Career Club Live with Bob Goodwin
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Career Club Live with Bob Goodwin
Embracing the Unexpected: Career Resilience, Wellness, and Leadership with Jeri Hawthorne
Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer for AFLAC, Jeri Hawthorne, joins us to share her incredible journey from Southeast Ohio to Georgia and beyond. Jeri opens up about the serendipitous twists and turns that took her from studying in West Virginia and England to enriching experiences in Denmark with Nova Nordisk. Her passion for cross-cultural training and international HR is infectious, and her stories reveal how embracing the unexpected can lead to a fulfilling career path. Whether it's her educational pursuits or professional triumphs, Jeri's journey is full of lessons on leadership and personal growth.
As we savor the rich flavors of France and Tokyo, we also tackle a sobering issue—stress and burnout in today's fast-paced world. With constant negative media, economic hardships, and the pressure to maintain a picture-perfect life on social media, maintaining mental wellness has become a Herculean task for many. We delve into how these pressures impact not just personal well-being but also financial stability, making it crucial to find balance in both work and personal life. Through this discussion, we aim to shed light on the complexities of modern-day stressors and their pervasive effects.
Our focus on wellness and resilience extends to the workplace as well. By spotlighting employee wellness initiatives, we share how our company, in collaboration with Corporate Chaplains of America, fosters a supportive environment for emotional, physical, and financial health. From executive coaching to resilience training, we emphasize creating a culture where authenticity and vulnerability in leadership are valued. This is not just a conversation—it's a call to action for embracing challenges, fostering a caring atmosphere, and leveraging resources that can enhance your professional journey. Whether you're a leader or just starting your career, these insights are sure to resonate and inspire.
I know you're gonna find it. You gotta keep on at it. Hi everybody, this is Bob Goodwin, and welcome to another episode of Career Club Live. We're so glad that you could take a few minutes out of your day to join us. I am really excited about today's guest. This has actually been a few months in the making, so I know it's going to be worth the wait for me and I hope you guys are very excited about what we discuss today. Our guest today is the Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer for AFLAC, geri Hawthorne, and with that, geri, welcome.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, Bob. It's great to be here.
Speaker 1:No, it's nice to have you. I love your background. That is so cool. That is our headquarters building, and the community where we're located here in Columbus. Georgia. Awesome. How far is Columbus from Atlanta?
Speaker 2:It's about 90 minutes south of Atlanta.
Speaker 1:Got it Okay? Well, this is going to lead us into our first icebreaker question, which is where were you born and raised? Are you from the Georgia area?
Speaker 2:I am not. I'm actually from Ohio originally, so I was born in southeast Ohio and grew up, spent my formative years there.
Speaker 1:Okay, so this is why we ask icebreaker questions. I live in Cincinnati. Where'd you grow?
Speaker 2:up. My niece goes to University of Cincinnati. There you go, go. Bearcats, where did you grow up? In Southeast I grew up in Southeast Ohio, about 45 minutes from Pittsburgh. It was a very rural, small community.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of that going on in Ohio.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes A little. Think, you know mining towns, think a little hillbilly, elegy kind of communities. That's where I grew up.
Speaker 1:There you go. Well, it's funny. My brother was telling me one day he's like you could go to Mount Everest and you're going to find somebody who's from Ohio. Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:It's amazing, I was talking with this one gentleman who was doing some consulting work with us and he ended up he was like where? And I was like you know, peeling the layer back, and this little town. He was like I know that town, and then this little town kind of layer further, layer further, and he was like my grandparents are from there and I'm like what?
Speaker 1:It is really funny. You're right, so all roads seem to lead through Ohio, but somehow it sounds like you left Ohio, so maybe that's a good opportunity to segue into. Where did you go to school? What's your college background?
Speaker 2:So I actually went to undergraduate in West Virginia at a small college called William Jesuit University, and then I went to graduate school in England. I went to the University of Bath, which is in Southwest England, about an hour and 45 minutes Southwest of London.
Speaker 1:Ooh, that is a beautiful area. That's like Doc Martin territory, isn't it? It is beautiful there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a little bit like going back in time, I mean just almost like a fairytale town, so beautiful.
Speaker 1:How the heck did you end up over there?
Speaker 2:So I knew I wanted to go abroad. I had not gone before, I knew I didn't want to take GREs because I wasn't good at standardized testing, and so I did research this was all pre-internet, so it was microfacial libraries and things like that and ended up finding a graduate program in European policy that I was very interested in and applied and got in.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm a southerner so I went to Tennessee and so like international would have been like Alabama or Florida. So good for you for finding your way to England. Yeah, it was wonderful. Yeah, it's been a good run. Good, and then just a little bit about your family.
