Episode 50: How HR Can Turn AI Capacity into Business Value - with Joseph Clay

Speaker A: M

Speaker B: welcome to the People Leader Accelerator Podcast. I'm executive Coach Jess Yuen, joined by my co host, the co founder and managing partner of People Leader Accelerator, Andrew Bartlow. On this show, we dive deep with business and HR leaders to uncover what really works when it comes to building high performing organizations, navigating leadership challenges and making better management decisions. Whether you're the first people leader at a startup or or a seasoned executive at a company with scale, you'll find practical insights you can apply right away. For show notes and free bonus resources, visit peopleleaderaccelerator.com podcast and if you're looking for hands on support from developing your leaders to creating a high performance culture to hiring the right people, Visit us@peopleleaderaccelerator.com We'd love to help. Let's get into today's episode.

Speaker C: Joseph Clay, thank you for joining Jess and myself on the People Leader Accelerator Podcast. We caught up a couple weeks ago and I twisted your arm and asked if you'd be willing to be a guest. We worked together boy more than a decade ago at Apollo Education Group. You did wonderful stuff before that, you went on to do really interesting things after that. For the past long period of time, you've been at Oracle in an AI transformation role, which I think is really interesting to our audience and the world in general. But hey, before I stumble over your intro any further, I'd love for you to just share a little bit more about your journey, what you've done in the past that led you to where you're at, help our audience understand who

Speaker A: you are first and foremost. I have to say, uh, you did not have to twist my arm. I've followed your career and success as well. You and I worked closely at Apollo and it was a privilege to work with you. I thought the world of you then and really excited to be part of this today. My name is Joseph Clay. I'm the VP of HCM Transformation for Oracle and it's an odd sounding title, but in essence think of it as a managing director or principal managing director, internal to an organization who really meets at the crossroads of, uh, real user experience, bleeding edge technology, and the need to implement in a way that helps customers get to a place of success. As I think about my journey, I've kind of had a unique path. I'm one of the few, and Andrew, I think you're part of this as well, who grew up in the HR space and we've seen the evolution of the role from generalist to business partner to subject matter expert. We've seen the evolution of the uh, function from risk mitigation and compliance to more of subject matter expertise, advising, coaching and counseling. And today I consider myself to be kind of uh, a purple rhino in that uh, I've had the privilege of leading an HR function as an operator, real time, rolling up your sleeves, getting it done. I've also had the privilege of leading HR functions in private equity space where there's a sense of urgency. You're operating against the thesis of three to five year exit and there's very little time for conceptual discussions. You got to get it done. And now moving into the uh, AI space which certainly involves agentic AI and all of the, I call it the ecosystem that comes with it. I've been excited about where the role has progressed and certainly I'm a real fan of technology. I think there's a, ah, an opportunity there to do some great things. But like anything else, you have to measure it, you have to assess it against the capacity of people to actually absorb and be effective in that space with respective technology.

Speaker C: Thank you. And yes, as a longtime in house operator in human resources roles and now as a consultant and advisor to other organizations, you know, it's an interesting perspective where we're at today in this stage of digital transformation and AI. I'd love to explore that. What do you see as a common mistake or misconception that human resources leaders have as they're approaching a major tech or operating uh, shift?

Speaker A: It's a great question. It's a question that's constantly evolving as well. Right. I uh, think there's a blind spot and there is a mistake. The blind spot from my perspective is HR practitioners are really accustomed to having a uh, relatively mid to long Runway to implement, to deploy, to manage the change process. I think AI has completely blown this up. The fundamental miscalculation, at least as I've seen it, in working with customers across different verticals, you know, where is the need signal coming from? I think you'll remember, uh, Fred Newton used to always talk about need signal. Right. And Fred Newton used to be the chro at Apollo. Whereas before technology was all about hey, how do we position the end user to be more effective, more efficient, how can we create a better user experience for certainly our customers, but also our internal workforce. So that need signal was always an internal ask and then we'd have to justify it and rationalize it and build a case around it. Right. That was always the way it happened before. The need signal for AI is coming from outside your organization. It's coming from your board, it's coming from your chief executive officer, and it's coming in the form of a very specific number that's 30%. Whether they're talking about efficiency, whether they're talking about some kind of savings. And here's the risk. Most chros will apply the wrong timeline and um, have the wrong sense of urgency. And that sense of urgency will position them poorly, in my opinion. Because now you have a CFO or COO or a competitive environment that's dictating what kind of savings you need to proactively capture before you find the right technology, deploy the right technology, or migrate the skills. But I think the blind spot is that the timeline has changed and most of us don't really understand that. And I think the blind spot is we still see this as some kind of technology as opposed to a real change in how we perceive skill sets, how we design operating models, how we develop our people in real time. And again, there are probably five or six other paths we could go down, but those are the two big ones that I'm um, finding executives having challenges with.

