Crawford Partners, LLC

Delivers strategic consulting in marketing, strategy, leadership, organizational design, business transformation, executive coaching, and employee experience for private organizations focused on growth.  

I also partner with many leadership development, coaching, and organizational development firms to provide shared experience and solutions for a wide range of clients.

President

Thomas More University

Provided strategic leadership in adult enrollment and marketing for the university.  Designed new revenue models and channels to drive growth.  Responsible for all advertising, media placement, digital marketing and strategic initiatives.

Vice President for Digital, Graduate & Professional Programs

Founding Dean of the College of Business

Taught strategy, innovation, marketing, MBA skills, organizational behavior, etc., at undergraduate and graduate levels.

Assistant Professor

Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University

Assisted doctorate students in designing meaningful research.

Research Advisor for Doctorate of Management Students

Direct Opinions

Provided marketing strategy, sales, employee experience, customer research and analytics for clients across retail, healthcare, consumer products, and manufacturing.

Chief Marketing Officer

Convergys

Successfully provided cross-functional marketing leadership in creating solutions, designing business transformation, and developing innovative strategies that lead to growth.  Responsible for all value proposition creation, packaging, positioning, digital marketing, branding, creative services, web redesign, lead generation, sales center of excellence consulting services and voice of the client research.

Senior Director Marketing Strategy

University of Cincinnati

Enjoyed teaching Business Ethics and Quality Management Tools courses to students by designing a highly interactive curriculum.

Adjunct Business Management Instructor

Citigroup

Led sales and marketing business transformation efforts for private label cards, retention, and mortgage across seven sites.  Managed $230M in annual revenue, driving year over year continued growth.

Senior Vice President, Regional Sales Director

AmTrust Bank

Traveled throughout the country studying contact center best practices.  Designed, developed, implemented and managed all aspects of the retail banking contact center, internet web customer service and the B2B mortgage contact center.  The program won the National Teleprofessional Award for Call Center Excellence (ACCE).

Vice President

Partnering with Leaders to Define SUCCESS and Achieve It.

Thank you for visiting my profile.  I'm Angela Crawford, a strategist and leadership consultant who empowers people and organizations to grow through authentic connection and a relentless commitment to helping others succeed.

With over 20 years of strategic leadership experience, I provide organizational consulting, along with coaching and leadership development through my customizable Leaders SUCCEED Together© system.

Let's work together to define success for yourself and your organization--and achieve it!

Who I Help:
- C-Suite Executives in privately owned companies
- Senior Leaders tackling new challenges
- HR Professionals seeking leadership development solutions
- Education and Healthcare Administrators

How I Can Help:
- Provide consulting services across organizational development, HR, sales, marketing, and operations.
- Design custom leadership programs to attract and retain top talent
- Serve as your confidential sounding board with fresh perspectives
- Enhance team dynamics and performance with tailored solutions
- Navigate the unique challenges of education and healthcare leadership

Why Choose Crawford Partners?
- Extensive cross-industry experience
- Proven, research-backed Leaders SUCCEED Together© System
- Flexible, client-focused approach
- Deep commitment to your success
- Over 13 years of delivering results

Ready to grow your organization like never before?  Let's connect.

P.S. Even if leadership development isn't your current focus, feel free to pass my information along to someone who might benefit. I'm passionate about helping leaders become the best versions of themselves.

➡️ Here's what most leaders miss about organizational culture:

They think culture change happens from the top down through mission statements and company values.

The reality?

73% of culture transformation initiatives fail because leaders diagnose the stated culture instead of the enacted culture.

After studying Cameron & Quinn's Competing Values Framework and Schein's organizational culture theory, I've adapted a 4-phase diagnostic that reveals what's actually happening:

The Framework:

✅ Phase 1: Behavioral Evidence Gathering (Weeks 1-3)
→ Track decision patterns, not policy documents
→ Observe meeting dynamics, not org charts

✅ Phase 2: Informal Culture Assessment (Weeks 4-6)
→ Map promotion patterns vs. stated values
→ Analyze crisis responses vs. company principles

✅ Phase 3: Force Field Analysis (Weeks 7-9)
→ Identify reinforcing vs. disruptive cultural forces
→ Calculate net change pressure

✅ Phase 4: Integration & Action Planning (Weeks 10-12)
→ Plot cultural reality gaps
→ Design evidence-based evolution strategy

The difference? Companies using behavioral diagnostics see 3x higher success rates in culture transformation.

