June 24, 2025 • 42 mins
JD Slaughter is a People and Talent Leader based in Arlington, VA. He is currently building a high performing organization at Huge. Previously he worked as a Consultant at Korn Ferry and CEB in Washington, DC.
JD is all about driving growth through a strong culture and smart people strategies. He has a solid track record in every aspect of the People function and knows how to build, roll out and scale talent strategies that engage people and boost performance and growth.
We’re diving into the world of performance appraisals and shaking things up! You know the drill—those dreaded annual reviews that have everyone rolling their eyes? Well, we’re chatting with JD Slaughter from Huge about how they scrapped that whole shebang in favor of quarterly conversations. It’s all about keeping feedback fresh and relevant, so folks aren’t scrambling to remember what went down six months ago. JD spills the beans on how they’ve made these conversations part of the regular work flow, making it easier for managers and employees alike to connect, coach, and grow. Plus, we tackle the age-old question of how to measure performance without losing our minds—or our sanity—while keeping it all human and effective. So, kick back and tune in; you won't want to miss this!
JD Slaughter’s journey through the world of HR and organizational development is nothing short of enlightening. He shares candidly about his transition from external consulting to internal HR, revealing how he brought valuable insights from his past experiences into his role at Huge. One of the standout points in our conversation is the realization that, while every company might think they are unique, a lot of the challenges they face are shockingly similar. So, what does that mean for leaders navigating their own organizational waters? It means understanding that the principles of good leadership are universal, and it’s all about tailoring those principles to fit the unique culture of your organization.
JD talks about the importance of creating a feedback-rich environment, especially in a project-based company like Huge, where the nature of work can make traditional reviews feel disconnected. By establishing quarterly conversations, they’ve managed to embed feedback into the fabric of their work culture, ensuring that it’s not just an afterthought but a fundamental part of how teams operate. This approach not only enhances performance but also aligns individual goals with organizational objectives, making it a win-win for everyone involved. JD’s insights underline the necessity of flexibility and adaptability in leadership, encouraging current and aspiring leaders to embrace change and foster a culture of continuous learning and development.
Takeaways:
- Leaders should prioritize creating space for coaching and feedback, despite busy schedules.
- Annual reviews are often dreaded; moving to regular performance conversations can boost engagement.
- Feedback that is immediate and tied to recent projects is far more effective than year-end reviews.
- The key to improving leadership development lies in making it practical and embedded in daily work.
- Quarterly conversations help maintain performance discussions fresh, making feedback relevant and actionable.
- Organizations thrive when they create a culture of continuous improvement and open feedback loops.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
We give Ben the tools and thesupport and the resources to be able
to coach their people. But toyour point, like, what do you mean,
what coaching meeting? It'slike work gets in the way. And so
my advice is be intentionalabout not letting work get in the
way of leading. Find andcreate the space to make those things
(00:26):
a priority, whether or not itis an organizational behavior or
not.
Hi there and welcome to theStep Up Expert Voices for Leadership
Growth. I'm your host, KentKnievel. Every week I talk to experts
who focus on helping leadersstep up their leadership game. If
you're new to the show, thenon whatever platform you're using,
I encourage you to subscribeso you never miss an episode. One
(00:49):
last thing. As a leadershipdevelopment consultant and executive
coach, I have a particularinterest in supporting recent internally
promoted leaders. If that'syou, or if you support a leader who
has been recently promoted, Iencourage you to visit my website
at Kent Coach Playbook anddownload a free copy of my 90 day
blueprint filled withpractical advice for you or the leader
you support in hitting theground running and truly stepping
(01:11):
up to their new leadershiplevel. Without further ado, on with
the show. Welcome. Welcome,everyone. Today we're going to be
talking about performanceappraisals, but before you decide
to unsubscribe from mypodcast, just hang on. I, you know,
certainly in my time in hr, Ihave heard and read some pieces from
(01:34):
up and coming companies tryingto push organizations to more regular
performance conversations, notjust the annual process. And I finally
found someone that I know frommy background who's actually done
this with this company. Sowith me today is JD Slaughter from
huge, and he is going to talkto us a little bit today about huge's
journey down that. Down thatpath. Welcome, jd.
(01:55):
Thanks again. Yeah, superexcited to be here.
Awesome. So before we reallyget into what I know will be a fun
topic for me and you and atleast my two aunts who listen to
the podcast, want you first tosort of talk to our audience. Give
us sort of your careerjourney. Would love to hear how you,
you know, where you started,how you landed into what you're doing
today.
Yeah, for sure. So I startedthinking I was going to be a teacher
(02:19):
and quickly moved intoconsulting. I joined a sort of smallish
team with within Korn ferry.This was in 20002011 or so. I was
part of their governmentconsulting team. And within Korn
Ferry, I made a move to aninternal team focused on, you know,
(02:41):
building scalable consultingsolutions across. Across the organization.
And I think I know of thatteam. You may, you may a couple sort
of SWAT like initiatives aswell that we got parachuted into,
which was a lot of fun.Incredible team, incredible mentors,
amazing boss. And you know,when I left Korn Ferry, I did a short
(03:02):
stint with a company calledceb, was once corporate executive
board, then acquired byGartner, also as a consultant there,
working in marketing talentdevelopment specifically before I
quite literally stumbledacross this role at huge. And at
the time that I applied, itwas at a talent partner role for
(03:25):
their, for their DC officer.So I moved Internal, Internal HR
and HR BP for our DC office,expanded to our southeast region
and then transitioned to helpeffectively found our org effective
and organizational developmentcapability and practice within the
organization. And I've been inthat role for gosh, like three years
(03:49):
now. Yes. And yeah, been withHuge about eight and a half years.
Love it. Amazing company,amazing culture. Can't get enough.
Awesome. Yeah. So for thelistener, JD and I first met on that
second team at Korn Ferry thathe's talking about and mentioned
a great boss. Shout out. ChuckGrant. Agreed. Great boss and friend
(04:10):
to this day. So you spent sometime on the outside before the inside,
you know, and for anyone whodoesn't understand my lingo, you
know, external consulting.Before going into hr, what do you
feel like you were able totake from external consulting into
the HR role?
(04:31):
I think one really interestingthing is that, and this is not to
belittle or diminish any ofour clients who thought they were
super unique, but nothing isactually that unique where a lot
of our, A lot of the problemstatements and challenges that we're
trying to solve as consultantsfor our clients and even Internal,
(04:54):
you know, talent practitionersare very, seemingly very similar.
It's really, you know, theculture itself that might be the
unique part and how we'regoing to get things to work within
the context of thatorganization and that organization's
people and where theirbusiness is. You know, I think that's
probably the unique part. Andyou know, it took me a little while
(05:15):
candidly at huge, to reallyfigure that part out and not go straight
to, you know, Korn fairytraining in the moment. It's like
this is a very differentculture and context and, and we have
to figure out how to makethose things work here and in the,
in the ways that meansomething for huge. So I don't know
(05:35):
if that answers the question,but it does.
Yeah. No, I, what I would sayfrom my own experience, having gone
external to internal, I, Iecho that right and, and I'll be
more, I'll be specific on twoparts. One part generalization, one
part picking on companies alittle bit too. But the generalization
is like leadership isleadership and there's not like there's
(05:58):
our very common leader. Youknow, most of the leadership challenges,
probably 98% are common acrossthe board, regardless of what your
company and your context mightbe. So to your point, like, there's
a lot of feelings ofuniqueness, but actually a lot of
commonality. And I saw thatfirsthand when I was at Buffalo Wild
Wings. So we would bring in,you know, restaurant tours, so to
(06:21):
speak, that, you know, thegeneral managers with corporate manager,
general managers of storeswith corporate managers, and they'd
be, you know, by about an houror two into these programs, they'd
be shocked that they had theexact same problems that they were
dealing with. Right. The otherpart, where I'm going to pick on
companies, my favorite thinghaving having been in a few different
companies in HR roles is theone thing I've heard in the first
(06:42):
week of all of thoseexperiences. We're a relationship
based company. Like, oh, thatmay. Yes, you're, you're the only
one. It's like I joke, but,you know, I don't think any company
is not, you know, I thinkevery company is a relationship company.
All right, one, one morequestion before we dive into our
(07:03):
topic. Now, if you were to, ifyou were to go into consulting again
tomorrow, what do you thinkyou would be taking from your HR
experience into externalconsulting again?
That every company's reallyunique. Perfect.
All right.
Yes. No, let's see.
See you all next time, folks.
