Latest / The Failure Gap / A Conversation With Kristi Cappelletti-Matthews, Chief Human Resources Officer, VSP Vision
Transcript
- speaker-0 (00:00.088) Hello and welcome to the Failure Gap, where we talk with leaders about closing the space between agreement and alignment. We love talking with interesting people and today we're joined by Kristi Cappelletti-Matthews. Kristi is the Chief Human Resources Officer at VSP Vision, where the culture is fueled by their purpose, to empower human potential through sight. She's had over three decades of HR experience ranging from healthcare to high tech, and she's received global recognition for her outstanding leadership. demonstrating her commitment to bettering people inside and outside of her organization. Outside of work, she's a personal trainer, bringing to life her belief that health and wellness play a critical role in living a high quality life. Kristi, welcome to the Value Gap. speaker-1 (00:42.872) Thank you so much, Julie. Welcome, very excited to be welcomed. speaker-0 (00:47.264) Yeah, we're so glad to have you here. You and I have known each other for a long time and I appreciate you taking some time out to share with our listeners a little bit about your leadership journey and what you've observed over these three decades plus and especially the HR area about people agreeing to something being a great idea and having trouble getting aligned to it. Although I suspect that your personal training world might also be full of those kinds of stories. speaker-1 (01:12.886) Yes, absolutely. Yeah, so we've had a number of years of working together. We've spent a lot of time at BSP specifically focusing in on agreement and alignment. And as you know, we have many, many examples working with the executive team. It has really become just a part of our culture and a part of our language and just everyday communication, not only within the executive team, but without throughout VSP in general. And yes, obviously lots of examples over the last three decades of my human resources career, but really the last 18 plus years at VSP where we have focused so much on our culture and just really cultivating everything internally to make VSP the company that it is. speaker-0 (02:06.998) Yeah, it's such a wonderful culture that you have cultivated there. Having had the opportunity to experience it a little bit personally, I just want to say thank you for all of your investment and leadership around that because you can tell when you walk in the door that it's a special place. speaker-1 (02:21.536) It's a village and it's very important to so many of the leaders as well as, you know, all the way up to the CEO at BSP. And really, you know, the HR team is just an amazing team. It is really at the forefront of pretty much everything that we talk about and that we tackle whenever we are looking at large initiatives or how to roll things out. We really want to make sure that we are. thinking about the culture and the impacts on the organization and what many of these decisions that we are making, just what those decisions are gonna look like, short term and long term. speaker-0 (03:03.308) Yeah, it's a very considered approach for sure. And I want to get into that. But before we do that, I want you just to give our listeners a little bit of your personal journey to becoming the CHRO of ESP. What were some of the landmarks along the way that stand out to you? Some of maybe the twists and turns that people might be interested to know you navigated. speaker-1 (03:24.618) Absolutely. Well, I actually started back, you know, almost 20 years ago and at a local gym, I had met the current CHRO of ESP Vision and we ended up getting, you know, talking and getting to know each other. And she actually tried to recruit me for about a year, year and a half to come to VSP. And once I made the decision to come and meet the team, I was sold. I mean, as you shared, I mean, you can just feel it even back then, just the amazing company and the culture. And then once I met the team, it was just absolutely the best decision that I ever made. And I started out as an individual contributor. My specialty is in the compensation space. And so I spent a number of years within the compensation arena. I was really at the time the of the CHRO at that time, really her right-hand person and just focused on a lot of the HR operations and all of the things that she needed to do to, you know, make sure that the companies that we were acquiring, were, you know, integrating and looking at, you know, how to just continue to move ESP forward. So that's how it started out. speaker-0 (04:55.52) I love that, Kristi, because it's such a great reminder that you never know who you're gonna meet in the gym or on the bus or on the airplane. It's true. taking the minute to strike up that conversation and get to know somebody, it can lead to amazing opportunities in your career. So I like to remind people, especially earlier in their careers, don't pass up the opportunity to meet interesting people. speaker-1 (05:21.23) Yeah, it's so true. I mean, she was, she's amazing. And just all of the, you know, conversations that her and I had initially, and you're so right. It's like, who knew, you know, almost 20 years ago where that, those conversations and that moment of meeting her at a local gym would lead, would lead to such an amazing career. speaker-0 (05:47.566) Yeah. And here you are, almost two decades later, right? No. Something that I think also some of our listeners are particularly interested in is you mentioned that you are a compensation specialist. And then you became over a series of, I'm sure shifts in that the CHRO, which is really an enterprise level role. And that move from being someone who's a really deep expert in a specialty area to being someone who can effectively lead across the organization. where alignment really matters, right? Where you have to pay so much more attention to different things that are happening across the business. If you just reflect back on that shift for yourself, any great