Disrupting HR: Lessons in Curiosity, Influence, and Building a Global Movement | Jennifer McClure
Jennifer McClure, founder of Disrupt HR, explains why curiosity, not authority, is what earns leaders influence.
Topics Covered:
• How Jennifer went from corporate HR to founding a global movement
• Why a “seat at the table” isn’t the same as having influence
• The difference between giving advice and real coaching
• What it means to lead as a “strategic” HR leader
After nearly two decades in corporate HR, Jennifer McClure kept running into the same wall: being in the room wasn’t the same as being heard. What she learned instead changed how she leads and eventually launched a global movement.
Jennifer believes HR is the most important job in any company, not because of rank, but because it’s the one role that touches every employee. That conviction led her to found Disrupt HR in 2013, now 170+ communities strong in 28 countries.
Her biggest shift came from blunt feedback: people didn’t want her in meetings because she only pointed out what couldn’t be done. Her fix was simple; ask “tell me more” before reacting, even when she disagreed. That one habit turned her from a roadblock into someone people actively wanted in the room.
Takeaways:
• Curiosity beats advice
• A seat at the table means nothing without influence
• Every business goal, from revenue to quality, is really a people problem
“Curiosity is an amazing thing to have in your toolkit — to build relationships, grow your influence, build trust, and get to the best solution. Always lead with curiosity.”
— Jennifer McClure
Connect with Jennifer McClure:
Website: https://jennifermcclure.net/
DisruptHR: https://disrupthr.co/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifermcclure/
https://www.auris.io/
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The Entrepreneur’s Studio is sponsored by Auris, helping small and mid-sized businesses simplify payroll and HR with powerful tools and real human support. Learn more at https://www.auris.io
1 Chris Allen: Welcome to the Entrepreneur Studio Podcast
brought to you by RIS.
Today's episode begins our series of conversations recorded
live at Sterm 26 in Orlando, Florida.
Sterm is the world's largest professional association
dedicated to human resource management and creating better
workplace environments for everyone.
As a part of the event, I had the opportunity to sit down with
leading voices who are shaping the future of entrepreneurship,
culture, and workplace dynamics.
And if you're hungry to learn what it takes to build a
successful business, these conversations are tailored to
help you win.
Thanks for tuning in, and let's get on to the show.
SPEAKER_03: I have always believed that human resources is
the most important job in every organization.
It's the only job in every organization that has the
opportunity to influence and impact every single employee.
Chris Allen: What if an overlooked function in business
could actually be the most important one?
Disrupt HR started at a Cincinnati brewery in 2013 and
has grown to over 170 communities across 28 countries.
This global movement exists to energize, inform, and empower
people in the HR field, giving a platform to those who have
something worth saying but haven't had a stakes to say it
from.
I had a chance to sit down with HR strategist and founder of
Disrupt HR, Jennifer McClure, to discuss why she spent four
decades proving one simple idea that the human resources
function in an organization isn't merely a support role.
It's the most important seat in any company and the only one
with the power to touch every single employee.
I'm Chris Allen, and if you're leading people or building a
team, this conversation will challenge how you think about
people and what becomes possible when you treat them as your
greatest ass.
Thank you.
Well, you spent nearly two decades inside corporate HR
before walking away to shake this whole thing up.
What was the moment you realized playing by the rules wasn't
going to accomplish the change that you wanted to see happen?
SPEAKER_03: Oh.
You're coming out hard, Harold.
I think that I mean that happened in corporate as well.
I don't know that I always played by the rules.
I mean, I wouldn't have called myself a disruptor, but I think
there's always opportunity to look at work differently, and
there's always opportunity to shake things up.
And I have been a fan of that.
You know, I've I give myself a little bit of creativity for
some of the things I did in HR.
Um, you know, to be frank, I started my career in HR four
decades ago, and it was called Personnel Then.
And I was 23 years old when I started my first job as the
personnel manager slash shipping and receiving manager.
So that's how much they thought of HR.
It had to be two jobs.
Chris Allen: Part-time job.
SPEAKER_03: That's right.
But I was the youngest person in the company and the only female
on the leadership team.
And I always say I give young Jennifer a lot of grace.
She was just trying to be heard.
Um, you know, so I might have been a little bull in the china
chop in some ways of you will listen to me and we're gonna do
this.
And I also did my fair share of we can't do that because it's
again our against our policy and uh or we'll get sued.
And I learned that that wasn't the way to get anybody to listen
to you.
