Leadership Live with Park Allen

Thanks Christine, I'm really glad to be here.

All the way back when I was in high school, I had a high school guidance counselor that for some reason took an interest in me and was the first person to ask what is it that you want to do when you grow up. And I'll let you know when I get close to growing up. He pointed out that I was empathetic, that I saw that others needed to have someone listen to them and to ask questions rather than tell them what to do. So he suggested that I become a peer counselor and started to ask questions about what I wanted to do, topics that I had never considered. At the same time, I was a camp counselor for kids, and what I did was I led them to try to overcome their anxiety and to be creative and to participate. And while kids and adults, there are a lot of similarities. So when I got into college and started studying psychology, I realized I didn't want to be a therapist but I wanted that to be an element of what I did on a day-to-day basis. Human resources or people is a great way to use both of those dynamic environments or experiences. Providing advice and help, helping people overcome adversity and advocate for themselves while participating and being creative — it's just a great place for me to be. Through the years, I started my career in hotels, then went into healthcare, into nonprofits, did some consulting in human resources across multiple industries, retail, etc., then went into technology. My most recent change is working for a property trust, a REIT, so it's yet another new industry, but it's the same adventure: helping people overcome what they're trying to deal with and express what they want, so that manager and employee can come out together as great partners.

Sure. I always think that like the Wizard of Oz, behind the screen, policies and procedures are tricks that we can use or ways that we can create consistency. It's a way for us to be consistent and fair and equitable. If you have a process, then you can improve it. That being said, people don't really care about my process; they want to know if they're being heard, if they have opportunity, if they're being challenged to learn, and if they're being listened to. Policies, procedures, platforms, and other tools in my tool belt — I absolutely lean on those to remember where I am and what we're doing. But for my customers, for employees, it's important for them to be able to say what they need.

I think part of this mindset revolves around what I like to do in my personal time: I'm a saxophone player. The saxophone is tailor-made for jazz, and jazz is not sterile — it's not the same. When you make mistakes, that's actually evolution, it's creative license. You're able to experiment, and when you accept that mistakes are going to happen, you realize you can innovate with that. When I came out of college, I took an aptitude test, and it was suggested that I try human resources. It was too many syllables and I didn't know what it meant. If you think about the movie The Matrix, where they were actually just batteries for the computers — that's the thing I get. I try to say: I'm not about the resource that is humans, a company using employees to bend the will of society or their customers. It's about how we do this all together, that we're greater than the sum of our parts, we're better all together. My title is VP of people. Once that started to emerge, I grabbed onto that title and moved away from human resources, although in casual conversation at a cocktail party I'd say I'm in HR because it's a commonly understood term.

Sure. What I ask managers is: imagine yourself in five or seven years' time, you've moved on perhaps from whatever company you're working in, and those that report to you have also moved on. You're on a street — let's just pick New York City — and you're walking in different directions, and you spot a former report walking the other direction. Would they cross the street to come and say hi, shake your hand, give you a hug, and say thank you for what you did for me, how you supported my personal growth, you took an interest in me? That's always been something I care about a great deal. For any of the people that I worked with, I want to be able to say how are you doing? So when managers connect with me on that concept, they say, 'Yeah, I want to do that too.' Then I say, 'Now the work starts.' Because you can be the best, most dynamic manager in the world, but if your employees aren't interested in learning, they just won't. You have to articulate what you're trying to do and invite them into the process. Then you have to be investigative about what type of learner that person is: visual, auditory, learn by doing. You don't even have to be a skilled teacher to engage in that — you just have to be aware of it. You can even call it out: 'I understand you're a visual learner, and I'm more auditory — with jazz I listen and extrapolate verbally and look in people's eyes — but we can acknowledge that we learn in different ways and try to communicate together.' First, figure out how we're going to communicate, are we interested in doing this together, and then how do we do it.

With a manager, hopefully they have a small enough group that they can have one-on-one time with each person on a consistent basis. The cadence doesn't need to be every week or every day, but at least every two weeks. Have an agenda, talk about the tactical and strategic things you're working on together, but on a regular cadence talk about where we're going together and how am I helping you get to where you want to go. As we talked about, policies, processes, tips and tricks — those are in your background. I help managers put that in their toolbox. If it's on the sheet, every two weeks at the end of the meeting, we cordon off seven minutes and say: where are you, what are you doing, what are you reading, what are you listening to, what podcast, what article have you read recently? Should we read a book together? There's an opportunity for people to learn together and to try to establish curiosity as an important part of someone's development. A manager helping an employee understand that curiosity will take them far.

Absolutely. I'm not a sailor, but I do think about this. I point out that a manager is like the captain of a sailboat. If you've ever been on a sailboat or watched when they change directions, it's somewhat tumultuous — the sails are flapping like crazy and the wind is going crazy. But when the boat has shifted direction, the sails fill with wind and the sailboat takes off. The manager only needs to move the steering wheel or rudder, and then the employee — in this metaphor, the sailboat — will take off. The manager only needs to provide a little bit of guidance, and then the employee takes off.

Right. Many of the people I've worked with are very skilled professionals. They know, 'Here's our checklist, do step one, do step two.' No, I didn't like it exactly like that, I want to do it like this. If you do that, you'll never be able to let go of the reins and let the horse take off, or the sailboat take off — whatever metaphor you want to use. It's very important to allow the person to do the work themselves the way they do it. Then you need to be confident in how you see success progressing and say, 'I'm okay that they don't use the exact same terminology that I do, or that they do most of their creative work in the morning and I do mine in the afternoon — at the end of the day we get our stuff done together.' And they learn better and they own it.

