When change comes without context, employees are left to fill in the gaps themselves.
As organizations navigate changing technology and employee expectations, building resilient teams has become a leadership priority. Yet resilience isn’t something managers can simply expect from their employees. It requires intentional habits, clear communication, and a foundation of trust.
In this episode of The LeaderLab Podcast, Micaela Mathre, interim Chief Revenue Officer at LifeLabs Learning, sits down with Taminy Fernandes, VP of People at FIT House of Brands, to explore how People leaders can strengthen manager effectiveness, create more predictable environments, and prepare their teams for what’s next.
Drawing on her experience building People functions and leadership development strategies, Taminy shares why organizations can’t afford to leave manager development to chance. From foundational skills like coaching, delegation, and feedback to the ability to distinguish meaningful insights from AI-generated noise, she makes the case for investing in the behaviors that drive sustainable performance.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
One small habit to try: In your next one-on-one, ask your team member, “What was something that felt unclear or caught you by surprise this week?” It’s a simple way to uncover uncertainty, provide clarity, and build adaptability over time.
Taminy Fernandes is the Vice President of People at FIT House of Brands, parent company of fitness brands including F45. She leads People strategy, aligning talent development, organizational culture, and leadership effectiveness with business priorities.
With experience building and scaling People functions across organizations, including cybersecurity technology company CertifID, Taminy brings a strategic approach to manager enablement, employee experience, and organizational growth. She’s passionate about equipping managers with research-backed skills and exploring how AI can help People teams operate more strategically.
“Sometimes we’ll hear that people don’t like change, and I don’t necessarily think that’s 100% correct. I think people don’t like change that just comes out of nowhere and happens to them, and they didn’t know it was coming, and they had no say in the matter.”
— Taminy Fernandes
Transcript:
Taminy Fernandes 00:00
Sometimes we’ll hear that people don’t like change, and I don’t necessarily think that’s 100% correct. I think people don’t like change that just, like, comes out of nowhere and happens to them, and they didn’t know it was coming, and they had no say in the matter.
Taminy Fernandes 00:15
So one small thing, and that’s something that I do with my teams, get in the habit of asking, “What was something that felt unclear or caught you by surprise this week?” You have to be over-communicating. We can’t just expect people to be resilient while they’re being thrown around like crazy in a tornado. They need a certain level of predictability and certainty. And so I think that asking that very simple question and making that a habit to ask it every single week helps a lot to build that resiliency and adaptability.
Micaela Mathre 00:49
Welcome to the LeaderLab podcast. I’m Micaela Mathre, chief marketing officer at LifeLabs Learning. If you’re a senior people leader, you’re navigating a workplace that’s changing faster than ever. This season, we’re exploring what it really takes to build resilient and adaptable leaders, managers, and teams. Let’s dive in.
Micaela Mathre 01:08
Today, I’m so excited to have Taminy Fernandez with us. Taminy Fernandez is vice president of people at Fit House of Brands, the parent company of brands like F45, the global fitness franchise. At Fit, she aligns people and business strategy to help the organization build stronger leaders, fostering a thriving culture and support sustainable growth.
Micaela Mathre 01:31
Prior to joining Fit, Taminy was director of people and culture at Certified, a cybersecurity technology company focused on leadership development programs and long-term people strategy.
Micaela Mathre 01:42
Taminy’s approach is simple: create clarity, communicate with intention, and invest early in the habits that make high performance sustainable. She’s passionate about manager enablement, creating exceptional employee experiences, and leveraging AI to help people teams operate more strategically and less reactively. Welcome to the LeaderLab, Taminy. We’re so excited to have you.
Taminy Fernandes 02:02
Thank you so much. I’m happy to be here.
Micaela Mathre 02:05
I’d like to dive in with tell us about your worst boss or the worst manager that you’ve either experienced or perhaps witnessed. What made them unforgettable?
Taminy Fernandes 02:14
Throughout my career, I’ve definitely seen managers who, you know, they might have been ineffective, or they didn’t really know how to manage people. But it was never from a place of, you know, they didn’t want to do well, right? They just didn’t know how.
Taminy Fernandes 02:31
I did have one manager that, that wasn’t really the case. This was someone who was clearly not interested in me as a person and, and getting to know me and my motivations and including me in, in anything. I remember very vividly on my first day at that job, we went out for lunch, and it wasn’t just the two of us, it was also someone who was their best friend in the office. And for the whole lunch, it was just the two of them talking, and I was just kind of, like, sitting there. And so just that, you know, that, that lack of inclusion and, and feeling like I belonged was, something that was really difficult. And, you know, that was day one, and it just kind of solidified throughout my time there. I feel like there are so many– You know, there’s all the different techniques that we can teach managers, but, you know, when they’re not really interested in their people, that’s not something that we can force on them.
Micaela Mathre 03:31
Right. And that first impression is so important, right? ‘Cause it sets the tone, and that personal experience that you had of like, “Oh, they d- are uninterested, literally uninterested in me.” So I’m sorry you had that experience.
Moving on.
