JD (guest)
00:00:04.080 - 00:00:30.960
We give Ben the tools and the support and the resources to be able to coach their people. But to your point, like, what do you mean, what coaching meeting? It's like work gets in the way.

And so my advice is be intentional about not letting work get in the way of leading. Find and create the space to make those things a priority, whether or not it is an organizational behavior or not.

Kent (host)
00:00:33.180 - 00:01:55.020
Hi there and welcome to the Step Up Expert Voices for Leadership Growth. I'm your host, Kent Knievel. Every week I talk to experts who focus on helping leaders step up their leadership game.

If you're new to the show, then on whatever platform you're using, I encourage you to subscribe so you never miss an episode. One last thing.

As a leadership development consultant and executive coach, I have a particular interest in supporting recent internally promoted leaders.

If that's you, or if you support a leader who has been recently promoted, I encourage you to visit my website at Kent Coach Playbook and download a free copy of my 90 day blueprint filled with practical advice for you or the leader you support in hitting the ground running and truly stepping up to their new leadership level. Without further ado, on with the show. Welcome. Welcome, everyone.

Today we're going to be talking about performance appraisals, but before you decide to unsubscribe from my podcast, just hang on.

I, you know, certainly in my time in hr, I have heard and read some pieces from up and coming companies trying to push organizations to more regular performance conversations, not just the annual process. And I finally found someone that I know from my background who's actually done this with this company.

So with me today is JD Slaughter from huge, and he is going to talk to us a little bit today about huge's journey down that. Down that path. Welcome, jd.

JD (guest)
00:01:55.500 - 00:01:57.420
Thanks again. Yeah, super excited to be here.

Kent (host)
00:01:57.650 - 00:02:15.010
Awesome.

So before we really get into what I know will be a fun topic for me and you and at least my two aunts who listen to the podcast, want you first to sort of talk to our audience. Give us sort of your career journey. Would love to hear how you, you know, where you started, how you landed into what you're doing today.

JD (guest)
00:02:15.170 - 00:03:58.010
Yeah, for sure. So I started thinking I was going to be a teacher and quickly moved into consulting. I joined a sort of smallish team with within Korn ferry.

This was in 20002011 or so. I was part of their government consulting team.

And within Korn Ferry, I made a move to an internal team focused on, you know, building scalable consulting solutions across. Across the organization. And I think I know of that team.

You may, you may a couple sort of SWAT like initiatives as well that we got parachuted into, which was a lot of fun. Incredible team, incredible mentors, amazing boss.

And you know, when I left Korn Ferry, I did a short stint with a company called ceb, was once corporate executive board, then acquired by Gartner, also as a consultant there, working in marketing talent development specifically before I quite literally stumbled across this role at huge. And at the time that I applied, it was at a talent partner role for their, for their DC officer.

So I moved Internal, Internal HR and HR BP for our DC office, expanded to our southeast region and then transitioned to help effectively found our org effective and organizational development capability and practice within the organization. And I've been in that role for gosh, like three years now. Yes. And yeah, been with Huge about eight and a half years. Love it.

Amazing company, amazing culture. Can't get enough.

Kent (host)
00:03:58.650 - 00:04:29.530
Awesome. Yeah. So for the listener, JD and I first met on that second team at Korn Ferry that he's talking about and mentioned a great boss. Shout out.

Chuck Grant. Agreed. Great boss and friend to this day.

So you spent some time on the outside before the inside, you know, and for anyone who doesn't understand my lingo, you know, external consulting. Before going into hr, what do you feel like you were able to take from external consulting into the HR role?

JD (guest)
00:04:31.450 - 00:05:37.570
I think one really interesting thing is that, and this is not to belittle or diminish any of our clients who thought they were super unique, but nothing is actually that unique where a lot of our, A lot of the problem statements and challenges that we're trying to solve as consultants for our clients and even Internal, you know, talent practitioners are very, seemingly very similar.

It's really, you know, the culture itself that might be the unique part and how we're going to get things to work within the context of that organization and that organization's people and where their business is. You know, I think that's probably the unique part.

And you know, it took me a little while candidly at huge, to really figure that part out and not go straight to, you know, Korn fairy training in the moment.

It's like this is a very different culture and context and, and we have to figure out how to make those things work here and in the, in the ways that mean something for huge. So I don't know if that answers the question, but it does.

Kent (host)
00:05:37.570 - 00:07:14.530
Yeah.

No, I, what I would say from my own experience, having gone external to internal, I, I echo that right and, and I'll be more, I'll be specific on two parts. One part generalization, one part picking on companies a little bit too.

