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Hey, it's Rachel, your modern mentor.
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I'm the founder of Lead Above Noise, where we help leaders
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activate performance without burning out their
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teams or themselves.
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If your team could use a boost of inspiration
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and action, I would love to support you.
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You can learn more about our workshops, keynotes,
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and programs over@leadabovenoise.com.
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So today I'm back with the second in our four-part summer
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short interview series, and today's guest is Mike Jacobson.
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Mike is the VP of People operations at Steno,
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and someone I have basically known since diapers.
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And in this quick conversation we talk about some
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of the workplace trends that Mike is seeing,
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and we cover some bits of advice you won't wanna miss.
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So enjoy my conversation with Mike Jacobson.
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Alright, well, Mike Jacobson, VP
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of People Operations at Steno.
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What a pleasure it is to have you
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on the Modern Mentor Podcast.
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It's such a pleasure to be here, um, for so many reasons.
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We've known each other a long time.
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We found a way to connect in our professional lives all
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these years later, even though we knew each other in our
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childhood, and I couldn't be more excited to chat
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with you about a subject that makes me excited.
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Oh, man, that is awesome.
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And for listeners, you should just know Mike is a friend
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of my little brothers from preschool elementary school.
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I'm not really sure. So we have known each other for
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so many years and probably seen each other do many,
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many foolish things in the younger ones, hopefully less
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so in more recent years.
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But it is so fun to have this conversation
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with you now in this professional context.
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You have done some really impressive things with your career
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and I'm excited to, to pick your brain
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and pull through some insights. Whenever you're ready,
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Feeling mutual, bring it on.
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Awesome. So we talked about how we are doing these kind
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of miniature interviews, these three question interviews
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as an experiment on the podcast.
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And so, as you know, my first question to you is,
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what is something that you are excited about
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or proud of having achieved?
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Could be within your current organization,
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a past organization, but something you have delivered
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or developed or put out into the world
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that has helped your talent be more successful,
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and what can we learn from that?
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I'm really proud of the learning
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and development environment emotion
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that we've created in the company
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because I think it, a lot of companies sort
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of like talk the talk on this subject,
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but they don't actually do a good job of, of encouraging
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and incentivizing people to spend the time
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to actually absorb the stuff that's in their LMS.
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You know, a lot of people think of it as like,
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I've gotta do a compliance course
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and there's an information security training course
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and I'm just gonna click through and get to the end.
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And certainly we've, we've gotta do that as well.
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But while you're there, you should get some things
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that can help you boost your career, right?
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You, you've already got the captive audience
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because they're going in there for their compliance reasons,
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but give them a reason to stick around
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that is something more transactional than just getting
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paid for the job that they do.
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Give them another set of skills that they can use
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to make themselves more marketable
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or to understand a part of the business
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that they don't have access to on a regular basis
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or improve their lingo such
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that they can be more relatable to clients.
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There's lots of different things that we do.
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What we don't do is add a whole bunch of like third party,
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you know, out of the box content into the LMS
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because that would create a, why am I here listening
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to this person who doesn't know what it's like
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to work at this company type feeling.
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So that's one thing is we've custom created a lot
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of content, uh, most of the content that's there
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to really give people a reason
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to stick around and to absorb.
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And we also add some carrots in there too, which are,
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you know, points you can earn for completing courses
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that you can exchange for things like company swag
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that you can gift to your
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colleagues who did a really good job.
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And I think when you have both the incentive
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and the rewards tuned properly,
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you can get a lot of great results.
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For us, what we've seen is LMS activity equals a lot
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of career progression.
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It equals a lot of promotion that equals a lot
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of people going from individual contributor to manager.
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Uh, and that's something that I'm really proud of.
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I, I myself did a career transition a long time ago.
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I was an attorney, uh, for six years out of law school
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and I decided that it wasn't for me
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and I became an HR professional instead.
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And I had to, you know, do a lateral move
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and learn a whole entirely new industry.
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I'm, I'm proud that we've created that sort of environment
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where people are interested in making those types
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of career transitions
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or growing in the chain that they're in already.
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That's awesome. Congratulations Mike.
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And there are, there are a couple things I wanna just
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quickly pull through there
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and then I might ask you a clarifying question or two.
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First of all, in terms of your own journey,
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I think people are generally afraid of a lateral move.
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I think we feel like, nope, I'm on a path,
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I'm climbing a ladder, I've gotta keep going up, up, up.
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I think it's very brave to take a leap out of the lane
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that you're in and, and step into a new one.
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And yet I assume that you've brought your legal background.
