Let's talk about Intention and Candor in HR (Season 1, Episode 7)

[00:00:02] Hello everyone and welcome back to Practitioner Corner. This is your host Laura and today I am so excited to have a head of people and culture who I have known for years on as my guest. His name is Fred Leong and Fred welcome to the podcast. I'm excited to be here Laura.

[00:00:21] Me too. Fred I was just thinking people are always interested how I know my guests and I couldn't remember how long we've known each other. Do you remember how far this goes back? At least a decade. At least. That's amazing.

[00:00:38] Right. And I will say this. You're amazing because I think you could have wrote the Radical Candor Kim Scott book but you know she got all the fame for it but you know I always felt like I got a lot of candor from you and how I could best position my career. So I just wanted. Oh that's so kind. Yeah that book is great. I have to reread that one. That was a game changing book for me actually.

[00:01:09] Yeah I've always well you and I are both New Yorkers and I do think there's an advantage here that we culturally really just speak in truth. Like we don't we don't really need to sugarcoat a lot because it's always done with kindness but it's like let's just get to it. Right.

[00:01:25] Yeah I mean there's overload right they call them I think was it called cognitive overload where yeah you know leaders down to even just a individual contributor is just so much information and then personally to a social media that it now you really need to know who the trusted sources are. And that's really important and honesty. Right. I don't think people are honest as much as they should be.

[00:01:53] Yeah it's an interesting conversation because I think that people who kind of do the Pollyanna sugarcoating they're scared that the truth is going to be hurtful and I always say like especially in our world of recruitment and HR and HR leadership like leaders really want to know what's going on. They don't they don't want to be insulted but they certainly want the honesty and so I think it serves us to be direct you know when we can.

[00:02:20] And I suppose it's a skill that I take for granted but I think directness is important. Well I put a lot of I always put the responsibility on the leaders they have to you know when people say what the heck is psychological safety mean. It means that employees can speak their mind if you want to drive innovation. It's not going to be always on the leaders right. The leaders are quite frankly focused on the numbers. Yeah.

[00:02:47] So they're not thinking about how can I improve my workflow. My processes. They're not thinking about even from the client's perspective those individual winners saying hey I would love to see this new product feature. Because then maybe I can you know invest more money into it but until then I'm going to just hold my dollars for now. Leaders don't actually see those little nuggets of information. It's all through CRMs now and everything.

[00:03:14] And just really cleaned up smooth over. But so if they want to drive innovation they really need to improve well at least a safe space for people to message that up. Yeah but to get to that safe space you have to be willing to kind of get feedback and improve and unlearn and self-reflect. So all of that needs. Yeah you need a champion like us who can go in there and sort of direct them through that.

[00:03:42] But there's much more psychology than people realize to the people space. Yeah I would say more art to science. You know with AI now everything is all math and science and there's almost an imbalance. And we need the emotional intelligence. And leaders don't need a bunch of yes people. Especially not when the people function. They really don't. And they've had a lot of that you know in our past. I think as a profession that was more common.

[00:04:11] But you know it's outdated now. And everything is moving too fast for like slow polite like dance around the subject. Like just get to it. So anyway we met about a decade ago I guess probably through LinkedIn right? Probably. I don't want to credit LinkedIn. I'm sure you found me some other way and then it's like hey. I did. Okay. I love that.

[00:04:36] Yeah it's funny because for those listening I think Fred and I both prefer in-person communication and phone calls. But we have used social media over the years to stay in touch. Like I feel like we've sent funny Instagram things to each other and articles to each other and HR news to each other. I think that's the beauty of connection too is just keeping it alive you know. Yeah definitely.

[00:05:03] I feel like it's in any type of relationship is reciprocal. And how engaged are you and how do you lift each other up quite frankly. I remember with COVID I think I haven't talked to you probably in a couple of years. I was busy just starting out my journey at DVO1. But I reached out to you and I was like hey how are you doing? Especially knowing the world was on lockdown and like geez what is it for your business in New York was totally like feeling it.

