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Welcome to Conflict Managed. I'm your host, Merry Brown.
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This week on Conflict Managed, we welcome Maria Colacurcio. Maria is reshaping
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how enterprises govern their largest and most consequential investment,
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how they pay their people.
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As CEO of Syndio, she leads the company that defined the market for pay equity
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software and is now pioneering decision intelligence for pay.
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Under her leadership, Syndio partners with global brands including Walmart,
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Microsoft, and Salesforce to make everyday pay decision compliant,
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optimized, and aligned with business strategy.
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Maria previously co-founded Smartsheet, which went public in 2018.
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She has built her career at the intersection of technology, policy,
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and purpose-driven leadership, earning recognition as one of the 100 Most Exceptional
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Entrepreneurs by Goldman Sachs Builders Innovators Summit.
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Good morning, Maria, and welcome to Conflict Managed.
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Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here. Oh, we just had a wonderful
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little pre-recording conversation. I'm really looking forward to where this
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is going to be going today.
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So before we get to what you're currently doing and the role that you have,
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I would like to hear about the first job you ever had as a young person.
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Oh, my gosh. Well, okay. The first job I ever had, we're going way back.
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This was probably when I was 15 or 16. It was right before high school.
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And I had been a babysitter for a family in our neighborhood for a long time.
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So I guess technically that was the first job.
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But the first office job was that she also owned a talent agency.
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And so I got an hourly job there in the summer and my job was,
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calling all the parents who had signed up at this talent agency paid a grip
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of money for headshots and their child had never been casted and so here I am
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you know a 16 year old going into high school or 14 you know whatever I was 14 15 16,
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and having to call through this long list knowing that every single phone call
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was going to be an irate angry parent and I had my little script of what I said
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like Johnny wasn't hasn't been cast and here's why.
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And we still have hope for Johnny. And he did have interest in these four things.
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And I had a script for everyone.
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And remarkably, I made it through the full summer. But that was my first job was pure conflict.
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So I think it's interesting as it relates to all the things that you talk about
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and the psychology behind critical conversations that that was where I started
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my, quote, professional journey.
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That is so intense. Wow. Yeah, it was intense.
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I can, for a variety of reasons, it's like baptism by fire.
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Like, you know, maybe, maybe they thought that, you know, since you're young,
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then you could break the bad news the best.
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They won't give you as much grief or it's just, you know, low person on the
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totem pole gets the dirty jobs. But wow. How, how did you deal with,
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I imagine you got yelled at every once in a while?
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I mean, most calls I got yelled at because they had paid, the parents had paid
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so much for these professional headshots thinking
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and gone in with such high expectations thinking their kid was,
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you know, different and special when you hear the disclaimers,
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you know, only one and et cetera, because they had to give these legal disclaimers.
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But, you know, as I've grown up and I've had my own kids, you see it every day and it actually proves.
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Lives in my head rent free this idea that we all think our kid is different or special or you know,
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there's a little something wrong with everyone else's kids but our kids like
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you know and it's funny my brother and I had this conversation about when we
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were early days parenting because our kids are similar ages and when you go
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up to a group of kids where there's a conflict,
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and you know for certain a conflict is being initiated by your own child if
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you can't figure out where it's coming from.
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If you're like, what? I don't understand. Like, why is it? It's because your
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bias of not thinking it's coming from your own child is standing in the way
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of your ability to logically figure out where it's initiating.
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And I think that was true for these parents. Like they were just irate.
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And to me, I think what's really interesting in this ability to compartmentalize
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is from a very young age, I was just like, well, this is the job.
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I have to get through this many calls a day, and I say my script,
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and then I'm quiet, and they get mad at me, and then I move on to the next call.
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So it was actually great training for a professional career.
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Yeah. I mean, for all the reasons you just said.
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And what you gained, a sort of tenacity, a way to realize, I imagine,
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somebody else's bad behavior is about them.
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And you're not the cause of it, right? Of course, a lot of times we get upset
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with the person who's delivering the news, but mostly that person had no hand
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in developing the policy and making the decisions.
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And yet it is, you know, when we are the bearer of bad news, right?
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How do we stay healthy? How do we stay okay with ourselves when somebody is,
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they're frustrated, but they are giving it to us?
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That is I imagine that is really has helped you throughout your whole career
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of thinking that that is just a part of it it is I I definitely have a a keen sense whether it's,
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An interaction with the gate agent at an airline or something goes wrong and
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you're in an event for work and it's really important.
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I've always had this keen sense of empathy for the messenger.
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And I think that's been a great thing just to model for my kids and for people
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around me that typically the folks in these frontline service roles are just
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delivering messages that are far outside of their control.
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And so to get angry with them is just absolutely unreasonable.
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And, I don't know, I'm glad I learned that early. Because when you see people
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doing that, it's just, it's such a distasteful thing to watch. Yeah.
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I think it's also really, I just love this idea of my kid is the best.
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My kid's the most special.
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And it's true. Your kid is the best and the most special to you.
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And that is a truth. And you see something in your child that other people are not going to see.
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And nobody's going to love your child the way that you do. and that is just
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the way of things so there's that and
when your child's not chosen and when,
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there's this disappointment out there and when other people don't see and or
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harm your child right there's there,
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is this there is this disconnect which is just as you as you already pointed
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out is such a good lesson if we learn it about our perspective our perspective
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and certainly when it comes to conflict or what we can see and who we're generous
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to and who we're not generous to.
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And a lot of it, many times with conflict, we think it's the issue.
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It's the issue itself. It's very rarely the issue. It's who are the people involved?
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Who's telling me this information? How am I perceiving that they are complicit
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in it or they are the cause of it or they're out to get me or they have my back? They're for me.
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And the same content, I understand it differently because of the relationships I'm in with the people.
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So all the way around, gosh, there's so much that you had the opportunity to learn as a young person.
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Yeah, it's true. So where did you go after that?
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So I spent a lot of time working in restaurants through college and out of college
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in order to pay the bills.
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And again, I learned so much as a waitress. It was funny. I was with a couple
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of girlfriends from college last weekend and we were all talking about our waitressing
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jobs and how much we still think about them and how much so many of those lessons
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have really stuck with us.
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I had a really interesting nonlinear career. So I was a history major in between,
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college and then moving on into the professional world. I moved to Galway and
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ran a bed and breakfast just for the experience.
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Then I moved to D.C., worked at the Smithsonian, the History Museum,
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worked on congressional campaigns, ultimately found myself working in marketing
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and communications for non-profits, sort of lobbying organizations in D.C.
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And the way I got into tech was just as non-linear. I was at a dinner party,
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it was the tech boom, and dinner party, you know, in those days it was sort
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of red cups and, you know, big pots of soup or something. It was very,
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you know, not as fancy as it might sound.
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And I was
just in the middle of breaking up with a boyfriend and I met this
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woman and she was visiting her friend from San Francisco and she said,
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you got to come to the Bay Area where everything's happening.
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We have an opening at my company. You should fly out an interview.
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And so I did. And it was incredibly technical in retrospect.
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It was a hardware software company, Israeli based startup.
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And I got the offer and decided what the heck. And I flew out and restarted
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my career in tech. And I just I loved it. I fell in love with it.
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And my initial foray into tech was in product marketing.
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So really, what you have to do in that role is be good at synthesizing and storytelling
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and being the bridge between
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a very technical story and then what the teams on the ground,
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the sales teams, the business development folks, marketing, what they need in order to translate.
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It really is the translation layer.
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And because I'm just insanely curious, I think that is the characteristics that
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served me so well throughout my entire life.
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I would sit in the server room with a bunch of these Israeli guys who were,
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you know, they're all former military.
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They're all incredibly technical.
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And I would just ask them a million questions until I understood it.
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And they really indulged my curiosity. Looking back, I'm like,
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oh, my God, I was probably so annoying.
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But also, they were super gracious because I don't know that anyone from the
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go-to-market side had ever been as curious into the ins and outs and the nuts
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and bolts of what they were creating.
