How to Lead with Curiosity: Kafi Payne on Navigating Change

welcome to ask Ashley the podcast where we shine a light on the unsung heroes of the workplace I'm your host Ashley Russo financial AI board member thought leader and wealth management advisor each week we sit down with inspiring leaders exploring their journeys motivations and the real challenges they face from job insecurity to the evolving role of AI in a world where many feel overlooked these guests are building hope and connection for their colleagues join us as we uncover their stories and discover how they're making a difference one conversation at a time okay I'm gonna ask you to please introduce yourself so everyone can learn about you hello I am Kafi Payne I am director of human resources and originally from Guyana South America I've moved around a lot but currently live between Atlanta and Oakland awesome well can you share a bit about your early life journey and how you know we've had a conversation you move between countries and cities how all of that helped the way you see the world how you interact with others absolutely being born in Ghana and we moved to Trinidad early on and then to New York and then from New York to Atlanta and this was all you know before the age of 16 um and then after college I moved to the West Coast and so I was I am used to being the other the one that talks a little bit different sounds a little bit different acts a little bit different and I think what that does is really makes you hyper aware of what do people expect and you just learn to kind of pay attention to people to learn how things go what are the rules whether people say it or not even if you're wrong but you just learn how to really pay attention and I think whether as an educator which is where I started my professional life or personally you just learn how to pay attention to people and I and I love people so it all kind of worked out well and you you just mentioned that you know you started as an educator how did you go from an educator to moving into HR and tech what was that what was that transition what motivated that when it comes to a professional journey I can't even say like I couldn't even have designed it did I know that I was going to head into tech HR from being a middle school teacher absolutely not no way but everything everything made sense at the time I think it was really about saying yes to different things um you know as a teacher saying yes to a leadership position um'cause it really started from being in the my own classroom to supporting new teachers and I knew that I knew that being a new teacher was hard and so when the opportunity to help other new teachers came up of course yes I wanna help and from there learning about coaching learning about leadership and when I was asked to step into a leadership position I said yes and then when another opportunity came up I also said yes so I think it just there was a series of yeses that brought me here and I'm really thankful for that hmm you you said something initially you said you felt like the other and it sounds like there was a lot of moving around you were it sounds like the new kid all the time I'm curious how that experience affected you in your leadership style so professionally as well as personally well I think you know I have to thank my parents too because I think my parents are also people that said yes as well that when things became hard or when there was an opportunity that came up they would just say yes I want this opportunity for my children I want this opportunity for my family and even though it's hard and even though it is gonna be a sacrifice I'm gonna do it and so I'm thankful for my parents for that because I think it instilled me instilled in me a sense of courage a sense of why not that a sense of there isn't a need to suffer when we could do something about it and so I think that that that does drive me and being the new kid again you really are paying attention but it also gives you a sense of humility and empathy of what it feels like to be the other of what it feels like to not quite fit in and to make space I'm thankful for the people who made space for me and allowed me to be different or to welcome me and I wanna make that opportunity for others or support others in that space to be who they are and be the new kid and recognize that like hey come on in we were all the we were all new at some point so welcome join us I love that and I know that that translated into I believe an internal app at at your current company that you created can you tell us a little bit about that and I imagine this was some of the motivation I am I am super excited about it it means so I mean it's it's silly but it's also significant so I created an app an internal app in our company it's not our HR information system so it's not the serious stuff it's not about like your Social Security number and your date of birth and your job title and salary this is all fun stuff fun stuff but also other stuff too so we include big life events we include hobbies interests fun quirky things um anytime we have a conversation we try to write it down so that we remember it so that we can have authentic interaction so that when I'm going into a meeting with someone I could just like what was the name of this person's daughter like and how old are they again like wait they're turning 2 soon or you know or at the same time like remembering this person's father passed away passed away around this time so how are they feeling let me try to check in and that also came from being an educator as a teacher I would write down everything every interaction anytime a young person said you know I this is my favorite candy or um