Summary:

In this enlightening episode of the HR Impact show, Dr. Jim sits down with Shelia Gray to unravel the secrets behind Productive Conversation and its effects on building elite teams. As an experienced professional who has navigated the rapidly evolving landscape of Talent Acquisition, Shelia discusses her passion for the field and the challenges she has tackled in her illustrious career. From the early days of staffing to embracing global talent markets, Shelia shares her journey and the insights gained along the way.

Shelia impresses upon listeners the lessons learned from leading global teams and the importance of trust-building in high-performance cultures. Delving into different aspects of the employer-employee relationship, she compares the European emphasis on employee retention with the US. focus on maximizing shareholder value. This episode is rich with real-life examples and practical advice for leaders at all levels, especially highlighting the importance of authenticity and real-time feedback in the development of teams.

Key Takeaways:

Building elite teams requires an emphasis on Productive Conversation, with a focus on trust and active communication.

Employers' approaches to retention and restructuring vary globally, impacting employee loyalty and company culture.

Real-time and on-time feedback from leaders is critical for employee development and avoiding bias.

Authentic leadership is key for successful team dynamics, requiring leaders to be transparent, empathetic, and real.

Confrontation in the workplace, when managed well, can lead to positive outcomes and foster a culture of support and resilience.

Chapters:

0:02:41 The importance of understanding the candidate market and employee value proposition

0:06:39 Disconnect between some leaders' desire to bring everyone back on-site and employees' preferences

0:09:00 The illusion of loyalty from companies and the reality of business decisions

0:12:10 Importance of the distinction between US and European lens on employer-employee contract

0:14:41 Offering alternative positions or training during restructuring in the US

0:17:27 Using dysfunctions of a team and communication to build teams

0:21:20 Example of team supporting a member on sick leave

0:24:21 The need for authentic leadership and managing for the situation at hand

0:27:14 The importance of giving real-time feedback and avoiding surprises in performance reviews

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

Connect with CT: linkedin.com/in/cheetung

Connect with Shelia Gray: linkedin.com/in/sheliadgray

Music Credit: winning elevation - Hot_Dope



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Figure that out than someone who has built elite global talent acquisition teams in industries as different as manufacturing and technology. We have Shalia Gray joining us today and let me give you a little bit of background on her story. She's got a well established TA leadership career at some of the best known global brands.

She's currently the VP of talent acquisition in Generac. And prior to that, she's led transformative talent acquisition initiatives in global tech and manufacturing organizations. She's a charter member of the Association of Talent Management Professionals and a lifetime member. Of the National Association of African Americans in human resources.

Shelia Gray: Thank you. Thank you for that. Great. Welcome.

Dr. Jim: Happy to have you on here and I crammed in as much as I could in the bio in that intro, but I know that there's more to your story than just that. So the first order of business is for you to fill the listeners in on some of the stuff that we left out that you feel is going to be important for them to know about you and also will inform the conversation that we're going to have.

Shelia Gray: I guess what I would say about me is that I have a passion for TA. I've been in a long time. I started off when it was staffing and followed it through recruiting till it matured into talent acquisition. I love it because it moves at the speed of the market. So I've seen it go from job fairs and ads in newspapers to to scanning for resumes, to software as a service, to where we are now.

Now has come artificial intelligence. It's so many different things there. So to know anything about me is I can talk forever about TA and the. Things that are changing in the market and so I love this space.

Dr. Jim: I'm curious how the time that you spent. In staffing and recruiting, how that prepared you for your overall career .

And early on, I made the analogy between the recruiting world and the sales world. Is that we're both marketeers. We're both marketeers. And in both worlds we have to understand what we're marketing. We have to understand the story that we're telling, and we have to find a way to present it really well.

And so when I went inside and started to work inside of corporations, the first thing I had to understand was what is the value that we offer? What's the story we need to tell and what do we need to do to attract people into the organization? And what do we need to do to listen to the candidate market?

And I did that early on before it became candidate experience. And I did it early on before it became employment branding, which is what it is now. It's understanding what your brand is. I,

Dr. Jim: When you look at that experience, how is that even more critical in today's employment landscape than it was maybe even back then.

