The Breakthrough Hiring Show: Recruiting and Talent Acquisition Conversations

EP 185: How Teaching Influenced This Talent Leader's Perspective

• James Mackey: Recruiting, Talent Acquisition, Hiring, SaaS, Tech, Startups, growth-stage, RPO, James Mackey, Diversity and Inclusion, HR, Human Resources, business, Retention Strategies, Onboarding Process, Recruitment Metrics, Job Boards, Social Media Re

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Tracy St. Dic, Global Head of Talent at Zapier, discusses how her background in the arts and education influenced her approach to leading teams. She unpacks how each chapter was driven by a desire to make a bigger impact. James and Tracy also talk about what it was like to run a large TA team for Teach For America.  


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SPEAKER_00:

So for everybody tuning in today, we have Tracy St. Deke on the show. Tracy is currently the global head of talent at Zapier. Tracy, we're happy that you're here with us today.

SPEAKER_02:

Thanks so much for the invitation. I'm eager to chat.

SPEAKER_00:

Let's do it. So, uh, Tracy, where did you grow up?

SPEAKER_02:

I grew up in Austin, Texas.

unknown:

Nice.

SPEAKER_02:

But I've been in I've been in Los Angeles now for gosh, almost 16 or 17 years. So I consider myself an Angelino at this point.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. Yeah, nice. That's good. Okay. So you were born and raised in Austin. It seems like most people in tech kind of migrated there over the past 10 years. So you were there like originally before everybody else in our industry, it sounds like.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh yeah. I am like Austin OG. My parents went to the University of Texas and my sister went to the University of Texas. I was the only one in my family who did it. But I grew up in Austin at the time when Austin was still um in that keep Austin weird era where we were like very original, a little bit hippie, um, you know, before all of the tech folks and all the folks from California and New York came in. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Do you ever go back and visit?

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, yeah. I got married there and then my parents are still there. So I actually haven't been back to visit as much. Every time I go, the city has changed so much, like so much bigger, so much more people. It's really why it's really wild how how Austin has changed with the whole tech scene in a way that I think is great and also can be challenging.

SPEAKER_00:

So do you feel like the culture has changed there?

SPEAKER_02:

I think it has, yeah, absolutely. I think it's become a little bit more tech centric. I also think, you know, Austin still remains one of the more liberal places in Texas. But I also think, you know, there's just a lot of folks coming in from outside of Texas, moving to Austin for the tech scene, or just because it's a great place to live with the live music and the food and everything like that. So it's becoming a real cosmopolitan city, I think, in a number of ways. And that's not good or bad, it's just different.

SPEAKER_00:

So when I grew up different. Yeah, it must be sort of trippy. I mean, where I grew up is in Northern Virginia, which I don't know if you've been on here, but it's like I'm 30 minutes outside of DC. Actually, now it's more like 40 minutes, just the communes getting longer since I was a kid. But it's just this area sort of went through this crazy transformation where it was primarily like farmland when I was a kid, and now it's like the headquarters of the internet and data centers.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh and it's just like the population totally exploded.

SPEAKER_02:

So yeah, that's why, yeah. Places that were not a part of Austin, like other cities that you would not consider Austin, you wouldn't go to are now like Austin adjacent, or it's like greater Austin. So it's like the city has definitely gotten bigger. And we've thought about moving back, but I mean, we honestly love we love LA. You can't beat it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean, the weather is just it's perfect.

SPEAKER_02:

It's I think it's supposed to be 84 degrees and sunny today in the middle of the winter. So okay.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, here it's 30 degrees, but it feels like it's negative 20 and it's windy as hell.

SPEAKER_02:

So that's we all make we all make life choices, and I some of us clearly I'm making bad life choices. That's that's on you, but that's on you.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. Make better choices. Yeah. So what were you like as a kid?

SPEAKER_02:

Oh gosh. I was a second child, so I had a lot of second child energy, uh, very much social butterfly. Very, very um like good at school. I was like super academic. I was valedictorian of uh my high school class. So it gives you a sense of like how academically focused I was. But I was also into a lot of extracurriculars, like I did dance, I did theater, I did music, I um just had a lot of interest growing up. So I can say that as a kid, just like now, I think I was very overscheduled and like overstimulated all the time. I I really loved my parents instilled in me like this real sense of independence and travel and I think adventure in a way that is is so much a part of who I am right now. I have a lot of interests. I like to push myself to try a lot of different things and was very ambitious, I think, as a child.

SPEAKER_00:

I love that. So, was education really important to your parents? And is that where you got it from, or was that something more innately to you that you disvalued from the start?

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, I think it absolutely came from my parents. So my dad was an immigrant from the Philippines. My mom was sort of an army brat and grew up on different army bases. They both were the first in their family to attend college, or the first generation of their family to attend college. And so growing up, this was such a huge and important piece of our lives. My mom was also a public school teacher in Austin, and she chose to spend her career teaching in more low-income, like Title I schools. And so I saw from an early age just the importance of education, the importance of education as an opportunity equalizer in some ways. And yeah, I would certainly say it was a big piece growing up, but also I was pretty competitive. My sister was also a good student, she was salutatorian of our high school class, and so obviously I had to beat that. So there's some kind of spirit in there that I think is uh was also a driving factor.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Well, so so what um was your favorite topic? My favorite topic, yeah, or class, like uh more on the literature English side, STEM. What did you love to do?

SPEAKER_02:

Um, I loved writing, but I was very, very good at math too. Um so I was yeah, I had a lot like a lot of right brain, left brain. My big passion in high school was theater and like the arts. I ended up then you know studying that in college in and again did a little bit of like left brain, right blane. I went to the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and was a tar heel, but I studied business and dramatic art. So again, I always kind of had that practical side and then more of like the arts humanity side that felt really important to stay balanced, honestly.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's pretty cool. That actually sounds like uh my family as well. So my mom was an artist and she was actually an actress. She also went to Chapel Hill, by the way.

SPEAKER_01:

No way! Oh, that's so cool.

SPEAKER_00:

So I get like I feel like my creative side from her and sort of my wild side when it comes to travel and adventure and experiencing new things. Um, you know, she did crazy stuff. Like she traveled down the Amazon River alone in her 20s and almost got kidnapped by drug dealers and all sorts of crazy stuff.

SPEAKER_02:

I'll just say your mom is like goals, and then maybe like minus that last part.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and um, and then yeah, so I kind of grew up with that too, where you know, particularly when I was younger, I was like really interested in the arts, but I was also very driven and ambitious in business. And I think as I became an adult, I kind of veered toward the business side because it was just like slightly more I don't know, I guess I was like slightly more interested in it ultimately. I think it's cool when you get to experience both, right? Like that I think that balance is really important.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah. And I think, I mean, there's so much psychology, and I'm sure a lot of research that people can pull from this, but you are better at the business aspects when you have these creative outlets and you have the opportunity to push yourself in different ways and and stimulate that side of your brain, and vice versa, right? I think the balance is is really key.

SPEAKER_00:

So with dramatic arts specifically, what were you most interested in?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so it actually wasn't like acting or anything like that. I was very interested in directing. I went to a huge public high school in Austin, Texas. I went to Bowie High School, and at the time we were really, and I don't know how what it is now, you know, like many 20 plus years later, but at the time, you know, really big arts programs, really big theater programs. So we actually had almost like this directing track as well in a high school theater program. So I got this this early chance to like direct in high school and then took that into college. So I loved, I love directing, I love being behind the scenes, I loved orchestrating all the pieces of the puzzle of how a production comes together. I loved supporting and coaching like my actors and ensuring that everyone could shine and be them their best selves. And then I also love the history aspect. So I actually was my major in theater when I was at North Carolina was because I was a double major, that piece of it was directing and dramaturgy, which is like the history of theater and understanding how arts and movements have impacted, you know, theater as a whole, but also being able to understand the historical elements and the significance of things in plays and in scripts. And so again, like really nerdy, like really, really loved that aspect of it. Um, but was very much like how everything comes together was really fascinating to me.

