The Modern People Leader: Forward-Thinking HR

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(03:55) Bryan's story: From recruiter to dot-com era to Square and Yahoo

(09:40) Dot-com crash, pivot to outplacement services, joining Google

(11:58) Post-Google reflections: Joining Square, Yahoo, then Nextdoor

(15:22) How Nextdoor makes money & unique value of neighbor-based networks

(17:29) Impact of tariffs on ad-driven business models

(18:48) Segue to "Nextdoor's three eras" framework

(20:30) Era 1 to Era 3: Cultural and operational transformations

(24:51) Pitfalls and learnings from founder return transitions

(28:29) Founder's Mentality: The framework that guides Era 3

(31:21) Insurgency, frontline obsession & owner's mindset explained

(33:31) Nextdoor’s AI experiments and new company rhythms

(36:55) When founders should stay deeply involved

(39:15) How HR can operationalize the Founder’s Mentality

(42:58) Simplifying leadership layers to regain focus and speed

(47:13) AI bootcamps & the future of people team productivity

(50:03) “Prompt pantry” inspiration and scalable personal learning

(53:34) AI as co-pilot vs. replacement: New expectations for employees

(55:28) People Ops as a product

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🔗 Download the State of Teams 2025 Report from Atlassian.

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Past guests on MPL include Brené Brown, Annie Dean (VP of Team Anywhere, Atlassian), Josh Bersin, Katie Burke (Chief People Officer, Harvey), Liz Fosslien, Helen Russell (Chief People Officer, HubSpot), Dave Scott (Chief People Officer, ADT), Melanie Rossenwasser (Chief People Officer, Dropbox), Crystal Boysen (Chief People Officer, Sprout Social), and many more.

Build - Nobody gets People Ops as a Product 100% right (and that’s ok): Jessica Zwaan (Author, Built for People) May 06, 2025

Show notes

Jessica Zwaan, COO at Talentful and author of Built for People, joined us on The Modern People Leader.

We talked about “human ops” versus “people ops”, the sprint planning process for her people team, and how nobody gets people ops as a product 100% right (and that’s ok).

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(05:43) The Trap of Perfection & Self-Compassion in HR and Life

(07:55) Excitement Over MPL Build Launch

(08:45) Revisiting Jessica’s OG Blog on PeopleOps vs HumanOps

(11:07) Defining the 3 Products: Shareholder, Consumer, and Employee Experience

(12:58) What is HumanOps vs PeopleOps? A Practical Framework

(15:04) Naming Regrets & Semantics of HR Frameworks

(16:46) Evolving the Playbook: How AI Has Changed PeopleOps

(18:30) AI in Action: Where Do Benefits and Chatbots Fit?

(21:58) Efficiency Through AI: Freeing Time for High-Impact Work

(24:19) HumanOps Litmus Test: Is a Human Presence Still Valuable?

(25:59) Real Example: Productizing Performance Calibration

(28:47) Healthy Split: How to Balance HumanOps vs PeopleOps

(30:25) Agile Practices in HR: Sprints, Retros, and Planning

(33:50) Tools & Structure for Sprint Execution in Small Teams

(35:17) Addressing Misconceptions: Perfection vs Iteration

(39:25) Metrics and MVPs: Doing the Best You Can is Enough

(43:07) Common Questions: “Is Anyone Else Doing This?” and “What if I’m a Team of One?”

(44:30) From Blog to Book: Scaling the Framework in Small HR Teams

(48:17) Recap & One-Word Closes: Self-Compassion, Gasbagging, Cathartic

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227 - How to build AI workflows for HR: Taylor Bradley (VP, Talent Strategy & Success, Turing) May 02, 2025

Show notes

Taylor Bradley, VP of Talent Strategy and Success at Turing, joined us on The Modern People Leader.We talked about why every HR team needs to create an AI “prompt pantry”, how Turing “AI’d” their way out of onboarding 800 employees in five days, and how to build AI workflows for HR.