[00:05:33] So yeah. I appreciated that. It's true. I think a lot of times. Yeah. That's so appreciated. I think a lot of times empathy is missing when networking because people are often waiting to connect until they need something. And so then they're in a selfish headspace which makes sense when you're in need of something. But if you just do it all the time it can be incredibly reciprocal and therefore very gratifying. So thank you for that reminder.

[00:06:02] I wanted to kick off our call because I think people really are curious about what we're all thinking about. And I've heard a lot from our community that they want to feel less alone about whatever's on their mind. And I wanted to ask you this question that actually William Tincup had asked me years ago. And it's still one of the maybe my favorite question I've ever been asked. Which is when you think about the current world of HR what's keeping you up at night?

[00:06:29] And so I want to pose that to you Fred and you can take that in any direction you want. But if you kind of think about recently what's been on your mind? Well I always look at things from our organizational team individual. I've always long believed that segmentation is very important. I don't like the blanket statement of generalizations. Generalizations but it is very important when you break it down because let's start with organizational making decisions.

[00:06:58] It does not have to come at the expense of individuals. It can always be a win-win situation. Now when you break it down even further into the people function of like recruitment down to retention. Recruitment is a serious concern right now. I don't feel that all the execs are all focused on AI. And I get it. They're all focused on productivity. But if you look at the BCG reports, Gallup studies.

[00:07:27] It's actually I would say pathetic in some ways. It hasn't really translated. All that investments and you've seen companies even scale back on their token dollars and everything. So what does this mean? Right. And then there's constant news about layoffs. I feel like there's been in some ways a dark cloud in the last few years regardless of the political administrations. And we never quite hit recession. But I'm almost like can we just get it over with and just look at the light at the end of the tunnel?

[00:07:58] The rebound. Yeah, I think we're ready for the like booming economy. Right. But you know that that hockey stick uptick in jobs and everything. Not that I want the great resignation to happen again. But you know have some balance. Because right now a lot of it is all on the employer side. Which you know it sounds like an irony. Because I work on the employer side. But I do feel and again as a father of two in college. You know there has to be some type of balance.

[00:08:27] And I do feel like a little bit of job hopping helps with that balance. Where you know normal comp ranges are around you know three maybe five percent. You know it's hard to really grow your wealth and achieve your life goals based on that. So sometimes you have to just jump ship and get that 12 percent 20 percent bump. So those are things that keep me up at night on both sides.

[00:08:54] From the employer standpoint and also when I help mentor you know individuals. Like how do I help shape their careers? Or you know to give them the right guidance. Right. Retention is also something that keeps me up. Because a lot of companies are like oh we got to upskill, reskill. I think we're and then I came away from a CPO study recently about how succession planning might be dead.

[00:09:22] Because it's going to be not so much planning for roles that may not exist. That's not that was never the point of succession planning in my mind. It's really about making sure we have great leadership. Because guess what? Great organizational health starts with great leadership. Right. You got to you got to train them right from the beginning and find who those high potentials are. And even you can spot them at the entry level roles.

[00:09:48] But if we're not hiring for them that's a real concern for me. I yeah you've said a lot that I want to unpack. But I think this last thing you've said is something I'm that's keeping me up lately. Which is training and development and upskilling. Because I feel like and I haven't talked about this with anyone yet. So bear with me because my thoughts are still forming.

[00:10:13] But I I feel like we used to I mean you and I have been in this field a long time. So when I say like we used to some of the more junior listeners here. I'm talking about like 10 years ago 15 years ago even longer. Right. I've been in this space 23 years. So I guess just bear with that timeline. We used to really invest in learning and development. Meaning that big companies had huge L&D teams.

[00:10:38] And then those teams were broken down even further where individuals got attention. Teams got attention. Each department got attention. In 2018, 19, 21, 22. I was hired a lot by clients who wanted to upskill their internal recruiters. And I was doing one-on-one coaching and then team training. And it all kind of quieted down these last couple of years when you're saying the dark cloud. I'm including this this topic.

