Podcasts

Intro

Hi, and welcome to Decoding AQ, helping you to learn the tools, mindsets, and actions to thrive in an ever-changing world.

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Ross  

Hi, and welcome to our next episode of Decoding AQ. I have with me today a very interesting lady. And it really intrigued me by your company name Suzanne. So Suzanne Lucas joins us from your company called the Evil HR Lady. So welcome.

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Suzanne  

Thank you, happy to be here.

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Ross  

And as it describes, you help people have great careers and managers be better managers. And you're a writer, you craft five to six articles a week, all around that subject of sort of career growth, managing people and navigating sort of difficult situations. And I was reading that you get nearly half a million views for some of these articles. So no mean feat across where they get syndicated and published of all of these pieces. So it's a real pleasure to have you on as a guest.

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Suzanne  

Well, I'm happy to be here. 

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Ross  

So I just want to start, where did the Evil HR Lady come from? I'm sure you've been asked it before, but share us where the origination came from Suzanne?

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Suzanne  

Well, when I started writing, I was working for a big pharmaceutical company, and Pharma is very conservative in their views, at least, this was back in 2006. So a long time ago. And I knew that I needed to do things anonymously. I actually knew that my personal boss would be okay with it. But I knew that some of the other people in HR would not be, and I just didn't want to go down that path, you know. And so I needed a pseudonym. And I thought about how do people perceive HR? And do they think, “Oh, my gosh, I love HR people.” No, they go, they hate us. And there's a lot of reasons for that. Some of them are well deserved by poor performers in the profession. And some of them are just the function of the job. If your boss calls you into the office, and sitting there is the HR lady, how is that conversation going to go?

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Ross  

Yeah the heart rate certainly increases for sure. 

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Suzanne  

Exactly. And it's not because she's bad at HR. It's just that no one calls us in to say, “Hey, Ross, just wanted to let you know good job on that presentation yesterday,” So we're there for a lot of the bad things, and it gives us that reputation. But in all fairness, there are plenty of incompetent HR people out there.

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Ross  

And I guess your kind of background and history from studying over in the states in Utah and New York, and then as you said, a career in HR and in Big Pharma. And there's a very big difference between being an HR person inside a huge entity with lots of complexity, lots of resources at hand. And then the challenges of maybe smaller organizations, smaller businesses, and even solopreneurs people who are by themselves. And I'd just be interested, if you can take us through your journey of a bit of that career, some of the insights you had inside big organizations of HR, and then maybe what's changed and what you see changing in kind of a solo world of HR as more independent and solo practitioners in that area.

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Suzanne  

There's a huge difference between the big HR and the solo practitioners. And I started my career in big HR. I started actually at a supermarket chain. For those of you on the east coast of the US, you know, it you love it, it's called Wegmans. I'm headed to the US this summer and I will get off the plane, I will get my rental car and then I will go to Wegmans. Like that's the kind of store it is. It's the best store ever and I know precisely what I'm buying. By trip planned out, but one of the reasons why they're so awesome, is the way they treat their employees. And every year they're in the top 10 of the fortunes top companies to work for.

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And that's where I got my training was from them. And one of the things that they did is they required everybody to work in the store. Now I was hired as an analyst. My degrees are in politics. But I can do statistics. Well, I could do statistics. I haven't done statistics for a long time. So I don't do statistics anymore. But 20 years ago, I could do statistics. And that's why I got the job. So I was totally corporate in a cube, I was doing data analysis all day, they said, it doesn't matter, you've got to go spend time in the store, and I stocked shelves, and I did produce, and I worked in seafood, which is disgusting because I don't like fish but I did it anyway. I sold pizza, I ran a cash register. I worked in every department except for the bakery. And the only reason I didn't work in the bakery is because I had to get back to my real job.

