The Blueprint for Organizational Agility with Special Guest Steve Goldberg

[00:00:09] Welcome everyone to another episode of HR and Payroll 2.0. I'm Pete Tiliakis and as always I'm joined by the legendary Julie Fernandez. Welcome Julie.

[00:00:18] Thank you so much Pete and as folks can see if they have their video on we are joined by a mutual friend, Steve and let's have him introduce himself. He's also legendary.

[00:00:29] The also very legendary, very distinguished HR tech advisor, my friend, my mentor, my brother, Mr. Steve Goldberg. Steve, it's taken too long to get you on here but I'm so happy to have you now.

[00:00:41] I'm thrilled to be here. You two are not just experts but really, really fine people and I view you both as family.

[00:00:48] Yes, likewise.

[00:00:48] Thanks for having me.

[00:00:49] Yes, yes.

[00:00:50] Do you want me to get into my intro? Because that could take three hours. What do you want me to do?

[00:00:54] Well, we always start with a question and the question we ask every guest is how did you get into HR and why on earth have you stayed?

[00:01:01] And I know some of your legendary background but I'm dying for you to share it.

[00:01:06] I'm told that if we could music right now we would be hearing something like, I'm a wanderer.

[00:01:12] Yeah, yes. Steve loves a good origin story by the way so he has a great origin story.

[00:01:18] Here it comes.

[00:01:19] Yeah, I wouldn't totally characterize it as wandering but when you hear some of the key elements you'll go, what the heck?

[00:01:29] But so let me just get into it.

[00:01:31] All right.

[00:01:32] So undergrad, I was all into psychology.

[00:01:36] I was president of the Psych Society.

[00:01:38] I went to Baruch College in New York and I wanted to stay in psychology but not become a psychologist.

[00:01:48] Well, you know, what kind of what's in the realm of psychology that's more practical.

[00:01:53] You could really work on practical solutions within people's reach as opposed to trying to get into their heads for years on end.

[00:02:02] And so I said, well, social work, that's what I'm going to do.

[00:02:06] So I apply for an MSW.

[00:02:08] I get to University of Buffalo, MSW program.

[00:02:14] And if you know anything about social work, when you go from Estes and Social Work, you are given the opportunity to serve as an internship.

[00:02:24] You're not going to be paid, but you're going to be placed somewhere.

[00:02:27] And that day that they handed out the envelopes with everybody's placement, I just had a premonition mind to be a little bit different.

[00:02:35] And so I'm waiting and I'm listening to people, you know, adult center, child care, VA, hospital.

[00:02:44] I open up mine.

[00:02:46] It's Attica Correctional.

[00:02:47] And it was not what I expected.

[00:02:51] But I'll tell you, I actually, it didn't cause me to then go for a master's in HR.

[00:03:00] The placement at Attica where I was dealing with inmates who were eligible for parole within a year in a class setting.

[00:03:08] And I was doing something that I came back to years later as a volunteer.

[00:03:12] And I've done that in a few different states, which are maximum security prison states, like Florida and Oregon, for example.

[00:03:20] But I guess the social work program and having a master's in social work, to be honest, it's not the most high paying career.

[00:03:34] When you have a master's, I'm sorry to say it, but it's a reality.

[00:03:38] And I'll admit, I'm not totally focused on money, but I didn't want to have a master's at that time way back when and make 25K.

[00:03:47] So, so the University of Buffalo also had a master's in business and MBA where you can specialize in HR.

[00:03:56] We're talking, by the way, I don't mind dating myself.

[00:03:59] It's always good to be able to date oneself.

[00:04:01] We're talking about the late 70s, right?

[00:04:04] So I graduated from SUNY Buffalo with an MBA in HR after getting the social work degree.

[00:04:12] And I come out and there was a company called ComShare in New York City.

[00:04:16] And ComShare happened to be the only purveyor of a time sharing based HR solution at the time.

[00:04:23] It was, I was never considered myself even to this day, highly technical or, or having programming skills.

[00:04:30] But they had a fourth generation language called Quester and you can create from scratch work, workflows and a system of record for HR and all that stuff.

[00:04:41] So I, so that's what I got into HR systems right out of grad school via ComShare.

[00:04:49] I was a ComShare three years.

[00:04:50] My client was Gulf and Western at the time, one of the Fortune 50 and even had a hand and I did post on this some time back.

[00:05:01] Uh, it's one of my most, uh, visited, uh, LinkedIn posts.

[00:05:06] I talked about, uh, the call I got from Gulf and Western at 11 o'clock one night because the chairman, Charlie Bluedorn, uh, had died.

[00:05:17] And, um, why did they call me?

[00:05:20] Because this little, my first application was succession planning for executives.

[00:05:24] Oh my.

[00:05:24] And the chairman had died.

[00:05:25] I, so here I am like 27 years old and they're asking me who are the logical successes to the chairman of this Fortune 50 company.

[00:05:35] And I, my little tool that I built, my little application identified three people.

[00:05:40] One of them was Martin Davis and he became chairman of Gulf and Western.

[00:05:45] Uh, kind of an interesting story.

[00:05:47] And I've recently heard, uh, Francis Ford Poplar talked about the making of the Godfather and the run ins.

[00:05:53] He had with Charlie Bluedorn and that kind of triggered the whole thing.

[00:05:58] Okay. All right. So a lot on that.

[00:06:00] So three years to come chair.

[00:06:02] And then lo and behold, um, I get asked to come to a wall street firm, a brokerage house at the time called Kidder Peabody and interview for the job at head of HR systems.

[00:06:13] I was still in my late twenties.

[00:06:16] And, um, I reported to the head of HR at Weimere.

[00:06:19] I wound up reporting to him again when he became head of HR at Salomon Brothers and the heyday of Salomon Brothers when it was Goldman and Salomon controlling Wall Street.

[00:06:28] So all in all, I was head of HR systems reporting to a head of HR at four different investment banks.

[00:06:34] And the fourth one was, uh, Swiss bank corporation right before they merged with UBS.

[00:06:40] And my family and I was an expat.

[00:06:41] My family and I lived in Zurich for almost four years.

[00:06:44] So I didn't answer the question why I got into HR.

