Culture Over Coffee
Culture Over Coffee
Thriving in Adversity: Leadership and Engagement with Lisa Kogan-Praska
In this episode, we’re continuing our focus on company leaders by taking a look at how to go about maintaining employee engagement when leading through times of adversity.
And we can’t think of a better leader to turn to for a topic like this than Lisa Kogan-Praska, CEO of the Boys & Girls Club of the Bay and Lakes Region.
Lisa has such amazing insights, like:
- How, without transparency, it’s hard to have an intentional culture
- Why, too often, leaders think they need to have all the answers, when, really, their job is to show the path forward
- And, finally, why, for leaders, being present WHEN you’re present can make a huge difference in the engagement of your teams
Links:
ENGAGE 2023: The Company Culture Report
Lisa Kogan-Praska
Beth Sunshine
Up Your Culture
Hello and welcome to Culture Over Coffee, a podcast focused on improving company culture and fostering employee engagement. Every week, we chat with experts and thought leaders about the latest information and proven practices you can use to reduce regrettable turnover, increase productivity on your team and retain key customers. So pour a cup of your favorite brew and join us. I'm your host, beth Sunshine, svp it up, your culture and the Center for Sales Strategy. In this episode, we're continuing our focus on company leaders by taking a look at how to maintain strong employee engagement even during times of adversity, and I can't think of a better person to turn to for a topic like this than Lisa Kogan-Praska, CEO of the Boys and Girls Club of the Bay and Lakes region. Lisa has incredible insights, like why, too often, leaders think they need to have all the answers, when really their job is to show the path forward, how, without transparency, it's hard to have an intentional culture and, finally, how, when leaders are truly present, they can make a huge difference in the engagement of their team. All right, well, welcome, Lisa, and thank you so much for joining me today for a little culture over coffee, although I haven't been able to see you live in real life for a few years now, but we are, of course, connected on LinkedIn. You and I were talking about that before we hit record and I always look forward to your posts because they often strike a chord with me.
Beth Sunshine:Some people are truly just gifted with I don't know sending a message to others, and LinkedIn is a great form for that. They give me something to really think about. Sometimes you're inspirational, sometimes philosophical. You're always authentic. You're always candid. Sometimes it makes me laugh. You always give me food for thought, even though we haven't connected live in a while. Boyer, linkedin has been a treat, and today we're going to talk about maintaining employee engagement when leading through uncertainty. It's a topic that is on the minds of many leaders today in business. When our team here at our company was brainstorming on the ideal guests for this topic, your name came to mind right away. You have led through change. You and I met during a time of great change. You have dealt with uncertainty, you've modeled resiliency. You've created ongoing engagement through it all. So at the end of our chat today, I'm going to share your LinkedIn information so all of our listeners can check out the great content you have shared on this subject, if that's okay.
Lisa Kogan-Praska:Oh, that's wonderful. You're setting the bar way too high, but thank you, you are very deserving, and I'm so glad you joined me for this conversation today Absolutely.
Beth Sunshine:Are you ready to jump right in? Let's do it. Let's do it All right? Good, so I'm going to give you a quick brain jolt. It'll warm us up. I want you to envision the very best company culture that you can think of, so maybe share with me three, four, five words that you would use to describe that ideal culture.
Lisa Kogan-Praska:Yeah, and that's a fantastic question, right, as you try to like, how do we kind of reach all this out? For me every time when I think about, the word that always pops up if I think about culture is intentional. I think that is so incredibly important, because I was like good cultures don't happen by accident, they don't happen without a strategy, and I think sometimes we kind of just think our culture is organic and there's parts of that. That's true, but I always joke like you can't potluck your way to a great culture. I mean, it's more than that, and so you have to have intentionality around that, just like you would have intentionality around your marketing strategy or your development strategy or your finance strategy. So it's that level of priority, so intentional to me is huge.
Lisa Kogan-Praska:And then I would mirror that with the other thing that I think is so critical in any culture is transparent, because I think without without transparency, it's really difficult to have an intentional culture. And then, probably in this day and age, dynamic, right we are, everything changes. I mean, like you said, I mean from the time that you and I last down face to face, the world has changed and so, yeah, we can't think of our culture as static. We have to think of it as dynamic in one approach.
