The Role of Organizational Developers For Business Owners with Michael Seaver

The Role of Organizational Developers For Business Owners with Michael Seaver

Sean: I’m wondering now if you mentioned organizational development, and this is very important to me. I was having whiskey and cigars with one of my friends just last week, I think. Yeah, just last Thursday. Um, and he was talking about organizational development, like, and I was like, well, where do you, where do you hire one?

And what’s the background of someone who knows how to do organizational development? And we were like, Well, he or she must have been an operations manager or some high position in H.R. And we had no idea. Right. I mean he, I think he is still hiring for it. I had no idea what it was before last Thursday. Can you give us some idea about what it does, you know, what an organizational developer does for a company and why it’s so important?

Michael: Sure. Yeah. They’re across America. And I don’t know about the Philippines, but across America, several universities have degrees. Undergraduate degrees and master’s degrees and even some PhDs focused on organizational development. So for some, it can come right from school.

So depending on what schools you have relationships with Sean or that your friend has relationships with, ask the recruiters from those respective schools what degree programs they have with organizational development, because several organizations do it, or internationally, Society for Human Resource Management, although focused a little bit more on general HR, does have an OD component.

And in America, there are things like the Talent Development Network and there are things like the odd network that focus just on that. So there are professional associations where you can find talent that does that work, right? And there are lots of different facets of organizational development.

So that’s an easy search, I think, online for anybody that wants to know what that is. But the way that we think about organizational development is predominantly how you help individuals change themselves to change the business, to better accomplish the organization’s goals, Right? So as a human resources professional and organizational development professional, understand these 12 driving forces, core values, and emotional intelligence.

And I use something called Kotter’s eight-step model of change. So the first four are how do you help the individual shift and change and know themselves, right? But Kotter’s eight-step model came out of John Kotter, a guy that worked at Harvard for several years, a great consultant, but he has an eight-step model of how organizations change. So if anybody wants to know how to shift their business, just walk your business through those eight steps.

But an organizational development professional, somebody who understands how to change the person and they can use Kotter’s eight steps to be able to change the business. Now it’s going to be much easier for someone like Sean to be able to guide the team toward a different future, right? So whatever it is that your business is doing now, that’s great.

Whatever it is that you, Sean, want the business to be 18 to 24 months down the road. Well, the organizational development person says, okay, here’s how we need to change the organization’s mission. Here’s how we need to change the core values, and here’s how we need to change the compensation structures and models. Here’s how we need to change the hiring practice. Here’s how we need to change the meeting structures, and how bosses communicate with direct reports day to day.

So in my experience of doing this consulting, if we don’t have number one leadership buy-in, like in this case if Sean is not bought into the change, the change is going to fail. But number two is if the compensation structures and models for the organization are not set up to support the change that you’re trying to create, the change is going to fail, right? Number three. Yeah. So that’s probably number three.

I’ll mention it real quick. Is that so? If leadership isn’t bought in, it’ll fail. If compensation models and structures aren’t aligned, it’s going to fail. And number three is if the employee is not being communicated very transparently about what’s going on, they’re going to feel a lot of stress and anxiety and nervousness, and that’s going to stop them from accepting the change. But going back to what you just said, the compensation model and structure are so important because I’ve worked with really big businesses that mainly rewarded the individual for his or her performance, but they did not reward team performance.

And so you have to find a balance between giving the individual financial success, but you also have to reward them for doing something collaboratively as a team. But if you miss the collaboration component, what it does is it creates competition between people and then the camaraderie, the teamwork, the collaboration.

It all tanks because it becomes and you don’t want that, right? You want to find an appropriate balance between how to help the person and how to help the team achieve things together. Yep. So? So before Sean and I were born, rewarding individual success was the way that societies across the world worked. Now we’ve shifted into a very different time in human history where millennials, the ones that make up the predominant amount of the workforce, value learning from teams and being a part of a team. So we need to adjust compensation models and structures to allow for the team to be successful.