[00:06:48] Or I'm not sure that answers the question.

[00:06:50] How I got into HR.

[00:06:51] Yeah. I love how you got into HR.

[00:06:54] Why do you stay? What's kept you here?

[00:06:56] Why do I stay?

[00:06:59] Because this is cliche, but, um, I just think life in general, which includes business, of course, is all about people and, and, and, um, shepherding and leveraging and maximizing.

[00:07:19] What they do well, uh, uh, their energy level, their commitment level.

[00:07:25] Most, most things that are accomplished that are significant in business or outside of business involve people.

[00:07:32] And, uh, so there's no other profession that I can say that about.

[00:07:37] Yeah.

[00:07:37] Bravo to that.

[00:07:38] I learned that in the military and I, that's carried with me forever.

[00:07:41] So, uh, yeah, I appreciate that.

[00:07:42] What a story.

[00:07:43] I'm so back thinking of Steve is the rebound guy.

[00:07:45] Cause HR is basically the rebound to social work.

[00:07:49] Yeah.

[00:07:50] Recovery.

[00:07:51] Yeah.

[00:07:51] I have, by the way, one other thing, um, the gentleman who's now deceased, Ed Weinmayer, I reported to him at both kiddiepey buddy and, uh, at Salmer brothers.

[00:08:03] So, um, he, and this was just a total blessing.

[00:08:07] It was not by design, but it was serendipity at its best.

[00:08:11] Ed's philosophy was Steve, before we invest a penny in HR systems, he wanted me to immerse myself in every HR process operationally.

[00:08:20] Yeah.

[00:08:21] And it started Pete.

[00:08:22] Yeah.

[00:08:23] Because you're, uh, you know, a world-class, uh, a payroll expert and, uh, and it started in payroll.

[00:08:30] So here I was a payroll manager for a brokerage house.

[00:08:34] I knew nothing about payroll.

[00:08:35] And that's complicated.

[00:08:36] That's complex comp and pay right there.

[00:08:38] Seriously.

[00:08:38] Well, I have not managed it firsthand, but from my experience, comp and pay on wall street is very complicated.

[00:08:44] Um, yeah.

[00:08:45] So kudos to that.

[00:08:46] Trial by fire.

[00:08:47] Yeah.

[00:08:48] And you got the bonus process and all that stuff.

[00:08:51] Anyway.

[00:08:51] How important do you think that's been to your foundation of your career?

[00:08:55] Because I've said this before.

[00:08:56] I think, I think HR, CHRO should have to spend some time in payroll.

[00:09:00] I think everyone in HR should spend some time in payroll.

[00:09:03] They'd be very surprised at what they would learn and how proficient at the business and understanding of their own, uh, processes they would be.

[00:09:10] So just curious for you, like what was.

[00:09:12] How did it help you?

[00:09:13] It's such a wonderful question.

[00:09:14] Uh, and.

[00:09:15] Uh, kind of gone full circle in terms of writing about that.

[00:09:20] Yeah.

[00:09:21] Uh, and I would say half of my vendor clients ask me to write why, you know, answer the question in a blog or an article.

[00:09:30] Why should CHROs focus on payroll and no more about payroll?

[00:09:34] Yeah.

[00:09:34] So I really love the topic.

[00:09:37] The, uh, a quick answer is, um, if you don't get the foundation, right.

[00:09:43] Uh, nothing else, uh, is reliable and, and won't be leveraged.

[00:09:48] And you're going to have people, uh, managers, uh, business area heads all creating their own spreadsheet.

[00:09:55] So in the eighties, uh, the brokerage house and, and I, uh, Payne Weber was there too.

[00:10:02] I would say 90% of department heads just maintained their own spreadsheets.

[00:10:06] Yeah.

[00:10:06] They didn't care one list.

[00:10:08] The wild west days.

[00:10:10] Until we said, we're going to get payroll, right.

[00:10:14] And when payroll, payroll is perceived as having the most reliable data.

[00:10:19] I mean, it's logical, uh, when people don't have a correct paycheck, they let people know about it immediately.

[00:10:25] So if you think about any source of reliable people data in the organization, it starts with payroll.

[00:10:31] A hundred percent.

[00:10:32] Start with that, not just reliable people data, but proactive, um, support of employee where, you know, questions and manager questions.

[00:10:43] And then the analytics that come off of that reliable people data to me, it's very foundational.

[00:10:49] Yeah.

[00:10:49] Yeah.

[00:10:50] So in addition to payroll, I ran learning around performance around success.

[00:10:53] So it was very, I was very lucky that Ed Weinmayer had that, uh, vision, uh, because I wouldn't be, I guess, as well rounded as I'm supposed to be.

[00:11:05] Yeah, no, I love it.

[00:11:06] What a career.

[00:11:07] What a career.

[00:11:07] I love, you know what, Steve, you can go around and tell people that your career started in a prison or don't say in prison, in a prison.

[00:11:15] Maximum security prison.

[00:11:17] Yes.

[00:11:18] Yes.

[00:11:18] How cool.

[00:11:19] It's not.

[00:11:20] What I didn't get into is the last 15 years, which was a combination of five years as an analyst at Bentana and at ISG and 15, uh, sorry, 10, 12 years, uh, hanging a shingle and doing my own thing.

[00:11:34] Pete and I have collaborated, I've collaborated with others, but basically it's SPG consulting.

[00:11:39] And I've had over 60 vendor clients for whom I advise and do some thought leadership content and a lot of talks.

[00:11:47] I love it.

[00:11:48] And I'm still going strong.

[00:11:49] I'm in my late sixties.

[00:11:51] And as long as I can get up and connect the neurons in my head and somebody wants to listen to me, I'm going to keep going.

[00:11:57] You're a warrior, Steve, you're a warrior and a distinguished, uh, voice.

[00:12:01] So you're not going anywhere, man.

[00:12:02] They're not going anywhere.

[00:12:03] But look,

[00:12:04] I'm going to be forever.

[00:12:05] Yes.

[00:12:07] So Steve.

[00:12:07] New hashtag, new hashtag.

[00:12:09] Yeah.

