LM Ep 87
[00:00:00] Ah, summertime popsicles, road trips, family time. But before you know it, it's September back to school. Back to back to back meetings and the realization that there's only one quarter left before 2024 rings in and you still have so much to do. [00:01:00] Did your heart rate just quicken even thinking about it? If so, I have a couple of questions for you.
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And I can help I'm really good at business casing. So book a free call with me today to work on your business case [00:02:00] and just to explore if the program's a fit for you. Don't wait until it's too late and you have no time or budget left. Go to the talent trust.ca to book. I can't wait to help write your case.
How many times have your life and career thrown you some curve balls? If you're like me and today's guest, it's a big number. So how do you lead while acknowledging that all of us are experiencing change almost constantly. In this episode, we start to dig into what this looks like from a practical perspective.
My guest is Melissa Law. Melissa has more than 25 years of progressive leadership experience spending five industries. She's had the opportunity to work with several large Canadian organizations, including Walmart, acon, and Rera. At present, she is vice President, culture, talent, and OD at Liberty Utilities.
Melissa is such an awesome guest that this episode marks her fourth time on the show. You can hear [00:03:00] our other conversations in episodes one 18 and 35. I hope you enjoy listening to two talent fanatics, geek Out together. Once again, thanks for listening.
Hello and welcome back to Talent Management Truths. I'm your host, Lisa Mitchell, and today I am joined Bye, the beautiful Melissa Law for the fourth time. Fourth because she's so awesome and we just have to keep having these conversations. So Melissa Law is the vice president of, I'm probably gonna get the title wrong, but you can correct me of.
Of talent at Liberty Utilities. And today we are digging into a really important topic that Melissa suggested which is all around leadership development in the face of uncertainty, which is top of mind, I know for all of my clients and podcast guests in the last while. Melissa, welcome to the show again.
Awesome. Thank you very much for the warm. We welcome Lisa. I'm excited to be here. Yeah. So [00:04:00] what is, what is your title? Just, just. Because I know I didn't do it justice. I'm sorry. That's okay. It's a really long one and abbreviation is always helpful. It is officially Vice President of Culture, talent and Organizational Development.
However, I will often go with different micro versions of that for simplicity's sake. Fabulous. Well, I love it. So listeners, you can find Melissa, I. Three other times in the roster of over 80 episodes. So she was my first guest. And was working for another organization at the time, came on a second time was actually working for herself.
And she is also a coach and consultant. And then has joined Liberty came on again. We, we talked about succession planning very specifically. yeah, so today really want to, to talk about this important topic because I think people are often looking for a very clear. Solid. Easy answer. And I don't think there is one.
So when you and I had coffee about a month ago had lunch really, and you brought up the topic, what, [00:05:00] what got you thinking about leadership development in the face of uncertainty? you know what, I would love to profess that I came up with this grandeur idea. However, I didn't so at Lisa, I was invited to speak at the April l and D leaders event in Toronto at the Western Harbor Castle.
And they had this topic of leadership development in the face of uncertainty and asked if I would speak to it. And of course my initial reaction always like, yeah, sure. And then I started to look at it and I'm like, well, I don't know. I'm. I'm not a subject matter expert on uncertainty and leading through there.
And, but when I went through the process of thinking, okay, what are the core messages? How can I provoke reflection, introspection, thought, even just. More awareness with my peers across the industries. I got really into it and quite passionate about it and even just learning some things myself. So that's how I came around to it.
And then also wanting to share it with you when we had lunch.[00:06:00] Beautiful. Well, it, it's I mean, we've, we've just gone through three, three tough years with a pandemic. I mean, who would've ever thought that we'd, live through that. Right. There's there's been a lot of uncertainty. I was just reading an article actually that was published on the weekend and in this, the Toronto Star about the underground paths.
System downtown Toronto, which used to be sort of my stomping grounds. And they had this picture of first Canadian place pretty much e empty cause it's really taken a hit down there. And, you know, all of those businesses and the, the companies that, you know, the 17 towers that have part of the path, I mean, there used to be incredible traffic going through there before the pandemic shut thing you know, shut things down.