You know you've succeeded when: Your promotion patterns, resource allocation, and crisis responses actually match your stated values.

Which assumption about your company culture needs challenging?

Share your biggest culture gap discovery below. ⬇️

—

👉 DM me “GROWTH” to book a free 30-minute strategy call.

And get actionable leadership tips right in your inbox every Wednesday.

(Newsletter link in my bio).

Angela Crawford

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Business Owner, Consultant & Executive Coach | Guiding Senior Leaders to Overcome Challenges & Drive Growth l Author of Leaders SUCCEED Together©

Anita C.

🧊 Your company culture is an iceberg, and you're only seeing the tip of it.

Many change initiatives struggle because leaders focus on what's visible (policies, meetings, org charts) while overlooking the deeper cultural forces below the surface.

Edward T. Hall's Cultural Iceberg Model reveals the hidden dynamics:

The visible 10% includes:
- Office layouts and dress codes
- Official policies and procedures
- Organizational charts and meetings

The hidden 90% includes:
- ✅ Unwritten rules that actually govern decisions
- ✅ Real influence networks (vs. official hierarchy)
- ✅ What truly gets people promoted
- ✅ How conflict is actually handled
- ✅ Core beliefs that drive daily behaviors

Your stated culture ≠ your real culture.

Research shows that organizational culture is one of the strongest predictors of long-term performance, yet the most influential elements often remain hidden.

You can't change what you can't see.

—

👉 DM me “GROWTH” to book a free 30-minute strategy call.

And get actionable leadership tips right in your inbox every Wednesday.

(Newsletter link in my bio).

Angela Crawford, PhD

What's the biggest myth in scaling companies?

"Culture will naturally replicate itself."

Culture isn't like DNA, it's like fire. Without intentional fuel and tending, it dies.

I've watched this pattern destroy companies:

When you assume culture scales automatically:
↳ New hires start asking "How do we really do things here?"
↳ Teams develop conflicting practices and decision-making styles
↳ Your company splits into tribal factions
↳ Original employees become cultural refugees in their own organization

The brutal math:
→ New hire onboarding: typically 2-3 weeks
→ Cultural absorption: typically 6-18 months
→ Gap = Cultural dilution

The four entropy phases every growing company faces:
🟢 Tribal (1-15): Natural coherence
🟡 Systematic (15-150): First entropy inflection point
🟠 Distributed (150-1,500): Critical mass for fragmentation
🔴 Federated (1,500+): Entropy acceleration zone

Companies that survive use the PRESERVE Framework™:
→ Protect core DNA elements (3-5 non-negotiables)
→ Reproduce through hiring and performance systems
→ Empower culture carriers (typically 10-15% of your team)
→ Scale through consistent storytelling
→ Evolve consciously with regular health assessments
→ Reinforce relentlessly in every meeting and decision
→ Verify through cultural metrics, not just business metrics
→ Execute leadership modeling (recommended ~25% of leadership time)

The companies that thrive treat culture like their most critical operational system.

👉 BECAUSE IT IS!!!!

Which phase is your company in right now, and what entropy signs are you seeing?

Drop your thoughts below. ⬇️

—

DM me "GROWTH" to book a free 30-minute strategy call.

And get actionable leadership tips right in your inbox every Wednesday.

(Newsletter link in my bio).

➡️ What if the "outdated" management frameworks everyone's abandoning are exactly what modern leaders need most?

The uncomfortable truth about leadership today:

While everyone's chasing the latest AI strategies and digital-first approaches, the most successful leaders are quietly combining cutting-edge innovation with 40+ year-old organizational frameworks that most business schools barely mention.

