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In this podcast interview with my friend and colleague Enrique Rubio, founder of Hacking HR, we speak about the renaissance and rebirth of HR. I am renaming the time we are in as the Human Renaissance. In this interview we speak about how to build a people first culture where people and business are intertwined and how to optimize for both by investing in self care and well being. We talk about the important role of conscious leadership skills and which ones are needed to build the foundation of the awakened company and world. Lastly, we speak to the role of HR in addressing burnout and some possible solutions to implement for a thriving organizational culture.
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Shine Podcast Interview– “What are the most needed leadership skills to create a healthy organizational culture in 2024?”
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IMPERFECT SHOW NOTES
Carley Hauck 0:10
Hi, my name is Carley Hauck and I am host of the shine podcast. This podcast has been flickering strong since May 2019. I began the podcast due to all the research I was conducting. In interviews with organizational leaders, lead scientists, academic researchers and spiritual teachers for my new book shine, ignite your inner game to lead consciously at work in the world. I wrote my book to inspire a new paradigm of conscious leadership and business that was in service of a higher purpose to help humans flourish, and regenerate our planet. The podcast focuses on the science and application of conscious inclusive leadership, the recipe for high performing teams and awareness practices that you can cultivate to be the kind of leader our world needs now. I will be facilitating two to three episodes a month. And before I tell you about the theme of our season, please go over to Apple podcasts, hit the subscribe button on shine or go to your favorite podcast platform carrier. That way you don’t miss one episode. Thank you. This season is going to be focused on what leadership skills are most needed to create a healthy organizational culture. Leadership and manager effectiveness has been deemed the number one priority for HR and 23. And every person listening whether you have a formal leadership title or not, you are a leader. We all have the responsibility to lead around something that we care about whether it’s at home with our family, and our communities, and or in the workplace. I believe in you. And I am so delighted to share with you such an incredible group of people and interviews that I have gathered for this season. I handpick every single guest based on their embodiment of conscious, inclusive leadership and the positive impact they’re making. I am delighted you’re here. And onto the podcast. Hello, Shine listeners. I am so excited to introduce the first interview of season six. And are you gay Rubio? Enrique, thank you so much for being here.
Enrique Rubio 2:57
Carley, thank you so much for inviting me and being your first guest on your new system. I am super excited about the conversation we are about to have
Carley Hauck 3:09
need here. And I’m gonna give a little light to our friend Sue Olson, who likely will listen to this Sue, thank you so much for encouraging this connection. It has already been meaningful and fruitful. And I’m sure it will continue to bear gifts.
Unknown Speaker 3:28
I agree with you. Hello, so.
Carley Hauck 3:33
So Enrique, please tell me and our listeners, why you love HR. What is it about HR? And for folks that may not know what HR stands for? It means human resources, which is like, why did we give it that name? Humans are not resources? No, I’ll let you go forward with that.
Enrique Rubio 3:56
Yeah, well, it’s a story of to me of believing that as a function as a business function. We have impact both on business people and society in general. And this is the way I think about it. Right. And I thought about this question when you sent it to me before in preparation for the conversation today. And think about it in these terms. For most organizations, for every HR person there is there are about 250 to maybe 500 or six 600 employees. So that means that if the relation was direct, every person who works in HR is impacting the lives of anywhere between 250 and 600. People imagine the kind of power that you hold to both either or to either positively or negatively impact the lives of these folks, right. So if you do great work in HR, and I am hoping that you do it will be the right conditions for people to feel that they can find an outlet for their talents, their creativity, their passion, their voice, their purpose at work, where they find joy and happiness, where they come to work excited about the change they are making in the world and not just making some stakeholders or shareholders richer than they were before. But if you are building that kind of organization, as an HR person, then you are making anywhere between 250 and 600 people happier than they would be otherwise. So the reason why I love HR is sort of twofold, right? One one current state and one future state current status. I think we care a lot about the work that we do. We care a lot about the people that we’re working with our organizations, our leaders, and we’re not perfect. So there may be listeners saying yes, but my experience with HR was not positive. And that’s true. And that may be true. My experience with some salespeople wasn’t positive, my experience with some customer, people were mostly positive, my experience with some, I don’t know, residential management people wasn’t positive, right. But that doesn’t mean that the function as a whole and that everybody in that function, wouldn’t want to create a positive kind of environment for you. So reason number one is that we do care. And we have such a powerful opportunity to create good impact and change the world from HR today. And the second reason is more aspirational, right? We are the only function that sits at the intersection of People Operations and Business Operations. When you look at all the other functions, most of them are purely business, even when they work it out from like marketing or sales or it or legal, whatever it is. They are mostly business operations, we are at the intersection of business and people operations. And I fully believe that the magic of building great workplaces making people’s lives better of creating better societies, and a better world accordingly, as happens at that intersection. That’s what that magic happens. And we are the only ones from a from a business standpoint, sitting in that intersection of business and people. So aspirationally I love HR, because we can make such a such an incredible impact and leave such an incredible legacy by working it out very well, while we sort of deliver what we need to deliver at this intersection of people and business operations. So I love HR because we we care for all people and organizations and business matter, and aspirationally because we can truly make an impact and change the world from our small area of influence and impact in the organizations where we work. So that’s that’s the way I see it.
