People-Focused Leadership with Jill Katz

Angela R Howard (00:01.054)

Jill, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for joining us today.

Jill Katz (00:04.802)

Thank you so much. I'm so excited to have this conversation.

Angela R Howard (00:09.31)

Yes. And we were like, I think like a mid-conversation, uh, right before we clicked record and we're like, we have to click record because we have so much to talk about. I am excited to welcome you to the podcast. Jill, tell us a little bit about yourself, and what you do. Uh, but also what's the impact you're looking to make on the world?

Jill Katz (00:29.278)

Thank you. And I'm so glad we pressed record because it was like we were on horses riding off into the distance and we could have talked for two hours and we would have missed the podcast. We were having so much fun. So now other people can join us in this conversation, Angela. So much fun. Well, I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for having me. Well, the most important thing to know about me is that I'm a mom and I tell people all the time,

Angela R Howard (00:34.582)

Yes!

Angela R Howard (00:42.247)

Yes.

Jill Katz (00:57.878)

that what defines me is that I get to play a role in bringing and raising two amazing human beings into this world. I have a daughter, she is 16 and a half. I just got the meeting invite this morning for her driver's task. She's getting her license in about six weeks and I don't know what to say about that. There's something...

unbelievable about sitting in the passenger seat and looking to your left and seeing your child driving the vehicle. It's quite sobering. There's that. And I have a spectacular son. He's 13 years old and he is a budding stage actor and he's one day going to be on Broadway. So they are...

Angela R Howard (01:36.78)

Mmm.

Jill Katz (01:54.41)

a ton of fun and I love being around them and love my job as a mom. And when I'm not being a mom, I am the founder of Assemble HR.

So Assemble, I should tell you a guess a little bit about it, is a talent strategy and people-focused firm. We focus on culture, communication, conflict, and change. All the facets of the employee life cycle start with a C because that's what we think is most important. And we do off-site, learning experiences.

Angela R Howard (02:11.582)

Mm-hmm.

Jill Katz (02:35.01)

talent, strategy coaching, and people operations. And we have a ton of fun.

Angela R Howard (02:41.542)

Love that. Yeah, I also noticed, that you talk a lot about courage and candor, and I think all of that points to this idea of building trust in relationships within the workplace. And we talked a little bit about that when we were chatting earlier. But I think what's fascinating is you and I have similar backgrounds in that we worked as CHROs. We've kind of been in spaces where

Angela R Howard (03:10.682)

multi-year people strategy, employee experience efforts work with an organization. So tell us a little bit about that and why you decided to build something better.

Jill Katz (03:21.878)

Yeah, and I'm gonna ask you back the same questions. We had so much fun talking about how we've both had a similar path. So as we talked about before, I spent, I shouldn't say the number out loud, but a little bit more than 20 years in organizations leading the human resources function. I will dinosaur myself right now, Angela. When I started in HR,

Angela R Howard (03:24.411)

Yes.

Jill Katz (03:50.654)

The name of the function was personnel. How's, how's that for you? That's yeah. There you go.

Angela R Howard (03:56.263)

Ha ha

Yeah, personnel, employee relations, I feel like those are all, that's the origin story of HR. So we have to honor it. We have to honor it.

Jill Katz (04:06.03)

Yeah. We have to go back. In the time that I've been in the function, I think its name has changed at least 13 times. It's been HR, it's been personnel, it's been people, people strategy, talent, talent operations. And so I've spent so many years in the function and had the opportunity to work in organizations of all shapes and sizes.

public companies, private companies, owner, founder-led, vertical, retail. I've been in fashion. I've been on the internet. I've worked in all kinds of organizations. However, my biggest learning has been that most organizations believe that what's happening in their organization is unique and hard to replicate.

And my experience has been that people are people are people are people. And I would ask you, what have you noticed across the organizations that you've worked in?

Angela R Howard (05:13.15)

Yeah, well, I resonate with your observation and your biggest learning on people is people. And there are ways to create change within organizations and there's a formula to this work. Not that it's the same set of tasks, right? Because yes, every organization is different. You're working with different maturity levels of the organization, different

I guess effectiveness around leadership, which has been a key learning for me is that if you want something to change, you have to change. And I think leaders oftentimes are looking at the rest of the organization saying, everyone else needs to change, right? We're fine, we're fine up here, this executive team that we've built, we're brilliant, but everyone else needs to change. And I think the biggest learning that I've had, and once I was a CHRO, the...

the healthy conflict that I would introduce as a part of my role is if we are talking about a culture of trust, if we're talking about the culture of well-being or all these buzzwords, we have to identify what the behavior is and we as a team need to do it first for it to work. So those are just a few. There are so many. I mean, I have a long laundry list, which led to the building of my business, which I'm sure...

