November 6, 2024 • 45 mins
What truly defines success in the world of human resources? Hear from Andrew Bartlow, a seasoned HR expert with a quarter-century of experience, as he shares his unique insights into mastering HR beyond just being a "people person." Discover how adaptability and continuous learning are pivotal in navigating the intricate landscapes of diverse organizations. Andrew's journey reveals his passion for consulting and executive education, providing invaluable strategies for tackling challenges like leadership effectiveness and change management, all while embracing the subjective nature of measuring success in HR.
Imagine HR as a vibrant restaurant—do you merely take orders or design the entire dining experience? Andrew likens the HR function to the service industry, emphasizing the significance of strategic alignment and the careful balance between immediate tasks and long-term goals. Uncover the allure and pitfalls of adopting best practices from industry giants like Google and Apple, and understand why context is king when applying these practices to your own organization. This conversation is a banquet of insights for those looking to transform their HR strategies with intention and clarity.
Feelings of self-doubt and imposter syndrome often accompany even the most accomplished executives, and Andrew's People Leader Accelerator program addresses these challenges head-on. By fostering a supportive community and encouraging applied learning, HR professionals can confidently navigate their roles and make a meaningful impact. With recommendations for influential books and podcasts, Andrew offers pathways for personal and professional growth. Tune in to explore how you can connect with Andrew and tap into his vast reservoir of knowledge, and learn how creating safe spaces within HR networks can catalyze significant transformation.
Rebel HR is a podcast for HR professionals and leaders of people who are ready to make some disruption in the world of work. Please connect to continue the conversation!
https://twitter.com/rebelhrguy
https://www.facebook.com/rebelhrpodcast
http://www.kyleroed.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyle-roed/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Who are we as a company?
What are we trying toaccomplish?
How do we behave?
What's most important right now?
Who will do what?
You could substitute some ofthe questions, but the idea is
just to get crystal clear onwhat are we trying to do, who
are we and who's going to do it,and then the priorities.
This is the Rebel.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
HR Podcast the podcast where we talk to human
resources innovators aboutinnovation in the world of HR.
If you're a people leader oryou're looking for a new way to
think about how to help othersbe successful, this is the
podcast for you.
Rebel on HR Rebels.
All right, rebel HR listeners.
(00:47):
Welcome to the show.
We've got a good one for youthis week.
I think a lot of you are goingto relate to our guest, andrew
Bartlow has 25 years of humanresources and talent management
experience at organizationsacross a wide spectrum of sizes,
maturity stages and industriesa wide spectrum of sizes,
maturity stages and industries.
Co-author of a book calledScaling for Success People
(01:08):
Priorities for High-GrowthOrganizations.
He's got a master's degree fromthe top program in his field.
He's got all sorts ofaccreditations.
I'm totally going to screw upif I try to read them.
He leads Series B Consulting,which helps businesses to
articulate their people strategyand accelerate their growth
while navigating rapid change.
Welcome to the show, andrew.
Hey, thanks a lot, kyle.
(01:28):
Thanks for having me,absolutely so.
I'm always excited to talk tosomebody with so many years of
HR experience and the fact thatyou are still in the field after
25 years.
What's up with that?
What kept you in the professionthat long.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
You know it makes me sound really old.
I have a birthday coming upnext week, maybe two weeks out,
and yeah, I started my careerhere.
I didn't fall into HR like somany other people did, you know,
coming out of another admintype of job or recruitment, or a
career changer admin type ofjob or recruitment, or a career
(02:10):
changer.
I found this profession and Istuck with it because I get some
satisfaction out of it.
I feel like it's a Cal Newportsort of thing where you just
practice your craft and you getbetter at it over time and I've
stubbed my toe and burnt myfingers a few times and now I'm
at the point where I kind offeel like I've seen a few things
and I can be just that muchmore useful to the clients I
(02:33):
work with and other HR peoplethat I help mentor.
I love that.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
I think that it is really profound and something
that I think we need to talkmore about, and that is the.
You know HR as a as a craft,you know as a profession, as
something that it's not justabout being a quote people,
person.
It's about kind of honing yourskills.
You know truly being a subjectmatter expert and you know I
(03:03):
what I heard you didn't come outand say this, but I heard that
there's also, you know, someinherent pride in the work that
you do and and you know the theinterest to share that with
others.
So what do you think was theturning point for you where you
kind of thought okay, I think Iknow where, what I'm doing, and
now I'm ready, and now I'm readyto kind of, you know, take it
(03:23):
to the next level and start togive back.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Oh boy, I don't know.
Like every time you feel likeyou know what you're doing, I
anyway, maybe you as well, havethis pull to go stretch yourself
a little bit more into thatplace of discomfort.
So, yeah, I don't know,whenever I feel like I'm
learning something, I enter anew field or I try to expand out
(03:46):
, and I've done that lately withthis exec ed program.
I started up, so now I'mProfessor Bartlow, in some ways
the non-PhD teacher.
But yeah, I don't know.
You just see enough things inenough different environments
that you can pattern match.
You can have a variety ofdifferent tools and practices to
(04:10):
pick from.
You're not bound just by oneway of doing things or one
school of thought, but onceyou've seen enough stuff, you
just have more options and morecontext by which to make better
decisions.
And when did that happen?
When was that magical time?
I don't know, but I've.
You know, I've been doing thisfor a long time in a lot of
(04:30):
different places, from fortune50 to less than 50 employees,
and I find that you know itkeeps me sharp by continuing to
do the work.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
I think that's really interesting.
And one of the you know, one ofthe items that you know, I know
(05:08):
that you kind of focus on, isthe you know kind of the
subjective nature of measuringsuccess and how, you know, just
problem solving in general.
So what is your approach as youare focusing on, you know, on
an organization that you'rehelping, be that a large
organization, small organizationhow do you go in and start to
figure out, okay, where do Istart?
What is the pattern that I'mgoing to follow?
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Well, well, for me it's.
It's easy nowadays in that, youknow, I I have clients and
those clients have a specificneed that they're asking me to
help with.
And, um, you know, those fallinto two camps.
One is, you know, those whereI'm actually doing the work,
advising the board or the CEO,and it's often about an
organizational or talentmanagement topic, like, hey,
(05:51):
help us figure out how to makethe leadership team more
effective, or we're goingthrough an acquisition or a new
investor.
What do we need to know?
What do we need to dodifferently.
And I can help look under thehood.
So that's one, and so I've gota really specific ask from the
client in those situations.
The other type of client that Ihave nowadays is an HR
(06:14):
professional.
So it's the head of HR at asmall to mid-sized company who
may have done that for a coupleof years no more than a couple
of times and they're looking fora sounding board and somebody
with more experience, more lapsaround the track to bounce ideas
off of and help them navigatetheir own internal, whether it
be politics or interests oftheir stakeholders or how to
(06:37):
approach different things.
You never want to appear stupidor inexperienced in front of
your own CEO or your ownleadership team.
So having a community ofpractice, having a mentor that
you can turn to, who doesn'tjudge you, that gets to know you
and your business really well,can be really valuable.
So that's kind of the secondarena and in that case those
(07:02):
types of clients, the HR leaders.
It's more about what they wantto talk about.
What are your needs?
What do you want to bounce offof me today?
I'll often steer them in adirection or two if I see a gap
in their thinking.
But nowadays it's really easy.
So long answer and you'll editthis if you want.
But back when I was in-house, Iguess putting myself in the
(07:24):
shoes of your internal HRleaders how do you figure out
what to work on?
Boy, I talk about that inPeople Leader Accelerator and
I'm sure I'll pitch that later.
The most important role of thehead of the function is deciding
what the function will work on.
(07:45):
Pause on that and think aboutthat for a minute.
If you're just constantlychasing down all the asks that
are raining down on you from allsides, what is the likelihood
that you'll actually be workingon the most important things to
the business over the long term?
Really low right.
And so, especially at small andmid-sized companies, got all
this stuff that you could bedoing and all these needs of
(08:08):
other people, but what's themost important?
And so that's where I thinkin-house folks can often benefit
from taking a little bit of astep back and thinking about
what's the business trying toaccomplish?
What do my stakeholders careabout?
What should me and my team beworking on, versus just what's
(08:31):
at the top of my inbox or who'sin the front of the line at my
door.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Absolutely yeah, and you talked about stumbles.
