Beyond Strategy: How Leaders Unleash Discretionary Energy by Mastering Human Connection

Welcome to the Built by People podcast, where we share the stories and insights of the world's top HR leaders. Join us as we dive deep into the minds of HR executives, uncovering their strategies, challenges, and triumphs in shaping today's workforce. I'm excited to welcome Kayleen to the Built by People podcast. Kayleen, thank you so much for joining us. And as a starting question, I always love to ask if you could share a little bit more about your career journey.

Thank you so much, Dave. It's great to be here. My career journey has some big, big chapters. So, I actually started as a social scientist anthropologist, got my PhD and my master's in international development where I really studied systemic change. And by the way, since I have my PhD, that means you can call me Dr. Love, which I always appreciate sharing with people. I transitioned from being more of an academic who studied change. And I started to get interested in how do I make the change happen? And that's where I pivoted to the private sector. So, around age 30, I made a pretty large life shift into the private sector and I joined McKinsey and Company in Manhattan, in New York City, where I quickly shifted to, well, from how do you change countries and systems to how do you change companies? And that's largely how I spent my time, you know, really learning business strategy, with McKinsey, working across a wide range of companies, but always looking at how do you make change happen and drive change in this company. It's probably not a surprise to anyone that change is still difficult. I thought companies would just make— no problem, we can make that change happen. But people are people and change is difficult and takes time. So, that was a wonderful experience with McKinsey. I then pivoted into just part of a company at Capital One, where I had, again, a wide range of roles, everything from consumer insights to how do you transform audit as a practice and a discipline using technology and data. Incredible opportunities, all, and they all revolved around people being mobilized for change and to change. That's probably why I then said yes to Philip Morris International. When they came calling 4 or so years ago. I joined in the Swiss location in Lausanne, where I led global strategy for people and culture. So essentially, the strategy for the entire organization globally, where we are in 130 markets, 80,000 employees. And I said yes to joining Philip Morris International for 3 reasons. Reason number 1, the scale and scope of a tobacco giant really transforming as a company to do something new in pursuit of positive outcomes for public health. It's a pretty amazing journey that we're on as a company. Reason 2 was the opportunity to have an impact, again, on a global scale. There are 1 billion smokers in the world. We're providing them with alternatives that are not risk-free, but better still. For smokers who would otherwise continue to smoke. And that's also been pretty cool. Having grown up in Indonesia around a lot of cigarettes, it's pretty awesome to see an industry completely transforming itself and a company doing the same. I really wanted my kids to have the chance to be part of a global community, and that's absolutely what I've had. So just joined the United States organization, PMI here in the US. About a year and a half ago, and it has been an incredible journey. We're doing something that not many have done before in the industry, and we're in a period of hypergrowth. It really is a unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build and grow and do something new.

Dr. Love, as someone with a PhD and social scientist background, how has your understanding of human behavior shaped your approach to being a chief people officer?

I think at the end of the day, it has allowed me to start with an understanding of humans first. And, and frankly, even as a leader prior to, to being more squarely in HR, I've always said we're humans first and we're employees second. And if you ever wonder why people behave a particular way, why is that person resistant to change? Why is this person acting like a jerk? What's going on? You can always go back to truths about humans., they, you know, people don't want to, to be bad at their job. People have insecurities, people have fear about, you know, job stability or job security. And all of these things can lead people to behave in particular ways on the negative side. And so when you can understand that and get down to the heart of why people are behaving that way, you can understand that actually it's usually well-intentioned people tapping into something that's driving a fear or anxiety. And so it's much easier, I think, to be gracious with people. It's much easier to be patient with people in an organization and to be patient around even the transformation and the change because people are just people. We're humans first. And that's how I lead. I know that's how our CEO leads. And so, when someone says, you know, I've got to go take care of my family, it's family first. It's P-Huans first.

I'm going to love asking this next question because I love doing judo.

Wonderful.

So given your background with competitive boxing and rowing, how has that helped you in your career development?

