Welcome To Count Me In. I'm your host, Adam Larson, today I'm thrilled to be joined by La Tonya Roberts, CEO of Harmony Consulting Group. La Tonya brings a wealth of experience in operational excellence, especially when it comes to helping small businesses scale and improve. In our conversation, La Tonya shares her journey from corporate consulting to launching her own venture, and dives deep into the operational hurdles organizations face when it comes to growth.

She offers practical advice on how small businesses can create intentional cultures of inclusion, leverage technology for AI for maximum efficiency, and incorporate Fortune 500 best practices without overwhelming their teams. Whether you're running a small business or just looking to level up your organization's operations, you'll walk away from this episode with some actual insights on building simple, sustainable, and scalable foundations for success. Well, La Tonya, I'm very excited to have you here on the podcast, and today we're going to be talking about things like operational excellence and just how organizations can do better. And I figured we'd start a little bit by sharing a little bit of your story. You know, you started working with firms like Deloitte and then you start shifted into helping with small businesses achieve that operational excellence.

And I'd love to hear a little bit more about your story.

Yeah, I mean, I work I work with the big companies and got an understanding of what it's like to to run the company, how to build businesses, how to do your strategic planning and your processes. Really a lot of those foundational practices that help make a business run better, more smoothly. And then I had some experiences working with some smaller consulting firms too. And so blessed in that area because it allows you to take on different roles, right? You have to get really scrappy, you wear many hats.

And then I went back to a bigger firm. So back to Booz Allen and then back to Deloitte and then the pandemic hit and like many people, I said, you know what, I'm stressed out and I'm ready to go, go out on my own. And so I took my talents to go team up with a couple other people and do what I've been doing for at that time, the last fifteen years and help them with building out their business, putting that structure in place from working in the Bear Consulting Firms. And then I eventually became the COO for, for one of the people that I, I teamed up with and love doing that. Right.

It brought together everything that I had done from, putting together key performance indicators, managing talent, doing the processes and the structure and helping to really scale the business up to 7 figures. And now I do that for others.

Wow. That's quite a story, especially helping that scale up. I'm sure it's not an easy task, going from a small business to scaling up to seven figures in an organizational. What are some common operational challenges that those businesses face, especially when they when they want to do that scaling?

So it's really, it's, it's setting that foundation, right? I mean, you start your business, you are a very small and mighty team and you're wearing many hats. And so you start to, you own a lot of the processes and now you have to get used to delegating and teaching other people how to do the things and trusting that they're going to do them. Maybe not as well as you, but close to it. Right.

So that's going to start with really documenting what it is that you do and putting systems like your CRM, your customer relationship management tool in place that can actually track your sales pipeline with, you know, when are people coming or being introduced to your company? How are you tracking your notes? What are your next tasks? What is their contact information? And then working with your team to figure out, well, how do we actually service them once they, once they enter our ecosystem?

You know, what is that sales process? How do we move them to being a client? How do we deliver? And then how do we off board them? And so I work with a lot of my CEOs on defining that process and slowly removing them from being so hands on in that work.

How does one change that mindset of because when you're when you're doing everything yourself, you're in it and you're like, if I can't, you know, if I can't if somebody else can't get it done, just going to do it myself. And you have that mindset of doing everything yourself. How does one shift from that mindset of I'm gonna do everything myself to actually getting delegating? Because it's not an easy transition, especially if you're so used to doing it all yourself.

We have to rip the band aid off, right?

I mean, it's a little bit of it's a little bit

of tough love because when you are doing all the things, there are certain things that aren't getting done. Right. And you, you only have so many hours in the day, say you're spending ten, twelve hours on your business, because let's be honest, when you an entrepreneur, you work a lot, you work a lot, right? But you may not have as much time to build the relationships with potential new clients, or you may not have as much time to really do the work and work with your VIP clients. Right.

