Atlanta Women Leaders Association Chapter Meeting: The HR Leaders New Normal
DeRetta Rhodes of Atlanta Braves discusses ideas and strategies for the HR leaders new normal at the Atlanta Women Leaders Association chapter meeting.
Transcript
Well, I'm gonna int I'm going to introduce you. I'm so excited you're here today with us. Uh Dr. Rhodess is the executive vice president and chief people capital officer of the world champions Atlanta Braves. She'll be speaking on the HR leader new normal. Dr. Rhodess oversees people capital initiatives for the organization's major league, minor league, and the battery Atlanta operations. Prior to joining the Braves, Dr. RHS was the executive vice president, chief of human resources or the chief human resources of the YMCA of Metro Atlanta, vice president of human re resources at First Data, VP for Turner Broadcasting, and held leadership positions at Ernston Young, ADP, HomeGer.com, and Young Brands. Dr. Roads received her undergraduate degree from the University of Georgia, her master's in business administration from Clark Atlanta University, and her PhD in adult education from the University of Georgia.
Daer completed her TED talk with uh TED and UG in 2018. She's also been recognized as 2018 women of excellence 100 women of influence for the last two years by Atlanta Business Chronicle on icon award top 100 human resources professionals in 2021. And last but definitely not least sports inclusion conference top 100 women in sports this year. She's currently the board member of the human resources leadership forum, the board member and compensation chair of goodwill of North Georgia, board member and chair of board effectiveness of 21st century leaders, trustee member, governing governing board member and compensation HR chair for the Woodruff Art Center, strategic advisor of the Goodwin Group, board member of the American Heart Association, diversity, equity, and inclusion advisor, member of HR.com, mom and board member of University of Georgia alumni board and it's so much more you guys.
Dr. Rhodess lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband Leon and three sons Cole, Austin, and Jordan. Dr. Rhodess, thank you so much for being with us today. I am so excited to be here and I have to tell you, it's so funny. So, when we were talking about this, that was my role. It has expanded a little bit after we became world champions. I now am responsible as well for corporate communications, community affairs, and the Atlanta Braves Foundation. And what I have found is that in all of those, it kind of gives you a really good understanding across culture. So my new title is chief culture officer. So I am so glad to be here with you all and have the conversation.
And I'm I'm hoping, as I always say, first of all, you can just call me Detta. The second thing I'll say is that I want this to be more of a conversation and you all kind of listening to me as if I was talking to you as it were friends on a call. And it really is about some of the interesting situations that we have going on as HR leaders. And so I really wanted to bring to bear what our new normal begins to look like. And so I have a presentation that kind of walks us through that and gives us some really interesting perspectives around what that is. So what I want to do and what I want to talk about is kind of what I'm going to what I'm going to speak to in the time that I have with you.
And it really is kind of identifying those areas that all of us end up being the chief of everything, right? It comes down to those conversations that we end up having that we are either the consiliary, we are either the coach, we are either the SME or we are the ones that are providing influential perspective that's needed. So if we go to the next slide, my agenda is really going to be around on CHRO as a change leader. So what it is that we do as a change leader, operational leader and executive coach, we also end up being the chief of scenario planning and transformation. I'm going to talk a little bit about disruption and how we reset that chief of inclusion.
I'll talk about that and then I'll end it up with excelling as a chief player coach. So I want to go into this whole concept of new normal. I'm going to tell you all I've always hated that concept. Like I've always hated people saying, 'Well, you know, that's the new normal.' But if we look at the definition, and I will tell you, I got this definition off of um off of the internet because you can find everything on the internet, right? Um and so I found this and I thought it was really it was really actually apppropo giving everything that we've been dealing with. So it is a state to which an economy a society settles following a crisis when then this differs from the situation that prevailed prior to the crisis.
And when I think about that I feel like we have been in crisis mode for the last three years. I can actually speak to you personally around what it looked like for working for a major league baseball team. what we dealt with at the Atlanta Braves. If some of you all know kind of our story that we have to tell from the last two years and the fact that we had the All Stars, we lost the All Stars and then we became world champions following that and what that looked like for us in terms of being in the midst of a crisis and how we were able to reshift and really become leaders in a crisis.
So, it's interesting. It talks about the fact the term has been employed in relation to all of these things that some of us have lived through. September 11, the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008, the aftermath of 2008 through 2012, global recession, and then us still in what I would say, and I don't know, I don't even know if we can say that it's recovery at this point, but COVID, and then now us dealing with the things that are happening in Europe. So, we really are sitting in a place where we're constantly dealing with the new normal. So I want to start and talk about we as change leaders, operational leaders and executive coaches. When I think about that from a concept perspective and I appreciate my bio that's read that was that was stated about me.
