People Science and Cultivating Effective HR Partnerships with Enspira's Kurt Landon

Dane Groeneveld: Welcome to the Future of Teamwork podcast. My name's Dane Groeneveld, CEO of the HUDDL3 Group. And today I'm really pleased to welcome Kurt Landon to the show. Kurt's the founder and CEO of Enspira, and does some amazing work with a range of companies, a range of industries from an HR consulting standpoint. So Kurt, welcome to the show.

Kurt Landon: Thanks, Dane. It's great to be here.

Dane Groeneveld: So for the benefit of our listeners, perhaps Kurt, you can give them a little bit of a story on how you came to found Enspira and be doing the work that you're doing with the great team that you have.

Kurt Landon: Sure, absolutely. Yeah, I think the way that I would sort of explain my story of getting to this point is based off of the premise that I've always felt that they're things that you experience really early in your life that prepare you for something later in your life, but it's not always clear why or when or how that's going to play out. But I definitely feel like that was the case with me. And so as a kid growing up I was raised in a family where my parents felt it was really, really important for us to be global citizens. That might have been because we grew up in the Washington DC area and it's such a global and international city. And so as a kid studied Japanese and studied in Japan and in university studied Italian, studied in Italy, and then later in graduate school studied in China and India and Czech Republic. So I've always been drawn to things outside of the US. So the global nature of things was one input. Another was my first job out of university was as a software engineer with Accenture, Andersen Consulting at the time. And that was very different from anything that I had ever experienced before. Didn't really know why I was doing that or how I got thrown into that, but that was another input that I felt at some level might prepare me for something in the future. And then I really didn't know that there was a field called human resources, I hate to say, and part of that might be because back then in those early days of my career it wasn't even called HR, it was personnel, those of us who were a few years on us. And this aspect was really relevant because at that point in time this field of HR or personnel really was not very well respected. And so that was sort of the third and final input to how I got here was that I've always sort of been drawn to careers or fields or things that are a bit of an underdog function and need a lot of improvement and transformation. And so at that point in my career early on out of university those three things came together during the time that I was at Accenture. And so after the work as a software engineer, I migrated over to Accenture's human capital practice, did that for a number of years and then started learning more about HR personnel. And it was really, again, not very well respected in general, but at Accenture at the time it was not a field that, let's say, the human capital consultants wanted to go work in. And so I picked that and said, okay, I can marry a lot of the different things that I'm looking to do, such as pull in some of this work in technology, some of the work from human capital consulting, and then also maybe play a little small role in trying to elevate this field of personnel into something a bit more strategic and impactful. And so those three things came together and as soon as I got into corporate HR, I knew that that was for me, I loved every single minute of it. But it was a really big challenge to think about how we could elevate the field at that time. This was in the mid'90s, and so a lot of the buzz that we see today in the human resources field was not the case then. I had so many people who said to me, " Why are you leaving the prestigious human capital practice that people covet so much to be a part of and to go into personnel?" In fact, my parents actually cried when I ... into personnel.

Dane Groeneveld: Oh wow. That's a hard one to swallow.

Kurt Landon: Well, I think they were crying mainly because they were worried they would have to financially support me for the rest of .... It was definitely not a lucrative field, but also wasn't again that highly respected. But that's part of what motivated me. And so I think really pulling through the threads from the human capital time and then figuring out ways to infuse technology to really bridge the work with people was something that I knew was really for me. And so I spent most of my career 23 years I think in corporate HR. I did a couple of roles out in the line rest of the business during that time, but mostly was always in even resources. And then it was almost five years ago that I decided to start my own firm, Enspira, which of course I can share more about that growth story as well.

Dane Groeneveld: No, that's neat. And we will dig in on Enspira a little bit more because I think it's great the work that you're doing there. But on that 23 years, you worked for some pretty cool brands, we were talking a couple of weeks ago, from large pharmaceutical medical device brands into retail consumer brands. Could you perhaps share a little bit more of that breadth of exposure that you had?

