Latest / Founder Talk with Alex Sheridan / Your Business Won’t Scale Until Your People Systems Do! (ft. HR Leader Lindsay Dagiantis)

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Your Business Won’t Scale Until Your People Systems Do! (ft. HR Leader Lindsay Dagiantis) · Founder Talk with Alex Sheridan

• 0:00
  So Lindsay, founder of Blueprint HR, welcome to the Founder Talk
• 0:04
  podcast. Thanks for having me we'll.
• 0:05
  Do a quick cheers, excited to have you on.
• 0:08
  So let me give you I'm going to just like list off a quick blurb
• 0:10
  in terms of what blueprint HR does just to give some context
• 0:13
  for the audience. But then we're going to get some
• 0:15
  other stuff that just some interesting takes that you have
• 0:17
  that I saw on LinkedIn. So spicy takes as you.
• 0:20
  Call it, yeah. So blueprint, you correct me if
• 0:22
  I'm if this is off blueprint HR helps companies grow, helps
• 0:26
  growing companies build the right HR systems and processes
• 0:29
  so they hire smarter, keep talent longer and avoid costly
• 0:32
  people problems, saving time, reducing turnover and making the
• 0:36
  business more predictable and scalable.
• 0:38
  That's better than what I have probably on my content.
• 0:41
  But yes, yes, that's what. We do.
• 0:43
  Well, that's good. Then we summed it up nicely.
• 0:45
  OK, I feel like you put the human in human resources,
• 0:49
  especially just watching your LinkedIn post, like your your
• 0:52
  angle and your spicy takes and some of the things that maybe
• 0:55
  some HR professionals are scared to say.
• 0:57
  I feel like you just kind of say it.
• 0:59
  So I'm going to ask you about that real quick.
• 1:01
  There's a few things, there's some honest takes that you had
• 1:04
  that I think are relevant to everyone listening here.
• 1:06
  It's mostly entrepreneurs, founders, business owners.
• 1:08
  First one was you said before you ask anyone your Monday
• 1:12
  morning autopilot greeting of, hey, how was your weekend?
• 1:16
  Please, for the sake of all things, do not do it.
• 1:19
  Yeah, why should they not do it? So that was in response to the
• 1:24
  horrific acts happening in Minnesota that one weekend.
• 1:27
  And I won't name it, but it was brutal and it was something that
• 1:33
  I had to address very quickly and honestly.
• 1:35
  And be very real because I could envision this happening where
• 1:40
  someone walks in on a Monday morning and they had
• 1:43
  experienced, you know, close to home or not close to home, this
• 1:48
  incident. And I said everybody needs to
• 1:52
  stop with the like, every business is normal and
• 1:55
  everything is normal because it's not.
• 1:58
  And so my spicy hot take on that was as leaders, you know,
• 2:05
  employees look to leaders, managers, whomever, to validate
• 2:09
  their experience, whether it's in the office or not in the
• 2:13
  office. And so when leaders can actually
• 2:16
  take a beat and pause and acknowledge it and put some
• 2:20
  words behind it, I think you build A level of trust.
• 2:25
  And I don't want to say comfort because it's not comfort.
• 2:30
  It's not normal, but there is that bridge building that can
• 2:34
  happen. And So what I wanted to do in
• 2:38
  that post was give leaders and employees an expectation of
• 2:42
  like, we all need to pause and we need to address this.
• 2:45
  And I also am vocal now on political topics.
• 2:51
  I have a lot more freedom because I am a founder and I, I
• 2:55
  do, I can be more vocal about these things.
• 2:59
  And I think HR has a responsibility to be vocal and
• 3:02
  also guide their leaders that they're working with to be vocal
• 3:07
  on topics now. And so part of that post was to
• 3:12
  address it and set an expectation.
• 3:14
  And then the other part was to give managers, you know, that
• 3:18
  those frontline managers are really navigating at a different
• 3:21
  level their individual contributors on their team as
• 3:25
  well as leadership. And so giving them some tools
• 3:27
  and talking points that they can easily bring in a dress and kind
• 3:32
  of be the leader that maybe they don't have in an organization.
• 3:37
  Now, what if you're just someone that doesn't really watch the
• 3:38
  news or pay attention to political things?
• 3:41
  You're coming in. It's Monday morning.
• 3:42
  Yo, what up, dog? How was your weekend?
• 3:44
  You know, you're just talking to your people.
• 3:46
  Yeah. And they're like, Jesus, dude.
• 3:47
  Like, everything's falling. Like there's crazy.
• 3:49
  Stuff like the world is on fire. Like, yeah.
• 3:51
  Some heavy stuff's going on right now.
• 3:53
  What do you say to that manager or leader?
• 3:56
  I that's a good question. What do I say to that manager?
• 4:00
  I, I think there's a little bit of read the room.
• 4:04
  There's also an expectation that I have of people in general to
• 4:07
  be informed about their surroundings.
• 4:10
  I think if you ask someone to, you know, you go to the airport
• 4:15
  and you're like, you can't just like walk around the airport.
• 4:18
  You're like, no, I have my suitcase and my things like
• 4:20
  you're prepared. So I expect employees and people
• 4:24
  and citizens of the world to be informed about what's happening
• 4:29
  in their town. So if you're in, you know,
• 4:31
  Chicago or you're in your suburb and that high school's team just
• 4:35
  won a championship, like be aware of how that's impacting
• 4:40
  your your peers. Or hey, remember I your kid was
• 4:44
  competing in this thing this weekend.
• 4:46
  Or hey, I saw on the news this horrific act.
• 4:48
  Like, I think we have to be participating and I want leaders
• 4:52
  to do this. I want employees to do this.
• 4:55
  Someone's always going to say that, hey, man, what's going on?
• 4:57
  Like just autopilot it, it happens, OK.
• 5:00
  And I don't think the response is, oh, my gosh, you didn't
• 5:04
  know, but just say, hey, it was it was a heavy weekend.
• 5:07
  I I need a minute. Like I'm not, I'm not ready to
• 5:09
  be here right now. And that's OK too.
• 5:14
  And you know, maybe inform them. I think that's a good
• 5:17
  perspective is to not be judge mental on the other side,
• 5:20
  because that's what sometimes you see either one, there's no
• 5:23
  awareness or empathy towards what has happened.
• 5:26
  And then in the other side you'd see complete judgement of like,
• 5:29
  how could you not have known? It's like you ain't got to shame
• 5:32
  people for like, you know, some kind of virtue signaling some or
• 5:35
  whatever it is. It's like just educate them.
• 5:38
  Just like, hey, there's some heavy stuff going on right now
• 5:40
  and you know, might make sense to pause for a few people, you
• 5:43
  know, or the group or the team or whatever it is.
• 5:45
  I think that's either way, the empathy's got to be there for
• 5:48
  what's going on. I mean, you know.
• 5:50
  I remember at the beginning of COVID when everybody went home
• 5:54
  that fateful March Friday or whatever it was, and I got some
• 5:59
  LinkedIn messages from, you know, I was the head of HR at a
• 6:03
  company and we were processing immigration petitions.
• 6:07
  So H1B visas, green cards and like everything was shutting
• 6:10
  down. And we were like trying to buy a
• 6:12
  commercial printer and put it in someone's garage in Ravenswood
• 6:15
  so we can print out all these things Like that didn't happen,
• 6:18
  but we're just like triaging. And I got this e-mail on
• 6:22
  LinkedIn from someone going, hey, hope you're doing well.
• 6:25
  I just wanted to reach out and see if you were interested in
• 6:27
  this inserts thing. And I was like, I'm sorry, what?
• 6:31
  I have a 15 month old on my lap watching frozen for the 17th
• 6:35
  time today. And I'm trying to like do an M&A
• 6:39
  and do a private equity exit. And I'm read the room person
• 6:44
  like why, you know, So I think there's that next level of
• 6:48
  outreach. And we learned during COVID that
• 6:50
  was, you know, a foray into how do we communicate better and
• 6:57
  more honestly and more openly and not so cut paced even in the
• 7:01
  age of AI where we can be more human connect.
• 7:06
  I mean, we want that, right? We want that connection.
• 7:09
  And leaders and managers, employees are all trying to
• 7:13
  navigate it real time. And then the next thing that you
• 7:17
  got like April or May, you know, at the months after, right after
• 7:21
  COVID were how are you doing these unprecedented times?
• 7:25
  And I hope you're doing well, but it was just like a
• 7:26
  throwaway. Every first line was, I hope
• 7:28
  you're doing well in these unprecedented times.
• 7:30
  And then it was like, OK, now you're just like acting like
• 7:33
  you're empathetic and you're really not.
• 7:35
  Yeah, the novelty had worn off. The honeymoon phase had worn
• 7:38
  off. Yeah.
• 7:39
  And we're like, quickly looking at, OK, so it's summer and we've
• 7:42
  been outside here in Chicago. And then I remember I had to
• 7:46
  have a meeting with leadership and my managers, and they're
• 7:49
  starting to panic because it's like September and October and
• 7:52
  they're like, wait, my kids are supposed to be going back to
• 7:54
  school and maybe they're not. And that's going on.
• 7:57
  And then there's this whole, it's going to be winter.
• 7:59
  Winter is coming. And like, you know, that whole
• 8:02
  kind of, oh, my God, we're going to be inside again.
• 8:04
  And I've been, you know, I had one employee who's like, I've
• 8:07
  been staring at my roommate on the couch for six months.
• 8:11
  And I am losing my mind. And I'm like, yeah, those are
• 8:15
  those are things. And So what I hope to do in HR
• 8:19
  is kind of connect those dots for leaders or employees or
• 8:25
  managers real time, but also keep the business running.
• 8:30
  I don't want to say like, you know, business still has to be
• 8:34
  business, but you have to real time address those things.