Speaker 2:Yep Married two kids. My daughter's actually in Georgia, so I think Georgia's playing Tennessee in football coming up, which that's true Go Dawgs. We hope they win. That's where my money goes University of Georgia. And then I have a son who just graduated from Virginia Tech. He's he's studying for the LSATs. Right now he lives in Baltimore and my husband lives here with me in Georgia. He's semi-retired. He's worked in investment banking most of his career.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's very cool. Well as someone who's put four kids through college, you know I know that it's nice to get that in the rearview mirror and move on with your life.
Speaker 2:Yes, we're getting close. We got one more year. We're getting close, awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, I wish you well, so do you mind just painting a little bit of a picture of your career arc for folks? Obviously, you're at a really prestigious job. How did you find your way to that?
Speaker 2:So not very directly in full transparency, meaning that I didn't have a grand plan when I started my career. I started just finding a job and it was in training and development and cross-cultural training and development at the time, working with expats and companies that were sending expats abroad. So I parlayed that and kind of moved into international HR, so contract management, relocations, things like that. In the middle of all of that my husband actually got expatriated to denmark and so I kind of took what I had been doing professionally and we became, you know, sort of guinea pigs of that.
Speaker 2:But I was fortunate that I found a job in denmark which was just um, it was luck.
Speaker 2:I mean I did a lot of networking but it wasn't. It was just I met an hr person at nova nordisk and they needed somebody in their international HR group and so I joined them and I worked there for about four years and then we came back, we were repatriated back and I took a little bit of a break and then continued in international HR and then I moved into being a business partner with a financial institution. I lived in Baltimore and so financial institution there, did that for a few years and then moved into talent management and leadership development, worked in financial services, energy, business partner, talent management, leadership development so kind of came full all the way around to that. I joined AFLAC in 2019, leading HR business partners for our corporate HR organization and then, as things went on, my scope got expanded to include our employee experience team, to include our learning and development team. I became head of HR for the US, along with the corporate responsibilities, and then my scope was expanded for leading all of HR about a year and a half ago.
Speaker 1:Well, congratulations, just super quick. You know, at Career Club we work with people, you know, doing career management, as sort of the name would imply, and I love sort of that. You know nonlinear, you know, and I mean because sometimes I think people have this expectation that there's always this master plan and that we're just following the map and A to B to C to D, and it's not like that and being open to trying different things and I don't know, let's go to Denmark and see what happens.
Speaker 2:That's it. The other thing is that you skim over it when you have these sorts of conversations but it's like did all these things, but, by the way, there were sort of failures throughout those things too. Do you know what I mean? So it's like I skim over. Here's all the great stuff, and it's been, you know, but it has not been a journey without its bumps and bruises at the same time. And so you're absolutely right, it's, it's I, it's.
Speaker 2:I always tell folks go sideways first. It's always better to go sideways before you go up, and I think it's good to try things. I also think it's better to try things earlier in people's career, because I think, you know, once you start making a certain amount of money, most of us work because we want to make money. So once you get over a certain level and a certain threshold, you almost become too specialized to go broad, because it's hard to go back down. And so I always tell folks to go sideways. And I, you know, and I'm a big believer it's okay to fail. I've done it multiple times and if you're, you know the key is you got to kind of pick yourself back up and keep going.
Speaker 1:Well, we're going to talk about that in a little bit when we talk about resilience and things like that. But you know, just to pick up on your point for a second, you know, particularly for people earlier in their career, it's almost like what sport are you going to play? What instrument are you going to play in bands? Like you have to try stuff right, and you know there's a lot of potentially good yes answers. We just want to at minimum. It's kind of a test for negatives. Like I know I don't like that.
Speaker 2:That's it. Yes, yeah, I have a son. My son he's studying for the LSATs, he's interning at a law firm and he said to me, what if I don't like it? And I said that's good, then we've ruled it out Like decide that before you apply to law school. So I totally agree with you. I think a lot of it is just sort of ruling things out for what you dislike when you're earlier in your career.
Speaker 1:But being open to experimentation, I think, is so, so important because you don't know what you don't know, because you don't know what all this on the buffet table Right. And so experimentation I love what you're saying Kind of move sideways before you move up. It's really good advice. Last little icebreaker question what do we find Sherry doing when she's not at work?
Speaker 2:Well, she works most of the time. It's a busy job, it's a busy organization and I love everything about it.
Speaker 1:But when I'm not working.
Speaker 2:My husband and I like to travel quite a bit. We have a dog, which has replaced my children I don't know what I think about that, but it's happened nonetheless. You know, has replaced my children I don't know what I think about that, but it's happened nonetheless and go see our kids, of course. And then we like to. I'm a big cook, I love to cook, so cooking and, and I do yoga and Peloton just to kind of keep my sanity in the middle of everything. So I I don't let the grass grow.
Speaker 1:I'll sit on, keep it doesn't sound like it did you marry? You're traveling with your love of cooking. Do you pick? We do.
