The Power of Job Shadowing and Mentoring in Developing Future Leaders
Summary:
Join Dr. Jim as he chats with Jenny do Forno, Chief People Officer at Touch Bistro, about getting your people ready to lead. They discuss the challenges of connecting the dots between strategy and execution as organizations grow, and share best practices for building leaders within your organization. Jenny emphasizes the importance of role clarity and setting expectations, even in resource-constrained environments. She also highlights the value of early conversations, job shadowing, and mentoring to prepare future leaders. Tune in for valuable insights on developing a strong leadership pipeline.
Key Takeaways:
- Key insights on transitioning leadership approaches as organizations scale from small teams to larger entities.
- Strategies for promoting clarity and instilling leadership competencies at various organizational levels.
- The crucial role of investing in front-line managers as the most significant influencers on staff morale and performance.
- The need for over-communication and using technology to keep teams aligned with organizational strategies.
Chapters:
0:00:00
Dr. Jim introduces the topic of getting people ready to lead.
0:00:52
Jenny shares her background and story.
0:02:06
Jenny discusses the challenges of connecting the dots in a growing organization.
0:03:39
Jenny shares best practices for connecting strategy and execution.
0:05:30
Dr. Jim asks Jenny about building leaders in the organization.
0:06:54
Jenny emphasizes the importance of role clarity and expectations.
0:08:03
Dr. Jim raises the issue of resource constraints for development and coaching.
0:09:07
Jenny suggests starting conversations earlier and utilizing job shadowing and mentoring.
0:10:42
Jenny emphasizes the importance of investing in frontline managers.
0:11:41
Giving candidates a taste of the job to self-select
0:12:10
Join the HR impact community for more insights
Connect with Dr. Jim: linkedin.com/in/drjimk
Connect with CT: linkedin.com/in/cheetung
Connect with Jenny do Forno: linkedin.com/in/jennydoforno
Music Credit: Shake it Up - Fesliyanstudios.com - David Renda
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Mentioned in this episode:
Engaging Leadership Intro
Engaging Leadership Outro
Transcript
So joining us today. We have Jenny Do Forno who's the chief people officer at Touch Bistro. Jenny, welcome to the show.
[:[00:00:29] Dr. Jim: It's pretty cool And I should drop a message to Samara and have you do some of her PR for the next iteration of transform So thanks for joining us in the podcast zone looking forward to this conversation I think before we dive into the discussion Probably the first order of business is for you to get the listeners Familiar with a little bit about your story and your background .
[:And I've really seen the full spectrum. I've had the opportunity to lead people teams and as well spent a little bit of a stint in venture. And in investing in in really exciting companies. And now I have the unique pleasure of being the Chief People Officer at Touch Bistro. And at Touch Bistro, really, it is a company that creates innovative technology that makes it easier for restaurants and restauranteurs to run their business and improve the overall experience for their customers.
[:At each stage, it requires different types of thinking to get to that next level. When you look at the evolution [00:02:00] of the organizations that you've been at, and you've taken them through those different stages, what didn't you expect at each of those stages of growth?
[:Like you can feel it. You can have those motivational conversations really firsthand and you can. Draw the direct line in a lot of ways between the work that you're doing in the engagement that you have. And then as you get to that 200, 300 sort of category, now you don't know everyone in the organization in the same way.
s thinking And the notion of [:[00:03:12] Dr. Jim: One of the things that I gather from what you just described, you're talking about connecting the dots. In a smaller organization, it's easier for executive and senior leaders to connect the dots for the individual contributors on the team. But as you get bigger, that gets much more difficult. So when you're looking at solving for that challenge, how do you create an organization that is better equipped to connect the dots from the strategy in the C suite down to the execution at the line level? What have you noticed has worked really well in getting teams to really connect with the strategy and execution?
[:Like that obviously will help your team stay connected. And allow you insight into the work that they're doing and the velocity and all of those things. And, but I also think that we can't, and we shouldn't be afraid to lose sight of the human piece of it. And that is, I always say to the senior leadership teams that I'm part of, like you gotta communicate and then communicate again.
