Quick Take | Tips to Help Executives and Leaders Grow
The Quick Take podcast provides concise and actionable tips to help executives and leaders, like you, tackle the thorny and complex challenges that affect us daily. By leveraging their experience and relationship with other global leaders, our hosts provide suggestions that are based on their deep experience as leaders and coaches but also pressure tested in boardrooms everywhere because they asked their friends….(almost). Hosted by James Capps and Susie Tomenchok. Episodes release weekly on Thursdays.
Quick Take | Tips to Help Executives and Leaders Grow
When to Leverage HR for a Thriving Workplace
What if your HR department could be your organization's secret weapon for success? This episode shatters common misconceptions about Human Resources, revealing how HR can transition from being seen as a policing entity to a strategic partner. We dive into educating teams on the proper ways and times to engage HR effectively, and how encouraging employees to resolve conflicts independently can foster personal growth and maturity.
Transform your workplace dynamics with our deep dive into leadership and conflict resolution. We discuss how to empower employees to navigate conflicts on their own and identify the crucial moments when leaders need to step in. Learn about the protocols essential for escalating serious concerns like safety, financial irregularities, and harassment.
In this episode, we discuss the following:
1. Understanding the correct context for involving HR.
2. Encouraging employees to resolve disputes without HR or leadership mediation.
3. Equipping managers with tools and training to manage team conflicts.
CONNECT WITH SUSIE:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/susietomenchok/
CONNECT WITH JAMES:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/capps/
Welcome to the Quick Take podcast, the show where you get targeted advice and coaching for executives by executives. I'm Suzy Tominchuk.
Speaker 2:And I'm James Capps. Give us 15 minutes and we'll give you three secrets to address the complex topic of issues that are challenging executives like you today.
Speaker 1:Welcome to Quick Take. I'm your host, Suzy Tomaszek, along with James Capps. I'm just going to keep going. How are you, James?
Speaker 2:You go, suzy, I am great. Thank you very much for asking. How are you?
Speaker 1:I'm good you know we're going to talk today about HR and when is an appropriate way or when are the times to use and leverage HR? And it's so interesting because I started thinking about this and thought I reflected on some situations that I observed where people had gone to HR and it was definitely not the right decision. And it ended up blowing up in their face what they felt like the results would be, and a lot of times it was emotionally driven and they were trying to get back at somebody and so.
Speaker 1:I'm curious to hear your lens on this topic and where we're going to take the discussion.
Speaker 2:You know, I think one of my observations in my career has been that that we are wired to believe HR as a certain thing. You know, when you're a kid and your brother and sister are beating you up and stealing your lunch money, like I know your sibs all did.
Speaker 2:You you, you, you have somewhere to escalate to, and it's your parents. Go on to school, school, and again your friends are stealing your lunch money, and so you have somewhere to escalate to, and so you go to your teachers and so, and that that kind of escalation exists. And even through college, you know, you feel like there is that higher power. And so we get to our careers and believe that that hierarchy continues to exist. And by the fact, by our wiring, we think HR is that. And so so many times you hear junior employees or people who have not worked in maybe more of a robust company, that well, I'm taking X to HR.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I think the reality is, as leaders, we need to educate our teams on the framework and what HR is and who and what you should use them for. I'm a huge fan of HR. I think HR is a great partner. I am famously known I'm sure some of our listeners remember for saying you know they put the H in HR. Not that that really meant anything, but it was really my way of saying. Don't try to figure out what that means. I am Don't. It'll derail the whole thing. But at the end of the day, hr you know, the HR groups that I have really partnered with are the ones who are there to help us grow the organization, organizational dynamics, driving the organization culturally in a positive direction. So I'm a big believer, but I think all of our HR brethren and friends would tell us that they would equally like to be involved in those things and not in this, this, you know, in the policing which so many people think HR should do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think companies have been really good, as I've observed the evolution of HR and and, like you said, as a partner in the business, as an extension to leadership, to help advise them along the way. They've done a great job, but there still are these things that filter through that it's like who's going to resolve this for me? So I'm going to just go to HR.
Speaker 2:You know, I I would not be surprised if we get a tremendous amount of feedback on this one, and maybe we should have thought it through before we did it. But the truth is that I actually think you're wrong in the sense that the number of smaller companies that I work with, where HR is clearly just responsible for filling the refrigerator, where, yes, perhaps your point is valid, that companies in mass or there is a size of company in which that evolution has occurred, but there is a tremendous amount of companies who still have not understood or embraced that.
