6 Levers Podcast (Ep. 2)
Josh: [00:00:00] All right. Welcome to the 6 Levers podcast. I'm your host, Josh Aranda, accompanied by Joe Olwig and Shaun Lee, the founders of 6 Levers, the brain trust, and we're gonna go ahead and dive right in like we normally do. We'll just do a check-in. Check-in question for today is “highlight of the weekend?”
Shaun: Hmm. Gosh, I had a busy weekend. We had our daughter, I think the highlight would be our daughter had a karate tournament up in Dallas and she won first place. She just crushed it. She’s two belts away from her black belt. She's 13, and just, yeah, she had an, went up there and had an awesome time.
It great to see all of her training [00:00:45] pay off and just probably more than anything, just great to see her enjoying it and enjoying competing and, yeah, just cool to see all of her hard work paying off.
Josh: How about you, Joe?
Joe: Yeah, I think the highlight was the inaugural soccer game for a new MLS team here in St. Louis. It was pretty fun because we actually got a chance to play Shaun's team in Austin FC and what a game, Shaun!
Shaun: Oh, man.
Joe: 3-2 –
Shaun: Terrible.
Joe: – came back, 2-to-1. Yeah. No, that was fun. Being sort of a lifelong soccer fan and growing up in St. Louis, it was fun to see that team come together and [00:01:30] have its first game and a lot of fun.
Shaun: Awesome. I was at that game and it was cool to see St. Louis play its first game and I guess it was cool to see them win their first victory, but it was a hard game to watch. Hard game to watch my team lose.
Josh: That's amazing.
Shaun: Below it at the end,
Josh: I think my highlight was, so we've been trying to do just like family time on Sundays. So last night we went and got pizza at this pizza shop right up the street from us and then we came home and had movie night. And so we watched Jungle Book 2 and I have this issue where like I love kids' movies.[00:02:15]
My wife, it probably drives her insane to like talk to me while I'm watching a kid's movie just because it's like nostalgic for me or something. So the dogs were like scratching at the door and she, you know, is nursing my new daughter and she's like, Can you go let the dogs out? And she had to ask me like three times, she's like, will you go let the dog out?
I was like, yeah, sure I will. So my highlight was watching the movie with the kids and I was very enthralled in Jungle Book 2. It was pretty good. Pretty good flick.
Joe: That’s good.
Shaun: That's pretty great to think about you being that focused on those kids' movies and that, I feel like I'm the exact opposite in that regard when the kids' movies are on. I'm barely hanging on for attention.
Josh: I don't know why I love 'em so much. Like, just like it's just a great story, like [00:03:00] Hero's Journey all throughout it. It was just, it was awesome.
Shaun: That's cool.
Josh: And I secretly want to be Mowgli, I think. Just playing in the jungle. So. All right. Well, overall topic for today is just what is an organizational operating system and why is it important?
And so really, we're just gonna dive right in just like we do when we're kicking these things off. We wanna start with a story, right? These are things that are from the field. There are personal experiences that just give us a little bit of a lens to dive right into the overall topic. Okay, so the story that we were thinking of is about four months ago we were working with an organization and really they were kind of in a prospecting stage, and the reason we were introduced to them was because they had a bunch of [00:03:45] technology issues.
And so we're leading some dialogue with them. We're asking 'em a few questions, all their pain points, and as we are chatting with that organization right? All of their pain points that were, they were sharing with us were not about technology. 90% of them were about people, about the way that they worked, about the direction of the organization, the fact that they were disconnected from all the different things that were going on, right?
So I was talking with the COO and she was sharing how she only meets with her CEO maybe once a month for about 30 minutes, and it's really just putting out fires. She can hardly get time on his schedule and then, same thing, the marketing director didn't know who she really reported to, so it was this really disjointed way in which they worked.[00:04:30]
And so finally I just asked the question, Hey, do you feel like you guys have a clear and consistent way that you work together? They had shared that their technology team didn't really talk to the department heads, and the definitive answer was no. They just paused and sat there for a little bit, and they're like, No, we're kind of a hot mess, right?
And so that was the thing where it's like, Okay, we realize sometimes that an organization – an OS is always present, but more often than not, it's actually not intentionally designed to help draw those things out and so today is really, Okay, what is an OS? We don't talk about it that frequently.
