The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 435: Johnny C. Taylor Jr - A Leader's Guide To Work In An Age Of Upheavel

Episode Date: September 5, 2021

Text LEARNERS to 44222 for more... Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com Twitter/IG: @RyanHawk12    https://twitter.com/RyanHawk12 Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., SHRM-SCP, is President and Chief Executive Officer of SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management. With over 300,000 members in 165 countries, SHRM is the largest HR professional association in the world, impacting the lives of 115 million workers every day. Notes: "Crisis come and go, but our chance to demonstrate leadership skills is constant. In times such as these, Johnny abides by three key principles: Culture comes first Data is your greatest friends Be "extra" Mistakes made by Chief Human Resource Officers: RULES: CHROs who fail emphasize rules over solutions. ROLES: CHROs who fail develop an instinctual approach to solidifying their role, necessitating constant validation RELATIONSHIPS: CHROs who fail prioritize relationships (when hiring) above results or data. RIGHTEOUSNESS: CHROs who fail need to be right at all times without accounting for other perspectives "Culture is the cure amid chaos" -- At SHRM, they've defined themselves by their guiding principles: Bold Purpose Excellence & Accountability Flexibility & Agility Smart & Curious Collaborative Openness How Johnny earned the CEO role? He's had a wide range of jobs: Lawyer, a business leader in 'for-profit,' business leader in non-profit, understands being responsible for his own Profit and Loss of a business Since Johnny was seven years old, he knew he wanted to be a lawyer Why leaders need to become excellent writers and speakers: Inspiring employees has become table stakes to be an excellent leader How to work on this? READ. Johnny regularly reads with his 11-year-old daughter to help her work on this. "Grammar matters. Typos matter. We judge people on those things." Hiring: What does Johnny look for in a candidate to hire: Technical competencies - They have to know how to do the job Cultural alignment - We do not hire brilliant jerks Curiosity is key: "Tell me something you've been thinking about that would surprise me..." Self-awareness: Tell me about situations where you've been wrong or failed... Their motivation: "Why do you work? What has changed most over the years? "Culture is everything now. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are getting better." How can leaders create a healthy culture that acknowledges and prevents racism, sexism, and bias? "We have to talk about it." Acknowledge it Commonalities of people who sustained excellence: Curiosity - receptive to change Fiercely competitive - They want to win Exist for a bigger purpose The RESET - The opinion and perspective of Human Resources is changing... "They can't be the department of NO anymore." "The job of the HR professional is to help their leaders get a good return on their hiring investment." Life/Career Advice: Become really good at something. Become an expert Build relationships Build empathy - "When I was a young 'hot-shot' attorney, I would run through people." You need to build empathy for others."  

So curiosity is like the hallmark of the best leaders because they are constantly innovating and they're receptive to new ideas. And that keeps them fresh. That's one thing. The other thing is they're fiercely competitive. They want to win. The people who I've seen be successful over time are just naturally competitive and they want to win. And it's never a number. Welcome to The Learning Leaders Show presented by Insight Global.

I am your host, Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text learners, the 4-4-2-2-2 to become part of Mindful Monday. You, along with tens of thousands of other learning leaders, will receive a carefully curated email for me each Monday morning to help you start your week off right. You'll also receive details about my new book coming out in a few months. and mindful Monday readers will get the opportunity to have the first look.

Text learners to 44222. Now on to tonight's featured leader, a great one. Johnny Taylor Jr., president and CEO of the Society for Human Resource Management. With over 300,000 members in 165 countries, Sherm, as it's known, is the largest HR professional association in the world. It impacts the lives of 115 million workers every single day. Johnny is also the author of the new book, Reset, a leader's guide to work in an age of upheaval. During our time together, we discuss the must-have qualities when hiring for a leadership position.

Then how the role of human resources has changed over the years and how that impacts you as a leader. This is a big part for Johnny. And then three really useful questions for you to ask the next time you're conducting an interview. Ladies and gentlemen, you're going to love it. It's Johnny Taylor Jr. Johnny, it's great to have you here on the Learning Leader Show. Welcome, man. Well, thank you, man.

Great to be here. So let's jump right in. I read, so your latest book, Reset, you write that crisis come and go, but our chance to demonstrate leadership skills is constant. And in times such as these, I abide by three key principles. And those are culture comes first. Data is your greatest friend and be, quote, extra. Could you expand on these three guiding principles when it comes to your leadership? When it comes to culture, a word formerly that was sort of soft, right? It was business people didn't talk about culture. But with the coming of age of millennials and Generation Z, culture is everything. In fact, during the interview

process, they're asking the question, not what time do you, should I be at work and what kind of clothing should I wear? They ask, what's the culture here? And they want to know that once I sign up, sure, you're courting me right now. So you're showing me your best. But what I want to know is how do things get done around here? What are the rules and the unwritten rules? What do you value from a guiding principles standpoint. Like, I want to know if I'm aligned. I know I can do the work. The question is, am I aligned with the culture? So leaders increasingly have to focus on that, formerly soft word, right? Then the idea of data, you know, we have talked, whenever we think data, we think math and science and the financial people, they have to have data to make decisions.