[00:12:10] So selfishly, one of the things that I know you're very well known for, and, and, and you've really opened my eyes up to it.

[00:12:15] You know, I was kind of touching on it in some of my research, you know, back in 2020, 2021, but you really put a, put a spotlight on for me and has woken me up a lot from the HR lens.

[00:12:24] And that is organizational agility.

[00:12:26] And I know it's something that, you know, everybody wants to be agile.

[00:12:29] Uh, I feel like there's a lot of branding of agile.

[00:12:32] Um, but I'd love for you to share with our audience.

[00:12:35] Cause I've, there's so many, and I'm going to share how to get in touch at the end here.

[00:12:38] I know you're on LinkedIn and Twitter and other places.

[00:12:40] So, uh, and there's plenty of writings that you have on this that others could, you know, dig into, but talk to me about.

[00:12:45] What is org agility?

[00:12:47] Why does it matter?

[00:12:48] And why is everyone, why is it so critical now?

[00:12:51] Why, why has it become the acumen that you need, right?

[00:12:54] As a business, what, what do you think about, you know, kind of that perspective?

[00:12:57] Well, as you said, I talked about it a lot.

[00:13:01] So, um, you're very passionate.

[00:13:03] Probably.

[00:13:03] I can probably give a talk in my sleep.

[00:13:06] Yes.

[00:13:07] But nobody's asked me to do that yet.

[00:13:09] So org agility, you know, when, um, one thing I left out, but I don't know why I left this out.

[00:13:15] Uh, inadvertently, uh, the biggest market facing job, you know, all of those corporate jobs.

[00:13:21] And then I transitioned to market facing.

[00:13:23] What was my market?

[00:13:24] My first market facing job where I gave talks to HR audiences.

[00:13:28] I was head of strategy and people soft.

[00:13:30] I don't know why I left that out.

[00:13:31] It was an accident.

[00:13:32] Yes.

[00:13:33] So global spokesperson and, and, uh, and you know, thought leader or whatever.

[00:13:38] And, and people saw it in the heyday of people soft, really 2 billion in revenue.

[00:13:43] And my boss, the GM basically said to me, Steve, um, you gotta be a thought leader.

[00:13:49] You gotta be saying, thinking and saying things that nobody else is thinking about.

[00:13:52] And so I spent a lot of time doing that.

[00:13:55] And one of my, uh, sleepless nights, I, I asked myself the question, what are two or three almost guaranteed ways that an organization can ascend the ranks within its industry vertical?

[00:14:08] And organizational agility came to me back then and we're talking 20 years ago.

[00:14:13] And why did it come to me?

[00:14:15] Because, uh, success or lack thereof in business in my mind back then and today is all about being ahead of, um, risks and opportunities, being able to see them coming before they're coming, you know?

[00:14:33] Uh, you know, whether it be, uh, you know, the industry is changing, customer buying behaviors are changing.

[00:14:42] Think about Blockbuster.

[00:14:44] Blockbuster was not ahead of what was happening in that industry, which was going to live, uh, live streaming as opposed to renting and getting charged late fees for videos.

[00:14:56] Uh, right?

[00:14:57] So Netflix was ahead of the game.

[00:15:00] They saw it going to live streaming.

[00:15:03] Uh, if you think about, um, you know, the camera industry and, and, and the film industry, Kodak, um, was slow in, in, in adopting digital, uh, digital film.

[00:15:18] Right.

[00:15:18] Uh, a lot of supermarkets, actually Walmart was pretty, uh, pretty good at seeing the diversification that was needed in their product line as was Amazon.

[00:15:28] Yeah.

[00:15:28] Uh, et cetera.

[00:15:29] So there's a lot in the annals of, of corporate America or, uh, or other countries, there are winners and losers.

[00:15:37] And oftentimes it's related to which companies had the foresight to see what needed, how they needed to pivot, how they needed to pivot strategically or operationally or technologically.

[00:15:49] Uh, and so to me, that's, that's what org agility is all about.

[00:15:53] Seeing when you, seeing ahead of you, where you need to pivot, how you need to pivot, choosing the best path and executing well.

[00:16:01] Um, and, and then I kind of extended that thought process of, are there one of the other ways that are fairly reliable for an organization to ascend the ranks?

[00:16:12] And my other two were, uh, being an employer of choice.

[00:16:17] So you can attract and retain the best talent.

[00:16:19] And the third is productivity.

[00:16:21] Why?

[00:16:22] Because smallest, modest upticks in productivity in a large organization translate into millions of, uh, creation.

[00:16:30] Right.

[00:16:30] So those are my three and that's how I got into org agility.

[00:16:36] And, uh, and the last thing I'll say is when I was a people so often, I was thinking about org agility and how to relate what HR tech capabilities would be needed.

[00:16:46] Uh, so if you start thinking about it, well, you want to have a handle on is whatever new direction the organization is going in to people support it.

[00:16:57] If you don't have a support of your people.

[00:17:00] Right.

[00:17:00] So back then there was no sentiment analysis where you could analyze this, uh, you know, but, but there were surveys and so forth.

[00:17:08] There's a water cooler.

[00:17:10] Exactly.

[00:17:10] Water cooler, water cooler talk.

[00:17:12] So, you know, it's attitudes support for the change or the change in direction.

[00:17:16] Of course, it's the right people with the right jobs and in the right jobs with the right skills and what has to change.

[00:17:25] Yeah.

[00:17:25] It needs to be moved, upskilled, reskilled, et cetera.

[00:17:28] So that's all part of org agility.

[00:17:29] And I think today is in my lifetime is the most uncertain, unpredictable operating environment internally and externally.

[00:17:38] Yeah.

[00:17:39] So it's more important than ever.

[00:17:40] No doubt.

[00:17:41] Agilities feel.

[00:17:42] Yeah.

[00:17:42] No, you're right.

[00:17:43] I think, I think there's, you know, if you're not thinking, you know, infinite, right.

[00:17:47] You're playing a fixed game.

[00:17:48] You're going to go, you know, you're going to, you're going to fail.

[00:17:50] And agility has got to be part of that.

