June 6, 2025 • 41 mins
Why does executive leadership often fail to see the value in talent development initiatives? Traci Austin of Elevated Talent Consulting reveals the critical disconnect between HR professionals and the C-suite that's creating frustration on both sides.
The conversation explores specific techniques for gaining trust in challenging industries where vulnerability isn't welcome, including the one question that transforms any training session: "What would make this hour a good use of your time?" This simple approach demonstrates respect while opening the door to meaningful engagement.
Whether you're in HR, talent development, or leadership, this episode provides the missing translation guide for creating stronger partnerships across organizational divides. Connect with Tracy through Elevated Talent Consulting or join her weekly People's Strategy Club for continuing conversations on bridging workplace gaps.
Meet the Host
Jay Johnson works with people and organizations to empower teams, grow profits, and elevate leadership. He is a Co-Founder of Behavioral Elements®, a two-time TEDx speaker, and a designated Master Trainer by the Association for Talent Development. With a focus on behavioral intelligence, Jay has delivered transformational workshops to accelerate high-performance teams and cultures in more than 30 countries across four continents. For inquiries, contact jay@behavioralelements.com or connect below!
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayjohnsonccg/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jayjohnsonccg/
Speaker Website - https://jayjohnsonspeaks.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jay Johnson (00:01):
Welcome to this episode of the Talent Forge,
where we are shaping the futureof training and development.
Today, a special guest comes inwith an HR background.
That is incredible and I can'twait to talk to her.
This is Traci Austin.
Welcome to the show, traci.
Traci Austin (00:17):
Thank you so much for having me, Jay.
Jay Johnson (00:19):
Yeah, so let's dig in.
How did you get to where you'reat now?
It's always interesting tolearn the journey of fellow HR
and talent enthusiasts in thisspace.
So what got you here?
Traci Austin (00:35):
Absolutely Such a fun question, right?
So I spent my first 10 yearsstarting HR departments from the
ground up in nonprofitorganizations, and then I took a
wrong turn at Albuquerque andbecame a nursing home
administrator and decided itreally didn't have the people
piece, that like heart forpeople that I was really
(00:56):
interested in and started doingconsulting work.
However, in every single pieceit's always been the training
piece.
How do we elevate the people inour organization and how do we
see them bigger than they seethemselves so that they can be
fulfilled in their work?
Jay Johnson (01:15):
I love that, hence the name Elevated Talent
Consulting.
I'm assuming it sure is.
All right, awesome.
So what was it like starting?
Okay, so I've done a lot ofwork with nonprofits, mostly
working with boards of directorsand helping them like with
their like boards, you know,like Robert's Rules of Order, or
helping them structure theirdecisions.
(01:36):
Okay, I can't imagine what it'slike doing HR from the ground
up with nonprofit entities.
Talk, talk me through that.
What did that look like?
Traci Austin (01:48):
Figuring it out I mean it really did.
It was a lot of figuring it outand I started very much as a lot
of folks do, where you kind offall into HR and it's like, hey,
will you do payroll?
And oh, there's this handbookthing and can you handle that?
And then you get your lawsuitand then you get this, and so it
(02:09):
just kind of snowballs into,okay, what is in the best
interest of the organization andwhat is in the best interest of
our people, and so it's lookingat this and both, and so part
of this was what do my executiveleaders need?
What do the folks that we'reserving need?
Because in nonprofits you havethree bottom lines.
(02:31):
You're measuring to, you've gotan impact bottom line, you have
a people bottom line and youhave a profit bottom line.
And that was the best learningis how do we truly elevate our
people through that?
And so in those kind offiguring it out all on your own,
you're just dancing and that'sfun.
Jay Johnson (02:52):
Yeah, and you know, in the nonprofit world I have
seen a lot of very interestingdances, so I can only imagine,
you know, obviously with thenonprofit there's generally some
level of social good or socialimpact or anything else like
that.
But I have found that nonprofitis very often full of people,
(03:14):
people and what I've also foundis that they are also the area
of second chances, that theyhave a difficult time maybe
enforcing rules or anything elselike that.
Was that at all your experienceas you were sort of navigating
some of that space?
Traci Austin (03:29):
You know, that was definitely some of the
experience.
And I think another key pieceof the experience and this
really got me into the training,learning and development area
was what are those reasons thatwe're not hitting the specific
outcomes in an area, and or whatare the reasons we're not
promoting a specific group ofpeople?
(03:51):
You know so I worked in acommunity action agency and what
we found was we served about80% of minority you know, I'm
going to say minority populationWith that we had, I think it
was about 15% of our staff thatwas minority.
And when I looked at thepromotion of minorities I was
(04:11):
going okay, why are we notpromoting?
And they were lacking skillsets Okay, valid, yet we can do
something about this.
And that's where, quitehonestly, that love of learning
and development in the trainingpiece came in.
Because what I found was wherewere they lacking?
Business writing, communicationand general computer, excel and
(04:35):
Word, I go.
All of those things aresolvable.
Why aren't we investing in thetraining of our people to
promote from within instead ofcontinuously going outside?
Thus we're losing theinstitutional knowledge that we
currently have.
Jay Johnson (04:52):
Yeah, and that makes a whole lot of sense.
So there's gosh.
There's so much fun stuff tounpack here.
Tracy, I'm not even sure whereto go.
Well, I do know where I want togo.
Traci Austin (05:02):
I know where you want to go to.
Jay Johnson (05:05):
I want to dig right in.
I'm going to go straight forwhat I see as one of the biggest
challenges the connectionbetween CEO or executive
leadership and HR slash talentdevelopment.
You and I both know there's amassive gap there, and I mean it
(05:26):
is the grand canyon of gaps,and not a single day goes by
that.
I'm not talking to somebody ineither of the fields talent
development or HR that hasexpressed some level of
frustration, some level ofdisappointment and feeling like
they were, as my friend JessAlmey says, order takers as
opposed to strategic partners.
(05:46):
And just recently I had yetanother friend reach out to me
and say hey, I was laid off bymy organization because they
didn't see the value of what wewere doing in the talent
development space.
Do you know anywhere that I cango?
So let's dig into this.
What generated this massive gap?
(06:08):
What is going on here?
Traci Austin (06:11):
We're not speaking the same language.
Jay Johnson (06:13):
Okay, and I've heard that I 1000% agree with
this.
Let's dig into that.
Traci Austin (06:21):
Absolutely.
Jay Johnson (06:21):
What is the language of upper level
leadership, executive leadershipthat we're just missing in your
opinion?
Traci Austin (06:29):
Okay.
So I'm going to take a stepback to take a step forward.
There is a key distinctionbetween outputs and outcomes.
An outcome is the end result ofwhat we're getting.
So your friend that called andsaid you know what?
They said?
That they're not seeing the endresults.
Okay.
And output is?
I'm going to put on a trainingprogram Great.
(06:52):
What is the outcome of thattraining program, which is the
output?
Well, it is that we want topromote 20% of our people within
the next year.
It is that we want to XYZ.
Hr and talent typically speaksin terms of an output.
Our executive suite and ourCEOs are interested in the
(07:14):
outcomes.
We need to speak the languageof an outcome.
Jay Johnson (07:20):
Yes, hallelujah, thank you, and that was really
really well stated.
Actually, that's probably oneof the clearest.
So, in other words, if I was tosay but Tracy, we launched 53
training simulations this yearand we rebuilt this entire LMS
(07:42):
and we did all of these programsfor our people, how would you
respond as a CEO?
Traci Austin (07:51):
what results did it get me to hit my?
What result did it get me tohit expansion in three different
states, increase of revenue by25% and a reduction of cost by
10%?
Did it hit those three outcomes?
Jay Johnson (08:10):
See, and I love that right.
Traci Austin (08:12):
And this is oh, go ahead.
And typically the HR personwill go.
I didn't even know that thosewere the outcomes you were
shooting for.
That's your problem.
Jay Johnson (08:22):
It's a huge problem and that is, you know, and I'm
gonna take a little of the.
I'm gonna take a little of theweight off of HR and talent, but
not all of it, because I dothink that this is, it's an and
both.
It's got to be on both right,like leadership does have to be
more clear.
And what is my objectives?
What are my main priorities?
(08:42):
What are the key performanceindicators that we're actually
needing in order for thisbusiness to thrive, survive
whatever it is and keep all ofour people gainfully employed
and profitable right?