We historically haven't really thought about people data. And the fact of the matter is we thought, us know people. All of us have hired people. Most of us have fired people. So we think we know people. And so we relied a lot on instinct, our gut, our experiences, or the anecdote. One employee told me this in the hallway, and we extrapolate that out to everyone. Well, now we have the good, because of technology and because of big data in our collection efforts, we can actually come up with some pretty damn good indicators of what employees really feel. And then we can act on it. So in this period of upheaval, we've got to use this moment, this reset moment, to look at the data and let it guide our practices and our policies and how we treat our people. And then this idea of being extra,

right? During the pandemic, it became really, really clear to me that this idea that my employees were employees in their family lives were their family lives and that wasn't my problem, you know, the compartmentalization of work and life, that those walls were going away. It had totally disappeared. We took the office to their homes. And therefore, I didn't have the luxury. And we as leaders don't have the luxury of saying, you know, kind of you manage your personal life and I'm going to take care of the rest of it because we were in, we were literally bringing out work to their homes, their living rooms. And so that required that we be extra. And you know, the idea of not just asking an employee how they're doing, but actually listening to how are they

doing. Is the person stressed out, burned out? Are they a victim of? DeVisement? Are they a victim of domestic violence, which we saw go up during the pandemic lockdown. Are they struggling with balancing their children as well as their demand, work demands? Those are the things that require that leaders who had never really thought about being extra, they need to do it. I ask my employees, I celebrate their birthdays. I sent people literally door dash meals for their birthday, for the entire family. Those are little things that you do that tell employees that you matter. And by the way, tie back to the first thing. They literally describe and live your culture. So I want to focus on one area that you said, something that I'm bouncing around your book

some, but something that's CHROs when they focus on the wrong things. And there's one of them that made me turn my head a little bit. And sometimes we create a little tension here. It could be good because maybe we'll learn something. What's that? That's the point of the book, a little provocative. Exactly. Okay. So the first one, I agree with. It's wrong to emphasize rules over solutions. That's one. The second one is developing an instinctual approach to solidifying their role. That's necessitating constant validation. So people who like always feel like they have to share why their role exists. The third one is the one I want to talk to you about. Okay. I'm guessing, you know since you wrote the book. You said the ones, who fail prioritize. Let me see if I read this right. Prioritize relationships above results or data. And I wrote in my notes, really with two question marks. Can you share more about because I feel like relationships are the word of the century. I mean, it's what we talk about is building deep relationship. I'm a believer in this. And so when you talk about relationships versus data, And you share more about that?

The prioritization of relationships over data and over results, right? All of us know people who we like a lot, but we probably shouldn't hire. They can't help our organizations. I mean, you know the story and professional sports, right? I can like you, but if you can't put points on the board, no matter how deep our relationship is. And what we have found that in business, over time, we have begun to value. even if it's 60, 40, 55, 45, 45, we valued relationships over results. Not looked at the data like Johnny's a great guy, but is he putting points on the board?

And over time, that gets old in an incredibly competitive business environment. It's not enough for you to build relationships. Someone jokingly referred to a leader the other day as an empty suit. And the idea is everyone loves the guy and wants him to be at their party. and I'd even love the guy to be the godfather of my kid, but he's not particularly good at sales. And we've been unwilling to look at the data to understand why is he not successful at selling,

to what extent relative to other people? Are there things we can do to help him get better, by the way? So data isn't just about penalizing people. Sometimes it's used to help rehabilitate people. So you're the president and CEO, the Society for Human Resources, management. It's a massive job. 300,000 members, I believe.

It's all over the world. You see on LinkedIn where people have the comma and the letters next to their name, right? S-H-R-M. There's a lot of these people because it's super important. You're running that show. First, I'm always curious how people get a job like that

because it's a monster. Like what led up to that? What did you do to earn such a a massive role. Well, so I began my career as a lawyer in corporate, a big law firm, and then ultimately went in-house. And I worked in big companies that you've known by a com. I was at IEC that owned at Match.com and Ticketmaster at Home Shopping Network were divisions, multi-billion dollar divisions of the company where I ran HR. So I was a lawyer, an HR guy, and a CEO even in the dot-com space early, worked at IEC running one of its algorithm-based businesses in search.

So I, in this process, had this interesting mix of, I know the rules and the policies as a lawyer, and I understand risk. I then went into HR where you have to understand in a knowledge-based economy people, what motivates them and what demotivates them. And then finally, I had a P&L responsibility at IEC. I had to actually create revenue so that we could pay bills and keep lights on. That interesting combination of fully appreciating what it takes to run a business in a 21st century was attractive to the board. But what really was the icing on top of the cake was I ran a nonprofit for a while.

