Kris Safarova  00:00

welcome to the strategy skills podcast. I’m your host, Kris Safarova, and our podcast sponsor today is strategy training.com and we have some gifts for you. Number one is five reasons why someone is ignored in a meeting, and you can get it at f, i, r, M, S, consulting.com forward slash on the room. You can also get access to Episode One of how to build a consulting practice at firms, consulting.com forward slash build. You can get the overall approach used in well managed strategy studies at firms, consulting.com forward slash overall approach, and you can get McKinsey and BCG winning resume, which is the actual resume that led to offers from both of those firms. And that template works for any level of seniority. And you can get it at firms consulting.com forward slash resume PDF. And today we have with us Ashley heard who is a former head of HR North America at McKinsey national keynote speaker, top 10 business podcast host and LinkedIn top voice, which is a very hard thing to accomplish, who has trained over 250,000 managers.

Ashley Herd  01:57

Ashley, welcome. Hey, Kris, thank you so much. So glad to be here 250,000

Kris Safarova  02:02

managers. That is a lot of managers to train.

Ashley Herd  02:05

It is, and I very much appreciate technology making that possible. It would be a lot harder if it was just face to face, but try to make the messages as effective, no matter where they’re delivered. But I’m glad to have the platforms and the opportunities

Kris Safarova  02:19

before we dive into your current work. I wanted to ask you about some key learning moments throughout your career, that something that you treasure the

Ashley Herd  02:30

most well some that I’ve seen and and I really treasure these. Like a lot of times, you treasure something long after you go through it, and maybe it wasn’t, wasn’t something you treasured as much in the moment, but when I moved into roles in my career, I was a lawyer as an HR, and so over time, I was in board meetings, meeting with senior partners at McKinsey and these opportunities. But what I realized was that at the end of the day, all of these people, no matter they were, they were working for private equity firms, they’re they’re in there, in VC, or they’ve had, you know, incredible academic and professional success that they have a lot more in common with the people that I worked at when I started my career 30 plus years ago, making sandwiches at Subway or at Kmart in the electronics department. And so I really realized everybody is going through their life, and they’re trying to do a lot of things in common. They’re trying to build a life that they can they can be successful, but they have all those real human fears. And as people managers, often, it is a stress of, what do I do to manage my team? How do I do that without burning out myself? How can I avoid micromanaging, but also not if my team makes a mistake that doesn’t reflect poorly on me, a lot of these really common themes that I’ve now seen throughout those and so it’s been in conversations with, again, people with incredible academic backgrounds or professional backgrounds, that they asked me a question. And I think to myself, I have literally had this same conversation with like a restaurant manager KFC when I supported a KFC as a function. And so it’s always helped me to be grounded to knowing that everybody needs some some practical tips, and that, you know, no matter whether you’re listening to this and you’re thinking, one day, I want to be successful, I don’t know how I’ll get there, is you likely have a lot of those same qualities that people that you might think, Oh, they can. They may have, they may have more than than either of us in my in my bank account, the person listening or me talking, but, but those people are going through a lot of the same challenges, and when you can really focus and build on those, you can really impact your career and the careers of all the people that you work

Kris Safarova  04:42

with when you were working in all those great organizations that people try to join. How were they different? And what did you learn from each that you think that key lesson from each

