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In this podcast, Jan Griffiths talks to Kristin Trecker, Chief Human Resources Officer at Visteon Corporation, a global auto tech company. The focus is authentic leadership and transformation in the automotive industry —how to roll with change, grow the right mindset, and drive real impact. Trecker shares her 5-year journey in automotive, underlining the need to adapt, learn, and network. She's all about true leadership, especially in these fast-changing times.

Jan and Kristin discuss ditching the old top-down leadership for newer, agile styles. Leaders must flex, admit missteps, and foster learning and teamwork. They also dig into how authentic leadership fuels innovation, spotlighting how Visteon's learning culture and Agile Software method spark small yet game-changing innovations.

Kristin ends by pushing leaders to step up, link with strategy, and grow their businesses. She's all for making things happen, staying in the know, and boosting the auto industry's drive forward. This podcast digs deep into Kristin's journey and leadership impact. It's a roadmap for change, learning, and pushing the industry's pedal to the metal.

Themes discussed in this episode:

• Innovative Transformation in the Automotive Industry
• Developing a Talent Supply Chain
• Visteon’s Holistic Culture Change
• Technological Shift of a Legacy Auto Company
• The Importance of Having a Growth Mindset as a Leader

Featured Guest: Kristin Trecker

What she does: Kristin is the Chief Human Resources Officer at Visteon Corporation. She excels in driving cultural transformation and using technology to propel business success, while her skillful blend of strategic vision and operational prowess nurtures high-achieving teams.

On leadership: “I also asked my team, give me feedback. Did I do something wrong? Or should I have done something different? …. Because no leader is perfect. And if you can develop that two-way conversation, that mutual trust, you can just go so much more quickly.”

Mentioned in this episode:

• Sachin Lawande, President and CEO of Visteon Corporation  
• The Automotive Leaders Podcast Episode 36: Meet Warren Harris, CEO of Tata Technologies
• The Automotive Leaders Podcast Episode 65: Meet Stephen M. R. Covey, Global authority on trust, leadership, and culture. New York Times best-selling author
• The Automotive Leaders Podcast Episode 78: Meet the ‘Godfather of the EV’ and CEO of Switch Mobility, Dr. Andy Palmer

Episode Highlights:

[00:05:24] Revolutionizing Talent Supply Chain: Kristin delves into the concept of the talent supply chain and its transformative impact on the automotive industry. Drawing parallels from traditional supply chain practices, Kristin explains how Visteon is reshaping its organizational culture to resemble a tech company, fostering employee empowerment and accountability.

[00:08:24] Empowering Gen Z in the Workforce: Jan and Kristin explore the shifts in workforce expectations and values, highlighting Gen Z's emphasis on purpose-driven work and aligning company culture with individual contributions. They discuss how embracing these changes can increase engagement, meaningful connections, and positive organizational impact.

[00:15:29] Reimagining Performance Management: Jan and Kristin candidly discuss the shortcomings of traditional annual performance reviews and the need for a more agile and employee-centric approach. They emphasize the value of ongoing conversations, real-time recognition, and transparent feedback to foster trust, alignment, and rapid growth within organizations.

[00:27:18] Balancing Tradition and Innovation: The conversation delves into the challenge of balancing automotive industry traditions with the demand for innovation and rapid transformation. Kristin and Jan discuss how companies must evolve their cultures and leadership styles to align with new industry trends.

[00:32:32] Applying Lessons from Other Industries: Kristin draws parallels between Formula One racing and the automotive industry, emphasizing the value of iterative improvements and the role of technology in driving success. The conversation highlights the importance of being open to change and embracing new ideas.

[00:36:18] The 21 Traits of Authentic Leadership: Kristin Trecker's favorite trait of authentic leadership is the "growth mindset," which aligns with her passion for continuous learning and adapting to new challenges. She emphasizes the importance of believing in oneself and being open to new possibilities.

[00:44:59] Advice for auto industry leaders: Kristin recognizes the importance of creating an impact in an ever-evolving landscape, empowering leaders to steer through industry shifts and trends with purpose and vision.

Top Quotes:

[00:04:59] Kristin: "Asking for help when you need help. I think that's probably something that will speed up how your company operates when you can develop that sort of culture.”

[00:05:31] Jan: "You do you, the only thing you can control truly in this world is yourself. You cannot control what others think of you and you cannot control their behavior. But you can control you, and you can influence your team.”

[00:11:29] Kristin: "I think culture is all about a lot of little things that you do within your company, it's decisions that you make, it's how you interact with people, it's where you focus, and that creates culture."

