HR In Action - Kyla Robinson

In this episode of HR in Action, I sit down with Kyla Robinson, Organizational Development and Training Manager at ARS, for a thoughtful discussion on leadership development, culture, and the evolving expectations of today’s workforce.

Kyla shares her unique career path from elementary school teacher to organizational development leader, highlighting how the skills developed in education translate directly into leadership, training, and people development. Her journey offers a powerful reminder that many of the capabilities needed to lead organizations—adaptability, communication, and empathy—are often built long before someone formally enters the world of HR.

A major focus of the conversation is the challenge organizations face when promoting strong individual contributors into management roles without providing the training and tools needed for success. Kyla walks through the leadership development programs she has helped design, including foundational management training and more advanced programs that help leaders shift from operational thinking to strategic leadership.

Aaron and Kyla also explore how learning programs evolve over time—from intensive in-person workshops to blended and asynchronous formats that better support busy leaders across distributed teams. Along the way, they discuss practical approaches to measuring training effectiveness, including pre- and post-assessments, action planning, and long-term follow-up to reinforce behavior change.

The conversation also dives into broader cultural and leadership themes, including:
-How leaders influence culture through everyday behaviors
-The importance of intentional leadership and emotional awareness
-Supporting generational differences in the workplace
-Why vulnerability and authenticity help build trust with employees
-The growing challenge of leadership roles that demand unsustainable work hours

Throughout the episode, Kyla emphasizes the importance of being an intentional leader—one who creates space between reaction and response, assumes good intent, and builds environments where people can grow and contribute meaningfully.

This episode is especially valuable for HR leaders, learning and development professionals, and managers who are building leadership capability within growing or distributed organizations.

🔹 Looking to help leaders practice these conversations before they matter most? Check out ProACTr, a leadership conversation simulator designed to help leaders build skill and confidence through evidence-based role-play learning. 👉 https://proactr.com

#HRInAction #HRLeadership #HumanResources #PeopleOperations #LeadershipDevelopment #WorkplaceCulture #EmployeeExperience #LearningAndDevelopment #HRCommunity #CommunityOfPractice

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Missouri, I think, right? Um close close to home. I went to school lived lived in uh Lawrence and Fedora actually for seven plus years. Um so we we could reminisce about old Kansas uh stuff hanging out of the westboard of the plaza. Um but uh in any case, uh Kyla is the organizational development training manager for ARS. And um looking forward to talking to her. A lot of a lot of cool stuff going on in HR uh within the organization. And so with that, I will now kind of turn it over to you and maybe you can start off with just a quick introduction and let us know about your background and and some of the work you're doing.

SPEAKER_02 1:11

Yeah, that sounds great to me. Uh, thank you for asking me to be on here being flexible in rescheduling. I was actually a little worried we were gonna have to reschedule again because we did have a snow day yesterday.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

And I wasn't sure the roads were gonna be ready for school today, but we got lucky. Kids are back off to school.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Oh, they must be upset then if they didn't get a second snow day.

SPEAKER_02 1:36

Well, it's the virtual days. Oh like my kindergartner brings her iPad home. And yesterday I'm sitting here working in corporate America while being like, How do you sound out snowball? Um, which I in my background, um, I was a teacher. I taught for six years. I got my degree in elementary education, I have a master's degree in curriculum and instruction, taught for six years, and then left and didn't realize until months later that I was burnt out. Um, and that's why I needed to go at the time. But then it was funny yesterday because I was like, I left teaching for a reason, and I was very aware of it trying to help her learn yesterday. Uh, give me third and fourth graders in their math. I can do that. Kindergarten, that's too young for me. Um, but I taught for six years. I decided I needed to leave the classroom, and like a lot of teachers, had literally no idea what I would be able to do, what skills were transferable. And it is more ironic to me now when I realize literally every skill a teacher has is transferable. Um, we balance a lot in the day-to-day that you would need in any other job. Um, and we're flexible and quick to adapt and change to whatever needs come our way. But I was applying to anything that I thought I could get, and I ended up getting hired as an instructional designer at a small company, 15 people max in this company. And I was with them for about four years. And it was a company that we're family, people retire from here, but there just weren't opportunities to grow, to develop. Um, and so started looking for other opportunities, landed in this position as an instructional designer. And my I remember getting offered the job and asking if this was even the industry I wanted to work in. And I'm realizing now, yeah, there's never a dull day. Uh everything is always evolving. Um, but my role has shifted from really just developing learning content to leadership and management development. Um, I facilitate and develop the programs that we offer. We have just wrapped up some performance trainings, um, talking about best practices with those. Um, and with the trainings that I do, I talk a lot about the culture, but also how on earth are we preparing for the future of the company? Um and it's taken a bit, um, and I think you know, we had briefly talked about it, it's taken a bit for people to come around to the fact that like what I'm saying, I'm not just saying because I want job security, but I'm saying it because these are researched, valid concerns about moving companies forward as we see shifts in generations. Um so yeah, it keeps me busy on my toes. I feel like I have a different role every other hour. Um but I'm loving it.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