• 8:37
  And when you hire, you know, a fractional HR leader or look at
• 8:44
  your operational tech stack or your people processes, you have
• 8:48
  to have someone who's like, I've seen it, I have some Gray hairs
• 8:51
  from it and have those kind of as takeaways to navigate these
• 8:57
  times and. Yeah, going back to the, the
• 9:00
  asking people how they're doing or how their weekend was, I've
• 9:03
  like a lot of leaders, myself included, at times you kind of
• 9:05
  struggle to, you're coming back from a long weekend or whatever
• 9:09
  it might be. Someone had some time off and
• 9:11
  then you or even maybe you're opening up a chat with a
• 9:14
  prospect or a client and it's like the same.
• 9:16
  It feels very like cookie cutter disingenuous of like, hey, how's
• 9:21
  it going? Good, How are you good?
• 9:23
  Or it's like, how was your weekend?
• 9:24
  It was good. How was yours?
• 9:25
  Good. What'd you do?
• 9:26
  How about them bears? Yeah, exactly.
• 9:28
  Like how? What do you have any
• 9:29
  recommendations for leaders to engage better in?
• 9:32
  I don't know if you call it small talk or building
• 9:34
  relationships or whatever it might be.
• 9:36
  Yeah, so it's the good old Ted Lasso.
• 9:38
  Be curious and having the patience to listen to what
• 9:44
  they're saying. And that's going to start before
• 9:47
  Monday morning. So it's going to be going into I
• 9:50
  really know about this person. And so if you're asking about
• 9:54
  their kids or they're moving or when is their birthday, when is
• 9:59
  their anniversary with the company, you know, if there's a
• 10:03
  10 year thing, like, Hey, you've been here three months, how are
• 10:06
  you? Like there's, there's linguistic
• 10:08
  things that you can emphasize. How are you, how are you doing?
• 10:13
  And not just like, how's it going?
• 10:14
  And like kind of blindly stare off into the abyss, like waiting
• 10:17
  for the, oh, it's good fun. Like listen more.
• 10:22
  I think there's a listening and a patience that has to happen.
• 10:25
  And I say that being the most impatient person ever.
• 10:31
  I, I say that to myself, but it's a lot about being curious
• 10:35
  and honestly looking for something more.
• 10:40
  On the flip side, if you're a leader and you're walking into
• 10:42
  that conference room and you've got your Monday morning meeting,
• 10:45
  also don't have a Monday morning meeting, just stop.
• 10:48
  Let's not do that. But if you're walking into that
• 10:51
  meeting and be like, all right, there's a lot of stuff going on.
• 10:54
  I know there's a lot of stuff on people's plates like give space
• 10:57
  for that. And I'm not trying to be woo woo
• 11:00
  about it. But you know, if there's
• 11:02
  anything I want to address a couple of large things.
• 11:05
  This weekend was rough. It was a hard weekend.
• 11:08
  If you don't know what I'm talking about, let's debrief and
• 11:10
  I'll, I'll tell you over here, but it's affecting our teams and
• 11:13
  I'm sure many of them are impacted on it.
• 11:16
  And I want to, I, I don't know what to do about it right now,
• 11:20
  but I want to acknowledge it. And I think that can like, I
• 11:24
  don't want to say clear the air and like remove the elephant
• 11:26
  from the room, but it definitely gives space for avoiding the,
• 11:31
  I'm not going to talk about it because I don't want to be
• 11:33
  political or I don't want to be talk, talk about it.
• 11:37
  Let's talk about it and let's practice talking about it
• 11:40
  because we're not going to get better talking about hard things
• 11:44
  unless we practice. And I think managers need to see
• 11:48
  that happen. Leaders need to practice doing
• 11:50
  it. Gosh knows, I was the VP of HR
• 11:54
  during COVID and they're looking at me for like communications.
• 11:57
  I'm like, I don't know, I'm texting my friend over at this
• 11:59
  other company, figuring out what they're doing.
• 12:01
  Like we're just doing our best. And if you're curious and kind
• 12:06
  of leading with that curiosity and that patience that can come
• 12:10
  makes. Me think about the calls I have
• 12:12
  with clients and prospects too, and if you know something about
• 12:14
  them coming into it almost like being intentional with how you
• 12:17
  open up the call. So because we just kind of come
• 12:19
  in and rush in the next call and it's like, how's it going good?
• 12:21
  How's it going good versus like, hey, how are you 2 kiddos doing?
• 12:24
  Or what's going on with what's new with them or you know
• 12:26
  something like that where it's just like, it's just a better
• 12:28
  way to start the conversation. It's your point.
• 12:30
  You got to be curious to begin with.
• 12:32
  You have to be and you meet people where they're just like
• 12:34
  they talk all the time and it's all about them.
• 12:36
  And then they never ask you what are you into or what are you
• 12:38
  doing this weekend? What's going on and Will and
• 12:41
  those are the kind of people you want to be around.
• 12:42
  I tell my, my, I have two daughters, 12:00 and 9:00.
• 12:44
  And I was just telling my 12 year old every day.
• 12:46
  I was like, just be really curious about people.
• 12:48
  So that's how like if people will actually gravitate towards
• 12:51
  you more and you'll learn about them and you can understand them
• 12:53
  better and they'll learn about more, you know, learn more about
• 12:56
  you. And I think that's really is the
• 12:57
  key. It's like the how to influence
• 12:59
  people, how to win friends and influence people.
• 13:01
  It's like ask people questions, but not just like surface level
• 13:04
  stuff, like really be interested in what they're doing and what
• 13:07
  they have going on and who they are as a person.
• 13:09
  I think that's the key. And I think if you're not sure
• 13:12
  where to start, you can lead with yourself.
• 13:15
  Hey man, Monday's here. Super glad Monday's here.
• 13:19
  Had a crazy weekend with the kid.
• 13:21
  We had a lot of fun. We went Lujing in Muskegon and
• 13:25
  you know, it was, it was so fun. But I'm glad it's Monday time to
• 13:29
  focus on some things. And then how about you?
• 13:32
  How is you guys do anything? How's the kid?
• 13:35
  Oh, good, we had the flu this weekend.
• 13:37
  Awesome. Thanks for coming to work.
• 13:38
  Like, you know, those kind of quippy things and or just, I
• 13:44
  don't know, you can frame it however you want.
• 13:46
  You can have an agenda or not, but lead with something that's
• 13:49
  personal for you and showing that to your team.
• 13:52
  A lot of founders are, yes, they want to be curious, but I'm
• 13:55
  like, well, I want to know about you and what's going on.
• 13:58
  I mean, I loved knowing when I was in corporate, I loved
• 14:02
  knowing about the CEO or the leadership teams, kids or kind
• 14:07
  of adventures and side quests and like whatever they had going
• 14:10
  on or like backstories, like, Oh yeah, this one time in law
• 14:14
  school, like I met this person, I'm like, that is a fascinating
• 14:17
  story. I love that.
• 14:20
  And it becomes kind of a running thread of kind of bonding over
• 14:26
  that topic. I don't want to say an inside
• 14:29
  joke because it's very like Mean Girls, but it's it becomes with
• 14:32
  either the leadership team or the people that were shared in
• 14:35
  that conversation, a nice thread to say, hey, you know what, you
• 14:38
  mentioned that your kid is going to insert college.
• 14:43
  My son is really interested in that too.
• 14:47
  Maybe let's talk in a couple months.
• 14:48
  I'd love to maybe introduce them and they can talk shop.
• 14:51
  Like, yeah, you don't know where that leads to, but also just
• 14:55
  being curious. Yeah, that's really is a lot of
• 14:57
  it. So you mentioned that you don't
• 14:59
  think companies should have meetings on Monday?
• 15:02
  Yeah. Really.
• 15:02
  Why is that? No, I think they should just not
• 15:06
  at like 8:00 in the morning because that's just a rough
• 15:08
  start. Give people.
• 15:09
  Time to settle in and. Just settle in.
• 15:10
  If you are a company that does have, you know, a kind of a
• 15:15
  schedule where you are in the office and you're not async or
• 15:18
  you're not global, just let's be realistic.
• 15:23
  If if call time is to be in the office by 8:00 or 8:30 and
• 15:26
  you're scheduling a meeting at 8:00 or 8:30, come on.
• 15:30
  Like that's just not how you're going to spend more time
• 15:34
  stressing people out for this arbitrary like start date or
• 15:38
  start time. And I, I'm also a big fan of
• 15:44
  like auditing your calendar and like questioning everything and
• 15:47
  doing this quarterly. And I want leaders to do that
• 15:51
  and I want individuals to do that.
• 15:53
  I know leaders, individuals are like, well, this is what my boss
• 15:56
  put on the calendar. But like, lean into that and
• 15:58
  say, hey, boss, can we do a calendar audit?
• 16:03
  I've been noticing in this meeting, not a lot's getting
• 16:07
  done. Like nobody wants to say no to
• 16:09
  it because we don't know how. But like, I think there's a
• 16:12
  necessary thing that has to happen and leaders and founders
• 16:16
  need to do that. I do it all the time.
• 16:17
  I actually schedule a quarterly like thing on my calendar to be
• 16:22
  like, hey, just check. It's in my Asana task.
• 16:24
  That's what it is. Just check the calendar.
• 16:28
  Are things working the way you want them to work?
• 16:31
  And if not, do it over, like change it.
• 16:34
  And so when it comes to a company having a Monday morning
• 16:38
  meeting, now if that's just in your culture and that's like
• 16:41
  everybody likes it and they're like, yes, this works for us,
• 16:44
  OK, then keep it. That's fine, right?
• 16:48
  But I think there's a I'm always a but why?
• 16:52
  Why? What's the goal?
• 16:53
  Well, we want people to be here, OK, but is it working?
• 16:57
  Are you getting what is needed out of that?
• 17:00
  Or is it really stressing the one person out who's like, I
• 17:04
  drive my kid to school and it is so hard for me to do that kind
• 17:10
  of hand off and parenting situation.
• 17:13
  Or maybe there's an individual who's just like, I just have a
• 17:16
  hard time. You know, being there on Monday
• 17:18
  morning every other day is great, but that Monday morning
• 17:21
  is just not for me. So question everything, do a
• 17:25
  calendar audit, but be nice about those Monday morning.
• 17:29
  Yes, I like that. I think you do got to question
• 17:31
  things. Does this need to be a meeting?