Ashley Herd  04:56

well, a first real transition for me was so I had been. But you know, aside from working in my my retail jobs and things like that, I and I did out of college, I did Professional Consulting sales like B to B, cold calling, chief financial officers, but I’d gone to law school, and I’ve been in a law firm environment. In the law firm environment, you know, what I saw is, so much is all about the billable hour. What I mean is, it’s all about, you know, the time that you’re spending. And so I might, if Kris and I were just having a conversation right now, if you and I were just chatting this, then I’d get off and I’d make a little bill up, and I’d write, you know, talked about, you know, strategy tips for, you know, point two minutes. And so you really have to to make sure that you’re being mindful of your time, and you know that the person on the other end is thinking about the bill that they’re going to get. And so even though you’re a lawyer and you’re giving advice, sometimes, you know, like, oh gosh, they just want me to get off the phone or spend as little time as necessary, because they don’t want the bill to be more but they ultimately want want good advice to win their case. And so it was, it was a lot of pressures that had to do with things that are wholly unrelated to relationships, I felt like so when I went in house, so I went for a client. So I’d been in the law firm environment. I worked directly for a client, which was a publicly traded company. And one of the first things I saw is I would sit with my colleague, and I did a lot of shadowing with my colleague. There was not a strategic HR department, so we had to take on really legal in HR, but I remember we would would chat, and especially after we got through our training, we’d be sitting there talking, and I would get, you know, the itch to go and go back to my office and go back to work. And she said, that is a transition that you have to do from the law firm environment to hear because so much of what you do when you’re working with colleagues, you’re not billing your time anymore, which is what a lot of a lot of lawyers. So any of those listening that are lawyers will know you feel like you’re escaping the billable hour by working in house, but a lot of is about building relationships. And for me, it felt like such a breath of fresh air to not just be people worried about coming and having the conversation, and we dealt with a lot of different things, but seeing what it can be like to give advice, but also build genuine relationships. Now the last thing I’ll say is two other adjustments. Is I’d worked at this publicly traded company. I loved it. I loved my job. We did great work. I also worked eight to five, which was, for that point in time, transformational for me. I had a young daughter, and it changed who I was at work and in life, and we had almost no meetings, sometimes, probably, probably, you know, not the best things. We didn’t even have department meetings, but we could always get each other. But we had moved back to Louisville, Kentucky, where I’m from. I’d been in Atlanta. I went to law school here. I live here now, but we’d gone to Louisville, Kentucky to be around family, and I joined young brands, so KFC, and one thing that was, there was one, there were so many meetings. I mean, sometimes once, I think my record was, I had 45 meetings in a week. And so there was just, there was a lot going on. And so figuring out all the fine art of accepting meetings, you know what, what’s strategic, what you know, what do you need to get consensus on? But one thing was, when I was, when I was interviewing, someone said, Oh, we have a recognition culture. Okay. I had no idea what that possibly meant. And when I saw that meant was really an organization that did pride itself on recognizing people across across the organization. So it wasn’t just the C level suite, but at Yum, one of the things they have that was really cool. And again, this is publicly traded company, you know, chicken or tacos or pizza or sister brands. But where I was in our in our restaurant Support Center, once a month, the team, you’d go around, we would surprise different members to get recognized. And so not only did everyone in the organization go around and surprise people, but they had this parade of kids because there was a daycare in the building, and so pre KERS would lead that would lead this parade. It was fascinating to me, because there was, it was two kind of completely different, different environments, but I saw how much it meant to people to get that level of recognition. And so how, when someone feels appreciated for what they’ve done, how that can impact who they are when they go home, how they talk about that to their family and friends, but also the work that they do in every day thereafter. But the last I’ll say is working at McKinsey was interesting to me because I did not have, I do not have an Ivy League degree, and so the imposter syndrome rang very true. Every time I would go to get on a call with someone, I would look them up on the internet and I’d say, Oh my God, I didn’t, even know it was possible to have that many. That meant that many Ivy League, Ivy League degrees or anything, but, but I learned, I did learn the power of language, and so for me, I’ve always prided myself in Real Talk like, okay, let’s agree on this. Let’s meet on this. But quickly I learned that sometimes you use things like, let’s convene. Let’s, you know, let’s, let’s get, let’s gain alignment. Sometimes that corporate speak when it’s the language of the organization you’re working with using that can help you get involved more in the conversation. I also try to find my own approach of using terms that I heard everybody else use, but also bringing a more of of a real talk. And you know.

Speaker 3  15:00

Where to take on now, a lot of what I do is not to go with the organizations I work with now, with manager training. A lot of what I do is really to drive it, to allow HR and learning and development teams be able to bring it to life themselves, so that I can stay true to my goal of wanting to make an impact. But also, you know, not sacrificing myself and getting Delta diamond status, but for the sake of of of the other aspects that are really near, near and dear to me, so I found a way to do that, to do do that for myself, as I started my business,

Kris Safarova  15:31

Ashley, and given that some of our listeners want to join McKinsey, BCG, Angelo and so on, although most of our listeners are very senior, and they don’t even think about that. They may work with McKinsey or BCG or Deloitte and so on, but they are executives or very senior people within different organizations. But for that group that actually wants to join a major consulting firm, what advice would you give them in terms of, what does it take to succeed as a consultant?

Ashley Herd  15:59

I mean, I will give advice to those early career and then a tip I’d have for those that are listening, that are thinking, you know, I’m not, I’m I’ve been in this game for a long time, but So those looking to go in, in whether you’re recruited, you’re part of the interviewing, a few things. One is it can feel like so much pressure. I mean, I knew at McKinsey, hearing, well, this person didn’t get the offer at McKinsey, and they’re devastated. And just like people experience sometimes now with college acceptance or any other disappointment in life, generally, things will work out. And if you’re at the point when you’re interviewing at McKinsey, even if you don’t end up there, or BCG or Bain, or your firm of choice, or your role of choice, things eventually will work out. And I know for myself, even though I didn’t go the consulting path at McKinsey, some of the times that I felt the most disappointed in the moment, like jobs I thought I’d get, and I did not get, in the end, I’m so glad I didn’t, because it created a new chapter that I didn’t know that I would experience, but I really learned from. But if you do want to, you have your eyes set on this, just knowing academics absolutely matter, but that’s probably going to get you in the door in some of the questions I know about, you know, asking a question, have you think in the moment, how many people, you know, how many people are eating a string cheese right now in, you know, North and South America? Like, okay, let me, you know, think about that. That all matters. But flipping it, what you don’t always think of is the importance of how you’re going to work together. That was one thing I saw at McKinsey of oftentimes, when you have studies or engagement sessions, things like that, with a client teams, they really do a lot. Not only are you working together, but a lot is also how you work together. So finding it enjoyable with what you’re doing. A lot of them will have these team cartoons at the at the end of a study. And so it’s like doing caricatures about people as a lawyer in HR, that probably does make me a bit nervous of how cartoons can go but, but, but what you don’t always understand is how much it matters of what people want. I mean, people are generally going to know you’re smart and they you know that senior partner is going to want you no matter your role to do good work, do accurate work, turn things around quickly and look presentable, you know, to clients, and be professional, all of that. But a lot of it is, you know, they often do have senses of humor, and so knowing, you know, figuring out your boundaries, but showing some of your personality and what you’re going to be like, be like to work with, it can be really important. And on the flip side. So those that have listened, that have, like, skipped forward about two and a half minutes because they’re like, this doesn’t apply to me. If you’ve been in a role, in an incredible senior role, these people that are interviewing, or plenty of people that are they’re doing the work, they think that you have it all figured out. They assume you do. They think that you you must have gotten where you were because you didn’t make a mistake. So if they do make one, it’s going to be crushing to them, to them personally, to their career. So one of the things I think could be most helpful when, especially when you’re in a position of power, is is explain the things that really matter again, things like accuracy and all of that, but also being human and talking about sometime I made a mistake or lessons that I learned along the way, taking that time, even just a few minutes with some of those teams and some of those, you know, you know, more junior to mid level career professionals, whether it’s those consultants or otherwise, it can make such a difference to people that just feel so so much pressure. And assume that you must have it all figured out, and you may think to yourself like I absolutely don’t. I don’t know why someone would think that, but people do. And so one of the things I think you can do most and one of the ways you can give is to really talk honestly about the lessons that you learned and that you that you’d wish you heard. And I think that’s something that I can have ripple effects for long after, especially for the maybe consulting teams that are supporting your business.

