Podcast Transcripts

Zack Hudson, Leader and Consultant, on Effective Workflow

 

Colin Hunter 0:07
Hi folks, welcome to another episode of the leadership tales podcast delighted to be joined by a fellow podcaster Zack Hudson today. Zack runs a podcast very successfully way above this in terms of a number of episodes and reaches that is God, but it’s called passing the Baton leadership podcast. And I was lucky to be a guest on that podcast. But he’s also got amazing background talent specialists, and therefore today, what we’re going to talk about with Zack is his journey, his story, looking at the role of talented developers in our industry and in organizations. And He currently works in that role for about 50,000 employees across the US. So he has a real passion for that side of things and also can share some of the wisdom that he’s picked up on running all these podcasts. So I’m sure you’ll enjoy this conversation with Zack Hudson today.

Colin Hunter: 01:04
Hey, folks, I’m delighted to be joined today by Zack Hudson. Zack and I encountered each other by him kindly inviting me on to his podcast, and we had a great conversation. We’re just, you know, I’m a starter, a beginner in this world. You know, Zack is a veteran in this but also his background, fascinating background talent experts and also working for an organization called Kindred at Home which is you know, I believe that there’s been a transaction recently Zack, but something happening but I’d love you to introduce yourself say hello and tell people a bit about yourself. Yeah,

Zack Hudson 1:40
Yeah, well, Thank you, my friend. Yeah, it’s an honor to be a part of the show. So thank you so much for having me. Yeah, My name is Zack Hudson. Guys, where to begin as far as today’s kind of stuff. I do lead talent management for Kindred at Home, which is in the US, the largest home health and home provider of health care. In the country. We just went through a transaction with Humana, which I’m really excited about today will be the largest in the world, as far as a headcount goes and perspective from there to really, you know, as we go through COVID, and everything else, people want to be taken care of in their house, right. And then, as we have an aging population, people want to be taken care of in their house and stay at the hospital. So we’re providing a way to take care of patients in a very meaningful way right there in the home. So really excited about that piece, too. Yeah, I was to do podcasting for Kindred at Home, but also for myself, too. So we have a passing baton leadership podcast where we just celebrated our six-year anniversary. So we were talking before the show; I think that means we’re like 60 in podcasts here. So we’re old. We’re old, old hats. So we’re, you know, the average show, I think, is like seven shows before they end up quitting. But we find it in there getting ready to close in on 300 shows here. So it’s been a fun journey. We’re 15 minutes commuter cell format that hits leadership right where you are. So you can have actionable tips in your normal commute or when you’re running your errands. So yeah

Colin Hunter 3:17
fantastic. And take me back to you and how you grew up and your story before that. Just give the listeners a bit of it.

Zack Hudson 3:25
Yeah, you know, I don’t know that anybody wakes up and says I’m going to be a leader, the teachers, other leaders, I mean, you may see that Indiana Jones or whatever else if you’re to take when you grew up, but to aspire to be some of Canada’s great iconic characters, but for me, it was really about the life journey. So I grew up in Louisiana, more of a little bit more of a rural area. About 30,000 people there in this town that I was in and just grew up in and outdoors, I did a lot of scouting, I went from kind of the earliest phases going to become an Eagle Scout and really learned a lot about leadership then, and then also joined the military, not long after we’re really directly a high school, paid for my college. And so, between military and scouting, it really kind of set a standard in me for what leadership meant, like for me, right and so got involved in that then got involved in operations after college, just being an operational leader. And then that’s where the thread started to pull together because operations are all about business and making money and hitting your goal and meeting a quota, and you know, get it done through your people. But so often, the people’s piece was missing. Right, and so once I was able to connect those two together, I mean, really success really kind of took off and helping others do that. It’s really what I do today, and both passing the Baton and in my role at Kindred at Home and Humana, so

Colin Hunter 4:57
amazing and outside that family?