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(05:43) Taylor’s Unlikely HR Origin Story: From Paramedic to People Leader

(08:19) Real-Life Delivery & Skills from the Field Applied to HR

(10:14) Risk Frameworks in Emergency Response Now Power HR Decisions

(11:11) Segue to AI & Turing's Mission Explained in Plain Language

(13:44) Explosive Growth at Turing & The AGI Boom Post-ChatGPT

(16:52) The AI Education Gap in HR & Why Prompting is the New Power Skill

(17:42) Building the “Prompt Pantry” and a Culture of Experimentation

(20:17) Making Prompting Practical: From Docs to Voice Interfaces

(24:34) Why GenAI Makes Work More Enjoyable & The Joy of Mastery

(26:31) Blitzscaling at Turing: Emotions, Lessons & Focus

(28:36) How Turing Built “Allen”: Async Learning in 48 Hours

(31:21) Iterating with AI Voices & Learning Design at Scale

(33:38) Allen’s Second Form: 52K Tickets and Agentic Support

(35:17) Stephen’s AI Use Story + Clarifying What Agentic Really Means

(37:22) What Agentic HR Actually Looks Like in Practice

(39:48) Building Custom AI Tools for HR: Turing’s R&D Playbook

(42:28) Training GPTs with Empathy: Linguistics & Feedback Loops

(44:51) AI’s Disruption of the HR Job Market: An Optimist’s Take

(47:01) Managing AI Agents as the New HR Org Design

(50:04) What Will Finally Tip Lagging Companies Into AI Adoption

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226 - The 3 secrets to teamwork in 2025: Molly Sands (Head of the Teamwork Lab, Atlassian) Apr 25, 2025

Show notes

Molly Sands, Head of the Teamwork Lab at Atlassian, joined us on The Modern People Leader.

We talked about Atlassian’s latest research on the three things the best teams do differently, the power of unleashing collective knowledge, and why distributed teams have a headstart on AI adoption.

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(05:30) Molly’s Journey: From Social Psychology to Head of Teamwork Lab at Atlassian

(10:53) Day-to-Day at Teamwork Lab: Researching & Experimenting with Teams Globally

(12:50) How Atlassian Prioritizes Research & Addresses Team Challenges

(17:32) State of Teams Report 2025: The Three Key Practices of Top Teams

(23:10) Unleashing Collective Knowledge: What It Looks Like at Scale

(30:33) The AI Paradigm Shift: Why Remote-First Teams Have the Advantage

(38:10) Agentic Solutions: Can AI Agents Really Automate Team Workflows Today?

(42:46) Real AI Applications: Atlassian’s Nora Agent for Onboarding & Beyond

(48:28) Advice for People Leaders: Start Small with AI & Empower Experimentation

(50:04) Rapid Fire: Molly’s Career Advice, Superpower, and Strategy to Steal

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225 - Pat Wadors (CHRO, Intuitive) on amplifying the “golden nuggets” of your culture Apr 21, 2025

Show notes

Pat Wadors, CHRO at Intuitive, joined us on The Modern People Leader.

We talked about how to find and amplify the golden nuggets of your culture, the three layers of a great employee experience, why you need to “touch the elephant”, and what kids’ stories can teach us about leadership.

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(05:48) Pat’s 18-Month Update: New Role, Book Launch, and Life Shift

(13:55) What is Intuitive? The Da Vinci System & MedTech Innovation

(18:34) How It Works: Da Vinci, AI Feedback & Remote Surgeries

(21:02) Culture Work: Merging Two Cultures & The Player-Coach Model

(25:20) Us vs. Them: Culture Nuance, Middleware & Global Complexity

(28:51) Finding the Golden Nuggets: How to Identify Cultural Truths

(31:28) Mapping Culture: From Aspirational Values to Operational Change

(33:41) Origin Story & Its Role in Company Culture

(35:08) Becoming an Archaeologist: Crafting a Cohesive Narrative

(38:49) How to Make Culture Measurable: The CEO Buy-In

(41:04) Building MPL Culture: Rigor, Humor, and Platform Principles

(45:00) Touch the Elephant: Bias, Context & Emotional Intelligence

(46:51) Why Pat Wrote the Book: Fables, Storytelling & Self-Awareness

(51:45) Pat’s Book Picks: Mulan, Goldilocks & the Lessons Behind Them

(58:16) The Bat Phone: Parenting Advice & Living Your Values

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Build - Jessica Zwaan: Story behind her obsession w/ People Ops as a Product Apr 11, 2025