SPEAKER_00:

You're a very intellectually curious person, uh, very interested in the historical context to truly develop a very solid foundation, right? Starting with that aspect of it. Um, well, so that's cool. So on the directing side, what types of projects did you ultimately get to work on?

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, yeah. I mean, if this again, this was in college. So we did a bunch of plays that I was able to direct. One of my favorite ones that we did, because it was a huge fundraiser at our school, is I directed the vagina monologues, um, which every year around Valentine's Day was a huge fundraiser for the Orange County Rape and Crisis Center. And so I got to direct that. I did it in a bit of a different way than is the traditional way. And what was very cool is I got to meet the author, uh Eve Insler, in the process. So she's like a personal hero, the way that she writes about feminist movements and women empowerment and does so in the realm of theater and plays and bringing that to larger audiences. So uh actually, my youngest daughter is named Insler after Eve Insler. Yeah. So that's really cool. But she had a she had a huge impact on how I thought about the arts and the medium of theater or any entertainment to bring whether it's like education or knowledge or humanity to issues that people don't think about every day. And in this case with the vagina monologues, you know, there's a spectrum of stories, but part of that is also some like violence against women and women's empowerment and um autonomy over their bodies, right? And so a big piece of my experience doing that was understanding how powerful it is to be able to expose people to knowledge, education, different ideas in a way that can be more accessible to them, potentially feels less, I don't know, like spicy or risky or you know, like a hot topic, right? Ways that you can introduce different ideas to folks in a medium that they can access in a more easy way that feels like entertainment. And so that was a huge lesson for me and kind of fueled this love of arts advocacy. For a long time, I thought I wanted to, my career, I wanted to run an arts nonprofit. And I wanted to think about how you can expose more people to ideas, expose more people to an art form that could help them think and approach the world in different ways. So that has been like a big, a big passion of mine. And we can talk about it later, but that kind of like led me down like many different paths related to to talent and education in the process.

SPEAKER_00:

What was the author's name again? Eve Insler? Eve?

SPEAKER_02:

Eve, like Eve.

SPEAKER_00:

Sorry. Um sorry. So what was that conversation like with her? What did the two of you discuss?

SPEAKER_02:

Oh gosh, okay. You're asking me to recall like two decades ago. Um, I mean, I remember talking to her about um, you know, why she chose to write about the things that she chose because this the vagina monologues wasn't the only um, you know, play that she wrote. She wrote one about like uh, I think I can't remember the name of it now off the top of my head, but about like body image. There was a number of plays that she had written that sort of exposed different issues for women around the world. And one of the most interesting conversations that I had with her was just, you know, what was her intention with this? And the takeaway that I had was truly that. It's like these are things that happen to women that women experience and women think about all over the world. And it's become taboo. It's things that we don't talk about, it's things that feel um, you know, they're like hush, hush conversations. Maybe you don't even talk about it with your friends or your family members, but being able to bring that to light and to normalize it actually does a lot more good, not just for women, but for everybody. And that to me kind of gave me the charge of like, okay, like this is not just a fun play that I'm directing in college is like a fun hobby. But one, not only is it raising money for a cause that I care about, but it's actually an opportunity to bring, you know, more of these issues to light. And in my small corner of the world in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, right? So um, theater is still like a big part of my life now. I've been on junior boards for like arts education and nonprofits here in Los Angeles have done some volunteering in that sense. But um I still truly, truly do believe that being able to have mediums like this that expose people to different ideas is a major way that we like build understanding. And like that truly came from not like this experience, but like conversations with Eve herself. So talk about a formative life moment in college, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's really cool that you had the ability to have those conversations and those experiences at that point in your life, particularly at that formative time. So, in terms of art being a median to bring up uh social issues or even moral issues or important topics, do you think the reason it's so important and effective is it because it invokes like an emotional connection with the audience? It kind of helps people drop their guards and connect more in order to maybe have more like empathy or understanding surrounding a topic. I'm just curious, like understanding from your perspective.

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, absolutely. I mean, I think that's why I love live theater in particular, because when I go see plays now, which which I do regularly, I'm so often interested in the audience's reaction to what you're seeing. So almost less so of what's happening on the stage, but like being in a live audience, you can sort of feel the energy. I think the same thing happens when you like go to a movie theater, right? It's like you can sort of feel how the audience is reacting to certain things. And I think that is just absolutely fascinating. I just love being in that space, but you captured it perfectly, accessing different ideas, different people, identities, backgrounds, ways of life, culture, right? For so long, the arts medium has been able to share that with folks in a way that doesn't feel threatening or scary, or you know, someone telling you like you should believe XYZ. But it's like actually helping you connect with the humanity of others through this arts medium, I think is what allows people to build that empathy and understanding and put themselves in the shoes of other people. And so that has always been to me, I think, the most powerful part of an arts medium well done is that you're actually able to push people to think outside of themselves and connect to the broader world around them. And that's always the piece that I feel like there's a saying that I heard really early on in my career, which is like the arts is the best way for people to understand humanity. I just truly believe that in so many ways. And that's why I became, you know, in college, even though I was very interested in directing and dramaturgy and wanted to run an arts nonprofit, a big passion of mine, going back to like my upbringing and my mom as a public school teacher, was this idea of arts access and arts advocacy and ensuring that students of all backgrounds were able to access what I thought was like this really kind of like life-changing medium like theater and arts and all of that. And so my senior project and my thesis, my senior year, was really focused on figuring out a system where in this area in Chapel Hill, you could actually have teaching artists work with a local theater who would teach students. And it was just sort of this beautiful way to expose students who wouldn't normally get access to the arts, access to it, while also providing a way for you know community theater to like give back to the community. Um, and just really understanding and exploring like the arts movement in the US and how we can bring more of that to students. Um, and so that really led me to do a lot of research about understanding the arts movement in the US and why, unlike other countries, we might not have as much of a government-backed arts movement in some places. And it led me to this line of thinking where what really led and connected that passion of arts and arts advocacy to education is that when I was in my senior year at Carolina, a lot of my thesis was around trying to understand, you know, how is it that we could expand access to the arts for underserved and minority communities so that especially students who wouldn't necessarily have access to go to the theater or go to the opera could have access to those same concepts and this medium that could be really important for how they understand the world around them, how they understand society and things like that. So my thesis was on arts advocacy and arts integration education. And when I was doing research and talking to professionals as a part of my research, the thing that kept coming up is like, you know, we can't talk about teaching kids Shakespeare if they don't even know how to read. And that like hit me like a ton of bricks, right? When I was, you know, a senior, I was like, I want to run an arts nonprofit and I want to like be an arts advocate and all of this. And then it started to always go back to if you really wanted to accomplish that, then access to education is like number one because there are so many kids all over the country in particular who are not reading at the level that they need to be reading at or doing math at the level that they need to be doing math at, right?

SPEAKER_00:

I believe that that issue is getting a little bit worse in this country, right? I think reading levels literacy is Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And especially after, especially after COVID. But um the education system in the US is dire if you look at it in aggregate. Now, does it work for some people and some zip codes or some you know private schools or those who have access to it? Absolutely. But for masses, especially kids who are growing up, going to Title I schools, public schools, like they are not getting the support that they need to read and write on the level they need to to compete in the world, right? So as I was kind of like, oh, how do we expose more kids to the arts? I kept going back to how do we just ensure kids are reading? How do we ensure that kids can do math at a basic level so that they can get a job and create options for themselves after they, you know, they hopefully graduate, right? And also how many students are not even graduating? And so it really started to put my focus on public education in general. So it went from like this love of the arts and this sort of optimistic, how do we bring, you know, the more arts to more students, to like, gosh, what is happening in public education today that is making it where the arts is like a second or third order, you know, charge, right? That led me then to kind of go back to my roots with my mom as a public school teacher, really understand my values and what I think is important in the world, which is ensuring all students have access to an excellent education so that they can chart their own path. And that led me eventually to Teach for America. So, even as a business and dramatic arts major, my first job out of college was through Teach for America, teaching kindergarten in Brooklyn for my first two years out of college.

