Hello, everyone. Welcome to Real Talk with Tia and Jill. Hello, everyone, and welcome today. You are here with us on Real Talk by Catalyst Food Leaders, where we like to have honest conversations to lead people forward in food. As Tia just mentioned, this is Tia and I'm Jill. And today we are talking about when good programs stop growing. This is really around the leadership development gap that nobody talks about. And it's one where we know people are running programs, but sometimes there comes a point where you need to pause and say, like, how are we investing in people? And this conversation today is really about what happens when those programs, like how they work, how they stall, how you revive them. And when the organization grows, but maybe the program didn't grow long enough with them. And so today, what we are gonna talk about is leaders and, you know, when they need this, how they get it. And we're so glad we have an expert with us today. Yes, yes. We love our guest today, Sharon Northern. She has been inside the story more than once, you know, at organizations that have resources, a lot of resources, real commitment, right? Maybe organizations that didn't have as many resources. And so she's here to share her story around this and to name, right, really what happens when there's a gap between intents and reach. And what happens when it doesn't get closed? And so if you are out there in the food space, whether you are a leader, a technical leader, an HR leader, a L and D strategist, or even a VP, that's just proud of where you are from a development standpoint, maybe what you haven't been built there. And you can't quietly know it might not be enough long-term. This one is for you. And we're super excited to have you on the show, Sharon. So we'll just kick off with you to tell the audience who you are, why are you here and how did you make your way into food? Yes. Yes. Thank you so much for having me on Jill and Tia's Real Talk. I really appreciate the invite and excited to be here. I have been in the world of learning and development my entire career over twenty years and have worked, you know, as you said, Tia, for very large food manufacturing companies. I've worked for small companies. I work for a private company today and so have really seen the spectrum of, you know, resourcing and commitment and all those types of things. And then I've had the privilege of being on both the instructional design side, so really the person who's actually putting together page by page, word by word, the experiences of programs, as well as on the strategic side, where you really have a business problem come in from a functional leader and really try to understand What do they care about? What do we need to create here? And how does it add value to the business? So both ends of the spectrum. How did I get in this space? My undergrad is in communications and I had the privilege of doing an internship for a food company right out of college. And my internship was around creating a newsletter for that plant, which went very much aligned with my communications background. But through that internship, was in the HR department, reported to the training manager for that summer. And that really introduced me to the space of training. And so coming out of that internship, I got offered a full-time role, my first full-time role as a training coordinator. And then it's just been little by little over time moving up and throughout organizations. But I really did, as they say in that song, start from the bottom. I started from the bottom as a training coordinator and then now extremely proud to sit in the seat of director of learning and development for my company. That's amazing. I love that it started with the newsletter. Right. Where it grows from. Yes, yes. What an amazing, amazing career. I feel like that this will resonate with you. One of the things that we see all the time is how much organizations spend on on training, on leadership and development. And it's estimated, I forgot who put out this estimate, maybe it was Gartner, but they estimated that like, three hundred and seventy billion dollars are spent on corporate training, globally speaking, on corporate training. And when we talk to people, especially around culture, Leaders really can't pinpoint this behavior change that's happening. Or they think about like, oh, we have this training that's going on, or we have this inside university, or we use someone to help train us every year. But they don't really feel the impacts of this training, of leadership development. Is this something that resonates with you? Do you see that even across your career? I do. And I've been in the seat of like, I'm leading these really great programs. We have feedback coming from our participants that's astounding, right? On a five point scale, four point eight out of five, right? That's great numbers. High demand, right? High demand programs. but yet people in the executive suite who hold the budgeting and are making those decisions are steady asking, well, what's my return on investment? What am I really getting out of this? And I'm like, what do you mean? There's definitely a gap there that over time I've been able to identify as a lot of our learning and development programs, leadership development programs are not wired into are performance metrics. into our performance management, right? And so with those two being disconnected, you're doing your leadership development over here. And then over here, you're doing talent management or performance management, whatever the company calls it. And there's not any red thread connecting the two together. So people can't see that as we're having like discussions about succession planning or as we're having discussions about, you know, For most companies, director and above positions are not posted on the internet. They are selected, right? So as we're having those discussions, we aren't seeing that people who have been through four or five of our leadership development experiences are the people we're discussing. Oh, interesting. Right? It's a complete blind spot. We're just focusing on, well, they're the right talent and look at their results. Well, part of the reason they're getting those results is they've been through four or five leadership development. Right. Yes. Yes. In this company, it's completely a blind spot. We aren't even talking about it as we are saying that they're the right person. That's fascinating, especially because when you shared a little bit about yourself, you talked about like, that connection of solving a business problem or helping build businesses to reach goals. I don't remember the exact phrase, but we know these are connected. We know that there's connection. And what you just said shows that we aren't intentionally always putting it together. How have you seen that come together? Because us being in this space too, that's always the thing people ask. How do I show ROI dollars? How do I show something more direct? And we're like, it's not always that. It's not a KPI that flashes like on the scoreboard as you walk through the production room. There isn't something related to leadership that updated that frequency that we typically expect a KPI to have. Right. