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AI is reshaping leadership, strategy, and the very role of HR. In each episode, the host Barb Bidan explores how AI drives innovation and leadership in HR with actionable insights for the future of work.
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The Human Element: Dessalen Wood, Global Chief People Officer, Syntax
Host: Barb Bidan · Recorded 2026-09-11 · Riverside take "Felicia, Dessalen, Barb"
Corrected transcript (names, punctuation, mishearings only; no rewriting, no cuts)
Barb (00:03)
My guest today is Dessalen Wood, the Global Chief People Officer at Syntax, where she leads people strategy and culture for 3,000 employees across 15 countries. Her 25 plus year career spans Disney Stores, Hudson's Bay, Reitmans, and Cineplex, followed by a really cool stint in HR tech as the CPO of ThoughtExchange. At Syntax, she built a three-level AI enablement strategy that is focused on productivity, role transformation, and
Barb (00:32)
having department AI champions. 90% of employees have been trained, and teams have built more than 1,000 functional agents. Syntax has earned best place to work recognition across its operating countries, and Dessalen has been recognized with Waterstone's top 10 most admired corporate cultures award and ISG Women in Digital's Rockstar Leader Distinction. She's also a CHRP and a McGill psychology graduate and Adler trained coach.
Barb (01:00)
And as a fellow former CHRP, because I don't live in Canada anymore, I am so excited to talk to my fellow Canadian. Thank you so much for joining me today.
Dessalen Wood (01:13)
I'm excited for our conversation, Barb.
Barb (01:15)
Me too. So when we caught up, you told me that there was a point post Cinemark when you were on the vendor side watching COVID, the great resignation. Yeah.
Dessalen Wood (01:28)
Stop, sorry, sorry, sorry, I'm gonna stop. It's not Cinemark, it's Cineplex. Cinemark is a US brand. It's okay, and actually, we have probably a close... No. You did not. Sorry about that.
Barb (01:32)
My gosh, okay, thank you. Thank you. Did I say that in the intro too? Okay.
Barb (01:42)
Okay, I'll mark it. No, no, thank you for catching me, because that would have been bad in the first question. So I will just start that one, that question over. But you, I, I interrupted you. You were gonna have finished what you were saying. Okay, so it's Cineplex. I should know that too. But is it Cineplex AMC? I feel like you said something about AMC.
Dessalen Wood (01:48)
Totally. Sure. No, no, no, it's all fine. It's good.
Dessalen Wood (01:56)
Yes. Yes.
Dessalen Wood (02:00)
No, I said Cineplex is, we actually bought AMC, with that was in Canada. I said, I said to you it's like the AMC of Canada, but you're from Canada, so you know. Yeah, 'cause when I talk to Americans they're not always... sorry about that.
Barb (02:06)
Yeah, like the AMC. Okay, got it. Yep, yep, yep. Got it. And which, what's funny is I probably know Cineplex better than I know Cin... Cinemark, 'cause I've been to the movies since I've been fourteen. I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. But close. Okay, let, I'll start with that, that question again.
Dessalen Wood (02:15)
Well yeah, I use a Canadian.
Dessalen Wood (02:20)
Of course, I get that.
Barb (02:27)
So when we caught up, you told me that there was a point post-Cineplex when you were working on the vendor side and you were watching things like COVID, the great resignation, the move to remote work, and everything else, right, that was hitting our function, and you thought, I have got to get back in there. What were you seeing that made the CHRO job feel both harder and more compelling than the one that you had left?
Dessalen Wood (02:55)
Well, you know, it's so interesting because when I'm thinking back to just before I left Cineplex, I think I mentioned to you there was this Netflix reinvented HR article and it was like the most shared article and everybody was like, this is the benchmark for greatness, and the issues we were dis... I know, and everybody was like, it must be great to work there, and then there was all these pieces around, you know, smaller items now, they sound silly, like
Barb (03:11)
Yep, passed around a hundred times, right? Yep.
Dessalen Wood (03:20)
do you do annual performance reviews or do you switch them to quarterly conversations? So that was kind of the dialogue when I left, like being a leader in the function. And then when I was working in this business, you know, doing, you know, leading HR, but for a very small company, but working with CHROs from very, from large, large brands and seeing, you know, with the HR tech we were using, their concerns and what their employees were struggling with, I realized that the whole profession was transformed.
Dessalen Wood (03:49)
And transforming is a word that's going to be overused, but when you're going into things like, you know, sending everyone home and then having to worry about vaccine mandates and then mental health and social justice and all of these pieces that were happening, return to work. I felt that the, the bar in terms of what was expected from this role to address and to be competent in had completely shifted and there was no Netflix who reinvented this.
