Crowdsourcing Company Values: A Modern Approach to Building Trust and Culture

What happens when leaders co-create culture with their teams? Christy Pretzinger shares how crowdsourcing values builds trust, strengthens engagement, and keeps people at the center of growth. A conversation about intentional leadership, self-awareness, and the small behaviors that shape a thriving culture.

• How crowdsourcing your values builds alignment, trust, and cultural ownership
• Why partnering with your team—rather than leading from a silo—creates stronger results
• A simple framework for becoming a more self-aware, people-first leader

Show Guest: 

Christy Pretzinger is CEO of WG Content and creator of The BETTER Leader Project, focused on building people-first cultures and self-aware leaders.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Hey everyone, this is Jill Griffin, your host of The Career Refresh. And today I welcome Christy Pretzinger. She is the owner and CEO of WG Content and also the Better Leader product. And she's an author, which we're going to talk a bit about her book today, too. She's the author of Your Cultural Balance Sheet. And what I really was interested in and why I wanted Christy to come on the show today was to talk about crowdsourcing values with your people versus telling your people what our values are. I think in the environment we're in, we're all navigating the complexities of today's modern workplace. It's everything from mergers to acquisitions to scaling businesses and also dealing with layoffs. How are you making sure that you are working with your people to crowdsource your values? Because your values may not be static. They may be changing based on who you are today. And that's why I wanted to have a conversation with Christy. So with that, Christy, why don't you have everybody, you know, understand a little bit more about what you do both at WG Content and the Bear Better Leader Project, and then we'll talk about your book.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

Okay. Um, well, first of all, thank you for having me, Joe. I appreciate it. Um, I actually, you know, took a long road to get where I am. Um, I built uh WG Content over, I think it's been since 2000, something like that. So it's been a while, but I started out as a freelance writer after studying French in college. So none of this has anything to do with it. I saw that French.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

She went to Sarbon. Like this is amazing.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

Nothing that has to do with what I'm doing now. So I'm a big believer in the arts and sciences. The liberal arts degrees let you know a lot of little things. So anyway, that served me well. Um, so as in the process of building writer, you know, we used to be called writer girl, now it's WG content. I realized when I looked back that uh the thing that really gave my life meaning was building an environment where people can thrive. And, you know, that that is that you don't have to be a business owner in order to be able to do that. If you have anyone in your uh that you lead in any capacity, you can help set the tone of that environment. And so then as I was in the process of writing the book, Your Cultural Balance Sheet, I started thinking about, well, how do we look at the workforce? Things change so much over the time we wrote that book. And looking at um what you mentioned, it's it's very unsettling right now. You know, there's a lot happening, and that is that's hard on our um our nervous systems. It it makes it hard to regulate yourself and to remind yourself that you have agency over that. So I started thinking about how I can help people with that piece of it, which is really a large part of that, is self-awareness and agency over your own behavior. And so then I developed the Better Leader Project in service of that. And the whole goal of that program, that project, is to create small cohorts of people that are together for a period of time and who practice in that safe space. They practice the skills of self-awareness, they practice vulnerability and empathy and curiosity. Um, the thing that's interesting about that that I found when I've when I've gone through this with people is that, you know, we're all familiar with Brene Brown and I adore it. I love her, yeah. But we can read about vulnerability all we want until you actually practice it and you know what it feels like. You don't feel safe to do it. I have a situation where um someone who was in one of the beta tests that I did worked in a large hospital system that was going through a lot of changes, like many, many workplaces are. And she had a team of people, but she also was feeling really unsettled about all of these changes. And she had not been comfortable being vulnerable with her boss about that, because she felt like, you know, we we kind of equate vulnerability with weakness, which is the exact opposite. But I understand why we do that. So, anyway, through this practice, she had practiced vulnerability and she decided she was going to be brave, which is what vulnerable really is, and she was gonna be vulnerable with her boss and tell him, you know, how uneasy she felt, how unsettled she felt, how she just couldn't get her footing. And she said it was remarkable. It moved their relationship forward. He really appreciated her vulnerability and was helping her with that. And she's like, now I realize that vulnerability is a superpower. But you know, until you get to practice it in a safe space where other people are vulnerable back, who's gonna go do that with your boss?

