May 30, 2025 • 50 mins
What happens when nearly 150 leadership positions need to be filled simultaneously due to a wave of retirements? For Ernesto Gómez, former VP of Human Capital at Grupo Alpha and CHRO at Sigma Alimentos, this wasn't a hypothetical scenario—it was the challenge that defined his career transition from business leader to HR innovator.
Ernesto shares how he approached this daunting succession planning challenge by reframing it as an innovation problem rather than a traditional HR issue. With no formal HR background but extensive business leadership experience, he crafted a comprehensive talent development strategy involving partnerships with elite universities including Wharton, Stanford, Chicago Booth, London Business School, and MIT.
Whether you're facing your own succession challenges or simply looking to elevate your talent development approach, Ernesto's practical wisdom offers a masterclass in innovative human capital management. His journey demonstrates that sometimes the most effective HR solutions come from leaders who bring fresh perspectives from outside traditional HR pathways.
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, I am joined by a specialErnesto , who is the VP of
Human Capital at Grupo Alpha, amajor Mexican conglomerate with
more than 83,000 employees,before becoming the Chief Human
(00:22):
Resources Officer at SigmaAlimentos, a global consumer
packaged goods company with43,000 employees.
Ernesto has incredibleexperience to share.
Welcome to the show, ernesto.
Ernesto Gómez (00:34):
Hello Jay, I'm very happy to be with you.
Jay Johnson (00:38):
So you have had an incredible career.
I mentioned a couple of thosedifferent spots, but I want the
audience to get to know you.
So how did you get into thishuman capital, this HR, this
training and talent developmentspace, Ernesto?
Ernesto Gómez (00:56):
Looking at hindsight, I don't know how
really things just got organizedin a certain way, because my
intention was never to be in thehuman capital space.
Actually, I run businesses.
I started small, you know, asan independent, had about 15
different businesses throughoutmy career, and then I got into
(01:18):
consulting and a company hiredme to turn around an operation
that was in bad shape, and youknow it was.
My contract was for six monthsand we were able to turn it
around and that, you know,converted into a 23 year old.
(01:38):
23 year lifespan on differentroles, lifespan on different
roles.
At first, many of my roles werehead of businesses and, you
know, at some point I was thebusiness that was $1.3 billion
in revenue, so it was a largebusiness and for some reason,
(02:03):
the CEO of the company thoughtit would be a good idea to have
somebody that had experience inthe trenches to, you know, the
human capital function.
I was also very, at the time,very critical about you know,
how the HR was, you know,performing, and he said well,
since you have so many opinionsand seem to be unhappy, why
(02:26):
don't you take over and see ifyou can do better?
And, quite frankly, that turnedout to be my calling.
I'm so happy that that happened.
I mean, I just retired, youknow, the positions that you
mentioned, of course, werepositions that I held in the
last few years.
I retired about a year ago tolook for some other projects.
(02:48):
I just changed venue.
But ever since I was in HR,actually my first challenge was
in talent development,specifically in succession
planning.
So the challenge that I had infront of me was very
(03:09):
intimidating for me because thisis a large company, you know,
50 years old more or less, whenI was there at the beginning and
people had long tenures andmany of the key positions were
going to be refilled justbecause people were retiring.
(03:31):
You know, got into work attheir 20s, 40 years after they
are in their 60s, and so youneed to.
You know plan for that and thechallenge was major.
You know plan for that and thechallenge was major At the
moment.
You know, when I took over, inthe next five years, the same
(03:51):
amount of people that haveretired in the whole lifetime of
the company were going to beretiring and we needed to fill
up at about 140 positions.
Wow, in different, you know,layers and of course, the
pipeline gets to be complicatedbecause you start kind of moving
the, the, the pyramid and thenyou know things open up real
(04:14):
quick.
Jay Johnson (04:16):
So we need to have that's a scary proposition to
have to replace 140 leadershippositions right around the same
time.
Ernesto Gómez (04:26):
Absolutely, absolutely.
So what was?
Jay Johnson (04:29):
going through your, before we go into that.
What was going through yourmind when this challenge was
presented to you?
I mean, it had to be somethingwhere it was like hey, ernesto,
this is what we're facing rightnow.
What did that feel like?
Ernesto Gómez (04:43):
I was really intimidated, facing right now,
what did that feel like?
I was really intimidated.
Of course, you know, I'vealways have a lot of, you know,
drive and I'm a businessman atheart, so I look at this as a
challenging proposition.
But somebody that I wanted to,you know, prove me into this.
And there was one pivotalmoment, because at some point I
(05:04):
was really in my office sayingwhat am I going to do with this?
Right, I was, you know, I had agood team and people that were
knowledgeable, but in the end Iwas, you know, calling the shots
.
So I was in my office sayingwhat am I going to do about this
?
And and also keep in mind thatI'm not a HR person, you know,
at heart, and also keep in mindthat I'm not an HR person at
(05:25):
heart.
But an idea occurred to me so Icould reframe the problem, and
my reframing was well, I mightnot be an HR specialist, but
what if I see this challenge asan innovation problem in HR?
So I said, you know, I'm theinnovation guy in charge of HR.
(05:49):
So if I frame that, if I usethat mental model, what would I
do different so that I could,you know, tackle this major,
major problem and I startedsaying, well, I know how to
innovate because I ranbusinesses before and I just
started, you know, opening upand finding out partners and
people who could kind of guideme along the way.
(06:11):
And also, having been in aleadership position myself, I
knew that the most importantpart that we were going to be
training for was not functionalskills.
Yes, it is important to havefunctional skills and to have
them updated as much as you can,but it was much more about
strategy and vision and a lot ofsoft skills.
(06:35):
You know, because when you areup in the ladder, most of the
time you are dealing withstrategy, people.
You know, market trends, thingsthat require a perspective
taking and judgment.
So I say, how do I go in thatway?
And, to make a long story short, we did a lot of segmentation
(06:59):
and it turned out to be okay.
100% of all the C-suiteparticipants C-suite occupants
today were part of the program.
So I think it worked.
Jay Johnson (07:09):
Wow, yeah, that's an incredible ratio.
100% of your C-suite is fromthis program.
The interesting thing andcongratulations on your
retirement, by the way.
That's pretty awesome and I'mglad to see that you're not
giving it up.
I'm going to go back and ask aquestion about this in just a
moment, but I want to stick withthis succession because I find
(07:32):
this super interesting.
So you know, a lot of times whenpeople are taking on a new
position and maybe they'removing from salesperson to sales
manager, sales manager to salesleader, sales leader to sales
VP, each of those differentlevels just to exactly what you
(07:52):
said requires a differentmindset, requires a broader look
at the organization.
The tactical skills that we hadat one level are not
necessarily going to translateas you move up that leadership.
You're going to have to havebetter visionary skills, better
people leading skills,management skills, et cetera.
(08:12):
You know what was theexperience for you as you
started to think about like,okay, we're putting 140 people
this is going to be a fast trackleadership exercise.
People, this is going to be afast track leadership exercise.
How were you preparing them toessentially think?
Ernesto Gómez (08:31):
on that larger level.
Well, first of all, as I wasmentioning to you some of the
things that I've learned beingin business is you don't have a
good segmentation to understand.
You know, because this 140people were part of, you know
different levels, from the verytop to the.
You know I wouldn't say medium,because it was all of them were
(08:52):
business unit.
You know either leadingfunctions or geographies or
something that took a lot ofresponsibility, but you can tell
, you know how many of thosewere technical experts, how many
of those were emerging leaders,how many were more senior that
were ready to step up for thenext big deal.
(09:14):
So, by doing that and kind ofunderstanding where they were at
that moment, we kind of figureout the gaps and the things that
we needed to work with them.
And we had two levels one morepersonalized, predominantly,
with the more where the moreresponsibility was needed and so
(09:39):
where we had to do not onlyspecific programs that we
partnered with universities, butalso, you know, much more of a
coaching and mentoring spacewith them.
And then, as you kind of openup a little bit more, we figure
out that talent portability isvery tricky and I know this from
(10:02):
firsthand experience becauseyou can have have very talented
person and you move it in.
You know a different team,different processes, maybe
network supports, and it gets tobe different from where they
used to be.
So you have to prepare for youknow the unexpected, a lot of
(10:28):
resilience and many of uh, Iwould say that ability to
network uh for them was alsocritical.
Yeah, so, quite frankly, what Idid is I, you know, we separated
, we did, we did a problem thatwe called a multi-university
where we had, uh, four of themost important universities in
the world talking about Wharton,stanford, chicago, booth and
(10:49):
London Business School workingwith us, with our senior leaders
.
Then we had another program withStanford to work more with the
emerging talent.
Then we had another one withMIT, also for the more of a
technical experts that weregoing to be, you know, taking
more leadership positions.