So how can we bring this to light and how can we bring some intention to it? So really I'd love to hear from Joe and Shaun, [00:05:15] what is an organizational operating system in your words, and why is it even important?
Joe: Yeah, Josh, I can, I can pick up from there and I'd build off of what you shared about the system is there, even if we don't know it, that that is truly how we think about an organizational operating system.
We define it as simply the set of norms, practices, and routines that define the way a team works and that the degree to which you know, you even know about it is really the degree to which it's been designed and implemented more accidentally versus more intentionally. And so, you know, we use this language organizational operating system [00:06:00] to create a common language around that framework or that structure that you.
To create for your team and in and in support and running as intentionally as you can as an organization. With our, with the partners that we work with, we oftentimes connect the absence of an intentional organizational operating system as impacting people more than anyone, right?
If we're, if we've not defined some of those things that you talked about up front then people are left to bear the burden, right? People are gonna be, you know, responsible for being reactive to, you know, the system and, [00:06:45] you know, ultimately that's a huge part of this.
Shaun: Yeah, it's interesting Joe, and you think about it that way. I mean, you're kind of answering, I think, like getting to this deep why behind the org OS and having an organizational operating system. This idea of people being left to bear the burden and I think in many ways this feels counterintuitive to a lot of leaders when we get into this where we, many times leaders are avoiding like things that look like rigid systems or over-systemizing the way they work because they have this sense that if they do that, it's going to cost something on the human side, right?
And I think one of the things we've seen is there's this [00:07:30] balance between the right amount of supportive system, the right amount of like correctly and appropriately for your organization-designed organizational operating system that does have that effect of taking the pressure off of the solve for org health being, you know, a leader, being a superhero every day.
And so it, it's kind of a, I think in many ways we're trying to dispel a myth or bring some clarity to the idea of how these two things work together.
Josh: That was great. When – just outta curiosity, when you use the term “organizational operating system" in front of a prospective client, an existing client, someone you're passing by on the street, what is their immediate [00:08:15] reaction and like, what's your translation? How do you help contextualize it for him?
Joe: Yeah, I mean, I think their first response is, What’s that? or We don't have one, which is why we love to let them know that by our definition, you know, you do. It's again, just the degree to which you've defined these elements of how your organization runs really clearly and intentionally versus, maybe more reactively or not at all.
And so then it's about trying to help to shape for them what that system looks like and what all goes into it. We talk about some of the patterns that organizations find themselves in, right? Where, let's [00:09:00] say on a year-over-year basis, every organization attempts to set annual goals and the degree to which they do that effectively in a way that, you know, the year after is better than the year before because they're learning and growing and they're, they're really thinking about how to do that effectively. This is just one of the many things that an organization should have clear norms around, clear practices around, and feel like that routine or that organizational habit is getting stronger year over year.
And so when you start to bring some of these examples in and say, Well, here's a part of your, what should be a part of your well-defined organization operating system, you know, how you create focus on an annual basis, [00:09:45] heads start to nod and say, Oh yeah, we do need that. Right? And so it's not just annual goals, it's many other things. But bringing in some of these real concrete examples typically what starts to move people along in the journey.
Shaun: Yeah, and I think it's also, and I'm kind of going back to where I ended in the last question with this one, but some of the things that I think come to mind are like operational excellence and strong operating systems, right?
Like it feels kind of like a technical idea or something calling up, like we just gotta like strengthen our muscle and our operations. It doesn't necessarily intuitively make people think, We need to build [00:10:30] stronger, more cohesive teams, and we need to intentionally work on developing ourselves and developing leaders throughout the organization.
But that is very much so a part of what we mean when we say an organizational operating system, right? So I think we’ve, we usually, and this is a challenge, I think we enjoy but it's stepping into that and saying like, This is not this or this or this and this. It's like the way you operate the things that are most important to your organization include both these things. They certainly include the intentional cohesion of teams and strengthening of leaders.
Joe: Yeah, I think, this point around, it's not just about sort of traditional operational excellence is a really good [00:11:15] point, Shaun, because that is oftentimes what what we think is, you know, I've got this really tight system for running operations and that doesn't include people, or that doesn't include, you know, psychological safety and team cohesion and the way that we think about defining the, an organizational operating system includes all of those things, because the fundamental belief that this system is designed from is that when you identify activities that should, that are so important that they shouldn't be subject to chance, you should make a habit of making sure those happen, right? They should be good and they should be getting better year-over-year and we all know that. Like that's not [00:12:00] just good goal setting. It's not just a stellar ops checklist, right? Where you're getting everything done and being as efficient about it as you can, right?