People don't realize, Shirm, although it's a business, we're a nonprofit, so we don't pay taxes, largely speaking, but we're a business. I have for P&L that I run every day. But there is a different nuance to a mission-based organization that doesn't exist in a purely for-profit environment. So they wanted that to layer in. So you can be a heart-driving corporate guy and not focus on mission. And mission is a part of what we do. So that's what I think made me the unique candidate for this because I had real for-profit experience as well as nonprofit experience. Wow.

So you like what David Epstein would write about in range, your range is wide. you went deep in those too, so that that range seems to be extremely attractive for the job that you have, that you earned. It is. And I tell you why that's so important. You know, if you think about, unless you're a trust fund baby, right? At the end of the day, all of us have to work. Yeah. In this, you know, 70, 80, hopefully 90 year journey, you're going to have to spend a significant amount of time working. And so what the people in human resources, formerly personnel administrators, are now taking a bigger role in people's lives. So this isn't just, you know, the personnel days.

This is about human resources and people's entire lives are at risk. We talk a lot, especially during the pandemic, one of the big reset moments, that H.R. was focused on lives and livelihoods. Because you can't, it's easy to say, save my life, but if the person doesn't have some money coming in a door, then they're homeless.

But they can't eat. They can't provide for medical. insurance. They can't provide for their children, et cetera. So it became even more of a big deal. And I think my experience has prepared me for it. Do you remember the process? When did you get the job? 2017. So what was that process like, like the interview? Because you now as an HR leader, I mean, part of the job of HR leaders is sourcing talent, is hiring, as interview questions, is probably helping people prepare for those moments. And it's kind of meta because now you're on the other side of it, probably at least it's some form of a process. Like, what was it like? It was long. I mean, several months,

probably longer than I'd advise otherwise. But what I liked about it is the process was, and this is going to be interesting for, I hope for your listeners, there's a courtship. But it was a- Them courting you? Right. Both of us each other. Oh, okay. Of course, I showed up and put on my best Sunday suit and my smile and, you know, brushed off my interviewing techniques. But what was different, and I think different from 20, 30 years ago, where I was selling myself is they were also selling the opportunity.

And that's a new paradigm shift that we've seen come around. And you're sitting in this every day with everyday entry-level employees is they come in and they don't expect to just spend all of the time telling you why you should hire them. They want you to explain to them why they should come work for you as well. They got options. That's right. Yeah. Wow. And so that courtship went on for a while. And then you eventually said, yeah, this is, I want to do this. And they said, we, we want him to be the guy. Right. Well, and actually the order was the opposite. They decided they want me to do the guy. They want me to be the guy. And then you had to think about, was it a tough, tough call for you? It was because I had decided that I was going to go back to industry. Like I, I'm a capitalist. I like running businesses. And that's what I wanted to do. And so I wasn't totally convinced when we think about the reputation. of HR in times past, right?

I was so watching the office last night. And oh my gosh, who would want to be in HR after they attacked, right? Nobody wants to be Toby. No, fine, right? And I'm a lawyer. So I'm a member of, like, I have a real profession that I'm proud to say when I go out to a reception or something. What do you do?

And then you say, now, what do you do? I'm ahead of HR for a whole bunch of HR people. Not exactly as sexy, right? I mean, being transparent. But the reason I took the opportunity and the process was compelling, they said, listen, Johnny, better workplaces lead to a better world. So if you truly, truly, truly want to do something that's game-changing, think about the ability that you have, the multiplicative effect, if you will,

of influencing HR people who influence the lives of the workers every day, you can really help change the game in a way that your daughter will be proud of from a legacy standpoint. And my God, that was a really unfair sale. Because I have an 11 year old and I think we all, you children, right? Sure. You want your kids to sit back and say, my mom or my dad did something that helped make the world a better place. Sure, I want to be paid. I mean, I'm not, I'm never going to, you know, I'm not taking a commitment to a pauper, right? That's not what I want to do. But I also realized that I could make a difference in the world by practicing good HR. And we've been on our journey to make that happen. Wow. What made you want to be a lawyer? Oh my gosh. I was seven years old. I decided,

seven years old. Harry Mason, you know, who wouldn't? It was cool. I thought it was smart and he was successful and I wasn't much of an athlete respectfully. So I, and I can't sing or dance. So there you have it. I said, this is this is on television. It seems cool. So I'm either going to be a surgeon or a lawyer. or one of those two. There's always a medical show on TV or a legal show on TV, right? Yeah. It's really the truth. That was it.

And then from that moment, you set your sights on it and did it, huh? Well, so the quick personal story is I actually thought I was going to be a physician. Yeah. That was most I saw the blood, the Gore, my grandfather was the first African-American surgeon in the state of Florida. Wow. I literally was on my way to become a physician. The fact of the matter is, though, I was much. better orator, and I was a much better writer than I was a math student or science student.