And now with hybrid work being more and more embraced, if you will it's pretty much. Empty like Mondays, Fridays, and weekends. And they could never have foreseen that right now. Will it stay that way forever? Maybe not. Maybe it'll come back. And they've really had to adjust how they use some of the space, how they, you know, the types of businesses that they've attracted.
I mean, [00:07:00] that's uncertainty right there. It's, it's created like a seismic change. Yeah. Well, and you know what resonates for me about that, Lisa, is, you know, you're giving an example of an infrastructure and you know, a bi, the business is the grid and how it's worked. And I think back to a conference I had attended in November, 2022, and one of the, the speakers there, Nicole Haggerty from Ivy School of Business, she was up talking about the digitally savvy C H R O.
I almost didn't go to her talk because I'm just gonna be human for a moment, say, I don't know if I was totally interested. However I did, and I'm so glad that I did because her opening and her whole content was fabulous, but her opening grabbed me. She had me at Hello, because she actually introduced this concept of uncertainty by sharing a very.
Human reflection. When she started the presentation, Lisa, she, she had a picture of [00:08:00] her over 20 years ago holding her baby, her son. Oh. And of course I went like, oh wow. The picture her point though was she said, you know, when I had my son, I didn't know what to expect and I didn't even know how to raise him because how could I imagine, how could I prepare him?
For a future that I couldn't even yet imagine. Right. And that got me thinking. And, and as I started to spend some more time with this topic, you know, it resonated as a mom, it resonated for me quite intensely. I have two daughters and if I thought, when I think back 20 years, lemme put it this way, personally, I.
20 years ago, I could never have predicted the things that I would go for through in life. I wouldn't have predicted that, you know, I would have gone through a divorce and remarried to someone. I would never have predicted that I would have two daughters, and both daughters would [00:09:00] struggle with mental illness.
I could not have predicted that I would experience job loss. Not once, but multiple times in our family. Right. When I think e even further, it, it's, you know, you talked about the pandemic and the changes in that grid system. I couldn't have predicted, you know, within 20 years we'd be having a pandemic.
I certainly couldn't have predicted eight consistent interest rate hikes that would drive mortgage rates. Up through the roof and you know, I'm really gonna date myself here, but I certainly couldn't predict it. The re. The departure and the return of Zellars. Oh, so I went heading over there. I gotta see Zellars.
That was my first credit card. Like what? So if I think those are, that's just one handful of. Things that as a person and a human being, 20 years ago, these weren't on my radar. I didn't know, but somehow [00:10:00] I have managed to lead through this uncertainty and sit here and have a laugh and chuckle and hang out with you.
And so I think a lot of times we might feel a little bit of overwhelm as leaders no matter what function, what capacity that. Uncertainty is only, you know, it, it's something super complex and it applies to business. But when I reflected after listening, Toko back in, in November and sat with this topic, you know, uncertainty isn't just about business and teams and industries and economies.
Uncertainty is life. Oh, it is. And it's also not about just things that, that, that Other people or circumstances due to us. It's stuff that happens for us internally. Cuz I was like listening to you talk. I mean, my son just turned 17 two days ago, my beautiful boy and he's, you know, he does things that I would never have expected.
He texted his aunt and uncle, my, my brother and his wife who have [00:11:00] the exact same birthday, first thing in the morning like. Because I asked him at the end of the day, oh, did you connect with anybody for your birthday? And he says, oh yeah, I texted Aunt Jill and Uncle Doug right away on his own. We didn't ask him to do that.
I'm thinking, okay, so there's this maturity. And when he was a baby, I remember laughing with friends that every time I thought I had his routine nailed, I was like, okay. We figured, okay, like I know what the nap times are. I know what the feeding, like whatever it was, he'd go and change on me. Right? He'd, he'd, he'd, all of a sudden he'd hit a new stage.