Important strategic activities include, you know, how you develop leadership in people, how you create great teams, how you continue to build out an identity that is alive and well for your organization. And so a huge part of the org OS is about making sure those activities are not left to chance or ultimately happen more automatically for your organization.
Josh: That's great. A couple things. I was jotting down while you're speaking, Joe, where – right, you're, when you're hitting these things, it's like norms, [00:12:45] habits, things are alive and well and I think that's the misnomer or something in that, like the organizational operating system should be alive and ever-changing and adapting to your organization and getting better.
Whereas sometimes we get in with an organization and they're like, Oh yeah, we're a well-oiled machine, we have an incredible standard operating procedure. But then you start tugging on these other strings and, yeah, you have these static procedures that maybe you review on a consistent basis, but it doesn't necessarily mean your organizational operating system is alive and well and is humming and you're super healthy as an organization.
So I appreciate like hitting those habits and those norms and those things, those words like that should be, [00:13:30] disciplines but also alive and well. Something you said earlier on too, I'd love to tug on a little bit more. When you said people are left to bear the burden, can you build on that a little bit, right?
We've talked about the organizational operating system, 6 Levers being very people focused, and then you hit this term, people are left to bear the burden.
Can you touch on that a little bit? What do you mean? What are some of the symptoms of people bearing the burden?
Joe: Well, I think if you just, you start at the highest level, a CEO transitions out and the new CEO comes in.
Oftentimes when that happens, there's no real strong system to start from and build upon inside that organization. Sure, they've got certain things that are defined and [00:14:15] you can sort of pick up on, but typically it's up to that CEO and their leadership team to, you know, pave this new path and stand up some new things to make sure that the organization is even better than it was before.
As opposed to potentially being able to notice and observe what systems are already in place that ensure these, you know, strategic activities are happening routinely and at a high level and carefully and methodically and prudently discern, where are they gonna focus and improve and, you know, elevate the organization from.
So, you know, I think just at sort of the highest level, you think about that journey of a new [00:15:00] CEO and when you think about that, you think about, you know, how much work is gonna have to go into you know, that transition for that leader and their leadership team and how, you know, ultimately they're left to bear the burden of doing that.
But, yeah. Yeah. Shaun?
Shaun: Yeah, at a lower level as well. Yeah. It's funny, that's where I was gonna go. I love that frame and we certainly see it but I think like two tools in our, and the framework come to mind. One is tenets, the other one is agreements, and y'all heard me say this when we were talking through this last week, I talked about, Hey, when you don't have an organizational operating system, it can feel a lot like Groundhogs Day, and I think what I mean by that, [00:15:45] you know, if a team, we – tenets in the 6 Levers framework are simply these overarching principles that guide how teams work with each other, right? In a world where you don't have those, you could continue, a team could continue to come back to the same type of issue over and over and over and over and over.
They're left to bear the burden of like, We worked out this thing last week, but we're in a similar problem in the same lane. But because we haven't taken the time to define a principle of alignment on how we handle this type of thing, we're right back doing this again just like we were last week, right?
It's frustrating, it's demoralizing. It feels like we could be in this perpetual loop forever if we don't pause and say, Here's this principle for [00:16:30] how we handle this type of thing when we hit it and then nested underneath, that would be these more, they're still meaningful, and I don't mean to say like very detail-oriented, but an agreement that would say something specific about a process or a situation or resolving a tension. You know, when we face this type of recurring tension in an organization or our team, here's how we agree to respond to it, right? And again, where that doesn't exist, that tension pops up and you just keep coming at it over and over and over again.
I know certainly as a leader of teams and organizations, when I did not have these tools, like feeling that frustration of where I don't have a tool or a framework. I have to bring in like my world, I have to be a [00:17:15] world-class facilitator, right? I've gotta be a world-class listener, mediator, negotiator, right?
I've gotta get like, and hope that that moment just goes perfectly because those are the tools I can turn to. I don't turn to the tools of, Hey, team, didn't we agree to X, Y, Z? Isn't this thing governing the way we work with each other? And a team can be like, Oh yeah, we did agree to that. Let's go back to that, what did that.
Josh: That's good.
