Why Hierarchies Kill Innovation: Focusing on Culture Isn't Enough feat. Dawn Holly Johnson

In this episode of Taking Back Monday, host Alyssa Nolte sits down with transformation strategist Dawn Holly Johnson to unpack why traditional hierarchies are crushing innovation—and what to build instead.

With over 20 years of experience across industries, Dawn shares how she helps companies design for value, scale with purpose, and create cultures that don’t just talk about empowerment—they live it.

If you're tired of bureaucracy, burnout, and broken systems, this one’s for you.

Key Takeaways:

➤ Structure drives behavior: Culture can’t thrive inside systems that were built to control, not empower.
➤ Process matters: Without well-designed systems, even the best teams struggle to deliver value.
➤ Purpose over profit: Alignment around mission—not just money—fuels better decisions and better results.

Key Moments:

00:00 Introduction to Taking Back Monday
00:12 Journey into Lean Six Sigma
01:07 Common Issues in Leadership
01:32 The Impact of COVID-19 on Work Culture
01:49 Questioning Traditional Business Practices
02:09 Writing the Transformational Book
05:46 The Importance of Happy Employees
06:34 Challenges of Organizational Hierarchies
13:10 Empowering Teams and Building Trust
20:31 Aligning Purpose and Process
23:14 The Role of Process in Business Success
31:45 Gary Vee and Inspirational Leadership
33:08 Conclusion and Contact Information

It's time to say "goodbye" to the Sunday Scaries.

Connect with Alyssa
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Transcript