(07:27):
I think so. So one, one of thereasons I wanted to get to move internal
from, from consulting was Ireally wanted to be, to be part of
what's next. So instead ofdelivering the thing or the change
management or whatever it is,the new process or approach or the
(07:48):
talent management structure orthe competency model, whatever it
is, and help embed it. Iwanted to be part of everything that
happens after that and get tosee it in action and course correct
and shift our entire model orchange, whatever it had to be. And
I really missed that part. Inconsulting, so often it's like the
engagement ends and you don'treally, you hope it works, but you
(08:10):
don't really get to see or bepart of it. I really wanted to see
and be part of those things.And so I think coming into it, knowing
that no matter what,ultimately you deliver, it's going
to begin to take the shape ofthe org that it's in and being, I
think, really intentionalabout how you can create the space
(08:34):
for that to happen. Some ofthese models or approaches are so
rigid, if you will. It's like,this is the way we do this. And we're
gonna. We're. Yes, we're gonnacustomize it for your unique culture,
but it's like, this is the waywe do this. And it. And it doesn't
have the sort of soft edgesthat for it to really, I think, become
part of an organizational, anorganization's culture or part of
(08:57):
the organization, those thingshave to soften just a little bit.
And so I guess for myself, ifI was to move back into consulting,
it's, you know, we've got ourmethodologies and our approach and
our philosophy, and how do wemake sure that the. That the edges
aren't too sharp, that acompany can't actually do anything
with it when we leave.
Right. Yes. Yeah, I like that.Personally, I've found since I've
(09:19):
made the transition out of hr,that it's really what I've been able
to bring back into it isreally subtle, primarily because
I now know what's happeningbehind the scenes. I know what real
life looks like for the HRpeople working with, for the leaders
that I'm working with. So myability now to take what in hindsight
(09:42):
was probably a pretty academicunderstanding and solid, you know,
the training and sort ofmentoring we had at PDI and Korn
Fairy was really strong. SoI'm not trying to do a disservice
to that. Totally. Just myability to bring it to life is so
much stronger now. Not to tootmy own horn, but just I can feel
(10:04):
it now. Like I know what I'm saying.
Yeah, I love that. And I thinkit really probably more accurately
describes even what I wastrying to suggest, because I've gotten
feedback from my boss at HUGEthat sometimes I can bring things
that she says it probablylooked really great in the lab. And,
(10:24):
yeah, it might be a bit tooacademic. Might be. But operationalizing
it and making it come to lifea huge. Presents different challenges.
For sure. I think that'sexactly right.
Yeah. So let's talk aboutbringing something to life. Right.
So I think you and I werechatting about various things we
could talk about today. So forthe listener, I'm just going to lean
right into it and say we weretalking about your EDGE leadership
(10:46):
program and you were. You weretalking me through a really cool.
Maybe we'll have you onanother day and we'll talk about
that, but you were talking methrough this and I was asking you
about how you measuredresults. And you were. And you started
to say, well, essentiallylike, well, that really comes from
our quarterly performanceprocess that we've implemented and
the data we can get. And Inearly fell off my chair and I was
like, that's, that's what weshould talk about. Let's talk about
(11:08):
that. And so while, you know,I think the annual performance appraisal
process is loved by few,loathed by many, a necessary part
of the rhythm of mostorganizations. Like I said at the
beginning, I've heard of thisapproach to trying to have more real
(11:29):
time, regular performanceconversations instead of it always
being the one, you know, onetime event at the end of the year.
And I know that you've beengoing down that road, so I'd love
to hear about where did thatbegin for you all at huge. And you
know, how, what did you do andhow did you get to where you are
with it today?
(11:50):
So there's a couple thingsthat I might suggest for the genesis
for really exploring it. Andyou know, one of those things was
the simple fact of what you,what you mentioned already that people
hate it. Like, people hategoing through the annual review process.
And it's not just, you know,managers and their, and individual
(12:12):
contributors and, and peopleoutside of hr. HR hates annual reviews
too. It's like nobody wants tobe constantly reminding people to
do it, you know, desperatelytrying to track down people who haven't
shared their feedback orcompleted that form yet, or the manager
that still hasn't written thefinal review or given the rain. It's
like it's a hassle foreverybody. And not only that, it
(12:36):
takes, it's an incredibleamount of time that the organization
is spending away from thebusiness. Like we estimated at huge.
I think this was in 2002, thatwe spent somewhere between 5 and
6,000 hours for relativelysmall company. We're about 8, 900,000
people at the time. 5, 6,000hours at the end of the year for
(13:01):
reviews. And it's like that'sa critical time for the business,
the end of the year and thebeginning of the year. I mean, there's
no time. It's not. Butespecially, especially those points.
So how can we not only thinkdifferently about. Right. What can
we do that people don't hateand what can we also do that that
is not costing the businessspace, time, money, all of those
things?
(13:21):
Well, I think one thing, if Ican interrupt one thing that you
also mentioned was based onhuge's design and how you. You're
kind of project based.
Right.
So people swarm a project.There's various layers of people
and roles that people areplaying. And then that project comes
to an end, they're on to thenext thing. And I think what we were
talking about is you get tothe end of the year and now you're
(13:42):
trying to chase down feedbackfrom 60 people from five, six different
projects you did over 12months that created, you know, some
challenge for you all.
Yep.
Just based on how your company operates.
Yep. That, that was really thethird thing.
So sorry you were getting there.
Not at all an annual review oreven, you know, if you do, you know,
(14:05):
mini mid year cycle. Also thatthose two things were not serving
our people in the way thatthey work. It was really, really
challenging to. For someone tothink about feedback they're going
to share with someone theywere on a project with for three
months, two months back inJanuary, we're now in December. Sometimes
we're even a year lateralready it might be January again
(14:27):
when they're getting ready towrite that feedback. And it's just
not a way to capture anythingthat's not riddled with bias or anything
that isn't that, that that'saccurate. It's really, really challenging.
And so that again created abarrier for our people to give really
good feedback and for ourpeople to get really good feedback,
(14:48):
which then created a wholehost of other challenges for managers
to coach, to deliver feedback,to set clear goals. It was just not
working for our people. Wasthe big thing and the way that we
work.
Yeah. When you were looking atthat this wasn't working, what did
you start exploring? What ledyou to start kind of going down the
(15:11):
path you eventually took?
Yeah, we listened to managersand individuals and one big thing
that we would hear frommanagers when we got to the end of
the year was we're also tyingthis to promotion justifications.
And a lot of times they'resaying, I know this person's ready.
I'm just having troublegetting feedback to support it. I'm
(15:32):
not getting good feedback. Andso we wanted to of course help there
for sure.
Even with the project nature.Right. Like if. If for some reason
the most recent project maybewasn't going well and yet they crushed
the first two or threeprojects they did throughout the
year. There's sort of thatrecency bias of.
(15:54):
Exactly right. Exactly.
I guess that could probablyeither deflate or inflate someone's
sort of promotion readiness justification.
Exactly, exactly. If that mostrecent project someone crushed, chances
are if the, if it was close tothe annual review cycle, their feedback's
probably going to be reallypositive despite maybe having some
(16:16):
challenges earlier in theyear. And so again, yeah, the recency
bias played a, played asignificant role. So it's like, well,
why don't we just, if we knowthat's about the time of, that's
about the time frame thatsomeone can really remember and share
good feedback about someone'sperformance, why don't we just make
that our timeframe? Why don'twe not do one huge thing at the end
(16:39):
of the year and let's do foursmall conversations across the entire
year, which is ultimatelywhere we landed with an approach
called quarterlyconversations. And they're designed
to be that, they're designedto be in the flow of work. They're
designed to be aligned to ourproject cadence and project cycles.
And they're, they're alignedto also not be an additional thing
(17:02):
that a manager or leader intheir team have to do and set aside
time for. We all have, we surehope that we all have regular one
on ones with, with our, withour, with our managers and with managers
with their direct reports andjust use those already existing conversations
to do this, bring in feedback,bring in and use them to coach around
(17:25):
that feedback on a quarterlybasis. And so that's, that's what
we've done.
Are there elements of whatfeeds into the quarterly conversation
that's baked into the sort ofproject execution process now? I
guess is right because. Orwould people mostly have one project
a quarter or might they be in.
Yeah, no big question. So theyindividuals might be across multiple
(17:49):
projects within a quarter andsometimes they're much longer than
a quarter, sometimes they'remuch shorter. And this has been effectively
a three year journey for us.So maybe, maybe, maybe we start back
there and I can get to kind ofwhere we are now in that when we,
when we launched it, theinitial idea was look, once a quarter
(18:09):
you should be having a careerfocused and feedback and coaching
focused conversation with yourmanager at least once a quarter.
And we're going to start now.So this quarter have a conversation
about your goals, have aconversation about what areas you
want to develop, build an idp,let's do these things. And shared
a number of resources ofcourse, to help with that. But that
(18:31):
was the idea. Let's just startwith something very basic. And we
did two quarters of that andthen we did a third quarter where
we said, okay, we're going tonow layer one more thing on top of
this. We want everybody in theOrganization as if this were the
annual review. We want you tosolicit feedback from peers that
are on your projects and wehave a platform that can support
us in this. But so everyone,you know, we shared prompts for how
(18:54):
they should do it tied to our,what we call development models,
but our competency models sothat they can solicit feedback directly
to the things that they'retrying to focus on and directly to
their projects. And then wedid that for two quarters. So now
we've got a year basicallywhere we've embedded this idea that
we believe as a company thishas to happen at least once a quarter.
