Summary:

Paul Carney, Chief HR Officer of Carter Bank and Trust, joins CT from EngageRocket to discuss the care and feeding of elite teams. Carney shares his experience building an HR function from scratch and emphasizes the importance of trust, resilience, and engagement in creating high-performing teams. He also highlights the role of leaders as coaches in nurturing individual strengths and fostering a growth mindset. Carney emphasizes the need for rest and recharge to maintain energy levels and prevent burnout. Connect with Carney on LinkedIn to learn more about building elite teams.

Key Takeaways:

1. Building trust is crucial for creating an elite team. Leaders must earn the trust of their team members and foster trust among team members.
2. Coaches in the workplace should focus on identifying and nurturing the strengths of each individual while also promoting teamwork and alignment.
3. Continuous learning and growth are essential for elite teams. Leaders should provide an environment that encourages learning and development.
4. Rest and recharge are vital for long-term success. Allocating time for rest and relaxation is necessary to avoid burnout and maintain high performance.

Chapters:

[0:04:31] Balancing human-centric and technology-centric approaches

[0:06:22] Paul's approach as a business person in HR

[0:07:37] Importance of mental toughness and resilience

[0:10:03] Comparing sports teams to business teams

[0:13:17] Managing egos and personalities on the team

[0:17:54] Importance of rest and work-life balance

[0:21:38] We all can allocate time for things, we just have to choose to do it.

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And recently he's become certified as a prompt engineer, an AI prompt engineer. I don't know what it is that you don't do, Paul, thanks for joining us on the show today.

Paul Carney: Oh, you're welcome. Glad to be here with you today ct. Very excited to talk about the topic.

CheeTung Leong: So maybe to start, could you tell us a little bit more about your work at Carter Bank and some of your personal passion projects as well? It looks like you're very exciting and quite varied.

So it was quite an amazing that this organization existed without a lot of HR. So I had the fortune of actually coming in and building an entire HR function from scratch. Payroll benefits, talent acquisition, employee relations, talent development. None of that really existed in the company, so I got to build it from scratch, which was a great experience, helped develop my expertise and knowledge.

I brought it from an organization. I worked at before that very capable HR function. In fact, they're, I think, 13th year now in the Best companies to work for a category, and I wrote the 400 page document we submitted over a decade ago to get that award. And it's a lot of data. So again, that's what I'm doing today at Carter Bank and Trust.

That's powerful that you can do those types of things and get it to get, become an agent for you and answer questions. And then even agents now interacting with itself constantly. That's the other thing that I learned in the prompt engineering course yesterday when I finished it up that you can get it to actually.

Act as its own multiple people having a conversation and going through to the end until it comes up with, here's the best solution, which so anyways that's my current passion is to figure out how to do that for HR.

CheeTung Leong: Let's unpack some of this one at a time. When you were at Like building the systems up at Carta Bank from nothing, give us a sense of the scale how many people were there in the organization at that time, and also an idea of like, how do you think about getting started? What was the immediate priority and then how did you phase that over time?

H. R. professional human resources. So I had the seven areas of H. R. with about 12 different bullets below it. I handed them that document and said. Read this tell me which areas you're excited about and want to interested in and I will guide you down there So I literally made them turn from like a generalist and just payroll Into a specialist in their areas because I knew I needed to build out talent acquisition employer relations talent development I had to have those functions so and I'll be proud to say five years later one person left She went to be a teacher But I have not replaced a single person.

I've added to it a couple more people, professionals, but I haven't replaced a single person. They all stepped up to the challenge and figured it out. So you're right. The first thing was structure. I had to get some systems in place. We had to get a human capital management system in place for a company that's 800 and some odd employees over two locations.

So I spent a lot of time coaching, developing. All of those we call them associates employees in my HR team to understand their world what it means to be an employee relations specialist and do HR investigations, what it means to be a talent acquisition person and proactively find candidates before we need them and those types of things,

CheeTung Leong: Everything that you talked about is extremely human centric, very human people and process centric, but then you're also Kind of an engineer in how you approach problems, which is super interesting. How did how did you come to this unusual balance between the ability to influence and work with complex people problems while at the same time, like tackling complex technology problems?

And I think I'm the right one because they've kept me around. But I describe myself as saying, I'm a business person that does HR. And that's what I think the business layer underlines everything about technology, human resources, I. T. Whatever it is you do the business layer. So as I approach everything, that was one of the things I did with my team.

There was there were some complaints that our team would someone ask a question of the H. R. Team, and they would just say no. And it's and I said to them, I said, there's never a no answer. It's find out what they're trying to do. How can we help them? If there's a way we can in the end, then we say, we just can't help with that right now.

R. We advise folks. That's our job. My name is not on the offer letter, and my name is not on the termination letter. Their name is, I'm just the advisor along the way. I'm an advocate for the leadership of the company, but I'm also an advocate for every one of our associates.

CheeTung Leong: That's a really clear way to communicate accountabilities with people management, actually. I really like that. And I think that brings us very nicely To today's topic where we're gonna be talking about what it takes to build and maintain elite teams. I thought you had a really unique and very enlightened way of looking at this.

