ep15 | the artisan podcast | sarah caravalho khan | culture transformation leader

Join us to hear Sarah Caravalho Khan, Culture Transformation Leader speak about empathy, culture, and the employee experience.

James Williams's book mentioned in the podcast can be found here and available as a free download from Cambridge Press.

You can find Sarah on Linkedin 

You can find Katty on Linkedin

You can find Artisan Creative and on Linkedin.  

 

Full transcript

Welcome to the Artisan Podcast. Where we explore creativity, inspiration, and the determination, it takes to be an Artisan. This podcast is for Artisans by Artisans. I'm your host, Katty Douraghy, and I'm thrilled to introduce you to our next guest.

 

Katty: Thank you everyone for joining us on this episode of the Artisan Podcast. I am thrilled to welcome Sarah Caravalho Khan to our call here. Sarah and I have known each other for many many years, and she was one of our clients several years ago. Today she is the Director of Culture Transformation and Customer Success at Align Technologies. And given where we find ourselves currently with this remote workspace, I thought it would be great to have an opportunity to speak to Sarah about culture and how to create and maintain culture in our workplaces. Now, the conversation that we're having is really me reaching out to Sarah, knowing her expertise, and knowing our working backgrounds together. She's not necessarily representing Align in terms of the conversation that we're having today. This is really more her experience and her knowledge that she's bringing to the table and sharing with all of us. So without further ado, Sarah, welcome! It’s so great to see you.

 

Sarah: Yeah, it's great to see you as always. It's been a long time. 

 

Katty: It has been a long time. So, I wanted to chat with you about culture. Obviously, it's always critical in any organization. What I'm finding, what I'm hearing from a lot of our clients and talent alike, is maintaining culture in this remote setting, how to go about that and how to even from an onboarding standpoint, how to make sure that message is clear for incoming candidates. Could you talk a little bit about that and kind of how you've gone about fostering culture?

 

Sarah: Absolutely, I think, you know, most recently, I think that the things that I'm working on around culture have to do with a couple of things. I think, connecting to something bigger than yourself, is first and foremost, so that there's a sense of relatedness, between me as the employee, and my organization or between me as a contractor and the person I'm working for. There has to be a real sense of relatedness. You know, it's so interesting because I think that, especially in this environment, as we have gotten away from the face to face, you know, you have to remember a lot of people have always been living in an environment where it's been remote, and, you know. A know a lot of people working freelance in the gig economy, have been working for a long time, this way. And so it's probably not anything totally new for them, although it may be new for the people who are employing them. And so I think that you know, one of the, the very, very, I think, important things to keep in mind is that being very very authentic and genuine. I think this is what really helps to create the virtual intimacy. I think as you're onboarding, making sure that you're working with each other, and maybe little things like you know, of course, we all know about cameras now. That's one big thing but you'd be surprised how many people still don't turn on cameras. But I think really more importantly is I think a sense of authenticity and connection. I think that that's where we see the greatest success, and personally as I've been working with groups globally. This is where we had some really good success in connecting with cultures around the world, really different groups, just being very honest and open and connected and you're with them, there's a mindfulness element as well.

 

Katty: I love that and I love that you use the word relatedness, because relationships come from relatedness and really can’t build those relationships, unless if we're having that connection with each other.

 

Sarah: I think this is one of the connections to empathy that I know that I have a special focus on right now as I'm working on culture. And, you know, there's a great book I'm reading right now by a philosopher John Williams. He talks about the attention economy and how we're so distracted in this environment and in this world right now and that leads us to make choices about how we interact with each other, and how we interact with the world at large, that maybe we wouldn't interact with if we didn't have this competition with technology and our attention. I would take that even further in my environment and think about, you know if you only see people or customers as numbers. You're never going to connect to them on a human level and really understand them so it's really necessary to kind of get past the point where, where you're looking at people as an archetype or a persona and really, really individualizing the attention you give them. So empathy is a really big part of it as well. 

