Reserve the Right to Get Smarter: How to Fix Work and Unlock Performance with Lisa Calicchio

In this episode of Activating Greatness, Alec McChesney sits down with Lisa Calicchio, Chief Human Resources Officer at WCG, to challenge conventional thinking about leadership, performance, and the modern workplace. Lisa shares why “work is broken” in many organizations and how leaders can shift from managing complexity to creating clarity that drives real results. From asking better questions and aligning work to outcomes, to building self-awareness and embracing the mindset of “reserving the right to get smarter,” this conversation is packed with practical insights for executives looking to improve culture, accountability, and performance. If you’re a leader navigating competing priorities, unclear goals, and evolving workforce expectations, this episode will give you a clear framework to rethink how work actually gets done.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of Activating Greatness, the show where we dig into what it really takes to lead with purpose, inspire performance, and create lasting impact. As always, I'm your host, Alec McChesney, and every episode we sit down with leaders, thinkers, and change makers who are unlocking potential in themselves, their teams, and their organizations. Here we talk about the real stuff: leadership that drives culture, strategy that creates momentum, and the mindset that turns good intentions into game-changing results. Because greatness, it isn't a title, it's a choice. It's something you activate every single day. So thank you. Thank you for listening, for showing up, and for being part of a community of leaders who refuse to settle for good enough. Now let's dive in and meet today's incredible guest. Today's guest is Lisa Caliclio, Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer at WCG. Lisa brings nearly three decades of global business experience across hospitality, pharmaceuticals, drug development, and life sciences. She has served as both a commercial leader and HR executive, including running a $200 million business as a general manager. Known for her strong business and financial acumen, Lisa is a commercially focused HR leader who is passionate about helping organizations and their people simply work better. She's also deeply committed to challenging assumptions, encouraging curiosity, and building environments where clarity and understanding drive performance. And today we're going to talk about how to actually make work better. We're going to talk about why seeking to understand is a leadership superpower, how clarity drives performance. And my favorite, why great leaders reserve the right to get smarter. Lisa, thank you so much for joining us on the Activating Greatness podcast. Everybody that listens can probably tell how excited I am for this episode. I know you're excited. You mentioned the hard part about this is going to be keeping us under the time limit because of the topic that we are going to dive into today. But before we do that, I'd love to give you the chance, Lisa, to maybe further introduce yourself to those who aren't familiar with you yet.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

I think you did a nice job, Alec. I I would just say I'm I'm a regular person. So sometimes people see titles or they see HR and it's like, uh, I'm just a real person, like hopefully your listeners are as well, trying to make sense of the world around me every day and just trying to learn more about it. And also just living in a world of reality. Life is not perfect. And I think one of my passions is helping people navigate an imperfect world of work. So I look forward to keeping it real, which is one of the things that drew me to this podcast. Real solutions, real things, practicality. Hopefully, some tips that have helped me can help your listeners.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Oh, I love it. And it's one of the reasons why I was really eager to have you on the show, is the way that you talk about reality setting in at work. And I think one of the things that I love about the show that you alluded to is we try to avoid the massive buzzwords and just talk as two human beings that are dealing in the same world and how it impacts Lisa is maybe a little bit different than how it impacts Alec versus Terry versus Jen. But it's all the same things that we are working through. And one of the conversations that came up in our prep call was making work better. And you talked about this difference between what we're willing to accept on the personal life is way different than the standard that we accept at the professional life. And hey, we can be better, we can make work better. And I want to ask a tough question right out of the gate. What does that actually mean, Lisa? When you say, hey, we can make work better. What does that mean from your experience? And where do we get this wrong as leaders within this concept of making work better for the individual and for the organization?