[00:17:51] But like, I think you touched on some of it, but how do you feel that, or maybe, I don't know if responsibility is the word, but what is HR's role in, in helping the company be an agile organization?

[00:18:02] Right.

[00:18:02] I mean, I know there's change.

[00:18:03] There's, there's, there's predictive stuff, but like what else?

[00:18:07] Yeah.

[00:18:08] Well, I'm going to see.

[00:18:09] And is it all their job?

[00:18:10] Right.

[00:18:10] Is it all their job?

[00:18:11] Is it all HR's job?

[00:18:13] No, it's not.

[00:18:14] Well, first of all, human capital management is not HR's job.

[00:18:18] So, uh, uh, human capital management needs to be owned by the enterprise.

[00:18:22] HR is typically only 1% of the organization.

[00:18:25] So every employee, every manager, every business area has to own human capital management, which I define as managing people for competitive advantage.

[00:18:33] Yeah.

[00:18:33] Now, uh, you mentioned the word change.

[00:18:36] To me, that's, uh, that's the, the focal point in terms of HR's role in, uh, in the context of elevating organizational agility.

[00:18:46] Why?

[00:18:47] Because change management and org agility are the two sides of the same coin.

[00:18:52] Right.

[00:18:53] And more specifically, change management, the front end of change management, which is readiness for change.

[00:19:02] I don't see any other functional business organization that's more equipped to, uh, to assess readiness for change and to ensure readiness for change.

[00:19:13] Uh, but I'd say that's a step folks are skipping.

[00:19:18] Totally right.

[00:19:19] Uh, and even with technology and AI and now gen AI, I still think there's so much up, so many more use cases that are not being given attention.

[00:19:30] Yeah.

[00:19:31] Even something like ability to execute with large learning models.

[00:19:36] If there was a blockbuster today.

[00:19:38] Yeah.

[00:19:39] Um, that should be predictive.

[00:19:40] Between gen AI and a large learning model that they should be able to tell me, well, we're going to go into live streaming video and forget the whole, you know, video, uh, forget the whole video rental thing.

[00:19:50] Um, but what's the ability to execute that change when you have 5,000 stores, retail stores and everybody trained, uh, in a different context.

[00:20:01] Yeah.

[00:20:01] The ability to execute super important, uh, I think would be a game changer if one of the vendors can come up with that.

[00:20:10] Um, and ability to execute again is the same elements support for the change skills, right?

[00:20:18] People in the right jobs.

[00:20:18] But one more thing, what else is going on in the organization?

[00:20:22] Is there too much that they're trying to digest too many changes at the same time?

[00:20:26] Yeah.

[00:20:27] I was going to say, you know, there's a little bit of irony in that, you know, HR should be the best equipped to deal with readiness and change.

[00:20:34] If it's even a budget priority, right.

[00:20:36] When things, when the rubber hits the road, but more often than not, we see, you know, OCM or some sort of practice there put in with project management or, you know, or even IT because folks are anticipating that that's where the big levers are.

[00:20:50] And so no, no contest that we should be the best equipped, but truthfully, more often than not, HR is not the best equipped to deal with change.

[00:21:00] No, I'm with you on that, Julie.

[00:21:02] It is a sad reality in a lot of organizations that they view organizational change management as like any other project or program that they need to manage.

[00:21:12] Yeah.

[00:21:13] Versus the diet.

[00:21:15] Yeah.

[00:21:15] But there's another expression I use, like it's make the invisible visible.

[00:21:23] That relates to risks as well and people risks.

[00:21:27] You know, you're going to lose some people when there's change.

[00:21:30] Uh, cause change.

[00:21:33] It's just the psychology or the neuroscience of changes that people don't like change.

[00:21:37] So you're going to lose people one way or the other.

[00:21:39] Um, who else?

[00:21:41] What other department in the organization can, is positioned to be ahead of that?

[00:21:47] Ahead of key employee retention risk, for example.

[00:21:51] Uh, right.

[00:21:51] So, yeah.

[00:21:53] Yeah.

[00:21:53] What if I told you that your boss skydives?

[00:21:56] Tim in marketing is a magician and Sam in accounting does sums in his head while standing on his hands.

[00:22:02] Seeing sides of the people you work with but never see?

[00:22:05] Sides that inform and inspire their work and that can inspire yours is what the Talent Show is all about.

[00:22:11] Email me, Tom Alexander, host of the Talent Show at talentshow at backboneinc.com.

[00:22:17] And show us what you got.

[00:22:18] I look forward to seeing you on the Talent Show.

[00:22:22] Yeah.

[00:22:23] So, just curious.

[00:22:25] Maybe this is kind of like a fluffy question.

[00:22:27] But how much does the leadership and the culture and the environment affect the ability for companies to be agile?

[00:22:35] Because I've seen some organizations that are really on top of change and staying very transformative at all times.

[00:22:41] Really staying ready versus getting ready.

[00:22:44] And then I've seen other companies that are absolutely completely resistant to any sort of outside influence, outside change, whatever.

[00:22:52] Well, how much does that play a factor?

[00:22:54] I mean, it feels like it's a big deal.

[00:22:56] I mean, do you need a culture of agility, I guess?

[00:22:59] Is that the word?

[00:23:00] It has to be a core component of your competitive advantage.

[00:23:08] Yeah.

[00:23:08] And if it's going to be a core component of your competitive advantage, it better be part of your value system and how you're defined as an organization.

[00:23:17] If you're better at change than your competitors, you're going to leapfrog them.

[00:23:22] In my opinion, it happens in almost every industry.

[00:23:25] Yeah.

[00:23:26] But as far as, you know, leadership and their role in it, obviously, their level of transparency, if they're perceived as not trying to snow anybody, if they're just telling it like it is.

[00:23:47] We're going through a change.

[00:23:48] It's not going to be so easy.

[00:23:49] And there's going to be some jobs that may become less important on the other side.

[00:23:55] There will be jobs that are becoming more important.

[00:23:57] But for the less important ones, if you're a star performer, it's our duty to find a place for you that's going to keep you motivated and you can continue to grow your career.

[00:24:07] Yeah.

[00:24:08] There's got to be a what's in it for them.

[00:24:10] Yeah.