You use a lot of those learnings to replicate some of the services that you provide to organizations now.

Jill Katz (06:45.078)

One of the things that I have found to be interesting is, to your point, oftentimes leaders say that they know change is necessary. They want to see change in the organization, but they're looking around and saying, no one else is changing. Someone needs to change. We need change here. And to your point, no one's changing. Everyone is afraid to change. And what I often say to leaders that I'm going to work with is you need to drop a penny in the pond.

one leader, one leader that makes a change, that change is like a penny in a pond. It creates a smaller change around it, and then a bigger change around that, and a bigger change around that, and a bigger change around that. And so people ask me frequently, who do you work with? What kinds of companies do you work with? And my answer is we don't work with certain kinds of companies. We work with certain kinds of leaders who are willing to be the penny in the pond.

And so you find those leaders, those pockets in organizations, and they're everywhere. Every kind of company has a leader that's willing to be the penny in the pond, and they will step in and they will have the courage to make a change. And you start to see something different happening in the culture of that leader's team. And then other leaders or other people on teams look over and they say, wow, something's happening on Angela's team.

Angela R Howard (07:49.002)

Mm.

Jill Katz (08:11.618)

What's going on there? People are sticking around. There's less turnover. People seem happier. More people are engaging in different ways. Why is something different happening there? And that's because that leader dared to be different. And that's when you start to see other leaders jumping on board and having the courage to change.

Angela R Howard (08:34.65)

Yeah, I love the idea of having the courage to change and it kind of takes this tipping point for someone to look around and say something needs to change. I can be the first to do that or be the penny in the pond. So what is that, I guess, profile of leader that you're looking for? So I'm in a similar boat right now where, you know, we offer culture change services and

We are being very selective with the organizations we work with because what we don't wanna happen is you're spending a lot of money and wasting your money and you want a performative solution or you just wanna check the box without any deep substantial commitment or investment. So I'm also in this space of how do we better identify who those leaders are, how do we build those leaders within organizations?

Jill Katz (09:28.074)

like what you're saying because it doesn't always work. It's not just about writing a check. A lot of people can write a check, or if you believe in the recession, not everyone can write the check. We were talking earlier, I guess, before we pressed record about recession or no recession, but you can write a check and that does not solve the problem. What solves the problem is a different kind of investment. And that is an investment of...

time of belief, of human commitment. A lot of people in our space, Angela, talk about people focus. What do people focus mean? It means getting the people done through the business. It means that believe it or not, this could be an unpopular thing to say, maybe this is when people turn off the podcast and say, what the heck is she saying?

Believe it or not, the people are more important than the business. The people are more important than the revenue. And why is that? Because if you get the people done right, the business works and the revenue starts pouring in. And when you talk to business leaders who know how to focus on their people, who are focusing on all the things that matter, which you and I can easily talk about and list.

They're making their numbers. They are profitable businesses. When leaders are focusing on creating profitable businesses and when managing the people part of their business is a side gig, it doesn't work. It's not sustainable. It can work for a little bit, but it's not sustainable. So these are highly empathic leaders.

Angela R Howard (11:10.173)

Mm.

Jill Katz (11:22.878)

These are leaders that are willing to be vulnerable. These are leaders who do not believe they have the answers to everything. These are leaders who want to empower other people. These are leaders that make decisions. Even if they're bad decisions, they're willing to make a decision and then change their mind. These are leaders that spend time getting to know the people in their organization.

Angela R Howard (11:44.276)

Mmm.

Jill Katz (11:50.646)

These are leaders that have high empathy and high EQ. So those are some of the parts of the profile of leaders that I think are critical for today's world. What would you add to that?

Angela R Howard (12:03.673)

Yes.

Yes. So I think humility is, and I think you certainly touched on that in your conversation around admitting when you're wrong, admitting when I messed that up, you know, it's kind of this openness. You know, I think courage is certainly, you mentioned courage in the conversation when you think about courage to make the right decision.

Jill Katz (12:22.112)

Yeah.