Kurt Landon: Sure. I think Dane, growing up without a lot of exposure to the business world I didn't really understand how companies worked. And so those formative years at Accenture obviously were in a professional services environment, but what I was missing was understanding how a fully integrated business worked. And so really when I decided to move on from Accenture, my goal was to get that experience seeing how a fully integrated business worked. But I was also really drawn industry wise to life sciences. Most of my family works in healthcare. So my father was and still is a physician. He's practicing at age 83. And I have brothers who are physicians and surgeons. And so I just sort of by default thought if I'm going to go out into industry, something in life sciences would make sense. And I had one reason or another had always admired Pfizer as a company. And so I had this sort of dream of maybe going to work in HR for Pfizer. And a funny story, which I don't think I've shared with you, I was living in Atlanta at the time, finishing up at Accenture, and the phone rang one day... And I should actually tell you before I finish the story that my other dream aside from working for Pfizer was to move out to sunny southern California and San Diego in particular. So my dream was dream job would be HR, Pfizer, San Diego. The phone rings and the gentleman on the other end of the phone said, " Hi, my name is Clint. I'm a recruiter with Pfizer in San Diego and I'm calling about an HR job." So you need to know that I grew up with five brothers and there were all kinds of shenanigans that I grew up with and to this day on a weekly basis ... practical joke on someone. So I actually hung up on him and might have used a few expletives as well and said, I'm not falling through this. Fortunately Clint, the recruiter called back and it was the fastest recruiting process ever. I think within three weeks I was on my way to Pfizer in San Diego and really helped filled up the Pfizer research and development site in La Jolla there, which is an incredible experience.

Dane Groeneveld: A great location.

Kurt Landon: It is. My hiring manager was smart, she took me when I went for my interview and we have lunch by the ocean and watched the dolphins swimming. I didn't need much convincing anyway. But I was at Pfizer for several years and then I got recruited by Johnson& Johnson, which had a big medical devices facility up in Orange County in Irvine. And that was just an incredible inflection point in my career. I learned so much. I was incredibly and still am, very impressed with J& J, their culture, their values. And what I really learned there was the business model of being a conglomeration of all of these distinct operating companies. And so one thing that I learned, and I always remind people of now if they mention that I am sort of a big company person, is that I always have the opportunity to work for smaller entities within some of these large enterprise organizations. So for example, that R& D site in San Diego for Pfizer I was not at the mothership in on the East Coast. And same thing with J& J, I was leading HR for several operating companies in California but not at the mothership in New Jersey. And I think that was sort of the best of both worlds because I learned about how to scale businesses, sort of scrappy startup life, but with the safety net of the big enterprise behind it. So that was invaluable experience. Again, probably didn't know how that would prepare me for things in the future, but it was doing just that. Right as I finished getting settled into life in Orange County, my boss, who is amazing, Reyna Fernandez, who's a chief people officer now, she came to me and said, " I'm going to send you to Brussels Belgium." Because she had remembered when I was interviewing with her that I was sort of this citizen of the world and really wanted to live and work overseas. And next thing I knew I was off to Brussels Belgium and led HR for a couple of operating companies over in EMEA. And after my time at J& J I decided I really wanted to get some more experience in tech. So not as a software engineer in terms of my job, but more in the industry of tech. And so I moved to Seattle and went to go work for Expedia and that was an amazing experience. As soon as I got settled in Seattle, they transferred me to London. So you see a theme here, Dane, right?

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah.

Kurt Landon: And so don't the grass grow too far under my feet. And so I moved to London to head up HR for Hotels. com, and then they asked me to build out the India office. And I wasn't in a position to move to India, but I commuted almost every two weeks for a year and a half from London to Delhi. And that was just an incredible highlight. And then after that I moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts to Boston to be an HR psyched at Biogen, big biotech there. And that was also an incredible experience. And then my last corporate role was leading the people function for Pinterest. And I had the privilege of doing that up right before the IPO. And that was always sort of my dream job was to be able to get experience being a chief people officer with sort of an iconic household name like Pinterest. And that was an incredible experience. And really that's when I think I realized all these experiences that we talked about before, the global, the tech, the software engineering, the people aspects kind of came together to prepare me to be in a role like that.

Dane Groeneveld: That's awesome. And it's such an interesting spread of, like you say, locations, business types, industry types, and I think that's the key. I love what you said earlier, which is personnel was the underdog. It was kind of doing what you had to do to stay in business. And there's a word that you use, which is that HR is having its moment right now, particularly through COVID, where everyone's relied so much on their people departments, their HR departments to help them find way through all of this disruption. And I'm fascinated by that. And I think naturally that's really helped you with the development of your business at Enspira too.

Kurt Landon: Yes, absolutely.

Dane Groeneveld: One thing that might benefit me and certainly our listeners is what is it that allows you to differentiate between human capital and human resources? Because I've often interchanged the two and when you were saying, " Hey, mom and dad were crying because I'm moving from human capital at Accenture to HR in the corporate world," how do you differentiate those two categories, titles?