The old way:
→ Chase every new management trend
→ Assume technology solves cultural problems
→ Focus on single-generation leadership styles
→ Prioritize disruption over systematic thinking

The new way:
→ Blend proven frameworks with modern innovation
→ Use technology to amplify solid organizational foundations
→ Bridge generational differences through systematic approaches
→ Balance breakthrough thinking with operational discipline

🔍 Here's what's fascinating:
Leaders like Satya Nadella didn't succeed by throwing out traditional organizational theory, they succeeded by combining digital transformation with systematic frameworks like the McKinsey 7S Model.

The evidence is overwhelming:
- Companies that balance innovation with proven frameworks consistently outperform pure disruptors
- Multi-generational workforces (60% of today's teams) respond better to bridge-generation leadership approaches
- The Three-Box Solution helps leaders manage present performance, selective forgetting, and future innovation simultaneously

You know you've mastered this when:
→ Your team stops asking "innovation OR structure?" and starts asking "how do we do both?"
→ Different generations on your team actually complement each other instead of clashing
→ Your breakthrough ideas actually scale because they're built on solid organizational foundations

Which "outdated" framework is your organization dismissing that could actually be the key to your next breakthrough?

I'd love to hear your thoughts. ⬇️

—

👉 DM me “GROWTH” to book a free 30-minute strategy call.

And get actionable leadership tips right in your inbox every Wednesday.

(Newsletter link in my bio).

What if everything you know about organizational culture change is backwards?

Most leaders try to "fix" their culture by eliminating tensions and competing priorities. But after 40+ years of research from the University of Michigan, the Competing Values Framework reveals a counterintuitive truth:

The most successful organizations don't resolve competing values, they master them.

Here's what the research shows:

The old way:
→ Pick one culture type and stick to it
→ Eliminate organizational tensions
→ Apply one-size-fits-all solutions

The CVF approach:
→ Map your organization across 4 cultural quadrants
→ Embrace competing values as permanent features
→ Dynamically adjust emphasis based on situational needs

The 4 Cultural Quadrants:

🏗 Hierarchy: Structure, control, stability
🚀 Market: Competition, results, customer focus
👥 Clan: Collaboration, development, relationships
⚡ Adhocracy: Innovation, agility, transformation

Companies that master this framework don't just survive change, they orchestrate it.

The diagnostic takes 30 minutes. 

The insights can transform your organization for decades.

Important note: This framework works best when adapted to your specific context. No two organizations should apply it identically.

—

👉 DM me “GROWTH” to book a free 30-minute strategy call.

And get actionable leadership tips right in your inbox every Wednesday.

(Newsletter link in my bio).

A few weeks ago, one of my clients asked me: "Why do our strategic initiatives keep stalling?"

The answer wasn't in their strategy deck—it was in their cultural DNA.

Here's what I see in every organization:
→ High performers quietly leaving
→ Real decisions happening in hallways after meetings
→ Innovation projects dying slow, bureaucratic deaths
→ "We tried that before" syndrome

The problem?

Most culture assessments ask what people think about culture, not how they actually experience it daily.

Introducing “The 4-Quadrant Cultural DNA Diagnostic”

Every organization lives in one of four cultural quadrants:

🤝 COLLABORATIVE-PERFORMANCE ("We win together")
→ Example: Patagonia’s mission-driven, cross-functional execution and support for employee activism
→ DNA Marker: "We achieved..." not "I delivered..."

🏆 COMPETITIVE-PERFORMANCE ("Win at all costs")
→ Example: Netflix’s “keeper test” and radical candor culture
→ DNA Marker: Fast decisions, clear ownership, direct feedback

🌱 COLLABORATIVE-LEARNING ("We grow together")
→ Example: 3M’s 15% innovation time and knowledge sharing
→ DNA Marker: Consensus-seeking, process improvement focus

⚡ COMPETITIVE-LEARNING ("Experiment to win")
→ Example: Amazon’s “two-pizza teams” and experimentation budgets
→ DNA Marker: Data-driven decisions, rapid iteration

The impact (when culture and strategy align):
→ Companies with performance-enhancing cultures significantly outperform peers over time
→ Highly engaged teams see ~23% higher profitability and 24–59% lower turnover
→ Agile ways of working often deliver 20–60% faster time-to-market
→ Teams with higher engagement earn ~10% higher customer ratings

Try this 24-hour challenge: Track one decision from start to finish. Notice how conflict gets resolved, and what actually gets rewarded.