Joe: Yeah. If you think about just almost any time, you know, you find yourself in a position where you're having to react to something you know, it's, it's the end of the year and you need to run your annual goals review [00:18:00] meeting, and you're, you're having to react to that situation in a way that you don't feel like you can be as intentional as you'd like about facilitating that meeting or, you know, your team is bogged down by priorities and you're having to react to this feeling of, you know, burnout.
Anytime you feel like you're reacting and when you, when you react, you don't have a system and norms to fall back on and reference and build from is an opportunity.
People are left to really show that grit, show that, you know, Shaun was sort of sharing that superpower and just lean into finding the solution as opposed to being able to rely on a system to [00:18:45] support you with that. So, you know, people bear the burden has so much to do with these challenges that we face being solely reliant upon people leaning into solve it as opposed to a system supporting people in those challenges.
Josh: So that brings up an interesting, like point in that, right? We work primarily in the mission-driven space, lots of non-profit organizations in over the last 12 years of doing technology consulting plus this OS work more so the last five years, four or five years.
Sometimes when we get into organizations, there's a resistance [00:19:30] to overly-processed or rigid systems, right? So when you hear “operating system”, it sounds very technical, it sounds rigid.
So talk to me about how you – what's your jiu jitsu move to say, Okay, this isn't actually intended to be rigid. Like, how do you handle that conversation in terms of this is designed for people to support people and bring the best out of them.
Shaun: I can start here. I think, you know, this is a, this could be like a six-episode arc here, like just handing this particular question.
Joe: Episode three!
Shaun: It's a really big question. It's one that I think we're really interested in continuing to answer and learn about, frankly. I mean, just [00:20:15] like what are the things that are unique to people that are compelled and motivated primarily by purpose and mission and how do you match the tools to that type of leader and team? And the couple things that we've seen is one, is if we allow some flexibility and some design in the framework, right?
So not, so we present the tools – the overall, you know, framework for the six different levers – and then say, What do you need most right now? What does a team feel like the most pressing needs? That the, one of the ways that we keep people at the center is by this sort of high design and alignment piece to the needs and then the framework as opposed to saying, You have to start here and then you've gotta run these three or four aspects of it [00:21:00] another way.
You know, if there's supplementary tools that an organization wants to bring in that are complementary and help them to achieve their goals, that's great, right? They can do that. It's not not us saying, or anybody, any consultant in our network saying, No, you must do this. It's saying, Hey, that's working for you. It's achieving your goals. That's awesome.
Language is also a really important piece of this. So we've had a number of clients that want to contextualize terms that we've created and said, This actually means more to us, and assuming it's not doing any harm, that's really kind of our only check.
Like it's not, if it's not hurting then we're like, if that works for you, that's awesome, go with that. If that works for your team, your culture, [00:21:45] you know, then you can absolutely go with that. So maybe the last example I'll share and I'll let Joe jump in here, is, you know, things that we have found help is when it starts to feel like it's too structured, like let's say we get into something. Cause there are parts of the framework.
I mean, we – it is very flexible, but there are parts of it where we've done a lot of work to say, Here's how you run this rhythm, right? And one of them is the weekly leadership team meeting format that we've spent a, you know, a lot of time developing and training teams on and it's got a pretty well-codified agenda. But we've had a handful of teams say, I think we're pretty good on most of this, but there's this one piece right here that I know we need, right? [00:22:30] And, and while we might disagree, we might think, Hey, you need three or four of these pieces, we know that if they begin to make some progress, the rest will, will likely come along.
And so our position has been to say, That's awesome. Go for that one piece that you've identified that you and let's see what happens. Let's see, when you start checking in on your quarterly priorities, what impact that might have and maybe that'll lead them to want to bring in another element of that.
So it's like the under the underpinning of that for us is just a belief that progress is fuel for so many things and if we can not fight them and say, You must do it this way, you must try this, you know, You must follow this play and say, let's go with what they're willing to do and [00:23:15] continue to encourage them to build more and more to strengthen their operating system, we see that have a big impact with teams.
Joe: I think – Yeah, I think, Shaun, you reminded me of the starting point for this one, which is the people that we work with must have a posture of, If this can make me better, I'm gonna try to learn as much as I can about it and apply it. We talk a ton about the it, you know, it's all about leadership and growth mindset and coming to the table actually wanting to learn and take tools and structures and help make your organization healthier and related to that, we know how important that is. [00:24:00]
And so the system that we work to design is designed for those leaders and as Shaun called out, the systems intended to be responsive to those leaders and their unique desires and their unique focus areas. What do they want to improve on with their team?
