Imperfect Action vs Readiness | When to Move

When does imperfect action build authority and when does it dilute it?

In Episode 3 of The Keys with Paige Williams, transformational guide and executive coach Paige Williams explores the tension between readiness and visibility, fear and discernment, expression and alignment.

If you are asking:

• Am I prepared enough
 • Is fear disguising itself as intuition
 • What if imperfect action hurts my objective
 • How do I know this is aligned and not just throwing something out

This episode is for you.

Paige introduces a Minimum Viable Readiness framework and breaks down the difference between reckless action, underprepared growth, and visibility avoidance. She explores how alignment is not proven before action but revealed through it.

You will learn:

• How to distinguish fear from misalignment in the body
 • The difference between Creative Leadership and Control Leadership
 • Why authority grows in motion
 • How Narrative Intelligence exposes the hidden story underneath hesitation
 • A 3 step micro practice to move within 72 hours

Creative Leadership is what happens when a leader is all of themselves. Narrative Intelligence is the method for identifying the story driving your decisions, assessing its cost, and authoring a more generative one.

Paige Williams is a transformational guide and executive coach, bestselling author of The Twelve Creative Keys, and former founder and CEO of AudPop which awarded $10M to creators. Her work centers on Creative Leadership and Narrative Intelligence, helping leaders become all of themselves and lead without self abandonment.

She hosts two shows:
 The Keys with Paige Williams, a live coaching show working with leaders in real time at pivotal moments.
 Lessons from the Field, an executive roundtable series featuring senior women leaders exploring Creative Leadership inside complex organizations.

Call or text your question to 801 843 5397
 That is 801 THE KEYS

Learn more about Paige:
 https://www.paigewilliams.co/

Get the book The Twelve Creative Keys:
 Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FV7ZBGC8

 Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/Twelve-Creative-Keys-Unlocking-Clarity/dp/B0FVTCSY64

Listen on podcast platforms or watch on YouTube.

If you are in a threshold moment, this conversation will meet you there.

#CreativeLeadership
 #NarrativeIntelligence
 #ImperfectAction
 #WomenLeaders
 #LeadershipDevelopment
 #Authority
 #ExecutiveCoaching
 #PersonalGrowth

Hosted by Paige Williams
Executive coach. Transformational guide. Author of The Twelve Creative Keys.

Call or text a question: 801-THE-KEYS, 1-801-843-5397
Learn more at https://www.paigewilliams.co

Join our free Leadership Circle: https://www.skool.com/creativeleadership/about

 Connect on LinkedIn and Instagram @paigewilliamscreates

Creative Leadership begins within. Clarity follows willingness.

