Ex-LinkedIn CHRO: The Whiteboard Exercise That Built LinkedIn's Culture & The Question That Empowers Her Every Day

23:02I think when I was first time CHRO, and I think even before I became a CHRO, I was looking for some of these elements. I don't think I crystallized it. I just wanted the seat, right? I just wanted someone to hire me in the seat and give me a shot. And I wanted someone to have talent on their agenda. So Tom Prescott was the CEO at Align, ex-GE. So you know the GE culture. Talent was a huge thing. So not only did he care, but I got to learn from him, right? Like the real pragmatic use cases of what they did in GE. So that got me stoked. I think someone that is willing to listen to different points of view and engage and ask questions before they make a statement is what I learned over time that I really needed to help me flush out my thoughts or the team's thoughts.

23:51and be open to ideas. Someone that was willing to be wrong, right? Like say, okay, I am wrong. Like, let's go down this different path. My hunger to learn was growing, right? From LinkedIn, I got exposed to so many amazing companies. I got to work with Burberry. I got to work with JPMorgan Chase. I got to work with so many of our customers about their talent strategies, their struggles. Why couldn't they hire people and, you know, engineers and fintech and blah, blah, blah. And so touching the world in so many different tastes was like nirvana from my soul. When John Donahoe joined ServiceNow and SearchFarm called me up and said, hey, are you interested in leaving LinkedIn?

24:38And we'd just been acquired by Microsoft. And I said, no, I got to like, I want to stick around a while longer. They called me back about, I don't know, six weeks later. And they said, you know, we talked about you. John really wants to meet you. And I'm like, I'm not, I'm not dating. Dating turns to marriage. I'm not dating. So they're like, all right, just have dinner with him or dessert, coffee with him. He just wants to - It's not a date, right? It's not a date. It's just coffee. It's just dessert, Pat. I know. And so he actually had dinner with someone else and then I had dessert with him in the same restaurant.

25:12It was so funny. And two hours flew. Two hours flew at that meal, right? That one piece of dessert. And we're writing on the tablecloth and it was paper. And we were writing ideas. We were telling me who he was as a human being. And I looked at my watch. I'm like, oh my God, it's turning into a date. I gotta run. I'm like, I just gotta go. I gotta And so I'm like, goodbye, John. It's been great. He gave me a big hug. I run out of that restaurant. I call my husband. I'm like, I am so screwed. And he goes, why? And I go, I'm going to work for John Donahoe. I feel it. It's just going to happen. So I get pinged on my phone and it's John.

25:52And John goes, I promised I wouldn't date you. I didn't say we wouldn't get married. Will you work for me?

25:59Yes. Because, and I mean, and that, you know, you joined ServiceNow when, you know, it was sort of on that big rise as well. Yes. So, I mean. No one knew ServiceNow. Yeah. Jeff Wiener was like, all right, is that a health center? And I'm like, oh, dude, it's going to be amazing. Yeah. Like, wait till you find out what it's about. Yeah, that was a great ride, too. So, you've been on these, like, at these companies at these pivotal inflection points, right? Right. Like, and, and those are really, I mean, maybe in your career you get one, one or two, you've had many. What's it like being the leader of, you know, I guess people leader, HR, whatever you want to call it.

26:38What's it like being the leader when, when things are moving so fast and you're, you know, you are scaling and everything has to get done now, yesterday. And, and like you said it's messy because I'm sure when you came into ServiceNow, it was pretty messy as well. Totally messy. They didn't even have HR business partners. Yeah. They barely, yeah, it was really messy. But I love that. I love co-creating. I mean, if you ask me what I look for, I want leaders that will co-create with me. I think of HR as a product, right? A series of products. So I like agile development, methodology, co-creating with a business voice, prioritizing that and iterating, right?

27:20Like you put a product out and you get feedback and then you correct what's wrong, right? And you let ride what works and let them absorb the change, right? And being savvy to know the difference. If something's really broken, you got to fix it. And some things you just let ride. I've learned to prioritize. I've learned to be really pragmatic. I don't get ruffled easy. Like I've not met a problem I haven't fixed some way, somehow, like may not be in the timeline I wish. I've made my fair share of mistakes and been humbled, but I've gotten stronger through them and my team has gotten stronger. It's first principles thinking.