Dessalen Wood (04:18)
There was actually no organization that had any playbook that actually was one for all of us to follow. And suddenly a voice from any part of the business, any part of a market or, or industry was interesting if they were doing something that was working. And I really felt that if I wanted to remain relevant, I had to go into the workforce of that moment, as hard as it was. So this was a time where there was a lot of CHRO burnout and HRBP burnout.
Dessalen Wood (04:48)
And I was like, put me in, coach, like I need to be in there.
Barb (04:52)
A hundred percent. I mean, it was a time of such learning in the profession and none of us had the, the playbook, and so being there to figure it out and to figure out what the, what the shape of the role was going to look like was critical, right? What do you... when you got back in there, what felt different than what you had left?
Dessalen Wood (05:13)
You know, I, I think this idea, and we were getting there, it was happening slowly. So what I would say happened in that two, two and a half year period was not that everything changed, it was everything accelerated. So all the seeds that we had seen, because, you know, I had actually just been, you know, leaving my, my regular day-to-day HR leadership role during Me Too,
Dessalen Wood (05:33)
and we were just starting to talk about mental health at work and having mental health training. So I don't think that these things were, were new, but this idea that the employee voice and what the employee demanded from a workplace had hit a fever pitch. So, you know, and you've probably heard other people talk about it, you know, back, you know, 25 years ago when I started, people saw work as a thing they did during the day and then they had all their other needs met through other parts of their lives.
Dessalen Wood (06:00)
And they had this work life and this home life and this spiritual life. And what felt like it was happening was that all needs were to be met by the employer. My physical health, my mental health, my feelings of personal growth and validation. And some workplaces really jumped in to meet those needs. And other workplaces struggled with how they can be profitable and focused on the business while also focusing on these employee needs.
Dessalen Wood (06:28)
And I felt that the interesting thing was to find that balance.
Barb (06:32)
Completely. I mean, I, I have described that as the period in time where we were trying to figure out the, what role the employer was going to take in the lives of their team members, right? Is it the, what, what we had prior, or is it the everything? And I, I tend to agree with you, it's somewhere in between. So before we go back deeply into the, the HR side and your work now,
Dessalen Wood (06:42)
Uh-huh.
Dessalen Wood (06:51)
Uh-huh.
Barb (06:55)
I would be remiss if I didn't ask about your time on the vendor side, at least a little bit. What did being on the vendor side let you see about HR work that maybe you couldn't have seen when you were inside of it?
Dessalen Wood (07:01)
Mm-hmm.
Dessalen Wood (07:09)
That's such a good question. You... what I think happens is that we have this perception in all of work world that, you know, the industry that you work in has a very specific workforce and very specific needs. It could be that the country that you're working in, or even the model. Are you, you know, a public company, are you an equity-backed company? Are you a VC? You know, these are all different kinds of models, startup to very mature businesses.
Dessalen Wood (07:35)
And I think one of the great things I got from being on the vendor side and working through employee feedback, because it was employee crowdsourcing, employee data, I really saw what were the common threads of employee experience that happen no matter who you are, no matter where you are, and that I got more confident in my ability to shift industries, I'll be honest, because the insights and the ability to give guidance to my peers, and to, in some smaller companies, directly to CEOs,
Dessalen Wood (08:04)
wasn't contingent on, well, I'm from retail, so it might be different where you are. And I had grown up in retail, from the front lines of being a salesperson all the way to my role that I, when I left, as a VP of talent. And I think if I hadn't had that experience, I would have always carried with me this limiting belief that what I brought somehow needed to be prefaced with, this is a retail perspective.
Dessalen Wood (08:28)
And I really could lean into great retail stories. I use a lot of retail anecdotes 'cause they're super funny, as are movie theater ones, but I have a ton of confidence that what I was talking about was relevant across countries and industries.
Barb (08:42)
We are way more similar than we are different, I think. And sometimes when we work insul... in an insular way within an industry, I do think that's a mistake we make, right? Which prevents us from sharing, I think, sometimes as HR leaders as much as we should, because what we're doing from one industry to the next is more relevant. So, what a cool way to get that view as well. So I wanna... you've been touching some cool things since you've been kind of back in the game.
Dessalen Wood (09:10)
Yeah.
Barb (09:11)
You've talked a little bit about this as this last period as being kind of a renaissance for the CHRO role. And, and I agree, right? It's now as clear as ever to everyone, I think maybe it was clear to some of us, right, that there was no one accepted version of what good looks like, but now it feels like that is more of a commonly held view.