• 17:33
  Yeah, that was in corporate and there was, we would meet twice a
• 17:36
  day, like 2 mandatory meetings, you know, one in the morning,
• 17:39
  1:00 in the afternoon. Sometimes.
• 17:41
  Like sometimes they were impactful and like move the
• 17:43
  business forward and it actually developed people.
• 17:47
  And other times it was like we're all just kind of sitting
• 17:48
  around here, like, what are we checking in?
• 17:50
  I mean, it's 2025 minutes of just like going around and kind
• 17:53
  of checking in. And I think if that's the case,
• 17:54
  do you not trust your people? Do you need to lead them in a
• 17:57
  different way? Some of it maybe is a little bit
• 17:59
  of like I need to make sure this train is on the rails come
• 18:03
  Monday morning. If we don't meet and and we're
• 18:05
  not aligned, this thing's off the rails by Tuesday and then
• 18:09
  Thursday we're dealing with the shit show.
• 18:10
  You think that's part of what it is for leaders?
• 18:12
  Yeah, I think there's, there's fear to change something and
• 18:18
  fear of it's not just like, well, we need to move.
• 18:21
  We have to have this meeting because otherwise things will go
• 18:23
  off the railing rails. Then my question as your
• 18:28
  friendly HR person is OK, but where's the tech plat?
• 18:33
  Like what are you trying? What are you accomplishing in
• 18:35
  that meeting? Is it rapport?
• 18:37
  Is it a just checking in? Is it actually status and going
• 18:42
  over and discussing the metrics and like here's why this one is
• 18:45
  up or down. And here's what we're seeing in
• 18:47
  like putting the color commentary on top of the
• 18:49
  dashboards. But there is sometimes just a
• 18:54
  fear of changing and like taking the time to in intentionally
• 18:58
  change something and change how you is that metric the metric
• 19:03
  that we need to be measuring right now?
• 19:06
  I've had clients who are like, well, our turnover is XYZ.
• 19:09
  I'm like, I don't really care about your turnover right now.
• 19:11
  I'm more interested in how long it takes you to hire somebody.
• 19:15
  And those go hand in hand is like turnover and hiring or, you
• 19:18
  know, processes. But I think there is a real need
• 19:24
  for calendar audits and looking into each one of those things.
• 19:28
  And then when it comes to those, the 2A days I called it, I used
• 19:31
  to run those too, when I had a recruiting team.
• 19:33
  And it was just so intense. Yeah.
• 19:35
  And you'd have two a days. And for me, it was more of like,
• 19:38
  we're going to stand up at 2:00. We're going to look at each
• 19:41
  other and be like, did we get done what we said we would get
• 19:44
  done at 8:30? And it's just a lot of like,
• 19:47
  yes, I got the things done or no, something happened.
• 19:50
  And I'm like, great. And it was just an
• 19:52
  accountability thing. And it was literally 3 minutes
• 19:55
  of like just eyeball checks and like time out or no, we've got
• 19:59
  this new wreck that just came in hot.
• 20:01
  And if I did that for three days, I would then be like, all
• 20:05
  right, we're done with the 2A days because I was in house too.
• 20:08
  I was corporate recruiting. I wasn't staffing, although
• 20:10
  staffing was fun too. But I after three days of doing
• 20:16
  that. Like stop, we're done.
• 20:18
  Otherwise it's just not moving. It's not getting us through the
• 20:21
  slog any faster. And so then I'd go to my boss
• 20:25
  and say we're not doing 2 days, I need XYZXYZXYZ.
• 20:30
  And usually by two days of doing those stand up meetings with
• 20:35
  those like intense kind of days, we'd get through whatever it
• 20:39
  was, it wasn't a standard of like, Yep, I did the calls.
• 20:44
  I did like, I think leaders need to rethink in those cases when
• 20:51
  you're having meetings for meetings sake, it's like, what's
• 20:54
  the gap? If you're having a pre meeting,
• 20:57
  you need to, well, no, I mean, there's, there's a reality of
• 21:00
  like, all right, we've got this board meeting.
• 21:02
  So we're going to have a pre meeting and a pre pre meeting
• 21:04
  and all these things. That's fine.
• 21:06
  But you also need to understand who's in that meeting because
• 21:10
  expensive meetings are fun when you're like looking at
• 21:12
  utilization or like hours or, and I'm fine with doing a pre
• 21:18
  meeting, I'm fine with doing a pre pre meeting, But you need to
• 21:21
  say, Hey, these people are in this meeting because I want you
• 21:24
  to observe XYZ because this is going to be you in six months.
• 21:28
  So for you, it's a learning thing.
• 21:30
  You don't, you have an active role in this meeting and that's
• 21:34
  going to help kind of train and professionally develop those
• 21:40
  individual contributors. So invite that person to a
• 21:43
  meeting. I did this thing at one of the
• 21:45
  companies while I was in corporate where I it was like
• 21:49
  directors in a buck and there were like 40 people in this
• 21:52
  meeting. It was 160 person company.
• 21:56
  There are 40 people in this meeting.
• 21:58
  And I was like, OK, first of all, no.
• 22:03
  But there was an opportunity to bring in some of those
• 22:07
  individuals and help them prep for our board meeting because
• 22:12
  there was a profession and there was a clear like this is for
• 22:14
  your professional development. It's not just like, hey, do this
• 22:17
  slide deck and it's going to go to the board.
• 22:20
  It's like, I want you to see what it looks like.
• 22:22
  And so there were times in a board meeting where we had some
• 22:25
  of our senior kind of managers or directors, like just a few.
• 22:29
  It's not overwhelmed. See what a board meeting looks
• 22:32
  like? Yeah, I think that's smart and
• 22:34
  that was a really fun exercise. But having an intention on when
• 22:38
  you're having meetings and with who and what the role is can
• 22:42
  really help kind of create a stickiness factor and show
• 22:48
  leaders like, Hey, you got to, you know, trust them because
• 22:50
  they're they are seeing, you know, behind the curtain more
• 22:54
  and more. And that's that's a good thing.
• 22:55
  So you're a fractional HR partner Companies, How do you
• 22:58
  define human resources these days?
• 23:00
  Like what is it to you? Oh my God, what kind of question
• 23:03
  is that? How do I define human resources?
• 23:06
  I don't. Know if people even know what it
• 23:07
  is anymore. It's just like so many
• 23:09
  different. It is so many things.
• 23:11
  Changed and yeah. It is changed.
• 23:14
  So human resources, whether you call it people or HR or talent,
• 23:22
  I think it is the part of the business that connects the dots
• 23:27
  between legal finance, customer experience and I'm probably
• 23:35
  missing something. Legal finance, I don't know.
• 23:37
  It's like we wear a lot of hats, right?
• 23:38
  Like people experience, PX is like the new thing.
• 23:43
  PX What's? That people experience curating
• 23:46
  a journey for your employee or employee experience, EX curating
• 23:52
  the journey from when you first, when you're first going shopping
• 23:57
  and they're going shopping and you're like, we want to hang out
• 23:59
  and like get a job together and like work together curating that
• 24:03
  experience. Can you tell I came from
• 24:05
  marketing agencies to, to onboarding to their entire
• 24:11
  journey and like all the iterations of like when they hit
• 24:13
  their one year mark, when are they getting a performance
• 24:16
  review? When is their compensation to be
• 24:19
  discussed? Like all those experiences that
• 24:22
  they should be having along the way.
• 24:24
  And also realizing that there's like an exit at some point where
• 24:27
  I I'm like there, there should be and, and can be an exit for
• 24:33
  that employee journey. And what does that look like?
• 24:36
  So whether they're giving notice or there's a riff or what is
• 24:40
  every single stage in that journey so that at some point
• 24:43
  they go. I learned a lot.
• 24:45
  That was a good experience in hindsight, maybe not in the
• 24:48
  moment, it's a good experience. So going back to what is, what
• 24:52
  is HRI think it's what the company needs it to be at the
• 24:56
  time of their what I'll say HR maturity level.
• 25:00
  Now you can be a very mature HR organization at 50 employees and
• 25:06
  you can be really immature at 250.
• 25:09
  And it's making sure that you're staying ahead of those
• 25:12
  inflection points as a growing business by having that kind of
• 25:16
  knowledge and that foresight. So HR can be paperwork.
• 25:22
  It shouldn't be. Let's be real, there's
• 25:24
  technology out there. Faxes.
• 25:28
  Yep, faxes happen still. But HR can be, can and should be
• 25:34
  what the business needs now and in the next 24 months.
• 25:39
  And it needs to evolve and mature as that business grows
• 25:43
  and changes. It also needs to involve and
• 25:45
  mature with what the employee experience requires and when the
• 25:49
  business requires, you know, a different talent pool because
• 25:53
  maybe their customers are changing.
• 25:55
  And so that means we're delivering our services and
• 25:58
  offerings in a different way. It does ripple back to your HR
• 26:04
  team and it's usually too late. And so by bringing in a
• 26:08
  fractional HR leader who's like, yeah, I, I'm dealing with that.
• 26:12
  I've been able to experience 6 industries in the last three
• 26:16
  years that I would never touched because most of my corporate
• 26:20
  roles were in professional services, tech, VC, startups and
• 26:25
  AD agencies. And so now I've got
• 26:29
  manufacturing, Med spa, call center, retail, I've got a
• 26:35
  another professional services. I've been able to see so many
• 26:39
  different kind of operational models and philosophies and then
• 26:44
  been able to connect those dots a lot faster for my clients and
• 26:48
  say, if you want to get, if your goal is X and you're going to do
• 26:52
  it this way, here's what I foresee in these inflection
• 26:57
  points. And stuff breaks at 25
• 26:59
  employees. Stuff breaks again at 75
• 27:02
  employees. Like, no, you can't have them go
• 27:04
  to the local Apple store and just pick up a laptop and like
• 27:08
  Venmo you. That's not how you're 150%
• 27:12
  company. No, we'll, we'll just ship it.
• 27:14
  We're going to ship a lap Trump from the US to London.
