The Work Wire
SHRM CEO Johnny C. Taylor, Jr. and Bob Goodwin, President at Career Club, host a lively conversation on how the latest news impacts all things work-related.
The Work Wire
The Work Wire - Exploring Decision-Making in Leadership
Unlock the secrets to effective leadership decision-making with insights from Johnny C. Taylor Jr., President and CEO of SHRM. Discover how Johnny navigated the weighty consideration of a potential role as Secretary of Labor, sharing the emotional complexities and strategic thinking involved. This episode promises to equip you with a robust decision-making framework, focusing on clarifying values and identifying your "true North Star" to guide your professional and personal choices.
Explore the powerful four C's framework—Convictions, Clarity, Confidence, and Contagiousness—that forms the backbone of sound decision-making. Johnny emphasizes the journey from understanding one's core beliefs and skills to achieving clarity, which fosters authentic confidence. This confidence naturally spreads, inspiring not only yourself but those around you. Through captivating anecdotes, including a story about Jeff Bezos, we examine the role of intuition and the importance of defining your impact and legacy, especially in roles driven by service rather than financial gain.
Navigate the often intricate process of leadership decision-making, where balancing personal values with professional duties becomes a delicate act. Johnny shares the significance of trusting one's intuition, consulting trusted advisors, and committing fully to chosen paths. We stress the necessity of avoiding poor decisions amidst multiple good solutions and the importance of considering the broader impact on family and colleagues. Join us as we provide a practical approach to these challenges, drawing from real-world experiences to guide you through the maze of leadership and decision-making.
You're listening to WorkWire, sponsored by Career Club and SHRM. Career Club has a range of services aimed at job seekers with an empathetic approach. Whether you are a job seeker yourself, know someone who is in job search or an HR professional looking to bring a more empathetic approach to transitioning employees, check out careerclub. If you are an HR professional seeking to enhance your skills, subscribe to SHRM and explore their extensive resources, Visit SHRMorg. That's SHRMorg.
Speaker 2:Hi everybody, this is Bob Goodwin, president of Career Club, joined by my good friend, the President and CEO of SHRM, johnny C Taylor Jr, for another episode of the WorkWire. Johnny, good morning. Good morning, my friend, great to see you. Hey, it's so great to see you. You doing well today.
Speaker 3:You know what I really am. We've just completed our volunteer leader business meeting we call it VLBM where we bring our 800 to almost 900, I should say volunteer leaders throughout the Shermerverse, as we call it. We celebrate our past year and prepare for the next year, so I'm in a really good. It's like having gone to church on Sunday. I'm feeling good right now.
Speaker 2:Well, there you go. So I actually had the privilege of attending this year. I was hoping you would share it with the world. Right it was, you know it was. It was very cool and I wanted to use that maybe as a launching point. So you know, as we record this, that was just towards the end of November and one of the questions you were asked was about a recent decision that you were faced to make and I thought that this would make a really good kind of launching point for a broader topic, which is how do we make tough decisions?
Speaker 2:As leaders, we need to make tough decisions, knowing they're not going to please everybody.
Speaker 2:Just in our personal lives we're all the time having to make hard decisions and I'd like to just sort of you know, hear from you and contribute, if I can, a little bit on what are some guideposts, touchstones that people can use to make tough decisions.
Speaker 2:So in your case just to catch the one listener out there who may not be familiar the eminent Johnny C Taylor Jr, president and CEO of SHRM, was in consideration to be the Secretary of Labor, which is rare air. That is an amazing honor, and for Johnny to be considered for that, it just speaks very, very highly of your qualifications, your body of work and the potential that they felt that you had to serve in the administration. Yet you're doing amazing work at SHRM and you're very committed to your work at SHRM. So you were faced with a really tough decision and, again, without picking apart the puts and takes of your specific decision, I thought that this would make a really good foundation to explore the topic of how we can help people make these really hard decisions when there's not a bad one potentially in the lot.
