The Power of People-Centered Transformation: Lessons from a CHRO

Dr. Jim: [: 00:00:00

That is an important lesson that Elda de la Pena is going to be taking us through. She's the current chief administrative officer and CHRO of Tri State Generation and Transmission Association. She's been in that role since June of 2022, but she's actually grown up in the organization in a lot of different senses.

She started out as a human resources manager and has climbed the ranks in greater and greater responsibility. And now she's a CHRO. And an interesting fact about her background is that she actually was in the print media space before she moved over into this role. She's held a lot of different roles in HR.

She's. Seen a lot of [: 00:01:00

Elda de la Pena: Thank you. Thank you. I'm happy to be here.

Dr. Jim: Super excited to have you on the show. And I'm really looking to dig in some respects to some of the transitions that you've had throughout your career.

And that could be within your time at Tri State or between your time in print. Media and in your transition into your current role. But before we dive into all of that, let's take some time and get the listeners up to speed. Tell us a little bit more about your background. Maybe some of the stuff that I didn't include that you feel is important to the conversation.

Elda de la Pena: Thank you so much. I would say that one of the things. For my background, that has been incredibly helpful in what I do is always being willing to take on new things.

ric utility really helped me [: 00:02:00

So that was key for me to stay as long as I have in this particular organization and grow with H. R. and then also my willingness to just learn. A lot of different things. You start out in one area. I started out in benefits and then moved my way up and helped with recruiting, helped with organization development helped managing a lot of areas.

Dr. Jim: I like the fact that you pointed out that you've been in a lot of different areas throughout your career, but you started out. In on the benefit side, was that an intentional decision in terms of your career progression plan?

Or was that just something that just happened?

Elda de la Pena: I think both. I really enjoy benefits when I was working in the print media area. I did a lot of I managed a lot of the benefits for the organization. So that was that was really my background in that area. But then when I moved to.

To this particular [: 00:03:00

So not only was it a totally different industry, it was an opportunity to learn something I hadn't managed specifically, but benefits has always been one of the areas in HR that has always been my. Favorite areas to

work in.

Dr. Jim: The other thing that I was curious about , a lot of people when they're used to moving from industry to industry.

Sometimes they end up being really surprised by some things. And in other instances, they're not really surprised by anything because there's a lot of common ground between industries. What was your experience when you move from print media to not for profit, power generation. Was there anything that stood out as a significant learning curve or difference that you weren't necessarily prepared for?

would say I wasn't prepared [: 00:04:00

So it was, I would say it was a good surprise because it felt very natural for me and it felt much better as a person to be working at an organization that valued its people in that way. I

Dr. Jim: I'm already digging the people centric. Theme that we're establishing in this conversation. That's going to be a big element of the conversation that we're going to have.

Let's get into it. When you look at your time at Tri State, And you think about all the things that you've accomplished and everything that has changed since you started there, what's the accomplishment that you're most proud of during your time here?

ding that change helping the [: 00:05:00

And when I started doing that in 21, It felt like a great accomplishment to be able to report to the CEO and have him trust me and trust me to manage that because it was huge. Our organization does not change a lot. Electric utility industry in general is very static. And so to be able to be trusted to do that meant a lot to me and feels like 1 of my best accomplishments.

Dr. Jim: There's an element in that dynamic that probably deserves us pulling on the thread. So it's an industry that doesn't change much or is a, has a level of inertia to it.

tackling and call it a day. [: 00:06:00

Elda de la Pena: I would give credit to our CEO who started with our organization in 2019 and our board of directors selected him because we had an understanding that this organization and this industry was changing and transforming and we needed someone who was open to change to do that.

ing and being able then to in: 2021

That's really what's propelled that change forward. Cause it's difficult, but we hired him, the organization hired him. To come in and make those changes. And so he was already there. Now it's the other executive team and the rest of the organization that needed a little more push a little bit more enthusiasm.

f resistance to that. But our[: 00:07:00

Dr. Jim: 1 of the things that's really important to call out. And what you just said is that if you're working on any sort of transformation initiative, if you don't have a key advocate at some of the highest levels within the organization, you're going to have Probably a significant level of challenge in driving that change forward if you don't have somebody that's that's actually committed to that mission or that vision that you've set out.

You're already working through that transformation. When you think about moon shots that you want to accomplish over the next, year, 18 months, 24 months what's the big moon shot that you have on your radar that you want to get done?