SPEAKER_01 5:28

I, you know, I would never feel like whatever you say might be used against you. Correct. So you have to do it in a way that is forwarding. So in the Better Leader project, um, I know that people can go to your website and we'll put the information in the show notes if they want to, you know, get involved in some way. Are you working within organizations or is it people across many organizations that are coming together?

SPEAKER_00 5:51

Like how is it set up? Well, it's actually both. Right now, I'm doing another beta test with university students because I through the process of developing this and working with different groups. At first I was thinking, you know, my main business, WG content, we work in the healthcare space. So I thought, well, they need help, right? I mean, it's like those poor healthcare workers are just they've they're burned out. They've been through it through the ringer. Um, so I started with that, and then I thought, well, you know, do I really want to go into large organizations to start? Because then you end up coming into HR and it's not an HR program because it's not a you know, two-day workshop where you change behavior for a minute and then go back to your base. Um, and it's not self-paced learning, which is frequently abandoned in the process. It's completely different. So as I was thinking about it and also thinking about who who needs this information. I think we all need this information. We we all can use it, but I started thinking about Gen Z a lot because they talk a lot about wanting to, they are opting out of management, but not leadership, because they've seen their elders get chewed up and spit out by the system. They also really want to be authentic, meaning they don't want to be told to leave part of themselves at the door when they go to work. Uh, and they also are yearning for connection and community. And as I thought about all those things, I was like, and they are remarkably ill-equipped to do any of those things because they're COVID kids. So they missed a lot of the opportunities where you build that self-awareness through relationships with friends and classrooms and teachers and things like that. And so I started thinking about that, and I have gotten very good response from Gen Z about this. So the people who are um, you know, in the workforce for a little bit, so they understand there there might be some things that they could sharpen that saw on. And they may not be leaders yet, but they want to be leaders. And so that's kind of the the sweet spot. But the people that have been through it are all walks of, you know, levels of leadership and management uh in generally speaking, marketing departments, but I also have some people in finance and uh areas like that that have been interested as well.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

And they'll come out of it with tell us more, like tools, how how does it shape an actual practice?

SPEAKER_00 8:05

Well, I think the best way to say that is to um I'll tell you a little story about when I did the first beta test. And so I had these people that that um I I they were from healthcare organizations that are our clients, but I didn't know any of these people personally. So there were seven people, and I was explaining the process to them because it's very structured. It's not like get in a group and and just talk, it's very structured. And so I was talking to them about the structure, teaching them some of the tools that we use. Something, um, one of the things that's a tenet of this is no advice giving, experience sharing only. So if you don't have experience in that area, you don't, you can just pass, you know. So I was explaining it to them and and how we do things. And one of them was like, this feels kind of performative. And I was like, I understand, but just bear with me. And we we we went through three months, which was an hour and a half session once a month for three months, so four and a half hours together. And then we did kind of a debrief uh because it was a six-month program to say, you know, stop, start, continue. What did you like? How what's your takeaway so far? And without fail, every single one of those people said, This has changed my life. It's changed the way I parent, it's changed the way I lead, it's changed the way I interact with my the my team and my coworkers. So it that sounds remarkable and hyperbolic, but it's really not. It is um when in my own experience of this, as we peel back the layers of ourselves, which is where it all has to start, right? Leadership has to start within. And you have to start knowing, to your point, values. You need to know your own values to start. So in order to know your own values, you have to start looking at your patterns and your triggers and what are what are the strengths and also your weaknesses so that you can establish those things. And once you kind of open that up to exploration so you can sift and sort through it, it does remarkable things because it allows you to access your own empathy for yourself, but also for other people. Like, you're not the only one going through this. We all are. You know, every single person I've ever spoken to has had a really nasty voice inside their head at some point or another, right? It's part of the human experience. And everybody I've ever spoken to also knows the the a core human need is they need to know they matter. And you have to matter in community, you can't matter alone. And so all of these things encompass the Better Leader Project. And my my outside goal of it is to create leaders that can go out into the workforce and do it bigger and better than I ever have, that I can just equip them so then they feel really good about going forward and influencing the workplaces of tomorrow.

