Sharon Newport With Sharon Newport, LLC

Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Association Leadership Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:17] Lee Kantor here another episode of Association Leadership Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Sharon Newport with Sharon Newport, LLC. Welcome, Sharon.

Sharon Newport: [00:00:29] Thank you so much for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:30] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about your practice. How are you serving folks?

Sharon Newport: [00:00:36] Well, I am excited to be serving a lot of clients in the association space. Having an association background for about a dozen years, I serve folks around change and transformation. Fundamentally, a particular area of expertize also includes culture, which includes DEI and within. That certainly includes strategy. But usually people come to me when they want something to some best practices or leadership or inspiration to be delivered. And often that becomes the precursor to creating a change process. And so my work really is grounded in supporting my clients through an entire change or transformation process, which can look like consulting, facilitation, group and team work, individual coaching, etc.. So I’m excited to be doing that in this really unique time and in our lifetime.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:32] Now, when people are working with you, are they coming to you typically like for a project or one kind of an issue and then it kind of over time it morphs into something a little more foundational.

Sharon Newport: [00:01:45] Yeah, that’s an interesting question. Usually I sometimes have clients that come to me and they don’t know how to name it, but they’ll say, We’re having trouble getting the work done, we’re having trouble getting along or having effective disagreements. We know strategically what we need to be doing and everyone’s really clear on their job. But I’m making up a scenario. But we’re just we’re having trouble as a team being with each other or we’re having trouble being effective with our use of time, or we’re having trouble figuring out the best way to navigate hybrid life, etc., etc. But usually it’s grounded in some bigger things. Those tend to be symptoms of other stuff. And so while part of my expertize is to be able to see the duality of those things, or even sometimes the polarity of those things, or maybe the overuse of one to the lack and detriment of the other, and needing to have a both end mindset towards things that are supportive to the organization getting it done. But the other thing that people really want right now is support around diversity, equity and inclusion work in a way that’s not checking the box, that’s not isolated to one area of the association or the organization, but really baking it in into everything that the organization does, not only across staff, but across the board, across what is given to membership, what are all the IT systems, what are all the lenses? And while I don’t have the expertize in every single one of those areas, my expertize is supporting their mindset, their thinking, their knowledge and discernment to make good choices and build effective processes and attract the right partners and further down the line around change to be able to make the kind of transformation that is lasting.

Sharon Newport: [00:03:35] And that is the difference between change and transformation, is that change might be a shift and it might not be forever. It might be to to navigate a new thing, but it might not need to be forever. Transformation is fundamentally changing form so that it never goes back to what it was before. And so my clients often come to me when they don’t know how to put their finger on it, but they know it does have something to do with the human component. And so I use not only some of the areas that I’ve named, but I also really use neuroscience and somatic work, which is work around the body and being able to help create awareness and understanding about the language of the body, the language of how neuroscience. There’s some stuff around neuroscience, I would say dabble on the edges on that, but teaches us how to show up better as leaders and use more resources and messages from our bodies and what we’re learning from each other and being with each other around that, that can really get at the non-verbal component as well as the energy in a room so that we are really better supporting the effective, lasting change that we seek to create.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:42] Now as catalyst for change. I think associations are uniquely qualified to be the leaders in this area and to really lean into this DIY and this transformation, because if they are doing it from their lens, then their members hopefully will learn from them and they’ll they’ll be role modeling the behavior that we all would like. So I think that there’s definitely a need and it’s exciting that there is a desire for the associations to kind of lean into this and be the. Role models for the others in their industries.

Sharon Newport: [00:05:19] Yeah. Well said. Is, is the role model component is really important and that also includes the board. Right and supporting all leaders to be able to model the way and be in that. But it also changes their knowledge and discernment on how to influence the future of the organization. And so you’ve said it well and and that is also, you know, I think there’s often expectation that we just do some things and we get it done and it doesn’t work that way. So it really does require the indefinite long term commitment that we do in steps in order to avoid any sort of urgency bias that we might feel, but really be willing to step forward because there’s a lot of slowing down that has to happen sometimes to really make sure that we are gaining that wisdom rather than biasing action over knowledge. That wise action once does not mean we know how to do it again. So we want to make sure we have the knowledge.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:19] And is that kind of action bias? I don’t think I’ve ever heard that term before. Is that something that maybe a younger generation is more comfortable with taking action faster and wanting expecting change to happen faster? Because their whole experience in life is something where, you know, when they want something, they get it. If they, you know, information, weather, whatever it is, pretty much everything is instant, you know, you know, next day everything is fast.

