People Leaders As Business Leaders An Interview Between Tonya Jackson & Janine Yancey

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All right, are we on? I think we are on. We lost Tonya. Oh, that’s not good.

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Okay, welcome, welcome everyone. I hope everyone enjoyed Hugo’s keynote to get us started for today and thinking through the skills we’re going to learn intentionally over the next probably year to get us ready for this AI transformation. We’re just waiting for our speaker, Tonya.

She was on. We have to get her back on. But for those of you who don’t know me, I’m Janine Yancey.

I’m the founder and CEO of Emrain and so excited for today’s series of discussions, which I’m hoping that everyone here can take away at least one or two ideas from today’s discussions to incorporate in our work going forward. Tonya, there you are. It just disappeared.

Okay, so I’m just going to set the table for our community that is logging in. Our webinar application, maybe it’s the weather. I don’t know.

It does seem a little fragile today because I think I’ve gotten kicked out several times. So, you know, patience everyone, patience. But again, super excited to have a series of conversations today in our People Leader Conference.

I hope everyone tuned in to Hugo’s message, because as I think he was sharing with us, and this leads right into the conversation I want to have with you, Tonya, that, you know, as AI is very, very quickly transforming the nature of our work and how we get work done, as Hugo referenced in his keynote, you know, it’s cutting down by 70, 80%. The amount of time people need to spend on a lot of the tasks that have been consuming us as HR leaders. And I think your experiences, Tonya, might be helpful to give folks here some ideas.

So, with that, let me introduce you. So, Tonya started her, Tonya Jackson started her career as an engineer at IBM, increasingly had a wider scope, eventually managing global operations. I’m not sure if someone needs to mute themselves.

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There’s some, there’s some background noise coming from your mic, Tonya, I think is there. Okay, it’s me. Okay.

And, you know, went over to Lexmark, a printing imaging solutions company. And like I said, she increasingly had wider roles and was the global operations and supply chain leader. And ultimately, her CEO asked her to step in and take over the HR organization.

So, you know, business leader, turning into an HR leader. Today, she’s former CHRO, as well as a board member of a company. And I think as we think about as HR leaders and people leaders, how can we achieve more strategic impact, especially as AI is starting to, you know, quickly automate a lot of the tasks and administrative work that kind of weighed us down.

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I’m excited to talk to you, Tonya, as a business leader who, you know, took a more strategic kind of note as you ran your HR organization. So, welcome. And I think, you know, maybe let’s start a conversation with, you know, you and I have discussed why your CEO wanted you to take over HR.

Do you want to share that? Sure. So, thanks for having me here. And, you know, I want to state first of all, there was nothing fundamentally wrong, right, with the HR organization, with the professionals that were in the organization.

Let me clear that first. But what we were looking at, what he wanted was he felt like HR was somewhat disconnected from the business. And he felt like he wanted more trust and collaboration and more for the HR team to be business-led, right? And so, as you mentioned, I was the head of the supply chain, which was a large part of the organization.

So, I knew a lot of people and had gone through a lot of, it kind of goes without saying with the supply chain, but there were a lot of crisis, there was tariffs, there was COVID, there was whatever. And so, had led, you know, a lot of people through some difficult times with the support of the HR organization. So, how could I take the leadership that, you know, I already had, the relationships that I already had across the organization and extend that, bring some of that into awareness into HR? Because sometimes perception is reality, the perception of how you are perceived, right? And there’s that, and then that becomes reality.

And then some of it was, you know, we really do have some disconnects and we can do things better. So, he really wanted me to go in and learn something new for sure, and I did. I had a great experience.

It was, you know, about building trust in the organization that’s looking at you like, why are you here? Because you’re not HR. And I respect that, because the org chart means nothing. You have to earn people’s respect.

So, I got a lot of learning out of it. And I think the team also benefited and grew to understand some of the things that you just don’t see when you’re in it every day, right? And I had a different perspective. You know, that’s great.

And so, you know, a couple of things jump out at me, you know, having the HR organization be a little bit more integrated into the business. I hear that refrain quite a bit, especially from non-HR business leaders like, hey, need to have somebody who understands my business. How did you, what did you, what were some of the nuggets, if you could just kind of encapsulate them so people can have it on their radar? Yeah.