Speaker 2:We try to go places, yes, where we're taking cooking classes, and or places where we we know we want to eat the food you know. So, yeah, that's a big part of it.
Speaker 1:So okay.
Speaker 2:So I have to ask him the way I promise we'll of this Either favorite place that you've been because you love the food or where you're really hoping to go to next because of the food Favorite place. I've been where I love the food. I would say France, I love. I love France, I love duck co-feed, I love mussels, I love. France is my favorite by far and I had the opportunity through Aflac because we have an operation in Japan and I had the opportunity to go to Tokyo earlier this year and that was, from a culinary and just cultural perspective, one of my favorite things I've done and it sort of really opened up my desire to go to other places in Asia. I would really like to do that, from both a travel and culinary perspective.
Speaker 1:You have an explorer's personality. I can already tell, yeah, I do, I totally do. So I found you through an interview that you gave, I think, in Fortune or a daily newsletter like CHR Daily, and you were talking about burnout and that's a topic that really resonates with me. And you know, I guess I'd just sort of like to start off what's sort of your observation with the level of stress burnout. You know that you guys see, what do you think's behind all this?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's. You know, anecdotally. I'm seeing what the trends are saying Stress and burnout are high. Mental wellness is a big issue. It's an issue with our employees.
Speaker 2:I think it's an as simple. As you know, we're surrounded by a little bit of a media blitz all the time with some negative bent, like, regardless of what side of the aisle you're on, there's negativity coming from the election. There are wars that are just bombarding us on television. Inflation is it's finally stabilizing, but it's been on the rise for so many years, so it's kind of this, it's a little bit of a perfect storm, and I honestly think that and maybe it's my own bias, but I think that many people myself as an example thought that once we got through the pandemic, it would just be okay, like it would just be, you would get through it and things would just re-stabilize and back, everything would go. And that hasn't happened. I mean, there's still lagging effects of that. And then you combine those with all of the things I've just described. And you know, in particular, you know Aflac is a health insurance, supplemental health insurance company, so we focus on health insurance costs. That's something that we talk about all the time, and financial fragility is a real thing.
Speaker 2:You know, we have a workforces report that we do every year. I think we're on like year 14 or 15. And one of the things that we found is is over 60% of people they can't pay a thousand dollar out of pocket medical expense, right, so you know, couple that with they're having to make a decision between do I pay this bill, do I, you know, pay for this for my children at school or whatever it is, and all the things I've just described, and I almost think it's there's not enough reprieve for people to even be able to regroup. I think it's just almost bombardment for many, many people of pressures from a variety of different directions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel like I'm going to pile on for a minute, but what you say so resonates with me. There's all the externalities that you were describing, right. Then there's stress at work, just because work is not called play, it's called work, just because you know work is not called play, it's called work and deadlines and budgets and goals and everything that just makes work work. And then there's my real life, right, I've got my aging parents, I've got my kid who's off the rails, I've got my marriage. You mentioned my finances. I've got my health issues. So when we talk about bringing your whole self to work, well, that's a lot of whole self to bring to work.
Speaker 2:It is, and I do think you know I have kids I talked about you know, kind of college age, right out of college. I do think social media, in particular for younger folks, plays a much, a very big part in kind of helping with that anxiety creation and or those externalities, because I think that it creates this in many, many instances, this sort of false reality of what looks to be beautiful and perfection and and you know what I mean, and so, and that's what a lot of these kids are comparing, or young people excuse me, you know what I mean, and so, and that's what a lot of these kids are comparing or young people, excuse me, are comparing themselves to, and so I think that that creates an unusual level of of stress, because it's this never being able to kind of keep up with the perceived reality and it's not real.
Speaker 1:It's, it's perceived. No, no, we live in a Photoshop world and it all looks amazing until you kind of figure out it's not amazing and but somehow people are like well, what's wrong with me? And or I've got to try and project that same level of awesomeness. That's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's exactly right.
Speaker 1:And it's it's exhausting for people Right. So maybe this is kind of an off theuff question, but how would you define burnout?
Speaker 2:Ooh, that is an off-the-cuff question. So, honestly, when I think about burnout you know I think there's, you know, being tired. I think there is being overwhelmed. When I think about burnout, I actually think about it as almost a sustained emotional and physical fatigue and a lack of desire to try to lift out of that right. It's almost like you've lost your luster to say, you know, let me work through this. So you know, it's this and this is just my opinion. I don't, I don't have research on this, but I, when I think about it, it's that the you know I've been tired, I've been worn out, I don't see a light at the end of the tunnel. I'm just kind of moving through this with either going through the motions or very little energy, because I don't have the physical, emotional or mental fortitude to try to pick myself up, to move forward.