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But in doing that, even as an analyst, I was suddenly like, “Okay, this makes sense as to why the turnover in produce is higher than in other departments.” Because produce is extremely labor-intensive. Because unlike canned foods that you just put out on the shelf in the morning, and then the night crew comes in and restocks it, produce you're there all day, you're interacting with the customers, you're constantly solving problems, like I would have never understood that as a grocery store shopper, but put me on the floor for a couple of days, picking through strawberries and all of that, and you realize, “Oh, my gosh, this department is harder than the other ones.” That type of thing really helped me to understand from my data analysis, and from the reports that I gave, I could give context to it.

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So I was really blessed to start my HR career in such a fantastic company. And then I moved to pharma, which was big. And there also I was blessed with incredible HR team. And one of the things that we had, and I just actually was talking about this on LinkedIn last week, we had in-house employment attorneys. And so when I had a question, I could email Marybeth our attorney, and she would literally respond within two hours, usually within 15 minutes, I still don't know how she did it. I actually tagged her in a post about this on LinkedIn. And then another one of her employees, who I don't know at all because it was a different company commented, and she's like, “I know, how does she do that?” Like this was the environment that I was in and there's all the support.

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Now I work by myself, I own my own company. And I don't have that. I don't have the mentors, I don't have someone saying, “Yes, you should go work in the store for two weeks and figure out what you do,” I don't have a Marybeth who can answer all of my questions in 30 seconds. So what you do when you're a solo practitioner, is you build these networks. And that's so important. And that's one of the reasons I ran a Facebook group called Evil HR Lady. But 7,500 people in there, most of whom are HR practitioners, and a lot of whom are solo HR practitioners. And what we are is your team members. So when you have a question about a difficult employee situation, or you have a question about how to administer this program, or something, you can come there. And I've got 7,500 experienced people that can give you an answer. And so I just went ahead, and I built this community for people like me who work by themselves now.

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Ross  

I think that's a really interesting kind of evolution that's happening in many industries where specialists work as a cog in a machine, but they have the machine around them, they have all of these other moving parts that have capabilities to provide the service or value in the end. And it needs all of those things to function. Yet there's elements that humans like and don't like about that, right? And then when we come out how we adapt ourselves to function to be able to find the capabilities or answers that we might not have, a good network is a key part of that, isn't it and doesn't happen by accident. You have to be really intentional to create the right kind of environment that allows people to contribute that can be heard and not feel maybe in conflict or in competition. So I'm interested when in managing that community and the dynamics of a knowledge economy, how does it function and work between this balance of maybe competition versus flat versus hey everyone's just trying to co-elevate and better everybody? How have you managed that kind of challenge?

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Suzanne  

You know, it's an interesting thing because before I made this group, if you had told me that managing and moderating a Facebook group is something that should go on your resume or your CV, I would have laughed at you. And just literally five minutes before I came on with you, I was telling one of my moderators, you should put your work here on your resume, because he's looking for a new job.

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Because it is so fundamental to HR, in that you're dealing with all of these different personalities and you're dealing with internet culture. And somehow we've gotten the idea that if I'm sitting at a keyboard typing to you, you're not a real person. So I can be like, “You suck. you're so stupid, how could you have that stupid question, you stupid, stupid poopy head or whatever?” And like, that's just Twitter summed up right there, right? And people think that that's okay. It's not okay, there's a real person at the end of the keyboards. And so that's one of the things that we do within that group is that we don't allow personal attacks.

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And we also don't allow bad language. And it's funny, because a lot of people think I'm puritanical, which admittedly I am, but I don't allow it. And it's not just that my ears are sensitive, but it's also something that can easily get out of hand. What's the difference between using a word to express your anger at dropping a book on your foot and then directing that same word at someone else, all of us will be like, “Oh, it's okay to say a bad word we drop a book on our foot.” And there's actually some research that shows that that actually helps with pain than whatever. But someone walking down the hall may hear it and think that you're talking about them. And then even though that's not the reality, their perception becomes their reality. And if they speak up, and they don't resolve it, then they have negative attitude towards you. And you don't know why you drop a book on your foot.

