EP 225: From Animal Behavior to Talent Teams: Leading with Positive Reinforcement

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0:46Hey, everyone. Welcome to the show. I'm your host, James Mackey. And today we have Jennifer Anker with us. Her colleagues know her as Jack. And Jack has been the Intelligent Acquisition Leadership roles for a company like Twilio, Wiz, most recently, Lumio, and even Okta, I think, previously, right? So anyways, Jack, really looking forward to learning from your experiences throughout your career and learning more about you as a whole human being. So welcome to the show. Thanks, James. Glad to be here. So where are you from? So originally, I was born in New York City and grew up in Pennsylvania.

1:24and then I don't know 25 years ago or so I moved out to San Francisco and I've been here ever since but I still am at heart an east coast girl. Gotcha. Do you ever visit home at this point or are you full-time? Unfortunately I rarely do because everybody has since moved west so both my brothers and my sister and my parents they're all out west. I don't get home as much as I'm used to. I got you. Are they in San Francisco with you or? My brother is and then my other brother and sister actually live up in Seattle with my school. Yeah. Seattle is a fun city too. Yes. It is beautiful. If you can deal with the rain, it is a beautiful town.

2:02Yeah, for sure. Nice. So before we recorded, you were telling me a little bit about how your dad was such a huge influence on who you've become as a person and professionally as an executive. He was pretty supportive of you, right? And helping you pursue whatever you'd like to. Yeah. Early on, I knew I had a love of animals and I knew I wanted to do something along those lines. And in high school, I took a lot of science, took a lot of advanced math. I went to an old East Coast school that had old teachers that, you know, I remember I was in a calculus class and it was with about 10 men and me and the teacher never called on me, never raised, never let me answer any of the questions and didn't think I should be in that class.

2:46And my dad was not having it and gave him the riot act. and it turns out and supported me and helped me through it all. And then turned out at the end that I was the only one who passed the AP exam. So he taught me very early on that there isn't anything I can't accomplish. And that support has very much translated through my whole life. Do you always tell you this helped you develop the psychology where you could bulldoze through any obstacle? Yeah, I think women have, or girls, and then women have a harder time with imposter syndrome and all of that. And I still have that, but I have him in the back of my head reminding me that it doesn't matter if I'm a woman or a man, I can do it.

3:25And I can, I should keep pursuing what I want to do, regardless of what anybody else tells me. And that has translated, like I said, into, I think I mentioned an early career of animal training versus even just getting into recruiting and not being scared to try something new. Yeah. Do you feel like to be successful, it's more about not feeling those things to begin with? Or is it really just more of an emotion of overriding it? Do you feel imposter syndrome? Do you feel like it gets easier over time to just not feel that way? Or is it something that you think is just like constant? It's very normal for people to just constantly have to override that.

4:02Yeah. And I think it is a bigger topic for women. I'm not saying men don't have it, but I, you know, I coach a lot of women. I mentor a lot of women and on my team, I have a lot of women and I hear about it a lot. And I think it's not something that there are some people, some women who don't have it. But I think even if it's not about not having those feelings, it's about not letting them freeze you so that you can't move forward. And it's about overcoming them and taking pride when you do, right? Being, they say, what is it? Fear is not being scared. It's being able to get past being scared.

4:35And it's the same philosophy. So pushing forward and still doing it because it's what you want to do and then feeling so accomplished when you do. Yeah, for sure. Courage is a virtue. It's like this idea of virtues wouldn't be virtues if there weren't alternatives. Your alternatives, courage is a virtue because it can be hard to be courageous. It can be hard to hold yourself to a standard to overcome, to push to overcome those things, to try to do your part to overcome those things, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's commendable. That's awesome. And you were one of four, right? Siblings growing up?

5:09Yeah, I have two older brothers and an older sister. So yes. So you were the youngest. I was, which probably shaped a lot of my behavior as well. Everybody always says there's birth order issues and I definitely have them as the baby of the family. And I hate to give my brothers credit for anything, but I'll give them the credit that they definitely taught me at an early age to have a thick skin, which I think in the business world is really important. not to take things so seriously or personally. I'm not great. I'm not perfect at it by any stretch, but I'm so much better than I think I would be if I didn't have my big brothers in my life.

5:42Oh, yeah, that makes sense. And so you had a really interesting upbringing as a young adult because you took a career path that I think a lot of people would find fascinating, but just for whatever reason, don't get into. So when you were in college, you studied marine biology or what did you study? In college, I studied animal behavior mostly because I went to school in upstate New York. There isn't a lot of marine around there. So the closest thing I could get to was animal behavior. And yeah, because I really wanted to work with animals. Growing up, I was that kid. I remember we had a big mulch delivery one time and there was like a baby rabbit that got separated from its mom in the mulch.