So you have to train someone else to do that work. And so what I do is I get them comfortable with you know, what are those processes that only you can do who can come in and take over some of those roles, whether it's bringing on a virtual assistant, bringing on an account specialist, bringing on someone who focuses solely on the marketing or the sales process for you, or bringing on contractors to start delivering the work and teaching them. My background does include change management and it includes training as well. So I am really big on setting people up for success and making sure that they understand their role. And we slowly again, start to remove that CEO from being so hands on in the process.

One great example right now, I'm working with a young lady and she has been that person that is very client delivery focused. And so we've been bringing on contractors and teaching them the process. She, or I may be involved in the first meeting with the assessment. And then as we build out the staffing plan, we build in project management hours that includes leadership check ins. So you still get that client focus and that client activity.

You're not the one actually delivering work. And so now she can focus on building out the business and has a team that supports her in servicing the clients, but with those regular checkpoints to make sure that things are happening as they should.

I like that approach, especially the whole, like, this is ripped the band aid off. Let's just dive right in because otherwise you'll keep you'll keep missing things, keep things will keep falling through the cracks. Because I like that because if you're doing everything, you can't everything's not getting done.

Right. Exactly. Exactly.

Yeah. So when you and I spoke before you were talking, you know, we were talking about sustainable systems. Can let's talk about what are what are sustainable systems and how can that help small businesses kind of implement and foster growth within their organization?

So when I think about sustainable systems, it's twofold. It's your processes, it's your technology that you put in place. It's how people do the job, but it's doing it in a way that prevents burnout. You can spend a lot of time doing something and create this, this environment that is very high turn and you're constantly moving, but eventually you lose your talent. Right.

So what I like to do is I work with my clients and we put together things like the CRM or project management tracking tool, content development. You know, how can we leverage AI to do some of those repetitive tasks? And then how can we figure out what are some of those things that where do you need human intervention to actually come in and make tweaks or assess? We put together our key performance indicators to make sure that we are on the right path or do we need to pivot? And we're constantly monitoring the data

when you're running a small business. Burnout is a big thing. So you mentioned, you know, having sustainable systems helps you to avoid getting to that burnout. Are there any other recommendations that you have, especially when you have small teams and a lot of people are doing a lot of things and you don't want your team to burn out, you don't want to lose your top talent that you have.

Sure. So along with documenting your process, I believe in having regular check ins. And I'm not saying you do it five days a week, but just even a fifteen minute check-in to make sure that people understand what their role is, how do they fit into the bigger picture, making sure that you are very clear in what your ask is and your expectations. So, you know, a couple of check ins a week, big team meeting where everyone understands here's the priorities over the next couple of weeks, understands lessons learned from a previous project. The lessons learned sessions or the debriefing sessions are really, really big.

And that's something that we used to do in big corporate where after every major milestone, project milestone, or after the project ended was having that debriefing session where we sat down and we talked about what are we going to start, stop, or continue doing? And what really worked well? And then how did the team feel going through the process? What tweaks do we need to make? What do we need to make sure that when we do similar work with the next client, we're doing what works.

And that is super helpful to do it as close to the end of the project or a major milestone to make sure that it's top of mind and that you're constantly improving your processes.

Yeah, that's super important because otherwise you'll keep doing the same thing over and over again and never actually improve the team and get to a better place. Yeah. So one thing that we had talked about was, you know, I had read you had said that you would like to adopt Fortune 500 operational practices. So how does a small business or what are some of those practices that they can help adopt, but that also doesn't overwhelm the team? You know, we've been talking about trying not to overwhelm the team, but I'm sure that there's practices that small businesses might not be aware of.

Yeah, moving with intention and strategically, right? So doing your annual strategic planning process, doing your quarterly business reviews, making sure that your goals are being tracked and measured. And, you know, goals may change, right? Depending on what's going on in the environment. Are you able to quickly adapt to those things?

And a lot of times when you are having those regular check ins and you're tracking that data, you can forecast when something needs to happen. For example, diversity, equity and inclusion was a large part of my business. But two years ago, I saw the change in the market, right? It was because I was looking at, well, what are the clients hiring me for? What's happening in the government?

