028: What HR is Really Thinking with Rita Trehan

Pete Mockaitis
Rita, thank you so much for appearing on the “How to be Awesome at your Job” podcast.

Rita Trehan
Thank you very much. I’m looking forward to it.

Pete Mockaitis
Can you tell us, when you’re not gallivanting around the world, and transforming corporations and their human resources operations, what do you do for fun?

Rita Trehan
I like to sleep because I don’t get a lot of that. Occasionally, I force myself to work out. I do that by having a personal trainer, because that’s the only way I’d go to the gym. I like to drink red wine. I’m a good red wine drinker. I like to sit in the sunshine. I’m a bit of a sunshine fan. I like to hang out with friends. I like to do all of those things really and have fun.

Pete Mockaitis
Fantastic. I can see how those really tie in together. We have some sunshine, red wine, leads to sleep, in my experience.

Rita Trehan
There you go. There you go.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s fun. In your blog and your book, you talk a lot about “building capacity.” Now, when you say that, we’re not talking about the capacity of a facility to have occupants inside it. You’re talking about a particular thing for organizations that they need to do, build capacity, how would you define it?

Rita Trehan
A capacity to me is really about how do you make sure you get the maximum potential you can out of your organization, the people that you have, and whatever it is that your organization is trying to do. Capacity is trying to bring everything together, the people, the resources, the potential of your market, and connecting all of those different things together. That’s truly when you get capacity. It’s the fullest potential of everything that you can pull together.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, that sounds like something I want. A lot of the work you do is at the CEO or Executive Vice President for Human Resource type level, but I’d love to hear, in thinking about this capacity concept on a smaller basis on terms of a team or a manager and a few direct reports. What are some key mistakes that organizations have, or that you see time and time again, and you just kind of shake your head, they’re doing it wrong?

Rita Trehan
I like to think, rather than that people do things wrong, so let’s start from that premise. I don’t think necessarily that people do things wrong. I think that people some times fail to necessarily reach their true potential, or look at things from an opportunity perspective, as opposed to doing them wrong. I like to say to people, “How can you do things differently,” rather than you’re doing them wrong. Let’s start from that premise first. Here’s some of the things that I think where people don’t necessarily start from the premise of being able to maximize what they do.

One is, even at either the individual or the team level is to start from taking a very, I would say, either a functional or a silo view of what they do. Either that’s looking at something from an expertise level, or a function level, or a very, very discrete here’s my job level view. By doing that, you often to fail to see or look at things from a much broader perspective, which if you do, if you take the opposite view rather than looking at something, here’s just what I do, but actually broaden and open your eyes and say, how can I think of this from a much broader perspective? The end result of that, not just from an individual or team perspective, is much greater. That’s what I would say either fail to do or don’t take the opportunity to seize the potential to look at, is the number one area where I think it’s a missed opportunity to look at.

The second thing that I think where there is an opportunity that often times either individuals or teams fail to recognize or take the opportunity to address is to look to learn from others around them. When I say other around them, I don’t just mean from their teams or their colleagues, but what’s actually happening out in the external world. We’re in, I think, one of the most interesting times in the business world today. There’s so much disruption that is going on today. I don’t know any business that isn’t being disrupted in some shape or form. I don’t know of any institution that isn’t being disrupted in some shape or form, whether it’s education, health, you name it, government, politics. Everything seems to be going through some sort of disruption.

There’s a real opportunity for both teams, and individuals, and organizations to be really saying, “What can we learn from things, and businesses, and organizations outside of our comfort zone?” I’m not sure that we always think to do that. We tend to look at things that are similar to us, or look the best practices in industries that are similar to us, rather than saying, “Let’s really think very differently and outside the box, and look at things that don’t even make any sense to us, because they’re not even in the same sphere as us.” That’s another area where I think there’s real opportunities to look at catalysts to be very different. Those are just a couple of brief examples.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. That’s interesting. I’d love it if maybe you could share with us a story or case example associated with each of those two pieces. The first, there was a team, a group, they were kind of in a silo, not looking around at how their actions affected other groups inside the organization, kind of what they saw, and how that was beneficial, but when they took a broader perspective. Secondly, someone or organization that looked at a very different seeming group, and took some fantastic new ideas that integrated in a cool way. Could you maybe bring those to life a bit for us?