And the system's really designed, you know, we talk about it being people-centered. A huge part of that is because you get the choice in which pieces of the system you implement and adapt and at what time and, you know, the way that our system has been designed, you know, is really suited for that. But I think about you know, we all have a relationship with meetings, right? And we've all been in really bad meetings.
We've been in some great [00:24:45] meetings. but you know, I think for that leader who is interested in growth and impact and really cares about their work, if you place a leader in a structured meeting with clear objectives, an agenda to support those objectives, a strong facilitator of that meeting and let that leader participate versus a leader being in an unstructured meeting with low intentionality around objectives and agenda, 10 outta 10 times, I can tell you what meeting the leader is going to prefer and that's sort of a small way of thinking about what a more intentionally designed organizational operating system gives you. right? It gives you just enough [00:25:30] structure for you to go into those spaces and show up and actually get to focus on strategy and creative, you know, solutions and things like that as opposed to, Why am I in this meeting? Who's running this meeting? Being critical of the meeting itself, right?
And so, you know, the way to think about how to avoid actually the, you know, I don't, it's not even about avoiding rigidity. It's recognizing it's gotta be people-centered and it's gotta be adaptive to the leader who's gonna implement it. But it also needs to call out why structure is so helpful for you and…[00:26:15] Yeah.
Shaun: Joe, you know, you're making just this going into the meeting, like putting my head back in that space and thinking about that from the people-centered angle, even just going back into the leadership team meeting, the LTM format that we've developed you know, even in that context, we have this set agenda and we have the emergent agenda.
That's why we think how we train teams on it. Like there's some stuff that we would recommend you go through, but then there's just all this space. Which is the majority of the meeting to talk about the most important. Items or issues that you're facing, we call that part of the, we call it the list, right?
And that's really out of an appreciation or, well, maybe I'll start with the frustration, like the frustration that teams can experience where if they, if it was just the set agenda, [00:27:00] like just some key updates, you know, just some, We're checking in on some goals whatever it might be and then it didn't have space for big topics, people can leave that meeting feeling like the things that I think matter most to our team right now, we didn't even get, right?
And so leaving that space for what matters most to our team to talk about right now that often feels very, that should feel very people-centered, right? It's a tuning in to the issues and culture, the, you know, whatever we're phasing as a team this week that we need to prioritize working through.
So I guess I'm just calling out that even within the [00:27:45] things that can feel pretty structured in an organizational operating system framework. It's building in space to make sure the people element has room to thrive.
Josh: That's great. What – So when you guys were chatting, it makes me think about, all right, so what's the risk if it's not people-centered, right? We're talking about frustration because of a type of meeting or, you know, my issue isn't surfacing to the top and it's been kicked off of the list, you know, the last four weeks in a row.
Let's play this out. What is the scope of the risk of having an unintentional OS and something not being people-centered? I have a two-part question, so I'm queuing up my second one with this one. [00:28:30]
Shaun: What comes to mind for me is like, what's serving what, right? And so what I mean by that is the systems, the processes, the tools, the practice, should all be in service of the mission, the vision of the organization.
Ultimately people enjoying their work, feeling engaged, like building trust, right? And if you can go deeper than that, you could say all this is about people being able to create some more sanity and space in their life, right? And so all these systems and tools, I think this is a constant check for us as creators of a framework like this to say, what is this ultimately serving?
Is it serving the ability for people to connect in a more meaningful way, to enjoy their work, to be energized by it, to be more [00:29:15] likely to achieve their purpose and their vision? And so that's the constant check for us is it doing those things but we've all been a part of systems that are not doing that right?
Where it feels like for some reason we've fallen into this place of, We're just running this play, we're just, we haven't stopped to say, Will it do those things? Will it achieve those things that I just mentioned? We fall into the space of, we just have to follow this for whatever reason, and so I think that's the pitfall in both encouragement that we're trying to follow here.
Joe: Yeah, I think we talk a lot about change management when it comes to adopting the system. So if the goal is to go from an unintentional organizational operating system to one more intentional, we know that the [00:30:00] journey there requires an understanding of what helps to facilitate change and a huge part of that is the investment of the people who are gonna be a part of that change.
