Welcome to the Bringing the Human Back to Human Resources
podcast. I'm Tracy Chernoff, and I've
spent my entire professional career in HR.
Each week, we'll explore the delicate balance between people
and business with the aim to reconnect the two and create
meaningful outcomes. Listen in as I share my own
experiences, challenge the status quo, and chat with guests
from various industries about our mission to bring the human
back to human resources. Hi everyone, welcome back to the
bringing the human back to human resources podcast.
Thank you so much for being here for another week.
Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe wherever you're
catching this episode, whether you're watching or listening.
And with me today I have Kristen Brun Sharkey and I'm going to
tell you all about her and what we are going to talk about.
But just so you know, this is probably probably one of the
first episodes in 2025 and we have a ton of amazing guests
coming out this year. So depending on when this
episode airs, which I think it is 2025, just know that there is
so much in store for you and so much to look forward to.
So without further ado, let me introduce Kristen to all of you.
So again, Kristen Brunscharkey is an executive coach,
facilitator, and speaker who previously spent 15 years
leading teams in advertising, tech, and marketing at companies
ranging from early stage startups to one hundreds.
Today, she helps leaders advance their careers, make better
decisions, execute change effectively, develop innovative
solutions, and successfully engage their teams.
Her unique approach combines evidence based business and
leadership frameworks with principles and skills from
improv theater in order to help her clients and audiences
accelerate their impact. She has a Master's degree in
Management Strategy and Leadership from Michigan State
University and has spoken at notable conferences such as the
California Conference for Women and the Chief in Tech Summit.
She also Co hosts the leadership podcast Love and Leadership,
which can be found on all major podcast platforms and of course
in the show notes where we link everything and anything.
Kristen, welcome to to the podcast.
Thank you so much for being here with us.
Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here.
Amazing, of course, and I have to say I really envy your
background. For those watching on YouTube or
Spotify, Kristen has a really nice background which is perfect
for a podcast set up, compared to mine, which is basically just
all doors. I have 1,000,000 doors behind
me. I'm in a room of doors.
I love it. I had fun designing it.
Oh my gosh, I love it. I'll have to talk to you when I
when we finally are in a home and not our rental apartment.
And then, you know, we can design anything we want.
And nevertheless, this week we're going to talk a lot about
innovation and innovation in business.
And I'm excited because this is a topic that I've probably
broached on the podcast in a few different ways, but not
necessarily in an episode on its own.
So why don't we first talk about what innovation is and what it
means and why maybe it's so important in business?
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
And I actually have a, a model I like to use for this for, for
talking about particularly like how do you build a culture of
innovation? Because that's, that's such a
huge part of it, right. Like innovation isn't just one
thing that come up like 1 spark of creativity or one thing like
really, for companies to truly be innovative, it needs to be
embedded into their culture. So I like to think of it as two
different dimensions, right. So the first one being the level
of the commit, level of commitment in the organization
and among the employees. So how, how committed are people
to having a, a culture of innovation?
How committed are people to their ideas to execution?
How engaged are they? And then the other one being
openness to new ideas. And I find that those two
dimensions are, are really essential for building that
because if you have high commitment but low openness to
ideas, you tend to end up with this more like culture of
rigidity, like a lot of the language like, well, that's just
how we do things around here. And if you have a lot of
openness to, to do ideas, but not really the level of
commitment and engagement and execution in there, you tend to
just kind of get more of the chaos where there's a lot of a
lot of ideas and creativity happening, but it's not actually
being carried out. So the combination of those two
I like to talk about when thinking about like what it what
actually leads to innovation in an ongoing culture of
innovation. I love that.
And actually this conversation is really timely because at the
time that we're recording this, which is in the end of November,
I'm doing a talk for a women's networking group for a number of
women that are part of, you know, portfolio companies for
this private equity firm. And a friend of mine is an HR
leader at one of those companies and she invited me to talk at
the women's networking group. And the topic is actually
building a culture of innovation.
So this is a very, very a timely discussion and one of the things
that I plan to touch on too is that something very similar to
what you've just shared, that being open to new ideas, as
you've said, and being open to making mistakes and feeling safe
and making those mistakes is a huge factor in this.
So maybe we dive a little bit deeper, especially going
following, I should say, following your rubric for
building an innovative culture. When you think about those two
parameters, again, looking at your rubric, how does someone
listening to this podcast episode walk away with a better
understanding of how to actually implement those things where
they're building ownership, creating ownership, and then
also allowing for those ideas to take place and feeling like they
are safe in a safe place to be able to share ideas?
