Emotional Intelligence in HR Tech with Claire Walsh

[0:00] Intro and how Claire landed in HR tech

Dan Korus: Thanks for joining us, Claire. Welcome back to the Kestryl Edge Podcast. So, for those who don't know, Claire and I go way back. We grew up in Spokane, Washington together. We also went to college together, studying different things at Western Washington University, Go Vikings. And since then, Claire and I have been scattered into the winds across the country. So Claire, why don't you tell us a little bit about what you're up to now, how you got there, a little bit about your journey, and just what's happened to you as a professional.

Claire Walsh: Yeah, totally. We go way, way back. We are super young. I've been in HR for about five years. I've really just stepped in in the last three years. I've stepped into this HR tech realm, which has been phenomenal, especially with all of the AI, automations, everything being rolled out. I think I found really my sweet spot. Prior to that, I had a slew of different HR-related jobs. It could be recruiting, employee relations. Didn't love that side of things. Onboarding. I've really touched all facets of HR, which has been really neat to kind of see when I'm building out automations and I'm looking at processes, I have a better grasp on the day-to-day, what does it look like? And all the other companies I've worked for, a lot of it's been super manual, so it's really neat to kind of have my so-what for automating HR processes, and just really stepping away from those recurring, day-to-day admin-related work. Prior to that, after Western Washington, I studied psychology and minored in sociology. After that, I traveled around a bit, just explored the world, and then I did my master's in London. I studied organizational psychology. I really didn't know where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do. I just knew I wanted to help people. And especially looking at Kestryl Edge and the type of work that y'all are trying to promote, I think it's just really important to always have that human-centered approach. Even if we're talking about AI or automations, at the root of everything, we have employees. And no matter what the world of work looks like, we're still gonna have employees, and we're still gonna have to communicate as best we can with each other. So yeah, really do love tying the human side of it to optimization and automation.

Dan Korus: So is that what keeps you in HR? Tell us about that.

Claire Walsh: Yeah. Historically during Western I actually worked at a child care center and I thought maybe my master's I wanted to do child psychology. Then I realized how hard it is to separate my wants and my needs and how much I want to help those kids and what barriers I had with that. I was taking home work, it was just really hard to feel like, hey, I gave this kid eight hours of really good safe time and good meals, and I couldn't really get out of that. So I just decided to pivot and I was like, all right, organizational psychology, because at the root of it, I knew I wanted work that was meaningful. I wanted to, at the end of the day, not take a ton of work home. Some HR roles, if you're doing employee relations, like leave of absence, benefit stuff, it's hard because at the root of it, there's humans that you're working with, and we all deal with bereavement, we all deal with this or that. But for me I wanted to really be able to make some change in an employee's life. And that was kind of my first intention. And now I'm not really employee-facing, although I build out various automations for employees. At the root of it, my stakeholders are the internal HR team. And my so-what now is really making sure that I can provide the best opportunity for HR folks not having to do admin-related work that could be automated, right? They can take on that higher level of strategic work and be making their lives easier. And I think that's my so-what. And it's also nice at the end of every day. Yeah, sure, maybe I'm about to go to bed and I'm like, gosh, how do I fix this one weird workflow issue? I need to find a weird workaround. These systems, there's this limitation, there's that. And I appreciate that side of it. And I get a lot of thanks from my team and I really love that, where it's like, great, you don't have to do manual data transfer, right? Claire's got it automated for you. So I like making people's lives easier. And I think that's, especially kind of stepping into that HR tech realm, is really my so-what in life. And the problem solving aspects, really looking back, HR is really unique, kind of taking that 30,000 feet view rather than working directly with employees. So yeah, I don't know if I'll ever step away from HR tech now. I kind of found my sweet spot. It's weird, it's like, wow, I like to think about how to solve. So yeah.

[5:30] Boundaries, burnout, and the grind of recruiting

Dan Korus: Yeah. That's awesome. It sounds like your career has started and always been at putting people first, right? And in being there for kids and now adults, and there's probably a joke question in there about which is easier. I think that really speaks to people's journey of figuring out, okay, what do I stand for and what do I want to wake up and do every day? And then how am I gonna apply my skills towards that problem? And it's really cool that you've been able to figure that out. And it sounds like along the way you were dealing with a lot of really human issues that you were having a lot of really high empathy with, and those were coming home with you, and having to set a boundary there is really hard. For people who are in the field right now, and especially people who are having to deal with that either in service or healthcare, what were some strategies that worked for you and what didn't work there? At least in terms of taking those things on and being able to bring them home, right?

