Let's Talk, People: Episode 34

WHO DECIDES HERE?

WHY THE BEST LEADERS ARE BUILDING DECISION-MAKERS

[00:00:00] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Hi, I'm Emily Frieze-Kemeny, host of Let's Talk, People, where leaders come to bridge humanity and profitability. Informed by a couple decades of work as a head of talent and leadership development, I'm here to amplify leaders so they can exalt everyone and everything they touch. Are you ready? 'Cause it's about to get real.

[00:00:28] Let's talk, people.

[00:00:35] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: If you, like me, are here because of your passion for talking leadership and growing your impact and those around you, I want to invite you to check out our new leadership model, Pivot Player. Pivot Player is informed by our research working with thousands of global leaders over the last two decades.

[00:00:52] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: You can learn more about Pivot Player by heading to PivotPlayer.com, where you can also take our free leadership survey and find out which leadership suit or suits you've likely been wearing. Okay. Let's get into the episode.

[00:01:06] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: It is my pleasure to have Olesya Govorun on Let's Talk, People today. 

[00:01:11] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Olesya leads organizational development and culture transformation for Pfizer. You are likely familiar with the company, it's one of the world's most trusted global pharmaceutical brands, it's known for its groundbreaking role in helping to fight COVID-19 with their vaccine development. It's an over $60 billion in revenue company with 81,000 employees. 

[00:01:36] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Over the course of the 10 years that Olesya has been at Pfizer, she has led enterprise wide culture transformations, including pioneering decentralized decision making, which is what we're gonna be talking about today, and scaling global coaching ecosystems.

[00:01:53] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Prior to Pfizer, she was strategy and insights lead at Danone, us in the US refer to it as Danon. She has a PhD in social psychology and MBA, which gives her this unique blend of bringing both behavioral science and business strategy to the work that she does in organizations. 

[00:02:15] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Olesya is also a proud Ukrainian and committed to advocating for humanitarian rights. She also is a champion for women's advancement in the healthcare industry and is a member of the Healthcare Business Women's Association. 

[00:02:31] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: We are going to unpack how Pfizer did something pretty remarkable, even since the vaccine heroics that they did during COVID-19, where they've realized that what they could do with such speed around vaccine development was in contrast to employees saying that they felt that things were not moving at the pace that they wanted, and it was hard to make decisions. And they figured out how to bridge those two things to create a way of operating where decision making sits with the people who have the best knowledge to make them, where leadership is an enabler of decision speed and effectiveness.

[00:03:07] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: We are gonna dive in. Let's do it.

[00:03:12] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Olesya, welcome to Let's Talk, People. I'm so excited to have you on. 

[00:03:17] Olesya Govorun: Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

[00:03:20] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: We have a really important topic. I can't tell you how much I hear this concept from both leaders and the people who work for them on how we make sure decisions sit with the people who are best positioned to make them? 

[00:03:37] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: But for some reason it's like we're perpetually stuck with that being a problem, of either the decisions are too high, or if they're too low, then leaders get nervous and things go wrong or back chilling happens. There's so many versions of this dysfunction that happen in organizations and we know leaders really want to empower their people.

[00:03:57] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And of course, because they need to drive high performance, they do want to maintain the right degree of control to ensure that nothing goes wrong. Teams want autonomy, but they don't necessarily know if they have permission. Decisions get made in meetings, but sometimes what happens out of the meeting is very different than what we expected, in terms of how we thought things were gonna move forward and I feel that the frustration lies with both leaders and with their teams. And I know this is a topic that you are extremely familiar with in a very real, very pragmatic way, of how do you really take decision making, bring it to the right levels within an organization that people feel empowered, who have the expertise, and that leaders can feel like they can let go of the reins a little bit while still ensuring that there's accountability without having to revert back to prior ways of operating. 

[00:04:52] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Tell us a little bit about this topic for you, why it became of interest, what it signifies within Pfizer, and just the whole journey you've had around this.

[00:05:00] Olesya Govorun: Sure. And I do agree it's a complex issue and I know that I don't have all the answers, but I'm happy to share with you our experience of tackling decision making, tackling bureaucracy, and empowering our teams. And I wanna start by setting a little bit of context of where this came from. 

[00:05:21] Olesya Govorun: So Pfizer, like many other organizations, does annual employee engagement surveys and we found time and time again that our lowest scoring item was 'It's easy to get things done at Pfizer.'

[00:05:37] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Hmm.