Carley Hauck 7:44
I love that. Thank you so much for your passion. Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree, the microcosm of work is where you have such an interesting mix of people that come together, work together, collaborate, that might never ever meet otherwise, from all over the world, especially in this remote, cross functional, hybrid kind of way that we’re working and sometimes completely remote. And I believe that if we can use business as the lever to create healing, and this is the microcosm, we get to kind of really create, you know, different conditions that can translate to the greater world. And so you you said impact, but what you need is a positive impact, how can business really be best for the world, that’s what I heard in your tone and in your voice. And I think it is the responsibility and the opportunity of business. And you’re right, HR is kind of the belly, the heart that allows business to move in that direction. So we spent,
Enrique Rubio 8:52
we spent we spend anywhere between a third and 40% of our lifetimes at work doing something that has to do with work, whether it is for ourselves or in a company with other people or alone, that’s a significant amount of time considering that probably the one of the other thirds is sleeping, right. So so when you think about spending a third of your life at work, the impact that whatever happens at work has on you is extraordinary, is exceptional. So when you know you can you can go into directions, work can break you, or what work can lift you up, but we should understand that that 30% of our lifetimes is spent at work will definitely and does make a difference on people whether whether on the positive or on the negative side. So we have to choose from not only from an HR standpoint, but as a US business. We have to choose to one these folks that we are employing right now to have a better life not just with what we’re paying them, but in general beyond just the financial transaction of us. paying them for the work that they’re given give back,
Carley Hauck 10:02
because it impacts how they’re showing up at home is what you’re saying society and society for sure. And, you know, I know you’re familiar with this research, but the two people that have the biggest influence on your mental and emotional well being is your boss at work, and your partner at home. Yeah, those are the two that you have the most interaction with throughout the day. And so I know that we’re gonna get into leadership and manager effectiveness, because it is the number one priority for HR and 23. But I see it being the number one priority for many years to come, because we haven’t cracked that code. But before we go into that, tell me about hacking HR, this incredible community that you have developed. Tell me how that got started? And what’s the current phase of it? And where do you Where are you holding the vision for it?
Enrique Rubio 11:00
Yeah, well, thank you for that question. And yes, I am the founder of a global learning community for HR people called Hacking HR. And what we do is we bring together 1000s of people around the world to be part of our learning programs to build community to connect with each other. And we do it the two pillars, the two foundations of what we do, our number one community, bringing people together and helping them make connections with each other, building meaningful relationships. And you can tell, you know, the person who connected us is somebody that he connected with from somebody else. So now we are for, you know, in this, in this world connected and enjoying are enjoying each other. And this wouldn’t have been possible without hacking autonomy, maybe it could have been possible, but maybe it would have been more difficult. So it’s community and it’s learning and the learning, the way we do learning is by bringing practitioners of the business and the people of space to come together and share their insights, their ideas, their experiences, their whatever their stories, with all of us in the community, we are, we’re very heavy on bringing practitioners to the to our learning events or learning experiences. Because well, you know, there’s a lot of writing material about everything. But then you go on write and read something. And you always are left with a question. Yes, but how? Right? Well, you know, how do I do this, and we bring practitioners to share more of the how maybe their own how, but a how that can resonate with an extended community. So we’ve done hundreds of events for 1000s of people on LinkedIn, which is our main, sort of like social media outlet, we are one of the largest HR communities in the world. And the number one in engagement rates, that of all the HR communities that exist, we are the number one engagement rates, not by good luck, because we’ve been so for the past couple of years. So I think we’re doing something right. And that is the way to listen, thank you, we share good content. And also, we have we have our voice, you know, we, you know, we’re very respectful, and we’re very kind, but we have our voice. You know, we you know, one example of this, right? I mean, I am I am I an absolute advocate of autonomy and flexibility at work, that doesn’t mean that I believe that everybody should be working from home or everybody should be working from an office, I do believe that if we, if you are employing adults, we’ll treat them like adults. And we share this voice unapologetically. Meaning, you know, some people don’t like that we are promoting this idea of a, you know, I mean, if you don’t like it, there are other communities that will probably say what you want to hear. We are more on the side of like, you know, let’s expand possibilities. You know, let’s think outside of the box, right, let’s, let’s think beyond evidence right in front of us. So that’s what we’re doing. Yeah,
Carley Hauck 13:54
I was also gonna say it’s also a very diverse community. I mean, I heard you say, there are people all over the world, but even just the panels that you have, I know you have an upcoming summit in October that we’re going to talk about. The panels are very diverse, the people that are showing up and I also really love that part about the community too.