Beth Sunshine:Yeah, great words. We're actually going to talk about all three of those, come to think of it today. So you led us right into these questions beautifully. So let's dive right into the deep end. Knowing what I know about you and just a little we've talked about, I think you would agree that we have had more than our fair share of uncertain times over the past few years. It's been difficult for many. My question is in your view, what role do leaders play in ensuring that employee engagement remains consistent even when things around us are unstable? What role do leaders play in creating that consistency, that intentionality and so on?
Lisa Kogan-Praska:You know, and I think I'd like to start with, like, what role we don't play. And the role we don't play is having to have all the answers, and I think so many times leaders think I have to have all the answers to this. That's my job and our job really isn't that. Our job is to say that we have to show a path forward. Right, we have to build confidence, connection together. We can find all the answers, but it really is that kind of coxswain position of we, you know, I mean we've got to get the team rowing. It doesn't mean that, and there were many things that we just don't have the answers to. We got to, we got to just go through it, and so I think that, to me, is a leader's greatest challenge gift. You know, whatever that is during that time of change. Also, there's also some just advantages to leading in a time of change.
Lisa Kogan-Praska:I came into an organization right as the world shut down. What was beautiful as a leader coming into that is I didn't turn the apple card over. It was turned over Like I didn't come in and create it, but I did get to come in now and say we're all, let's all rebuild it, and so there is some power when you're going through change that you can leverage, kind of create that collective around, and that you know that buy in and almost that support and say, ok, let's talk about how going forward. So being open to that too and saying how can this actually be a strength and not just a deficit?
Beth Sunshine:Oh, I really love your thinking. I love that you started with what we don't, what they aren't responsible for, because, you're right, so many leaders feel as though they have to have the answer for everything and often especially in recent years, the kind of change we're really talking about. It's impossible to know the answers. And what's a great way to flip that upside down and say you know the the plus side is we didn't turn over the apple card. I love it, but we can work collectively to fix it. I I actually don't know if I've ever expressed it just like that, and I think I might in the future. That was a cool way to say that. Thank you, please do All right. So let's get into the topic of communication. Are there any specific ways you recommend leaders communicate with their people to keep them engaged, to keep them motivated, especially during these uncertain or challenging times?
Lisa Kogan-Praska:Yeah, there's an interesting. So earlier in my career I was tasked with bringing three organizations together so that we had merged three organizations and, as you can imagine, when that happens all at once, there's a lot of change and turmoil and anxiety and we're trying to figure things out. And at that point in time we kind of penned what I called the whiteboard philosophy and really, essentially it is very really was a whiteboard, and we hung up a whiteboard and we said you have questions, you have concerns, there's thoughts running through your mind. Here's my thing. Write it on the white board and my promise is I will answer this question. All staff to everyone, no matter what the question is.
Lisa Kogan-Praska:There were some difficult questions and at times they were like oh, I don't really want to answer this in an all staff setting, but it was so powerful and what was so, I think, incredible about that is we started with some really tough questions and by the end it was like can we get different snacks? And I think it was because of that transparency. Right, it was like there is nothing that you can't ask. There's no topic that's off, off limits. Do you know? Glean into this and I my promise is I'm going to answer it, and sometimes I'm going to answer it with I don't know, but I'm going to say that and I'm going to say that, and that's evolved.
Lisa Kogan-Praska:Obviously, we don't have whiteboards and different locations, but now we do other forums in which we let people have voice in a way that's safe and transparent with our answers, with them and saying like, let's be candid, let's talk about this. So that, to me, is number one is give, let people have voice to what they're thinking and feeling.
Beth Sunshine:I love that I do, and you might have seen me looking down for a second because I was grabbing my phone. I saw this quote today that I held on to and it just kind of is speaking to me more now that you're saying that. It's a Simon Sinek quote and he said transparency doesn't mean sharing every detail. Transparency means providing the context for the decisions we make and I just I hear you say there are questions on this whiteboard and I'm like I don't want to answer that, but yet you want to give people that the context of you know we're about the decisions we make. That was, yeah, and I love the whiteboard concept sort of ask me anything and one way or the other I'm going to get you the information you want. We're going to get these next.