Well, I'll start with the less aggressive sport first, rowing. So I rowed while I was at Oxford University doing my master's and my PhD, and I ended up actually rowing for the university team. We beat Cambridge, which is quite a hefty rivalry, I must say. So, Yeah, back in that, um, back in the day of that pretty intense, intense rivalry. But in rowing, it really is about teamwork, right? I rowed in an 8 and all 8 oars have to be in sync. And there's no one individual who can win the race if all 8 individuals plus the coxswain do not cross the finish line ahead. And so this notion of giving it all, but giving it all for your team and knowing that you can't let your team down and knowing that you have to be completely in lockstep with your team. I think that taught me a lot about, again, the power and value of teamwork. And I love winning with teams. I love when you cross the finish line and you are together as a team winning. There is no feeling like it. It is just euphoric. Now contrast that to boxing, because in boxing, when you lift your arm in the ring or don't, you win and lose as an individual. Now you're part of a boxing squad. You still have the camaraderie, But it is a very different sense of winning as an individual. Now, what boxing taught me, because I didn't have the euphoria of the team win, all crossing the line together, was frankly a lot about digging deep, facing my fears, and resilience. Not gonna lie, it's pretty scary getting on display in a ring with people watching you while you're about to get punched in the face. But it's also your pride and your ego and the fear of all of that being on display. So it made me, it makes me think a lot about the, I think it's a Teddy Roosevelt quote, the, the man in the arena. So the woman in the arena as well, but this quote around, you know, it's not the critic who counts, it's not the person who's thinking about the thing, but it's the man in the arena who gets bloodied and beaten and goes for it. And I think I've absolutely carried that into my professional and personal life where you have to risk things. You have to be willing to get kicked in the face from time to time, metaphorically, hopefully in the corporate world. But to take on the risk, to take on the challenge. And it can be quite scary and you're up in front and you're on stage and, you know, having, having done that now with a bloody nose and a black eye, I can handle getting on stage in a corporate environment and taking that risk.

I love that. And Dr. Love, you've worked in a lot of different sectors. You mentioned McKinsey, Capital One. You've also lived and worked in different countries like Indonesia, Switzerland, across the US. Curious to get your perspective on what universal truths you've discovered about effective people leadership as you've lived and, and worked in so many different regions and also in different sectors.