[00:24:10] Yeah.

[00:24:11] What's in it for them?

[00:24:11] Exactly.

[00:24:12] That dialogue coming from leaders is critical as opposed to minimizing how people react to change.

[00:24:22] Yeah.

[00:24:22] Yeah.

[00:24:23] Julie, you see anybody investing, like investing in agility, I guess?

[00:24:28] I mean, obviously, in systems, right?

[00:24:31] Transformation, that's an agile investment.

[00:24:33] But like, is there such a thing as an agility investment right now?

[00:24:36] You know, I kind of agree.

[00:24:38] And like in a lot of where I've seen success to what Steve was saying about it being in your DNA, right?

[00:24:45] Culture.

[00:24:46] And whether it's just, you know, originally that was associated with systems.

[00:24:51] It first became popular as a way of developing systems, right?

[00:24:54] But the way to develop the systems, agile, was specifically fit for purpose for small, nimble organizations.

[00:25:03] And you port that to a big, you know, process heavy, project heavy organization.

[00:25:09] And there's an immediate like conflict that is potentially not resolvable.

[00:25:16] And I think that happens no matter just with agility in general, right?

[00:25:20] If it's not in your DNA, then it might not be the right thing for you.

[00:25:25] You know, like think about how you achieve readiness and how you get to preparedness without trying to, you know.

[00:25:32] Do you have a choice now?

[00:25:34] Do you have a choice to not be agile though now?

[00:25:36] No, I don't.

[00:25:36] I don't know that you do.

[00:25:37] I don't think so.

[00:25:38] And one of the reasons why is what you alluded to, the T word, the transformation word.

[00:25:43] Yeah.

[00:25:44] Right.

[00:25:44] So most studies show that roughly two thirds of all organizations at any point in time are going through some sort of transformation.

[00:25:52] Right.

[00:25:53] Yeah.

[00:25:53] And that can include HR or business, broader business, digital.

[00:25:58] And here's the thing.

[00:26:00] The other stats that most of the big research firms are reporting on is the degree to which many of them underperform or fail as an initiative.

[00:26:13] That's just strategic initiative.

[00:26:14] That's a strategic initiative.

[00:26:16] Many or most are underperforming or failing.

[00:26:20] And so there has to be a better way.

[00:26:23] Yeah.

[00:26:23] And I'm trying to kind of highlight some of them in this talk.

[00:26:27] Yeah.

[00:26:27] I really think you're right.

[00:26:28] There is no choice.

[00:26:30] But you don't have to be an early adopter or a fast mover if that's not part of your DNA.

[00:26:35] Right.

[00:26:35] Yeah.

[00:26:36] It might justifiably be, yeah, we expect this is coming, but we're not going to be the first to move out of blockbuster video rentals or whatever.

[00:26:45] Like we want to walk the tightrope between those things and also let our employees and our leaders see, you know, like get time to get focused in on the fact that this is probably the way things are going to work.

[00:26:59] Yeah.

[00:27:00] I think companies have to move about as fast as their industry does.

[00:27:03] Right.

[00:27:03] I mean, and other some are going to be slower than others because they have the time.

[00:27:07] But yeah, I think you do have to begin in this in this the speed of innovation.

[00:27:12] Now, I think you have to have an agile mindset at least.

[00:27:15] And you're right.

[00:27:16] Yeah.

[00:27:16] It's not it's not for everyone.

[00:27:18] And it's not you know, it's it's a it's a lifestyle, I think, just like transformationism, in my opinion.

[00:27:23] Yeah.

[00:27:24] And you said the other kind of magic phrase, Pete, which, you know, what's in it for me?

[00:27:30] And it definitely represents transformations.

[00:27:34] They change initiatives.

[00:27:35] It represents an awful lot of opportunity for an organization, for its people.

[00:27:41] Yeah.

[00:27:42] To basically, in a sense, my career from education to professional was not very linear.

[00:27:51] And non-linearity is like one of the hallmarks of of our lives and our business lives.

[00:27:58] And so somebody that I created an employee journey framework years ago, 10 stages.

[00:28:06] And one of the stages was the exploration stage.

[00:28:09] And if you want to deliver a great employee experience, you should have you should be able to afford employees a platform and a way to explore what else is out there in the organization.

[00:28:22] If you're not proactively supporting that, they're leaving.

[00:28:27] So, in fact, day force, I read recently, it came out with something called the Career Explorer.

[00:28:33] I think others will do the same.

[00:28:35] Yeah.

[00:28:35] Really, really important.

[00:28:36] That's the opportunity side of change and transformation.

[00:28:39] Yeah.

[00:28:40] I think that's it's incredible.

[00:28:43] But, you know, if you think about it, getting, you know, building muscle to be agile is is a process itself.

[00:28:50] So, you know, if you're taking folks through the first time that they're transforming HR and these are HR long lifers, you know, they've always been in it.

[00:28:57] Of course, they're at a different place in their journey than somebody who's done it two or three times and jumped around and just explaining that you learn that there's a muscle that you're getting out of going through this activity that has a value.

[00:29:10] Yeah.

[00:29:11] To anyone in the marketplace, you know, whether it's the first time you're transforming or putting in a new system or changing your operating model in HR or, you know, recruiting and hiring different people or or starting a podcast or turning on the video for a podcast.

[00:29:25] Right.

[00:29:25] I mean, like it's all muscle that you just got to go.

[00:29:28] You know what?

[00:29:28] I'm jumping off the cliff.

[00:29:30] I'm going to learn something out of it.

[00:29:32] Yeah.

[00:29:32] I love that kind of metaphor, Julie.

[00:29:34] Thank you for that.

[00:29:36] I want to I want to segue slightly to like what's hot in HR tech and what does it relate to org agility or how does it relate to org agility?

[00:29:46] So if we think about talent intelligence or skill science, wow, that has really, you know, ascended in terms of it's it's a business imperative to have capabilities like if you could do this job, then you could probably do this job.

[00:30:04] Why? Because it's skills adjacencies and equivalencies.

[00:30:07] Right.

[00:30:08] We still need to evolve in the area of skill science.

[00:30:11] We need to be able to say, well, we're going to put you in an adjacent job.

