Talking to Eric was so fun last week: he’s always a pleasure to chat with and I inevitably come away from any conversation mulling over some thoughtful ideas, and this was no exception. You can catch the replay here or on my LinkedIn page—embedded below or as an audio version on my podcast! Like all great conversations, this one has stuck with me since we spoke, and I wanted to share a few things I’ve been thinking about since we spoke.

The utility player mindset. As the leader of a small, growing network, everybody on our team had to be a generalist in some way. We all wore many hats. When we were looking to hire Eric, Shannon described him to me as a “true utility player”. It was music to my CEO ears: we needed someone who could do a little bit of everything, to a high level of excellence. In our Live, we talked about the idea of a utility player mindset: part of what makes a utility player strong is their belief that they can help with anything, and rolling up their sleeves to tackle the challenge is part of what makes them a utility player. Diving into this with Eric was thought-provoking, and underlined the ever-important nature of mindset in any role.

“Nothing was unclear to me.” As Eric talked about some of his early leadership experiences and shared this thought, which really landed for me. These five words are such an indicator of a strong manager and leader: clarity of expectations is so essential, and so elusive sometimes. No matter how many times we think we’re being clear—is it clear for all learning styles? For folks of all different backgrounds and experience levels? For people new to our organization? Think about what you want or need people to do, take your best shot at explaining it clearly then go through it again. I say that it’s like cleaning glass: no matter how clean the glass, a little Windex never hurts. No matter how clear your expectations are, clarifying a bit more never hurts.

DEI shows up everywhere. I wouldn’t be surprised if you read the previous line and thought “duh”. Yet as Eric talked about his board experience for Lakeside Pride (“Chicago’s premier music group for the LGBTQ+ community and friends”) and his experiences as a part of that thinking about inclusivity, equity and access, it got me thinking. My experience with music, other than appreciator, is minimal: I had a short stint on the clarinet for maybe 9 months in middle school. But as Eric talked about school funding, access to music, making it a place where musicians of all levels are welcome, it struck a chord as I realized, yet again, that there is no place in our world untouched by the historical systems that perpetuate white supremacy and oppression.

Hiring is almost the entire ballgame. Years ago as a CEO, there were some pretty important changes, both cultural and performance-related, we wanted to see at our organization. I tried all kinds of things to implement them, and many of them worked well but I knew in my heart of hearts that a huge lever for this work was in our hiring process. It would be necessary to give it a revamp—and even more crucially, invest and train all hiring managers in that work so that any new folks we brought on would embody the values and beliefs we needed to see to make this change happen. Finding time for a few days of hiring manager training was not easy, and I made the call to have it during Spring Break. Not only did it make a huge impact, but Eric talks frequently about the impact this has had on him in all the years to come—so I always enjoy talking hiring and the lessons with Eric.

What are you taking away from my conversation with Eric? Leave a comment below-would love to hear your thoughts!

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If you are eager to revamp hiring at your organization, be a leader who everyone says “Nothing is unclear to me” about, or dig into any issues raised in this intro, book a call with me to see how I can help!