Yes, yeah, absolutely. And This is why I love
integrating principles from improv theater into many topics.
But this is one of my absolute favorites because it applies so
well. And yeah, as you said, having an
environment where failure is safe is absolutely critical
because if people do not feel safe to make mistakes, then
they're not going to raise ideas.
They're not going to be in a optimal environment for coming
up with new ideas, and they're definitely not going to be in an
optimal environment for raising those ideas and bringing them
forward. So having that that culture
where failure is destigmatized is so essential.
Like I always love to quote Brené Brown with like there is
no innovation and creativity without failure, period.
It's true because everything's better when Brené Brown has said
it right? So.
Totally, totally. I know she's a great mind of our
present day. Yeah.
That's such a great way of putting it to and, and to your
point, like whenever she says something, it's really said in
such a way that's so clear and direct and kind.
And, you know, I think about failure often because sometimes
I'm like, oh, you know, if someone ever asked me, you know,
an example of when I failed, it's like, you know, they're of
course they're examples that I think of.
But the ones that come to mind are when I was innovating or
trying something or building something new.
I mean, you have your own business.
I have my own business. And inevitably that is built on
the backs of innovation because you're building something
primarily from scratch. And you're seeing, you know,
you're throwing spaghettis, as, you know, spaghetti noodles at
the wall and you're seeing what sticks.
And that's kind of like a visual for innovation.
You know, when you to your point and to Brene Brown's point too,
when you are innovating, you have to, you know, you
inevitably are going to fail. And I think people see this term
failure as like this big bad wolf and something that they
constantly try to avoid. But it's actually failure that
teaches us what success is. And it's failure that teaches us
how we need to pivot or ways in which we pivot in order to find
that success. And all of this to say, and I
certainly don't want to ramble on and on and on and on because
I want to hear from you. But all of this to say is that
when we do make mistakes and we are innovating, we're, you know,
the, IT, it's something that you can feel like you can feel when
you have the opportunity and the place and the space to innovate,
to make mistakes, to fail without that fear of reprisal or
the fear that I don't know in very realistic terms that
someone's going to get fired or reprimanded for the mistake they
make. So I guess you know, on that
note, with the companies that you've worked with and
especially with your love for improv theater, have you seen
cultures where mistakes are not OK?
And have you had to or have you leveraged some of the the tools
in your tool belt to try and initiate change amongst that
culture or within that culture? Yeah, absolutely.
Well, and it's funny too, because there's always what a
company says and then there's what is the reality of it,
right. Like what is actually enforced
via like what's recognized, what's what is promoted, what's
tolerated, right? Like that, that sends different
messages. So a lot of times companies are
like, we want this is innovative and safe.
But then if you're reprimanding people for taking risks and if
you're promoting people who are just playing by the roll book
and not going above and beyond and really stepping outside,
then that's the message you're sending, right?
It's not what you're saying ultimately, but yeah, I really,
I, they think there's a lot of things that help with this.
One of the, the first things I usually work with companies to
understand is the importance of separating the process of idea
generation versus the evaluative part of it.
So there's two different types of thinking.
There's divergent thinking and convergent thinking.
And divergent thinking is the generative part.
That's when you're actually coming up with new ideas and
generating like different options and possibilities and
solutions. And the convergent thinking is
when you're actually narrowing down those ideas.
You're analyzing them, evaluating them, figuring out
like what is the best solution. And what too often happens in
companies is they try to do these both at the same time or
they just skip over the generative part entirely, right?
Just go straight to evaluative. And you miss that critical part
of actually coming up with the creative solutions in the 1st
place, but you also miss the opportunity to create this
really like safe space for idea generation where people feel
like they can speak up. And with, with improv, this is
where bringing in the concept of yes and which if people have
heard of improv, they've very, it's very likely they've heard
of yes. And, but if you're not familiar,
it is basically the core of improv.
So there's 2 words. There's the yes, which is
agreement and validation. So you're taking the idea that
the person has put forth and you're validating it, you're
agreeing with it. And then there's the and which
is you're adding your own contribution to it.
And this combination like really works so well when it comes to
coming up with the ideas when you're in that generative space
and separating that from the. OK, now let's actually evaluate
and analyze and figure out like what is the best solution here
Is so powerful. It's so true this, it's really
funny. This is also part of this
presentation that I'm doing at this networking group.
And it just goes to show you how there are very applicable real
solutions for people to leverage in order to drive more cohesion
and innovation and collaboration.