this is my favorite restaurant just anything that I can make a connection with because and I remember particularly when I was a new teacher when you're a new teacher you don't always have the skills to be like you need to behave in my class you need to pay attention because I'm a great teacher but you can get by a little bit with a relationship okay just listen to me give me some Grace because I care about you and so that kind of trained me to um to develop these relationships and to keep track you know if you have 130 students as a middle school teacher high school teacher on your you know in your in your classroom over five or six periods you wanna be able to remember what those things are that's special about those students even when I would make phone calls to um to parents I wanted parents to know too that this is not just any kid that these are some things that I know but there's also some things that I don't know and I wanna learn from you so I definitely take that into my experience as a HR director that for me all of our employees they really matter they really matter and we cannot do this without our employees we cannot do it without their service and their hard work um and their creativity so the least I can do the least that we can do is to know a little something about them to to pay attention um and to document so that they know and we know that you matter this is important the big things the small things and so that and if there an opportunity comes up that we can be more personalized that we can honor them in a way that reflects the things that they actually like and who they are I'm the we wanna do that we wanna take it you know um I've chilled because you're you're talking about being seen right you're talking about really seeing people it doesn't sound you know from your education experience to now it sounds like you're really engaging with the human and making sure there's they're seen and who doesn't want to be seen you know it feels like that's forgotten in corporate culture so it's a beautiful beautiful thing to do so I'm curious obviously you know your company's experienced rapid growth from I think you shared with me women fitting all in one card having three or four large tables which I love so with that type of scaling with that type of growing what have been some of the challenges what have been some of the learnings I mean so many challenges so many learnings both as a company for me personally um it's such a it's a journey I was telling our chief operating officer and one of our one of our we had a beautiful retreat at this gorgeous resort and everything was so perfectly curated and so professional and when I started with the company there were only about 15 other employees and there was a group of about seven of us that joined at the same time on the same day and it is so different I mean we'd all just kind of eat lunch together on most days um when whenever there was a sale they would just ring a gong in the office and everybody would kind of cheer so we are in a very different place and it is it is so exciting to be a part of that that journey I recently went to a conference and I was someone asked me for my email and you know it was my first name at our at our company and they were like oh you you know you have that kind of email and I was like yeah yeah I have the the first I don't even have the first name dot last name email so you know it's just really exciting and to to watch the company grow and to be a part of so many different pieces of that I mean it truly is an honor it really is an honor and exciting so you clearly emphasize the importance of belonging and just safety even through this growth how do you I'm curious with that type of growth with that type of focus how do you balance it how do you maintain it as the company continues to grow absolutely it continues to be what anchors us and anchors me in this work Christine Wong Yap talks about belonging um and belonging relating to being seen and feeling safe and how do you do that as a company grows it is so so so important and are we going to do it perfectly all the time maybe not but that is what drives us and it starts in the first week of the company where we talk about belonging you know we talk about what does it mean to belong here and how everyone plays a role in belonging and everyone plays a role in helping someone else to feel safe and seen and heard which that's not a lot to ask for to feel safe and that could come in a lot of different ways I mean obviously from a new employee perspective they need to feel safe safe safety in the sense that am I gonna get paid on time is this job and the expectations around it is it what I was told it was gonna be so there's a there's a communication aspect there's a a structural aspect of making sure that things are in place for employees and then there's a consistency because for our new employees and our veteran employees we need to show that consistency right like what we if what we say and what we do don't align that's not okay and people will pick up on that very very quickly I feel like as humans we are sensitive to gaps in alignment like that and to tell us am I safe or not we are keenly aware when we walk into a space am I safe here can I be myself or do I have to mask in some way what does safety look like who who is elevated who is not who gets thanked who doesn't get thanked um all of those things we don't we don't even need to think about it just is like an operating system that happens for all of us and so when those of us are in leadership positions how can we be very intentional about the spaces that we create for others because we have the ability to help to to shape that and create that so