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Chief in Tech S1E44 - Maria Petrosyan & Eleanor Lomas : Building and Thriving in Winning Cultures · Chief in Tech Deep Dive Shortcast

• 0:00
  Imagine you are a junior employee, you know,
• 0:03
  maybe barely a year or two out of college, and
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  you are just starting to figure out how the corporate
• 0:09
  world really works. Right, still learning the
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  ropes. Exactly. You check your calendar for the
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  day, and it pings with a new one -on -one meeting
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  invite. But this isn't a check -in with your
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  direct manager. You have actually just been assigned
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  to sit down in a closed room and actively mentor
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  your 55 -year -old seasoned C -suite executive.
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  Which is, I mean, terrifying for most people.
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  Totally terrifying. Welcome to the highly counterintuitive,
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  slightly terrifying, and incredibly effective
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  world of reverse mentoring. Yeah. I mean, it
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  is a scenario that would make most traditional
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  corporate managers break out in a cold sweat.
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  It completely upends the power dynamics we are
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  all so used to. But that disruption is exactly
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  the point, right? And that disruption is exactly
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  what we are focusing on in today's Deep Dive.
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  Absolutely. We are exploring a really fascinating
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  session titled Building and Thriving and Winning
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  Cultures. And this comes from a much larger body
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  of work surrounding the architects of excellence.
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  Right, the synopsis source material. Yes, the
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  tech giant synopsis. So, our mission today is
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  to look at this material and unpack exactly how
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  companies survive and, well, thrive in fast -paced
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  high -pressure environments. And more importantly,
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  how you, listening to this right now, can apply
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  these insights to your own professional life.
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  Because, and I think this is the core takeaway,
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  if we look at the big picture revealed in these
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  sources, true company culture is not a perk.
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  No, definitely not. We really have to stop thinking
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  of culture as, you know, the ping pong table
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  in the break room or mandatory pins of Fridays.
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  It is a deliberate, highly engineered operating
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  system for innovation. It's the machinery of
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  the business itself. OK, let's unpack this because
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  calling culture an operating system fundamentally
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  changes how we interact with it. The source material
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  introduces this concept that Every single individual
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  in a company is a culture carrier. A culture
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  carrier, yeah. Right. Which moves entirely away
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  from that old school idea that culture is just
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  a top -down mandate. You know, something drafted
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  by HR turned into a PDF and just emailed out
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  once a year. Oh, I hate those PDFs. Coy. Precisely.
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  Because if culture is just a mandate, then what
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  you actually have is compliance. Right. And compliance
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  isn't culture. Exactly. Compliance doesn't drive
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  innovation. It just prevents lawsuits. A winning
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  culture. according to the framework we are analyzing,
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  is driven by three specific things, intentionality,
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  inclusion, and values -driven collaboration.
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  Okay, so intentionality, inclusion, and collaboration.
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  Yes. But for those three things to exist, culture
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  really has to be treated as a living organism.
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  So, um, when I hear the term culture carrier,
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  the best analogy I can think of is, like, a sourdough
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  starter. Oh, I like that. Yeah, think about a
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  high -end bakery. They have this jar of starter,
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  and the culture of the yeast isn't just kept
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  in a locked vault in the CDO's office. To keep
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  that sourdough alive and thriving, every single
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  person in the bakery has to actively feed it.
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  They have to interact with it and pass it around.
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  They literally carry it. Exactly. If even a few
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  people on the floor stop feeding their portion,
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  the whole thing eventually goes sour, or it just
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  dies. Every employee has to actively... participate
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  for the culture to survive. That is a brilliant
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  way to conceptualize it, actually, because a
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  sourdough starter requires daily intentional
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  interaction. If you just leave it on a shelf,
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  assuming it will sustain itself because you bought
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  a really nice jar to put it in, well, you're
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  going to end up with a dead starter. Right, a
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  very gross dead jar of flour. Exactly. And corporate
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  culture operates on the exact same mechanism.