Terrible twos talking at threes, whatever it was. And so I had to adjust. And then I think about myself. I was a teacher, you know? Yeah. And a French teacher. And that's, you know, I did it for two years and I've talked about it before, but I didn't know until I got there after studying. And, you know, always sort of, you know, aiming for that particular goal that I wouldn't really love it.
And it was such a shock to me. It took me four years to get over it when I left. To [00:12:00] actually let get myself some slack that it was okay. So I think that that is interesting cause we've got these internal and external tensions and things that come up org in organizations and personally that, that we're always needing to contend with.
So when you think about that and you look at what does that mean for developing our leaders, what comes to mind? Yeah. Well, you know, there, there's a couple of things that come to mind, and that is the first piece is what's the environment that we're encouraging people to not just survive, but thrive in when times are uncertain.
Because every year is gonna be uncertain. Right? And you and I had had chatted previously just. In a brief moment around, you know, for so long we've talked about learning culture, you need to have a learning culture. And I'd really like to just kind of blast that phrase out of the water because you and I were chatting about, well, you know what creates a [00:13:00] learning culture and that is having a place where, People feel psychologically safe to be able to experiment and trial, succeed, fail to share ideas, to ask questions, to admit mistakes.
And you know what, if I think about my life, I've had to do all of those in my life, right? And that's the kind of environment we need to ensure we have professionally and at work in order for people to navigate uncertainty, because there is no silver bullet, there is no direct answer. And the pure premise.
Of navigating uncertainty means that you're gonna make mistakes because nothing is certain. And how do we create the, the skills and the the abilities to be able to do that? So the first thing that comes to my mind, Lisa, is making sure that we've got the type of culture, the environment around us that allows [00:14:00] us to learn as we live.
Yeah, learn as we live. Actually, there's this song and it's, it's a bit, it's a bit hokey listeners, but I love it. And it's called grow As As We Go. And it's been something anyways, and I, and I love it because it's this idea that, It's about a a couple and, and, and the guys singing basically, you don't have to leave me in order to grow.
We'll grow as we go together, and it's actually really beautiful. You can find it on Spotify. It just sort of came into my stream one day and I was like, I really like that because with the learning culture piece, I think you're right. Like it's that terminology's been around for decades and nothing wrong with it.
I don't think it's often well, Defined, articulated, understood. Right. And so people cannot learn if they do not feel safe. Yeah. They also don't learn by just getting thrown in a training course for one day and coming out and there's absolutely no effort to help them make it stick. So [00:15:00] reflective learning is part of a learning culture.
Experimentation is. And ultimately it's about helping people learn to be more agile. Yep. I, I agree wholly. And you know, the, the, the concept of becoming agile, I think is synonymous with knowing oneself and. So how do we help people to be able to really build their self-awareness and, and I'm sure there might be some listeners that are maybe rolling their eyes and going, well, of course people need to be self-aware, you know?
Well, you know what? I would say for about 40 years, I said I was a very self-aware person. And then somewhere in my mid forties, early to mid forties, I realized I wasn't half as self-aware as I thought because I was aware of all the useful stuff, all the good stuff. What I wasn't fully aware of and accepting of were the things that got in my way and that blocked me and actually brought [00:16:00] out the less the less wonderful side of me.
You know, the way that I would cope, the, the. The need to control things you know, the tendency to judge or to blame, and those were some pretty nasty things. But they, they were important to be able to build awareness around. And so when I think about that, you know what? When I said, you know, it's kind of self-leadership, it's, it's starting to really connect with oneself, no matter strip away your title.
And the, one of the best things that we could do in organizations is to build awareness and acceptance around being human. And that means that we are perfectly imperfect. Okay? We're gonna have, we're gonna have. Emotions of doubt and stress and fear and overwhelm and, and all of these things as we navigate this uncertain path and we, with those.
Emotions. There are thoughts and there are narratives, and there's [00:17:00] ways that we show up. And so I think one of the, you know, in that safe environment, one of the best things that we can do is help to help the people on our teams and in our organizations to really connect and become truly, genuinely vulnerably, self-aware.
