In this neurodiverse episode, Katherine McCord, President and Chief Product Officer of Titan Management, shares how she infuses engagement, curiosity, education, and definitely humor in her approach in guiding her clients to be the best versions of themselves.
You will discover:
– The biggest mismatch between candidates and companies
– Why you want to ditch HR and build toward People Operations instead
– The very personal reason why should CEOs and business leaders be paying attention to neurodiversity
Guest Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the secrets of the high demand coach podcast and I am here with yet another high demand coach. And that is Katherine McCord, who went from being a little girl who sold shares in her company, and even played HR firing her own mother, by the way to the traveling entrepreneur and speaker that she is now Katherine has had quite a journey. She currently lives in Florida and runs a company called Titan management, which she founded in 2014, with a purpose of shaking up HR and recruiting people operations and inclusion had become her passions, and she’s dedicated her life to innovating and growing them. Her missions are integrity, inclusion and innovation. And she travels the world and the globe, evangelizing them. Well, Katherine, so excited to have you here. So excited to dive into the work that you’re doing in the HR recruiting space. And before we get to all that, though, I’d love to tell us your story. What were you doing before getting into HR consulting? And how did that lead you to make the leap?
Katherine McCord
Well first of all, thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here with you and your audience today. So I always enjoyed the world of business, Africans, him, I was very young, I started working at 15. first job was as a carhop at Sonic. And I figured out actually new ways to do that to get myself more money more and you know, better, better record recognition and things like that. So I kind of always had that mindset of how can we do things better? How can we improve upon this made things more efficient, more effective, and make more money, right? So that started very young, I did a lot of work with startup organizations that kind of became a draw for me, because I liked it, I could have my hands on a whole lot, there was a lot more contribution to be made. And it was just fun, right? If you’ve, I’m sure you’ve been around startups, it’s always a bit crazy, right? Always something changing at the last minute, it was just a lot of adventure. So for somebody who is, who is neurodiverse, like myself, which just means I have a medically visible or diagnoseable difference in how I process information. That just, it just works beautifully. So I did that for many years, I ended up working with a startup that was a recruiting agency. I loved the field of work, but I didn’t like how they did it. This is just personal preference, not trying to knock them. And with the owners blessing A year later, I struck out on my own and started tightening. So at I’ve done HR stuff in the past and also just kind of spiraled and here we are today.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s fantastic. That’s fantastic. So if we fast forward to today, what would you say is some of the most important work you’re doing for your clients?
Katherine McCord
Teaching them that, just because something is always the way that it’s been done doesn’t mean that that’s an effective way to or even, we’re even a way that involves integrity, you know, we try to have to break that that mindset and get out of things and, and just do things the best way, as opposed to the comfortable way. So I think that’s kind of the the best lesson. The second one is that inclusion isn’t scary and inclusion, is it something that that we should do, because we don’t want to get cancelled. It’s it’s not only part of integrity, it’s part of building a profitable and effective company. And there’s, there’s so much data out there to back it up, including a beautiful study released by Hewlett Packard. And, and so just teaching those lessons to these companies and helping them to get the mindset right, is really the biggest part of my work overall.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. And that’s so important, because it most folks that are out there, I mean, I work with lots of business owners and leaders, and they’re wonderful people, it’s jerks everywhere, right? But it’s not like this, this kind of, you know, Hollywood stereotype of the the evil business person, not what’s going on knowledge is really wonderful people who wants to do, right by, you know, by all their stakeholders, from shareholders down to the clients and their communities, but they’re so busy, there’s so many things vying for their attention. How do you help them recognize when, when inclusion is not just another should do but it’s actually part of the solution?