Transcript

0:01

Welcome to Lessons from the Field. I'm your host, Paige Williams. This is a show about creative leadership in real time, not theory, not inspirational quotes, but real leaders inside real complexity, shaping culture. Today we are focused on PeopleOps, because let's be honest, the people function is no longer administrative. It is no longer supportive and in the background. It is the nervous system of our organizations and right now that nervous system is overloaded. Burnout is real, trust is fragile and performance expectations are very high. Regulation is increasing and general shifts in HR leadership and people ops are very visible and underneath all of this there is a story running in our organization. Narrative intelligence is the ability to detect that operating story. driving behavior inside a system. HR leaders are holding the story of work itself. Who has authority? How performance is defined and what accountability feels like and whether people expand or contract inside that culture. Today we explore the identity and authority shaping modern leadership. the difference between performance culture and human culture, what creative leadership looks like inside complex systems with real constraints. Obviously there is a huge shift in today's working culture and that comes up a lot in this conversation. HR has the power to create the conditions where creative leadership becomes possible. And you get to hear today from some creative masters in PeopleOps and how they are leading their organizations in today's new culture, where creative leadership is becoming forefront and control leadership is losing its power. I'm honored to be joined today by a group of leaders who are shaping people's strategy from the inside. Claude Silver is the first chief heart officer at VaynerMedia. Claude has built a global reputation for integrating emotional intelligence into high performance organizations. Ayola Alexander is the chief human resource officer at lifelong medical care. Ayola leads people's strategy inside a mission driven healthcare organization where regulation urgency and service intersect every day. Nikki Martins is the HR manager at Alps. Nikki brings a grounded operational lens to people leadership inside a complex and fast moving environment, balancing accountability, culture and execution. And Casey Amon-Wilson is the COO at New Disabled South and New Disabled South Rising. Casey Amon leads at the intersection of social impact, advocacy, and organizational growth, where leadership is both strategic and deeply personal. Each of them brings lived leadership inside real systems. Let's begin. But happy to be here and in community with you other folks here, wonderful leaders and practitioners. As you mentioned, I am the co-founder and chief operating officer of New Disabled South and New Disabled South Rising, which is the nation's first regional disability justice organization. And I've also run an HR ops organizational design, executive leadership, all the things, people ops consulting firm. where I have the privilege of working with organizations in the social justice space primarily. And I've been doing that for a while. um And I also have a, my specialty, my niche, if you will, is um fully remote organizations and startups and scale-ups. And so it's so interesting. I've been an exclusively a remote worker for over a decade. And so when the pandemic happened and everyone was talking about the future of work, the future of work is here, I... I got to say, I'm not new to this, I'm true to this. And so I love that we're all kind of in that space now. And I live in Tampa, Florida, and that's a little bit about me. Thank you, Casey, and the double name and I'll redo that intro with the. Oh, it's all good. Yeah, thank you. Claude, you want to go next? Sure, sure, I just love what you said, by the way, Kisie, I'm not new to this, I'm true to this. I was like, yeah, that rocks. I love that. My name's Claude Silver. I am in Morristown, New Jersey as we speak. I'm the chief heart officer of VaynerX. For those of you that know a gentleman named Gary Vaynerchuk or Gary Vee, that is the man I work for. my job, The job description, quite frankly, is to touch every single person, every single human being and infuse the agencies with empathy. And so I've been doing that with Gary for about 11 years. We've got 2000 people across the globe. um It's something that I have, it's very spiritual work for me, holding space, creating space for someone um to show themselves as an honor for me to take part in and to help them identify roadblocks so that they can um really, really fulfill their potential and be a high potential uh person, human and thrive. So I do a lot of work internally around emotional intelligence, emotional fluency, uh and really creating that safe space of belonging and bravery. Thank you. Aola, you want to go next? Hi, my name is Ayola Alexander. I'm from the Bay Area, which became Silicon Valley. And uh my background in HR really started when I did an internship at some micro systems, which eventually became Oracle. And that lens informed really my entire professional career as I saw people as the center for all of just human life, like how we interact and work. um how our personal lives inform our professional lives, and how we show up. And so my career has been defined by bringing that principle into really being human-centered in our relationships, into the workplace, because we spend so much time at work. So why not really nail those relationships, because that's where we are a lot of the day. So it's taken me through all different types of organizations I've worked at. know, Fortune 500 companies, I've worked in nonprofit startups, tech, healthcare. I'm currently supporting an organization that never built their HR function for 50 years. They're a community, federally qualified