Lisa Kogan-Praska:Exactly that is what I think. The other thing on communication that's so important and I think it took me a long time to kind of remember this is proximity. Communication happens right Like and so being really aware of when I've got a message to deliver. Am I okay that there's going to be proximity communication and so the people in this building are going to know first and that message may get misconstrued or translated the telephone game, or is this a message that everybody needs to hear at once? So really thinking through us with again that word of tensionality to say I have a message I need to communicate, what's the best way to do this? And in some cases it's fine for it to kind of trickle out, in another cases it can't, and I think sometimes as leaders we miss call that right and so then all of a sudden something is snowballed because we didn't think about how that message needs to be communicated in a way that people get the information in the way that they want it to be.
Beth Sunshine:You're exactly right. Proximity communication again, I've never actually heard that exact term for it, but yeah, if you learn something, you're walking into a meeting someone's right there, it's on your mind. I can see how difficult that would be Good point. So how do you ensure that people feel connected, feel supported, even when they are working remote or hybrid? They're not walking into that meeting with you at the same time. What do you do besides just intentionally remember? I need to hold this very important message for later, for the whole group. Any other tips?
Lisa Kogan-Praska:Well, you know we talk a lot about that and especially like we have team members that work, you know, hybrid, remote, all of those things. And I've done some reflection because I think sometimes we set the standard of when you're in the. You know you're better connected when you're in the office and that can be true. But I have been guilty many times of coming to my office and sitting in my office all day and not really seeing the people down the hall any more than if they had been hired. So I don't know that just because we're not in the same location, I think it's the same practices, right? You, if I would get up and I would round on an employee that's down the hall, then I need to figure out a way whether that be email, chat.
Lisa Kogan-Praska:I mean, gosh, there's so many technologies now that you can have those same kind of interactions and I think we have to kind of get out of that construct that it has to mean a face to face in the exact same location. A face to face can be through lots of different things and a quick little text to just say you know the silly thing, or whatever is the same thing as walking by your office and saying how was your weekend? You know, so we can do it. We just have to do it. And that's the hard thing is we have to kind of stretch ourselves a little to say, you know, it's not as easy. So I've got to make sure I put some you know again, intentionality around doing that type of thing.
Beth Sunshine:I agree. I've talked to a lot of people who work remote specifically, also hybrid to a certain extent. That said the difference, the big difference, is now everything's scheduled. It used to be that you could just run into someone and have a spontaneous conversation, potentially about work, and advance a project, whereas now you have to schedule a call, you have to get on their calendar. It's so uncommon to just zoom or team somebody without having an appointment. So it's different, isn't it? It?
Lisa Kogan-Praska:has you know, and I have a friend that did office hours and I thought that was fascinating. She talked about, her whole team was hybrid or is remote, and so she would just like schedule office hours like and be on doing her work, whatever it is, and if someone could stop on. They could and I thought that is, that's great. There's absolutely no reason I couldn't have a zoom up while I'm doing my other work and then someone can knock virtually on my office door and say, hey, you got a second.
Beth Sunshine:Oh, I really like that. And if no one does, you've got a project, you're spending your time productively and if they need you, you're there. That's a very cool strategy. Thank you for sharing Absolutely. What roles do you think recognition and appreciation this is something our company has specifically been really talking about lately and helping other customers you know clients get this right. What roles do recognition and appreciation play in all of this?
Lisa Kogan-Praska:Huge. I mean, at the end of the day, if you don't feel like you're valued, if you don't feel like you matter, if you don't feel like you're seen right, it's very hard to feel engaged, it's impossible to feel engaged. So I think that's huge. That being said, I've always been a huge proponent of the platinum role in recognition and that recognizing people the way that they want to be recognized and that's why I think sometimes recognition programs fail Is they become canned, they become structured. They sometimes feel not really authentic.