Kris Safarova  19:42

Thank you, Ashley. So let’s talk about your work, your current work. So you recently wrote the book. What are the key things you want people to take away from the book?

Ashley Herd  19:52

So my book, the manager method, I wrote, in large part to have people managers at all levels, from a senior partner at a. Kinsey to someone moving into assistant restaurant manager shift at the same time, exact same tips that I’ve given people really in those roles and everything in between. And it’s all framed around this framework of pause, consider act. It really is designed to have practical tips. So it’s not just one where you read it, you feel good, you move on with life, but really has tips to bring to your work. And so the core framework of this pause consider act is three steps. Three words, three steps make sense, but the first is pause. And what I’ve seen is, you know, whether you’re a new people manager or even experienced, speed is such a priority, sometimes speed above everything else. I definitely, I definitely saw this at McKinsey. I don’t know how many times I would send an email and seemingly get a response back. I mean, it was, it was constantly felt like a race to reply first. And that’s not unique to McKinsey. It’s plenty of other organizations, companies, where everything just feels like it’s speed and we’re not taking a moment to pause. And technology makes that even more, even more true, but so sometimes when you pause, you can literally take a breath, literally. Sometimes it’s a second, sometimes it’s a bit longer. But just to think about, you know whether you’re communicating or making a decision, but really taking the opportunity to just have have a silence and a breath, and then the question is, okay, what do you do in that, in that pause is, is to consider, and so to consider things like, what is the outcome that I’m looking for, and what are the things that I can do to make that happen? Or how would I want to be treated in the situation? Because, as a people leader, you may be, let’s say you’re a senior, senior partner, and your team member makes a mistake. You may be furious, because this is our client. This is, how could you do this? You know? And sometimes there’s, there’s things are serious, and you have to have a serious conversation, but pausing for a moment to think, Okay, what did this person have going on? Have Have you been having, had been working till 330 in the morning, and it was just a mistake that many people would make in that situation, or even the flip if somebody’s onboarding to your team, instead of just saying, okay, here, get to work, you know, go through these pausing to take a few minutes and just say, okay, oh. What’s your background? What are you working on? What are you interested in asking real human conversations, how much those can impact the work that you’re doing, and how that person feels about the work, how much they care about it, which ultimately matters to your own goals. But after you pause and consider, okay, how would I want to be treated in this situation? How would How would a loved one treated? What we want to have happen is then to act so sometimes they’ll see is things like performance feedback, whether it’s someone senior or new manager, people often don’t like to give critical feedback or they won’t do it in the moment, in a conversation like this with if I’m talking to Kris And I’m saying, Okay, I have this feedback, but I’m not going to say it right now. I just put it in the performance review at the end of the year. And the son, someone reads it and they they think it’s a surprise, because we haven’t really talked about it in whether it’s to have the conversation in the moment, or whether it’s, you know, I’ll tell you. Tell someone like, Okay, I’ll follow up. And then you don’t. And when you don’t follow up with someone, the person on the other side, if they’ve given you an idea or question, when they don’t hear back from you. They assume the worst. They think, oh my, you know, my boss thinks I’m an idiot. They everyone must be laughing about my idea, when, really, as a leader, you often have a lot on your plate, so you probably just forgot. And so this three step framework, I talk about how you can really apply it to any situation as a people manager, from things like when you’re hiring and bringing new team members on to accountability, how accountability doesn’t have to be a bad word, to things like taking time off, and how it’s important to not just as a leader, tell other people to but really do it yourself, but then how you can do that effectively. So it’s not just cutting and running and everyone else is scrambling. It doesn’t didn’t even realize you were going to be out. And so this real framework to bring to all sorts of situations as a people leader, again, no matter your experience or your organization.

Kris Safarova  24:07

So if a leader takes seriously the idea that they impact people’s health, which is another idea in your book, as much as a spouse, which is quite a lot, what are some of the practical changes you would want them to consider making, let’s say, in the next 30 days, 60 days.