Rita Trehan
Sure. I’ll give you a classic example of HR teams that looked at themselves, looked very much at their functional expertise, and sort of try to think about best practices from an HR perspective, struggling to make an impact with this organizations, not seeming to be adding much business value, struggling to understand why is that the case. You know, “We’re working so hard. We’re trying to be really good at what we do, and yet our business leaders are looking at us, and saying we’re not delivering value.” Why? Because they’re steeped in functional expertise. What they did was, look at some of the other colleagues in other functions to learn what they were doing. They looked to the finance function. They looked at the IT function. They looked at the market functions, and we helped them to look at, “What other skills and capabilities can we bring, and learn to broaden our expertise,” and the strategy function so that that team was actually broadening how they thought about some of the tools and capabilities that they were bringing to the table.

They weren’t looking at things from a functional expertise perspective, but much more from a business expertise perspective. A great example of that was around Cloud technology. This particular HR organization was trying to sort of build this argument that they needed to take HR systems to the Cloud, and because they were looking at it very much from an HR perspective, they weren’t really selling the value of why HR needed to go to the cloud. When they understood that there was a much bigger proposition to be made about the company looking at moving all of their systems to the Cloud, they suddenly became much more powerful voices within the company, because they were going to the executive team by saying, “Look, we have a big opportunity here both from a cost efficiency, but also an agility perspective if we start to look at how we’re addressing all of our systems, our IT systems, and should we be looking at that in terms of how we’re moving them to the Cloud.” They shifted from looking at what was a functional expertise perspective to a much broader business perspective, and gained a huge amount of credibility. That’s one example about how a team shifted their expertise.

The second example is a much, much more bigger business perspective, so one of the companies that I’m working with right now is an energy business. I think the energy business used to be considered one of those staid businesses, and actually, I think, is one of the most exciting businesses to be in right now, because it is going through such a transformation. This business is recognizing that it’s transitioning. The energy business is transitioning from a supplier of energy to a technology business going forward. It will have to transition in a few years to being a technology provider.

As consumers, of people like you and I, who buy energy today, will not only be buying energy, but consuming energy, but we will probably be producers of energy, and selling that back to energy companies, whether that’s because we have solar panels on our roof, or Smart Meters, or battery storage. Again, an example of how they are having to look at technology companies, and what they are doing to be able to transition themselves, and to play in a very different world, as they think about how the consumer is transitioning and owning much more of their own, I guess, their own consumer experience going forward. Some really interesting transitions that are going on, I think, in the world today, and about how businesses need to be thinking about that going forward.

Pete Mockaitis
Interesting. Which each of them it seems like that’s kind of the theme. Is that, rather than focus very narrowly and specifically on what it is we’re doing right now, and how can we keep churning out more widgets or output, but taking a look around and seeing the new opportunities. That collaboration piece in your first example makes great sense. This Cloud computing option for upgrade will impact many of our functions, and so, let’s all get on board together, and great things can happen with the cost savings and such. It was a good deal. Thank you. I’d also like to chat a bit. One of your blog posts that I thought was really good, was all about how practicing basic human skills unlocks capacity. You shared a bit that sometimes management teams don’t treat others like basic human beings, and there’s some issues with that. This involved citing the Harvard Business Review survey associated with folks saying what behaviors they didn’t appreciate so much from their management. Could you talk a bit about that?

Rita Trehan
I don’t think there’s any person that I have yet to meet that hasn’t experienced some bad management behaviors or practices. Pete, I’m sure you’ve experienced them in the past, as well. It’s unfortunate, but it exists in the workplace today. I think, unfortunately, we forget as leaders, that just practicing some basic respectful behaviors and principles goes a long way. It doesn’t take a lot. Yet, when we fail to practice some of those things, the impact of that is actually huge. While practicing some very basic things doesn’t take a lot, the impact of not practicing them, is huge. That’s the issue that we have.