[00:37:46] Jan: "Growth mindset brings you back to being 100%, your authentic self and believing in yourself.”

[00:44:59] Kristin:  "Find a way to make an impact in your business."

[Transcript]

Welcome to the Automotive Leaders Podcast, where we help you prepare for the future by sharing stories, insights and skills from leading voices in the automotive world with a mission to transform this industry together. I'm your host, Jan Griffiths, that passionate, rebellious farmer's daughter from Wales, with over 35 years of experience in our beloved auto industry, and a commitment to empowering fellow leaders to be their best authentic selves. Stay true to yourself, be you, and lead with Gravitas the hallmark of authentic leadership. Let's dive in.

You ever thought about what you could learn from a Formula One team, and how those skills would apply to creating an innovation culture? Well, today you're going to find out, we're going to meet the woman who sits firmly at the intersection of technology, talent, and transformation. She is leading the charge on culture transformation in the automotive industry at one of the largest Tier One companies, get ready to meet Kristin Trecker. She is the Chief HR Officer for Visteon. In this conversation, we're going to dive deep into this subject of developing a talent supply chain. Yes, that's right, not a product supply chain, a talent supply chain. We'll cover the age-old topic of performance reviews. And then we'll talk about creating an innovative culture. And yes, there'll be a few personal stories thrown in along the way. So, make sure you stay till the very end. Let's dive in.

Kristin Trecker, welcome to the show.

Good to be here, Jan.

Kristin, five years ago, you and I met. We were both sitting on a panel at the MGM in Detroit. And I was awfully excited to meet you because you have not worked a day in the automotive industry in your entire life. And here you are coming in taking the lead HR position. In such an esteemed company, Visteon, remember that?

I do remember that it was a long time ago; it feels like 35 in dog years.

And I'm always curious because I'm sure you figured this out by now, but in automotive, see, we think we're special. Every industry thinks that it's like, "Yeah, but you don't understand, you don't get it. We're automotive." If you haven't worked in automotive, you couldn't possibly be successful. You couldn't get it. You obviously figured that out because here we are, five years on, you're incredibly successful, and you're still going.

I know, it's really amazing and honestly, I think being we are special thing is a blessing and a curse. Right now, it's a blessing in a sense that automotive is really special. There's so much happening. There's so many inflection points, that yes, automotive is special. However, if we let the old special where automotive get in the way of the new special where mobility. That's where the problems start.

Yeah, that's so true, right? Now, let's get into your background. So your background is primarily software and medical, is that correct?

Right. I spent 16 years at a software company. But I'm not a traditional HR person. I was actually in sales. And I would call on my book of business to tell them about how do you improve the health of your employees, it saves your bottom line. More importantly, it helps your employees. And at that point, and by the way, I've come full circle unlike most damn HR people, all they want to do is throw baby showers. They don't understand how they can impact their business. So I put my money where my mouth was and I moved into HR and I've never looked back.

Wow, that's quite a story. So, I have to ask you, let's go back to the beginning of your time at Visteon and coming into the automotive industry. As I'm sure you know, we're known for our command and control, right? We love command and control. When you look up a "command and control" in the dictionaries, automotive right there. What did that look like and feel like to you coming in?

You know, I have to say my deepest respect goes to our CEO, Sachin Lawande who has been here since 2015. And one of the things that he did quite a bit before I arrived in 2018, was to start to change that culture. Since I arrived, we flattened the organization. We've talked about what we need leaders to do differently. We've instituted the concept of talent supply chain, I know your deep background in the supply chain. We're doing the same thing at Visteon except from the talent perspective, and really started to drive some of those changes. So we're much more tech company like in that regard than probably traditional automotive, it means a lot because we need to really empower our employees. And we need to also hold them and ourselves accountable. And so, it's a holistic culture change that we're in the midst of right now.

Tell us more about a talent supply chain, because I think that's a term that people are going to, they're going to hear that they're going to go, "Yeah, okay, I get that, but not really," so can you explain that so people understand what that means. And how you do it.

Right.

At Visteon.

