93. How to Optimize Talent

HC Episode 93 Jackie Dube

[00:00:34] Jeff Hunt: Welcome to the Human Capital Podcast. I'm Jeff Hunt. Have you ever felt like your team isn't quite clicking the way it should despite you hiring great talent? There's something missing when it comes to collaboration, engagement, or performance. What if there's a way to decode what drives your employees better, aligning them around your company goals and building teams that not only work together but thrive.

Today we're diving into the science behind hiring team dynamics and leadership with someone who knows this space inside and out. She's a leader in talent optimization and workforce analytics, helping organizations unlock the full potential of their people through data-driven strategies. Jackie Dube is the Chief People Officer at the Predictive Index, a company at the forefront of talent, talent optimization and behavioral science in the workplace with extensive experience in HR strategy, workforce planning, and leadership development.

Jackie helps businesses align their people strategy with their business objectives. She's passionate about using behavioral data to create high performing teams, improve employee engagement, and help leaders make smarter people decisions. In my conversation with Jackie today, we're going to explore the power of talent optimization, how behavioral insights, shape hiring and leadership.

The practical steps that companies can take to build a workforce that drives results. Welcome Jackie.

[00:02:06] Jackie Dube: Thanks and thanks for having me.

[00:02:09] Jeff Hunt: I'm thrilled to have you on the show and, and grateful and thankful that you're giving me this time, and just looking forward to diving into this topic. I, I wanna start with a little bit about you.

You've been with a predictive index a long time, and I'm, I'm finding myself curious about two things. One is, first of all, how you ended up as a thought leader in this space, and number two, ultimately in this role at pi.

[00:02:35] Jackie Dube: Sure. So I, I could talk about this stuff all day, so I'm super excited to have this conversation and I'll give you a little background on how I even got into the people space and how I got to pi, uh, which when you say a long time, it's the longest job I've ever had, so, oh, wow.

Uh, for me, it feels like a long time, but it, but a good long time. So I've always wanted to be a marriage family counselor, and this really stemmed from my childhood in where my parents got divorced when I was young. But my, my parents were both supportive. I had never felt it negatively impacted me, and I felt like, wow, I can have a positive experience from a divorced home, and I'd love to take that experience on how.

To make a positive impact on people, maybe going through it in a, in a difficult way. So I went to school and then I moved to Boston to go to MA to get my master's. 'cause you have to get a tremendous amount of school to do that and found myself. In a space where it just wasn't working for me. When I went to a recruiter and said, I really love working with people and helping people, but financially I couldn't afford it at the time.

And this recruiter said to me like, why don't you think about human resources? And I didn't really know what it was at the time. And I land landed a job as back then a department secretary at a law firm. And that was my first introduction to HR in a very tactical way. But I really got to see the role that HR can play in an organization.

And from there I just like grew into the field. I worked for a company after that that acquired 19 companies while I was there. So an a tremendous amount of experience just by the nature of the company in culture integration and the importance of values and. Thinking about people and how they interact through all those acquisitions and so forth.

And so many years later I started working in startups and then I met a gentleman named Mike Zani, who's our current CEO. He had just finished an acquisition in Detroit and moved to Rhode Island where I reside now, and was the CEO of a company that had 10 people he was hired to, to raise money, do a series A grow, grow the business for these.

Founders who had bootstrapped their company and he went to the founders and said, Hey, I'm gonna hire hr. And they said, why would I hire hr? We have 10 people, like we have engineers to hire and way better things, and Mike had said. I just finished an acquisition or a project, uh, where I acquired a company with 150 people and it's really hard to fix a company.

It's really hard to make those changes. And I vowed to myself if I ever had the opportunity to, to restart a company, I would hire someone in the strategic HR role first. 'cause we can build the company intentionally the way we wanna do it. And so he convinced them to, to hire me. And, um, Mike and I. Grew that company together and at that time, that's when I was first introduced to the predictive index as a tool when I had never used behavioral science in hiring or any of my work prior and really understood.

Through that experience, the value of having behavioral science to to help guide how you hire, how you inspire your employees, how you build your teams, and how effective it can be. And I think you had mentioned it earlier in decoding humans and decoding the workplace because it's so complex. And so after that company, I went on my own, Mike went on his own.

