In the Hot Seat: Claude Silver of VaynerMedia

Jump to the interview

Welcome to the Talent Development Hot Seat, a show where I interview business executives, talent development professionals, and thought leaders to find out what has been successful and challenging in the world of talent development. My objective is to share ideas, valuable lessons, tools, advice, and trends. My hope is that all of this will ultimately help you to listen, to expand your knowledge, grow your career, and accelerate your success as a talent development professional. Welcome everybody to the podcast.

I am your host Andy Storch, and I'm so grateful that you're joining me today. I have a really special interview for you and I hesitate to say this because I don't want to take anything away from the more than 100 other interviews I've done before this with successful inspiring people in the world of talent development. But this one might be my favorite that I've done so far and there's a couple of reasons for that.

But first, let me introduce you to the woman I'm interviewing. Her name is Claude Silver and Claude calls herself an emotional optimist, a coach, a manager, and a mentor. And most importantly, she is the chief heart officer at VaynerMedia and VaynerMedia is an advertising and marketing company in New York City. Actually they're global, but their headquarters in New York City. And she reports directly to Gary Vaynerchuk, who is the CEO and founder of VaynerMedia.

If you haven't heard of Gary Vaynerchuk,  most often known as Gary Vee,  he's is an absolute sensation on social media. He's an entrepreneur. He started many companies. He's involved in a lot of things. He's a big time speaker and he's someone that I follow closely and really enjoy and have been inspired by. I mean he has truly changed my life and my career with all of his teachings and his videos and messages that he shares on Instagram and LinkedIn and Twitter and YouTube. I mean he is actually everywhere and he's someone that I try to follow and learn from. And so it was really cool to connect with Claude partly because she gets to work directly with Gary and has such a close relationship with him. But also as I dug into all the things that she has done and accomplished and her philosophy on things, I realized how aligned we were on stuff.

And I loved her passion for what she does and I couldn't wait to share it. And I actually was so excited about this interview that I asked her if I could come meet her and do it in person because most of my interviews I conduct a over Zoom. And so I went to New York City. I had another meeting up there earlier that day, actually gave a keynote speech, a presentation at a company up in White Plains, north of the city, and then facilitated a panel of executives and then hustled down into the city and went to VaynerMedia and did this interview in person with Claude. And it was well worth it to meet her in person and see the office. And you'll hear me talk about that in the interview, but let me just give you a taste of what we talked about because I know I'm running long here.

We talk about how she ended up at VaynerMedia, all the things she's done in her past. We talk about her mission to put the human back in HR, in human resources. We talk about the business of people. We talk a lot about empathy and culture and the, the empathetic culture they're creating. And we talk about the role of HR as a coach. We talk about the employee experience. We talk a lot about self-awareness, which is really big at VaynerMedia. We talk about bravery and culture. We talk about the idea of people over profit. We talk about hierarchies and authority. We talk about why you should hire someone as a culture addition and not a culture fit, which she's big on. We talk about the "stay interview," which I mentioned in a solo episode recently. We talk about manager development. We talk about her biggest accomplishment.

She vulnerably shares a failure that she had that was, you know, something she still regrets to this day and it's HR related. And we talk about the trend that she's following now as well as her advice. We talk about so many things in this interview. I'm actually going to break it up into 2 parts. So this is going to be Part 1. You're going to hear me interviewing Claude in person at her office so the audio may not be quite as good as it normally is for my other podcast interviews, but I'm trusting my editor Dave to clean this up and I know that it's going to be something that you enjoy and are inspired by. And I'd love to hear your thoughts after you listen to it. So, without further ado, here is Part 1 of my interview with Claude Silver:

The interview

Well, I'm here with Claude Silver, who is the chief heart officer of VaynerMedia here in New York. And of course VaynerMedia is one of many companies run by Gary Vaynerchuk or Gary Vee, probably the biggest and most famous company he has. And I don't know how many of my listeners follow Gary Vee, but he's got a huge following on social media, I think over 6 million on Instagram and many other places. And I've been a fan for a long time. And I've been checking out a lot of stuff that you've been doing. Claude, I'm just so amazed and so excited to have you on. So thank you for agreeing to this interview.

Yeah, thanks Andy. It's great to be here. Hello to your audience.

Yeah, and this is a rare, you know, for people listening, I don't know if you can tell the difference, but normally I do most of my interviews over Zoom, you know, but this is one where I just felt like I really wanted to connect with you and I had a trip planned to New York. So here we are sitting in your cool office overlooking Hudson Yards in New York City with the high line and all kinds of cool stuff out the window. And you've been here for 5 years now?

Yeah, I've been at Vayner for 5 and 1/2 years and we've been in this building for 3 years.

Okay. And how big has VaynerMedia?

VaynerMedia is about 600-650. And then we have VaynerX, which is our umbrella company, really our holding company. And that takes us to about 805-850, depends on the day, depends on the week. But that encompasses Gallery Media Group and VaynerSports and The Sasha Group and yeah. But VaynerMedia itself is about 650.

Yeah. So I'd love to start with a little bit of your background and how you got here because I know you have an interesting story with a lot of twists and turns and it's not traditional, right? But a lot of people have different stories. So, tell me a little bit about it.

Yeah, definitely. My story is definitely not traditional and it's one that I've come to really appreciate. I can say in, I'd say the last 15 years. I was studying to be a psychotherapist a zillion years ago and I was in San Francisco and I was working at a very small little market called Harvest Market. This is pre Whole Foods and Dean & DeLuca and all that stuff. And I had this repeat customer, he came in and he said, you surf right? And I said, yeah. And he said, you snowboard. Yeah. And I said, I'm just, I'm starting an internet.com company. This is 1997 at that point, and I think you'd be a really good project manager. And I was like, what's that? I happened to manage the store, and away I went down to Palo Alto and I started, I started in the dark arts of digital and never left.

