People + Strategy Podcast Perspectives: Summer 2025

To Understand Your Staff and Customers, Join the Front Lines 

“In other jobs, I’ve seen leaders who are in positions of authority but aren’t connected to what’s actually happening with the work. … So once a month, our whole support team goes out and works in our shops. We take the third Friday of every month, where we go work as a cashier or a barista. We spend time with our teams and really get to know the challenges and exciting things that our teams are facing every day and what our guests want.

“Nobody gets a pass on this because they have more experience or a more senior title. We really want to stay connected to our mission. And the only way that we can effect change as leaders is to strongly stay connected to what our teams are doing.” - Nikki Rappaport, Chief People Officer at Call Your Mother Deli 

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Invite, Don’t Avoid, Conflict and Candor in Hybrid Settings  

“A lot of people assume that disagreement has been minimized in virtual environments. That can’t be further from the truth. In fact, you have to work harder to illuminate what that conflict is. I often say that, when working hybrid or remotely, you minimize the ‘surface area,’ or the touchpoints. With in-office work, you’re actually trying to increase the surface area for innovation. So, the converse is true if you’re working remotely — you’re reducing the surface area for conversation. And typically, conversation has to come with some form of disagreement or conflict. 

“A lot of people will hide behind remote work or hybrid work as a reason to discount the amount of disagreement in their organization. Actually, you need to have a standard process or an organized thought on how to solve conflict in hybrid work.” - John Barrand, CHRO for the State of Utah

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Turn Failure into Fuel: Break Free from Perfectionism

“If you feel there is only a narrow path to success and only one way to get somewhere, it’s going to limit your ability to see alternative perspectives. And that will push you towards needing it to be perfect versus recognizing that you actually have flexibility and room for error. 

“There’s a lot of power that comes from mistakes and failure. Like any other leader or human being, I’ve experienced failure and setbacks. The perfectionist in me would tell you that it shouldn’t have been part of the plan. But in hindsight, you can connect the dots in reverse and say that failure was a critical defining moment and I learned something I can take forward. I never would’ve gotten that experience if I had been married to perfectionism.” - Andy Biladeau, Chief Transformation Officer at SHRM 

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Ask 3 Key Questions to Clarify Priorities, Spot Opportunities

“There are three questions I ask [employees] when I need to quickly find priorities to help me organize limited resources in order to address a problem. These are the same questions you can ask when things are going well and you’re looking to uncover opportunities so you don’t get complacent. So, I ask:

• What’s one thing we should stop doing? 
• What’s one thing we should start doing? 
• What’s one thing you would do differently if you were me?

“There are patterns, there are themes. I use these patterns — what’s most frequently mentioned — to act on as a leader.” - Kat Cole, CEO of AGI and Former President of Cinnabon

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Model Vulnerability to Build a Culture of Trust and Truth

“I’m a big believer in role modeling and of the same thing we talk about with employees, which is bringing my full self to work. So, lots of people at work know about my life outside of May, and that’s intentional. People know I love food and love to travel. People know I’m a big car guy. I think that goes to that vulnerability and sharing more of myself.

“But another key part of being vulnerable is role modeling what it means to be vulnerable in the workplace. So, I’m the first to admit when I’ve made a mistake. I’m the first to say, ‘Hey, I totally messed this up. Sorry. And here’s what we can learn from it together.’ That helps to intentionally create a culture of psychological safety.” - Tom Tang, Chief People Officer at May Mobility

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Give Feedback That Targets the Problem, Not the Person

“To enhance collaboration, you have to be kind with one another. But that doesn’t mean being nice all the time. We owe it to our people to be intellectually honest, and that means building a culture of feedback — feedback well given and well received, so you can really build that growth mindset that we all want to see in people.

“So being ‘kind on people but hard on problems’ means that, ultimately, we all want the same thing. We want to reach our business objectives and execute on strategy. So, we need to say to the people around us that we might disagree about the problem, but it doesn’t mean we disagree with one another as people. I’m not against you. You’re not against me. We just have a different perspective.” - Mai Lan Nguyen, Senior Vice President of HR at Schneider Electric N.A.