Uber's CHRO: Why Your Company Culture Is Failing & The Secret To "Strategic Calmness

15:35Jessica Neal:Right? Jessica, I love you. It's so nice to talk to somebody that has walked in these shoes. I mean, everything you just said there in that 30 seconds speaks to me, speaks to my heart, speaks to my brain. But Dara and I've actually talked about it a lot. I had said to him one time, he was dealing with a lot of stuff and I said, I'm really sorry you're going through this. You're in such a lonely role. And he stopped and he said, no, Nikki, he said, your role is harder than mine. He said, you really are in the hardest job of the company. And it is the most lonely. You carry so much for so many people.

16:09Jessica Neal:And I have to say, it felt so good to have somebody just that doesn't do this role to understand what was going on. But then you went on to say all those other things you're trying to be the head of. And then you ended with exactly that of, and you're dealing with the fact that everybody thinks they can do your job, but they also think they can do it better than you.

16:29Nikki Krishnamurthy:Better.

16:29Jessica Neal:Not just do it, but they think they can do better than you.

16:32Nikki Krishnamurthy:Yeah. And it's such a weird thing, you know, and it's, and it really is hard to navigate. And you, you have a lot of weight on you as you're describing, but you also have, you've got to figure out how to compartmentalize and not care, you know, and it's not, I mean, not care about the company and not care about the people. That's not what I'm talking about, but not care when you have all of this noise around you, when you know the right thing to do.

17:02Jessica Neal:You have to just keep putting one foot in front of the other. You have to compartmentalize is the name of the game. You absolutely, you know, we're just talking about work. Imagine then compartmentalizing from a personal life as well, right? And how do you do that? How do you stay calm. One of my direct reports, actually, he is at Netflix. He is excellent. And he was with me for a couple of years when I first joined Uber. And I remember in my first week, he said to me, Nikki, what we need is strategic calmness. We desperately need strategic calmness because we are definitely a go get it culture.

17:37Jessica Neal:Like just run after that, run after that wall, bust through that wall. And doing that all the time without thought for where do we need to pause? Where do we need to calm ourselves down? And I just have always stuck when Nunj said to me, strategic calmness, that has been a part of my lexicon for the last eight years because of him saying that to me. And that's what you have to do is compartmentalize, calm things down. I remember when I was doing the layoffs in 2020, I felt like I was fighting the whole company because the business had fallen off a cliff. And so we knew we had to do it. And the leadership team had pulled together to say we had to do it.

18:14Jessica Neal:But then it became my job to execute on it, to determine, you know, plan it, execute on it. And so, and you're doing it globally. And so you're dealing with legal and regulations. You're dealing with cultures. And everyone told me I was doing it wrong. Everybody had their way of doing it or upset. I wouldn't give them exceptions. And I remember telling my team, we have to keep the most impacted people front and center. That's who we're solving for. We're not solving for all these leaders that think that they are the right one and they know how to do it. We're not even solving for all the lawyers.

18:49Jessica Neal:I care about the human being that is going to have to have a conversation that their job is impacted. That's who we're solving for.

18:57Nikki Krishnamurthy:Right. Yeah. Sometimes those lawyers don't think about that. No, no, they just don't, but that's, you know, that's who they are. But okay. So I talk about a couple of things that you, you brought up one before I get to the next question. You talked about a lot of trust issues when you, when you joined Uber and I, that's a hard thing to shift in a, in a culture and in a large organization too, because when you started, how many people was Uber roughly? When I first started 16 ,000. Yeah. That's a lot of people and a lot of leaders and, and some of those things run real deep. So how did you shift trust?

19:38Nikki Krishnamurthy:Like, how did you even do that?

19:40Jessica Neal:Yeah. Well, a couple of different things. One is what was really good is Dara is also naturally a transparent person. He joined though a year before me. So I had seen he had already been affected by this culture. And I was a bit shocked seeing him when I joined. I was like, wow, this is not the Dara I know. Dara is usually much more transparent than this. But his foundation, who he is underneath all that is transparent. So some of it was getting Dara to get more comfortable with being more transparent. Some of it was talking to the different leaders about how we were impacting the workforce. And then honestly, some of it was I had to do investigations and find people that were leaking.

