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Feedback Is a Gift. Sometimes It's an Ugly Tie. · Mork Unfiltered

• Patrick Mork: He said, Well, you just don't have the exact presence in order to do that, you'll never get very far here. People will struggle to have tough conversations. Then they'll summon up all this courage. They'll have the tough conversation and nothing happens. Gift could be the beautiful candle you love or the ugly tie that you really never wanted. Over fifty percent of people at work do not challenge the output of their AIs. And you're probably shooting yourself in the foot by getting rid of some of that diversity of thought. How important is feedback when you're asking people to change completely the way they work? Welcome back to Mork Unfiltered, folks. Now picture this. You're a senior manager at a global company, you're good at what you do, and a VP looks at you straight in the eyes and tells you that they don't think you have what it takes to go further. Most people might shrink at this, or they might quit, or they might get really hostile. But today's guest did neither of those things. Jill Gorick is a chief human resource officer at Springs Windows Fashions, the company behind brands like Bali and Graper. Before that, she held senior HR roles at Regal RexNord and Kohler. She started her career as an editor and she built all of this while raising not one, not two, not three, but four kids. And she spent nearly two decades being the voice for people who don't always have a seat in the room. This conversation about confidence, authenticity, culture, and what leadership needs to become in an era where AI is rewriting all the rules as we know them. This is Mark Unfiltered, and this is Jill Goric. Welcome, Joel, to the show. Excellent. So happy to be here and thank you for that very kind introduction. You're more than welcome. Jill, I'm always super curious when I talk to people who have had careers where they didn't immediately kind of like springboard and launch into what they're doing now. Why what got them to start there? So, you know, you started off as an editor, but then you ended up in HR. So how did that work and what was it that pulled you towards human resources as a as a vocation? Yeah. Yeah. Great story. I I always think there's a reason that we end up and do the things that we do. And so I graduated from school in English communications, didn't want to be a teacher, but had big dreams of being a law book editor. Not a law book editor, but just a general editor, but ended up at a law book editing firm, so West Law, West Group, and got to read every legal case there was working with lawyers. So whether it be around discrimination, harassment, any employment law. And so could have ended up, of course, in traffic or other types of legal teams, but just so happened to do that. And so really got my baseline education on HR perspective from those five years of of that work and then really trying to translate what the legal cases meant for HR practitioners. So again, still interesting in the writing and and that side of it. Moved to a company then where I really worked in marketing and at that point in time was bringing people together. At the same time that I got my master's degree in organizational development. And so those all things came together of how you connect people and what that looks like and feels like. And it really just became this pull f to HR and HR business partnership specifically. Well, I mean, clearly you're already doing a a master's in organizational development. So what what was it that pulled you in that direction? What was it about organizational development that that gave you energy that you liked? Yeah, absolutely. Interesting was that when I was looking to go back to school and I was fortunate enough my company paid for it. So I was not going to turn that down. And so as I looked at programs to pursue, I really looked at and thought I was going to go get my MBA. That seemed like the next logical choice of any further education and development. But when I looked at an MBA, I knew I could do it. I wouldn't have any issue completing it and getting through it, but I didn't think I would like it. Really that deep dive with the business, the financials, other things, again, could do it, didn't think I would enjoy it. And if I wasn't gonna enjoy the classes, I really wasn't going to enjoy what was to come after that. And so I did a little bit of research and you know, this was back in nineteen ninety five, ninety six, somewhere in there, ninety seven, ninety-eight time frame. I really looked at organizational development, which was just starting to really pick up in the in the Midwest. So, you know, there was a lot of East Coast or West Coast even things that were working on that, but not a lot in the Midwest. And so found a school through it was Lewis University in Romeoville, Illinois. And Really, they had this great program. And so I was just drawn to it really, looking at how you get your ducks in a row in an organization and really felt that could be a differentiator of an organization versus that business degree that many people have, really instead looking at how do you unlock the people in an organization and get alignment so that your business goals can be accomplished easier. So that's what drew me to it. Interesting. And for and for people who are like maybe, you know, new in their career, about to graduate, I mean, what what are the signs maybe that you might be suited towards a career in human resources? Yeah. So I, you know, I do laugh because I do say some people go, they want to work with people and help people. And I always say, Well, if your first goal is, gosh, I just really love people, sometimes this can be a really hard place to go into. But honestly, it's about Truly that connection, right? If you're the person that people go to for insights and advice, then great. Or if you are the person that can really see connections that don't exist in other places, and you can start going, okay, well, this person over here is doing something, and this person's doing something over here. How do we connect them and help process that? I really talk a lot about that systems thinking and how that looks. And so if Somebody is not getting their work done or something's happening in an organization and you're like, okay, I really see why that's happening. I think HR is the right place for you because that is where you can bring these people together. And you know, in my master's degree, that's where I did learn how you align incentives, compensation, how you align organizational goals and why that's so important. All of those things that flow into HR baseline work that seem could seem like HR just creates work and just does that kind of thing. Really understanding how to leverage those tools. And so coming out of school, if you're somebody who's like, okay, I want to get the most out of the people that work in an organization, I really think HR is a really great place to go and explore. Got it. And for and for those people who might not know, when you look at, you know, the CHRO, right? The chief human resource officer. What what what ultimately does the CHRO do? Like what's their main mandate? Yeah, absolutely. I you know, there's a very tactical, technical side to it. And so what is your HRIS system? How you taking care of your people from a benefit standpoint, from a compensation