Speaker 3:Right, no, thank you. Thank you for being able to talk about this and the listeners. You can imagine I'm not going to go into the sordid details of the process and how it all works, but I think suffice it to say it was really really hard, bob. I've had to make some tough decisions in my life and been involved in making tough decisions for other people in other organizations. But it's easy to talk about it you know, textbook like. But when you have to experience it and live it and weigh all number of factors into your decision making, it's tough. I've shared with someone. I'm still not sleeping well. Once it all sort of the news broke and the rumors and the speculation started, I literally could not sleep two hours a night and it was only because I was so exhausted I passed out.
Speaker 3:And because it's all encompassing and everyone has an opinion. Everyone has an opinion about what you should do and why it's good for them or whatever right, and you understand them all. If you're a smart, thoughtful person and I don't mean nice, I mean thoughtful, you're a thinker you ask yourself like, what in the world am I supposed to do right now? Well, you ultimately have to find your a phrase that Dr A, dr Andy taught us You're a true North Star. That's your real goal is like. Why am I doing this? And you also have to understand that the answer today isn't the answer two years from now or wasn't the answer for two years ago. Like you have to make decisions in the moment and do your best to put that in perspective. So I've, you know I've thinking frameworks and I know you do, and so I'm sure you have some ideas.
Speaker 3:But mine started with kind of what are my values? I mean it was that was number one in terms of prioritizing how to think about this, because you need a framework and you'll be pulled a hundred million different ways, but you've got to have a way to think about it. And I started with truly, truly clarifying my values. And what do I mean? What matters most to me? What matters?
Speaker 3:You know, I'm a proud American. I love our country, I'm the patriot of all patriots, right, and that doesn't mean the country does not have its faults. I often say I love my mother to death, but I don't always agree with her. I mean these two things can exist at the same time, but from a value standpoint, there are very few honors as high as being considered to serve your country in a cabinet level job. Right there's. Just if I, having been product that's only in America could I have started with the humble beginnings where I did. I mean very humble beginnings, and to even be talked about, speculated about, is a big deal. You balance that, though, against what do I want to do? You know what matters to me right now, or at least in the foreseeable future, a couple of years, and so number one, clarifying my values. What do you think about that? Because I'm going to go to number two, but how does that? I know your framework.
Speaker 2:How does that, no, you and I are very much in alignment on. This is because if you don't know who you are and what's the most important to you, any wind will take you wherever Somebody else wants you to go, or just, you know, kind of wandering and then wondering how did I get here, right, so? But many people like go through their lives. You know, I call it a pinball strategy. It's like being in a pinball machine and the last thing that hit me and that's where I go and I just sort of bounce around and it feels kind of random, because it is kind of random versus taking ownership of.
Speaker 2:And I find that, you know, when people have the opportunity to reflect in a hard decision like the one that you were presented with, you'd already done the thinking, but you had something to draw on that was foundationally true for you, and it's the clarity of your convictions. But if you don't know what your convictions are, then you really are kind of a ship without a rudder. You're just going to go wherever the water takes you, and so you know. I applaud you, john. One of the things I really like about you is that you have taken the time to really understand what your true north is and how to be guided by that.
Speaker 3:Well, let me just say too, on the clarify for those of you who are out there who are facing any number of decisions all of us have had major decisions in my life. This is just the recent and most significant. But I will say this too, and it's really important when you think about your values, I cannot underscore how important it is to revisit them, because we kind of have this idea that our values are consistent. They stay throughout my life and, yeah, there are some of those. You don't lie, you don't steal.
Speaker 3:You don't like got it, but what you value at any particular time does change some of your values. I became my daughter's 14 years ago, 14 years old, and so I'll never forget I was an avid skydiver. I mean, I loved to skydive.
Speaker 2:I didn't know that. See, I just learned something on the work where Johnny jumps out of airplanes. That's right.
Speaker 3:Perfectly fine airplanes. So who does that? Fine airplanes, by the way. So who does that? But when we became pregnant and I saw that I had the responsibility of being around because now I had a dependent, I was like that's not a risk I'm going to take. So you're constantly making decisions that will clarify your values at any given time and I can tell you I can't wait until she turns. Call it 21, 22, 24, whatever given time. Now I can tell you I can't wait until she turns. Call it 21, 22, 24, whatever, after college or whatever. I may, you know, what matters most to me might change because I want to get back to satisfying that inner desire to have thrill. Right. But clarifying your values, I think, is an important point that just because you felt one way a decade ago, given your situation, it doesn't mean that you feel the same way going forward. You have to give yourself that ability. That's why it's an exercise of clarifying your values.
