The Talent Pipeline: Stacey Dietsch Talks about the Future of HR

Lisa Belisle: Hello, I am Dr. Lisa Belisle, and you are listening to or watching Radio Maine, our video podcast that explores creativity and the human spirit, sponsored by the Portland Art Gallery in Portland, Maine. Today I am speaking with Stacey Dietsch, who is the Executive Vice President of Talent at Liberty Mutual Insurance. Nice to have you here with me today.

Stacey Dietsch: Nice to be here.

Lisa Belisle: I love that we are now calling it talent and we are now thinking of people as not just the workforce, but it's like, oh, these are individuals who are actually coming in and bringing value to our organizations, and we need to figure out how to not only attract them, but retain them. And you have spent 20 years doing this work. So let's first talk. Why is it that you decided that you wanted to get into this field?

Stacey Dietsch: I had an amazing professor of psychology when I was in college, and I'd always loved people and getting to know people, different people with different backgrounds, and I didn't realize that you could do this as a job when you're a kid. There are doctors and lawyers and police people, and I just didn't know really much about business, and I didn't know that there was this human side of business that was equally important to delivering on whatever it is that you were selling or serving to your customers. This wonderful professor showed me how important it was to think about the humans who are actually doing the work.

Lisa Belisle: So you got your BA in psychology at NYU. And what caused you to decide to go down that path? Why did you say, oh, psychology, I like learning about people. Was there some sort of moment in your educational career where you said, yes, I'm going in this direction?

Stacey Dietsch: Yes, it was that first teacher who showed me that that was a path that had lots of different ways that you could go down and explore the different parts of the human mind. You could think about it in the clinical sense and you could think about it in the organizational sense. I was curious to see those were the classes that really sparked my interest, and I just wanted to keep digging in more and more. It's interesting because it's just lasted in my free time. I do so much listening of podcasts around neuroscience and human behavior. It just is what sparks me.

Lisa Belisle: I'm fascinated by this too, and I love sitting with people and being like, oh, I'd like to get to know them a little bit better and where they came from, their context. And I think it is incredibly important in business, because even though we're all trying to meet metrics and we're all trying to get to our goals, it really is the people who make that happen. So without the people, none of these things move forward, but you also have to understand what motivates people, what keeps them motivated. And that's not necessarily an easy task, because it's like an iceberg. You only get to see the tip of it at work.

Stacey Dietsch: That's right. And that's why I think the organizations that do find that connection to somebody's individual purpose and show how it matters and contributes to the purpose of the organization are the ones that end up thriving. If you're able to balance performance and that people side, it's just a mutually reinforcing focus, and it does take digging. One of the things we were talking about just recently at my new organization is thinking about, how do we help people in that recruitment process get under their own iceberg? Because sometimes people haven't even had the chance to reflect on, actually, why do I love what I love, and is there a way to translate what I love into the work that I'm going to do? So we're thinking about some reflection, quizzes, questions, and then some ways that you can match that to the work that's being done so people can see, oh, okay, this is going to make me feel good when I come to work every day. And feeling good then of course makes people want to come to work every day and contribute.

Lisa Belisle: That's really interesting, because what you actually want people to know is more about themselves.

Stacey Dietsch: That's right. Because we want them to bring their whole selves to work. And it's one of the things, you use the word human, and that's exactly what we're trying to help people see is that we want them to feel they can bring their authentic, human, full selves to work. And that is taking the time to understand themselves, allows them to then understand each other better and create that diversity also of backgrounds, experiences, perspectives on a team. And it does take reflection and it does take questioning in order to figure out how that group of people is going to come together and do something that not one person could do on their own.

Lisa Belisle: That's interesting to me, because it seems as though it's a continual balance of what the individual wants, needs, expects, and what the team wants, needs, expects, and you simultaneously need things to be a good fit. So the team works well together and also inclusive of different viewpoints. And increasingly we know that that's incredibly important, because if you just have the team all working together and nobody ever brings up anything that's outside of their normal conversation, no creativity happens.

Stacey Dietsch: Exactly.

Lisa Belisle: So how do you achieve that? How do you move all of these pieces forward simultaneously?

