Best of Series: The Power of Bottom-Up Feedback in Organizational Transformation

Dr. Jim: [: 00:00:00

If you never take the time to Have your assumptions pressure tested by your people. You're setting yourself up for failure. That's the key lesson that Melissa Hinshaw executive director of Lone Star College learned when she started the process of transforming the culture of our organization.

her career at the college in: 2014

So she's risen through the ranks and now has a senior and executive level leadership position within the organization. And she's used her background and experience in social sciences, education and passion for developing [00:01:00] others to transform the organization. So this is going to be a great conversation.

That's going to be informed by the journey that Melissa took while she was at Lone Star. Super excited to have Melissa on the show. Melissa, welcome to the show.

Melissa Hinshaw: Thank you. Great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Dr. Jim: I think your perspective. Especially from the higher education lens is going to be important for our listeners as they work on their own transformation initiatives. And I think you have a unique story that you're going to be able to share with us.

I'd like you to get the listeners up to speed on what you feel is relevant for them to know about you. That's going to inform the conversation.

Melissa Hinshaw: I think for me, it's really the time I've spent, as you said, working in the social sciences, having some time there, but also working through education grew up in a family with education, always knew there was something there that I really had a passion for, but also had that passion for social sciences.

And so worked through many [: 00:02:00

It's on the North side. side of Houston, but we are a community college, but rather large for a community college. So we're different in that aspect. We've got 85, 000 students, 7, 000 employees, eight locations. So talking about building the culture ground up and getting that bottom up feedback in an organization of this size couldn't be challenging, but it's something that we're also proud of.

ts about your background and [: 00:03:00

So I want to stitch all of those things together and get some insight into how that informed your talent strategy and especially the aspect where you were a student and then you went from a part time employee. To an executive leader, senior leader within the organization. How has that shaped how you show up in the organization, how that influences your people strategy?

Melissa Hinshaw: I think it comes in a lot and often from, just even the, education, of course, understanding what it's like from both the faculty professor side as well as the student side. So understanding both of those sides of what it means, what they're feeling, thinking, experiencing and then.

id, I had a little set as an [: 00:04:00

So just getting a feel coming in part time that was, still doing the entrepreneur stuff on the side. So juggling both of those, but. It gave me the opportunity part time to really learn a little bit more about higher ed in general. And of course, Lone Star College, and then of course the work of organizational development.

ommunity. And so knowing how [: 00:05:00

So really helps me to be able to focus, I think, on the development of others and then also brings in that empathy because I've got the perspectives from different areas. Many of who are the stakeholders in the work that we do and our purpose here at Lone Star [00:06:00] College.

Dr. Jim: You mentioned trying things and experimenting and trying to iterate from there, what's the biggest lesson that you've learned? When it comes to having that experimentation culture in an organization that's as large as Lone Star, typically in, in large organizations, it's been my experience that you don't get a lot of opportunities to experiment.

So how did you bridge that gap and still keep that innovation mindset in an organization as large as yours?

Melissa Hinshaw: Good question. It, was something that I had to learn even on my own, but also had some good support in that way. So I did, making those connections finding colleagues or having leaders that really, Encourage that or, our give the grace when a mistake is made or something doesn't go that knowing, your intent was there and seeing also, okay, it didn't go exactly how we planned, but we learned our lesson and how we can apply that in the future.

we're always like, sometimes [: 00:07:00

And so we don't. Our students are changing every day and we need to be there to meet them for their changes and their needs. And we can't just keep doing what we're doing and give them what they need as things change and grow. And so we do need to have that creativity and that mindset and just, sometimes it's just bouncing ideas around and that gets into the collaboration and the connections too.

n certain areas that they're [: 00:08:00

Dr. Jim: The big thing that I take away from what you've described, it sounds like there's a an element of the culture where that experimentation and willingness to try things is embedded into the organization. And that's got to be a leadership component that we'll get into a little bit later.

ut when you look forward into: 2024

Melissa Hinshaw: I'm going to combine two things into one, I think here. So for the culture work, it's part of that is just what do we do next with that? So I think it's very important. We continue to work on it, but it shouldn't always look exactly the same because people are going to tune out or it's not going to be effective [00:09:00] and so really starting.

We focused on employees with that, but really starting to pull in our students. So we've just started to pull them in to a steering committee that we have that's focused around our culture. So really starting to pull the students in to get their perspective, their feedback their thoughts on how can we.

Do this better or what are we missing that would help you as a student? So besides guessing or assuming what it is, we've got them plugged in right there with us and so there, we're just starting to get names and interest and so i'm really excited to see how that pans out and then honestly for myself.

It's a little bit of having some of that Being more specific and intentional about my focus time. So we talked about the creativity and the innovation and sometimes get so busy on the day to day and checking things off the list that calendar gets full and I don't have, some dedicated time to really.