Kurt Landon: It's actually a great question. And officially I don't know the answer, but I'll try one out. But maybe another quick funny story is my mother who I adore to this day whenever she introduces me to her friends or anything she tells them that tells them that I work in human relations. And I tell her I'm not quite sure what that might imply, but it's probably not something good or appropriate so we can add that to the mix as well. I think when I think of human resources, I think what it pulls in and comprises that's a little bit different from human capital are some of the more operational transactional people operations things, kind of keeping the trains running and the lights on a lot of the policy and compliance and sort of less strategic things. Human capital I think of as really being the transformational work around people and talent and culture in an organization and usually doesn't comprise some of those other things. I'm sure there's a Venn diagram there in terms of HR and human capital and something that's shared between the two. But when I'm speaking with clients and people who don't work in this space, I usually will just say all the people, talent and culture related stuff that happens in organizations is what I feel we specialize in.

Dane Groeneveld: Got it. No, that I like that definition and it makes a lot of sense because you do often see the tactical administrative versus the strategic. And it's interesting that your mom said human relations because having grown up in the mining industry, there's a lot of industrial relations. So maybe the IR, which used to live kind of side by side is kind of informing a little bit of that too. But it is an industry which is so huge. I mean businesses rely on people and yet everyone seems to have their own flavor. It's kind of like marketing. Someone says they're in marketing, you don't really know what they do in marketing'cause it's such a broad field that is probably the human capital, human resources starting to have its day a little bit more in this digital age.

Kurt Landon: That's right. Yeah. I think also maybe the term resources it feels a bit aged at this point and diminishes the importance of how critical people and talent are to make organizations successful. And so I think yeah, that is sort of the moving away from that. And you see that now with the advent of the taxonomy of head of people and the people function and companies, I think a lot of companies are moving away from using human resources as the name of the function.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah. We certainly in our team here with David Bambi and the group renamed as people and culture, but I've seen a lot of people operations titles out there in the industry too. And people operations seems to be, you touched on it earlier when you were referencing infusing technology into human capital, people operations seems to look a little bit more towards the systems interfaces of the people at work as well. So, how do you hire them? How do you develop the teams, enrich the teams and make sure they've got systems? I saw the other day, there's obviously been a big debate out here around return to office, hybrid, remote, return to office. And there was a really interesting study that said actually the thing that most employees are struggling with now, I think it was 52% of employees report that they're struggling with the tech stack, the tools that their employees are telling them that they need to use. And that's real.

Kurt Landon: It is. It can be a bit overwhelming. And who is really the almost technology sherpa to help these employees navigate that, right? Might be the business opportunity there.

Dane Groeneveld: Oh, definitely. I mean because often the people team, the talent team, are responsible for training and then the technology department picks the tools, but how well are those two working together? It's a challenge. Very neat. So let's dig in a little bit deeper on Enspira us. So, as you told me the story at first it was, " Hey, I'm in a transition, I'm going to start an LLC, I'm going to go out and do a little bit of consulting." And that's turned into a large team, great customers, a broad range of services. So what was it in those early days that allowed you to see customers pointing you towards, there's work that we need to do here, there's value that we can create by really embracing the potential of humans on our team and how we're supporting them to work together?

