The Ryan Leak Podcast - What You Should Do Every Friday w/Chief People Officer Lacey Stenson

Episode Date: September 29, 2020

Having served as the Chief People Officer at NorthRock Partners, Lacey has profound insight on something she's done most of her career to help her be successful as a follower and now as a leader. Show notes can found at ryanleak.com/followership. Lessons from Lacey: As a follower, you have to appreciate the challenge your leader is carrying. Give them grace. Leaders have a way of making it look easier than it really is, but it’s not easy at all. Often times, leaders are building the plane while flying. Followers can’t be obsessed with what’s next and forget to celebrate what’s current. You’re in control of your emotions and how you show up to work. You get a choice as to what Monday through Friday looks like. For years, Lacey has sent a Friday email every week to almost every manager she’s ever had. In that email, she laid out what she had done that week, 5 questions that will help her have an even better week the following week. Some of those questions are: Can you provide clarity on various projects? If this is where I’ve failed, can you provide feedback on how I can get better? You can’t bank on your leader thinking about you every Monday morning, but if you’re in their inbox every Friday, you’ve positioned yourself to be a better follower. For more notes go to ryanleak.com/followership.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to followership with Ryan Leak, a podcast designed to equip followers with the tools they need to succeed in the workplace. I'm your host, Ryan Leake. And today we have on followership a good friend of mine named Lacey Stinson. She is the chief people officer. That's right. I said chief people officer at North Rock Partners in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Twin Cities area. North Rock Partners is a financial and lifestyle management firm. They work with a lot of athletes.

I had an opportunity to speak at North Rock Partners last month on followership. And they just have an incredible culture. They've got incredible leaders. They've got some incredible followers. And Lacey has a unique position within the organization and some profound insight around followership. And I can't wait for you to hear this conversation. If while listening to this conversation, you think that was amazing, guess what?

You can get the show notes for all of the followership episodes at Ryanleek.com slash followership. Again, that's Ryanleek.com slash followership. Ladies and gentlemen, without any further ado, why don't you go ahead and check out this phone conversation that I had with my friend Lacey Stinson? Thank you so much for taking some time out of your Zoom busy. schedule to be on followership with Ryan League. I really appreciate it.

And welcome to the podcast, Lacey. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks for having me. This is going to be so fun. Yeah. And to start it off, what people don't realize about you, you have the coolest title I've ever heard. Like, I have never

heard of a cooler title in business in my life. You are the cheap people officer. Chief People Officer, I just think that's amazing. So I just want you to tell us a story of how that came to be and what you love about your job. Yeah, yeah, it's a strange title.

But where I'm super blessed and fortunate is not every company holds out the people department or the people leader role synonymous with the chief marketing officer, right, or in our industry, a chief investment officer. And so it is so wonderful that our company has created opportunity for me to step in and own the people experience, right? Our employee experience is as valued as our client experience. And so it always catches people, I think, for a double take. It's not as popular as I would have thought yet. But I think we're going in that direction.

But, yeah, I came to that title, I think just being obsessed about every aspect of the employee journey. And that is, you know, you and I have a lot of overreaching. lap and the same values and same principles, but casting the right light of the company of the type of people you're going to work with if you choose to work here. That's part of my job, making sure that we're attracting the right talent from the get-go. So everything from the types of emails you get in the process. I mean, we're a very humorous bunch. And so our email auto-responders, when people submit resumes, there's jokes in there, right? Because we want people to self-select out in the process. I don't, I don't want to waste a minute interviewing somebody that's questioning

whether we're the right culture for them. Wow. People just trying to confirm that we're the right culture. So it's everything from the recruiting and the attracting talent to we really believe in and showcasing who we are and what we obsess about in that interview process. So it's making sure that our team gets an equal chance to interview who's coming in, right? It's, you know, the beauty of friends is that you get to choose your family in some ways. And so it's the same at our company. We all get a say and who comes in the door at North Rock, which is pretty expiring. And on the candidate side, it's a mutual interview from the day you connect at North Rock. We help candidates design the journey they want to go through to understand a career in the

lifetime for them. Yeah. And so then the other thing I do, yeah, we talk openly and honestly. So we talk early on from, this is why I love kind of your background with the Niogram and the executive coaching that you do. But we have direct conversation. The resume, and the job description, that will immediately qualify whether you can do the job or not. So we don't have to spend as much time talking about the job and the tactics of the job because really we're hiring you for tomorrow's job, not even today's job. But we spend most of the time in our interview process talking about where you want to go, the potentially you think you have, the types of people you surround yourself with,

the types of people that you're obsessively trying to attach yourself to in the next gig. What are the non-negotiables, right? I think one of the biggest fallacies we've ever taught ourselves is that you have to perform, like athletic backgrounds teach us that there comes to competition and then suddenly you find yourself in a job that you didn't vet well, right? Or that you didn't slow down to ask the right questions. And now almost you're just, you're buying time before the resume looks appropriate for the next gig. So we've really kind of created a process where from the start,

we're talking about your household. We're talking about what the next 10 years should look like. We're talking about where you've been burned in companies. We're talking about bad leaders, Ryan, that people have had just to make sure that they're not stepping into what they believe is a similar environment or similar weaknesses of the mentor that they're stepping in so we don't trigger some behaviors. So that's one aspect. I think that keeps us pretty busy as a growing machine here at North Rock and North Rock X. I spend a lot of time on employees, their potential skill gaps, you know, what's next for them. We talk a lot about passion at North Rock.