So I love that you brought up yes and I should say yes and by
the way, but it's, it's something like that I have found
has come up recently even in my like day job, let's say, quote
UN quote, where I work for a tech company.
And you know, we, we talk about yes and a lot because there is,
while it supports innovation and being in a tech company, as you
know, innovation is kind of like the ethos of everything that
happens in order to drive progress.
However, you know, when, when we think of yes and as an approach
to communication and all of this, it really does help to
foster more innovation. It helps to foster more
collaboration and a moving away from what you called a more
rigid approach really to, to I guess it's kind of like
interaction with one another and the culture of a business.
And there is actually a Ted talk.
I should probably link it. There's a Ted talk that I
recently found in doing some research for this networking
group that I'm speaking at where this person who's not in HR, not
in, you know, not in a, a position where she's like
coaching teams from, at least from what I saw at that time.
And she was talking about how the yes and approach, which I
learned from that Ted talk came from improv.
I did not know that before. And I obviously have now
reiterated this in my mind from what you've shared, she talked
about how it completely transformed the way that she LED
her team. And so when I think about like
non HR people or those who are not in your profession or in
your industry, how they can benefit from taking an approach
like using yes and to foster more ideas or the sharing of new
ideas, creating psychological safety amongst their team.
All of that really goes so far. And all it requires are two
words. I mean, I think it's, it's so
fundamental when we think about how some of these solutions are
some of the simplest. It's like the way that you
interact with people, the way that you, you know, prevent
yourself from chopping down the tree.
Because I'm sure you've also don't let me, don't let me
presume here, but I'm sure you've worked with leaders who
would rather just say, no, we're doing it this way or no, we're
doing it that way because that's their idea and that's what they
want to do instead of taking an approach like yes.
And, and my, as you were sharing the, the beauty of improv
theater and how we can leverage some of these tools and tactics,
I was thinking about blockbuster actually.
And it's it it I think also I was thinking about this because
I'm re watching Schitt's Creek for like the fourth time.
And of course with like Rose video, you know, it's like top
of mind because. It's Oh yeah, you.
Know, and so I was thinking about how innovation was
probably not part of Blockbuster's culture because
had it been maybe Blockbuster would still be around and maybe
in a different capacity, but maybe they would still be
around, right. So a very another, you know,
very real example of the difference between an innovative
culture and one that is not. Yeah, absolutely.
Because it, there's a certain degree of humility that is
required to truly have innovation built into your
culture. And I think so many leaders and
there's so many things that relate to this, right?
Like a lot of this comes to even down to your childhood
insecurities or just how our brains are, are wired, right?
But like so many leaders have a hard time letting go and not
being the smartest person in the room or not having the best idea
in the room. And it can be really difficult
because when they're not open to new ideas and especially things
like, Oh yeah, there is this massive change happening in your
industry that is going to take out your entire company if you
don't do something about it. Like in case the classic cases
of Blockbuster like Kodak, it's like another one, right?
If if you don't have that openness and willingness to see
and do things differently, and also the willingness to accept
that like what's worked for you in the past and what has come
from you as a leader is not going to necessarily work in the
future. You're going to be vulnerable to
these kind of situations. And it does.
I think that like, As for leaders, it takes a lot of self
work to be able to do that successfully.
But if you go back to the I, I love saying this and I, my
husband and I have our, who have our podcast love and leadership.
We, we reference this all the time.
Is kind of like, sort of like the raison d'etre for a podcast,
is like great leaders create more leaders.
And if you think about it in that way, like how can you
elevate the ideas and solutions of other people, then that's
when it's gonna really help with creating this more innovative
culture altogether. Yeah.
I love that great leaders create more leaders.
And isn't it so true when we think about even our own
experiences with leaders who are amazing or great in this case,
maybe they're not even amazing. Maybe they're great and great
plus, but those are those are the people that we really
emulate. Those are the people we want to
work for and that we want to. I guess emulate is really the
right word. But take borrow from, you know,
it's like you finally become a leader or I am a firm believer
that even people who are individual contributors are
leaders too. But still, if we really think
about someone managing a team, when you have a great leader,
you have something as serving as an example for you.
Even even if someone's like an athlete in high school.
I mean, there actually is a pretty sizable population of my
listeners who are not in college yet.
And so I think about, well, if they're in high school or
they're younger and they're on a sports team or they're part of a
club at school and they have a, a coach or a mentor or someone
who's guiding them through an experience and they're really
amazing at what they do that helps set people up for success
later on in life. And the the inverse to that is
if they have someone who is not such a great example of
leadership, it might deter them from, you know, reaching that
potential for themselves. There's so much responsibility
when it comes to being a leader in title, so to speak, because
again, you can be a leader without it.
