Maintaining High Engagement During Hyper Growth: Lessons from a Pandemic

Dr. Jim: [: 00:00:00

Joining us today, we have Eric Schengel, who is the senior VP of people and culture at Pinegate renewables. They are an independent power producer.

He's been in workforce development, human resources. He's dabbled in AI he's been in startups and established firms. So he's got a full range of experiences that he brings to the table. And from an educational background perspective, he's got his undergraduate degree in ocean engineering from the U S Naval Academy.

So with all that being said, [: 00:01:00

Eric Shangle: Hey, thank you so much, Dr. Jim.

Dr. Jim: There's going to be a lot of depth of information that we're going to gather out of the discussion. But before we dive into that conversation, I know I said a lot in your bio.

What did I miss that you feel is going to be important for the listeners to to know about you? That's going to better inform this conversation.

Eric Shangle: I would say that the biggest thing is that there's not a lot of people that I've met.

an HR professional so that's [: 00:02:00

Dr. Jim: You mentioned that your background. From being in the Navy, armed you with particular skills that equipped you.

Really well for leadership in the civilian space. Tell me a little bit about some of your observations in terms of the gaps that exist, that you've seen, that you've been able to fill based on your experience in the service.

Eric Shangle: There's two main pieces to that. One is management of, setting expectations, giving, constructive and positive feedback, coaching to meet expectations.

I think the more important thing, the thing that's become more apparent in my career is the leadership aspect of aligning to vision and making sure everybody is aware of what they're What the vision is, what their goals are, and working towards that. And that's something that seems really basic, but it's something that gets lost in the shuffle with just people wanting to do good work on

a daily basis.

: That sets the stage really [: 00:03:00

Eric Shangle: Probably the thing that I'm most proud of is the fact that we went through hyper growth during a pandemic and maintained high engagement during that time. So being able to be reflective in our engagement survey scores and going through major hyper growth, less than a hundred employees to now we have well over a thousand in the family of companies that we have.

So that's a something I'm proud of, but not everybody can say.

Dr. Jim: How did you pull that off?

Eric Shangle: We pulled it off really by being hyper focused on what we were looking for from a recruiting perspective and being relentless at holding our teams accountable towards.

What culture meant. So really hiring towards values and competencies and not sacrificing in that aspect. And it's it's been going strong and we're still going.

Dr. Jim: I don't know how you're going to top what you did through the pandemic, but I'm going to ask it anyway.

that you have in your radar [: 00:04:00

Eric Shangle: This is this is a little bit different. This is not really internally focused. This is externally focused in the renewable energy industry.

We are sometimes viewed as a subset of the energy industry and really trying to get, universities, trade organizations just industry in general to think of us as our own industry is really gonna be an important factor in that working with our trade organizations. So it sounds trivial, but being able to have unified a Compensation data alignment on roles within the industry.

Those are big topics at the DOE DOL that we're trying to affect

change at.

Just to give you a context of that, the Department of Energy classifies energy storage under automotive when they're doing classifications and labor roll ups. And energy storage is a big part of what we do, but we can't get any labor statistics because it's all rolled up under automotive.

y that takes a little bit of [: 00:05:00

Dr. Jim: When you think about your role and your experience in this sector, what's the most fun aspect of the position that you're in?

Eric Shangle: I'm going to give the cheesy answer, but it's the truth. It's working with the people I get to work with. I am so proud that I get to work with amazing professionals I do, but really it comes down to the fact that. Everybody likes working with each other. We did not hire towards likability, but our team is doing amazing things and they enjoy doing it.

And that makes it fun. I wouldn't be doing what I do. And if I didn't like the people.

Dr. Jim: I'm not entirely surprised given your first answer when you were recruiting through the pandemic and you're going through hyper growth, you identified your core values and recruited to that.

l perspective. So real solid [: 00:06:00

So this is a show. About building high performance teams. And this isn't your first rodeo. So you've had a lot of different experiences from a people leadership perspective. When you think about the things that most impacted you, what was that game changing realization that really shifted the way that you build teams?

Eric Shangle: Great question. I would say it really comes down to how I find my job. Most of the time I'm trying to eliminate hassles and really what that means is our team in most companies.

Employees want to do good work. They want to be busy. They want to be engaged, but that doesn't always mean that the work that they're doing, although they're working very hard and very diligently on it is really aligned to making the biggest impact. And I think it really comes down to them. Not just with my team and myself, but our company and our employees, making sure they're measuring their work by the impact as opposed to the output or how much they're working.

the impact that your work is [: 00:07:00

And figure out what is the problem I'm trying to solve with this work.

