INTRODUCTION

ER – Hello and welcome to the Audrey McGuckin Leadership Podcast. This podcast is dedicated to providing helpful insights, from some of the industry’s best and most respected leaders in the Human Capital space.

ER – I’m your host Erica Richey the Chief Client Officer at Audrey McGuckin, Talent Solutions and today we’re joined by our CEO Audrey McGuckin along with Bret Larson the Director, Talent Management & Analytics at Emerson, a 125 year, Fortune 500, focused industrial company.

INTERVIEW

ER – Bret before we get started here – why don’t you share with our listeners a little yourself

BL – I joined Emerson around 8 years ago and have worked in Dubai and expanded Middle East and Africa for Leadership Development and Talent. I’m now at HQ and cover the entire spectrum of Talent Management. My favorite country is where I’m at during the time. The trick is to do what the locals do.

ER – Audrey tell us about how you and Bret know each other.

AM – I’ve worked with David Weller who lives in same area as Bret and David works closely work with Bret. As part of the work I do with The Conference Board I had honor of curating their Succession Management Conference – we had the pleasure of meeting each other in NYC last year – Bret did an outstanding job of delivering on Succession Management workshop.

BL – my biggest takeaway from that conference was learning from others

ER – Lets dive into this, shall we? We have found the biggest problem that our clients have is bridging the gap between their stated strategy and getting the promised value of that strategy – we know that 9 out of 10 companies fail to execute their strategy and that the majority of the time it comes down to leadership and talent. We also know that when you develop leadership strategies to connect to the business strategies, we see large impact. This is something Emerson has excelled in. But for Emerson, like most companies, it was a journey to strategy alignment. I know our listeners would love to hear from both of you on developing this work within companies.

ER – Bret, let’s start with you. What are specifically some of the challenges that Emerson have faced as they have been on their journey?

BL – 2 main areas where we look at challenges. The first is the talent landscape and companies have to remain adaptive enough to address those and have vision for the future – it’s not unique to Emerson. Demographics is something we considering. We have to be ultra competitive. The pure bandwith of our company is a challenge and then of course speed. Because of the market shifts and geo politics. The other side is that sometimes we get in the way of ourselves. We have repositioned ourself in the market. These opportunities offer a chance to reposition ourselves.

ER – Audrey, what are some other challenges you are seeing as you work with clients?

AM – One thing that struck me around your insights – the business challenges and leadership challenges are inextricably linked and you have to go with that. The other thing we’re seeing is speed of change and agility of leaders. One of the things we believe is that there is a way to develop fast agile leaders.

ER – Bret, how is Emerson tackling these challenges? What have been some of your approaches in the last year?

BL – We stick to tried and true methodologies that have worked for us. The first thing for us is that we use our management process ourselves to generate our future leaders. We put our leaders into those experiences. We personally have the philosophy of putting people into key roles. The process itself we’ve been running for many decades. We trust our leadership process that will allow growth in our leaders. We also rely on ‘leaders teaching leaders. We find a leader looking another leader in the eye that’s a critical component you can’t lose out on.

INTRODUCTION

ER – Hello and welcome to the Audrey McGuckin Leadership Podcast. This podcast is dedicated to providing helpful insights, from some of the industry’s best and most respected leaders in the Human Capital space.

ER – I’m your host Erica Richey the Chief Client Officer at Audrey McGuckin, Talent Solutions and today we’re joined by our CEO Audrey McGuckin along with Holly O’Driscoll the Founder & CEO at Ampersand Innovation and Former Global Design Thinking Leader at P&G.

INTERVIEW

ER – Holly before we get started here – why don’t you share with our listeners a little yourself

HO– My background in in Design Thinking, I spent 22 years in P & G. For me it was a life changing experience, I find it’s really important to leadership philoshopy and changing the culture and leadership in organizations.

ER – Audrey tell us about how you and holly know each other.

AM – It’s a great story, as the Program Director for The Conference Board, I met Holly at a conference in NYC. Holly supported us with a design thinking workshop to delivering. It was a serendipitous moment where Holly and I came together.

HO – Yes – there is no randomness and the universe delivers what you need exactly when you need it. The most exciting thing is that when you know you’re making a differene for our clients and that’s what we’re about.

ER – Let’s dive into this, shall we? We have found the biggest problem that our clients have is bridging the gap between their stated strategy and getting the promised value – we know that 9 out of 10 companies fail to execute their strategy and we also know that the majority of the time it comes down to leadership and talent. I know our listeners would love to hear from both of you on this topic of people.

AM – We have a very strong brand in the market and a phrase I have heard you said many times is “The fish rots from the head” Can you first tell me where that came from.

AM- Sure. I lived in Asia for a number of leaders and worked with amazing talent and my dear friend Linda Tan she would say the ‘fish rots from the head’. When you’re trying to make impact – if you can’t have the leader get behind the change in a real and authentic way.