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Well, first of all, you're working in a legal organization,
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but even just having a legal background
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as an HR professional makes you, um, it makes you stand out.
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It brings a different category of skills to the job.
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And so I would love for listeners
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to just be paying attention to the value
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of considering moves, uh, that are left and right
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and not always just straight up.
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I think there's something inspirational in there.
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Yes, I couldn't agree more.
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Do you wanna take tackle it one at a time
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or do you, go ahead.
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Yeah, do you have any, anything you wanna
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add on to that, that'd be great. Sure,
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Yeah, I think, um, there, there's an identity crisis
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that goes along with these types of transitions
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for a lot of people, right?
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Especially for me.
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I, I think this is part of the reason
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that I struggled for as long as I did.
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I did six years of litigation, um,
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and while I had a different image in my mind of what was
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what a lawyer is going to be like versus
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what it was like in reality, I wasn't willing
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to give up on it so easily
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because I had made this large investment in time and money
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and my identity.
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I quite literally had to call my nana up
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and say, I don't want to be a lawyer anymore.
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And she was like, what? Like,
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my grandson doesn't wanna be a lawyer.
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So I think that was part of it too, is to your point,
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taking a leap and giving up on the identity
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that you had built toward.
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Because for me, what could be scarier than continuing on a
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path that you knew was not where you wanted to be?
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That that's, that's, that's what made the light bulb go on,
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is that I looked at what success looked like in that world
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and said to myself, that's not what my goal is.
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Um, I get more fulfillment out of helping people.
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And when I did, you know, postmortems of cases
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that were over or, you know,
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helping clients avoid getting sued to begin with, that's
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where I really started to, to feel like the fulfillment
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that made me feel good about myself when I put
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my head on the pillow at night.
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In order to get into a new field, though,
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I think this is one of the most important facts, uh, is
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that you've gotta be willing to take a step either
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to the side or even back in order to make that transition.
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Just because I had a legal background to your point,
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does not mean I can jump into an equivalent job in the HR
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world and just hit the ground running.
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I had to take a step back in order
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to give myself the opportunity
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to take two steps forward in
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a different direction in the future.
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That was part of the, the leap of faith
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that I'm glad that I did.
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I can understand why people are, you know, hesitant to do
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that, but it started me on a path that
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provided a lot more career fulfillment for me,
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which is the a good outcome.
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Absolutely. And,
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and linking it back to your first point around your,
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your learning management system
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and all the content that you're putting out there, I know,
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you know, sometimes people are pretty, they are looking
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to climb a particular ladder
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and so they're looking to build skills that are only kind
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of within their blinders, right?
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I wanna be climbing in this direction, so I'm only looking
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for classes or courses that can teach me the exact
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and literal skills that I need to, to climb up.
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What I take from your story is
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that there can be value in exploring content
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that teaches you skills maybe outside of,
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of the particular lane that you're already in,
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and it helps you kind of be more thoughtful, more expansive,
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maybe more creative in the job they're already doing.
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And so I hope people take a lesson from, um, you know,
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if your organization has content available,
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if they have a LinkedIn learning license, um, even if not,
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you know, there is, there is the internet that is full
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of TED Talks and free web webinars all over the place.
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I think there is so much value in learning,
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and I know for, for me in my world
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and with clients that I talk to, a lot of times the,
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the biggest obstacle, Mike,
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is people finding the time when they may block some time in
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their calendar to make learning time
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and then another meeting comes up
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and that feels kind of more real or more important.
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And so learning always takes the back seat.
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And so before we get to my second official question,
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I just wanna ask, do you have any advice for people for whom
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that is the issue?
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How do you create a discipline around
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doing learning on some sort of regular cadence
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and prioritizing it?
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You have to find the time of day that works for you to,
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to your point where you can really be in the zone
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and try to absorb as much as possible without distractions.
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For me personally, that time of day is right
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after my kids leave for the bus and before the hustle
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and bustle the day starts, which is typically 8:00 AM
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until like 9, 9 30 or so.
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There's also some time at night, which is the same for me
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after the kids go to bed, but before I collapse.
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So I think, you know, for each person you've gotta find
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what is the window of opportunity that you know,
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you can have some peace and quiet to concentrate.
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That's part of it. The other part of it is
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what you were talking about before, which is
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what are the skills that you
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need to go where you want to go?
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I think that's the other part of the equation.
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The skills that you want are sort of, you know, the,
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the ones that you know about that are within your reach,
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that are within your realm and your role.
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But if you have a different role in mind
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and if you have a different career goal in mind, right?