I so real quick, so you said that um that you're you were doing more just you know, kind of curriculum, I guess, or or training development, and now you're doing more. What are some of the sort of go-to or or main things that you're working on right now in terms of this leadership development work?

SPEAKER_02 5:25

Yeah, so the first program that we've been offering is a management essentials course, really looking at, you know, we have somebody that's been this individual contributor, um, and we have moved them into this management role. But we know that there's not always training that goes with that. We have a lot of people that were just kind of sink or swim. You were great in this role, so we're gonna promote you, but we're not gonna give you the tools to be successful. So the management essentials course that I teach is uh how do you manage your time? How do you go from buddy to boss? Uh, you know, what do performance evaluations look like? What is the best way to facilitate an interview? It's really foundational pieces of learning how to be a manager. So I've been teaching that one for three years. And actually, last week I was able to announce that we're moving it to a self-led program. Um, so it'll be fully available on our LMS. And I'm very excited about that. We've had there's a time commitment involved in any development, but especially a program like that, and we've had some pushback um just because our customer, I mean, it's freezing out. We have customers that don't have heat that need us, and that takes priority over the training.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Of course.

SPEAKER_02 6:43

But in order to be the best organization and attract that top talent and move into the future, we need leaders that have those skills. Um so moving that to self-led where they're able to just move at their own pace versus the faster pace that I would take them through. And then from there, um this last year we launched a management evolution program. And that one goes more from how you're managing operations to how you're thinking strategically within the operations. And that program has been better than I expected it to be. Um, we do a a lot of practical application breakout rooms and seeing some of our leaders truly get the opportunity to lean into an area that they have concern or where they think it could be improved, and see how when they're empowered and when they're given the task, they're overcoming that and making these positive changes. And that's not something that I anticipated seeing when we originally built the program um and went to launch it.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

So very cool. So that so what was involved with making it asynchronous like that? Did you actually do recordings of yourself teaching, or did you bring in other leaders to deliver certain content? How how does that work?

SPEAKER_02 8:06

Yeah. Um, so it was me recording, just normal, talking out loud in a room by myself things, uh making jokes that nobody was going to get because it was just me talking in a room. Um, but we I started that way, um, recording my face and everything for the slides. And then we also had to think about the longevity of the program. Um and if an edit needs to happen and I'm not there, what options do we have? Um so I moved into doing more of just voiceovers with the content. Um, but it was originally delivered as a well, originally, OG, a day and a half data dump. And we brought everybody together, we just talked through it and we sent you on your way. And then we moved it into a 10-week program that was two hours virtual instruction every week, practical applications, pre-work, homework, um, and then moving it to this asynchronous, it is instead of two hours, very much broken down further. What little bit of content for 10 minutes can I talk about so you can digest that chunk, go about your day, and then come back to it when possible. Um, but there are certainly things to figure out, you know, you don't have group conversation, we're not gonna have breakout rooms. How do I still have engagement and retention of knowledge while still giving the same impact um without me being there to facilitate it all? So um that will slowly be launching in a few weeks, and so I'm eager to get people through it and see um and then adapt as we get feedback, see what additional changes need to be made.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

Yeah, because I imagine you know you're gonna lose some of that interpersonal aspect, right? I would guess you you could still be available if they have questions. There's probably some type of way they can post questions or reach out to you. Um but it sounds like I mean, obviously, you you you get everyone for a day and a half, you just slam them, we call it fire hose treatment, right? And you just slam them with all this information, the retention's gonna go way down. Um even spreading it over multiple months, uh, which is I how I how I've done quite a few leadership trainings in prior companies and with uh clients that I work with, but even that still doesn't necessarily lead to a lot of behavior change. You have to have that, those reinforcements as well, although the you know training over time definitely helps, especially if it builds on itself. Um are there things you're using for measurements or to kind of track these sort of things to see how it's going and and the impact of the work you're doing?

