Crystal Castille-Cromedy is the SVP of Talent and Head of HR Americas for Hines. She managed to perform well in her career for over 25 years by setting boundaries, knowing when to say no, and never letting herself be consumed by work. Joining Adam Markel, Crystal explains how to build a healthy workplace culture that allows everyone to set boundaries for themselves and feel free to work comfortably. She explains how leaders must actively show the path to success and create an environment where anyone can succeed and thrive. Crystal also emphasizes the importance of providing consistent feedback to your team and having those crucial conversations to guide them toward further improvement and growth.
Show Notes:
- 00:00:47 – Introducing Crystal Castille-Cromedy Of Hines
- 00:05:04 – Setting The Right Boundaries And Saying No
- 00:18:59 – Choose Someone To Be Your Technical Mentor
- 00:24:31 – Modeling Vs. Permission
- 00:29:41 – Creating A Psychologically Safe Work Environment
- 00:36:52 – Facing And Navigating Change
- 00:41:37 – Get In Touch With Crystal And Episode Wrap-up
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Setting Boundaries With Crystal Castille-Cromedy
I’m so thrilled to be in the seat for my guest. She is amazing. Her name is Crystal Castille-Cromedy, and she is the SVP of Talent and Head of HR Americas for Hines. Crystal is an HR exec with more than 25 years of experience across a range of industries and markets. You are going to find out very quickly how astute this person is, how intelligent, dialed in, and sensitive, and has a tremendous awareness and understanding of what’s happening in the workplace. Sit back, relax, and enjoy my conversation with Crystal.
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Introducing Crystal Castille-Cromedy Of Hines
Crystal, you have an impressive CV. I read a lot of them. I meet a lot of people, and I’m impressed. I know a lot of the people that are reading this are going, “She’s got a lot of things she’s done. She’s a person to be in the seat that she’s in,” and all that good stuff. My question is related to your bio. What’s not part of the bio? There are a million things, but what’s one thing that isn’t in your introduction that you would love for people to know about you?
Thank you so much for having me here. The question I get all the time is, “How do you do it?” What’s not in the bio is that I’m a wife of more than 30 years. I have children. I have three kids. They’re thirty-two, thirty, and twenty-three. One of the questions I get is, “You don’t have kids in their 30s.” I’m like, “Yes, I do.” That’s a compliment that I love.
The question about, “How do you do it? How have you done it?” That’s a loaded question. You don’t wake up one day having done it. Without peeling all the layers of my psychology, all those different things, how I was raised, my upbringing, and my parents, there is something about perseverance and resilience that is part of that story for me.
I wake up every day self-motivated and energized to be better than I was the day before. Part of that means I have to unpack and break down what my challenges are. How can I be prepared and ready for those challenges? How do I do so in a way that’s the most productive and proactive for myself, my family, and those that I care about, like my friends? That’s what’s missing. It’s the how. Your CV can look backward and tell you about all of your accomplishments, but they don’t necessarily tell you what you had to experience in order to get there.
You confirmed or reaffirmed for me why I wanted to have you on the show. Bravo, and thank you. I want to lean into that now, too, to get a sense because I’m also a parent and have kids in a similar age proximity. How did you do it? There are a million things day-to-day, but can you chunk down your philosophy on some level of how you were able to be a mom and a wife, have an epic career that is still ongoingly productive, add value in the world and all that while you’re also taking care of other humans that needed a lot of care?
I’m the youngest of four, so there is something about the picking order in which you grew up. You have a type of imprint on the adult or the responsible human you’re going to be. It is because of that that I felt like I had to do a lot on my own. It was very important to me growing up that I could achieve things on my own without needing help. Honestly, that’s how I approach my relationships, marriage, and parenthood. I’m like, “I could do it on my own.”
One of the things I had to learn, and also after some good advice, was to ask for help. That was a hard thing for me to do. It’s one thing to say, “I understand how important help is,” but it’s another thing to practice that. Doing so made a difference for me, whether that was asking my husband for more help, asking for family members to lean in, or asking friends for advice or other things that I thought I should be self-sufficient at. I had to learn that I didn’t have to be. Some of us wear a superwoman complex with us. There is a mask that we live with every day. I’m not saying that I don’t have that mask now. It’s not the same mask that it used to be. It serves a different purpose.
