Workplace Confusion Is a Systems Problem, Not a Personal Flaw

Speaker A: This episode is also available on my fulfilled leadership YouTube channel. The link is in the show notes. Most people spend years in the workplace trying to figure out where they fit in. The politics, the jockeying, the burnout. We tend to blame the culture, the boss, or even ourselves. But what if fitting in has less to do with the people and the politics and more to do with whether your work is itself has clarity. My guest today is Lenae Brown. Lenay has spent over a decade directing one of New York City's most respected peer workforce training programs. And years later, reflecting on that experience, she began to name what she had been doing all along and that is helping people and organizations get oriented to what work is actually asking of them today. Linnae is a work navigation strategist who helps people make work work for them through clarity, orientation and right sized responsibility. One expression of that work that we're going to hear all about is what Lenay calls boot. It's an acronym for Brown's Organizational Orientation Theory. It's a practice based framework that helps people and teams find the coordinates. We're going to hear about that, that they need to do their work with more clarity, relief and autonomy. We're going to discuss why orientation at work is a structural problem and not a personal failing. What it means to lead people from reference points rather than vibes. How the boot framework helps individuals and teams get grounded in their work, and why clarity in your role is the foundation of fulfillment at work. Linnae, welcome to the Life Fulfilled podcast.

Speaker B: Thank you Bernie. It's great to be here. I appreciate the intro.

Speaker A: It is great to have you. Lenny, I love your title, the label that you've given yourself in your current career stage. A work navigation strategist. Let me give my listener just a little more context on that because you say you're helping people make work work for them. I love that. Giving them more clarity, sustainability, flexibility. Uh, now you've spent over a decade at the Howie the Harp Advocacy Center. Advocacy center, easy for me to say, in New York City, my home city. And you started there as a training coordinator, then as director. We're going to hear about that. And you led A nationally recognized 400 hour peer support training group. And your total background includes training, facilitation, workforce development, work with institutions including Harvard Medical School and Rutgers University. And so as I mentioned in the intro, we're going to hear more about your framework boot and how born from that experience is really now the larger part of your work. Helping people navigate work. So that's a lot to digest, but let's hear the backstory. There's a backstory there, right? You didn't wake up one day and just started doing this. Give us the backstory and how you got to this moment in your career.

Speaker B: Yes, well, thank you so much for asking. And so I would say I would just start with exactly what you talked about earlier, which is my first job in, um, peer support, workforce development. That job was really, uh, prolific for me. Very profound because when I first started at the organization, the training program had been in existence for 15 years. Um, so had a great body of work. There are many graduates of the program, but they didn't have a really distinct, um, foundation for the program. They didn't have a good arc to the program. Um, they went by Vibes a little bit. And so my work when I first got there was they had this body of work that had a lot of heart, but they needed bones. And so my work was about building bones into this body of work. And as you mentioned, this program is very comprehensive. 400 hours of in class training, a 12 week internship, and then employment at the end. And so when I first got there, I was learning all of this at the same time. I was doing my job. And you know the expression I was like flying the plane while changing the engine at the same time.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: So what I noticed though was the bottom line, or, uh, the bones of the organization, the bones of that training program were that we were taking people with lived experience in mental health recovery and substance use and turning them in from becoming from service users to service providers. So at the end of the training, they could use their lived experience to help other people with their recovery process. That was the whole point of the training. And that became a verb.

Speaker A: Recovery from what?

Speaker B: Oh, from mental health or substance use.

Speaker A: Okay, yes.

Speaker B: Yeah. That was the crux of the job of peer support. And so when I realized that was the bones, it helped form to orientation, a, uh, real orientation for the program to then figure out what we were doing, where we were going and why we were doing it. It's because we were helping people become go from service user to service providers. And it took about two years, I think, for us to really revamp the program so it could be replicated.

Speaker A: And when you say that it was based on Vibes and not this orientation, is that what you mean? That it wasn't framed up properly? There was no why behind it. It was just based on what you call Vibes?