Barb (09:33)
So when the playbook disappears and there is no one way to sort of do HR, what becomes more important, in your opinion, in how you think and how you lead?
Dessalen Wood (09:44)
Well, you know, I think the idea of every company chasing sort of what they thought they had to do or not do, you know, what, what to get right and what not to get wrong in that period. There was a lot of getting it wrong, there was less getting it right, and we were going through this period of mass resignations, and it's interesting because we're talking about automation a lot today, which is, you know, are there gonna be enough jobs? But the period we just came out of was a huge talent crisis, and I just find that to be an interesting irony to hold in the same place. And so
Dessalen Wood (10:14)
what I, what I think we need to be really focusing on in this role is understanding that there are fundamental needs that people have to have met in order to perform at their highest potential. And when we get caught chasing the latest thing, we often drop the ball on the fundamentals. And I know this doesn't sound exciting or sexy, but I can tell you that, you know, people feeling like they have an autonomy and they're empowered, people feeling like they're
Dessalen Wood (10:39)
valued and relevant and seen by their employer, and people feeling like they're being developed, those things, this, this decision-making ability and autonomy, this feeling valued and this being developed, these to me are foundational principles that we always have to design our work environment around. And when you're layering in something, whatever you're layering in, whether it's a CSR or you're layering in AI enablement, you should be thinking, where does it fit into those three things?
Dessalen Wood (11:08)
Does this help people feel like they have more control? Do they feel more valued? Or are we developing their skills? And when we hold those three things in balance, generally it's a good place to work. And I do think that that's important. And it might be easier said than done. I've been through some integrations with acquisitions. You know, it's always a challenge to hold all those three things in place at the same time. And so that's something that I think I really have learned through this renaissance,
Dessalen Wood (11:36)
is that remote work doesn't solve everything. You know, I think a lot of companies thought, I just won't force people back to the office. And, you know, I did a talk once and I asked how many people had remote work. And this was a couple years ago when it was far more than there is today, and lots of hands went up. And then I said, how many people are still facing record level resignations? Same hands go up. And I, you know, I think whenever we think we're like the kids chasing the soccer ball, you know, when they're five years old and nobody's watching the goalie, yeah.
Barb (12:02)
Yeah.
Dessalen Wood (12:04)
You have to keep your eye on the fundamentals of the playing field in order to have a healthy organization and not get caught up by thinking if I do this one thing I can drop the ball on the basics that people need to feel good at work.
Barb (12:18)
Do you have a favorite call-out of something that we all thought was gonna be so-called best practice during this last, you know, five, six year period that feels to you like it would have been the wrong answer to go with?
Dessalen Wood (12:32)
Wow, that's a great one. I would say probably the idea that remote or hybrid was going to solve all of your employee expectations. And I think this idea that, you know, when people said, listen, forced returns to work were the worst thing we did, I would say, you know, that why it was bad is too many people were relying on the flexibility as their biggest perk.
Dessalen Wood (12:54)
So, if your flexibility is the only reason why people want to stay and work with you, and then you say you have to come back to the office, that's a good reason why people will leave. So, I, I think that was the wrong call-out for organizations who didn't do the work to differentiate their employee experience and really just relied on a couple of, I'd say, perks. And it could be perks people had, such as different kinds of expense accounts or different kinds of employee benefits that they pulled back on as things got more expensive. If you are really relying to, it's almost like a retention
Dessalen Wood (13:24)
bonus. I'm doing something in order for it to make it hard for you to leave. That's not a great employee culture. And I think that's something that a lot of organizations try to shortcut: having a healthy environment with strong leaders and a clear value proposition for their employees.
Barb (13:41)
Yeah, I mean, going back to your soccer game analogy, like the five year olds playing soccer, I feel like those benefits and perk scenarios where we follow each other around the field like five year olds playing soccer, it's dangerous fiscally, right? And I think we saw some of that peel back, right, after, after COVID. Yeah, it is, it's right. I mean, it's, it, the when you add to your benefits, right? At any other time we have done so in such a thoughtful way. And you just sort of saw it happening a little bit more willy-nilly, right? During
Dessalen Wood (13:51)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Dessalen Wood (13:55)
Yeah. It's not sustainable. It's not sustainable.
Dessalen Wood (14:09)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Barb (14:10)
So, so, so when there's no playbook and the context matters more, which I, I am sold on, as we've discussed, how does a CHRO avoid having that turn into, there's no playbook, so anything goes?
