Support purpose-driven work with mentorship and a culture of learning

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Kristy McCann Flynn: Well, Hello, welcome to the next edition of the Hr. Confessions. Podcast I’m your host, Christy, Mccann, Flynn, before I start this, podcast I was actually an Hr. Practitioner for 20 years and worked out lots of great companies, fidelity investments, Pearson education and constant contact. I left Hr. Roughly about 6 or 7 years ago to actually create a company skill cycle and with skill type skills that we connect

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Kristy McCann Flynn: empowerment and an enablement

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Kristy McCann Flynn: through the entire workflows within an organization when it comes to talent development when it comes to performance management. When it comes to learning, we tied all together, and one ecosystem and make sure that feedback is actionable.

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Kristy McCann Flynn: So I have an amazing guest today. Ryan Loken, and he is going to be talking with me about what it really means. Is it a career ladder, or is it real lattice? A. A. And what are some of the pros and cons there? But I want to pass with the Ryan for a second, because I’d love to learn more for you all the learn more about Ryan before we kick off. So, Ryan, tell us all about you.

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Loken, Ryan: I appreciate it, Chrissy. Thank you so much so like, Christie said. My name is Ryan Logan. I currently work for Tyson foods, but I’ve been in different aspects of Hr. Over the last 20 years. Everything from recruiting and training and development, even distant, and knowledge, management and operations

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Loken, Ryan: working for companies like the Swan Food Company, Walmart. And now Tyson and and I would say that a lot of my Hr. Expertise has come from those roles, but it’s also come from

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Loken, Ryan: a lot of about how it was raised, where I was raised, and and those things that impacted my creativity and my ability to look at things differently. So one thing I don’t normally share, Christy, but because of your energy, I wanted to share it here. So a lot of people don’t know I’m completely blind. I lost my sight when I was 6 years old, was raised by a single father, and one of the things

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Loken, Ryan: that he said to me the day after I lost my sight was, We’re going to figure out how to do tomorrow everything you did yesterday.

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Loken, Ryan: and so that taught me at a really early age. You don’t have to do things the same way everybody else does them. You don’t have to do things the exact. Same way, there’s multiple ways to get to the same solution. Sometimes it’ll take longer, sometimes it’ll take less time, sometimes it’ll be less efficient, sometimes it’ll be more efficient. But there’s always a different way. And that’s what’s really guided my Hr career. And that’s really what inspired or part of what inspired this whole idea

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Loken, Ryan: of a career lattice versus the traditional career ladder

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Kristy McCann Flynn: awesome. And thank you so much for sharing. I appreciate it

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Kristy McCann Flynn: so as we dive in. So, Brian, you’re not talking a couple of weeks ago now. And when we were talking about this topic, wanted to know why this is important, like, what was the relevance behind it. Like, you know, when we think about this like, what’s the first thing that comes to mind as to why you want to discuss this and how this can help organizations and people.

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Loken, Ryan: So it really started in a sales conversation. I was in with a chief customer officer a few years ago, and we were talking about, how do we retain, motivate, and inspire our talent? Right? Pretty traditional Hr. Conversation or topics? And what we found when we were looking at the analytics is, people would move up the sales, ranks very quickly, and then they would stop.

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Loken, Ryan: and our true top talent would either get bored, or would get frustrated, and and would leave.

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Loken, Ryan: And so we did a deeper dive, and we said, Why is that so? They’re moving up the ladder. They should be inspired. They’re making more money. They should be inspired. But we went back and talked to those team members that had left, and we said, Why did you leave? And I said, You know, II want to do different and interesting work.

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Loken, Ryan: and what they shared is what, when they got to the outsider. When they left the company they also found that

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Loken, Ryan: they didn’t have the skill set to move into lateral opportunities. They had grown up the ladder so fast

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Loken, Ryan: that they had only one thing to lean against, and that was their very linear experience. So in many cases they left and they start. They took a step down to do something completely different, and they felt like they were more fulfilled because they were learning a new task, learning a new skill set and broadening their expertise.

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Loken, Ryan: So in my conversations with the chief customer officer, I said, we can do this here.

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Loken, Ryan: People don’t have to leave to be able to build that that experience, build that capability.

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And so.

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Loken, Ryan: as we dug into it, we started to dig into our own paths.

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Loken, Ryan: and I looked at my at my resume, if you will, and I said, you know what I’ve taken a step back from being a senior manager to a manager, and then was promoted to director. I took a step back from director to associate director and was promoted to Vp.