0:00

Hey everyone. Welcome back to taking back Monday. I am so excited that you decided to say goodbye to the Sunday scaries and hello to a new future of work, How did you get into talking about the concepts behind taking back Monday? Well, to try to capitalize this in this quick, uh, few sentences as I can. I, uh, got my engineering degree and worked in energy and aerospace and made dramatic improvements right away without really any formal training in, business or. Uh, process or anything like that. But I was a natural at finding opportunity and as I became formally trained eventually to become a Lean Six Sigma master blackout, I had the opportunity to look enterprise wide across organizations. And I've worked with startups and mom and pop shops all the way up to Fortune one hundreds. And I had the opportunity because, uh, I am industry agnostic. To also work in multiple sectors. In fact, I've hit every major sector. And what I came to realize after 20 years of doing this was that I kept f coming into the same problems. So every senior leader had the same issues. Um, you can Google it over and over again. What are the top 10 issues like a CEO is is dealing with, right?'cause they're over the entire company and you'll get the same result perhaps in a different order. Covid kind of shook things up a little bit 'cause then came remote and then came. These other factors. But what I, what I actually loved about that time was it forced people to begin to question how we work. And I've been doing that all my career. So why are we doing it that way? And I am a non-conformist. I do not, uh, just do things because that's the way we've always done it. I will question it. And I'm extremely customer and employee centric thinking. what I came to realize and why I started to write my book was after 20 years of actual frustration in trying to make these major changes, mainly the frustration came from corporate, which is. Quite, uh, stuck in its ways. The big, the big companies that, um, why do we organize ourselves in such a way we make it extremely difficult? To provide value for our customers to create a work environment that is enjoyable for employees. Because with joy comes innovation, creativity, collaboration, productivity. Uh, why are we doing it this way? And I became excited, as you know, were hitting. Z were coming in and I've always told people I was born 30 years too soon, questioning the systems that are in place and I've been questioning them my entire life. And, uh, so what I decided to do is I had for 20, 25 years been presenting. You know, solutions that would work and, and had the opportunity to implement them. About half the time, the remaining part of the time leaders either felt threatened or, um, get it. And so I spent the time in my book to begin to look at actual paradigms that were born into thinking like, this is how you do business. And I began to identify the common themes and thoughts and practices that go on in business that, um, pretty much any consultant or seasoned, uh, senior leader will say, this is how we do it, and I prove. That these practices not only harm the business performance, but they harm the customer and the employee. And so one of my book is actually allowing the reader, because what I came to realize was, I could see it, but when, as you know, when you're in a different paradigm, you can't necessarily see a new way as long as you're, you know, locked into an old way. I. And it's worked for you in the past. It can be hard to shift, make that shift. And transformation happens in a moment, right? When you suddenly have this aha moment and go, oh, here's a different way of looking at it. So my book is quite transformational. It brings people through, here's what you've been taught, by harvest business school, or the school. Hard knocks, right? You've learned to do it this way, but consider it's harmful to work this way. For everyone involved, and there's a much better way organize ourselves deliver the, the most prosperity, the most joy, the most value. And at the end of the day, what has always mattered to me is that people find joy in their work. I think you and I have a lot in common. I always joke with people, um, I'm a rebel with a cause, right? Because I don't wanna do things, I don't wanna do things the same way. Like Like I'm very much that same non-conformist, but like for a reason, right? And I agree with you on. you on Everything that you said, and especially like people longtime listeners of this podcast will be able to rattle this off just as good as I am. am. Happy employees leads to happy customers. Happy customers means a great market perception and a great market perception means an advantage in the market and outpacing your competition. It's not just a good thing and a good feeling to take care of your culture and to think about how you lead that way. It is a profitable thing to do. to do. Absolutely agree. Absolutely agree. And this is though, what I consider a fundamental flaw in thinking is that people just try to work on the culture Right. And this is why. Our organizations are designed to unravel any kind of inspirational culture. It will not last. You can have a bunch of rah, rah, rah. Uh, at the end of the day, the hierarchy as an organizational structure detracts from. People being able to do work, it automatically constrain people. People become fearful I don't dare say anything negative to the people above me, uh, people that are above other people or considered leaders. And that's not necessarily the case, a leader to me. Empowers others and brings the resources they need for their teams to get things done. they don't need to be the problem solver and they don't need to know everything. just need