The Failure Gap

Julie Williamson, Ph.D. (00:00)
Hello and welcome to the Failure Gap where we talk with leaders about closing the space between agreement and alignment. We love talking with interesting people and today we're joined by Katie Jerrick. Katie is a consulting director and a business global business strategist. She has deep expertise in leading cross-functional global teams and optimizing processes for large scale success. She's led diverse global teams across many countries including Puerto Rico, Spain and even Fiji where she lived. This past summer, Katie took on a new challenge.

Swimming across the English Channel as a part of a relay team, demonstrating her commitment to continually pushing her limits. is recognized for her strategic vision and her commitment to achieving impactful results. Katie, welcome to the Failure Gap. Thank you so much, Julie. Your introduction outlines subtly that I'm also a lover of life. Thank you for the warm welcome. Yeah, I think that's absolutely true is you take life by the horns and go with it, which I love.

And I'm really excited actually to have this conversation with you because I think there's a lot of things that people say they want to do and they don't ever quite get around to it. And you seem to get around to it quite a bit. So looking forward to that. Hey, Katie, I would love for you just to introduce yourself to our listeners a little bit, tell them about your background and some of the twists and turns in your career that have landed you where you are today. love that heavily. I started studying without knowing exactly where I was going.

And I got my first role in a consumer goods supply chain company and did one of those wonderful personality tests that knows scarily high amounts about you. And it said,

You see your life as a choose your own adventure and no one has as excited as you to see what happens on the next page. And as I think about my growth into leadership, I think that captures it really well. I had opportunities to live and work in Puerto Rico with my first employer, moved back to Wisconsin and realized life hadn't really changed there, but I had and found another opportunity to get my MBA. moved to Spain to study.

Came back to the US, was soul searching, was job searching and figuring things out, worked in environmental health because that opportunity presented itself, rebuilt a town that had burnt down in California, and then got an opportunity with the Wonderful Company and worked in their strategy department. Consistent with my professional background, but not something that I even knew existed before using my network. They had recently acquired a citrus business in Mexico. I thought I was moving to Mexico to keep speaking Spanish.

And instead they said, hey, Katie, do you want to go to Fiji? We have Fiji water. You can go to the islands, see the operations, help with some of our projects there. And that door opened for me. Came back to the U.S. Was so grateful to have grocery stores nearby, friends that understood my background, my experiences, and was recruiting people to come work for our company. And that actually turned the table because they pulled me to the firm that I was at. So some of the mix of this career growth and success was from my strategy and my interests.

and some were from networks and opportunities that just popped up. And it's really neat to watch the journey unfold. Yeah, I think Katie, one of the things I really pick up in that is that you've said yes to a lot of things and not truth and maybe no to a few as well. But when opportunities present themselves, you're willing to explore. Certainly not afraid of trying something new. Yeah. And I think that's important for people to remember. You know, I don't know about you, but I often get asked about, you know, career planning. People want to.

plan out their career and know exactly what the steps are that they're taking. And I just find that more and more people that I talk to have stories like yours where there is no plan. Not that there is no plan, but the plan unfolds in very unexpected ways, might be a way to say it. I agree with that. And the ways you can invest is build a strong network of people. Know people in your expertise area. Invest in yourself and what you know.

And then there's this beautiful mix of opportunities. create opportunities that present themselves and opportunities that you can invent. Yeah. I love that idea that you can invent your own career path. You can invent your own next step. As you tap into the people that you know and you learn more about the world and about business and about what's happening, you can find that next step for yourself. Yeah, I think that's really interesting because a lot of people want something that's just not there, which is a clear cut plan. I want to know, this is where we're going.

Yeah, well, Katie, this is one of the things I'm really looking forward to about this conversation is hearing about some of the things that you've done where you've thought to yourself, yeah, that sounds like a good idea. And I think I'll go do that. Or maybe I don't know about this Swimming the English Channel. Maybe it was that doesn't sound like such a good idea, but maybe I'll do it anyway. Tell me a little bit about what brought you to that. The English Channel, started thinking about in 2011 and was evaluating a big fitness goal. I needed something.

and decided it wasn't the time. thought it would be lonely. And so in this past year, I hit a similar spot in my life where I realized I needed a big fitness goal, something that was exciting that I could commit to, and decided it was time to do the channel swim. But instead of thinking of doing it alone, I would do it with a team. And I started calling around to build my team to find races of long distance swimmers. And one of the race coordinators said, Katie, there's a team that just lost a team member. And let me introduce you. You might be a great fit for their team.