I mean, I'm still in it. And so I did a lot of startups there in SF. That was the dot com boom. And then the dot com bust came. And at that point I had been laid off twice, I think, from different busts. And I started an outdoor adventure company with my friend, which was a surfing, rock climbing, mountaineering, mountain biking company. And so I taught surfing in Pacifica and Santa Cruz for about 260 days a year and had that really killer tan, neck up, wrist down, and it was awesome. We created it from scratch. We created the content, hired the instructors, made partnerships with Billabong and Quicksilver. And then eventually we sold it and I went back into what I knew, which was digital and that's when I started my career in agencies and advertising agencies. So that's about 2005, 2006.

Yeah. And what was it like working in, in Palo Alto in '97-'98. I mean, this is the height of the dot com, people are starting to, things are blowing up, but I know it's nothing like it is now.

Yeah. Nothing like it is now. But it was still pretty amazing when you had a ping pong table at work. That was never anything that I could have fathomed or you know, foosball or you had these huge parties or you know, they brought in like Cirque de Solei. I mean, it was wild times. And, and for someone that was, you know, studying to be a psychotherapist and I wanted to deal with people and their problems and their openings and whatnot to be in this world was absolute Disneyland for me. And it was just like nothing I could have ever pictured I would be in. And I had no business really being in the world of communications and content and all of that stuff because I didn't study it, but it was really right place, right time.

Yeah. But also that was a great place for people to jump into all kinds of careers that they didn't really study for, right? Because people were doing everything.

Yeah. It was the, it was the wild, wild, wild west. I mean, I know we're in the wild west now when it comes to other types of content, but that was like, you know, we had just gotten out of modem-ville and into, you know, Netscape and, you know, it was just a crazy time. So anyway, I went back, I went to advertising agencies and then one thing led to another and I found my way to a very big global agency called JWT in San Francisco. And I was really kind of the digital expert at that time. And they transferred me to London and it was really wild. One day it was, I was, it was a year in and one day I got a phone call from a very posh sounding man on the other side of the phone and he said, basically, I hear we need someone with your skillsets.

And within a split second I had that decision to make whether or not I was going to be a small person or I was going to be a big person. And so I could have said like what skillsets do mean. And instead I said, okay, tell me more. And really took up space, which is something to, yeah, yeah, it was. I pretended I was confident and I had 4 days to decide if I was going to go. And by that time I had been in San Francisco for 18 years and San Francisco I love and it had become very small and I moved, I moved across the pond and I was at JWT for 2 years. And then I was at Publicist London as head of strategy, their digital strategy for 2 years. And when I was a publicist is actually when I met Gary and August of 2013 my best friend introduced us and I had been following him since 2009 since Crushing came out, his first book.

Yeah, exactly. And I mean, I, you know, I was like, who is this guy? He's a truth teller, you know? And it was wild. We had a, maybe a 3-minute phone call, he was boarding a plane and I was pacing my floor back in London, pacing up and down. So this is already kind of a big deal, big deal. And then a month later I came and I met him. I came to New York and I met him and then it was like, Oh yeah, we're family. That's my brother, sister. You know? And it was very, very, yeah, it was. So it just like some biotic, it just made sense. And, and then eventually I got a job offer and then moved to New York.

So that was a few years ago. And you came in as the chief heart officer...

Actually no, I didn't, sorry to interrupt you. I was hired as his first SVP. So I had come straight from strategy and you know, being very client facing and running very large P&G accounts and then, you know, had done my share of oil and gas and Vicks and anything you want to buy in Walgreens, I basically touched except for dog food and a couple of other things. And so I started as his first senior vice president. I was a female, which was awesome for the company where I was employee 389 and I ran the Unilever account, which was a pretty sizable, then it was Dove. And then I also ran the Mondelēz account where we had, you know, Chips Ahoy and Nilla wafers and all that. And on my year VaynerVersary, so an anniversary year...

And your first year you had basically been a very senior account manager at that point. So I need someone to run my biggest accounts. A lot of advertising strategy, digital ... somebody to do that.

Exactly, yeah. And basically I was older than a lot of the folks here.

That's a very young company.

Yeah. And I had really created a mini agency within the agency. I had about 50 people and we had just a marvelous time in our, you know, we did exceptional work, we did hard work and in our team meetings I used to have people read poetry and do a lot, a lot of avant garde things because that's kind of where my head is. It's on my year anniversary. I went to him and I said, you know, thank you so much for this opportunity. I, you know, I love it. You're the best whatever and I'm really done selling though, I'm not interested in the art of advertising anymore. And I had done it for a long time and I had had that voice in my head saying I was done a while ago.

And he said, cool, what is it that you want to do? And I said, I only care about the heartbeat of this place. I only care about people. And he said, cool, I need you to do this for 18 more months. And I said, no, I'll give you 6. And I found I found a backfill who is still here and just kicking butt. And I ended up resigning. And then 4 months later, almost to the day we had breakfast, and he said, that's it. You're coming back as chief heart officer. And I knew what that was because I've always been this type of person, very much a mentor player, coach, you know let me help you. And I had been that person here already at the company being, you know, an elder and a guide. And I said, you know, great. How do we know if I'm successful?

And his magic words, which still to this day are the only job description I've ever gotten, which is you'll touch every single employee and infuse the agency with empathy.

Hmmm, empathy's a big word for him.

Yes, empathy's a big, big word. So let's see, I've been doing this job for 3 and 1/2 years.

Now did he, I'm curious about the title of chief heart officer, is that something he came up with or something you came up with.

Well, when I had originally left, when I said, you know, I only care what the heartbeat of this place. He actually said something to the effect of, well, we're going to write the book called The Heart Empire, something like that.

He and I had always spoken about the world of HR as heart. At that point we didn't really have HR. And so when I, so he came up with a title and we really based it on his personality, my personality, scaling him as the job, and creating and cultivating this culture day in and day out no matter what comes my way, and really assisting people and guiding people to be their best selves, I believe, inside and outside of work. So it's amazing. I love it. It's an honor. No day, no hour is the same. And I love working for him.  I love working for him, you know?

