064: between the halls and the walls – how culture elevates human flourishing | Colleen Affeldt
In this episode, Deb Knupp sits down with Colleen Affeldt, Vice Chair at Corient Wealth Management and a lifelong student of why people do what they do.
"Waiting for power that's never coming, while ignoring influence that's standing right at your fingertips, I think, is a mistake." – Colleen Affeldt
Colleen's path is unusual: fifteen years running her own consulting practice with a parallel foot in academia, then years embedded inside an operating company after joining a Dallas firm, once a consulting client, that was later acquired by Corient, and now, at the end of this year, a return to private practice with what she calls the third period of the hockey game. Two fellow Texans who found each other late and decided they were sisters separated at birth, Deb and Colleen spend the conversation on the thing every company claims to have and very few can actually locate.
Underlying the conversation is a distinction Colleen has spent years sharpening. Every company has its mission, vision, and values framed on a wall somewhere. That is the walls. What actually happens on the ground, in the hallways, in the micro moments between people, is something else entirely. That is the halls. Most of us stand in that gap waiting for power to close it, waiting for the corporate team to fly in on the Gulfstream with a chiseled tablet declaring what the culture now is. Colleen's message is that the plane is not landing, and that while everyone waits for power, the influence sitting at their fingertips goes unused.
Key Highlights
The walls and the halls: the gap between the values in the lobby and the experience people actually have, and why the leaders already good at culture are the ones reading the culture books.
Pizza on Fridays and ping pong tournaments are employee engagement. Important, Colleen says, but not culture.
The three questions she put to the audience at a recent speaking event: what do you think your culture is, what do you want it to be, and what three things have you done in the last thirty days to make the second one real.
About Our Guest
Colleen Affeldt is Partner and Vice Chair at Corient Wealth Management, an ultra-high-net-worth advisory firm that acquired the Dallas firm she had joined, a former consulting client. She has spent her career at the intersection of human behavior and commercial performance, first as an independent consultant for fifteen years with a parallel foot in academia, and then embedded full time inside the ecosystem of an operating company. She retires from Corient at the end of this year and returns to private consulting with two focuses: helping wealthy families navigate the emotional dynamics of wealth transfer, clearing the emotional noise so they are ready for succession, and helping companies understand how to optimize their growth position, whether for continued growth or for a transaction. She speaks the commerciality of the CEO, points out that we are not job factories, and argues that people are the most strategic lever a business has. When her retirement was announced, more than four hundred messages arrived within 72 hours, and they weren't quick congratulations. They were people telling her what she had meant to their careers, the return on six years of micro moments nobody ever gave her permission to create.
Connect with Colleen Affeldt
Colleen Affeldt on LinkedIn
Reach Colleen at colleen@colleenaffeldt.com
About the HX Collective
The HX Collective explores the human experience through three lenses: work, relationships, and self, through raw, authentic conversations rooted in human-centered design. Each episode offers gripping stories, thought-provoking discussion, and concrete tools that help you rethink your relationship with distress and strengthen your whole human experience.