Enrique Rubio 14:14
Yeah. Well, thank you. Yeah, we I have made a point of honor of our work to make sure that we’re building that we’re bringing diverse voices to to our conversations. And diversity looks in many different ways. By the way, not only it’s not only gender sexual identity is not only skin color, your credo if you believe in anything is your nationality is your background is I mean, there are people who have participated in our events, that they have a very controversial point of view about say, you know, remote work, for example, they’re like, No, I think everybody has to come to the office, and they express with respect and everybody else respects them. They spread as expressed their their points of view, and we all end up either agreeing or disagreeing. In by understanding something that we may not have known be known before. So the diversity, the way we embrace inclusivity and diversity as, let’s make sure that we bring as many diverse voices to the table that they are heard with respect and kindness. And that simultaneously, they hear us and see and respect other voices as well. And I care less about us agreeing on what we’re talking about, than about respect, and kindness and compassion toward each other. Unfortunately, there has never been an instance in our community, Never, not even once, in the six years that I’ve been doing this, that anybody has said, um, you know, jumping out of this, you know, some whatever, because I don’t feel respected. You know, it’d be more along the lines of like, a, you know, I don’t agree with you for this. And, and I promote that, you know, I promote that safe space for people to say, I don’t agree with that, for this, and this and that, and that’s totally fine. So yeah, we have
Carley Hauck 15:59
to disagree, right, you need to be respecting
Enrique Rubio 16:01
each other unkind. I mean, talk about the state of our world. I mean, it’s so messed up. I mean, it’s so messed up. Because weak is like, we can hear any, anything that we’re saying, if we, the moment you say something that I don’t agree with, immediately, I am blocked, I am there with you, I’m looking at you, you’re saying I see your mouth moving, but I am not listening anymore. Because you said something that I disagree with. And I wonder why, you know, I mean, we’re never going to solve problems that way, let alone get together to, you know, have a positive impact on each other. So anyway, diversity for all as, you know, in every sense of the word beyond, you know, what can be considered traditionally, diversity, like, you know, the, the color of your skin, where you come from, and, you know, your gender and whatnot, it is also, you know, the kinds of things that you are sharing with us in the community.
Carley Hauck 16:52
So I’m, I mean, I know, we have a bunch of questions, and I’m gonna keep us on time. But I have to pivot here, because I feel I feel really intrigued about how you’ve created this. So psychological safety is something that I’ve been studying and I is one of the very first things that I do when I am assessing a team or a company. And I believe that it is the foundation that really needs to be prioritized first, but it’s not easy to do. So I feel curious, how have you been able to cultivate this and have six years of this safe space? Because that’s, that’s pretty magical. We can say that that’s happening on Twitter or Facebook. So yeah, tell me more.
Enrique Rubio 17:40
I think it was like about three years ago, we set something on LinkedIn. And some people said, This is no right for you to say, and I can remember what it was. I don’t even think it was something that we said, I think we shared something by a person that we didn’t know that well, as somebody was like that person. You know, it’s not talking, you know, really well about women in the workplace, you know, sounds a little bit misogynistic. And this is what I did, I left the thing posted. And I said, we disagree with this. And I’m gonna leave it posted, because I want everybody to get their own impression, but I don’t agree with this. And I apologize, because we made a mistake, by giving this person a voice. I’m not going to take it down right now. Because there’s already a conversation going on about this, which is, which is that healthy conversation to have, by the way, when you when you miss, will you mess up? But to me, the point is that it’s happened to us in six years, it’s only happened to us maybe like two or three times that I’ve made a mistake like that. And what I do say on it, you know, I just say I’m sorry, you know, I messed up. And, and I am sorry, I’m learning. You know, there was something like like, let me give you another example, right? You talked about diversity in our panels. It was it was not always that way, about four years ago, the only kind of diversity that I was very cared about. And it’s not that I just care about that. But the only the only kind of diversity that I care about when it came to the panels that I was putting together was gender diversity. So I always wanted to make sure that there were at least an equal number of female speakers than male speakers. But then everything looked white, everything looked the same. And people were like, there’s nobody, you know, with a different skin color in there. And Rick, you are a Latino man. And there are no Latino, Latin X people in those panels that are no women of color. There are no people with at least a disability that they can publicly say that they have the disability. And I will say dang it. I never thought about that. And you what he said was, you are totally right about this. I thought I was doing the right thing. But obviously I’m falling short of the very things that I’m talking about. I am sorry, I messed up once again, let’s move on and this will learn and now we’re moving on. So I’m gonna you know is this happened like two or three times in our in our
Carley Hauck 19:58
terminal past Just for a moment, because I just want to acknowledge your humility. And we’re going to organize, you know, go into the recipe for what a conscious inclusive leader looks like. But one of the things that, you know, conscious leaders do is is they, they have the awareness to take responsibility for what’s mine, for where I made a mistake, apologizing is fabulous. And then of course, correcting learning and growing. So bravo and reggae. Well,
Enrique Rubio 20:28
you know, one thing that I gotta say, is this, right? being self aware, which is a couple of things, it is recognizing, when you’ve fallen short of your own promises, and the premises that you believe in, when you blatantly, you know, unintentionally make a mistake, or inadvertently make a mistake that hurts people, and then apologizing for that, that, to me is all part of this concept of self awareness. That doesn’t mean that inside you, you have a little bit of pride, saying, I still have, you know, like, I still think that this was the right thing to do. But okay, I get it, right. And the way I have tried to operate in this community is just by acknowledging when I make a mistake, when we do something wrong, acknowledge that acknowledge that I may have caused pain in somebody for doing something in the wrong way. And moving on by having learned, you know, not to do the same thing again, but do it better. But, you know, I have to also acknowledge my own my own inner self, right, that that I sometimes I want to be right. And, and I recognize that I am wrong, but I still want to be right. So it’s walls that you have inside yourself, right? It’s, you know, which one are you feeding, but the reality is that even if you’re feeding this kind war, that is that is the wolf that is telling you, you made a mistake, just apologize and move on. crumbles are falling out to the other wall saying, Yeah, but I still want to be right about this, even if I am not. So this, this matters, because sometimes we try so many leaders, and we’re gonna talk about conscious leadership, right? But so many leaders try to project an image of something they are not, they try to sweep their mistakes under the short comments under the rug, instead of just saying, I messed up, I am sorry, you know, I made I made a mistake, I did something wrong, I hurt people. And this is how I am planning to move on to never let this thing happen again, and to make sure that we course correct in a different direction. But nothing, we nothing that we do. Nothing ever will take us back to the way things were before. I cannot you know, I’m not like Superman flying in the opposite direction of the rotation of the Earth, trying to, you know, go back in time, right. And I’m saying this because they watched I rewatched the movie recently. You know, like, superhero, Superman, number one, you know, with Christopher Reeve, you know, I love I love him back. But yeah, you can go back in time, all you got to do is be Yeah, show up. Yeah, recognize and own your stuff on your mistakes, say, apologize and say how you’re going to be moving on from that. I love that. That’s part of how we build safety in hacking HR.