If people aren't invested in it, if they don't, you know, deeply care about it, you're not, we're not gonna see the change happen and we've, we've seen that happen with folks we've worked with where we've maybe not been as intentional ourselves about how to get them involved in the process of you know, what do they want their system to look like what do they want to focus on right now?
Those are huge pieces to adapting the system and so if you just say, The [00:30:45] system's accidental right now, give them this plug and play intentional system and just do it, you're gonna see a dramatically different amount of investment in the solution itself, and so a huge part of the process in getting there is to bring people along to work with them and to help, you know, ultimately just guide them toward choosing pieces that they want to adapt and be more intentional about and just kind of continue going down that path of adapting more and more as it is something that they're motivated to do.
Josh: That's good stuff. So my second part of the question and kind of what I was fishing for too, is that [00:31:30] I saw a note from a buddy the other day and he was talking about, you know, what we expect out of our teammates, of our employees.
And he was talking about, you know, we want them to bring their ideas, their energy, we want them to advance the mission. And then he was saying that somebody asked him a question, he's like, You know, we ask about how they show up for work, but how do we send them home? Right? So we want to get as much as we can in our 40 hours, 50 hours, 60 hours, whatever it is, you know?
But how do we send our teammates, our employees, our leaders home? And how does 6 Levers help?
Shaun: Hmm. I love this question. It, I think I've thought about this question in [00:32:15] different ways, but not this directly. And so the framing of it, of like just the flip of the coin, if you will, the other side of the coin of we're asking about how they show up and how are we sending 'em home.
I think it, to me, what it does, it puts the responsibility and the question, the accountability of the question and thinking about it in a different way. Like, what is it for me as, as the leader, as the top team in the organization, whatever it is. What do I do there? It also makes me, I feel a little how do I say that…?
I feel like I have a confession about, like, I, for years I've been kind of – what's the word? Promoting this idea of bringing your whole self to work. I even, I ran into a leader, you know, six months ago, and she was like, Yeah, Shaun, remember we were working together [00:33:00] like 11 years ago and you always just talk about everyone, like the importance of everybody bringing their whole self to work. And then part of me felt good about that. I was like, Oh, that's cool that she remembered that.
But what I know now that I did not know then is that I wasn't thinking about the other half of this question, the way that you've just posed it, Josh and I wasn't thinking about what would it actually take from an environment perspective for them to do that? For someone to bring their whole self to work, right? And what I now know, and what I think we're trying to do with teams is to say, you know, is there an environment of safety? Is there an environment of trust? Is there a principle and value of building [00:33:45] connection at work, right?
Because when these things exist, then it's appropriate to say we want you to increasingly bring more of your whole self to work, but in a world where we're not doing that, it almost feels irresponsible. Right? I'm gonna, I want you to bring your whole self to work, but I'm not committed to the work of creating a place where it's safe and and meaningful to do that, right?
Enriching, even like – even if you go beyond safety, like it's good for you. It's like you get something out of doing that. There's reciprocity and vulnerability. When you do that with someone, they share in kind. So it really takes all those things to, for that to be true, and that's, I don't know.
I'm not, I [00:34:30] feel like I'm not answering your question directly, Josh, but it – that's where it's got my head at is like, how do we wanna send them out? It's got me in this place of what are we doing to create the environment for them to hopefully do the things in which we want, the way we want them to show up?
Joe: Yeah, Shaun. I think part of that frame for us, or reframe for us was, you know, in thinking about organizational health originally a huge focus for us was build more organizational health inside organizations and they will go after their mission and be more likely to achieve their mission or be high performing, right? That was the big theory of impact: boost org health and you'll see [00:35:15] performance boost as well and I think the reframe for us was, is org health just a means to an end or is it an end in and of itself? And is that worthy, right? And I think that is, that's where we're focused is to say, org health is an end in of itself.
It's that important and so when you reframe, you actually think about how are we sending people home, right? How healthy are people when they go home? And if they're not feeling just as engaged and inspired, then that's a data point, right? That's a data point to respond to. That's something that you want to directly address as opposed to just thinking. Oh, well, if [00:36:00] Josh is going home a little, you know, less engaged and worn out, he's gonna be less likely to, you know, make the impact or drive the result that he's, you know, he's responsible for.
Well, sure that might be true too, but we actually just care about how Josh goes home. Right? And so the framework does focus on how do we bring that level of intentionality to the health of the people who are inside the system?