Sharon Newport: [00:06:50] You know, that might be true. But I would say in my experience, action bias or urgency bias and I would say the other side of that would be reflection and slowing down. I think I experience that from all generations. I think that when people I think it’s natural that when people decide something needs to change or transform, there’s an excitement about that, right? We start to get a glimpse of what that future state could look like, and we’re comparing it to where we are. And we go, Oh, and to get there when to get there right now. But there is absolutely a journey that must take place to change form. And we often as humans get so excited and so towards moving towards action and urgency that we can skip steps and not realize that part of the process is being in process and being uncomfortable and learning and growing and having reflection time. Otherwise, we are naturally going to miss some of the things that some of the ingredients that are required to come out with this new preferred future state. So in any change or transformation work, whether it’s DEI related or not, it is an ongoing conversation I’m always having with my leaders around that because it can actually create real unintended consequences.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:14] And I, I’d like to fit in whenever there is a change in my own world or my own life. I like to kind of sit sit with something for a bit and have some patience and try it on before, you know, maybe a knee jerk move to the next thing. Or, you know, a lot of times you want to just see how the story ends. So let’s just get to the end and then skip the six steps in between, because I know what the end I want to be, but by not kind of sitting in it and just marinating in it a bit, I think you’re right that you do miss out on some of these things that you just might glance over because you don’t think it’s important. But it could be very important to go to the next step and to kind of earn your way up the ladder and to really earn that change.

Sharon Newport: [00:09:01] Absolutely. And, and, and yeah, I, I, I’m curious about the earning that change, and I want to clarify that it’s a decision a lot of the times to make the change. So sitting in the reflection doesn’t create the change, right? We know that you do have to take action and do behavior and all of that good stuff, but you will not necessarily know how to hold it and keep it indefinitely without some of that reflection time. Yeah.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:33] So you have to build that in. And is that kind of an aha moment for your clients when you’re like telling them, okay, we can get there, but we have to kind of leave these oasis’s where we just hang a bit and it may seem like we’re not doing anything, but believe me, things are happening underneath the surface here.

Sharon Newport: [00:09:53] That no, that’s exactly right. It is a big aha moment because most people don’t realize that thing in us that has us moving towards those urgency or action biases. And, and frankly, I’ve I’ve always had clients appreciate me pointing it out. That’s not that’s the. Aha. That’s exciting. The hard part is sitting in that and part of my role is supporting their ability to see what they are gaining. As we slow it down, we don’t stop. We’re still in process, but they want to leap to like five things. And I’m recommending two or three maybe, for example. And as I’m walking through that with them, I’m continuously pointing out the value of our pace. So because part of what I’m also trying to do is literally recalibrate the energy and the velocity that they are accustomed to likely weigh in their muscles that supports their ability to help everybody else in their organization. Because I’m working with the leaders. Right. And we want everyone else in the organization to attune to that so that it slows the whole organization down without having to yell slowdown everybody. Right. We want them to attune to this leader who is changing the pace at which we do this work. And the real tough stuff around change and transformation is being willing to look at the things that we did naturally as steps A, B and C or one, two and three and say, wait a minute, I need to rethink how I want to do A, B, C, and 1 to 3 to align with these values or these these ways in which we’re going to behave going forward, or the ways in which we need to create new outcomes going forward.

Sharon Newport: [00:11:34] And that slowing down requires support and requires partners to think through. And, and when the organization sees, that’s how we’re going to get through. This is slowing down and being willing to go, Gosh, I need to build more time for these projects now, right? I need to build more capacity for how I look at the annual conference this year and how we build X, Y and Z because we want time, because we value this to go look at it from these new lenses. And so you’re right, and it’s the doing that’s harder than the mindset. Once I pointed out a few times, they get really excited about it, but it is the learning how to do it that can be challenging and exciting I think, for people at the same time.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:15] And isn’t that where your background in the neuroscience. Yeah, comes into play where behavioral change is difficult and then you have to kind of account for some sort of setback or some sort of, you know, period of just like you said, rest where where things are kind of percolating. And if you don’t have those kind of insurance policies that are keeping people on track during those kind of transition periods, then they’re, you know, then a bad day turns into a bad week. And then all of a sudden that was, you know, a folder on a shelf somewhere that you used to you thought about doing. And it’s important to keep that, you know, to build that into the process or else it’s going to be difficult to make that change last Exactly.