Speaker B: Yeah, the why was basically, you know, people really believed in peer support and it was really part of recovery, and that recovery was possible. But when it came to the actual training part, a lot of the training was based on whoever was in charge and what they preferred. So the classes didn't go in order. They didn't have any rhyme or reason to them. Um, they were just kind of thrown together because they seemed like a really good idea versus when we were able to figure out we were taking people from service user to service provider. That allowed us to figure out, okay, so what comes first in the class and what comes second in the class. And it gave us a framework from which to rebuilt. We rebuilt the entire program.

Speaker A: So continue the story because I know a little bit about it, I know there's more to it.

Speaker B: So keep going. So, yeah, so, um, it took, like I said, it took about two years for us to revamp the program. It was actually replicated in the Netherlands. They have a couple of locations there now in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. And um, two years in, we got, you know, the program's nice and sturdy, has the bones and the body and a heart, all of that. And the director ended up resigning and that came out of the blue. And um, it was funny because then upper management and some other colleagues of mine said, so you're going to go for the directorship job? Right? And I, because they, they saw how much I worked on it and how much I cared about the program and, and how diligent I was. And so when they asked, I said, absolutely not. I'm not becoming the director of anything.

Speaker A: And what, what was, how was your current, your then role defined as, um,

Speaker B: the training coordinator or the director?

Speaker A: Not the director. Training coordinator.

Speaker B: Right, yeah, the training coordinator.

Speaker A: Okay. AI is reshaping every workplace. But most transformations fail because they ignore the human side of change. At fulfilled. At Work Academy, we call that missing piece the human dividend. Our 4Move framework helps leaders reduce fear, create clarity, preserve meaning, and build adaptability. So people don't just survive AI change, they thrive in it. And you get the outcomes that you need. The human dividend is available as training and consulting. And we put the full framework into a white paper that you can download right now. The link is in the show notes.

Speaker B: We'd love to connect so that, that definition, literally I was just responsible for, um, the admissions process, the classroom sessions, and hiring the trainers and then making sure people finished the actual training class. So I had nothing to do with the employment part, I had nothing to do with the internship part, just the actual 400 hours of training. And to become the director meant to have to actually Oversee the entire program.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker B: And so I had initially said no because I had seen the previous director's responsibilities and some of them felt a little out of my league. I know one of the things we had to deal with is our program had about four or five different funding requirements. Our funders and they all had different requirements and really was very difficult program to manage just from that perspective. I mean, I don't know if you know, social services, but many social service agencies maybe have one or two sources of funding. Ours had five or six. So that was just one of the reasons I was like, I didn't want to take on that responsibility until a staff member said to me, she said, look, I know there are problems, I know there are challenges to face, but this is your job. Like, this has your name all over it, and there's nobody who could do it like you could. And so instead of just thinking about the problems, think about what you could accomplish in that role. Think about what you'd like to do with that role. And that stopped me cold. I had to admit that I had to think about that.

Speaker A: So, uh, can I just comment on that? Because in the context of this podcast, the Life Fulfilled podcast, and the five life pillars, that everything I do, whether it's the podcast, my work at fulfillment, centric leadership training, it's all based on the five life pillars. Health, fitness, career, relationships, and legacy. What I'm hearing in your story, Lynae, is that you discovered an opportunity largely influenced by that one conversation. Maybe there were some other influences, I don't know. But from what I'm hearing from you, that conversation was definitely influential. But that was influential to you, looking back, like doing some self reflection on how you can experience more purpose, hence more fulfillment in your career. Am I reading too much into that?

Speaker B: No, you. You're exactly right. You're exactly right. When I, when I was asked that question, I was able to see the bigger picture and a higher calling, that it wasn't just about me and what I wanted, but actually what could I actually contribute? And that felt like a calling for sure.

Speaker A: Okay, so again, leading to the boot framework and what you're doing today, any other part of the story you're going to continue with that leads you to that?

Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. So, um, when I became director, one of the things that was really important to me was I wanted to learn how to lead. But in a way I've never. I've never seen before. And one of the things in social services that makes it challenging sometimes is that, um, the people who are funding the services, aren't the people receiving the services. And because what those two groups often want can kind of clash. So it's very difficult sometimes to meet the requirements of funders and still meet the needs of, uh, your participants, which is really important to me. I also wanted to create an environment that was really oriented and clear enough for my staff to be able to work efficiently. And my thing was it was bad enough that people weren't getting paid what they deserved and could at least make the work as efficient as possible. So people felt like they knew what they were supposed to do, they knew what wasn't theirs, they knew what complete and good work looked like. And that's when I discovered, um, the idea of developing the work, our, uh, workplace, around reference points. And so that that was the basis of what I now called boot. That became the whole basis for my theory of boot Brown's organizational orientation theory. Yeah.

Speaker A: Oh, okay. So, um, we're going to get to that shortly. But can you unpack what you mean by reference points?

Speaker B: So reference points are either situations or facts or, um, documents or even laws that can actually give you an idea in your workplace about what you're doing, why you're doing it, the direction you're going to take, and it gives you a sense of orientation. So they're reference points that uh, give you clues about what you're supposed to be doing and why.

Speaker A: All right, I like that. So. So it defines the why and enables people to understand what is and isn't part of their work.

Speaker B: Exactly. And I can give you an example if that would help.

Speaker A: Sure, yeah.

Speaker B: Okay. So when I first became director. Okay, let me back up. Actually, in social services, service notes are absolutely an important part of the job. They are the reason why you get funded. And service notes are just documentation of the services you actually provided. And in social services, if you don't do service notes, it's like you never did the services as far as funders are concerned. So service notes are an absolute must do. They are non negotiable. So that would be a reference point. That's a non negotiable. Okay, then the second thing is the funder would also say that you have to have the notes in within 48 hours. That's a non negotiable. So those are two things. You have to do a service note and they have to be submitted within 48 hours. Okay. So when I became director within like a month, we had a surprise audit. I was like, great, wonderful. And we found out that our notes were not Great. They were not up to snuff. They weren't. They were very disorganized. The content was all over the map. The auditor was not pleased with us at all. And so, okay, now I'm the director, I'm inheriting this problem. I have to figure this out. So, so we know we have to do notes. We know we have to do, um, them in the 48 hours. And then it became, well, how do you deal with the content? How can we figure out, uh, how to write notes so that auditor would be okay with what we were writing? And was there a way to replicate these notes in a way have a standard that everyone can do and not have to think too hard about it, but just have a standard? So they knew every note they did, it would, it would come together the exact same way. Now, in our program, we didn't have that, but I looked around at other programs and I saw that programs that were funded by Medicaid had very specific contents for their notes. And I looked over their standards. I said, oh, great, okay, so if Medicaid says that standard is good, then our government contracts would probably agree as well. So that was another reference point that was something we chose, but it was a. Based on a standard that was. Already existed. It wasn't something we just made up. The standard was out there in the world. We just used it for ourselves. Something that we knew everyone could agree with. No one would say, well, those Medicaid notes were terrible. We'll tell Medicaid that no one's going to say that. So in that. So that was just an example of. So then we had. So we knew we had to do service notes. We had to do it in 48 hours. And now, uh, our coaches and everyone on staff knew that we had to use this content. Okay, so those are the reference points for those three jobs. Now in my work with them, I would say the staff, okay, so we know those standards. You know, it needs to be in the notes. You know where they need to be. Those are the reference points. Now you have a little bit of freedom, because now I could allow the staff, so they. To, for them to decide how they wanted to do those notes. And so I had a staff member who would do the notes as they were providing the service. I had another staff member who decided to do notes right after they finished doing a service. And I had one other staff member who did notes at the end of the day, the last hour of their workday. So in that scenario, they've all met the criteria. They all met the standards. But they were able to do them in their own way, in a way that worked for them. And for me, that's an example of what working from reference points can do. It can give you the important points you have to lead into, and then it allows you some freedom to be able to do it your way and offers stats some autonomy. Right. They were allowed to be able to do it their way in a way that works for them, and they were able to do it in a way that, um, they felt confident in their own work because they knew they met the criteria. So more than likely their work was fine and complete.

