Summary:

In this episode, Dr. Jim interviews Silvia Miramontes, the CHRO of Foothill Credit Union, about the importance of being a hands-on leader and how it can drive culture change within an organization. Silvia shares her experiences and insights from her diverse background in HR, emphasizing the need for leaders to standardize what they do and demonstrate what good looks like. She also discusses the importance of continuous learning and the role it plays in effective leadership. Silvia highlights the need for leaders to adapt to different leadership styles and understand the needs of their team members in order to create a positive and productive work environment.

Key Takeaways:

• Standardizing processes and demonstrating what good looks like is essential for driving culture change within an organization.
• Being a hands-on leader involves actively participating in the work of your team and understanding their needs and challenges.
• Continuous learning is crucial for effective leadership and staying up-to-date with industry trends and best practices.
• Leaders should adapt their leadership style to the needs of their team members and provide support and guidance based on individual strengths and weaknesses.
• Creating a culture of psychological safety and open communication is key to fostering a positive work environment and driving employee engagement.

Chapters:

00:03:00 Balancing between helping the team and allowing them to learn

00:06:00 The decision to switch industries and challenges faced

00:08:00 Ensuring effective communication during times of change

00:11:00 The importance of being hands-on in driving culture change

00:13:00 Advice for leaders who don't have direct experience in a particular job

00:16:00 Practical steps for creating psychological safety in the workplace

00:19:00 The importance of asking questions and taking action based on feedback

00:22:00 Key takeaways for being a hands-on leader and building a positive culture

00:24:00 Importance of starting small in cultural transformations

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

Connect with CT: linkedin.com/in/cheetung

Connect with Silvia Miramontes: linkedin.com/in/silvia-miramontes-73547120

Music Credit: winning elevation - Hot_Dope



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Dr. Jim: Thanks for joining us today on the HR Impact Show. This is your friendly neighborhood talent strategy nerd, Dr. Jim. If you want to change your culture, you need to standardize what you do, and you've got to roll up your sleeves and demonstrate what good looks like. Taking a hands off approach isn't going to get the job done.

That's the argument that Sylvia Miramontes makes to give you a little bit of background on Sylvia's story. She's got 20 years of experience all across various functions of HR. She's been in human resources from a formal perspective. She's been in learning and development, management, town acquisition, new program and process implementation.

She's done a lot of strategic planning, team leadership, regulatory compliance. So the TLDR version of all of that is if there is a function or capability in HR that exists, Sylvia has probably done that. She has been successfully leading the human resources and organizational development operations team at Foothill credit union as the CHRO.

Silvia Miramontes: Thank you, Jim.

Dr. Jim: I'm looking forward to this conversation and before we dive into the real meaty part of the discussion, I'd like you to share with the audience some of the things that you feel is important for them to know about you. That's going to inform this conversation that we're about to have.

Silvia Miramontes: One of them is that I always am involved toward arm's length in every process of what I do. And what I mean by that is I'm able to jump in anything that my team does. And because of that, it helps me understand the needs of our culture. And of my teams and of the future team members that we're going to bring on board, those are, that is super important to know too, is I never stopped learning.

I never stopped educating myself, whether it's seminars, networking reading articles, books. That's always, I have to do. I think those two things helped me be successful and able to lead the teams that I do.

Silvia Miramontes: Early in my career I worked for an individual who. Wanted to be aware of everything that happened, that you needed to do everything, but then when you needed help, that leader wouldn't know how to do it or didn't know how to lead you. So it was very confusing and challenging, especially if you're new to the job or to the industry, whatever that may be.

So it got to a point that I understood that it was up to me. to take the lead in a sense. And I told myself that as I, progress in my career that I will never let anyone feel the way I was feeling, confused and lost. So that's how everything started. And I said, you know what? I'll take it on myself.

I start helping my teammates back then leading, answering questions, and that's how I start the love for leadership.

