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This podcast offers business solutions to help listeners develop and implement action plans for lean process improvement and implement continuous improvement projects, cost reductions, product quality enhancements, and process effectiveness improvement. Listeners come from many industries in both manufacturing and office applications.
Catherine McDonald 00:00
Hello, and welcome to this episode of the Lean Solutions podcast. My name is Catherine Macdonald, and I'm joining you today with a very special guest, who I will introduce in a moment. And we are going to talk about a very exciting topic, which I think really should interest everybody. We're going to talk about culture. Specifically, our topic is culture is the hidden process. So what what we're what we're going to get into in in the meat of this is really about how organizations and you've heard us talk about this on the on the podcast over and over again. Organizations can improve their processes all day long, but if the culture doesn't support trust, accountability, engagement, the improvements simply won't stick. And our guest Stephanie is an expert in this area. So, Stephanie, we are very glad to have you on the show, and you're very welcome. How are you doing?
Stephanie Angelo 01:08
I'm doing great. Thank you for having me. It's really a pleasure to be here, Catherine.
Catherine McDonald 01:13
Great. Okay. Good. Well, I'm really looking forward to getting into this. First of all, I'm going to let our guests know a little bit about you. So, Stephanie creates built to thrive organizations by slaying the villain of culture stagnation. Known for her dynamic presentations, Stephanie caters to a diverse clientele ranging from business owners to high-ranking leaders, emerging leaders, and HR professionals. She is the creative mind behind the board game Company Culture, a game of workplace traction, not transaction, and this is available in analog and digital versions. We have to talk more about that, Stephanie. She also incorporates this unique learning tool into her company culture workshops, facilitating fun and powerful experiences. Her reach extends globally to conferences and associations across varied sectors in the U.S. Canada, and Europe. Stephanie is a certified virtual presenter, a professional member of National Speakers Association and Society for Human Resource Management. She is H or CI Ethics certified, and in August 2023, she was the 92nd recipient of the prestigious Toastmasters International Accredited Speaker designation. That is so impressive, Stephanie. I have to say now I am very paranoid about how I come across sitting beside you. That is just amazing. So, a couple of things: a board game. That is so exciting. How did you come up with that idea?
Stephanie Angelo 02:48
I had actually developed my first board game probably about 15 years ago or so, when I was doing a lot of domestic violence educational work, and co-created that book, that game. Excuse me, with somebody I had worked with in the DV space, domestic buying space, and so when I transitioned into company culture, honestly, I was just doing some strategic writing, which is a process that I use and I teach, and it just came to me that hey, you've done this before, why don't you do it again? And I wanted to create a learning tool for organizations because gamified learning increases retention by like 81% So I I worked with all of my own past experience. Everything on the cards comes from my past life in HR. I ran things through other HR practitioners that I know, and then I also tested it with people that were not in the HR space to talk about how much do these things on these cards resonate with you in your life, and that was really the genesis of the whole game. And that was in the winter of 2019 and the the beginning of 2020. I actually got the first prototype the same week that the COVID shutdown was declared. Oh, yeah! So that sort of wiped the slate clean of playing games for the next two years. But as a result, I have not only the the English analog version, I have a digital version, so people all over the world can participate together. And I've had that happen. It's it's been absolutely wonderful, and I also have a Spanish version. The Spanish version is currently only in analog, not yet in digital. I've actually just been contacted to make a German version, so we'll see if that happens in the next few months.
