19. Develop your Consulting Skills to Deepen Your Influence with Deb Zahn and Prina Shah

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hello and welcome to this episode of Ways to Change the Workplace with myself Prina Shah. I love what I do. I'm a global leadership coach, a consultant, a trainer, a keynote speaker, a podcaster. I help you to develop your leaders, your teams, and I help you to optimise your organizational cultures. I'm here to help you find ways to change your workplace. Why? Because we spend more time in our waking day at work than we do with our loved ones. It has to be a good place to be. So in this podcast, you can expect a mix of interviews with amazing thought leaders and then some solo episodes from myself as well. Get ready. Hello and welcome to this episode of Ways to Change Your Workplace with myself Preenisha. And I'm very excited to bring in my friend today, Deb Zan, who is all the way in New York, I believe, Deb. Is that correct? That's right. That's right. Cool. And Deb owns an organization called the Craft of Consulting. And Deb, today I really want to talk to you about how you can develop your consulting skills to increase your influence as an internal leader in the corporate world. But first off, Deb, welcome. Thank you. I would love for you to tell our audience more about yourself, what you do, why you do it, and how you came about doing it.

SPEAKER_02 1:45

You got it. So I actually am two things right now, which I really do enjoy. So I'm still a practicing consultant. So I do consulting in the healthcare world in the US. And for places that actually have decent healthcare systems, there's a lot of work to be done in our healthcare system. So I'm practicing, but I'm also, as you said, the CEO of the Craft of Consulting, the goal of which is to help other people who want to become consultants be able to succeed faster and with far less stress. And I actually started as a consultant when I was a leader. I wasn't a consultant yet. And I was asked to do a consulting gig for someone who had been in meetings with me, particularly meetings where it was dicey and people disagreed. So she she came to me and she said, Look, we have these two entities within a larger entity. They're merging. It's a forced marriage. No one's happy about it, but we have to make decisions together. And you're the first person I thought of because in your meetings, you're somehow able to get people who who are mad at each other to actually get on the same page and agree. Can you come and do that for us? And I thought, well, it's not a conflict with my current job. It sounds fascinating and interesting. So I did it. And they actually decided they kind of liked being married and maybe we could do this together instead of having separate bedrooms for the rest of their lives. And that's how I got the bug for consulting, is I felt like all of these skills that I had learned and honed and applied uh in workplace settings, in particular in leadership roles, translate perfectly. And obviously, we're going to talk about vice versa. That I got a bug for doing it and I knew that this is what I wanted to do. When I started as a consultant, I I suffered tremendously because I didn't know anything about the business side of consulting. So my desire to start Craft of Consulting is I watched other really smart leaders from companies and organizations come and suffer the same way I did. And I wanted to reduce that suffering. So I realized I could help a whole lot more people if I had a business that was exactly intending to do that to make their transition easier. Beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

Deb, you've made some amazing points. So point number one, consulting was thrusted upon you. And that's often the case for our internal leaders, for our audience who are listening today. And point number two, you have been working, researching, and I know your brain has probably taken all of that in, and you've got lots of lessons for us today.

SPEAKER_02 4:32

Yes, absolutely. So, you know, I was thinking because you had asked me a question earlier about it is understanding yourself as a consultant who has to influence others, make things happen, and all those stuff. Like if you're a leader, those are key skills to have. And I was trying to think like, what are the most important ones that I would put at the top of the list? And one of them is the best consultants, and I think the best leaders have the right orientation. And that orientation is towards outcomes. So they have clarity about what outcomes they want to achieve, or they they have a path to getting that clarity, and they keep and maintain a focus on those outcomes. So they don't ignore the journey and the experience, because obviously those matter, but they keep that orientation, and bad consultants don't, and leaders who struggle don't. And then the piece that goes along with it that I thought was also sort of a critical, almost kind of meta way to think about it, is they also know that they need to use the right tools to get that outcome. So it's not just one tool, a hammer is not going to do everything. You need to have a full toolbox and then have some skills at knowing when to apply what's what's what tool. So just being the leader who tells your subordinates, well, this is what I want, this is what you have to do, and I'm the boss, and that's what you're gonna do. Or, you know, any other sort of technique like that that's more related to the role you have and not related to what does it take to actually achieve the outcome is problematic because maybe you get the outcome, maybe you don't. Maybe they do what they're supposed to do and it works and you praise them. Maybe it doesn't, and now you're mad at them. But that doesn't necessarily help you get to that outcome. And that's one thing I think consulting brings is that toolbox approach of saying, if my eye is on the prize, yeah, what's in my toolbox that I can actually use at this moment in time that's going to be the right thing to get closer to it?