• 27:18
  What? Well, yeah, we'll just go to the
• 27:20
  Apple Store and buy it down the street and we'll ship it to
• 27:22
  London. I'm like it.
• 27:23
  That's not how this works. Yeah.
• 27:25
  Well, and then I've had, you know, Apple laptops in my
• 27:29
  office, in my personal house. Wow.
• 27:31
  Of people who are like, well, what do I do with the laptop?
• 27:33
  I'm like, ship it to me. I don't know because I'm HR.
• 27:36
  So is there AI notice you work with mostly 25 to 200 employee
• 27:41
  based companies, right? That's kind of their head count.
• 27:43
  If you're a 1520 person employee company, if you listen to this
• 27:47
  right now, you got 10/15, 23, five employees and you're
• 27:50
  thinking, well, we don't really have an HR department.
• 27:52
  Yeah, why would we need one necessarily?
• 27:54
  Yeah. When is it, what are the the
• 27:56
  problems or pain points or moments that start coming up or
• 27:59
  maybe even things they're not thinking about that you could
• 28:01
  point out to say, yeah, maybe we should start thinking about this
• 28:03
  whole HR thing? It's the calendar audit.
• 28:05
  How many times as a leader are you, your calendars there, but
• 28:10
  you keep getting sucked into conversations about performance
• 28:14
  issue or you're getting sucked into, you know, you had you went
• 28:18
  out to coffee with your new director of CX and you're like,
• 28:21
  how's it going? They're like, great, I haven't
• 28:23
  gotten a laptop yet. And they're like, where now
• 28:25
  that's not HR's problem, but there's something breaking down
• 28:28
  in the process. And so I think there's a good, a
• 28:33
  great opportunity for companies in that size, especially if
• 28:37
  they're like, we wouldn't, we're 15, but we want to be, you know,
• 28:40
  tripling our revenue and growing by double and all these great
• 28:43
  things. And I'm like, fantastic things
• 28:45
  are going to get wonky real fast.
• 28:48
  And if you're trying to hire these, you know, you're growing
• 28:52
  at that rate and you're wanting to promote internally.
• 28:54
  I'm going to promote them because they're a great
• 28:55
  individual contributor and they're going to be a director
• 28:58
  of all these things. I'm like, awesome, does
• 29:01
  everybody know what that means to go from an individual
• 29:04
  contributor to a manager? Because I guarantee you that
• 29:08
  person going to be like, Yep, I can do it.
• 29:09
  And you know, that they have the knowledge and the skills and the
• 29:12
  abilities to do it. But having that conversation and
• 29:16
  having someone be able to connect those dots and like lead
• 29:19
  leadership through those changes is really, really important.
• 29:24
  And you don't need a, you know, chief people officer to do that.
• 29:29
  I think a fractional leader comes in, they're fully embedded
• 29:32
  into your organization. They are HR.
• 29:35
  And they'll tell you, they'll bridge that gap between when you
• 29:38
  need to hire an actual HR manager or an HR journalist.
• 29:42
  And they'll tell you, here's what you actually need, tweak
• 29:45
  these systems, get these systems in place.
• 29:47
  Here's some alignment on your policies that will scale with
• 29:50
  you for the foreseeable future. Here's some comp data.
• 29:54
  So I have in my arsenal, I've got the comp data, I have the
• 29:59
  policy handbook, I have the 20 plus years of experience.
• 30:03
  And you get that all as the embedded fractional leader.
• 30:05
  And it bridges instead of just saying, OK, we'll hire an HR
• 30:08
  coordinator and they'll like just process the paperwork.
• 30:11
  Like I'm not saying that that HR coordinator is not important
• 30:14
  because they are and they're fantastic, but do yourself a
• 30:19
  favor and like do a gut check. There's health HRI, call it an
• 30:23
  HR health check, where I use a series of surveys effectively to
• 30:30
  benchmark clients against what is best practice and where are
• 30:34
  there gaps. And so if they're looking to do
• 30:37
  an acquisition or they're looking to raise money, OK,
• 30:41
  let's do a due diligence quick check and look at what that
• 30:44
  looks like. Let's do a strategic 1.
• 30:46
  Where does that align for you as a startup or a smaller company?
• 30:49
  And where does that align if you are a larger scaled organization
• 30:53
  on what best practices are necessary?
• 30:55
  Also, are you compliant? Like, I mean, there's like
• 30:59
  really boring things of compliance, things that I even
• 31:03
  learned. I'm like, oh, yeah, that is a
• 31:05
  really good point that needs to be done.
• 31:08
  There are, I want to say I saw something like 250 new laws that
• 31:13
  came out this year across states.
• 31:15
  And if you have employees in Illinois, Cook County, Chicago,
• 31:19
  New York City, I think today just had a sick leave policy go
• 31:24
  into effect. I mean there are like.
• 31:26
  You don't have to work there and everything's free there now.
• 31:28
  Yeah, I mean, everything's like everything's great and
• 31:31
  everything's under snow, but there are so many policies that
• 31:35
  I'm even catching up with and there's no way that like anybody
• 31:39
  can and go, OK, so here's the consequence.
• 31:43
  It's not just good enough to do this.
• 31:45
  And you could call your employment attorney and not
• 31:48
  speaking for employment attorneys, but I can guarantee
• 31:51
  you they want to have that conversation with you.
• 31:53
  But they're like, do some for some thinking ahead on what you
• 31:58
  want to accomplish and how do you develop a policy or a
• 32:03
  program in your company that and then, you know, think through it
• 32:08
  not like, OK, well, your Delaware sick time or your
• 32:11
  Maryland sick time is out of compliance.
• 32:14
  So you need to just throw sick time at people in Maryland.
• 32:19
  There's nuances to that. And like, how do you scale that?
• 32:22
  How do you track time against it?
• 32:25
  There are very real things that I'm like thinking about policies
• 32:30
  right now that I'm like, Oh yeah, we should probably do
• 32:32
  that. So, yeah, looking at your HR
• 32:35
  maturity model, if you're 15 employees, 20, and you just want
• 32:41
  to look, see, I mean, I think there's great opportunity to
• 32:43
  have a conversation with someone as a fractional HR leader and
• 32:49
  there's a right fit, you know, for everybody.
• 32:51
  It may not be me. And you may discover after a
• 32:54
  conversation with myself or a peer of mine that you know what
• 32:59
  I, I've decided this is the right way or, or let's do that
• 33:02
  health check. Let's see how we're, how we
• 33:04
  measure up. Like we don't know what we don't
• 33:06
  know. So do that health check.
• 33:08
  And out of that you also get a road map.
• 33:11
  So, OK, based on what we're seeing out of this data, we're
• 33:15
  going to tell you, you think your problem is onboarding.
• 33:18
  It's not. We could fix it, that's fine.
• 33:20
  It has zero ROI where you really want to focus your time based
• 33:25
  on, you know, your growth patterns, you want to focus on
• 33:27
  your middle managers or your job architecture or your comp plans.
• 33:33
  So let's talk about what that road map looks like for six
• 33:36
  months, nine months, 12 months, so you can plan accordingly.
• 33:40
  I love the fractional option because I see that in marketing.
• 33:42
  I do kind of fractional marketing work and you get, I
• 33:45
  talked to 8 figure companies that will hire a junior level
• 33:48
  marketing associate that it's not their fault.
• 33:50
  They're just coming in junior. They've never been taught a lot.
• 33:52
  They're new, they're trying to get experience.
• 33:54
  They're like, yes, yes, I'll do. It and they come in.
• 33:56
  It's like, do our LinkedIn run our entire branding content
• 33:58
  marketing strategy and they don't really have the tools or
• 34:02
  resources or experience to do it.
• 34:04
  And the entire marketing and branding of an 8 figure company
• 34:06
  is left up to a junior marketing associate.
• 34:09
  When in reality it's like, hey, pause that hire, bring someone
• 34:11
  in that has more experience that can look at a holistic picture
• 34:15
  of your marketing and say you know, the team, the budget, the
• 34:18
  channels, the positioning, the differentiator, the brand story,
• 34:22
  the what are we going to do? How are we going to think all of
• 34:25
  these different types of things? What is a waste of time versus
• 34:28
  what should we be investing in AD spend?
• 34:30
  I mean all of that what what talent are we leveraging
• 34:33
  overseas that could be potentially more cost effective
• 34:35
  and still do great work? Who do we need to hire if we are
• 34:38
  going to bring someone on that would fit the strategy instead
• 34:41
  of just bringing someone in and be like do marketing?
• 34:43
  Do the marketing what it's. Wild and they got the money,
• 34:47
  they just they're not thinking about it the right.
• 34:49
  Way you know, and I can I can talk about this all day long on
• 34:53
  the same thing for ACFO or an accountant, but you don't hire
• 34:57
  an APAR person to run your FPNA. So why are you hiring an an
• 35:03
  office manager slash HR coordinator to run your benefits
• 35:08
  strategy and your you know, are you?
• 35:10
  I mean, I had conversations about like 4 O 1K compliance and
• 35:14
  like, and they're like, well, we just do this 'cause this is like
• 35:16
  what we've always done, which. That's the greatest thing ever,
• 35:19
  yeah. Lights me up.
• 35:20
  I'm like, tell me more. But it's it's what we've done.
• 35:24
  I'm like, there are so many wonderful tools and companies
• 35:28
  out there all around the people experience and having, you know,
• 35:33
  in my ecosystem. I'm like, I, I promise you that
• 35:36
  is that is a great tool. It's not for you and here's why.
• 35:40
  And here's two others that are going to be better matched to
• 35:43
  your future strategy. You manage or You mentioned
• 35:46
  managing the performance of employees.
• 35:48
  How do you manage the performance of employees?
• 35:50
  I mean, just like tell them everyday, this is what I need to
• 35:52
  know. I'm just saying get out your
• 35:54
  ruler. Get out your ruler.
• 35:57
  Yeah. How to manage performance of
• 35:59
  employees? Let me ask you a quick question
• 36:00
  on that too. I talked to somebody I know
• 36:02
  recently and they were like they were doing a performance review
• 36:05
  and it was with like the HR type person, but the managers, the
• 36:10
  actual leader of that person was not present for that meeting.