Then he had the opportunity to, to acquire the predictive index for many reasons. And I got to have my dream job where not only do I get to help Mike, um, build a company again, but I also get to be part of the product where in the people space we're generally servicing the company and, but really being a part of the product development and kind of a Guinea pig and get to espouse the product, it's really had been.

I truly dream that. As I mentioned, I've been here for about 10 years, which is the longest tenure that I've had in my career.

[00:06:33] Jeff Hunt: So, yeah. Well, clearly there's good, there are good reasons for that, so that's great. Now, was there any one person or people that really inspired you along the way?

[00:06:45] Jackie Dube: Yeah. Um, you know, I, I would say probably one of my first, uh, managers, um, at the company where I had mentioned where required all of these, where we made the 19 acquisitions.

Um, because she, her name is Nancy Leer, was one of the most people centric. Managers that I've had and so thoughtful and took the time to ensure that, you know, culture and people were taken care of and the importance of even self-awareness and transparency. And I think at that time, all of those buzzwords probably were not top of mind.

But if I look back, she's definitely had the largest impact on my career and the way I think about talent.

[00:07:31] Jeff Hunt: Now talent optimization sounds like a mouthful to a lot of people. And so it's really a term that I think we're hearing a lot more often these days. So the question is really how would you define talent optimization? Because I think people define it differently. And then secondly, what, like why is this something that's so critical for organizations today?

[00:07:54] Jackie Dube: Yeah, so I think talent optimization is the discipline. Aligning your people strategy with your business strategy, and that really is what drives results. So it's not just about hiring the right people, but it's about understanding how to engage, develop, retain them, and all of that is in an effort to max, maximize productivity.

And so I think. As organizations in this world, climate we're required to adapt quickly to change, and talent optimization gives organizations insights into the talent that they have internally so they can maneuver quickly because if they don't. Have those understandings and they're consistently looking for like someone to fit this job description specifically with these skills.

They're very stuck in how they can adapt to the changing needs of their business and you know, they're gonna just fall behind from their competitors.

[00:08:54] Jeff Hunt: It's almost like you're, the way you're describing it is ultimately better visibility for organizations. Better. Yeah, better vision. Around their people.

Obviously there's vision around corporate vision and where we're going as an organization, but better clarity and vision around people and what's important, what we need and why is that? Right? A hundred percent. Mm-hmm. Okay. And so when you think of this, uh, whole concept of behavioral data, what role does behavioral data play in talent optimization and making better?

Hiring and leadership decisions. So kind of dumb it down for us if you'll, for the listener.

[00:09:39] Jackie Dube: Sure. So behavioral data, gift companies, a scientifically backed understanding of how individuals work, how they communicate, and, and how they lead. So when companies use. Behavioral data to hire, promote, build teams.

They really minimize like guesswork and they become more successful in not only how they're hiring, but how people are performing in their day to day. So for example, if you had a fast-growing technology company, which PI has been, and if you're struggling and have higher turnover in leadership roles and you implement something like a behavioral assessment, you can identify where there's misalignments between personalities of leadership potentially with companies strategic goals.

And so when you have those insights, you can make adjustments of who you need to hire. Are there better people suited to to that organization's? Pace and structure. So when you use those types of insights, you can really get more engaged employees, better leadership have reduced team turnover, and then just things are more cohesive and hopefully in the end you end up with stronger business outcomes.

[00:10:50] Jeff Hunt: It's almost as if you're saying that behavioral data and this whole talent optimization strategy is proactive, and so without it we become reactive. I'm thinking about that. Is it Mike that you joined with originally? Yeah, Mike, when you did that startup, it's like him recognizing the investment in HR is truly a proactive play that many people miss.

And so they fill their organizations, um, in an unintentional way, and then they have unintentional results that come out of that. Is that a accurate statement?

[00:11:25] Jackie Dube: A hundred percent and it's an evolution. So it's not something they're like, oh, realize today that we need this. You just can continue on that way for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 years.

We need to make adjustments and continue to say like, what are we trying to achieve in this current environment so you can make those adjustments. And so an example of that is small startup company. You need to find people who can wear many hats and can work in a fast-paced environment and can multitask.

But as you're. If organization evolves and becomes more structured and you actually have processes and you become more complex, you actually need people that can implement those processes and work within a structure. If you continue to just hire as you did in the forefront of your company, you're gonna find unengaged people because they wanna innovate and work on multiple things.

