What's Humanly Possible? | Mr Meaningful Work and Arkesh Mishra

In this episode of the Humanly Podcast, Tim and guest Arkesh Mishra - Head of People @ Walmart U.S. Tech - discuss the intersection of technology and human resources. They explore how AI is reshaping the future of work, the importance of skills-based approaches in talent management, and the critical role of empathy and well-being in driving performance. Tune in for insightful stories and expert perspectives on navigating the evolving landscape of HR and tech.

What is What's Humanly Possible? ?

What's Humanly Possible explores the boundaries of human innovation, culture building, and acquisition and retention of talent in work today. Hosted by Tim "My Meaningful Work" Olaore, the What's Humanly Possible podcast features discussions with the leading voices in human resources, talent acquisition, culture building, and AI for organizational performance today. Presented by Humanly, conversational AI for hiring.

go

what's up everybody it's your boy Tim

Mr meaning for work

welcome to another episode of the humanly podcast

where we talk about the stories

the experiences the nuances that are driving us

towards the future of work

and I am super

duper excited to reconnect with my friend arkesh

who I met at a conference in is in Atlanta right

yeah it was in Atlanta yeah

some a little place outside of an Atlanta

um we got to talk in the hallway

listen to his keynote

and we're just super impressed with his story

we'll get into his origin story but uh

right now arkesh how you doing dude

I'm good

it's uh very lovely weather out here in Sunnyvale

so yeah comparing it to what from what

where are you coming from that this is lovely

uh no no

the weather is really good in general

I'm coming from Bentonville

Arkansas is it and we are having spring over there

so it's pretty lovely weather yeah

oh this is a good time to be springtime

coming into the summer does it get humid in uh

during summers it does get humid yeah

in August September

yeah that's one of the reasons I like that

I went to school in the south

I was in Huntsville Alabama and uh

going back if it going to from Huntsville

visiting Nigeria is like your just at home

like you didn't you didn't feel the difference um

so anyway so we're

gonna go ahead and

jump into this conversation that we have with um

Mr Arkesh and in lieu of a long illustrious bio

which my man has

I always like to ask my guests

what are you famous for and this can be professionally

this can be in your personal life

but if somebody wants to hear the name Orchestra

it's like oh yeah

that's the dude that blank

blank blank blank

blank blank so what are you famous for man

okay so

you know ha ha ha

so let me answer that question um

you know from a professional and a personal respect

yeah ah

and you know both of them have an intersection

you know in terms of where they come together

so from a professional perspective

I would say

ah if you probably ask people around in Walmart

you know who our case is

they would you know

say that I'm the OG design guy

OG design and the talent architecture person

the guy you know

who built out all the competencies skills ah

so now that that's what I would say my claim to fame is

and I spent a lot of time within Walmart

you know building out the skills framework and then

you know connecting it back to the various processes

around hiring promotions

yeah ah

learning and so on

and did a lot of that work for the Walmart

global tech entity yeah

if I was to go back to my personal life and

you know and talk about what I'm a famous for

I believe probably a lot of my friends would be like

oh he's a guy

you know went into a charge

you went to HR the HR guy kind of fell into it

or like went intentionally

so I I think it's a combination of both

so I did my undergrads as an engineer

oh okay

and you know

and I was working for one of India's largest

power producing organisations for a couple of years

and then you know

typical Indian parents and then they were like

you know your education is not complete

you need to go get you know masters

so and I started looking around and

you know and I applied for one of these programs

which is one of the best you know

B schools in India nice

and the program that I landed in was

specialisation in human resource management

I was like you know what

let's give it a shot let's see how it goes

yeah so you

you kind of like engineer by trade

but you're able to get the specialisation

in human resources which some people

viewers listeners

correct me if I'm wrong

some folks feel like that's a mutually exclusive

or like engineers

tech technical builders and the human resources

the soft side the

how would you argue being that you're both right

yeah and you're in the tech division of Walmart

so how does those things marry human resources

engineering technology

what does that look like for you

so I would say there are three parts to it

I mean you know

I would uh

believe that being an engineer

uh does add

you know does give me

you know certain skills

I mean I'm not saying if you're not an engineer

you're not have them but I look at it

I look at it from a perspective of

you know three lenses

one is the way you know

how to approach

any situation is from a lens of problem solving okay

I see most of the situations that

you know

we would come across from a lens of problem solving

and I use a lot of systemic thinking to

you know

talk about systems based approach to solving a problem

