3Sixty Insights HRTechChat · 2025-12-12 · 48 min
Jeff Smith brings a human factors psychology background to his conversation with Nicole Roberts about the capacity crisis facing HR teams and managers navigating AI transformation. Smith articulates the compounding pressures on HR - from traditional responsibilities like payroll and benefits to newer demands around AI governance, DEI, and career development - while managers simultaneously face expectations to be player-coaches with minimal training investment. Rather than viewing AI as a replacement threat, Smith frames it as an enabler when embedded thoughtfully into existing workflows. At 15Five, this manifests through tools like Kona Coach and Kona Meeting Assistant, which capture continuous feedback from one-on-ones to populate performance reviews, reducing the "review hell" cycle. Smith's core argument: performance management becomes effortless not through software alone, but by establishing explicit manager expectations (typically 5-7 key behaviors), building practice rhythms into daily work, and using technology to surface real-time signals about how managers are showing up. This resonates for HR leaders wrestling with tool sprawl and the question of whether to invest in manager capability or replace roles with AI alternatives.
Instead of conducting reviews from scratch, capture continuous feedback through regular one-on-one meetings using tools like Kona Coach, which surfaces wins, feedback, and growth areas in real time so managers have hours of conversation data to reference when writing reviews, rather than relying on memory or scattered notes.
Write down 5-7 explicit core behaviors expected of managers (e.g., setting goals, giving recognition, providing feedback, career path conversations), communicate these to both managers and individual contributors, and measure whether managers are actually practicing them daily - not a list of 200 things that overwhelms people.
Managers often fail to have proactive career path conversations because they're consumed by day-to-day work; high performers need explicit conversations about their growth and development, which requires scheduled time separate from status updates and one-on-ones.
These AI tools listen to one-on-one meetings and provide feedback to managers on whether they demonstrated expected behaviors like setting clear goals, giving recognition, and providing developmental feedback, turning each meeting into a coaching moment rather than a separate training exercise.
Management requires discrete skills like empathy and goal-setting, but these must be practiced daily with intentional rhythm - like fitness or mental health - rather than acquired once in a training session; managers need ongoing feedback on their practice to improve.
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
In this episode of #HRTechChat, Nicole Roberts sits down with Jeff Smith, COO of 15Five, to unpack what it really takes to build better managers in an era of AI, constant change, and overflowing HR to-do lists. A psychologist by training with deep R&D and product experience, Jeff brings a rare lens on how organizations can redesign systems, expectations, and technology to truly support people leaders - not just measure them. They dig into the mounting pressure on HR and managers, the shift from “HR owns all people issues” to shared accountability, and why management has to be treated as a daily practice, not a one-time promotion. Jeff explains how tools like 15Five and Kona AI can turn everyday one-on-ones into continuous performance data, simplify review cycles, and give leaders real-time coaching - while still honoring privacy, governance, and the realities of legal and IT risk. Along the way, they explore common failure modes: promoting star ICs into roles they aren’t equipped for, burying managers in 20-question reviews, and ignoring the signals that your best people no longer want to step into leadership.
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
Speaker A: Hi, everyone, and welcome back to HR Tech Chat from 360 Insights. I'm your host, Nicole Roberts. Today I'm joined by someone I've really enjoyed talking with in prep for this episode, Jeff Smith from 15Five. Jeff brings a fascinating mix of product R and D and people leadership experience. And he's at the center of some big conversations happening right now around performance, AI and manager capability. Jeff, thanks so much for being here.
Speaker B: Thank you so much, Nicole, for having me. I'm looking forward to this conversation.
Speaker A: Likewise. So for those who don't know you, can you briefly share your background and how your R and D experience shapes how you think about the future of people leadership and manager enablement?
Speaker B: Yeah. Thank you. I guess one of the most important things whenever I just think about my background is I'm actually a psychologist. So I'm a human factor psychologist, which is really understanding human capabilities and limitations and how you design systems and technology to have a fit between those things. So that heavily informs, you know, some fundamental beliefs that I have about work and people. And in today's environment, people are still the most important part of your business, and they're the most complicated part. And that's one reason that I'm so passionate about HR tech in general, as well as performance management in particular, because it really speaks to that intersection between technology people and what a business wants to accomplish. And then when I think about my own background, you know, as you mentioned, it's a little varied. I've worked at a company as large as 400,000 people and as small as five people. I've worked in a variety of industries, and I've spent most of my career, though, in R and D, as you mentioned, which means that I love thinking about systems and prioritization and product launches and how all these things fit together to create better customer experiences at scale. So that mentality certainly influences just how I think about my current, current role here as COO at 15:5.
