The path from CPO to COO, employee choice in RTOs, and job ads for narcissists?

This week, we discuss why HR professionals are naturally positioned for C-suite operations roles, examining the journey of Hinge's Angel Franklin from CPO to COO and why this transition shouldn't be considered unusual. We also dive into MongoDB's approach to hybrid work models, and fascinating research on how job ad language may inadvertently attract candidates with narcissistic tendencies and what this means for recruitment strategies.

Connect:

with Steven Huang on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thestevenhuang/

or sign up for his newsletter: https://setthesetting.substack.com/

with Stacey Nordwall on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/staceynordwall/

Articles:

• Why it’s not far-fetched for HR pros to dream of being COO 
• Giving employees a choice when to be in the office 
• Why is your boss a narcissist? Blame the job ad that got them hired 

Transcript

Stacey (00:00):

Welcome to Toot or Boot, where each week we talk about news related to HR and the world of work. We toot the news we like and boot the news we don't like. I'm your host, Stacey Nordwall, a serial joiner of early stage tech companies as their first in or only HR person. And joining us again for Toot or Boot, we have the one and only Steven Huang. Welcome Steven. Yes.

Steven (00:20):

Hi Stacey. Hi everyone. All you Toot n Booters out there. Excited to be here with you.

Stacey (00:28):

All right, we're going to dive right in and start off with a story from HR Brew that's called Why It's Not Farfetched for HR Pros to Dream of being COO. The recap for this article, we learn about Angel Franklin who went from being CPO to being COO at Hinge. They say in the article this is an uncommon transition. She still oversees hr, but her new role expands into strategic planning and cross-functional alignment. She credits her broad HR background and experience across industries for prepping her to step into operations and emphasizes that HR leaders often possess deep business insights and cross-functional exposure, making them strong COO candidates. The last time you joined us, you said a little something about how your role was at MAPS was kind of COO ish.

Steven (01:22):

Yeah, I guess I'm going to toot this. This is the same path for me. So I was a director on the people team at my organization maps, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic studies. We do drug policy advocacy work. We started a pharma company that does clinical trials even though we are a nonprofit. And after an organizational shift, I became COO is not my title. I'm the director of HR finance and it, so call it what you want. I call it operations, but I actually kind of like having all those words separated so people actually know operations can mean a lot of different things.

(02:06):

But yeah, the article talked about how in the CPO or head of HR role, you do a lot of coaching. That's really what management is. If you work in different sub-functions as an HR person, if you worked in marketing or if you're an HR VP in certain orgs, you generally know how an org works. HR people, we love to roll up our sleeves, get really embedded in our teams. We can handle systems, we can handle numbers, we can do all the things. So I guess I want to boot that this is even a headline, right?

Stacey (02:42):

Yes.

Steven (02:43):

Why couldn't we? Although I will say I did have a lot of imposter syndrome when I started. Who wouldn't? Right? But you hire fractional support, you use AI a little bit. You can throw financial statements into AI and be like, Hey, if you're an auditor, what's an issue here? What should I be looking out for? So AI is one of those tools that can really enable people that have good people and leadership skills to assume more responsibility.

Stacey (03:13):

I had a similar reaction about that because I feel like for ages we have been getting this message like, okay, for HR to have a seat at the table, you have to understand the business. You have to think strategically. And HR folks have been doing this. So I mean doing this for a while, and you're saying depending on what your role is, you usually have a pretty deep understanding of different parts of the business, maybe even more so than people in other departments. So what stretch of the imagination is it that someone who's on that pathway could then become a COO because it feels like any other pathway and they're like, throw 'em in the CPO role. No big

Steven (04:01):

Yes, that happens. A lot of CPO roles come in from legal or come in from operations or other things, but it's weird if it goes the other way. I think that's a little, hm

Stacey (04:16):

Yeah, so that's why, I mean, I don't want to boot that she made this transition and she's enjoying the role or anything like that. That's great. And I think that it's a toot to see more of that, to see that people can in HR roles and CPO roles can easily step into a COO role and that it makes sense and because we have those skills that we've built. But it was a little bit of a boot for me that it's just feels like this uncommon or weird thing when we've been getting this message for ages that we have to understand the business really well to succeed at the table of hr. So this is no different.