Speaker C: Yeah, really appreciate that. Actually. I wonder if we could dig a little bit. I, I wonder if there's a bifurcation in that need for speed or perception of how fast an org or an HR function is ready to go. My partner Lindsey works at a Fortune 50 biotech and they took a while to spin up their AI strategy. It was like, wait, wait, wait. And now they have massive engines that are launching them forward. Where Jess and I tend to play is in the smaller mid sized organization world that seems like it was sprinting ahead, experimenting in often an awkward and dangerous and token burning way without the same sort of structure and compliance. But smaller companies, many of them seem to be moving faster, whereas the enterprise orgs took a while to gather themselves. Are you seeing that same bifurcation or would you describe it any differently now?

Speaker A: I think you've described it well. I don't know if you've ever heard the term you got to slow down to speed up sometimes. Again, uh, it depends on where the need signal is being articulated from. If it's being articulated from outside the organization where you haven't defined the use case, you haven't really talked through the value proposition except in terms of efficiencies or headcount reduction. That is a different driver, I would argue, than a smaller, even a mid sized organization where every role has a distinct function or purpose. You've thought through, you know, why are we hiring X number of Full time equivalents in this particular part of the business. It's directly speaking to growth, it's directly speaking to product development, it's directly speaking to the needs of your customers. So they have a closer relationship, I would argue, to the overall value proposition on a one to one basis as they hire. You can't get headcon approved willy nilly. It has to be tied directly back to something that benefits the company. In that kind of environment, you're going to see a more measured, a more thoughtful approach to exactly how you're going to deploy this new exotic technology, what the expectations are in terms of what the output should be. And I would argue you put yourself in a far better position for greater adoption once the solution's been deployed. Because there's a why behind it, There's a clearly articulated ask. And you know what good looks like. You know what good performance looks like within the context of using that tool. Larger organizations, it's been my experience they'll gravitate to business rules to try to find value. What do I mean by that? You gotta have X number of dollars in token spend per person. It's a measure that doesn't really tie back to anything of value to that particular organization, to that particular business. Un and if it's not that clearly articulated, it's just like any other business rule that's disconnected from, um, what drives value.

Speaker B: Value is such an interesting word and Andrew and I have talked about this a bit of how tricky it is to measure the value of AI and the fact that you're bringing up this 30% just being sort of this peanut butter, hey, 30% better. I mean, one of the analogies that we've used is like PowerPoint or email, like how do you measure what benefit or value comes from that? And I guess across all of the customers that you see and work with, is there anybody who's sort of cracked the nut, or at least better than token spend coming up with some measures or ways to think about the value in a way that makes you go that might be a path that other companies could think about or follow.