Kurt Landon: I think it's a great question, Dane. And the answer I think is a bit complex. One aspect is when I was in my in- house human resources roles, there was always some person or people outside of the organization, whether it be an executive coach or an advisor or a mentor or a consultant who seemed to have the year of the CEO or the senior executive management team. And there were times where I or my team were saying the exact same thing that the people on the outside were saying but it seemed that outside voice carried more weight and had more impact. I'd be lying if I said that that wasn't frustrating when I was in those in- house roles, and I'd also be lying if I'd said that wasn't something that intrigued me about what life could be like doing some of this work from the outside. And I do think that there is merit to doing this kind of work from the outside because there's an additional level of objectivity that you bring to the table. I remember when I was at Pinterest for example, advocating for a new titling and leveling scheme for the company. And what I was advocating for would have also in a way benefited me because my title would've been elevated. I don't really care about titles, but some people do. But when I was really pushing and advocating for that point of view, I got the sense that my CEO was wondering whether was I pushing for it because it might benefit me. If I was advocating for the same thing from the outside, which I since have many times, no one really questions that because it's obvious that you're not going to personally have anything to gain or lose in that position. And so I found that very interesting. I will say I'm still perplexed as to why it's so significantly different, the level of influence and impact from the outside. I have all kinds of hypotheses. Maybe familiarity breeds contempt on the inside. But I've talked with a lot of my colleagues who've experienced something similar when they move to the outside as a consultant, coach or advisor. That ability to have more impact and influence I think is really fulfilling. And then also being able to shape this kind of work across many different industries, sectors, many different clients is both personally fulfilling, but also benefits our clients. Because we can bring to the table a perspective that's informed by a lot of pattern recognition across hundreds of different organizations, industries, geographies, et cetera. So I think that just ... the value for the client. So those were some of the things I think that intrigued me about getting into the consulting industry again, but as a founder myself. The other thing I would say is many people expect me to say about how I started my business that I had this grand aspiration, vision, strategy plan. I had none of those things. And people who know me well know that I always have a strategy, a plan, a vision. That's just kind of my personality. But I didn't actually decide to start a company, which is sort of the big surprise there. I set up an LLC, I was fortunate to have a couple of colleagues who joined me and we started doing this work just on a small scale very organically and most importantly with a lot of humility. So because we didn't take six months or a year and plan out how we were going to do this before we entered the market, we just jumped right in. I think it would've been really presumptuous to have thought that we knew exactly what the market and our future clients would need without listening to them and talking to them and hearing and experiencing what their pain points were. So it was a very conscious choice to not have that strategy or plan and to really just get to work to learn about these different organizations and listen very intently and then to see where the needs were. And I think that's really served us well because if you asked me five years ago if I would've been in the search business or the total rewards business or have an HR technology business, I would've said absolutely not. And now I can't imagine anything different. But that came about because our clients really needed that.

Dane Groeneveld: Which is really neat and I want to go a little deeper on that customer- led journey because it's come up a lot in how we talk about teams. We had Dr. Cerolli working with us, he continues to work with us about whether you are product led, marketing led or finance led, and how the fact is you actually need all three in a healthy tension. So I want to dig in on that. But I also, before we jump there, this concept of the outsider, the power of the stranger, Alicia helped us write a white paper on last year that an outsider can come in and have the ear of the CEO or the executive team and say exactly the same things as what the team's suggesting but carry more credibility. To me, that's fascinating. I too have some views on it. I mean, the optimist in me believes that people should all play nice, but invariably in a lot of organizations you see that people don't play nice. They power base, they're defensive, they're protective, they're guarded. And so it almost seems like in this world of work that we live in that people that aren't truly on a team together are always looking for ulterior motives. They're not just weighing up on merit the value of something that someone puts forward, they're always trying to see what might be behind that agenda. And that doesn't seem to be the case for an outsider because that outsider is free of, I guess, the political landscape and the vested interests of relying on that company for their salary, their bonus, their social bearing. It's an odd one, isn't it?

Kurt Landon: It is. And I think part of what's a bit unique about now how we think of team in terms of how we work, certainly we have our team at Enspira and we have engagement teams that are deployed to clients. But I made a conscious choice when I found the firm to anchor our business to human resources leaders and functions and teams if they exist at the client, because we also work with a lot of really early stage startups that don't have that function in place yet. But when they do, in part because of the historical reason I mentioned and the experience I had in- house we wanted to really be an extension of the in- house HR team or people team. And so we see them as a team to us, they see us as an extension of the team. And that's really important because especially as the HR field has evolved and matured these are really good people doing really important work and I've dedicated my life to this field. So I would never want to do anything to work for cross purposes with the in- house people team. And so anything we can do to amplify their reach, their impact, and somehow there's a special added piece of value where if we can build off of that external influence and impact that we have but be able to repurpose that and channel that to the internal team so they can benefit from that. I think everyone wins and ultimately the business is better off for it. But that's not how a lot of the other firms I think are structured. And then what happens is either intentionally or not that outside consultancy is really trying to be the hero, they're trying to continue to ingratiate themselves to whomever holds a lot of the power in the organization and that's just not really what we're about. We just want do the good work and make sure that all things people, talent and culture are thriving in that organization.

Dane Groeneveld: I really like that framing of extension of the team, there to champion that people or that HR group. A slightly controversial viewpoint, probably from the'80s and'90s, so when you were entering the industry, particularly in large organizations, was that personnel HR was where you put middle managers who just didn't show that upwards potential. It was a safe place to put a reliable pair of hands to get the job done, to tick the box. Which is really sad that the industry went through that because it is a discipline in and of itself where you need passionate people who have huge potential to really drive all of the change. But there are some businesses that still play that way. So if you or the team at Enspira are walking into a business to help extend a people and culture team or an HR team, and you realize that actually the CEO may have just put some steady pairs of hands in there and it's a box ticking exercise, they haven't really put the right people in charge. How do you navigate that dynamic? Is it, " oh, we can't work with this company because the team's not ready to work with us?' Or are you coming in and doing a bit of triage and helping to upgrade the team like that? That's a tricky one if you are going in with this agenda to uplift and you're kind of walking into some landmines.