Jan, you know, I think about your deep background and where you came from was supply chain, and you need to and automotive, which is honestly a very deep talent that we need to leverage in mobility. Know how things flow from where you start with the suppliers to the quality. You have rigor around metrics; you're always measuring things, looking for improvements, trying to figure out how do I develop new suppliers, and then managing that all the way through the factory and where it goes out the door? We have to do the very same thing from a talent perspective. When we bring people into our organization, we have to understand: What are we bringing them in? How do we define the role well? What are the metrics that we're going to look at to check their flow through our system? How do we make sure we're developing them? Who's got potential? Where are we struggling with performance? Do we need to define a role or a structure better, until you know ultimately, they leave our organization? I'm very grateful at Visteon. We have many employees with 25 and 30 years of experience, which is great. And I call them kind of the key contributors to us, and we have their history, plus the future of where mobility is going. So, to be able to manage some of those things with that same supply chain mindset and rigor. Knowing that really, our differentiator right now is our talent is really critical to us.

Have you been able to see the impact on engagement metrics, and attraction and retention metrics?

We have, at Visteon, we're global. We've been global for many, many years. And so we need to look across the organization. So, we'll look at things like how easily can we attract people into our jobs? What are our retention rates? What are our internal promotion rates? How many people do we have referring people into our organization? Those are the types of things that help us understand where we're doing well, and sometimes where we're not doing well, to see how we're doing with our talent supply chain.

Wow, I love that. And of course, that forces you to really embrace and put your arms around Gen Z. Because if you're looking - truly looking - at a talent supply chain, you've got to go all the way through the entire process. So when you start to look at Gen Z and bringing Gen Z into the organization, what are some of the things that you have to do differently, right? Because we all know Gen Z thinks a lot differently. I love to tell people that when I started my career, I couldn't care less about a company's vision and mission statement. I didn't know what it was, and I didn't care. I just wanted a job. I wanted money. And I wanted to get up that that career ladder as quickly as possible. And now that is absolutely not the case. Now, Gen Z wants to understand: What is that mission? And how am I going to fit here? Is this a good culture fit for me? Am I going to be able to contribute? Will they give me a career, or is this just a job? How do you get your mind around that?

Well, I think no matter where I am in the world, and no matter what generation, there's kind of three things that are really important, which is: I've got to take care of my family, that's why I work, because I take care of my family. The second thing is, what can I learn? And the third is - and you mentioned this - how can I contribute? And this may look different for different generations. So, in terms of Gen Z, one of the things that we've been doing for years and years is really contributing to how do we improve the efficiency and effectiveness of how we run our plants? Where can we make social contributions? Where are the areas that we want to donate our money and time, no matter where we are in the world, to help improve the places that we live and work? And so what we've done is actually take a lot of the work that was already in place. And we've started to talk about it and promote about it. And as you know, in the US, you know, we're required to do certain types of disclosures while we were doing some of this, anyway, it was just a coordinating that, and helping people imagine themselves within Visteon because ultimately, you're coming in for a job and you want to grow. But if you think about what's happening in our mobility industry, we're actually changing the way people drive, how technology comes into a car. And it's not just for my generation, or their generation, it's going to impact their kids and their kid's kids, I guess that would be grandkids. So I think it's not just the job that I do get something done, I'm happy that, you know, I'm working with Premier OEMs. I've got a great global group of people. But I'm making a difference, not just for my generation, but the next.

I love looking at the generational differences, and one of the things that we've seen coming out - and I guess maybe it's not across generations - but this idea of quiet quitting, has getting a lot of press lately. What are your thoughts around that? Because that's all about employee engagement, which brings it right back to leadership and culture.

I think culture is all about a lot of little things that you do within your company, it's decisions that you make, it's how you interact with people, it's where you focus, and that creates culture. I think in some cases - and I think across the globe - we saw that there were many people that were either quiet or loudly quitting their jobs. And fortunately for us, it's gone down. And I think in part, although it's gone down globally, you know, what we've really been trying to focus on is redefining, in the context of mobility with all of these inflection points, let's redefine what does good look like. And if I can get connected from my job to, you know, the impact that I see my company can make, or I was recently in India, and I was talking through the company strategy at many different sites. And I asked about a certain program that just was about to go live, which is a very visible global program. And almost everybody raised their hand to say that they were working on it, they felt connected to that customer, whether they were working on it directly, or just indirectly or supporting their colleagues, they felt like they were part of it. And if you can feel like you are making an impact on the customer, on your peers, you can really make a difference.

Kristin, with your background in technology and software, how have you been able to utilize some of those skills in that experience and bring that into automotive, into Visteon?

So I think in a couple of different ways. One, if you think about software technology, it's usually a flat organization, you can make decisions pretty quickly, because hopefully, you don't have a lot of bureaucracy. There's aligned goals, and I think a lot of companies have aligned goals. But for us, what I think is the difference is to be able to spot trends and to be able to make changes on almost on the fly. In some cases, where we see something coming, we can shift, we have, you know, 10,000 employees in about 18 different countries. So there are quite a few people, but because we have a leadership team that works really effectively together, because our CEO is actually our CTO understands technology, we can go down that path.