I could do both, but I enjoyed doing one, and therefore I was perfecting that, which is the writing and the communicating. And so ultimately, I realized that this is what I will do and enjoy, and I then flipped from medical school, aspiring to be a lawyer, I mean a physician, to wanting seriously to be a lawyer. And that all hit me at somewhere. I'd always had this lawyer or medical. I knew I want to be a doctor. I jokingly say. And then by 10, I was hell bent on being a lawyer. Wow. So you mentioned being great order and writer. And it's obvious from speaking to you for 10 minutes that that's true. And then from reading your book, that that's true as well. And I think if you expand this beyond Johnny and think about leaders who are listening, they're running teams within Fortune 500 companies.

let's say they're a mid-level leader, like a VP of a sales group or something like that. I found that the ones that I felt most compelled to want to follow, to want to be around, are those who are extremely effective communicators. So when you think about the skill that you've developed for this very important task or very important action item for leaders, what's some advice you would give to those to become better writers and better speakers? Well, you've got to focus on it. Everyone thinks, oh, English majors or writers, that's easy and math and science is hard. All of it's fine.

Let's start with that, right? They're hard in different ways, right? But for the people who are naturally not great communicators, you make a really good point. Increasingly, since inspiring employees to follow you is like going to be considered table stakes, you know how to speak and you can't write. Your struggle, you won't realize your fullest potential. And that will have to be frustrating for someone who's brilliant, but can't, I always say, you're not a leader if people aren't following. And right, just by definition, right? Sure, sure. So it is critical to hone in on your ability to write and speak

concisely and persuasively. And the only thing I can tell you is like anything else, if you practice at it, you get better. What's your process? And has it been since you were seven years old? Or what's your process to work on this craft that is so important of becoming an effective writer and speaker? So I'm, and I practice it right now with my daughter. I have an 11 year old. Oh. From early stage, I read to her a lot. And I still read a lot because your vocabulary grows by reading, right? And so that's something I do and I practice with my child and with myself and anyone around me is reading will only make you better, a better communicator. It's just practice, right? Now, when it comes to writing, something we don't do a lot. This is a little

pet peeve of mine, and my daughter rolls her eyes all the time. So, baby, you know, I know you're that generation that text everything or, you know, whatever you do, slack things. But grammar, matters, right? People judge you based upon, you know, do you take the time to put the comma, the semicolon, the period in place? Can you make this make sense? And of course, all of us at 11 were like, Daddy, get over yourself, I'm over it. But it has paid off. And religiously, even as I write a lot, I literally pull out paper and pen, although the temptation is to text. And I'm always mindful. I take the time to get my grammar right because like any other muscle, if you don't use it, it atrophages.

And when it does, you fail. I can't tell you the number of times I have prejudged someone based upon a note that they sent me that grammatically, either was grammatically wrong or just didn't make sense to me. I prepared for this, I just in the back of my mind, I don't know if you've had the same experience. For sure. For sure. Idiot. You know, and I just decide that about the person.

They could be the most brilliant person in the world. Or best yet, think about it. You're a leader. You're a vice president of sales, as you point out. And you send a simple three-paragraph memo to your team, fraught with grammatical errors and syntax. And guess what? If you think people are going to be inspired to want to work for you,

you're wrong. It will get in the way. So practice, practice, practice. Even at my age, and I'm not that old. But what you do is you have to use it because you will lose it. Details matter too. Details matter. Totally. We've gotten a little bit away from that. I don't want to sound like the old man preaching, but we really have, and I would just say to anyone listening in this podcast,

there are no, you cannot imagine the number of times. You'll apply for a job. And the first thing that we do is notice the number of typos in your resume. And you can be brilliant, but sometimes you'll never get the opportunity. And I know there are those out there saying, oh my gosh, well, you lost great talent. Well, that might be true, but you didn't get the great job either. Yeah. Let's talk about hiring. Big part, HR has a role on this. And in your book, you write that, like Nordstrom has this famous saying, hire the smile, hire the smile, train the skill. And you also said that finding aligned talent starts with a question. And so let's break down this. It's kind of meta because I'm interviewing you here, but I like to see it more as a conversation, less of an interview.

But what have you found to be, and you can take as much as you need as far as your philosophy on this, because I know this is where you're a pro. What have you found to be some of the most useful questions and how do you tie those back to the qualities you're looking for when hiring? Right. So I start with, as opposed to delving right into the question, I say, what am I looking for? What are the things that matter for me? So sure, the technical competency. but by the time someone gets in and I'm interviewing with them, I assume they can do the job.

You know, they've met the criteria, the minimum qualifications, what have you. What I'm trying to do. So there are two ways. Let me set up. There are two things you look for in interview. One is technical competency. The other one is cultural alignment. Those two things.

And it's not one or the other or one is more important than the other. Because if you get a really, we all know that brilliant jerk, right? And what they do is destroy the workplace environment and the culture. And since culture is so important, you can't afford to have the brilliant jerk sitting around. Similarly, you can't have, as we pointed out at the beginning of this talk, the guy that everyone likes who is incompetent. You can't do that either. So these two are equal. So the first series of questions are given, can you do the job?

