72: How Operations Leaders Shape Organizational Climate Artwork

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A trusted advisor for hundreds of leaders, Laura brings her years of experience as an operations executive and change management strategist to the microphone. She launched Your Future Realized podcast to help other ops execs gain the self-awareness and confidence to build relationships and make a bigger impact.

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72: How Operations Leaders Shape Organizational Climate

March 19, 2025 • Laura Malinowski • Episode 72

Check out the full transcript at yourfuturerealized.com/72.

Are you feeling like you're always putting out fires instead of making real progress at work?

I recently got to chat with Kristy Farewell, the brains behind Kairos Insights. She has over two decades of experience with Fortune 500 companies. We dug into how operations, culture, and performance are all connected and how you can move from just reacting to leading with intention.

In this episode, Kristy breaks down the five key parts of a healthy culture and why you need to measure the things you can't always see. We also tackled the fast pace of change, the importance of mid-level leaders, and how to keep things efficient without losing the human touch.

If you're dealing with outdated systems or confusing processes, this episode is packed with tips to help you build a workplace people are excited to join on Monday mornings.

Are you feeling like you're always putting out fires instead of making real progress at work?

If you're dealing with outdated systems or confusing processes, this episode is packed with tips to help you build a workplace people are excited to join on Monday mornings. Check out the full transcript at yourfuturerealized.com/72.

Understanding the Intersection of Operations and Organizational Culture

Laura:

How do you see the relationship between operations, specifically, and culture and organizational performance?

Kristy:

Sure. Thanks for the question. And there are several layers to this, so I just want to first frame how we think about culture and then talk a little bit to the point of this relationship between operations culture and organizational performance.

So, big picture: A lot of times people say, oh, they're saying the culture of the climate's not fabulous. And a lot of times that I would say disregard for it is because people don't feel like they could put their finger on it. And therefore, if you can't put your finger on it, you can't fix it or make it better. To that point, when we talk about organizational culture, we're looking at what's the intersection of these five things?

The people and their behaviors
The processes
The systems that support those processes
The policies that govern the work, and
·The structure that sits under.

When you look at those five areas and you think about your question around what's the relationship between operations culture and organizational performance? Potentially all of them, but particularly for operations executives, this intersection between the people, whether if it's individual contributors and the leaders on your team or your leadership as an executive yourself. The people, process and systems sit right in the leadership sit in a sphere of influence for executives in the operations space.

Laura:

It's obviously quite complex. There's a lot of moving parts. And to your point, what gets measured gets changed. Some of that is measurable and some of that is not.

What do you see are the biggest challenges that operations executives then face in that intersection?

Developing Leadership Capabilities in Operations Executives

Kristy:

Well, I think part of it, because we're talking about operations executives, a lot of ops executives, they grow up in operations. In the space of what we do, we often talk about people who become functional experts and they've been promoted and promoted and promoted because they're functional experts. So, I think one of the biggest challenges - and organizations can serve executives better in this as they're matriculating - is the actual development of the leadership capabilities to lead and consider: “Yes, I might know supply chain. Yes, I may be a COO, and I'm basically running the operations for all things…” Whatever that operations executive role is. First there is the question of: “Have we as the senior leadership team in operations actually been developed?”

I think the second challenge (and this is true for operations executives and others) is that to have clarity on the five areas of culture and how that creates the climate or the feeling that everybody talks about. If you don't have that perspective, but now everybody listening does. If you didn't have that perspective, you can't even ask the right questions. Because people vote with their feet. If it is hard to work in your organization, it's likely people don't have the clarity. And that could be clarity on their role and expectations. That could be clarity on the process. Or you have a new ERP implementation and everybody thinks it's fabulous except for the people working in it. And we're like, “This is great. We have new SOPs. But this system does not help us do our job better.”

Laura:

Yes. And sometimes the system is moving to keep up because things are changing so quickly. Industry is changing so quickly, business is changing so quickly. Organizations have to change so quickly that systems and policies are often really quickly out of date. And then operations people wind up sort of ‘the drip pan’ for whatever isn't being caught in those processes and systems. And then to your point, it's not so much that there's not clarity, there's not agreement about who's supposed to be doing what. And that causes a lot of tension, a lot of problems.