If you just look at engagement statistics today. Over the world today, engagement statistics sit, I think the last stats that I saw, off the top of my head in the ballpark, so forgive me if they’re not 100 percent accurate, but somewhere around 80 percent of the work force around the globe, give or take, say they are disengaged from work. I fundamentally do not believe that people wake up in the morning, saying, “I’m going to go to work today and be disengaged.” Right?

Pete Mockaitis
Right.

Rita Trehan
Most of us wake up in the morning, and want to go to work to do a good job. We want to go to work, and we want to feel engaged, and we want to feel passionate about what we do, so what’s going on? Something’s happening in the workplace that is making people feel disengaged. A big part of that, I think, is about them not feeling involved, and leaders not connecting and engaging with people at work. Whether that’s them recognizing, demonstrating some basic human skills, respect, valuing them, showing them how they’re committing, just connecting to them. It’s huge, and by the way, technology is a fabulous thing. It’s fabulous. It also gets us more and more disconnected in some ways of doing things in a human way. I don’t have kids, but I have nephews and nieces, and friends whose kids who sit next to each other, and they’re like tapping away, and I say, “What are you doing.” They’re like, “We’re talking to each other.” I’m like, “You’re talking to each other. How are you talking to each other. You’re not actually speaking.”

Pete Mockaitis
They’re in the same room.

Rita Trehan
Yeah. Exactly. What do we do in offices? By the way, I’m a culprit too. I’ve done it before, where I email somebody that’s sitting just across from me, when I could literally just get up, walk over, and ask them a question, or talk to them. Some of those things are where technology, I think, also plays a role in this. It has it’s huge benefits, but it also has it’s down sides. Some of the basic human skills, I think, is about us sort of stepping back, and recognizing what we as humans need and crave, which is some of this connection and collaboration. It’s really important. We have to find ways to continue to recognize that, and connect to people, and make them feel valued. By the way, when we see disrespectful behaviors, we need to call it out.

Pete Mockaitis
Agreed. Agreed. I’d love to hear, with your work with different organizations, have you seen some best practices or innovative approaches that really do a fine job of encouraging the calling out of bad behavior, or encouraging that human touch to be just a part of the culture, and the natural flow of how work gets done?

Rita Trehan
Yeah. One of the things, I’m doing right now with a company is interesting. We’re doing some things, we’re embedding what we call, “an everyday culture habits” into the organization. One of those, is calling out the elephants in the room. If we see thing, the things that people know that are going on, whether that’s a disrespectful behavior, or something somebody feels uncomfortable about it, but they know that we should be raising, we call it out. We say, this is the elephant in the room. Let’s talk about it. It’s a really interesting way of getting those uncomfortable topics being talked about in a way that’s in a safe and comfortable way to discuss them. I think it’s proving to be really powerful. We actually had the CEO stand up at one of the gatherings and say, “Here’s one of the elephants in the room. I hear that people would like to see more of me, engage and talk, so I want you to know I’m going to do more of that.” Very powerful.

Pete Mockaitis
Great. Any others spring to mind?

Rita Trehan
I think the others around giving real time feedback. I do a lot of work with executives about encouraging them to both give real time feedback to others, but also to share their own feedback about what they have heard about themselves to their teams. Practice what you preach. If you’re going to hold other people accountable, you have to be accountable yourselves, and to be self aware enough to share that. I do a lot of work particularly with CEOs to say, “If you are going to say this is an accountability culture and you need to treat people with respect, you better do that yourself. You better not demonstrate behaviors that are the complete opposite, because if you don’t demonstrate the values that you say are important, don’t expect anybody else to do that.” Those are some of the other examples of encouraging that to happen.

The other sort of examples are starting every meeting with some clear operating principles for that meeting, so some behaviors every time a meeting starts. Here are some operating principles by how we want to govern that meeting, which might be, we want to be respectful. We want to make sure everybody’s opinion is heard. We want to be thoughtful to keeping on time, and then coming back at the end of the meeting. They may seem like really simplistic things, but they actually help people to be focused, and they actually help ensure that the things that are important to the teams are respected throughout before a meeting continues. They’re some helpful tips really for teams and companies to think about.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, those are helpful. I’m curious about the real time feedback. Now, when you say real time feedback, do you mean like right as someone is presenting that there’s something they could improve, let them know, or you just mean real time as in not at the review cycle, but like the day of?