Catherine McDonald 04:34
Fantastic! Well done, you. I love that. I just think there is not enough fun in the workplace. You know there really isn't, and we all need it. We do, but when it's yeah,
Stephanie Angelo 04:45
it's something that's just used for all kinds of occasions too. So it can be an all hands meeting, it can be a departmental meeting, a team meeting. There are so many different applications that it can be used for. So
Catherine McDonald 04:57
yeah, wow, okay, I love it. Well done. That's. Amazing! That's just so different. It's great. Okay, and and I think something like that, a tool like that, to discuss sometimes very complex and and difficult kind of topic, is exactly what's needed to just break the ice and get people talking. So I love it. Well done. Yeah,
Stephanie Angelo 05:17
and that's the interesting outcome from it. One of the many outcomes is that leaders don't often know how to talk to employees about the values and the things that they see within the organization, their past history, what they bring to the workplace, all of those things, and employees often don't know whether or not it's a safe place for them to speak about these things. And the interesting thing that I've discovered when groups play this game is that they begin talking about those things rather quickly. Like even the people that come in the room and say, "Excuse me, I don't like games, are laughing and participating within a few minutes. And before they know it, they're talking about all of those things, and they don't really even realize that they are. So that's one of the things that I've observed, and that's of course with the workshops that I've facilitated. Now the game is available to anybody who wants to purchase it, and then they facilitate it on their own. And all the instructions are there, but I'm always available to answer questions and assist.
Catherine McDonald 06:18
Amazing, and we'll give your details at the end where people can connect you, connect with you as well, and find you, and the other thing. So obviously, you know, Stephanie, you're you're you're pretty okay at presentations, speeches. You're you're pretty okay. You you only got the 92nd, you know, recipient of the prestigious Toast Masters International accredits speaker designation. You're you're you're doing okay at public speaking, right?
Stephanie Angelo 06:41
I think so. I so sorry. Now that I'm trying to speak, there's something in my throat. Yeah, you know, I I mostly work with organizations that reach out to me or repeat clients. I've got a webinar coming up for a group I've done presentations for before. A lot of times it's for CEUs, continuing education units that they're they're having to have their members or employees qualify for, and I really do enjoy that. Whether it's you know live in person or via the internet, Streamyard, Zoom, what have you, I I really enjoy it
Catherine McDonald 07:17
all. Fantastic, and I'm really interested to know. So you obviously you have a great reach. You have worked with so many different leaders, so many different organizations, industries. Tell me, what is the hot topics around culture at the moment in 2026? Because culture is a word that's been around for a long, long time and gets tossed around a lot. What are we talking about that's really, really important when it comes to culture these days. The
Stephanie Angelo 07:42
hot button word right now-it's sort of like the flavor of the year for 2026-is to use the word strategy. Having a great culture is a business strategy, and that's being tossed around a lot. I'm sure in 2027 they'll come up with a new word, but it's still the truth. Having a great company culture is a strategy that you need to have in your organization in order to keep your employees engaged, happy, present, present, present also in their mind, not just physically. We can talk about all of those things, and to reduce your turnover. When you look at all of those things combined, they're costing the company a lot of money. Turnover a lot alone statistically costs 25% more. Excuse me, 25% of that person's annual salary to replace them. But that's just to replace the person. It doesn't even really count how much productivity is lost when that person is not in the organization, and the work that's missing when they're gone. Then the period of time it takes to ramp up whoever that person has replaced. All of those losses combined really create about a 50% deficit when you lose a person. So it it's a really important thing. We can't always stop people from leaving. They might leave for a variety of reasons. A family member gets a job somewhere else, or something in the family changes, a career move for themselves. But what I think employers need to understand is an employee is not going to leave for 10 cents more an hour across the street, they will leave for 25% more, but they will leave toxic workplaces and bad managers like in a heartbeat, and that's what we really need to be mindful of. So that's got to be part of the strategy of making a great company culture, and I think one thing that people sort of get fuzzy about with the idea of culture is what exactly is that? And Catherine, there are books upon books upon books about culture. When I was getting my certification, there were so many different theories that I was reading, and truthfully, for me, at the end of the day, I went. Let's just simplify the whole thing into language everybody understands. Instead of doing these charts and these graphs and putting people into boxes, let's just simplify it and describe culture as the personality of an organization. So, a given person like Catherine, you've got your personality. I could probably describe in a few words. I have my personality. You could describe in a few words if you got to know me. Cultures for organizations are the same way. So you can have a culture that's very innovative. You can have one that's very transparent, one that's very accepting. You can have cultures that have these values in them, and those are what your employees are looking for. So really looking at the values that you hold near and dear, and how that's going to translate into who you are as an organization. If you were to describe an organization, how would you describe it? Kind of the same way you would of of a person.