So, I would say you come at it from two sides. You can’t tell HR they need to be more business oriented without helping that, right? So, one of the things that I didn’t, what I did actually from the other roles is we started to naturally include the business into the HR information cycle, right? So, we have weekly staff meetings, and I would invite the head of, well, my liaison with the finance team, and he would come in, and it was on his schedule, whenever he had 15 minutes within my timeframe, and we would break up the meeting, whatever. And he would give the monthly business, he would say how we’re doing for the month from P&L, top line, bottom line, how we’re doing for the quarter, how my budget was doing.

But that wasn’t the real important thing. It was how the business was performing, right? And so, people started to understand the P&L a little bit better, understand capital allocation a little bit better, and then there was a thing that we run called risk and opportunities. So, they’re the numbers, how are you actually doing, and then what are the risks to the numbers, to achieving the numbers, and what are the opportunities to overachieve? And so, what that conversation, that’s a, those are qualitative things associated with numbers, but that helps you understand the mental, where people within an organization are mentally.

If they’re the risk column, they’re running, trying to catch up. So, don’t come at them with a lot of stuff right now, that they’re not, they don’t have the capacity for, they will in the next week, next month, whatever. And if there’s opportunity, what can we do to help as an HR organization? How can we know that there’s this, you know, there’s this goal in sight, and they’ve identified, and we could go get it.

So, you know, how can we also help? The other people that we brought in was their head of strategy. If you have someone in your company that is either chief strategy officer, or heading up the growth strategy, or the M&A strategy, and all those types of things, bringing that person in to say, what’s their, what are they, you know, what’s their top of mind, what are they working on, and how can HR help there? And also, just how are we growing, and those kinds of things. So, you got to really understand, really, and I’d say the number one thing is to be curious, to accept that there’s a lot, there’s a whole business out there that we all need to, we all need to understand better.

How do we make money? What are the products? What are the services? Where’s capital going? Who are the customers? And those types of things. And be humble enough to know that you know what you know, but there’s this, all of this other thing, all of these other things that I’m curious about. And what I find is that the more HR people reach out, the business is excited about that.

They’re, they like when, they’re doing it anyway, they’re, the business is connected and navigating, right? And so, they’re looking for ways, and they welcome the help, but they also want, you know, everybody to be curious about where they are in that cycle. And then from the HR side, one of the things that, when you said what are the things we changed, is what I saw is a lot of subject matter experts in HR, and people who have all kinds of certifications, trainings, and those kinds of things, and very proud of that, as they should be. But what I needed, and what I wanted them to do, is to be more cross-training, cross, go across the organization.

Why? One is because I believe it’s good career growth, career development. I think it’s, it keeps people curious. If you’re an expert, and you’ve been an expert for a lot of years, you, even if you, you don’t mean to be this way, but you become Dr. Know, or Dr. Been There, Done That, you can’t help it, because you have been there, done that.

But if you move to something new, you know, you just, you, you’re very curious, and you can connect your subject matter expertise with this new, you know, aspect of what you’re learning. And the business wants to talk to people who are well, who will engage in a conversation, not, now we’ve done that, been there, you know, can’t do that, and those kinds of things. So that cross-pollination was something that the HR team was skeptical about at first, but, and I give them credit for that, because they were honest.

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They were like, you know, I’m not sure about this, but they worked with me, and to their credit, and we, they, as we went through this, they were like, this is really refreshing, this is really good, this is, this has been, they were learning new parts of even HR, but they were also looking at the business, you know, very differently. And what my goal was to have one HR, not a bunch of siloed functions. Yeah.

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Because I said, the business looks at HR, they don’t look at talent management, they don’t look at comp and bin, they don’t care. It’s like an HR issue, right or wrong, got to know where you are. So as a team, when we, when we were asked, when we had a challenge, we wanted to work together to come back with one solution, not this team, that team, and then, you know, all of that in between.

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No, that’s great. Just curious, and people feel free just to put it in chat, how many of you in your organizations have consistent syncs with somebody from finance, or somebody from strategy, or somebody from product? Just wondering from the folks tuning in today, how much cross-pollination is actually happening? So just go ahead, folks, and put it in the chat, just because it’ll be interesting, I think, for Tonya and I. And when we’re hearing about that, Tonya, what, what did you start to see as kind of milestones or indicators that you were on the right track? Well, you know, a few things. One thing was very, very analytical.

We did our very first ever HR, it was a, it wasn’t an engagement, so it was how’s HR performing. So it was a survey about our service level and what you were getting out of HR. And there was a lot of skepticism for that, because people are like, everybody’s going to complain.