It's so funny. I listen to that and I don't think of any of that. What I think about is the fact that everything that I have thought about and everything that I've wanted to do is has been around learning. And so I have always said that I am a lifelong learner. And if we are HR leaders in what we do every day, that is what we are. We have to be the lifelong learners because we're the ones that are providing data points, perspective, influencing conversations when it comes down to, and some of you all may still be living this deciding on how we're doing workforce and are we hybrid? Are we work from home? how you deal with mask mandates, how you're dealing with vaccinations and things of that nature.
So I would say that we are always the leader of change for organizations and as a result of that we always have to be on the forefront of what the learning is around that. That's why I love research. I love data and I love research because it informs the way in which we can speak to and work with our partners. Which leads me to to the next thing that we constantly have to cultivate. Oh no, we're still on the same one. We have to cultivate the relationships with um our peers. So our co our COOs, our CFOs, our CMOs, our CIOS, all of those individuals, all of the senior leaders in the organizations that we have to really come together and bring those things together and bring it to bear.
And so that lifelong learning helps us have those very very important relationships. and then always staying in a continuous loop of learning and giving that back to to everyone that we have the opportunity to give it to. So that's my whole concept around the executive coaching. We probably sit in conversations all the time when people come to us and they're looking at us to be the subject matter experts or to provide them perspectives because we have a very different view and a different lens. Then it's the next that we have to do which is the next um slide. Chief of scenario planning and transformation. So we have to be the ones that can speak to disruption and talk with how it needs to be reset.
And I will say to you I feel like I have sat in disruption from 2020 to even now today sitting in the midst of a baseball lockout that has not happened in many many years. And so when you think about that and when we talk about the concept of scenario planning and transformation, we really have to embrace and appreciate disruption because it drives or it informs our workforce strategy. We're the ones that are helping and informing the workplace scen the scenario planning. So it's our expect well the expectation for us is that we are anticipating risk and we're also taking action against those risk and so it comes back to what I said before about we always have to make sure that we are continuously learning learning about our industry about our profession about everything that touches our people because they're looking to us to be able to provide clarity around things that aren't clear.
The thing around that is that we have an opportunity and I and I think about this all the time. We may not get we may not be the ones that are recognized immediately or even told thank you for doing that, but we know that we are influencing the organization in such a way and we are watching and helping to support oftentimes leading and guiding what that transformation looks like. We're the ones that we're coming forward and we're overcoming the powerful force of the status quo. It's so funny. Every organization that I started with and if you have individuals that have been there, you always will hear, 'Well, that's not how we do it. We've always done it like this.' And if we're the ones that are always at least challenging the status quo, what we're providing is an opportunity for transformation to occur.
I always think about the concept of transformer or else. So it's the question if we don't do something today, what's the worst that could happen? And a lot of times the worst that could happen is the very worst because we did no action. We're the ones that have to be the ones in the we're the ones in the room that have to continually ask the question why, why not? And what do we need to do to get to the next place? I will say oftentimes and I talk about this specifically as leaders of people and as us being the one guiding decisions that are being made in the workforce. The heaviest part of that is that we're the ones that do carry that.
So we always need to make sure in all of that that we are checking ourselves around ensuring that we are taking care of ourselves and being able to provide what is often needed in the organization. I oftentimes call that the chief of the unknown. So if we're able to actually think about disruption, put it in such a way that people can actually have it as a consumable understanding, then what we've done is that we've helped with the new normal moving forward. So then that's the other thing that we always are constantly dealing with being the chief of inclusion. So what do I mean by that on on the next slide? What do I mean by that?
It's really thinking through all of the things that I just talked about and that I just mentioned, right? It is the whole concept of not only diversity but inclusion and making people and making insure and ensuring that people feel welcome, ensuring that we are creating an environment in such a way that people can bring their best self to work. I know there's always been this concept the whole self my perspective is the best self. If I am in my best self that means that I am operating in what motivates me motivates me the the most and how I can engage in such a way that it is positive engagement and it's full of just ensuring that there's positive energy around that.
So when I think of inclusion I think beyond just the lens of diversity and equity. I think of the broader lens that we often have to bring to bear in conversations in rooms that everyone in those rooms aren't hearing all of the voices. We are the ones that have to bring those voices to the room. And to me, that's really critically important. And you kind of lift that when you're part of all the other things that I've talked about with being a coach of change agency, a chief of change agency, a chief of transformation. It's all of those things that we really have to think about ensuring that we've got every voice being heard and if every voice is not in that room that we are giving lift to that voice that's not there.