Dr. Jim: So how did you find the right balance to strike between those two things?

Silvia Miramontes: One, You have to be able to adapt to all the leadership styles that we have. One of my favorites is serving leadership, but you have to be able to adapt. You have to know your team, learn to know them, how they work, how they learn, because it's super important. So what's about that? Getting to know them, having those one on one conversations.

Coaching sessions that help me understand how they work. For example, in my current team, I have some team members who just need me to tell them a very task oriented and say this is a task and then we follow up and check in as they need it. I have others who need a little more help in saying, hey, let's design it.

Dr. Jim: That's a great perspective that you bring to the table. One of the other interesting things about your background is that you've worked in a lot of different industries and these industries are like drastically different. You've worked in media, you've worked in healthcare, and now you're working in financials in the credit union space.

So those are drastically different. How did those varied experiences prepare you for your current role as a CHRO in a credit union?

Silvia Miramontes: I think that's one of the advantages that I have in my position that I work for different industries. I worked for early in my career in the, in immigration law. I was agent for immigration law that helped me understand that legality of everything. But I have to say that when I work in the behavioral health care it helped me not only, not only validated what I thought about emotional intelligence, but it definitely.

And this is why I said earlier that. The learning never stops, right? Whether it's a micro learning or going to a new certification, whatever that may be, but working for that behavioral for almost 10 years in behavioral health, that was for me, was eye opener for 10 years. I understood that we have to understand the human brain is not just the emotional, it's a human brain, behaviors.

Trades Patterns in order to understand who you work for. Because again you have to be able to adapt to the people that you're leading. Cause even if you have a great team, not everyone is going to work the same way.

They stay in that sector and progress through there. With almost 10 years in that space, why did you make the decision to go into a completely different industry?

Silvia Miramontes: Definitely was not looking for it. It was one of those opportunities that someone reach out. And for me, I'm super passionate about developing whether it's a practice, a policy, an entire department. I'm passionate about that. The team that I have built back where I was at the behavioral health nonprofit was in a space where Okay.

They were not going to suffer with my departure in a sense, right? Because that's my goal to always make sure that people are able to do their job, even if I'm there or not. So when I heard about this opportunity, their culture was suffering and they were looking for someone who can help them in a way, understand the whys.

Dr. Jim: That makes a lot of sense. And that actually brings me to the next thing that I'm wondering you're almost at three years in your current role, what are the big moonshot goals or initiatives that you have on your radar that you want to knock out?

Silvia Miramontes: Actually, it keeps elevating our culture. And something that we have to be very mindful is you have a good culture and sometimes you don't want to rock the boat, but in order to evolve, you do have to dig deeper. You have an iceberg. Your mission, your core values are under the iceberg, .

But because we're making so many changes, some people may say, you know what? No, I don't feel that way. Even though you pay me more, I don't feel. So it's understanding that behavior to say, okay, if we, in a way, stabilize salaries, positions, job description, what's next? What do I need to work on in order for my culture?

to evolve and take us to the next level.

Dr. Jim: So you mentioned something that, that caught my attention and that was you have a lot of changes that are happening within the organization. And oftentimes what I've seen is in organizations that are going through a lot of change. The pace of change or the meaning behind the change falls apart at the manager level and at the individual contributor level, because they're not connecting the dots on why is this happening in the first place, tell us a little bit about how you've put systems or processes in place to.

Silvia Miramontes: It's interesting because we actually going through that. There's something called the J curve, right? And when you make so many changes, you hit the bottom right of the curve. And a lot of people, a lot of executives, not just here's anywhere you go. may feel that's a bad place to be, including team members and managers, .

So if we're in that space, that means we're never getting out. That means that we won't be able to succeed. But on the contrary, I invite people to see it as as an opportunity. To resolve something that we have that space in the jury court is an opportunity. So then you tell me, and this is the conversations that we're having with our team members with our managers, and we're actually going to go through a process of training next year for the one about change.