I mean, that was for me thatyou hit the nail on the head,
because I would say, especiallyearlier in my, in my HR
leadership roles, it was like Iwas just trying to make
everybody happy, right, somebodyhad a complaint and they'd come
in my office and I'd try tohelp resolve it.
Right, and it was very.
(08:56):
It was like binary, right, oh,there's a problem, let's fix it,
and then and but you know, whenyou're, when you're dealing
with a team and you're trying tobuild culture and do all these,
all these really important andcritical things, and you know
DEI, you know all these, allthese things that are so
critical to an organization, butif you don't have any priority,
(09:19):
then you know you don't, youdon't have any priorities, right
, so it's, it's um's.
That was a pretty hard stumblingblock for me early on and I
would say it still is,especially, you know, over the
last year or two.
I mean everything.
You know, I think a lot of us,when we were tasked with dealing
(09:40):
with work from home or pandemicor whatever, you know, you had
to pivot away from some of thosethings, but you still needed to
like, look at where we're atright now, if you didn't
prioritize other aspects of yourbusiness, like employee
engagement, retention,empowerment, picking the right
people, keeping the right people, you know, structuring work
(10:00):
from home so that it works foreverybody, guess what You're
losing?
Now you're, you're losingpeople.
And so if you didn't keep theball rolling in the middle of a
global pandemic.
Then now you're kind of behindthe eight ball by about 18
months, and so it's tough.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Yeah, and that's where there's an opportunity for
the human resources team tolead, not just follow, not just
react.
And so we're in a globalpandemic.
All right, we can't come intothe office.
What does that mean in terms ofhow our people work and the
needs that our managers may haveand how we get aligned to do
(10:36):
the work that we can do at itsbest can be proactive and
thoughtful and makerecommendations and drive the
company forward.
So how will we communicate topeople?
How will we ensure that peopleknow what they should be working
on and they're getting feedbackalong the way?
(10:57):
And now, in the midst of thegreat resignation, what are we
doing to help our organizationsattract and retain people, as
wage rates seem to beskyrocketing and attrition,
which was pent up, seems to bejust increasing rapidly?
Yeah, there's kind of a longeranalogy I could give on.
(11:20):
That there's a restaurantanalogy.
That there's a restaurantanalogy.
Traditionally, the history ofthe HR function is rooted in
service right.
You want people to feel good,working for your company,
interacting with you,interacting with your team, and
in a restaurant that could be.
You're the server, you take theorder, you smile, you make a
(11:43):
friend, you bring it back andeverybody's happy.
But that's just order takingand there's pride that the
server should have.
It's a need in any sort themenu or designing the restaurant
concept.
What types of jobs are there atthis restaurant?
(12:10):
What should the items on themenu be priced?
What order should they be putin?
Do you have booths or tables?
There are lots of connectionsto the workplace where an HR
leader can just answer questionsand leave people feeling good,
or they can think ahead and whatis a career path?
What do the facilities looklike?
(12:30):
What do the trainingopportunities look like?
And be more proactive andconnected, all together to help
the business meet its goals.
And so you still need greatservice.
But there's this opportunitythat not enough HR leaders take
full advantage of.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Yeah, that's so funny , it's a perfect analogy.
And you know, when people askme how I got into HR, I say my.
You know, my first HR job wasbeing a bartender, because it's
basically the same job, Exceptyou had something that could
actually make them happier.
Except you had something thatcould actually make them happier
(13:08):
.
No, but I love that proactiveand actually structuring an
organization or a process or youknow, whatever you're working
(13:29):
on in order to serve yourculture and your business and
your people and, like you know,kind of that win, win, win
approach, which is really reallyeasy for me to say on this
podcast.
And I know there's probably atleast half our listeners rolling
their eyes right now going Kyle, yeah, that sounds easy, but
it's really hard to do.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
At least half our listeners are rolling their eyes
right now going Kyle, yeah,that sounds easy, but it's
really hard to do.
Yeah Well, you know it allstarts with a plan.
Though you will be reactive,you'll be at the mercy of the
top of your inbox or the nextSlack message or whatever comes
across a transom if you don'thave some basic plan.
So what is your company tryingto accomplish?
(14:06):
What is your team doing to tryto support that?
What are the most important?
Three or so things that shouldbe front of mind, even if you're
not working on it every minuteand you can't be right.
Some of those emergencies andfire drills need to be attended
to.
But what are the most importantthings?
And if you don't have thatreally clear and at the top of
(14:26):
your list and everybody on yourteam's list like visible and top
of mind, then chances areyou're doing some spinning.
So I'd argue that's actuallynot that hard, but not enough of
us do it.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
No, that's so true.
And yeah, and I can think of anumber of times where, you know,
in my head it made a ton ofsense, it made perfect sense.
But you know, you start movingforward, you start working on
something, and then you look toyour left and your right and
you're like well, where iseverybody?
Why aren't they here with me?
And it's because, you know, itwasn't articulated clearly or it
(15:01):
wasn't laid out or it was toomuddy.
You know, my issue is, a lot oftimes I want to do everything
right now because it's all goodstuff and I, you know, if I'm
struggling anything, it's sayingit's sometimes it's saying no
to a great idea even though wejust don't have time to do it
that sort of, uh, that kind ofAchilles heel, if you will.
(15:22):
So I want to.
I want to talk a little bitabout um, a little bit that,
about that, in the context ofbest practices.
And this is one of those areasthat you know we were talking
about before we hit record and Ireally want to explore this.
You've seen, you've seen thebig companies, you've seen the
small companies.
You're running your own companyand I think we always talk
(15:47):
about trying to define a bestpractice or trying to act like a
Google or an Airbnb or an Appleand some of these places that
have these dynamic cultures.
So why don't we start off firstof all?
Why do you feel like everybodyneeds to make everything a best
(16:10):
practice?
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Well, I think there's .
I think there's credibility inbest practices.
If you can attach a wellrecognized name or brand to hey,
xyz is doing this, it comeswith a sense of borrowed
credibility.
And if you're trying to figureout what your organization
(16:32):
should do or convince somebodywhat your team should be doing,
then having an example, even ifit's anecdotal, is at least a
place to start.
Even if it's anecdotal is atleast a place to start.
So it's rational.
But the next step ofrationality we don't always get
(16:52):
there which is are they?
like us Is their context similarto ours Was having a
conversation similar to this notthat long ago and the person I
was talking to said yeah,context is King, not content.
I loved it, and so I said I'mgoing to steal that, and I just
did.
I used it again right here.
There you go, yeah, so content.
(17:14):
Whatever the best practices,whatever the idea is, whatever
the you know I rememberholacracy from Zappos, the
self-managed work teams, youknow is Is that the right thing
for every company to use?
Probably not.
Did it work for Zappos For awhile in some ways?
But at least apply a filter ofwhy did that thing work for that
(17:38):
place?
What do we have in common withthem, and does it make sense for
that to potentially work for usas well?
So I think it's just lookingfor evidence, looking for some
clues about what might work atyour own place, and it doesn't
hurt to start with a brand name,but it does hurt to do it
without thinking twice aboutwhether it's a good fit or not.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Absolutely no, that's really.
I love that.
Context is king because it's,you know, my, my organization,
we're manufacturing, you know,and we're 130 years old.
So you know, if we were to justcopy and paste a you know put a
slide in the break room, causeGoogle did it one time, or at
least I read that they did, butI don't even know.
(18:22):
I just read a fun article abouta ball pit and a slide and I
can't remember now maybe thatwas the McDonald's Play Place
and I'm mixing it up, but itsounds cool Ping pong tables, et
cetera.
I mean, people would just thinkI was crazy.
Right, the context doesn't fitand I've got a good story.
I think you'll get a kick out ofthis and maybe you've heard of
(18:43):
this with your experience.
But I won't name the company,but one of the companies I work
for, a very, very large company,like hundreds of thousands of
employees, and I was relativelyyoung in my career, so I didn't
know what I didn't know, andthey came out with an office
best practice, like, literally,like okay, this binder has this
(19:06):
in it and it sits on this shelfor it sits in this file cabinet
and and like it was like.
At the time I was like, oh man,this is like I mean I'll do
this, but, um, and then theywould go around and they would
audit and they would check tosee, did you?
You know is like, this was likean audit item, right.
So, literally, check the box,is the, is the HR office the way
(19:28):
it needs to be?