And then with that we can. Each individually recognize what are some of the pieces we need to accept about ourselves so that then we can build that muscle of self command and be able to navigate through that change in a way that resonates with us. And, and I'm, I'm quite passionate about this. As you mentioned, I, I am a professional coach.
I have a, a, a blog, a number of blog series that I write under sunrise coach.coaching.com ca, And the one that I'm writing right now, I'm just going through sort of the, the difference between reaction and response and talking about the response loop and. I [00:18:00] haven't gotten there just yet, but coming up in this series is talking about those three traits, those three mental muscles that can make a transformative difference for an individual and a team when we really do embrace self-awareness, self-acceptance, and self command.
Yeah. So I'd love to, to, to dig into, to those muscles and sort of, you know, talk about this somewhere because It is so interesting that in the end it is all about what we think and we don't have to believe everything we think, but, but there's these stories, there's these faulty stories on repeat often, and that's, you know, when we really tune into those and don't even notice it's so unconscious.
That's when we get in our own way over and over. And I, you know, I was sharing with you before we went live just about, I'm taking this wonderful course right now. It's just a mini course around around marketing and tiny marketing actions with Pamela Slim. And I really recommend it for any entrepreneurs that might be listening.
And what's so interesting and what was unexpected is[00:19:00] she not only provides ideas for doing marketing, and you'll understand the tangent in a second. She talks about mindset and how we get in our own way. Because, you know, for for listeners that haven't worked for themselves, you. You'll be familiar with the inner critic for sure, and imposter syndrome as an entrepreneur.
It can be even stronger in some cases when, because you're in a position to sell and to ask people to part with money for your services and you are basically the product. So this is a very vulnerable, uncomfortable place to be in. And it's something I've been really working on in the last year or two years with my coach around, you know, remembering like, like the stuff that I do.
The talent trust. You know, my, my individual coaching, I know it works based on the feedback I get. So when I am out there offering it to people, inviting them to consider joining me, I need to come from a place with the energy that I know this is a great program, and if it's a fit, excellent, but I'm not desperate for your money.[00:20:00]
I'm here offering you real value. You know, because if I come at it from a place of, oh, I'm worried they're gonna think I'm slimy because you know, I'm selling. then my energy is going to change and so shall my result. So it's this idea. You know, what Pamela says is, I can't worry about that. I've gotta sh I've gotta think about how I show up because that person's reaction quote is none of my business.
It, it, it's so true. And, and it is a learning that if we can all take that, it takes a huge weight off of our shoulders. Right. And you talked about that, that inner narrative, that inner critic, if we lead with that, you know, Ooh, I'm slimy, I'm trying to sell this. Or if I lead with it, you know, thinking I'm a fraud.
I've never done this before. I don't know what I'm doing, my. Inner narrative, my inner critic will trigger someone else's. And then what tends to happen in business and in life [00:21:00] is that our inner critics start having dialogues rather than our open collaborative, you know, supportive selves. And Wow, that's just that's just demotivating.
And so when we think about leading through uncertainty, it really does start with me. It starts with, My self leadership in creating space to pause so that I can become aware and I can mentally choose how do I wanna show up and what do I wanna do? Because at the end of the day, that's only thing I have control over is me.
Absolutely. I think we've made a pretty solid case, you and I for why being able to lead in the face of uncertainty and to, to help leaders develop their skills in this starts with self. So, so let's dig into what can we practically do as talent management leaders to help leaders?
There's that word again in our [00:22:00] organizations, from your perspective. Yeah. And, and I would encourage talent leaders to think about leaders is everyone in the organization whether you are leading the organization, a division of function, a team, or yourself. Everyone is a leader and I think, oh, hallelujah.
Love that. Thank you. That, yeah, that's my, my, my first piece of advice would be, Tackle this from a perspective of everyone. We're all a bunch of human beings leading ourselves. And how we lead ourselves impacts how we work together and the success of the outcomes that we generate both individually and collectively.