Taminy Fernandes 03:46
You know, I, I learned what not to do.
Micaela Mathre 03:49
Yes. And now in your role, like, thinking about– I’m curious, like, when you say curiosity and, like, wanting to care about your direct reports or the people on your team, like, if that’s not something that is teachable, like, how do you suss that out when you’re looking for managers or, or folks for leadership roles?
Taminy Fernandes 04:10
So I, where I see that coming up, ’cause I feel like it would be if you were to ask, “Well, are you interested in the people you manage?” And they’re like, “Oh yeah, obviously.” but what I look for is, do they intentionally look to develop their team? So are they intentionally thinking about their growth? That is a signal to me that they really care about them as people, and that they want to see them grow, and they want to see them succeed. That’s what I’m looking for.
So, like, how do you develop your team? You know, how do you make sure that they’re continuously, like, learning new things and growing, and how do you get them ready for, you know, whatever it is that comes next for them?
Micaela Mathre 04:53
Oh, that’s so interesting. The manager who’s using the professional development budget, right?
Taminy Fernandes 04:58
Right.
Micaela Mathre 04:58
Or coming with an idea or coming with. How do you think that relates to kind of team advocacy? Like, do you see some parallels there of, like, you know, a manager who’s looking to develop their people and also advocating on behalf of their directs, or what’s like– Is there a correlation there?
Taminy Fernandes 05:14
Definitely. And the other element is that is also good for the business, right? It’s, it’s kind of like that win-win scenario or that convergence between this benefits the person and it benefits the business.
Taminy Fernandes 05:30
As a manager, you should also be thinking about what are the skills that I am going to need, like, six to 12 months from now on my team in general? So, and in order for me to do that, then I need to understand where the business is going, right? So what are we trying to accomplish as a business? What is the business strategy? How does my department and my team ladder up to that?
Taminy Fernandes 05:53
And so having that strategic mindset, how do I know what are the things that I am going to need six to 12 months from now? How do I strategically look at the team that I have today? And how do I start preparing them to take on those roles or to develop or build those skills so that the business is also in a good position when we get to that point, right? Instead of, “Oh, now we have to go and find someone and hire them and train them,” and that’s like, you know, six months of lost productivity because we failed to develop our own teams.
Micaela Mathre 06:32
Ooh, I love that insight. I’m actually just reflecting on, like, my own leadership style now, and like how right when you’re thinking about, you know, we’re moving into H2 now, right? So it’s July and we’re all looking at second half, and you’re thinking about the broader business goals. And I think oftentimes as leaders and managers, we’re thinking about the deliverables, like, what do we have to deli-deliver in the next quarter and the quarter after that, right?
Micaela Mathre 06:56
But what you’re saying is like, think about the team and the intentional development of the team alongside that. The rate of change within every organization right now is enormous, right? So my background, digital marketing. The way that digital marketing has changed in the past three months, six months, nine months from, you know, when I started my career 15, 20 years ago, is incredible, and I’m thinking a lot about like, what does it look like to leverage AI and to equip my team and train my team for the absolute transformation that literally every business is going through right now. Like, how do you think about that?
Taminy Fernandes 07:37
Percent, 100%, yes. The pace of change has accelerated in a way that it, it does make challenging, it does make it really challenging to think that far ahead.
Taminy Fernandes 07:49
I think in that sense, it is really a matter of continuous development. So weekly, monthly, bi-weekly, it doesn’t matter, but are you carving out time to stay up to date to try to keep up with what’s happening? Because yes, if you wait six months, then, you know, things have already changed so much that there’s going to be a lot of catching up to do. So how are you staying up to date as things change to the best of your ability? That’s how I think about it.
Micaela Mathre 08:24
I love that, and I think the guidance there for leaders, too, to be really, your word, intentional about creating that space. One of the things I’ve been reflecting on recently is LifeLabs Learning, founded on this concept of like the workplace as a place for experimentation, just like a lab.
Micaela Mathre 08:45
And I’ve been thinking about like, how do I kind of take that into my role and help my directors and my managers do the same thing, which is, yeah, we actually don’t know what the future… But let’s create space for experimentation, learning, understanding, failing fast. It is hard to lead in something that is changing so rapidly, and you, like, having exposure or understanding or time with it will give you more of an edge than, you know, just not carving that out.
Taminy Fernandes 09:20
Definitely. And, you know, sometimes you will hear from people like, “Well, you know, I, we just don’t have the time. I don’t have the time. You know, we have to just do all of these things. I don’t have time to go, like, learn this new thing.” And you know, that’s why what you said is so important about, you know, the workplace, the work itself being that lab. So when you’re able to marry those two things, right?
Taminy Fernandes 09:48
Like, okay, these are all of the things that need to be done. This is the day-to-day work. Okay, how can we try to do that while, like, experimenting with these new tools? Or, you know, how do we actively, intentionally look for better ways, more efficient ways, whatever it is, to do this thing with these new tools that are coming up or these new strategies or whatever it is, instead of looking at it as this is something that, you know, you have to do, like, in addition to your day-to-day work, right? Like you have to somehow find the time to do that.