27:57It's about the employee. It's about a healthy company. It's about the customers we serve. If you just stay focused on that, everything becomes less noisy. Yeah, I know. And you and I see it. I'm sure you mentor a bunch of other CHROs as do I. And it's, you know, it's really easy to slip into doing a bunch of stuff that doesn't matter. And it's really hard to stay focused and do the few things that actually move the needle. And it's not boiling the ocean and doing everything. It's doing a few things and doing them extremely well. But it's such a hard thing to do, especially, I am sure you've felt this in your role.

28:38There's just an added pressure in this role that I think the other C-level roles don't have. Well, one where everything under the sun, chief medical officer, chief diversity officer, COO, now you're the chief AI strategist. So congrats, you got that job too, which we'll have to talk about what you're doing because everybody's very curious. But then I think the added headwind that this role has that other roles don't is that everybody thinks that they can do your job better. And everybody has an opinion and questions your strategy different than they do the chief product officer or the chief finance officer.

29:17Like they don't question them the way that they question you. How have you navigated that dynamic? I think the best example I had was actually at LinkedIn because it was a talent company. Like, and you're right, every company's had that. Different leaders come with their bag of tricks And then you're just arm wrestling or trying to influence. And, you know, I've learned not to argue, but to actually dive in like the problem we solving, how, you know, there's many ways to solve a problem. But the example I had, we were at a leadership offsite and with the executive team. And I was struggling because we had agreed as a business team to do something to align on our performance management system, to be transparent on our comp and our ratings.

29:58And then the head of sales was like, well, maybe not now for us. Maybe I'll follow. And so I'm like playing whack-a-mole. Anyone that gets scared, they're like, maybe I'll go later. And so I had so much ownership. And I realized that that was such a huge mistake. Like, it's not my decision. It was a business decision. Like, change our decision, fine. But you don't get to decide in isolation to change the business. That's how we got here. So let's bring, if you think materially we forgot something, let's bring it back up to the leadership team and go have at it. Like, I'm not wedded. Like, I can go many different paths by letting go of my hubris and recognizing that if the business grabbed it, we all win.

30:43Yeah. So learning how to do that was key. And in this offsite, you know, Gamson was like struggling with some stuff because he really wanted his own mentoring program and like had all these great ideas. And I'm like, we can't do all of it. And the head of product turns around and goes, I know what the problem is. I go, what's the problem? He goes, you're a dentist, Pat. I go, I'm a dentist? I'm like, I don't think I'm a dentist, but okay, let's go. What do you mean by that? And he goes, the problem is we're all dental hygienists. We can see teeth, we clean teeth, we polish teeth, but we don't do root canals and we don't do cavities.

31:22He's like, you went to school for that at a much deeper level than we ever did. So we play in the mouth and you're actually like in there helping us get healthier and not in the mouth in a deeper way. And so you're a dentist. And I'm like, okay, I'm a dentist. And then Ganson turns to me and goes, but I'm a dentist too. And I said, no, you're malpracticing. Yeah. So let's have a conversation. And we bonded over that. It was really fun. Yeah.

31:50Peter Clarke:Love the analogy. Yeah, I know. And I feel like we need to find something better than this because nobody likes going to the dentist. That's why I was like a little bit scared. I know. But it is a good analogy that does make sense. So what else do you want to know, Pete? Actually, yeah. I mean, so you mentioned earlier too, like seat at the table. It seems like, and I think Jessica, you're pointing out some of the challenges associated with the role. But I mean, clearly the both of you have done quite well being a respected business partner in the business. And I think that tends to be the question for a lot of folks.

32:27Peter Clarke:They want the seat at the table, but they don't get it. And I'm just curious if there's one or two things that just sort of cause that divide to happen. Or, you know, ultimately, it just seems to, like, once that trust is lost or that lack of respect is there, it only grows. It doesn't ever, you know, it's hard to recover. I've seen that. It is. I'm just curious if there's advice around, you know, how do you maintain sort of that respected business partner view than, you know, sort of get relegated to the sidelines of HR. Yep. So, Jessica, I think HR is magic. I think I have the coolest gig in the whole entire company.

