[00:00:00] Lisa: Have you ever implemented a wonderful program that you worked incredibly hard on and then were dismayed later on after months, years when it became apparent that it was no longer making the great, it's easy to let things be as they are. And yet that's how opportunities get met. Listen to this episode for some common sense, inspiration on becoming more consistently agile and responsive to changing needs.
My guest is Krista Clark, who is talent leader at Liberty utilities. Krista is responsible for anything talent at Liberty, from succession planning to leadership development. And she's had a really busy year rolling out some major talent program. Previously, she built her deep knowledge of talent management across various industries, ranging from TAC to aviation, to consulting, to retail.
She enjoys problem solving and figuring out how to support and equip the leaders in her organization. Krista is the real deal, an authentic smart leader, and a lovely human being. Enjoy the show.
Hello, and welcome back to talent management truths. I'm your host, Lisa Mitchell. And today my guest is Krista Clark. Christa is a senior talent leader currently leading the talent function at Liberty utilities. it's a real pleasure to have her on the show today. She and I go back a little bit. We actually worked together when she was in another role and we crossed paths, but didn't know it and yet another role.
So, with that, Chris, I want to welcome you here today. And I'm really looking forward to our conversation.
[00:03:16] Krista: Thanks, Lisa for asking me, I'm really excited to, engage in this conversation with you.
[00:03:21] Lisa: Yeah, well, I'm sure as usual every time we can act, we have lots and lots to talk about. So, you know, you're somebody that always interested to talk to you because you bring a real common sense kind of approach to the work you do. Could you perhaps fill in myself and the listeners around what you're responsible for in your current role?
[00:03:40] Krista: Sure. So my current role I'm responsible for anything talent. So from succession planning to talent reviews, to calibration, to. Development and everything else that kind of falls under that umbrella. So, I've been with Liberty just over a year now and we've been doing some really great work in that space.
[00:04:01] Lisa: Excellent. Wonderful. Well, so how did you fall into the area of talent in the first place?
[00:04:08] Krista: Yeah, it's funny. You should say that. And I literally fell into, I think a lot of people that end up in HR fall into HR somehow. And I was working in a role and there was an issue happening and Kind of a unique solution. And I just happened to run into the CEO one day and I was sort of telling him, you know, we could solve this problem by doing X, Y, and Z.
And next thing you know, I got a phone call. They asked me to take this project on and there was a huge training component to that project. So, right off the bat, I was developed. Training and then rolling the training out. And I realized that I had a bit of a knack for it, and it was something I really enjoy doing, connecting with people, teaching them a new skill.
Seeing those light bulb moments when it kind of clicked with people. And I really enjoyed, you know, part of it was that storytelling, getting it, the learning to solidify through stories and antidotes and and I just kind of. Got passionate about it. And then I ended up with a daughter that had learning disability.
so working with her, she didn't learn in a traditional sense. So realizing that people learn different ways. And, and then from there I got into talent. So, it was a pure accident, but it was a, it was a great accident.
[00:05:26] Lisa: I love that you shared that, you know about your daughter because you know, her experience, the, the silver lining in it, if you will, is that it kind of opened up your understanding to, you know, just how many different ways there are to learn. Not that, you know, the, the, the older, traditional ways don't always work for every single person we ended.
[00:05:46] Krista: Yeah, exactly that. And I mean, it, it lends itself well to talent because. Not every solution fits every problem. And that's a lot of what I do is problem solving and figuring out unique ways to, to solve some of these talent challenges that we find ourselves in.
[00:06:04] Lisa: Yeah. So, so when you talk about that problem solving or, you know, trying to find unique, unique solutions, you know, what's an example of that, like a recent example of something that would have come across your.
[00:06:15] Krista: Well, the organization that I'm in right now, Liberty. They've grown a lot through acquisition. So, leaders have come into the organization with various degrees of knowledge and understanding about leadership and what their responsibilities are. So. When I started with the organization, it became quite apparent very quickly that we needed to do some level setting.
So we needed to put some foundational leadership development in there. So, in the past year I've rolled out two programs and next year, Roll out a third program. And it's, it's those foundational leadership. It's the basic skills. It's getting them to understand what their role is as a leader.