What's happening with the people that actually fund my clients? This is changing, you know, how are people responding to these initiatives? And so I knew that I needed to change, right? So it meant from going to from DEI to let's use inclusion, let's use culture to just really let's focus on what it's about. And it's the operations and it's the culture of the organization and making sure that people are set up for success.

And so I really shifted my entire practice to focusing on just on operations for the most part. And so that is one thing that I definitely take from big business is being ahead of the game, building relationships, right? Because as you can see that things are starting to change, it's nothing like having that heart to heart conversation with your client to say, Hey, I've noticed this is happening right now. How is this impacting you? What changes are you making?

How is this affecting your funding? How is this affecting your stress levels in your teams? How can I best support you through these changes? And that was something that we did a lot working with our clients because we're there to support them and meet them where they are. You know, the business development doesn't just start at the point where you may see a request for proposal.

That business need has been there for quite some time and someone is usually shaping what that RFP may look like. You do that by having those regular check ins with your clients and building those relationships so that they actually trust you and are okay with sharing. This is what's really happening. Well,

and it seems like culture does play a huge part, especially with having good operations and having the ability to grow, because if your culture is not in the right spot, you know, it just cascades from there.

Right? Right. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, culture is, is how you do things.

It's your norms and behaviors. Right. And so that not only impacts what happens internally in the business, but it also impacts how the business serves its clients and clients aren't stupid. They see when something is going on, they can see or feel when the dynamics between team members are off. Right?

So getting that culture, the right culture in place, whatever that means for your organization is super important to making sure that you can actually serve the mission and make sure that everyone is.

Well, you know, I know I know DEI is a big buzzword, especially with what things are happening in our government right now. But having inclusion and equity within your organization and having that part of your culture doesn't mean you necessarily have to have a program called that. But if you're making sure that's part of your culture, then that's actually happening without you having to have a quote unquote program called that.

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. People should people spend so much time in their job, right? They spend often more time with their team members than they do with their own family.

Yeah. So you want to feel safe. You want to feel like you're in a place where you belong. You want to feel like you are included, even if you have an opportunity to share your voice or your opinion on how certain decisions impact you or impact the client, whether you're the person that makes the final decision or not, just knowing that your voice was heard and it matters. Helps with retention.

It helps with bringing in additional team members, right? Because you become an employer of choice, get people to start referring people to the company and you just, you're happy. Right. And people have to remember that rewards don't always mean monetary rewards. You're not always able to give the raise or give the bonus, but if you can provide other opportunities or a feeling of belonging and inclusion, people actually stay.

They become more loyal to the company.

Yeah. So in your experience, is what role has data played, especially when you're working toward operational excellence? Because we know that data is is a big part of everything that we're looking at as an organization.

Yeah. So when we when I first sit down with my clients and I want to understand, well, what does success look like to you? Right? We may have retention targets or long or lifetime value targets or what have you. But what does success look like for you in where are you?

Like, what's your baseline? Where are you right now? Where do you want to go? And then how do we put together a sustainable plan, a realistic plan that will actually help us get there? And then putting in certain intervals along the way where we know we're headed on the right path, Or do we need to pivot?

Do we need to, or something's working really, really well and we're hitting those milestones and those targets faster. Well, maybe we can do more of that. So constantly looking at those targets, sometimes weekly, sometimes monthly or quarterly, and then using that information, that quantitative information to figure out, you know, what are our next steps within also not forgetting the qualitative part two. Right. And I know it seems like very rude to think about, well, how is someone feeling throughout this process?

Or, what is the sentiment? But those things are super important as well because those things matter, right? Like Maya Angelou said, people never remember what you did, but they remember how you made them feel. And every decision, whether we own that to it or not, it is a decision based on a feeling. Right?

You're upset, you're happy, whatever. It's still based on a feeling. And so we have to take into consideration those qualitative measures as well.