But there is also that aspectof we can, as talent development
and HR, sit there and go gosh.
They're not telling us whatthey need or what they want,
(09:02):
rather than us taking ownershipand jumping in there and really
digging in and saying no, no, no, what is your priority?
I need to know this so I canmatch our outputs to get to your
outcomes right.
So I see that in bothdirections.
One of the things that I reallytry to focus on, at least in my
(09:22):
own company, is telling peoplehey, so you sent three emails to
get this information.
Was that successful or notsuccessful?
Because three emails does notget you the info If that didn't
get you the information.
You need a different strategy.
You need to do something,because the information is the
(09:42):
end game.
That's the goalpost, right?
So how can we better equip ourHR leaders, our talent
development people, to startthinking more strategically at
that sort of senior leadershiplevel?
What are your thoughts?
Traci Austin (10:00):
I think number one is to ask better questions and
then confirming what theoutcomes are.
So you know that could looklike you know you talked about,
you know the LMS and this andthat and whatever else, but to
say to your leader hey, jay,what is?
You know?
This is a significantinvestment that the
(10:22):
organization's making.
What is the outcome that youknow the organization is really
looking for, based on thisinvestment, so that we're
aligned on the implementation ofthis LMS?
What is it that you want?
And then they may say X, y andZ and say, okay, I really want
(10:42):
to make sure that we have ameasurable for this.
So if you are measuring thereturn on this investment, how
are you in the leadership teamgoing to be measuring this so
that I know that we're puttingin place the right levers to
ensure that we can actuallymeasure it at the end, so we
know we hit the goal?
Jay Johnson (11:03):
I love those questions and that definitely
gets to a different level ofunderstanding of what the actual
behaviors are that they'regoing to be able to measure, and
not even just the behaviors.
But what are the behaviors ofsuccess?
Right, like I can teach, I canteach you communication, but if
you're not actually implementingany of those different pieces,
(11:26):
knowledge without action is is aluxury in terms of an
investment from business, right?
So in terms of an investmentfrom business, right?
So, okay, now, tracy, I thinkthat this is one of the things
that I have heard and help meunderstand, because every single
person that I have talked toand there's a disconnect here
(11:47):
somewhere.
All right, I'm gonna get belowthe surface.
When I talk to leadership, youknow, when I talk to leadership,
when I talk to L&D people oranything else, one of the things
is you know, when I talk toleadership, when I talk to L and
D people or anything else, oneof the things is you know, I
really was strategic, I wasgiving them what the return on
investment is, and they feltlike they were coming at this
from the place of uh, you know,from the place of delivering on
(12:09):
outcomes and not necessarily theoutputs.
But then I talked to theleaders in that same
organization is like no, they'remissing the boat.
And it seems to me that, okay,if we've had these conversations
and you've sat down, you'vetalked to, what are the outcomes
?
What do you need to achieve?
And there, seemingly, is stillsomething going on where each
(12:32):
side is not hearing and orseeing each other.
Do you have any insight on that?
Traci Austin (12:37):
Absolutely.
And this is, you know, I coachso many mid-level managers and
leaders, and then the folks thatbring them in, and so often
there is that becomes almost atriangulation right, and this is
sometimes where a third partybeing in the room to say, can
you help me understand what'sbeing missed in the room, to say
, can you help me understandwhat's being missed and can you
(12:59):
help me understand what youthought the objective was?
This is what we call our toughconversations, because so often
we're not willing to have thoseinternally and just go to the
person and say, hey, I thinkwe're missing this because of X,
y and Z, and so again, we'renot speaking that same language.
So there's a couple of thingsthat we have put in place with
(13:22):
our training programs,specifically because we offer
organizations key trainingprograms to support them
internally, and one of them iswe've got that individual, you
know, naming up front, theleader, naming up front.
Here's the outcome we want fromthis program for the person and
(13:44):
for the organization, both.
And then we have them rate basedon what we're training in the
organization and say, hey, youknow, if you could tell us to
focus on anything in here, whatwould it be?
We have them do that at thebeginning, the end and six
months later we also have theparticipant do the same thing
beginning, end and six monthslater.
(14:05):
Why it is now in writing and wecan now start to see in black
and white where the disconnectsare.
Our brains are beautiful thingsin the fact that they try to
protect us and yet we don'tremember and we tend to move
goalposts.
But if we have these things inwriting where we can go back to
(14:27):
it and do a debrief on it afterthe fact, we can go okay, now we
can start to bridge that gap asto where the disconnect
actually happened.
Jay Johnson (14:36):
So I'm loving this because it's that dual approach
right, like having not only theorganizational goals but
aligning almost the individualthere too, because I think that
that's something that I also seeas a gap.
I'm hearing L&D people ortalent development people say,
well, we're providing thetraining, we're using best
(14:57):
practices, we're developing withthe Addy model, we're having
engagement, et cetera, et cetera, and we're still not getting to
the outcomes that are expected.
And you know, on some level I,my first set of questions, are
okay, what buy-in did you havefrom the audience that was
(15:17):
coming in?
You know how were you?
What made you certain that itwas conflict resolution that
they needed and not a newprocess for handling difficult
customers, et cetera?
Like what were those things?
Where was the disconnect atthat individual side?
How often are you seeing that?
(15:37):
Maybe the disconnect from L&Das the middle person in between?
You know the organizationalobjectives and the individual's
objectives there at the groundfloor that are actually the
people being trained andimplementing these things.
What's going on there in thatdisconnect?
Traci Austin (15:54):
So I'm going to rephrase this to make sure I
understand the question.
And the question I'm hearingyou ask is are we solving the
right problem?
Jay Johnson (16:01):
Yeah, not just for the business, but also for the
participants, the people thatare engaged.
Traci Austin (16:07):
Correct.
Yep, and I definitely see that,and that's why we do that dual
approach is to understand whatis the problem we're actually
solving.
The second thing we're reallylooking at is what is your
anticipated outcome from thistraining course right Within the
eight weeks?
We're in this course within sixmonths and within a year.
(16:28):
Right, because one of thethings that we see so often is
this flavor of the day.
Right, we're going to try thisthing and we're going to go all
out and we're going to do it forsix months, so we're going to
jump to the next flavor and thenext flavor.
You know like we do a lot ofwork with assessments and you
know we're going to jump frompredictive index to Colby, to
(16:48):
disc, to true colors, to.
It's like you are confusingeverybody.
Let's pick one lane and followit.
They all have really positiveimpacts, but we're confusing and
there's a huge learning curveon these.
Right?
Jay Johnson (17:03):
so what's?
Traci Austin (17:03):
entj mixed with the di and the red blue and yeah
, absolutely, and a maverick anda captain and you know, you
know a 10 on a quick start and aanagram of whatever and you
know all the things.
So, anyway, you know.
(17:24):
But but going back to, are wesolving the right problem?
Understanding what is thespecific outcomes that are
expected and let's have a real,frank conversation up front is
is that a realistic expectation?
Sometimes it's thatconversation and sometimes it's
(17:45):
the conversation of you are notholding the bar.
This isn't a training issue,this is an accountability issue
and we're actually solving thewrong problem because we're
having the wrong conversation.
Jay Johnson (17:57):
The other one that I love and I see is you've got
10 people on the team, you haveone person who's underperforming
and you have an organizationthat says we need training on
this.
Is the training for the 10people or for the one person?
Is the training for the 10people or for the one person,
for the one thing that you thinkthat they're missing?
And it's just.
I find it fascinating sometimes, so let me take it in this
(18:22):
direction.
I'm using that as my context.
What about when leadership justdoesn't get it and when I say
just doesn't get it right?
There's a couple of differentways I hear this play out and
I'd love to hear your thoughtson it.
First of all is well, come on,tracy, we need a communications
training.
Can't you have that done bynext Monday?
(18:42):
I mean, I want this now, and ifyou're in an internal learning
and development and you're goingwell, I'd love to do the
research.
I'd love to find out if this isactually the issue.
I'd love to be able to put thistogether.
But now I've got the executiveleadership telling me do it or
else by Monday, and they don'tfeel like they've got a lot of
(19:03):
space or a lot of opportunity toask the right questions, to do
the surveys, to do the pre-work,the post-work, et cetera.
So you know, from thatperspective, what is your
experience in sort of navigatingthe demands from leadership and
being able to maybe push backon it a little bit in a
meaningful and productive way.
And maybe this is wheredifficult conversations also
comes in.
