We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful TyAnn Osborn. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with TyAnn below.
Hi TyAnn, thanks for joining us today. What do you think Corporate America gets wrong in your industry? Any stories or anecdotes that illustrate why this matters?
Starting out in the world of management consulting in the ’90s, I’ve had amazing opportunities to work for a variety of Fortune 500 companies and live across the globe.
I quickly moved up the ladder. I drank the company Kool-Aid. I started leading “performance management” activities, which sadly too often became a euphemism for “let’s justify why we are firing that guy”. The next thing I knew I became really good at terminating people.
One Saturday in the grocery store, I recognized a man and his family. But I couldn’t remember his name no matter how much I tried. I’m usually really good with names. He came to a stop and said, “Hi Ty. Remember me”? I tried to play it cool, but the look on my face must have given me away. He said, “My name is Brian and you fired me a few weeks ago”.
It was such an awful moment for all of us. Here he was with his wife and kids. Unemployed. Trying to buy groceries. I couldn’t remember him and yet I’m the one who pulled the rug out from under him. I had fired so many people I couldn’t even remember their names. It broke my heart to think my #1 work skill had become letting people go.
As I sat in my car in the parking lot I had a personal reckoning about the kind of work I was doing and the kind of energy I was putting out in the world. I didn’t want to be remembered for making people’s lives worse.
In 2001 I came across the groundbreaking book “Now Discover Your Strengths” by Don Clifton and Marcus Buckingham. They introduced the world to the StrengthsFinder (now Gallup Clifton Strengths) assessment, with the aim of helping people uncover innate talents and the idea that we can all achieve exponential performance in our areas of strength.
That was completely counter to the performance management thinking that I had been taught, which were that we needed to focus on people’s weaknesses in order to make them better. It was like a lightning bolt hit me when I read the book and finally had the research to prove what I anecdotally knew to be true – that we perform best in our areas of talent and potential, and that it is a poor spend of time and energy to try and remediate people to success in areas in which they showed little interest or aptitude.
That experience forever changed my professional trajectory and life, where I make the decision to dedicate my life to helping others uncover or rediscover their greatness.
TyAnn, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I want people to know that work can be great, and THEY can be great. They can use their super powers daily to feel strong and be a great leader.
When I came across the strengths philosophy, it was a revelation and I truly felt like I found my calling. I wanted to be in a company that believed in employees, embraced their strengths, and actively worked to put the right people in the right spot on the right bus. After encountering the “Now Discover Your Strengths” book, I read everything I could find about the strengths movement and became one of the first people certified by Gallup as a Strengths coach and trainer in Texas and the world.
Building on the skills I learned from 20 years in corporate America, I launched my leadership development consulting practice in 2012. We are 100% dedicated to using strengths as the foundation for all speaking, coaching and training engagements.
The kinds of leaders I work with typically fall into one or more of these categories:
– You’re a talented leader but want to take your team from good to great. In spite of your best attempts, your team isn’t quite there yet.
– You’re a strengths evangelist and want to share the good news with your team in a tangible way that generates excitement and lasts beyond the offsite. Activities so far haven’t been very sticky. How do you actually use this strengths stuff and keep it alive in your daily business practices?
– You’ve been successful and have risen up the ranks, but you aren’t quite sure if you’ve really tapped your full potential. What’s next for your career?
– You’re still trying to figure out what you want to be when you grow up, and your resume contains things that you never want to do again.
– You want to expand your influencing skills, polish up some rough edges, repair some relationships, or gain executive presence.
What sets me apart is my energy and contagious enthusiasm for helping other people find their magic. I want people to feel seen, appreciated, and excited about how they can bring their best selves to work.
I’m incredibly humbled and honored to have worked with over 15,000 people across the globe in notable companies such as Berkshire Hathaway, Dow Chemical, Dell Technologies, PayPal, abbvie, Johnson & Johnson, the University of Texas, Indeed and many more.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
In 2020 my business was 8 years old and had a fantastic client base. My main offering was large live training and speaking events, and I especially loved speaking at conferences and leadership gatherings.
In March of that year I was at the airport about to board a flight to Miami to speak at a Bank of America event. I checked my email and saw a message that the conference had been cancelled and not to come. What on earth, I thought. I remember wondering who cancels a conference the day before?
In the week after that happened, my ENTIRE book of business collapsed like dominos due to the pandemic panic. Because what’s the first thing to be put on hold in a global pandemic? LIVE events. I went from being fully booked for 6 months out to absolutely NOTHING on my calendar. It was incredibly scary, as I was a primary breadwinner for my family and we had two kids, a mortgage and all the other expenses of life. I had about two weeks of absolute panic.
But then an interesting thing happened, clients slowly started calling back asking if I did virtual events. I honestly had NEVER ever thought about doing something virtually because how on earth could you translate “big stage energy” to a tiny computer screen? And what kind of technology would be needed to create a quality experience? Initially I couldn’t see it.
But necessity can be a great spur to innovative thinking. I started kicking around not if, but how I could develop a fantastic virtual experience. I spoke with others and read everything I could find, and created a 2 hour virtual option for my signature workshop on Strengths Discovery. Clients loved it. They loved how engaging I made the training and how participative everyone was. It was not the typical “sit and get” training. I wanted people to leave feeling energized and excited to put their new information into practice right away. Over time I added more topics, as well as follow up reinforcement content that could be dripped to participants.
That pivot actually created an INCREASE in the number of clients I could serve, because no longer was geography or travel budget a constraint. Today I offer a variety of topics in both in person and virtual formats, and it has been a game changer for my business.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
Social media can be great for your business. But first really think about WHY you want to be on social, WHO your buying target audience is, WHERE they are, and WHAT result you want to see. This all sounds easy but isn’t, and it is a place I see entrepreneurs waste tremendous time and money.
For example, my target audience is primarily corporate leaders. That person is not using TikTok to make business buying decisions. My clients are on LinkedIn, so that’s where I need to be. Even if you personally prefer Insta, X, Facebook Reels, or whatever the hot new thing is, really stop and evaluate if that is where your client is.
Keep in mind that social media is a long term play. It is extremely rare to make one post and then be inundated with business. Your potential clients need to see you as a stable, contributing, and a credible source in your field. That takes time to achieve. And I would rather have 500 authentic, quality connections than 10,000 bots.
I aim to create value and not spam people with sleezy sales messages. I get irritated when I get people trying to connect with messages like “I can get you 100,000 new clients by Monday!” That isn’t realistic nor true.
Instead, I have a cadence of creating content, sharing other great content, highlighting my amazing clients, commenting and liking the valuable posts of others, and asking interactive questions. I believe in “Always be giving.” It is authentically me and my target audience is drawn to it. Clients see what I have to offer and my point of view, and then reach out with genuine interest.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.tyannosborn.com/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tyannosborn/
- Youtube: @tyannosborn
Image Credits
Jaclyn DiLorenzo