unknown 10:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

I like I like where you're going with making this being like about you, but then bigger than you, so that you're scaling to others. I mean, one of the things that I often talk about is how we all need to know our own leadership identity. And it is based on our strengths, our skills, our values, our beliefs, because there are excellent books out there. There are a million Harvard Business Review articles that are going to tell you what a leader needs to be. And that's free for you, not for me. Meaning, I can take that understanding, that no advice, experience only. I can take that understanding and use it directionally, but I still have to come back to self first. I still have to come back to that self-awareness, understand, you know, who I am, what my gifts are, what my lived experiences are. Yes, have some self-compassion for myself. Yes, understand where my own self-belief is taking me and where the gaps are, where I might widen the gap or close the gap to be that leader that I want. But then it sounds like going through a program like what you're talking about and what you've built would be really uh impactful to help both individuals and organizations move through the challenges that we're constantly seeing in the work.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

Yeah, and I mean it's a human experience. And and the the problem is that we're not really good at being human.

Gen Z And The Need For Community

SPEAKER_01 11:54

You know, we're just not. We're beating ourselves up or beating.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

Right. We don't, we don't, you know, the the things that we all these years, you know, at the Ivy League and schools and everything, what they taught us to strive for was the false image of perfection, number one, but also, you know, um grades, uh, you know, ranking, uh test scores, all those things, none of which are indicators of success. And I'm the perfect example of that because I was probably a BC student. All my employees were A students, and I had I was a French major. I mean, what what do you do with that? Do what I teach. So, you know, it's like there are a lot of other things that my curiosity really fed my career path. Yeah. But I think that the the thing that I find ironic is that I spent the first better part of my life up until my 50s, denying the fact that I had feelings because they live in our bodies and I I like to live in my head. That's a scary place. So, through the practice of a lot of Brene Brown work, a lot of other work that I've done, I've come to learn that we are feeling machines who occasionally think, not thinking machines. And so one of the goals of the Better Leader project is to teach people how to access their emotions. Part of that is EQ, you know, EQ is about naming your emotions, but EQ doesn't tell you what to do with them. So, like let's say you realize you're frustrated. Well, are you gonna be hijacked by that? Or are you going to make a better choice and say, okay, I'm frustrated. What would be the better choice for what outcome I'm seeking here? You know, learning to slow that down a little bit and making that part of your own operating system. And it all starts with access to our feelings, which is not an easy thing.

The No Advice Cohort Method

SPEAKER_01 13:37

No, I always say use your feelings as fuel, right? Yes, yes, hold for years to not bring our feelings into the workplace or into business. And okay, we don't want you crying in the hallway, right? But there's a lot of work that can be done by tapping into the feelings, the feelings that you want, and how to use that as fuel. So I love, I love that you're going there also. Let's come back to the crowdsourcing values, right? How did you first decide this idea of crowdsourcing them rather than dictating them from the top?