healthcare organization. They run clinics in the East Bay, giving low to no cost healthcare to about 40 to 60,000 Bay Area residents. And so I find a way to really support an organization to understand what their authentic voice is and how to get everyone motivated around that authentic voice um in the midst of conflict. So that's my specialty. Thanks. Thank you. Nikki, bring us home. Okay, well, nice to be here. Thank you so much, Paige, for this opportunity. My name is Nikki Martins and I reside in Missoula, Montana. I began my HR career about 25 years ago. mine kind of started in high school too, not so much in an internship, but more just kind of learning about HR. And I've always really cared for people. That's something that's definitely been at the heart of who I am even at a younger age. And when I learned that HR was really about, um you know, making an environment great for individuals, um I was pretty much sold on that that would be my career path. And that is what I drove towards. And uh it has led me into a lot of different industries, primarily healthcare, um which it is lovely to work with people who already care for people. I will say that um there is a genuine, just, well, I think the word authentic was used, but you know, just authenticity that comes from individuals like that and the vulnerability too that is seen. So I have loved that. um One project that I really did love as an HR consultant when I stepped away from healthcare was working with a zoo in Minnesota. That was, very enlightening and it's wonderful honestly to be around a lot of animals because they always care for you too. So uh I think um for me uh at the core of who I am, I don't shy away from difficult conversations. A lot of people would say it's kind of conflict resolution. I view it as more of just an opportunity to talk about a hard topic. And I think that when we can come at it from that, place, we're able to meet more easily. And I think it allows people to really understand that you do care for them. And my late husband always used to say, you spell love, T-I-M-E. And I really live by that. I do want to give people time. And I don't rush through things. So I think HR has been a great, uh just a great path for me. And uh I think that You know, we're going to hear more about how that has been a great path for each of these ladies here, you know, so I love the direction we're going today. So glad to be here. Yeah, I mean, what I heard is authenticity, true, not new, heart-centered, spirituality, and you all have been in it for a very long time. You are the creative leadership experts of HR. So thank you for being here. And I know we have this list of questions, but you each hit on something that I wanna go back to, okay? So I'm gonna start big. Claude, you talked about spirituality. and emotional intelligence. So will you talk a little bit about how you came into that as a part of HR and even, you know, each of you hit on it with different language. Like Nikki was talking about being love-centered. And so let's talk about that. Let's talk about that. This is people leadership and companies are made up of people and people can be people. We're all doing the best we can with what we have, right? And we give ourselves positive regard. to the best of our ability. So why don't you kick us off in a really heart-centered way on the spirituality of business and what it means to be heart-centered and how you got that title in the first Okay, great. Well, let's start with the title. So I stand on all of your shoulders. So I just want to say thank you for that. I don't come from a world of HR. I've been doing this role now for 11 years, but HR was not something I gravitated towards. was wanted to be a psychotherapist and ended up in 1998, right place, right time, San Francisco and found my way into. a number of different startups and finally found a home in creative agencies as a strategist and had a wonderful career doing that work. I've always been a player, coach, mentor, cheerleader without the pom poms. That's very near and dear to me. And I have an enormous belief in people and their potential. In fact, uh I had to work to find my own belief and my own potential. It was always easier for me to do that externally with people, being an empath and just using uh intuition and looking at people's body language and whatnot. So when I met Gary, he hired me to be uh the first SVP of actual client partnership and running a very large account out of New York. um But I was the oldest person and I had the most uh lived experience as well as work experience and agency experience. The average age was 23. I was 45. So he had me doing a lot of the HR function. We didn't have function. We didn't have HR. We had someone that maybe did our benefits and maybe two recruiters. So when I told him I no longer wanted to do, I didn't want to be on the front line of advertising anymore. He said, what do you want to do? And I said, I only care about the people here. I care about the heartbeat. And one thing led to another. And we came back. to heart and nine months later he said, that's it, you're gonna be chief heart officer. I knew what that was. I think if you have a heart to help, which we do, it's a phenomenal title, but if you can embody it and really know uh how to um be as nonjudgmental as possible and put your bias and ego in the back seat, it certainly helps. I am here to turn other people on. I am here to help them turn their lights on to see what's possible for them. uh I, uh, so when, when we sat down, said, okay, so I've been here for 16 months. What are we doing? And he said, we're building the single greatest human organization in the history of time. And I was like, great, sign me up. How do know if I'm successful? I already shared that with you. Uh, and I said, you know, I never wanted to do HR. And he said, I know you're