standpoint, how you're positioning yourself in a market the same way you would any product or any other thing that you're selling. Right, we're selling our organization to people, and so how do we make sure That we are selling our organization to people who both want to work here but also work here already. And so as the CHRO, I think about it as we have usually the largest spend when you look at people across the organization. And so it is my business responsibility to make sure that we are giving a product, but also at the right cost and at the right, like all of those things. So really managing that. But then I also really see it as how am I partnering with our CEO? CEO to make sure that our senior leadership team is working well together. If that foundation is not strong, then the culture in the rest of our organization really falls down quickly. And so working with that CEO to make sure we can set that up, his voice is heard, that we're all rolling in the same direction from the top down, including our senior leadership team. Where does that look and feel? What does that look like? And so I would say my part starts there. And then of course working with my team across the entire organization on making sure we're developing people, making sure That the workplace is a really good place to work, right? Not that it's not challenging and it's not, you know, we're we're here to serve this business purpose, but truly that people can bring their best selves to work and and that is just good on both sides, then what do you think CEOs and boards get wrong about human resource management? I think that anybody who leads with it's just compliance or extra work is not really unleashing the potential or they don't have the right HR leader in place, right? So a part of my role absolutely is compliance, right? So as I said, I started out reading all of those case laws and things that are very important. And so I can't always say yes to the organization when they want to do things that really would put us at risk or otherwise. And so I think when the CEO doesn't understand the risk or doesn't understand The downside of moving too quickly through something because they haven't ever been deposed or haven't had to sit in front of a jury, that can be really dangerous. But it goes so far beyond that, right? You can hire and you can have zero risk with an outside attorney, you can do all of those things. But to me, unleashing the what we call human capital, right, is truly about. giving the product to people where they really can show up the best. And so if we're gonna spend th the amount of money that we do on people and we're asking them to spend the amount of time that they have to spend here away from their families, those kinds of things, what are we giving in return and what does that look like? And if we get them their best selves to show up at work. Then we are able to deliver something really special for our customers as well. And so if we're not following the path, if the CEO, the board are only looking at financials, the cost to do business as people, as too much of a cost to the business versus how we're getting the best out of them, and we're truly not focusing on people as people, then they miss the boat for sure. Yeah, it it's it's amazing because like the more I talk to leaders, you know, all over the world in all different types of businesses, you know, a lot of people will say, you know, people are our most valuable asset. and you hear that a lot. And then you don't necessarily the follow through on on on the human resources side, right? To some extent. And then the other thing that you hear, and you hear this particularly, you know, with more more technical companies or companies whose cultures are more technical, is, you know, the people are the source of the largest headaches. Right. It's like the most difficult part of being a manager is managing people. Absolutely. It's it's it's it's it's the soft, kind of mushy, ugly side of this. What what do you think leaders get wrong about like the fundamentals of being a good leader and managing people? Yeah. You know, I I could write the book on that, right? There's so many things and so many things that they do right. So there's that too. You know, when we talk about they are the biggest asset, but also like What's interesting is we put in place things like preventative maintenance for our machines and equipment. But then when we think about the HR cycle on performance management and having conversations like suddenly we don't have time for that and gosh, that person doesn't need it and I can't do that as a leader. And there's all of these excuses that come in for that. But you would never you would never buy a car and not go get your oil changed. Right. And so to me, if I'm a leader, thinking about my people, if we do think about them as assets, which is a little understated, right? Because they're not things to own as cars or machine or equipment. But they still need preventative maintenance and love and care and right, the things that we do for the machines that we have in our life. And so really thinking about it and going, okay, what what does this person need? And then I think managers sometimes come at it from a machine perspective. Okay, well then you told me to have this conversation and I did, and then they still left. Okay. Did you approach it with empathy? Did you approach it understanding their life? Did you approach it right? And so many leaders come at it going, This is a workplace. I'm not gonna talk about personal things or emotions. Or they go the other way and go, Well, I can't do that because that person is experiencing too many personal changes or too many emotions or too many of those things. And and we get caught on these sidelines instead of going, No, people are people. Like have conversations, talk to them, understand. Like there's nothing wrong with that. But there's also nothing wrong with setting boundaries and and establishing guidelines either. Like most people want to feel like they know how to operate in those guidelines too. So both sides important. Yeah. I mean, and and what's one small thing that you think nearly every leader could do that doesn't really cost them a lot? Certainly not in terms of money or budget, maybe a little bit more in terms of time. But what's what's one common small thing leaders can do to be better leaders? Yeah, I'm such a fan of a handwritten thank you note. So I'll just say that as one small thing, if you know a million things. But I've never received a handwritten thank you note that hasn't been met with such appreciation from myself. And it goes such a far away from my leader that has given them to me, whether it's my direct leader or somebody across the board. Yeah. Same thing true of anybody that I talk to. The thought that it takes into right, even though it's such a quick little thing, goes so far in making people feel seen and wanting to continue to do that. And I know you asked for one. But I'm just gonna give you one more because I do think it goes into that too. Bonus, exactly. In and it's kind of in that same vein, right? And you know, you talked about I have four kids and and of course one of the things on positive parenting is really going, okay, you really call out the things. that you like to see. And so reward the behaviors that are good behaviors. And the same is exactly true when you're managing a team. Call out