But the generalization is like leadership is leadership and there's not like there's our very common leader. You know, most of the leadership challenges, probably 98% are common across the board, regardless of what your company and your context might be.

So to your point, like, there's a lot of feelings of uniqueness, but actually a lot of commonality. And I saw that firsthand when I was at Buffalo Wild Wings.

So we would bring in, you know, restaurant tours, so to speak, that, you know, the general managers with corporate manager, general managers of stores with corporate managers, and they'd be, you know, by about an hour or two into these programs, they'd be shocked that they had the exact same problems that they were dealing with. Right.

The other part, where I'm going to pick on companies, my favorite thing having having been in a few different companies in HR roles is the one thing I've heard in the first week of all of those experiences. We're a relationship based company. Like, oh, that may. Yes, you're, you're the only one.

It's like I joke, but, you know, I don't think any company is not, you know, I think every company is a relationship company. All right, one, one more question before we dive into our topic.

Now, if you were to, if you were to go into consulting again tomorrow, what do you think you would be taking from your HR experience into external consulting again?

JD (guest)
00:07:15.970 - 00:07:21.370
That every company's really unique. Perfect.

Kent (host)
00:07:21.370 - 00:07:21.810
All right.

JD (guest)
00:07:21.890 - 00:07:23.170
Yes. No, let's see.

Kent (host)
00:07:23.170 - 00:07:24.450
See you all next time, folks.

JD (guest)
00:07:27.490 - 00:09:15.080
I think so. So one, one of the reasons I wanted to get to move internal from, from consulting was I really wanted to be, to be part of what's next.

So instead of delivering the thing or the change management or whatever it is, the new process or approach or the talent management structure or the competency model, whatever it is, and help embed it.

I wanted to be part of everything that happens after that and get to see it in action and course correct and shift our entire model or change, whatever it had to be. And I really missed that part.

In consulting, so often it's like the engagement ends and you don't really, you hope it works, but you don't really get to see or be part of it. I really wanted to see and be part of those things.

And so I think coming into it, knowing that no matter what, ultimately you deliver, it's going to begin to take the shape of the org that it's in and being, I think, really intentional about how you can create the space for that to happen. Some of these models or approaches are so rigid, if you will. It's like, this is the way we do this. And we're gonna. We're.

Yes, we're gonna customize it for your unique culture, but it's like, this is the way we do this. And it.

And it doesn't have the sort of soft edges that for it to really, I think, become part of an organizational, an organization's culture or part of the organization, those things have to soften just a little bit.

And so I guess for myself, if I was to move back into consulting, it's, you know, we've got our methodologies and our approach and our philosophy, and how do we make sure that the. That the edges aren't too sharp, that a company can't actually do anything with it when we leave.

Kent (host)
00:09:15.480 - 00:10:06.100
Right. Yes. Yeah, I like that.

Personally, I've found since I've made the transition out of hr, that it's really what I've been able to bring back into it is really subtle, primarily because I now know what's happening behind the scenes. I know what real life looks like for the HR people working with, for the leaders that I'm working with.

So my ability now to take what in hindsight was probably a pretty academic understanding and solid, you know, the training and sort of mentoring we had at PDI and Korn Fairy was really strong. So I'm not trying to do a disservice to that. Totally. Just my ability to bring it to life is so much stronger now.

Not to toot my own horn, but just I can feel it now. Like I know what I'm saying.

JD (guest)
00:10:06.570 - 00:10:34.650
Yeah, I love that.

And I think it really probably more accurately describes even what I was trying to suggest, because I've gotten feedback from my boss at HUGE that sometimes I can bring things that she says it probably looked really great in the lab. And, yeah, it might be a bit too academic. Might be. But operationalizing it and making it come to life a huge. Presents different challenges. For sure.

I think that's exactly right.

Kent (host)
00:10:34.900 - 00:11:49.400
Yeah. So let's talk about bringing something to life. Right. So I think you and I were chatting about various things we could talk about today.

So for the listener, I'm just going to lean right into it and say we were talking about your EDGE leadership program and you were. You were talking me through a really cool.

Maybe we'll have you on another day and we'll talk about that, but you were talking me through this and I was asking you about how you measured results. And you were.

And you started to say, well, essentially like, well, that really comes from our quarterly performance process that we've implemented and the data we can get. And I nearly fell off my chair and I was like, that's, that's what we should talk about. Let's talk about that.

And so while, you know, I think the annual performance appraisal process is loved by few, loathed by many, a necessary part of the rhythm of most organizations.