But I really, I really love that you and your husband said.
I also, I know I said this when we spoke the last time, but I
really love that you and your husband do your podcast together
because that in and of itself means that you were extremely
open. And you?
You know, you are willing to to hear it all.
I don't know if I could do that with my husband because I I kind
of like having my own thing, but I think that's awesome.
It's so awesome. It's a lot of fun, It really is.
That's. Awesome.
No, I think it's great. And then it's like you can
really hold one another accountable to your various
parts of the podcast business because it certainly requires a
lot. It's it's that's nice.
I think it's really nice, very heart warming.
All of that to say, you know, when I, when I do think about
what we've reflected on here and seeing, and I think you said it
perfectly, bringing humility into this that it requires.
A great deal of humility in order to be innovative or foster
an innovative environment. It's really perfectly said in
that way because it's not easy to realize that you are not the
one with the best ideas or that there might be a better idea
amongst the group of people that you're interacting with.
And that's where great leaders are made.
Like when we think about the the quote that you and your husband
hold onto and and feel really strongly about.
Great leaders are also made when they realize that people around
them might contribute better or more when they sit back and
don't share their own ideas, let alone have the idea that sticks.
And I, yeah, I don't know. I'm finding myself reflecting on
leaders that I've had who have done a really good job of just
trusting in and and amplifying the voices of the people around
them, whether they're on their teams or not.
Yeah, I'm reflecting. I'm reflecting, Yeah, I I have
some great examples. And don't get me wrong, you can
also learn a lot from the not great leaders in your career.
It's also valuable to know what you don't want to do right.
But but yeah, when I really think about, there's a certain
degree, there's almost a leap of faith and you have to be kind of
let go of your ego and just really focus on the success of
the team and organization and elevating the contributions of
others. Like that is how the best
leaders are successful is by by doing that, and that is how you
get a culture that really values innovation is by creating that
kind of environment. Yeah, IA 100% agree.
I, I love that when you work with people who are maybe not so
keen on swallowing their pride and, you know, relieving
themselves of their ego and their, their, you know, tight
grip on their ego and maybe they lack a little bit of humility.
How do you approach influencing them to take a different
approach, let's say? Because certainly you can, you
can influence, but you can't necessarily control the ways in
which they interact either in that present moment or in the
future. And I ask this because, of
course, with the listeners on the majority being in an HR role
or some sort of, you know, leadership role, there's always
value in the tactical and how they can approach these things.
Because inevitably we know there's a strong likelihood that
more than one person listening to this episode is thinking of
that one person in their business who is very difficult
with this. Yeah.
And that's reality, right? Like you have some people, you
know, even as an executive coach working with an organization,
you're going to have some people who come in and they're like,
I'm going to take advantage of this.
I'm so ready to hear it all. And you're going to have some
people who have more movement to go in terms of like coach
ability and willingness to see and work on on issues, right.
I think feedback is the most powerful thing in these
situations. And I think the framing of the
feedback, we're like working with like a third party, whether
it's through someone in HR or through a coach or somebody who
can really help you understand that feedback is especially
powerful. But I mean, I actually added to
the variety of tools I use. I added a an assessment recently
from a company called Genos, which is an emotional
intelligence assessment that it also has a 360 version of it
because I think safer leaders who have challenges certain
areas of emotional intelligence. The the feedback from other
people is so valuable. And seeing it in a way where you
can actually see what the patterns and trends are can
really help open somebody's eyes up to it.
And presenting it in a way that is helpful and constructive is
also a big piece of that. So that that's usually my number
one thing is sometimes when somebody is not open to
changing, they need to see it in a different way.
And like feedback is the most powerful way to do that.
Yeah, that's great advice and I love that.
There's also this reality that people can totally outsource
that the way in which that feedback is delivered to
someone. You know, this is this is to me
is really the beauty of an executive coach.
You bring them on, they're not a part of the organization.
They sell it to them straight. You know, it's like you need to
do these things differently and you're all the reasons why.
And here's how you do those things differently.
And there isn't a any relationship breakdown in the
delivery of feedback, you know, because of course, like I agree
with you, feedback is exactly, this is exactly what feedback is
for. If not, you know, these other
examples that we could use for where feedback can influence
change, But sometimes it can be really difficult to be within
the organization or within the team delivering that feedback.