the good behaviors that you see and call them out in person, call out publicly. Other people pick up on that and they fall into your expectations and doing really great work on what they're already doing. It's just basic constructive feedback as opposed to always giving feedback that's more behavioral and around around improvement. Absolutely. You got it. Like take that positive approach. It's such a small thing. It is. Absolutely. But sometimes people don't even realize, right? Like, I don't know if you've ever gotten feedback where you're like, Wow, I didn't even realize that was made a difference or that was a good thing to do or that was right. And so if you don't call it out, and the same is true on the other side, if somebody's doing something that is destructive. I can't tell you how many times I've had a conversation with a leader that is, hey, in this meeting I noticed you were on your phone right half the time. And it's really unfortunate because your team like felt like you were disengaged. And they go, my gosh, I didn't even realize that. It's just such a part of right, like everybody has their phone on them and right, something going on. And so feedback on both sides of the equation in short little snippets versus these huge I need to write six pages of a performance review are so important to make continual change. I love that. I love that. I think, you know, so many executives that I talk to in every business in every industry around, you know, all the all the the regions that I travel to, they are all complaining about the same lately, which is the rate of AI adoption. Right. So many people are like, Why are my people not using this? Why are they not using it more quickly? They should be on this stuff all day. You know, they they have all these dreams of productivity and speed and doing more with less. And I was wondering from your perspective, of somebody who spends time, you know, developing leaders, thinking about how the organization can work better, thinking about the skills that are needed to be a good leader. What's the role of feedback in AI adoption. What how important is feedback when you're asking people to change completely the way they work? Yeah, I mean imperative, right? So I just think as we in any change, so as we're facilitating change, looking at change management, looking at anything that's going to disrupt a workforce. Feedback is imperative on both sides. So I also don't ever think that it should be one sided, but as you're moving down, you have to like have this forethought. And for me as the chief HR officer, I take it very seriously to go, Okay, well, what skills are going to be needed, what does that look like? And so providing feedback potentially to people who already work here to start talking about how you might need to upskill or what that might look like or how important adoption is and being able to do that. But then also not hiding behind some of the AI tools that we have. So how do you give feedback, right? Like the best and worst tool is the one that will help you have a conversation with a person In person. Yeah. And so great to have that practice and what does that look like and how can you do that? But also, so we have so many keyboard warriors, right? Where you can send emails or teams chats or other things that are like, wait, that felt like feedback, but why is it not face to face and what that looks like? And so to me, in the whole age of AI, right, and I I love my partner my AI partners and agents and tools and everything else that help. But what that does for me is help enable the work to move faster so that we can spend more time on the change management and the feedback and the things that truly need to be done in person versus the time on how am I analyzing, you know, six different spreadsheets, like let AI do that. That's not the value. Interesting. It's super it's super fascinating. It's it's such a tough subject for a lot of people. I I wish I could wrap my head around it more and it changes every day, right? Like I mean, where I was six months ago on AI is certainly not where I am today and I know it won't be six months from now. But that's also part of the feedback too. If you're not ready to go, I don't know what it looks like in six months, then you're probably gonna be outpaced in your organization as well. I did something the other day with one of my AI tools that that Really blew my mind out of curiosity. There is a there's a feedback framework. I don't know if you're familiar with it from Zengren Fulkman called the fuel method. No, please tell me. So so the fuel method basically breaks down feedback into four steps. Few F-U E L. And it's basically frame the conversation, understand the perspective of the other person, explore alternatives with the person. So don't impose the solution, but explore solutions with them. And then launch into the first necessary step to take action. Right. Love it. And I I I found over the years, you know, in the work that I do that I shared that that that framework and that it's been very helpful for people to break down the process and depersonalize feedback, which is one of the bigger challenges. And I do this with individuals than I do with groups. But the thing that I did that was interesting is I used the same model to give feedback to my LLM. It was being very tough with me. And I And I just told it. I'm like, you know what? You never tell me the positive things that I do in meetings. It's always criticism. You are very judgmental. You don't seek to explore solutions with me. You just kind of tell me the way you see it. And you you do work on next steps. That's a good thing. But on the on on the rest of the things that the the way you give me feedback, you positively suck. And sometimes I just hate you. And the reaction of this tool was was really interesting. It's like, my God, I never realized that. You know, you never told me. From now on, I'm gonna cure incorporate the fuel method. And now every time it gives me feedback on something, it will start off by some of the things that I did well and give me credit for that. And then it will work with me to explore how to do how to do other things. You could also do this. So it's learning some empathy. It's learning how to like make you be a little bit more wanting to read what it might have to say. But that is very funny. It was it was funny, but you know, the other thing that it made me think of is the way we give feedback to teammates and to others, we we need to be giving these tools constant feedback as well. Because what you see with with AI is that it it it doesn't have context. And so our ability to use it well depends on how much context we give it. So if we're not giving it feedback, if we just try something and it doesn't come out the way we want to go, this, you know, copilot thing is garbage, you know, like I'll just go back to doing it the way I want, then the tools don't have a chance to get better. Right. So i I I was struck by that. Absolutely. I mean, right, you feed it and so it learns and then comes back with more. And you know, but you bring up such an interesting point that I hadn't really thought of of I do love all of the ways that you can use AI to make yourself a better leader, right? I've always encouraged like, hey, as you're writing performance reviews, right? It's not about the time you spent. It really is how are you delivering that message and what does