Zack Hudson 4:59
Yeah, growing family, yeah, we just moved and got a family here live in Atlanta, Georgia, have a wife and an 11th grader and a second grader so built-in babysitter. So it’s nice running to

Colin Hunter 5:15
Good planning

Zack Hudson 5:15
Yeah, that’s right. Yeah, I was looking at your decor from our last year together. And I was telling worked on before the show good emulate, I think some of your styles, like your style. So

Colin Hunter 5:25
Yeah good. Well, well, good luck with the house. So let me dig into some of that because I’d love to hear don’t gear podcast years, some of the stories of the podcast because there is something about listening to others. And you were talking this morning about, it’d been the anniversary, and you’re starting to remember some of the key things and the key messages you got? Or what are some of the things you’ve heard over that time?

Zack Hudson 5:47
Sometimes it’s just, and this is some of the advice I’ve gotten for some people that helped me get going was just get going and just do it. Our first show was me, and another guy huddled around a table with like one of the cheap my first podcast recording microphones, right? Like the most basic entry-level, the audio is awful. It’s two people on one mic; it took us three hours to record, probably 12 minutes of audio. But we did it and

Colin Hunter 6:21
Folks, if you’re listening in here, the quality of the microphone and the key the equipment you’re seeing around Zach now is nothing basic there.

Zack Hudson 6:29
Yes, not. Not today; we definitely upgraded our game a little bit. But what we did it and we actually you can actually go back and listen to that show today. And some people might say why you would keep that out there? If it’s lower quality, but for me, it’s to show like, okay, you can start right where you are and do what you do, right? And it doesn’t matter; you don’t have to be amazing, right? You’re gonna do some things that are not going to be right; you’re gonna mess up early failures that are gonna lead to greater success down the road. And you know, the message that we had is evergreen; it was about positional leadership versus relational leadership and how you need to lead as a relational leader, not just by your position alone, and, you know, the messages there. But surely the content or the vehicle that we’re using is not the best. So definitely learned a lot from that process. And it’s been an amazing journey to go from something like that to today, where I think we’re like in 147 countries a week. So

Colin Hunter 07:29
Wow

Zack Hudson 07:29
Yeah, it’s been amazing. But you got to start somewhere, right. And

Colin Hunter 07:32
You do

Zack Hudson 07:32
that’s kind of the key piece to it is people get overwhelmed by the largeness of what they’re stepping into, or the overwhelming responsibility or the work that needs to go into it. But start

Colin Hunter 07:45
Yeah

Zack Hudson 07:45
Wherever you are.

Colin Hunter 7:46
Take that first step. It’s almost the hero’s journey. Just get out there and learn. And yeah, I’m interested in you, because we get a lot of clients who listen and talk about their learning strategy. And a lot of them are worried about the hybrid worlds and the move to digital. And there’s something about the podcast format that, to be honest, I looked at probably 18 months ago when Yeah, podcasts are okay. They’re great, you know, but it wasn’t part of my learning cycle. But now it is with Audible podcasts.

Zack Hudson 08:16
Yeah,

Colin Hunter 08:1
But what’s, what’s your view around why it’s so successful? And why leaders? Like, listen to the podcasts in 147 countries? What is it?

Zack Hudson 8:27
Yeah, it’s for us it is the combination of meeting them where they are on their schedule and in their terms and doing it in a timeframe that meets their needs to so I’ve got a very, very good friend, he’ll do an hour and a half, two-hour podcast.

Colin Hunter 08:41
Yeah,

Zack Hudson 08:41
that’s a long time.

Colin Hunter 08:43
Yeah

Zack Hudson 08:43
That’s a long time. And so I don’t have that time to invest in at one time or something like that. So ours are typically about 15 to 17 minutes.

Colin Hunter 08:54
Yeah, well,

Zack Hudson 08:55
So when I started Kindred at Home, it was an interesting dynamic because Humana had become the partial owner. And so we knew what was coming down the road. And I was coming into basically a 45,000 person startup; it was a really neat opportunity to say, okay, Zack, you build this, and let’s figure this out together. There wasn’t any kind of preset stuff, really a few legacy programs, but not many. But they were kind of like what you’re talking about, Colin. They were really; it was a lot of traditional let’s meet face to face, right.