Yeah, that's, that's fantastic. Yeah. So you come back in this role as a chief heart officer and you, you're obviously both very aligned on what that means. It's sounds like it is in the realm of HR, maybe different, so I'm curious how you see it compared to maybe a traditional chief HR officer and I've also heard you say that you want to put the human back in human resources. Tell me more about that.

Yeah, so the role really is to oversee all of HR. Now at this point I've hired wonderfully skilled HR practitioners who can do the actual craft of HR. They've been doing it for years, which is great because I actually had to learn quite a bit about compliance and labor laws.

Yeah, because this is not your background. You studied psychology, but you didn't have an HR background.

No, I wouldn't have known really -- intuitively I can, I could tell you what to do but it's not by the law, by the book. So that's great. I have a wonderful team and a SVP named Jen Ruza that really looks up and looks after the HR. And for me, you know, I had always been told that I was an HR person's dream because I don't cause problems. And I always thought that was really interesting, meaning, so HR is only there to defend, to solve problems, to put out fires. They're not on the off fence, they're not there. They're just on the protection side. And the way I see this role is very much as hospitality as though we're in the service of. And that comes from my love and my passion of servant leadership and how I was raised for sure. That's the first thing.

But, but also we're in the business of people. And if you use the term human resources, I don't even know, I couldn't even tell you what that meant. You know, humans as resources. Well that seems very transactional to me and functional rather than humans as heartbeats, as actual human beings that have a life before they come in here at 9:00am. And that's, so when we're talking about putting the human back into human resources, it's really, it's identifying and nurturing and respecting the whole human, not just the one that comes here and creates for us all day long.

Yeah. You talk about respecting the whole human. And I think there's definitely a movement around this. And I've done some interviews with people who are with bigger and more progressive companies talking about diversity and inclusion and you know, connect with the whole human. There's always been, in the past when I was back working in corporate world, there was a lot of people that felt like there needed to be this division between home and work life. And we don't talk about the home stuff, which we realize is you're missing out on opportunities to really help people. And I know you're very big on having those open conversations, really creating space for people. And I'd love to know more about your philosophy there and how that's helped the company, not just the people.

Yeah, thanks. So, well my philosophy is we are teaching life skills and hard skills here. This is very much a master's or PhD program depending on what you want to get out of it and how hard you work. It's a culture based on meritocracy and belonging. And the bottom line is I couldn't imagine being here and only talking to someone about their work. There's so much that goes into someone just getting here every single day, whether or not you are a millennial, you're just graduated from college, you are a mom of two, you are a expecting father, you are dealing with parents that are ill. I mean let's, this is called life on life's terms

Yeah, tough relationships, boyfriends, girlfriends...

Oh, I've got it all. So while I'm not a therapist, I'm not a professional like that, you know, you see how I set the room up.

Yeah, it looks very much like a therapist's office. There's nowhere to lay down ...

Yeah, there's nowhere to lay down, but it's very chill. It's very peaceful. And it's really what happens in here stays in here. I'm here in Gary's here and really all of our leaders are here to promote people in the best way we can and to help them be their best self. And and that is what a guide and a coach does. And I really believe that the role of HR is moving towards that, of being much more of a coach. At least that's my hope and that's what we're doing here.

So, I changed the department name immediately to people and experience. So we don't even call ourselves HR. We call ourselves people and experience team because, let's be honest, that's what we're dealing with, right? People and their experience and their experience starts when they send their application in, and their experience starts on their first day when every single person that joins is in a 4-day orientation. No matter if you're a C-suite or you're a junior copywriter, you're sitting next to each other for 4 days and we're in charge of that, of your experience here. I mean we're not, let me rephrase, we're not in charge of your experience but we're here to absolutely guide and provide and serve you in the best way we can without holding your hand.

I mean, there's so much autonomy at this company and so much not micromanaging because we're people first and we believe that people have the right to their own self-awareness. We want to promote them in the best way we can and that is making sure that they are getting training and development. That is making sure that we have a diverse floor, diversity of every shape, size, and curiosity, and seen and unseen handicap. It's making sure that our salaries are on par with the market. It's making sure that while London and LA and there are other geographies out there, Singapore we just opened, have our same DNA if you will. We're all drinking the same water. They have full reign to create whatever it is they want to create and not replicate this in New York.

This episode of the talent development hot seat is brought to you by Advantage Performance Group. We help organizations develop great people. For more information about this podcast and Advantage Performance, you can go to advantageperformance.com/hotseat, and now onto the show.

I'm so glad you brought that up. I didn't even know we were going to talk about this, but I've talked a lot on the podcast about employee experience and I'm big on that. I've heard a quote a long time back that stuck with me, which is that your customer's experience will never exceed that of your employee's experience. If you don't treat your employees well and give them good experience, they won't treat your customers well. And let's be honest, it's 2019, they have tons of options. If they have skills, they can go anywhere if they're not having a great experience.

Yeah, it is absolutely wild that there is so much choice now. And so when I have conversations or my team was having conversations with people that are really just kind of poo-pooing the experience here, it's really like you have a choice. You can be here, you certainly don't have to be here, but if you are here, these are the things we need to see from you and that's going to strengthen you in your character and your skillset anyway. So why not come along for the ride?

Yeah, we've mentioned empathy a couple of times and I know that empathy is big for Gary, your boss. He even started up a new line of wines called Empathy wine. I just ordered a case last week. Actually. It's on its way. I can't wait to try it, the red. I was waiting because, you know, when he started it was, it was white, red, and rosé,  and I didn't really want the white or the rosé, so I was waiting for him to go red. I knew he'd listen to his customers and I knew the customers would speak up and that they wanted red, which is what I wanted. So, yeah, I ordered a case last week. I also signed up for wine text and just some ordered some more of that today too.

So I'm like addicted to it.

Yeah, it's a little bit out of control. Actually while I was on my way here in a Lyft, I got the text for, I think some chianti, and I watched one of Gary's videos on Instagram. Yeah, yeah. And I just ordered 6 boxes of it. So this, this could, I could get in trouble with this.