Dessalen Wood (14:28)
I think what happens when you have to really think about
Dessalen Wood (14:33)
why it is somebody would want to come and work here. So that's also how you attract, and why do people stay? Because it's not always the same thing. I think you can really start to boil down, you know, where you're gonna differentiate. And I, I felt really strongly about this even when I was in my interview for this role at Syntax. And this was in, you know, 2022, Omicron, you know, my god, here we go again, this thing's never gonna end. So it was a difficult time to join an organization when everybody's still mostly online.
Dessalen Wood (15:03)
And one of my thoughts at the time was, you know, how are we going to differentiate our employee experience and really go hard on a few really important things that people can experience consistently in all our countries and locations and worry less about trying to do a little bit of everything. And, for me, I feel like LinkedIn at that time became like the Instagram of companies. You know, everybody was profiling, I don't know, their pet bereavement leave, their, you know, mental health days and
Dessalen Wood (15:33)
their additional Fridays on all long weekends. And it was really hard not to have employees say, well, why aren't we doing this? And, you know, people started talking about compressed work weeks and four-day work weeks. And so when I came in, it was like, well, what are you gonna do to, you know, make us be relevant? And my view was like, let's pick a couple of things that really matter that we're gonna stick to, and this is really important to me, that we're gonna just stick to and get better at, and let's just not worry about everything else.
Dessalen Wood (16:00)
And, you know, I think that's something that's scary to do because in the Instagram of companies you're not going to be able to post that you're doing everything or giving these extra days off or having these, like, amazing speakers come in. You're gonna be talking about what you do and you're gonna stick to that narrative and you're gonna make sure you get it right and you get it consistent and that you don't roll it back. And that's really how I, I came towards this challenge at that time.
Barb (16:27)
So thoughtful, right? And spoken like someone who's maybe had to face entering a situation, I mean, I know I have, where I've had to roll back something that was done before I was there. And it's, it's easy to make some of the decisions to do something quickly. If you've ever had to roll something back and felt what that feels like, it, I think, makes you a lot more wise in how you, and a lot more thoughtful in how you roll things out in the first place. So
Dessalen Wood (16:51)
Yeah.
Dessalen Wood (16:55)
Yeah, yeah. And I think that's, that's tough because you have, you know,
Dessalen Wood (17:00)
you have other... I've, I came into the tech industry, and this is something that was really interesting for me and I think important. You know, I was raised in an industry that has very, very low margins. You know, maybe, you know, four points. We're talking low, low margins, and, you know, many years you don't make any money. You might make a dollar and sometimes you make a lot. It depends, you know, different margins and different products, I can tell you. I know that now as well. But what I can say there is that there isn't a lot of extra to go around. There's a lot of saying no, there's a lot
Barb (17:20)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Dessalen Wood (17:30)
of trying to figure out how to spin something with very little resources. And I pivoted from that into a venture-backed company that had a lot of money to spend to grow fast. And it was a shock to my system, like a literal shock to my system, to have, you know, four-day offsites and everybody invited and, you know, big speakers. And all I was thinking of is like, my god, how much money would you have to make in order to be able to fund this, you know, in terms of how, following the dollar? And it was, it was hard for me. I have to
Dessalen Wood (18:00)
be honest, because I was used to doing something with nothing. And I think when I came to the tech industry, it wasn't as, I'd say, wild and unregulated as venture-backed companies, but it has this, an essence that it's going to be an elevated employee experience. So I'd been, I'd visited two extremes.
Dessalen Wood (18:20)
Right, I visited the four-day all-company offsite and the we-aren't-doing-a-Christmas-party-this-year-at-all. I've been, I've been at both. And I think I was able to bring some thoughtful ways that, now I have some funds, how do we use them really thoughtfully? And how do we, my big thing is, not take back things because we're having a great year that we can't really do in a, in a tougher year, because employees don't really differentiate. They work just as hard in both those years. And so
Barb (18:20)
Yep. Yep.
Barb (18:27)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Dessalen Wood (18:50)
so it's important that the experience stays as consistent as possible. Obviously, it can't always be perfect, but to try to keep those things in mind.
Barb (18:58)
I'm, I mean, I'm biased on this one, but I think that having your training ground be in a lower margin business where you need to learn business fundamentals first, and then moving to tech where sometimes the dollars flow a little more freely, and being able to remain a smart leader in that situation is really, really important for sure. So, so let me, I'm gonna shift, I'm gonna shift us a little bit because you have talked about
Dessalen Wood (19:14)
Yeah.
Dessalen Wood (19:19)
It is. It is.