Stacey Dietsch: I think so much is the composition of the team itself and being really deliberate about how you bring in people with different backgrounds onto a team. I remember having a conversation when I was a consultant with a very senior executive, and I was in awe of him just as a person. But I loved his humility when he was talking about the way that he created his team. Because he said, whenever I have an opening on my team, I get out a piece of paper and I write down all the things I'm good at, all the things the other people at my team are good at, and then all the things that we're missing. And I hire for those things that are missing, because I know that I need to acknowledge my blind spots and those gaps that I have in myself and the rest of the team. And we'll be better if we bring in people with different strengths to contribute in a different way.

Lisa Belisle: Understanding what one isn't good at can be a little, yeah, humility is a good word for it. It can be very humbling. And some people have a blind spot when it comes to that. It's easy to believe, oh, well, I must be smart enough. I got a degree and I'm a professional here. So this person sounds like he's evolved to that place. Do you ever run into situations where you have a sense, oh, I think this person's not quite there yet, this person needs to spend some more time understanding what could be done to complement their skills?

Stacey Dietsch: Yes, absolutely. And I think sometimes it's people don't even know what that full set of skills should be for their roles. And so that's the first part, and that's where I think the organization has a responsibility to be thoughtful about putting together expectations for a role and saying, this is the knowledge we think you need. These are the skills, these are the attributes or mindsets we're looking for, and the experiences that really come together to make somebody successful in a role. And giving people a chance to do a self-assessment and then to have that self-assessment validated by their leader gives them a sense of, where are my strengths and where are those things that I can continue to develop? And there's such a movement now to say, how do we personalize your development experience based on that set of skills and opportunities? And really I think the way that it can be very motivating for people is to be thinking about it in terms of, where do they want to go next? So yes, there is in-role development that might need to happen, and it's in service of a future aspiration. So it feels less like this is a gap to fix and more like this could be a springboard for where you want to go in your career in the future.

Lisa Belisle: Recently in our organization, our chief human resources officer has brought forward this idea of development plans, and it's been an interesting conversation, because development plans are very different than performance assessments. They require a lot of thought. They require a lot of collaboration with the person. And also if you're thinking about where that person wants to go next, it may not be with you.

Stacey Dietsch: That's right.

Lisa Belisle: So you're working very hard to get the person to a place that maybe is somewhere else, and in fact probably will be, given what we know about today's market.

Stacey Dietsch: What a great point, and also something that can be framed very positively. One of the things that we're talking about in our organization at Liberty Mutual is that succession planning is the responsibility of every leader. And we want a criterion for promotion to be the fact that you have a slate of potential candidates to fill your role and that it is an expectation of a leader to invest in the development of their team. And it's actually rewarded, because it's a part of that next level of advancement. You've created followership, that people want to work with you because they know they'll be developed and they know they'll get to do good work, and that you're actually going to invest in preparing them for their own promotion so you can be promoted as well. And I think one of the things that you said is really important is this notion of development plan. In the past, a lot of people had talked about improvement plans, and just that framing alone is such a nice change. Development, growth, it's really about forward momentum. And that could be in role and it could be a promotion, and it's mutual then, if the leader is thinking about everybody on the team, including him or herself.

Lisa Belisle: For me, it aligns with this idea of not yet. If you are in education, if you're a learning-oriented organization, maybe people aren't there, but they're not there yet. It doesn't mean that they can't get there. And I think that it's interesting, because we've come from a place where we assume, well, if you have a degree in whatever it is and you come through our door, then you're ready to go. But that can't be true. It can't possibly be true, because any organization you're going to go to is going to have its own set of needs and roles, and even while you're there, they could be evolving as a result of, recently, say AI for example. So we actually have to be engaged in learning and creating learning organizations. How do you move a company away from this idea that, well, they've got an MBA, so they must be good to go, to, they have an MBA, but that's a foundational level of understanding and we're going to have to layer on that?