Catherine McDonald 10:54
Yeah, that's a really good way, actually, of looking at it. And you're right; we do need to have some sort of a simpler understanding of culture; otherwise, the word just gets lost to most people. It just goes over their heads. So, yeah, I really like that in terms of looking at it as a personality. What struck me about just going back to what you said about strategy being the word or the the how how culture is being talked about? Isn't it really interesting though? Because a strategy strategy is something that you plan for. It's something you design. It's something that you can intentionally build and then implement. However, culture you can't actually really create a strategy for culture. It's almost the other way around. It's in my view anyway. It's the culture is sort of the consequence of the systems and the behaviors and and the personality and whatever happens. So I I do understand obviously that where where great culture is basically your strategy, but it it's not how you you don't build it like you build a strategy,
Stephanie Angelo 12:00
although you can,
Stephanie Angelo 12:02
okay.
Stephanie Angelo 12:02
For example, when groups play the company culture board game, it's outcome based. So not only do they talk about everything while they're playing the game, and they've got somebody at the table we call the scribe who's making notes on the most salient parts of the discussion, but after the game is played, the group or groups convene together. They go through debrief questions, and then they have. Let me just hold it up for the camera. They have this goal sheet, and they are tasked with coming up with three to five actionable goals. Less than three, I think, is not enough skin in the game, but more than five is unmanageable. So they're tasked with coming up to with three to five goals, what their action steps will be, who the owner of it is. So that might be a certain person in your department or a team lead or somebody that you designate to kind of make sure that everybody is on task, and then what the deadline is. And typically, this is a fiscal year, and so Catherine, these things are usually going to be some sort of a new policy. It could be a new procedure that's maintained between departments that have to interact. It could be any number of things like that. It can even include what is something that we're going to do in the community where our business is based. For example. during COVID, one of the first organizations that did my online version decided that they were going to volunteer at one of the very first drive-through COVID vaccination sites here in Phoenix, and they also bought gift cards to give to teachers who were struggling so much because now they were teaching online, and they also gave gift cards to grocery store clerks, and all of those things, including the policies and procedures that they created in house, really made a positive turn for that organization over the course of the fiscal year, and then when they do the game again the following year, then they can revise or renew things, and that has happened over and over and over in the client companies that I've had the privilege of seeing. So it can be a strategy. It can be, you know, we've got some things that are not healthy right now in our workplace. These are the things that we're going to strategically put into place so that we can change the personality of our organization and make it a healthier place to be. You and I have been around the block a little bit. You've probably had a few breakups in your life. I'm guessing, maybe with relationships. So you left something that wasn't working and went on to new relationships that did. And the workplace is the same way, but if you could have said to your partner, "These are the things that are really troubling me, and your partner said, "I get it, Catherine. Yeah, I'm going to work on that. That's that's a problem here. I'm going to work on that to make our relationship healthy. If the company does the same thing, look what a turnabout it can do for its employees."
Catherine McDonald 15:00
Okay, that I I get it. Yeah, I I do, and I guess the the thing is, it needs to be consistent, doesn't it? It's not like a once-off game you play and you take on actions. It so that brings me to whose responsibility is it? Is it for all of this? Because I find what happens is the responsibility for culture tends to, or culture development, or improvement, or shaping tends to land on sort of the middle manager's desk. You know that sort of said, "Well, you're the manager; you shape the culture and the environment. But then the managers then kind of, you know, again this whole idea of we're so busy, we have all these tasks. What do you mean by shape the culture? We've got all these challenges. So, when you say about people changing their behaviors, taking on maybe priorities and tasks outside of the day to day, looking just beyond themselves and the the tasks for a little bit to really understand their impact on other people and how you know how to align with the values of the company, whose responsibility do you think it is, Stephanie?
