Cultivating Growth and Co-Creation in Business: The Elke Steinwender Approach to Innovation

Trevor Botkin: 0:10

And welcome back to when Leaders Connect, the Corporate Connections podcast, where every week, we like to sit down with one of our members and talk about business, their journey, their growth and things that matter to them. My name is Trevor Botkin, I am the National Director for Corporate Connections Canada and today it is my incredible pleasure to welcome back to the podcast Elke Steinwinder, a senior marketing strategist with over 20 years of international experience facilitating change. Elke enables organizations to solidify their brand, empower their teams with customer knowledge, break silos between departments and view their customer experience as a whole. Elke, welcome back to the show.

Elke Steinwender: 0:51

Thank you, trevor, I'm happy to be here.

Trevor Botkin: 0:55

I'm happy to have you. We've known each other now for five years almost.

Elke Steinwender: 1:03

Yeah, since 2019. 2019?.

Trevor Botkin: 1:18

So, um, let's, let's jump right in because I think you know I mean we can talk high level some of the things that you do, if you like, but I also think there's an ethos behind your company, miodic, that is very unique in terms of your approach to how you're helping clients and I've experienced it firsthand when we sat down with you and all of our stakeholders and kind of looked at the member experience from Corporate Connections. So I have firsthand experience on that. I know a bunch of members who rave about the work that you do and I think of Pedlex as a great example of transforming their business through the work you've done with them business through the work you've done with them. But maybe we can start kind of where this idea came from, in terms of what you saw and what brought Mayudic to the market in the first place.

Elke Steinwender: 2:15

Well, the name is probably the most unmarketing name that has ever been conceived by a marketer, in the sense that it's hard to say, it's hard to spell, there's like every voyeur in the alphabet except for like O in it. But it has a really deep meaning that, for me, carries essentially what we do. And is the change of wordplay around the Socratic method, which means essentially says that within you you have the answer to all questions. You just have to ask yourself the right questions to get to where you want to go. And that's really what our role is Like. When you were saying that experience, we do co-creation, saying that experience, we do co-creation, the core of how we transform businesses, is not saying we have an expertise, we know what we're doing, but so do our clients. They've been doing whatever they've been doing for years upon years, for hours upon hours, and there is such a collective intelligence that is untapped within organizations and through our co-creation workshops. They have an objective, they have an aim, they go through, but we really tap into that knowledge, that consciousness, that organizational consciousness, to make it emerge through. You know the workshops. They're fun. We played legos together. You know like it's fun. It takes you out of your regular day-to-day.

Elke Steinwender: 3:53

Here's what I'm going to do. Has you know like we're very mechanical, organizations are very mechanical and business problems are very organic. They just like hit you in the face. They come from different directions. They don't make sense. Right, try to fix a machine. When organizations are entities, they're a collective consciousness of the owner, the employees, the culture They've been formed. And those co-creation workshops are magical because they tap into that. They tap into that to solve a problem. They tap into that to solve a problem. So once we get past that, let's create. Then we get into plans and meetings and organizations and structures. And you need both, right, but there's a point in decomplexifying the very complex. That co-creation is probably the easiest way to do it.

Trevor Botkin: 5:07

I love this idea of tapping into organizational consciousness, or even subconsciousness, because I think sometimes you know it's these things that we're not even aware of, but they're embedded so deeply within our organizations, especially as owners. We think one thing and if you ask the employees or if you ask the customers, they're like yeah, no, absolutely not. That is not the case. And yet at the top maybe, especially in larger organizations, you may think everyone's aligned to your vision, and the further away you get from that office, the more, I think, disconnected we see people are from that vision or have no clue whatsoever what that vision is.

Trevor Botkin: 5:51

But I'm fascinated by the idea of using this because this echoes a lot of the work we were doing back in the day when helping build companies organizationally from the ground up, but it wasn't from a marketing standpoint, it was more from a structural standpoint, and so I'm fascinated by the idea of leveraging this for, you know, reaching out to your customers and having that authentic voice and all of that. I think that's really interesting. Are there tools that you're using that help business owners identify whether it's a need or those missing gaps for themselves so that they can look at it? Because I mean, obviously, anyone that wants more sales probably either needs more help or needs direction, but I'm curious to know how you help owners identify maybe those missing gaps or the need to work with my eudic.