That’s one of the things that I try to implement in my life. Where could I use some help? I don’t have to necessarily be between a rock and a hard place to need help. Something that would be helpful to help me go further and to explore other possibilities and maximize my potential is something that I did. It’s a game-changer when you think about juggling multiple things at one time, especially if you’re trying to grow a career, grow a family, and grow a marriage. Those are all three very distinct different things.
Setting The Right Boundaries And Saying No
They are. In this show, we sometimes talk holistically about resilience and change. It gets into the area of all the things that are personal, like relationships, parenting, health, etc. It is primarily a show designed to talk about work, and in that context, discuss this chunk of our lives that we spend working. I’m going to ask you. When it comes to asking for help, if they’ve got a spouse or a partner, they can understand how it might be difficult, even with that upbringing and programming, to be like, “I’m going to ask that person in my life for help,” at the risk of seeming weak, seeming vulnerable, or not being all the things that you make yourself up to be.
I can see that people would also be thinking that at work, it’s different to be vulnerable, be weak, or have somebody’s view of me change because somehow, I don’t have all the answers, etc., especially as a leader. My question to you is, can you say more about that and maybe even provide some anecdote or an instance where you did that at work, even though that was A) Not your instinct to do, and B) It’s work and it’s a different context there?
I’ve got two examples, if that’s okay. I’ll take you through. This is still under the same umbrella of being vulnerable and asking for help. At work, you want people to feel or think that you’re self-sufficient, that you can get things done. I agree that asking for help in various situations may be different. However, at work, there are two real pivotal pieces of advice or moments that mattered in my development.
One, the best piece of advice I’ve ever gotten from a leader at work was to create boundaries. It’s not the most earth-shattering piece of advice in the sense that you’ve heard of it before, but the difference-maker for me was probably because of where I was at that stage of my career. Early in my career, I was certainly trying to climb that ladder. I was at a pivotal moment with respect to my growth potential.
I was getting ready to move to the UK because I was being considered for an expat assignment. The advice came on at the beginning of, “If you get this opportunity, you’re going to have to create some boundaries for yourself. You cannot do it all, and even if you can do it all, you shouldn’t do it all.” I thought, “That’s an affront to my ethos.” I’m very self-sufficient. I can get it done. I’m reliable. You can call me at any time. I will respond to you two seconds later. You can count on me.
It took a while for me to appreciate that sage advice. That’s exactly what it was because it got to a point where I was like, “I can’t keep this up.” Even if I wanted to, I realized, “I shouldn’t keep it up because there are going to be costs somewhere else. I’m going to drop something else. That’s not the reputation that I want for myself.”
I started to practice setting boundaries, which I wasn’t successful at the first time out. I would carve out time in my calendar, I’d try to tell people no, or whatever the case may be. I would not take calls after a certain time of day. When you work in a global role as I did before, it’s very tough to say, “I’m turning off the clock,” but you have to understand what the opportunity cost is and what the real cost is to you as a performer.
That’s one piece of advice that I would give anyone. That is a real example of why setting boundaries is so important. Even if you’re not perfect at it the first time out the gate, you have to keep trying. You’ve got to build that muscle. You’ve got to create the habits that are going to work for you. It has served me well thereafter.
Even if you are not perfect at your work the first time out the gate, keep trying and continue building that muscle. You have to create habits that will serve you well. Share on X
We’re going to get to the second one, but I want to know more about this one, from the standpoint of where you failed at that. I don’t think that that’s widely given advice, at least not in my world and having researched this for a while, that a leader or others would say, “Create boundaries,” in part because boundaries are difficult, especially among high achievers. It’s one of those paradoxes, I suppose. Where did you fail at doing that? How did you correct and continue?
I’ll tell you. It’s a funny story. It is a catch-22 because, on one hand, as a high achiever, you want to build a rapport and a reputation for when people think of you, you’re like, “This is what I want them to think. I want them to know I’m a strong member of the team, a member of the team that they can’t do without, reliable, responsible, and all of that.”
I remember one time, one of my leaders contacted me at 10:00 or 11:00 at night. It was a very strong relationship I had with this person. He could call me anytime. It was a mature relationship where I didn’t have to make excuses, and he didn’t have to make excuses. If he needed something, he didn’t have to ask me how my weekend was first or whatever.
He emailed me at 10:00 or 11:00 at night. I responded and went to bed. The next day, he goes, “How’s it going?” I’m like, “Pretty good.” He goes, “I sent you a request.” I go, “I responded.” He goes, “Did you read your response?” I’m like, “Yes, I’m pretty sure I read it.” He goes, “I don’t think so. It was gobbly-goop.” I go, “What do you mean?” I had to go back and read it, and it was illegible. There was a sentence structure, but I can’t tell you what I was trying to say.
