Human-Centered Organizational Change with Dr. Kris Lea

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Narrator

We're in an era of rapid change where resilience is vital. The devout for that podcast dives into the most important topics in government and technology today. Our host, Davood Ghods, sits down with his vast network of colleagues to dish on the tech challenges that affect us all. Follow this podcast on your favorite platform and join the conversation by sharing it on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook.

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Davood Ghods

Hello everyone, and welcome to Direct Technologies, the Davood for Thought Podcast. I'm Davood Ghods and I will be your host today. The way I stay up with the pressing topics of tech and the government of today is to tap into the panel of experts I've had the honor of connecting with over the years. Today we have Dr. Kris Lea joining us on the podcast.

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Davood Ghods

Dr. Lea has a doctorate in organizational psychology and is currently the president of Kris Lea Consulting Group. Dr. Lea's dissertation work fueled her desire to help organizations to apply a human centered approach to managing organizations, enabling both individuals and the organization to thrive. She is very passionate about operationalizing organized national health. We are especially excited to have her with us today because she's a direct technology partner on organizational change management engagements.

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Davood Ghods

Without going into too much of your background, Dr. Lea, I want to first of all, welcome you to this episode of the Davood for Thought Podcast and ask you to tell us about your background. And for someone who doesn't know about your area of expertise, please give us a brief overview of what you do. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you.

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Kris Lea

It's such a pleasure to be here. Yes. So my my area of study has been in organization development. My doctorate is in organization development. So it's basically a study of how people work together inside of their organizations. And so I've had a passion around or development probably all of my life without even knowing that it was there until I realized that it was an actual study and an actual practice.

00;02;24;15 - 00;02;55;19

Kris Lea

So my background is really a combination of org development or ODI. You might see that on my LinkedIn page. So org development, organizational change management and training and development. So those are my three areas of as a deep expertise and practice that I offer also in my in my business. So. Org development. I can just explain a bit about what each of those things are.

00;02;55;19 - 00;03;34;22

Kris Lea

I mean, I think everyone has a good sense of training and development. Work development is really about improving and developing the organization from a human centered approach. And this is really to understand the relationships, leadership, the kinds of processes inside of organizations that need to be in place to allow the organization to meet its mission. So org development is really about improving the organization from a human, from a human perspective.

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Kris Lea

And there are lots of ways to do that, including some diagnostic work. So I actually do quite a bit of diagnostic work in terms of understanding what issues might be happening, let's say, on a leadership team, any any type of organization. I do the same type of first step, which is diagnostic work to really understand what is happening, what's working well, what what is causing them a little bit of of pain.

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Kris Lea

I use the term organizational pain, which is my my way of saying that things aren't exactly how we want them to be, but we can examine it with with the idea of really trying to improve the organization overall and the relationships between everyone and all of the people inside. So high level that that's org development and or change management is, I'll say, related very closely related to or development or change management or OCM.

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Kris Lea

People might be familiar with that acronym. But org change management is typically, I'll say on project related activities. So my work has been most of the time with, with different state departments and understanding what their technology needs are and helping on the human side of change, which is helping all of the end users, all of the stakeholders, everyone who is impacted by a technology change to help them to feel confident and competent in the future state, whatever that future state might be.

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Kris Lea

And the future state is usually after the organization has decided to invest in some type of technology. So. Org change management is is a human side of change and typically done within large, large projects and always like projects, but mostly and then training and development is really a complement to both ODI and OCM, especially in the kind of client engagements that I do.

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Davood Ghods

Excellent. Thank you, Dr. Lee. And you provide these services to both public and private sector clients, correct? But I do very good. What emerging trends are you seeing in your field that we should be paying more attention to what's been happening recently?  

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Kris Lea

Well, I've seen one. One thing I've seen is I see some as a social movement that's happening of a really steep increase of awareness about the importance of civility and respect in all aspects of our lives. And so it could be from the Black Lives Matter movement, it could be related to any type of social movement and that that is happening. Maybe things have been sort of bubbling under under the surface for a while, but suddenly it's a social issue that that is important and we might be hearing about that in the news. How that translates to our workplace is generally in the form of policy procedure.

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Kris Lea

It can translate in the form of new positions that become available and become important to the organization. So you might see many, many organizations really realize they they may realize that they needed to focus a little bit more on their diversity and inclusion functional area within human resources, for example. So those kinds of things are tied together both in what's happening inside of our organizations and what's happening in our world at large.

