Lindsay Osmond - You Have to do the Work

Lindsay talks about the pandemic as the Great Equalizer and about balancing profits and purpose as we reset in the post-pandemic reality.

Leaving a lasting impact on the world through one conversation at a time.

Inclusive leadership means you have to do the work.

Show Notes

Derek is at derekhudson.ca.
Lindsay Osmond is at Odgers Berndtson

See full show notes at the Essential Dynamics Wiki.

What is Essential Dynamics with Derek Hudson?

Join Derek Hudson as he explores Essential Dynamics, a framework for approaching the challenges facing people and organizations. Consider your Quest!

Reed: 00:21

Welcome to another edition of Essential Dynamics. I'm your gorgeous and good looking host, Reed McColm, and I'm here with, Essential Dynamics guru and, man of about town, mister Derek Hudson. Derek, how are you?

Derek: 00:38

I am doing great, Reed. Good to be with you again. Really excited about today's episode. I'm very

Reed: 00:43

glad you're here. Yeah. I'll bet you are because we're here today with a special guest. Lindsay Osmond has joined us in our virtual studio, and, we're looking forward to talking to her. Normally, I would give the intro in trying to describe, miss Osmond, but I think I would toss that over to mister Hudson.

Reed: 01:02

Derek, tell us about your friend, Lindsay.

Derek: 01:05

So, Lindsay is a human resource professional. She's a partner at Boyden here in Edmonton. Lindsey and I met because we're both volunteers with the University of Alberta's venture mentoring service. And we are having a conversation, and Lindsey said, that with some of the things that she's doing in her practice, she felt it would be interesting maybe someday to have a podcast. And I said, I do a podcast.

Derek: 01:32

You should come on my podcast. So, you know, season two, we're now having guests on the podcast as, as a matter of course. And I thought it'd be just fantastic to have a conversation with Lindsay about her perspectives. So, Lindsay, welcome. Thanks for coming.

Lindsay: 01:48

Thanks so much for having me. I'm grateful to be here today.

Derek: 01:52

This is, this is very exciting for us. So so, Lindsay, what was in your head when you said, hey. Maybe I should do a podcast?

Lindsay: 02:04

Well, that's a good question. You know, I think that today, sometimes we're losing the spirit of conversation. Right? And I think that, you know, a lot of times we're being Zoomed out or or Webexed out or whatever the case may be. And I think that sometimes just coming back and having just a spirited conversation about some of those principles and those thoughts that are out there can really drive and and initiate and ignite people to think differently.

Lindsay: 02:33

So I was thinking, how do you do that nowadays when we can't see each other and we're all stuck in our own little virtual place? And that's why I started to think about a podcast, you know, like ask an expert, or what would that look like, or table talk, or whatever the case may be.

Derek: 02:49

Well, I'm so glad that we ran into each other when we did Yeah. Be because I had similar thoughts. And as, as you may know, I spent some time last summer trying to figure out how I think about the world and how I approach things. And as I put the pieces for essential dynamics together and they came together in a way that I thought was maybe easy to explain, My first thought was, well, I should start blogging or writing articles or write a paper, and it just seems so flat to do that because I didn't think there's really very much there I can explain Central Dynamics on a page. In fact in fact, I sent you that page.

Derek: 03:30

Like, there's not that much there.

Lindsay: 03:32

Yeah.

Derek: 03:33

But, you know, we've we've had, you know, 25 or more episodes where we've talked about it, and we haven't had a haven't run out of things to say. So there's something about saying something, having someone respond, with a question or an observation or an application in their life, that, you know, I learn a lot from even when I say I start the conversation with, you know, I'm thinking about this. I just learned a ton. And so one of the reasons of the way we wanted to have you on is you're very accomplished human resource professional. If there's some kind of spectrum, the chartered accountants are are on the opposite end from the human resource professionals.

Derek: 04:13

So it's always it's always good to have some, some balance. So are you up for conversation today?

Lindsay: 04:19

I am. Bring it on.

Derek: 04:22

So as you took a look at, the the pieces of essential dynamics, was there anything that really resonated with you?

Lindsay: 04:31

Well, I think, you know, Derek, you and I had this conversation, and I think the way the model is set out really makes sense. Like, it's it's simple. It's easy to understand. But there's a couple of things that really made me pause in the whole conversation. I think you and I might have had this.