SPEAKER_00:

That's amazing. And so, just for those tuning in, could you explain more about Teach for America?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

What the organization does?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. So Teach for America is an education nonprofit. And their mission is to find and develop and train incredible young people to teach in a classroom for at least two years and then go on to be lifelong advocates of education. Um, and Teach for America started in 1990 and it has expanded to be the biggest, most diverse teacher pipeline. The country. They have, I think now at this point, probably 40 to 50 regions across the US. New York was one of the first ones. And their whole model is to find incredible young people. I mean, it could be mostly college students, is where they recruited, but then also, you know, other young professionals as well. And to say, let's take all of those talent and those skills. We will train you how to be a teacher. We'll even, in many cases, give you your graduate degree in education, which is what I did. But we will also support you so that you can help fill this teacher shortage that we have across the country. And so that we can have a high quality teacher in classrooms where students really need it. And so I was trained as an elementary teacher. I taught kindergarten in Brooklyn and had a lot of support from Teach for America to make me an effective teacher. Taught for two years, uh, two of those initial years, which is the commitment in my kindergarten classroom. And the idea is that being exposed and in real service of your kids and communities as a teacher also shapes you really early on in your career as somebody who is going to be an advocate for education and for your kids for the rest of your life. So when I was in my classroom, in those four walls of the classroom, what I learned from that is you see every issue of poverty and every social ill sort of come together within those four walls. So it wasn't just about education, but it was the fact that my students didn't have access to high-quality food at all times. They didn't have access to transportation, green space, urban planning is this is an issue that intersects with that. There are so many things that you start to understand being in a classroom, working with students, working with their families, that you absolutely understand more about how all of these issues come together and how all of these issues of poverty come together for kids and what that means for their access and their opportunities and their ability to have their own life choices. And so Teach for America broadly is to ensure that all students have access to a great education by having really high-quality teachers in classrooms. But I think the other side of that is ensuring that people like myself, young people who are starting their careers, have a life-changing and foundational experience that then influences everything else that they're going to do for the rest of their lives. What they advocate for, how they vote, how they think about certain political or local issues. And it's really meant to broaden the awareness of how you can be in more in service of equity and opportunity for everyone.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow. And so after two years, it sounds like you decided you really wanted to be part of the organization directly, like internally, versus continuing down the teacher path. Um what I'm getting from you, it sounds like everything you've done has really been there's a few underlying themes here. You follow your passion, you're intentional, and you're also pretty intellectually curious. Like even when you're talking about dramatic arts, going back and understanding historical context, and then you talk about okay, transitioning to teaching because you're like thinking even more deeply about okay, well, to understand art, and for instance, Shakespeare, like you have to have the ability to read at a certain level, so you're consistently like working backward almost to get to like the fundamental root challenge or opportunity. And so is that sort of what when you decide to go from teaching to essentially to the source, right? Getting getting to teach for America and then building a career there was a similar mindset of like following impact, where you feel like you can make the essentially greatest social impact, it sounds like is very important to you.

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, James, I love I love that mirror that you just reflected back to me. And I think you made it sound even better. I mean, like, but it's it's really true. I I would say like following impact has been really what has driven my career a hundred percent. Because when I was finished with my time in the classroom, I I was so attached to my students. I love them, I love their families, I and it broke my heart in some ways that you know, after my classroom, they go on to the next classroom and the next and the next. And like I don't have control over their educational outcomes. And so it became a real charge for me to say, I want to ensure that my kids, as in like the kids that I taught, continue to have great teachers. What can I do about that? Oh, I can find more people to be teachers in classrooms. And specifically, I was really focused on teachers that looked like them because I taught in East New York, Brooklyn. The majority of my students were African, Caribbean immigrants, some Latino immigrants as well. And the reality is in our school system, there is not many teachers that look like my students or that come from the backgrounds that they come from. And so being able to identify with them, there's a huge shortage of male teachers, for example, which are just incredible in terms of role models for our young boys. And so I was felt really charged of like, gosh, I really want to help extend Teach for America's mission. I thought at first, like, maybe I'll go into development, maybe I'll try to help raise money. And I had a recruiter that was like, you know, I think your skill set and what your passion is could be really useful in recruiting. And I was like, recruiting? I don't know. I'm not, I had never thought about that. Um, but that's how I joined Teach for America, the organization. I became a recruiter in Southern California, recruiting out of the University of Southern California and the Claremont colleges, and really trying to convince college students who had at that point, you know, every opportunity in the world could have gone and done anything that they wanted to do, that the most impactful thing that they could do would be to spend the first two years of their lives out of college, at least putting their talents towards ensuring that every kid has a great education. And so absolutely, like I felt like I had such a passion for this. I wanted to get more people into this. And I feel like I had something to say about it, about how it changed me, about how it changed, you know, my this, my students' lives that I worked with and wanted to go out and kind of evangelize and share that message. So that's how I got into working with Teach for America and that's how I got into recruitment as well.

SPEAKER_00:

And that was also when you ended up moving to LA, I think, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, yeah, when I started recruiting out of Southern California.

SPEAKER_00:

You also mentioned travel and adventures, like really important to you. Were you ever working remotely? And is that what allowed you? Or uh how did you? I'm just curious about where you ended up, your travels took you and just throughout those years as well.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh gosh. Well, when I was a Teach for America, which I was on staff and on the recruitment team for about 13 years, we were like at college campuses all the time. So I started as a recruiter and then I managed recruiters. I kept managing more and more territory. So eventually I ran recruitment for a lot of the West Coast, Hawaii, things like that. And then at the end, for a few years, I actually was SVP of all of recruitment at Teach for America. So, James, I know more about college campuses than I ever care to. I've been to so many of them and all over the country, from Hawaii to you know Massachusetts and everywhere in between. So I was traveling a lot. I wouldn't say it was always adventure, but it was certainly always very eye-opening and loved like being on college campuses talking to passionate college students. That was more of my day job, I feel like, in my personal life now. Like that's where I really had my love of adventure of getting out outside the US. But um, I was traveling all the time to talk with incredible college students all around the country.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, you certainly can't do that uh as consistently as you did for as many years as you did without having a lot of passion and meaning behind your work. It's like willpower will only take you so far. It's like to genuinely be really interested and engaged and following your your passion, I feel like is so necessary when you're in roles like that.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And I feel like there's there's something different too when you work for a company with a mission that you really care about because every student, every incredible college student that we met who decided to apply for and then join Teach for America was one more amazing teacher in a classroom of kids like mine. And so when you break it down to like that is so tangible, it made the work, yes, it was tons of hard work. I mean, teaching was by far the hardest job I've ever had, then followed by recruiting at Teach for America, because every single person that you helped realize that this would be an impactful path for them is another person who could have taught one of my students. And in fact, there were people that I knew from Teach for America who did teach my students in later years, like in eighth grade and then and like before. And so you really started to see that cycle. And, you know, that was always what drove me. I remember we were like in the midst of um COVID in 2020. I just had my second baby, and so I was on maternity leave, and obviously like everything was shut down. And it was fascinating because my very first class of kindergartners were supposed to graduate high school in 2020. And they were in New York and I was in LA. The only reason I got to see them graduate high school is because their graduation was held virtually during COVID. And that, James, was the absolute coolest experience of my life to see my little five-year-olds that I taught to read graduating high school and going to college. And I'm even getting like chills thinking about it now, and keeping in touch with them and seeing them graduate, you know, so many years later was just such a like circle moment for me. And that they didn't get there alone. They got there with the support of their families and their communities and also their teachers. And if I or my team had any part of that, I mean, that's something that that continues to drive me to this day.