Speaker A: There are just certain basic components that typically lead to a better outcome. Sure, this technology is new, it may even be revolutionary, but at the end of the day, why should we care about it and how are we going to deploy it? It's just like any other tool. When it's thought through that way and you prioritize how you deploy it, you have that deployment tied directly to a specific use case. Whether it's an efficiency play or whether it's some kind of investment to create greater capacity for people to innovate, whatever that is. If you clearly articulate it. And as you deploy that solution, you talk through the skill sets that are needed to be successful today and the skill sets needed to be successful in the future. If you have a process and a plan around it, it's been my experience that you have a better outcome. Now, what are some of the use cases? I'll talk a bit about agentic AI, uh, and how that's being thought through right now. Many of the providers are coming out with amazing solutions that are tied to a genic AI and that's great. But here's the issue. Their priority is to very quickly roll out and accelerate these technologies and deploy them to their companies. That should have absolutely nothing to do with how you deploy it as a company. Your deployment should be directly tied to what's of critical importance to us. For instance, if you have recruitment issues, if you're in the throes of changing out the skill sets needed in some of your critical roles and, and you want to go back into the market and find those unique skill sets and you want to have a, uh, really thoughtful, proactively deployed solution that's going to help you do it, Agendic AI can facilitate a lot of it in that it can take a lot of the tactical aspects of acquiring an applicant pool, assessing that applicant pool, and getting that applicant pool down to a critical 10, for instance. It can help you do all those things, but it has to be tied to a use case that makes sense for your organization. The mistake I found, however, is people will allow sometimes the vendor to dictate the timeline for deploying technology if the ask is coming outside of your organization. And it doesn't take into consideration change fatigue, doesn't take into consideration the culture of your organization and how you deploy technology and how you develop people. If it's not something tied to something that's measurable and meaningful and relevant for you, it just drives down the likelihood that you're going to have a successful outcome. You'll have successful technology deployment. That's not the tough part. But 12 months from now, and you're starting to see this right now in the markets, 12 months from now, six months from now, some are going to say, you made the investment. What do we get out of it? And so just be in a position to speak to that first.

Speaker C: Before we get back to the conversation, here's a quick word about people leader, accelerator. If you're an HR leader at a Scaling company. You don't have to do it alone. The People Leader Accelerator is a 16 week program where you will learn, grow and build lasting relationships with peers who get it. And once you graduate, you're part of our community for life. Apply now@peopleleaderaccelerator.com all right, let's get back into the conversation. I think you're articulating a tension that a lot of teams are feeling right now. And there's a little bit of a FOMO sense as well that we put on ourselves about, hey, there's this new tool, there's this new technological capability and we should be doing something with it. What I'm hearing you say, I think is, hey, be really careful with that because that's going to lead to a lot of effort, a lot of activity, and maybe not a lot of benefit. And I think I'm also hearing paired with that is like, start with the use case, start with the problem that you're trying to solve rather than run around with the solution looking for the problem.

Speaker A: You nailed it and you said it far better than I. It comes down to this. Absolutely nothing should be deployed in your organization unless you have a, uh, compelling use case, unless there's a problem that's been identified that you're trying to solve. That goes for AI, that goes for any kind of capital investments you make on the facilities. It should speak specifically to an outcome that's going to help you move your organization forward. Now, part of the challenge, I would argue with AI is very much is a fear of, uh, missing out. You just have to have as part of your overall process this bias for figuring out the problem you're solving in the use case. You're going to hear me say that time and again. I've just found that that's the most compelling approach to take and the most compelling strategy for having the right outcomes.

Speaker B: It resonates with what we're hearing too, amongst some of the most respected HR thought leaders and HR operators because they're finding it's the most practical, pragmatic way. Otherwise you are just kind of throwing spaghetti against a wall when it comes to HR leadership. I mean, you've been in organizations across different industries, large organizations, smaller ones. Are there patterns to how HR leaders should be thinking about their own role in a transformation or places where they underestimate what their role should be during a transformation?

