Kiersten Rippeteau discusses her journey into organizational design, starting from internal consulting in healthcare to external consulting in the construction industry. She emphasizes the importance of understanding organizational systems and human behaviors. Rippeteau highlights the need for clear strategy, values, and effective communication within organizations. She also touches on the impact of AI in consulting and construction, stressing the importance of maintaining a human lens. Rippeteau's firm, New Commodity, focuses on practical, impact-driven business models to improve organizational effectiveness and positive societal impact.
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Show Notes
Org Design Forum
New Commodity
Transcript
[00:00:00] Tim Brewer: Hi. Welcome to the Org Design Podcast. You're joining me and Amy from the Org Design Festival in Minnesota, Twin Cities. And we're lucky enough to have Kiersten with us.
[00:00:12] Kiersten Rippeteau: Yes.
[00:00:13] Tim Brewer: Great to have you here. Now the Org Design Festival, just for everyone who's not here, which is most everyone who will be listening in is a bunch of expert org designers that are getting together and collaborating, networking, sharing. You can't really go and do a degree in it. But there's a bunch of people that end up becoming really good at it and spending almost their entire career, researching, studying and helping organizations with the discipline around having their structure match their strategy. So it was a pleasure to have you along today.
[00:00:43] Kiersten Rippeteau: Thanks for having me.
[00:00:43] Tim Brewer: Experienced org designer, but you're also working on a new business, which we are going to ask some questions about today. But maybe if we throw to you and have you tell us a little bit about, how did you end up being an org designer?
[00:00:56] Kiersten Rippeteau: Like most everybody else I know in org design, I got here by accident. Doing the work without knowing that it had a name. And I came across the Org Design Forum when it was in Chicago, which is where I am from, came across it and it really resonated with what I did, it just gave a name to all of it, and I went to that conference and never stopped coming, and finally found myself identifying as an org designer and doing very real and deep org design work.
[00:01:26] Tim Brewer: Cool, Those early days were you consulting in those days because I know you're working as a part of a boutique consulting firm at the moment.
[00:01:32] Kiersten Rippeteau: Yes.
[00:01:33] Tim Brewer: What was the history in terms of your work? Work life, did you start in corporate? Were you in small business? Tell us a little bit about the type of work you were doing.
[00:01:40] Kiersten Rippeteau: Sure, I started in healthcare actually, doing org development and HR, consulting internally at an academic hospital in Chicago. So that's where I got my sea legs and in this sort of work and did a lot of internal consulting and then transitioned into external consulting with a company called Palmer consulting group. We consult to the construction industry. So I went from healthcare to construction two very different industries. But I love working in the construction industry now and being able to bring org design work to that space has been really gratifying.
[00:02:15] Tim Brewer: Wow. That's super interesting.
[00:02:16] Amy Springer: So you say it was an accident, but there's something that drew you to the work. Can you give us a little bit more about what was it that drew you towards this type of work ?
[00:02:25] Kiersten Rippeteau: Absolutely, yeah. I think, some of it is I'm a systems thinker, but I'm also very people oriented. I'm an extrovert. I love being with people. I love people dynamics, even just people watching, so this was a world that combined those two things. Really helped me understand the connection between the systems that we operate in and the human behaviors that influence those systems and vice versa. To be able to again, put a name to all of that work and find a process and a rhythm to help leaders really bring their organizations to life in the way they want to is just very gratifying. And I feel grateful to have landed in the field.
[00:03:05] Tim Brewer: Yeah, maybe leaning a little bit into the organization you work with now. We have a lot of people that listen to the podcast that are leaders in an organization and they've got a problem or issues that they're seeing and they're searching for solutions to those issues. Tell me, a little bit about the types of customers you would work with right now. How long is the engagement? What does it look like to get an expert in to come and help in construction?
[00:03:32] Kiersten Rippeteau: Sure, yeah, so I think part of it is really What problem they're trying to solve and being willing to take the time to diagnose it. Chris Worley talked about that a little bit this morning in his Keynote, and I think that's a big part of the process is really learning the organization and I think some leaders frown on that from consultants because they don't want to pay the consultant to learn their business, but when you have somebody come in with a completely different lens, They're learning about your business, but so are you they're uncovering patterns and trends and behaviors that maybe you don't see because you're surrounded by it every day.