You know, I truly believe most leaders come into work every day and they want to do their best. And how do we support and equip them with the tools that they need to be able to do their best to support their people. And right now we've got a unique challenge. Like we're hiring people that have never met their leader, have not met their teams have not even been into their offices.
So how do we get those employees connected to their leader into the organization when they're sitting at home? So that's been a unique challenge and working on things like onboarding, making sure that our onboarding program is robust. So it creates that as my CHL will say that stickiness to the organization and getting them and, and helping leaders understand that because, it's a unique situation for all of us.
But how do we support our leaders in making sure that they're creating that atmosphere?
[00:07:50] Lisa: What are some, some tactical ways that you would have them do that, but you know, how is it built into your onboarding program?
[00:07:57] Krista: So there's touchpoints. So we, we have the onboarding buddies that will help support them, making sure that there are. Touch points throughout the onboarding process conversations that leaders should be having with their people, getting them right away creating some goals, even some short-term goals to get them again, creating that stickiness to the organization giving them some quick wins, some accountability, and then building that relationship.
We also in bed things in there that gets them working with the team as well. So they get to know the team. The larger organization. So, a couple of programs we're working on how does the organization make money? So, you know, that's something so basic, but a lot of people don't have that fundamental understanding.
So that's something that we're going to put in for next year. It's just building some of those learnings that they're not going to get in the office right now, if they're sitting at home. So we need to create those opportunities for them to learn some of those skills.
[00:09:00] Lisa: Well, and it sounds like providing them more context or perspective so that they can see the direct line of sight to their own work. How do they contribute?
[00:09:09] Krista: Well, that's it. I mean, what they do, how it matters, how it ties into the bigger picture. And again, with everybody working at home, it's sometimes not apparent right away. So they, they need something a little bit more tactical to get them to make that Lincoln.
[00:09:25] Lisa: Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. Agreed. It is. an interesting landscape right now, right. With everything needing to be done through a deliberately set meeting in a lot of cases. Right. So I see a lot of organizations trying to figure out how do we, informalize some of that connection, right? So that we can.
I don't know, create more of, more of the relationships and so on, especially because some people have never met in person. It's, it's a really unique time in our history.
[00:09:50] Krista: And it is a challenge. If you think about it. Right now, the only way we can conduct business is via zoom or WebEx or whatever our medium is. And then to put something else on top of it, like a team build or one-on-one, you know, it sounds counterintuitive that, okay, we're already on zoom six hours a day.
Do we need to add more? But. Some of that work, those one-on-ones and those team builds are so important right now to get people to feel connected to the organization. Because we can end up missing that culture piece. Like, you know, people are coming into the organization, they, they may not get a sense of what the culture is because, you know, it's, it's a one-dimensional interaction that they're having.
[00:10:32] Lisa: Oh, I like that. You called it one dimensional. Cause that is it. It kind of goes to how you could describe, we're trying to have a multi-dimensional experience for employees, right. to operate in, in the context of the, of the company. Yeah. this, this idea that there's such meeting fatigue, and then you're saying, okay, now you're going to get on a training.
I was training the last two weeks. I did four half days with the same group over two weeks. And we actually had such a good time, you know, cause it wasn't too big a group. And I'm all about taking down the slides. Like you can have it to sort of start out or if you've got instructions for a breakup, but then take them down and just.
Have a conversation cause everybody can see each other then. Right. And you can, I think, I think we have to be deliberate about how we create energy in those team building or training that we do virtually so that it does feel distinct from the day-to-day meeting. Right. It's different. There's a different energy so that they can really be present and not, not check out early on if.
[00:11:31] Krista: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've put together for our whole HR group once a month meeting where it's providing information. But what we found is we've just started saying, so. How are you doing? Like, how are, how is everybody doing really? And it was one of our HR directors that started that conversation a few months ago.
And boy, I mean, there was 65 people on the call. And the chat was flooded and people were talking and you know, it kind of started something. So we started putting things together, like once a month, like, what do you do to relieve stress? What do you do to zap zoom fatigue? And then we did a holiday call the other day and it was just a serious.
Funny questions are fun questions. And they went into breakout rooms and they just talked amongst themselves. And the energy from the start of the call to the end of the call was just amazing. And, you know, I think we need to do more of that. And leaders have to think around that. Like we got to bring that fun factor back in to bring that energy back into work.