And then I get into questions like, is the person curious? And curiosity is, you know, clearly, Johnny's a lawyer. So if you ask me legal questions, I can answer them all day. One of my favorite questions is, tell me something that you've been thinking about that would surprise me. I just want to know what else, you know, people ask questions, different versions of that, what books have you read, what kind of, like, just want to know, are you naturally curious because you can train a lab rat, right, to become an expert at anything. The question is, are they curious because that curiosity will help someone look around the corner and help your organization innovate. It will help that person will help you avoid making. some mistakes or see market opportunities. So curiosity is one ideal. The other question I ask is

tell me about a situation or tell me about situations where you've been wrong or where you have failed. There is nothing, Ryan, more offensive to me than someone says, oh, I've never failed at anything. Like, oh, well, either you're totally out of touch, you're lucky, or guess what the odds say, you're due a failure. And I don't want them under my watch, right? I mean, that's just, says because we're all going to have that moment. So it's a big deal to ask questions. And it also really speaks to people's self-awareness and their ability to be honest about failure. So I ask a lot of questions to really figure out, is this a megalomaniac? Or is this like some real, you know, narcissistic person who will never be able to own mistakes? Or is this someone who can

acknowledge these things? So that's the second. The third question I ask a lot during interviews is why do you work? Why do you work? And here's the deal. There's no bad answer. I've had people say, for money, that's why I work. I've had people say, for good, I want to change the world. This is a no-judgment question. It helps you understand if I hire that person, then I know what motivates them. And that's the critical, there are people, when I manage teams, and you know this from managing and working with people, people are motivated by money. Some people just want attention from the boss. They'll take $20,000 less. Some people want flexibility. I mean, you just have to get to people's core motivation.

And that's why I asked the question, why do you work? What do you want this job? And you'd be amazed at what people tell you. Do you remember your, this may be putting on the spot, but do you remember your favorite answer to that question? My favorite question to why do I? No, favorite answer to the question when you've asked somebody like, why do you work? Yeah, yeah. So, well, I have a funny. And so let me tell you that my favorite answer was a guy who was really clear. He said, I work for money. I'm an immigrant. I send money back to my family so that one day they can come here. And so the only reason I work is to get my family here. You're talking about focus. I loved it because there was no question. Now, again,

Again, no bad answer. I could judge him and say, well, what about, what about who cares? The guy is real clear about what it is. And in the role that I wanted him to come in, it was perfect. I needed a workhorse. And he was going to do it. And I was committed to it. So that's one. But I had a funny one. I promise you, true story. So I asked a question and a woman said to me, you know, I like to smoke weed. And my husband. That's not what I thought you were going to say. I thought she was like, I said there's a camera in here. Someone's like, I'm like, I'm here. Yeah, sorry, go ahead. But it was true. And she said, so my husband makes a lot of money. I don't need money, but he won't let me pay for wheat with his money. So, you know, I just, I have to make some extra money.

And I was so. Did you hire her? Yeah. Well, no, I didn't hire her because talking about judgment. That's what, of course, said, there's no good or bad answer, but that one wasn't the best answer. But she was so transparent. It's like, you know, if you walk down the street and you see these people say, you know, we'll work for food or others who say, I need money to feed the kid and those who say, no. Right. And they're honest. So there's something to be said for that too.

Wow. I was expecting to say. So this is probably evolved over time and HR plays a bigger role. how have you seen this evolution go? You've had so many different roles. We talked about part of the reason you got hired is because of your range, right? You're a lawyer. You're a capitalist. You've worked in many different organizations,

for-profit, non-profits. How is it like, what's changed the most over time? And then the second part of the question is, how is that going to change moving forward? Because that's part of what you write about is the future of work. So I'm curious, like, some of the biggest changes you've seen

over time when it comes to HR's involvement in hiring and who we're hiring as well as maybe maybe some of the things that you could predict happening in the future right so the one or two things that really stand out to me in terms of change we have eliminated this highly selective almost arguably deselective process where you know we we brought a thousand people in and we were busy weeding them out and now we're actually doing just the opposite partly because they're not enough human beings or not enough Americans being born. You know, we're at a 20-year low in terms of birth rate. The world has changed.

So the dynamic is, as opposed to weeding people out, I'm really, really searching hard to find the right people to bring in. That's number one from a talent and work perspective. The second thing is I've talked about it as culture, but specifically underneath, so this notion that culture is everything now, I mean, hard driving CEOs are talking about culture in a way that I had never seen before. But one particular component of culture, which is diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Oh, my gosh, it is all the conversation. And yes, I think the racial reckoning conversation after George Floyd's murder spurred a lot of conversation, but it was actually starting, I saw this about five or six years ago. And I think it happened because, one, the country. became more diverse. And it was clear. The idea that this is just a black and white world and men would be at home and women, I mean, would be at work and women. That whole notion, the workplace was changing in ways that we hadn't seen in 50, 60 years. Transforming. And so not only did we need a more diversity in the workplace, but we needed those diverse people to feel included in the workplace. So inclusion became more