Colin Hunter 09:26
Yeah

Zack Hudson 09:26
Let’s do a little bit of online learning. And that’s what we do. And so, I introduced podcasts to them because our clinicians go to the homes.

Colin Hunter 09:36
Yeah,

Zack Hudson 09:36
So we’re paying them to do that, which is a great thing, right? But they’ve got all this windshield time. I’m like, let’s utilize the windshield time. Listen to us the space from one point to another, so they can get some development right where they are. So it turned into not a podcast for your commute, but a podcast too. You can listen to a topic from beginning to end between One house or another that you’re traveling to. So

Colin Hunter 10:02
Like it

Zack Hudson 10:02
That’s exactly the way that it panned out. I would say 90% of our people listen to that show mobile in the car, from some of the things that we track. So

Colin Hunter 10:13
Yeah

Zack Hudson: 10:13
it’s meeting people on their terms and right where they are. So making people come to us and going, why aren’t people coming? Because that’s the thing, right with, especially with COVID Is, it can be scared of going I, you know, I just don’t know about podcasts. I don’t know about virtual learning. I don’t know about virtual conferences; I don’t really see how this is going to work. People had that same hesitation with Zoom, or teams or errors you’re using these days,

Colin Hunter 10:40
Yup,

Zack Hudson 10:40
Being in the pandemic, and now everybody’s like, Oh, yeah, I’ve got 20 Zoom calls today. So

Colin Hunter 10:45
Yeah, and I’m an expert. You know what,

Zack Hudson 10:47
That’s right.

Colin Hunter 10:47
And actually, what I love about it now, and it’s meeting them where they are, and whether it’s in the windshield time, but also it’s the families, I’m getting the meets, you know, clients, families, kids are popping in to say hello, while there, that our mom is on the call. So there is something nice about the connection. I also like the soundbites, but I’m always fascinated, because as a person who loves to talk, mostly. So how do you crush those into 15 17 minutes? Because you know, you could talk about topics; I met somebody who’s a futurist the other day, I could talk about that for three, four or five hours at a time. So how’d you got that to be 15 16 minutes?

Zack Hudson 11:25
Well, we’re we do an outline beforehand.

Colin Hunter 11:28
Yup,

Zack Hudson 11:29
It just kind of keep us on track. But then if there’s a larger topic, so for example, emotional intelligence, there’s no way I can do emotional intelligence, justice in 15 minutes. So I think we broke that one up into five different shows. And so, every week, we just released a different piece of it. I think we did want to like what is EQ? and then we broke down the four pillars, self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. And so we just in those shows, we that’s all we talked about was that one aspect. So breaking it off in sizable chunks to the other thing. Speaking of connecting them, right where they are is not an only podcast, but we did other stuff, too, because some people like to read. So we had written content that we made that said, Hey, go read this.

Colin Hunter: 12:14
Nice

Zack Hudson: 12:14
Or do you like to do it online? Go do that. And we designed these kinds of; we’d like to call them kind of choose your own adventure formats into learning and understanding of not forcing someone to do it one way or the other. But you go about it and take the path that you want to take, right, your journey as ample. And you’ll get what you need to get out of it, regardless.

Colin Hunter 12:35
Yeah

Zack Hudson 12:35
Of which way you go.

Colin Hunter 12:37
Yeah. And there’s a lot of learning from you from your experience Kindred at home because now people are going to go hybrid. There are quite a few organizations that can be remotes, and a lot of people haven’t done remotes, you know, some organizations, presenteeism being in the office. So you must have a lot to teach people around how to do that well, particularly on an emotional connection with them with people who were serving people real. And that’s the passionate human side, as you talked about earlier almost. It must be difficult to connect with them and get that across to them. Yeah,

Zack Hudson
13:07
It’s not natural, right? Because you know, distance separates. And that’s the Beyond no distance separates; you have to be very intentional about closing that gap. And so, we teach that in passing the Baton, and kindred at home about how do you how in the world do you close a gap when you’re working remotely? Now you’re not, we’re not seeing each other Colin, all the time like we used to, and hanging out and going and doing stuff after work. We just don’t have that dynamic anymore. So how do I keep that team going? And we talked about that making sure you’re staying engaged on a schedule, having a cadence of checking in with each other. Goodness gracious, turning your video on, we have a lot of organizations with passing the time that we work with it that are still hesitant to do that.