20:20Jessica Neal:And everybody had told me it was not possible. Everybody told me that I would not be able to do it. And I just had to have faith that if I could just do one, find one, it would then permeate through the company because nobody had ever had any repercussions for it. And so I knew just normal human nature and rumor mill would take over if I could find one genuine authentic case where I found somebody and I did. And that, I think we've had one leak in years and years, and we've only gotten more and more transparent with our workforce. And it was helping people understand that transparency is an entitlement.

20:58Jessica Neal:It is not to be weaponized, but it is to give you enough information if it's the right information to give you so that you can know what's going on and you can operate and you can understand the context within your work environment.

21:13Nikki Krishnamurthy:Yeah.

21:14Jessica Neal:But that is what I think I walked into is a workforce that had taken information and transparency to an entitlement level and wanting information that was not appropriate for them to have, but it had just snowballed. And getting leader on the other hand, so that was the workforce. And then on the other hand, getting the leaders to understand how much more effective the employees would be if we were transparent, how much more you could get them aligned, moving faster, if they had the context that you have. So it was really working through both sides.

21:50Nikki Krishnamurthy:Yeah, that I imagine quite hard and not easy. You know, I do think, and that was at a time too, where, you know, that entitlement culture and employee kind of pro employee, which I'm all pro employee, but I think we, the pendulum swung a little bit. And then managers were, I don't know, intimidated and scared to piss off employees. absolutely and i was like what are we doing like you can't no we have to tell them the truth and we cannot like buy into this entitlement it's not gonna work right it's another great point and we

22:34Jessica Neal:had to navigate through that and that was through building out our employee relations function i i remember telling our head of employer relations many times we've over trained our employees to trigger an investigation. And we've supported that by investigating everything. We have to get back to the days where you do a preliminary look and you say, is this founding, is there enough here to found a full-blown investigation? Whereas for a couple of years, what we were doing is we were investigating anything. So again, we were telling the employees they were doing it right, no matter what. Right.

23:07Jessica Neal:You know, something that is still here, but nowhere near as bad as it was before is nepotism became so people in their eye head nepotism was bad so therefore people were making employee relations complaints if somebody's friend got hired and i was like but it wasn't the hiring manager like there's so many things on this of what we should never hire from our networks this is a wonderful wealth of people to hire why would we ever not want to hire people that come from our own networks. And that's that extreme level of we had over-trained employees to think these ways. And it was getting an employee relations group that stopped investigating everything, reviewed everything, but stopped an investigation.

23:52Jessica Neal:Also giving a range of recommendations, not jumping to black and white. Well, if this occurred, you must do this. But here's the range of repercussions that could happen. And sometimes they included termination, but sometimes it was a final written warning. And again, I think years earlier, it had been jumped to the termination. So that's what caused managers to be scared and worried that if I would rather not piss somebody off and have no investigation, then do the right thing. And so our cultural value of do the right thing, period, we don't even explain what it means. It literally has a period right after it.

24:33And it was that of saying, we were not going to give you the manual

24:37Jessica Neal:on what is do the right thing. It is literally, you have to have judgment. You have to build judgment. You have to build instinct. And that doesn't mean you have to do it on your own. There's people you can talk to and guide you and all that, but we're not giving you a manual of what is do the right thing.

24:54Nikki Krishnamurthy:Like got to use your brain. You got to have some judgment around this. And if it sounds wrong, it's probably wrong. Just don't do it. Okay. Well, I want to talk about you and Dara for a minute, because as we were talking before we started recording, the relationship between the CEO and the CHRO is such an important one. And when the chemistry is good, and just like I've experienced and you've experienced, it can be magical, right? It's like you're a power couple, right? You can get so much done. And I had that at Netflix and you've had that with Dara at Expedia and now at Uber. But when that relationship isn't good, this role is even harder to navigate than what we were describing a few minutes ago.

25:48Nikki Krishnamurthy:It's almost impossible to navigate. So tell us a little bit about your relationship, why it's so special, why it works. and then maybe we can give some advice to some other CHROs who may be navigating that relationship

26:05Jessica Neal:or you know having some chemistry issues sure so a little again sojourn on the history of me and Dara rather than just my career when I was at Expedia I was the head of HR of a division not of the company and that was we call it Expedia.com and Dara was the CEO I had worked with him a little bit because I had earlier in a previous role, I had been the head of HR for technology. So I had interacted with him a little bit for that, but just a little bit. Expedia.com was not doing well. And so Dara decided to take over that president role himself and do it. And he was really good about keeping my boss, the head of HR for the corporate things and started using me for the division things.

