Leading Through Change with Intent (Afroditi Ladovrechis, CPO at Innocap, and Kahina Ouerdane, CPO at Workleap)

Speaker A: HR is hard because you're dealing truly with people. You're dealing with their career, you're dealing with their ego, you're dealing with their life. And I love every second of it, but it's harder than I thought it would be.

Speaker B: Welcome to leading culture, Building the future of work. I'm Kahina Verdan, chief people Officer at workleap. I've always believed in the power of collective intelligence, like, big time. How people coming together can create, um, a whole bigger than the sum of its parts. And that's exactly what this podcast is about, really. We're having real conversations about what it takes to lead in today's workplaces, to navigate change, build strong cultures, and evolve the way we work. Today I'm joined by Aphrodites, Chief people officer at Innocap. After practicing law for several years, first at Norton Rose and then at the national bank of Canada, Aphrodite became Innocap's chief, uh, compliance officer and then a little under three years ago, their chief people officer. She's led the organization through a major transformation with a significant M and A, all while building an authentic leadership culture. Like the best of us, she's left the legal world for better horizons.

Speaker A: Hi, Kahina. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you so much.

Speaker B: I'm so happy you accepted to be here. So you and I first connected over a reality of acquiring companies and all the transformation and the change management that, you know, that entail. Uh, and that led us to talk about a lot of things. So let's kind of pick up that buffet and talk a little bit about several elements that I wanted us to chat about. When you're talking about, like, being your great self at work, like, that's like, that's something that's been very trendy in the past years. Like, bring your whole self to work and be yourself. And like, the authenticity is important and at the same time, and I mean, I've experienced it, I don't know about you, but there's also having alignment with, let's say, the core values of the organization and fitting with, you know, aligning with the purpose and the general direction and the business direction, uh, of the organization at the same time. So I find, like, it's sometimes a, you know, a space to navigate between. Of course, bring your whole self to work and you'll be, in addition to the culture, you'll add on to the culture. Right. We have the newcomers and we want to learn from them and we will recruit them because they have different expertise Experiences and so on. And. And at the same time, how do we, you know, how do we keep the core. The DNA, the values? Like, I find that it's like a balance to strike.

Speaker A: Absolutely. And it's. And I can't say that there's any magic formula to it. I think each organization obviously is different, et cetera, but in. In our world, I feel like the culture is fed bottom up very strongly, like bringing in new people, having them add to the culture slowly shapes it. And we have our core values. And I feel like our core values come from. From the type of business we are. We, uh, operate in the finance world and we operate in hedge funds. Right. The pejorative way to look at hedge funds is that you attract sharks. You attract people that are very focused on performance, that are very, uh, focused on P and L, on results and on profits. Right. We're a different kind of business, though, because we're a dedicated managed account platform, which means that we do everything on hedge fund. About hedge funds, except for the training part that attracts a certain type of person that has shaped our culture. Because it's not that we're not smart enough, we're not good enough to work at hedge funds. It's just that we don't have the personality to go where it's more of a cutthroat environment. And I see it. And it's funny, yesterday I was interviewing somebody that's a trader at a hedge fund, and it was quite. It was interesting. And we were both laughing by the end because I said, we are a nice culture. And he said it would be really nice to work somewhere nice. And he just sort of. Because he was a Wall street guy, you know, and he came in guns blazing, and then sort of, uh. And I started saying, you know, if you come work here, we're a different breed. We attract a different breed because we're people that are interested in finance, but we don't have that skew of P and L. Right. That has shaped our culture without us even trying. Does that make sense?

Speaker B: It does. It's very interesting because you're talking about the culture of nice. And, you know, I come from the culture of nice. I mean, at workleap, um, we build software for employee experience. And we're all about culture. And, you know, through our business and also through the products that we build. And I've also seen, let's say, the downsides of the culture of nice. And one of the things we've been working on, so just to go back on authentic leadership, is having the courage to. To have the difficult conversations, having the, you know, not being the nice person at times because you have to tell someone something they don't want to hear. And so I also experienced. And so. And, you know, the first years, I would say I've been here a while. Um, it was also a problem being nice.

Speaker A: You know, that's why we connect so well.

