Speaker 1: Hey, it's Rachel, your modern mentor.
I'm the founder of Lead Above Noise, where we help leaders
activate performance without burning out their
teams or themselves.
If your team could use a boost of inspiration
and action, I would love to support you.
You can learn more about our workshops, keynotes,
and programs over@leadabovenoise.com.
So today I'm back with the second in our four-part summer
short interview series, and today's guest is Mike Jacobson.
Mike is the VP of People operations at Steno,
and someone I have basically known since diapers.
And in this quick conversation we talk about some
of the workplace trends that Mike is seeing,
and we cover some bits of advice you won't wanna miss.
So enjoy my conversation with Mike Jacobson.
Alright, well, Mike Jacobson, VP
of People Operations at Steno.
What a pleasure it is to have you
on the Modern Mentor Podcast.
Speaker 2: It's such a pleasure to be here, um, for so many reasons.
We've known each other a long time.
We found a way to connect in our professional lives all
these years later, even though we knew each other in our
childhood, and I couldn't be more excited to chat
with you about a subject that makes me excited.
Speaker 1: Oh, man, that is awesome.
And for listeners, you should just know Mike is a friend
of my little brothers from preschool elementary school.
I'm not really sure. So we have known each other for
so many years and probably seen each other do many,
many foolish things in the younger ones, hopefully less
so in more recent years.
But it is so fun to have this conversation
with you now in this professional context.
You have done some really impressive things with your career
and I'm excited to, to pick your brain
and pull through some insights. Whenever you're ready,
Speaker 2: Feeling mutual, bring it on.
Speaker 1: Awesome. So we talked about how we are doing these kind
of miniature interviews, these three question interviews
as an experiment on the podcast.
And so, as you know, my first question to you is,
what is something that you are excited about
or proud of having achieved?
Could be within your current organization,
a past organization, but something you have delivered
or developed or put out into the world
that has helped your talent be more successful,
and what can we learn from that?
Speaker 2: I'm really proud of the learning
and development environment emotion
that we've created in the company
because I think it, a lot of companies sort
of like talk the talk on this subject,
but they don't actually do a good job of, of encouraging
and incentivizing people to spend the time
to actually absorb the stuff that's in their LMS.
You know, a lot of people think of it as like,
I've gotta do a compliance course
and there's an information security training course
and I'm just gonna click through and get to the end.
And certainly we've, we've gotta do that as well.
But while you're there, you should get some things
that can help you boost your career, right?
You, you've already got the captive audience
because they're going in there for their compliance reasons,
but give them a reason to stick around
that is something more transactional than just getting
paid for the job that they do.
Give them another set of skills that they can use
to make themselves more marketable
or to understand a part of the business
that they don't have access to on a regular basis
or improve their lingo such
that they can be more relatable to clients.
There's lots of different things that we do.
What we don't do is add a whole bunch of like third party,
you know, out of the box content into the LMS
because that would create a, why am I here listening
to this person who doesn't know what it's like
to work at this company type feeling.
So that's one thing is we've custom created a lot
of content, uh, most of the content that's there
to really give people a reason
to stick around and to absorb.
And we also add some carrots in there too, which are,
you know, points you can earn for completing courses
that you can exchange for things like company swag
that you can gift to your
colleagues who did a really good job.
And I think when you have both the incentive
and the rewards tuned properly,
you can get a lot of great results.
For us, what we've seen is LMS activity equals a lot
of career progression.
It equals a lot of promotion that equals a lot
of people going from individual contributor to manager.
Uh, and that's something that I'm really proud of.
I, I myself did a career transition a long time ago.
I was an attorney, uh, for six years out of law school
and I decided that it wasn't for me
and I became an HR professional instead.
And I had to, you know, do a lateral move
and learn a whole entirely new industry.
I'm, I'm proud that we've created that sort of environment
where people are interested in making those types
of career transitions
or growing in the chain that they're in already.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. Congratulations Mike.
And there are, there are a couple things I wanna just
quickly pull through there
and then I might ask you a clarifying question or two.
First of all, in terms of your own journey,
I think people are generally afraid of a lateral move.
I think we feel like, nope, I'm on a path,
I'm climbing a ladder, I've gotta keep going up, up, up.
I think it's very brave to take a leap out of the lane
that you're in and, and step into a new one.
And yet I assume that you've brought your legal background.
Well, first of all, you're working in a legal organization,
but even just having a legal background
as an HR professional makes you, um, it makes you stand out.
It brings a different category of skills to the job.
And so I would love for listeners
to just be paying attention to the value
of considering moves, uh, that are left and right
and not always just straight up.