Traci Austin (19:22):
Yeah, and I'm cracking up because we have a
LinkedIn newsletter calledLeadership in the Trades, and
the newsletter last week was onhow urgency in an organization
erodes trust, on how urgency inan organization erodes trust.
Therefore, let me explain thisa little bit.
And that was the big old smileon my face as we just touched on
(19:42):
this, which is great, you knowthis is, you know, a flavor of
the day and urgency thing.
Something came up, and so thatkey question you know that I
would ask first is you know whatis driving this training to be
completed by Monday?
Help me understand the problemthat we're looking to solve.
That's question number one.
(20:03):
Question number two is what isthe outcome that you actually
want to happen from thistraining?
What are those results?
Is this a check the box andcover your booty?
Great, we can do that, right.
And there are those that needto be done, and it is valid.
There's times we have to do itTotally cool.
Is this a training where youknow it's actually something
(20:28):
that we're seeing that truly isa longer term impact?
It truly is a longer termimpact.
And then the next question thatI would say is if and when we
do this training, what is thesupport that we will receive
from the leadership team on theaccountability to ensure that
the behavioral change that we'resuggesting in the training is
(20:49):
held to that bar by theleadership team.
Jay Johnson (20:55):
I like that.
Traci Austin (20:56):
So those are three key questions that allow us to
look at that.
Then question four is how arewe going to measure the outcome
of this training, which wasquestion one.
Jay Johnson (21:09):
Yeah, and I like that because I think that at the
moment in time that you say, ok, this is a, this is a
partnership, it's not just aboutthe employees doing, it's about
you providing resources, it'sabout you providing
opportunities and you providingbasically the reward,
recognition and or theaccountability questions of
(21:32):
maintaining and continuing thatforward, or the accountability
questions of maintaining andcontinuing that forward.
So it's really kind of creatingthe duality of ownership, both
from the attendee but also fromthe stakeholders that are going
to benefit from the attendeeschange.
Now it's important for us tostart learning the language of
the C-suite.
How important do you see it asthe C-suite learning the
language of talent development?
(21:52):
And the reason I ask this isbecause we know that there are
best practices in design develop.
Some of them are a little agedand I'm sure that there's
different and obviously moreefficient, more effective ways
to do some of this.
Ai is also contributing to this, but when I think about
something like okay, you know weneed to shift our language to
(22:13):
be more strategic partners andshifting us to being able to
talk about outcomes and you knowthe impact, the return on
investments, et cetera, at whatlevel should we expect leaders
to maybe get a betterunderstanding of what does it
mean to actually develop talentor what does it mean to create a
(22:34):
learning environment.
What are your thoughts on that?
Traci Austin (22:38):
Absolutely, and this is one of those questions
that I may not have the popularopinion on this, and I'm 100%
okay with that.
And there's two pieces to this.
One is I do believe that corevalues and culture is incredibly
important.
If we can talk about L&D interms of core values and culture
, I believe we're going to get asignificant amount of traction,
(23:01):
because study after study andwhat we've seen over and over is
that that culture has a directimpact on the profitability
inside of organizations.
Now, is it the CEO or theexecutive team's job to know the
L&D language?
The answer is absolutely not,and they shouldn't, because
there's no way that they havethe capacity to do their job
(23:23):
really well if they have to knowyour job too Sure.
Jay Johnson (23:28):
I can see that for sure.
Continue, go ahead, sorry.
Traci Austin (23:31):
However, there's also layers and, depending upon
the size of your organizationand what that looks like, should
your leader and I hate the wordshould so is it an opportunity
that you can have theseconversations with your leader
and your leader can be achampion.
For you to learn how to speakup and into the C-suite A
hundred percent, for you tolearn how to speak up and into
(23:53):
the C-suite 100%.
And that's where we can startto have conversations with our
teams and with the leaders ofour teams in order to speak into
that C-suite and that ELT, thatexecutive leadership team, with
their specific language.
And you can tell that.
I've been in HR and nonprofitorganizations because the
(24:15):
alphabet soup just flows.
Jay Johnson (24:18):
So I am going to 100% agree with you, with a
caveat that I think that youwill accept.
Traci Austin (24:24):
All right.
Jay Johnson (24:25):
So the leader?
In this case, I would agree theleader does not need to know L
and D language, but at thatpoint in time, the leader better
know how to effectivelydelegate by giving the why and
the what and getting the hellout of the way, as your L&D
professional does, the how.
Because if they're not going tobe knowledgeable in this space
(24:48):
and there are some leaders thatdo know a lot about talent
development, coaching, mentoring, et cetera and are very, very
good at it, and there are somethat don't and have no interest
in it, and that's perfectly okaybut if you are one of those, I
don't know about the bestpractices of developing,
training, coaching, learningprograms, et cetera.
Give the why, give the what andget out of the way for the how
(25:11):
and let your L&D team do theirjob.
Would you agree with thatcaveat?
Traci Austin (25:15):
I would, and I'm actually going to name something
.
Probably you know, with this aswell, I love asking the
executive leaders if they have acoach.
And if they don't have a coach,I run.
I won't work with folks thatdon't have a coach or not
willing to have a coach, andhere's why Because there's
(25:37):
something about having anexperience of being coached and
being open to the conversationsIf they've never been coached
and or are not willing to havesome sort of coaching, whether
that's executive coaching,whether that is, you know, like
I'm a part of strategic coach,whether that's with that,
whether that's with any of theseprograms right, there is
(25:58):
something about that that says,hey, I have experienced that and
that's how I was able to growto this, because I know that I
have blind spots and when wehave leaders, that's all ego.
It's very difficult to makesome of that change, which is, I
love asking the question do youhave a coach or have you been a
(26:20):
part of an executive coachingprogram?
Jay Johnson (26:22):
Well, and I think you nailed the right word.
There is a lot of times why dowe not have a coach?
Well, what?
What is it going to do?
It's a waste of my time, it'snot going to teach me anything.
I know this business, I know,yes, you do, but there's always
room for growth.
And if you don't believe that,then why are you investing in
growth opportunities for yourteam and not leading by example?
(26:43):
So, yeah, I dig that, but Idon't think that I've ever heard
anybody say do you have a coach?
No, peace, I'm out.
So I kind of like that hard lineTracy, you know, let's talk a
little bit about.
Let's talk about some of theseconversations, right, some of
(27:04):
these conversations, because Ido know that this to be one of
the big aspects of fear in HRand in talent development how do
we push back effectively?
And I know that you gave somequestions and things like this,
right, but oftentimes,especially now, it seems like
there's so much tension inbetween the workforce and also
(27:26):
senior leadership, or even justthat mid-level leadership.
To be perfectly honest with you, a lot of times the mid-level
leadership may be hearing thingsat that ground floor and don't
necessarily want to share thatup, because if I do share that
up, I'm raising my head abovethe sand and it's my head that's
going to get cut off.
So I look at this and I say howcan we start the process of
(27:49):
maybe leaning into some of theseconversations that are
absolutely necessary to have ina way that's going to feel more
productive and, I guess, morefuture focused, rather than
complaining about what has beenand shifting it more towards a
future focus?
How do we start thoseconversations?
Traci Austin (28:08):
Yeah, absolutely.
So I have two ways of sayingthis.
So I have a spicy way and thenI've got a way that I think
we're all going to go Okay.
So I'm going to name the spicyway first.
Jay Johnson (28:18):
I like spicy, all right.
Traci Austin (28:20):
You need to stop bitching about it and start
pitching.
And here's what I mean is,every complaint is just a poorly
worded request.
But if I say, hey, let's gohave this conversation, You're
like I don't know what to dowith it, right?
However, if I say, what are youbitching about at the bar with
your friends?
You know we all in HR go out asHR professionals or L&D and we
(28:45):
are complaining about somethingover that beverage Guaranteed.
If you're not in that group,text me or email me, because I
want to know how you are lettingthe steam out because that's
fun, so, but within that, it'sreally looking at that and
getting to what the request iswithout the story.
I just want the facts.
So let me give you an example.
(29:06):
Here's a complaint no one wantsto stay and work for us.
Okay, that's an absolute.
Do we really mean that nobodywants to stay and work for us?
Because, guess what?
We get so wrapped up in thesestories that we're so angry we
can't have a great conversation.
So, the first thing we need todo is understand what's our
complaint.
And now let's separate out thefacts.
(29:28):
So, for example, you go backand you look at it and you say
look, we have 89% turnover inthe first 90 days in our line
level labor roles in ourChattanooga location.