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But it was, it wasn’t, it, there was some good nuggets that we weren’t listening, or that we weren’t collaborating, or that, and those kinds of things. And that’s what you can go work on. Because there’s all of this, a lot of the HR I do, it’s like anecdotal things, and we have real data.

And it, and when we did it, I told the team, this is not a personal thing, this is not about anybody on the team, but this is how do we get better. The organization was, was, was grateful that we did a, you know, a survey, because they were able to get some, you know, get some ideas out there. And they knew that we were open to, to the conversation.

The other thing I would say is that we were invited more to new initiatives to, so that we could start to, because you don’t, if you’re in the, if you’re, if you’re there at the beginning versus coming and say, hey, we’re doing this, and I need HR to do that. It’s, it’s a very, the people in HR feel differently. Like, you know, now you’re a part of that beginning process, and you can be a part of the whole change management, and, and, and actually the whole, when you’re coming up with the ideas.

So, I think we were invited in more frequently, and that’s the global statement as well. And the other, the biggest, I think, thing we did was we, we formed a global communications council, or maybe it’s committee, I’m not sure we use, but one of the challenges that we had, and one of the, when you said what, what are some of the changes, one of the things that we don’t, we, we were basing a lot of the projects, programs, or whatever on the voices that were in front of us, or the people, the loudest people, whatever it will be, or who you run into, or who’s feel, who feels comfortable saying anything. And we were a global company, and so some of the global sites were feeling like they’re, they weren’t being heard.

So, we formed a global communication council, which was a volunteer, it wasn’t voluntold. So, if you, you were only on it, if you really wanted to, and you weren’t an expert in communications, it was all over the business, that was the other thing, very, like one or two HR people, but we didn’t want it to be HR led. And so, people could see that we were actually listening, and the, the, the communication was very rich, it was, and it was diverse, as you can imagine, from being all across the globe.

And it was just very successful, and I’ll give credit to our head of internal comms person, who, who, when I, I said, you know, one of the, one, our CEO believes that when we say something, there’s no data to back it up. It’s just like what you, what we think, what we feel. And I said, we need to figure that out, and she went gangbusters, and she said, all right, this, this makes sense.

It was something tangible that we could do, and we had all this data, we had like real data from people around the world, and this is, and that’s how we then formed, shaped our communication. That’s, that’s awesome. Just to give us all a sense, what was the, the head count at Lexmark? How many employees? 7,500.

Okay, 7,500. Okay, that’s just helpful for people just to orient themselves. I, I just want to add, because I, I think the, the, the lack of integration, I just, I don’t think we can stress it enough.

I think it’s a natural, it’s a natural kind of, you know, physics, if you will. It is. And not sure if this is helpful, but you know, I’ll, I’ll call on my, my law school training.

I think folks know that, you know, I’m an appointment lawyer, and in law school, they say you have to marry the facts with the law, right? It’s like, in order to get an output, it’s like, lawyers know the law, but you have to know the facts, and it’s actually something that’s totally different that, that results. And I, I would say that that maybe is applicable to the work of people, HR people leaders. It’s like, you know what you know on best practices and strategies for the, the workforce, and the, and all the different, you know, centers of excellence within the HR organization, but you have to marry it to the business.

You have to understand, like, what are the dynamics of the business? For sure. And, and that takes relationships, and it takes time, and, and it’s, and too much to people’s dismay, it’s sometimes slow. I think it’s easier to go in and say what you know, and just hope people go roll with you.

It’s, it takes more time, because if they roll with you, and they don’t believe you, it’s going to be slow anyways. That’s not going to happen. To take that upfront time, to have the back and forth, which is not comfortable sometimes, but there’s always give and take, and everybody’s still, you know, learning and growing together.

It takes time, but then you’re able to move. Once you do that, you lock horns, and you’re able to execute faster, and I think that’s what the biggest, you know, what people listening leave nothing with. I think the more integrated you, you, you are, and the more part, more of a part you are with that leadership team, the faster you get to outcomes, and the faster you get to real trust, and collaboration, and, you know, really moving the people strategy forward.

Perfect. You know, what would you recommend, Tonya, in terms of, you know, areas of learning, and, and, and, you know, topics that people should get upskilled on, particularly as we have AI quickly, you know, making the task-based work a whole lot quicker. Yeah, I think with or without AI, I think people need to really dig into the data more.