SPEAKER_00 6:43

Fascinating. So, Deb, you talked about orientation towards the outcome and maintaining our focus through it. And I'm, oh my gosh, I'm going back to my corporate experience and thinking, uh-oh, sometimes I have failed at that myself, you know, because of the fact that, you know, us as leaders, we have that outcome in mind, but then we get carried this way or that way, and then our plans digress. However, looking back at it myself also, um the high achievers, the leaders who actually were really well respected as consultants, always maintained that end goal and always tended to repeat it back and back and back. Oh, yeah. Uh, because otherwise the flip side to that could be failed projects or failed change attempts or whatever. And then as a leader, when you lose the respect of your team, it is so difficult to regain when that project fails or when your whatever consulting gig drops. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 7:38

We used to call it the gift when I was in employment. We I used to call it the gift of clarity, which is which is essentially people needed to understand where we were driving to and where we're going. Even like I was actually uh speaking with a client a few days ago, and she said, Oh, we have a steering committee. Do you know about that? And I said, I said, what's the purpose of the steering committee? And I didn't hear a very clear answer. And I said, let me put it this way: what's it steering towards? And they didn't have that clarity because they hadn't thought through what's the true outcome that we want, and then what's the role of this steering committee in helping us? And then what are the other roles people need to fulfill? And that's where things go off the rails, and they go off the rails because they were never on the rails to begin with. 100%.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

And you've brought back some nightmare stories. I remember very few steering committees. And I used to think, oh God, they take up your time, they suck up your time. On top of that, you've got your business as usual role to do, and this added steering committee where you really do want input, but if they don't have the end goal as to where they're steering towards, we're all just sat there scratching our heads and hating the process and waste of our time. Yeah, and dying a little bit inside every day.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

Every single day.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Exactly. Absolutely. So, Deb, you also talked about um having the right tools in your toolbox. What does that mean?

SPEAKER_02 9:08

So I'll give an example, and this is an example that actually came up two hours ago, which is I was talking with a consulting client of mine, a leader, and we were talking about emotional intelligence. And we were talking about emotional intelligence, particularly as it relates to bringing up third rail issues. So these are really emotionally charged, difficult issues that people are going to have big emotional responses to. And we were talking about how to first address them with other leaders who were going to be impacted by those decisions, and then what needs to happen at different levels of the organization to be able to not shut off people's emotions, because that's not the goal, but to have people understand, gain some acceptance, be able to shape things in in ways that actually make it better, things like that. And we were talking about that in contrast to there's some consultants, there's some leaders who who only tool that they have in their toolbox is they're going to be the one that says what needs to be said. And my take on that and his as well has always been yeah, but only if that's the right tool for the job. In some instances, it is helpful to be that person that just is going to say something that nobody else is willing to say and to say it bluntly to almost um have a shock to break up groupthink or to break up, you know, bad dynamics. But you have to know that's why you're using that tool, as opposed to is there some other tool that you want to use? Because if once emotions flare up to a certain point, there's you're no longer discussing that issue. You're just you're just fielding all of the different feelings people have. So is there a different way that you want to approach it? And that's what I mean by having the right tools is is sometimes it's a blunt instrument, sometimes it's much more of a precision instrument, much more it's it's about influence. Sometimes it's about presenting options instead of saying, here's what needs to get in. Sometimes it's about directing. But to be really deliberate with what's the thing that's most likely going to create the change that we need to see in this moment.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

