The following transcript is provided unedited.
Art Jackson:
I got a call from them one morning and they wanted me to come in to help them work with some of their new folks that were coming right out of the military. I got there and I sat down with the client and said, “What’s the problem?” Said, “Well, we think we have a culture problem with them.” And I go, “Okay. So explain the problem to me.” Said, “Well, we’ve got some problems with them coming to work.” I’m going, “That doesn’t sound like something you’d have from someone coming out of the military.” And I said, “So what is it? They don’t want to come here?” Go, “No, no, no. They’re showing up.” and I go, “Well, what’s the problem?” “They’re showing up too early.”
Tony Lee:
Welcome to the HR Storyteller podcast series from the Society for Human Resource Management. I’m your host, Tony Lee, head of content here at SHRM. Thank you for joining us. Our HR Storyteller podcast features practitioners and thought leaders in human resources, sharing stories about why they love HR, what motivates them, and what’s moved them in their careers. Today, we are joined by Art Jackson; he’s the president and consultant at Eagles Nest Performance Management in Woodbridge, Va. Art, welcome.
Art Jackson:
Tony, it’s good to be here.
Tony Lee:
Yeah, it’s good to have you here.
Art Jackson:
How you enjoying it down here?
Tony Lee:
I am enjoying it immensely.
Art Jackson:
Outstanding. Good.
Tony Lee:
So you know what I want to know what I want to know?
Art Jackson:
What?
Tony Lee:
I want to know you got into HR?
Art Jackson:
Ooh, Tony, how I got into HR. This is a secret that I have never told anybody in the world. Are you ready for this?
Tony Lee:
I am.
Art Jackson:
I have never, ever been in human resources ever. When I got out of the military, I went to work for a defense contractor. I was one of the senior African American employees there, took on a lot of different leadership roles. And one of them was doing a lot of coaching work. So I started doing all of this coaching work. I’m working with people that some of them having performance management issues, working with some of the leaders, teaching them some of the things that I learned in the military and at the academy.
And all of the coaching work was going really well. And that was beside my regular job. I had a department that I was running. So I was doing all of that and because I was doing so much coaching work, because I was doing so much stuff that fell into the HR realm, I figured, “Okay, well, why don’t I just switch over and get into HR?” Went to see the Vice President of Human Resources, sat down, had a cup of coffee with her. And I said, “You know what? I think I’d like to switch to human resources.” And she said, “Really? Why?”
And I said, “Well, I’m doing a lot of work for you guys.” And she said, “That’s true.” And she said, “But you’re one of our project managers and you’re running a department and beside that, people talk to you.” And I go, “Okay.” She goes, “If you get into human resources, we’re not sure they’re going to continue talking to you. Now right now, you come and tell us, ‘Hey, we’ve got issues,’ and you don’t tell us who the people are, but you tell us we’ve got issues. And we’re going to lose that if you get into human resources.”
So that was the first time. I was refused human resources. And for a couple of other different companies that I work for, I tried the exact same thing. They go, “No, not really going to work because a lot of times the employees, team members, don’t want to talk to human resources, but they do want to talk to you. So how about you keep doing what you doing and stay out of here?”
Tony Lee:
Oh my gosh, you were a secret weapon.
Art Jackson:
I was a secret weapon for a long time, yeah.
Tony Lee:
So actually that brings up an interesting point. So HR spends a lot of time butting heads with people managers.
Art Jackson:
Yes.
Tony Lee:
Trying to get them to do what HR basically wants them to do.
Art Jackson:
Right.
Tony Lee:
Any great secrets there? What should HR be doing?
Art Jackson:
What a lot of those people managers are missing is a high emotional quotient. So emotional intelligence. For a lot of them, they really became people managers because they were subject matter experts. So they were really good at let’s say making widgets. And then someone got the bright idea because they were so good at making widgets, “Let’s put them in charge of people making widgets.” But the skills don’t really transfer all the time.
We have a lot of people that are fairly good managers, but they’re just not leaders. I like to use H. Norman Schwarzkopf’s definition of leadership. He said, Leadership is the art, the talent, the skill, the ability, to get others to do those things that they do not naturally or normally want to do.” So now skill and ability, those are things that you can gain through either formal education, informal education, or maybe even experience. But that art and talent, especially when it comes to dealing with people, having that gut feel and just being able to look at someone, watch their body language or their facial expressions, and know what they might be feeling at that time and kind of breaking the ice to talk about that? That really is an art and talent. And a lot of people just don’t have it. To make people managers better we need to train them, not in their subject matter expertise. We need to spend time training them on how to work well with people.
Tony Lee:
Well, so how do you do that?
Art Jackson:
Well, you read a lot. You spend a lot of time with people. You spend a lot of time trying to listen to people and really hear what they’re saying. You spend a lot of time getting into uncomfortable situations. This week, we were talking a little bit about performance management. And the biggest problem with performance management, their leaders are pretty much scared. They are terrified of what’s going to happen when they sit down and start talking with someone.