(11:10):
So they were functional expertsand all of a sudden they needed
to over some broader functionsand also some coaches, you know,
and mentors, you know, targetedspecific groups and mentors,
you know, targeted specificgroups.
So we engineered a system thattook, you know, approximately
four to five years, you know,and we did a lot of evaluations,
(11:34):
progress evaluations with themand also with the universities
and, as I was saying, you know,I think we did well Interesting
two-thirds of all theparticipants throughout the
program and, as I was saying,you know, I think we did well
Interesting Two-thirds of allthe participants throughout the
program had promotions.
Wow, sixty-six percent, that'sgreat.
Two-thirds 60%.
Jay Johnson (11:54):
Yeah.
Ernesto Gómez (11:55):
And 25% of that, 60% had more than one promotion.
So it may be, you know, two oreven three along the way and you
could probably say well, ofcourse, ernesto, you picked good
people to begin with, so ofcourse you train them and they
were kind of geared towardsmaking progress.
(12:16):
But we also measure theperformance evaluations of all
of them and broadly, in general,we had about a 10% increase in
their performance evaluationstoo.
So that meant that you knowthey were making progress, they
were good and they became better.
So those I would probablyrecommend, you know, design a
(12:40):
framework, because that's whatwe needed.
We had a specific framework uh,you know, to be going, for
instance, with, with more seniorleaders.
We had a four piece framework.
The first part was, uh, settingthe goal and defining a plan.
And then we had another modelof working with and through
others Uh, we had another onethat had to do with, uh, uh,
(13:07):
interpersonal skills, and thenwe had another one which was
called selling the idea, socombining those models and
partnering with differentexperts.
I think that turned out to beokay Up until this time.
I mentioned to you that Iretired a year ago.
I still have acquaintances thattell me how much they missed
(13:31):
those opportunities.
Of course, the company hadmoney to invest.
I have to recognize that therewas a major decision and they
decided that it was worthwhile,so that helped a lot.
But in the end it's a bigresponsibility because you only
get to do that once.
I mean, you cannot fail.
(13:51):
It's a lot of money and then,of course, if you fail, there is
no way to redo what you didwrong.
Jay Johnson (14:01):
Right, so I had a good team.
Yeah, and so that was going tobe.
The next question that I hadfor you is I'm thinking about
this and I'm trying to thinkabout you know the audience.
They may be in a largeorganization, they may be in a
smaller organization.
How did you segment to startoff with?
(14:22):
Did you segment just by level?
Did you segment more of?
Hey, you know here's the listof you know here's the list of
2000 potentials.
How did you get through that todetermine what is the better
person, or who's going toqualify to get into this
training program?
Like, what was that?
What was that process?
Ernesto Gómez (14:44):
You know it's an excellent question because in my
position I couldn't have a wayto go to the very detailed, you
know, elements into how a personis selected.
So what we had is like sessionswith the HR partners, you know,
that were close to those peopleand they also had some, of
(15:12):
course, a clear idea of were theindividuals that had the
potential to begin with.
And we did a lot of work withthem setting out a criterion so
that we could have a common viewamong business units into which
we were going to evaluate.
And then we also had a finaldecision made by the CEO of each
(15:40):
of the business units.
Because you know as much as youcan do pre-work and kind of
select people, then you get to apoint where you say, well, this
is the group of people thatyou're going to be betting on,
so tell us what you think.
So we had a final go or no goby the senior leader of each of
(16:01):
the business units and you know,kind of we started with very
simple questions If some ofthese people were about to leave
the company, would you becomfortable them leaving the
company or not?
That's a great question.
Yeah, because they would sayjust imagine somebody wants to
take you know from you whatwould you do?
(16:22):
No, no, no, no, no way.
So that told us something right.
And when we saw like well, he'sa good guy, but you know I can
do without, so that's not a goodidea.
You're not going to be part ofa program.
Jay Johnson (16:35):
And that's a brilliant question.
To ask, though, is how much youknow?
How much does this person meanto you?
How much would you do to savethis person?
And that's going to give you agood idea of whether or not
that's.
That's a really clever way tothink about that.
Ernesto Gómez (16:49):
I like that yeah, and and in the end, of course,
you you see how they have skinin the game right into into
making a decision.
It's not just corporatebringing people into a program,
it's just something that wasgoing to be a more uh strategic
for them as well yeah.
So we did all that.
What was, quite frankly,difficult for us is that are we
(17:15):
going to open up that?
You know this group of peopleare participating in a program?
What about those who are notattending?
You know what kind of ill willmay this generate, or not?
So, and also, when you start togroom somebody, some people
(17:38):
feel like you know, I made itand they stop.
You know making the best effortthey can.
So what we did is like saying,well, we are developing a talent
pool and people get into thetalent pool and exit the talent
pool at any moment.
So it's up to those who are inthe talent pool to remain there.
Or maybe somebody who is, youknow, doing a very good job, end
(18:00):
up, you know, participatingthere.
So it's not really a decisionwhere nobody will ever get here.
If you were not selected firstand if you were selected, of
course, you knew that if youdon't keep on, kept on doing
your best, you may, you know,end up exiting the talent group.
Jay Johnson (18:19):
So there was a level of competition almost
inside of there of hey, you'vemade it this far, but your
seat's not guaranteed.
You need to keep earning, keepworking and keep pushing in
order to keep going here.
That's an interesting conceptto add into that space as well.
Ernesto Gómez (18:37):
And also because people need to have ownership
about how bad they want to bethere to begin with, because
it's a big investment of time,of resources and it's a lot of
people involved behind thescenes.
So we wanted to make sure thatpeople appreciated this.
They didn't feel entitled.
On the contrary, they were, youknow, and also we, of course,
(19:01):
were open to this is what we'retrying to do.
If you want to complement thisby yourself, if there are some
other things that you have inmind, you may go and take them
on your own, or probably we cantalk about that and see if we
can support you.
But it became a project, as Imentioned to you, where the
(19:25):
conviction from people you know,both in those who participated
and and leaders of the companies, were very important and we
measured a lot, we sharedresults with the business
leadership a lot, how much wewere progressing, just to keep
the interest going, because it'sa long time, yeah, and
(19:46):
sometimes you know, businessesgo.
This is another thing.
I had a budget and businesseshave good and bad years or just
mediocre years, so we didn'twant to stop when they had
headwinds and then we take itbecause you lose momentum.
So we separated the budget forthe whole program at the
(20:07):
beginning, so there was a bigeconomic commitment from them as
well.
Well, and that's so.
We separated the budget for thewhole program at the beginning,
okay, so there was a bigeconomic commitment from them as
well.
Jay Johnson (20:13):
Well and that's interesting because I know that
a lot of my L&D folks experiencethat of, hey, it's a good year,
we've got this amount of moneyfor programs and the next year
is not so good, and, oh wait,we've already invested into a
new LMS and invested into this,and now what are we going to do?
Do we have to drop?
So it's smart that you wereable to get that investment up
front to make sure that thiswould be a continuity of
(20:37):
programming.
I did have a question, and I'mthinking about this right, like
when you're looking at 140leaders in a secession plan,
I've got to imagine that therewas probably some surprises.
And what do I mean by that?
You know, hey, I'm looking atErnesto, and Ernesto is my front
(20:58):
runner for the CEO position,definitely.
And then all of a sudden, maybethat doesn't happen or somebody
else steps in.
What was that like?
Did you have a lot of surpriseswhere maybe there were some
people that you expected to gohigher and didn't, or maybe some
people that barely got in andthen really showed that they
(21:19):
belonged there and went further?
What was that experience like,and how did you navigate some of
those maybe surprises as theycame up?
Ernesto Gómez (21:27):
some of those maybe surprises as they came up.
Well, excellent question.
First, one of the things wemeasured, you know, during the
program and at the end, was thechurn in terms of, because some
people ended up leaving, but wehad a churn below 3%, so most of
them remained in the companyand just a very few left the
(21:50):
company.
And then the other thing isthat for me it was frustrating
and also very self-critical ofwhat we were doing.
If you ended up training aperson that didn't make it but
it's like everything in life Ifyou ended up training a person
(22:12):
that didn't make it, but it'slike everything in life You're
not going to hit 100% of all thethings that you do in life.
Baseball at the bat which has a400 score means that fails 60%
(22:32):
of the time and still isconsidered to be on the top of
the game.
So at some point in time wesaid, well, we're going to do as
thorough as comprehensivescreening process in the
beginning, but then we have atsome point in time to let go,
(22:56):
because if you don't, you startkind of frustrating and it's a
mind thing.
You know, am I doing right?
Is this going to work or not?
And, as I say, you know,measuring and keep on evaluating
(23:17):
progress gave us an idea youknow to what extent we were
doing a good job or not and someof them ended up remaining.
As I mentioned to you,two-thirds didn't get a
promotion, two-thirds got apromotion, but a third didn't.