[00:11:06] Like I I've been trying to have conversations with L&D leaders, talent development leaders. Just like what are the trends? What's happening? And I'm getting crickets for response. Like I really don't know. And I naively not naively. I humbly admit this. I don't know what's going on. But I can tell that it seems like there is not a lot going on when it comes to L&D. And so I just want to open our conversation to this.

[00:11:36] Like do you notice this? There's a yeah. I think what you said like we want to upskill. It might theoretically be being said. But is it happening? I don't think it's happening or in a way that we're thinking it should be. Right. First of all, you need to do a lot of data gathering. You got to make some some of those bets. I hate to say it. But and what the future should look like. It comes back to budgets, too.

[00:12:03] I would say, Laura, it'd be like shift and talk to the CFOs. And the VP of... No, you're right. You're right. Because when you when you when you break it down, you know, to the bean counters and be like, hey, well, you can drive X amount of growth through this. And it starts with re-educating, re-skilling your your talent. Because if there's if we can agree that there's a lot of scams, a lot of A.I. slop, because just think about how much longer it takes for you.

[00:12:32] I mean, the good thing is you have a great network and referrals and everything. But imagine if you were to start your agency today, it'd be so much harder because all the profiles, resumes, they all look very similar. Crafted by A.I. Look, I've I leverage A.I. to to write my resume. But, you know, there's got to be substance behind it. If it were I think what IDEO former like this. I forgot his first name, but Brown, he talked about the T the T shape.

[00:13:00] You need the expertise, which is what you're always sussing out. So you can see if there's a real match. But it's really the horizontal, which is like the real true character of a person, the market market. And that's where you that's related to how you're going to market the candidate. And what I'm getting at is if there's so much A.I. slop that you can't tell who the good ones are or the great ones from the good ones. Like, what? What do you even begin?

[00:13:30] But that at least is an in to talk to the leaders and be like, well, what's your recruitment doing to deliver high caliber people? Yeah, but I'm talking about even after they're hired, like even after you have your your cutting edge team. Why aren't we developing them? And I guess budget is a valid point you're making. Budgets, but it's also managers. They don't know. Right. We're hiring right now. We're we're are the backfills. Right. We're hiring for A.I. Engineers.

[00:14:01] You know, the the development folks, the deployment folks. But all focus on A.I. These are new skills. You cannot just, you know, go from zero to 60. And I. I also don't think that these are skills that's often talked about.

[00:14:21] You probably need to be in some specific discord channel to really suss them out and also from a leader to really understand and be like, OK, these are things we need to to hire for to train on. It's look at A.I. A.I. Is giving out bonuses for folks for human reasoning and judgment. So. The judgment just appear three years. I mean, three years ago or. No, it was always there. And the existence of mankind.

[00:14:52] Right. So with philosophers. So I'm I don't want to get too deep, but it's. No, please do. It's deeper. My brain works that way. Keep going. But these are skills that we should have been sharpening all along. Right. Yeah. These are things where they're no different. So on one end, keep it simple. If we know that humans are always in a loop. Well, help them navigate conflict.

[00:15:18] Help them even manufacture some friction so that they can push back and validate some of their proposals. And know like, oh, it wasn't just A.I. Generated. These are things that need to be skilled. Can you say more? I did not read about this E.Y. Giving out bonuses for judgment. Do you mean like literally human judgment showing their thought process, their behavior? Okay. I didn't read it thoroughly, but that's the. Yeah.

[00:15:48] But isn't that crazy? Well, I get it. I think what's coming up for me as you're saying all this is that the. We, and I hate to use this phrase, Fred, but bear with me, you know, soft skills in air quotes here. We talked about them a lot a decade ago and five years ago, and they were top of mind always. Right. Empathy, compassion, leadership skills.

[00:16:16] And I feel like we stopped to focus on A.I., to focus on all the technology everybody was in a rush to get. So maybe you're right. The pendulum's almost swinging back the other way now where organizations are like, well, to have a thriving team, it's lovely if they're really tech savvy, but we also need people with good human skills. See, but this is where I think it's not even. We need to get deeper in that.