Claire Walsh: Yeah. I think one thing, and it differs depending on if you're remote or not, but one thing for me was, okay, you slap your laptop shut. If you're driving home, I'm taking that drive home as an opportunity to unwind. I'm gonna give that time. Hey, I'm gonna maybe ruminate a little bit, or when I was recruiting, I remember being about to go to bed and being like, shoot, I forgot to email that one individual back. And so I tried to really just separate the time of, here's the working time. If I'm walking back home from work or if I'm driving back, that's the opportunity to really dig into maybe those growth opportunities like, hey, you know what, I misspoke in this call, or I did this, I did that. Take that time, and then the minute I'm home, that's home time, right? This is an opportunity for you, your family, your friends. So I think really just separating that physical space of at work from home now. So sometimes I'll just like close my office door. And that's cool. For the weekend, I don't have to think about it at all. I mean, nowadays I do generally enjoy, I'll take walks and sometimes I'll be thinking about work 'cause I love it. But especially like working with kids and definitely in previous roles where I was working with a lot of different employees, we all have lives outside of work and life doesn't stop. And I think, yeah, just that separation of whether it's physical or mentally, saying, okay, this is the opportunity, and then I'm stopping it. I think that's really helped. And really just catching yourself where it's like, hey, you don't need to talk to your friends about work for an hour. Or I've even had it with some friends where we'll call each other out. Like one of my good friends, her and I worked at the same company together. We did HR, we shared an office, and so there were times when we'd hang out outside of work and we'd be like, okay, 30 minutes, we're gonna rant about work and then we're gonna stop, because it doesn't deserve that much attention, frankly, right? So those are some of the things that I did that helped me.

Dan Korus: What a gift to have something that you care about enough that it begins to blend into the other aspects of life. Yeah, I think that's a really cool thing. And also can be consuming and dangerous, right? Especially for people who like getting things done and doing things. That's something I struggle with a lot, especially now, and I definitely empathize with that in starting a business and in founding, right? Is like, okay, all my time goes to it, and I love it, and it's consuming but it feels so invigorating. We use the term burnout a lot, and I'm curious if you ever feel like you've been through burnout. Basically it's an institutional function. It's a mismatch between a person's ability to recover and their work environment. And so burnout doesn't apply to something that you really like doing that gives you energy and something that you're invested in. Burnout applies to situations where you don't have the control to recover, and where you're kind of in an environment where it's not serving your ability to have agency, make decisions, be able to recover in timely manners. So it sounds like you've got a really good set of boundaries and it's compartmentalized. And I wonder if anyone else is actually able to shut their office door and be like, okay, I'm not going in there. So is burnout something that's affected you or something that you're seeing in the workplace? How is this in your life right now?

Claire Walsh: Yeah. I would say honestly I really haven't. I've been fortunate that I haven't experienced burnout. And I think definitely if I feel like I'm being overworked, or if I'm like, gosh, I've had a really tough few weeks, you know, maybe you take a personal day. Maybe you take a PTO day where you relax. I've, I'm saying this and I haven't done this yet, but in my mind, I'm like, if I'm ever stressed, take a personal day and go have a massage. Or do something that you don't typically do. I think I've had like two massages in my life, so I say that as an individual who maybe should take advantage of that more often.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Claire Walsh: But yeah, I would say maybe with previous roles, especially when I was recruiting and I had twenty-plus recs open on top of having ownership in a couple different other arenas, it just felt like rinse and repeat. And I didn't want that to be the candidate's experience, nor did I want it to be for me. So something that really helped me was just treating each new call as its own and not asking verbatim the same questions. Any recruiting call, the first five minutes is, let me tell you the spiel about our company, and that was tough for me. I think it takes definitely a specific type of individual to do recruiting and to be really good at it. And when they are, they excel. But for me I don't know if that rinse and repeat was the best for me in my growth.

Dan Korus: It's like cold calling with sales, right? Maybe harder, because you're trying to fill one person's need. You're trying to solve two people's pains instead of just one. Right? In sales ideally you have a product that solves someone else's pain, but it sounds like in recruiting it's like, okay, we're trying to make two people happy here, and that's hard to be at the center of that.