Speaker A: Okay, so far in this conversation we have discussed, you have done a great job of setting the stage for the next topic, which is boot. And the way we got there was you shared how you inherited a work environment when you accepted the director position, an environment that was disoriented, it lacked structure, uh, and you introduced, uh, the meaning of reference points. And that, if I understand correctly, kind of set the stage for a framework that you developed called boot. So let's go there, let's unpack Boot. You can remind us what the acronym stands for and then just go ahead and unpack it for us.

Speaker B: Wonderful. So again, it, um, stands for Brown's Organizational Orientation Theory. And again, it's, uh, a. The premise of it is that workplace disorientation is, uh, a systems problem, not a personal flaw. And the theory is made up of two constructs. I call them department coordinates and job coordinates. Department coordinates are reference points that allow you to figure out what your department exists for, who they're accountable to, who's accountable to them, and, um, what direction to take. That's department coordinates. And just overall. And then job coordinates are exactly those reference points that help you figure out for yourself in your own job, figuring out, um, what you're supposed to be doing, why you're supposed to be doing it in the direction that you're supposed to be doing it. And the service notes story that I just told is an example of job coordinates or reference points working that way. And when I developed the framework based on looking back at my life and looking back at what worked, I just realized there were other things that I really, that I found really powerful about having that sense of orientation, of helping people do their work based on reference points. A couple things. One is, as I mentioned earlier, I didn't have to rely so much on giving people validation because, uh, sometimes at work, people want to know that their work is correct, that it's good, and that they're good because they knew what their job was, because they knew what complete work looked like. They didn't need me to validate them as much because they felt comfortable judging themselves and figuring out for themselves what their work was and it wasn't. And turn as a, as a leader. That made it much easier for me because I could absolutely trust my people to be able to do the work and they could assess themselves and I didn't have to look over anyone's shoulders. And everyone just felt like they were treated like adults. And so I just found that those reference points really helped orient and clarify us as a staff.

Speaker A: So, linnae, would it be, uh, a stretch to say that those reference points could actually enable the staff to feel a sense of fulfillment, Fulfillment at work?

Speaker B: Absolutely. And I think they really did help them because they felt that, and I heard this a lot of time from the staff. They always knew where their place was. They knew what their work was, they knew what good work looked like. They knew what complete work looked like. They knew at 5 o' clock when they left, they did a good job and go home and enjoy their family and their friends and come back to work the next day and know what to expect, knew what was expected of them. And there is fulfillment in that. There is no guessing, there's no uncertainty around work.

Speaker A: Okay, so now I love how this is all unfolding. Lynne. Uh, let's connect now to something that I said in the opening introduction, and that is that a lot of us spend much of our time and energy just trying to find our place where we belong at work. How does having the reference points within the boot camp framework really give people that sense of belonging?

Speaker B: Um, well, if you scoot out and look at the word belonging, usually people are talking about personal belonging. This idea of, you know, am I accepted? Am I included? Do I feel connected to the people that I work with? Boot is talking about work belonging. Like, do I know what I'm doing? How does it connect to everyone else in the company? Um, who am I responsible to and who, who do I answer to? Um, what does good work look like? What does complete work look like? So that's what I mean by work belonging. And I think that sometimes when we talk about belonging in the workplace, we don't talk enough about the work belonging. Um, as I mentioned, when I was able to really help people work from reference points and they were able to validate good work and complete work themselves, I didn't have to, um, validate them as much. I didn't have to convince them that they belonged. They didn't have to question if they belonged because they knew. Because every day the work they knew their work was clear, uh, and what they were supposed to be doing, and they did it.

Speaker A: So, um, let's continue down this path, uh, of Boot and what you're doing with it today. How is it impacting others in the workplace, in companies you work with, that sort of thing?

Speaker B: My job really is about helping people make work work for them and helping people figure out for themselves where they are in their situation and then decide where they would like to go next. I call it like a two steps. Let's get situated so then you can decide. That is my work. Um, I feel like sometimes orientation is, is the first thing that people. That would help people the most. And sometimes we forget to do. We want to get to action so quickly and go here and go there and move. And my thing is, it's like. It's like if you're using a gps, you want to see where you are first before you decide where you want to go. And that's why I think orientation is powerful, because once you have a sense of orientation, then you can decide what direction you'd like to go in. And so Boot is actually using those reference points and helping people develop their reference points, um, is part of that process, for sure.