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Oh gosh, we we could spend an hour just on that question, Alec. I feel like it's the eighth wonder of the world. Yeah. Um, Pat, how do we make work better? Um, so you you said that this is a podcast where we keep it real. I'm going to keep it real, uh, not speak in euphemisms and just speak from my experience. I I reflect back over my career, and I've been both on the business side and I've been on the HR side. And I've seen decades of coaching, consultants, engagement programs, leadership interventions, HR interventions. And yet, frankly, we still hear from a lot of people work sucks, right? Keeping it real, quiet quitting, the scary Sundays that we all talk about. So I would ask a rhetorical question if all of these interventions, the coaching, the engagement surveys, the training, the individual development plans, if that all worked, why do people still say work sucks? So I I have I have two, I break it down into two pieces. Again, one gal's view of the world. I think number one, the work itself is broken, and I'll elaborate on that. And the second, which you alluded to, I think people have extraordinarily high and unrealistic expectations of how their work life should be perfect when real life is messy. It's one of the reasons I love Sy Wakeman. Uh, she talks about drama and life is messy and how do you live in the messy middle. So let me let me elaborate just a tad bit on both of those. First of all, and number one, the work itself is broken. I think a lot of what people like me do in HR or people like Velocity, we do great work. We're always trying to understand where things are not working the way that they need to. And I think sometimes we're actually helping people just deal with the situation they have and deal with the symptoms of work that is broken versus actually pushing how do we fix work? And I think one of the things that really drains employees, they don't mind hard work, they don't mind the effort, but what they're unclear of is that their work is disconnected from outcomes. And what do I mean by that? For example, goals aren't clear. How does my role relate to, for example, my company? What is WCG trying to do every day? And I think sometimes employees are stuck in this swirl of goals that are unclear or even maybe don't exist, priorities that are constantly changing, upstream thinking, decisions made multiple levels above the average person that impact their day job that perhaps aren't fully understood by people making those decisions. Sometimes decisions feel arbitrary, maybe even driven by political reasons, and a lack of prioritization. And I think all of that stuff, Alec, creates the muckety muck that people have to navigate day to day. So the work itself is not structured where people feel like, does anybody care what I'm doing? Does it matter? One of the things I have found, and I I talk to a lot of peers, and I don't think I'm alone in this. The questions that are rarely asked is what are we trying to achieve? Otherwise known as goals. How does my work, what I'm doing, whatever job I have, contribute to what we're trying to achieve? What is the work that matters most? And my favorite, which is rarely asked, is what work needs to stop? Uh, people have never met a great idea that they didn't like. So I think work sucks because we've made it too complex, too reactive, too disconnected from the impact. And a lot of coaching and interventions help people survive among all of the muckety muck, and some would maybe say dysfunction, but is it actually helping change the work? So I think there's a body of effort that needs to focus on how do we make work better by making work matter? Redesigning roles around outcomes. What is it, Alec, that you're actually paying me to achieve? I can look at a job description. I I've read job descriptions that are three pages long, and I couldn't answer the question, what do you actually produce? What are we trying to do here? Low value work. Let's face it, we all, I'm sure you do too. We all have work that we have to do, reporting, compliance, audits. Is there a way that we could minimize that? Hey, by the way, little plug for AI. Yeah, how do we use AI to work smarter and do that kind of monotonous routine work that actually leaves the judgment, the interpretation, and the nuancing to the great human brain? So removing the friction and then teaching leaders to just stop certain parts of the work, not helping people cope with it, but what should we stop doing to make sure that we're doing what really matters? So I think that's the piece on fixing the actual work. So I'll I'll pause there for your comments before we get into people expecting perfection.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

Oh, I tell you what, you said we could talk for an hour on this. I I think we could go for a lot longer. And there are so many areas that I want to jump into. But the first is my bad podcast question. I think I think I told you that I'm allowed one bad podcast question every episode. I think I might have a couple in this episode because they're usually tougher. They come from your your answer. And everything that you are saying, I don't think people would disagree with, right? Everybody is on the same page. They hear someone like you who I know you said you're a regular person, but I consider you a brilliant thought leader in the space. You're on stage, you're having this conversation. Yes, absolutely. But we're not able to go from this surviving methodology to thriving. All of the fixes feel like band-aids. All of the fixes feel like, hey, I might just take a little Tylenol and I'll feel worse later tonight. But for right now, I can get through the eight to five in order to do what I need to do. And you walked through a couple of questions, the job descriptions, some of these things that we can do to tangibly change it. But I know there's a lot of leaders who are sitting in this position and seeing the concept of changing it entirely, feeling like climbing Mount Everest. And it's not possible for us to hit goal to meet the standards of expectations from our private equity group or from our board or from managing up and try to change the way that work has frankly been done for the last 100 years and certainly the expectations of 2020 to 2026. So, with all of that said, my bad podcast question is without even giving examples of how we could actually do this, what's this what's the response to a leader who says, I agree, but I don't have time for that. I can't prioritize this for our organization over all of the other things that are coming our way.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

I I would say, Alec, it's this is an additive, it's not on top of. This is fundamentally changing and incorporating the way we work in new ways.