Sharon Newport: [00:13:01] And and one of the things neuroscience teaches us and somatic teaches us is how there are specific things that we’ve learned that neurologically people need to hear, feel, experience in order to have capacity for their best selves at work, even if everyone’s exhausted. Certain aspects around inclusion, relatedness, understanding the importance of my role in the context of everything where I fit around the org chart and how that’s important to the strategic plan, etc. etc. certainty. You know, the thing with change is that there might be a great deal of uncertainty, but a good leader is always going to find something to be certain about. And sometimes I was that leader in COVID that was like, We don’t know if we’re going to be in this in-person meeting next month that is going to make or break our budget. Right. There was a lot of deep, serious uncertainty. But what we know for sure is that you I am so proud of how. You are and how committed we are to each other that we are going to get through this together. You’ve got to find something that you can really have everyone rally around and ground in that creates some certainty so that I can show up with some assuredness around what I’m doing right now, even if what I know tomorrow might change it all.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:20] Now, how do you help the folks that. Maybe they got you there, but they’re not going to get you to where you want to go. The people that maybe are not the right fit for this future organization, how do you kind of counsel them on just that change? You know, the person that was great in the old world may not be the right fit for this new world.

Sharon Newport: [00:14:45] Well, I think it’s important to center autonomy around those kinds of things. Sometimes people know that that’s true about themselves, that they’re saying, gosh, I don’t know that this is for me anymore and giving them the room for that. I would also say that the premise of fitting into an organization needs to change. I think that ideally an organization always allows everyone to fit if they want to be there and they have the qualifications to do the role. The premise of FIT needs to flip and the notion that you hire for fit needs to ground and center on skills and competencies and not some of the other stuff that we sometimes consciously and unconsciously would decide as good for us, which often magically would create homogeneous organizations. And that can’t be the way anymore. So if that person can do the job and they need different accommodations to be able to do that for whatever reason, I think that’s a conversation that I’m teaching leaders how to look at a little differently and how to realize that accessibility matters and inclusion matters. And if you want to keep this person but here’s the deal. In this new COVID world, right, or this new hybrid work life, we have to look at it differently. And the organization has to decide their values. They have to decide their based upon their resources. I mean, the organization has the right to do a lot of things, but if they want to explore the new horizon of what will be the best practice if it’s not deemed already, we have to be willing to revisit that paradigm.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:22] So how do you help them kind of open their mind to maybe a broader team than they had previously? Like a lot of these organizations, they find their next hire by a friend of their current hire or a relative of somebody they know, and they’re not looking outside kind of maybe their own version of traditional places.

Sharon Newport: [00:16:49] Well said, whatever they deem is their network or traditional places might be very homogenous and might be getting the same thing over and over again. And if they want to diversify, that is going to require them to go beyond what they’ve been doing before and do things differently. When I have I have absolutely had clients say to me, I mean, those you know, those kinds of folks are just not applying to our job or maybe aren’t attracted to our industry and really kind of blaming the component once again rather than saying perhaps it is on me if I want this organization to look different, to think different, to bring diversity of thought and experience and background and identity, to be able to help us innovate faster. Then I have to go find where they are and bring them to us. It’s our job to be attractive to them and to always put that burden on the premise of the quote unquote right candidate is, I think, backwards and antiquated and is not going to get you this outcome that you say you want. And you cannot blame the candidates for not being those things when you’ve not done the work to go outside of it.

Sharon Newport: [00:18:01] What’s interesting is that in slowing that down in conversation and in action, we really can support some unconscious bias in thinking and approaches that they did not even know about their own network or their own traditional ways. They were going about it and getting them to think differently about going to HBCUs or going to other trades or going to let’s look at transferable skills and go find maybe veterans. I mean, this is not reinventing the wheel, but for some and slowing that down and really getting to critically think about that can feel like that. And so I have to honor that for them to slow it down enough to not skip the step, give them a chance to process. Sometimes there’s some emotion around that and sometimes then they’re ready to go and we’re off to the races and we can go get different kinds of candidates to fill these roles. So so there’s there’s sometimes a little more to it than strategy.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:03] Right? And if if they say that they are open to change and if they can look at their board of directors page on their website and see if that reflects their members, then that should do the trick, you would think.