going to do HR and you're going to build a very big team around you, which 10 years later I have, which is wonderful. And in the meantime, I got to learn the art and the science of HR, which is great. For me, it comes down to people and connection constantly. The spiritual part for me, as I mentioned before, is being invited into someone's house, is being invited into someone's journey, is uh being able to show empathy uh as care and compassion and putting my hand on someone's shoulder and saying, you know, you got this and I got you. I don't believe in empathy being putting on someone else's shoes. I could never sit in anyone's lived experience here, but I can certainly walk beside you and help be a navigator or Sherpa and a coach there. But you don't want me to take on your stuff. If I take on your stuff, I'll never be able to, it's too mucky for me. I'll have your stuff and my stuff. So, I mean. I don't know if this is where we want the conversation to go, but I think God is in all of us. uh I believe in love. I believe in universal, the universal uh love as well. I love the, spell love with time. It's really important. um I think that for me, when I started the people and experience department, so I don't call it HR, people and experience, remember I come from strategy. I come from very common sense. So that's what we're doing. We're taking care of people and their experience within the workplace. uh I did a couple of things immediately that just seemed common sense to me. Remove the need for a college education. I wanted to make sure that we had open opportunity for everyone uh and remove the way we were hiring. We were using uh CultureFit and I said, you know what? It's skillset fit and culture addition. CultureFit gets us a lot of like, like, like, and. uh I'm not interested in having people fit in to a mold. I'm much more interested in people taking baby steps to be seen. And that absolutely requires everyone in an organization from the sides, from the bottom, from the top. We're changing as we speak. The paradigm is changing from top-down leadership, ivory tower leadership, to that, I think, of the groundswell. and leadership and leaders come from everywhere. And that is something that is spiritual to me as well. you know, I am pushing for people to feel as though they do not need to put themselves away when they open their laptop at nine or walk into that office at nine. And doing that with a lot of grace and um integrity and truth, transparency, you know? So that's what I would say in a nutshell is kind of what I hold dear to me. um And I want us all to thrive. There is more than enough to go around. Thank you. And I just want this to be a conversation. So you guys just jump in, like respond, say what resonates, say, and also go ahead. There was a lot there. Yeah, there was, I have uh some reactions. And so I love that because I think that I've always aspired to the role that you have professionally. I find myself uh constantly in organizations where um we are like maybe six steps before of the existence of your type of role, right? So it's an education, it's an education piece. um It's seeing, you know, doing work around getting leadership to understand the value of the heart, the value of people, um and then, you know, baby stepping them through it. So when I hear like that job exists, I'm like, wow, that's amazing. There's like a lot of alignment going on in an organization to get to that place. It feels like a unicorn role for me because, you know, my lived experience has been um much more oriented around how do we break down those systems, explain them to people, and then build engagement. around moving in that direction um and creating a space where you can comfortably put your hand on someone's shoulder and have them not freak out that you're actually showing up in that way. um yeah, much more um digestible bits, um getting that type of like futuristic support from peers, but not necessarily in the workplace. um and finding ways to make it really comprehensible for folks no matter where they sit in the organization. So I don't know what other folks' experiences have been like, but I'm really curious. But that's inspiring your job. this. Thank It is and it's inspiring, think, because for someone like me and you know, y'all, we've talked about age and how the world has evolved over the last X amount of time and you know, what when we talk about the future of work and we talk about how things have evolved and changed a lot of what I do, as I mentioned in my intro as I work. ah almost exclusively with nonprofits and um a lot with orgs who consider themselves progressive nonprofits, social justice focused, et cetera. And even in those spaces, there are still so many organizations um where you're having to do a lot of what Ayola just described as bringing along and kind of making the business case for why we should be centering people and people ops, right? Or human and human resources. I always say, humans are the most important resources, but so many of us, um because of the ways in which we've experienced capitalism and work life in our own lives and others, right, is, you know, and truly the historical um rationale for HR as an industry, right, was to protect the corporation, to protect the company, right? And so I think the evolution has looked like so many people ops leaders, that's my preferred term, find themselves walking that fine line between supporting the organization as an entity, right, uh as the structure, right, but also supporting folks where they can and kind of what is that balance. And now we I think we're experiencing the next wave, where it's like you mentioned, Claude, truly more people led, where it's not this ivory tower uh archetype of organizational leadership. And of course, we know there are plenty of people out there who would rather it stay that way and