2028 – Unlocking the Power of Fractional Leadership with CZB Consultancy’s Chrisa Zindros Boyce

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1:05With us right now, it's Krissa Boyce. Krissa, you are a fractional COO and fractional CSO. You are found on the web at krisszboyce.com. The spelling for that to our friend that's listening, just click around in your podcast app. We have a direct link so that you can follow along. But Krissa, we've got you right here now. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. I'm excited for us to talk. Yeah. Well, give us an overview of the work you do. And let me tell you, I think that there are a lot of visionaries. There are a lot of founders out there that if they only knew how amazing it could be to have a full-fledged fractional COO or someone helping with that side of the company, I'm biased because I have someone in my corner.

1:55And I can tell you, I could not imagine doing this without her. But Chris, I would love to hear your impact in the world from your perspective. Sure. So it's interesting. I got into this space in a really fascinating sort of way. So I started off my career in marketing and branding, and I worked for large fashion companies for the beginning part of my 20s and my early 30s. I parlayed that through an interesting chain of events to doing executive coaching and then some corporate consulting. And what I realized in the executive coaching and corporate consulting world is that I focused a lot on culture and more of the soft skills, which is very important, but you can't actually impact a company without supporting organizations and creating infrastructure.

2:37And infrastructure is not sexy. Nothing about it is like HR process, you know, yay, IT updates, like none of it is sexy, but it all works together. So in order to really help an executive or a founder of a company be able to level up their organization and their leadership, you have to be able to work in tandem and also support on the operations side and the infrastructure side. And through various chain of events, here we are. So what I do now is I do fractional work on the operations, HR, and strategy side. And then also I do executive coaching as well as culture work. So it really just depends on what a client is needing, which way we're going to kind of enter the conversation.

3:19And it all kind of blends together. So one of the things I like about what I do that's different from just a coach or a consultant is that I'm like really embedded in the business and I'm able to toggle between dealing with is something a personality challenge or a culture issue, or is it truly an infrastructure or process problem that I can help solve? So it's pretty dynamic in that way. Yeah. By the way, I'm still kind of giggling to myself about, you know, and I'm sure, and I hope, I don't know, I don't know what they would be thinking, but, you know, to someone to brand their COO work or HR work, we make operations and HR sexy.

3:58I mean, if you could do that. No, no, no, no, don't do that. Yeah. So, so tell me a bit, you know, here we are kind of getting into the second half of 2024. What are some of the major trends that you are seeing in people leadership, in operations? You know, certainly as we start to get into the HR side of things, What are the big things that leaders should be aware of that are happening right now? The first thing is the shift of the importance of DEI. So we spent the last few years during the pandemic really focusing on this concept of diversity and ensuring that we had diverse cultures and that we were educated in the space.

4:39And what's happened now, it's sort of pivoted where it's less about this additional thing that we do. And it's more about how we embed DEI and be belonging practices into our day to day. And it's also morphed appropriately. So from it being just a conversation on race and gender to a conversation on abilities,

5:02neurodivergence, cultural, almost intelligence around working with people from different countries and different ethnic backgrounds. So it's taken on a different form. and it's a really important component of how people hire, how they source talent, how they work with vendors, and then also how they start to figure out a way to maintain morale because in the newer generations coming up, they really do care about this idea of an inclusive world and less about it being around, do we just have like a diverse workforce, but can people bring their whole authentic selves to work and how do we create a sense of belonging?

5:36And that's like a lot of things that I just said that are very complex that companies are dealing with that require usually an upheaval of some of the policies and practices that we have put into place traditionally. But also for anyone that's building a company right now, it's really requiring them to be very nimble when it comes to their HR practices and their operations practices. Because if you think about it, if you're hiring someone that has an ability challenge or maybe is neurodivergent in some way and they have ADD, they can't sit in an office and concentrate. They need to be standing at a standing desk or with music on so that they can move around.