[00:05:38] Olesya Govorun: And so our colleagues told us repeatedly that it's really difficult to make decisions at Pfizer. And I think it makes sense, right?

[00:05:47] Olesya Govorun: You know, we are a complex organization. Matrixed. Global. Large. And so it kind of follows that decisions would be difficult. And we struggled with this type of feedback. We tried a variety of things. We tried encouraging colleagues to have discussions with their managers to tackle possible bottlenecks.

[00:06:06] Olesya Govorun: We tried encouraging people to delete meetings from their calendars where they were not a decision maker. But I would say that they were cosmetic changes and nothing was really shifting until Covid pandemic hit us.

[00:06:21] Olesya Govorun: And as you recall, that was a crucial time for Pfizer. We embraced the challenge of developing a vaccine in record time, and so that taught us some really important lessons about decentralizing decision making and making decisions much more efficiently than we typically do.

[00:06:43] Olesya Govorun: And so when the vaccine was being developed, typically the time would take years. Maybe even a decade. The challenge was to do it within months. And so the way that we made it happen is by delegating decisions to experts and creating small expert teams that owned decisions, that had direct access to leadership for quick escalation, for problem solving, and that enabled us to move so much faster than ever before.

[00:07:19] Olesya Govorun: Because if we just kept making cosmetic changes that would have never accelerated the timeline to the degree where the timeline had to be accelerated. And so we had to make radical structural changes. We had to say, how do we actually make it happen? And so breaking down the traditional hierarchy where the boss always has the final word and you are left behind, we had to break down those patterns to unleash the power of our teams. 

[00:07:49] Olesya Govorun: And so what we learned from that experience is that when you trust the team to deliver on an ambitious goal, they can make the impossible possible. And it wasn't a copy-paste scenario where we took the experience of vaccine development and just brought it to the rest of the organization, we extracted some principles that could be applied no matter which part of Pfizer you were in. We didn't expect people to work with the same type of intensity and scrutiny as the vaccine development team did. But we learned a ton from that experience. And the most important lesson of all is that lesson of trust, right?

[00:08:30] Olesya Govorun: So trusting teams to own decisions, delegating decisions to experts, and then stepping out of their way and having them lead the charge. Having them deliver on those ambitious expectations. So happy to share more about the details, Emily, but that was the origin of how we made it happen.

[00:08:51] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: One of the things I think is so fascinating is the connection between these two data points. So there was this evidence that under pressure things could be done with speed, that in that case were heroic. Under tremendous stress, the risks were truly life or death, which is not our normal business circumstance. So the fact that Pfizer had this lived experience as an organization of what was possible, that would've probably have seemed impossible, but then in contrast to this day-to-day feedback that you're getting from the teams that says, we can't get things done. So it's like, you know, it's possible under the hardest circumstances, but then why is the day-to-day not?

[00:09:33] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And what I'm so struck by is sometimes people see that kind of feedback and they're just like, people are not taking accountability. Like no, there's something wrong. There's a problem to be solved that we obviously have figured out a way to solve, how do we make it the day-to-day reality of working in the organization? 

[00:09:52] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: So to me, just being able to take those two pieces and find the operational way to do it, it's really important. I think that's what we want is to make the way we work change not just the heroics or not just the frustration that we sometimes settle for.

[00:10:07] Olesya Govorun: Right. I love how you framed it, Emily. I would also add that that experience taught us to be courageous, right? When you are aspiring to transform how decisions are made in your organization, it's not enough just to make a few cosmetic changes and hope that somehow it will alleviate the issue for your people.

[00:10:27] Olesya Govorun: You need to be willing to make those bold moves. 

[00:10:31] Olesya Govorun: And for centuries, people have been used to hierarchical decision making, right? And it's not an easy mindset shift to move to more project based work. So, we definitely don't want to maintain the pressure and suggest that every single project that Pfizer needs to be done with the same level of intensity as it was done for vaccine development, but it taught us that courage needs to be part of the equation. And sometimes we as HR, we tend to follow, we don't tend to lead, and I think that taught us a very important lesson that part of core responsibilities of HR leadership is that courage, you know, the ability to take calculated risks and take the organization to the new level.

[00:11:14] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And that courage is creative. It's what causes growth. I think courage sometimes in organizations has this reputation of going up against leadership. So it had a risk and maybe a bit of a controversy to it versus the way that you're describing it, Olesya, is there a different way that we can operate? What's possible? I think it's really important, this idea of who has the expertise, where does the knowledge lie? How do we get the decision to those people? And then it reverses a little bit of the power dynamic of what you're describing with hierarchy, that leadership then becomes enabler. 