But you have these people that we have a process to file to follow in order to serve our customers in this way. So it's something that is an evolution you have to continue to work on and have insights to your organization and what you're trying to achieve.

[00:12:33] Jeff Hunt: I love that. Yeah. I was actually, I, I lead facilitate a group of CEOs, a a mastermind group, monthly in, in-person group.

And last week we met. And one of the things we were talking about was the IKEA founder syndrome, which is when you're a founder of a startup and you're putting the IKEA furniture together, but if you're still doing that in five to 10 years, you know that you haven't shifted. Right. That evolution, that's kind of what you're describing, isn't it?

[00:12:58] Jackie Dube: A hundred percent, yes. And that's a great analogy that I'll probably use one day. So yeah, I think that's okay.

[00:13:03] Jeff Hunt: Exactly. So. Going back to the predictive index, do you, can you think of some examples or stories of how Predictive Index has really helped organizations transform their teams with what you've just described?

[00:13:22] Jackie Dube: Sure. I think that. When you understand a behavioral insight, when you understand what your team is trying to achieve, and you can identify kind of like where the gaps or what the struggles are, you can fill those gaps and working with companies, whether wherever they are in their lifecycle. So if it's a company that is starting to hire, right, you can help them to understand.

Who they're hiring. If it's company that is struggling with productive, uh, productivity or high turnover, you can work on things like, are people in the right roles? Do we need to make some adjustments? And if you're not sure why, you can diagnose that. Right? So you can say, let me take a. Engagement survey and understand the experience that the people are having, so then we can put some actions into place.

And Predictive Index helps with all of those things. And when. I think one of the biggest transformations that we've helped companies with is when leadership takes an investment in the behavioral science and takes an a moment to be more self-aware of like, who am I and what are my behaviors and how are those impacting the company, the people we work with, to make adjustments that way you see, you see a real transformation.

[00:14:46] Jeff Hunt: It's almost as if they're, you're eliminating the chance for hypocrisy by doing that. Right? Because we have to, as leaders really buy into these things that we are professing as being so important. So if we, if we don't do that, we can have problems on our hands.

Right?

[00:15:04] Jackie Dube: Yeah. And a, a lot of times I think. It's very eye-opening when leaders don't, they don't realize the impact that they're having on their people, and a lot of times, some of the disconnects or the interpersonal problems or relationships are. Blamed on a personality difference or someone's performance.

And a lot of times it's just a behavioral work style difference. And if you can understand the, the tension in those work styles, usually you can uncover and make adjustments. And so I can give an example, and I'll use Mike since we're talking about him, but when I first started working with him, so Mike is.

Someone who, what we call like high dominance. So he likes, he's very strategic, he likes to put his fingerprint on things. And so when I first started working with him, of course he's the CEO. I would like work so hard to get things to perfect and spend a lot of times making sure that. I gave him a finished product, and what I learned over time is that no matter how finished and how perfect was like, he wanted to put a little bit of his own fingerprint and stamp on it, and it was more stylistic.

It didn't change the outcome of actually what I was handing over. And so what I realized is like I. Don't go to a hundred percent, give it to him 95% 'cause he's gonna make some changes. And that just, that little bit of awareness between the two of us, like really helped us work better together because I wasn't frustrated that he was changing things that were not like necessarily making a huge impact.

But, and he had the opportunity to put his mark on it and it was like a tremendous value that, um, I take with me today and I actually tell our. Coworkers and people that reported to him the same thing.

[00:16:45] Jeff Hunt: So, what I like about that example is that you're sharing with us that it's not this massive effort that is required to affect change.

It's actually just little things that can be tweaked, that can have an overall large impact. Right. Sure.

[00:17:01] Jackie Dube: And those are the things that cause the most frustration with people. And it's really just about awareness. It wasn't, it's not intentional. It's not one person's right or wrong, it's just different work styles.

[00:17:11] Jeff Hunt: Right. And I'm also thinking too about this whole hypocrisy and alignment issue. And I don't know if you saw on the news yesterday, but Meta is laying off a bunch of people. I think it's over 3000 people and one of, there's, there are a number of people and of course. I'm not here to make any claim about accuracy or who's right or wrong, but there are a number of people that had very good performance reviews and the company's line is that they were laying people off, um, purely based on performance and the result of their performance reviews.

