Laurie Shakur: We say human resources, but what does that really mean? As companies, we have an extended responsibility almost, not just as the person, but the ecosystem behind them. We no longer look at resources. We no longer look at individuals as beings that show up and do a job because now the work happens in our homes and everything is colliding and coming together in such a dramatic way, we can no longer ignore a single parent or a person who's living in a small work home space that doesn't have adequate space to work because our dining table is now our office table is also our homework table. So there's so much complexity and we can no longer ignore the very common aspect of the humanness as we try to make our contribution. Tim Spiker: When we're at our best as leaders, we are seeing those we lead as whole people, not merely as resources to get things done. I'm your host, Tim Spiker. And this is the Be Worth Following podcast, a production of the People Forward Network. On this show, we talk with exceptional leaders, thinkers, and researchers about what actually drives effective leadership across the globe and over time. You just heard from Laurie Shakur. Laurie is vice president, head of human resources at Rakuten USA, where she's using her 30 years of HR experience to champion a more effective workplace. For Laurie, leaders have a number of obligations when it comes to those they lead, from building up their capabilities to compassionately seeing them as real live human beings. Once you hear the passion in her voice, it will come as no surprise that Laurie is leading those efforts by example. But Laurie came to her perspective through some less than stellar experiences as a follower. And that's where we begin. Laurie Shakur: So I think I may have shared with you, I'm a career veteran in HR. So over 30 years, and the reason I lead with that is I'm the first to admit that sometimes HR leadership has been a little lacking. I think that there have been a number of articles that have talked about the need for better leadership in HR. So let me just begin with humbly, without calling anyone out, I'm going to say that a lot of my learnings were in gaps in leadership. I believe my defining moment of a leader that made me recognize the need to put the human back into human resources was when I was struggling with a personal issue, my daughter was struggling and I needed to devote time off. Not a lot of time. I just need needed to modify my work schedule. And I just never forget the lack of compassion and understanding from that leader. Laurie Shakur: It was all about business and I got through it. I was able to, of course, support my daughter and make some really tough decisions about not staying in that organization and working with that leader and that team each and every day, when people show up in the workplace, they're people. We say human resources, but what does that really mean? And in that interaction with that particular boss, I was a resource. I wasn't a person that was vulnerable and crying out for help and support and assistance. So the first thing I learned from that leader was the importance of looking at the whole person and recognizing that that's who shows up each and every day, although we carve out the resource piece. The other is trust and know that it's hard for an employee to come forward and say that they need help. I was vulnerable and embarrassed and scared. Laurie Shakur: And so the importance of as a leader creating a psychologically safe place where employees can come and say they need help is so important. I think third, and finally in that particular experience, because again, I was just so vulnerable, it was my daughter, as companies, we have an extended responsibility almost, not just as the person, but the ecosystem behind them. And I think we've seen that as we've gone through 2020, and now. We no longer look at resources. We no longer look at individuals as beings that show up and do a job because now the work happens in our homes and everything is colliding and coming together in such a dramatic way. We can no longer ignore a single parent or a person who's living in a small work home space that doesn't have adequate space to work because our dining table is now our office table is also our homework table. So there's so much complexity and we can no longer ignore the very common aspect of the humanness as we try to make our contribution. And that's what work really is. It's our contribution. Tim Spiker: One of the things that I really appreciate about what you articulated there is that while as leaders at work, we need to recognize the whole person. It's also important for all of us to think about the role that work plays in our lives. And that it really is a bit of a legacy that we get a chance to leave behind for other people. And what happens when we look at it as that very important thing, that it is not only for creating income, but also how we're investing our life. Tim Spiker: You really easily lead into something I wanted us to spend some time about. You work at Rakuten. I was thinking about our previous conversation and I look at the word and you shared with me like, why is this a hard word for people to say, I don't understand. I mean, it was hard for me to say, but you guys even had a contest for people to pronounce the company name, R-A-K-U-T-E-N. It's not a complicated word, but what are the