(19:15):
Now we also believe that itshould be tied to real time feedback
from your work and from yourday to day. And the following year
we said we're not doing annualreviews anymore. So that year we
did have an annual review. Thenext year we said we're not going
to do that. It's going to lookdifferent. We want you to have four
quarters of quarterlyconversations with feedback tied
(19:38):
into them. And at the end ofthe year, all of that's already documented.
You've got everything you needto just roll it into one final, what
we call capstone conversationfor the year. But you don't have
to go chase all your peersdown. We're not going to send out
a huge review form. We maystill collect performance ratings
to drive other initiativeswithin the organization, but we know
(19:59):
now those performance ratingsaren't just based on what we can
remember from Q4. There's apaper trail, if you will, to get
us to whatever that final,final rating might look like. Now,
where we are today is we haveand are infusing what we call project
based feedback cycles into ourquarterly conversations. So really,
really simple way for to tell,automate and operationalize and scale.
(20:24):
Really quick way for people todeliver feedback to each other once
a project ends and then thatdrives the quarterly conversation.
Cool. So whose accountabilityis it during the project cycle to
provide feedback? What's thatlook like?
Yeah, I mean everyone'seffectively. So the feedback form
goes to everyone on theproject. And let me pause also there
(20:46):
and say, I recognize if youare super skeptical, which you might
be, or cynical, you might bethinking, well, wait a second, you're
telling me you basically justtook what you did once a year and
you're now asking people to doit four times a year or for every
project.
I will cross that off thequestions I was about to ask.
Go ahead. Yeah, and in a way,in a way you would be right. What
(21:08):
we're trying to do is aconnect feedback to the flow of work.
We know our people want morefeedback. We know we need to make
it easier for them. And thisis at least the way right now. And
this will evolve for sure. Butthis is the way right now. We think
we can do that and make itsimple and scalable. The feedback
we've gotten from our peoplewho have gone through this project
(21:30):
process, that it's reallysimple. They would much rather do
this five, six, seven times ayear than one and one annual review.
We make it. It's. Well, Ithink part of the, part of the challenge
is it's really easy to giveand share feedback with people when
it's really fresh. I thinkpart of the challenge is we get to
(21:51):
the end of the year and peoplefeel pressure to deliver really solid
feedback and they can't. Andso they don't because they can't
remember. So if we can do itin the flow of project, we know that
people are way more willing toengage in it and have more effective
feedback that they can sharewith each other. It's also really
simple. There's, you know,it's, it's, it's basically a single
(22:14):
question that's like,effectively, you know, what advice
would you have for this personif you were to work with them on
a project Again, which thatsort of turn of phrase there also
takes a little bit ofpressure. It's like, well, it's not
feedback, it's advice. Andwe've seen so far that individuals
are much, much more likely toengage with it.
Huh?
(22:34):
Yes, it is everybody fourtimes, but.
Okay, but so does everybodyfill it out for everybody on the
project or how is that beingsorted out?
Yeah. So mechanically,everyone is invited to. We know that
not everyone works thatclosely with, with each other and
we also know that everyoneplays a different role on that project.
(22:56):
So there is a questionspecific to someone's leadership
efficacy if they are a projectlead versus a, what we might call
a maker at huge. If their,their questions, their form might
look a little bit differently.But yes, everyone's invited. You
can decline a feedback requestif you didn't work with that person.
And we actively encouragefolks to do that if, if they, if
(23:18):
they didn't work together, youdon't get feedback and that's okay.
Yeah.
Is there, is there a minimumexpectation of how many you do need
to accept and give or have yourun into that?
It's a good question. Wehaven't run into it yet. This part
of it is relatively new still.So we're, we're still sort of testing,
if you will, and collectingfeedback about the process. It's
(23:40):
been really positive thus far, though.
Cool.
Yeah.
So how have you. All right, solet's, let's go to the elephant in
the room. Right. Which is thetie into, you know, merit slash,
you know, whatever languagepeople use. Merit salary increases
and bonus slash incentivepayouts. How have you decoupled or
(24:03):
recoupled or, you know, howhave you adjusted that with this
new process?
I'm really glad you askedbecause we, historically, we were
really adamant at one pointabout decoupling our review process,
feedback and coaching and ourincrease. Merit increase process
and our merit increase cycles.Reason being, you know, we want the
(24:25):
conversation about growth andyour performance from the past year
to be separate from aconversation about your compensation
increase or your compensation.And we are effectively looking at
making a complete 180 thereand reconnecting those things again
(24:48):
because of the response fromour people that it felt clunky. It
felt, if they're disconnected,then why are we, why are you asking
us to do this thing and whatare you using that data for? And.
Right.
Are they really?
I guess. How are you makingthe merit decision then?
Exactly, exactly, exactly. Andso we are.
(25:08):
What did you, what did you trythat you've decided isn't quite what
you wanted or what you werehoping for?
Sorry, ask that again.
So it sounds like you had, youhad decoupled it.
Yep.
So how did you determine inthat year how to handle merit increases
that now you've decided maybenot what we wanted. Exactly. And
putting them back together,they were.
(25:28):
Coupled in the sense thatperformance ratings still drove initial
merit increase recommendationsand those types of things, we decoupled
the conversation to try toseparate those concepts and got it.
Okay.
I don't, and I don't want tospeak on behalf of our chief people
officer, chief talent officer,but we don't necessarily believe
(25:52):
that is right anymore. That infact, these things do drive one another.
Let's be transparent andhonest about those things and also
ensure that people know whatto expect from it. If you've had
these types of quarterlyconversations and your ratings look
like this, at the end of theyear, you should expect this type
of increase or bonus orwhatever it might be. And so we're
(26:13):
looking now at, at. We're inthe middle of this process now. So
that's why I still say we'rekind of looking at it, but bringing
those things back together.
God. Okay, okay. So I, youknow, for the listener, I think I
had Thought you completelydecoupled. Meaning technically too,
not just the conversations.Right. Like that, that the ratings,
(26:34):
information, performance, youknow, information coming out of those
was divorced. But what I'mhearing you say is we tried to separate
the conversations, notnecessarily the technicalities. Right,
yeah. Okay, got it, got it,got it. Yeah. And which, right. I
would say now, having workedin organizations where we're only
(26:55):
doing the annual, you know,annual thing, I've always said from
my roles either within talentmanagement or leadership development,
that, well, if you're havingregular conversations, nothing should
be a surprise year end. But Iwould say you're, you're relying,
you're relying on leadersknowing and, and you know, how do
(27:20):
I want to, how am I trying toput this? It's a hope and I'll just
be honest about it. It's ahope and a prayer right around like,
well, what percentage ofleaders are actually going to do
that? Because life is messyand there's a lot of work in front
of us and there is some, thereis something about the good, bad
or otherwise. There issomething about the process driven,
(27:43):
you know, hr, process driveneventizing of it that makes people
pay attention and do it. Avery quick parallel. When I was doing,
we were trying to pull peercoaching groups together. This is
a long time ago in my veryfirst HR role, you know, we would
say, all right, now you all,here's your coaching group and this
(28:05):
is how often you should meetand here's some agenda stuff. And
you know, I started checkingin with people a few months later.
I was like, how are the peercoaching groups going? And they were
like, what, what do you mean?What do you mean, what? This, all
this material that we put infront of you and told you to go do.
And he just said, hey, listen,Kent, when the invite comes from
(28:25):
you, I pay attention and I'llattend it.
Right.
So learn some lessons that,you know, another day, another interview
on. But, but the parallelbeing like there is something about
it being process driven that,that gives accountability again,
good, bad or otherwise. Givesaccountability to making, making
(28:45):
it happen or making sure it happens.
Yeah, and that's, that's,that's been part of our goal here
too is like, let's, let'screate a system and a process that
doesn't allow for work to getin the way of that conversation because
it's just part of the work.It's, it's part of the day to day.
It's just the next thing thathappens. I mean, there's some sort
of utopian system here. Whereit's like there's nothing. It's.
(29:09):
And we've, we've kicked itaround this idea of like a fully
open growth architecture athuge. Where it's like there's no
systems, there's nothing. It'sjust like our people just do it.
And it's like, maybe that'llhappen, but work's going to get in
the way. Work will get in theway. And this right now, at least
for us, is, is a, is a waythat we can ensure it doesn't or
help it not get in the way. Ifthat makes sense.