If I then flip that to how do I think about that from an HR perspective? You know, this is one of the things that I've tried to create within my own organization. How do we really empower the organization, my leaders that we have? And then how do we think about impact? In my mind, all good organizations, but I especially saw this in tech, you knew how you impacted the organization, and you are part of the organization. I've always hated the word "business partner." I'm an HR business partner. It's kind of the standard lingo, but it implies to me that you're standing off, "I'm the partner, I will tell you what to do." You actually need to be a really, really good business person first, and then you have to bring your HR expertise. I was out talking about our company strategy.

I did not say one thing about HR when I was you know, meeting with all of these employees in India, you have to understand the products, you have to understand technology, you have to understand how all of this works. If you think about then how do you bring that in? That's actually probably the last thing that I've gotten to in terms of how do I actually bring technology, look at our technology stack within HR, how do we do things differently? We've certainly run some pilot programs, and how do we use, you know, chat bots and some of those types of things. That's actually my focus for this next year, where I feel like we've been so focused on the rest of the organization. Now, it's going to be time for us to actually taste your own cooking and be a tech company internally, as well as what we tell everybody else to do.

Because when I look back on my corporate career, one of the things that would drive me insane is the ritual of the annual performance review. And, you know, some companies do it better than others. But it was always this arduous task. Nobody likes to admit that, right? Because everybody says, "Oh, no, I'm all about my people. I love doing performance reviews," but nobody actually does. I enjoyed the conversation with my direct reports, no question about that. But I hated the structure behind it and having to follow some rigid format and ask some questions that you could interpret 15 million different ways, just so that I could somehow fit these people into this rating system. And I didn't like it, and direct reports didn't like it either. I mean, same thing, they enjoyed the conversation. But they didn't like being forced into this or full structure that in some cases was an Excel spreadsheet. In some cases, then, of course, you're into revision-level problems. And then you're trying to send Excel spreadsheets to the organization. And that's the whole nightmare. Some had them a little bit more progressive, have a software that will was perhaps designed for that. But it just it seems to me that that thing is so outdated, and leaders should be in touch with their people constantly. So where are you at on performance reviews?

Well, I'm not a big fan of the performance appraisal, and I give this credit in the sense that even before I got here in 2018, they had said, "Enough is enough, this is too bureaucratic, it adds no value. Let's stop doing it." But you have to.

Really?

Yes, yep, I give again, I give the team a lot of credit. But with that said, there is something that needs to be in place in order for us to develop people. So in fact, it was something we were talking about today with my team, we need to put in a more agile performance management process. And my thinking, because we were just doing some brainstorming, one is let's go to our employees. Let's crowdsource ideas from them. So that's probably something most people don't do, but I think that's something as a tech company we should do, so that we're making it relevant from our employees and managers. Secondly, then, how do we make this agile? If it's going to be the equivalent of a one-pager in a system - because it needs to be in a system - in my mind, what are the two or three things that are going to be most important? Third, we can't set annual performance targets. It just simply doesn't work. Everything is way too dynamic in our industry. And so, you know, whether we do it quarterly or semi-annually, it's got to be something that's relevant to people so that they can have the benefit of a good conversation. Because frankly, that's the most important piece. It's the conversation, as you said, and not that it falls into some sort of special process. But with that said, employees, especially this generation want to have that feedback, they're coming into the workforce, they want to learn and grow, they want to know a little bit more about how can they develop. So it's really a critical thing to have. So there's some place for that kind of process. It needs to focus less on the process and more on the conversation.

Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. And I hear that some companies are moving to a process where well, I guess this wouldn't be a form of performance review. But in terms of recognition, where there are like texts, or like instant messaging going out where people are recognizing each other on the team, is that that's more into recognition than it is the overall review process. But is there anything like that going on at Visteon for record instant recognition?

Yeah, we've done that for some time. We're looking actually at a new vendor right now and running a pilot. That's something that we absolutely encourage. And if you think about the value that that brings, you know, whether it's in the context of reinforcing your values that you have as a company or your leadership principles, or above and beyond, those types of things, especially now within the context of the generations, social media, that just-in-time feedback are really important.