That's a great question, and I'm gonna answer with 3 different stories and chapters. So story 1, and I've tucked this away from years ago, is actually a speech that Woodrow Wilson made in 1890. Again called Leaders of Men, but let's just say Leaders of People to be inclusive. And in this speech, it's a re— he tells a really interesting story about a ship that is sitting still and it's in a river and the starry sky is clear, but the ship isn't moving. And so the passengers go to the captain, they say, captain, we can see the stars, navigate by the stars. Why, why are we still sitting here? And he says, look at the fog. There is fog lying around the river banks, and we need to be able to see around the corner. We need to be able to see the curve of the river. And it's a story about balancing— leaders need to be able to have the vision to navigate by the stars, but they also have to have the pragmatism and the practicality to see, well, what's around the corner? What is the reality of the current environment we're in? And while I might have vision and values and I need to cling to those, and those give me the vision of what's next. I have to be pragmatic, read the room, and be able to help my people get around the next corner, which includes all of the contextual and environmental factors. So that has stuck with me for a very long time, this notion of the riverboat captain who also still sees the stars. A second story that's stuck with me for many, many years, and in fact, I, I can talk about how I kind of pivoted my own in my own career journey is about Buddha and the raft. So jumping, this young student is voyaging and comes to a large river or lake or body of water, and he goes, well, I gotta cross, I gotta cross this lake, I gotta cross this large body of water. How do I do that? Okay, I'm gonna pull together sticks and, and twine and, and I'm gonna build a raft. And so this young student is able to get across the body of water and get to the other side where he wanted to go. And then he sees, okay, well, the next phase of my journey, I've gotta climb this mountain. And so Buddha asks the young student, well, do you carry the raft with you? The raft is what got you from here to there. The raft is what carried you across the lake. Do you, do you carry it with you now? And the lesson there, which seems quite obvious when you think about it is no, you lay down the raft for the next portion of your journey. And as a leader, I have had to learn that the thing that got me to one point in my career is not the thing that's gonna take me to the next. And so there was a moment in my growing up where what took me to a portion of my career was, uh, I mean, I was driven and ambitious and I worked my, you know what off. I mean, I worked around the clock. And was, was smart and hard-driven. And I got to a point where I softened through a series of really difficult moments in my personal life, including losing my father, including my babies being born. And I realized that the thing that carried me to that point in my career was not gonna be the thing that carried me further. And so I think my takeaway from this is leaders and humans, we evolve and we grow and our personal lives stretch our hearts and our minds, and we should pay attention to that. And we should allow ourselves to grow, and we should allow ourselves to lay down the things that may have served us once, but won't be the attributes or qualities that are needed as we become more senior, as we get more gray hair, as we have younger people in our organizations, as we have senior colleagues, uh, and we have to be able to grow and adapt and allow ourselves to be stretched as humans to grow and be wiser, frankly, as we get older. And last but definitely not least, as an effect, you know, growing and learning and effective people leadership. I mentioned my baby, my baby girls. I have twins who are now almost 8 years old. And so I, I, I've been saying a lot recently that most leaders, everything you, you need to know, you could have learned in kindergarten. Be kind to others. Respect. Share your toys. Be a helper. When the teacher asks you, be a helper. Raise your hand. Be brave to put your voice into the conversation. Uh, you know, and all of those wonderful things. Again, I go back to kindness, decency, respect, civility, all the things that I am teaching my girls to be and to show up in the world to be helpers. I think those are lessons that we should all reflect back on ourselves and take on as leaders in today's world.

Dr. Love, how do you approach the concept of discretionary energy in the workplace, and what strategies have you found to be effective in getting employees to invest their best efforts?

I love this idea. I'm gonna start with a why I think it matters, and then I'll go to how do I think about tapping into and, and getting that discretionary energy. On the why it matters, if you've ever heard of a work-to-rule strike, I love this concept. The idea is in a factory, I'm still gonna do my job, but I'm only gonna do the thing that you've written down into the standard operating procedure. And effectively what happens when you're in a factory or in a place of work and you only do the thing that's specifically spelled out on your job description work will grind to a halt. It is a work-to-rule strike. I will just follow the rules and effectively work stops, production shuts down. So the idea here is that there's no way you can fully prescribe human activity to get you the productivity you want. It's impossible because the thing that connects the dots is human creativity, ingenuity. It's the, I take the widget from spoke A and I put it on spoke B, but maybe the way I do that wasn't exactly explicitly written in the manual, and I just had to figure that out. And if you take that operational concept and you bring it into the workplace, the modern workplace, there is no way you will achieve the productivity or the outcome you're going after unless you can unlock the discretionary energy, creativity, passion, and commitment of your workforce.. And so I think about this in, again, the magic 3, sort of 3 things I think a lot about. One is this notion of the joy of belonging. As I mentioned earlier, in my rowing days, I belonged to a crew. I belonged to that rowing team. And when you have that joy of belonging to a team where you know you are, you know where you fit in that team, you have real meaningful relationships. You're gonna trust me when I say I gave my all in that seat when I was rolling and wanted to die because I was committed to the team. And so people give their discretionary energy when they're committed to the people around them. Thing 2 for unlocking that discretionary energy, if you have the joy of belonging, you also wanna know where are you heading. And people need purpose, people need meaning, and they need to know how what they do contributes to that purpose and connects to the mission and purpose. And so again, if I feel the joy of belonging to this broader team, and I know what we're trying to achieve collectively, and I know my part in achieving it, I'm going to give you that additional discretionary energy. And last but definitely not least, I still think there's this piece around growth. I need to know there's room. I need to know that I'm not stuck in this. So it's not mindless rowing. Let's go back to the rowing, you know, story. I'm not just sitting there rowing and rowing and rowing and rowing, and that's all I do. And I slog and I slog. But even if I feel connected in that joy of belonging, even when I know where we're trying to go and that there, I know my part in it, I still need to have a sense of movement forward. We as a business are winning. I, as an individual, have an opportunity to get better, to row faster, to gain skill and strength. And all of those things connected mean I'm gonna give it my all. I'm gonna lay it on the line. I'm gonna give you my discretionary energy. And as a result, if we collectively do that, we will win together.