Speaker A: I love how you're using orientation in a context that is oftentimes spoken of in a different context. Meaning that a lot of times orientation is, um, at the beginning of a work experience. You're new in the job, you need to get oriented to. To the job. It sounds to m me like you frame up orientation as something that needs to be a constant state.

Speaker B: Yes, I absolutely believe you have to. You have to always kind of rethink or reconsider exactly from which you're working from. Yeah, orientation. It's funny, orientation at work, when you first get oriented, it's more. I mean, it does make sense. You are getting oriented to the workplace. You're figuring out, you know, what HR wants from you, you're figuring out what, you know, the company basically wants you to do, et cetera. But when I talk about orientation, I'm talking about basically any situation that you're in. Specifically, I work with people in their jobs to figure out what exactly is happening around them. Um, what is theirs to do, what is not theirs to do. Because I think what's really important, especially in the workplace, the greatest disorientation I keep running into is people thinking that the structural problems are personal flaws. And I Think that is something we really need to be cognizant of. I really help people recognize this isn't you, this is the system. So let's navigate the system. Not. Not change anything about you, per se. Yeah.

Speaker A: Okay. So that leads me to the. To the next thought in my head.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: So when someone feels oriented and they understand that, it's that they're dealing with structure and not any kind of personal issues, M. How does that impact what I call. And I'm trying to elevate this concept, Lenae. In part through my podcast. The work that I do at Fulfill the Work Academy. I'm trying to elevate the concept of self leadership. I'm not saying I invented that concept because of course I didn't, but I'm trying to elevate it because I don't think we talk about it enough. So my question for you is, how does this concept of orientation really connect to self leadership in the workplace?

Speaker B: Oh, that's such a cool connection because that's exactly the, uh, crux of boot. The idea of you can find your own reference points. You don't need permission. You can actually lead yourself. So if you're in a job right now that's not working for you and you're wondering, what is going on? What am I supposed to do? You can actually stop and say, is this a me problem or is this a systems problem? And maybe there are parts of my job that I'm not clear about, and maybe I can look around in my environment to give me reference points and ideas to help me figure out what I am supposed to be doing if things aren't clear. And that is self leadership. Right? This idea that you don't have to wait for someone to tell you what to do. You can actually look around and kind of figure it out for yourself sometimes.

Speaker A: So now I'm reading the minds of some of my listeners right now, and what they might be saying at this moment is, uh, okay, what can I do? From what I'm hearing from this conversation between Linnae and Bernie on this concept of boot and getting oriented. And by the way, I just want to give a little shout out to my British listeners. For them, it's orientated, but for us, in the US it's oriented.

Speaker B: Okay, orientated. That's interesting.

Speaker A: Okay, well, in Britain, that's how they say it. Um, what can the listener do from this conversation? If work isn't working for a listener, what can they consider doing that that maps to the concepts that you're sharing today in the boot Framework.

Speaker B: Well, again, it would be about, um, reference points. And I can tell you what I've helped other people figure out for themselves. I had them go back and look at their job descriptions and help them figure out exact, um, what the work is and then actually talk to the people who actually put the work together to help figure out where that job came from and kind of work backwards from that. Because what you're trying to figure out is what was the thinking behind your job, what was the thinking behind the job description, who created it, why did they create it, and how does it connect with what's actually happening? And what you. What was interesting is that every time people do that, that's when they find a breakdown, right? That's when they find out HR created a job description. And then the manager said, well, that's not what I really want you to do. So, so right there, there's already a problem. And anyone who's ever been hired at different companies knows that's absolutely true. Sometimes, like you'll be hired for one thing and the job description, something completely different or something not quite the same, and then you're left going, okay, now what, what is my job? And I think that's really important about getting oriented because you want to figure out what's being said but what's actually being done. And you want to respond to what's actually being done, not what, what's necessarily being said. So that's what I would say when it comes to that, the distinctions you want to make.

Speaker A: So I have an unfair question for you.

Speaker B: Do it.

Speaker A: Is this challenge then, in the workplace, is this a leadership challenge or is this a self leadership challenge? Told you it was unfair.