And then I saw in the mid eighties, when we did our first set of layoffs for mid management and companies like IBM and digital equipment corporation, I'm going back old names now. And, we started to change the landscape and change that contract with employees. Employees viewed their employment a lot different in terms of job security.

When COVID happened, we were able to drop ship laptops within 24 hours, people were able to work at home, productivity didn't stop and we were able to find a way to adjust. That showed our employers that [00:05:00] we are resilient and we can get work done. While we were at home, employees really started to think about the things that mattered to them, their home space, how they worked, their families, the amount of time away.

They also looked at how. Companies valued their commitment to the organization, which was working through a lot of the challenges that were placed upon them. I think when we came out of covid the employees ask of the employer value proposition changed and it won't go back. I think candidates now asking for remote work.

They're evaluating our benefit structure much more with a fine tune code. Do they ever did before? Because they understand what their benefits mean. They think about that time off and how work gets accomplished. They're also asking questions about, development at the organizations. And I think that they are also viewing organizations differently.

So I think that the workforce changed and I don't think it'll go back.

Dr. Jim: It's interesting to hear you mention that you don't believe that the workforce is going to go back to the way it was pre pandemic. And I agree with you. What makes that position interesting is that you see this broad cross section of leaders. That are adamant that we're going to flip a switch and bring everybody back on site.

And, there's not going to be any more remote work and any of that sort of stuff. It seems obvious why that would be a mistake, but I'd be curious to get your lens on it. Especially from an employer branding perspective and how that's. Potentially disconnected from what you just mentioned what employees care about now that they've navigated successfully a pandemic.

I will tell you, I found that I had many more meaningful conversations and COVID than I did outside of COVID because when I booked time with someone doing COVID, I had their undivided attention. Before COVID, there were meetings with other people, there were distractions going on, and I felt I had more one on one time.

The issue right now when they talk about coding is AI going to replace coders, right? Or, in the recruiting world AI, the biggest area of AI is assessments that AI can do assessments. In the back of my mind, I've always wondered, if companies have been plotting our replacements, if we don't fall in line.

I just wondered that in the back of my mind.

Dr. Jim: I don't think that's a conspiracy theory because if you look at the state of the world of work today, and you tie it back to how employers treat employees in broad terms, it's all rooted in. The Jack Welch mentality of what is the function of business and the function of business is to maximize shareholder value and that's the only thing businesses are around for and every year you have to whack like the bottom 10, 15 percent of your employee population, regardless of how long they've been there, regardless of how historically good that they've been.

Shelia Gray: But you forget that's what business is there for, but there's a whole part of the business that, that creates the Wizard of Oz experience behind the curtain. Which has employees believing because we give you free food, because we give you stock options or RSUs, because we pick you up for parking and all of those other things, that there's some loyalty that we're building with you.

And so employees have that belief. That's why it was really hard when the doc, when a lot of the software companies had never done layoffs last year, this year did layoffs. Those people took it very hard, not because they were being laid off because they had some very generous packages. But their covenant was broken because they didn't believe that would be a part of their culture.

I hear what you're saying. It is very true. I always tell people businesses will always do what's in the best interest of the business. But we give the illusion that you're in the best interest of the business. And at the end of the day, you're not always.

Because think about it, you could drop dead tomorrow and they're going

Shelia Gray: We'll have a

Dr. Jim: description. Yeah,

you'll have a 10.

Shelia Gray: that they'll call me. They'll call me first thing in the morning. Ask for a temp. But see there's that parent child relationship. And remember when I said, I started off in agencies in the beginning. I also work with people who got laid off and I never remember counseling.

I remember counseling people who'd worked for years at IBM. And they couldn't get move on to look for another job because they were still hurt by all the time and effort they put in and the fact that they felt that the company betrayed them. And I said, there was not a betrayal there. The organization changed its model, went from selling hardware to a different model.

Dr. Jim: Now, that's a good point. I'm a gen X or so this is new thinking for me, but it's not new thinking for millennials or Gen Z but 1 of the conversations that I have with a lot of people is you need to be compartmentalizing how you allocate your resources and time spent across things.