are working really hard to keep it that way. But for the rest of us, right, really, how do we navigate the sea change toward more liberatory practices, more equity centered processes, policy structure? What is that balance between actual H.R. law and state law and requirements and all of the things and even centuries and decades of best practice and being more people centered and equity focused. And you spoke to some great tactics, Claude, that I would love to just plus one. But I just wanted to just hop on to what you said, Aeolin, just name that, right? Because uh it really is about recognizing people and centering the people and the work and kind of building everything out from that. is that the spoke, the thing in the center of the bike? I'm not a cycler. ah building everything, everything out from there. And the last thing I want to say to this, right, especially if, you know, you're out there listening, you're an organizational leader, or you're maybe thinking of launching an organization, or you're in a space where the culture is having, how do I prove the value or make the case for, like you, Ayo, I do a lot of work with organizations who have neglected completely the PeopleOps infrastructure or... uh don't see the value or kind of squeeze it in there in the form of like uh outsourcing or recruiter or contractor or a PEO, right? But really no true investment in people ops, really no true investment in the people infrastructure. And it comes back to bite the org every single time, right? If our organizations are made up of people, which they are, right? And I always say at NDS, you know, we are the work and that means multiple things. It means both we are a parts of the communities we serve as a disability justice org, as social justice org, but it also means that how we do the external facing work, how we operate, how we treat each other internally is as much our culture, our mission, our vision as, you know, our programming, right? And so I would say to anyone who's listening, my call to action is do not consider PeopleOps HR infrastructure a second thought, an afterthought. Don't put it on the back burner. Don't wait. Don't under invest because it will eventually impact every aspect of your operations. And I know all of us with as many great stories and experiences we've had have probably just as many horror stories that we could speak to ah both from our own firsthand experience and second and third hand experiences where when Folks are not invested in properly, where folks are not valued properly. And again, I love saying people ops because the reality is there's, they're the people, there's the HR, the personnel aspects, but there is also the operational infrastructure. And someone like me who works primarily with startups and scale-ups and rapidly growing orgs, smaller orgs who are trying to expand, you need that. That is the foundation. It is not the thing that you can slide in there or squeeze into a HR ops. finance, everything else type of job title that we see, right? It's like, this is all the stuff that we don't want to hire a full-time person for. And so that would be my call to action on that. Thank you. Nikki. I'll just say, coming back to spiritual too, um that you had asked about in cloud was mentioning, I do think um that that is a really key component, you know, to understanding people that we are spiritual beings and uh belief for all of us is very important. So we have to honor that with one another. And it does really, it, HR has really evolved in that, you know, there was a time when we were managing more of the processes and the policies around it, but now we are really more about people's lives. And I think that to me would be the greatest evolution I've seen in HR is moving away from personnel and moving into the human element of who people are. And what that looks like is that You're not managing their work. You are helping to manage their life and you are becoming a life coach. And I would encourage any HR professional out there to become a coach. mean, become certified in it. I'm a certified coach and I think it's a huge honor, honestly, to the people that I work with that I have that just because I understand how life can feel discontent, you know, how There are those hurdles of our past and they prevent us from being able to move forward with today. And we used to rely so much as companies on loyalty, right? We would call it retention and loyalty and they should just be thankful to have a job. Well, a lot has changed from living to work to work to live. And the sooner we understand that, the more we appreciate what we need to be bringing to the table to keep people em wanting to be with us. And I am proud of this company. Our tenure here is roughly average is about eight years. That's significant. And that speaks very highly of the culture here, but it speaks even more highly of just the care that they have for. the people here and the connection that occurs. And I just think that em we know one another, you we learn about each other's lives and HR is the driver for that, you know, so we hold a really special role and we should feel honored to be in that role, to actually affect the outcomes within our companies in the culture that we have. And it starts with what we model, you know, so Um, Ayola to your point, it's hard, but you're going to be a change agent for those companies, you know, for that company. mean, because you're going to model not only the behaviors, but what kindness looks like, you know? And I think that, um, just being very clear about that, but leading in kindness, but having courage to speak, you know, and to say what is necessary to change. Um, so that. you know, so that people enjoy doing what they're doing for the company and enjoy their life. You know, we give so much of our lives to work. So uh we definitely have to be intentional. I