Ed Offterdinger and Catherine Allen on Developing Employees

Ed Offterdinger is Co-founder and Chairman of AO People Partners, a leadership development and people strategies firm. Ed is a strategic advisor and leadership coach with more than thirty years of leadership and client service experience as managing partner and CEO of large advisory companies. Prior to co-founding AO, Ed was Executive Managing Partner of the national advisory firm, Baker Tilly. Ed helps CEOs and other leaders improve their performance and do what’s best for their team, their business, and society. As cofounder and chair of the Washington, DC, chapter of Conscious Capitalism, Ed has been helping spread the message about the power of business to do good. Catherine Allen is Co-founder and CEO of AO People Partners. Catherine is passionately dedicated to helping leaders and organizations lean into the power of developing people to drive business success and meaningful social contribution. Catherine brings over 25 years of experience working collaboratively with industry leaders helping them and their organizations to thrive in both the human behavioral and process aspects of performance and organizational effectiveness. Catherine has a successful track record of helping leaders develop the awareness and "people" skills they need to define and communicate clear vision and direction, make difficult decisions, successfully lead their organizations through change, motivate and engage an intergenerational workforce, and cultivate their own authenticity and presence. As AO’s CEO, her focus is on guiding her team to build the full suite of capabilities to help leaders reimagine and create the culture that make investing in conscious people development more integrated and holistic. We are proud to welcome Ed and Catherine as Conscious Capitalism Press authors. Their new book is Conscious, Capable and Ready to Contribute: A Fable: How Employee Development Can Become the Highest Form of Social Contribution. AO People Partner’s mission is to inspire and support the conscious practice of people development in the workplace. AO’s team of experienced coaches and consultants bring business, leadership, and adult development expertise to help leaders and their organizations create the cultural conditions and sustainable practices that enable their people and their businesses to grow and flourish In this episode, we discuss Ed and Catherine writing a book together (7:06), the appeal to forming their partnership in 2017 (10:22), when Ed realized he wanted to become a coach (11:00), what it was like vacationing together before they formed a business partnership together (13:09), separating mind skills and people skills (15:15), if curiosity can be cultivated (18:52), what it looks like to reward curiosity and growth mindset in the workplace (21:12), how to embed these skills into levels where people are living paycheck to paycheck (29:46), how to help people in the organization figure out their direction (33:28), why so many people have decided to shift gears when it comes to their career of late (40:25), entitlement (44:49), employers helping employees grow in all walks of life (49:16), how organizations think about production and growth (54:36), transactions and transformations (58:42), where to start when developing people (1:04:31), what they do to make sure they’re at their best (1:10:14), and what allows partnerships to thrive and what can get in the way of that (1:13:39). Make sure to check out the AO People Partners website here! Additionally, you can follow Ed on Twitter and LinkedIn. I would also encourage you to follow Catherine on both Twitter and LinkedIn as well! Lastly, make sure to buy Ed and Catherine’s book Conscious, Capable, and Ready to Contribute anywhere you can buy books. Thank you so much to Ed and Catherine for coming on the podcast! I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers. Thanks for listening. -Brian