Stephanie Angelo 16:03
So that's a very intriguing question. Actually, I am a strong believer that it's got to be top-down involvement. I believe very strongly that the CEOs, CIOs, all of the top leaders cannot just say, "Here it is, you do it, and we're not going to be involved. We won't worry about it. They've got to be part of it, and employees, when they see that and observe that that those people are also in the room participating, are going to gravitate so much stronger to it. I really think that they need to have skin in the game. I've used that term twice actually, but they need to have a part of it, and the whole organization needs to participate together, even if the owner of some of these goals might be a team leader, a department manager, or whatever it may be. With the assistance and the backing of the upper management, it works. It works really well. I remember one workshop that I did where the CEO was sitting next to some of the employees that the six people per game, so you can have different groups playing around the room, and I'll never forget. I happened to be standing behind them when something was said. I don't remember what it was, but the CEO said, "Well, that doesn't happen to our company, and the employee said, "Oh yeah, it does, and the CEO was like, "What really? And so they ended up having this really engaged conversation. It was wonderful, and I just sort of let it ride for a few minutes, and then eventually I said, "How about you write that down so you can revisit it? But let's at least move on with the game because there's so many cards and so much conversation that's being missed out if we stall right here, even if it's a really important conversation, and it's just a really wonderful thing, and so the leaders will learn so much. And if they make it safe for the employees to participate, then everybody is having that conversation together. So it is a really intriguing question that you ask, and I think it's it's a shared responsibility, but top leaders have to make it okay and be a part of the process.
Catherine McDonald 18:07
Yeah, yeah, I agree. And you mentioned the word safety. Obviously, so important psychological safety. How is the game going to work? How is the interaction going to work? If people don't feel safe, they'll just say whatever they think people want to hear them say.
Stephanie Angelo 18:19
But you know, Catherine, that's a really interesting word too because we've talked about psychological safety a lot, and it's a great term. However, it also is important to make it fun, enjoyable, interesting, intriguing, desirable, sexy, and I don't mean that in the physical sense. I mean, like, ooh, this is something we really want to know what this is. You've got to unpack it. So, just calling it psychologically safe is, in my mind, not quite enough. And psychological safety, as important and valuable as it is, is also a little bit of the flavor of the month kind of word. How about making it interesting and and fun and enjoyable and all of these other ideas and thoughts that just really make it breathe some life into it.
Catherine McDonald 19:10
Well, I suppose that's why psychological safety often gets confused with comfort, psychological comfort, and that's that's really the difference. There is that we actually this game is not about being comfortable. It's about being a little bit on edge. It's about being a little bit, you know, sharing things, a little being a bit vulnerable, being a bit open. So that there is a difference there between the two as well, I think. But yeah, I mean, yeah, we we need a balance of everything, don't we? As always, and I do think that leaders are the ones to drive all of that in the beginning. You know, obviously, it's everybody's responsibility to act responsibly and to you know commit to their work and and and be engaged on all of these things. But leaders do really drive it and shape
Speaker 2 19:51
it,
Catherine McDonald 19:51
in my view. Okay, so tell me a little bit about the words we have been using to describe culture. You mentioned personality, and then you touched on the values of an organization. And again, these words over and over again-they're used: purpose, belonging, well-being, all these things. Do you think that that language, Stephanie? Do you think it's it's a bit performative, or a lot performative, still in organizations, or do you see things changing? Are we getting better at identifying our values and then living those values?
