Sparks: Think Beyond Borders: How to Cultivate a Global Citizen Mindset With Solvay CEO Ilham Kadri

Jeffrey Puritt serves as the President and CEO of TELUS International, Inc. Puritt has international experience in communications and technology sectors including mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, strategic planning, corporate reorganizations and asset and contract management. He joined TELUS Communications Inc. in 2001 and served various positions including Vice President of Mergers & Acquisitions at TELUS. He obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from York University in 1984 and a Bachelor of Laws degree from Osgoode Hall Law School in 1987. TELUS International is a subsidiary of TELUS, a national telecommunications company in Canada. TELUS International provides multilingual customer service outsourcing and digital IT services to global clients. Clients include corporations in travel and hospitality, financial services and fintech, consumer electronics and gaming, telecommunications, and healthcare industries. TELUS International is found in 10 countries with over 30,000 employees. When it comes to trends in the future of leadership in the next 5-10 years Puritt says competition for talent is more fierce than the competition for customers and so leaders need to figure out how to be an employer of choice, a destination of choice for talent. Puritt isn’t overly concerned about AI. He says, “I don’t see it as a concern. Perhaps 30% of our business interactions are basic exchanges between customers and business. These types of interactions can be done better by bots or some other automation. For example, reset passwords. The other 70% are not ripe for automation. They are more complex and will need human support.” He believes that the growing complexity of our world will require increasing support that can interact with technology and yet also interact with humans What skills will leaders need in the future? You will not attract talent if your style is command and control. Training needs to reflect the desires of Millennials in order to retain them. Leaders will need to be more aware and mindful of people’s feelings and background and their perspectives They will also need to recognize on all the new trends around technology. These will transform our world. What you will learn in this episode: Why perks are critical to acquiring talent What it’s like to work at TELUS International How Jeffrey makes tough choices Perspectives on building culture in sites around the world Jeffrey’s views on the future of leadership Creative recruiting practices at universities Contact: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreypuritt

18 Juni 20181h 16min

Tim Ryan is the US Chairman and Senior Partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Previously he served as the Vice Chairman, having responsibility for the firm’s strategy function and stakeholder relationships including investor relations, regulatory affairs, public policy, corporate responsibility, marketing and sales and human capital. PwC is a multinational professional accounting services firm. It has 55,000 employees.　 Tim has over 25 years of diversified experience serving clients in the financial services industry in the U.S. and internationally. Prior to his current role, Tim led PwC's Assurance practice and before that, he led PwC's U.S. Financial Services practice and PwC's Consumer Finance Group.　 Tim is a certified public accountant in Massachusetts and New York and a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. He graduated from Babson College where he studied accounting and communications and remains an active and proud alum. A Boston native, he joined the firm after graduation. Tim is the proud father of six children (10-18 years old) and is passionate about spending time with his kids, hockey, running and reading. What should be the mindset for future leaders? Tim believes we are seeing a shift that will get better. He says, “The day and age of the dominant CEO is likely coming to an end, and I think we're entering the day and age of humble CEOs and humble leaders…” Servant based leadership will be a shift that is happening even now. What do leaders need to know how to do in the future? According to Tim, successful leaders of the future need to be good listeners, great ‘understanders’ of people, and good decisions makers.  They also need a high degree of business acumen and them need to be adept at technology Tim believes leaders of the future need to have thick skin. That’s because the CEO of today has a lot of people looking at them. It is important to listen people’s views and not get rattled. They need to be open to criticism and not get unnerved when they listen to a point of view that is not their own. In order to develop thick skin, practice yourself in the moment. Catch yourself. Take feedback and get better by it rather than get rattled by it.   Tim also shared some information about the CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion (www.ceoaction.com), a CEO driven business commitment to advance diversity and inclusion in the workplace that launched June of 2017. A wide variety of CEOs have acknowledged that we can do better and have taken a pledge with 3 main commitments. One year ago it started with 150 CEOs and today roughly 450 have signed the pledge. The three commitments are:    We will continue to make our workplaces trusting places to have complex, and sometimes difficult, conversations about diversity and inclusion We will implement and expand unconscious bias education We will share best—and unsuccessful—practices   What you will learn in this episode: Tim explains his intense morning routine How to balance work and life What it’s like to work for PwC and how they have evolved over the past 30 years Trends in the future of leadership Tim’s view on AI and automation What it means to work for a purpose led, values driven organization Contact: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/TimFRyan/

11 Juni 20181h 9min

A lot of people ask the question, “What is the future of work”. But that is not the right question we should be asking. Why? Because it leads to two major assumptions. First, we assume that there is one single future that could happen. Second, we assume that the future is something that happens to us and that we have no control over it. But both of these assumptions are incorrect. There is not just one singular possible future, there are multiple potential futures that could happen based on the decisions and actions we take. And the future is not something that simply happens to us without our control. What we need to do is flip the question, what is the future of work, around and instead of phrasing it that way we should ask, what are the potential futures that might happen and what are the factors that we need to influence today to get to the future we would like to see. Phrasing the question this way allows us to be more active in creating our future than we would be if we just sit back and wait for the future to play out in front of us. We are then able to impact the future instead of waiting to react to it after the fact. The future doesn’t happen to us; the future is something we create, shape and build. Let’s take a step back and ask ourselves, what do we need to do to build the future that we would like to see.