And it was at that moment in oneof those audits that I said I
think I need to find a differentcompany, but it was like it was
.
But it's like that was a bestpractice.
It was literally written anddefined as HR office best
practice, but I would notrecommend that to anybody, so we
could call was a best practice.
It was literally written anddefined as HR office best
practice, but I would notrecommend that to anybody, so we
(19:49):
could call it a best practice.
That doesn't necessarily meanit is.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
That's fair, Boy.
You're bringing me back to mymanufacturing days and ISO 9000
audits and just thick books ofthree ring binders.
There's value in organizations,especially really mature
organizations, having stuffwritten down and knowing how to
(20:16):
get it done.
And if you have suppliers thatyou're a vendor to, that want to
know that you're able todeliver, there's some merit in
that.
But yeah, let's put it into.
Let's put this example into adifferent context.
What if you're a high growthtechnology startup who's
changing their product orservice every three weeks and
(20:36):
they're changing the technologyon which the product resides and
they're moving into newcountries?
Do you really think thatdocumenting all of those
processes are going to work forthem?
Heck, no, they don't even knowwhat the process is yet.
But if you're a 130-year-old,really stable manufacturing
company, there might be benefitin doing that For some things
(20:59):
anyway.
Maybe not binders on the HRshelf yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
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(23:11):
Yeah, I'm using thatintentionally as a kind of funny
.
I don't know if that companystill has that as a requirement,
but if anybody knows theorganization and can tell me do
they still have the HR officediagram, I would love to know
organization and can tell me dothey still have the HR office
diagram?
I would love to know.
But I think that's somethingthat I want to explore a little
(23:33):
bit more is kind of that abilityto change as well, and I think
that's one of the potentialpitfalls of being adhering to
that best practice at thedetriment of being change ready
and being, you know, beingwilling to be flexible and in
this, you know, ever changingworld.
And so so what have you seenwork for companies who are maybe
(23:55):
struggling through this, thisgrowth journey?
Maybe they've, maybe they'vekind of hit a roadblock and
they're trying to change, butthey're facing that some sort of
resistance somewhere and you'recalled in to help work through
it.
What you know, how do youapproach that?
What?
What have you seen work?
Speaker 3 (24:16):
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Speaker 1 (25:02):
Yeah, there's an approach that I really love and
I've used it both at early stagestartups, venture-backed tech
companies, as well as atmid-size PE-backed companies
that are transitioning fromfounder-led to more of a
professional outside managementteam.
And you may have heard of theauthor, patrick Lencioni, who
(25:25):
wrote Five Dysfunctions of aTeam and a whole bookcase, a
whole HR bookshelf, full ofbooks.
His should be on the upper leftside, I think.
Yeah, it's not reallyscience-based, but it's just so
simple and practical that itresonates with a lot of my
clients, regardless of whatcontext they're in.
(25:46):
And he has what he calls the sixquestions for clarity, and I
probably won't remember all ofthem off the top of my head, but
it's basically aligning theteam around who are we as a
company, what are we trying toaccomplish?
How do we behave?
What's most important right now?
Who will do what?
You could substitute some ofthe questions, but the idea is
(26:09):
just to get crystal clear onwhat are we trying to do, who
are we and who's going to do it,and then the priorities.
And so that alignment, thatclarity, helps organizations,
whether they're young or old,whether they're, regardless of
what sort of change they'regoing through.
(26:30):
It helps at least theleadership team, and then you
can cascade from there, get onthe same page, and that's
usually what gets in the way ispeople not understanding where
they're headed.
Sometimes there's a lack ofwillingness, and that's a
different issue, but it'susually an awareness or clarity
issue.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
You know, I think that's that's really interesting
.
You know, just kind of playingoff of that clarity piece have.
Do you find that typically itis inherent in somebody that
they are naturally changeresistant?
Or you know organizationallythat there are organizations who
just tend to have kind of thatvein in their culture, or is it
(27:12):
the opposite, where you applythat clarity and you see that it
really doesn't matter and thatit's, you know, maybe our own?
You know kind of self-madebarriers, assuming that we're
not good at change.
What has been your experiencethere?
Speaker 1 (27:26):
I'll make a bad analogy here and you know, again
you may want to edit this oneout I think of clarity like
penicillin, it's kind of thewonder drug, but it still won't
fix a broken leg.
So clarity can be applied to abunch of different situations
and usually help rarely hurts.
But will it solve everything?
(27:47):
No, so it's usually not a badintervention to think about
pulling from your tool belt asyou're trying to figure out how
do we drive change or what arewe struggling with at this point
.
But at the same time, someorganizations will be more
resistant.
Usually you'll look to the keystakeholders as to where that
(28:08):
resistance comes from.
Where there's strong andrecalcitrant resistance, it's
usually coming from the founderor the leader in some way, or
key leaders on the team, on theteam.
And so start at the top to tryto figure out where your biggest
(28:29):
roadblocks will be.
And it's really tough to haveany sort of like big group
session, or you don't need totrain a whole thousand person
company about change managementif your top 10 leaders can't get
on the same page.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
If our listeners were watching this right now, they
would have seen the look on myface when you said you know key
people, and I think we can allpicture those individuals at
some point in our careers wherewe just know this person's going
to be a little bit of anobstacle for this, but that's,
you know.
That's one of the things that Ithink is really interesting.
(29:03):
Probably, I don't know, in a ina twisted sort of way, probably
kind of fun for me is likefiguring out okay, we got to get
this done.
Who are those key influencers,positive or negative that I need
to make sure understand wherewe're going and kind of will be
that will, will be that, uh,that support, or at least not
(29:27):
that roadblock, um and uh, andsometimes, uh, sometimes we have
to be honest about who thoseindividuals may be, even if
sometimes we just love thosepeople but they, they can't get
out of their own way sometimes.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
So I felt that how do you figure out what they care
about and how to deal withpeople with different
perspectives and differentinterests and that's one of the
things I work with other HRleaders on is, you know, how do
you drive change?
How do you create support andalignment for your agenda, which
is in support of the businessagenda?
And yeah, the answer isn'talways fire somebody.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
And thankfully it's not always live with it either.
Right, yeah, I hope not.
And I think, you know, I don'tknow about you, but I do
remember, you know, early in mycareer I was still kind of
figuring okay, what is HR, youknow is?
Am I like the?
Am I the traffic cop, you know?
Am I the compliance person?
Am I the, you know, is it theprincipal's office when someone
(30:45):
comes in?
And you know, there arecertainly some practitioners
that operate that way and someorganizations that expect HR to
operate that way.
But I found for me it's, youknow, that is not the brand that
I want to do and, quite frankly, I was just miserable operating
in that mindset, right?
So so, as an HR professional asyou're, as you're coaching
(31:11):
these, these individuals andyou're helping them kind of
process through these problems,have you found that there is a
kind of a, a common theme or ora trait that you see in the
successful HR practitioners, oris it not a one-size-fits-all?
Speaker 1 (31:30):
This may seem counterintuitive, but a common
trait that I've seen is a senseof imposter syndrome among the
successful HR leaders.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
That is fascinating.
Okay, I got to hear more aboutthis among the successful.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
HR leaders.
That is fascinating, okay.
I got to hear more about this.
Yeah, and I've seen it time andtime again.
I've had 20 plus people movethrough my exec ed program.
We go really deep, get to knowthem and their businesses really
well.
Highly successful folks Some oftheir companies have gone
public.
Lots of unicorns within thegroup.
Enormously successful folksSome of their companies have
gone public.
Lots of unicorns within thegroup.
Enormously successful folks,some with multiple graduate
(32:10):
degrees, blah, blah, blah, andjust about all of them are
feeling like they are not goodenough, don't know enough,
fumbling and stumblingthroughout the work that they do
.
But I think the reason why theyare successful is because
(32:31):
they're constantly trying to getbetter.
So they try to learn more.
They read the articles, theyread the books, they participate
in ongoing development ofthemselves.
They are strivers and drivers.
They are conscious that theydon't know everything, and it's
not just the way that they wantto operate.
They are thinking about how tothink about things, and so I
(32:56):
think that imposter syndromemight be at the root of it,
where they're really consciouslytrying to get better, and I
think that's powerful in anyrole, but especially in a
subjectively often, oftensubjectively measured role,
which human resources is.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
That's really fascinating.