Speaker A: Yeah, that blend of technical and the organizational insight is so rare and it's so important, especially as we're thinking about AI systems interacting with humans. Which really brings me to what HR leaders are dealing with now. And you and I talked about the pressures that HR teams are under and that managers are under. Huge workloads, small teams, constant change. What are the biggest pressure points that you're seeing right now, especially around capacity constraints and change fatigue?
Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, you said it. Uh, you know, over the time that I've, you know, spent at 15:5, and even, you know, my stint in what we called people services, you know, AKA HR myself. The pressure continues to escalate for HR and for managers where more and more things just get added to lists that HR is expected to understand. It's not just, you know, payroll, benefits, employee relations, you know, engagement, performance leader, dev, manager dev, career path, competencies, how are we doing? AI transformation. And then the same thing's happening to managers as well. You know, managers are expected to be player coaches in many cases. Many of them unfortunately do not receive a lot of tools or technology or investment and them improving as managers. Management's a skill. It's not and a practice. It's not just something that like, oh, I sat in a, uh, you know, one hour training and then you do it perfectly every day. I mean I, I personally wrote a book about people management and I still, you know, find myself coming back to the fundamentals on an everyday basis in terms of my own behavior. But whenever I think about the pressure, there's now this pressure where like, hey, we need growth. Like, look at these, you know, AI rocket ship type of companies that are delivering these extraordinary outcomes. They're becoming 8, even 10 figure businesses with very small teams very quickly. And then there's this perception where it's like, anytime you think about hiring someone or backfilling someone, it's like, can't we just replace that person with AI? Like, couldn't AI just do their job? And then by the way, couldn't AI just do all of our jobs? And, and then, you know, and by the way, these models are really powerful. Like, I think there isn't a hype cycle around AI that's happened already. But then with every release of the model, things become more and more powerful. And this is a, uh, technological force that can't be denied in terms of its, you know, scale and impact. This is not something that we're going to look back on in 20 years and be like, hey, nothing happened with that AI thing. Like we're going to look back and it'll be similar to electricity or computing where we'll look back and say like, wow, everything changed in that moment. So HR is feeling the business pressure. They feel the pressure from their employees, they feel the pressure from this, you know, AI mega trend that's undeniable. And then they're still at the intersection of what is the most important and complicated part of the business, which is dealing with people.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And leaders are oftentimes the most complicated, you know, people in a business, myself included. But HR is at the center of all that. And then they're at the center of all that. On top of, you know, Covid changes, economy changes, six generations in the workforce, the changing role of work in people's lives. You know, for a period of time, work was the center of many people's lives. Now it's not the center of people's lives. And people expect that personalized support and care from HR and from managers. And that's why they need to work together there as well. And I do believe AI can help with that. And 155 helps helps with that as well.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. I mean HR is so broad, right? And getting broader. I mean, where else would you see uh, a job posting a job description that is like this long and that is the expectation of one person doing that. It's, it is so wild to me. And you just, you literally don't see it in many other roles. You don't see this many things that they go, oh, well that's, that's an HR thing. That's a people piece of the business and the HR handles that. It's like whether it's, even if you have your, your payroll under finance, like that doesn't mean that people aren't still going to go to HR first and foremost because you're kind of untraining those habits. And it's just that muscle memory for people that, hey, if anything has to do with my employee journey, I'm going to somebody in hr. Because HR historically very rightfully show so should be the area of the business where people are going because they need help and they need support and so add on to that. Now, it used to be kind of a niche or uh, a nice to have if somebody in your HR team was technically proficient. Well now it's like, well, what do you mean you're not an AI expert, uh, and you know, you're on the HR team. Shouldn't you know how to do all of these different things? Like it's becoming table stakes to have some of this technical competency because we're adding another layer into the business and a whole nother mode of doing work into the business and because it is some way tangential to the people, then HR becomes the one that, that needs to all of a sudden be understanding this and, and regulating it and moderating it. And it's wild to me that the, the shift that we're really seeing that either HR is eliminated and replaced with lower compensated people with less experience who are kind of armed with AI, but don't have that experience to validate whether or not that's actually something that makes sense for the business that the uh, direction forward as proposed by the AI would be the best thing to do. But then also if they're not indexing on that side then it's well now this is something that AI needs, that HR needs to just take on and they need to uh, oversee that piece of it. So one thing that you said that I loved is that one of 15Five's goal is to make performance management effortless. And I love thinking about that. Effortless, right. Like that should be. We should all when it comes to a uh, performance perspective and when it comes to a leadership perspective this should be embedded in our muscle memory. It should be a cycle of continuous improvement. Right. Like just like you were saying, you've written a book on it and you still are every day trying to be a better manager than you were yesterday. Right. Like that's, that's my philosophy. I know it's yours. So what does it look like in practice for HR teams who are already stretched thin?