SPEAKER_00:

Is there anyone that was your student that you still keep in touch with today?

SPEAKER_02:

There's a few of them that I actually keep in touch with over like social media. Um, there's one that invited me to the his high school graduation, his name was Jonathan, and he ended up going to um one of the SUNY schools, uh, the state university schools in New York. And he is graduated from college now. And so he's the one who had more Teach for America teachers in eighth grade. And I kind of, you know, kept in touch with him. And he is the one who invited me to the graduation. And I talked to him on the phone after he graduated, talked to his dad. Remember his dad, like like how um how helpful and supportive his dad was of anything that I wanted to do in terms of, you know, supporting Jonathan in kindergarten. And so that I mean, it was just amazing. But yeah, there are some that I see on social media. I definitely am not able to keep track of all of them and would love to hear how they're doing, but there's definitely a few that I've kept in touch with throughout the years.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I mean, that shows you real impact, right? If Jonathan invited you to the graduation, then you certainly made a big impact. Uh, and particularly at if you, you know, being a five-year-old, the fact that he he really remembered, um, you know, that's uh that's incredible.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. I mean, but you think about it, like I don't know about you, but I can remember my kindergarten teacher. I remember all of my teachers, right? Like all, you know, all of the main teachers. And so when I think about, you know, what is some of the most impactful work that you can do? I mean, we could do a whole episode on how I think teachers should gain like so much more respect and higher compensation in this country, but those are really the formative experience that shaped all of us. And so um it was it's just awesome to have been a part of that.

SPEAKER_00:

When you were growing up, did you have a teacher that really made a big impact on you that I don't know, maybe later in life you realized you wanted to essentially mirror that person or just curious if there was somebody like that for you.

SPEAKER_02:

I had many of those. Um, I would say the first one that I can really remember was in about fourth grade, where I had a teacher who her name was Mrs. Ross, and she was like an incredible writing teacher. And she was the one who really unlocked writing for me and made me really love it. Like we wrote every day, like I I kind of developed my love for writing, um, my love for descriptive writing in fourth grade. And that I think was one of the foundational skills that I really leaned on throughout the rest of my educational career and even now. So yeah, there's I certainly have had many teachers I could shout out, but I think that was the first one where I said that was a pivot point in my life. And because of her passion of writing, that instilled a passion of writing for me. And that's the sort of thing that I think teachers can and do do every day for their students.

SPEAKER_00:

So now you're at Zapier, right? And you're overwatching uh the way that you put it is it's talent acquisition plus. So you're overseeing talent acquisition. I'm curious. So when you made that transition from Teach to America to Zapier, uh of course, there's a lot of overlap in terms of down the pipe recruiting motions, but it's a transition, different type of organization. And I'm wondering from when you looked at the opportunity at Zapier based on where you were at that point in your life, and when Zapier was considering you based on your experience and where the company was at that point in time, I'm curious to get your thoughts on in terms of transitioning to Zapier from Teach America. Yeah, walk me through kind of how that how that came about and why that was so important to you at that point in time.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that's such a good question. So um, I was at Teach for America until 2022, leading our national recruitment team. So huge, like team of over 200 people. Um, we were recruiting. Oh my god, 200 people? Yeah, yeah. And wow, I had no idea. It was at Teach for America, the recruitment team. Um, so it recruiting was the product. Like our core members who we were trying to get into classrooms was like the product. So I often say, like, I ran a recruiting team, in some ways it felt like I was running a sales team, but it was almost like a GM model. Like the recruitment team at Teach for America was the largest organization. We were almost an organization within the broader organization. So I had, you know, many layers under me, but we had our own LD, our own finance, our own marketing, field marketing, own events team. So it was it was a phenomenal professional experience, a huge, huge job, of course. And I had been with Teach for America for so long and was so committed to it. I also really started to just be completely transparent, started to feel like there was completely no boundaries between my personal life and my work life. And that is because I think when you work for a company and a mission that you care about so deeply, it is very easy to blend those things together. Because, like I said, every student that we got to be a teacher mattered. It mattered to like a classroom of students who would or wouldn't have a teacher the next year. And so I just was incredibly like, I would probably say overcommitted. And oh gosh, what's the word? It's just, it was all-encompassing. It felt even more important because my own daughter went to a school where she had a teacher who was a Teach for America alum in kindergarten. Her principal was a Teach for America alum, and she goes to a charter school in Los Angeles that was started by Teach for America alum. So like I was, James, like personal life and professional life, I was like all in Teach for America and like every sounds like it. It was all when I say it was all encompassing, it was all encompassing. Um, and so I knew for myself, I was like, this feels really important. And I was about to kind of chart the next wave of what our strategic vision was for my team. And while I felt really passionate about that, I also had an incredible team under me. And I'm the type of leader, James, where I believe like my job is to develop my people to eventually work myself out of a job. Like if you're if I'm doing your job right as a manager, like that is your charge. And I had an incredible vice president under me who he himself was taught by core members. So he had like lived this entire Teach for America experience who was more than ready to take over the reins. And that was my push to be like, it is time for me to leave because he's going to be able to take this team in a completely different direction that even I couldn't. And I feel so strongly about the work we've done together that like he is the person that I really want to pass the reins to. Um, and so that was that was it. I felt time for me to move on to know that like it needed to go into the next generation of leadership. And then how I got to Zapier is actually really interesting because I was still looking, I mean, mainly looking at nonprofits, like looking at becoming, you know, whether it's an executive director or a chief diversity officer for like local nonprofits are still in the education space. And somebody that I had worked with at Teach for America, who I had the utmost respect for and would follow off a cliff, um, was the chief people officer at Zapier, who's Brandon Samut. So I had reached out to him one day to ask him to mentor one of my recruiters. And um, he's such a lovely person. He was like, sure, I'll do that. I'm happy, I'm happy to talk to them. And um, I had mentioned to him that I had been thinking that was my last year at Teach for America. And then a few months later, because he was new to his role, a few months later, he reached back out and has like, Hey, you mentioned you might be interested in leaving Teach for America. We should talk. Um, and at that point I had decided that I was gonna leave Teach for America. So I was like, I don't know. Like, I kind of want to stay in the nonprofit, I kind of want to stay in education. But I, he's like, let's just talk about it, let's see if it's a good fit. And I just fell in love with Zapier. I fell in love with his style of leadership and felt like he was the leader that I could learn from. I also fell in love with Zapier's mission, which is to make automation work for everyone. And I saw that as the next layer of the work that I was doing to democratize access to education at Teach for America for kids. Zapier was sitting on is was like the most easily usable tool, most accessible tool for no code, low-code automation. And they were well known and beloved already for people who didn't have, you know, the extra engineers or the budget for like extra, you know, folks in their in their org to be able to do things through automation that they wouldn't be able to do on their own. And so I saw this as like this mission about democratizing access to technology that could be actually really life-changing for people and for businesses was a mission that just like fascinated me. And then I met people and I love the people and I love the challenge. And at that time, Zapier was really set to scale. And since I had been working at such a large scale for some time, I had that to offer. Obviously, things change and you know, a lot of tech companies ended up not scaling as much. But I think there was a Brandon really saw this um applicability between what I was doing at Teach for America and how that could push Zapier in new ways. I didn't come from a traditional tech background. I learned what the difference between like a front-end and a back-end engineer was like three weeks into the job. I like, and I was very clear about that. I was like, I don't have a technical background. I, however, I really know recruiting. I really understand how to lead a team. I really understand how to support, develop, and empower managers and unify a team and set a vision and bring people together. And so I can bring that to the table. And to Brandon's credit, he saw that and he was like, I think that that can be applicable here, even though you don't have this traditional SaaS B2B background. Um, and so yeah, so I joined Zapier and have been there for almost four years now, completely loving the different types of challenges that we get to do and the ways that Brandon and our CEO Wade have really created this playground where we can push the boundary, try new things, and experiment. So that is the things that I like doing, pushing ourselves, always continually getting better, trying new things, getting curious about what else we could do. And that is like 100% like my jam right now as we've entered this AI era.