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And these guys are creators. And I say guys because it was all men at that time. Yeah.
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And so I started there, and then I just continued my journey in tech.
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I worked for a couple of startups. I worked at Microsoft. I co-founded Smartsheet,
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went to Starbucks, and then eventually landed, and really from the beginning,
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at Cendia, where I am now.
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But as you said, a nonlinear, interesting career trajectory,
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and yet this curiosity and curating people's experiences, it seems like that
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is through line all
throughout, right?
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So even the bed and breakfast, how that is set up, the people's experience there,
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of course, being a server, it's all about what is their experience here and
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dealing with all of the technical issues of the food not being prepared the
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way somebody wants or being out of something or the wait times.
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And then, of course, dealing with hungry people, which is its own sort of level.
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But I can see that also relating to the storytelling of, you know,
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with tech, it can cause a lot of fear because people know they need it,
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but they don't know what they need.
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And if I get this product, is it going to solve this need? Am I going to be
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able to run it once I have it?
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I'm investing all of this. Is it the right thing to do? So there's a lot of,
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I'm sure, fear about adoption of certain kinds of.
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If I should adopt this or something else, how is it going to work?
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And so being able to bridge that so that people can have a clear picture as
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to whether or not this is the tech for them.
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And if you're not a tech person, which I am not, I'm going to have to rely on
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story and analogy to understand if this is the right thing.
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Yeah, exactly. I think so much of it is storytelling. And I do think,
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so it's interesting, right now I have several folks on my team,
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incredibly brilliant data scientists, folks in product, UX designers,
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who all majored in history.
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And I just, I think it's so interesting because I really do think the major,
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requires that you ask questions and see trend lines through information.
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You're looking at a series of events that happened and then predicting and analyzing
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and bringing to bear your thoughts and perspectives on how that could either repeat or not.
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And how do you see the confluence of things sort of coming together in a similar way?
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And anyway, I think the pattern matching is really interesting to see how that
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shows up in tech. But I talk with folks all the time and I'm never surprised
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to find out that that's their background.
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That is really interesting. The humanities, being able to be curious.
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How do we feed curiosity if we want innovation, if we want to be able to not
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only innovate, invent, and then being able to sell that, which is being able
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to translate whatever is innovated to innovation.
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Being creative as to who your market like you know who is your market and then
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being able to sell to them,
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takes a certain level of understanding story and what is history but a grand
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narrative right and being able to understand how it all goes together and what
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sources or who's telling you the truth or or how are they conveying a particular kind of message,
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yeah and oh it's to the humanities i always want to give a shout out if you
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if your child comes home and says they're majoring in history or philosophy
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or music or theater or art,
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that's they can be gainfully employed.
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There's lots of wonderful opportunities for them if that's something that they choose.
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Yeah, absolutely. So I want to hear more about curiosity.
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You know, children are naturally curious and many of us, it gets drummed out
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of us because in order to go through,
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traditional educational systems, you've got to streamline things and you learn
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this for this outcome, right?
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And so, you know, this whole test-based way that we think about quantifying education.
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So how did you retain this curiosity that has pulled you all the way through?
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How did I retain it? I think it's, you know, that's a great question.
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I'm thinking back to the way I was parented and whether it was something that
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was just naturally encouraged.
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You know, my dad was the youngest of nine kids. All my uncles were in some branch
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of the military. None of them went to college. My grandparents came over from Italy.
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And my dad's biggest goal in life was that his four kids would be the first
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to be college educated amongst all of his siblings and all the kids.
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And so it was something that he talked about constantly. He just constantly
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talked about, you've got to get an education, you've got to get an education.
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And so I honestly think that it's something that was just ingrained in me because
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I put those two things together, like curiosity and education,
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and what does it mean to be educated? What does it mean to get an education?
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So I really credit my parents for that because they never beat it out of me.
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And I think a lot of times, you know, that's the tendency with us as parents
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is that you see a spirited kid, you're exhausted, they're constantly asking
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questions and you're like, oh my God, I just, I can't answer any more of these questions.
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Or you say like, just get it done. Like instead of meandering around trying
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to figure, like you're reading them a book.
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You know, right now I'm reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to my
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18-year-old. And you can't get through a chapter without like,
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well, what about this? And what about this? And what about this?
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And what about this? Yeah.
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Just as adults in normal life, your tendency is to be like, can we just read the book already?
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Like, I want to go to bed. I want you to go to bed.
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But I do think there's something really important about being intentional about
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letting those meandering questions
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sort of wind around because that is the signal that we sent to them.
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And now as a CEO of a company, particularly in this era of AI transformation,
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curiosity is the thing I screen for.
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So when you think about builders, when you think about the types of characteristics,
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experiences, and skills that really make for someone who is going to succeed
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in this era, curiosity is really important.
00:16:33.183 --> 00:16:37.793
Of course, execution combined with that is important, but it's somebody who
00:16:37.793 --> 00:16:41.556
sees a problem. They don't necessarily ask for permission. They just,
00:16:41.921 --> 00:16:44.167
they figure out a way to solve it.
00:16:44.773 --> 00:16:49.653
And you know just before this call I had a meeting with my applied expertise
00:16:49.653 --> 00:16:54.209
team sharing with me all the really cool and innovative things that they're building with AI,
00:16:54.807 --> 00:16:59.893
and it was so fun to be able to see how their curiosity meandered into a solution
00:17:00.183 --> 00:17:05.314
so I got this training because I put them there's a pilot group of 22 employees that I put through,
00:17:05.837 --> 00:17:09.673
a very specific training on agent building that I took myself and I found it
00:17:09.673 --> 00:17:14.743
so valuable and so this pilot group was sharing with me I took the same training you did.
00:17:14.743 --> 00:17:18.183
Here are the different things that I was able to achieve and build with it.
00:17:18.183 --> 00:17:22.153
And they're so specific to their function and their expertise.
00:17:22.153 --> 00:17:24.576
It's not generic. I taught myself to write better.
00:17:25.383 --> 00:17:28.307
If you do it right and you have curiosity and you have the right training and
00:17:28.307 --> 00:17:30.758
tools, it's really amazing what's possible.
00:17:31.426 --> 00:17:34.907
I love so much of what you just said. But one thing that you just said at the
00:17:34.907 --> 00:17:39.267
end is that curiosity, sometimes it's this big word, this big concept,
00:17:39.267 --> 00:17:40.262
and it sort of like looms.
00:17:40.579 --> 00:17:42.669
But it actually is very particular.
00:17:44.027 --> 00:17:50.117
The result of being curious is many times a specific end product, like in the workplace.
00:17:50.117 --> 00:17:54.107
Right i was able to do this because i was curious and i allowed myself to come
00:17:54.107 --> 00:17:58.191
down and drill down and i found this right it is actually very,
00:17:58.887 --> 00:18:06.397
the curious mindset is not just a nice to have it's it's integral of creating
00:18:06.397 --> 00:18:08.157
and thinking and innovating,
00:18:08.814 --> 00:18:12.567
being collaborative all of those sorts of things are they're not going to work
00:18:12.567 --> 00:18:16.917
if you're not innately or you don't have the ability or you aren't curious.
00:18:16.917 --> 00:18:18.050
You're not activating that.
00:18:18.729 --> 00:18:21.527
And another thing you said I thought was really telling because I definitely
00:18:21.527 --> 00:18:25.399
resonate with this, with reading a book, right? Let's get through it.
00:18:26.242 --> 00:18:29.512
And the question is, like, what is the goal? Is the goal to get through the
00:18:29.512 --> 00:18:32.662
book? Well, it's a good goal to get through the line in which the wardrobe, right?
00:18:32.947 --> 00:18:37.382
But as parents, like, we want to finish the chapter or the whatever it is so
00:18:37.382 --> 00:18:38.795
that we can go on to the next.
00:18:39.323 --> 00:18:42.382
But if we stop and think, well, what is the goal for the child here?
00:18:42.382 --> 00:18:45.492
Like, what do I want my child to get out? Yeah, I want them to have this experience
00:18:45.492 --> 00:18:46.968
of hearing this whole story.
