WHY Not Wednesday with Laura Crothers

These last few years have made us question everything.

Our relationships.

Our jobs.

What constitutes an.

Office.

And who we are.

In a.

World filled with chaos, confusion and uncertainty. It's time for some clarity. It's time to start understanding one another.

It's time to start understanding ourselves.

We envision a world where everyone knows their why. But even more, we envision a world where everyone knows their why Os, their why, their how, and their what. The operating system that drives you, that lets the world know where you stand.

What your unique gift is, and most importantly, who you are.

Yos.

Are you ready?

Hello, everyone and welcome to why Not Wednesday. I am so excited to introduce all of you today to Laura Crothers, who is a consultant, a coach, a speaker and a human resource expert. She founded Crothers Consulting in 2010 to support support leaders in achieving organizational and strategic clarity. She's grown from a single shingle to a team of 25. She and her team successfully guide business leaders and HR executives, providing a clear vision as they face the many HR and leadership challenges associated with growing their company or engaging in mergers and acquisitions. She is known for her fast paced, creative and practical solutions in all areas of hr. She developed her leadership style through her years in human resource leaderships with leadership roles with McGraw Hill AT&T ADP, Merrill Lynch, EverBank and Shearson Lehman Brothers. That is one heck of a background. Laura, congratulations and welcome to why Not Wednesday. How are you?

I'm great, Dan. Thanks for having me.

I'm so excited to have you and share your wisdom with with Wine Nation. You know, Laura, we, we had a chance to meet. Gosh, it's been, it's been a while and you are always so busy and I'm so thankful to that you made time to meet Y Nation with us today. I know you've got a lot going on and you've also had some work with one of our coaches, Lisa Schermerhorn, who came and presented to one of your organizations. We'll definitely have to hear a little bit about that. But Laura, the. The way we start every show is we start with your why operating system. So your why operating system, Laura, is contribute, make sense and trust. So what we know about people with your yos is they love to make a difference, love to be part of causes that are bigger than themselves and they're always ready to help. So that's contribute your makes sense. What we know is that how you contribute is by helping people make sense of things that are complex and challenging. So as a consultant, that's really, really Good. Right. You help people make sense of things that are probably challenging for them, and that's what you do best. And then ultimately what you bring are solutions that people can trust to do what they, what you say they're going to do. So let's, let's unpack that real quick. How did, how does that fit you?

That kind of fits me perfectly, Dan, because forever I've wanted to just help leaders achieve clarity or anybody around me. So the kind of. To contribute, to help people and make sense. Clarity is around making sense of things. And then as you said, to do any of these things, you need to be a trusted advisor. So it's really important to me that people trust me and that I can trust those around me. So it nailed me. I was like, whoa, that's it.

You know, Laura, one of the things that I didn't mention in the introduction, but that's part of you, is we talk about your candid, down to earth approach that allows you to connect quickly and deeply with people and that's helped you attract some outstanding talent to your team. Do you think your contribute? Is it the contribute and the trust? The fact that, you know, you're. Those are such noble whys. There are nine whys. Those of you that have watched the program know there are nine whys. But contribute is all about helping people. Trust is all about building relationships based on trust. Do you think that's one of your superpowers that helps you, allows you to connect so quickly with people?

So I do. I think, I think it is. I'm one of those people who, I'm standing in the grocery store and for whatever reason, people will pour their hearts out to me, strangers, you know, and then I can try to help them make sense of whatever is going on. So it is, it's, it's important to me. And, and I do believe it. It kind of emanates from me.

So, you know, one of the challenges, by the way, I'm a fellow Contribute. Right. So I'm with you. So, Laura, one of the challenges I know people with the wife contribute have is saying no, because people will come to you and they'll bring. Especially because you have the double whammy of you, you want to contribute and help others and, and you're really good at helping them make sense of things. So people come to you with their problems. How do you choose who to help? And because one of the things I've learned as I talk to smart people like you who are in this business is you're trying to help everybody. You're helping nobody. Right. If you say yes to everything, you're saying no to a lot of things. So how do you build filter so you're not trying to help everyone and spreading yourself thin?

So it took some time to learn that one, Dan. And I think for me now I do very little of the work. My team does most of the work. So having really good people around me that I trust to help people has helped me say no so that I can pass it along. And I'll say to people, look, I've got people on my team who are better than me that can help you with this. So let me introduce you to.

The other thing I've done is increase my rate. So it's a really big number. And that makes people also say, oh, I'll take someone else that helps. And then just setting boundaries. So I've had to set boundaries with lots of things in my life about what I really want to do and where I really want to contribute. And I got a bunch of different ways that I've tried to set boundaries on those things so that I can make.