And they're, you know, unfortunately can be a
degradation of relationships. Not to say it happens all the
time, and certainly that's not a reason to avoid giving feedback.
But I at least have found that especially with those who maybe
are a little bit less willing to change, not necessarily open to
change, but willing to change or think that they don't have
anything they need to change, are sometimes best suited for
working with a coach who can really get them to that next
level. Because it's not necessarily the
case that they are underperformers or that they're
bad leaders. It's just might be that they
need to see themselves in a different light to your point.
Yeah, yeah. They've one area or one
particular, a couple of different behaviors that are
holding them back. And yeah, that's like.
Fine tuning those things, that can really make a huge
difference for the organization on the whole.
I mean, absolutely right? I love that.
I think one final thought here is going back to what we talked
about sort of at the beginning that, you know, this driving
this culture of innovation really enables the best of
people to kind of come out. And that there's this importance
in driving innovation and seeing innovation as a part of a
culture in order to achieve, you know, even more as a team.
And my, I guess really my final question for you is when you
work with companies who have this innovative culture or where
innovation is embedded within the culture, what are some of
the behaviors that you see either celebrated or that you
see as being a regular part of people's interactions with one
another or, you know, the business itself?
Yeah, I love this question. Thanks.
Yeah, I think there there's a few things that come to mind.
I think part of it is having some kind of celebration of
failure is a really powerful thing that can be integrated.
And a lot of like when we're talking about culture, I think
it's important to talk about like what are behaviors,
rituals, norms and things that are that you see that are are
representative of the culture. So having there's different ways
to do it. And sometimes it's just as
simple as like a leader starting with like here was my biggest
screw up from this month and hear what I learned about it.
What was yours, right? So like having something in
there that really like destigmatizes failure and
recognizes it as something that is normal.
I think having a really sacred process for how idea generation
happens that is that is specific to the company that is like
representative of their culture and is really enforced within
those those rules and restrictions of it where you're
like we are, we are not going into the evaluative part of
this. We're not going into the
conversion thinking right, like this is a space just for
generation and for imagining like what if and and really
holding to that within the company.
And then I think also just really embracing play in some
some degree, which doesn't necessarily, you know, I also
come from a tech background to people always imagine like the
Silicon Valley foosball tables and stuff.
Like there's, there's a lot of ways to integrate play within a
culture, but it is something that is so undervalued as
adults. And like you said, like earlier
in our conversation, some of this comes back to like the
simplest things, like also like valuing play and going back to
like who we are as children also really feeds into that.
And there's a lot of different ways you can do that within a
culture. I love that.
Thank you so much. I, I think the listeners
hopefully are walking away with a lot of tangible ideas and
things that they can either implement or celebrate.
You know, we, we talked a lot about behaviors today and I
think the best way to see more of the behaviors that we want is
to, to your point, celebrate those things and recognize and
reward the behaviors you want to see and not the ones you don't.
And when we think about like our childhoods and play and all of
that, a big part of leading a team is also knowing what to
reward and recognize and what not to reward and recognize.
And I'm certainly not comparing adults to children, but it's
kind of the same as when you're raising kids.
It's like, you know, if one child hits the other, like
you're not going to really want to have this huge reaction
because especially depending on their age, they might see that
as something that they want to continue to get out of you.
And so, you know, rewarding the right things is a very specific
anecdote, but rewarding the. Relative things is.
Is the way to go. And I yeah, I think that that's
amazing advice. So, Kristen, thank you so much.
And aside from the listeners tuning into your podcast, yours
and your husband's podcast, where else can they hear from
you? And even aside, please plug your
podcast as well because it's a great one.
Yeah, absolutely. Well, yeah, as we talked about
the podcast, it's called Love and Leadership.
It's on all the major platforms, including wherever you're
listening to this, I'm sure. And I am most active on
LinkedIn. So Kristen Brun, Sharkey, I'm
the only one with that combination of names.
You can find me pretty easily. And I also, if you're interested
in learning more about any of the work that I do, my company
website isimboldify.com. Amazing.
Kristen, thank you so much. This was an amazing discussion
and I think I think everything that you've shared with the
listeners today hopefully will land as something that they can
either think about, challenge within their own teams or bring
to their own team. So thank you so much again.
Thank you, I love this conversation so thank you so
much for having me. Of course, hey, just before you
go, don't forget to subscribe to the show so that you are the 1st
to hear when an episode drops each week and maybe leave a five
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Thank you so much for tuning in and I'll see you next week.