(29:30):
Yeah. Awesome. Well, so I wantto come back because I know you had
already said it, but again,you know, I could imagine a scenario
where, you know, employeesfeel like, well, now let's talk about
employees and then we can talkabout managers. Right. There's a
scenario where I could seeemployees being able. Now I'm doing
this four times a year. Butyou said that you're actually getting
(29:53):
really good feedback about itfrom your employees. So what are
you hearing, what are youhearing from employees that's reinforcing,
you know, for you all to keepgoing down this path? And I'd be
curious, what's some of thefeedback? And I know you're recoupling
the performance, the, themerit conversation, but what are
some of the other pieces offeedback that you're, that you're,
(30:14):
you're churning over on? Kindof. Because I, I take it from our
conversation and knowing youthat you have this kind of continuous
improvement, improvementmindset. Right. So, like, nothing's
ever done and dusted.Everything can always be evolved
and better. So let me restatemy question, which is what's the,
what's the, what are youhearing from employees that's reinforcing
that you're going down theright path? What are you, what other
(30:35):
things are you kind of kickingaround around? Continued evolution?
Yes. So, and as you, as youwere asking the question, I was trying
to pull up a couple ofmessages I have on Slack from a few,
few folks I'd reached out toafter their project feedback cycle
wrapped up, because I knowcynical and skeptical and I mean.
(30:56):
Always good to enroll thosepeople and give me feedback.
Exactly. And so one of them,you know, I'll read directly. It's.
I like it. It's faster andeasier than trying to remember what
you did with someone sevenmonths ago. And especially for some
people, the number of requeststhat you get around the end of the
year pile up and each ends uptaking much longer. And so again,
(31:18):
yes, this Individual mighthave to do this a few more times.
But, but because of where itis in the flow of work, it's faster
because they remember it's allfresh, it's right there. And the
form that we're asking them tocomplete as part of it is really,
really small and simple. Sowhat's next is feedback collection.
(31:39):
It's like I would love to say,well, I've already got the next iteration
of this in my head andhonestly I. So for the first time
in a long time, and this isprobably not necessarily a good thing,
that it's for the first timein a long time, I don't. And I say
that is a good thing becauseit gives us completely free open
(32:01):
space to figure out what workswith it and what doesn't. Because
we're kind of, at least in myperspective, we're kind of in uncharted
territory here for us andprobably for a lot of organizations.
So not knowing if we're goingto, you know, steer left or steer
right or just keep goingstraight with it is I think a really
(32:23):
good thing in the, in thismoment. And I'm excited to see how,
how as we really start tocollect more and more feedback about
the process and see how and ifit's working, like is it actually
doing what we believe it isintended to do? And truly what it
is intended to do is serve ourpeople to ensure that they are getting
regular, real feedback andcoaching in the moment and in their
(32:47):
day to day versus serving theorganization to collect data for
whatever reason. So we're in acool app, cool space now where we
get to see and like, does thiswork? And if it doesn't, you know,
we can, we can start to coursecorrect from there and figure out
what is, what is the next iteration.
Yeah. Nice. So I want toreflect something back. So when it
comes to the employee. Right.And every manager is an employee
(33:10):
too. But so when you'rewearing the employee hat, yeah, it
sounds like it's, it'sactually the same amount of work
for the employee. It's justspread out over the course of the
year, especially when it comesto collecting peer feedback. Right.
So to your point, instead ofgetting 17, 20, 30 requests at the
end of the year that I nowwant to want to do it. Right. But
(33:32):
where am I finding the time?And like, I don't, I barely remember
this person. Right. Or, youknow, barely remember that project.
It's probably the same amountof work is just spread out over 12
months instead of exactly oneor two. But I would imagine It's
a little. You are asking forfour. Now, I'm going to. I'm talking
(33:52):
out of both sides of my mouthhere for a second, which is you're
asking for, you know, foursemi official conversations to happen
instead of one for managers.That said, the leadership development
and coach and me says theyshould be having these conversations
this often regardless. Right.Like you should be having a career
(34:14):
conversation, a developmentconversation, probably quarterly
anyway. Like, if you reallywant to. Nobody. I. Show me the person
who wakes up not wanting totruly be a good leader, who's in
a leader role. Whether or notthey can fulfill it is another question.
But like, if you really wantto be a good leader, you should be
(34:34):
doing that anyway. Right. So Ijust wanted to get that out of there
when I asked, when I, when Isay the question. But you are asking
them to have now this officialconversation three more times or,
or kind of four more times.Especially if there's like a summative.
So, yeah, what's, what's the,what's the feedback been from managers?
(34:54):
I know we covered it, but tome it's a lie. It's a late in the
week and late in the day andnot at all.
Yeah. Again, generallypositive. It is generally positive.
Like, I won't sugarcoat it andsay like, no, it's not that. Right,
it is that. And we, and we.And we say that out loud. Like, yes,
we are asking you to do thisfour times. Here's why, here's what
(35:17):
we believe, here's the visionwe have for this and where we're
trying to go. And I won't saythat we don't get some, you know,
rolled eyes and pushback and.And at the same time, the feedback
is generally positive that,yes, I believe and understand why
we're doing this and that thisis the right thing for our people.
(35:39):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I would imagine that from someleaders, I would hope. Let me say
that the optimist in me wouldhope. You're also hearing this is
actually making my ability tobe a good leader and developer of
a person like, that much easier.
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
(36:00):
All right, one more questionbefore I get us into our, our advice
section.
Cool.
Because, you know, I've workedfor much larger companies where I
would argue, you know, Titanicsized, where this would be a massive
change from what used to bedone, what made huge a place where
you could do this.
Seek commitment to innovation,iteration and patience for some of
(36:26):
those things. Culturally, weare a design, innovation and technology
company. And so that is at theheart of our culture and there is
willingness to create space.If you talk about the why, like what
we're trying to do and whypeople will. And culturally, you'll
get the space to do it untilit's still not working and you're
(36:49):
not doing anything about it.That's where, that's where challenges
can come from. But no, youknow, it's also, we are an organization
like, like, like, like manywhere this was a big change and we
still had to be thoughtful andintentional about the change management.
You know, we didn't, we didn'tcompletely overhaul the entire process
(37:10):
in Q1 of 2022. It's like, Imean, we are just now, Maybe it was
2023, but we are just nowadding the final layer to it. And
not all of those layers wereplanned. Again, this is a bit of
let's see how this goes andwhat else could we do and what's
the feedback? How can we makethis easier, better, faster, more
efficient, but more effectivealso and more human. Yeah, so it's
(37:33):
been a, it's been, it's beena, it's been a journey for us as
well. You know, we didn't, wedidn't turn the ship left. We immediately,
it's, it's got a small rudder.
Yeah, that's, it's exciting. Ithink you're doing what a lot of
HR people, at least that I'vecome across, would envy and love
to be doing.
I mean, it's fun. It's fun.
All right, well, let me giveus a violent shove into our advice
(37:55):
section. So I always ask theguests to come prepared with at least
two pieces of advice. 1. Andso we'll start with, you know, what's
your advice for leaders whoare listening?
You know, I'm actually goingto. This is a bit of a pivot from
what I thought I was going toprepare or what I, what I prepare.
But I mentioned, you know, we,and I think you shared the example
(38:18):
of, like, we ask our leadersto have these conversations on a
regular basis and we give themthe tools and the support and the
resources to be able to coachtheir people. But to your point,
like, you know, what do youmean, what coaching meeting. It's
like work gets in the way. Andso my advice is be intentional about
(38:41):
not letting work get in theway of leading. Find and create the
space to make those things apriority, whether or not it is an
organizational behavior or not.
Yeah, nice. I always say yourregular one on one is where the best
of intentions for developmentand career conversations go to die.
And And I always, I alwayspush people. I say put it on the
(39:04):
calendar. Calendar at once aquarter. Oh, yeah, you'll make it.
You'll make it happen.
That's exactly right. Andthat's practically what we did. Like,
just make this one aboutcoaching and development. Yeah.
Nice. Nice. All right, what'syour. So what's your advice for HR
folks as well as leaders whoare supporting the growth of other
leaders?
You mentioned edge leadership,and that was something that we had
(39:25):
picked around that we're goingto talk one of our leadership programs.
And that program is also adriver of this performance management
philosophy too. And, and sofor us, like, And I guess my advice
there would be to. That's away for us to make it real and not
just a resource. So findingways to make leadership development
(39:46):
real and, and not just notjust a resource. You know, the, the
growth in our leaders andmanagers doesn't come just from the
toolkit or the training. It's.It happens in the practice and in
the conversations and in thetimes that we fail at doing those
things. So how do we designour culture? How do we design our
(40:09):
leadership developmentinitiatives to. To meet that reality?
And I guess ending my advicewith a question probably isn't the
best thing, but maybe I will.
Yeah. Any. Anything else? Anyparting thoughts as we're winding
down here?
(40:30):
I don't, I don't this. I mean,this was a great conversation and
I so appreciate it. I don'tknow. I don't know that I've got
a parting thought for you.Terrible way to end.
Well, let me ask it this wayand we'll be brief. I know you've
got. You've got places to be.If p. If other organizations or HR
people were interested ingoing down this path, what would
(40:51):
you as like, first kind ofsteps, what would you recommend they.
The start of their journey be?
Yeah. You know, I've used thisanalogy about myself before, but
I'm, I am the type of guythat, like, when I go to an all you
can eat buffet, like, I grabthe biggest plate I can find and
I'm just like dumpingeverything on it. Like, yeah, I want
steak and fish and fried chicken.