Elke Steinwender: 6:46

Well, yesterday I asked you to complete our online diagnostic to kind of identify where those gaps are. That was a very high level diagnostic, but it's still when I read it. Diagnostic, but it's still when I read. It gives me clues of that subconsciousness. Right Like where, as leaders, you put priority and where it's like we'll just flow with this right, and that's a lot of things. There's nobody who builds an organization from the ground up that has everything perfect from the get-go.

Elke Steinwender: 7:24

Right Like everything is a work in progress, and that work in progress starts where your values are as a leader.

Elke Steinwender: 7:35

So, you can see where, as a leadership or a leadership committee, where you place importance and oftentimes there's those gaps in there. So we do like a first diagnostic, that online diagnostic, just to get in that vibe. Then we do oftentimes a second one, which my first diagnostic? My first meeting that is free and sales coaches you're giving too much out like that. I don't know how to tell them what they need unless I do this. And we sit for about an hour, an hour and a half, and I ask questions upon questions upon questions and sometimes there's the same ones.

Elke Steinwender: 8:15

But, after you talk for a bit, I get a different answer. And what I'm trying to do is to understand is it the culture? It's where? What kind of culture? Like?

Elke Steinwender: 8:30

There are sales cultures you know people who are really sales, marketing cultures. There's operational cultures, there's people cultures. There's different ones, and we can't come in and say you have to fix everything. But all of them have their strengths and weaknesses and what we look at is how can we build a continuous improvement?

Elke Steinwender: 8:52

Right, so our processes if you're talking about tools and we're built on Lean Six Sigma, so the defining I don't know them by heart in English, I apologize, but defining, measuring, analyzing, improving and implementation of it those aren't the real words, but kind of goes to that. That's the process. Right, we're very process driven. I think it's my German upbringing that bringing that makes it that way. So we use Lean Six Sigma, we use design thinking, we use a bunch of different tools in our toolbox, but the tools are less important than the diagnostic of the situation. Right, we have about, you know, 250 hours of workshops that we have designed over the years. That can basically answer any problem. But you don't need 250 hours of workshop, you need just a few that are going to kickstart and transform that. So the diagnostic process of what we do is probably one of the most important issues, and I think that's some of the feedback that we get. At the beginning, you took the time to understand us and to me, that's one of the nicest compliments that we can get.

Trevor Botkin: 10:18

That either I can get or my team can get is you took the time to understand us and that is the how you create transformation to identify the gaps between where you are today and where you want to go tomorrow, and that's just building a plan to it so and I'm curious, when you do that first diagnostic, the one, the one that I took yesterday, the it took me about, I guess, about about 10 minutes, yeah, and I got my results instantly, which didn't mean anything to me other than it paralleled the grades I got in school High 60s, low 70s Do you have?

Trevor Botkin: 10:57

Is it just the owner that takes this diagnostic, or is it also populated throughout the company? Or is it also populated throughout the company, whereas I may, as an owner, think that you know, I'm like I'm a five out of five on every answer, and somebody who's working in my factory may say I don't think we have a vision, or I'm not motivated to come to work Like is there? Is there a way to see, or do you use that as a way to show disconnect Is?

Elke Steinwender: 11:24

there a way to see or do you use that as a way to show disconnect, the online diagnostic? I use it as a starting point. What I'm looking for, like what I liked, about your results, independent of the percentage that you got high 70s to me that doesn't matter as much as the disconnect Like. Your overall score was 69. There's some that were 74. There's some that are 70. There's 63.

Elke Steinwender: 11:50

To me, the more variations there are between, the bigger the issues the closer you are in numbers, the more we're in a phase of continuous improvement. Let's take you where. But if there's huge differentiation gaps like if you look on our website there's three circles, that kind of overlap there's your brand experience, your customer experience and your employee experience. If one circle is really huge compared to another like as, even if they're smaller. Another, like as, even if they're smaller but the same size you are in a better aligned place than if there's disproportion, like you're awesome on this side, but this you haven't even looked at it. So to me, that is the first precursor of alignment that I'm looking for. In a perfect world, everybody who's in the um, the management, takes that first initial test because I want to see if there's differentiations between his operations versus marketing, versus, you know, administration view this differently.

