How to Design for What Matters in Human Systems with Kellee Franklin | True Snacks

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[00:00:00] Intro & To Pay Attention
Roger: When we say your superhero power is to pay attention, what does that mean to you?

Kellee: What I often like to do is go spend time walking when someone asks me a very thought provoking question and allow Um that quiet time to to allow things to come to me. Like what do I really think? What is my superpower?

I'm good at asking questions, but i'm never really asked these questions, right? So and it kept coming back to me to pay attention I'm a great fan of Mary Oliver's work, um, The Great Late Poet, and she has a lovely poem, and, and part of that poem is to pay attention, is our endless and proper work, and I was like, that kind of summarize, summarizes what I feel like my work is.

Because I'm invited into places and spaces and my job really is to ask questions and be curious and take a look around and hopefully be a good steward and, and not really put my viewpoint, but really just to, um, again, going back to that servant heart and with the, the, the onslaught of technologies. I think sometimes the attention part of it gets lost because we're trying to keep up with the pace of so much and so much noise.

And that sometimes slow is good. Sometimes slowing down is good. Sometimes taking a walk is great. 

[00:01:41] Framework for Paying Attention
Roger: This idea that paying attention is the enduring work, it's also such a gift. Because how, you know, everyone wants to be seen. Everyone wants to be heard. When you walk into a situation where you know you have to pay attention, is there like a simple framework or a process that you use when you're, when, when you know it's time to, to do that work?

[00:02:07] Kellee: This kind of evolved over the work that I had done for a number of years. And, and I, um, I imagine many of your listeners are probably familiar with Kurt Levin’s work, the father of social psychology who really looked at, um, the interaction between someone's environment and their individuality and the interaction between those.

And if you switched environments, you might show up differently. And so I always thought that was kind of an interesting dynamic. And so from that evolved my framework of a model of organizational effectiveness. Thanks. And it's sort of the interplay between someone's heart, who am I, your head, what are my unique gifts, your hands, how do I serve, and then surrounding that, because we all work and swim within organizational systems, I label that as community and community comes from the MacMillan and Chavez framework of what they define as community.

And I think this might resonate with you, Roger, having known you is they have four elements of community, membership, influence, fulfillment of needs, and emotional connections. And those four things they say need to be present for someone to feel fulfilled within an organizational system. So the interplay of head, heart, hands.

And where you defined, you're going to get your membership, your influence, your fulfillment of needs and emotional connections is where organizations, um, can be effective. And is that easy? No, right? But, you know, Kurt Levin, much more, um, seasoned than you and I. Had studied that and the interplay between, you know, someone needs to know their individual wants and desires.

And they also need to be in a place that honors those. And to me, it makes sense for anyone who's worked in a matrix environment. For people listening who don't understand matrix environment, it means you could be working on five different projects with five different team compositions. And I always found it curious as I was kind of.

Getting my sea legs early in my career. Why you could work on one team and be the same person with the same wants, needs, desires, skills, and do awesome. Then you could go to another team, same person, wants, needs, desires, talents, and you can do anything right. And how I always found that curious. I was like, but a lot of it is you just take that same person and you put them in a different environment with a different team composition.

And it just changes the dynamic. And so I think that's good understanding for us as organizational leaders or organizational consultants, because oftentimes what we will do with someone who may not be performing is we'll just kick them out of the organizational system rather than recognizing that they just might not be in the right space.

[00:05:45] There are a lot of things that matter that can't be measured.
There are a lot of things that matter that can't be measured. And I, I enjoy thinking about the things that matter, you know, early, early in my journey. Um, 10 days after I graduated from college. Uh, my, my dad passed away and, um, I was a psychology student and, um, had done, thought I knew everything, right?

And then my dad passes away and we had to put together as a family, his memorial service and my dad had, um, stood up the organizational development and, uh, learning, uh, center within a large government organization, which still exists today. I am very proud of that. And because of his level in the government, we had to pull together pretty significant speakers to come to his memorial service.

And a few days before he, uh, before his service, a young woman approached our family and asked if, if she could speak. And my mom said, absolutely, we'd love to have you speak. And my dad had touched a lot of people in his, uh, in his career and into the church was very, very full. 
 