Shaun: Joe one thing – it makes me think about how when we started on this journey and the three of us were – we've had multiple, we're all in different cities, but we've had multiple times together in-person to do meaningful planning work and Joe led us through the process [00:36:45] of, you know, Let's make sure we're doing that we're taking on this framework just like we do with our clients.
That included developing tenets for our work and one of 'em was – actually I think this was one of our values – Sorry, this is one of our values. I think it was more about the – or, I'm sorry. It's a belief, one of our beliefs is that it's identity. It's part of our identity. It's part of our core identity is that work should be energizing, right?
And so we want everyone to feel that and out of that belief that's, you know, what we're talking about here is I think we think about the end of the workday and it's like we're often like more drained, more tired. But what if people could be like more energized at the end of the workday, right? And [00:37:30] to what Joe's saying here, they could go home in an even better place, you know, more ready to be engaged and present with their families or whatever it is that they have after their workday.
So Josh, I feel like you, you actually, I dunno if you remember it, but you talk about this quite a bit with, you know, this idea of people's lives are more than just they are at work and the importance and the impact of, you know, I think you feel a lot of responsibility as a CEO in our company. I don't know if you'd wanna speak to this, but I've heard you say this quite a bit about what it means to run a healthy company and how you send – and how we send people home.
Josh: Let's – this isn't part of the episode. [00:38:15] I was gonna share one story that, or two stories rather, that I think these are the areas that I learn a lot about how I want to show up as a leader within our own organization. And lo and behold, I learn a lot of things from my kids and the things that they're involved in.
And I take my kids to this – or Jack, he's my oldest – to this school called Preschool Partners and taking my kid to school and picking him up half-day is a very timely process or a time- consuming process rather, and that there's just this like single hallway and everybody's waiting in line. And the reason why it takes so long is, which I love, every parent drops their kid off and the teacher is sitting right there, [00:39:00] eye-level with the kids, and she gives 'em this hug and she asks this question and this kid, like, there's no one more important than that kid that is right in front of her.
And the same thing is true when you pick your kid up. It takes a really long time but it's super awesome to watch because you're waiting for your kid. You know, Jack walks up to Mrs. Sailor and she gives him this sweet hug, a kiss on the head, tells him Great job!, things that he could work on, gives me feedback, and sends us on our way. And Jack's like on Cloud-9, you know, and so it's like little things like that where how we show up and that handoff to how we send people home is part of our job responsibility.
It is part of our duty that we can't just take [00:39:45] everything and then just, you know, give somebody else the – what's left over and I think the same thing is true with like me and my wife, where we were watching these things or we were kind of watching some patterns, for ourselves. And anytime we didn't get a workout, right, the correlation or the parallel between physical health, individual health, and organizational health is very, very similar, right?
So if I get a run in, I'm like, energized. I want to hang out with my kids, I want to hang out with my wife, I wanna invest in things, in relationships, and that's kind of, that's it.
Like, work should be like a workout, that we are pumped up, energized in a good head space. We know that we contributed something, advanced, something, and then we're on our way to be able to take care of the other parts of our lives. [00:40:30] So those are the two things that are like sticking out when you ask me that question.
And that we do have to do both. Organizational health is that important just like physical health, mental health, spiritual health, you name it. We have to make that a part of our wellbeing. Otherwise, we're robbing a piece of ourselves and how we show up in the world.
Shaun: Yeah. That's awesome, Josh. I think it just reminds me that the, you know, tying of some, one of the things we talk about with the framework is how interconnected everything is.
And you know, this is, we're kind of, we're more or less having a conversation around beliefs, right? Like what our beliefs are about the, you know, how we want people to leave organizations at the end of the day or the end of the week, whatever it is. [00:41:15] You know why we have designed the 6 Levers framework and it just feels like an encouragement to maybe anybody listening here that as you think about the expansion of your mission, your kind of like underpinning of your why – why you exist as an organization – and, or even some of your tenets, the way you operate, the way you do that there could be something to align on with your teams here that relate to your beliefs around the impact you have on people that work on your teams.
I think for us this has been super energizing and something that we can come back to and remind ourselves of as we go through really busy seasons, like what's our responsibility in this for the people that [00:42:00] work with us? So just a connection to the beliefs and maybe an encouragement to think through how our beliefs impact the way we design the framework and systems in which we live in every day.