Speaker 1:That's kind of how I think I would describe it no I think that's right and one of the points I appreciate that you just made, which is it is more than just a physical tiredness, it is emotional, it's mental slash, psychological exhaustion. Right, yeah, I'm tired and I sort of beyond my capacity to take on more stress.
Speaker 2:It's almost an exacerbation. So I'm just sort of you know, kind of that, you know just drop your hands and just kind of drop what's in your hands and walk away feeling.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so one of the things is I've done some research for this. I'm loving this, by the way. Was this you know whole person mentality that you all have. Could you explain that to listeners and what you guys mean by that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So you know, it's one of those things that sounds really, really good on paper and we try very hard to actually do this in action. So, when we think about caring for the whole employee, what we've kind of framed it as there are five pillars of wellness, and so we think about there's physical wellness, there's mental wellness, emotional wellness, social wellness and financial wellness. And so we thought about it through the lens of if we are offering perks and benefits and again, because we're a benefits company, we offer very robust benefits. We should be best in class with this for our employees because we operate in this industry. So it's something that's very, very important to us. And so, as we've thought about it, so things like mental wellness, well, that could be. You know, we have a career success center, so if you want help writing a resume to do a job search internally, if you need someone to proctor a test for a professional certification that you're taking, if you want help preparing for an interview or job shadowing, that's kind of that mental wellness, that career preparedness, online training, in-class training, that's the mental. It's scholarships we offer scholarships for our employees tuition, reimbursement, those sorts of things, that development, but those ways to kind of grow and stretch your mind and then from an emotional perspective, that's everything from your traditional EAP, the 1-800-EAP but it's also.
Speaker 2:We have Corporate Chaplains of America that we have a partnership with. They come on site once a quarter. You know, we're a southern company, we're Columbus, georgia. We were founded in the south right, so we are. You know we have a lot of employees who would rather talk with a chaplain than they would rather pick up the phone and call EAP. So we have our corporate chaplains. We bring service dogs on site once a quarter where employees can sign up and come we're piloting that where they can come and like, spend 15 minutes with the dogs and get a little bit of a mental break to hopefully reestablish some emotional wellness.
Speaker 2:We have emotional. We a online, online emotional support. So you know, gen Z, they may not want to call a counselor, they may want to text somebody at night, and that's fine. So we've tried to think about it through the lens of these five kind of pillars, but we also try to think about within each of those pillars. We have different kinds of populations and so we have an emotional support group or counseling service for LGBTQIA. So that's a small percentage of our overall population. But we want to make sure those folks know that that's there and we want to make sure that they're able to find it and access it if they need it. So we have kind of the broad buckets, but then it's the targeted within each of those categories, thinking about the different populations of Aflac.
Speaker 2:So you know, we have physical wellness. We have on-site fitness centers if you're in Columbus, if you're not here, or in our Columbia South Carolina office. We have a partnership with well hub, which used to be Jim pass, so you could go to Jim's. They either in a discount or for free where you are. We have fitness challenges which our leaders love. They participate in and kind of have a little trash talk with one another and get our employees engaged in weight loss and or just improving their physical wellness.
Speaker 2:Overall Financial wellness we do everything from. We bring in our 401k partner to give financial advice. You know, if it's an educational program for first-time homebuyers, for single parents, for new parents, for adoption people who are adopting a child. So it's not just the financial education, it's the what are the buckets within that that will hit a certain target population. And again, you may only get 30 people at one of those you know that may attend, but those 30 people, it's very specific to what they need, given where they are in their life and and specifically what they want to do next within their life and or their career.
Speaker 2:So we do that across each of those kind of broad categories and, like I say, it's one of those that I think we do. We do really really. You know, we describe it really really well. I think we are stellar in most of it, but it's we're always working to improve, and so a great example is we offer all the things that I talked about and I didn't even go into all of them, but it's how do I make sure that my employees know?
Speaker 2:How do I make sure that they find this? That you know that Marathon Health. So if you live in Columbus, we have on-site clinics here in our Columbia, south Carolina location, so our employees can go in, they can get a flu shot, they can get blood work, they can get a physical All of these things at no cost. I need to make sure they know about that, because if they don't know about that or that, we have an online version. And they don't feel good at 8 o'clock at night and then they go to urgent care and they have to spend $50 out of pocket. Well, no, that's not good for anybody. And the urgent care person says take two Tylenol and go see your doctor tomorrow. Well, marathon Health could have told them that for free.