(41:13):
Yeah.
And I honestly, when I firststepped into this role, you know,
leading our org effectivenessfunction, I. That's kind of what
I did. I was like, oh, we gotso many things I want to do. And
so I'm taking this huge plateto the buffet and trying to do everything.
And I learned quickly, youjust can't. You can't do it. And
that's the approach that wetook with. With these quarterly conversations.
(41:34):
It's like take a much smallerplate to the buffet and just focus
your intention on. On veryclear things and not all the things.
Nice. There it is. You. Youheard it here, folks. How do you
eat an elephant? One bite at atime. So we will leave it there for
the day. Thank you so much,JD. I appreciate it. This was a fun
conversation.
This is great. So appreciateit. Yeah.
(41:55):
Awesome. All right, take iteasy, everybody. That brings us to
the end of our episode. Thanksfor listening. I'd encourage you
to head on over to my website,Kent Coach, and start a conversation
with me there. Or check out mypromotion playbook at Kent Coates
Playbook. Before you go onwith your day, I ask that you please
take a moment to leave arating and a review wherever you
listen to podcasts. Fivestars. That helps put this podcast
(42:17):
in front of more eyes andears. Until next time, take it easy.
We give Ben the tools and thesupport and the resources to be able
to coach their people. But toyour point, like, what do you mean,
what coaching meeting? It'slike work gets in the way. And so
my advice is be intentionalabout not letting work get in the
way of leading. Find andcreate the space to make those things
(00:26):
a priority, whether or not itis an organizational behavior or
not.
Hi there and welcome to theStep Up Expert Voices for Leadership
Growth. I'm your host, KentKnievel. Every week I talk to experts
who focus on helping leadersstep up their leadership game. If
you're new to the show, thenon whatever platform you're using,
I encourage you to subscribeso you never miss an episode. One
(00:49):
last thing. As a leadershipdevelopment consultant and executive
coach, I have a particularinterest in supporting recent internally
promoted leaders. If that'syou, or if you support a leader who
has been recently promoted, Iencourage you to visit my website
at Kent Coach Playbook anddownload a free copy of my 90 day
blueprint filled withpractical advice for you or the leader
you support in hitting theground running and truly stepping
(01:11):
up to their new leadershiplevel. Without further ado, on with
the show. Welcome. Welcome,everyone. Today we're going to be
talking about performanceappraisals, but before you decide
to unsubscribe from mypodcast, just hang on. I, you know,
certainly in my time in hr, Ihave heard and read some pieces from
(01:34):
up and coming companies tryingto push organizations to more regular
performance conversations, notjust the annual process. And I finally
found someone that I know frommy background who's actually done
this with this company. Sowith me today is JD Slaughter from
huge, and he is going to talkto us a little bit today about huge's
journey down that. Down thatpath. Welcome, jd.
(01:55):
Thanks again. Yeah, superexcited to be here.
Awesome. So before we reallyget into what I know will be a fun
topic for me and you and atleast my two aunts who listen to
the podcast, want you first tosort of talk to our audience. Give
us sort of your careerjourney. Would love to hear how you,
you know, where you started,how you landed into what you're doing
today.
Yeah, for sure. So I startedthinking I was going to be a teacher
(02:19):
and quickly moved intoconsulting. I joined a sort of smallish
team with within Korn ferry.This was in 20002011 or so. I was
part of their governmentconsulting team. And within Korn
Ferry, I made a move to aninternal team focused on, you know,
(02:41):
building scalable consultingsolutions across. Across the organization.
And I think I know of thatteam. You may, you may a couple sort
of SWAT like initiatives aswell that we got parachuted into,
which was a lot of fun.Incredible team, incredible mentors,
amazing boss. And you know,when I left Korn Ferry, I did a short
(03:02):
stint with a company calledceb, was once corporate executive
board, then acquired byGartner, also as a consultant there,
working in marketing talentdevelopment specifically before I
quite literally stumbledacross this role at huge. And at
the time that I applied, itwas at a talent partner role for
(03:25):
their, for their DC officer.So I moved Internal, Internal HR
and HR BP for our DC office,expanded to our southeast region
and then transitioned to helpeffectively found our org effective
and organizational developmentcapability and practice within the
organization. And I've been inthat role for gosh, like three years
(03:49):
now. Yes. And yeah, been withHuge about eight and a half years.
Love it. Amazing company,amazing culture. Can't get enough.
Awesome. Yeah. So for thelistener, JD and I first met on that
second team at Korn Ferry thathe's talking about and mentioned
a great boss. Shout out. ChuckGrant. Agreed. Great boss and friend
(04:10):
to this day. So you spent sometime on the outside before the inside,
you know, and for anyone whodoesn't understand my lingo, you
know, external consulting.Before going into hr, what do you
feel like you were able totake from external consulting into
the HR role?
(04:31):
I think one really interestingthing is that, and this is not to
belittle or diminish any ofour clients who thought they were
super unique, but nothing isactually that unique where a lot
of our, A lot of the problemstatements and challenges that we're
trying to solve as consultantsfor our clients and even Internal,
(04:54):
you know, talent practitionersare very, seemingly very similar.
It's really, you know, theculture itself that might be the
unique part and how we'regoing to get things to work within
the context of thatorganization and that organization's
people and where theirbusiness is. You know, I think that's
probably the unique part. Andyou know, it took me a little while
(05:15):
candidly at huge, to reallyfigure that part out and not go straight
to, you know, Korn fairytraining in the moment. It's like
this is a very differentculture and context and, and we have
to figure out how to makethose things work here and in the,
in the ways that meansomething for huge. So I don't know
(05:35):
if that answers the question,but it does.
Yeah. No, I, what I would sayfrom my own experience, having gone
external to internal, I, Iecho that right and, and I'll be
more, I'll be specific on twoparts. One part generalization, one
part picking on companies alittle bit too. But the generalization
is like leadership isleadership and there's not like there's
(05:58):
our very common leader. Youknow, most of the leadership challenges,
probably 98% are common acrossthe board, regardless of what your
company and your context mightbe. So to your point, like, there's
a lot of feelings ofuniqueness, but actually a lot of
commonality. And I saw thatfirsthand when I was at Buffalo Wild
Wings. So we would bring in,you know, restaurant tours, so to
(06:21):
speak, that, you know, thegeneral managers with corporate manager,
general managers of storeswith corporate managers, and they'd
be, you know, by about an houror two into these programs, they'd
be shocked that they had theexact same problems that they were
dealing with. Right. The otherpart, where I'm going to pick on
companies, my favorite thinghaving having been in a few different
companies in HR roles is theone thing I've heard in the first
(06:42):
week of all of thoseexperiences. We're a relationship
based company. Like, oh, thatmay. Yes, you're, you're the only
one. It's like I joke, but,you know, I don't think any company
is not, you know, I thinkevery company is a relationship company.
All right, one, one morequestion before we dive into our
(07:03):
topic. Now, if you were to, ifyou were to go into consulting again
tomorrow, what do you thinkyou would be taking from your HR
experience into externalconsulting again?
That every company's reallyunique. Perfect.
All right.
Yes. No, let's see.
See you all next time, folks.
(07:27):
I think so. So one, one of thereasons I wanted to get to move internal
from, from consulting was Ireally wanted to be, to be part of
what's next. So instead ofdelivering the thing or the change
management or whatever it is,the new process or approach or the
(07:48):
talent management structure orthe competency model, whatever it
is, and help embed it. Iwanted to be part of everything that
happens after that and get tosee it in action and course correct
and shift our entire model orchange, whatever it had to be. And
I really missed that part. Inconsulting, so often it's like the
engagement ends and you don'treally, you hope it works, but you
(08:10):
don't really get to see or bepart of it. I really wanted to see
and be part of those things.And so I think coming into it, knowing
that no matter what,ultimately you deliver, it's going
to begin to take the shape ofthe org that it's in and being, I
think, really intentionalabout how you can create the space
(08:34):
for that to happen. Some ofthese models or approaches are so
rigid, if you will. It's like,this is the way we do this. And we're
gonna. We're. Yes, we're gonnacustomize it for your unique culture,
but it's like, this is the waywe do this. And it. And it doesn't
have the sort of soft edgesthat for it to really, I think, become
part of an organizational, anorganization's culture or part of
(08:57):
the organization, those thingshave to soften just a little bit.
And so I guess for myself, ifI was to move back into consulting,
it's, you know, we've got ourmethodologies and our approach and
our philosophy, and how do wemake sure that the. That the edges
aren't too sharp, that acompany can't actually do anything
with it when we leave.