Show notes

Jessica Zwaan returned to The Modern People Leader for a deep dive on how her PeopleOps as a Product philosophy came to life. We talked about the early days of the framework, writing her book, and the launch of MPL Build — a new collaboration between MPL and Jessica to bring the methodology to more teams.

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(08:12) Where Jessica first discovered PeopleOps as a product in the wild

(10:24) The blog post that changed everything

(12:45) Why the 2020 timing was perfect for this framework

(14:19) Turning the blog into a book — thanks to Lars Schmidt

(18:33) Early examples of building squads and roadmaps

(21:18) Launching a full apprenticeship program in just 12 weeks

(22:46) Did the skeptics show up? And how have attitudes changed?

(25:36) The most surprising feedback from the community

(30:12) How big could this get? Is there a limit to who this works for?

(32:29) Why the U.S. is catching up to Europe in adopting this framework

(34:18) The original MPL mission: reaching 100M employees

(36:12) Announcing MPL Build: our first expert-led program from MPL Academy

(39:51) How this partnership came together and why it’s a perfect match

(42:53) Why Jesse is excited about MPL Academy and Build

(45:29) The power of a complementary team

(47:00) What’s coming next: AMA-style episodes, two paths for learners, and tons of resources

(50:43) One word close

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223 - Shane Koller (Chief People Officer, Ancestry): Running your People Team like a Product Team Apr 04, 2025

Show notes

Shane Koller joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about adopting a product mindset in HR, how Ancestry’s people team built their “product roadmap”, and why even great HR programs fall short when they’re not connected.

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(07:35) Shane’s journey from psychology to Chief People Officer

(10:31) How Ancestry became the leader in family history and genomics

(13:13) Powerful storytelling: Connecting people with their family histories

(15:51) The moment Shane realized HR should run like a product team

(22:07) Adopting a shareholder mindset within the People function

(27:27) Identifying and prioritizing employee experience moments that matter

(33:15) Measuring success: Key metrics for people teams

(36:55) Restructuring the HR team to operate like a product organization

(43:45) Why CEO alignment is crucial for transforming HR

(47:06) Lessons learned from Ancestry’s "fail fast" moments

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222 - Michele Bousquet (Chief People Officer, Strava): Stop overcomplicating HR Mar 28, 2025

Show notes

Michele Bousquet joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about her career journey, leading with heart, and why HR shouldn’t be so complicated.

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(08:41) Michele’s career journey: From temp to Chief People Officer

(14:45) Lessons from navigating adversity and leading with heart

(21:52) The importance of authenticity and listening in leadership

(24:14) How Strava’s people team fosters human connection

(29:59) Simplifying HR: Leading with common sense and empathy

(35:18) Data-driven decisions: Using data with purpose and insight

(39:16) Rewarding and retaining talent through human connection

(43:53) Human-centered HR: Managing people teams like a product

(47:54) The power of people-focused leadership at Strava

(54:39) Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) and building community

(58:02) Handling tough situations with honesty and compassion

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221 - Caregivers are stretched thin. It’s time we paid attention: Michael Walsh (CEO, Cariloop) Mar 21, 2025

Show notes

Michael Walsh, CEO of Cariloop, joined us on The Modern People Leader.

We discussed the caregiving challenges facing employees today, how companies can better support working caregivers, and the data-backed insights from Cariloop’s Top Needs Report.

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(7:20) How Michael's personal experience with caregiving sparked the idea for Cariloop

(19:37) Why employers need to rethink caregiving support

(27:43) Why caregiving stigma persists at work

(38:46) The top caregiving challenges right now

(55:50) Making the business case for caregiver support

(01:01:22) Rapid Fire Questions

(01:04:13) One Word or Phrase Close

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