Katherine McCord
Right? So part of what I teach them is to whenever possible, just go ahead and design with inclusion in mind, because that just sets you up for success. A lot of organizations that’s actually the fail, it’s not a lack of intent, or desire very much to your point, right? It’s not that they’re bad humans, they just don’t know how to properly design for inclusion. So showing them that and then showing them how it’s actually going to help them and help their stakeholders often helps to kind of shift the priority and, and one of the main ways that it does is that the more inclusive you are and the more diverse you are there has to be both so you have to have the the psychological safety for people to then contribute in an accurate and fulfilling, weighed, and without fear of reprisal or being shut down or any of that. So, when you do that, it, it gives a better voice for your customers to because they represent your customers, right? So it’s it’s really a beautiful system that that works for every facet of the business being even down to like I said, the profits, I mean, Boston Consulting Group, I released a study. So saying that once you’re truly inclusive, your profits go up an average of 19%. Well, that’s pretty substantial. So you want that, right. So it’s just learning to design that way. And learning to truly embrace the feedback that people give you. Because one of the main things that entrepreneurs do is somebody will say, hey, you know, there’s, this isn’t really inclusive, we could do it this way. And it would be and people just dismiss it, or they go, Oh, no, we think it is you’re just being weird. They just keep going. You’re not realizing like hold on, wait a minute, we need to listen to this, we need to pay attention to this and just make a little pivot. So learning to be flexible. That’s where they work with people on is perpetually be flexible, perpetually grow, don’t set something in stone and go, This is how we do it. That’s it. That’s the end. Always be flexible and ready to go.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s so good. Now, one of the things that especially in the last 20 or so years, you’re good to great or great built. What does it build to last onward? Right, Jim Collins and some of the early thinkers on kind of culture and values and everything? How do you help groups that are diverse, you know, in all the different facets? How do you help them find that common thread that gives the the identity of the group as a whole? How do you help get that togetherness and diversity in the same in the same room?
Katherine McCord
Really, it’s very simple. The only thing that you should ever be concerned about in terms of building a, a mutually beneficial culture is mission, right? As long as you’re you have mission alignment, that’s it, nothing else needs to be in alignment, you don’t need to agree on politics, you don’t need to like doing the same things. Team building stuff is nonsense. I have a whole other speech about that. mission alignment, and making sure that we’re all on board and excited about where we’re trying to go. Right. That’s it. That’s what you have to do. And when you have that, then the rest of it just kind of comes together.
Scott Ritzheimer
Wow. So in your your bio there, you jumped to the HR and recruiting service because it needed to get shaken out what needs to be shaken up?
Katherine McCord
Well, there are a few things. First of all, our technology’s embarrassing, and HR. It’s so far behind, for instance, the applicant tracking system, which was designed, it’s kind of a CRM for people who don’t know, for HR, right, it’s kind of houses all the applicants. And those haven’t really advanced much since they were created in the 90s. An answer to to the job boards, which is nuts, just insane. The same basic design is there, the resume needs to get fired, it’s been proven ineffective, ineffective time and time and time again, there’s multiple studies, including by Harvard, LinkedIn. And Stanford also did did one on this. And it’s just horrible. It’s it creates bias. It’s just not an effective way to represent people. And then also the fact that the human resources needs to be taken care of the people. That’s why we’re shifting kind of you’ve seen probably the shift to calling up people operations, as opposed to human resources. And so we need to start focusing on helping and cultivating the people and working with them as they are not trying to make everybody fit into a little box because it does no good to hire all these diverse people and say, Okay, no, everybody work exactly the same way. Well, that’s counterproductive, right? It doesn’t even make any sense. So it’s like looking at a lie and say, Here, go be a good whale. Like, that makes no sense, right? So so. So really, those are kind of the main, the main things to the tech has got to go, the resumes got to go. And then we’ve got to start focusing and on taking care of the people that should be the job of HR.
Scott Ritzheimer
So good. And some of what has been, I would say some of the more positive benefits of the COVID pandemic, we can say it that way, are that it’s it’s given us the impetus for change in some of these areas. So there was this kind of dramatic like everyone’s had home and engaged, everyone’s at home and disengaged, like a lot of the numbers bounced around through especially the early days of the pandemic, as things are starting to level off. And, you know, dare I say the new normal, but what would you say are some of the permanent changes that are here to stay and people operations as a result of the pandemic?