SPEAKER_02 10:57

Yeah, we fully integrated uh polls into our trainings. Some of that was just for us to catch some data. Um, you know, I've mentioned performance training. We've seen a shift since we started that program to now. But the people that would be like, Did you have a performance review last year? And they'd say no. And then you're going back to people saying, This is what we have people telling us.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:24

Um and so we've seen changes already with that. Um, and so I have had to think of how we're going to continue to collect some of that data through this asynchronous method. Uh, but I have them complete a survey and I give it a little bit of time after the training. So I'm not sending it right away, I'm giving a week or two. The holidays came into play here, so they had a little bit longer this time. But I I had done a pre-survey asking them to assess their skills, and then we did a post-survey, but a lot of what I found found is that people thought they were really good at things in the pre-survey, but you don't know what you don't know. Um, and so then when they're taking the post-survey, we're just we weren't getting the most accurate data. Um, and so I adjusted it so that their post-survey has them think to before you took this course, where would you rate yourself? And where would you rate yourself now? And we've seen a 20 to 25% increase in where they are rating themselves, which has been wonderful to see. And then a lot of the additional feedback we get is just very natural in conversations. Um, we have people talking, you know, hey, those one-on-ones, they really did help me get to know my people and see issues that I wouldn't have seen beforehand. Or I did start writing things down from those one-on-ones, and it made the performance review a lot easier because I had stuff to look back on. We've gotten a lot of that feedback of people that are like, I wanted to actually drop out of this training. I didn't see a reason for me to take it. I didn't think it was meant for me, but wow, it it was. Um, I learned a lot. I learned new best practices, different ways to think of how to show up for my people and how to lead best. Um, so those are my favorite pieces of feedback to get um more of that qualitative feedback and data for us. But yeah, we our programs are always going to be evolving. And so sometimes a lot of that for us right now is figuring out what is going to be the best way to capture some of the data. Um and retention. We look a lot at retention, um, and we have seen from our branches that have had more than one manager go through the training. We have seen a increase. I think that one was also about a 20% increase or retention of their people.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

Wow. No, that's great. Um and it's you know, sometimes it's hard to isolate these kind of things because there's so many different activities and improvements, you know, going on. So you can't necessarily say it was one thing or the other, but as a combination, uh definitely made an impact. So, you know, it's interesting. You sounds like you kind of stumbled upon uh what's what's called a pre-post then. Uh pre-post, yeah, pre-post then. So that's actually supported by research and of what you found on the pre-post, because people um you can ask them beforehand, you know, what their knowledge level is, but until they actually understand the topic, they can't accurately um assess where they're actually at, right? They don't know what they don't know. And so the better way, like you found, is you actually ask them post and what we call then, uh pre-post then. So you can still do a pre, but what's going to be your best, most accurate um responses is a post-then. So you ask them now that you know what you know, where were you at before you started, and where are you at now? Um the only other way to do, and that's Kirkpatrick level two, right? Is did you learn anything? Um, which I'm sure you're very familiar with with all your education background, right? Um is you know it's some kind of test or uh assessment, right? Have you have you considered any of that? And then also I'll I'll follow that up with what about levels three and four? Have you looked at well, really three, I guess, because you got retention data, you got these other things to see if it's actually making an impact. Um, but I think one of the hardest things to measure is are they actually changing their behavior as a result of that knowledge or or what they've learned?

SPEAKER_02 15:52

Yeah. Um we have considered a test uh so the program has ran at the end of every week. We have them do a journal stop, start, continue, um, and just kind of task them with focusing on that. They keep them all in their participant guide. The very last week they create a 45-day action plan and we have them pick three of their start stop continues. Um, and I follow up with them at the 45-day to see how things are going. Um and I've loved that. I don't know what this next program is gonna look like. You know, if I have five people going through it, they could all finish at different times. So all other 45s could be different. So we are going to do a test on the asynchronous version of it. Um which former teacher and me would prefer not to. She doesn't love testing the way that others might, but for me, I feel like that's going to be the best way for us to collect data and see the success of the program, is looking at it that way. Um but yes, Kirpatrick level four I've talked about it extensively with my boss, which always feels weird calling him my boss because we're he's my right hand. He's the reason that these programs are so successful. Um but it there are so many variables in an organization that aren't in our control, that have kind of been our bottleneck to figuring out how to look at that change of behavior. Um, because we can teach all of these best practices, but when they're then in a branch where they're the minority, maybe only one or two of you have gone through this training, your boss hasn't, doesn't believe in those things, their boss doesn't, there's a little bit more pushback in making some of that effective change happen. Um, we certainly have branches that aren't that way where they're very quick to grasp onto the changes. Um, and you can see that in the number of their leaders, managers that have been through our trainings and how they prioritize them. But when it comes to overall looking at behavior change, that has been the hard part for us to figure out in the way our organization is set up.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