Taminy Fernandes 10:29
It’s like, okay, how do we do the work and at the same time look for those opportunities?
Micaela Mathre 10:35
Yes, absolutely. Patrick, who was on, the last episode of “The Leader Lab”, was talking about project-based or task-based learning. He was like, “I would just, yeah, pick a specific project or task and that is gonna be that modality. And then I have a deliverable that I needed to do anyways, and I’ve learned something.” Taminy, I’d love to go back and kind of hear a little bit about, give us a kinda high-level overview of your background, your career, and then definitely wanna kinda dig into your current role, where you’re at today.
Taminy Fernandes 11:07
So, as with many people, if you had asked me as a little kid, “What are you gonna do when you grow up?” HR manager was not my answer. So I just kind of, you know, fell into it. Started in recruitment. I worked at a language school in Brooklyn. Actually started as, an instructor myself, and I had been with the company for a while, and the academic director approached me and said, “Hey, we’re opening all of these new locations. You know the business. You know the, you know what we look for in our instructors. Would you like to join the team and help us recruit our, you know, this, this new batch of instructors all over the country?” And I said, “Yes.” Never had done recruitment before, but I was like, “You know, I can learn things.” And that’s how I started.
Taminy Fernandes 11:58
And so from recruiting, I realized that there were a lot of other things that they had to put in place and build when it came to their people infrastructure. And so I started doing those, and then one thing just led into the next. And so from just recruiting to, you know, actually managing benefits and onboarding and, you know, culture and engagement and everything, and then just stayed on that track. You know, went from building everything to that becoming my bread and butter.
Taminy Fernandes 12:33
So then every single company I joined after that was always in that role of, you know, kind of like early stage companies, either the first people person on the team, or they had one person before who was just kind of keeping the lights on, but they needed someone to come in and be a little bit more intentional about the strategy and the structure and, you know, just making sure that the business would scale in a, you know, less chaotic way, let’s say.
Micaela Mathre 13:02
Yes, more systematized. And then tell us a little bit about your current role.
Micaela Mathre 13:07
So congratulations, you recently stepped into a role as VP of People at FitHouse. Tell us about that. How long have you been in that role and, and what’s that been like so far?
Taminy Fernandes 13:16
I think this is week five, so
Micaela Mathre 13:18
Okay. Still fresh.
Taminy Fernandes 13:21
Still fresh. Still asking the, the newbie questions.
Micaela Mathre 13:24
Yes.
Taminy Fernandes 13:25
Still trying to figure things out. It’s a great company.
Taminy Fernandes 13:28
Again, I’m coming in to lead the people strategy, reporting directly to the CEO, leading the people team. There are, I mean, I have two people who work with me. And yeah, really understanding what we’re trying to do, where the business is trying to go, and then how the people strategy will, you know, help drive those business goals. Saying it’s been five weeks, it’s funny, I actually was a, a member of F45, which is one of our brands.
Micaela Mathre 13:59
Oh, yeah.
Taminy Fernandes 14:00
Yeah. I used to leave the office and go work out, and I did that for about, you know, two years, so I already had that, you know, real personal connection to the brand.
And so yeah, when I, when I saw the role, it’s like, hey, you know, how often do you see a role that it’s like exactly what you do and what you like to do with a brand that you really like and you’re passionate about?
Taminy Fernandes 14:27
It’s like, oh my gosh, like these things actually happen, and it’s happening to me. Like, that’s awesome.
Micaela Mathre 14:34
Tell me a little bit about that. So, um, it’s F45, like what is unique about that experience?
Taminy Fernandes 14:40
F45, so we have three brands. F45 is our high-intensity interval training, and so it’s very intense 45 minutes. I actually love working out after work because to me is the only way to really, like
Micaela Mathre 14:58
Decompress
Taminy Fernandes 14:58
… unplug. Yes. And decompress. And to do something very physical where I’m going to be sweating a lot and, you know, there’s music playing and there’s, you know, really high energy in the room, and I’m doing that with other people.
Taminy Fernandes 15:15
Going back to inclusivity and belonging, like really getting to know all of the members and people’s motivations and what they’re trying to accomplish, and also what they’re coming with, right? Like if they’re coming, if they had a really stressful day at work. It’s a great group.
Micaela Mathre 15:30
I love that. How do you kinda take that experience that you had of the brand, right, as a consumer, and now in your current role, like how are you thinking about applying that as the people strategy?
Taminy Fernandes 15:41
It’s amazing, right? Because I think the same way that every consumer i- is a potential employee, it’s like every candidate is a potential consumer also, right? When you think about employer branding, which is how we attract candidates and talent and how we present ourselves to candidates, those two things are deeply interconnected, right, and interrelated. And so the same way that we want to provide a great experience to our candidates, because obviously it’s, it’s the right thing to do, but also they’re potential customers.