[00:12:38] Lisa: I, yeah, I agree. I'm, I'm about to, I'm not trying to make a plug for it, but I'm about to launch a new program in the new year called the talent trust. So it's, it's for talent management leaders and it's, it's a six month program. It's really a community. And it's interesting because as somebody who grew up, you know, began as a teacher, then a trainer, and in a content designer, you know, you want to start from the content.
What I've been finding though more and more is people simply, want to talk to each other and make meaning, you know, you start with a bit of framework or a model even, or a topic. And then. People have the time to figure out what it means to them. And then you can do a large group debrief.
So this, my new program is going to be much more about the space for people to be in proximity, to like-minded smart peers, so that they can kind of chew on concepts and figure out how do I make things, you know, come to fruition back in, in, in my own organization. But it's less about being taught something, right?
Cause you can get all sorts of. Training, you know, on LinkedIn learning and all these, you know, different kind of on-demand places now. But I think what people really need is, is that connection and that ability to work through concepts. Right. And figure out what do I actually do with them and not just learn them, not just be an empty vessel to take them in.
You know what I, mean?
[00:14:01] Krista: I, I think you're onto something. I mean, I think we're used to being in the workplace where if we have a challenge or a problem, or we're mauling something over, we're used to turning to the person to the right or left and kind of going, what do you think of this? We don't have that right now. So I think people are really kind of craving that because I do think it plays on confidence as well.
You're used to kind of getting. Instant validation where right now you're kind of working in that silo. And I think it does, I think it does affect people's confidence and that feeling of isolation and being disconnected. So I think you're really hitting on something where it's going to give people a chance to really kind of collaborate and talk and share ideas.
And I mean, we're built for human connection. Right. And last two years, we've, we've had a lot less than we've ever had.
[00:14:51] Lisa: Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's fascinating. So this I like how, you kind of framed, it, it, it, it is a, it is a confidence issue, right? When you're kind of operating on your own, it's easy to start thinking. you know, is this the right way to go? Like, cause you're, you don't have that chance to collaborate as much, or if you do, it's a little bit more formalized right.
Through these situations and so on. Right. Larger groups in that kind of thing. And if you're already tired and you've got the dog barking over here and the kids coming in from school, Right.
Like it's the contextually it's created this craving as you put it for for more. Just being able to chat, right.
One to one or in a smaller group where it feels kind of safe and you can just see where things go. It's interesting. So, w you know, when you think about your overall career, I mean, storied career, you've been at air Canada. You've been at rim, you know, all over it's impressive, different industries.
And so on, what would you say is the initiative, the talent initiative you're most proud of over that?
[00:15:52] Krista: I would say probably one organization when I started there, I was brought in to start up a learning and talent organization. And, when I started it was me and one other person In an organization that was ramping up really, really quickly. So we had to, so on one end, I was recruiting people in trying to get them integrated while we're we're, we're moving a million miles an hour.
But just create. Talent programs and learning and development programs and, you know, things like succession planning and calibration and creating pipelines and doing all of that, you know, great work, the nine boxes and so on and so forth. So, I would say that work I'm the most proud of because we got it up and going within about six months.
I built a team of about 43 people. Eh, I was really proud of that team. We did some really great work and you know, a couple of great lessons I learned. One was scalable, making sure that whatever you create, whatever you implement, it's gotta be scalable either up or down. So if the organization is in a rapid growth mode, how do you scale that program to be able to meet the demands of the organization?
Same if you know, things are slowing down. The other piece I learned was, short sprints of learning. So not have people tied up into a classroom for five days, but those shorter sprints just giving them what they need just in time. And that was a time at the same time. lynda.com was, was making its entrance.
And that was kind of the concept of lynda.com. And it just so happened. We happened to be doing that at the same time. So it was a bit of validation, like, okay, we're going on the right road, having those shorter sprints. And, you know, it was kind of saying goodbye to some of those. Legacy programs, you know, putting a learning and development program in that was going to run till the end of time where we realized, you know, the organization was moving so quickly.
We couldn't see three years down the road, what it would look like and what the business would need. So, you know, and it was learning that agility piece as well, that, you know, you gotta be able to turn on a dime, and you can't be so married to programs that if they've, they've lost their usefulness, it's time to retire those and move on to the next.