 

Katty: Yeah, absolutely. I actually read this quote the other day. Hold on one second, let me grab it. That really resonated with me. I'm reading Brené Brown's Dare to Lead right now.

 

Sarah: Oh, she’s great!

 

Katty: And the quote was, “In the past jobs were about muscles, now they're about brains, but in the future, they’ll be about the hearts.”

 

Sarah: Absolutely.

 

Katty: The Director of the London School of Economics, Minouche Shafik. That's very much what you're talking about here. If we don't lead with empathy if we don't lead from our hearts. It's really hard to be able to connect, especially in this environment. 

Sarah: Absolutely, absolutely. And that requires people to learn new things and learn new skills that may not have--I believe personally that everyone has the capacity for empathy. I think that sometimes we exercise that muscle more often than less often and I think that this is going to be a skill that is really really one we're going to have to exercise in order to be able to connect to each other, and in companies and our employees as well.

 

Katty:  How would you go about teaching that, if someone is coming from a place where empathy and being empathetic really hasn't been--how they've kind of grown in their leadership style?

 

Sarah: I think, you know, that's a really, you know, the million-dollar question right there. I think that there's a lot of emergent work on, you know, I think at its, its most, you know, operationalized. “How do we measure empathy, how do we measure that, and then how do we teach that?” I think that those are two things that we're grappling with it at the place that I work right now. But I would say, you know, really, it starts with a sense of knowing who you are first. I think that understanding, hearing examples, understanding what empathy looks like, understanding how, how it feels to have an empathetic conversation. Sometimes it just depends on what I'm doing with my work, but sometimes I will lead a conversation about empathy, and actually toss it back to the people I'm working with. “Do you think it can be taught?” And then we have, this kind of dialogue about, “Well what does it look like when you're doing it? How does it, how does it sound?” And we practice, actually, we do, you know, discussions and this is of course, part of design thinking and the design thinking philosophy is that you have, empathetic, interviews or dialogues with your customers. And, you know, it's just taking it, even back down to the work that I do with customers, it's like you can't solve for something that some pain that people are experiencing unless you go there with them and understand it. And you can't understand it if you're asking the wrong questions.  And so a lot of it has to do with really asking the right questions.

 

Katty: Yeah absolutely and I think that sometimes, just as human beings we don't necessarily listen to connect, we're listening to solve. So our brain is thinking fast about what else should I ask next versus just hearing what somebody is saying.

 

Sarah: Absolutely, so I mean and I'm guilty of this too. My husband will tell you I am totally guilty of this, but I think that you know, being intentional I think it's another thing that's really important. I saw this show on the Life of the Buddha, once on our public television, here in the San Francisco Bay area. And there was a point where the speaker was saying you have to pay attention. Pay attention. And so I think again, bringing it back to mindfulness. What kind of conversation are we having right now? Are we having a conversation so that there is an even exchange? Are you listening so that I can just hear you and not provide a solution? What are we actually doing? And I think that that's, a hard thing to do but I think it's really necessary if we want to connect with people and learn, learn this as a skill to be better in tomorrow's workforce really. 

 

Katty: Yeah, absolutely. I think you know that I'm fairly involved with the Entrepreneurs Organization, and when we come into our small groups with fellow entrepreneurs, that's exactly what we do, we actually keep problem-solving at bay. We don't come together to problem-solve from giving advisory, being in an advisory capacity. We come to the listen, really understanding and knowing that the person probably has the answer within them somewhere. 

Sarah: Yes!

 

Katty: Right?

 

Sarah: That's right. 

 

Katty: And just trying to be there and be present with them, maybe experience, share if it makes sense. But really just to be there and listen and have them kind of come to that, that conclusion for themselves. It's hard!

