Discover one of the most influential companies you've probably never heard of - Koch Industries. In this riveting episode, we're joined by Cara Chennault-Reid, the leader of Human Resources for Koch Industries, who paints a vibrant picture of the company's shared vision, diverse portfolio and unique approach to talent acquisition and development. Her fascinating insights reveal the profound transformation Koch Industries has undergone and how it approaches work and employee development differently.
Ever wondered what it would be like to define your own career path? Cara elaborates on how Koch Industries fosters an atmosphere of autonomy, allowing employees to take the reins of their career progression. We delve into the company's penchant for hiring 'contribution-motivated' individuals and how collaboration has been a pillar for its team's success. You will learn about the key traits Koch Industries seeks in employees – contribution motivated, humility and curiosity.
We also unpack the company's Principle Based Management framework and its five dimensions of vision, virtues and talents, knowledge, comparative advantage, and motivation. Cara explains how these principles guide decision-making and improve work performance. The episode rounds off with a focus on Koch Industries' commitment to diversifying its talent pipeline and creating alternate pathways to work, providing an invaluable roadmap for other companies looking to foster diversity and inclusion within their ranks. Tune in and be enlightened by the remarkable strategies that make Koch Industries a standout player in the business world.
Discover one of the most influential companies you've probably never heard of - Koch Industries. In this riveting episode, we're joined by Cara Chennault-Reid, the leader of Human Resources for Koch Industries, who paints a vibrant picture of the company's shared vision, diverse portfolio and unique approach to talent acquisition and development. Her fascinating insights reveal the profound transformation Koch Industries has undergone and how it approaches work and employee development differently.
Ever wondered what it would be like to define your own career path? Cara elaborates on how Koch Industries fosters an atmosphere of autonomy, allowing employees to take the reins of their career progression. We delve into the company's penchant for hiring 'contribution-motivated' individuals and how collaboration has been a pillar for its team's success. You will learn about the key traits Koch Industries seeks in employees – contribution motivated, humility and curiosity.
We also unpack the company's Principle Based Management framework and its five dimensions of vision, virtues and talents, knowledge, comparative advantage, and motivation. Cara explains how these principles guide decision-making and improve work performance. The episode rounds off with a focus on Koch Industries' commitment to diversifying its talent pipeline and creating alternate pathways to work, providing an invaluable roadmap for other companies looking to foster diversity and inclusion within their ranks. Tune in and be enlightened by the remarkable strategies that make Koch Industries a standout player in the business world.
I know you're gonna find it. You've got to keep on at it. Hi everybody, this is Bob Goodwin and welcome to another episode of Career Club Live. You are going to love our guest today, but before we get to her, I wanted to encourage you to stop by Careerclub and check under the For Job Seekers section. We've got a bunch of new free resources available to people, including things like the three things that might be holding you back in your job search, effective way to answer what's your greatest weakness, and 10 tips and tricks and techniques to help you with your networking. So again, check out Careerclub under the section for Job Seekers. So, as I said, I'm really excited about our guest today. So today I'm going to read this We've got Cara Schnalt-Reed.
Speaker 1:Cara is the leader of human resources for Koch Industries and I'm really looking forward to her explaining to you just a little bit more about what Koch is. But she partners directly with their business and capability groups across the globe to connect all the diverse industries that make up the Koch portfolio to their shared vision. With over 120,000 employees, the human resources capability there helps advance their business visions and strategies while accelerating the application of the Koch framework principle-based management. We're going to be talking a good deal about that, because it really is her secret sauce. Cara and I met at SHRM23 this year in Las Vegas and I was just blown away by her vision, her professionalism and, maybe most of all, her grace. And so with that, cara welcome.
Speaker 1:Thank you, yeah so where do we find you today? Where are you?
Speaker 2:I am in Wichita, kansas. I am in the headquarters of Koch Industries Incorporated right here in the middle of the prairie, as you can see out my window Awesome.
Speaker 1:I do see that it's pretty flat there, which leads me to my first question, which is you're not from there? Where were you born and raised?
Speaker 2:I was born in Nashville, Tennessee, and then moved to a small child right outside of Knoxville, Kingston, Tennessee, so in a small town right outside of Knoxville. So, yes, I'm a huge University of Tennessee fan. I've lived all over and been in many places but continue to be a vol fan.
Speaker 1:Amen. Well, for people who follow me on LinkedIn, I also went to Tennessee, met my lovely wife at UT, so with you you're kind of the thrills and foibles of being a Tennessee vol fan.
Speaker 2:With the good and the bad right, the good and the bad.
Speaker 1:Tell us just a little bit about your family, cara.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we I've actually been in Wichita now for going on two years, been in this particular position, but I've been with Coke for 18 years and I've been married to John Reed for 30, 31 years Oops, 32. I messed that up. I'll be in trouble. 32 years I have two grown daughters, caroline and Camille, and so we one came with us in one state in Georgia.
Speaker 1:Awesome, did I read on LinkedIn that you guys are empty nesters now?
Speaker 2:We are, we absolutely are. My youngest daughter, camille, is a sophomore in college and she attends Wichita State University here lives on campus. So, yes, we are empty nesters and loving it.
Speaker 1:Just real quickly, and maybe particularly since you guys are empty nesters. Now, what do you like to do when you're not doing your job at the daytime?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we love to travel, and where we travel is to the beach. Every time we have an opportunity, we love to go to South Carolina Coast, which is where my husband is originally from South Carolina, and so love to go back to the beach and just have a quiet time. That's what we like to do in our spare time, and I don't have a lot of hobbies. My kids have been my hobbies, you know, when you're not working. It's been kids and it's a different kind of time spent with them, but I love that time when we can all be together as four of us and travel and do things like that, but that's really where I've spent my time throughout my career.