[00:30:15] It's not exactly the same.

[00:30:17] And it's going to take you two weeks to get up to speed.

[00:30:19] So ramp up time is a good use case.

[00:30:22] But a lot of these are use cases that we haven't heard about before.

[00:30:26] We're going to hear about and see more.

[00:30:28] Yeah.

[00:30:29] Yeah.

[00:30:29] Even something I'll just give you one more.

[00:30:31] That's like one of my favorites.

[00:30:33] And if there's a vendor out there that's listening to this that can support this, please let me know because I'm happy to showcase it.

[00:30:39] Yeah.

[00:30:40] There it is.

[00:30:40] You have a staffing gap or a skills gap.

[00:30:44] You essentially have five ways to address it.

[00:30:47] Here's the five ways.

[00:30:48] Hire a regular employee.

[00:30:50] Get a contractor.

[00:30:52] Train the incumbent.

[00:30:53] Move somebody internal transfer or outsource.

[00:30:57] You have five ways to address a skill or staffing gap.

[00:31:01] And I believe Gen AI and large learning models in different operating contexts eventually should be able to support that because nobody – I don't know any organization that says, well, we looked at all five and we know here's the reason why we're going in this direction.

[00:31:17] They don't know.

[00:31:18] Yeah.

[00:31:19] If you say we're outsourcing because we're going to save money and they don't look at anything else, right?

[00:31:23] Yeah.

[00:31:24] But, Steve, I mean, no doubt AI, data, all of that's going to make us more agile.

[00:31:29] But do you think there's a point where technology can be a bit too – you're over-relying on it, right?

[00:31:36] I think there still has to be that emotional intelligence, gut instinct that a CEO and a C-suite has to make decisions from.

[00:31:42] But do you think there's an over-reliance danger in all this?

[00:31:46] Could we get lazy?

[00:31:48] Well, I'm not the first one to use the phrase there's no magic bullets.

[00:31:52] Clearly, when you deal with the complexity and making the invisible visible, how many things are invisible, you know, even support for the change.

[00:32:02] You conduct a survey, you can't rely on people telling you the truth about how they feel about the change.

[00:32:07] So in terms of retention risk, in terms of, you know, do people want to be in the jobs they're in?

[00:32:15] Do they want to go for three months of training to be in the new job?

[00:32:21] You know, can you rely on technology for that?

[00:32:24] No, technology plays a part, but so do people managers.

[00:32:28] And people managers are, in my opinion, line managers, people managers.

[00:32:33] They are really the hub of human capital management.

[00:32:36] Yeah.

[00:32:37] Because you have a good relationship with the person you report to.

[00:32:40] They're going to have a pretty good finger on the pulse of where you're at.

[00:32:45] Yeah.

[00:32:45] They're very much facilitating a lot of the engagement and HR-related tasks, I guess you could say.

[00:32:51] Steve, I wanted to back up for just a second.

[00:32:54] You know, you were talking about talent intelligence and, you know, and the skills science and how that's evolved.

[00:32:59] And, you know, like we've heard about that for a while.

[00:33:02] And usually what happens is the vendors lead that, right?

[00:33:05] People are developing things that are being used.

[00:33:07] And then it's like, wow, a lot of people have this or there are opportunities to actually use this.

[00:33:12] But I would say I suspect that actual adoption and use by market broadly is still very, very low.

[00:33:24] And I'd be very curious to hear your thoughts about it.

[00:33:27] There's these things are out.

[00:33:29] We feel like missing the ball.

[00:33:30] It's been out there forever.

[00:33:32] But in effect, it's still early on in its adoption phase.

[00:33:35] Would you agree with that?

[00:33:36] Or do you have any kind of gut feel?

[00:33:38] I do agree with it.

[00:33:39] And I'll add some color to it.

[00:33:42] And it's this, right?

[00:33:44] I mean, if you think about a skills ontology, right?

[00:33:48] What skills relate to what jobs or what skills are related to other skills?

[00:33:56] I think that, I mean, that's almost, that's like one step above a headcount report.

[00:34:02] That's inventorying what skills, what are the five skills you need for this job?

[00:34:08] That's not magic.

[00:34:10] So yes, I think adoption occurs at that level, but not at the level of we're changing business

[00:34:18] plans and priorities.

[00:34:19] What skills are going to become more important or less important?

[00:34:22] We're not there yet.

[00:34:23] Yeah.

[00:34:24] Yeah.

[00:34:24] But I think the technology is out there to get, you know, to get us there quickly.

[00:34:28] But right now, adoption is like in the inventorying stage of what skills do we have and what

[00:34:34] jobs do they relate to?

[00:34:36] Right.

[00:34:36] Yeah.

[00:34:36] No, there is, it all is very young, right?

[00:34:38] And, but, but, but so much more data and information at our fingertips.

[00:34:42] But so, Steve, I always ask this at any time we go through some of these sort of learning

[00:34:47] sessions, as I like to call it, how do you measure this?

[00:34:50] How do you know if you're agile?

[00:34:51] Like, how do you know if you're doing it right?

[00:34:53] Right.

[00:34:54] Is it you're dodging bullets and pivoting at the right time?

[00:34:56] Is it, you know, what is it?

[00:34:58] How do you, how do you benchmark yourself on something like this?

[00:35:00] It's funny you should ask because I'm working with a vendor in, in India.

[00:35:05] And I don't want to preempt, they're not in the U.S. market yet.

[00:35:11] They will be next year.

[00:35:13] But one of the tools that they're going to use is more a conceptual and thought leadership

[00:35:20] tool just to bring attention to what you're talking about.

[00:35:25] They call it the outcomeation index.

[00:35:28] It's a mouthful.

[00:35:30] But it's basically looking at strategic outcomes and how do you measure progress toward achieving

[00:35:37] them.

[00:35:38] And when they engaged me earlier this year, I pointed out that they didn't have org agility

[00:35:44] in there.

[00:35:44] So now they do.

[00:35:45] And so they, it's actually called Zing HR is the name of the company.

[00:35:50] And so there are clearly efforts underway there and elsewhere to figure out what are the incremental

[00:36:02] markers and KPIs.