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Kris Lea

So that's that's definitely a trend. And I think it's a good trend, by the way. I think it's a very good trend. Yeah, yeah, I agree. And one other thing I see is maybe I'll say a little concerning to me with regards to the organizational change management work. I think that ACM work is important and it's if it's done well, it's it really does help inside of an organization.

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Kris Lea

But what is concerning for me is that the term ACM and ACM practitioners may not really account for, I'll say the theoretical underpinnings of what happens in our collective psychology and our individual psychology when we are going through massive changes in our workplace. And so there's this there's a notion that change management can be planned and implemented, and all you need to do is make, make a plan to change people's professional lives at work and that you simply implement that.

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Kris Lea

But what is missing sometimes is that we are working with human beings and human systems and that that's a that's something I've been paying attention to because ACM is becoming more understood. But at the same time, I feel like we are forgetting that we're we're working with human beings inside of human systems in the workplace. So that's a trend that I'm paying attention to just and I throw my voice into the hat whenever I can just to make sure that people understand is we're not dealing with machines at work.

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Davood Ghods

We're dealing with human beings. Exactly. Very true. I'm glad to hear that civility and respect is one of the trends. And definitely we are all working with humans, even if it's machines, humans programed them, make them, etc.. So great. Thank you. At direct technology, we always talk about how we are going to get a project done, but we also ask why we are doing what we are doing. So what is your why? Why that? I mean, what motivates you in your work?

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Kris Lea

Yeah, that's a great question. And if it's if it's okay, I'll tell a short story and this goes back to, I'll say my initial attraction to work development without even knowing what it was. Please do. It was it was many, many years ago. I was in community college and there was a restaurant that was opening up where I lived.

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Kris Lea

I lived in in the San Francisco Bay Area, and there was a restaurant that was opening up and it was the best place to work in terms of the amount of money that you would make. So I was I was a server. I was accustomed to sort of this cash, sort of a cash lifestyle. And this restaurant was opening up and it was it was like the best place possible to work.

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Kris Lea

And I happened to miss in one in one weekend. I missed the advertisement for for the hiring of of the entire staff. The entire restaurant got hired like within a matter of two days. And I just happened to be away that weekend. So I was desperate and I went to my I had I was in a hotel and restaurant training program at Contra Costa College, and I went to my instructor and I said, Do you happen to know anyone at this restaurant?

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Kris Lea

And he introduced me to one of the managers there. And so through this introduction, I went in probably every other day and sat at the counter and was asking, you know, when is the next opening? You know? So I was there. I was probably the most persistent person that they had ever met because I really wanted to work there.

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Kris Lea

So I did get hired and I was very happy about being hired and and I was grateful for this connection. And this the manager that hired me, all of a sudden, he his whole demeanor changed with me and he would speak to me in a way that I was shocked by it. And he would say things like, Hey, Kris, go over and there's a table, and if you don't do it right away, I'm going to fire you.

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Kris Lea

And he would he would punctuate every request that he had for me with a threat to fire me. Wow. And I was just so shocked and and I couldn't figure out why he would speak to me this way. And one, he didn't remember how hard I had tried to get this job. And and so I finally decided I'm going to just speak to him straight.

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Kris Lea

And I so I said, you know, I am I don't know if you remember how much I wanted to work here. And he he kind of he relax a little when I said that. And I said, I want you to know that I'm really grateful for for the opportunity to work here. I really do want to work here.

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Kris Lea

And you really don't have to threaten me ever. If you asked me to do something, I'm. I'm happy to do it. If if I can. If I can't. If I can't do it, I'll. I'll tell you. So I spoke as plainly as that to him, which was terrifying for me at the time because I was very young. But I did.

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Kris Lea

And his whole his whole physical self, he completely relaxed. And then he started to smile and he goes, Oh yeah, oh yeah. Kris Yes, yes, yes. And from that moment on, we were fine. We were totally fine. And we had a very good relationship after that. Now I was probably I was probably in my very early twenties when this happened, and from that time I wondered why, Why did he feel the need to be so authoritative with me, and why did he think that threatening me was the only way to motivate me?