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I wanna be a project manager, I want to be an hr, I want
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to be a manager one day, there's different skills associated
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with each one of those paths.
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And I think in order to make yourself a strong candidate
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to stand out among a crowd, which is often, you know,
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hun hundreds of applicants, you gotta show the actions
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that you've taken to bring that interest to life as opposed
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to saying, I'm interested in that, that seems interesting.
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You've gotta make something happen.
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Yeah. All fair.
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So let's shift to my second question.
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I'd love to hear from you with a little bit
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of just candor and vulnerability.
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What is something that maybe you are curious about
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or noodling on or challenged by in terms
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of the talent experience in your organization?
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I wonder if I can potentially offer an insider. Two,
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We're big on feedback, uh, and standout,
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and we go so far as to make it clear to managers the type
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of feedback that we want to them to give
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to their direct reports.
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And for us, it really comes down to
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two different vectors of feedback.
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One is the tactical feedback
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that you would give based on the work
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that you observe on a day-to-day basis.
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And the other is there's the strategic feedback
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that you need to give to let somebody know
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how their career is progressing
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and where they stand within the role that they're in now,
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and what opportunities they might have to earn more money
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or more opportunities in the future
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because of how different those two things are.
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The cadence is really important of how often you do them
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and the mindset
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that the person is in when they hear it is important too.
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So what I struggle with
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and what I would always love to get some advice on is like,
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how regimented should that be versus how much safe
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or free space rather, managers should have to come up with
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what works best for them and for their teams.
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For us right now, we're sort of at one end of the spectrum,
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which is managers do it their own way
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and we've gotten very good at that
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because each manager has a different context
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and our teams are fully remote
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and they come up with the cadence that works best
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for them and for their teams.
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What gets lost in that though is
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that not everyone's doing it on the same schedule and
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therefore we don't have like a pool of,
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of feedback data results to look at in any one moment.
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It's sort of like a revolving, uh, cycle, if you will.
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Wow, okay. That's a big juicy
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One.
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I'm giving you a hard one.
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Great. So good.
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Let's brainstorm on this a little bit
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because I do think both the giving
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and the receiving of feedback are, um, are not always easy.
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Uh, I think these are things that organizations and,
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and people, individuals are challenged by.
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You know, I talk to leaders
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who have some of these same questions.
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How do I do it? How often do I do it?
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Um, I talk to employees who have questions like,
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how do I get better at receiving it?
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How do I give it to my peers? How do I give it to my boss?
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Like, there are a lot of questions around feedback
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and we know what an important element of,
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of the workplace it is and of improving
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and growing over time.
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Just a couple thoughts off the cuff
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when it comes to feedback.
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Um, I think first and foremost
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before getting into cadence is really focusing on quality
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and capability when it comes to giving feedback.
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I know, uh, back in the day when I used to be an HR person
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and I would run my business partners
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through talent assessments at the end of the year, I used
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to hear a lot of feedback that kind of had a lot
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of buzzwords and nothing particularly
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crystal clear about it.
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I used to hear a lot about this person really needs
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to be more, more of a strategic thinker.
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Um, but when I would press the leader on that,
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what, what does that mean?
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How does one know when one is doing strategic thinking?
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And so, you know, something that I love working
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with organizations on is just helping
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to bump up their feedback giving skills.
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Uh, there's a model, I don't know if you're familiar
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with the SBI model, the situation behavior impact model.
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That one is my favorite where I tell a leader or a peer.
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If you're giving a, um, a piece of feedback to a colleague
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when you're giving a piece of feedback, um,
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talk about this situation first.
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So simply, what were the facts of the situation?
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What are, what did you observe?
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What did you witness then offer a particular behavior
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that was good or bad?
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So not, um, I would've loved for you to be more
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of a strategic thinker in
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that conversation because that's not helpful.
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We need to focus on observable behaviors.
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So something like, you know, I noticed
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that while the client was talking,
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you were simply getting ready
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to say whatever you were gonna say next,
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and it felt like you weren't listening.
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Um, and when you listen
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and reflect back to the client what you heard,
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that shows them that you're really engaging,
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you're really paying attention, you're really a part
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of building the solution.
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Um, and the impact there is
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that when we don't actively listen, um,
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we're telling the client that we're less interested in
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what they have to say and we're more likely
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to not win that business.
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Right? So I love to spend time
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with leaders making sure they're giving feedback
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that is really clear and actionable.
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And that obviously speaks to more of the,
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the tactical side of things.
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And I don't generally tell managers
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that there's a particular like number of pieces
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that you need to give, but really building a practice
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for themselves around both critical
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and positive so that their employees regularly have a sense
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of how they're performing on a day-to-day basis.