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Ross  

I find it very, very interesting and challenging this shift of how difficult it is in communications of remote working of people in as you said, this internet economy and becoming task rabbits that we lose some of the humanity behind who people are, and how what you say, can be read in so many different ways. And the challenge of that is very real. And I'm interested in terms of how have you, yourself, or observed any changes of how people communicate and adapt their language or communication, when it's now all via sSlack, Microsoft Teams, Zoom these things to when you can understand tone, understand context being the aura of someone's energy. How have you seen people do that well? Because I know that we struggle with it in our company.

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Suzanne  

Yeah, it's a really difficult thing. And there are some companies that do it well, but a lot of companies, 15 months ago or whatever, when the whole world went to hell in a handbasket. They're just like, “Hey, go home. Everybody go home. We're remote workers now.” And that was it. Like, we're just remote and they didn't give any instruction, they didn't create any infrastructure. And then they didn't worry about culture, “because it's just temporary. It's just going to be two weeks to flatten the curve... Oh, wait.” And so we went into this rapidly. If you want to talk about adaptability, goodness, gracious, everyone had to adapt, like, overnight.

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And some companies did a great job, but most of them suck. Because working remotely isn't the same as working in an office just in a different place. Because if we're working side by side, I say “Hey, Ross, did you see this?” And you get up and you step into my cube and we take 30 seconds we go over it itself. Now you're working remotely. I'm working remotely, I have to message you somehow, right? I can't see if you're busy. I mean, sure we have those little things on Slack that says you're on, you're off. But it doesn't really tell me if you're busy busy, or what you're doing.

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And then, if we've worked together for years before, then we've still got that relationship. I know what you think is funny, you know what I think is funny. I know what your limits are, you know what my limits are. Now new company, here I am, I get a new job. Working at Adaptability AQ AI, that's me. So I'm a new hire. Never met you in person, never met any of my co-workers in person. I've seen you on Zoom. I don't know what television shows you like, is that important? 

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Yeah, it kind of is because it gives me an insight into you, what your limits are that type of thing. I don't know anything about your family. And of course asking me questions about my family, when your job interviewing me is not something you should do. Like, that's irrelevant. Do I have the knowledge, skills and ability to do the job? But if we're going to build a relationship, if I can't feel comfortable being like, “Oh, my gosh, my kids are driving me nuts today, will they ever learn to shut a cupboard door? And the answer that is no, they never will know but they will when they have kids. But there's just that lack of personal connection that companies really need to work on and it seems so fake.

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And I admit last week, I went to a TEDX event, but it was online. And they had a networking room and what you did was you went in, and it matched you with someone, just random matching. And I couldn't make myself click the button to do it. Which is dumb, right? Because I just seem so forced, like “Hi, I'm Suzanne, and you are?” But those things are actually really important in building those relationships. It's important that we talk about things that aren't work related, because that builds us. But then on the other side, you've got to be careful, because politics both in the US where I focus my business and in the UK where you're sitting are these horrible hot button, nightmare of issues. I mean, this is one thing, I live in Switzerland, which is like the least political country on the planet, which is all about the money here.

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So it's just politics is not generally topic of discussion in Switzerland. But in the UK, in the US, it's like, in the news constantly, and everybody's political. And that can become very difficult. Within a company, I say, I voted for this, and you say, I voted for that. And that we're supposed to hate each other. Which doesn't make for a good business. We've reached this thing where we can't just say, Oh, Ross voted for this. I voted for that. Okay, so yeah. And that's how we need to be within a company. So you've got these other things that become very, very difficult to manage because of our cultures right now.

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Ross  

And I think it's very difficult in terms of as you said, understanding, okay, there's levels of busy, there's levels of humor, there's levels, there's not anything exists in just black and white, it's always on a spectrum. And without all of these other senses that we've acquired over years of our complex organisms to understand body language without really understanding it, or tone without understanding it to see whether someone's excited and engaged or they're falling asleep, all of these kinds of things become so difficult when we're at distance. And then as you said, it can almost come across as, very fake or just surface level when you attempt it, when you try to do it through this bit of technology.