[00:16:44] I often liken success as a team sport and not as individuals anymore. Yeah. So I think about. So the soft skills are now like a team measurement. Yeah. Right. So the rewards should end reviews. Everything should be around that. So meaning the person, it's not about the most likable, but the person who's going to be, who's going to be the glue person and the one who's going to be able to lift everyone up. That should be the reward along with the reason.

[00:17:14] Yeah. Yeah. The reason it's never really on one individual. It's the one who's going to elicit and induce that from their colleagues at all levels, too. They need to be able to speak to, you know, from a non-technical to technical and vice versa. It doesn't matter your job title or your number of directs, but you need to be able to speak to all the execs and kind of have that elevator pitch and be like, listen, if you want to do this, we need to accelerate XYZ and understand the trade-offs.

[00:17:45] Yeah. I would care to say, sorry. Keep going. My brain is like exploding. I love this. Go. If you go with AI and productivity, just think about it. If AI saves you eight hours, my position is, can't we just take those three hours and reallocate it and to make sure that we're really making the right decisions, not just now, but years from now.

[00:18:09] So we don't incur any like tech debt, all the downstreams and all that, you know, even for the clients, everything that makes sense so that it translates. So when the next BCG report, when they say, hey, how much is AI truly transforming organizations? We see the 6% double or triple. That's what leaders need to be thinking about. That's what reskilling is about. So what advice do you have for other people leaders right now?

[00:18:38] How do they start evaluating that? So I feel, and I was a history major. So history is prologue. And just because we have this shiny new toy that's been around, but all eyes are on it with AI, you know, that human piece and the judgment isn't going away. So go back to the roots of what makes the most sense.

[00:19:04] If reasoning is, I do believe is a huge skill as well as empathy, as well as conflict management, emotional regulation, maturity. Those are things that's really necessary. And to, and some of that, you don't really, yeah, bring in L&D.

[00:19:25] But I think we could just even have the conversations and create platforms where people, you know, can just float their ideas out and talk about it. And again, I guess we have to practice what we're preaching within the people space, right? That the people leader initiating that needs to also be doing that with their own team and with themselves. Absolutely. You know, I look at people leaders or they're business leaders, right?

[00:19:54] All the business leaders need to do that, right? And, and, and the word that's often used now, it's like, oh, there's engagement is a, is an issue. There's a lack of engagement. Well, it doesn't take much to, to give people access and make, create more intimate environments where even for a thousand person company, make the CEO have, you know, a breakfast with a CEO on a weekly basis. You know, they limit to like a dozen people. Yeah.

[00:20:22] And, you know, that's where you create innovation and spark ideas and all that. And, and you empower and you give people agency. I think you're right about the history thing is like, we've seen that work. I remember when like lunch and learns were so popular, exactly what you just said. Like you just reminded me you'd have team leader, you know, have 10 funny people in a room, serve a box to lunch, nothing super expensive and just have a really fun conversation.

[00:20:52] Maybe it has 15 minutes of structure and then just Q and A and round table. And I think we lost some of that. I think companies are still doing that. I just feel like it's gotta be a concerted effort. That the problem is with you don't that everything again, now is all about ROI and measurement. And some of those things don't yield. You know, you can't see that overnight. It's not an overnight thing. No, it's so true.

[00:21:22] Even like, what were you saying? And I thought to myself, gosh, how do you measure that? Because it is my brain's always thinking that too. Now, like, well, maybe when you said talk to the CFO about budget and I'm like, it is hard to say. To a CFO, look, if I, I mean, there are certain roles it's easier, right? If you're training your sales team, it's easier to say they will make XYZ more this month with this new skill set.

[00:21:47] Even in recruiting, I can use the advantage of leaning less heavily on agency supports. You could argue you'll save the cost there or you'll save the investment there. But certain roles, like an HR business partner, to invest in the learning and development of an HR business partner, sometimes it's tricky to show an exact ROI. Yeah, look, there's data. Lean in on that data. There's different ways to do it.

[00:22:14] And the ENPS scores, engagement scores, right? The morale. And sometimes it's that. You got to look at the scale. What you can, how are you going to look at those signals? But at the same time, I call it the Fred Rogers thing. And how much does it take for the execs to just walk around and it could be hybrid or in person, remote, you can still do it.