Elda de la Pena: Yeah, the

biggest one is getting this project that we've got going getting our enterprise system up and running. It's not just an HRMS system, but it's a full enterprise system. We've, we're actually in year four of getting this thing implemented. There's been a lot of reasons why it hasn't worked, but just getting that done would be amazing.

would be thrilled. And then [: 00:08:00

Dr. Jim: So I opened the show by saying that if you want to become an elite team, there's no way you can admin your way to becoming elite.

And I also, noted that unless you're taking a people centered approach to whatever you're trying to do, you're never going to reach full potential as an organization. How is that related to your game changing realization? In your career that really helped you build elite teams

ve team for lack of a better [: 00:09:00

It isn't about elder transforming elder because I can't do it by myself. It's about the organization transforming together in a collaborative effort, right? This is about teams doing things together. It's when I really started looking at how we do HR. And how we're seen and perceived in the organization.

And you start looking at it as we're seen as the policy followers, the administrators, the, the people who help administer the different benefits, but we're not seen as partners. And we're trying to transition that because partners are the ones who help the entire organization do things together, because if things are.

ave to have buying from your [: 00:10:00

So it's a complete team effort and collaborative effort when we're looking at this. So working with my executive coach it really gave me that aha moment about I, I've got to stop being the person who always says no. And be the person who says, how can I help?

Dr. Jim: So I don't want to downplay the level of lift that this takes, because it's a big lift.

And when I think about what you're describing and put it in context of the organization that you're in and the industry that you're in, I guess one of the questions that I that immediately comes to mind is you got the executive coach, so that makes sense. But after that, how do you even get started?

ask driven organization to a [: 00:11:00

Elda de la Pena: Yeah, no, that's a great question because and I'll tell you that is something we're still working on, right?

That's going to be a never ending process that we have to work on. And we started as an organization. We started by getting a consultant to help us see where we could change. But then we established a group called the change management office, and I'm the chairperson of the change management office because we realized we need a cross functional team.

That's going to help this organization move forward. And so this team is made up of people from all over the organization. There's 8 of us on the team. And we get together once a week to say how do we do this? How do we communicate? And we've got communications on the team, strategy, finance, HR. And together as a group, we have collaborated on that.

ys of communicating with our [: 00:12:00

So it's not just HR saying, gosh, I wonder what people want to do. We'll just go this way. Actually listening to our employees. So we have developed this method of getting together with this team of change management people. And then we listen we invite people in to tell us where the challenges are so that we can come up with ideas on how to help them change.

So it's become this collaborative effort of HR with other groups. To actually come up with the strategy on how we're going to communicate roll out. And do all of the change management, and then we report to the CEO and give him feedback on, hey, during town hall, could you please talk about this?

loyees on change management. [: 00:13:00

Dr. Jim: I like a lot about what you said, I think 1 of the things that stands out is, you have to have some communication fundamentals that are built at the executive level. And then that starts the process of filtering down the message. I like the fact that you've talked about not only listening, but also acting on some of the things that you're listening for.

I think 1 of the common gaps that occurs. Is you might see momentum at the executive level. You might see it at the senior leadership level directors and VPs. A lot of the impact is made at the manager and individual contributor level. And a lot of these transformation initiatives fall apart. At that stage.

individual contributor level?[: 00:14:00

Elda de la Pena: So we implemented a few different things.

emented engagement surveys in: 2020

And we said, Hey, here's the engagement survey results. Tell us what this means to you and how we can improve. And the or at the organization, so it's not the executives making the interpretation. It's not hr interpreting the results. It's this team which by the way, we facilitate right? We still have the hr team and our strategy team facilitating this discussion But we are asking them for their feedback and saying we need to improve the organization But we can't do this without your help.

e of team was great. We also [: 00:15:00

This is how they want to see the transformation of the. Thank you. Organization because we can say everything we want Oh, yeah, we believe in the change. But unless you actually have that action then it's not going to happen. And we're currently still working through some of those items because one of the feedback, some of the feedback we've received is, Hey, okay, we gave you the information.

We've done the engagement survey. Now, what are you going to do? And we're using these teams to come up with ideas on what we can do.

Dr. Jim: My mind keeps going back to, okay, this is an organization with a level of inertia because of industry and sector and all of that sort of stuff.

ou probably encountered some [: 00:16:00

So how did you overcome that?

Elda de la Pena: Yeah. And that's, and we still have resistance. I'll tell you, we, one of our one of the benefits of being in this industry is we have very long tenured employees, but it's also one of the things that's hard because those employees not all of them, but oftentimes are resistant to change.

But we did get that question during one of our sessions with our employee advisory committee and the other group that we set up, because they were concerned that they might give us real feedback and that they might. Have retaliation. Did they have safety and actually having that type of feedback?