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's a really great question. And it comes down to intent and impact. Right. And so there are some programs where the intent is. we're going to invest and it's going to be a wash, if you will. We're going to invest five hundred dollars per person. It's the right thing to do. We want it a part of our employee value proposition that we have these programs. And so our intention here isn't necessarily to prove ROI. Those are really great programs. And there's a lot of companies who that's part of the fabric, that's part of the culture. And so that's why they have those. Then there's others who maybe don't have that longstanding history of that, who are trying a new program or my preferred spaces. There's a pain point. There's something that's happening in the business that's causing challenges that are significant enough that now we've decided to do something about it in the space of leadership development. And so we have to identify what is the metric that flashed this pain point, that flashed this challenge, and then design our program to show whether or not we're moving the needle on that metric. In the HR space, a lot of times that metric is retention. A lot of times that metric is Readiness. Right. And so one of the things that I spent a lot of time today talking to my leaders about is, OK, we we promoted this person in the last six months. Were they ready? Were they ready? Right. And what are the metrics? Now we know they're ready. Did we do a feedback survey on them? Have we did a focus group with their team? Did the metrics that their function was displaying when they stepped in the role, have they held? Or do we see a dip, a significant dip in those metrics? And also just talking to people in their org. How have the last six months been? Do you think that they are where you would expect that leader to be? I really think that interviewing and conversation are table stakes. Technology and AI cannot take away just a conversation with someone about their leader. So those help us with impact. They help us with impact. And for some programs, it's intent and impact. And some, it's just intent. I like the way you talked about this because in my mind, I'm thinking as you're saying this, where you talk about the intent is really just to kind of have this program almost like a baseline. I think about it like awareness. You want your leaders to have this general awareness about how do you think about certain leadership behaviors? How do you influence here at the organization? um we kind of have conversations around like are you really just looking for this awareness around what's important and you know kind of putting that foundation and then like what you're saying which we work a lot with our clients because they're typically running into an issue um like we you know people are leaving or we're having really terrible engagement scores or you know um whatever it happens to be that's kind of driving them to say We need to do something right now because something is happening in our organization. And I like the way that you put it. That's when really in my mind, this is kind of how I thought about it as you were talking. And that's when it's really important to have these KPIs. That's when it's really important for you to think about, okay, what is it that we're trying to solve? We've been talking about problem solving lately. What is the problem statement? What is it that you're hoping to see? I think one of the things that people don't realize, though, is that when you're talking about human behaviors, and maybe this goes back to Jill's point, is that it's not something that's going to turn around in a shift or in a couple of shifts or in a couple of days. Sometimes this is like a six month or a year, maybe even a couple of years, depending on how bad your culture is, when you can start seeing the really meaningful impact to your organization. So I'm kind of curious, Sharron, in your experience, when people try to put this impact on it, are they hoping for these quick wins around people behavior? Or how do you even have these conversations that it might take a little longer than a quick win or something that's going to turn around in a quarter? Yes. They always want the quick win, like a hundred percent of the time. And that's where, you know, my, my experience comes in because I have to help them understand that one, that's not realistic with examples. Right. And so that's why having an internal person in this space is so important. I work with a lot of consultancy agencies. I've you've named one, right? There's a lot of really great ones out here, but you really need to have someone in the inside who can help you understand like, what is happening in your culture, what your culture cares about. And then again, how do you tie that back to the impact in these conversations? Because it does minimally take six months and it has to be tracked and the tracking mechanism does not exist. So I talked about retention, for example, like that one exists, but that's not what we're really tracking when we talk about human behavior. Right. When we talk about human behavior, we're talking about what are the day-to-day performance indicators that your company's paying attention to that you can pulse in with along that, you know, on these milestones, three months, six months, nine months, twelve months, right? And who are the people who should do that pulsing? Because it nine times out of ten should not be the leadership and development team or the HR team. It really should not. Right. And so when I say that to people, they're like, what? What do you mean? That's what I have you here for. Right. You're supposed to do it all. And I'm like, no, they don't know me. I'm not an expert in that space, right? And neither is anyone on my team. And so it should be someone within your org who already has the skill set, who already knows the language, who already has the credibility, who's checking in and tracking this impact. Can I give them the tools? Yes. Can I give them the infrastructure? Yes. Can I help coach and develop them on how to do this properly? Yes. But the person who really needs to, the people who really need to do this are within, you know, within that particular org. That's a really good, that's a really good point. We agree with that