Claire Walsh: So yeah, you're definitely pulled in a lot of different directions. And then you've got that third party, the hiring manager who's got certain expectations that may differ to the company standards or the standards of the department head. So yeah, it's always fun to be pulled in all different directions.

[14:00] Spotting high EQ and the chameleon approach

Dan Korus: Yeah, that's right. Okay, so I'm gonna switch us. I'm gonna take us over to emotional intelligence. So just kind of in your experience over the past few years, what's a situation where you could tell someone had high EQ before it was ever discussed? And what kind of tipped you off about that? What were their actions that kind of led you to think, oh, this is someone with high emotional intelligence?

Claire Walsh: Yeah. I'd say a lot of the professionals in HR, a lot of the leaders I've been fortunate to work for and work with. I remember one in particular, because being in HR, like if you're an HR business partner, you're working with software engineering, you're working with sales. The way that you go about having conversations, tough conversations or project conversations, are gonna inherently differ. The terminology one uses versus the other is a pretty big contrast. And I remember one of my leaders, I still get to work with her now, she's able to course correct so quickly even if we've got all those folks on the same call. The way that she communicates with sales leaders versus a software engineering leader is different. But it's crazy how quick you can really grasp, okay, sales, I know this type of motivation, they're money hungry, as they should. That's why they're in that role. Software engineering, you might have to use different terminology, and you probably need to communicate a heck of a lot different. So I think just being able to course correct quickly and knowing your audience was something that was just that first aha moment of, okay, you don't need to fully lose yourself when you're talking to this individual versus another, but being able to have high EQ is like, okay, great, I understand your motivation. I understand the empathy that I need to give you in whatever regard. And motivating and influencing changes things dramatically when you can do that. And I think if you can't, you're gonna be just treading water with those individuals, especially when you need to create a behavior change or whatever it may be.

Dan Korus: Do you think it ever feels disingenuous? Or is it really just like, okay, I'm not putting on a mask. I'm just really trying to speak in the terms that are gonna get to this person, as best as possible, and actually communicate on their level, so that way you're just kind of being able to morph. And it's not weird at all. It's just like actually trying to meet them where they're at, right?

Claire Walsh: Yeah, I mean, at the heart, the best individuals, the best friends I have, the best leaders, they're genuinely able to adapt. Like you need that adaptability, right? The way that I communicate with my mom and my dad, even though I grew up with both of them, differs. Right? It's not that I'm lying to one individual or putting on a mask for one individual. At the root of it, it's being a chameleon. And going back to my friend from HR, she's a top-tier chameleon, and it's genuine, right? It's still her, but it's allowing her to make sure that the audience that she's communicating with really understands what she's talking about. So I think the best people that I've worked with and that I've got in my life are true to themselves and yet can have two different conversations within one, depending on. Yeah.

Dan Korus: Yeah, I really like that take, 'cause what we're not saying is that authenticity is being ourself and always packaging up our thoughts in the exact same way and expecting people to meet us where we're at. And being authentic isn't being like a boulder in a field. Being authentic is, okay, I know exactly who I am, and I can change how my message is delivered to meet someone where they're at. And that's what we're saying authenticity is. And I really like that approach. 'Cause I think that's a really wise approach, and I don't think many people out there have the self-assuredness of who they are and what they care about and why they get out of bed in order to do that.

[20:30] Finding your so-what and self-discovery

Dan Korus: Earlier you talked about so-what. Is that it? So-what. Tell us about that. I've never heard that before, but it sounds really cool. What is so-what?

Claire Walsh: Yeah, I think it is. There are some individuals that want a job, they wanna do their things and then they wanna wrap it up. For me, I think even when I was young, my dad and I would create little kits for the individuals that needed it in and around Spokane, where we both grew up. The winters are super brutal there, the summers are super brutal. And I think just inherently I've had this desire to make the positive change on folks. Whether that's me as a server creating the best experience for lunch as I can. Or now looking at kind of back end HR tech, how can I make sure that my teammates don't have to do those mundane recurring manual work? How can I lift up folks to take on that higher level work? And yeah, I think it really is like a, the so-what for me is around, I want to make sure my work is meaningful. I want to make sure that at the end of every day, yeah, money's great, and obviously we need money to live, but at the root of it I want something that I feel confident and really happy that I'm creating a positive change, even if it's small, even if it's hey, I automated this for you, you don't have to manually select these manager names now for your new hires, right? Something as simple as that goes a long way for me. And kind of the optimization piece, even in my home life, I just like to be organized and kind of have optimized processes, in whatever way that looks. And yeah, so it definitely is like an internal value that I live by and I love.