• 36:14
  And I thought that was kind of weird, right?
• 36:16
  So like, they're almost talking to them about their performance,
• 36:19
  but the people who would be leading them and developing them
• 36:23
  were not there. Does that make any sense to you?
• 36:26
  No it doesn't. OK.
• 36:27
  That's not a thing. That's.
• 36:28
  What I was thinking, I was like, that doesn't make any sense.
• 36:30
  No, absolutely not. That's.
• 36:31
  Not a thing, she says. So it's not.
• 36:33
  A thing it never will be. So I think one of the
• 36:35
  misconceptions in HR is like, we'll just send them to HR,
• 36:39
  they'll deal with it, right? And I'm like, cool, absolutely
• 36:42
  not. I wanna walk.
• 36:44
  And especially in these companies that are, you know, 25
• 36:46
  to 250 employees, I want my HR team or myself to be hand in
• 36:52
  hand like accounts. They're my accounts.
• 36:55
  And so, okay, I get the sales team because they're always the
• 36:58
  gnarly ones, right? And they always have the CROs
• 37:01
  got their own thing going on. I'm like, all right, I'll manage
• 37:04
  them because they need some help.
• 37:06
  But then at some point they're in a stable mode.
• 37:09
  Okay, I'm gonna pass you off to one of my human resources
• 37:12
  business partners or the HR manager who can kind of maintain
• 37:16
  that stability and loot me in when is needed.
• 37:19
  But we need to build some things.
• 37:21
  So when it comes to performance management, I mean, where do you
• 37:24
  want to go with this? We could talk all day long about
• 37:27
  processes or frequency or let's. Do this.
• 37:30
  What if you got someone that's you got an employee that's not
• 37:32
  performing? How do you have that
• 37:34
  conversation? Maybe it's been two or three
• 37:35
  months and they're just not seeing, seeming to get it.
• 37:39
  I'm going to take them out to coffee and go.
• 37:40
  What's going on? I'm going to be honest,
• 37:42
  something something's up. Things aren't going right.
• 37:45
  You're stressed, I'm stressed and you can share with as much
• 37:48
  with me or as little, but I'm letting you know something's up
• 37:52
  and you're not where you have been.
• 37:55
  Something's going on and I want to help you get back to wherever
• 38:00
  you were. But we need to have this
• 38:03
  conversation and that's going to be my walk and talk coffee
• 38:07
  conversation. That's a good way to do it.
• 38:10
  Actually. A good format is walk and talk.
• 38:12
  Get out of the office. Yeah, change the walls down.
• 38:15
  Let the walls down, look around. I mean, I know in this remote
• 38:20
  world that is harder to do. I think you can still do it on
• 38:25
  Zoom, but it's just more of a let's chat and and jump to the,
• 38:31
  you know, jump to it very quickly.
• 38:32
  Hey, this is not a pip. This is not a like you're fired
• 38:36
  situation. Something's up.
• 38:38
  Something's something's off. Could be me, could be I think
• 38:42
  it. I don't want to say I think it's
• 38:43
  you. It's awkward.
• 38:45
  It could be me, probably. You probably be honest, that's a
• 38:49
  little awkward. Maybe practice that before you
• 38:50
  do it. That's definitely it.
• 38:53
  Could there's a 1% chance of me, 99% it's probably you, you're
• 38:57
  probably getting fired. But but let's talk about it.
• 38:59
  Before that, let's talk about that.
• 39:02
  So I think that's good. So I think there's and there is
• 39:06
  a moment of of pause and and being going back to like being
• 39:09
  curious, having patience, pause. You don't have to jump to the
• 39:14
  well, these things happen on these days and you know, the
• 39:17
  evidence locker, like don't go into the evidence locker, like
• 39:21
  do the human thing and be like, is something up?
• 39:25
  And maybe they're holding something in that's that is
• 39:28
  nerve wracking and they're not ready to share.
• 39:31
  I think the best thing that you can do is say, hey, I just want
• 39:34
  to let you know, I, I do want you to be aware that something
• 39:40
  is impacting your work. And I want to figure out if
• 39:44
  there's something that we can do on the interim to like alleviate
• 39:46
  that stress or if there's something bigger picture and
• 39:52
  you're just or and you're not having maybe you're just done
• 39:56
  And let's let's talk about that. It doesn't put them on the spot
• 40:01
  to reveal too much, but it's just that human connection.
• 40:04
  If someone's not performing and come out of that meeting with,
• 40:10
  you know, lead them to say, hey, if it's not the right time to
• 40:13
  talk, let's talk tomorrow. Let's talk in two days.
• 40:16
  I want to put a plan in place, not a PIP.
• 40:19
  I just you and me because I want you.
• 40:22
  I want previous Bob or Sally or whomever to come back and I want
• 40:28
  to figure out how we can help you do that sooner rather than
• 40:31
  later. And I'm not going to talk to HRI
• 40:35
  know I'm HR, but I'm not going to bring in HR right now.
• 40:38
  I, I want this to be between you and me.
• 40:40
  And if I need to start delegating to other members on
• 40:43
  the team or I'll take on some things.
• 40:46
  But we got to something's got to change.
• 40:49
  And that is a way better conversation than immediately
• 40:54
  going and being like my employee's not performing, I
• 40:56
  need to put them on a PIP. And I'm like, that's I push back
• 40:59
  so hard when I have clients or leaders or managers come to me
• 41:05
  and they're like, we got to put so and so on a PIP and I do a
• 41:09
  big time out and I'm like, OK, now I'm going to start looking
• 41:12
  at what is the manager doing to stay in front of these
• 41:16
  performance issues? And it's like, well, you know,
• 41:18
  everybody else on the team, you know, likes to drink beer on
• 41:22
  Friday. So I'm like, cool.
• 41:23
  So that's a that's a performance metric on on this.
• 41:27
  I mean, I worked in staffing. I know there's a lot of wild
• 41:30
  things that happen, but that's not a performance metric.
• 41:34
  And maybe let's be a little bit more curious on like, what do
• 41:39
  you need them? What's the outcome?
• 41:40
  What's the desired outcome of that?
• 41:44
  I don't have an answer for that right now, 'cause someone,
• 41:47
  sometimes even HR needs to pause and go like, all right, what are
• 41:52
  we? What are we really getting at
• 41:54
  here? And then on the strategic side,
• 41:57
  so there's that like tactical. And then on the strategic side,
• 42:01
  leaders can look at and say, how do I make sure that my employees
• 42:05
  generally know they're doing well, They know it's expected,
• 42:09
  they know what's next for them. My company's 15 employees and we
• 42:14
  don't really do performance reviews because like, we're all
• 42:16
  sitting in front of each other. I'm like, then you don't have to
• 42:19
  do performance reviews, but you need to think about, but you're
• 42:22
  going to hire 10 more people. How are they going to know that
• 42:27
  they're performing or you're going to hire people below these
• 42:30
  people are those, you know, new managers equipped to have
• 42:36
  performance conversations consistently and professional
• 42:40
  development conversations and also framing it to say you're
• 42:43
  going to get formal performance feedback.
• 42:46
  But I also expect you as a member of my team to recognize
• 42:50
  if I bring you into a meeting that you're not supposed to be
• 42:53
  into, there's probably a reason and you I may not be able to
• 42:58
  give tell you right away, but just sit there and I'll tell you
• 43:01
  later. I think there's those
• 43:03
  professional development osmosis points that need to be
• 43:09
  articulated. And a manager, your middle
• 43:11
  managers, are the prime place where you can do that.
• 43:15
  And at these smaller companies, there's such an opportunity
• 43:20
  where you're taking really great individual contributors, you're
• 43:23
  promoting them, and you're not creating the scaffolding for
• 43:27
  them to actually continue to exhibit leadership traits.
• 43:31
  When I talk to a lot of founders, they when it comes to
• 43:34
  an employee not performing, typically they'll tell you all
• 43:36
  about what they're not doing. They're this, they're that,
• 43:39
  they're this. And then the first question I
• 43:41
  asked is, have you had a real conversation with them about it?
• 43:43
  You know, kind of like what you're talking about, go to
• 43:44
  coffee, just have a chat. What's going on?
• 43:46
  How you doing like, and usually the answer is not really, or
• 43:49
  it's not been a specific enough chat.
• 43:52
  But then you've got the other side where some people are just
• 43:54
  like they have a good heart. And I have some founders like
• 43:56
  this now are like, I know they're probably not the right
• 43:59
  fit deep down. I know I probably should fire
• 44:01
  them. But I've had conversations with
• 44:03
  them. I've done my due diligence, but
• 44:05
  they're still just not there. But they're a good person.
• 44:07
  But they're kind of dragging it out.
• 44:09
  And like every every day you drag this out, that person could
• 44:12
  find some role that they excel in and they love.
• 44:14
  And you could have found someone that is actually doing the job
• 44:17
  at a high level and moving the company or organization forward.
• 44:20
  What do you think about that? Drag it out sometimes.
• 44:23
  Yeah, I mean, there is, there is a point where I'm like, OK, so
• 44:27
  how long has this been going on? And it's usually like, I don't
• 44:30
  know, a couple months. I'm like, all right, so what's
• 44:32
  your plan for this month? What's, what's the action that
• 44:36
  you're going to take this month? And it's either I'm going to,
• 44:39
  I'm going to create the job wreck that I, I really want this
• 44:43
  person to do or that I need some.
• 44:45
  I'm like, take the person out of the role and like, what is the
• 44:47
  job that needs to be done? And OK, let's let's start
• 44:52
  thinking about maybe this is a backfill or reconfiguring how
• 44:57
  the team works. And then maybe there is an exit
• 45:01
  for this person. And depending on that person,
• 45:04
  maybe it's a soft exit or it's like, hey, we're going to change
• 45:09
  this role and we're going to give you the courtesy that like
• 45:13
  we want you to keep working here.
• 45:16
  You're a great team member. I just don't know if there's
• 45:18
  that role here that does not work for everyone.
