 Then welcome back for our final keynote speaker. Oh, it's gonna be Fabiola Eichholzer. And I'm pleased to introduce her. She is a pioneer in lean and agile operations, as well as she is the CEO of Just Leading Solution LLC, which is a leading company consultancy based in New York for HR business agility. Her background is actually from finance. And during the break, when we were chatting a little bit, she mentioned that she just got an assignment in HR temporary for six months. And voila, 18 years later, she is still here. So business is sick, her expertise in enterprise agility, human resources, resources, compensations, and performance management, operations, processes, as well as strategy. In her daily work, she supports the enterprises in building stronger, more responsive, and innovative business, and helps them accelerate their transformation journey by focusing on their key asset, the people. As a person, this maybe will be unexpected for me. She is a big fan of ice hockey. And her favorite team is New York Rangers. Due to her work, she travels a lot, and unfortunately, that causes that she misses the seasonal games, some of them. And what relates, I think, her to Sweden, is that she is a big fan of Henry Klingquist. So I'm pleased to welcome you and help me to welcome her warmly to the stage. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for the kind introduction. Good afternoon, Stockholm. How are you doing? Great. Did you focus on interactions today? Okay, excellent, excellent. I get to, we talk a lot about interesting times and worker times, and there is this old Chinese curse that says, may you live in interesting times. And like it or not, we do live in interesting times, but at the same time, it's also open for more innovation and more creativity than ever before. So we, as human resources, can reinvent ourselves and create a different way of the way we interact with people, the way we set our organizations. And that's a huge challenge, a huge responsibility, but it's all the fun being in this space today. But let's look at the history for a moment. And we talk a lot about the different industrial revolutions and how they changed the way we interact and the way we set our organizations. And I'm not gonna go through all the different stages here, but I have a couple of things that I would like to point out. So one is, when we look at the second industrial revolution here, sort of 1870, it was all when we started to actually segment work, serialize work, mass production, and that's the birthplace of human resources. So the term HR was first used in 1893 by JR Commons. And like it or not, a lot of our thinking is still rooted in that time. Control and command, carrot and stick approach, extrinsic motivation, that all comes from that time. And it's so deeply rooted in our thinking that we find it really, really hard to liberate ourselves and get out of that thinking and change the pattern of behavior. And of course, we talk a lot around complexity and speed. We've heard it this morning throughout all the different talks. Yes, this is a huge challenge for us. But the interesting thing is we all know how much the internet changed the way we do business, the way we view people. But the digital revolution is actually considered to have 10 times that impact, 10 times. So every single thing about our life's personal lives and professional lives is changing and it's changing at an accelerated speed. So if you think about things like self-driving cars, we actually have to put a value to human life. It's the car gonna hit the school bus or the elderly couple. So that changes the social fabric of our organization. Of course, we take that into our workspace. We have a different perception on work and we wanna be part of shaping that narrative. We wanna decide how we work, where we work, how we connect with. It's changing that fabric and we bring that into our workplace. And of course, throughout the first and second revolution, it was all about scaling things. So we have our business model, we break it down into manageable chunk sizes and we rationalize and operate it through and make sure that we're very efficient in every single part of that. So it's making sure we do the right things. But with the internet revolution, it's all about how do we make sure we work on the right things, not just that we do the things right, but how do we make sure we work on the stuff that our customers are actually needing, what they want us to have. And the interesting part here is that in the first three revolutions, HR was there to empower corporations. Whatever we did was around corporations. But now in the digitalized world, it's about empowering people. It's no longer about the corporations, about tapping into that passion, tapping into that intrinsic motivation of people and liberating that. So we have to become the advocates of people. Today we're considered the snitch and the spy and monitoring what you're doing and the happiness and process police. We have to get away from that. We have to connect with people on a personal level and change the way we do it. And of course that coincides with all the other stuff that is happening in the space. So when we look at this new world of work, it's about network and core creation and about empowering people, diversity of thought. So everything about work is changing. It's no longer the hierarchies. It's no longer the bureaucracy. It's about speed and empowering people. And of course it also changes the talent contract. People have a different perception on work and what they expect from their employers. How are we shaping that narrative? How are we tapping into what people actually want and not forcing our thinking on them? And then of course we have all these new approaches emerge and yes, most of them are not new. If we think about design thinking, it has been around since the 1920s. Lean aspects are not new, agile is not new. But most of these concepts are new for HR. We've not lived them, we've not implemented them. And this is not just about taking scrum or come on or other practices and say, okay, we have to follow that to the T and then we're gonna be a better organization. No, it's understanding the principles behind it. Why are we doing that? How are those values actually helping us in shaping a better employee experience, in shaping better companies? And if you think about design things, so it's not just about agile, but