SPEAKER_02 12:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

And so it's it's the same thing I hear when folks say, I don't have time to think strategically. It's not a separate, you don't put a meeting on your calendar. I'm gonna sit and think strategically for an hour. Although actually I do that. There's times I just block time to think. But thinking strategically to me means you're you're being planful, you're being intentional. This is the same thing. So looking at everything that crosses your desk, and this is something I'm really doubling down on in 2026. Everything that crosses my desk, I have my company goals, they're taped on the wall right behind me, which you can't say. They're behind my monitor. Everything that crosses my desk, I'm asking myself the question, how does this contribute? Does it contribute? And if it doesn't, I'm going to ask the question of my leadership. We can't have 25 priorities, and first of all, expect to do them all, and certainly expect to do them well. So I find it's a series of asking questions to get to what really matters most and looking at perhaps discontinuing things, outsourcing things. Can you outsource things to AI? We've all got access to this great tool now, whether it's Copilot or Claude. There's I do compliance reporting myself. I'm looking at Excel, I'm doing pivot tables. Now I'm actually learning ways to use AI to do some of that baseline work. So I can actually do the thinking, the judgment, the recommendations. Does this matter in our context? So I don't know that I would settle for the excuse that I'm too busy. Invest some time in understanding, first of all, what your company really expects from you. They should be able to answer that question. Although I know there's companies where people probably don't have that. Second, what tools are you using? Get yourself skilled up in basic AI. Microsoft offers free courses, they're all over the internet. If if you're a type of person where, again, I get sent files of data and you know, analyze this file and tell me what's important. Code Pilot can actually do a nice job of getting me 80% there. That 20% is the magic. What do I do with this? Do I agree with it? And most importantly, what does this mean in my context of my world? So I think some of it involves in change. It's no different than someone who says, I'm going to get healthier in life. I'm going to make different choices. It's not additive. You're just pivoting how you're doing what you're doing. And you're perhaps maybe pausing when you're looking in the refrigerator like I am. Do I take some of the leftover Easter cake from yesterday? Or do I have blueberries?

SPEAKER_00 14:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

You're asking yourself questions and you're being more intentional till you form those new habits. But I think a lot of it comes back to am I clear on what the goal is? Because if I'm not, I'm going to have a harder time prioritizing. And sometimes if you're a junior level employee, seven levels down from the CEO, you may not always be clear on what the organizational goals are. Make a point to find out what they are so you can realign and reset your work against it.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

Yeah, I think it's a great lesson for anybody listening at any level that you have the right to I always say calmly demand clarity, right? If you can calmly demand clarity in what you're doing, why you're doing it, and you really believe in it appears, Lisa, this art of asking questions, asking questions of ourselves, of others on our team, and it really being the key differentiator in maybe disputes or in conversations internally. If you can ask the right questions, you're going to gain more clarity, you're going to understand what the true priorities are in order to be more successful. And I think as a leader in today's environment, you can't just accept I'm too busy to think about this. I love the way that you positioned it because if you get this wrong as a leader, you're risking losing a lot of your human uh human beings to other jobs in 2026, 2027, 2028. This future of work and the era that we are in of job hugging right now is going to continue to evolve. And I don't know the answer of where it goes in 2027, 2028, but the leaders and organizations that get this right in terms of how to think and how to reposition work internally and externally, they're going to be the ones that that really succeed.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

I I find, Alec, that sometimes it you can ask the question, what's the goal? What are we trying to achieve? Even to senior leadership teams. And you ask five people and you get 12 answers.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

So even and I I literally, literally this morning, my first meeting today, somebody put time on my calendar about a form of all things. Okay, but can you review this form? I have questioned, who's it for? What's the purpose of this? So instead of just asking me to look at did I check the right boxes? I want to, it turned out it was a tax form. I'm not an expert on tax forms at all, but I pay a lot of attention because they they have big implications. But I said to the person, can you just give me the context? Because you're asking me to give my opinion on something that I'm not well informed of, but it has consequences. And that person was extremely helpful in saying, this is why we need it. This is what we're asking us, we're asking you to choose, etc. So I personally find questions, number one, people love to talk about what they do and what they're trying to achieve. So I was talking to this person who's a tax specialist, and I got a whole lesson about something I didn't know anything about. So I learned, but it helps me make a better decision. It's not just look at this form and tell me that it's okay, it has meaning. And it also, I find it's very helpful to get people to state goals out loud so everybody understands what they are and they mean the same things to people because there are wild interpretations and divergent interpretations. Everybody can look at the same goal and have a totally different implication of what that is. If you're an ops person, a commercial person, an HR person, a finance person. So we it's it may not be the most glamorous stuff, Alec, but I find it's where a lot of things go off the rails from the get-go. It's also a lot of causes of friction. There's just ambiguity and a lack of clarity. And when that happens, people start to assume things, there's conflict, and a lot of it is simply because we're not operating off the same song sheet.