Like I said at the beginning, I've heard of this approach to trying to have more real time, regular performance conversations instead of it always being the one, you know, one time event at the end of the year. And I know that you've been going down that road, so I'd love to hear about where did that begin for you all at huge.

And you know, how, what did you do and how did you get to where you are with it today?

JD (guest)
00:11:50.840 - 00:13:21.280
So there's a couple things that I might suggest for the genesis for really exploring it. And you know, one of those things was the simple fact of what you, what you mentioned already that people hate it.

Like, people hate going through the annual review process. And it's not just, you know, managers and their, and individual contributors and, and people outside of hr. HR hates annual reviews too.

It's like nobody wants to be constantly reminding people to do it, you know, desperately trying to track down people who haven't shared their feedback or completed that form yet, or the manager that still hasn't written the final review or given the rain. It's like it's a hassle for everybody.

And not only that, it takes, it's an incredible amount of time that the organization is spending away from the business. Like we estimated at huge. I think this was in 2002, that we spent somewhere between 5 and 6,000 hours for relatively small company.

We're about 8, 900,000 people at the time. 5, 6,000 hours at the end of the year for reviews.

And it's like that's a critical time for the business, the end of the year and the beginning of the year. I mean, there's no time. It's not. But especially, especially those points. So how can we not only think differently about. Right.

What can we do that people don't hate and what can we also do that that is not costing the business space, time, money, all of those things?

Kent (host)
00:13:21.890 - 00:13:30.370
Well, I think one thing, if I can interrupt one thing that you also mentioned was based on huge's design and how you. You're kind of project based.

JD (guest)
00:13:30.370 - 00:13:30.610
Right.

Kent (host)
00:13:30.610 - 00:13:52.650
So people swarm a project. There's various layers of people and roles that people are playing. And then that project comes to an end, they're on to the next thing.

And I think what we were talking about is you get to the end of the year and now you're trying to chase down feedback from 60 people from five, six different projects you did over 12 months that created, you know, some challenge for you all.

JD (guest)
00:13:52.730 - 00:13:53.250
Yep.

Kent (host)
00:13:53.250 - 00:13:55.250
Just based on how your company operates.

JD (guest)
00:13:55.250 - 00:13:57.770
Yep. That, that was really the third thing.

Kent (host)
00:13:58.170 - 00:14:00.090
So sorry you were getting there.

JD (guest)
00:14:01.370 - 00:15:00.870
Not at all an annual review or even, you know, if you do, you know, mini mid year cycle. Also that those two things were not serving our people in the way that they work. It was really, really challenging to.

For someone to think about feedback they're going to share with someone they were on a project with for three months, two months back in January, we're now in December. Sometimes we're even a year later already it might be January again when they're getting ready to write that feedback.

And it's just not a way to capture anything that's not riddled with bias or anything that isn't that, that that's accurate. It's really, really challenging.

And so that again created a barrier for our people to give really good feedback and for our people to get really good feedback, which then created a whole host of other challenges for managers to coach, to deliver feedback, to set clear goals. It was just not working for our people. Was the big thing and the way that we work.

Kent (host)
00:15:01.670 - 00:15:13.080
Yeah. When you were looking at that this wasn't working, what did you start exploring?

What led you to start kind of going down the path you eventually took?

JD (guest)
00:15:14.040 - 00:15:40.300
Yeah, we listened to managers and individuals and one big thing that we would hear from managers when we got to the end of the year was we're also tying this to promotion justifications. And a lot of times they're saying, I know this person's ready. I'm just having trouble getting feedback to support it. I'm not getting good feedback.

And so we wanted to of course help there for sure.

Kent (host)
00:15:41.500 - 00:15:54.900
Even with the project nature. Right. Like if.

If for some reason the most recent project maybe wasn't going well and yet they crushed the first two or three projects they did throughout the year. There's sort of that recency bias of.

JD (guest)
00:15:54.900 - 00:15:57.420
Exactly right. Exactly.

Kent (host)
00:15:58.220 - 00:16:05.480
I guess that could probably either deflate or inflate someone's sort of promotion readiness justification.

JD (guest)
00:16:05.560 - 00:17:29.980
Exactly, exactly.

If that most recent project someone crushed, chances are if the, if it was close to the annual review cycle, their feedback's probably going to be really positive despite maybe having some challenges earlier in the year. And so again, yeah, the recency bias played a, played a significant role.

So it's like, well, why don't we just, if we know that's about the time of, that's about the time frame that someone can really remember and share good feedback about someone's performance, why don't we just make that our timeframe?

