Summary: Shannon Thomas, the CHRO at Enersys, discusses the importance of building a development culture and embracing failure within an organization. She emphasizes the need for leaders to take calculated chances on their employees and create an environment where failure is seen as a learning opportunity. Shannon also highlights the role of organizational anthropology in understanding and shaping company culture. She provides insights into how leaders can foster a development culture by recognizing and rewarding ability over experience, promoting transparency and candor, and aligning values with mission.

Key Takeaways:

Building a development culture requires leaders to take calculated chances on their employees and provide opportunities for growth.

Organizational anthropology can help leaders understand and shape company culture by observing and analyzing processes, relationships, and attitudes within the organization.

Recognizing and rewarding ability over experience is crucial in fostering a development culture.

Transparency and candor from leaders create a safe space for employees to share their shortcomings and receive feedback.

Aligning values with mission helps create a clear direction and purpose for the organization.

Chapters:

0:03:45 The importance of community and networking for Shannon

0:05:03 Shannon's focus on aligning HR with the company's strategy

0:07:21 Creating a culture that supports and advocates for failure

0:09:59 Clarity, alignment, and recognition as indicators of a supportive culture

0:11:42 Organizational anthropology is important for understanding and measuring culture.

0:14:49 Leaders should model transparency, candor, and a growth mindset.

0:17:06 Tie recognition and rewards to values and mission of the organization.

0:19:42 Leaders should provide opportunities and focus on ability mindset.

0:21:19 Take calculated chances on individuals and consider their potential.

0:23:35 Tools and processes for global collaboration and development

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She's going to guide us through that conversation. Let me give you a little bit of background on her story. She's currently the C H R O at Enersys And she's been in that role since May of 2023 prior to that role. She was the VP of HR, total rewards and HR operations at Chemours company. He has over 20 years of experience as an HR professional and progressively larger global manufacturing roles.

And I'm going to be really interested in that manufacturing background, because I think there's some interesting conversation to be. Had there from an educational perspective. She has an MBA in human resources management from University of Houston Clear Lake and has her bachelor's in human resources management from Marietta College.

Shannon, welcome to the show.

Dr. Jim: I'm glad that you are here. And I think before we dive into the bulk of the conversation, I'd like you to fill in some gaps here and share with us anything else that you feel is important for the listeners to connect with that wasn't included in your bio.

Shannon Thomas: I think part of being here is I've failed and learned a lot along the way, and I've been a really good student along the way and all those learnings. So I think that. Is why I'm uniquely positioned to start having some conversations about those learnings and sharing so that maybe other people don't step in as big of bear traps.

Maybe is what I have throughout my career as I've tried and failed and learned and carried

Dr. Jim: on. So I

Dr. Jim: like your emphasis on trying, failing, learning and then moving on from that. It's something that a lot of people. In the world of work are a little bit tentative about how did you build that tolerance for failure and have that learning and growth mindset?

So it's one of those things that I'm working on. But, throughout, throughout my life I've had to just figure things out. And that comes with making mistakes and learning that lesson of it's not the mistake you make. It's how you respond to the mistake and how you pick yourself back up and move on.

I've never been the best student, but I've always been one of the grittiest ones. And so having been recognized and rewarded for that early on in my life has reinforced it. And become a bit of my mantra, which, we're talking about development today.

Dr. Jim: I always get a smile when I have another feral Gen X or like me on the show. So it's going to be an interesting conversation. So I appreciate you sharing that.

So I want to build a little bit of texture about your current role and maybe some of your more recent roles. When you think about the accomplishment that you're most proud of, and that could be in your current role or the one that you had prior to that, what comes to mind?

Shannon Thomas: My answer to that has changed throughout my career and they're all great answers.

And some of those people's careers have surpassed mine and they did it, even quicker. This community and network that I've built in the relationships that I've created throughout my career, because those are now repaying me and ways that I never anticipated. And it can be as simple as when I have a job opening, people are reaching out to me for those opportunities, or even just people that know me that no people are reaching out to me for those opportunities.

And so there's some very kind of. Tactical ways that it's helping me, but also just to from making my heart grow a little bit bigger perspective. It's helping me out a lot, too, in terms of those relationships and seeing them now blossom and foster fruit.