So there's, there is definitely an opportunity to do things differently or explore where there's misalignment. In that case, as an example, right?

[00:17:56] Jackie Dube: A hundred percent. And I think that's where actually my team and I spend a lot of time in those like performance review type conversations, because a lot of times it's, it's not, there's either a miscommunication or, or some type of misalignment and it's, it's a communication style or it didn't quite get there.

So a report, a performance review is like one piece of information. And so yes, I think 3000 people on performance review would seem very. Shocking thing to do, but

[00:18:27] Jeff Hunt: our opinion, and it's also, there's both what is accomplished, which is so often the performance review is hyper focus on result orientation, but then there's also how things are accomplished.

Can we get along with our team members? Are we really contributing? Are we collaborative? Are we respectful? Are we creating a place for psychological safety? And when it, it seems as though, I'm curious about your reflections on this, Jackie, if you're overweighted on the what versus the how. That's sometimes when you can run into problems as well.

[00:19:04] Jackie Dube: Sure. I, I would agree with that because you can, there are ways to get things done that are not collaborative, that steamroll, that take credit for other people's work. And when you focus just on the what. Then you become a very, like, probably a little bit of a toxic environment. And I think when you're basing a layoff on a performance review, then you have this tool right as that is being used and now it turns into the factor for your job security.

And then you have people like fearful to give an employee their real performance rating 'cause you're, it's gonna impact their job for the future. So it's, it, I think it, it's a slippery slope.

[00:19:50] Jeff Hunt: For sure. I want to go back to something you said a minute ago about surveys and uh, obviously Predictive Index has, um, some amazing surveys and, and my software goal span also does surveys in addition to performance management.

But I'm curious about your opinion about what you've seen happen when employees are surveyed, but then they're essentially ghosted. After the fact. So in other words, we've, they've taken the time to put in meaningful information and feedback to the company about whatever the query is. It might be engagement, it might be something else.

Yep. But then the organization is not returning back with information about what they found, what they're gonna do with it, how, how they wanna address any potential gaps or challenges.

[00:20:39] Jackie Dube: Yeah. And I think that. The advice would be if you're not gonna report back or do anything as a leadership with, with survey data, then you're better off not doing it.

It actually creates more disengagement. And so my advice to a company that does survey is to plan how you're going to use the data and how you're gonna report back on it before you even take it, before you even distribute it to be part of the mechanism in which you roll out. The survey, right? So we're gonna do this survey to the company.

You should expect feedback a month from now. Well, they're gonna give you the initial feedback. Two months from now, we'll put an action plan and then over the course of the year we'll let you know the changes we've made based on, and it's that simple, but it's very missed by a lot of organizations.

[00:21:33] Jeff Hunt: Yeah. They seem to like to just make it event based and check the box and then move on when what you're describing. Is where transformation can occur.

[00:21:42] Jackie Dube: Yeah. And I think additionally, just one level deeper is even get the data, um, but then excuse it away, right? Ah, mm-hmm. Well, people are disengaged, but this happened or people are disengaged and that leader, but their leader's not here anymore.

And it's easy to do that. I sometimes, my first reaction is like, you're kidding me. We've tried so hard and. Pi. Traditionally we've had amazing engagement scores and last year we actually saw a, a dip and we went through some hard things and it would be very easy for us to excuse that away. But we had third party come in, we went through focus groups, we put an employee advisory council together, and we worked so hard on it as a leadership team with employees.

We just ran our latest engagement survey this year, and we're starting to see improved results even through a hard year. So even if you're going through hard things, the investment in time and with employees is so worth it.

[00:22:44] Jeff Hunt: Hmm. And truth telling builds trust, right? If you're, and it's all founded on trust.

If we don't have trust, hundred percent, then that's the ultimate currency, and that's when turnover goes up. If trust is down, we have all these other issues that happen. So.

[00:22:59] Jackie Dube: Hundred percent.

[00:23:00] Jeff Hunt: Yeah. Now I wanna talk about leadership and, and confidence a little bit for a minute. To be a, a leader requires a level of confidence in most roles, and yet there are plenty of men and women that struggle with imposter syndrome.

So there might be somebody who's newer in a leadership role or mm-hmm. Maybe has some family of origin issues that are. Preventing them from really embodying that level of confidence and re resulting in imposter syndrome. And so I'm wondering if you have advice for leaders who may hesitate to use their voice?