33:08I really, I really do. I laugh most days, enjoy the peers I get to work with and the employees I get to meet. Like I really heartfelt care. I think the seat and the influence comes from being authentic. You got to be an authentic leader. The role is scary. Like if you're not approachable, then you're the emperor with new clothes, like you're naked. And so being an authentic HR leader is super incredibly important and not be all buttoned up and polished. admit that you are experimenting and learning with the company to make it better and better and better. And then you get a lot of grace. The other thing I do intentionally is to learn the business, like what metrics matter, right?

33:51I've been on field rides. I've spent seven, eight hours standing in an OR watching surgeries with DaVinci to understand the field, right? Understand the surgeon, understand the patient. I spent three days in a finance class to understand how they look at the P &L and revenue and margin and a whole bunch of stuff that's unique to us. The language, the product reviews. I call it chasing the right rabbit. If my metrics don't resonate with the business, they won't listen. And so I need to make sure it has real value. And sometimes we measure, now I don't mean this in a distasteful way, but sometimes we measure attendance in our classes.

34:29That promoter score of our facilitator, you know, like our dropout rate was only 20 % Not the 25. Like, must be a great class. And whatever, right? And that's the wrong metric to, like, really, what are you doing it for? What's the knowledge you want to acquire? And how's it impacting the business for good? Yeah. Like, take it all the way down. And if you do that, then you're welcomed at the conversation. It's so true. It's so true. I mean, you've got to spend time learning the business. is, you know, I'll talk to CHROs and I'll say, have you ever gone and sat and watched the engineers code? And they're like, no.

35:13What? You know, go watch them code. Go learn what they do. They don't understand what they do. But I mean, even at Netflix, I mean, I went to sets because I wanted to understand production and how unions worked. And, you know, like, and, you know, it's everything from the people that are doing makeup and costume to the people that are building the sets. And you have to, I mean, long story. We, on one production, we had, we lost a few fingers. And I was like, why are we losing so many fingers? That's a whole story, Pete, that we should ask another time. But anyways, you learn these things when you learn the business.

35:54But we didn't have the right saw that like would like detect moisture. I was like, can we buy the saw? Isn't that cheaper than what we're? Anyways. But anyway, you got to go learn the business. But I don't think enough people go and learn the business. And then when you do have, you're talking, you're talking from that point, like the problem. Yes. And you're talking about the problems that we're going to solve and how you're going to impact the bottom line, not some program that you're going to roll out that nobody cares about. Right. And, oh, by the way, you're just doing that program because you heard whatever company's doing it, you know.

36:38And so I don't know if you thought about this for yourself, but I think HR is magic, too, when it's done well. Good. When it's done well. When it's not done well, it's not so magical. But when it's done well, it's amazing. But I always thought about my job as being the chief efficiency officer. I was there to make people more effective, make the business more effective, get more alignment, get things out of the way so that we could move faster and have a better chance of winning, you know? I like that. Yeah. Because I always hated being called HR. By the way, can we like, or even people, people officer, like.

37:19I don't know. I've been called everything in the book. It's about probably like chief talent and chief people and, you know, call it a different name. It's still, you know.

37:31Peter Clarke:Trying to make it less distasteful. Yeah. But I think that's back to summing that up. It seems that it diverges when, you know, generally speaking, whoever is responsible for people, HR or whatever, is just start speaking a different language that doesn't seem to relate to the business. And, you know, Pat, you mentioned first principles. And, you know, we hear that a lot in our world, first principles thinking, right? And then, you know, sometimes it's that meme where you're like, I don't think that means what you think it means, right? Like, you can't just say it. Right. You have to be first principle.