So I think my biggest and my most important one and this is the next slide and the most compelling and I can speak to this very succinctly is excelling as a chief player coach. And what do I mean by that? I've always thought of the concept and now mind you, you have to understand I don't have not one lick of athletic ability in my body. I don't I have sons that have that. Um I have two that were baseball players and one that was a track. He ran track. And so to watch and understand the discipline that athletes have to have, the discipline of training, the discipline of doing something and coming back and looking back at it and understanding and making sense of what just happened with what you just may have done.
I think about that now as being a chief player coach for our organization, for our staff, for our leaders. So I always think about it being a leader as a coach. So it's providing a playbook and giving a playbook that provides all of the information for leaders, for staff, for community around what that looks like for what you want for the brand. After you have the playbook, it's making those particular plays, runs, doing tournaments, and reviewing the tapes. When I talk about reviewing the tapes with my team, it's going back and thinking of, okay, we did this again, continuous improvement. What could we have done better? What do we see that we've done really well? And how do we put that in play for the next play time that we have?
That's so important to be able to go back and review those review those tapes so that you can see and understand. And then we as HR leaders are able to provide again the context, the understanding and even give and influence what next play move can be done. And then it goes into looking at that and implementing new playbooks, I mean new plays and just making sure that when you reviewed the tapes that you've been able to put something new in place for that to me actually is the consent of everything that we do every day. So when I talk about new normal and I speak to it and remember like I told you I hate the concept of new normal.
When I think of new normal, I go back and think about all of the things that I just provided to you as kind of my understanding and playbook that I tried to go by every single day. It is making sure that I can show up as a change leader and that I can provide inside guidance perspective as we're moving as we are trying to transform through everything that we're doing that I'm hoping that I am encouraging our ability to do the transformation and and be agile in it. I'll give you an example as all of us have dealt with this interesting construct through this pandemic. One of the things that we really said that we were going to follow and and go by was the CDC.
But the interesting thing about doing that is that the CDC was changing at such a rapid speed between the mask mandate, between vaccination protocols, all of those things that impacted our workforce. That was the exact time with which we needed to be well informed so that we can inform our leaders and our organizations and provide guidance on the best way to move forward. In our situation, we had so many different constituents. It was from fans, it was from community advocates, it was from staff, it was from our game day staff. And so there had to be lots of consideration and thought through that. And I think everything that we do every single day is just that from the change leader to the operational leader to the executive coach doing the scenario planning.
And I swear to you it was almost every single day. I was at the point where I was looking to see what the CDC was saying because I didn't know if my communication needs change quickly. It's the planning. It's the transformation that you're dealing with while you're in the midst of it. I'll speak a little bit to transformation. I think of it specifically as I've talked to people and I have admit admittedly said that I was very woeful as an HR professional. I've been very woeful until 2020 around the understanding of wellness, well-being, and mindfulness. And I think when we began in the pandemic and when we had to start supporting our staff because boundaries were blurred and they had to sit in situations where at home was also at work which was also at school for their kids or also for elderly cla everything happening and converging at the same time.
And I think about the fact that our team specifically specifically my people capital HR team we had to think differently. We had to think about our partners in healthcare and how could we provide more and and more robust offerings for people. We implemented a wellness room which we had not had before. And it wasn't just it was so funny because people say oh it's just for maternity. It wasn't. It was not. It was for everyone that needed an opportunity to have wellness. If someone needed to to do a teleamemed meeting with their doctor, if someone needed to do whatever they whatever you needed to do from a wellness perspective, what if it was meditation, whatever the case may be, we set it up in such a way where people could have an opportunity to go to a space.
I tease and say it's kind of a zen room. You go to the space and you're able to just have a moment. And so it's one of those things where we really had to think about transforming this concept of well-being and mindfulness for our staff and making sure that we were engaging with them in such a way that they wanted to be a part of the organization. Then I think about the fact that when we start talking about inclusion and making sure that everyone feels welcomed and how do we create that type of environment and thinking of leaders as inclusive leaders. I love the book from Jennifer Brown who talks about what that looks like and what that means and how you move that forward and you start with first awareness and then you get to advocacy and making sure that we are doing advocacy for everyone and then as I rounded it out with making sure that we are excelling as chief player coach and how important people need us to be that very thing for them in all situations, in all circumstances.
And so, I'm glad that I had the opportunity to come to you to speak with you. I hope that some of this resonated with most of you. And I hope for some of you, you got something out of it. I am so just encouraged about the fact that we're having the type of conversations in this summit. I love the fact that we've talked about the tools for retention because we all know that we need support on that. the challenges of becoming a firsttime people cap people people officer and then hopefully you were able to see and view the things that you're doing and how you are actually responding as the HR leader in the new normal.