Barb (19:26)
imagined emergencies. And I love that phrase. I think it gets at something that a lot of us feel as CHROs. How do you tell the difference personally between a shift that deserves your attention and the latest disaster narrative about HR's being reinvented, replaced, left behind, whatever the thing? How do you differentiate?
Dessalen Wood (19:30)
Mm-hmm.
Dessalen Wood (19:48)
You know, I, I, I'm gonna give you sort of two ways of thinking of it. I think there's actually a physiological reaction to when somebody throws something at you that's unexpected. And I do training, I give a, a, a full-day training on emotional intelligence, so I've been certified in that. And one of the most important things you realize is that when someone says, you know, why don't we do this, or, you know, we're behind on this, or some, a leader goes to a, a conference, or, you know, a
Dessalen Wood (20:15)
somebody from a different company tells them a thing they do and they throw it at you, there's this defensive reaction we get, which is either to fearfully just sort of say, okay, sure, we should do it, and answer without thinking, or to defend why you don't.
Dessalen Wood (20:28)
Neither of those are good reactions. So one of the things that I think is really important to keep your head on straight when it's of what I call an imagined emergency, which is somebody important is telling you you're not doing something you should be doing, right? This is an imagined emergency. Or there's a very high-profile resignation, and in an exit interview something is called out and it gets a disproportionate amount of importance laid on it because it's the first time somebody's heard this line. And this happens all the time. You know, it's the equivalent in retail of a customer
Barb (20:56)
All the time.
Dessalen Wood (20:58)
calling the head office and your CEO getting that, that note and freaking out about it. And you're just like, that's just, that's just, yeah.
Barb (21:03)
Right. And then the whole policy changes across three hundred stores. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Dessalen Wood (21:06)
And for me it's like, that's just Tuesday. I get those calls every day. Who cares? You know? So I have to be at a point where you don't want to defend and diminish what's being brought to you and you don't want to panic and agree to it because you feel caught off guard. So one of the things you learn in emotional intelligence is when you feel like your stomach twist and that sort of tension, like, my gosh, I have to react, is to not react. Is to take a deep breath and just say, I, I...
Dessalen Wood (21:34)
That's maybe not what I, I, I didn't expect to hear that. I may, I'm gonna need a few minutes to think about that. Or, I wasn't aware of that. I'd like to do some more research and get back to you. And just buy yourself time. Buy yourself time not to just agree that this is the new latest thing that you must do, nor to fight it.
Dessalen Wood (21:51)
And it's really hard in the moment to not feel like, because you're being challenged in a room or on an email, or especially if it's anything public, to hit reply-all first with like, no, we shouldn't do that, or my god, you're right. It's just to say, okay, that was, I wasn't expecting this right now, or I hadn't thought enough about it. Let's book a meeting in three days and let's go over it. And I'm telling you, the gift of giving yourself a little bit of time brings your executive function back online, which is literally the prefrontal cortex, comes back
Dessalen Wood (22:21)
online and says, this is why we don't do that here, or we tried that three years ago and this was the outcome. But what happens in an imagined emergency is we either fight it or we commit to it, and neither are, are good.
Barb (22:34)
Right. Yeah, it's, it's denying that reflexive reaction and giving yourself time to get the executive function back, completely. So if we can't predict the future, which I know we can't, and we should not react to every headline or imagined emergency, what is our actual job when the next big change hits the executive team?
Dessalen Wood (22:38)
Uh-huh.
Dessalen Wood (22:57)
So, you know, I think what happens is, first, it's our responsibility to the senior role to always have our antenna out and be aware of what's coming. You know, I, I would definitely say that, you know, the key, and I use this swimming pool analogy because, you know, I have an analogy for everything, is like when you're in an individual contributor role, you're in the swimming pool and you're just trying to, you know, get yourself across the pool around all the obstacles and, and people and, and, and swimming toys and whatever. And then when you're a manager, you're sitting on the side of the
Dessalen Wood (23:27)
pool and you're watching your four or five people making sure they're navigating, you're jumping in to pull out obstacles so that they can cross the pool. And when you're at a senior team level, you're up on the lifeguard chair and you're, you're seeing the entire pool and you're the one who's like, you know, maybe we shouldn't have free swim at this time, or maybe the pool needs to be, you know, made bigger, and you're thinking that way. And I think this is a really important thing that we need to do, is to understand what the landscape is before we make reactions
Dessalen Wood (23:57)
inside the pool, you know, because that's what I mean also about this imagined emergency and this panic, is that how do you keep yourself thinking strategically about playing a longer game? And you don't play the long game in the pool, and you don't play the long game sitting next to the pool, but you're expected to be aware. So I guess my long way of saying that we should know what's coming, and we should know what our weak points are, and we should know probably what we need to do next. And when something hits us, it's not that
Dessalen Wood (24:27)
I was completely not expecting it. I might have not expected it to come so fast, or it might have changed a little bit in how it landed. But I should already be planting the seeds with the rest of the executive and preparing the organization for what's coming, because I have not just been sitting by the pool watching my own function. I've been watching the industry and the whole organization at the same time. I don't know if that answers the question.