Speaker 2:I haven't had any great hobbies, except for my kids and husband.
Speaker 1:I was gonna say big job and raising kids. That sounds like enough to chew up all your waking hours.
Speaker 2:I need to figure out what I'm gonna do after work, though after I retire and I need to have some hobbies, so I don't know what that's gonna be.
Speaker 1:We'll talk about that in a bit Now. Koch Industries is maybe and maybe this is just me, but it seems like it's like one of the biggest companies that people don't know and I mentioned earlier that there's a hundred and twenty thousand employees. Can you just share a little bit about, kind of some of the businesses that Koch has just get people grounded in the business itself?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you're right, it's probably one of the best-kept secrets. It was for me too when I joined Koch and we'll talk about that in a little bit. But you know, it was established in 1940 by Frederick Koch, which is Charles Koch's father, who's currently our chairman and CEO, and we do have a hundred and twenty thousand employees and they're in 60 different countries and spread across the globe in very diverse portfolio of products and services that we are in. And so I think about how it's transitioned and changed since I joined and it just seems to be a continual change in transformation. So we own Georgia Pacific.
Speaker 2:You may be familiar with products, the consumer products, dixie plates, those kinds of things, guardian Glass, molex so there's a lot of various different companies and then also just the oil and gas. I mean, we've been in the oil and gas industry for years and running refineries, so that's been. It's a very unique company in that you know there's some branded companies in here and brands that we have. You know that you would know household names. But, quite honestly, you know most folks don't know who we are and, as I said, when I started I didn't either.
Speaker 2:I didn't know who Koch Industries was and so, but it's. You know, it truly is a company that's founded and on this principal-based management and how I tell you, I think Koch has been most successful is through the application Principles of Human Progress, and that has been the unwavering commitment to how we work, how we make decisions, how we think about talent and how we invest in businesses, and so just continue this. There's a continuous discontent with the current state, or restlessness that would say we can always get better, and that's at the core of how Koch has continued to grow, transform, get in businesses and get out of businesses.
Speaker 1:Well, we're gonna talk about that. Definitely double-click on this, because it is sort of the secret sauce of Koch and no pun intended, and but you talked about, like, how you got to Koch and I think your origin story is so instructive of just sort of the broader theme of Koch. So do you mind just kind of briefly sharing with folks how, how does it even came to Koch?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so what I'll start with, I'm telling you. So this is something that I've come to know now is is just common practice, and the moment when you're living through it, I wasn't exactly sure what was going on. And so, as I had mentioned earlier, I was working for Kimberly Clark not necessarily looking for a new role and someone from Koch had called me. I didn't know who Koch Industries was and I was embarrassed, I didn't know, went home and my husband's like how do you not know who that is? But I came to an interview here in Wichita, kansas. There's probably 10, 12 people around the table. There was no open position, there was no job. I kept asking for what was their job posting I need to apply to? Is there a role? And the answer was no, just come talk to us, we will spend the day. And so I spent the day with. You know, six or seven different companies spent the whole day here and throughout the interview process, asking so what is the role? What is, what's the role going to be? And because you want to know, am I, you know, am I a good fit for whatever this role is that you're looking for? And they spent a lot of time talking to me about who Koch was and how they make decisions and principles and values, and so I, but I walked away.
Speaker 2:I was sitting in the airport that evening, after an all-day interview with multiple companies that I described. I was sitting in the airport and it was funny. My phone rang. My husband said okay, what is it? Where's the job? What is it? I said, well, I don't know what it is, I don't know where it is. His next question was did you not pay any attention to anything in the interview? And so I said it's just not, there's not a specific role.
Speaker 2:And so before I had made it home I was living in Arkansas at the time before I'd made it home, I had a call from one of the leaders who wanted to offer me a position, and it was a position of leading the talent acquisition group for one of the companies, in Vista, and I just said Gosh, I'm not a talent acquisition, but that's not a space. I'm pretty hardcore general HR and manufacturing. And I said so. I said I'm not so sure. That's probably the right role, and he said well, wait a minute.
Speaker 2:He said we spent a lot of time talking to you he's. We're looking for strong leaders who come into the HR capability. And he said, and he walked me through the process and we said we sit around the table and we need to invest in talent in HR. And so he said you are somebody that we think you can come in into multiple roles, but this is a role we think we want you to start in. And I said well, are you sure? I hope I have an older soul, because that is not what that's to build a talent acquisition capability for a global organization. At the time and it was it was daunting because I thought I'm stepping into something I don't know, but now, in hindsight, best decision I've ever made never looked back. I was intrigued. What was probably when I sat through the interview on my side of it. I was so intrigued with the people and the commitment to the principles.
Speaker 2:And so it was. It was, it was showing up and in everything that they said and everything that they did and how they answered my questions, and so I was hooked. I thought, if there's, if there's a shred of truth to this, I'm all in and they're absolutely nice. And so, for me, I've come to know that is the discovery process. At the time I thought this is crazy. I don't know what, I don't know how you're going to figure out. You know there's not a position, and so that's been the journey that has been coked, because that's very common to how we think about talent today. And, like I said, I experienced it firsthand, and what I've seen since is it's all about the individual, not so much about the role or the responsibilities or the job description. It's about the individual. It's about the individual and we've continued to live by that and it is just, it just works. It's phenomenal when you think about the person and how they can fit into, what are they bring, you know what, if their contribution motivated and they have some skills and some talents that we need, that's a perfect match and so, and then it's turning them loose. That is, that's the piece that's so empowering.