You're going to get in trouble. I've already got, I'm putting wine in. like. cabinets that shouldn't have wine in them now.

But this speaks to what he does and what you do with a company like this, right, and how proficient the company is with digital marketing and social media that I'm in a car ordering wine I don't need because I saw a video that Gary did on Instagram and actually going back to empathy and personal connection, he's the king of that, which I don't, I don't see anyone else doing this with 5 million followers reaching out to people personally and on Sunday, I'm on his text community and he sent a text out to people in Florida about signing up for wine text and said write him back. And I signed up and I wrote him back. I wrote him a text and said, I signed up and I also bought a case of Empathy wine, and he sent me a 3 second audio message saying thanks, Andy, you're the bleeping best. And I loved him over the moon. I was already a fan. I'm a super fan now.

Yeah. I believe it. It is. Gary is so high touch, which is amazing. And thus I'm high touch. And that I believe is our winning formula here. We're just spending time with people and listening to people and holding space for people. And in turn, we really believe that that has a knock on effect, not only with our clients, but then with the consumer. We want to spend time with them. And you're a consumer of the wine, he's spending time with you.

Yeah, and someone else from the company called me last week to talk to me about the wine and he doesn't get commission. I asked him, I was ordering it online. How do I give you credit for this? He said, I don't get credit. We're just reaching out to our customers. I couldn't believe it.

It's so awesome. I love working here.

Yeah, it's amazing. So we're talking about customers and we talking about creating this culture of empathy, part of empathy, a big part of empathy is understanding others and understanding where they're coming from. And I think part of your ability to express empathy is having self-awareness as well. You mentioned self-awareness as well. I know that's big for you.

Yeah, so I mean, I actually don't believe it's possible to know what empathy tastes like or feels like, or compassion for that matter, if you're not self-aware, if you're not aware of what's up with yourself and where your hiccups are and where your strengths are and what are the things you want to improve and where are your intentions. I just think that that's human nature. We must know thyself really to be truly able to sit with another, you know, and it's really, it's a cultural belonging and bravery that we're building here. Empathy is a part of that. Connection is a part of that. Psychological and physical safety is a part of that. Diversity, inclusivity is a part of that, but the, the culture that we're building is one of belonging. And I've just started to say bravery because I think that you have to be effing brave to show up

Yeah, totally. And especially in tough situations, right? I mean, I've studied a lot. I've studied fear and courage and why people think that you have to be fearless, and courage and bravery is not the absence of fear. It's looking at that fear and say, yeah, I'm scared of this situation. I'm gonna go try to, I'm going to have that conversation.

Yeah, you're just walking through it, but being honest with yourself that you are shaking in your boots. But one of the insights that I just got the other day is there are tons of scary things and then tons of things that we have fear around. We don't have to be scared of doing them though, you know, we can just own the fact.

Well, most of the fear is always in the lead up to the act. Once you get there. I don't know if you've been skydiving. I went skydiving earlier this year for the first time. It was amazing and Will Smith has a fantastic video about the first time he went skydiving and he talks about how all you're terrified up until the moment you jump out of the plane and the fear goes away and then he uses a metaphor to talk about how we're always scared of things that are actually not a real threat until we get in that situation and then it's fine.

Oh, that's amazing. No, I have to go skydiving. It's definitely a bucket list, and I'm afraid.

It's reasonable to be afraid. But I was, you know, I know the position you're in and this company and Gary are all famous to me. I was nervous coming here today, but now that we're here having this conversation, oh my God, easy.

Yeah. What you see is what you get, certainly with me and that's for sure. But also with Gary it is, I wouldn't be able to work for someone else at this point because I'm so used to and comfortable with the real human being. And I always like to mention that there's a difference between Gary, the man and Gary Vee, the brand. Sure. And well the brand is a man. I work for Gary Vaynerchuk and it's amazing. I learn something every day.

Thanks for tuning in to the Talent Development Hot Seat and listening to Part 1 of my interview with Claude Silver. She is amazing and I hope that you learned a lot from this and I will have Part 2 of the interview coming to you soon. So stay tuned. In the meantime, I would love for you to subscribe to share the podcast with your colleagues and friends. That is how it's been growing and I've had people in talent development at big companies tell me how they are sharing it across the organization using it to onboard people. They've been bringing me in to do some talks and things from it. Now it's just amazing what is happening from this.

And of course you may have heard, we're also hosting a conference later this year called the Talent Development Think Tank on November 6th and 7th (rescheduled for January 22-23 due to the Sonoma wildfires) and maybe coming very soon depending on when you're listening to this or maybe already over and, if it is, sorry, we'll be doing it again in 2020. So check back and go get your tickets, talent development think tank.com. All right, stay tuned for Part 2 coming very soon.

Hey friends, thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Talent Development Hot Seat. I am always grateful for everyone tunes in who listens, who subscribes and who have left reviews for our podcast on iTunes. By the way, if you haven't done that yet, I would mean the world to me. Head on over to iTunes, take one minute, write a quick review. It helps our podcast grow and I really appreciate your support. As my gift to you. I have created a report of the top 5 trends impacting talent development this year and if you haven't grabbed that report yet, you can head on over to advantageperformance.com/trends that's advantageperformance.com/trends -- you can download my report of the top 5 trends impacting talent development in 2019 as well as sign up for our newsletter to get updates on everything that is going on. Thanks again for tuning in.

Thanks for listening to the Talent Development Hot Seat. If you got value out of this show, please subscribe, leave a review, and share with your colleagues and friends. We want to spread the word and add as much value to the talent development community as possible and we need your help. As always, you can find more information and connect with me at talentdevelopmenthotseat.com. Take care.