so you know

when you start to take that lens

then it you know

reduces the discomfort you know

you should have with the situation

but you know

you're trying to solve a problem

that becomes a lot more interesting

yeah the second I would say is

you know just given my engineering background

um I guess I've been told

you know by a couple of ah

not couple actually quite a few of my

you know business partners that I know

I support that it's easier to have this conversations

like I sit along with my tech leaders and some of these

you know ah

product reviews

and I remember some of my concepts from my

engineering days and I'm able to ask questions

okay help me understand

what's the latency around this product

you know how does

how do you what the HR guy knows about latency

what

and then you know

the third thing is when I

you know interview um

you know candidates for leadership positions

and you're not particularly officer in above roles

which is VP s VP roles and so on

while you know

I want to understand the leadership aspect of

you know what the candidate brings to the table

but I also you know

focus a lot more in terms of

what the tech vision is going to be

how does that you know

sort of translate into an operational strategy

and I asked him to explain that to me

in a very technical term you know

in a very technical way

so I think that surprises some candidates

but

I've seen those conversations become a lot more richer

and some of them really engage

you know as you start to talk to them in their language

yeah so it's a bit of an advantage for me and

you know I've taken lessons that I've Learned

and engineering from a systems based thinking

yeah and applied them and

you know that's helped me

you know build

you know stuff that is a lot more systems driven

yeah and is able to

you know

connect across multiple pieces of the organization

yeah and then another piece of managing stick holders

dude as you're telling that story

I've been watching this show on Disney plus X men 97

and it's like a remakes remake of the X men series

if anybody know X men

there's a bunch of mutants and all these things

but um

the base of the story now is this kind of mix between

mutant and machine

and human and all that stuff

and as you're telling your stories

like man

you have like these multiple powers

like you got the powers of engineering

you got the powers of human

and you become this I call you a mutant

don't let it be said

I mean I'd love to be a mutant

why not you know

say but like

you have these powers

where you're able to understand both sides

you're right

you approach problems from a system's perspective

you're able to speak the language of the engineers

you're able to pull out technical language

for the vision for

for senior leadership

like that's something that will knock some folks back

but also gives you like no

we're not we're not messing around

they're like the people side

the vision side we also got to be smart about the uh

the technology so yeah man

let's go you're an X man dude

you are now an X man I mean

it's a bit much but I'll take your confidence

yeah yeah

so um

so you guys may have caught it right

uh he

he he works

he serves as a leader for for HR for uh

US tech right

is that the term is Walmart US tech

so anybody when you get as big as Walmart right

you forget that there is also a lot of other divisions

and different things that um

happen within this conglomerate right

Walmart I think

at last was valued at almost half a trillion dollars

right it's huge organization

um millions

I think it's like 2 million employees across the world

yep um

you know 1.6 or so here in the United States

and so you have this huge organization

so help folks walk through like

what does that mean Walmart US Tech

is it sure when you walk into a Walmart

is it the location is it the like

what is that sure mean so

you know the way I would explain this is um

so we've got three business segments

so that is the Walmart US retail business

you know which is where you'd see our supercentres

you know the Walmart dot com site

yeah uh

the neighbourhood markets

clubs and all that no

no no

that's separate that's separate

so this is this is no no

all good all good

so this is you know

the supercentres the dot com

the neighbourhood markets

the Walmart go you know

fuel stations and all of that stuff

so that's a Walmart US retail business

um then you've got

we've got the Sam's Club which is

you know the clubs

so that's where you know that's uh

you know those are the clubs where

you know we uh

sell a lot of merchandise from

and then we've got international business in

which is our presence in China

in India in South Africa

Mexico Chile

Canada and Central America

so

when you look at all of these three business segments

that are tech organizations

that power each of these three business segments

so the people team that I lead for is essentially

you know

the people team that supports the tech organization

that powers Walmart US

which is our biggest business segments

yeah okay

so it's it's

it's powering the business

yeah here in the US yeah

wow and how long have you been doing that

well uh

I think it's been around 15 to 16 months now

15 to 16 months and is it everything that you imagined

has there been some changes

has there been some I'm sure

I mean everybody goes back to uh

BC before Covid and AC after Covid um

has there anything that you saw significantly change

in the business uh

