Finding Your Flow State

⏰ Today in 5 minutes or less:

• Even a simple neurographics exercise can help the team get unstuck, allowing them to come up with new ideas to solve a problem.

• Building teams around their intrinsic energy flows maximizes their productivity.

• As a leader, you also need to show the team how you protect your energy. People will notice it and be inspired to do the same.

But before we go there…

What should you do if trust falls don’t work on the team anymore? 

Susie deVille has a creative method for helping teams find their flow state and work better. 

Witness her technique firsthand in Unlock Strategic Execution: Discover the Power of Instinctive Action. 

📅 July 17, 2025 at 11:00 AM CST
🔗 Register Here Now

Don’t forget to bring your Kolbe-A results to get the most out of it.

How Susie deVille Supports Client Teams By Finding Their Flow State

What if the fastest way to get a team unstuck… was doodling? 

Susie deVille – founder of the Innovation & Creativity Institute and author of Buoyant – has spent nearly 20 years helping leaders unlock their creative flow state and turn it into real business momentum. 

Her methods are simple, low-stakes, and wildly effective – perfect for consultants and fractionals working with new teams. 

In this interview, Susie shares the tools and rituals that help teams collaborate, take risks, and stay energized – insights you can bring straight into your client work or your own practice. 

Special co-host Paige Darby, Practice Area Lead at Keenan Reid, joins us to ground the conversation on what actually works with teams. 

👉 Want to experience Susie’s methods firsthand? Join us for Unlock Strategic Execution: Discover the Power of Instinctive Action – a 90-minute interactive session to help your team optimize how they work, communicate, and innovate. 

Watch the full interview:

You saw this almost immediate energy shift when you introduced creativity into your work with teams. What actually started happening in those rooms? 

Susie: It was an interesting reveal during these offsite meetings where I was starting this experimentation, and I could see people starting to – what felt like for the first time – become a lot more vulnerable and honest with one another. 

They developed a language they could use to huddle and solve problems. And that propelled these groups into taking bigger risks – not leaping off the chasm without a plan but being able to tolerate uncertainty in a very different kind of way and marry that with a fierce strategic plan. 

You could see the energy in the room go from almost flatline to almost literally bouncing off the walls – but in a very good and positive way. 

There were all these kinds of sidebar conversations happening: “Hey, why don’t we try this?” “Why don’t we bring so-and-so in?” 

It was already working for just a short period of time. And over time, we saw lasting effects. 

Retention has improved. People stayed longer. 

They were energized. They were contributing ideas. And they were having fun again. 

For people who don’t think of themselves as creative, how do you help them access that side of themselves? 

Susie: We’ve been taught from birth that creativity is for a very select few – unless someone tapped you on the head with a wand at birth, that world’s not for you. And when we’re challenged to innovate – whether at work or in life – most people freeze. 

The first thing I do is bust that myth. 

I tell them: creativity is already in you. It’s not something you have to go get. And then we start with something simple. 

One of my favorite tools is a neurographics exercise. I’ll have people pose a question to their subconscious – something like “How can I get unstuck on this project?” 

Then they just move their hands for a few minutes inside a rectangle, making loops and shading and lines – not to make art, just to move. We turn off that rational, judging part of the brain and tap into the right hemisphere, which is where exploration and imagination live. 

After the drawing, they flip the paper over and do a fast, bulleted free-write – no editing, just download whatever ideas come. 

And what comes out always surprises them. They say, “I don’t even recognize this as my thinking.” But it is. That part was always in them. It just needed a safe, simple way to emerge. 

It’s a huge unlock – not just in their minds, but in their bodies. You can see it on their faces. It’s like defrosting a frozen pond.

Once a team has tapped into creativity and collaboration, how do they keep that alive over time – especially in more traditional or high-pressure cultures? 

Susie: It’s really important for us to come home to ourselves on a daily basis. And what I mean by that is having even small practices that help us remember who we really are. 

That could be connecting with beauty, making something, being in nature, journaling, or even just taking a walk. Those daily acts help you re-anchor to your own energy and intuition. 

Now, as far as sustaining that at the team level, one of the most powerful ways is through modeling. 

Leaders have to live it. You can’t tell your team to find balance or creative space if you’re answering emails from the beach on your “vacation.” 

You’ve got to show them what it looks like to protect your energy – and people will feel that. They’ll be inspired by that. You don’t even have to say much. Just the way you show up will start to shift things. 

And then there's collective practice. 

When new people come in or when the pace picks up, you can feel things drift. But the teams that do best are the ones who integrate this into their culture – recognizing and celebrating the different energy flows and strengths within the team. 

It becomes second nature. They know who to tap for what, and they do it with intention. 

That’s when you become unstoppable. 

What We Can Learn from Susie deVille: 

1. Creativity gets the team unstuck. Susie starts client sessions with hands-on creative exercises, because having no slides helps eliminate pressure on teams. Just movement and doodling will unlock fresh ideas. Use low-stakes creative prompts to help client teams shift energy and find clarity fast. 

2. Energy is a strategic asset. Susie uses tools like Kolbe to find what energizes or drains a person. Mapping out the team’s “yes” zone and encouraging clients to structure teams around intrinsic energy flows help maximize their productivity. 

3. Comfort sparks breakthroughs. People open up when they feel safe, and then real change follows. Susie creates spaces where teams can drop their guard and connect with others. Instead of forcing trust, it’s best to design environments where it naturally builds. 

Framework Focus: Horizon

Boil down five years of intense work into a two-minute discussion.  

Ready?  

I’ll wait.  

Consultants are often brought in when execs agree that something needs to change – but no one can guide them on the next steps. 

If your client can’t see beyond the pilot, then you’ve already lost the room. 

Here’s where the horizon framework is most useful. 

It maps out the big moves, rough timings, and logical flow of things. 

Imagine a consultant helping out a SaaS company shift from a flat-rate subscription to a usage-based pricing model. 

Everyone in the company was on board with the idea, but no one could agree when to roll it out, who should pilot it, and how to communicate the change to the customers. 

Cue in the consultant, horizon framework in hand to cut through the noise. 

They laid out the launch plan in three phases: internal alignment, quiet launch, and public rollout. 

By laying it out visually, the team stopped spinning on “what ifs.” 

They started solving for timing and risks. 

With the horizon framework, they realized that they didn’t need to solve everything right away – they just needed enough answers to get through the next phase. 

Avoid getting stuck in the weeds and download our framework here.

💼 See if you’re qualified…

• Compliance Monitoring and Testing Program Manager at Block, 5+ years of regulatory compliance testing and advisory consulting experience, ~$103k-$193k 

• Business Manager at Microsoft, 5+ years of global enterprise experience in strategy and operations management, ~$116k-$203k 

• Customer Experience Program Manager at Microsoft, 4+ years of technical and implementation consulting experience, ~$119k-$234k 

• Provider Performance Improvement Specialist at McKinsey and Company, 5+ years of direct provider consulting experience, ~$192k 

• Implementation Manager at StubHub, 5+ years of management consulting experience, ~$130k-$188k 

Remember, the path to success is paved with continuous learning and embracing fresh perspectives.

Let's stay connected, share ideas, and elevate your consulting business.

Stay curious, friends.

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