Speaker B: Yeah, it's a great question and I think as you mentioned already, HR teams are expected to do more and I feel with the complexity of that more and that's why the partnership between HR and managers is so important. And then uh, to a point you made as well, clarifying what people should expect from HR and what HR can offer and then what is leadership and what is people management um, in your organization is so important as well times leaders and managers, you know, sort of outsource people related issues to HR whenever caring for your people and making sure that you meet their needs for security and growth and performance and you're balancing what they need from the business and what the, what businesses from them. Like that's not just ah, HR's job, that's also leadership and management. So to Your point on at 15:5 focusing on making performance management effortless. Of course that's a uh, marketing term in a way because it will always require some effort. But it is effort that we want to reduce for HR in part because we want some of that effort to be picked up by leaders and managers. So if you start with the end in mind of performance management is ensuring that an organization understands who is making a positive impact on the business, you know, in alignment m with their role and compensation and the expectations that come with it. Really the performance review exists for a reason where it's a summative moment of feedback where there's downstream decisions that are getting made maybe about someone's promotability or merit increase or comp adjustment and other things. And so the performance review is such an important ceremony for HR and a very high stakes one because you need to make the right choices on high performing people and high potential people. And you need to, uh, identify opportunities for improvement throughout the business as well. And then alongside that though, it's so important that you're empowering your people to just have regular conversations with continuous feedback loops about what's going well. So let's not forget to talk about, you know, wins and progress and hey, thank you so much, you know, so and so for doing this. It had this important impact on this customer or this stakeholder of yours or our company. And that recognition part is so important. And then also feedback is about encouragement too. Let's not forget about just bolstering people, especially, you know, in tough times where it's like, hey, you've got this, I've got your back. But then you also need to normalize talking about what needs improvement. And this, these conversations need to happen in a regular, you know, ongoing way.
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker B: You know, and at 15, 5, you know, this isn't something that we just train people on, it's something that's in our software as well. And then with a tool like Kona Coach or Kona Meeting Assistant, it becomes just a natural part of a, uh, manager's workflow because managers have this powerful tool called one on ones where they interact with their people. And then something like Kona Coach or Kona Meeting Assistant provides feedback on what was described in those types of meetings, um, to the IC and to the manager, and then also collects that data such that you can have a snapshot of someone's performance when you go to write that review. So you're not just from scratch like looking through handwritten notebooks and emails and all over the place. You're instead tapping into hours and hours of conversations that you've had with this person not only about how they are and the status updates, but also what's going well for them, you know, the wins in progress and what needs improvement. And you're looking at that entire, you know, catalog of feedback whenever you attempt, you know, to put together a performance review that effectively describes, you know, where they've been successful and where they need to grow. The more that that happens naturally in the flow of how managers work, the more likely it is that people adopt those behaviors and habits that we want them to adopt. You know, the, the idea that, you know, you send someone like a one, uh, pager on how to be a manager in your organization you just tell them to, you know, go be a good manager. Like, it doesn't have to be that way anymore. Like having that clear set of expectations and agreements for people. Managers is so important. But in order for performance management to be truly become effortless or HR or reduce that level of effort, the manager needs to play that critical role. And then the other part of, you know, making performance management, you know, more effortless for HR to me, is keeping it as simple as possible to achieve the goals that you want to for your performance management program. So what I notice whenever I interact with our customers and customer interactions for me are one of my very favorite parts of working at 15, 5, you know, in my current role, because I have such a deep respect for what people in HR do. It's really hard, um, when you think of, you know, empathy and them and their world, it's like, wow, their world is complicated. You know, their world gets sideswiped with people related things basically every day.
Speaker A: Yes.
Speaker B: But when I think about making it more effortless for them, it's really energizing for me. But what I notice is that performance management programs naturally get more complicated and you have to really intentionally try to simplify them. Where a question I'll ask very commonly is like, what information do you need to make a decision on whether someone should be promoted?
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And it's like, how do you make sure you get that information in the review? And then it's like, what information do you need so that managers can give the right feedback to employees so they can grow?
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker B: And then how do you include that information in your review? And then it's like, okay, you have these six other questions, like, what are they for?