Taminy Fernandes 16:20
It works the other way around, like when you have a really good experience with a brand as a consumer, I mean, at least for me, I would be like, “Yes, I would love to work here.” Like, you know, “Let me go into their careers page. Let me see if they’re hiring, applying for a job.” So I, yeah, I think it works both ways, which, you know, kind of a, a little bit of a, a detour, but that’s why also I think it’s important for people teams and marketing teams to work together when it comes to employer branding, just to make sure that that message is cohesive and, you know, those, those two things are indeed aligned.
Micaela Mathre 16:54
I love that. I’m a big fan of Verne Harnish, who wrote the book “Scaling Up.” I don’t know if you’ve read that before. It’s really a practical guide for startup.
Micaela Mathre 17:05
And there is an entire section in that that is all about how marketing and HR should work together on employer branding, because he’s like this, he’s like if marketing is not involved in literally like the details of your job posting, the, where the channels through which you’re recruiting, like it’s just a major missed opportunity, and I, I love that like intentionality.
Micaela Mathre 17:29
As we were preparing for this conversation, you mentioned that employees today are looking for greater trust and transparency, not just around pay, although I think that comes up very often, but around how decisions are made. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? Like why do you think this expectation has become so important now? How do you see that in the workplace and, and also like what can leaders do to respond to that?
Taminy Fernandes 17:53
You’re talking about the, the pace of change previously. The past six years especially, right, since 2020, things changed in a very significant way. If we think about, you know, life sort of pre-pandemic, pre-COVID, it was a lot of, you know, we’re a family and we’re all gonna hang out and do happy hours and. That was maybe back in the day when culture just meant having a ping pong table and, and, you know, in-office catering.
Taminy Fernandes 18:26
We went from that to companies who were doing rifts and laying off sometimes half of their staff, right, in a matter of months. I think that people are still carrying those scars, and they’re going to continue to carry them. Trust was broken, and you know, it, it takes time to repair that when that happens.
Taminy Fernandes 18:52
Also, one thing that I always work with our leaders and try to encourage them to remember is that we are working with people, right? So we’re not working with machines. So if a typical, typical IT problem-solving here, when a machine is broken, you’re like, “I don’t know, try unplugging it and plugging it back in,” right? And then you’re like, “Oh, man, magic. I fixed it.” People don’t work that way.
Taminy Fernandes 19:18
So trust was broken. It is going to take some time to repair it. One very small thing that I like to do, and I encourage leaders to do it, is creating the habit of explaining the why behind things, and it doesn’t have to be anything big. You know, it’s like if I ask you a question, then I’ll say, “Hey, the reason I’m asking this is because…” Or, you know, “Can you send me this?”
Taminy Fernandes 19:43
And I’m asking because, you know, I wanna take a look at it before I meet with, I don’t know, the CEO. But when we get in the habit of saying why, we just give people, that, you know, the little bit of that peek behind the curtain, and it increases that sense of trust and transparency, and it doesn’t cost anything. You just, you know, it’s as simple as saying, “Hey, I’m asking because…”
Micaela Mathre 20:09
That’s such a good reminder. I need to remember that. Even in like a Slack message or a request or s- it’s like the what and the why is so critical.
Taminy Fernandes 20:19
And sometimes we’re in a rush, right? We’re in a hurry, and we’re just like, “Hey, can you send me this thing?” And the person on the other side is like, “Oh my gosh,” like, “What happened? Was it wrong? What did I do?” We have that tendency, you know, a little bit of that negativity bias, and we’ll tend to fill in the gaps with the worst-case scenario.
Micaela Mathre 20:39
For sure.
Taminy Fernandes 20:40
When if, you know, you just take 20 seconds to say, “Oh, I’m asking because I wanna take a look at that slide.” And it’s like, “Okay, well, I don’t have to worry about it. It’s, it’s fine.”
Micaela Mathre 20:49
Everybody’s had this experience in their career where somebody more senior oftentimes puts time on your calendar without any context, and immediately you’re like, “Ugh, I’m probably getting fired.” Right? That’s what we just go.
Taminy Fernandes 21:01
Who wants a quick check-in from HR on a Friday, right? No one wants that.
Taminy Fernandes 21:07
And so I am very intentional. I am always like, “Hey, this is what I wanna talk about,” or, “Yeah, you don’t need to prepare anything,” like it’s, “I just wanna ask about this.” And it literally takes 10 seconds, and it, you know, it takes so much of that stress and anxiety away.
Micaela Mathre 21:26
I really appreciate that. We had Brendan, who’s one of our amazing facilitators on the podcast, I think it was last fall, and he talked through the LifeLabs CAMPS method, which is a practice we’ve put in place, and we teach it in our Leading Change workshop, and it is all about what we call brain cravings. So as you’re going through these times of growth, transformation, change, exactly like you said, like we are not machines. Especially I think in a distributed or remote environment, it’s hard to remember that. It’s like we’re not machines, and there’s a lot more complexity to leading through change and addressing those brain cravings.