think there's a lot of intentionality that has to happen. And belief is a really strong basis for each person. Thank you. So we have listened a lot about this huge cultural shift in work, not live to work, work to live, top down. oh What I heard is this shift from control leadership to creative leadership, which is hard leadership, which is curiosity and clarity and understanding that we all bring equal value to the table. So what I want to talk about right now is What's responsible for that shift? And I mean, we don't speak for everyone, but just in your own work and your own experience, when did it begin to shift? What is happening? Talk about the resistance against the shift and where we're going and how this is actually going to make our companies more human centered and stronger. I'll go first because I think that'll help me be brief. You know, when you ask what's responsible for this shift, I think the culture broadly, right, has a lot to do with it. And you can go online or listen to the rate or anything that talks about, you know, Gen X, Gen Z, the boomers, right. And what was relevant and what those various generations came up from informed how they showed up as employees in the workplace. So you spoke about loyalty, right? And if you were a baby boomer, or you were coming out of World War II and all these different things, you had a very specific cultural context and work meant something very specific to you, right? And it did mean, let me find a good job that I can stay in for 30, 40, 50 years, retire with the Rolex and that be my legacy, right? And that is not what work is anymore, right? So as the world has changed, the culture it has changed, the understanding of what work is and what it should be has changed. And capitalism has changed as well, right? You know, there's much more power to the people in terms of buying power, in terms of choice, right? You know, we all know as HR professionals that we interface largely through these screens online. You used to have to go in person. remember when I was... growing up in the 90s and I had to go and I was looking for jobs, was you go with your paper resume in person to the Kmart and you talk to a human and that's a whole different skill set than how to make sure you're highlighting the correct search terms on your resume, like totally different things. So I wanted to highlight some of that in terms of the why the change because I think for people who are maybe not in this work every day and or are just experiencing it, whether it's something that feels like it's happening to them, not understanding the why makes it feel like something uh to be resisted, right? It's like something's happening to us, something, this thing is happening to our companies, to our culture. um And you see that some at the top even of leadership of certain companies that I will not name, right? There are the happy stories and there are the horror stories. um So yeah, I'll leave it at that. Thank you. I have some feedback on that as well in terms of just how I experienced it in my career professionally. I've always been very centered around listening to the employee experience and trying to understand what they need at work. And as a part of that, I observed the shift in just how I communicated with them and how they listened to me. And so, you know, when... I had a standard way of operating and it was no longer resonating with people. It was clear to me that I needed to understand how they wanted to receive information or what they were looking for. um And I use that simple example because I think that that helps any, I mean, HR professional, non-HR professional, whatever your title is, I think that deep, genuine listening will guide you. in refining your expertise no matter what you're trying to do. And then if you're open, it gets back to the control component, right? If I'm in my HR professional body and I know the way and I'm not necessarily open to what um the feedback I'm receiving, I would not have been as effective an HR leader to be courageous to make recommendations or decisions because I'm in touch with what folks need. um I wouldn't have allowed myself to adapt uh and to be agile to like whatever's coming next. And so I think that's really supported my professional growth and development because I was ahead of the curve just by simply listening to those around me, listening to the 23 year olds that were frustrated, couldn't read their pay stub or didn't understand terms or whatever was going on in their lives. uh You know, they couldn't navigate just like the how to work part of working. um And watching us have a lot of issues around mental health emerging. And how do we adapt and support people so that they can have uh additional capacity to deal with mental health issues in the workplace. All this is happening, for me personally, years in front of trends. And I think just that being still and present will allow you to refine your skills. and your offerings as a leader and to be able to make bold statements because it's founded in that deep listening. Thank you. I really liked that too. think that, I think the one thing that the word that comes to mind of why we see a shift is pace. The pace is unbelievable now. I mean, the amount of information and changes in technology and systems and companies, whether acquiring, selling, laying off, whatever. I mean, we just read it all day long, you know, of of just the pace at which that happens. And I think we have to gear up for that pace, you know, and we, people have to know their identity within a company. They have to know why they're valued. So the days of telling them and just telling it no longer exists. think em the why is so critical now. You know, we have to explain why em why we're doing what we're doing, why we believe what we believe, why you are part of that picture for us, why you are integral