So, I'm most proud of that because I probably learned the most there and I've been able to recreate that in. Every role I've had since. And it's just, you know, bringing common sense solutions to problems that the business are facing.
[00:18:33] Lisa: Yeah, I think that sounds like a particular skill that you have is, is the, common sense kind of just sort of looking at something objectively and say, okay, what's the right way to proceed here. Now, when you're working with the business, How have you convinced them, you know, that this is the common sense way to go in some cases.
[00:18:51] Krista: It's a good question. I mean, the one that is tried and trued for me is the dividing conquer. So sometimes you're not going to convince the entire organization that this is the way to go. You know, if you use things like data, if you look at turnover numbers, if you look at engagement scores, if you know, you're talking to business leaders and, you know, they're having some unique or specific challenges.
You built that program. And what I do is I show them if their engagement numbers are low or their turnover is starting to go up. I show them that, you know, some of these things are going to help you with your engagement numbers, with your turnover numbers. So using data to kind of demonstrate, okay, here's what we can do for you.
And the. Having those follow-ups those touch points to make sure that whatever leaders are learning, they're applying it back on the job and then course correcting. So once you get some success with maybe a business unit that's struggling. They end up becoming your ambassadors. So they'll end up selling any program that you have, or, you know, they'll be talking to a business leader and say, well, guess what, this is what talent did for us.
They solve this problem. And our turnover went down by 10%. And you know, you create that buzz and then, you know, they will start to work with you, but I've had the most success with that kind of dividing conquer. Rather than trying to, to, you know, do a big bang. One of the programs I'm working on at Liberty right now, it was a bit of a big bang because.
The organization was hungry for it. They were ready for it and everybody wanted it. So, I've never actually been in this position where they've been kind of beating down the door to get in on this program. Normally I'm out there going to town halls and meetings and I'm selling it and I'm showing, you know, here's what this program will do for your leaders.
But I did get that buy-in very early from some of our senior leadership. And they've been great ambassadors to help move the programs forward.
[00:20:53] Lisa: That's wonderful to have that, that will beating down your door. Right. Wanting the
solution.
[00:20:58] Krista: happen often
[00:20:59] Lisa: Yeah,
[00:20:59] Krista: happen very often.
[00:21:01] Lisa: well, people always, you know, I think, you know, talent leaders, you're stuck in that squishy middle of the organization, right. Where everybody wants more and more and more. They're not always clear articulate on what exactly that is, but they want support.
And then when you come to the door with, with something, sometimes practically speaking people find it hard to make the time for it, or actually build it in, right. Like to actually commit once it's there.
[00:21:24] Krista: Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and that brings up a great point, Lisa. So what I always try and do is chunk things down. I try not to say, okay, you're going to spend two weeks in this program. You know, we do it in smaller chunks and we hit them more often. So, a program may last 10 months, but we may only talk to them once a week.
But we're giving them kind of those just in time, the tools I try to align it with the performance schedule of the year, like performance management, it all kind of aligns to make sense. So they're getting pieces of learning just before they start doing year-end conversations or calibration.
So you try and align it that way. And I found that to be the most effective.
[00:22:06] Lisa: Yeah, I agree with you. It's that bite-size piece over time and it's really a coach like approach, if you will. You know, when I think about, All the coaching work when I'm in coaching with clients it's around that you know, reflection, learning action cycle kind of thing.
Right. So it's people needing time to go out and apply experiment notice, right? What works, what doesn't and then come back and reflect again. Okay. So now what do I want? To go out and do what's the learning from that apply again. So when you're breaking it down over time and aren't in such a rush, right?
That, that you create the expectation. This is going to happen over several months, right? This isn't like a snap, your fingers. And it's great. It's something that you get to it's a cumulative process. I think that's, that's really important.
[00:22:55] Krista: Yeah. And then I find as well, when you do it that way I get a lot more people reaching out to me for that kind of in-between coaching. Like, you know, I've tried this and it's not working for me or what am I missing or how do I do more? When it's spread out, they have time to reflect. They have time to try something out and say, you know what, this isn't working for me.
I need a little bit more help and support. And how to do that. So, and it gives me that time to be able to help and support them as well.