That was a moment that, quite honestly, I was lucky that it was him and not some other person. I questioned whether or not I would’ve responded to another person. That was a moment for me where I said, “I was tired.” I had been up most of the night, working on some things, cranking it out, burning the midnight oil, and demonstrating that I’m a hard worker.
Everything you said is a positive spin on workaholism or whatever you want to call it.
Call it what you want.
Determination.
The catch 22. At that moment, I said, “I’ll never do that again.” What is that? It could be a number of things. It’s not just about not responding late in the evening, working myself to the point where I was working late in the evening. I was tired. I should have gone to bed hours ago. It’s prioritizing my rest and other things to make me better so I can be my best. I had to make an excuse about why I showed up that way, and I didn’t like it at all. Not only am I a workaholic, but I am my own worst critic when it comes to my work product and other things.
That was a point where I said, “I won’t do that again. What do I need to do so that I protect myself from being in that vulnerable space?” I didn’t like it. At the same time, I was able to eventually laugh about it and say, “I’m not superwoman. What am I trying to be again? We all make mistakes. Don’t worry. I won’t do that again. If you do see something from me like that, know to give me a little space. It was great not only for our relationship. It wasn’t the worst thing in the world to happen, but it was an awakening of sorts.
Is there a trigger to catch yourself?
Yeah.
In many ways, we’re baked the way we are. By being self-aware and not self-unaware, we have the ability to recognize when we fall into a pattern. We found our little needle in the groove of the record, and it’s skipping in that same spot. You go, “Maybe I haven’t done it in ten years, but there I am again.”
I have those moments. For me, one of the things that I continue to work at is choosing time over attention. I’m very specific about what requires my time versus what requires my attention. What requires my attention may take a little bit longer. I need more headspace. I need to think a little longer sometimes versus things that I can very quickly do. I try to separate it that way, and that helps govern how fast I respond to something or not.
Certainly, the things that I need to think about longer, I intentionally do not respond even if I have an answer. I don’t respond immediately. If I don’t respond immediately, I’m very purposeful in why I haven’t done that. That creates a space where I am setting expectations for others about what they can expect from me. You may have heard an old saying about teaching people how to treat you. That’s what the principles are that I put in place.
Setting Boundaries: By not responding immediately, you are creating a space to set expectations for others about what they can expect from you.
Other things, if I can respond quickly, move on, and it’s out of my head, then I’ll do that, or I’ll try to delegate that to where the best work is best placed. Sometimes, I’m not the person who’s best place to do the work. I try to be very active in doing that so that people can take the work, learn, grow, and become self-sufficient, which helps me out. I can start focusing on other things. That’s one of the things I do. I purposefully do not respond immediately to everything.
That sounds to me like great communication. I’m saying that on purpose because in our work, the work at WorkWell, and even in my keynote speaking and the work I do with organizations in that regard, I see a lot of poor communication. I see ineffective communication from people who could simply help other people to understand, train, and teach them the ABCs of me so that the communication is much more effective because it’s clear. If they know, for example, “If it’s something that’s going to require my focus and attention, it’s going to take me longer to respond as opposed to something that I might be able to tick off quickly.”
I’m a fan of when somebody sends me an email and I know I’m not going to get to it because I’ve got to, first of all, read it, digest it, and come up with a thoughtful response which is how I am, too, I will say, “Received,” and sometimes, “Thank you. I’ll get back to you.” Sometimes, I might say, “I’m not going to probably get to this. I’ll get back to you for a week,” if it’s, “We need to have a conversation.” That takes ten seconds.
My path in life is to be more patient with myself and with other people. Even when I hear people say, “I’m buried in my emails,” I’m like, “If you saw what email looks like, I don’t know how buried you could be.” Sometimes, it’s a matter of going through them and going, “Not now.” It’s not good communication when other people don’t know that that’s your process or you haven’t told them, “Thank you. Got it. I’ll get back to you.” What does that take to close a loop and create that clean communication versus the ghosting or the silence that often exists? Are you seeing that? Do you see that in and among your peers, too?
It’s a couple of different things. One is stakeholder management. It is good etiquette, so to speak, or good stakeholder management to acknowledge when someone sent you something that you received it, or say, “I’m going on vacation. I can’t get to this until next week. This person can help you in the interim.” You don’t forego those things. You need to do that. I agree with you. That’s strong communication, and not everyone does it.