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker B: It's like, if it becomes tough to describe what the question is for, then don't ask it. Like, just simplify the review process. It doesn't. There's no rule out there that says, like, it must be 20 questions long or something like that. Like, oftentimes it's like we added a question here when so and so was CEO. Uh, they really cared about this. So we added these three questions and then we had a new HR leader who added these. And it's just like, let's just go back to the basics of. Here are the downstream things that happen based on this review. Here's the decision the business makes, you know, with, in partnership with hr. Here are the conversations managers need to have with their people about their performance, about compensation, about their growth, their career path, and let's make sure that data shows up there and Then for us, it's how do we make that as effortless as possible with things like Kona coach and Kona meeting assistant feeding into this in an ongoing way. So it's not just review hell for 12 weeks of like debating and organizing and doing confirmation bias on people. And instead it's based on just this continuous stream of information that just naturally occurs and flows into 15,5 as you meet with your people.
Speaker A: I love that and I love that it is, you know, getting real time feedback. I mean, I know that you and I were talking about if you have even, even a newer manager, right, that maybe they're not completely bought into what our, the behaviors that you're looking from me and what are the competencies to being a leader. And if they get that real time feedback of you showed up with your people, you demonstrated the behavior that we were looking for that we know is kind of key to being a successful leader. And look at the real time feedback that you're getting that you're seeing more engagement with your team, that you're seeing that you're able to get results through your people. And I love that there has to be also an experience of feeling like people can be more engaged in real time in their meeting because they're not so focused on making sure that they're taking their notes the whole time or that they're focused on, on all of those pieces because they know that they have their, you know, little sidekick that it, that is part of, of the meeting and is, is supporting them, um, in that way. I want to go back to what you were talking about with management being a practice and not a skill. I don't want to, I don't think that that is, I don't want to gloss over that as being too simple and kind of a throwaway topic. I think it is absolutely, very much so, uh, a, uh, practice and not a skill, but I think that it can be a skill that is obviously built and developed. What are you seeing that organizations are still missing about building great managers?
Speaker B: Yeah, it's a great question. And again, being a people manager is complicated because people are complicated. And you know, again, similar to hr, you're dealing with that tension between, you know, here's what this person, you know, wants and needs from the organization, and here's what the organization wants and needs from this person. And then people have, you know, things happen in their life and you're, you know, supporting them in new ways. And the days of, uh, you know, you supervise 12 people and your job is to make sure that, you know, they follow a safety standard and clock in every day. Like, that's, that's not the job anymore, you know, for almost every manager. So what organizations are missing, though, you know, to your point, Nicole, is that rhythm, um, of ensuring that managers are practicing what they are told to practice. You know, whenever I say that, you know, people management does include skills. You know, it's like you need skills like, uh, empathy, goal setting, like, but also it's a practice in that you do it every day.
Speaker A: Yes.
Speaker B: It's like, you know, fitness, mental health, like, these are things that you need to commit to every day. And not every day is going to be perfect. I know that not every interaction that I have with people is perfect. As an example, however, like, you need to be committed and that as an HR leader and uh, even as an executive, like, you need an ongoing understanding of how your managers are showing up in your organization. The reality is that even in a small organization, you're investing millions in your people managers. And then as it gets larger, it's tens of millions, you know, hundreds of millions in people managers.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And without having a sense of how well they're showing up every day, it could be a missed opportunity to create tremendous value in the business. If you don't understand, like, hey, is this manager, you know, setting goals and priorities? Is this manager providing, you know, recognition, encouragement, other types of feedback and alignment with what you, what we expect. Like, is this manager one that really looks out for the fact that a high performing person, they need a career path like all of our high performers need? Career paths, like, that's a conversation that needs to happen. Career paths are a tricky one because oftentimes managers are so in the day to day to week to week, it's tough to make space for that. Like, for my own people, I have to schedule like separate conversations. That's called like so and so's name career path.
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker B: Because we're doing so much on a day to day, week to week basis, that career path isn't coming into those conversations. But if, you know, I think one of the most fundamental things that HR can do is just write down in one page, you know, here are the things we expect from our managers, like, what are they? And just make those expectations explicit. And then, um, you need managers to agree to them. And, you know, going back to one of your points, you know, if a leader or manager says, like, well, I don't want to have the tough conversations with my people about where they need to improve, I mean, the sad truth is they can't be a leader or manager. Like it's, it's, that's a part of the job. I mean, the, you know, managers. This is, uh, borrowing from High Output Management by Andy Grove, one of the greatest books on management ever written. I consider it to be the best one. But if you think of a manager as the output of their team, then you need to be able to increase that output. And you increase the output by, you know, creating systems, giving feedback, but increasing motivation and increasing a, uh, skill level on your team. And in order to increase skill level, oftentimes if you're a manager, you're an expert in what that person does or some version of it, and you need to be able to coach them up and have those conversations. But to your point, if you don't have the clear set of expectations at the foundation and you don't have a way to measure whether a manager or understand whether a manager is operating with those expectations in mind on a day to day basis, you're stuck.