I think that's where not only do I feel fortunate, but we forget so often. This is something I love that you teach everybody is there's a difference between just living and living with purpose and living with clarity and passion to be doing what you're doing. And so much of my job, so much of my responsibility is that our team has to remember that they're getting paid twice a month to drive impact in the lives of our clients. And if our employees start to feel like they're getting paid to do busy work, if they're getting paid just to show up, nobody's living their purpose and their passion.

And so I want people twice a month feeling like they just got away with something because they're in, you know, a kick-ass culture, doing amazing things, driving impact, and we're investing in their future potential. Every time that paycheck comes, I want people doing a dance. And then the last kind of area of responsibility is org structure and making sure our leaders are growing and that our leaders feel like they have a plan for staffing for future growth. So a lot of my background is in innovation and creative design. And kind of there's some business side of me that's obsessive about operations and finance.

But so much of what I'm able to do is get leaders outside their comfort zone talking about, you know, that the hardest part of leading is admitting that you need people better than you below you. And so it's helpful, I think, to have an architect come alongside you and help you think of your dream, build your department and then help you start to cast, you know, the right skill underneath you. So that's what a day in the life looks like for me. Yeah, which is pretty fun. Wow. That is.

It sounds like you just have an incredible job and get to do a lot of great work and help people, you know, really discover, discover their purpose. I love that. You've got a pretty strategic role there at North Rock. So you sit in a sheet where you lead people. and you also sit in the seat where you have some leaders following you, which gives you a pretty profound perspective, in my opinion. So, but my next question for you would be, what have you learned in your time at North Rock about following your leaders?

Mm-hmm. Gosh, you know, I was probably 22 in my first job, and, you know, I happened to be sitting next to our CEO, and it wasn't a large, company. I think there were between interns and staff. I think we were just just over four or 500 employees. And I was sitting next to our CEO and I was probably running my mouth a little bolder than I should have. In my mind, there's some tap and some grace there. But he said something to me that I was so thankful. Somebody told me at the age of 22. And I think I was asking him about

the vision or something of the company. And he said, you know, Lace, let me tell you a secret. every day when I wake up, I'm building a new company that didn't exist yesterday. I'm making it up. Every day, I'm just like you in a new company because we either hired a new employee, we started a new program, I've got a new board member, and so every day I'm doing something new I've never done before. And I think knowing that grace, when I was 22 and I'm in my mid-30s, it helps me appreciate the challenge of my CEO that much more.

I think as a follower, you want you want. You want the playbook. You want to know, you want to know from quarter one to quarter four of how this game is going to get played and what the outcome is going to be. And you're looking for a coach to tell you exactly where to move, where to go. At halftime, you know, you want that halftime speech in business so often, especially in a growing company and especially in a pandemic. I think what I've learned from followers is like the runway of the strategy, it's going to be shorter than I'm always going to. to feel comfortable with if that makes sense. When I watch leaders, I think I've just learned.

Learning is different than appreciating, so I've got to make that the constant learning. I watch our CEO and I watch them make decisions on the fly. And something I've heard you say, Ryan, that I think is so, so true, is that leaders have a way, like professional athletes, like any sort of professional, doing it in a way where it makes it look easier than it is. And when you've realized that, you realize there's a level, a depth of grace and appreciation and understanding where you have to kind of go,

it's not that easy. And I can't come at them that easy or come at her that easy. You know, sometimes it's just, it's getting built. The plane is definitely getting built often while we're flying it, and that's okay. That's awesome. Appreciate the challenge. So if you're a follower out there, you're listening, you need to appreciate the challenge that your leader is actually dealing with.

That's huge because I know so many leaders. that, you know, like you said, they just, they make it look easy, and people really don't know how hard their job is. And so that, that's a, that's a, that's a great, great point. Well, talk to us about the other angle. Okay. So now, now we're looking at a lot of the people you lead. You know, what, what would you say is, is the obstacle that a lot of your followers end up trying to get over? What, what's the thing you, you, you, you see the obstacle. them struggling with to overcome the most? Yeah.