Colin Hunter 13:51
Yeah,

Zack Hudson 13:51
you lose a lot of that engagement. When you’re just a black screen on,

Colin Hunter 13:57
Yeah

Zack Hudson 13:57
There You’re just the names popping in. So it’s tips like that it was just making sure that we’re staying engaged on a very personal level, despite the barriers that COVID and remote work put up against us.

Colin Hunter 14:10
Yeah, and what about engaging the other way because that’s one of the challenges I get, you know, there’s a transmission one-way transmission of information, and getting the conversations I love how you have a producer host that you work with that you kick off with and then and it sort of feels like almost like a breakfast show. It feels like somebody’s coming on and go and we’re gonna chat. We’re gonna do that. But getting other people to come the other way and start, so how are you engaging people through that? So

Zack Hudson 14:34
Yeah, so we’re mindful about kind of the cycle of our associates and making sure that we’re keeping their personal wellbeing and their development and their career aspirations right in front of them. We call it a 50/50 split, right. So as for me, as an organization, I own half of that. I own half of the responsibility Colin to get you from point A to point B in your career.

Colin Hunter 14:56
Yeah,

Zack Hudson 14:56
But a lot of employees think that the organization is 100% responsible for that. My dad should take care of me and get me to be a manager. Well, I don’t know that you want to be a manager, how am I going to get you there? Right? So

Colin Hunter 15:07
yeah,

Zack Hudson: 15:08
That other 50% is really only associate. So we talked about that a lot, too. But we’ve been interlaced key moments throughout the year that says, Okay, we want you to sit down with your leader. He wants you to talk about the things you did in the last quarter or the last six months, and from a business perspective, but also a personal perspective. And it really puts that conversation top of mind because we all have great intentions. It’s about putting attentional time there to get together to talk about those important things for us. Otherwise, you know, we were supposed to get together. May if it weren’t on the schedule, it might be September, October, November, and then our next year.

Colin Hunter 15:48
Yeah,

Zack Hudson 15:48
before we get together. So it’s it helps to put that structure there. And I think that’s what a lot of people miss. Development of their people is the structure, good intentions, mentoring programs; I see him all the time all over the country all over the world. Great attention to the mentoring, but the structure is not there. And it falls apart.

Colin Hunter 16:05
Yeah, I’m a big fan. I’m putting this project called a 500. together next year. It’s a mentoring program. But

Zack Hudson 16:10
Yeah,

Colin Hunter 16:11
Unless it has that structure and as a framework for people to hang on to, then it can die. And it’s also about commitment, isn’t it? Because it’s, you talked about the 50/50 piece, which for an Australian friend has given me this, but there’s whether somebody owns their role or rents the role? Yeah. And if they’re running the role, is that seminar, do they say, well, the organization will do for me rather than owning and saying, like, you got your house, I’m going to ask, I’m going to take care of it, I’m going to feed it in there. But there is this piece about when it comes down to it’s about the choice of the individual to come forward, get that and get that work. And to do it. So just going into a couple of things for the future of what you’re looking at. Because you’re ahead of a lot of organizations, you’ve got a virtual workforce. Yeah, that’s out there. So you’ve got the virtual connection, you’ve got the podcasts, you’ve got the other pieces, you’ve got the written, where do you see the learning process going? The talent process? I’m going to separate the two the learning process first, and then the talent process going?