[00:11:56] Olesya Govorun: Right. 

[00:11:56] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Versus the decision maker, the all knowing, the gatekeeper, which is part of maybe why leadership was held high, because that allows you to maintain control and you have less fear of losing your job if you hold the power. 

[00:12:10] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: But it also then becomes a frustration when you're not getting the performance you want outta your organization. You're not seeing the relationship between those things.

[00:12:18] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: We see power and leadership as something that sits central versus above or below, right? It's not only in service, you do have times where you have to drive and hold people accountable and make decisions on behalf of the organization because you can't delegate everything. But then when you're too high above, you have the issues that you were seeing, which I see across the organizations that we work with, which is you don't have enough speed, you don't have enough execution success, you don't have enough innovation and efficiency gains because people are waiting for permission.

[00:12:49] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Or bad decisions are being made, which would obviously be the worst case scenario.

[00:12:53] Olesya Govorun: Right. And then what I appreciate about your comment, Emily, is this idea of involving leadership in making this happen. And one of the lessons we learned through all this process is the importance of co-creating it with your stakeholders, right? Because I think the sense of ownership is so much higher when people think that they've had a say in how this will operate. 

[00:13:16] Olesya Govorun: This happened before I joined the team, so I cannot take credit for having implemented this, but I was told that there were co-creation sessions with our ELT members and they were assigned to two different stations. One was scenario A, the other one was scenario B. They had to argue with each other in terms of which scenario was the best way to decentralize decision making at Pfizer. And so they were part of how the solution was developed. 

[00:13:46] Olesya Govorun: And then on the receiving end, we also co-created with some of our pilot teams. So the name of this movement we created at Pfizer is 'Project Based Ways of Working'.

[00:13:58] Olesya Govorun: We started out with just nine teams and we constantly listened to their feedback, but the co-creation aspect, not just shoving things down people's throat, but giving them a sense of ownership and responsibility and contribution was really important.

[00:14:15] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah, and the symbolism of, if we're gonna try to listen to people, take that feedback and try to help get things done more effectively and quicker, so perfect to do it with the people who are giving you the feedback!

[00:14:30] Olesya Govorun: Exactly right. 

[00:14:31] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: We have so many questions on this topic of, how do you increase pace with performance by moving decision making closer to where the knowledge lies. So I'm gonna turn it over to you, Abigail, to help us to unpack the questions that are out there.

[00:14:49] Abigail Charlu: Yeah, thanks so much. And this truly is an issue that we see across many of our clients and quite a bit of engagement on this topic. So let's get into the questions. 

[00:14:58] Abigail Charlu: Our first one, a manager said, "We say we want decisions made closer to the work, but every time someone makes a call that leadership doesn't love, it feels like trust gets pulled back. How do leaders decide which decisions are safe to escalate versus one that they need to stay close to? 

[00:15:18] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I have an example of this and then I'll turn it to you, Olesya. 

[00:15:21] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: There was an organization I was working with and the senior leaders used to be really good about sharing very transparently what was going on with the business and what that would do. Would it empower people to make better choices of where to focus their teams, so that the transparency, even if it was around hard performance issues that were going on with the business or losing a deal or a delay on a product launch, it still would help people to lead in that context. One person, one time, shared some really confidential information that was shared in one of those leadership team sessions with the press. As a result, instead of addressing that one person and their behavior, they stopped doing these communications all together. It was taken as a sign that it's not safe. 

[00:16:05] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: So that's probably the biggest thing that comes to mind for me is if there is a problem and an issue that goes on, isolate and deal with that one situation.

[00:16:14] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Was it bad judgment? Was it because the person didn't have this skill? Are they just a bad toxic employee, or not? What were the circumstances? But stay local. Because what we sometimes do as leaders is we jump to catastrophic thinking and think, 'Oh gosh, I have to close it down and make this not happen again'.

[00:16:33] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: But then you end up losing all those benefits that you had gained in an effort to mitigate potentially an isolated risk.

[00:16:40] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And what I would add to that is one of the principles that we have in the project based ways of working framework is decision guardrails. Yeah.