 

Sarah: It's totally hard! Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I think that for me -- I'm very, very fortunate because I'm also a certified coach, and I was lucky enough to get certified through the NeuroLeadership Institute, which is a group that really studies how the brain reacts. That's where you know relatedness comes in. That's a social threat that the brain responds to negatively. So I learned all this stuff about how our brains work, and what you're saying is so true, I think, you know, I learned that in my coaching, training, and practices. People know what they need to do most of the time. It's just about facilitating that process and so I think personally that's one of the most rewarding things to see whether you're managing people or you're coaching somebody or you're volunteering with an entrepreneurial organization. To understand that you're just a facilitator, you're not there to give the answer. 

 

Katty: How do we bring that back to the interviewing environments?

 

Sarah: So interviewing for talent, you know, when we're bringing talent on board. Yeah, I think that it comes back to the kind of conversation that you're having right? So, really, in that kind of context, it's-- you're wanting to hear about the experiences that people are having. And, you know, it is such a challenge sometimes to not sound like a robot. And say, “Well, tell me about a time? Tell me about a time? Tell me about another time?” But really, I think that showing genuine interest, asking a question saying, “And how was that for you? What was the outcome?” You know, asking kind of those, those follow-on questions, and again it's not looking at my list of questions and knowing that I have to get through eight or nine before the interview ends. It's understanding what you generally need to get out of the conversation. And for me this is what I work with clients in a coaching situation it's, you ask one question that is definitely open, and then just dive in and go there with them, and it is so much fun, you know, I mean you have to keep track of time for sure. But really just being very very curious about that experience that someone is telling you about. And, “So who would you have to work with on that?” And it was that difficult when you had to work different time zones and it was just really getting into the weeds with somebody about their experience, and they'll tell you, probably more than you thought you would ever get.

 

Katty: Yeah, absolutely. One of my favorite questions is just to ask candidates on the creative side; what projects they're most proud of, and why?  And just that pride just shines through and they talk about what they created and who they worked with and how they overcame the challenges and then it becomes a story. 

 

Sarah: Yes. Yes, and isn't that what we're looking to do? Is find the stories. Yeah, yeah absolutely.

 

Katty: Love that. So, speaking of stories and stories that companies tell, you know, really as it pertains to their core values and the stories of how they present themselves. Can you talk a little bit about just culture and core values and how the two of them play a role in hiring, as well as onboarding someone?

 

Sarah: Yeah, I think hiring onboarding and I would even pull it through to say, you know the whole employee experience, including how people perform and how they show up every day, how they treat their co-workers, how they treat their customers, and then how they off-board. You know, I think that that's a thread, the values thread that you can pull all the way through. I'll give you an example. Actually, I'll give you a couple of examples. Many years ago, when I was working at San Jose State University. We were starting a whole onboarding program and we had a conversation with each other as we were creating the program about our values. And it's like how do you teach values that you know in a way that it's not going to feel heavy-handed and in a way that people can actually live these values? And what we used to do was, which I thought was great. We worked with a company called ITS. It was a great company to help us think through how to do this. Was talking about our values, but we didn't just talk about the values we had discussion about how that would show up, how that shows up for people in, you know, in general. And then really having a discussion about how, and I found this to be true in my personal life. I would say you know as James Williams says in the book that I'm reading about attention, as he talks about, he calls it Starlight. So as we understand our Starlight, our guiding principles. Then really, what follows is easier, you know, when we have to make those decisions. So, when I'm hiring somebody if I know what I need to be looking for and showing up in a candidate. That will be much easier. That's going to give me a lot of information when I'm onboarding again, reinforcing those values but making sure it's very important that people understand that if they're living by our values as an organization. It's going to make their lives a lot easier when they have to make decisions. Because we want people to be empowered to make decisions, and we can't make every single decision for each other. It's just impossible and so I think it becomes a framework that you can use to make sure that people are able to say okay well if this is the decision and I know my value is empathy. Then, this is how I'm going to approach solving this decision on my own. So I think that that's, you know, that's, definitely part of it. And I think that you know, again, you can see it in hiring so there are a lot of really cool assessments now that if you define your values, you can actually have candidates take assessments that will, you know, show you basically where there is opportunity to grow. And where there's a definite match for your core values as an organization. But I think even without you know in a fancy assessment, you can just ask questions about values and organizational values. Even if I'm the head of a department, and I want to understand if someone's going to work well for my personal values, you can always ask about that as well. And then to the extent that there is resonation in the conversation, I think you'll understand to what extent there's a connection point. And then again of course, throughout the employee lifecycle and the employee experience, reign those values and so that's not just you know when you hire and then onboard, it has to continue to live. Otherwise, it does feel really empty, and it's not going to resonate with people when you bring it up once a year during performance, right.