How do you how do you measure that? How do you get you get that number and say, Okay, this is how everybody's feeling?

It shows up in their actions.

Okay.

So say you go into a meeting and you want to come up with a new idea. Are people actually raising their hands to volunteer new ideas or is the room silent? If the room is silent, you haven't created a psychologically safe space for people to share and feel like they're going to be retaliated against. If you decide you want to make a major change in the organization and you're getting a lot of resistance, something's going on there. Are people actually speaking to you?

Are they smiling? It's looking at the body language. It's looking at what is said. It's paying attention to what's not being said. If you are collecting engagement surveys, you know, what are people putting in the surveys?

A lot of times people are keyboard warriors and they will write down everything, but won't say anything, right? Like they feel more comfortable when it's anonymous. Or how are people feeling when somebody gets a new opportunity? Are they happy for them or are they resentful? Are you seeing the same people get the opportunities?

Are certain people being left behind? So a lot of those things goes in the culture, like how you, how you're doing things and then how are people feeling about how you're doing things. But pay attention to those actions. And a lot of times it's more often, though, what's not said than what is said.

I wonder like if you're working with a leader and they tell you like, well, I don't know how to read people. I don't get that. I don't understand that. You know, should they go take a psychology course so they can understand how to read people? Or is like what is what is the what's the first action they should take when they're trying to be more comfortable in understanding how they're like getting to know their their folks?

I want to know how well do they know themselves? How do you respond in certain situations? Right. So I like for people to go inward first, right? You know yourself before you get to know others, right?

How do you respond when you receive negative information or positive information? What happened in that last meeting when somebody said something that you weren't expecting, you know, or let's go back in time when you were in at a certain level. How did someone treat you? Were you mentored? Did someone pull you aside and give you guidance on how you should be operating in this situation?

Right. And thinking about what is it that you needed at that time? Right. And so going inwards and looking at your own self can actually be very eye opening because a lot of people don't know. I don't know who I am.

I've just been going based on these role models or these people that are in these high important places, and this is what they did. So I thought it was okay to do it too. But is that authentic to you? And is that, is that what you really want? And then after you do that, it's having conversation.

People forget how important having a simple conversation, a one on one interaction with someone. Don't just have the team meetings. Have the open office hours, invite people in for a fifteen minute check-in. Hey, how are things going? Do you need help?

How can I best support you? And really have that servant leadership mindset of, I'm here to make your job easier. What is it that you need from me? And how do you like to receive information? How do you like to receive constructive feedback?

How do you like to be told you're doing a good job? Is it one on one? Is it in front of a group? You know, what do you like?

Yeah, I it's it gets it's getting uncomfortable and understanding yourself, having that emotional intelligence to know where you're at so that you can understand where at least where your team is and be open for them. Because a lot of times it's easy to get caught up in numbers. It's easy to get caught up in, you know, let me look at all these spreadsheets and look at all the data and forget that there's people who are actually doing these tasks and they're not just numbers. They're not just another line in the HR's, you know, line budget like, oh, this is how much we have to pay these people. These are actually real human beings who have feelings and emotions and we're human beings.

And if you're a leader, you're a human being who has feelings and emotions, and we have to learn how to work together. It's not just a it's not a cut and dry, a one size fits all thing, especially when working in an organization.

It's absolutely not. And it's so funny. When I had that revelation, maybe three years into my consulting career, and I was working on these big organizational transformation projects. And one common theme that I noticed was that there was not a focus on the people and the impact of these changes on the people. You're implementing new technology or organizational redesigns or new processes.

And someone may have been in that job for five or ten years. And their whole world is being changed. And now they're just expected to operate in this new environment overnight and they weren't set up for success.

And

that's when I started doing more of the change management with the communications and the training and making sure that people were on the same page. And, as I wanted people to be set up for success. I mean, that's really what it came down to, you know? We know change is hard, but we're constantly in a state of change. But it doesn't have to be as hard as we make it, right?