SPEAKER_00 19:04

Yeah. Oh, I there was so much good there. I want, I'm, I'm like, I'm already looking at the clock and just knowing that I'm gonna have to make a request that Lisa comes back on for a second episode of the second half of the year, Lisa, because everything you're saying, everybody needs to hear. I want to, I want to pivot off of this art of asking questions and take us down that pathway. One of the conversations that came up in our prep call was the assume positive intent. And for those that are watching on YouTube, maybe you can see my little sticky note that says assume noble intent that I've taken with me for three or four different years now and different desktops. And this concept of seeking to understand versus jumping to judgment in a in an immediate work interaction. And I think this art of asking questions is a part of that, as one of your strongest beliefs is being tied to seeking to understand, assuming positive intent. Why do you, Lisa, think that in the workplace we are quicker to jump to judgment and to jump to judgment quickly? And how can leaders and individuals start to break that pattern? This is something that we hear at velocity all the time when we go through the birds and we start talking about communication styles and personality styles. We hear, and I'll said this, and uh eagle was so frustrated, and they just weren't even having the same conversation, they weren't in the same jurisdiction at all. And there should have been no friction, but the way it was interpreted versus the impact that was, you know, intended were completely different. So, pretty big question here, but why is that so important to you as a leader? And why is that our nature at work to go to judgment rather than to seek to understand?

SPEAKER_01 21:08

Well, I I hate to break it to you, Alec, and I hate to break it to the listeners, but your your brain is not wired to help you. Your your brain, and and I've I've studied this, I've studied the physical part, I've studied the psychological part. Your brain is wired to protect you and to help simplify life for you. And there's a concept called heuristics, which is your brain starts to recognize patterns and starts to take shortcuts. And sometimes those shortcuts help, and sometimes they work against you. So people are jumping to conclusions naturally because of cognitive biases that many of us are not even aware of, these heuristics, things to take things that are overwhelming and potentially threatening to your. brain and trying to keep you calm and say, Alec, this is what's really going on here. A hundred percent of the time, this is what's really going on here. And guess what? Maybe 20% of the time your brain took a shortcut to a wrong conclusion. It also goes back to what I talked about in in question number one about fixing work. We are more tolerant of a non-perfect reality in our personal lives because of family ties, relation ties, right? You can't choose your family. You sometimes can't choose your neighbors. You can't choose your friends. But I find that this is all it's all intertwined. For whatever reason through our lives we've had good teachers, we've had not so good teachers. We've had good friends, we've had friends who've hurt us. We've had relationships that have been great. We've not had good relationships. Some people don't have great parents what name it we tend to be more tolerant in personal life because again the of the emotional connection you don't always have that in the work environment. I know somebody who had they had six managers in one year. It's impossible to become tied to somebody when you have six managers in one year. So you've got kind of the emotional thing going on and you've got the science of how your brain works working against you. Change is hard. Change is threatening changes instability whether you're trying to change your diet or you're trying to change your attitudes about work and your brain is not always being helpful. So creating new habits very hard I mean who's probably it's what April today's April 6th who's still got New Year's resolutions that are intact right they probably went out the window in February. So there's a lot there that is working against you. How do you mitigate that number one for me what I found very helpful recognize it. Call it I've studied it your brain chemicals and your brain composition it's wired against you. It's wired to take these shortcuts that many times are helpful but many times are not. So if you recognize that in a moment of conflict and you want to assume noble intent you have to physically train yourself to do that over and over and over again. And one of the things that I felt very uh I I felt has helped me very much is recognizing it and the benefit of pausing suspend judgment suspend reacting suspend disbelief suspend cynicism I'm an owl by nature you talk about the the birds I'm an owl dove us owls can be cynical show me data in God I trust all others bring facts and data right one of one of my favorite sayings number two you have to want to temper it and I think that is one of the hardest things it's calling it out and it's fighting with yourself to say I want I want to make this judgment my brain is telling me this is what's going on Alec but I'm going to battle it out within my head to say maybe there's actually something else going on. I see this every day in my work in HR and and you talk about the the disc birds which I love I deal with so many conflicts from small little misunderstandings to sometimes folks just they don't want to work together for various reasons. Their styles are different their wire different they're not bad people somebody doesn't think you're a jerk somebody doesn't they're just not out to destroy your life they're just fundamentally the output of a completely set different set of circumstances life experiences values filters your anatomy all of those things make life messy like Cy Wakeman always says and so when you stop and you recognize that I found I can actually talk myself down from a ledge. I'm an owl in the absence of data I'm going to have a million questions you talk about me asking questions. There's times where I don't have answers to my questions but you have to make decisions. You have to put trust in someone and so I find recognizing it and consciously wanting to do it and taking time to understand I'm an owl dove, I think dramatically different than my eagle parrot friends. And that's why I have another sticky that's posted right behind you that shows me here's all the different styles. When I'm talking to someone I'm listening and I'm studying up I'm talking to a parrot. I'm not going to get past the second slide of my presentation. So let's talk about how this feels let's talk about how this lands I'm talking to another owl I got 30 slides ready to go to tell you why this is right. So I I find just recognizing it and being conscious that this is something I want to work on. I want to assume noble intent. I want to assume good intent. If you practice your habits will change you will find yourself starting to naturally move into that place. I'm a person who I I do believe some parts of us can change and evolve through life experiences. Yes you're hard coded yes you have certain DNA but I also think will the will and the desire to change and be different be better is a very powerful thing. Your mind can actually become your best friend to help you.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