Choices that make the best sense for me, so that I can impact the things that mean the most to me.

Yes.

And find other people to help others.

That is a great strategy. I like the increasing your rate to the point where, hey, you're only going to do. There's only going to be a very small handful of people that are going to work with you one on one. What about those people in the grocery store? How do you walk away? Right? They, they, you know, you say they pour their heart out to you and then eventually you're probably like, okay, I probably gotta go, right? And this is probably turning into a consult. So how do, how do you, how do you walk away? How do you force yourself out of that? And how do you leave value? Because I think as a contributor, you still want to help a little, right? You, you leave a little value there. So tell me about that.

So. So, you know, I mean, the grocery store was kind of a tongue in cheek example. So like yesterday, for instance, I was on a call with a client who wants executive coaching and a360 for someone, one of their C suite leaders. And they originally wanted me, so I kind of got them off that and then.

Said, you know, here's how we can solve your problem. Here's who can help solve your problem. But let me give you a few tips based on what I've heard that you could do as the leader of this, this person, you know, So I do Try to leave a few tips and a warm introduction to who I'm going to pass off to. You know, I'm going to share with them everything we just went through. So if it's that person in the grocery store, like a friend's friend, you know, can you help my sister's brother's husband? Right? Like one of those, right?

I'll say, you know, I'll give a little bit. And then I'll say, here's our card. And we have, you know, whether it's life coaching or executive coaching, we have people that could really help you. And I'll make a joke and I'll say, you know, if I did this for free for everybody, I'd be fulfilled and I'd be on the street. So this is what my business is. So we need to charge you if you want to continue this conversation.

I love that and I like that you give them a little bit, right? You give them a little bit, you can give them some guidance and there's, you know, and you get what you pay for, right? If you want, Laura, you can, you're gonna get, you know, full, full on all the experience, all those companies we mentioned, you, you cut your teeth on, plus all the experience you have it at Crothers Consulting, that comes about a price, right? And if you, that's not your price, there's, here's some people that are on my team that do it for a little bit less or there's, there are some even, even smaller options. So I like that you can give people some guidance because I know for myself, I can't just walk away and just say, oh, yeah, nope, can't help you. Right? So I love that. The idea of, here, let me give you a little bit and then you decide what it is that you want to do. So, Laura, let's talk a little bit about why did you start your company, your business, 12 years ago?

Yeah, so I started my business as it was a work life balance. Honestly, Dan, I had, you know, had big jobs in some of the companies you name. Then I joined a small, high growth startup and it was, had a really nice balance for a while and all of a sudden it was 80 hours a week again. And I was like, look, I've got young kids and someone once told me a story about glass balls. I don't know if you've heard this one. So I'm just going to kind of tell you this story. This sticks in my head. This leader said to me, look, there's lots of balls that we all juggle and some are made of glass and some are made of rubber. And so.

Your family, your health, things like that are made of glass. And if they're dropped, you can't re reclaim that time with them. You can't reclaim your kids childhood or going to their sporting events. But your career is made of rubber and it can be dropped and it can bounce. And if you're good, you can pick it back up someday. So with that in mind, I stepped off the corporate career track, thinking I'm just gonna hang a shingle and, and do what I love, help some leaders a little here, a little there while my kids grow up. And I've always for the last, my youngest is about to go to college so now I'm actually going to try to grow my company. This has all happened more despite me because I've said no, I can't do this. I don't have the bandwidth or the time or the desire to do this project. Let me find someone who can. And so my team has grown.

To do just.

By virtue of incoming referrals that I needed more people to handle. So, you know, that's, that's how I've made my choices is looking at what's a glass ball? Like? I had an aunt that was really sick a year ago and she needed to get moved to New Jersey so I could help care for her and figure it out. I stepped away for four months, you know, on and off. It wasn't all at the same time. And I just said if business goes down this year, who cares? Like that's a glass ball. I can't get that back. So I've used that to prioritize my own life and I tell that story a lot. I think it helps people as they're struggling with decisions.

Well, you've cheated a little bit because that was going to be my why not question. Right. So your biggest why not moment. But you talked about it, it's really good and that's okay because we want to get to that why not moment. So you, you, you saw need to focus on yourself, trust yourself and contribute to your own future. And you made that decision. And that's probably where, you know, one of the things that I think our listeners are gonna, are gonna resonate with is hey, how nice it is that you've got so much business you can afford to take time off and you're building it out. But it doesn't always start out that way. Right. I mean, I'm sure when you started you were where they are, where they're like, hey, hey, I just want any clients. Right. We'll take. We'll take clients that need our services, and we'll figure out how to work with them versus when you can be choosing and actually have a team. So tell us about that. That for those that first year, you know, here you are. You've been in these big roles at these big companies, and now it's Laura Crothers Consulting, and people are buying you. How do you attract. How did you do it? How did you start attracting the right clients? How did you figure out who your ideal client was? Market to them?