SPEAKER_00 14:10

You know, um, Jill, a lot of the things that I've done have really been um, you know, I think luck, which Oprah says is this luck is preparation, meeting opportunity. I don't know. But in this case, I really had a great team. It was many years ago. And I didn't feel comfortable just being like, here are our values. I thought, well, at the time, I think there might have been seven or eight of us. So I was like, well, let's let's talk about it. Who are we? How does work get done here? And so we worked together and just kind of went back and forth. In fact, the person who came up with our mission is uh one of our salespeople. She's been with us for 15 years now. And she came up with the mission, which was we build relationships one word at a time because we're at the time it was right our girl, but we still focus on words a lot. So that was our focus for mission. And then just through kind of going back and forth, I wanted values to be, you know, a lot of companies have really long values that it's really hard to recite and you kind of can't really make them part of you. So I wanted them to be something snappy that people could live. And so we came up with empowered, curious, kind, and fun, which is kind of sounds like rhythmic. And then we expand on that a little bit. And in my own experience, what I have always said about values is that they shouldn't change. The expression of them may change. So, what does empowerment look like? That might be very different now with a larger group of people than it looked like with eight employees, you know, and now there's different kinds of empowerment. What kind of ownership does that imply in a larger organization? Um, but everybody knows those values. But the important thing is to rip them off the wall and live them. How do you get your team to live the values? So, first of all, that's the value of crowdsourcing with your team, regardless of how big your team is, you know, and especially in a larger organization where they probably have values, you may or may not know what they are. Right. But you can set values for your team, you know, and and the environment.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

Your own unit or your business unit, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:03

So yeah, and deciding how we're gonna we're gonna agree that this is how we get work done. You know, one of the things that we talk about with um, I'm uh empowered, curious, kind, and fun, the curiosity thing we we expand on a little bit by saying the only thing you can assume in our organization is that everybody has good intentions. So if you can approach everything that way, every potential, you know, brushing up against someone, everything like that, if you can can can assume that the other person has good intentions. So I don't know if that would be an in in the your audience's experience. They can do that in their own team, even if there's only three of them. You can say, okay, we're gonna all assume we're gonna agree to assume that.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

Yeah. Yeah. We're gonna assume how would a leader, you know, someone who's newly uh newly promoted to leading a department, the company already has a value statement somewhere on the website. You probably looked at it before you went on the job interview a couple of years ago, but now you're newly in a role. How would you recommend to that individual that they start doing a values exercise to connect in and see how to crowdsource the values?

SPEAKER_00 17:08

One of the things that I have seen that is very troubling to me, and I've seen it in other organizations, but not in ours, when we recently promoted some people to management roles. And then I had them work with a management consultant to help them with moving from a peer to a manager and also what skill set they need. And and one of those people at the time said she had been in management positions in other companies, and she said she'd never had a minute of training, which I find is shocking. But I think that's probably the standard more often than not. So, on top of like doing the values, figuring that out, I think the first thing you have to start with as that newly minted leader is kind of what you talked about, finding your own values first. How do I want to lead? How do I want to show up for these people every day? What are the behaviors that I'm gonna demonstrate that then I want them to duplicate? So, really spending that time kind of introspectively looking at yourself and then being able to bring that and share it with them. These are the kind of things I'd like us to do as a group. You know, I want to lead with vulnerability and invite you to be vulnerable back. You know, I want us to be empathetic with one another, you know, not babying, not codependent, but empathetic and understanding. How can we create values that express that? Do you agree that you want to be that way? Number one. And and number two, how would you express that? How would you like to say that we get work done? And you just work on it together and kind of talk about it back and forth till you all come to an agreement.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

What would you recommend to the leader who approaches that? And then there's one or two in the group that are really not participating or are kind of quiet or not really saying much. Um, and we don't know what they're thinking, we don't know why they're not participating. But what would you say if you want a crowdsource and you have part of the crowd that's not sourcing?