given those timelines

I mean you know

uh Tim

I have done like multiple roles throughout my career

okay so I mean

this will sound so cliche

but you know

I sort of expect to be surprised

you know and

you know sort of

and that sort of takes down the surprise element

a little bit down

so if I was to say you know uh

this is my third role at Mall Man

so I started off the art design in Thailand

architecture Sui you know

and let that team for a number of years

and then I moved into a strategian programs role

you know

chief of staff of Sard and ran programs at scale

and then this is my third role

now here from a surprise element perspective

you know as I was telling you earlier

just given my

you know background in consulting and then you know

then running a Coe

you know global Coe and then running programs

I feel that you know

I was able to understand the breath of you know

the people programs that be offered to our associates

yeah a 3 60 degree view of that uh

I was also able to you know

because of my program's experience

I was also able to you know

understand the extent of deployment

and that breath

and the depth was covered to a large extent

but I believe the thing you know that um

that's interesting

as you get into a people partner role

or in a start to you know

play that role across the large uh section of uh

associates is the human element that gets

you know

that's gets pulled into almost every decision making

yeah the empathy with our associates

when you're making that decision

the balance between

the business need and associate need

being able to just hear that fine

you know walk the fine line

yeah so that has been a learning for me

yeah as you actually touch on

something that I really appreciate

which is that conversation about empathy

yeah right

um I think it's

empathy is hard kind of in and of itself

comes a little easier when it's one on one

and kind of close in the relationships

but when you're supporting

almost 2 million associates across the US um

or across the world and you know that number in the US

deploying empathy might be hard right yeah

it might be tough

especially when you start getting into

leadership positions

and you're responsible for driving results through uh

through other people but being as big as you are

a lot of folks look to you as the example right

you guys set the tone the things that you do

folks are gonna follow so first of all

kind of talk to us a little bit about the state

of the industry why we're talking about um

retail and the associates that support that industry

and what are some of those kind of best practices

those things that folks can look to in empathy

being one and be able to deploy those

learning and development systems for that

huge workforce yeah

and that's a really good question Tim

you know I mean um

so I I talk about three things that um

I'll I'll talk about some of the things that

you know are like pertaining to Walmart

and then I'll talk about the industry in general

like HR industry in general so when you look at Walmart

one of the things in order to your questions

and terms of how do we look at

in our associates

how do we support them in the best possible way

so you know uh

one of the core values to us is respect for individual

and you know

when we look at our associates

we don't understand what their needs are

and how do we know better

create programs that deliver them to their needs

you know like for example

we've got ah you know learning programs where

you know we enable our associates to

you know go and enhance their learnings very recently

you know

we took off college degrees from a lot of our jobs

to increase the candidate exactly

you know improve access and increase the candidate

to expand the candidate pool

so

we've been constantly trying to understand how do we

you know help I mean while

you know we want our customers to

you know save money and live better

but at the same time we also want our associates to

you know like well enrich their lives you know

I have meaningful careers since then

so while I support

the segment that I support is another tech segment

and these are tech associates

but then if I was to talk about Walmart in general

I mean the culture is as such

you know

where we try and understand the associate needs and

you know try and understand the cross scale

you know what other songs as emerging needs

and then you would see those changes happen

which you know

get reported in the news you know

for example

the example I gave you around the college degrees

yeah we

what we are trying to do is we are trying to actively

you know move to a skills based approach where

you know

if we understand the skills that are required for a job

and irrespective of how you've

you know on those skills yeah

if you can you know

demonstrate those skills

we would like to consider you for a role

and eventually an employee

if you clear all the rounds

yeah so

that's just an example of

how we are trying to be more associate centering

and move towards helping our careers sorry

helping our associates build meaningful careers

that's beautiful that's beautiful

you you mentioned you dropped in there the

the logo or the catchphrase that everybody knows right

save money was it live better

save money live better right

which is something that is generally understand

understood from a customer perspective

but you're able to put that on the associates as well

as okay

we as much as we want to add value to the customer