[00:23:23] Lisa: Yeah. What would you say has been the most important, element, if you will, when it comes to sustainment, how do you get sustainment of learning really happening
[00:23:33] Krista: You know, it's yeah. I think that's a challenge. Every L and D or talent leader has, is how do you keep, keep it up? What I like to do with the team is, is always be looking at best in class. Not so much trends, but you know, is there a new way to think and do things so it's taking what you have.
Putting spins on it. Maybe the core stays the same, but you put a different spin on it to keep it relevant and to keep it meaningful. And again, it's doing. Twice a year. I go through our programs and I go from stern to stem and I make sure that it's all relevant. It's, you know, it's ready to go. It's still fitting the needs of the business.
So I think that's really important. And I think some leaders miss that step. So what will happen is over a couple of years, That content may get stale, and then you lose that momentum and people aren't as interested as coming in, coming to your program. So you've got to constantly keep it fresh to kind of keep that engagement and the excitement.
[00:24:42] Lisa: Yeah. I agree. I agree, because it's so easy to get caught up in the next, you know, initiative that you're trying to put out the door and stuff and. Complacent about, I'm not complacent, but just too busy to go back and review and everything has a shelf life, right. Especially these days where things move.
So, so rapidly things shift very, very quickly.
[00:25:03] Krista: Yeah. And I learned that lesson the hard way, Lisa, it's not like, it's not like I'm saying that I thought of this, you know, it was, I learned the lesson the hard way. I wasn't. Keeping my eye on the ball with respect to content. And I started to notice in another organization that enrollments were going down.
And it was because we weren't refreshing that content. So, I did learn the lesson the hard way.
[00:25:26] Lisa: Well, You know, something to celebrate, isn't it, right. That you noticed, and then you decided, okay, I'm going to change that going forward. It's it's, these not mistakes, but these, these things, these learnings along the way.
I think are so important, right. They bring us to, to where we are now.
[00:25:41] Krista: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, everybody is going to make, you know, mistakes or, you know, they're going to miss something, but again, that's how you learn, you know, it's oftentimes it's the things that don't go right. That you learn the most, then, you know, the things that are executed perfectly.
[00:25:57] Lisa: Yeah.
And, you know, in organizational culture, historically, you know, errors are not well tolerated, right? Like there's, you know, it's negative and just fix it now or, or learn that right. Pronto. And there hasn't been historically that, Understanding that learning over time is, more sustainable.
And that learning is actually not, or that, that, that, that failure or, you know, challenges are. Mistakes that brands somebody, but rather opportunities to figure out, you know, what does this mean going forward? Right.
How do you, like, how do we get at that particular issue? Actually, as I'm saying that out loud, like what, have you done or what ideas do you have around how we can normalize failure?
[00:26:39] Krista: That's an interesting question. I will say the culture where I'm at right now, Liberty there is uh, culture where people can admit mistakes and it doesn't define them. And I mean, I've always been the first one. If I make a mistake, I will always put my hand up and say, yep, I messed that up.
Here's what I learned. And it won't happen going forward. And I do tend to communicate it to other people because if I can save somebody. For making the same mistake that I've made. Why wouldn't I share that information? So, that's kind of the way I operate. I encourage my team to operate that way. And I think if other people see leaders being able to admit and be vulnerable and be able to have that psychological safety to say, yep, I made a mistake and here's what I learned.
And. Won't do that again. You know, I, I think it's, it's, it's really getting leaders to, to be, vulnerable and to be able to admit some of the mistakes that they've made and, you know, I've invited leaders to come and talk to groups to talk about. Okay. Tell me about your biggest mistake and what was the impact when, what did you learn?
And, you know, you'd be surprised, you know, like it, it builds that psychological safety quite quickly.
[00:27:49] Lisa: Yeah, well, and it, you know, mistakes errors. They're the ones we remember so vividly. Right? So they're huge in terms of learning value. So I think, you know, what I'm hearing from you is being very open and honest about it and choosing to articulate and share, not put it in a dark corner.
[00:28:07] Krista: Yeah. And not to say, look internally, I beat myself up. I'm my own worst critic. I am harder on myself than probably anybody else. But again, I will always share that. And I never judged somebody else for making mistake or, you know, what can I do to help you? What can I do to support you?