Stacey Dietsch: I think it really is that expectation setting at the beginning that is both the expectation that you're setting with the candidate and with the hiring manager, both of whom need to understand that really the most important things to hire for are those foundational skills of the future. Things like problem solving, things like, you said, a growth mindset and curiosity. Having some awareness of how technology plays a role in your job, not necessarily being a coder, but knowing that technology is a layer that needs to be considered in any opportunity, and that there will be onboarding into the role that you have today. And we want to hire people who have a flexibility, somebody who's not going to be looking at the job description and questioning, oh, you're asking me to do something that's not quite listed here, but rather, oh wow, this job is changing because the external context is changing, our strategic objectives are changing, our culture is changing, and I want to change along with that because it is going to be a new and exciting challenge. So I think it starts with setting the expectations and then really filtering for that curiosity and growth mindset in the interviewing process.

Lisa Belisle: In healthcare, we're not any different than anywhere else, and we've been talking about the four different generations that are simultaneously coexisting in our group. So we still have quite a few very healthy baby boomers. We have a lot of Gen Xers, we have millennials, and now we have Gen Y. And everybody came from a different context, a different timeframe. They communicate differently. And it's interesting, because we're still, unfortunately, I think in a place where we're saying, well, why doesn't that next generation understand now how good they have it and how hard I had it back here? I think it's fascinating because as somebody who's Gen X, the people in front of us were saying the same thing about our generation.

Stacey Dietsch: That's exactly where I was going in my brain when you were talking. Yes.

Lisa Belisle: So it's the same. We're just repeating the same course. It's like, well, these people aren't like me and I don't know why. So how do we get beyond this idea? We sure do have different contexts, and why wouldn't we? But how do we learn to understand one another and communicate and collaborate?

Stacey Dietsch: I think one of the things that's interesting is, in addition to the fact that the cycle just continues to repeat, we did a study, I remember when I was at McKinsey, where we were thinking, oh gosh, we have all of these different generations. They must really want different things out of their career. You had heard millennials saying, well, I just need development. I want to be promoted quickly. And when we did a survey that was people filling in a form online, it turned out everybody wanted the same thing. They were just asking for it differently, maybe not even asking for it at all because they were shy about that. It just wasn't supported to be vocal about your career aspirations in other generations. And so the millennials' openness about it actually created more space for others to be able to ask for what they wanted and needed too. And so that's what I come back to is this, how do we listen to all of the different voices that are in the room and make sure that people feel heard? Because the more different ideas get out there, the more other people may feel comfortable asking for things that are universal needs, but they just hadn't built the skills or felt the safety to express them in the past.

Lisa Belisle: I think that's really important. And one of the things that I've always enjoyed is working with people who have a broad range of experiences, and I never assume that I know more, people who are younger than me, or maybe that I know more or less than people who are older than me. And what I've seen recently is this sort of push. I write for an organization called Doximity, which gathers opinions from practitioners across the country. And I've seen a couple of things come through that are, millennials are so glad that the people ahead of them are finally leaving the leadership. And I'm like, huh, I'm one of those people that I'm not really quite ready to go yet. I value what they bring to the table. I'm not sure that I feel is valued. How do we make sure that everybody continually is feeling valued for whatever experience it is, whether you've been somewhere a long time, whether you're very fresh in the market, but you also have a background that goes back into high school, perhaps. It's very different. How do we value people and how do we communicate that value?

Stacey Dietsch: I love that question so much. And the first thing that comes to mind is just the power of storytelling opportunities like this. I think organizations can do more of the highlighting of different profiles across the organization to show the value that people bring. I think it's a way to also introduce people coming into the organization to lots of different jobs and also lots of different perspectives. I read a book, From Strength to Strength by Arthur Brooks, which really talked about this shift in intelligence that comes in the second half of life, let's say. And I thought that that was such an interesting way to talk about the different contributions a younger generation versus an older generation can bring. The younger generation has this really fluid intelligence. They're constantly learning different things and innovating and just quick in terms of that analytical processing power. Whereas the older generation, it's not that their intelligence drops off, it actually becomes crystallized. And what that means is you're able to pull all of the different pieces of your past experience together into a framework and to be able to connect dots and to be able to explain things in a way that is more advanced than some of the younger generations, because you have so much more to pull together and share back. And that's one of the things that I think is really neat is this apprenticeship mindset, being a coach, being a sponsor, being a mentor to the younger generation. And if you really enter it in that spirit of coaching, that the person you're coaching has so much to offer too. So it just feels so much like a win-win when you're having those conversations. The younger generation teaches and learns and vice versa.

