaker: Made on Zencastr. Because Zencastr is the all-in-one podcasting platform that really does make every stage of the podcast production and distribution process so easy.
Speaker: you Use the link in the description to visit zencastr.com and take advantage of the built-in discount. Hello and welcome to the Independent Minds, a series of conversations between Abyssaida and people who think outside the box about how work works, with the aim of creating better workplace experiences for everyone.
Speaker: I am your host, Michael Millward. to Today I am talking to Janice Brathwaite about her book, Workplace Transformations Method.
Speaker: Janice is a culture-first solutions person hoping to deliver people-driven results. Janice is based in Salem in Massachusetts. That's part of a North America that I am yet to visit.
Speaker: When I get the chance, I will make all of my travel arrangements with the Ultimate Travel Club because as a member of the Ultimate Travel Club, I have access to trade prices on flights, hotels, trains, ferries, holidays, all sorts of travel-related purchases.
Speaker: You can also access those trade prices by joining the Ultimate Travel Club and as you would expect, I have put a link in the description with a discount built in on the membership fees.
Speaker: Now that I have paid some bills, it is time to make an episode of The Independent Minds that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to, and probably good enough to share with your friends, your family and your work colleagues.
Speaker: As with every episode of The Independent Minds, We will not be telling you what to think, but we are hoping to make you think. Today's Independent Mind is Janice Brathwaite.
Speaker: Hello, Janice. Hello, how are you? i am extremely well, thank you very much, and hope that you can say the same. i am, I'm doing well, thank you. Good, good. Tell us a little bit about your career and how you ended up where you are today.
Speaker: Well, I started out in the for-profit world. um I started out working for companies like Xerox. Motorola, Procter & Gamble. You know, was my career. I pivot every once in a while into a different career. Eventually, I pivoted into healthcare care because I had been working on a Department of Labor grant with another organization.
Speaker: This company or this organization got a grant and wanted someone to run it. And so that's how I made my way into healthcare. care And I always say that when I first went into healthcare, I felt like I walked it in the middle of a movie.
Speaker: because I had no idea what was going on. It took me a while to kind of get my feet on the ground. But once I got my feet on the ground, this organization that worked for, I was with them for 17 years.
Speaker: So I really enjoyed it. It was more around community health, people that we hear a lot about today that can't afford health insurance or have state health insurance.
Speaker: These places, community health centers, are the ones that actually serve most of these people. Healthcare around the world is ah is a huge, huge topic. What was it that led you to create the workplace transformation method?
Speaker: Well, i was when I was working for the last organization I was with, as I saw how leadership and managers interacted with staff, and I could kind of kind of relate to it because it hadn't really changed that much. It was still what I felt needed a ah lot of work.
Speaker: They had a grant, one of the federal agencies. One of the things I presented to them one day when they were for a site visit was on organizational culture and how it impacted you know all these facets, different facets of an organization.
Speaker: And they were very, very interested. I was surprised. I was shocked, actually. That they were so interested in it. And so what they did was the next grant that we received, they put that in as one of the deliverables to work with any health centers on nice improving the culture of their organ of the organizations, those organizations.
Speaker: So that's how I kind of got to it. I did a lot of research too, because, you know, I always said, I don't know what's impacting. What is really impacting this ah culture, this organ, these organizations that they can't seem to kind of get themselves together with, with their staff and really utilize vast assets that they have correctly.
Speaker: So I started doing some reading. I am certified to take, to do these assessments. ah with human synergistics here in the United States, I started to see like different things that were constantly coming up as issues that people recognized in or identified in those assessments.
Speaker: And there were three that really came came right out, smacked me right in my face, was communication, recognition, and lack of trust.
Speaker: Interesting. Yes. As I did these this these assessments, which were really a deep dive into the culture of an organization, or into an organization, I should say, thereby identifying their culture, I realized that companies didn't know, organizations didn't know how to do this. They didn't know to fix it.
Speaker: and They wouldn' knew there was something wrong, but they weren't quite sure what it was. So they said, oh, we just don't pay them enough. That's the problem. And I always say that money is a short-term satisfier.
Speaker: Yes. You know, it's good for a couple of months. And then after that, you're right back to normal. Yeah. So everyone should get a fair and living wage, but I don't feel that's really going to solve the problem.
Speaker: No, I agree with you. Money is one of those things that you get a rush of adrenaline and when you get given the pay rise. But it's a strange thing that we don't normally talk to people about how much we're paid or pay rises.