The responsibility as a manager that we have. It's even if we are in a way uncomfortable or uneasy, it's okay. How am I relaying the message in my transmitting that anxiety to my employees or am I saying, Hey guys, I'm being honest with you. This is what I think, but I also believe and see where we're going.

And this is the why explain that, that why we're going to go there and saying to people, Hey, it's okay to feel this way. As long as we're doing something to feel better about it tomorrow.

So it's really good that you've embedded that communication culture in place. In the beginning of the conversation, I talked about. needing to be hands on if you want to have culture change. And we've already hinted at some of the things that you're doing in terms of being hands on, how does that aspect of being hands on to drive culture change?

How is that informed by that game changing realization that you had that really helped you build high performance teams?

Sharing that you may feel that way, too. But again, going back to the, but this is the why we're doing it, . That is what's gonna, it has help. And like I said, we're still going through the motions right now. And it will be there in a space where we're all gonna feel comfortable having those uncomfortable conversations.

But it's showing and leading by doing it yourself, too. I go to the branches, I talk to employees, with my team. I, let's say someone is out one day, I'll jump in and do a job description. Because I can do it because I need to show that's important because it is important.

Silvia Miramontes: One of the first things I always say is it's okay to say I don't know. It's really okay. It doesn't make you less of a manager, less of a leader. On the contrary, it shows that you are a person like anyone else, . In the company. However, what I do emphasize is you know what? I don't know.

Why don't we look at it together? Or I don't know, but let me find out. Or guess what? You know what? Actually, this person from this department has experience. Let's talk to the person and find out. It's okay to say no, but it's the parties. Okay. Why am I doing? I don't know. But how am I going to find out?

No, it's something that I learned through the years, and I started looking into it myself. Okay, what is this? Do I like it? Do I not like it? So it's a lot of investing that you do, but you also have to get your employer to help you. And there's so many different resources that you can do or obtain, even if you don't have the money, per se, the budget, there's a lot of free resources.

I like the the emphasis that you put on on the fact that it's okay to say that you don't know. I also like the fact that you called out the ability to bring in other people into the conversation that might give a fuller picture.

Silvia Miramontes: Psychological safety, one, first and foremost, psychological safety. It's about never trying to do something that you don't know how to do, because that usually gets you in more trouble, or some type of predicament. Our job for those new leaders, and even current leaders, is creating that environment where they feel that it's okay to make mistakes by owning them, .

You own the mistake. Accepting the feedback, . Always give the why, always as to what you have in that conversation, but then investing the time and resources. One of the things that we do, and we started doing recently, is having orientations for newly promoted managers, whether you have experience or not, we trainings.

Dr. Jim: So there's something that I want I'd like you to expand. And you mentioned you have to create an environment that has psychological safety. You have to create an environment where there's space to make mistakes. And there's space for people to own the role. So those are all great. What are the things that we need to do practically as leaders to make that happen?

Silvia Miramontes: Putting aside things like safety, and violence, we put those aside, . Let's talk about just your day to day. First and foremost, understanding the why the mistake happened, . Why the action? Why is it? Because it was a lack of knowledge. Is it because I don't know, fault play, whatever that may be.

You need to understand the why it didn't happen. Honesty, believe it or not. Honesty during those conversations, very respectful honesty. It's what we practice because if I try to soften it up, if I try to say things in a way that I'm not going to hurt someone's feelings again, always respectfully is you want to miss the point, .

And you'll see that once you open that door. People will start coming naturally to you and even being saying to you the things that you're not maybe even aware of. Another thing that we practice a lot here is the SBI module. And that's, you, it's a feedback module where you talk about, okay, what happened, the behavior, how That affected you, and if you train your team members, your employees on this module, this psychological safety becomes easier as you progress.

As you practice this, it becomes easier to create that space.

Dr. Jim: I think we've done a good job of laying the foundation of creating an environment where you're creating high communication, you're creating psychological safety.