Lisa Belisle: As you're talking, I'm thinking about this idea of reverse mentoring. So you're not assuming that because you are older or have more experience that what you're bringing to the table is more important. We actually can bring other people who are maybe younger into this conversation and they can mentor us in their own way.

Stacey Dietsch: Exactly. It's not more important, it's just different. And that's so neat, is we have these younger people who've grown up with their technology and we've grown up writing and processing information in our ways, and we come together and then we're more helpful to whoever our stakeholders are because of both of those perspectives and both of those skill sets.

Lisa Belisle: One of the things that you mentioned earlier is this idea of succession planning. And I've seen that this can be very challenging, particularly in fields like healthcare. You spent almost 20 years in McKinsey, so I'm sure that over time you worked very hard, you've developed a certain set of skills, you developed a perspective. And I think not everybody has an easy time letting go of all of those things and moving onto the next thing. So you may have a defined succession plan, but if you haven't quite gotten there yourself, you're not ready to have that plan play out. Have you ever been in situations like that where you've met people and you're like, I think this person's ready to go, but they're not ready to go?

Stacey Dietsch: Definitely. And I think that there are ways to, when you're in that situation, it's very hard, because then it takes mostly tough, courageous conversations with that person if you feel truly that person's, it almost sounds like a fixed mindset. I'm here, I have my offering and I don't see a path for me to leave. But what we need is more of that flexibility to bring in new ideas. I think those conversations are really hard when you've just gotten there. And what we're seeing a lot of organizations do to mitigate that risk is have a lot more frequent conversations, a lot more transparency around the importance of movement and change in an organization, and trying to paint that genuinely as an opportunity for everybody. Because it's wonderful for new ideas to come into any team, including for that person who may not be ready to retire, but potentially there's a way for that person's skills to be a contribution to another team, and then they get to learn too, and hopefully they see how that ends up being rewarding for them too.

Lisa Belisle: I agree with what you're saying, and I think that when I read the email tagline from Doximity and it talks about, finally the older generation is leaving, so now we can get started out of the work, I think that's where I take it, is that it is actually really difficult to come into a place and see somebody who's sort of squatting, like, here I am, I'm not going anywhere. And if they do have a fixed mindset, you can't really go anywhere with that. So I think going back to your psychology background, a lot of it has to do with identity, and if you build an identity around whatever stage of your professional life you're in, it's hard to leave that identity behind.

Stacey Dietsch: That's exactly right. And it comes back to some of the things we were talking about at the beginning, I think, is how do you as an individual and how does the organization help that individual have moments of reflection to talk about, to acknowledge and honor that identity and help somebody chart a course that keeps movement in their own evolution as a person. Because of course, even with retirement, you have the potential to keep learning and growing and doing new things. And I think so many times we get on this treadmill where we keep moving, but we keep moving in what's familiar to us, and sometimes you need to stop the treadmill so that you can look around and acknowledge and be grateful for who you are and what you've done and where you've been. And sometimes it's just that different perspective that will allow that person to open their minds to a new possibility, but we have to create the space for it. I think that's the key. You've got to stop the treadmill in order for people to be able to have a new thing to look at in themselves and others.

Lisa Belisle: That's so true. I think it's creating the space for people to be reflective, and I think there's also a creating of space for additional roles that go beyond whatever role they're in now. And when I think about, for example, medicine, just because that happens to be my field, it traditionally has been sort of an apprentice journeyman trajectory, and we traditionally have had older practitioners who stay on as mentors and coaches and teachers. And because of the way business has gone, we've needed those people to stay in the trenches seeing patients all the time, generating revenue. And I wonder if we can't find a way back. Can we find a way back so that you don't have to see patients all the time, for example, you can help learners who are coming through who are the next generation of practitioners. Again, it's the value. How do we value another role that maybe doesn't get paid the same way in a business but is still really important? Do you have thoughts on that?