Lindsay: 04:46

I was like, this purpose x and this purpose y. You know, let's talk a little bit about it. And I was sitting there, and I think my comment back to you is today, there's this big movement about purpose x or what is your why. Right? And so it took me a little bit to to think about how is Derek actually applying this, like, primary and secondary purpose within an organization?

Lindsay: 05:11

And how does that actually transcribe in terms of the deliverables and the results that the organization is trying to achieve through people? And so I think once I spent some time really noodling it and going back into a couple episodes, I was like, yeah, that really sits with me. It's a great theory. It's a great model.

Derek: 05:28

Well and and that's the thing that I've said a few times that once you hear that, you can't unlearn

Lindsay: 05:33

it. Mhmm.

Derek: 05:34

And, you know, I was in a conversation with someone in a in a large not for profit organization, that does a lot of good in the community. And, the the CFO said to me, if there's no margin, there's no mission. Interesting. So, you know, you can set out to do a lot of good, but if you can't pay your expenses

Lindsay: 06:01

Yep.

Derek: 06:02

So that's one of the examples of, of purpose x and purpose y. I'm interested in in your either your business or your clients where this has become something where you've said, okay. Now we understand things a little better because we see that there is a balance between these, you know, conflicting or complimentary purposes.

Lindsay: 06:28

You know, I think in business, everybody has to have some form of profitability. Right? If if you can't actually get to the black, then at some point, you know, how do you evaluate your organization and and how do you keep yourself afloat? How do you actually pay employees? How do you, you know, meet your financial obligations?

Lindsay: 06:49

And so I think that's almost like the basis or or the foundation, you know, you have to do that before you can start focusing on other things in particular. It almost reminds me of like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, Right? That, you know, that's a basic need that you have to hit ground zero. I think though, you know, organizations are starting to move towards a purposeful based, I guess, culture is the best way I can describe it. So conversations that I'm having with organizations are really about what I'm gonna call the great equalizer.

Lindsay: 07:26

You know, we're reopening up, the economy. We're starting to look at different ways of doing business, and businesses have had to be innovative while still kind of focusing on, you know, that basic need of being profitable to some extent. And in that, they're starting to talk about that the rules of engagement and what they are doing versus our competitors has been basically flipped upside down. And so in that, I think a lot of, c you know, CEOs, COOs, board of directors are really sitting there and pondering and thinking about what is our purpose. Right?

Lindsay: 08:05

Why are we actually here? And what do we need to do to to continue to actually navigate in this new reality by keeping employees, by still being profitable, by still achieving our mission and our vision, and executing that through our values.

Derek: 08:23

There's a there's a lot there. Let me, let me go to your your professional expertise. When I put the essential dynamics framework together, the last thing that I had to deal with, you know, we you said that, you know, on your quest, there's people, path, and purpose. And that purpose generated the idea of purpose x and purpose y. The path was easy for me because I'm a systems thinker, and I've thought in terms of drivers and constraints.

Derek: 08:52

But on the people side, it took me a little while to see if this all made sense. And so what I came up with was that the inherent, conflict is between the interest of the individual and the interest of the group. And so when you're talking about a a reset in organizations, what opportunities do do companies have to take advantage of, you know, the individuality of people, and this idea that you wanna have a, you know, consistent corporate culture that that pulls people together. You know, we've certainly seen examples where organizations don't come together because everyone's in it for themselves. So we've seen other examples where organizations become too monolithic and people can't express themselves.

Derek: 09:44

And either they don't do their best work or they or they leave. Is there something in, in your practice and and what and the way you're seeing this opportunity now where you can get the best of those things?

Lindsay: 09:58

It's really I you know, I pause as I think a little bit about, you know, how to unpack that. I think a couple of things have happened that are forcing organizations to think differently, and I wish there was a road map. We all wish that we had a crystal little ball because, you know, we're walking into the unknown. A couple of things that I would think about, you know, many of us have had some time to sit and ponder for some time. And as individuals, a lot of times when you're talking to people, they they talk about, hey, I've had time to think.

Lindsay: 10:30

I've had time to process. There's different things that matter to me today or different things I value. We used to see this big push on compensation, but in our executive search practice, we're we're finding that compensation may no longer be one of those driving factors. It's getting closer to my family. It's having purposeful based life.