Emotional Skills And Better Choices

SPEAKER_00 18:59

You know, I think that um one of the things about being a leader, and this is why you got to do the work on yourself first, is you have to heighten your own spidey sense, right? You have to be able to kind of read the temperature of the room. Is that person not participating because they are someone that feels uncomfortable? They're afraid that they're gonna say something stupid. Um, are they not participating because they're not buying in and they're really kind of just looking at you with, you know, side eye and like, yeah, really, sure, whatever. So you have to be able to kind of discern that first before you do anything else. And then if you can figure that out, you try and and if you think about someone who might feel intimidated, you invite them to say something. One of the things I had to learn over time uh with my team is that I tend to be a fast thinker. It doesn't mean I'm fat, I'm smarter, it means I'm faster. And I realized that I can put people on their back feet because I can think really fast. And so what I had to learn was like, especially at the time with my accountant, that I could ask her a question, I could basically scroll through my newsfeed while she thought about an answer. And she did the process, you know. Right. And I needed to learn to stop talking and give her that saying, yeah. Yeah. So that's why you need the spidey sense. So you're like, okay, is this person cynical to me? That's a side conversation. That's a let's talk. And how, you know, what what what are you looking for? I feel like you're kind of not buying into my leadership here or whatever. Let's can we have a conversation about that? Again, you got to get back into yourself. Are you willing to lead with vulnerability and say, I'm noticing something about you that tells me this may be the case? You know, or you're gonna just bury it under the rug and pretend like it doesn't exist, which will be lots of problems further on down the road. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

So once you get the outliers who aren't participating to either participate or sound well to show some sort of alignment, what do you suggest they do next? That now they have three to five values. Is there a certain number of values you think is the right amount?

SPEAKER_00 20:56

I think that that everybody has to decide that for themselves. I, as the leader of my team, wanted them to be rather succinct and very actionable. So I think that that leader needs to determine, you know, for some people, they might like them to be a little longer and more explanatory than what I chose to do. I think that's up to the individual. But I think the important thing about once you have done this and you have all agreed this is the way work gets done on our team, is that then you have to engineer your systems and processes to include those values. So for example, uh we have a monthly newsletter and we have something in there called Christie's Garner. And I write about a value every time, you know, about some particular value, how it has shown up, what my personal interpretation of it is. But then what we also do is we will choose a value of the month, and there's only four, but we will ask um our team members for a team meeting to um submit nominations of someone who has demonstrated that value in the past month. So that's another key one is like we don't ask, did you feel empowered? We say, how did you demonstrate empowerment? You know, how did you demonstrate curiosity? And so what's great about that is it gives everybody an opportunity to be kind by recognizing their coworkers, but also to focus on whatever value that happens to be. And so it's top of mind because like, okay, I know I'm gonna have to be nominating somebody for kindness. So I've got my radar up to pay attention to kindness. And so it keeps it top of mind and not just something that we all worked on and then we stuck it in a drawer and forgot about it. How do you measure your progress or the traction? I think a lot of it is retention. You know, you see um how long your people stay, the commitment. You can see whether they're engaged or not. You can measure engagement. There's all sorts of tools, but you can also major engagement by being the leader and sitting in a meeting and watching people. You know, are people engaged? And in today's virtual world, I absolutely require cameras to be on. They have to be on because it's already this environment already invites multitasking, especially in a larger group. And and that's you know, we all have the attention span of Nats now because of social media and our phones and everything else. So you You have to kind of do everything you can, engineer the systems to allow for that weaving of those relationships. So you need to really develop that that that spidey sense again about your team.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

Really, yeah. Just thinking through that. And then is it something that you would recommend that they connect in? Again, depends on the size of the company, with like HR on. Um does it get does it get woven into performance in any way? What are your thoughts there?

