In this episode, Dr. Jim interviews Tami Rosen, Chief People Officer at Pagaya Technologies, about getting people ready to lead. Tami shares her best practices for leadership readiness, emphasizing the importance of asking questions and empowering team collaboration. She also discusses the balance between moving fast in a startup culture while still taking the time to think before acting.
Key Takeaways:
Emphasize the transition from focusing on problems to finding possibilities and driving change with a 'can do' attitude.
New leaders and contributors should be taught to harness the strength of their team through inquiry rather than providing immediate solutions.
Leaders cultivate better outcomes by encouraging input from team members, fostering a collaborative culture.
While fast-paced environments value speed, it's equally crucial to adopt thoughtful frameworks that allow for sustainable acceleration.
Chapters:
00:00 Show Intro
00:32 Meet Tammi Rosen: A Journey in People Leadership
01:56 Choosing Pagaya: A Mission-Driven Decision
02:57 Leadership Readiness: Best Practices Revealed
05:31 The Startup Dilemma: Speed vs. Thoughtfulness
06:36 Wrapping Up: Contact Info and Final Thoughts
Music Credit: Shake it Up - Fesliyanstudios.com - David Renda
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Transcripts
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Welcome to the show.
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[00:00:21] Dr. Jim: So super excited to have you on and we're going to be sprinting to through this conversation and sharing some of your best practices when it comes to getting your people ready to lead. But before we get into that, I'd like you to share a little bit about your story so that the listeners can get to know you and the work that you're doing a little bit better and give us some perspective on the conversation that we're going to have.
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And I've worked across Fortune 100s. Startups in a variety of industries, whether it's been sass, it's been self driving, it's been finance, tech, FinTech consumer Internet and all across these, there are companies like Goldman Sachs and Apple and Atlassian and Luminar Technologies, and I see the HR area not as a function.
I see it's at the heart of transformation, innovation. And honestly, my mission has been. To create cultures where learning's at the center and that people is the greatest product. And I've been fortunate to lead a lot of different campaigns and champion things that involve inclusivity. And fundamentally redefine how businesses view teams and leadership.
And it's been a thrilling journey to help shape workplaces and craft cultures that embrace change. And also redefine how collaboration and leadership work.
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[00:02:07] Tami Rosen: It's a wonderful question because actually I was retiring before I was going to join Pagaya. And it took me six months to say yes to the CEO to come join. And when I did join, I joined as an advisor and that lasted only two weeks. And the reason was once I saw what Pagaya was doing and I saw that what we were enabling was more people to get loans that were getting turned down every day, I was sucked into the mission and realized we had to build a company and a culture to really make sure that we can achieve that ambitious goal.
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So that's really great stuff that you're doing. So let's get into the main part of the [00:03:00] conversation. We know that when we're talking about people, leadership and leadership in general, one of the biggest challenges that we face is getting people into the leadership ranks. But more importantly, getting them up and running and ready to lead.
So what I'd like for you to do is share with us one or two of your best practices when it comes to leadership readiness. That can be applied to the individual contributor level or the new manager level .
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So we are groomed as individual contributors to find why something won't work. We're not groomed to find the possibilities and the options. And as you get into leadership, you have to start thinking about the possibilities, the options, and the optionality you need. And you need to be thinking not why it can't happen, but why it should happen.
ions. They say, I don't have [:
So I think the most thing really is trying to make sure that people understand how to solve problems, that there are tons of options to them, and it's not what you can't do, but what you can do.
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My question to you is this. How do you create that habit where a new leader or even a high potential individual contributor can get in the habit of asking the questions necessary to uncover the real problem versus immediately moving into solutioning mode?
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That's a misconception. And [00:05:00] why that's a misconception is you alone can't solve everything. And the power of your team will be greater. So if you teach within your team how to ask the right questions and not to drive quickly into solution mode, you'll see that better possibilities will happen in your outcomes and you'll have more collaboration in your teams and more people speaking out about all the issues that might happen and all the things that should happen.
And so I think it's really about training people not to believe that they own the solution and the decision, but that they have to use the power of the team. And that starts with questions, not answers.
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You're in a startup organization. Run fast and break things. So how do you find that common ground between what we're talking about And the DNA of a startup culture where it's almost to your advantage to break as much stuff as possible.
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And I'd say to a lot of people, sometimes you need to go slow or a little slower to go faster later, which doesn't mean you're not going slow.
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There is, I hate process, but there are certain frameworks and infrastructure that you need to put into place that allow you to run fast. So I think that piece of what you just said can't be ignored. So really appreciate you sharing that. Thanks for hanging out with us.
Tammy. If people want to continue the conversation, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?
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[00:06:48] Dr. Jim: I appreciate you hanging out with us at transform. So for those of you who have been listening to this conversation, hopefully you found the conversation valuable.
probably the most impactful [:
It's fine to run fast and break things, but if you're just doing it willy nilly, you'll never make progress. So I think that's a really important piece of the conversation that I appreciate that you shared with us. For those of you who have been listening, thanks for hanging out. If you liked the conversation, leave us a review.
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