crazy things that you've heard with regard to, why do people have such a hard time with the company name? Laurie Shakur: It's mystifying to me. I've heard Rakuten, Rakuten. I mean, I think the beauty of it is if English is our one and only language, sometimes we fumble and Rakuten is a Japanese word that means optimism. And I'm so grateful and humbled because we live it and breathe it every day at the company. It's not just a banner and our title. It's really part of the DNA of the company. Tim Spiker: I want to come back to something you said about human resources. And I will confess that I've spent most of my career trying to stay out of human resources and the reason why, and I don't want to offend anybody that's listening or you, but it's because that group has not traditionally been as well respected in the executive suite as other roles like operations, sales, brand management, anything you want to think about in an organization. So I think about the need for putting the human back in human resources, to use your words. How do you think that something that literally has the word human in its title, how do you think the human initially, as you go back and look at your 30 years in human resources, how did human drop out of there in the first place? Laurie Shakur: I love this question and no offense taken. I've done a number of talks and panels where I joke and say, "HR, and this is going to date me, is the Rodney Dangerfield of business." We're just not respected and undervalued. And many of us show up broken and bruised. I used to have this little standup where I said I could align every role in HR with a failed, missed opportunity and a broader business role. So our recruiters are the sales folks that didn't make it. Our comp people are the finance leaders, our HRIS are the techies, and what are our business partners, the camp counselors. Laurie Shakur: But I think the shift happened when as a desire to get a seat at the table, we focused on analytics, business, return on investment, and we stopped talking about the people piece. Now, clearly there's been a reintroduction of wellbeing and wellness, but for years, the human resource business partner, the practitioner was asked to bring more analytics and have a data driven approach to making any recommendation. Well, if 2020 has shown us anything, it's that sometimes you don't need data. You need instinct, you need compassion, empathy, and all the other things that we've talked about before that isn't data driven. Sometimes you just need to use plain intuition and ask what's the best thing for everyone involved. And sometimes there's not an analytic that will line up with that. Tim Spiker: There's causation and correlation. And I think as HR professionals are working so hard to be relevant in the executive suite, which oftentimes has driven it towards a more data driven perspective, have we understood well the difference between those two things and how does all that play into longevity, retention? What does it mean to be able to keep a hold of the people? All of those things are related. So let's talk about the great resignation., how's that impacting Rakuten? How's that impacting you? And what kind of strategies are you guys thinking about as an organization in response to it? Laurie Shakur: So I'll begin with me and then I'll talk about Rakuten and then I'll talk about what I think is the bigger. So me, I think I, like so many other people, I was so unhappy and sad in 2020. So 2020 for me was truly a transformational year because I had to slow down. I had to slow down and reflect like so many of us when you're sheltered in place, there's an opportunity to reflect on what's working and what's not. And for me, I realized as a person I wasn't working. And what do I mean by that? I was doing, going, leading, being. Was I happy? I don't know. The 70 hour weeks, 80 hour weeks, the traveling nonstop, the checking the box and doing this. I don't know if I was happy. I know that when I talked to my family and my close friends, they never saw me much. Laurie Shakur: And so that was my personal experience. And it forced me to take a closer look at happiness and help me define it. I was not alone in my unhappiness, and I believe other people during this very uncertain, ambiguous time of transformation, they also sought happiness. And so I literally took a course in compassion, offered through Stanford, and they have a definition of some of the science behind happiness. And I find it so aligned with what employees want and what leadership requires. And the first is the science of happiness says that everyone seeks and it's our natural impulse to want to be happy. And so we look for a social connectedness, we look for a sense of purpose. We want to have a positive mindset. So, I mean, of course there are illnesses that would provoke a different, but normally we want to be positive. And then we not only thinking and feeling, but doing acts of kindness. Laurie Shakur: So when I got introduced to that science of happiness, from a personal perspective, I said, "Wow, that's it. Social connectedness. That's what people were missing through their desire to leave." Companies have let people down and didn't create experiences of happiness. Employees didn't see a social connectedness. They didn't understand their purpose because we needed to redefine our purpose and the way we did work differently. And it