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And the reality for many people is that they have been, not necessarily, we talked about social distancing. It's more about physical distancing, not social distancing, we should still be social. And work in my opinion, is more than just achieving the task or result. It's how do we as humans enjoy spending time together? How are we feeling valued? How are we contributing to something that makes our own heart sing with our values, or that we're leaving something better than we found it, all of these different components that make up the complexity. And I want to dig in a little bit in terms of this communication challenge, and where being too soft things can fester being too hard, and it can break it, you know?

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And how do you balance those things that may be being in a room, you could say, “Hey, Suzanne, let's go for a coffee.” And you can have a conversation around some of those difficult situations. And something that's always resonated with me was I was advised, be ruthless in decision making but humane in execution. And often it's the opposite way round is that we're so humane in the decision making, we end up being ruthless in execution. And that's really come to my forefront many times in this environment that we find ourselves in is that, okay, I need to make decisions, in a very, almost go back 20 years to your data, bringing in some humanity into there, but be very humane in the way we execute it. But I think that's still so difficult to do and to communicate right, when things aren't going well, when we're not getting a result. And I’d just be fascinated of any stories or things of where you've seen organizations go through some of those difficult situations, and what are may be some of the tips or bits that can be in place for helping people communicate that or provide the right environment that that can happen well?

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Suzanne  

You know, I love your thing about making decisions, what does that…

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Ross  

Be ruthless in decision making, but humane in execution. Not the other way around.

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Suzanne  

Yes and I like that a lot. And especially in this past year or so companies have had to make a lot of ruthless decisions. A lot of companies have shut down, large parts of their operations have had to lay people off, I've had to furlough people. And then I've had to make massive changes with the people that are left. And you think about even businesses that got a boost with the pandemic, you know grocery stores became the center of our universe, it was the only place you could go.

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Ross  

There was a new definition for key workers wasn't it? Delivery drivers.

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Suzanne  

Delivery drivers, all of those people, but then they have new responsibilities, because suddenly you hired me as a cashier and now I've got to be the mask police. That's a completely different job. And actually yesterday, I was at the store and the cashier yelled at the person behind me to back up. I didn't know she was getting too close. But no, and I was like, Oh my gosh, who signed up for that job? She didn't sign up for that job. But this was in Germany, and they're incredibly strict there and she would get in trouble if she didn't make sure that we were 1.5 meters apart or two meters, I don't know what the German rule is, anyway, irrelevant. And so you've got these rough decisions that people have to make and one of my areas of specialty, which sounds really depressing but inspiring people and I'm good at it. Not that I love having people and their job.

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Ross  

Wasn't there a movie about that Suzanne with George Clooney?

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Suzanne  

Yes. And he did it all wrong. Everything about that movie, wrong. Except…

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Ross  

Yeah, give us the Evil HR Lady guide to firing people, Suzanne.

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Suzanne  

First of all, you never bring in someone from the outside to fire because here you have the decision is ruthless, right? We gotta let you go. But you want to carry it out with compassion. So that person giving the bad news needs to be the manager. And it needs to be that direct manager if at all possible, if not one level up the chain, you don't bring in an outside consultant. The outside consultant is there to support the manager, not to tell the news to the employee, so.

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Ross  

Coming back to your story, the outsider wouldn't understand the challenges of the produce aisle with the strawberries, but you should and so, therefore they haven't got environmental context in order to deliver that information effectively, whereas the manager should have that.

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Suzanne  

The manager should have that and, it should be little things like, does this employee drive to work, use public transportation or come in a carpool. If they come in a carpool, how are we going to make sure that that person gets home? Because if we say we're going to fire you at nine o'clock in the morning, and now you're going to sit in the waiting room for your co-worker that drives you to get off at five, that is cruel, that is beyond cruel. So we make sure we have a taxi ready, and that we pay for. So that when you go home, you have a way to get there. And what do we know about your family situation?

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It doesn't change the decision, like the decision is this person's gotta go but what do we know that we can help out to make the transition as easy as possible? Can we give you support for filing for the unemployment benefits? Can we internally help you build your resume and write it to get you a new position? That's things that most companies don't do. But you know want you want to avoid when you fire someone, you know what the chief goal of firing someone is? To get them to go away.