Kurt Landon: First of all, I think your comment resonates a lot with me, and I saw that back when I first got into the field back then. And what I observed back then was what you just mentioned. So those middle managers who were sort of very solid B players or maybe a little bit less than that. And so it's sort of a parking lot of sorts. I also saw people come up through the administrative ranks, so sometimes in a good way. So maybe an executive assistant who had more potential and had exhausted the career path within the EA world, they might put into personnel or a receptionist or an office manager. And so it's always been, I don't want to say dumping ground because that has a negative connotation, but it's always been a landing spot. Maybe you could call it that.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, I like that. Better framing.

Kurt Landon: For different types outside of the field. And I think sometimes that's okay because I think some of those individuals, the receptionist, the office manager, the executive assistant, are incredibly talented people with a lot of potential and some of them went on to become iconic chief people officers today and then a lot of people have forgotten that that's where they started their career. Same thing with those middle managers in some cases, that was really helpful because really understanding the importance of the role of the line manager and the frontline manager is something that's always been important and always been plagued with a lot of challenges. That's a big space that we play in at Enspira, is really trying to maximize people manager capability. So I actually think in some cases historically that was beneficial to have people coming from line management into the function because otherwise you had these HR people who were trying to build manager capability but had actually there never been managers themselves or didn't really understand what that daily life that the manager was like. And so I remember really learning a lot about people management from some of those people who had been dropped into the field. And then now I think what we're seeing is something I think it's really exciting is you're seeing very successful A player line leadership talent choosing to join the HR field and become chief people officers or senior HR executives when they could be a chief marketing officer or even a chief financial officer. And we recently had a very provocative and interesting discussion within my firm about this. Is this good? Is it bad? One point of view is that admitting failure of the function that we're not producing enough best in class people leaders or human resources leaders so that the talent has to be sourced from the line, or is it a compliment to the function that it's now finally achieved sort of the respect that it deserves and other functions are choosing to join? Just like you see sometimes chief people officers go out into the line and become a line executive. Maybe I'm a overly optimistic person, but I choose the latter. That I think it's a sign of respect that the function has really gotten to a place where people want to work in it. And I think is less frequently the case that it's because there isn't enough good talent in the field.

Dane Groeneveld: That's cool. I'm going to repeat that'cause I think that's brilliant, a very good provocative conversation. That people who are not career lifers in people and HR are coming from the line into chief people officer roles or chief human resource officer roles, not a failure of the function it's a compliment. It's saying that the importance, the criticality of this role is bringing talent from other disciplines. I think that's a great way to look at it. You're right, it's natural to initially be defensive, they've not been through what I've been through, they don't have the expertise that I do. But to your earlier point, bringing the wider organizational perspective is key because you see that in teams a lot. Often the leader doesn't have to be the practitioner, they just need to find the best way to unlock the team of great experts and practitioners and outside consultants. So I think that's really valuable for anyone listening who's at that juncture right now that's thinking, " Well, how do I put the right C- level leader over people over HR?" They might well have that great person already existing in their organization.

Kurt Landon: That's right.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah. Cool. I love that. That's a great share. Thanks Kurt. I said I was going to come back to being customer led, because I'm fascinated by being customer led. I think we're at this point in time right now where everyone's more open- minded, that you see more learning. Whether it's because people listen to podcasts or they read HBR articles or they have conversations on the train going to work, they're more curious, a lot of leaders. So tell me, in being customer led, in those early days with your team, what was it that you were hearing most? What were they most asking you to come in and help solve for in their people organizations?