I've, you know, I've neverreally heard that articulated
talk about like kind of acontext shift, but as I think
about you know, I've had anopportunity to talk to, you know
dozens of really successful HRfolks on you know, on this
podcast and just through mycareer, I've been very fortunate
to have a great network and,yeah, the good ones admit they
(33:37):
don't really know, or maybe thatthey know.
Hey, this is what I've done inthe past, but I don't know if
it's going to work in the future.
You know, and it's kind of likeuh, it's like this constant
learning mindset and I thinkthat's just that's really
fascinating.
So, as, as you're coaching, uh,so you know, maybe you should
(34:00):
name your.
You know your coaching program.
You know imposter syndrome.
You know incorporated.
You know you'd have a.
You'd have a bunch ofmillennials signing up.
You know you can.
There's a.
You got a big, big market there.
But how do you help individualswho are, who are hungry to
learn, maybe a little bit ofself doubt and and and that
drive how do you help them workthrough that and ultimately
(34:24):
impact their organizations in apositive way?
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Well, a variety of ways that come together to be
helpful.
So a strong peer network andcommunity.
So it's not just a professor ormentor telling them what they
ought to do.
It's this trusted tribe ofother people that do their work
at similar types oforganizations that they can turn
(34:48):
to and ask questions and andtrade ideas and know that
they're in the same boat.
Like that.
That's super valuable.
Um, maybe the most valuablepart.
The other piece is expose theseindividuals and the groups that
go through as a cohort in oneof my programs to research, to
(35:12):
academic and popular work thatmight be relevant.
There's a lot of stuff out thereand how do you filter through
it to figure out what willactually be useful.
So it's the advanced form of abook club.
So what are the things that youshould know about?
If you're working on totalrewards, when do you involve an
(35:32):
outside consultant?
When do you do it yourself?
How's an equity plan work Like?
There are a handful of thingsthat you can read to get smart
on it.
You know pretty quickly.
Third is really do the work.
So put that into practice withsome applied learning.
So you've got your peer group,you've got some curated readings
(35:55):
and then create your own casestudy from your company.
So we ask everybody in ourprogram to write a reflection
every week and fill out whetherit's the stakeholder analysis or
what is the employment valueproposition for your company or
what does the leveling look likeat your company?
You know a variety ofassignments where they're
(36:17):
creating their own case studiesand tinkering with it and
getting feedback from theirpeers.
So it's lots of differenttouches where they can be both
practical and somewhat academicat the same time, and they have
a guide, which is, you know, ormultiple guides myself and other
faculty members that help steerthem through it and ultimately
(36:38):
it's testing and learning andjust being exposed to more stuff
.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Yeah, it sounds really interesting, you know,
from my perspective, you knowit's really resonating and for
me I'm a I'm a verbal processor.
You know, I talk, I talkthrough problems and a lot of
times I don't even.
You know, it's hard for me toeven articulate a problem unless
I'm speaking about it withsomebody, and then, and then at
that point, it's like light bulb, light bulb, I get it.
(37:03):
Oh, that's this, you know, andbut just having that, having
that peer group of people whoactually get it and have gone
through this, I think that's theother challenge for HR,
especially as's within yourcompany.
(37:26):
But a lot of times you don'teven want to talk to people in
your organization or you'rerestricted from doing that.
That you, you really do needthat kind of that feedback At
least I do, um, in order totruly get my arms around
something.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
What's that?
It's that concept of a, of asafe space where you can talk
about your approaches and yourideas and the struggles, and we
have full Vegas rules in ourprogram where what happens there
stays there and you got totrust each other enough to share
what's really going on.
And I think that's how you movepast the surface level items
(38:05):
like, hey, what vendor do youuse for XYZ?
Or anybody have a law firm thatthey go to for COVID guidance?
This is more about I'mstruggling with my chief
financial officer and I justcan't seem to get the headcount
plan through them.
How do I approach themdifferently?
That's the deeper level stuffthat's more useful to people.
(38:28):
Or I'm being asked to presentto the board for the first time.
What should I talk about?
I don't even know where tobegin and I don't want to ask my
CEO because they'll tell me I'mno longer invited.
So it's that sort of stuffwhere there's a lot of value in
having other people that you canlearn from and that sort of
(38:48):
safe space sounding board.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
Absolutely, absolutely.
So if you're listening to thisand I know you're, if you're
listening to this, you'reprobably an HR practitioner.
If not, thank you for listening, but I would be surprised.
But you know, go out, get thatnetwork right.
There are a number of number ofavenues to do that.
Um, we will certainly sharesome of the details on the show
(39:14):
notes.
Uh, here for for Andrew and andhis organization.
But, you know, make a friend,make an HR friend and and find
those, those people.
Because you know, in myexperience, that's for me,
that's when my world started toreally open up and it it
actually shifted away from doinga best practice as defined by a
(39:37):
fortune 500 company intodefining the best practice for
my organization, given the goalsthat my team had laid out.
And for me that was just a hugemindset shift and very
empowering, to the point of.
You know, you're not justexecuting a playbook, you're
(39:58):
actually designing the placeright.
So with that, we're going toshift gears, we're going to go
into the Rebel HR flash round.
Are you ready?
I hope so.
All right, we touched on this alittle bit, but I have a
feeling that you've got a lot ofbooks.
So what is your favorite peoplebook?
Speaker 1 (40:20):
Favorite people book.
It's an oldie but a goodie.
Dave Ulrich wrote HR Championsway back in the day and that was
sort of the proving ground forme tying HR functional
activities and initiatives tobusiness goals.
That's kind of the essence ofhow strategic HR can work, so
(40:47):
that's a really good one.
I'm also reading a friend'sbook Redefining HR.
Lars Schmidt wrote that andit's behind me on the bookcase.
Lots of great progressivepractices and examples, good
case studies discussed in that,and then my own.
(41:09):
My own book is finally in printas of July, so it's great to
have that out in the world.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
Absolutely, I'll do the pitch for you.
That's Scaling for SuccessPeople Priorities for
High-Growth Organizations byAndrew Bartlow and T Brad Harris
.
So we'll have a link to that inthe show notes so you can just
click right in check it out.
Yeah, I follow Lars.
I have not had a chance tointerview him yet.
So you know, if, uh, if, youhappen to run across him, you
(41:39):
know, put a, put a plug outthere.
We'd love to have him on theshow.
But yeah, read that book.
Great book, a lot ofinnovations in there.
You know, if you're listeningto this podcast, you'll
thoroughly enjoy it.
That's, that's all there is toit.
And I love any book where it'sall about being a champion.
You know HR champions and andyou know, for me I would agree
it wasn't that book, but it, youknow the the approach of HR as
(42:02):
a strategic business partner, asa, as a business catalyst,
business catalyst as acompetitive advantage versus
just an administrative function,right?
For me that was the light bulbfor me.
Yeah, all right, awesome.
Question number two who shouldwe be listening to?
Speaker 1 (42:24):
On podcasts.
Well, obviously, this podcast,Rebel HR TuneIn Lars we already
mentioned him.
He has a great podcast with alot of listeners, great content
in there.
A mutual friend, Q Hamrani fromAirbnb, was on just a few weeks
ago.
So just awesome guests on thatshow.
(42:47):
I also find myself drawn to thebusiness-oriented podcasts,
whether that be Masters of Scaleor 20 Minute VC.
Those are some of my favoriteswhenever I get drive time, which
frankly isn't all that oftenanymore but, I'll dial into
those podcasts.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
Yeah, I'm kind of with you on that.
I don't have much time period.
I have three kids under 10, sotime is not plentiful.
But I actually like to listento just general business
podcasts because I find that I'mout of my echo chamber a little
bit and I kind of hear you know, hear other, you know other
perspectives.
(43:31):
So yeah, I'm with you on thatone, all right.
Last question there's a hardhitting one here how can our
listeners connect with you?
Speaker 1 (43:38):
Oh great, linkedin is fantastic.
Andrew Bartlow, I also have apage up for my consulting
company, series B, as in boyconsulting, but really the best
way.
If you're interested in some ofthe concepts that we talked
about today, people LeaderAccelerator is that exec ed
(43:59):
program that I kept talkingabout, and we will start
accepting applications for ourJanuary cohort here towards the
end of the year 2021.
So peopleleaderacceleratorcomis that website.
Check it out and you can reachout to me through there.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
Perfect, and we will have all that information in the
show notes, so it just soundslike a great program.