You certainly should be putting in. What you need to put in to do your job well, but you should also be cultivating those things around you from a skill set perspective that can give you a position to create multiple revenue streams.

So they've been trying to keep their contract with their employees around loyalty Where I think we've been eroding ours over time.

Dr. Jim: It's interesting that you mentioned the difference between sort of the European lens on the employer employee. Contract and the American lens between employer employee contract, you mentioned the emphasis on development and retention in the European context and how that's not necessarily showing up as much in the U.

S. context, share with us a little bit more about why that distinction is important and what implications that has for the business.

Shelia Gray: I think, in the U. S. We used to have a system that was really built on people working till retirement age. That's why we had the pension plans and all those things. And those things went away. And we started making it our responsibility with 4 1 K to invest in our retirement, all those things.

It's not about making it to the next job. It's about keeping your job or or the effort you've put into the job. So there's much, there's a very different attitude. I can't remember which country I'm going to say it was China where I was doing a layoff one time.

And when I went to do the layoff and I was going through the country rules one of the country things was the person could decline the layoff or declined their job go away. And I was like, They can make that decision. It was like, yes, they can make the decision that their job doesn't, you can restructure them, you can find another way, but they can decline that their job not go away.

Dr. Jim: I'm thinking about what you just said, that would be such a powerful impact in the U. S. context, where if you had some restructuring that happened, restructuring in the U. S. context typically means a whole bunch of people are going to get whacked. But if you actually look at it, the way that you described it, what if employees were given the option of, hey, are there other positions that I might be.

Suited for, or can I get trained to occupy a different role in a different division and still maintain employment? Look at the trends that are going on in the U. S. employee landscape, it's about upskill reskill. It's about building a succession plan. It's talking about continuing education.

Shelia Gray: One company I saw did that when I worked in Phoenix Intel did that Intel allowed people that were doing tuition reimbursement or whatever to continue their degrees, even though they got let go, they continued paying for and all of that. But in that vein, the other thing I was going to say that in addition to that.

That separation piece. I always thought was interested in the European market is when people leave jobs, this is European and some of the Asian markets too, because I know India does this. There's this concept of the notice period. When we give notice here, it is a courtesy to do two weeks.

s. Because you think about it. You're losing out on a new salary a new opportunity we would think could they possibly be stealing intellectual property? There's a trust factor there and I know in india when I had that in india I could buy out Their notice period, in Europe, many countries, I couldn't, but I could buy out the notice period.

But can you imagine if we told someone here you have a new job, but would you have to stay three months, the morale, the thought of theft, the thought of them, being mean at us, there's no concept of that in Europe, no concept.

Dr. Jim: yeah, that's that's really interesting. So one of the things that that I mentioned when I began the show was that if you never crack the code for productive confrontation, you'll struggle in building elite teams. How does that tie together when you were building teams and how you had built a track record of building elite teams.

But there's two things that always stood out. One is speed of trust and two is the five dysfunctions of a team. So with the five dysfunctions of a team, it talks about the elements of what a what will prevent a team from functioning very well? And I start off with those elements, and I look at those with my team, and I try to address them and make sure those pieces are in place first.

And the greater good is to win, right? It's not about someone making the most baskets or someone making those rebounds or the most field. It's about the team winning. That's how you get incentivized is team winning. And so I start off with the dysfunctions of a team. I start off with the communication.

Then we start off about accountabilities, people understanding roles and responsibilities, and build from there. But I think if you start off with how to fail, you will succeed.

Dr. Jim: I'd like you to expand on something that you mentioned, which is the speed of trust and how that's related to building a high communication culture. And you said that you've learned. The most in your roles when you had global teams, tie that all together.

Shelia Gray: when it comes to speed of trust, I believe that you have to see each other. And what I mean by that is, I don't mean, I don't mean literally see each other, but you have to see each other for who you are. In dealing with global teams, there are cultural norms that exist in your culture.

And there are things about you as an individual that you're going to have to reveal to others in order for them to work successfully with you. And so if you think about the military, a formula of, forming, norming, storming, performing, you have to form first. So for me, that's the first piece is that we have to see each other.