[00:16:50] Olesya Govorun: Oftentimes it's something that's left implicit. It's never discussed, right? And so I assume that my boss has to review decisions A, B, and C. My boss may have very different assumptions And so as a result, we run into conflict, right? You know, I made a decision that the boss wanted to review and maybe, I went to the boss for an approval on a decision that was within my area of expertise. So what we advise teams to do is to have that discussion early and to ensure that everyone on the team is clear about those decision guardrails.

[00:17:28] Olesya Govorun: We obviously want to see the majority of decisions to be owned by the team, but there can be some decisions that are particularly risky, right? Like maybe that carries a significant reputational risk, something that we in pharma are all too familiar with. Or, you know, it may be a financial decision. And so have the discussion with your team. What are the decisions that the team fully owns and you will back them up, even if they make a wrong decision.

[00:17:57] Olesya Govorun: Or what are the decisions that you expect them to escalate to you? What are the decisions that you need to review before those decisions get made?

[00:18:06] Olesya Govorun: And I think, in our experience, making that implicit explicit, and you can obviously go back and revise those rules. Things change. The project pivots. You may have to revise those things multiple times. But just creating clear expectations about decision guardrails, it sounds very fundamental, and it's not a particularly sexy area of org development, but it is important to have that honest discussion with the team.

[00:18:35] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah, and I think even though when you say it, it's like, oh yeah, of course we should do that. I don't think a lot of teams do that. And also there's two ways I was thinking about it. It was probably in some cases, at the specific topic, project level, like, we're about to embark on this, or we wanna revise this, refine this, start this. What are the guardrails? As well as how we operate as a team, what gets escalated, what you're empowered to do? It's almost like there's two levels of guardrails: really specific and more like guiding principles. So I think thinking it and doing it are two different things and the doing it part is what is, I believe, a change in how organizations operate.

[00:19:12]  Abigail Charlu: Coming off of that conversation, a leader shared: "We've told teams they're empowered to make decisions, but people still hesitate. They're asking for a sign off, escalate unnecessarily or wait for permission. What actually helps empowerment stick beyond just announcing it or declaring that you now can make these types of decisions?"

[00:19:34] Olesya Govorun: Definitely declaring it without supporting your people doesn't work. And so I think it's important to provide tools to leaders that help them make better decisions and what I can share from our experience is that our most popular module in the whole flight school curriculum, that's part of Project-based Ways of Working, is how to make decisions.

[00:19:57] Olesya Govorun: And even if you are a leader with multiple years of experience, oftentimes it's not something that's an explicit learning module. And so giving folks tools on the different decisions out there on how do you ensure the decisions are made with the right type of input, how do you make sure that you hear from everyone in the room and not just your loudest people, how do you avoid cognitive biases? Right? And we know how frequent those are. So I think it's important to not just make that declaration and then leave your people with their own limited resources.

[00:20:34] Olesya Govorun: The other thing I would say is we've also offered coaching to our leaders who were leading important projects for the first time, because I think the worst thing you can do is the sink or swim type of situation. So you need to also support them through coaching.

[00:20:51] Olesya Govorun: And that could be a coaching from the boss, right? Where the boss, instead of telling the leader what to do, they can maybe role play and say, "How would you behave in this situation? Walk me through your thought process". Maybe give them feedback. But then also taking advantage of professional coaching and having a trusted resource that enables leaders to problem solve, to play out different scenarios.

[00:21:13] Olesya Govorun: So I think my overall recommendation is don't do the sink or swim type of approach and support your leaders, if you are really serious about empowering them, to make those tough decisions.

[00:21:23] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: It's so true. And we see that in terms of our experience as well. If you've not given people the tools, the skills, the support, then how can they do it? 

[00:21:34] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I think the other thing that came to mind too, in addition to putting the support and capability in place, is people are gonna look for evidence of how much risk am I taking by taking on that empowerment that's being given to me. So you're watching the signals to say, "Uh oh, what happens if something goes wrong?" 

[00:21:55] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: So I also think simultaneously, that when people hesitate, it's because there's something in the culture, either real or like urban legend that says it's not safe, that if I am exposed, I'm gonna lose my job. So you have to be really careful about when things will go wrong, because they inevitably do. If you want people to take more ownership, we're not gonna always get it right. The future is always unknown, so sometimes you're gonna make the wrong bet. It's how you use those as this is what the team did that was so smart of how they prepared and how they thought it through and what we learned from it.

[00:22:31] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: You have to be so careful to shift from the punitive to the learning, is one of the things that was coming to me too, because people are gonna be looking for those micro examples of how it's not safe.