Ashley Herd  24:24

Well, it’s true. I mean, it was UKG research from now three three years ago, it was all about this. A manager has an impact on their health more than a doctor or therapist, so right, roughly on par with a spouse or partner, and often that’s because your manager, your leader, your boss, they are impacting so much of your experience. I mean, you can have an interaction with your manager and that can impact, okay, if it’s a positive one, oh, you did really well. Congratulations. You give feedback on this that puffs the person up. They go home and they’re telling they’re telling friends about it. They’re meeting friends for for dinner. Think they’re home with their family. They’re telling them, like, I got this feedback. I got a good job. If they have an email, they’re showing it to people, like, if people really take that for a pride in that, more than often, the person delivering that feedback receives on the flip side, you get frustrated your team member, or they’ve worked really hard on something and a really common trap, you don’t say anything, and that person leaves and is frustrated. And sometimes we take things out on the people we love or care about most. So you cancel plans with friends because you know they’ll understand. You get home and all sudden, your kids go to the top of the stairs because they hear that voice, and they know my parents are about to get into a fight. Because again, I’m not gonna I’m not gonna tell my boss directly. How could you not tell me, thank you, I busted my tail for this, but you may come home and pick a fight with your spouse because you’re taking that frustration out, even if you know you shouldn’t. And so with that ripple effect, leaders saying exactly, okay, what am I supposed to do? Not hold people accountable. And a lot of this is just about, really the how that you do it. And so one thing that I think is really important, and I know especially with senior leaders, there’s senior leaders, there’s a lot of discussion about this, which is things like one on ones, with team members. And I have many friends and friends, former co workers, acquaintances, that will often add, you know, talk about these situations. And I’ll talk to some that are there’s C level leaders, like a chief people officer, chief legal officer, and they’ll say, Okay, well now my CEO is going to change their reporting structure and only wants three direct reports because they saw somebody else did this. And they don’t want to have to have one on one meetings with all these people. They don’t want to have to do performance reviews. I know that there’s a lot of senior leaders that really feel like one on ones are for Trumps or they’re for junior people that is embarrassing or ridiculous to have scheduled one on one time. But I also have seen very true to life, whether it’s a team member and their frontline manager up through a direct report of the CEO, that when you don’t have scheduled time, that’s that’s designed to use effectively a few things. One is that you often are trying to figure it out and wing it, out and wing it. And people all over the place are are going in different directions, and or if you say, you know, you know where to find me, reach out. Reach out if you need me. Well, often it can be a lot harder to get in touch with someone or get their dedicated time that you think you may get a minute on the time, but you can tell they’re they’re doing something completely differently. And so I really am a proponent that no mattered your level of seniority, having scheduled one on one time with your team members matters, and showing up for it as as best you can. Emergencies happen, all of that, but scheduling it so people can have that, because otherwise, your team members are often, no matter what their role is, they have a list of like 27 things that they’d love your input on, and they don’t want to make a decision, because whether they feel like they need to see ya or they don’t want to have made a wrong decision to get chastised for it, you can do a lot by just giving giving people your time. But then on the flip is thinking about this. Okay, if I have this much impact on people, how am I supposed to use it again? Do the pause? Consider? Act is all about that. Thinking about this decision is so much more than just what it is in the moment, every decision has a ripple effect of your leadership. And so really, taking that pause is something that I think leaders can do again without adding more time to your day. Pause does not mean stop. It just means to be deliberate and think about how much, how much this matters. And the next thing I’m going to do, or say, how does this actually impact that person in the way that’s going to lead to their performance, engagement, retention, all of those things that that are very important to me on my dashboard, but I don’t always think about the day to day behaviors that have the biggest impact on them.

Kris Safarova  28:37

Another idea in the book you had is tight jeans versus oversized pants. Can you explain to our listeners what you meant by that?

Ashley Herd  28:46

Yes, so those listening tight jeans leadership is if you think about it. So strip away that we’re having this podcast about strategy and leadership to just put yourself in your laundry room. You get a pair of jeans straight out of the dryer and they are warm. They are not stretch jeans, like tight jeans, and so you’re putting them on maybe after a big lunch. That does not tend to have a very good thought. For most people, you think it feels uncomfortable, restrictive, all of those, all of those words, but that’s often what it can feel like to work with a micromanager so that leader that’s all over their team give me updates constantly come, you know, kind of coming in hot. And when I see that, it’s generally not from a bad intention, frequently, what it is is whether it’s someone that initially had been great at their job, and they’ve been promoted, and maybe promoted up, up, up, up up, because initially they were really good at their job. And so you’re trying to, you know, you know how to do things well. So you’re telling your team how to do things well, and you don’t want your team to mess up and have them look look foolish. You don’t want your team to mess up and you look foolish. And so there’s a lot all about, as I’ve seen it, protecting your team. But again, as that comes out, people think you’re protecting your team, but where you are is often creating this. Restrictive environment. So people, your team may work, they may follow your directions to a T but they’re not going to do things like try something that actually might work better or bring you an idea. They’re often working to not get fired and not get embarrassed. So the flip of that is, is what I call oversized sweatpants, and that’s where some leaders will will over rotate, especially if you’ve worked for a manager or leader that is tight jeans, may say, Okay, I’m not going to be like that. I’m going to be hands off. I trust you. I’m going to trust my team members, whatever you know, do what you need. And what that can look like is those leaders that do say the same of come find me when you need me. I’m not going to have one on ones. I’m not going to have this structured time. But that plays out, like I said, is what’s often intended as freedom leads to people not having a clear sense of direction, and so they’re floating on this raft at the complete other direction. And you think, well, that’s not what I mean, but in the middle is what I call cozy joggers leadership. And my husband, had spent a lot of time at Gartner. He said, cozy kind of brings about a little too soft. I said, Well, it’s not supposed to be soft. It’s structured. Autonomy, is how you may think of it, which is having a waistband, so to speak, or support, but also breathing room so your team, you know they know you have your support. That’s why I say things like knowing that you’re going to have time coming up with someone that you really need, whether it’s their approval or to bounce their ideas off of or make sure you’re on the right track, having that time and knowing you have their support, but you also know what you have freedom to do, and so that’s the way I think of it. Sometimes, in addition to this pause consider act, what’s the impact to think as I do this, am I being tight jeans and restrictive? Okay? But I don’t want to flip to flip to the other side and be oversized sweatpants. How can I think about this as as cozy joggers to create the environment where everybody doesn’t need me at once? Because that’s not going to work out well for for any of your team or their teams or you. But giving that guidance in structured autonomy can be a way to think of it in the moment. That can be helpful framework, actually.