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  It isn't sustained by a quarterly all -hands
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  meeting. It is sustained by the daily micro -interactions
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  between employees. I love the theory of that,
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  but I do have to push back here a little bit.
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  Sure, go ahead. We are talking about the tech
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  industry, right? Yeah. It is notoriously fast
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  -paced and high pressure. When people are staring
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  down impossible software delivery deadlines,
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  or dealing with massive supply chain issues,
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  or coding until two in the morning. Which happens
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  constantly. All the time. How do you actually
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  enforce this idea that they also need to be feeding
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  the metaphorical Cerrado starter? Because realistically,
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  doesn't being a culture carrier just become another
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  exhausting unf - funded item on an employee's
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  endless to -do list. That is a critical friction
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  point in any large organization. Absolutely.
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  How do you make culture survive under intense
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  pressure? And this is why the synopsis case study
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  in our sources is so vital. How so? You don't
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  view culture as an extra task you do after your
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  real work is finished. The culture dictates how
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  the work gets done in the first place. Okay.
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  I think I need an example. Let's look at the
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  mechanism of your example. An employee coding
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  at two in the morning. Right. A very common scenario.
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  Exactly. Now, in a weak culture, that employee
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  is coding at 2 a .m. out of fear. They feel isolated.
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  They're terrified of missing a deadline. And
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  if they fail, they know they will be publicly
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  blamed. Right. The blame game. Yeah. That is
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  a culture of self -preservation. But in a winning
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  culture, the mechanism is entirely different.
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  A manager sees that 2 a .m. code commit. OK.
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  The culture dictates that the manager's immediate
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  behavioral response isn't just to say, oh, hey,
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  good job working late. The manager actively intervenes.
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  They intentionally adjust the developer sprint
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  the next day and redistribute the workload so
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  the developer doesn't burn out. Oh, wow. So they
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  actually change the workflow. Yes. The culture
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  is the psychological safety that allows that
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  developer to raise their hand at 10 a .m. and
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  say, I am drowning here. I need help without
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  any fear of being penalized. That distinction
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  is everything. It is a behavioral mechanism,
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  not a motivational poster on a wall. It's the
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  how, not the what. Perfectly said. And to you,
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  the listener, I want you to really think about
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  this dynamic for a second. Understanding how
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  to be an active culture carrier shifts your entire
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  perspective. It shifts you from being a passive
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  consumer of your workplace environment. Just
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  waiting for culture to happen to you. Right.
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  Waiting for the pizza party. It shifts you to
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  being an active driver. You hold a piece of that
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  starter. Your daily reactions create the environment.
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  But here is the reality. If a culture requires
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  that level of intentional behavioral building
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  across thousands of employees, it doesn't spontaneously
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  generate. Right, you can't just hope for it.
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  Exactly. You need architects. You need leaders
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  who actually know how to design the structural
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  blueprint so that the psychological safety we
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  just talked about can actually exist at scale.
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  Which brings us perfectly to the actual architects
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  at Synopsys. To understand how they build this
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  culture, our sources highlight the architects
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  operating in the EMEA region. That's Europe,
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  the Middle East, and Africa. Right. And the sources
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  specifically call out two very distinct leaders.
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  So if a winning culture needs a blueprint, who
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  is actually drawing it up? Well, one of the primary
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  architects is Eleanor Lomas, who goes by L. She
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  is the vice president people partner for EMEA
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  at Synopsys based out of the UK. OK, LMS. And
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  what's fascinating here is her approach to culture
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  does not come from a pure traditional HR background
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  at all. Her foundation is actually built on rigid
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  systemic structure. How so? What kind of structure
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  are we talking about? She holds an honors degree
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  in law and a bachelor's degree in economics.
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  Oh, wow. Yeah. On top of that, she is an expert
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  in EMIR employment law. And just to clarify that
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  acronym that's Europe, the Middle East, Africa,
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  and Russia, she also holds an FCIPD qualification.