Micaela Mathre 22:05
So CAMPS stands for Certainty, Autonomy, Meaning, Progress, and Social inclusion, and it’s just this like really simple method, right? So we practice it in our one-on-ones, and I do this literally with my team, like practice in the one-on-one. Check in, like where are you at in each of these buckets? Ask questions, get some intel, and don’t assume. Don’t assume that you know how folks are responding to a change. Don’t assume that it’s just a, you know, flip of the light switch, and we’ll go back to business as normal, because there’s so much more that goes into managing that change.
Micaela Mathre 22:39
I’d love to hear a little bit about your perspectives on manager development. I think you’ve talked, I love this word you use around intentionality in your work, intentional strategy, intentional development. When you think about manager development being intentional versus something that managers just learn on the job, where does that come from and how do you think about that in the overarching kind of people strategy?
Taminy Fernandes 23:03
12 years ago, I came across Google’s Project Oxygen, which was this really robust, thorough research they did around people managers and what made, you know, some managers, more effective than others. So in theory, that was like my first exposure to that concept.
Taminy Fernandes 23:23
In practice, as I mentioned before, it was really from seeing managers just like struggle, and not because they didn’t want to be good managers, right? It’s just they, they didn’t know how to. They didn’t have the tools. And so when it comes to that intention, I really strongly believe that there are foundational skills that every manager needs to know. So they need to know how to do like one-on-ones, and how to give feedback, and how to coach people, and how to have conversations about professional development and career growth.
Taminy Fernandes 23:58
That foundational layer that every manager needs to have, and I believe the company has the responsibility to provide to them, either if it’s in a, some sort of formal training, like a workshop like with LifeLabs, or if it’s some sort of management guide that we provide to them. Sometimes I’ll hear people saying, “Oh, managers should know this. They should know that.” And it’s like, well, did we tell them that, you know, that is part of their expectation as a manager, and did we give them the tools? And if we haven’t, then, you know, I, I don’t think it’s right for us to expect that they’ll just magically know how to do it. So I believe that the company has the responsibility to provide them with those tools.
Taminy Fernandes 24:45
And then there’s also one-on-ones with the people team, because every manager will have different challenges that they’re going through, right? So in addition, in addition to those foundational skills, what are the things that they are struggling with with their teams that need a little bit more of that one-on-one time? As I said before, people management is such a crucial element. It’s such a fundamental pillar in the employee experience and engagement and productivity.
Taminy Fernandes 25:17
It’s just too important to allow it to happen by chance, because some managers will figure it out. A lot of them won’t. A lot of them will struggle, and while they’re struggling, that’s a lot of time that the company is losing with, like, lost productivity and also, you know, people like to say people don’t leave companies, they leave managers, which is somewhat true. It’s also too risky, right? There’s a business, there’s an execution risk if you leave something that’s so important and so crucial to just happen by chance.
Micaela Mathre 25:53
I love that you started by talking about Project Oxygen as well, and we’ll link this in the show notes. Marquee study in the L&D HR space, right? Done over a decade ago, still very relevant today to understand, like, what does it take to be a good manager.
Micaela Mathre 26:12
And then the follow-on for that, I believe it was Project Aristotle, where they looked at-
Taminy Fernandes 26:18
Correct
Micaela Mathre 26:18
… effective teams, right?
Taminy Fernandes 26:19
Exactly.
Micaela Mathre 26:19
And there was so much done on psychological safety and, like what does it take and, you know, actually this is a good reminder for myself. I’m like, I’d like to go back and revisit those and think about, like, in this current moment, in this context, how relevant that is.
Micaela Mathre 26:35
Like, at LifeLabs, we talk about our tipping point skills also heavily backed in research and science around, like, what it takes to be effective, keep employees engaged, and at the end of the day, like your comment about some folks will learn it on the job and others won’t, and they will really flail and struggle. And it’s one of these things where you’re like, if we have the research and the science, and for us at LifeLabs, it’s the content, it’s the tipping point skills to give them what they need in that moment and space to practice it and learn it. That’s what differentiates successful companies from those that are gonna struggle.
Taminy Fernandes 27:18
I couldn’t agree more, and because we’re working with people and because we’re people ourselves, you know, you also see that everyone has a, a, a different approach, right? And so again, when you leave that to chance, I might think that my approach is, like, excellent and it works, and maybe it works for me, but it doesn’t work for my direct report.
Taminy Fernandes 27:41
And the beautiful thing with Project Oxygen and with the LifeLabs programming is that I actually don’t have to guess. I don’t have to see if it works, if it doesn’t work. There is already a ton of evidence. You know, we know very clearly what are those behaviors and what are the things that really drive engagement and really, you know, move the needle for businesses when it comes to people management. So there’s really no need to, you know, be kind of like guessing or just to leave that up to people and, and their preferences and opinions.
Micaela Mathre 28:15
Absolutely right, and I think every organization measures that a little bit differently. I mean, a lot of our clients, right, look at regrettable attrition as an indication of yes, are employees engaged? Are we keeping the right folks that we need to? And how does that behavior change impact term business outcomes?
Micaela Mathre 28:36
I’d love to hear from you, like, tell our listeners what are some signals for you of, like, a manager is struggling? Like, when something, an observable behavior that you’re like, “Ooh, this is a moment of intervention or support or skills training.”