statement. And we see the benefit. I'm sorry. Can I give you just a specific example? Oh yes, yes, of course. I'd love to give you a specific example here because I think sometimes it, sounds more complicated than what it really is, right? Within our org, we rolled out a new program for our supervisors. That's where everybody starts with, is the front line. Great program. And so we started talking about impact, and we started talking about metrics and what I just described. And they were like, we're too busy. We can't do this. We don't have time. Have you ever heard that? Oh, yes. And so after lots of conversation and negotiation, we decided to make it a part of the GIMBA structure. Right. So they were we were giving three times a week. Um, and a lot of times Gamba was on quality. A lot of times Gamba was on safety. Um, but very, not very often was Gamba about leadership, um, or about coaching or whatever word you want to use to describe the space that we're talking about right now. And so, um, what I was able to get the senior leaderships to commit to is, um, one of those three for this material time was going to be practicing the skills that we developed during the leadership, uh, the leadership training. We saw significant results. The results came from the survey from the floor, right, from the people that they were leading. They were like, I'm talking to my leaders about things that we've never talked about before. I feel more comfortable bringing problems to my leader because I feel like they actually are going to listen and they are going to care at the data level. on like work orders and things like that and see that things were being closed out faster and all of that, you know, kind of those harder metrics as well. But some of the direct quotes coming out of that, I just, again, finding where do we already doing, how can we embed the impact and the metric into what we're already doing, make the space for it, protect the space and then track it over time. we were able to prove the results. Yes, that is awesome. And let me tell you that everyone that watches the show or know me, they know that I do not like, I'm not going to use a strong, I'll use not as strong words. It's funny that the other day, a little side note, the other day, Tiana used like, she hates something. And I was like, hate is a strong word. And Theo was like, it's just a word. I was like, you're right. It is just a word. But I would say I dislike when leaders say, oh, we need to have more conversations with people. Let's add these gimbal locks. And then I'm like, no, because people, everyone knows you're coming down here to try to talk to them because it's a metric that you're trying to do. Or, you know, like people on the floor, they know what's happening. You know, they know that you don't really want to come to talk to them, but you are because you feel like you must do it. And then what happens over time? You stop doing that. You actually have stuff to do in your job. But one thing that I like about your example is that Gimbal Walks is already a part of your culture. It's already something that the team is doing probably to problem solve, which is the reason why they exist, right? That's the tool for, it's a problem solving tool. And so they're already on the floor, having conversations, talking about things. What you did is that you incorporated leadership into work that's already done. And we talk about this all the time at Catalyst because how we tell people to practice is to actually practice in the work that they are doing. That's where you need to, you don't need to create a whole project around it or do something new. How do you practice in the work that you're doing? So if you're already, so people listening, if you're already doing gimbal walks, it's already a part of your culture. This is how you get work done. Adding in leadership or being more intentional about how you show up. and the leadership skills you are bringing. Absolutely. I love this story because that's how you really start to shift how what you're already doing, how to start shifting it and making it so much more impactful to the organization. Yes. That's amazing. It is. You know, with that, I think when we look at people, like you said, there needs to be an internal champion within a function who has the skillset, who can help with that. You know, part of what we see is that there usually is that champion who does remind people to incorporate noticing and being aware of their behaviors or how people are responding to them. But so often we hear like, Hey, our leader left and then things fell apart or gosh, we really liked when so-and-so was here. We did these things and we can't, people can't quite articulate the magic that they brought, but they felt it. How, you know, as you think about like capturing that and I'm going to say kind of institutionalizing whatever that magic is, I assume that's part of what you do, you know, with L&D and trying to do that. Can you tell us a little bit about like how, like, how do you do that and how does a company take that and just start that process of incorporating more of that into their daily work or that noticing so it doesn't get lost yes yes and you know there are those dynamic leaders that you just cannot replicate right like that that's always um powerful when you have it and when they leave it, it's sad. So I want to respect that, right? Like you just can't replace that. I do wholeheartedly believe, and this is a big part of what I try to inspire in my leaders, is one of the number one responsibilities of a leader is to gain followership, right? Is to gain followers. And not in like a culty, weird way. I know that word can sometimes make people like followers, but truly followers, right? I saw this YouTube video many, many years ago where it talked about the importance of the second, right? And you may have seen this clip, but it's showing a person at a festival. Dancing. Dancing. Yes. And all of a sudden the second person gets up and starts dancing and then a movement happens, right? Yes. And that's what I'm talking about, right? It's not the first, it's the second. Yeah. Always the second, because if you're just the only leader talking about this and doing this, you don't have any followers. What you described Jill happens over and over again. Sometimes you don't even get momentum. Right. Um, sometimes you then create a little click, right. Um, which, which is a whole, a whole nother thing, but I truly try to, you know, have my leaders understand their responsibility to create followers, because once you have followers, and you have infrastructure, and you have norms, then even if you move on, or you move up, your followers almost will continue it to protect your legacy. Like they're almost like, they almost are offended, you