26:46Jessica Neal:And so that was where we first started to build our relationship. What I think he realized relatively quickly, because I had already established relationships across the group, was in the staff meetings, I was making them talk about the things that they weren't talking about naturally. I was pointing out the elephants in the room. I was pointing out where the business wasn't effective. So what he described later was, you just, it felt like a business person sitting in the room. I couldn't figure out which group you were responsible for, because you could talk about marketing or you could talk about the website and you could talk about the metrics.

27:22Jessica Neal:You just were all over the place. And I didn't even really hear you talk about people, but of course people were behind what you were talking about.

27:30Nikki Krishnamurthy:Right, of course, yeah.

27:31Jessica Neal:So I think it was that thing that you and I were talking about earlier of not approaching HR from an HR standpoint, but approaching it from an effectiveness standpoint. He recognized that in me relatively early. And then I also think I was very blunt with my feedback with him. And again, because he wasn't just the president, he was the CEO. I think he had spent a lot of years with people not telling him the truth about things or not being as direct about things. And I remember one time he came in to this leadership team that was, like I said, quite frankly, failing, like the business was not performing.

28:06Jessica Neal:And he talked about the fact that he had to let somebody else go in a different division. And he walked back out of the room. And I literally chased him. And we got to his desk and I said, can I give you some feedback? And he said, yeah, sure. And I said, that didn't go very well. And he's like, what do you mean? And I said, Dara, I said, you have a group of leaders that they know they're failing. They know this division is actually doing worse than the other one. And you just walked in, told them that you're letting that other leader go and walk back out and gave them no context. He's like, well, so?

28:39Jessica Neal:And I said, they're scared shitless. They're now more scared than they were before. Do you think you're going to get the best out of them if they're scared? He's like, what do I do? And I'm like, you go back in there and you say, I made a mistake. I need to give you more transparency, more context on what happened and why. And he said, really? I'm like, yes, you're going to go in there and you're gonna say I made a mistake and let me tell you and so he did he said he came back in and he said well I've gotten some feedback I didn't handle that very well and the whole room looked at me the whole room was like well that came from Nikki you would have been the one to do that yes ding ding ding yeah and so I think also to help people establish that is understand and make sure that they're ready to hear feedback but understand especially when you're dealing with senior level people, they're used to people yesing them.

29:34Jessica Neal:They're used to people not telling them the information, even if they are, it's not as direct to be able to tangibly act on it. And that has been the foundation of mine and Dar's relationship ever since then. I remember telling him he couldn't fire somebody because we needed to stabilize. And he was super mad at me. He was like, no, I can't work with this person anymore. I said, us stabilizing this division is more important than your ability to work with them. Figure it out. Like, that's what you need to do. Figure it out. I remember when I was coming on, interviewing an Uber, I could sense a lot of the leaders didn't want me.

30:10Jessica Neal:And what I realized after I joined is they were worried and they had shared with Dara, they were worried because Dara and I had a working relationship that I would come in and be a yes person. And Dara was only a year in, so he wasn't fully established with them yet. And he would chuckle in his head when they would say that to him. he's like, oh God, you don't know. You don't know. Nikki does not listen to me.

30:32Nikki Krishnamurthy:Right.

30:33Jessica Neal:And I think that has been the foundation of our relationship for 13 years of, I just very respectful. I am thoughtful about, you know, where his own mental mind is, but I'm also very, very direct with him. Even when I disagree and I disagree and commit, there are times I'm like, hey, you're the boss. I've challenged you on this five times. Tell me when the door's closed and I'll get on board. Yeah.

30:58Nikki Krishnamurthy:Yeah. No, it's, and, but it's, it's, it's such a hard place to be because you really literally are most, almost the only person that will tell them the truth. Right. Yep. And there might be one other person that'll go there a little bit, but none that go there like you and you're bringing them news that they don't always want to hear. Just like your example of like, guess what? It's, it's not about you. It's about stabilizing this organization. Sorry. Right. And of course he's mad at you. And that happened to me many times where they're so mad, but they know you're right.