Speaker 2:I had the opportunity to spend a little bit of time with some of our interns this year, bob, and that was a rather large group that we had brought into Wichita from across all of our companies, and it was so funny. We're sitting there having this conversation about getting ready to get their offers coming into Coke and they're so worked up about making the right decision. And I had a really good person. This gentleman asked me a really good question. He goes well, I have this offer from this company over here and I have an offer from Coke and I need to make the right decision. And it was just turned, this kid was just turned up in knots about making the right decision. I thought, oh, this is just one of many, you know, don't, don't, don't stress yourself out.
Speaker 2:But he said this company over here, company A, says to me here's your path for the next 20 years. This is what you'll do. You'll spend 18 months here and they had it all mapped out for him for at least the next 15, 20 years. He said this is what your path is. And he said and I talked to Coke and Coke goes. That's going to be up to you. We're going to let you define that path based on what you, when you come into work, what do you love to do, get to know yourself, really truly self actualize.
Speaker 2:And he said there was no path to find for me. And he said I'm struggling and I, and it was just, it's just a reflection of what we mean when we talk about principle based. Because what I said was and I said there's no way we would even begin to imagine knowing you well enough to chart out your, your, the next 20 years, for you, no way, no way to you. You know, I think I was sitting in the chair, you're in, you know long, much longer ago, but no way could someone have told me. I couldn't have told myself, I had no idea.
Speaker 2:So to think that somebody else could, you know, predict that with any sense of precision, I said if I were you, if you take a bet on yourself, you want to bet on yourself.
Speaker 2:Bet on yourself that you know you will figure out and you'll know what's better for you. And so that's just another way of coming into the organization. You know there's no way we know where people are going to women, that we may know they're starting place, but it's just, it's so freeing and empowering and inspiring for folks to have the opportunity to chart their own course. And it really is. It starts with what we've even talked about, bob is this kind of this contribution motivated? You have to be contribution motivated first and have skills, capabilities, talents that the organization needs so we can apply that appropriately. But if you had that, it's that natural curiosity to learn, to know more about yourself, to help other people be successful, and that look all continually looking for how do you make things better, both yourself and the people around you. So if you have that, that's the mix that works, coming into something that there's no way somebody could have told me 18 years ago I'd be in this role today.
Speaker 1:Gosh, kara, I mean I mean I'm just lighting up like a Christmas tree. There's so much about what you're talking about that just makes me excited and obviously I was thrilled to have you come on because because I knew some of this stuff. So I mean, let's just start at the start. You guys do a talent draft. You're not trying to force people into roles, you're trying to find the best athletes that you can find. Then you'll find the position for them to play, which I think is you might be a tight engine, might be a linebacker.
Speaker 1:All I know is you're tall, strong and fast, and we can use people like that because we can't teach that. You come to the party with a lot of those attributes and I think that that is just one brilliant how you all think about that. Two is the sense of autonomy and self actualization, which is the word that you use, which is you own your own personal life. And self actualization, which is the word that you use, which is you own your career, I don't own your career, you own your career and you know, for the right person, that is like music to them, like, oh, you're going to give me the freedom to go paint my own picture. That is is like I didn't know. You could go find that. That's amazing. The your intern cracks me up because you're right. Like, especially in the rapid pace of change, what's the average tenure for a job right now? 2.8 years or something like that.
Speaker 1:And somebody's going to tell you for the next 15 or 20 years. They've always got the next 15 or 20 days and they're going to tell you the next 15 or 20 years. Like it's linear, Like it couldn't be anything more nonlinear than it's. Like this crazy fractal these days. It can break into a million different ways. The I really want to talk about, you know, kind of this contribution motivated, because that's come up in our conversations multiple times. I want you to help people understand what that means. And then you talked about collaboration, wanting to help make people around you better, which is just a really strong ethos because it counterbalances the. You know I want to take my career where I want to take my career. You guys give me a lot of latitude to do that, but I can't win if everybody else isn't winning with me, which is really a powerful concept. But let's just go back, because this is so core to the DNA of the talent is this contribution motivated? Can you unpack that?
Speaker 2:for people, absolutely, and yeah, absolutely. And what I'll tell you is we're not perfect at this either. Bob and you and I've talked about that. I mean, we're continuing to try to improve and get better at this, and it's not for everybody, and that's what you'll find, and I found that through the time that I've been working with people here, some people want that well-defined. Give me the rulebook.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And there isn't a rulebook and we you know it takes courage to really get to self actualize and get to know yourself better and know what you're going to be best at and then have the courage to have the conversation to go. I'm in a role that I don't think I'm the best at. There's probably people who can do this better and I don't love it and you know I mean that takes a lot of courage to just basically disrupt your role and talk about what you are good at, what you do like, and that's got some risk that you carry with it. But what we try and we really strive for is to build trust in the environment through our principles and our values, to make sure we create that environment where every employee feels empowered to do that. Now, as I said, it's not perfect. It depends on people and we are always striving to get better in this space.
Speaker 2:But if you think about somebody who comes to the door, first and foremost is contribution motivated. They are coming in with a desire that, first of all, they're very self aware. They know what they're good at, what they're not good at, they have a reality based view of what they can do at that moment and where they need to help and they're not afraid to admit that they are going to ask for help. They're continually looking. It's this thirst for learning and improving that is at the core, if you think about contribution and what that really means. They are continually seeking ways that they can increase their own contribution as well as helping those around them. You know some things that will just, just, in this culture of principle based management, if you have somebody who's hoarding knowledge or somebody who is trying to help you or somebody who is doesn't really you know they want to get the credit. It's about the credit versus sharing knowledge. It shows up immediately because that is so inconsistent with who we are and how we expect people to behave.