6:22I'm the kid who brought it inside, tried to nurse it back to health. And then when it didn't work, I was devastated. I was just always an animal lover. And it was another example of my dad and my mom really supporting me. 16, they sent me to Kauai for a summer by myself where I got to work in a lab with a world-renowned animal behaviorist who was training dolphins. And I got to be an intern there for the summer and get really close to the animals and watch him do experiments and all cognition on how dolphins think about things. And it was fascinating. and I was 16 across the country from my parents and having a blast.

7:00So that just sealed the deal. That's what I wanted to do. And that's why when I went to college, I very much focused on working with animals. So what kind of experiments were they doing on dolphin cognition? Like what? Yeah. The one I always use as an example is, so they had hand signals for all the things they wanted the animals to do, including toys that they had in their pool. So they had a clothing basket that had a signal and then they had a football that had a signal or a ball. And so what they were trying to understand is could dolphins understand syntax? So if they said, put the ball in the basket, would the dolphin know to take the ball first, put it in the basket, or would it take the basket to the ball and not worry about the syntax?

7:43So he had been doing these studies for decades by the time I got there. So they were getting really complex and learned fascinating things about dolphin language and how they communicate with each other and how really smart they truly are. Wow. So how well do they do with Centex? Very well. Like shockingly. Yeah, very well. And then other things I've been around where they were training or working with killer whales, learning how they communicate with each other. Killer whales are in pods and they all have different languages. Where I worked, we had a killer whale from the Pacific Northwest paired with a killer whale from Iceland.

8:18and when they first met up, they couldn't communicate with each other. And so they watched and there was a researcher who worked with them that watched and saw how the languages evolved and that the younger one evolved to the older one's language, which was the one from the Pacific Northwest. So it's fascinating work and work that then translated into helping them in the wild, believe it or not, right? Understanding how they use sonar actually helped scientists and researchers advocate for the Navy not to bomb in the oceans because it actually impacted these animals and how they migrated and how they communicated with each other.

8:56So it reduced the amount of stuff that the Navy was doing in the oceans. So, yes. So how did you get into that program in Hawaii? How did that stuff in all the way from the East Coast? Yeah, that was lucky. That was a program called Earthwatch. I don't even know if it's still around, but back in the day, it used to be the concept that you're going to be an environmentalist. and give money, but instead go and see the work that you're contributing to. And I applied and got accepted. And again, my parents supported me to go there and they paid the money and I got to, it was an unpaid internship. I won't make it glamorous.

9:30I was definitely not paid, but it gave me so much great experience to do that. And again, I don't know if Earthwatch is still around, but if it is, it's a fantastic organization for kids to go out there and actually experience not just life but the environment there was a couple things that it there was one about learning about the the great apes in Rwanda that I was very tempted to do but I'm much more of a marine animal person and I did that one instead so cool what a cool experience to have growing up yes yes and again it shaped then I went to college and like I said it shaped everything that I did I got an internship at a local zoo and worked at the zoo while I was in school, also then trying to get my degree in biology in the middle of New York.

10:16So I was very lucky. And then I got a couple internships over the summers. I worked at Cape Cod Aquarium. And then the next summer I worked at the Mystic Aquarium, which was amazing with like beluga whales and everything. And then when I graduated, I was able to parlay all that experience into getting a job out here actually in the Bay Area with an organization called Marine World and got to work with killer whales and dolphins and sea lions and seals. And I was living my best life in my twenties doing that. That is amazing. Yeah. Killer whales, all these animals are fascinating. Killer whales are fascinating.

10:52They really are. I, they're in the news lately because they're bumping into all these ships, boats. Is that up in Alaska or is that? No, actually I believe if I, it's over by Morocco, I think, or by where Africa and Europe meet. I think it was in that straight that I've been hearing about them. beating up on yachts. I think it's hilarious. Are they like, this is curious. Apparently there's like, they have cultures, right? And it's, and so it's some scientists think that it's just like a fad. They're just kind of copying behavior from each other. They do. They very much copy behavior and very geographically will copy behavior.

11:28There's, in North Carolina, there's a pod of dolphins, actually, that have learned how to beach themselves on the beach to go after fish. and then wiggle their way back in. But they don't see that anywhere else. So it's, and then they learn it from their mother because it's a very matrilineal group. And then it just gets them handed down. And the problem that one or two probably started this by accident, but then they're teaching their young. So it's going to continue to happen. But I think it's hilarious. It's kind of wild. Yeah, I don't know. Hopefully they stop. So it doesn't become an issue for them.

12:02You know what I mean? Or people don't end up doing something they shouldn't. But yes, that is the fear. but they have not hurt anybody. Yes, they've hurt some boats and they've hurt property, but they have not hurt any people. There is no recorded incident of a killer whale hurting a person in the wild. Really? Yes. Zero. Zero. There is a recorded video of a killer whale ramming a great white shark. I don't know if you've said that, but that was wild. That was great because that solved the age-old question of who is the top predator. No one really ever knew the answer. We had our beliefs, but we didn't really have the answer.