Yeah, super tough. What's the scope of of these trainings? Is this national?

SPEAKER_02 18:28

You're going across Yeah, we're doing it nationally. So while we are this organization is headquartered in Memphis, we do have branches all across the US. Um we're probably sitting around 70 branches across the US. Um and so it's 70 different branches that function as their own individual branch. Um we've been in the process of trying to get things more centralized, but different strokes for different folks.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

Um there's there there's microcultures just within organization, let alone when you're talking about going across you know, south, the north, the east, the west, right?

SPEAKER_02 19:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:12

Um as I've learned from going from Ohio to Kansas to to Southern California, there's a there's some big culture differences and yeah, it's a lot of the silo mentality.

SPEAKER_02 19:24

It's a what a lot of the silo mentality as well. Like, oh well our division is being very successful in this, so we're gonna keep that to ourselves and not share it. Um I mean I've I've looked to be like, can I sit in on your meetings so I can hear what's going on, so I can figure out how we can best support you. And there's that, you know, it's kind of our safe space with our people.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

Um and so we don't want to drive invite the outsiders in, um which is look, they all have their own jobs to perform, just like I said, and that gets into the cultural differences in terms of like values, right? You could state a value of transparency or collaboration, but if it's not lived, it's not a real value.

SPEAKER_02 20:14

Yeah. So when you when you developed intrinsic first, did you come up with the like you have your mission statement and your own values?

SPEAKER_00 20:23

Yeah, we do. In fact, um, I don't have them quick enough uh handy, but um we just did so I've been working with uh a few clients now where we've done a culture initiative where we I help organizations define their culture. And the way we do that is we set a mission, a vision, values, and um principles or uh behaviors, value behaviors. Um and we do it through um what we call always and never's generally. So I pulled that from a book uh from an old company that I worked with that I was introduced with, uh Dawn to Julius, the customer service revolution, probably very applicable to stuff you're doing because you're much more customer uh facing um and in terms of like B2C. But uh but we have your values, but your values don't mean anything if you can't define what it actually means to act on those, right? And so the way we reinforce it, or one of the ways we reinforce it, is once we define it, we roll it out, we teach everyone what it means, right? We have definitions and things, but it it's core down to these always and nevers. So um I've actually I do have a card. Um, this is one from an old organization that I that I used to manage. So, for example, we had accountability, and the and the that was the value, but our our behavior or principle was we always take ownership and pride in our work, we never shift blame or point fingers, right? That puts the actual you know, meat on the bones, it puts a behavior to the value so everyone can get around that and say, Oh, I understand what that means. And then you put stories to that. So we created these poker chips. Um and I just we just had them made for our for our intrinsic first. I was like, you know, I I gotta be living this in our own company if I'm rolling this out in other organizations. And so we just we created these poker chips. So you have a poker chip for each value. And then the way the program works is to make it salient and to keep it you know current and fresh in people's minds is that anybody can recommend anyone else for a chip and they award somebody or or recognize them with a chip to essentially you know recognize or thank them for living at one of the values.

SPEAKER_01 22:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

Um, and it's not there's no monetary value to it, it's just you know something cool to collect and just a you know a way to thank someone. So from a basic psychological need perspective for motivation, it's um reinforcing or supportive of those basic psychological needs as opposed to being some kind of external type of, you know, oh, I'm only living the culture so I can collect all the chips, right? We don't want that, we don't want to create that. We want it to be a recognition of hey, the behavior was what we wanted to see. We want to thank you for that or recognize. Um so yeah, so, anyways, long story short, we do our mission is to make the world a better place to work, you know.