Yeah, and that feedback has got to be immediate. And that's either way, if you see a behavior or something that's happening that's in line with the company values and you want to amplify that, you should recognize that immediately, like, even in the meeting or right after the meeting. But the same is true for the other side. And this is where I think leaders struggle sometimes, if they see a behavior in a meeting, one of their direct reports, that's not in line with the values that they have as a leader, and they sit they have as part of the values of the company culture that needs to be addressed. Like, boom, right, right there and then. And I think many leaders struggle with that because they don't have the tools. It's uncomfortable. And then they think, "Oh, well, I'll just deal with that in the performance review six months from now." Yeah, that's not the best idea, is it?

No, I agree. And you know, it has to start with the top right? So how do the what's the tone the CEO sets at the top about those types of things? We have a very apolitical organization. I've never actually seen anything like that across the executive committee. We make decisions based on data and facts. And we think about it, and then we all walk out aligned. And that's then what we need to, you know, hopefully, then bring down into our organization. It develops trust. And then when you have to have some of those tough conversations with different people, as long as you have a trusting relationship, people understand that you're giving it to them because you want them to get better. That helps. Conversely, I also asked my team, give me feedback. Did I do something wrong? Or should I have done something different? Or did I forget to consider something? Because no leader is perfect. And if you can develop that two-way conversation, that mutual trust, you can just go so much more quickly.

Yeah, you know, you remind me of a conversation I had with Warren Harris. He's the CEO of Tata technologies, and he is all about vulnerability-based trust. And he talks a lot about with his team. He really encourages the open dialog, and yes, there will be conflict. But when you leave that room, you either agree, or you disagree. And that's okay. And commit. And this is a model of behavior that we've seen for decades in the automotive industry. None of this all agreeing in the room, and then walking out of the room and backstabbing people and all these snipey little conversations, creating a toxic work culture. That is happened many, many times, I've been right in the middle of that more times than I care to imagine. Those kinds of games and that toxic culture cannot be tolerated anymore. To go back to your point about we live in this agile world, the world of mobility, there is no time for that.

Correct, I agree, I don't even actually think there's anything more to say. But if I think about the shift in our industry, and going back to what you first talked about this command and control, I think sometimes engenders probably the information flow, the accuracy of data. And that's something in my opinion, companies just have to put a stake in the ground and say, "How are we going to stop this?" and then, "How do we role model this behavior?" Otherwise, the top doesn't ever find out what's really happening.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. How do you role model that behavior? And it does start with the top and it does start with the executive team. And if the executive team, if you get one or two, just all it needs one or two. And that can destroy the entire company culture, because then you got a whole slew of people that emulate that leadership behavior. And they say, "Oh, well, if that this is how I need to behave to be successful," and off they go. And then you've got an army of people driving that toxic culture. But the other side, again, is true. When you start to get some people who really believe in a more authentic leadership model and they start practicing it, then that starts to have a ripple effect out in the organization. Have you seen that?

I have. And I tried to do that with myself, because I was new to auto. I made, you know, a lot of mistakes in terms of just assumptions and things like that. So when I would do that, I would, you know, put my hand up, "I'm sorry, I thought it was this. I don't have an understanding." if I was sitting in a business review. I can't believe how many three-letter acronyms are there. And I'd raised my hand, "I don't understand what you're talking about. You just said one whole sentence, but I think it was in like six three-letter acronyms. So help me understand some of that stuff." And I think that's where, you know, asking the questions, you know, admitting when you don't always do everything right. And certainly, none of us do everything right. Asking for help when you need help. I think that's probably something that will speed up how your company operates, when you can develop that sort of culture. And thankfully, there's probably micro cultures within, you know, some of the companies that are still command and control where that's done. There's really good leaders out there. So, it's not like it doesn't exist. But I think it needs to be something that we all strive to do better.

Yeah, I often get people that tell me, they say, "Hey, you know, we love what you're talking about. We love this idea of authentic leadership versus command and control. But I'm in a command-and-control environment." And I tell them, "Look, you do you, the only thing you can control truly in this world is yourself. You cannot control what others think of you and you cannot control their behavior. But you can control you, and you can influence your team." And I found myself in that situation many times where the culture I was in was not exactly 100% aligned with my values. But I know that I could control my team, my leadership, and you just focus on that. And you know, all of a sudden, what I found was that, I mean, let's face it, nobody wants to work for purchasing or supply chain in automotive, very few people want to come over to that side of the fence. And after a while, you'd have people coming over going, "Do you have any openings on your team?" Because the culture was starting to shift in the function. And I find that fascinating.