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  Okay, let's pause there for a second because
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  that's a lot of acronyms. For those of us outside
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  the UK HR bubble, what does FCIPD actually mean
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  in practice? Fair question. It stands for Fellow
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  of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
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  Sounds very official. It is. Practically speaking,
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  it is the highest tier of professional standards
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  for people management in the UK. It means you
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  aren't just handling payroll. You are recognized
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  as a strategic expert in how human behavior impacts
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  business outcomes. Got it. But look at that combination,
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  though. Law, economics, and high level compliance.
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  Law dictates what a company absolutely cannot
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  do. Economics is the mathematical study of how
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  to allocate scarce resources. It is a very analytical,
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  almost cold foundation. It really sounds like
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  the resume of a corporate auditor, not necessarily
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  someone whose primary job is building a warm,
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  thriving culture. Right. And honestly, if that
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  was her entire background, the culture might
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  be very rigid. But here is the twist, and this
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  is where the architecture analogy really shines.
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  On top of that strict legal and economic framework,
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  she is a qualified business and performance coach
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  and an NLP practitioner. NLP, Neurolinguistic
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  Programming. I have heard that term thrown around
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  a lot in self -help circles, but I mean, how
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  does an HR executive actually use neurolinguistic
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  programming to build company culture? That is
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  the crucial mechanism right there. NLP is essentially
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  the study of how the specific language we use
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  maps to our neurological processes, which in
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  turn rewires our behavior. So it's about the
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  connection between words and actions. Exactly.
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  It is about understanding how people process
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  information and emotion. Imagine applying that
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  to corporate communication. When Elle is navigating
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  a conflict between two executives or trying to
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  foster empathy across a diverse team, she isn't
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  just using generic HR platitudes. No, let's hold
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  hands and sing kumbaya. Right, exactly. She is
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  utilizing her NLP training to fundamentally shift
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  how those employees speak to and understand one
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  another. So it's not just, you know, let's all
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  get along. It's a structural approach to empathy.
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  Exactly. True community building in a massive
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  international corporate setting requires both
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  sides of her brain. That makes a lot of sense.
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  You cannot build a positive, inclusive employee
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  experience across multiple international borders
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  with varying labor laws relying solely on good
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  vibes and empathy. Right. Good vibes won't keep
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  you compliant. Exactly. You need a deep structural
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  understanding of complex organizations. Her legal
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  and economic background provides the architectural
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  integrity, the steel beams of the building. Right.
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  And then her coaching. and NLP background provide
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  the emotional intelligence to design the interior
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  where people actually feel safe and want to live.
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  The steel beams and the interior design, that
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  perfectly encapsulates it. And I think it's also
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  worth noting from the sources that she speaks
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  English, French, and German. Yes, which is huge.
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  Which seems like a logistical necessity when
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  you're dealing with a global workforce, right?
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  But it's also about translating cultural nuance,
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  not just vocabulary. I mean, you can't truly
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  empathize with an employee if you don't understand
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  the cultural context. of how they communicate.
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  That's exactly it. But Elle's foundational structure
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  is really only one half of the equation. It's
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  an axis. Right, because once you build the house,
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  someone has to strategically fill it. Exactly.
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  You have to fill it with the right talent and
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  develop that talent to its absolute maximum potential.
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  And that introduces us to the second architect
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  highlighted in our sources, Maria Petrosian.
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  Yes, Maria. Maria is the Senior Director of Talent
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  Management for EMEA, and she is based in Armenia.
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  Okay. While Elle provides the structural and
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  empathetic foundation, Maria is laser -focused
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  on talent and leadership development. And her
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  operational footprint is massive. Oh, it really
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  is. The source has mentioned she has led HR for
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  17 different countries in the EAVA region. Seventeen.
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  Just let that sink in. Let's just sit with that
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  for a moment. Managing talent across 17 different
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  national cultures, 17 different regulatory environments,
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  17 different sets of workplace norms. The logistical
• 11:31
  friction of that must be unbelievable. It is
• 11:34
  a monumental task. How do you even approach creating
• 11:37
  a unified winning culture across that much division?