population

we need to be able to be focused and intentional on our

uh like almost keep on saying patient or

or or associate

you know population as well

um and

and thereby increasing access

um thereby enriching their lives

right often times it's almost the same thing

sometimes you're you're

you're your associates or your customers

right when you think about it from that perspective

there shouldn't be any you know

lines of difference between hey

what we're doing for them versus what we're doing um

internally yeah

I mean when you look at it be

you know the approach

I'll give another example and

you know that sort of

in a Segways into the state of the industry

so if you look at a lot of AI

LED innovation that's happening in the market today

yeah a lot of innovation is around how do I

you know uh

let's say improve search results

how do I you know

give more meaningful outcomes

you know to my or

you know like improve outcomes for the customers right

so we said okay

so if that's the lens we're using for our customers

how can we you know

turn it around and say how can we help our associates

yeah right

so towards that you know

couple of things that we have done

which is we have you know uh

introduced an internal you know

bot which is similar to which RGBT1

of course in the more ah

secure and close environment

where are associates can go in and start

interacting with the bot hmm to

you know let's say you want to

you know think about your

you know

have a conversation with regards to goal setting yeah

pointers yeah

so this what can help you with that

you know you want to have a urine conversation

you know you want to talk about

you know hey

you know what

how do I lead with empathy and has conversation

all that so what should be able to help you with that

yeah so this is essentially our own version of charity

PD that associates can use internally

so that's one example the other example is

you know um

we've got

we've introduced something called as a my assistant

and this my assistant is again

you know

yeah which is where we are trying to

you know automate a lot of these processes

we should have taken you know

time otherwise and I'll give an example of that

and I personally used it so okay

nice really like it so

you know before for me to

you know post a record to take me some time

I need to figure out the fields

the values for these fields

you know like how many hours does an association work

standard values you know

but I have to go through the motions to

you know open a requisition however

with you know

the introduction of the my

Herring module in my assistant

um

opening a wreck is almost magical

takes me like five seconds

so all that I need to do is

you know look at my team and

you know figure out which role I would open

I don't know like which other role I would open

even if it's not in my team right now yeah

pick up the role

click on it and then suppost that's it

and everything is done back in yeah

everything in the background is an automated so dude

imagine the amount of time you'll be able to save

for the users the managers

you know similar process of associates

that's that's

that was gonna be my next thing is that

that magic that happens right

that what would have normally taken you 30 minutes

an hour and 10 minutes 15 minutes yeah

it's magical alright five seconds

and so what does that now open you up as a leader

yeah to focus on yep

right

I mean I can you know focus the time and other things

yeah if I want to have a career conversation

and I would have a performance conversation

I can have more perform a career conversations yeah

I can you know

be more involved in certain activities

that I was probably not able to do yeah

so yeah wow

that is that is awesome to be able to and

and what would you say

cause I know a lot of folks

AI is like the big buzz word

everybody's trying to you know

incorporate or create or or leverage AI

there's some there's some um

folks are you know resisting to it oh

it's gonna take our jobs and you

know all these different things

and making sure that you're integrating it properly

what would you say has been the adoption

what has been the reception of some of these tools

you mentioned a couple and some of their benefits

but right in real life what is that adoption been like

it's

it's been pretty widely adopted across and you know

I don't have the numbers yeah

top of my mind but you know

people have been widely you know

using these stools particularly are uh

you know the uh

chargitative

what that I talked about my assistant and all of uh

some of these automations that we're bringing in and we

the reason I know that you know

people have been using y d

across is because I hear managers and associates

talk about it yeah

and they've been talking about hey

you know what when I use this and it help me save time

similar stories you know

the one that I shared with you with

and lots of people are welcoming

these tools in the organization

that's good that's good

and the more

the more acceptance and something you might have misses

he said he uses it as well right

so you have that

you have that adoption from leadership

who can then

give personal experience and personal story of no

this is not just something we're asking you to do

this is something that we also find benefit in um

find benefit as well um

so what would you say you know

if we're looking at the state of the industry and in

in HR and in in talent acquisition and