if you think about design thinking, what's the key part of design thinking? What does design thinking start with? Does anyone know? With the why and with the customer, with empathizing with the customer understanding their problem. We in HR, who's our customer? It's our people, it's our employees. So we have to start empathizing with people and understand what do they need? Do they really need an employee appraisal process? Or do they thrive on continuous feedback and having growth opportunities? So really understanding the problem. And we have to take those different principles and say, okay, how can we embed that into what we're doing? How can we improve on what we're doing and bring in a different kind of thinking? And of course, it all starts by saying we have to get into the human business. We call ourselves human resources, human capital, people and talent or talent and culture, everything to do with people. But are we really the people's people? Are we really the advocates of people? Do we know what our people need? So do the HR folks in the room, when is the last time you actually spoke to your people? Do you know what motivates them, where they wanna be, what their concerns are, what their aspirations are? Or are we just pushing our processes into the system and hoping that something is gonna come out of it? And here is the thing, we're not doing stuff out of bad intentions. All those great tools like performance management and force ranking and all that stuff started with a good intention. We wanted to do something good for people. But then we immediately were into our process, we put on our process thinking hats and we created new tools and new processes and new systems and we forgot about the intention and the value we wanted to create for people. And that's why it's so telling. If you wanna remember one thing about the actual manifesto, it's people and interactions, individuals and interactions over processes and tools and we have become so much about the process, we maneuvered ourselves into that process corner and we have to get ourselves out of that because we have to think about the people, connect with people and that's something that we forget. And part why we find so and it's important for us and here's the thing, executives know that it's important to create experiences for people because people crave an experience. 80% say we know that but only 20% say we're actually doing a good job. And I would even challenge the 20% when you. So why is it so hard for us to actually connect with people and do something great for people? And it has to do with this guy. And Doug, I apologize. So who's Douglas? And I know the irony is not lost on me that Doug was actually promoting, getting rid of Douglas's and doing something different but who's Douglas? Who knows who Douglas is? I would bet that you all know Douglas. So Douglas is the worst employee that you can imagine. It's someone who embodies all those bad traits that we sometimes see in people. So it's your drama queen, it's your, this is not my job, it's your incompetent ladder climber it's your drama queen, your conspiracy nut and literally a thief and crook. And if we're being honest in HR, we mostly get to deal with Douglas, don't we? It's actually sad. We don't have to wonder why we don't trust people anymore because we get to deal with Douglas. We never get to deal with our best people, do we? And every time we start thinking about changing things, we always think about, no, that's not gonna work because we have Douglas in mind. Oh no, Douglas is gonna cheat us. No, Douglas is gonna rob us blind. We have to stop doing that. I want you to think for a minute about the best people you've ever worked with. Your current boss, former mentor, work colleagues or people that you know, people that you met today with whom you would love to work with. Now imagine what your HR tools and processes would look like for that group of people. Would you need to tell them if they can take a five-minute coffee break in the morning? Would you need to tell them if they can take some time off to care for a sick parent or a child? No, you wouldn't. And we create everything around Douglas and we have to stop doing that. Keep remembering your best people and liberating that. And yes, before you say, but you were always gonna have Douglas, yes, we are. But how are we dealing with Douglas? And here's the question, are we actually creating Douglas's by having these systems in place, by having control and command systems, systems that do not trust people? Who here has, in their visions or value statement that they trust people? Trust is one of your core values in the company. Okay, I'm not gonna ask you to keep your hand up or lower them, but just think for yourself, are you actually seeing that in your day-to-day interaction with your managers, with your people that you really trust people? So we have to stay true to that and make sure that we create an environment that actually taps into our best people. Because if we're not doing that, it's a ticking time bomb for our organizations because the limiting factors in a successful organization today, it's not resources, it's people. How can we liberate people? How can we tap into the passion of people and make great things happen? And if we can do that, then we can win. So let's have a look at an engagement model. And yes, I know everyone in HR here is gonna say, but an engagement is 30 years old. We've been talking about this for a long time, but now with Hatchel and design thinking in Lean, we have a completely new way of approaching it and we can actually make things happen because it's empowerment, it's embracing it in a different way and we can use that. So let's look at a couple of different things. So we have seven steps along this engagement model here. The first thing is purpose. What's the meaning of your company? Why were you created? Is it just profit or is there a greater meaning behind it? And how does that relate to your personal purpose? Why do you get, I think Doug was asking that, why are you getting up in the morning? What drives you, what motivates you and how does that relate with the aspiration of your company? How do we tell that story or do we tell everyone that collaboration is the biggest thing but then we value individual heroism? How does that align? How do we have that stringent story and how do we tap into it? And make no mistake, people care about this. So 