So I learned that I needed to be more a part of helping solve the
issues rather than being the one that was always putting barriers
in front of people, which I think a lot of, especially early
HR career people do.
Um we are responsible for managing risk and we are
responsible for enforcing policies.
So when we show up in the meetings, we think that's the
lens that we need to have.
But the real lens is the business focus.
How do we enable people to deliver on the business
objectives?
And that involves a lot of conversation.
Here's what I think about what you just said.
Tell me more why you disagree with what I'm saying.
I'd like to understand your point of view.
You know, we're working towards the same goal.
And I had to learn a lot of those lessons the hard way.
So long answer.
I guess I was disruptive by, especially early in my career,
doing a lot of HR wrong and having the bruises for that.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: But also being a person who doesn't like to fail,
uh, so kind of in real time, figuring some of it out.
Well, that certainly didn't work, so maybe we should try
again.
Chris Allen: I love it.
You know, uh founder, speaker, disruptor, it's like you were
designed to challenge the system you came from, right?
If you were to look back at where it all started and where
you are today, what's something that has sort of stayed true?
What's the the connection that you're like this is still me?
SPEAKER_03: Sure.
For me, I have always believed that human resources or
personnel, when I started, is the most important job in every
organization.
10,000-person company, 100-person company.
I think the HR people are the most important.
Now, uh, ChatGPT told me recently that I should, you
know, I if I'm talking about being business focused, that
maybe that's not the right way to look at it.
And I was like, shut up, Chat GPT.
Um I believe HR is the most important in the sense that it's
the only job in every organization that has the
opportunity to influence and impact every single employee.
The work product that we put out impacts the people in the
organization, and we are also, you know, but it's maybe a
little bit too high of a title, but kind of the guardian of the
people's side of the business.
You know, people will always tag HR with being untrustworthy
because they are there to protect the business.
And I've always said that is one of my hats.
I'm there to protect the business, but I'm also there to
advocate for the employees, but I'm there as a whole to, again,
how do we work together to move the business forward?
So that's been my through line.
It is the reason why I chose personnel with no having never
met anyone who worked in HR when I was asked by my advisor in
college to pick a major and figure out what I wanted to be
when I grew up.
I said, I want to be in personnel.
And he said, why?
And I said, because I think it's the most important job in every
company.
And I always say I was a millennial before millennials
were a thing.
I wanted, I wanted the most influence and impact I could
get.
And I thought that was the path to get it.
I can't own the company from day one, but I can work in a job
where what I do allows me to, especially in a small company
where I started, know everybody.
Um the work I do impacts everybody, and it's important.
You know, fast forward through a few career moves in corporate
and then fast forward through, you know, to disrupt HR and what
I do today as a speaker and coach, I still believe we, you
know, it's cliche maybe uh to say people are our biggest
asset.
And usually when someone says that, you can kind of give them
the side eye because they're probably just repeating what's
on the dusty plaque on the wall.
But people really, I think COVID, if nothing else, proved
to us that all of the amazing innovation that came out of
COVID, if we now can look at it six years later and call it
innovation and not pain, was because of people.
People are creative, people are intelligent, people figure out
how to work in different conditions and they find ways to
create things that are more successful.
So the fact that I get to be responsible for that asset, I
think it's still exciting today.
So I will I will always advocate.
Maybe it'll be on my tombstone someday if I have one.
HR is the most important job in every organization.
Chris Allen: There you go.
Well, tell us a little bit about how Disrupt HR came to life for
you.
SPEAKER_03: Sure.
Well, I was about three years into, so I said I about 20 years
in HR in the corporate world, four years or so in executive
search.
And while I was in executive search, I was helping a lot of
senior executives in transition, which then resulted in them
asking me to come in and speak to their leadership teams.
And I realized I liked being a speaker.
So I stepped out on my own in 2010 to do this full-time.
And part of that was speaking at a lot of conferences and events,
you know, going out and, you know, doing breakout sessions in
the beginning to just get my name out there and hopefully get
on the keynote stage eventually.
And because I was going to, at the time, maybe 50 or 60
conferences, events in the year, a lot of them certainly in the
HR recruiting space, because I had a message for those people,
but I was also talking at entrepreneur conferences and
small business conferences.
I saw a lot of the same people and I heard a lot of the same
topics.
And so going to all these events, I'm kind of like, I
think some of the people out in the audience also have something
to say, but they either never want to be up on this big stage
or they don't have all of the accoutrements to get selected.
And so I was thinking, well, maybe someday I could create an
event where people who have need to have a voice could have an
opportunity to speak.