Stacey Dietsch: I think that's a tough one. I think the value piece is tough because it is both, how is that role valued and seen in the organization, and what is the need of the person? In terms of your comment on compensation, I think it's tough to take a step back. And the question is, one of the things that I think can be a neat offering to people who may need to step away from line work and go into more of that teaching, coaching role, is, how do you open up opportunities for them maybe outside of the day-to-day, to be a coach that has its own revenue stream, or to be a board member that again also has a revenue stream. So there are ways to think about it, being compensated for your wisdom and expertise differently. And the key is, how do you show that that shift out of the line and into the coaching, supportive leader role is valued in terms of just reward and recognition and celebration of that person, and showing how the coaching that they do helps the other person be more impactful in their day-to-day work.

Lisa Belisle: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I wonder if, because we've traditionally had this idea in our society that everybody retires at, well, it's getting older and older, but we've had this idea, at one point it was 55, the American Association of Retired Persons, they start reaching out to people at 49. I don't know that many people who are going to be ready to retire at 50 through 55. I don't think our financial structure is set up that way in this country, but maybe not even 65. People are healthier longer, they're living active lives. We want them to. So how do we look at a longer life and, outside of let's say a traditional job, be a board member, be a coach, be a mentor. There's the Service Corps of Retired Executives that exists. This kind of thing is out there, but can we touch back into it in a way that's meaningful?

Stacey Dietsch: I really love that, and it is one of the reasons that I wanted to move to Maine. I really wanted to find a place that you could feel like your contributions to the community were meaningful and could be felt. And it's also something that I remember hearing a lot about in Covid, is that it was a real disruption to people's identity when they couldn't be at work every day with their colleagues, because everything that they were doing in their lives was at work or around work. And what they realized was that we've lost a little bit of that community service, community organization as a part of somebody's life. And that's what I'm hoping we can go back to. And to your point of living a more holistic life, even earlier than just as you're ready to potentially retire or go into a second career. But how do we show people that they can contribute their intelligence, their expertise to organizations and their communities and see the impact in the people and the organizations that touch their lives and the lives of others really nearby.

Lisa Belisle: Since you've opened up this door, tell me why one would, after almost two decades with McKinsey, decide, oh, I'm going to do something different now. Was it a Covid realization? Did you have to, yourself as your own talent, have to do some examination? And what did that look like for you as someone who always had been the person on the outside, to be the person on the inside doing this sort of self-evaluation?

Stacey Dietsch: Absolutely. It really was the Covid. I used that treadmill stopping because that's exactly what it felt like to me. I had just been going in a direction that was comfortable and known, and then when it stopped and my little family, we were all in the same house together for 24 hours a day, I was able to see things differently and it was a total and complete reset. I realized I wanted to reduce the travel I was doing as a consultant. And there was also exactly what you said, this desire to be more a part of what I was doing, and that was more a part of my family. It was more a part of my community and it was more a part of the work. So what I was looking for was a way to find an organization whose purpose I believed in deeply, whose team I would be just thrilled to be a part of, and really feel accountable for not just the initial ideas and the plans, but actually taking it all the way to impact, and understanding that that journey from the plan to the impact is a wild one. Sometimes there's so much change and so much learning and so much humanity in that, and I wanted to be a part of that. It was so much the big aha for me in Covid, was the desire to just get closer to everything I was doing and be in the moment so much more. And that's what really translated into the desire to move from consulting into an organization that I care about.

Lisa Belisle: And you alluded to moving to Maine. Where were you moving from?

Stacey Dietsch: I began my life, I was born in Washington DC and I began my McKinsey career also in Washington DC, after lots of moves. Our family though moved to Mexico City for three years, or two and a half years, about six years ago. And so we were living in Mexico City. We'd been coming to Maine for summers for about 11 years. And while we were in Mexico City, we just had this conversation, where do we love more than anywhere in the world? And it was Maine. And so we decided that we would try to find a place here that was our family's place, and we did. And we did before the pandemic and then lived there for six months of the pandemic. And that's when we said, okay, instead of going back to DC, let's go forward to Maine. And that's what brought us here.

Lisa Belisle: Are you seeing people who made decisions during Covid because they're like, oh my life, I don't like what it was, I'm reevaluating, I'm going to make a change now. Are you seeing anybody who's been like, oh wait, I'm not sure I made that decision in a way that really makes sense moving forward. Are you seeing people reverse decisions?