6:13That changes the work setting and the work dynamics. So all these things are coming into play in a bigger way in the workforce. And the one thing I will say about this too, sorry, I know it's one little point. Yeah. There's some interesting studies about how more and more people in their 40s are getting diagnosed with ADD or ADHD. And the reason for that, we didn't have all the testing back in the day. So now we have testing. Oh, this is what's up. So it's not only people who are younger who are coming into the workforce. It's adjusting for your current workforce. It's dealing with, oh, I didn't have the right practices in place to be my best self at work.

6:51And now I need to reconfigure that. So what's happening is the way that we lead people and the people that are leading people are also shifting their approaches. So it's pretty complex. Can you share just a little bit more about the real world consequences of assuming everybody is a square peg? And so therefore, we're just going to shove all of these. If I'm a leader, I think all of my team members are square pegs and I'm going to treat them the same. There are real world consequences to that. You know, along with that, and I'd invite you to kind of, because it's my show and I'm a proponent and fan of DEI.

7:30I think, you know, when our teams match that of the world, when they match that of our customer, when they match that of our audiences, I feel like we're less prone to blind spots. I feel like we're so much more, you know, not siloing ourselves or putting ourselves in an echo chamber when we reach out and try to get those disparate voices. It just makes much richer cultures in my standpoint. It's my show. So I'm going to take a little take a little soapbox time there. I would love if you could share maybe just a bit on from your perspective. And part of this, yes, it is a little retaliatory because I'm so frustrated that some folks have politicized something that should not be politicized.

8:22And again, what we're talking about is just fundamental to who we are as a population. All right. Sorry. That's enough of me. You're the you're the guest here. I like it. Bring it on. I like it. So your original question, I think, was like, what are the real world consequences of it all? And the real world consequence of it all is that there are a lot of friction points inside of an organization. We do not understand people's preferences or styles. And I talk about this a lot in my coaching when I'm working one-on-one with clients. When you're thinking about what it means to be a great employee or be a good leader, you're thinking about three primary things.

9:00We're thinking about someone's performance, their skill set, their aptitude, their abilities, their willingness to grow and learn, their growth mindset. Then you're thinking about their personality. Like, are they a good culture fit? Like, do they vibe with people? Do they command respect? Are they motivational? Do they get good rapport, et cetera? Are they credible? And then there's another P. I love alliteration. I'm a big fan. So I use this other P, what I call preferences. And these are the things at work that get in the way that oftentimes we can confuse as a personality problem or a performance issue.

9:32But preferences are things like your learning styles. Do you like to read and write? Do you like to talk to learn things out? If we are working together and I like to talk and you like to read and write, I now annoy you. Now I'm irritable. I'm irritating. I need too much of your time. I'm confusing. I'm not working independently. You know, I always want to talk. I spend too much time on meetings, like all of a sudden, my preference starts to become a personality challenge, perhaps, or a performance issue for me. And so part of the downside of not understanding the implications of the DEI space when it's inclusive of ability, cultural differences, not just gender and ethnicity and race differences, is that we start to have problems that aren't real problems.

10:18and we start to have to deal with things that we don't necessarily have to deal with or we start to deal with things in ways that don't actually ever solve the core issue, which is creating a more inclusive environment and learning how to work with people in a way that actually produces the best outcomes. And that net where that lands is that you waste a lot of resources in dealing with challenges in an effective way. You create burnout and then you effectively then increase attrition. So those are the real world outcomes. Yeah. Would you mind sharing just a little bit about the, you know, client, the work that you do with your clients, what that looks like?

10:54And, you know, certainly if you have any kind of before and after for those that might be listening and they're considering working with a fractional leader within their organization. I've already shared I'm a proponent of it, but I would love to hear from your perspective. Yeah. So the interesting thing about fractional leaders is that you get somebody that has a lot of experience in different industries and is concurrently working with other clients. And so a lot of times when I'm working with my clients, they're like, why are you so calm? Or I'll have a CEO tell me we're just so messed up or nothing's working.