Speaker: Exactly. But actually, we live to the money that we earn. So, if you earn $100, £100, then that's what you end up, you save some, you spend some, all sorts of different things has to happen to money. But if somebody then gives you another $10 or £10, you're earning £110, there's novelty of there's a novelty of it initially what am I going to do with this but within like you say within a couple of months you're up to spending 110 and that's become the norm so any motivational aspect that might have ah been created because you've been given the pay rise is completely gone exactly that's spot on that's exactly when I talk about it that's that's how I talk about it because you know I think that sometimes it's just they think they're putting a bandage band-aid on something and
Speaker: it's going to be okay. It'll heal, but it doesn't really. No, not at all. So this research and this project that you were involved in led to the the creation of the workplace transformation method. Yes. Why did you decide to call it the workplace transformation method?
Speaker: One of the reasons I called it that was because i when you talk about organizational culture, it's a big thing. It's a really big thing. And it's, And it's built into the foundation of an organization.
Speaker: So how do we find out what's going on? What are the things in that foundation that are that are really causing issues? And I said, but there has to be a structured process for this because usually, well, not usually, I start with leadership first, usually the of an organization.
Speaker: And I work through the different stages of this with various other leadership and staff in the organization. My belief is you cannot make change from the bottom up.
Speaker: You have to make it from the top down. If you're trying to push it up, it's going to it's not going to last. I don't disagree with you. I'm just sort of thinking that every time there's someone from Massachusetts on the independent mines as a British person, I think, well, that's where the American Revolution started.
Speaker: but and that I'm thinking back in an organizational terms, and if anything does start from the bottom of the organization, anywhere other than the top, All you have is a revolution, isn't it?
Speaker: It's a revolution and that involves destruction of something in order to replace it with something else. Right, exactly. right But if it starts from the top, you have much more of an evolution and much more positive experience, I think, for everyone that is involved. ah If you start at the top, you can end up with a situation where there are no losers. And as long as you have the communication of answering that question, what's in it for me, for everyone within the organization, you can end up with everyone working out why they are a winner because of the change that you have conducted. Exactly.
Speaker: Exactly. And that's what you want. you know Yes. Also, is you want to sustain change. And so that's why one of the things that I built into the five pillars is about sustaining change.
Speaker: One of the things I learned when I was doing lean training was that if it's not embedded into the organization, it's just an event, a lean training event or a lean process event.
Speaker: It's not going to last. It has to be integrated into the organization. And again, we were starting with leaders were giving the people the opportunity to go, but they were not seeing it as value.
Speaker: So, A lot of times that just fell by the wayside. And again, it gets back to that, what is in what's in it for me? Yes, very much so. You mentioned that there are five parts to the workplace transformations method framework.
Speaker: And you mentioned that one of them is sustain. What are the other four? Well, the first one is diagnose. Maybe that's because I was in healthcare. care I don't know. Yeah.
Speaker: Well, for me, you could actually say, well, let's identify what the problem is. But that's that's just a matter of sentences. If you if you use the word diagnose, you're looking at what it is, what's caused it. you're You're going into much more detail and learning more about the organization through a process of diagnosis, not just simply identification.
Speaker: Exactly. yeah We use a very short questionnaire that can go out to staff to kind of, understand the high level pain points that might be causing some of the issues in the organization.
Speaker: it helps gauge me to gauge the employee's perception of where they work. right and And that gives me some ability to have like a ah foundation a base.
Speaker: Sounds good. and what's going from then on okay What comes after diagnosing the problem? So aligning, this is really about creating a process for Leadership Lab, and it's to shift the way that leadership communicates and communicate, well, really update the way leaders communicate in the organization.
Speaker: So, like I said, communication is one of the top things that comes as a problem in most assessments that come out. it It comes out number one most of the time. The lack of communication, no clear of communication,
Speaker: You know, they're not direction in the communication doesn't make any sense. So getting leaders to understand how they need to communicate is so important because they're the ones that are going to be spreading the message to everyone.
Speaker: You know, I went into one organization when I was working at my other job and I went in and and they said, well, we have this problem with people on the, on one floor in the building.
Speaker: I thought that was funny. Just one floor. um But I said, didn't say anything. And I went in and did a lot of ah interviewing with, you know, medical staff and and the frontline staff.
Speaker: It came down to communication. It started out the first interview with the nurses. They told a story about how they had found out on a Friday that on Monday, the triage piece of what they did was being outsourced.
Speaker: No one ever talked to them. Nobody ever communicated with them. And they're, they're, response was, well, we could have helped this organization that's that's going to be doing the triage kind of give them an overview of what kinds of things our patients might want to know or might have problems that they might have.