Kris Safarova  32:03

And if someone listening to us now and they feel that they want or the other are there any stop doing this. Start doing this. Advice you can give them that they can test out this week.

Ashley Herd  32:15

I think one is to really recognize that, because if you take that self reflection that is not easy, and you think to yourself, Okay, tight. That seems a little realistic. Think about how you can have honest conversations with your teams in its it can be hard enough for you to have this conversation. It can be incredibly hard for your teams to feel like they can give feedback, and so to talk to your team members and say, okay, you know, I was listening to Kris, is Kris his show, and she was talking, her guest was talking about leadership, and some of this, like, tight jeans, cozy sweatpants. And I kind of laughed, but I I thought to myself, what kind of leadership do I bring to my teams? And so some of the questions you can ask your teams to bring that business, say, if you had an idea, is there a part of you that wouldn’t want to bring that idea because you don’t want to get shut down, or how would you bring that to me? Or are there things that you think I’m involved in that you might be able to do without me or with with a bit less of me, or that you could use more of me in? And so asking those real talk questions, and again, sometimes giving that perspective, because if, if we’re meeting, if Kris is, Kris is my leader, and so we’re sitting here and we’re meeting and all this, and you don’t give me any context about why you’re asking these things, and you just come at me and say, what kind of leader you know? Do you think I am? I don’t know. I’m probably not gonna what. Again, whatever, use, whatever I need to say to keep my job and hopefully get a bonus and raise but, but giving that context can really help. You know, I was listening to this and I heard this framework, and again, I kind of love but I thought about it, and I want your honest feedback. And again, you have to really reinforce that. And also, know you can say all day long, I want your honest feedback, but your team members, it’s still gonna be hard for them to do it. So you really got to build that trust, but then also when they give that to you, being able to take that in. And so in a moment, if your team’s maybe they’ll start unloading and say, You know what, I’m so glad you asked me, and they’re telling you things, and you think, Oh, I wanted to hear this feedback until I got it. No, that’s super common, even for the most senior of leaders. Getting feedback is hard, is really hard, and it can help you to empathize with your team members when they get reviews. But in the moment, if you’re having this conversation, all sudden, they’re given this saying, sometimes it’s, you know, thank you. I appreciate you sharing that with me. I have to say, I want to, I want to think about it and come back to the conversation, because I want it to be productive. And, you know, just like if you’re getting feedback from somebody, sometimes it’s hard to hear that in the moment, I’d love to think on that and keep talking. And keep talking about it, because what I want is to support you as a leader the right way. And sometimes figuring out the right way take takes time to do but, but I want to come back to this conversation and revisit it. That’s some of what you can say in the moment. If you’re stung by what they said, or if you think, Oh, I wholly disagree, but the. Those are things that people can literally try immediately after listening to watching this,

Kris Safarova  35:06

Ashley and you also write about stopping being the situational janitor and starting to fix issues upstream. Can you talk about that?

Ashley Herd  35:15

Yes, situational janitor is a way I describe it of why I didn’t want to be a lawyer anymore and really wanted to work in HR. And part the things I was working on, a lot of them were employment law, but I was also a general counsel, so I did corporate work, IP, all of these things. And I did, I often felt like I was coming into situations and needing to clean it up. Clean it up quickly. Clean it up perfectly in the law firm environment, clean it up as cheaply as possible, but perfectly, but I was just tired of cleaning things up. And so for me, a lot of this was taking the experiences and things that I saw, sometimes frequently, but proactively helping managers know what to do and say to be able to I say, drive performance without driving your teams out the door, the things that people really care about that you may not think when you’re focused in the world of of KPIs and your board of directors meetings and all of that, but really going down to the things that matter to your teams, or the people doing the work at all levels of the organizational ladder. And so what I say, what I say to for leaders to do, is to think about, you know, what are the conversations? Maybe you have a conversation with one person, but what if you could have that with with everybody? Have a bullhorn. And so in the book, I talk about things like team meetings. You know, sometimes at the CEO level, that would be across the entire firm or company organization, or whether it’s a smaller team, but to think about how to have really productive, productive conversations. I mean, as I, as I started my business manager method, which I started before I wrote the book, it can, what I have to have done is create, like a blended learning and development program, so it has videos and resource guides. So, you know, really normally, HR learning development leaders. They can introduce that to all of their managers, their leaders. They can watch it. But also, I have all the materials for those HR, L and D teams to run live manager cohorts to really have discussions about, okay, what would you do in this situation? In them doing that? I have it so they can lead those but rather than have just someone externally do it, to really have that, that blended approach, because I know there’s a lot of people in those functions, legal, HR, others in leadership, and you, you’re like, how do I possibly support everybody? And so finding ways to help other people, not just be a situational janitor, but be more of that proactive, proactive bullhorn,