to be fantastic at being a catalyst. For transformation, for value, for supporting, for growth, for, what they need to be. And a hierarchy does not promote that. Um, and also, uh, many, you'll often hear well. Our people are our most important asset. But then why all the downsizing? Why all the right people are also the most expensive thing, typically on, on the balance sheet, right? Typical chart, you know, the expense. side. And so that's the first. Thing that gets whacked. Mm-hmm. I am a huge proponent that if you design your organization correctly, you will grow and scale properly, and also always be market ready such that you never need to lay off a person. So I'm a, I'm a huge component of all the imprints, almost $7 billion, right? In savings and new RevGen that I've brought in. Not one person ever lost their job, and, um, so people live in, live in fear depending on who your manager is, They, they may be a fantastic leader or they may be quite oppressive. Also what the hierarchy drives is positive spin is what I call it, communication. Nobody wants to hear the negative, right? Oh, uh, you're just a negative. No, I'm bringing up a valid point, right? But I will say that, uh, your people enable process. If you don't have strong processes and great systems, you don't really care much about your employees. Because they're struggling inside of that, trying to add value people. At the end of the day, 99.9% of people, I believe, to work wanting to feel like at the end of the day they added value. But most people don't even know the value proposition of the company. They don't even know its purpose. It's all about money. The goals are typically all financially based. Money comes when value's created for customers. And so you design your business to actually deliver that. And you do that with the employees and them 'cause they know how it needs to go. They're the subject matter experts. Not management that's removed from those processes and not working them every day and not in direct communication with the customer. And so it matters that you actually design things such that you're delivering value and that everyone can collaborate and bring their best talents. One of the paradigms I challenge is the job description. So I'm going to put you in this little hole here, and you're not going to understand how the rest of the organization works and you're gonna work this particular job description. Yeah. And not necessarily make the best decisions 'cause you're unaware of how the rest of the organization works. And quite frankly, nobody in the organization tends to know how the whole thing works. uh, and so without that knowledge, how can you be innovative? And maybe you also have some talent that could contribute further upstream or downstream in the process, but you're cordoned off in this silo under. Uh, likely a weak manager or leader, and you are stuck with just do your job whether it connects or not. And typically you're in meetings all day and dealing with bureaucracy and politics, and I get, I just don't want any of that for anyone. Right? We wanna be able to come and. Be enthusiastic and passionate about what we're doing. Believe in the purpose of the company, knowing that we're delivering value to the world and be able to do it. And I think there's a lot in what you said that I wanna touch on. We have such an unhealthy. Relationship with work, right? Because Because we're gonna have it. It's not something we can necessarily do away with. Th But can we change the way we experience that hierarchy? Right. So I'm a firm believer, believer that that have the power and even maybe the mandate to create environments in which their teams feel, seen, feel, heard, feel like they are providing value. They understand what they're there to do, Mm-hmm. and they understand their specific role in it. it. But like like I can believe that all day long. long It's still hard to implement, right? Like I have a team of five and I still find myself struggling like, okay, how do I make sure that everybody understands that that the ball gets dropped? That is a bad thing and all you have to do is look around and see the ball and be like, oh my God, that ball's getting dropped. Lemme pick that up, Mm-hmm. right? But it's not as easy as me willing that into existence. So So someone is in my position, either they're the leader of their own company or they're a team leader inside a huge organization. What is like the one thing you would have them start doing to start building that culture and that better relationship with their team and inside the confines of, of what they're able to do. to do. Well, there's several points there I want to touch on with what you brought up, but the first I will say is that as a leader, for instance, whenever I had direct reports, um, I would sit everyone down and actually, uh, do, uh, uh, we would do, um, I'm sorry, I'm blanking on, on, uh, you know, personality assessments, right? Like Mm-hmm. like that. Just so we knew, again, what's your natural talent? Why would I pig hole you into something that doesn't come naturally to you? So often, you know, employee reviews are about, you don't do this well, well that's because I'm wired to do this over here really well, and you know, so why do we focus on what you, you can't do well? And let's focus on what you do, do well. And then I would say to the team. There is no difference between you and I that I have HR responsibility, so no idea is bad. I don't expect to know everything. I want us to collaborate and we're gonna discuss how we're going to do things and design how we're going to do things. So without strong process, and I can't emphasize this enough, without your processes being well-defined, this