• 45:22
  So let's be real clear that like there may be a hard and fast
• 45:26
  where you're just like, hey, we're doing some changes.
• 45:30
  Your last day is going to be this Friday.
• 45:32
  We're going to, you know, if you want to do a severance, great.
• 45:36
  If you don't, great. I advise, please pay a severance
• 45:42
  and that's where, you know, HR leadership can kind of navigate
• 45:46
  some of those waters too. But it's so I, I hate saying
• 45:50
  like, well, it depends. There's so many factors that
• 45:52
  would go into that. But I think dragging it out has
• 45:56
  its points. But I'm looking at more of the
• 45:59
  you've made the decision that this person is not performing to
• 46:03
  the level that you now need or want.
• 46:06
  You are a good person. Let's talk through the next to
• 46:12
  for six weeks because I don't this is once that decision's
• 46:18
  made in your in your heart, in your head.
• 46:21
  We got to move, we got to move on it and there's really good
• 46:24
  ways to do it. And guess what, they probably
• 46:28
  the employee probably is like something's up.
• 46:31
  I don't, I don't know what to do about it.
• 46:34
  I'm going to work my best and do all this great stuff and try,
• 46:38
  try, try and sometimes it's just better to be clear.
• 46:41
  So if you do got to fire somebody, Yep.
• 46:44
  What's the is there a proper way to do it to where you don't get
• 46:46
  in trouble? Kind of Some people think
• 46:48
  nowadays it's like if I let someone go and I didn't do the
• 46:50
  exact right things, like there's a lawsuit or something could
• 46:53
  happen. How do you handle that?
• 46:57
  This is not legal advice, OK? This is not legal advice.
• 47:00
  So yeah, you're, there's always risk.
• 47:04
  There's always risk when you're when you're going into a
• 47:06
  termination meeting. And I think there's ways it,
• 47:13
  it's less about the risk of like, well, yeah, getting sued
• 47:17
  is not great. I think there has to be.
• 47:21
  What is the experience that that person's going through in that
• 47:24
  moment? The first person that I was in
• 47:27
  the room with that I had to terminate, it became a
• 47:30
  discussion and I was like, this is awful.
• 47:33
  Like this is going sideways. And it wasn't, it wasn't even
• 47:39
  like their manager. It was like my boss and like me.
• 47:43
  I think it was a divide and conquer situation.
• 47:45
  There were multiple terminations happening that day and it was
• 47:49
  one of those we were not prepared.
• 47:54
  And I'm talking about like decisions made for either
• 47:57
  performance reasons or the business reasons.
• 48:00
  And we were just not buttoned up and we were, it was kind of a
• 48:05
  mess. And for that person it was not a
• 48:09
  good experience because it wasn't clear.
• 48:12
  I understand, I totally get it. Unfortunately, the decision has
• 48:16
  been made here. Is this where you can prepare
• 48:19
  for that? When someone comes to me and
• 48:21
  says, all right, we have we got to move forward with this
• 48:25
  termination. Let's assume that there's been a
• 48:28
  PIP or documented things and it's just and it's one of those
• 48:31
  awkward like it's just not working anymore.
• 48:33
  I'm not talking like egregious things like terminate right now.
• 48:37
  It's just not working anymore. Great.
• 48:40
  So we're gonna there is a playbook that I have and it is
• 48:44
  timed and there are like times of day.
• 48:47
  I know this is really bad, bad information.
• 48:51
  We I, I think through is it better to do it first thing Is
• 48:54
  it, you know, midday we talked about who on the team is there.
• 48:59
  Who needs to know? I mean, there's like swim lanes
• 49:01
  that happen. Like there's a whole series of
• 49:03
  events and again, what? Is the best time to fire
• 49:07
  somebody? I don't know.
• 49:09
  There isn't a good time. I didn't think so there.
• 49:11
  Isn't a good time. I hate first thing in the
• 49:14
  morning because they're like, I just took the hour train into
• 49:16
  the city for you to fire me. Like that's dumb.
• 49:20
  Like, you know, I've got all these things.
• 49:22
  There are there's there are timing considerations.
• 49:25
  I never fire someone on a Friday.
• 49:28
  That's not cool and. Just take a really long weekend
• 49:33
  from here on out, you know, just your weekend has been.
• 49:35
  Expected. Yeah, You have a long weekend.
• 49:38
  I think there's there's just a series of questions that I go
• 49:42
  through to figure out. All right, the decision's been
• 49:45
  made. Let's let's be very buttoned up
• 49:49
  and I will walk the manager and maybe their boss.
• 49:55
  I'm going to do a mock termination.
• 49:57
  Oh, interesting. I will meet with them and I'll
• 49:59
  be like, here's what you're saying, here's what you're
• 50:01
  saying, here's what I'm doing, here's what this other person's
• 50:04
  doing. There are multiple people
• 50:06
  involved in this termination and it's there's a role and
• 50:10
  responsibility. And I think that patients
• 50:14
  upfront can alleviate some stress for the manager.
• 50:19
  I talked to someone who's I've been working for 30 years and
• 50:22
  they're like, I've never fired anybody.
• 50:23
  Like I've never been in the room.
• 50:25
  And I'm like, OK, well, that's kind of wild.
• 50:28
  That's wild. Great.
• 50:29
  Good for you. And my team's down 500% for the
• 50:33
  year. It's like, what?
• 50:34
  No one. No.
• 50:36
  One, maybe we need to have a conversation with you.
• 50:38
  So when you're having to terminate someone again,
• 50:42
  egregious things, that's a different conversation.
• 50:45
  Yeah, there is always risk and you just, I look at it from my
• 50:51
  HR lens is you got to understand what this person is going
• 50:55
  through as much as possible and under and doesn't mean you need
• 51:00
  to bring it up. It's not like, hey, I know you
• 51:02
  have like a new house or like kids, but there's, I mean,
• 51:07
  there's times where I have to terminate people virtually.
• 51:09
  And I was like, make sure no one's in the room.
• 51:13
  Like there. There's kind of these situations
• 51:16
  where I'm like, I don't want them to be like, hey, hello.
• 51:19
  And you hear kids in the background.
• 51:21
  Like you need to envision that whole people experience and kind
• 51:27
  of foresee all those things. Now, as a founder, I also
• 51:30
  understand. Yeah.
• 51:31
  But sometimes you just want it done.
• 51:33
  And if you have an HR leader or someone who's been there,
• 51:37
  they're like it, it can be done very quickly.
• 51:39
  Like this is not a long drawn out process, but don't have your
• 51:42
  managers or somebody else like squabble through it and hope for
• 51:47
  the best. There's a buttoned up approach
• 51:50
  that you can do and do it nicely and as respectfully as possible.
• 51:58
  And hopefully, let's rewind. Hopefully that person's like,
• 52:03
  yeah, yeah, I saw it coming and wasn't.
• 52:07
  Yeah, this probably isn't the right fit or I've not been
• 52:09
  happy. Yeah.
• 52:10
  It just sucks to have to let people go.
• 52:12
  If it's a shock, if I'm in the room and they are shocked, I'm
• 52:17
  gonna have a different conversation with the manager
• 52:19
  later and their boss and go, why was that a shock?
• 52:23
  Help me understand why that was a shock because now I'm mad
• 52:26
  because now I'm like, who else on the team is maybe not
• 52:28
  performing? I set and that's also I, I don't
• 52:33
  mean to get mad at it, but it's more of like, OK, let's be
• 52:35
  curious. Does this manager know that it
• 52:37
  is their responsibility to give feedback consistently and
• 52:42
  clearly and like, do they have the tools on how to motivate
• 52:46
  their team Or, you know, do they have like the autonomy and the
• 52:50
  permission structure to say, God, I I really want to like
• 52:55
  give this person a bonus, but I can't.
• 52:56
  I'm like, what's their favorite thing?
• 52:57
  I love the Chicago Bulls. All right, we have sweets at the
• 53:00
  Chicago at like, what game do they want?
• 53:02
  Send them say thanks so much. You you're doing great.
• 53:06
  We can't do raises right now, but I'd love to send you to a
• 53:08
  couple of games, like bring some friends have have one like it's,
• 53:13
  it's not the same as cash, but like maybe for that person it
• 53:15
  is. And that's a good autonomy thing
• 53:18
  that like a manager or leadership should have in their
• 53:21
  arsenal. Again, does not replace cash but
• 53:26
  it you need to give those permission structures to
• 53:29
  encourage your team but also manage performance accordingly
• 53:33
  so. Well, I think it makes me think
• 53:35
  about to the other side of it, which is how often is a leader
• 53:38
  bringing their people in the room and just saying, just
• 53:40
  taking a time out and going, Hey, I just want to thank you
• 53:42
  for the amazing work that you're doing and how committed you are
• 53:46
  to this team and that project you just did over here that
• 53:49
  helped us do XY and Z or how you show up in leadership meetings.
• 53:53
  It's just like, and here's an example of it.
• 53:54
  And this is what the impact it's having on the team and the
• 53:57
  company. It's like, I don't think we, we
• 53:59
  sometimes naturally as human beings kind of go to what's
• 54:01
  missing first or the problem first.
• 54:03
  It's our survival brain. And then we sometimes forget
• 54:05
  like, wow, just it'd be nice if I called that person in instead
• 54:08
  of being like, what's wrong? It was just like 5-10 minutes on
• 54:12
  just everything. They're absolutely crushing it
• 54:14
  in. Yeah, yeah.
• 54:15
  I think it's a a direct e-mail from leadership, maybe not
• 54:22
  someone that they hear from. Yeah, that's a big one.
• 54:25
  That means a lot. To like or a account like a you
• 54:28
  know, if you're in the HR group, but you get like a, a note from
• 54:31
  like the chief technology officer who's like, hey, I heard
• 54:34
  about this thank you yeah, thank you for doing that.
• 54:37
  Like I, I know you put a lot of work into that.
• 54:39
  I just thank you. That's all like, and there's no,
• 54:42
  but there's no like, but because there's and I think there is an
• 54:47
  intentional like it needs to come from CEO.