was happening so quickly. And we were stumbling that I think we lost so many people. So what is Rakuten doing? And I'm so excited for the company. I really am, because we've got a group of leaders, not just in HR, but across the business that recognize the importance of creating an environment of belonging and happiness. And so we are creating processes and tools and support systems for a social connectedness. And there are all the basics, but they're what's missing in so many organizations. Laurie Shakur: So we're creating and building out support for global employee resource groups. And we've got the Rakuten Cares, which is the beginning of our philanthropic community outreach. People want to know that where they work supports their social connectedness. It goes beyond just doing a timecard and showing up. And so we're focusing on that and our sense of purpose as an HR organization, we're really doubling down on role clarity, performance management, job descriptions, having clarity, mentoring, coaching, so that everyone can really understand what's expected of them and giving them the resources so that they can be successful in their roles. Tim Spiker: I would jump in here on that for just a second, because I realized that job clarity doesn't sound like ... There's not going to be a sexy HBR article written about that, but just think about how any of us has felt when we've been in a role or a situation where we've felt unclear, what am I supposed to do? What am I responsible for? What am I going to be held accountable to? When I don't know those things, I'm going to say that sounds a lot like the opposite of happiness. But if you and your peers stepped back from the organization and looked and said, "Hey, we need to make sure people have a clearer sense of obligation and purpose around what they're doing, around what we're doing." And you helped people understand where they stood. I see that being an important part of happiness because of how unhappy it is when we are unclear. So that makes sense to me, even though I know that nobody's going to do a two hour documentary on it. I think it's very important. Laurie Shakur: Thank you for that. And you're probably the second person, me being the first that gets excited over this. I joke every performance management season. I say, "It's our Superbowl. And it's our opportunity to support leaders in the most critical conversation and process all year." And I think that's some of the myths, right? We hold it for once a year. So we're introducing more frequent check-ins and goal alignment. One of the things that I noticed, and we're doing this now, how have our roles changed? So we had to very quickly pivot, but did we go back and revisit every single role and ask if there are new behaviors or technical skills required to do our roles remotely? What I love about what we did, we're so extraordinary. And I say, we broader than Rakuten. I say humans. We were able to pivot without any sort of playbook and figure out how to do our jobs remotely in this environment, with safety as an issue, as HR practitioners and leaders, we should be focusing on role clarity. Laurie Shakur: And another key aspect of that is what's next? Where am I going? I think that while we can't predict and say with some level of granularity, if you do this, this, and this, and in a year, you'll move to this. That's unrealistic. Work doesn't operate that way. We grow, evolve, spans and layers, scope, complexity, and impact all play into whether or not a role should be increased. And if an individual should be promoted, but I think we can do a better job of providing not necessarily a roadmap, but a framework. And here's what the next could look like. But I think the most important thing is here's how we're going to develop you, regardless of whether your next is here. We have a responsibility as your employer today to build out strengths and skills and capabilities and competencies to make you magnificent here or anywhere you choose to go. Laurie Shakur: And so we're focusing a lot on development work. We had to pivot like every other company from in-person training to remote and virtual learning. Well, now, as we revisit going back into the office, we're coming up with our hybrid ways of developing individuals, going back to happiness. Employees want to know that they're not only valued as they show up, but their wellbeing and their development is of the utmost important to the organization. And that they're not the only ones worried or concerned about their growth, that the organization in which they work also has a meaningful stake in their development. Tim Spiker: One of the things I hear in that, Laurie, that I think is important is a separation between development and promotion, because you're not always going to have those promotion opportunities available. There's a structure to the organization. And in terms of moving to a different job role, that's kind of "up the chain of command" that may or may not be there at a given time when you want it, but development never needs to stop. So as you share that story and talk about the organization's responsibility to develop people, no matter what part of the no matter what that lands on me is no matter whether there's a promotion around the corner or not yet, we still want to help develop people. Laurie Shakur: When we create a culture of curiosity and openness to learning, continuous