12:38And then when they caught that footage, I think that was actually out in the Farallons out here. It was fascinating. And it confirmed our hypothesis that the killer whales would win every time. Oh, yeah, for sure. So I play this game with my girlfriend where we both, this is so random, we'll pick teams of five animals and ask Chad and Claude which team would win. That's a little random. Yeah. We have way too much fun with this. but yeah it's just i don't know why that just reminded me of that but you should play sometime i'm serious play with your kids it's a great game but yeah let's pick that one next time yeah no they're just incredibly powerful and strong and i watched that video i was just alone away i was like oh my god yeah it was incredibly strong and the other thing about the i don't know if there's more than one video at this point but i know the one that you're talking about what they also don't tell you is that it was a mom killer whale that had a baby with them and you never mess with a mom i don't care what animal it is you never mess with people 100 no i think the killer whale would have won regardless but you absolutely don't mess with a killer mom yeah yeah no that's the same with hiking right with bears and yeah particularly black bears are like very actually gentle creatures you still don't want to accidentally get in between mom, right?

13:58Maybe a hundred percent. You do not want to get. Cool. So like, I, I think during this time when you were working with a lot of animals throughout your twenties and doing research, you also, you told me about a book you were reading. You had read at the time around in college, right? Called don't shoot the dog. Yeah. Yeah. What's that about? Yeah. It's a by a woman named Karen Pryor, who's one of the pioneers of animal training. And so I knew if I wanted to get into it, it was a book I should read. And I did. And it was fascinating. It's the whole concept of operant conditioning and positive reinforcement.

14:34Right. It's used to be even just training your dogs. People would smack them if they peed or pooped or whatever. And this concept is just not to it's and it works. And I'll tell you how it translates into humans. But it's you just focus on the positive things people do and or animals do. And you don't you just ignore the negative stuff. And what ends up happening is you shape their behavior that obviously they want to be rewarded. So they continue to do the positive things. And so it was very impactful, just not only in like how I think my leadership philosophy evolved, but just in everyday life, little things when you're trying to get yourself to, I don't want to go to work today because I have to go all the way to the train station and I have to take the train into work and then I have to go to work.

15:16giving yourself reinforcements along the way, small things, but they're impactful and they help to encourage you then to continue to do it. So it's stuff you can use for yourself, but it's absolutely stuff you can use then when you're a leader. I would like to think that's how I manage people. I don't ever get mad when people make mistakes, A, because everybody makes mistakes, but I don't want to focus on those. I try to only celebrate the wins, the big things, right? I don't make a big deal about the mistakes and all of that. And I think that's how that has shaped my leadership because it's very valuable to people.

15:49Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody wants the gold star by learning. So if you can reinforce that, you're going to encourage the right behavior. For sure. How do you handle like serious conversations, feedback situations? And there's like mistakes where there's some mistakes I've learned as a leader, like people can course correct. I don't even necessarily, not every mistake has to be a conversation to get it. And And the solution is obviously in a situation where you have to know the person. But like I've had some folks work for me where like I just I know that, OK, yeah, they made a mistake, but they know it.

16:19And I feel confident that they're how they're wired. They're going to fix it. Like I don't have to even have to talk about it. There's other times where they're like you have to. I think maybe you don't agree, have to have those kind of conversations to change behavior or some kind of something that's going on. So in those cases, how do you do that? Yeah. It's like what you're discussing now. Yeah, good question. And I agree with you. There's a lot of people in the kind of the recruiter mentality that I try to hire. They're going to beat themselves up over that mistake way more than I could ever.

16:51So what's the, but there are people not like that who end up either through you acquire a team and you don't have a choice in who's on it thing that you have to manage. And I also, another book that I believe in very dearly is Radical Candor in the concept that being very honest and transparent with people and your feedback actually helps them get better as long as it's presented in that way. Right. I'm not a I have worked for CEOs. I have worked for leaders that are very much yellers. I've even had one who threw things. It is not my style at all. My feeling is it's not a mistake if there's a thought behind it.

17:26And so I have had people on some teams where when I say, why did you do it that way? I'm just curious about your thought process. And they had no explanation. That's where I do get disappointed when I do. if there's a thought process, it couldn't be the wrong one, or in my opinion, the wrong one. But as long as there's a thought process behind it, okay. So let's talk about that thought process and why maybe that wasn't the better way to go. But at least you thought about it and made an educated decision. The ones I struggle with are the ones who come to me and are like, I thought that's how you'd want me to do it.

17:55And I was like, that's not a reason. And so that's where radical candor plays a part in what I do. And I'm very honest about it. I do say, I need you to think these things through. And if you're not going to, then you need to call me and we can think things through together. But you need to think it through and actually think about the outcomes and figure out what the right answer is. And when mistakes happen, my team knows people have worked with me multiple times now. When they know that they've made a mistake, they always come to me with solutions. Hey, I messed this up. But here are the three ways I think we can fix it.