is how we're going to. Manage our business, right? Which 10% of the population is good at designing process and system, okay? And that's a proven fact. So you've gotta find the people that are naturally good at that, that can facilitate the remainder of the team understand their process. Now, if you're in a larger organization, the problem is, is you're going to receive. Inputs from somewhere else in the organization and you're going to send things to the rest of the organization, Somewhere else in the organization. You've got to base with those areas and make sure you're serving them their internal customers. So I will say that without clear agreement on this is how we're going to do things, balls get dropped all the time, and, uh. And you can continuously improve that as things change over time. Uh, but as a leader, I, uh, wanted to empower my people, which were brilliant people, uh, to be able to do their best work. uh, they knew right away that I didn't expect to know it all, have all the answers, and that we were collaborating together. So. And I also rolled up my sleeves and worked with them so I understood what was going on and if I was also mentoring for growth and development. That's great. Uh, and, uh, people appreciate that they want to grow. And there were several people over time that I inherited that, you know, my first one-on-ones with them was, where do you want to go eventually? Do you wanna keep doing this type of work? and they said, well, I think it's been a great experience, but I really wanna get here. And so I would help them grow and develop for that to eventually move on. Um, so it is, uh, it is a leader's responsibility to assure that their people have the right tools, process, support. To do what they're being asked to do in the organization. A lot of what you described though really requires a lot of like. Trust and almost breaking down like former workplace trauma. If, for lack of a better way to say that, like Yes. I was listening to a podcast and this was probably 10 years ago now, now, it was about Trevor Noah as a comedian and how he and his writers put together, like his sets for, I think it was when he was doing the daily show maybe. maybe? Um, and he basically said they have one rule in the writer's room. room. There are no dumb ideas, which to them means no judgment and no ego. Correct. So like if someone doesn't like your idea, don't take that personally. And if And if someone, and if you don't like someone's idea, then you can't judge it. You don't know. Because they wanted to create an environment where everyone could thrive creatively, which was their ultimate mission or mandate, was to be creative and to be funny. And by instituting a no judgment, no ego rule, that meant that they could create an environment where they could explore the edges of that vision of that mission. But like some of us, I, I've been in rooms where people are afraid to speak up, and I've also been in rooms where people had ulterior motives, and now I've been a little bit jaded. Like Like I've always worked for small companies, I consult for large companies, and I had to learn the hard way a couple of times in those big companies where someone else had a political motivation that I wasn't aware of. So I'm here trying to do the right thing, doing the best thing for the company, Mm-hmm. and then I found out the hard way. That there was some political machinations I wasn't aware of. of. So now I'm just a little more jaded working without working with big companies. So if I'm a leader and I want to empower my people, do the process, all of those things, Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. like what do I have to do to create an environment where they feel like they can do that, shedding that past political or work trauma. Mm-hmm. Well, what I will say is this. So if someone's working in a very large corporation and don't enjoy the culture and the way things are set up, that's not gonna change. And they're going to need to go find an organization where they're valued. Okay. work after working for those 20 some years, um, lot of it in corporate America, came to realize that they didn't wanna change. They like their power hierarchies and there's tons of politics. I don't see politics coming. even begin to think of a, a way to take someone down so I can get ahead. It's just not how my brain works. Same. I it, that's why it took me so off guard.'cause it's not my, not my my default state. I. Mm-hmm. let all those people go play in the big corporations, because that's where they belong. I work with private and yeah, I work with entrepreneurs. Yeah. entrepreneurs that wanna make a difference. of course you want your business to be successful, you wanna make money, but that should not be your goal. Your goal is what's your purpose? What's the reason you're doing what you're doing and everyone in your organization should agree with that and be aligned with it. It's, it's, it's you, uh, might have invented something or come up with an idea and, oh, this is great, but you know, does everyone in your organization understands? What's the ultimate purpose? What's, what's the thing that lit you up that had you bring this to the world and let's get aligned to that. So that, that is, that is pillar number one that I, that I speak to in my book and, and my design to scale system is got to first all be aligned on purpose, and inside of that is what you're gonna focus on is that purpose, not money. And you're going to understand what the customer values, either potential customers, they're, they're great to interview actually, and current customers who are already in the paradigm if they know what you already deliver. So it's good to talk to