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Loken, Ryan: And so there’s there was a lineage there that really got us thinking about what we, what we should be looking into.

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Loken, Ryan: And we did a number of focus groups talking to our team members and really understanding what it is that drives them and what provides value. And we came up with this concept that said.

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Loken, Ryan: Okay, a ladder. You’re lean. A ladder has to lean against something. Right? It’s and it’s leaning against that very linear experience.

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Loken, Ryan: whereas a lattice, if you take a step diagonally down. you may learn a new skill. If you move laterally.

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Loken, Ryan: you may learn a new skill, and you’re strengthening that base. So when you get to the higher echelons or further up the lattice. You have all these areas to draw from versus just one linear way of thinking. We also found that it increased people’s ability to have diverse thought, and to think more critically because they were thinking about how all their experiences tied together versus that one individual. Individual linear experience. So that’s

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Loken, Ryan: that’s really how this was hatched. And it took a lot of work and a lot of discussion.

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Loken, Ryan: But it really inspired our team members. And I can get into some of the the tactical things that we did in a second. But what we found in the end is that by moving talent through the lattice versus the latter, we actually increased retention. We actually increased engagement. And we actually introduced new ways of thinking into areas. Right? So if we had people that grew up.

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They were a sales manager or a sales sales manager. Then they’re a sales executive. Then their sales director. They didn’t have a lot of diverse thought on how they approach and engage the customer.

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Loken, Ryan: But if they were a sales manager, then an insights manager, then a senior manager of creative, and then a sales executive, and then a sales director man. They were so prepared to work with a customer and deliver new ideas and concepts

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Loken, Ryan: that that it was rather remarkable is probably the is the word our chief customer officer used.

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Kristy McCann Flynn: That’s amazing. And as you’re saying, that was actually reflecting on my own career. And while I was, you know, definitely humble to be able to move up that ladder particularly with an Hr.

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Kristy McCann Flynn: I also feel like I got typecast, right? Because every time that I wanted to, you know, have a lattice like, get into more operations, or even get into more Cs. Like III was typecast in this because I was so high on the ladder with an Hr. And even though I knew the ins and outs and organization, it was about stretching my skills to really understand.

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Kristy McCann Flynn: You know, all the different things not. Just like, you know, the overall values and competencies within these different organizations. But the critical thinking that needs to be by to be able to think differently as opposed to the way that I was basically trained to think within Hr. And ironically, it wasn’t until I got the skill cycle that

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Kristy McCann Flynn: I remember people. It’s like, Why did you start skills like, almost like, well, priority number one was, I needed to start learning again right like I had phones within Hr. Within 20 years. And and II felt very proud of that. But

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Kristy McCann Flynn: I really hit. You know, the lateral, I go so far right? And and I basically hit that ceiling. And you know the fact that you might start this company. I was in sales. I was in marketing. I wasn’t Cs, like, you know, some product, I mean. I think the only thing I haven’t dabbled into

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Kristy McCann Flynn: with tech, and I totally think a and look at things a lot differently now. I still always have the Hr. Lens, because I think that just inherent and natural to my experience. But it’s also morphed into stretching a lot of different other capacities and capabilities that I think we’re kind of hidden.

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Kristy McCann Flynn: and that have come out. And so I really resonate with that. Thank you. So now, how do you get into the grass tax of all? This sounds a little bit daunting.

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Loken, Ryan: Well, II wanna tack on a little bit to what you said there, cause I’ve talked with a number of of Ceos as well about

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Loken, Ryan: the how they value Hr. And

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Loken, Ryan: the feedback I’ve gotten is really interesting, because many of them have said, Oh, you know, Hr. Has a seat at the table. They’re very valuable, etc. They say all the all the cliche things, but when you really dive into it, some of the struggles that leaders are having with Hr. Is with the people that have climbed that ladder, and the feedback that I’m that I’m getting from these leaders is they don’t find Hr. To be innovative.