So just in a meeting with an entrepreneur that's in the
Cincinnati startup community, I was on the advisory board for
his HR Tech startup at the time, and we were having lunch.
And he said, you know, you've been doing this speaking thing
for about three years.
You know, are you seeing anything different?
What's on your mind?
And I told him my idea.
And being an entrepreneur, he literally whipped a notebook out
of his back pocket and started writing down.
He's like, tell me more.
You know, I love this idea.
This is great.
And I'm like, slow down.
I'm an idea person, I don't know about execution.
Um, so he called maybe a week or so later and said, I just I
can't stop thinking about this, and I think we could do it, and
my team will help.
Um, and I think we should call it disrupt because he was at the
start at the time, there was a conference called TechCrunch
Disrupt.
It was the big thing for startup people, I guess.
He said, We can call it Disrupt HR.
Uh, and he was the community organizer for Ignite events,
which are community-driven events where people from the
community talk about their idea about you know going green or
whatever it is.
And the Ignite format is five minutes with 20 slides that
advance automatically every 15 seconds.
So, Chris Ostrich is my business partner with Disrupt HR.
Um, he was the one that had that idea.
Use that Ignite format, make it fun.
Uh, the first event we had was in December of 2013 in
Cincinnati, and you know, we held it at a historic brewery
downtown, and they had cornhole games and ping pong tables, and
you know, we gave free beer, and people were able to come and
listen to myself and some other people give fun talks, and they
laughed and they had a good time.
And afterwards, a friend of mine had attended the event who lived
in Denver, and she said, I'd like to do this in Denver.
And so we said, Sure, we'll help you.
And then we put the videos online, I guess, from those two
events, and somebody reached out to me from Toronto, and somebody
reached out to Chris from Vancouver, and so it really was
never more in my head of I just want to give people an
opportunity to share their ideas.
Thankfully, Chris helped put some structure around that.
And I think what it's become now, you know, it'll be 13 years
in December, I guess.
It's more, I mean, even we're here at the Sherm conference,
and people are coming up to me if they see my name tag and
they're like, oh, I spoke at my disrupt HR event, you know, or
I've spoken at five of them, or and I just really love Disrupt
HR because it's fun and it's, you know, we get to have fun and
we get to learn and to meet people who think like us.
And when I sit in the audience, I always 100% of the time feel a
sense of pride in what Disrupt HR has done.
I kind of separate myself for it in some way, because I hear
people that talk, and then I come, they come off the stage,
and afterwards I might go up to them and be like, your idea was
amazing.
And they're like, that's the first time I've ever spoken.
Wow.
And every time somebody says that, I'm like, this is why we
created it.
Now it's becoming more like a TEDx talk, I think, for some
people.
So people want to get on the stage, they want the video, so
more professional types are applying.
But I I discontinue to tell our organizer, I don't tell them who
they have to pick, but I say the original idea was there are
people in your community that have ideas that need to be
heard.
And I'm proudest.
Well, I'm proud of everybody.
We have over 11,000 disrupt HR talk videos out there online
now.
I'm proud of everybody who's done it.
So I think Disrupt HR became more than just people being able
to share their ideas.
It became an opportunity for people to challenge themselves,
to prove to themselves that they could do it, again, to meet
like-minded people and have fun.
So that wasn't my big vision, but I think that's what a lot of
uh things that turn out really well are when you let them, you
let people own it and make it what they want, and it becomes
something great.
Chris Allen: That's awesome.
Yeah.
I think I think one of the best parts about that is there's
something happening beyond and it's kind of movement oriented,
but you're the giving people a voice that have ideas.
That's such a powerful thing.
What do you think is unexpected about what's happened with this
disrupt HR?
Something you didn't you didn't really see.
SPEAKER_03: Well, I didn't see it becoming, you know, 170
licensed communities in 28 countries and 11,000 talks.
So that's surprising.
Again, I think it's it's become more than my vision of just
giving people a voice.
It's become a place to test ideas, it's become a place where
people can, you know, the learning format, we were ahead
of the curve back when, you know, and I still do keynotes
that sometimes are an hour and a half.
And I can stand up there and talk for an hour and a half.
The question is whether or not the audience is paying attention
for that long because our attention spans are getting
shorter.
So five-minute talks, I think, are a good way for people to
just get a little, you know, seasoning of an idea and then
maybe follow up with the speaker or go back to their team and
share the video or something.
So it's it's I do think it is kind of interesting.