Okay, great, I can veryspecifically get down to that.
I have facts around that.
Now I want to know what is theimpact, based on those facts,
(29:50):
from the complaint that no onewants to work for us.
Based on those facts from thecomplaint that no one wants to
work for us, we can get to youknow.
Now I have to be leading allthese things and be on the line
doing whatever that is so forL&D leaders.
It could be.
You know what?
No, there's no leader in thisorganization that sees me
valuable from leading thesetraining programs.
(30:11):
Okay, well, where's your factson that?
Leading these training programs?
Okay, Well, where's your factson that?
What's your survey results sayright, what's the impact on you?
Well, you got a bunch of headtrash going on that says you're
not doing a great job, it's notserving you.
So what's the other impact?
We don't have the support fromour leaders when we pull folks
out to do training on them.
Okay, let's define what supportmeans.
(30:34):
Well, support would be X, y, z,so you can tell.
That then becomes a request.
I'm requesting support from theleaders in our organization for
these training programs.
Support looks like X, y and Z.
Now we've got very specificrequests that we can actually go
and have the conversation.
Jay Johnson (30:57):
Love this.
You know, and, honestly, one ofthe things that is just dancing
in my head and I will attributethis to you, but I'm probably
going to say it at some point intime I'm a big fan of
attribution, so this comes fromTracy Austin A complaint is a
poorly worded request.
That's brilliant.
(31:18):
I love that, and that'sdefinitely one that's going to
stick with me.
So the next time I hearsomebody complaining, what are
you requesting?
In a very ineffective manner, Imight use that as my coaching
tool there.
Traci Austin (31:32):
Yeah, and we don't see it that way, right?
And it's really important thatwhat our mindset is, as soon as
we change our mindset, theentire world changes.
We just change the game bychanging our thoughts.
Jay Johnson (31:47):
Yeah, I love that.
So let me, let me ask a questionhere, and this is because I
know one of the areas or one ofthe spaces that you definitely
do a lot of work in is thetrades, and I'm going to
contextualize this because Ithink it can be applicable in a
number of different places, butgenerally, when we think the
(32:08):
trades, it is often.
It is often and I'm not going tosay I'm going to use the
stereotypes, because I do knowquite a few people in trades
that maybe don't necessarily fitthe stereotype, but it's often
very masculine, it's often, youknow, a lot of toughness, a lot
of grit, a lot of I'm not goingto, I'm not going to dig into my
(32:28):
emotions and there's a numberof other industries that we see
that from a probabilisticstandpoint and again, this is
stereotypical because it's notalways true but we see that in
law enforcement, we see that ina number of other I don't want
to say just male, but I'm justgoing to say masculine,
dominated testosterone,dominated areas.
(32:48):
And, yes, men and women bothhave testosterone.
Read a science book for thoseof you that didn't know that Men
and women both havetestosterone.
Read a science book for thoseof you that didn't know that.
With that being said, how canwe create the conditions of
learning?
When we get into some of thosedifferent places that maybe it's
difficult for somebody to bevulnerable and say, well, I
don't know how to do that, orI'm really not comfortable with
(33:11):
this, or this makes me feel aparticular way, how can we maybe
be more effective in, say, oneof those environments where it's
more closed off or maybe alittle bit more of the lack of
vulnerability, if that makessense?
Traci Austin (33:27):
Yeah, absolutely, and so there's a couple of ways
that we very specificallyapproach this.
And before I go into that, mostof these folks have an ego
around them in a really hardshell, because they've had to
have that to protect themselvesperiod Right Agreed.
Yet underneath that most ofthem, it's some great big teddy
(33:47):
bear.
They're not going to show it toyou until they can trust you.
Jay Johnson (33:50):
Yeah.
Traci Austin (33:51):
So how do you build that trust Right?
First off, figure out what dothey need.
Like the W-I-I-F-M on theirforehead, what's in it for me?
What do they need?
And you know so if you areworking with someone and there's
a huge hard shell there.
What do they need?
Because if you can't figure outhow to serve them, you are a
(34:14):
waste of their time period.
What is the outcome that theyneed you to produce?
To be there when you can andthere's.
You know how I typically figurethat out is.
You know, hey, we're gonnaspend the next hour together.
Jay, what would make this houra good use of your time?
Jay Johnson (34:34):
You're gonna flat out tell me if L&D people would
ask that question more often.
Put that one into your arsenalaudience, because, let me tell
you, people are busy and theylook at and I think a lot of us
know that.
You know, a training is,whereas maybe if you're in L&D,
you're like Ooh, training, I'mgoing to go learn something.
(34:56):
This is going to be great.
I'm going to be able to getaway from the spreadsheets for
an hour and really kind ofabsorb some new knowledge or
some new interesting facts.
If you're not in L&D, it's ohmy God.
How am I going to balance theother 11 hours of work that I
have to do today with thistwo-hour mandatory training on
(35:16):
IT security that I am being toldI have to go to right?
Traci Austin (35:20):
And I'm doing four other things at the same time.
Jay Johnson (35:22):
Yeah, exactly, I'm on my phone and I'm also
thinking about dinner and I'malso, whatever those might be,
to make sure that I can be asusing my time as valuably as
possible.
Right, we know that people arebusy, but I think that that's
such a power.
How could we make this hourreally meaningful for you?
What do you need to walk awayto say this this hour was a
(35:43):
successful hour of your timespent.
I love that.
I you know.
In asking, you'll get theanswers.
Traci Austin (35:52):
Yeah.
Sometimes you may not like thesmart alecky answers, but yeah,
for sure, and here's what Iwould say to every L&D listener
today is everything I havechatted about today is taking a
coach approach, and so you knowit's.
You know, I will tell you, mylife and my career changed when
(36:13):
I decided to say I'm reallycurious about this coaching
thing, wonder what it looks like.
When I went through thosecertification programs, I
completely changed my businessbecause I went at it from a
coach approach.
I am your partner.
I am not the expert.
I do not know exactly what'sgoing on in your business.
I don't know what's going on inyour family, in your head.
(36:34):
You are the expert of that.
However, I'm a partner to youand I'm going to ask questions
so that we can figure it outtogether and or you can figure
it out with a little bit ofaccountability and nudging in
order to do it.
Jay Johnson (36:49):
Yep, I love it.
It's 100%.
Why the assessment that we usebehavioral elements.
We call them guides.
We don't call them.
They're not trainers, they'reguides If they are, if they are
training.
Well, guess what?
We train mice, we guide humans.
Traci Austin (37:07):
So I love that.
Jay Johnson (37:10):
Yeah, so I just I look at it and say that I'm with
you.
The coaching is really a gamechanger and if you are a trainer
, walk in with the mentality ofbeing a coach sometime, that you
are asking questions as opposedto coming in and delivering
content You'll.
You'll see the difference.
There's a big difference, bothin audience reaction and how you
(37:32):
feel afterwards.
I think so yeah, 100 percent.
Tracy, this has been anincredible conversation, full of
some really good ideas, reallygreat questions to ask and some
of the big challenges that Ithink that we all see that we're
facing in the industry.
If the audience wanted to getin touch with you, if they
wanted to reach out, if theywanted to find out where that
(37:53):
happy hour is that you'reattending, how would they get in
touch with you?
Traci Austin (37:57):
Well, before we go to that, can I just name
something that we're doingtogether that I'm super excited
about?
Jay Johnson (38:02):
Yes, please.
Traci Austin (38:03):
So I host something called the People's
Strategy Club every Tuesday.
I bring on a strategic partnerthat I've typically been on
their podcast, or they've beenon my podcast called the
People's Strategy Podcast, andJay will be on the People's
Strategy Club.
It is a live one hour.
We are going to go through somekey topics impacting HR and L&D
(38:26):
folks and then we close it outwith actually going through our
tough talk audit of how do wehave these tough conversations
once we figured out what ourrequest is.
Jay Johnson (38:37):
I love this and I am super excited to join you on
that.
So, audience, you better bethere.
You better have some hardquestions ready to go, because
it's going to be fun.
I love it.
I love it.
So thank you for that, Tracy.
So how did they reach you?
Traci Austin (38:54):
They can find me at elevatedtalentconsultingcom
or on LinkedIn at Tracy Austin.
And, of course, our podcast isthe People Strategy Podcast.
Jay Johnson (39:03):
I love it.