[00:22:41] Olesya Govorun: Exactly. Building in that cultural practice of reflecting at the end of each project. I think it's important to reflect when things go well, right? And sometimes we don't do that. We just jumped into the new initiative. But when things don't go well, it's so important to just pause and without assigning blame, figure out why did we arrive at this outcome? What is it that we could have done differently? And maybe making those learnings public, right?

[00:23:06] Olesya Govorun: So that, maybe it's not necessarily a celebration of failure per se, but it's an acknowledgement that, yes, we didn't achieve the outcome that we were hoping to achieve, but we learned. As a result, we are smarter, we are better and we'll do something way more impactful next time.

[00:23:23] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And leaders, I think, often role model and signal to an organization what's okay. I mean, think about how powerful it is when a leader says, "I've really been thinking about this situation or my role in it. And as I reflected, I realized this is what I learned from it", or "This is what I would do differently next time", or "I realize I said this and it went that way", right? 

[00:23:45] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: The fact that someone can self-reflect out loud makes it safe to be imperfect. 

[00:23:53] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And, whereas, we fear that it's not gonna make us look credible if we do that as a leader, what it actually does is it makes people feel safer.

[00:24:02] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: If you can be that real, then I can be that real too and I don't have to be perfect, so I'm gonna try, versus, be careful.

[00:24:09] Olesya Govorun: Modeling that vulnerability, right? At the highest level.

[00:24:12] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah, exactly.

[00:24:13]  Abigail Charlu: Yeah, this is so good. I think definitely both of those overt interventions, the guardrails, the coaching, the capability building, and just the behavioral modeling, the cultural reinforcement, the creating safe spaces, all of this is really critical to creating that environment where folks can make decisions in their lanes. 

[00:24:36]  Abigail Charlu: Our next question, a leader shared: "I lead a highly skilled team, but I still find myself getting pulled into decisions that they're closer to than I am. How do I step back without feeling like I'm losing control or risking being held accountable for something that I didn't choose?"

[00:24:55] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: There's two different ways that this is coming to me. So one is, I'm finding myself getting pulled into decisions could either be that this leader, as we like to call our characters, might be what we refer to as an executor. So they get hooked. Their curiosity, their expertise, their detail orientation pulls them in to dig in and then they have, either formally or informally, signaled to their teams that they're gonna do that. So part of it might be a little self-reflection we need to do as leaders, because I know this happens to me too, of like, where am I creating that dynamic? Again, the role modeling thing you were saying, Abby, like am I role modeling it? Or, is it that the team doesn't feel safe because they know their boss has fear about control? So it's trying to figure out where our behavior as the leader is signaling something to our teams, intentionally or unintentionally. 

[00:25:57] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: But again, there's two parts here. I'm finding myself getting pulled in, okay, why, what's your role in it? What's the capability gap in your team? And maybe that's being picked up on, like, that's sending a signal.

[00:26:11] Olesya Govorun: I would also ask this leader to get curious about why this is happening. And the first question I would ask is, did you talk to your team about who makes the decisions and which decisions you expect them to make? Which decisions do you expect to be involved in? And so going back to that point about making implicit explicit, maybe the assumptions, maybe they're not on the same page, right?

[00:26:36] Olesya Govorun: Maybe, in their mind, the leader is empowering the team, but the team is not aware of that, right? And so it might be worthwhile to just have a discussion about, going forward, this is my expectation, these are the types of decisions I expect you to own. You can always come to me to brainstorm or to discuss, but I expect you to be the owner of the decision.

[00:26:57] Olesya Govorun: And we always talk to our leaders about their role, the higher you are in the organization, the less of a decision maker you are. The more your job is to create decision makers for the organization. 

[00:27:12] Olesya Govorun: And then the other thing I would advise this leader to do is to coach their people.

[00:27:17] Olesya Govorun: Instead of just telling them what it is that they would do if they were in their shoes, teach their direct reports the process, right? You know, they can provide feedback, they can express their point of view. But shifting from being directive to coaching your team. And I think that will definitely unlock confidence and the skillset that maybe lay dormant for a while.

[00:27:43] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah, it's almost like going through it as a scenario versus the actual doing of it. The reason that's helpful is it allows the leader to catch something before it's been done. And I think that's what we often fear as leaders, that they're gonna make the decision, it's gonna be gone and done, and you can't roll back the tape. 

