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About the guest
Rhonda L. Frith-Lyons is a recognized expert in organizational design and business transformation, specializing in executive leadership strategy. She holds an MBA from Queens University of Charlotte and certifications including Certified Organization Design Professional (ODC) and PROSCI Change Management. As the Managing Principal at The Sassy Entrepreneur, LLC, she advises on business architecture and organizational design, leveraging her extensive experience at companies like Micron and Humana to drive impactful change and elevate leadership performance across diverse industries. Learn more about her on her expert page.
Summary
In this episode of the Org Design Podcast, hosts Tim Brewer and Amy Springer engage in a compelling conversation with Rhonda Frith-Lyons, an experienced organizational designer, at the ODF conference in the Twin Cities.
Architectural engineer turned organizational problem-solver, Rhonda Frith-Lyons, joins us from the ODF 2024 conference to share her journey into org design and the critical skills leaders need to thrive in a rapidly changing business environment.
Rhonda unpacks how the worlds of art, science, and behavioral insight intersect in organizational design, why leaders must resist the urge to “just move boxes,” and how AI is reshaping the way we think about transformation. With decades of experience across supply chain, IT, and global multinationals, she offers practical advice on diagnosing problems, framing the right questions, and leading with intentionality. Rhonda highlights the need for leaders to adopt a holistic view of their organizations, considering how changes in one area affect the entire system.
If you’re a leader navigating growth, change, or disruption, this conversation will help you see your organization as a system—and your role as its architect.
Show Notes
Sassy Entrepreneur - https://www.thesassyentrepreneurllc.com/
Rhonda Frith-Lyons - https://www.linkedin.com/in/rhondalfrithlyons/
Transcript
[00:00:00] Tim Brewer: Hi, welcome to the Org Design Podcast, Tim Brewer, I'm here with Amy Springer joining me, co- host, we have Rhonda Frith-Lyons with us today. Rhonda, thank you so much for coming along. I hope you're enjoying the ODF conference here in Twin Cities.
[00:00:15] Rhonda Frith-Lyons: Absolutely. It's fabulous. It's great connecting with everybody.
[00:00:18] Tim Brewer: Yeah, for those of you that are out there that are org designers, we are here at the community of org designers that get together, volunteer organization here in the US and we'll publish more about that alongside the podcast. But we'd love to jump back, Rhonda, tell us a little bit about how did you become an org designer?
Did you go through school thinking, I'm going to become an old designer, mom, dad or tell us that journey, share a little bit of what led you to, to this career?
[00:00:44] Rhonda Frith-Lyons: Thanks for asking the question. I actually started out as an architectural engineer. And just natural, the way you think as an architect and as an engineer. It comes together, right brain, left brain. You automatically are a systems thinker and we're professional problem solvers. That was one of the things that they told us when we were going through school. We're training you not to be architects or engineers, but *professional problem solvers*. And I've just, have carried that theme on throughout my career.
And org design just fell into my lap, it was just something, it was a calling. And it just came natural to me, and I never really thought of myself as an org designer, just a professional problem solver that went in and help work along teams and executives to break down their organizations into these different dimensions and whether systems processes or whatever that might be and us to spring value to the marketplace. Make money. Yeah.
[00:01:41] Tim Brewer: Make more money. I think everyone's into that. How did that happen? Were you in an organization, been an engineer and the opportunity presented, where you just naturally gravitated towards that, or was there a point where, an opportunity came up that you took that landed you in the org design seat.
[00:01:56] Rhonda Frith-Lyons: Yeah it was actually being called on to do fractional, what is now known as fractional type of consulting work as a transformation executive. And just working on different problems in supply chain, and IT, finance for global multinational companies and just going in and taking a look at all the linking mechanisms of why things were not working, why teams were not collaborating, where were the breakdowns? Why were there high turnover with leaders? Why is there a high turnover of talent? Why can't they get products and services and solutions to be fully realized?
So it was just through consulting engagements. It was just start to, it just built on itself. And working alongside behavioral scientists, and then I got introduced to the world of applied behavioral science. I'm like there's a science to this too. So it's both an art and a science, and I just, all those things came together beautifully, and I just, I haven't looked back.
[00:02:59] Tim Brewer: That's really cool. We have heard a few people talk about the art and science of org design.
For our audience, mainly everyday leaders finding themselves in an organization, maybe after a new appointment, or a founder that's just had their organization grow to a scale that now needs to be thinking about org design. What are they seeing in their organization to know that's a problem?
You talked about some of those things, that supply chain not working right, not making enough money. Is there anything, any advice you'd have for them as they're looking at their organization thinking, I think I might have an org design problem? How do you approach that problem when you get asked to come in and step in and partner with a leader in your work?
[00:03:40] Rhonda Frith-Lyons: It really *starts with asking the right questions of leaders getting them to make sure that they understand the problems they're trying to solve. What are some of those pain points? What are some of their aspirations? *Once we do solve something what would great look like and feel like and sound like for them as a leader and for their organization? what does that future state look like and really setting the expectations around discovery and diagnostics, and in order to really help them to start to unpack the problem, it takes time to be able to assess and doing it in partnership with them to really determine the best starting point to start that diagnostic as well.