Zack Hudson 17:13
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I think learning is letting go of what has been successful in the past. Right. So for a lot of organizations, you know, I sit in Atlanta, we have a lot of key organizations here, Delta, the Cox, the Chick-fil-A, multiple food ones, it’s huge,

Colin Hunter 17:34
Yeah

Zack Hudson 17:34
As far as a hub for the southeast of the US. And they’re well known for their in-person gatherings and that sort of thing. And it’s, it’s got to, you got to look at your stuff, no matter if you’re a huge Home Depot or you’re ten people on your team, right, you’ve got to be able to let go of things that worked for in the past. Because that dynamic and that landscape have changed, that’s what we have done is be willing to let go that honor the past while we look towards the future. It’s a phrase that we say that a lot of we’re not saying that was bad or wrong or not relevant or not valid; it was where we need to go is a totally different path. And so we got to blaze a new trail. And that’s our perspective. So I think if you’re a leader of five people or 50,000 people, that will serve you very well, as you think about your learning strategy because that is certainly spoken into that on how people learn. They’re learning differently. They’re not all together anymore. Have the dynamic of working at home surely as different from working in a cubicle right across?

Colin Hunter 18:35
Yeah.

Zack Hudson 18:35
So how you consume that content and knowledge is going to be different as well.

Colin Hunter 18:41
Yeah. Where are you on the new technologies because, you know, we’re exploring the VR side, we’re exploring whether we can do a VR world of, you know, facilitation, collaboration? And I presume that with a lot of the use of VR in the past has been for the circumstances you’re talking about care at home and how you know, you do injections, other things when your people are at home. So how are you viewing the new technologies?

Zack Hudson 19:06
Yeah, we’re definitely leaning into it more and more; I will say, with VR, we have found it to be a great resource for what we would call hard skills. So

Colin Hunter 19:14
Yeah

Zack Hudson 19:14
For listening to hard skills, something in the medical world would be like how to do a procedure, how to do wound care, something like that. You know,

Colin Hunter 19:20
Yeah

Zack Hudson 19:20
I have a good friend of mine, Dave Beck, who actually leads a tech company here in town called foundry 45. He does tech for Home Depot, and excuse me, Delta Weather Channel, among others, is amazing technology. I got to run the delta one with him once, and he put the headset on. Man, your person outside of you know, when the plane lands, you got the guy kind of doing the little cross marks right.

Colin Hunter 19:44
Yeah

Zack Hudson 19:44
And stuff and they do a flight check of basically a walk around, and so I put the headset on. I do the walk around, and within 10 minutes, I take the helmet off, and I’m like, I can legitimately go out into our Mac right now and check the playing field. Going about it now, legally, I can’t do that. No.

Colin Hunter 20:03
And if anybody’s flying into London the next few days, Zack is not there.

Zack Hudson 20:09
That’s right. But you know, I could I had the expertise, I had the knowledge, it was quick, it was easy. It was memorable. Experiential, right. And that is the key thing about the VR experience. And that’s what you know; maybe you don’t have a budget to allow you to do something like that. But we lean into that spiritual quite often and a number of different ways in what we do. So yeah, I think it does have its benefits. There are some really neat organizations I’m seeing they’re doing some stuff on AR or, like, for soft skills training. I don’t put a helmet on necessarily, but I interact with somebody; there are live actors on the screen. They’re digital characters. And there, it’s an amazing concept because you’re having tough conversations, right? Maybe a write-up with someone and you wouldn’t necessarily have that conversation face to face. Like if you were me right now face to face.

Colin Hunter 21:00
Yep.

Zack Hudson 21:00
I might not give you my full. True me.

Colin Hunter 21:04
Yeah.

Zack Hudson 21:04
But there’s something about it being animated that drops that wall.

Colin Hunter 22:08
Interesting

Zack Hudson 22:08
And the fascinating piece of the animated person is a live actor.

Colin Hunter 21:11
Ahh Yeah

Zack Hudson 21:11
And they interact in real-time with you. So yeah, they really push hilarious, the way that the characters will push and how it will throw somebody off real quick. So there are a lot of really neat pieces to development that are out there today.