Why don't we not do one huge thing at the end of the year and let's do four small conversations across the entire year, which is ultimately where we landed with an approach called quarterly conversations. And they're designed to be that, they're designed to be in the flow of work. They're designed to be aligned to our project cadence and project cycles.

And they're, they're aligned to also not be an additional thing that a manager or leader in their team have to do and set aside time for.

We all have, we sure hope that we all have regular one on ones with, with our, with our, with our managers and with managers with their direct reports and just use those already existing conversations to do this, bring in feedback, bring in and use them to coach around that feedback on a quarterly basis. And so that's, that's what we've done.

Kent (host)
00:17:31.020 - 00:17:44.380
Are there elements of what feeds into the quarterly conversation that's baked into the sort of project execution process now? I guess is right because. Or would people mostly have one project a quarter or might they be in.

JD (guest)
00:17:45.500 - 00:20:30.050
Yeah, no big question.

So they individuals might be across multiple projects within a quarter and sometimes they're much longer than a quarter, sometimes they're much shorter. And this has been effectively a three year journey for us.

So maybe, maybe, maybe we start back there and I can get to kind of where we are now in that when we, when we launched it, the initial idea was look, once a quarter you should be having a career focused and feedback and coaching focused conversation with your manager at least once a quarter. And we're going to start now.

So this quarter have a conversation about your goals, have a conversation about what areas you want to develop, build an idp, let's do these things. And shared a number of resources of course, to help with that. But that was the idea. Let's just start with something very basic.

And we did two quarters of that and then we did a third quarter where we said, okay, we're going to now layer one more thing on top of this. We want everybody in the Organization as if this were the annual review.

We want you to solicit feedback from peers that are on your projects and we have a platform that can support us in this.

But so everyone, you know, we shared prompts for how they should do it tied to our, what we call development models, but our competency models so that they can solicit feedback directly to the things that they're trying to focus on and directly to their projects. And then we did that for two quarters.

So now we've got a year basically where we've embedded this idea that we believe as a company this has to happen at least once a quarter. Now we also believe that it should be tied to real time feedback from your work and from your day to day.

And the following year we said we're not doing annual reviews anymore. So that year we did have an annual review. The next year we said we're not going to do that. It's going to look different.

We want you to have four quarters of quarterly conversations with feedback tied into them. And at the end of the year, all of that's already documented.

You've got everything you need to just roll it into one final, what we call capstone conversation for the year. But you don't have to go chase all your peers down. We're not going to send out a huge review form.

We may still collect performance ratings to drive other initiatives within the organization, but we know now those performance ratings aren't just based on what we can remember from Q4. There's a paper trail, if you will, to get us to whatever that final, final rating might look like.

Now, where we are today is we have and are infusing what we call project based feedback cycles into our quarterly conversations. So really, really simple way for to tell, automate and operationalize and scale.

Really quick way for people to deliver feedback to each other once a project ends and then that drives the quarterly conversation.

Kent (host)
00:20:30.610 - 00:20:37.850
Cool. So whose accountability is it during the project cycle to provide feedback? What's that look like?

JD (guest)
00:20:37.850 - 00:21:00.770
Yeah, I mean everyone's effectively. So the feedback form goes to everyone on the project.

And let me pause also there and say, I recognize if you are super skeptical, which you might be, or cynical, you might be thinking, well, wait a second, you're telling me you basically just took what you did once a year and you're now asking people to do it four times a year or for every project.

Kent (host)
00:21:01.840 - 00:21:03.840
I will cross that off the questions I was about to ask.

JD (guest)
00:21:03.840 - 00:22:32.720
Go ahead. Yeah, and in a way, in a way you would be right. What we're trying to do is a connect feedback to the flow of work.

We know our people want more feedback. We know we need to make it easier for them. And this is at least the way right now. And this will evolve for sure. But this is the way right now.

We think we can do that and make it simple and scalable. The feedback we've gotten from our people who have gone through this project process, that it's really simple.

They would much rather do this five, six, seven times a year than one and one annual review. We make it. It's. Well, I think part of the, part of the challenge is it's really easy to give and share feedback with people when it's really fresh.

I think part of the challenge is we get to the end of the year and people feel pressure to deliver really solid feedback and they can't. And so they don't because they can't remember.

So if we can do it in the flow of project, we know that people are way more willing to engage in it and have more effective feedback that they can share with each other. It's also really simple.

There's, you know, it's, it's, it's basically a single question that's like, effectively, you know, what advice would you have for this person if you were to work with them on a project Again, which that sort of turn of phrase there also takes a little bit of pressure. It's like, well, it's not feedback, it's advice. And we've seen so far that individuals are much, much more likely to engage with it.