38:07Peter Clarke:You have to discuss it. Like, you say this and I say that, are we saying the same word or not? And why not? Yeah. Yeah, the translation. I mean, that's probably the one biggest knock and or bit of feedback that comes from, you know, folks interviewing their head of people, CHRO, you know, whatever you want to call it, which is just. They don't understand the current business they're in, right? Simple questions around, you know, even just margin and revenue. And what do you like? How do you make money as a company? Well, why is that important? And it's like, well, seemingly should be something you care about because then otherwise, again, no one will respect what you bring to the table if ultimately they don't think you have any idea of how the business is run.

38:50Yeah, you won't know if your attrition is because your sales plans aren't aligned with the challenges in the marketplace. You won't know if the territory and the quota is right. You won't know about the code and the succession planning and, you know, building up your fellows in the future development lifecycle of that product. I mean, there's so many things that will get you if you don't pay attention to the business. There are so many things that will get you. I mean, this, you know, this role is not for the faint of heart. That is for sure. I dream it. I dream it sometimes. Like, it's bothering me.

39:23Like, what's, what am I missing? Like, if I think about this, I'm presenting the board and my husband's like, what are you talking about? I'm like, nevermind. I know. I have, I have so many work dreams. I still have work dreams about Netflix, and I haven't been there for a minute. That's so funny. Which is weird. I need to let it go.

39:42Peter Clarke:We'll fix it all with AI, though. Yeah, probably. Probably. Okay, so I want to hear about Intuitive because I think it's a fascinating company, and I also want to spend some time talking about the book. So tell us about Intuitive, and you were just saying how you watch the surgeries, and I don't know if many people know DaVinci, but explain it. Tell us. So it's DaVinci robot. It's robotic-assisted surgery, basically. RAS is what you would hear. And DaVinci has multi-port, which is four arms, and a surgeon can use one, two, or all four arms. You have a single-port product. You also have a product called Ion that helps with lung biopsies and treatments.

40:23They can diagnose lung cancer in stage one. like it's an amazing amazing technology uh for the world is um gosh we do colon we do um hernias hysterectomy i had a hysterectomy with the da vinci wow back in back in 2019 i i was having uh pain and fibroids and like oh my god so much pain it was impacting my life and my surgeon was like, hey, you need to get a hysterectomy. I'm like, what? Just get it out. Like, I was ready. And she was like, I'm a robotic surgeon. I'm like, whatever. Just get it. And I'm like, just make me feel better. I have a life to live. I have three kids. And I go into the surgery.

41:09I go in the OR. And I wasn't put under quite yet. And she thought I was really fascinated about the robotic surgery, which I wasn't even thinking about. And there you see, in my mind, the Borg. It was this machine with the four arms wrapped in plastic against the wall. And then there's this console on the other side of the OR where the surgeon does her magic. And I'm like, wait a minute, this thing is operating on me and you're over there and I'm here. And I walked out of that hospital. I could have worked the next day. Like I was cooking dinner that night. It was the most incredible experience.

41:44And I'm like this, the care for the patient, the quality of life, getting people back to what matters most. That's what robotic surgery does. And so when this opportunity came on, and it feeds in with the book. So I talk about having a personal scorecard. And it's how my husband and I want to live our lives. And me personally, professionally, like, how do we make decisions? What's the best decision for us? And so in my personal scorecard, I had my first granddaughter. So in one of my cards, I said, I'm going to see Everly once a quarter because I'm traveling all over the world. And then I have physical fitness.

42:20I have like time with my husband to ride bikes. I have a daughter with special needs. And so I have these things outlined. And two years ago, my grandson Emmett was born April 1st. And I made sure I was on the West Coast for that. I was so good at my scorecard. And I'm holding Emmett and I'm crying. I'm like in love already. And my son, God love him, goes, Mom, according to your scorecard, You're going to meet Everly like once a quarter. If you go by your scorecard, you'll have met Emmett and Everly 72 times by the time they're 18. Outrageously low number. And I just started bawling. He's so mean.

43:01I'm like, that's not right. And he goes, well, that's what you said is your score. And I'm like, no, I want them to call me nana, nana, nana and run to me and not see me as a chicklet. And I want a relationship with them. And my gosh, and I said, I have not lived my life, my scorecard. And so it's the tortoise and the hare is the analogy. And the tortoise runs life her way. And so I have a tortoise and a hare on my neck. How cute. I left UKG.