Jay Johnson (23:24):
Yeah, yeah.
So that's still an incrediblesix.
(23:45):
I mean 60% of your participantswalking into a promotion at
least one promotion and itsounds to me like you saying 140
people ended up moving intothese leadership positions.
You've got to say at least 200people at that point in time.
Exponential the amount of Ithink the most recent data out
is one underperforming leadercan cost your organization up to
(24:12):
$126,000 a year.
So if you take 140 leaders thatyou had elevated into these
positions and you were able to10% of that is 14, that's $1.4
million return on investment,year after year after year.
So I love that you werequantifying the impact of
(24:34):
mobility as well as longevity aswell, as I mean that complexity
is really really smart.
I'm a big fan of that.
Ernesto Gómez (24:44):
Yeah, we had about well, not about we had 300
people in the group, so to fillup 140 positions, we ended up
training 300 people.
And also we measured.
For instance, in the case ofthe MIT, we had a very
interesting and, I would say,very, very profitable program
(25:05):
with them, because they evenportray that as a success story
it's in the MIT webpage becausewe ended up developing projects
with them that had a return.
So we not only trained thepeople who participated, but we
(25:33):
made a few million dollars justfrom those participants and so
they ended up paying their owntraining and left some residual
and I'm saying measured byprojects that they, you know,
efficiency or whatever on top ofwhat talent brings you, on top
of what talent brings you.
What I have seen, at least, andthat I've read, is a talented
(25:54):
CEO explains about 20% of thevalue created by a company.
So you can have a plus 20% orminus 20% value, you know, just
related to how a CEO isperforming 20%.
Jay Johnson (26:11):
you know, that's a big swing.
Ernesto Gómez (26:14):
It's a big swing when you think about how a
balance sheet and a profit andloss statement works.
You increase the top, you knowthe revenue, by 20% and you keep
your expenses place.
The value creation profits areamazing because there is a lot
(26:38):
of absorption of what you do, sopretty much it goes all the way
to the bottom line.
So, it's a lot of money that youcan create and even for me, as
I was before I got into thisprogram, you know heading this
effort I went to an executivesession myself with some
(27:04):
colleagues of mine and we, as aresult of that, we made some
changes in the strategy of thebusiness field that I was
heading and we also created alot of money.
So there is tangible resourcesthat you can produce by betting
on your talent, and you cannotafford not to have good talent
(27:25):
these days.
Jay Johnson (27:27):
I want to stick with this topic for a second
because I find it to be really,really interesting, and what I'm
referring to is the opportunityto pair real-world, real-impact
projects alongside of thetraining programs, and I'll
share a little bit where this iscoming from.
(27:48):
So one of the programs thatI've worked on at Wayne State
University for the better partof two decades was the
Engineering Management Master'sProgram, which is a partnership
between Ford Motor Company andWayne State, and actually MIT
consulted on this program backin 1995.
(28:08):
This program back in 1995.
So just to give you somelongevity of this, but this
program runs the last year ofthe program is all about a
leadership project, in whichcase these high performing, high
talented engineers who aregetting their master's degree
take on a real world problem,and one of the impacts of this
(28:28):
has been that these projectshave actually saved, over the
course of 30 years, over abillion dollars in cost savings
and revenue generation for theorganization.
(28:54):
Ernesto, is any L&D groups right?
I'm not seeing L&D groupsimplement something where
there's real world projects orreal world challenging projects.
For, okay, I'm delivering acommunications training, now
what are you going to do with it?
Or I'm delivering this conflictresolution training.
Now what are you going to dowith it?
What project are you going totake on?
Can you talk a little bit,maybe, about what was the
experience in incorporatingthese real-world projects and
(29:16):
what made them successful?
Because I think every L&Dperson out there would go wait a
second, I can incorporate aproject that ends up paying for
my budget that covers the costof these things.
That's a very novel concept.
So you've got experience inthis.
I've got experience from theuniversity side of things.
Talk to me about yourexperience in those projects and
(29:37):
what did that look like?
Ernesto Gómez (29:40):
You know, the funny thing is that at the
beginning I didn't want to do it.
I went to MIT and I met justoutstanding individuals.
I went to MIT and I met justoutstanding individuals Stephen
Eppinger, kurt Chilton, I mean,this guy is our first class and
we were designing the program.
They suggested to do projectsand I was resistant to that
(30:00):
because I said you know what?
I haven't seen that work in thepast.
It's very difficult, it'ssomething a waste of time.
People are really busy doingtheir jobs and then they have a
program that is part of theuniversity that's not going to
work.
I was just very negative aboutthat.
And as I was explaining myposition, they were saying well,
(30:20):
we have something that we callmen and menus, which it means
hands and thinking.
So we, we are very familiarwith that.
That's our ethos at MIT.
And I was still, you know,resistant.
And they paused for a minuteand said you haven't worked with
MIT, haven't you?
Well, we make these thingshappen.
(30:40):
And I saw them so convincedthey said you know, I'm going to
give it a try.
And I was humbled by that.
I said, well, and how are yougoing to make it work?
So what they came up with.
It was a three-model part where,at the beginning of each of the
models, together with you knowthe program, certain groups
(31:06):
gathered and started to figureout what things they saw at
their organizations that neededto be fixed and that probably
could return an interestingamount of money, kind of an
evaluation of those and througha framework that they have in
(31:31):
terms of you know what are thesteps that you have to follow,
from the detection of theopportunity up the way up into
the implementation and how youmeasure through, they decided,
well, we're going to figure outhow to do this.
So we had three sessions and infirst session you decided on
the programs, and then they alsohad a call in between sessions
(31:55):
where they evaluated each groupuh, you know, on their progress,
how, what problems they werefacing, you know, etc.
So that in the next sessionthey would share, you know,
findings and and where they weredoing different.
And then in the third sessionthey would share findings and
where they were doing different.
And then in the third modelthey presented the results.
So all in all, we had aboutthree groups where, or three
(32:22):
cohorts where they were inpresence, and then about two or
three times more where they werefollowing up on, you know, the
progress of each team.
So this guy, you know they had alot of supervision, and so it's
not just like you know figureout a project and then, you know
, make it work and see whathappens.
(32:43):
It was a follow up process frompeople that are very
knowledgeable about how to dothese things work and they have
a.
They also are tough guys.
I mean they don't take no foran answer and when they say, you
know, I didn't make a lot ofprogress, well, shame on you,
you have to do better.
So they apply a little bit ofpressure and I mean a good
(33:06):
partner makes a big differenceand that's why I was so happy
about that, and actually that'swhy they suggested to use this
as a success story in MIT,because it really worked.
MIT because it really worked.
At the moment where we'vemeasured the results, I don't
know $6, $7 million that we endup capturing, but those projects
(33:36):
continue delivering value Fiveyears after that.
I don't know how much moneythey have produced, but it's a
lot.
Jay Johnson (33:40):
Well, I love that you bring this up, ernesto,
because I think at this point intime, the EMMP has generated
172 different leadershipprojects at Ford, all cohort
based, so like three to fivepeople per team, some of them
very, very impactful, some ofthem less, but a couple of
things that I think that yousaid are so important.
(34:02):
So, if you're listening and youwant to run some kind of
project one thing I heard yousaid was stakeholder buy-in, and
that was something that welearned early on at Wayne State
University is okay, it's greatthat this engineering team is
doing this project.
Who does this get handed off to?
Who has responsibility for itafterwards?
(34:22):
What is your implementation?
And actually, in the EMMPprogram I can tell you there's
an entire semester that isdedicated to a project
management course that isrelated to setting up the scope
of a project, what it's going toentail, what it's not going to
entail, and, by the time thatthey get to their year, actually
(34:42):
executing the project,gathering the data, et cetera.
I mean their scope is so welldetermined, so narrowed, so
defined, and there's alreadybuy-in from senior executives
that are saying, when thisproject comes to conclusion,
this is how we're implementingit.
I heard you say somethingsimilar.
It sounds like they were havingto report up.
(35:03):
They were getting the buy-inearly on, so by the time that
the project come to conclusion,there was no surprises.
It was like, yeah, this is hereand it's ready to go type
things.
Is that what I'm understandingfrom you?
Absolutely.
Ernesto Gómez (35:16):
Absolutely.
And for projects to work, youhave to be very thorough in the
way you implement and the wayyou measure and the way you
share progress.
And I would say that, at leastin my case, I was negative
because I didn't see that workbefore and it was because I
(35:37):
haven't worked with MIT before.
So these guys were very goodand I would say just you know,
find the best partners that youcan get and the projects are
going to be successful andthey're going to return your
investment.
I'm sure about that, 100%.
Jay Johnson (35:57):
Well, and I think it's very wise to make sure that
, hey, do we have a partnerwho's actually done these types
of projects before?
Who has experience?
Who's you know, after 30 yearsof Wayne State doing it?