learning and growth, it won't matter how quickly you progress and move. I look back on some of my career experience and this is going to date me, but we've already talked about my 30 years experience. So of those 30 years, I spent two, 10 years stints. And so I've got the unique experience of not once, but twice going from individual contributor and growing and climbing up to director, twice in HR. So literally started from ground zero twice. Laurie Shakur: Why am I sharing that? Because in those two companies that I worked, there weren't always promotions and literal next roles, but those two experiences, I grew exponentially. They were older, more established companies where tenured people tended to stay. And because of the coaching, support and care that I had from my managers, it didn't matter that I ... I was rewarded of course, but I wasn't always looking at the next big gig because I was growing and learning in every role and I was expanding. You've seen the visuals of it's not this straight ladder up, but it could be sideways. And I know that because of those years where I spent just perfecting and becoming an expert, right where I was, I didn't have these toll gates that I passed quickly, it's helping me today as I build and groom the next generation of HR leaders coming behind me. Tim Spiker: That's really great. It takes me back to my grad school days when we learn the equity theory of compensation, which essentially says, we get compensated in lots of different ways. We get compensated with money. We get compensated through the quality of the relationships that we have at work. And here you're describing being compensated with development, even when promotion wasn't necessarily available. Tim Spiker: And when I think about all of the senior leaders that would be listening to this conversation and you look into your organization and let's say you've got an organization that's full of talent and potential, by the way, if you've got that congratulations, good job. But you're thinking, how on earth can we possibly have a chance of retaining this talent when I know that we don't have a promotion opportunity for every single one of them? Well, I think it gets back to this question. How are we compensating them when it comes to development? And yes, I know some of them will leave. I get it. But if we let that be the reason that we don't develop them, then we're going to be shooting ourselves in the foot. And I'm just thinking about the way that you were compensated during that time, even though a promotion opportunity wasn't available for you in those organizations. Laurie Shakur: That's a great call out because I did feel so valued. I felt that the organization in this instance, I always talk about the relationship between an employee and their manager was so solid. And it was so vulnerable that these leaders ... And I had multiple ones. So it wasn't just one. I had multiple leaders that said, "Hey, I want you to consider this. And have you thought about this program?" And it just became a part of me as I wanted to define my leadership. I wanted to make sure that I'm encouraging growth. Now, in full transparency in the last two years since the pandemic, I don't think anybody on my team has grown. We can barely get through our desktop mandatory compliance training, but you know, there's a time and a season. Tim Spiker: Yeah, it's been a season, it's been a particular season. And hopefully now we're starting to not turn the corner necessarily back to where we were because I don't think any of us thinks we're going back to where we were, but turn the corner and start to begin to see, okay, we've been surviving, I think is surviving ... Are we going to move past that towards thriving again? And I think hopefully we're turning that corner where growth and development can be a priority again. Tim Spiker: You mentioned in your own development with the course that you went to at Stanford, you mentioned the word compassion. And when you and I were visiting previous this interview, you talked about this idea of wanting to grow and develop leaders who had compassion as a priority as a part of who they are. Talk to me a little bit about how your perspective has evolved to see that as a critical leadership trait. Laurie Shakur: I didn't know. I didn't even know compassion was a thing. I mean, I talk about it, but didn't know it was a thing. And in 2020, as tough as it may seem, when we recognize that we would have to continue running a business. And by that, I mean managing under performance. And what did that mean if we had to let someone go? And I didn't use compassion initially, but I said, what would be the right thing to do? I remember vividly, what's the right thing to do? And then immediately what popped into my mind was although nominal some sort of compassion pay because at the time, I mean, there was just so much uncertainty and how could we in good conscience, even though this person was underperforming, we couldn't keep them. That's just not good business, but how do we support a soft landing? Laurie Shakur: And so that was the first time I introduced just compassion pay. Subsequently, we now have compassion leave. We implemented that with support and acknowledgement of what's going on in Ukraine. And so many people globally have ties there. And so we want to have bandwidth and allow people just time off if they need it just to