• 54:50
  It needs to come, you know, cross departmentally, but also
• 54:54
  as a leader. Think about who on a different
• 54:58
  team do you admire, respect to see as, you know, a high
• 55:01
  potential or maybe just reach out to someone who you're like,
• 55:05
  man, they're doing really great. And do they prefer, you know,
• 55:11
  quiet recognition? Do they prefer more like
• 55:14
  ostentatious, like celebratory things like you got to again,
• 55:18
  read the room, know what's going on with them.
• 55:20
  But I think the quiet celebrations actually do a ton
• 55:25
  of good and are so low lift big reward those emails.
• 55:33
  I mean, you could do a handwritten note.
• 55:34
  That's always fine, but like a simple e-mail or like a stop by
• 55:38
  their desk and be like, hey, thanks a lot for that help on
• 55:41
  that board deck. That was those insights were
• 55:43
  really helpful. You're doing great.
• 55:47
  Thanks so much. Oh, oh, Oh my God, that person
• 55:50
  is on cloud 9 for the next week and they're like, I will do
• 55:54
  anything. What else do you need me to do?
• 55:56
  Like how else do I do that stuff?
• 55:59
  And you know, again, it's it's great to pay your people well
• 56:04
  and to give them that autonomy, but it is very, very high ROI
• 56:10
  for just that people connection. So.
• 56:13
  So I saw on a LinkedIn post that you were diagnosed with cancer.
• 56:16
  Is that last year? I don't know what year is it.
• 56:18
  It's 2026. It was 2025.
• 56:21
  Yeah. Curious what that experience was
• 56:22
  like and has it changed you as a person going through that?
• 56:26
  Yeah. So let me tell you this is a
• 56:28
  while wild ride so early in right before I was diagnosed,
• 56:33
  going through all the processes diagnosed with stage 1, I don't
• 56:38
  know insert like technical terms breast cancer.
• 56:41
  And I was at a client on the first day and I'm doing a
• 56:48
  kickoff meeting with the client and I see Northwestern calling
• 56:52
  my phone and I'm like, I know what this is.
• 56:56
  And I ignored because I was like, I'll, I know what it is.
• 57:00
  And in that moment I'm like, I have to be on.
• 57:03
  I'm like, you know, I just won the business.
• 57:05
  I got to like pitch myself. It was like a very, you know,
• 57:09
  thing. And I, they Northwestern called
• 57:10
  again and I'm like, I have to take this call.
• 57:14
  And I lied and I said it was my son's school.
• 57:16
  I was like, they never call. Something must be up.
• 57:18
  I got to take this call. And I went into a room and I
• 57:21
  talked to the nurse and she's like, here's what's going on.
• 57:23
  I'm like, OK, OK. And it was like such a weird
• 57:26
  experience, but also like very on brand for me.
• 57:29
  Like, OK, well, this is how we do this.
• 57:31
  Like kind of like I was in a board meeting eight years ago
• 57:37
  going through the IVF process and I had to excuse myself from
• 57:41
  a board meeting. I'm like, excuse me, I have to
• 57:42
  go like give myself a shot to go through the IVF process.
• 57:46
  And they're like, is everything OK?
• 57:48
  I'm like, it's fine. So with cancer, I think it was
• 57:53
  I, I don't like, I'm very pragmatic about it.
• 57:56
  And I think that I'm very, very lucky.
• 57:59
  I have great healthcare. I live in a, in Chicago.
• 58:03
  I have Northwestern there. I have the team of doctors.
• 58:07
  I think I also look to my mom as guidance because she also had
• 58:15
  pretty much the same kind of cancer and she's thriving.
• 58:20
  I'm a little bit teary because my aunt also had it and she
• 58:23
  actually just recently passed away.
• 58:24
  So I'm sorry to hear that. I was a little bit jarring too.
• 58:27
  And you just see, you know, people go through different
• 58:31
  experiences, but I was like, I need to be very loud about it
• 58:35
  because, and I didn't tell my clients.
• 58:40
  I didn't tell most people until I was done with treatment
• 58:43
  because I don't know, it was just for me.
• 58:45
  It was like I wanted to have that separation in between.
• 58:50
  I didn't want that to define me, but I also wanted to shout it
• 58:53
  from the rooftops to be like, shit happens and how you deal
• 58:59
  with it is your story. Like you can deal with it
• 59:02
  however you want. And I'm shouting it because I'm
• 59:04
  like, it was so easy for me to just go in and get screened and
• 59:09
  I forgot to do it one year. And did that change the outcome?
• 59:12
  No, it just still was. And friendly reminder, like, do
• 59:19
  your thing, get your screenings and don't be scared of like what
• 59:24
  the result can because like, you're in control of that.
• 59:28
  And the timing was there and we called it bummer summer and like
• 59:34
  had a surgery and we didn't tell a lot of our family because
• 59:39
  there were weddings happening and like big things.
• 59:42
  I was like, I don't want this to be a distraction for like their
• 59:44
  moments. And also I kind of like that
• 59:47
  delineation between like inside Lindsay and outside Lindsay.
• 59:52
  And I think just having that space to be like non cancer,
• 59:58
  Lindsay was really important to me.
• 1:00:00
  And so that was my my style. And then in one of my peer
• 1:00:05
  groups, I blasted out when I was done with radiation and
• 1:00:08
  treatment and all that. So I'm done with active
• 1:00:11
  treatment now. I'm in the five year plan.
• 1:00:14
  Kind of like college, but it's, I don't know how you like talk
• 1:00:19
  about it And I, I really don't care.
• 1:00:21
  It's like, yes, I have or had breast cancer.
• 1:00:25
  I'm still in what I'd say preventative treatment for the
• 1:00:30
  next 5 years, which is a new like journey.
• 1:00:35
  It's kind of it. I don't want to like relate it
• 1:00:38
  at all to parenting a newborn, but it's just like, it's a
• 1:00:41
  different, your world's like, oh, things are interesting.
• 1:00:45
  So, but in this peer group, I was able to share it and, you
• 1:00:50
  know, do all that stuff. And a woman reached out a couple
• 1:00:55
  months, weeks, I don't know, time is weird.
• 1:00:58
  And she's like, I found something, I think it is.
• 1:01:00
  And then she told me she's like, it is.
• 1:01:02
  And I was like, she's like, thanks for reminding us to,
• 1:01:06
  like, go do those things. And I was like, tell she's like,
• 1:01:11
  how did you decide who to tell and what to do?
• 1:01:13
  And I was like, it is your story.
• 1:01:15
  And I had, you know, resources. I reached out to Immerman Angels
• 1:01:19
  here in Chicago. They paired me with someone who
• 1:01:22
  had my exact type. They paired me with someone who
• 1:01:27
  also went to Northwestern for their medical treatment.
• 1:01:32
  And it was just good to talk to someone outside of family and
• 1:01:35
  outside of, you know, ChatGPT and the Internet who had been
• 1:01:40
  through that. And so I give a ton of kudos to
• 1:01:43
  Ammerman Angels for that kind of support network.
• 1:01:46
  And their whole mission is like, no one should go through cancer
• 1:01:49
  alone. And so that was very helpful for
• 1:01:52
  me. And now I see it as more of, OK,
• 1:01:56
  it's, it's a chapter. It's a part of who I am, but
• 1:02:01
  that's the kind of how I look at like my career.
• 1:02:04
  It's like now I'm in this kind of journey or portfolio of
• 1:02:07
  experiences and portfolio of impact.
• 1:02:10
  And like, how can I make an impact that's beyond, you know,
• 1:02:14
  the W2 and the title and the money and kind of rediscovering
• 1:02:18
  that. And so like one of those journey
• 1:02:20
  lines is like, OK, cancer. And how do we talk about cancer
• 1:02:24
  and illness and grief in in the workplace and in our careers?
• 1:02:28
  And how do we learn from that? Like, what are things that we
• 1:02:31
  learn and confirm for us or change for us?
• 1:02:37
  I mean, did I like go through my house and like, get rid of all
• 1:02:40
  the like toxic things? Not yet.
• 1:02:42
  But like slowly but surely I'm like, OK, it's time to recycle
• 1:02:46
  those things 90. Percent of things these days,
• 1:02:48
  yeah, I always think about that stuff too, because I'm like, you
• 1:02:50
  know, it's like, gosh, there's so many things that probably we
• 1:02:53
  shouldn't be eating or drinking. 100%, but I still probably do I
• 1:02:57
  I did not total like left turn out of it.
• 1:03:00
  I was just more of all right, well, let's do better.
• 1:03:05
  Did it change your perspective on just life like parenting I.
• 1:03:08
  Didn't have that. I didn't have that.
• 1:03:10
  I don't know why. And I keep like looking for it.
• 1:03:12
  It's like when you have a kid and they're like, Oh my God, you
• 1:03:15
  immediately fall in love. I was like, I, I looked at my
• 1:03:18
  son and was like, you're cool. I was like, you are awesome.
• 1:03:22
  I know I will love you. But like, give me a minute.
• 1:03:25
  And and it was like, I needed to build a relationship with him.
• 1:03:28
  It wasn't the immediate thing. And so with cancer, it's a
• 1:03:31
  little bit like, I know I'm supposed to have this like, you
• 1:03:35
  know, awakening moment. And I'm like, I, I didn't.
• 1:03:38
  And I think that's OK and I'm OK sharing that.
• 1:03:43
  I'm still waiting for that perspective or that perspective
• 1:03:46
  change, but maybe that tells me that I, I'm doing the right
• 1:03:51
  things for where I'm at in my life stage.
• 1:03:55
  And again, having coming from it from a place of immense
• 1:04:00
  privilege and knowledge and experience that like, again, I'm
• 1:04:05
  in a healthcare central healthcare region, like you, you
• 1:04:09
  know, walk out the door and you have some of the best healthcare
• 1:04:11
  in the world. And I have insurance, which is a
• 1:04:15
  fun thing for us Americans. And I've got a support system.
• 1:04:20
  I've got a husband who works from home.