Speaker 2:And I think our listener population is pretty wide and I think there are certainly listeners here who have an HR organization who is not part of that discussion, and so I think you know HR is probably one of the more challenged organizations groups to evolve, and not because of their desire, but I think, because of leadership's desire to to try to figure out where they are.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I will say that that's a very fair point.
Speaker 2:I I definitely painted that with a very broad brush, but I think I was also trying to say, while they're they're aligning as a partner, they still have to take a handle these tangles that they should not be involved in so no, I think you're right and I think that, again, what we should, you know, uh, what we can offer today is a framework by which you, as a leader, as an executive, can share with your team, or things you can think about as as it relates to HR and their position in your company.
Speaker 1:All right, so what's your first one?
Speaker 2:Well, I think the first one is you need to create an ecosystem in which your employees resolve conflict themselves.
Speaker 1:Yes, right.
Speaker 2:At the end of the day, you want your people to be adults and behave a certain way, and conflict is healthy in some regards. We talk about that quite a bit, and if you, as a leader, put yourself in a position to always be the policeman and or HR to put in that place to be the policeman, then, your team, your individual contributors are not going to be growing and not contributing where they should.
Speaker 2:So my first piece of advice is make sure you create an environment in which you encourage and require that your employees resolve conflict themselves.
Speaker 1:I completely agree, and so I want to say what that means is, when somebody comes to you, you say to them how are you going to take care, how are you going to handle that? And you force them to take action on that, because it's not just you don't also want them just to think venting is okay and letting it go.
Speaker 2:No, yeah, that's so good, and I love the way you said that and and I can hear the voices of my, of the leaders who I've really aspired to be like, and and where I've gone in and said something with the implication that I wanted them to address it and and maybe I wasn't completely blunt or kind of danced around it, and their voice was like how are you going to handle that? Yeah, and I think you know that's that moment where you go from, you know, a, a listener, to a coach and you want to say, all right, I acknowledge that that's a thing. Now what are you going to do?
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And I think that's that's huge.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right. What's the second one?
Speaker 2:Well, and then the second one is really um. It's a similar, but I think it's equally important as equip your managers with the skills to um address those types of difficult situations. And so, you know, I was coaching an executive leader who had an engineering team and the engineers were at odds about the project timeline and their inability to address that was undermining the project. So, really, rather than having me come in or the leadership team come in and solve it, we worked with their manager to have tools to break down that issue. So they did a brainstorming session on how they could address the schedule. They did a open conversation around how they could deal with these things. So we gave the manager the tools to address that conflict because there did need to be some help, kind of working things out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is so good. I actually wrote it down because, especially if you're leading leaders, you're also leading their leadership around how to resolve these things. So your advice, or how you handle it, it has a ripple effect.
Speaker 2:Right, right, right, and you know this is those areas where you're probably getting the story third hand.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Two people were not getting along. There was some sort of conflict. Maybe it was a schedule issue, maybe it was some you know was some solution couldn't be, they couldn't come together with it, or they're going to communicate differently and that manager is coming to you Again, listen and say all right, here's a way that I would address that by here. I'm going to give you a tool, maybe, so you go solve it. Versus, let me step in, get you out of the way and I'll solve it. Hey, have you tried a brainstorming session? Have we tried a mediator? Maybe bring in Susie who can kind of facilitate a conversation around that. Again, giving your leadership team tools to do that.
Speaker 1:I just want to kind of zoom out on your point too is we are all biased We've talked about this before Like there's certain people on our team that we just like more and we invite the conversation. So watch what happens in the noise in your head about how you're evaluating what they're saying, because if it does, if they're explaining a story about how somebody lost it and they were really angry can you believe that You're still human? You could get caught up in the story, the drama of the story, and then you might have another direct report that comes to you with a similar thing and you're just like handle it, take care of this, you know. So also, be really careful how you handle these things, because it's a slippery slope.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's important for you to. You know, try to bring yourself out of the emotion, bring your manager out of the emotion. And, you know, look at it objectively. It happens, you know, and I hear myself sometimes in those situations saying, hey, I understand where you're coming from.
Speaker 2:I know this is challenging because these two individuals always fight, or that individual is not a team player, but really we can't go in there with a hammer. We still need to work through this, we still need to execute. Let's find a way to work through that that doesn't make it personal, that doesn't make it about that individual. I guess there's a but, right, there's that big but and there's that moment when, like, the reality is there are times when you don't do those two things, where you do not pass go, you do not collect $200, you go right to HR, right.