Really appreciate you coming onand sharing some of your
expertise.
You know your perspective onall of the individuals and
organizations that you'vesupported.
It's just been great to kind ofpick your brain and really
appreciate you sharing yourinsights with us here this week.
So thank you so much, Andrew.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
Yeah, hey, thank you, kyle, really appreciate it.
Thanks, take care.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
All right, that does it for the Rebel HR podcast.
Big thank you to our guests.
Follow us on Facebook at RebelHR podcast, twitter at Rebel HR
guy, or see our website atrebelhumanresourcescom.
The views and opinionsexpressed by Rebel HR podcast
are those of the authors and donot necessarily reflect the
official policy or position ofany of the organizations that we
(45:09):
represent.
No animals were harmed duringthe filming of this podcast.
Speaker 3 (45:15):
Baby.
Who are we as a company?
What are we trying toaccomplish?
How do we behave?
What's most important right now?
Who will do what?
You could substitute some ofthe questions, but the idea is
just to get crystal clear onwhat are we trying to do, who
are we and who's going to do it,and then the priorities.
This is the Rebel.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
HR Podcast the podcast where we talk to human
resources innovators aboutinnovation in the world of HR.
If you're a people leader oryou're looking for a new way to
think about how to help othersbe successful, this is the
podcast for you.
Rebel on HR Rebels.
All right, rebel HR listeners.
(00:47):
Welcome to the show.
We've got a good one for youthis week.
I think a lot of you are goingto relate to our guest, andrew
Bartlow has 25 years of humanresources and talent management
experience at organizationsacross a wide spectrum of sizes,
maturity stages and industriesa wide spectrum of sizes,
maturity stages and industries.
Co-author of a book calledScaling for Success People
(01:08):
Priorities for High-GrowthOrganizations.
He's got a master's degree fromthe top program in his field.
He's got all sorts ofaccreditations.
I'm totally going to screw upif I try to read them.
He leads Series B Consulting,which helps businesses to
articulate their people strategyand accelerate their growth
while navigating rapid change.
Welcome to the show, andrew.
Hey, thanks a lot, kyle.
(01:28):
Thanks for having me,absolutely so.
I'm always excited to talk tosomebody with so many years of
HR experience and the fact thatyou are still in the field after
25 years.
What's up with that?
What kept you in the professionthat long.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
You know it makes me sound really old.
I have a birthday coming upnext week, maybe two weeks out,
and yeah, I started my careerhere.
I didn't fall into HR like somany other people did, you know,
coming out of another admintype of job or recruitment, or a
career changer admin type ofjob or recruitment, or a career
(02:10):
changer.
I found this profession and Istuck with it because I get some
satisfaction out of it.
I feel like it's a Cal Newportsort of thing where you just
practice your craft and you getbetter at it over time and I've
stubbed my toe and burnt myfingers a few times and now I'm
at the point where I kind offeel like I've seen a few things
and I can be just that muchmore useful to the clients I
(02:33):
work with and other HR peoplethat I help mentor.
I love that.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
I think that it is really profound and something
that I think we need to talkmore about, and that is the.
You know HR as a as a craft,you know as a profession, as
something that it's not justabout being a quote people,
person.
It's about kind of honing yourskills.
You know truly being a subjectmatter expert and you know I
(03:03):
what I heard you didn't come outand say this, but I heard that
there's also, you know, someinherent pride in the work that
you do and and you know the theinterest to share that with
others.
So what do you think was theturning point for you where you
kind of thought okay, I think Iknow where, what I'm doing, and
now I'm ready, and now I'm readyto kind of, you know, take it
(03:23):
to the next level and start togive back.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Oh boy, I don't know.
Like every time you feel likeyou know what you're doing, I
anyway, maybe you as well, havethis pull to go stretch yourself
a little bit more into thatplace of discomfort.
So, yeah, I don't know,whenever I feel like I'm
learning something, I enter anew field or I try to expand out
(03:46):
, and I've done that lately withthis exec ed program.
I started up, so now I'mProfessor Bartlow, in some ways
the non-PhD teacher.
But yeah, I don't know.
You just see enough things inenough different environments
that you can pattern match.
You can have a variety ofdifferent tools and practices to
(04:10):
pick from.
You're not bound just by oneway of doing things or one
school of thought, but onceyou've seen enough stuff, you
just have more options and morecontext by which to make better
decisions.
And when did that happen?
When was that magical time?
I don't know, but I've.
You know, I've been doing thisfor a long time in a lot of
(04:30):
different places, from fortune50 to less than 50 employees,
and I find that you know itkeeps me sharp by continuing to
do the work.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
I think that's really interesting.
And one of the you know, one ofthe items that you know, I know
(05:08):
that you kind of focus on, isthe you know kind of the
subjective nature of measuringsuccess and how, you know, just
problem solving in general.
So what is your approach as youare focusing on, you know, on
an organization that you'rehelping, be that a large
organization, small organizationhow do you go in and start to
figure out, okay, where do Istart?
What is the pattern that I'mgoing to follow?
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Well, well, for me it's.
It's easy nowadays in that, youknow, I I have clients and
those clients have a specificneed that they're asking me to
help with.
And, um, you know, those fallinto two camps.
One is, you know, those whereI'm actually doing the work,
advising the board or the CEO,and it's often about an
organizational or talentmanagement topic, like, hey,
(05:51):
help us figure out how to makethe leadership team more
effective, or we're goingthrough an acquisition or a new
investor.
What do we need to know?
What do we need to dodifferently.
And I can help look under thehood.
So that's one, and so I've gota really specific ask from the
client in those situations.
The other type of client that Ihave nowadays is an HR
(06:14):
professional.
So it's the head of HR at asmall to mid-sized company who
may have done that for a coupleof years no more than a couple
of times and they're looking fora sounding board and somebody
with more experience, more lapsaround the track to bounce ideas
off of and help them navigatetheir own internal, whether it
be politics or interests oftheir stakeholders or how to
(06:37):
approach different things.
You never want to appear stupidor inexperienced in front of
your own CEO or your ownleadership team.
So having a community ofpractice, having a mentor that
you can turn to, who doesn'tjudge you, that gets to know you
and your business really well,can be really valuable.
So that's kind of the secondarena and in that case those
(07:02):
types of clients, the HR leaders.
It's more about what they wantto talk about.
What are your needs?
What do you want to bounce offof me today?
I'll often steer them in adirection or two if I see a gap
in their thinking.
But nowadays it's really easy.
So long answer and you'll editthis if you want.
But back when I was in-house, Iguess putting myself in the
(07:24):
shoes of your internal HRleaders how do you figure out
what to work on?
Boy, I talk about that inPeople Leader Accelerator and
I'm sure I'll pitch that later.
The most important role of thehead of the function is deciding
what the function will work on.
(07:45):
Pause on that and think aboutthat for a minute.
If you're just constantlychasing down all the asks that
are raining down on you from allsides, what is the likelihood
that you'll actually be workingon the most important things to
the business over the long term?
Really low right.
And so, especially at small andmid-sized companies, got all
this stuff that you could bedoing and all these needs of
(08:08):
other people, but what's themost important?
And so that's where I thinkin-house folks can often benefit
from taking a little bit of astep back and thinking about
what's the business trying toaccomplish?
What do my stakeholders careabout?
What should me and my team beworking on, versus just what's
(08:31):
at the top of my inbox or who'sin the front of the line at my
door.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Absolutely yeah, and you talked about stumbles.
I mean, that was for me thatyou hit the nail on the head,
because I would say, especiallyearlier in my, in my HR
leadership roles, it was like Iwas just trying to make
everybody happy, right, somebodyhad a complaint and they'd come
in my office and I'd try tohelp resolve it.
Right, and it was very.
(08:56):
It was like binary, right, oh,there's a problem, let's fix it,
and then and but you know, whenyou're, when you're dealing
with a team and you're trying tobuild culture and do all these,
all these really important andcritical things, and you know
DEI, you know all these, allthese things that are so
critical to an organization, butif you don't have any priority,
(09:19):
then you know you don't, youdon't have any priorities, right
, so it's, it's um's.
That was a pretty hard stumblingblock for me early on and I
would say it still is,especially, you know, over the
last year or two.
I mean everything.