Yeah, so it took a little while. It took me probably a year to, like, figure that out. So originally, in that first year, I just went to every event that I could that was small and middle market, high growth, because I was focused on the merger and acquisition space and met lots of people, had lots of coffees. I used to joke around with my friends and say, hey, if I could have gotten 20 bucks for every coffee or lunch I've had, I'd be rich. You know, and the advice I gave during that time.

Yep.

But it started to build credibility, you know, and I was out there. People were meeting me, and I was showing up for different things over and over again. So it started to build the credibility in the first year. Yeah, you're right, Dan. Like, you know, I was probably negative. By the time I added up all the different things I had joined and what I did. And then as I started to get projects and have things to talk about and I culled my list down, I realized you need to really connect deeply with somebody seven times before they remember you, rather than in this big net and meeting everybody. Once I was like, ooh, I was doing that wrong. Let me call my list and, you know, and be at the same things a lot. It started to take off. And you're right. I was asked to do, you know, because people hear HR and they think, oh, handbooks, leave of absence, you know, tactical stuff, which was not what I was focused on. That's quite frankly how I started bringing different team members in. At one point, I was like, I don't want to do this, but I need the money, so let me bring somebody else in who might want to do this, you know, and now we've gotten to the point where we don't do that tactical stuff at all anymore. But you're right, it did. It was getting known, finding places to speak, you know, having things to talk about and projects I subbed under people, other people that were doing it longer than me, so that I had things to talk about.

So that's a. You know, those. That's a lot of different tactics. And you mean you didn't like creating performance improvement plans for people and checklists for how to get rid of underperformers? That's not the. What HR people love doing.

You know, actually, that one we still help with. Like, we still get calls for those, like messy employee relations. It was more like that handbook, compliance, payroll benefits.

Like, yes, I totally understand. And there's. There's a. There's there's certain freedom about working in this. In your zone of genius, the part that you love, and letting other people do the parts that you don't love. Because then people are getting 100, 100 fun, enjoying what you do and the best work that you do. Isn't that right?

Yeah. Totaling.

So there was. There was another part that I wanted to ask you about, is you added leadership coaching to your organizational offerings. What made you think that that was a necessary thing to add to the. To the work that you guys do at Crothers?

So when we were in there, especially when we were in there, I found on transactions. So we'd be in there doing a deal, helping, you know, guide and set companies towards deals or integration, whatever it would be. Or we started getting asked by leaders or honestly, at that point, it was me. I was getting asked at the end the project would be done, and they'd say, could you just stay on? Can I still talk to you a couple times a month? I find our conversation so valuable. So I started to dip my toe in it a little more, I guess, always. I had done some consulting, and I said, oh, I had some imposter syndrome. Like, I shouldn't be doing this because I'm not really a certified coach. So I went and got certified in a couple different things, coaching and leadership tools, and then started diving more into leadership coaching because it tied nicely with the strategic HR projects. When we're in there working with top teams on reorgs or design work, succession planning, different things like that. The leadership coaching was a nice piece that went with it, and it's something I think I innately was doing, but I felt like I needed different credentials to hang that shingle. So once I received those, we added that silo, and then I started to attract people that were leadership coaches as well.

Excellent. Excellent. So tell me, there's a story you shared about your. About your son that changed your business direction. You want to share that? Because those are always such powerful stories, and we definitely Want to. Want to hear about that?

So my son. My older son, who's now in. In junior year in college, was in high school, and one day he came home and he said, hey, we had to write a, you know, paper on what we wanted to do next, what we want to do for our career. And, you know, Mom, I've been thinking about it, and I think I want to run the family business. So hope my eyes don't fill up as I say this. So, of course, I jumped to my brother's business, and I said, really? I didn't know that you had an interest in construction. And he looked at me and he's like, mom, no, your business. And literally, it was the first time, Dan, that I thought about this as a business versus a lifestyle choice for an interim period. And I was like, oh, my God, he thinks I have a business. He sees me as a business leader. It was the coolest thing to just have that realization that what I was running now was something that was a business and could potentially go to another generation if that's what he chooses. He's still young enough, but it's still in his potential. So it made me start thinking about the business very differently. It became less of a lifestyle choice and more like, okay, how do I put in processes and how do I create things that are scalable, like we're doing with our clients, so that when my younger son goes to college, I can scale it more, and then we'll see what happens with the two of them. They may or may not be interested in, but it was flattering to just know that it was a thought.