Dan Korus: Yeah. That's awesome. And what I'm wondering is if someone else is out there wondering like, what am I doing? Or what is my higher purpose? And I think some of that can be really empowering and some of it can feel kind of ethereal. What's your recommendation to someone who wants to find their so-what?

Claire Walsh: Yeah, I mean personal discovery is an ever changing thing. But I think for me the biggest thing is kind of look back at your childhood. Look back at your day-to-day. Maybe, I don't really love those annual, okay, I'm gonna set all these goals because it's coming up on Jan one. Especially in the Pacific Northwest. I like to go with the seasons. I think those short, intermittent goals go a long way. But going back to your main question, I think it's really getting to the heart of what lights you up, right? Is it communicating with individuals? Is it creating positive change? And really looking at the last month, what really excited you, and digging into that. Why did it excite you? Was it the human side of it? Was it creating positive change? And yeah, I think there's a lot of things. If you ever do any like shadow work in therapy, I think there's a lot of opportunities to really look at maybe the stuff that you don't inherently see, especially for folks that maybe deal with certain anxieties. Call on your friends. Call on the folks that you trust the most and ask them what are the key qualities that you like about me. And I think you can pick and choose and dig into those and see, okay, at the root of it, you're saying this, this, and that. I align with it here. Or maybe it's an opportunity to first understand those strengths that you have that you might not even be aware of. We're all our own worst critic, but having that support system to share that, if you can't just outright say, yes, I love this, this lights a fire for me. I'm definitely a passionate individual in a lot of things in my life. So it came a little bit more naturally to me, but I think if it doesn't for you, lean on that support system. The folks you love will be the most honest, and they know you the most.

Dan Korus: I agree with everything you just said. I think that whenever we're doing a self-discovery journey, it's not just thinking about what we think, but talking with other people and letting them reflect back to us, because they're gonna be able to see the parts of us that we don't understand how we come off, right? And we can never read minds, we never know, like, okay, when I'm passionate, how is that actually perceived by someone else? And part of my journey, right, is that I know that I've got an intense face, and you could call that a lot of different things. But when I'm passionate and I wanna get stuff done, people have told me, hey, you're kind of intense and you can come off as kind of mad and scary. And so that's something I always have to watch, and that's not something that you would ever guess, because in the passion of it and in the feeling of, okay, I'm about to go do something useful, I'm about to go solve a problem, I'm about to go execute on something, you're not thinking, in trying to solve this problem, how am I coming off to someone else? Right? And so I think there's this exercise called the Johari window where you write down, it's like a four box quadrant, and you can do it with your friends. You could do this with a group of friends if you guys wanted to do self-discovery work together. It's four quadrants, and you write down, okay, in quadrant one, how do I see myself? In quadrant two, you write down, what's something about me that other people might not guess about me? Something that I think is kind of on the inside. And then you pass these windows around to everybody else, and they write down in the other two quadrants, okay, how does this person come off? And then, what's one thing that this person comes off as, right? And for me it would be like, okay, I'm kind of intense, or maybe aloof or whatever that person might not know about themselves. Just a quick little activity. Have you ever done anything like that? It sounds like you've done a lot of this work already.

Claire Walsh: Yeah, I haven't done that exercise. I'd be interested to see that. But I definitely know that there are some tells in terms of how I communicate online via written text. I'm definitely more succinct, I'm less friendly, if you will, to the perceiver, right? To me, I'm straight into the point. And for me, even texting, my friends know that I'm not like sunshines and rainbow, even though they know I am, but the way that I communicate via text or email, it's pretty straight into the point. Don't care about adding fluff when I don't need to. Granted, when I'm in real life, folks have to realize, wait, no, there is personality there. So I think, yeah, that's what I've done, where I've had folks let me know and I'm like, okay, note to self, I'll try to be a little bit more cautious of that. Especially working with outside reps, making sure that they understand the type of conversation I'm having, and adding a few pleasantries helps go a long way, especially with making sure that you keep the relationships as strong as possible.