Rita Trehan
Yeah. Real time in terms of when it makes sense. After you’ve seen it, I always say to people, “Hey look, if it’s something that you’ve seen that’s really upset you, don’t go do it straight away, because you’re not in the right frame of mind to give somebody feedback then. That’s not a good time then to give somebody feedback, because you need to be in the right frame of mind to be able to give somebody thoughtful feedback. Take a step back from it. Be really purposeful about it. Think about what you want to say. Take the emotion out of it. Make sure it’s really specific, and give it to people.

What I used to do when I was a leader, as well as giving people feedback in real time, I used to write Post-It notes of things that I used to see my team do, and keep them in their files, so that when it came to the performance reviews, this is good stuff, as well as stuff that needed to be improving. As well as giving it to them in real time, a year on when it came to giving them their performance review, I could go back and give them examples that happened over that 12 month period, and it was really powerful that people knew that I had kept a record of stuff that they had done really well. It wasn’t just the last three months, or the last eight weeks, that I could draw examples from. I had actually taken the time to collate and keep track and a record of stuff that they had done.

I shared that with them on an on-going basis. I think sometimes what we tend to do, is just talk about the most recent things at the annual reviews rather than trying to keep track of them. I guess, what I’m saying is, do it real time. Pick the right moments. Don’t wait six months after it’s happened, but also at the annual review make sure you’re keeping a record of it, so that people feel like you have really taken time to make it valuable.

Pete Mockaitis
Examples make all the difference in the world when you’re trying to share, you could improve your presentation skills, like what? Oh, well, on this date, when you gave this presentation about that topic, you said the word like so many times, it was very distracting and made you seem unprofessional. It’s like night and day difference in terms of how useful that is for somebody.

Rita Trehan
Yeah. That’s a great example of giving really specific feedback to someone.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. I want to hear. You have a fascinating vantage point, having worked with many organizations, and many folks, human resources professionals, so I’d love to know, what are some things that your typical professional maybe has no idea that goes on behind closed doors with the human resources people or what are some things that insiders, human resources experts know, that you think the typical professional might be surprised to learn?

Rita Trehan
That we know more than you may think. That we’re more savvy than perhaps some people give us credit for. That we try to manage all of the politics that goes on in an organization, and do it in a very professional way, with the goal being to make the company as successful as possible. I think that’s one thing that people don’t often realize. That we are truly committed to trying to make organizations successful. That we are not the police. Our desire is not to be the compliance function. We don’t get excited about compliance, believe it or not. It’s not our desire to be compliance professionals. Our desire is actually to add value to the business organization, despite what people may think.

I think there’s often a view that we want to stop everything, and just prevent people from being able to do what they want. That’s not true. We actually do want people to be able to be successful, and leaders to be able to do things that they want to do. That we generally have a desire to want to understand the business better than we do today, but we need help to do that. I think many HR professionals struggle to find a way to better integrate themselves, and get connected to the business, and very quickly revert into their shells when they try to do that, and then get shut out. I think, there is an element of our colleagues and our peers of being more open to letting us in, if you like. There’s an opportunity to do that.

What else can I say? I think to our other professionals, I would say CEOs be more demanding of your HR professionals. You should ask more of them. You ask a significant amount from your business presidents, don’t be shy of asking your HR professionals, and holding them to the same exacting standards. They actually want that. They want the profession to be more successful, and the only way we can be more successful, and sort of change the narrative of the HR functions, is if CEOs step up and demand more of the profession going forward, because it’s not where it needs to be. We need the help of the [inaudible 00:26:02] to step up where the profession is. Those are some of the things.

Lastly, there’s a generation of new HR professionals that I’m seeing that are eager, passionate, hungry, and excited about what they can bring to the future of HR. My message to the more senior HR professionals is that given the stretch, and given the bandwidth to let them show you what they can do, because I think they have a lot to show us.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Thank you. Well then, is there anything else you want to make sure that we cover off before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Rita Trehan
You know, the only thing, I am extremely passionate about HR and where it needs to change. I am, I guess, kind of on a call to action mission, whatever you want to call it, about really bringing about some change within the HR function. I’m actually going to be launching this year, an award called the “HR Original Thinker’s” award, which is aimed at the under 35s, which I’m actually funding and sponsoring myself because I’m so passionate about this. I do want to say, we do have to take a look in the mirror as an HR function, and recognize we’re not where we are, and it’s up to us to change that narrative.