I think there's something inspirational in there.
Speaker 2: Yes, I couldn't agree more.
Do you wanna take tackle it one at a time
or do you, go ahead.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you have any, anything you wanna
add on to that, that'd be great. Sure,
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, um, there, there's an identity crisis
that goes along with these types of transitions
for a lot of people, right?
Especially for me.
I, I think this is part of the reason
that I struggled for as long as I did.
I did six years of litigation, um,
and while I had a different image in my mind of what was
what a lawyer is going to be like versus
what it was like in reality, I wasn't willing
to give up on it so easily
because I had made this large investment in time and money
and my identity.
I quite literally had to call my nana up
and say, I don't want to be a lawyer anymore.
And she was like, what? Like,
my grandson doesn't wanna be a lawyer.
So I think that was part of it too, is to your point,
taking a leap and giving up on the identity
that you had built toward.
Because for me, what could be scarier than continuing on a
path that you knew was not where you wanted to be?
That that's, that's, that's what made the light bulb go on,
is that I looked at what success looked like in that world
and said to myself, that's not what my goal is.
Um, I get more fulfillment out of helping people.
And when I did, you know, postmortems of cases
that were over or, you know,
helping clients avoid getting sued to begin with, that's
where I really started to, to feel like the fulfillment
that made me feel good about myself when I put
my head on the pillow at night.
In order to get into a new field, though,
I think this is one of the most important facts, uh, is
that you've gotta be willing to take a step either
to the side or even back in order to make that transition.
Just because I had a legal background to your point,
does not mean I can jump into an equivalent job in the HR
world and just hit the ground running.
I had to take a step back in order
to give myself the opportunity
to take two steps forward in
a different direction in the future.
That was part of the, the leap of faith
that I'm glad that I did.
I can understand why people are, you know, hesitant to do
that, but it started me on a path that
provided a lot more career fulfillment for me,
which is the a good outcome.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. And,
and linking it back to your first point around your,
your learning management system
and all the content that you're putting out there, I know,
you know, sometimes people are pretty, they are looking
to climb a particular ladder
and so they're looking to build skills that are only kind
of within their blinders, right?
I wanna be climbing in this direction, so I'm only looking
for classes or courses that can teach me the exact
and literal skills that I need to, to climb up.
What I take from your story is
that there can be value in exploring content
that teaches you skills maybe outside of,
of the particular lane that you're already in,
and it helps you kind of be more thoughtful, more expansive,
maybe more creative in the job they're already doing.
And so I hope people take a lesson from, um, you know,
if your organization has content available,
if they have a LinkedIn learning license, um, even if not,
you know, there is, there is the internet that is full
of TED Talks and free web webinars all over the place.
I think there is so much value in learning,
and I know for, for me in my world
and with clients that I talk to, a lot of times the,
the biggest obstacle, Mike,
is people finding the time when they may block some time in
their calendar to make learning time
and then another meeting comes up
and that feels kind of more real or more important.
And so learning always takes the back seat.
And so before we get to my second official question,
I just wanna ask, do you have any advice for people for whom
that is the issue?
How do you create a discipline around
doing learning on some sort of regular cadence
and prioritizing it?
Speaker 2: You have to find the time of day that works for you to,
to your point where you can really be in the zone
and try to absorb as much as possible without distractions.
For me personally, that time of day is right
after my kids leave for the bus and before the hustle
and bustle the day starts, which is typically 8:00 AM
until like 9, 9 30 or so.
There's also some time at night, which is the same for me
after the kids go to bed, but before I collapse.
So I think, you know, for each person you've gotta find
what is the window of opportunity that you know,
you can have some peace and quiet to concentrate.
That's part of it. The other part of it is
what you were talking about before, which is
what are the skills that you
need to go where you want to go?
I think that's the other part of the equation.
The skills that you want are sort of, you know, the,
the ones that you know about that are within your reach,
that are within your realm and your role.
But if you have a different role in mind
and if you have a different career goal in mind, right?
I wanna be a project manager, I want to be an hr, I want
to be a manager one day, there's different skills associated
with each one of those paths.
And I think in order to make yourself a strong candidate
to stand out among a crowd, which is often, you know,
hun hundreds of applicants, you gotta show the actions
that you've taken to bring that interest to life as opposed
to saying, I'm interested in that, that seems interesting.
You've gotta make something happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah. All fair.
So let's shift to my second question.
I'd love to hear from you with a little bit
of just candor and vulnerability.
What is something that maybe you are curious about
or noodling on or challenged by in terms
of the talent experience in your organization?