 

Katty: Yeah absolutely, and it doesn't work if it's just a plaque on the wall with the words. 

 

Sarah: Totally! Oh yeah yeah. I think about it. That's kind of the worst way to do it, right? 

 

Katty: Yeah. Yeah, I think, you know, it's interesting how your values just show up on a daily basis. I think about Artisan’s core values and one of our values is agility. And I can say during this pandemic if it hadn't been for that one core value to really make us be agile and just think differently and go with the flow because it was just really really difficult. Knowing that a particular path that we had planned for 2020 and didn't end up being that path. So, just to recognize where those core values are showing up I think it's important.

 

Sarah: I think, I think you're totally right there, and I think the other piece of that is to highlight. You know, we wouldn't have chosen these core values unless we knew that to be successful in this organization, these are the ones that you need to display, right? or I know personally, you know, where I work agility is one of our core values, too. I personally know that if I'm not agile or if I don't demonstrate agility in my thinking and flexibility because I think that's part of it, right? I'm gonna have a really hard time. And so I think that it's an indicator I think when you're at a place and you're getting hired or you're going through interviews, you know, if it hasn't been mentioned yet, I would ask what the core values are. Because that will give you some information about to what extent you're going to be a fit for the organization. But yeah, absolutely. I think that that's a really important thing to think about. And then the organization, to the extent you can highlight opportunities to share with people, how people are successful so that it keeps it really top of mind for people. 

 

Katty: Yeah. Important is to be able to highlight how those values are showing up for them, for sure. You touched upon something that I'd love to kind of dive deeper on, and that's the employee experience. I know I hear about user experience and customer experience all the time, I'd love to just kind of learn a little bit more about EX and what that world looks like.

 

Sarah: Yeah, yeah, totally. You know, I think this is a really exciting time. I think for this kind of piece of the discipline to come out. I say discipline, I think about HR traditionally has many disciplines. There's competition benefits there's recruiting, whatever it is. But then there's also, you know, an emerging place of employee experience. And it's not just in human resources, it's emerging in customer experience as well. It's emerging in all parts of organizations. And there's a research organization called Forrester that where I work we’re involved with. And it's so cool because when I first started working with the CX team when I was still in human resources before I came over fully. My team and I were really just very involved in reading everything we could about employee experience and really understanding that there was such a strong connection between the employee experience and the customer experience. You know, you almost can't if you think about it, you almost can't separate them. And so I had just kind of dipped my toe in the water and asked Forrester, a little bit about this, and they had a lot of articles and research that they had done on this. And you know, it was really, really great to read that there are different organizations at different steps in their maturity around linking EX to CX. But you know, I think it starts with, you know -- we all talk about the customer experience or CX and, you know, sometimes we'll do some dream mapping which really goes through tracking, maybe points in a customer's journey with us. When are they going to be, when are they going to be more delighted and less divided at different points in time? And I think that we really should be doing this with employee experience as well. Is tracking, you know, my team did it actually with the help of our CX team when I was still in human resources. So let's talk about onboarding and let's talk about the employee their first, you know, six months to a year. Let's track some of those key points in time where they're either going to make a decision or something is going to dawn on them and let's talk about whether that's a magic moment or a tragic moment. And let's talk about why, and let's look at those tragic moments and see what we can do about it. So I think you can approach it in very much the same way but I think that would be really cool. And, you know, I'm sure there's organizations out there doing this but, you know, how do we kind of overlap that employee lifecycle with something that a customer is going through. And, you know, if there's a point of time when a customer really needs something and our employees really need the same information and can't get it to the customer. That's when things can fall apart, right? You kind of start to see some weak links there in the process and so I think it's part, you know process reengineering part total creativity because you're looking at a journey, and you're seeing what options there might be to make it better. But there's also a lot of empathy that's required and necessary for something like this.