Speaker 2:So it's the what, it's the target population, and then it's the how we go about trying to package it and make it understandable and accessible for our employees to leverage when they really need it. And it's a journey, because sometimes you get it right, sometimes you don't, because the other piece of it is we're running a business on top of this, and so you know we have shareholders, we have to perform as an organization, and so you know it's the balancing ensuring that we're getting our employees everything they need and the support that we believe they need, while ensuring that we're getting our employees everything they need and the support that we believe they need, while ensuring that we're delivering business and value to our shareholders.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we're going to do live television now, for sure. Okay, great, no hard questions, that's such an interesting point because you know how do you, as a CHRO, go to the board meeting, go to your boss, whatever and make the business case that this isn't just an expense right and a drain on the bottom line? And, jerry, can we take that $10 million and do something else with it and demonstrate to them, guys, this is so in your best interest for us to be taking care of people this way. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So in your best interest for us to be taking care of people this way? Yeah, so I will tell you. I think part of what makes my job probably easier than some other CHROs is that we have a CEO who has a philosophy that if you care for the employees, they care for the customers. Yes, he believes that. He says it. So from the tip top of the house down, I have support for making sure that we are thinking about our employees as humans and making sure that they're cared for. So there's a humanity kind of built in the culture because of how he operates, because of our values. So that is, you know kind of that is. I'm probably starting five or six steps ahead of many other CHROs in that, philosophically, there's buy-in to why this is important. And you know all HR people talk all the time. You know higher levels of engagement, higher levels of discretionary effort. You're going to go above and beyond for customers. You know higher end net promoter scores on non-non. We boil our CEO is just boiled down to. You do the right thing by your employees. They do the right thing. So start there. But then when I get to my CFO, I do have those conversations about that.
Speaker 2:We pay more for our health insurance than most companies. Our company does this. Why are we doing that, jerry? We need to get more in alignment with this, and you know, in short, we use data. So it's the. We look at things like absentee rates, we look at things like how many of our employees like what's the percentage that has high cost claims, how many of our employees are actually using those wellness benefits and that those that preventative care service that we're giving them for free. That's actually front-ending things. So maybe we find something sooner, and or it doesn't get to that later phase. And so those are the kinds of pieces of data that we try to use to inform and influence the finance folks of the organization, because when they have to make those choices, it does come down to why are we spending this money on this when we really need X, y or Z?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I appreciate you. I mean, our audience obviously has a lot of HR professionals on it and not all CHROs and big well-funded companies. But you know, I do want to just sort of kind of reiterate some of the points that you were making. Right, you know engagement, which leads to productivity, which leads to innovation. You've got absenteeism. You know regrettable quits and I think you know clearly the health care costs like if we double click on the stress related illnesses and then how that trickles into absenteeism and productivity and all those kinds of things. Those are really really big dollars that I think any HR professional should be, you know, equipping him or herself with that kind of data to your point to be able to walk in head held high. That, yes, this is the right human being thing to do. It is way the right business thing to be doing.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right, that's exactly right, and it's a little bit of a virtuous cycle of value creation in a way. Right, so it's. The opposite is like the toxic work environment, and you said it higher levels of turnover, higher levels of absenteeism, low engagement, low customer like all of those things. And so it's. How do you turn the cycle kind of and make it go in the forward direction?
Speaker 2:And it really is the if you have robust benefits and we have cafes, as an example, on site at our core locations, and originally those were put in place because we put our call center not near anything and so people don't have a lot of time to get in their car and drive. But we have deliberately kept the cost of those meals lower. The people who take advantage of those are some of our lowest-paid employees. They should be able to come in and get a healthy breakfast and a healthy lunch, and it doesn't break the bank, as opposed to having that as another stress. And so there's a question of should we subsidize that less? Well, maybe, but really is it going to be that much of an impact on the bottom line of the company?
Speaker 2:But it will be a really big impact for this person, who makes $24 an hour and has three kids and is a single parent and is making those decisions about where they can spend their money. If they can actually have a healthy lunch, that's one less thing they have to worry about. So I think it's knowing your population, it's understanding the drivers of the business, because that's absolutely important. You have to understand that. And again, we're a supplemental health insurance, so we sell wellness policies, so we have campaigns pushing our employees to get preventative services and then saying, by the way, we pay you.
Speaker 2:So, Aflac's, our wellness policies are designed that if you get preventative services each year, if you get a mammogram, if you get your physical, you get paid to do that. You just go, you submit the claim and we pay you. And because we're an insurance company, we give those policies to our employees. And so basically saying, if you don't do this, you're just leaving money on the table. Would you walk by a $20 bill and not bend down and pick it up? Most of us wouldn't. But it's understanding the business drivers and then thinking about the solutions for your employee population that tie with the business drivers but also meet the needs of that population and using data, you know when you're talking to finance folks. You have to talk to them in their language period.