SPEAKER_02 23:10

Yeah, that's cool. That's a good one. So I love that. I think we actually did talk about that um when we had chatted uh because that is uh Brene Brown's Dare to Lead book is where I was really first introduced to the idea of having values. Yep. Um so I actually, as part of an employee resource group, was leading some leadership trainings for the females in our organization, and I did one talking about values and challenging them to pick values that they want to lead by and how they want to show up. But it's been a big conversation for me because our organization has some. They are mentioned in our onboarding, but not really mentioned again after that. And that's something that yeah, well, and so my the L and D team that I'm part of has been with this organization for almost four years. Um, prior to that, they used a third-party training team that would develop what they needed, but four years of having a team that is internal, I think I'm the first to don an organizational development title, somebody that stole like I care a lot about developing an organization. And so looking at ways to readdress our mission and our values because as you're mentioning, the customer service revolution, when we when everybody knows those and we're focused on what the behaviors are that exhibit it, it's going to carry over to our customers. Um and that's a easy positive impact that I think we could make culturally. Um but it's it's sitting on somewhere on my metaphorical burner of something to focus on for this year.

SPEAKER_00 24:58

Yeah. Well, and it's tough. I mean, you got a shape to it, but in a in a with an organization as large as yours, it's it's you already have there's a culture. The culture exists, it's it's there. With real small companies, one of the biggest uh risks they have is as they hire people. And I I was talking to someone else in a in a prior podcast about this, but if you have like my company right now, we have 15, 14, 15 people. If we grow by three or four, that's a massive growth, right? That's you know, 10, 10 plus percent growth, and just a few people could have a big impact on the culture if they come in with very different values and and behaviors. Um, and a large company, a few people coming in with different values, behaviors, I mean, unless it's like toxic, um, isn't gonna have as big of a spread through. But to change the culture either way, or to make sure that it stays the way you want it, because things shift over time, you have to be able to define those and agree with what you want. And like so bringing in the right people to make those decisions, and you know, how much does leadership make those decisions versus the team, you know, as a whole? Maybe you do a survey out to ask everyone, you know, what is the current culture and and where do you want it to go? I I personally think you know that's part of what leadership's job is, right? Is to set the mission, the vision, the values. How how do you want us to behave and then make sure we can align to that? But what you are also getting at is every person should know their values. And I think that's a huge, huge area where we are lacking as a country, yeah, you know, let alone in organizations, is that people haven't what we call developed their values, their programmed values. They're well, this is how I was raised, this is what my parents you know said to do. Have you thought about why you do it that way? Have you thought about the alternatives of what you know what other ways there are? Have you thought about the impacts of those, all these things about what it really means to actually live a value? People haven't really thought through that. So they're making decisions and and and their behaviors are just dispositional, they're habitual, they're based on habit, and you get all this just emotional reaction, which is it can be that can be bad.

SPEAKER_02 27:15

Yeah, I have mine, um, and they've shifted. So vulnerable, being vulnerable is one of my values.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

Okay. And that Brene Brown from that.

SPEAKER_02 27:26

From Brene, yeah. Yeah, that actually did work out very well for her. But that one came from re I'm a I'm corporate. Um, and there's a narrative around that. Um and you know, when I was teaching, you've got superintendents, people in a district office, kind of like in corporate, that are making these decisions, and on paper, they sound great. They are what is gonna take it's gonna shift this workspace, it's gonna make learning better. And then when it trickles down to the people implementing it, doesn't always come out that way. Um, and so one thing that when I really had to take on the identity identity that I am corporate and that's how people are going to see me, whether that's how I want to be seen, is that I want to show a vulnerable side of that. I want to make sure I come across as like I don't know everything. I know what I know. Um, but I'm also a mom. I have, I mean, I have three small kids. And I feel like it's changed for me now, but three years ago, I don't know if I would have felt that there was space for me to be an employee and be a mother and talk about both of them in either place. Um and so some of it is just like the vulnerability. I my signature block at one point had me holding my son when he was a few months old, and his hand was just up on my shoulder. And that's it was in my email signature every time I sent something, and it took a while for somebody to catch it and be like, I appreciate that you have that there because it makes you human. And I was like, Yes, thank you. Like that's what I want people to see. Um, and in my leadership classes, I talk about it. You know, we're talking time management or you know, batching tasks, Pomodoro method, and I'm like, they're all great. And I tell people they're great every time we have this class, I should really implement it because I could probably benefit by implementing it. Um so that's been a really vulnerable has been a really important one for me. Leadership was mine when I read Brene Brown's because I was struggling to claim that I was the leader that my boss saw me as and positioned me as in this organization, but it's shifted to intentional. Um and I think kind of in talking about people being emotionally reactive, um, intentional plays into that for me. It's it's not being reactive, it's pausing and um, you know, I drafted an email this morning when I was fired up about something, and it's pausing and just letting it sit and making sure when we're sending it the message we want to get uncrossed is intentionally getting across. Um because impact and intention are not divorced from each other. We are responsible for both. And more people probably need to be aware of that.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