Dan Korus: Did just like add some smiley face emojis just to soften things up? It's like, okay, this looks, this email looks good, this is tactically a correct email, I'm just gonna add two smiley faces and then we're good to go. So no way they won't think I'm happy.

Claire Walsh: Yep. Yes, yes, I will definitely do that. Or I'll add a lol and I'm like, yeah, it's all good, like here's this issue, lol, you know, not the end of the world, like no one's on the operating table. I hope everyone knows that for folks in HR, even though sometimes it feels that way.

[28:00] Defining EQ and how to train yourself

Dan Korus: Yeah, definitely. So kind of capping up our emotional intelligence section here, how would you define emotional intelligence? And if one of your friends came to you and was like, hey Claire, I want to become a more emotionally intelligent person, what would you tell them emotional intelligence is, and how would you tell them they could work on it?

Claire Walsh: That's a good question. I think at the root of it is really, A, it almost starts with knowing yourself. B, being able to know yourself, you're able to have a better grasp on that empathetic touch. I think EQ as a whole, you wanna have that self-awareness. If you don't have that, if you're low in self-awareness, oftentimes you might be low in being able to manage yourself or manage your own emotions, right? How are those showing up in the way you have tough conversations or a heated conversation? So I think really knowing yourself, drilling down on that, what are some of your tells that get you fired up that shouldn't, or things that you want to make sure you're communicating well. You're like, hey, I don't like this, I don't like that. Knowing yourself better may help. And then I think it's practicing it and really getting a good sense of, okay, I understand EQ, I know that this individual in my life or this leader I work with does a really good job of being super adaptable, of having really good social awareness and empathy, really understanding kind of the question behind the question or the words behind the words when communicating with someone, and treating that as, okay, great, I see how this individual is communicating or ingesting the content, and here's how they're really responding to it. I've got great leaders that I will sit in meetings with, and especially when I first was starting out in my career, I would just absorb the way that they handled conversations. And no one ever wants to copy-paste exactly what another individual does, but I think really absorbing that and really slapping that on the way you communicate, but having it be authentic, right? The way I communicate and you are gonna differ, and they should. But I think, yeah, just absorbing what you can and having that role model definitely goes a long way, whether that's in your personal life or especially having some good leaders you can lean on and really gleam concepts from internally helps significantly.

Dan Korus: Awesome. So emotional intelligence is first knowing yourself and then being able to recognize how what you are yourself, how it comes off to those around you. Right. And then also looping in your earlier thoughts, it's being able to take your own thoughts and the same goal and apply it differently to different people based off their experience and their backgrounds. And if you were gonna prescribe a training plan, you'd say, okay, get to know yourself first, find some ways to do that. We can talk about that in a bit. And also find good leaders. And I think we've all probably had like one or two leaders, I can think of those ones where they sit back and they listen and they just seem to be taking it all in, and then they say something, and what they said was like, wow, that was the thing to say in that moment. It's the perfect thing. It looks like 4D chess when it's happening, and you're like, oh my gosh, this person just diffused something, got exactly what they wanted, and everybody's happier for it. Maybe I thought we were going into a fight, and they were able to just get an unexpected outcome that you might not have been able to get. And so I think role models, yeah, hell yeah, I think that's an awesome idea, right? Incredibly important. One of the ways that I've gotten a lot of my introspection done is just through talk therapy. Right, so lots of years of just seeing a counselor regularly and being able to practice the process of interrogating my own emotions. Going through that and being like, okay, what am I really feeling? 'Cause it's not angry, it's something else, something deeper into the emotional wheel. Lately I've been a very consistent journaler and writer, and that's been extremely helpful, having a way to structure my thoughts and get things down. And AI has also made that incredibly fun. I don't know if you do this, but I upload all of my journal pages every week into a document archive, and then I take down all my meeting transcripts into that same archive, and I put all my blogs and all my writing samples into it. So I've always got like a second brain of my thoughts and emotions that I can always work with and query. Are there any other ways that you would prescribe to someone to kind of increase their own emotional intelligence and their own self awareness, and just being able to know, okay, this is what I'm going through, this is the situation, being able to take that pause, that step back. What would you tell them?