Wow. Thank you so much Stetta for that awesome presentation. I do have a few questions for you. Yes. Okay. So let me let's get into it. The first question, how has your company gone about um ensuring that future leaders come from a diverse population with diverse viewpoints? That's a great point. We have done a lot of different things and a lot of different projects that have been in place. So, I'm so excited to talk about the fact that we did our first which inaugural inaugural Hank Aaron um fellows and so it is an opportunity for us to look at individuals specifically coming from an H.B.CU CU to come and learn about the front office and the whole concept of the Hank Aaron fellows is around learning and embodying the leadership that Hank Aaron had.
And so that's one. We also have our trainee program where we are really looking to bring people into the organization and they get to learn for nine months from January to October and they are in a specific discipline and they get to learn the organization and we look at very specific schools, colleges and universities to recruit from there. When I think about what we also do for our um professional hires, we are looking at recruiting in different places, not just the baseball sports teams, but other sports teams and other disciplines that can come and really give a different perspective and a different view. And I think that that's what's so exciting from my perspective about sports because if you think about bringing a team together, it's bringing a team together and having them play whether it's onfield or offfield.
So we have a lot of focus and initiatives and programs around that very thing. That's a great answer. Wow. And I love I love that analogy that you're bringing in where you know the team is both the the athletes and those who are working in the building and who are who are making sure that this is a place where fans love to come to where they enjoy the experience where the employees enjoy the enjoy the experience. Um, our next question is, and it talks about succession. Um, and I'm losing it. Where did it go? Because we have a few here. How does your leadership training program uh in intersect with your your succession program or your succession plan?
I think that's a great question. So, we actually and I have to give all um kudos to my senior director of talent management. He's done an amazing job by building a curriculum that we actually partner with. What we don't we don't call it succession planning. I'll give you all a funny story. When I started talking to my CEO, and by the way, I I report to two CEOs and one chairman. So, I have three bosses. We'll talk about that. That's a whole other conversation. However, when I was having the conversation around the fact that we really need to be thoughtful around succession planning, one of the things he said to me is like, I don't want to do nine boxes.
I said, okay, not a problem. I'll put it down to four. So, we were able to take I was able to truncate that and then um my my senior director of of um talent management, he took a look at that and we started looking at the areas with which we really needed to focus on. So, one of the things that we did was basically leadership essentials. So we created a whole entire curriculum for leaders around inclusiveness leadership around performance management um providing and giving feedback like we put a whole curriculum together that married with what we were getting feedback on and we don't call them succession planning we call them we call them organizational reviews. So anyway tomato tomato tomato tomato whichever one.
So, it really helped align. Right now, we're doing sessions specifically for leaders on wellness and then different sessions on wellness for staff. We also are doing a stress management session um for both of those because we know it looks different for leaders than it does for staff. And so, we've tried to make sure that we aligned our curriculum against the needs in the organization. Nice. Okay. Okay. So, I see you all have a different name for that, but I I love the I love the strategy that you're taking. And I'm sure that um those who are listening are really just kind of soaking this up, writing it down, and making sure that they're, you know, getting some new tips and tricks for retaining, getting new employees and and helping those who are there, you know, move farther uh I guess up the ladder, so to speak.
My last question from the audience is, and I think this is a great one because of the climate that we're in, how can you teach the soft skills that seem more and more necessary today? Things like empathy, emotional intelligence, and flexibility. That's a that's a great question. I think before you start talking about teaching, I think you have to have awareness. So, we're doing that very thing, too. So, we're doing a emotional intelligence training for individuals. And what we're doing is providing the book, letting them know exactly what their int score is because I think you need to know that first. And then once you know that, we begin to do the session around what exactly is EQ, what does it get you, how does it serve you, and what are the things that you need to think of as a leader or even as a staff member around how you how you work with one another.
I think it's so important not only just for leaders but for staff so that they understand that sometimes and I call this the pinch theory. Sometimes they don't know that they're saying things and they're pinching someone and someone may not feel comfortable to come and say anything about being pinched. But we really have to be much more aware of how we engage. And the best way for us to know how we engage is to have an assessment that tells us what we do. And then after that it gives you a roadmap of how you move forward with that and what you do next. And so we talk a lot about that for our leaders and for our staff because we have a lot of cross functional teams and we all have to work together and we have to figure out in working together how do we provide that comm that compassion and that empathy and quite frankly that grace with one another.
That's so good. That's so good. Well, Detta, I want to just end off with um if folks can follow you somewhere. If they have any more questions, where can they follow you? Absolutely. If they look me up on LinkedIn, please, please, please um follow me there. I'd love to talk with you on LinkedIn and um and let's have a conversation. And I will tell you, I try to be very good in responding to all of my LinkedIn LinkedIn responses. And I look forward to speaking and hearing from anyone that reaches out to me. And if you do reach out to me from LinkedIn from this, remind me that it was it was when we were at the Atlanta HR Summit together.