[00:23:41] Jackie Dube: Yeah, I mean, I personally can speak from that experience. I would say at pi, and this wasn't a factor at pi, but you sometimes work around very smart people and especially some being in hr, you have a seat at the table, but you're. I always thought like, do I deserve this seat? Should HR really speak up on this business issue?

And we actually had a speaker come in to talk about. Confidence for women in the workplace and just talked about all the ways that imposter syndrome shows up and uh, and how women tend to not speak up or just disclaim their credibility by saying, this is a stupid question, which I do all the time. And I committed to myself that every time that little voice came in my head that I would just go for it and I would raise my hand, I would say what I had to say, and you realize.

Wow. Somebody else was thinking the same thing or didn't think that way, and so I think diversity of perspective. So important and every voice matters. So my advice would be to try and one, quiet the voice and have the courage to go pa go past it. But second is find an accountability partner. So someone that works closely with you, that's in a lot of meetings with you that you can help, you know, have them hold you accountable.

So in a meeting, and this is what I did with a coworker of mine, is they didn't see me raise my hand. Make sure that they called on me, Jackie, what are your thoughts? So I would have to do that. And so it does take practice. It takes getting out of your comfort zone, but you're in a leadership position 'cause you deserve it.

So people are expecting your voice. And so that's how I did it and I would just recommend find a way to hold yourself accountable, whether it's with a partner or however you can do it, is to find that way.

[00:25:33] Jeff Hunt: I love that concept of the accountability partner too, because. An accountability partner is your advocate and has your back, and gives you the opportunity to not only check in with you on that, but go a little bit deeper about were there things that you didn't say that now when you reflect back on, you could have said that would've actually had a greater impact on the organization had you spoken up.

So I, yeah, I really love that, that that strategy. I'd like to shift and talk about the changing workforce that we're seeing now, especially with the rise of AI and obviously post covid. I, uh, remote work is still very strong. We've seen a lot more hybrid work. We've seen employers that have actually required return to office and I, how does all of this impact organizations as they're wanting to adjust their approach to talent strategy?

[00:26:31] Jackie Dube: Yeah, so I think that for the dynamic workplace that we're in today, and I think that people are, and organizations have to change the way that work get is getting done. You know, when I think about ai, there's a lot of fear about AI replacing jobs, but I think the way to think about it is AI is your partner, so how can you use AI because it's not going to go away.

I don't think it will necessarily replace most jobs. And so how does it make your work better? How can you use it? And I think organizations who explore that will win. And as far as like the hybrid workplace is hiring for adaptability, I think that talent optimization helps that not, I think skills are important for certain jobs, but really like looking at the bigger picture, the whole person that comes to work.

I know we, when at PI, when we think about talent, the only thing we compromise on is skills. So we hire for people who are curious and smart, and for people who have a good attitude, skills when necessary. But that's the only thing we'll compromise on, and we've been able to shift people all across our organization.

We have engineers, our director of engineering was came into our organization as product marketing, and we went into an engineering role and is now the director of engineering. We just had sales, two of our leaders in our sales organization leave between December and January. We took, we were able to move our VP of product design over to lead our sales organization.

Not that sales skills were top of mind for that person, but we know she's a great leader. She understands how the business runs and so you really can be dynamic. And so understanding how people are wire wired using talent optimization in your organization, I think the, the whole FaceTime. Versus performance is key.

So if you're measuring people by how many ti, how many hours they spend in their office versus the output. Now this takes a lot of, I think, good management and leadership to under, to know how to measure outcomes and so forth. But if you can get to a performance based environment, the face time becomes less important.

And then you're, you're hiring people, you hire adults. So treat them like adults and let them manage their time so they can get their life done and also produce the highest quality work. Those are the organizations that are gonna win, that are gonna get the innovative people because you're treating people like adults and you're getting the outcomes that you need.

And so I think those are some of the things that I would encourage organizations in this changing environment.

[00:29:17] Jeff Hunt: I really wanna highlight a couple things you said that just feels so important. One is how critical it is to be proactive in this recruiting strategy and recruiting on character versus waiting character more than waiting skills, because how many times have you and I probably seen organizations that have a talent void or vacancy combined with a sense of urgency.