Speaker 2:And so you know you have people who are contribution motivated. They may not have a skill that we need. Well, we're not going to bring them through the doors of code because that's going to be a waste. They need to go find a place that they can go use their skills. They have the core of being contribution motivated, but it has to be a skill that their capability, that we need. So that's what it really is kind of in every person who comes to the door daily.
Speaker 2:I mean I think about myself and people around me come to work every day thinking how can I get better, how do I make myself better, how do I help the people around me get better? And you have to have this restless discontent with the current state to continue to get better and also have a lot of humility. And that is one of our core values is you know you have to own your mistakes and stand behind your teams when there are mistakes that are made, as we show up as servant leaders for our employees. So that is that's just a fundamental expectation of being part of Coke is that as we hire people, we are very diligent to make sure that we're looking for people who start first with contribution, motivated, and so, and through our interview process, I mean we go through quite a bit of rigor to to assess that, get to know the person and get to know how you know, how are they wired?
Speaker 1:So, so very quickly, you use the word humility. It's funny, when I was writing the little bit that I said in my introduction of you, and I said the word grace, the other word I was fumbling with was humility. It was, I mean, both of those, I think, really describe you as well, and you know, I can see why you would be thriving in an environment that appreciates that kind of quality instead of sort of the social media. It's all about me, and how can I promote myself kind of you know, model versus no, together we're better than any one person. So so we've kind of probably talked around all of them and I don't mean to make this a test, so I've got it in front of me. But you know, there's five main principles, right, you might just sort of share them with folks, or I'm happy to start reading through them. We can just sort of tick them off one at a time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let me. Let me clarify a little bit here. So we have what we call the, the five dimensions, and that's the PBM framework, principle based management framework, and then we have this whole set of what we call principles of human progress. And there are many, many of those and you know, it's things like mutual benefit, it's things like bottom up, marginal analysis. Those are all things that we would call principles of human progress and striving to kind of improve. But there's probably hundreds of those. But if you think about the five dimensions that's that's the piece I think you're you're speaking to, bob is this how do we apply those five dimensions? And it's core to how we work, how we make decisions and how we think about everything that we do. And so there's, basically, we think you have to start with the vision. And if you think about there's the five R vision, virtues and talents, knowledge, comparative advantage and motivation. Those are the five. And so we use this as I'll give you a very specific example.
Speaker 2:You know, if you're sitting with a business team and you're struggling through a problem, you're looking at what's what's, what's wrong here, what are we doing wrong? You come back to those five dimensions and go do we have the right vision? Do we have the? We all kind of focused on the right thing? Do people really understand what we're trying to achieve? And oftentimes you go. Well, you hear from people and it's like everybody else thinks it's one thing and I think it's this, and the leader thinks that this is like we got a vision problem. We need to sit down and make sure we align on the vision so and make sure that that is where we're, where we're headed and what we want to go. That's why vision you got to start there. But in a prone, you're solving a problem inside a Coke and you're working, doesn't matter what, what it is. You take those five dimensions and you could go okay, okay, we've got the vision right. We just don't have the right people. We there's, there's skills or there's capabilities or talents that we don't have. We got to step back and go. Or maybe we don't have the work assigned to the right people. We might have the right people, we just don't have the work assigned in the right ways. And so how do we? How do we reassess that? And then, of course, knowledge do we have the right knowledge systems that are telling us where the opportunities are? You know, so you just tick through each one of those comparative advantages who you know.
Speaker 2:If you think about this we do this quite a bit in terms of what we call the vision of labor by comparative advantage. Sometimes you think about why is something not working? It's like, well, back to what I shared earlier, we got people who have, you know, gifts and aptitudes and things in one area, but they're not, they're not able to apply those, because we've looked, we've organized the work in the working away in which it's not enabling the best that person to be at their best. So you kind of shift the team. It's always moving. If you think about comparative advantage, who is best positioned to do that work on the team? Figuring that out is really important. And where you align work and the team's always changing, you're never done. And then, of course, motivation is really just trying to make sure you know what no motivates people. What are they going to be motivated by? We've done a lot of work in these five dimensions around evolution. The words have changed. Concepts are core, but the words to help people better connect. We are constantly.
Speaker 2:You may have read in some of the books used to be market based management and last year we've changed this to principle based management very deliberately, because it's about the principles of human progress that we're trying to make sure we instill and that we live by and we come up, show up every day at work and everything we do whether it's good times or bad times or tough, you know, challenges you're going back to those principles and I had this, had this conversation yesterday, which I think it's a great, no matter where you sit or where you are, it's marginal analysis conversation. It's if you decide to work on that, there's a trade off. You're not going to work on this. Is that the right thing for us to do as a capability? Is that what will bring the most value to our business? And so it's.
Speaker 2:It's all intertwined in terms of that goes back to those principles of human progress and it's you know there's many, but the five dimensions is then the framework is how we think about hiring people, making decisions, everything that we do, and so that's kind of what I shared with my interview process.
Speaker 2:This was embedded into that.
Speaker 2:Once I got into Coke, I was like, oh, I see what that was through the interview process, and so that's how we're trying to be, as you know apply this and strive every day to come in and be better at helping people connect, because we truly believe you know that, especially the role of a supervisor. We spend a lot of time talking about supervisors and the importance of the supervisor and, having been another organization, supervisors have a lot of responsibility and in every organization and they carry a load, and I'll tell you that the the difference being at Coke is your number one responsibility as a supervisor is to help other people develop and improve and be better. And some people would say, well, my number one responsibility is this and the business results. Well, you're going to get that. We believe you're going to get those business results If you have the right people in the right roles working on the right things, and so that's really where we expect supervisors to spend their time, and then then so they invest in their people in a way that will deliver the business results.