You know, I think a lot of us,when we were tasked with dealing
(09:40):
with work from home or pandemicor whatever, you know, you had
to pivot away from some of thosethings, but you still needed to
like, look at where we're atright now, if you didn't
prioritize other aspects of yourbusiness, like employee
engagement, retention,empowerment, picking the right
people, keeping the right people, you know, structuring work
(10:00):
from home so that it works foreverybody, guess what You're
losing?
Now you're, you're losingpeople.
And so if you didn't keep theball rolling in the middle of a
global pandemic.
Then now you're kind of behindthe eight ball by about 18
months, and so it's tough.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Yeah, and that's where there's an opportunity for
the human resources team tolead, not just follow, not just
react.
And so we're in a globalpandemic.
All right, we can't come intothe office.
What does that mean in terms ofhow our people work and the
needs that our managers may haveand how we get aligned to do
(10:36):
the work that we can do at itsbest can be proactive and
thoughtful and makerecommendations and drive the
company forward.
So how will we communicate topeople?
How will we ensure that peopleknow what they should be working
on and they're getting feedbackalong the way?
(10:57):
And now, in the midst of thegreat resignation, what are we
doing to help our organizationsattract and retain people, as
wage rates seem to beskyrocketing and attrition,
which was pent up, seems to bejust increasing rapidly?
Yeah, there's kind of a longeranalogy I could give on.
(11:20):
That there's a restaurantanalogy.
That there's a restaurantanalogy.
Traditionally, the history ofthe HR function is rooted in
service right.
You want people to feel good,working for your company,
interacting with you,interacting with your team, and
in a restaurant that could be.
You're the server, you take theorder, you smile, you make a
(11:43):
friend, you bring it back andeverybody's happy.
But that's just order takingand there's pride that the
server should have.
It's a need in any sort themenu or designing the restaurant
concept.
What types of jobs are there atthis restaurant?
(12:10):
What should the items on themenu be priced?
What order should they be putin?
Do you have booths or tables?
There are lots of connectionsto the workplace where an HR
leader can just answer questionsand leave people feeling good,
or they can think ahead and whatis a career path?
What do the facilities looklike?
(12:30):
What do the trainingopportunities look like?
And be more proactive andconnected, all together to help
the business meet its goals.
And so you still need greatservice.
But there's this opportunitythat not enough HR leaders take
full advantage of.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Yeah, that's so funny , it's a perfect analogy.
And you know, when people askme how I got into HR, I say my.
You know, my first HR job wasbeing a bartender, because it's
basically the same job, Exceptyou had something that could
actually make them happier.
Except you had something thatcould actually make them happier
(13:08):
.
No, but I love that proactiveand actually structuring an
organization or a process or youknow, whatever you're working
(13:29):
on in order to serve yourculture and your business and
your people and, like you know,kind of that win, win, win
approach, which is really reallyeasy for me to say on this
podcast.
And I know there's probably atleast half our listeners rolling
their eyes right now going Kyle, yeah, that sounds easy, but
it's really hard to do.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
At least half our listeners are rolling their eyes
right now going Kyle, yeah,that sounds easy, but it's
really hard to do.
Yeah Well, you know it allstarts with a plan.
Though you will be reactive,you'll be at the mercy of the
top of your inbox or the nextSlack message or whatever comes
across a transom if you don'thave some basic plan.
So what is your company tryingto accomplish?
(14:06):
What is your team doing to tryto support that?
What are the most important?
Three or so things that shouldbe front of mind, even if you're
not working on it every minuteand you can't be right.
Some of those emergencies andfire drills need to be attended
to.
But what are the most importantthings?
And if you don't have thatreally clear and at the top of
(14:26):
your list and everybody on yourteam's list like visible and top
of mind, then chances areyou're doing some spinning.
So I'd argue that's actuallynot that hard, but not enough of
us do it.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
No, that's so true.
And yeah, and I can think of anumber of times where, you know,
in my head it made a ton ofsense, it made perfect sense.
But you know, you start movingforward, you start working on
something, and then you look toyour left and your right and
you're like well, where iseverybody?
Why aren't they here with me?
And it's because, you know, itwasn't articulated clearly or it
(15:01):
wasn't laid out or it was toomuddy.
You know, my issue is, a lot oftimes I want to do everything
right now because it's all goodstuff and I, you know, if I'm
struggling anything, it's sayingit's sometimes it's saying no
to a great idea even though wejust don't have time to do it
that sort of, uh, that kind ofAchilles heel, if you will.
(15:22):
So I want to.
I want to talk a little bitabout um, a little bit that,
about that, in the context ofbest practices.
And this is one of those areasthat you know we were talking
about before we hit record and Ireally want to explore this.
You've seen, you've seen thebig companies, you've seen the
small companies.
You're running your own companyand I think we always talk
(15:47):
about trying to define a bestpractice or trying to act like a
Google or an Airbnb or an Appleand some of these places that
have these dynamic cultures.
So why don't we start off firstof all?
Why do you feel like everybodyneeds to make everything a best
(16:10):
practice?
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Well, I think there's .
I think there's credibility inbest practices.
If you can attach a wellrecognized name or brand to hey,
xyz is doing this, it comeswith a sense of borrowed
credibility.
And if you're trying to figureout what your organization
(16:32):
should do or convince somebodywhat your team should be doing,
then having an example, even ifit's anecdotal, is at least a
place to start.
Even if it's anecdotal is atleast a place to start.
So it's rational.
But the next step ofrationality we don't always get
(16:52):
there which is are they?
like us Is their context similarto ours Was having a
conversation similar to this notthat long ago and the person I
was talking to said yeah,context is King, not content.
I loved it, and so I said I'mgoing to steal that, and I just
did.
I used it again right here.
There you go, yeah, so content.
(17:14):
Whatever the best practices,whatever the idea is, whatever
the you know I rememberholacracy from Zappos, the
self-managed work teams, youknow is Is that the right thing
for every company to use?
Probably not.
Did it work for Zappos For awhile in some ways?
But at least apply a filter ofwhy did that thing work for that
(17:38):
place?
What do we have in common withthem, and does it make sense for
that to potentially work for usas well?
So I think it's just lookingfor evidence, looking for some
clues about what might work atyour own place, and it doesn't
hurt to start with a brand name,but it does hurt to do it
without thinking twice aboutwhether it's a good fit or not.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Absolutely no, that's really.
I love that.
Context is king because it's,you know, my, my organization,
we're manufacturing, you know,and we're 130 years old.
So you know, if we were to justcopy and paste a you know put a
slide in the break room, causeGoogle did it one time, or at
least I read that they did, butI don't even know.
(18:22):
I just read a fun article abouta ball pit and a slide and I
can't remember now maybe thatwas the McDonald's Play Place
and I'm mixing it up, but itsounds cool Ping pong tables, et
cetera.
I mean, people would just thinkI was crazy.
Right, the context doesn't fitand I've got a good story.
I think you'll get a kick out ofthis and maybe you've heard of
(18:43):
this with your experience.
But I won't name the company,but one of the companies I work
for, a very, very large company,like hundreds of thousands of
employees, and I was relativelyyoung in my career, so I didn't
know what I didn't know, andthey came out with an office
best practice, like, literally,like okay, this binder has this
(19:06):
in it and it sits on this shelfor it sits in this file cabinet
and and like it was like.
At the time I was like, oh man,this is like I mean I'll do
this, but, um, and then theywould go around and they would
audit and they would check tosee, did you?
You know is like, this was likean audit item, right.
So, literally, check the box,is the, is the HR office the way
(19:28):
it needs to be?
And it was at that moment in oneof those audits that I said I
think I need to find a differentcompany, but it was like it was
.
But it's like that was a bestpractice.
It was literally written anddefined as HR office best
practice, but I would notrecommend that to anybody, so we
could call was a best practice.
It was literally written anddefined as HR office best
practice, but I would notrecommend that to anybody, so we
(19:49):
could call it a best practice.
That doesn't necessarily meanit is.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
That's fair, Boy.
You're bringing me back to mymanufacturing days and ISO 9000
audits and just thick books ofthree ring binders.
There's value in organizations,especially really mature
organizations, having stuffwritten down and knowing how to
(20:16):
get it done.
And if you have suppliers thatyou're a vendor to, that want to
know that you're able todeliver, there's some merit in
that.
But yeah, let's put it into.
Let's put this example into adifferent context.