18:23How do you want me to do it? I'm very solution oriented. Okay, great. Let's figure out which is the right one. Yeah. I feel like the best employees are like the ones where like they hold themselves to a high standard and they are going to course correct, but also then they don't crumble under constructive blunt feedback. And sometimes it's hard to find both because some people, if they course correct, they'll hold their like hard on themselves. And then it's sometimes harder to give, you have to give them feedback less, but like sometimes it can be hard giving them feedback because they're already writing themselves pretty hard it's a it's it's interesting i definitely think sometimes with management leadership less is more in some cases like it's a balancing act though right and it's oh for sure in the team and but yeah radical candor and that's actually something i don't know about you but that took me some time in my career to get comfortable giving really blunt feedback without some people do the oreo stuff or it's like you do the And I'm like, come on, we're all adults.

19:26Let's just be respectful, of course. But let's just, yeah. I try to set an expectation on my team. Like I talk about, I don't call it radical Kandor, I guess. I guess I could because people are familiar with the term at this point. But like, it's more of just, look, it's just be blunt. We're on the same team. We all want to win. I typically praise success. And if there's a challenge we need to address, then I'm going to call that out too. And just keep in mind, it's coming from a place of, I want you to be successful. we have to have clear communication in order to do that so that's how i i mean yeah that's how i articulate it well you said it a little bit earlier and this kind of rolls into my animal trainings kind of background in that not everybody can you can't treat everybody on your team the same way and you really have to understand what makes each person go and i have certain people on my team where rattle to pander absolutely works and i do that and i they know that it's coming from a good place and they know that feedback is only there to help them.

20:20Others, like to your point, they need the Oreo. They need the good, the ugly, then the good again. Right. And so I know to do that with them and make sure that they know like all the things they're doing really well and kind of sandwich in the negative feedback right in there. And so I think good leaders, just like good animal trainers, you can't train every animal the same way. You can't have everybody on your team. You can't respond to them the same way. You have to really tailor how you are. And that took a lot of learning for me because I'm very, I'll tell you my previous managers chief people officer asked me i don't know a year after we've been working together i had feedback for him and his leadership and i said it yeah you need to give me more radical candor i can't read between the lines that's not me that's not my i need to just know when i've messed up and we'll talk about it and then yeah and he's like oh he and he's so much of an oreo person i'm just like no don't sugar for me just lay it out and i'll get it done and I'll be upset at the moment and then I'm going to go fix it and move on.

21:17And I will have learned that's what works better for me. And I think that's where leadership is so important is having those discussions with those people to understand what makes them tick and what makes them that's where reference checks are great, right? Like, how did you give feedback to this person so that I know how to give them feedback? Yeah, that's a good that's a solid reference question. I agree. I guess I have a slight bias toward individuals that we can just can we just have a conversation move on? And I do, I think, yeah, I am like, I do, I do, I believe the situational leadership is incredibly important and management is incredibly important.

21:52And I do it. So I'm going to say, I think I maybe I do it like a little less than I used to though, because I do, I still do it, but there's a part of me, like in terms of like the culture I want to build, when I think about building an organization, I again, have a bias toward a radical candor kind of culture. And I try to hire people in, but I also need people to understand, look, just like if you If you're on a professional, this is a high performing team, just like in a professional sports team, I'm considering like your coach, right? You got to get in, be clear about what needs to be done.

22:19And so there have been, it's a balancing act, but I actually, one of my companies recently had somebody leave. And I think it was because it was more of a radical candidate. Very respectful, but just, I don't think it's for everybody. And it's like, I'm also, as I'm trying to find a place as leaders, how much should I adapt versus like, how much should I also decide the culture I want? in the organization and kind of stick to that too, if that makes sense. It does. But one of the things I'm very clear with my team on is that I don't build the culture, we build the culture. So I tell them what I like.

22:53The one thing that I won't compromise on, and this is to your point, is that open and transparency, right? That radical candor. But I tell them very clearly, it has to go both ways. And I expect them to give me the same feedback. That's hard. It's hard to convince some people to do that. A hundred percent. people don't want to give their boss feedback. 100 % to the point where I have at some points actually planted people to challenge me on things in front of other people so they can see that's okay. And I think some of the younger generations confuse my not agreeing or not my in general, a leader not agreeing with them with that they're mad at them and they're in trouble.

23:31And it's like, those are two different things. Yeah, it's totally different things. And it's hard it's it could be hard for people to absorb that but i do think it's it's important for and we could i think too it's like as you could say that to your blue in the face look if i give you constructive feedback it's because i'm here to enable you to win and you have to have clarity around like how to do we can say that all day but i think people still sometimes it could be hard i think it could be hard for all of us even us people who appreciate it and want it it's still not always easy here it is oh never easy to hear that you screwed something up and right yeah it's we're one of those, we're probably those people that we beat ourselves up more than they can.