 

Katty: I love that, and really just looking at-- because you're right, the employee journey, really, as our internal clients. Right. And, you know, making sure that we're giving it as much emphasis, if not more because the employee journey isn't a positive one, then it's gonna manifest itself externally. 

 

Sarah: Absolutely, absolutely. Sometimes it happens where you're--I had this happen to me maybe a month ago, where I had someone on the other end of the phone say, “Yeah, you know, I'm just going to tell you right now just for full transparency, you know, we're giving you this. This gift card because you had a really bad experience, I would cash it in in the next two weeks just saying.” And I'm like, Oh my gosh, what is happening for the employee, what is happening at this company where they have to make you feel compelled to do something? And so, I think that's absolutely true and I’m never going to buy from that company again. And it's not the employees’ fault but something is broken. And I think that is just you know I wouldn't-- I think that's an extreme example, but I think that these things come up, you know, when people are overwhelmed. Because their employee experience is such that they don't have any balance, then they're not going to answer customer inquiries, or there's going to be absenteeism because they're getting sick or whatever it is, right? I mean it's so interconnected and I think that we're just really starting to learn about the connection to the CX, the customer experience, right now. So it's an exciting time.

 

Katty: Yeah, absolutely, and just the customer experience, the employee experience. And I think internally how we could tie that back to coaching and mentoring and making sure that, that employee journey is one that is on a growth trajectory. That there are opportunities that we can look internally at our existing teams to see how they can spread their wings and grow. It’s really important.

 

Sarah:  It is, it is. And I think that this kind of comes back to that point in time where you-- Everybody's looking for a personalized experience now it's just the world we live in, right? And so, I think that the challenge for people who are managing other people. I know it's a challenge for me when I manage people. Is how do I make sure that everybody gets what they need? Whether it's you know, a personal development plan, or maybe somebody just needs more of a mentor in a specific area, you know it's so much easier to do a one size fits all. But I think that's where you can tie it back to empathy because if you actually recognize your employees as people, it becomes a little bit more natural. Because you're going to remember, you know, and we start looking at a span of control where you're, you know, managing a team or 20 employees of course gets harder. But when you're managing a small team, I think that it's really important, more important, even to get to know them as people when you're talking about growth, because everybody needs something different.

 

Katty: Yeah, absolutely. You talked about assessments, I'd love to dig into that a little bit more. We use StrengthsFinder here at Artisan. My husband's actually as StrengthsFinder coach. So I have a lucky assessment, you know, professional that can help us administer this, but I find that ever since we started doing this, I found it so eye-opening. And just in terms of my own understanding of myself and how I react to particular things or how I, you know, maybe I should be paying more attention to XYZ because it's important to my employees because their strengths rely on that. Can you share a little bit more about assessments, is there one that you're a big fan of, do you recommend companies to use different kinds of assessments?

 