and all of these things as we are moving into

a lot of folks are saying

you know 2024 is kind of that year where most of Covid

stuff is behind us whether it was support or aid or

or you know

all those things around that

and we're kind of moving into this new post covid era

um what would you say are some things that

you are looking forward to um

uh from an industry perspective

that you are trying to bring the

whether it's a Tech Associates or the

the Tech um

support group into that future

what is that new future look like for you

that's a great question um

I would say three things you know

one is uh

and this is where okay

so let me talk about it and then

you know I'll get a little bit more details

in terms of where a chart gets involved

so I would say the first thing is

we have been you know

like across the industry yeah

we've been talking about skills

and we've been talking about

you know what are these competencies

skills and so on when you look at the Genesis of skills

it comes from the way you know

your strategies define what does that mean though

where the work gets done and then as a result

what the skills are right now

for us to be able to get to a point where we

you know understand how AI impacts our skills

we need to get deeper into how AI

impacts the way work gets done hmm

so you gotta go to that click up

so goal kind of cascading to how it's done

going to skills

then we get this AI is gonna impact this

so we got to see how it affects the right

so you know we as you know

people professionals such as professionals

I think one of the things that

we will need to spend a lot more time

probably in 2024

and even subsequent years going forward

is understanding

how does AI impact the way work gets done

and then be able to define or redefine the skills

like for example

think about it this way a developer today

you know build software you know

a developer spends time in terms of understanding

the job sorry

understanding the requirements writing the code

looking at the architecture testing it

debarking it and so on however

if I was to bring an AI

I need to understand where does you know

the developer actually start to use AI tools hmm

like which because you know

if you were to even look at the way we'd work

I'll not use AI everywhere

I'll probably use AI in places where you know

it reduces um

transactional work or any of the videos it gives

me a huge amount of saving in terms of time

what improves the quality of work and so on right yeah

so being able if I was to draw draw two by two yeah

and say

which is where and I save the most amount of time

which is where I save the more you know

the quality of work goes up significantly yeah

I would say those are the areas

you know where we would see the you know

the entire impact of AI coming in and you know

hitting across jobs so I would say

the first thing I would say

in the state of the industry is

being able to understand how does AI

impact work and then be able to redefine skills

that's one okay second I would say you know

in general

our ability and this this is not related to where yes

such but you know this is in general

where I believe the industry starting to move

and I've seen this happen at Walmart

Particle and Global Tech you know

when we connected skills to you know hiring promotions

learning and you know ah

to rewards as well

the entire concept of an integrated

talent management system where

you know we're able to you know

drive it through a common currency of skills

is gonna be more and more important

our skills are common currency through which you know

you hire is that the common denominator

our skills in other common currency through which

you know you promote um

one of the biggest things in over learning is

we need to be able to make learning

not just relevant ah

for particular job family

but you know

relevant to the

level of the job that we're talking about so

you know let's see

you're a software engineer

you want to become a senior software engineer

yeah how do you know

which are those particular learnings

you need to go through

what are those experience you need to get right

so can we connect skills to that

so I've been able to connect skills and

you know I've seen this in a playout for

our tech associates at the moment

and we're doing that at you know

scale for across

are other associates at Wal Mart as well

yeah but I would say

that's where the second focus area is gonna be

and this is going to catch on a lot more steam

going forward the third thing

you know to our point

which we talked earlier uh

the a lot of emphasis around

you know um

well being and belonging you know

started with Covid right

and there are multiple

things that happened at that point of time

and we as humans became a lot more conscious of well

being belonging also

you know and I'm using the term belonging more

you know

particularly because belonging is a lot more inclusive

exactly yeah exactly

so I would say you know

as we move into you know

a C after Covid era yeah

so are you know

ability to continue to maintain our sites on well

being and belonging as

you know key pillars of human experience

yeah it's gonna be important

so these would be the three things

you know I would

I would see the industry going and focusing

moving forward yeah

I don't know if you guys noticed it

but our cash has a very you can tell he's a developer

cause every answer comes in threes right

he's already thought about it

he categorizes it

and he gives the explanation in the context