So you've got a junior in college and one starting freshman year. Is that all of them?

That's all of them.

So that's all of them. And the oldest one is taking over Crothers Consulting. And so he's put. He's putting pressure on you to make sure you've got something to leave behind, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He thinks he can come in and start, like, you know, oh, Mom, I love. He goes, I love it. You sit on the phone with people and you just talk, which is what you like to do, and people pay you for it. He's like, awesome, I'll just come. I'll start talking to people. I'm like, well, I had, like, 20 years of experience. Experience before I started just talking. So, you know, that's the part that I think these college kids have the gap, right? He thinks he can, like, walk out and start consulting. I'm like, you gotta kind of at least 10 years. Cut your chops at some big firms.

And nobody wants to listen to you when you don't have that, that 20 years experience. And you've done it before, right? I mean, and we can all talk, but what is it that you're going to bring? What value are you going to bring? I think that's fantastic that he's interested too. I, that's very affirming. When our kids say, hey, I want to do what dad does. I want to do what mom does. And I remember I have a good friend who's a CEO. He's a CEO for his dad's company. So he did what dad did. And I remember when his kid was little, said, I want to do. He said, kind of like you. He said, I want to work at your company, dad, when I grow up. He's like, and my friend says, wow, so you want to be the CEO? No, no, no. He says, I knew I want to do what grandpa does. Because grandpa at that point was just on the.

A one hour meeting once a week because my, my friend was running the company at the time. And, and so we knew, we knew little Robbie was smart even way back then. He's like, no, no, I don't want your job, dad, you work too hard. I want grandpa's job. That's the one that I want. So you, we, we saw your passion is to help leaders be the best they can be and kick into high gear. How do you do that?

Well, so it's listening and on all the fronts, right? So sometimes it's listening to hear what their HR challenges are and what they can do to build things that are scalable or realign or do things in a way that makes more sense for their business. And other times it's that leadership coaching. It's listening and helping them figure out what they need to do to be the most effective leader they can be. And so we really focus on that narrow coaching niche of leadership effectiveness. How can you be more effective? So.

This is not something I talked to you about before, Laura, but how do you measure leadership effectiveness with, in the work that you do? I mean, do you talk to their circle? Do you do pre and post surveys? What's the key ingredient to say, hey, I'm a better leader today because I worked with Carothers consulting than before.

So we usually start with a 360, whether it's for the individual leader or for a whole leadership team. We can do like a culture360 based on leadership effectiveness of the whole top team. So we'll do that, and we'll survey the normal. Right. Boss, ELF Peers, direct reports, and another group. And then as we go through the coaching, we have what we call pulse surveys that every four months, depending upon what area they're looking to make some, you know, developmental gain in, we take some questions, we pull from the original survey of those questions, and we send it out to a subset of who completed their 360. And we basically say, is Dan. You know, here's what Dan's working on. Is it getting better? Is it getting worse? Or is it staying the same with a little comment section? And so if we do this for a year, you know, you can chart with a graph the progress they're making or not making, you know, to show that the investment was worthwhile for the organization or the individual. And it also does two things. One, it gives the individual some feedback that, hey, people are noticing the hard work you're doing. And two, it helps point people at the hard work they're doing so that they recognize and think, oh, yeah, you know what? Dan has been more concise in his conversations with me, now that I think about it, where we both know in this kind of work, it normally takes 18 months for someone to notice any kind of behavioral change. So we point them at it, like, hey, look, I'm trying to change this.

And they notice sooner, and it's good for both sides.

So you're looking. Yeah, so you're looking. You take the feedback, and you take the specific feedback, and then what the. What the leader is working on, and then point it out because you're right. You know, you interact with your boss so often, and if you're. If you don't know what they're working on, it's hard for you to notice that they're working on it. But pointing it out is such a great.

They can also give that leader some feedback, too.

Correct. And it's for all three things, right? Their direct reports, their peers, their boss. So, like, they share with a subset. Here's what I'm working on. And that subset is able to give them feedback, which is very affirming, usually.

Yeah, I love that that you. You do that part. But what about from the leaders themselves? What kind of feedback? Give me a. Give me a great success story where a leader came back and said, hey, this is what I'm doing now because of the help that you gave me. And I've seen this improvement in my relationships, either with my direct reports, my peers, or my. My boss.

So I think about one situation where it was a successor that we were working with that was, you know, a younger generation and.