And the first thing we all said to her is that we empathize that you are going to be going out on sick leave, and we want you to not have to think about anything while you're gone, but your health and to come back to us in one piece. That's what we care about. Now, how do we. Ensure that everything you do gets done so that when you come back, there's nothing that you feel like you have to get caught up on.

But that was the first time the team had ever done that. I joined the organization. The first time the team had ever done that and thought of themselves going across borders and boundaries, having a conversation pitching in. And offering to help as opposed to someone doing that. After that, it broke the groundwork for someone raising their hand when they needed help.

Dr. Jim: That's a really great example. And if I understand it correctly, you said that this was early on in your 10, 10 year there.

That sounds to me like there had to have been some infrastructurewhere everybody was comfortable saying stuff like that out loud. What was your line of sightinto what already was in place that allowed That person to be vulnerable? When you joined early in the team and that, that got everybody else to pitch in to make sure that person could focus on their recovery versus like how much work would be there when they got back, because I don't imagine that happening out of the blue.

That was their biggest concern. So my conversation with them was, how do we give you peace that won't occur? That was my conversation. How do we give you peace that won't occur? Because your focus should be your health, not your job.

Dr. Jim: so that right there actually, leads me to another question, so I think when we think about leadership, best practices, that's really where we all should be where we should be prioritizing the big picture and be people centric in terms of how we respond to things that we find out.

Shelia Gray: What I'm going to say that I didn't always do it. I've lost employees and when I've lost employees, I will always do. and exit myself to say, how did I show up to you and what could I have done differently? And I am your biggest cheerleader and your biggest advocate as you build your career outside of this company.

And I want you to know that I will always be there for your reference or whatever. Tell me what I could have done differently. And the people who are the honest with me have told me where I've missed it. And where I've missed it was not seeing or hearing or understanding something. Hearing, seeing, understanding, understanding the workloads, seeing them, missing some clues I should have been, and those things over time weigh on you, and you become better at it, is what I'm going to say.

You become better. If a child pulls on your pants. Enough, you're on the phone. You can do a lot of work. Children pull on your pants and you just ignore it. And then, something happens to the child, they fall, they have an accident, whatever.

Early on, I went through my My Myers Briggs and I was an F, but I'm going to tell you the longer I stayed in corporate America The more the F went away. So on all teams that I have I've got to hire an F I've got to have someone that's a feeler that you know has the heart of the people that brings it up on a regular basis And I always find someone on my team that's an F but I realized that those mistakes make me have to realize that I need to be Very conscious of nonverbal clues is as much as I'm verbal of clues that my teams give me.

I have no qualms about apologizing for mistakes for both my team to others, which allows people to know that they can always give feedback to my team and give feedback to me because if I mess up or my team messes up, we will apologize and get it right.

Is a people centric leadership approach. So if somebody is new into management and they want to be deliberate about being people centric, what are the things that they need to be doing so that they're not stuck behind spreadsheets and instead aligning themselves in a way where they can see those warning signs much earlier

Shelia Gray: I've been to a lot of classes and seen a lot of stuff. I would say that the methodology around situational leadership which is each situation is different. What I tell people always is that people that are black and white thinkers have a hard time. In HR, when they have a harder time in TA, because there's more, you're managing more of the gray spaces.

Those are the basics The reality is when the rubber meets the road, and that's when you are sitting before your people, when you're talking with your people, there are going to be company guidelines, company policies and all that, and then there's going to be the reality of managing your team. And there, they can be two different things.

So you're going to have to think about managing to the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. And what I found that when I'm managing with my people, I end up managing to the spirit of the law. And getting things done because I need to do what's best for my team to keep them engaged, motivated, developed

Dr. Jim: so Shalia, this has been a really great conversation. And I think when we're looking at the foundational things that we need to do. To build a type of productive confrontation, productive conversation cultures. I think we've set the stage here.

Shelia Gray: One of the things that I think around good leaders and people who can make a pivot is being authentic being authentic leaders. And there's many books on that too. But I'm going to say about being an authentic leader is seeing yourself as others see you.