Yeah. And I love that I love the fact that you also mentioned in relation to this client example, you also looked at the audience and the potential impact and the potential response that this client's going to get. So you're arming this client with tools of how to address high emotions in relation to the change project, especially. Yeah. Um, yeah. And and you talked about uh, you know, when emotions get too high and when the leader doesn't address it first off or um respond to it appropriately, first off, let's reword that it can get really carried away, and then that end goal, you know, leader's still going there, everyone else is just checked out, they're on a different bus altogether, and then to bring them back, I have been called into many consulting gigs for that reason, to bring them back is really difficult. And then you can bring in someone external, such as yourself, Deb, such as myself, also, we can completely do it. However, if the leader is able to take charge and bring their people on, that's right, it's so much better.

SPEAKER_02 12:38

That's right. And then you're building trust. So, you know, one of the issues we talked about is leadership succession. Yes. So bringing up a succession planning to leaders, particularly leaders who have, you know, founded an organization or a company or have been there for a very long time, and it is it is part of their identity. Yeah. And to bring up the word succession, what they often hear is, we're going to take your identity away. And so just saying, look, hey, you need to do a succession plan is not necessarily going to get you the right outcome because they are going to shut down and then they might try and thwart the various things that you need to do, or or you know, do any number of things, as opposed to think about who is that person related to this organization? How do they hold and understand their position related to it? And then what's the right tool to have that conversation in a way that's actually going to be productive? Really good consultants know how to do that, really good leaders know how to do that.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

Yeah, yeah. Deb, I'm thinking about my leadership experience in my corporate days and the kind of tools that I used to use. And I'd love to hear your examples as well. I remember open questioning, uh, using especially uh okay, let's share the share, let's share our secrets. Hey, uh why not? Using uh open questions in a coaching perspective. So there's a really beautiful model uh called the Grow Model. Um what's your goal? What's your reality of that goal? What are your options and what's your will? How willing are you? So the grow model in the way you ask questions, uh active listening always, you know, as a consultant, always you've got to be on, uh being present um is really important. What else? Appreciative inquiry. I think when I go into uh situations where let's say a leader hasn't had the best attempt at whatever they're trying to do, appreciative inquiry. I am not on anyone's side, I am neutral territory that's right in Switzerland. Talk to me. So loads of open questions there, and a lot of show uh a lot details about what appreciative inquiry is in the show notes. It's an amazing skill to adapt. Um for those who don't know about it. But Deb, do you have any skills or any tools that you what's your skill?

SPEAKER_02 14:58

Yeah, so it's so it goes along with the last one, which is I am I am insatiably curious, and I'm more curious about how to get to the outcome than attached to any rigid beliefs about how to get to that outcome. So that so always showing up with the the lived reality of being curious is one. But for me, it's even simple things like a lot of times I go in and they want big things to happen and they can't even run a meeting that makes any sense and doesn't make people want to jump off something tall. So so even simple things as having an agenda that clarifies the objectives that you're trying to achieve. So I go back to you know, research that was done about people who had to have to wait in line a long time for things. And what they found out is if they knew why, and it actually didn't matter if it was a good reason or not, if they knew why they were waiting in line and they had some reason for it, yeah, they their stress level went down and they were less worried about waiting in line. So it's the same thing in meetings is be really clear what is the overall objective of the meeting, and then for each agenda item, what's the objective of the meeting? So I used to work in a big corporate setting and that was never done. And people routinely left meetings and said, I don't even know why we were there. We didn't get anything done yet again, and you know, here's what happened, here's what happened, but it didn't lead us anywhere. And it's usually because the person who's planning or facilitating the meeting isn't clear about what the purpose of it is and what they're trying to do. So things as simple as that, or trainings, it happens quite a bit with, um, or retreats. I have clients who really like retreats. God, you know, God bless them, but they like retreats. And my first question is always what do you want to achieve at the end of this? How does this relate to other things? And then in my mind, the open question is, is a retreat or is a meeting or is a training the right way to do that? So I was talking to someone a while ago who um, you know, they're having this particular problem with folks that work at the organization, and and they started talking about training, and I said, So is the problem a knowledge and skills deficit? And she said, I don't know. And I said, Well, that's the only reason you would do a training of the type that you're talking about, or is it X, Y, and Z, in which case you might pull a different tool out of your toolbox to be able to do that? So I always like to start at the end, yeah, gain really good clarity about what you're trying to achieve. And then that clarity gets communicated in multiple different ways. Cool. You can retrofit it, absolutely. So everywhere, yeah. And not just tell people once, but you say it at the you, it's in the agenda, it's in the email. Sometimes I've even um, and I I stole this from the ever fabulous Leanne Hughes, another wonderful Australian. And is I've now started sending videos sometimes to people prior to meetings to basically make sure that it's really clear why they're there, yes, and why it's so important that they contribute.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