Lindsay: 10:49

It's being able to balance, my co curricular activities with with work. It's about flexibility. A lot of those individuals are also to a point where they're feeling a little exhausted and they're burnt out. And so as you sit there and think that transcends through the whole organization, all of us have been spending some time thinking about what matters. And so the challenge organizations have now is how do I overlay the shifting dynamic that's sitting within my population, my employee population base.

Lindsay: 11:20

And how do I figure out what motivates Derek versus Lindsey versus Ree versus anybody else? How do I figure out how to motivate that individual and how to accommodate that person's specific requirements so that person can play to their back.

Reed: 11:34

Lindsay, thank you very much for for opening up these doors here in our in our rather closed minds. Mine is, anyway. I would like you to tell me imagine yourself now. How would you describe yourself now, and what do you want from yourself or expect in five years?

Lindsay: 11:53

Wow. That's a big question. What do I want out of myself? You know what? I think that I wanna live a purposeful life.

Lindsay: 12:02

I wanna be focused in terms of what matters to me and my values and how to align the, you know, align, I would call my ecosystem so that I can play to my best. I think in five years, if I were to look back, what would success look like? I think from a professional perspective, I'd have an ability to work with really cool organizations who really wanna create spaces for people to show up as their authentic self. So the organization can be ignited to hit their fullest potential and have profitability and all these other things that we talk about. I think from a personal perspective, you know, I I wanna be true to to everything that matters in my universe and my ecosystem.

Lindsay: 12:46

And how I can go about leaving a lasting impact on the world through one conversation at a time to elevate marginalized groups to being able to, you know, have accessibilities to opportunities that don't currently exist.

Reed: 13:01

We're talking with Lindsey Osman. This this this is Reid McCollum speaking for Derek Hudson's Essential Dynamics, and I wanna know of Lindsey Osmond, what is it you do professionally that can help you make these goals occur?

Lindsay: 13:19

In terms of my career, so I spent some time in corporate America leading HR functions, did a lot of m and a activity along the way as well as pivoting businesses to achieve different kind of business results. And so in that, you know, there's this concept between organizational effectiveness, which drives some of the things that Derek talks about in terms of drivers and constraints within systems and ecosystems to be able to hit your your purpose the purpose of an organization. I actually left corporate America in September of last year, so I am a COVID stat. I was a senior executive, single mom, twin boys, two fur babies on top of that, and I got tired. And I found out that I wasn't, you know, goes to this question that Derek was asking about, you know, being an individual person within an organizational ecosystem.

Lindsay: 14:14

And my personal values and where I wanted to spend my time in a purposeful life was not actually matching up to the values of the organization. I was on the road half the time. I was not home with my family. And so in that, I had to spend a lot of time finding courage and real really digging deep as to as a person, as an individual, what do I need in an organization that is going to help me show up at my best so I can play at a different frequency to be able to contribute and feel like I'm valued and that I can provide value to organizations. So in that, I left corporate America and I became a partner at Boyden where I'm leading their management leadership consulting practice, where we primarily spend time with organizations working through, the path, if we're gonna use the model, like through the path, through systems and processes, while driving cultural transformation within organizations.

Lindsay: 15:16

So, you know, I don't think that they can be that they can be exclusive. I think that, you know, systems and processes are a way that we execute work, but there's this underlying fiber that we historically call culture that is executed through people. And without those people who are navigating the systems and the processes, and they have these in formal ways of doing business. It's all unwritten for the most part. Culture is kind of this thing that you can't see.

Lindsay: 15:48

You just kind of feel it. And for those of us who are thinkers, like, we like things versus, you know, spending a lot of times on the emotional side of the funds. It's hard to get our head around it. So I work with these phenomenal organizations who wanna do transformation. And we do that through either looking at the systems and the processes so we can drive you know, work through the quest to hit the to hit the purpose.

Lindsay: 16:15

But we do that through mission, vision, values, creations. We do it through, executive coaching. We do it through team dynamics. We do it to really enhance or ignite the people aspect of the model through the systems and the processes to ensure to achieve organizational effectiveness.

Derek: 16:34

You got that, Reid? You can, you can now, test out of your, HRSA

Reed: 16:39

all of it. Yeah.

Derek: 16:40

That's awesome. So, Lindsay, let me, pick up on one thing you said. Mhmm. You know, your question for yourself was, what do I need from an organization so I can show up at my best?

Lindsay: 16:52

Mhmm.

Derek: 16:53

So so there are people like you and, I think everyone in this conversation where we're introspective. We think about ourselves. We we try to change our environment so that we can do better. You also talked about, your interest in inclusion. Mhmm.