So a project that I thought was going to take two or three years, because that's how long it takes once you register, turned into something that I got to do in four months. Wow. And so I went from thinking I have all of the time in the world, I'll figure this out to, woo, I'm on a team of people that have done this before, of people that swim in college competitively, of these really phenomenal swimmers. So naturally, I hired a coach. I made my very specific training plan in the water and in the gym and got as organized as I could. But in four months, this idea of I'm going to do it.

to the opportunity presenting itself and me jumping in the water came to fruition. That's amazing. And I think such a great indication of when you put something out in the world, it can happen very quickly sometimes. Yes. Yeah. Maybe a little faster than you even anticipated or wanted. In a great way. In a great way. Yeah. Yeah. And so this is so interesting to me. You actually joined a team of people you did not know. And it was something that you wanted to do, but you didn't know exactly maybe how to go about it.

other than to start the process of tapping into your network and asking questions. And you kind of went from this idea that this seems like something I want to do to actually getting it done. What were some of the first steps that you took? It sounds like one of them was reaching out. Yeah, reaching out. And I'm lucky that my team's done this before. So they had organized plans. One of the big things we need to do was get comfortable in extremely cold water and support each other, get the paperwork done, do the swims. So they knew the structured pieces.

Behind that, I knew I needed to be able to swim a certain amount of time. I needed to be ready to get out of the water and keep myself warm to prevent motion sickness on the boat for that extreme period of time. Watched a few movies about others who have done the swim. Hired a coach that worked with people in Colorado that also did that experience. seeking everything I could and just deciding that I was gonna do it and it was gonna be fun. Yeah, deciding that it's gonna be fun to swim in. What was the temperature in Fahrenheit?

It ranged from 57 to 62 degrees. Wow. And wetsuits not allowed. Oh my gosh, no wetsuits. Okay. Yeah. And so, wow, that just seems, I mean, I've done the, I've done the, um, the Alcatraz triathlon a couple of times and I know like swimming the channel, the San Francisco channel is pretty daunting. When you jump off the ferry, you're just like, this is not a good idea. But then you start swimming and you kind of get into it.

and you know you're feeling better, but you know only do a mile and a half and then you're out of the water and you're done. I can't imagine getting back on the boat and then having to get back in the water. How many times were you in and out of the water? The swim course straight as a bird flies is 21 miles. We mapped out our path with the currents pulling us around and we did 42 miles total. I swim three different legs of it and the hardest part was really in the middle. It was nighttime.

The waves were the biggest they were throughout the whole event. It was raining cats and dogs. And there's something very humbling about being in the water all by yourself and watching the boat go. We had glow sticks on so that the teammates in the boat could see us. But very, very humbling to know if that boat takes off, you're in the middle, you can't see land. Yeah. Yeah. You don't know which way to go, right? What's the shortest distance home? We don't know. Well, you know,

Honestly, I just can't help but reflect on the parallels between this experience and leading a global transformation effort because it is in the middle of those efforts often that things get the darkest and waviest and coldest. Would you agree with that based on your experience? Yes. I think people start with a solid plan and wrap up with specific goals in mind. And it's in the middle where your communication might not be as strong or those five things you never could have seen coming pop up.

And it's about flexibility, about creativity, about ongoing collaboration, about making sure your team stays strong, that people aren't getting burnt out and moving forward and you're having the right conversations, even when they're hard conversations. Yeah, and I definitely have seen people shy away from those hard conversations. And there's no avoiding them. You have to have them, right? You have to be willing to go there.

What's an example that you have of a transformation you've worked with where you've gone through that journey of starting off strong with a good plan and everybody's excited and the investments there and then you get into the middle and it's pretty messy and rocky and wavy and there's twists and turns that you have to take and then you ultimately stick with your goals and you try and get to the end. I've gone through multiple system implementations and everyone follows that path.