[00:28:00] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: So I think when you pull it as, let's talk through how you would, or how you could, do this, walk me through the steps you'd take. Let's go through a few scenarios. What are a few options? Then at least you have that chance to coach, as you said, Olesya versus it's done. and now And now you've empowered and now you're feeling exposed as a leader because maybe it didn't play out exactly as you would've wanted.

[00:28:25] Olesya Govorun: Right. The other suggestion that is top of mind for me is maybe to have coaching circles. Especially if it's a large team. Even if the leader models the trust, people may not feel safe asking questions that they might consider to be dumb questions, right? And so it might be safer to create smaller coaching circles where, you know, if you are struggling with a decision, come to that circle. Talk to your peers. Problem solve together. The leader doesn't have to be part of it. Right?

[00:28:54] Olesya Govorun: So maybe that peer to peer support network can also create some unlocks and some additional empowerment.

[00:29:01] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Totally. It's very powerful to have that peer network and support both to feel like, oh, it's not just me, and to be able to broaden your perspective. It's such a great technique.

[00:29:11]  Abigail Charlu:  Absolutely. Every organization ends up taking on a different approach to decision making based on their culture. Some hold the decisions a little bit higher, some intentionally try to delegate to the experts and some tend to be more consensus driven cultures. 

[00:29:27]  Abigail Charlu: This leader shared: "My organization wants faster decision making, but we're overly consensus driven. Decisions get made in the room, then quietly unravel afterward. How do you address this kind of decision making dysfunction without creating fear or rigidity?"

[00:29:45] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: The other version of that I see a lot is that when there's consensus driven leadership behavior, it's like a lot of conversation, requests for more data, more analysis, but it's not like, make the call. So I think those are the two versions that I tend to see.

[00:30:05] Olesya Govorun: I actually would challenge the conclusion that this is a consensus driven organization, because if they were a consensus driven organization, then if the consensus is there, why the back channel conversations?

[00:30:20] Olesya Govorun: So to me, it signals that there's something else happening, maybe it's a risk averse organization, maybe, like you said, Emily, somebody messed up, they got fired and so people are terrified to speak up, right? And to express their point of view in the meeting. So I'm a little bit doubtful if consensus motivation is truly the driving force here. 

[00:30:41] Olesya Govorun: But I think this is where I would talk about team norms and the importance of establishing team norms and making sure that everyone understands the expectations for how the decisions are made. And one of the team norms could be, there are no back conversations. If once we make a decision, we commit to the decision, right? And if we want to revisit the decision, we revisit it as the entire team.

[00:31:03] Olesya Govorun: So I think team norms is a powerful technique that a leader can leverage in this regard.

[00:31:10] Olesya Govorun: I'll also talk about a principle called disagree and commit.

[00:31:15] Olesya Govorun: I think sometimes people need to be heard, right? Like they want to understand that other folks are aware of the risks that the decision is posing. They can live with the decision, but they want to make sure that the organization is aware of that particular risk. 

[00:31:31] Olesya Govorun: So I think it's important to, especially if it's a consensus driven organization, go around the room, have everyone express a point of view, raise the risks that they see, but then the norm has to be, once we agree on the decision, whether it's consensus or it's leader decision or maybe some other principle, then we commit, we stand behind this.

[00:31:52] Olesya Govorun: If other information comes into the picture, we may revisit the decision. But the principle of commitment after we make the decision is really important. And something that we found effective in our discussions with teams is distributing meeting notes right after the team decision is made . These are the things we discussed, these are the different points of views that were expressed, majority agreed on x, and this is what we are moving forward. 

[00:32:20] Olesya Govorun: So once again, having those explicit expectations about team decisions, how those decisions were made. And so that tends to remove some of those dysfunctional behaviors the leader mentioned in this scenario.

[00:32:33] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Could not agree more. This point about whether they are really consensus driven or not, I think is a really key insight. I think that there's cultures where they wanna be nice, but it's not nice when you don't say what you really feel. So that's sometimes why it doesn't happen in the room.

[00:32:49] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: So it shows up as consensus driven, but really what it is, is fear of having the hard conversation. Like if I say I don't agree, what will my boss think of me? If I think that my colleague is going in the wrong direction, how do I intervene? And I think it goes back to the word that you brought up before Olesya, which is this idea of curiosity.

[00:33:11] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: So how do you pose an inquisitive question, instead of with judgment, with curiosity. Which is, let's say the part of the consensus or the swirling is we need more information, have we had enough dialogue? It's like, what is it that could go wrong that we fear? What could go right if we made this decision more quickly, more aggressively, that could make things go even more right.