Speaker: We were never given that opportunity. So that's lost opportunity as far as I'm concerned. I would agree with you. i think what you're meaning by align in this context then is it's aligning of everyone within the organization to a common goal, aligning them with the issue, aligning them with the solution.
Speaker: And a process to to learn how what the process is of of delivering communication to to organiss in in the organization. There are some people that are just great at it.
Speaker: know There's no doubt. There's no there's no lack of clarity in what they're saying. They're not talking a lot of stuff and jogging. you know All of those kinds of things would just you know make people say, what did they say? What was that? What did they say?
Speaker: you know um i didn't understand that one thing. I can't stress the the communication piece. And you're putting the communication under this align because the alignment is the consequence, the output from having effective communication. Right. And I'm using targeted coaching in the process of doing this, about six weeks of targeted coaching with the leaders.
Speaker: you know And I say, you know, what that that goes to, you know, maybe I go to a meeting with one of the leaders when they're going to be presenting something. And then at the end of it, we sit down and we do debrief.
Speaker: You know, and I provide, you know, direction or, you know, well, was a little fuzzy there or you maybe you could have taken this to act. But yeah, so that's that's part of Align, getting communications aligned within the organization so that it is everyone's kind of.
Speaker: marching to the same drum when it comes to. Brilliant. I understand what you mean. The third part of the workplace transformations method is a attract. Right.
Speaker: Can you explain that a little bit, please? So attract is based on something that I started doing again in my previous position called value-driven hiring.
Speaker: As I was in organizations and working close with some of these health centers, I realized that In order for people to really buy into, these employees buy into your values, they have to share those values.
Speaker: If someone doesn't like, in my case, doesn't like working with people who are underserved or don't have health insurance or have poor health insurance,
Speaker: If they don't like doing that, they're not going to be able to be a good employee in your organization and good for your patients. So how do we find this out? And it also came out, of I ran an AmeriCorps program as part of my job at one point in time.
Speaker: I had to interview people every year to fill slots. And I remember the first year I did it, I was like, I got people, but they weren't really the kind of people that i thought, well, you know, you could send them out to a health center and they'll work. You know, they'll be fine.
Speaker: How do you find out if they're going to be fine? How do you want to find out if they're going to be the kind of people that are going to be able to work well with the staff in the health centers?
Speaker: So I started doing more around value driven. You know, I started asking questions and there's a whole um interview process that you can do that that I created around, you know, how do I find this out?
Speaker: I hear a lot of people say, well, I can teach somebody a value. No, you can't. if a person wants to get a value or have a value, they're the only ones that can make that decision.
Speaker: I think by the time you're five years old, you have all your basic values. You know, don't take what doesn't belong with you. Don't hurt others. You know, just the basic ones.
Speaker: And then as you get older, you say, oh, yeah, you know, well I'm going to be I need I need to strengthen this value that I have. It's I don't think i'm I'm as strong as I thought I was. So it's really getting down to understanding who this person really is.
Speaker: I believe that you can. You can definitely find out if you ask the right questions in the right way. Yes. Your values drive your conscience. Exactly. things that you feel guilty about without being told that you should feel guilty about is the consequence of the values that you've been given at a very young age when you didn't have the mental capacity to question them.
Speaker: It's just you picked them up without being taught told them by the from the people around you. Right. Exactly. You know, I do workshops. I developed an interview guide with value-driven questions that people can ask, onboarding checklists.
Speaker: And we do a couple of workshops with staff, especially the hiring managers, HR people, to help them hire people that are better fit for their organizations.
Speaker: And when they're a better fit, the chances are they're going to stay. It's when there's a disconnect that people say, I can't do this. You know, this isn't for me. And then you have, your course, turnover.
Speaker: If people buy into the organization's values and those values reflect to their values, then you've got an employee who is going to be doing more because there'll they'll be more bought into the organization and what it's trying to achieve.
Speaker: I get that. I had a director, well, she was a COO, actually, chief operating officer. And um when I first came there, I told said that I didn't know much about health care.
Speaker: And then one day she called me into her office and she said, Janice, I just want to tell you, I'm so glad you you really glo you know you grabbed onto this, what we do.
Speaker: it's It's evident in the way you interact with the health centers. And it was just one of the nicest things anyone's ever said to me. But she was saying, your values now align. I can see how your values align with what we're doing. Yes.
Speaker: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. the ah fourth part of the workplace transformations method is activate. Right. So go ahead. I'm sorry. No, no, I was just going ask you the question that you were about to start answering. So you've activated. so please carry on.
Speaker: So out of all of this you know work that we do, there's a lot of lot of information comes out. And usually organizations, I won't say usually, but sometimes organizations get overwhelmed by data and all the information that you want you're giving to them out of the assessments, out of all the and interactions that we've had with people in the organization.