Derek: 17:14

And, so, you know, I were I've worked in, you know, mostly professional or professional services organizations or highly educated people. They tell you what they don't like. You know, it's it's sometimes it's hard to manage that. If you're talking about people that are on the edges, though, and you're trying to bring them in, those aren't people that are gonna step into an organization and then, first of all, tell you, this is what I need to be successful. Mhmm.

Derek: 17:43

So how do you how do organizations, both deal with the, you know, self aware, self motivated, overconfident perhaps professionals, and people that, you know, don't have the kind of background that would, you know, make that natural? And how do you how do you bring people in? Because there's all kinds of great people that could contribute to an organization that aren't gonna kind of, elbow their way into the room.

Lindsay: 18:11

One of the biggest gifts I think we have in business is being a leader. And a leader for me is very different than a manager, you know. And many times in that role, we flip hats. We're either a mentor, we're a coach, we're a director, we're a whatever the case may be that we have to be consciously aware of the impact that we're having on our people. And so to your question, how do organizations do that?

Lindsay: 18:40

They do it through having inclusive leadership. And I think in order to be an inclusive leader, you have to do the work. And you have to be willing to look deep inside yourself so that you can help, create space to understand your employees and be focused. Now don't get me wrong. It's really, really hard.

Lindsay: 18:59

Some days, I do great. Some days, I do terrible. Some days, we don't show up at all as being leaders within an organization. But until you can ignite your leadership capability and the competency within an organization, it becomes extremely difficult to be able to dig into that discretionary effort of our employees by understanding exactly who they are and what they need in order to be successful in the workplace. You know, there's multiple different leadership theories out there, you know, about internal, external, us versus them, you know, person through boundaries.

Lindsay: 19:33

There's a whole bunch of leader theories out there. I think the only way that you can drive an organization is through your people at this point. You know, I think we're in a whole different world than where we historically used to be, and I can't imagine coming out on the other side how much we're gonna transform again.

Derek: 19:51

So what I got from that is you have to do the work. And I think what you said is the work is understanding the people and figuring out what where they're coming from and what they need.

Lindsay: 20:04

Yep. Is that right? That's exactly right. And I think, you know, if we're truly a leader in the organization, I almost say you have, like, three separate buckets of things that you're accountable for. You're accountable for leading the organization.

Lindsay: 20:17

You're accountable for leading a team. Right? And you're accountable for leading yourself. And ensuring that you're kind of have all legs of those stools standing up at the appropriate time in the appropriate strength that's required, because we all have a journey. You know, some of us do really, really well on some of those competencies, while others, you know, there's there's gaps along the way.

Lindsay: 20:40

And, you know, if I look at my own leadership, journey, I would say I started off very, very strong at leading an organization, getting things done. I was extremely results focused. Second of all, you know, my second kind of biggest strength was actually leading a team and galvanizing them to achieve great potential. But I wasn't aware of, and I wasn't as strong in terms of my own self awareness. And so what I when I started to do the work, I started to realize that I had impacts on people that weren't necessarily positive, you know, depending if you were in my group or not in my group.

Lindsay: 21:16

And so about five years ago, I started my own on a really deep thinking and deep journey where I was like, no, you know, I need to understand how I'm showing up and the impact that I can have on an organization to to help the organization hit prosperity and put their purpose in place. And so once I started to have that self awareness and that focus, I could almost, like, infuse energy and effort on whatever competency I needed to kinda pull out of the toolkit to build a different level of confidence, along the way.

Derek: 21:48

And I'm gonna guess you're gonna tell me that that's not something that you can fake or learn from a book or remember the four steps of that has to be something deeper than that.

Lindsay: 21:59

It's It's a lot of hard work. You know, and so one of the things that I do every day is I get to work with leaders who want to actually walk down that journey themselves, who have come to this level of awareness where they're like, what I was doing just isn't working. Like, I need help kinda galvanizing a team, or I need help kinda navigating through the infrastructure of an organization. I need help building strategy, or I need help kinda building on my own self awareness and some of the blind spots I have along the way. And so when you get to do that in individual level or when you get to do that in executive level and drive a team together, because you have different dynamics when you're working as a team versus as you're working as an individual.

Lindsay: 22:40

If we can get people to start having different conversations about how do we create this connectiveness that we've somewhat lost along the way, I think we're unstoppable, and it's gonna be phenomenal.