Carley Hauck 23:12
I was going to come back to that, but you just summarized it. Yes, that’s how you created safety is that you have strong leadership, that is modeling what you want the rest of the community to showcase. And I some other piece that I wanted to bring up. And then I’d love to move into conscious leadership a little more deeply. But I know you and I are going to be speaking to the idea of this collective intelligence, and how leaders are really about leading together, you know, you’re a founder, I’m a founder. But ultimately, that’s a lot of responsibility. Right? And you couldn’t have this community without other leaders without other people, you know, showing up in supporting you to maybe see your blind spots to help make decisions. And I really think it’s again, about acknowledging I don’t have all the answers. Here I am, I am human, which means I’m messy, and I’m gonna make mistakes. And I need support, you know, otherwise, I will burn out because even though you’re part Superman, with all your ultra marathon running, you’re not fully Superman, and I’m not Superwoman. So on that, on that thread, I open it up to any reactions, but then I’d love to move us into some conscious leadership.
Enrique Rubio 24:33
Yeah, well, you know, actually, my only reaction is this. If you if you or any of your listeners go now to any of the things that we’re doing hacking HR, if you didn’t know that I was the founder. You wouldn’t know that I was involved in this thing at all, because what I built was a platform to give other people a voice in front of our community. Yes, I put I’ve put a lot of energy time, effort money into building this, but we’re rarely do you see me speaking in any of our own events moderating any of our events? Rarely do you see my name in anything that we do? It is it is the community, you know, even when I post something that I create myself, and and I post it on on our LinkedIn channel, I use, you know, how can HR because I want to make sure that is the brand, that is the community that is engaging in these kinds of conversations and interactions are not necessarily with me. And I love that, you know, because I think I build something that gives people the opportunity to connect with each other and expand and share and amplify their voice. And to me, that’s, that’s, that’s, you know, ultimately, you know, part of what, what I what I wanted to do by design, you know, give other people the voice because I don’t have not only do I, I don’t have all the answers, I have more questions than I have answers about anything. So, so yeah, you know, that I just wanted to say that because, you know, it, I see other groups, especially in the space of HR, where it’s, it feels like a cold, you know, to personality, you know, like a goal to their founder or their leader. And they gotta, you know, like, no, that’s not what I want to do, you know, I mean, a different game, you know, here, I mean, a different kind of thing here.
Carley Hauck 26:16
Well, then that gives it more life, because then you don’t have to hold it. All right, yeah, you can, it can continue to create this, you know, this life of its own. So lovely. Well, I’d love to talk a little bit about leadership and conscious leadership, because that’s what I have studied a lot in the last 10 years. It’s what I wrote my book on. And I wanted to bring into this this framework that I have studied and validated. Because this framework is something that you write a lot about, ironically, before we met, I was reading, you know, hacking, HR, and just so many of the things that you speak about compassion and self awareness, and resilience and well being, I thought, I think Enrique is my brother from another mother hair. So let’s, let’s talk about that a little more openly. So I’ve distilled nine different leadership traits, that when people are cultivating these on a continuum, it actually showcases in how will they show up as a leader, how they are able to lead the business lead teams, and it actually creates more psychological safety, more trust, more empathy, more teamwork. I’ve, you know, really dialed in these assessments. So I know that this framework works, but I’ll just read through them briefly. And then I’d love to hear which one or two do you feel like you’ve really honed and which ones are areas for growth for you right now. And, you know, I imagine it’s, it’s kind of had ranges, and you might be stronger in these right now. But maybe we’re stronger in them for today, for example. So self awareness, self management, empathy, resilience, humility, we already know you’ve got a lot of humility, self belonging, which is including the dimensions of self love, self compassion, self forgiveness, self acceptance, physical well being and psychological well being, I really see them as being distinct, but they’re interconnected. What do you think, Enrique, where are you strongest? And where do you have places for growth? And those nine,
Enrique Rubio 28:40
I think, my, I think I am, you know, in a very good place, when it comes to physical Well, being a psychological well being, I think I take very good care of my body, I am a, I am a competitive runner. And I do invest a lot in in the steam feed, and I’m strong and healthy. So I try to make sure that my mind is fed with good stuff, you know, and, yeah, you know, I read the news, and I, you know, I get upset and take attendance. And I, you know, I get upset on my partner and, you know, we fight and you know, we do and my cats and we get upset at each other, but I try to, you know, make sure that I keep, you know, a good level of, of psychological well being and physical well being of course, so that’s one. Resilience, I think would be probably the other one.