know, and this, this, I mean, like, really, and I've seen it firsthand myself. And so I've worked for a couple of different organizations. So I've moved on. Um, and one organization in particular, I started a program called grow coaching. Grow is a coaching model that I was using at the time. I didn't start Grow, just to be clear. I used Grow there, and we had great results. And so I identified a successor as I was transitioning who would take it on as I was leaving. And he believed in it as much as I did, kind of shadowed me for a period of time. After I left, completely redesigned and put his own personality and his own spin on it, which I loved. But for years while, while he was in the role, it stayed right. The program stayed, the results stayed, the commitment. It was a, it was a financial commitment for that plant. The financial commitment stayed as they were going through the ups and downs of, you know, cost savings and all these different initiatives. This was one that like stayed. And I truly believe it was because I created that follow ship. at that plant, and it was part of the fabric of what they deemed as what made that, that set that plant aside and set it apart. And it was a plant that was actually a development ground of talent that was being sent to other plants. And they started to see that like that was part of why those leaders that were coming out of that particular facility were, you know, kind of above and beyond their peers and in ready to go into roles at other plants in higher leadership roles. And so I just really believe that's the key, Jill, of how do you how do you kind of break past that? Because it happens, right? If the leaders there have really been thoughtful about who are my followers? How am I developing my followers? How am I empowering my followers? Because like I said, he did his own thing after I left. And I was like, yay. You know, that's right. I wasn't like, no, you're not doing it the exact way. You know, because sometimes that's what I decide, right? Right. But to me, that's the key to success there and sustainability is making sure that you have the right followers. Mm-hmm. That video you talk about that TEDx talk is one of our favorites that we share often in whether it's a workshop or webinar that we're doing. And I think that really helps define leader. Like if you are leading no one, then are you really a leader? Right. So really that focus on like, how are you sharing vision and how are you bringing people along with you to buy into that? That's exactly right. what you just described about they buy into that vision and carry it forward. You pass the baton, they move it. Right. I feel like that is the outcome of what you want around leadership development. I feel like if you've seen the video, like Jill said, you've been in many of our workshops, you have seen it because we share it. But if you've seen it, it's a visual of this is what should happen as you strengthen your leadership. skills right like that's really what you're doing you're strengthening those skills in order to gain those followers or champions of your message right sometimes we even say it's like who are your champions who are you building that's going to be your champions that's going to speak about whatever it is you're doing they're going to speak about it in other rooms um that you're not there and they're going to be offended right if someone tries to go against that Vision right because they're like no no no that's not what we're doing That's not what I'm on board with. Right. This works. I've seen it. This is what I'm a part of. And I'm going to speak that message. That really is the goal around developing leadership skills. And I like to say it just doesn't happen. Like you, I like to use the, everyone's like, oh, just do it. Just build relationships. Just create safe spaces. It's like the Nike whole like, you know, billboard of just do it. Just go and talk to them. Just go and, you know, resolve the conflict. It's not that easy for many people to just go and do. You need skills. It's building those skills. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm curious, like when you think about the organizations that you've been in and ones that have had strong leadership programs, and then they start to dip a little bit and they start to shift, whether someone left or the resources might not be there. I'm kind of curious just from your perspective and your experience, what would you say is a cause or some of the gaps that you see that causes strong leadership programs to start to shift over time? One cause is the program wasn't refreshed, right? And so it may work in a season for a multitude of reasons, but the season changed and the program didn't change respectively. So I do think this is something that, you know, skills are skills are skills. I mean, we have a few new ones now. I spend a lot of time talking about critical thinking, for example, whereas Ten years ago, critical thinking was not a top skill in our suite because of AI. We talk a lot about critical thinking now. But at the end of the day, like you called out influence, giving feedback, like there's just skills that who knows how long, you know, since Jesus, right? Right. And so the skills may still be really important. And so that might make the company feel like, well, we don't need to change this. We still see data showing people need to feel more comfortable giving hard feedback or holding people accountable. Right. It's been this way for ten years. So why do we need to change the program? Because everything around the program, as far as the practical exercises, the language, maybe the way that we talk about capability in the company, maybe the company's purpose statement has changed. There's many things that have changed, and you have to make sure the program always reflects the culture. So I see that as a reason. Another one is... Does the company truly value development or was it more about intent? Right. The intent just to have this because that's what good companies do or do we really value it? Yes. And if we if we don't really value it, you start to see what you described here. Right. It's been around, but it's not as successful anymore. We don't know why. Well, the why is everyone knows that this isn't really valued. What does that actually look like tangibly? We have twenty seats and we have to, you know, beg, barter and steal to get twenty people in the class. Right. Right. The wait list, the whole pool versus push. We we plan to do two sessions this year. It was never the right time. And so we're just excited. We got one in. Right. Yes. Getting rescheduled. We used to have it as a webinar. The employees know this, especially those who have tenure. They remember, when I went through that program, it was this. You