Colin Hunter 21:25
Yeah, I love it. Because we’ve got our actors, and we’re working in the virtual world. But we are playing to see whether we can get them to come into an avatar and do that. So it’s brilliant that you’re doing that. So let’s talk talent for a month because it’s for me; in some ways, talent is an overused word, but it’s a critical word because of what we mean by talent and where we find it. So, you know that’s part of the project we’re trying to work on is that some of the towns you know, going to school, the University of Southern, got another podcast conversation today isn’t really a guide to whether somebody is going to be successful. So how would you do firstly, define yourself as a talent expert? What do you mean by the talent in there?

Zack Hudson 22:07
Yeah, that’s a great question. My mom, I told my mom, I have ahead of talent at a talent management kindred, and she was like, I think she thought I was like a talent agent for like, artists and stuff. And I was like, No, Mom. I still think today; she thinks that I’m like, you know, making sure somebody’s got the blue m&ms in there. And they’re green.

Colin Hunter 22:27
Absolutely

Zack Hudson 22:27
Or they something, I

Colin Hunter 22:28
They can play the spoons, or whatever.

Zack Hudson 22:31
That’s Right. So yeah, it’s not that for sure. So really, talent management, the way we define it, is really helping pick the right people for the right place at the right time, but also shepherding a journey, again, to help them stay with an organization longer, but be wildly successful, right where they are at the same time, too. So there’s a lot that goes into that, right, the people development, the programs, the assessing your talent, the right way, powering your leaders to lead in a very inspiring and meaningful way. And then equipping them through succession planning of, okay, here’s where you are today. And here’s your replacement. And here’s your backup replacement. And rolling through that. So it’s a multi-layered approach and theory and whatever else to really hone in on your workforce and get them ready for today. And also ready for the future too

Colin Hunter 23:21
Yeah, so it’s a bit in some ways, it’s the old pipeline, but it’s, it’s taking the recruitment, right the way through to the future-proofing as we were describing.

Zack Hudson 23:31
Yeah, this is Right. Right.

Colin Hunter 23:33
So how are you changing what you’re doing with talent? Now, I’d love to just explore that for

Zack Hudson 23:38
Yeah,

Colin Hunter 23:38
Yeah

Zack Hudson 23:38
For sure. Yeah, we’re certain these days pushing. The onboarding is kind of my around these days.

Colin Hunter 23:46
Yeah.

Zack Hudson 23:46
A lot of organizations, if I say, hey, what do you think of onboarding based on our time period, they say is 90 days, that’s kind of the normal I get our 30 days. The reality is that it could be 90 minutes or nine minutes. They’ve got what they’re walking into, right?

Colin Hunter 24:02
Yeah, yeah.

Zack Hudson 24:03
And so that’s what we were finding, right if the business he was like, Hey, we’re desperate for a leader. We’re just throwing them in there. So we’ve been creating this whole we don’t want to think of nine days we want to think of it as a 365 plus, so we actually start it we call it a day negative 14 is what that process looks like for you onboarding, we think about using it as a person then all the way through your first year. So how do we support you in this kind of key moment throughout the year? It’s been really well received, and it’s great. It’s multilayers kind of like meeting you where you are; it’s a layered approach and mentoring and networking and cohorts and your own self-pace, right. You own some of that yourself and other development programs along the way, with a mix of everything, technology, and in-person self-driven. So it’s been a good piece. That’s where we are. Right now. That’s been one of our big projects that really redefined. What is onboarding mean? Because I think once we do that, people stay around longer. Right?

Colin Hunter 25:04
Yeah.

Zack Hudson 25:04
You’ve seen all the hiring shortages everywhere these days.

Colin Hunter 25:08
Yeah,

Zack Hudson 25:08
we want to hire the right people; we want them to stay a really long time.

Colin Hunter 25:17
Yeah

Zack Hudson 25:17
Everybody benefits. So that’s our focus.