Kristy:

Effective Change Management Strategies for Operations Teams

It absolutely does. And you know, we're human. Even with the right development, whether if it expectations and development as an individual contributor or as a leader and executive, we are human. And to that point, the pace of change. And you didn't say it, but well, I think you're alluding to this. The pace of change that impacts operations executives and their units is rapid.

Another big challenge is if you do not have the team, a unit within your organization that is not just a lot of people have an Innovation group, but not everybody has what I would say is a change management group, a real good change management group. Because if you have the people over here who are trying to shift, but they're also being asked to create the shift, document the shift, execute the shift, and it changes every six to 12 months, you do have to assess your organization and say, “Do I have the support in place to actually facilitate the change that is consistently coming?” Because a lot of times operations executives have people, leaders in place that are also working. It's not their full-time role to fully lead. They might spend 20%-25% of their time on leading. However, they're there as a working set of hands. So, I think most operations executives have to sit back and think about? “Who do I have alongside my operations unit or embedded within my unit that actually helps absorb the pace of change to facilitate”, like perpetually facilitate what is going on with process and system changes. If not, your climate becomes horrible. And again, people, they, they vote with their feet.

Laura:

Right. And there's, and there's the metrics of those KPIs, which often don't include metrics around the health of the organization's culture or the climate. Those are two separate things.

What are the best ways to measure the health of an organization's culture and climate?

Kristy:

Enhancing Organizational Performance Through Culture Assessment

So, at a high level I'll anchor it in the five areas of culture is one to actually have clarity, assessment and development up against some standard for either professional standards and or leadership. So that results in a metric. And a lot of times organizations will do that in two ways at minimum. Sometimes three ways to triangulate the insights. But sometimes it is done with regular 360s. But you have to have something to measure that 360 against for leaders.

And other times people will have culture and climate survey. So, when you do that usually you could look at the data down to the business unit but so that you're looking at the 360 feedback on the leader and you're looking at the data on basically from the employees of that unit about the climate and culture. So those are two individual and then organizational KPIs that are important for assessment.

When I think about process and systems, the impact of those positive or negative are going to come out in that climate and culture survey. However, other metrics are like, if I say if I'm an ops executive I would talk to my leadership, my senior leadership team and ask so let's talk about for all of our processes - and this depends on the maturity and the size of the organization - but you need to have line of sight too: Is it standard practice that you have SOPs in place and what's the frequency on which they are updated and who owns that?

And in some instances when there are policies that undergird the processes, you know, usually it is the executive who's signing off on those. So, these are not typical metrics that you're going to look at. How many processes does organization have and do I have SOPs in place and what's the frequency of update for them?

Those are the metrics that if you keep your eye to them that will help your organization do their job better. And when I think about this pull through is, you know, if you have a healthy culture, you're working on it, it creates this climate, it improves the employees performance and that's what drives or decreases your organization's profits.

I think it's critical for any executive to be really clear on who's in their ecosystem. And you know, another way people say it is understanding who their stakeholders are. We choose to talk about it through the lens of an ecosystem. And to that point, like when we're working with ops executives from a coaching standpoint, we often will say, okay, so who's in your ecosystem as it relates to who is it that you know you have accountability to? Who is it that you are serving on an internal client basis? And then: Who are you collaborating with? Who's across?

And when you identify those, the next two questions are: What are your priorities? And what are their priorities? And where do the two meet or not? Because sometimes our ops executives have to build the bridge. And I bring that up because there are too many times are the disconnect between, if you will, the internal client and what may be thought of by the ops exec around what's needed for the internal client.

Because I have a client that just went through an ERP implementation or they're actually, they're just wrapping up and about to shift into training. But whatever the case is, before you do an ERP implementation, to the point of beginning with the end in mind, often what sets you up for success is that you've done a great evaluation of your ecosystem, you do know what the existing policies and processes are, and you have decided what's changing for the sake of how the organization is evolving. A lot of time when you, when you have that type of implementation, it's because you guys are trying to keep up and keep it moving and keep up with technology and make it more efficient. But if you don't know the beginning from the end, you end up with a system where a lot of times, because there's customization that may not be in the best service to the end internal client. Therefore it creates efficiency when it's, I would say implement, not necessarily implementation, because if you give who you're working with the marching orders, they have it - but it's inefficient in the adoption of it because you've not done this work over here.

Laura:

Well, there's still the humans that need to carry out those efficiencies. How does an ops exec balance the drive for efficiency and continuous improvement with the fact that you've got humans and you're trying to build a positive culture?