So taking that diagnostic time to figure out like what's hiding underneath the surface that needs to be solved for and then taking a systems thinking approach and saying okay what are the systems and behaviors that are at play here? that we have some control over that we can use as levers for change and really start driving the results that you're looking for
[00:04:31] Amy Springer: Before we jump into maybe, what those leaders could be feeling or experiencing that they know they need someone like you to come along .
[00:04:39] Kiersten Rippeteau: I think, some of it is about change, right? they know that they're facing a need for change, and they're not equipped for it, or they're designed to operate in an old way, and that old way isn't working anymore. So they might be seeing dips in metrics, or maybe they've been trying to move the needle on a certain metric that no matter what they do, they just can't seem to move the needle. Maybe it's not declining, but it's not budging. So that's usually an indication that there might be some need for org design. If there's role conflict, right? if people are stepping on each other's toes, or nobody's picking up the phone. The accountability for anything because they're all pointing fingers at who's responsible
[00:05:20] Tim Brewer: when everyone points at everyone. When you ask who's accountable for this, that's probably a problem.
[00:05:24] Kiersten Rippeteau: That's an org design problem. Yep. so those are some of the things that I think they're probably struggling with that indicate to us that, Hey, this might be an org design issue.
[00:05:34] Tim Brewer: and look just for people who are looking for a a boutique consulting firm and they're in construction. How do they know they're a right fit for your organization
[00:05:42] Kiersten Rippeteau: Sure. We really pride ourselves on the relationships that we have with our clients. None of our people came from consulting firms. They all came from the construction industry. I'm the only one who didn't originally come from construction. Everyone else has been in the shoes of a project manager out in the field, or a project accountant, or maybe even in a leadership role. So we really understand that Industry and the day to day operations that it takes to keep it running smoothly we look for leaders and organizations who are really interested in the people and really truly value their people as an asset. It's something that I think every industry says, I think the construction industry does a particularly good job of living that they have to focus on the safety and well being of their people they know that the relationships that their project managers have with designers and architects are incredibly important. They already inherently do a great job of focusing on people. So it's easy for us to find those matches. But as long as they have a lot of those same values
[00:06:47] Tim Brewer: based in the U. S. So do you work with construction? A lot of construction going on all parts of the world, predominantly U. S. Okay, so that's just helpful.
[00:06:57] Amy Springer: I'm impressed because I find it one of the most overwhelming industries. The kinds of projects and the risk, not only safety, but people's livelihoods and it's amazing.
[00:07:09] Tim Brewer: And the cyclical nature of it, very big, projects rolling over and over. So just even stacking those things together and balancing, you can't materialize an entire team from nowhere when you're much complex.
[00:07:22] Kiersten Rippeteau: It's a ripe environment for org design. So many relationships at play in any given day on any given project site, let alone company wide or industry wide, just grows exponentially.
[00:07:33] Tim Brewer: Mainly before we pivot to The advice you'd give someone when they're looking at their organization saying, I think I've got an org design problem. we love asking the question, what is the craziest thing you've seen go wrong? We've walked in and seen, or like another way of asking that when you, an organization is not designed well or intentionally as some kind of chaotic, funny, or disastrous impact. I think it's interesting to see how bad it gets if you do not focus on any kind of org design discipline, even if it's informal within the org.
[00:08:06] Kiersten Rippeteau: Yeah, so I'm not sure if it's the craziest, but I think one of the things that we see is a proliferation of C suite roles. And I think construction in particular is in an interesting spot because they are dealing with not only construction technology out in the field, but also their own tech stacks in the business side of things, what's their ERP? what are they doing with finances? And so I think there's this proliferation of do we need a digital person and a tech person? Do we need a CDO and a CIO and, IT, information, data, like where do all of those folks live and do we just have a title for every one of those and when that starts to grow too big without enough consideration of, hey, what's our strategy and what do we need to do really well versus what can we outsource or have done for us? when those questions get missed and they just keep adding on roles, it gets very messy and very complex very quickly.