I will tell you; I think supply chain and purchasing are probably the coolest areas right now, besides software engineering, maybe. Because think about how the ecosystem has changed, that those people need to understand what's happening with the releases from the different silicon vendors, their whole new skill set, you can't pound the table on demand costs, you also have to look at quality and reliability, because it's so much more integrated. I think it's a really interesting time to be in that function right now. I think we learned a lot from the chip crisis about how small we were in the scheme of things and we weren't always prioritized as an industry. And so I think it's actually a really cool time. I'd rather be in the talent supply chain, but I still think it's a good time to be a procurement.

Well, here's a question for you, right? Since we're going since we're going down the supply chain route, you get large OEMs. I'll pick on Ford, just to pick on forward for one, separating their business into the legacy business, and then the new mobility or EV space. Right. So it's all you know, ICE to BEV, so there's the ICE business, legacy business, new business. And the supply chain and purchasing department runs across both, because in many cases, the suppliers are the same. Now, in some cases, of course, they're not because it's different products. But there are some core suppliers that are indeed the same. And I've been talking a lot lately about culture within supply chain. And you can separate the two business units, that's great. But if the culture running through the supply chain organization and the processes and essentially a lot of the people is still the same, what's changed? You have to change the culture along with the product. And one of my favorite quotes from Stephen Covey is, "You cannot win in the marketplace without also winning in the workplace." So when you change that whole product and the speed of transformation is required from that product, you have to change the, not so much the people but the culture and the processes and the thinking to go along with that, right? You can't hold on to legacy leadership cultures and practices, I think is the awakening, if you will, right? You cannot you can't split the company and then, but then say, "But not really. But we're not really, we're not really going to take it all the way down to the nitty-gritty purchasing level. We're just going to do it sort of at this level."

If I think about what any - company whether they're splitting their company or not - needs to do to compete these days, they really do need to rethink, what are the roles of leaders? What do we want from leaders? How do we want them to lead for us because we're, we're focused in this area, the last couple years, we've been really focusing on having our leaders think about how do they build strong teams? How do they inspire change? How do they lead from the front? And then how do they know what's happening in the rest of the market? And I think right now, if I look at traditional automotive, there's this sort of insular culture, where sort of everybody just stayed in, in automotive for a very, very long time. And again, lots of, lots of great history, but to have history with a future, you also need leaders to think differently, maybe in some cases look differently than what you've done before. I think that you're right, Jan, has a big shift that that needs to happen. And if not, you'll get automotive leadership trying to operate in the mobility space. And I think they're rapidly diverging.

I would agree. I interviewed Dr. Andy Palmer, he's the former CEO of Aston Martin. He is the Godfather of the EV. He introduced the Nissan LEAF when he was COO at Nissan. And we had this discussion about culture. And we talked about the, if you will, the startup tech culture of California versus traditional automotive. And I love the discussion with him because he said, you know, there's no right or wrong. You as a company get to determine what your culture is, and should be. And there are aspects of legacy auto culture that are good and right and true and correct. And there are aspects of more of the California EV startup culture that you also need to have. But finding that balance and getting it right is up to you as a leader and a leadership team. You get to define your culture. Would you agree with that?

I do, and let me tell you a story. Five years ago, when you and I met, I wanted to understand the history of Detroit. And so I read some books, but I ended up going to the Paquette Avenue plant. It's now a museum, it was where Henry Ford had a secret room and he created the Model T. And I just stood in there and I listened to the docent, and I heard that from this plant and from Henry Ford, he spun off so many patents that have, you know, created thousands of companies over the years. To just immerse myself in the history because you're absolutely right. Automotive has a deep history. It's been critical not to just the US where we are today, but across the whole world. It's driven innovation in so many different ways. How do we take those things and keep them, but then shift to where we need to be to be relevant going forward? You're right. It's our choices as companies, as leaders. We have to do it. But we can't forget from where we've come. And that was like a moment where I felt so connected to the history. And I've always stuck that in the back of my head to try to ground me as we go forward and drive some of the changes that we've been driving.

That's a beautiful story, and it makes the point, exactly. And you mentioned innovation, Kristin. And of course, innovation is top of mind for many companies these days. And yes, we are an industry that's known for innovation, but innovation in the tech space is different. There's a lot of try and fail, trial and fail, try it, and fail until we get it right. And we're not so good at understanding and accepting failure in automotive as a whole. So getting our arms around this need, need for speed and to innovate very quickly, and iterate and iterate and move on, we're not so good at that. How are you creating more of an innovation culture at Visteon?