Yeah, we call that creating space, right? From between the feeling or or emotion and the action or response. It's super important. That's emotional intelligence, like it's in the locus of control, locus of causality.

SPEAKER_02 30:50

Yeah. Um we talked about disk too, because I run disk for my organization. Um, and I recently sent some out and I prepped them and I said, please don't take it when you've had a rough day. You're bombarded with pay like I want the best results we can get, the most accurate. So please take those when you're in a a better mind space. Um and I encourage that too. Take a walk. If you're getting worked up, go take a walk. Calm down, get some fresh air. Um it's not urgent. They have things in our branches that are urgent, but for some of us it's sometimes it's just loud and we need to take a break because it's loud.

SPEAKER_00 31:33

Right. So it sounds like you're you're getting into the culture stuff, but your role isn't necessarily about the company, you know, culture defining it, rolling it out, but you do that through leadership, right? I mean, leaders are one of the I mean, everyone needs to live the culture, but leaders are the ones that role model it that can influence, have a huge influence on the culture side. So teaching and teaching that to the leaders, I think.

SPEAKER_02 31:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:57

It's huge.

SPEAKER_02 31:58

Yeah. Well, I talk in there really about the younger generations as we see them coming in. Um, because we know with our Gen Z um if you give them a task, they're gonna ask questions. They're gonna question you about it. And um there are people that will take that very personally. Um, it will be disrespectful, like they're questioning authority when that's not their intent. Their intent is to ask these questions to understand, which I love that because there's not enough of that that happens in the workplace now, I feel. Um but I remember talking about that one week, and um weeks later, our call center manager brought it up. And she was like, I remember Kyla saying that like the first week of training, and it's stuck with me ever since. And I was like, Excellent, like that's the best feedback I could get is that one little thing that I said one week challenging you on your mindset when it comes to people questioning you, is what has stuck with you. Um, or it's what is getting you to see how you're going to support newer employees differently than you would support some of your older established employees.

SPEAKER_00 33:13

Yeah. Yeah, one of the cultural components, I I guess call it a principle that I always live by and I and I influence into a lot of the organizations that I work with is assume good intent.

SPEAKER_01 33:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:26

Right. And that's I think that directly relates into that because it yeah, every gen generations are gonna have different things, people and their personalities are gonna have different things, but you have to be able to stop and create that space and then and recognize that well, hold on, let's what's the intention here? And maybe they do have ill intent. I mean, most but 99% of the time, I from my experience, it's not it's not ill intent. People aren't trying to do you wrong. They're they think what they're doing is the right way to do it, or they're curious, or um what whatever the reason, um you gotta assume good intent. And that disarms, that creates an opportunity to then have a conversation, then you start getting into active listening and you know creating mutual understanding and all these different skills that are so important for leaders and really I think any individual. Oh yeah. But so so we're shifting, so you brought up the the the generational thing. I know that was a topic we'd we had talked about getting into. So so one of the things you you mentioned is that they like to question things more. Um, what else is there? What so what what is the the challenge with the the new generation coming in or just the generational aspect of things that you're working with?

SPEAKER_02 34:44

Uh well, one big challenge that I see in any organization, but I see it as a almost red flag for our organization when you're looking at the amount of hours a manager might work. I mentioned it's freezing outside. So we I know I have managers at my local branch that are working easily 70 hours a week going through this. And it's the same way in winter in the summer when it's blazing hot out. Um and you know, that doesn't really sound great. And younger generations see that, and so they're more hesitant to take on leadership roles, and that's going to leave a massive gap in organizations if we don't proactively start shifting. Um and I'm not, you know, work-life balance is what you make of it. Um, I think there's a way for everyone to have some sort of work-life balance, they just have to define it themselves, establish those boundaries. But I think with we normalize a job where you're working 60, 70 hours a week, um we're we're gonna really struggle to find people to take on those positions, and that's going to have a massive negative impact um on an ability to continue to succeed in the workplace.