It's buttoned up.
There's five different facultythat all oversee different
aspects of it.
I mean, it runs like clockwork,and I imagine that's got to be
(36:19):
what MIT is doing as well, whereit's just hey, we've been there
, we've done that, we've seenthis, and now it's just a
question of can we execute orcan the people engage in that?
So let me ask you one otherquestion, as it relates to the
participants that were doingthese projects, because you said
at first you had someresistance and it was like, ah,
(36:39):
these people are busy, theydon't have time to do this, that
these people are busy, theydon't have time to do this, that
and the other thing, and Idon't know what the return on
investment is.
What was the experience like?
I guess getting buy-in from theparticipants to say, yes, let's
take this on.
And how did you paint a valueproposition for them, being able
(37:00):
to say you know, we're doingreal world impact, we're doing
this or anything else.
Did you see any resistance fromthe participants Like I'm
already busy and you're makingme do X, or did you?
You know what was that sort ofmotivation level of the
participants in general?
Ernesto Gómez (37:16):
Well, first of all, you know, as we presented,
you know, the first day that wewere, you know, kind of kicking
off the project, that wasincluded, as you know, a very
important part of the processand also it was kind of very
well explained that this allowedthem to get practical knowledge
(37:40):
about how to make things happenin the long run throughout
their careers and in the company.
So it was an opportunity morethan a hustle.
So you say, you know what Imean.
You may go to have a very goodsession and hear about fantastic
ideas from MIT, but this timeyou will have the opportunity to
(38:00):
be guided by an expert.
So if you learn about this, youwill be able to apply it.
You know.
So the why behind what is in.
For me it was clear that theywould be trained also, you know,
in that part, of course, youknow life is hectic and you know
(38:22):
, throughout the program theyhad also many responsibilities,
but they looked up, you know,slowly but surely got engaged
themselves into this.
So it was not really animposition, it was more seen as
(38:50):
an opportunity for them tocontinue their growth.
I think that that framinghelped and also the fact that we
said that in the end they willbe.
They will going to bepresenting their findings to the
CEOs of their own companies, soit's your chance to shine in
front of them and show them whatyou were capable of doing.
(39:13):
So that also really was acarrot, so to speak, and not
only sticks to motivate people.
You know, positivereinforcement, I think, goes a
long way and and there was a lotof pride in that.
So so it's the combination andjust being close to them and
kind of hearing what they youknow if they hustle for a reason
(39:36):
why and and kind of get himenergized.
Jay Johnson (39:43):
I love that.
It's the same.
It's been my experience as well.
It's like, wait a second, I getto do a project that's going to
have a meaningful impact on thecompany and I'm going to get to
present this in front of seniorleadership or participate and
engage with senior leadership ona quarterly, monthly, weekly,
bi-weekly level.
Yeah, I'm in, so I waswondering if the experience was
(40:04):
the same on that.
So, ernesto, you've had anincredible career.
You've had a lot of success.
You've also authored a bookcalled Regrowth.
Can you tell me a little bitabout the book and what the
frame is for that book?
Ernesto Gómez (40:20):
Well, you know, throughout my life, as you were
saying, I've seen a lot ofbusiness problems and
transformation, you know, andinitiatives going in place.
And one of the things thatreally motivates me a lot is to
find out how can you unlockpotential in people, because I'm
(40:40):
a firm believer that peoplehave a lot of potential that is
just waiting to be tapped.
And if you create the rightconditions in the team and, of
course, throughout the company,that happens.
And I wrote this book Regrowth,because if you take a
short-term perspective onfailure, and sometimes when you
(41:01):
get stalled you kind of see onlythat things didn't work out,
but if you take a long-termperspective, it's just a step in
the process.
It's just, you know, life isnot a 45-degree ascending line
all the time.
It's not that way.
(41:21):
No business creates value thatway.
Even us as individuals are notreally that way.
So regrowth it's a title thatreflects that you can
recalibrate and you can.
You know, when you stall youcan regrow.
It's just the fact to you know,put in place the right levers
to make it happen.
(41:41):
So I wrote this book on businesstransformation and pretty much
what I define is on the talentdensity level, what is it you
have to do in the company On thecultural level, what do you
have to do in the company andalso what kind of collective
mindset you have to reallypursue so that you get into this
(42:03):
regrowth pattern.
I don't know if you know thisthis hasn't been really
documented scientifically butthe amount of performance that
people leave in the table, it'smore or less 40 to 50%, so you
(42:24):
can double your productivity.
It is amazing.
I've interviewed many CEOsthroughout my life and I asked
them this question what makesyour people?
What percentage of potentialare you getting from your people
?
In other words, actualperformance versus potential.
(42:45):
And they tell me you know 40,50%.
I'm sure they can do better.
So what do we have to do tohelp them do better?
Because it's not just applyingpressure, it's just, you know,
potentially something that youhave to work with your people to
unlock.
And that's why I wrote thatbook to kind of share my
(43:13):
experience in doing that and toshow what has worked for me and
maybe can work for somebody else.
Jay Johnson (43:16):
I love that perspective.
The title caught regrowth.
I was like, oh, that'sfascinating.
So, audience, it's available onAmazon.
You can check that out.
We'll make sure that a link toit is in the show notes.
Author is Ernesto Gomez.
So I have one more question foryou.
I know that curious.
I would love to know.
Just from just from ourconversation I can tell you are
(43:48):
somebody that loves to help.
You are somebody that loves tobe challenged.
What was your experience insort of this retirement?
And then, obviously, now you're, you're, uh, you're you're
leading a consultingorganization.
You're obviously doing greatwork with other people.
What was that transition likefor you, stepping out of the
(44:09):
corporate sphere and more intoyour own space?
You had mentioned you'd alreadybeen a serial entrepreneur
previous to this, so I imagineit wasn't too scary.
But what was that transitionlike for you, Ernesto?
Ernesto Gómez (44:21):
You know, being in HR, one of the things that I
learned is that you have toavoid identifying with your
position's title.
I mean, you are not yourposition, you're a person who
has talents and performs,because when you retire and you
lose that position, it doesn'tmean that your identity is lost
(44:42):
and it's very hard for retireesto accept that they are no
longer.
You know such and such titleand you have some other
opportunities and in the bookactually in chapter eight of the
book, the last chapter I kindof share my personal
transformation experiences sothat you know things happen that
(45:04):
lead you in a different way andhow you can regrow yourself
into doing that.
At the personal level, and oneof the things that I'm very
clear about is what is what I'mhere to do?
What I'm here to do is to helpindividuals and organizations to
get unstuck, renew themselvesand unlock potential to thrive
(45:27):
in an uncertain world.
So that's my definition of whatI'm here to do and based on
that, you know I take each andevery opportunity to either if a
company needs my help, you know, as a consultant, or maybe an
individual, you know I have tomentor or coach or whatever I
get.
You know what is this.
Why are you stuck?
(45:48):
You know, because you have tosolve that first.
If you don't get unstuck, it'svery difficult to perfect
everything else.
And then how?
The next step?
How you renew, because the mostimportant problem of any
organization is renewal.
The villain in an organizationis stiffness.
You end up doing the same thingover and over again, so you
(46:12):
have to renew.
And then, of course, once youstart that renewal process, how
you maximize that untappingpotential and really get
proficient into doing more ofwhat serves you best.
And that's what I'm a fairbeliever in, that, and I want to
devote the next 10, 15 years ofmy life helping individuals and
(46:35):
organizations.
That motivates me a lot.
Jay Johnson (46:38):
Well, ernesto, I can tell that you have
definitely helped someindividuals today by being here
with us, sharing your story andthese incredible you know these
incredible just way that youapproached some major challenges
and the insights that you'reable to share.
I want to say thank you so muchfor taking the time to be here
(47:01):
with us and to share some ofthese insights and your
knowledge and experience.
This has been an absolutelywonderful conversation that I've
learned a lot from, and I knowthat our audience is, so I just
I can't say thank you enough forbeing here.
If our audience wanted to getin touch with you, how would
they reach out to you?
Ernesto Gómez (47:21):
Well, I'm in LinkedIn, ernesto Gomez, and I
go by my second last name,because we Latins used to last
names.
It's Arzapalo A-R-Z-A-P-A-L-O,ernesto Gomez, arzapalo.
So you can, you know, get intouch with me there, or you can
go to my webpage, you know,aspenmindset1.com, and we can
(47:44):
engage there.
So I'll be more than happy toget in touch with your audience
and see if I can help in someway.
That's what I want to do,actually.
Jay Johnson (47:53):
I love it.
Well, thank you, Ernesto, forbeing here.
We'll make sure that thoselinks are in the show notes so
that way people can find younice and easy.
Links are in the show notes sothat way people can find you
nice and easy.
But again, I just want toexpress my gratitude for your
perspective, for your time, yourenergy.