Speaker B: Because, yes, it prevented us from, like, achieving certain things. And it's interesting that you're talking about P L and you're. You're putting it as if it was like an opposition, whereas I. I think we're trying to do both. We're in a very competitive. I mean, I'm sure you are too. Very competitive market ecosystem. If you're not growing, you're dying. Uh, the competition is fierce, and so we don't have the choice to focus on that as well. I really believe that, you know, high performance and humanism can walk hand in hand if people are at the right spot for them al aligned with their values and their purpose. And then we're talking this morning about the meaning, uh, of work and the meaning at work and the meaning of work, meaning, like the job that I'm actually doing. You know, if I get energized by that, um, I believe that this can really walk hand in hand. And I also believe that nice has its limits. And I know that you're talking about something that's, like, at the other end of the spectrum. So it's finding the balance between, like, the nice all the time and the shark all the time, and having this balancing act. But it's not always easy.

Speaker A: It's not only. It's not always easy when your culture is nice, of course, which is a fantastic thing. And I've always stayed where I was because I felt again, I could be myself, which could be a lot sometimes I realize that and. But I was allowed to take the space that I, you know, that I wanted, and everybody was nice, and I would never work somewhere that's not nice. Where we strive to improve is, um, you could still be nice and have really authentic and true conversations. And you don't have to be confrontational and you don't have to be aggressive, but you have to be realistic. And that's always when we have conversations with my colleagues. And it's always like, let's operate in reality, guys. Like, let's, uh, let's. We could just tiptoe around this, not to hurt, but let's let we all know what the reality is. We're all thinking It. Let's say it. Once you say it, then we could work through it and find solutions that make sense for us as, uh, solutions that benefit our firm and we could continue being nice. But I find that it's not nice to not say the truth.

Speaker B: It's true. And it reminds me of a saying. I think it was Brene Brown who said it. Like, being clear is being kind.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And I really believe. And again, it's a spectrum. It's not about getting to, like, you know, the ruinous empathy where it's too much and. But it's also finding the right spot where you're telling it like it is. It's actually one of our values for clip. Um, and, you know, our values are things that we believe in but are also a bit aspirational in the sense that we know that we need to get even better at those. And telling it like it is came because we were realizing that, yeah, we were sometimes too nice. So all that to say, it's like the balancing act, I think, of finding all that.

Speaker A: Absolutely. And it goes to. And I'll speak for myself because, again, I've always told it like it is. Right. Where I've had to improve, you know, and I've been in this business a long time, too, is self mastery. Is this, uh, sometimes I'm in. You know, I'm Greek. Right. So we raise our voices sometimes we talk with our hands. We do. Well, that's, you know, when you're delivering a message at work and you know it's the right message and you know it's the truth, you've got to work to deliver that message in a way that it's gonna land. And it's taken years of experience to realize that you could be saying the truth. My mother used to say this to me all the time. It's not what you say, it's how you say it. So, uh, being nice is part of that. It's being realistic, being truthful, and knowing how to deliver a message that's going to land, that's going to make an impact, and that's going to, uh, promote change. So we're in it now. And I'm proud. I'm so proud. Uh, you know, we just finished a leadership training two weeks ago. I'm so proud of what we've built together as a leadership team because, you know, we referred to the M and a in 2022. That was, you know, two seconds ago. And we have built a leadership team that is more truthful, that speaks, you know, the same language. And has gone a long way together. And we're not perfect. And that's great. Means that there's room to improve. But, um, it's all been around self awareness, self mastery as much as possible, but the truth and being realistic and authentic. That's authenticity for us a hundred percent.

Speaker B: And I want to get back to the whole M and E piece in a minute because there's so much to talk about there. And I think M and A is also. We're talking about, uh, not everybody will acquire company in their business, but it's a lot about change management and so on, especially to navigate in a world that's constantly changing, where we have to reinvent our jobs constantly, we're constantly making mistakes where we have to experiment. It puts us in a vulnerable spot. Um, making this podcast is an example of that. I was talking about this with colleagues earlier today. You know, we're experimenting right now, and it's messy and it's vulnerable and. And at the same time, that's the whole point. Um, so it's interesting to see the different types of reactions to both. I don't know if any of this resonates 100%.

Speaker A: And that's the. The thing. Also, I think we have the common experience, too, of changing careers. It's very hu. You know, changing a career and, you know, you've done 10 years and so you're seasoned and you get in a room and, you know, blah, blah, blah, and then you change and you start from square one again and you're learning.

Speaker B: It's a beginner's mindset, they call it. It's really important.

Speaker A: Humility is one of the most important things in my mind when I think of leaders. And it goes to what you're saying of when you receive feedback. How do you receive it? If you receive it with humility, then you're in a good, pretty good shape. If you receive it by blocking it and letting your ego respond. I would argue that you probably shouldn't be managing people. And that's something that we're very much into.