Oh my gosh, yes. Warming people and yeah, yeah, giving them pre-meeting information is so important. And us as external consultants absolutely do that. But internally, that's completely lacking because internally, hey, I'll get that meeting invite on Outlook, often without any description as to what the hell we're meeting about, no agenda often as well. And I'll rock up thinking, okay, I've got one hour now. Also, you know, we're working in a hybrid environment. I might be sneakily working on the side, you know, working on my laptop or whatever. You bet. So to capture people's attention, you have to be very crystal clear before the meeting, even. And Deb, I talk about, and you've probably heard this, there's a brilliant um Japanese concept uh called nemawashi. I don't know if I'm pronouncing this clearly, I'll add the link to that in the show notes as well. And that's meeting before the meeting. So it's psychologically priming your people, you know, your attendees or whatever, your audience, um, to get ready for whatever this meeting is going to be about. Really good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:35

I've even, when I know that there's heightened emotions and there's some tension, yeah. I've even I tried once and it actually worked really well. I sent videos ahead of time. And when I'm when I'm all casual, I have a whole bandana collection. I love bandanas, and I have this fast vintage and all this other stuff. And for every single video, I changed my bandana. And then one bandana had a unicorn on it. And so it became this running joke of what bandana did you get? Wait a minute, who got the unicorn bandana? And so they had something to feel light and good about before we walked in the meeting that we could joke a little bit about at the beginning, and now our baseline was actually starting at a better place. That doesn't mean it wasn't tense, that doesn't mean we didn't talk about difficult things, but they started with a good experience.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

Wonderful. Now Deb is very clever with this example, and what lies underneath is so much information. Deb, I know you've done years of research on this. So research tells us that a good consultant works well if people know, like, and trust them. So Deb here is building the knowledge of Deb. People are liking her. Who's this cool dude with bandanas? You know, like what kind of bandana am I going to get on my video? So we're all talking about it. And then there's that trust element because I'm talking about it with my colleagues. Hey, did you hear that message at Deb Centers? And someone else talks to us as well. Yeah, but my video had Deb with a unicorn bandana on it. So you're building, you're building a relationship, rapport, and genuine connection by doing this.

SPEAKER_02 21:21

Yeah, absolutely. And it's no different for leaders if you want to influence people towards taking certain action, having them know you and know you. And that's why having things like if you have a deeper purpose driving you to do this type of work, have people know that, communicate that. If you're if you want to normalize making mistakes, because that's what learning organizations do, that's part of knowing you, and that's part of liking you, and that's part of trusting you. But you have to work those factors in an authentic way because then folks are going to be much more. Willing to get behind what you're saying or be willing to sometimes live with what the ultimate decision is because at least they feel like it's in good hands.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

100%. Deb, I've got an example which just came to my head in relation to this. So when I was working in corporate, uh, I managed uh it was a merger but more of a takeover. So we'll be we'll be realistic. So it was a takeover.