Carley Hauck 29:39
Can I go into that a little deeper because I love to infuse this podcast with tips. We all learn from one another. So I hear you’re a competitive runner. So that’s one way you’re really nourishing your physical body and you run in the hills in Flagstaff, which is where I went to grad school. So I think we would have met At some point, because I would have gone back there. But how else are you taking care of this of this temple? And then I’d love to hear more about how you’re nurturing the mind. You’re I hear you’re feeding the Good Wolf. Not the bad wolf. But But how else?
Enrique Rubio 30:18
Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, on the physical side is both nutrition and fitness. So I am actually a vegan. So I’m a plant based. Oh, nice. Yeah, well, I’ve been I’ve been a vegan for 15 years. And, you know, I respect what people end up eating and what they do. But I think that we need to take a very hard look at what we are putting into our bodies, right? I mean, you will not if you need an oil change for your car, you are not going to donate, you know, crap, right, you want to make sure there is good oil that gets your car, going for the long run. And we’re putting crap in our bodies. So you know, sugar, alcohol, smoke, tobacco, you know, things of the kind that we know, destroy our temple, like you said before, so it is, to me it is fitness and nutrition, for the physical side of things and psychological well being, you know, it’s just being aware, you know, I’m being being aware of, of the kind of things that I’m thinking about. I do have negative thoughts, I think like everybody else, and I try to remove them as soon as possible from my mind, so that they don’t, you know, either way, you know, the good stuff that I think I, I have to give. So that’s, that’s, that’s one that and I think it’s more, you know, it’s for people, it’s an exercise of looking inward and saying, you know, am I, you know, how am I taking care of my body and my mind, right, it’s this, this ultimately, the question you should be asking yourself. And then the second, the second, sort of, kind of, like quality, that I think I have, you know, perhaps hone down as best as I can is resilience, you know, it is being a founder, like you said before, and, you know, being in this work, you know, it doesn’t come it’s not easy, you know, and I chose a space, by the way that is very hard, you know, as HR is not easy. HR is, is tough, because we’ve done things in the same way for a very long time. People don’t believe in HR. And, you know, there’s a lot of work to do. And sometimes, you know, even though I’ve been doing hacking HR for six years, it’s not that every that all the time I’m, I’m on a, you know, like, like an all time high inspiration, energy level, right? Sometimes I’m like, to hell with this man. I’m just, I’m just quitting this and then doing something else. And then the next day is like, calm down. Yeah, you know, yesterday wasn’t a good day. But today, it’s gonna be a good day, you know, I’m always, you know, like, something happens that I’m like, alright, you know, I mean, this, this came up out of the blue, and it made my day, right, like, you know, sometimes I’m upset about something. And I don’t know why the universe, you know, has a person sending me an email saying, like, and Rica, thank you so much, because this event was the best event that I’ve ever done in my life, but whatever. And I’m like, alright, well, maybe I’m upset about yesterday, whatever it was, but this person made up made my day today with this one common, right. And I think that’s how I’ve built resilience, right? It’s knowing that not every day will look the same, some days will be great, some other days will be really bad. And for the most part, you’re going to be moving up and down. And as long as you believe in your long term vision about in my case, building up large community and bringing people together, as long as you believe in that, you know, that the doubt of today, you know, will turn into an app tomorrow. And that’s the way it’s gonna go.
Carley Hauck 33:48
Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing that. So physical Well, being psychological well, being, resilience, having that growth mindset, and one of the questions that I like to ask for myself when things you know, don’t go in the way that I would like, I always say, Well, how is this for me? How is this for me right now? Which in another way is how do I learn from this? Yeah, I see this expression on your face. What does that mean?