24:07Oh, 100%. But I'd much rather know and just it be done than try to figure out what did he mean by that? Did he really think or was she that? I'm not good at that. I'm a very like honest, open, transparent person. And I think for me, what works really well is direct feedback. And again, I really try to instill that in my team that I want them to give that to me as well. And based on some of the people who work with me, I think they've gotten the message because they have no problem telling me when I've messed up. And I'm like, hey, that's right. Because every once in a while, I had to catch myself because there's been a couple of times where I'm like, damn, that was like, I was like, wow, I feel comfortable speaking to their boss like that.

24:47And then I think it was like, oh, yeah, this is exactly what this is exactly what I'm asking for. This is great. Yeah. See, that's what this is a point. It's not necessarily easy for anyone, but it's important, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's also, I feel like, creates this culture like mutual accountability, too. I think it goes hand in hand with accountability. We're all, in a healthy way, trying to help each other elevate, help each other be the best versions of ourselves as individuals and as a team member. Yeah. Someone who worked for me a long time ago, it was her first job out of college. She was with me all through Twilio and has become an amazing manager in recruiting now.

25:24She told me a story that I didn't even remember of when she first started to be a recruiter where she came and asked me, she wasn't sure how to handle a situation. And so she asked me, what did I think she should do? And so I gave her my opinion and she went out and did the exact opposite. And she said, and this is why she told me the story. She said, most people were like, oh my God, your manager must have been so mad at you. And she goes, do you remember your response? And I said, no. She goes, your response was, I've never been so proud of you because you trusted your gut. You did what you thought was best.

25:54It's not always going to be the same answer as me, but you were so proud of me because I had come so far in acknowledging that I knew my stuff well enough and you were giving me that confidence. And she was right. I didn't remember that story, but she was right. That's a prideful moment when you've helped somebody grow in their confidence, not just their career, but in their confidence to make the right decision. And if it worked great and if it didn't, okay, you're going to learn, but you have to trust your gut and go with it. And so very early on, I was very happy when people disagreed with me.

26:24Weirdly enough, I know that probably makes me weird, but I think from disagreement comes really good things. honestly i get a little bit worried when i make a announcement that i know is going to be somewhat controversial or that everybody's not going to like it and it's crickets or everybody seems to agree i'm like all right okay i know that like there's some side chats happening on slack right now 100 so i always get a little worried when i don't hear the disagree i'm like okay well it's like maybe like sales like what are the objections not in the room or like that right say on the call not on the call so i almost like i think it's like we should expect and if we don't have it it's not that we're perfect or that everything we're communicating everything perfectly it's uh okay there's some people not even necessarily due to the fault of how maybe i communicate per se but it could also just be like how they're wired where they're just not comfortable giving their boss like feedback so yeah it's something that i think it's important to be aware of that as a leader like yep oh 100 and i think that's really where you also can role model it with how you manage your team.

27:27And one of the things I do wrestle with sometimes when a company makes a decision that you don't agree with, you have to buzz the head of talent. You have to be out there, lock arms, right? You can disagree and commit, right? You lock arms, you go forward. But sometimes you have to be really transparent with your team. Because if you walk out there and say, this is the best thing ever, they're going to look at you and be like, you have no credibility with me because I know you don't think that. So there's been times where I haven't And I've gone out and I've said, this is a crappy decision. I don't agree with it.

27:55However, we have to do it. And here's how we're going to make it work, right? Within these four walls, we can vent about it. But when we walk out in front of the business, this is how we're doing things. That's, I think, a very important, there's a lesson here too, when it comes to leadership. And I think actually a lot of people get this wrong. And I think it stunts their growth in leadership roles. It's like understanding that your responsibility, first and foremost, is to the other members of your leadership team. And regardless of whether or not you agree or not, you are a team. And like we make decisions together and we have to be focused on, okay, the company's North star, but what we're trying to accomplish and working together.

28:32And it's not that our team, like folks that, you know, work on it within a specific function aren't also our team. Right. But it's like what you're saying. It's like, regardless if there's a disagreement, it's like, that's your number one, like we're accountable to like he just like the exec team's accountable to each other first before to their department and i think that that's hard for some folks because it's like they have there's this idea like of and it's genuine like as a leader like you want to lead and you want to put obviously we want to put our people first and like we want to be good to keep managers and leaders but i think sometimes people trip up on this in terms of understanding like how like order of operations when it comes to these dynamics, right?

29:16But I think you said it was very well said. It's like transparency and candor is very important. And then also being clear on, and regardless of that, here's what we have to do. Yes, yes, 100%. It is a challenge sometimes because I've had to learn in my career because I'm very passionate about what I do. I care about my reputation. I care about doing the right thing for the business. I've had to learn how to not, I don't want to say not care, but pick your battles. Right. Pick the ones that matter rather than picking every single one. And it's still something I'm working on and it's still something that will evolve.