11:27And I'm like, you're good or everyone's this way. Like the fractional person brings like a real world sort of, I don't want to say it in this way, but it's the best way to say it, jaded perspective on it all. It's like, it's all okay. It's all fine. Every place is a shit show. It's all good. You know, so like we kind of are a level side in that way because we're encountering many different businesses and different leaders and different teams and different working styles. So we're able to really kind of stay calm in the chaos. So that's one benefit you get by having a fractional person that is out in the world and not just internal to your company.

12:03The other piece is that usually a fractional person has experience in different industries. So they're able to really help you innovate in a way that other people who are just based in your particular industry may not be supportive because they're just looking at something in the way that's always done in your sector. And then the last piece is that typically a fractional person comes with other interesting skills. so while like a lot of my companies will hire me because I can do operations and this world of HR I have a marketing background so I end up being really helpful when it comes to things like thinking about marketing strategy or go-to-market ideas or branding concepts so you're able to leverage a broad skill set in a person in a really interesting way so there's a lot of value to it also the last thing I will say is that if you're a small company it's really hard to get operations support, right?

12:56And usually we're hiring to fill the demands of the business. And this is a trend every leader falls into. A business is not built from the outside in, it's built from the inside out. You have to have the appropriate infrastructure to help you grow. And if you're only focusing on the outside, what will happen is you'll get a big client and you will implode because you have no way to receive the client, manage the client, et cetera. So having somebody on a part-time basis allows the person to create some infrastructure as you're going so you can scale and be able to take on more work in a more manageable way.

13:30Yeah. I suspect in your work with clients that there are some common issues that you see from time to time. To normalize this to our friend that's listening, if they might be in the same kind of situation, what would be some of those very common things that when you go into a company, you're like, yeah, I see this a lot. It's fixable. Yes. I don't know if it's fixable. Oh, okay. I kind of tacked on that last bit at the end, hoping that there was some, some path forward. Yes. Well, there is a path forward. I think problem number one is that most leaders want there to be one solution to an issue.

14:10And my response is you need a process. There's no solution to the dishes being dirty. You need a process by which you deal with dirty dishes, right? You either only use paper plates and you throw them away, or you have dishes and you have a system by which you wash them and deal with them. It's the same thing with things inside your business. Most leaders get very frustrated at the cyclical nature of having to deal with people, systems, and process inside their company and how the minute a new client comes on or a new person is added into the organization or some other change happens, positive and or negative, they have to reinvent their wheel over again.

14:42And a lot of times leaders are like, well, we just did that. We wrote the handbook. We just updated the system. We just did this process. And it's like, yes, it is a constantly evolving thing. And that's the most common problem I see is people get so upset that they have to continuously deal with maintaining their processes and their systems that they start to get a little bit like crazy about it in a way, like they're upset, they're annoyed, they're frustrated, or they avoid it altogether. And then things start to fall apart. So that is something that I think is really valuable for anyone listening here is that if you feel like you're constantly dealing with the process and system stuff, that's exactly what it is.

15:18That is what's supposed to happen. And the best way to be successful is to have a system by which you deal with all the problems in these areas. Yeah. So your website, chrissazboyce.com. And again, we've got the spelling for everything in the show notes for this episode. But Chrissa, for a friend that's been listening to our conversation, what's kind of the next step? For me? No, no, no, no. For our friend that's listening and they're like, this is interesting. Maybe they're ready for a conversation. I don't know if you have any resources that you recommend. Okay, great. Yeah. So if someone is interested in what I'm talking about and wants to know more about fractional work and how it can be supportive and also even the executive coaching side, which oftentimes when I take on executive coaching clients and they're running companies, I'm effectively like doing some fractional work through them and helping guiding them.

16:12So it's not just coaching, it's more consultative for my executive clients that are running companies. So the best way to get to know more is to reach out to me. Every person's situation is quite different. So it is best to set up a time to talk and we can look at what you have going on and I can help support, figure out what the best entry path is, whether it's some culture work, executive coaching, or true operations support. for your organization. Yeah. Krissa Z. Boyce, that's your website, krissazboyce.com. Again, fractional leader in operations. Krissa, it's been a great conversation. Thank you so much for this.

16:49Thank you for having me.

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