00:18:47.589 --> 00:18:51.312
But that's maybe just one of the goals, right?
00:18:51.312 --> 00:18:55.632
And so if I think this is good because they get this wonderful story and it
00:18:55.632 --> 00:18:59.339
sparks curiosity, if curiosity is part of what I'm trying to instill,
00:18:59.815 --> 00:19:05.762
then why would I think we've got to get through this story this month, right?
00:19:05.762 --> 00:19:09.592
Instead of we'll get through it, but we get this added good, right?
00:19:09.592 --> 00:19:14.422
That's just sort of question about what is somebody else's
experience.
00:19:15.162 --> 00:19:18.492
Why are they here like what is the the kid is getting a lot of things out at
00:19:18.492 --> 00:19:20.842
a time with their parents there's just so many good things they're getting out
00:19:20.842 --> 00:19:25.252
if you read to your children but that just was really I think about myself sometimes
00:19:25.252 --> 00:19:27.104
am I just trying to get through something,
00:19:27.661 --> 00:19:32.021
and that is an arresting thought what do you mean trying to get through as if,
00:19:32.711 --> 00:19:37.272
to get to the end the the whole journey really matters as to what the end actually
00:19:37.272 --> 00:19:40.348
is, what you actually got as you go through it.
00:19:40.966 --> 00:19:45.612
I think the intention is so interesting. And if I tie this notion of curiosity
00:19:45.612 --> 00:19:48.022
and asking questions back to the work that we do.
00:19:48.022 --> 00:19:53.192
So we do compensation analytics and we just actually a week ago released a white
00:19:53.192 --> 00:19:57.476
paper called the cost of ungoverned pay decisions. And what that means is,
00:19:58.068 --> 00:20:02.204
what's happening when you have a strategy for what you value as a company,
00:20:02.204 --> 00:20:06.375
but you don't tie it in real time to every single pay decision.
00:20:06.827 --> 00:20:10.344
And so it found basically there's three ways that these ungoverned decisions
00:20:10.344 --> 00:20:12.737
cost you money. Two are about the decisions itself.
00:20:13.068 --> 00:20:18.780
But the third one is my favorite because it actually reflects the total absence of curiosity.
00:20:19.934 --> 00:20:25.254
And the way that I'll explain that is nobody ever goes back to see whether a
00:20:25.254 --> 00:20:28.487
decision worked. So you're in the heat of it.
00:20:28.783 --> 00:20:32.634
You pay someone at the 99th percentile because they're a special snowflake.
00:20:32.634 --> 00:20:34.488
We're sure they would perform.
00:20:34.900 --> 00:20:38.563
They're ex-Google. They're really important. We know they're going to knock it out of the park.
00:20:39.088 --> 00:20:43.534
But that absence of curiosity is that you never close the loop.
00:20:43.831 --> 00:20:47.554
Every other capital decision in a company gets some sort of postmortem,
00:20:47.554 --> 00:20:51.551
but the largest line item on the P&L around headcount, doesn't.
00:20:51.923 --> 00:20:56.094
So if you're making those decisions 10,000 times a year and you're not learning
00:20:56.094 --> 00:20:59.564
from them, you're not asking the question, you're not using AI to analyze,
00:20:59.564 --> 00:21:02.227
well, did that work? Did that play out?
00:21:03.405 --> 00:21:07.254
It's just an organization that's not curious about its own judgment.
00:21:07.619 --> 00:21:11.822
So I found that to be really interesting in terms of curiosity at scale.
00:21:12.130 --> 00:21:14.220
And what does that look like when it's absent?
00:21:14.556 --> 00:21:18.701
Yeah, I
love it. Let's talk a little bit more about that when it comes to workplace satisfaction.
00:21:19.067 --> 00:21:23.034
You know, the old mantra, and maybe it's still around, it is still around for
00:21:23.034 --> 00:21:24.837
a lot of people, is don't talk about what you get paid.
00:21:25.348 --> 00:21:29.604
And yet people do talk about it. And then there's this feeling of I'm not being
00:21:29.604 --> 00:21:32.684
compensated properly given what somebody else is doing, right?
00:21:32.684 --> 00:21:36.004
There's all these backroom conversations. And so if you tell people not to have
00:21:36.004 --> 00:21:39.354
a conversation, it just means you may not hear about it. It doesn't mean they're
00:21:39.354 --> 00:21:42.674
not having those conversations. And that can lead to, of course,
00:21:42.674 --> 00:21:46.524
when you're feeling like you're being unfairly compensated for a variety of sorts of reasons.
00:21:47.134 --> 00:21:50.675
If we decide not to bring clarity and transparency to that.
00:21:51.928 --> 00:21:57.918
How do you see clarity and transparency and having what you're up to helping
00:21:57.918 --> 00:21:59.845
with having a healthier work environment?
00:22:00.515 --> 00:22:04.968
Oh, my gosh. It's so connected. So this paper that just came out that I mentioned,
00:22:04.968 --> 00:22:07.068
we have employed an IOPHD.
00:22:07.368 --> 00:22:12.358
So it's truly science driven. And it's been so interesting to see how she thinks
00:22:12.358 --> 00:22:16.775
about this link between pay, transparency, employee satisfaction and performance.
00:22:17.088 --> 00:22:23.754
Because pay is a lens through which a company shows what it values.
00:22:23.916 --> 00:22:25.896
It's visceral. It's emotional.
00:22:26.070 --> 00:22:28.314
We're trading our labor and our time.
00:22:28.751 --> 00:22:33.748
And so when somebody wants to know not just what am I paid, but what am I paid,
00:22:33.748 --> 00:22:38.207
and this is the key component, as compared to what my peers,
00:22:38.375 --> 00:22:41.731
others' functions, other people doing the same job at a different company,
00:22:42.612 --> 00:22:47.193
it's if they can't get an answer the dissatisfaction is around like.
00:22:48.108 --> 00:22:51.958
Your question doesn't deserve an answer when this is this is the trade that
00:22:51.958 --> 00:22:57.648
we're making so i do think this confluence of pay transparency legislation and
00:22:57.648 --> 00:23:00.191
ai transformation is creating,
00:23:00.643 --> 00:23:06.938
this incredible moment where companies are now not only required to put good
00:23:06.938 --> 00:23:13.608
faith job ranges pay ranges on job advertisements to show, but it can't be so
00:23:13.608 --> 00:23:15.008
wide you can drive a truck through it.
00:23:15.008 --> 00:23:17.867
It has to be good faith. That's the reason it means good faith.
00:23:18.366 --> 00:23:22.162
But now with the EU Pay Transparency Directive, if you are a global company,
00:23:22.598 --> 00:23:25.448
you're required to adhere to something called right to information,
00:23:25.448 --> 00:23:28.604
which means an employee can request comparable pay.
00:23:29.155 --> 00:23:34.832
And these are all really important. And these are about that satisfaction piece and about the.
00:23:35.466 --> 00:23:40.488
I just want a company to be consistent with what it says it values.
00:23:40.807 --> 00:23:46.342
So a really interesting one around this that we've looked at a lot in terms of tenure.
00:23:46.493 --> 00:23:50.853
So tenure is basically how long somebody's worked for a company,
00:23:51.067 --> 00:23:54.794
right? So that's sort of how you think about tenure.
00:23:55.253 --> 00:23:58.931
And almost every company we've worked with still pays people partly for how
00:23:58.931 --> 00:23:59.850
long they've been there.
00:24:00.303 --> 00:24:04.901
But a lot of times when you look at does it predict someone's pay,
00:24:05.337 --> 00:24:06.621
it's actually not in the mix.
00:24:07.021 --> 00:24:10.841
So a company will say, we care about tenure, we value tenure.
00:24:10.841 --> 00:24:14.481
But then when you look at it and you analyze the compensation details,
00:24:14.481 --> 00:24:16.441
it doesn't actually explain anything.