Perfect. Thank you so much for being here today. What an insightful, fun, and and just compassionate and real practical um presentation. And so I just want to remind everybody as we reach the end of this keynote session, if you have any questions, uh, Dire told you where you could reach out to her, but even going forward for our final keynote, uh, make sure that you go to our website, atlantrleers.org, and click that gold questions, uh, bubble and on that's going to be on the bottom right, and you can submit your question there. Detta, thank you so much for your wisdom today. I'm gonna bring you down from Spotlight, but it was a pleasure having you. Thank you.
Daer completed her TED talk with uh TED and UG in 2018. She's also been recognized as 2018 women of excellence 100 women of influence for the last two years by Atlanta Business Chronicle on icon award top 100 human resources professionals in 2021. And last but definitely not least sports inclusion conference top 100 women in sports this year. She's currently the board member of the human resources leadership forum, the board member and compensation chair of goodwill of North Georgia, board member and chair of board effectiveness of 21st century leaders, trustee member, governing governing board member and compensation HR chair for the Woodruff Art Center, strategic advisor of the Goodwin Group, board member of the American Heart Association, diversity, equity, and inclusion advisor, member of HR.com, mom and board member of University of Georgia alumni board and it's so much more you guys.
Dr. Rhodess lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband Leon and three sons Cole, Austin, and Jordan. Dr. Rhodess, thank you so much for being with us today. I am so excited to be here and I have to tell you, it's so funny. So, when we were talking about this, that was my role. It has expanded a little bit after we became world champions. I now am responsible as well for corporate communications, community affairs, and the Atlanta Braves Foundation. And what I have found is that in all of those, it kind of gives you a really good understanding across culture. So my new title is chief culture officer. So I am so glad to be here with you all and have the conversation.
And I'm I'm hoping, as I always say, first of all, you can just call me Detta. The second thing I'll say is that I want this to be more of a conversation and you all kind of listening to me as if I was talking to you as it were friends on a call. And it really is about some of the interesting situations that we have going on as HR leaders. And so I really wanted to bring to bear what our new normal begins to look like. And so I have a presentation that kind of walks us through that and gives us some really interesting perspectives around what that is. So what I want to do and what I want to talk about is kind of what I'm going to what I'm going to speak to in the time that I have with you.
And it really is kind of identifying those areas that all of us end up being the chief of everything, right? It comes down to those conversations that we end up having that we are either the consiliary, we are either the coach, we are either the SME or we are the ones that are providing influential perspective that's needed. So if we go to the next slide, my agenda is really going to be around on CHRO as a change leader. So what it is that we do as a change leader, operational leader and executive coach, we also end up being the chief of scenario planning and transformation. I'm going to talk a little bit about disruption and how we reset that chief of inclusion.
I'll talk about that and then I'll end it up with excelling as a chief player coach. So I want to go into this whole concept of new normal. I'm going to tell you all I've always hated that concept. Like I've always hated people saying, 'Well, you know, that's the new normal.' But if we look at the definition, and I will tell you, I got this definition off of um off of the internet because you can find everything on the internet, right? Um and so I found this and I thought it was really it was really actually apppropo giving everything that we've been dealing with. So it is a state to which an economy a society settles following a crisis when then this differs from the situation that prevailed prior to the crisis.
And when I think about that I feel like we have been in crisis mode for the last three years. I can actually speak to you personally around what it looked like for working for a major league baseball team. what we dealt with at the Atlanta Braves. If some of you all know kind of our story that we have to tell from the last two years and the fact that we had the All Stars, we lost the All Stars and then we became world champions following that and what that looked like for us in terms of being in the midst of a crisis and how we were able to reshift and really become leaders in a crisis.
So, it's interesting. It talks about the fact the term has been employed in relation to all of these things that some of us have lived through. September 11, the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008, the aftermath of 2008 through 2012, global recession, and then us still in what I would say, and I don't know, I don't even know if we can say that it's recovery at this point, but COVID, and then now us dealing with the things that are happening in Europe. So, we really are sitting in a place where we're constantly dealing with the new normal. So I want to start and talk about we as change leaders, operational leaders and executive coaches. When I think about that from a concept perspective and I appreciate my bio that's read that was that was stated about me.
It's so funny. I listen to that and I don't think of any of that. What I think about is the fact that everything that I have thought about and everything that I've wanted to do is has been around learning. And so I have always said that I am a lifelong learner. And if we are HR leaders in what we do every day, that is what we are. We have to be the lifelong learners because we're the ones that are providing data points, perspective, influencing conversations when it comes down to, and some of you all may still be living this deciding on how we're doing workforce and are we hybrid? Are we work from home? how you deal with mask mandates, how you're dealing with vaccinations and things of that nature.