And so when I think about practic, getting beyond even just traits and behaviors and things that we can look to, to socialize, normalize it, and, and help people. Become aware of, from a talent leader perspective, the, there's three things that I would say. One is that make a plan and make it a flexible plan.[00:23:00]
So anyone who, who knows me, and I think we might've even, I might've raised this in previous things. I'm a fan of building the airplane in the air, right? Put the g p s in and then smooth things out as you go because you can't, you can't predict the weather. You don't know where there's gonna be a tailwind or, or, or not.
And so that flexible plan will often encourage people create your plan in segments of three, because anything beyond years is I don't know, a game of ysi. You know, like who knows what those dice are gonna lay out there. Yeah. Keep it short. Keep it in a three year span. So, Figure out, you know, what are my core promises?
What are the outcomes that I'm driving for? And then be able to weave into that. Then, okay, so you know, what are the components of this that are most important to us? And the nice part about creating a plan over three years is I like to take it in phases, because all too often we think it has to be [00:24:00] perfect, right?
Mm-hmm. So in the concept Yeah, well then I'm gonna sit here and I'm gonna make a really pretty plan that's not practical and it's not gonna come into place. So what I will often do is I'll say, listen, year one is really around laying the foundation or res cementing the foundation depending on where you're at in your organization.
So you know, don't go jumping to the end. Go back and say, what do I need to? To do to create a solid base, solid foundation. Year two builds on that. It's not about doing more and different things. It's now about, okay, I have the, This foundation, how do I start to shift mindsets and how do I get people to come along with me on this talent journey, or whether it's talent practices in general, or whether it's a learning approach.
How do I shift mindsets and then, Year three becomes, okay, we've got some momentum. How do we embed and build momentum in the organization? And so I think we, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves as talent leaders [00:25:00] that we have to have all the answers and we have to have everything perfect. No, we don't.
In fact, one of the greatest keys to success is having a flexible plan that can be adaptable or even more so agile. Well, so true from a strategy perspective, but then I always talk about, you know, having. Frameworks, like even just around your programs or models that are flexible, because again, there's the uncertain piece, right?
Things change. So if you, if you acknowledge that upfront, accept that and plan for that. Yeah, I think that. It can save you from, from some unpleasant reactions down the road. Absolutely. And then you mentioned the word agility earlier, and I, I think that is something that is really important to build across leaders at all levels, but it's also important.
Important in this concept of a flexible plan. And it goes beyond flexibility and adaptability because it's not just about being able to change course, it's also knowing when do I accelerate [00:26:00] and when do I take my foot off the gas? Mm-hmm. And that's the key to agility. It's not just about being nimble and changing course, it's around apply the gas.
Pull off the gas and being able to know that along the course of the journey as well, because there's a time and a place for everything, but we don't know when and where that is. Well, and that's a very conscious decision, right? To sort of notice and go, okay, am I going too fast? I need to like, Slow up a bit.
Going to slow. Could I pick it up? You know, just to, to move towards a particular milestone and then take a breath. There's also this concept you just made me think of it, it is, is I'm really fascinated by seasonality and talked about it on a, a recent recording actually, but you know, I've really noticed this.
Theme in my life. It's always easier in hindsight but particularly over, over the last, you know, since the pandemic, a lot of personal stuff has hit and there's this idea of, of a field that gets overused and has no [00:27:00] more nutrients, no more energy. And so needs to lie fallow for some time needs to be let be.
Yeah. Let it regenerate. Looks like nothing's happening, but something is happening. So there's this all, also this idea that sometimes. The right decision is to, is to let go even if only temporarily. Yes. Certain programs that no longer are meeting the need because there's something more urgent, something more timely, you know, particular, whatever it is.
I mean, I remember, I probably brought this up when you and I talked about succession planning, but years ago, you know, we'd, we sort of have this process we built, spent a lot of time and energy on it, and it worked for about three years and then it didn't work anymore because people didn't want the same approach.