00:24:17.022 --> 00:24:21.899
So when there's inconsistencies like that, that really sends a message to employees,
00:24:22.523 --> 00:24:27.971
not that the company isn't valuing them necessarily, but that there's confusion
00:24:27.971 --> 00:24:30.648
around, I don't know what it is that you value.
00:24:31.171 --> 00:24:34.311
And so, again, that consistency with what a company says they value,
00:24:34.311 --> 00:24:38.741
why they pay what they pay, and then actually doing that in practice is really
00:24:38.741 --> 00:24:42.101
important. And companies just haven't had the mechanism or the technology to
00:24:42.101 --> 00:24:44.139
be able to do that until now.
00:24:44.609 --> 00:24:48.631
So I think that's really critical because, again, it's not so much about the pay itself.
00:24:48.631 --> 00:24:53.911
It's about the explanation, the explainability, the ability for an employee
00:24:53.911 --> 00:24:57.271
to really understand, okay, I get it. So you pay for this. I don't have that
00:24:57.271 --> 00:25:01.140
yet. I got to work to get that. And when I get that, I'm going to get paid more. That's it.
00:25:02.106 --> 00:25:05.568
And it's so much more difficult than it should be. Yes.
00:25:05.568 --> 00:25:09.998
I mean, so much about having a healthy work environment is having proper expectations.
00:25:09.998 --> 00:25:13.178
And so sometimes people don't even know what they should be paid,
00:25:13.178 --> 00:25:14.398
but they think they should get paid more.
00:25:14.398 --> 00:25:17.858
So even, you know, that, having understanding industry standards,
00:25:17.858 --> 00:25:21.908
understanding all of these other sorts of things, if you equip people with knowledge,
00:25:21.908 -->
00:25:24.538
then you can help them right size their own expectations.
00:25:24.538 --> 00:25:29.684
And as you said, if I feel like I should be getting this promotion or a pay increase,
00:25:30.212 --> 00:25:34.998
but I don't have the certification or these years or this clientele or these
00:25:34.998 --> 00:25:40.958
sales it's it's clear oh this is why Sally is making more because she has these
00:25:40.958 --> 00:25:43.987
factors and I do not instead of they like her more,
00:25:44.487 --> 00:25:49.718
or whether or not that's true we have to consider how things land and how things
00:25:49.718 --> 00:25:56.193
feel and so the more we can give people information that they can look at and really understand,
00:25:57.249 --> 00:26:00.581
what they want to do, why they want to do it, what the organization is going to reward.
00:26:00.953 --> 00:26:05.248
You're just empowering people to make better choices, be more engaged,
00:26:05.248 --> 00:26:09.596
and not have those unnecessary backroom conversations.
00:26:10.267 --> 00:26:13.444
Yeah, and this was, it's so true. So this is something I talked about at the
00:26:13.764 --> 00:26:17.633
Fortune Workplace Innovation Summit because it was a panel around pay transparency.
00:26:18.143 --> 00:26:23.234
And one of the things that you have to address is the flattening of spans and
00:26:23.234 --> 00:26:27.054
layers right now in the manager premium that companies are starting to embark
00:26:27.054 --> 00:26:32.684
upon, which means managers are getting many, many more direct reports that they're responsible for.
00:26:33.038 --> 00:26:37.844
And so one of the things that we're doing is we're embedding that pay explainability
00:26:37.844 --> 00:26:41.144
into the tools they use every day, whether that's Slack or Microsoft Teams or
00:26:41.144 --> 00:26:46.448
Workday or whatever, because what happens is if a manager can't explain a pay decision,
00:26:46.959 --> 00:26:50.404
they'll just avoid the conversation until it becomes a grievance,
00:26:50.404 --> 00:26:54.250
until it becomes something that is impacting and creating attrition risk.
00:26:54.761 --> 00:26:59.874
And the fix is a really easy mechanism. It's capturing the decision and giving
00:26:59.874 --> 00:27:04.763
in the moment the conversation needs to happen, the manager a clear way to say,
00:27:05.418 --> 00:27:11.078
I promoted Andrea and now I need to explain to John why I promoted Andrea and
00:27:11.258 --> 00:27:14.044
what it's going to take for John to get on the same track.
00:27:14.253 --> 00:27:17.561
Like something like that, that's really a management conversation. Or,
00:27:18.054 --> 00:27:23.772
I'm in a conversation with Andrea and I need to know what her range should be for the promotion,
00:27:24.173 --> 00:27:28.422
giving them that information in the moment in the tools they already use today
00:27:28.648 --> 00:27:33.984
is the ability not only to provide explainability around pay, but it also gives these,
00:27:34.524 --> 00:27:38.174
managers the empowerment to not push things off.
00:27:38.946 --> 00:27:43.964
So that they become this sort of elephant in the room that ultimately becomes
00:27:43.964 --> 00:27:46.133
an attrition risk. I think that's really important.
00:27:46.762 --> 00:27:50.894
I think that's so So wonderfully said, very important, and also can help us
00:27:50.894 --> 00:27:56.554
get away from us versus them, right? So if I don't have any sort of explanation,
00:27:56.554 --> 00:27:59.904
I've just been told this is what the range is or this is what's going to happen,
00:27:59.904 --> 00:28:01.280
then I can say, well, I don't know.
00:28:02.080 --> 00:28:05.255
But once you have something that is clear, then you can also have conversations.
00:28:05.609 --> 00:28:07.426
You know, so this is what you're saying the metrics are.
00:28:07.647 --> 00:28:10.700
Are they right for 2026 or whatever year we have to be in?
00:28:11.298 --> 00:28:13.822
Can we have conversations about whether or not this is appropriate,
00:28:13.822 --> 00:28:15.952
given this is the thing that just happened in the marketplace?
00:28:16.335 --> 00:28:21.582
And so when you have them spelled out, then you can have these sorts of conversations.
00:28:21.582 --> 00:28:25.272
Or I can say, oh, I'm valuing something different than this organization.
00:28:25.568 --> 00:28:28.542
This is not a place where I'm going to be able to be moving up because I'm not
00:28:28.542 --> 00:28:30.021
willing to do what they want me to do.
00:28:30.392 --> 00:28:33.538
I'm going to focus someplace else or in a different place within the organization. Yeah.
00:28:35.364 --> 00:28:40.302
And also something that you brought up in a Fortune article,
00:28:40.744 --> 00:28:44.552
which I was surprised about because I think with equality, when it comes to
00:28:44.552 --> 00:28:47.558
women's pay, we think, well, certainly we're getting better or getting better.
00:28:48.213 --> 00:28:54.882
But is it the case that women are making up grounds as being paid for the same
00:28:54.882 --> 00:28:59.714
job and all the same sort of, you know, outliers that men are getting paid?
00:29:00.684 --> 00:29:03.902
Yeah, so let me make sure I understand the question so that we're making up
00:29:03.902 --> 00:29:05.652
ground in closing the gap.
00:29:06.172 --> 00:29:09.202
Closing the gap. It looked like from the article you were saying that we are
00:29:09.202 --> 00:29:14.293
losing ground between the pay gap between women and men.
00:29:15.212 --> 00:29:19.612
We have been. So we were making incremental progress, and then that progress
00:29:19.612 --> 00:29:22.316
started to slip in COVID and post-COVID.
00:29:22.746 --> 00:29:26.943
And I think a lot of this, again, is answering that core question as compared to what.
00:29:27.239 --> 00:29:30.885
Like a lot of what we do with our customers is it's not just about,
00:29:31.556 --> 00:29:36.817
pay, it's about pay as compared
to what. So what are you using to make decisions?
00:29:36.817 --> 00:29:40.387
What percentage are you basing on market? What percentage are you basing on
00:29:40.387 --> 00:29:43.637
your policies? Whether that's we reward tenure, we reward education,
00:29:43.637 --> 00:29:46.225
we reward skills, we reward performance score.
00:29:46.881 --> 00:29:52.057
It's okay to reward things in a way that benefits your business and drives outcomes
00:29:52.057 --> 00:29:55.288
for your business, but you have to stay consistent with those things.