Believe me. I practiced this. I flunk at it, too, sometimes because I’m picking my battles. If I know that I’m meant to be on vacation and I’ve gotten out of office and it already says that I’m not available, and something comes through, I need to let other people handle it. Business will manage. They’ll manage without me. I also need to let other people know that they can make decisions without me. That’s an example of where I’m like, “I can let that ride. You already have my automatic response because you know I’m out of town.”
When I’m okay and something’s very urgent, and I need to pipe in, so that because I see things spinning and not necessarily getting resolved, then I might pick and choose when to inject myself into the conversation. At the same time, I’m still giving you an idea that I’m not going to respond to you two seconds after you sent me a note. You have to learn that.
I haven’t gotten to the second point yet. A lot of people, for example, think that setting boundaries means saying no. It’s one thing under the boundary umbrella, but it is not the only tool in the boundary umbrella, although an important one. Sometimes, no means, “Maybe not at the moment,” or, “When do you need this?” or, “I can do this by Friday. Is that okay?”
It is that versus, “I don’t think I’m the best placed person. I’d like to put you with the person who is the best-placed person to get this done. You can move on, and things can continue to sell.” To me, it’s okay to say no or no-ish. The younger you are in your career, you may feel like you can’t say no, that that’s going to be somehow career-limiting because you said no. To me, it’s the art of saying no. There’s more than one way to say no.
Choosing Someone To Be Your Technical Mentor
I’m going to become your agent here because there are two great titles for a book, a podcast, or a keynote. One is No-ish. No-ish is killer, and The Art of Saying No, which maybe there’s a book title with that already. You gave us so much right there. I would love to get to that second example, and then I want to trail back to one other thing regarding the example that you set in some of those behaviors that you were sharing with us as well.
Do you want me to get to the second point?
Yeah, you could.
Your question originally was, “How do you do it? How do you get it done?” I said, “You need help.” One of the things that I do, both for myself and people whom I supervise, is to select someone at the firm who would be my technical mentor. It’s all about growth. A technical mentor for me would be someone not in my field. It would be someone directly in the business who understands how a certain aspect of the business works, not in my discipline whatsoever.
It is so that I can continue to learn how the business works and operates, so I can then align our people’s strategy and priorities with that of the business. I won’t be able to do that unless I understand how the company makes money, how the company loses money, how it’s placed in the industry, who our competitors are, what makes it tick, and what drives down performance or other metrics for success.
I’ve never met a person in business who didn’t want to teach someone else about the business. No one’s ever said no to me. It’s not about because I’m so special or I have this winning personality. Most people want to teach. Most people enjoy that others are genuinely interested in what they do, their understanding of the firm, the value that is created, and their ability to articulate that helps someone else.
Every role I get, I’m sizing people up to be my technical mentor. What that means for me is if you’re my technical mentor and I know that we are in meetings together, I might intentionally sit next to you or sit where you and I can make eye contact because there could be topics, acronyms, or whatever the case may be that I don’t understand.
I’m not in a position to be comfortable enough to say, “Stop. Can you tell me what that means?” or, “Stop. Can you tell me why that’s important?” I don’t want to slow down the flow of progress in a meeting necessarily, but I might be able to text you and ask you what IRR means or what some other abbreviation means. You are giving me the safe space and cover to respond to me. You’re not judging me and saying, “You should know that,” or, “It’s over your head. It’s too complicated. I’ll tell you later,” but you are giving me the time and space to oblige where I need to learn.
I’ve learned the most about organizations and business. A lot of times, it’s those things that you won’t get from reading some annual report, quarterly report, or whatever it is. That person who’s going to sit down and explain it to you in a safe way is invaluable. It’s one of the things that I suggest for people at any stage of their career. You don’t have to be junior, starting out, or trying to get a promotion, whatever that next one is. You’re never too old or too experienced to learn something.
You are never too old or never too experienced to learn something. Share on X
From a humility standpoint, I have a few that may not know that they’re my mentors, but they’re the ones that I align myself with. I sit close to them or close enough where I can nudge them. If immediately after a meeting there is something I didn’t get, they’re safe educators for me to make sure that I’m constantly growing and increasing my understanding.