Speaker 2:Secondly, just in terms of frameworks. So one of the things that we teach our clients really share with our clients is I speak in alliteration, as you know- and this is the four C's Confidence, right?
Speaker 2:No, almost, Convictions. Convictions what is true for me, Right, what is true for me? And that can be things that are values. It could be what I know about my skill set. It can be what I know about the kind of environment that I thrive in or don't thrive in, Right. But what am I genuinely interested in? But those things nobody can tell me. These are things that I know for myself. And so convictions lead to clarity. Clarity is very empowering, because clarity now says I know what to say yes to and there can be many good yes answers. There's not a single one good yes answer and everything else is a bad answer. But clarity allows me to know what to say yes to and the freedom and this is what's liberating about clarity what to say no to.
Speaker 2:And when I've got that clarity, it leads to the third C and you beat me to the punch which is confidence. And confidence is an evidence-based self-belief. Why is it evidence-based? Because I've taken the time to actually understand, because it's all rooted in convictions. When I'm confident, I'm not pretending, I'm not trying to please somebody else, I'm being me. And if that works for you, cool. If it doesn't work for you cool Right, Because I don't want to get divorced later on because I was trying to force a marriage. It's like, well, I am who I am, this is what it is, these are my convictions. I've got the clarity which gives me a natural confidence, which gives me a natural confidence, and then you know leadership context, you know interviewing context, whatever confidence is. Fourth C confidence is contagious. When you believe, you make me believe.
Speaker 3:I love that. You know I always I write so many notes. I think we've got to change. We've got to add to the work wire At the end of every session. We've got to have these Bob-isms.
Speaker 2:I don't know about that. I think the Johnny-isms get me pretty far, but go ahead.
Speaker 3:It's really, really helpful to think about that because you can remember it. So, once you've clarified these values, the second thing was define my desired impact. Like, what is it that I want to do? Because, for those of you who don't know, when you take these positions, you're trading off, typically, a lot of money, whatever your salary is, government jobs don't pay a lot and it's because you are serving your country. And one could debate whether you should or you shouldn't, but at the end of the day, these roles, you don't do them because you're going to make a lot of money. But what's your legacy? Why? Someone used that word to me as I was contemplating this. Like, what do you want your legacy to be? And I'll tell you, as opposed to what I want, my legacy, because it's very centered on Johnny. Legacy to me is how do you make a change in the world that only you think, uniquely, you'd be able to do at this point in time?
Speaker 3:Again everything is at this point in time, and so I spent a lot of time thinking about the desired impact, and that motivated me to want to do it. The context is important because you have to ask yourself can you achieve it? But it's important to really think about why would I do this and what's on the other side of this. Some people said, oh my gosh, you'll be able to make a lot of money. You can monetize this if you did it, maybe, but that doesn't motivate me. What I wanted to do and if I were going to do something like this is really think about how we can bring labor and employees or management together, how we can supply this country with the really important human capital that it needs to maintain its dominance around the world and dominance in a positive way was really important to me. Then there's this third step, bob, that I took. So I clarified my values and then I defined okay, to what end? Like, what am I trying to do? What's my desired impact? But then you got to evaluate the trade-offs, and I alluded to it. If I were to have done this, I would leave a job that I love, one where I am having the desired impact, where it is consistent with my values. There are sacrifices. I told you you're going to take some money loss, you'll lose some of your anonymity. My child has to now live in a world, a bubble, whenever you take these roles on at that level. And so a lot of trade, evaluation of the tradeoffs and then decide is it worth it and are you willing to make those sacrifices? Fourth, I always so. I'm the kind of guy who takes all of the data, all of the available data around me, and then I make a decision based upon my intuition. I rely very heavily on my intuition and it's just an aside of a funny story about that. So this is what I read. I don't know that it's true, but I believe it's true because it was quoted Jeff Bezos, when he was trying to decide where he was going to place the additional Amazon offices. You remember there was a big competition where you know we're based in Seattle, but we're going to have several other headquarters, and Virginia was being considered and Memphis and all these towns were vying for it. So he put together a team of people and said go out. And you know, front visit employees. And I want you to literally come up with a set of recommendations based upon who has the best school systems, locality, the airport, you know all that stuff that you factor in Best pro business environment. Da, da da. At the end they brought him a list of names and apparently the DC slash, virginia Metro, dc location, which he ultimately chose, was not on the list.