And we we can tell them all we want. We said, look, this is a safe space. None of this is going to get back to anyone other than this group. This is a collaborative space. But then we also have during our town halls and that we have an anonymous comment area where people can submit their questions because people are afraid to ask our CEO directly, or they're afraid to ask.

Thank you. Us [: 00:17:00

But during group sessions, when we're actually meeting in person with some of these advisory committees we assure them. And it's the best we can do. We tell them, Hey, you've got a team here who really wants to listen. And this is why we've established this. And none of this is going to get back to either your executive or other employees.

It's a safe space. It's the best that we've been able to do to assure. That confidentiality with that group.

Dr. Jim: I like the anonymity that you've built in. I think when we're thinking about best practices, the more you can reinforce the anonymity and the different channels that you can use to ensure anonymity.

ation, especially if you have[: 00:18:00

That you want to get on the radar of those folks that want to implement this sort of change or this sort of transformation.

Elda de la Pena: Yeah there's definitely a lot of lessons learned since we've never gone through anything like this. And 1 is empathy for employees. I think it's important for everyone at the organization and HR to have some empathy because I was very excited about the change.

And one of the things that I realized is no matter how excited I was about the change and I'm sprinting down the path of change and you have to remember that there's people behind you who really maybe are uncertain about it. And how do you help them get there? And help them come along.

bout this. So how do we help [: 00:19:00

One of the things that we could have improved is how we messaged it because we started messaging that we're going to have a reorganization and a realignment. We started messaging it in February of 2022. And then we didn't really do anything until June. And so it became something that really created a lot of anxiety and a lot of stress for our employees and hindsight on that one would have been to not have messaged it quite that early on.

And there were some reasons why we did that for better or worse. So messaging with your employees. One of the things that we heard, our feedback was, please don't message about a message, right? If you're going to do something, don't tell us that it's coming and it's coming. Have a plan or be more transparent about what's actually going to happen because a lot of employees were affected by it.

that was a lesson for us on [: 00:20:00

Dr. Jim: Elda, this has been a great conversation. When we think about building a roadmap or building a a framework for how you execute transformations that are people focused and people centered there's a lot to learn out of this conversation, but I want you to close the loop on all of this.

When we think about how to get started, how to execute well, what are the big things that you would call out from your experience that listeners need to pay attention to when they're looking to execute this level of transformation?

Elda de la Pena: That's a great question. One of the first things that I would recommend is that as a leader, if you're the one who is Charged to go forth with this is understand your own strengths and weaknesses.

hrough that. So I think it's [: 00:21:00

Of where we are, because we all may be great at our strengths, but understanding our weaknesses is incredibly important. Also ensuring that your executive team is aligned. We had some issues with that early on and through our executive coaching got the executive team aligned. And that was definitely something that helped our organization because the employees saw that we were aligned.

And so that helps them buy into the change. Also incredibly important for HR as a group. To partner with their internal communications team it's one of the things that we could have done better when we were doing this We partnered with an outside team. We were concerned about leakage and I think that was a disservice to our communications group I would have gotten them involved a lot sooner get them involved in the strategy for communicating any kind of realignment any kind of reorganization And really partner with them and I think that really helps with a very strong transition whenever you're going through any kind of transformation and developing cross functional teams.

Getting people together from [: 00:22:00

Dr. Jim: That could be like a Ted talk right there. So I appreciate you sharing that. So Elda if folks want to continue this conversation, what's the best way for them to get in touch with

Elda de la Pena: you? Yeah, absolutely. I'm on LinkedIn. Happy to connect with anybody on LinkedIn. So I would invite them to send me messages.

Friend me on LinkedIn and I'm more than happy to continue the conversation that way.

Dr. Jim: I appreciate you hanging out. When I think about this conversation and all the stuff that we covered, one of the things that came to me as we were winding down this discussion is how do we build a framework for executing this transformation really well.

irst thing you need to do is [: 00:23:00

Then you need to message what needs to be done across and throughout the organization. Effectively, the 3rd thing you need to do is pace that change or that transformation so that it's not overwhelming the broader enterprise and especially your individual contributors. And the last thing that that makes sense is that you have to sequence the changes in an appropriate way.

So again, you're not overwhelming it. I just I thought that sequentially it made a lot of sense and the things that you were talking about really fit into that framework really well. So I appreciate you sharing that. There's a ton more in this conversation that I think people are going to find value in.

ss when they're trying to do [: 00:24:00

Elder. Great conversation for those who have been listening into this discussion. We appreciate you hanging out. If you like the conversation, leave us a review and then tune in next time where we'll bring on another leader, walking us through the game changing realizations that they had, which helped them build high performing teams.