I wonder if I can potentially offer an insider. Two,
Speaker 2: We're big on feedback, uh, and standout,
and we go so far as to make it clear to managers the type
of feedback that we want to them to give
to their direct reports.
And for us, it really comes down to
two different vectors of feedback.
One is the tactical feedback
that you would give based on the work
that you observe on a day-to-day basis.
And the other is there's the strategic feedback
that you need to give to let somebody know
how their career is progressing
and where they stand within the role that they're in now,
and what opportunities they might have to earn more money
or more opportunities in the future
because of how different those two things are.
The cadence is really important of how often you do them
and the mindset
that the person is in when they hear it is important too.
So what I struggle with
and what I would always love to get some advice on is like,
how regimented should that be versus how much safe
or free space rather, managers should have to come up with
what works best for them and for their teams.
For us right now, we're sort of at one end of the spectrum,
which is managers do it their own way
and we've gotten very good at that
because each manager has a different context
and our teams are fully remote
and they come up with the cadence that works best
for them and for their teams.
What gets lost in that though is
that not everyone's doing it on the same schedule and
therefore we don't have like a pool of,
of feedback data results to look at in any one moment.
It's sort of like a revolving, uh, cycle, if you will.
Speaker 1: Wow, okay. That's a big juicy
Speaker 2: One.
I'm giving you a hard one.
Speaker 1: Great. So good.
Let's brainstorm on this a little bit
because I do think both the giving
and the receiving of feedback are, um, are not always easy.
Uh, I think these are things that organizations and,
and people, individuals are challenged by.
You know, I talk to leaders
who have some of these same questions.
How do I do it? How often do I do it?
Um, I talk to employees who have questions like,
how do I get better at receiving it?
How do I give it to my peers? How do I give it to my boss?
Like, there are a lot of questions around feedback
and we know what an important element of,
of the workplace it is and of improving
and growing over time.
Just a couple thoughts off the cuff
when it comes to feedback.
Um, I think first and foremost
before getting into cadence is really focusing on quality
and capability when it comes to giving feedback.
I know, uh, back in the day when I used to be an HR person
and I would run my business partners
through talent assessments at the end of the year, I used
to hear a lot of feedback that kind of had a lot
of buzzwords and nothing particularly
crystal clear about it.
I used to hear a lot about this person really needs
to be more, more of a strategic thinker.
Um, but when I would press the leader on that,
what, what does that mean?
How does one know when one is doing strategic thinking?
And so, you know, something that I love working
with organizations on is just helping
to bump up their feedback giving skills.
Uh, there's a model, I don't know if you're familiar
with the SBI model, the situation behavior impact model.
That one is my favorite where I tell a leader or a peer.
If you're giving a, um, a piece of feedback to a colleague
when you're giving a piece of feedback, um,
talk about this situation first.
So simply, what were the facts of the situation?
What are, what did you observe?
What did you witness then offer a particular behavior
that was good or bad?
So not, um, I would've loved for you to be more
of a strategic thinker in
that conversation because that's not helpful.
We need to focus on observable behaviors.
So something like, you know, I noticed
that while the client was talking,
you were simply getting ready
to say whatever you were gonna say next,
and it felt like you weren't listening.
Um, and when you listen
and reflect back to the client what you heard,
that shows them that you're really engaging,
you're really paying attention, you're really a part
of building the solution.
Um, and the impact there is
that when we don't actively listen, um,
we're telling the client that we're less interested in
what they have to say and we're more likely
to not win that business.
Right? So I love to spend time
with leaders making sure they're giving feedback
that is really clear and actionable.
And that obviously speaks to more of the,
the tactical side of things.
And I don't generally tell managers
that there's a particular like number of pieces
that you need to give, but really building a practice
for themselves around both critical
and positive so that their employees regularly have a sense
of how they're performing on a day-to-day basis.
Um, lemme just pause there and get a reaction.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I I I couldn't agree more.
So I think you're exactly describing
what good tactical feedback sounds like.
And to your point, depending on the person,
depending on the team, depending on the situation,
how often they get it is really a function of
how often they need to hear it, right?
You might do it in your weekly one-to-one.
You might do it right
after you hung up from a client call that you observed so
that it's timely so that it's fresh in their mind.
What you don't want to do is do it too infrequently
because that's not gonna seem as actionable.
You know, you give me feedback about the thing
that happened three weeks ago, and you don't wanna be
non-specific, which is what you said before,
because then there's no anecdote that comes to mind
where they could say, okay, with that feedback,
how might I Hyatt have done that differently?