potentials, um, to ask them what would they value of what you're in, right? And what industry you're in, et cetera, what you're delivering as a product or service. Uh, because often companies quickly become internalized and it's like get focused on their service and, and their product, they, and they forget that is that valuable to the customer or not? They might love all the features in their new software, but I. How is that experience for the customer? Right? Yeah. So like one of the things that's happening a lot is to claim efficiency. They're shoving chatbots at us like crazy. We no longer have a person to talk to when we run into a problem. I've read all the FAQs folks. I don't need to spend 45 minutes fighting a chat bot to get a person. I want a person. Right? And, and so what you've done is you've shoved all your work on me to claim efficiency. Internally, it's, it's totally but at But at what cost? Right. Over time, you're losing customers. I leave any organization that puts me through that, that I can, if it's not a monopoly, I'm gone. Yeah. I Uh, a hundred percent. will not put up with that. It's, it's like, I need help and you should be there, and then don't tell me your policy is you can't do this. Okay. That's an internal policy somebody wrote to cover their, you know what? Mm-hmm. not to take care of me as your customer. So I get really, this is me being passionate and like, they might sound angry, but I'm just super passionate that we're served in this world by Yeah. and, and not an afterthought. Like, oh, we gotta get our numbers and we gotta be efficient. I'm all for efficiency, trust me. Designed well though. See efficiency gets, uh, misused. Badly. So well-designed, engineered processes, create efficient, valuable work, and most people don't have those credentials or capabilities. They need to bring experts in like me to help facilitate the team to design it. the trick right there. so part of this was my frustration in my profession, how people didn't realize how important. Process really is because you cannot things done without great process. You just cannot. People will come and go. Technology will change. It's that process that's delivering value. People and technology enable process. And that's a paradigm shift for folks. Yeah, and not just process for the sake of process, but well designed, well executed. Thoughtful process, Yes. right? Because I've seen companies that are like, well, we implemented a process. Why aren't all of our problems solved? solved? Well, Because they didn't have it it. at the, they didn't have the, the actual outcome. At the core of the decision. It was like, well, we want it this way, so therefore we're gonna do it this way. way. Yes. Yes. So, uh, that's why you want a third party like process engineer that's totally neutral. And people will say, well, have you worked in my industry? It doesn't matter. Now people are people. I maybe don't have a lot of background in your industry.'cause I'm gonna ask all the right questions that you Right? are stuck inside of. We do it this way. So, um, I, I can't tell it enough how important that profession is that is abused and misused. It's, it's horrible because people don't get that. Just because you're an expert in the business doesn't make you a great process designer. And it, that's at the core of every good pro, uh, every good business is it. They have well-engineered processes, otherwise you're throwing a lot of money to bad is what you're doing to make things function. And the reason that the big corporations have managed to survive this long'cause they are a house of cards. They're processes, they're, I don't know how they survive actually. Um, but they throw a lot of bodies and money at it, right? And they're able to do that because their margins are just outrageous. Uh, but. You know what I care about is the entrepreneur that took a risk, that decided to take on bringing something valuable to the world, and they're gonna wanna grow their organization. And whether it's eventually for acquisition or not, they're gonna wanna grow their organization. And there's a way to do that. And the second point I wanted to make is that yes, you can work without hierarchy. And I love them. designed. And so you don't, because it's that very construct that. Creates all the problems. So if you've got employee experience problems, customer satisfaction issues, uh, you're having trouble, um, attracting and retaining top talent, attracting and retaining customers, if you have poor cash flow, bad profitability, uh, I could go on. because of your hierarchy, and I prove that in my book. I prove it. I've proved it in the world over and over again and um, and so I'm excited about working with the smaller guys that are gonna grow and getting them designed correctly such that scaling is so easy and you never have to reorganize ever again. Once we put in that value structure, then you just grow. You wanna add another product line or service line, that's easy. You know, so, um, there's a whole, it, you know, it's been difficult because I am bringing a huge paradigm shift to the world. And, but it, but different doesn't mean difficult. This is actually a much easier way to work all of those measures because every company company's dealing with those problems, at some level, they will Uh, a whole new way of working. It just, I've had people come to me crying in joy, how much happier they were in their work now that we had done what we had done. So, um, I, I cannot impress enough that as organizations grow, they tend to grow organically. So as you need another. Let's say your marketing's getting overwhelmed, so you're gonna add another marketing person and you're gonna add another, and pretty soon