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Um, lemme just pause there and get a reaction.
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Yeah, I I I couldn't agree more.
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So I think you're exactly describing
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what good tactical feedback sounds like.
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And to your point, depending on the person,
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depending on the team, depending on the situation,
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how often they get it is really a function of
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how often they need to hear it, right?
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You might do it in your weekly one-to-one.
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You might do it right
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after you hung up from a client call that you observed so
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that it's timely so that it's fresh in their mind.
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What you don't want to do is do it too infrequently
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because that's not gonna seem as actionable.
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You know, you give me feedback about the thing
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that happened three weeks ago, and you don't wanna be
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non-specific, which is what you said before,
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because then there's no anecdote that comes to mind
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where they could say, okay, with that feedback,
393
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how might I Hyatt have done that differently?
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So the tactical, I think is really important both on the
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detail, the anecdotes, and also on the timing.
396
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The strategic really needs
397
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to be a reflection of, of that, right?
398
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Like, based on all the tactical feedback
399
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that I've given you, my strategic feedback,
400
00:16:05.765 --> 00:16:06.805
and you don't have to phrase it that way,
401
00:16:06.825 --> 00:16:08.965
but the, you know, once a month, once a quarter,
402
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once every half year, I'm noticing
403
00:16:11.565 --> 00:16:12.845
that when I give you feedback,
404
00:16:12.865 --> 00:16:14.605
you decline in your performance after that,
405
00:16:14.865 --> 00:16:16.965
or that when I give you critical feedback,
406
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then you don't speak up as often after that
407
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or that you tend
408
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to get bogged down in the details of a project.
409
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And that tends to make you seem sort of like exhausted.
410
00:16:26.145 --> 00:16:29.325
And what I would wanna see next quarter is you getting a
411
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little bit more proactive with the project plan
412
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to avoid those burnout moments,
413
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you know, in, in, in advance.
414
00:16:35.745 --> 00:16:38.245
That's different. That's not specific anecdote, that's like,
415
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here's my 30,000 foot view of all the work that you've done
416
00:16:41.165 --> 00:16:42.685
and all the feedback that I've given you
417
00:16:43.185 --> 00:16:44.605
and how you've responded since then.
418
00:16:45.305 --> 00:16:46.725
Yes, I think that's right.
419
00:16:46.965 --> 00:16:49.405
I think you're, you're talking about just sort of broader,
420
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more global observations.
421
00:16:51.585 --> 00:16:54.605
And I think what's important, the one thing I'll say here is
422
00:16:54.605 --> 00:16:55.685
that I think it's important
423
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that the leader have a perspective on that person's
424
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ambitions or aspirations, right?
425
00:17:00.925 --> 00:17:02.605
Because you can give somebody feedback
426
00:17:02.705 --> 00:17:05.965
and say, you know, based on what I'm noticing, uh, you know,
427
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looking at these trends, I don't know
428
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that you're gonna be on track for a promotion.
429
00:17:09.985 --> 00:17:11.405
And the person might be sitting there thinking,
430
00:17:11.485 --> 00:17:13.005
I never said I wanted a promotion.
431
00:17:13.225 --> 00:17:14.765
I'm actually really comfortable in this role.
432
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Or, you know, I wanna continue expanding in this role,
433
00:17:17.585 --> 00:17:18.845
or I wanna stay in this role,
434
00:17:19.105 --> 00:17:21.965
but, you know, tackle clients in a different industry
435
00:17:22.265 --> 00:17:24.205
or I'm actually interested in making a,
436
00:17:24.285 --> 00:17:26.405
a career move into a different part of the organization.
437
00:17:26.425 --> 00:17:29.925
And so I think the biggest opportunity for managers
438
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that I see in this space is having more conversations
439
00:17:33.045 --> 00:17:35.845
that are grounded in questions about somebody's ambitions
440
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than I would say if you are a, a,
441
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a leader in an organization, make sure you are doing
442
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that regularly with your team members.
443
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And if you are a citizen
444
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and individual contributor, make sure
445
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that you're making your, your aspirations known
446
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and you're advocating for yourself in terms of
447
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what you want, as well as what you don't want.
448
00:17:52.925 --> 00:17:55.645
Couldn't agree more. I think, um, a a good metaphor
449
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that comes to mind for me is like taking care of a plant.
450
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If you were a passive manager,
451
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all you would really do is water the plant from time to time
452
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and make sure it gets sunlight.
453
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And what would happen in effect is the plan would be limited
454
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by its own capability
455
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and would sort of stay within that growth range
456
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because that's all it knows what to do.