00:29:55.577 --> 00:29:58.637
So one of the things I say to customers all the time is that if we were merely
00:29:58.637 --> 00:30:02.187
consistent with the policies that we put in place at the beginning of every
00:30:02.187 --> 00:30:06.367
year when we're doing our headcount planning, so much of the pay gap would be eradicated.
00:30:06.704 --> 00:30:11.447
It is that once you have that strategy, it doesn't live on the shoulder of every
00:30:11.447 --> 00:30:14.512
single person in the organization as they're making decisions.
00:30:14.878 --> 00:30:20.769
So I think it's a really dangerous place to be to let pay decisions just run
00:30:21.053 --> 00:30:26.086
amok ungoverned because that is a huge reason why the pay gap still exists.
00:30:26.388 --> 00:30:30.137
And if we could build in pay equity as a constraint into every decision,
00:30:30.137 --> 00:30:34.067
which is what our customers are doing now, it's pretty remarkable what they're able to do.
00:30:34.067 --> 00:30:37.841
So when we've looked back at customers prior to implementing this technology,
00:30:38.277 --> 00:30:43.815
the variance on pay decisions away from policy was plus or minus about eight and a half percent.
00:30:44.320 --> 00:30:48.459
So if you think about that across thousands of decisions, that's,
00:30:48.644 --> 00:30:53.197
you know, seven percent of your annual headcount budget that you're wasting
00:30:53.197 --> 00:30:57.439
by overpaying as it relates to what your policies indicate you should pay.
00:30:57.799 --> 00:31:01.450
And in many cases, you don't need to be paying that in order to secure the candidate.
00:31:01.787 --> 00:31:07.547
So there's so much goodness in looking at and governing pay decisions as they
00:31:07.547 --> 00:31:09.637
happen in alignment with your strategy.
00:31:10.057 --> 00:31:16.947
And one of the goodnesses is to reduce those pay inequity gaps that are because
00:31:16.947 --> 00:31:18.417
of something like gender or race.
00:31:19.148 --> 00:31:22.453
Yeah. And I think, you know, when we don't have transparency,
00:31:22.453 --> 00:31:26.149
when we don't know what that side of the organization is doing or that side,
00:31:26.497 --> 00:31:30.773
then, you know, we'd have good intentions. But if we're not paying attention,
00:31:30.773 --> 00:31:32.535
then we may not notice. We may not.
00:31:33.034 --> 00:31:37.333
We think we're, because we have a value that we want to close that gap,
00:31:37.333 --> 00:31:40.673
we think we're doing it. But when they're not looking at the numbers to see,
00:31:41.033 --> 00:31:42.316
are we actually doing it?
00:31:42.682 --> 00:31:46.156
Why has it not happened? You know, asking all those really good questions.
00:31:46.580 --> 00:31:53.134
Or how can we, as an organization, make that go away in something like what you're talking about?
00:31:54.055 --> 00:31:58.944
Yeah. And I think also this mixed message. So the thing we've been talking about
00:31:58.944 --> 00:32:02.554
is this mixed message of what a company's value. How do we make sure their strategy
00:32:02.554 --> 00:32:04.955
is put into practice in every decision?
00:32:05.344 --> 00:32:11.585
The other one is the messages back to the content of your book and your work,
00:32:12.090 --> 00:32:17.918
is the messages, the inconsistent messages we are sending to our kids and to generations about AI.
00:32:18.313 --> 00:32:21.684
So when you look across the spectrum of messages, on one hand,
00:32:21.684 --> 00:32:25.122
we're saying AI is going to replace all the entry-level jobs.
00:32:25.743 --> 00:32:30.143
And so now we've created this culture in our kids. I have a 19-year-old,
00:32:30.282 --> 00:32:36.342
as you do as well, where the commencement speakers who mention AI get booed off the stage.
00:32:36.766 --> 00:32:39.724
They are very, very hesitant and reluctant to use AI.
00:32:39.724 --> 00:32:42.634
My daughter and I wrote companion pieces in Fortune about this.
00:32:42.634 --> 00:32:46.234
It's been fascinating to hear how she talks about cognitive surrender,
00:32:46.234 --> 00:32:52.784
and she doesn't want to give up her creativity and train a model to basically have that creativity.
00:32:52.784 --> 00:32:58.335
And she really believes in sort of human at the helm, which we do as well as a company.
00:32:58.823 --> 00:33:01.464
But we're sending this message that it's going to take all of your jobs.
00:33:02.039 --> 00:33:06.033
And so they have a reaction, totally normal and respectable.
00:33:06.625 --> 00:33:11.604
And then what we know as leaders in companies is the entry-level folks that
00:33:11.604 --> 00:33:15.604
will get picked up and get picked up for a really high price point,
00:33:15.604 --> 00:33:20.987
by the way, are the ones that have taught themselves how to harness and use these skills.
00:33:21.451 --> 00:33:25.230
So on one hand, we're sending a message that it's going to take your jobs,
00:33:25.398 --> 00:33:27.807
which is causing them to run from this technology.
00:33:28.069 --> 00:33:31.544
And then in reality, what's happening are the ones that actually embrace it
00:33:31.544 --> 00:33:34.135
are the ones that are going to get those roles.
00:33:34.489 --> 00:33:41.614
So how in the world can those inconsistencies of messages be consumed generationally
00:33:41.614 --> 00:33:46.404
and give people the right playbook as to what to learn and how to be curious
00:33:46.404 -->
00:33:48.490
because it's so bifurcated.
00:33:49.698 --> 00:33:52.734
That's really interesting so what do you think the solution is,
00:33:53.802 --> 00:33:57.732
I think the solution is having conversations. So one of the things that happened
00:33:57.732 --> 00:34:02.090
when my daughter and I, she did this project on the generational responses to AI.
00:34:02.386 --> 00:34:08.022
She knows that I'm an AI optimist. I use it tremendously in my work. I have a bunch of agents.
00:34:08.342 --> 00:34:12.722
I'm very big on keeping up and training my employees, giving them tools to actually
00:34:12.722 --> 00:34:15.572
harness the technology in a way that keeps the human judgment.
00:34:15.572 --> 00:34:19.592
I think that's critical because we can't let our brains atrophy in terms of
00:34:20.004 --> 00:34:22.611
surrendering all of our human judgment. and,
00:34:23.557 --> 00:34:27.954
But in having that conversation and actually through the process of publishing
00:34:27.954 --> 00:34:32.324
those pieces in Fortune, what was really interesting is I became a little more
00:34:32.324 --> 00:34:36.474
open to needing to rely more on my human judgment.
00:34:36.774 --> 00:34:41.694
And she became a little more AI curious. So she came down the stairs a week
00:34:41.694 --> 00:34:44.921
or two after we had published these pieces in Fortune. And she was like,
00:34:45.252 --> 00:34:47.364
I use Cloud Code to help me with
00:34:47.364 --> 00:34:51.010
this research that I needed to do for a Substack article I was writing.
00:34:51.480 --> 00:34:54.824
It was really cool, Mom. I built something. I felt like a coder.
00:34:54.824 --> 00:34:57.964
I felt like what an engineer might feel like because she built a thing that
00:34:57.964 --> 00:35:00.400
scraped websites and then populated a spreadsheet.
00:35:00.890 --> 00:35:07.181
And conversely, I had forced myself into having one call a day that was just,
00:35:07.686 --> 00:35:11.889
by cell that wasn't recorded where I didn't get the transcript because I started to notice.
00:35:12.519 --> 00:35:16.564
In the knowledge that every call was being recorded and I'd get the transcript
00:35:16.564 --> 00:35:20.904
to feed to my agents to analyze and get my level three listening.
00:35:20.904 --> 00:35:24.554
The listening that you do when you notice people's body language, are they leaning in?
00:35:24.554 --> 00:35:28.594
Are they leaning out? What's the tone of their voice? Like, even over a cell
00:35:28.594 --> 00:35:32.094
phone, you can figure some of that stuff out and then having to synthesize that.