Speaker A: Yeah, that's a phenomenal question. Part of what's helpful is as a leader of people, as a chro, as a chief people officer, as a vice President of Human Resources is to ask yourself, where am I adding value? Where is our function adding value to our organization? There'll always be a place for risk mitigation and compliance. There'll always be a place for, in some ways underpinning what, what exists in your organization as a culture. There'll always be a place for that. But if you pull back the lens a bit and ask yourself, where's the future of not just hr, but where's the future of the workforce, the future of work? And what role do I play, should I play in helping my colleagues, my peer group, understand the future state? Look around the corner. Here's where we'll be in 36 months, 48 months, prepare for that future state, whether that's in terms of workforce planning. Here's what you have right now in your workforce based on what we see in terms of how the roles are beginning to evolve and change. You'll need more or you'll need less, or in some ways even picking a lane around what's valuable to the company. I think about things like innovation. If you're in an organization where innovation is of critical importance and you're the chro, how do you underpin or enable innovation across your organization? And you'll say, well Joseph, that sounds really cute. What do you mean by that? Why wouldn't the HR function be the primary hub that assess what's working and what's perhaps not working with respect to people and begin to model that across the broader organization, the broader enterprise? Some would say, well, Joseph, if I had that kind of time, I'd do it. I'd say, well, there's this thing called AI, uh, there's this innovation that's out there now that will allow you to repurpose your technical asks, deploy those technical asks to that technology so that it frees you up. But when it frees you up, you have to have an answer to the question of, um, now what are you doing? What's your value proposition? I would argue that's the fundamental question that the HR function has had a challenge getting to in the past. It will be the saving grace of the HR function to truly understand what that space that's being created by AI can be re leveraged and repurposed for. So if I'm in an organization that's manufacturing and their primary objective is to come up with new products, I want to figure out a way to carve out some of that time that's not owned by technology to really help them figure out how to do that. Maybe That's a skill set discussion where I need to figure out where to go find those new talents and abilities. Maybe it's a change management ask where I'm helping an organization be smarter and more effective about how they're changing the culture for a particular part of that business so they can really double down on, uh, the quality of their products. It's a whole different way of thinking about the role. So you never have to ask the question of, uh, what's my value proposition? Because it's always tied back to what's critically important to the business. And I think we have the opportunity to do that right now.

Speaker B: I'm hearing you say something really valuable about the function of HR and how it is evolving spurred by AI. But it's opening up this broader question around what's our role in transformation, period. Not just AI transformation, but in helping to move that organization forward. And I love what you're saying too. The answer might look slightly different from organization to organization two and where the most value is coming. We have seen a few leaders, especially in the startup space, where they'll experiment even more so, uh, with some of this stuff. But we've talked to a couple of folks on this podcast where their title itself is not only like VP of HR or Chro, but there's like an AI transformation component that has been umbrellaed together.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: What's your take on, you know, the role of HR in transformation? Should they be leading it? Is it a see a partnership? How are you seeing how this might evolve over the next few years?

Speaker A: I love the question because it gets me into a space that I like to be in, which is kind of the future state and running what if scenarios and all of that. I may be a bit biased, but I happen to think the HR function has to own the mechanisms of transformation because it has to create the right environment for organizations to really go down a path of changing and evolving and growing and innovating. It means transformation has to be operationalized. Whether you talk about it in simplistic terms, you got to have a governance model, you got to have a use case, you got to think through your implementation strategy. You have to have a communication strategy that underpins it. You have to have, uh, a clear conversation to your current talent about what's needed today and what will be needed post implementation, whether that's a technology, whether that's a merger, whether that's, uh, introduction of a new product. I think the HR function is uniquely positioned to truly advise, coach, counsel from a position of authority because we understand the artifacts of change management by understanding the artifacts of change management, by being that trusted advisor to the internal leaders of the business and also having an eye to what's of critical importance to the organization. I would argue there is no other leader in the organization aside from the chief executive officer can have a more direct impact and more enable an organization's ability to transform and change and evolve. But it feels like a huge ask. And if you ask the typical chro, they'll say to you, since COVID we're like a Swiss army knife. We've had to become all of these things to the business. And my reaction will be, yes, you have, and it's going to continue. But be specific and distinct on what you do. If you enable transformation, what does that mean? It's not just project management, it's not just a communication strategy. What is it that you're owning? And if you're owning it, have a conversation about what that value proposition is and what it means to something that's of importance to a particular business. Uh, I think HR has to run and own the transformation function and they'll do it by enabling their colleagues, internals in the business to actually do the work.

Speaker B: It's such a thoughtful hypothesis too because of all of the changes that have been happening in the last half decade that HR teams have gone through all of these changes and whether they've been reactive or proactive, a lot was reactive. It's the first one with COVID But we've had so many different changes that I feel like everyone has become practitioners of, um, change because of all these exogenous forces that have been at play. But one thing that's fascinating coming to mind for me, I started my career as a management consultant. My focus was on change, transformation, large scale operational change. And what you're talking about sounds so akin to that of like coming in, being able to understand from a strategic standpoint of where are we starting, where are we trying to go, the whys behind it, and then being able to operationalize and align everybody through the different stages of that change and sustain it, you know, weave it into the organization afterwards. And so when you say it's a big ask, I think in some degrees it feels like maybe it's not as big of ask because these organizations have had to sustain so much change that even if it's not explicit in their minds, they have been drinking the water all this time. But in some rights it does feel like a big ask because we're shifting away from some of the pieces that feel more Specific like low risk or compliance or running payroll or running a process for performance or an employee survey. And it's more about, hey, can we do this more broadly and at a scale that requires much more alignment than put out something very tactical. But it's like transform how everyone is thinking about and operating.