Stacey Dietsch: I definitely have, and I've seen a few people actually who are our friends here in Maine actually move back to where they came from. And that's also a neat part of life, to be able to try something and have the privilege of returning or trying something else. So I think the shakeup was amazing, obviously in the midst of a tragedy for many, but there are learnings that people had very personally about what they do need in their life context. And sometimes that can take you back to where you came from and sometimes it continues to take you to new places.

Lisa Belisle: In your work as the Executive Vice President of Talent at Liberty Mutual, are you seeing people who are maybe coming back to work for Liberty Mutual who had left during the pandemic and are saying, oh, you know what, I actually really did like that job and I really would like to come back?

Stacey Dietsch: I'm so new there that I don't know those patterns as much, but what I do know is there's of course the return to office philosophy and approach that lots of organizations are going through. Liberty Mutual is no exception. What I've thought is really neat is that this is a 112-year-old organization that is in the insurance business, obviously, and yet they've really adapted to a new way of working because of Covid. So casual clothing and a hybrid work policy that is two days a week on site. And they also have a remote community as well. And what I'm seeing is, while some people again felt like, oh gosh, that's a shakeup, I've been working at home and now I'm going back to the office, I think that's part of what's also changing is the recognition that it is really nice to be with people in person and be able to connect, be able to build those relationships, be able to do that innovative brainstorming kind of work. And then it's equally nice to go home and sit at their computer and look out their window and hear the kids come home from school. So I am seeing a return to in-person work, but in just such a different way that is much more balanced, that I am really thinking is a nice direction for us all to go.

Lisa Belisle: Yes, I would agree with that. And I think that what I would continue to hope is that through this just remarkable disruption, and in many ways tragedy that happened globally, can benefit in some way. Because if we can't, and we just say, well, that's just two or three years of my life lost, then what? That's so unfortunate. But if we can say, well, okay, but what did we learn here and how do we integrate this moving forward? I think in some ways you can say, well, it's not like I would've chosen this, but maybe it made the fact that we went all through this a little bit more palatable.

Stacey Dietsch: Absolutely. And I think, not to bring this all back to talent practices and the way that we approach work, but that to me, that philosophy of looking for the learning in all of the hard moments is something that I really hope is a theme from that time that we carry forward in all that we do. It does correspond to some of the ways that, like we talked about, the younger generation is shaking things up for us and wanting us to work with more agility, work faster, which of course means that we sometimes don't succeed in the things that we're doing, and we ruffle feathers in ways that were unintended. And the key is, well, what do we learn from that and how does it make us and our work better? That to me is the gift of the pandemic and the gift of also being one of the more mature people in the workforce, is you do realize that all of those little hiccups and bumps in the road do make you better, because you just have a different and more expansive perspective to offer.

Lisa Belisle: Yes. I would say that I have learned far more from all of the many mistakes that I've made in my life than all or any of the goals that I've achieved. So I think sometimes it doesn't feel great while you're going through it, but I always love, and I just said this yesterday about parenting, it's always nice to be able to be like, oh, I did that. I made it through that. Look what I have on the other side. I have wonderful humans. So I love this idea of looking for learning, because I think that that just causes us to think about being humans on this planet in a different way.

Stacey Dietsch: Absolutely. I couldn't agree more, and I love your parenting comment as well, because somebody told me the term snowplow parent, which is the parent who tries to remove all the obstacles from in front of the child, and I just found myself feeling so sad for people with the snowplow parent, because it is the learning in the safe space of the family through those mistakes and goof-ups and hardships and hurts that will make people stronger in the long run.

Lisa Belisle: I think my children will agree that I'm more of a snowshoe parent, where I'd be like, I got my snowshoes. You get yours on, let's go. I feel good that I was not one of those people, and to my children I can say, you're welcome. But thank you for introducing that term, and it's really been a lovely conversation with you today, Stacey.

Stacey Dietsch: I've enjoyed it so much too. Thank you very much.

Lisa Belisle: Thank you. I'm Dr. Lisa Belisle and you have been listening to or watching our video podcast, Radio Maine, where we celebrate creativity and the human spirit courtesy of the Portland Art Gallery in Portland, Maine. And today I have been speaking with Stacey Dietsch, who is the Executive Vice President of Talent at Liberty Mutual Insurance. Thanks again for being here.

Stacey Dietsch: Thank you.