[00:22:42] But really make the rounds and engage with your folks, even for five, 10 minutes. But that yields tremendous amounts of like positivity. I know. You're right. I know. And you're saying, Mr. Rogers, I was thinking also just like the kindness. Like sometimes you have to do certain things in business for the sole purpose of kindness and your values.

[00:23:05] I mean, it's, it's, we have, I think, to your point of what keeps you up at night when you said part of it has been like the dark cloud and the layoffs and the budget cuts and just like all the sad stuff. Like the downside of all of that, the obvious being people's livelihoods are in horrendous shape. But in addition to that, the downside of that is that executives aren't really leading with their values. They're just leading for money.

[00:23:35] And, and that's, you know, we get that. This is capitalism. It's a business. It all makes sense to us. But we both know, we've seen that organizations that bring their values, that bring kindness in addition to tough business decisions are the ones that are the best or the ones that everybody wants to work for. Laura, two things can be true at the same time. You can focus on the numbers and revenue growth and employees want that too. It's a win-win. Yeah. Right. We're all in this together.

[00:24:05] Yet at the same time, they got to give something back and that's time. Right. And engagement and, and attention, as you said before, like that's so invaluable. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think we could talk about intention for an hour because I do think that that's where a lot of executives are missing the mark right now. They're sort of forgetting to just slow down and think about, yeah, what is your intention? What do you want to accomplish here? What do you want to achieve here?

[00:24:35] And yes, some decisions are very difficult, but you're right. Most employees back to what we were saying at the start really just want the candor. They want to know what's going on. If it's, if it's a tough financial time, most people can handle it. They just want to hear about it. Yeah. It's, it's always going to be a high trust, honesty, compassion. It's just simple things. Yeah. And, you know, I joke around, but, you know, CEOs came, you know, wasn't always a CEO, right?

[00:25:02] I don't know, you know, unless they had some inheritance, but, you know, they start out somewhere. Maybe as a product manager themselves or, you know, some analyst. And so how do they feel? But, you know, if they would look back, they can understand how their, their workforce feels. Yeah. I bring that a lot to my recruiting processes, as you well know, that when I teach hiring managers about empathy, things change so beautifully. They just need to be reminded.

[00:25:31] How would you feel if you were the candidate? Like, let's actually talk through it. You know, how do you like to feel as a candidate? What would you want the experience to be? And you'd be amazed or not amazed at how quickly they'll change the whole entire process. Once they put themselves at the center, they realize, oh, I would hate a five-step process or I would hate to be, you know, in a search for four months or I'd hate to be grilled in a difficult interview or what. So, okay, then we can't do that, right?

[00:26:00] It's a beautiful framing and such a, you know, I take for granted that it sounds obvious, but it's actually something that to your point, most people aren't taking the intentional route to just slow down and do that. I mean, everything, a lot of it is in front of us, right? We just got to choose, choose that. And sometimes it's choosing the heart, right? I think leaders need to do that. And I always say culture isn't some ping pong table or any, even some stipend or anything.

[00:26:27] It's really about the people in the relationships, that higher purpose and reaching fulfillment, giving autonomy and agency. That's what really matters at the end of the day. Maybe we'll see more trends in the learning and development space toward that again, like the actual, you know, how to just nurture more empathy. And I mean, all of that is so critical. Yeah. I mean, you said something before, you know, there were when budgets were flush,

[00:26:55] but the thing is this, you have, and I see it now, it's like learning portals and it's like time management. And instead it's like, Hey, why don't we just teach everyone and give them agency and think they're entrepreneurs. So take what they can find efficiencies, find the cost savings. And those little things will add up. Right. And that's what makes a difference. That's what counts at the end of the day. It's really simple. It's not. Yes. The time management, things like that help.

[00:27:22] Those are universal problems, but heck if I hate to say it, but if, if, if we're hiring people who are struggling with that, then we're also not doing a great job. Obviously they're come out of college or, you know, it's the first job totally understandable, but you and I know we've seen people who are mid-level and still struggling with those things. We have to get that. Yeah, absolutely. And, and to your point, these don't have to be complicated training sessions.