Right. Yes. Yeah, I like that.Personally, I've found since I've
(09:19):
made the transition out of hr,that it's really what I've been able
to bring back into it isreally subtle, primarily because
I now know what's happeningbehind the scenes. I know what real
life looks like for the HRpeople working with, for the leaders
that I'm working with. So myability now to take what in hindsight
(09:42):
was probably a pretty academicunderstanding and solid, you know,
the training and sort ofmentoring we had at PDI and Korn
Fairy was really strong. SoI'm not trying to do a disservice
to that. Totally. Just myability to bring it to life is so
much stronger now. Not to tootmy own horn, but just I can feel
(10:04):
it now. Like I know what I'm saying.
Yeah, I love that. And I thinkit really probably more accurately
describes even what I wastrying to suggest, because I've gotten
feedback from my boss at HUGEthat sometimes I can bring things
that she says it probablylooked really great in the lab. And,
(10:24):
yeah, it might be a bit tooacademic. Might be. But operationalizing
it and making it come to lifea huge. Presents different challenges.
For sure. I think that'sexactly right.
Yeah. So let's talk aboutbringing something to life. Right.
So I think you and I werechatting about various things we
could talk about today. So forthe listener, I'm just going to lean
right into it and say we weretalking about your EDGE leadership
(10:46):
program and you were. You weretalking me through a really cool.
Maybe we'll have you onanother day and we'll talk about
that, but you were talking methrough this and I was asking you
about how you measuredresults. And you were. And you started
to say, well, essentiallylike, well, that really comes from
our quarterly performanceprocess that we've implemented and
the data we can get. And Inearly fell off my chair and I was
like, that's, that's what weshould talk about. Let's talk about
(11:08):
that. And so while, you know,I think the annual performance appraisal
process is loved by few,loathed by many, a necessary part
of the rhythm of mostorganizations. Like I said at the
beginning, I've heard of thisapproach to trying to have more real
(11:29):
time, regular performanceconversations instead of it always
being the one, you know, onetime event at the end of the year.
And I know that you've beengoing down that road, so I'd love
to hear about where did thatbegin for you all at huge. And you
know, how, what did you do andhow did you get to where you are
with it today?
(11:50):
So there's a couple thingsthat I might suggest for the genesis
for really exploring it. Andyou know, one of those things was
the simple fact of what you,what you mentioned already that people
hate it. Like, people hategoing through the annual review process.
And it's not just, you know,managers and their, and individual
(12:12):
contributors and, and peopleoutside of hr. HR hates annual reviews
too. It's like nobody wants tobe constantly reminding people to
do it, you know, desperatelytrying to track down people who haven't
shared their feedback orcompleted that form yet, or the manager
that still hasn't written thefinal review or given the rain. It's
like it's a hassle foreverybody. And not only that, it
(12:36):
takes, it's an incredibleamount of time that the organization
is spending away from thebusiness. Like we estimated at huge.
I think this was in 2002, thatwe spent somewhere between 5 and
6,000 hours for relativelysmall company. We're about 8, 900,000
people at the time. 5, 6,000hours at the end of the year for
(13:01):
reviews. And it's like that'sa critical time for the business,
the end of the year and thebeginning of the year. I mean, there's
no time. It's not. Butespecially, especially those points.
So how can we not only thinkdifferently about. Right. What can
we do that people don't hateand what can we also do that that
is not costing the businessspace, time, money, all of those
things?
(13:21):
Well, I think one thing, if Ican interrupt one thing that you
also mentioned was based onhuge's design and how you. You're
kind of project based.
Right.
So people swarm a project.There's various layers of people
and roles that people areplaying. And then that project comes
to an end, they're on to thenext thing. And I think what we were
talking about is you get tothe end of the year and now you're
(13:42):
trying to chase down feedbackfrom 60 people from five, six different
projects you did over 12months that created, you know, some
challenge for you all.
Yep.
Just based on how your company operates.
Yep. That, that was really thethird thing.
So sorry you were getting there.
Not at all an annual review oreven, you know, if you do, you know,
(14:05):
mini mid year cycle. Also thatthose two things were not serving
our people in the way thatthey work. It was really, really
challenging to. For someone tothink about feedback they're going
to share with someone theywere on a project with for three
months, two months back inJanuary, we're now in December. Sometimes
we're even a year lateralready it might be January again
(14:27):
when they're getting ready towrite that feedback. And it's just
not a way to capture anythingthat's not riddled with bias or anything
that isn't that, that that'saccurate. It's really, really challenging.
And so that again created abarrier for our people to give really
good feedback and for ourpeople to get really good feedback,
(14:48):
which then created a wholehost of other challenges for managers
to coach, to deliver feedback,to set clear goals. It was just not
working for our people. Wasthe big thing and the way that we
work.
Yeah. When you were looking atthat this wasn't working, what did
you start exploring? What ledyou to start kind of going down the
(15:11):
path you eventually took?
Yeah, we listened to managersand individuals and one big thing
that we would hear frommanagers when we got to the end of
the year was we're also tyingthis to promotion justifications.
And a lot of times they'resaying, I know this person's ready.
I'm just having troublegetting feedback to support it. I'm
(15:32):
not getting good feedback. Andso we wanted to of course help there
for sure.
Even with the project nature.Right. Like if. If for some reason
the most recent project maybewasn't going well and yet they crushed
the first two or threeprojects they did throughout the
year. There's sort of thatrecency bias of.
(15:54):
Exactly right. Exactly.
I guess that could probablyeither deflate or inflate someone's
sort of promotion readiness justification.
Exactly, exactly. If that mostrecent project someone crushed, chances
are if the, if it was close tothe annual review cycle, their feedback's
probably going to be reallypositive despite maybe having some
(16:16):
challenges earlier in theyear. And so again, yeah, the recency
bias played a, played asignificant role. So it's like, well,
why don't we just, if we knowthat's about the time of, that's
about the time frame thatsomeone can really remember and share
good feedback about someone'sperformance, why don't we just make
that our timeframe? Why don'twe not do one huge thing at the end
(16:39):
of the year and let's do foursmall conversations across the entire
year, which is ultimatelywhere we landed with an approach
called quarterlyconversations. And they're designed
to be that, they're designedto be in the flow of work. They're
designed to be aligned to ourproject cadence and project cycles.
And they're, they're alignedto also not be an additional thing
(17:02):
that a manager or leader intheir team have to do and set aside
time for. We all have, we surehope that we all have regular one
on ones with, with our, withour, with our managers and with managers
with their direct reports andjust use those already existing conversations
to do this, bring in feedback,bring in and use them to coach around
(17:25):
that feedback on a quarterlybasis. And so that's, that's what
we've done.
Are there elements of whatfeeds into the quarterly conversation
that's baked into the sort ofproject execution process now? I
guess is right because. Orwould people mostly have one project
a quarter or might they be in.
Yeah, no big question. So theyindividuals might be across multiple
(17:49):
projects within a quarter andsometimes they're much longer than
a quarter, sometimes they'remuch shorter. And this has been effectively
a three year journey for us.So maybe, maybe, maybe we start back
there and I can get to kind ofwhere we are now in that when we,
when we launched it, theinitial idea was look, once a quarter
(18:09):
you should be having a careerfocused and feedback and coaching
focused conversation with yourmanager at least once a quarter.
And we're going to start now.So this quarter have a conversation
about your goals, have aconversation about what areas you
want to develop, build an idp,let's do these things. And shared
a number of resources ofcourse, to help with that. But that
(18:31):
was the idea. Let's just startwith something very basic. And we
did two quarters of that andthen we did a third quarter where
we said, okay, we're going tonow layer one more thing on top of
this. We want everybody in theOrganization as if this were the
annual review. We want you tosolicit feedback from peers that
are on your projects and wehave a platform that can support
us in this. But so everyone,you know, we shared prompts for how
(18:54):
they should do it tied to our,what we call development models,
but our competency models sothat they can solicit feedback directly
to the things that they'retrying to focus on and directly to
their projects. And then wedid that for two quarters. So now
we've got a year basicallywhere we've embedded this idea that
we believe as a company thishas to happen at least once a quarter.
(19:15):
Now we also believe that itshould be tied to real time feedback
from your work and from yourday to day. And the following year
we said we're not doing annualreviews anymore. So that year we
did have an annual review. Thenext year we said we're not going
to do that. It's going to lookdifferent. We want you to have four
quarters of quarterlyconversations with feedback tied
(19:38):
into them. And at the end ofthe year, all of that's already documented.
You've got everything you needto just roll it into one final, what
we call capstone conversationfor the year. But you don't have
to go chase all your peersdown. We're not going to send out
a huge review form. We maystill collect performance ratings
to drive other initiativeswithin the organization, but we know
(19:59):
now those performance ratingsaren't just based on what we can
remember from Q4. There's apaper trail, if you will, to get
us to whatever that final,final rating might look like. Now,
where we are today is we haveand are infusing what we call project
based feedback cycles into ourquarterly conversations. So really,
really simple way for to tell,automate and operationalize and scale.
(20:24):
Really quick way for people todeliver feedback to each other once
a project ends and then thatdrives the quarterly conversation.
Cool. So whose accountabilityis it during the project cycle to
provide feedback? What's thatlook like?