we wanna do that with intention hmm I love that there's a saying I once heard that leaders bring the weather right so you can make it a beautiful sunny place or or not and I love the word safety and that's so interesting to bring in and important to bring into a work environment because think I mean we want safety in our personal lives right why wouldn't we want it in our professional lives and the more safety there is the more we can expand and grow and that's such a a missed element and that's so incredible that it's such a focus I think that's amazing safety is super super super important I fundamentally see workspaces as learning spaces because if you cannot learn in your professional environment that's not good for the company that's not good for your professional development we now in this world of AI and there's so many things that are changing so many different tools that we're being asked to use that is a learning event and so people need to be poised to learn and one of the things that we know about learning both for adults as well as children is that learning requires a level of safety and not even like you know it needs safety and it needs risk because asking people to learn is risky learning is risky talking out loud is risky so how do we create an environment where people feel safe to take risk where people feel safe to say I don't know about that or I need some more learning or support in this or I I just don't know or I tried and I failed at it because otherwise if you don't have safety then people will hide that they will just not say when they failed they will just fake it they will not get the support or ask for the support that they need so how again how do we create systems and spaces where people feel safe to take risks that's so fascinating because you're correct what a good call out because it is risky to put yourself in a new position to learn right I mean it's all correlated and how do you create that safe environment where someone feels safe enough to take the risk of putting themselves out there to try something new to learn to expand to grow what an interesting correlation I'd be curious based off that if you could teach every leader one soft skill besides the obvious what would that be and why I would have to say hard conversations I think the default for many of us is being nice not having conflict not wanting to rock the boat and and I think that you can have hard conversations safely and so how do we learn to do that and how do we practice doing that because again if we as leaders um and for everyone in our community everyone in our professional community when we hire really smart people and we do we hire incredibly smart people and the thing about hiring incredibly smart people is that they want feedback and they can they know when the feedback is not rich they know when the feedback is garbage they're like hmm okay you don't know what you're talking about and they know kind of if they're smarter than you like if you're not giving them any feedback at all then they know like yeah you don't know you don't I'm not sure you know what you're doing or maybe I know more than you so it's like we need to cultivate environments that have challenge in it that have learning in it that where we can see people we see their work and we can give them feedback about both about their work and their output as well as their attitude and their leadership development and so how do we gather data and how do we share that data that says like I see you I see your work I'm paying attention to you and here's what I see and here's where I see you growing and not from a place of like I'm picking at you but from a place of I see your future and the talent that you have and the purpose that you have and it's bigger than what you have here and so yes go for it go bigger more I know you got this I know you have it in you and that requires some hard conversation sometimes that requires saying not good enough in a way that people can hear and it's not always like and it's not about that sandwich that's like hey just want to let you know you're amazing you're so amazing but here's this piece but you are amazing no no no we don't do that because everyone knows that sandwich everyone knows like wait what don't don't give me that BS because I know what's about to come start with the data here's what I noticed I saw this I saw this I saw this this is what keeps coming up this is this is what happens when we don't have this this is what happens this is the outcome because of this here's where I think this can go here's what I see as a possibility what's your sense of what what's going on here what's your sense of your ability to manage this on your own what are some ways that I can support you it feels like a lot of transparency and it goes back to what we were discussing earlier that if you got the safe environment you can have these tough conversations right and and really be transparent which actually propels someone forward it's not hiding behind the compliment sandwich which I love that's funny absolutely absolutely absolutely I know we talked about this last time about I um I I'm a dancer I love dance so much I mean I I dance every single day multiple times a day sometimes and particularly today I had a ballet class earlier and the culture of ballet is the culture of critique that when you're in a ballet class if you're teacher is not giving you feedback it's probably because you either you don't take notes well or or you don't fix things when they are brought to you or you're just so bad that it's kind of like just don't don't don't even worry about it just just so in our ballet culture getting feedback is a gift when the teacher is like hey