Angela R Howard (12:36.402)

the right decision for the organization, I think is a big one. And so, and yet, I think we have a system that tends to promote people who perform well, right? I think we talk a lot about the rock star, the technical expert, these people who get into these roles that are meant to deliver results, but you're delivering results through people.

which requires another level of skill and knowledge that I think we leave out of the conversation when it comes to leadership development or what a good leader looks like. And so I feel like that fundamentally needs to change. We have to wake up to the fact that the people in our leadership team today looking around may have gotten there. I hate to say it by accident, but they may not.

be able to sustain that role if we're thinking about it in a more people-centered way.

Jill Katz (13:38.37)

Well, just because you're a technical expert doesn't mean that you can be a great leader. And as we peel back that onion, sometimes we find out that the best, best performers, the best technical experts don't even really wanna lead people. It's not the same thing.

Angela R Howard (13:56.806)

Yes, yes, but for some, it's not. And I think we have, we've developed an unrealistic idea of what it means to progress at work. I think that fundamentally needs to change because I think there are two paths, right? You can progress and grow and thrive in a technical role, without.

quote unquote climbing the ladder, you can go across the jungle gym, right? Let's use the jungle gym as an analogy for developing yourself, and enriching your career without being in a role of leadership because leadership requires a different path and a different responsibility. And I think we sometimes forget that the responsibility of leaders is not just the work, it's also of the people and the impact they have on people.

Jill Katz (14:47.158)

I saw this amazing meme this week. I think it was on Instagram that said, growth. Have you seen this one? It was so cool. It said growth and it had four pictures. And one was, you know, your typical career ladder. And it showed a trajectory that was a diagonal line headed upward, which is how many of us think of growth.

Angela R Howard (14:55.25)

I have not, I have not, but I'm interested.

Jill Katz (15:14.11)

And then there was a picture that said growth, and it showed a horizontal line just like the monkey bars, as you said, the jungle gym. And then there was a picture that said growth, and it was a squiggly, curly line that went up and down, and it looked like a squiggly line. I'm drawing it for Angela right now. And then there was a fourth picture that said growth, and it was mountains, up and down, and up and down, and up and down.

Angela R Howard (15:21.584)

Mm-hmm.

Angela R Howard (15:34.722)

yet

Jill Katz (15:43.526)

All four of those are different paths to growth because growth is about learning and is about taking on new opportunities and is about building new relationships and is about financial changes and is about all kinds of things. It is so 1980s to think that growth is just about getting a title promotion. That went out with hairspray.

Angela R Howard (16:09.259)

Yes, absolutely. And I think there is an ego element to it, right? We're just taught that success looks like climbing this ladder, this myth at this point. But organizations, I think, also need to create structures where that second path

is sustainable for somebody. If I know that I understand what, even if I wanna stay in the trajectory of a technical expert, I need to have opportunities. And I think we focus so much on that ladder and succession planning upwards, that we need to be looking at the jungle gym and across as well.

Jill Katz (16:51.062)

And now we're back to courage, right? It takes an organization a lot of courage to build a little bit of a non-orthodox structure where people can be financially rewarded and move up the quote ladder or move up within a structure and not manage other people. And a lot of organizations aren't ready for that. I have a client.

that I work with right now. And we just went through this exercise where there was a leader in technology who became the VP of technology. This person is an absolute expert and knows everything you could ever want to know about technology, but the person does not manage other people well, is lacks that skill set. And quite frankly, as we got to know the person well, does not like to do it.

The person wants to do technology work and doesn't want to spend time working with other people, managing other people's careers, helping other people through their issues, and coaching. It's not what the person wants to do. Solly created an individual contributor path for the person and helped the person to become a technical expert. But that costs time.

It costs investment from the chief technology officer. It was a courageous thing for them to do because now they've got this specialist who's doing their own thing. And we have to explain to the rest of the organization that there's now this other option. And that took a lot of courage. Pardon me.

Angela R Howard (18:35.222)

Absolutely. Yeah. And I think it takes courage from the individual to be able to reflect and be self-aware of that as well. I think there is courage in the organization to do something different. But if you're listening to this and you're in a leadership role and you've grappled with the idea of leadership why do I have to spend so much time on people? And I just want to do the work that might be a good indicator that you would

be a fantastic technical expert. And there is nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with saying, I just really wanna do the technical work. But if you are in a role of leadership, I think organizations need to understand we have to nurture and prepare leaders. We have to be constantly educating them on what it means to raise the bar on leadership because I think we...