Plan out[: 00:10:00

And so it's really being, better about keeping that time there and knowing the benefit that it will have.

Dr. Jim: I can totally relate to your calendar blocking challenges because I have stuff that is quote unquote supposed to be blocked off that I can't book over. But then in the moment, there's always something that comes up that I'm like, Oh I can push this off. And then when you push it off, you never get back to it.

One of the things that I want to bring this back to.

sting. How did that become a [: 00:11:00

Melissa Hinshaw: I don't know that I quite noticed it at that time yet. But when in 2014, we had a new chancellor come in who established our priority goals. So 5 priority goals for the college. And 1 of those was culture, which is great, but nothing we had ever done before.

Intentionally focused on and that was to be led from our department and organizational development. And so thinking, okay, this is a big deal. Coming from the very top, it's important, but we also have 7, 000 employees. At the time we were six campuses, we had thousands of students.

colleges, all the different [: 00:12:00

We've got, adjunct faculty, full time administrators. We've got. We even have, satellite centers as well. We've got our facilities, our marketing, many different groups. So it's important to have their voice heard. Planning out how are we going to do that? Cause that takes time, but still.

Also keep the ball rolling. So people don't hear about it and then forget about it. And we lose that momentum. And so while we were forming a larger task force, and then later a steering committee around this work, what we did off the bat was just do some quick, we call it roadshows traveling around to each location, doing a quick, 30 minute, Hey, this is.

What we're doing around culture, this is what you can expect and so just starting to get the word out that way so they know, so they're aware of what's happening and we're, including them in that process, allowing time for questions and then they know what to expect next.

erent areas in what you just [: 00:13:00

What was your strategy or process for overcoming that resistance that might have already existed when this big change was announced? Walk us through what you did to overcome that.

Melissa Hinshaw: Lone Star, we just had last year was our 50th anniversary. And so at this point in time, there were some folks who had been here 40, 40 years. And so seeing a big change, either they were on the cusp of, we're fine. We don't need to change. Why do we need this?

p always helps, I think, and [: 00:14:00

Sharing that as we were going around talking to everyone and then also bringing in when we first started a task force to even start us like, what do we're working on the culture? We're going to develop some cultural beliefs and talking about what's working, what's not. And that, that was interesting because, we wanted us a smaller group, but we also wanted, everyone to be represented.

en full group. So we started [: 00:15:00

What do we think we most need to focus on and build in our culture to help us reach the goals that we're working to achieve? And so that really helped get that narrowed down. And then, even having meetings with specific teams or leadership where we could get into a little bit deeper discussion.

What is the culture look like for you? What is it like here? We. We have a culture at Lone Star College but each of our campuses is a little bit different. There's different sizes, they have some different programs, their students look a little bit different. So those conversations with, folks at different campuses could be a little bit different as to what they're seeing and needing culture wise.

best practice, but then your [: 00:16:00

A pretty large scale organizational transformation, and you get a lot of input on areas of opportunity on what to change. How did you prioritize what was most important to least important?

Melissa Hinshaw: So it really was just getting that, that large group together, giving a little bit of background about culture and, why it's important, what does it mean and how it's really here to connect us,. we want it to be a great place to work and to feel good.

But it's also here to help us achieve our goals. So keeping the focus on that helps too. And then as people were sharing out, what's working or what's not, or what do we need still at Lone Star? And then theming it down. So just getting them to work in groups to say okay where do some of these, and it really was just matching together.

fit together? What could we [: 00:17:00

Okay. If it's students, what is it about the students that's most important right now that we need to focus on and starting to develop the statement and the title that would be our cultural belief, but then the rotation happened. So that group would go to the next one. So ultimately you would see what the last group wrote.

tion there. And then I think [: 00:18:00

So maybe they weren't included or available at that first, session of that task force, but we would talk to a group and just share a little bit about culture and why it's important, but we won't, wouldn't have shared the cultural beliefs yet of what we had developed and we would get their input on what's working and what's not.

And then we would show these are the cultural beliefs that we've come up with. Do you think the focus areas that you've. Talked about that you've shared with us fit into one of these and every time they did. And so that way they saw okay, maybe I wasn't there helping create it on this day, but my thoughts and perspective are represented in these cultural beliefs and that really helped to get people on board and engaged and understanding it, and understanding their part of it.

cribed you established focus [: 00:19:00

Melissa Hinshaw: Sometimes that's where thing, you do all that work and then it just fizzles out. And that's not what we definitely didn't want that to happen. We had some good momentum going. So what we did next was form a steering committee. And so what that consisted of was it's not just us saying, Hey, this is what we're doing.

ogether a steering committee [: 00:20:00

And and we wanted, we wanted some faculty and some staff, and so we put that together, and that still exists today, and we meet regularly, but the great thing about that is. It pulls all of those conversations and those perspectives together. And so someone at our tomball campus can, come together and share.