Kurt Landon: Well, I think probably two categories of things. The more sophisticated strategic things that were transformational and growth oriented, and then some of the very basic things. And so on the basic side, especially if our initial clients were in the startup realm were we don't know what to pay people. We don't know how to hire them. Even logistically, we don't know how to actually get someone up and running as an employee. Should they be an employee? Should they be a contractor? So a lot of these really foundational issues, but things that have to go really well. And left to their own devices self- admittedly they would say, if we don't have some help with this, it's not going to go well and it'll be very messy. And then there's some more sophisticated things. Our very first client is this incredible company, there's still a client called Purple Carrot in the plant- based meal kit delivery space. And their founder and former CEO, Andy Levitt, is a close friend, is on our advisory board and is just one of the best business leaders I know. And fortunately, he sort of took a chance on me when I started the company and became our first client. And I remember conversations that very first week and he basically said, " Well, what kind of work are we going to do together?" And I said, " You tell me." And he said, " Well, you have a point of view." And I said, " I don't yet because I haven't actually done any work with you." I've said, " Let's really discuss in a very professionally intimate way what's working well and not working well in terms of the business, set aside all things people, talent and culture, but let's just talk about the business. And then in addition to that, let's talk about what some of your growth goals are as a company. And then let's back into that question about what we're going to focus on from a people talent and culture perspective." So it was always really instilled into me by some of the people who really taught me how to do this kind of work over the years that you want to start with what you're trying to accomplish from a business perspective. What are those desired outcomes? Is it rapid scaling and growth? Is it profitability? Is it market share? What are those desired outcomes? And then how can you think of all things people talent and culture related as a lever or a set of levers to really drive that growth? So I've always had in my mind that anything we're doing in the people space should really be accretive to an instrumental in achieving those business goals. So that's how we started the discussion. And to get down to brass tax, what that culminated in is us realizing together in a co- authored sort of way that one of the big things that they needed help with was career frameworks. So leveling and titling and what does it take to be successful in that organization, what's expected of the everyday employee? And in most organizations, employees are unclear about what the recipe for success is. And I think there's some dissonance between the organization may think that that's clear, sort of executive management and HR, but the everyday employee may not be clear. So we did some really great work with them in early days, that was the very first project we ever did at Enspira, which was to build a competency framework for the company and levels and titles to go with that so everyone would understand what it takes to evolve in their career. For some people, it was about getting ahead and climbing. For other people it was about developing their skills and effectiveness. And this created a pathway for both. Now it's that kind of work, which is one of our core areas of expertise and it's also something that, interesting enough, I've just chosen to specialize in through my career. We really believe in doing that in a very simplistic, clear, legible way. And any of the listeners who have had exposure to competency models and career frameworks, sadly in most organizations they're way over clubbed. They're so complicated. And so someone starts in the organization and they say, " Here are the 573 things that you need to do well in order to advance and succeed here." No one can do that. So what we really have done is tried to do that in a very pragmatic, legible way. So here are the 5 things that you need to be great at, and not 5 things that have 17 things under each of those five things, really 5 things, and in language that everyone understands and it's very clear. And then what's interesting is usually when you build those types of frameworks, they have about a two year shelf life and then you need to update them because the business has evolved. I was in their offices a couple of months ago and actually saw some of the brochures that we had created, unfortunately wasn't that environmentally friendly, but we created all our copy brochures ... three of them in people's desks and this almost five years later, granted the pages had coffee stains on them and were curled up, but they're still using it. And so that as an outside consultant is one of the best compliments you can get.

Dane Groeneveld: No, that's really neat. And the fact that in fast moving businesses, there's a shelf life's very relevant too. I've been in that with different businesses that I've been fortunately a part of where we've had high growth. And you look at the old career matrix and now you look at the new one and you're like, wow, that role doesn't even exist anymore. We've got these three new ones over here and we've broken down that workflow. So it does change.

Kurt Landon: One of the other things about customer led journey that comes to mind, and I think it's one of the decisions that was a good one in early days was we don't have a board of directors, but we created an advisory board at very beginning of this journey. And I think that was one of the best things that we could do because the advisory board is comprised of people who would be clients of ours and in many cases our clients, and so we can really listen to them and have them help shape where do we focus, what are our offerings, not just what we do, but how we do it. And I think there's something in that too, which is not every client wants to engage in this sort of work in the same way. And the experience of how they want to work with an external consultant, I think varies. That's been really, really helpful to have that sort of built in group of individuals who can really shed some light on that. So that's something I would highly recommend for others who are starting a journey like this.

Dane Groeneveld: That's a really interesting one. I think it's very key for anyone who's trying to build a business to serve customers. But could you frame that internally? So, right now my business is going through a people and culture evolution and they've got internal customers. So are there ways when you come in and work with a larger organization that you help the people and culture team almost build an internal customer advisory board?

