The Transform Dialogues Featuring Melanie Naranjo

So we're here for the Transform Dialogues, part of the People Strategy and Leaders podcast. My name is Zach. I'm Amy. And we're joined by... I'm Melanie Naranjo, CPO at Athena. Awesome. Welcome, Melanie. Thank you so much for joining us. Excited to have this conversation about the transformation of work, the disruptions, the changes, things companies should be thinking about on top of in today's environment. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, some of the stuff you're working on? And yeah, what's one thing that, like, you're really focused on right now in terms of the world of work? Yeah, so, um, as I mentioned, I'm the CPO at Athena. Um, we're a compliance training company, um, which gives me this really great opportunity where I've got, you know, these hybrid set of interests. Obviously, there's the internal people side, but I'm also thinking very much about the market and our buyers on the HR buyer side. Um, and one of the things that we're thinking about both as a product and internally is: how can we do more with less, and how can we be increasingly efficient, especially with AI being so prevalent? Um, and we are driving our employees to be increasingly productive and efficient. Now, when I say that, I think people get scared that what I'm saying is they're working longer and longer hours. Um, what I am talking about is, how can you do more in the same amount of allotted time? And so we're doing a lot of really fun experimentation. I'll give a specific example, and then we can go from there. But, um, a very specific example is, um... So we have decided that, uh, we want to hire for direct reports that actually complement and accommodate the managers versus the reverse. Um, and the reason being that we believe that managers are performing higher value work. They're just, like, literally in the market, they are more expensive. And so I don't want a manager losing time to, uh, working with problems that, um, problems with their direct report. Or, for example, um, if, if maybe they're the kind of manager that doesn't remember your birthday, and your direct report gets upset about that, understandably, right? That means they're not a good match, and I don't want them losing time having to comfort their direct report that they forgot their birthday. And so we're looking at different ways to just really optimize our efficiency and make sure that, um, our organizational efficiency and the way that we work together is just better and better. I think that's such an interesting take. How are you doing that? Like, are you- like, through the recruiting process? Ooh. How are you- Yes ... doing those? Okay, so there's a couple of things we're doing. So I'll say on the recruiting side, super important, we're asking very specific questions, but we're also giving very specific information. So a couple of questions that we're asking are, you know, "Tell me about a time that a company made a decision that you disagreed with, and how did you navigate that?" If the person responds in a way that doesn't show me or the hiring manager that they're able to see from different perspectives- Mm-hmm ... "Hey, that sucked for me as an employee, but I can see why it was the right decision for the company," that, to me, is a no-go, right? Yeah. 'Cause that's gonna lead to friction that is unnecessary for us as a company. I'm not saying they're wrong. Yeah. I'm saying they're not the right employee for us. Mm-hmm. Um, um, and we are also having managers then tell them, "Hey, here are all the reasons why my direct reports who have loved working with me, love working with me as a manager. Here are all the reasons why direct reports who've hated partnering with me have hated partnering with me." And it allows people to opt in or opt out, right? It's, it's, again, it's not, it's not to scare you off. It's to be honest, so that we can figure out these problems before we jump in. And then internally, we're just looking for lower-lift ways to manage. So, you know, I think something that managers spend far too much time on is agoniz- agonizing over how to perfectly word feedback and be clear about severity. We've just implemented color coding. So when you give feedback, it's a yellow, an orange, or a red. Yellow means nice to have. It's a stretch opportunity. Orange means failure to do this isn't gonna lead to job loss, but you're not gonna be eligible for an increase or promotion because you've stagnated in growth, and red means danger, danger. If you do not meaningfully and quickly improve on this area, you will lose your job. And so it's just these things that are like, boom, boom, boom, common language. How do we make the process faster? Wow. And how are you implementing that feedback strategy? Is there a tool that you're using? Sure. Is it just sort of a mechanism stripe that- Yeah, you know, listen, I, I, I totally get it. Uh, there are a lot of great platforms out there. Um, we've just decided that we don't need them at this time. Yeah. Um, we just use Google Docs, and we have a template, and it's literally every other Friday, managers and direct reports are required to meet with each other, um, and give feedback. Um, the way that we do it is they fill out the template beforehand. It's, "What's one thing I could be doing better, you could be doing