Taminy Fernandes 28:49
For me, it’s really that they don’t have time, and, and they say that a lot. So they don’t have time to set goals. They don’t have time to provide feedback. They don’t have time to have those career growth conversations. They don’t have time to have one-on-ones. They always seem to be a little bit underwater and overwhelmed.
Taminy Fernandes 29:12
And what that tells me is that maybe, maybe they haven’t really learned how to switch from being a really high-performing IC and a really strong individual contributor to leading a team, right, to managing people. So they’re still trying to do all the work themselves. They haven’t learned how to delegate. They haven’t learned that their mindset needs to change, that they’re not in charge of all of the work anymore.
Taminy Fernandes 29:42
A lot of what they’re going to do is going to actually be done through their teams, right? Even if they still have their own goals and, and their own, like, projects and, and responsibilities. So when I see managers saying a lot that they don’t have time, or, you know, their performance reviews are always late, or their teammates are saying they’re not having one-on-ones or their one-on-ones get canceled or moved a lot, they’re not submitting their goals, that to me is a very strong signal that that manager is, you know, struggling with something there. It could be delegating, it could be prioritizing, could be that they don’t know how important it is to have those frequent one-on-ones, but that, that is always something that I would say 99.9% of the time there is something there. That manager needs help.
Micaela Mathre 30:31
That’s so helpful to hear those specific examples and just be able to say like, you know, yeah, these are the leading indications that something is wrong- So you can then, as the people leader, come up with what, what is it gonna take to kind of intervene and, and shift gears. I’d love to shift gears and talk about kind of the future of learning and AI. It is top of mind for all of us. We can’t get off the Leader Lab without talking about it.
Micaela Mathre 30:56
There’s a lot of conversation happening right now around AI-enabled coaching, learning, manager support. From your seat, where have you seen AI genuinely help leaders grow? The role of AI and where is human connection important and critical as you’re– And I think particularly interesting ’cause you’re kind of in this new role where you’re shaping the strategy for Fit, so I’d love to hear how you’re thinking about that.
Taminy Fernandes 31:22
It’s a wonderful tool. I use it really daily, and I encourage my teams to do it as well, and encourage managers to do it as well.
Taminy Fernandes 31:31
And so I think it’s a wonderful tool for managers to scenario plan, brainstorm different ideas. I think it’s really great to role play difficult conversations or, you know, help them draft like a somewhat difficult message that they want to send to an employee, right? I do that myself. I’m like, “Here’s, here’s what I’m trying to say.” When it comes to where human connection and where, you know, the things that AI cannot do for us, even though it can help with these sort of tasks, it doesn’t truly know the entire context of the company, right? And that person.
Taminy Fernandes 32:14
Yes, it can help me draft a message to this employee, but it doesn’t really know that employee. It doesn’t know what they’re going through, whatever’s going on in their life. It doesn’t know how long they’ve been at the company. It doesn’t know their frustrations. It will not be able to replace that, unless you had like this giant computer brain that’s connected to every single conversation people have at work, which is very scary. Let’s not do that. It doesn’t have that nuance. It doesn’t have that institutional knowledge. And even if it did, what I also find is that managers want to hear from other managers.
Taminy Fernandes 32:53
They want to also know that they’re not the only ones struggling to give that piece of feedback, or they want to hear how other people do it. There is that element of that emotional connection and that empathy and that feeling seen that I don’t think AI can provide. For me, being in this new role, I mean, that shows up a lot, right?
Taminy Fernandes 33:17
So I can easily ask whatever tool of my choice to analyze, I don’t know, this report and tell me what are our turnover trends or whatever it is, but it’s not gonna know really like why this person left or, you know, everything that happened leading up to that moment or, you know, what was their relationship with their manager. So I still rely on my team and the people who have been at the company for four, five, seven years to give me that information, right? I still need that connection, and I still need to build that trust and that rapport with those teams and that, you know, that’s something that I’m not gonna be able to self-service with AI only.
Micaela Mathre 34:07
Right, and you don’t wanna outsource that. I mean, that-
Taminy Fernandes 34:09
I don’t, no
Micaela Mathre 34:10
… that’s what’s super meaningful, right? Like-
Taminy Fernandes 34:12
Exactly. I mean, what are, what are we doing here? Just typing Chat all day. That, you know, that’s not good.
Micaela Mathre 34:19
That’s not the, the future we want. As you think about the future of leadership development, what skills do you believe managers will need to have today, tomorrow, that weren’t as critical maybe five years ago?
Taminy Fernandes 34:32
Great segue, right? ‘Cause when we think about AI and all the changes, one skill that I think that is very, very critical now is that ability to distinguish signal from noise. Because AI makes it so easy for people and for teams to, to create just this overwhelming amount of content, right? It could be reports, it could be like dashboards, it could be 20-page documents, and I believe managers will have to be really, really good at identifying what is actually relevant, right, and what is really meaningful and what is really like key leading indicator or lagging indicator or whatever it is, versus what is just kind of, you know, what we call now AI slop or what is just like just fluff, right?