Speaker B: I know, I am going to say leadership because they're the ones that have the power of putting this all together, right? As employees, you're the one just being hired for a job that you are, uh, that you in good faith said, okay, I'm going to take this job based on this job description. And so it is kind of a bait and switch when you get to a job and it's not quite what they said it was. And so I think that that part's really up for leadership to be able to do that. However, you know, sometimes that's not the reality, you know, and my point of boot, and I'm sure with self leadership, the idea that, you know, sometimes life isn't fair and you just have to kind of figure it out, you have to get there and figure it out and do the best you can, and that's the whole point of self leadership. But yeah, I absolutely believe it's up to the leadership to figure it out. But if they didn't, you, there is something you can do about it.

Speaker A: Yeah. So I would agree with you, Linnae. And what I would add to that is that, um, when self, uh, leadership really is the one that has to kick in to figure out a situation because leadership isn't getting the job done in terms of providing clarity, providing the reference points, et cetera, then what you can experience if you're in that situation, you, meaning the listener, is you can experience more fulfillment than you might be experiencing now. If you lack clarity. Right. If you don't have those reference points and you feel like you said this earlier, you're flying the plane and changing the engine at the same time, then embracing self leadership and uh, kind of figuring out the reference points on your own can give you a tremendous sense of fulfillment. Would you agree?

Speaker B: I would absolutely agree. And in fact, I would say that was the backbone of what I loved most about my training coordinator job. That there was a lot of disorientation and I found reference points and built the program and built that whole framework and it made. Gave me a sense of fulfillment. Because I can look back and say, I did that. I figured that out myself. I figured that out. Absolutely.

Speaker A: Exactly. You know, a part of the story that I really enjoyed. Look, I enjoyed the whole story. But the part that I'm going to come back to several minutes ago was how a co worker of yours said something to the effect of, I'm, um, paraphrasing here, like, that job is yours.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: You know, like there's no better, no one better suited for that job. And in your head it wasn't yours. But look what happened.

Speaker B: That's exactly it. I didn't consider myself to be a director of anything. I would just consider myself a worker and taking responsibility for what I was supposed to do. And there's something to be said when someone who knows you and really sees you says, uh, this is who you are. Like, I'm seeing this, this is who you are too. Um, I think that's what the conversation really did for me was this person really saw me in my work, saw how much I cared. And for her to say to me, no, this is your job. It really made a difference for me and I believed her because I knew she knew me well.

Speaker A: Yeah. And again, for the listener, I just want the listener to really think about what, what aspect of the five life pillars that may fit into. It's not Always about a job. We're talking about a job for you. Right. Training coordinator to director.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So that's the career pillar, but in the context of life. Right, all five life pillars. Health, fitness, career, relationships, and legacy. That concept can potentially fit in any of the pillars. It's just going to be a unique circumstance to, uh, to someone's life. Lenae, I love this story. I know that the story is ongoing for you, but you've shared the backstory, you've shared the contribution that you made not only to that workplace, but now in the work that you're doing with Boot for companies that you support. Uh, let's go ahead and wrap here, but first, I invite you to, uh, share with my listener. How can people connect with you and just learn more about what you've got going on?

Speaker B: Absolutely. You can visit me on my website, lynnabrown.com. that's L Y N N A E brown dot com. And I'm also on LinkedIn a lot. I'm always posting there and I'm always talking with people there, so you can find me in those two places.

Speaker A: Terrific. Well, my listener knows that both of those will be linked up in the show Notes and Lynae, I've thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. You've really given us a lot to think about. And I just want to thank you for joining me for this episode of the Life Fulfilled podcast.

Speaker B: My complete pleasure, Bernie. Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker A: That's a wrap on this episode of the Life Fulfilled podcast. If this resonated with you, subscribe to our weekly Fulfill newsletter for practices that you can put to work right away in how you lead yourself, how you lead others, and how you lead through the AI transformation that's reshaping the workplace. It's all connected, and fulfillment is the through line. Visit fulfilledatworkacademy.com to learn more. And remember, fulfillment isn't just a feeling. It's your edge at work and in life.