I was thinking to myself that somebody is reading here, no matter what phase they are in their career, that could probably benefit from what you said. If somebody’s reading this and going, “I don’t think I need a mentor or I could benefit from a mentor,” there is probably a bigger issue involved. Honestly, if you get to the place where you feel like you can’t learn from the people around you, you probably ought to either make a change. There should be a pivot that’s in the offering, probably. How did you ask? This is for anybody who’s thinking, “If I were going to select somebody to be my technical mentor, somebody outside of my functional area.” Was there a way that you approached asking for that? You’re creating a relationship there, and that’s delicate.
I could roleplay it with you. I would say, “Adam, I’ve watched you in the organization and how people regard you. You know a lot about this organization. I respect your perspective. You have a way about you that I like, and that will foster a lot of growth for me. Where I have a shortcoming is understanding some of these technical aspects about the business.
I don’t want to interrupt, but at the same time, I’d be a lot further along if I had a safe person to oblige me and my goofy questions, or even have coffee every once in a while to make sure I’m clear and understanding, and help me understand some of these personalities that I don’t know yet. I want to navigate them well, and you seem to be skilled at that. With that in mind, I’d love for you to be my technical mentor. What do you think about that?”
I don’t know how anybody would ever say no to that. That is brilliant. Somebody’s going to be like, “I need to get this transcribed. I’m going to say it exactly the way Crystal said it.” It’s not even so much the words. It’s the tone. It’s the way that you roleplayed that. Humility is a wonderful word. I don’t know that a lot of people quite understand exactly how to utilize humility as almost like a superpower versus the arrogance or the ego that a lot of people think they need to have more confidence and be the one to take all the oxygen out of the room, and that’s how they’ll get noticed in advance. There’s a lot of misguided information about leadership or about what it takes to succeed.
Modeling Vs. Permission
When it comes to things like setting boundaries, what you were saying was there are a lot of people who are in management roles, whether they’re senior level or they’re more junior, where part of what they have done to succeed is to be that person who will run through a wall for the organization, for their leader, or for whoever, and seems to have no limit to their capacity, are tireless, and so on.
When I’m working with some of those leaders, or often the people that those leaders lead, I will say, “Our philosophy isn’t to change you. If that’s worked for you, Crystal, I would never say, “Don’t do that. You should change because other people are getting the wrong message.” Contrary to that, what I say or how we come at it is that it’s less about modeling what the behaviors are that might help to create a more sustainable, high-performing workforce, rather than allowing for permission. That’s the place that is the area of growth for a leader that they may not be thinking about. It’s a blind spot.
For example, your comfort level and where you’ve succeeded is, “I’m first in and last to go.” That’s how you operate, and that’s fine. If everybody else thinks by your example that, “That’s the road to success around here,” or, “This is the way that you do it, so this is certainly the way I’ll be expected to do it,” that’s where the problem occurs in not allowing for a permission by assuming somehow that people would think that they have permission to go to their kids’ dance recital and miss something, like staying late one evening. It might be that they’re not taking their PTO or whatever it might be. They’re doing it differently than they would otherwise do it.
This is an important point in the Millennial and Gen Z demographics. They’ve clearly indicated the things that lead to burnout that we’re seeing signs of, the anxiety at levels that haven’t been recorded in the workplace before, or anything like that. They are more vocal about the thing you called boundaries earlier, and that’s a bit misunderstood by older leaders. I wanted to get your thoughts on this idea of modeling versus permission.
If I synthesize the examples that you talked through, it is the battle of the generations at the end of the day. It’s, “This is how I came up. If it was good enough for me, you’ve got to go through it. You’ll be fine,” versus the younger generation saying, “Not necessarily. I don’t need to go through everything you went through to get to the same place. I have different tools that you didn’t have.
There’s probably not been such a focus on mental health, work-life balance, and other things today as there was generations prior to this one.” We come from a different approach, but we all want the balance. I don’t think there’s anyone out there who does not want the balance. If they could manage the balance, they would manage the balance. That’s the big difference. It’s a difference from a generational standpoint.
Setting Boundaries: There has not been such a focus on mental health and work-life balance than today’s generation.
I mentioned to you that I have 30-something and 20-something kids. In my household, there are four generations. My husband is nine years older than I am. He’s technically a Baby Boomer. I’m Gen X, and then I’ve got Millennials and Gen Y. It’s no different from a needs and wants perspective when it comes to the workplace. We still generally want the same things. It’s our mindset on how we may want to get there or what matters to us along the journey of how we get there.