and then you know

gives those points

like that is literally the manifestation

the demonstration of what he was talking about before

as far as like that superpower

being able to attack it from a systems

kind of a process standpoint

he does it in real life like just naturally

I just noticed that like it's very

it's very methodical but that was good

I mean what I

what I took away from that is the impact of AI

on how work is done

will then determine the skills that are needed right

I'm thinking

some of the most kind of ubiquitous uses of AI

right now is like writing right marketing

making copy and things like that

and you think about

how does a writer go through the process

and what would you want to train

I know for me when I'm using chat G P t

it's usually at that brainstorming phase right

I just need to I'm thinking of ideas

I'm trying to pull converging forces

and articulated in a way

it's not necessarily about putting the right grammar

or having the story flow like that's not the skill

but it's the brainstorming right

how do I think about bringing

these things into a assisting format

um so I like how you says like yeah

it's AI is gonna affect it

but we need to see how the work is done yeah

and then figure out the skills there

I'll give you a couple of examples

and I've been thinking about this yeah um

the way AI will start to benefit

and I'll use it on benefit

because I truly believe AA benefits humanity

um

the weight will start to benefit

associates across levels is going to be different

you know for example

someone

fresh out of college is probably going to leverage AI

to learn

someone who has a little bit more experience

like the example you gave

is probably going to use AI to validate or augment

and then someone you know

who who was a little bit more experiences

probably going to use AI to review hmm

and you know

think about it this way like this was a

this a beautiful video out there

you know it's about how

I believe it was Deep Mind worked in developing

you know a AI board that essentially

you know beat world's best go player

I'm hoping it's deep Mind um

in that what happened is E

I did end up and e I was constantly learning from

you know various go players and when

and go is a very difficult game

I don't personally play but you know

what I understood from the video was

it's a very difficult game and

you know it's got like multiple

you know like millions and millions of alternators

so when you know

the EA bot started playing with world's best go player

I believe out of the 5 games

uh the go

the world's best player maybe one

one of them and what he came back and said as

you know like some of those moves AI made were inhuman

like you know

like you would never expect someone to

you know do that yeah

yeah and his game went up

hmm hmm and

you know so I

I believe that you know

the more we interact with a

I will start to you know

no things we didn't know that we knew

we didn't know about so the Johari window

the Dark Triad right

no sorry

the dark ah quadrant right

yeah stuff that you don't know that you don't know yeah

so I feel you know

it's it's gonna help us uncover a lot around that area

wow

wow we get better because AI is better right

like I think it's a mutual learning process

it's a mutual process yeah

um and the thing I want is to

to to talk about now you talked about well being

which I appreciate um

because I also want to speak to the right performance

right performance management

and how do you make sure that your folks are doing well

um in my experience

well people do well

yeah right

folks that feel like they belong

folks that feel like their opinion matters

or folks that feel that their organization

supports them as a human right

not just a worker or an associate

and stuff that you do on the eight or 12

or whatever hours that you're doing here

but what are the different ways

the different factors that are influencing your

your

your life and how can we be supportive or celebrate or

or what have you um

so from a text standpoint

where you mentioned

well being as a focus for the future both um

how tech is gonna

how AI is gonna affect how work is done

skills being the currency for um

for everything for development and

and being more intentional about that

and then well being right

how to be more intentional about that

so what are some things that some organis

that organisations can be thinking about right

if it's one or two simple uh

interventions

that will help their people feel like they belong

like they they

they can be they can be well

so they can do well yeah

what is what is work for you in your experience

what advice would you give to to folks in that space

so segment this into two parts

not three two parts your side your side

so one I would say

is the book of benefits that most organisations provide

you know you can go out there and you know

benchmark and you'll be able to get that

I would say in that particular segment

a lot more emphasis has been on mental well being yeah

our ability to you know

recognise the fact that you know

people can you know get tired yeah

fatigued you know they need support

I feel the welcome change around you know

like you seeking out a counselor

you know you seeking out a coach yeah

like that that has been a welcome change

and I see a lot of organisations supporting yeah

and even Walmart suppose like

you know you wanna use you know one of our you know

like we provide benefits where people can