Speaker 3:Take the best. You take people, your executives, your smartest people. You say go out and come back to me with a recommendation. And then you chose something that's not on it. And he said again, this is a quote, an article that I read.
Speaker 3:You know, you take all the best information that's available and then ultimately follow your intuition. And I do that. I trust my own intuition. How does this feel? What's my gut saying? Sometimes you can't quite articulate it, but your intuition typically doesn't lead you the wrong way. Again, assuming you've also gotten all you the wrong way. Again, assuming you've also gotten all of the heart evidence. So don't just totally follow your heart, because that heart can lead you into some dark places. But that's it, okay.
Speaker 3:Fifth, seek external perspective. So that's just what I did. I talked to everyone, trusted sources, everyone who I thought whose values were aligned with me, who I thought would tell me the truth, and they just would tell me what they thought. Finally and you know I talk about this a lot is it's a guiding principle at SHRM, which is challenge, decide, commit. Well, all of the first five things that I've talked about clarifying my values, defining my impact, evaluating trade, trusting my intuition, you know, consider, those are all challenging myself. Yes, that was the goal of that to challenge myself as I thought about this decision. Then I've got to decide. So, challenge, decide. I literally have to take all of that stuff and make a decision.
Speaker 3:And let me tell you something you would like to think oh well, then commitment is easy after that. It ain't, because after I made the decision, I literally kept going back and forth Okay, but what if? What if they could do it? What if I could do this? What if I could do it? And you? So commitment is not an easy thing, and you, so commitment is not an easy thing.
Speaker 3:Decisions are actually. Decisions are hard. Commitment is really hard. Yeah, once you've made the decision, you've moved forward with confidence. That foresee, that's huge. I mean, when I tell you that's the hardest part, and I'm being totally honest, there are moments now, even though the new nominee has been announced, I will say gosh, was that right? Should I have really put my name in there and pushed real hard for it? Those are the questions that one asks, but that's the framework and no matter what decision you're having to make in your life, clarifying your values, defining whatever your desired impact is, why are you doing it? Whatever your desired impact is, why are you doing it? Evaluate the trade-offs, because there's always trade-offs in every decision, trusting your intuition, seeking external perspectives and then, finally, all of that is challenging then decide and commit.
Speaker 2:That's how I did it and that's how I thought about it. Yeah, so in 10 minutes, 12 minutes or so, maybe we can just sort of look at some of these individually. The impact thing is very interesting, right, because one could say, wow, I mean, secretary of Labor, you have a lot of impact. You guys have a number at SHRM where you talk about 350,000 members representing this many companies, representing hundreds of millions of lives. Right, because we have our families and our work is what allows us to provide for our families, and so the impact does go beyond management and labor. It extends fully into communities and families, and so that's a huge impact. I was talking to somebody the other day I think they're a career coach, I can't remember, but you know people talk about you know what's your five year plan, what's your 10 year plan, whatever.
Speaker 1:They were like what's your?
Speaker 2:hundred year plan, and what they meant by that was like I want you to think after you're gone, right after you're gone, what, what is the impact? What are the fingerprints that you want to leave in the world? Right, and we know that our lives are very ephemeral and we come, we go, the next one comes and it just keeps going, but we do leave an impact, we do have a legacy with people, and so how do you think about? Yeah, there's the immediate, but if we were to look back 100 years from now, what's the impact that I really hope to have? Right, which I think is interesting. But then this is probably the trickiest part of the whole thing are the trade-offs Right? Everything has trade-offs.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you know this, johnny, but a big part of my career was spent in the market research industry. I don't know if you know this, johnny, but you know a big part of my career was spent in the market research industry. And in the statistical side of all of that there's something called a conjoint analysis and all it is. It's continuing to well. But what if you had these two but not that one? But what if you had those one and not those two? And then you just keep, and people will start to just keep making choices and you end up with what the preferred collection of attributes are. So you can't do everything. So how do you get as good as you can make it? And life is a big conjoint. It's all about trade-offs, and so this ties back to family, or not family, but to values.