to our success. They have to be believers in what they're doing or they will not stay with us. yeah, I just think the pace has really changed. I do think multi-generations working together creates some challenges too. I can echo what everyone said. I'm happy to go on to a different question too, if you'd like. Sure. Um... I'm like. or not, can go back. No, no, no, it's good. It's good. It's good. Okay, here we go. So there's a shift in our culture, which we just talked about. So how do you build heart centered teams in high-stake environments with the pace rapidly changing, with the shifts in culture, with maybe people ops not being prioritized? And with this innovation within our own complex systems based on what age you are when you show up to work and what experience you have. So how are we going to build heart centered teams in complex environments where not everyone has come along all the way? don't you do that? I love that part. Well, not everyone has come along. uh You know, I think that so much of today is based around values. And if you are at a company where you and the values are in synchronicity or their synergy there, I think that that is a very strong fit. If you are not and you want to be managed from a top down or you want to have the old way, the archaic way, then You really need to explore that in the interview process. That's the first thing I'll say. So much of this relies on a person's self-awareness. So where does this start? It starts at self-awareness, whether or not you are on the team, you are leading the team, you are the newest joiner to the team, whatever that is. We have an incredible opportunity as human beings to get to know ourselves if we wish to. that I think that right there is something is A, very powerful, B, it gives us knowledge, it gives us confidence, it might give us the wobbles too, but who doesn't have those, right? And then through that self-knowledge or that self-awareness, you take that onto a team, you bring that onto a team, you appreciate one another, you learn how to resolve conflicts with basically not only self-awareness, but just basic communication skills, which I know. I think is common sense and I know it's not common sense. You we start off, our kids start off, they're magical and mystical and all emotive and trying to figure it out. And then we go into education, maybe higher education, it just gets whipped right out of us. we're next thing we know, we're just thinkers and we're hustlers back to the pace. And we forget about what makes us human. We forget about what makes us special. That connection point to me, connective tissue is everything. And so again, it starts with a person being empowered or you would helping that person empower themselves to like, you're the CEO of you. No one else can change your behavior and no one else can change you. You can change the song in your head or not. You can choose to be part of us or not. By the way, We are going to morph ourselves into you too, because we hired you for a reason. We spent three months looking for you. You interviewed with seven people. By the time you start, we know you. We want that person. And we've given you a commitment that we're going to give you at BATS growth opportunity. And you're going to give us your energy, curiosity, your time. So it's really about, are you where you need to be? Are you where you are going to get growth? Are they transparent about the growth? Do they care? Back to Nikki. Do they care? they tell you why? Where you are in your journey and how we are gonna help you get there. Or they just saying, there you go, bye bye. You're now managing five people, peace. You got the promotion, know, which is obviously something that we need to change. you build heart centered by making sure it's in the water, by making sure our beliefs are in the water. I'm not saying cool it, making sure our values are in the water, that we are a people first company. our culture internally, the honey empire, not the empire of honey, 51 % honey, 49 % empire, that 1 % and it varies, makes all the difference in the world. Because that's when I can lean on a culture champion in one of our other countries or offices and slack them and say, you know what, I heard Bob is having a hard time this morning. He's got some uh parents in the hospital. Can you go take him for a walk? You you just, have to have a willingness to get outside of your ego and get outside of yourself and your problems and your mischiegos and recognize we're all coming to the table with our own bag, right? And what can we do with this wild, incredible life, right? Knowing that we're all triggered, we've all got our lived experience, but we're here to create something magical, great together. That's my take. Because we are short on time, I'm going to fire out some quick questions. Let one person respond, go to the next question. Okay. And we'll keep it tight. um What I'm recognizing in all of you is that you are all pioneers and you are also all innovating. And so it's really cool. So whew, whoever feels led to answer this one. What leadership pattern are we clearly outgrowing? being afraid to make hard decisions and have difficult conversations and give necessary feedback. Feedback is a gift and there are so many ah inequities baked into who gets feedback, who doesn't, ah who is supported, who isn't, without going too deep into so many things. if you, I always say, if you have agreed to step into a position of leadership, you agree to be the person not just with the sexy title and the nice office or the big salary, but the person who is making the tough decisions, making the hard calls, having the difficult conversation, being the bad guy, being misunderstood. And that is as much a part of it as all the other things that people enthusiastically raise their hand for when they say, you want this role? Thank you. Okay, here's