Hey everybody, thanks for tuning in. I am your host, Andy Storch, and you know this is a podcast where we interview and talk with inspiring leaders in talent development across all kinds of different spectrums related to HR and talent. And this, of course, is one of my favorites of all time. And today I'm speaking, this is Part 2 of my interview with Claude Silver, who is the chief heart officer of VaynerMedia, an advertising marketing company in New York. She works with and reports directly to Gary Vaynerchuk or Gary Vee as he's often known, who is an incredibly inspiring leader and prolific online. If you don't follow him, I recommend you do on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, wherever you're most active. And if you haven't listened to Part 1 of this interview, please go back and listen to that. It's so long and so packed full of value I decided to break it up into 2 parts, so this is Part 2 of my interview with Claude Silver, so make sure you listen to Part 1, then head on in and listen to Part 2 here, and please send me your feedback, connect with me on LinkedIn, connect with Claude on LinkedIn, and let me know what you think. 

And by the way, if you haven't heard already, I am hosting a conference in November called The Talent Development Think Tank. We're going to be talking about a lot of these subjects. I tried to get Claude to come but she already has a commitment that week, so unfortunately she won't be there, but we have have a lot of great people coming and I hope you can come to talentdevelopmentthinktank.com .

All right, without further ado, here is the second part of my interview with Claude Silver, chief heart officer at VaynerMedia. Enjoy. 

I want to talk to you a little bit more about self-awareness. I know that's something you know Gary says that's his greatest strength and I've listened to other interviews you've done in your own podcast and I think you are highly self-aware, highly authentic, just full of love and compassion, and some connects with my values deeply. We're so aligned and I, and I love it. The question is how do you help and especially for people in HR, talent development roles, how do you be help your leaders become more self-aware?

So my first immediate answer is are we assuming that the HR leaders are self-aware also?

Let's make the assumption that they're aware of the need for self-awareness. Maybe they need to go on this journey as well, but they, they know this is important. They're listening to us and they know this is important and they see how successful you've been with it and they're going, well, how do I get my executive vice president of finance and whatever to become more self-aware because, frankly, he's really smart, but half his employees don't like him because he doesn't recognize the things that he does.

So I would talk to him.

The scary thing.

The scary thing, but I think there are ways obviously to speak to people, to speak to their listening, which is kind, offering suggestions, certainly not coming from an authoritative place. However, the culture has to be ready to embrace a culture of acceptance and a culture of non-judgment and a culture of understanding that we're humans and humans are subjective or subjective creatures. However, there are three sides to every single story. So I think the first thing is as a HR representative, you need to get buy-in that this is okay. I mean, I don't think that, we're not here to change someone's behavior. I mean, jeez, if you don't know the Serenity Prayer, dive in right now because there's nothing you can change about another person.

However, you can make someone aware that their behavior creates anxiety, so forth and so on. That their behavior is creating fear among of the, you know, XYZ team. And those are things I think that as human beings, I would like to think that we're allowed to offer others. Now, I can't tell you how they're gonna react. But I hope that in today's day and age, and most of the companies that we're talking to right now, that they are work within four walls that are tender at least to the fact that like, we're fricking humans and it's not easy all the time. And we all go through our ups and downs. So I think that goes back to the fact that work doesn't really begin 9 to 5. Like you wake up, you put your feet on the floor, you hope you have a wonderful day, you feed the dog, take the dog out, you have kids, you go to the gym.

Checking email, work, email the whole way.

And then you get into work. You've already kinda like hustled your face off. So again, I think that you know, you always want to gracefully make someone aware of what's up and, and hopefully they can hear you, and then offer assistance, offer coaching. Right. You know, we have coaching as a benefit here. We work with a company that our employees can sign up for 4 months, 8 sessions and and get their own life coaching, professional coaching, completely anonymous. I have no idea.

Is that available to all levels?

Yeah.

That's amazing.

Yeah. We subsidize like 7/8ths of that and they pay like 90 bucks.

Okay, so they have a little bit of skin in the game ...

Yeah, yeah. And we have a scholarship fund also for those people that might not or, or I'll give it to them as a surprise and delight.

Do you want to plug the company they use?

Yeah, Guided. Get Guided, a fantastic company and I highly recommend them. And someone in the kitchen today was telling me that their session just ended and they highly recommend it. And then she told me the two things she learned and she's going to take with her. And I was like, yes!

That's amazing.

That's freaking awesome. Yeah.

Yeah. That's really great. How do you, maybe this is part of the culture again. But you know, people that say they're not that self-aware, maybe they're not as open to the coaching or they think coaching is for people that's broken. You want to try to shift that, right? Because you want to be, have people, that executive be open to that feedback. You want people to be open to coaching. Do you think there's a way to subtly start to shift that and open people up to the that stuff?

Yeah, but I do think it comes from the top. So the reason this role works is because Gary blessed the role.

Supported 100 percent.

A thousand percent.  And I have a seat at the table and not only a seat at the table, I have that seat.

Let's face it. In a lot of companies, HR is not.

Yeah. And so is the CFO. But this is a people-over-profit business. And so I was, Gary's been very vocal that 9 out of 10 decisions are going to be based around heart. That's just that. So it has to be blessed from the top, I think that's the first and foremost thing. And if it is blessed from the top, then it will permeate throughout the organization. And by the way, even if it's blessed from the top, doesn't mean that it's Gary's responsibility, right? It's now our responsibility to cultivate this, our responsibility to show up.

You're empowered now to go to do I do this as a leader.

Yeah, and I empower everyone else and so forth and so on. And that's the wonderful domino effect that it has. It's not, I don't, I'm not responsible for this culture. Everyone's responsible for this culture. And that means that even when I get these wonderful compliments, which is you and Gary have created a wonderful culture, like sure, I have skin in the game, I set the tone and I'm here and, but you know this person out there that's laughing and standing next to someone's desk, she's creating the culture right now. It's a person walking around with a smile. She's creating the culture right now.

And I have to share, I've been in for an hour and everybody seems, it's a crowded, noisy office. Everybody seems happy, seems to be having fun.

We just celebrated our incredible, you know, housekeeper, you know, that's, that's freaking awesome.

That's cool. Yeah.

Yeah.