Yeah and you know if you have that self-awareness and I I feel like self-awareness has come up more and more on this podcast as of late as a superhero a superpower that every leader needs to continue to work on. But then to your not only your self-awareness of yourself but self-awareness within your team and how does my I'll nature impact Lisa's parrot or vice versa I am 100% parrot with like five extra percent eagle. And so how I live on a day to day basis and interpret information and how I share information is going to be a lot different than than Lisa. But the more self-aware I am of that the more I'm able to flex my owl and move into a little bit of Dove just to try to to meet in the middle and we talk about it as especially with the birds you know the golden rule is treat others how you would want to be treated but within the the bird's philosophy it's treat others how they want to be treated. And let's meet in the middle and and be able to do this. And the other thing that you said was the mind is it could become your best friend and you can train yourself you mentioned the the eating and changing your lifestyle with the cake and the the blueberries earlier it's something that you have control of but you can also find people either inside of your team or outside your team that can help that as well. When I joined Velocity I had I had a lot of uh let's just say my stress levels were high from from my past organization and I had been quick to react and my eagle was very much coming out at all times and I was struggling to remember this assumed noble intent. And then I'll give him a shout out Dan Blake our VP of operations there were a couple of times early on where I could feel myself getting ready to to raise up and I took a step away and I called him and maybe it's because he's out there in San Diego but his ability to just hey it's going to be okay let's take four pauses and what's what's what's the actual problem here what's the solution that you need out of this and what's the actual impact if this is bad if this is wrong and then you have a five minute conversation and suddenly I'm back down to to square one and I hey here's what I'm looking at. Here's the pro and it's just a continual training of myself but also counting and asking other people to hold me accountable to not judge so quickly and to not move so fast at times and it can really become a a part of your team's culture too.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

I love that I think that's that I first of all I applaud you because again the self-awareness that I do this and I know myself and I know my tendencies and the second piece I want to do it different there you go you're yeah you're actually kind of proving my my hypothesis uh one of the things that I I found for me personally you you have to find these little hacks that will work for you. And I use what I call the 24 hour rule. I'm generally a calm person. People ask me all the time are you do you ever get upset over things? Of course I do. But I've learned I give myself 24 hours to roll around in it. And usually how I feel after 24 hours is how I feel. I'm not the the cortisol is not flowing out of the amygdala folks can Google that that is responsible for this high energy that sometimes comes out in times of conflict. And uh JP Paul Wu Fry talks a lot about you know the science of the amygdala on the brain and all this cortisol flowing through your veins. So for me I know myself if there's something that I'm either deeply upset about or irritated or I'm really struggling I give myself 24 hours. My brain will do all its calculations in the background subconsciously and I find eventually I start to land in a place where I think is okay this is how I feel about something. I also love running a good run helps me as well. And I just say that not that everybody has to go out and and run, but find one or two things that you find where for you it's calling Dan Blake. For me it's 24 hours I'm going to go for a run I'm going to see how I feel at this time tomorrow guaranteed the amygdala will have slowed down the cortisol will be absorbed by your body you'll probably still feel something but you'll I think you'll be in a much better state. And so that's what's worked for me but I I I tell people call it identify that you tend to react this way. It's not bad or good just how you react and what is your antidote to that and the yin to the yang and again you have to want to do this. I I hear from a lot of people Alec I am who I am deal with it. Okay I think you're going to be limited because that just sends a message to others I'm not willing to expand my perspectives I'm not willing to think differently one of my favorite sayings is I reserve the right to get smarter you're immediately just closing off all those doors if you just double down and say I am who I am just deal with it. It also gets really hard for others to assume noble intent on your part. So I'd say 80 80 to 90% of the conflict situations I've dealt with in my career in HR have come out of either lack of communication poor communication lack of clarity andor lack of self-awareness and a willingness to do something about it.