Had not really come into their own for their leadership and has now taken over the company, found a way to work with mom and dad to get them comfortable and, you know, releasing some level of control. Has stood on her own and really just flourished when she started to realize, what are my leadership strengths and my why? Right. We work with operating systems. What are my leadership strengths and why do I do things and how do I maximize my effectiveness in those areas? And looking at some of that internal wiring that we all have that operating system on, what are some things that I do that might have helped get me here but aren't going to get me to the next place, and how do I minimize some of those tendencies? And so this particular leader I'm thinking about has now taken over the company, put a wonderful team together, has a better relationship with her husband and kids because she got clear and started to set boundaries differently and realized she didn't need to be like command and control, that she could lead with empathy, which was how she was. She just thought, I need to do what dad's doing. But it wasn't authentic. So it didn't feel good to people around her, and her effectiveness was really diminished.

So it was a great. It's a great story. And the company's, you know, doubled in size, and it's been a fun one.

Those are such great. That's a great story. And that's got to feel so good. Right? So now let's talk about one within, because can you believe it? We're almost out of time, but I want to make sure we talk about there's somebody on your team with the why of mastery. Because we started talking about, you know, sometimes coaches get tired, too. Right. We have to care for us. There's. You got to be careful, the people you work with, and especially as a contributor. Laura, I will tell you, one of the one smartest things I've heard say is those of us who like to contribute have to remember to set limits, because the takers don't set limits. There's no limit to how much they'll take. They'll keep taking until you are completely depleted. But you have someone on your team, I guess, with the why of mastery. Let's talk a little bit about that and what. What challenges they have.

I'm not. I'm not sure who we're talking about, so let me try to zone.

It's been a while since we filled that. You. I asked. Yeah, yeah, we Were talking about. Let me. Let me see if I can refresh your memory. So you. You talked about the fact that, you know, your yos helps you make bonds with people and helps you understand that people who find and understand find people that can do this for you. So you started calling people who only take and realize that sometimes even the coach gets depleted. And then you talk about someone on your team or maybe it was a client with the why of mastery that probably was taking a lot.

Right, right. And so. And I think it goes back to those boundaries. Right. When you've got those people that really want to get into it, it's figuring out ways that you can continue to engage their intellectual stimulation that they need but not be part of it all the time. And so, you know, it is sending them, whether it's to new certifications so that they can get better and master that, providing feedback so that they feel like they're getting better and setting boundaries about just how often they get to interact with me to talk about all these things. So, you know, I started to set up, you know, 15 minutes to 30 minutes with everybody on the team. And, you know, if I need to, I can say, okay, you got a big story. You're telling me we got 10, 10 minutes, so figure out what you want to do. I've gotten much better at that over the years.

Because like you said, Dan, we can get sucked into everybody's problems and everybody's new idea or everybody's need to go really deep. And for me, it's kind of the 8020 rule always. I don't go real deep with that mastery. So figuring out how I can use them to their best potential and maximize what's really good about them and not get pulled into it.

I love that that 8020 rule is so important. Laura, what is one piece of advice you'd give to our audience? We'll end with that note. What's one piece of advice you' give to our audience who are struggling with focusing on the important things and getting the right things done. It seems like you're really good at setting those boundaries. And what's the one piece of advice you'd give our audience?

You know, I think the biggest help for me was I time blocked my calendar time blocking and just holding that time as sacred to do whatever it is you need, whether it's vacation with your family or, you know, just time to work on things, time to learn whatever that time is. Blocking time. Because I think we all think they need us right away. Right. We think everything's urgent. They need us right away. I need to respond to this right away. I need to jump on. But you'd be surprised if we say I'm tied up the next two weeks. Can we meet whenever? Most people are like, sure. Or, you know, could you meet with someone other than nay if you need it before two weeks and they'll take someone if they do. So I think that's my biggest piece of advice. It's not all as urgent as they say and they're happy to punt in a few weeks.

That is a great piece of advice. Laura, why do you say, what do you say we end on that note?

Why not?

Dan, thank you so much for being on why Not Wednesday. Laura, thank you for time blocking some time for me today and for our audience to learn more from you. We look forward to learning more from Laura. Laura, where can people get a hold of you if somebody wants to work with Laura? Where, where can they go so they.

Can get a hold of us at Crothers Consulting. It's my last name. Consulting.com. they can get a hold of me at Laura.

Consulting dot com.

Excellent. Have a great rest of your week. Thank you so much for being on why Not Wednesday And I look forward to continue to talk to you again.

Me too, Dan, thanks for inviting me. Have an awesome.

Have a great week.

You too.