• 1:04:22
  I have a son who is 7. And he is like functional, like
• 1:04:27
  on his own right, like more independent.
• 1:04:31
  And I've got, you know, neighbors and peers who are
• 1:04:35
  like, we got this, you know, and, and so that's been that
• 1:04:40
  that was really helpful, so. Yeah.
• 1:04:43
  I think that's one of the cancers that they have a high
• 1:04:45
  probability for success. And so that's what I've heard
• 1:04:48
  at. Least, yeah.
• 1:04:49
  So nowadays. Like maybe not in the old days
• 1:04:52
  it used to be, but nowadays they've got good medicines and
• 1:04:55
  things like that for. It Yeah.
• 1:04:56
  So the short story with cancer that I learned even with my mom
• 1:05:00
  and my aunt and like, friends who've gone through things, man,
• 1:05:04
  science is cool. Like, science is so cool.
• 1:05:09
  And I think there's so much, so much positivity in what science
• 1:05:16
  is doing nowadays. And like they said, they did the
• 1:05:19
  analysis. Not to get super technical, but
• 1:05:22
  they did the analysis. They were like, five years ago,
• 1:05:24
  you would have needed chemo, but based on our new analysis, you
• 1:05:27
  don't need chemo. And I was like, that is
• 1:05:29
  fantastic #1 and #2 I am so fascinated.
• 1:05:33
  Tell me more about this. And they have like these, you
• 1:05:36
  know, probability charts and they're like, if you stay on
• 1:05:39
  this path and da da, da, da, like here's your risk risk
• 1:05:43
  factor and like where you are. It is so.
• 1:05:45
  But I also had a friend, we both had Bomber Summer together and
• 1:05:51
  hers is a little bit different, very similar, but just slightly
• 1:05:55
  different where she's like, I have a different prognosis and
• 1:05:58
  like there's just so many things.
• 1:06:00
  Whereas before it was like stage 1, stage 2, like, and based on
• 1:06:04
  these stages, now there's just so many different types and
• 1:06:08
  nuances. So I want to say to everybody
• 1:06:12
  who's, you know, looking at cancer or breast cancer in
• 1:06:16
  different ways, I think the science is so fascinating.
• 1:06:19
  And I hope to continue to be able to fund the research behind
• 1:06:24
  it because my mom and I had very similar, but we don't know the
• 1:06:30
  specificities of hers from 30 years ago.
• 1:06:35
  And thank God, you know, she's still here.
• 1:06:37
  And she had a newspaper clipping that she gave to me.
• 1:06:39
  And she's like, there's a new drug out there.
• 1:06:41
  And I was like, that's 20 years old, but OK.
• 1:06:44
  But it was, there's so much cool science behind it and you know,
• 1:06:50
  but also ask questions like I think there's a, there's
• 1:06:53
  definitely more of a maybe it's because I'm older and wiser or
• 1:06:57
  whatever, but I definitely had a more proactive conversation with
• 1:07:01
  my doctors than I probably would have had 10 years ago because
• 1:07:05
  I'm like, and it wasn't Google driven or, you know, ChatGPT
• 1:07:09
  driven. It was very much like very tell
• 1:07:14
  me about I've heard about this, tell me more about it.
• 1:07:17
  And I had to remove everything that like the Internet was
• 1:07:22
  telling me and break it down into like, what am I trying to
• 1:07:26
  accomplish? I need There's nothing wrong
• 1:07:29
  with trying things, but at the end of the day, this the science
• 1:07:33
  is the science. Yeah, so it is cool science is
• 1:07:36
  cool science. And then hopefully with AI and
• 1:07:38
  modern technology like, you know, you talk 510 years.
• 1:07:41
  Oh my gosh, 15. 20 Whatever it is, we may be looking back
• 1:07:43
  saying almost no one dies from. Cancer, there are, there are
• 1:07:47
  vaccines that they're evaluating now for certain types of breast
• 1:07:51
  cancer really and you just go. Wow, that's wild.
• 1:07:54
  Like same with, you know, they were able to do vaccines for
• 1:07:58
  other types of cancers. Yeah.
• 1:08:00
  And just that's a whole another podcast.
• 1:08:02
  Yeah, we'll figure it out. That's figure it out.
• 1:08:04
  But it it is cool. And I'm, I'm fortunate to have I
• 1:08:09
  had the experience that I had. I love your outlook.
• 1:08:12
  Is it cool being married to an entrepreneur?
• 1:08:14
  Is there pros and cons? To that, my gosh, I would say
• 1:08:17
  there's more pros really, but that's me cuz I'm crazy.
• 1:08:21
  I would say being married to an entrepreneur, I'm so proud of
• 1:08:26
  him in so many ways. You know, I think I had growing
• 1:08:31
  up, my dad worked, you know, my dad worked in HR, my mom worked
• 1:08:34
  in HR. So that was my grandfather was
• 1:08:36
  in HR by accident, by accident totally.
• 1:08:40
  But I, I didn't have her perception of like what this
• 1:08:45
  person did or what, you know, I, I didn't grow up with
• 1:08:49
  entrepreneurs. Me either.
• 1:08:51
  It was very 9 to 5 corporate work.
• 1:08:54
  My mom, you know, stayed at home and and then worked in an admin
• 1:08:59
  role at a non for profit. My dad worked, you know, the big
• 1:09:03
  Deloitte consulting job, PwC consulting job.
• 1:09:08
  And so entrepreneurship was like never a thing in my thought of
• 1:09:15
  having a career. I did strategically.
• 1:09:19
  I went to school to be a high school English teacher.
• 1:09:21
  I loved literature, I loved English, I loved teaching.
• 1:09:26
  And but I respected the profession so much that I was
• 1:09:28
  like, I, that is not for me right now and decided to go into
• 1:09:32
  corporate. And I was like, I'm going to be
• 1:09:34
  a corporate person. And so entrepreneurship just
• 1:09:38
  never was a thing. And having your spouse and
• 1:09:42
  partner also be an entrepreneur, I think he also was like, I
• 1:09:47
  don't know if this is for me. And so kind of fell into it.
• 1:09:51
  And I'm so proud and fortunate that like, we're both in it and
• 1:09:56
  happy, happy with what we're doing.
• 1:10:00
  Feels like a blessing when you think about it, just because you
• 1:10:02
  know so many people that they don't like what they do.
• 1:10:04
  They tread every day. They can't wait till the
• 1:10:07
  weekend. And if it's just.
• 1:10:09
  I feel really great every day. I feel very grateful.
• 1:10:11
  Yeah. I get to do this, like, for a
• 1:10:13
  living. Yeah.
• 1:10:14
  Like I don't take it for granted.
• 1:10:15
  I don't take it for granted. And there may be, you know, I
• 1:10:18
  always say, and maybe this was like the cancer outlook, but I'm
• 1:10:21
  like, I don't know, I might go back to corporate, I might not,
• 1:10:25
  I don't know. But right now I'm happy and I'm
• 1:10:27
  enjoying what I'm doing and I feel like I'm a better provider
• 1:10:31
  for my family and I'm a better provider for my clients and
• 1:10:36
  knowledge knowledge base for my clients because of some of the
• 1:10:40
  perspectives that that I have and for my clients and I there's
• 1:10:44
  a place and time for what Ioffer to my clients.
• 1:10:47
  There are places and times where I'm like, you don't need me, you
• 1:10:50
  need X. You know, this other this other
• 1:10:52
  option. And so, yeah, having kind of our
• 1:10:57
  alignment on what is entrepreneurship, we, we look at
• 1:11:02
  it more of like last night I was up till like way too late in the
• 1:11:06
  night building a new website just because I was like, it's
• 1:11:08
  for funsies. I have this idea and I'm going
• 1:11:10
  to go do it. And so I did.
• 1:11:13
  And Bill's like, can you go to bed?
• 1:11:15
  I'm like, I, no, I it needs to happen now.
• 1:11:18
  I need to build this website and it's not launched yet, but it's
• 1:11:21
  coming soon. And and it's just I, I respect
• 1:11:25
  if on the weekend he's like, I got to crank through this thing.
• 1:11:27
  Like, I get it. I have, you know, the Maggie
• 1:11:31
  Smith from Downton Abbey has this phrase.
• 1:11:34
  She's like, what is weekend? Like where they're talking
• 1:11:36
  about, you know, oh, we're going to this on a weekend and like,
• 1:11:40
  you know, what is weekend? And I feel like that a lot with
• 1:11:43
  being an entrepreneur, being a founder.
• 1:11:45
  It's like you work really hard when you're ready to work and
• 1:11:49
  you also have to listen to your body and listen to kind of the
• 1:11:54
  things that are going on and say I am not going to do that level
• 1:11:58
  of intensity work today because it's not going to serve anybody
• 1:12:03
  good. And so it works well for us.
• 1:12:05
  Freedom is what? Yeah, One of the best things I
• 1:12:08
  like about entrepreneurship is, yeah, even though you got to be
• 1:12:10
  careful that it actually can be your ball and chain if you're
• 1:12:14
  not careful and it can actually put you in a box.
• 1:12:15
  But if you do it right, you put enough time and work, it can
• 1:12:20
  lead to a lot of freedom and happiness and fulfillment.
• 1:12:21
  So, Lindsay, thank you so much for coming on the show.
• 1:12:24
  It's a great. Conversation I appreciate.
• 1:12:25
  You. Yeah, I appreciate you a lot.
• 1:12:27
  And where can people go to find you, connect with you, learn
• 1:12:30
  more about what you do? Yeah, Lindsay Dejauntis on
• 1:12:33
  LinkedIn, or you can go to my website, blueprinthr.co and you
• 1:12:38
  can find me there. Cool, by the time this launches
• 1:12:40
  it'll probably be the website will be updated.
• 1:12:42
  Yeah, the my other website itllbefractionalblueprints.co,
• 1:12:47
  it'll be it'll be links, but you can find me on LinkedIn or
• 1:12:50
  Blueprint hr.co. Cool.
• 1:12:52
  Thanks for coming in. Appreciate it.
• 1:12:53
  Thanks so much.