The Role of Mid-Level Leaders in Driving Change

Kristy:

How do you keep it balanced? I think that's a question that every executive should ask themselves. And because we're talking about operations executives, I think where the rubber meets the road with this question is with the mid-level leader. If I think about how does the operations exec balance speed, efficiency and the reality that we're all human and we're in the middle of actually executing this, I think one of the most critical things is that operations executive pouring, deeply pouring into their mid-level leadership because they are who take the vision from the organization, translate it and work to engage, onboard and train the individual. They themselves are doing that and, and often, you know, their team leads their individual contributors. If I think about just traditional structures. So, the operations eecutive, the best thing that they could do is really understand deeply what their mid-level leaders need to carry it forward.

Laura:

What does that look like?

Kristy:

While I said pouring in, it is first sitting down and receiving insights and then it's affirming that we heard those insights and linking and labeling and connecting the dots of based on what we heard, here is what we're proposing that we do. And you're always doing these loops and then at the time of decision, because it's going to be a leadership decision on what is done to make things better. The pouring in is at first, constantly communicating. You can never communicate enough. That's probably one of the first and biggest things you could do. Communicating: What was the decision? Because a lot of times an executive can make the decision and the people it impacts may not know for several months. Sometimes you have to wait. But as soon as communicate early and often that's one part of pouring in.

The second part is realizing they're in. This could sound to some odd, but I think as soon as you sit with it you're like, “yeah, that's right.” There sometimes is a mourning process because I knew this, and it was easing, and you're telling me it's going to change. So, the other part of pouring in is leading them through change. What does that look like practically? “Here's what's changing - Very, very simple – and here's what stops stopping and continuing.” The ops executive may or may not be focused on that granularity, but the mid-level leader should have real clarity for their teams around what are we starting, what are we stopping, what are we continuing? And that's iterative because it's probably going to change over a period of time until you're fully in the new.

And then training, very practically the training on whatever the new is, the development on and giving a real realistic timeline for adoption. I'm imagining you've been there; I've been there. When you're, you could be one layer away, but ops executives are several layers away from the day to day. So, another pouring into is, is giving, like pouring into the communication. If I understand here are the resources that you need to do your job and here's the time to do, you know, to walk through this transition. Well, that's what people need. Because in change, like in any operation setting, there's going to be a dip in performance. So, for an ops exec, my question is always: How well can you manage that dip in the middle of everything?

Even before the decision is made, when you're trying to scope whatever this change is that you're going to bring about, or if you're leading every day and there's an uptick in work, I think there's always the question an executive has to ask: What are the additional resources? How do I augment my staff for the influx? Say we're bringing on a new client. We have to, like when I was in lending, we would provide home equity loans under the brand of other brands. And in that, if we brought on several hundred thousand new accounts, is how do I augment the staff for this 6-9-12 month period? Because it's not something where I want to make the investment to hire new employees, but how do I augment the staff? But before you get to that decision, you have to ask for the money, right? You have to acknowledge that and ask for the money as part of the change.

Laura:

I'm sure that our listeners are really eager to learn more about you, maybe get more of a taste of how to engage with you further. How do they do that?

Kristy:

We have a team. If you would say, I really want to have a conversation to dive more deeply in this discussion around culture, really assessing culture to inform strategy or to inform work to improve the climate. Let's just have a conversation… and on my LinkedIn page, that link for my calendar is right there. So, me or one of the team members will hop on a call and what I would say is think out loud with you because we serve people best being a thought partner.

Leveraging Strategy and Culture for Organizational Success

And I would say just the high-level view of how we typically work with individuals and, and this connects to just something to leave with the ops executives is that we work at the intersection of strategy and culture and we sometimes will undergird that with coaching and change work. And as an operations executive, usually it is the strategy that is the leading what you do. And I would implore you to make sure if not strategy and culture being right here, start with assessing your culture because your culture and it being healthy will accelerate your strategy.

Laura:

Start with where you are. Thank you so much, Kristy. I so appreciate you being willing to chat with me today.

Connecting with Kristy Farewell

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristyfarewell/
To chat with Kristy: https://calendly.com/Kristyfarewell/discoverycall

Do You Have Expertise Operations Executives Would Benefit From?

If you are interested in being a guest on a LinkedIn live session like this, drop me a line at laura@yourfuturerealized.com. We'll explore what’s possible to support our community.