You need to over communicate, . So things like company kickoffs, quarterly town halls, really super important. One of the things that I love to do. So what I actually love to go to each of my functional areas and say, bring me into your team meetings. I'm happy to come in and do a Q and A or speak on a particular subject or issue.
, can feel connected to that [:[00:05:04] Dr. Jim: I love that insight that you have in terms of encouraging HR leaders and practitioners to get embedded within the functional groups of the organization because there can be a tendency to develop group think in any function.
If you're not really working across the entire organization. So that's real solid stuff. When you're looking at. Building a leadership pipeline and getting people ready to lead. It's a common issue that a lot of organizations struggle with. In fact, what often happens is
you have high performing individual contributors that get promoted and they're in a manager role and all of a sudden they're floundering for six or eight months, or you have high performing managers that become directors and they end up floundering.
So walk us through what you believe are one or two best practices. That will help organizations and leaders build other leaders on their downline.
[:And I think the first thing, unfortunately, is we start that dialogue about promotion into leadership, as step number three and four. Third, and we. Skip step number one, two and three. And what do I mean by that is that we're not clear in our organization, in our competency frameworks, what we even expect of those individuals.
For example, when you're promoting somebody from an I C to a manager in way too many organizations that I've seen, it isn't really defined what we expect of managers,. In this role. Let's get some clarity of what is expected of you. What has changed? What is different? What are the new skills we expect to employ on a daily basis?
, what the expectations are. [:What is important in this role for us at this stage? So I think that's the first thing is getting alignment and focus on what those roles and the definitions of those roles actually mean. So that's first.
[:
So All of that makes absolute sense. Here's the problem, at least in the U. S. context, every organization or a lot of organizations are running super lean. And when you look at the distribution of resources, when it comes to support, coaching, development, all of those sorts of things. It's over indexed at the highest ends of the organization, and when you look further down, there's less and less of it there.
you get. So my question is, [:To get our managers and even our directors better prepared to execute when everybody's running thin everybody's busy nobody's got time for sort of development and coaching and training and frankly the resources are at the top end of the organization and not in the middle and bottom end of the organization
[:One, start the conversations earlier. I don't care how resource constrained you are. The reality is start those conversations earlier. As you grow as an organization, you're going to promote eventually some ICs, for example, into these management layer roles. Do you know what? Let's be clear and transparent across the organization about what those different roles look like, .
es that look like now? Let's [:This is what the path looks like from I see to manager. Here's some steps that you can just take all by yourself even right now in order to be, prepare you and get ready. We can use really easy things that I know they, they're big words like job shadowing and mentoring, but especially when you're running lean, it's as easy as this.
Hey, Dr. Jim, you're on my team. I see that you have potential. One day, I'm understanding that I'm gonna I'm gonna probably look to promote you. So I'm gonna start to bring you into conversations right now, right here and right now, to help build some of those skill sets. You early with you so that you know when time for promotion comes, you're already well equipped with some of the skills and the observations that you've had in terms of job shadowing or my mentorship, .
tion to do is to spot talent [:I love the concept. I'm a big, firm advocate of it. But, here's the thing. I think most of the research that I've seen that is compelling is that it is that first level manager layer, and it is that director layer that has the most impact. On the majority of your staff, their experience of work, their output, their energy, their, commitment to the workforce, .
Like that age old adage, people don't leave companies, they leave managers, all of those sorts of things. So I am telling you, if I only have 10 to spend in a company, that every time I am going to spend that 10 on my front line managers first.
[:So if people want to continue the conversation, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?
[:[00:11:16] Dr. Jim: So great stuff. Thanks for hanging out with us.
For those of you who have listened to this conversation. Hope you enjoyed it. When I think about the stuff that we talked about in this conversation, I think the most important thing that stood out to me is you as a leader. If you're looking at building a leadership pipeline, you have to be really intentional about defining what the day to day looks like in the next role for that person that you see potential in.
who are there for the right [:So great stuff, Jenny. Thanks for hanging out. For those of you who have listened. If you haven't already joined the HR impact community, make sure you do that. You can find that at www. engagerocket. co slash HR impact and tune in next time where we'll have more great leaders joining us and sharing with us the game changing insights that helped them build a high performing team.