SPEAKER_00 33:34

Whew I mean I need to just pull out that entire answer from you Lisa and put it on a billboard in Times Square and we could just re-listen to it over and over again I want to piggyback off of the I reserve to get smarter. I reserve the right to get smarter because you said this in our prep call and I instantly wrote it down doubled up with an asterisk and said I have to ask you about this a lot of leaders talk about the ability to hire people that are smarter than them the the the fact that they want people to come in and challenge them. But then when it comes time to be challenged it's not always the easiest thing to accept and it seems like one of your leadership philosophies is I reserve the right to get smarter. So where did that come from Lisa? How has it shaped your your your leadership mindset and why why do you believe it's so important?

SPEAKER_01 34:41

I I I will tell you one of my biggest fears early in my career Alec and again I'm an owl owl's pride accuracy being knowledgeable having the answers I used to be terrified of being called on in a meeting and not having the answer. God forbid I say those three dreaded words I don't know and probably about 10 years ago I don't know maybe it came to me in a dream I just let go of that and I felt very comfortable and I'm still very comfortable today saying I don't know I don't understand this. Can you explain this to me? People who work with me will tell you that I'll even say can you explain this to me like I'm five really at the most basic level because I really want to make sure that I get it it has been freeing Alec it has changed my life and I think that leaders they put this terrible pressure it's oppressive on themselves that I've got to know all the answers. I've always got to be right I never want to be caught in a situation where I have to tell a superior I don't know or one of my team members comes to me and I can't give them the answer. And it's just again it's oppressive it just weighs on you and it creates this anxiety. No one's expected to know everything about everything. I've actually found the more I know about things, the more I come to realize I don't know. And I find it it's like constantly double clicking but why but why but why it is not only freeing it just makes life so much more interesting. And even this morning again it wasn't the most exciting conversation on the tax form, but as the person was explaining where this goes who sees it what's it used for I thought wow it's pretty darn important didn't know that. And I said that to her no idea that this form and what boxes we check have such an impact. It changes your life and I've never had in my my biggest fear was someone saying what you don't know this Lisa? You're a vice president how can you not know this I've never had that happen. I've had people say oh I'm surprised you haven't heard about this I'm surprised you've not had this experience but a lot of people again they love to tell you what they know they love to explain their world they love to explain the impact of their work. So when you just ask why tell me more about this I want to make sure I'm giving you my best thinking can you go over this part again help me to understand it deeper it just you you just see people flourish. They love explaining and just the the doors that it opens in your mind I think it literally creates new neuropathways. You're just activating parts of your brain and neuroconnections that you didn't have and I have no problem whether it's the CEO or board of directors I've never been in the Pope's um audience but if I were if I don't understand something and people will tell me that you're just you're not afraid to say it I'm not because it's so liberating and it just opens your mind to take everything in every day is a constant exploration and discovery. And you people will say sometimes fake it till you make it perhaps but I I have found I formed much deeper relationships I I find credibility is formed easier when someone says oh let me explain to you why this is important or here's why this is a really big deal and they watch my light go on and I do the same thing. I can tell if people grasp concepts by the questions they ask yeah and it just it's been such a game changer. I would tell any leader out there do not be afraid of those three little words. I don't know can you help me understand this better let's come up with an answer together. And your team members love that people love to collaborate. We solve really hard problems in HR we solve really hard problems as business leaders no one expects any one person to have all the answers. So just open your minds to new freedom of discovery you ask for help I will tell you most people are going to want to help you and partner with you.

SPEAKER_00 39:11

And within your team structure when you ask those questions they're going to feel seen and heard and understood and part of the solution as well and I think there's so much good within this I reserve the right to get smarter and I love the angle of how you explained it. And I appreciate you doing it because I was even going in the different direction just in terms of being a lifelong learner and being comfortable saying hey I don't know the answer to that but I'm going to figure it out. I'm going to go and I'm going to learn I'm going to read I'm going to call on the right people and we're going to solve it. And I love how you described it as liberating and freeing as a leader but I also see it as an unbelievable culture play to get more engagement as well from your team because they're the expert in tax or in another topic for a reason. And when you start to ask those questions and that light flickers on for you what a beautiful moment for them as individuals to be able to have that relationship with somebody who is on their leadership team or somebody that they report into as well.