Silvia Miramontes: it's important to ask questions, whether you think that's going to be, whether you think you're going to get an answer that is going to create more work for you, you have to ask the questions, whether you do it in an environment, for example, a survey, or whether you do a focus group. One on ones during an all team meeting, you have to ask the questions.

Yes, sometimes we get answers that we don't necessarily want, or they're not going to be as positive, but you need to one, ask the questions to you really, truly need to be invested in the process, meaning what type of leader are you? One, what type of leaders you want to create to any, and I don't, when I say leaders, I don't just talk about a manager, a VP, a director, we all.

We may have favorite styles, . Like mine is servant leadership, adaptive leadership, but we have to be able to understand them all. And then as you get the answers, do something about it. Because you get you ask questions and you don't do anything, then your culture is never going to improve. You're going to be stuck in there.

I will say that start from the beginning. Look at your job descriptions. Are they clear? Believe it or not, that can create your culture too,. Look at policy and procedures. Do they make sense? Because that's the foundation of everything. Because if you think about it. You don't have policy and procedures up to date or job descriptions up to date.

Once you have them and identify the resources that you have. Build them up. What type of resources do I need to train my managers? What type of resources or tools do I have to train my entry level positions? Again, culture is something that you don't work in it in one year and it's over. It's every single year, every time.

It's ongoing. But the beautiful thing about it is, I see it as a building. You're constructing a building, . The first thing is the layer is your foundation. Then is your first floor, which is your what? What type of trainings do you have? Do you have the right people? Then your second floor, .

Am I promoting or not? Do I have a DEI program? So on and so forth. That's how you should see culture. Sometimes it takes you years, but guess what? At least you already mastered the foundation. The first or the second floor.

You mentioned job descriptions. You mentioned position descriptions or roles and responsibilities and how those are defined. None of that is particularly sexy, but if it's unclear across the organization on what each person is supposed to do, and that's not communicated clearly, you're going to you're setting yourself up for poor foundation to build from.

Silvia Miramontes: One, ask questions, whether you are nervous about the answers, ask questions. But if you ask the question, be ready to act on it. And if you can't be honest and transparent of what you can and cannot do, and if you cannot do it, try to find ways. Resolve it. If not, again, go back, be honest and transparent.

That's one. Two, ask yourself, am I passionate? Do I love this? Am I happy doing this? Because if you are, it's going to be reflective, . And three, it's okay, regardless of the level you are, to go back and do some of those tasks that you used to do years and years ago. Because it will remind you what your team member is going through, the obstacles, the challenges, but it will also remind you Why you love what you're doing so much

Dr. Jim: Great stuff. Great stuff, Sylvia. If people want to continue the conversation, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

Dr. Jim: Awesome stuff. I appreciate you hanging out with us. When I think about this conversation that we've had, there's a couple of themes that that I want to call attention to. One, I think when we're talking about cultural transformations, oftentimes when we hear about those sort of things, we think these are these grand gestures that you have to do these big things that you have to accomplish in order to make that happen.

And I think it's important to point out that. These things all start small. So if you want to get from where you are to some better place down the road, get into the details of what needs to change and what are the ordinary things that you can easily lift to get some quick wins. I think that's an important piece of of the conversation that I want to highlight.

And when we're talking about the J curve, a lot of people might not be seeing process progress at the pace that they want, and they may get discouraged. So this is where a leader needs to step up and really be tight on how they communicate. And the vision for where they're going. So if you're trying to make these transformational changes and your communication is not as consistent as it should be, your vision for what that better world look like, looks isn't there, you're going to have a lot of problems in executing this well.

So pay attention to those things. That's what stood out to me in the conversation. So I appreciate you sharing that with us. For those of you who have listened to the conversation, let us know what you thought of it and leave us a review.

Tune in next time where we'll have another great leader joining us and sharing with us the game changing insights that they had that helped them build a high performing team.