Speaker 1:You know, between the principles, that, that framework that you described, and then, just as you're given all these examples, what was just so in stark contrast for me, compared to so many of your peers at other companies, is Coke is very focused on people, right, and you're not fighting for a seat at the table, and you know how do you kind of get woven into the strategic initiatives of the business. By definition, you are highly integrated and key to how Coke looks at their business in totality, and so I'm just, you know, versus the processes, and you know compliance and all the sort of more tactical things that the word needs to be done, but it's not necessarily of a strategic nature, and everything that you're saying keeps coming back to the person. Humans like how do people help drive this business? Because they are the business, and do you find, when you're talking to your colleagues, that your day at work feels very different than people that you know not your colleagues, but your peers at other companies?
Speaker 1:It does, does your day feel different. It does Talk about your work differently it does.
Speaker 2:It's interesting because I sit on a couple of CHRO kind of roundtables and the things that they're focused on and the things that we're focused on are very different. So I find myself being a little bit of an outsider and I'm okay with that. In fact, I enjoy that because I get to share. Look, guys, here's how we're thinking about that and I'll just take something that's, you know, highly charged and you know a lot of opinions on that. We was in one the other day and we spent way too much time on return to work, you know, and it was this theme of people coming back to work and, and you know, people talking about rules and how they're doing it and mandates. And you know, I said, guys, we took a principled approach to this and I said that it's not perfect. I said that we expect people in supervisors and employees to work in a way in which we're going to get the most out of those employees and results. We want people back in the office working together, but we're not going to come out with the hard. You got to be in Tuesday, wednesday, thursday. You know this is between that supervisor and the employee and the results, focusing in on the results and again, it's this kind of churn on policies and and you know, and having a having a set of rules versus COCA is very much guidelines. We'll have some guidelines and, like I said to you earlier, bob, it's not for everybody.
Speaker 2:I had somebody earlier in my career coming to work at COCA and he just came in and he said I'm looking for the rule book. He goes, I can't operate in this. And it was an HR person who was trying to relocate somewhere or hire and relocate him, and he said I need the rules on what our relocation policy is. And I said well, here's a set of guidelines, here's kind of what we think about in terms of you get to need to know the person, what do they value, what's important to them, you know. And so we had this conversation. But you know, he said to me he goes. I just I've come out of a very structured organization. I need the rule book. And I said there's not going to be a rule book and no one's going to know.
Speaker 1:But you can see, I mean it's funny because the army is for some people and the army is not for some people, and you can see where folks would self select.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Like Coke and there's no value judgment in that.
Speaker 2:It's just what's a style preference, and they will be more successful somewhere else, and so that would be wrong for them to stay at Coke or come to Coke, because it is not like I said. It's that it's not for everybody, and that's okay, and we want people to. You know, know us well enough as well as us doing our own. You know due diligence on that to know it's the right company for me.
Speaker 1:Something that could be a huge takeaway for listeners. I want to go back to what you're talking about, with the emphasis on frontline management and supervisors. Employees just sort of, at large, seem to be stressed out these days. They're freaked out. The pandemic didn't help anybody. There's a recession, there's fears about layoffs, there's money problems, people just and then Gen Z is kind of all that dialed up a couple more notches. How do you train, how do you empower your frontline folks to kind of be what they need to be for their employees, their colleagues?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Now, great question. I wouldn't say that we've mastered that at all, but I'll tell you how we invest in it every day in terms of making sure, especially thinking about new supervisors coming in or being promoted or moving into a supervisor role from an individual contributor role. That's a big lift and they have to understand kind of what that is. So there's a lot of tools and sessions and we don't do a lot of stand-up training. That's not it. You're really your supervisor. If you're a new supervisor, then your supervisor has a responsibility in making sure you understand your role, what's expected and how to show up as a supervisor. And so, gosh, at Coke I think we had ran the numbers I think we've got 16,000 supervisors around the globe, so that's a lot of people to be practicing PBM. But, man, if we can just pick one or two of those and you get it right, you got a supervisor who's helping another supervisor. It's powerful in terms of the progress that we make and, as we think about the role of the supervisor, it's practicing and teaching and modeling PBM. And so if somebody's done that really well for you and I'll give you a great example as I came, I was new to Coke and worked for a gentleman who has since retired. But it was interesting because my first probably six months here I was a supervisor, my first six months here, really probably 90 days.
Speaker 2:We sat down and I said I think we might have made a bad call here. I said I'm struggling in terms of getting a lot of feedback and I was getting feedback everywhere. I turned. It's like well, that's interesting, but here at Coke we do it this way and here's why we would think about it that way and this is how we would think about it. So he and I sat down and I said I just want to be transparent.
Speaker 2:I said I've never had this kind of feedback and I said I've always. I said I felt like. I said I come in with some experience and he said look, I'm just investing in you so you will be able to invest in others throughout your career. He goes we that that is an expectation at Coke. You're going to get a lot of feedback and and that's that's the other thing that I think supervisors have the responsibility of bringing those people along, like myself coming in mid career to Coke and having been in a very structured environment, very different, and, like I said, if he hadn't poured into me. I don't know that I would have been here either to help me understand, kind of this is what we're looking for and this is what good is, and this is how we think about this, very different than some of the other organizations that are out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can see that that taking somebody who's got so many of the right talent attributes but has grown up in a different family with different rules, and it's like, well, I know that's how y'all did it over there, but here's how we do it here. But it would, it would definitely be. You know, a previous guest shared this line with me. I don't know if it's original to him or not, but I love the line, which is we want to be values aligned, but culturally an ad. And so what I take away even from what you're saying is like look, values wise, we're aligned, like you you're. You're a good fit for us from a values perspective. But there's things about our culture that you know you'll need to sort of pick up as we go. But I'm willing to invest in you because that part's teachable. But, like you know, making you contribution motivated I don't know if I can make you do that. It's as I said earlier you kind of come to the party with some of those attributes.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I give you another example. Okay, sorry, please. Now I was going to say I'll give you another example. That's core to that, because most companies that that I've been in and that I've worked for outside of Coke too and interviewed a lot of people is we have what we call a principle challenge process. And so you think about challenge process and what does that really mean? And it's an expectation.