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And so when you do it right, when you do it with compassion, when you communicate things, when you're honest and upfront, and you help them, then they go away. If you're just like, “Ross, you suck, fired.” Now you're angry, you're going to be like, “You only fired me because I'm a white male, and I'm going to sue.” And now I've got a lawsuit. And even if it's completely unfounded, I still have to hire a lawyer to defend it, I've got to do all this paperwork. If I instead sit down with you and go like, “You've been late 47 times, and your job is to open the store. So the customers can’t come in till you get here, this is unacceptable.”

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Then you know what you're up against. And if I say like, “Okay, here's your unemployment paperwork, this is how you file it, this is what you need to do,” you're much more likely to just go away. And it does seem like a weird thing to be like, that's my goal is to get you to go away. But that's why we terminate people is because we don't want them there. 

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Ross  

And it’s a very real, an unfortunate situation of the world we're living in right now, or going through massive transformations and shifts. The pandemics accelerated this, but technology is displacing lots of things that in my view should be task redundancy, not necessarily people redundancy, and how we help them adapt and navigate to make sure they're not left behind is what's the ethical responsibility to ensure mobility of employees, whether that mobility is within the organization that they're currently in or the next organization? How do you set them up well?

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And my wife works a lot with elderly individuals and a lot with dementia. And it makes me think of this reality that, they only remember how you make them feel, not what was said, not what what was going on. And I think in these very traumatic situations, for many people who are facing these difficult situations, be it the manager having to deal with it to make the decision in the first place, to then a person being let go. It's all a difficult situation and it's happening at larger scales and at timescales that are almost feeling forced, but we have to do these things. And so getting them right is really important. And doing it in a way that is not only right for the business but right for the human in that ethical nature of how do they get home, all of these little things that we can get forgotten in the humanity of the execution of it.

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I'd really be interested because we have an element where we’re building a piece about ethical redundancy. So the whole thing about adaption of how do we adapt to provide value in the future? What does that look like? And how do we navigate that continual ebb and flow, right? Throughout our careers and career portfolios, is what does that really look like for organizations and for individuals and what kind of support is needed when there's a whole complex of grief, of loss, of anger, of all of these different emotions that we allow that to take place but give it a route that they do have hope, that they can get back to a state where they see their future as being one that is bigger than their past.

And so in those realities when a decision is made, and you look at the human side of it, and what else, what can happen from the individual side, right? Not necessarily from the managers or the company side, if this happens to you, how do you get fired well? What would you give advice to that if that's happened to you? How do you adapt and deal with that well?

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Suzanne  

First of all, as someone who has literally fired thousands of people in my career, I can tell you, you're not alone. And when I trained managers to deliver the news, I would always ask, have you ever been on the other side of the table, and more often than not, everyone's been laid off, everyone's been fired, like this is a normal occurrence. And so that's the first thing if you’re like…

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Ross  

If you're in work, and you're employed, the chances are that's going to be part of your life cycle and chapter of your book.

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Suzanne  

It's gonna be part of your life cycle, it happens to everyone and especially in the US, which has mostly at-will employment, it's far less likely to happen in Germany, where they practically have to have an act of God to determinate you. But if you're working in the US, you're gonna get laid off at some point. You are, that's just it. And so having that bit of knowledge, because it can feel really lonely, like I'm the only person out there and what happened and blah, blah, blah. The other thing is that to be a good terminated employee is you can wallow in your self pity for a few minutes or a day, sit in the corner, watch Netflix, eat a whole…

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Ross  

Get Netflix, get the ice cream bucket, stay under the duvet. Have a moment.

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Suzanne  

All of that, absolutely. But give yourself a time limit. And then you have to take control of your life. Was it a really stupid decision to fire you? It's possible. Companies make mistakes all of the time, all the time they fire the wrong person all the time. Does that change your situation? No, it doesn't. It really doesn't, like you're gone, alright? And you can argue and you can sue, and maybe you can win your job back? Do you really want to win a job back with someone that just got rid of you? You probably don't. I mean, I know that there are some exceptions, if you're in a place with a pension and blah, blah, blah, yeah every situation is different, for sure. But you've got to deal with the reality that you've been handed. And so then you either decide, do I want to be angry? Or do I want to move forward? Because you can't move forward if you're angry and if you're blaming someone else.