Speaker 1:Well, I don't know how to say it better than you just said it, so I'm going to move on, because you made the case extremely well. One of the things that I had read that you were talking about, jerry, that is very near and dear to me, that I'd love to hear you expound on a little bit, is the notion of resilience, and you've likened resilience, I think, to strength training before. Can you kind of expand on that for a minute?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, when I think about resilience I think about psychological safety and I think about things that create psychological safety for humans. And those things are, in some ways they feel supported, they feel heard, they feel like they have a voice and power, they feel like they can raise concerns and questions without punitive reactions. And so I think you know organizations and leaders. I think it's incumbent upon them to create environments where there's that psychological safety so that people can build that level of resilience. But I think building resilience to that I think it's hard, I think it requires mental fortitude. And I talked a little bit about at the very beginning the failures you know the. You know I glossed over everything and just talked about my career and here I am. But man, there were a lot of failures.
Speaker 2:You know there were a lot of times when it was the hey, I think I'm going to get fired. Or you know, hey, I just had this horrible conversation with my boss or this awful thing happened. And then that's the work things, and then there's the personal things too, and I think it's almost a resiliency and fortitude of the trying to put that in perspective relative to other things. I talk to my team here all the time. I mean 99.9% of the things that cause stress with my team here at Aflac are not life or death. Now, unfortunately, there are tiny, there are very unique times when there are but 99% of the time over that it's not, and when you kind of try to put things in perspective for people and try to help them put it in perspective as well, to say, I understand how impactful this feels in the moment, but let's try to think about this in the context of something larger and keep it in perspective of the. You know what is the downside If this goes wrong, what are the negative implications of what's the worst thing that can happen?
Speaker 2:Let's go to the catastrophe of this and then let's work our way backwards, because usually it doesn't go to the catastrophe. So it's I kind of think of it like start with the catastrophe. If you, if you're feeling that and work your way backwards and you'll probably get to a place where it's the well, the likelihood of that catastrophe is really really low. The likelihood of one of these more reasonable outcomes is more likely.
Speaker 2:And if the worst thing that happens, especially on a work day, is that somebody is frustrated with me, disappointment is probably harder. But if they're frustrated or frustrated with me, disappointment is probably harder. But if they're frustrated or angry with me, you know I can work through that. We're people and we can kind of work through all of that. But it's trying to keep those things in perspective and compartmentalizing and again, that's another one. It's easier said than done, but it's something that you have to continue to work at and to think about each day. When you reflect on what you did, what you did well or what went wrong, how do you actually put that in perspective of the kind of the grand scheme of what's important to you as a person?
Speaker 1:Wow, you're touching on so many good points. So I'd like the I haven't heard anybody talk about this before. It's really cool the what's the worst that could happen? And like, okay, well, the likelihood of that happening, it's pretty remote, okay, so we can start to de-stress almost immediately. But it also kind of takes some of the emotionality out of something and we kind of start using our brain again and like, oh, okay, all right, yeah, you're right, I'm not going to get fired over this, or, you know, nobody's going to die over this. Okay, let's relax. What are the four things?
Speaker 1:the four worst, you know legitimate things that can happen.
Speaker 2:And then let's talk about the likelihood of those. And you know, I mean look, I don't, I'm not a, you know, a heart surgeon. We Affleck does a lot with the Children's Cancer Center of Atlanta or the Children's Hospital of Atlanta. We have a cancer center. I'm in a fortunate situation. I'm not forced to make those sorts of decisions, right? So I almost feel as if I don't mean to minimize, you know, oh, it's easy just do, because I don't think everybody is in a situation where it is that easy to compartmentalize some of the things that people have to make decisions about or what those you know kind of worst case scenarios are. I just think for the vast majority of us, myself included, the worst case scenario probably isn't the worst case scenario that a surgeon you know a brain surgeon might have, sort of a thing Exactly.
Speaker 1:So one of the things you know you were talking about some failures and I think we can all, if we're honest with ourselves, say, yeah, I've got my own portfolio of failures I don't, you know, necessarily always feel great about. But back on the muscle piece and I'm rarely accused of an original idea, and this is an example of that is I've used this. I like that example because oftentimes when people are talking about resilience, they'll, you know, visualize like a rubber ball and you squeeze it and that's it coming under pressure, and then the pressure is released and the ball goes back to its original shape. It was resilient, it went.
Speaker 1:I might know that's called recovery. That's just getting back to where you were actually the muscle strength in. And again, people know this. But you know, when you're actually lifting weights and really straining muscle, it tears the muscle right and then it rebuilds itself and it needs rest. So back to physical and other kinds of things. It needs to rest, but it actually gets stronger and so we build up what a psychologist friend of mine has taught me called anti-fragility, that actually we raise the threshold of what actually is stressful. So if I first start lifting weights, five pounds could feel like a lot. But if I do it for six months, all of a sudden five pounds doesn't feel like very much right, because I've gotten stronger and that's a way of talking about anti-fragility and so you know, the thing with building the muscle and this is what it sounds like you've done in your career is those micro failures basically built muscle over time that you figured out it wasn't catastrophic. I can get through this. I did learn something. Could you sort of build on that notion?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, absolutely, and I think you know what I was thinking when you were saying that is. I also think that experience builds wisdom and kind of reflectability. So, meaning that, you know, if you talk to me, you know, 10 minutes after one of those failures and I was in my 20s or 30s my reaction would be very, very different. So there's that kind of time and distance, and so now, as I look back, it feels very different. At the time it felt like the muscle was just torn, and so that's the other thing I think about with resilience. I, you know, for some of us it takes longer, right? So some folks, there's a resiliency that can come much more quickly.