Speaker 2:And I think it's equally important, as you sit down with your team and you talk about the dynamics of your organization and how to run and operate it, there are things that look, I don't care what the conversation is, but if you're talking about the safety of your employees, if you're talking about financial irregularities, if you're talking about sexual harassment, if you're talking about physical violence? There's no. Hey, what are you going to do about that, james? How are you going to facilitate that so that person doesn't steal money from the company? No, no, you go directly to HR or to your financial controls organization or to whatever. Every company has a different group for those things. But I guess what I'm saying is, as a leader, you want your individuals to solve problems where they can. You want your managers to solve problems where they can. You want your managers to solve problems where they can, and there are certain circumstances where neither of those groups should be involved in solving that problem. That's when you go to the higher authority. In many cases it is HR.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's such a good point and a valid conversation to have, as you said, with the team outside of any specific situation, so that there is clarity around that. And even to have, as you said, with the team outside of any specific situation, so that there is clarity around that. And even to say, if you come to me with a problem that I believe you're going to solve, I'm going to say to you how are you going to solve this?
Speaker 2:So be ready.
Speaker 1:That's just going to be my answer. And that's kind of a signal that says you should have already been thinking about this, absolutely right, and yeah, I think that's always the case.
Speaker 2:I worked for a guy who had a great phrase and I know some of our peers worked with him as well and he had the no dead bird theory and I've used that ever since then and really, the no dead birds is, if you've ever had a cat and I know you're a huge cat person, susie you've got seven or eight cats.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, cat woman. Yeah, that's plants.
Speaker 2:A cat will just come in and drop a bird in your lap and look at you.
Speaker 1:Oh, it wasn't me. No, they'll just say nothing.
Speaker 2:They're like there's no plan. It's like what am I supposed to do with a dead bird? Why are you bringing this to me? There's nothing. And so his point was saying look, if you're going to bring me a problem, bring me a solution.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, right, I'm with it.
Speaker 2:And so this is the same thing, which is hey, you know, I'm going to ask, figure out what we're going to do about it. And so I think that's really the point of of of that, that probative conversation. Interesting, interesting I had to too much, it wasn't an obvious thing to me, that's not obvious. That's why it's a good one, because it is God. It's like. What the heck does that even mean? Uh, so that's why I like it.
Speaker 1:Stay tuned, tuned in. We should have left that at the very end so that they would tune in next time.
Speaker 2:That's right, our season cliffhanger. Next week we'll explain the no dead bird theory.
Speaker 1:All right, what are your three tips?
Speaker 2:One, create an environment in which your employees know and that they should solve conflicts themselves. You want them to work together. You want them to move the program forward. Create a world in which they can do that. Two, you want to work with your leaders so they know when and how to step in. They should have the tools. You can mentor them, you can train them, give them the tools and skills that they need to facilitate those solutions when needed. And then, three, you know, know that there are certain things that that that need to go directly to, uh, the appropriate authorities and the appropriate groups. Um, I think about um, the training I've had at some bigger companies where that's all the training is If this happens to go to this guy, if this happens to go to this girl, this happens to go to this department. You know there are there are certain situations in which you go directly to um, the to the person who's designated to address it.
Speaker 1:Awesome, all right. So if people have comments about this content today, they need to bring a constructive criticism plus a positive we want both.
Speaker 2:No dead birds.
Speaker 1:No dead birds. No dead birds. All right, all good points. Thanks, james Cheers. All right, all good points, thanks, james.
Speaker 2:Cheers. Do you have a hidden talent that our listeners don't know about? Ooh, that's okay. I I talent is subjective, right.
Speaker 1:And you know, I would say dancing, but I think that I would get a lot of people. That's very generous. No, I'm just kidding, it was not. It's not dancing, I actually sing.
Speaker 2:I can hold a tune that's respectable, fantastic, that's a very good one, and effective. Today, listeners, our theme music will be sung by Suzy.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Very exciting.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Quick Take, where we talk about the questions that are on the mind of executives everywhere. Connect with us and share what's on your mind.
Speaker 2:You can find us on LinkedIn, youtube or whatever nerdy place on the internet. You find your podcasts. Our links to the show are in the show notes. We appreciate you.
