Summary:

In this episode, Dr. Jim interviews Rachel Kleban, VP of People at OpenPhone, about best practices for getting people ready to lead. Rachel emphasizes the importance of intentionality and curiosity in leadership development. She suggests creating a culture that values curiosity and asking good questions at every level of the organization. Rachel also shares a powerful activity she implemented called "Tell Me Anything" to foster listening and build trust within the leadership team. Tune in to learn more about cultivating curiosity and active listening skills in aspiring leaders.

Key Takeaways:

• Embrace intentionality in workspace culture, whether it's remote, in-office, or hybrid, to enhance collaboration and maximize effectiveness.
• Develop leadership readiness by embedding the practice of curiosity and active listening within every tier of the organization.
• Leaders need to model the behavior they wish to see, demonstrating empathy and a willingness to deeply engage with their teams.
• Facilitated sessions like "Tell Me Anything" encourage leaders to practice active listening without immediate solutioning, which can shift trust dynamics and foster a more inclusive environment.
• Success as a leader often hinges on the ability to not just hear but understand the perspectives of team members, thereby ensuring everyone feels heard and valued.

Chapters:

00:00 Welcome to HR Transform Live from Las Vegas

00:17 Introducing Rachel Kleban: VP of People at OpenPhone

00:46 Exploring OpenPhone's Mission and Remote Work Culture

01:13 Debunking Myths Around Remote Work and Emphasizing Intentionality

03:40 The Power of Curiosity in Leadership Development

05:25 Implementing Curiosity and Listening in Leadership Practices

08:00 Tackling Leadership Ego and Embracing Listening

09:37 Closing Thoughts and How to Connect Further

Connect with Dr. Jim: linkedin.com/in/drjimk

Connect with CT: linkedin.com/in/cheetung

Connect with Rachel Kleban: linkedin.com/in/rachelkleban

Music Credit: Shake it Up - Fesliyanstudios.com - David Renda



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You are the VP of people at open phone. For folks out there, she's a big deal.

[00:00:28] Dr. Jim: Super excited to have this conversation with you. I think before we dive into the main topic, it's going to be helpful for you to offer some context for our listeners.

So that they get a better understanding of who you are as a person and maybe even what open phone does as a company or a product.

So really fun to be able to support small businesses in that way and also to support a great culture. We're a fully remote team and I've been with the team about five months and really enjoying getting to know them and build out an HR practice there.

I don't know about you, but I'm tired of out of touch CEOs saying that everybody's got to be in the office to Quote unquote, have a collaborative and team environment. So what's your response to this backlash to remote or hybrid work arrangements by certain CEOs?

I think whatever works for your company is great, but whatever you're going to do it intentionally. If you want people to come to the office, why, if you want people to be remote, how are you going to do that in a way that's really designed for remote interaction, designed for asynchronous work. And we're certainly not perfect, but we're doing a lot to, to Figure out how to both be effective from a work perspective, but also from a culture perspective.

[00:02:06] Dr. Jim: So I like your emphasis on being intentional about it. And I can understand the value of being pragmatic.

I want to dig in a little bit deeper because I think there's no one size fits all solution. Sure. And a lot of the narratives around open or hybrid or remote involves a lot of magical thinking. So what I'd like you to do is share with us a little bit of your insights when it comes to getting out of that magical thinking trap.

When you say intentionality, what does that look like? If you're a remote environment, if you're a hybrid environment, if you're an on site environment, how does that need to be structured so it's intentional and not magical in thinking?

How does our operating system as a company get designed in a way that meets the needs of how we're working? So an example would be, if you're going to tell [00:03:00] people to come in the office, what happens in the office that's unique to coming to the office that makes it worthwhile? I heard somebody say something like, with a purpose coming in with a purpose.

And if you're remote. What are the tools and systems you're using? What are the expectations around around connecting synchronously, asynchronously in person? And so I think it's just like a lot of hard work, honestly.

It's in the same vein as playing to your strengths. So if you're looking at figuring out what's going to work, identify the strength of that particular process and then put it into an operation and that'll make it super effective. So thanks for sharing that. So let's get into the meat of the discussion.

So when we think, when we're talking about leadership readiness tell me about the best practice that you have on your radar in your toolkit that gets people ready to lead.

And I think what's always tricky about getting people ready is, how do you do it when you're not doing it? How do you become a great manager when you're not managing people? So I come back to what are the. skills or qualities that great managers demonstrate and how can you build those into your culture for everyone?

So people are practicing them at every level. And so the one that really came to my mind where I think great managers are curious and they ask really good questions, right? We know great managers coach. We know that great managers listen, right? And they bring curiosity to every problem. They don't just bring the answer.

Because I don't know, I think that asking a great question is about the most powerful thing you can do. As a leader, as anybody, . And so I think teaching that skill from early on is something that will pay dividends when people get ready for that next level.

How do you do that? Because oftentimes and let's put it in the perspective of the typical career track. You have individual contributors who are high performers and have done a great job in executing. They get promoted because they're the top performer into some sort of manager or leadership role.

The first time somebody on their team brings something up to their attention, might ask a question or two and then it's off to the solutioning mode. So how do you break that habit when you're transitioning from that individual contributor role? Into that leadership role.

I think asking questions is the outcome It's about [00:06:00] bringing curiosity to every situation. It's about Thinking about what perspective do I not have in this conversation in this room now the way that I've personally Developed that is I've built it into and I've said to competency expectations level by level.

I've said, Hey, this is an expectation of our culture that you bring curiosity that you do seek out diverse perspectives that you do ask good questions. And here's what it looks like as a junior. I see. And here's what it looks like as a mid level. I said, And here's what it looks like as a manager. And so as a manager, we're asking you as an expectation to lead with curiosity to lead with empathy,.

Of others perspectives.

What are things that come to mind that help advance that for an early career leader?

Ask me anything. And I was working at a company that had some culture issues some maybe lack of curiosity and listening from leadership. Yeah. And so I set up A-T-M-A-A tell me anything, and I asked leaders to come to a small group of employees with genuine questions. And that's important. I said, you can't showboat this.

These are genuine questions you have about our company, our customer, our culture our business. And I want you to ask those questions and I, and you can't respond. All you get to do is ask the question and listen. And it was a really powerful moment where these leaders showed up. With true curiosity and truly listened.

And it really shifted things for us in terms of trust in that leadership team. And so for leaders, they went Oh gosh, that really worked when I just zipped it and listened, that went a long way to building trust with my team. And so that started to shift the narrative in the company.

How do you get the hard headed folks in leadership to put their ego aside?

You have to strip that away for something like this to work. And it doesn't mean that you agree with them that you didn't say something. It just means that you're listening. And you can be intentional about that. I think setting these things up, whether it's a TMA or any other kind of listening activity, you say, I'm going to listen.

And yeah, it's being about low bossy with people about saying Yeah no, no response time.

So great stuff. Appreciate you hanging out with us. We're just scratching the surface on this conversation. If people want to continue the conversation. And just connect with you and understand a little bit more about the stuff that you've been working on and have done. What's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

[00:09:58] Dr. Jim: Thanks for hanging out with us Rachel. When I [00:10:00] think about this conversation, I think it was a really fun conversation.

When we're looking at solving the issue of getting people ready to lead, probably one of the most critical skills that any individual contributor or early stage manager can cultivate is the ability to really be curious and actively listen. So what that means in a practical way, is that you cannot.

Rush into offering solutions or problem solving. Oftentimes it's not even about the person wanting you to take the thing and make it real. It's just the opportunity to be heard about what's going on. And I think that's absolutely critical.