unknown 22:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

Uh we were the larger organization taking over a much smaller organization who were beautiful, but they had had a history of mistrust of HR. And my background is in HR, you know, I used to work in HR internally, and so they hated HR first off because it burnt. Um so my role was to go in and to fix the culture. Like, how can I do that? I don't need to change culture apart from the bad stories that I've heard, you know, in bad press. So what I did initially, Deb, was I baked um, I love baking, I baked a fruit bread, took it along, and I had morning tea with the team. That's all. We broke bread, that's it. All I did then was share what I'm about, what I'm passionate about from a work perspective, and the fact that me as a HR person when I was in this organization was an employee advocate for all. That's um after that, Deb, you know, they were still mistrusting, you know, of me and um of HR essentially, which was completely fine and as expected. So I knew that I'd get resistance, that was completely okay. What I decided to do then is I worked with the director of that organization who did have the trust in me, um, to say, hey, can I just work from your office one day a week with an open door policy? And anyone who wants to rock up for a cup of tea, come along and have a chat with me. Nice. Because I've got some questions to ask you about your culture. That's it. Full house there, every single person in the organization ended up speaking with me. But it's a softer approach and knowing that's right, also. So going back to your point, learning the history, learning what you might be uh coming to expect as well, and being prepared for it in your toolkit.

SPEAKER_02 24:14

That's right. And I love that personalized touch because I do I do think that that matters tremendously if you're a leader, if you're trying to make change happen. So I think about when I worked in in corporate, and I wasn't in a leadership role, but we were in a role where we were facilitating, we that my job was to help implement something across multiple different organizations. And and my boss at the time said, it's never gonna work. He he was blunt about it. He said, It's never gonna happen. And I and I and I wish I'd bet of money, I really should have, because I knew it was going to. And, you know, we did things like we needed to change the process by which people did things, and that included changing some forms that people were oddly very emotionally attached to their forms, which is often because if you feel powerless in an organization, you will grab power wherever you can. And darn it, that was this form. So what we did, and it was it was a group of us, uh, actually, my my before he was my husband, my husband. And we went in and we did what we called a customer service approach to implementation, where we said, you know, we we need to change this form to do this. Don't worry, we're gonna do all the work. By the way, is there anything else that you've been dying to change on this form that you want us to change? And we'll do that for you. And including, like they wanted it, it was a healthcare facility, they wanted to add ask, you know, add a question about domestic violence. Well, you better know the research on how to ask that appropriately. So we said, tell you what, we'll do the research, we'll find out what the right question is, and we'll add it for you. Everybody was eager to work with us because we didn't just make it about us, we and the changes we were under you know, accountability to achieve. We made it about them too. And once they felt like this was an us situation, our our path was clear. And like I said, I should have bet him money. I really really should have. You'd be loaded now.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

Yeah, yeah. And uh, so here Deb's talking about more of a human-centered approach, and Deb um interviewed me earlier last year on exactly that. And our interview ended up digressing, and I shared my whole secret as to how I facilitate a human-centered design session to try and get the best outcomes for this client. And Deb, if it's okay, I'll put that in the show notes as well.

SPEAKER_02 26:40

Absolutely. And I will tell you, I got such a good response to that because people hear about human-centered design abstractly, yeah, but you took it from the abstract to the concrete and said step by step, from even before you got the gig, here's how you approached it with a potential client. It it was it was phenomenal. I learned a lot and I'm now I'm now actually using some of the techniques. And I actually just bought a deck of other uh human-centered design techniques so I can mix up some of what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

It's all cool. So, for any facilitator, any change maker or any leader who wants to have more of an influence, you have to listen to that podcast and you've got to check out Deb's details, which are all in the show notes. Because Deb, you write a lot of blogs as well, which I've signed up to, and they really are useful. Uh, it gets you thinking from a consulting perspective, but then from an internal leader's perspective as well, we all have to influence, we all have to consult in some way or another, right? And the quicker you hone those skills, the better you'll be at it because it's all about human connection, as we've learned. And Debbie's even harder connecting with humans over a friggin' computer.