that look like? And AI is a really great help for that. But if you let it go unchecked or you're using a tool that has bias built in or Positive or negative, right? Like either side of it. If it's learning from an organization that already leans one way or another, you're just going to reinforce that leaning and that could be a challenge, certainly. And so, you know, it comes back to those critical thinking skills of how are you how are you critically thinking both in person with somebody's because you still have to be able to have a conversation that isn't hid behind AI. But then also how are you critical thinking of your AI, right? We see people right, you go down that hallucination phase and you can just continue to feed into yourself wrong information for sure. You're absolutely right. I saw a shocking statistic in in an article in a in a paper published by I IBM, I think it was this morning or yesterday, but the statistics said that over fifty percent of people at work do not challenge the output of their AIs. my gosh. They they would rather accept it at face value than go to their manager and be like, hey, you know, I I just got this output from Copilot. This seem seems off to me. and that was shocking to me. That is shocking to me, but in the same vein, we talk about this all the time here. How much are we challenging each other? Right. So this learned behavior that we have, you know. It it's a fine line. And we talk about like at Springs we have what we call best experience. And so whether it's for the best experience company for customers or I mean, I talked about how we create best experience for associates and what that means and looks like. And there's a temptation to say, well, best experience is not having having it out, right? Like it's not having fights or having it be too challenging or that kind of thing. But best experience is not not having that. And so, you know, it it we really came from an environment where nobody challenged because the answer came from the top down. And so retraining has been interesting. But I do wonder how does that right when you're when we all learn, you sit in school and you listen and you learn from the teacher and in cultures where you know even outside of the US where that's a big thing, where everything's handed down from top down. Yeah. How do you know that suddenly you should start challenging your AI partner? Right? Like you just take it. It must be right. Yeah. Abs absolutely. Absolutely. That's and that's part of the risk, right? Absolutely. As we continue to do that kind of cognitive offloading, you know, A, we cease to learn. And B, it's also the risk that the tool is wrong. Absolutely. Yeah. And how do you get the right talent in place? Right. This is a huge talent implication to me, where when you start giving AI the tools at the beginning of like analysis and that kind of thing. And then but you need to hire more senior people. At some point in time, those senior people you want to hire didn't have this experience because AI took that over. And then they don't know how to question because they didn't have to go through that process themselves. I don't know how you overcome that. Mm-hmm. I I don't know. I don't know either. That's the thing that worries me as as as this new generation is growing up with these tools that they're not gonna face the same problems that we faced. Right. And that therefore as they become more senior leaders, they will not have that experience. Right. Absolutely. I wanted to switch switch gears for a second because you know, one of the things we talked about in our our initial call was we talked around we talked a little bit about executive presence and it reminded me of the story of This conversation that you had with this VP. And so I wanted I wanted to go back there because I think A, a lot of people struggle with executive presence. It's not a given, depending on, you know, how you were brought up, your personality, the skills that you have. Some people are more introverts, people are less introverted. Tell us a little bit about what happened and tell us more importantly, how did you deal with that? Because some people would have just crumbled, right? It would have just shattered their self esteem and it would have been very hard for them to move forward, you not only move forward, but you really grew with that. Can you can you take us back there? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I and you know, you you framed it up really well. I do think people come at executive presence so different. What does that mean? What does it look like? What does it mean in an organization? And I grew up with very blue collar appearance and so was not in an environment where that's what I learned or was around. My dad would have never worn a suit anywhere unless it was a funeral or something else, you know, equally as weighty. And so when I got into the work world, right, like it you would look at okay, executives and it was almost like this this foreign thought process or right like and if I showed up as what I thought was what an executive should be, I felt like that little kid that was putting on my mom's heels and walking around, right? Like, okay, this isn't me. You're putting on you're putting on airs. And so, you know, when I started and moved into my bigger companies and what that looks like, I did have, as you said, a VP that I reported to and we were in a performance development conversation. So Right. I've always gotten great performance reviews and done great things and be strategic and and partner really well. And so really was like, Okay, well, what do I need to do to get to that next level? Right. Like, what does that look like and feel like? And he said, Well, you just don't have the exact presence in order to do that, you'll never get very far here. And w as even I go back there, right? Like he voiced every concern that I had ever had. about my ability to be successful in business because I didn't have the MBA, right? I made a different choice. I don't have the look. I don't have the polished business knowledge. I don't have the, you know, even the business speak and what that looks like. And so I took it. So, you know, there's no argument in the time of. I always am like feedback is feedback. So you take it. But I also I'm a big believer and thank goodness this is what's kicked into my brain even then of, you know, feedback is a gift, but gift could be the beautiful candle you love or the ugly tie that you really never wanted, right? Like every gift does not hit the same. And so I was like, all right, but what I inherently knew is that I was able to connect with people. And so I was good at my job because I could. really make that connection on a real world level and not on the I'm an executive so I must be smarter or better or have this other thing going on. And and it served me well. And so from there I really was like, okay, I will take that. And I also self-reflected to say there are probably some things and some ways that I do need to change in my own presence, right? It is very much the dress or be how you want to be received. And so there's some thought around that. And I made some small changes, but nothing major. I still felt like I could be true to myself and be true to my kids and my family and what I wanted to bring to the world. But what I also learned was that might not be the place where I did it. Interesting. And so two things