Could you talk us a little bit through about how you go about the care and feeding of elite teams?

I was one of those groundbreakers that said, I don't want a college degree. I want someone that can show me they can do what they can do. And and I had that fortune of running that team. And then I also, in my previous organization before I came here to Carter Bank an HR team. I had a learning and development team that was phenomenal.

They had such incredible skills and abilities. I could throw stuff at them and they could figure out how to do it and teach. And that was a 12, 15, 000 person company. They could figure it out. And that was awesome. I have had the experience in there. And then as I did the research for my book, I started thinking about how to help people with their careers and that stuff.

And then I thought about the sports analogy popped out, the concept of money ball and what happened with the Oakland A's back in the day of how that the gentleman figured out that Billy Bean figured out how to take data and come up with a whole bunch of new statistics that no one was even looking at.

It's going to be difficult to be a star athlete and it's going to be difficult to have a team that's really going to function well.

CheeTung Leong: I love that. That, that whole idea of nutrition, that strength coaching and that mental toughness that we talked about. Let's unpack each of these in turn, right? So let's start maybe with the mental side of things, because as with any elite athlete, the first thing that you need to get right is the mindset and the mental toughness that they have.

How does that relate in the workplace context?

Paul Carney: It really starts with the concept of resiliency. It's where it really comes in that mental strength. And then in the end, the result is high engagement. When the sports teams, you've got the folks that are highly resilient, can figure out how to get past those mental challenges of whether they're.

It's that same resiliency. You gotta build that in there. That people can figure out how to solve problems quickly, how to learn that what happens is okay, it's all right for you to go ahead and figure stuff out on the fly sometimes, but and then, of course, like I said, if you do that it gets down to that level of what we call engagement.

When you provide people the ability to have some autonomy in their decisions, when you provide people the ability to understand the purpose of what they're all trying to do, and that comes back again to the coaching thing. You can put together a team of stars, but if the coach is not bringing them together to understand their purpose is a team is to win the game, whatever they're playing, not that each of them get their statistics and get their individual goals, but but that they all come together as a team.

CheeTung Leong: Yeah, that's such a good analogy because I'm thinking there's that idea of being very calm and under pressure, which, the immediate person I can think of is like a Roger Federer. I don't know if you're a tennis person, but he's as cool as a cucumber right throughout the whole game.

And, but at the same time, like he's not playing in a team. Whereas if you think about a football team they've got to not only be calm, but they've got to be aligned. Exactly as you said, like in the ballroom, like they shouldn't be worrying about how many passes they've gotten completed or whatever it is.

That's not what they should be concerned about. They should be concerned about is the team going to win? And how do you do that? In the corporate world to a certain extent, like individual stats matter a lot, and it matters a lot for each person's careers.

It matters a lot for the careers of people under them as well. And that can lead to certain unproductive turf guarding behavior. Like how do you balance that with that, idea of team and the idea of engagement and focus.

And it really comes down to, I think one thing, and that's the trust. You've got to figure out how to build that trust. You think about a military unit, a good sports team, and even a good project team isn't going to be really highly effective and get to that elite status unless they've got that base trust in each other, that they understand each other's capabilities, strengths, the weaknesses, what people bring to the table, and that they're able to put that aside to say, listen, I know I'm better at this than most other people are.

But I'm going to do what I've got to do to get the team forward for the benefits of the organization. And it really comes down to that. Now, it's a long process. It's not something you do overnight. You can't just shake the magic wand and say, everyone trust each other. It takes a lot of building of that team.

They've got to under, they've got to earn that trust first and then build the trust amongst the team. And that's the challenge. And that's, I think where most people have a harder time. And they would just study some of the ways that you could build that trust. And part of that's just caring about the people.

We mentioned empathy, the human aspect of it. It really comes down to really caring about those people that are on the team and making sure that they are the best that they can be.

CheeTung Leong: The second aspect of all of this is that idea of building strength. And I think we talked a little bit about the role of the leader as a coach. So let's expand a little bit more about that. Like how do you see that happening? And what are some of the main things that we should think about?

So while it may not be individual, a group of individuals on that court, it's one person. And that coach still has to manage that person to help them understand their strengths and what they can do. It really comes down to understanding and managing, as we say, managing the egos. And the personalities, because some people can start to get larger than life.

We see it happen in Hollywood a lot, or maybe sometimes in the music industry. And it happens, of course, in the sports world, where they tend to get a little bigger than their britches. And and then that's the job of the coach is to help them understand that's fine. You really do excel at that one.

But especially if you're on a team, you've got to understand how that fits into the team. And that's probably the biggest challenge that a coach has to start with, really. It's to manage the egos and expectations of people when they join a team, and we'll use messy as an example, joining, with Miami recently, he's phenomenal.

CheeTung Leong: So it's really about how does the coach the leader as a coach, pulling out the strengths of each individual on the team and nurturing them while at the same time helping them to mesh together as a unit. Would that be correct?

Paul Carney: Yes. And like I said and good coaches and whether it's in military units or you see it in sports teams and you see it in teams in the business world too, is they will identify who are the sort of unsung leaders of the group, and they will give them those captains. They will give them the challenge to say, help us bring this group together.