Stephanie Angelo 20:30
That's an interesting question. In that, my short answer would be it depends. Fortunately, there are still plenty of companies that really don't care, and I always look at organizations in three different categories. The first category are is the company, and it could be anything. It could be a small construction firm, and it could be a huge, you know, technology company. Organizations of all sizes that have great company cultures, and they're willing to continue to do whatever they need to to keep it that way. That's category one and my favorite category, quite honestly. Category two is the company that's struggling with its culture, but they know it and they recognize it, and therefore they want to do something about it. The third category, and I've worked for these before, are the companies that have terrible, toxic cultures, and they don't care, and that's really, really unfortunate. But they're still out there somewhere. I've known organizations that could care less about their revolving door. They don't care about the numbers. They don't care about the money. It's incredible how that can actually exist, but it does. And turning that around and having it change is not that hard if the desire is there. You have to have you know the saying: if there's a will, there's a way. So I I think that there are different categories, and I think that there are lots of terms that we toss around. We have to look at, I think the whole person and what's valuable to them. Somebody asked me a question just today about, well, do you think people want to be part of the process more, or do you think they want to be seen more, or do you think they want to be valued more? And I said, but that depends on the person. It's an ego question. But just because somebody wants to be part of the process and more behind the scenes isn't necessarily a character flaw. Sometimes people really valued being seen and heard because of trauma in the childhood where they were repressed and told they were not worthy and that kind of thing. So now, when they're away from that in the workplace, they like finally want to be seen and heard. So I'm not trying to make us armchair psychologists, but I think we have to take the different people,
Catherine McDonald 22:45
each person
Stephanie Angelo 22:46
where they are. Yeah, yeah,
Catherine McDonald 22:48
yeah. No, definitely. I mean, culture can be looked at in so many different ways. I always think there's different even cultures within an organization. I don't know if you agree with that or not, but in each team, it almost depending on the individual personalities can have its own culture, and then that's why it's so hard to put words on an on on one whole big organization because it just feels like there's so many different cultures. In
Stephanie Angelo 23:11
there, definitely can be each each team is going to have its own norms, its set of norms in which they operate by. But that's where creating some of these new procedures between departments can really be helpful because if their language is a little bit different, and yet they have to work together, one might depend on the other, or there's a reciprocal relationship. Then making sure that that really operates smoothly is better for everybody.
Catherine McDonald 23:37
Yeah, I do agree. I actually think it's a gap. The silos, siloed working is still a gap in organizations, and I do think that organizations will work more effectively. Just as you say, if they have that shared understanding of goals and norms and behaviors and all you know, vision and values, it it does need to there needs to be some alignment there for an organization to work. And yes, I don't understand how organizations who have none of these things and don't care are actually getting anywhere in the business world, and if they are, maybe it won't last long. Who knows? But I can see how they're surviving either. I had a couple of other questions there. I know we have about five minutes left, just in terms of hiring for culture. Then Stephanie. So we often talk about you know culture fit. So hiring somebody who who can fit in with the existing culture to maintain it to not rock the boat, and then I suppose looking at culture hiring somebody for culture development or culture contribution where they'll actually will bring something different and add that diversity to the team that's needed. But how do you get that right when you don't want somebody who's too different? So, what any tips on bringing the right people together and having that diversity, but yet not making it sort of you know status quo across? Your team as well.
Stephanie Angelo 25:02
Years ago, I got my certification in something from Development Dimensions International. It's called targeted selection. Targeted selection is a process in which you create questions for each different job. So there's some labor involved with it, it's not fast, but it's well worth it. You create these questions that ask people to answer questions about how they've handled things in the past, and I love it because past behavior is a predictor of future behavior. So it's nothing theoretical. Tell me about if this happens, what would you do? Because people can blow smoke and make up whatever they think that you want to hear. But when you really walk them through a scenario of how they handled something that actually happened, and then ask follow-up questions, you will get a better answer of how they have handled things in the past. Because, like I said, past behavior is a really good predictor of future behavior, and those kinds of questions can also really help you understand the cultural fit of how somebody works in certain scenarios. I don't like people to try and be like you know parapsychologists that that kind of thing. I once had a boss who her interview question was, "Tell me about your pet peeves, and I thought that's a really interesting question because my pet peeves really don't have anything to do with the workplace. You know, they might think have more to do with my kitchen, which I'm kind of possessive of possessive about. So it's it's kind of interesting, but I think that if you take the time and the interest to develop questions that really seek out those kinds of answers. It will really help you know the person a little bit more in that typically one-hour interview than your typical, you know, where did you work? What did you do? When you go through that laundry list of tell me about your tasks, because that's not going to glean a lot of information, particularly because a lot of people are cheating, and they're getting AI answers coughed right up to them while they do interviews, like if they're online.