Derek: 22:53

Hey, Lindsay. Just as we're wrapping up here, I just wanna ask you a current events question. We we see that Apple, the computer company, is sent out notice that they're requiring employees to work on set days when they come back to work. And it seems that the Apple employees are rebelling against that, and they're they like the flexibility they've had over the past year working from home. What are your thoughts on that?

Lindsay: 23:17

I think everybody's thinking about it. This whole kind of reentry plan and how how much you know, there's two schools of thought. And from an executive level, what I'm seeing is they're like, I need to have my executive team close to me. And so and then that kinda transcends through the organization where leaders are like, I need to have my team close to me. And I think that it's this this natural balance.

Lindsay: 23:43

There is there is just something innately organic about sitting in a room, going to a water cooler, going to the lunchroom, and having a chemical interaction with somebody and stimulating your brain. There's nothing like it. What organizations are starting to find is some of that innovation and that natural collaboration went away during COVID. And so, I was having this very, very interesting debate last spring. And, she wrote an article on LinkedIn.

Lindsay: 24:17

It was called creating spaces between the spaces. And what do we do now that we don't have the spaces between the spaces, which is inherently the meetings or the norm normal attraction. And so I'm I'm seeing I'm seeing this polarization back to this equalization component. Seeing employees who are saying, I want a % flexibility. I wanna choose where I wanna work.

Lindsay: 24:41

Thought leadership is telling us that our employees are telling us they want a hybrid model. They want to come into the office for some collaboration time, mixed reviews about if that day is mandated or not. And then there are some employees who are just like, get me out of this house. I'm not productive. I've noticed that I'm spending more time doing laundry and making breakfast and doing all these things.

Lindsay: 25:03

I need to get back into an office. From an organizational perspective, I think, you know, it's back to this equalizer. Whoever can figure out how to galvanize their employees the fastest are gonna be successful. However, when you look at it, like, a workspace, like app well, any workspace, quite frankly, but those that require a lot of collaboration to be able to pull a service offering, They're saying they want their employees back in the office, and I actually don't blame them. We're having the same conversation as a professional service firm.

Lindsay: 25:36

We're like, we need our employees back in the office because it's not working. So the question is, how do you navigate the employee revolt because thought leadership is also talking about the great resignation? That's actually what they're talking about now, that we're gonna have all these employees who are leaving to find purposeful based work and to go to a purposeful based living environment. You're gonna have some organizations who are like, screw you, you have to come into the office on Wednesdays. And Wednesdays doesn't work for that employee.

Lindsay: 26:06

So they're like, okay, screw you. I'm gonna go work for somebody who will let me come in, you know, won't come in on Wednesdays. And so, I think, you know, every conversation with clients right now is about a reentry plan and the employee motivation and how to get that innovation going back in an organization. And it's it's crazy. It's crazy.

Derek: 26:26

Lindsay, you talked about the great equalizer. Everyone kinda had to take a time out. Now we're we're very excited about coming back, but it's kinda scary, and it's all gonna change. Fundamentally, are you optimistic that when we build this machine back again that it's gonna be better than it was before?

Lindsay: 26:48

There's no other option. Of course, it's gonna be you. No other option.

Reed: 26:54

You. Of

Derek: 26:55

course, it's gonna be

Reed: 26:56

better. That attitude.

Derek: 26:57

And that's why we that's why we do what we do. And, you know, if you if you think about one of the fundamental premises of essential dynamics, it's it's that it's the opposition that defines the quest.

Lindsay: 27:08

And,

Derek: 27:10

so I I love what I've I've learned today. And, you know, if I take it to down to one sentence, it's you have to do the work. The work is not easy. You can't purse you can't make other people do the work, but we each have to do the work ourselves. And, so I'm encouraged and invigorated.

Derek: 27:30

So thanks very much, Lindsay.

Lindsay: 27:32

Thanks for having me.

Derek: 27:33

It's been, it's been a fantastic conversation, and, all the best to all your clients who are fortunate to be working with you.

Reed: 27:40

Thank you, Lindsay Osmond, for joining us today on our podcast of Essential Dynamics. I'm Reid McCollum, your host, and Derek Hudson is our guru who came up with the Essential Dynamics, and his perspective leads us always. For Brynn Griffiths in the studio, and I'm Reid McCollum. Consider your quest.