Elke Steinwender: 13:01

And again, I'm not looking for, I'm looking. Can we all have the same, you know, proportions? That's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for proportions when we get into more detailed of analysis. We do customer surveys, we do employee surveys and by then it's personalized to their needs of what they're trying to find. But this one is really like am I looking for alignment? What degree of alignment is present within the organizations and does all the management team share the same vision of that?

Trevor Botkin: 13:39

And I think it was interesting. My experience yesterday in taking it was also some of the questions made me pause and think about it and go yeah, kind of sort of. But I think as owners we take for granted some of the things that we think, or, just because we know how to do it, we assume everyone else in the company knows how to do it and maybe that's why we don't train it anymore or some of these ongoing trainings, and so I thought it was very thorough. It was a for something that you're just having people fill out which I assume is also part of a lead gen program for you, that you give them something at least where you can start the dialogue and say well, there's a disconnect between this incredible brand that you've designed and built and the employees how they live within that brand I save them.

Elke Steinwender: 14:32

I get a copy of the diagnostic and I save them, and if the person re-become is a client, I take it out after x time and we use them to see, to track progress. So to me it's a, it's a great. I use them for our own business, right and then, we look at our strategic planning. Okay, we're going to focus on one element in each of the three spheres, that's. You know, sometimes which one you start with is usually your lowest number, but that depends on the maturity of the business, right?

Elke Steinwender: 15:08

You still may be in a. I need to generate leads. We're in completely restructuring. The door of entry varies by company but if once you have like the main issue or the main challenge has been addressed on an ongoing basis, you could just revisit the diagnostic and you get a PDF version of it and say, okay, we're going to just address one of these for our next three months as a continuous improvement tool to bring the business to the next level, and it's very useful.

Trevor Botkin: 15:46

Well, I think it also from a consulting standpoint. It limits some of that negative gain where you work with a client and you help them exceed their expectations and then, you know, a year goes by and you know someone says well, we didn't get that much from it, and you go, I'm sorry. And they said well, you know, and you go. Do you not remember where you were a year and a half ago? No, we weren't there, we were, we were much better than that, and it's just we forget.

Elke Steinwender: 16:14

And one thing that we've implemented to to address that directly, but also to measure co-creation is is rarely measurable, right? It's not like you've gained 5% of market share or increased sales. It is a non-measurable metric. So what we do is we've implemented a theory called benefits realization, which comes from project management, the PMI vision. That looks at what can we quantify? Non-quantifiable impressions.

Elke Steinwender: 16:53

So it's like how is your when we do this before and after workshops? What do you believe is your current situation about this? Do you know if you had to rate yourself on a one to 10 on the customer, let's say it's the persona. Like what is your belief that you understand your persona today? One to 10, we do round tables super quick and then at the end of the workshop we redo the same thing and you see already a shift in perception, comprehension, where you're going, and we track, track those over time because even if you went from, let's say, a four to a six, once you've implemented it, we ask it again so we can track the. This was our great challenge and and michelle and my team, who has a math background, was the key inspiration behind this, and I thought it was genius to track these things, because we rarely as business leaders track the intangible.

Trevor Botkin: 18:05

Yeah.

Elke Steinwender: 18:06

But those shifts are accelerators for our business shift of thinking, of positioning, of alignment within our teams. You feel it, but I mean it's, it's. It could be scientifically better, but it's really just that tracking of progress, because we forget and we don't celebrate it and we don't celebrate it, yeah, and acknowledging it.

Trevor Botkin: 18:29

And it's the same thing we see within our chapters of Corporate Connections and I think you've experienced it too where some members may say, well, I didn't really get value, and you're like, are you kidding me? We've made so many introductions and don't you remember that time you had a question and five people gave you a response that changed your life or your client's life and we forget. We tend to be focused, or I think there's so many challenges in front of us day to day, and especially if we're also parenting on top of running businesses, it's compounded by that, and then we have our own things. But I love coming full circle this idea that because businesses are organic, that they are living, that they are something that need to be nurtured and fed and sometimes gotten back in shape, as we see with our own bodies.