We'll be giving that a listen,making sure that we put all of
those into the show notes.
Tracy, it's always a joy tospeak with somebody.
That's sort of like walkedthrough that fire and seeing the
other side and seeing whatsuccess looks like in those
spaces.
So thank you for being herewith us and sharing your
knowledge and your experiences,which I guarantee is going to
(39:23):
help many of our audience beable to make that jump of that
chasm that we're currentlyfacing.
So thank you so much for beinghere today.
Traci Austin (39:32):
Thank you.
Jay Johnson (39:34):
And audience as always.
Thank you for tuning into thisepisode of the Talent Forge,
where, together, we are shapingthe future of training and
development.
Welcome to this episode of the Talent Forge,
where we are shaping the futureof training and development.
Today, a special guest comes inwith an HR background.
That is incredible and I can'twait to talk to her.
This is Traci Austin.
Welcome to the show, traci.
Traci Austin (00:17):
Thank you so much for having me, Jay.
Jay Johnson (00:19):
Yeah, so let's dig in.
How did you get to where you'reat now?
It's always interesting tolearn the journey of fellow HR
and talent enthusiasts in thisspace.
So what got you here?
Traci Austin (00:35):
Absolutely Such a fun question, right?
So I spent my first 10 yearsstarting HR departments from the
ground up in nonprofitorganizations, and then I took a
wrong turn at Albuquerque andbecame a nursing home
administrator and decided itreally didn't have the people
piece, that like heart forpeople that I was really
(00:56):
interested in and started doingconsulting work.
However, in every single pieceit's always been the training
piece.
How do we elevate the people inour organization and how do we
see them bigger than they seethemselves so that they can be
fulfilled in their work?
Jay Johnson (01:15):
I love that, hence the name Elevated Talent
Consulting.
I'm assuming it sure is.
All right, awesome.
So what was it like starting?
Okay, so I've done a lot ofwork with nonprofits, mostly
working with boards of directorsand helping them like with
their like boards, you know,like Robert's Rules of Order, or
helping them structure theirdecisions.
(01:36):
Okay, I can't imagine what it'slike doing HR from the ground
up with nonprofit entities.
Talk, talk me through that.
What did that look like?
Traci Austin (01:48):
Figuring it out I mean it really did.
It was a lot of figuring it outand I started very much as a lot
of folks do, where you kind offall into HR and it's like, hey,
will you do payroll?
And oh, there's this handbookthing and can you handle that?
And then you get your lawsuitand then you get this, and so it
(02:09):
just kind of snowballs into,okay, what is in the best
interest of the organization andwhat is in the best interest of
our people, and so it's lookingat this and both, and so part
of this was what do my executiveleaders need?
What do the folks that we'reserving need?
Because in nonprofits you havethree bottom lines.
(02:31):
You're measuring to, you've gotan impact bottom line, you have
a people bottom line and youhave a profit bottom line.
And that was the best learningis how do we truly elevate our
people through that?
And so in those kind offiguring it out all on your own,
you're just dancing and that'sfun.
Jay Johnson (02:52):
Yeah, and you know, in the nonprofit world I have
seen a lot of very interestingdances, so I can only imagine,
you know, obviously with thenonprofit there's generally some
level of social good or socialimpact or anything else like
that.
But I have found that nonprofitis very often full of people,
(03:14):
people and what I've also foundis that they are also the area
of second chances, that theyhave a difficult time maybe
enforcing rules or anything elselike that.
Was that at all your experienceas you were sort of navigating
some of that space?
Traci Austin (03:29):
You know, that was definitely some of the
experience.
And I think another key pieceof the experience and this
really got me into the training,learning and development area
was what are those reasons thatwe're not hitting the specific
outcomes in an area, and or whatare the reasons we're not
promoting a specific group ofpeople?
(03:51):
You know so I worked in acommunity action agency and what
we found was we served about80% of minority you know, I'm
going to say minority populationWith that we had, I think it
was about 15% of our staff thatwas minority.
And when I looked at thepromotion of minorities I was
(04:11):
going okay, why are we notpromoting?
And they were lacking skillsets Okay, valid, yet we can do
something about this.
And that's where, quitehonestly, that love of learning
and development in the trainingpiece came in.
Because what I found was wherewere they lacking?
Business writing, communicationand general computer, excel and
(04:35):
Word, I go.
All of those things aresolvable.
Why aren't we investing in thetraining of our people to
promote from within instead ofcontinuously going outside?
Thus we're losing theinstitutional knowledge that we
currently have.
Jay Johnson (04:52):
Yeah, and that makes a whole lot of sense.
So there's gosh.
There's so much fun stuff tounpack here.
Tracy, I'm not even sure whereto go.
Well, I do know where I want togo.
Traci Austin (05:02):
I know where you want to go to.
Jay Johnson (05:05):
I want to dig right in.
I'm going to go straight forwhat I see as one of the biggest
challenges the connectionbetween CEO or executive
leadership and HR slash talentdevelopment.
You and I both know there's amassive gap there, and I mean it
(05:26):
is the grand canyon of gaps,and not a single day goes by
that.
I'm not talking to somebody ineither of the fields talent
development or HR that hasexpressed some level of
frustration, some level ofdisappointment and feeling like
they were, as my friend JessAlmey says, order takers as
opposed to strategic partners.
(05:46):
And just recently I had yetanother friend reach out to me
and say hey, I was laid off bymy organization because they
didn't see the value of what wewere doing in the talent
development space.
Do you know anywhere that I cango?
So let's dig into this.
What generated this massive gap?
(06:08):
What is going on here?
Traci Austin (06:11):
We're not speaking the same language.
Jay Johnson (06:13):
Okay, and I've heard that I 1000% agree with
this.
Let's dig into that.
Traci Austin (06:21):
Absolutely.
Jay Johnson (06:21):
What is the language of upper level
leadership, executive leadershipthat we're just missing in your
opinion?
Traci Austin (06:29):
Okay.
So I'm going to take a stepback to take a step forward.
There is a key distinctionbetween outputs and outcomes.
An outcome is the end result ofwhat we're getting.
So your friend that called andsaid you know what?
They said?
That they're not seeing the endresults.
Okay.
And output is?
I'm going to put on a trainingprogram Great.
(06:52):
What is the outcome of thattraining program, which is the
output?
Well, it is that we want topromote 20% of our people within
the next year.
It is that we want to XYZ.
Hr and talent typically speaksin terms of an output.
Our executive suite and ourCEOs are interested in the
(07:14):
outcomes.
We need to speak the languageof an outcome.
Jay Johnson (07:20):
Yes, hallelujah, thank you, and that was really
really well stated.
Actually, that's probably oneof the clearest.
So, in other words, if I was tosay but Tracy, we launched 53
training simulations this yearand we rebuilt this entire LMS
(07:42):
and we did all of these programsfor our people, how would you
respond as a CEO?
Traci Austin (07:51):
what results did it get me to hit my?
What result did it get me tohit expansion in three different
states, increase of revenue by25% and a reduction of cost by
10%?
Did it hit those three outcomes?
Jay Johnson (08:10):
See, and I love that right.
Traci Austin (08:12):
And this is oh, go ahead.
And typically the HR personwill go.
I didn't even know that thosewere the outcomes you were
shooting for.
That's your problem.
Jay Johnson (08:22):
It's a huge problem and that is, you know, and I'm
gonna take a little of the.
I'm gonna take a little of theweight off of HR and talent, but
not all of it, because I dothink that this is, it's an and
both.
It's got to be on both right,like leadership does have to be
more clear.
And what is my objectives?
What are my main priorities?
(08:42):
What are the key performanceindicators that we're actually
needing in order for thisbusiness to thrive, survive
whatever it is and keep all ofour people gainfully employed
and profitable right?
But there is also that aspectof we can, as talent development
and HR, sit there and go gosh.
They're not telling us whatthey need or what they want,
(09:02):
rather than us taking ownershipand jumping in there and really
digging in and saying no, no, no, what is your priority?
I need to know this so I canmatch our outputs to get to your
outcomes right.
So I see that in bothdirections.
One of the things that I reallytry to focus on, at least in my
(09:22):
own company, is telling peoplehey, so you sent three emails to
get this information.
Was that successful or notsuccessful?
Because three emails does notget you the info If that didn't
get you the information.
You need a different strategy.
You need to do something,because the information is the
(09:42):
end game.
That's the goalpost, right?