Speaker 2:So when I came in and I've heard this from other people too it's like you don't, if the senior leaders in the room, you don't really share your opinions or challenge or those kinds of things. And at Coke that was completely different. It was like I was getting feedback because I wasn't challenging. I was like, well, I was waiting for that next conversation. It's like no, no, this is the conversation and so leaders have to create that environment where it pulls people in and to be to invite that different opinions, those types of things. I mean it's it's an expectation, which is just counter to so many different organizations that are that may be very hierarchy. Those conversations happen after the second meeting, and at Coke there is no second meeting. It is this is the meeting. It's just ideas, points of view, opportunities to do something better or different, or that that's just an ongoing way in which we work which is to assimilate to. That takes takes a little bit of time.
Speaker 1:So one of the things that we have talked about before that I just love about you and Coke is how you guys think about talent acquisition and diversifying a talent pipeline.
Speaker 1:When you've got, you know, six figures of employees. I was telling my wife before we started this, if you had a company of 2000 employees, that's a lot. 12,000 employees, that's a lot. 120, that's mind blowing to me. But so you guys have the constant talent needs and one of the things we've talked about is, like ATS has have biases built into them. They're not necessarily designed for this more attribute oriented recruiting that you guys do. The fact that you guys need to have a pretty wide open spigot of where talent might come from, that may look a little nontraditional to some folks. Could we go down that lane for a few minutes, because I love how you think about this and some of the things that you all are trying.
Speaker 2:Well and you hear a lot about it now in the marketplace kind of nontraditional or alternate pathways into work. And I will tell you this is, I would say, charles Coke was far ahead of the times of where we are today because he was pushing on this years ago in the forecast of what's happening in the workforce and talent and kids entering college and coming out of college, and he had a desire and really pushed on us as an HR capability and leaders to say we've got to be doing something different. If we're not, we will not be prepared for the future. We won't. You know, people are a huge part of how we get results and so it's like what are we doing differently? So I think that that leadership commitment from the very top and pushing it enabled us to move faster and experiment more, and so what we've tried to do is really look across and figure out where do we have these pockets of talent and capability, where there's gaps, and open up the pathways, whether it's through second chance hiring, it's through apprentice programs. We kicked off a couple of apprenticeship programs accounting and one in IT and we're bringing people in doing an aptitude assessment and they may not have ever gone to college, may not have ever done accounting type of work, but there's an aptitude, they're contribution motivated and there's an aptitude there and we'll bring them in and train them for a short period of time and typically in those sessions those people are ready to go to work because they've got the contribution motivated and they have the aptitude. They're productive well before we expected them to be productive, and so it's an investment, though back to you know, being investing in people.
Speaker 2:We've done this a couple of ways, but I tell you there's I would tell you we're so. We haven't figured out how to scale it. We're doing it in pockets of various different disciplines, but we've got a long way to go and I think the, as the world is changing, we're trying to shift and this is a once one hiring supervisor at a time. There's not a, you know, a huge way to go after it all at one time. I'd love to figure that out. We haven't figured that out, but it's that one supervisor at a time.
Speaker 2:And you know, and like you've always hired people that look like this I want you to talk to this person. This person looks very different than what you've hired, and sometimes we've even said I'm not going to give you a resume. I just want you to talk to this person because I think they have something. They're contribution motivated. I think they have something that would be additive to your team. And that's a scary place because you know somebody who's done a lot of hiring throughout their career. They're like give me the resume.
Speaker 2:I want to look at the credentials, and we're trying to shift that, bob, from let's look at the person and don't worry about the credentials first. Let's understand who they are. What do they bring to this? And so we've got several programs that are running that way, that, but it really is one one at a time. You know our recruiters are very unique in that they're working with hiring supervisors to go, and I know you want this, but we've got some folks who I think would be really additive to your team. That may look very different. Are you willing to take questions?
Speaker 1:Question for you on that, which is we had Joe Fuller who is a professor of the future of work project at Harvard Business School. He's phenomenal and we were talking about this and he's like look, a lot of companies you know for certain kinds of roles are like dropping the four year college degree requirement. So on paper their policy is, hey, for some of these roles you do not need a college degree, but they're not actually being implemented, because below the surface there's still the fear that if I go and hire somebody who now looks nontraditional to who we might have hired previously and they don't work out, I'm going to get hit in the back of the head pretty hard. And so, even though, again, nominally, I've got permission to do this practically, thank you, I don't want to pay the price if it doesn't work out. How do you guys, if that's even something that somebody would think there, how would you address that?
Speaker 2:I would say that goes back to our principles. I mean, we want people to try things. This is we know we need to try things and we know we need to fail A very model of experimentation, and it's about you know. We want people to be willing to take more risk. So if that were to happen in Coke it has happened. We, you know, it's happened to me in terms of failures and mistakes. There's nobody standing over you to go. Shame on you for doing that. It's more of what you learn.