29:50I'm much better than I used to be. It's hard behind closed doors not to get riled up and get passionate because you feel so strongly in what you do. So I prefer that. And I, again, this is another reason I prefer the radical candor approach because I feel like I can trust somebody. And I know that's not necessarily fair because people are like, I'm sorry, it is, but it is. But I know that if somebody is a type of person, give me blunt feedback, I feel like I can trust. Yeah. Like we can have a conversation and I know what matters to you. And you're right. Like you kind of have to pick your quick context.

30:19How important is this? Do I, is this really something that needs to be discussed or do we have to do it? But it makes things so much easier. Oh, I agree. And I always say I actually do really well with assholes at work. We all have them. Like I know everybody has the no asshole policy, but assholes always get through. And I, and this is probably going back to my brothers and how much they've helped me learn about it. But I am much better with assholes at work who own that they're assholes. Okay. Then they're not trying to be anything but who they are. It's almost radical candor in a different way, but they're being honest.

30:50Where I struggle are the people who are actually assholes, but pretend to be like, I'm so nice and I'm so great and everybody loves me, but they're really assholes. Those are the people I struggle with that fake, right? Like just be who you are and put it out there. And I can both be an asshole and really care about you. I know it's very weird, but I really in Zynga in the early years when I was there, I was the first recruiter who was did non-technical. So I had all the non-technical roles and we had some difficult managers back then. And I got all of them because I dealt really well with them.

31:27I just, I listen. I, when I say I'm going to do something, I do something and I just built great relationships. And I remember the CPO came to me at one point and she said, how are you buddies with all these people? They're so challenging. I was like, I don't know. Cause they know they're challenging and they, I just asked them what they want and I work with them. And so I'm actually, I, in my early days when I was actually recruiting was known for that, being able to work with everybody who nobody else wanted to work with. Oh yeah, for sure. No, I think I was actually, it's interesting that you're saying that because I definitely, I, I, in the early days of SecureVision, my RPO and embedded recruiting firm, that was, I, this was early days where a lot of what I did was like business one was like primarily referral days before we have more of a GT emotion that we're building these days.

32:11And I just noticed that I was still a company was smaller. So I was like more hands-on. And most of my, I started to notice that a lot of our customers mirrored this energy because we just got each other. And so almost became our customer base was like more of this radical candor back and forth, very blunt, non-sensitive sometimes, but we would just, and it, we would, it just worked. And I don't know, it was interesting. And now it's changed because we have, it's a little bit different. And in terms of how the company is structured and I'm not everywhere and it's not just referral based, but yeah, it's interesting too, how you tend to gravitate sometimes toward it's like because it's a it's like a language right like it's a communication style yes and again i think people if you are transparent for the most part you're transparent and open people trust you because they know what they're expecting they know what they're going to get it's not a surprise it's not a oh everything's great and then you turn around and say something different to their boss right like i'm a big believer that if i have a problem with someone i go to them first in fact we've all had hiring managers come to me and complain about the recruiters, my first question is always, have you talked to them?

33:16And the answer is no, I don't listen. Go talk to the recruiter. And if you two can't work it out, fine, bring me in, but you two work it out first. So I'm a firm believer in that. And I think that just helps the recruiters build the trust, but also helps you build trust. I'm not talking about somebody behind their back. They're going to know you and I are having a conversation. Yeah. Very, very transparent about all of that. Yeah. I think the balancing act to the radical candor side is also, So, and this is something that I would actually have been better at the last several years, but I definitely didn't have it starting out.

33:46It was like communicating with high empathy too. I see it's like this, okay, I need to operate in a way where I have really high standards, or you could say also radical candor to some extent and empathy at the same time. Mutually exclusive, those both, right? So it's like I can communicate in the way that we're discussing and I can have really high standards that can be really high, right? But like technology, as long as the level of empathy and support and that human side that people also really need, as long as that's there too. So I think about it too as a scale. And it's if my standards and how I'm going to communicate are like extra blunt, am I also giving the reinforcement, maybe the positive reinforcement?

34:27I think it's in a sense associated with empathy, like showing that you care and being able to roll up your sleeves or being available for people when you need them or when they need you to some extent, right? They go hand in hand and you can, I think it's easier kind of, I think that's an important element of it too, is showing that leading with empathy to some extent, not over, I think it was a balancing act for all things, right? I think they're not, they're definitely not mutually exclusive in the book. That's what the point is. And I think that by having radical candor, you are showing empathy because if I didn't care about your career, I'm not going to waste my time telling you how you can be better, right?