So I would say that we are always the leader of change for organizations and as a result of that we always have to be on the forefront of what the learning is around that. That's why I love research. I love data and I love research because it informs the way in which we can speak to and work with our partners. Which leads me to to the next thing that we constantly have to cultivate. Oh no, we're still on the same one. We have to cultivate the relationships with um our peers. So our co our COOs, our CFOs, our CMOs, our CIOS, all of those individuals, all of the senior leaders in the organizations that we have to really come together and bring those things together and bring it to bear.
And so that lifelong learning helps us have those very very important relationships. and then always staying in a continuous loop of learning and giving that back to to everyone that we have the opportunity to give it to. So that's my whole concept around the executive coaching. We probably sit in conversations all the time when people come to us and they're looking at us to be the subject matter experts or to provide them perspectives because we have a very different view and a different lens. Then it's the next that we have to do which is the next um slide. Chief of scenario planning and transformation. So we have to be the ones that can speak to disruption and talk with how it needs to be reset.
And I will say to you I feel like I have sat in disruption from 2020 to even now today sitting in the midst of a baseball lockout that has not happened in many many years. And so when you think about that and when we talk about the concept of scenario planning and transformation, we really have to embrace and appreciate disruption because it drives or it informs our workforce strategy. We're the ones that are helping and informing the workplace scen the scenario planning. So it's our expect well the expectation for us is that we are anticipating risk and we're also taking action against those risk and so it comes back to what I said before about we always have to make sure that we are continuously learning learning about our industry about our profession about everything that touches our people because they're looking to us to be able to provide clarity around things that aren't clear.
The thing around that is that we have an opportunity and I and I think about this all the time. We may not get we may not be the ones that are recognized immediately or even told thank you for doing that, but we know that we are influencing the organization in such a way and we are watching and helping to support oftentimes leading and guiding what that transformation looks like. We're the ones that we're coming forward and we're overcoming the powerful force of the status quo. It's so funny. Every organization that I started with and if you have individuals that have been there, you always will hear, 'Well, that's not how we do it. We've always done it like this.' And if we're the ones that are always at least challenging the status quo, what we're providing is an opportunity for transformation to occur.
I always think about the concept of transformer or else. So it's the question if we don't do something today, what's the worst that could happen? And a lot of times the worst that could happen is the very worst because we did no action. We're the ones that have to be the ones in the we're the ones in the room that have to continually ask the question why, why not? And what do we need to do to get to the next place? I will say oftentimes and I talk about this specifically as leaders of people and as us being the one guiding decisions that are being made in the workforce. The heaviest part of that is that we're the ones that do carry that.
So we always need to make sure in all of that that we are checking ourselves around ensuring that we are taking care of ourselves and being able to provide what is often needed in the organization. I oftentimes call that the chief of the unknown. So if we're able to actually think about disruption, put it in such a way that people can actually have it as a consumable understanding, then what we've done is that we've helped with the new normal moving forward. So then that's the other thing that we always are constantly dealing with being the chief of inclusion. So what do I mean by that on on the next slide? What do I mean by that?
It's really thinking through all of the things that I just talked about and that I just mentioned, right? It is the whole concept of not only diversity but inclusion and making people and making insure and ensuring that people feel welcome, ensuring that we are creating an environment in such a way that people can bring their best self to work. I know there's always been this concept the whole self my perspective is the best self. If I am in my best self that means that I am operating in what motivates me motivates me the the most and how I can engage in such a way that it is positive engagement and it's full of just ensuring that there's positive energy around that.
So when I think of inclusion I think beyond just the lens of diversity and equity. I think of the broader lens that we often have to bring to bear in conversations in rooms that everyone in those rooms aren't hearing all of the voices. We are the ones that have to bring those voices to the room. And to me, that's really critically important. And you kind of lift that when you're part of all the other things that I've talked about with being a coach of change agency, a chief of change agency, a chief of transformation. It's all of those things that we really have to think about ensuring that we've got every voice being heard and if every voice is not in that room that we are giving lift to that voice that's not there.
So I think my biggest and my most important one and this is the next slide and the most compelling and I can speak to this very succinctly is excelling as a chief player coach. And what do I mean by that? I've always thought of the concept and now mind you, you have to understand I don't have not one lick of athletic ability in my body. I don't I have sons that have that. Um I have two that were baseball players and one that was a track. He ran track. And so to watch and understand the discipline that athletes have to have, the discipline of training, the discipline of doing something and coming back and looking back at it and understanding and making sense of what just happened with what you just may have done.