Speaker 2:So what did you do? Was it well designed in terms of how you went about it? In terms of that particular scenario, did you have the right structure on this person to be successful? And so it's not about a pointing finger at somebody. It's what did we learn and how do we apply those learnings? Let's make sure, if there's some key learnings in that decision, we socialize that and you stand up and you share that as a batch of honor. Look, I tried this. Here's where we failed. This is what I learned. If you're going to do this, make sure you take those learnings and apply them somewhere, because that's really the difference and because if you have an environment where it's like gosh if this doesn't work out, I'm, I'm, I'm toast and I'm not. So who's going to take a chance on that? Who's going to put their you know? Who wants to move into that? That's what I, what I try to tell people. That is what's different at Coke. We're expected to fail, fail fast and learn, and I can learn and learn I mean to be.
Speaker 2:The benefit of that is, if you just fail and you don't learn, you don't share those learnings, and same thing whether you're hiring a person, you're taking risk in that or we've made business decisions within the invested business. I was part of that group for years, and we invested in a business that just didn't work out. But but but at the time we were all like we think there's a path forward on this, and what happened is, at the end, there wasn't, but what the expectation was was our leader. He went and shared why we tried to get into a business line. It's like this didn't work and we gave it, gave it our best shot.
Speaker 2:But you know what, sometimes you don't get it right, and we weren't bringing anything different to the table, and so that was something, though, that those leaders not only were they asked to go share those learnings across other businesses, but they were rewarded for taking the, the stepping out and taking the risk, and no one went to call it. That's the other thing, cause sometimes you get, you have people who go gosh. I just don't want this to fail. I want this to work so badly, but that doesn't work in the culture either, when you know it's not right, you got to raise your hand and go. We didn't get this right, and but that's a difference in cultures and how people show up when there are failures.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, in culture, you know, we both know Johnny Taylor from SHIRM, of course, and you know Johnny says you know, culture isn't really something that you talk about, culture is just how things really happen, how things really get done. That is your culture. And so when I'm, anyone would call it a mistake. But when something doesn't work out the way that we had hoped that it would have worked out and people see that she's not being crucified for it and in fact you know, he's taken a leadership role in sharing the learnings to everybody else and you know is, you know, keeps moving forward in their career, that's the culture. That's the culture.
Speaker 2:So it's how you how you show up every day?
Speaker 1:Real quick. One of my favorite things about y'all is the story about Richard, and I think that he's such a good example of somebody that you know came from a non-traditional background, and do you mind sharing that with folks, Because I think it's very inspirational?
Speaker 2:and very reflective.
Speaker 1:I all do what you do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and Richard's great and he's advanced his career since he joined Koch, so he's a great story to talk about. But it's in LinkedIn and other places too. You can see this as he's telling his story in his words. But now so I won't do it as much justice as he would. Let me tell you. But he ended up while he was in college, became incarcerated and he was serving his time. There was here on the front of the building and was on a detail where they were picking up garbage and things around the streets, and so he saw the building, didn't know who we were, and so he was pursuing, trying to pursue his education through the while he was incarcerated. And you know, he kept wondering what was in this building and is in the, and I believe, as he told him, he asked his mother to bring him all the books that we should find on Charles Koch. He wanted to read and learn more about Charles Koch, and so he did, and as he was working outside the building, as he in his words, he said, because I thought one day I'm going to work in that building, and so he went through his incarceration and finished that, was released, and but before he was released he was in a work release program.
Speaker 2:He came to work for Koch and it was because one of the gentlemen on our recruiting theme who were who supports our military, he reached out, wrote a letter and it ended up on his desk and he got to know Richard, spent some time with him, talking to him and same thing we've just talked about all morning, which is contribution, motivated, huge desire to improve his own situation and learn and grow. I mean, he was, he was there, he had all that, what skills? And he had gotten his degree I'm not exactly sure what his degree was in, he had switched it at one point, but so he has been and he came in to the team and began working and, and you know, it became time to okay, how do you, how do you help him connect to the rest of the team so they know that people you know don't don't have judgment or bias, and so he was great about it. I think he said let me tell my story and he told his story to his team. Here's what happened to me, here's how I ended up.
Speaker 2:But it takes somebody like the recruiter and the hiring supervisor who said, interviewed him, talked to him about kind of his history, his background, what he'd done, his, his, what he had learned skills, and said I'll take a bet on him. And so we brought him in and and, like I said, I think his, his work has continued and continued to grow, his role and his responsibilities, and he's he's just an, he's an inspiration to most in whether or not that's been your path or not your path, he's an inspiration.
Speaker 1:Well, I love that story on so many levels. You know, when we're working with our clients at Career Club, you know he's he's actually demonstrating a lot of things, like you know he. He got focused. He's like who's that company? I want to know more about them. He got curious. Oh, mom, bring me some books. I want to read more about this guy. I want to do my homework, I want to be prepared. Right, he was proactive. He reached out to somebody. He didn't wait for somebody to reach out to him. He reached out and it ended up on that person's desk. He was persistent. I mean just so many of those. He. He was courageous, like he, he, he owned his life you know works and
Speaker 1:all and said you know what, that's the future that I want and I'm going to go for it. And you know, for so many candidates, just kind of speaking to those folks right now, it's like take, take a few pages out of Richard's book. Here you own your career, Nobody else. It's not perfect. Nobody's got a perfect career. Neither is yours, that's okay. Define who you want to work for. How do you want to contribute and start to build relationships with those people. Don't wait for them to reach out to you. Reach out to them, Do your homework, Be curious, Like all. Those things are highly differentiated behaviors and as somebody that looks after you know a very large workforce. You know you're reinforcing. We love those qualities. Those qualities are rewarded at a place like this and that's why I draw so much inspiration from Richard's story.