35:03I'm telling you how to be better because I care about your career. I want you to grow. I want you to stay right I want you to be all these things Whereas if I didn't I'd let you go, but I that's not who I am So I actually think that having radical to me Having radical candor shows that you do have empathy and it shows that you do care about the person and you do want them to grow Yeah On the right way and I think that's super important that they don't they should not be mutually exclusive Yeah, it's interesting. I think like one of the the personality traits i guess you can call it personality trait of a lot of people who come on this show they have like different personalities in a lot of different ways but like one thing is that they're very intellectually curious and they're very curious about how to continue to improve i think like they appreciate radical candor they not the type of person that They want to know like what they're not doing as well at so that they can optimize.

36:03And I'm talking about like the top TA executives, like VPs at a ton of the different companies like we've had on the show. Like I would say that's fundamentally one of the similarities is their desire to learn from others and to like really seek to understand areas for improvement. Yeah, that's why we get into the business, right? It's building that relationship with the candidates to understanding their drivers. Why do they want to make moves? How can our company help you get to where you want to go? And if not, where is the better place? The best recruiters that I know of don't always place the candidates with them.

36:35Sometimes the best recruiters go, you know what, this actually isn't the right. The other opportunity you're telling me about, I think that one's actually better for you. And that's another version of radical candor. But that builds trust where you're not just trying to fill a seat. You're not just trying to push somebody into something that you're actually thinking about them. And that's where I think recruiting is heading we haven't talked about ai yet but with everybody's talking about ai and i think that with all of the kind of advancements that we're making there what that's going to do is push recruiters into having to relearn how to build that trust in those relationships with candidates not texting them it's not emailing them it's picking up the phone and calling and really having more time to learn what their drivers are so that we can put them in the right roles and that's i feel like everything around revolving around what we automate what we use AI for how we're leveraging different workflows should be around like protecting and improving and just increasing the amount of like those human conversations that we're having with candidates and also hiring managers.

37:38Yeah, no, 100%. Yeah. When we find an AI that can automate what three different hiring managers want to like align, that'll be the day that like recruiter life is going to get easier when you get everybody on the same page easily consistently damn i'm looking for someone could make that tool that would be pretty cool yeah i was gonna say i don't think ai is that powerful but i don't know but i think that plays into recruiters fears about ai replacing them i what i always tell my team and what i think my role to help make them more comfortable with it is i don't think and maybe i'm a pollyanna but at least right now i don't think that AI is going to replace recruiters, but I do think that recruiters are going to be replaced with recruiters who embrace it.

38:22And so my job as a leader is to help my team embrace it, learn it, feel comfortable with it, and help the company grow with their AI usage to then be able to focus more on the relationships. Oh, 100%. It's just other forms of automation, but again, it's all about there's huge productivity gains that can be earned. There's certainly cost savings as well that can be implemented. But yeah, the whole point is to free up time so that recruiters can focus on janitor relationships, hiring manager conversations, feedback, alignment, and frankly, operating more kind of almost like a talent engineer scope, overseeing a tech stack and optimizing the AI on different workflows too, which is I think fascinating.

39:10And I'm like seeing become more like a bigger part of a recruiter role too. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Learning how to, I just found out prompt engineering is a whole new category and how important that is. And I'm still in the whole learning phase. I think I said, I'm not, I'm not a dial it up to 11 AI person, but I'm not a zero. I'm somewhere in between. And I think there's some amazing tools out there that I have demoed. We were an Ashby shop and Ashby is amazing with the AI that they're embedding into their ATS so that you don't even have to go out and create your own. You can just use that.

39:42But there's some out there that I think is a little maybe too soon yet to be using. I'm a little unsure about the bots that will do the initial phone screens. I think it could work maybe with some more junior or repeatable roles. But do I think if I'm trying to hire a VP of talent that someone's going to talk to a bot as their first interview? No. So I think we're somewhere in between. And talk to me again in six weeks. I won't even say in six months. That'll change. But it's constantly evolving. And part of my role as leader is to make sure that I stay on top of it and stay very, very understanding of what's out there.

40:16Are there anything like specifically any use cases for AI and talent acquisition that really excites you the most at this point? Yeah, we just use, and I swear I'm not a commercial for Ashby, but they just rolled out a few months ago their note taker. And to me, that was a game changer. Because I'm constantly, because I'm a recruiter, because that's what I do, I always make sure to have notes so that I remember everything and remember the, don't have bias creep into the memory of the interview. But to be able to just sit back, not have to take notes, just engage with the candidate. Because I know that the note taker is going to take it all for me and then shape it into feedback.

40:53And if I can add to it and everything, but I don't have to write everything down. I can just stay engaged in the conversation. That to me was awesome and remains awesome. Right. Even having it on Zoom calls, because I, as I'm getting older, I forget things and I don't write it in my book. I won't remember to do it. And so having note taker on my Zoom calls so then I can look through those at the end of the day and go, OK, what did I miss? What do I need to do? It's been game changing for me. So that's one of the things that I think I was most excited about. But they're coming out with all sorts of things just and having the agents in general.