Kris Safarova  37:40

especially, and in working with so many managers, what are some of the key issues you see people are struggling with right now? The most especially given what’s happening with AI technology advancements,

Ashley Herd  37:51

one issue that I see time and again, whether, whether, you know, in the would we call it the BAI and Pa Bai, before AI era, post AI era, but performance feedback, performance management is one that pale as old as time. I mean, I found my notes when I first was sketching out ideas from my book, over a decade ago. And a lot of the things about performance management have not changed one iota, and that’s that it’s not about managers doing or saying the wrong thing as much I mean that can happen, but much more frequently, it’s not saying or doing anything, so not having the tough conversations, also not taking time to recognize your team members for the good things they’re doing. Why I see that happening is a fear of giving critical feedback. It feels mean. It feels harsh. We’re short staffed. I can’t afford to lose them. I don’t want them to cry all of those real human emotions. So I see managers really struggling with that, or not even realizing they’re struggling. They just choose not to do it because it feels a lot easier than having the conversation. And then on the flip side is managers being so busy that they’re not pausing to recognize their their teams realize, you know, when you get a report from your team member, what all of the work and care that may have gone into that and how much a thank you or specific feedback, positive feedback can really, really impact that person. So one is that’s tale as old as time is performance feedback. That’s one I talk about in the book, I talk about in my work a lot. It’s one that I’ve seen every leader at every level of the organizational ladder work could probably use some help with. The flip is of AI in what I see in AI is, is a real disconnect between what companies are saying, maybe what your you know, your PR statements, what your CEO is saying. We are we are focused on AI. Our teams are proficient in AI. That’s that is one of our core values. But then when you flip and look at the team, I think it’s just the as we recorded this The Wall Street Journal this week, and this is around Davos had research to show exactly this, the disconnect between what CEOs believe their teams are doing and being how much they’re using AI. Productivity and AI and what the team members are saying. And that’s I really do think, while there’s going to be all these advances in technology, it’s incredibly important for conversations and to really from the CEO level to every other level of organization, make sure there’s three things that are clear, what’s expected, what’s allowed and what’s possible. And I mean is, you know what is expected? The way I’ve seen some organizations to default is this is they’re going to say, Okay, it’s for spring, 2026 for this, our 2025 review cycle, we’re going to have performance we’re going to have ai ai on our performance reviews, AI proficiency. And sometimes I’ll say, even though CHROs CEO levels, okay, but if I’m an employee, what does that mean? They’ll say, Well, everyone’s manager would explain that to them. I say, Okay, well, if I’m a manager, how do I know what’s expected of my team, what they’re allowed to be doing, what good, great, poor. What they all what they all look like. And so those conversations, real talk, need to happen, and it’s an area that I think almost uniquely, so is, is for organizations that have had innovation, where they can point to someone who was relatively junior in the organization or on the org chart, maybe long tenure, but Junior, they had an idea that ended up revolutionizing the company. There’s some really cool ideas of that that’s happened before AI, but I actually do think with AI in particular, some of the people that can drive the most efficiency for your for your company, your firm, aren’t talking about it. They’re doing it. They maybe do it in silence, and they may be pumping a lot of your company’s confidential information through it and so, but they’re doing it in silence because they don’t want some they don’t want AI to take their job. They don’t want to do really well, and have their manager be jealous of their work, and so all of those human emotions. And so what I do see is leaders believing things are happening without having the conversations to do those. So one way to do that is to say, Okay, if we wanted to have a webinar company, webinar on how to actually use AI effectively. Who are doing things that? How can we find out who’s actually using AI effectively and reward them, incentivize them, and have them show other people how they can use it for their role, their roles, they’re far, far fewer companies, firms I see doing that than giving really public proclamations about how the organizations are using it.

Kris Safarova  42:22

Ashley, what would be your advice to somebody listening right now who is in a leadership position and they feel that they might be nearing burnout?

