Making an Impact With Angela R. Howard

My guest today is Angela R. Howard. She is an organizational psychologist, consultant, and author. Angela is also a fellow podcaster; she's the host of the podcast Humanly Possible: Future of Work Conversations with Angela R. Howard. I have been a fan of Angela and her podcast for a very long time (and I suggest that you check out her conversation with Janelle King on workplace spirituality to see what it’s all about.)?

When I found out that she was writing a book, I knew that I had to get her on the show to talk about the employee experience and well-being, leadership, human-centric workplaces, and how she is making a positive impact.?

Angela considers herself to be a “cultural anthropologist.” Growing up, she loved studying and picking things apart to understand how they work, so naturally, her landing in the world of workplace psychology is fitting. “I study cultures, I study systems for a living, and have really focused in on mindset shift, behavior shift, and how we can build more human-centric workplace cultures,” she shares.

Are you ready to learn more about a next-gen leader who is focused on creating a positive ripple effect in the workplace and building a vast ecosystem to do it? In that case, you’ll genuinely enjoy this episode with Angela.

Punk Rock HR is proudly underwritten by The Starr Conspiracy. The Starr Conspiracy is a B2B marketing agency for innovative brands creating the future of workplace solutions. For more information, head over to thestarrconspiracy.com.

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What Impact Means

Coming from a family where her mother worked in corporate America and her father was a blue-collar worker, Angela has an appreciation for the labor markets, the working class, and those in the corporate sector who are changing the way we work.?

She saw firsthand the toll that corporate life took on her mother and how she often felt unrecognized for her efforts. Angela's mother felt as though she wasn't doing something with purpose. That perception dramatically impacted Angela—and it's why she is doing what she is doing today.

Angela envisions the workplace as a container where we are "letting people out into the world, into their communities, into society and how you treat them in this container impacts how they're impacting their communities," causing a ripple effect that drives significant change.

"Impact, to me, is how you are positively influencing the people, the world, humanity around you" Angela says. She shares that impact is how your actions, behaviors, connection to social causes, and your identity as an organization influence your employees and customers, partners, suppliers, and more. Leaders have many opportunities to create a positive impact, but they often don't know how to go about it.

Creating Impact Outside of Tradition

Many leaders start off with great intentions when it comes to creating positive change, but those often go awry when there is pressure on profitability or revenue for the organization. This happens because there are aspects of work focused on the wrong things.?

The way we define leadership in today's world of work is changing. Angela shares, "I think we're moving more towards leaders having a responsibility on the people, the emotional well-being, the whole human versus in the past, people were seen as resources." But now that perception is shifting as companies no longer view their employees as just objects with no real input or influence of their own.

Traditional work is a comfort zone for many companies, but it is a paradigm that will stunt growth, prevent productive change, and diminish the positive impacts that both can have. It's possible to "be profitable and focus on people," but some organizations find it difficult to fully step out of the traditional workplace paradigms.

Breaking the Traditional Paradigm?

In most cases, when consultants leave human resources, they are ready to hit the ground running and start changing the world. But there's one consistent challenge they face—companies don't want to spend money to be told they're doing things wrong.

That’s why, when Angela approaches helping companies, she doesn't consider herself an HR professional. "I've worked in HR, but my educational background is in organizational psychology," she says. As she digs into the mindset shifts and behavior changes necessary to create impactful change within an organization, relating it back to psychology makes the process less accusatory and more collaborative.

She explains, "I use that to my advantage to, for lack of better words, diagnose what is your culture today. I can get into many details, but that's really qualitative-quantitative information. That's then summarized to say, 'This is what's happening.' And we compare that to what you want to actually accomplish."

There are plenty of buzzwords on how to change the culture and how to make progress. But once a company has a clear goal, Angela’s next step is to identify the levers of leadership, behavior change, mindset shift, process, and systems necessary to achieve it. And for Angela, "an organizational development meets psychology approach" has worked well in creating a positive impact.

People in This Episode

• Angela R. Howard: LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Podcast

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