What if you're a high growthtechnology startup who's
changing their product orservice every three weeks and
(20:36):
they're changing the technologyon which the product resides and
they're moving into newcountries?
Do you really think thatdocumenting all of those
processes are going to work forthem?
Heck, no, they don't even knowwhat the process is yet.
But if you're a 130-year-old,really stable manufacturing
company, there might be benefitin doing that For some things
(20:59):
anyway.
Maybe not binders on the HRshelf yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
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(23:11):
Yeah, I'm using thatintentionally as a kind of funny
.
I don't know if that companystill has that as a requirement,
but if anybody knows theorganization and can tell me do
they still have the HR officediagram, I would love to know
organization and can tell me dothey still have the HR office
diagram?
I would love to know.
But I think that's somethingthat I want to explore a little
(23:33):
bit more is kind of that abilityto change as well, and I think
that's one of the potentialpitfalls of being adhering to
that best practice at thedetriment of being change ready
and being, you know, beingwilling to be flexible and in
this, you know, ever changingworld.
And so so what have you seenwork for companies who are maybe
(23:55):
struggling through this, thisgrowth journey?
Maybe they've, maybe they'vekind of hit a roadblock and
they're trying to change, butthey're facing that some sort of
resistance somewhere and you'recalled in to help work through
it.
What you know, how do youapproach that?
What?
What have you seen work?
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Speaker 1 (25:02):
Yeah, there's an approach that I really love and
I've used it both at early stagestartups, venture-backed tech
companies, as well as atmid-size PE-backed companies
that are transitioning fromfounder-led to more of a
professional outside managementteam.
And you may have heard of theauthor, patrick Lencioni, who
(25:25):
wrote Five Dysfunctions of aTeam and a whole bookcase, a
whole HR bookshelf, full ofbooks.
His should be on the upper leftside, I think.
Yeah, it's not reallyscience-based, but it's just so
simple and practical that itresonates with a lot of my
clients, regardless of whatcontext they're in.
(25:46):
And he has what he calls the sixquestions for clarity, and I
probably won't remember all ofthem off the top of my head, but
it's basically aligning theteam around who are we as a
company, what are we trying toaccomplish?
How do we behave?
What's most important right now?
Who will do what?
You could substitute some ofthe questions, but the idea is
(26:09):
just to get crystal clear onwhat are we trying to do, who
are we and who's going to do it,and then the priorities.
And so that alignment, thatclarity, helps organizations,
whether they're young or old,whether they're, regardless of
what sort of change they'regoing through.
(26:30):
It helps at least theleadership team, and then you
can cascade from there, get onthe same page, and that's
usually what gets in the way ispeople not understanding where
they're headed.
Sometimes there's a lack ofwillingness, and that's a
different issue, but it'susually an awareness or clarity
issue.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
You know, I think that's that's really interesting
.
You know, just kind of playingoff of that clarity piece have.
Do you find that typically itis inherent in somebody that
they are naturally changeresistant?
Or you know organizationallythat there are organizations who
just tend to have kind of thatvein in their culture, or is it
(27:12):
the opposite, where you applythat clarity and you see that it
really doesn't matter and thatit's, you know, maybe our own?
You know kind of self-madebarriers, assuming that we're
not good at change.
What has been your experiencethere?
Speaker 1 (27:26):
I'll make a bad analogy here and you know, again
you may want to edit this oneout I think of clarity like
penicillin, it's kind of thewonder drug, but it still won't
fix a broken leg.
So clarity can be applied to abunch of different situations
and usually help rarely hurts.
But will it solve everything?
(27:47):
No, so it's usually not a badintervention to think about
pulling from your tool belt asyou're trying to figure out how
do we drive change or what arewe struggling with at this point
.
But at the same time, someorganizations will be more
resistant.
Usually you'll look to the keystakeholders as to where that
(28:08):
resistance comes from.
Where there's strong andrecalcitrant resistance, it's
usually coming from the founderor the leader in some way, or
key leaders on the team, on theteam.
And so start at the top to tryto figure out where your biggest
(28:29):
roadblocks will be.
And it's really tough to haveany sort of like big group
session, or you don't need totrain a whole thousand person
company about change managementif your top 10 leaders can't get
on the same page.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
If our listeners were watching this right now, they
would have seen the look on myface when you said you know key
people, and I think we can allpicture those individuals at
some point in our careers wherewe just know this person's going
to be a little bit of anobstacle for this, but that's,
you know.
That's one of the things that Ithink is really interesting.
(29:03):
Probably, I don't know, in a ina twisted sort of way, probably
kind of fun for me is likefiguring out okay, we got to get
this done.
Who are those key influencers,positive or negative that I need
to make sure understand wherewe're going and kind of will be
that will, will be that, uh,that support, or at least not
(29:27):
that roadblock, um and uh, andsometimes, uh, sometimes we have
to be honest about who thoseindividuals may be, even if
sometimes we just love thosepeople but they, they can't get
out of their own way sometimes.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
So I felt that how do you figure out what they care
about and how to deal withpeople with different
perspectives and differentinterests and that's one of the
things I work with other HRleaders on is, you know, how do
you drive change?
How do you create support andalignment for your agenda, which
is in support of the businessagenda?
And yeah, the answer isn'talways fire somebody.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
And thankfully it's not always live with it either.
Right, yeah, I hope not.
And I think, you know, I don'tknow about you, but I do
remember, you know, early in mycareer I was still kind of
figuring okay, what is HR, youknow is?
Am I like the?
Am I the traffic cop, you know?
Am I the compliance person?
Am I the, you know, is it theprincipal's office when someone
(30:45):
comes in?
And you know, there arecertainly some practitioners
that operate that way and someorganizations that expect HR to
operate that way.
But I found for me it's, youknow, that is not the brand that
I want to do and, quite frankly, I was just miserable operating
in that mindset, right?
So so, as an HR professional asyou're, as you're coaching
(31:11):
these, these individuals andyou're helping them kind of
process through these problems,have you found that there is a
kind of a, a common theme or ora trait that you see in the
successful HR practitioners, oris it not a one-size-fits-all?
Speaker 1 (31:30):
This may seem counterintuitive, but a common
trait that I've seen is a senseof imposter syndrome among the
successful HR leaders.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
That is fascinating.
Okay, I got to hear more aboutthis among the successful.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
HR leaders.
That is fascinating, okay.
I got to hear more about this.
Yeah, and I've seen it time andtime again.
I've had 20 plus people movethrough my exec ed program.
We go really deep, get to knowthem and their businesses really
well.
Highly successful folks Some oftheir companies have gone
public.
Lots of unicorns within thegroup.
Enormously successful folksSome of their companies have
gone public.
Lots of unicorns within thegroup.
Enormously successful folks,some with multiple graduate
(32:10):
degrees, blah, blah, blah, andjust about all of them are
feeling like they are not goodenough, don't know enough,
fumbling and stumblingthroughout the work that they do
.
But I think the reason why theyare successful is because
(32:31):
they're constantly trying to getbetter.
So they try to learn more.
They read the articles, theyread the books, they participate
in ongoing development ofthemselves.
They are strivers and drivers.
They are conscious that theydon't know everything, and it's
not just the way that they wantto operate.
They are thinking about how tothink about things, and so I
(32:56):
think that imposter syndromemight be at the root of it,
where they're really consciouslytrying to get better, and I
think that's powerful in anyrole, but especially in a
subjectively often, oftensubjectively measured role,
which human resources is.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
That's really fascinating.
I've, you know, I've neverreally heard that articulated
talk about like kind of acontext shift, but as I think
about you know, I've had anopportunity to talk to, you know
dozens of really successful HRfolks on you know, on this
podcast and just through mycareer, I've been very fortunate
to have a great network and,yeah, the good ones admit they
(33:37):
don't really know, or maybe thatthey know.
Hey, this is what I've done inthe past, but I don't know if
it's going to work in the future.
You know, and it's kind of likeuh, it's like this constant
learning mindset and I thinkthat's just that's really
fascinating.
So, as, as you're coaching, uh,so you know, maybe you should
(34:00):
name your.
You know your coaching program.
You know imposter syndrome.
You know incorporated.
You know you'd have a.
You'd have a bunch ofmillennials signing up.
You know you can.
There's a.
You got a big, big market there.