—

👉 DM me “GROWTH” to book a free 30-minute strategy call.

And get actionable leadership tips right in your inbox every Wednesday.

(Newsletter link in my bio)

The 4-Quadrant Diagnostic

Stop trying to "preserve" your company culture. Start building systems that scale it.

The founders who worry most about "losing their culture" are the ones who destroy it fastest.

Here's why:

They focus on preservation (static) instead of systematization (scalable).

The uncomfortable truth:
→ Values don't preserve themselves—systems do
→ Hypergrowth magnifies whatever exists
→ Great values scale impact; weak signals become cultural debt

The framework that works:

1️⃣ Step 1: Values-to-Behavior Cascade
Purpose → Values → Principles → Behaviors → Rituals → Systems → Metrics

2️⃣ Step 2: Encode, Don't Just Enforce
→ Bake values into hiring scorecards
→ Add "V" (Values) to your RACI
→ Run values-based postmortems, not just technical ones

3️⃣ Step 3: Measure What Matters
→ % of decisions explicitly citing a governing value
→ Time-to-system-fix for value contradictions
→ "I see our values in daily decisions" engagement score

The result?

Companies that systematize their culture see 73% higher employee retention and 2.3x revenue growth during scaling phases.

Netflix didn't preserve their culture, they productized it.
Amazon didn't protect their values, they encoded them.
HubSpot didn't maintain their principles, they systematized them.

Your turn.

—

👉 DM me “GROWTH” to book a free 30-minute strategy call.

And get actionable leadership tips right in your inbox every Wednesday.

(Newsletter link in my bio).

One of the most dangerous myths in agility is this:

“In an agile world, we don’t need managers.”

The reality is different.

What we don’t need is old-school command and control.

When leaders dictate tasks, demand constant updates, and solve every problem themselves, they block the very things agility depends on: 

→ autonomy,
→ creativity,
→ and speed.

Agile leadership does not remove leadership. It transforms it. The role evolves from directing people to enabling systems.

From control to empowerment.
From manager to agile leader.

This shift rests on the 3 Cs of Agile Leadership:

✅ Communication:
Replace constant instructions with clarity and transparency. Share the “why” behind the work and make sure information flows freely.

✅ Collaboration:
Build conditions for teamwork. Clear obstacles, protect the team from distractions, and create space for real problem solving.

✅ Commitment:
Model dedication to shared goals. Inspire trust by serving the team and removing friction so they can deliver value.

The spectrum is clear.
Leadership is not disappearing.
It is evolving.

The question is, where are you on that spectrum today?

—

👉 Get my free guidebook detailing the 7 essential steps for leadership growth.

Link in bio.

The uncomfortable truth about founder control:

Your greatest strength is becoming your biggest bottleneck.

After working with 100+ scaling companies, I've seen the same pattern: Founders who built their business through hands-on control struggle to let go, even when it's killing growth.

The cost?
→ Decision delays that lose deals
→ Team burnout from micromanagement
→ Innovation stagnation
→ Key talent walking away

The solution it's systems.

The proven 90-day transition framework:

Days 0-14: Reset the Role
→ CEO role charter (what you own vs delegate)
→ Decision rights mapping (DRI/RACI)
→ Calendar redesign: 40% team leadership, 30% strategy

Days 15-30: Install Operating System
→ Team charter and meeting cadences
→ Single KPI scorecard with clear owners
→ Company + functional OKRs

Days 31-45: Delegate Outcomes
→ Assign DRIs for each objective
→ Create delegation progression framework
→ Define escalation thresholds

Days 46-60: Remove Bottlenecks
→ Two-way door decisions (team decides) vs one-way doors (escalate)
→ Decision Records with 48h review windows
→ Map and de-bottleneck critical workflows

Days 61-90: Institutionalize
→ 90-day business review
→ Succession planning for critical roles
→ Next-cycle planning with evolved frameworks

Companies that implement this see 40% faster decision cycles and 60% improvement in team autonomy scores.