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  You approach it through rigorous analytics and
• 11:43
  strategic education. Maria doesn't just manage
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  people. She studies organizational behavior.
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  So she treats it like a science. Exactly. She
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  has spent years lecturing on strategic HR management
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  at the American University of Armenia. Her entire
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  focus is deeply rooted in organizational development
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  and analytics. She looks at culture as a data
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  set that can be optimized. So she is taking the
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  secure fertile soil that Ellis created with her
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  legal and coaching frameworks and Maria is planting
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  aggressive analytics driven talent strategies
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  into it. Precisely. And Maria has a very specific
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  passion. within those strategies. She drives
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  the women's agenda in the tech industry. Which
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  is so important. It is. But she doesn't do it
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  just because it's a nice moral goal. She views
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  diverse perspectives as a hard strategic necessity.
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  Oh, interesting. So it's a business imperative.
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  Yes. She uses business planning and analytics
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  to prove that inclusivity directly drives growth
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  and innovation. She understands that if you want
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  a company to survive a fast -paced tech environment,
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  you cannot afford to have a monoculture where
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  everyone thinks exactly the same way. The synergy
• 12:47
  between these two leaders is genuinely fascinating.
• 12:50
  It's a complementary ecosystem. You have L ensuring
• 12:54
  the structure is sound. legally compliant, and
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  deeply empathetic. Then you have Maria utilizing
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  that exact structure to elevate talent, push
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  for necessary diversity, and implement strategic
• 13:06
  programs across 17 countries. Which brings us
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  to the most important part of this entire deep
• 13:11
  dive, is the operational reality check. The proof
• 13:14
  in the pudding? Exactly. You can have the best,
• 13:17
  most brilliant architects in the world. You can
• 13:20
  have a perfect blueprint. But if those architects
• 13:22
  never actually pour the concrete, It's just a
• 13:25
  nice drawing on a piece of paper. Right. Theory
• 13:27
  is great, but execution is everything. How does
• 13:31
  all of this background, you know, the law degrees,
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  the NLP coaching, the analytics, the cross -border
• 13:35
  management, how does that actually translate
• 13:37
  into actionable programs that change the culture
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  for the average employee on the ground? Well,
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  this leads us directly to the specific initiatives
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  Maria implemented in the EMEA tech community.
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  And there is one program detailed in the sources
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  that absolutely demands our attention. It is
• 13:52
  without a doubt a massive disruptor to the traditional
• 13:55
  corporate hierarchy. Here's where it gets really
• 13:57
  interesting. Our sources detail a program they
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  introduced called reverse mentoring. Reverse
• 14:03
  mentoring. Now, earlier we talked about the traditional
• 14:05
  mentor relationship, right? A senior executive
• 14:08
  takes a junior employee under their wing to show
• 14:11
  them the ropes. But in this reverse mentoring
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  program, emerging female leaders are actively
• 14:17
  tasked with mentoring senior male leaders. Yes.
• 14:21
  Let me say that again to make sure the mechanics
• 14:22
  of this are clear. The younger, newer female
• 14:25
  talent is assigned to be the mentor to the established
• 14:29
  senior male executives. It is a complete inversion
• 14:32
  of the traditional corporate power dynamic. It
• 14:34
  totally is. And I have to ask you about the reality
• 14:36
  of this, because my first thought is the friction.
• 14:39
  Oh, there has to be friction. Right. Normally,
• 14:42
  mentorship flows top down because the senior
• 14:44
  executive has the years of wisdom and the battle
• 14:46
  scars. If you flip that ladder upside down, what
• 14:49
  happens when an older, highly successful male
• 14:52
  executive gets defensive? It sounds like it could
• 14:54
  be a nightmare to manage. It certainly could
• 14:56
  be. What is the actual strategic value in having
• 15:00
  a 25 -year -old junior analyst guide a 55 -year
• 15:03
  -old vice president? And how do they keep it
• 15:05
  from imploding? Well, If we connect this to the
• 15:08
  bigger picture, the brilliance of reverse mentoring
• 15:11
  and why it requires such careful architecture
• 15:14
  to pull off becomes very clear. Let's look at
• 15:18
  traditional mentorship. Okay. While it is valuable,
• 15:21
  it has a hidden flaw. It essentially replicates
• 15:25
  the existing culture. The senior leader teaches
• 15:28
  the junior leader how to think, act, and solve
• 15:31
  problems exactly like the senior leader does.