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And so if you were laid off, because of the lack of work, and certainly we had millions and millions of people who lost their job due to COVID, we as a society all acknowledge that's not your fault. You worked in a hotel, in a resort town, it's not your fault, just it’s not your fault. If you got laid off in a grocery store, it probably was your fault. Analyze what you could do better but regardless, you need to sit down and think about what can I do to find someplace better, something that fits my skills, and really, really think about what you can do.  And really take that time to develop your resume or your CV to make it as attractive as possible to the types of jobs that you want to get.

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And also look at it as an opportunity to get your, to make those changes, so many people have told me “Oh, I was miserable. And this was just the kick in the butt that I needed.” And I mean, I have the same experience when I started out writing my first client was CBS News. And I had them as a client and then I had one other small client, but they were two-thirds of my income. And they let me go and it was a dumb decision on their part because I'm fabulous. But they got rid of a whole bunch of freelancers all on one day and after our editor fired us all, and they called her in and fired her. Horrible, horrible, horrible if they’d asked me to consult on that I wouldn't have done it that way. Which they shouldn't, but they did it.

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And at that point, I realized, I've put all of my eggs in one basket here. And now I don't have very much income and this sucks. And so, at that point, I was like, “Okay, I have to reinvent myself, I have to do this.” And that's led me on the path that I am now, where I make a good deal of my income giving webinars, I make a good deal doing career coaching, and revising people's resumes. And I do a lot of these other things because I realized, you know what, I need to have my eggs in different baskets. I'm not telling you that everybody has to build their own job with a variety of gig employment. But it gave me that kick in the pants that I needed to be like, “I have more than one dream, I'm going to go chase this.”

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I was coaching a woman who got laid off as a teacher. And when she was like, “I never thought I'd get laid off as a teacher.” But she did. And she's like, “I just never, I thought that this would be my job till I retired.” And I just, she was not prepared at all. And so I was like, “Well, I know you know your priorities, find another teaching job, but let's go over your other opportunities.” And she just emailed me and she's like, “I'm so grateful. I never thought that there was anything outside of teaching for me. And now I have a job writing curriculum for an online school thing.” She's like, “Fantastic, because that allows me to work at home, which is what I wanted,” she would have never gone searching for that. Never.

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Ross  

I think that's a really key point for everyone is to think about, just the balance of two different words, two or four. So when something happens, has it happened to us? Or does it happen for us? And our framing in that can shift to them think as you said, we have an exercise that we do about doors closed and doors opened. About building both resilience and how to unlearn things. And if our identity has been so linked to a particular job, or particular career, it's kind of a second thing, we are somebody after all. “So Suzanne, what's your name? So what do you do?” It's what we do, if you had a clicked on the networking button, I'm sure you'd have been asked, “So what do you do?”

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So we have this inbuilt sense of, “Ah, that's what I did. So that's what I need to continue doing, because it's part of my identity. And if I'm in that room, I just see those doors that have closed of that particular role. And I just want to go back in through those doors, because that's who I am. And that's where I belong is on the other side of it.” Having that chance to see that that was for us to reflect, to reimagine, and realize there's 10 other doors on the three other route, other walls that could be reimagined and redesigned for what our next chapter is, in our career and our future selves to reinvent, from a teacher to someone who's involved in education in a different way around creating curriculum or for everyone to be given the space and permission to reimagine.

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And that's hard when we're in a state of fear and survival. So it's for me, I think it'd be interested whilst you get you said, a great piece of advice, Suzanne of give yourself a timeline of the wallowing, when you're on the Netflix and behind the duvet, equally give yourself space and time for reflecting. No pressure and creativity that you might have the pressure, the bills of all your responsibilities of your family of these things. Take moments where you can remove that from your mind to imagine what would I really like to be doing and for many, that's a hard thing to do. And having people like you that can coach them through it, that can ask great questions that can relook at their CV to connect dots that they might not even see to what might be possible. What would I do if I could choose what I wanted to do?