And I think it just, it's really about that. About getting them to really be thinking about framing the problem the right way and our what is those aspirational goals and pain points? Yeah.
[00:04:33] Tim Brewer: Is there a particular style or type of organization that you prefer working with? How do you know that there's a good fit when you meet someone new that's got org design challenges and is looking for someone to come and partner with them in their organization like you.
[00:04:48] Rhonda Frith-Lyons: If all they're about is "fix them for me" mindset and "hurry up and get it done in six weeks", I'm not the gal for you. Oftentimes it does begin, it is leader led, it all begins with a leader. And making sure that to manage expectations around timing and the approach to be very thoughtful and intentional about where to begin.
And if they are calling eight weeks before go live of something, it's too late. I always tell them, let's pump the brakes, go ahead and go live with something. And then let's talk because then it becomes about continuous improvement and lessons learned and the benefit of the hindsight of 20/20 to how do you then make the next opportunity even greater, a better experience for everybody.
[00:05:36] Tim Brewer: For a bit there, I thought you had the hindsight of 2020 and you were talking about the 2020, not 20/20.
You talked before about continuous improvement, one of the themes that we've been seeing pop up, is that the rate or demand for change to happen really, either really quickly or to just continuously happen? Organizations think that they're almost at the end of a transformation, only to realize that there's five more transformations bearing down on them. How do you think over the time you've been working in org design that expectations changed? And how do you help Companies go from, every three years we go through a big kind of transformational change to actually helping them continuously improve like you talked about before?
[00:06:20] Rhonda Frith-Lyons: I think a great accelerator of shifting that thinking is AI. I mean it's really turning companies, making them really rethink about how they look at things comprehensively across an enterprise. And AI is an enabler of being able to pivot. Being able to understand in the marketplace where your unexpected disruptors are going to come around the corner.
You always have to be ready to, almost like an owl, pivoting 360, looking around you. And that's the responsibility of the executive team. Always being able to look at emerging trends, really know your industry, always looking at the market, and then take a look inward, from the balcony and take a step back and say, okay, do we have the right capabilities? Do we really understand our customers? Do we know how our products and services have be able to meet the demand in the marketplace? And, if we don't have the right capabilities today, how we go get that? How do we upskill who we have? Who do we need to go find and bring into the organization? Do we need to automate it? Bring in AI? Do we need to outsource it? How do we go about doing that? And not have such a knee jerk reaction to going after structure, because that's the number one mistake that a lot of leaders do, they want to move boxes around on a PowerPoint and put names in boxes. No, really, it *all begins with the strategy and the capabilities and then the work. And then you figure out the resourcing piece*. Just getting leaders to take a beat. Go slow to go fast, really think about marketplace positioning, and then organizational positioning, because you want to win in the marketplace and in the workplace.
[00:07:59] Amy Springer: So for all these leaders that are about to experience this in their organizations, what skills do you hope they can all have to help them navigate this time and this new approach to organizations we're going to need?
[00:08:14] Rhonda Frith-Lyons: They need to be really great organizational architects. And understanding that when they look at the organization, it isn't just about finance or operations or just process. It's really the full dimension of the organization. So if they move one piece of the puzzle, then it has a residual effect on the other parts of the dimensions of the organization.
So if they change the work, how does that impact structure, information flow, metrics, people, and reward. How does it affect our culture and our behaviors? My big theme and all of my interactions with leaders is *behaviors are linked to business results*.* So we lay the foundation for healthy behaviors and understanding how we show up is as important as what we do*.
So it's really just helping leaders to really understand how to get on that balcony, survey the landscape of the organization and understand how all the pieces, all the connections, because organizations are systems, systems of people.
[00:09:15] Amy Springer: As a lover of org design, a great practitioner, what are you most excited for the near future of org design? What are you looking forward to?
[00:09:24] Rhonda Frith-Lyons: Oh, wow. After this week at the ODF conference, which has been fabulous, it's really how to augment myself as an org design professional problem solver. How do I take it to the next level before, before I'm disrupted? So how do I get ahead of that?
So I need to practice what I preach to leaders. And always be taking a look at the landscape of how to leverage the cutting edge technologies to just up the game, be quicker with diagnostics, quicker in session to have the insights really quickly with designing, because it is, it's very quick, it's very agile in the design process. And that's what can be very exciting and daunting all at the same time. Those are very natural reactions to it, so it's exciting actually.
[00:10:11] Tim Brewer: Rhonda, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. We've loved having you along, so thank you for carving out the time with us. Amy, as always, thank you for co hosting the podcast with me today. And we'll see you all again soon.
[00:10:25] Rhonda Frith-Lyons: Thanks so much, Rhonda. Oh, thank you. Take care. Bye bye. Thank you.
Functionly empowers organizations to navigate the complexities of organizational design by providing a comprehensive platform for visualizing and optimizing structures, processes, and workflows. By fostering a culture of continuous improvement and enabling leaders to ask the right questions, Functionly helps teams align their strategies with their operational capabilities. This holistic approach not only enhances collaboration and reduces turnover but also ensures that organizations are agile enough to adapt to emerging trends and technological advancements, such as AI. With Functionly, leaders can craft a responsive and resilient organization that thrives in a dynamic marketplace.