Speaker A: Uh-huh.
Speaker B: Because the manager is like, well, I didn't know that I was supposed to do that. Or you know, you, you sent me this list of 200 things that I need to do as a manager. How can I possibly do those? And when I talk to some of our customers about this, the ones who believe in their managers and think that their managers are generally doing well, although there's opportunities for improvement in us all, including myself, they have that foundational set of expectations. Like it's written, it's written down like, here's the seven behaviors we expect.
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker B: And then by the way, you give that to your ICs as well because here's what you can expect from your manager.
Speaker A: Yes.
Speaker B: And then to your point, like, and here's when you go to hr and it's just like the clearer these things become, the easier it is for people to meet and exceed that standard. But also the accountability conversations become, you know, so much simpler to say like, hey, as a manager here, you're expected to do these seven things.
Speaker A: Mhm.
Speaker B: We're noticing you're only doing these four and you're not doing these three.
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker B: And instead of like, hey, you're a bad manager, because this one time, anecdotally I heard that you might not have given feedback in a way that was, you know, honest and caring. It's just like, we need to get out of that and into like, this is how you set up your day, your week, your month, your quarter as a manager here. And here's what you're expected to do. And here's how we do those things here. And we're going to give you software and tooling like 155 and Kona meeting assistant Kona coach. We're going to give you the set of things that allows you to build those habits and rhythms and practices as a manager. We're going to have your back.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Instead of like, well, we hope you do this well. You only really hear from us when you don't do it well. But you know, enjoy, you know, your 12% pay bump that you got from being a manager. Hope, hope it goes well, you know, and that that's a situation too many people are in.
Speaker A: Yes, absolutely. Well and and also, I mean there's one thing about when you're in a management role and especially if you're newer to it, I mean you're used to being part of a team and being that individual contributor and being measured on your individual results. And now when you're in a leadership role you should be measured on exactly what you said. Right. Like the performance that you're getting through others. You're no longer that individual contributor and it's not your sole success that you should be getting measured on. And I think that organizations really miss the mark when they take a very high performing individual contributor and throw them into a management role because they think they're going to somehow inspire those around them. Nine times out of 10 they're going to compete with those around them still. But also they don't have the skills to be a manager. Right. Like that is a completely different skill set. And I love that that Kona can provide that real time feedback. But also from a uh, training perspective, I can only imagine the possibilities of if you're also doing proactive training with your leadership and you're starting to see these trends that might be emerging through the insights that you gather of this really needs to be the focus of the next time that we get our leaders together and do some training because we're all experiencing, or at least a large majority of our managers are kind of experiencing this same gap or this same hurdle. Like what a tremendous opportunity to be able to address what your gaps are in as real time as possible. Right. Instead of waiting until you have that semi annual survey or you start to see a run on attrition or maybe it's not attrition because of the state of the market. Maybe you've got presenteeism going on where people are staying but they're not happy, they're not doing their best work, they're not really moving, uh, the business and driving the business. And also your manager, who used to be that high performer that was super engaged, that loved what they did and they were killing it. Now they're in a role where they were basically set up for failure and they're failing and nobody likes that feeling. So you've just taken a superstar, a super high, high potential, probably strategic person in your organization and you've put them in a role, set them up for failure. They're, they're properly equipped, they're not properly supported. And then also it creates that domino effect because when people are, when you find that you don't have a line of people looking for promotion from within, you need to look at your senior leaders and say, what is it about the way that they're showing up in the organization that no one wants to be like them? Do you see the person that is answering emails and being on calls 247 and they say, I kind of like having, you know, some personal life in my life and maybe I don't want to be somebody who is working themselves to exhaustion because if that's what management looks like at this company, I want no part of it. Right? Or if they see somebody gets promoted and they see they're really not thriving and, and super engaged in their work and they can kind of see them fall off a cliff, nobody wants to move into that and be the next person that's uh, that's up and doing that in the organization. So I love the way that you all are using AI and using technology to really try to reinforce real behavior change and examine, you know, tones and patterns and behaviors. And I mean, it's one thing to have a meeting summarizer that is giving you kind of a transcript and maybe tells you how many times you paused or you spoke over somebody or something like that. Right? Like a lot of the note takers do that. But to really evaluate what are the organization's values, are our people stepping up and demonstrating our values? What have we identified good looks like in a manager? Because a lot of organizations aren't even clear on that. And are our managers, are our leaders showing up and demonstrating those things? And then are we seeing those positive effects? And then can we use this as a Persona of uh, this is what good looks like. Based on this manager is demonstrating these behaviors, their team is crushing it. And so this is really just a reinforcement, right. Of maybe we're doing some ab testing on what we think our demonstrated behaviors and our competencies should be. This manager over here is knocking it out of the park and we can actually look at the data of what their conversations look like and how they show up. Like what, what a time to be alive in leadership, right?