Joe: Yeah, Shaun, I think one thing that that reminds me of is how important it is to give people permission to create beliefs like the ones that we're talking about right now that maybe don't directly connect to their mission, right? We've worked with a ton of non-profits over the years, but whether you're a nonprofit or just a mission-driven for-profit organization, you've got these core beliefs related to your mission that ultimately are your ultimate why, [00:42:45] drive what you do, and so at times it feels, you know, it almost feels like it's not okay. You can't actually set, but create beliefs or values around everyone should go home from work just as energized as they showed up, right?
Because in some way that would be sort of competing against, you know, a mission around ending educational equity and so it's – we do a lot of giving permission to say that's important as well, right? The people on your team and the way that your team runs, creating beliefs around that are what we call tenets, it's so important and just giving folks permission [00:43:30] to create clarity in that way as well.
And, we can have beliefs in this lane and in this lane, nd they don't have to be thought of as competing only, is so important.
Josh: All right. Well, the way that we like to wrap up episodes is you heard Shaun and Joe both talk about progress, progress being over perfection. So if you were to give advice on one thing, say like, Hey, if you are struggling with this try this –
What comes to mind just in terms of an organizational operating system? If an organization has an accidental one or intentional, what would your advice be to help any of our listeners out in terms of making progress on their own OS ? [00:44:15]
Joe: Check out some of our free resources. No, I can't say that.
Shaun: Yeah, I think – I'm sure Joe is more to share there, but I think in addition to that you know, you'll probably hear us say this all the time, but just pick one thing and get started. So it can, you're gonna gain momentum through the process of seeing progress in one particular area.
So whether it's feeling like we are just not a very focused team and we need to align on a handful of priorities in the short term, like, awesome. Do that, right? I think the, you know, or it's – our team cohesion isn't where we want it to be right now so we're gonna take a, we're [00:45:00] gonna do a workshop and do a personality profile test. Whether it's Five Voices or something like the Working Geniuses – whatever it is, start there.
You know, create some agreements that come out of it or priorities that come out of it and you know, not feel like – cuz the framework, you know, as you work your way through the various episodes on this pod. If you dig into, if you're part of neurolearning communities and subscribe to all the great content we have, you're gonna realize there's a lot there, right?
And you could run the risk of it feeling kind of overwhelming where you're like, It's gonna take me a while to do all this, and that's true. It is gonna take a while to get through all of it, but it doesn't take long to get started. You can pick one or two things and you can get going on it and that's gonna build momentum that's [00:45:45] gonna build –
What we see with teams is that builds hope and belief that you can actually build a more, a healthier culture, a healthier team, because you got these proof points. Now, we did this thing, we actually had a quarter where we had five priorities. We've never had that before. That was awesome! What else can we do?
Right? There's so many other things we can do as a team. So just get started, make some progress, and you're gonna gain some awesome momentum.
Josh: Right. Anything else?
Joe: Yeah, second, everything Shaun said with the point being engineering progress, right? But we run an exercise where we ask teams to reflect on the most essential strategic activities that happen inside their organization.
And so if you were [00:46:30] just to ask yourself what are the top, you know, 1-3 activities that happen inside of our organization in terms of strategy, operations, team – literally you name it. Just what are, think about what are the most impactful strategic things that happen inside your organization.
Identify a few and then ask yourself, Have we defined the way in which this is supposed to happen? Have we designed and defined that intentionally? Is it objective-driven? Is there structure and tools to support it? Do people think it's effective, right? Just – and then if, you know, answer those questions, but ultimately run good versions of that [00:47:15] and you'll start to see progress in those really high-leverage parts of your org.
So example could be annual goal-setting, it could be a meeting that is super important that you should be running, it could be team building. If you think that that's one of the most important activities that happens, whatever those, whatever the answer though to that is for you, then ask yourself, you know, Have we defined it and are we executing it with a high level of intentionality?
And if you're not, start there.
Josh: Right on. And of course, if that isn't enough, dive in, check out our free resources. If you do wanna learn more about 6 Levers, what we're doing, the best way to find out is go to 6Levers.co. If you wanna go [00:48:00] deep on the framework, hop into one of our navigator sprints.
They happen every couple months. Otherwise, we will catch you next time. Have a good one.
Shaun: Bye everybody.
Joe: See y'all.