I was once on an executive team where I was hired as the subject matter expert for performance appraisals. I had a very strict methodology that I really liked. I brought in a specific set: goal setting happens first, I like OKR methodology — objectives and key results — company level first, business case, etc. It was very detailed. Then we would go into performance evaluations on a scale of five. I had all these tools. My executive team kept pushing back and pushing back, and I kept getting more and more frustrated because I was the expert, supposed to know how to do this. At one point, I realized I looked around the room and every one of them was leaning into the conversation, and I was the one leaning back with my arms crossed, feeling defensive. I don't know what inspired me, but I realized they're here with me right now. If I just listen and try to incorporate their ideas, we're going to have a product they'll be invested in and we'll be able to do this together. So I took a deep breath and apologized: 'I'm sorry for being defensive. I wanted to prove that I was good at this for you, but the fact that you're so engaged and asking great questions is really exciting to me. Can we take it from the top? I want to understand what elements you like, and then let's talk about the things we can refine together.' I was able to go through that as the employee almost in that case. The conversation that came after and the process was the easiest goal setting and performance process I've ever gone through because they owned it, they were able to refine it, and I just loved it.

I think a couple of them are on the call, so they probably remember that. It was a great time. Another example: I had an employee that came from a similar background but definitely approached things in a different way. I encouraged her to go and think about how she wanted to roll out her program and then bring it back to me. It was nothing that I would have done, but I honestly thought it was smarter than anything I had ever come up with. All I needed to do was help her be confident in her theories and draw out of her: 'What do you think employees are going to react to this? How do you think they'll engage? How are you going to measure that engagement?' The program was so much better than something I would have created. I was a little uncomfortable because she was getting to a place where I wouldn't be able to support her because I didn't have expertise in that area. It was great. It's amazing what you can drive in terms of ownership, engagement, and motivation when people get the opportunity to bring their own ideas to life and feel engaged.

I love that. Anyone who shies away from the parallels of the human condition and treating humans like humans — as opposed to 'they're just children' or 'they're just much older people' — if you recognize that there's a base level of humanity in the whole thing, it's remarkable. Thank you for sharing.

Sure. It was during COVID. The company I was working for at the time had a goal of helping managers be better people leaders. I started to realize I needed to have a methodology where different types of learners could learn the way they wanted to learn, and those more motivated to do self-learning had an opportunity to get as much training as they wanted. I created a methodology and rebranded our learning program to have three different components: one was self-guided learning, another specifically designed for manager learning, and the third was studying learning as part of our goals. That last part was management articulating that it was expected that people find a way to learn and grow and evolve in their career. It was written as an expectation, so it's very freeing when you know 'I'm responsible for this spreadsheet and this deliverable, but I'm also responsible to myself to learn so I can create.' For self-guided learning, we used Udemy for Business. We gave everyone an account and said, 'If you're this type of employee, here are the four trainings we want you to do this month or quarter; if you're a manager, here are the 10 courses you need to watch over a period of time, and we'll bring those up in manager meetings.' We designed curriculum for self-learning — it wasn't required, but it was important that people had that opportunity. For manager learning, we created new manager training and then, starting during COVID, we checked in with managers every week, later monthly. We created a topic that was topical for the company, presented something, then broke off into groups and had share-backs. That way, managers weren't just us pontificating about a theory — we gave it back to managers for discussion, and they shared what was interesting, and other managers took that much better. In every company I've worked for, I've had managers with tons of experience and managers with almost none, both frustrated with content. But if you deputize those with all the experience — 'Hey, you're really good at this, I need you to help me, and if you have a topic to share I'd be all for it, I get tired of hearing my own voice' — and with those who are new, 'Can I spend a little more time with you? What do you like to do? Why did you become a manager? Do you still want to be a manager?' There are all these questions to find out their mindset so they can grow their manager career. The piece of resistance is getting those high-level folks and lower-level folks in some sort of partnership agreement, because there's always a reciprocity of new energy and new ideas with experience and the 10,000-foot view. The last part was goal setting, making sure you articulate in writing that you have an expectation and we're committing to it.

Remember when I told the story about being at the executive team and being defensive, then I took a deep breath? That epiphany has allowed me to work with managers. I had one manager in particular who constantly said these manager meetings are a waste of my time, I know all this stuff, I don't see value in it. As we went from in-person to Zoom, that person would — not on mute — go 'ahh' and turn their camera off, which if I or my coworker were presenting would throw us off. It didn't feel good. So I invited that person live and said, 'It's very clear you're dissatisfied with the content and direction. If you were me, what would you do? Because if I can't provide value to you, I don't want you in those meetings — I don't want to waste your time.' That person was a little taken aback; I don't know if they were so self-aware that they knew they were rolling their eyes and turning off the camera — maybe they thought it was invisible, but it was very visible. We had a live conversation: 'If you're willing to participate, I'll deputize you. You can have a regular segment — you're experienced.' They did that a couple of times and realized there is space for me here, I do have a voice and examples I can share in small and large group. It's never easy to confront someone — that's conflict, and everyone is conflict averse to some level. But when you take a deep breath and say, 'I'm not going to be defensive, I'm going to be curious about where you're coming from, because if I can ingest what you're giving me, I'll be better for it.'

Yes.

Sure. First off, happy holidays and I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season. Make sure in this time that you reflect back and say thank you to your partners and thought leaders and thought partners. If you give them some good feels through this time, next year at the beginning you'll say, 'Last year was great, why don't we do something even better this next year?' Because people that feel like you value their opinion and partnership are more willing to partner and work a little bit harder to achieve whatever you're trying to achieve.

Yes, absolutely. Thanks. Bye, see you soon.