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Loken, Ryan: no matter what the what the topic is, they feel that the Hr. Leader has an attitude of oh, I’ve done that before. Oh, let me show you when I did that, let me show you when I did this, and it’s not the critical thinking, because they’ve grown up

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Loken, Ryan: really in HR. Climb the ladder quickly, and all they have to rely on is that experience one of the one of the major benefits

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Loken, Ryan: of having a lattice versus a ladder is getting that perspective, because I know when I left Hr. To go into operations with Walmart into the Call Center Management world. I became a customer of Hr. And I had a completely different lens. So when I came back into Hr. I had a much better understanding of what the customer really needed

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Loken, Ryan: versus just doing HR. Things for H. R’s sake. So if we broaden this conversation outside of really just Hr. Careers into and apply it to any career. How do we? How do we get it done? There’s a couple of things that we had to do to help

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Loken, Ryan: individuals build their their career lattice one. We had to find out who was willing.

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Loken, Ryan: because a lot of times when you build talent development programs, succession plans, talent, mapping sort, those sort of things we always have. Take it with the impression that every team member wants to move up. Of course they would. Why, went to. Every employee wants to grow well, growth means different things for different people. So we had to understand where we’re where was our population at? Regardless of performance? Who were the individuals that wanted to move up?

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Loken, Ryan: Who were the individuals that wanted to grow.

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Loken, Ryan: and who were the individuals that were telling us? Hey? I just want to get really good at my craft.

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Loken, Ryan: I wanna I wanna be the subject matter expert. I wanna write white papers on this. I read about it. I sleep, eat, and breathe it.

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Loken, Ryan: Who are the ones that are good, really good.

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Loken, Ryan: but need to stay where they’re at.

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Loken, Ryan: So we identify that that first, right? So we weren’t pushing people for the sake of pushing people. And we’re setting realistic expectations for ourselves. Then, instead of saying, Oh, everybody’s promotable, and whenever there’s an opening.

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Loken, Ryan: you know, everybody’s a candidate, we were able to say, No. here’s the people that are truly interested in growing. And here’s the people that are really, truly interested in moving up.

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Loken, Ryan: We use that data and then layered on performance metrics. feedback from customers, clients kind of a 3 60 feedback

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Loken, Ryan: used used the data from all 3 of those sources and built a rotational program.

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Loken, Ryan: and we had a cute name for it. But I can’t remember what it was. It was. It was a rotational program and a diagonal program.

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Loken, Ryan: So we would have sales directors that we would rotate across accounts between retail and food service, or between

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Loken, Ryan: K. 12 and and retail to get a broader experience. But we would also have people identified to

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Loken, Ryan: take a step down from either a director to a senior manager, title. or a senior manager to a manager title. So let’s say they’re moving from

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Loken, Ryan: a sales director into category management or into demand planning or into insights.

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Loken, Ryan: In the first push back that we always you’ll always get, or I should say that we traditionally would get is that is that well, are people really going to want to take a step down? They’re going to lose pay. Hold on!

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Loken, Ryan: He had to look at the entire HR. Ecosystem and go. We have our pay

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Loken, Ryan: set up where we pay appropriately for the work conducted in the areas where it’s conducted and their large ranges.

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So we orchestrated a plan that said.

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Loken, Ryan: If you, if you do move to build a lattice, the incentive for you is to get this extra experience, this additional growth opportunity. Build your tool, Kit. but we may not have to take pay away.

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Loken, Ryan: You may. You may lose something an incentive. But we don’t necessarily have to take base pay away because the ranges are broad.

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Loken, Ryan: And so so between the between using the analytics building the rotational program and then building a more structured

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Loken, Ryan: career lattice by individual. That is, that’s where the magic happened. It’s it’s not something you can. You can kind of create a a, a blanket approach to

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Kristy McCann Flynn: awesome. No, II think that’s really why II love the approach, and and I love the thought put into it because.

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Kristy McCann Flynn: you know, one of the biggest things that people will not only hear you saying, you know this podcast but like another webinar and all that is that you know you need that. Understand your current state assessment, and it kind of ties to your other comment, too, like, you know, or Hr. Stops being innovative at times, right? Because, like

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Kristy McCann Flynn: everybody just goes with the playbook that works somewhere else. And it doesn’t mean that that playbook is, gonna you know, work in another place. And so the way that I’ve always looked at organizations is really understanding the current state assessment. And it’s not just what is working and what’s not working, and and where the gaps are, it’s what what makes the organization tick.

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Kristy McCann Flynn: You know, what are the the actual, true values that embody that culture and why? And then I think another big thing is that we’re we’re so obsessed on, like, you know what the data is of people leaving.

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Kristy McCann Flynn: but collecting that data of people that are there, and what really, you know, what matters to them, and especially if you’re in a larger organization, you know, being able, like the the more knowledge base you’re building one. People are in different rotations because they really, truly graphs.