SPEAKER_00:

So I had a feeling you were gonna say you got the job through Teach for America. Like I just knew it was gonna be somebody from We are everywhere.

SPEAKER_02:

Teach for America alumni everywhere. I actually meet a ton of folks in the talent space who have done Teach for America in the talent space in all sorts of industries, but also folks all over, you know, even at Zapier. We have a number of Teach for America. Alumni too.

SPEAKER_00:

That's awesome. So still drastically different environment. I well, maybe not actually, maybe lesser than I would assume, right? But different type of company going to category leading and defining a tech company, right? From the the nonprofit space, staying true to the name of the show, breakthrough hiring, uh, breakthrough moments. I'm wondering, like from a perspective, from in terms of how you think about building and leading teams, has there been an evolution of thought or what what did you learn through that transition? Because you know, we've gone through a lot of what you've learned throughout your years at Teach uh for America, but now at Zapier, I'm just curious like, how has your perspective evolved when it comes to being a leader and building a TA solutions?

SPEAKER_02:

That is such a good question. I'll say a couple of things on that front. And yeah, it's such a good question. I mean, I think that my formative experiences going back to my first year teaching kindergarten and then doing recruiting at Teach for America have absolutely led me to be the type of leader that I am here at Zapier. And then I'm so grateful and lucky to work under my manager Brandon, who's now our chief people and AI transformation officer, and with an incredible team that allows us to keep kind of pushing the needle for what's possible. But just to go back to my foundations and sort of the principles and values that I hold is that I think I learned from my first year in the classroom that, you know, talent is everywhere, brilliance is everywhere. Um, some people are more, you know, have the means from historic and systemic reasons, have more opportunities than others. But that doesn't mean that um, even though opportunity isn't equally distributed, potential is. You can find potential anywhere. And so much about teaching is about identifying potential, nurturing it, helping create an environment where that potential and talent can thrive. And so that people can be their best selves and the best version of themselves and push themselves to take on challenges and learn new things more than they ever even thought possible. That's what I did. That's what I strove to do as a kindergarten teacher. And then when I was in recruitment at Teach for America, I was talking to college students who were like on their way to med school or law school or um, you know, honestly, in some cases, whatever their parents wanted them to do, and or were feeling a little bit unmoored, like they weren't sure what path they wanted to go in. And again, it was that beautiful privilege that I had as a the recruiter to say, you know, based on everything that you care about, your strengths, what you want to do, what you don't want to do, what gives you energy, you know, how can how could be a teacher in a classroom for two years be the way that you want to make your impact? And how can this be a really natural fit for you? And so again, it was like identifying incredible potential, helping people see that in themselves, helping people get to an environment and the supports that they need to be really phenomenal and do incredible things, right? So it's it didn't change when I went into tech. I think the difference at Zapier is that Zapier is like a really hot company. You know, people, we get thousands of applications. And I think one of the things that I really loved is pushing my team to think outside of just like even what are the traditional profiles that we look for, but how do we really think and suss out potential? How do we really ensure that in onboarding and in their first 90 days they can thrive, that they have the right supports in place, that they have the manager, their managers are enabled to be able to develop their talent. So again, it's all about the talent spectrum. It's the exact same thing as teaching kindergarten is how do you identify, define, nurture, develop talent? Like that, I feel like has become a real passion of mine, and especially at the intersection of ensuring that all people from all backgrounds have the opportunity to be really successful in our environment.

SPEAKER_00:

So, what does 2026 look like for you? What goals do you have professionally, personally? Like, what are you looking to accomplish this year?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. So, I mean, besides, you know, we're hiring like crazy here at Zapier. Um, it's really exciting because Zapier has been leading, I think, I personally think humbly in the tech space on AI transformation of our entire company. Um, and so a lot of my role in that is really understanding how to transform the beginning of the employee life cycle in that way. So I know it's very popular right now for all companies to be like, we're undergoing an AI transformation in 2026, but Zapier has really, over the past few years, like put real infrastructure, tactics, concrete strategies in order to make that happen. And we also share that. I mean, we we share that broadly in the world. Like Zapier, again, we're very big on democratizing access to information and technology. So we share a lot of what we're doing. Um, but to get back to your question is like what I'm really excited about in 2026 is really moving my team for what I would call adoptive use of AI to transformational use of AI. And what I mean by that is like, I think a lot of companies now, um, and I say a lot of companies, I mean in the tech space, but I also think, you know, across the board in every industry, are trying to figure out how do we utilize AI to become more productive, to save time, to give people back time. All of that is really important. Like personal productivity, you know, saving 10% or 50% of your time by using technology so that you can focus on the things that you as a human do best, very important. We're still gonna do that. However, I think there's another layer to unlock for AI transformation, is where you actually start to determine and question who's doing the work, how is the work being done, and how do you make this AI first so that you're actually transforming how work gets done in this new age of AI. And so, for example, what I mean by that is like we've had this traditional hiring process for decades, right? You have an application, people apply to that application, recruiter reviews the application, recruiter decides who to move people forward, you know, like things like that. You look at a resume. Way back you used to look at cover letters, you know? So we've had sort of this like way of operating. And I think that's just about to get like completely blown up, James. And I think it should be, you know, I mean, there's so many different possibilities that we are discovering every day as technology gets better of how we can make the recruiting process, the hiring process more accessible, more equitable, more inclusive, um, gain higher signal, you know, focus on connection and not all of the admin stuff. There's so much that we can do to revolutionize um the recruiting process right now. So a very long answer to your question. That is my charge in 2026, to like figure out how to equip my team to do that and build their AI fluency skills, which I believe are the skills of the future, and also ensure that we are on the forefront of transforming our recruiting model in talent to ensure that we are ready for the next generation of what talent acquisition and what hiring even looks like. And then sharing that really broadly with the talent community is a major personal focus of mine this year to share more, to learn more, to talk to more talent leaders about what they're doing and what we can brainstorm and jam on ideas for. So very, very excited about that.

SPEAKER_00:

So where do you start, right? When I'm saying transformation and talent acquisition, there's there's a lot of places, right? And this is something that I'm, of course, fascinated with. And uh, you know, I've had a lot of really interesting conversations with people about technology shifts and in our space. But when you look at Zap year and you look at the setup of your team, where do you start? How are you going to prioritize what to do first in AI transformation for this year?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Well, I think that the the way that the talent landscape has been changing with AI is sort of forcing some obvious pain points that we just have to tackle. I think a lot of companies are seeing this, but we have the largest volumes of applications, inbound applications that we've seen ever. Right. It's like because people all have, you know, AI platforms that allow them to apply for hundreds of jobs a day. And every single application comes in that looks almost perfect. You know, it's like exactly matches the job description. Their resume exactly matches what we're looking for. And so it's a ton of noise for our recruiters to wait through. And we're not gonna be able to staff up by like a hundred extra recruiters to, you know, tackle the volume of application. So that's one, that's forcing our hand of like, we have to have a solution there. We also have a lot of fraudulent candidates, especially because we're a global remote company. Zapier is 800 people in 42 countries, fully remote. We'll be remote forever. We don't even have a headquarters. And so we're kind of like an ideal organization for people to target if they want to be um, you know, lean on the side of fraud, if if you know there's some malicious intent there. And so we deal with, and there's such a spectrum of fraud. There's like just embellishment that people have been doing for years on their resume to like actual malicious intent, deep fakes, fraudulent folks, people who are trying to get into Zapier to hack the system. Like there's a huge spectrum. So we're dealing with that too. And that in the market is also very competitive. So, what I mean there is like, where do you start? And we've tried to really be clear on not just like jumping to shiny technology for technology's sake, um, not just like saying, oh, this is the cool new AI tool that we can use, but really going back to like, what's our philosophy of talent? Where do we believe there should be a human in the loop where maybe there also doesn't have to be? Um, and then what are the pain points that we have? And so where we start are like with some of these biggest pain points, the things that suck up my recruiter's time, the things that are not a good use of their unique talent and their human skills, but the things that are just creating a lot of noise in the system. So I'm very focused first on how are we figuring out what's happening at top of the funnel?

