Crystal Boysen
Chief People Officer
Sprout Social, Inc.
Episode 332
Beyond Engagement: How Clarity and Behavior Build Effective Organizations
Current chapter: Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
Built By PeopleJanuary 24, 2025 · 16:27
Thesis
“Crystal Boysen believes that effective organizations are built on clarity—of purpose, expectations, and values—and that HR's role is to strategically drive this clarity and foster a people-first culture through intentional, behavior-driven actions that directly tie back to business results.”
Show notes
Crystal Boysen makes a distinction that reorients how you think about culture measurement: engagement surveys capture how people feel; culture surveys reveal what people do. That shift — from sentiment to behavior — is at the core of how she has built the people function at Sprout Social, where performance reviews are split 50/50 between results and values-driven behavior. It's a design choice that makes the company's stated values either real or irrelevant, and Crystal is betting on real.
Her path from IT consulting at Deloitte to Chief People Officer is a testament to the power of cross-functional perspective. She arrived in HR convinced that the function could be one of the most transformational in any organization — a view that shapes her skepticism of traditional COE structures and her push to redesign HR organizational models around the employee lifecycle rather than functional silos.
On learning and development, Crystal's approach is surgical: instead of broad manager training programs, she builds customized interventions at the team level, diagnosing specific gaps and addressing them directly. It's a harder model to scale but a far more effective one — and it produces the kind of ROI that makes the CFO a believer rather than a skeptic.
- Culture surveys vs. engagement surveys — why measuring collective behavior gives you more actionable data than measuring sentiment
- Making values behavioral — how to define the specific actions that bring a value to life and embed them in every people process
- Team-level L&D customization — why targeted interventions outperform broad manager training programs
- Reimagining HR organizational design — moving past rigid COE structures to models built around the employee lifecycle
- The power of clarity — why clear purpose, clear expectations, and clear values are the most underrated drivers of team performance
What you'll take away
- 1Culture surveys that measure collective behavior provide deeper and more actionable insights into an organization's values and actual practices than traditional engagement surveys, which primarily focus on how people feel.
- 2To make values come alive, embed them in underlying behaviors and integrate them across all major employee lifecycle milestones, including recruiting, onboarding, L&D, and performance reviews.
- 3Customizing learning and development programs at the team level, rather than broad manager trainings, yields better ROI by addressing specific team dynamics and performance gaps.
- 4HR organizational design should be flexible, data-driven, and people-first, moving away from rigid COE structures and reimagining roles like the HRBP to be more strategic and integrated across the employee lifecycle.
- 5Prioritize clarity in purpose, expectations, and values throughout the organization, as it is an undervalued factor in team and organizational effectiveness.
What most organizations get wrong
- •Traditional engagement surveys, while important, often have a gap as they don't always connect with strategy or truly correlate with business outcomes, and can even coexist with low organizational performance despite high engagement.
- •Broad-brush manager transition trainings often lack ROI; a more effective approach is customized, team-level L&D that addresses specific team dynamics.
- •The traditional HRBP role has not been successful for a long time; it needs to be reimagined to differentiate between tactical operations and strategic business coaching.
In Crystal's words
“I think of culture being defined as how work gets done, and it's measured through collective behavior. So it's what people do, right?”
This quote provides a concise and actionable definition of culture, shifting the focus from feelings to observable actions.
“I think the most important thing is values are often like these broad brush statements... but what brings values to life in my mind are the underlying behaviors underneath them.”
This highlights the critical link between abstract values and concrete behaviors for effective cultural integration.
“I think we are the heartbeat of a company where we have the ability to transform an organization more than almost any other team in a company.”
This powerful statement underscores the strategic and transformative potential of the HR function.
“Our performance reviews are 50/50, 50% what and the results and the impact you drive, and 50% how you show up at work based on our values.”
This provides a concrete example of how Sprout Social integrates values into a key HR process.
“the most effective teams and organizations are the ones that prioritize clarity. Clarity of purpose, clarity of expectations, clarity in your values.”
This summarizes her core advice, emphasizing the foundational importance of clear communication and alignment.
The problems this episode addresses
- •Companies struggle with high employee disengagement, and traditional engagement surveys don't provide sufficient actionable insights or reliably correlate with business performance.
- •Organizations invest significant resources in traditional L&D programs (especially manager transitions) without seeing a clear ROI or measurable shifts in manager behaviors.
- •HR teams often operate with outdated organizational designs (e.g., rigid COEs, ineffective HRBP roles) that hinder their ability to be flexible, data-driven, and truly integrated across the employee lifecycle.
- •Employees at all levels of an organization experience a lack of clarity regarding purpose, expectations, and how their work contributes to company goals, leading to prioritization issues.
In this episode
Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
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Dave Zirin started his career in IT consulting and now is Chief People Officer
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Sprout used a culture survey to measure its culture, rather than engagement
Can a Culture Survey Reveal the Company's Values?
Learning and development can help reinforce an organization's core values across diverse teams
How Learning & Development (L&D) Supports Core Values
Sprout is customizing learning and development programs for specific teams
McKinsey: Customizing Learning and Development Programs
Crystal, how can HR organizational design be optimized to prepare for future challenges
How Can HR Organizational Design Be Optimized to Prepare for Future
How do you ensure that cultural values are maintained during organizational change
How to Keep Cultural Values Alive During Change and Transformation
Most effective teams and organizations are the ones that prioritize clarity, Crystal says
Crystal Flannery on Building a Culture
Topics covered
Organizations and entities mentioned
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