Enrique Rubio 34:18
You know, I think all of us, you know, have gone through through some stuff in life. And, you know, let me give you one example of this. Right. I, in one of my last corporate jobs, I had a boss who was you know, there are bosses that are bad, but they are not evil. They are just bad bosses. Right? I mean, they are they don’t know,
Carley Hauck 34:40
they’re messy people leading this horrible leading from their own hurt. Yeah, but
Enrique Rubio 34:45
but there are there are people that truly go out of their way to harm all their evil, and we can deny that there are evil people in the world, even when you see things, you know, with a more kind of like positive, you know, standpoint. plans and I had a Yeah. And I had a boss that was evil, you know, he, you know, he would go out of his way to harm people around him. And when he quit that job, took me some time to detox from from that environment, because it was a very toxic environment, but it took me some time. But then he left. And I am left with this right now, I know that I know some of the qualities that I would love to see in great leaders. And it’s like, it’s like, you know, it’s like a blank canvas that you’re painting. And for now, all I have painted is like, maybe one tree over here, the sun over there, you know, maybe a couple of people over here. So it’s, there’s a lot of things that have to paint on the what great leadership looks like, right, I have, I still have to add a lot of touches to it. But I already completed the paint of what I think of leadership looks like. And I completed the paint, because I went through that. And whenever I think of him, I think of that very dark Canvas, you know, with with a lot of, you know, negativity going in there. And what I tell people is like, you can have all these qualities to be a great leader. But these are the ones that I know for sure would make you a crappy leader. And that’s what he learned from that experience. So the way you know, I just tried as much as they can to make sure that every experience for me turns even even if not at the moment, whenever it happens, that it turns into something where that that can help me grow, you know, that can, even if it doesn’t help me grow, that becomes a story. You know, that becomes an experience that I can share with others going forward. So no, this is not always possible. And especially it’s almost impossible in the moment in the heat of the moment. But you get there talking about my cats, by the way that I talked about before. You don’t know about this, but I rest I think I mentioned to you in our preparation call, I rescued four kittens that were left behind my house by their mom, I don’t know what happened. I’ve never been a pet person. I’ve never been a cat person. And these four kittens stole my heart. I don’t know how I’m gonna do when they grow. But I’m not here. For anybody listening. I’m just showing two Akerley, one of them on the screen. One is Laurie. And they are about six weeks old and they are the most loving beings ever. So I just showed him on the screen because all of them can now climb up on my chair when I’m working and they just lay down on my lap. So anyway, just wanted to show Laurie Do you share Laurie Look at her. She’s incredibly beautiful. She looks like like a tiger with blue eyes. So stop. What are you sure on the on the promo for this podcast?
Carley Hauck 37:44
Have a picture of Enrique and Lori. Did I say her name? Right.
Enrique Rubio 37:48
Laurie? Yeah. Laurie as my girlfriend’s name. Yeah. So okay, I named her after Laurie.
Carley Hauck 37:54
Cute, cute. Well, thank you, I can completely relate to your story around, you know, having this I like to call them unconscious, right, because we have parts of ourselves that are conscious in their unconscious. But if we’re leading from the unconscious parts that are hurting, and it sounds like in this particular case, this person was probably conscious of some of the ways that they were going out of their way to hurt. But there’s always ways that were being interpreted, that we don’t realize and I studied a lot of unconscious leaders to be able to distill what is a conscious leader personally and professionally. And that could be a whole, a whole other conversation. But I really appreciated what you were sharing and just to kind of jump in with you. I also really focus on my psychological and physical well being and without it. I just see well being as the foundation I’m also a vegan. I’ve not been a vegan as long as you have but in my book, because I’m so passionate about this being something that we all need to be really practicing eating less meat or being completely vegan. I amplify three different leaders and companies that are vegan based companies. Just ag Josh Tetrick is is one of the leaders I highlight in my book shine and then rebel. When Cheryl Laughlin was the CEO and rebel is a complete pally plant based superfood. I think they’re using almost all recyclable plastic bottles now as well. They were definitely on that on that pivot when I interviewed her like five years ago for the book. And then the other one is, is David Young, who has Omni foods, which is actually based out of Hong Kong. So wanted to get a diverse landscape but all of those companies have gone like rocket, the style, startup pace and it’s just really incredible to see The impact that they’re making in the world because they were they were very small when I chose them to be leaders in the book. And also, just to give a little sneak peek, Dan Buettner, who was a friend and colleague who came out recently with a Netflix series on Blu. So he’s actually going to be on the podcast, and he’s fantastic. So Dan, Dan is going to be sharing more about the research and I love this research. And it’s just, I hope it really ignites and amplifies people to, to take care of their health, because if we’re eating more in attunement with nature, and what’s gonna support all beings to thrive, then the planet’s gonna get healthier. And for that we get to steward her better.
Enrique Rubio 40:49
Yeah, it’s interesting that we’re going back to the basics in so many different ways. Right, the, you know, the basics of leadership, the basics of being a good human being the basics of, you know, how we eat, and our relationship to the, to the planet is, which is funny, because sometimes are not enough for me actually, it’s ironic, that sometimes I see some people coming up with like, you know, we got to do things in this way. And I’m like, Yeah, you know, like Native Americans, for example, have known that for 10,000 years, you know, ancient civilizations of, you know, the, you know, this Saharan, northern part, or the, or the Asian continent have known this for 1000s of years, right. So we’re not, we’re just like rebranding things that we’ve known for a long time. And, you know, I mean, hopefully, that works. But we just have to acknowledge that some of these ideas of reconnecting to nature to food, even the blue zones that Dan talks about, you know, this is ancient knowledge, you know, I mean, it’s been live for so long, not because they read, you know, you know, health magazine, you know, printed in New York, is because they’ve done this for a long time, and they know how it works.