Sometimes you're doing something that's been done a thousand times in other companies and then you realize after you've gone live that your process is actually different and you get to very quickly revamp that. Sometimes you'll learn it earlier on and set up workshops and rush deadlines or adjust deadlines to compensate, to redesign, to navigate things together. But the gold is in the details. Sometimes there's not time for the details until it hits you in the face. Then you make time to make sure things flow smoothly.

When you get into those situations where maybe you're working with a client or you're working internally with a project team and they have to hear some hard things, what are some of the ways that you lean into that? How do you make the space to have those tough conversations? Part of it is about healthy governance setups. So you already have the forums where you share updates and news. You're transparent on your plan. You build in buffers for risk. So it's not an immediate.

project fail, but rather an influence on your overall plan. So I would say before things even go wrong, you've planned for something to change what you thought was going to happen. And then from there, it's bringing data, bringing examples, having three plans and a suggestion on what the best one is to pursue so you don't feel like you're in a corner, even though things didn't happen exactly as you'd hope they would. With transparency, honesty, and speed to discussion, not holding anything back. Yeah, I think...

some of the things you just called out are really important for people to take note of. One is have the governance structure set up so that it's not an abnormal thing to talk about risk and to talk about issues that are happening and things don't take people by surprise. And I know that sometimes, I don't know about you, but in my experience, sometimes those governance structures can become a bit of a rubber stamp or a bit of a smile sheet. People, they want to come in with a green status.

You're like, no, no, no, you have to come in with the real status so that we can work with it, right? And I wonder if you've seen that happen too. If you embrace the lean mentality of problems are goals and can keep people thinking in that way. And when people raise issues instead of criticizing or condemning, complaining, say thank you for that information. Now let's work through where it goes and prioritize. You can create a culture where people don't feel like they need to be green.

And there's a leadership component in making it safe to do that. As far as when you start to see the, I've rushed through this, we're good to go. Or you think you're getting greens that aren't actually greens. For those in that PMO role and that leadership position, reach out. Don't put people on the spot, but absolutely have the conversation and drive that quality. Yeah. I love that you're chopping into this instinct, right? This idea of you kind of know, leaders always kind of know when it seems a little too green, right?

We didn't invite Kermit to this meeting. What's happening here? And following that instinct, I think, is a really great suggestion for people who are faced with this because sometimes we just want to be like, all right, well, that's what they told us. So even if it doesn't feel quite right, I'm going to carry on. And I think that always turns around and bites you eventually. And a green isn't a representation of are people working hard? they doing the best they can?

Are they doing their job? The answer to those things can all be yes. You can have an awesome team that still gets hit with something that pulls them off the plan. So it's not personal. It's helping the project and communicating in terms of project needs. is such an important distinction to make. And I don't know that I've heard it articulated in that way before. And I just want to reiterate it for a moment because I think it's really important that the status of the project is not a reflection of the quality of the people doing the work.

It's a reflection of the realities of the whole situation and all of the complexities that are impacting the work that has to be done. And I do feel like sometimes project managers feel like they're protecting their people by keeping their project in a green status when in fact they're setting them up for failure because then they end up going from green to red when something really dramatic happens. Now, when you see that

Well, how do you work with project managers as individuals? Because I think we always, it's easy in business to agree that people should be safe to fail. People should be comfortable reporting issues. People should be comfortable raising risks and so forth. But often they have a lot of past experiences where leaders have reacted very poorly to a change in status or an issue being raised. How do you help them through that?

I think the start of that is understanding your team's skill sets, strengths, communication styles, things they're wary of. And so you create a relationship built on trust based on their experience. But also if you know they're going to be weak in an area, that you set them up with partners that are strong in that area, or you check in a little bit extra. And then as far as maintaining that relationship and encouraging them to report the truth, it's the honest check-ins and maintaining open communication about expectations.

And you also mentioned earlier, checking in with people offline, which I really appreciate. I think there's this urge sometimes to do things quickly and efficiently in a status meeting. But if you have a feeling that something is a little bit off, following up on that one-on-one is probably a way to get through some of that as well. Not only that, it reminds your team that you really care about the project and you really care about them. And sometimes just that little, hello, how are you? If we're real, how are you?

re-engages them with the project, with their team in a new way. So not only does it give them a safe space to chat with you about how things are going, but it keeps the team together strong. I think that's so important. We like to say at Kerikin's group that in an ever more digital world, leadership is becoming ever more human. And this idea that you have to keep that human connection in order to have transparency and trust as you go through what is inevitably a messy and difficult transformation.