happened. One is that the right leader for me. So from that leader, I went on to have several other leaders there that would never have given me that feedback. And so this, you know, I'll say it, it was at Kohler. And like any organization, there were good leaders and there were bad leaders. And he just was not the right one for me. And he was struggling with the exact same thing of trying to get into the top tier of the organization. And so I think there was a little bit of his own self-reflection in his feedback to me. How how did you react in the moment that he said that? So I think that my superpower is zero reaction. Now This is also a horrible, awful opposite superpower in some cases, but from an HR leader perspective, there's so many times that things are thrown at you. Yeah. That if you react off the cuff on so many things, you're gonna send the organization into a panic or they're not gonna think you have it, right? And so it's like I have really I think mastered my game face. And so I don't even know if while he was saying it, he recognized How big it was playing off my biggest fears in my entire journey of my career, or how big of an impact it had. And so that's probably unfortunate because I did not have the wherewithal at that point to give him feedback that says, listen, this isn't helpful, right? Like, you don't have executive presence is not actually feedback that I can do anything about. Is it my language? Is it words I'm using? Is it How I am showing up in a meeting, is it the clothes I'm wearing? Is it right, like and and you know, men and women both experience this. I do think females probably experience it a little bit more. Yeah, I believe And so I also think for a male boss, it's probably hard to give a female, right? What do you tell her, you don't dress well enough or your hair's not good? That's exactly what I heard. Whether it this many years later, I'll be honest with you, I don't even know what the words were, but what I heard was, you're not good enough. You, you know, your hair is horrible, your clothes are horrible. You should just change everything about you. Right. And so so not helpful to get it's an exact presence problem. Right. And so then when I flip that around, I really try to help people from a both is this a problem with the person or is it a problem with how they're showing up? And if it's a problem with how they're showing up, let's be very specific about what those things are. Because those are things that you can change. If it's things you can't change, that's a preference. Right? Like you just prefer those words, those clothes, that hair. There's a big difference. And you're probably shooting yourself in the foot by getting rid of some of that diversity of thought if they're different from you. And so yeah, able to take that right and and woven in the fabric, which is unfortunate, but also a really great reflection point to continue to grow my career despite that. So so the natural next question I think people in the audience would have is okay, you get this terrible feedback. It's incredibly painful, but on top of that, it's not really helpful. But it sounds like you were self aware enough to know that there was some truth to it. Right. What did you do? Like how how did you bounce back from that? What steps did you take to be like, Okay, I'm not gonna let this set me back. I'm going to figure it out and do something about it. Yeah, absolutely. So I talked to a lot of people for one thing. So trusted network advisor, right? Hey, I got this feedback. Help me understand, right? Like you know me, you've worked with me, and I'm open. So I do think that's part of the issue if or problem, right? If you disagree with feedback and you go find your trusted network and you start with, they're so wrong. I'm so mad, this is it. Of course, your trusted network, if there are only people who agree with you, are gonna go, Yeah, they don't know what they're talking about. Well, that's not helpful for my career. And so I found a trusted network who would go, I can approach them and say, I got this feedback. I'm really disappointed in the feedback. And I'm not sure it's all true. However, I want to hear what you think about this, right? And so my trusted network at that point had a chief marketing officer in it. It had some HR peers in it, right? It had those people that truly either had worked with me or seen me at different levels. And what was great is They gave me some feedback around, okay, you're really quiet in meetings and sometimes it looks like you are either distracted or you're not fully engaged. And I'm like, okay. That's an introverted style. I'm very introverted. There are Proactive ways that I can go, okay, I am committed to in the first five minutes of a meeting, I am going to say something because it's proven that if you do that, you'll speak up more in the meeting or people remember. Interesting. I am going to make sure that I have a question written on any pre-read so that I can actually ask a question on a page that's thought out in advance if I can't do it in the meeting. Right, like so they gave me actionable feedback that Probably was related and without that actionable feedback, I'm not sure I would have been as successful 'cause I would have just written it all off and been like, Well, I'm just gonna keep doing what I'm doing. Yeah. And and you know, we all we both know that feedback is great, especially when it's given gracefully, which unfortunately, you know, wasn't by by your your manager. But you know, in in in the fuel method we were talking about yeah earlier, and I and I see this so much, it's just so scary and and dis Disheartening, Jill, is people will struggle to have tough conversations. Then they'll summon up all this courage, they'll have the tough conversation, and nothing happens. Yeah. So they'll be like, well, I had a tough conversation, but nothing changed. So how did you make that leap? Like, what did you actually do then to develop? You you mentioned a couple of things, like, you know, asking questions at the beginning of the meeting, taking some notes. Was there anything else that was really a game changer in terms of, you know? Building that executive presence and changing a little bit your style, right? Yeah. Yeah. So it's interesting because I'm not sure it was ever in the large ways that I approached things. So as an introvert, I much prefer these types of one to one conversations and the word I'd always heard you just need to network more. And I'd be like, man, like you want my worst nightmare. It's walking into any networking event where I don't know someone, or what am I gonna find? Right. And so for me, I had to find a very specific way to network. So my goal was not connecting at five percent with a hundred people. My goal was connecting at 80% with 10 people. Right. And how do you how do you how do you do that? Tell us a little bit more about that. Because I think it's it's it's fascinating because so many people struggle from this. They're like, Yeah, you know, they they need to find a job and they'll still they'll be on their computer on indeed.com sending hundreds of emails, then they'll wonder why nothing happens. Right. But they're not networking. So what does that look like? Yeah. I mean, for me, it is saying yes. So for a long time and and I give myself a little bit of grace because one, two, three, four kids, right? It's challenging to say yes