Taminy Fernandes 35:33
And as we were saying before, it’s even hard to think, this is, this is going to be important in five years or in two years. It’s like this is today. Like today you need to be able to determine that this 10-page document is really just like this paragraph here that’s, that’s really important. Everything else is just, it’s just extra.
Micaela Mathre 35:55
Something I’ve, I appreciate that perspective. Something I’ve been thinking about is, as we think about the skill of distinguishing signal from noise, how much of that is a skill that we can teach?
Micaela Mathre 36:08
I think often about folks in early on in their careers, right? Coming into the job market today, and you’ve got these tools at your disposal, and you don’t have decades of experience to know that of that 10-page document, this is the most important. So like how do we give that skill set to this new generation who does have this plethora of tools?
Taminy Fernandes 36:32
It’s that piece of … discernment and critical thinking, right? And so how do you teach someone discernment and critical thinking? It’s not just, “Oh, you’re now in the workforce, and so now you need to know discernment and critical thinking,” right? Like, as an adult, you have to learn those things. I think it’s really something that you have to, it has to be cultivated throughout your entire life.
Taminy Fernandes 36:56
So it’s just this, you know, yes, I’m not going to simply accept this 10-page document, as the ultimate truth and believe that everything here is correct. So how do I, you know, go in there and really analyze the data and do all of that? I think there’s also an element of learning how these tools work and how they function and how they operate. And so being able to identify that it’s like, okay, you know, it’s… Yes, I know that they like to be verbose and, you know, maybe they will give me a 12-page document. So how do I either work around that, or how do I know that is just how the tool works? And it’s up to me, and it’s my job to go in there and really understand and really, again, have that discernment and that critical thinking about what is really valuable here and what isn’t.
Micaela Mathre 37:53
I think that’s a great point and perspective to share. You’ve mentioned leveraging AI’s predictive capabilities to increase the people team’s capacity to operate more strategically.
Micaela Mathre 38:05
Would love to hear a little bit more about that, what that looks like in your role?
Taminy Fernandes 38:08
Oh my gosh. Um, I think it was maybe, I wanna say 30 years ago when, when these LLM tools became more popular. Ever, you know, since then, I have just been so anxious for and, like, looking forward to these tools and this kind of, like, predictive capability to be applied to the people space. Because being, you know, many times a one-person team or part of a very small people team, you know, we don’t have a people analytics function, right? Like, you know, large companies do. But I knew it became very clear that these tools could do that and could give us a lot of leverage in that aspect.
Taminy Fernandes 38:53
And so, and I do know that there are certain HRIS and some tools that are starting to do that, which I’m very excited about. And I also think that there are things that we can build ourselves. So for example, we know that when someone changes their manager, when you have any kind of, like, management change, we know that that increases flight risk for that person. We also know that, you know, if someone has been in the same role for X number of years, that also means something. And so how do we collect all that data? How do we use AI to collect all that data?
Taminy Fernandes 39:31
And again, this is from the perspective of having a small people team, like not having a dedicated people analytics team. How do we build those tools ourselves to collect all that data and to be able to start, like, predicting things like, you know, yeah, this person, you know, they’ve had three different managers in the past year. This is, like, an ultimate red flag. How can we build those tools so that the people team can have more informed conversations with the employee, right?
Taminy Fernandes 40:01
Like maybe have stay interview or a retention interview with that employee, or even help their manager, their current manager, to understand what the risks are there, instead of having that, all that information just live inside your, your HRBP’s head, right? Like, they’re the only ones who know all that context. And, like, what happens if that person, for whatever reason, like, leaves the company, all of that institutional knowledge, all of that context is gone.
Taminy Fernandes 40:29
So how can we build these tools? How can we use AI? How can we use those predictive capabilities so that we don’t have to be tracking everything, so that we don’t have to remember everything, so that we can just, like, look at that and have those more informed conversations, have those more strategic conversations, actually come to the managers or come to the employee with a plan, with ideas, instead of just spending a lot of time simply understanding what is happening and again, keeping all that information in our brains.
Micaela Mathre 41:05
Oh, that’s so interesting. Do you have a tech stack that you’ve set up to do some of that, or how would you operationalize that as, you know?
Taminy Fernandes 41:12
Not yet.
Micaela Mathre 41:14
Ahhh.
Taminy Fernandes 41:14
Not yet. Not yet.
Taminy Fernandes 41:16
But I know it’s possible. Obviously, you know, as with everything related to data, you need to have the good data to begin with, right? So that’s the first step, is to make sure that we’re working with good, clean, reliable data. So that’s going to be the first step for me, is really identifying do we have that data, and if we do, how can we, you know, put it all in one place and then use AI to analyze that at, you know, whatever, every quarter, every month, whatever frequency we want, so that we can have those more strategic conversations.
Micaela Mathre 41:52
That’s such a great call-out. Like, one of the ways that we had obviously seen these various AI models being so, so impactful is in analysis and trend spotting, so applying that to the people function as a way to help you focus on the most important things, right?