I have team members right now in Prague, in different cities throughout India, around the United States. And so the ability to grab a coffee and chat with someone has changed totally in how we operate. And I really like that quote. Yeah. You know, that's really interesting. You mentioned you've done a lot of work with global teams. And I think a lot of our listeners have that challenge as well. And even not globally, but just locally, they're still working remote with people. How do you break through some of that? What are some of the things that you do?

to stay connected with your more distant colleagues? You know, the answer to that isn't very different to what I do when it's live. It's encouraging people to have cameras on and asking questions that try to make them comfortable. I hope my teams take the leadership on some of that, right? We'll have some of my junior members set up fun games so people get to know each other. We'll do mixers, happy hours through some of the communities at my firm.

So outside of our project team that we can connect and build our networks within the group. And it's really about finding things that are meaningful to you or to the individuals on your team so they know where they're going and that there's definitely a path to get there. I think that's so interesting because so many people right now in business are saying, you know, we should connect more or there's a lot of agreement that we need to figure out this new hybrid work environment where sometimes we're in person and sometimes we're not. And what does that look like?

But I don't know that people have a really good idea of how to do that. And so they're struggling to align and deliver on it because there's just, in some cases, anxiety about using some of the tools or feeling like it's silly or frivolous or something, or there's simply a lack of knowledge about what's possible to do in a remote environment. Through COVID, we proved so many projects, regardless of their complexities, could be done by virtual teams.

And now the question is, what's the value of being together and being able to whiteboard, being able to brainstorm live where you can see each other's body language and almost read each other's thoughts since you're in the same room. You've seen those synergy moments and a mix of project types, right? Some are very simple and you can do them remotely easily. Whereas others might, you might want to get together once a month or once a quarter to talk through big things. And I don't know that there's one answer, Julie, to what the right design is.

factoring in employee needs, factoring in what clients are ready to pay for, what they're able to pay for based on their strategy. All of those things are influences. Yeah, I think you're tapping into this idea that if you want to get into alignment about navigating this new hybrid world a little bit better, one thing is experiment, try different things. You mentioned bringing in some of your less tenured team members and letting them have some fun with it. And also being really intentional about when you're

in person and when you're not and what can be accomplished in the different modalities. Yeah. Is that a good summary of where your thoughts are? Yep. Classic consulting answer. It depends. Yeah. That is what we consultants love to say, right? It just depends. But I think getting clear on what it depends on is really helpful. Yeah. What the needs are. Yeah. When you think about a transformation, Katie, that you've been involved with that you feel like

really was exciting because you managed to get from agreement with all of the leaders that it was a great idea. We definitely should do that all the way through to some really impactful outcomes, probably with some messiness in the middle because that's the way transformations go. What comes to mind for you? Is there a story you can tell or that you can share that helps people understand this journey of transformation? I've done end-to-end system go lives. I've done managed services where we'll take over teams of our clients.

work and I can't go into specifics on who those clients are, what industries we're in, but the messy in the middle is the absolute truth. I think alignment on the front end before the contract gets signed, the delays in getting a contract signed as people are shaking hands on what specifically are we agreeing to and then launching. Moving from a team of strategy leaders to 100, 200, 300 full-time employees working.

to solve a specific goal in a year, it's phenomenal when you can stand up teams that large. Yeah, and then guide them through that messiness as you go forward. Learning old processes, recreating and standardizing, challenging why we do things a certain way and helping cross-functional areas, cross-regional areas, standardize and redefine how the work can be done. It's really fun, often challenging. Yeah.

Well, and I suspect there are moments too when sometimes in that middle part, the leaders look at you and they're like, I don't want to jump back in the water. Like I just got warm and cozy with my hot cocoa on the boat. If you're thinking about that. Usually it's the other way around where our clients come to us and say, Hey, there are these three things that we didn't know we needed to think about at the beginning. And we know you're warm and cozy. We built this plan together and you've staffed to it.

But can we do this add-on or could you possibly consider this process change? And then it's about evaluating, what does it take? How do we take care of them? Yeah, that's so interesting. It comes in in the middle and you have to adjust, just like you did with your career plan, right? Unexpected things came up and you went forward and explored them and tried to figure out how does this fit into what I'm doing with my life. I love that. I love those parallels.