I think about that now as being a chief player coach for our organization, for our staff, for our leaders. So I always think about it being a leader as a coach. So it's providing a playbook and giving a playbook that provides all of the information for leaders, for staff, for community around what that looks like for what you want for the brand. After you have the playbook, it's making those particular plays, runs, doing tournaments, and reviewing the tapes. When I talk about reviewing the tapes with my team, it's going back and thinking of, okay, we did this again, continuous improvement. What could we have done better? What do we see that we've done really well? And how do we put that in play for the next play time that we have?
That's so important to be able to go back and review those review those tapes so that you can see and understand. And then we as HR leaders are able to provide again the context, the understanding and even give and influence what next play move can be done. And then it goes into looking at that and implementing new playbooks, I mean new plays and just making sure that when you reviewed the tapes that you've been able to put something new in place for that to me actually is the consent of everything that we do every day. So when I talk about new normal and I speak to it and remember like I told you I hate the concept of new normal.
When I think of new normal, I go back and think about all of the things that I just provided to you as kind of my understanding and playbook that I tried to go by every single day. It is making sure that I can show up as a change leader and that I can provide inside guidance perspective as we're moving as we are trying to transform through everything that we're doing that I'm hoping that I am encouraging our ability to do the transformation and and be agile in it. I'll give you an example as all of us have dealt with this interesting construct through this pandemic. One of the things that we really said that we were going to follow and and go by was the CDC.
But the interesting thing about doing that is that the CDC was changing at such a rapid speed between the mask mandate, between vaccination protocols, all of those things that impacted our workforce. That was the exact time with which we needed to be well informed so that we can inform our leaders and our organizations and provide guidance on the best way to move forward. In our situation, we had so many different constituents. It was from fans, it was from community advocates, it was from staff, it was from our game day staff. And so there had to be lots of consideration and thought through that. And I think everything that we do every single day is just that from the change leader to the operational leader to the executive coach doing the scenario planning.
And I swear to you it was almost every single day. I was at the point where I was looking to see what the CDC was saying because I didn't know if my communication needs change quickly. It's the planning. It's the transformation that you're dealing with while you're in the midst of it. I'll speak a little bit to transformation. I think of it specifically as I've talked to people and I have admit admittedly said that I was very woeful as an HR professional. I've been very woeful until 2020 around the understanding of wellness, well-being, and mindfulness. And I think when we began in the pandemic and when we had to start supporting our staff because boundaries were blurred and they had to sit in situations where at home was also at work which was also at school for their kids or also for elderly cla everything happening and converging at the same time.
And I think about the fact that our team specifically specifically my people capital HR team we had to think differently. We had to think about our partners in healthcare and how could we provide more and and more robust offerings for people. We implemented a wellness room which we had not had before. And it wasn't just it was so funny because people say oh it's just for maternity. It wasn't. It was not. It was for everyone that needed an opportunity to have wellness. If someone needed to to do a teleamemed meeting with their doctor, if someone needed to do whatever they whatever you needed to do from a wellness perspective, what if it was meditation, whatever the case may be, we set it up in such a way where people could have an opportunity to go to a space.
I tease and say it's kind of a zen room. You go to the space and you're able to just have a moment. And so it's one of those things where we really had to think about transforming this concept of well-being and mindfulness for our staff and making sure that we were engaging with them in such a way that they wanted to be a part of the organization. Then I think about the fact that when we start talking about inclusion and making sure that everyone feels welcomed and how do we create that type of environment and thinking of leaders as inclusive leaders. I love the book from Jennifer Brown who talks about what that looks like and what that means and how you move that forward and you start with first awareness and then you get to advocacy and making sure that we are doing advocacy for everyone and then as I rounded it out with making sure that we are excelling as chief player coach and how important people need us to be that very thing for them in all situations, in all circumstances.
And so, I'm glad that I had the opportunity to come to you to speak with you. I hope that some of this resonated with most of you. And I hope for some of you, you got something out of it. I am so just encouraged about the fact that we're having the type of conversations in this summit. I love the fact that we've talked about the tools for retention because we all know that we need support on that. the challenges of becoming a firsttime people cap people people officer and then hopefully you were able to see and view the things that you're doing and how you are actually responding as the HR leader in the new normal.
Wow. Thank you so much Stetta for that awesome presentation. I do have a few questions for you. Yes. Okay. So let me let's get into it. The first question, how has your company gone about um ensuring that future leaders come from a diverse population with diverse viewpoints? That's a great point. We have done a lot of different things and a lot of different projects that have been in place. So, I'm so excited to talk about the fact that we did our first which inaugural inaugural Hank Aaron um fellows and so it is an opportunity for us to look at individuals specifically coming from an H.B.CU CU to come and learn about the front office and the whole concept of the Hank Aaron fellows is around learning and embodying the leadership that Hank Aaron had.