Katherine McCord
I would say, inclusion is not going anywhere. And the public has started out credit every group. I mean, everybody is has in some way, shape or form is crying out for it. And then they’re like, hey, look, we need to be fixing this and we need to be working in ways that are better for everybody. So that’s one thing that’s not going anywhere, you know, buckle up, folks, this is just that. Another one is that I think is just wonderful is that now we’re starting to pay a lot more attention to education, which is fantastic. And really understanding that that’s part of growth. And that’s something I started learning over the years interviewing people is that a lot of people say, Well, what you know, they’ll ask somebody and what matters to you already want your next job. And when people say growth, when the candidate answers growth, the assumption for years has been that you met promotion. But that’s not it. A lot of people when you ask them to get specific, they want to learn, they want to, they want to improve their skill set. And so companies have started doing this, they started realizing that this is something that matters, and it’s something that’s really booming, and that’s taking off. more creative benefits, and more variety and benefits has have really come to light. I think that’s spectacular. And then the other one, and oh, man, some companies are really fighting back on this one right now they’re trying to is remote work. It’s folks that the candidates aren’t gonna give it up. I am watching people go, attic turned down jobs left and right, because the company wants to insist they come into the office right now. I just saw Post this morning, and it had all the studies and all of this from LinkedIn on this data. So over 70% of people are saying they want to work from home. But only 17% of jobs on LinkedIn are offering work from home. Companies figure it out, you know? Wow. It’s crazy, right? Like that’s, that’s a huge disparity.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s a huge number. I am still try to wrap my mind around that. Yeah. There was a question and what you just said that I want to come back to and oh, by the encouraging side of the redefinition of growth is, I would argue it’s actually easier to provide the type of growth that’s wanted now than it was, you know, was so many companies, big and small, you kind of had this dead man shoes promotion strategy, right? It’s like, once somebody’s out, you know, the next person can you only got the next role out when that role was vacated. But there’s not that same to an extent zero sum game in training and development and skills. And so why, though, do you think it’s still so hard for executive teams to get behind that definition of growth, even when you could argue it’s in their advantage?
Katherine McCord
Because so many people have this very backward mindset, that the only way to be successful is to get promoted, and make you know, tons of more money and have this very impressive title. That’s completely backwards. And I have a whole other speech about, you know, why we were looking at all this very backwards anyway, it’s all just different skill sets, I don’t think a CEO is any more important than the ground level employee, or any more talented even necessarily, it’s just different, you know, and we have this idea that executives are better than floor managers completely disagree with that. So but we have this this mindset, that we have to get an impressive title and make more money in order to grow. And that’s not it, or that that’s what’s important and a career. Well, there’s nothing wrong with being amazing at what you do. And do you just love what you do. You see this a lot with like nurses and medical professionals, you see it with it, people, a lot of developers don’t want to do anything other than develop, but they want to be really good at that. And that that trickles into over other professions as well. So to your point, it’s wonderful, because it’s so much easier now to give people what they want and to and by the way, free, and all audit. Like there’s a lot of free courses that you can send people to cheat free to cheap certifications that you can give people using sites like Allison Udemy, shoot, even Stanford University has some free online stuff they do from time to time. So check that out. And but it really is just breaking this mindset that you’re so much cooler if you’re an executive and that that’s the only way to hit success, we need to redefine success.
Scott Ritzheimer
And, and the flip side of that is that employees feel that same way as well, right there. There are folks who who don’t want a management role. They don’t want to do anything that a manager does. But they want the title that because that’s kind of what’s been baked into into what they’ve been taught as well. So how do we help? Not even that it’s, you know, a manager’s job with this, but how, how can we collectively help coach people out of it’s not about the next promotion, it’s about something else.
Katherine McCord
Yeah it’s about success in what you’re great at, right? And what matters to you. So I think rewarding things other than promotion. So recognizing excellent jobs, recognizing someone who’s gotten that certification, maybe changing your title, or putting you know, some kind of recognition next to their title, I think is a great way to do that, but celebrating that we forget to celebrate these wonderful things that people do. You know, like if somebody completes a project that helps you land a big client that makes the company millions, why are you not celebrating that? Why are you not telling me like, like having a little party for them, or, you know, sending out something in a company newsletter about how awesome they did celebrate these things that just makes such a difference. And, and, and encouraging that and not treat again, going back to the not treating people as less than because they they don’t want to move to this other thing and have to deal with the humans, right. But they just want to be really great where they are. So I think celebration, and changing the cultural mindset and telling people, you are amazing at what you do. And this is not only enough, we celebrate it.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, that’s so good. I have held for a while that culture is what you compensate, communicate and celebrate it is every bit as equal and as important. And I love that you brought that point. Because I think yeah, and I’ve been guilty of this some more times than I can count, but it’s like we’re ready to take the next hill, or we need to do is just stand there and celebrate the one that we’re on. You know, and both at the company level, but also the individual level. I want to touch on something you brought up earlier, and I saw it as I was doing some research this idea of neuro diversity. And and the question I have is why should CEOs and business leaders be paying attention to neurodiversity?