Speaker B: Really depends on the culture of the organization. I guess this is a testament to the culture of your business. I think we have the same in ours. But it's also true, as you know, that in many contexts, being humble is sometimes even seen as being weak.

Speaker A: But you do need to mirror that at the top. And I do feel like that's where. Where leadership is so important and HR is so important, because when you show that vulnerability, uh, vulnerability, uh, I always have a hard time with that.

Speaker B: Word.

Speaker A: But ah, at the top, it just, uh, you see that people feel so relieved that somebody is showing it and then slowly they'll start to show it too. And like I said, not everybody. Humility is not for everyone. And again, if you don't feel like you can show humility, we prefer for you not to manage people. And we have a wonderful track for professionals at InnoCap. And we're happy for you to be an SME and that you will grow and you'll have a wonderful career. But when you want to be a leader, you need to show that because your team

Speaker B: will just breathe easier, 100%. And I think this is a good use case. Um, going back to. We were talking about M and A and acquiring company, and then they talked to you back then saying integration is going to be so key, as it always is in any acquisition. And I think there's like a incredible statistic that says, I don't know, I don't want to say the wrong number, But I think eight or nine out of 10 acquisitions fell because of integration. So, you know, it works well on paper and somehow in practice it just doesn't work. So I'd like to hear you a little bit more on that experience and you know, the lessons that you learned, because I'm hearing you talk about how strong the leadership team now is, and now that you seem to have built a culture, like a common culture in the just a few years of a company, if I'm not mistaken, that was bigger than you. Um, how did you manage to get to that level of, um, I don't know, um, homogeneity or building this culture.

Speaker A: I think when I look back, because everything was being done, you know, we did the transaction, I find. And you've done transactions. Um, a transaction is a lonely time, I feel like. And you're sort of in. In clouds for a very long time because it's very busy and there's a lot of pressure. And so I look back at what we did, um, and I think what helped us the most was humility, truly. I think that every single conversation that happened in the context we worked on this transaction for a year before it was announced. That's a long time to be in the clouds alone, you know, with just a few. Everything is so confidential. You're only speaking to a few people. There's maybe 20 people under the tent, right? So every conversation is important from the first. I remember the first time I had a call with the president of the company that we were buying. His name is Josh Me and Josh right now, uh, you know, right away became like this. We speak 50 times a day now. We. But it was that first conversation where it was not on either side. Yeah. I came in understanding that this May was probably very difficult for him. I was assuming he was being bought by a Canadian company. We had been competitors for so long, and now we go in. Uh, so I came in with my heart on the table and right away acknowledging this must be a complicated time for you. I'm here to make it so that we have a blast together. And every single conversation after that, with every other leader after that, for a year with just a few people in the tent, um, was those kinds of conversations and understanding where they were coming from, saying where I was coming from, and us working all in the same boat in the same direction, when we were going to announce to our employees that we were going to announce with the right message to the right groups and that we were going to them with bright skies because we were going to show them that we were a united leadership team. There's no. You know, people might find it simplistic. It's not sexy enough as an answer, but that's truly how we did it. Just conversations where we showed vulnerability and that we were in this together and slowly building on that. And it worked. And again, not everything's perfect and it will never be, but when I look back, I'm very proud at what we all accomplished. Um, and it was done in the most humane way, where people connecting was the foundation of people integrating after the announcement.

Speaker B: So that's what you're. Yeah. You're most proud of, and I totally get it. Um, what would you say was your biggest lessons learned?

Speaker A: My biggest lessons learned was to, uh, not discount cultural differences. Uh, we purchased, uh, Hedgemark at the time that had offices in different locations. You know, we were just in Montreal with a smaller office in Ireland, so we had two locations and we were buying a company with. And I was less. Although we were very respectful of the different locations and changing our messaging. I also didn't know I didn't have a, uh, deep enough understanding of how people were going to react. So I read reactions wrong because, again, in an arrogant way, sometimes you think that, oh, well, yeah, if I'm vulnerable to this group of people, they're gonna. They're gonna love it. Like, but you can't. You. Their. Their reactions are going to be different. So, again, although we were. We changed our messaging per location, for sure. It was more the reactions that I got accustomed to. How to read People. And back then, uh, again I thought that everybody would react in the same way and I didn't have that nuance. So cultural differences, it's important to.