observations or things for people to watch out for in that transition, because you also know from being in HR, this is where a lot of people top out in their careers. They kind of stall out at that move to enterprise leadership. speaker-1 (06:42.87) Yeah, I mean, I do think it really does speak to in no matter what role within HR, you do have to have that partnership. So you need to have that partnership both internally and then obviously externally with the business. And you want to make sure that you are involving your stakeholders with, with decisions, with different initiatives and that you're not just looking at things in a vacuum or looking at things just very siloed. And so I really always just try to make sure that even though I might've been having a discussion around compensation, trying to make sure I was looking at the bigger picture, looking at where the impacts of the business may or may not be, and really making sure that those stakeholders felt a part of the process and a part of the decision-making. think sometimes even compensation or benefits or some of the more specialty areas, They can feel like some of those decisions are a little bit more narrow, but you really do need to make sure that you're bringing the stakeholders along and that those decisions are for the better of the entire business area. speaker-0 (07:54.732) Yeah, and then by that broadening the alignment that those business leaders have to the ultimate decisions that they do think sometimes can feel arbitrary to business leaders. And so what I'm hearing you say is really as a specialty person, if that's where you are right now, make sure you're getting that skill of connecting to the business and bringing those business leaders into the conversation. think that's a great tip for people who are looking to continue to grow in their roles. Your responsibility can be to be able to connect the dots in that way. speaker-1 (08:25.804) Yes, absolutely, yes. speaker-0 (08:28.162) Yeah, well, let's talk a bit about this space between agreement and alignment because it is something that, you know, obviously we spend a lot of time on a Kerikens group and I do think at VSP, the leadership team has really embraced this idea of let's make sure that we're not just sitting in agreement and everybody's like, yes, this is a great idea, but actually leaning in to the hard work that it's gonna take to get it done. And you mentioned culture and cultivating the culture really carefully. I think culture is a space in a lot of organizations that can fall in the failure gap. People are like, yeah, it'd great if we had that culture. I hope somebody makes it happen. If there's like this persistent, I hope someone's going to fix that. And at VSP, think you've really, you've been able to bridge that. Can you talk to us a little bit about how you see the leadership team really doing the work of alignment when it comes to bringing the culture to life? speaker-1 (09:20.3) Yeah, absolutely. mean, when you think about the two terms, alignment and agreement, you think very simple, right? I mean, they're very simple terms, but when you really do get to the heart of the meaning of them and really making sure that you're staying true to the meaning of those two terms, that is where I think the light bulb just went off for the executive team a number of years ago. when those terms were introduced to us. And I also do feel that during COVID for BSP, there was a shift. We have always had, as we've mentioned, a very strong culture, but we also were very in-person and headquarter-centric around some of the items that we did within our culture. And some of the very iconic things, you had to be on campus to really experience some of those offerings or some of the events that we did. And as COVID obviously affected the entire world and so many businesses, we had to really kind of step back and think about how are we gonna be able to sustain the culture that we want? So not just maintain it, but really sustain it and evolve it. And as... the organization started moving more to a distributed work environment, we wanted to make sure that we were not losing a lot of those connection points that we have had previously and that we were not gonna lose some of the aspects of our culture and some of the very iconic things. So for example, we would have certain in-person events, but we always had... sales organizations out on the field. We always had our distribution and our labs out in the field and they weren't always able to attend or be a part of some of those items that we offered on campus. And so what we've done over the last several years is really, so you think about alignment, really trying to align across the entire enterprise with a number of different aspects within our culture. speaker-1 (11:41.954) So you don't have to be in person at a certain place or location that you're able to really access a lot of those different things that we offer. And so again, when you think about alignment, we're really trying to align across the entire enterprise. speaker-0 (11:59.214) Yeah, I love that you reflect on how that came out of COVID, that there were a lot of challenges that came out of COVID, but it sounds like you used that as a springboard to say, how do we be more inclusive of people who might not have been able to participate in that in-person way so that all of our efforts around culture can even be broader than they used to be? speaker-1 (12:21.42) Yes, definitely we did. speaker-0 (12:23.532) Yeah. And I would assume as you've gone through acquisitions as well, that's been a challenging part. That always is a challenging moment for companies when it comes to culture, is bringing another culture in. It sounds like some of these things that you've pushed the envelope on as a result of COVID may have served you well in those processes too. Am I correct in that? speaker-1 (12:45.888) Yes, absolutely. And we've had a number of acquisitions. Some were still in the process of integrating or fully integrating. And one of the areas that we do start with from