better, the company could be doing better?" And, "What's one thing I'm doing great, you're doing great, and the company is doing great, or the team?" They get to decide what they wanna give that week. Um, and it's both sides, right? So it's you giving your manager feedback and your manager giving you feedback. Um, you do it the day before, so they have time to process, and then the day of, you meet, and you discuss it, and we alternate it with one-on-ones. So one week you do a regular one-on-one, one week you do feedback, and we do that intentionally, because otherwise feedback tends to fall by the wayside, and, and we don't want that happening. So you've got a dedicated time for feedback and dedicated time for one-on-one. Wow. I love the ritual around this- Yeah ... right? Like, how do we create a ritual- That's right ... a practice around this and nurture that type of culture- Yeah ... versus just leaving it up, like- Oh, yeah ... and hoping. Oh, yeah. That's it. It is, it is so not optional. Yeah. When you are onboarded, it gets added to your calendar. It's not an option. You cannot decline. And do people feel like they have enough time to take that feedback and action off of it? 'Cause sometimes having such a kind of a strict regimen of, of delivery... Oh, that's a, that's a great question. Um, I think so, because let's be real, not every week is gonna be this deep and tight- Yeah ... feedback, right? Sometimes it's gonna be a very small thing, right? Um, sometimes I actually don't have a piece of constructive feedback to give you this week. We're not about, um, forcing you to give feedback for the sake of feedback. We are about forcing you- It's quality over quantity, right? Yes. We're forcing you to be reflective about what could be improved. If you truly can't think of anything-... that's okay. But if you can, this is your time, and what's really great about it is it relieve- it alleviates the burden of giving unsolicited feedback. Yes. Everyone can identify with, "I've got this thing I need to tell you -" Yeah ... "but I don't know how to tell you or when to bring it up," and saying, "Hey, can I give you some feedback?" is not fun. So when it's mutual and solicited, it's in fact part of your job, it is required, um, that's what makes it a little easier. I will say one thing, and then I'll stop talking. Where this gets complicated is cross-functional feedback, because you cannot- Yeah. Yeah, you cannot say every single person has to have a feedback session with every person that they f- partner with cross-functionally. So what we have actually done is, at the leadership level, um, all team leads are required to fill out a bi-weekly form with just three questions. It's, um: How are you progressing towards goals? Um, what's working on your team? And what challenges are you running into? And it's a public doc. Uh, so a- all tech team leads have access to this, and the CEO reviews them, and then the CEO decides based on that, what we're- what the topic of the next leadership meeting is going to be so that we can make sure that we are addressing any issues, such as maybe the marketing team and the sales team are not working well together. Well, guess what, buddy? We're gonna talk about it. Yes. Um, it's a really great way to ensure that that cross-functional, uh, feedback, uh, is happening. I love that. That's great. Uh, I'm curious of how we start to roll out and communicate these things to the people, right? Mm-hmm. 'Cause... And, and you talked about, right, a huge focus is to do more with less- Yeah ... how to be more efficient with the time that we're, we're at. Yeah. Uh, the way that we communicate that to our people can really make the difference of whether that's an energizing, engaging strategy that they're embracing- Yeah ... or, "Hey, are you just trying to make me do more with less?" Yeah. "And I'm already at a, uh, overloaded- Yeah ... task list- Yeah ... and all these things." How do you... It can- so it's like a del- Yeah ... delicate balance, right? Yeah. So how do you approach that message? Like, as a HR leader, how do you position and- I think it comes down to two things. One is enablement. I think too many companies say, "Hey, do more AI. Do- be more automated," and they don't tell you how, they don't train you. It happens in HR all the time, for example. Everyone is saying, "HR, be more automated. Use AI more." What the hell does that mean? Yeah. I wanna hear specific things like, "Hey, the next time that you have a business proposal that you wanna present to your CEO, and they say, 'Prove to me the financial ROI,' go to ChatGPT and say, 'Hey, here's a proposal I wanna pitch. Can you give me a formula to calculate what the financial ROI would be on this?'" Done, right? Like, that's a very specific, tangible thing, but no one is doing that. And so the same has to be true for employees. You need to enable them. What does automation mean? What does AI look like, and how can you do this in your job safely, in a compliant way that doesn't, you know, release your data? So plug and shout-out for Athena's AI training. Um, but, um, the other thing that I would say is it comes down absolutely, um, to messaging, and it comes from leadership, right? It has to come from the top. Uh, uh, when we say that we want you to be more productive and efficient, what I find that people often do is