So the tactical, I think is really important both on the
detail, the anecdotes, and also on the timing.
The strategic really needs
to be a reflection of, of that, right?
Like, based on all the tactical feedback
that I've given you, my strategic feedback,
and you don't have to phrase it that way,
but the, you know, once a month, once a quarter,
once every half year, I'm noticing
that when I give you feedback,
you decline in your performance after that,
or that when I give you critical feedback,
then you don't speak up as often after that
or that you tend
to get bogged down in the details of a project.
And that tends to make you seem sort of like exhausted.
And what I would wanna see next quarter is you getting a
little bit more proactive with the project plan
to avoid those burnout moments,
you know, in, in, in advance.
That's different. That's not specific anecdote, that's like,
here's my 30,000 foot view of all the work that you've done
and all the feedback that I've given you
and how you've responded since then.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think that's right.
I think you're, you're talking about just sort of broader,
more global observations.
And I think what's important, the one thing I'll say here is
that I think it's important
that the leader have a perspective on that person's
ambitions or aspirations, right?
Because you can give somebody feedback
and say, you know, based on what I'm noticing, uh, you know,
looking at these trends, I don't know
that you're gonna be on track for a promotion.
And the person might be sitting there thinking,
I never said I wanted a promotion.
I'm actually really comfortable in this role.
Or, you know, I wanna continue expanding in this role,
or I wanna stay in this role,
but, you know, tackle clients in a different industry
or I'm actually interested in making a,
a career move into a different part of the organization.
And so I think the biggest opportunity for managers
that I see in this space is having more conversations
that are grounded in questions about somebody's ambitions
than I would say if you are a, a,
a leader in an organization, make sure you are doing
that regularly with your team members.
And if you are a citizen
and individual contributor, make sure
that you're making your, your aspirations known
and you're advocating for yourself in terms of
what you want, as well as what you don't want.
Speaker 2: Couldn't agree more. I think, um, a a good metaphor
that comes to mind for me is like taking care of a plant.
If you were a passive manager,
all you would really do is water the plant from time to time
and make sure it gets sunlight.
And what would happen in effect is the plan would be limited
by its own capability
and would sort of stay within that growth range
because that's all it knows what to do.
Your job as a manager is to add the fertilizer
and to take care of the plant
and put, to put it in an environment where it can flourish.
And that means giving it fertilizer,
which is the feedback, right?
To, to tell it to your, to your point,
what is your perspective on what the person needs
to do better to get where they want to go in their career.
Without that, they're gonna stagnate,
and this is where the quote,
people don't quit their company, they quit,
their managers come to mind.
If I'm not getting what I need from my manager to grow,
at some point I'm gonna say
maybe I want a different manager.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Beautiful.
Well, I think there's a lot of wisdom in here, Mike.
Thank you. Thank you for letting me, uh,
jump in there with you.
I wanna get to my last question, which is
I wanna leave everybody listening
with a simple call to action.
What is something you've done or tried
or seen that didn't take too much time
or effort to implement
and had kind
of an outsize impact on something in the realm of workplace success?
Speaker 2: Well, we took a very different approach to
how we do performance management, which is not
to have a single top-down approach for the whole company,
but instead to embed with each leader to give them this type
of, you know, um, best practice
and pro tips on how to give feedback and then to step back
and say, you run your performance management cycle the way
you think works best for your team.
So my call to action for anyone who's listening is,
if you've got a top down one size fits all performance
management system in your company, I'd be concerned
that people are putting effort into it
and not getting the return from
that effort that they would hope for.
And that could be because it's not often enough or
because it's not specific enough to the point you made
before or
because the people who are running it aren't skilled enough
to give quality feedback.
It could be a combination of those three things.
Three companies ago, company shall remain nameless.
We did a once a year performance review system, uh, process
and managers worked on it for like two months.
And by the time you got to the end of it,
it was like, thank God it's over.
You know, so I, if, if that's
how your employees feel about performance management,
then it's a huge waste of time and you should rethink it.
You should scrap the whole thing
and start over if it's that bad.
But more importantly, give managers, uh, the, the free space
and empower them to run it the way it makes sense
for their team and give the some standards
that they should hold themselves up against
that are consistent across all company.
Speaker 1: Beautifully said.
Mike Jacobson, thank you so much
for your time and your insight today.
It's been a pleasure having you.
Speaker 2: Likewise. We should, uh, do this more often. You got
Speaker 1: It. ,
sign me up. Have a good one.
Speaker 2: You as well. Thanks for having me on the show.
It's been great.