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And I think that gets lost for a lot of people is we have career coaching, maybe a college and university. But then that's kind of its then development, not necessarily career coaching in terms of “Well which ones you want now? You've had a go at that one, let's have a go another one. Try that on.” And I'm just fascinated in as we come up to the final piece of, what can people start doing in the environment that we're now living in where exponential technologies are coming? COVID is not going away, there's all of this uncertainty, there's volatility of what's going on? How can we practically manage our routines or ourselves to have a career that's great, to be good at what we do and what we want to do? What are some of the simple tips or things we could do right now or within the next week that would help us on that journey, Suzanne?

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Suzanne  

The most important thing about managing your career is to recognize that nobody cares about it like you do. So many people sit here and wait for that promotion, or they wait for that job to open up or they wait to be put into a high potential group at work. And it doesn't happen. And it doesn't happen because managers are horrible, because it doesn't happen because managers are busy. And they're not focused on you and your success, you have to take control of that. And so the first thing is to say to yourself, “I am in control.” And there are plenty things you can't control that that's absolutely true. But you're in control of you and you have control of how you interact.

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And when you're saying it happens to you or for you. One of the principles that I actually learned from an improv class is an improv you say “Yes and” and not “but”, and so okay, My manager is a micromanager. Okay, “yes and” now, what am I going to do with that? I can do the “but” I hate my manager he’s micromanagement, “and but” I can't do anything. Of course you can. Okay, so you can either acknowledge this guy is not who I want to work for. But this company pays well, l’ve got a short commute or I can work from home, they have free lunch in the cafeteria, whatever, whatever your reason is for staying it's small town, I want to raise my kids here. Okay, great. Then just acknowledged that.

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I've chosen to work for this person I don't like because I get these 47 benefits from it. That's okay, that's absolutely okay. Or you can say my boss is a horrible micromanager. I hate working for him. “And” I'm going to look for a new job or “and” I'm going to take night classes to learn a new skill, or “and” I am going to look to transfer somewhere else within the company. Just acknowledge that this guy's horrible. I don't like working for him. But I get to control the “and”.

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Ross  

Yeah, except acknowledge and then be in a state of control to how do you want to respond to that. And often we're just in reaction mode.

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Suzanne  

And I don't want to hear from you today. You come to me and say “My boss is a horrible micromanager. I hate working for him.” And then six months later, I'm like, “Hey, Ross, how's it going?” “My boss is a horrible micromanager. I hate working for him,” I'm gonna be like, well “Shut up and go away.” Because you just made that choice. You said, “I'm gonna stay with this guy, I'm gonna stay here, I'm gonna stay in this job.” Okay, then stay there. But don't come whining to me about your boss, because you made that decision. That what for whatever reason, it was easier to stay in this job, or it gave you the schedule or helped you with your kids, whatever, there's a million reasons to stay in a bad job. There's a million ones that are good ones.

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Ross  

And many people are in a job they don't want. And that is a decision they are making. And they can make a new decision each time the sun rises as to what they want to do with that. And I think that's very powerful bit of advice is to…

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Suzanne  

It's so empowering to just be able to say, “Okay, I decided to stay here. There we go.” Or “I decided I want out.” So these are the things I'm doing.

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Ross  

These are my steps.

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Suzanne  

Here's my active things, I'm going to take that online class, I am going to hire a career coach, I am going to sit down and go over my CV and I'm going to have my brother-in-law go over it. And I'm gonna have ask my friend Judy, who's really good at grammar to go over it. I'm going to do the active things to change me because if you're not doing those active things, you're just wallowing in self-pity.