Elke Steinwender: 19:22

And circling back to your first question of how you got into that, how I started this is I've been in business since 2011. Before that, I was always in organizations and I think I always did co-creation just didn't call it that because you were kind of into it and I don't think I have the answer to a lot of things. But as a group we're really awesome, right? So to me that's how I gained my knowledge is by asking people like what do you think? How would you do this? How can we improve to do it? And I think collectively we're way stronger than individually.

Elke Steinwender: 20:06

And my longer than individually and my one of my first first clients that I had. They asked me to do a market analysis, go to market plan. You know, like which segment should we expand into our business? Do the stuff, do the research presented and I was like, wow, this is what it is to be in consultants, like it. I didn't have all the ups and downs and the chaos of you know like getting stuff done and I'm like this seems really easy and I presented the plan. They loved it. I called him like 30 days later. So what did you do? And he's like nothing.

Trevor Botkin: 20:46

I'm like it's so difficult, it's sitting there, you know and.

Elke Steinwender: 20:50

I'm like and I have guilt. You know, I'm like, but you paid me to change something and it didn't change. I'm like, I can't, I can't, I can't do this. So I'm like, could we go in? And I'm like, why? So he gave me some. You know this person that said this, this person said that and you know I. Well, three out of your five are legit. Like they're legit. I gave a plan, but they don't know what to do in the next 30 days, like tomorrow. How do I implement this? And that's what I used to do Right when I was in, like this, just untangle this.

Trevor Botkin: 21:28

That's the wolf in war for the job usually yeah.

Elke Steinwender: 21:31

And but two of them are like I think maybe the person is not at the right place to do, because that's what the job is, and the other one just has too many things on their to-do list. Like I can do it, that's why they can't. Like it's impossible, like nobody can do this. I'm like can we just just book, put everybody in the room and let's untangle this? And that was my first official co-creation workshop, where we took this wonderful strategy and the plan and say what are we going to do in the next, in the next week, in the days 40 days, 50 days, 60 days and who can do it? And let's re-change your job description, because there's no way that. And some person said I don't want to do that and I'm like, okay, so how can we? And somebody said I want to do that, so that it was painful, like it was six hours, it was exhausting, I was exhausted, they were exhausted, but it worked.

Trevor Botkin: 22:40

Right.

Elke Steinwender: 22:41

And I was like, how, why can't we just do this at the front end instead of at the back end?

Trevor Botkin: 22:47

Right as opposed to being reactionary.

Elke Steinwender: 22:50

Exactly. So that's how I got into doing what we do today, which is a great customer experience story, because I listened to what was going on and it was very rewarding. It was rewarding for me, it was transformational for them and I'm like I like this, so we get into it, you know.

Trevor Botkin: 23:16

So, with, with, with hindsight, with 20, 23 years hindsight, what's been the biggest surprise for you?

Elke Steinwender: 23:23

That's a great question. Um that, um, Leaders underestimate their teams. Wow, Leaders underestimate the wantingness to participate to impact.

Elke Steinwender: 23:46

That, you know like employee motivation. To me it's like they're not motivated because they're not empowered. Oftentimes you don't, you don't help them do their job to the best of their ability and we don't believe that they're as passionate as us, that they want it like they want. They want to do an amazing job, but oftentimes for policies, procedures, whatever, we stump that power and it's just sitting there. We hold on, to quote unquote power because of our own fears of.

Elke Steinwender: 24:47

Well, what is my role in this, instead of letting go and I see it with our leaders the one who transform that desire that their team become the best expressions of themselves. That is the probably the most untapped surprising thing that organizations leave on the table. That's my biggest surprise, and it's surprised because I do it too right, like I am. Just as um, you're taught as a leader that this is what a leader does they lead, they take on, they're responsible, they're all these these things of a persona, of what a leader is. That perhaps could be more useful if we just shifted our perspective. I know I'm talking as much for me as anybody else.