10 Juni 20182min

Patty McCord is the author of the book, Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility and starting in 1998 she spent 14 years at NetFlix, serving as Chief Talent Officer. She has more than 15 years experience in Human Resources with high-tech companies. She was the Director of Human Resources at Pure Atria, now Rational Software Corporation. She served as Human Resources Manager at Borland International. McCord also ran the Corporate Diversity Programs department at Sun Microsystems. Currently, she is frequently in the media with interviews and articles from Harvard Business Review, NPR, Fast Company and The Wall Street Journal. She speaks at CEO Forums, Business schools and for large groups around the world. When NetFlix began they were small, did not have money for perks. The perks were not something they focused on. Instead, they emphasized good salary, hard problems and good colleagues. Later, they added extras like unlimited maternity leave. In 2001 1/3 of the Netflix employees were let go – for example, those who were not very good at their jobs, middle management or those who complained about the lack of perks.  Shortly after, the price of DVD players dropped and each had a coupon in the box to try Netflix. That led to them being required to work harder with fewer dedicated people. That year they went public and they developed policies and procedures. They expected people to ‘act like adults’ - giving them more freedom but with high expectations for them. One of Netflix’s most talked about perks was unlimited vacation –it was never designed to be a perk. Initially, employees accrued 26 days a year. Instead, as an experiment, they decided that they wouldn’t keep track of the time employees take off but instead will keep track of what they got done. They focus on results and expect employees to act as adults – and so they leave it up to the employees to decide when to take vacation time. McCord’s advice for employees is to figure out what you love to do and where you can do that, solve problems that need to be solved, ask smart questions of management, and take someone you admire to lunch to ask them how they got to their current position What You Will Learn In This Episode: Things ‘to do’ and ‘not do’ in the hiring process The use of anonymous surveys How to be proactive in HR What Netflix looked like in the beginning and how they have evolved The thought behind unlimited vacation at Netflix The importance of leading by example Link From The Episode: http://pattymccord.com

4 Juni 20181h 34min

There is a big debate these days about whose responsibility it is to create a sense of purpose for employees at an organization. Is it up to the employee or the employer? Many people believe that in order to create a workplace where people actually want to show up the employer needs to give employees challenging, exciting and inspiring work that creates a sense of purpose. But, the truth is, the employee controls the work. It is the employee who picks which jobs to apply for, whether or not they want to go in for an interview, if they say yes or no to the job offer. The employee has a choice in what field they want to study in school and at most jobs they are told up front what they will be expected to do. What you do in an organization is not usually a surprise after you get hired. If you apply for a sales position, for example, you are going to be doing sales work. The employer simply controls the environment in which the work gets done. They can control three main environments: culture, technology and physical space. Through these three main environments organizations can have an impact on how you feel at work, how efficiently you get your work done and where you get the work done. But the work itself is up to the employee.