they forget to say the unspoken thing: "I want you to be more efficient and produce more. I do not want you to work longer hours. If you are working longer hours, it's not working. So please come to me, and let's discuss. The goal is to do more in fewer hours, and by the way, the goal is to make your job easier so that you don't have to keep working late, so that you have- don't have to keep stressing that we don't have another hire or a headcount approved," right? So saying the unspoken thing and being very clear about what the goal is. "We are trying to hit our revenue goals, our business goals, and we are going to be better equipped to do this if I can empower you to be more automated and more efficient." Did you find that the change management... Because you said it's a, you know, from day one for- with new hires, this is the process for them. Was the change management with your existing team difficult, or were they embraced in it and got on board right away? Let me make sure I'm understanding. Um, which change management for which initiative in particular? So going to this new- finding all of these efficiencies, you know- Mm ... how do you work smarter, right? Oh, gotcha. Okay, so, um, we always- we often start with a company-wide comm, like, "Heads up, this is a thing we're working on, and here's why. Here's the business reason why we're doing this," right? Um, because we believe it's important to bring your employees along the journey with you. If you cannot justify and clearly articulate your logic, y- you probably have more work to do. Um, but then from there, we actually do what we call the trickle-down effect. I have a strong belief, as much as it hurts my HR heart, that, um, company-wide initiatives are not as effective as team-specific initiatives, because every team has its own culture, right? Mm. You look at the engineering team... Well, uh, the, the example I always give is the sale- salespeople, they freaking love things like swag- ... having a happy hour, getting together. The engineering team is like, "Kill me now." Mm-hmm. Like, "Can you just give me more PTO? Can you just give me more money?" And so one solution is not gonna work company-wide. So typically, what we do from there is, once we've made the comms, we'll write up an FAQ so that managers can answer immediate questions, but we partner more closely with the team leads to figure out what is the strategy and communication plan that's going to work best for your team. Because, again, the engineering team's solutions for automation and, um, and efficiency is gonna be very different, right? They're, they're solving different problems than the sales team and the marketing team and HR even. Mm-hmm. So, so that's our general approach. That's great. Uh, I like this idea of embracing team mini cultures- Yes ... right? Absolutely. And obviously, you wanna have a, a cohesive, larger culture within- Of course ... the organization, but also honoring and embracing those mini cultures throughout the company. I actually have, um, a pretty strong opinion here, which is, um, I think I want diversity of culture. I don't think that's a problem for teams, to your point, to have different cultures. I do not want diversity of values. Yes. So as long as our values are aligned, I actually, quite frankly, don't care if the engineering team, you know, gets inspired by this and the marketing team gets inspired in that, uh, by that. I just care that our values are aligned, because those are non-negotiables, right? One of our values, for example, is embracing feedback. If you are defensive and you can't receive feedback, uh, it- that's not diversity to me. Right. That, that means you just cannot work effectively at our company, so we should probably talk about, you know, what the exit plan is. Yeah.... And I can see how that could roll into a larger, like, celebration of our teams, right? Yeah. To recognize these differences and ways that teams have found a way to be more connected, more productive with their work, and then other teams can learn from that, and they can decide and be empowered, like, "Oh, do we wanna take on that tradition as well?" Yeah. Like, "Do we wanna take on that way of, of operating that they've unlocked for their team and bring that into our operations?" Like, so I think there's, like, a way to celebrate that. I think- Yeah ... absolutely, yeah. And by the way, you know, um, I see a ton of exit interviews in HR, and, you know, the thing that people often come back to the most that, like, makes it or breaks it is their team culture, right? Their team culture. Yeah. Not their company culture, their team culture. Those are often, um, the things that employees love the most, and so why try and break that up, right? Why, why try and keep them from the thing that is making them happy and is ultimately going to help retain them? Um, so yeah, I'm, I'm a full fan of embracing team diversity of culture. Yeah. It doesn't intimidate me. So I'll, I'll take the conversation to where a lot of conversations are right now, which is around the world of AI- Let's do it ... and how it's making its way- Yeah ... into our workforce. Uh, you made a comment before about, like, it's really important to take your people along the way with you onto these things- Yeah ... versus maybe forcing an AI strategy onto departments, so- Yeah ... uh, two-part