Sharon Newport: [00:19:20] Or really the other comparison is, does our board reflect our members and does the member reflect the industry or the population of the area? Our mission says we serve. So, for example, if we serve the United States, does the industry reflect the population diversity of the United States? And does the membership reflect that and does the board reflect that? And there’s often different levels of schism across those different metrics. And I have a client right now that’s very deeply committed. They do not feel that their board represents the industry and the industry doesn’t represent the population of the areas that they serve, which in this case is the United States. And so they’re committed to not only diversify the industry, but therefore also start with diversifying. They’ve diversified their staff. They want to diversify their board and volunteer scope. They’re doing they’re committed to doing cohort style education around this so that those volunteers are really looking at things differently, looking at their networks differently, looking at the premise of mentorship and allyship differently, and and bringing succession in differently so that it can start to model and attract people to the association that previously may or may not have been attracted to the industry or the association before. So they’re really trying to be a leader in that. And I think that’s one of the power of associations is that we have the power to support an industry by being a little bit ahead of it, not always falling behind it and blaming the pace of the industry for what can get done. I don’t think that associations will always be able to to live that way anymore.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:58] No, I think it’s imperative that they are the leader and I think that the ripple effect is real and that if they are walking the walk, it’s a lot harder for those industry members to say that it’s impossible if the association that serves them is demonstrating, it is possible.

Sharon Newport: [00:21:16] It’s exactly right. I yes, I think we completely agree. And from the association side, I would say that’s part of what makes the work really exciting and and innovative and different and being able to create really generative discussions for that industry to explore itself, its evolution towards change as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:38] So any advice for the association leader that let me reframe it, any advice for the young person out? Who’s considering getting involved in associations, whether it’s just they’re an industry person and they want to be a member of an association or maybe pivot their career to open themselves up to a career in serving associations, because I think that that’s an opportunity for young people to really accelerate their career if they if they’d like that.

Sharon Newport: [00:22:10] Yeah. So from the premise of becoming a member of an association, I would say whatever industry you’re in, go seek out the association or associations that serve that industry and get involved. I would say join start to dabble in some volunteerism. There’s likely some sort of micro volunteerism where you can start to see what it’s like to participate in something much greater than yourself, which is what I believe, what it’s like as a member of an association to work on the association side from the volunteer perspective. So without question, don’t hesitate. Just do it, just do it. You’re going to learn a lot about yourself. You’re going to probably get more out of it than you’d ever give. And you’ll learn about your profession and whether you stay in that profession or in that job or not, your association will be able to. That association experience will help you grow in a really, really powerful way that you might not know how to measure until after you’ve had the opportunity to engage. For those who are interested in working in associations, I of course say do that. I have a testimony for that as well. I’ve been on both sides. I would also say that what’s so interesting about associations, and particularly in this, we’re all all of our industries are going through a shift right now.

Sharon Newport: [00:23:32] And I’m really excited about the leaders who are running the larger societies across the globe right now. They are fantastic global thinkers who are talking and working together about how we can absolutely elevate the industries we serve and the associations that we serve to do really important work in this world that this world needs right now, period. And not doing that in isolation, but doing it in community. And that is what associations are built upon, are hearing diverse voices from multiple layers of volunteers who influence ultimately the way the association leads that industry to its future. It has a deep grounding and belonging that is possible. Not always happening, but possible. And to be part of that is from the staff perspective as well as the volunteer perspective and my experience. And in those that I work around constantly, I pretty much say we all feel I can’t speak for everyone, but I’m on a dare. It can be life changing, the kind of power that can happen through the community that associations create.

Lee Kantor: [00:24:43] Well, Sharon, if somebody wants to learn more about your practice, get a hold of you or somebody on your team. What is the website?

Sharon Newport: [00:24:50] My website is Sharon Newport. Shar0 rn ewp0rt.

Lee Kantor: [00:24:57] Thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Sharon Newport: [00:25:03] Well, thank you so much for having me. It’s been a great conversation.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:05] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Association Leadership Radio.