Laurie Battaglia is CEO of Aligned at Work®, a leadership development consulting firm that emphasizes diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. Her team helps leaders solve people’s problems before they become profit problems. As a strategic advisor, executive coach, and #Futureofwork speaker, she is on a mission to wake up organizational leaders who think that they can delay inevitable changes already affecting the workforce.
Aligned at Work serves for-profit and non-profit organizations, many of those in male-dominated fields, plus tribal governments and Indigenous organizations.
For more information on Aligned at Work, visit https://alignedatwork.com.
Today, we sit down with Laurie to learn more about her journey as an entrepreneur.
Tell us a little more about your journey as an entrepreneur – how did you get started? What inspired you?
Laurie: I first dreamed of being an entrepreneur 22 years before I started my company when I realized that none of the organizations I’d worked for knew how to balance both people and profit. And it was working against them. I was working in a savings and loan in 1993 when the entrepreneurial bug bit me, as the government was moving in for a takeover. But before I could justify going out on my own, life got in the way several times, and it was 2015 when I made the leap from corporate. Aligned at Work has been in existence for 8 years now, and it’s been a fun ride. I started the company at age 59, and I have no plans to stop anytime soon.
What entrepreneurial tricks have you discovered to keep you focused and productive?
Laurie: I live by my calendar; it’s the only way I keep my sanity. And I try to leave breathing room in my schedule. I do my self-care during the daytime, and I’m a night owl, so this interview is being completed between 10 and 11 pm, one of my peak periods of time. Independence, freedom, and autonomy are my key personal values, and you can’t live into them if you are too boxed in. What works for me often doesn’t work for others. I also use quiet music to ground me, and on a good day, I start with deep breathing and a 15-minute meditation with Headspace. My cat, Maximus, comes in and reclines on me and goes with the flow at the same time. He’s my office assistant and we make a good team.
How do you stay organized with such a busy schedule?
Laurie: I couldn’t do what I do without my husband Joseph picking up the major part of keeping the hearth and home up and running. He’s been doing it for years since I had my day job. I’ve also learned to hire someone to do a monthly cleaning so we just need to maintain it, and we order food boxes through Sunbasket. We can’t do it all, and we don’t have to if the business is running well. I believe you can’t help others if you’re exhausted all the time.
The business is scaling up, so we are documenting processes, and we’ve brought on a second virtual assistant so that one focuses on marketing and communication while the other focuses on operations. It’s working! And we have a large bench of highly qualified consultants who subcontract with us.
What would you do if you had a magic wand?
Laurie: 1) I’d make the world a kinder and gentler place. There is too much focus on “othering” people (ie, they aren’t like us and don’t deserve what we deserve). It’s BS, and it needs to stop. People are people, and they should be allowed to be fully human.
2) All people would be equal and have equal access to resources.
3) US healthcare would change so that doctors and medical teams reclaim the right to treat patients as they need to be treated. Medicine is a money-based business, and too often, insurance and pharma are calling the shots on not only pricing but who gets services and for how long. People shouldn’t require a GoFundMe account every time they have surgery or become ill. Many of us are one serious illness away from bankruptcy. This needs to change.
If you were to write a book about yourself, what would you name it?
Laurie: She Knew She Could, So She Did.
What motivates you?
Laurie: I motivate me. And I keep things positively-focused and real. I’m motivated by making changes that impact the world both on a large scale and 1:1.
What is one of the best or most worthwhile investments you’ve ever made?
Laurie: Most of the education I’ve gotten has been a very worthwhile investment. It started when I decided to get my college degree as a working parent of a college-aged child. I had my son at age 17, so I didn’t have time for more school after high school. At age 35, I started back to school a class or two at a time, at night. I got my Associate’s, then my Bachelor’s degree within 7 years. Then I took a little break and later went back for a Master’s Degree, which took another 18 months (I like to fast-track things, and you can when you’ve already learned much of the content while living and working — you just need to prove that you know it and translate it the way the school wants to see it understood).
And then, when I left my corporate role, I found two great business coaches, Angelique Rewers and her EVP Phil Dyer. Angelique’s company is BoldHaus, and they teach consultants like me how to get a foot in the door to corporate decision-makers. It’s amazing to learn what works and to see success. Any money that I spend with BoldHaus is money well spent. And I’ve had other great coaches — Ani Anderson of the Somatic Coaching Academy, Amy & Michael Port of Heroic Public Speaking, and Mary Beth Beaulieu, PCC — all have been great investments in growing me into the person I am now.
What key activities would you recommend entrepreneurs invest their time in?
Laurie: Learn what you’re good at and what you aren’t good at. Hire people to do the things that are distracting you from running your business. Research any coaches that you hire; talk to people who have worked with them and find out what they gained. Learn the sales and marketing side of the business, plus the financial side of the business. Don’t take your eyes off either for too long.
What is your ‘one-sentence’ piece of advice you’d like to give to someone who wants to become an entrepreneur, coach, or business owner?
Laurie: You often want to get into business to “do the work” that you love to do. You’ll be doing far less of that than you can imagine; you’ll be running the business more often. If that’s a turn-off for you, or you are deathly afraid of sales, this may not be the life for you.
To keep up to date with Laurie and her journey, connect with her on LinkedIn.