SPEAKER_00:

There's a few different approaches to this, right? It's there's definitely tools out there, products that can help skim through a database or large applicant pools and surface through multiple data sources the applications that are most likely to uh be relevant. Friend of mine, Steve Bartello, runs Gem, that they're building that, right? That's one they also have a sourcing product, but they have the ability to do that. But then there's tools out there that are doing AI screening, essentially doing the knockout questions, uh, so to speak, to essentially give everyone an interview and to help deal with the massive influx of inbound applications. I'm not sure if I'm missing different solutions there for the top of funnel, but there are so many solutions.

SPEAKER_02:

I think I heard a stat recently that, like, um, and this don't quote me on these exact numbers, but something like there's been at least 40% growth in the past like six to nine months of just HR tech in general. There are so many solutions to like all of these problems.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's kind of it's like you know, back in like pre-COVID and even I guess post and like 2021, it's like for a decade, it just seems like we were getting slammed with all these new revenue tools. Like, oh my god, like you know, 500 products doing the same thing. And it now it seems like in the talent acquisition space, we're starting to see a lot more players enter the space.

SPEAKER_02:

Absolutely. More players are entering the space, and then you have some trusted players who are also building their own add-ons. So, like you have, you know, Bright Hire now has agentic recruiters and Code Signal has agentic recruiters, and like everybody is building, as they should be, right? Everyone is building sort of these new AI features and supports on top of their tools. I think as a talent leader, it's it's very overwhelming. The amount of emails I get to do demos of every like new tool possibly out there are just so massive, and I just would not have the ability to really to vet them all. And I also think the technology is changing so quickly. It's like what is great today might not be the market leader in six months from now. So it's changing very fast. I will say that where I focus on our team is regardless of what our tech stack is, uh, and this is obviously the benefit of being at Zapier, is the AI orchestration layer is, I think, a piece that all talent leaders need to focus on in order to actually go through an AI transformation because you can have, you know, your ATS and your HRIS and like every other tool have their own AI features. But unless they're able to talk to each other and share data and you're able to create workflows where that data can then be accessed from all of those tools into like workflows the things that you need, you're kind of just spreading yourself really thin. So, like the AI orchestration layer, I think is something where I encourage all talent leaders to look at to figure out how to unlock sort of that next level of productivity and then that next level of transformation.

SPEAKER_00:

That's the hardest part, right? I think it's um, I was actually speaking with another talent leader that's implementing an all-in-one ATS, HRIS solution. And we were talking about, of course, like the orchestration and the integration of these different products into one seamless workflow, right? That's the dream. I said I said it with the with the attitude because I'm like, I've been sold that like dream so many times. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what that's what that was, by the way. Um, but it's like I guess some companies do it well, and sometimes I guess I don't want to say their name publicly, but I onboarded a revenue tool that's very well known, and it was an all-in-one solution, which we were looking at from a data and efficiency perspective, as of course compelling, right? Because it can manage the entire funnel from inbounding to outbounding to managing deals through process and sequencing and uh even light CRM functionality. Uh, and they had initially started as a very specific point solution in the data and sequencing kind of outreach space. And now they do it all. And so it's like, okay, let's give them a shot because it looked really good. And then we get we implement, right? And then it turns out that the most of the products that weren't their initial points, like best in class point solution. Oh my god, like they just they fall apart left and right.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and then you have to build back on top of it because you want like yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00:

So now I'm just I'm buying other point solutions and then just more so limiting their scope again. I mean, I just I'm curious how are you evaluating those? Like when you're thinking about data orchestration and workflow orchestra, you know, these in integrations seamlessly when it comes to to data and tools, and of course, like Zapier, hopefully, hopefully, you know, potentially could help in some cases. But um, you know, how do you identify whether to go like best in class point solution versus all in one? And do you have any thoughts on either or yeah?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I do think, you know, depending on your business, there's a practical aspect of doing an all-in-one usually saves money and admin. So I don't disregard that. We we moved a few years ago or a year and a half ago to like a bit of an all-in-one, ran into some of the similar problems that you did as well, um, and have been building on top of it. But you know, it did create cost savings, which at the time are really important. So I'm not disregarding that. As a talent leader, um, I will go for best in class every time because I think it is, I would not put a product in front of my candidates that is not best in class. I'll give you an example. So um we are piloting and experimenting with agentic recruiters. And I think even eight months ago, I would have said, oh, the technology is not there yet. I don't feel good about this, like, you know, and then the technology has improved so rapidly. And so when we are starting to figure out what is the agentic recruiter tool that we're gonna use, we demoed a ton of them and we picked the one that I thought was absolutely the most sophisticated from a technology standpoint, that it would offer the best candidate experience. And which one is that? Sorry. I use we use Ezra, Ezra AI Labs.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, I'll look into them. I've not heard of them.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, Ezra is fantastic. Um, and Ophier, who's the CEO, is is is awesome. And I feel like they really focus on ensuring that their product is the most technically advanced that it can be from like uh, you know, a user experience, also a you know, recruiter setup experience, but specifically for the user. I was just looking at feedback this morning of really great feedback from candidates that was saying, like, this was a lot more natural than I thought. And like I actually got to ask it questions. And so um, all to say is like technology and vendors are all out there, but to go back to your original question, you might not be able to avoid doing an all-in-one if like budget is a real constraint. Um, but Ezra is actually a very affordable solution in this case. And for us, um, to me, I wouldn't want to put anything else in front of candidates. Candidates are already weary of agentic recruiters. They are, you know, already have lots of thoughts um, you know, about if they want to talk to AI or recruiter. Um surprisingly, many candidates love it. They like would rather talk to an agent than talk to a recruiter right away. Um, but so I wouldn't put anything less than what I think is the best in front of them. So that's how I think about it. And then again, I think that goes back to an orchestration tool. And again, Zapier is like the most connected AI orchestration platform. We connect with over 8,000 apps that people use in work. Um, so it's not just for HR purposes, but for RevOps or technology or, you know, finance or marketing or whatever. But again, for us, it matters less what those tools are because we know we can orchestrate them and integrate them all through Zapier workflows. And so we can have best in class tools that then we fit together by using an orchestration layer. So Zapier isn't like a standalone tool that you have, it's like sort of something that sits on top of all the tools that you have to ensure that they all work together.