00:35:32.094 --> 00:35:35.513
So even if I went back and reported to my agents what had happened,
00:35:36.018 --> 00:35:41.774
required a different human skill than just being on a call, knowing it was being
00:35:41.774 --> 00:35:46.974
recorded and sort of tuning out a bit, like not having that deep level of listening.
00:35:46.974 --> 00:35:51.894
So long story short, she sort of became a little more open-minded to using it,
00:35:52.294 --> 00:35:54.552
and I became a little more open-minded to not.
00:35:54.958 --> 00:35:58.834
So yeah, I think it was a really clear indication of how...
00:35:59.930 --> 00:36:06.511
We both kind of moved more to the open-minded way of thinking about something
00:36:06.511 --> 00:36:07.744
we had felt very strongly about.
00:36:07.999 --> 00:36:11.540
Yeah, that is so interesting, the mixed messages.
00:36:11.958 --> 00:36:17.111
And when we just talk to people who are like ourselves, then we're going to
00:36:17.111 --> 00:36:18.611
have those ideas reinforced.
00:36:18.611 --> 00:36:22.041
And I think that is, you know, something like AI, a lot of times we think,
00:36:22.041 --> 00:36:25.501
oh, the younger generation, they're more comfortable with technology,
00:36:25.501 --> 00:36:27.438
they're more willing to, the more this, that, and the other.
00:36:28.461 --> 00:36:32.552
In some ways, but in not always. And if we don't have those conversations.
00:36:34.482 --> 00:36:35.521
Then we're not even gonna be
00:36:35.521 --> 00:36:39.758
challenging ourself. Like, what have I offloaded that I should not have?
00:36:39.886 --> 00:36:43.811
Because it's taking away from what I want to be able to have,
00:36:43.811 --> 00:36:50.041
the elasticity of the brain and being able to be creative and to be innovative
00:36:50.041 --> 00:36:53.621
and not, how do I appropriately use it as a tool, right?
00:36:53.621 --> 00:36:57.611
And if we don't have those sort of right sizing and having your kid challenge
00:36:57.611 --> 00:37:01.828
you is a real i've had that too is a really good way to help you stop and think
00:37:02.130 --> 00:37:07.615
you know and how i justifying in the right way using this appropriately,
00:37:08.719 --> 00:37:13.131
so let me ask you about when i think about pay and how we're going to pay people
00:37:13.131 --> 00:37:20.125
or you know year end you know what someone's going to get what about,
00:37:21.241 --> 00:37:26.604
the untangibles so how somebody shows up how pleasant they are to work with.
00:37:27.659 --> 00:37:31.471
Do you think all that stuff can be captured? There's just some sort of formula number?
00:37:31.471 --> 00:37:35.432
Or is there this discretionary, human to human.
00:37:36.570 --> 00:37:42.211
How I feel, how you fit in, that is just not something that can be reduced and
00:37:42.211 --> 00:37:46.551
put in a spreadsheet and then put into exactly how we're going to pay everybody?
00:37:46.551 --> 00:37:47.714
What are your thoughts on that?
00:37:48.797 --> 00:37:54.344
My thoughts on that are that AI is giving us the opportunity to get closer and
00:37:54.344 --> 00:37:56.663
closer to measurement and,
00:37:57.286 --> 00:38:02.494
metrics around the delivery of business outcomes that we can start to track
00:38:02.494 --> 00:38:07.162
in a way that removes some of the bias, some of the proximity bias, some of the.
00:38:08.195 --> 00:38:13.244
Just
bias that you see every day that we all have and is proven as part of the workplace.
00:38:13.244 --> 00:38:18.354
Because that's really the ideal. I mean, it has become a complete dirty word.
00:38:18.354 --> 00:38:22.844
But when you think about a meritocracy, to me, what that means is I am going
00:38:22.844 --> 00:38:25.123
to be valued for the things I deliver to the company.
00:38:25.804 --> 00:38:31.374
And I think that's what we all want. If you have a 10Xer buried somewhere in
00:38:31.374 --> 00:38:36.194
your organization and they're getting paid like a 2Xer, that's a problem because
00:38:36.194 --> 00:38:39.864
you don't know that that person is delivering remarkable results.
00:38:40.364 --> 00:38:45.604
And I would say every single CEO, if you said, would you pay a 10Xer what they're
00:38:45.604 --> 00:38:47.754
worth? Absolutely. You want those people.
00:38:48.369 --> 00:38:52.444
But the problem is, is the way we've organized around building these strategies
00:38:52.444 --> 00:38:56.114
sort of in a room and then having them stay there and not be on the shoulders
00:38:56.114 --> 00:38:57.610
of folks making the decisions,
00:38:58.052 --> 00:39:03.564
is you end up overpaying and underpaying instead of paying for the outcomes that you want.
00:39:03.564 --> 00:39:08.544
And that's never been available to us before because we haven't been able to
00:39:08.544 --> 00:39:13.734
plug into all the systems, capture the context, and understand what does it
00:39:13.734 --> 00:39:16.759
mean to have an employee that's actually delivering business outcomes.
00:39:17.160 --> 00:39:22.105
So my belief is we're moving into a world where we really can start to capture,
00:39:22.628 --> 00:39:27.341
the end of the feedback loop, which is, did that person who we paid up for,
00:39:27.876 --> 00:39:33.263
deliver against the business objectives that we were targeting and justifying that pay for?
00:39:33.588 --> 00:39:38.493
And conversely, do we have high-performing folks somewhere in our organization that are underpaid?
00:39:40.314 --> 00:39:44.975
Yeah. So, of course, there's so many different things that can cause conflict
00:39:44.975 --> 00:39:48.772
at work and certainly when people don't feel like they're being paid appropriately.
00:39:49.214 --> 00:39:51.524
So let's just pivot and talk about conflict.
00:39:52.099 --> 00:39:57.775
In your younger, your first professional jobs, how did you deal with conflict?
00:39:57.775 --> 00:40:01.375
Are you comfortable dealing with it at the work environment? Not comfortable?
00:40:01.955 --> 00:40:04.107
And how does that compare to where you are now?
00:40:06.371 --> 00:40:11.105
I'll start with now now I run toward it I've found that conflict is so much
00:40:11.105 --> 00:40:14.978
easier to address if you just run at it like a brick wall and I would say.
00:40:16.361 --> 00:40:22.400
Results that are not meeting expectations, anything that's tricky or difficult
00:40:22.400 --> 00:40:26.101
to explain, just that's sort of my phrase is like, just run at it.
00:40:26.548 --> 00:40:29.270
Because the more you try to avoid it, the worse it's going to get.
00:40:29.270 --> 00:40:32.010
And the more you try to sugarcoat it, the worse it's going to get.
00:40:32.010 --> 00:40:35.099
So a couple of things I did early in my career that I've really been.
00:40:35.753 --> 00:40:39.180
It's just, I don't do anymore because they don't serve anyone.
00:40:39.180 --> 00:40:43.800
Number one is the sugarcoating. So I have a board member who's an incredible
00:40:43.800 --> 00:40:49.000
mentor and friend, and she always says to me, clarity is kindness. And it's so true.
00:40:49.620 --> 00:40:57.668
It's that critical conversation. It's how do you give someone feedback that is clear?
00:40:57.824 --> 00:41:01.670
And a lot of times that's going to feel bad in the moment because you're telling
00:41:01.670 --> 00:41:03.403
them something maybe negative.
00:41:03.850 --> 00:41:08.128
But the more you sugarcoat that or work around it, they're not benefiting.
00:41:08.500 --> 00:41:13.680
And again, I always think about my role and responsibility is to prepare the
00:41:13.680 --> 00:41:18.592
folks that are in my employ today for roles outside of my organization.
00:41:19.115 --> 00:41:23.790
And if they kind of go through their career and they have some sort of flaw
00:41:23.790 --> 00:41:28.867
that is not addressed directly, we're going to launch them into another job with that same flaw.