Kent (host)
00:22:33.200 - 00:22:33.760
Huh?

JD (guest)
00:22:34.160 - 00:22:36.800
Yes, it is everybody four times, but.

Kent (host)
00:22:37.200 - 00:22:46.320
Okay, but so does everybody fill it out for everybody on the project or how is that being sorted out?

JD (guest)
00:22:46.320 - 00:23:22.800
Yeah. So mechanically, everyone is invited to.

We know that not everyone works that closely with, with each other and we also know that everyone plays a different role on that project. So there is a question specific to someone's leadership efficacy if they are a project lead versus a, what we might call a maker at huge.

If their, their questions, their form might look a little bit differently. But yes, everyone's invited. You can decline a feedback request if you didn't work with that person.

And we actively encourage folks to do that if, if they, if they didn't work together, you don't get feedback and that's okay. Yeah.

Kent (host)
00:23:22.800 - 00:23:29.780
Is there, is there a minimum expectation of how many you do need to accept and give or have you run into that?

JD (guest)
00:23:30.660 - 00:23:42.580
It's a good question. We haven't run into it yet. This part of it is relatively new still.

So we're, we're still sort of testing, if you will, and collecting feedback about the process. It's been really positive thus far, though.

Kent (host)
00:23:43.220 - 00:23:43.700
Cool.

JD (guest)
00:23:43.780 - 00:23:44.260
Yeah.

Kent (host)
00:23:44.260 - 00:24:07.200
So how have you. All right, so let's, let's go to the elephant in the room. Right. Which is the tie into, you know, merit slash, you know, whatever language people use.

Merit salary increases and bonus slash incentive payouts. How have you decoupled or recoupled or, you know, how have you adjusted that with this new process?

JD (guest)
00:24:07.760 - 00:24:59.270
I'm really glad you asked because we, historically, we were really adamant at one point about decoupling our review process, feedback and coaching and our increase. Merit increase process and our merit increase cycles.

Reason being, you know, we want the conversation about growth and your performance from the past year to be separate from a conversation about your compensation increase or your compensation.

And we are effectively looking at making a complete 180 there and reconnecting those things again because of the response from our people that it felt clunky. It felt, if they're disconnected, then why are we, why are you asking us to do this thing and what are you using that data for? And.

Kent (host)
00:24:59.830 - 00:25:00.230
Right.

JD (guest)
00:25:00.710 - 00:25:01.430
Are they really?

Kent (host)
00:25:01.590 - 00:25:04.270
I guess. How are you making the merit decision then?

JD (guest)
00:25:04.270 - 00:25:08.070
Exactly, exactly, exactly. And so we are.

Kent (host)
00:25:08.070 - 00:25:13.350
What did you, what did you try that you've decided isn't quite what you wanted or what you were hoping for?

JD (guest)
00:25:14.150 - 00:25:15.110
Sorry, ask that again.

Kent (host)
00:25:15.590 - 00:25:17.670
So it sounds like you had, you had decoupled it.

JD (guest)
00:25:17.670 - 00:25:18.150
Yep.

Kent (host)
00:25:18.150 - 00:25:28.560
So how did you determine in that year how to handle merit increases that now you've decided maybe not what we wanted. Exactly. And putting them back together, they were.

JD (guest)
00:25:28.640 - 00:25:44.040
Coupled in the sense that performance ratings still drove initial merit increase recommendations and those types of things, we decoupled the conversation to try to separate those concepts and got it.

Kent (host)
00:25:44.040 - 00:25:44.280
Okay.

JD (guest)
00:25:44.280 - 00:26:21.520
I don't, and I don't want to speak on behalf of our chief people officer, chief talent officer, but we don't necessarily believe that is right anymore. That in fact, these things do drive one another.

Let's be transparent and honest about those things and also ensure that people know what to expect from it.

If you've had these types of quarterly conversations and your ratings look like this, at the end of the year, you should expect this type of increase or bonus or whatever it might be. And so we're looking now at, at. We're in the middle of this process now.

So that's why I still say we're kind of looking at it, but bringing those things back together.

Kent (host)
00:26:22.560 - 00:28:28.400
God. Okay, okay. So I, you know, for the listener, I think I had Thought you completely decoupled. Meaning technically too, not just the conversations.

Right. Like that, that the ratings, information, performance, you know, information coming out of those was divorced.

But what I'm hearing you say is we tried to separate the conversations, not necessarily the technicalities. Right, yeah. Okay, got it, got it, got it. Yeah. And which, right.