SPEAKER_02 27:51

Yeah, yeah. So you so this is where you that's why knowing truly what your deeper purpose is, yeah, and having your mindset in a helpful and healthy place to be able to spur the right choices and the right action. Because if you have that, then you can transcend the the remoteness on a Zoom call. If you don't have that, or you're trying to fake it, you're gonna have a much harder time invigorating people towards the things that that you want to get them excited and and on task about. So having those two, and again, those are true for consultants, it's true for um leaders. And then my favorite one, which kind of harkens back to what I said earlier, is the prioritizing focus. So the folks who have succeeded faster, I think, as leaders, same with consultants, are really good at saying this matters, this doesn't, this is urgent, this isn't. And to say, here's what our priorities are, given the realities that we're currently in. If our realities change, we might change those. So they don't hold to them rigidly. But this is what we're going to maintain a focus on because this is the path to our outcomes. And and to be able to do that and to allow mistakes, but also be able to keep that focus, that's sort of like Jedi leader stuff that makes all the difference.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

It's clear leadership and it's so often lacking within the workplace in terms of that leader that we can rely and trust on, that when you do find such a leader, yeah, things go well. Absolutely so now, Deb, this podcast is called Ways to Change Your Workplace. And I have one magic final question for you. If you had a magic wand, what is one way that you, Deb Zahn, would change your way of the workplace?

SPEAKER_02 29:52

You got it. This is an easy one for me, um, particularly because I do work with a lot of consultants who are just doing amazing work when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion. And so if I could wave my magic wand, it would be that companies and organizations would dig in and do the hard work for real. So unfortunately, what I see happening is a lot of places recognize it's important because of things that are happening in the world. Yeah, but they're approaching it as either a side salad, so something that isn't mission critical. So they're not treating it the way that they would treat existentialist issues like financial sustainability, or they're doing a check the box exercise. They're doing a training and they think they're done as if you could train your way to equity and inclusion, which by the way, you cannot. So I would like them to embrace the the richness and the benefits and the wonderful things that come from doing this work for real, and then buckle up, be willing to get in and dig in and do the hard work and respect the the DEI consultants who are trying to help them do that. Who again, I I am in awe of some of the work these folks do because what often happens is you know, if a place is resistant to you know the discomfort and the difficulty that comes with it, often their humanity will be attacked while they're trying to do this good work. And it is a shame and it doesn't get you where you want to get to. So I'd love to see that work be understood, embraced, and applied as if it were truly the mission critical work that it is.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

Oh my gosh, Deb. I I could go on about this as well, because diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, I've seen a lot of lip service, but I've not seen actual results thus far. So, yes, they'll have these wonderful people in these roles, but I'm hearing a lot from these wonderful people in these roles that hey, but we've got to get through red tape, we've got to get through this, we've got to get through that. Now, if organizations actually truly give a crap about corporate social responsibility, they need to work in, they need to have a workforce that is representative of the community that they serve. And I'll be honest, the majority don't have that. And I'll be very honest in saying that I've been the token brownie in past organizations as well. And that feels crap as the token, you know, ethnic minority in the organization. Um, things definitely need to change, and there are definite ways that that can be done. I think that's another podcast conversation in the future, Deb. And with yourself, Deb, I don't think this is a final conversation with you. Well, with you and I, it's not going to be, obviously.

SPEAKER_02 32:48

Obviously. But yeah, I hear you. I see that way too often, or I see people doing the least amount that they could possibly do that lets them tell their trustees or the board of directors or whomever that, hey, we are their stakeholders that we did this. And and yet you don't see fundamental changes in policy. You don't see a workforce where everybody gets to show up as their full self. You you see repetition of the same thing, but everybody feels pretty good about it. And uh, we're not getting anywhere if it stays like that.

SPEAKER_00 33:21

We're gonna change it. Yes. Oh, yeah. Okay, okay. Ways to change your workplace.

SPEAKER_02 33:25

That's what this is all about. I just I just swore, but I figured New York and Australia were okay.

SPEAKER_00 33:32

I I am okay with swearing and I dropped the F bomb many a time. It's okay. Deb, thank you so much for your time. Until the next time. How good was that episode? If you also stand against crappy workplace cultures, lousy leaders, and toxic teams, you need to join the Ways to Change Your Workplace Facebook group, which is linked in the show notes. I'll meet you at the next episode. Ciao for now.