41:28One of the things we did as a team is in Q4 last year, I had them all do agents. We did it as a whole people team. We had everybody to build their own agent. And I didn't really care if they worked or not. I just wanted people to get fundamentally comfortable, build it, figure it out, what worked, what didn't work. And then we can iterate over time. But I had one person on a team who actually built a great one that helped automate and increase the pass-through rates of resumes to one of our hiring managers who was very prickly. Whereas 20 % were going through before when he built the agent, trained it.

42:02Now 80 % were going through to the point where the hiring manager came and said, you know what, I don't even need to see the resumes. Just go ahead and start doing it. Some were very impactful. Some didn't work at all. And that's okay. And we all learned from each other. and we had sessions where everybody talked about what they were doing and what worked and what didn't work. And now we're iterating on that through the next few quarters. Like I said, just getting them comfortable with it was a big step. I'm starting to see companies add like AI fluency testing into their interview process, which I actually am here for as long as the scope of what they're asking for is appropriate.

42:39They don't want people to have to build a whole house just to interview for a role. But just something like, Like, hey, show us something you've built with Claude or put something together that can make your, if you haven't already, just put something light together that you think would be helpful for accelerating your workflow. And again, it's not necessarily about it being robust or working incredibly well. And I think it's even okay to set that expectation with candidates. Look, we're looking for baseline proficiency and your understanding of how these things can work, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's one of the things I argue, not argue, but discuss with our head of engineering at Illumio, which was around, hey, we're hiring for AI skills, but we're not allowing AI in the process.

43:22And so I think that's where I think a lot of hiring managers, I don't think he's abnormal in that they're wrestling with that because they don't want to interview the AI. They want to interview the person. Sure. So where do you draw that line? So we did build a, I built a AI transparency statement for Elimio about where we want you to use it, where we don't want you to use it. But I think people are going to continue to use it how they want. But I think it's important. I think it's like in projects or those aspects. Of course, nobody wants somebody to just be reading from chat or call when they're answering a question.

43:55But they do. They do. They do. We saw one person that was interviewing had glasses on and we could see it just typing out their glasses. this yeah that's i don't know if i'm not gonna get into the ethics of that exactly i'm not saying it's unethical per se it's not that it's just again we're trying to understand the actual candidate and that's not what we mean by ai fluency reading from a script it's not what we right that's not fluency yeah it always bothers me when people do that because i'm like you do realize if you get the job you will then have to do it so if you're not qualified and you've trade yourself as being qualified great you'll get the job but you'll get it for six weeks and then you'll get fired why not i guess that goes back to my like crazy transparency stuff but i'm like i want to get the job because i'm qualified not because i faked it i don't i still don't know i guess maybe some ways maybe sometimes these folks don't get caught but it can it's still fortunately is it's somewhat obvious if somebody's reading just like i can't general everybody knows how chatting club talk now it's going to get probably harder though to identify yeah yes that's super interesting i do want to getting into the final segment of our conversation talk to you a little bit about just we've already touched on this but like over the next few years like really what's going to be your focus in terms of your own evolution as a leader yeah everybody always asks me like what's my next step do i want to be a cpo and i don't right now, that will change.

45:23Could talk to me in six weeks, six months, maybe that will change. And I think with AI and everything that it's going to do, I think the role of the head of talent is going to evolve. I think the time of really massive TA teams is going away and scope is somewhat not shrinking because the scope is still there, but like the size of the team is going to get smaller. And so I've started to think about investing in other parts of HR, broadening my skills. And maybe CPO is the next kind of iteration of it. But I've always been very happy as the VP of talent. I love what I do. I think it's the best job in any company because you get to work with everybody across every discipline.

46:00I work with sales. I work with engineering. I work with G &A teams. And I have to understand how that all works together. And I have to understand our future plans and how I can be strategic with talent and help bring that company into that next evolution and scale. So I've always loved my job, but I think it is evolving over time. And like I said, that's where my head is now. Ask me again in six weeks, that question is going to be different. And that's the crazy thing about AI. Literally, it is changing. It probably just changed and we didn't even know it, right? Like everything's just evolving so quickly.

46:30So I don't have my feet buried in the sand that I am staying where I am and that's it. I'm thinking about the world around me and how it's changing. I love it. I love it. Jack, look, this has been incredible. I've really enjoyed this conversation. It's been pretty fast paced and I've been like super engaged. I actually remember I was telling you like before we hit record, I was like, like sort of my goal as a host is to help my guests forget that we're recording. And there was a few times in this conversation where like, I forgot. I definitely, I had a really good time. It was a fun conversation.

47:03Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. It was fun. It was a good conversation. All right. Thanks for joining us and come back sometime. Absolutely.

47:36for technical, GTM, and G &A hiring. June, the go-to AI interviewer for teams that want to move fast and never miss out on top talent. And Jem, the only AI-first all-in-one recruiting platform. Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next time.