Barb (24:52)
Yeah, you've got the, you've got the sight, you've got the sight lines. I love the, I love the analogy. And as you were, I, where I thought you were, I thought you were gonna talk about a whistle, right? Like how lifeguards have the whistle. I was also being, like, really mindful of, we have the whistle around our neck and we have the ability to clear the pool if we need to, but you need to be very careful about where you use that, right? And I think that's also the imagined... so I don't know if that extends the analogy. We could, we could just build stories together.
Dessalen Wood (25:05)
Yeah, it's a good, yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Dessalen Wood (25:13)
That's such a great, I love that. Well, I, I, I, I, I love the analogy. You know what I used to, what I like to say is that, you know, whether you're in the pool or you're in the side or you're up in the lifeguard chair, that everyone's still wearing a bathing suit, we all just get wet less often.
Dessalen Wood (25:30)
You know, at different times, and so you still have to be able to jump in. But the whole thing is that I think that when there is a big change in the environment, or if something disrupts your business, 'cause there's tons of disruption, there's a tendency for everybody to go, you know, and that's when we say all hands on deck. Imagine, in my world, that's everybody in the pool, but there's only so much you can see from there, and in fact you might be creating more chaos than you're fixing. And so I think part of that taking a deep breath is when somebody throws something at you, you have this tendency to want to jump in. Mine is
Dessalen Wood (25:59)
like, I'm gonna sit up on the chair for two more days and I'm gonna see if this still happens. And the imagined part is, generally, somebody's crazy thought that happened out of nowhere just goes away. I never have to address it again. They just forget about it, they go off and do something else, or it's really sticky and I gotta act on it. But I, taking that moment to make sure I'm only acting on the things that are gonna stick.
Barb (26:21)
Great advice. I love that we got most of the way through this episode talking about all things change, honestly, and how, how the function's evolving, what we need to do as leaders. And I'm getting to my first AI question right now, but it is a good one because I want to get practical, because you actually have a four-stage AI maturity map based on Syntax's journey. And our listeners love a good practical recommendation. So for the CHRO who feels like
Dessalen Wood (26:42)
Yes.
Barb (26:49)
two stages behind everybody else, how should they identify where they're at and decide what the next right move is?
Dessalen Wood (26:58)
Well, I think this is such an important piece because most people think they're behind or they're not sure exactly where they are. And figuring out where you are doesn't mean that you're gonna be disappointed with it. It really just says, this is the, the playbook for that stage.
Dessalen Wood (27:13)
And when something's new like AI and people are talking about, you know, we're running with it or we haven't started, I think it's important to have a clear framework that you can express. And so the stages that I was sharing with you, you know, before today was the idea of the first stage, which is the stage most people were at a couple years ago, but some are only just getting started now, and that's the tooling and the guardrail stage. So that's when you're, you know, figuring out your, your governance, your security and your tooling. And that's an important phase
Dessalen Wood (27:43)
to make that decision. And just so you know, we're kind of always back there because the tools keep changing and the, the guardrails also shift.