There is some truth to that, but what people need to focus on is the how. If we all know or can assume that we want the same things, we have to learn to have some mutual respect about how we get there. You’re like, “It may be different than how I got there. The way I got there isn’t the only way to get there.” If you can do it smarter, faster, or otherwise, great. If it takes you longer, slower, or more methodically, that’s great for you. Do not put so much judgment on that, but focus much more on the intended outcome.
That’s normally how I govern myself when I work with people. It doesn’t matter what our differences are. We probably have more similarities than we have differences anyway. It’s getting to that ethos of, “What is it that you want?” and, “How can I help you be successful?” I’ve also had to learn not to project my own goals for people on other people who don’t want those same goals. That’s a big lesson.
You see a lot of potential in people. You may see some of yourself in those people, other past performers, or high potentials in others. You think, “You can do this,” and they don’t think they can do it. A lot of times, they may not want it. Instead of forcing what you think that potential is, as leaders, we have to listen. It’s our job to make sure that we’re maximizing those unique qualities and skills in individual people versus a one-size-fits-all cookie-cutter type of approach. If you don’t invest in those individual relationships, you won’t maximize your people’s potential.
Creating A Psychologically Safe Work Environment
I’m going to pivot into a different area for a few minutes here before we wrap up. How important is a psychologically safe work environment to the culture of the organization? Part B to the question, is there some intentional way that you’ve gone about or that you’ve had an impact on creating more psychological safety in the workplaces that you’ve been part of?
First of all, to answer your question, psychological safety is very important. You want people to feel like they can be themselves and that they can speak up, not just when things are wrong, but also when things go right, so that you know what you should focus on more of and less of, or whatever the case may be. You want people to feel like they can be themselves.
As a leader, I do want people to feel as though they can come to me if they do have concerns, and if not, they should be able to go to someone else if they have concerns but feel like they can’t come to me. I don’t have an ego about that at all, and I know that that’s not necessarily the case with everyone. Most people feel like, “Why didn’t you come to me?”
Psychological safety is important. The balance to that, though, is that people are there to work, so we have a work relationship. We are here for, ideally, a common goal, which is to produce X, exceed Y, or whatever the case may be. As leaders do have the right to manage the work of other people, give them feedback, and all of those different things, I still anchor on the how. It’s not just about what you’re saying about whether or not someone’s right or wrong. It is the how, and you’re thoughtful about what would it take for this person to, one, get the message, and, in a very constructive and proactive way, make the changes that they need to make or do more of what we want to see more of in order to even to go even further?
To me, as a leader, you have to practice on the how. It is about the how. That may seem like, “That’s a lot of work. I have ten people below me. I got to have all these ten conversations and learn.” That’s a lot of how-ing, but it is a difference-maker. People feel safer, more of a sense of trust, more of a sense of speaking up and belonging, and all these different things that you want, so that you know what the culture is.
The company doesn’t set the culture on its own. It’s the people who set the culture. It’s leadership. Every time a senior leader leaves your organization, it impacts the culture. Every time you hire more employees, it impacts the culture. The company can say, “Our culture is X,” but the people set the culture. How you treat them is important.
The company does not set the culture on its own. It is the people and the leadership who set the culture. Share on X
I feel like we should have some voice of God thing that goes, “Duh,” but it’s not a duh. We certainly see that that’s not the case. In fact, one of the things that I see more in some organizations, and we will not name any names, is politeness within the culture. Politeness is a nice word for what’s going on that we’ve seen, which is avoidance of crucial conversations. You smiled right there. I already can tell that you don’t have any issues in having crucial conversations. I know that about you.
You said how. You’ve said it so many times. Can you share anything around your philosophy around creating an environment where we’re not avoiding those conversations, and yet we’re still respecting people? There’s still this safety. You used the word balance, and I might say harmony, even. There’s the safety that people have to show up, be themselves, and not fear. In other words, they have trust, which ultimately allows for better communication. How do you do that if there’s this avoidance of having those difficult conversations with folks?
Do you mind if I share a story where I counseled someone in the same situation? You’re right. Being too nice or polite is not because we want to be nice and polite. It is more of a self-reflection of not wanting to confront conflict, having someone upset at us, someone not taking the news the way that we would hope that they would take it, or whatever the situation is.
I remember at a time at a firm, I was sitting in on a performance review with a manager and his employee. The employee was upset because everything that was written in that performance review, she thought, “We never talked about these things. I’m disappointed. I feel a bit ambushed here that you’ve raised all these things. You’ve got HR in the room. You know what’s going on.” The manager said, “Remember that time when I talked to you about X?” or, “Remember that time when I talked to you about Y?” The point is they were going back and forth about, “I didn’t realize that it was such an issue,” kind of thing.