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Ross  

You're going to be in friction. And it's what these various phases of adaption from collapse and death, through survival, through growth, through thriving and they're a cycle in all things, whether it's a task, a piece of technology, a job, a role, a mindset, a thought goes through those phases, as we see value, we learn about it, we provide it, it grows, we thrive and at some point it might not. It might take centuries or it could take just a week before It collapses, and we have a rebirth of those things. And so for people being able to, it's one of the prerogatives a woman can change your mind, well all of us can change our minds, right? And that isn't necessarily a bad thing, I was brought up to “No, no, you've got to stick with something, if you've tried it, you've got to persevere.” And I think the reality is that there is always balancing these things, there's areas where we do need to suck it up and have grit.

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Suzanne

Absolutely.

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Ross

And, be very collected in our approach to that, because what we're doing matters, and we accept it, it's the “Yes And”, and we can move forward without being paralyzed or trapped. So even if it's not an optimal environment, we're choosing that. And we're putting things around it of whether it's timing constraints, or the benefits, the list of 47 things, whatever it might be around there. And I think, sometimes we all need that burning platform to come along, whether that's, “Hey, Suzanne, you're fired.” In a apprentice style finger wag, or its realization because we wake up one day and decide, this isn't the life I want to lead and have.

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So whether it's internally motivated, or an external event is to use that opportunity wisely and know there's going to be many of them. Like you said, it's gonna happen often. And to finish out if people want to reach out and engage with you. Because, you're a very, not just experienced, but you have this aura of straight talking, say things how they are, and but do it in a way in which that is still inclusive and engaging. And I think that's a real value that people need when they're facing tough decisions, that they need someone who speaks with candor, but also with care.

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Suzanne  

You’re very kind.

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Ross

And if people want to find more out where's the best place for them to go, Suzanne?

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Suzanne  

Well, and if you Google Evil HR Lady, I will pop up that was one advantage of choosing then that my website is EvilHRLady.org, you can email me at EvilHRLady@gmail.com, you can join my Facebook group, which is called, are you ready? Evil HR Lady. You do have to answer the questions or we won't let you in. And you have to give good answers. You can't just write “Okay” because if you write that we won't let you in. And or you can follow me on Twitter where I am @RealEvilHRLady, because somebody else took Evil HR Lady, and then they never tweet, which is fine. I'm actually pleased that they don't. Because then people would think it was me and it's not. So I'm super easy to find. I'm always happy to hear from people. Absolutely. If you're a solo HR practitioner, or even if you're an HR practitioner in a big organization, join the Evil HR Lady group. It's mostly US but we're trying to get more global. And that's always fun because the things that we all take as obvious in our own cultures are just not…

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Ross  

In other cultures. Well, I look forward to our next conversation. And by that Suzanne, I want you to get your red glasses back. For your piece, because all of these things, we smile about Evil HR Lady, but I like and appreciate the reality of it doesn't have to be evil. HR doesn't have to be called in at the last minute when everything's gone wrong. When it's done well, it's something that should be a joy. It should be part of the path for development.

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And my lasting impression Suzanne is to be the manager of our own career, and that nobody cares as much as we do about our career. And that is something that I think is going to be a valuable lasting impression for people to recognize and realize wherever they are on their journey, first job to nearly their last job, whatever it may be in their phase of life, that that's an important message and I really appreciate you sharing that.

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Suzanne  

Well, I was happy to do it. 

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Ross  

Thanks, Suzanne. Take care.

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Suzanne  

You too. 

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Voiceover  

Do you have the level of adaptability to survive and thrive in the rapid changes ahead? Has your resilience got more comeback than a yo-yo? Do you have the ability to unlearn in order to reskill, upskill, and breakthrough? Find out today and uncover your adaptability profile and score your AQ visit "AQai.io" To gain your personalized report across 15 scientifically validated dimensions of adaptability for limited time enter code "Podcast65" for a complimentary AQ me assessment. AQ AI transforming the way people, teams, and organizations navigate change.

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Outro

Thank you for listening to this episode of Decoding AQ. Please make sure you subscribe to your favorite podcast directory, and we'd love to hear your feedback. Please do leave a review and be sure to tune in next time for more insights from our amazing guests.

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