And so that's one. We also have our trainee program where we are really looking to bring people into the organization and they get to learn for nine months from January to October and they are in a specific discipline and they get to learn the organization and we look at very specific schools, colleges and universities to recruit from there. When I think about what we also do for our um professional hires, we are looking at recruiting in different places, not just the baseball sports teams, but other sports teams and other disciplines that can come and really give a different perspective and a different view. And I think that that's what's so exciting from my perspective about sports because if you think about bringing a team together, it's bringing a team together and having them play whether it's onfield or offfield.
So we have a lot of focus and initiatives and programs around that very thing. That's a great answer. Wow. And I love I love that analogy that you're bringing in where you know the team is both the the athletes and those who are working in the building and who are who are making sure that this is a place where fans love to come to where they enjoy the experience where the employees enjoy the enjoy the experience. Um, our next question is, and it talks about succession. Um, and I'm losing it. Where did it go? Because we have a few here. How does your leadership training program uh in intersect with your your succession program or your succession plan?
I think that's a great question. So, we actually and I have to give all um kudos to my senior director of talent management. He's done an amazing job by building a curriculum that we actually partner with. What we don't we don't call it succession planning. I'll give you all a funny story. When I started talking to my CEO, and by the way, I I report to two CEOs and one chairman. So, I have three bosses. We'll talk about that. That's a whole other conversation. However, when I was having the conversation around the fact that we really need to be thoughtful around succession planning, one of the things he said to me is like, I don't want to do nine boxes.
I said, okay, not a problem. I'll put it down to four. So, we were able to take I was able to truncate that and then um my my senior director of of um talent management, he took a look at that and we started looking at the areas with which we really needed to focus on. So, one of the things that we did was basically leadership essentials. So we created a whole entire curriculum for leaders around inclusiveness leadership around performance management um providing and giving feedback like we put a whole curriculum together that married with what we were getting feedback on and we don't call them succession planning we call them we call them organizational reviews. So anyway tomato tomato tomato tomato whichever one.
So, it really helped align. Right now, we're doing sessions specifically for leaders on wellness and then different sessions on wellness for staff. We also are doing a stress management session um for both of those because we know it looks different for leaders than it does for staff. And so, we've tried to make sure that we aligned our curriculum against the needs in the organization. Nice. Okay. Okay. So, I see you all have a different name for that, but I I love the I love the strategy that you're taking. And I'm sure that um those who are listening are really just kind of soaking this up, writing it down, and making sure that they're, you know, getting some new tips and tricks for retaining, getting new employees and and helping those who are there, you know, move farther uh I guess up the ladder, so to speak.
My last question from the audience is, and I think this is a great one because of the climate that we're in, how can you teach the soft skills that seem more and more necessary today? Things like empathy, emotional intelligence, and flexibility. That's a that's a great question. I think before you start talking about teaching, I think you have to have awareness. So, we're doing that very thing, too. So, we're doing a emotional intelligence training for individuals. And what we're doing is providing the book, letting them know exactly what their int score is because I think you need to know that first. And then once you know that, we begin to do the session around what exactly is EQ, what does it get you, how does it serve you, and what are the things that you need to think of as a leader or even as a staff member around how you how you work with one another.
I think it's so important not only just for leaders but for staff so that they understand that sometimes and I call this the pinch theory. Sometimes they don't know that they're saying things and they're pinching someone and someone may not feel comfortable to come and say anything about being pinched. But we really have to be much more aware of how we engage. And the best way for us to know how we engage is to have an assessment that tells us what we do. And then after that it gives you a roadmap of how you move forward with that and what you do next. And so we talk a lot about that for our leaders and for our staff because we have a lot of cross functional teams and we all have to work together and we have to figure out in working together how do we provide that comm that compassion and that empathy and quite frankly that grace with one another.
That's so good. That's so good. Well, Detta, I want to just end off with um if folks can follow you somewhere. If they have any more questions, where can they follow you? Absolutely. If they look me up on LinkedIn, please, please, please um follow me there. I'd love to talk with you on LinkedIn and um and let's have a conversation. And I will tell you, I try to be very good in responding to all of my LinkedIn LinkedIn responses. And I look forward to speaking and hearing from anyone that reaches out to me. And if you do reach out to me from LinkedIn from this, remind me that it was it was when we were at the Atlanta HR Summit together.
Perfect. Thank you so much for being here today. What an insightful, fun, and and just compassionate and real practical um presentation. And so I just want to remind everybody as we reach the end of this keynote session, if you have any questions, uh, Dire told you where you could reach out to her, but even going forward for our final keynote, uh, make sure that you go to our website, atlantrleers.org, and click that gold questions, uh, bubble and on that's going to be on the bottom right, and you can submit your question there. Detta, thank you so much for your wisdom today. I'm gonna bring you down from Spotlight, but it was a pleasure having you. Thank you.