In some organizations that I work with, at least there's a very low bar on leadership. It's more management or project management versus leadership. What would you say the difference is between those two things?

Jill Katz (19:42.262)

No, I have a program we run that's what's the difference between leading and coaching or managing and coaching. Managing is directing people. It's giving specific instructions and telling people what to do to get a job done. Coaching is asking powerful questions to help lead someone to their answers and their development.

and the best leaders in the world know how to manage and coach. And there is a time for both. There's a time when instructions and specific details of what needs to be done are necessary, particularly when giving an assignment on a project. And to help people grow and to be a wonderful leader, coaching is such an important skill.

that by the way is not natural for everyone. Really good leaders get trained on how to be a good coach.

Angela R Howard (20:45.218)

Yes, absolutely. And I think the other thing that distinguishes between managers and leaders is the ability to make people feel safe. I think psychological safety is a term that has grown in popularity, but it is an art, it's a science, and it goes back to just the human condition and the fact that when we feel safe,

we produce, we are more creative, we're more innovative. And so you're creating the environment, the container for people to be their best. That is hard to do. We have to acknowledge that because as leaders, we're also human. So we're also grappling with our selflessness versus selfishness and how do I make sure I get what I need and I'm providing an environment that my people need?

and also realizing that what you need is not what others need. So all those things are important.

Jill Katz (21:46.92)

I love the word container, Angela. I love creating a container because that is safe, enclosed, and warm, it's just the visual of a container that is so powerful.

Angela R Howard (21:57.566)

Mm-hmm.

Angela R Howard (22:01.818)

Yeah, and it's interesting because I have a psychology background. So we talk about containers a lot when it comes to therapy and other trauma-informed work that's done. And we have to realize that when people come to the workplace, they're coming with it all. They're coming with the trauma, the entire human experience. And so not that leaders have to be therapists or be trained in psychology, but I think this idea of like,

Jill Katz (22:20.902)

Mm-hmm.

Angela R Howard (22:31.558)

Well, if I'm preparing to be a leader, I've got to read all the business books and all the business concepts. And it's like, well, you also have to read about how humans operate. The psychology, the anthropology, the sociology of it all is equally as important because you're working with people.

Jill Katz (22:47.554)

Well, I have constantly talked about this whole myth of there's your work self and your self. I am out there in the world to dispel this myth because if you autopsy human beings, there is not at all a thick wall going down the middle of people where there's the work side of people on one side and the.

personal side of people on the other side and things can't cross the wall. We are one human being and we show up anywhere. We show up as one person. And so leaders everywhere need to understand that the people they work with are just people. And so I say there is no such thing as work-life balance. There's just life.

Angela R Howard (23:38.162)

Hmm. Yes. And I think, you know, I think work-life balance is an oversimplified way to continue to separate those two things, right? It's harder to learn about the people on your team and understand what energy management means for you versus, oh, well, let me make sure everything's 50 50. That's a much easier conversation to have than actually, each person is different.

Jill Katz (23:57.537)

Mm-hmm.

Angela R Howard (24:06.478)

and how their energy shows up and how they manage their energy. So leadership is hard. It's hard. And that's why we need to distinguish between this idea of being a rock star technical expert and being a leader. Oftentimes leaders don't need to be technical experts. This has always been my argument leaders can span across the organization.

They can be dangerous enough in a certain area technically, they need to know enough, but it's that leadership skill when you need to be creating an environment of belonging and safety so people can be their best selves and take care of people relationally. That's what leadership is.

Jill Katz (24:52.718)

It's all about relationships.

Angela R Howard (24:55.178)

Yes, that's where we started our conversation before we hit record. So I think this is a beautiful tie-the-bow moment, Jill. First of all, I could talk to you for many days. We could just like have coffee every day and have a ton of topics to get through. But where can people find you? Tell us a little bit more about if they want to engage with you or assemble HR. What's the best way to do that?

Jill Katz (25:20.366)

Thank you so much, Angela. I'm on LinkedIn, it's Jill Katz, K-A-T-Z. I am on Instagram at HRassemble, and we can be found online at HRassemble.com.

Angela R Howard (25:36.438)

Wonderful. Well, I appreciate you, Jill. Thank you so much for being on the podcast and hope to have you back soon.

Jill Katz (25:42.006)

This was so much fun. Thanks for having me.