Or how can we solve this or fix it. So, I think we're probably harder on ourselves than anybody else would be. And I think some of the mistakes I've made in my first year at Liberty, right. I can probably name them and go through them. And I am confident that nobody else I work with can remember. Any of the mistakes that I've made,
[00:28:43] Lisa: Interesting. Isn't it? How, how it all works. All right. Well, so another question I had for you is, you know, when you look at, the last couple of years that we've had and all of the rapid changes in the world and people needing to be agile and on their toes and adapt and still support people.
What would you say are the biggest opportunities that talent management leaders have moving forward?
[00:29:06] Krista: Well, I think the last two years have really shaken up the landscape of working. And I think one of the opportunities right now, you know, like there's a buyer's market in the sellers market and in real estate right now it's a candidate market. Right. There's lots of opportunity out there. You know, for people to, to go and try something else we're watching the scrape resignation and people are kind of making different life choices and different decisions.
And I think the biggest opportunity is to be able to move. And drive culture. Like we haven't been able to do before. We're able to use the data of the turnover numbers and the engagement surveys, to be able to kind of show that, you know, investing in our people and, you know, having leaders.
Just to engage and have meaningful conversations and it's not a one size fits all. And as leaders, we have to lead our people the way they want to be led rather than, you know, here's my style and adjust to it. And I think there's an opportunity to encourage employees to start to take ownership of their own careers and their own learning and, being able to stand up and not sit and wait to be asked, what do you want to do?
But to be vocal and say, here's, here's where I'm interested in going. Here's how I need your support. Can you help me formulate a plan? So I think. We're in a good position right now to be able to kind of shake up some of these things and, and really encourage leaders to step up, but really encourage employees to step up as well.
And it's given us an opportunity to look at internally, look at our internal talent and move away from traditional pipelines and, and create pools of, talented employees that can go on and do. Different things in the organization, whether it's horizontal, whether it's vertical you know, it, I think there's just so much opportunity for us right now.
And I'm really working at capitalizing on that because, you know, I think we have a short window, I think after 26, Two things may change, you know, things may turn around and it may be more of a balanced market again. So, that's kind of, I've used it as an opportunity to drive and, and push things.
[00:31:24] Lisa: Brilliant. Sees the J Krista.
[00:31:28] Krista: Yeah.
[00:31:28] Lisa: No, no, that's a, really, really relevant and timely advice, right? Like let's, yes, it's been complex and people have been dragged into, you know, committees and task forces for vaccine mandates and all sorts of things heaped on top of shoulders that weren't there previously.
And there's some net new ways of looking at things that this has sort of created that, that opportunity to do that. really interesting. Okay. So we are nearing the end of our time together, and I would like to, ask you another question, which is around what's. The best kind of could be a book or course, or resource that you've encountered recently that you'd like to share with our listeners.
[00:32:08] Krista: Boy. That's, that's a good question. I mean, I took a break from reading. I was doing a lot of listening to podcasts and I've been doing a fair amount on LinkedIn learning as well. Especially in the DNI space because I didn't feel like I was educated as much as I should be. You know, I've been an ally and a friend.
I, I felt like I needed to know more. So I've been doing a lot on linked in learning which if anybody is looking for a great resource, especially Randy and I LinkedIn learning has been great. I've been doing some readings, so right now I'm three quarters of the way through, The high five habits with Mel Robbins.
And that's kind of more of a personal, because I mean, I think we've all been affected by COVID in the last two years. And I felt like I needed to shake things up a little bit and look at something from a different perspective. So I always find, she's, she's quite good for that. The other person I've become intrigued with is Dorie Clark.
And she just published a book called the long game and I actually have it sitting right here. And as soon as I finished the Mel Robbins, this is going to be my Christmas rate. And it's about how to be a long-term thinker in a short-term world.
So, I'm interested cause it's about leadership and, when things have such a short shelf life, how are you thinking strategically and how are you thinking long-term so I'm quite interested to see what she has to say with respect to that. So, that's kind of what I've been been looking at recently.
[00:33:42] Lisa: Mm, I love that topic too. I'm going to look that game up My or that, that, that game look up the book the long game myself. Thanks for sharing that. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time today and for sharing you know, some insight into, into what you do and Some of the successes and the challenges along the way, I think it's going to be very interesting for the audience, so thank you very much.
[00:34:04] Krista: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