[00:09:06] Tim Brewer: And what what does that mess look like? Is that where you said everyone's pointing to everyone. You end up with every management meeting being essentially a screaming match at each other.
[00:09:13] Kiersten Rippeteau: Yeah. And either everyone owns everything or no one owns anything. And you're left with this kind of mess sitting in the middle of the room and everybody's staring at it going it's not my job. Or they're playing tug of war with things like their data or their money, which is not something you want your leaders playing tug of war with. you want some clear ownership and role leadership and yeah.
[00:09:34] Tim Brewer: Alright, changing gears a little bit. You've got to see inside a lot of organizations and we often have people contact us, they're leading their organization, maybe they're a founder, and they just have not had the chance until their organization accidentally grew really big to be in the situation where they've got managers of managers for those people, thinking about org design for the very first time, maybe not even knowing that it's got a name. what are the things that you would say, Hey, do three things or do this one thing, or maybe do five things, whatever it is. These behaviors are really healthy, even if you can't get someone else in or don't do any big projects. What are the things that you think make good org design culture?
[00:10:14] Kiersten Rippeteau: Yeah, I think a lot of it has to do with really getting crystal clear and aligned at the top with what your strategy is, what your values are, and what you want to do very well as an organization. That thing that's going to make you stand out amongst your competitors, if you can get really clear on that, then you can really design for it. I think a lot of leaders do org design without knowing that they're doing it. Anytime you make a decision about a role that needs to exist or a role that doesn't need to exist anymore, that's an org design decision. Anytime you make a decision about a particular piece of technology or software that you're going to integrate or get rid of, that's an org design decision. I think another thing would be to think about the linkages across the organization. So there's naturally silos anytime you design an organization. But paying particular attention to what parts of the organization need to be in communication with each other and need very efficient and effective ways of sharing information with each other and resources. If you can pinpoint those things and create really good linkages between them, you're off to a really good start of designing a good and efficient organization
[00:11:31] Amy Springer: whether there's a consultant involved or not, who is typically in the room for these conversations?
[00:11:37] Kiersten Rippeteau: Usually the CEO, COO sometimes the CFO, depending on who rolls up to each of those leaders. And it's always a good idea to have frontline people in the room as well. Cause they're the ones that are actually carrying out the processes that we're talking about and using the systems that we're talking about. And they're communicating with other frontline employees and they know the data and information that they need to get the work done that eventually rolls up to the top so that the top can look at the data and information and make strategic choices. So it's really important to have both ends of the organization in the room together for a lot of it, not all of it, but certainly for the big pieces of discovery and decisions.
[00:12:21] Tim Brewer: Yeah. We obviously had Chris speak this morning, had him on the podcast. He talked a lot in this session building trust and the fact that as an org designer, you need to balance like the curiosity of discovery, but then you also need to sit down with maybe the most senior leader in the organization and break some hard news. how do you find that challenge going from hospital work and doing that internally now to rolling into a construction company and be like, Hey, haven't been in construction, but I've got some bad news I need to deliver.
What are the things if someone was considering a shift to doing org design full time or consulting, what are the things they need to love about that?
[00:12:59] Kiersten Rippeteau: That's a good question I think a lot of it has to do with building the relationship first and just being a human before you're a consultant Which I think is true in any role be a human before you're an accountant, a human before you're a CEO, and Just build the relationship and ensure the person that you're working with, that you are there for the best interest of them, their team and the organization set the stage early that, Hey, I'm probably going to make some uncomfortable discoveries and I'm asking your permission ahead of time to point those things out to you. we'll work together to find the right solution or to even decide if That's a problem you want to solve. it might be that we uncover some things that you weren't ready to address. we'll work together to figure out, is that something that we need to pump the brakes on and shift our focus, or is that something that can wait and be put on the back burner while we solve these other things? I think if you set that expectation early along with the trust building, then they're not floored or, taken aback when you do make that discovery and you have to say those hard things.