31:39Jessica Neal:And then they end up doing it. It's nice to have that reaction too. I do think others will give him direct, honest feedback, especially now. Right. There's other times that my role is to understand his role and help him take in everything he's hearing and sort through it and figure out, okay, are you listening to this piece? Are you, you know, listen to it, but in a year, not, not quite yet. We have something else. Yeah. And so I think it's understanding how to help them be effective. And sometimes that's super direct and sometimes that's giving them a safe place. To vent.

32:16Nikki Krishnamurthy:Right. Because there's, I mean, you know, we were talking about the loneliness of, of the CHRO role, which I think is a real thing, But the CEO role is also very lonely. And you really are that person, that only person that they can vent to and be tell you all the things that they can't say in front of anybody else because it won't go over well. But they need that because, you know, mentally and emotionally that the toll and the burden on them is is incredibly hard and strong. You know, I always, you know, and I think I had a very similar approach too. It's like, okay, I'm going to tell you and you don't agree now.

32:58Nikki Krishnamurthy:I'm going to tell you a few more times. Right. And then, and then I would always say, okay, I get that you don't want to hear this right now. I get that you don't want to deal with it. It's your choice. You're the boss. I'm not going to bring it up again. Okay. and I'll give it six months. And if it's still there, I might bring it up again. But also, you're a data guy. And in the time that we've been working together, when have I ever been wrong? And he's like, never. And I'm like, okay, well, your choice, your choice. But I would always kind of like, you do have to pick the hills that you're going to die on.

33:43Jessica Neal:pick the hills you're going to die on pick the timing i mean that's what i think you were describing of yeah you have probably been right so much more than you would have ever been wrong and yet sometimes it was still let's delay on me being right let's deal with it later and it's understanding the timing as well when you can tolerate things yeah you're maybe slightly more nice than me um i never give up my right to bring it up again i just i just say you know i will i sense that you're done so the door's closing i'm gonna get on the boat but i'll bring it back up if i need to yeah so but i don't get it back yeah the ship will be back at the dock at some point but this is where i will disagree and truly commit i remember we were hiring an executive role and I interviewed and within 30 minutes, I knew the person was not the right fit.

34:38Jessica Neal:And I told him and he was like, no, no, no, you got it wrong. I really think this person is good. I said, I don't, I think you like intellect. And I think you saw intellect. Let me be clear. There's good aspects of this person, but intellect doesn't translate to impact. And this person will not have an impact. He begged me to re-injury of you, give another chance. And I did. And I said, look, I see some of the stuff you see, I still don't believe that we should hire. Here's my concerns. He convinced me to hire or beat me into hiring. And so I did. And then we were going to tell a small group of executives about this hire because he was very excited about it.

35:17Jessica Neal:And he told them and he told them why he thought this was a great person. And then he said, well, but Nikki disagrees. And I think Nikki should share her thoughts. Again, he's very transparent and he likes people to disagree with him. And so I said, no, I'm not going to do that. And he was like, no, I think you should share with Nikki. And I said, no, I said, I agree with Dara. I think, I think this person's good, but just like we always know, it's really hard to onboard to this company in an executive role. I talked to him later. I kept him after the meeting. And I said, Dara, when I disagree and commit, I disagree and commit.

35:46Jessica Neal:You do not set a new hire up by telling his peers that I, the head of HR disagrees. I'm like, and he's like, oh shit, I screwed that up. And I said, he's like, what do I do? I said, nothing. I recovered for you. I didn't share. And he said, but Dara, your role, my role now is to make this person as successful as we can. You do not tell what will be his peers that I disagreed. He's like, I will never, ever make that mistake again. I'm sorry. And I said, that's okay.

36:18Nikki Krishnamurthy:Your relationship with him, because it, you know, reminds me of mine with Reed, but I think it's a rare thing.

36:23Jessica Neal:Well, it needs a Dara. Like, to be honest, it needs somebody like a Dara that wants to be challenge somebody like dara that wants different varying points of view he has such tolerance for varying points of view such tolerance yeah i think he does reed does too yeah such a desire to be better and i think reeds that same way too dara always the person dara is today is not the person i met 13 years ago he is very very different the person dara is today is not the person he was eight years ago when I joined Uber. And so I think you need a Dara and you need a read for some of that. Yeah, it does.