I can tell that you are just anincredibly passionate person
about this and definitely aninnovator.
So thank you again for beinghere.
Ernesto Gómez (48:16):
Thank you, jay, it was my pleasure.
I really appreciate youinviting me to your podcast.
Jay Johnson (48:20):
Absolutely so and thank you, thank you, audience,
for tuning into this episode ofthe Talent Forge.
Where we're together, we areshaping the future of training
and development.
Welcome to this episode of the Talent Forge,
where we are shaping the futureof training and development.
Today, I am joined by a specialErnesto , who is the VP of
Human Capital at Grupo Alpha, amajor Mexican conglomerate with
more than 83,000 employees,before becoming the Chief Human
(00:22):
Resources Officer at SigmaAlimentos, a global consumer
packaged goods company with43,000 employees.
Ernesto has incredibleexperience to share.
Welcome to the show, ernesto.
Ernesto Gómez (00:34):
Hello Jay, I'm very happy to be with you.
Jay Johnson (00:38):
So you have had an incredible career.
I mentioned a couple of thosedifferent spots, but I want the
audience to get to know you.
So how did you get into thishuman capital, this HR, this
training and talent developmentspace, Ernesto?
Ernesto Gómez (00:56):
Looking at hindsight, I don't know how
really things just got organizedin a certain way, because my
intention was never to be in thehuman capital space.
Actually, I run businesses.
I started small, you know, asan independent, had about 15
different businesses throughoutmy career, and then I got into
(01:18):
consulting and a company hiredme to turn around an operation
that was in bad shape, and youknow it was.
My contract was for six monthsand we were able to turn it
around and that, you know,converted into a 23 year old.
(01:38):
23 year lifespan on differentroles, lifespan on different
roles.
At first, many of my roles werehead of businesses and, you
know, at some point I was thebusiness that was $1.3 billion
in revenue, so it was a largebusiness and for some reason,
(02:03):
the CEO of the company thoughtit would be a good idea to have
somebody that had experience inthe trenches to, you know, the
human capital function.
I was also very, at the time,very critical about you know,
how the HR was, you know,performing, and he said well,
since you have so many opinionsand seem to be unhappy, why
(02:26):
don't you take over and see ifyou can do better?
And, quite frankly, that turnedout to be my calling.
I'm so happy that that happened.
I mean, I just retired, youknow, the positions that you
mentioned, of course, werepositions that I held in the
last few years.
I retired about a year ago tolook for some other projects.
(02:48):
I just changed venue.
But ever since I was in HR,actually my first challenge was
in talent development,specifically in succession
planning.
So the challenge that I had infront of me was very
(03:09):
intimidating for me because thisis a large company, you know,
50 years old more or less, whenI was there at the beginning and
people had long tenures andmany of the key positions were
going to be refilled justbecause people were retiring.
(03:31):
You know, got into work attheir 20s, 40 years after they
are in their 60s, and so youneed to.
You know plan for that and thechallenge was major.
You know plan for that and thechallenge was major At the
moment.
You know, when I took over, inthe next five years, the same
(03:51):
amount of people that haveretired in the whole lifetime of
the company were going to beretiring and we needed to fill
up at about 140 positions.
Wow, in different, you know,layers and of course, the
pipeline gets to be complicatedbecause you start kind of moving
the, the, the pyramid and thenyou know things open up real
(04:14):
quick.
Jay Johnson (04:16):
So we need to have that's a scary proposition to
have to replace 140 leadershippositions right around the same
time.
Ernesto Gómez (04:26):
Absolutely, absolutely.
So what was?
Jay Johnson (04:29):
going through your, before we go into that.
What was going through yourmind when this challenge was
presented to you?
I mean, it had to be somethingwhere it was like hey, ernesto,
this is what we're facing rightnow.
What did that feel like?
Ernesto Gómez (04:43):
I was really intimidated, facing right now,
what did that feel like?
I was really intimidated.
Of course, you know, I'vealways have a lot of, you know,
drive and I'm a businessman atheart, so I look at this as a
challenging proposition.
But somebody that I wanted to,you know, prove me into this.
And there was one pivotalmoment, because at some point I
(05:04):
was really in my office sayingwhat am I going to do with this?
Right, I was, you know, I had agood team and people that were
knowledgeable, but in the end Iwas, you know, calling the shots
.
So I was in my office sayingwhat am I going to do about this
?
And and also keep in mind thatI'm not a HR person, you know,
at heart, and also keep in mindthat I'm not an HR person at
(05:25):
heart.
But an idea occurred to me so Icould reframe the problem, and
my reframing was well, I mightnot be an HR specialist, but
what if I see this challenge asan innovation problem in HR?
So I said, you know, I'm theinnovation guy in charge of HR.
(05:49):
So if I frame that, if I usethat mental model, what would I
do different so that I could,you know, tackle this major,
major problem and I startedsaying, well, I know how to
innovate because I ranbusinesses before and I just
started, you know, opening upand finding out partners and
people who could kind of guideme along the way.
(06:11):
And also, having been in aleadership position myself, I
knew that the most importantpart that we were going to be
training for was not functionalskills.
Yes, it is important to havefunctional skills and to have
them updated as much as you can,but it was much more about
strategy and vision and a lot ofsoft skills.
(06:35):
You know, because when you areup in the ladder, most of the
time you are dealing withstrategy, people.
You know, market trends, thingsthat require a perspective
taking and judgment.
So I say, how do I go in thatway?
And, to make a long story short, we did a lot of segmentation
(06:59):
and it turned out to be okay.
100% of all the C-suiteparticipants C-suite occupants
today were part of the program.
So I think it worked.
Jay Johnson (07:09):
Wow, yeah, that's an incredible ratio.
100% of your C-suite is fromthis program.
The interesting thing andcongratulations on your
retirement, by the way.
That's pretty awesome and I'mglad to see that you're not
giving it up.
I'm going to go back and ask aquestion about this in just a
moment, but I want to stick withthis succession because I find
(07:32):
this super interesting.
So you know, a lot of times whenpeople are taking on a new
position and maybe they'removing from salesperson to sales
manager, sales manager to salesleader, sales leader to sales
VP, each of those differentlevels just to exactly what you
(07:52):
said requires a differentmindset, requires a broader look
at the organization.
The tactical skills that we hadat one level are not
necessarily going to translateas you move up that leadership.
You're going to have to havebetter visionary skills, better
people leading skills,management skills, et cetera.
(08:12):
You know what was theexperience for you as you
started to think about like,okay, we're putting 140 people
this is going to be a fast trackleadership exercise.
People, this is going to be afast track leadership exercise.
How were you preparing them toessentially think?
Ernesto Gómez (08:31):
on that larger level.
Well, first of all, as I wasmentioning to you some of the
things that I've learned beingin business is you don't have a
good segmentation to understand.
You know, because this 140people were part of, you know
different levels, from the verytop to the.
You know I wouldn't say medium,because it was all of them were
(08:52):
business unit.
You know either leadingfunctions or geographies or
something that took a lot ofresponsibility, but you can tell
, you know how many of thosewere technical experts, how many
of those were emerging leaders,how many were more senior that
were ready to step up for thenext big deal.
(09:14):
So, by doing that and kind ofunderstanding where they were at
that moment, we kind of figureout the gaps and the things that
we needed to work with them.
And we had two levels one morepersonalized, predominantly,
with the more where the moreresponsibility was needed and so
(09:39):
where we had to do not onlyspecific programs that we
partnered with universities, butalso, you know, much more of a
coaching and mentoring spacewith them.
And then, as you kind of openup a little bit more, we figure
out that talent portability isvery tricky and I know this from
(10:02):
firsthand experience becauseyou can have have very talented
person and you move it in.
You know a different team,different processes, maybe
network supports, and it gets tobe different from where they
used to be.
So you have to prepare for youknow the unexpected, a lot of
(10:28):
resilience and many of uh, Iwould say that ability to
network uh for them was alsocritical.
Yeah, so, quite frankly, what Idid is I, you know, we separated
, we did, we did a problem thatwe called a multi-university
where we had, uh, four of themost important universities in
the world talking about Wharton,stanford, chicago, booth and
(10:49):
London Business School workingwith us, with our senior leaders
.
Then we had another program withStanford to work more with the
emerging talent.
Then we had another one withMIT, also for the more of a
technical experts that weregoing to be, you know, taking
more leadership positions.
(11:10):
So they were functional expertsand all of a sudden they needed
to over some broader functionsand also some coaches, you know,
and mentors, you know, targetedspecific groups and mentors,
you know, targeted specificgroups.
So we engineered a system thattook, you know, approximately
four to five years, you know,and we did a lot of evaluations,
(11:34):
progress evaluations with themand also with the universities
and, as I was saying, you know,I think we did well Interesting
two-thirds of all theparticipants throughout the
program and, as I was saying,you know, I think we did well
Interesting Two-thirds of allthe participants throughout the
program had promotions.