1 Juni 20181min

Since we are starting the week with a holiday, I thought we could do something a little different. I have interviewed a lot of fascinating guests over the years ranging from the CIO of IBM to the Chief People Officer at McDonald’s to the CHRO at Allstate and many, many others. And towards the end of most of my interviews I ask the guest to give us some advice in the area of their expertise. We have received a lot of great advice over the years and so I thought it would be fun to compile a full episode of advice from past podcast guests. I hope you find it interesting and helpful, there are some great tips and thoughts in these clips. The first clip is from my interview with bestselling author Jon Gordon. Our conversation for this episode revolved around his newest book, The Power of Positive Leadership. The section that I chose from this interview was when Jon gave us 3 key principles to focus on from his book in order to help us be more positive leaders and transform our organizations. His three key points were, talk to yourself instead of listen, focus on the fact that we create our world inside out, not outside in, and the importance of grit.   The second clip I chose for this week is from David Deming, the Professor of Public Policy, Education and Economics at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. In our conversation we talked a lot about the future of education, the current economy and skills needed for employees of the future. He had advice for both leaders and entry level employees. One piece of advice he gave to leaders was, “don’t be afraid to take a chance on somebody who doesn’t come from the standard background but who could potentially be a good fit for a position that you’ve got going on. Because I do think that in this world of constant technological change and uncertain measures of employee productivity, it’s easy for good people to fall through the cracks” One topic that is really timely at the moment is privacy and security in our increasingly connected world. So I chose a clip from my interview with Dr. Alissa Johnson (aka Dr. J), the Chief Information Security Officer at Xerox. In the clip you will hear her tips and tricks on how to protect ourselves in this connected world. As she mentions in the clip, the advice may seem simple, but they are all things most people are not currently doing. I also chose a few clips with advice on people analytics because it is another hot topic nowadays. The two clips that I chose are from Natalie McCullough, the General Manager of Workplace Analytics and My Analytics at Microsoft and David Green, the global director of people analytics solutions at IBM Kenexa Smarter Workforce. Part of Natalie’s advice was to, “really start on this journey with a sense of transparency and growth mindset. So, approach the data with the very open question of “what can I learn from this data?”. A bad way to start is to start with a fairly defensive mindset, which I’ve also seen.” David gave some advice that was simple and straight to the point. “In terms of how can organizations get on with this...I mean honestly, just start”, David said, “Read up on it, be inspired by what other people are doing, don’t copy them necessarily, but be inspired.”    When I interviewed Seth Godin, author of 18 bestselling books, speaker and founder of altMBA he gave us advice on what entry level employees can do to bring more passion into their careers and be more successful at work. He said, “I think it’s really important that we get this perspective and begin to take responsibility, that we never, ever say, “Well, I have student loans and a family to support and bills to pay, therefore, I will sacrifice my life and my future by doing braindead work that I don’t believe in, half-assed and waiting it out”. Because what are you waiting it out for? When will you stop waiting it out?” Other clips that I included in this podcast mashup are from the Chief People Officer at McDonald’s, the Co-CEO at Gensler, the Senior Economist and Team Leader of the Labor Market Trends and Policy Evaluation Unit at the ILO, author of The Coaching Habit, and author of MegaTech: Technology in 2050.

29 Maj 201843min

Technology is a vital part of our organizations today, but a lot of times we neglect the technology problem and focus solely on the human problem. The truth is both are connected and we have to learn how to fix them both. Employee experience, corporate culture and effective leadership are all a huge focus point in many companies today, and rightly so. However, most companies are focusing solely on the human problem, when they should also be looking at the technology problem as well. Think about technology in your workplace. When you don’t have the tools and technology needed to complete a task or project it can become extremely frustrating. You may become resentful or even angry because of the outdated technology you are being forced to use. Technology is part of creating a positive employee experience. If you want your employees to be happy, successful and productive, you have to ensure they have access to the resources they need to complete their projects and tasks. Technology plays a huge role in how we communicate, collaborate and interact with one another in our workplace and in our personal lives. When the technology component breaks down the technology problem becomes a human problem. We have to start investing in technology and advanced tools that help our employees do their jobs more efficiently.

26 Maj 20182min

Trynka Shineman is the CEO of Vistaprint, a 20 year old global company that provides online custom printing, marketing materials, and a lot more. She brings more than 20 years of experience in market research and analysis, strategic planning, database marketing and e-commerce to her role. Prior to her current position, Shineman held a variety of roles at Vistaprint including president, chief marketing officer, and chief customer officer. Before joining Vistaprint, Shineman was a director and senior manager for PreVision Marketing, an Inc. 500 and Software 500 innovator in direct marketing where she developed programs for several major accounts. Vistaprint is an online supplier of printed and promotional materials as well as marketing services to micro businesses and consumers. With 7,000 employees, their focus is on helping business owners market themselves. They focus on small businesses - with less than 10 employees. Working to help with the small businesses’ branding - from outfitting a store, advertising in the market and of course, business cards. What is like to work at Vistaprint? The main office is located in Boston and is orientated towards teams. When one walks in they will see white boards with what people are working on. They will see that change is a common factor. One thing that Vistaprint does that is not common is something called a Vista Break. Every 5 years, every employee gets a month-long sabbatical. The expectation is that the employee is unplugged during that period. It is the ability to have 4 weeks of uninterrupted time. It recharges people. Shineman shared the 3 pillars of the company which are: How are we working? – placing more emphasis on teams rather than the individual They use a Kanban board. It is a work and workflow visualization tool that enables you to optimize the flow of your work – it is one way to visualize the work. It assists with defining the outcome for the team. Shineman also talked about Agile for HR – moving from being reactive to more proactive and building experiences that make an impact on the organization. The employee experience- how do people get feedback? Setting expectations that they aspire to as an organization A main focus is co-creation - working with others. Whether it is others within the organization or even with customers. The role of the leader. How does it need to evolve? What are the key qualities and skills in a leader? To provide clarity and right competence and right level of autonomy. How to create a clear goal? What is the role of a manager? Removing impediments, being authentic and open, servant leadership, leader as a coach, a helper or mentor What you will learn in this episode: What it is like to work at Vistaprint Why they don’t do annual performance reviews and what they do instead How Vistaprint views Employee Experience What a Kanban board is and why is it helpful How to use Agile in HR

21 Maj 20181h 7min