you're gonna end up in departments because the marketing lead is gonna need another body and then another body. And then over here in operations, you're gonna need another body and another body, and you start segregating the value Okay? And that's the first mistake, because now everybody's disconnected. Communications aren't flowing. Value's not flowing well. Balls get dropped. Balls get dropped all the time. so, uh, you know, the reason I came to realize all this is as a, you know, back in the day, lean Six Sigma, master Black Belt. I'm certainly not a person that gets stuck in any particular methodology. I don't do that. Uh, but there was a lot learned from that in that what we would do is we would pull together cross-functional teams across the organization design the entire process end to end. And this would be the first time people ever found out about what everybody else was doing. And they'd say things like, you guys are doing that there. Oh, no kidding. We thought you were doing this. You know? And so, uh. The balls were dropped between departments and even within departments because of poor process design. And once we streamlined it all, and of course we used all those subject matter experts to do it. I don't profess to know your business to the nth degree, but I can design a process that'll make your head spin. It'll work so well. So it's like we work together on that and then they own it. They own it, then it's theirs. They designed it right? And so. That is the design new companies allows the freedom, Because, uh, things I take away in my book are, uh, employee reviews. Unnecessary. Typically subjective, useless. Instead, why not have everybody design their end-to-end process? Know what part they're going to play in it and be held accountable to deliver that value and be incentivized for it so everyone gets a quote, bonus or incentivization, not just some leader above you. does because they're contributing. And team pressure. If someone's. everybody else to do the work. That person won't last long. They'll either leave or team peer pressure will bring them along and they'll start to see a new way to work. But people want to team together. So look what happens when a disaster happens. All of a sudden people team together and get things happening, don't they? They don't even necessarily have somebody leading them. PE communities will come together and make things happen. We are designed to do that. We don't need a bunch of. ton of management trying to tell us what to do. Give us the end goal, us the resources to achieve that, and we will team and get it done. And the process is at the core of that. So get super clear on your purpose, because then everyone's focused in the same direction. Otherwise you've got, you know, everybody rowing a different direction in the boat. Um, and that's. That's 0.1 is you have to have your North star. Why are we here? And then the process needs to deliver that value. And then thirdly, now comes culture. Which is the mindset is we're gonna all support each other. No ideas are wrong. You set up all those ground rules around, this is how we're go going to work together. We are now all responsible for this. I can't put blame on anybody else. I've got my role and I need to get my role, and I'm willing to be accountable for that, and I'm willing to ask for help and I'm, I'm willing to, um, contribute to others. And that's the kind of culture that gets created when you get rid of a hierarchy. When you think about all of the incredible people that you've had a chance to meet or that you follow or listen to, who is taking back Monday? Monday? I love Gary BI love Gary B because he, he is the first to say he doesn't know it all. He is the first to say that, and that he values his people and he actually goes and talks to them and understands their world. And as a, a process engineer for years, I, I got to do that. I would sit with the people working and hear their pain, but I knew that management had no idea. uh, it's, it's like the iceberg principle, you know? Uh, you're way at the top. You don't see what's going on underneath. So, The fact that he encourages listening and, uh, empathy and understanding and that, uh, people have brains and capabilities and they're perfectly capable of coming up with great, he doesn't have to be. The idea guy all the time is absolutely wonderful. I just adore following him. It's very inspirational to me that he's driving that be behavior in the world, you know? Yeah, I agree. He's, I love how honest he is too. Like he just, he puts it out there. there. He's no nonsense, no bs. We love it. And he'll take So. right away. Right Oh yeah. Which is like the key of a good leader. So, Don Holly, if someone is really connecting with you, they want more, they wanna hear about your book, or hear about your methods or your approach to, to reimagining the way we work, where can they find you online? online? Super easy. Dawn holly johnson.com or you type that into LinkedIn and I'll pop right up. You put it in Google, I'll, I'll come up, I'm on other platforms, but really, website's probably the Be or LinkedIn is the best place to go. Awesome. Well, thank you Awesome. Well, so much for taking back Monday with me. This was a great conversation. Oh, thanks so much. Thanks for joining us on taking back Monday where we say goodbye to the Sunday scaries and hello to meaningful and fulfilling work. If you enjoyed today's episode, let's connect on LinkedIn. I'd love to hear your thoughts, and if you found value here, share the podcast with your network. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and leave a review. It helps us inspire more leaders to join the movement. Until next time, let's take back Monday.