grapple with it. But compassion as a competency for leaders became very clear to me when I really learned the definition of compassion through that program. And compassion is the expansion of our heart that says we can look at how others are being treated, how we treat others and how we treat ourselves and how we do that in a kind, considerate, and I'm going to use a four letter word- Tim Spiker: I know what it is. I know what it is. It starts with an L. Laurie Shakur: Love. Got those four letter words, love, and there's so much power in that. And so as I've begun, having more and more conversations since 2020 around what's the compassionate thing to do. It's just getting legs of its own. And so leaders are introducing it. I'm no longer the only one saying it, leaders are saying what's the most compassionate thing to do. And so there is coursework and there's a discipline around it. And I'm trying to figure out how I can get the trainer certification. So I can really formally introduce it as a course within our leadership series. And I love my, this is a plug out for my global talent management and inclusion team. They are amazing. And so receptive of ideas. And this is one that we're noodling on. How do we introduce compassion as a competency for our leaders? Because that ability to expand our hearts is what's required today in leadership. Laurie Shakur: And again, I just have to go back to 2020. It showed us all that we are in this together, and it's no longer them versus us, resources and leaders. It's us getting through this and leaders are called, and I love how you describe it in your book, we're called to do more. I think one of the things you referenced is instead of leaders talking about trust, leaders should talk about how they could be more trustworthy. Well, we become being much more trustworthy when we demonstrate an amount of compassion, when we show the humanness. Employees are smarter than us. They can sniff us out if we're not being vulnerable and true. They know. They know. And so that's why I believe that compassion is going to be the superpower for great leaders, their ability to understand, empathize and create an environment where compassion drives all of the decision, making the communication and how we support our employees. Tim Spiker: When you start talking about, "Hey, we need leaders across the organization that have a better sense of compassion," I'm just curious. Are there people that say, "What on earth are we talking about?" Are you getting significant pushback on that or not? Laurie Shakur: So again, I think it speaks to the culture. None. The only question is, "This is great. How will we do it? And how will we measure it?" Tim Spiker: The last one's tough, really tough. Laurie Shakur: I've got a simple solution. We define it. We hold leaders accountable. We give them some tools and then we ask employees how they feel. Tim Spiker: It is. If you're going to ask the people who report to me at the end of the week, was I compassionate? I'm like, "Well damn, I better be compassionate." I try to make it really complicated and come up with some, I mean, I'm an engineer by education. So I like numbers and I like measuring things. But sometimes I think there's some people around me that would attest to the fact that I can make things more complicated than they need to be sometimes. And I love your answer. Well, here's what we're going to do. We're going to ask the people who work for you if you're compassionate. There we go. That's wonderful. And the research is there. It's conceptual at a certain level, but it's not when you just ask people, who do you trust? Do you trust the others focused compassionate person? Or do you trust the person that is only about themselves and not interested in other people? Tim Spiker: And time and again, the answer's for people who are very consistent in that. We have a much greater level of trust and bring more of who we are to the enterprise we're engaged in when people show up with things like compassion and that's statistically provable. So you have, the statistics are there, Laurie, they support what you're doing, even if not everybody's aware of them. Now we've talked about your role being here in the US with Rakuten, but Rakuten of course, is a global organization. So I'm curious as you lead the US operations towards these type of things, what is it like talking with your global counterparts? Where are they at with these ideas? How do they feel about them? Laurie Shakur: So actually I want to level set. So I am head of HR for probably an extremely uniquely global aspect of the America's Rakuten. So I've got a team in Singapore, Australia, Brazil, and the EU. They're saying, "It's about time, US, that you're talking about this." And when my EU team hears this, they're going to laugh and say, "We've been on this journey for a while." And so I'll give you an example. Just prior to, or maybe at the launch of 2020's beginning of the pandemic, they reached out and said, "We want to certify members of our team as mental health first aiders. And that's very specific where you get trained. You're not a practitioner, but you're capable of seeing some of the signs and symptoms if someone is struggling in the workplace. Before I even knew that that existed. They were saying, "We want to be certified in it." Laurie Shakur: And so I share with you outside of the US, at least with my team, there's