SPEAKER_00:

Love it. Okay, cool. That's really helpful context. And I appreciate you sharing your thoughts on this topic. I would love to get a sense to just to kind of progress in our conversation to um who you are, who you want to become professionally and personally, as a again, we talked about like as a whole human being, right? Just uh even beyond your career, your current role. But I mean, yeah, professionally is a big part of that for us too, right? It's like our life's work, it's what we spend a lot of time doing. But I think again, for the the folks tuning in, uh, other people that are in, whether it's like talent leadership roles or executive leaders in other capacities, or folks that are trying to level up, I think everybody, I guess my point is that most people that are engaged with this show are people that are constantly stretching, growing, wanting to be the best version of themselves. And often folks that are talent acquisition leaders, it's they might be on a great team, but they're like the only one that's like actually in their role. Yeah. Like when you get to your level, when you're in your prime and you've accomplished a lot, it's not like you get to where you are. We're just not like, okay, well, we're just gonna stop now. Like we no longer want to grow and try to become the next best version of ourselves. So when it comes to you, I'm just curious, like when you think about your own growth and who you want to become, what really stands out to you at this point in your life?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Well, I think I should caveat this. It's like the most important thing to me is being an incredible role model for my two daughters and being like really present. I feel like I had to say that. So it's like, you know, like just a caveat, especially because they will definitely listen to it and they're always like, you should mention us in your podcast. Um yeah, shout out, shout out to to Emerson and Ensler. Um, no, but uh I feel like there's a piece of that though that's really important is that, you know, as their mom, I want to ensure that I'm setting a model for what it looks like to be a mom who can be a great mom, I hope, but also really passionate about their career and continually learning and growing and being intellectually stimulated by their career as well. And so um, you know, when I was leading the team at Teach for America, I felt like that that could have been my prime. Like I could have done that job for the next 20 years. It's a hard job, it's an awesome opportunity, it's challenging. I could have done that forever. But for For me, I really get antsy when I don't have a brand new challenge in front of me. Like I think, you know, you asked me about my childhood, and I feel like it kind of goes back to that why I always had so many different interests and why I always was like kind of pushing myself is I think that there's always something new to unlock. And my manager knows this. If I feel like it's just business as usual, and you know, there's not any bigger points of stimulation or challenge, then I start to get a little bit bored. And so I in the future, I really, really want to continue to be challenged. I know that sounds very cliche, but I'm constantly searching for ways to push myself to the point where um I'm on my like developmental cliff and then I'm able to get over that, like where it feels uncomfortable, where it feels totally out of my realm. Um, I think AI does that a lot for me. I'm always, I constantly feel behind. I constantly feel like I'm not doing enough. I think a lot of people feel that way. But that is so motivating to me because there's just so much more to learn out there. And there's so, there's such a new level of this again, next generation of what hiring looks like that is just waiting to be unlocked. And so when I think about who I want to be in my career, I want to be somebody who, you know, I'm I'm the person who like I like to put my head down and do the work and let the work speak for itself. Um, I don't love always being out there and and uh being in the spotlight. I've been trying to push myself to share more because I know I get a lot back from the talent community when I share and then people share ideas with me and we can just grow together. Um, but I really feel like I like to just keep pushing to find, you know, what is the next level of unlock for my team, our industry, talent as a whole. And I hope that any you know impact that I have is the impact of like being on the forefront of pushing that then allows everybody else to learn and everybody else to grow together. Does that make sense? I feel like it does.

SPEAKER_00:

It makes a lot of sense. It's like the what'd you call it? A developmental cliff.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So tell me, tell me more about that. I I it's a cool phrase. I want to like learn like more about what exactly that means to you.

SPEAKER_02:

One of my most amazing managers who was the head of the recruitment team, and I was his chief of staff, Josh Andriksen. I worked under him for a number of years before I took over the recruitment team. He would always name when he was on his developmental cliff in like a very positive way. And it was, it's amazing because he was like the head of the team, he was the SVP and then the EVP. And the vulnerability that he would always share of like, gosh, even I'm learning. Like, I don't know what to do. Like, we're gonna have to figure this out, was so powerful to me as you know, somebody who felt like he was such a great mentor. Um, and it really challenged me to always kind of be at that developmental cliff. I very much feel like you're not really learning unless you feel a little bit uncomfortable with what you're doing, that like it has to be a little hard. Like you have to kind of feel like you're gonna fail. Um, I used to kind of chalk that up to um, especially being a woman of color and you know, it's industry, like a little bit of imposter syndrome. I think that could be part of it. But I also think that feeling uncomfortable, it's not necessarily a slam dunk, is like a really uncomfortable but good place to be in, right? Because then you know you're actually really growing. Um, and so I love that phrase of developmental cliff because it just for me visually is like, oh, this could go really poorly, or I could really get over that. And so how you learn, how you get through it, how you take away lessons, whether you succeeded or failed, I think is a really big piece of the growth mindset and the learning that I try to instill in myself, in my children, in my team. Um, and why I kind of can never settle for just like business as usual.

SPEAKER_00:

I think one thing that defines a lifelong learner and somebody who's constantly pushing and stretching is they associate like a sense of excitement and and fun to reaching that developmental cliff or that point where it feels like you could fail. There's somehow like some mental association of like that that is like exciting. And I think for some people it's it's not exciting, right? Like that I feel, and I'm not gonna get on the show and like try to act like I know exactly how to shift for folks that are you know hesitant or or kind of scared to do that. But I think one of the most important things is to develop a psychology where stretching and growing and being uncomfortable is like almost your comfort zone in a way. Like that's just so you normalize it. Yeah, you normalize it, yeah. You normalize it, make the uncomfortable comfortable. Like that's just like, yeah, that's just like where I where I live. Um, and it's it's like being really excited about that. Like to me, it's it's like the delta between where I want to be and where I'm at that inspires me. Like it's the gap.

SPEAKER_02:

And well, and I would say it's also for at least for me, and tell me if this is true for you, it's also knowing that you will get through it. And I think, you know, my team will probably tell you. So, one, I think if my team had to say, like, what are the things that could be annoying about Tracy as a leader is one, I am always pushing to get better. It's like, it's like, okay, we did it now. What can we do to up level? Okay, what can we do to up level now? Okay, what can we do to up level now? Um, there if to much to their chagrin, I'm sure they don't always love that, but um, it is certainly our personality. The other thing that they would say is like when we are in our toughest moments of challenge, I usually try to make a point because I truly believe it to say, wow, this is a little bit fun though, isn't it? Like we are just hit with challenge from every side. This feels messy, this feels stressful, this feels overwhelming, but like it's a little bit fun. And like we're gonna have a good time figuring this out. Because what could be like very, I don't know, like masochistic about that, I don't know, it's just like I find like when I am in like the deepest challenge and I do not know how to get myself out of it, is when I find the most joy in like pulling back, getting intellectually curious, thinking outside the box, asking for help for sure. Like I'm not a hero, like asking for help, asking for guidance, mentorship, all of that too. But then like being able to figure out the strategy or the way out of that and problem solving that. To me, there's such like a fun aspect of that that as a professional, um, we're lucky to have those sorts of challenges. And so um, you know, the last time that my team felt like really overwhelmed, I do think I said to people, but like, this is gonna be fun. And I think they were like, it's they're like, okay, it's not fun yet. It's gonna be fun when it's over. And I'm like, yes, it will be over at some point, and it will be fun knowing that how we got there and how we worked together, how we figured it out, how we problem solved, how we grew. Like, that's gonna be really satisfying.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and I think some some people just need that assurance too. I think some people can really do that for themselves. It's like that's your psychology and and belief system, right? About that essentially enables you to work through those difficult things. And, you know, I I think that there's there's a process, right? There's a process to focusing on the solution to not let it be completely consuming to be anxious, right? There's a healthy way of like pushing and stretching and not being uncomfortable. But I'm sure everybody at one point or another has struggled with that turning into anxiety or feeling like maybe either biting off too much so they could chew, or um, and so I I mean you touched on it, right? But it's like when you're a teacher by nature, and it's like when you're thinking you gave some examples of when you're in those spaces, like what you do to make it fun, and specifically how you close the gap and develop the way that you need to. Can you walk us through more of like your process? So it's like when you're going through a big shift or where you have to level up, like psychologically, how do you approach it? Put on the teacher hat. How would you kind of coach somebody for getting comfortable, having fun, and what to do? So maybe it feels a little less scary stepping into that because they there's some kind of plan or things that they can do to help them through it.