But to be an effective people manager, you’ve got to have, let’s call it, confrontational courage. The ability to get in front of somebody, tell them something that they probably don’t want to hear, and yet sit there and kind of work through those issues with them. There’s no such thing as leadership without confrontation. You’re going to have it all the time. Like being a parent. There’s no such thing as raising a child and not having confrontation. You going to have it all the time. And depending upon whether or not they got your personality or not, you might have a lot of it. So what we want to do is to make sure that we get comfortable with the idea of having a confrontation with someone, having a mindset that says it can be a positive thing, we can get a win-win out of this, even though it starts off with a confrontation.
Tony Lee:
Now, have you seen examples of companies that do a good job of training managers to have difficult conversation?
Art Jackson:
Yeah, to be honest, one of the best ones that I’ve seen was really the first company I worked for when I got out of the military, General Dynamics. But let’s kind of look at it. General Dynamics, the majority of senior leadership were prior military. So Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines, and a lot of the people that were actually working there were coming straight out of the military. I mean, we had a military product that we were developing and that we were selling. So they had a lot of those skills that they picked up in the military and brought right along with them.
Some of the other companies that have done well with it that I worked with, Merck, the pharmaceutical company, they seem to do well with it. Some of the social media companies right now seem to do extremely well with it. You want to pick up some people that have that emotional quotient and you want to develop it in them as things go along.
Tony Lee:
Yeah. So let’s pivot a little bit and talk about military and veterans.
Art Jackson:
Yes.
Tony Lee:
So hiring opportunities for veterans has always been a bit of a challenge.
Art Jackson:
Yes.
Tony Lee:
Translating skills is something that a lot of veterans have difficulty with. What would you advise HR to do to make sure that they’re tapping into that talent pool?
Art Jackson:
Well, one, get some people that are doing the hiring that actually know military people. They actually have an idea what they’re working with. Try not to put people in a position that they’re really not qualified for but your regulation says we have to hire someone military. We have to give them a shot first. The last thing you need is someone coming straight out of the military, coming into a civilian life and a civilian position, and the very first experience they have is a failure. So it is much better to look at those skills, figure out what they have that can be transferred, and try and get them into a position that they’re a fit for, that really works for them.
My first position coming out of the military was logistics engineering, something I had done in the military. Then I went into project management, also something I had done in the military. So if they had stuck me into, I don’t know, in an IT position or an IS position, it would’ve been abysmal. There’s no way in the world, I would’ve succeeded at that.
Tony Lee:
Yeah.
Art Jackson:
So just hiring somebody because it says I need to hire a vet and putting them in a position where they cannot perform well? That’s not good. Now I give you one other thing. The other thing is to pay attention to the culture. One of my clients is the US Treasury. So I got a call from them one morning and they wanted me to come in to help them work with some of their new folks that were coming right out of the military.
So I got there and I sat down with the client and said, “What’s the problem?” Said, “Well, we think we have a culture problem with them.” And I go, “Okay. So explain the problem to me.” Said, “Well, we’ve got some problems with them coming to work.” And I go, “That doesn’t sound like something you’d have from someone coming out of the military.” And I said, “So, what is it? They don’t want to come here?” Go, “No, no, no. They’re showing up.” And I go, “Well, what’s the problem?” “They’re showing up too early.” I go, “What do you mean too early?” He said, “Well, our doors are set so that they don’t even kick in until 7:30 in the morning.” I go, “Okay.” “Some of them are trying to show up at like 6:30 in the morning and 7:00 and we’ve told them, ‘Hey, try not to come in here because the door really doesn’t work, your card doesn’t work until about 7:30 in the morning.'” And I’m going, “How difficult is it to change that program?” “Well, to be honest, we really don’t even want them in the building at before 7:30 in the morning.” And I’m going, “You understand for them, showing up at 7:30 is kind of late in the day. I mean, that’s really late in the day.”
So you got to pay a little attention to that culture that you have when they’re coming in.
Tony Lee:
That’s right. So you personally, when you were making the transition, what were some of the biggest false assumptions you had to overcome?
Art Jackson:
Oh, well, I go to work for General Dynamics. The idea that I was never going to work on a Saturday or Sunday was just, I just couldn’t believe that. The idea that you would finish working around 4:30, 5:00, in the afternoon, even if you hadn’t finished what you were doing? I had never done that. So all of that was a transition for me. To be real honest, I got hired by General Dynamics, left the United States Army, drove from Fort Knox, Kentucky to Warren, Michigan, checked into a Xavier Suite that they had set up and I was going to be there for about a month, checked in, got all my stuff in there.
And that was the first time it occurred to me that I had one suit and I’m going, “Oh, God, I got one suit. I got to get some clothes”. So I had to run across to the mall and actually get fitted for some suits and just told the guy, “Hey, look, I’m going to show up every afternoon. Just have another suit ready for me when I showed up.” And that was kind of the deal.