Speaker A: Jess, I think you're right. What I've experienced in HR is we've defined a set amount of work, recurring deliverables, whether it's managing the performance review process, succession planning, and they're very specific programmatic asks that we've identified as the work and managing transformation. Taking on challenges that came as a result of COVID We saw those things as additive. We only have so much capacity and everything you add to what we are responsible for takes away from the work. And so it's a mental shift. It's been my experience in working with leaders, when they reposition their perspective on what the valuable work is, then responding to Covid makes perfect sense. That's absolutely part of what we should be driving as the transformative engine in our organization. Responding to evolutions of technology. Well, absolutely. Who else would you ask to do that kind of work? That's exactly what we should be doing when we position ourselves as leaders to make that kind of transformative work, the work an integral part of the work. It changes the amount of energy I would argue organizationally that goes into it. It feels like it's being done for you as opposed to you. And I go back to, well, why are we talking about AI and why is that important? AI gives you the unique opportunity to reposition the tactical asks again. Open enrollment, performance reviews, talent acquisition. Many of these things can now be aligned to emerging technology, which frees you up to really plan a more innovative space.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think that really is the crux here to the AI piece of uh. In 2020, 2021, when Covid was being layered on top, it's like we all were doing the whole job the same way and then had to figure out this giant change on top of it. And now what we're finding with AI is the job as we thought about it. We can automate pieces of it. We can use agentic systems to be able to take on much more of that workload. And in that space, what do we choose to fill it with? And your hope and hypothesis here is, could we do something with this transformation element?

Speaker A: Well said. The other opportunity I think you get from this is you change the energy around AI from being this thing that's going to take away resources Take away capacity to do the work to something that now enables your ability to really play and operate and add value in the spaces that perhaps you haven't been able to get to because you defined the work just as risk mitigation, compliance and tactical deliverables based on the calendar. I think it's a huge opportunity. And it's a better conversation, I would argue, because now you're talking about, uh, having a more sustainable model that you can scale in terms of the HR function without having to add artificial costs to your organization. It's a resilience conversation now and less a conversation about how do we provide some of the tactical needs of the business.

Speaker C: There's so many organizations and HR teams and boards and C suites that are trying to articulate the value created. Are, uh, there some areas that organizations that you work with directly have found to be able to, to more clearly and cleanly articulate real economic benefit in some area due to AI transformation in hr?

Speaker A: A lot of it depends on the timeline, like when AI has arrived, as opposed to Magentic AI, which is a newer thing. So if we go back and talk about artificial intelligence, whether it's recommending, if you need this policy here or three other policies that may be relevant to, hey, if you're applying for this position here, three other positions that are really good fits as well. If we turn back time a bit, I would argue there have been some efficiencies that have been captured specifically in the area of, uh, talent acquisition. The talent acquisition function has been one of the areas where the HR function is more likely than any other, I would argue, to have good metrics around time to fill good metrics around retention. But that's been an area where I think AI has had a measurable delivery. The challenge of course is it's not strategic. It's, uh, a tactical deliverable that allows you to do things more efficiently. You think maybe it allowed you to repurpose your recruiters in a way that's more useful and productive. You'd think. What I haven't seen a lot is where the roles have evolved, the work has fundamentally shifted. Recruiters are still doing today some of the things they did before AI was introduced. And so I think that's a missed opportunity. When you talk about organizations that have been able to quantify a benefit from AI, uh, I have yet to see an organization that clearly articulated their why. This is why we're thinking about going down this path. This is why we're making this investment maturely deployed. The technology itself, the specific Technology we're deploying, it's designed to go after these two or three opportunities or create these two or three innovations or benefits, and then come back and say as a result of implementing this technology, here is where we see greater efficiencies or better products or better customer experience. I haven't seen a mature process of deploying this technology where there was a clearly articulated ask, a maturely implemented deployment of that solution and a well captured and uh, quantified efficiency that may change. In fact, that's the area that I expect to see a great deal of change because as time goes by, people will become more sophisticated in terms of how they deploy it, just as they've been more sophisticated as other technologies have evolved. It doesn't mean that uh, AI doesn't have a place, it just means how you deploy it is going to be ridiculously important in terms of capturing efficiencies and wins.