00:41:29.047 --> 00:41:32.580
And so we're not serving them and we're not serving our organization either.
00:41:32.580 --> 00:41:36.621
So I would say early in my career, my first tech job that I told you about,
00:41:37.138 --> 00:41:42.330
I was working with a group of women who were also sort of my closest friends.
00:41:42.330 --> 00:41:45.560
I ended up being roommates with one. Like, it's that early career.
00:41:45.560 --> 00:41:47.018
You know, we all go out for happy hour.
00:41:47.575 --> 00:41:50.240
And I got promoted. And now I have to be their manager.
00:41:50.971 --> 00:41:56.530
Oh, my God. Like, if there was a book of, like, 101 mistakes to make as a first-time
00:41:56.530 --> 00:41:58.494
manager, I made 102 of them.
00:41:59.260 --> 00:42:03.130
I just, I wanted to still be their friend. I didn't want to be the boss.
00:42:03.130 --> 00:42:08.386
I didn't like and I was so hurt when I started to be left out of things because
00:42:08.589 --> 00:42:10.030
they saw me differently. They
00:42:10.030 --> 00:42:14.330
couldn't, you know, trash talk or do the things that we had been doing.
00:42:15.173 --> 00:42:20.341
And I just, I couldn't, I couldn't handle it. And I don't think I even learned my lesson in that job.
00:42:20.681 --> 00:42:22.011
Like, I wouldn't say I left that
00:42:22.011 --> 00:42:24.618
job like, oh, I learned all these great things that I'm going to apply.
00:42:24.856 --> 00:42:29.035
It took a while before I
sort of figured out, oh, leadership is very different.
00:42:29.500 --> 00:42:34.521
Leadership can be lonely. Leadership is holding yourself and others accountable.
00:42:34.521 --> 00:42:37.631
Leadership is clarity, is kindness.
00:42:37.753 --> 00:42:42.188
And I think that's really tough for folks to learn when they're young.
00:42:43.102 --> 00:42:48.161
But we learn it eventually, hopefully. Was it anything in particular that happened
00:42:48.161 --> 00:42:53.448
or it's just a series of sort of misfires where you just eventually got the message?
00:42:54.166 --> 00:42:58.461
I think it was just a series of things that eventually you realize.
00:42:58.960 --> 00:43:05.281
Actually, I remember what it was. It was at the company after that one where I had to fire someone.
00:43:05.733 --> 00:43:10.251
And when I fired her, somebody else told me, you know, you could have avoided
00:43:10.251 --> 00:43:14.638
that had you given her feedback. And they asked me the question,
00:43:15.461 --> 00:43:18.864
the question that I ask people today, which is, will she be surprised?
00:43:19.914 --> 00:43:23.281
And if a leader is doing it right, when you have to let someone go,
00:43:23.681 --> 00:43:24.982
they should never be surprised.
00:43:25.220 --> 00:43:28.241
Because you've been giving them guidance and feedback all along,
00:43:28.241 --> 00:43:30.240
they know it's coming. They know they're not performing.
00:43:30.612 --> 00:43:34.054
And so when I had to answer that question, yes, I think she'll be surprised,
00:43:34.484 --> 00:43:37.398
it was so clear immediately that I had not done my job.
00:43:38.307 --> 00:43:42.736
And I think that's really important. Like if you're doing your job,
00:43:43.328 --> 00:43:46.956
nobody's going to be surprised by an outcome like that.
00:43:47.937 --> 00:43:54.137
So that was definitely a moment of, oh, yeah, I guess that's on me.
00:43:54.735 --> 00:43:58.927
That is a really great question and goes back to why we don't sugarcoat things.
00:43:58.927 --> 00:44:04.757
Because clarity is kindness. And that means that if I need to say something
00:44:04.757 --> 00:44:09.810
difficult or that might be difficult for somebody, they need to hear precisely what it is.
00:44:10.054 --> 00:44:12.440
What exactly? Instead of me trying to have to guess.
00:44:12.864 --> 00:44:15.887
So it's not that big of a deal. It is a big deal. You want this.
00:44:15.887 --> 00:44:16.857
I'm not really doing that.
00:44:17.415 --> 00:44:24.164
But coming out and say it. Sometimes people misunderstand what it means to be kind. So, right.
00:44:24.460 --> 00:44:29.027
Because I live in the South and there is, I love living in the South and people are very kind here.
00:44:29.027 --> 00:44:32.157
But then sometimes what needs to be said is that out of kindness and i think
00:44:32.157 --> 00:44:35.517
no that is selfishness and cowardice it's not kindness,
00:44:36.028 --> 00:44:42.195
it is kind to tell somebody something that is negatively impacting their professionalism
00:44:42.468 --> 00:44:45.202
or their whatever job it is that they're getting done,
00:44:46.102 --> 00:44:48.175
and and that's.
00:44:49.190 --> 00:44:53.059
And so the more touches we have with people, then we don't have to sandwich
00:44:53.059 --> 00:44:57.549
everything, right? So if people know how you feel about them and you tell them
00:44:57.549 --> 00:45:02.893
when they're doing good work, then you've, in a way, earned the right.
00:45:03.014 --> 00:45:05.889
Earned the right is kind of weird with your boss. But you can be heard in a
00:45:05.889 --> 00:45:08.469
certain kind of way and go with a certain kind of confidence because it's not
00:45:08.469 --> 00:45:12.849
the only time they're ever having contact with you, right? And so I can trust
00:45:12.849 --> 00:45:15.069
what you have to say that you're not trying to harm me, that you're trying to
00:45:15.069 --> 00:45:17.161
help me. I'm trying to help the business.
00:45:17.649 --> 00:45:21.929
Um and you right so the first time to have a difficult conversation is not the
00:45:21.929 --> 00:45:25.349
first time you have a conversation it should be way down the line because you've
00:45:25.349 --> 00:45:29.722
had all these other sorts of touches such that you are developing that person,
00:45:30.245 --> 00:45:34.019
it is clear that they're doing the right kinds of things and so then it would
00:45:34.019 --> 00:45:37.722
also be clear when they're not because they can trust that you'll tell them they don't have to,
00:45:38.399 --> 00:45:43.939
read your mind who wants to read their boss's mind yeah and it's so So it's
00:45:43.939 --> 00:45:47.754
so much easier said than done, particularly if you're,
00:45:48.845 --> 00:45:52.346
you know, in a startup, you're all in the trenches together and you're.
00:45:53.921 --> 00:46:01.810
It's really difficult to, I think, especially as women, overcome this desire to be liked.
00:46:02.611 --> 00:46:07.214
And I've seen it as a fatal flaw in many women who are trying to become executives
00:46:07.214 --> 00:46:12.464
because you really have to put that aside and do what's best for the business.
00:46:12.464 --> 00:46:16.544
And sometimes that means you are able to create and cultivate wonderful relationships,
00:46:16.544 --> 00:46:21.232
but you cannot put being liked ahead of doing what's right.
00:46:21.738 --> 00:46:27.344
And that's a hard lesson to learn. It really only is solvable when you realize
00:46:27.344 --> 00:46:31.954
that there can be disastrous outcomes for the people that you care about if
00:46:31.954 --> 00:46:33.963
you don't give them the right guidance.
00:46:34.715 --> 00:46:39.394
I think it's really, really important to note and also that we need to really
00:46:39.394 --> 00:46:42.204
tell people what it means to go into leadership. If you are now,
00:46:42.204 --> 00:46:45.544
I mean, so many people get promoted from a pool and now the people that they
00:46:45.544 --> 00:46:48.932
were at the break room with just like their experience, now you're in charge.
00:46:49.506 --> 00:46:53.664
And many times we just see oh i get this extra thing i get to do i get this
00:46:53.664 --> 00:46:58.794
increase in pay and very rarely will someone tell us this is what it's going to cost you.
