The human component of building a startup has always been, and probably will always be one of the most challenging aspects of any organization. Our guest today is an expert in building culture and getting the best out of people, Sandy Scholes, Chief People Officer, most recently at Flipp, has a wealth of experience in team building and coaching managers to get high performance from their teams.
About Sandy Scholes:
Sandy Scholes is a leader with 15+ years of global HR experience ranging from large multinational organizations to mid-size companies both public and private. Most recently she was the CPO of Flipp. Previously Sandy was Executive Vice President, Global Human Resources at Entertainment One, and Senior Vice President, People at Softchoice.
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In this episode we discuss:
02:44 Sandy’s journey into tech
04:43 How Sandy was able to navigate between large organizations and smaller startups
07:07 Dealing with office politics at large companies
09:19 What is performance management and how it differs from traditional HR
11:42 Why open ended questions and frameworks are important
12:59 Problems with traditional performance reviews
16:25 Types of frameworks that work best for managers
19:40How much influence should managers have in setting OKRs
21:39The cadence that performance and work plans should be updated
23:35Why isn’t performance management more widely adopted
24:19How often should managers check-in?
29:06Advice to managers to avoid random or confusing feedback
33:01Communicating expectations to employees
34:20How do you establish a culture of high performance without dealing with burnout or high turnover
37:01Dealing with burnout
38:02What to do with high performance/low culture fit hires
39:23Favorite tools to help with performance coaching
40:09Does Sandy coach performance to those in her private life
41:15About her father
Fast Favorites
🎙- Favorite Podcast: Ted Talks
📰 - Favorite Newsletter /Blog: HBR / Center for Creative Leadership
📲 - Favorite Tech Gadget: Theragun
📈 - Favorite New Trend: Pickle Ball
📚 - Favorite Book: Work Book: Good to Great
🤔 - Favorite Life Lesson: I always loved this quote: Whether You Think you can or Think you can’t - You’re right. Get out of your comfort zone and try something even if you think you may fail. Push your envelope and build your confidence and courage. I especially think this is important for females. We second-guess ourselves too much.
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