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, I think there's so many parallels to being a teacher. It's why I often say like being a teacher is one of the hardest but best things you can do early in your career, whether that's being a teacher in the classroom or taking on a sort of like teaching sort of role, because it forces you to understand how to break things down in a way that feels manageable for somebody who might feel overwhelmed or who feel like it's impossible, or who feel like they don't, they can't do it, right? Like you take a I taught kindergarten. So taking five-year-olds from not reading to reading at the time for them feels impossible. They just see words, words, letters, like maybe I don't even recognize letters. And then by the end of the year, they're reading. That feels like an impossible shift for them. Um, and so all to say is I think the skills are the same. When I am in the midst of a huge challenge and I'm trying to support a team member um to coach them through that, some of the biggest things that I think about is like one, they have subject matter expertise that even I don't have, maybe because they're closest to the work or they have a perspective and that they need to find power in that. And two, they have a lot more control than they might feel. Um, yes, there are things out of our control. There's also things that we do control. One of them is our mindset, but also it's just like, you know, some certain steps. And so it's important to like say my first kind of instinct, because I'm a problem solver. So um I have to have my team tell me if they just want me to listen and be like a listening ear, because otherwise I'll be like, okay, great, here's what we should do, or here's what, here's, let's work this out. Um, I jumped to problem solving. But with that, it's like, let's break this down. What are the different steps and the components and the risks that we're seeing here? What are the things that we have control over? What are the things that we don't have control over, but we could influence control over? What are the steps we can take right now? We don't need to boil the ocean. I think that's a lot of times I say that to my team. We're not boiling the ocean right now. What are the things that are within our control that we can take action on that will lead to moving the ball down the court, moving us forward? Let's start there and then let's start to like build off of that. So being able to share, here's the vision of how we're gonna get from A to Z and let's start from just A to B first. And like let's set that direction. I think the best leaders set vision to inspire, but they set direction for very clear, concrete guidance. And so when we're in a challenging situation, and why I think it's fun is because it all comes down to problem solving and in some ways just like systems and operations and little baby steps that lead up to something bigger. And so I think when people feel overwhelmed, you have to take the step back. What are we trying to accomplish? Again, what's within our control? What's not within our control? What are the steps we can take initially? And let's just start working it from there. It's better to do something than to say, oh, it's too overwhelming. I can't do anything. Um, and by the way, I have gotten so much incredible coaching from my executive coach, from mentors and managers that I feel like at this point in my career, I can lead team members through that really confidently. I get overwhelmed, I get stressed. I just want to be clear.

SPEAKER_01:

Like, of course, that happens to me.

SPEAKER_02:

And I have to coach myself, be like, okay, Tracy, you feel overwhelmed, take a step back and run through that same thought process for myself too.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think just to slow down on a couple of things that I've noticed, it's like, so you have what you share with your team, but it's also I was like paying attention to how you communicate with yourself because that that's also like what other people could be communicating to themselves too. I think that there really is something to jumping straight to problem solving. I think allowing yourself to do that by also accepting like you may not have all the answers now. So you're trying to solve a problem without having the complete equation. It's um, you don't necessarily like you have your vision, the outcome you're trying to achieve. You just gotta know like sometimes the next step. Doesn't mean you have the whole thing figured out. But I kind of um an analogy that sort of worked for me is you know, sometimes you're walking down like kind of a foggy road with low visibility. You may you know the vision, but you maybe can't see the entire map. But you know, you take one step or two steps or ten steps, you're gonna be able to see a little further. And sometimes that's just how life is. It's your your vision, your line of sight is only so far sometimes, but the more you progress, the further you can see uh to an extent. So I think that that's important and just being accepting of like that's often what life is. You hold on to the vision, but you're flexible with your approach and you you get started. Um, but you talked about jumping into problem solving. Um, I think is is is important like to spend uh you know a lot of time just thinking through and and taking action, and then also coaching yourself. I think people might underestimate just those types of conversations that you have with yourself because it almost seems like so simplistic at times, like you know, just kind of give yourself a pet talk or like help yourself remember the principles. But sometimes like success, or I think a better word for success is progress. Yeah, really just comes down to basic principles, like the values and principles we even learned as kids. Those things are typically what can see you through. It's usually not rocket science, but sometimes it's just like reminding yourselves, like coaching yourself, having this bias toward action, accepting that there's uncertainty, but just like focusing on the solution, taking action on the solution, and and staying in kind of like a positive frame of mind. Or I think people have to be careful with being realistic too, because I think most people that call themselves realists are actually pessimists. Not all the time. You don't have to see better than what it is, but don't see it the worst than what it is either, right? It's not the end of the world. And I think there's also been times where I've like intentionally thought about okay, well, what is like the worst case scenario? Let's talk through that, right? Yeah, let's send it through like let's take like the fear out of that and kind of unpack it. And the reality is like, okay, if we if we don't quit, something's gonna happen, something's gonna break. We're gonna keep knocking on doors. You know, you knock on a thousand doors, you just need one to open. Yeah, it's just kind of like that mindset of like, I think just kind of coaching yourself and looking for resources, focusing on human psychology, not underestimating the power of your own mindset and just taking action in moments of uncertainty, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, absolutely. And also knowing that you don't have to do it alone and that there's people that can help people, you know, in your organization, up the chain, down the chain, like you can gain perspective from anywhere. And so I yeah, I just think you said it beautifully. It's like bias towards action, what's in your locus of control, taking, you know, a few steps forward is better than those steps being perfect, just to lead into your analogy. Like you might like learn that in that foggy atmosphere, you went down the wrong path. Okay, you learned that. Turn around, go back, try it again. But at least you now know that's not the path, right? And so, like, and there's learning and there's success in that too, um, of knowing you tried something, it didn't work. Okay, great, you're not gonna try that again. And that is like gold, I think. I think there's so, so much value in any lessons learned. And I think when you take that approach, you're less likely to feel worried about failing. And you're more likely to feel worried if you're just not learning enough as quickly as you possibly can. And so if that's your motivation, it's like, I just need to get out there, I need to try things, I need to learn, then that's a lot easier of a step to take than saying I have to put something out there that's gonna be perfect. And just to be clear, like I've struggled with this a lot in my life. I think when I was younger, I was like, you know, that typical kind of like perfectionist, everything needs to be a hundred percent. And I've had to over time, one, because my bandwidth is only so much and I have so much to do. Like, I've had to learn, like, it's okay to take a B minus on that. It's okay to take, you know, a C plus on that. I have to learn to prioritize and make choices and prior and things like that. Like that comes with experience, that comes with ability to make great judgment. But with that also means that like not everything I'm gonna put out is gonna be perfect and that's okay. But now is better than perfect. If I wait until it's perfect, I might never get anything done. Uh, and I might be afraid to try. But if I do it now, I might get really tough feedback. But okay, that at least allows me to like keep moving forward versus wait, ship it in a month, maybe in two months. It's not perfect yet. Maybe wait three months, and then you're just really stalled. And so um, that's like a value at Zapier, too, is just default to action. Um, now is better than perfect. Get something out there that you can learn from as soon as possible.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's 100%, 100% true. Well, look, Tracy, this has been an incredible conversation. I've really enjoyed getting to know you, and I know our audience has too. So you got a fan today. I'm a fan of uh um uh yeah, I'm I'm really impressed with uh with you, and and I'm looking forward to seeing like what you do in the future too. You're always welcome back on the show. But yeah, thank you for joining us today. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02:

I appreciate the invitation, James. This has been really fun. Thanks so much.

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James Mackey

Host