I think people do sometimes think that business transformation is this big other thing, but in fact, it runs in parallel to a lot of things that we try to do in life as we try and move from agreement to alignment and be like, get beyond, this is a really good idea and do the hard work to make it happen. Have you seen that play out? Yes, and not only in parallel to the things in life, parallel to the other things in business. If you're transforming one department or one team or one function,

It doesn't stop the business running. You're doing it while keeping the doors open. It doesn't stop the other functions, even though it may change how you relate with them or how you communicate with them. So recognizing and appreciating the challenges of the strains sometimes that it puts on all areas of the business as you focus on strategic moves in certain areas. Yeah. And I think you've also brought up the fact that people can take steps in the right direction and then adjust as they go. We sometimes say action precedes clarity.

You don't want to be haphazard, but sometimes you have to start in order to really understand what you're getting into. Have you seen that play out very much? I think that's especially true when you want to be on the cutting edge of technology. You can push the boundaries, you can invent new things, and you can do it with the speed of light. You've got the right team willing to take it. And then it's not a risk. It's not that you don't have a plan. It's that you are going bigger and beyond what others have done before. Absolutely. Yeah.

You know, I want to loop back to something that you mentioned early on when you were talking about how to create a safe space for people to bring up issues or to have the hard conversations. And I would encapsulate what you said as the idea of normalizing those conversations before it gets hard. So making it normal to have governance discussions and project status and exploring risks and things like that. And I think that sometimes we

we downplay the importance of normalizing those conversations and building the connections before you need them. You know, there's an old expression, wait, what's the best time to plant a tree 20 years ago? And the next best time is today, right? And it reminded me of that as you were talking through it. I'm curious if you can share with our listeners some of your thoughts on how to really take some steps to make sure that you've normalized and created the space for those difficult conversations to happen

when they need to happen, knowing that they're down the road somewhere. One of my favorite leaders within the firm I'm at started our very first meeting talking about safety and talking about the prioritization of family and of health and launched us into a great project, took us into the project plan, but set the tone of we care about you as people in addition to getting this project done. And he maintained that mentality, that warmth and approachability and

clearer human connection throughout the whole project. And I thought, wow, the brand of a leader is so much more than are they a strategic thinker? Do they have a vision? It's do they see the whole picture? And the people are absolutely part of that. So I think to encourage the leaders listening to this to understand that your brand is beyond the boardroom, beyond the emails that you send, beyond the clear instructions that you give to the trust that you build in the moments when possibly no one's looking,

possibly everyone is. That's so powerful because I think it is easy as leaders to get caught up in the structures that we're trying to put in place and to forget that the warmth is a really important component of how we lead. How would you define your leadership brand? Well, the smile you see on my face is ever-present. So I would say a high-energy, highly goal-oriented achiever. I love people. And so carving out time to have one-on-ones is really important to me.

pushing my team hard to know what their own goals are, even when they don't have specific personal development goals. So we know that we're working on project goals, but we're also launching them forward in a career that's meaningful to them. And then throwing in a little bit extra along the way, giving back, growing the firm, growing myself. Yeah, that's such a great way to articulate how you like to show up in that leadership space. And for our listeners, I would say there is no right answer to that question, right?

The important thing is to think about and know yourself well enough that you can define that and explain that and provide that to people as you go forward so that you're creating consistency in your leadership. When you think about the journey of transformation that so many of your clients and employers have been on, and I know in 30 years I've done plenty of myself too, is there anything that you would caution people who are thinking about or in the midst of leading a transformation?

to really be paying attention to, or those little nuggets that those of us who've been there and done it a few times, it's kind of autopilot now, but would be really helpful for someone who's maybe in the midst of it. Well, I think the obvious one is having people that have gone through this before as a core part of your strategy and execution team is a given. So do you have the right people involved in your leadership team? After that, it's do you have them in the right roles?