There’s so much data in HR. It’s just kind of everywhere, and I think some of the things, and this may be changing, but sometimes HR wants to keep the data, because they want to control, because it’s sensitive, or whatever it may be. The more you can democratize that data, the more people in the business can do something, collaborate with you to, to work, you know, to, to work to make the, the organization better.

From an AI perspective, it, there’s going to be so much more predictive information that, that AI, that the HR team can either offer the business, or can collaborate with the business. For example, you and I have talked a little bit about this. I think when you do engagement surveys, the more you can, you’ve got the high-level output, but the more you can dig down into the teams, and can use some, to some extent, it’s already there, but the more you can use AI to predict what, you know, what kind of leader that, you know, what, what, what the, the risk and opportunities are with that leader, it’s in the data.

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You can predict, like, for a particular initiative, this leader is better than that leader, this leader, and that’s not a good or bad thing. You can also predict what, when someone, what coaching skills someone needs based on the feedback, and in some cases, you predict that some, you can predict that this person is not a good, you don’t need to predict it, but you can say, we’ve tried this, this, and this, because it’s all in the data, but this person is not suited for leadership, he or she should be doing this, something else. No, that, that’s excellent.

Any other, kind of, thoughts or recommendations, and we probably have a few minutes, so if there’s questions, too, we could. I was going to say, the other thing is, everybody’s talking about AI and upskilling, obviously, and I think my only advice from there is that I think there’s a certain level of AI education that everybody, you know, does, but after that, I think it’s really important to understand, maybe deconstruct jobs to figure out what, who needs to upskill, and what they need to upskill on, versus saying, we’re going to spend a bunch of money in total, right, and not hitting the areas that really need, like, being really, very targeted and strategic, and that involves working with the business, you know, to say, what, how can we help, in particular, how can we, you know, if there’s a particular group that really is going to benefit from, from upskilling to drive the business forward, and growth, revenue, whatever it may be. No, that’s excellent.

So, oh, we lost Tonya. Quickly, we have a question here. What would you say around using AI to coach managers on how to be people leaders? Oh, so, there are some programs, which you probably, whoever’s asking this, probably already may be used, but there’s a, we did a training.

It was where you, it was like having a difficult conversation, or, or it just, it was a performance conversation, and you practice with the, with the AI tool, and so, it was really, and we tried it out in HR first, and it was, it was very good in terms of how to change some of the tone, or whatever it may be, or, or to bring up very specific things. It was like a practice to get you to prepare for that conversation. It was very good, and depending on the leader, there was a, like, sometimes people like, oh, I get it, really, and then some people were still arguing, you know, their point with AI, so it was, it was, it was, even with AI, people choose their personalities, but it was, I think that’s a really good tool, especially, especially for leaders who, and, and I think everybody, to some extent, nobody really wants, you know, dying to have a difficult conversation, but it gives that person more confidence, and a little bit of more, like, you know, practice, and from this, I think it’s a, I think it’s a great tool to go, to use for that.

Yeah, I’m going to double tap on that, Tonya, just because I think, and we’ve seen it over the years with our Ask the Expert, people are more comfortable, they have more psychological safety asking a question, or practicing something with a non-human, basically, right, and so we, we, we consistently see questions submitted through our Ask the Expert feature in our, in our courses that, based on the nature of the question, are clearly coming from an executive, and I’m always interested, like, oh, that person prefers to ask this nameless, faceless, you know, application as their HR partner. It was, it’s really good, you know, I was doing AI training over the weekend, honestly, and it was about how do you take for a AI project, and to the business from an HR perspective, and how do you present it, what, how do you convince them to fund it, what is your, what is your talk track, and it was very good, it, it pinned me to the wall many times on, you know, yeah, but, but what about this and that, so I think all of that is excellent. Super.

Excellent. So sorry, this was so quick, we’re out of time, but I, I hope everyone here appreciated this, and Tonya, thank you so much for, for giving us your time, and, and sharing, kind of, some of your thoughts. I do think your story of a business leader learning HR has got some good application, because I think we have HR leaders that are going to, you know, lean into learning more of the business aspects that is going to be really serving them well over the next year or so, so thank you so much.

Appreciate it. All right, on to the, sorry, thanks, Janine, thank you, Tonya, sorry to kick you off. We are starting the next session in just a few minutes, head on over to the lobby to Navi.