Steven (05:03):

Hinge is a business based on human connection. I would say they're not doing a very good job. I would boot Hinge as an app. We don't need to go into my dating life, but maybe just maybe this CPO who I don't know personally, but we can assume she has excellent and understanding of people skills might be able to improve the operations of this business so they can actually be deleted as they So claim,

Stacey (05:32):

Yeah, deliver that value of the product.

Steven (05:36):

Yes, yes. Let's see. Let's see.

Stacey (05:40):

All right, let us move on to, we have another article from HR Brew. Actually the title of this one is Giving Employees a Choice When to Be In the Office. The recap here is that MongoDB gave senior leaders four options of hybrid work to choose from it three plus days in the office, one or two days in office, work from home, but go to customer offices or 100% work from home. They said that many sales leaders chose the in-office models based on their need for collaboration and teams with interns and early employees chose more flexible or in office models for leadership visibility and mentorship. But generally the leaders had four options to choose from.

Steven (06:26):

You go first on this one.

Stacey (06:26):

I'm going to start off. So I gave this a toot, and one of the big parts of this that was a toot for me was that they set the expectation that if the senior leaders chose one of the models, they had to also follow that model. Because I feel like so often you see all these return to office mandates and senior leaders are telling everyone they have to come back to the office, but then they themselves are not adhering to what they're asking everyone else to do

Steven (06:59):

Classic.

Stacey (06:59):

I know.

Steven (07:02):

So classic.

Stacey (07:04):

That's for you. That's not for me to do that. So I loved that it was like, okay, you can pick whatever you want, but just know you're going to have to do it too.

Steven (07:17):

Okay. You read the article closer than I did.

Stacey (07:21):

I liked that. I liked that about it. And also my pet peeve about all of these articles is that they never seem to or rarely seem to acknowledge that in bigger organizations or distributed workforces, you're not likely to be co-located with your team anyway. So the whole push to be in the office is irrelevant if your team is not actually there. And so that was something that they called out too, is why are we going to have everybody come back to the office when the reality is we're a global business and not everyone is in the office anyway. So yeah, that for me, I feel I've seen so many of these articles where those things aren't called out. That for me, I was like, finally. So I tooted it.

Steven (08:09):

Okay. Yeah. When I first scanned it, I was like, cool, giving people a choice, I'll toot that whatever works and giving managers and leaders the choice to make decisions for their teams versus this company-wide policy, I think is, like you said, just practical. But I've been working remotely for many years. I'm always booting the sense that's like, oh, we're going to do what's best for the workers. And I'm like, I'm always skeptical. Returning to office is always about control, isn't it?

Stacey (08:45):

Yeah.

Steven (08:46):

So I'm, I wonder if kind of like unlimited PTO, here's this thing that's good for you, but it's really about reducing liability on the balance sheet. And actually you taking less PTO, right? So whenever something is good, whenever your employer does something good for you, question it because you're like, wait a minute. Especially if you happen to be at an organization that that's not the best reputation, just question if they give you these choices, but actually your manager chooses this lender. I just feel like you should be skeptical. I'm always skeptical and I am head of hr and

Stacey (09:30):

I love that you're bringing the healthy skepticism to it. And the unlimited PTO example is such a good one too, because it really is that research has shown, unless you at least make some part of it, mandatory people tend to take less. And yeah, it is that it's not a liability for the company to be holding all of that vacation time that people aren't using. So

Steven (09:56):

It's too good to be true. It might be,

Stacey (09:58):

Yeah.