question. Yeah. I guess, one part, what are you really excited about right now with this emergence, and, like, how are you even, as an organization- Yeah ... or as an HR team- Yeah ... excited to use it or- Yeah ... embrace it? And then the second part, though, to that question is, like, how do we then bring our people along the way? Yeah. Like, what ways are we bringing them into this, the AI strategy- Yeah ... to help bring this to life? So, uh, two-part answer to your two-part question. Yeah. Um, um, so I will be candid because I think more HR people need to hear this. I don't think enough people are being honest. Um, I dreaded AI at first. It was intimidating and overwhelming- Same. And... Right? Mm-hmm. And my boss, understandably, she's a CEO, she's like, "AI, save money, efficiency, and productivity? Like, go!" And I was just overwhelmed because I couldn't see specifics, and I didn't understand what she or the world meant, and that's okay. That is okay. Mm-hmm. Um, but you do need to get on board, and, like, pretty soon because it, it is, it is the future. It is happening. It's not going away. That's like, uh, people who did not want to get on board the remote train, um, during the pandemic. Obviously, some people are switching back to hybrid, but if you were not able to function remotely during the pandemic, you are not going to succeed, right? This is one of those things. This is a critical time in history in the workforce, and people need to get on the train. Um, uh, so what I'm excited about, um, for anyone who's still nervous about it, um, is it's literally taking all the things that you hate doing and that take too much time and resources and making them faster. Um, you can literally go to AI and say- you can go to ChatGPT and say, "Hey, I have to look at these three things all the time, and they take me 20 hours. Here's my current process. How can I do this process in 50% of the time?" And it will write you a script. It will create a formula for you. It will tell you, like, "Hey, these things don't seem important. Maybe you should cut them and focus on this instead." Like, literally, it's all about how can you make your life easier. Yes. Um, so i- if, if you are feeling intimidated because it might replace you, that's not gonna happen, and if you're just intimidated because you don't know how to use it, like, honestly, just play around and go, um... I, I mean, I don't know how else to do this without plugging myself, but, like, I literally just made a LinkedIn post with 20 examp- 20 examples of how HR professionals can use ChatGPT. So it, it, the information is out there. Go find it. Go experiment. It's gonna blow your mind. Um, in terms of how you bring employees along on the journey with you, I'm so surprised that I remembered your second question. Go me. Um, I would say start by asking them, um, some fundamental questions. Uh, what does your bandwidth look like? What are your biggest time sucks? Yeah. What are the things that are most tedious, redundant, uh, manual? And then work backwards with them- Yes ... from there. "Okay, seems like AI could handle this," or maybe it's just energy-draining. For example, I hate writing company-wide communications. Hate them. I agonize over every single word, but what I could do is just say, "Hey, ChatGPT, here's some stuff I need to communicate. Here are the specific information that I need. Can you write me an email, make it conversational, throw in two puns so that it's funny, and keep the word count under 500 so that people actually read it? Go." Done, right? So easy. You can tell it what tone. If it gives you something you don't like, "Nope, that's too long. Cut the word count by 25%. Nope, this is too corporate. Make it, um, more casual. Um, nope, I, I don't like how this is wr-" Like, whatever... It's literally whatever you want it. It does whatever you want it to do. So, um, I think work with your employees to understand what's holding them back and then support them with some examples, but then make clear that moving forward, though, "You now need to be able to apply this. I can't hold your hand forever. I'm enabling you, but you now need to be more autonomous." Yeah, I think, like, for me, I was... I'm in the same boat as you, right? I was really restrictive. I, I am a communications professional- ... at my core- Okay ... so writing the company email actually excites me, right? Oh. Like, I love that. So don't use ChatGPT for that! Right, but it felt like cheating to me, right? Oh. Like, every time somebody said- Interesting ... like, "Go to AI," like, it felt like I was cheating, or I was taking a shortcut. Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I think once we shift our thinking to go, "No, actually, this is not." Yeah. Like, this is making you better. It's creating efficiencies for you. It's helping you focus on the strategic- Yeah ... big-thinking ideas that you don't- Yeah ... make the time for today. You know what- Like, get out of your task world. What this makes me think of is, um, I always tell managers who are, like, overly helping their direct reports, "The time that you're spending helping your direct report is time that you are not spending doing something that you are uniquely capable of doing," right? "And, like, the value that you bring to the company is no longer that. I know you got promoted 'cause you were good at that, but that's no longer the value you bring." Yes. "The value you bring is this." And I think in the same way, you, you, you worded it so eloquently. There is so much more that you could be doing that you're not doing because you're bogged down by things that could be automated, and so, like, that's the focus, right? Yes. It's not about cheating. It's about freeing yourself up to work on things that are higher value, higher impact.... absolutely. So in the ethos of Transform, right? The, the purpose of much of this conference is around the transformation of work, transformation of people strategies, people tech, all these kind of disruptors. I'm curious from your perspective, do you have any bold predictions or key challenges or strategies that companies should be maybe thinking about to stay ahead of the curve? Yeah, like, what's your- Hmm ... your bold prediction? I mean, okay, my very bold and spicy take that people are not gonna like is that I think the future of CPO is actually just COO. Like, I just do. I think an effective CPO is a COO. I think that you need to be more tied to the business. I think we all do. I include myself in that. I have a lot to learn. I have a lot of ar- room to grow. Um, and, um, I'm not a business expert, and but I want to be, and I aspire to be, and the more that I learn about the business, the more I am able to effectively do my job. And I'll give an example. You know, I used to think that, like, the best way to do HR was, like, the traditional things. And when I first joined my company, and we identified that there was a manager problem, um, I was like, "We're gonna do a quarter-long training," this, this, and that, and my manager was like, "With what time do you want us to do that," right? You know, and I could have said, like, "Well, if we cared enough about HR, we'd make the time." Um, but no, right? Learning to partner with the company means learning to understand the... That, like, it is actually very important that we hit our revenue goals. The fact that managers don't have time for X, Y, and Z, you know, HR strategy doesn't- is not an indicator that they don't care about that. It's an indicator that there's an issue that you need to accommodate, right? I, I used to come in and be like, "Here is the right way to HR. Let me just tack that on to the business, you know, strategy." No, I need to start with the business strategy, right? Yes. And a, a very clear example for anyone who's looking to understand how to do this better is literally, what if you went to the business and you saw, "Hey, you know what? We have been missing our quotas for the past two quarters. Why is that?" I'm gonna use my people lens, right? 'Cause I'm not a marketing expert, and I'm not a sales expert, but I am a people expert. I'm gonna talk to the sales team or talk to the marketing team. Maybe on the sales team, I learn that the sales managers suck at giving direct feedback. They haven't been giving feedback, and so these problems have been going on forever. They suck at the recruitment process. They are hiring because someone is, like, jazzy, right, on the interview process, but they're not actually good on the job. And then I talk to marketing, and I find out sales keeps going around marketing. Sales and marketing are not talking well together, right? And so then I decide, "You know what? I need to just- I need to create this process that we just talked about, where you're gonna have to share what's going on in your progress to goals and your challenges, and how are we gonna solve that?" I just created a people initiative that was directly derived by and driven towards, right, meeting our business goals versus, "I don't know what's going on in the business, but I know that, you know, engagement surveys are important, so let's do that," right? I- i- in no way am I gonna get buy-in from my CEO, and rightly so. Rightly so. It is a distraction from the business. There cannot be employee support if there is no business to employ them. I love that spicy take. I am 100% on board with that. I think that too much in HR, we focus on the way we support other units, and we don't really promote our own value by showing that investing in our people in the right ways- Mm-hmm ... equals productivity. Right. Investing in people in the right ways equals increased sales and customer service. Absolutely. And- Yeah ... I love that. I think that is 100% spot on. I'm so glad to hear that. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I, I fundamentally believe that, uh, that investing in your people leads to, um, good business, but you need to start from the business- Yes ... to come up with the right people strategy. You cannot function in a silo. And I think about, like, the CPOs in our network as well. That seems to be what everyone wants to get to, right? Like, that's exciting. That's where we would ideally like to be operating from. Uh, so let's step into that, right? Like, let's take that bold step- Yeah ... and assert ourselves into that more strategic role. Yes. So I appreciate you role-modeling the way in that and sharing your perspective and, and, and strategies for how CPOs can do that. So thanks for joining us. Of course! This has been an amazing conversation. Thanks so much for having me. So great. Thank you. Lots of fun. Thank you. Thank you, all. Thank you.