87% of millennials are gonna look at your purpose and they are gonna decide whether or not they're gonna submit a resume to that company. And 69% of millennials actually say they will not apply to a company where they cannot relate to the bigger purpose of the company. So how do we tell that story and live by it? And then, of course, the second part is the work itself. How is the work designed? What's the physical workspace but then what are we working on? Do you understand why we're doing stuff? What value we are creating? We don't care about the what, the team is gonna figure out the what. You hire smart people, they'll know what. But how are you telling that story? How do you inspire people to create great value and tap into that work? And people need to be able to relate to that work. So if you just say it's a BTA, well, what's my personal contribution to that? You have to make it meaningful for people to be able to unleash that. And of course, work can be challenging. Why do people learn an instrument or play video games where they wanna reach that next level because they thrive on a challenge? Because learning can only happen when we have to push ourselves. We don't wanna overwhelm people but it's okay to push ourselves and create challenging places of work. And then of course, we have the social system. We're all social animals. Most of us don't wanna live on an island alone. We may be very selective on who we invite onto that island but we wanna be with other people. We wanna connect with our team. We wanna pull together to make something great happen and how do we make that happen? Through individual MBOs or through another way where we actually allow ourselves to include and have the communication within the team. And here's one thing that we have to realize. There is not just one star in the team. With our existing performance management systems, we always try to find the one big star, the top goal scorer. But no single person can be successful without the team. So who here is familiar with Margaret Havern and Super Chicken? Okay, so quickly, watch it on YouTube. It's great, it's a great tech talk. They created the Super Chicken but what happened in the end, the Super Chickens killed each other because they just thrived on being the best by suppressing the performance of others. And if you look at the sports team, it takes different people. It's not just the top goal scorer. It takes everyone in the team. As you mentioned before, I'm a big hockey fan. So in hockey there is... Do we have any other hockey fans in the room? You're a hockey nation, yes, hey. In hockey you have this unofficial role that is called the enforcer. So it's someone who stands up for the team. If the other team is playing dirty, the enforcer actually goes in and helps the team out. And you know, come to think of it. Growing up, we had an enforcer as well. So with me and my siblings, no one would give us any grief on the playground because we had an enforcer. And my enforcer is sitting here today. It's my baby sister here. Please stand up real quick. She was our enforcer. So that's what you need in a team. Different roles, people with different skills, different personalities that come together and fight together for the same thing and make those connections. And then, of course, it's also about personal growth. How do I grow? And this is not about climbing this fast-disappearing hierarchical ladder. This is about what is meaningful for me and how is my organization? How is my people's person? How is my HR team helping me realize that potential? And we're gonna dig into that a little bit further later on. And then, of course, it's also about recognition. I wanna be recognized for doing things great. But this is not about financial incentives. Of course, everyone is gonna take the financial incentive, but we need to create more meaningful ways of recognizing each other and saying, hey, I know what you did. It was great. Here's a club on the shoulder or let's go out for a beer, but make it meaningful. A personal note may be more meaningful than just throwing money at people at the end of the year because that's not gonna engage people. So how do we change that narrative to make it meaningful? And also, how do we empower the team to recognize others? Because the team is gonna see what is happening, who pulled their weight. And sometimes, it's just the person who's the glue of the team, who may not be the top scorer, but it's the person who keeps everyone motivated and helps the team actually be successful. So how do we tap into that? And then, of course, it's also about telling that story. So who here messes the NPS score? They're employees. So we have a couple of people who say, and it's a very simple question. Would you recommend working here to your friends? And that's the ultimate expression of engagement. If you say, yes, I would definitely recommend that to my dearest friends. It's a different story than saying, oh no, I certainly would not want them to go through the same experience on a daily basis. So this is very telling. So how can we shape those stories? How can we make sure that we allow people to actually go out and share their great experiences and make it fun? And then, of course, we have to care about the well-being and health of people. And in a minute, we're gonna have to slide without the blackout so you can see it better if you wanna take a picture. In the old days, it used to be considered a soft skill of HR. Oh, you're just there to care about people and you're just a health and happiness police. But no, this is hardcore business facts. We know that people who are physically and mentally healthy have a higher customer rating than others, so we have to care about that. And if we take on the lean thinking, we talk about technical debt and things like that. So what's people that? It's stressing people out and not taking care of their health and well-being. And of course, why should we care about that? We need to care about it because if we have flourishing people, we have flourishing companies. It's as simple as that. If people can't liberate themselves, if people can't show their passion, we're not gonna have greater companies, we're not gonna have passionate companies who actually change the world. And that's more inspiring for people. So let's dig in a little bit into the personal growth piece. So of course it starts by redefining the term talent. So who here works