Ashley Herd  42:30

It’s tough. And I think I mean, burnout is real, and I do think it’s while it’s been challenging, especially for those in middle management, where you’re trying to balance a team, you’re trying to balance the leaders above you, and you can really feel squeezed, especially as your span of control gets gets larger, having these bigger and bigger teams and trying to figure out, how am I going to do this? I think some, I mean, some of it is really understanding how important professional help is. I mean, when you talk about things like true burnout. I mean, those can be times that there’s nothing that one book can solve, or a work from home day, or take a week’s vacation can do some of that is really thinking about professional tools, and that’s an area that I truly believe many leaders don’t do, because the more senior you get, not just imposter syndrome and feeling like everyone’s going to figure you out, but also this feeling of, you know, I have to support everybody else. I don’t have time to go meet with a therapist, I don’t have time to to do this, or I’m not going to ask for help. That’s embarrassing, and that’s, that’s language I’ve heard from very real leaders. And I say I’m glad that they say that out loud, but the flip of it, I mean, sometimes you hear people say, you know, give advice like you would to a friend. And as as corny as that can sound, it’s so real. If you think about how much we, a lot of us, try to just keep powering through. When, if we were talking to a friend and they were talking about that, we would say, you know, you gotta You can’t do this. This isn’t, this isn’t realistic. You know, what can you do at work or things? I mean, I’ve known people that in levels of increasing pressure. I mean, I’ve seen people that had to take time off. They literally got to the Born burnout point when it was it was very, very real for their personal health. But I’ve also seen organizations where they had leaders in those leaders, it was clear they were just under increased increasing amounts of stress, and organizations did things from sometimes giving them time off, sent them to, you know, a leadership development program to help. I just think a lot of that it’s really important to make sure that whatever you’re focusing on as an organization is realistic. Again, it’s not just a band aid of, okay, go, send someone here and have someone external, help with them, and then come back and have all the same expectations, I think, really taking stock, especially in senior leaders of and going back to the point I made at the beginning of everything I do in my work is, how do we drive results without driving people out the door and out the door, can sometimes mean not just someone quitting, but. Driving them to a place that they’re unrecognizable to their family and friends, that they’re sacrificing so many aspects of life, that we’d probably be horrified if we knew what they were like in the mirror, in the shower, how they thought about themselves. And so while as leaders, I think a lot of it’s about asking for help, understanding what resources you have, and being able to have conversations, productive ones, with your own boss about, okay, how can we how can we get this done? How can we prioritize things and all the language that shows you want to get work done? But it’s also got to be realistic. But also as leaders, and including as senior most in the organization, you do have such a ripple effect of sometimes driving short term Go, go, go, go, go. Can happen, but you may have very real effects on the turnover, the engagement, but also those real physical and mental effects of your team members that I think when we when we put the human side of ourselves again, going back that all the people are very real humans, no matter what your title and your academic experience and professional experiences, we are humans, and it’s really important to also think about the impact that we’re having with our expectations.

Kris Safarova  46:11

Ashley and I like to wrap up conversations when there’s time with one or two questions that I love to ask. One is, what do you feel are some of the key so to say, success habits in your life that really allowed you to be successful up to now and generally allows you to avoid burnout and have a meaningful, happy and effective and impactful life.

Ashley Herd  46:38

I love this question. I love this question Kris. I mean, one I’d say, is a real appreciation and joy for everything that I do inside and outside of work. And I say that having worked in functions like legal and HR that do not seem very joyful and are not the most beloved functions of an organization in part of it. And I’d say one of my cheat codes is when I grew up. My parents, they had my older brother and me very young. They they both graduated college when I was at the end of elementary school, and so I saw my parents really working hard. My dad worked nights, you know, sorting checks when I was a kid. He ended up getting his becoming a CFA and being a portfolio manager. And you know what people on LinkedIn would say, is successful, but he worked really hard to get there. My mom had gone through a pretty aggressive cancer battle. She ended up going to law school, graduating in her 50s, started as an intern, became general counsel. And so I’ve had real experiences again, working Kmart and subway, not super glamorous, but I loved those jobs and the people that I worked with. And so I do think having this experience of what I appreciate and not having as much growing up impacted that as I’ve had, not just things, but experiences, opportunities, you know, I learned at Subway, you know, we would like, you know, whether it was cleaning things, making cookies, making sandwiches, having fun while we did the work really mattered. And I’ve taken that, even when I’ve when I’ve been a lawyer, and done these functions that sometimes aren’t as fun. And so that, to me, has been helpful. I mean, as I work with organizations, often now I’ll talk with heads of HR, I know the pressures they’re under, and I tell that my whole job is to listen to what you need, provide you the scalable thing sent save you time. You can, you can roll this out, and we’ll have fun, fun doing it. And so that has helped me to really keep going, you know, build my business, but, but also have fun in the midst of all of it. What about you, Kris, I’d love to, I’d love your, I’d love your answer to that, because I love that. I love that question. And you’re I mean, obviously people would look and say, You’re incredibly successful in what you do, but what do you think are your other attributes or things that really help you to have joy and have been helpful for you?

Kris Safarova  48:53

I prioritize key things for your health, so diet, exercise, meditation for me, also even spiritual practices. I do a lot of learning every day. I learn a lot, so I’m constantly developing expertise in new fields, and then connect it all and find new ways to think about things. I think that is very important part to make sure that I have a sense of well being, but also my ability to contribute, I think, generally protecting your health, because if you have your health, you can fix other things, but it’s very hard to fix anything if you don’t have your health. And I’m also coming from the background of working crazy hours and for a very, very long time as well. So I appreciate how important is to protect your health, because I know what happens when you don’t. So those are just some of the things I do.

Ashley Herd  49:48

I love that. Thank you. Thank you for letting me flip, flip the script, of course.