Speaker B: Yeah, I'm thinking about as you're talking, I'm thinking about the acquisitions we've made and uh, a lot of lists aren't on my part. A lot, a lot, a lot. But one of them is surely the fact that you can. And I knew it already, but again, hit me in the face. You can never over communicate. And that has been a lesson for me because I feel like uh, we didn't do it enough. It's not only communication like one way communication. It's like spaces as you hold so that there is conversations or interactions or we were talking about this not so long ago just like migrating the slack channels and the spaces of those employees so that they can join the main arena. And the fact some of those things took a while and then during that time you're not coming as one and then there's interpretations and misconceptions and because we're remote, that's also another challenge. So I mean I'm sure the same for you because you have um, employees in different locations. So how do we make them feel, uh, home? You know, I always give my analogy of traveling, but how do you make them understand, deepen, uh, their bones, you know.

Speaker A: But just to piggyback on that, we were, when you were saying it's a two way street. Right. That's a little bit of what I would. That's my lesson learned is that we were very much in the two way street. Tell us what you think, tell us how we're doing, tell us. And my lesson learned was not every culture is going to tell you how you're doing. And so you're taking it as oh, we're fantastic, like we're doing a great job. But it's like, yeah, but this kind of culture, they're not going to tell you. This is not how you're going to get it. And it's like uh, when we go back to our leadership training and how others perceive you, if I come and I say so what do you think of me? Maybe you're not going to tell me, but it doesn't mean that you don't have your own ideas. So it was. The lesson learned for me was that we were constantly in a two way conversation.

Speaker B: Uh, but then understanding properly what's being said.

Speaker A: Exactly.

Speaker B: And I think there's also different layers of culture. So there's like the culture of let's see the geography, but then there's a culture of the organization within the geography, which is also distinct, which is very different also. Every organization. I mean, that's how I, you know, I moved from international law to management consulting. I felt that I was pretty much doing the same job of like, hopping from one country to another, going into organizations and understanding their language. There are taboos, uh, things that are implicit, things that are explicit. Um, the ways of doing things, the habits, the rituals. It's. It's a micro society. Every organization is. And I agree, um, for me, that's still a challenge when I think about, you know, I think about, um, onboarding culturally your leaders, but also integrating. And that's another big difference between recruiting and acquiring that the employees haven't decided to join. So then there's like, extra attention that needs to be paid on that because there's. And like, in any change management, you need to show people, you know, what's in it for them. I mean, you're changing a, uh, payroll system. You have to show them what's in it for them. Like any change you, you make for sure. And I think that it's even more true.

Speaker A: Oh, 100 and it's scary. And you have to realize that it's scary. They don't know you. They don't. And so that's why the faces you put to this integration is really important. When the face, you know, who is the face of your. Not one person. There's never going to be one person. But who do you put as the face of your transaction is a super important thing. Uh, some people will bring along confidence through. Again, humility through something else maybe. But, um, I think it is important when you're in a transaction. You got to choose who speaks when to whom. It's so important. Um, and it doesn't mean that you're hiding anything. It just means that. What is it that we're trying to show?

Speaker B: You're intentional about things being intentional.

Speaker A: And it's funny because we're. Now we're saying that we're saying it too much at, uh, uh, Innocap. But being intentional is really important. Yeah.

Speaker B: In everything we do, I think. I mean, it's probably a common thread of this conversation because you have to be intentional to become an authentic leader. That's something that I'm thinking about working remotely. And we've been talking about this. If you want to onboard properly your people, if you want them to align, if you want them to develop a sense of belonging. Before, when we were, um, five Days a week at the office. There were things that would just organically happen. Now you have to be intentional about. What do you say to people when they onboard would you say? And it's the same I think with, with, with the transaction. So being intentional and I mean it sounds easier than it actually is. I find just because of the mental space.

Speaker A: 100%, 100%.

Speaker B: It's energy, it's focus, it's muscle memory, it's uh, a.

Speaker A: We're all so used to doing things a certain way and we're busy, we're. We're in hypergrowth. Things are going well. So it's very easy to get into just your, your regular uh, brain patterns and for you to stop and to think and to say, wait, um, am I doing this intentionally or is this just like. Just what I'm used to. That takes a lot of time and effort and so I have a lot of sympathy and I know it's easier said than done. We again did a leadership training two weeks ago. I led it with two consultants. But I'm saying this was our team that organized it. And it's been very hard for me two weeks in to you know, to integrate the things we learned. And all you could hope for is just to get people aware that maybe they could do things differently.

Speaker B: That was the first step.

Speaker A: That was the.

Speaker B: You'll need a second step and a

Speaker A: third step then self mastery, which is not my, my strong suit. So it's, you know, then you slowly you will change, but it takes time.