I I gave a talk at the 10-year anniversary event we gave in
Cincinnati for it, and I called it what I've learned after 10
years of disruption.
And I just used a lot of memes to, you know, kind of make fun
of disrupt HR.
One of them was the gladiator, where he says, Are you not
entertained?
And I said, I hear all the time from people who go, I went to a
disrupt HR event and I wasn't disrupted.
SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, what were you looking for when you
went to the event?
Space lasers or you know, something that's never been done
before.
If you went to a disrupt HR event, you met somebody that
you've never met before, you had a great conversation, you had
someone pique your interest and make you think a little
differently, or it confirmed an idea that you already had, I
think you've been disrupted.
And that part, I think I'm I hear more and more when I'm out
and about and people recognize my company name or maybe they
recognize me.
They want to tell me those stories.
They want to tell me how they spoke for the first time and now
they're a professional speaker who gets five figures for
speaking at events.
They want to tell me about they met their business partner at
the event and now they have a successful, you know, whatever
marketing agency.
They want to tell me about how it helped them to have more
competence to grow in their career.
That's the unexpected, I think.
And that's what makes me proud to be associated with.
Chris Allen: Well, there are other people that come up to you
and tell you things like, uh, you know, I don't want to do
this job anymore because uh I'm not able to be strategic.
And you've definitely talked about this before.
And I wanted to see if there was an opportunity for you to share
a little bit of that version of the story where, from your point
of view, you re-encountered people like that later and this
idea that not being able to be strategic uh may only be in our
minds.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, I can I can obviously talk from the HR
lens because I've I've lived it and certainly orbited that space
for my whole career.
But there was a period of time, you know, when I started it was
personnel, HR was very administrative, that's just what
it was.
And then I think in the 80s, HR became more than just personnel
in many companies and obviously changed their name.
Now we're even continuing to be like people in culture and
people's success, and we've just come up with all the names now.
But there was a period of time, especially, and it was right
around the time I started my speaking business, so 2000.
So you go to a conference and every speaker was talking about
seat at the table, and every HR person was like, I want that
seat at the table, or I have the seat at the table.
Or, you know, LinkedIn profile headlines being, you know, I'm a
strategic HR leader, and it was always amusing to me.
I have a lot of questions, you know, if somebody comes up to me
and they say they want to work for a small or mid-sized
company, I always say, Well, what does that mean for you?
Because it's different for everybody.
So when someone would introduce themselves to me as a strategic
HR leader, um, my fun fact is to say, Well, tell me what that
means to you.
And almost always it was some version of where I sit on the
organization chart or what meetings I either attend or
don't.
And sometimes I'd hit people maybe harder than they expected,
uh, but I certainly was in my talk talk about it is having a
strategic focus means you're focused on the business.
That means you understand the business.
It's not just the Sherm capability of business acumen.
It's I truly understand our business, and I am in the room
at the table because I have a perspective to share on the
business.
And as the HR person, I'm not there just to say we can't do
this because we'll get sued.
I'm there to have that lens, and I'm there to have the lens of,
you know, we've got conversations going on in
boardrooms all over about AI and what companies are going to do.
And we see companies every day laying off, you know, tens of
thousands of people, but yet they're profitable.
That tells me that someone wasn't in the room or
representing the fact that, well, if we free up people to do
different work because now some of the you know routine work is
being handled by AI, which is true.
Let's get creative and think about what they could do instead
to continue to grow our business, to make it bigger
instead of saying we're chasing efficiency.
Um, so that strategic focus, I like to make sure, especially
again for HR people, that it's rightly placed.
That I am there to make sure the talent strategy aligns to the
business strategy.
Not just aligns, actually, but the talent strategy drives the
business strategy.
Back to we're the most important employees in the organization.
We are driving the business if we are doing the right things,
because every business objective, and I mean, they are
always typically quality, safety, productivity, customer
satisfaction, rev top line revenue growth.
You know, you could probably name six typical strategic
objectives.
Every single one of those involves a people strategy.
If we need to have high quality products, our people need to
love their work, they need to be proud of their work, they need
to be fully trained and capable to do the work.
If we want to grow top line revenue, we have to have high
quality products we're proud of.
But our salespeople need to be able to go out and really
convince people they need to buy it.
Every one of those has a people lens, and the best strategic HR
leaders are focused on whatever my lane is in the business, how
do I drive business results?
Too many HR people want to claim that strategic HR leader title,
but then if you, you know, I if I were consulting with the
company, I'd be like, let me see your goals and objectives.
Well, implement new HRS software, increase open
enrollment efficiency.
