Transcription:
We are right back with you just as promised Audrey, the tech vibe radio show continues. We're on a tear tonight. I
know I love that you're wearing that shirt today.
Yes, I'm wearing the official tech by radio t shirts. That it's awesome. It feels great when I wear it.
So we have a great guest on the show today. We've known him a long time, so it's exciting to catch up with them. We have Rachel Brack.
Hey, Rachel. Hi, Audrey. Hi, Jonathan. Thanks for having me.
Thanks for zooming in with us to do the show. And I'm really pumped up to learn about tier one performances up to these days because you guys are doing some great work. And some stuff that's been really helpful as people start getting back to the office and all that kind of fun stuff. So I just I think our competition is really pertinent. And I'm so glad you're here to talk about what you guys are up to. Sure.
No, thanks. We'd like to think so as well.
So quickly with what's your background real fast. Who is Rachel Brecht? Exactly. Yeah,
well, guys
And only like 12 minutes out, I'll keep it short and sweet. And I'm what I call a sandwich consultant. So started my career in consulting lifelong pittsburgher spent about 10 years sandwich in their corporate retail. And then I've been with tier one now for going on nine years. Excellent. I can't even believe it. And I serve as our I lead our solution architecture practice for the firm, and serve on our senior leadership team for the Pittsburgh region.
Very cool. We've been working on you working on your issues that you work on are always timely ways around people. So talk a little bit about that talk about the practice and relevance today.
That's a great question, Andre. So you know, tier one. We what we like to say we do is we activate strategy through people. And so our primary focus is helping large organizations mostly large, complex organizations. Figure out what they need their humans. contingent to do differently or no differently or act differently to be able to put their strategy in motion and she's there measurable results. So everything our firm does is focused on people and how people can do their best work. And that takes shape in a variety of different different ways for our clients from consulting and helping them think through things differently to designing human experiences and learning experiences for their teams, and then to actually have an arms and legs to build the tools and resources and technologies that support them.
Well, it's what do you think about what's happening in these last 15 weeks now? We've had no changes have met some people say biblical proportions, but certainly profound. Yeah, for sure. And certainly, I'm certainly looking at life in many, many different ways. Almost any way that you can look at a workforce What are you seeing? Like, what are you seeing in terms of shifts and opportunities?
It's a great question. And you know, this is one where we get really excited about things like this because we recognize these are the moments when people will do their best work. And when the most innovation is unleashed within the clients that we work with, right, you put constraints like this. I've been amazed at the number of organizations that have been able to turn their operating model on a dime. Yeah,
right. Flex I'm looking at one
of them right there, right.
It brings out resiliency, and new mindsets and behaviors in teams. Now the thing that you folks, have Adri at the tech Council is you are how to agile mindsets. And so you are able to come in and war room style and be like what do we need to do to shift to make ourselves relevant and to be able to continue to service our customers, the bigger organizations I think some of them struggled with that We saw that with folks who had really solid business continuity plans in place, particularly addressing ways of working, we're able to really ride out that wave and the first, you know, two months of this, were others who had never even entertained the thought of something like this happening or how they might adapt, really struggled. And many of those, you know, we know that the outcome of that has either been some furloughs or reductions in force, which
it's, it's, it's amazing though, because, you know, you use the terminology in terms of, you know, contingency planning and, and, you know, redundancy or, you know, I don't know, crisis management, there's lots of, excuse me, there's lots of terms. Yes, but the constraints can be freeing. Absolutely. You as a coach, how did he help and as an advisor, yeah,
yeah. So the Unique lens that we help our clients with is we put the person or the employee as performer at the center of the lens, where I think other firms rightfully so will put organization or whatever their particular area of expertise is at the center of their lens, whether that's risk or legal or ecology, you know. And so when we think about putting people at the center, we're able to look at things from a unique perspective to understand what are the the, what do we need to do to either create space or remove obstacles for people to continue to do their best work in a really unprecedented environment? So I think that's, that's one of the things example that I'll share is, you know, one of our clients we've been working with and saying how they were so surprised that making the shift to working from home, their engagement went up, and they felt like they were more productive. And so then there's everyone. Yeah, yeah, and but that doesn't That's not across the board for every person but just over, you know, in an aggregate. But what what they're worried about it reentry because the playing fields even when everyone's from home, but when some people work from home and some people work from the office from the office, there's a lot of inequitable event, consistent situations that can arise and great leaders in organizations to make sure they've got the right routines and systems in place. So that the people who are virtual don't feel like they're not part of the team. Right, right. got a hold you dynamic
now
totally relate to that. I totally relate to that. Yes,
absolutely. It's like such a treat listening to you because I personally, as a leader totally relate to that. I've seen the productivity soar. Yeah. And I wondered, you know, what is the re entry like? Yeah, there's some if Rachel is able to work from home and Jonathan's able to work from home, but Audrey doesn't? What does that really mean? Because in many ways we over communicate now. And will that slip when I know that Rachel and Jonathan are going to be at home? Right in our office?