Kurt Landon: Yes. I mean, I actually think it's a super interesting idea, we should talk more about that, because I think formalizing that could be something interesting that organizations should experiment with. And I think seeing how beneficial that's been to me and to us on the outside, why not have an internal advisory board comprised of a variety of different line leaders, and then the HR people team works with that internal advisory board to really shape their agenda and where do they focus. I think unfortunately still in most organizations, the HR function is saying, " This is essentially what we're focused on. This is what we're doing, you ... this, this is how we'll engage." And I think there are a lot of incredible HR leaders out there who, I think, while they may not have formally set up an advisory board, that mindset is how they operate. And I think they do that well. And that might be part of the recipe for success for some of those great HR teams and HR leaders. I think one thing that we do in the way we engage with client organizations is really have a very fulsome listening tour. And I think a lot of consultancies do that, but we do that in a little bit of a different way. We come up with the individuals we're going to speak with as well as the questions we're going to ask, we determine that collaboratively with the in- house people team. So we're not just a runaway train, but we're doing that together. And that, I think even something like that, which certainly people are used to the idea of listening tours, a lot of consultancies do that, line leaders do that when they move into a new role. But there's really both a science and an art to that. The way you ask the questions and in what order and the word choice that you use is very, I would say, scientifically grounded. And I often refer to a lot of this work as people science, because everyone in an organization thinks that they know how best to do this kind of work, but there is a science, many of us went to school for this. Here's the artistic nuances, how you engage with people as you're listening to them and asking them what's important, listening for nuance, trying to determine what's not being said, looking at the nonverbal communications so that you know where to probe and push is really key.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, no, I really like that point. So I'm glad you brought up customer advisory board or advisory board as a concept,'cause I think that's an interesting pathway. And then we've talked a lot with different guests about how people feel surveyed to death and to your point, there's science and art to it. If you're going to do something right, put the right people around the table, create some inclusivity of voice and do the learning. Because too often it's like, " Oh, well, we've decided we're going to do this, so we're going to send a survey out so we can tell everyone that what we did served 37% of what people ask for." It just seems like an afterthought sometimes.

Kurt Landon: I couldn't agree more.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, no, that's really neat. Talking about inclusivity, so diversity, equity, inclusivity, belongings a big part of what your team does for your customer organizations, and clearly you've done a great job of building that within your own team, including for the pets in your organization, from the video that you shared with me, which is super cool. But tell me a little bit about how you are seeing some of these practices play out to change team dynamics when you're going in and working on some of these projects from the basic to the more transformational, like the career frameworks and the leveling and titling and other types of work that we haven't perhaps touched on in this conversation. How are you seeing that really help reinforce this more intentional effort towards diversity, equity, inclusivity, and belonging?

Kurt Landon: Well, thanks for asking about this. I think this is one of the things that I'm most passionate about, both as a human being but also as a leader. And it's very much infused into everything we do. So a lot we could talk about here. I think one aspect is for me, just my own personal journey is very relevant to this topic. So again, I grew up in a house of six boys, and I knew from an early age that I was a bit different. So I'm an openly gay executive now. Very comfortable in my skin and aware of who I am and the unique gifts that I bring to the table because of the diversity that I bring not in spite of it. And I think that realization and becoming comfortable with that is something that informs how I think about belonging in particular. And so I think I almost wish that in the world we would talk about belonging first and then diversity and equity and inclusion secondarily, because I think really belonging is the key anchor there, and everyone needs to feel a sense of belonging in all the different environments they're in. Otherwise, they're really not able to do their best work. They're not able to demonstrate the highest levels of engagement and all the other things that you would expect. And so I think because that's been such a personal journey for me, I was always drawn to this kind of work even before it was called DEI or DEIB. I remember when I worked for Accenture in the Atlanta office back in the nineties, and my boss at the time had asked me to lead the diversity work for that 3000 person office. And one of the things that happened was I joined that group and I took on this leadership role, and the focus of that work was really, really good, but it was specifically focused on race and not on any other aspects of diversity. So it was not very inclusive in terms of the scope and the remit. And so one of the things I worked really hard to do was to broaden the focus to address all different types of diversity, equity, inclusion issue without losing the focus on race. And that's really hard to do, right?

Dane Groeneveld: Oh, yeah. I can't imagine.

Kurt Landon: It was hard to do. And especially because at that time it was not something where people were used to people talking about their sexual orientation or gender very openly. So unfortunately, as I came in the room to lead I think a lot of people said, " Look, on the surface, you're a white male leader coming in to lead this diversity work. What's diverse about you?" So it forced my hand to, I think come out a lot earlier to share more about myself almost in order to establish credibility for why I deserve to be playing that role, which didn't feel very much like belonging-

Dane Groeneveld: Doesn't.