Speaker: yeah So I developed something called a culture and action playbook. This playbook was developed to help organizations stay on track with the changes that they want to make rather than just say, you know, having a vague idea that we're going to do this. This is what we're going to do.
Speaker: How is it going and how well are we doing it? And what is the outcome that we're getting? So this is just a guide for them to use, kind of broken down into easy parts so that they can they can actually track the things that they say it that came out of the assessment that needed to be changed.
Speaker: you know it's It could be the results of, it and well it contains the results of any kind of assessment we've done, the human synergistic assessment, the clarity so snapshot, and then what can we do?
Speaker: And sometimes what I do is I give suggestions Because sometimes they're stuck they stumble and they don't really know where to how to do this. You know, like, ah don' well, you want me to do this. You say we need to do this, but I don't know how to do it.
Speaker: So then you you come in as a person of some knowledge and you kind of help them, you know, get through that. Yeah, so it's about putting everything into action to achieve the results that are part of your business plan.
Speaker: Correct. Brilliant. And then the last one is sustain. So today, everybody wants to know, well, what's the ah ROI on that?
Speaker: What's the return on investment? Why should I do this? What am I going to get out of it? you know And so this is a way to not only talk about it but to be able to track the ah ROI of whatever you change you've made so that you can see, well, there was value in what we did. I think a lot of times you know training doesn't happen because people say, well, what are we gonna get out of this?
Speaker: What's the return on investment? you know And this includes you know several different processes you can use to to measure the benefit versus the cost.
Speaker: Yes. It sounds like there's an awful lot of activities that make the workplace transformation method work. And one of those is answering that age old question.
Speaker: What's in it for me? Right, right. If you're going to identify a problem and diagnose it, you can't actually do that unless you, as you say, talk to the people who are involved in the problem and get them to help you diagnose it and create the solution.
Speaker: You could overcomplicate these things an awful lot, but there's sort the five steps. this ah Like when you talk about alignment, the alignment is the outcome of effective communication. It starts to be very practical.
Speaker: Exactly. And that's what I try to do is make it practical yeah and kind of, you know, um develop it so that it wasn't so overwhelming. You know, eight I used to say to people that when I would talk before I you know really got deep into this, I would talk to CEOs about culture.
Speaker: um And I remember one who actually worked for. And they get this frown like they don't, what? You know? And I said, I don't wonder why they frown like that. Like they get like this puzzled look and frown.
Speaker: And I said, you know what? I think I know why. Because that what they hear is, everything I've done up to this point has been wrong. You're coming in here and you're going to tell me that everything I've done is wrong.
Speaker: And that is so far from the truth of what happens. One of the ways that you can avoid some of that is, By honoring the past, but looking to the future.
Speaker: Looking at an organization, what what are the good things about this organization? That's what I usually start out with when I'm talking to a CEO. So tell me what the great things are about this organization.
Speaker: And kind of get, you know, more positive mindset going in. And then I ask them, so what are some of the things that you cause you to wake up in the middle of night and be concerned?
Speaker: And then we go through those. And I do that with the different staff as well. I want them to get a positive may mindset going into this. Because if I go into it negative, it's going to be negative.
Speaker: and It's going to seem like I'm coming in there to tell you, you know, you did everything wrong. I think part of the, or one of the things that happens when a department gets a new manager or someone from outside comes in, there is an expectation that that person is going to say that everything that has happened already is wrong. And I am the savior or their part, their their role is to find the problems before they find the solutions. And that's that's exactly right. right
Speaker: You know, they're of like a wrecking ball. What do you see as the future then for the workplace transformations method? What what does the future look like? Well, um you know, I developed this from scratch and started this business after I left where I was. I had had a framework for it before then, but I hadn't really done much for it.
Speaker: But what i would what I'm working towards is, helping ah the ah these organizations that are struggling or concerned that there might be some things that are wrong or a problems, i won't say wrong, but problems, and help them to kind of unearth those and also to provide some positive changes that they can make.
Speaker: That sounds great. You know, Janice, I have really enjoyed finding out about workplace transformations method. I'm going to look into it in more detail. Where can I do that? What's your website address?
Speaker: My website address is WPTransformation, no S, dot com. Brilliant. Thank you very much. We'll put a link in the description. But for today, thank you very much for helping me make such an interesting episode of The Independent Minds.
Speaker: Well, thank you for having me on. It's been great. I am Michael Millward, Managing Director of Abbasida, and I have been having a conversation with the independent mind, Janice Brathwaite, who is the creator of the Workplace Transformation Method.
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