to a lot of things, but was very intentional about saying yes to the right things. And so for example, right, you reached out on LinkedIn and it was I'm not sure, but I'm willing to take the next step to talk to you further. And then when I talked to you, there was just this great connection on right, like values and how that works and how you move forward in your career and great conversation. And so it became this very valuable connection to me. And that is how I've built my network over time. And I would say at that moment in time when I received that feedback, I I wasn't conscious about it necessarily. I had some people that I could go talk to, but it was more happenstance they are in my network because I work next to them or they live by me or something else. And so being intentional fortunately, not everybody's an introvert and so they reach out to you. And so it is saying yes to enough things to go, Okay, this one really worked. And this one didn't work. Right. Like this one was either they were more selfish or they were more whatever. But this one really has a mutual connection or something of that nature. And then fostering that. And so to me it really was, all right, I am going to say yes to a few things. And that's how I'm gonna be more networked and a trusting network that isn't just telling me what I want to hear. Mm-hmm. And that has to go both ways in order for them to understand that I actually want good feedback. That also means I have to give good feedback. And so sometimes it's right going, Okay, this person did this thing to me or in my network or they posted something and being able to go, Hey, right, I'm a big fan of SBI. So the situation behavior impacts. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. When I saw this It's a great framework. Absolutely right. And so I'm teaching it in our organization so we can get used to instead of saving it all up and going dump it on you. Like no, it is a million times in a day and people just get used to it. And doing that with my network as well. Hey, I saw this. You posted this on LinkedIn. I don't know how you wanted it to land, but this is how it landed with me. You might want to think about that, right? Or even right, I I almost vendors that send out messages that are, your mail merge didn't work right. Like I'm not gonna work with you, but I'm gonna send you a message that says, Hey my God, I've done that so many times. I've done that so many times to vendors. I've yeah. We can we could have a whole separate podcast on that. my God. I can only imagine. But you put good vibes out into the universe and then you're like, all right, some of come back to you, I think. It's just it's how karma works. They it it it is. It is. You know, tur turning a little bit to leadership fundamentals, you know, we we talked a lot a little bit about AI, about how AI is changing things. We talked a lot about executive presence, we talked about feedback. What other basic leadership skills do you see leaders just miserably failing at these days? Like what what else are you seeing in in your industry, in your company or or with other companies where you're like, how is it possible that people don't realize that These two or three basic skills are things that they need given everything that's going on with AI and all this change. Absolutely. I mean, I really do think that we underestimate the value of culture in an organization. And so I'm blessed to work with our CEO, wrote a book on culture, the ACBs of culture ship. and I came here because he truly believed it. Right. And so we very much run our business off of leading and lagging indicators. And our leading indicators really look at what are the benefits, the compensation, those kinds of things and the projects we're doing so that we can have higher Voice of associate or engagement scores, lower attrition and what those look like. So very real business impacts as we know, engagement, lower higher engagement, lower attrition, all of those things. But on that front end is how are we working with people? What does that look like? How are we creating the best experience? How are we really doing that? And it's not insurmountable, right? So you talk about culture like, it's this big thing and I don't have time for it. And it's just habits every day. Culture is listening. Culture is making sure that people can speak up. Culture is being human, right? Like those kinds of things. And so to me, that is the biggest thing that people miss the boat on is truly the financial impact of a well invested, thought out and then managed daily culture and it only comes through human interaction and human conversation. That may or may not be about a sales call. It may be about your home life or it may be about a vacation, right? But that that is important. And you can't go, this is work and this is personal. And to me that's just the biggest Biggest mistake for sure. So so culture is is is huge, right? And you I it's funny that you say this because you're the second CHRO that I've had on the podcast this week who has told me about the importance of culture and and how important it is. And and and this woman's amazing, works in a completely different industry. And she credits culture with the spectacular growth of her company. This company has grown eighteen percent year on year, organically with no acquisitions for twenty years. Amazing. And she said it's all culture. And she said exactly what you said, which was the CEO gets it, right? The CEO gets the importance of culture, people, and leadership. And so therefore they invest ahead of the curve. Yeah. And she was even making the point how they invest more in compensation than their peers, more in benefits than their peers. If you look at their PL, they're spending much more on people. And a lot of people would look at that and be Why are you spending so much on people? And they're spending so much on people because it works. Yeah. Right. And and and it's the culture was a result of that. You got it. I mean, if you really can get people to run in their right swim lanes, right? So if you have an executive team that's setting vision and really working on the culture and doing those things, and then you unlock those people underneath to be able to make decisions as you've set out this vision, because you've talked about it, because you've lived it, because you've told them how you want them to Action, right? Like, do we have a do the right thing always? And so if you have the right culture that says do the right thing always, then you are going to get onto the front line and not have to worry because people understand and they talk about it and they move it forward and they go through. and so it just unlocks so much ours, potential thought process, right? All of those things that you get from your people that you don't get if you don't focus on culture and you're only worried about this number on the balance sheet, right? That just doesn't unlock anything. But Jill, you know, one of the interesting things is like if you're a business owner or on an entrepreneur or a startup founder with a small company and you're watching this episode, like a lot of people will look at this and be like, you know, culture is this thing of big companies do culture, right? Like Nike and Pepsi and Apple and Google, they all invest in culture and they all have these great cultures and but But the reality is, like, if you're addressing our