Speaker 2:I'm actually a little envious of those people, excuse me, because I just, you know, it's the ability to sort of put it in a, you know, put it in a compartmental, you know, kind of focus on it for a little time and a little more experience, to be able to sort of look back to say, okay, what did I get from that? And so that's one thing I would say, you know, it's that allowing time and space. I think that's really important and I think that's something that, uh, is a lot of folks don't do and I think think it's you know, we're a go go, go, go go, immediate this, that and the other thing, and so I think, having the ability to just find the time and to give yourself that grace, so to speak, so that you can reflect back on it, I think that's really really important.
Speaker 1:Well, you've kind of come to this twice, so I really want to underscore it. It's really really important. Well, you've kind of come to this twice, so I really want to underscore it. Like, at the end of the day, what are three things that went well? Right? So, and particularly for type A, people right.
Speaker 1:One of the things that makes people successful or some people successful, is they're very good at seeing, well, what's the next gap, what's the next thing that we need to go do. But that always kind of keeps you in what's not done yet kind of mindset. And being able to just take a couple of minutes at the end of the day, what did I do well today? What went well today? You actually get a dopamine hit from doing that right, which is healthy. But the other thing and you took the expression from me, which I'm really glad that you said this which is, if something didn't go well, reflecting on what did I learn, forgiving myself or, to use your expression, which is well said, extending myself a little bit of grace and then shutting the book on that and tomorrow's a new day. But again, the way that our brains work, I think some of this is, you know, just sort of the survival and kind of being focused on things that are threats and we focus on the negative and we take a minute to think about what went well.
Speaker 1:Good, I you know I didn't get everything done, but I did get this done and I got that done and I feel good about that. This one thing probably could have gone better. What can I learn from that? Okay, doesn't make me a bad human being, doesn't make me a bad employee or anything you know. And then okay, tomorrow's a new day.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, and I, and I think that it's you know, not only this one thing didn't go well, but it's you know, in the grand scheme of the day, was that you know how much of your day did that derail, you know, and or did it impact 5,000 people, Did it impact two? You know, like, what's the scope and severity of that error? That you know, that mistake that you made Because I think that has a lot to do with it too it's the you know, putting it in that perspective, to say, yes, I made this mistake, but really, in kind of all of this, what is the impact of that mistake?
Speaker 1:Well, and you talk about time and space, which is really good. So in five years, am I going to remember this? In five years, does anybody can remember this? Yes, that's exactly that. That's exactly right. All right then. Maybe it's not that that's exactly right. Life skill transcends all of that right. That muscle has different contexts that can be used, and I want to give you because I'm going to move on in just a second. But is there anything else that you wanted to just sort of add to this?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the only thing I would say and when I think about work environments and leadership and leaders, one of the things that I try to do that I'm very aware of, is owning my mistakes and talking about with my team your own, you know, kind of failures. And you know we were laughing. So I have this on this duck pen this is my fourth duck pen, because I lose them every time I get them. I really like them, but I lose them every time I get them, and so you know it's become a little bit of a running joke, but it's the.
Speaker 2:You know, it's okay for me to say you know, I lost it again and and so and that's a tiny, tiny example, but I think it's really, really important for leaders and for colleagues and peers and humans in general to basically be able to say I made a mistake and either you know it was deliberate, like a deliberate mistake, like there's culpability and I apologize and I own that, or I just made a mistake because I'm a human being and that's what we do and here's what I learned from it and let's talk about that because I don't want that to happen again. I don't want you to have to go through that. So let's create an environment where we can actually have that kind of dialogue. I think that's hugely, hugely important for leaders.
Speaker 1:Hugely, yeah. And so the word that I think a lot of people would use is vulnerability. Right, you said authenticity, which you know is right in that same lane. The other thing that's cool about that one, it's cathartic just to be able to do that. But two is your model. That's real leadership, because you're modeling for other people. Oh, and then you talked about psychological safety. You're literally creating the environment. Well, crap, if Jerry could say that, then I guess maybe when I make a mistake and I get some calculation wrong or do whatever, it's like, I'm not going to get fired, jerry's not going to freak out on me or whatever it's like. Okay, like it's okay to tell the truth here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know and when we talk about kind of toxic work environments and things like that, it's just you know, when it becomes a, you know you're more concerned about covering your mistakes than you are about helping customers and helping your colleagues.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's a really bad culture to work in. It just really is.