But how do you help individualswho are, who are hungry to
learn, maybe a little bit ofself doubt and and and that
drive how do you help them workthrough that and ultimately
(34:24):
impact their organizations in apositive way?
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Well, a variety of ways that come together to be
helpful.
So a strong peer network andcommunity.
So it's not just a professor ormentor telling them what they
ought to do.
It's this trusted tribe ofother people that do their work
at similar types oforganizations that they can turn
(34:48):
to and ask questions and andtrade ideas and know that
they're in the same boat.
Like that.
That's super valuable.
Um, maybe the most valuablepart.
The other piece is expose theseindividuals and the groups that
go through as a cohort in oneof my programs to research, to
(35:12):
academic and popular work thatmight be relevant.
There's a lot of stuff out thereand how do you filter through
it to figure out what willactually be useful.
So it's the advanced form of abook club.
So what are the things that youshould know about?
If you're working on totalrewards, when do you involve an
(35:32):
outside consultant?
When do you do it yourself?
How's an equity plan work Like?
There are a handful of thingsthat you can read to get smart
on it.
You know pretty quickly.
Third is really do the work.
So put that into practice withsome applied learning.
So you've got your peer group,you've got some curated readings
(35:55):
and then create your own casestudy from your company.
So we ask everybody in ourprogram to write a reflection
every week and fill out whetherit's the stakeholder analysis or
what is the employment valueproposition for your company or
what does the leveling look likeat your company?
You know a variety ofassignments where they're
(36:17):
creating their own case studiesand tinkering with it and
getting feedback from theirpeers.
So it's lots of differenttouches where they can be both
practical and somewhat academicat the same time, and they have
a guide, which is, you know, ormultiple guides myself and other
faculty members that help steerthem through it and ultimately
(36:38):
it's testing and learning andjust being exposed to more stuff
.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Yeah, it sounds really interesting, you know,
from my perspective, you knowit's really resonating and for
me I'm a I'm a verbal processor.
You know, I talk, I talkthrough problems and a lot of
times I don't even.
You know, it's hard for me toeven articulate a problem unless
I'm speaking about it withsomebody, and then, and then at
that point, it's like light bulb, light bulb, I get it.
(37:03):
Oh, that's this, you know, andbut just having that, having
that peer group of people whoactually get it and have gone
through this, I think that's theother challenge for HR,
especially as's within yourcompany.
(37:26):
But a lot of times you don'teven want to talk to people in
your organization or you'rerestricted from doing that.
That you, you really do needthat kind of that feedback At
least I do, um, in order totruly get my arms around
something.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
What's that?
It's that concept of a, of asafe space where you can talk
about your approaches and yourideas and the struggles, and we
have full Vegas rules in ourprogram where what happens there
stays there and you got totrust each other enough to share
what's really going on.
And I think that's how you movepast the surface level items
(38:05):
like, hey, what vendor do youuse for XYZ?
Or anybody have a law firm thatthey go to for COVID guidance?
This is more about I'mstruggling with my chief
financial officer and I justcan't seem to get the headcount
plan through them.
How do I approach themdifferently?
That's the deeper level stuffthat's more useful to people.
(38:28):
Or I'm being asked to presentto the board for the first time.
What should I talk about?
I don't even know where tobegin and I don't want to ask my
CEO because they'll tell me I'mno longer invited.
So it's that sort of stuffwhere there's a lot of value in
having other people that you canlearn from and that sort of
(38:48):
safe space sounding board.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
Absolutely, absolutely.
So if you're listening to thisand I know you're, if you're
listening to this, you'reprobably an HR practitioner.
If not, thank you for listening, but I would be surprised.
But you know, go out, get thatnetwork right.
There are a number of number ofavenues to do that.
Um, we will certainly sharesome of the details on the show
(39:14):
notes.
Uh, here for for Andrew and andhis organization.
But, you know, make a friend,make an HR friend and and find
those, those people.
Because you know, in myexperience, that's for me,
that's when my world started toreally open up and it it
actually shifted away from doinga best practice as defined by a
(39:37):
fortune 500 company intodefining the best practice for
my organization, given the goalsthat my team had laid out.
And for me that was just a hugemindset shift and very
empowering, to the point of.
You know, you're not justexecuting a playbook, you're
(39:58):
actually designing the placeright.
So with that, we're going toshift gears, we're going to go
into the Rebel HR flash round.
Are you ready?
I hope so.
All right, we touched on this alittle bit, but I have a
feeling that you've got a lot ofbooks.
So what is your favorite peoplebook?
Speaker 1 (40:20):
Favorite people book.
It's an oldie but a goodie.
Dave Ulrich wrote HR Championsway back in the day and that was
sort of the proving ground forme tying HR functional
activities and initiatives tobusiness goals.
That's kind of the essence ofhow strategic HR can work, so
(40:47):
that's a really good one.
I'm also reading a friend'sbook Redefining HR.
Lars Schmidt wrote that andit's behind me on the bookcase.
Lots of great progressivepractices and examples, good
case studies discussed in that,and then my own.
(41:09):
My own book is finally in printas of July, so it's great to
have that out in the world.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
Absolutely, I'll do the pitch for you.
That's Scaling for SuccessPeople Priorities for
High-Growth Organizations byAndrew Bartlow and T Brad Harris
.
So we'll have a link to that inthe show notes so you can just
click right in check it out.
Yeah, I follow Lars.
I have not had a chance tointerview him yet.
So you know, if, uh, if, youhappen to run across him, you
(41:39):
know, put a, put a plug outthere.
We'd love to have him on theshow.
But yeah, read that book.
Great book, a lot ofinnovations in there.
You know, if you're listeningto this podcast, you'll
thoroughly enjoy it.
That's, that's all there is toit.
And I love any book where it'sall about being a champion.
You know HR champions and andyou know, for me I would agree
it wasn't that book, but it, youknow the the approach of HR as
(42:02):
a strategic business partner, asa, as a business catalyst,
business catalyst as acompetitive advantage versus
just an administrative function,right?
For me that was the light bulbfor me.
Yeah, all right, awesome.
Question number two who shouldwe be listening to?
Speaker 1 (42:24):
On podcasts.
Well, obviously, this podcast,Rebel HR TuneIn Lars we already
mentioned him.
He has a great podcast with alot of listeners, great content
in there.
A mutual friend, Q Hamrani fromAirbnb, was on just a few weeks
ago.
So just awesome guests on thatshow.
(42:47):
I also find myself drawn to thebusiness-oriented podcasts,
whether that be Masters of Scaleor 20 Minute VC.
Those are some of my favoriteswhenever I get drive time, which
frankly isn't all that oftenanymore but, I'll dial into
those podcasts.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
Yeah, I'm kind of with you on that.
I don't have much time period.
I have three kids under 10, sotime is not plentiful.
But I actually like to listento just general business
podcasts because I find that I'mout of my echo chamber a little
bit and I kind of hear you know, hear other, you know other
perspectives.
(43:31):
So yeah, I'm with you on thatone, all right.
Last question there's a hardhitting one here how can our
listeners connect with you?
Speaker 1 (43:38):
Oh great, linkedin is fantastic.
Andrew Bartlow, I also have apage up for my consulting
company, series B, as in boyconsulting, but really the best
way.
If you're interested in some ofthe concepts that we talked
about today, people LeaderAccelerator is that exec ed
(43:59):
program that I kept talkingabout, and we will start
accepting applications for ourJanuary cohort here towards the
end of the year 2021.
So peopleleaderacceleratorcomis that website.
Check it out and you can reachout to me through there.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
Perfect, and we will have all that information in the
show notes, so it just soundslike a great program.
Really appreciate you coming onand sharing some of your
expertise.
You know your perspective onall of the individuals and
organizations that you'vesupported.
It's just been great to kind ofpick your brain and really
appreciate you sharing yourinsights with us here this week.
So thank you so much, Andrew.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
Yeah, hey, thank you, kyle, really appreciate it.
Thanks, take care.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
All right, that does it for the Rebel HR podcast.
Big thank you to our guests.
Follow us on Facebook at RebelHR podcast, twitter at Rebel HR
guy, or see our website atrebelhumanresourcescom.
The views and opinionsexpressed by Rebel HR podcast
are those of the authors and donot necessarily reflect the
official policy or position ofany of the organizations that we
(45:09):
represent.
No animals were harmed duringthe filming of this podcast.
Speaker 3 (45:15):
Baby.
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