audience, no matter what size business you have, and culture is so important, what are one or two things that you can do, no matter what your company size is, to improve the culture of your company? What should a person do? Where do they start? Yeah. You talk about it first and foremost, right? So yep, every team has its own culture and every company has its own culture, but you're a part of that. You're a microcosm. So how do you talk with your team and say, what is the culture that we want to create? create? What do we want to be a part of? And, you know, you make an assumption that everybody else likes your culture. but we know that's not true, right? Like we know some people love a upcoming, you know, I hit hard type of culture and other people are more no, I'm laid back. And so as a team, how do we define that? What does that look like? And then how are we going to hold ourselves accountable to that culture? Well, we're going to talk about it. And so we're gonna talk about where it worked and where it didn't work. And part of that, and I'm gonna come right back to feedback, is going, We talked about this from a culture standpoint, you did this, that feels like it's not in aligned with our culture. Right. And that person may or may not even know that, or the person giving the feedback might be off base and the other rest of the team might go. Well, that's not true. That might have felt like that for you because you were on the not favorable side of that. But we did talk right. Like however that works out. But if you don't give feedback around it and don't talk about it, you're making a whole lot of assumptions. And so that is my first and foremost is define it and talk about it. So you're all on the same page. Right. Define it and talk about it. How important an aspect are values when it comes to culture? Like a lot of companies have like these values and we have our corporate values and it's up on our wall and it's on our PowerPoint presentations or gammas or whatever. And then and then, you know, the reality is values really happen when when, you know, the boss isn't there and people have to make decisions on their own. Yeah. How how important are values? And yeah. I'm I'm a big believer that values are important because that means you did have a conversation around them to define what they are. I always say I don't know that it matters what they were. Right. Like you can take Nike or Google or any one of them with another Nike or Google or any one of them and look at the values and there's probably not that much difference. Right. There might be a little bit in wording, but ultimately when it comes down to it, everybody wants accountability, everybody wants respect, everybody, right, those types of things. And so they all show up and and so The importance to me is defining it. So then you have the words and the vernacular within your organization. So you know exactly what ownership means or you know exactly what empowerment means, right? Those are values that we have. We have one that, that means leadership. What does that mean? It means we talk direct with respect, right? That's very much that feedback side of it. And so to me it's about Talking about it so that then you can have examples on your team and it does where the rubber hits the road. So you can go, this is where we saw it, but this is where we didn't see it. Gotcha. And so I'm a believer in having them because I think then you have to do the work of talking about them to get them defined. And then you can go from there. Gotcha. Yeah. I mean, I I The best companies I've worked for had a very clear sense of values, but more importantly, I remember that the CEOs or the founders talked about the values often. And like one company I was at, they went so far as to develop Slack icons for each one of their values. And each time in conversations people would say or do something that were aligned, somebody would use the emoji. They'd be like, Way to go. That's like their think like an owner value. And then they'd like do the think like an owner emoji. Emoji. That's amazing. Way to reinforce. Exactly. And you know, since so many, particularly young younger people use Slack, you know, that that is that is one way to continue to to to get that in front of them and to remind them how important it is. Yeah. I love that. What a great idea. It's a cool idea. I really like it a lot. I really like it a lot. And, you know, my last startup, you know, which I ironically was a startup in leadership development in in Latin America of all places. I remember that I wrote the culture deck and our values and our purpose and our vision and mission before I wrote our business plan. Like I had a very clear idea of this is the kind of company that I want to lead and this is the kind of company that I want to work in. Yeah. And one of the things that worked very well for us was we dis we designed a whole list of questions for our interview process aligned to each one of the values. Yeah. It's so emotional. And we really made sure that the alignment on values was came ahead of skills. Absolutely. Right. If you don't have that, and I mean you see this in MA all the time of like, okay, if you acquire a company that just is not aligned with you on the values and what that looks like. You have such a mismatch, right? Like it doesn't matter the size or or what that looks like, but it causes so much challenge. We did that. And so it was before I came here. And so obviously I give all the credit to the CEO and the people before me where our first strategy meeting was exactly that. So it was a hundred of our top leaders coming together and saying, We defined what was on what we call now our one pager and it's what we live and die by. Right. And so we have our seven values that are outlined or our cultural behaviors we call them. We have the right top things that we're working on every year, then this is what's important, right? So we talk about best experience for our associates and our customers. And so like on one page, this is it. And it's in every deck that we present. And what are we aiming at? Cause if it's not one of these things, then it doesn't matter, right? Like it's not our priority. And so truly making sure that it comes, but you know, our like I said, our CEO wrote a book. He could have sat down and probably wrote the one pager, no problem. But bringing a hundred leaders together to duke it out over what are the words, what's on the page, what's not on the page, what right, like it really solidified the organization around how important it is and it's our rallying cry all the time. So it's our I mean, we say it, what's our one pager say? And that's what we go off of for sure. That's awesome. And I mean, you know, having a CEO who literally wrote the book on culture, I mean my God. So many so every single CHRO who is watching this right now is probably jealous of you. They're like, Can I please have that job? Can you please talk to my CEO? Right. I yeah, it's amazing for sure. Jill, last question before we head to our our lightning round of questions. All right. But I I have to ask this one because I'm really curious about what you think. In an age where there is so much change. Right, where we're being asked to do more with less, people are running like headless chickens, like full blast, you know, on this AI thing. We're we're being asked to embrace new tools, new ways of working, completely changing