just went through, what is that? Right. And they share. They share. They tell people. Like, oh, that's not what it was in the past. And more importantly, from a return on investment and how we talk about this from a results standpoint, then we're confused as well leaders just aren't the same as they were before and they're just not as prepared and our leaders aren't as confident and our leaders aren't having the type of, well, they used to go through three days and now they're going through a half a day webinar. So it's always interesting from my seats, right? When leaders are so confused and so frustrated and I'm like, well, what did we used to do that was successful that we aren't doing anymore? Does it have to be done the exact same way? No. I'm not saying it always is three days. But we do still need to be committed to investing the resources, investing the time. There's never a good time. We make the time. That's right. Yes. Yes. And you can know what's valued, right, based on what you're making time to do. Because we do make time for other things in organizations. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay. I'm curious. I know this wasn't any of our like pre-talk, but you brought up this question or in my mind around like leadership programs versus webinars and like lunch and learns. And I'm kind of curious because one of the things that we see is this trend to be like, Hey, we just have another webinar. We have another lunch and learn. What's the difference or what do companies see or what do cultures feel? when their program is all maybe one or the other, or I know I'm not articulating this question well, but in my head, and maybe it's because we're in this space, we see the value and the outcomes when there's this intentional growth in program somebody follows versus like this, you know, like hit and miss thing. Yes. Can you talk a little bit about that even, like what you've seen and experienced as organizations? organizations shift to probably things that they believe are more cost savings or maybe easier for people to fit in because there is so little time or whatever those things are. Yes, yes. So we have in my organization, we have, you know, webinars, uh, ninety minutes, forty-five minutes, um, lunch and lunch, you know, all those things, and, and they, they add value, especially when, you know, Tia used the word awareness earlier, a hundred percent. Um, I want to get people together, bring a topic that they may not have, uh, they're either not aware of at all, or we haven't talked about it in some time, and we just want to kind of refresh on it, um, kind of thing. Absolutely. Maybe we don't expect, We hope for, but we don't necessarily expect a change coming out of it. Right. We kind of just are putting it out there to see if someone's interested in, if they have a strength of a learner, a natural curiosity, um, that they'll take some action on it. Those are great. Keep them. But when you are really trying to solve a business problem, when you have a pain point, you have to bring people along the journey. You have to give them time to practice. This is something new, right? It's like cooking, learning how to cook. You can't take someone to a cooking class, teach them these great skills for two hours, and then they never cook again. And then you're, you know, six months later, ask them to cook another meal. They're going to struggle, right? They might not even remember, you know, how to... Turn the oven on, who knows, right? But yes, so I'm always like, what do you really want to get out of this? What does success mean? And the more complex, the more time that we need to come along with them for practice. A lot of times what surprises me and what has surprised me in my space, the more technical, the less complex. Hmm. Hmm. I know. I know. Right. It's one plus one equals two. Do step one, step two, step three, step four, repeat. So we spend a lot of time as we should making sure that the process is documented, that the training shows you how to follow the process. Right. And then it's repeat, repeat, repeat. Right. Yeah. So that's not really complex. Right. It's, it's very straightforward. When now I'm trying to teach you how to give difficult feedback, I'm going to choose two or three examples of difficult feedback of the hundreds that you're going to experience in the real moment of leadership, right? That is very complex. It is very nuanced. So I cannot just, you know, in a few hours take you through step one, step two, step three. I can give you a great framework. I can give you some moments of practice. But until you actually go back and practice, try it out. And then come back to a coach, come back to a partner and say, well, this is a situation that we didn't talk about. How am I supposed to handle this? Or I tried the framework with this. This is the part that feels really good that I think I was successful at, but this is where I'm not sure. And I could tell from the employee that it didn't necessarily connect the way that I wanted it to connect. Help me do that differently. That's going to happen over time. That's gonna happen over time. And so you really have to have a program so that they know who to come back to. There's a safe space and time for them to come back to it in order to really see the results of that behavior change. I feel like you just described the reason on why our programs are set up the way that they are. Where literally we're talking about the subject And that was not planned, right? Like talking about the subject, like giving a framework and then going in practice and coming back to reflect on it, right? Like what worked, what didn't work? What's coming up next that might be a little bit different than the conversation you had today? How are you going to shift? Like even just understanding those pieces and having, like you said, that safe space to be able to reflect on those things is so crucial to it actually sticking. You know, I love the way that you talked about that. And, you know, I'm going to throw in just a little bit about coaching, right? You brought up coaching, you know, throughout our conversation, both Jill and myself, we're coaches. We build in coaching in our programs. because of exactly what you're talking about. It's not as simple as the one, two, three, the process flow piece which what you said is very important, right? Like we also help our clients get to that point, right? Like that must happen. But when you're talking about human behaviors, someone said to us that, even in this technical spaces, we're trying to use a different type of science other than human behavior, science, people science, you know, like we're trying to fit this round cylinder thing into, um, You know into a triangle shape like we're trying to we're trying to fit in the