Don't make easy hard. Communicate, be transparent as you can be, collect feedback, be okay with adapting and pivoting where you need to, train people, inform them of when something is changing, why it's changing, and what is the impact to them. It's really that simple. It really is that simple. And people may not always agree with the change or buy into the change right away, but the fact that you were open about what's going on, the impact, what this means for them, they may eventually come get on board or they make the informed decision to say, this works for me or it doesn't.

And they may leave. And that's Okay, too. And because that makes space for the right person to come in and fill that role.

Yeah, change management is a difficult thing. I mean, there's reasons why, like if you're doing an MBA, you can read like hundreds of books on change management. Everybody has their own opinion on it. But it really it doesn't have to be complicated. But not everybody I don't why why do we make it complicated?

And that's not really a question that you have to answer. But it's like it's one of those things it's like, why do we have to make it complicated? And maybe maybe we can answer that in a different way. Like, what is your what like what is your approach to that change management, especially when it's coming to operational changes? Like you've touched on a lot of those elements, but maybe we can this is this is your approach to change management because it's not like it's it's probably one of the hardest things we have to go through in our lives, like whether it's in a business or whether, you know, in your personal life, if you're having a baby or if you're getting married, that's a change management thing for yourself, you know, or for your whole life.

Yeah. I mean, in a business setting,

I'll

say, do you understand why the change is happening? Right. And then do you understand the impact of the change on the different stakeholder groups? Getting your leaders all on board with here's the message that's going out. When I speak to this group, this is what they care about.

Here's the message for them. I speak to this group, here's what they care about, and here's the message for them. What is the overarching message? What's our timeline? What are the things that are changing?

How are we keeping people informed of the progress that is being made? Right? What training is being prepared for them? How do their job roles change? Do you have a plan in place for when something goes wrong?

Right? Not just let's panic, everything is falling apart, but okay, if this happens, we're going to do this. And being okay with making mistakes, you're going to make mistakes. There is no change that is perfect. Know, you find out things in the doing.

And so how do you pivot? How do you have resiliency and bounce back from when something wrong occurs? But that communication, that training process, the documenting the processes, right? One of the things I was helping to roll out a new electronic health record system that impacted several 100,000 people all over the world. And we had to start with going to the hospitals and saying, well, how are you currently doing this?

You can't shut down a hospital. It just, it's not happening. So pulling people out of their jobs for a few days and say, how are you doing this currently? What are those band aid fixes? What would you change about this process?

Why are you doing this? And you know, it doesn't work. Right? And then, okay, here's how it would work in the new system based on what we think we know. Now you are in the operating room or in the emergency room.

Is this really going to work if we do it this way? Do you really have time to get to the laptop or the iPad and put in this information? Like real time, what would this look like? Right. And taking that information and going back and tweaking, not just the, have the business requirements, but now let's meet it with the technical requirements.

Right. So it is constantly gathering information and then figuring out what needs to change to make it feasible. Feasible. Right? We can sit in an office around the table and we can theorize, I think it'll work this way, da da da da da.

But the people that are actually doing the work, it needs to work for them. And so we need their feedback too.

Well, that's a that's a huge part of it. The people on the front lines actually doing the work, the person in the engineering room designing it in their mind, it may make sense, but the practical application, you know, you have to find that way to bridge that gap. Otherwise it'll just be a it'll be a nightmare for everyone.

Yes. Yes. Yeah.

Excuse me. So when when you meet with organizations who are looking to to grow and improve their, you know, invest into their operational improvements, you know, have you ever, you know, encounter folks who are meeting with you and talking, but they're hesitant, you know, due to cost concerns or, you know, am I able to reach this goal? How do you, you know, how do you have those conversations with those folks?

Actually just had this conversation last week with an organization and they needed new HR. They didn't have the HR practices in place. And so one thing that I want to start out with is an assessment that I have an operational assessment that I give, and it walks you through eight different areas of operations. And that's just really to let me know where you are, understand what are some of those. If you think about red, yellow, and green, what are some of those red areas that may be a priority?