Wow, sixty-six percent, that'sgreat.
Two-thirds 60%.
Jay Johnson (11:54):
Yeah.
Ernesto Gómez (11:55):
And 25% of that, 60% had more than one promotion.
So it may be, you know, two oreven three along the way and you
could probably say well, ofcourse, ernesto, you picked good
people to begin with, so ofcourse you train them and they
were kind of geared towardsmaking progress.
(12:16):
But we also measure theperformance evaluations of all
of them and broadly, in general,we had about a 10% increase in
their performance evaluationstoo.
So that meant that you knowthey were making progress, they
were good and they became better.
So those I would probablyrecommend, you know, design a
(12:40):
framework, because that's whatwe needed.
We had a specific framework uh,you know, to be going, for
instance, with, with more seniorleaders.
We had a four piece framework.
The first part was, uh, settingthe goal and defining a plan.
And then we had another modelof working with and through
others Uh, we had another onethat had to do with, uh, uh,
(13:07):
interpersonal skills, and thenwe had another one which was
called selling the idea, socombining those models and
partnering with differentexperts.
I think that turned out to beokay Up until this time.
I mentioned to you that Iretired a year ago.
I still have acquaintances thattell me how much they missed
(13:31):
those opportunities.
Of course, the company hadmoney to invest.
I have to recognize that therewas a major decision and they
decided that it was worthwhile,so that helped a lot.
But in the end it's a bigresponsibility because you only
get to do that once.
I mean, you cannot fail.
(13:51):
It's a lot of money and then,of course, if you fail, there is
no way to redo what you didwrong.
Jay Johnson (14:01):
Right, so I had a good team.
Yeah, and so that was going tobe.
The next question that I hadfor you is I'm thinking about
this and I'm trying to thinkabout you know the audience.
They may be in a largeorganization, they may be in a
smaller organization.
How did you segment to startoff with?
(14:22):
Did you segment just by level?
Did you segment more of?
Hey, you know here's the listof you know here's the list of
2000 potentials.
How did you get through that todetermine what is the better
person, or who's going toqualify to get into this
training program?
Like, what was that?
What was that process?
Ernesto Gómez (14:44):
You know it's an excellent question because in my
position I couldn't have a wayto go to the very detailed, you
know, elements into how a personis selected.
So what we had is like sessionswith the HR partners, you know,
that were close to those peopleand they also had some, of
(15:12):
course, a clear idea of were theindividuals that had the
potential to begin with.
And we did a lot of work withthem setting out a criterion so
that we could have a common viewamong business units into which
we were going to evaluate.
And then we also had a finaldecision made by the CEO of each
(15:40):
of the business units.
Because you know as much as youcan do pre-work and kind of
select people, then you get to apoint where you say, well, this
is the group of people thatyou're going to be betting on,
so tell us what you think.
So we had a final go or no goby the senior leader of each of
(16:01):
the business units and you know,kind of we started with very
simple questions If some ofthese people were about to leave
the company, would you becomfortable them leaving the
company or not?
That's a great question.
Yeah, because they would sayjust imagine somebody wants to
take you know from you whatwould you do?
(16:22):
No, no, no, no, no way.
So that told us something right.
And when we saw like well, he'sa good guy, but you know I can
do without, so that's not a goodidea.
You're not going to be part ofa program.
Jay Johnson (16:35):
And that's a brilliant question.
To ask, though, is how much youknow?
How much does this person meanto you?
How much would you do to savethis person?
And that's going to give you agood idea of whether or not
that's.
That's a really clever way tothink about that.
Ernesto Gómez (16:49):
I like that yeah, and and in the end, of course,
you you see how they have skinin the game right into into
making a decision.
It's not just corporatebringing people into a program,
it's just something that wasgoing to be a more uh strategic
for them as well yeah.
So we did all that.
What was, quite frankly,difficult for us is that are we
(17:15):
going to open up that?
You know this group of peopleare participating in a program?
What about those who are notattending?
You know what kind of ill willmay this generate, or not?
So, and also, when you start togroom somebody, some people
(17:38):
feel like you know, I made itand they stop.
You know making the best effortthey can.
So what we did is like saying,well, we are developing a talent
pool and people get into thetalent pool and exit the talent
pool at any moment.
So it's up to those who are inthe talent pool to remain there.
Or maybe somebody who is, youknow, doing a very good job, end
(18:00):
up, you know, participatingthere.
So it's not really a decisionwhere nobody will ever get here.
If you were not selected firstand if you were selected, of
course, you knew that if youdon't keep on, kept on doing
your best, you may, you know,end up exiting the talent group.
Jay Johnson (18:19):
So there was a level of competition almost
inside of there of hey, you'vemade it this far, but your
seat's not guaranteed.
You need to keep earning, keepworking and keep pushing in
order to keep going here.
That's an interesting conceptto add into that space as well.
Ernesto Gómez (18:37):
And also because people need to have ownership
about how bad they want to bethere to begin with, because
it's a big investment of time,of resources and it's a lot of
people involved behind thescenes.
So we wanted to make sure thatpeople appreciated this.
They didn't feel entitled.
On the contrary, they were, youknow, and also we, of course,
(19:01):
were open to this is what we'retrying to do.
If you want to complement thisby yourself, if there are some
other things that you have inmind, you may go and take them
on your own, or probably we cantalk about that and see if we
can support you.
But it became a project, as Imentioned to you, where the
(19:25):
conviction from people you know,both in those who participated
and and leaders of the companies, were very important and we
measured a lot, we sharedresults with the business
leadership a lot, how much wewere progressing, just to keep
the interest going, because it'sa long time, yeah, and
(19:46):
sometimes you know, businessesgo.
This is another thing.
I had a budget and businesseshave good and bad years or just
mediocre years, so we didn'twant to stop when they had
headwinds and then we take itbecause you lose momentum.
So we separated the budget forthe whole program at the
(20:07):
beginning, so there was a bigeconomic commitment from them as
well.
Well, and that's so.
We separated the budget for thewhole program at the beginning,
okay, so there was a bigeconomic commitment from them as
well.
Jay Johnson (20:13):
Well and that's interesting because I know that
a lot of my L&D folks experiencethat of, hey, it's a good year,
we've got this amount of moneyfor programs and the next year
is not so good, and, oh wait,we've already invested into a
new LMS and invested into this,and now what are we going to do?
Do we have to drop?
So it's smart that you wereable to get that investment up
front to make sure that thiswould be a continuity of
(20:37):
programming.
I did have a question, and I'mthinking about this right, like
when you're looking at 140leaders in a secession plan,
I've got to imagine that therewas probably some surprises.
And what do I mean by that?
You know, hey, I'm looking atErnesto, and Ernesto is my front
(20:58):
runner for the CEO position,definitely.
And then all of a sudden, maybethat doesn't happen or somebody
else steps in.
What was that like?
Did you have a lot of surpriseswhere maybe there were some
people that you expected to gohigher and didn't, or maybe some
people that barely got in andthen really showed that they
(21:19):
belonged there and went further?
What was that experience like,and how did you navigate some of
those maybe surprises as theycame up?
Ernesto Gómez (21:27):
some of those maybe surprises as they came up.
Well, excellent question.
First, one of the things wemeasured, you know, during the
program and at the end, was thechurn in terms of, because some
people ended up leaving, but wehad a churn below 3%, so most of
them remained in the companyand just a very few left the
(21:50):
company.
And then the other thing isthat for me it was frustrating
and also very self-critical ofwhat we were doing.
If you ended up training aperson that didn't make it but
it's like everything in life Ifyou ended up training a person
(22:12):
that didn't make it, but it'slike everything in life You're
not going to hit 100% of all thethings that you do in life.
Baseball at the bat which has a400 score means that fails 60%
(22:32):
of the time and still isconsidered to be on the top of
the game.
So at some point in time wesaid, well, we're going to do as
thorough as comprehensivescreening process in the
beginning, but then we have atsome point in time to let go,
(22:56):
because if you don't, you startkind of frustrating and it's a
mind thing.
You know, am I doing right?
Is this going to work or not?
And, as I say, you know,measuring and keep on evaluating
(23:17):
progress gave us an idea youknow to what extent we were
doing a good job or not and someof them ended up remaining.
As I mentioned to you,two-thirds didn't get a
promotion, two-thirds got apromotion, but a third didn't.
Jay Johnson (23:24):
Yeah, yeah.
So that's still an incrediblesix.
(23:45):
I mean 60% of your participantswalking into a promotion at
least one promotion and itsounds to me like you saying 140
people ended up moving intothese leadership positions.
You've got to say at least 200people at that point in time.
Exponential the amount of Ithink the most recent data out
is one underperforming leadercan cost your organization up to
(24:12):
$126,000 a year.