Well let's talk about that for a second. Does hierarchy exist here, cause it seems like everybody is celebrated, everybody's part of it. I've heard you say that a hierarchy can cause a lot of problems in organizations, but at the same time people need to know who they report to and have accountability, right?

Yeah. I'm going to modify that. So I think authority can cause problems. What it is misused or used for power and not used for the we, but it's used for an I. That's definitely what I think. So I think like, yes, we would love to think of ourselves as a flat organization. And there was a time when we were, and I can't say that we're flat anymore, but I can say that every single person has a voice and can use it at any time. Come up with ideas, offer suggestions, go talk to Gary and go talk to me, go talk to the CFO or talk to the chief legal counsel. Like, it's such a door open policy or door open company that I think that flattens things. And so when I see someone in here and they're like, Oh my God, I, you know, I'm like, I'm meeting you. It's like yeah and I'm meeting you.

Yeah, you pretty much said that to me when I walked in.

That's cool. Yeah.  Or when someone says, I know you're really busy. It's like, yeah, Bobby, you're busy too.

Everybody is.

Sure I'm busy because my job is, when you touch every single human being and infuse the agency with empathy, well I have to meet every single human being. So yeah, I'm busy. But you are, too, because you're getting a campaign out the door or you're pulling a report or you're off to meet a client and hopefully like win that big pitch, you know, everyone's busy. So that type of attitude I think flattens things, also.

It's all part of the culture, which is that inclusiveness, the openness, the ability for people to speak up and share things and not feel like they have to hold back because they might be fired for saying something. Now, I've been big on the idea that that is what creates an innovative culture. And I see this as very innovative company. Do you see that as a big part of the why the company is so innovative and is able to move so fast? People come up with ideas and they're able to share them.

Yeah. That, and I also think that we have a lot of longevity here. So we have people that have been here 4-plus years a lot. I mean we still have employee 1, 2, and 3 here, and we've been around almost 11 years. So the longevity is something that has given us a lot of speed. The trust, the connection, the bonding, the fact that we change on a dime because we're fast paced because we work for an innovator, and you have to have resilience and grit, and those things add up to the loyalty and the longevity and the accountability. And that I think is what creates the ability to go fast.

That doesn't mean we don't get in each other's way and we don't have meetings for the sake of meetings or you don't have 10 people in the meeting room. And that really only needs to be the 4 decision-makers. Like, sure,  where we are full of that. Yeah, but speed is a KPI for us, a big one.

I'm surprised that you say longevity creates speed because I can take that a step further and say, I mean, I've worked for an insurance company that's been around for 100 years and they're not, they don't move fast.

However, have they taken time to connect with one another? Have they taken time to give it a sh** about each other? Do they trust one another? Have they been in the trenches and do they know?

So nobody there knew each other on a personal level.

So that's the difference. And you know what advertising agencies are built to, you're built to work in cohorts and squads or pods. So right there, like I was mentioning, I, when I ran the Unilever team, I had a small little agency of 50 people and we trusted one another. I mean we not only do we go out and you know, do karaoke and all that fun stuff, but we were, we were here night after night sometimes. And so that kind of longevity, that kind of ethos in the working style creates shorthand. And I do believe you get shorthand with longevity. I believe that, you know, I've been here 5 and 1/2 years. I, Gary only has to send me 2 words and I know exactly what I need to do, you know?

Because you know him so well.

Yeah. And I only need to say, you know, maybe a sentence to someone on my team and they're like off and running. And a lot of times the sentence I'm going to say to my team is going to be something that will help direct them. I will not give them the answer unless they really are like, I need the answer because what do I know? Right. And it'll be something that reminds them to only concentrate and fixate on the issue at hand, not the tangental noise that we all hear and not the subjective nature of that feedback. You know, the shorthand I think is where the longevity really comes into play. And so I've worked on the advertising agencies and that for many years over, you know, decade and more than that. And because I speak advertising agency fluently, I'm able to work with these people... but if you dropped me into Goldman's right now, Goldman Sachs, I would fall on my face because I had no frickin' idea of their business and what makes them tick other than probably high profit margins.

I believe that. Yeah. So that touches again on a little bit on this idea of culture and empathy. We've talked about inclusiveness a little bit. I've heard you talk about, and I've heard other people talk about this, that when you hire people, you don't look for a culture fit, that you're not big on culture fit. It's more of a culture addition. And I'm hearing other people talk about that now too and tell, tell me. But there may be a lot of people that haven't heard that before who were thinking, oh, we got to hire people for a culture fit. That's the important thing. Forget the skills. Do they fit into the culture? So tell me your philosophy on that.

Yeah, I'd like to throw that phrase out the door. Even though I have used it, I'm sure, a zillion times in my past, why do I want anyone to fit? I want people to add to this culture and add to the quilt that we're creating and that in turn should create a nice comfort. But culture fit means apples and apples and apples and apples and apples, and I need peaches and pears and asparagus and whatever the heck you, you know, garbanzo beans, I need everything that can go into minestrone soup. I don't just need the tomato. I don't just need the chicken stock. And so like to get out of metaphor land, there's this wonderful quote that Brene Brown said on her Netflix special and it goes like this: "True belonging doesn't require you to change who you are. It only requires you to be who you are."

True belonging doesn't require you to change to fit into this place. It just requires you to be, and we will adopt and adapt to you. So culture addition is where it's at for me. And I think that's what makes this place really run because it adds people that have values in a similar zip code but they don't, courage to them is going to be different than courage to me. Like you're going to jump out of a plane and this person over here is like, no effing way, but however I go, you know, skeet shooting or, I don't know where I got that, but whatever...

You probably do some things that I would be scared to do or very uncomfortable.

Right, but like I do stand up comedy.

Oh, yeah, that's terrifying. .

Yeah. So we want people who have, they have values and similar zip codes. They have curiosity and creativity and they think about things in a slightly different way or different way than us because at the end of the day, we are creating product. We are creating a creative output that needs to speak to the demographics we're trying to reach and they are not all apples and apples and apples.