Sarah: Yeah, I mean StrengthsFinder is great, number one. I love StrengthsFinder and of course, there are so many assessments now I mean I could tell you maybe just like a fraction of the ones that I've worked with because there's so many that you can choose from. I would say, you know, it depends on what you're trying to do with the assessment. So you know, for example with Myers Briggs, obviously you want to be very careful that you're not making hiring decisions because it hasn't been validated for hiring decisions. So I guess that would be the one thing that I would say is if you're wanting to look at exploring assessments, just make sure that it's been validated for hiring and probably want to validate for hiring at your company just to make it legally defensible. I think that from just an overall good development, I think again, Strengths Finder is awesome. One that we use right now is called Outmatch. And you know, I say we, but you know we at the company I work for, and that assessment is kind of like you have to go through a discovery process. It's validating because it's for hiring and development. So, that's where they look at your core values, and they look at the things that are important to do well at the company. And really, there's an assessment again-- it's been validated for hiring. So we give it to employees who come through the organization, and it is a data point. It's not the data point, but it's one thing to think about as we're making decisions. And I think the really cool thing about it though is that you can also not have the person retake the assessment but you can run it again when they're an employee for development. So that's pretty cool. You know and I think that there are just lots of other assessments but I think that there are also lots of other ways to do self-assessment, you know. There are lots of frameworks that you can use, again, I think it just depends on how you're going to use it. If it's for development, I think there's a little bit more flexibility, as long as there aren't implications for performance management, again they're all these rules, right? But I think that you know, Frameworks are really great too. There's, there's another one that I was actually just thinking about this morning, called the TKI and that's the Thomas Killman conflict modes instrument. Which is a really great one, and it's not necessarily, you know, to give to warring factions, you know you don't give it to different departments that are having problems but you give it to individuals. You know I've done this in workshops where we look at --it's kind of a proactive way to look at the way that you approach conflict. And so you may be less assertive, and you may, you know have a different style than someone who's more assertive and it really just teaches you how to recognize that, and then what to do about it, and how to develop in that area because I think that, you know, and again, this is like when we teach you to know how to how to actively listen. The people who are like me and super chatty. You know we may be more extroverted and may get our ideas heard a little bit more than someone who is, is maybe just going to kind of wait, think about it before they chime in, and then it might be too late. So conflict is not necessarily not getting along, it's really how do I get along in the world of all these different ways of having different needs in terms of asserting ideas. 

 

Katty: Yeah, I love that, because really what we're talking about is self-discovery really more than anything else is. And that's why I mentioned StrengthFinders, we don't use it for hiring. It's really more for communication. It's like, what are our communication styles? Are you high on communication? Are you high on empathy? Just having an understanding amongst one another. But surely, I think all of these assessments and Frameworks is a good benchmark just for us to learn a little bit more about who we are. 

 

Sarah: Totally. Yeah absolutely and, you know, I think that you can find good assessments, just like you can find bad assessments online and so if someone is just dipping their toe in the water for the first time I would just look for something that's been validated and that's reliable like StrengthsFinder. You know if you're going to use Myers Briggs have someone who's qualified to deliver it and don't do an online assessment. You know, just that kind of thing I think a little of that goes a long way but I think you're absolutely right. It's more about self-discovery and, “Okay so this is what it is. And now what am I going to do about it?”

 

Katty: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Well, Sarah, I want to thank you for the time that you've taken to be here with us and share your insight about culture and core values, and the employee experience. I think all of it is just so powerful in terms of making sure that we're cultivating culture, in our companies whether it's in a remote setting or one day we'll be back in person. But I think that the key things of kind of really understanding that communication piece and that empathy piece is so valuable to hear about. Is there anything else you want to add before we part ways?

 

Sarah: No, I think that we've covered it. I think that you know, I would just reiterate that I guess-- Well yes, there is one thing. I guess I think about just the world of work, but it's really the world at large. You know how we're relating to each other as people. I think I'm starting to see evidence that there's a little bit of a turn happening where we're not so polarized. Maybe just a little bit of a peek of hope that you know again I think that empathy and understanding each other better and not as numbers and demonstrating curiosity I think for me is how we're going to get to healing, you know, whether it's you know, two people having conflict or country or different parts of the world. So I think it's just been great talking to you and it's been great to kind of reflect on this for myself so thank you very much.

 

Thank you for tuning in to this episode of The Artisan Podcast. This podcast is brought to you by Artisan Creative, a staffing and recruitment firm specializing in creative, marketing, and digital talents. You can find us online, at artisancreative.com or via social channels @artisancreative. We look forward to connecting.