important than even diversity. Diversity is fine. But if you bring all of these people together who are different and they don't get along or they don't all feel like they belong, then you don't get a retire on your investment anyway. Now you just got to fight every day, right? And this concept of equity, which was very different. We have forever talked about equality, right? And over the last oh, 10 or so years, and in particular the last two or three years, people have said, I want to be treated equitably, not equally. So don't look to the right and look to the left and pay us all the same if I work harder. I'm abandoning equality. I want equity. I want equal opportunity. But the outcomes are going to be what they are once we're all given an equal opportunity. So just this migration

and culture and thinking and paradigm shifting, which is diversity is not just to check the box affirmative action, compliance sort of thing. It's real because my workforce is now diverse and will be more and more diverse. I don't know if you know this, but the K-12 public schools in America are majority minority now. So your workforce of the future will be diverse. There's no women now make up the majority of the workforce. Actually, just before the pandemic for the first time ever, women took over as the majority of the workforce. Now, because of the pandemic, two million women left the workforce, so we think we're trying to bring them back in. But for the first time this DE and I thing was a business imperative, not a moral, not just a moral

imperative. How so from a leadership perspective, how can leaders create a healthy culture that acknowledges and prevents racism, sexism, like all forms of bias? What are some things they could do right now? Right. So we've got to start talking about it. That is the beginning. When I talk about there's no way to fix things we can't talk about. That's the problem. And what we did historically was we said there are lunchroom conversations and there are dinner table conversations. And the two are different.

And we thought that we could tell people, you don't talk about religion, race, and politics at work. And the fact of the matter is, that's all we talk about at work. Right? So there was a shift. Do you think about what our parents did? They would have told you don't talk about that at work. And the world has changed.

So what do we have to do is we have to acknowledge our diversity as leaders, reset our thinking around this, and then create environments within the workplace where people can talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion. Without that, all of the diversity initiatives and programs and different ethnic days for food, it solves for nothing because we all go, we sell. and we go back to our own tribes and bring us together to talk about these issues and to have disagreements about these issues embraces our diversity as opposed to focuses on our differences. You know what? There's something I think we can learn from a football field. It's where I come from, but I recently saw a picture of my high school. I was really proud of this. They scrimmaged a team and my high school is primarily white guys and they scrimmaged a team that was primarily black guys. and they went to the scrimmage, they finished it.

And at the end, they all got into groups of about 10 to 12 people. And it was mixed. And there was usually like six and six. And they were together. And they had a leader for each. They took this overhead picture. It was really cool. And that's where I found out about this and talked to some of the guys that were there.

And it was all about this. It was all about creating an environment where the players and the coaches were talking about this. And they're starting it in high school. And some of these kids are ninth grade. And I thought like, wow, that would have been awesome to do in high school. Like that would have been awesome to be doing those things now when you're in your formative years and you're learning. So that by the time you're in the working world, you're like, I've been doing like, it's super comfortable because I just, this is just how we live. I like that.

What a good idea, you know, that I learned from a high school football scrimmage. And you just described it. When I gave you sort of my working definition of culture, it's how things just work. Yeah, just the way it is. That's the way it is. And when you do that, so it's not a. diversity initiative. It's just the way we operate. We bring different people together and they talk about any number of issues and they have disagreements without being disagreeable, right? You can be civil and

respectful. When I think about football, I of course attended the U, the university. Right. So fully appreciate and I'm a big football fan. And I thought about what you described. You could have two teams come together to compete. And I mean, you go at each other's necks. You literally try to put the other person on their butt, right? Because you're trying to win. And then afterwards, we all get back together. Even if sometimes I'm a little pissed about that late hit or that for the moment.

But by and large, you come back together. And it's amazing how that sort of competition can happen on the sports, in the sports arena. But when we get in corporations, oh my gosh, no, if you disagree with me in the workplace or you try to compete for me for a role, we are now forever enemies. God forbid, you're white and I'm black or you're a woman. Oh my gosh, that's exactly why you're trying to beat me. It's because you don't like people like, how about no, I just want to win. Imagine that. Imagine that.

Yeah. I'm curious, from all of your experience, Johnny, this is really cool. like, I really enjoyed this talk. From all your experience at a variety of organizations, companies, and roles that you've had, when you think about, and you're in this bucket, obviously, but when you think about the people in your life who have sustained excellence over an extended period of time, what have you found those people seem to have in common? They're naturally curious. So curiosity is like the hallmark of the best leaders, because they are constantly innovating

and they're receptive to new ideas. And that keeps them fresh. That's one thing. The other thing is they're fiercely competitive. They want to win. And you know the deal. I always said growing up, if I ever made $100,000,

oh, I'm rich because I came from modest, you know, background, from a modest background. And then when I made 100, I wanted two. And when I made two, I wanted a million. So the people, who I've seen be successful over time are just naturally competitive and they want to win. And it's never a number, right? The third thing that I have found in, and this is the thing that these people work and they exist for some bigger purpose. They can really articulate,

yeah, we all want money and we all want the things that money buys and all that stuff. I get that, but even they can literally take it to another level. And it's when I knew this was the right job back to the question you asked me earlier, when I said, okay, sure, they'll pay me well, and I didn't come here to work for free. I got that part. But when it's all said and done, can I really make a system level change in our society? And those people are motivated by that. When you see the Jeff Bezos of the world, notwithstanding all of the, you know, the negatives he's getting for trying to go to the moon, he's trying to bring. a barrier. I mean, he's competitive. He's, he's, like, he's curious about, like, how can you get to the moon?