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. You, you covered probably 15 topics in there that could each be their own individual podcast. It probably could, yeah. On the, on the last one there of, you know, what a time, like when you think of, I mean, how many billions of dollars have been spent on training where it's like, well, we hope they do that. We have no clue if they will or not. I guess we'll maybe hear about it in the next engagement survey, you know, versus now you have the opportunity to say, you know, to a manager, here's what we expect. It's these seven things. You know, here's our values. You know, we're inserting, you know, this AI agent into your meetings. That agent specializes in identifying, you know, the presence and absence of certain manager behaviors. This is part of our philosophy to make you the best manager that we can make you. And you know, we're going to know on a week by week basis like you're going to get coaching in real time on how you can improve. And the reality is, is like the people that you should have as managers and leaders and this applies to high performing ICs as well, they want the feedback so they can get better. If you're scared of the feedback, then you do not want to improve. And that's a red flag. And by the way, just as a quick aside, definitely create dual track career ladders such that for people to get promoted, they don't have to become managers. ICs make a big impact on your business too. There's a big difference between someone who knows how to get the best out of yourself and how to get the best out of other people. And that distinction is critical.
Speaker A: Ah.
Speaker B: And also, you know, if you make it so it's like, well, the only, the only way to go up from here is to become a manager and that person, you know, has an achievement mindset or wants to make more money, then they'll become a manager whether they want to or not. That's not a good thing for your business. And then once someone's a manager, like you can put them back in an IC role, but that can be tough to do. So. Yeah, I mean, we're in this place now where set the expectations, make them, you know, explicit, get people to agree to them, ensure that they have, you know, what they need in terms of knowledge and skill around that. It doesn't have to be you know, that complicated. It's really like seven things. Cover most of the situations. Here's how HR supports you ICs, here's what you can expect from managers. Here's AI to help. You know, you have this, you know, this tool that's going to follow you around as a manager and support you and make things easier for you not only now but also during performance, performance review time. You know, you'll see what the prep. There's a presence and absence of these behaviors. You know one that came up for me that personally that was interesting was about the amount of conflict management that was happening in my one on ones.
Speaker A: Mhm.
Speaker B: And you know, as a coo, a lot of what I I do is talk about cross functional alignment and you know, it's not like we sit around and just talk for 20 minutes about when things are going perfectly, you know. So a lot of my conversations, even in a company that's you know, very collegial, coherent, we're working together is like well we're working on this project and like it's my top priority but it doesn't seem like it's a priority for them and those types of things. And me seeing that report again, even someone who thinks about people management literally every day, not just my own management, but how uh, uh, to help the world have better managers. That was a great reminder for me.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Where it's like wow, I spent a lot of time, you know, resolving like cross functional, you know, tension and making sure people are aligned. Like that was a great thing for me.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And I'm really proud to work, you know, somewhere that's trying to help managers deal with these complexities. You know, the complexity of the organizational demands and their people's demands and the performance demands and the complexity of their own role. Like to your point, some managers are player coaches. But the reality is is that managers can't just super IC their way into being successful. As a manager it's different set of skills. Like you need to create the conditions for your people to be successful. You need to ensure that they have the right goals and priorities. You have to give them the feedback and coaching. You have to give them the near term feedback with a long term mindset around their career. You have to handle compensation. Like there's so many things that go into people management that they need all the help they can get.