SPEAKER_01 40:20

Yeah you're reminding me of something Alec I don't know he just he just popped into my head uh someone that I worked with a couple of companies ago uh I remember we we were in a leadership team meeting with our CEO and and this person was probably one level down he was an invited guest into one of the executive team meetings and the CEO asked me a question I don't even remember what the question was and and I said I I don't know I have to really think about this I need to look into this I want to understand it better so I can give you my best thinking I'll come back to you and this person I I want to say he was maybe a director came up to me after the meeting and said you just made it safe for everybody else who didn't know what the CEO was talking about. You made it safe for the rest of us to say we don't understand this either and I've come to appreciate that's called psychological safety. And so one of the and I've gotten awards I mean but stuff like that Alec doesn't resonate with me. I don't even remember awards I've won I've always remembered when this person came up to me after that meeting and said can I just tell you I just watched the rest of the room kind of breathe a sigh of relief because it was clear that people didn't really understand what the topic was and what you were being asked. And the fact that you said in front of your peers and to the CEO, I hadn't thought about that. I don't really know that much about it. Let me get myself skilled up on it and educated. Let me talk to people who really know this so I can give you my best thinking. And again it just takes this pressure off of I've got to make something up in the moment. Fake it till you make it that can actually be quite dangerous when you're making decisions about pay or organization structures or people's livelihoods. Sometimes sure you know if I was speaking in a room of 500 people would I have said it exactly that way probably actually I know myself. But I think it's just it's it's very freeing and you set an example for others that it's okay not to have the answer sometimes there's certain things you should know. You've been in HR for 30 years you you should know about certain things. But some of today's problems Alec we've never seen before even this whole new world of what should be AI led versus what should be human led we're still trying to figure all of this out i i i think the the hype is is kind of outpaced the reality as of right now that's going to become more clearer but I'm starting to get a better feeling of what this these tools are what they can do. So I can give people better thought out opinions and answers when I'm asked I'm by no means an expert but it I cannot I cannot overstate how freeing it is to say those words and watch people just come they all here's why this is important. Here's what this means this is why this is a big decision. It you there's only one place to go from there and that is up.

SPEAKER_00 43:29

Oh I goodness this is why this is why the episode uh is going to be so well loved and why we call it the Activating greatness podcast. I've only got you for a couple of minutes left here Lisa and I want to be respectful of your time which means I have to hit you with four rapid fire leadership questions before we get you out of here 30 seconds each are you ready?

SPEAKER_01 43:54

Okay I one of the answers maybe I don't know but let's go for it.

SPEAKER_00 43:57

Let's do it let's do it question number Number one, what is one leadership habit that you rely on every day?

SPEAKER_01 44:07

Oh, for sure. Asking what's the business problem we're trying to solve. Everything that crosses my desk, does it relate to the goals? If not, what business problem is it trying to solve or what opportunity are we trying to take advantage of? I probably annoy people with that question, but I do it every day.

SPEAKER_00 44:25

And they know it's coming at this point. You set the expectation for what right looks like. And I love that. Question number two What's the most underrated skill that a leader needs in order to be successful?

SPEAKER_01 44:39

Humility. Hence my rant on being okay with saying I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 44:45

Yeah, that reserve. I'm telling you what, I reserve the right to get smarter, needs to be everywhere. So good.

SPEAKER_01 44:57

Because it's true. We all do, whether it's your personal life or your professional life.

SPEAKER_00 45:02

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. On the flip side of that question, number three is what's something that great leaders should stop doing.

SPEAKER_01 45:12

Great leaders should stop doing. Stop thinking that you can save every employee. So again, this is about getting real. Great leaders are great leaders, but sometimes you just have people on your team for whatever reason. It may not be a fit. And great leaders think they can coach everyone. I can turn everybody into a rock star. I've thought that myself. I work in HR. Sometimes you just can't. And knowing when to say when can be really hard for a great leader.

SPEAKER_00 45:45

Those those tough decisions that we have to make in that. They come up. They do.

SPEAKER_01 45:50

And I again I work in HR and I don't love those decisions. And I've I've seen sometimes leaders let things go a little bit too long. I can get them there. Just another month, just another this, just another that. And sometimes folks are just in a role that doesn't play to their own.

SPEAKER_00 46:07

Doesn't fit for them. Yeah, absolutely. Last one here on the Rapid Fire. What's the best leadership advice that you've ever received?