[00:33:35] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: So I think it's sometimes knowing to pose either the negative question that is the underlying fear in the room, or pulling people to the really positive, which might accelerate the buy-in and the direction, which is by us taking this risk or by making this call, these are the things that could go right, and so therefore it's worth it. 

[00:33:55] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: This other point you made about when things are happening outside the room, bring them back in the room, that is to me also the role of leadership. 

[00:34:03] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: If somebody comes to you, especially if it's an escalation and says, "Hey, this happened.

[00:34:08] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I'm really concerned", there should be a norm, to your point, Olesya, about what would justify that something is additional data or really is concerning around a decision that was made that would reopen it, and that should be a norm that has been agreed upon by this team. Or, "You know what, that's a really important point that you made. I really appreciate that you came to me. Out of respect for the way that we make decisions in our process, for now, we're gonna move on and we'll watch for that going forward." 

[00:34:37] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I think that type of clarity, it helps remove some of the cynicism and fear around this.

[00:34:44] Olesya Govorun: Exactly. Yeah, role modeling that is so important because if you say one thing and then all of a sudden your team sees you reversing the decision, that doesn't create trust and that single action can undermine weeks and weeks and weeks of team building, norms, discussions, et cetera.

[00:35:01] Olesya Govorun: The other practice that we have seen successfully is normalizing dissent, right? 

[00:35:06] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yes. 

[00:35:06] Olesya Govorun: So some teams would appoint a devil's advocate, right? Somebody's whose job is to anticipate what could go wrong, or bring up an alternative point of view. So it's important to create that culture of dissent and to anticipate people to voice dissenting opinions rather than everyone just nodding their head. And oftentimes what we see is that if the leader speaks first, sometimes it influences everyone else. And so we encourage, let's go around the table and express that point of view. Don't have the leader go first, because that might bias other people's opinions.

[00:35:43] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Totally agree with that. I think that's a great technique. 

[00:35:45] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: All right, so one of the things we like to do as we reflect is, we all go through our own versions of challenges as leaders. And this is one obviously you are helping the organization tackle. But when you think about your own journey, what's something that maybe you found to be challenging for you along your leadership journey and where did you have a moment where you found the pivot? That opportunity to come at it from a different angle that shifted it. And what was the learning?

[00:36:17] Olesya Govorun: That's such a good question. My biggest learning is how I define success for myself. And for many years, my definition of how successful I felt was tied to external attributes that you typically associate with success, right? And in the corporate world, it's the title, right? Like, you know, you wanna be a VP, SVP, EVP.

[00:36:46] Olesya Govorun: And so I was so focused on that and I think because of that focus, I didn't make the moves that I should have made maybe a little bit earlier in my career where I think I was chasing after titles rather than chasing after work that was meaningful and deeply fulfilling. So I think the realization that I have now is to care less about what other people think and care more about the impact that you're truly making and really centering myself around, does what I do bring me satisfaction? Am I making a positive impact on the lives of all? 

[00:37:31] Olesya Govorun: It's just that pivot from chasing external validation, to really thinking about success defined on my own terms and basing it on the impact that I'm making on the lives of other people.

[00:37:46] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Hmm. And if you think about even looking backwards, even if it's a month backwards or six months or 12 months, and looking for those examples of the moments where you felt like you made a difference, either in terms of what you produced or how you supported and helped other people to, think about how much that fills you up.

[00:38:04] Olesya Govorun: Absolutely. 

[00:38:06] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: You can find so many of them, right? It's true. It's like we want to be seen as successful. Like, am I good enough? Okay, here's evidence that I'm good enough. 'Cause that's really the underlying belief that we work on is am I of worth? Am I good enough? And this idea that it's, it doesn't mean a title is not important for a lot of people, it is, but that's not enough. And I believe that when, as you were describing Olesya, like when you really focus on having impact, the other stamps of approval, like a pay increase or a promotion or a new role or some sort of positive exposure, recognition, they have a tendency to just happen naturally.

[00:38:46] Olesya Govorun: That's very true, it's all when positive energy creates other forms of positive energy. 

[00:38:52] Olesya Govorun: And I think it's important for somebody who is in the people business, what matters to me, obviously metrics of broad organizational success, you know, I care about our engagement, score and broad organizational measures, but at the same time, I can picture in my head the names of the colleagues whose lives I was able to impact in a positive way. And so to me, that's the biggest source of satisfaction, to be able to say I've had scale impact, but also I can name the people who I help.