 And the woman was the last person to speak and she clearly was the only person who was not a professional, uh, speaker. But she said, you know, every morning, Mr. Franklin made sure I had a hot cup of coffee and he'd always spend some time talking to me, asking me how my family was and how I was doing and I'll never forget him. And Roger, out of all of the speakers that day, she was the only person who I remembered what she said.

And It really was one of those moments as a young 22 year old, fresh out of undergrad. I was like, that's it. That's what it's all about. Because all of those awards and accolades that my dad strived so hard to get, and I don't mean to diminish those at all. Those all go into a box. It was the people that he impacted, the relationships that he made, that that really is the imprint and the legacy that you leave.

And so if you think about it as a young 22 year old kind of getting out and getting started, that really has framed my thinking, my philosophy, and how I've sort of continued to navigate the rest of my career. 

Roger: That story is such a powerful reminder of the power of human connection. 

[00:08:43] Sometimes you just need to be told that you’re loved, and mean it.
Kellee: I was on a recent plane, plane trip, and I was sitting next to a gentleman, uh, epidemiologist from NIH.

I said, how cool is that? I said, he worked with, uh, with one of the doctors that you all would be familiar with that helped with the COVID 19 stuff. And they were like, Oh, that's cool. And I said, yeah. And he, I said, he told me this very interesting story about being on a plane that got stuck on a tarmac for several hours and that, you know, people get a little anxious and upset about being stuck on a tarmac.

And he said that the flight attendant. every 10 minutes or 15 minutes would come on the PA and say, you know, give an update. And at the end of the announcement would say, love you, mean it. And I said, here is this seasoned epidemiologist. And he said, you know, at first I was a little uncomfortable. He said, it became quite comforting to know that every 10 or 15 minutes That we were going to get this announcement and that at the end of the announcement That this guy was going to say love you mean it and he said and then it was amazing He said this 300 plus plane packed full of irritated and frustrated people which could have been very chaotic was just calm and everyone was getting along and And he said it was the most amazing thing i'd ever seen and I just think in organizational systems And I, you know, I'm not the expert on any of this stuff, Roger, I do know that sometimes people just need to be told that they're loved and that you mean it.

[00:10:47] Love has a place in all Human Systems
Roger: The word love is not used enough in our work relationships at all. And I think obviously it's clear. You bring love into the work that you do and how you attend to your, the leaders and the coaches and the teams that you work with. And I think it's apparent in, in, in, um, the office when we're working with people, when people are bringing a sense of love to the work, to the relationships.

Um, and yet we, we don't acknowledge that. And that's, that's an interesting contrast that if we're paying attention to it, we can see it everywhere. Um, but we don't call it what it is. I love that idea of labeling it. And then that, that extra kicker of mean it. Yeah, sort of great. The love you probably like snaps people to attention and the mean, it just seals the deal.

[00:11:45] What Do You Know To Be True?
 So I also love that you have been paying attention to my needs enough to know that I was going to ask, what do you know to be true? And so you just went and answered it anyway, without asking, without waiting for me to ask it. So I love that. But what have you believed early on about paying attention that you've come to learn is not true.

Kellee: Technology is never going to solve what ills the human heart.

It's just not. And again, I'm a big proponent of technology. I've worked with some of the, I think, you know, my background is in intelligence and defense. So I don't want people to walk away and say, Oh, she's just a big softy, you know, because I am, but I have worked, I have, and I think, you know, this, I have worked with, you know, some of the, um, you know, highest levels of our government and, um, some of the most sophisticated technologies that are out there.

And I'm a big fan of all of those. And even in those organizations, unless you attend to the people that comprise the systems, they're just never going to be what they are. We're spiritual beings living in a human experience, right? And I, that is what I believe to be true, right? We're really spiritual beings that are just here for a brief moment.

And, um, I think if we peel the layers back, we can make that connection with each other. 

[00:13:16] love you mean it mean it right.
Roger: Okay, love you mean it mean it right. 

Kellee: Yeah!