43:33Yay! Yeah. And so I left UKG and I said, I had gotten a call from Intuitive in the past. But what I said is like, I want my perfect zone. I want a company that's growing, that has impact in the world. I want to be near my kids where I can spend quality time with my daughter and my grandchildren, not be just a chiclet. I want to have a company that is going through that tipping point, that growth, that transformational moment in the world, because I know it has it in front of it. Even though it's a 30-year-old company, the future, like, especially with digital and AI now embedded in the product, is changing the landscape.

44:12And thinking about how you go outside the U.S. and really making this kind of care available to all. And they do telepresence surgery now. You can have the best surgeon in France operate on you in Texas. Wow. That's crazy. I thought it was freaky they were 10 feet apart in the OR. Like, you're like... Ocean. Yeah. Ocean apart.

44:34Peter Clarke:Hope your Wi-Fi holds up. Yeah. And we have special agreements to make sure we're all good on that. Yeah, what happens if the Wi-Fi goes down? No, we've got special lines. So they work on that. Dedicated lines. Dedicated lines. Yes. Yes. Because health care, really, people care. And so for obvious reasons. Right. And so it hit all my scores. Like, I am in my bullseye moment in my life. Cool. And when you ask me, am I going to retire? I'm like, I am having so much. I am living my scorecard. I'm having dinner with my grandkids tonight. I live my purpose. We're growing the company. I have an amazing CEO that is so smart and caring and compassionate and humble and a peer group.

45:15And my relationship with my CFO is probably the best I've ever had with a CFO. And I've had some good ones. Yeah. It's just intuitive is special. It's changing the world. It's making people's lives better. And I want to be a part of that. Oh, that's amazing. Oh, my gosh. Well, you are living your scorecard. I need it. I am. You are. I need a scorecard. I want to do a scorecard. Okay. Do a scorecard. Tell us about the book. So I'm an accidental author. That was not something I picked up when I was 19. Being dyslexic, writing would be something really hard for me to consider doing long form. And it It was probably like two and a half years ago, Wiley Publishing called me up and said, hey, would you consider writing a book about HR?

46:02And I was really quick and said, no way, I'm not doing it. And they're like, why? And I'm like, I stand on the shoulders of so many amazing humans that do the craft. It would not be my space to write, right? Like, I've got stories, but no, I'm not going to write about HR. But thank you. It's like, thank you. And she's all, what would you write about? Yeah. And I'm like, I don't know. I'll have to think about that. Similar to Dibs. I had to give it some thought. No one ever asked me if I could write anything about what I write about. It took me two months. I came back and I said, if you would allow me to write a book about the way I teach and talk, because of the way my brain works, I talk in stories.

46:46The Emperor with no clothes, Touch the Elephant. I anchor on these moral stories and live my life. And she was, well, write it up. We'll see what the editors think. And so I took my top nine fables and folktales that I've taught for decades to CEOs like Goldilocks and the three bears. Like, no, you're just right fit, you know? And so I wrote it up and they're like, yes. I'm like, oh, shit, really? You can cut down here.

47:11Peter Clarke:They're like, yeah. And she was like, how long will it take you to write? And I'm like, I don't know. And so because I'm an operator in my head, I'm like, I could do a chapter a week. And like, what do you think? Ten chapters? How many words? I'm like, I don't know, ten weeks? I don't know, three months, four months? And she was, okay. And I'm like, all right. And then I was supposed to get it done. This is like November. We're still negotiating the contract. It was supposed to be done April 1st. And then I got a panic attack. And I'm like, that's too short. I didn't think to call anybody up. And so I called her back and I said, Lee, can I get an extension on that deadline for the manuscript?

47:49She's like, sure. She goes, how much do you need? And I said, two more weeks, a little cushion. So it was April 15th. And then I go, well, I have help. And, you know, like to proofread my work. And she goes, we have a design editor that will look at the structure and all that. And then off and running you go. I mean, the woman saw my first chapter, my one core chapter of the fable of my construct, and that was it. They didn't see a manuscript till mid-April. Wow. Amazing. And I was like, I was pressing send and my heart was palpitating. I'm sure. Because it's so vulnerable to put all of that down and do it yourself.