They didn't wanna be in a room for two, three days on, on end or whatever it was. And so we had to be flexible and agile in, in responding to that and still moving that agenda forward. Well, and, and that brings sort of that, that reinforcement that people are in a different place in year three of a plan than they [00:28:00] were in year one.
Yes. So come back to, okay, let's be flexible, adaptable, agility, whatever agile, whatever you choose in there. Just don't be rigid. Yeah. Right. Because rigidity, I. Is synonymous to constriction. And constriction doesn't allow you to move and to grow. So we, we need that more relaxed approach to be able to feed into expansion, right?
Mm-hmm. And that's where we can be more agile. Yeah. I love, I love that language. It's so funny cuz when I feel like I'm grinding and I'm overwhelmed, I'm, I'm literally sort of in that atlas pose, you know? Yeah. Made of the world on my shoulder and, and yet when I am in possibility, I'm, well, I call it my grace pose.
I'm expansive. Right. Like, shoulders are back. I feel, you know, you can feel it physically, right? You physically, absolutely. Yeah. Well, you know, so something that's, that's. Coming up for me because I'm, [00:29:00] I'm actually really fortunate to be working with, with a couple of companies right now, where we're the culture in, in one case in particular, has been extremely toxic.
There's, there's, you know, I had four separate people call me, tell me that it was a blame and shame called. So there was a real top-down issue and I have been, In awe to see the impact of not just intervention development at a program level across the E L t and, and, you know, all the different layers of leader, leaders and so on.
But the. Use of individual attention to help each per, because if it starts with self, each self needs help that's very specific to them and, and what gets in their way. Right? So this use, the use of individual coaching and also group coaching or team coaching, which is, is not as, you know, just. It's not teaching, it's not straight workshop facilitation or, you know, it's literally helping [00:30:00] teams work together in a more agile, clear and kind way, right.
So that they can, you know, have the conversations, the, that lead through impasse and two momentum. Any thoughts on that? Cause I, I've just, it's really on my mind lately, just how powerful that is. Yeah, of course. So I think the, the one piece that comes back to me is that concept of self-awareness, right?
And self-acceptance. If we go back to the, the earlier conversation around, it's not just about putting out a bunch of courses that people can take. I'll be honest with you, I don't think any course I have done. Is the reason that I have changed, the reason that I have grown. It might have been interesting, intriguing, and, and caused a hmm, for me.
However, the, the real work in impacting behavior change is around tailoring it to each specific [00:31:00] individual. Because I'm different than you. I have different strengths. I have different. Inner critics voices that are talking to me. And so I think it's really, really important that in organizations that we're looking at, it's not about providing a whole bunch of canned courses to people, but they might be nice to kind of.
Intrigue them on a topic and get their attention, But the real change comes through when an individual at a level in the organization can work through and start to say, so what about this is resonating for me? What is it that I'm noticing? And that's why when we start to shift into the, you know, the good old.
70, 20, 10% model. You know, 10% is around the formal learning. 20% is about learning from others, and so there's a lot of power and impact that can come through mentoring relationships and coaching partnerships because they focus on me as the unique individual and it can help me identify no matter what my [00:32:00] role is or my level or my contributions, it can help me identify how do I show up, what do I do?
And what emotions or impacts does that generate? And then I can do a self-check back too. Is that in alignment with my values, with the company values? Or is there something else going on here that I need to actually alter and change? So I think there's a lot of power in learning through others, whether it be we have a program called Interconnect here at Liberty where you can job shadow with another.
Person and you can understand their perspective and their how their job works, right? Or whether it is mentoring formally or informally, or whether it is individual coaching or team coaching. Those things really do pull out so that you can fully step into that 70% of learning on the job. Because if I'm gonna, it goes back to that whole piece of uncertainty of I don't know what's gonna happen one day from [00:33:00] the next.