Kaelene, how can organizations better foster psychological safety while maintaining high performance within their

organization? I, I think it's interesting that it was phrased that way, right? Provide psychological safety while maintaining high performance, because those two things are not antithetical. In fact, they're causal, right? So I think Google did a lot of research on high-performing teams and found conclusively that those teams that performed the best had psychological safety. So psychological safety was an actual causal reason for high performance. And why is that? It's because when you have psychological safety, you invite the best ideas to be heard and acted upon, and you're going to move forward with more speed, more, better ideas, all of the above. So, if I think about what can organizations do to better foster psychological safety, I think of that in a few different levels. One is at the company or system level. I do think as an employer, for example, we talk of— we have a speak up program. We reward speaking up. We say, if you see something that is not right, you should be putting your voice out. You should be sharing your ideas. So the system can actually reward and recognize people bold enough to speak up and speak into the situation. At the system level, you can think about having shared norms, a norm around You know, I remember at McKinsey, we talked about the obligation to dissent. You have an obligation to dissent. And if that becomes part of your cultural norm, people will speak up and will invite and create greater psychological safety. That's at the systems level. At the leader level, I think it's really important to role model this psychological safety by, number one, inviting and embracing authentic conversation and challenge. Invite people to disagree with you and be vulnerable. Be vulnerable enough to say, I don't have the answer here. How can we get to the right answer? I often invite my team to, you know, how am I wrong, guys? Tell me where I'm wrong. Tell me where I'm missing something. So I invite them proactively, not into like, do you agree with me or not? But I invite them proactively to poke holes and to, to find areas to challenge me. And that, again, I think the ability leaders can role model and embrace challenge and be vulnerable in moments that allows and creates greater psychological safety. And last, I think on a personal level that you can also role model this. So whether you're the leader trying to create the environment for your team or you're part of— we're all part of some team. We might lead one team and be part of another. How do you, again, go back, tap into that bravery? Talked a little bit about bravery from my boxing days, getting punched in the face. But, but letting go, you're not going to get punched in the face. So say the thing, put the idea into the room, raise your hand. You know, it's, there is a sense of claim that, and the more that you can put your voice in, and then people look around and they listen, it can create a virtuous cycle where teams can become more psychologically safe. Because they hear people putting their voice in, it's listened to and it's heard, and you can also respect and invite that from colleagues. So I think creating that listening environment can also really, over time, support greater psychological safety in teams.

Dr. Love, what parting advice would you like to share with our community?

I like to quote a lot of things, so on this one, I will quote Polonius from Shakespeare's Hamlet. Where he, he says to his son, to thine own self be true. And I don't think that saying to thine own self be true in today's day and age should be a selfish thing. I think it's about, there's a lot going on in the outside world. There's a lot happening. There's a lot of change. There are a lot of strident voices. Um, there's a lot of conversation. Know your values, know what matters to you. Know who you are as a person. Hopefully choose kindness, civility, respect, inclusion. But again, know yourself, know what matters. Be that leader who continues to live by your values, to role model what you believe for those around you, and to create space for others to bring their best selves, their best ideas, um, to the workplace and to their fellow humans.

Dr. Urlaub, thank you so much for joining us on the Built by People podcast. It was a pleasure to have you involved.

Thank you so much for the time. I really enjoyed the conversation.