48:29It was all me. Yeah. Was it pretty cathartic? I laughed. I cried. I had so much fun writing this book. I forgot, like, the tortoise is like a friend of mine. I talk about the three pigs and setting goals in life and why and, you know, what's the impact you want to have? You don't write a goal, just have a goal. You write a goal to have an impact. And the impact is to protect yourself. And that's why the one brother did the bricks and protected his family. Like, know the impact. And these things remind, like, move on and your authenticity. And so I reconnected with these fables in a way, and I would share them with people along the way.

49:09Like, does this resonate with y 'all? Like, I talk about belonging in the book. I talk about my own journey of mistakes and not in fobbles and, you know, learnings along the way. And from across different types of careers and age, they were like, yes, like the scorecard resonated. I had women, my peers, I'm like, I don't have a scorecard. I need to write a scorecard. See, I know. I need a scorecard. Gonna do it. And it changes how you make a decision. Yeah. Like, it's pretty powerful. And I felt so good. And I giggle when I get to talk about it. That's so good. It's a giggle book. It's a giggle book.

49:48So if people want to buy your giggle book, where do they go? Amazon has it. I have my own website, waters.com. You can do audiobook as well. They did it in audio. Check it out. It's a workbook too. So I convinced Wiley to put the workbook section in the back. And I teach you how to do a scorecard. I teach you how to do your Goldilocks spreadsheet. I teach you how to do these things. So it's a one and done thing. And then one of my dear friends from Plantronics, Darren Caddis, did the illustrations for me in pink. And so their original illustrations of each of the fables and a portrait of me and Darren's pictures in there.

50:31Pat, you've just done so much. Stop doing stuff. I'm telling you. You just keep making us look bad over here. No, no. That was accidental.

50:42Peter Clarke:That's why I don't want to scorecard myself. I'll be like, no, I'm not hitting it. I know. I know. I'll be massively disappointed all the time. I hope you guys check it out and just read one chapter. Let me know what you think. I would love to get your opinion. No, I've read. I've read some and it's very good. I didn't do it. Did you? Yes. It's very, very good. So I did not do the scorecard, but I need to do it. And you've inspired me today. But we are running out of time, unfortunately. So which I'm really sad about because unfortunately it took us a podcast to catch up. We should like hang out and have dessert.

51:19Yes, have dessert. We'll have dessert. Yes. But at the end of the show, we always ask our guests to leave our listeners with something inspiring, something that you want them to go away and think about. So what do you want to leave the listeners with today? So on my desktop and on my laptop, I have this one question. I don't know if y 'all can read it. I can't. I even have my old lady glasses. It says, who am I going to be today? So every day you have a choice. You have a choice to look at the world as an opportunity to choose happiness, to choose positivity, and how you show up. And when I am down, when I'm struggling, remind myself, who am I going to be today empowers me.

52:08So I hope people feel empowered. I love that. Now I have to have a post-it note too. I mean, gosh. Right?

52:17Peter Clarke:Scorecard, the post-it note. Post-it notes, I got to get a scorecard. I mean. But you got the turtle. You got the turtle. I do have the turtle necklace. Yes, I do have the turtle necklace. You run your own way. I have a tattoo of a turtle. See? I will. I'm going to get you one. Everyone gets tattoos of a turtle. I'm going to get you one. And listen, I'm so grateful for you, Pat. I'm so thankful that you came on the show. I'm so, I mean, I'm just to admire all the things that you do. I really want to give thanks to your uncle. Right? I didn't know that part of the story. He deserves a little, because you look, he pushed you.

52:52You would have been an analyst forever. Yeah. He pushed me. Yeah. Yeah. We all need that person. So good job. Great advice.

53:00Peter Clarke:Yes. And thank you. And I hope you'll come back and talk to us when you write your next book. Thank you so much. Thanks for listening to TruthWorks.