37:04Nikki Krishnamurthy:I mean, and those guys are rare too, you know, I mean, you know, and to, to almost be that self-aware and selfless, but like a constant learner and constantly trying to evolve themselves and get better and better. not to say that i mean everybody has an ego but there's there's are mostly checked right um and uh so that is rare i coach um hros and and um i am coaching this one and you know we were kind of navigating this very crucial conversation that they need to have and um i was like well you know unfortunately you're the only one that's going to tell them and they're like but i could get fired you know for telling this truth and i'm like yeah you could you know hopefully you won't because the one the wanted and they may not agree with you completely they may not agree with you at all right but if they see that you are putting the company first and them first.

38:14Nikki Krishnamurthy:Hopefully, you know, they're going to listen, they're going to think about it, right? They're going to be reflective on it, even if they don't agree in the moment. But it's hard being the mirror.

38:24Jessica Neal:Yeah, it's very hard. It goes back to what you said, though, Jessica, is it's also getting to the point in your career that you understand the chemistry matters so much. And if this person speaks the truth, and of course, has to do in a respectful way, right time, all of that. But if the person does all those things, And the other one reacts by wanting to let them go. I know it might be hard in the moment, but they probably should go. Yeah, absolutely. They're not going to do their best work there because that person is coming from that place of I need to speak the truth to help you, to help the company.

38:59Jessica Neal:And if that other person reacts by firing them, they will probably in a year or two land somewhere that their career is much better off, their life is much better, their impact is much better because they left that person that couldn't let them be who they are.

39:12Nikki Krishnamurthy:Yeah, absolutely. Well, this is sort of tapping into the advice. What's your advice to CHROs who are navigating this relationship? And obviously, timing, respect, and all of those things. But how do you think that they should approach this role with the CEO?

39:30Jessica Neal:Well, with this role, specifically with the CEO, I think giving time to build trust. I think there's nothing wrong unless something really big happens right away. I think build small moments of trust, build small moments of giving feedback. Ask, I definitely do this even still to this day with Dara. Are you up for some feedback? And there has been moments where he was like, no, I'm so tired. We talk a lot on Fridays and Friday afternoons. And as you know, there's been time. No, God, no, please. No. And so ask. I do that with a lot of people. What role do you want me to play? Do you want me to just be a listener?

40:06Jessica Neal:Do you want me to be a mirror? Do you want me to push you? I do that a lot with people, including Dara. Somebody will come and share something with me and I'll just pause and say, I could play so many roles. How about I ask you, what role would you like me to play right now?

40:22Nikki Krishnamurthy:I love that. Yeah, that's good. That's really good. Gosh. Okay. We're running out of time, which is crazy. So I want to talk a little bit about AI and this role, because I think a lot of organizations are navigating this. I know you guys are probably at the forefront of utilizing AI in the organization and also in your product. But talk to us a little bit about that journey at Uber and what are you guys doing? How are you approaching it?

40:56Jessica Neal:Yeah, we are approaching it, what I would say is almost very organically, it is moving so quickly, meaning both the adoption, but the actual AI technology itself is improving month over day over day, month over month. So we are approaching it organically, where we're very focused on employee adoption and becoming familiar with the tools using them. We are also approaching it very programmatically, meaning very loosely making sure we have training classes, making sure we have tiger teams that can go into teams that are requesting and say, hey, we can help you use AI in these different ways and getting it up and running.

41:36Jessica Neal:But the reason I say organically is, as I just said, you have to ask for those resources. We're not forcing those resources on you. And what we're finding is some teams are adopting it so quickly, they don't need a tiger team. Like a tiger team would slow them down because the tiger team doesn't necessarily have their functional context.

41:55Nikki Krishnamurthy:Right.

41:56Jessica Neal:Other teams need the tiger team to come in and help identify and do things and get kind of spurred along. What we're also finding is, you know, I'm sure it will impact jobs over time. But I think when it first started happening and even before, a lot of people felt like a lot of entry level jobs would go away. And what we're finding is we're getting a lot of people that want to hire college grads fresh out because they're much more comfortable with AI. So we think of this AI native and they're not really AI native, but they're as close as you could get to AI native. And so we're not actually seeing that impact.

42:32Jessica Neal:We're seeing more demand from hiring managers to hire college grads, not less. And so we're kind of trying to approach it in multiple ways. I think over time we will get more directive, but we feel like directive would actually slow it down right now. We want the org to kind of learn.