Speaker 2:We could both say family is the most important thing to me Awesome, that means I want to be at every soccer game, every softball game, every recital, because my family is important to me. An equally motivated individual could say family is everything to me. This is why I work so hard, this is why I do what I have to do, because I want to provide, I want security, safety, the best opportunities because I love my children, I love their children and I want the very best for them, right? But I can't be at every baseball game, I can't be at every recital. There are trade-offs to be made, both of those values. Not going to make any judgment on. They want to be the best family person. They can be right, but there are trade-offs and we have to understand there's probably not a perfect decision. Everything has a cost.
Speaker 2:That's right everything you know. So then you talked about trusting your intuition, and, um, this isn't a-ism I wish that it was but good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgment. One of the reasons that our intuition becomes more trustworthy over time is because we've made some decisions that we kind of found later on maybe weren't the best ones. Right Right, that's what becomes experience. I tried that that stove is hot. They told me it was hot, but I needed to experience that it's hot. I touched it and you know what it's hot. Now I've got better judgment for having made not a good decision once upon a time, giving people a real world example. For my own career, it's the difference between sometimes running to an opportunity and running from an opportunity.
Speaker 1:That's right yeah.
Speaker 2:And so sometimes, you know, we can make my intuition, you said, sometimes our heart can lead us to not the best place. And so sometimes, when we're just being emotional and maybe that's not looking at the data, maybe that's not thinking as long term as we should out of feeling that can, sometimes it's led me to running from something more pain, avoidance than going through something, being a buffalo and getting through it right and emerging on the other side stronger.
Speaker 2:But you know I traded off short-term, you know pain for potentially a longer term bigger job, more pay, whatever the upside of that might have been, but just realizing that there are trade-offs and there is no simple answer to complex questions.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:None, that's it. And then you know, a wise person seeks many counselors and so, but you said something really interesting, which is people that you trust.
Speaker 3:Trust Because you can talk to anyone. I mean I can walk up to the guy at the Walmart and say, what do you think about me doing this? That you have to trust those people.
Speaker 2:We have to trust their judgment and you also have to trust, in many cases, I think, in yours in particular their confidence. Yes, that not everything I share with you is for public distribution, that's right, and and you know to be careful of who you share some things with is you're trying to make a challenging decision because people like to gossip, right, right, you know other people's news is very interesting and let me tell you what I heard about you know, know, susie, and it's like tell me, that's really interesting. So, knowing who to trust, again, both from a confidence perspective and from a judgment perspective, and then kind of leading to the last point that you made around, you know, at some point we have to decide and we have to commit, and the one thing on deciding is, again, there can potentially be more than one good answer to a hard question, and I think one of the reasons that people can get into, you know, decision paralysis is they believe there's only one good answer. That's right, and sometimes there's more than one good answer to a hard question. The goal at that point should be to avoid making a poor decision right Because we're not willing to pay the price or whatever the rationale might be not getting enough data and I made a poor decision, not trusting my instincts, because somebody else convinced me I should do something that didn't feel right to me.
Speaker 2:So we can blow up each one of those steps along the way and end up not in an ideal location. So the thing with tough is it's tough, right. If it was easy, that wouldn't be the title of this episode how to make easy decisions. But you know, where else would you? Would you take this, john? We're going to maybe start wrapping up here in a second, but where else? Just as a leader, maybe people that you have seen in your life who've been really good at making hard decisions?