• 15:33
  Ah, I see. It perfectly preserves the status
• 15:35
  quo. Yes. Which is great if your current status
• 15:38
  quo is flawless and the market never changes,
• 15:40
  but it's terrible if you need to innovate or
• 15:42
  adapt to new technology. That makes total sense.
• 15:44
  When an individual reaches the senior executive
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  level, they inevitably end up in a bit of an
• 15:49
  ivory tower. It is unavoidable. They become insulated
• 15:52
  from the day -to -day realities of the ground
• 15:54
  floor. They stop seeing the actual work being
• 15:56
  done. Right. They lose touch with the shifting
• 16:00
  cultural expectations of the newer workforce.
• 16:03
  They might not instinctively grasp fresh technological
• 16:07
  approaches. And crucially, they are often blind
• 16:10
  to the nuanced systemic obstacles that underrepresented
• 16:14
  groups face within their own company. Because
• 16:16
  they simply don't experience those obstacles.
• 16:19
  Exactly. They can't see the barriers from the
• 16:21
  top floor. By having emerging female leaders,
• 16:24
  mentor senior male leaders, Marie is forcing
• 16:27
  a structured collision of entirely different
• 16:30
  worlds. A structured collision? Yes. She is forcing
• 16:33
  greater understanding across perspectives that
• 16:35
  normally would never interact in a vulnerable
• 16:37
  way. But again, I have to go back to the egos.
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  How do you handle the ego? A senior executive
• 16:43
  has to sit in a room and admit to a junior employee
• 16:45
  that they have blind spots. And that is exactly
• 16:48
  where Ella Lomas' foundational work comes into
• 16:50
  play. Oh, the psychological safety. Yes. You
• 16:53
  cannot run a reverse mentoring program effectively
• 16:56
  if you haven't first built an environment rooted
• 16:58
  in psychological safety. Right, the steel beams
• 17:01
  and the interior design. Exactly. The senior
• 17:03
  leader has to feel safe enough to drop their
• 17:05
  ego, ask dumb questions, and admit ignorance
• 17:08
  without feeling like their authority is threatened.
• 17:11
  That's a tall order. It is. And simultaneously,
• 17:14
  the junior employee has to feel completely safe
• 17:17
  to speak the raw truth, to point out the flaws
• 17:20
  in the executive's thinking without any fear
• 17:23
  of retaliation or career damage. Which is why
• 17:25
  that NLP training is so important. Precisely.
• 17:28
  The NLP and Coaching Framework's ALA Champions
• 17:30
  are exactly what build that trust. The structure
• 17:33
  supports the program and the program drives the
• 17:36
  culture. It's an incredible mechanism. When it
• 17:39
  works, what kind of blind spots are actually
• 17:41
  being exposed during these sessions? Well, it
• 17:43
  breaks down organizational silos. The senior
• 17:46
  leadership is suddenly exposed to raw, unfiltered
• 17:48
  feedback about how their top -down decisions
• 17:51
  actually impact the people doing the work. Like
• 17:53
  a reality check. Exactly. The junior mentor teaches
• 17:56
  them about subtle biases in the promotion process,
• 17:59
  or maybe why a certain legacy software tool is
• 18:02
  actively driving new talent to quit. Oh, I love
• 18:04
  that. It shatters the illusion that knowledge
• 18:06
  and learning only flow downward. And concurrently,
• 18:10
  the emerging female leaders are gaining direct
• 18:13
  unfiltered access to the highest levels of senior
• 18:16
  leadership. Huge visibility. Right. They are
• 18:19
  building their confidence, practicing high stakes
• 18:21
  communication, and expanding their network in
• 18:23
  a way that traditional pipelines rarely allow.