Speaker A: Yeah. We have to talk about privacy. Right. Leaders always ask about this. How does 155 ensure that the data stays secure and const context specific when AI is listening in on meetings Yeah,
Speaker B: I feel with these privacy concerns, for sure. And whenever we talk to, you know, customers and prospects, like, this is a conversation that comes up all the time where, you know, it is showing up on more of these calls, legal showing up on more of these calls. You know, people are concerned about note takers in general. Like, there's note takers that can be recording people and you have no idea you're being recorded. And like, that's a big concern. But that's also one of the benefits of, you know, our approach at 15.5 with Kona is the fact that it's obvious it's recording. It's, it, it's in the meeting with you. It lets you know you have the ability to pause it or remove it if you like, you know, and it's, it's very clear like, hey, this is being recorded. And then we actually, a, uh, thing that we do currently at 155 is we only use the transcript to create other things. We don't actually even keep a trend the transcript over time. And for that reason. And, and then also because 15 5, you know, we have a focus on, you know, security as well and building trust with our customers. It's like, you know, this data is landing in 15:5, like that, that's where it's going. It's not, you know, in a system that, you know, each individual person in your company has selected a different note taker and I'm sure you've joined calls, uh, before where there's somehow more note takers than they are humans in the call. And it's like, how can that be? Like, who brought more than one note taker? Like, are notetakers bringing their own note? Like, how does that work? Yeah, but I feel with the complexity of this, because the reality is, is that managers discuss, you know, sensitive topics and organizations and you need to make sure that, that, you know, data is secure and like, where is it going? And then also there's legal considerations here. You know, you should definitely involve your, your council as, you know, an HR leader and making decisions on what to add to your, you know, your tool stack. And similar, similar to like the bring your own device era where it's like everyone had a BlackBerry because it was so secure, but then people loved other types of phones. So it was like, well, I'm using this anyway and I'm a level person, it person so you're not going to make me use a BlackBerry. Like we're in that era of this where, you know, there's a land grab motion for the Note taker space. And then there's specialist tools that are specifically designed for certain things like making managers better, like ona, uh, at 15:5 that are doing different things with that data, that are specializing in certain ways to use the data that give you the opt outs that you want, that, you know, we don't use this data to train models unless you know, you know, people are aware of that. We're never training models that are outside of 155 with it. Like we're doing all those things. But this is a hot topic for a reason because this data is sensitive and people are scared. You know, people are worried like, hey, are you using whatever tool to record us right now? Because you don't know.
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker B: But with Kono, you'd know. It's clear it's only showing up to certain types of meetings right now. It, you know, it's there, you see you know, the cute dog logo. You have the chance to remove it. But this is a hot topic for a reason with our customers.
Speaker A: And think about it, if you're not providing a tool, but there are so many tools out there and if somebody wants to, in an effort of continuous improvement like go it alone, they are most likely using some type of note taker or now you can record on your phone and it'll give you a transcript. Then they're uploading that into chat GPT or some kind of OpenAI. Right. And so now where is that information going and what is happening with that? Like I think people are incredibly naive if they think that, oh well, we are not as an organization using any type of AI and our employees are not. Yes they are, 1000% yes they are. Because think of all the aspects of how AI is used in, I mean it, it, it's, it's everywhere. Right? We've got Chat GPT and we've got Copilot. And it cracks me up the number of people that think that because Co Pilot is licensed through an organization through their Microsoft account that somehow that makes it a uh, closed when Copilot is out there releasing studies on the insights that they're gathering from. Uh, like that blows my mind that people are so naive that they're just blindly putting, just uploading whole spreadsheets and data sets in there. And I, uh, mean it gives me heartburn.
Speaker B: It's giving a lot of your listeners heartburn as well.
Speaker A: It should, it should.
Speaker B: The idea, the idea that you know, someone just say like downloads your, all your account data from say Salesforce.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And then just tosses it into a tool and says like hey, analyze this for market opportunities that a human wouldn't see.
Speaker A: Oh my God.