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Kristy McCann Flynn: you know, a larger part of the business rather than being stuck in a silo. Right? And I and I think you know that silo mentality happens, you know, in so many organizations, because they can’t see beyond. You know what they can’t see. And and II think that that would that program that you applied it to see beyond their box, and they look at the many other things that you know make the box and what it is, and why?

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Loken, Ryan: Well, and and you know, when you get into really large companies and it doesn’t matter. The industry you have. You have groups that have a healthy tension, whether it’s a tension between your manufacturing facilities and your sales team, or between your R. And D team and your manufacturing group, or between finance and somebody else. There’s always some type of healthy tension.

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Loken, Ryan: But if you have the opportunity to work in both of those areas. you start to be able to see how the groups can work together. Why, that healthy tension is there. But you also learn how to manage that healthy tension in the right way, so it doesn’t become an obstacle.

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Loken, Ryan: And now, when you, when you do that 2 or 3 times, you start to learn a lot about the business that you work for. And what’s really wild is, you might actually start to develop a sense of pride

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Loken, Ryan: for the company you work for. Because you’ve touched all these things, then you might be able to be a mentor for others, then you might be able to be a leader. Then you might be able to be a CEO. Who knows but you’re building. You’re building those things that create greater connectivity to the company as a whole.

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Loken, Ryan: and it gives the individual not only experience but perspective that will help them later in their career.

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Kristy McCann Flynn: Yeah, cause you don’t know. You don’t know right? And I like, I remember, you know, one of the first, you know, years. So within my company, II had so many

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Kristy McCann Flynn: range, worthy reflections, right? Or something, that I was so adamant about being an Hr. In another organization. But now face, you know, I mean with with that same challenge, how I was thinking differently and and and not because of, you know, necessarily a benefit. But I want to say, a broader perspective

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Kristy McCann Flynn: of like the many different levers of like, you know what makes a an organization work and tick, and and you know, and and really how to be able to not just build that machine, but to make sure that machine is ambient, based on, you know, whatever is going, you know, in and outside the organization, too. And so

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Kristy McCann Flynn: II definitely, you know, E, even when you know, leading a a larger team right now within my organization. You know, I see a lot of the same performance gaps like, you know, I mean that I had. And again it goes back to you don’t know, you don’t know. So when we look at this career ladder and really igniting a lattice like, tell me how important is like performance review mentoring and coaching like, how does that all bundle into, you know the success factors for for you know, going this path?

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Loken, Ryan: Oh, it’s it’s absolutely critical, in fact, because so

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I talked with in preparation for this Chrissy. I actually talked with a friend of mine who works with another company now, but she was really

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Loken, Ryan: and junior in her career when we launched this idea. And so over the last few years, she’s really followed building a lattice, and one of the things that she said was most

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Loken, Ryan: beneficial is is that it prepared her for jobs that she didn’t even know existed. So when she was focused on climbing the ladder there was, I’m going to go for this job. That’s the next rung on the ladder. But what happens when there’s restructures or changes in environment changes in industry, and that type of job doesn’t exist.

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Loken, Ryan: whereas you build out the lattice

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Loken, Ryan: and and you are prepared for when you hear about a job that you didn’t even know existed before you have the opportunity to go. Wow! That sounds kinda cool. And I actually have some expertise that could lend itself to that job.

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So you asked about performance reviews and mentoring and and and those pieces. II think it’s really important that this all starts with communication.

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Loken, Ryan: This really starts with communication between the manager and their employees. Understanding what motivates your employees, I mean, you have to, you have to understand.

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Loken, Ryan: Are are they wanting keeping in mind that it’s a right? Now? Answer. So you don’t ask it once and done you? You have to ask the question multiple times throughout that person throughout your relationship with that employee?

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Loken, Ryan: Yeah. And are you. are you looking to move up? Are you looking to grow more broadly?

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Loken, Ryan: Or are you good where you’re at? There could be a number of factors that impact.

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Loken, Ryan: Whether their answer to that question it could be family, it could be life. It could be other things. In fact, we actually have

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Loken, Ryan: Long time ago in my in a in another job, far, far away, I was working with a customer, and we ended up doing a skit in front of their entire staff

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Loken, Ryan: about a manager who is really pressuring an employee

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Loken, Ryan: to move up. You’ve gotta move up your top performer.