SPEAKER_00 36:09

Yeah, there's there's a lot to that. I mean, some people I don't know if you can work 70 hours a week and and say that you and actually legitimately have a good work life balance, although I mean essentially that just means that work is a big piece of your life, right? And you don't have other things that are pulling you away. Um, I mean, I I work probably close to that right now, owning my own company and stuff, but uh there's a very, very blurry line, if if not any line between work and and home and and all the different things that I do and hobbies and everything else. But there was something that somebody told me many years ago when I was in a leadership role, I was like a director of operations, and you know you you just you have to work in the evenings and stuff and on the weekends to get stuff done. And emails a big part of that. And someone pointed out to me one time is like, um whether I want to or not, or intend to, as a leader, you're setting an example, and when you start sending out emails at 11 o'clock at night or three in the morning, right? Or uh on the weekends, you you are essentially saying you want to move up in this organization and be in a leadership role. Either you've got to show that you do this already, or that's what's gonna be expected of you when you get into that role. Yeah, and that's gonna change the demographic of who's gonna want leadership roles and go after that.

SPEAKER_02 37:34

And we have somebody on our marketing team, I think it was, that I had emailed and in their signature block, it was I likely have different hours than you. Do not feel obligated to respond to this until your business day, which I loved because even at in my role, I do feel like lines get blurry. Um and we had some stapping changes in Q4 of last year, and a lot of stress went on my plate with that, and I spent time sitting there thinking, how do I show up fully for this job and show up for my kids? Um, how what does that balance look like? Because getting into being a parent, you know, there's a uh a lot more moms working full-time jobs while having young kids than there have been before. Um, and so it and then having to teach their kids from home on snow days. Um, just a lot of shifts that I'm grateful for because I I work from home. So I do get to be a much more present mom in that regard. But it is hard to figure out where do where are my lines as the employee, the mom, the wife, and then where where do I find time just for myself in all of that? Um so it's definitely been a year for me of trying to trying to figure some of those things out so I can be more vulnerable and intentional as a leader in my organization.

SPEAKER_00 39:05

Right. No, that's awesome. Getting your values aligned, figuring out what that actually means and going through that gets into identity, you know, who are you in these different roles, right? And and how do you separate them or how do they overlap? Because they can't overlap, and you can't like you can't look at people, an organization as just a resource. That's when you get into all these cultural problems, and especially when you're remote and you're working with people across the country, if you're not seeing them and and creating that relationship, then the default often tends to be they're the resource, and if they do something wrong, it's harder to assume good intent. You know, it's harder to look at them as a human and recognize that you know everyone's trying, and uh you know, but everyone has strengths and weaknesses and all that.

SPEAKER_02 39:54

Yeah, yeah, that's great. I have a meeting coming up, and what you just said is great. Um, and even just that reminder of assuming the good intent, you know, when we're having struggles struggles working with other teams um and gaps in communication. Like at the end of the day, you just have to assume that good intent. Um so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:16

Yeah. No, I had so we just we're buying a property right now, and the bank that we're working with, I won't mention names, although I I do think it's more of a positive story, but you know, it's something happened where they gave us bad information up front that that we found out later, kind of in the 11th hour. And it's like, and so I find this out. I'm like, whoa, this is not what we talked about. And I would have potentially made different decisions, yeah, you know, based on on this. And so, you know, I so and I consciously went back. I'm like, look, I'm not as I I assume good intent. So I went back. I was a little frustrated, and I made it clear in an email that I wasn't happy with this, but I also clearly stayed, like, look, I'm assuming good intent. I know there's no ill will, or or I hope hope that there wasn't. It's not that you're trying to pull one over on me. Um, but I but we need to talk about this and and figure it out. And I uh they came back and I thought they were gonna like you know start trying to you know blow smoke up my bone. They tell them, oh well, you know, market conditions this and that, and the policies, and um, but they did, they just owned it right from the start. You know what? I messed up at the end of the day, that's what it is, and so I'm gonna do everything that I can. I but there's only so many things I can do because there's you know policies and things like that. But you know, I appreciated that so much, and I think that some people probably wouldn't.

SPEAKER_02 41:43

Oh, if you own up to something, water under the bridge, we can move forward from there.