Speaker B: And it's just like on their personal license of some, you know, system. And it's like where's that data going? Is that data discoverable, you know, in legal situations? Like I mean these, you know and that. And we, we have all that in mind around the security, the trust, the priv, you know, the optionality for a reason. But to your point Nicole, like the thought that people aren't like we're going to not have note takers at our company is um, there's an inevitability to this that it's impossible to deny. It's. It is that, that's what why the bring your own device era came to my mind where it's just like we don't use you know, iOS devices here. It's like you do now, you know, like, like how do you do. People are using, people are using them. People are opting to not have email but to do other things on their phone. If you're just saying they can't have email on an iPhone. And that's where this was, I don't know, 20, 25 years ago now or whatever amount of time. 20 years ago. And here's where we are today. And that's one of the reasons why while there are you know, serious privacy things with any, anything that takes notes or join meetings, like ensuring that it fits into your HR tech stack, ensuring that you have legal invol have it involved allows you to make choices that you know, you embrace these technologies. Because organizations that don't embrace the technologies one are just, they're denying the inevitable, you know, non licensed use but also they're missing tremendous opportunities for productivity improvements in their people. Like what these systems can do um, is incredible. Like I, you know one of my favorite substacks, you know it was, it was funny. I recently read the most recent article was about how six months ago I thought I was being so hyperbolic in my hype of this and I was a little embarrassed and like now I'm realizing that I wasn't hyperbolic enough. Like I mean it's just, it's just like there's just so much potential here and every new model and it's like well you were the best model for Tuesday from to Thursday. Now there's a new one on Friday. That's better. It's just huh. We're still in that phase days where like every week is such an exciting advancement and to a point you made earlier Expecting HR to stay on top of every single trend there is impossible in a way. At one point, you know, even amongst AI experts it's like, well, there's no AI expert on earth that knows everything about this technology right now because it's changing so fast and improving so quickly.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And how does HR just set up the right, you know, corporate governance around, you know, it concerns security, legal concerns while embracing the tools that you know are safe and secure and ensuring that people use them in the right way in order to increase, you know, performance, engagement, retention, business results, everything else that, you know, C CEOs, CFOs and CHROs are looking to improve.
Speaker A: Yeah. If, if HR leaders can focus on just one thing for 2026 to strengthen their workforce and their managers, what would it be?
Speaker B: Just one thing is tough.
Speaker A: It is tough.
Speaker B: I would say if I had to just choose one thing and I, uh, think this might be cheating, but one thing I would just say you need to start where you are. So by start where you are, it's like if you don't have that written down set of explicit expectations for what a manager is accountable for, just start, start the list. Not. It doesn't have to be a long list. Do people understand their goals and priorities? You know, do you empathize with them and feel with them and understand that you're managing human beings? Do you recognize them? Do you encourage them? Do you give them feedback as needed in coaching? Are you supporting them in their career path? It doesn't have to be a big list. So the reason why I don't think this is cheating on your one thing is like you can make the first draft of one of those lists in like 10 minutes.
Speaker A: Right?
Speaker B: Like it's not a, uh, it's not a, it doesn't have to be a big list. It doesn't need. I need to consult 250 different leadership and management books like just make your starting list right and then understand like, hey, this is where we're at with this. And then how are we going to ensure that our people not only know how to do these things, which is pretty, can be done pretty quickly, you know, part day, workshop content, whatever, but then actually do them. Which is what we're talking about here where it's like performance management needs to be continuous. Continuous feedback is like uh, one of the hottest topics right now. And all the conversations we're having with customers where it's like, it's not enough to just do the review once a year, have the once a year engagement survey, it needs to be continuous. Yes, but then how are we setting these people up not only with just training, but also technology that works with the training. To have them do these things every day like this is an everyday effort, even for people who have written books about it. It's an everyday effort to show up the right way as a leader and manager.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And, uh, if your people don't want to do that, like I already mentioned, then they shouldn't be leaders and managers in your organization.
Speaker A: That's right. Yeah. Well, and I always say that it, it's an honor and a privilege to be a leader and to be a manager. And anybody that behaves otherwise or says otherwise doesn't deserve the privilege. Yeah. I mean, the organization is entrusting their most important aspect. I won't call people an asset of the business with you. The larger an organization gets, the less they can be dialed in and one on one with people. And so the purpose of the leader is to put that person in place to. You're entrusting them with the care of those people and with the way that they feel about the organization and with the way that they feel about their work. And if you don't recognize that and if you're in it for yourself and to make a name for yourself and to show how amazing you are and take credit for other people's ideas, I mean, go work somewhere else like that. It's not the place for you. This has been a wonderful conversation. Thank you so much for breaking down not just the technology, but really the human side of all of this, which is really, as you know, where the impact happens. For listeners who want to follow your work or learn more about what 15Five is doing with performance and manager enablement and Kona AI, where should they go?
Speaker B: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me, Nicole. And I'm eager to come back anytime, uh, for my own work. Check me out on LinkedIn. JeffSmithPhD on LinkedIn and then for 15 5, check us out at 155.com15, the word 5 spelled out dot com. Uh, or just search for 15 5. We'd love to talk to you about performance management anytime, as well as manager development and enablement. These are topics that we, we work at 155 because we care about the topics and we're, we're happy to help and eager to speak with you soon.
Speaker A: Wonderful. We'll link to those resources in the show notes. Thank you again for joining us, Jeff. And thank you to everyone for listening. We'll see you on the next episode of HR Tech Chat.
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