Kurt Landon: inclusive, right?

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah.

Kurt Landon: But it was really important because I think for me to experience and feel that gave me empathy for what other people feel like every day of their lives. And I never really forgot that. It always really stayed with me. So I think that was one aspect. The other thing was that I think in many organizations, matters of DEI are handled somewhat on an island in isolation or in a silo. And what I've learned is that this work needs to be infused in everything that an organization does, it can't just be in isolation. And unfortunately, as we've seen a lot of DEI issues come to the forefront in recent years, the conventional wisdom has been choose a specialist or expert internally or externally who all they do is work on DEI and that's going to be the right way to solve it. I always use healthcare analogies because of my family growing up, but my dad's a gastroenterologist. So you go to the doctor, you have a stomach problem. The conventional wisdom is bring in an expert where all they know is all things around gastroenterology. Same thing with diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging. You have DEIB objectives, goals, needs, bring in an expert in that space. Unfortunately, and I don't want to say anything negative about the people who do that work because I respect them so much, but the ones who really do it best, they understand that that needs to be part of almost every process in the organization. And if you ... the human resources field, it has to be infused into talent acquisition, onboarding, talent development, retention, all the things, pay practices, it can't be on an island. And so that is really how we approach that work. And we're seeing such a need for this work right now. Very sadly, with all the workforce reductions that are happening in the world right now, a disproportionate number of chief diversity officers and chief inclusion officers are losing their jobs. And I think that's really disheartening. Why is that that's the role that seems to be impacted so prevalently, but also first? Does that say something about, is that seen as a luxury position? I hope not because I think it's one of the most essential ones. And these are really talented people who are having such an impact on those organizations. That's disturbing. And then when you combine that with the fact that a lot of these workforce reductions just naturally negatively impact underrepresented populations because of bias and things like that, that population effect is really concerning. On the other side of the coin, that's created more demand for my team to do this kind of work and do it really well because the people who've been doing that work in companies in some cases aren't there anymore. So we're really trying to do is again, embrace that same ethos of partnering with those individuals, not in competition with. So as some of these DEI leaders are being displaced, we're trying to help place them through our search business, but also to partner with them, bringing them into the fold as freelancers or employees with us so we can give that expertise back to the clients.

Dane Groeneveld: That's neat. I mean, there's so much you touched on there. I love that you started out with belonging. Makes me think... And I loved your openness and vulnerability about your story too, because it's important we have more leaders talking about this and the fact that belonging is more important than diversity, equity, inclusion from a framing standpoint, not from an actual actuality standpoint, is really interesting. It makes you wonder, why aren't we seeing any chief belonging offices out there? Because it is real. It's very real. And it doesn't matter about your age, your race, your sex, your gender, your religion. It's do I belong in this group? Do I feel included in this group because I belong here? That's really powerful. And it needs to be systemic. I think the, that's a huge point to be touching on is that you can't run a workshop or a communication and expect that that's going to fix all of the other intricacies within your organization overnight. That's very cool. I mean, I feel like we could go and speak for another couple of hours, Kurt, but I see we've already just clicked over the 50 minute mark. I can't really summarize all of this. There's been so many really good points. But some of the highlights that I heard was kind of how HR moving from personnel, it attracted you as an underdog. It's grown, that it's having its moment, that it's very important. That really we need to be encouraging more great people to opt in right across the organization and within our organization to move these initiatives forwards and make them a way of being so that we can achieve this belonging. There's so much good stuff there. And you made a great point, which is in this time of restructure and maybe dropping some of the talent that's doing this great work, there's a lot of organizations out there that can benefit from teaming up with Enspira right away. So maybe as a close, how do people best find you and the team at Enspira to learn more about some of the things that we've discussed today?

Kurt Landon: Thanks for asking that and for those comments. We never want to be pushy with what we're doing, so I think just think of us as being here to help, and that's where the conversation starts. We do have a great website that my team has been working hard at, so Enspirahr.com is a great place to start to learn more about the problems that we're trying to help solve. And there's a feature in there where you can contact us is probably the easiest way.

Dane Groeneveld: Neat. That's really neat. Well, thanks again for your time, Kurt, I really enjoy your perspectives, your views, your experience, and particularly the good work that you and your team are doing. So I look forward to continuing to build on the partnership.

Kurt Landon: Thanks so much, Dane. Great to be with you.