Dr. Jim: So I really like your emphasis on impact and I want to tie it back to what we mentioned in the beginning of the conversation. Which was people have this misguided view about what work actually means, and I'd like you to expand on the impact concept that you brought out and tie that into the difference between work and impact activity and achievement and how all of that builds how all of that flows together.

Eric Shangle: Many facets to that question. I'll start off by saying it all starts with communicating vision.

to do. But when you ask them [: 00:08:00

What we've been able to do, what I really work and what I focus on with our team is really making sure that people know why they're doing what they're doing. Setting expectations and setting vision. Is the most important thing. And what I found is that a lot of times you have people on different teams working competing projects that are actually should be more aligned in what they're doing.

So if you can get the top leadership aligned in what you're doing and whatever method you want to use is irrelevant. But being able to have a team that can speak towards what they're doing and why they're doing it really helps out. And, you asked for a reason, an example of bringing AI into the conversation.

You have to really think, when you're busy, you're working hard, you feel good, you feel like you're accomplishing a lot, but it may not be the highest and best use of your time in the A. I. Space specifically. And I worked a lot with training data in the I. Space. And that was what our company focused on.

If you were not fully [: 00:09:00

Same thing goes with the work that you do on a daily basis. If you are just working hard and making sure you're staying busy. You're going to have an imperfect output. That's not necessarily aligned to the work that the company needs and where you're trying to go.

Dr. Jim: I like your focus on the high value task and the risk is if you're constantly focusing on doing the things that. Falls in that busy work category, you're going to be evaluated against a non human counterpart. And that's easily something that can be shifted off and it makes you replaceable.

being seen as somebody that [: 00:10:00

Eric Shangle: I want to just build upon that a little bit.

The reason why I said highest and best use, as opposed to just the highest value is there's a lot of times we think that we're working on the highest value work, but that may not be bringing the company or the team or the project forward. In an aligned way, it may take too long. So making sure that you know that, hey, this might be the most valuable, but it also might be a blocker for something else is important.

And then, also the biggest thing with AI is that you can't automate or model empathy. thE human factor in the work we do is not something that's going to be easily modeled anytime in our near future. So I think that's something anytime you need to have empathy or compassion in the work we really need to make sure that the human factor is there.

And that specifically goes to vision, coaching, feedback praise, those type of things, empathy and compassion are a big part of that.

at we hear about is it comes [: 00:11:00

And when you talk to frontline employees, they'll say I have no idea how the stuff that I'm doing connects to a bigger picture. Neither of those things are good. anD it's something that's very common. I want you to close the loop and tell us how the focus on impact conversations can bridge that gap for a lot of organizations.

Eric Shangle: That specific example, there could be a myriad of different reasons why there's the disconnect. I think two main reasons are when you say something once, you haven't really communicated it. You've just put information out there. I hear throughout my career, I've heard I told them what to do.

process it, have it sink in, [: 00:12:00

You can tell people what they need to do. You can tell them why. But if you're not allowing them to ask questions and have an interactive conversation, you're missing it. You're talking about using your highest and best use of time. Thank you. They may not know it's the best or highest use if they don't have an opportunity to put in their own framework or their own context.

A lot of times, especially in high growth industries, high growth companies, whether it's hyper growth and people say, Oh, I told them, I, I informed people, you can't expect that just by informing person once in one modality is enough. Need to inform them in different modalities, email teams or slack and bulletins, posting thing.

we doing this? How does this [: 00:13:00

It's really important to get that interactive

feedback.

Dr. Jim: I really like what you said there because it goes back to your empathy comment. There are a lot of things that AI can do but it will never have empathy

So for first time managers that are faced with these sort of problems, you have to slow down.

You have to resist the urge of jumping in and solving it for them. And you have to focus on the things that are most important, which is building the relationships that create the space for those people underneath you to ask the questions.

You mentioned earlier, what's the problem that you're trying to solve? You've focused on centering yourself onto that question. What's the origin of that?

Eric Shangle: I don't know actually where I got it from. I will say though, that it's something that became more and more apparent as I progressed in my career is that, it goes back to me not being a good communicator or communicating as well as I could in other aspects. Saying, Hey, are there any questions?

Great, let's move on.

Not

allowing that opportunity for people to ask questions and to have a

conversation.

ove on. What that led to was.[: 00:14:00

A lot of times I got blank stares and I realized that, oh, this was a good question to ask, and it came probably from trial and error, but it was an evolution of understanding that, oh, I need to have a way that I can check and to make sure I'm setting the vision properly. And that question seemed to just be the one that stuck.