Well, let me tell you first because you brought up Aston Martin innovation, the need for speed. I am a big Formula One fan. And I've been a Formula One fan for many years. McLaren's my team, but they're always in a rebuilding. So I'm Team Max and Red Bull right now. But with that, what they're always doing, if you ever watch one of those races and some of the prep, they're always tinkering with things, it's maybe the wheels, the tires that they use, you know, kind of the wings, what angles some of those things, how much fuel they send out. And so I think that's something that we do as well. We're tinkering with things. We're trying to at Visteon, think about what works and very quickly if we find something that doesn't, then stepping back, and we're trying to institute much more effectively this culture of like learning from our mistakes. We're in the midst of implementing Agile Software methodology. And if you know anything about agile, it's you do two-week sprints. At the end, you do a retrospective, you'd say what did I learn from this? What worked, what didn't? And you kind of take that and move on. And that's how you develop you know, what you do? We've done the same thing in HR. We've tried, you know, certain things. I think that's probably more what drives innovation, but it's not necessarily these big Ta-da moments necessarily. But it's small, incremental, sometimes things that make the biggest changes. McLaren came in second and fourth, and it should have been second and third, safety car issue, over this last weekend, and why they've been running in the middle of the pack barely, they made enough incremental changes, put on a new package that have actually gotten them so that they were so close to winning the race and we're on a podium. That's the same thing we've got to do. And whether it's in finance or supply chain or in your India operation or how we do XYZ in London, whatever, those types of things, and having that culture where it's okay to fail, as long as you learn your lesson, please don't do that two times in a row. That again, and I give our credit to our CEO for that and actually exhibiting that behavior as well. Here's what I learned, we didn't do this right, or this is what I wish I would have done differently. By using that language, by trying to do things on a more incremental basis, you're ultimately going to get to big changes that drive where you're going.

Yeah, and that's, that's a great example here, F1 example is a great example to illustrate that point. Let's come back out at a macro level and talk about authentic leadership. You've had the opportunity to take a look at my 21 traits of authentic leadership. There's a lot in there. I know it's 21 traits. But if you had to highlight two Kristin that resonate with you the most and why, what would they be?

I had picked one, and I picked the growth mindset because we actually talk about it here. But let me tell you why this is important to me. At this time, we talk about a growth mindset and what it can help you do. And so, you know, we've had growth mindset days. So, it's been a lot and I always, someone way smarter than me said, "It's better to be a learn it all, instead of a know-it-all." And that's just, I totally love that one. And as I think about that, also with me, one of the things I just thoroughly enjoy about Visteon and my role is I feel like half the time I'm really contributing to where we're going to the industry with my software background with just understanding auto, but the other half the time, I'm learning so much. Such challenges us to make sure that we understand how zonal architecture going to change our industry, what's the software defined vehicle, and a lot of other things. And so because I feel like I'm learning and growing and being challenged, that whole growth mindset to me, was something that just resonated, probably more so than anything else.

And I think that growth mindset, sometimes you'll see it, you know, some people will have read the Carol Dweck book and, you know, they'll throw it up there in a presentation. But the more I understand it, the more I think about it, growth mindset brings you back to being 100%, your authentic self and believing in yourself. When you believe in yourself, and you know that you don't have all the answers. But you will learn the answers, you'll get the knowledge, then we can all grow and move forward. And I'm really talking to myself here. Because as you know, when I started my business, when I met you, I didn't have a clue, I have no clue what I was doing. And I started a podcast, I didn't even know what a podcast was. But I have this belief in myself that I will figure it out. I will get the knowledge, and will I make mistakes and take missteps along the way? Oh, of course you better believe I did. But deep down in a core of my being I know that I believe in myself, and I will figure it out. And I think growth mindset has as much to do with that, as it does being open to the growth and gaining the knowledge. You think?

I think so. I'll give you a similar example that I had, when I first got to this industry. I had a great set of peers and have a great set of peers that were incredibly supportive, invited me to all the business reviews helped me understand the gate process really helped me learn about the industry, which was fantastic. As I was interviewing to bring in people, HR people from the outside, I happened to bring in someone who came from a large OEM. And I didn't end up choosing him to be a business partner. And he wrote me a note afterwards. And he said, "Take this in the spirit that's intended, but you're going to fail. You're just too nice." And I was like, oh my, which I thought was really interesting. And it made me pause to say, you know, what do I not understand about this industry? I'm not going to fail. In fact, I'm going to really help them be even better. And as I reflected on that, again, going back to growth mindset, I may not know the answers. I may not know the industry, but I'm smart. I can network with people. I am going to build a strong team and I'm going to go. One thing I need to do is give a really big shout out to the HR community here in Detroit specifically. They're always willing people who will help share their knowledge, who will share best practices in terms of how they think about it, will maybe share, "Here's some good resources." And I find that this community, in particular, is particularly generous with their time. And I'm just very, very grateful. Because I learned a lot from those people to help accelerate me coming up to speed in our industry.