you know reach out get a coach

counselor talk to them and so on

so I would say that continued focus on

you know well being through

you know the mental well being piece of it

along with everything else yeah

the physical well being

the emotional well being and so on

and so that's that's important yeah

the second piece is a slightly you know um

it's a bit of longer in a connection to

bear with me for a minute

I feel a lot of experience that

you know that we experience in our jobs

as driven by the managers that we work for

so one of the emphasis you know

one of the things that you know

I've been trying to emphasise emphasise sorry

you know across uh

the organisation that you know

I support is how do we and this is

this is what we have been also trying to drive

for all of global tech and corporate functionals

so you know managers

how do we you know

enable the managers to have

you know more enriching

you know performance conversations career conversations

how do we enable them do you know

just lead people better you know

become better leaders yeah

so let's say

well being also gets impacted a lot by that

and are ability to you know

help build manager ability

their leadership skills their ability to you know

I mean empathy is a difficult skill to build

so I won't get there but you know

just ability

to understand where the other person is coming from

and then enable them for success

yeah so that that's the other piece

you know

I would say is important from a working perspective

wow I love that it's it's very holistic approach right

you have support for the associates

and making sure that in addition to all the perks and

benefits that can have been rich life

and help you do what you need to do

you're also looking at the emotional

the psychological

support and coaching and all that stuff

but the leaders right

leaders have a huge impact on how employees

experience the work that they do

and so if we focus on giving the leaders what they need

because it's draining right as a leader

if you don't know how to have a critical conversation

if you don't know how to coach for performance

if you don't know how to you know

all of these things that's energy draining in

that drains your well being as a leader as well

and so when you feel like you have the tools

when you feel like you're empowered

and there is a feeling of kind of that reciprocation

where when the employee feels elevated

you also feel elevated that energy is

is transition there so um

that's good you guys are doing a lot of

a lot of good things in those in in

in the work supporting the

the US tech there

so last thing we'll just kind of close out here as we

um the

the one of the original iterations of the

the humanly podcast was

exploring what's humanly possible right um

there's a lot of technology influence that is um

taken away some of the more

and of utilitarian skills and activities

and things like that is like okay

what do we explore what what humans can do

what they can evolve into what they can um

produce and and

and contribute uh

to the world and so I'll I'll

I'll leave it with you to just kind of share with us

what is an experience that you have had

um whether it was a uh

a leader that you had or an employee or an associate

somebody that really unlocked for you

what was humanly possible for you

so maybe you hadn't seen it or experienced it before

but because of that connection or interaction

something was unlocked for you

do you have a story like that

I have so many stories so many

so let me talk about two stories

you know and both of them are coming from a different

perspective so one is um

so one is you know

for a leader that I've worked and the other is

you know for someone who's on my team

so you know

I've Learned from both of them

yeah so for the leaders

you know that I've worked

um you know

she was one of my previous

you know managers

and while I pride myself you know

being a system space thinker

you know being able to

you know pass out things and

you know problem solve

I think one of the things that

I Learned from her was the

uh

the ability to create a solution and adapt quickly

hmm you know

like what happens a lot of times is

you know there's a lot of new information

that keeps coming to us and we are then

you know in a position we need

we need to make a decision

do we you know

stick to what we built or do we go ahead and adapt yeah

cause there is new information coming yeah

and when you're looking at that

you know from a strategy perspective at 40,000 feet

that means a lot of execution that goes down below

so that strategic agility is a very difficult

you know strength to build strategic agility

that's a new one I'm gonna write that down somewhere

strategic stretching the the at 40,000 feet at 40,000

yeah yeah

air's thin up there

I know so I would say that strategic agility piece

you know

being able to like force you a lot of these things

and then being able to rebalance and being able to uh

reprioritize I would say that's

that's something I Learned

and I work very closely with her

you know for like almost two years

and I would say that's a skill that's been

you know

very handy for me because it does two things for you

one is it you know

keeps you nimble and you know

when these surprises come at you

you know

you're not truly that surprised because you prepared

you know for solving those problems

second is

also makes the solution a lot more

acceptable to the stakeholders