Yeah. In some ways, I think it's a blend between celebration and pacing. I think somewhere along the wave of talent, we stopped, I think, obsessing about being managers and we all started to own kind of the individual contributor mentality. Sometimes that's, you know, very rampant, especially in a culture like North Rock, we have so many high achievers, high performers, high ambition that we're always on to the next. What's the next? What's the next thing? And sometimes in an organization, you can play to that game by having different titles or different comp packages that are visible.

You can have career paths that are very visible. So people are almost always seeing the next five, six steps ahead of them that can feel a little overwhelming. The challenge, I think, for followers is not knowing what success looks like. And you've said something before where, and you've said it more as advice from followers to leaders, which is, you know, keep your eyes open for what your CEO or what your leader is celebrating and what they're considering a victory. And I think that's the challenge for followers. You know, myself included in many ways, other managers in other ways and followers, your interns, is that I think when you're so obsessed about the next thing and your background is all about winning the next award or the next big game or, you know,

especially KPI or metrics or OKRs, right? The EOS system, and you put any sort of business mentality in there, we forget to celebrate the wins. And we forget to celebrate that so much of what we're designed to do is to have critical impact. And where I think I make a difference as a CPO, not all the time as much as I would like, or every single day is when I think about my husband

or I think about my sister-in-laws, or I think about my brother, my dad, when I think about my old roommates, my neighbor, I want them to have impact in their life. I want them to come home to me or I want them to go home to their friends and family and talk about just the kick-ass experiences that they're having at work.

And it's changed who I am as a CPO because I want our team going home at 5 o'clock knowing exactly why they're doing a great job, the impact that they're creating. And I think if as leaders we're not defining that or we're not forcing our followers to slow down and celebrate the win and feel it, and you deeply feel the impact you're having in a company,

you're in the wrong company, you're in the wrong role, you're under the wrong leader, or you're not speaking up proactively to understand that. And leaders are guilty of that, followers are guilty of that. You know, we get the accolades, we get the quick trophy, and then we're like, what's the next one? And I think we just, as followers, the obstacle is, how do you slow down and, you know, put a check on the tallyboard

of something you just accomplished that was nearly impossible a week ago for you that you were chasing and hunting after. And before you take a moment to think ahead, feeling that impact. I don't know if you'd have a different answer to that, but from my lens, that's what I see, especially with the younger generation. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, when we talk about the younger generation,

you know, what are, what would you say within your organization is, what are people coming to you with the most in terms of the thing that you're, Like if you could take a young follower and get them to understand one thing to, hey, if you're giving career advice, if you're saying, hey, this is going to help you succeed in your position, what's the one thing that you would tell a follower? Probably a blend between you're in control of your emotions and you're in control of how you show up every day. one of those two, I think if you can pick a camp and every day try to remember that, I think it tends to lead you really far in life. And it takes us way too long, all of us, way too long to control our emotions. In a marriage, right, at work, on the bus, on the way to work, we just implode.

And the danger of a pandemic right now is everybody is uncomfortable. And I've heard you say before in 2019, flexibility being uncomfortable with optional. In 2020, it's not, which is brilliant. but I'd say if we can get followers to learn early on, you get a choice. You get a choice in what Monday through Friday looks like for you. You get a choice into how you respond to the news on a team meeting. You have a choice for, you know, I tell our followers this every day. If it was me back in my day as a young pup on Friday, I would be the first one sending an email to my supervisor.

And I did this. I think this has led to some of the success I had. I was the first one every single Friday before I called it a weekend. I laid out exactly what I got done. I had my five questions teed up of, hey, if I can get some clarity from you in these five ways, headed into next week,

I can have an even better week. This is where I failed. I'd love feedback here, right? And every Friday, I've sent this almost to every manager I've ever had because it just taught me early on that, like, Monday morning,

your manager's not sending you an email, unless you sent them an email on Friday information. And so emotion, I think, choosing. I've heard you talk a lot about, you know, being in control of how you show up. And I think a lot of that stoicism as well of processing the emotion, processing the decision before you actually act on it or come to it. So I know if you'd say it different. You're a stronger communicator. Lacey, that was amazing. Like, I don't even think you just said. That was incredible. I have never thought about that in the sense of your leader's not going to email you on Monday morning. But you can email that. Like, that's it. I mean, like, that's how you get better.

I love that. Yeah. Hey, thank you so much for being on Bollardium as Riley. I just, look, every answer you gave was just, like, so pointed and so just, like, when, People go get the show notes from this episode. It's going to be jam-packed. So, thanks, Ryan. Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of followership with Ryan Leak.

Once again, the show notes from today's episode can be found on Ryanleek.com. If you found today's episode to be helpful, if you think it added value to your life, hey, why don't you go ahead and share it with a friend, rate us, review us, five stars. heard and please don't forget to subscribe