's something we know Then it [: 00:21:00

So again, getting the word out about our culture, our beliefs, providing some models and tools that they can use talking about recognition and feedback and really making it a transformational change. And so we trained some trainers who, so they could help give that training as well. So we were giving the same information, the same message.

And we were aligned around that, but it wasn't just one or two people having to try to go and put this out, everywhere across the large system. And so we were able to all go out and do that at the time and reach more people, but with the same Same message overall.

a really nice symmetry that [: 00:22:00

Maintain the momentum of all this build that you've done. Melissa, really good stuff in terms of how do you build your knowledge base for trying to execute a cultural change? Really good foundational work on how do you actually take that framework and put it into action? There's a couple of things that I'm curious about that I think we need to flesh out.

One is when you look at all the stuff that you've accomplished and you take a look back. What were the things that popped up that you hadn't anticipated? That the audience needs to be aware of if they're trying to execute a large scale transformation?

e were in, in the process and[: 00:23:00

But then also just the communication and every step of the way, what are we doing now? What's next? That people just understand that it provides clarity and the alignment around it. And then there are going to be the naysayers and not, it's easy for us to spend our time focusing on the few that aren't there or aren't supportive of it.

And so to reframe that and keep your focus on those who, who are really involved, you're going to have, there's 80, 10, 10. At any big change like this, there's gonna be, 10 percent that are like, oh, this is wonderful. They're ready to go. They're moving fast and on board right away.

ot behind this. This doesn't [: 00:24:00

Because that's where you're going to get the movement made. And then that final 10 they'll start to see that. They're like, oh, okay, that is some good work being done. This change is making a positive impact. Maybe it is worth taking another look. And they will gradually, hopefully trickle in.

Dr. Jim: I like your point about the 80, 10, 10 model. And there's one aspect of it that I'd be curious to get your insight on. And that's that 10 percent that are just dragging feet to, to, to where you want to go. Was there anything in particular that you noticed? That you did to keep from getting sucked in to that side of the house where things were getting slowed down because it's going to take a lot of effort to get those people on board.

So what were some of the things that you did that kept you from sinking into that spiral on the other end of the continuum?

t, they're still part of the [: 00:25:00

Is it following our model and what we need to create for our students? Do they, are they? Bringing back to that common, the common goal in our future. Is it more something more kind of personal or is, are they really keeping the organization too at the thought as they're moving for a lot of times, it's maybe something more.

It's just harder for them to what they need to do. It's not necessarily that they think something is not right for the organization or not a good move, but sometimes they're not yet into that mindset and so thinking about the mindset and of course seeing and focusing on those that are moving forward with it or are on board and engaged.

So seeing the [: 00:26:00

Dr. Jim: When you think about everything that we've talked about, and, we've talked about two big things. One is how do you build a culture from zero? And the other part is how do you get it to stick and have it have staying power. So those are two big tasks. And if there's somebody that's listening to this and is in the midst of of executing an organizational change or transformation or thinking about how to do this right, what's the framework that they need to have in mind so that they have the level of success that you did at Lone Star?

ure is looked at as, oh, the [: 00:27:00

So really being able to, Connected to yes, we want it to be a great place to work. But more importantly, it's about what do we need to do to get to our how of our goals that we're looking to achieve. And so starting there and then using that to build the conversation, pulling in the stakeholders that you need.

To help in the conversation of developing those cultural beliefs or values. And so you're getting the perspectives from different places. So it's going to be more impactful to the larger population. It's not just from one person's viewpoint and throwing them out there quickly. And then, but of course, wanting to keep the momentum going as well.

ange, that's just why people [: 00:28:00

So if we can help clarify that that helps them be more at ease. And then again, getting those. Those colleagues from across the organization that are really going to help drive it forward and be behind it and help you help put the work out there. So you can reach a larger population, but still give the quality work and the quality discussions that are needed.

And then knowing that it's changes. And continuing to keep an eye on it and those discussions and what do we need to do next in the culture to build on that?

Dr. Jim: If people want to continue the conversation, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

Melissa Hinshaw: Yeah, best way really is probably just LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn. That's easy to access.

. Your road map for actually [: 00:29:00

But the interesting thing aspect about it is that we often fall into the trap of thinking that these big organizational transformation initiatives are often willed into existence by the power of whatever leader or leaders want to push this forward. And what I gather from your description of what you did is that The reality is if you want this stuff to stick, you got to take your organizational mindset and flip it upside down.

If you think about it in a pyramid, you got to turn that pyramid upside down and focus at the people that are closest to the work first. And get what's important to them and then prioritize that as part of that organizational transformation. So if you're out there listening and trying to execute this is not a leader driven initiative or transformation that you need to focus on.

on your people first. You're [: 00:30:00

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