Colin Hunter 25:14
No, I love it. Um, what about preparing them? Because we all know that somebody could come out from outside the industry and do something like the home care piece and not be clear about what they’re going to expect? You know, that’s well, you know, I thought there’s going to be this they’re not going to, so how do you prepare them to ensure that you’re not wasting your time that time before that? How do you tackle that? That’s,

Zack Hudson 25:36
Yeah, I mean, it’s some of those development programs to check in on is really, a covers a lot of the assumptions that leaders have, right. So a lot of times, you know, if I’m hiring you to be a leader of an individual location, I assume that you know how to hire people or to do interviews, I assume that you know, what good looks like I assume that you handle your time? Well, well, that you don’t pick up in an interview process necessarily, you can pick up some but not all of it, right?

Colin Hunter 26:05
Yeah

Zack Hudson 26:05
It would be a really long and extenuating process to get some time.

Colin Hunter 26:09
And an of mind reader in all the cases.

Zack Hudson 26:12
Yeah, that’s right, so we really work hard to fill in those gaps for people to go; okay, we’re not going to assume you know how to hire somebody, let’s teach you, let’s see the right way and give you the resources to do that. And it’s really interesting to see how many people get into a role, not just kindred at home, but just, you know, everywhere, get into a role, and they’re not really ready for that role for a number of reasons, right? They don’t have the soft skills mainly to be prepared. So it’s a lot of that preparing, but as we think about our future talent really going okay, here’s maybe that level down. Let’s get them ready now,

Colin Hunter 26:50
Yeah

Zack Hudson 26:50
For a role that isn’t even open now. So when it does open, I don’t have to be; I’m not scrambling. It’s Oh, it’s Sally, and Sally’s going to jump in there. And we have a good feeling about her. She has a great feeling about it, she jumps in, and she’s successful. So a lot of the unknown is out of the equation, for sure.

Colin Hunter 27:06
It’s nice. So I’m gonna ask you about yourself. Because I mean, a lot of this has been about everything that you’re doing for others,

Zack Hudson 27:13
Yeah

Colin Hunter 27:13
you know, and where have you stretched yourself? Where have you failed but actually been successful through it? What’s if you had to pick one or two instances in your career where you think of a massive screw-up, but it taught me? Yeah, what were they be?

Zack Hudson 27:28
Yeah, I would say, going in. So going into the new team, and just really trying too hard to prove yourself,

Colin Hunter 27:36
Right,

Zack Hudson 27:36
really trying to say, you know, I know my value, I know my worth, but the others don’t. And so you kind of push yourself to go; I want to get as quickly as possible for them to see what I can contribute to this team. As more about you make it more about yourself instead of others, which is exactly the opposite thing you want to do. Right?

Colin Hunter 27:54
Yeah

Zack Hudson 27:54
I see when I slow down, listen a whole bunch more than you speak, and share when the appropriate time instead of going in for verbally with Best through the doors going, alright, I’m here to fix the world, right?

Colin Hunter 28:08
I love that

Zack Hudson 28:08
They’re like, No, you’re not. Who are you?

Colin Hunter 28:11
Yeah

Zack Hudson 28:11
Who, what? Who are you? Where do you come from? And you’re not fixing my world? My world’s great, right? So is that early on in my career, I learned that and then had to relearn it a couple of times every now and then I would say, Surely that’s one another one too; I would say that I learned I was working in retail for a long time. Now I had my own location. And I had one of my what would be like an assistant manager type person going through, and so we would do like a walkthrough in the store. And so she was looking through an area, and I had a high standard on visual presentation, and I walk through, and I’m a fun guy. I like to have a good time. You know, joke around whatever else too. And so I made a joke about a section that she missed. I was like, Oh man, do you do this with like, one eye-opener? I put my hand over my eye like I was a pirate. Hilarious. It was a great joke Colin but did not land well for coaching.

Colin Hunter 29:08
Yeah. She was like, No,

Zack Hudson 29:11
Yes, she was was really upset the next day; I had to clean it up. So you know, love humor is definitely certainly an aspect of me. But I tell people all the time to use humor to their advantage in your storytelling.