It's a it's a great call Audrey. And so when there's when we when we thought about this work that we've been doing over on reentry, you know, there's some of the pretty standard around policy and procedure, which I think everyone's got under control at this point in time.
Yeah. Next level, then.
Yeah. So they've got that that's like the health and safety, the basic stuff, and communications, we're seeing some real improvements there. It's always been an opportunity for clients that we work with. And I think some of this has forced the issue because one of the tenants that I live by his absence of communication is still communication with an unintended message. And so if you don't, if you don't fill that space, then it will be filled for you and you won't have control over the message.
That's such an important point. Because I mean, that is so true and something
Yeah, good luck. Maybe sorry, Jonathan, maybe we need to everyone worked from home, or no one works on him. Do we get into that binary move again?
Yeah, I don't think that's the future. I think if I'm a business owner, I'm looking at the numbers. I know our real estate developers won't like this but the render potential savings on more streamlined it it's it's measurable. Right. But going back though, to your question, Audrey about communications and sustainment. You know, the other two things, aside from health and safety and communications are this idea of ways of working and leadership and, and those are two things that I think when I look at the longer term are much more important to figure out how we sustain so we're going to have to develop new routines. Look at our cadences and how we operate and there's some significant mindset shifts there too. And the biggest contention on that though, is is leaders. This is unchartered territory for for leaders and organizations on how they navigate this and how their, the way they show up as leaders and the way that they typically manage their teams is turned on its head, and it's going to require them to be very vulnerable, very exposed and really adapt in real time.
Well, I love I love this work. I know that, you know, your organization has just provided so many different kinds of engagements in terms of companies locally, whether it's on, on change management that people need to think of when they're putting systems in, to, you know, leadership practices. So people are interested, what's the website?
Yeah, yep, we're a tier one performance calm, and that's a ti er, one, performance calm. And then we do have the toolkit. I mentioned that and there's a myriad of free resources on there that we put together. Yeah, you know, this is our time to to give back. You know, where we You're taking this opportunity to understand that our mission is to, you know, improve the performance of organizations through the performance of people to build a better world. And so we want to build a better world by pulling our best thinkers together in this time and putting out some free resources. So you can go to tier one performance.com backslash re entry, and you can find this toolkit and the other is some of the other resources on new ways of working and leadership support that
everyone should check that out. There's some good reads on their mind wrapped around this because like you said, we're in uncharted waters. Right, getting as much information as you can to arm yourself I think it's so important and I'm thinking so cool that Pittsburgh has come like tier one that is a thought leader in this area and an expert in this area. So it's gonna make us all the better for us in Pittsburgh to check out your site and start reading for crying out loud.
What's the one thing you've learned about yourself since these last 15 weeks? Um, well, I just want to end it.
Yeah. For an for a raging extrovert, Audrey, I liked creating some more space in my day. I don't miss it as much as I thought I would. I can't believe I'm putting that out there. But I've enjoyed a little bit more space. I enjoy having my coffee on my deck in the morning and just kind of start my day off slow down.
Really, and and your sense of of your your whole self. That's great. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for all that you do for the community and being stand up leader and for your work.
And thanks for having me on. Keep the slow pace. It's okay. You can.
Absolutely. I
hope to see you again soon in real life. So thanks for having me. Everyone.
reaching into the one you're the best here. We're taking a quick break. We got more tech vibe coming your way. This is Jonathan Kersting. And this is Andre Russo in the Pittsburgh Technology Council learn more about us PGH tech.org
Transcribed by https://otter.ai