Steven (09:59):

But on the surface, on the surface, I was tooting this one.

Stacey (10:03):

Okay.

Steven (10:03):

Yeah. We'll see how it plays out.

Stacey (10:06):

Yeah, I mean, I think maybe is also, like I said, I think colored by the fact that I've just read so many RTO articles about return to office mandates and how often it does seem to be about control and about the illusion of better performance or collaboration. And then you find out they have 3 billion office and it seems more about real estate.

Steven (10:34):

Well, you mentioned salespeople together for collaboration. My roommate is a salesperson and no, I mean he has to go to the office a few days a week, but he's like, this doesn't make sense. He's like, I'm just on calls, I'm closing deals. I'm kind of pretty independent. I don't need to be with my team. And he feels like he's being brought in so that he can be controlled.

Stacey (10:57):

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think there are some of those things, like collaboration is always one of those that is used as an excuse, I think, to get people into the office. And I just don't know how often that's really the case, especially if people aren't thinking about it intentionally. Just getting people into a location does not mean that they are collaborating or that it's best for the way that they work or any of those things. But yes, I think having the requirement that whatever model they chose, they had to abide by, that felt, I really liked that part. I was like, okay, yes.

Steven (11:46):

What if the manager doesn't get to choose, but the team votes and everyone gets a single vote? That would be fun. The manager's like, oh, you're fired. You're fired.

Stacey (11:57):

Oh my gosh. Yeah. I mean, well, right. And that's the other thing we know about RTOs is then it just leads to the layoffs or letting people go instead of having to do layoffs because they opt out of choosing the model. But that is yet another whole other episode. So we'll move to our last article, which is from The Guardian. I thought this one was just kind of funny. I'm really interested to see what you thought of it. The title of this one is, why Is Your Boss a Narcissist Blame the Job Ad that got them hired? The recap is that after noticing how often executives seem to show narcissistic tendencies, some behavioral researchers decided to look at the language ing job ads to see if certain language would draw in those people. They found that language that they categorized as more rule bending thinks outside the box or communicates in a tactical and persuasive manner was more attractive to those with narcissistic tendencies. And they also said that there are some jobs like sales where maybe this mindset can be helpful. And then side note, narcissistic tendencies isn't the same as being a narcissist, but I thought this was just kind of fun. What did you think?

Steven (13:17):

I tooted the study design. I love a good behavioral analysis, and there's often these studies that are what I would call a two by two. Like, okay, we'll create this fake job ad and this fake job ad and have these two populations and see which one they're attracted to. You can do this with gender, you can do this with resumes, you can do this, all these. So I just kind of like these studies, it's very clear to see the relationships. They do tend to oversimplify things of course.

Stacey (13:46):

Yeah

Steven (13:47):

And I think that's maybe what I was booting a little bit, which is kind of like, yeah, yeah, we know. Did you control for all the factors? And also, of course, you need junior employees to follow SOPs and do things a certain way, and you need executives to be able to bend the rules and break the rules and innovate a little bit. So maybe it's an oversimplified study. And then the headline, did they just make the headline to get on Toot or Boot

Stacey (14:20):

Once again? You know what,

Steven (14:21):

Once again,

Stacey (14:22):

They're always doing this. They're always trying to make headlines just to get on the show.

Steven (14:27):

That's what I'm afraid of. And then people get all up in arms about it. But what did you think, Stacey?

Stacey (14:36):

I mostly thought it was a toot. Same for some of the same reasons as you of, I just like when people research these weird things and design these studies to see what people respond to what will happen. I think we know that job ad language matters and that

Steven (14:58):

Yes

Stacey (14:58):

People Are attracted to certain kind of jobs and certain kind of language that you see in job ads. So it's important to kind of always, I think, have that in the back of your mind that if you just put some kind of job description out there, you really are already creating a filter whether you recognize it or not, because certain people are going to key into certain words and it's going to make them interested or not in it. So I always think that that's really fascinating.