How do, how does private sector do it? But he really also knows that this is the next evolution of the human being. And he's curious about it. He wants to figure it out. So there's a bigger purpose. It's not just, he could just sit and make a ton of money at Amazon. Think about it. He could just keep doing it and become even more of a gazillionaire. But he said, I want to to do something else because I have a bigger purpose. I want to improve mankind's lot. That's what I see in people like that, those three things. It's, you know, I have to tell you, I'm surprised an HR guy talks like this only because my initial, I guess, experience with HR leader. And I know you're nodding because I know you,

you know this was just not like this. It was kind of more rule followers. You broke the rule. They would sit with me when I had to fire somebody or put them on a plan. They kind of were like, don't do that. That's risky. Don't do that. And I don't sense you like that at all. You seem almost the opposite of that. Yeah, really a risk taker.

But I also, once you understand business, and I think that's why my HR experience was informed by, and my business experience was informed by really working with people. The HR department, that was the department of no. is not more useful. And unfortunately, you start, I'll tell you what happens because I did it myself and my friends did too. You start doing whatever. I mean, this is terrible, but you do whatever you can to act like they're,

they don't work there. And that's a problem because they can serve a great purpose. But if you feel like it's the department of no, well, I have to hit this number. And I have to go over here and do this. I'm very competitive. I have to make this happen. I'm not going to wait 30 days or whatever. are like, I need to go now.

I can't go to the Department of No if I want to go hit that thing. And I think I sense you're more like that or that is you than like the old HR world. And I refer to it as the old personnel world. And they were very complete to very policy oriented. You can't do this. You can't do this. You can't do this. And it's why, frankly, I wrote this book.

It's a part of the reset. Not only all of us are experiencing a reset, but leaders. Leaders have to reset their opinion and perspective of HR. Now, for good or for bad, that was the reputation, but it's not okay now in a knowledge-based economy. And so I always say, listen, if you have a bad experience with a physician, you replace that position. If you have a bad experience with an athlete and they're not cut it, you get rid of them and help them find something else. Well, similarly in HR, part of it and I go out and talk to HR leaders a lot. And I say, here's a special moment.

It's a moment when business leaders are saying it is all about people. I finally get it. And it's more than just talking a narrative. I really believe that. But they want us to help them get a return on that investment. And they're people. It's the only way. I don't hire people just because I want people to get a check.

Hell, I want them to give me a return. When you pay people to do something, you expect to get something in return. If we think about it that way, when Ryan shows up a moment, my office saying, I'm having this challenge with the person. And all you can tell him is why you're stuck with that person because the law says this and because this and that and that. He's tuning out because he's like, you missed the point. This isn't why I came to see you. I need you to help me. Either help this person get better within the organization or leave the organization. But I need help. And we have not historically done that. I can tell you now, though, the newest generation of HR

leaders are more like me. They get it. Like they are a part. the business and they know that in a knowledge-based economy, if you don't get to people right, then your business doesn't grow. If I was on the board hiring and you kind of put this little hour together, I could see why they chose you. I mean, this makes sense. It makes a lot of sense, man. I mean, it does because this is the direction you want to go where you want to call your HR partner and they're a legitimate, strategic advisor for you to help you. That's the thing, man. I mean, that is how an organization can go. And confidant and advisor and consiglier.

So let me tell you, as a lawyer, I'm the guy that when my client did something very, very, very bad, they knew they could call me, talk to me. And my job was as a zealous advocate. My job is to help them solve for that problem. Not to say, well, you know, you did do that. And you know you're going to prison. And you know, like, if that's a, you'd fire that lawyer on a spot, right? You're like, what hell am I talking to you for?

I brought that orientation into business, which is, you know, when I work with CEOs of CHI, I work for Barry Diller, I work for Wayne Heising. I've worked for some really, you know, titans of industry. And every time I said, come in. This is no judgment zone. Come in and tell me what's going on. What do you think about this person? And be honest.

And now let's talk about getting to the resolution that you think. think is desirable. And every once in a while, you have to say no. Like there are moments when you just say, I got it, but we can't do that. But it was the exception rather than the rule, which is the newest and best way to practice HR. One more question, Johnny. Given, again, the range in your career, it's pretty awesome. It's remarkable. And you're in the middle of it right now. If you're meeting with like a 23 to 25-year-old, or maybe someone fresh out of college. What are some general pieces of life slash career advice you give to that person?