Yeah. I like that.

Yeah, like the mom in Kansas City who's buying chocolate chip cookies, Chips Ahoy, doesn't mean that the, the other mom, they're not the same. They just like chocolate chip cookies for their house and their kids and they just haven't had the buying power.

Spoken like a true strategic advertiser. Strategists...

Can't take the girl out of the strategy.

Yeah, but you're, at the end of the day, you're looking at humans, right? And it's the same thing inside and outside the organization. And what you're saying is you don't want people to come in and be all the same. You want people to be different. You want them to be human and be themselves and create a safe space for people to be open and authentic and vulnerable, right?

And real. Yeah. I mean, you said authentic and just real like let's talk about what we can do to get you to that next level because ultimately people want to advance, and they want to feel really good.

Yeah, you want to have those honest conversations. Speaking of that, and we were talking about tough conversations, I gave a keynote earlier today about owning your career and there's a little bit of a challenge right now. I'm hearing with younger professionals that they're really ambitious and they want development, they want to go places, but they're not really having that conversation with their managers or waiting for their manager to come coach them or tell them where they should go and it's causing a little bit of friction and disconnect.

I think I've heard you talk about the importance of younger professionals or, you know, people having that conversation with their manager and managing up.

Yeah. So one of the things we started to implement say in May is something called a "stay interview."

I just heard someone say something about stay interviews at a conference a few weeks ago for the first time and then met another woman yesterday named Bev Kaye, who apparently wrote a book about it. I'm going to have her on the podcast as well.

Oh, no way! I'd love to see the book.

Yeah, the stay interview has been instrumental. So we do it within the first 45 days. So we also by the way do a 90 day, but within the first 45 days we are asking simple questions. Have you met with your manager, do you understand the expectations, roles and responsibilities of the role, and do you have all the tools you need? Something like that. And did you like orientation? All the other things I could use. And we want to know if that manager sat with you and explained how you're going to succeed here. And the cycle, meaning like we do reviews on an annual basis, you know, X, Y and Z. We don't promote every year, those types of things. I do think it's a 2-way street and I think that we want to encourage people to use their voices and ask like, hey, can you, you tell me how I can advance here? And sometimes that doesn't happen. I mean 50 percent of the time that's what my team is doing. Talking to someone about their growth and their trajectory or leading them back to the manager to have that conversation.

However, that means manager training is essential for us to do. We do a lot of manager training one-on-one because we want these managers, and they're young. That might be their second job, they might be 3 years out of school, whatever. We want them to have the skills they need to understand how to communicate what it's like to manage friends, how to give feedback, how to give an honest radical candor feedback, which is a tightrope for a lot of people. How to talk to someone about their growth and their trajectory, how to put someone on a performance plan, when to do that. So these are, that's a lot. That's a lot. So the training and development is super important.

You do all that in one-on-one coaching with them or you have manager development programs?

Oh, yeah, we have programs. And so for example, I'll go to London next week and I'll roll out more training. Okay. And then it'll train the trainer. There's plenty of other people that can do it or we do feedback training and we do presentation training, facilitation training. There's things that are really essential client service training. So, and that is as that, it's as simple as like everything from wiping down the whiteboard before you leave, pushing in the chairs, offering people water, I kind of stuff.

Yeah. That's great.

That's a lot. There's a lot of teaching that goes on here, you know.

That's great because people don't have those skills before they come in. And the biggest challenge I hear, you know, I work a lot with learning and development leaders, talent developers, and there's a lot of challenges and successful things going on out there. The biggest challenge I hear is managers getting promoted and not knowing how to manage.

Yeah. And so the, actually I believe, I believe that the manager training one-on-one starts out with, I think one of the first slides is, so you've been promoted. Congratulations. You know, oh, whoops. Now you need to know all of these things because you're just stoked that you got your raise and your new title. Cause that looks good and it feels good, but you're like, I don't know what to do. And now it's our job to teach them, you know.

Yeah, you go for that thing cause you want it and then you get there and like, it's kind of like when I booked this interview with you it's like, Oh I'll just get that. And then now I've gotta now I gotta do it.

Yeah, you're, you're, you're kicking by.

Oh thanks. You're easy to interview.

This episode of the Talent Development Hot Seat is brought to you by Advantage Performance Group. We help organizations develop great people. For more information about this podcast and Advantage Performance, you can go to advantageperformance.com/hotseat. And now onto the show.

Well, I'm going to wind it down now with a couple your kind of standard questions. What would you say has been your biggest accomplishment in your career? Proudest moment?

I actually, I have a few. So one, when I was a strategist at JWT, I was the head strategist on Shell Motor Sports and Ferrari. And so bringing Shell Motorsports and Ferrari together and social media was something that was really, really cool, and it seems so archaic now because it was 2009, but you know, I've got to go to the Ferrari factory in Italy and I got to go the Formula One races and, and, but ultimately the strategy that we put together as one that I was really proud of, really, really proud of as a strategist because you know, I was one for a very long time.

Another proud moment is the day I left Intermedia the first time and my team have a team of 50 people presented me with this incredible collage right there. And as they presented it to me, they went around and they started reading everything on that collage. And as they got to maybe the third person, I just started crying and I realized that they were reading things I had said to them and they had remembered.

Oh, you made an impact on them.

Yeah.

These are things like sign in the day or night. You are enough.

Yeah. Take up space, take up the challenges with love and compassion and be big in the room. You know, things that just you know, remind you to be human.

It's beautiful.

Thank you. And then the third one is this job. I mean this is a serious honor every single day. And yeah, and being at a place where I have the benefit and I, you know, I'm humbled that someone like you wants to talk about my role. It's huge.

I flew to New York to talk to you. That's how awesome you are.

You're down in the sunshine state.

That's right. It's hot down there. And I was amazed at how cool it is here today.  Um, flip side, what has been one of your biggest failures and what did you learn from it? With the acknowledgement that there is no true failure in life, right, as we're all learning, but there are things that don't go as planned.

