Alison Randel is our newest member at The Ready. Here’s a look at how she found her way to The Ready, why she thinks organizations need that ‘a-ha moment’, and the importance of self-awareness.
What were you doing before joining The Ready?
I’ve spent the last few years at McChrystal Group. While there I helped organizations in different industries with people-focused efforts, ranging from helping leaders and business units manage the change of major strategic and structural transitions to piloting cultural initiatives to designing leadership development programs. Before that I studied psychology and human & organizational development at Vanderbilt. Those programs sparked my interest in applying psychology to business and management practices, which is how I found my way to consulting.
Most of my work can basically be boiled down to facilitating increased self-awareness for organizations, teams, and leaders and then addressing the challenges and opportunities that are uncovered in that process. E.g. What are you actually currently doing — whether that be in terms of process or behavior — and does the impact of that match up with achieving your long-term goals? What are the assumptions, strengths, and weaknesses inherent in the current way of doing things? How do we adjust and redesign to get better compatibility between how you operate and long-term success? It’s been really fascinating getting to know different teams.
How did you find your way to The Ready?
In the past couple of years I saw how clients were unable to navigate the changes they were experiencing in their environment, unable to navigate increasing complexity. The Ready’s perspective on this shift — looking at things through the lens of technology, complexity, and humanity — really resonated with me. In reflecting on what I’d been hearing and seeing from leaders it seemed to hit on all the key notes. It was exciting to encounter a group of people not just writing about these interesting concepts, but doing something to get them out there. I was (and am) drawn to exploring how to more effectively weave these three domains together in a way that is useful for the world.
What pulls you to organizational design work?
There are a number of things that draw me to this work. I love going through the process of questioning that comes with every project — dissecting the current way of operating in organizations to understand how that came to be and how things could be changed for the better.
On top of that, working in this space consistently reminds me that the world is a malleable place, and I get to help shape it with the clients I work with. Businesses and organizations are often looked at as these entities, independent of the people inside them. What’s fascinating is that that’s never the case. Of course it isn’t. But when you’re inside an organization, understanding that organizations were created by people — that there is a way to change things, the status quo isn’t a given that has to be accepted — is still a mental step that a lot of us don’t take without being prompted. We all have to have a sort of ‘aha moment’.
It kind of reminds me of the aha moment all of us have at some point when we realize that parents and adults are just people — just like we are. When we’re younger, we tend to view our parents as “parents” — not people. Their rules are taken as a given, we generally assume they know what they’re doing, and all responsibility is on them. We don’t take time to understand them, and we certainly don’t consider our own role in the relationship. After we realize parents are just like us, things are completely different. We realize rules don’t have to be a certain way, that parents might actually need help from us because they’re flawed just like we are, and that we have the ability to change things.
It’s the same with organizations. The rules and structures in organizations were written by people — well-intentioned (most of the time), flawed people. Realizing that is scary but also very empowering. I like that this work is a constant reminder of that. Changing things isn’t easy, but I love the sense of possibility and impact that comes along with that mental shift. I find it extremely rewarding when I see a client take on that sense of ownership.
Why do you do this over anything else?
Redesigning the way organizations work and teams operate doesn’t just help an organization perform better. It makes the individuals working at that organization enjoy their days just a little bit more. I’m not out to save the world, but I do like the idea of my work having a wake of happier people behind it.
I also like that this work consistently pushes me to become not just a better professional but also a better person. You can’t be working with people and teams to increase their self-awareness and improve their ways of operating without taking a hard look in the mirror. I’ve become a much more mindful and reflective person since entering this field.
What influences your thinking?
Everything! Just kidding — sort of. My strongest muscle is around psychology and looking at things through the lens of individual behavior, but I try to look across domains for insights. You never know where you’ll find something valuable. My favorite definition of creative is “perfectly logical and unexpected.” I think that’s the fun thing about organizational design. You can find relevant insights almost anywhere, even when you don’t expect it.
What are people not talking about in terms of how organizations get better?
From what I’ve seen so far, most sticky challenges have come down to issues of awareness. Almost always the biggest challenges come down to not realizing, or being in denial of, a mismatch in behavior (individual, team or organizational) and actual values. (E.g. Accountability isn’t enforced because of fear of hurting personal relationships, which results in resentment and long-term dysfunction, or a business won’t allocate a budget to making necessary changes for long-term success because of fear of short-term reactions.) I think a lot of times people don’t want to say that upfront. Any change effort is hard and very personal in a lot of ways. It requires people to confront who they are, what they really value, and the possible disparity between those things.
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