See, we can be nicer when we want to be, right?

Very nice.

Now, now for the fun stuff. You ready? Let's take a turn. How about tell us something that people don't know about you that they might be surprised that a Chief HR Officer for a major global Tier One is into?

Well, probably Formula One, which I've already given you that surprise, but that's probably the one that's, I think, most surprising to people. When I was in college, I wrote in an article or a paper on women as market targets in the auto industry. And at that time, back aways, I remember sending off to Ford and GM, and probably Chrysler at the time saying, "What are you doing to try to, you know, connect with women?" And so we got a bunch of information back, which was great. But that always sort of piqued my curiosity. And at one of my CHRO jobs, we worked with Ferrari, that was a customer, we've worked with McLaren, how I actually kind of got into following Formula One. And I love this intersection of technology and talent, and transformation. I'm not a deep HR person, but I am really curious. And I'm passionate about technology. And I'm passionate about learning. And so I think that maybe makes me a bit unique.

I love that technology, talent and transformation. Last live performance that you saw?

Well, I was in Birmingham a couple of weeks ago, and there's a Detroit Candlelight series, and I saw the San Antonio quartet play Queen music-- music from Queen. And then they interspersed some classical stuff in there, which was really pretty cool. And then probably before that, I was in Amsterdam last year for the F1 race that was there. My husband and I try to go to those occasionally. So, two very different but interesting live performances.

Love that. Okay, what do you like to binge-watch if you've got one of those days where you can just curl up on the couch and binge-watch something? And lots of people don't like to admit this, but I will admit it, I have days where I binge watched Netflix series, what's your favorite thing to binge watch?

My total favorite is "Ted Lasso." And I know your other guests have said that. But I'm a really optimistic, the glass is always half full pint kind of person. And I actually really love that. Or "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel." I think those are really uplifting, interesting. I've enjoyed those.

Yeah, I'm kind of late to the party on the "Ted Lasso" thing. I just finished it not too long ago. I mean, I love the British-American thing, right? Because I mean, I just I can relate to both sides of it. And it's funny because I'm always complaining about tea. I can never get tea in this country, right? Nobody can make a good cup of tea in this country. And I was listening to Katty Kay on Morning Joe. She's the BBC correspondent, and she guest hosts Morning Joe from time to time. And she was talking about, I think it was maybe Biden visiting King Charles or something. And she was talking about, no, I know what it was. She was talking about July 4th. And she says, "Yeah, you know, I love being in this country. I love here in America. She goes the one thing is you can't get a good cup of tea," and I was like, "Oh, my sister, I am with you. I am with you." I've been on a mission to teach this country how to drink tea for the last 36 years.

Good luck.

I've failed, but I have belief in myself, Kristin. I'm going to keep going. I'm gonna keep going.

Good growth mindset around tea.

Oh, yes, yes. Okay, so to wrap this up today? How about one thing, one piece of advice that you would like to give out there to our listeners, our listener base being leaders of different functions in the automotive industry are mostly Tier One, but some OEMs in our listening base out there. One piece of advice to them and I love the fact that we're sitting here today, five years after you started in the auto industry, and you're still here, so you're loving it. You're having an impact. So I think what you have to say is extremely powerful. What's the one thing?

Find a way to make an impact in your business. And I think that's important because again, as we shift to flatten organizations, as we think about people trying to come into our industry, as we think about how to leverage some of the trends and inflection points, all of us, no matter what level, need to think about how do I make an impact on the business. That's my advice.

By that statement itself, requires you to make sure that you are part of the business, that you know what's going on in the business, that you're integrated into the strategy, that all of these things are happening. And I think oftentimes, you see your field and my old field, you see HR and supply chain being sort of sidelined. You know, it's like, "God, they're necessary evil," but you got to be in there in the conversation, showing where the impact is. Yeah. Lovely. Well, Kristin, it has been an absolute pleasure having you on the show today. Thank you so much for joining us.

Great. Thanks, Jan.

Thank you for listening to the Automotive Leaders Podcast. Click the Listen link in the show notes to subscribe for free on your platform of choice. And don't forget to download the 21 traits of authentic leadership PDF by clicking on the link below. And remember, stay true to yourself, be you and lead with Gravitas, the hallmark of authentic leadership.