So how can we better equip ourHR leaders, our talent
development people, to startthinking more strategically at
that sort of senior leadershiplevel?
What are your thoughts?
Traci Austin (10:00):
I think number one is to ask better questions and
then confirming what theoutcomes are.
So you know that could looklike you know you talked about,
you know the LMS and this andthat and whatever else, but to
say to your leader hey, jay,what is?
You know?
This is a significantinvestment that the
(10:22):
organization's making.
What is the outcome that youknow the organization is really
looking for, based on thisinvestment, so that we're
aligned on the implementation ofthis LMS?
What is it that you want?
And then they may say X, y andZ and say, okay, I really want
(10:42):
to make sure that we have ameasurable for this.
So if you are measuring thereturn on this investment, how
are you in the leadership teamgoing to be measuring this so
that I know that we're puttingin place the right levers to
ensure that we can actuallymeasure it at the end, so we
know we hit the goal?
Jay Johnson (11:03):
I love those questions and that definitely
gets to a different level ofunderstanding of what the actual
behaviors are that they'regoing to be able to measure, and
not even just the behaviors.
But what are the behaviors ofsuccess?
Right, like I can teach, I canteach you communication, but if
you're not actually implementingany of those different pieces,
(11:26):
knowledge without action is is aluxury in terms of an
investment from business, right?
So in terms of an investmentfrom business, right?
So, okay, now, tracy, I thinkthat this is one of the things
that I have heard and help meunderstand, because every single
person that I have talked toand there's a disconnect here
(11:47):
somewhere.
All right, I'm gonna get belowthe surface.
When I talk to leadership, youknow, when I talk to leadership,
when I talk to L&D people oranything else, one of the things
is you know, when I talk toleadership, when I talk to L and
D people or anything else, oneof the things is you know, I
really was strategic, I wasgiving them what the return on
investment is, and they feltlike they were coming at this
from the place of uh, you know,from the place of delivering on
(12:09):
outcomes and not necessarily theoutputs.
But then I talked to theleaders in that same
organization is like no, they'remissing the boat.
And it seems to me that, okay,if we've had these conversations
and you've sat down, you'vetalked to, what are the outcomes
?
What do you need to achieve?
And there, seemingly, is stillsomething going on where each
(12:32):
side is not hearing and orseeing each other.
Do you have any insight on that?
Traci Austin (12:37):
Absolutely.
And this is, you know, I coachso many mid-level managers and
leaders, and then the folks thatbring them in, and so often
there is that becomes almost atriangulation right, and this is
sometimes where a third partybeing in the room to say, can
you help me understand what'sbeing missed in the room, to say
, can you help me understandwhat's being missed and can you
(12:59):
help me understand what youthought the objective was?
This is what we call our toughconversations, because so often
we're not willing to have thoseinternally and just go to the
person and say, hey, I thinkwe're missing this because of X,
y and Z, and so again, we'renot speaking that same language.
So there's a couple of thingsthat we have put in place with
(13:22):
our training programs,specifically because we offer
organizations key trainingprograms to support them
internally, and one of them iswe've got that individual, you
know, naming up front, theleader, naming up front.
Here's the outcome we want fromthis program for the person and
(13:44):
for the organization, both.
And then we have them rate basedon what we're training in the
organization and say, hey, youknow, if you could tell us to
focus on anything in here, whatwould it be?
We have them do that at thebeginning, the end and six
months later we also have theparticipant do the same thing
beginning, end and six monthslater.
(14:05):
Why it is now in writing and wecan now start to see in black
and white where the disconnectsare.
Our brains are beautiful thingsin the fact that they try to
protect us and yet we don'tremember and we tend to move
goalposts.
But if we have these things inwriting where we can go back to
(14:27):
it and do a debrief on it afterthe fact, we can go okay, now we
can start to bridge that gap asto where the disconnect
actually happened.
Jay Johnson (14:36):
So I'm loving this because it's that dual approach
right, like having not only theorganizational goals but
aligning almost the individualthere too, because I think that
that's something that I also seeas a gap.
I'm hearing L&D people ortalent development people say,
well, we're providing thetraining, we're using best
(14:57):
practices, we're developing withthe Addy model, we're having
engagement, et cetera, et cetera, and we're still not getting to
the outcomes that are expected.
And you know, on some level I,my first set of questions, are
okay, what buy-in did you havefrom the audience that was
(15:17):
coming in?
You know how were you?
What made you certain that itwas conflict resolution that
they needed and not a newprocess for handling difficult
customers, et cetera?
Like what were those things?
Where was the disconnect atthat individual side?
How often are you seeing that?
(15:37):
Maybe the disconnect from L&Das the middle person in between?
You know the organizationalobjectives and the individual's
objectives there at the groundfloor that are actually the
people being trained andimplementing these things.
What's going on there in thatdisconnect?
Traci Austin (15:54):
So I'm going to rephrase this to make sure I
understand the question.
And the question I'm hearingyou ask is are we solving the
right problem?
Jay Johnson (16:01):
Yeah, not just for the business, but also for the
participants, the people thatare engaged.
Traci Austin (16:07):
Correct.
Yep, and I definitely see that,and that's why we do that dual
approach is to understand whatis the problem we're actually
solving.
The second thing we're reallylooking at is what is your
anticipated outcome from thistraining course right Within the
eight weeks?
We're in this course within sixmonths and within a year.
(16:28):
Right, because one of thethings that we see so often is
this flavor of the day.
Right, we're going to try thisthing and we're going to go all
out and we're going to do it forsix months, so we're going to
jump to the next flavor and thenext flavor.
You know like we do a lot ofwork with assessments and you
know we're going to jump frompredictive index to Colby, to
(16:48):
disc, to true colors, to.
It's like you are confusingeverybody.
Let's pick one lane and followit.
They all have really positiveimpacts, but we're confusing and
there's a huge learning curveon these.
Right?
Jay Johnson (17:03):
so what's?
Traci Austin (17:03):
entj mixed with the di and the red blue and yeah
, absolutely, and a maverick anda captain and you know, you
know a 10 on a quick start and aanagram of whatever and you
know all the things.
So, anyway, you know.
(17:24):
But but going back to, are wesolving the right problem?
Understanding what is thespecific outcomes that are
expected and let's have a real,frank conversation up front is
is that a realistic expectation?
Sometimes it's thatconversation and sometimes it's
(17:45):
the conversation of you are notholding the bar.
This isn't a training issue,this is an accountability issue
and we're actually solving thewrong problem because we're
having the wrong conversation.
Jay Johnson (17:57):
The other one that I love and I see is you've got
10 people on the team, you haveone person who's underperforming
and you have an organizationthat says we need training on
this.
Is the training for the 10people or for the one person?
Is the training for the 10people or for the one person,
for the one thing that you thinkthat they're missing?
And it's just.
I find it fascinating sometimes, so let me take it in this
(18:22):
direction.
I'm using that as my context.
What about when leadership justdoesn't get it and when I say
just doesn't get it right?
There's a couple of differentways I hear this play out and
I'd love to hear your thoughtson it.
First of all is well, come on,tracy, we need a communications
training.
Can't you have that done bynext Monday?
(18:42):
I mean, I want this now, and ifyou're in an internal learning
and development and you're goingwell, I'd love to do the
research.
I'd love to find out if this isactually the issue.
I'd love to be able to put thistogether.
But now I've got the executiveleadership telling me do it or
else by Monday, and they don'tfeel like they've got a lot of
(19:03):
space or a lot of opportunity toask the right questions, to do
the surveys, to do the pre-work,the post-work, et cetera.
So you know, from thatperspective, what is your
experience in sort of navigatingthe demands from leadership and
being able to maybe push backon it a little bit in a
meaningful and productive way.
And maybe this is wheredifficult conversations also
comes in.
Traci Austin (19:22):
Yeah, and I'm cracking up because we have a
LinkedIn newsletter calledLeadership in the Trades, and
the newsletter last week was onhow urgency in an organization
erodes trust, on how urgency inan organization erodes trust.
Therefore, let me explain thisa little bit.
And that was the big old smileon my face as we just touched on
(19:42):
this, which is great, you knowthis is, you know, a flavor of
the day and urgency thing.
Something came up, and so thatkey question you know that I
would ask first is you know whatis driving this training to be
completed by Monday?
Help me understand the problemthat we're looking to solve.
That's question number one.
(20:03):
Question number two is what isthe outcome that you actually
want to happen from thistraining?