Tony Lee:
That’s funny.
Art Jackson:
Yeah.
Tony Lee:
Quite a great transition. So untapped talent. SHRM has spent a lot of time talking about people with criminal histories.
Art Jackson:
Yes.
Tony Lee:
And people who do not have college degrees, certainly veterans, but people with disabilities. Do you think it’s catching? Do you think people are getting it? Because there’s a lot of talk, but is it happening?
Art Jackson:
I think slowly but surely. We do have a lot of people that have made mistakes and then they’re trying to get back up on their feet. And a lot of times we hinder that a lot. We’ve got employment applications that have boxes on them that you have to check, “Yes, I got arrested at some point in time, or I had some run in with law enforcement.” And we need to stop doing those kinds of things. We need to be as transparent as we possibly can with people. So ask them, “Tell me something about your background. Let me know what you have going on.” That’s where that HR professional comes in. In my opinion, the human resources professional is the one that is best suited to deal with people, new people coming in the door and people that are already there, more so than anybody that’s sitting up in the C-suite. I hope I’m not losing business saying that.
You’ve got a lot of people that are in the C-suite that really are management experts. They really are finance experts. They really are operational experts. The HR professional is a person expert. They know how to deal with people. They should be the ones that are doing some of those initial interviews and deciding, “Yeah, this guy had this issue. He had this problem in the past, but I think he’s passed it. And I think I should pass him out so that some of these managers can interview him.”
Tony Lee:
Yeah. And it takes HR to be proactive that way.
Art Jackson:
Oh, yeah. And to be honest with you, some of the skills that they picked up, that they might have gotten locked up for, some of those work really well. I’ve got a client right now who is at Homeland Security. And grew up in a tough part of town. When he was a little kid, he was selling drugs. And having a coaching conversation with him at one point in time, he said, “I picked up a lot of skills that I’m still using right now.” And I’m going, “Really?” And he started talking about how he gets people to really give their very best performance, how he pays attention to what needs to be focused on, and what he can pay no attention to. And all of those skills he said he picked up in the street. Wouldn’t it be good if some of those skills actually got into the government or actually got into private sector?
Tony Lee:
Leverage whatever you can.
Art Jackson:
There you go.
Tony Lee:
That’s it. That’s it. So I’m also curious, we have so much talk about a seat at the table for HR.
Art Jackson:
Yeah.
Tony Lee:
And over the last few years, all the challenges. I mean, I think HR not only has a seat at the table, they’re probably sitting right next to the CEO. Right?
Art Jackson:
I bet. Yeah.
Tony Lee:
What do you think? Do you think HR’s role has changed, has evolved, in the last couple of years?
Art Jackson:
It has, and it’s going to continue to evolve. And I think part of the reason it evolves is because of the people that they’re dealing with. I’m a Baby Boomer. All right, so somebody in HR dealing with me should come with one view of what I’m bringing to the table. So then you get to Millennials and you get to post-Millennials and it’s got to be totally different. HR, they have to change that view depending upon the person that you’re working with. What they would say to get a game performance out of me is not the same thing that you would say to a Millennial, a post-Millennial. All of that changes.
I mean, just stop and look now. For the last two and a half years, most of us have been working out an office someplace at home. And even though we’ve been working out of those kinds of offices, a lot of times it’s been with the thought in the back of our mind that at some point in time, some point, we’re all going to be right back in the workplace. It is not going to happen.
Tony Lee:
Yeah.
Art Jackson:
You look at Department of Energy right now. Two months into the pandemic, they decided that everybody was going to come back to work. This is just, it’s like a cold or something like that. Everybody’s going to come back to work. Well, that didn’t happen. But after they put that edict out that said that everyone had to be back, the first thing that happened was people started looking for other positions. “I’m afraid to go back into the office. I don’t want to go back into the office.” And they lost a lot of people. They got some turnover because of that. They weren’t doing anything malicious. That’s just what their leadership thought would be best for the organization.
We have a lot of people right now that are taking positions and have already decided, “I want to tele-work. I want to hybrid work.” Two very different things. “I want to come into the office sometimes, but I don’t want you to actually tell me which days I need to be in. I want to kind of float back and forth. Some days I need to take the kids to school and other days I’d rather just be in the office where I can get some quiet.” So those are the things that are changing all the time. So how we lead people, how we manage them, how we work with that human resource, is going to be completely different going forward. We are going to have, from this point on, a new normal, a new normal, not the one we’ve had in the past.
Tony Lee:
Okay. Art, it has been a pleasure having you.
Art Jackson:
Tony, I love talking with you.
Tony Lee:
I love having you here. You have been listening to Art Jackson sharing his wit and wisdom of many years in and around HR. You can hear all of our HR Storyteller podcasts by visiting our website at shrm.org/podcasts. Thanks for listening.