And they hold out for very specific, a very specific skillset, and they bring on the person that might not be in alignment with their core values, and they degrade their culture as a result of that decision, rather than bringing on somebody that might not have the exact skillset that they're looking for, but then developing that person and truly helping their culture and their core values flourish.

[00:30:19] Jackie Dube: A hundred percent. And I, I think that like one, one bad seed right, is can create so much toxicity. So I, I do believe that value alignment and attitude is so important and in most organizations, even if you have a skillset, you have to learn how the organization runs. And how that's half of the battle when you hire someone.

No one comes in and can like dysfunction immediately. And so that's why we, we work in a complex environment in terms of our, our technology understanding, our science, so forth. And we're like, if we can move people around and they understand our business and our science and our methodology and they believe in it, like we'll teach, we can get around the rest and that's just as important.

[00:31:08] Jeff Hunt: So, for people listening that really are new to talent optimization and using data-driven strategies, what is the first step they should take?

[00:31:20] Jackie Dube: Yeah, and I mentioned this earlier, it's self-awareness, and I do think that the first step is understanding yourself and how you impact those around you. It's.

Really eye-opening. And if you start with yourself and you bring in your leadership team and you're all understanding how you work together and how you're impacting your team, um, it's a great place to start. And I guarantee you'll start to see differences a, around your outcomes and how the engagement in your organization, um, impacted.

[00:31:54] Jeff Hunt: And I'll just add to that, that it ends up being a much more enjoyable work environment when you do that anyway. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:32:02] Jackie Dube: And, and, and you can also like then talk about it, right? It's like, oh, you're, we call, like I mentioned before, with Mike and his "high A" rearing, I am like, oh, you're, that's your "high A" rearing. And you can, it's now about the behavior and not the person. So it's just so much easier to talk about and, and get through those conflicts or whatever it may be.

[00:32:21] Jeff Hunt: a hundred percent. Now, looking forward, or looking ahead, how do you see talent optimization evolving over the next, say five. To 10 years. And what should leaders be doing now to prepare for this?

[00:32:35] Jackie Dube: Yeah, I think that it's is being proactive around understanding your organization and the talent that you have, being making sure that your organization is adaptable. And I think part of that is understanding who you have on the team, and I think the future will be about predictability. Predictability in your hiring.

Using AI for predictive analysis, maybe proactive on how retention's going or engagement's going in your organization. And so taking advantage of all of the technology and science around people and data in your organization, because the eight old saying is that the people are. Are your business places that if your people are happy, your customers are happy, your board's happy and engaged and you're productive and it's a better place for everyone.

[00:33:27] Jeff Hunt: Completely, totally agree. Yeah. And I was thinking back one more thing before, what, I'm gonna actually shift us into some lightning round questions and then wrap up. But uh, you were mentioning when we were talking about AI earlier, how important it is for people to understand. How roles in organizations can be enhanced by AI.

They don't necessarily have to be replaced. And I'm just wanting to point out a reference on the podcast. I recently interviewed Pascal Bornet, who's a, who's an AI expert, and he wrote a book that I like to recommend. It's called Irreplaceable, and it really talks about how organizations can help their people make the difference in terms of understanding.

Ways they can leverage this new technology to make their own role more valuable to the organization. So yeah. Do you have any other final thoughts on that?

[00:34:24] Jackie Dube: No, but I'm gonna pick up that book for sure. So, yeah.

[00:34:27] Jeff Hunt: Yeah, it's really, it's a really, really good read. Yeah. So I definitely recommend it.

[00:34:31] Jackie Dube: Yeah, that's great.

And I do think that in some roles where. AI seems to be more prevalent, like say, use user support, for example. And we've talked to our people about like, this is going to actually make your jobs better. 'cause you're no longer gonna be answering like, what's my password? How do I reset it? And you actually add more value, more impact, and you can, and spend your time on actual and helping customers in a better way.

So there's, there's tremendous ways I think that AI is gonna be used in the workplace and I'll definitely look forward to reading more about it.

[00:35:04] Jeff Hunt: Absolutely. Okay. You ready for the lightning round? Okay. They're pretty easy questions. Okay. The first one, Jackie, is what are you most grateful for?

[00:35:15] Jackie Dube: Let's see. I am grateful for a lot of things.