Lisa Kogan-Praska:It becomes almost like you know and you tend to see the same people recognized. You know the people that are going to write a note on a shout out board are the same people and the people they're going to recognize are the same people. So it's really like how do you bring recognition down to that individual level? And I think when you ask employees, what I hear time and time again is what means the most is someone saying your direct leader saying wow, great job, I saw that. You know what I mean and I'm rick, and it doesn't have to be. You got a gift card and it doesn't have. I mean that's all great, but it's the time to just say in the moment. Wow, I see what you're doing and thank you for showing up today and doing what you do. That's the key, and the rest is just icing on that cake, right? And then it just gets even sweeter after you do that.
Beth Sunshine:Okay, that is the cake and everything else is the icing. I totally agree. We have a tool called the growth guide. You may or may not be familiar with, but one of the questions. It's designed for a leader to sit down and have a conversation with their director partner. It's a series of questions that a lot of leaders assume they know the answers to, but when they ask the question they're actually quite surprised. And one of the questions is when you have a success, how do you want me to recognize that?
Beth Sunshine:And it's really surprising how so many people do not love public recognition. They don't want in some cases. It's not that they don't want the award or they don't want the spotlight, it's that they often would prefer something else. In some cases they really don't want that and it makes them uncomfortable. I find that fascinating. So you bring up a really good point. You have to. You have to A know your people and B it doesn't have to be a big shebang, it can be a pat on the back, a post-it note on their keyboard, something like that. Right?
Lisa Kogan-Praska:Amps, even something as small, as if a team member does something great, and let's say I'm sharing this great accomplishment with the board, making sure that I just put a little shout out line in there. It doesn't have to be this huge thing, but just hey, I'm not taking credit for this great thing that you just did. I wanna make sure that others know that you did this great thing, but I'm doing it in not this over the top way, or it doesn't have to be fancy. It's just giving recognition where recognitions do.
Beth Sunshine:Yeah, I agree, so I'm kind of almost backtracking a little bit. We talked a moment ago. Well, we started out with you describing transparency as one of the really the key qualities of a thriving ideal culture. Then we talked about how much information you should share, and the quote from Simon and Sennich. I'd love to actually back up and just drill down for a second. In your experience, how much should you share with your team and how much should you hold back?
Lisa Kogan-Praska:So, first of all, I'm probably the wrong person to ask, because I share a lot. I'm just one of those people that the grocery clerk my son would make fun of me. He'd be like they don't care what we're making for dinner, mom. The question that they wanna know is paper or plastic. They don't care about all the other stuff that you're doing, and so I am someone who shares a lot. That being said, certainly there's discretion, right. You're not wanting to share things that are confidential. You're not wanting to share something that's gonna cause greater angst when you don't, when you don't have the information that's needed. But I am a big fan of several things. One is, again, sharing as much as you can, I think, even when you don't have all the details, sharing that. I'm a huge believer in kinda name it to tame it, call out the elephant in the room.
Lisa Kogan-Praska:So many times when we're going through something that's stressful or there's, we try to bury the lead and we try to like sugarcoat it and flower it. People are sitting there. They're waiting for that shoe to drop, hit it, talk to them, tell them what's happening, give them time to process. Right now they're just trying to figure everything out. They're not ready to hear your go forward plan, but see, I mean like hold up and kinda just just let people give people room to talk and process and think about the message that you're sharing.
Lisa Kogan-Praska:And I think so many times we wanna come in as I have the answers and confident, here's our plan and you. This seems concerning, but don't be concerned. Well, that takes out the human part of that right, people are gonna react the way they're gonna react and we've got to lean more into how we, how would I feel if this message was being delivered to me, and not so much on how am I going to present this message? So to me, that's the key to transparency is just putting yourself in those shoes to say in this moment, what would I want to know? What would I need to know for me to be able to sleep tonight? And let's share that and talk about that.
Beth Sunshine:Yeah, well said and interesting to separate the problem from the solution. You know what's happening today versus that go forward plan. Because you write a lot of leaders wanna make it better, it's gonna be okay, and not that they shouldn't but you're giving them the space to really process it, to think, to ask questions, to really understand what's happening and then I'm sure you bring forth the go forward plan. But I like that human, just that time, to have the human quality of needing to feel the feelings.