I don't know what next year's gonna look at. And so that 70% of learning is happening through trials and errors, mistakes, successes, iterations, sharing of ideas, asking for help, all of those pieces. So they, it, it. Flows beautifully into let's create space for, for people to be individual human beings at work.
Agreed. Yeah. Yeah. And I, and I think you know, I appreciate you bringing up the whole 70, 20 10 idea of, of how we, create hybrid learning experiences for best effect, right? So that people really get that experience, exposure, education. But, you know, and, and don't worry about the numbers, listeners, I, I, you know, I learned years ago, there's no, there's no one perfect answer.
And some people have challenged this model outright, but overall, what I stand behind is the more you can give people exposure, experience with. The action reflection, learning loop. [00:34:00] Yeah. And opportunities to repeat it. So, you know, so they might have a, a little bit of learning, and then they have an opportunity, a forum a a, a coach, a workshop, whatever it is, a peer conversation to reflect and kind of chew on that learning.
And then a chance to then apply a tiny action step resulting from it to start that experimentation piece. The more powerful, the more integrated the learning becomes over time. Yeah. Yeah. You, you need that space as a, a person to be able to try it on and, and see how it goes and to, you know, be a messy human and not get it right.
Yeah. Well it's, it's like, it's like the change room, right? You know, you, you, you, you gotta buy a new bathing suit, whores, right? For the 20, 23 season. And so, I don't know, but. Listeners or yourself, Melissa. But, you know, I'll take in a bunch of bathing suits. Right. And I'm gonna, not all of them are gonna look good, you know, there's gonna be lots of rejects.
But hopefully if I try on 10, I'll find one [00:35:00] that, you know. Oh. Oh, okay. And so, and, and, and it's okay. And I, and you know, when you feel good about something, something you've learned or something found through iteration, it's very satisfying. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Because it's, you've got that fit finally, you feel confident about it.
Yeah, and, and sometimes when I think about leading through uncertainty and I think about leaders at all levels, part of finding that fit is also knowing what are the expectations. You know what? How do you need me to show up? What do you need me to do? What are the feelings you're looking for me to generate for the people that I'm interacting with?
And so, Lisa, going back to your question about what are some practical things that talent leaders can do, the other piece that, and the second piece I would encourage them to do is to make sure they, they craft a leadership pipeline and. This again, can be [00:36:00] simple, it can be agile. It doesn't need to be written out like a big competency map.
In fact, that makes me cringe when I think about that. And this is really in. This is a journey that we're on here at Liberty is, okay, so what does the leadership pipeline look like from, you know, leading self to leading others, to leading leaders, to, to leading functions in the organization and, and helping to articulate in, in simple language.
Okay, so, What do the, what do leaders do? Where is their focus? How are we looking for them to show up? What are the feelings that we're looking for them to generate with those that they're working with? And then also heads up, by the way, there can be some derailers along the line. So, you know, let's just flag that and be honest and call that out, because it's not easy to transition.
So you think about just leading through uncertainty. What if you're transitioning from, you know, [00:37:00] Individual contributor to manager or from director to VP during all this uncertainty. Woo. Let's just layer on some more overwhelm there. Yes. And try to figure out, so now what do I do? I've stepped into different shoes and so I think, you know, in those small pieces where we can create some semblance of clarity of expectations, I'm not saying it's a carved in stone and shall never change, but you know, here's what we're expecting of you.
When you lead at these different levels, and here's how it should feel, how do I know if I've got it right, then this is how people will be feeling. Yeah. And I, and I would say that often that's, that's the number one place I go when I'm consulting with leaders who are not getting the performance they want from somebody or from a team.
Right. That in the end there's, there's a gap around clarity of expectations. Yeah. What else? We're, we're, we're coming near the end, so I'm conscious of time, but what, what, what are some of the couple of other practical ideas besides [00:38:00] that piece? So, on the third one, and it's very timely cuz I just had.
Two conversations about this in the last two days. And the other piece is around integrating talent practices. And, and sometimes we can get in that trap of, oh, let's just make this cuz it sounds great and let's launch it out there. So if I use the leadership pipeline and it's an example to just create this and say, here's a tool, here's what it is.