What are those results?
Is this a check the box andcover your booty?
Great, we can do that, right.
And there are those that needto be done, and it is valid.
There's times we have to do itTotally cool.
Is this a training where youknow it's actually something
(20:28):
that we're seeing that truly isa longer term impact?
It truly is a longer termimpact.
And then the next question thatI would say is if and when we
do this training, what is thesupport that we will receive
from the leadership team on theaccountability to ensure that
the behavioral change that we'resuggesting in the training is
(20:49):
held to that bar by theleadership team.
Jay Johnson (20:55):
I like that.
Traci Austin (20:56):
So those are three key questions that allow us to
look at that.
Then question four is how arewe going to measure the outcome
of this training, which wasquestion one.
Jay Johnson (21:09):
Yeah, and I like that because I think that at the
moment in time that you say, ok, this is a, this is a
partnership, it's not just aboutthe employees doing, it's about
you providing resources, it'sabout you providing
opportunities and you providingbasically the reward,
recognition and or theaccountability questions of
(21:32):
maintaining and continuing thatforward, or the accountability
questions of maintaining andcontinuing that forward.
So it's really kind of creatingthe duality of ownership, both
from the attendee but also fromthe stakeholders that are going
to benefit from the attendeeschange.
Now it's important for us tostart learning the language of
the C-suite.
How important do you see it asthe C-suite learning the
language of talent development?
(21:52):
And the reason I ask this isbecause we know that there are
best practices in design develop.
Some of them are a little agedand I'm sure that there's
different and obviously moreefficient, more effective ways
to do some of this.
Ai is also contributing to this, but when I think about
something like okay, you know weneed to shift our language to
(22:13):
be more strategic partners andshifting us to being able to
talk about outcomes and you knowthe impact, the return on
investments, et cetera, at whatlevel should we expect leaders
to maybe get a betterunderstanding of what does it
mean to actually develop talentor what does it mean to create a
(22:34):
learning environment.
What are your thoughts on that?
Traci Austin (22:38):
Absolutely, and this is one of those questions
that I may not have the popularopinion on this, and I'm 100%
okay with that.
And there's two pieces to this.
One is I do believe that corevalues and culture is incredibly
important.
If we can talk about L&D interms of core values and culture
, I believe we're going to get asignificant amount of traction,
(23:01):
because study after study andwhat we've seen over and over is
that that culture has a directimpact on the profitability
inside of organizations.
Now, is it the CEO or theexecutive team's job to know the
L&D language?
The answer is absolutely not,and they shouldn't, because
there's no way that they havethe capacity to do their job
(23:23):
really well if they have to knowyour job too Sure.
Jay Johnson (23:28):
I can see that for sure.
Continue, go ahead, sorry.
Traci Austin (23:31):
However, there's also layers and, depending upon
the size of your organizationand what that looks like, should
your leader and I hate the wordshould so is it an opportunity
that you can have theseconversations with your leader
and your leader can be achampion.
For you to learn how to speakup and into the C-suite A
hundred percent, for you tolearn how to speak up and into
(23:53):
the C-suite 100%.
And that's where we can startto have conversations with our
teams and with the leaders ofour teams in order to speak into
that C-suite and that ELT, thatexecutive leadership team, with
their specific language.
And you can tell that.
I've been in HR and nonprofitorganizations because the
(24:15):
alphabet soup just flows.
Jay Johnson (24:18):
So I am going to 100% agree with you, with a
caveat that I think that youwill accept.
Traci Austin (24:24):
All right.
Jay Johnson (24:25):
So the leader?
In this case, I would agree theleader does not need to know L
and D language, but at thatpoint in time, the leader better
know how to effectivelydelegate by giving the why and
the what and getting the hellout of the way, as your L&D
professional does, the how.
Because if they're not going tobe knowledgeable in this space
(24:48):
and there are some leaders thatdo know a lot about talent
development, coaching, mentoring, et cetera and are very, very
good at it, and there are somethat don't and have no interest
in it, and that's perfectly okaybut if you are one of those, I
don't know about the bestpractices of developing,
training, coaching, learningprograms, et cetera.
Give the why, give the what andget out of the way for the how
(25:11):
and let your L&D team do theirjob.
Would you agree with thatcaveat?
Traci Austin (25:15):
I would, and I'm actually going to name something
.
Probably you know, with this aswell, I love asking the
executive leaders if they have acoach.
And if they don't have a coach,I run.
I won't work with folks thatdon't have a coach or not
willing to have a coach, andhere's why Because there's
(25:37):
something about having anexperience of being coached and
being open to the conversationsIf they've never been coached
and or are not willing to havesome sort of coaching, whether
that's executive coaching,whether that is, you know, like
I'm a part of strategic coach,whether that's with that,
whether that's with any of theseprograms right, there is
(25:58):
something about that that says,hey, I have experienced that and
that's how I was able to growto this, because I know that I
have blind spots and when wehave leaders, that's all ego.
It's very difficult to makesome of that change, which is, I
love asking the question do youhave a coach or have you been a
(26:20):
part of an executive coachingprogram?
Jay Johnson (26:22):
Well, and I think you nailed the right word.
There is a lot of times why dowe not have a coach?
Well, what?
What is it going to do?
It's a waste of my time, it'snot going to teach me anything.
I know this business, I know,yes, you do, but there's always
room for growth.
And if you don't believe that,then why are you investing in
growth opportunities for yourteam and not leading by example?
(26:43):
So, yeah, I dig that, but Idon't think that I've ever heard
anybody say do you have a coach?
No, peace, I'm out.
So I kind of like that hard lineTracy, you know, let's talk a
little bit about.
Let's talk about some of theseconversations, right, some of
(27:04):
these conversations, because Ido know that this to be one of
the big aspects of fear in HRand in talent development how do
we push back effectively?
And I know that you gave somequestions and things like this,
right, but oftentimes,especially now, it seems like
there's so much tension inbetween the workforce and also
(27:26):
senior leadership, or even justthat mid-level leadership.
To be perfectly honest with you, a lot of times the mid-level
leadership may be hearing thingsat that ground floor and don't
necessarily want to share thatup, because if I do share that
up, I'm raising my head abovethe sand and it's my head that's
going to get cut off.
So I look at this and I say howcan we start the process of
(27:49):
maybe leaning into some of theseconversations that are
absolutely necessary to have ina way that's going to feel more
productive and, I guess, morefuture focused, rather than
complaining about what has beenand shifting it more towards a
future focus?
How do we start thoseconversations?
Traci Austin (28:08):
Yeah, absolutely.
So I have two ways of sayingthis.
So I have a spicy way and thenI've got a way that I think
we're all going to go Okay.
So I'm going to name the spicyway first.
Jay Johnson (28:18):
I like spicy, all right.
Traci Austin (28:20):
You need to stop bitching about it and start
pitching.
And here's what I mean is,every complaint is just a poorly
worded request.
But if I say, hey, let's gohave this conversation, You're
like I don't know what to dowith it, right?
However, if I say, what are youbitching about at the bar with
your friends?
You know we all in HR go out asHR professionals or L&D and we
(28:45):
are complaining about somethingover that beverage Guaranteed.
If you're not in that group,text me or email me, because I
want to know how you are lettingthe steam out because that's
fun, so, but within that, it'sreally looking at that and
getting to what the request iswithout the story.
I just want the facts.
So let me give you an example.
(29:06):
Here's a complaint no one wantsto stay and work for us.
Okay, that's an absolute.
Do we really mean that nobodywants to stay and work for us?
Because, guess what?
We get so wrapped up in thesestories that we're so angry we
can't have a great conversation.
So, the first thing we need todo is understand what's our
complaint.
And now let's separate out thefacts.
(29:28):
So, for example, you go backand you look at it and you say
look, we have 89% turnover inthe first 90 days in our line
level labor roles in ourChattanooga location.
Okay, great, I can veryspecifically get down to that.
I have facts around that.
Now I want to know what is theimpact, based on those facts,
(29:50):
from the complaint that no onewants to work for us.
Based on those facts from thecomplaint that no one wants to
work for us, we can get to youknow.
Now I have to be leading allthese things and be on the line
doing whatever that is so forL&D leaders.
It could be.
You know what?
No, there's no leader in thisorganization that sees me
valuable from leading thesetraining programs.
(30:11):
Okay, well, where's your factson that?
Leading these training programs?
Okay, Well, where's your factson that?