Claire Walsh: Yeah, I would agree with you on talk therapy. That's helped me a lot. I've been in therapy for three and a half years and it's been super helpful. It's not super accessible to everyone though. Even if you've got insurance, it's expensive. So again, leaning on your support system. And then there's different, I mean, use the resources you have, right? We've got a slew of resources. I've been starting to do breath work sessions that are kind of like guided breathing that allow you to go beyond talk therapy, where you still are very intentional in what you share, how you share it, right? There might still be a lens you have on that you're not quite seeing. That's been really eye-opening for me, to step away from that conscious thinking. Even though I try to be as upfront and open as I can in talk therapy, inherently there might be some sort of buffer or barrier in place in terms of A, what you're willing to share, or B, what you know or want to accept within yourself. But yeah, I think there's a lot of really good YouTube videos. There's a ton of stuff that's free that can be super beneficial for you. There's meetup groups that you could work with. There's a ton of free options beyond just talk therapy that allows you to get to know yourself more than what you see day to day or what you experience.

[34:30] AI, generations, and advice for every career stage

Dan Korus: That's awesome. Okay, so I've got a couple, I've got maybe like four more questions for you. Maybe five, actually. Let's do five. We'll just fly through them. So you're in HR tech, and so you're not only at the frontier of people science, right, but you're also at the frontier of AI and what AI can do. And you're constantly finding ways to solve problems and allow us to spend more time on the people problems from what it sounds like, through leveraging this technology. As AI continues to grow, what do you think the implications are in how we interface with people in the workplace? What do you think the trends are gonna be? What do you think it's gonna look like? Do you think we're gonna need more human skills, maybe less? I know the answer I'm teeing up for myself, but what's your take as someone who's a professional in this field, right?

Claire Walsh: Yeah, I mean I think at the root of it, you can automate as much as you want, you can roll out as much AI as possible, but inherently the human side of it is gonna be very important, right? Like looking at our generation, we kind of have that back-end knowledge of what a monitor is, what your computer is, what the different tools are. And I think newer generations may not really understand that as much. Really kind of how it all fits in together, because it has been really easy. Those iPad generations, everything's been easy, right? You don't send snail mail, right? So I think looking at the workforce side of it, I think the human side is gonna continue to be even more important, because great, we can have this AI agent do this, this and that, but at the root of it, those key problem-solving meetings or that strategic work, sure you can utilize AI as a thought partner. That's great. I think you should. But inherently those critical thinking skills, that creativity, that the human brain only has, frankly. Like you can prompt AI as much as possible to lean into that creative side, but it won't. It's still pretty binary and it's pretty narrow focus right now, where AI is. And even if more and more agentic AI is rolled out, the human side of it is gonna be that much more important. 'Cause humans aren't gonna go away, even if the world of work changes, and it is. Conversations like this are the conversations that I get the best weird ideas, where I'm like, oh, this isn't even tied to what problem I'm trying to solve for, and yet I figured it out. And AI's too descriptive, right? There's no way that you can really dig into it in the same way a human brain can, where it's at right now. So yeah. And I think one big thing that's really interesting about AI, it's really reducing the tolerance for mediocre or okay work. Like, I don't want to just not use AI as a thought partner, to utilize it for building a slide deck. Kind of those basics. But I think if you're not using AI and you're rolling out work that's mid-level, it's silly to not use it, depending on what your company offers and allows. But yeah, I think it's still, that authenticity of the human approach is critical to how we operate, and will always be.

Dan Korus: Bar's higher. And it's interesting 'cause there's a dichotomy there, right? Like we say all the time, and as someone who's on Substack a lot, there's a big bias against AI writing, right? And AI creativity and AI emotion. And of course some people are doing it and that's fine, but it's almost like a competition, right? Like we would rather have something that AI's written and looks acceptable than something that's poor that came from a person. But at the same time we're like, don't, it can't look like AI, but you should use it or else you're gonna fall behind, right? So you need to be creative and individual and find ways of bringing in your strategy and your own human element. But also not fall behind, right? And also not let yourself make something that is substandard when you had different tools available at your disposal. Kind of interesting, I think. So I've got three more questions for you. If you had a friend and they were starting their first day of work tomorrow, and tomorrow was their first day at work, they've never been in a job before, they went straight out of school to job, what's your advice for them? What's your advice for the beginner, if you have any at all, what are you gonna tell them before their first day?