It's not gonna go too far. In achieving the outcomes of building awareness and aligning expectations and engaging conversations if it's not integrated with other pieces of the organization. And so what I think is incumbent on us, whether you're leading the center of excellence around talent development or total rewards, or if you're an HR business partner and you're working on this, is okay, so when we create these tools, these pathways, these curriculums, whatever it might be, Be, how do we integrate them [00:39:00] with other pieces?
And so, you know, it's, it, it's really, you know, how do I integrate it with you know, job leveling or, or, or job evaluation? How do we integrate it into our performance management? How do we make it fit with coaching and mentoring and the curriculum and communication overall? Yes. And so it becomes less about, look at this shiny new resource I made.
And it's the more, it's the non-glamorous side of it. So if I use this leadership pipeline as an example, someone, some folks are saying, well, when's it gonna launch? I'm like, well, let me just. Be clear here. I'm not putting it on the intranet. It's not gonna be posted as a brand new resource. It's a behind the scenes resource that as one hr, we're gonna start integrating it into all these other people and talent practices so that we are driving consistency and clarity across the organization around leadership [00:40:00] expectations.
Okay. So I, I love that. Now, for, for some listeners that have been with me since the beginning, you know, you'll have heard me talk about this idea of embedding and threading. So, so really, really coming at, things from a systems perspective. And I think that's what you're talking about here. So when you create strategy to say, okay, we wanna help our leaders, Lead in the face of uncertainty, right?
Like, or people are feel struggling with some overwhelm. So say you put together, you know, this hybrid program that, that gave them all sorts of education, exposure experience and so on. And the other piece though, before you even. Get going, start designing it. Let's figure out how you will embed and thread this throughout the company so that people are encountering, you know, common set of language around it, that people have a clear common understanding of, of, of what this looks like and, and that we're talking about it regularly.
Like you said, it's built into other systems like performance management, total rewards what, wherever it may be [00:41:00] so critical though to, to overall. Adoption, you know, for, for people to actually get it and be set up for success. Yeah. And, and, and then don't forget that we're dealing, we're human beings.
Working with human beings. Yes. So people aren't gonna get it or they're gonna like it and then they're gonna hate it and, or I'm gonna forget that we had that and you're gonna have to tell me 10 times where it is, what it is, how do I use it, that type of thing. And this is all part of human nature and, and dealing with a very complex and uncertain world.
Yes, yes. And so let's just, you know, acknowledge that we're, we're all just doing the best that we can and just keep. Finding ways to interweave it, to integrate it, to bring it up, to remind, to, to sort support people, whether it's the plan, whether it's a framework within the plan whether it's the, the traits that you're trying to build around [00:42:00] self-awareness or agility, accountability, or even, we didn't even go here, but how about candid conversations and having good old straight talk when we're in times of change and uncertainty, right.
And so these are all things that, you know, as we create them as talent leaders, just look for different ways to be able to integrate and to, to build them in. It should never be just a standalone tool or resources. You won't get the traction that you're looking for. I agree. If you take that approach. I agree.
Absolutely. And, and I think we are showing as HR and talent leaders too, our value when we are thinking and bringing that. That demonstrating that integration, right? Versus just here's, you know, here's my shiny flag that I want you to look at. It's, it's more, here's how I see this fitting in and supporting the business objectives and, you know, based on what, what we've talked about Anyways.
We must bring it to a conclusion. Unfortunately, we could go on and on. I've already written down two other [00:43:00] topics that we'll only to have you back to discuss. So, thank you so much for suggesting this topic and for spending time with me to record the episode. I'm so appreciative. Hey, it, it's my pleasure.
And I, I, I value the invitation to do that. And, and, you know, shout out to the listeners. You, you wanna deal with uncertainty, embrace humanity. Yes. We'll figure it out. Beautiful. Thanks, Melissa. Okay, thanks Lisa.