Dessalen Wood (27:50)
But that's a really important way to establish the foundation of just what are we going to use, how are we going to use it, and is everybody aware of it, and it's safe and secure, because we really can't afford having people put company data into public tools. And when people don't have that understanding, they might do it because they just don't realize they shouldn't. So that's phase one. For me, phase two is when you're doing your enablement to ensure that everybody knows how to use the tools. And enablement means a lot of different things, but it's really, when you have this fast a shift in technology,
Dessalen Wood (28:20)
technology or anything, you have to do some change management, which is, you know, here are the tools and here's how to use them successfully. And I think some companies jumped over that phase. You know, they got the tools and they expected transformation, but really you've got to establish a foundational knowledge of how to use the tools that's also layered with an expectation. So, how do you do it, and how do I expect to see it working? And that's really around, you know, the use cases by role, or use cases. So when we talked to our ours, we said,
Dessalen Wood (28:50)
okay, here's the productivity use cases for leaders, for individual contributors, this is how you go back and forth. So it's as much about, like, learning what prompting is, but also
Dessalen Wood (29:01)
go farther and show actual examples of how you use it to, you know, set your goals, you know, have deep insights, answer a ticket. And it might feel obvious to certain people, because your early adopters do this on their own. And I think a lot of things happen in companies where we had pockets of people who became incredibly advanced by themselves. And you can have this narrative of like, well, you can just watch YouTube, you know, you can figure this out. But an organization has the responsibility to clearly outline how,
Dessalen Wood (29:30)
how the tools should be used and what the expectations are. And so this enablement phase for us had to do with adoption of tools that we already had, as well as understanding how to riff and use it for productivity, and also how do you do a process transformation. Because you can talk all you want about transformation, but until you have people understand how to create an AI roadmap, how to identify where AI fits, how to understand what the weakness of that process is that might hurt your AI piece,
Dessalen Wood (30:00)
you're just going to be wasting people's time. So that was a big part of it. So for me, it was that tooling. The third phase, so I'll go back: one is the guardrails and tools, two is enablement and clear expectations, three is the P&L impact, which is, how do we actually measure that we're getting a benefit from using this kind of tool? And again, you know, when you're buying a tool, you know, and I don't want to, you know, promote one, so I'm trying to... you know, whether you're buying an HCM or you're buying, like, a customer management
Dessalen Wood (30:30)
system, you know, such as a Salesforce type of thing, they demonstrate to you in your sales pitch the bottom line impact you're going to have. And if you use the tool appropriately, ideally you're going to have that bottom line impact. AI didn't come with that toolkit. It didn't come with a demo and it didn't come with, if you use these tools and you train everyone, you're going to get this impact. So it's left to the organization to find a way to measure. And, you know, we have an AI ledger that our CTO created with his team,
Barb (30:54)
Right.
Dessalen Wood (31:00)
which is really important, was how do you go from measuring use
Dessalen Wood (31:04)
and adoption, which is phase two, to measuring whether it has either transformed your business in terms of having some efficiency gains, or being able to be more, you know, aggressive in other areas due to the fact that we're not spending time. And, you know, he has a great term that I'm using all the time, which is elastic and inelastic. So some things should grow and be, you know, we should grab more, and other things we should be able to shrink. And when you can identify that clearly, you can demonstrate P&L impact.
Dessalen Wood (31:34)
And there's a great deal of investment in AI without having a clear way to measure whether it's working. And activity, which was the way to measure it maybe a year ago, is not relevant. So phase three is a tough phase. It's tough. My last phase, phase four, is when you've actually reimagined roles, your org chart, or your product, how you deliver or market a product, which means that you look,
Barb (31:44)
Right.
Dessalen Wood (32:00)
I don't want to use the word dramatically, but you look different now than you did before. Your org looks different, your delivery looks different, maybe your products look different, and that's because you've taken that enablement and you've moved it into a competitive differentiator. That's phase four, the reimagination phase. And that's a phase where many companies are not quite there. But if they want to get there, they've got to do one, two, and three first.
Barb (32:28)
Thank you so much for sharing your framework with us. Very practical as well, because I know you've been working through those steps in your own organization. I've had so much fun talking to you today. You're a great storyteller. I'm gonna bring us home with some lightning round questions, just quick-hit questions. First thing that comes to mind: what is one leadership belief that you have changed your mind about?
Dessalen Wood (32:37)
Yes.
Dessalen Wood (32:44)
Sure.
Dessalen Wood (32:53)
Well, I always like to be contentious, right? Maybe, I say, I can't help it. I think the leadership belief that was going on for a large part of my time was that
Dessalen Wood (33:03)
you know, there's no one way to be a leader, and you can be a leader quietly, and you can be a leader this way and that way. And I do a lot of work now with, with helping women develop their leadership skills. I'm a program mentor. And I think one of the beliefs that we don't, that we give to people that is not helpful is, you know, that you don't have to develop your influence and your assertiveness. You can just come at it from all different ways. I think that's not great advice. And I think that's actually harmful.
Dessalen Wood (33:33)
And I think in our period of really discussing a lot of different things about inclusion, this message got out. And in fact, it's going to get in people's way. I think what we really need to do is to build up people's ability to be courageous and to take up space, because that's a key leadership ability. And if we don't talk about it and teach it, we're actually hurting people.
Barb (33:57)
I love it. And so I feel like I, I knew that you would like some questions that encouraged you to be contentious. What is one people practice that you think is overdue for retirement?