Claire Walsh: Yeah, for the first day, I would say get to know your people, but also get to know who are the key players on the various teams that you work directly with or that are working in proximity to you. Who are the key players, who are the key decision makers that you want to kind of keep in your back pocket, that you wanna build and refine a relationship with, more so than, you know, maybe folks that aren't pushing the needle or may not push the needle as much. So I think again it goes back to that human side of it. And then in terms of processes and really getting to know the company, lean in, come in with a ton of curiosity, ask why a process is the way it is. And then I know for us at the company I work for now, we're saying, hey, you know what, our processes are great, but we want a new fresh set of eyes to kind of tear it apart. Not everything's always 100% baked out, and it won't ever necessarily be. So I think a really good quick win is, A, come with curiosity, understand the process, and then pick out some of the areas of opportunity and share it, right? Maybe it's within your first month, you have three different iterative changes that you want to make. You're creating a name for yourself, and inherently it's a pretty quick win and an easy win, frankly. So yeah, step into that with fresh eyes and don't be afraid to speak your mind there.

Dan Korus: I love that advice. I don't think we haven't gotten that before on this podcast. And what I love about it is because in every organization there's an unwritten rule set of how you get work done. And what your advice is is like, hey, go find those people who can get work done in this system and work with them to go have your own impact, right? And don't spend time with the people who don't necessarily know how to get work done or change things. I really love that advice. I think that's so good. And I think it's even a skill to be able to find those people in the first place, because some of them are loud. Some of them are the quietest people in the meeting who are the smooth operators who are like, okay, if I pull this string, this string, and this string, then this will happen, right? And one of my bosses is really good at that, and I'm always astounded. Anyways, for the mid-career professional, so someone who's in a team lead role, a middle manager, someone who has a fleet of deliverers below them and maybe some people above them, someone who's in the messy middle. What's your advice for them, based off what you've seen in your career? And if you just had a nugget for them, what would it be?

Claire Walsh: Yeah, I mean, first off, don't be afraid to ask for what you think you deserve. If you never ask for it, you'll never get it, frankly. Maybe an organization's nice enough to do that, but we've all, we're all trying to save money, right? Same as the organization. So, and also get creative with it. Upon a raise or upon starting a new job, hey, if the money isn't there, what about extra PTO days? What about this? What about that? So I think getting creative there definitely helps. And then just making sure you kind of have a role model in whatever that looks like, helping you. And frankly, if you're in a company and you've been seeing a lot of growth but it's stagnant, be upfront with the fact that maybe sometimes you've outgrown the company. And I think, especially in this job market now, it's tough to leave an organization, but you have to make sure that you do what's best for you. And if you're not fulfilled in whatever categories bring you a lot of value and allow you to live the life you want to outside of work, I think you should take the autonomy to change your situation. It'll be tough, but it'll be worth it in the end.

Dan Korus: That's awesome. I love the bias towards knowing your own value, and also knowing where there's growth, because growth is value too, right? And we all deserve to get better and grow over time, and we need to be in environments that serve us. So last question of the day. For our CEOs out there, our presidents, our VPs, our people who are at the top, and are ruled by the customer and the board. And who are at ten thousand feet looking down and trying to figure out where we're going next. The people who are drawing up maps, the people who are trying to be rainmakers, the people who are trying to hold it all together, what's our advice for them?

Claire Walsh: Yeah, so I would say you're hiring individuals that you know can do a job, that are smart enough to create impactful changes. You're never gonna be boots on the ground, nor should you be. Really give that full ownership to your teams. Give it to your leaders. And really absorb what information they have, because the folks that are at the root and are closest to the issue have the best potential solutions. So really making sure you hear them out and you give them that ownership to take it and run, I think will go a long way with your company and the growth that they'll have. And your employees will probably stay a heck of a lot longer because they feel valued and heard. So it's a win-win all around.

Dan Korus: That's awesome. That's trust, right? Hire good people and trust them to get the job done. Which is an awesome note to end on. Claire, I just want to thank you. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for taking time out of your weekend to join me and talk about emotional intelligence and leadership and where the HR Tech industry is headed and your role in that, and also for sharing with us your so-what, which is really helpful. Thank you so much.

Claire Walsh: Awesome. Well thank you so much. Yeah, thanks for asking and appreciate it. All right. Bye.

Dan Korus: All right. All right. We'll cap it there. Bye Claire.