Sean: Got it. Wow, that’s very good learning today. Didn’t know I’m a millennial I Didn’t know. Yeah. But yeah. Good stuff. Okay. Um. By the way, I’m wondering, though, regarding all these tests that you’re handing out, did you make sure that your partner right now took the test? Yes. So talk to us a little bit about that. I’m wondering. And me and my wife, we also took, you know, the StrengthsFinder Gallup StrengthsFinder test.

She’s a certified coach. I’m an RNP master, and I read a Motivation profile. So I use the 16 Basic Desires motivation profile. I’ve never heard of the 12 motivations, so I’m going to look into that, especially if it’s free because RNP is paid. So yeah, like tell me about that. I want some of our listeners to know what the value is of being able to have some of these tests before, during, or after meeting the partner of your life. Right?

Michael: Yeah. It’s so, it’s so important. Sean, It’s so yeah, we’ve been talking about this through the lens of how it helps you or me or any business, any entrepreneur or small business that’s listening or watching how does it help you choose the right talent for your organization?

It’s really important. But the same assessments can be utilized to understand the relationship that you have with any romantic partner. Right? And it’s really important because if you know your risk profile, you know your partners. Right. You now know how to communicate to him or her or tailor your communication or, you know, how you know what to ask of him or her back to you.

To make sure that you can comprehend one another in your communication style. Because open communication is one thing, but the comprehension of what’s being said and understanding it is a different thing. And so that’s where the relationships can get very strong very quickly, if you tailor and adjust your communication to a person, they comprehend what you’re saying, you feel understood and heard that the relationship is going to get a lot better, a lot faster. Now, secondarily, the motivations part, whether it’s through Reiss or whether it’s through TTI.

If, you know, unconsciously why somebody is doing what they’re doing, you’re less likely to get mad that they’re doing it. Yeah, right. And that’s critical. So you know, both Tiffany and I were motivated a little bit by money. Right? So when we make options and choices in our lives that are about the attainment of wealth and the creation of wealth, we both have an understanding of why that’s occurring.

So we don’t get frustrated if we accidentally do something hurtful to the other person. Right? Because the underlying reason is the same, right? We both want that. Yeah. Now, the same thing with core values. So when Tiffany and I showed each other our core values results, it was like, okay, well, explain to me why this is important to you. So thankfully, our number one core value for both of us is authenticity. So we know unequivocally. Okay, well, what does authenticity mean to Tiffany? What does it mean to Michael?

And then we can go through our life stories and explain when we didn’t have authenticity in our lives and why it’s so important for us to have it now and then and what it means for us down the road. Like Tiffany is opening a wine and champagne bar where we live in North Carolina, based 100% on the people coming in the door to living their most authentic and happy life. Which is something I can get behind and support and help, right? Very easily.

And I think that there’s deep value, Sean, in talking about someone’s level of EQ because as we’ve talked about, you and I both had difficult experiences in our childhood and maybe your partner did too. Maybe Tiffany did too. And so when we start to see our partners having a strong emotional response to something, we don’t have to take that personally. Like it was our fault. Yeah, because that’s easy to do.

We can then instead say, okay, this person had an event in their childhood or teenage years, which was traumatic. I want to respect and honor that and allow them to vent and just get it out of their system. And I’m not going to take it personally because it’s easy in relationships for us to take somebody else’s frustration or sadness or anger as though we did something wrong when in reality we didn’t.

Yeah, so all of these things can help tremendously for self-awareness, and self-realization, but it also helps us to adjust and tailor our communication to our partner so that the relationship can deepen and trust can form deeply. Because as you know from Patrick Lencioni’s work about the Five dysfunctions of a team, Stephen Covey’s book, you know, the Speed of trust. Trusting relationships matter immensely inside businesses, but they also matter immensely at home. Yeah. Yeah, right.

And so if you don’t have that trust at home, the likelihood is that you’re going to make more mistakes, right? You’re not going to feel seen or heard, right? Your EQ is going to get lower. So we want that trust-filled relationship everywhere man.