Speaker B: Yeah, no it does. And then it's. It's complicated because we have to be patient at the same time as being in like a fast paced, if you're not growing, you're dying environment. So there's a lot of um, balance to strike situations I find in our world nowadays. You know, it's um, finding this m. Yeah. This equilibrium that's not easy. There's two last things that I wanted us to talk about before I let you go. Um, one of them was about um, the future of work or basically the way that work is evolving. And I'm curious to hear your thoughts on what excites you the most and what frightens you the most about what awaits us in the future of work or in the way work is evolving. An easy end of conversation question.

Speaker A: Uh, mamma. Um. M Mia. I think I'm going to say that there's something that both excites me and terrifies me and that's AI. So there's such in our day to day Right now, AI is so exciting because I feel like we waste so much time doing things that it enables us to be faster and to be more productive and to not waste time on certain things that ship it over to AI to take care of. But it's also very terrifying because, um, with the speed at which it's developing, um, with the changes that it's going to bring about, and I think we've only seen the tip of the iceberg, um, about on how things are going to change with AI and again, I'm a kid, uh, that lived without the Internet, so I remember how quickly that changed the world. Right. And AI is exponential. So I've seen this play out before. Ah. And so I know it's going to change and shape the world. We have no control over it. Um, and I. I don't know where it's going to take us. So in the workplace, AI should you again, is. Is so exciting because the possibilities are endless. But you know, where. How far will it go? It's pretty terrifying.

Speaker B: I've given that same answer. Hannah Pan also.

Speaker A: Oh, no, for real? Because I was going to ask you. What about you?

Speaker B: Oh, uh, sorry. Same thing. Same thing. Um, one last question. Um, was there something you wish someone could have told you before you were an HR leader that you would like to pass along to other HR leaders?

Speaker A: That's a really good question. Uh, HR is hard. I think that's what. I guess I underestimated that. HR is really hard because you're dealing truly with people and their emotions and you really care about them and you want what's best for them. And your day to day is full of ups and downs and days are intense and it's no longer, you know, I worked in compliance or we worked in legal. There's a lot of paper, there's a lot of rules. Uh, when you're dealing with people, you're dealing with their livelihood, you're dealing with their career, you're dealing with their ego, you're dealing with their life. And so it's hard. And I love every second of it. And I'm having a blast and I never regret anything, but it's harder than I thought it would be because of the emotional part of it.

Speaker B: So what would be the advice you would give? Like, uh, an HR leader that's maybe stepping into a, uh, t People role

Speaker A: or just be prepared for it to be hard because I can't even tell you. Oh, dissociate or because what makes you a strong HR leader is caring. It's really Caring. And I feel that's where when we talk about building credibility, I feel like credibility is built when the other person in front of you feels like you care for real. And that's the partnerships that we've developed is they know that when I'm speaking to them I'm coming from a place of real caring. And it's not a policy that I'm applying. It's not at all that. So I can't even tell you, oh, try to go home and don't care so much. I can't even say that. Just be prepared that it's going to be hard.

Speaker B: Mhm. And you know, talking about caring, I think that it also has like different layers. It's caring for the individual, it's caring for the teams. Because sometimes caring for an individual can be detrimental to the team if that individual is detrimental to their team. So you have to have the bigger picture of the team. And then it's caring for the organization and it's and its future and its success. And so it's caring at various levels at the same time. And at times it can seem contradictory or it can seem as if. But at the end of the day, I think I find our job is to try to create alignment and harmonization as much as possible between all of these moving parts in the end.

Speaker A: And we'll go back, I think we're going back to a point we said in the beginning though, every one of those layers that you just mentioned, all three, caring for the individual, caring for the team, caring for the organization, in the end you see that they're all aligned because caring for the individual sometimes is making them realize that they're not good for the team. And if they're not good for the team, it's not good for the organization. So that alignment, you need to put those pieces together and it's your job to put those pieces together. But it all comes from caring. Sometimes you have to have discussions like that to say this is not good for you. You're not happy m you're not thriving.

Speaker B: But this is coming from a place of caring. I'm telling you this, I'm telling you

Speaker A: this from a place of caring. You're not doing what's right for your team. You're not doing what's right for the organization.

Speaker B: I agree. I very much agree with that. Thank you so much for your time.

Speaker A: Thank you very much.

Speaker B: Let's organize something with our teams now. That's the action item.

Speaker A: Thank you so much.

Speaker B: Thank you.