Micaela Mathre 42:09
And really like, oh, exactly, you know, this is a signal or we know that there’s some things that you just know to be true, like you just named, and historically relying on individuals or yourself to kind of like retain all that doesn’t scale.
Taminy Fernandes 42:23
And you’re really looking at data, right? Because what also happens a lot of the times is you have someone who’s very vocal, or a team That is very vocal or, you know, it, it could be a manager that is very vocal, and then all of our attention, like, shifts to that team, right?
Taminy Fernandes 42:42
Or that individual, and then we don’t really know that there’s actually, like, a much bigger problem here, and we, we can’t see it because these people are not being very vocal. But if we have all that, you know, underlying infrastructure and all that data and all those indicators. And we have a tool that is not, you know, our brain having to, like, spread so thin already doing that for us. Then we can really see that, you know, there’s a lot more here. It’s not just this one person who’s being very vocal, and maybe that’s not even, like, a big deal. The issue is really with this team, and this is where we should focus our attention.
Micaela Mathre 43:24
I love that. Such a great perspective.
Micaela Mathre 43:26
All right, my favorite question of the conversation will round us out today, and that is if you can share one small behavioral shift that you would recommend for listeners who wanna build more resilient, adaptable teams, something they could try today.
Taminy Fernandes 43:41
So you mentioned CAMPS, which I love, and the C in CAMPS is for certainty, and I think when it comes to resilience, obviously, you know, as, as you know, people have different brain cravings, but for me, the C in certainty the, the C is a really important one. We sometimes will hear that people don’t like change, and I don’t necessarily think that’s 100% correct. I think people don’t like change that just, like, comes out of nowhere and happens to them, and they didn’t know it was coming, and they had no say in the matter, right? But we love change.
Taminy Fernandes 44:20
We, we love trying new things. So when I think about resiliency, I think a lot about having some element of certainty and, and, like, knowing what is happening. So one small thing, and that’s something that I do with my teams, you know, hopefully you’re having recurring weekly one-on-ones. Add to the agenda, get in the habit of asking, “What was something that felt unclear or caught you by surprise this week?” And so that way you don’t have to wait for people to raise their hands and, and ask and for them to, to be proactive. You’re constantly checking that level of certainty.
Taminy Fernandes 45:04
Hopefully, you’ve been over-communicating, and hopefully when you ask, “Was there anything that felt unclear?” They will say, “No, nothing. Everything was good.” So that’s great. But if there is something, then every week you will have the chance to provide that clarity, like, immediately in the spot.
Taminy Fernandes 45:27
And when I think about resiliency, and I think about adaptability, is really, like, being able to communicate, being able to say what you do know, what you don’t know, what you expect to know. You have to be over-communicating. We can’t just expect people to be resilient while they’re being thrown around, like crazy in a tornado. They need a certain level of predictability and certainty. And so I think that asking that very simple question and making that a habit to ask it every single week helps a lot to build that resiliency and adaptability.
Micaela Mathre 46:05
I love that. I think it’s so practical, and it also reinforces a feedback culture because what you’re doing in that moment is you’re asking for feedback.
Micaela Mathre 46:16
It may be for you, it may be for other leaders, it might be across the organization, so it’s this moment of vulnerability. Knowing that their feedback might be like, “Yeah, what you said to the team on Monday really caught me off guard, and I didn’t expect it and it’s prompting,” and, and truly asking for that. But I love the specificity here, where you’re saying, like, what you’re getting at some of the emotion behind it.
Micaela Mathre 46:39
Like, what felt unclear or caught you by surprise? Like, I think there’s two elements there versus, like, “What feedback do you have for me this week?” Which is what we call blurry. Like, I don’t know. Like, gosh, that’s, you know. But just getting a little bit more granular with the request for feedback really opens up and creates space.
Micaela Mathre 46:56
And I think the thing I would imagine that happens as well, if you’re asking this week over week, you’re creating, your word, intentional space every time, and your employee knows, like, oh, I’m gonna have a moment this week to actually process that thing and talk about it, so maybe I can kind of move on in my day ’cause I’m gonna get to that, and I know we’re gonna have that space, and I’m gonna give that feedback, and then I can kinda move on and address that sense of, of certainty.
I’m gonna take that into my next one. That was a great review.
Taminy Fernandes 47:27
Try it out. And if you’re keeping track of all of their answers, you can use AI to analyze any trends there and be like, “Oh, yeah. Well, I guess I asked very vague questions. I should change that.”
Micaela Mathre 47:39
Exactly. And really take the learning.
Micaela Mathre 47:42
It was so lovely having you on the Leader Lab today. Thank you so much for joining us.
Micaela Mathre 47:47
If folks wanna reach out to you, stay in touch, what’s the best place to find you?
Taminy Fernandes 47:51
Yeah. Absolutely. It was my pleasure.
Taminy Fernandes 47:54
They can find me on LinkedIn. I’m the only one, I’m the only, Taminy Fernandes there. They will not have a hard time finding me. Love to talk anything people, management, culture. Feel free to reach out.