So if you take 140 leaders thatyou had elevated into these
positions and you were able to10% of that is 14, that's $1.4
million return on investment,year after year after year.
So I love that you werequantifying the impact of
(24:34):
mobility as well as longevity aswell, as I mean that complexity
is really really smart.
I'm a big fan of that.
Ernesto Gómez (24:44):
Yeah, we had about well, not about we had 300
people in the group, so to fillup 140 positions, we ended up
training 300 people.
And also we measured.
For instance, in the case ofthe MIT, we had a very
interesting and, I would say,very, very profitable program
(25:05):
with them, because they evenportray that as a success story
it's in the MIT webpage becausewe ended up developing projects
with them that had a return.
So we not only trained thepeople who participated, but we
(25:33):
made a few million dollars justfrom those participants and so
they ended up paying their owntraining and left some residual
and I'm saying measured byprojects that they, you know,
efficiency or whatever on top ofwhat talent brings you, on top
of what talent brings you.
What I have seen, at least, andthat I've read, is a talented
(25:54):
CEO explains about 20% of thevalue created by a company.
So you can have a plus 20% orminus 20% value, you know, just
related to how a CEO isperforming 20%.
Jay Johnson (26:11):
you know, that's a big swing.
Ernesto Gómez (26:14):
It's a big swing when you think about how a
balance sheet and a profit andloss statement works.
You increase the top, you knowthe revenue, by 20% and you keep
your expenses place.
The value creation profits areamazing because there is a lot
(26:38):
of absorption of what you do, sopretty much it goes all the way
to the bottom line.
So, it's a lot of money that youcan create and even for me, as
I was before I got into thisprogram, you know heading this
effort I went to an executivesession myself with some
(27:04):
colleagues of mine and we, as aresult of that, we made some
changes in the strategy of thebusiness field that I was
heading and we also created alot of money.
So there is tangible resourcesthat you can produce by betting
on your talent, and you cannotafford not to have good talent
(27:25):
these days.
Jay Johnson (27:27):
I want to stick with this topic for a second
because I find it to be really,really interesting, and what I'm
referring to is the opportunityto pair real-world, real-impact
projects alongside of thetraining programs, and I'll
share a little bit where this iscoming from.
(27:48):
So one of the programs thatI've worked on at Wayne State
University for the better partof two decades was the
Engineering Management Master'sProgram, which is a partnership
between Ford Motor Company andWayne State, and actually MIT
consulted on this program backin 1995.
(28:08):
This program back in 1995.
So just to give you somelongevity of this, but this
program runs the last year ofthe program is all about a
leadership project, in whichcase these high performing, high
talented engineers who aregetting their master's degree
take on a real world problem,and one of the impacts of this
(28:28):
has been that these projectshave actually saved, over the
course of 30 years, over abillion dollars in cost savings
and revenue generation for theorganization.
(28:54):
Ernesto, is any L&D groups right?
I'm not seeing L&D groupsimplement something where
there's real world projects orreal world challenging projects.
For, okay, I'm delivering acommunications training, now
what are you going to do with it?
Or I'm delivering this conflictresolution training.
Now what are you going to dowith it?
What project are you going totake on?
Can you talk a little bit,maybe, about what was the
experience in incorporatingthese real-world projects and
(29:16):
what made them successful?
Because I think every L&Dperson out there would go wait a
second, I can incorporate aproject that ends up paying for
my budget that covers the costof these things.
That's a very novel concept.
So you've got experience inthis.
I've got experience from theuniversity side of things.
Talk to me about yourexperience in those projects and
(29:37):
what did that look like?
Ernesto Gómez (29:40):
You know, the funny thing is that at the
beginning I didn't want to do it.
I went to MIT and I met justoutstanding individuals.
I went to MIT and I met justoutstanding individuals Stephen
Eppinger, kurt Chilton, I mean,this guy is our first class and
we were designing the program.
They suggested to do projectsand I was resistant to that
(30:00):
because I said you know what?
I haven't seen that work in thepast.
It's very difficult, it'ssomething a waste of time.
People are really busy doingtheir jobs and then they have a
program that is part of theuniversity that's not going to
work.
I was just very negative aboutthat.
And as I was explaining myposition, they were saying well,
(30:20):
we have something that we callmen and menus, which it means
hands and thinking.
So we, we are very familiarwith that.
That's our ethos at MIT.
And I was still, you know,resistant.
And they paused for a minuteand said you haven't worked with
MIT, haven't you?
Well, we make these thingshappen.
(30:40):
And I saw them so convincedthey said you know, I'm going to
give it a try.
And I was humbled by that.
I said, well, and how are yougoing to make it work?
So what they came up with.
It was a three-model part where,at the beginning of each of the
models, together with you knowthe program, certain groups
(31:06):
gathered and started to figureout what things they saw at
their organizations that neededto be fixed and that probably
could return an interestingamount of money, kind of an
evaluation of those and througha framework that they have in
(31:31):
terms of you know what are thesteps that you have to follow,
from the detection of theopportunity up the way up into
the implementation and how youmeasure through, they decided,
well, we're going to figure outhow to do this.
So we had three sessions and infirst session you decided on
the programs, and then they alsohad a call in between sessions
(31:55):
where they evaluated each groupuh, you know, on their progress,
how, what problems they werefacing, you know, etc.
So that in the next sessionthey would share, you know,
findings and and where they weredoing different.
And then in the third sessionthey would share findings and
where they were doing different.
And then in the third modelthey presented the results.
So all in all, we had aboutthree groups where, or three
(32:22):
cohorts where they were inpresence, and then about two or
three times more where they werefollowing up on, you know, the
progress of each team.
So this guy, you know they had alot of supervision, and so it's
not just like you know figureout a project and then, you know
, make it work and see whathappens.
(32:43):
It was a follow up process frompeople that are very
knowledgeable about how to dothese things work and they have
a.
They also are tough guys.
I mean they don't take no foran answer and when they say, you
know, I didn't make a lot ofprogress, well, shame on you,
you have to do better.
So they apply a little bit ofpressure and I mean a good
(33:06):
partner makes a big differenceand that's why I was so happy
about that, and actually that'swhy they suggested to use this
as a success story in MIT,because it really worked.
MIT because it really worked.
At the moment where we'vemeasured the results, I don't
know $6, $7 million that we endup capturing, but those projects
(33:36):
continue delivering value Fiveyears after that.
I don't know how much moneythey have produced, but it's a
lot.
Jay Johnson (33:40):
Well, I love that you bring this up, ernesto,
because I think at this point intime, the EMMP has generated
172 different leadershipprojects at Ford, all cohort
based, so like three to fivepeople per team, some of them
very, very impactful, some ofthem less, but a couple of
things that I think that yousaid are so important.
(34:02):
So, if you're listening and youwant to run some kind of
project one thing I heard yousaid was stakeholder buy-in, and
that was something that welearned early on at Wayne State
University is okay, it's greatthat this engineering team is
doing this project.
Who does this get handed off to?
Who has responsibility for itafterwards?
(34:22):
What is your implementation?
And actually, in the EMMPprogram I can tell you there's
an entire semester that isdedicated to a project
management course that isrelated to setting up the scope
of a project, what it's going toentail, what it's not going to
entail, and, by the time thatthey get to their year, actually
(34:42):
executing the project,gathering the data, et cetera.
I mean their scope is so welldetermined, so narrowed, so
defined, and there's alreadybuy-in from senior executives
that are saying, when thisproject comes to conclusion,
this is how we're implementingit.
I heard you say somethingsimilar.
It sounds like they were havingto report up.
(35:03):
They were getting the buy-inearly on, so by the time that
the project come to conclusion,there was no surprises.
It was like, yeah, this is hereand it's ready to go type
things.
Is that what I'm understandingfrom you?
Absolutely.
Ernesto Gómez (35:16):
Absolutely.
And for projects to work, youhave to be very thorough in the
way you implement and the wayyou measure and the way you
share progress.
And I would say that, at leastin my case, I was negative
because I didn't see that workbefore and it was because I
(35:37):
haven't worked with MIT before.
So these guys were very goodand I would say just you know,
find the best partners that youcan get and the projects are
going to be successful andthey're going to return your
investment.
I'm sure about that, 100%.
Jay Johnson (35:57):
Well, and I think it's very wise to make sure that
, hey, do we have a partnerwho's actually done these types
of projects before?
Who has experience?
Who's you know, after 30 yearsof Wayne State doing it?
It's buttoned up.
There's five different facultythat all oversee different
aspects of it.
I mean, it runs like clockwork,and I imagine that's got to be
(36:19):
what MIT is doing as well, whereit's just hey, we've been there
, we've done that, we've seenthis, and now it's just a
question of can we execute orcan the people engage in that?