Trevor Botkin: 25:40

Well, it's a paradigm shift to when you realize that most things we're taught about leadership are incorrect.

Elke Steinwender: 25:51

Yep.

Trevor Botkin: 25:52

And it's only when somebody comes along and helps kind of debunk some of those. And I think I've said it on another podcast, but I was talking to Kelly Irons down in Charlotte, north Carolina, who is amazing in leadership development, and we were just talking about something I had and I said, well, it's not really my, it's not my leadership style. She goes. Well, then change, what do you mean? She goes.

Trevor Botkin: 26:25

The company say you have a thousand employees, you're going to have a bunch of different people who need to be led in different ways, and a good leader adapts their leadership style to the person that they're dealing with in that moment. And they may have an overarching sort of leadership style as the senior, but when you're in front of somebody and they need somebody who gives them clear, concise directions with emphatic due dates, that's what you have to give them. And if you're standing in front of somebody who needs who's let's call it love language is kind of more soft and is everything okay and can I help you and that, and they thrive in that. You can't confuse the two, you can't use one for the other. And she said a good leader adapts to the person. They don't force the organization to adapt to them. That's profound. I mean, it was just one of those things that it's not taught. It's it's, it's intuitive, but how many of us follow intuition in business?

Elke Steinwender: 27:44

And to that. You know to jump on that when you asked, you know what surprised you. And systematically, the leaders who come towards us are at a pivot point in their business We've got them here, we'll get them there. We've got them here, we'll get them there. And they've opening of the power of the group and the organization and oftentimes they're like I'm tired, I can't do this anymore, which is, you know, like it's always easier if you could do it from a place of, of of strength instead of a sense of I'm stuck Right. But they both happen.

Elke Steinwender: 28:37

But either, whether it's at a crunch time or a decision time, it's a decision that I want my team, I want to play a different role as a leader. I want my team to embrace where we're going. I have great people there and I need help to kind of get the flowing in a different direction. And that's really they're at a pivot point. Either the organization or the leader is at a pivot point of where they need to go and they see that they're untapping there. They have great potential and somehow don't seem to exploit that potential and that's, I think, where we shine.

Trevor Botkin: 29:26

That's beautiful. So if somebody wants to find you, if they're listening to this and they go, ooh, this indicates to me it's my euticcom.

Elke Steinwender: 29:35

Exactly.

Trevor Botkin: 29:36

Yeah, well, we'll, we'll. We'll put the spelling in the liner notes to make it's myuticcom, exactly, yeah, we'll put the spelling in the liner notes to make it easy for everyone with, ideally, a link from that aspect. And obviously you're on LinkedIn with a last name that's equally as challenging to spell as myutic.

Elke Steinwender: 29:53

They should do the diagnostic.

Trevor Botkin: 29:56

Sure.

Elke Steinwender: 29:56

Really like it'll just be a great thing whether we get in touch or not. I think they should, but I mean, whether they do that or not, just doing the diagnostic, inviting their team to do it and having a discussion around the table of the scores. Oh, I saw this and it is a great starting point to look at that transformation.

Trevor Botkin: 30:22

I think that's brilliant, absolutely brilliant. Well, elke, as the host of the podcast, thank you. But, more importantly, as the National Director for Corporate Connections Canada, I really want to thank you for everything that you do within our community as a leader, but also as someone who pushes me and my partner, kai to always be looking at what that journey looks like for our members, because it's too easy just to take for granted that everyone experiences CC the same way, and I think you've always been great at just uh, quietly and and methodically poking us when we need poking.

Elke Steinwender: 30:59

So I just wanted to acknowledge that and say thank you thank you and it it's a great community and and the pokes are for the it's because I am passionate about what we do and what we bring and what the community of corporate connections can bring to leaders, so it's always a fun thing. Yeah, it's fun.

Trevor Botkin: 31:21

I love it. It's pretty fun. It's pretty fun. It's it's I. There's never a point where I should ever have to complain about what I do for a living. So it's, it's a. It's an amazing group of men and women country. So well, thank you. Thank you to everyone else listening. I really hope that you check in with us next week, check out my euthychcom, and this is where leaders connect.