ER – Tell us a little more about what what means. Sometimes we see people brace and have a reaction as people say that. why do you think that is?

AM – The strong reaction comes from being a reluctant to acknowledge ‘where are we at” – we encourage client to take the first easy step and often it’s acknowledgement to where you’re at.

HO – Facing reality, starting with facing reality. Only if you’re clear on where you are today and in the moment and can you imagine where you want to get to. To just acklowledge where you’re at can demonstrate vulnerability. People can sense what’s going on. If it’s not talked about then how can it be addressed.

AM – sometimes it can be really hard if you’re part of it. We’re able to hold up that mirror for our clients so that they can really see and observe what’s happening.

HO – Often I get invited to facilitate and navigage conversations that may be too hard to do on their own. It’s important – you get a lot farther having someone from the outside driving that dialogue. Often I ask a question and they have been thinking it for months and haven’t asked it. Getting to the breakthrough dialogue is critical.

AM – a recent client, a lot of unknowns, a lot of uncertainty, spent time with the leadership team doing early discovery work – 2 people came to us to say that was really therapeutic. It’s back to this notion of being human centered and acknowledging where people are at.

HO – one of the principles of design thinking is the process of empathy – one of the best ways to manage through change. The strength of our conections to each other.

AM – what does good look like. We have a g

INTRODUCTION

ER – Hello and welcome to the Audrey McGuckin Leadership Podcast. This podcast is dedicated to providing helpful insights, from some of the industry’s best and most respected leaders in the Human Capital space.

ER – I’m your host Erica Richey the Chief Client Officer at Audrey McGuckin, Talent Solutions and today we’re joined by our CEO Audrey McGuckin along with Forbes Alexander who until very recently was the Chief Financial Officer at Jabil and I’m thrilled to moderate today’s conversation.

INTERVIEW

ER – Forbes before we get started here – why don’t you share with our listeners a little yourself

FM – I’m Forbes Alexander, the recently retired Chief Financial Officer. Jabil last year put up revenues of $22B – I joined in 1993 and Audrey joined thereafter in 1994. It was truly a strart up and the company has provided a great platform for us both to grow. We had 200m of revenue and grew it to $22Billion in revenue and thankful to be have been part of that.

ER – Audrey tell us about how you and Forbes know each other.

AM – Forbes and I worked together early on in Jabil. Forbes interviewed me for the role 25 years. It was an incredible journey for Forbes and equally an incredible for me. I followed Forbest to St Petersburg. It’s been an incredible journey for you and you wouldn’t change it. One of the things we try and do in our firm is we try and create these incredible journeys. I’m honored that you’re on our session. Thanks for being vulnerable and sharing your insights.

ER –  Let’s dive into this, shall we? We have found the biggest problem that our clients have is bridging the gap between their stated strategy and getting the promised value – we know that 9 out of 10 companies fail to execute their strategy and we also know that the majority of the time it comes down to leadership and talent. Companies can focus on the technical aspect, instead of the human aspect – for example, a company implements new AI technology without the people infrastructure to support the change.  – this is far from a simple or easy issue – I know our listeners would love to hear from both of you on this topic of people.

FA – Its on on going process, rather than one point in time, you have to think about the organization and the notion that it will evolve. The question is how to ensure you have the right processes, system, information and people and talent and early on in my career it became very clear to me that the people and talent piece is truly foundational and you have to build the appropriate teams over time.  The skills sets are changing but there are fundamental things that remain a constant and deploying tools and some of the work that Audrey led me into really accelerated our strategy. She does an incredible job of keeping one honest on are we doing the right thing with people. Have those hard conversations. Change Management is very difficult. Delivering on a strategy is about change management.

AM – We created a toolset but we brought a humanaistic approach.

FA – Its gratifying when I hear boards talking about this and I am able to add value. We used Predictive Index with our leadership team.

AM – What we’re seeing is change is a constant, doing work through teams is the fastest way to get to executing to the strategy. We’re doing a lot of work with our clients on doing work on themselves.

FA – As a leader that’s about being vulnerable – which is tough and looking hard in the mirror. Acceptance of weaknesses and strenthgs and having the confidence and selfawareness to share this with your team. To your point Audrey it’s pretty critical. Then you’re involving your team. You don’t need to handle everyone the same way. You have to think about what is motivating for your team. It’s horses for courses but it has to start at the top.

Fantastic perspective from Forbes Alexande

Hello, and welcome to the Audrey McGuckin Leadership Podcast. This podcast is dedicated to providing helpful insights, from some of the industry’s best and most respected leaders in the Human Capital space.

I’m your host Audrey McGuckin, CEO of Audrey McGuckin Talent Solutions and today I’m thrilled that we’re joined by John Gleason, President – A Better View.

Audrey – John and I had a great conversation on our last podcast about Design Thinking and how this can be applied to the Human Capital space. We promised you at the end of that podcast that we’d unpack the 5 principles of Design Thinking. Today we are going to talk to you about the 1st principle – Empathy. We touched on Empathy a little bit in our last podcast.