Right. And I say may be a priority because just because it shows up as red on my assessment doesn't mean it's a priority to be it. And that's what happened in this situation. Right. It creates awareness around some things that you may not have thought about.

Right. Because you're so busy doing the day to day operations. And so I'm going do this assessment and I'm going to come up with some recommendations. And then we're going to have a conversation. Hey, this is what I'm seeing.

What are you seeing? You know, where are you right now? And then I do ask the question about budget. I'm going to give you a plan that is going to meet all of your reds, some of your yellows, right? And it is the, and I love the way that this particular client, he said, it's a menu.

Yeah, it's a menu of things and you get to choose. You get to decide. And so my job isn't to make things harder for you. It's to create awareness around some things that need to be, that can change. How do you achieve the goal that you want?

And then we sit down together and design what that plan is going to be. So if your priority is to make sure that your growth model is in place, then we're going to focus on your products and your services. And we're going to make sure that we've simplified it, made it sustainable and to the point where we can scale it. If your focus is on building a team, then that's what we're going to do. We just have that conversation.

Here's what I'm seeing. Here's what you're seeing. What's the priority? What's your budget? And then we can go as fast or as slow as you want.

Yeah. No, I like that because it's it's a matter of understanding that you don't have to do everything at the same time. You can slowly build. You don't have to you can slowly scale up as as it makes sense for your organization. You don't have to say, we're just going to throw all this money in this thing and just scale at an at an unprecedented rate, which isn't healthy either for an organization.

Right. And I don't want you to do everything on there. It's not sustainable. Right? My three areas simple, sustainable and scalable.

You know what? Let's make it simple. Let's make it sustainable. And then once we've done that, then we can scale it.

That's true. I like that. No, that's great. So, you know, as we're looking to the future, you know, you're dealing with clients, you know, are there certain trends that everybody should be aware of and prepare for? Like, what are you seeing in the market as you're meeting with different clients?

You've got to figure out how to make AI work for you. Right? And it's not just because this is the, I don't say new kid on the block because I've been dealing with AI, it sounds like for ten years, right? We may not have called it AI. We may have called it something else back then, but, AI is here.

It's here to stay. And it has benefits for your organization, right? Whether you're automating things, you're having it do some of those repetitive processes. One client, we are looking at how they do their assessment and create the report. And so instead of spending hours going through all the data, well, AI can look at the data and quickly summarize it and help you with some of the recommendations and come up with things that maybe you didn't think about.

Right? Or how are you managing your customer service? Right. So say you typically have a front desk person who was collecting all of your phone calls, but if he or she is on the phone with somebody and someone else calls in, well, that could be a lost opportunity. But what if you had an AI assistant that came in and said, Hey, sent you a text message.

I saw that you just called. We were on the phone. What I am, let's say I'm Tanya, Tanya's AI assistant. And you just acknowledged, Hey, I'm an AI. Right?

What can I help you with? And start collecting some of that initial information to figure out how do we get to a solution and maybe help book a comp or a sales call with you or a consultation. We're on our phones all day anyway. We're texting. Most people prefer to text versus talking to someone.

So why not offer multiple opportunities or someone who 11:00 at night or 2AM in the morning, all of a sudden they get an idea and they're like, I need this service. Let me call. Well, that AI employee doesn't sleep. They're working 20 fourseven.

Right?

So there's so many ways that we can integrate and work with AI in our business. And so I would say to the business owner, get savvy in how you can leverage it and work with someone who understands it so that you can incorporate it and make sure that your workforce of the future and of now includes AI employees as well as human employees.

Definitely. Well, La Tonya, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and just sharing your expertize with our audience. I really appreciate it.

Thank you for having me here. It's been great.

This has been Count Me In, IMA's podcast providing you with the latest perspectives of thought leaders from the accounting and finance profession. If you like what you heard and you'd like to be counted in for more relevant accounting and finance education, visit IMA's website at www.imanet.org.