the way we work. It's requiring a lot of adaptation, right? And a lot of change from people. In your experience, what's the difference between the leaders who adapt and the ones who just stay stuck? I think the ones who adapt are I mean, we talked about it a little bit before. Comfortable saying, I don't know what the next iteration looks like and that's okay. Right. Right. So there's a there's a level of humility and vulnerability there. Absolutely. And also what do I need to know? So right, I so many of us were successful. Because we knew all the new things, all the new technology, right? Like I remember being the young person going, I'll learn that, I have no problem. And then going, I can't believe that they don't know this, right? I'll admit it. I was a little ego. But now I'm like, I have somebody on my team that's like amazing at some of the technology that we're using. And I'm like, I don't know it. I don't think I will know it. And in fact, maybe better not to, as long as I know. the capability and I don't hold anybody else back because I'm stuck in the old ways. And I can free myself up to say, great, she knows that. And that's her thing to go do. I'm gonna think up here and what does this look like and how can we do this and enable the work? Because I can't keep up anymore. Right. Both by nature of being a busy senior leader where you're like, okay, I'm not doing the work anymore. So I'm not forced to learn it. But I have zero problem going. There's technology out there that can help and fix and do. And I hope somebody on my team knows it. And I am going to enable that as much as I possibly can. But I have no idea what it is. So we'll learn it together. So it sounds like it's a combination of vulnerability for sure. You have to be willing as a leader to to answer the tough question, I don't know, which for some people, especially older men, present companies. I don't know, and you're like, my gosh, after somebody told you you don't have the right exact presence in the right, like it takes some humility for sure. It it does. I mean, like I I run an exercise with teams where like, you I'll I'll have like the leader of the group, you know, I'll challenge that leader to ask, you know, one question that whose answer they generally don't know the answer to in in in every meeting related to a particular issue. Because it forces that level of vulnerability and humility. And I think the other thing that you're pointing to as well, which is a harder thing to do, is that it feels like we have to learn to unlearn and get very curious about what's happening in the world, right? It's absolutely you know, it's like I'm gonna unlearn writing emails and copying everybody, and I'm going to now learn to take my meeting transcripts into Chat GPT or Claud or Copilot and and and and process it differently and go about it differently. It's it's it's it's coming back to being like we were with kids. Like when we were kids, the beauty about kids is they're always curious, right? You have four of them. You should know, right? They're like incredibly curious. It's like how do we come back to spark that level of curiosity for people? It's absolutely you got it. my God. my God. No, this has been great. This has been great. I I l I love these conversations, man. I could I could I could have you here for three hours. Before we wrap up I always do our lightning round of questions, same three questions. It's just v always very interesting to see people's responses. So are you ready for the lightning round? I think I am as ready as I could be. All right, here we go. question number one. If you could have one superpower, what would it be? teleportation. I want to be able to be places immediately and just get there, both from a personal go visit everywhere kind of thing, but also professionally, like what better way to put Boots on the ground and go see everything in person. I agree a hundred percent. I have to fly to Panama at like seven o'clock in the morning. That power would be really convenient. Absolutely. Question number two: if you could have dinner with anyone in history, alive or dead, who would it be? I would have dinner with Judas. Wow, interesting. I I yeah, so you know. Jesus would have been my first and understanding that. But then I'm like, you know, I really kind of want to know like, okay, what went through when you made that decision, the opposite decision? How did that work? Yep. Yep. Fascinating. Fascinating. I've had a I've had a number of people say Jesus, but I've never had somebody say Judas. Very interesting. cool. I love that. You're a contrarian. Yeah, absolutely. And and and lastly, question number three if there was one piece of advice that you could give a young person. Looking for a career of meaning and purpose, what would you tell them? Yeah, stay true to yourself, believe in yourself, find your network of people who will give you truth about you so that you don't either have to believe everything people tell you about yourself and you can help distill the truth and stay true to who you are. And it's possible. So that's the other piece of that. It can be done and Sometimes the journey just takes a little bit. Yeah. No, you you've certainly done that. so I think that's that's that's great advice. And it is very difficult for people, especially you with younger, more inexperienced people, right? There's always this the this Instagram fascination with us being somebody that we're not, right? Yeah, absolutely. Well I always love the phrase. No, no, go ahead. Well I just I think there is this fascination of getting there right away, but we also can't discount the current that you're doing. Absolutely. Right. And so it you might not be able like my law book editor phase, I was like, I don't know what put me here. I certainly didn't plan to be a law book editor. but I look back and had I not had that experience, I wouldn't be here today. And so don't discount any of the experiences that you have. Agree. Agree a hundred percent. A hundred percent. Jill, so you know, thank you so much for this conversation. Thank you for for going Back to that that that difficult conversation at the V at the beginning of your career with me. I think you know, that's those those tough conversations, those tough experiences are ultimately would define us. You know, thank you for sharing your your wisdom, your experience, your views on leadership, views on feedback, views on culture. it sounds like you're certainly in a place where where people really, you know, walk the walk on this, which which is great. And I hope people take something away from this conversation about. what it really means to lead, what it means to create culture, what it means to give and receive feedback, because it is such an underrated skill at a time where we're being asked to make so many changes. So to all of you out there, you know, who tuned in for this episode, you know, if if you got something out of this, make sure to leave a like, leave a comment or a question if you have one. Make sure, of course, that you subscribe to the channel. We drop new episodes every single Thursday, you know, talking about these kind of things. And Jill, thank you so much again for the conversation. Really enjoyed it. And look look forward to having you back on the show at some point. Anytime. It was really great. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. You're welcome. You're welcome.