00:46:59.654 --> 00:47:03.754
This is the the personal and it can be really big and can be devastating when
00:47:03.754 --> 00:47:05.052
people don't understand,
00:47:05.766 --> 00:47:10.364
because they feel like they're the same person but to misunderstand power dynamics
00:47:10.364 --> 00:47:14.719
at work to not understand the particular game that you're playing is a detriment to everybody,
00:47:15.207 --> 00:47:17.134
and so if you not everybody is
00:47:17.134 --> 00:47:20.917
should be a leader, right? Not everybody should be a manager or a leader.
00:47:21.201 --> 00:47:23.354
And that's, we should know that, right?
00:47:24.996 --> 00:47:27.889
But to really help people understand, if you're going to do this,
00:47:27.889 --> 00:47:29.779
this is what it's going to mean.
00:47:29.953 --> 00:47:33.181
And this is now what kindness looks like here. And this is what it looks like.
00:47:33.500 --> 00:47:35.949
If you really want to be liked, then you've got to deal with stuff,
00:47:35.949 --> 00:47:37.509
which can feel hard, right?
00:47:37.509 --> 00:47:42.959
That momentary discomfort for the reputation, the trust that you build.
00:47:42.959 --> 00:47:50.527
And it's a different kind of liking or peacemaking or just a different sort of view of success.
00:47:50.800 --> 00:47:54.625
I think very rarely people, women, don't get that message.
00:47:56.680 --> 00:48:02.102
I agree. And I think especially now we all have to be reassessing whether we're in the right job.
00:48:03.079 --> 00:48:07.349
I think AI transformation is changing so many things and it's making so many
00:48:07.349 --> 00:48:09.739
more roles accessible to folks. And.
00:48:11.942 --> 00:48:17.829
It requires tremendous change agility. It is the most important attribute.
00:48:17.829 --> 00:48:23.139
And I heard, you know, somebody that I really respect, Dee, he's the CHRO at AbbVie.
00:48:23.139 --> 00:48:27.129
He talked about this at a conference I was at. And he was just talking about
00:48:27.129 --> 00:48:32.649
the cultivation of change agility and how it really is the legacy ideal of change
00:48:32.649 --> 00:48:34.041
management in a new world.
00:48:34.953 --> 00:48:41.249
And management those two words the word that change change management to change
00:48:41.249 --> 00:48:47.053
agility like think about that word choice i love words i'm a history nerd i love writing,
00:48:47.546 --> 00:48:52.318
management to agility so something that is very sort of cut and dried clear
00:48:52.724 --> 00:48:57.299
concise concrete you manage the change there's a process by which you go through
00:48:57.299 --> 00:49:02.488
to manage the
thing versus change agility that really signals and.
00:49:03.941 --> 00:49:07.032
It's going to, you got to check and adjust. You got to be curious.
00:49:07.032 --> 00:49:09.514
You don't know. You got to be nimble. You got to be able to roll with it.
00:49:10.058 --> 00:49:16.782
Very different processes for how people can transform in this new era and what
00:49:16.782 --> 00:49:20.838
it requires of us to be in certain jobs. So I think about that all the time.
00:49:21.488 --> 00:49:25.042
I think that's really wonderful because, yeah, change management denotes we're
00:49:25.042 --> 00:49:29.182
changing from this to that and now we're done, right? You've managed the change.
00:49:29.182 --> 00:49:31.455
You've gone through the process and now we can sit in this.
00:49:31.914 --> 00:49:34.886
But agility really is the name of the game. And change is not going away.
00:49:35.217 --> 00:49:39.912
And so while it is the case that humans crave stability, it's how do I find
00:49:39.912 --> 00:49:41.962
that stability in the change?
00:49:41.962 --> 00:49:47.883
How do I develop those skills to not only accept but expect this?
00:49:48.173 --> 00:49:52.822
And so being agile, I think that is a really beautiful, evocative way of helping
00:49:52.822 --> 00:49:58.242
people set their expectations as to what does it mean to be relevant in the
00:49:58.242 --> 00:49:59.632
age of work in which we find ourselves.
00:50:01.235 --> 00:50:04.852
All right. So my last question for you is this. As you look into the world,
00:50:05.412 --> 00:50:10.242
the future, what do you think needs to happen so that not only will all people
00:50:10.242 --> 00:50:15.661
be treated with dignity and respect at work, but that they'll be encouraged to thrive and flourish?
00:50:16.750 --> 00:50:22.479
I think organizations need to leverage this incredible opportunity of technology,
00:50:22.990 --> 00:50:28.871
to start analyzing and giving the ability for their strategy to be in every single room.
00:50:29.754 --> 00:50:31.843
And I think that's important because I think,
00:50:33.141 --> 00:50:36.345
In a lot of companies I talk to, the strategy is very thoughtful.
00:50:37.115 --> 00:50:41.099
It's not flawed. It takes into account a lot of the things they're trying to achieve.
00:50:41.454 --> 00:50:45.495
It's that gap between the development of this very thoughtful,
00:50:45.495 --> 00:50:48.128
intentional strategy and what happens in the day-to-day.
00:50:48.835 --> 00:50:52.985
So my advice would be do whatever you can do to make sure you're closing that
00:50:52.985 --> 00:50:54.589
gap because the tools exist now.
00:50:55.019 --> 00:51:00.465
The tools exist now to pull and push information in a way that it can be analyzed
00:51:00.465 --> 00:51:04.665
and it can actually bridge that So that every single conversation that's happening
00:51:04.665 --> 00:51:05.802
with your frontline, this
00:51:06.121 --> 00:51:10.249
ability to have manager readiness in a way that we couldn't have before.
00:51:11.555 --> 00:51:12.955
It's very transformational.
00:51:12.955 --> 00:51:18.605
And it can provide the transparency that links to not only better engagement
00:51:18.605 --> 00:51:22.625
and better happiness and productivity and safety and all of those things,
00:51:23.693 --> 00:51:27.552
transparency and trust are two sides of the same coin. So the more transparency
00:51:27.552 --> 00:51:31.852
that you're able to offer, the more linkage to that strategy in everyday conversations,
00:51:31.852 --> 00:51:33.742
the more trust you're going to garner from your people.
00:51:34.850 --> 00:51:40.841
And I think that's really an opportunity to build a durable, thriving company.
00:51:41.735 --> 00:51:46.092
Great answer. Well, Maria, thank you so much for being on Conflict Management
00:51:46.092 --> 00:51:47.425
and for this great conversation.
00:51:47.918 --> 00:51:49.811
Yeah, thank you. It was a pleasure.
00:51:50.408 --> 00:51:51.970
Well, take care. Take care.
00:51:52.798 --> 00:51:55.956
Maria, thank you for the conversation, for the work that you're doing.
00:51:56.362 --> 00:52:00.175
It sounds really interesting, and of course it's important.
00:52:00.838 --> 00:52:04.092
Because we're at work, we want to get paid. We want to be paid equitably,
00:52:04.532 --> 00:52:06.589
fairly, however we want to think about it.
00:52:07.269 --> 00:52:11.257
We want, in our organizations, want to treat their people well.
00:52:11.890 --> 00:52:16.212
But certainly, in larger organizations, it's really hard to get your arms around
00:52:16.212 --> 00:52:18.780
some of that information so that you can be consistent.
00:52:19.834 --> 00:52:24.842
So that's wonderful that we have these products available to help us do the
00:52:24.842 --> 00:52:27.434
thing that we want to do anyway, to treat our people well.
00:52:28.051 --> 00:52:31.592
Conflict Managed is produced by Third Party Workplace Conflict Restoration Services
00:52:31.592 --> 00:52:33.137
and hosted by me, Merry Brown.
00:52:33.491 --> 00:52:36.173
You can find us online at 3PConflictrestoration.com.
00:52:36.573 --> 00:52:40.592
Come back. We have new episodes every Tuesday. And if you would like and subscribe
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wherever you are listening or watching this podcast, it's greatly appreciated.
00:52:44.781 --> 00:52:49.582
Our music is courtesy of Dove Pilot. it. And remember, conflict is normal and
00:52:49.582 --> 00:52:52.764
expected. Let's deal with it. Until next time, take care.