I'm grateful I. For the opportunity I've had at pi, it's really been a, a great experience. I love our science. I think that when I was first introduced to pi, it was a requirement everywhere I went afterwards. I just think it's a great tool and I will say I am so grateful for my team that I work directly with.

We use our science in everything we do, but it is the people. That make PI a great place to work, and I think that my team is a big part of that and so I'm grateful that they show up the way they do every day.

[00:35:52] Jeff Hunt: What is the most difficult leadership lesson you've learned over your career?

[00:35:57] Jackie Dube: I think that is what I thought was listening, wasn't listening, and I had someone pointed out to me, I mean, it's kind of goes back to this is bigger picture where we were talking about surveys and defend, defending things away.

I. I am naturally inclined to just speak and not necessarily always be so thoughtful about what I say. But as you become a leader, it's so important to just be quiet and to not interject and really let the conversation happen without you. So I think the lesson is bite your tongue and listen.

[00:36:32] Jeff Hunt: I love that.

And I've mentioned this phrase a lot on this show, but it's one of my favorites, which is. Are you listening to reply or are you listening to understand.

[00:36:42] Jackie Dube: Mm-hmm.

[00:36:42] Jeff Hunt: And if we're all doing a better job listening to understand everything goes better. Right.

[00:36:48] Jackie Dube: I love that. And yes. That, so I, that is a more articulate way to say exactly what I've learned, so.

Mm-hmm.

[00:36:55] Jeff Hunt: Who is one person you would interview if you could living or not?

[00:37:00] Jackie Dube: Oh, this is. Anyone who knows me, I would interview Serena Williams. I think she is an amazing athlete, an amazing business person, an inspiration, and I would love to sit down and have lunch with her. And I said this a lot of times, so hopefully one day she's listening and a call.

So

[00:37:17] Jeff Hunt: she's an incredible human being, isn't she? Overall? Yes.

[00:37:20] Jackie Dube: Yeah.

[00:37:21] Jeff Hunt: Not only a peak performer, but. Just a all around very good person. So yeah. Love that. Pick. Uh, do you have a top book recommendation you'd like to share with our listeners? Anything you've read that's been meaningful?

[00:37:36] Jackie Dube: Sure. Well, I will, um, do a little plug here for my boss, Mike Soni.

Um, he wrote a book called Dream Teams, and it's all about building and designing high performing teams. It's based on his learnings from when he was a sailing coach all the way through today. And gives real practical ideas and tools to use in building winning teams. So it's three teams by Mike Soni.

[00:38:01] Jeff Hunt: Okay, great. We'll put a link to the book in our show note, so if you're interested, listeners, you can find it there. And then Jackie, what's the best piece of advice you've ever received?

[00:38:11] Jackie Dube: Oh boy, this is a hard one. The best piece of advice I've ever seen. I've ever gotten, I'll go back to, I'll go back to my, my first boss, Nancy, and I think that early on she really taught me how to tell a story and bring people along a journey, which I just think is really important in everything I do today, whether it's an employee relations story or a presentation, is I, I.

People tend to like start where they are versus give the context, bring a lot of the other dynamics in full understanding, get all of the full understanding in the context in order to do that. So that's what I would say is, is really start from the beginning, bring all the context in.

[00:39:02] Jeff Hunt: And Nancy changed your trajectory, didn't she?

[00:39:06] Jackie Dube: She did. And just a funny story. We've lived geographically different from Rhode Island Cheese of Massachusetts and just, uh, she just recently retired. But her office built an, an office right down the street from me, so we were able to have lunch together. Oh, fun. It was, it was full circle,

[00:39:23] Jeff Hunt: so, yeah, absolutely.

That's great. Yeah. Well, Jackie, you've given us so much to think about and so much wisdom today. I'm, I would love it if you take a minute just to synthesize the most important takeaways for our listeners.

[00:39:39] Jackie Dube: Sure. I think that using behavioral data in, in your organization, not only for hiring, but for understanding how people work well together to inspire them.

How to build teams and to continually diagnose that is, is gonna help your organization win. And I think that starts with self-awareness and understanding the impact that you have on other organizations. And the use of behavioral science is a proactive way to prevent turnover and really create a en engaged, productive workforce.

[00:40:17] Jeff Hunt: Jackie Dube, thank you so much for coming on the show today. I.

[00:40:20] Jackie Dube: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.