Speaker C: That's just so powerful and frankly a little shocking that with all the organizations out there that are launching AI efficiency effectiveness transformation projects that we don't have a clean, clear example of hard economic benefit point to yet and say this company did it and here are the dollars and it was worth more than the cost of tokens and the effort in making it happen.

Speaker A: I wish I had better news. I think 12 months from now we'll be in a different position, but it won't be because the technology has gotten so much better, honestly, because how it's being deployed is more thoughtful. It'll be because a lot of the noise has been addressed. I think a lot of what we heard earlier in this calendar year at least was fill in the blank. Company is eliminating X number of employees because of AI. And upon closer inspection with time, we've seen that it was aspirational and we still don't have definitive data that tells us, uh, these efficiencies have been realized in any meaningful way. And I said earlier, one of the challenges I've seen in the HR space is that the sense of urgency, the timing of things is off a bit because I've never seen an efficiency play where they front loaded the savings, where they would say we're going to make an investment in this technology and oh, by the way, give me a third of your headcount before you even deploy or as we deploy when it's done. Well, in my opinion, you deploy, you capture, you quantify and the electrician and other things give you a longer Runway. So there's less organizational disruption, there's less pushback, that's Been an oddity I think, of watching this technology deploy.

Speaker C: Two things pop to mind as we talk about this reality of we're a couple years into the deployment of AI and the potential for it. Uh, but we haven't yet identified like this shining outcome that others can replicate. One is, I think this is good news for you that there's this great role for professional services firms. You'll figure it out and you will copy and paste and you will lift and shift and you will find a great example in one place and then you'll go roll it out across thousands of others and you'll make some wonderful fee based revenue. Two, I wonder ultimately if it's not going to be as clean as saying like AI did this. Jess and I have talked about AI one on one a couple of times where we made a comparison to this technology of AI as email or PowerPoint. And can you point to the heads saved efficiencies gained by having your Microsoft Office suite and the money that it costs and the experience and skill people build using Excel or using email versus physical mail. Has anyone ever done the math on what the productivity benefit of those are? Or is that just obvious that it is something we should be using and it's more productive? And why are we spending time arguing about how much more productive it is? I wonder if AI ultimately kind of fits into that same category.

Speaker A: The thing that I think is so great about that question, and even that conversation is you're pointing out a consistent opportunity I see with organizations and it's walk me through the maturity of your process. How do you capture value? How do you deploy a solution? How do you effectively bring your organization along with whatever that innovation is. Look at a thing like rpo, recruitment process outsourcing. All you do is outsource this particular part of the work. It makes the recruitment process better without having a thoughtful, mature way of deploying it. A way of capturing that value upfront, um, is at least in terms of these are the things we're aspiring to capture. And let me be clear, I'm not talking about 30% efficiency. I'm talking about we're going to make our organization 30% more innovative. We're going to give you back more time and this is what we expect you to do with that time. That in my opinion is going to continue to be the opportunity regardless of the technology we're rolling out. And even now you see some micro adjustments in organizations where they're saying hey, instead of giving you an unlimited amount of tokens that you could burn through Every month. Let's cap it at $200. So let's cap it at $20. That's great. That's interesting, I guess, but help me understand why that makes sense. Why'd you go from $2,000 to $200? What was the justification for it? What are you trying to accomplish that you think 200 will and 2000 didn't? That is where I think HR can play a critically important role. It's holding the organization accountable for having that amount of rigor around the why and enabling the organization to actually implement whatever it is, the technology, the change, the motion, while at the same time front loading that discipline so that once you've implemented, regardless of what we're talking about in terms of the new thing, you're able to speak to the future state of your organization in a way that's compelling. It's one of those areas that, to me, it doesn't matter. You've seen it time and again. Whether you're talking about, to your point, PowerPoint versus email or Slack or any of these technologies that roll out, there's always this aspirational language around, hey, it's gonna make you paperless or it's gonna create greater collaboration. Fine, you get no argument from me. But there should be one thoughtful, mature practitioner who has a long view, says, okay, let's just assume that's all true. What does that ultimately mean in terms of making our organization better? How does it make us better? And if you can't answer that, then let us help you be more efficient in terms of how you deliver it. That's actually what I think is the future of the HR role. It's the future value proposition of the human capital function.