And recognizing what you can change and recognizing what you can't change. And that's important. I know that there are certain things about me as a leader that I will work, continually work hard on. Throughout my whole career because it's important to me about how I show up with the teams that I'm with.

It doesn't mean that I'm inappropriate, if you ask me an opinion, I'm going to tell you what I'm thinking. I'm going to think about the audience as I phrase it, but I'm going to be honest with you in terms of my opinion.

I've also learned that works and that works with my employees, too. And I will say to them, I will always give you balanced feedback. I will never, ever give you just one type of feedback. If I am trying to develop you or I'm trying to help you, I will always give you on time, which is point in time.

I never wait to a performance review. It's real time feedback. And I'll always give you balanced feedback.

It can lend itself to so much bias in so many different ways, because you're not doing it frequently enough. And the other thing is that because you're only doing it once or twice a year. It becomes an administrative task versus a development task. If you're looking at it from a leadership perspective your job is to build other leaders.

Shelia Gray: One of my pet peeves is to have a manager who brings me to my annual performance review and has me do the whole write up and them have done nothing. And then. And then have the conversation when I meet with my team and I meet with my people. I have met with them all year long. And so I come excited about the performance discussion that we have at the end of the year.

Dr. Jim: I had to duck my head because I've been in many of those organizations where you as the employee fills out the review, fills out the narrative, and then you send it to your leader and they'll make some perfunctory comment

Shelia Gray: One sentence comment they agree, and I'm saying like, I spent the whole year doing the work, I spent the time doing the evaluation, least you could do is glowingly copy it from somewhere,

Dr. Jim: The big takeaway from this part of the conversation is if you're listening to this and you're that person that's having your reports, fill out the review and you're adding just one line to it. Don't do that. Don't be that person. Shalia, I think before we wind down what I'd like you to do is think about the conversation that we've had and pick out 2 or 3 critical points that the listeners need to pay attention to when they're trying to build this high communication and productive confrontation culture.

And I'm going to say that Some people do fail, but not all fail, and it's, and we need people that are good technicians and people that can be those good leaders with others because they themselves can model the behavior that's been passed down to them. That's the first thing. The second thing is, we talked a little bit about confrontational conversations.

Difficult conversations are part of what. This role has with it. And I always tell my team that many people don't like confrontation. I come from a family where confrontation is just Fun for us because we don't feel that confrontation has to be bad, has to be abusive and has to be negative.

But it's about understanding that confrontation is not something that you dread. It is something that can be rich. It is a part of what we do. And for our employees, is this how we confront. Problems, situations, and what I found is that for senior leaders, a lot of times, the ones that get to roles where they stall out is because no one confronted a behavior earlier, and they say to me, no one's ever told me that before.

And that's sad to me that they got to that level and did that. And then, thirdly, I'm going to say that global teams, I mentioned that I had global teams at so much richness to your life. They really do. And even, even as you go through things, they they add dimensions to you thinking about people in a very different way.

Shelia Gray: They could always email me. I have a work email, which is shalia. gray at generac. com. And I will absolutely respond to their emails. And I I always appreciate dialogues like this. I told you I could talk about TA. I talk about it with my with my Uber drivers. When I asked them, what do they do and why are they driving?

They like their jobs. So I could talk about this all day long. So feel free to reach out to me.

Dr. Jim: Thanks for hanging out with us. When I think about this conversation that we've had there's one major thing that kind of sticks out and it's all nested under this question of what sort of leader do you want to be? And there's a couple of different paths that you can take.

You can take the transactional route where leader is a position of authority, or you can take the transformational route where leaders responsibility is to develop their people. Now, depending on which route you take is going to have an impact on what you actually do. And you reference this early in the conversation.

And you have to meet people where they are and have meaningful conversations so that you're laying the groundwork for that trust. The example that you gave where the team came together to solve a problem where somebody was leaving due to a health issue, that doesn't happen just because you will it, it happens because people are seeing each other. are hearing each other and are present for each other. For those of you who have hung out with us and listened to this conversation. We appreciate you checking us out. Leave us a review.