[00:36:06] But I guess it starts with, do we know where the gaps are?

[00:36:11] We're moving from here to here.

[00:36:13] What are the new gaps in people and skills and attitude?

[00:36:18] You know, we only have 60% support for the change.

[00:36:21] That's a gap too.

[00:36:22] So to me, that's like level one is identifying the gaps.

[00:36:27] Level two is understanding, you know, what foot goes in front of the other foot and what

[00:36:32] are the steps to what's the blueprint.

[00:36:36] Yeah.

[00:36:37] If you have a blueprint, I'd say that's, that's a big step.

[00:36:41] Yeah.

[00:36:42] You have the blueprint for these are the changes we have to make, you know, in terms of how

[00:36:51] we deploy people, even where we have to be ahead of the market from a compensation.

[00:36:57] This is Julie's backyard.

[00:36:58] Yes.

[00:36:58] But where do we want to pay above market?

[00:37:01] Because those jobs and those skills are more important based on the new operating context.

[00:37:07] Those are all markers that you can measure that you can use them.

[00:37:11] Yeah.

[00:37:12] Yeah.

[00:37:13] I love it.

[00:37:14] I love it.

[00:37:15] Julie, you were going to say something?

[00:37:16] Well, you know, I, you know, my mind is usually going when I'm listening to somebody

[00:37:19] brilliant talk about their, you know, things they know a lot about.

[00:37:22] And, um, I love out, out commations and gets a wonderful smudged together word, but I'm

[00:37:31] thinking beyond measuring, which is what everybody wants to do.

[00:37:35] You know, can you take those measures and actually link them back to something that is

[00:37:39] causing a subpar measure?

[00:37:42] You know, like there's causation in there too.

[00:37:45] And, and hitting poor metrics or poor measures could be caused by a whole lot of things.

[00:37:51] So, so then it makes me think like how much, if I, if I take this transformation journey,

[00:37:57] how much should I expect to close that gap?

[00:38:00] Right.

[00:38:00] Or how much should I expect to improve?

[00:38:03] Yeah.

[00:38:04] Yeah.

[00:38:04] I mean, uh, it's not a, it's not, uh, an all encompassing, uh, type of, uh, prescriptive

[00:38:13] answer you're going to get in any way, shape or form.

[00:38:16] So there's, uh, it's a learning experience.

[00:38:21] I know that's cliche, but you're going to learn and maybe you shouldn't, uh, try to, uh, you

[00:38:28] know, swallow the whale, uh, and you should start with smaller fish and, uh, and you build

[00:38:35] up those skills, you build up those skills.

[00:38:37] And a lot of it is what you just mentioned, Julie, in terms of causation, you know, uh,

[00:38:44] something I wrote about yesterday on LinkedIn was, um, it's a, it's a, it's a little bit

[00:38:49] of attention, but opt outs when candidates are opting out of the process.

[00:38:54] You know, uh, I, I met years ago with the head of staffing at Microsoft.

[00:38:58] And before that, he was head of staffing at Novartis.

[00:39:01] I remember his name, Abilio Gonzalez.

[00:39:02] It was a long time ago.

[00:39:04] I don't know.

[00:39:04] His name stuck with me.

[00:39:05] And Abilio, uh, his number one priority for the staffing teams there was, was, was to

[00:39:10] measure opt outs, predict, opt, you know, which candidates after you spent money to fly

[00:39:17] them in for interviews, give them assessment tests and they go to four or five, six interviews

[00:39:22] and then they don't show up for the seventh interview more boy, that company spent a lot

[00:39:26] of money on them, uh, or they show up, but they don't accept the job offer.

[00:39:31] So, uh, so they didn't just track the cost involved, but they looked at what were the potential

[00:39:38] correlate, correlates and causal factors that were causing that, you know, what the line

[00:39:43] managers, not skilled at engaging a candidate.

[00:39:47] And maybe the first four interviews, they had the right person interviewing them.

[00:39:51] And the last, and the last person that interviewed them was not engaged themselves and on the

[00:39:57] way out the door mentally.

[00:39:59] Right.

[00:40:00] So causation is really important.

[00:40:03] Um, I mean, that's not a transformation, but in that small area, they transform the results

[00:40:09] in the staffing department.

[00:40:10] Yeah.

[00:40:11] Meaningful, meaningful impact, right?

[00:40:13] It's awesome.

[00:40:14] I love it.

[00:40:15] I always feel like every single, every single situation is, is its own flavor of ice cream,

[00:40:22] right?

[00:40:22] It's its own thing.

[00:40:23] And to try to figure out how you can have the most impact or the greatest impact or, you

[00:40:28] know, close the most gaps or get to the, you know, the best objective is really very personalized

[00:40:33] journey.

[00:40:34] And, you know, oftentimes clients, CEOs, CHROs just want to know, well, what did peers do?

[00:40:41] And, you know, like now what do I do?

[00:40:43] But what you do, isn't going to look like what your peers do, right?

[00:40:48] Doesn't have to.

[00:40:49] Yeah.

[00:40:49] Doesn't have to.

[00:40:50] It could.

[00:40:50] And by the way, uh, a, a specific strategy that can be a winning strategy is the fail fast

[00:41:00] strategy.

[00:41:00] Right.

[00:41:02] It works.

[00:41:02] Yeah.

[00:41:03] It's part of being agile, right?

[00:41:04] Feeling fast.

[00:41:04] So I think today you have to be doing that if you're not already.

[00:41:07] So love that.

[00:41:09] Um, yeah, look, Steve, I want to wrap this up.

[00:41:10] If you don't mind, I know I could, man, I could ask you more questions.

[00:41:13] Um, we love having you and hope you'll come back, but I want to ask you.

[00:41:17] So every year we do a very popular episode.

[00:41:20] Uh, this is our final episode now of 2024 by the time this plays.

[00:41:23] And we will be doing, uh, the next episode after that should be, uh, I believe our, uh,

[00:41:28] where to focus in 2025.

[00:41:30] It's one of my most famous, uh, episodes every year.

[00:41:32] Um, so if you don't mind me putting you on the spot, where do you feel HR leaders should

[00:41:36] be focusing one thing that you feel is going to be really essential in 2025?