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Kris Lea

So these were questions that came into my mind at that moment, and I've had these types of questions for my entire life. But I realized that back then I wanted I really wanted to understand how people work together, how they cooperate together and collaborate together, and the role of leadership and management in running the operations and the impact of of that role.

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Kris Lea

Those are important roles, leadership management roles. I use those term synonymously, but from that early story, I have been fascinated with how people work together for positive outcomes and also sometimes not so positive outcomes. But that was my my real genesis of why for me, because I was so interested in this so long story.  

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Davood Ghods

No, that's great. It's all about the storytelling and what a great story to talk about. What motivates you so fantastic. That's great. The next two words that I want you to ponder are inspiration and innovation. I'm sure you work with your team, with teams in the projects that you're involved with. What inspires innovation on your team?  

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Kris Lea

So the the use of technology is is required. You know, it's it's one of the things that we we are even on, even on a team that is working together and doing the same work regularly. They have to learn how to use new tools. And so innovation in part is a necessity for the adaptation to the changes in technology and the tools that that teams need to use. So there's there is the, I'll say, the element of needing to be innovative so that you can learn the tools that you need to be able to perform your your role, your duties on a team.

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Kris Lea

And I think along with that is, is the the real support and the training and the coaching kinds of things that that sort of wrap around the need to learn new new technology. So in terms of overall innovation, I think some of it's necessary. We just have to be ready to, to, to learn new things and use new tools, but also to be able to feel good about that and to be able to have real confidence and confidence around using new tools which which make us feel like we can we can learn something new.

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Kris Lea

The the more successful we we are to innovate and use something new. That's the one time then, and we feel more comfortable the next time. So. So some of these things I think are just a way of life to be innovative. But I also think that creating an environment to be able to learn new tools is necessary to complement.

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Davood Ghods

Exactly. Well, we all have to use technology these days. And as you said, definitely innovation is a necessity. And I'm glad to hear that organizational development is not just process improvement and talking about processes and it uses technology as well. Lately. Yeah. So if people were hearing about your interests or background, what is something that would surprise people about your interests or background?

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Kris Lea

Well, you know, this is this is probably a little bit about my my upbringing, but I think it's it's relevant to the person that I've I've become today. And as a child, I lived in India for five years. And from that experience and from my my close relationships with my my adopted father's family, there's there's this real affinity that I have for for India, for the Indian for Indian cuisine, Indian culture.

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Kris Lea

And I know it's not it's not a singular it's not a singular cuisine and a singular culture, but I'm going to lump it together for now. But I really have a deep connection with within India from spending time there. And so that that has sort of grown into what I believe is sort of a multicultural part of my personality.

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Kris Lea

I'm very comfortable working with people from other countries around the globe. I have I have lots of friends and colleagues in different places, and I really value the opportunity to learn from people around around our wonderful planet. Just just because I know that people think about things differently, their frames of reference are very different than what I have.

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Kris Lea

So I'm colleagues that say that I'm I'm a multicultural person and I take that to mean that's a good thing and a very positive thing. But I think that came from my early, early life in India. Excellent. Yeah, I'm a multicultural person and I definitely see that as a good thing that we can talk with and be with the different colleagues from different backgrounds.

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Davood Ghods

Absolutely. And my last question, Kris, where can people find you and keep tabs on what you're working on? How can people support your work?  

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Unknown

Oh, thank you. I am definitely on LinkedIn. I'm very I'm very active on LinkedIn. And it's it is my my name that will be posted here. So. Kris Lea, that's my that is my name on LinkedIn. And then my consulting firm, I do have a website and it is Kris Lea Consulting and it's K are I s LTA consulting dot com. So I love any visits there. I do have a nice white paper that I've got for people that are interested in my dissertation research, which I like to share with, with anyone who's interested in understanding what I consider, I call it the vital signs of healthy organization. So happy to share that if you come out to the website.

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Davood Ghods

Perfect, perfect. Well, we have a practice around organizational change management at direct technology, and Dr. Lea is our chief expert. We have a model of direct technology also. We call it the human side of tech. And it's because we also do work with organizations, companies, departments, public sector entities on the human aspect of org development.

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Davood Ghods

Thank you so much for joining us today, Dr. Lea and thank you listeners out there for joining us as well. We will see you all in the next episode of Davood for Thought, where we will shed more light on the human side of tech.

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