Lisa Kogan-Praska:Which I was just literally having this conversation with someone about. I had mentioned to you as we were getting started. My son's going to college and our role is changing and we're moving from being kind of the manager of his life to the manager in his life. And my husband is just brilliant at this. He was saying the other day my son was going through something pretty stressful and needed to vent and there was lots of advice he wanted to give him but that wasn't, he said, but that wasn't the time to do it. This was the time to listen to him and let him process, and I can come back and give him that advice later.
Lisa Kogan-Praska:I'm not always the best at that. I mean, I think it's more about what I want to say than what they want to hear. And so stopping as a leader and thinking, what do they right now? Is it about what I want to say, or is it about kind of listening to them and what they want to hear? And then I can always come back later in a different mind space with what I wanted to say or need to say. And I again, I'm going to have to follow his lead a lot over these next years because you know what. It's a different role, but I think, as leaders, that is our role. Yeah, sometimes it's that same shift. We are now mentors, we're coaches, we're cheerleaders, supporters, guides, and how do we communicate in that way?
Beth Sunshine:Yeah, that's exactly right. That would define good leaders. I thought I really loved name it to tame it, but now I think I even love. Is it about what I want to say or about what they want to hear more? So I'm going to struggle with which one. I'm going to make this Linux blog article and in response, that's really true, like is it? I mean, I'm a fixer by nature. I want to make everything better, make everyone feel okay. So it was about what I want to say. Or is it about what they need to hear right now, which is probably just the facts, the situation? Let them process. I think that's really powerful and something our listeners, if there anything like me. They're going to walk away and really start thinking about themselves, and thank you for that.
Lisa Kogan-Praska:You need to practice and preach, or you need to preach and practice.
Beth Sunshine:So I'm good at preaching. So good at preaching, you know. So what would you say are some common pitfalls or mistakes that leaders can make that negatively impact employee engagement during these challenging times or times of uncertainty, and how can they be avoided if possible?
Lisa Kogan-Praska:I think we've touched on. I mean, I think a big one is that we want to wait, like our instinct and I have been that before like nobody wants to be the bearer of bad news or nobody wants to. You know what I mean and so we want to wait. So we have all the facts and all, and it's been fact checked, we have all the, and that what happens is people create their own narrative, right, not given information. I fill it in and I promise you I always fill it in with something way scarier than it actually is. And but I think leaders were. It's well intended, but we just we tend to do that. We try to in these times, we tend to come in more and when we really need to be going out more and we need to be pushing out, and so I think that is a huge pitfall that I think just becomes the, yeah, the big issue there.
Beth Sunshine:I completely agree. I'm reading this book right now. I can't highly recommend it to anyone listening yet, but it's called Mind your Mindset, and it's pretty good so far. And that's exactly what it's saying is that you create stories, our mind creates stories, and when there's a vacuum of an actual story, we fill it in and it's just as real, it's just as fact-based to us, and we start making decisions and really believing these stories we tell ourselves and it's all in the mindset. What you're saying is you could avoid that storytelling altogether simply by giving people the actual story.
Lisa Kogan-Praska:Like a lot Exactly. They will imagine if you're behind a closed door. They will imagine all kinds of things are happening that aren't right. So it's the more that you can kind of just be again, be transparent.
Lisa Kogan-Praska:The other thing I do think happens is culture sometimes feels optional. Then right, like all of a sudden we're in this like really difficult crisis time and we're not gonna make that a priority. We're gonna I would argue that is more of a priority than any other time. That needs to be kind of at the top of how is this change affecting our culture? But I think we tend to, you know, push that aside and that's. You know, we'll deal with that later. And so having leaders focus on you know Cultures a year round, all the time, it's not just when you survey Before, you survey in the two weeks after. It's really that and it is always the thing I always say is, as the leader, you can't delegate culture. It's the one thing you can never delegate as as the leader, as the boss. And so there's an you know your plate gets fuller and then all of a sudden you're like that can, that can go off my plate.