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Loken, Ryan: And what we highlighted in the skit was 2 things, one, the manager wanted their employee to move up the latter because it would reflect well on the manager.

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Loken, Ryan: The employee had a number of other outside factors that impacted their desire to take on more work.

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Loken, Ryan: and they quit, and they went to a different job.

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Loken, Ryan: So it starts with the communication.

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Loken, Ryan: Then then it starts. Then I would also highlight mentoring

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Loken, Ryan: getting mentors that are in those adjacent fields. So I use the example of sales. If if you’re a salesperson and you have a sales director as your mentor, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it

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Loken, Ryan: but having a mentor in category management, brand management.

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Sales strategy and planning

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Loken, Ryan: something that’s adjacent. But outside of your realm pays better dividends because you get an opportunity to learn more about that

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Loken, Ryan: that group. And then and then, of course, performance metrics that becomes the hard data right? That becomes. Are they meeting their Kpis?

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Loken, Ryan: Because they

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Loken, Ryan: because we don’t, you don’t want to over invest in an under performer. I get that. But here’s what the lattice also allows you to do.

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Loken, Ryan: We’ve all heard the the stories of the person that climbed the ladder too fast. I think the cliche is. They’re promoted to the level of incompetence. Right? So so, yeah, so we’ve all we’ve all played around with that phrase. And and what the lattice allows you to do

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Loken, Ryan: is if you have someone that perhaps was promoted too quickly.

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Loken, Ryan: You’re not giving up on them. You’re not just running them off, saying they’re under an underperformer. You have a diagonal

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Loken, Ryan: route for them to take a step down, because maybe they’re in over their head. Maybe it’s not the right role

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Loken, Ryan: so you give them, they have an opportunity to rebuild their skills in a different way.

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Kristy McCann Flynn: Yup, no, II as you’re talking again, like I love this topic, and II

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Kristy McCann Flynn: real that we’re able to broaden this topic for people to understand, too, as I’m reflecting like just within you know, skill cycle. One of the biggest things that we do need. Obviously we use our own platform. But the mentoring component has been ground breaking

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Kristy McCann Flynn: for the entire team and and the feedback that I continue to get, you know from, you know, Jason, who’s in sales. And then Erin, who’s in product, is like when they it’s kind of like a dual mentoring session, right? Because, like Erin, is able to go in and really understand more of the realm as to what Jason is doing within over sales strategy, sales, execution, whatnot.

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Kristy McCann Flynn: And then Jason is learning so much about like I mean, not just like what our product is, but the intricacies when it comes to the roadmap, like, you know, some of the different things that we’re doing and why, what that’s gonna ignite, you know. I mean from the customer. And what that could ignite from a referral, and what that could ignite from the coach, the co-ch, and it’s funny every time that I have a one on one with them they always start off with

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Kristy McCann Flynn: oh, my God! I learned so much from Jason, or oh! I learned so much from Erin, and that thinking that that learning has inspired thinking within their core rules as to how they’re thinking beyond their box, right? And and how they’re looking at the you know organization as a whole, and I think it was equally, you know, important to when I started this company again, like, you know, had did it career at Hr. For 20 years?

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Kristy McCann Flynn: I remember, you know, a an investor was laughing at me. There’s like, how many mentors do you have. Now, it’s just like I have about 3 or 4 mentors, and probably 2 coaches like, that’s a lot of people I’m just like, no, I’m just like, you know, I’m I’m working with people who have the sma. You know the such matter expertise within sales and within marketing and within tech. And then I’m also building a company, you know, from the ground up. And so, like, you know, anything that I’m learning like I may be able to utilize like that’s gonna give me better perspective. And so

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Kristy McCann Flynn: I feel like, you know, that it’s something that often gets like tossed aside or mentoring doesn’t work. But II think that the biggest benefit of mentoring justice is the relationship building a and, you know, building some cloud credibility which I often think that mentoring people think that mentoring is, it’s actually the biggest knowledge share that you could do and how you institute that within an organization, you know, because it’s just gonna continue to help build that that knowledge and that skill share. And that’s and it would essentially become skilled currency at the end of the day.

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Loken, Ryan: Who I like the phrase skill, currency, you know. So with with mentors, II always think that that we’re we’re 2 as as an HR. Or as an HR. World or industry. I think we’re a little too

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Loken, Ryan: scripted on mentorship sometimes because we we always start with. Okay, Christy, I’m I’m your Mentee gre great great, to meet you.