Yeah. I mean, in this role I can say that one of the biggest failures I had was early on when we were doing a reorg here, our first reorg. And we were a company that never, ever, ever, ever let anyone go. We like we kept people, we would have been, we were so bloated. You know, we just were kind people.

Yeah. You just loved everybody. Cause that's what happens when you really get to know everybody, right? You love them so much.

Yeah. And so we did a reorg and had to say goodbye to about 30 people, 35 people in a day. And I had sent a note out to a certain group of people looking for feedback on some of the lower performers. And the note ended up going out, getting out, which was a bummer. And a lesson learned, a serious lesson learned that you don't use email to have those conversations. And you know, that was what another thing about like learning almost HR, if you will, even though, I mean, that's common sense, but my common sense failed me on that day.

HR 101. You've got to learn it through experience and not the class

Yeah. Yeah. So that was a great, that was a great, like massive hand slap. And you know, the great thing about that day I would say is, you know, immediately I was like, oh my God, Gary. Like, I mean, I messed up and he didn't freak. He knew it was big and then he helped get me, you know, he understood that I wanted to be very accountable, but he, he helped me clean up. You know? So that was yeah. I mean, it makes my mouth dry just talking about that.

He probably knew in that moment you'd already learned your lesson.

I did, and oh, just the idea of hurting people is, you know, not my thing.

What, if anything that we, maybe there's something we haven't covered, is a trend that you're following in how people work, you know, future of work, where you see things going from a talent development perspective or culture, people working perspective?

Well, I, I think going on the trend of what we're doing here and what we will continue to do here in terms of looking at the whole human is mental health. Mental health is a big issue today in the world. And I think fortunately we were working with millennials and gen Z and they're much more vocal about what's going on and want to make sure that we can provide the assistance that they need and we can be, again, empathetic to what's going on in their life. We're not professionals, I'm not a doctor, but to really make sure that we are trained enough to help them with the next step. And that's a really big topic, I think. I just know. It's a huge topic, you know, I have my reasons for why they might be more anxious and then our generation, for example.

So I think the trend is, you know, really getting back to what I said originally, which was I see HR as coaches and that doesn't mean more physicians or psychiatrists. It means that we will be able to coach someone into that next step, coach them off the ledge, help them with their financial health. You know, we have a CPA that comes in once a quarter and sits here, just sits in an office all day long.

Some people are gonna ask financial questions.

Yep, you just go in, you book time.

I love that.

We've got a guy that comes in with biometrics and, you know, he tells you your BMI and your, you know, how much water you're carrying, all this stuff. So we look at the whole human and I think that honestly is what's happening here. The fact of the matter is that we are in intimate relationships now at work. That is the deal. And I don't, you know what I'm talking about, we're in close relationships. And so you got to get, you know, you've got to get jiggy with that. You got to get, you got to figure that out and what that's like. I mean there's dating and marriages that happen here.

Yeah, I bet. In close proximity, intense working a lot. This is an intense culture and industry.

Yeah. So looking after the whole human and and making sure that we can be the best guides and coaches we possibly can be in all aspects.

Do you do anything here from a mindfulness perspective?

Yeah, we bring in tons of different mindfulness meditation practices. We use Calm.

Oh, nice. I'm a huge fan of Calm. I use it every day.

Calm's aweseome. We have the guided coaching I was telling you about in different offices like tomorrow in London, they have a massage, they do yoga and meditation in LA, and so we, you know, we have three offices here, two very big ones in New York and one smaller one. And so making sure that we are addressing the 650 people just here in New York, and we have a class pass. We have our membership list, so...

That's sounds great. You're taking care of people.

Yeah we are. I mean if there's a whole, yeah, there's a wellness wheel there that we created in the beginning of the year, which really looks at the whole human and, and it talks about, you know, environmental health and we, one of the things that we do is we help people not multitask. And that is a tricky one cause I'm a great multitasker. But multitasking, when you multitask, I was told it takes you 25 minutes to get back into the zone once you get pulled out. That's 25 fricking minutes.  I mean, you know,  we're all doing it.

It just doesn't work. Everybody thinks they can.  I read a great book on time management a few years ago that really changed my mindset on that and helped me to see that as well.

That's awesome.

Last question for you. For anybody listening who works in HR or talent development, other companies, they're looking for ways to perform better, accelerate their own career, and make more of a difference. What's one more piece of advice you would give?

The advice I'd give someone today is going to be, you know, find your top values and the values you live by because they're the same values that you work by, and you want to be a transformational leader, right? You don't want to be a transactional leader anymore. Or, in a different world, it's 21st century and that requires us to hone in our values, hone in our humility, I think. Understand that relationships and people are what matters and skills are commoditized. So I'm focused on you, your self-awareness, so that you can focus on others.

Yeah. Self-awareness, get to know your values and then you can have more empathy for others.

For anybody listening who wants to follow you or get in touch with you, where's the best place for them to do that, Claude? I know you're on LinkedIn and Instagram all the time.

Yeah. And Twitter and you can just hit me up and I do really respond to everyone that writes. It does take a little bit of time sometimes, but hit me up and I'm happy to say hi.

Love it. Thank you so much for making the time for this interview today. It has been wonderful for me and I know it's been valuable for our listeners as well, so thanks.

Myself, too. Thanks everyone.

All right, thanks.

All right, that is a wrap for my interview with Claude Silver, who is chief heart officer at VaynerMedia. What did you take away from that interview? I took away so many things. It was fascinating and I love learning from all the people that I'm interviewing and the cool thing is I get to collect all of the lessons from that learning and the and share those back out with you in different formats and if you haven't gotten a hold of them yet, I have created a couple of different resources for you now to share things I've learned. One of them is the top 5 trends in talent development, which you can get by going to talentdevelopmenthotseat.com/trends and the other one is the top advice from the interviews that I've got done on this podcast. And to get that, you can go to talentdevelopmenthotseat.com/trends and you can also just go to our website, sign up for our newsletter, look for free resources and it should all be there as well.