SPEAKER_00 41:48

Yeah, for me, that was that was huge, right? It's just being able to that gets into your vulnerability, right? It's just right owning up to it and saying, Look, I'm not, you know, I got a whole bunch of good excuses I could throw you, but um stick. Yeah, yeah, there's no reason to start throwing excuses on the wall to see if one of them sticks. You just own up. Um, but that made a huge difference, and now I think you know, we have a partnership I think that's gonna last, you know, re really strong over the coming years or you know, however long this this goes. So um, but yeah, those kind of things are huge, definitely. And it's tough to to go into some of those times when you're all worked up.

SPEAKER_02 42:29

Yeah, no, it is, yeah. I we talk a lot about accountability, um, it and it goes really far when when you're able to say, like, look, I dropped the ball. Um, I was a little reactive because it feels like you're not being considerate of my time. Um so head into that next meeting being a little bit kinder.

SPEAKER_00 42:49

There you go. And actively listen too, right? That's that's very disarming. Is people want to feel heard. I and when I teach active listening, I like I I I always mention the quote from Stephen Covey. It's there's a video on YouTube of him doing it from like I think it's gotta be the 80s because like you've got these people in the audience with these big poofy, you know, curly hair with the bangs and and all that. And and but essentially what he says is that not being understood is the psychological equivalent of of air, meaning that if you have air, you're not motivated by it. But as soon as someone sucks the air out of the room, that's all you're concerned about.

SPEAKER_01 43:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:31

And so, in the same way, when you're feeling understood, if you feel that people understand you and are hearing you, it's not motivating you. But if you don't feel understood, that's all you can focus on. And you're never gonna get to a solution, you're never gonna be able to work through challenges if you're just constantly wanting to make sure, and then you just that's you can end up just circling and right rehashing and going back to stuff. But yeah, yeah, super important.

SPEAKER_01 43:58

It is so.

SPEAKER_00 44:00

Cool. Well, um we're we're up coming up on forty-five minutes already.

SPEAKER_02 44:06

Um quickly.

SPEAKER_00 44:08

It does. We could we could keep going for hours, I bet. Uh talking about all this stuff. And I mean you're doing some really neat stuff. The leadership development and the culture stuff is like right up my alley of where I'm yeah super interested in the research I'm doing.

SPEAKER_02 44:22

Made sure to grab why we do what we have for our last conversation. So yeah, I just finished up Strong Ground by Brene Brown, so I'm eager to jump into that one. And cool.

SPEAKER_00 44:34

Yeah, that's a good book. That's like one of the it's it's a good kind of balance between the academic and the commercial side or the business, the application side of things in terms of motivation, self-determination theory.

SPEAKER_02 44:47

Yeah, so I'm really excited.

SPEAKER_00 44:49

Yeah, and it's I just you know I find it crazy. Like uh anyone I've talked to so far in any organization, I say self-determination theory. Occasionally I get a nod, but it's sort of like one of those nods like you don't actually know what I'm talking about. Um but you mentioned Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and everyone knows exactly what I'm talking about. And that you know, the amount of research under of for that theory is essentially non-existent. The amount of research on self-determination theory is decades, thousands of studies. Um, but yeah, this stuff has got to get out to organizations, to people, and it's it's life-changing, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_02 45:28

Yeah, I'm really excited. So thank you for recommending it to me.

SPEAKER_00 45:32

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, let me know how it goes.

SPEAKER_02 45:34

I will.

SPEAKER_00 45:35

So uh so I guess I you know you don't have a company or anything that you need to plug. You know, if I'm if I'm talking to a consultant or somebody, I'll I'll give them an opportunity to to talk about how they can be in contact. I'm I'm guessing you don't necessarily want a bunch of people reaching out to you unless they're looking for uh services that ARS. Right, unless you want to hire me, then unless there's there's probably a hundred number for that.

SPEAKER_02 46:02

Here's the thing that my my boss is very clear on. You build your well before it's dry. So I am always open to connections, to meeting external connections, um, because there is value everybody can add to a network. Um so sure, if somebody listens to this, Kyla Robinson, you can find me on LinkedIn. Um, but if you send me a message, let's find some time to chat. Tell me what you're doing and what you're doing that I need to be replicating for my work.

SPEAKER_00 46:35

Cool, very good. Yeah. Awesome. Well, um thank you for for being on this. This was a great conversation. We'll have to we'll have to have you come back, we'll do another one and keep talking about the culture stuff.

SPEAKER_01 46:48

Yeah, yeah.