42:47Nikki Krishnamurthy:Yeah, you don't want them to be fearful of it. You want them to be excited about it and jumping in and learning and experimenting. You know, I mean, that's what we're all doing that. We're experimenting. Like nobody knows, like nobody's like figured it out. Like if so, they would tell us how to do it. Right. Absolutely. And it's just getting better and better and better year after year. Right. And so like what's possible today, six months from now, it's going to be.

43:13Jessica Neal:So much more will be possible.

43:14Nikki Krishnamurthy:So much more. Right. Yeah. So I love that.

43:16Jessica Neal:One of the key things I'm, one of my key messages, because I see it both in the headlines, but even what the conversation looks like internally. I do worry that companies like ours, meaning the bigger companies, more established, are too focused on AI from an efficiency standpoint. And the smaller companies will invent new things because of AI. And so that's a key message I've been sending internally is don't get caught up in all the headlines. Don't get caught up in what arguably is the easier way to identify what to do with AI. Be bold. And we always want to be bold and creative. Go be it. What can you invent today that was not possible yesterday?

43:59Jessica Neal:Leave the efficiency stuff. It's okay. We'll get back around to the efficiency stuff.

44:03Nikki Krishnamurthy:Yeah. Somebody, we were talking the other day and it's like, there's the innovation part around AI, but then there's like the commodity part. The efficiency is a commodity. like it's that'll just be there we'll keep finding those things in three years we'll still find more efficiency for ai right but but to your point like innovate something like make something new

44:26Jessica Neal:yeah yeah yeah that's that would be my biggest call out for companies for hr leaders for ceos or business leaders of more established companies if don't let the startups disrupt you because they they don't have any efficiency that they need. They need to create. Yeah, they're already efficient.

44:47Nikki Krishnamurthy:Yeah, exactly. They're not big and bloated yet.

44:52Jessica Neal:Right, exactly. So that's my big watch out for AI right now.

44:56Nikki Krishnamurthy:I think that that's good. Okay, we're going to do two things. One, I forgot to tell you, and before we start recording, we do these things called career confessions. It's where listeners, yeah, so listeners send in questions, and we give them work advice. So you do that all day long, so you're going to be brilliant at it. But the other thing I always ask my guests to do is to leave, and you've already given so much great advice, but to leave the listeners in general, like a little nugget of some advice, some stuff to think about, some inspiration, because we all need more of that these days. So what's the advice you want to give today?

45:33Jessica Neal:I think two things. I think a lot of headlines, a lot of programs are focused on how do you develop your weaknesses? How do you get better at your weaknesses? I have navigated my whole career and I think it's worked well in trying to position myself in roles that leverage my superpowers. superpowers. And I think we don't always take the time to think what are our superpowers and what roles will benefit from our superpowers. I think there's so much research to say, when we're learning and developing something that we're already good at, we will learn so much better and faster. We don't talk about that a lot.

46:14And so think about what are

46:17Jessica Neal:your superpowers and think about the roles, the jobs, the projects that will really benefit from your superpowers. That doesn't mean you shouldn't develop your weaknesses. We want to be as well rounded as possible, but everyone has gifts. Nobody has all the gifts. So you're never going to fill those deficits to the level you could actually excel with your superpowers. So that would be one piece of advice. The second would be run towards what you're scared of. Run towards what you're scared of. I, you know, I mentioned when I didn't go into the head of HR job for two weeks, really what I reflected on is not, it wasn't just do I still have passion for it.

46:55Jessica Neal:I was scared. I was scared. When I took that GM role, I was scared. I thought Dara was crazy. I didn't know if I wanted the Uber job. Like I knew that I would make mistakes. As I said, you just not infallible. And I was, do I really want to fail on that global of a platform? Do I really want to show my deficits on that global of a platform? But what I realized as I was reflecting was that I wouldn't think any job after that one was exciting. I was like, if I don't take this job, I'm going to be like, what job is going to be as exciting as that one? So run towards what you're scared of.

47:31Nikki Krishnamurthy:I love that. I love both of those things. You know, on the strengths thing, you reminded me, I used to talk about this a lot at Netflix. We were such a critical culture and it was always like, how can we get better? How can we get better? We never talked about the things that we were good at. And I was like, if we want people to do even better, like they're on their weaknesses, of course, we want them to get better, but they're probably going to be tiny bit better than they were. But let's tell them what they're great at so that they can double down on that and do it 20 more times. Because if they do that 20 more times, that's going to be

48:09Jessica Neal:great for us. Right, right. You can still be giving all of your superpower, like you didn't leverage your superpower or you over leveraged your superpower. I love that you were giving Netflix that advice.