you know because the guiding principles

the first principles need to be consistent

they can't be changing but you know

at the same time the plan that we have built out

that needs to be you know

the strategy might shift and record shift

and us being prepared for it

and being able to socialize

and being able to operationalize

that is important so that's something that I've Learned

that is key skill

the second thing I'll talk to you about

you know

is someone who's worked with me for a number of years

and I think what happens is um

I mean I

I I

we should do you know

another podcast we have feedback

like I I

I I think

I've gone through an entire experience in terms of

you know taking feedback

giving feedback and so on yeah

I think what happens is we seek feedback

but at the same time we're all also humans

so

we want the feedback to be given in a way where we are

how we can receive it exactly

very receptive towards it right

so I think working with this person in my team um

I think what she did is she taught me

she actually helped me understand

how I was more receptive to feedback

when it was

particularly coming from someone on the team hmm

so you know

it's it's easy to

I mean you don't have an option

you know when you get a feedback from someone who's

you know who you are reporting to yeah

and they wanna give you feedback respectively

you like it or not or

you know it's a senior stakeholder

you know it's a top down

but you know when you're getting a bottom

a feedback you know

just being able to understand how

you know you're receptive to it

so like you could listen to it

but yeah whether you're receptive to it or not

only you know about it yeah

so by understanding you know

how I was receptive to feedback

I was able to share that with others

so now when I get feedback

you know about me

you know from someone in my team

you know someone necessarily who does not have a

you know power distance yeah

you know from a vertical upward perspective

I'm more receptive to it and I'm able to act on it

I'm able to create that you know

psychologically safe environment across

so that was a big learning for me

that's good it's like you unblocked yourself

or that opened you to be able to open those channels

to receive that feedback um

and and you have to be open

you have to be open to get the feedback to open up

right it's like it's the whole thing right

and that takes a lot of self awareness

that takes a lot of vulnerability

a lot of transparency there

um I've had similar stuff in my team where I'd asked

they weren't given it to me because

you know

Tim is this and this and that all positive things

but it was hard for them to give like critical

constructive constructive feedback

to have my 1 up talk to my people to ask hey

what can you know Tim do

and one of the feedback that they gave

that really helped unlocked is

you know oftentimes he's like

Tim is always at 100% and sometimes we're okay

like we need him at 80%

we don't have to be all the way up here all the time

and so my default is like raw raw like

hey hey hey

but somebody might just be chilling at a 50 right

and it's like okay

I don't know if I'm gonna come all the way down to a 50

but I need to be aware of where they are

and kind of meet them where they are

and not um

you know just kind of overpower with that

and so that

allowed me to connect with some folks

that

I probably wouldn't have been able to connect with

unless I had received

receive that so um

that's powerful that's powerful

that's good that's unlocking what's humanly possible

now you have that strategic agility at 40,000 feet

and you've opened yourself to more feedback from both

the top and those that are in your scope uh

scope of work so um

well man

like you said we might have to do a whole separate uh

uh

side episode on just feedback and the benefits and um

things from that but for our time now

is there anything that you would like to um

let folks know HR professionals

talent acquisition um folks

kind of folks in this industry

that if they walk away with something

from listening to our cash

and they have a sound bite um

what would that be for them

well a little bit of pictures are in a really difficult

I would say you know I mean

you know going back to the first point that I made

around the state of the industry

which is understanding how

our skills of the future are going to get defined yeah

particularly in the light of AI yeah

it's going to be usually impactful

around the entire associated life cycle yeah

so that's going to be important look at the future

look at the future

and see how that future of work is gonna be impacted

and and then reverse engineer that

to figure out what you have to do

what you have to do today to be ready for that so um

we're gonna wrap it up our cash

I really really appreciate you coming out

I'm glad we're able to connect in person here

and sunny California um

and if you guys have any questions

we'll drop the information as where to find them

on LinkedIn he speaks a lot um maybe less a lot

he speaks a lot on

on on a lot of the topics that we talked about

and so you can hear some of his

some of his wisdom through his channels there

but we appreciate everybody

thank you

so much for stopping by on this humanly podcast

will catch you on the next one

I just want to thank you for not having me

oh and great questions

love the segment yeah

thanks so much dude

I appreciate it my pleasure

alright everybody

we'll talk to you on the next one peace