Speaker 3:I think, one of the things that weighed very heavily and I didn't talk about it in this framework because I tried not to let it crowd my mind out, but it's not always. When you go through that framework, how does this impact me? You really have to make an assessment of how this will impact the people around you your parents, your brothers, your sisters, your children, your colleagues at SHRM in my case, jobs because we've just embarked upon a very ambitious transformation initiative and I just recruited people to come work with me and I sold them on this idea that we're going to transform the world of work and Sherm is going to lead on that. And then you turn around and you tell them six weeks later thank you for leaving your other job, where you're perfectly happy to come do this with me. And now I've made a different decision, like these are, when.
Speaker 3:One thing that we all, as leaders, you can't make these decisions in a vacuum, and I've heard people say, well, ultimately, make the decision that's best for you. That overly simplifies these tough moments, because it's not just about you, and true leaders know that right. They know that Forget when you're making a tough decision about a career move, a potential career move. They know and they are sensitive to every. This is this really interesting game of dominoes and if you move one of these the wrong way, the cascade, the impact of it is not it's not small. You can truly, truly disrupt. I mean I thought security issues for my daughter, like there's just so not small. You can truly, truly disrupt. I mean I thought security issues for my daughter, like there's just so much that you factor in. But you have to make sure that I would say you do all of this in the context of how does this impact everyone around me who matters to?
Speaker 2:me yeah, yeah, so really counting the costs yes, and as you say, thinking of beyond yourself. Yes, super cool title, rare air, like how many people get to go do this and you know the ultimate cv, and they're like. Those are all good things, but it's about now is such a big deal.
Speaker 3:You know, you often are saying maybe not now, maybe later, maybe you know, a lot that goes into your mind. But again I want to emphasize that as leaders, you cannot make a decision. I walk away and sometimes I'll hear people say I made the decision that was best for me. I think I know where they're landing. What I'm hoping that they say is what's best for me and the people who matter to me, yes, and the people in my care and the people who matter to me.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right. So just to recap this and then we'll sign off. So, clarifying one's values, and I don't care what it is that's first base. You have to know what your values are and if you haven't taken the time to do an exercise like that, just press stop and go do that. Find the desired impact. What is the legacy, what is the impact that you want to have on the people in your life, the community that you live in, the work that you do? Take time to evaluate the trade-offs. There will not be a perfect decision, but take time because when you can go into that and you know this is going to be a cost to that decision, you're not disappointed on another day because you kind of took that into account. This was part of the deal. Trust your intuition. Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment. You know. Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment. You know. Take the time to what feels right to you, having taken in all the data.
Speaker 2:But you have to rely on your, your, your good judgment, just in seeking external perspectives. You know, we can get so caught up in our own head on things and we can sometimes lose the forest for the trees. And when you can go outside to people who know you, who care about you and can provide you the confidence and the wisdom that you need to make a hard decision, that's invaluable. And then decide, as you say, sometimes that could be the easier part. It's committing to the decision I just made. It could be the hard part, but then we do have to make a decision, we have to be committed and we have to bring those people along with us who are impacted by your decision.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, boy. I love it. You're spot on and I hope, as people reflect on this, it's easy to say big decision you had to make, but life is filled with these big decisions. It's relative. Do I take this job? Do I not take this job? Do I relocate when my significant other is happy in his or her career? You know how does this impact my kid who's entering high school. There's just so many and the enormity of the you know. Just because it's a public decision doesn't mean it's my. Public decision is that you have to go through the same framework when you're making your own personal decision. So I hope the readers and the listeners here will appreciate this framework. Bob, you're my guy. He helps me conceptualize these things, but it really was helpful and I think it's applicable. It will be applicable. Get that word out Applicable in your life in different ways.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, johnny, thank you for taking the time to sort of share what's very personal and public at the same time, but I think it just provides such a relevant use case for us to understand how can we take those same principles. So for that I thank you. Thank you, listeners and viewers, for taking a few minutes out of your day today to spend time with us, and we hope to catch you on the next episode of the Work Wire. If you've got any feedback for us, any suggestions for future episodes, just please let me know at Bob at Career Club. And now, johnny, here we go, peace out. Thank you so much, my friend. Thank you everyone. Have a great, great rest of your day.
Speaker 1:Happy holidays. Check out careerclub for personalized help with your job search. Visit shrmorg to become part of the largest human resources organization worldwide.