Katherine McCord
Well, number one, they probably have it. So there’s there’s a lot of information. In fact, I published as some of the some of the data on this on on one of my sites that a lot of entrepreneurs have neurodiversity, first of all, including some very famous ones such as the founders of Hewlett Packard, Stephen Hawking, Richard Branson, and Steve Jobs, so on and so forth. It’s it’s really just something that’s very prevalent in their communities that may help them to learn about themselves, but also because neuro diversity, it, it creates wonderful, wonderful results when utilized properly, but you have to let people work in a way that’s natural to them. So Hewlett Packard did this study where they they created a neurodiversity cultivation program in honor of their founders, and so didn’t just hire for neurodiversity, which is some examples would be cerebral palsy, autism, ADHD, bipolar, obsessive compulsive disorder is a very broad spectrum. So they not only hired for this, but they cultivated it. Because science in it, you can look this up. And then National Institute of Health, National Library of Medicine, Harvard, so on and so forth. Psychology Today, neurodiversity science has started to catch up and realize that there are many benefits to this. So like innovation, hyper, hyper Analytics, you can have 3d model thinking, so on and so forth. So Hewlett Packard cultivated all this. And they said, What do you need in order to be comfortable? What do you how do you want to work? Whatever it is, you want to do? Do it. And when they did, that, productivity went up, and so high that that team became 33%, more productive than their counterparts there, their innovation, when their employee satisfaction went up, the health the employees met up, and ultimately, of course, their profits and customer satisfaction increased as well. So they need to be paying attention to this, because this is what’s going to accelerate their company in ways that they never saw possible. But you have to not only hire for it, you have to then cultivate it and let people work in ways that are comfortable and natural to them.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, yeah, it’s It’s remarkable. I mean, most folks, you give them that list, especially if you were to put it on to do your point earlier, stick it on a resume, right, those aren’t necessarily the best, like resume treatments. And it would terrify a lot of folks. But, but you’re right, that there is a genius inside of that there is in the same way that we’re looking for diversity across all these other spectra, if you will, doing it from just the way that folks think, is, is so important. We have it in our family, and so get to see it firsthand. And, and both the positive side of it, but also the negative side. And more often than not, our experience has been the greater world tries to fix it, instead of instead of letting it letting it be and letting it breed. So love, love both the study and your mission there.
Katherine McCord
Thank you. Yeah, I am in love with that I actually was able a couple of months ago to speak to some United Nations delegates out neurodiversity and sustainability. And one of the things I really highlighted for them, as I said, this is the most, you know, obvious progression and the human in the human evolution and, and there are even genes that have been tied to that the same genes that are tied to autism are the same ones that cause human evolution. And so, you know, it’s this is part of how we’re growing as humanity. So of course, we want to steer into that and use all these be eautiful new talents that we’re developing as a human race, right? And everybody has challenges, everybody has things that they’re not good at. So that’s all it is on the disability side of, of neurodiversity. And a lot of times, it’s sadly, social disability, not so much the medical. It is in that society has gone, we’re not here for that. We don’t like this, you know, boo to that. And so when you let go of the social disability, a lot of this elevates. So it’s but it’s really fun. And it’s and it’s just, it’s cool. Like, would you just start getting all these people with all these different mindsets of the same room, and just really letting the masks come off of letting them go? The most amazing, fun, cool things happen. And it’s really funny, and, and incredibly energizing to watch nowadays.