Speaker 2:And we should probably send that to you because he's he tells it so much better than I did in the few minutes been saying put it on your page because it is really good and he walks through it in great detail and how he ended up here and it's just inspiring. And there's there's several others of those around from various different pathways that you know don't tell you a great example Just in HR. For folks here in HR, I mean, you know, we think about HR people coming up through the ranks in HR and I have a person who's on my team who came from IT. We have a VP of HR and one of our businesses who was a CIO and she came over to be an HR vice president and one of our businesses, and so it's it's just refreshing when you have somebody coming from different businesses into the HR capability or going out vice versa. We've got a lot of the others and so it's just what do you bring? What you bring into that role Most of the time is transferable If you think about it, if you're, if you're really truly contribution-motivated and you've got some skills, and so we try to demonstrate that with folks like Richard or others coming in externally but internally thinking you got a workforce of 120,000 people.
Speaker 2:We hope people can find their next role inside of Coke with the diverse portfolio of companies that we have. So we work pretty hard to make sure that we're trying to. You know, tell people, yes, you're self-actualizing and you're finding things that you love, don't love or you're enrolled. It's not the right role for you. You know, don't give up. There's opportunities inside Coke, so let us help you. We established what we call a navigator that works with internal folks because sometimes it's hard to find probably sometimes hard to find roles inside than outside companies, and so it's like this is an opportunity to make sure we're asking people to self-actualize when they're going through this, talking to their supervisor, talking to HR, and then instilling this kind of navigator to help navigate the multiple multitudes of companies and roles and opportunities.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Now that's not a story called. I want to start wrapping this up out of respect for your time, because I'd like to stay with you all day. I love all those but but and you can answer this one of two ways I usually like to ask you know, if you were talking to the 28 year old version of yourself, with the benefit of hindsight, what would you? What would you? How would you counsel yourself or give them the benefit of your experience? How do you counsel your girls? Is there kind of early in their life and thinking about what a career might look like for them?
Speaker 2:Yep, and it's probably the same. The answer is probably the same. It's funny because you ask it that way. But you know, for me, at 28, it was. You know what I know now and what I know didn't know then.
Speaker 2:I think, gosh, if I just slowed, slow down, enjoy the journey, take time to, to take all of that in and not be so concerned about that next role, that next opportunity. Are you going to make it? Or what's it going to be? What's it going to? You know? Are you going to? You know what? What is that going to look like? Stay focused on what's in front of you and love it or make a change, and if you're not loving it, don't be afraid to go. Well, I'm on this path, so I need to stay on this path. The path has got many different twists and turns and I and I that's kind of how I think about it when I think about the question of for me, because it was run, run hard go find what's next. What's next learn, you know what's that next opportunity? And I don't know that I that I enjoyed as much as I enjoy now.
Speaker 2:Today, when you're, when your runway looks a lot shorter than it does when you're 28,. You're wanting to, you can't see it. Now you can say, gosh, you know, I enjoy it more today than I did when I was 28. Love what, love what I do. And as far as my daughters, I continue to ask them just pursue your passion. It doesn't matter what it is, it doesn't matter if it looks like mine or your dad's or anybody. I mean, you've got to. You are your own person and you are unique and so you need to find what you love. And you're not going to find it in the job one or job two, but you're going to learn something about yourself.
Speaker 2:Same kind of advice, bob. That is, I talk to interns every year and I love spending time with the interns. It makes me feel very old, but I love spending time with them and they're so. They're so in that pace of what's next, what's next. And I said just enjoy, there's no bad decision you're going to make at 23. There's just no bad decision. You know this job, that job, but go, do it, learn and go. Okay, I know I don't want to do that and I know I want to do that. You'll learn so much about yourself. So I think it's just that pace and take the time to enjoy and learn. Learn about yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you know that's phenomenal as young people, you know, they don't know even what their choices are, so sometimes it's just a test for negatives.
Speaker 1:Right, Well, I tried that that wasn't, that's not me, okay, well, check that one off the list. We know that one's not for you. And why and how does that start? To inform what you do like to do, which is very good. So that's just. It's very, very good advice. And they're. The piece that you said is a self actual. It basically comes back to self actualization Find what you really enjoy doing, and you probably have to play a few instruments before you find the one that you're good at, or play a few sports before you. But when you do, you're going to flourish because you're going to have to keep learning. You talked a lot about curiosity and knowledge and continue to grow, and you're going to be much better at that if it's something you're actually interested in.
Speaker 2:And not being afraid. This is something I hear, too about afraid of making a bad decision or bad, you know, getting into a role you don't like. I see that as a gift and that's what I tell kids all the time that are entering the workforce hey, if you got into this job, they'll come and talk and say I'm struggling, I don't like this work, and I'll say that's great. Then what do you like? You know that's a good problem. Let's talk about that, because instead of just doing it, it's stopping and knowing yourself well enough to know I'm going to create more value and maximize my contributions if I'm doing something that looks like this versus this. I think that is a huge win, especially early in your career.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm going to wrap this up because this has been just fantastic. I knew that it would be and I appreciate everything that you have shared with people. I think the call to action in this one is if you want to go work at a phenomenal company, go check out the career options at Coke Industries. I just can't say enough good things. And, kerry, you're such a great ambassador for the brand and you've lived it, you're a product of it and you do just a wonderful job of communicating it, and I appreciate what you shared with everybody today. It's been wonderful.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for having me, and I'm still on the journey of learning, just like everybody else, so thank you.
Speaker 1:It's been a pleasure Bob Awesome. And everyone, thank you so much. If you're watching this on YouTube, please subscribe like comment it really helps. And if you're listening to this on your favorite podcast platform, please rate and review. But we thank you for investing a few minutes of your day today. And again, cara, thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Thank you, have a good day. I know you're going to find it. You've got all you need, so just keep going. You've got all you need.