48:20Nikki Krishnamurthy:But like, they didn't even know that we valued those superpowers. It was always on the stuff that they could do better. And I, so it was like, we got to give love to the strengths. So I love that and such great advice. Okay. So we're going to go into career confession. Okay. So here's a little context and then from the person, and then I'll read you their question. So I used to think culture was mostly values and messaging until I realized it's really tested by whether hiring incentives and performance systems reinforce the behaviors you want. From your role leading HR recruiting workplace at Uber, what early measurable signals tell you an organization's culture and leadership are genuinely healthy before issues surface?

49:07Jessica Neal:Great question. Great question. And I love the fact that you're, the listener is thinking about things more than just as values. So many people boil values down to behaviors. And what the listener said also is we do think about real values are what you hire and fire because of. You hire and fire. And I can tell a quick anecdotal story of one of our values after we rewrote them is called forest and trees. And it wasn't called Forest and Trees at the time. It was just the concept of you need to understand the details to be able to pick back up and potentially affect the strategy because you know the details that matter.

49:47Jessica Neal:And somebody that understands the strategy that can go find the details that need to be managed. It was just that, by the way, just that concept. And the marketing team came to me because this is when we were coming up with the words. They said, Nikki, do you think you could influence Dara to drop this one? because we were still in the massaging and I laughed at them. I said, you better find some words for this one because this is the one Dara most fires for. He fires for this. So I pick up to then more specifically answer the question. I pick up the signals of when on that one, using that as an example, I pick up on the signals when I see somebody just operating at this superficial level.

50:26Jessica Neal:Strategy can feel superficial. It's not, it is understanding the details. So if somebody's just operating off of this, I start talking about like, Hey, where's the details? Get into the details on the flip side. I see some people not be able to pull up. They're so in the details. I never hear them talk about the bigger picture, but they're constantly pointing out all these random things. And so I'm not clear. Do you understand the details that matter? There's plenty of details, but do you understand the details that matter? Um, and so those on that specific one, but I could do it for all of our values.

50:58Jessica Neal:Yeah, of course. Where are those early signals that people are really going to be able to operate here for all of them?

51:05Nikki Krishnamurthy:Yeah, no, I love that. And if you want to go high, you have to be able to go low. And if you want to be high, you have to go low. You know, it's like, you got to, you got to know the full picture. I love that. And I do, I do agree. Like there are signals that you will get on the things that you hire and fire for you'll and and just like if the culture is operating as it should be you're gonna get the signals there's there's tension in the system right there's conflicts between these teams there's context missing there's you know consensus happening there's you know you and i know know all the things there there are too many of them but i just have to say my heart is full because i just am so happy you came on but i'm also sad that it took a podcast for you and i to hang out

51:50Jessica Neal:It would be great if we keep in touch this time.

51:53Nikki Krishnamurthy:Please, please. I'm begging you because you're just so amazing. And the work that you do is so great. And I wish there were more HR leaders like you in the world. And hopefully some of them that are listening will be so inspired by all the things they had.

52:08Jessica Neal:My heart is warm after this conversation of talking to somebody that has walked a mile in these shoes, somebody that just can articulate it, not just experience it, but articulate it. you have no idea how much more energized I'm walking away of just feeling seen and heard, right? It's a little bit cliche sometimes, but it really does matter. And so my heart is warm from the conversation.

52:30Nikki Krishnamurthy:Well, when you're lonely, you call me. Okay. Because I, you know what, that is one thing I didn't do as much because I was all, it's so consuming. Like it's so consuming. It's so consuming. I did not pick up the phone and say, Nikki, I, I need you. And, and, and, the people like in, in my life, like my husband didn't get it.

52:52Jessica Neal:No, I know that didn't,

52:53Nikki Krishnamurthy:you know, it's like, it's hard. So call me. I mean,

52:57Jessica Neal:you'll be my person now, Jessica. I appreciate that very much.

53:01Nikki Krishnamurthy:Yes. Yes. And I appreciate you. Thank you. Thanks for listening to truth works.