SPEAKER_01 46:15

Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want. Every experience in life counts for something. And I forgot who said that to me. I'd love to give the credit. Uh, I live and die by that. Even bad experiences, yeah. You take life lessons away from them. Not that I want people to rush out and have bad experiences, but I would say a bonus one too that I remember all the time from Andrew Stewart, who uh we hired at Merck many years ago into our development program. It was say what you mean, mean what you say, just don't be mean when you say it.

SPEAKER_00 46:51

Oh, I I've never heard that the last part of that. I've only ever heard the the first part. I love that. Don't be mean when you say it. You crushed, you absolutely crushed the rapid fire questions under 30 seconds for each of them. Incredible. You did. Lisa, who is somebody that we should interview next? We ask everybody on this show who is another leader in your world uh that you've worked with, that you've been connected with that that is doing meaningful work that the activating greatness audience could listen to and learn from.

SPEAKER_01 47:23

Uh, I a couple, a couple of my HR leadership idols come to mind, Alec. Uh Robin Mingle, who's the CHRO of Compscope. You want to talk about getting real? There is no one more raw, professionally raw and authentic than Robin Mingle. Uh, she is one of my go-to sanity checks. Laura Femularo has always been one of my HR leadership heroes back from our days at Johnson ⁇ Johnson. Uh, she does now organization coaching and executive coaching. And I've recently become acquainted with um a really fascinating woman, former CHRO, named Renee Caspar. And Renee has retired from the CHRO chair and now pivoted toward um being a futurist, predicting and studying the future of work. And she's heavily incorporating AI, but really just what is this all going to look at? What is work anyway in this new world? So I find her uh conversations, she and I talk a lot absolutely fascinating. I think she's got a whole different lens on which she views the world, which I find so interesting and fascinating to unpack. So uh those are three folks who uh they would kind of be at the top of my playlist.

SPEAKER_00 48:40

Absolutely. I uh I always pull out the video of our guests hyping them up and share it with them. And so I will absolutely be doing that for those three. Lisa, this has been exactly what I thought it would be. I know that we could talk for multiple more hours, and so maybe I'll be able to coax you back into an episode later in the year. But I want to give you a chance. What's the what's the send-off message? What's the final takeaway of everything that we talked about today? We jumped all over the place, but if you had one message to leaders that were listening to this that you wanted to share with them, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 49:18

Don't confuse simple with easy. A lot of things that I talked about today are are probably not news to anybody and not rocket science. And they're simple, they're simple concepts. Recognize your self-tendencies, want to be different. Simple, right? Just do it like Nike, just do it, not easy. So people sometimes, oh, simple, everything simple is easy. It is not. I try to keep it simple for folks, but it takes discipline, it takes motivation, it takes you wanting to, not easy, not to discourage anybody because it can be done. You and I are proof of that. But simple does not equal easy. It takes work and practice, but you've all got it in you to do it.

SPEAKER_00 50:07

Whew, that is a heck of a way to end the episode. I'm also going to use it to promote the episode, Lisa. I greatly appreciate you spending some time with us. I think everybody who listened to this is going to receive a ton of value and have immediate action items that they could bring into their day-to-day lives as leaders and frankly as individuals. For those that did listen to this, you're probably thinking, unbelievable, I need more Lisa content in my life. Go connect with her on LinkedIn. You are right. She is posting all the time there. Uh, I feel like even in the last couple of weeks, uh, I've seen some posts of hers, whether it's about her running or different experiences that she's gone through that I am already learning from. Make sure you go connect with her, send her a note that the Activating Greatness podcast is where you found her and what sent you to her platform. Uh, and make sure that you comment, engage with this. Uh, this is episode 27. We are on pace for over 80 in 2026, which is incredible. And the only reason that's possible is the unbelievable guests like Lisa, but also the fantastic audience that we have and the continual feedback loop that we get from each episode. And hey, we're able to take something that Lisa said, or we had Terry Gleener on from WCG, and here's what she said. And that's really what makes this podcast and the network so great. So thank you again uh to everybody listening. Continue to listen, Spotify, Apple, YouTube, wherever you get your podcast rate, download, leave five-star reviews, do all the things so I can continue to prove that this works and I can continue to have great conversations with thought leaders like Lisa. Lisa, one more time. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you spending some time with us.

SPEAKER_01 51:51

Oh, it's been my great honor. Thank you so much for thinking of me, Alec.

SPEAKER_00 51:55

Absolutely. And everybody listening, thank you again for being part of a community of leaders who refuse to settle for good enough. We'll see you on the next episode of Activating Greatness. Bye.