CheeTung Leong: The third and last aspect of the care and feeding of affiliate teams is the feeding part. The nurturing and the learning that comes from advanced nutrition. Tell me a little bit more about that.

Paul Carney: That's where it's about growth. You think about it when a young child grows from their five years old to 15 years old, especially in the boys, there's tremendous growth that happens and there's a lot of feeding you got to do. That's true with people when they become professionals, and they start to get better and become experts in their fields, experts in their athleticism, and their talents are being pushed to the limits.

They're setting up the environment where they can learn, grow. And push back past their boundaries. That's the thing, too. Most people will never push past their boundaries. And that they can be good people. They can be great people. But to get to that elite level, you've really got to push past your boundaries.

You've got to be uncomfortable. You've got to be comfortable being uncomfortable. And that's part of what makes an elite person. And that's where that coach comes in. But you've got to provide that environment where they can continuously learn, help them understand that no matter how much they know and how good they are, There's still more to do. The concept of the learning and development, the growth of a person. It's got to be managed and it's got to be managed right.

CheeTung Leong: There are two main components to that, that it sounds like. There's the learning and growth part, which I don't know how much you subscribe to the 70 20 10 model, but it feels like you're talking about the environment, which is that 70 percent of on the job learning and doing what you're learning.

And then at the same time, the 20 percent is that coaching from the managers, which we talked about earlier. And only actually 10 percent is classroom training, which we can get confused with actual learning many times. And then I think you also mentioned really an important aspect of work, which is rest.

And I think, in Asia you have companies in with, in China for example, that have they call it the nine nine six culture, which is essentially 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM six days a week. And that level, that has not worked. For many Chinese companies it started out okay, but I think many in the Chinese workforce are now burning out because of that.

What's your take on rest in the workplace?

In fact, in my role now as a chief human resource officer, I've jokingly said, although they know I'm not joking anymore. If I take a week and I disconnect, I tell them all you all can make the decisions. It's Because and I say this to them, I'm not that important. If there's something really going on, I've got a boss.

You can all go to. You can go up to the CEO. If you really need to bring a big issue to the CEO will help you figure it out. But I'm not that important. So and if I can say that given my job and what I've had to do. Everyone can say that. I try to drive that home to my entire team.

I had a couple of employees when I first got to this bank, one woman who ran the payroll every couple of weeks. She had not, she would never take a week of time off because one week was payroll and the next week would be not. And I finally convinced her not only has she taken her time off, she takes all of her time today.

Nothing against you, but you're just not that important. But you're right. That rest and relaxation, that recharge time, even during the day, in the mornings I have my recharge time. In the mornings sitting on the front porch, I have a cup of coffee. I don't let that, I don't let work interrupt me.

I do not bring my laptop out there because that's not part of that routine. It's I come back into the office and start my day and do the thing. So that is really important that's that rest component. There's a great Sean Acor does a great video where he talks about the happiness factor and he says, every time we hit a goal, we just keep moving the goalposts.

We sometimes have to take a breath,

CheeTung Leong: Yeah, it's a marathons, right? And it's very Zen, but that. The journey is the destination sometimes, we're all in this together and we should take a moment, appreciate that and allow people to take time off. So I really like that. You have two, those two components, like that long term rest, which is.

Taking a vacation, disconnecting and everything else. But even that day to day routine of building in rest in your day to day, I feel like that's also super important for maintaining energy levels, maintaining that focus that you can then have when you're on. When you're on. When you're off, right?

Paul Carney: Yeah, when I speak a lot to people, I always come up with this concept where I talk about people say, I don't have enough time. I don't have time to do something. And I'll always say to them, rephrase it. You got to be more honest with yourself because there's one thing. Every single one of us no matter where you were born What gender you are whatever you are wherever you live you get 24 hours in a day.

You chose to allocate your time. Again, not judging you. Just be honest with yourself, because then when you want to change and grow and learn, then you can say, maybe I'll allocate some of my time to this. Now, there's very few people in the world who have such schedules they can not allocate a lot of their time, but we all can allocate time for things.

We just have to choose to do it. We have to flip that mindset and say, I allocate time to do this or not do

CheeTung Leong: Yeah, I feel like we could easily take this conversation another couple of hours and still be going, but I'm afraid we're coming close to the end of time. So I'm pretty sure that many of the listeners who listen to this are going to want to reach out to you and ask more about some of what you've been talking about.

If they wanted to do what's the best way for them to find you?

I'd love to connect with them and learn what they're doing, how they've helped with elite teams, or if they've got questions, love to share with them.

CheeTung Leong: Thanks so much for hanging with us today, Paul. I think this has been a very enriching conversation for me, and I'm sure for many of our listeners. For those of you listening in, I hope you've enjoyed the show and have taken away one, if not multiple good lessons from today's episode.

Make sure you drop us a review and tune in the next time on the HR Impact Show. You can also go to www. engagerocket. co slash HR impact, all one word to find more recordings and more show notes from the show. So thanks very much for listening.