Yeah, I mean everyone'seffectively. So the feedback form
goes to everyone on theproject. And let me pause also there
(20:46):
and say, I recognize if youare super skeptical, which you might
be, or cynical, you might bethinking, well, wait a second, you're
telling me you basically justtook what you did once a year and
you're now asking people to doit four times a year or for every
project.
I will cross that off thequestions I was about to ask.
Go ahead. Yeah, and in a way,in a way you would be right. What
(21:08):
we're trying to do is aconnect feedback to the flow of work.
We know our people want morefeedback. We know we need to make
it easier for them. And thisis at least the way right now. And
this will evolve for sure. Butthis is the way right now. We think
we can do that and make itsimple and scalable. The feedback
we've gotten from our peoplewho have gone through this project
(21:30):
process, that it's reallysimple. They would much rather do
this five, six, seven times ayear than one and one annual review.
We make it. It's. Well, Ithink part of the, part of the challenge
is it's really easy to giveand share feedback with people when
it's really fresh. I thinkpart of the challenge is we get to
(21:51):
the end of the year and peoplefeel pressure to deliver really solid
feedback and they can't. Andso they don't because they can't
remember. So if we can do itin the flow of project, we know that
people are way more willing toengage in it and have more effective
feedback that they can sharewith each other. It's also really
simple. There's, you know,it's, it's, it's basically a single
(22:14):
question that's like,effectively, you know, what advice
would you have for this personif you were to work with them on
a project Again, which thatsort of turn of phrase there also
takes a little bit ofpressure. It's like, well, it's not
feedback, it's advice. Andwe've seen so far that individuals
are much, much more likely toengage with it.
Huh?
(22:34):
Yes, it is everybody fourtimes, but.
Okay, but so does everybodyfill it out for everybody on the
project or how is that beingsorted out?
Yeah. So mechanically,everyone is invited to. We know that
not everyone works thatclosely with, with each other and
we also know that everyoneplays a different role on that project.
(22:56):
So there is a questionspecific to someone's leadership
efficacy if they are a projectlead versus a, what we might call
a maker at huge. If their,their questions, their form might
look a little bit differently.But yes, everyone's invited. You
can decline a feedback requestif you didn't work with that person.
And we actively encouragefolks to do that if, if they, if
(23:18):
they didn't work together, youdon't get feedback and that's okay.
Yeah.
Is there, is there a minimumexpectation of how many you do need
to accept and give or have yourun into that?
It's a good question. Wehaven't run into it yet. This part
of it is relatively new still.So we're, we're still sort of testing,
if you will, and collectingfeedback about the process. It's
(23:40):
been really positive thus far, though.
Cool.
Yeah.
So how have you. All right, solet's, let's go to the elephant in
the room. Right. Which is thetie into, you know, merit slash,
you know, whatever languagepeople use. Merit salary increases
and bonus slash incentivepayouts. How have you decoupled or
(24:03):
recoupled or, you know, howhave you adjusted that with this
new process?
I'm really glad you askedbecause we, historically, we were
really adamant at one pointabout decoupling our review process,
feedback and coaching and ourincrease. Merit increase process
and our merit increase cycles.Reason being, you know, we want the
(24:25):
conversation about growth andyour performance from the past year
to be separate from aconversation about your compensation
increase or your compensation.And we are effectively looking at
making a complete 180 thereand reconnecting those things again
(24:48):
because of the response fromour people that it felt clunky. It
felt, if they're disconnected,then why are we, why are you asking
us to do this thing and whatare you using that data for? And.
Right.
Are they really?
I guess. How are you makingthe merit decision then?
Exactly, exactly, exactly. Andso we are.
(25:08):
What did you, what did you trythat you've decided isn't quite what
you wanted or what you werehoping for?
Sorry, ask that again.
So it sounds like you had, youhad decoupled it.
Yep.
So how did you determine inthat year how to handle merit increases
that now you've decided maybenot what we wanted. Exactly. And
putting them back together,they were.
(25:28):
Coupled in the sense thatperformance ratings still drove initial
merit increase recommendationsand those types of things, we decoupled
the conversation to try toseparate those concepts and got it.
Okay.
I don't, and I don't want tospeak on behalf of our chief people
officer, chief talent officer,but we don't necessarily believe
(25:52):
that is right anymore. That infact, these things do drive one another.
Let's be transparent andhonest about those things and also
ensure that people know whatto expect from it. If you've had
these types of quarterlyconversations and your ratings look
like this, at the end of theyear, you should expect this type
of increase or bonus orwhatever it might be. And so we're
(26:13):
looking now at, at. We're inthe middle of this process now. So
that's why I still say we'rekind of looking at it, but bringing
those things back together.
God. Okay, okay. So I, youknow, for the listener, I think I
had Thought you completelydecoupled. Meaning technically too,
not just the conversations.Right. Like that, that the ratings,
(26:34):
information, performance, youknow, information coming out of those
was divorced. But what I'mhearing you say is we tried to separate
the conversations, notnecessarily the technicalities. Right,
yeah. Okay, got it, got it,got it. Yeah. And which, right. I
would say now, having workedin organizations where we're only
(26:55):
doing the annual, you know,annual thing, I've always said from
my roles either within talentmanagement or leadership development,
that, well, if you're havingregular conversations, nothing should
be a surprise year end. But Iwould say you're, you're relying,
you're relying on leadersknowing and, and you know, how do
(27:20):
I want to, how am I trying toput this? It's a hope and I'll just
be honest about it. It's ahope and a prayer right around like,
well, what percentage ofleaders are actually going to do
that? Because life is messyand there's a lot of work in front
of us and there is some, thereis something about the good, bad
or otherwise. There issomething about the process driven,
(27:43):
you know, hr, process driveneventizing of it that makes people
pay attention and do it. Avery quick parallel. When I was doing,
we were trying to pull peercoaching groups together. This is
a long time ago in my veryfirst HR role, you know, we would
say, all right, now you all,here's your coaching group and this
(28:05):
is how often you should meetand here's some agenda stuff. And
you know, I started checkingin with people a few months later.
I was like, how are the peercoaching groups going? And they were
like, what, what do you mean?What do you mean, what? This, all
this material that we put infront of you and told you to go do.
And he just said, hey, listen,Kent, when the invite comes from
(28:25):
you, I pay attention and I'llattend it.
Right.
So learn some lessons that,you know, another day, another interview
on. But, but the parallelbeing like there is something about
it being process driven that,that gives accountability again,
good, bad or otherwise. Givesaccountability to making, making
(28:45):
it happen or making sure it happens.
Yeah, and that's, that's,that's been part of our goal here
too is like, let's, let'screate a system and a process that
doesn't allow for work to getin the way of that conversation because
it's just part of the work.It's, it's part of the day to day.
It's just the next thing thathappens. I mean, there's some sort
of utopian system here. Whereit's like there's nothing. It's.
(29:09):
And we've, we've kicked itaround this idea of like a fully
open growth architecture athuge. Where it's like there's no
systems, there's nothing. It'sjust like our people just do it.
And it's like, maybe that'llhappen, but work's going to get in
the way. Work will get in theway. And this right now, at least
for us, is, is a, is a waythat we can ensure it doesn't or
help it not get in the way. Ifthat makes sense.
(29:30):
Yeah. Awesome. Well, so I wantto come back because I know you had
already said it, but again,you know, I could imagine a scenario
where, you know, employeesfeel like, well, now let's talk about
employees and then we can talkabout managers. Right. There's a
scenario where I could seeemployees being able. Now I'm doing
this four times a year. Butyou said that you're actually getting
(29:53):
really good feedback about itfrom your employees. So what are
you hearing, what are youhearing from employees that's reinforcing,
you know, for you all to keepgoing down this path? And I'd be
curious, what's some of thefeedback? And I know you're recoupling
the performance, the, themerit conversation, but what are
some of the other pieces offeedback that you're, that you're,
(30:14):
you're churning over on? Kindof. Because I, I take it from our
conversation and knowing youthat you have this kind of continuous
improvement, improvementmindset. Right. So, like, nothing's
ever done and dusted.Everything can always be evolved
and better. So let me restatemy question, which is what's the,
what's the, what are youhearing from employees that's reinforcing
that you're going down theright path? What are you, what other
(30:35):
things are you kind of kickingaround around? Continued evolution?
Yes. So, and as you, as youwere asking the question, I was trying
to pull up a couple ofmessages I have on Slack from a few,
few folks I'd reached out toafter their project feedback cycle
wrapped up, because I knowcynical and skeptical and I mean.
(30:56):
Always good to enroll thosepeople and give me feedback.
Exactly. And so one of them,you know, I'll read directly. It's.
I like it. It's faster andeasier than trying to remember what
you did with someone sevenmonths ago. And especially for some
people, the number of requeststhat you get around the end of the
year pile up and each ends uptaking much longer. And so again,
(31:18):
yes, this Individual mighthave to do this a few more times.