What's your survey results sayright, what's the impact on you?
Well, you got a bunch of headtrash going on that says you're
not doing a great job, it's notserving you.
So what's the other impact?
We don't have the support fromour leaders when we pull folks
out to do training on them.
Okay, let's define what supportmeans.
(30:34):
Well, support would be X, y, z,so you can tell.
That then becomes a request.
I'm requesting support from theleaders in our organization for
these training programs.
Support looks like X, y and Z.
Now we've got very specificrequests that we can actually go
and have the conversation.
Jay Johnson (30:57):
Love this.
You know, and, honestly, one ofthe things that is just dancing
in my head and I will attributethis to you, but I'm probably
going to say it at some point intime I'm a big fan of
attribution, so this comes fromTracy Austin A complaint is a
poorly worded request.
That's brilliant.
(31:18):
I love that, and that'sdefinitely one that's going to
stick with me.
So the next time I hearsomebody complaining, what are
you requesting?
In a very ineffective manner, Imight use that as my coaching
tool there.
Traci Austin (31:32):
Yeah, and we don't see it that way, right?
And it's really important thatwhat our mindset is, as soon as
we change our mindset, theentire world changes.
We just change the game bychanging our thoughts.
Jay Johnson (31:47):
Yeah, I love that.
So let me, let me ask a questionhere, and this is because I
know one of the areas or one ofthe spaces that you definitely
do a lot of work in is thetrades, and I'm going to
contextualize this because Ithink it can be applicable in a
number of different places, butgenerally, when we think the
(32:08):
trades, it is often.
It is often and I'm not going tosay I'm going to use the
stereotypes, because I do knowquite a few people in trades
that maybe don't necessarily fitthe stereotype, but it's often
very masculine, it's often, youknow, a lot of toughness, a lot
of grit, a lot of I'm not goingto, I'm not going to dig into my
(32:28):
emotions and there's a numberof other industries that we see
that from a probabilisticstandpoint and again, this is
stereotypical because it's notalways true but we see that in
law enforcement, we see that ina number of other I don't want
to say just male, but I'm justgoing to say masculine,
dominated testosterone,dominated areas.
(32:48):
And, yes, men and women bothhave testosterone.
Read a science book for thoseof you that didn't know that Men
and women both havetestosterone.
Read a science book for thoseof you that didn't know that.
With that being said, how canwe create the conditions of
learning?
When we get into some of thosedifferent places that maybe it's
difficult for somebody to bevulnerable and say, well, I
don't know how to do that, orI'm really not comfortable with
(33:11):
this, or this makes me feel aparticular way, how can we maybe
be more effective in, say, oneof those environments where it's
more closed off or maybe alittle bit more of the lack of
vulnerability, if that makessense?
Traci Austin (33:27):
Yeah, absolutely, and so there's a couple of ways
that we very specificallyapproach this.
And before I go into that, mostof these folks have an ego
around them in a really hardshell, because they've had to
have that to protect themselvesperiod Right Agreed.
Yet underneath that most ofthem, it's some great big teddy
(33:47):
bear.
They're not going to show it toyou until they can trust you.
Jay Johnson (33:50):
Yeah.
Traci Austin (33:51):
So how do you build that trust Right?
First off, figure out what dothey need.
Like the W-I-I-F-M on theirforehead, what's in it for me?
What do they need?
And you know so if you areworking with someone and there's
a huge hard shell there.
What do they need?
Because if you can't figure outhow to serve them, you are a
(34:14):
waste of their time period.
What is the outcome that theyneed you to produce?
To be there when you can andthere's.
You know how I typically figurethat out is.
You know, hey, we're gonnaspend the next hour together.
Jay, what would make this houra good use of your time?
Jay Johnson (34:34):
You're gonna flat out tell me if L&D people would
ask that question more often.
Put that one into your arsenalaudience, because, let me tell
you, people are busy and theylook at and I think a lot of us
know that.
You know, a training is,whereas maybe if you're in L&D,
you're like Ooh, training, I'mgoing to go learn something.
(34:56):
This is going to be great.
I'm going to be able to getaway from the spreadsheets for
an hour and really kind ofabsorb some new knowledge or
some new interesting facts.
If you're not in L&D, it's ohmy God.
How am I going to balance theother 11 hours of work that I
have to do today with thistwo-hour mandatory training on
(35:16):
IT security that I am being toldI have to go to right?
Traci Austin (35:20):
And I'm doing four other things at the same time.
Jay Johnson (35:22):
Yeah, exactly, I'm on my phone and I'm also
thinking about dinner and I'malso, whatever those might be,
to make sure that I can be asusing my time as valuably as
possible.
Right, we know that people arebusy, but I think that that's
such a power.
How could we make this hourreally meaningful for you?
What do you need to walk awayto say this this hour was a
(35:43):
successful hour of your timespent.
I love that.
I you know.
In asking, you'll get theanswers.
Traci Austin (35:52):
Yeah.
Sometimes you may not like thesmart alecky answers, but yeah,
for sure, and here's what Iwould say to every L&D listener
today is everything I havechatted about today is taking a
coach approach, and so you knowit's.
You know, I will tell you, mylife and my career changed when
(36:13):
I decided to say I'm reallycurious about this coaching
thing, wonder what it looks like.
When I went through thosecertification programs, I
completely changed my businessbecause I went at it from a
coach approach.
I am your partner.
I am not the expert.
I do not know exactly what'sgoing on in your business.
I don't know what's going on inyour family, in your head.
(36:34):
You are the expert of that.
However, I'm a partner to youand I'm going to ask questions
so that we can figure it outtogether and or you can figure
it out with a little bit ofaccountability and nudging in
order to do it.
Jay Johnson (36:49):
Yep, I love it.
It's 100%.
Why the assessment that we usebehavioral elements.
We call them guides.
We don't call them.
They're not trainers, they'reguides If they are, if they are
training.
Well, guess what?
We train mice, we guide humans.
Traci Austin (37:07):
So I love that.
Jay Johnson (37:10):
Yeah, so I just I look at it and say that I'm with
you.
The coaching is really a gamechanger and if you are a trainer
, walk in with the mentality ofbeing a coach sometime, that you
are asking questions as opposedto coming in and delivering
content You'll.
You'll see the difference.
There's a big difference, bothin audience reaction and how you
(37:32):
feel afterwards.
I think so yeah, 100 percent.
Tracy, this has been anincredible conversation, full of
some really good ideas, reallygreat questions to ask and some
of the big challenges that Ithink that we all see that we're
facing in the industry.
If the audience wanted to getin touch with you, if they
wanted to reach out, if theywanted to find out where that
(37:53):
happy hour is that you'reattending, how would they get in
touch with you?
Traci Austin (37:57):
Well, before we go to that, can I just name
something that we're doingtogether that I'm super excited
about?
Jay Johnson (38:02):
Yes, please.
Traci Austin (38:03):
So I host something called the People's
Strategy Club every Tuesday.
I bring on a strategic partnerthat I've typically been on
their podcast, or they've beenon my podcast called the
People's Strategy Podcast, andJay will be on the People's
Strategy Club.
It is a live one hour.
We are going to go through somekey topics impacting HR and L&D
(38:26):
folks and then we close it outwith actually going through our
tough talk audit of how do wehave these tough conversations
once we figured out what ourrequest is.
Jay Johnson (38:37):
I love this and I am super excited to join you on
that.
So, audience, you better bethere.
You better have some hardquestions ready to go, because
it's going to be fun.
I love it.
I love it.
So thank you for that, Tracy.
So how did they reach you?
Traci Austin (38:54):
They can find me at elevatedtalentconsultingcom
or on LinkedIn at Tracy Austin.
And, of course, our podcast isthe People Strategy Podcast.
Jay Johnson (39:03):
I love it.
We'll be giving that a listen,making sure that we put all of
those into the show notes.
Tracy, it's always a joy tospeak with somebody.
That's sort of like walkedthrough that fire and seeing the
other side and seeing whatsuccess looks like in those
spaces.
So thank you for being herewith us and sharing your
knowledge and your experiences,which I guarantee is going to
(39:23):
help many of our audience beable to make that jump of that
chasm that we're currentlyfacing.
So thank you so much for beinghere today.
Traci Austin (39:32):
Thank you.
Jay Johnson (39:34):
And audience as always.
Thank you for tuning into thisepisode of the Talent Forge,
where, together, we are shapingthe future of training and
development.
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