How much of that influenced your intentionality around building a network and building a community.

Shannon Thomas: It's been hard for me to learn. I always tried. And even recently my hometown and my where I got my bachelor's degree, married to college was recognized and in a publication.

And I really did, immediately think about those were some of my first mentors and some of the first people that, that kind of. Brought me up and develop me where the professors I had at Marietta College. But it's just the little those little lessons along the way that you can trust and rely on people and they're gonna be your advocates and help you grow.

My needs met in terms of what I needed to be successful there

Dr. Jim: really solid stuff. When you think about the moon shots that you have on your radar in your current role, what are two big things?

That you're really targeting as big impact elements that you want to drive within within your role

Shannon Thomas: I'm really blessed. I work for a great company that has this really beautiful strategy. That's incredibly achievable laid out ahead of us. And I think that there's going to be this kind of 5 or 6 year story in terms of what the company has delivered on.

And I'm going to be able to articulate very specifically what the HR element of that's going to be. And so I have this really great vision right now in terms of what we can accomplish and how we're going to help the business strategy achieve their mission as well. And there just could not be anything more motivating and exciting for me at this point in my career. You see

companies that are just trying to do everything right. They're just trying to eat the elephant and they're always out there.

Dr. Jim: 1 of the things that often comes up is taking those big picture strategy items and then connecting the dots all the way down to the manager online level.

And that in and of itself sounds pretty simple, but that can be a pretty big undertaking. Your point about being succinct and clear, especially when it comes to big strategy items.

I think that's well taken because that's a that's something that's often missed and you mentioned it yourself. A lot of organizations try to eat the elephant and focus on 20 different things and you don't make much progress.

When you think about the role that you're in, what's the most fun aspect of the role that you're in that that makes it challenging and interesting for you?

And even if it doesn't, The little aha they have of it's okay. It's okay. You are still here. You're in my corner. I'm going to go do something else now and try it something else. And I'm only going to get better along the way. So seeing other people now have those growth moments, it's just. It really is the funnest part of my job.

Dr. Jim: It's interesting that the theme of getting comfortable with failure has come up a couple of times and we're pretty early on in the conversation, what are the things that you've noticed that has helped make that transition or make that mindset embed itself within the organization?

Shannon Thomas: That's just the values, the belief systems, the actions, the responses. It's just that natural kind of tribal response that you see in an organization. So it's what people see, right? So they see other people taking chances and they see the leaders, being there to develop them, coach them, making sure it's not just a gotcha.

Or it's the worst case scenario, some type of demotion. So it's what it's the terms of allowing people and that they're really not being a penalty for the failure. Now failing over and over again is a different story right now. We're talking about performance, but it's a, especially when you're coaching, you're developed into a space and you're given that big shot.

You have to be advocated for there. There's a culture too of allowing people opportunities. I know in my own career, I was coached and mentored many times about taking an HR kind of center of excellence role. Cause I'd always been an HR generalist. And that was really where my heart was. And there were certainly companies I worked at where I saw when people took those COE roles, they never came out.

Dr. Jim: I

would imagine a lot of what you said. For it to become successful, for it to be truly embedded as a cultural aspect within an organization, you have to bank on that clarity and succinctness and alignment with vision and be constantly talking about those things because that's how it shows up.

If you're disciplined about doing those things, you've probably seeded the environment with a lot of examples of people who have tried stuff. And maybe it hasn't turned out as exactly as it had intended, but you don't have this carnage behind you of people that have been demoted or later or removed and things like that.

Shannon Thomas: You can see it in companies values. You can also see it in what they reward and recognize. Are they only recognize the. The easy putts, or are they recognizing the big stretch opportunities that people have taken?

And are they even recognizing maybe some of that fail fast stuff? Are they recognizing the project that, didn't maybe give the rewards or the results that they were hoping for, but there was some other learning and just recognizing and appreciating the learning along the way. Are those conversations that are happening at the company as well with the other clues that you're in that culture?

Dr. Jim: 1 of the things that's interesting about the conversation that we've had so far is that it seems to be leading into what we open the show with. And that was this idea that if you want to build a really strong culture.

You need to think in a lot of ways, like an anthropologist and work through that. So how does that fit into the game changing realization that you had that really helped you build high performing teams?