an appetite, there's an alignment. The leaders are in support of it. So again, no resistance. I think we stumble on things in the US because we're really mindful of the employee experience and not doing anything that could be disruptive and perceived as harmful to employees. So I think sometimes we're overly cautious, but if we're doing what's kind, considerate, how can we mess up? But I understand that there's got to be a framework, a process just to ensure that whatever we create is scalable and globally consistent. Tim Spiker: So in so many ways, what you're talking about is developing, not just skills and competencies, you're talking about developing who the person is. You're helping them take steps forward as a human being, which is incredibly challenging and rewarding and valuable work. So what is it like to be spearheading an effort that's, frankly, it's not at arm's length. If you're asking me to be a more compassionate leader, you're asking me to be a more well developed kind of person, which doesn't mean I had zero compassion before. You're just wanting to help me build on what I have and become more of that. So what are you seeing as the challenges in helping people to develop who they are, literally who they are as a human being? Laurie Shakur: Depending on the level of self-awareness, you get some resistance. There's always a percentage of leaders, "I'm compassionate. I got that. Check the box." But there's probably some opportunity for some individuals to do the work. And so we've introduced Thrive, Modern Health, all of the necessary tools where an individual can go on their own unique journey of self awareness and self improvement. So we're introducing all the tools. And so this is where my grand scheme falls apart, because hope is not a strategy, but I'm hoping that leaders recognize that there's a need in order to do this work to hold up the mirror. So I can't talk about compassion unless I'm first compassionate with myself. It was so humbling when I began the course and learn that there's three lenses of compassion. I can be so compassionate and feel when I see world events, I can demonstrate compassion to a total stranger more so at the time when I began on this journey than I did with myself. Laurie Shakur: I was so hard on myself. I was so unforgiving and unkind. Some of the self-talk when I look back and read my journal entries, bring tears to my eyes. And so what's needed is the self-reflection and the work. And that's where I'm less confident because if there aren't prompts or requirements to push people in that direction, they may not really do the work. And this is where it all fails. I had to do the work. For the first time, I was back under the same roof with my early career stage daughters, 22 and 24. Boy, was that an eye opener. I think we went down from childhood up into a current state, every miss that I had as a mom. It was tough, but I had to own that and recognize, "Wow. And so where do we take it from here?" Laurie Shakur: And I made some commitments of more time and more attention and more focus and being a better person, even at a distance. Now I can not go back to missing some of those events when they were in middle school. But what I can commit to today is how I'm going to show up and be very present in their early adult lives. But that requires work and it's vulnerable work and it's difficult work. And so when you talk about how will we get there, that's the risk because everyone's got to want to do the work. Tim Spiker: Well, I hope over time as you help lead the organization down this path. And so many parallels with the work that we do that over time, we're able to consistently help people do that thing, looking in the mirror. And I think what you said is very important for those of us that are passionate about these things and see the value that it creates on a variety of levels that we have to do the work ourselves, which doesn't mean that we show up as perfect, but it does mean that we can help people be encouraged about the effort because it is work. Tim Spiker: And I love that you're saying that because it's hard, but you're also, you see, you're investing, you talked about the investment and development. This development does not stop at the office door. So hopefully over time, as people wrestle with the idea of doing this really hard work, that they'll see that there's not just an opportunity for Rakuten in it, but they'll see that there's an opportunity for them in it as well. So I don't know if they're coming back to you with those comments yet, but hopefully they will soon, if they're not. Laurie Shakur: What's wonderful is my team is. So we do regular check-ins and they talk about their connectivity and how the mindfulness, the compassion work is having a positive impact on their personal lives. Tim Spiker: Well, tell us, as we begin to wrap up here, you're painting a picture. You're painting a vision for the leaders and the organization, as you lead through the HR endeavor as you do, what do you see forward? What are you hoping for? Laurie Shakur: Got two answers. One is I'd love to see as an organization we continue with what I describe as our grit. So Rakuten has wonderful behavioral values and principles for success, and those are aspirational because we've come together as a collective group of organizations through acquisition. But what I've seen over the last two plus years