• 18:26
  It's mutual self -actualization. It really is.
• 18:29
  It proves Maria's core thesis. Diverse perspectives
• 18:32
  are mandatory for business survival. To you listening
• 18:36
  right now. I want you to think about your own
• 18:38
  workplace your own industry Think about the stubborn
• 18:42
  recurring problems your company faces every quarter
• 18:45
  Imagine the blind spots your executive team currently
• 18:48
  has we all know they have them Right. How much
• 18:50
  faster could your company solve those stubborn
• 18:52
  problems if the newest most diverse voices on
• 18:55
  the ground floor were given the safety and the
• 18:58
  authority to directly educate the most senior
• 19:00
  decision makers? It completely transforms a company
• 19:02
  from a rigid hierarchy into an adaptable learning
• 19:05
  engine. It means the sourdough starter is actually
• 19:08
  being fed by everyone from the newest hire all
• 19:11
  the way to the CEO. OK, this has been an incredibly
• 19:14
  eye opening journey. Let's do a quick recap to
• 19:16
  pull all these threads together. Sure. We started
• 19:19
  with this somewhat abstract idea of winning culture.
• 19:22
  We realized it isn't ping -pong tables. It is
• 19:26
  a deliberate behavioral operating system. And
• 19:29
  we saw how building that system requires diverse,
• 19:32
  multi -talented architects. Exactly. You need
• 19:34
  an architect like LMS, blending strict legal
• 19:37
  and economic frameworks with deep NLP coaching
• 19:40
  to create structural empathy and psychological
• 19:43
  safety. And you need an architect like Maria
• 19:46
  Petrosian, blending strategic HR, university
• 19:49
  -level lecturing, and hard organizational analytics
• 19:52
  to manage and elevate talent across 17 different
• 19:54
  national cultures. And finally we saw how all
• 19:58
  that structural and strategic brilliance has
• 20:00
  to culminate in tangible disruptive action. Right
• 20:03
  it isn't just theory. No it results in programs
• 20:05
  like reverse mentoring. where you intentionally
• 20:08
  invert the power dynamic to expose blind spots
• 20:11
  and drive innovation. So what does this all mean?
• 20:13
  When we boil away all the corporate terminology,
• 20:16
  what is the ultimate takeaway from these architects
• 20:19
  of excellence? It means that a culture where
• 20:21
  bold ideas and people actually thrive is never
• 20:25
  an accident. It doesn't just happen because you
• 20:28
  hired talented people. It is the result of intentional
• 20:31
  design, relentless knowledge sharing, and a courageous
• 20:35
  willingness to step completely outside of traditional
• 20:38
  power structures. It requires leaders who are
• 20:41
  brave enough to let themselves be mentored by
• 20:44
  the very people they lead. It is about actively
• 20:47
  building the machinery of resilience. And as
• 20:50
  we wrap up today's Deep Dive, I want to leave
• 20:51
  you, the listener, with a final provocative challenge
• 20:54
  to mull over as you go about your day. I love
• 20:57
  these. Think about your own unique perspective.
• 20:59
  Think about your background, your daily frustrations,
• 21:01
  and the realities you experience on the ground
• 21:03
  floor of your specific industry. Yep. If a reverse
• 21:06
  mentoring program was launched at your company
• 21:08
  tomorrow and you... received an invite to sit
• 21:10
  down in a closed room and mentor your CEO, what
• 21:13
  is the one crucial, uncomfortable truth about
• 21:16
  your workplace that you would teach them? That
• 21:18
  is a question that reveals exactly what kind
• 21:21
  of culture carrier you truly are. Thank you so
• 21:23
  much for joining us on this Deep Dive. Keep learning,
• 21:26
  keep questioning the status quo, and whatever
• 21:28
  room you walk into next, keep intentionally carrying
• 21:31
  that culture forward.