And we would have these discussions about, help me understand why you're so proud of this degree and how you apply it. And he would talk a lot about, processes within an organization, or laterals within an organization, or the, whether it's, perceived, maybe just perceived relationships of how work it's done of how.

Projects get approved. He was just always sensing, feeling, scanning, observing the organization, and it was totally the anthropologist in him. Now, since then, you, I think there's more people talking about this. There's a doctor, Greg urban, a professor of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, for example, and he does some coursework on organizational anthropology.

I think a lot of companies actually have tried really hard to create some measurements of cultures, and you have engagement surveys, and you have elements that can give you clues, but it's this organizational anthropology gift or skill that will really get into. The nuts and bolts of what's going on in your culture.

Shannon Thomas: I've been at companies where I knew the culture wasn't going to serve me in a certain way. And I didn't just leave. I, I used it for the value that it had in other ways. And it's a little bit of the same here. You have to have a few or, maybe a majority of key leaders who are already embodying. This trait in order to make it something that you're going to recognize and reward because that's how you grow it right is the recognition reward aspect of it that you're having conversations about performance or conversation about succession plans. You're not just talking about the technical skills, but you're saying, hey, look, I, I've seen this leader observe something that was breaking down within their organization and quickly remedy it or, the leader who's always looking at how information's flowing from one work team to another and having conversations about how to fix it or give people access to information. It's recognizing those skills and you have to have a few key leaders. And I would say your HR team to this has to be a bit of the culture at the top in order for [00:14:00] you to embed the culture throughout your organization

Dr. Jim: There's a phrase that struck me as you were talking through your your explanation. And it's this concept of attitude reflects leadership. So if you want your team and your people to behave in a certain way you have to model what that looks like for it to become real. And the reason why it hit me. And I want to tie this back to our failure and development conversation. You said for anything to be impactful within an organization. There have to be a couple of people in positions of power and leadership and influence that embody what this looks like. So if we're building. A culture that is development oriented that embraces failure. What are the things that leaders need to do from a behavior's perspective that you feel is important for the listeners to know and understand and even put into play?

Shannon Thomas: The candor about your own shortcomings can be a, brilliant way that kind of authentic.

explain why this might be his bias and gave some of the history, but he's always quick to call out. Here's my view or my belief for, or what I'm thinking, but. Here's what might be underlying some of where I'm coming from. And to me, what he's sharing with me is his own kind of growth or the things that he's at least afraid are his blind spots.

And it opens the door for me to be candid with him about any kind of coaching or feedback I'd have in that space. Leaders who are also setting an example in terms of their own development and their own desire to develop and be better uh, that's really a great clue that's a leader that's going to, support the failing fast and then development culture.

Shannon Thomas: It's what

you recognize and reward too, right? It's, so who's getting promoted? Are the brilliant jerks getting promoted in your organization or are the leaders who are working on their development trying to be better who are very coachable and take feedback? Is that who you're promoting?

And then also to what are you rewarding? Are your rewards also tied to your values within your organization? And in terms of performance, are you talking about these other things too? And how coachable and how development minded someone is not just what they, Provide in terms of results.

How are they working with other people? How are they coaching others, making sure that someone is thinking about the succession plan and developing under underneath them to if they're not doing that, I would argue that they're not ready to be promoted. They should be developing others along the way.

Dr. Jim: I like the closed loop that you brought in where you're having these conversations and as much as possible, tying it back to mission and values.

I think that's an important piece that a lot of leaders might. Forget about in the trenches when when things get busy, if you want clarity about what to reward, how to reward, you should be.

Intentional about tying it back to values and mission as a way forward.

Shannon Thomas: These cultures aren't operating without a North star, right? You're right there. It's still grounded and purpose and the mission and values. And there is still a North star in these organizations. But yeah, everything behind it is pushing in that direction as well.

Dr. Jim: We're talking about building cultures that are really development oriented.

Shannon Thomas: This is something that everybody talks about and wants to do and it's very hard to do and I think this is what you're saying. It's that whole ability over experience piece. And how do you measure ability versus experience? Everyone is much more comfortable with measuring experience to your point. They're much more comfortable. Here are the list of things you need to go do to be ready for this next role and checking the box and making sure you've done all those things. It's very easy. It's very black and white measuring ability.