Carley Hauck 42:04
It’s like we fell asleep, right? We were we were feeding the bad wolf. We were well, we weren’t listening to our wisdom we were, we were getting focused on all the marketing, all the advertising that’s telling us to go outside of ourselves to find happiness by buying this by buying that, which is, which is not true. So, gosh, we could we could talk about lots of things. But let me let me move us back to I would really love to talk more about the expectations for leadership. Because as we’re hacking HR, and as we as a function, human resources, how do we change that word, but we’ll get into that later. Human Renaissance? Let’s do that. So when we think about are we setting leaders up? I think about this a lot, because I really want to solve for the leadership gap. And are we actually setting leaders up to succeed? Are expectations too high of them? And do they actually have the skill sets to be conscious? Because, you know, if, if we’re stressed, we all are stressed? We all sometimes feel overextended, overwhelmed, it’s really hard to lead from that wise place, conscious place. If we don’t actually have time to rest and recover if if we don’t have these compassionate, safe spaces, to be vulnerable to say, oops, made a mistake here. What do you think about that?
Enrique Rubio 43:45
We have built a self reinforcing cycle of bullshit. And I’m sorry for using that word.
Carley Hauck 43:54
By the way, tend to post you can even use the F word here. It’s all good.
Enrique Rubio 43:58
Really. All right. Well, thank you. Because I use a lot of words like that. I like it. You know, I don’t know why I feel like you know, they give you give it a little bit of a flavor to the conversation. But I think we’ve we’ve created a cycle, a self reinforcing cycle of bullshit, where leaders demand more from people that is unsustainable and unhealthy. People demand more from leaders, which is unsustainable and unhealthy. The shareholders do the same thing. Wall Street is doing the same thing. And and then nobody or just a handful of people not but mostly nobody, at least at a high high level, is saying, Stop a stop for one day. Stop this madness. And let’s find out where the cycle is reinforcing itself with with all this bullshit. This happened during the pandemic, the pandemic was an opportunity for us to reset. The pandemic basically told us that we are not in control of most things that we thought we were in control off And it pretty much said to us, you have to stop, stop the cycle. And yes, it didn’t have anything to do with, you know, also stopping the cycle at all, it was something completely different. But it gave us an opportunity to reset. What did we do with that awful opportunity, but ended up being an opportunity, what do we do with it? We operate it in a very different way from 2020 to 2020, like the end of 2021, couple of years being more human, more kinder, more compassionate, more understanding, more loving, towards each other
Carley Hauck 45:31
planes as much as much writing Yeah, what
Enrique Rubio 45:35
happening, what happened in 2022, we went back to normal, we are supposed to enter into a recession, let’s lay off all these people, let’s force them back into the office, they are not beat. So it’s all the same jargon, the same self reinforcing cycle that we had, before the pandemic, that the pandemic gave us an opportunity to reset. So the truth is, I don’t even know what the take for us to say, we have to stop this madness, the exploit exploitation of people, the exploitation of the planet, the exploitation of animals, we have to stop this madness is just that is so hard, you know, like you don’t know where to begin this. I see the newer generations, the younger generations been way more socially engaged, and more socially conscious about what they do to their own bodies, what they do to the planet, and what they do to each other. And I am hoping that we can use that as leverage to reset.
Carley Hauck 46:34
Thank you for sharing all of that. I wholeheartedly agree. And I, one of my mentors who wrote the foreword for my book, Lynne twist, who’s a big steward of planet, she, when I first heard her talk, she would say we have to hospice out these old systems and structures that don’t work. So I feel like we’re still in this space that things are crumbling, we’re creating the new foundation. But like you said, these this younger generation, you know, the the Gen z’s, the millennials, they are in the the biggest, or they are the biggest work force that we have. And the more that they’re either building companies, starting companies, or they’re just speaking out about what they don’t want. Yeah, that makes the Foundation have to be rebuilt.
Enrique Rubio 47:28
Yeah. Well, you know, there’s scientific philosopher, his name is Thomas Kuhn, an American philosopher in the 1960s, he wrote a book called The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. And yes, you know, lots of claims in the book and lots of backlash about different things about how scientific revolutions and the change from one way of doing things to another actually happen. But this is ultimately what he said. He said, Well, you have a theory in place, and there that theory cannot explain any more, what you are observing in the real world, meaning the theories is falling short, to, to explaining what you are observing, a crisis happens, a revolution emerges. And a new theory has to take place, that that includes the old, and also the new. And I think right now we are at an inflection point where we’re going through a social or political or financial crisis of sorts, where we are like a snake that is ditching the old skin and trying to, you know, do the do new, right. We are, there are many of us that are trying to ditch the old skin, you know, we’re trying to ditch the old models that we know don’t work anymore, that are very powerful groups of people that are clinging to those old models. And we know they don’t work. But I think eventually we are going to be at a place where we are like, alright, this is the new, we’re not forgetting the old. We’re just embracing the new and I’m hoping that we can get there.
Carley Hauck 48:57
Well, I would love to continue this conversation. There’s so many so many threads I’d love to follow up with. But for our time today, I know that you’re going to be trying to solve for some of this, and hacking HR. This is where this community this collective intelligence is coming together. And you have a summit that is starting in October, and I’m going to be part of that summit. I’m so excited. I’ll be on one of the panels.
Enrique Rubio 49:24
But we have we actually have a lot of events coming up. You know, in October, we have the every month we do a hacking HR series. And next month, which is you know, in October so we’re recording this at the end of September. Next month, we have the October series and it’s called Hacking October series. The soft is a strategy so we’re going to be talking about how soft quote unquote soft skills impact business performance and strategy and you know, productivity and results and whatnot. So I am super excited about the conversation because it pertains to people to culture, to soft skills and all that?