John and I are hosting an innovation lab in January in St. Petersburg, Florida on 10th January – if you’re interested please email me at [email protected]

Thanks again for listening to this episode of the Audrey McGuckin Leadership podcast. Look for a new episode next month. Until next time, I’m Audrey McGuckin and thanks for listening. To learn more about the work we do in the human capital space visit us at www.audreymcguckin.com or to learn more about the work John Gleason does you can reach him [email protected]. Our next podcast in this series is principle which is the “define” principle”. Please join us.

Hello, and welcome to the Audrey McGuckin Leadership Podcast. This podcast is dedicated to providing helpful insights, from some of the industry’s best and most respected leaders in the Human Capital space.

I’m your host Audrey McGuckin, CEO of Audrey McGuckin Talent Solutions and today I’m thrilled that we’re joined by John Gleason, President – A Better View.

I first met John when he presented to an overview of design thinking that I’m apart of and I was inspired as I Listened – it really hit at some of the opportunities in human capital and some of the challenges that organizations face – I think of it as being human centered – but I’ll leave that to John to share with the group.

Fantastic perspective from John Gleeson. John and I are hosting an innovation lab in January in St Petersburg, Florida on 10th January – if you’re interested please email me at [email protected]

Thanks again for listening to this episode of the Audrey McGuckin Leadership podcast. Look for a new episode next month. Until next time, I’m Audrey McGuckin and thanks for listening.

Welcome to the Audrey McGuckin Leadership Podcast. This podcast is dedicated to providing helpful insights, from some of the industry’s best and most respected leaders in the Human Capital space.

I’m your host Audrey McGuckin, CEO of Audrey McGuckin Talent Solutions and today we will be joined by Helen Friedman, CEO, from Merit Analytics.

Often the work we do with our clients in bridging the gap from Strategy to execution starts with diagnostics and insights and we find that there is a real struggle here. There’s never a shortage of data in organizations but the trick is how to cut through that data and get to the insights and more importantly the insights that matter.

I’m thrilled to be joined in this episode with Helen Friedman from Merit Analytics. Helen.

You can also learn more about our work in strategy alignment www.audreymguckin.com.

Thanks again for listening to this episode of the Audrey McGuckin Leadership podcast. Look for a new episode next month. Until next time, I’m Audrey McGuckin and thanks for listening.

Today we are joined by Theresa McHenry, at Microsoft. Theresa is one of our key speakers at The Conference Board 14th Annual Succession Management Conference in NYC on 8th and 9th November this year.

Theresa’s role is to drive forward the people strategy across several of Microsoft’s global commercial organizations. Theresa has responsibility for Talent Management and Organization Development for commercial and consumer businesses. In this role, her remit is to implement talent management solutions, identifying and addressing capability gaps, building org and leadership capability for a future world of work.

Coming up in this episode Theresa will be sharing a preview of the session she’ll be leading and specifically sharing Microsoft’s People-Centered approach to Succession Management.

Thank you for listening to this episode in our podcast series. Please join us on 8th and 9th November in NYC to hear from Theresa and other organizations including ATT, United Technologies, Sanofi and Microsoft on future proofing your succession strategies. Go to www.conference-board.org to register now for this conference.

You can also learn more about our work in succession management at www.audreymguckin.com.

Hello, and welcome to the Audrey McGuckin Leadership Podcast. This podcast is dedicated to providing helpful insights, from some of the industry’s best and most respected leaders in the field of people, talent and leadership. To learn more about our work in Succession Management visit us at www.audreymcguckin.com.

I’m your host Audrey McGuckin, CEO of Audrey McGuckin Talent Solutions and today we will be joined by Kelly Wilson, VP of Talent Management from Cardinal Health. Kelly is one of our key speakers at this year’s 14th Annual Succession Management Conference in NYC on 8th and 9th November this year.

Coming up in this episode Kelly will be sharing insights with us on how Cardinal Health approached succession management and she’ll be giving us a preview of her session.

Confidence in the talent pipeline continues to be a top priority for CEOs and CHROs. Organizations are having to re-invent their succession practices to ensure they have the right cadre of leaders in place to execute on their business strategy – which is easy to say, hard to do.  HR’s ability to rethink and transform succession practices will be a critical differentiator for organizations that are prepared for change and disruption. Those that struggle will fall behind by losing out on their top employees.

Fantastic perspective from Kelly Wilson and the focus on how no matter what size of organization we can start small, proto and scale in a way that is integrated but that also is focused on the value for employees.

Thank you for listening to this episode in our podcast series. Please join us on 8th and 9th November in NYC to hear from Kelly and other organizations including ATT, United Technologies, Sanofi and Microsoft on future proofing your succession strategies. Go to www.conference-board.org to register now for this conference. You can also learn more about our work in succession management at www.audreymguckin.com.