Crowdsourcing Values With Your Team

SPEAKER_00 23:38

I highly recommend that it do be woven in, that it is woven into performance. But when it comes to HR, again, this has to be up to the individual because every sandbox is different, right? Every organization is different. Some absolutely do not want to see vulnerability. They do portray it as weakness. They've got the old Jack Welch school of management still going, which is way outdated, but it's still very prevalent in a lot of organizations. So again, the the personal, the leader, the individual has to determine what agency do I have within the structure of this organization. You know, is it a good idea to go to HR? Or in my organization, does nothing good come out of HR? I don't know. You have to kind of look at that. But I do think that within your own team, again, we've talked about this a lot because in these larger organizations, if you have a particular way of doing performance reviews, that is, that you are required to do, you know, where you have to like rank people one to five, needs improvement, that kind of thing. So if you have to do that, absolutely by all means comply. But what we talk about is saying, but you don't have to go through that particular performance review with that employee if it is not productive. Because one of the other things we all know is people don't like to be told what to do. They don't like to be told there's something wrong with you and here's how you fix it, which is exactly what a performance review usually is in these large organizations. So do the paperwork that you need to do by all means, comply. But then when you meet with the individual, make it more of a conversation. You know, tell me how I get the best of you. You know, when, when, when, what do you need from me in this relationship to help you bring your best self to work? How can we work together to make sure that we are setting you up for success? That is a much more meaningful conversation. And that is frequently not something that comes out of a traditional HR organization in movement experience. Now, there are different HRs that are much more like that. So again, it goes to the individual in their particular organization. Right.

SPEAKER_01 25:37

Yeah. Well, yeah. And those are the HRs that are more about a strategic partner or a strategic business partner versus like total comp or comp and benefits. Right. HR depending on how your organization is wired. And if you have an employee benefits organization where it's outsourced, that's not the HR that's going to be doing this for you. It's going to be within your organization culturally. Um all right. So as we start to wind down, when you imagine the ripple effect of the values work, the better leadership work. Tell me what your impact, your hope for impact for the next generation. What it is that you're hoping that leaders of the future will create.

SPEAKER_00 26:13

That's a great question. And I do think about it a lot. I think about um before I started the Better Leader Project, I always thought that, you know, this this environment that I have enabled because I cast the vision, then the people live it out every day. Um, but being able to feed into the lives of those people has been the biggest privilege of my life, other than raising my son, of course. But that's, you know, another thing. So it's it's a privilege to be able to lead these extraordinary people. And I think that the the one of the most meaningful things that ever happened to me was a couple of people, but one of them most recently said, you know, I never worked at a company that made me a better person until I worked here. And I'm like, well, that's everything. Yeah. You know, it's pretty. Yeah. And so that's my hope is that I can create people that can do that for other people. Yeah. You know, learn to do it for themselves, but then go out there and be that leader who your team member says, you have helped me. You know, you have made me a better person, not just a better employee, but a better person, which of course in turn means a better employee. Right. Um, and and that being able to recognize the privilege you have of feeding into the lives of those people, if if done well, leadership, management, which I think they're kind of they're kind of interchangeable, but not really, but leading a team of people is the highest calling you can have. You have such a powerful effect on their lives, you know, and and recognizing that and and and how you want to use it, using it. Yes, respecting it and using it um judiciously. I think that's what I want to teach people to do so that we have more of that instead of cogs in the wheel and using people for your own benefit and everything's about the bottom line, and I really don't care what you think, you know. Um, that I have had people say, well, I don't have time to do that as a leader. And I'm like, well, that's fine, but don't pretend like you care about culture then. Because if you aren't gonna take the slower path of asking someone, what do you need from me? You know, and and listening to what they have to say, you're just gonna be like, look, you have to do this, this is your job, go do it, and I'm moving on. That's fine, you can do that, but don't expect, excuse me, that you're gonna create a team of people that are loyal and well, I think that's where we need to remind people that leadership is a lifestyle choice.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

And you don't have to be a leader, you can stay an independent contributor and still create a really valuable career. But if you're going to step if you're going to step into leadership, it is a lifestyle choice. And it means that there's things that might not be on the job description, the nuances of nurturing employees to creating, you know, that better future for the team, for the individuals that you get to choose each day as being something you want to weigh into. Christy, I really appreciate you being here and having this conversation. I'm gonna put all of your information in the show notes where they can get the book, where they can learn more about the Better Leader project. Um, so it's still be in the show notes. If anybody has any questions, email me at hello at gealgraph and coaching.com. We will get back to you. We will get the questions to Christy and she will answer them for us. And as always, until next time, embrace possibility, be intentional, be a thoughtful leader, and always, always, always be kind. I'll see you soon.