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Loken, Ryan: Here’s what I want to get out of this relationship. What do you want to get out of this relationship? And you put yourself in that box in the first 30 s of the conversation, and sometimes II think it’s

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Loken, Ryan: it it should be more about. Here’s where I’m at today. Here’s what I’m struggling with. And here’s what I want to learn in general. Maybe you’re the right person to help me develop that. Maybe you can refer me to someone, but leave the conversation open so you can be partners and a guide for each other.

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Loken, Ryan: I’m a big believer in the whole building a personal board of directors.

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Loken, Ryan: Now, I so similar to you. I’ve probably got 5 or 6 mentors from different industries and different areas. I’ve I’ve got a colleague who’s been very successful in their career, and they take it very seriously to the point where they they meet with their personal board of directors, one on one throughout the year.

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Loken, Ryan: But then he also pulls us all together once a year. for literally an hour. Conversation on the hey? You’ve invested your time in me. Here’s what you get. I mean. He treats his, his brand and his style, and himself as a person as a business, and looks to us as a true board of directors.

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Kristy McCann Flynn: Love it. That’s amazing. Now, very rigorous.

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Kristy McCann Flynn: Yeah, let’s say it’s a good success story, right? Because it it’s you know, everybody has, like their own personal brand out there, right like, you know. And and what does that really mean? And what are you trying to do and get back. And I think that that’s another big component

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Kristy McCann Flynn: of the career lattice. Right? It it’s it’s it’s you’re learning a lot. And you’re giving back to yourself, and you’re giving back to the organization. And you’re really embedding yourself like I mean a a A, and I think in a very even more secure way where a lot of times you go up the ladder

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Kristy McCann Flynn: that security goes away, and and the lattice could be more of natural. You know, way of working where you’re meeting people where the rats. And so we hear that. What are your thoughts?

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Loken, Ryan: It it all all I have when you’re saying, that is a picture in my mind of a ladder leading against a wall, and the person me makes it to the second, to the top rung, and then something happens, and it slips, and it all comes crashing down. And how do you rebuild?

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So I. So I think a lattice does provide that greater, greater level of of security in some ways.

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Loken, Ryan: II look at it a little bit different. I’m I’m I’m pretty

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altruistic in some ways, and and if you were to draw

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Loken, Ryan: a picture of a ladder and then put and think of it, think of it as a leader, not an individual contributor, but as a leader or as a well, I guess it could be an individual contributor to.

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Loken, Ryan: But if you drop picture of a ladder and then make dots that represent the people that you impact and the people you touch and the the lives you have the ability to change.

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Loken, Ryan: Then draw a picture of of a nice little lattice.

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Loken, Ryan: And now add in those same dots to show. II really do believe that from a fulfilment standpoint. So all the work stuff aside

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Loken, Ryan: by building a career lattice. You have the ability to touch, shape, mould, and grow so many more people.

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Loken, Ryan: and and have a more purpose-driven

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Loken, Ryan: career than you’ll ever have with a ladder.

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Kristy McCann Flynn: Wow!

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Kristy McCann Flynn: That is amazing, that a very picturesque analogy. And blown away. But I never even thought of that

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Kristy McCann Flynn: and I just think that that

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Kristy McCann Flynn: and and that’s something that that can’t be taken away from me either, because, like it’s I always used to say, if you can see the print that you have done organization, you’ve known you’ve done well, but that print is much bigger when you’re working through the lattice that you know where you’re working up the ladder. But that’s very inspirational, as you think about, and I especially think you know what the younger generation, I mean.

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Kristy McCann Flynn: parts of them are just like, gotta get to. You know that that you know corner office like, you know, book the ladder as quickly as possible. But you know there’s been a lot of stuff in the news where they don’t want that they don’t want that promotion right? And so this could be a very good, you know, methodology and process as organizations are really reflecting as to what do people want? And and can the lattice, you know, solve a lot more wants and needs that are better for the employees and the employers, you know, rather than the ladder.

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Loken, Ryan: Well, II don’t have a completion for this analogy, but someone started it for me a few weeks ago. and they said, the latter is lonely. right? And II think it makes sense right? Cause you think about the the younger generation. Very, very social, very connected.

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Loken, Ryan: Very more altruistic. And so focusing on a ladder and getting to that corner office with a window, and you’re there by yourself.