Speaker C: Love it. Thank you for allowing us to go so deep on artificial, uh, intelligence and how the HR role should think about it, where the benefits are, where we're at the cycle. I know we're digging deep and boy, I think this will be really helpful for our listeners. One of the reasons that we do this podcast is to help our listeners grow in their careers. So the question for you is, when you think about somebody that's currently in a HR director, head of people, VP of people, like standalone, top job at a small company, which may be more of our listeners, can you help them identify? Like, what can they do to get to the chief HR officer seat? What are some of the things that these mid to senior folks that are already the head of their function at a company can do to further elevate?

Speaker A: I think the most impactful thing you can do as a leader of an HR organization, mid size, small size, if ultimately you want to be part of a larger enterprise, is to get access to whatever that boardroom looks like. Get access to your CEO. Understand how your CFO not only digests data, but how they talk about it, how they think through what is truly considered to be value. Understand how your organization makes money, how does that revenue piece play out. And wherever there is a critical need, understand how your function underpins it and be able to speak to it in a language that makes sense to your peer group. It sounds basic, but if you want to elevate how you lead the function, it's important to understand what's valuable to have awareness of. You got to understand your numbers, you got to understand what's happening with the workforce. That's important for you to have awareness of and differentiate that from what you absolutely have to know and be able to speak to in a way that's credible. I would argue that's the fastest, most realistic thing you can act on in that role.

Speaker B: Love it. I mean, I think that reinforces so much of what Andrew and I are hoping to impart with our audience here of, um, you've got to know the business. You've got to speak the language of the business, like wear the hat of the board member, wear the hat of the CEO, wear the hat of the CFO so that you know when you go into conversations with them or trying to drive change, that you understand where they're coming from and what they're optimizing for and what they care about. Maybe one last question for, from our accelerator round, just to get that last bit of wisdom from you. You know, we love learning within the PLA community and ask everybody for resources of, like, where they learn from. And so if you could recommend two resources, whether people, books, podcasts, anything that you're learning from to an emerging people leader who. We were just talking about this audience. What two sources would make the cut?

Speaker A: I'm a big fan of leveraging AI just for the purpose of kind of framing my ask whether it's doing a deep dive into a particular customer or whether it's to truly understand a, uh, development, whether it's a policy development, whether it's changes you should anticipate that's coming from the political space or industry space. I just start there and of course I have a universe, um, of other books and resources that I've used throughout, but those are the ones that I typically default to.

Speaker B: Thank you. Sounds like a treasure trove of information in that lane. So appreciate it and thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your perspectives. Because our audience tends towards smaller to medium sized companies having your perspective coming in, being able to see across a broad breadth but also across the enterprise level is super helpful just to hear about how you're thinking about it, how you're seeing the trends from your vantage point. So we really appreciate your time.

Speaker A: Thank you. Jess thank you Andrew.

Speaker B: Thanks for joining us on today's episode of People Leader Accelerator Podcast where we talk with business and HR leaders about what makes great leadership and great work. We hope you walked away with at least one game changing insight for you and your team. You can find show notes and free bonus resources@peopleleaderaccelerator.com podcast. If today's question conversation sparked something for you, hit subscribe, leave a quick review and share this episode with that one colleague who really needs to hear it. You know who I'm talking about. And if you are currently navigating the tricky waters of hiring top talent, developing leaders who actually lead, or building a culture that fuels growth, let's talk. You can find us@peopleleader accelerator.com we're here to help you and your team not just survive, but truly thrive. I'm Jess Yuen and on behalf of my co host Andrew Bartlo, thanks for investing your valuable time with us. Be sure to hit that subscribe button so you don't miss a single episode. Until next time, keep learning and keep leading.