Once we concluded with that particular employee, I did ask the manager. I said, “She raised some good points about not being aware of certain things. Did you have this particular conversation? Did you tell her these words?” He said, “No.” I said, “Why not?” He goes, “I thought that I would hurt her feelings. I thought she would cry. I thought that that wasn’t going to be a productive conversation.” I said, “What happened today?” He goes, “I hurt her feelings and she cried.”
The point was that it was all for nothing then. How someone reacts and responds can’t be the precursor to whether you are going to have an honest conversation with someone. As a matter of fact, you don’t do them a service. You do them a disservice by not having an honest conversation. Not only honest, but timely.
None of us is perfect. There are things that all of us can do to improve the way we perform and the way we show up. We all have blinders. We all have biases about how we are perceived and how we perceive others. None of us is above reproach. As a manager, you have to have those conversations in a timely manner. That helps people be a lot more open to feedback as opposed to, “Six months ago, you did or didn’t do X, Y, and Z. Now, it’s showing up in some written documentation.” There’s no sense of trust there. They’re defensive.
As a manager, you’re not doing your job, in my opinion, about handling that in a better way. Not all managers are perfect. Not all employees are perfect. There are so many tools in the toolkit for treating people how you would want to be treated. Some people call that the golden rule. If it were you having a performance issue and you didn’t know, wouldn’t you want someone to tell you, “This is how you’re showing up,” and then you can decide how you may course correct or not? Giving people that sense of common courtesy is important.
We have the right to manage people’s work and get it done. Part of that is timely, honest, and direct feedback. It is about the how, but there is a way that you can connect the how with someone’s performance that needs improvement. That still gets us back on track on the same track, going the same direction, pointing our arrows all in the same direction, and moving on. If things don’t work out from there, you want to be able to say, “I’ve tried a number of different ways. This is what I was hoping to achieve.” You never want anyone to feel surprised.
Facing And Navigating Change
I can’t tell you how many contractors I’ve said that to before signing onto an estimate. I’m like, “No surprises.” The only thing you’re ever going to hear anything from me about is if I get surprised. As we conclude this, I’m going to go back to a conversation that you and I were having before we hit record. For the people out there, I want you to not miss anything. It’s not going to end up on the cutting room floor. I’d love to get your sense, and this is a more general question about change.
The time that we’re recording this, people are consuming this tremendous change. My own philosophy, based on our research and having been writing about this topic for so long, the greatest constant in the universe, ironically, is change. That’s the great constant. Things will change, and they have to have changed because it’s the law of nature. It’s the law of evolution. The things that don’t change, stagnate, and then ultimately, entropy occurs. In other words, they disintegrate. They die.
We have to continue to change, and yet it still catches people off guard. It’s still shocking almost to the sense that the velocity of change is only increasing. Before we even began officially recording, we were talking about change and change management. I know you have views on that. Would you share some of your philosophy around change and the process of change for those who are reading this and are immersed in it to one degree or another?
Sure. Thank you for letting me circle back on this topic. Change management, in general, is going to make or break whatever change initiative that’s going on in the workplace. There is a lot of documentation behind this. Projects that skip change management as an intentional element of their project plan have a much higher chance of failing than those that do. It is so important to make sure you’re thinking about the impact of change on work, processes, people, behaviors, and outcomes.
Setting Boundaries: Projects that skip on change management as an intentional element of their plan have a higher chance of failing than those that do.
You cannot leave it to chance without being very deliberate about what that impact is going to be and the impact you’d like to see. It’s an opportunity to make sure you leave no stone unturned about where change shows up. You don’t know everything. You can’t think of everything. You need people, change agents, champions, and others to help you fully understand the implications of decisions that are made.
I can’t say enough about how important change management is as a broader discipline, whether you’re going through a small change, a big change, a global change, or whatever it is in your industry. It is agnostic of whatever field you’re in or part of the business that you may operate in. I’m a fan. I consider myself a change agent, not just if it’s a big project, but pausing and thinking, “What’s the implication, who else do we need to talk to? Who is the expert? How do we mitigate these things? What are we not thinking about? Who are we not talking to? What voices have I not heard? Who will care? Who won’t care?” Stream it together. I’m sure there’s more. This notion of change and the mindset of change are critical to any endeavor.