the next one. It's awesome. What does authority look like when it is rooted in trust rather than control? I just jump in and say, I think it gives people agency and allows people to have accountability and responsibility, which is what we actually all want. We may not know we want it, but I think uh it allows people to really drive their car. I would second that, that it looks like accountability, definitely. Okay, and Nikki, I'm gonna throw this one to you. What does sustainable high performance look like when it's not driven by pressure? And you talked about the retaining, you know, the average stay of your employees. So I'm assuming you guys have kind of figured this out over at Alps. Yeah, I think so. think, I mean, just repeat it one more time, Paige, so that I make sure you have it. What does sustainable high performance look like when it is not driven by pressure? Yeah, I think it looks like folks who are proud of what they do. It looks like engagement. It looks like bottom up where they are bringing suggestions forward. It looks like an environment where mistakes are okay and acceptable to bring forward and encouraged to bring forward. um It looks like vulnerability. you know, amongst leaders em and that staff can feel that they can be vulnerable and they have a safe space to, you know, to share those vulnerabilities. I think for us too, one of the keys, um two things I would say, we're a very flat line. So ours, we don't have a C-suite where the door is locked and you have to make an appointment three weeks out to go in and see an executive. um They live amongst us. have open doors, you can go right into their offices. Our CEO positions himself right by the lunchroom. I mean, he is available and visible. So I think for them that's a sustaining culture, right? When you have your leaders, when you have the one who is driving the vision available to them. And then the second thing I would say to that too is that it is also about um strategic architecture, I mean, in the way that you design it. So what I mean by that, and I'll just give a very brief example, but sometimes changing the language, you know? So one of the things that I most recently did was changed our performance evaluations, and I've called it a contributor assessment. And we don't do a rating scale that actually is negative. is either you are a trailblazer, you are a strong contributor, or you are developing, okay? And all three have great things that they say. So to your point of the trailblazer, it is somebody who is pioneering and they have the courage and they're doing things. The one who is sustaining and they are doing what is needing to be done. And then for the developer, mean, that is somebody who then is... You know, it doesn't even say that like they don't understand it. It says maybe they've not had enough time in that area to really develop that. So what can we be doing as leaders to help them rise to that next level? So I think changing language a bit helps people feel like they're in an environment that is about them and for them. That is a beautiful example. Thank you for sharing that. My guess is all of us are going to take that back into our orgs. OK, Ayola, we only have one more minute. So I'm just going to ask you quickly, as a pioneer in this, mean, from beginning days of Oracle to today, you've seen a lot of change. You've seen a lot of change. What must HR, people ops leaders become in the next three to five years to truly support their organizations? Um, you know, I think we're there, honestly. I think that if we hold the space of being agile and have a confidence to speak truth around what humans need at work, it will continue to evolve. And as long as we're evolving along with it and truly listening, um we'll be ahead of it in terms of trailblazing like what comes next. I don't think there's a target of like, okay, we have to become this or we have to become that because um we don't know where the world's going. It could be going any direction and it's constantly changing. so, you know, just having that openness um and connectivity, I think is the secret sauce that keeps us relevant and um trailblazing. spoken like a true master. Okay, we're at the hour. I just want you to have the opportunity to leave the audience with one word or feeling and what you hope that like they take with this from this conversation and we'll do that quickly. Go ahead. I'll start. Take up space. You are always allowed to be big in the room. Take up space. I was gonna say something similar, but Framinan, regardless of what your title, role, level, if this is your first job or your 15th job, you are a leader and you can be a leader and lead from your area of impact within your space. And regardless of what the culture is, how people ops are not being prioritized, you can be that trailblazer and lead that charge. We have one of the greatest responsibilities and honors uh and honor in HR em to drive culture. And I think that is, you know, that is the DNA of a company. um we do deserve and have to have a place at the table and know that we are part of the big picture. Thank you. staying on brand, be agile, listen deeply and build community. So inside of your workplace and personally for yourself outside of your workplace so that you have support to stay in that trailblazer mode. Thank you to these creative masters for sharing their experience and their stories. around people operations and HR. That was such a powerful conversation. And some of the words that are still resonating are authenticity, authority, everyone is a leader, deep listening, empathy, love, spirituality. These are not soft words. These are the central nervous system of the organizations that we work in. So here's to more lessons in the field and here's to more creative leadership. Subscribe and join us for our next episode and thank you again for your time.