sciences when really we need to learn about human behavior and we need people to understand about themselves, like all of our leadership. courses start with mindset and understanding oneself because that's really how you're going to be able to take these things. And then in the moment, practice on, ooh, OK, what's going to feel right to me? How do I show up and give this very difficult feedback to someone without burning bridges or without making it seem like that I'm not a safe space? Those nuances, those thousands of ways you can handle that conversation, the right way is based off of who you are as a person, who you are as a leader, how you think about things, and how you relate to the other person. So also knowing how that person thinks, how they like to receive information, how they like to think about it. It was always difficult for me when people are like they're almost like they want you to respond right away. Some people want you to respond right away. Well, some people want to think about it. And they want to think about how do they want to come at it. Some people can respond. Some people I can respond really quickly to, or I like to just speak out loud. That might not be for everyone. And you have to make those decisions in the moment. That's how you know that leadership muscle is growing is once you start making those decisions in the moment of like, okay, I need to give this person time to think versus I need to actually lean in with this person. Otherwise, they're going to be super confused when they leave the room. Knowing those things, that's what really, you know, make strong leaders. And like you said, it could be thousands of different ways that you can handle those situations, but the leaders have to come back to it and think about it. And they're all right. They're all right. Yes. Right? They're all correct. Because that's also something I get asked a lot. What's the right way to do this? What's the right way to do that? I'm like, well, it depends. There's lots of right ways. So, so true. One thing, this makes me think about leadership across. And before we started this conversation, as we were kind of prepping to come on, you were talking about how this notion around developing leadership skills, right? Needing to learn, go and practice, reflect, come back and reflect. Like that's agnostic across industries. And you made a comment about in organizations, right, it's agnostic across and it's similar in organizations with a hierarchy, which in most organizations, right, they have hierarchies. I would love for you to talk about that a little bit and how this notion of having a hierarchy sort of impacts the way we lead in spaces or maybe even how we develop those leadership skills. Absolutely. So it starts with who owns leadership development, whose responsibility is it to develop? So most hierarchies think my manager, it's my manager's responsibility to develop me. And so if my manager doesn't care about development, then I don't get developed. Right. And so if that is true, then we spend a lot of time trying to develop managers and teach managers how to develop others. However, I wholeheartedly believe that development is owned by every employee. And that whether your manager is developing you or not, you still should care about your development. You should seek out development opportunities. You should ask for development opportunities, right? And so if that is your truth, then you're not limited to what programs my company has or what my manager feels about development. and you can still grow. And so that's what I have seen in that the hierarchical most believe like if my manager is not developing me, then it's just not going to happen. And then that sometimes can lead to, you know. Frustration. people leaving, retention problems, because they go to find an organization or a manager. Or sometimes we see, I'm sure you've seen a manager who everyone wants to work for because they're such a great developer of people. that's tiring right not everyone can work for that manager so i i also try on the so i have some programs are definitely leaders of people who are involved in but we also believe in leading yourself and so we do have programs that are focused around how do you lead yourself yes yes I like that. I feel like very early on in my career, I was very lucky to have a manager that developed me and that put me in different scenarios. And I was also curious to learn, but I did not take an intentional approach to development until after I left my first organization. I was like, wow, okay, well, what do I, what do I want to do? What do I want to get experience in? Like what direction do I want my career to be in? I didn't really think about that early on in my career. And I was just so lucky that I was in an environment that I still got development. Otherwise I would have like looked up five years later and said, oh, wow, I really did not get the type of experience that maybe I I wanted or needed to have a higher level position or wherever I wanted to go in my career. And I see that even with people who've been in the industry for years and years and years, they almost kind of stall out because exactly what you're talking about, where it's like, well, this company doesn't really care about development or my manager doesn't care about development or others don't care about development. So they've kind of set in it themselves when they could be looking out for development opportunities. I do have a question around this because I do think people should naturally think about what growth means to them and actively seek it. But I also think about companies, all of them have growth plans. No company is like, we just want to be where we are today and we're good. So it feels like inherently for a company to grow, they have to grow capacity, which capacity is not just line time, it's people. And as you talked about, AI can't solely fill the capacity needs. So with that, how have you seen it work well for companies to kind of get it right in terms of how they look at and value this connection of for us to build capacity as an organization, we do need our managers to actively build capacity within our people. Because it feels like sometimes that link is missing. It's more focused on, well, how many more lines can we get in and how much more product can we get through? But we leave people behind. And it also leads to, Tia, what you talked about, kind of this stall or this plateau that I've seen companies hit too. Like I can't get past two hundred fifty million in sales. We might get more sales, but our margins eroded. Can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah. From a success standpoint, it's hard from success, to be honest with you, because I think we're all still trying to figure it out, at least