Number one, become really, really good at something. I mean, again, back to our earlier comments about relationships matter, and I'll get to that second. But most importantly, you have to be able to say, this is the thing I do as well, or better than 90%. of the population. Become an expert at something. If it's football,

if it's lawyering, if it's teaching, if it's preaching, whatever it is, figure that out and get damn good at it. I'm sure you've read the books. I think it was Tiger Woods. They say,

you don't have to spend 10,000 hours doing something. I say, become damn good at something. Right? Related to that, build relationships. Because you can't,

there are some of the best kept secrets in the world from a talent, perspective because you haven't gone out and networked and met with people and gotten your brand and your genius, the light shine on it, right? So it is critical that you build relationships. Oftentimes, you know, someone can get you in contact to another person and people tell me, well, I'm just going to do it on my own. Well, that's dumb. Let me just be blunt. No one does it on their own. No. You know, rarely does someone just ask that unicorn of unicorns, but like, it doesn't work that way. Relationships matter. So if you're really good at something, you become an

expert, and then I know you, then I, as someone in your network, can now introduce you to others. And that's how you build out a successful track. The third thing, though, that I would tell you is, and I wish I was better at this, my 25-year-old self, someone had told me to be. build empathy. I was a hot shot lawyer. I finished law school. I had my master's, my master's, my JD, and practiced at 23. 23 years old, I'm in the game.

I'm hot shit. Excuse my language, but I am, right? In the corporate world. And I ran through people. I remembered telling a secretary, legal secretary in the law firm, she said, listen, you know, I've got, and I'm being very transparent with you because I've grown and I wish someone had talked to me about this at the moment. I'm trying to hit my bill of all hours and everything. And she said, my kid is at home and no one is there

to help take care of my husband's still working. And I said, you and your husband decided to have a kid, not me. Okay. I need to get my work done. And I pay you a lot of money and I'd expect you to get my work done and to help me get my work done. My 40-year-old self looks back and says, oh, my gosh, but no one taught me to be more empathetic. I even at times knew to be sympathetic. Someone comes in and they tells me, you know, my dog just died or my mom just died or whatever, right? I knew how I sent flowers. I did all of those things, but empathy was missing. And now, you know, I just, while my career has worked out, I do wonder the collateral sort of that I left behind by not being more empathetic. And so you reflect on that as you get older and you say,

gosh, what is Mary doing right now? And how did I in some ways destroy potentially her life by being such a jerk? And I wasn't mean-spirited, by the way. I didn't curse. I didn't yell. I didn't sexually harassing it. It wasn't that. But just I failed to empathize someone. And now being a father of a little girl, I can't imagine someone saying. that to me. Even if it's true, I can't imagine someone saying that to me. So get great at something, network and build relationships and build really meaningful relationships, and then be more empathetic in your approach on this journey. Love it, man. This is great stuff, Johnny. The most recent books titled Reset, The Leaders Guide to Work in an Age of Upeval.

And it'll be one of those books where I have the digital version right here on my other screen here, Johnny, but it'll be one of those books that you'll find yourself, like, having to stop, take a note, highlight. It's one of those. So I, huge props, man. It's really, really well done. And I'm really appreciative of you being here. Where would you send my viewers and listeners to learn more about you online? So, www. shirm. That's shrm.org. And you'll find everything you need to know about me and the work that we're doing here at Sherm. This book, what I love about it, it's not just Johnny's opinion about things, we used a lot of SHRM research. Again, back to data to support the things and the observations that we'd suggest that you incorporated to your life as a leader.

Love it, man. So good. And I would love to continue our dialogue as we both grasp. Man, this is really fun. Love to have you back with you. Love it, love it. Thanks so much. Okay, be well. All right. When Johnny's team originally reached out saying the CEO of the Society for Human Resource management wanted to have a conversation. I wasn't really sure if that was going to be good for this podcast, quite frankly. But I did more work and dug in and found that I thought Johnny probably would be good. And then as we get to talking and I feel the juice and the energy and the substance of him and I just grew to really, really enjoy it. I hope you did too. He certainly has helped me change my mind a bit on how I view an HR professional because in my work experience, they have been the Department of No, but he is certainly changing that. I think it's awesome. A few takeaways.

The sustaining excellence question was interesting. Again, goes against what I've heard from past experiences with HR. Curiosity, absolutely. But then when he said fiercely competitive, interesting quality. And then they exist. for a bigger purpose. I like those three that he said. And then HR cannot be the Department of No anymore. They have to help leaders get a return on their hiring investment. Johnny's a capitalist. He believes in that. And I think this is a great direction that he's certainly leading the charge for human resources. And then at the end, you could tell there may have even still been a little regret when he was a hot shot young lawyer and did not have much empathy. And so that's part of the advice he gave was to build empathy and how he was running through people. And I'm really grateful that he was at Transparent and Open about past mistakes that he's made. I think it's helpful for all

of us to think about that. Once again, I just want to say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message, telling a friend or two, hey, you should listen to this episode of the Learning Leader Show with Johnny Taylor Jr. It will help you become a more effective leader. And because you continue to do that and because you continue to write reviews on Apple podcast and rate the show, hopefully five stars, you are giving me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so much. Talk to you soon. Can't wait.