an integration perspective pretty quickly early on within that process is the culture. In fact, I literally just took a note to share some updates this week in one of our latest acquisitions that We are looking at doing culture integration work immediately with that company that we acquired. Very, very important to us that they have at least some of the same kind of enterprise thoughts and values and things that we really hold true to VSP. We don't wanna go in there and completely change. They may have some... different nuances, but we really do want to make sure that we have agreement and alignment from an overarching perspective, especially around our values and our commitment, not only to our employees, but to all of our stakeholders. speaker-0 (13:57.25) You know, I think that is one of the hardest things to get alignment on from a cultural perspective is that there's a macro level framework at the VSP level, let's call it here. In some organizations, it's a holding company or it might be, you know, a significant geography that plays a big role in revenue. can be all sorts of things, right? But there's a macro level culture that is defined and then how you bring other cultures into that without making those other cultures feel like they're getting eradicated somehow, right? That they're being incorporated and that it's clear that the expectations are that that overarching culture is the framework within which everyone is expected to operate. That's a really challenging remit for HR, for culture people as you work through that. I'm curious, are there just... you know, any success practices or approaches that you can share with people who might be trying to strike that delicate balance of letting an existing culture be something while also fitting it within a larger organization's expectations. speaker-1 (15:14.07) Yeah, we actually say that we are inviting the organizations that we've acquired into the BSP family of companies and that we want them to be a part of the BSP family, but we don't want to take away from what they bring to the organization and all of the reasons that we bought them, right? All of the reasons that we We don't want to take away from that. And so we all say that all the way up to our CEO. That is the message that we share. speaker-0 (15:53.026) Yeah, so it's about really helping them to be a healthy part of BSP while thriving within their own structure. I think one of the things that stands out to me about BSP is the enterprise mindset commitment, right? That we need to be thinking about the whole enterprise, not just our little part of it. And sometimes with an acquisition, the leaders can bring in a very focused mindset for, let's just call it that. Is that a good way to say it? speaker-1 (16:19.95) Yes speaker-0 (16:21.1) Yeah, how do you get people, and again, enterprise mindset is easy to agree to, hard to align to sometimes, especially if you haven't been working in that for the last five or six years. So when you think about leaders who come in through acquisition and trying to get them into that enterprise mindset, any mindsets that they might be holding onto or group dynamics or trade-offs that they need to start navigating differently so that they can be within the VSP culture while also cultivating their own local culture. speaker-1 (16:54.402) Yeah, it's definitely a challenge. It absolutely is. mean, because, you know, most have been smaller organizations. And so they are the big fish in their organization, right? They're in charge of all of the decisions. They may be the CEO of their organization or the heads of all of the different departments. then they come into VSP, which is now the larger organization. And we have to integrate not only some of their titles and their levels, but then obviously some of the decision-making. And so it is definitely a challenge. There's, I think, a lot of discussions, a lot of meetings. But I will say, I mean, just going back to the two terms of alignment and agreement, it really does help. when you start those discussions and those conversations with just trying to get clarity around what those mean and then what are the outcomes that we're all really looking for. And it really does help with the clarity. speaker-0 (18:03.886) Yeah, yeah, we always talk about clarity and connection to the bigger goals and then commitment and courage to getting it done as you as you work towards that alignment piece of it. It does take some commitment and courage from those leaders who are coming into VSP, I'm sure, to start to model different behavior for their teams as well, without it feeling like they're giving up who they are. Right. I think that's sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. speaker-1 (18:28.268) Yeah, definitely. speaker-0 (18:32.94) Well, you guys have had a lot of experience with integrating organizations and doing it successfully. So I appreciate your call to action for people to make sure that there's clarity for the leaders who are coming in, that they understand what the values are and what the expectations are. Another thing that I would just call out that I think you guys do really well is the idea of modeling the way. From the CEO down, it feels like there is visible alignment to your values and to, for example, an enterprise mindset. And I think sometimes we forget that when you're bringing in an organization, they need to see that in action so that they can understand what it looks like. speaker-1 (19:12.172) Yeah, absolutely agree. I mean, I would say we walk the talk. I mean, we don't just say it. We do all the way up to the CEO, the entire executive team. It is very important. We want to model the right behavior. We want that behavior to be the way that it's supposed to be. And we really do. I feel like hold those values very, dear to all of us. And I believe that it does show and resonate throughout the enterprise. speaker-0 (19:50.284) Yeah, you mentioned something as well, is that there's a lot of. I suspect there's a lot of people listening who are like, I can't do another meeting, right? But