I would say now, having worked in organizations where we're only doing the annual, you know, annual thing, I've always said from my roles either within talent management or leadership development, that, well, if you're having regular conversations, nothing should be a surprise year end. But I would say you're, you're relying, you're relying on leaders knowing and, and you know, how do I want to, how am I trying to put this?

It's a hope and I'll just be honest about it. It's a hope and a prayer right around like, well, what percentage of leaders are actually going to do that?

Because life is messy and there's a lot of work in front of us and there is some, there is something about the good, bad or otherwise. There is something about the process driven, you know, hr, process driven eventizing of it that makes people pay attention and do it.

A very quick parallel. When I was doing, we were trying to pull peer coaching groups together.

This is a long time ago in my very first HR role, you know, we would say, all right, now you all, here's your coaching group and this is how often you should meet and here's some agenda stuff. And you know, I started checking in with people a few months later. I was like, how are the peer coaching groups going?

And they were like, what, what do you mean? What do you mean, what? This, all this material that we put in front of you and told you to go do.

And he just said, hey, listen, Kent, when the invite comes from you, I pay attention and I'll attend it.

JD (guest)
00:28:28.400 - 00:28:28.760
Right.

Kent (host)
00:28:28.760 - 00:28:47.340
So learn some lessons that, you know, another day, another interview on. But, but the parallel being like there is something about it being process driven that, that gives accountability again, good, bad or otherwise.

Gives accountability to making, making it happen or making sure it happens.

JD (guest)
00:28:47.420 - 00:29:30.040
Yeah, and that's, that's, that's been part of our goal here too is like, let's, let's create a system and a process that doesn't allow for work to get in the way of that conversation because it's just part of the work. It's, it's part of the day to day. It's just the next thing that happens. I mean, there's some sort of utopian system here.

Where it's like there's nothing. It's. And we've, we've kicked it around this idea of like a fully open growth architecture at huge.

Where it's like there's no systems, there's nothing. It's just like our people just do it. And it's like, maybe that'll happen, but work's going to get in the way. Work will get in the way.

And this right now, at least for us, is, is a, is a way that we can ensure it doesn't or help it not get in the way. If that makes sense.

Kent (host)
00:29:30.520 - 00:30:38.840
Yeah. Awesome.

Well, so I want to come back because I know you had already said it, but again, you know, I could imagine a scenario where, you know, employees feel like, well, now let's talk about employees and then we can talk about managers. Right. There's a scenario where I could see employees being able. Now I'm doing this four times a year.

But you said that you're actually getting really good feedback about it from your employees. So what are you hearing, what are you hearing from employees that's reinforcing, you know, for you all to keep going down this path?

And I'd be curious, what's some of the feedback?

And I know you're recoupling the performance, the, the merit conversation, but what are some of the other pieces of feedback that you're, that you're, you're churning over on? Kind of. Because I, I take it from our conversation and knowing you that you have this kind of continuous improvement, improvement mindset. Right.

So, like, nothing's ever done and dusted. Everything can always be evolved and better.

So let me restate my question, which is what's the, what's the, what are you hearing from employees that's reinforcing that you're going down the right path? What are you, what other things are you kind of kicking around around? Continued evolution?

JD (guest)
00:30:39.640 - 00:30:55.220
Yes.

So, and as you, as you were asking the question, I was trying to pull up a couple of messages I have on Slack from a few, few folks I'd reached out to after their project feedback cycle wrapped up, because I know cynical and skeptical and I mean.

Kent (host)
00:30:56.020 - 00:30:58.420
Always good to enroll those people and give me feedback.

JD (guest)
00:30:58.420 - 00:33:02.230
Exactly. And so one of them, you know, I'll read directly. It's. I like it.

It's faster and easier than trying to remember what you did with someone seven months ago. And especially for some people, the number of requests that you get around the end of the year pile up and each ends up taking much longer.

And so again, yes, this Individual might have to do this a few more times. But, but because of where it is in the flow of work, it's faster because they remember it's all fresh, it's right there.

And the form that we're asking them to complete as part of it is really, really small and simple. So what's next is feedback collection. It's like I would love to say, well, I've already got the next iteration of this in my head and honestly I.

So for the first time in a long time, and this is probably not necessarily a good thing, that it's for the first time in a long time, I don't. And I say that is a good thing because it gives us completely free open space to figure out what works with it and what doesn't.

Because we're kind of, at least in my perspective, we're kind of in uncharted territory here for us and probably for a lot of organizations.

So not knowing if we're going to, you know, steer left or steer right or just keep going straight with it is I think a really good thing in the, in this moment.