Speaker 1:Okay, so see, this is always the issue. We could keep going on this for another hour. A couple of other things I wanted to ask you, please. At Career Club, we do a lot of help with people in job transition and teaching people like what are employers looking for so for you? When you're teaching people like what, what are employers looking for so for you? When you're interviewing somebody or you're building your team, what are some of the qualities or the traits that you're trying to identify?
Speaker 2:I look for people who are curious like that. For me is is extremely important that they have almost as many questions that I have. You know, if I'm talking with someone, that it's it's a you know I'm asking questions about their background and they're asking questions about the organization or the job or the you know whatever it is. So I think that curiosity is important. I also I, you know it's probably based on my own experiences I think it's really important to have a breadth of experience, like I, when I see someone who it's, you know, kind of a narrow. There are some jobs where you need that narrowness. You know talk about doctors, but you know I'm not in that kind of a job, and so I think many, many jobs where you have people who, again, have kind of tried different things. So I think that breadth of experience demonstrates curiosity, I think it demonstrates resiliency, I think it demonstrates a willingness to try new things, so a little bit of a risk taking, which I think are really important, a willingness to adapt.
Speaker 2:I think all of those kind of competencies are really really important. I think that it's important to, even if you know, when you work for five years or you didn't work for seven years. Most people didn't sit on the couch and watch TV. For those five or seven years they probably managed a household budget or they managed, you know, the little league team's finances or organized this for the kids' school, or took care of an elderly parent and had to manage all of the things that go with that. So I think it's important for people who are kind of in those transitions from one phase to another or have been out and going back, to highlight the things they actually did. Things like you know, most people do things so. So it's a combination of things, but it's really, I think, about curiosity and demonstrating that kind of adaptability and interest in trying different things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I really appreciate that. And if I had to do an analysis of the number one answer it's either. You know, naturally curious, you know learning aptitude, because the world is just changing so quickly. Yes, right, and it's not like I graduated and I got my degree and whatever, and that's going to last me for 40 years. It's not going to last me for four years. Nope Right. Things keep changing. Okay, last last question. Okay, with the benefit of hindsight, yep, what advice would you give to 25-year-old Cherry?
Speaker 2:That's a good question. I would say one it's okay to fail. Like you know, because I went through some, you know it was really hard, the resiliency that I talk about. You know those scars have healed, but it was some healing so it took a little while. So I think that that is one. And you know, when I was younger and something like that would happen, I would. You know that would be the catalyst to move. So something bad happens, it's time to go, it's time to move. And so I would say, you know, work your way through it, don't run from it Like it's okay. You know, it's okay to be embarrassed, it's okay to make a mistake, it's okay to have a bad day at work and get up and go back to work and or have made a fool of yourself and kind of keep it going, that's okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that last thing that you said resonates. I probably physically reacted, but the you know, not running from something you know and not leaving a job because you're running to the next thing. You're sort not running from something you know and not leaving a job because you're running to the next thing. You're sort of running from this thing and then back to your point. You know what it's going to sort itself out. You know. Now, if you're in a toxic environment like that's different, that's a different thing, right.
Speaker 1:Okay, any other parting advice you'd want to leave. This has been awesome. I've really enjoyed this.
Speaker 2:Oh, I've really enjoyed this too. I mean, I guess I would just say you know, I think being authentic is is is huge kind of, I think you know, paying attention to what's happening around you, um, slowing down. I um have a hard time doing that, but I have surrounded myself. You know that is one of the things I've learned as I've gone up in my career. I've surrounded myself with people who keep me honest and who remind me of you know it's so-and-so's birthday. You know this is happening. Don't forget like it's.
Speaker 2:When you're running hard and fast, it's easy to kind of stop or to forget to stop and pay attention to those things. It's not by design, it's just simply the pace at which you're going and kind of your mind can absorb so much at one time. So I think it's important I would say, surround yourself with those people who are willing to call you out and to point things out and to remind you of the need to be human if you're losing that humanness Because I think in these jobs, even though I deal with human resources, it's still a high pressure job, and so I think it can be easy to lose that when you're moving a million miles an hour- Absolutely All right.
Speaker 1:Well, we need to pause right now or else I'm going to keep going. Jerry, thank you so much. This has been amazing and listeners, thank you so much for taking a few minutes out of your day. I hope that you got a lot out of today's episode. We would encourage you to check out Career Club if you have any interest or need in executive coaching, including resilience training, and so with that, jerry, I'll say thank you one more time. Thank you, thank you so much.
Speaker 2:It was great, I had a great time. No, likewise.
Speaker 1:I know you're gonna find it. You've got all you need, so just keep going.