alignment doesn't happen in a vacuum, right? It only happens through conversation. And I think that's something else you as a leadership team have invested in spending the time together to make sure that clarity comes from those conversations. speaker-1 (19:53.688) Yes. speaker-0 (20:16.866) and that you do have the connections across the business that you need to make different decisions, not to make siloed decisions, but to make enterprise decisions. Tell me a little bit about that meeting. What do you think makes a really great meeting that ends up in alignment and not in agreement? What is it that you focus on from a clarity perspective or from an understanding perspective? Can you pinpoint anything around that? And if I'm putting you on the spot and the answer is I can't think of anything, that's fine too, but. Just curious, because that is something we hear a lot, is that I can't spend any more time in meetings. speaker-1 (20:49.922) Yes, we are definitely in a lot of meetings, but I do think the successful meetings are really when you have clear outcomes and clear deliverables. And yeah, I agree with you, Julie. You absolutely have to have dialogue and discussion to get to those outcomes. And I think also in this distributed work environment, it's even that much more critical because you... you have to make sure that you are having those conversations, you're having those discussions. It's different than when we were all in office and you could just grab folks for a few minutes here or there. You have to be very purposeful now to making sure that the conversations are occurring and that things aren't being left unsaid or not being addressed. And so yeah, it's very purposeful, I think, to make sure that there's a lot of very in-depth and very detailed discussions, but also that they're meaningful, right? You wanna make sure that with all the meetings that there are desired outcomes that are at least called out in the beginning. And so folks know kind of what the agenda is and what the potential outcomes need to be. speaker-0 (22:16.77) Yeah, so they can have the, I always say, Pilly, you're probably not in too many meetings. You're probably in the wrong meetings. You might need to be in the same number of meetings, but they might be, they might need to take a different shape. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we've talked a lot about culture and integration of acquisitions and what that looks like. I'll open it up to you. Is there for you, when you think about the last few years with VSP, a favorite alignment story where you've really seen the organization get aligned to deliver on speaker-1 (22:21.421) Yes. speaker-1 (22:27.726) Yes. speaker-0 (22:46.412) something big and ambitious together, where you feel like if they had just stayed in agreement and not done the work to get aligned, it might not have had the same outcome. speaker-1 (22:58.04) Yeah, I mean, I would say, I know we've touched on integration, but because we have had so many different integration aspects over the last several years, I mean, I know if we were not really able to utilize these concepts that we would not have been as far along within the integration process as we are at this point. I mean, so there's so many different examples. We have multiple systems that we're working through. And so we finally have an agreement and alignment to spend the next two to three years and really focusing on consolidating and integrating all of our HRAS systems. that, I mean, there's a lot of discussions. That was a huge decision. And it will just, again, make the company, make VSP stronger in the future. to make sure that we are integrating all of those systems so then we really can make sure that we're touching on all the different aspects to support the organization. So that's one that really obviously is very near and dear to my heart is just integrating the HR systems. speaker-0 (24:14.732) Yeah. Boy, systems integrations are a time for alignment. Yes. Because it's so easy for leaders just to stay in their old decision-making modality of, I need my very special system that does exactly what I want it to do. speaker-1 (24:29.708) Right. It's so true. Yes. speaker-0 (24:32.694) Yeah, we had a client a couple of years ago that was trying to bring about 32 different systems into one. And it was just an unbelievable discipline in being aligned as a leadership team. speaker-1 (24:45.24) Wow, that is a lot of systems. I thought we had a lot of systems, but you're so right. from an HR perspective, we have seven. Ballpark. Yeah. have almost every HR system, but you're so right in the fact that the business owners of those systems, they don't, you know, it's difficult to change and... speaker-0 (24:51.822) How many do you think you have? speaker-0 (24:57.134) party. speaker-1 (25:13.452) we don't wanna impact their business, right? We don't wanna do it at a time that it's gonna impact sales or it's gonna impact the different business aspects of their business model and their financials. And so that is where it actually kind of goes back to some of my initial comments is you really do have to make sure that you're partnering and you're not just looking at these things in a vacuum. speaker-0 (25:38.178) Yeah, but you can connect the dots around the business impacts. Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, it's so interesting to me when we think about this idea of agreement to alignment in the workplace, but I just have to ask the question about your personal training experience because I'm sure for a lot of our listeners and for me personally too, right? There's often agreement that I want to go to the gym, I want to work out more, I want to be healthier. speaker-1 (25:41.091) Yes. speaker-0 (26:04.364) And then I have trouble getting aligned to that sometimes, right? And making the right decisions. I'm curious in that aspect of your experience, what do you think gets in the way for people? They absolutely agree it would be a great idea, but then they have trouble making it happen. speaker-1 (26:20.416) yeah, it is definitely a challenge, right? I mean, I think we can all give examples where, you you say, okay, this Monday, this is it, right? This Monday, it's gonna be all healthy food. It's not gonna be, you know, any bad food. I'm gonna go to the gym. I do think what happens is life, right? Life happens and then all of a sudden your day does not go as planned. And so, yeah, I mean, you have agreement, but. you really have to have both, right? You have to have alignment, agreement, and commitment. And that commitment is, you know, it is definitely critical. And I think also support, you need to have a good support system. You know, if you're, you know, kind of hanging out with folks that aren't, you know, really aligned to your goals, then that could also, you know, get in the way. And also, you know, I think not having too lofty of goals, right? I think sometimes people say, I'm gonna go to the gym every single day. That's probably not very realistic. And so are there other things that you can do maybe in between the days? Can you get outside and take a walk? Can you walk around and take one-on-one meetings where I feel like now we all feel like we have to be staring at a video, right? Staring at our computer. Can some of those meetings, can you agree with your coworker that, we're gonna just take a walk around the house, walk back and forth up and down the hallway and have our conversation that way. So I think there are little things that people can try to look at where they don't feel like they overcommit and then they're disappointed because then at the end of the week, then they didn't meet all of the things that they were wanting to try to do from a fitness perspective. but it is definitely a challenge. But, you know, there's all kinds of little things that you can kind of add to your weekly routine. speaker-0 (28:25.774) spice it up a little bit without dramatically. You know, what you're really getting to is what we've talked about at Carrickin's group is nudge is not chose. How do you just nudge yourself and not try and like do a U-turn all of a sudden? Because then you get in that, that like perfect or nothing mindset. Right. Like either I did it perfectly or I'm not going to do it at all. And honestly, I think that translates into business as well for leaders who are trying to accomplish big things. They feel like, if I'm, know, enterprise mindset, okay, so I have to do all of these things differently. Maybe just try doing a couple things differently, right? As in terms of how you're having your meetings, what you're talking to people about, where you're getting input on different decisions. You don't have to do everything, but you could do something differently that'll help you to align and deliver together. speaker-1 (29:10.604) Right, I mean, I think there's a phrase, right? Good is good enough. It doesn't always have to be perfect. And I know sometimes, even with materials or something that, different slide decks, right? You're trying to get things out the door and at some point it's like, it's good enough. Let's just execute, right? It's just time to execute and not keep going back and forth. speaker-0 (29:37.763) I love that as a reminder for everybody, good is good enough. I think that actually could be a mantra for alignment, right? Good is good enough. Let's keep moving forward. Learn as we go, adjust as we get there, and just keep getting better. speaker-1 (29:52.778) Absolutely, yes. speaker-0 (29:54.606) Yeah, Well, Kristi, this has been such a wonderful conversation about some really important topics when it comes to culture and the integration of different kinds of companies and what it looks like to have that enterprise leader mindset and really connecting not just to your specialty area, but also to the broader business as a whole as you're moving along in your career or if you're an enterprise leader trying to get people aligned to deliver together today as well. So I appreciate you sharing your experiences around all of this. I think it's exciting to be able to hear from somebody like yourself because particularly in the HR space, you have your finger on the pulse of the organization and what it takes for leaders to be successful getting aligned and delivering together. So thank you so much for joining us. speaker-1 (30:39.182) Thank you so much for having me. It was real pleasure and I enjoyed talking about all these different concepts with you, Julie. speaker-0 (30:46.272) Yeah, absolutely. There is one last question that we do like to ask people, which is, this is a dream along with me question. So there's no right or wrong answer. And that is if you could get a group of people, whether it's at work or family or community, or maybe in your personal training or whatever it might be, but if you could get a group of people aligned to do something together, what would it be? Just to have an impact that you think if people could just come together to do it as a team. we could see really great things happen. Anything come to mind? speaker-1 (31:17.758) I would just say, I mean, just treat everybody just with kindness. I mean, I just feel like in the world that we're in now, right? It's just, just treat people how you wanna be treated, treat people respectfully and just treat people with kindness and just, you know, go about your day just, you know, hoping for good things and for, you know, kindness to one another. speaker-0 (31:44.162) I love that call to action for all of our listeners to be going out into the world with kindness and respect. And if we could all get aligned as a community to that, I do think the world would be a better place in terms of being able to deliver on all of the goals that we have to have an impact in the world. So thank you for that reminder and that wonderful call to action. And with that, we'll go ahead and say, Kerikans Group, we like to say, to go fast, go alone, to go far, go together, to go far fast. Get Aligned. And Kristi, thank you again for joining us. It's been such a pleasure. speaker-1 (32:16.846) Thank you so much.