[00:27:48] They could be just forums where people are talking and sharing and, and being vulnerable with each other. Absolutely. Those are actually the most effective. The peer to peer is never just one person going there because studies have shown, I think Sabine and I'm going to butcher her name, but she, I I've seen this where just think about all the training that you received in a week. You're going to forget the bulk of it. Right. Yeah.

[00:28:14] It's so, but the thing is when you create those networks, the peer to peer that you can't manufacture that, like that confidence within each other, that vulnerability, that that's the best way of learning. Yeah. It's like when you watch a sports team, I'm always so moved by the joy they have for each other. When a play goes well, like it's, it's, I feel this way at the end of a theater performance,

[00:28:39] like I'm always emotionally moved by that because you realize to your original point, it doesn't happen in a silo. It's the community. It's everybody leaning on each other, but it's also everybody rooting for each other and a good organization runs that way. Yeah. I want to wrap up our call with, with like a favorite quote that you love, because I know you you're an avid reader and you love thinking about philosophy and history and psychology.

[00:29:06] And I'm just curious if you have a quote or kind of a motto, a catchphrase, anything that you like at your desk that just kind of keeps you on track, keeps you grounded. I might have said it before. I said two truths can happen at the same time. And it's something I've been using since the pandemic. It's how do we make sense of this world and in the chaos, sometimes uncertainty.

[00:29:29] And, uh, when I use that, it kind of like resets everyone's mind and puts them at ease and there's, you know, saying there's no one universal way, uh, their perspective can be true. And so can mine. Yeah. I love that. I've always liked the phrase. It's similar. That's just both can be true. You know, it's like, it's like both the employee can have a feeling and the CEO can have a feeling and both are really valid.

[00:29:57] Nobody, it's just trying to find a place to bridge the gap. Um, yeah, I'm thinking about that. I think that's, that's actually alleviated a lot of stress for me over the years when I've thought of things that way. Yeah. You know, you think of employees who want, they want remote work, right? I want five days a week at home. Okay. That's true. That's valid. And then you have CEOs who are like, absolutely not. It's gotta be five days in the office. Okay. So there, I mean, sometimes it's just not a compromise. It's a, it's about figuring out, okay, so both are happening.

[00:30:26] What, what can we do? Is there a way we can make it work or is it just not a match or, but I think we used to maybe want to push or force or change. And sometimes of course you can still influence, but a lot of it is just accepting the two polarities and yeah. So I mean, even just to employee and he's saying, I want remote work yet. I want connections, deeper connections than just beyond the screens. And I also want to be not forgotten to be passed over by someone who's in the office versus

[00:30:56] I'm remote. So that's, that individual wants dual things. It's kind of like on opposite end of the spectrum. And that's, that's really the uncovering that, unpacking that and just really having conversation. And how do we, how do we drive win-win solutions? Cognitive dissonance. It's a good thing to study. And yes, I think that a lot of people struggle when their brain has that contradiction. They don't really know what to do. And it's to your point, it's beautiful to talk about it, to admit it, to look at it, to examine it.

[00:31:26] I think when I am coaching TA leaders, or even when I'm working closely with HR leaders, a lot of them struggle with, you know, they, they feel strategic and cutting edge and they feel like an advisor. And sometimes they still feel like an imposter and they feel insecure and they feel nervous. And like both, both can be true to your point. Two truths can happen at the same time. And it, it, I think it allows everyone just to relax. It's nothing to force or fight. Absolutely.

[00:31:54] Fred, I loved chatting with you today. I feel like we could talk for hours, but hopefully this made people feel a bit less alone in some of their thoughts as well. Yeah, I hope so. Yeah. We're all in it together. I think we're all still trying to figure out this AI transformation meets empathy and compassion. And, you know, we covered a lot here. So maybe we'll have another conversation in a couple of months and see what's been coming up for us since then. Yeah.

[00:32:24] Have a wonderful rest of your week, Fred. And thanks everybody for listening in.