[00:14:07] Tim Brewer: One of the things that has been discussed a lot in every industry around the world at the moment is AI or Large Language Models and what that's doing to the nature of work or what it might do to the nature of work and we've got a lot of people speaking at ODF on that topic. What are you seeing in the industries you work? Is there something you're particularly worried or cautious about? what do you think the impact is having? And what do you think is going to happen in the next couple of years in the work you do?
[00:14:34] Kiersten Rippeteau: Yeah, so I think there's two sides of that for me in the seats that I sit in. One is in the consulting world, and I think it's just going to really speed up the consulting process. Because we'll be able to generate not only things like, the traditional things that we need to generate for clients like reports and but we're also going to be able to generate ideas and Put a lot of complex data into a system that will generate some analysis for us that we can then pick and choose from, as opposed to having the humans do that. And I think that's going to speed up the process quite a bit, and that's true for any project. Consultant who consults in any industry. In construction itself, I'm not sure about generative AI as much, but I think AI in general is probably going to play a huge role in safety. And also. things like, any business faces like how do we, manage our finances and how do we project for the future and forecast? And, I think a lot of those things are going to get a little bit easier. And I think the caution is just making sure that you keep a human lens on it that you know You're not just going with decisions that a machine generated But you're looking at okay, if we go with that decision, what's the human impact and what is the impact on our culture and those kinds of things that AI Can't really answer. It probably can more than I realize. But I think that human lens and balancing anything AI with a human lens is going to be an essential capability.
[00:16:12] Amy Springer: Tell us about New Commodity and the work you're doing there.
[00:16:15] Kiersten Rippeteau: Sure, yeah, so New Commodity was born out of my love for org design and my passion for making sure that Businesses are doing their part to improve the world that we live in, and I really wanted to, and this probably comes from my construction background now, I really wanted to come at it from a practical standpoint.
I didn't want it to be this kind of ethereal thing, and I think that's what a lot of leaders in general struggle with is well, I can't think about positive impact right now, I've got you know, my bottom line to worry about I've got you know The X Y Z projects happening at the same time that I need to stay focused on But there are so many practical applications and ways that being impact driven can drive the value of your business.
And I really wanted to make that clear and easy for leaders to address. So I started building models and, some concepts and even some archetypes to help leaders get focused on, "I don't have to solve all of the world's problems, but based on who we are as a company and what we do and the resources we have, what material impact can we have on the world?", and so those models and archetypes are designed to help them just get focused and start somewhere. So my philosophy is if you can just start, you're already on a great path and if you succeed in that one thing that you were trying to have a positive impact in, you can always expand the scope of your impact and get to that place of changing the world. But maybe you're just changing the world for the 35, 40 people who work for your company, and that's enough. Just really wanted to bring that to life in a practical way for businesses.
[00:18:00] Tim Brewer: And is there a website that people can find or contact you on?
[00:18:04] Kiersten Rippeteau: Yep. So I'm on LinkedIn. There's also new-commodity.com, so that talks a little bit about our philosophy.
[00:18:11] Amy Springer: Yeah. That sounds amazing. I feel like so much of our conversation. Today in the conference is about how much is going on and how quickly it's changing. Yeah, I think Helping people find some clarity and focus will be so powerful,
[00:18:25] Kiersten Rippeteau: Yeah, especially clarity and focus in something positive and life giving and things that people can get engaged with and connected to I think right now is particularly important, drives employee engagement and happiness and customer loyalty and there's just so much value that it generates. it is a practical Tool and we called it new commodity because we want it to be, something that's, as easy as finance or something that's as obvious as finance, right? You wouldn't run a company without somebody who knew finance and you wouldn't run it without managing your finances. We would love to see the world get to a place where you wouldn't run a business without thinking about and managing the impact that you're having, so eventually we'd like it to be a commodity, and If that means we go out of business, hopefully it means we go out of business for all the right reasons.
[00:19:14] Tim Brewer: Kiersten, thank you so much for joining us on the Org Design Podcast. It's great to see you again at the Org Design Festival, ODF, here in, Twin Cities. Amy Springer, thank you so much for flying across the world and joining us live from the conference. Great to have you all here and we'll see you all again soon.
[00:19:34] Kiersten Rippeteau: Thanks for having me.
[00:19:35] Amy Springer: Thanks Kiersten.