Dessalen Wood (34:11)
I'm, I'm gonna tell you this one. My, my biggest beef is when people are like, what's my career path? And I know this is a terrible thing to say, because my view is that we need to present how the organization is designed, and we need to be able to talk about what roles we have. But what I want people to do is to be curious,
Dessalen Wood (34:31)
and to ask questions, and to make proposals, and to put up their hand to meet people, because you're your own, you know, I have a friend, she's amazing, her name is Claire Kumar, she says, you're your own CFO, you're your own chief fulfillment officer. My job is not to design your life. My job is to help remove obstacles for the life you've presented to me that aligns to the business and your career objectives.
Dessalen Wood (34:56)
And I find when someone comes to me about career advice and I say, well, bring me a proposal of what you want to do, how you're going to add value, make a job title, make everything, and let me have a look at it, less than half ever come back. They want the easy button for a career path. And I think that we have to stop saying that that's our job, and we have to help people understand how to design a career and how to hustle to get it.
Barb (35:20)
When I hear that question, I picture the game Candy Land. I don't know if you know the, right, like I literally picture the path and I'm, I, and we know that that's not actually what it is, even, and it's not an excuse for not having a framework or anything like that. We, we need to have those things, but it's not just like, here is your path and clarity ensues, and then just go follow it. There's lots of options, and the, and the employee has to participate. So I could talk about that one with you for another 30 minutes. But let me give you one more.
Dessalen Wood (35:41)
Yeah.
Dessalen Wood (35:45)
Yes. It's a big one. Sure.
Barb (35:50)
What is one question that more CHROs should be asking right now?
Dessalen Wood (35:58)
I think the biggest question that our team needs us... is, are we equipping them to be successful
Dessalen Wood (36:05)
in the next year to two years? I'll take in five years. But I think we really need to be aware of what is going to make people successful and impactful and relevant, and are we doing those things for them? I think they expect that from us because they're in a vulnerable place. The narrative is terrible. It's telling everybody they're gonna be replaced or their job's gonna go away, and I don't believe that, just so you know, but I do think it's our responsibility to be equipping people with whatever tools they need to be relevant and
Dessalen Wood (36:35)
impactful.
Barb (36:36)
Great suggestion. So I always do try to capture a few thoughts to share to close us out. So, so much great insight that you shared. The first one, though, that I want to share back with the audience is, chasing what's right is the wrong aim. So I'm paraphrasing a little bit, but you emphasized how important it is to meet people's fundamental needs, right? For autonomy, empowerment, feeling valued, relevant, feeling seen,
Barb (37:02)
and that is what you have to get right, even when it's not the sexiest, newest thing. Get that right first. It's so important. Number two, when imagined emergencies hit, this was great advice. Do not defend or diminish, and don't panic and agree. Those are our two reflexive sets of reactions. So don't react, buy yourself some time
Barb (37:25)
to let your executive function kick back in and come back with a logical answer, response, to the thing. If we all did that, life would be way less chaotic, I think. And then the last one, I like the idea of antenna out, and I just thought it was like a good catchy thing for, that is our job as CHROs, right? It was the lifeguard analogy. The team is in the, in the pool, our leaders are on the pool deck, we're in the lifeguard chair, we've got the sight lines
Barb (37:52)
to the thing. It's our obligation, right, to use those sight lines, see the big picture, and, and pay attention to what is going on so that we can use that sight line to make really great decisions. So I took a lot away from our chat today. I always want to leave guests with the final word. So for our peer who has listened to us on their drive home today, what do you want them to continue thinking about for the rest of their drive?
Dessalen Wood (38:19)
I, I think the thing that's so important for people to think about is, first of all, making sure that you're keeping yourself up with your own skills.
Dessalen Wood (38:27)
That you're only as impactful to your team, your organization, as you are in continuously developing your own knowledge and your own curiosity around what's going on, and to not feel overwhelmed by the narrative that you're behind or you're getting lost. This is designed to make you feel terrible. That, in fact, you're likely doing a lot of amazing good work, and you probably should be aware of things that you could be doing or could not be doing. So I think it's really just to, you know,
Dessalen Wood (38:57)
consume content like this, and to also, I would say, be kind to yourself, that you're not going to be doing everything right all of the time. Get a few things right, be consistent, believe in yourself, and I believe that that's probably the most value you can bring to your team and to your role.
Barb (39:19)
What a great thing to leave folks with. I had so much fun talking to you. I'm so glad that I got to have you on. Thank you.
Dessalen Wood (39:27)
Thank you, Barb. This is great. Thank you so much.