Colin Hunter 29:32
Yeah

Zack Hudson 29:32
In our teaching in your relationship, but never use humor in your coaching in your counseling. And that is, you know, a trap that people can fall into if they have that kind of piece of personality. So those two for sure. I mean, we want to go a few more hours. I can give you some more.

Colin Hunter 29:41
No, it’s, but what I’m gathering from is, and this is a compliment to you, that the ego is no longer a problem because everything that you do is about others. That’s what I hear the message.

Zack Hudson 29:56
It is. I would say the ego is always knocking at the door.

Colin Hunter 30:00
Yeah

Zack Hudson 30:01
Right. So you know you have an awesome podcast. Well, that’s that can be an ego thing I can do that I can sell the podcast if I wanted to get sponsors, and we don’t do any of that.

Colin Hunter 30:10
Yeah

Zack Hudson 30:11
With the work stuff, I can make it all about me, and the people hear from me, and they see me on the videos, and it’s you know that’s fun, but that’s it can get you just have to be mindful about it constantly had to keep it top of mind going it’s not about me it’s about my team it’s about that person driving between small-town Arkansas and small-town somewhere else in Arkansas right in it’s really focused on them and being a servant, a servant leader as opposed to yourself because may get you so quickly and unexpectedly the whole ego trap is real and no matter where you are in your career journey or life journey, it will come after you and eat you alive if you let it, so you have to keep it top of mind even today so

Colin Hunter 30:56
Yeah, no, I’m with you. I mean, I’ve got a sort of inbuilt one because I’m a Scottish Presbyterian, so anything that good is gonna have is always followed by something bad is going to happen, and that’s what I’ve been brought up. So you know, I’m always like, well okay, I’m not going to be to what we call tall poppy syndrome in the UK putting my head above the parapet got it shut down, but it’s what I love what you’re doing, sir I love what the business you’re involved with. And I do love the fact that your ego you keep in check in terms of what you’re doing your podcast, so if people want to get in contact with you, hear more about you and the podcast particularly, I would think it would be the best place for them too.

Zack Hudson 31:35
Yeah, absolutely yeah we’re passing the baton leadership podcast found you know wherever you listen to shows that right now we also have a website passingthetimepodcast.com You can find our shows our written pieces there we actually going back to meeting people right where there are Colin we have a lot of people that love to read our show that doesn’t listen,

Colin Hunter 31:53
Nice

Zack Hudson 31:35
Which is totally weird but nice.

Colin Hunter 31:55
Yeah,

Zack Hudson 31:58
Yeah, we pick up quite a bit of a population that way too. You can find me at Zackhudson.com LinkedIn; stay on there fairly often. So reach out to be there. Let’s be connected and help each other out. I love to continue that.

Colin Hunter 32:10
Zack, it is a real pleasure. I’m sure we’ll keep our relationship going at some point. We’ll be talking more, but in between that, good luck with a house move. I hope you settle in well, and yeah, enjoy the rest of 21. And hopefully, 22 is going to be amazing for you with a new transaction, my friend.

Zack Hudson 32:28
Yeah, it’s been a great time today. Congratulations to you on this podcast. I’m looking forward to hearing some of your other really cool guests on the show, too, and I love what you’re doing, your heart for people, and also your intentionality developing others. It’s a really neat thing to say. So appreciate your service to others as well.

Colin Hunter 32:46
Thank you, sir. I look forward to speaking to you soon.

Zack Hudson: 32:48
Yes, absolutely.

Colin Hunter 32:48
Yes, Cheers

Colin Hunter 32:55
So that was Zack Hudson, podcast host lovely gentlemen. And he gives a real insight into what it takes to be a talent management specialist and to work at a strategic level in terms of organizational development, organizational change in terms of what he was going through and going through at the moment with that organizational change he was mentioned today. But he also gets an insight into speaking with some of the top people on leadership and therefore gives us a different focus different lens on that area and that specialism, so sure you love that conversation. I look forward to welcoming you back another episode of the leadership tales podcast soon.