now is we've demonstrated grit. And I define grit as gratitude. There's such a sentiment of gratitude at Rakuten, and I hope that we will continue. I think that that's just part of our DNA. The art is resilience. You've given me a definition of it, but as I've formed this, I recognized that somehow we got through it and we got through it by putting our own oxygen mask on. And I love how you said and being other's focused. And we're beginning to really get our stride in that and put putting processes in programs, in place to really further support that resilience. Laurie Shakur: We've leveraged a lot of instinct and intuition. And I think we want to introduce more of that into our leadership. That's what got us through these last couple of years. There was no blueprint. There was no playbook. Instinct, and intuition is what led us through to be successful. And then lastly, building trust. How are we doing that? I think we need to think differently. We need to feel differently and we need to do different. And that's a combination and it's going to be a unique recipe for every leader. Laurie Shakur: How do we think about our body of work, our contribution, our legacy, how do we care more? How do we demonstrate that we care about our teams, our colleagues, our clients, everyone that's associated with us? And how do we follow those thoughts and feelings with the appropriate actions and behaviors so that we really can sustain and do what we set out to do? And I'm just so excited. It's such a bright time. Again, we've gone through so much as humans and I just think we're on such a wonderful journey and it's a turning point and we've got a decision to make. And I'm grateful to say that Rakuten from where I see it, we're making the decision to transform into even a better version of ourselves by focusing on some really basic, but yet fundamental aspects of how we can lead better. Tim Spiker: As we wrap up today, there are three things with regard to my conversation with Laurie that I want to make special note of. The first one is just about Laurie as a person. Did you notice the energy and creativity that she brought, not just to our discussion, but to her work as a senior leader in the HR function. I just want you to notice that because as we talked a little bit about that role, the senior HR leader, what we need in our organizations, as we need more people like Laurie, people who are creative, people who are engaging with the business on the whole, people who are bringing energy. It doesn't help our organizations to have HR leaders that are simply checking boxes. We need creativity. We need engagement that it is connected to the strategy of the business. I don't know if you noticed, but at one point she was talking about the need to let people go for under performance. Tim Spiker: And she was saying, in fact, that's exactly what we need to do, but we also need to think about how we do it. So there was a connection to the business results, which sometimes frankly, HR leaders sometimes can seem like they're a little bit disconnected from what the business objectives are and what the commercial enterprise is all about. But what you heard in her was incredible creativity, incredible energy. She was out in front. She is out in front looking for how to make the organization better. For everybody who's listening, I hope you either have somebody in the HR role that is wired that way, or you are looking for somebody. Tim Spiker: Second, I want to go back to the part of the conversation where we were talking about Laurie's own development. And did you notice that when she was in a season where there were no promotion opportunities available to her, but her leader was still investing heavily in her growth and development, did you notice her perspective on retention? She was happy to be there. She was happy to be in that role, even though promotion opportunities weren't really clear for her. They weren't really obvious or available, but still she was growing in her career because of the investment in her growth and development as a professional from the leader she was working for. So in that spot, we were talking about separating promotion and development, and you heard in what she shared, just how valuable that is. And it's a really important separation I think that we all need to keep in mind. Tim Spiker: Finally, she made a comment about the people that we are leading in organizations. And what she simply said is when people show up they're people. They are people. We have to keep that in mind, if we want to lead effectively. We have to understand that we are leading people who have flaws and families and hopes and pressures that come at them, not just at work. I think the post COVID world is pushing us in a direction to see people as people. And the truth is if we ever want to be the very best leaders, we are capable of being, we have to engage with and see the whole person. Tim Spiker: So that leads me to the question that I want to leave you with today. When you think about the individuals that you're leading on your team, are you thinking about them and seeing them as whole people? I'm Tim Spiker, reminding you to Be Worth Following and to follow us, whoever you get your podcasts. If you've heard something valuable today, please share our podcast with your colleagues and friends. And if you're up for it, leave us a five star review. Thanks for listening.