But, but because of where itis in the flow of work, it's faster
because they remember it's allfresh, it's right there. And the
form that we're asking them tocomplete as part of it is really,
really small and simple. Sowhat's next is feedback collection.
(31:39):
It's like I would love to say,well, I've already got the next iteration
of this in my head andhonestly I. So for the first time
in a long time, and this isprobably not necessarily a good thing,
that it's for the first timein a long time, I don't. And I say
that is a good thing becauseit gives us completely free open
(32:01):
space to figure out what workswith it and what doesn't. Because
we're kind of, at least in myperspective, we're kind of in uncharted
territory here for us andprobably for a lot of organizations.
So not knowing if we're goingto, you know, steer left or steer
right or just keep goingstraight with it is I think a really
(32:23):
good thing in the, in thismoment. And I'm excited to see how,
how as we really start tocollect more and more feedback about
the process and see how and ifit's working, like is it actually
doing what we believe it isintended to do? And truly what it
is intended to do is serve ourpeople to ensure that they are getting
regular, real feedback andcoaching in the moment and in their
(32:47):
day to day versus serving theorganization to collect data for
whatever reason. So we're in acool app, cool space now where we
get to see and like, does thiswork? And if it doesn't, you know,
we can, we can start to coursecorrect from there and figure out
what is, what is the next iteration.
Yeah. Nice. So I want toreflect something back. So when it
comes to the employee. Right.And every manager is an employee
(33:10):
too. But so when you'rewearing the employee hat, yeah, it
sounds like it's, it'sactually the same amount of work
for the employee. It's justspread out over the course of the
year, especially when it comesto collecting peer feedback. Right.
So to your point, instead ofgetting 17, 20, 30 requests at the
end of the year that I nowwant to want to do it. Right. But
(33:32):
where am I finding the time?And like, I don't, I barely remember
this person. Right. Or, youknow, barely remember that project.
It's probably the same amountof work is just spread out over 12
months instead of exactly oneor two. But I would imagine It's
a little. You are asking forfour. Now, I'm going to. I'm talking
(33:52):
out of both sides of my mouthhere for a second, which is you're
asking for, you know, foursemi official conversations to happen
instead of one for managers.That said, the leadership development
and coach and me says theyshould be having these conversations
this often regardless. Right.Like you should be having a career
(34:14):
conversation, a developmentconversation, probably quarterly
anyway. Like, if you reallywant to. Nobody. I. Show me the person
who wakes up not wanting totruly be a good leader, who's in
a leader role. Whether or notthey can fulfill it is another question.
But like, if you really wantto be a good leader, you should be
(34:34):
doing that anyway. Right. So Ijust wanted to get that out of there
when I asked, when I, when Isay the question. But you are asking
them to have now this officialconversation three more times or,
or kind of four more times.Especially if there's like a summative.
So, yeah, what's, what's the,what's the feedback been from managers?
(34:54):
I know we covered it, but tome it's a lie. It's a late in the
week and late in the day andnot at all.
Yeah. Again, generallypositive. It is generally positive.
Like, I won't sugarcoat it andsay like, no, it's not that. Right,
it is that. And we, and we.And we say that out loud. Like, yes,
we are asking you to do thisfour times. Here's why, here's what
(35:17):
we believe, here's the visionwe have for this and where we're
trying to go. And I won't saythat we don't get some, you know,
rolled eyes and pushback and.And at the same time, the feedback
is generally positive that,yes, I believe and understand why
we're doing this and that thisis the right thing for our people.
(35:39):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I would imagine that from someleaders, I would hope. Let me say
that the optimist in me wouldhope. You're also hearing this is
actually making my ability tobe a good leader and developer of
a person like, that much easier.
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
(36:00):
All right, one more questionbefore I get us into our, our advice
section.
Cool.
Because, you know, I've workedfor much larger companies where I
would argue, you know, Titanicsized, where this would be a massive
change from what used to bedone, what made huge a place where
you could do this.
Seek commitment to innovation,iteration and patience for some of
(36:26):
those things. Culturally, weare a design, innovation and technology
company. And so that is at theheart of our culture and there is
willingness to create space.If you talk about the why, like what
we're trying to do and whypeople will. And culturally, you'll
get the space to do it untilit's still not working and you're
(36:49):
not doing anything about it.That's where, that's where challenges
can come from. But no, youknow, it's also, we are an organization
like, like, like, like manywhere this was a big change and we
still had to be thoughtful andintentional about the change management.
You know, we didn't, we didn'tcompletely overhaul the entire process
(37:10):
in Q1 of 2022. It's like, Imean, we are just now, Maybe it was
2023, but we are just nowadding the final layer to it. And
not all of those layers wereplanned. Again, this is a bit of
let's see how this goes andwhat else could we do and what's
the feedback? How can we makethis easier, better, faster, more
efficient, but more effectivealso and more human. Yeah, so it's
(37:33):
been a, it's been, it's beena, it's been a journey for us as
well. You know, we didn't, wedidn't turn the ship left. We immediately,
it's, it's got a small rudder.
Yeah, that's, it's exciting. Ithink you're doing what a lot of
HR people, at least that I'vecome across, would envy and love
to be doing.
I mean, it's fun. It's fun.
All right, well, let me giveus a violent shove into our advice
(37:55):
section. So I always ask theguests to come prepared with at least
two pieces of advice. 1. Andso we'll start with, you know, what's
your advice for leaders whoare listening?
You know, I'm actually goingto. This is a bit of a pivot from
what I thought I was going toprepare or what I, what I prepare.
But I mentioned, you know, we,and I think you shared the example
(38:18):
of, like, we ask our leadersto have these conversations on a
regular basis and we give themthe tools and the support and the
resources to be able to coachtheir people. But to your point,
like, you know, what do youmean, what coaching meeting. It's
like work gets in the way. Andso my advice is be intentional about
(38:41):
not letting work get in theway of leading. Find and create the
space to make those things apriority, whether or not it is an
organizational behavior or not.
Yeah, nice. I always say yourregular one on one is where the best
of intentions for developmentand career conversations go to die.
And And I always, I alwayspush people. I say put it on the
(39:04):
calendar. Calendar at once aquarter. Oh, yeah, you'll make it.
You'll make it happen.
That's exactly right. Andthat's practically what we did. Like,
just make this one aboutcoaching and development. Yeah.
Nice. Nice. All right, what'syour. So what's your advice for HR
folks as well as leaders whoare supporting the growth of other
leaders?
You mentioned edge leadership,and that was something that we had
(39:25):
picked around that we're goingto talk one of our leadership programs.
And that program is also adriver of this performance management
philosophy too. And, and sofor us, like, And I guess my advice
there would be to. That's away for us to make it real and not
just a resource. So findingways to make leadership development
(39:46):
real and, and not just notjust a resource. You know, the, the
growth in our leaders andmanagers doesn't come just from the
toolkit or the training. It's.It happens in the practice and in
the conversations and in thetimes that we fail at doing those
things. So how do we designour culture? How do we design our
(40:09):
leadership developmentinitiatives to. To meet that reality?
And I guess ending my advicewith a question probably isn't the
best thing, but maybe I will.
Yeah. Any. Anything else? Anyparting thoughts as we're winding
down here?
(40:30):
I don't, I don't this. I mean,this was a great conversation and
I so appreciate it. I don'tknow. I don't know that I've got
a parting thought for you.Terrible way to end.
Well, let me ask it this wayand we'll be brief. I know you've
got. You've got places to be.If p. If other organizations or HR
people were interested ingoing down this path, what would
(40:51):
you as like, first kind ofsteps, what would you recommend they.
The start of their journey be?
Yeah. You know, I've used thisanalogy about myself before, but
I'm, I am the type of guythat, like, when I go to an all you
can eat buffet, like, I grabthe biggest plate I can find and
I'm just like dumpingeverything on it. Like, yeah, I want
steak and fish and fried chicken.
(41:13):
Yeah.
And I honestly, when I firststepped into this role, you know,
leading our org effectivenessfunction, I. That's kind of what
I did. I was like, oh, we gotso many things I want to do. And
so I'm taking this huge plateto the buffet and trying to do everything.
And I learned quickly, youjust can't. You can't do it. And
that's the approach that wetook with. With these quarterly conversations.
(41:34):
It's like take a much smallerplate to the buffet and just focus
your intention on. On veryclear things and not all the things.
Nice. There it is. You. Youheard it here, folks. How do you
eat an elephant? One bite at atime. So we will leave it there for
the day. Thank you so much,JD. I appreciate it. This was a fun
conversation.
This is great. So appreciateit. Yeah.
(41:55):
Awesome. All right, take iteasy, everybody. That brings us to
the end of our episode. Thanksfor listening. I'd encourage you
to head on over to my website,Kent Coach, and start a conversation
with me there. Or check out mypromotion playbook at Kent Coates
Playbook. Before you go onwith your day, I ask that you please
take a moment to leave arating and a review wherever you
listen to podcasts. Fivestars. That helps put this podcast
(42:17):
in front of more eyes andears. Until next time, take it easy.
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