for a company with a high potential talent pool? Okay, a couple. And I would even bet that most of you don't even know that your company has a secret high potential pool. So we have to start by rethinking the term talent because everyone is a talent. And we need to make sure that we create those right places for people to showcase their talent. You know the saying right person, right place? Maybe we just have to create more right places for people to actually thrive. And if we have a Douglas in the team, it doesn't mean that Douglas is a bad person. He or she may just be in a bad team or not the right team. So we have to change that and try to figure out where can we use those skills and experiences and characteristics that people have, where can we utilize them best and create those places? But in order to do that, we need to invest in a dialogue, in an interaction. This is not something that can be taken care of by a process or at all. No, we have to connect with people. We have to know what drives them, what motivates them. What is their secret talent, their secret passion and how can we utilize that within our teams? We need to change that. And then of course the other part is, but back in the days, we just hired for experience. Really early on when we had to build bridges and dig tunnels and trenches, we had to hire people with physical strength. So the tallest, the strongest guy would actually get the job. Then we moved into more experience, ride schools, ride processions within companies, ride CV, but now we have to hire for potential. Because in our businesses, we don't know what the world is gonna look like tomorrow. What challenge is the teams are gonna work on tomorrow? So we need to have people with the right mindset and the right muscle to actually flex and change, pivot and be able to be successful. Because if you no longer use their skills, then you need people who are adaptable. And we have to change the way we interview people. How are we trying to figure out not just what's written in the CV, but how flexible are they? How are they staying on top? How agile are they in their thinking? What's their motivation? Can they pivot? And then of course we have to rethink the way we do learning and teaching. So I came up on one of the slides this morning. Work is play, yes, and work is learning and learning is working. It's no longer, okay, we'll just go on a course and that's been taken care of for the learning experience the whole year. No, we have to change that. And how can we actually create ways for people to learn, to explore, and to do something that is meaningful? How are we empowering the team to make sure they understand what skills are missing or pieces of learning they need to do and how can we embed all those new ways of learning that are emerging from blending learning to social learning and embed that into what we're doing and learning has to be embedded into the workflow. So HR is very focused on creating leadership programs and courses and training material. We need to connect with people first and see okay, what's the best way of sharing that knowledge? And it's not just about sharing knowledge about teaching as well. So we heard this morning that Scrum emerged out of XP and XP actually thrives on teaching and learning that collaboration. How can we embed that into the things that we're doing and how can we remove all those barriers? And then of course we wanna have talent mobility. And I know I'm not gonna be very popular with the actual folks in the room saying that because of course in HR it's very important to have stable teams. But at a certain point we need some mobility as well because how do you wanna scale culture if you don't move people around? How do you wanna give people opportunities to learn, to explore, to flex their muscles if you don't let them move outside their team? So I'm not advocating changing the teams all the time but after a certain amount of time it's good for people to actually get out there and be able to move into different teams. And of course we have to be more exploratory in our development assignments. So if someone wants to, is in IT and they wanna move into HR, why not allow them to have a developmental assignment where they work with an HR team for two weeks for an iteration on something? Let them explore. Let them see what the job is actually like and you wanna have that kind of information because today people are not open with HR about what their aspirations are or if they wanna move into different space, if they wanna be the top tech guy or if they wanna become a manager. So how can we engage with people to make sure that we understand where do we wanna move them? What do they wanna do? And of course we have to think about all the processes and tools that we have in place that actually stop us from having talent mobility. And if you think about it and so on on the slide the biggest blocker to talent mobility is your compensation model. Because people know if they move from team A to team B they may lose out or they may win but usually it's losing out or if they move into scrum master role what's gonna happen to their career? Is that sort of the final stage or is that the beginning of something new? So if they make sure that we understand that the processing tools that we put out there what effect they are gonna have and we cannot forget about the intention. And of course Dave was mentioning that this morning as well we have to be careful about what practices do we copy from other people. And I definitely agree with Dave about we want to embrace a Spotify model. It's sort of like okay yeah sure you did not get why the Spotify model works for Spotify and what you learn from it. Of course you go out there you get inspired I'm sure you learn tons of different techniques or practices today just by talking with the people in the room here. Get inspired but also try to think why is it working there and what would it need to do for it to work here as well. So understand why you wanna change certain things what you're expecting from it and why it may or may not work for you. Because best practices are probably best somewhere else. So really understand why you're implying something not just copying it. And of course this best practice is also a hindrance to actually have innovation in HR. Did anyone ever hear that someone got fired for doing performance management? No. So if you're just doing what everyone