Beth Sunshine:That's so true, and it is. Culture does get lost in the speed of business. It sounds like a really good idea, and even I mean really good leaders understand you have to have a thriving culture, you have to have engaged people. If you don't, you're not going to generate the revenue or be as profitable they. They understand the connection there, and yet it's the first thing we drop when we're worried about not making our budget or you know any other sort of business issue. We think, oh, that town hall meeting that can wait until next quarter, or you know that one-on-one Conversation or the communication or everything we just talked about. It's such a, it's a challenge, the boy every day. It's an every day, like you said, huh.
Lisa Kogan-Praska:Well, and I know you have a strong sales background, right, and it's that mistake of dirt. You know when times are tough, you don't cut back your sales team, right. But I think we do the same thing and essentially that's what we're doing. Culture is sales to our own employees, right, we are. We are internal, and so the last thing you want to do is pull back your sales force, your culture force. In a time when it's more difficult, you want to ramp that up so that you can get out of that difficult time. But People do it all the time.
Beth Sunshine:So, oh yeah, that's a great analogy. Great, great analogy, alright. So here's the last question. We have a lot of people who they are like me. Like I said before, their minds are spinning. You have shared some Really good nuggets, some things that are common sense, but also a little mind-blowing in the way that you shared them. You shared some things that may be brand new in many ways. So if you could recommend just one thing for a company leader to listen to this and then walk away to start doing because you Can't do everything all at once, it's, it's too much. So if you could recommend that one thing that everyone should start doing right away to better engage their people, maybe build on it later what would that one thing be?
Lisa Kogan-Praska:So I'm going to steal a mantra that I got from a different company that I had worked at and and I always loved it, and it's really more about not something I can do externally, but more internally, and that is to be here now, and I think that is so powerful because I think every leader and it's layered right.
Lisa Kogan-Praska:It's about being present in the moment, it's about listening, it's about asking Questions and I think that, to me, if you were going to do one thing, it's going to be I'm going to intentionally Walk around and talk to my team members or chat with them or do whatever that is. I'm going to make that connection. The rest of it can build, the strategies can build, but it really is about being present, when you're present, and that that will set the tone for everything else that you do. So that's it falls really solely on you, and so it's not a. You know it's not, it's definitely not something you can delegate, but it's something that will make a difference, not only at work but at home and in every interaction that you have. And it's a whole lot easier to say than to do, so I always want to be mindful of that. It's it's hard to do that.
Beth Sunshine:It is. It is so well said, though. It's the one I'm very close to always says you can multitask things, but you cannot multitask people. And it's true, but it's so hard sometimes, especially with social media and texts, phones being in your hand and you know everything that technology brings us and and whatnot. It's hard to really focus, be present, truly listen, shut everything else out. The boy. That is something every one of us can do a little more of, starting right away.
Lisa Kogan-Praska:Absolutely. And again, it's one of those things that I think said journey, there are some days I probably do that way better than others, and so I think that introspection right of saying you know, I can say this, I can sit on my desk, I but do I actually do it, and then challenging ourselves to lean into that. So yeah, absolutely.
Beth Sunshine:Perfect way to end our conversation today. I want to thank you, lisa, for the time you spent talking about culture with me over coffee. You shared, like I said, a lot of great information, a lot of ideas related to creating strong engagement, specifically during times of change. I know our leaders have found it valuable. So, as promised, we're going to drop your LinkedIn information in the show notes so our listeners can connect with you. I'd highly recommend it, and I'm also going to add a link to the Engaged 2023 Company Culture Report, because listeners can use that to grade their own company culture, to consider. It's a broad study that we did in 2023, and they can consider what is important to people right now.
Beth Sunshine:What is creating engagement? Where are leaders really hitting on it? Where are they missing the mark? And there's a whole section on change, so I'll attach that to it Dovetails, I think, nicely with what you were talking about today. I want a copy, so make sure you do. You got it All right, so thank you, Lisa, for joining me. Thanks so much for spending time with us on Culture Over Coffee. If you've enjoyed the conversation, be sure to subscribe and join us for every episode For more helpful information on the topics of company culture and employee engagement. Visit us at UpYourCulturecom. Enjoy the journey as you increase engagement and up your culture.