These are HR goals.
What I need to know is what are your goals that if our goal is
to increase top line revenue, how does HR drive that?
How does HR drive quality?
How does HR drive productivity?
HR being the people strategy.
Chris Allen: I love it.
One of the things that I have appreciated is uh when I've seen
great HR leaders is they're not always trying to lead from the
front.
They're definitely understanding the business and then figuring
out a way to help drive the thing that helps move the
business.
Not necessarily I have a strategic seat at the table and
I'm I'm leading from the front all the time.
And so sometimes you can lead from other positions, could be
lead from the behind and helping things go.
So, like, what are some of the things that you've seen as it
relates to people getting themselves into good positions
to really help the business?
SPEAKER_03: Well, again, Jennifer, who learned a lot of
things by doing it wrong.
Um, I was that HR leader for many years who would show up and
I like to participate.
I certainly was active in the discussions, but I'd also throw
a lot of roadblocks.
People, you can't do that.
Our people won't let us do that.
You know, that's against our policy.
We'll get sued.
And one day my boss pulled me aside and he said, Jennifer,
nobody wants you in those meetings.
I had the seat at the table.
Uh he said, nobody wants you in these meetings because you're
always telling us what we can't do.
I highly recommend you start to think about how you can help us
do that.
So, what I think works really well, and again, what I learned
over time is even if, first of all, I have to control my poker
face, which I don't have.
So I also got some advice about that.
We know exactly what you're feeling in the meeting.
I'm like, okay, I gotta do better.
Um, train myself to listen, tell me, tell me more.
You know, that's always a good question when you're shocked,
appalled, or otherwise disgusted.
Tell me more.
Why do you feel that way?
And how do you think this is going to work out?
So the more I can ask questions, the more I can engage with your
idea instead of just dismissing it.
But I really, you know, again, what I learned, and hopefully,
you know, a year later, maybe my boss gave me better feedback is
you want people to want you in the room.
Again, having the seat at the table is just attendance.
What you want is that people look around the room and it's
not an executive meeting.
But maybe it's a strategy meeting for a new product
launch, and they look around the room and they're like, HR's not
here, Jennifer is not here.
She always has great ideas and good input.
We need to make sure she's here.
I want to be the person that you want in the room because I make
ideas better with a business lens, that I'm not just there to
tell you what's wrong or to keep you out of trouble.
I'm there to help the best ideas come to light.
So learning how to ask questions, learning how to uh a
really smart piece of advice for any leader is I'd like to go
think about this.
Again, don't just it's not, it's not a no.
I'd like to go think about this and gather some data.
I have maybe a different idea about how we could do this.
Could you give me two days and we could get back together and
talk about maybe some other options?
Um, so being really thoughtful, again, I was also known as I'm
I'm a driver.
I want, let's do it, execute, make it happen.
People come in to the HR office, they have a question, I'd be
like, no.
Um, I'd be like, no, no, no.
Again, same boss said, Jennifer, people come to you, you give
them an answer right away, and they know that your answer is
probably correct, but they don't feel like they've been heard.
And so my approach was then, even if they came in and I knew
the answer was no, I'd say, let me think about that.
Maybe I, you know, didn't really think I needed to think about
it, but after I did, or maybe I went and talked to some other
people about it, I was able to come back, and even if the
answer was still no, to tell them why I was saying no instead
of just no, to tell them what I thought differently about.
You know, so being more thoughtful is good leadership
advice for any leader to listen first.
You know, I have an executive coaching certification, which
when I went through that training, I'll never forget I
learned the hard way again very quickly.
The difference between advice giving and coaching.
I was that was after I left my corporate HR career, and I
thought I had always been a good coach.
You know, people come to me all the time, they ask my ideas.
I got ideas for you, I give it very quickly.
But I learned I was giving a lot of advice.
And when you give advice, that means about half the time people
will be like, oh wow, thank you for giving me the answer.
I'm gonna go do that.
About the other half of the time, maybe even more, they
leave and they go, I don't think she even listened to me.
Coaching is again good advice for any leader is I need to not
be thinking about the answer.
I need to be thinking about the next question I need to ask you.
I need to understand more why you're struggling with this.
I need to understand more why you're so excited about this
idea.
I don't just need to either dismiss it out of hand or accept
it.
I will be better, we will be better.
Back to that, I want to be the person that helps come to the
best decisions if I just focus on asking the next question.
Again, tell me more.
Even if I'm appalled, tell me more.
Yeah.
Um, so that's I think again, good advice for any leader.