[00:41:41] Well, uh, thanks for that.

[00:41:42] It is, uh, such an important question.

[00:41:46] And I think in a sense, I already answered it because, and, and, and both of you amplified

[00:41:51] it and it's change readiness and assessing change readiness.

[00:41:56] There's just too much change for employees to deal with these days, unless they have, um,

[00:42:06] HR guiding as a, uh, like shepherding the change process.

[00:42:10] And it starts with assessing readiness for change.

[00:42:13] And even, and, and so it's not just skills and having the right people in the right place

[00:42:17] and the attitudes and support for the change.

[00:42:19] But you know what?

[00:42:20] Maybe they tried to change program two years ago and they still have 70% of the people

[00:42:25] still in the organization.

[00:42:27] And that failed two or three years ago.

[00:42:30] Well, you're already working with a negative bias toward change.

[00:42:33] Yeah.

[00:42:34] So change readiness and all the kind of all of its tentacles and the aspects of it.

[00:42:40] Uh, I think HR has to become really, really competent in assessing change readiness.

[00:42:45] Yeah.

[00:42:46] That's great advice.

[00:42:46] It's, it's, it's, it's change is happening, whether you're embracing it or not.

[00:42:49] It's going to, it's, it's coming right with digital, uh, innovation and AI.

[00:42:54] I mean, there's just so much, so fast.

[00:42:55] It's unbelievable.

[00:42:55] So I love it.

[00:42:57] Steve, where can folks connect with you?

[00:42:59] I know LinkedIn.

[00:42:59] Where else would you like, uh, and we'll share the links of course.

[00:43:03] I mean, LinkedIn is probably the best place.

[00:43:05] I post pretty much every day.

[00:43:06] Uh, I do probably 20 to 30 blogs and articles a year and maybe 10 or 20 talks.

[00:43:13] Um, uh, and this sounds a little immodest, but just Google search Steve Goldberg comma

[00:43:19] HR tech.

[00:43:20] You'll find some stuff.

[00:43:21] I love it.

[00:43:22] I've told people.

[00:43:23] I'm going to complain to Google about it.

[00:43:25] So look, uh, Julie and Pete, I love you guys.

[00:43:30] Thanks a lot for having me.

[00:43:31] I appreciate it.

[00:43:32] Yes, absolutely.

[00:43:33] Absolutely.

[00:43:33] We'll make sure we share the links, Julie, anything to, to close out 2024?

[00:43:38] Uh, it's, is the end.

[00:43:40] Oh no, listen.

[00:43:41] I mean, like what an amazing year.

[00:43:43] There's so much going on.

[00:43:44] And, and I just think that we're ending 2024 on a universally positive and optimistic note

[00:43:50] across the country and the globe.

[00:43:53] People know that change is coming, you know, as opposed to years ago when it was thrust upon

[00:43:58] everyone and it was in a fear, very fearful way.

[00:44:00] And so I feel like there's a better chance than ever to see people embrace the idea of

[00:44:06] things are going to change.

[00:44:08] Maybe a lot.

[00:44:09] Right.

[00:44:10] Yeah.

[00:44:10] And that's okay.

[00:44:11] That's, you got to break it before you can put it back together again sometimes.

[00:44:15] Absolutely.

[00:44:16] And I would just add to that.

[00:44:17] It's a great answer, but I would add to it.

[00:44:19] It makes people, professionals, technical people, any class of worker more marketable

[00:44:27] when they can demonstrate that they've been successful in a change situation.

[00:44:33] Yeah.

[00:44:33] And successful doesn't always mean you got to stay right.

[00:44:35] Successful can be helping that change.

[00:44:38] And I know a lot of great leaders who have worked themselves out of their position by

[00:44:43] successfully helping the organization change.

[00:44:45] And, you know, do not be afraid, right?

[00:44:48] Yeah.

[00:44:48] Go forward because that's a skill.

[00:44:50] It's a great story.

[00:44:51] That's a great story.

[00:44:52] And it's very marketable.

[00:44:52] It is.

[00:44:53] It is.

[00:44:53] Well, look, hopefully our show has been helpful in educating folks on how to navigate this

[00:44:58] change.

[00:44:59] That's the whole point.

[00:44:59] Keep you updated with the news.

[00:45:01] Give you access to folks like Steve Goldberg, who I talk to all the time and am just privileged

[00:45:05] to learn from.

[00:45:06] And thank you, Steve.

[00:45:07] And hey, one quick call to action.

[00:45:09] I don't know if you guys know this, Julie, Steve, you should check it out.

[00:45:12] Hopefully our audience will.

[00:45:14] I don't know.

[00:45:15] Best kept secret, I think, in HR and payroll, UKG has an e-symposium.

[00:45:19] I think it's the 13th one I heard.

[00:45:21] I'd never heard of it.

[00:45:22] I'm excited to be attending.

[00:45:24] It's on the 15th of January.

[00:45:26] I'll share a link here.

[00:45:27] You'll see me do some posts on it.

[00:45:28] But check that out.

[00:45:29] They're talking compliance in that.

[00:45:31] They're going to be doing some leadership development in there.

[00:45:33] They're going to show you some new innovations.

[00:45:35] I'd check it out if you have some time.

[00:45:37] And best of all, 14 recertification credits that you can use towards most all of the major

[00:45:42] outlets.

[00:45:43] So your SHRMs, your HRCI, and so on.

[00:45:47] So yeah, come check it out.

[00:45:48] Kudos to my friends at UKG.

[00:45:51] Yes.

[00:45:51] Shout out to Team UKG.

[00:45:53] All right, Steve, happy new year and Merry Christmas.

[00:45:55] And Julie, you the same.

[00:45:57] And folks, everybody out there, we will talk to you very soon.

[00:45:59] One of my new year's resolutions is to learn how to use this headset.

[00:46:03] Oh, you're great, man.

[00:46:04] You're doing great.

[00:46:05] I love it.

[00:46:06] Thanks.

[00:46:06] Thanks, guys.

[00:46:07] Take care.

[00:46:07] Take care, everyone.

[00:46:07] Bye.