Kris Safarova  49:52

And the last thing I wanted to ask you is, over the last, let’s say, over your entire lifetime so far, what were two? Three? Aha moments, realizations that really changed the way you look at life, or the way you look at business. Maybe something that we haven’t discussed today,

Ashley Herd  50:09

I’d say, very good question. So one is I mentioned my first job out of college. I was worked for a company that Gartner eventually acquired, called Corporate Executive Board, and my role in my team’s role, or each team for my function was, was cold calling and cold calling fortune, 1000 executives. I had the pleasure, quote, unquote, of cold calling fortune. 1000 CFOs, chief financial officers. I had a liberal arts degree, so I didn’t know what I was doing. So I got a subscription to Fortune magazine. I learned the lingo. I learned to say, this was early, 2000s so I learned to say Sarbanes Oxley, and that at least helped me not get hung up on three seconds into the call, maybe seven seconds. But one thing we did, so we were, we were in sales, so we were learning, you know, getting to the prospect, so you want to talk to the CFO all these things, and there were members of my team that would sometimes be really, really aggressive, aggressive at some of this. And I know I saw all sorts of techniques, and for me, you know, I wanted to be successful, but I still felt so anxious every time I picked up the phone. But we had a session with, actually, the CFO of our company. So something, someone finally had the very smart idea that, you know, the team cold calling CFOs should probably talk to an actual CFO about their thoughts. And someone on the team started talking. They’re like, Yeah, well, like every time I get the assistant, I just hang up, hang up, hang up, hang up, until I get that the CFO, and our CFO of our company, I mean, he was so wide eyed, and I think for him, learning about the practices that actually led to, you know, pretty successful company, but like, this kind of unhinged group of 22 year olds all trying to learn tactics. We were not thinking about the same things. And he said, very patiently, but he said, I will tell you this. If my assistant told me somebody was calling and hanging up on them, and we figured out who that is, I would never speak with you. I would never do business with your company, there’s such a massive difference between between, you know, wanting to get in contact with someone and being respectful. And that is utter disrespect. That is a person that’s trying to do their job, and you’re sending a message when you’re shutting the phone down to them that you don’t want to get through them. And he’s like, I understand people say gatekeeper all the things, but, but absolutely not. And I remember thinking to myself, boy, I’d never, I’d really never thought about it. I mean, I thought it was uncomfortable, but I certainly wasn’t thinking about the level of disrespect of, you know, of someone. And so it really humanized that whole function of even commercial relationships in in so for me, I just remember that Aha. And I really took that and I kept that as I, you know, work with, with, with people. And I’ve made the points that in the most senior most executives, they’re real people. In their their assistants are very real people. And I have learned that often executive assistants have more knowledge than 99 to 100% of people in the organization, sometimes. And so for me, that was a really, really, really big. One of them, the other, which is a unusual, is a few years ago, I did a stand up comedy class, and it was an all, all women’s classes led by lace Larabee, who’s now been on since America’s Got Talent. And we did this show, and it was like eight weeks of classes, and then we did a show with 200 people in this comedy club, and I loved it, because I met all these people, and it really is a terrifying thing to get up and write your own set. I I just had always had the idea to do it, and it was a really incredible and safe way to do it. But I learned so many lessons in that that helped me now that I do, whether I do speaking or I make videos on tick tock of role plays with a fictional CEO. All the things about comedy and timing, you realize how much that can actually impact your business and your overall communications. So I still can’t believe that I actually, you know, clicked to do that class and showed up for them. But it was, it was really wonderful. And so I do recommend, if there’s something stand up comedy, I’ve now stuck to a few people that have also done that class. I mean, that’s one that to the extent you’re comfortable, or all sorts of things, if you’re listening and thinking, I would never do that, but, but I do think kind of pursuing your some of your hobbies or your passions and doing it in a really kind of intentional way can can actually help you in a lot of other aspects of your life.

Kris Safarova  54:23

100% agree with you. I think also, it’s a creative outlet. You need something like that in your life. You know that. So I’m so glad that you’ve done it, and thank you for mentioning it. Where can our listeners learn more about you by your book? Anything you want to share?

Ashley Herd  54:38

Oh, thank you. Kris, you can go to manager method.com and pretty much find anything there you can you can get the book. If you go to manager method.com/book you can pre order the book, get discounts for two or more. But also, I have all sorts of resources, whether you’re reading it alone or as part of a leadership team. I have a free book club guide as well, so to help to really, really bring it to life and. You can find me on most social media at manager method, so

Kris Safarova  55:03

thank you. Thank you, Ashley. So great to have you with us. Thank you, Kris.

Ashley Herd  55:07

I appreciate it, and thanks so much for having me. Our guest

Kris Safarova  55:10

today was Ashley. Heard former head of HR North America, McKinsey, national keynote speaker, top 10 business podcast host LinkedIn, top voice who has trained over 250,000 managers and our sponsor today. Podcast sponsor is strategy training.com you can get some gifts from us. You can get five reasons why people ignore someone in a meeting at firms, consulting.com. Forward slash, on the room. You can also access episode one of how to build a consulting practice at firms, consulting.com, forward slash build you can get the overall approach used in well managed strategy studies at terms consulting.com forward slash overall approach, and McKinsey and BCG winning resume example, which is the actual resume that led the offers from both of those firms. And you can get it at terms consulting.com forward slash resume. Video. Thank you so much for tuning in, and I’m looking forward to connect with you all next day.