Chris Allen: Well, I there's uh two really cool things in there.
One is the practice of curiosity, right?
Just be more curious.
And that helps people have a sense of connection, right?
And you know, they're answering these questions.
But the other thing that I like about your stepping away is this
kind of skill of perspective taking where you're like, you
know what, I'm gonna try and see it from their side, right?
And that that's a very useful and humbling thing that can
happen is that even if you're appalled, being able to take
their perspective and see how they're there, you're like,
okay, makes sense.
And when when I tend to do that, I can connect with them in a way
that would hopefully help them see why this thing that we're
having to say no to, or this yes and or no but kind of approach
can be really, really helpful for people.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I listened to a podcast with Adam Grant, uh
it's probably been a couple of years ago now, where he was
talking about, you know, how do we have conversations with
people that have different political beliefs than us, which
is obviously the world we live in.
And he always brings research and studies, and you know, but
he was research shows that if you sit across from a table, a
person with someone who has a different perspective, you will
get zero place if you just start telling them all the ways
they're wrong, and they will probably get zero uh traction
with you if they do the same.
The best way to maybe even convince somebody to come over
to the other side is to understand why they believe what
they do, to ask good questions about why they support this or
they don't.
Not only will that broaden out your own perspective, but to
your point about curiosity, when I get asked, you know, what's
the most important quality that you know I can have if I want to
be a leader, it is curiosity.
That's always been my answer.
And that that's what's saved young Jennifer who did all these
things wrong.
You know, boss tells you that nobody wants to end the meeting,
get curious about why that is instead of denying that this
feedback exists.
You know, um, when something's working or not working, get
curious about how we could fix it.
But even more important, get curious when something is
working if we can do it better.
So the curiosity is just an amazing thing to have in your
toolkit, both to build relationships, to grow your
influence, to build trust, to get to the best solution.
Always lead with curiosity.
Chris Allen: Well, if HR is gonna sort of, let's say, major
on the majors, if you're, let's say, a small business operator
and you're on the HR team or leading the HR team, what's one
way that you can really lead with HR in a small business?
SPEAKER_03: Well, it may again may sound a little
counterintuitive, but lead with HR by truly understanding the
business and focusing on the business goals.
Back to, I think, you know, John Maxwell is one of my favorite
quotes from him is you know, leadership is influence, nothing
more, nothing less.
I want to be influential.
So young Jennifer wanted the seat at the table.
More seasoned Jennifer wants to have influence.
I want people to come to me again because I help make
decisions better.
I want people to involve me because I can help them grow.
So that influence, I think, is what if you're in a small
company, whether you're an HR or you're the marketing leader, how
do I get influence?
Well, how do you get influence?
Let's turn to another seasoned speaker.
Zig Ziggler says, if you want to get what you want, help other
people get what they want.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: So back to how do I figure out to get my colleagues
to trust me?
How do I get them to see that I have influence?
I do that by helping them achieve their goals.
So how can I, again, sit down with my peers or colleagues and
say, what are you struggling with?
What's your team, you know, need in order to hit our business
goals?
And especially, again, back to HR, most important role.
Uh, if you're an HR, when you ask those questions, there are
always going to be people problems.
Always, you know, I don't have enough people.
I don't have the right people.
My people don't have the right training.
They don't have the right tools.
There's so many avenues you can take when you just sit down and
ask somebody, what's the biggest challenge you're facing with
your team right now?
Chris Allen: Well, I think it takes a lot of creativity to
take the answers that you get from those questions and
actually help, right?
And I think that's a that's another facet, right, of the
curiosity is being able to be creative enough to do that.
And I think that's another thing that makes people influential,
right?
Is being creative.
People come to you for that creativity.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, to your point on curiosity, you know, when I
give HR leaders that advice and they say, you know, I went to my
sales leader, you told me that it would be a people problem.
And I went to my sales leader and he said, Well, the biggest
problem facing me right now is our pricing strategy.
And I didn't know what to do with that.
And I'm like, what you do with that is to get curious.
How do the people solve that problem?
Again, is it a training issue?
Is it that our incentive structure is wrong?
Is it that the communication of the new strategy was handled the
wrong way?
Get curious to find the angle that you can use.
Chris Allen: Everybody, let's give Jennifer a round of
applause.
Thank you so much for coming here.
Narrator : Thank you for listening to the Entrepreneur
Studio Podcast.
Check the show notes for resources and links from today's
episode, and follow us on Instagram at the
entrepreneurs.studio.
See you next time.