So let me ask you one otherquestion, as it relates to the
participants that were doingthese projects, because you said
at first you had someresistance and it was like, ah,
(36:39):
these people are busy, theydon't have time to do this, that
these people are busy, theydon't have time to do this, that
and the other thing, and Idon't know what the return on
investment is.
What was the experience like?
I guess getting buy-in from theparticipants to say, yes, let's
take this on.
And how did you paint a valueproposition for them, being able
(37:00):
to say you know, we're doingreal world impact, we're doing
this or anything else.
Did you see any resistance fromthe participants Like I'm
already busy and you're makingme do X, or did you?
You know what was that sort ofmotivation level of the
participants in general?
Ernesto Gómez (37:16):
Well, first of all, you know, as we presented,
you know, the first day that wewere, you know, kind of kicking
off the project, that wasincluded, as you know, a very
important part of the processand also it was kind of very
well explained that this allowedthem to get practical knowledge
(37:40):
about how to make things happenin the long run throughout
their careers and in the company.
So it was an opportunity morethan a hustle.
So you say, you know what Imean.
You may go to have a very goodsession and hear about fantastic
ideas from MIT, but this timeyou will have the opportunity to
(38:00):
be guided by an expert.
So if you learn about this, youwill be able to apply it.
You know.
So the why behind what is in.
For me it was clear that theywould be trained also, you know,
in that part, of course, youknow life is hectic and you know
(38:22):
, throughout the program theyhad also many responsibilities,
but they looked up, you know,slowly but surely got engaged
themselves into this.
So it was not really animposition, it was more seen as
(38:50):
an opportunity for them tocontinue their growth.
I think that that framinghelped and also the fact that we
said that in the end they willbe.
They will going to bepresenting their findings to the
CEOs of their own companies, soit's your chance to shine in
front of them and show them whatyou were capable of doing.
(39:13):
So that also really was acarrot, so to speak, and not
only sticks to motivate people.
You know, positivereinforcement, I think, goes a
long way and and there was a lotof pride in that.
So so it's the combination andjust being close to them and
kind of hearing what they youknow if they hustle for a reason
(39:36):
why and and kind of get himenergized.
Jay Johnson (39:43):
I love that.
It's the same.
It's been my experience as well.
It's like, wait a second, I getto do a project that's going to
have a meaningful impact on thecompany and I'm going to get to
present this in front of seniorleadership or participate and
engage with senior leadership ona quarterly, monthly, weekly,
bi-weekly level.
Yeah, I'm in, so I waswondering if the experience was
(40:04):
the same on that.
So, ernesto, you've had anincredible career.
You've had a lot of success.
You've also authored a bookcalled Regrowth.
Can you tell me a little bitabout the book and what the
frame is for that book?
Ernesto Gómez (40:20):
Well, you know, throughout my life, as you were
saying, I've seen a lot ofbusiness problems and
transformation, you know, andinitiatives going in place.
And one of the things thatreally motivates me a lot is to
find out how can you unlockpotential in people, because I'm
(40:40):
a firm believer that peoplehave a lot of potential that is
just waiting to be tapped.
And if you create the rightconditions in the team and, of
course, throughout the company,that happens.
And I wrote this book Regrowth,because if you take a
short-term perspective onfailure, and sometimes when you
(41:01):
get stalled you kind of see onlythat things didn't work out,
but if you take a long-termperspective, it's just a step in
the process.
It's just, you know, life isnot a 45-degree ascending line
all the time.
It's not that way.
(41:21):
No business creates value thatway.
Even us as individuals are notreally that way.
So regrowth it's a title thatreflects that you can
recalibrate and you can.
You know, when you stall youcan regrow.
It's just the fact to you know,put in place the right levers
to make it happen.
(41:41):
So I wrote this book on businesstransformation and pretty much
what I define is on the talentdensity level, what is it you
have to do in the company On thecultural level, what do you
have to do in the company andalso what kind of collective
mindset you have to reallypursue so that you get into this
(42:03):
regrowth pattern.
I don't know if you know thisthis hasn't been really
documented scientifically butthe amount of performance that
people leave in the table, it'smore or less 40 to 50%, so you
(42:24):
can double your productivity.
It is amazing.
I've interviewed many CEOsthroughout my life and I asked
them this question what makesyour people?
What percentage of potentialare you getting from your people
?
In other words, actualperformance versus potential.
(42:45):
And they tell me you know 40,50%.
I'm sure they can do better.
So what do we have to do tohelp them do better?
Because it's not just applyingpressure, it's just, you know,
potentially something that youhave to work with your people to
unlock.
And that's why I wrote thatbook to kind of share my
(43:13):
experience in doing that and toshow what has worked for me and
maybe can work for somebody else.
Jay Johnson (43:16):
I love that perspective.
The title caught regrowth.
I was like, oh, that'sfascinating.
So, audience, it's available onAmazon.
You can check that out.
We'll make sure that a link toit is in the show notes.
Author is Ernesto Gomez.
So I have one more question foryou.
I know that curious.
I would love to know.
Just from just from ourconversation I can tell you are
(43:48):
somebody that loves to help.
You are somebody that loves tobe challenged.
What was your experience insort of this retirement?
And then, obviously, now you're, you're, uh, you're you're
leading a consultingorganization.
You're obviously doing greatwork with other people.
What was that transition likefor you, stepping out of the
(44:09):
corporate sphere and more intoyour own space?
You had mentioned you'd alreadybeen a serial entrepreneur
previous to this, so I imagineit wasn't too scary.
But what was that transitionlike for you, Ernesto?
Ernesto Gómez (44:21):
You know, being in HR, one of the things that I
learned is that you have toavoid identifying with your
position's title.
I mean, you are not yourposition, you're a person who
has talents and performs,because when you retire and you
lose that position, it doesn'tmean that your identity is lost
(44:42):
and it's very hard for retireesto accept that they are no
longer.
You know such and such titleand you have some other
opportunities and in the bookactually in chapter eight of the
book, the last chapter I kindof share my personal
transformation experiences sothat you know things happen that
(45:04):
lead you in a different way andhow you can regrow yourself
into doing that.
At the personal level, and oneof the things that I'm very
clear about is what is what I'mhere to do?
What I'm here to do is to helpindividuals and organizations to
get unstuck, renew themselvesand unlock potential to thrive
(45:27):
in an uncertain world.
So that's my definition of whatI'm here to do and based on
that, you know I take each andevery opportunity to either if a
company needs my help, you know, as a consultant, or maybe an
individual, you know I have tomentor or coach or whatever I
get.
You know what is this.
Why are you stuck?
(45:48):
You know, because you have tosolve that first.
If you don't get unstuck, it'svery difficult to perfect
everything else.
And then how?
The next step?
How you renew, because the mostimportant problem of any
organization is renewal.
The villain in an organizationis stiffness.
You end up doing the same thingover and over again, so you
(46:12):
have to renew.
And then, of course, once youstart that renewal process, how
you maximize that untappingpotential and really get
proficient into doing more ofwhat serves you best.
And that's what I'm a fairbeliever in, that, and I want to
devote the next 10, 15 years ofmy life helping individuals and
(46:35):
organizations.
That motivates me a lot.
Jay Johnson (46:38):
Well, ernesto, I can tell that you have
definitely helped someindividuals today by being here
with us, sharing your story andthese incredible you know these
incredible just way that youapproached some major challenges
and the insights that you'reable to share.
I want to say thank you so muchfor taking the time to be here
(47:01):
with us and to share some ofthese insights and your
knowledge and experience.
This has been an absolutelywonderful conversation that I've
learned a lot from, and I knowthat our audience is, so I just
I can't say thank you enough forbeing here.
If our audience wanted to getin touch with you, how would
they reach out to you?
Ernesto Gómez (47:21):
Well, I'm in LinkedIn, ernesto Gomez, and I
go by my second last name,because we Latins used to last
names.
It's Arzapalo A-R-Z-A-P-A-L-O,ernesto Gomez, arzapalo.
So you can, you know, get intouch with me there, or you can
go to my webpage, you know,aspenmindset1.com, and we can
(47:44):
engage there.
So I'll be more than happy toget in touch with your audience
and see if I can help in someway.
That's what I want to do,actually.
Jay Johnson (47:53):
I love it.
Well, thank you, Ernesto, forbeing here.
We'll make sure that thoselinks are in the show notes so
that way people can find younice and easy.
Links are in the show notes sothat way people can find you
nice and easy.
But again, I just want toexpress my gratitude for your
perspective, for your time, yourenergy.
I can tell that you are just anincredibly passionate person
about this and definitely aninnovator.
So thank you again for beinghere.
Ernesto Gómez (48:16):
Thank you, jay, it was my pleasure.
I really appreciate youinviting me to your podcast.
Jay Johnson (48:20):
Absolutely so and thank you, thank you, audience,
for tuning into this episode ofthe Talent Forge.
Where we're together, we areshaping the future of training
and development.
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.