457
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Your job as a manager is to add the fertilizer
458
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and to take care of the plant
459
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and put, to put it in an environment where it can flourish.
460
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And that means giving it fertilizer,
461
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which is the feedback, right?
462
00:18:25.705 --> 00:18:27.365
To, to tell it to your, to your point,
463
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what is your perspective on what the person needs
464
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to do better to get where they want to go in their career.
465
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Without that, they're gonna stagnate,
466
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and this is where the quote,
467
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people don't quit their company, they quit,
468
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their managers come to mind.
469
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If I'm not getting what I need from my manager to grow,
470
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at some point I'm gonna say
471
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maybe I want a different manager.
472
00:18:45.125 --> 00:18:46.285
Absolutely. Beautiful.
473
00:18:46.475 --> 00:18:48.725
Well, I think there's a lot of wisdom in here, Mike.
474
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Thank you. Thank you for letting me, uh,
475
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jump in there with you.
476
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I wanna get to my last question, which is
477
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I wanna leave everybody listening
478
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with a simple call to action.
479
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What is something you've done or tried
480
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or seen that didn't take too much time
481
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or effort to implement
482
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and had kind
483
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of an outsize impact on something in the realm of workplace success?
484
00:19:11.235 --> 00:19:13.245
Well, we took a very different approach to
485
00:19:13.245 --> 00:19:15.085
how we do performance management, which is not
486
00:19:15.085 --> 00:19:17.645
to have a single top-down approach for the whole company,
487
00:19:17.705 --> 00:19:21.645
but instead to embed with each leader to give them this type
488
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of, you know, um, best practice
489
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and pro tips on how to give feedback and then to step back
490
00:19:26.965 --> 00:19:30.045
and say, you run your performance management cycle the way
491
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you think works best for your team.
492
00:19:31.945 --> 00:19:34.405
So my call to action for anyone who's listening is,
493
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if you've got a top down one size fits all performance
494
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management system in your company, I'd be concerned
495
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that people are putting effort into it
496
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and not getting the return from
497
00:19:43.725 --> 00:19:44.925
that effort that they would hope for.
498
00:19:45.425 --> 00:19:47.525
And that could be because it's not often enough or
499
00:19:47.525 --> 00:19:49.765
because it's not specific enough to the point you made
500
00:19:49.765 --> 00:19:50.965
before or
501
00:19:50.965 --> 00:19:54.125
because the people who are running it aren't skilled enough
502
00:19:54.145 --> 00:19:55.645
to give quality feedback.
503
00:19:55.705 --> 00:19:57.605
It could be a combination of those three things.
504
00:19:58.175 --> 00:20:01.045
Three companies ago, company shall remain nameless.
505
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We did a once a year performance review system, uh, process
506
00:20:04.465 --> 00:20:06.885
and managers worked on it for like two months.
507
00:20:07.585 --> 00:20:09.045
And by the time you got to the end of it,
508
00:20:09.065 --> 00:20:10.765
it was like, thank God it's over.
509
00:20:11.225 --> 00:20:13.685
You know, so I, if, if that's
510
00:20:13.745 --> 00:20:16.565
how your employees feel about performance management,
511
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then it's a huge waste of time and you should rethink it.
512
00:20:20.845 --> 00:20:22.005
You should scrap the whole thing
513
00:20:22.005 --> 00:20:23.285
and start over if it's that bad.
514
00:20:23.705 --> 00:20:27.605
But more importantly, give managers, uh, the, the free space
515
00:20:27.605 --> 00:20:29.965
and empower them to run it the way it makes sense
516
00:20:29.965 --> 00:20:32.245
for their team and give the some standards
517
00:20:32.245 --> 00:20:34.045
that they should hold themselves up against
518
00:20:34.075 --> 00:20:35.925
that are consistent across all company.
519
00:20:36.315 --> 00:20:37.325
Beautifully said.
520
00:20:37.595 --> 00:20:39.125
Mike Jacobson, thank you so much
521
00:20:39.185 --> 00:20:40.885
for your time and your insight today.
522
00:20:40.885 --> 00:20:41.885
It's been a pleasure having you.
523
00:20:42.245 --> 00:20:45.205
Likewise. We should, uh, do this more often. You got
524
00:20:45.205 --> 00:20:46.205
It. ,
525
00:20:47.075 --> 00:20:48.805
sign me up. Have a good one.
526
00:20:49.145 --> 00:20:50.445
You as well. Thanks for having me on the show.
527
00:20:50.445 --> 00:20:50.845
It's been great.