[00:39:27] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah. And that's like the real why, right? That's real purpose. That's feeling that you are of service and of worth. And that's the type of success, let's say, that really does drive wellbeing. 

[00:39:40] Olesya Govorun: Cannot agree more, Emily!

[00:39:42] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Aw. Thank you for sharing that, it's such a good and vivid example of how we can get caught up in those measures and rungs of success, versus, how did I have impact last week, yesterday, this past year.

[00:39:58] Olesya Govorun: Absolutely. 

[00:40:00] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Thank you so much for sharing your experience of what worked in practice, to show us what's possible when an organization really listens to feedback and can connect the dots between what might have been a heroic, and how you make that heroic, like a day-to-day way of running your business.

[00:40:20] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: It's, It's so, so good. So thank you for coming on Let's Talk, People.

[00:40:24] Olesya Govorun: Thank you for having me, it was so much fun. I love the combination of theory and practical scenarios, so hopefully, folks find a few insights from our conversation. 

[00:40:34] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: It was fantastic. I have no doubt. Thanks.

[00:40:37] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: So much good wisdom for us to take away. I think between Olesya's real hands-on experience driving this type of decision making change within Pfizer and the great questions that we had that we unpacked, there was four key takeaways that I had. 

[00:40:55] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: The first one is we understand conceptually that it helps to be clear about decision rights, but I don't believe we do that enough as leaders. So being very clear of defining what the decision guardrails are. 

[00:41:10] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Where do people have permission? Where do they need to come to you as their leader slash boss? Do that as much as you can to drive clarity. And, as Olesya said, it can change. It doesn't have to be stagnant, but that's a necessity so that people really do know where they're permissioned, and so you feel safe too to be able to delegate decision rights. 

[00:41:31] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: The second one is about being really explicit about building decision making as a skill. Because we get scared, we don't wanna make the wrong call. We don't wanna get in trouble, we don't wanna lose out on our next promotion because we get remembered for making the wrong decision.

[00:41:47] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: So by helping people to explicitly learn how to do it effectively in different types of circumstances, where the risks are high, where speed is needed, its really helpful to build skill around both through workshops and through coaching and ideally through kind of hands-on. experience. 

[00:42:05] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: The third one is really about how do we make it safe for people to really step into their power to make decisions. And we have to be careful what we talk about and what we react to. If people believe there really is a consequence for something not going exactly as we expected it would, and somebody gets fired, they get taken out of their role, don't get put on special projects anymore. People remember this stuff. They're really careful about watching what's going on in the environments. We have to be careful about how we create that safety and build some team norms around what's allowed in terms of taking risk as well as how we challenge each other, have disagreements. 

[00:42:48] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: So really helping with these team norms around how we can challenge one another. Not the person, but the topic, the decision, the data. I think that is part of building that psychological safety that we talk about a lot. 

[00:43:01] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And then last but not least, it's really about thinking about what's our role as a leader?

[00:43:06] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yes. At times we have to be the decision maker. That's a responsibility we have to drive speed and clarity. And it's our responsibility to build decision makers. So that's one of the most important things we can do, is how do we help people to feel supported and enabled both through skill and experience to make even more effective decisions.

[00:43:27] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: As you know, this is something we believe very strongly in as a part of our pivot player leadership model. It is always about that next move, that next decision, that next action. That's what makes leaders effective and that's what shrinks from that kind of fear and overwhelm of not wanting to make the call, to something that you can do. That next move, that pivot play. 

[00:43:48] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: On Let's Talk, People, what we love to do most is help you unpack your toughest people management challenges. So send them in. Send in the situations you're struggling with, the questions that you have about leading your teams, and we will anonymize them and give you answers and our advice on an upcoming episode.

[00:44:12] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: You can write in an email or attach a little audio message with your scenario to abigail@arosegroup.com That's Abigail, A-B-I-G-A-I-L at arose group A-R-O-S-E-G-R-O-U-P.com 

[00:44:32] Emily Frieze-Kemeny:  Thanks for joining today's episode of Let's Talk, People. For more info and insights, visit arosegroup.com and find me, Emily Frieze-Kemeny, on LinkedIn and Instagram. If you're enjoying the show, please follow, share on social and leave a rating or review in your podcast app- it helps other listeners to discover us.

[00:44:53] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Well, that's a wrap, friends. Until next time when we come together to talk people.