from my experience. I've been a part of some attempts, usually around succession planning. Right. Usually around succession planning, because those are the conversations of who's who are we preparing? Who's in the pipeline? What talent are we preparing? And then how are we preparing them? And that's where programs usually come in. Mentorship comes in, things like that. Or and this is where it gets difficult. We realize that we haven't prepared anyone. Right. Yeah. And honestly, that happens more often. where companies have really relied on results to identify the next leader based on results, not necessarily because they were prepared for that role. And also, one of the things that we are seeing is the generational differences. Yeah. So as we think about, you know, millennials and kind of that that generation and how. Prepared we were ourselves and how willing we were to raise our hands and take on more and kind of learn through those hard experiences and and not and learn in a grow in an ambiguous environment right yes right like we just had like almost blind faith that if i work hard someone's going to identify that i'm a great you know resource and give me an opportunity and i'll wait for that person to like identify me and give me that opportunity that was the mindset um the new generation i think we're on z um They want clarity, and they want clarity much sooner. And if they don't receive clarity, they're on to the next. Right. They are on to the next. They also want more freedom to operate, work-life balance-wise, just a plethora of things that we didn't have before. And so that's another reason why these conversations and preparing leaders is no longer a negotiable or an option. And this is recent in my opinion, right? This is a recent change. What we did before worked, which is why we weren't preparing, right? Because it was fine. It continued to work out. And so now that we see, you know, retirements are happening, there's so much new processes and innovations. We're moving faster. There's so much more change in our environments. we do have to be more thoughtful about how are we preparing the next set of leaders, either leaders leading people are, again, are individual contributors who are bringing innovation, who are working from who knows where in the world, but leading really important work from there, right? How do we have them still be a part of the organization, even though we've now given them ability to not be physically in the same space as their peers, as their managers? This is this is all new. All right. And so development program standpoint, I'm very much in the in the constant thinking of what can we try? And that's my answer, Jill, is try it all. Yeah. I'm like, let's try this. Let's try that. Let's do tests. Let's do pilots. You know, let's try something. See if it works. Many pilots. Let's try for a quarter. Many pilot is always ninety days. Be clear, because sometimes our leaders are like, let's do this one two hour thing and try it. No, that's right. We still have to, you know, have a beginning, a middle and an end, ninety days. Right. Let's try it out because we just we're trying to figure out what how this is going to work in our in our new our new norm. This kind of makes me think about what you were saying earlier around leadership programs must shift, right? They must evolve as your people are evolving. And generations, that's a big one. Like you said, that's a big one happening right now. And the new generation coming into the workforce, they're not motivated by the same things. So that means if you're still executing your programs the same way, you're probably missing some things. And we see all the time, even with the previous conversation we were having where people are reaching out for their own development. If someone's coming to us because their organization is not supporting their development or they don't see it there and they're coming to us, we almost always tell their manager that they're gonna be thinking about their role differently at the end of our program. And that might cause them to actually exit the organization. Because they're picking up this new way of almost thinking about themselves, how they fit in, and then how they lead. And that might cause them to say, I need to be somewhere that this type of work is actually valued, or what I'm doing is valued, how I think is valued. um and so we tell them right like yep they're reaching out they want to do it we're glad you support it they're gonna have some thoughts in their heads um that they might want to talk to you about or right like or they might not I don't know um to move on because like like you're saying people the way people are thinking about organizations are shifting and we have to shift along with them in order to grow right to jill's point in order to grow in order to build capacity which is exactly what um organizations organizations want to do yeah i i really appreciate the higher integrity of that disclosure that is the right thing to do and and you know it's a little risky when you're a partner um whether you're internal partner, external partner, it's very risky to say one of the outcomes is potentially this, but in a good way, because it's always fantastic when someone unlocks a piece of what their passion is, what their purpose is. And I think it's telling the organization or the conversation with the organization is how, how are we going to be ready for this person as they make this shift? and like you said i think organizations we're not ready right like we haven't been preparing people and so we're like okay you need to start now right start now start preparing your people now you're gonna have some shaky years right you're still gonna feel this way for the next couple of years few years depending on how large your organization is but one day it's going to shift and you are going to be ready and you're going to have this framework in place and you're going to have people that you can choose from, that you can move around, that you can help develop in many different ways. But right now you're not there, but how do you try to be ready for that person when they have developed things that you should be doing anyway, right? Like we've all been through great development programs and we're thinking about, huh, okay you know like how am i going to show up what do i really i feel like great development programs make you think about like who you are as a person and that might shift something in you really great organizations they almost come back and have a conversation with you about what did you learn right and then how are you going to apply it here because we want that here how are you going to apply it here how are you going to work with it here in our organization in these walls like don't think