Note: This focuses on systems implementation. Cultural transformation takes 6-18 months, but you need the foundation first.

What's the biggest decision bottleneck in your organization right now?

Drop a comment, I'd love to help. ⬇️

—

👉 DM me “GROWTH” to book a free 30-minute strategy call.

And get actionable leadership tips right in your inbox every Wednesday.

(Newsletter link in my bio).

👉 What if the entire "EOS vs. Scaling Up vs. OKRs" debate is the wrong question?

The most successful organizations don't choose frameworks, they design operating systems.

Each framework operates across three dimensions:

Scope, Flexibility, and Complexity.

Understanding this changes everything:

The Framework DNA:

🏗 EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System)
→ Best for: $1M-$50M companies needing structure without bureaucracy
→ Strength: Complete simplicity—widely adopted by thousands of companies globally
→ Sweet spot: Entrepreneurial chaos that needs systematic accountability

🚀 Scaling Up
→ Best for: $10M-$500M companies pursuing aggressive growth
→ Strength: Strategic sophistication with advanced competitive tools
→ Sweet spot: Complex markets requiring breakthrough differentiation

⚡ OKRs (Objectives & Key Results)
→ Best for: Any size organization needing agile goal alignment
→ Strength: Quarterly agility enabling rapid market response
→ Sweet spot: Fast-changing environments with distributed teams

Instead of asking "Which framework?" ask:
1. What specific challenges do we need to solve?
2. Which framework components best address each challenge?
3. How can we integrate these components coherently?
4. What's our capacity for change and complexity?
5. How will we evolve our system as we grow?

—

DM me "GROWTH" to book a free 30-minute strategy call.

And get actionable leadership tips right in your inbox every Wednesday.

(Newsletter link in my bio).

➡️ Most organizations have zero leaders ready to step into the CEO role.

And it's creating a massive succession crisis across corporate America.

After studying succession planning patterns across thousands of companies, I've discovered why boards keep getting blindsided by leadership transitions, and why it's costing companies hundreds of millions to billions when it goes wrong.

The brutal reality:
→ Majority of companies lack any formal succession process
→ Most existing succession plans fail to deliver results
→ Emergency searches create 1-2 quarters of strategic paralysis
→ Top talent hemorrhages during botched transitions

But here's what the best boards do differently.

The 5-Pillar CEO Succession Operating System:

✅ Pillar 1: Strategy-backed success profile
(Not personality-driven hiring)

✅ Pillar 2: Three-tier slate architecture
(Ready-now, 12-24 months, 24-48 months)

✅ Pillar 3: Evidence-based readiness
(Simulations, assessments, external benchmarking)

✅ Pillar 4: Purposeful rotations
(Orchestrated "readiness jumps" across P&L, global, M&A)

✅ Pillar 5: 180-day transition playbook
(Stakeholder mapping, culture guardrails, communication choreography)

The transformation:
Before: Last-minute scrambles, massive costs, talent flight
After: 3-deep bench strength, planned horizons, stable transitions

The companies that nail this don't just avoid succession disasters, they turn leadership transitions into competitive advantage.

Quick audit: How many of your internal leaders could step into the CEO role tomorrow?

If the answer is zero (or one), it's time to build your succession operating system.

What's your organization's biggest succession planning blind spot?


—

DM me "GROWTH" to book a free 30-minute strategy call.

And get actionable leadership tips right in your inbox every Wednesday.

(Newsletter link in my bio).

Dear friends and colleagues in manufacturing.  Here is an exceptional opportunity to participate in a summit designed around you!  

It is 10/16 from 10am to 3:30pm at the OSU Endeavor Center.  See the link in the comments to register today!

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