Sean: Yeah, 100%. So with the Gallup StrengthsFinder and I’m not being I’m not promoting them, I’m not affiliated with Gallup. It’s just that my wife is a certified coach and I took the StrengthsFinder test way back in 2012. I unlocked my 34 strengths because I only bought the top five during that time. So I unlocked it. When she finally got certified, she unlocked her 34. Her top one is empathy.

My top one is self-assurance and she keeps telling me how insensitive I am. And I said I keep on saying maybe my bottom is empathy. My 34th strength is empathy because that’s what I don’t use right in the StrengthsFinder spectrum. And when I unlocked it, it was spot on. It’s my number 34. Right? So now the question I have for you, Michael, is and you mentioned that you brushed on this a little bit earlier.

How do you adjust now that you know that? Okay, how she understands things and how I understand things and how she and I communicate are very, very different. She is an empath. She understands how you feel before you even say anything. Right? Just by reading your body language as you tell me straight to my face and I can’t even feel anything. Right. So how do you adjust or how do you improve if that is the case?

Michael: Yeah. you know, from the StrengthsFinder, from being a high D on the disc profile, but, and me being a high C, right? So D’s and C’s are very task oriented.

Whereas with C’s. They’re very task-oriented, they’re very detail-oriented. Um, and so that’s a great compliment, right between the D in this case, Sean, who is very innovative, very creative, loves to start things, and likes to direct things. And then you have the C who is more of the finisher. They love to be able to close things effectively. So the D and the C together is a phenomenal pairing. Now, the thing we have to remember about task-oriented people, both Sean and I, is that we can sometimes put the objective accomplishment of goals ahead of people’s emotions.

Yeah, right. Not right or wrong. It just is the way that our brains are hardwired. And so when we are paired with partners or colleagues inside the office who are more people-oriented or who are more empathetic or compassionate, we have to take that quick step back and be very transparent about saying, I recognize that your communication style is this or that, you need this or that, your life’s experiences or this.

Please honor and recognize that you know where I’m coming from. My brain doesn’t work that way. I can’t see situations that way. And so it’s a very transparent sharing of here’s how you’re seeing the situation, Here’s how I’m seeing this situation. Let me stop my emotion for a second and please explain why this situation is difficult for you or how you perceive this.

What’s the emotion that exists inside this? And then you and I, as task-oriented people who are less sympathetic, could then say, okay, I respect and I see all of that and then we learn, right? So over time, we learn their response mechanisms, and we learn how we might be just a little bit more empathetic in those situations. And so over time, we find a middle ground. But it comes first with a conscious acceptance of how my brain’s oriented.

Here’s how my life experiences have come together to make me not empathetic or number 34, Right? Yeah, empathetic because I’m the same. It’s okay. But then it’s also this conscious movement over time to check ourselves and to say when I’m confronted with a situation where I need to be empathetic, am I going to repeat old mental models or am I going to respond differently or more empathetically this time?

So we have to check ourselves and to make sure that we’re continually making progress because the entirety of Earth is moving to a very emotional time. Yeah. And so, I mean, really, my goodness. Yeah, you can probably feel it, right?

Sean: Yeah, 100%.

Michael: So for those empathetic people who are already emotional, so all of the emotion on earth is causing them to be even more emotional. And then even for the objective, task-oriented folks like Sean or myself, even the emotions are coming to the surface for us unexpectedly.

Yeah. And so it’s partially this process of finding a middle ground with our partners or work colleagues, but it’s also self-discovery for us because Jordan Peterson in his, you know, blogs and in his podcasts and all of these things, he talks about how that for us to be really. Formidable or for people to look up to us or for people to celebrate us.

We need to be able to do a wide variety of things, but we need to be able to control how it is that we behave in certain situations. So what he’s saying is, learn about yourself in a variety of ways and then apply that in a very controlled manner so that you become very powerful, that you become very formidable, that people look up to you in a meaningful way. So part of it, Sean, is just being able to have the experience that doesn’t make us weak. It makes us, over time, stronger.