else is doing in the industry you're on the safe side. Of course it takes courage and guts to actually say no we challenge that. Our gut feeling is telling us that's not the best way to do it. We can get feedback and engagement and growth in a different way. So how are we tapping into that? And we need to make sure that we understand what we're doing there. So here are a couple of things that can help you along that journey. One is you have to think holistically. And I know Dave was mentioning systems thinking. So it's about how are we making sure that what we stand for, what our values are and how we embed that. And we in HR have to understand that just by optimizing every single piece of the puzzle we're not going to get a better system. We're just going to get a system that is more complex and we're losing sight on what are we actually challenging or what are we changing. So if we change our performance management system what effect is that going to have? If we say we want to thrive on collaboration but we have individual incentives how is that going to change? So we need to start understanding what the stuff is doing that we put out. And I know we're doing that with the best intentions but sometimes even our best intentions need a redo too. So we have to make sure that we understand the whole system and the complexity. And of course we have to apply design thinking methods. So we say, okay, who are our customers and do we actually empathize with them and do we understand what they really want? Is the title structure a problem or is everything that we associate with titles that is really the problem? All the recognition people get or the compensation all that stuff that is tied to the title. So we have to make sure that we understand why people are challenging certain thinking. And here's the thing we often say why are people so resistant to things? And here's the thing resistance is the purest form of feedback. If no one wants to do it maybe we have to redo it and we have to rethink. So if no one is happy with employee appraisals maybe we have to rethink it because obviously the way we intended it it's not gonna grab, so it's not working. So we have to start challenging that. And of course we need to understand what do we stand for? What are our cultural values? What do we wanna uphold? And how do we make sure that that's embedded in every interaction that we have? How do we walk the talk? It's not just about values on a nice shiny plug in the entrance why but how do we actually live up to that? If you say we trust people do we still have expense policies that script what they can do or do we say no we trust people to act in the best interest of company and open the system up? So do we actually follow through or are we saying one thing and actually doing a thousand other things that are not within line with our values? And then of course we have to approach it in a natural way we have to iterate and co-create we have to include our customers we have to include our people. HR change management is extremely hierarchical. We hear a problem we immediately go to the solution we know what our people want and we think about the processes and the instruments that we need to embed for that to make it happen. But how do we actually experiment? Experiment on different fronts to actually learn can we put in a better way of gaining feedback creating that feedback culture? How can we create a culture of innovation? It's not by just creating one space where we're supposed to have the one big innovation no it's creating a culture of creativity a culture of learning a culture of failure that helps us as a stepping stone. So how are we embedding that? And of course we have to make it fun because today most of our HR processes are not really fun are they? So how are we changing that? How are we bringing gamification? And yes there is an element of not letting go of stuff an element that we need to tab into and say yes how can we make that happen? How can we make it fun for people? Where virtual reality, augmented reality is taking place in recruiting and other things are emerging how can we make it fun for people and empower it? And it's going back to the question that was asked earlier on in the panel do we still need HR? We don't need HR in the way it was but we certainly need someone to set that frame engage with people and help us liberate the passion of people and take care of that stuff of course that means that we're empowering people and of course empowerment is not just about empowering people when it comes to their own work it's also about empowering people when it comes to their own career their own learning and development how do we make that happen? How do we allow people to have a framework but then say okay that's what I want to do help me improve help me tap into my passion and get bigger and get better and of course this is not an easy journey and a lot of companies out there are looking at this and say how are we changing it? But a lot of them do not have the courage to actually say let's do it let's swim upstream let's change it going back to what I was saying earlier we need to tap into our gut feeling but then be gutsy to say let's do this let's have the courage to do it we know it's not right what we're doing we know a high performing team is not created by performance management but many other things how can we create into that how can we tap into that and be courageous enough to actually move it and you can ask anyone who has been on that journey for some time it's a verified journey it's not always an easy journey and actually certainly not a silver border but it's a very rewarding journey if you can see how the dynamic in the teams change and how we could be a great part of that we're going to be the hidden champion but we can be a champion for people if we get this right because our number one customer is our people our employees and we have to start with them first that's what we have to take care of because if we take care of our people they're going to take care of our company and today in most organizations we're not doing that but everyone here in the room can change that so think to yourself what are you going to take from this day from all the interactions that you had what are you going to change what are you going to change in the interaction of people how are you going to change the setting thank you so much and let's go Rangers thank you thank you