do this better pull up here lift your leg higher that means you are being seen that means that the the teacher sees in you 1 your ability to do it better and 2 that you can take that critique put it into your body and have better output and so that is that's my that's my thing give me feedback how can I do better I wanna do better tell me more tell me where we're not aligning I love that to see that as a positive right to see cause so many people can take feedback as oh I'm doing something wrong but I love what you said there in terms of ballet and and dance that feedback is given and energy is given at the end of the day to those you feel you can help grow versus ah we're too far gone I'm not gonna even take the time I mean that's that's an interesting that's a really interesting perspective and I think that can really help people reshape feedback that comes to them I'd be curious then looking back on your journey so far what would be one lesson or mantra that grounds you especially in a moment in time like this right where we are navigating through some uncertain times is there anything that brings you back to that powerful place of feedback seeing right is there anything there I mean I've had some great mentors and an incredible mentor and friend Laura Lipton from her I remember always hearing be more curious than judgmental so that drives me how can I be more curious even when somebody is doing something that I don't like I'm just like instead of just being like just writing them off it's like hmm what's the driver of this what's gonna make what makes this person act this way not do this like what questions can I ask what observations can I make how can I pay more attention how can I be more curious to get to the answer sometimes I think I know in this age of like we could just like you know Google something or put it into an AI model and just you know spit out this answer but it's like how can I understand more what questions can I ask what data can I gather how can I learn more to get a better perspective to get a richer perspective and I think that ultimately that drives a a better sense of intuition so I know that a lot of my intuition and this work which I I feel like is very solid a lot of that is driven by being curious and continuously learning you know you mentioned AI and it's interesting there's so much fear out there with AI right what's interesting about everything you're saying is even with being able to put something in some random you know and get get the output and move through it so quickly it's the human experience it's the human interaction it's the human element that we just can't replace right and that could help some people in their current fears right now with the in their minds with the robots taking over it's the human effect right that is truly not replaceable yes I mean some of us are old enough to remember kind of like the beginning of the internet when it was a wild Wild West I mean it was it was scary I mean some of the conversations that we had about it was like I don't know what is this thing how are we gonna use it and it is a little like wonky it's I don't know it's but and it continued to grow so yeah how do we we can't be driven by fear but I think we can be driven by curiosity and a sense of ethics and and integrity so not scared of it at all cause it's just like alright let's go let's be curious what things do we need to be mindful of how can we use it how can we use it to make the world a better place so let's go let's do it love that let's go it's here it's here no hahaha that's fair so okay here's my my final question and it's a question I always love to ask if you can say something to your younger self whether it's advice or anything knowing all that you know been go having gone through everything you've gone through and being in the position you're in now what would you say to your younger self oh what would I say to my younger self girl you got this hmm girl you got this I love that I love that I would not change anything you know you have you have these twists and turns and which is probably why you know even with little ones I don't ask what do you want to be when you grow up because who cares and I'm still asking that question of myself as a grown up and the idea that somebody who is 7 can have any idea what is going to be their future like it doesn't even matter it doesn't matter you're gonna make choices and every step of the way you're going to come to a place where you have to say yes or no or which direction will I take and you're gonna take it and it will lead you down someplace and you're just gonna keep going and it'll be fine hmm that's a beautiful thing to hear in a moment in time like this I'm sure for a lot of people listening yeah there's twists and turns and it will be fine maybe you take a turn you didn't necessarily expect but it will be fine right keep on moving forward and do it with kindness as you clearly illustrated absolutely I heard someone say you know everything works out in the end and if it's not working out right now that means it's not the end that's good Mike drop we just keep going I love it Mike drop moment well thank you so much for your time I truly feel I know I'm inspired in your presence it's amazing to hear your journey it's amazing to hear your reflections right and there's a lot of takeaways that we can all take into our life there's a few pieces I'm gonna take back to my life today so thank you for being you Ashley such a pleasure talking with you you know when we first connected it was like OK hello bestie like what it just immediately so it's always a pleasure talking to you so thank you thank you so much for having me here as your guest thank you again