about elsewhere right think about here we want all this stuff here um that you gained and really great organizations do that because they want to keep those people even after they've developed i think it's really interesting the way that you put it i mean you've definitely put some even thoughts in my my mind around like how organizations think about development and how we're we're not really ready for this next phase that we are already in like gen z they're already in and they're working they are here they're here they're here okay we've covered a lot of different places and i've loved the conversation and i looked up and i'm like whoa we're like almost an hour in so what i think about is with all the things we've talked about today sharon what What would you hope that someone listening walks away with? Like one or two things. The first one is, you know, leadership development programs, learning and development programs without having that champion on the business side who either believes in the problem, wants to solve the problem that can partner with you is going to be an event. Hmm. Right. It's going to be an event. And if that's the intent, it's OK. But we wanted to have impact. We want our programs to have impact. And so definitely for those who are listening, who are in H.R. or, you know, in this space, if you haven't been able to find those partners, influence those partners, I highly encourage you to just really start asking people what they care about and why they care about it. And that's usually where you can find, you know, what their pain points are, what problems are they trying to solve and think about, you know, how can leadership development come alongside that. And then that would be my second thing. Once you get that commitment, design with the purpose of in the flow of work. Wow. Right. It has to be the practice side. The practical side has to be in the flow of work. It can't be outside of the day to day structure. A really good place to think about is the one on one. I think the one on one is one of the. most powerful tools that we have as leaders that we take for granted. There's so much more we can accomplish in that thirty minutes with our employees, not just on the performance metrics of Here's your goal. Are you tracking it? Are you, but how are you doing it? Right. How in every single one-on-one conversation, right? Not just what are you doing, but how are you doing it? Who are you connecting with? How are those conversations going? How are you showing up? How are you bringing your best self? That should be happening during those one-on-one conversations. Yes. I agree with that. So, so underrated. I feel like this is something too that you see online where people are like, how often do you meet with your manager? And people are like, I try not to meet with mine. I'm like, no, you need this time. Your manager should be using that time. You should be using this time. I mean, it's so important when done well. It's very impactful when done well. I think even that awareness for organizations to think about Their leaders are extensions of who we are as an organization. And that reach is what everybody else is seeing. So if we believe that collaboration and respect are important, then we need to make sure that we are valuing the development so that people understand what that looks like and then that follow up or insert X, whatever your things are. But without that, they're just going to experience what they experience. And that may not represent who you want to be as a company. Jill, accountability is a non-negotiable. Especially when you're rolling out a new leadership program. I have... times where it's worked out really well. And then I have ones where like the program didn't go as expected. We, I couldn't, you know, get the commitment from an accountability standpoint. And so I was not surprised. It was almost like, yeah, you're right. It didn't work out. And so, and what do I mean by accountability? Um, is it a part of how they're rewarded? Hmm. And I'll be transparent that it's a part of how they're rewarded. Yes. It's a non-negotiable. Like if you really want to see change, people, most people, ninety percent, I would even say it's about how rewarding. Mm hmm. that's what we come to work for right it's like an exchange of my time and skills for your money right right um and so so it has to come back to that and it has to be a part of the design from the beginning um is a is a crucial part of accountability i love that so much in here Yes. I think if you are in our audience and you are listening and this is sparking something like you are like, I have a question, I have more I want to talk about in this conversation, we would love to have a conversation with you. So that's what Tia and I are here to do. It's not a sales call. Like we like real conversations about like what you built, where it's going. And yeah, sometimes we like to think about, have you think about like, what would a partnership with us look like? And could it get you further along in your journey? So I'm sure in the show notes, there'll be a link to get more information, but you know, the bigger part is hearing this conversation. What are, what is it sparking for you to shift? Yeah. And how will you do that? Mm-hmm. Thinking about those pain points, right? Are you at the awareness situation? Is that your intent? Are you really looking for that impact that Sharon talked about, right? Like, where are you moving in your culture? Of course, we want to know. I'm nosy, so I want to know, right? But then also, like, what do you care about, right? Like, what are you doing? What do you care about? What is your intent and what type of impact do you want to make? I feel like those are my main takeaways as I think about development. Yeah. And, you know, we say it all the time and Sharon, you kind of helped even lead into this more, but leadership is not a one person show and culture doesn't grow on its own. It takes intention and it takes a system. So Sharon, thank you so much for being here, sharing your stories, your perspectives, having some real talk. We loved it. Yes. Thank you. It was a good time. I enjoyed myself and I hope your audience enjoyed um reaches out right i know you all both have so much more to offer um and all the best as you as you go along the rest of this twenty twenty six yes thank you thank you and thank you to our audience of course for being here with us sharing your own perspective being reflective in your own work because you all are who's leading, right? And leading others and creating those followers around you. So thank you, of course, for joining us on Real Talk and you will see us next time. Yes, that is today's Real Talk. Remember, culture doesn't change until leaders do. We'll see you next time. Bye.