Catherine McDonald 27:06
Yeah,
Stephanie Angelo 27:07
these kinds of questions, you're unless you've pre-trained your AI really well and it knows you really well in your past work, it's probably, I don't think, going to be able to create those kinds of answers for you.
Catherine McDonald 27:20
It's going to trip you up. It really will. Yeah, I agree. Actually, my last question was on AI. So it's an area, a topic I'm. Well, we're all really interested in, but I'm really interested in terms of how it helps me, like as a lean practitioner, as a as a leadership coach, but also how organizations then are using it as thinking partners, as you know, whatever it is, cut out the manual work. So there's there's loads to understand about how AI can help us in, I suppose, in in those areas. But what I'm wondering is, how can AI help us with culture, with the people and the behaviors and the living, the values and the personality? How can AI help us with all of that? Do you think, Stephanie?
Stephanie Angelo 28:05
To me, AI can answer a lot of really great questions based on what you have fed it and trained it, and who you have made it be. Like I have a certain, like a marketing assistant. I've named it Matt, and Matt helps me sort through ideas. But Matt does not do my work for me, and I always take the product that I get with a grain of salt, and then rework it with my own filters, my own added language, my own personality and then give it back because the more I give it back the more Matt understands so I use it as something to prompt and to assist but I think in the workplace really taking it with a grain of salt is important I I don't think that there's a perfect perfect substitute for people now, people are not perfect either. Obviously, we're flawed, but I think that there's somewhere where there's a fine line there that I I do believe in being a bit cautious and not taking things completely verbatim. I mean, people have taken instructions from AI and even lost their lives as a result of it, right? So I think that we need to remember this is something that was simply trained to predict. It was trained to give certain kinds of answers. It's not coming up with its information like if I ask you a question and you're answering based on your life's experience.
Catherine McDonald 29:41
Yeah, yeah, I, I, I, I do agree. We have to be careful, and I do also think there were there are opportunities right now, and they'll get better in the future when AI is more developed as well. But even just in terms of how teams work together, how they think together using AI, and how to even you. AI to get feedback on how they're performing as a team, not just like moving away from the individuals to really looking at AI improving team dynamics, team communication, team collaboration. I'm really interested in all of that. I do think it will be able to help us, but we have to use it in the right way because I do agree. We start using it in the wrong way, it can cause even more conflict than already exists. So I do agree. We have to be careful with how we move forward. We are just out of time, Stephanie. That has been a fantastic conversation. I have more questions that I didn't get to. You'll have to come back for sure. I could talk all day about this topic, and you're so knowledgeable, and it was so great to have you on the show. So just tell us, Stephanie, where people can find you if they want more information on you or your your business.
Stephanie Angelo 30:48
Oh, wonderful that you've asked! I appreciate that. Well, I'm on LinkedIn, which is how you found me. So Stephanie Angelo, and it's got my credentials afterwards because there are a few other Stephanie Angelos. My website is stephanieangelo.com. The games site is companyculturegame.com, and email is easy. Stephanie at stephanieangelo.com. So I'm pretty findable, and I I love it when people do reach out and they ask questions or create conversations. So I appreciate that for having everybody
Catherine McDonald 31:19
listening. Don't be afraid. Reach out. Stephanie loves to hear from you. So once again, thank you, Stephanie, and we will wrap up there. And for everybody listening, thank you as always for listening in or for watching or wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget that we have a new episode every week, and usually on a Tuesday, Wednesday that will be released, and you can find them on most platforms. And don't be afraid to leave comments on the episode or reach out to us to let us know in how we can improve the podcast in any way to make it better for you. So thank you, everyone. Enjoy the rest of your day, and we will talk to you soon.