Not that experience is important. But it doesn't have anything to do with necessarily ability, those are the two different pieces.

Dr. Jim: I like how you split out Those two criteria and I think it ties back to something that you mentioned earlier Is that it's not enough for leaders to say here's a stretch opportunity for you to go figure it out by taking that Ability mindset, or at least that focus on ability, it gives you the space to collaboratively build a plan to overcome or fill those gaps while still getting the opportunity to advancing in, the role.

Shannon Thomas: And measuring ability can be really simple too. So I want to give an example to add some kind of kind of concrete view to this. I remember, and this is a very simple example. I was working with a leader on the interview process, and I was actually trying to help the leader learn how to measure ability over.

They were just like, oh, okay. Let me find a place to meet blah, blah, blah. It occurred to me throughout the conversation that this person was located at that time in the central time zone, and we were the eastern time zone. And so I began to realize we just caught them off guard. We called them an hour ahead.

There was a mix up with the scheduling and they weren't quite expecting our call. So I brought that up to the candidate afterwards. He was like, yeah, but no big deal. I just, I found a room and got into a private place and took the phone call. And he's still interviewed very well. And my point that was, had he taken the call when he was expecting our call, he probably would have had his notes in front of him, his resume in front of him, and he would have been completely prepared.

And we ended up actually hiring that candidate. I'm not sure. Otherwise that they would have made it through the phone screen because they weren't checking all the boxes for the leader.

Dr. Jim: What I gather out of that example, and it's a great relevant example is that.

Even in less specific instances you're never gonna have everything figured out and you're never gonna have all the boxes checked. So when in doubt your career has been shaped by people that took chances on you.

Those are calculated chances. So you have to really be thinking about, okay, in this moment with this person, is this a calculated chance that I can take? To drive them forward, or is the risk way too heavy to make that sort of decision. That's probably a question that people should have in their back pocket to think about.

Start the process of building that development culture, that failure tolerance. How do they do that? What are the things that you would recommend they do from a people process and technology perspective that they should have on their radar when they start their journey of transforming their culture into this model?

Shannon Thomas: So you think there's kind of leadership and HR support here and you think you've got that foundation that you can build on and you want to grow it. There are. Systems, tools and processes that will support the development culture. So a career development framework starting with the skills ontology to job profiles and career maps, having that framework within your organization will be helpful tools for global collaboration.

Mentor programs, coaching programs, some type of access to learning. For those with Workday, it might be Udemy. We have an internal academy at Intersys that we're very proud of, but there is access to all types of topics in terms of learning. And leadership programs. There's definitely a way to build an infrastructure around this to provide leaders who are interested, the tools that they need to help with their team and help with their own development in terms of how they're going to be able to create those subcultures within their work group.

Dr. Jim: Shannon great conversation, great breakdown on what people should have on their radar. If they want to continue the conversation, what's the best way for them to find you?

Shannon Thomas: I would say start

with LinkedIn. I'm pretty sure I have a personal email out there.

Dr. Jim: Shannon. Thanks for hanging out with us. When I think about this conversation that we've had, there's a handful of things that stood out to me that I think is important to call out. One of the things that you mentioned early on that I think is important for a lot of leaders to keep in mind is don't be afraid to take chances on people.

And be calculated about taking chances on people because it's that opportunity, that stretch that's going to often propel them to the next level in their career. So you can't let fear dictate those sort of decisions. Be smart about it, but don't be afraid of taking those chances.

The other thing that was pretty interesting is that if you want to build a development culture. You can't just wish and hope for it to happen. You have to have that North star defined. You have to align it with your mission and values. But the other thing is from a tactical perspective, when you're giving somebody a stretch opportunity, when you're giving them a development opportunity, you can't.

The 3rd thing that came out that stood out to me was your emphasis. On having a couple people in positions of power in the organization, that's going to model what good looks like what this culture needs to look like.

And that starts with those leaders being able to have candor and also transparency in. Recognizing their own potential gaps or blind spots that they talk about out loud so that everybody else that's on their downline also has the comfort of speaking those things out in the open. So those are really important things that I felt that I gathered from this conversation, and I appreciate that you sharing that with us.