And I'm excited to see how, how as we really start to collect more and more feedback about the process and see how and if it's working, like is it actually doing what we believe it is intended to do?

And truly what it is intended to do is serve our people to ensure that they are getting regular, real feedback and coaching in the moment and in their day to day versus serving the organization to collect data for whatever reason. So we're in a cool app, cool space now where we get to see and like, does this work?

And if it doesn't, you know, we can, we can start to course correct from there and figure out what is, what is the next iteration.

Kent (host)
00:33:02.870 - 00:35:01.850
Yeah. Nice. So I want to reflect something back. So when it comes to the employee. Right. And every manager is an employee too.

But so when you're wearing the employee hat, yeah, it sounds like it's, it's actually the same amount of work for the employee. It's just spread out over the course of the year, especially when it comes to collecting peer feedback. Right.

So to your point, instead of getting 17, 20, 30 requests at the end of the year that I now want to want to do it. Right. But where am I finding the time? And like, I don't, I barely remember this person. Right. Or, you know, barely remember that project.

It's probably the same amount of work is just spread out over 12 months instead of exactly one or two. But I would imagine It's a little. You are asking for four. Now, I'm going to.

I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth here for a second, which is you're asking for, you know, four semi official conversations to happen instead of one for managers. That said, the leadership development and coach and me says they should be having these conversations this often regardless. Right.

Like you should be having a career conversation, a development conversation, probably quarterly anyway. Like, if you really want to. Nobody. I. Show me the person who wakes up not wanting to truly be a good leader, who's in a leader role.

Whether or not they can fulfill it is another question. But like, if you really want to be a good leader, you should be doing that anyway. Right.

So I just wanted to get that out of there when I asked, when I, when I say the question. But you are asking them to have now this official conversation three more times or, or kind of four more times.

Especially if there's like a summative. So, yeah, what's, what's the, what's the feedback been from managers? I know we covered it, but to me it's a lie.

It's a late in the week and late in the day and not at all.

JD (guest)
00:35:01.930 - 00:35:39.300
Yeah. Again, generally positive. It is generally positive. Like, I won't sugarcoat it and say like, no, it's not that. Right, it is that. And we, and we.

And we say that out loud. Like, yes, we are asking you to do this four times.

Here's why, here's what we believe, here's the vision we have for this and where we're trying to go. And I won't say that we don't get some, you know, rolled eyes and pushback and.

And at the same time, the feedback is generally positive that, yes, I believe and understand why we're doing this and that this is the right thing for our people.

Kent (host)
00:35:39.780 - 00:35:40.260
Yeah.

JD (guest)
00:35:40.420 - 00:35:40.900
Yeah.

Kent (host)
00:35:41.300 - 00:35:57.530
I would imagine that from some leaders, I would hope. Let me say that the optimist in me would hope.

You're also hearing this is actually making my ability to be a good leader and developer of a person like, that much easier.

JD (guest)
00:35:57.690 - 00:36:00.170
Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Kent (host)
00:36:00.490 - 00:36:03.850
All right, one more question before I get us into our, our advice section.

JD (guest)
00:36:04.010 - 00:36:04.490
Cool.

Kent (host)
00:36:04.570 - 00:36:19.570
Because, you know, I've worked for much larger companies where I would argue, you know, Titanic sized, where this would be a massive change from what used to be done, what made huge a place where you could do this.

JD (guest)
00:36:20.290 - 00:37:42.580
Seek commitment to innovation, iteration and patience for some of those things. Culturally, we are a design, innovation and technology company. And so that is at the heart of our culture and there is willingness to create space.

If you talk about the why, like what we're trying to do and why people will. And culturally, you'll get the space to do it until it's still not working and you're not doing anything about it.

That's where, that's where challenges can come from.

But no, you know, it's also, we are an organization like, like, like, like many where this was a big change and we still had to be thoughtful and intentional about the change management. You know, we didn't, we didn't completely overhaul the entire process in Q1 of 2022.

It's like, I mean, we are just now, Maybe it was 2023, but we are just now adding the final layer to it. And not all of those layers were planned. Again, this is a bit of let's see how this goes and what else could we do and what's the feedback?

How can we make this easier, better, faster, more efficient, but more effective also and more human. Yeah, so it's been a, it's been, it's been a, it's been a journey for us as well. You know, we didn't, we didn't turn the ship left.

We immediately, it's, it's got a small rudder.

Kent (host)
00:37:42.660 - 00:37:49.700
Yeah, that's, it's exciting. I think you're doing what a lot of HR people, at least that I've come across, would envy and love to be doing.