I’ll sit here, beam, and talk about change for another hour if you want to, but it gives me a lot of energy to think about the benefits. A lot of people fight it. Sometimes, as adults, we fight our instincts. That gut instinct is still always right. That’s how I feel some people approach change, change management, and how important it is. Don’t fight the gut. We need to pause, think, and give it proper space and diligence for any project that we’re facing.
It almost sounds like there’s a synergy. I’m thinking if we took a page out of your book. For the book Change Proof, that’s the structure. Pause, ask, and choose. What I love so much about how you shared that was the fact that you gave us so many questions. The pause is this great moment to get neutral, get present, and all that important stuff that so often we skip.
The asking the questions part is so profound. You keep going on. You only scratch the surface of them, like, “What don’t I see?” There are so many questions there. My own philosophy about this is that you can’t ask a question without getting an answer. I operate my life on the premise that you ask a question, you receive an answer. I don’t know what the timing is because sometimes, you ask a deep, very involved question, and maybe you’re not going to get an answer right away.
Get In Touch With Crystal And Episode Wrap-up
I’ve not had an instance where asking a question didn’t lead to an answer. Not doing that creates so much more area for blind spots and mistakes than moving through the process that you outlined. I could also spend another hour or more talking to you. Maybe we’ll do a part two. For now, we’re going to wrap things up. Thank you so much. I know I’ve got a lot going on. I appreciate your time so much. I know our audience has enjoyed it tremendously. Are you active on LinkedIn? I didn’t look.
I’m active.
That’s good. I would hate to think that somehow or another that the wonderful Hines Company was the only one that was receiving the benefits of your wisdom. I feel that strongly from you. Thank you for your time.
I appreciate it.
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I could speak to Crystal for hours. I’m intuiting that you loved what she was sharing. I got to tell you. After we ended our recording, I said to her, “You’ve got to get out there and share more of your history, experience, and wisdom on these topics because in the world of work, it can be confusing. There can be a lot of loud voices, and a lot of voices that maybe even don’t carry that much weight in terms of how tangible what they’re saying is, how applicable, and how usable it is in the lives of leaders and even in those of us that might be in a different space.”
I loved that conversation. I loved how tangible and practical it was. I loved the nuances to what Crystal was sharing with us about so many different areas of the world of work, including how it is that we think about boundaries, how we are able to work on them for ourselves, but also use that process for ourselves as a way to give permission and allow the space for other people to also set those boundaries for themselves.
That’s what leaders must do. It’s not just to show the path to success, but also to create an environment where most people that they are around can also succeed, even if that success looks different. All of us want to be fulfilled, and all of us want to add value in the world and have meaningful work lives. The path to that result of that outcome isn’t all the same. That’s where sometimes people who are leading are leading with blinders on.
I loved listening so much to Crystal’s responses to questions that organically were coming up for me. I loved listening to her thoughts and philosophy around change and the stories that she told, especially that story I loved about her counseling a manager as an HR professional on how to provide feedback and the importance of providing it in a timely way, an authentic way, and an honest way.
Even when there could be a negative reaction from the person who’s being given the feedback that is emotional or somehow difficult, nonetheless, that feedback or honest appraisal has to be provided. It should be provided consistently, not just quarterly or semi-annually, or in some half-baked performance management tool that has you do it once a year. We know that those things are not effective. People feel blindsided. They feel ambushed in those moments.
It is having those crucial conversations and those wonderful conversations, too, because feedback doesn’t just mean providing somebody with a clue as to how they’re missing the mark, but rather as an opportunity also for celebrating success. We all know, for the most part, that when feedback is given, it’s mostly a critique of what’s not working and very rarely is it a celebration of what is working.
There are a lot of wonderful takeaways. If this also resonated with you, please share this episode with a colleague, a friend, or a family member, even. Let us know by leaving a comment at AdamMarkel.com/podcast. If you would take the few moments that it does take to leave a review, whether it’s a 3-star, 4-star, or 5-star appraisal of this episode and of the show on the platform that you consume this, that’s super helpful. It helps the algorithm to help us. It helps us get help from the algorithm, something that we otherwise can’t control.
Thank you so much for taking the time to do that if you’re willing. I want to thank you for being a part of this community. Thank you for tuning in. Hopefully, you’ll tune in for many more of our episodes. They tend to be great conversations. This conversation was no exception to that. Thank you again. Ciao for now.
Important Links
About Crystal Castille-Cromedy
Currently the SVP of Talent and Head of HR Americas for Hines, Crystal is an HR exec with more than 25 years of experience in across a range of industries and markets.