Steven (15:27):

That is a good point. And that's why whenever I think about transferable skills, recruiters are salespeople.

Stacey (15:35):

Yeah

Steven (15:35):

They're Literally, they work on the same kind of quota and attainment thing. You are selling a position to someone and how you write a job description, and it's usually a recruiter's job to either write it or collect the details and have it be written and synthesized in a certain way. It's exactly that. You're right. It's marketing and every word that you use matters. And there's so many words that you can use that turn people away too. So it's about inclusive language, but also if you need a rule follower or you need a rule bender for a certain role, be conscious of what you're doing.

Stacey (16:11):

Yeah, yeah. And I think also, I mean, the interesting thing to me too is some of those, in some positions like sales for instance, certain behaviors tend to be rewarded. They tend to get further up. If they kind of go further up the career ladder as it were, then they're kind of looking for those same people that have those same skills and writing things in the same way and rewarding the same people. So I think also, I wonder how much of it is just a little bit of self-fulfilling prophecy or that you're just Filtering in these people.

Steven (16:50):

You're giving me another reason to toot this in that when a job applicant is now reading a job ad, they can assess out maybe what the culture is like, oh, this culture is designed for rule benders, or this culture is designed for rule followers, and is that what the culture is like or what the role is like? And that's good information to have in my organization some people get all the rule bending and some people, my role, the compliance people have to do all the accountability and all the rule following and clean up the messes of all the rule benders. So if you see this language in a job ad, that might be something to bring up in an interview. Like, Hey, it seems like this role has a lot of rule following things, but from what I've seen about the organization, you're innovating a lot. How does that work? Or vice versa.

Stacey (17:44):

Oh yeah. I love that a lot because it really is, like you're saying maybe one of those really hidden insights into what the culture is like, and also an opportunity to say, am I going to feel comfortable here? Or is the way that I operate going to be rewarded if I'm a rule follower, but it is a bit more rule bendy than maybe I'm going to have a harder time because there'll be some dissonance there, or I won't be promoted, or things like that. So actually it is really a fascinating thing to, if you're looking at the job descriptions to ask about or to use another way to decide if it's the right environment for you,

Steven (18:27):

Looking for that match. I haven't been job hunting in many years, but one thing I'm paying attention to is consistency. Do I get a consistent impression from the job ad and the people that I meet and the interactions with a recruiter or was this person selling it this way and one person was in the job a kind of sounded different than the people I interviewed. They were all different to me. Like serious yellow or red flag.

Stacey (18:55):

Oh yeah. Yeah. That is a really good point too. All right, well thanks. I feel like we really, at the end, we are just some really great nuggets there for the job searchers who may be listening and amongst us, Sven, Steven,

Steven (19:15):

I'll be Sven.

Stacey (19:17):

I know it's, it's just too awkward. Tell people if they want to connect with you, if they want to learn more from you, how can they do that?

Steven (19:25):

Yes. I would love to connect with folks that just heard a bunch of my hot takes. You can find me on LinkedIn. That's really one of the few social media's platforms that I'm on, Steven with a V. My last name is H-U-A-N-G, Huang. I also write an email newsletter from my Substack once a week. So my Substack is called Set the Setting. It has a meme, it has a playlist, it has some photos, it has some hot takes, and I also have a website set the setting.com, where I advocate for microdosing executives.

Stacey (19:58):

Fabulous. I will include those links in the show notes. And I said this before, but it is true, and because I respond to probably a good half of your newsletters, if not more, there's always something in it that strikes me and that I resonate with in some way or I find interesting. So I'm going to recommend for folks to

Steven (20:18):

That for sure. Thank you for tooting. Set the setting. Yeah.

Stacey (20:22):

Hundred Percent too set the setting. I really do. That is true.

Steven (20:27):

I love this podcast so Much. Thank you, Stacey.

Stacey (20:30):

Thank you.