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Loken, Ryan: That’s terrifying for a lot of people. Now look at. Look at the lattice. You can still make your way to the top.

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Loken, Ryan: but once you’re to the top, you have this broad

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Loken, Ryan: connection. This broad group. Someone was mentioning to me a while back that they they’ve really been siloed in their career.

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Loken, Ryan: How it’s impacted them personally they’ve done well, you know, they’ve climbed the ladder, but every time that they got a

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Loken, Ryan: they got a promotion. their circle of friends changed. and every time they.

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Loken, Ryan: you know, took over a new team. But in the same industry. Their circle of friends changed. Now they’re nearing retirement. And he said, I’m I’m terrified to retire

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Loken, Ryan: because I don’t know what that circle of friends will will look like. And so we were. We were talking about other people that we knew.

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Loken, Ryan: someone that that moved around was equally as successful at the same level as as this gentleman was.

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Loken, Ryan: but had moved through different areas.

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Loken, Ryan: the guy I was talking to said. He’s kind of jealous of his peer. because that person has built

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Loken, Ryan: meaningful connections across and and lifelong relationships that they’ll keep into retirement. he said. He he! I thought he was gonna break down because, he said. II feel like the

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just climbing up this ladder

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Loken, Ryan: makes me feel like like people were indispensable. And he didn’t like that.

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Kristy McCann Flynn: Yeah.

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Kristy McCann Flynn: no, I mean. It’s good reflections. And and wow! This has been an amazing, inspiring conversation. I’ve learned it’s on, and I’m supposed to be coming in as the expert. So thank you, Brian. As we wrap up a any last words or thoughts, especially for

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Kristy McCann Flynn: a lot of the Hr. Pros out there. But you know, especially for people like that that are don’t necessarily know what’s next to them like, you know, what do you want to leave people with for people to think about when it comes to their career lattice.

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Loken, Ryan: Yeah, II would say, no matter where you are in your Hr career, you you work with a customer. You work with a business, and I would say.

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Loken, Ryan: in invest in yourself first, right? Understand? Really understand the business you support, understand? The people understand the the needs, the motivations, all those things we talked about earlier on the communication. Go be a mentor, get a mentor.

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Loken, Ryan: but learn about your business. Because if you if you do that, you can start to incorporate this idea of the of the career lattice, you can start to build rotational programs. But it all starts with really getting to know.

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Loken, Ryan: Yeah, the business you support. I we you know, Christy, we’ve both worked with a lot of Hr professionals over the years. And there, there’s all different types. But

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Loken, Ryan: II wouldn’t. The industry is changing, and I would encourage people not to be the traditional Hr. Practitioner, that does things for that does. Hr stuff. For Hr. Sakes, you can tell other Hr people that you did Hr stuff.

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Loken, Ryan: but actually get to know your business and think of this as a tool, I won’t run out and say, Oh, my, gosh, everybody’s gonna build a lattice, and it’s gonna be the next, because that’s a blanket approach.

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Loken, Ryan: Get to know your business and determine. Is this the right tool for your business at this time?

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Kristy McCann Flynn: Yup, now II think it. It’s again. It’s it’s that current state what? What’s going on? Why, and and making people check

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Kristy McCann Flynn: Ryan. I I’m gonna be honest, I’ve had lots of great guesses from my favorite. Podcast and the reason is because when I first met you, I was instinctively inspired right? And it just wasn’t because we know how to speak the same language. It’s just because, like

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Kristy McCann Flynn: again, like I went into our first conversation, you know, as a peer. But it really became, you know, a mentor conversation. And I didn’t wanted to bring that to life within this podcast and I think we’ve done a great job. So thank you so much for being a guest. This has been awesome.

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Loken, Ryan: Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Kristy. I’ve had a great time.

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Kristy McCann Flynn: You, too, thank you. And to all of our listeners out there. This is Bryan. He’s amazing. I found them on Linkedin and there’s gonna be much more. Many more podcasts coming on lots of different topics. And so if there’s something that you wanna hear about or listen to definitely, DM, me, we’re looking for more guests. And we’re looking for great topics, because the whole point of this is to make sure that we’re continuing to pass on the wealth of learning for all the Hr

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Kristy McCann Flynn: practitioners out there, but also managers and leaders. So we we all need to be able to come together and do it together, and a lot of it has to do with understanding and learning and upscaling, and if you need help, skill cycle is here. But I can’t wait for this to air and thank you, everybody for listening. Have a great da