There are great HR people out there, but we do need to recognize and own the fact that it’s not where it needs to be. Only we can change that future. I want to leave a message that it’s in our hands, and there’s a lot of people that want to do that, but it’s up to us to do it. I guess, I’m sending that message to all my HR colleagues, and to CEO in the [inaudible 00:28:00] to say, “Come on guys, let’s get on with it. We’ve waited too long.”

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. Please, if we have some listeners here in the HR world, who are under 35, as most of us [inaudible 00:28:13], where should they go to apply?

Rita Trehan
Yeah. It’s very early stages yet, but there will be some more details coming up and a website being created. It’s an idea at the moment. If they have ideas about what it should look like, they want to get involved in, they can contact me on my website or on Twitter, and I can give out those details now or at the end, but yeah, they can get in touch. They can get involved. They can apply. They can also help shape what it might look like. It’s an idea that I have. It’s in fruition at the moment as a thought and it’s like let’s go do it.

Pete Mockaitis
While we’re on the topic, what is the website that they should know?

Rita Trehan
Okay. My Twitter address is, @rita_trehan. My website address is ritatrehan.com, and they can also contact me on LinkedIn, and my LinkedIn, is ritatrehan, so it’s LinkedIn\in\ritatrehan.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, we’re all set. Now, can you tell us a bit, first off, about a favorite quote, something that inspires you again and again.

Rita Trehan
Yeah. “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is now.”

Pete Mockaitis
How about a favorite study or piece of research you like or reference often?

Rita Trehan
You know, that one is a bit harder. I think, I always find, and this is years and years old, that the ‘Hawthorne Experiment,” was really interesting. I did it when I studied sociology years and years ago, but I found that a really interesting study, just like the Taylor Scientific Management study. I just find those kinds of studies really interesting to go back, because they’re all about work and just how people think and act. Those kind of things I find kind of interesting. There’s not necessarily very recent, but I think they have some interesting staying power of how people’s minds work and stuff like that.

Pete Mockaitis
How about a favorite book?

Rita Trehan
My favorite book is “Who Moved My Cheese.” It’s short. It’s good. People are sick of hearing me saying this, but there’s a great quote in there that says, “We keep doing the same things over and over again. If it wasn’t so ridiculous, it would be funny.” I love that book.

Pete Mockaitis
How about a favorite personal practice or a habit of yours that has been instrumental for boosting your effectiveness?

Rita Trehan
A favorite practice of mine is whenever somebody says to me that we can’t do it, I always say, “I don’t understand that. Tell me what it’s going to take for us to be able to do it.” I never believe we can’t do something. I always say, “Tell me what you need, for us to be able to do it.”

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely. How about a favorite nugget of yours that when you share it, folks really are nodding their heads, taking notes, re-Tweeting?

Rita Trehan
To me, it’s always follow your passion. I always say to people, “At the end of the day, if you follow your passion, and you believe in that, it will take you to where you want to go.”

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Could you share with us a favorite challenge or a call to action parting thought for those seeking to be more awesome at their jobs?

Rita Trehan
Be self aware. Recognize you don’t need to know everything. There’s lots of people around you that know the stuff that you don’t know, and seek those people out, and always be willing to learn. Always be willing to learn.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Well Rita, thank you so much. This has been a lot of fun. I wish you all the best with your book, as that gets released and launched out bigger and broader. That’s called, “Unleashing Capacity: The Hidden Human Resources.” That will be linked on the show notes. I just wish you all the very best.

Rita Trehan
Thanks so much for reaching out to me, Pete. I really appreciate it. It’s been a lot of fun, and I’m delighted that you did. Thank you very much for having me as a guest. I’m a very honored.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, thank you. We’re honored too.

Rita Trehan
Okay. Take care. Have a good day. Bye-bye.