JD (guest)
00:37:50.260 - 00:37:51.940
I mean, it's fun. It's fun.

Kent (host)
00:37:52.420 - 00:38:05.180
All right, well, let me give us a violent shove into our advice section. So I always ask the guests to come prepared with at least two pieces of advice. 1.

And so we'll start with, you know, what's your advice for leaders who are listening?

JD (guest)
00:38:05.490 - 00:38:53.540
You know, I'm actually going to. This is a bit of a pivot from what I thought I was going to prepare or what I, what I prepare.

But I mentioned, you know, we, and I think you shared the example of, like, we ask our leaders to have these conversations on a regular basis and we give them the tools and the support and the resources to be able to coach their people. But to your point, like, you know, what do you mean, what coaching meeting. It's like work gets in the way.

And so my advice is be intentional about not letting work get in the way of leading. Find and create the space to make those things a priority, whether or not it is an organizational behavior or not.

Kent (host)
00:38:53.700 - 00:39:08.060
Yeah, nice. I always say your regular one on one is where the best of intentions for development and career conversations go to die.

And And I always, I always push people. I say put it on the calendar. Calendar at once a quarter. Oh, yeah, you'll make it. You'll make it happen.

JD (guest)
00:39:08.140 - 00:39:13.700
That's exactly right. And that's practically what we did. Like, just make this one about coaching and development. Yeah.

Kent (host)
00:39:13.700 - 00:39:22.140
Nice. Nice. All right, what's your. So what's your advice for HR folks as well as leaders who are supporting the growth of other leaders?

JD (guest)
00:39:23.100 - 00:40:22.720
You mentioned edge leadership, and that was something that we had picked around that we're going to talk one of our leadership programs. And that program is also a driver of this performance management philosophy too. And, and so for us, like, And I guess my advice there would be to.

That's a way for us to make it real and not just a resource. So finding ways to make leadership development real and, and not just not just a resource.

You know, the, the growth in our leaders and managers doesn't come just from the toolkit or the training. It's. It happens in the practice and in the conversations and in the times that we fail at doing those things. So how do we design our culture?

How do we design our leadership development initiatives to. To meet that reality? And I guess ending my advice with a question probably isn't the best thing, but maybe I will.

Kent (host)
00:40:24.080 - 00:40:30.180
Yeah. Any. Anything else? Any parting thoughts as we're winding down here?

JD (guest)
00:40:30.580 - 00:40:39.780
I don't, I don't this. I mean, this was a great conversation and I so appreciate it. I don't know. I don't know that I've got a parting thought for you. Terrible way to end.

Kent (host)
00:40:40.260 - 00:40:57.330
Well, let me ask it this way and we'll be brief. I know you've got. You've got places to be. If p.

If other organizations or HR people were interested in going down this path, what would you as like, first kind of steps, what would you recommend they. The start of their journey be?

JD (guest)
00:40:57.330 - 00:41:13.810
Yeah.

You know, I've used this analogy about myself before, but I'm, I am the type of guy that, like, when I go to an all you can eat buffet, like, I grab the biggest plate I can find and I'm just like dumping everything on it. Like, yeah, I want steak and fish and fried chicken.

Kent (host)
00:41:13.970 - 00:41:14.370
Yeah.

JD (guest)
00:41:14.370 - 00:41:44.060
And I honestly, when I first stepped into this role, you know, leading our org effectiveness function, I. That's kind of what I did. I was like, oh, we got so many things I want to do.

And so I'm taking this huge plate to the buffet and trying to do everything. And I learned quickly, you just can't. You can't do it. And that's the approach that we took with. With these quarterly conversations.

It's like take a much smaller plate to the buffet and just focus your intention on. On very clear things and not all the things.

Kent (host)
00:41:44.540 - 00:41:53.590
Nice. There it is. You. You heard it here, folks. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. So we will leave it there for the day. Thank you so much, JD.

I appreciate it. This was a fun conversation.

JD (guest)
00:41:53.670 - 00:41:55.350
This is great. So appreciate it. Yeah.

Kent (host)
00:41:55.670 - 00:42:20.800
Awesome. All right, take it easy, everybody. That brings us to the end of our episode. Thanks for listening.

I'd encourage you to head on over to my website, Kent Coach, and start a conversation with me there. Or check out my promotion playbook at Kent Coates Playbook.

Before you go on with your day, I ask that you please take a moment to leave a rating and a review wherever you listen to podcasts. Five stars. That helps put this podcast in front of more eyes and ears. Until next time, take it easy.