Scott Ritzheimer
Oh, so good. So good. So I’ve got a couple of questions for you. I like to ask everyone. So the first one is this. What’s the biggest secret you wish wasn’t a secret at all? Or what’s that one thing that you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?
Katherine McCord
Oh, gosh, I would say that responding and curiosity, not ego will accelerate not only your life, but your career in ways that you could never imagine. So break your own ego mechanism, and learn to ask questions, not make assumptions and not feel the need to have everything be the way that you’ve learned it. Just learn from everything and everybody at all times.
Scott Ritzheimer
Wow. Yeah, that’s so true. And as that separation, right, separating the stimulus from the responses of Viktor Frankl, I think, is the last great human freedom. And, and I think it’s such a big part of even tying it back to what you said earlier on this idea of psychological safety. When we don’t approach things this way. I found it’s almost impossible to create an environment for any extended period of time that is saved.
Katherine McCord
100% Yes, absolutely. When you shut people down, and a lot of times we do it unintentionally, right. And people, when I say ego mechanism, people get kind of defensive. And I’m like, No, everybody has it. We’re all born with it. We just have to learn when to turn it off. Right?
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, that’s it right there.
Katherine McCord
Like, okay, no, no braid. We’re safe. We don’t need this. Thank you so much. You know, I can I can ask a question. This is okay. And just and just to, and when you start to learn from people, just the way that that changes you and the way that you can start to think in new ways and use in your mind is then able to process in a completely at a completely different level. And we start climbing that Maslow’s hierarchy pyramid, you know, it’s it’s fascinating. We just open up in whole new ways. It’s extraordinary.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. Yeah, so true. All right, one more question for you here. And I want to make sure folks know how they can get in touch with you. So take off your HR recruiting consultant hat speaker had put on your CEO hat. And in terms of what’s the next stage of growth look like for you as a leader, and what challenge we have to overcome to get there?
Katherine McCord
Oh, gosh, I because apparently, I don’t have enough going on in my life, I decided to start this whole kind of neurodiversity of cultivation and unleashing project called the neurodiverse. And so that’s my next big jump, we’re going to be doing a lot, providing a lot of resources, we’re going to be having events, community opportunities, and projects all around neurodiversity, and promoting a fully neuro inclusive world. And to get there, I’m going to need all the cool people along blade, a huge tribe, which already have a wonderful one, but an ever expanding tribe. And I am going to have to definitely go focus on just letting the visionary side of me take over and drive and then handing off, you know, delegating past that, which can be very hard for me, I can be kind of a control freak sometimes.
Scott Ritzheimer
Oh, my goodness, I absolutely love it. Sign me up. I want to know more. And on that note, how can folks get in touch with you? How can they they hear more about this project and and what you do as a speaker as well.
Katherine McCord
Right. Absolutely. So reach out to me on LinkedIn, I’m very easy to find there. And I’m always on LinkedIn. You can message me directly, you can go to my speaker site, which is kmccordspeaking.com, You can go to the neuro, jointheneuroverse.org. And that’s neuroverse. And so you can go to that site or you can go to my professional site, which is titanmanagementusa.com
Scott Ritzheimer
Fantastic. Well, we’ll drop all of those in the links below. So you can grab each one, please, please, please go check it out. You will not be disappointed what Katherine thank you so much for being on the show. What an honor and privilege and for those of you watching listening today you know that you mean the world to us your time and attention go without saying and so I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Katherine McCord
From being the little girl who sold shares in her “company” and played HR (even firing her own mother!) to the traveling entrepreneur and speaker that she is now, Katherine McCord has had quite a journey! She currently lives in Florida and runs a company called Titan Management, which she founded in 2014 with the purpose of shaking up HR and recruiting. People Operations and Inclusion have become her passions, and she has dedicated her life to innovating and growing them. Her missions are: integrity, inclusion, and innovation, and she travels the globe evangelizing for them.
Want to learn more about Katherine McCord? Check out
– her website at https://www.kmccordspeaking.co
– her NeuroDiversity Community at www.jointheneuroverse.org
– her company, Titan Management, at https://www.titanmanagementusa.com
– and her LinkedIn profile at https://www.linkedin.com/in/katherine-mccord-093bb343/
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