Carley Hauck 50:05
Well, I will be putting a link in the show notes because it’s free people people can join for free. And the panel that I’ll be on is about building a foundation of mental well being and adaptability and corporate culture on October 17. And we kind of spoke to some of that today. So I have lots of ideas to share. Enrique, this was so amazing. Is there anything else you want to leave our listeners with or anything that you’d love to have them? You know, see, so they can find you
Enrique Rubio 50:35
join us on hugging HR on LinkedIn, follow me on LinkedIn, and you know, just be part of the good stuff that we’re talking about.
Carley Hauck 50:44
Thank you so much.
Unknown Speaker 50:45
Thank you. Thank you so much.
Carley Hauck 50:48
Before we end, these are some questions I have been pondering on quite a lot. And Enrique and I didn’t have time to discuss on the air, but I wanted to share them aloud as inflection points with a few solutions. What are the expectations we have of leaders right now? Is the bar set too high? Based on the skill sets they have to operate from? And the conditions they are working with inside? And outside the organization? Are we equipping our leaders to meet the challenges and expectations of managing remote distributed teams with the right skill sets and the right support and resources? And lastly, how do we solve for burnout inside organizations? These are big problems that I believe everyone can come together with our collective intelligence to solve. But the way that we solve for some of them, is we invest in learning and development. Learning and Development pays dividends. In so many ways. We know that in this distributed remote workforce. It not only supports people to connect, and opportunities to grow within the company. But it supports engagement. It helps people to feel like they’re being invested in their professional and their personal growth at work, which is a very high value for most employees. If you want to retain your employees, if you want to build community, you will invest in learning and development. And we need to do it in a way that gives people time to actually take advantage of the learning of the training. One idea that I’m proposing is that we empower people of all levels to block off their calendar for learning. It showcases to their team, they’re in learning mode. And it could be that we offer an amount of 10 hours a month that they are devoted to learning. And this actually can be linked to what great performance looks like at the company. Leaders are learners and we all have the opportunity to be leaders as a way of solving for burnout. What do we think about enforcing a four day workweek? I know thread up which is one company I really love and had been following has implemented this, and some other companies have found great benefits to employee wellbeing. What about the idea of creating an untouchable day for everyone? Hence the benefit of a four day workweek? Let’s face it with all the responsibilities of home, family and work. What if we had one extra day to just breathe, to be to enjoy? Would we show up at work in our relationships at home more resourced, more creative, with more play and well being? I imagine we would. And what do you think about implementing no meetings one day a week? How would we empower employees to also opt out of meetings if there is no agenda set? All the research shows that more meetings leads to exhaustion, lack of engagement and then more meetings. So what if we instead really empowered folks to have no meetings one day a week, and to opt out of meetings when there wasn’t a clear agenda set for why they needed to attend. September is Self Care Month. And as we are still resetting, recovering from the last couple years, but even the decade before that, of not focusing on a people centered strategy, it’s so important that we upskill our leaders with the resources to be able to prioritize for self care, so that they can lead themselves well, and then lead others well. This is the priority of leadership and manager effectiveness that I see now and into the near future. Leaders need to be leading together and relying on the collective intelligence and leadership of those above them, beside them and below them. This is leading its scale. And it requires a high degree of some of the conscious leadership competencies that Enrique and I spoke about before self awareness, resilience, humility, so that we can empower others, and lead together inspiring networks of teams to lead. Thank you, Enrique for joining me in this conversation and building a community where the human Renaissance professionals can come together to help solve people problems for the greatest good of organizations and the world. Do you want to grow your inner game so you can be a conscious leader at work life and in the world? Here are three ways come to the hacking HR summit in October, the link will be in the show notes. And I will be speaking with a group of wonderful leaders October 17, on the topic, cultivating resilience, building a foundation of mental well being and adaptability in corporate culture. This will be at 9am to 10am. Pacific Standard Time, go get my book, and hard copy or audiobook shine has been voted as one of the top 10 books to read and 22 I know it’s 23. But if you didn’t read it, and 22 Let me tell you, I wrote this book for this time. It is my legacy. And it will stand the test until we’ve solved for some of these big problems. And lastly, are you seeking a passionate people leader who wants to build and partner with senior leadership and the executive team on a people first culture where people and business are intertwined, and this can both thrive? I am your next great leadership hire. And I am so excited to serve the right team and company right now. If you missed the last podcast episode, I was interviewed by CEO Coco brown. You can learn more about the internal director above level role I am seeking the results I have provided to cutting edge companies as an HR consultant Learning and Leadership Development Professional, what I can contribute now. And the link of that podcast episode is in the show notes. I would love to have a conversation with you to be introduced to new opportunities and people. Thank you so much for your support. And if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with friends, family or colleagues. We’re all in this together and sharing is caring. If you have questions, comments or topics you would like to address about the podcast or other conversations, please email me at support at Carley hauck.com And finally, thank you for tuning in and being part of this community. I have several incredible interviews coming up on the shine podcast. So make sure you’re subscribed and until we meet again. Be the light and shine your light