Some people are stronger communicators. Some people are stronger in analytics. Some people see the politics happening behind the scenes, weeks, days, months in advance of other people. So knowing you've got the right team, you've got them in the right roles, and you're connecting with them in a way so you can meet ultimately your project goal. Yeah, right people in the right seats. I love it. Try it in true. But also often overlooked in times of transformation, I would say. When you move fast, sometimes you forget because people have done such great work.

that it may not transfer to the new role that they're in, to the new kind of work that they need to do. Yeah. Yeah. People lose that expertise, which is sort of an interesting and difficult space for people to be in. We often talk about leaders needing to find that space to be in the learning zone as well as the performance zone and trying to navigate between the two. And I think transformation often requires leaders, sometimes very, very senior leaders, to lean into that opportunity to learn.

either new technical disciplines or new ways of leading. When you think about the transformations that you've been involved in, how has, at a senior level, the leadership ability to take that opportunity or to take that step to grow, how has that influenced the transformations and how they move forward? Yeah, my goal is to empower my team, to have them be in the weeds experts on what's going on.

and inevitably something comes up where they don't have the answer. And so my ability to learn faster than average, to not be afraid to dive in and learn something overnight is very real. So trust, delegate, and if you need to, lean in. Lean in and figure it out, right? Yeah, yeah. And an ongoing quality control, right? They can tell you one thing. You mentioned earlier that feeling that you get that gut check, so important.

And the more years of experience, the more transformations you go through, the stronger that inclination can be and prove itself right. Yeah. I wonder if there's an opportunity, Katie, just to check in with more senior or seasoned leaders to say, hey, what are your instincts telling you, rather than what's the data telling you? I've never thought to do that, but that might be a great question to add as you're talking with people about how things are going.

I think that's a great thing in a consulting firm is we have that set up pretty naturally. We know who's gone through similar programs and have handshakes that we can reach out anytime. As far as within the client teams, that's something I haven't encouraged them to do as far as thinking on their side, who else they can reach out to within their networks. Yeah, might be worth experimenting with. I might add that in. Well, Katie, when you think about two or three just tips or...

Ways of thinking about moving from agreement to alignment during times of transformation that you would offer up to our audience. What are the top two or three that you want to really make sure people take away from this conversation around? How do you really lean into this idea of going from agreeing that something is a good idea to going on the journey of transformation and getting aligned to making it happen? Create a clan that people believe in. Starting with sponsorship, that's not just a name on a page, but true wholehearted wow.

we want to do this, our team wants to do this, is your step number one. Creating a roadmap to me is step number two, something that you know is going to change but will still help you go from point A to point B. And then hold yourself accountable to it. Track your journey, track what's changing, be flexible and recognize when it's an acceptable delay versus a risk delay. And keep celebrating the successes along the way so you keep your energy up and ultimately deliver.

deliver on your goal. All of the excitement at the beginning was because you had this vision for something big, something transformative, something that will change your business. Do it. I love that. And if there's someone listening out there, Katie, who wants to swim the English Channel, what would you tell them? What are your top two or three tips for them? Get ready for cold water. Find an awesome team. Do it. Yeah. And maybe get a coach, right? Yeah, that help me.

If you're a great team, then maybe you don't need a coach. There'll be coaches together. Yeah, maybe, maybe. my gosh. Well, hey, we ask a question at the end of all of these episodes of people. If there was something in the world that you would be able to align people to do together, what would that be? If you were thinking professionally, personally, in the world, but it's an open question. I love this one and it's

bigger than my professional scope. I have worked with an NGO based out of Africa that helps students get accounting degrees. It's a very agrarian community. And I think the power of nutrition and the power of education can transform lives. And if we look at how the world has developed in the past 100 years, our agriculture, our technology, our ability of conversations like this from different locations feels like access to healthy foods, access to information that can help you change your own life.

Those are the things I really wish were more prevalent, more accessible. Yeah. So not just agreeing that it's a good idea for people to have nutrition and education, but getting aligned to making it happen around the world. That infrastructure. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And what's the NGO that you're involved with if you care to share? It's called Twendeley. That means let's progress. Great. Well, we'll check it out. I want to say thank you, Katie, for being here. You've given us some great ideas and some great

examples of how to move from agreement to alignment during times of transformation. I know that everybody's going to get a lot out of this conversation. And I want to say I really appreciate you taking the time. Your pleasure, Julie. Yeah. And just a reminder to all of our listeners, if you enjoyed this episode, make sure that you like and subscribe and share with your colleagues and your friends, and we'll see you next time. Thank you so much.