I will say anecdotally, my dad doesn't like that question. He thinks it's too negative. buT it's the one that seems to get the right, elicit the right responses with our company here. So our team has started to model that behavior. And I will say that it's helped us out a lot, but I'm open to feedback and better ways to ask that question.

y front load it with help me [: 00:15:00

That's something that might be a little softer, but then again, it depends on who you're dealing with because that might also fall into the category of corporate speak for WTF are you doing?

Eric Shangle: One of the things I've done is I've created operating principles for our team and that's one of the operating principles.

As people come into our team, they actually have an opportunity to Understand and align to some of the things that we have that help us do our work better. So it's not something out of the blue. Somebody is going to hear what's the problem you're trying to solve, but it's a part of the vernacular that helps us move forward.

But again, I always say I'm open to suggestions and I'm open to feedback just because we have something that works now. It doesn't mean it's going to work as we

grow.

ne what's acceptable, you're [: 00:16:00

I want to flip this a little bit. So let's say somebody out there is listening to what we're talking about and they want to shift, they realize we've been focusing on completely the wrong things. We're doing a lot of stuff, but none of that stuff really connects with the most important impact items that are on our list.

If people want to make that pivot what are the things that they need to watch out for that's going to get in the way that you've experienced?

closer to the work. They may [: 00:17:00

And, it's really important, but also making sure that vision is not just me being aligned with that vision, that everyone's aligned with the vision and finding those ways to check in on that that's different for every organization

now.

Dr. Jim: I'm going to pull on something that you just mentioned there.

ct within your organization. [: 00:18:00

And also empowered others to speak up?

Eric Shangle: You absolutely need to have good, solid professional relationships with the people closest to you in your role. Now, if you're a senior leader, that means other people in the leadership team and your direct reports. If you're a journeyman level manager or leader HR practitioner, it's those that you work with closely. You have to have a rapport with them. I will say I am a big fan of Stephen Covey's Emotional Bank Account, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

ave their coffee before they [: 00:19:00

Is there something big happening in their life? But if you don't have that rapport, and if you can't build that relationship, it, it's really hard to break down those barriers. It's something difficult for some people and easier for others, but you have to find a way to build bridges, make rapport, and that's our job in HR.

We are human resources, human relations, people operations. There's that human element to everything we do. And if we can't do that, we have to ask ourselves, are we in the right profession, but I think most of us are capable of doing that. It just takes time and intention and the ability sometimes to say, I'm sorry, or I, I'm willing to do better.

Dr. Jim: I like that you called out that leaders need to be willing. To say that they made a mistake, make themselves vulnerable because that actually sets the tone for the team. The bulk of this conversation, we've talked through this whole mindset about don't confuse activity with achievement.

Your focus should be on impact. Let's make this real. If. We're talking about how do we shift that focus?

What are the [: 00:20:00

Eric Shangle: It's a great question, and I think it is. It's more basic than people think. Obviously, we've already talked about this.

It's start with the end in mind. What's the problem you're trying to solve? Communicating that vision or why are we doing what we're doing and getting alignment in that? That's, that's just step one. The other piece of it is making sure people know what's expected of them in their role and how they do the role.

And so often the how you do your role is left off. You may know why you're doing what you're doing. You may know what's expected of you in your role. But do employees know what's expected them as an employee based on the values? How are you being evaluated on the way that you're working within the organization?

ion. And those are the three [: 00:21:00

We're dealing with, making sure that you're evaluating performance so long as expectations have been set. But I think that piece that's missing a lot of times is layering in the values piece. And the way that you do your work and make sure that's being evaluated as well.

Dr. Jim: You mentioned that a lot of this can be high level if people want to dive deep, where can they find you and and have these conversations with you?

Eric Shangle: I'm on LinkedIn. I will say that's probably the easiest place to find me. Eric Shangle. I think I might be the only one out there. But Eric Schengel has a career in the Navy and HR. I look forward to interacting with some of you.

Dr. Jim: I appreciate you hanging out with us, Eric.

shiny things. And really, if [: 00:22:00

Performance related environment. It's the basics and the foundational stuff that creates the space for you to become elite. So here are the things that stood out to me. One is you said everybody wants to do good work that relies on the presumption of good intent.

And as a leader. If you want to build an elite team, you have to be able to give people the benefit of the doubt and rooting yourself into assuming positive intent is a good way to do it. The other thing that I really liked about the conversation is really that question about what's the problem that you're trying to solve and is the work that you're doing deeply aligned with the most important thing on the table that needs solving.

of folks out there for those [: 00:23:00

Leave us a review. We appreciate you hanging out with us and then tune in next time when we'll have another great leader sharing their game changing insights that help them build high performing teams.