Episode 34: Working and Living Authentically with Mike Horne

Mike Horne: 0:00

You know, think about the Olympics. I mean, it's the common example. There are both judges and coaches, judges hold up numbers. At the end people cry, people are elated. coaches are consistent. And I think that's what we find about integrity. And authenticity as well that over time, leaders of integrity are happy people. And we know that correlates into people enjoy working for happier leaders. And I don't mean the kind of happiness that comes with the marriage or the birth of a child. But I mean, a sustained optimistic outlook on life. Despite how difficult it might be. This is the rebel HR

Kyle Roed: 0:44

podcast. If you're a professional looking for innovative thought provoking information in the world of Human Resources. This is the right podcast for you. Rebel, Rebel HR listeners, I'm extremely excited about our guests. Today, we're going to be talking with Mike horn. Mike is a people and culture change maker. He helps smart people to develop and sustain authentic and rewarding relationships with colleagues and customers. He has a long and successful career in HR with a love hate relationship to the profession guiding businesses and teams at Gilead Sciences, brocade communications, Nortel networks, Marriott international and Willis towers. Watson. Welcome to the podcast.

Mike Horne: 1:35

I'm delighted to be here. Kyle, thank you a lovely introduction. And I look forward to engaging you with you not so much on the topic of the love hate relationship, but human resource, but around the topics of authenticity and integrity, in any way that we can take this conversation and discussion to help your listeners on the topics which I think are most important in terms of building prosperous organizations. And that all starts with relationships, and HR people are key to so much of that.

Kyle Roed: 2:07

Absolutely. I'm really looking forward to the conversation today. And the other thing I didn't mention in the intro is Mike also has a book coming out called integrity by design, working and living authentically. So I think a ton of good questions and discussion that we can have on that topic, especially being authentic within the role of HR.

Mike Horne: 2:31

So true.

Kyle Roed: 2:33

All right, so let's let's get right into it. So you've had a wonderful career in human resources in some really impressive company. So why don't you just kind of walk us through your HR origin story? How did you get into the role of HR,

Mike Horne: 2:50

human resources, careers can go on forever? So I'm really thinking about the next 15 years. But it's so interesting to explore your question, Kyle on the origin story. And for me, it was as a teenager in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where somehow I was involved in the lettuce boycotts led by Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers Union. I don't know how that happened. But for me, what it's set up was an interest in labor relations, and in how people resolve conflict. So ultimately led to an undergraduate degree in labor relations. My first job out of undergraduate school, was as a labor relations manager in what was then one of the few unionized large commercial banks in the United States. It was owned by the United Mine Workers Union, but managed as a commercial enterprise. And there was a union that represented employees there. But after a few years in labor relations, grievance handling contract negotiations, I realized that there had to be a better way. And that better way, because I was interested. So going back to the origin story, thinking about low Well, the movement of farmworkers that Chavez created. I've always been interested in the intersection of how we use our creative energies to come up with new and different approaches to working. So you know, given that I was early on in my career, finding these employee relations and labor relations rituals, just to be some form of acting out roles that each of us had in representing employees and representing employers and almost scripted to an extent in terms of outcome and result. I went into the learning and development world, really in the organization development space, and And today I'm on the board of directors for the organization development review. And I've had a long term association with the organization development network, I might be a reluctant Human Resources colleague, I mean, having spent so much of my career fighting human resources, but today, in my role leading human resources at Gilead Sciences, for the Research Division, I couldn't imagine any better place for people interested in leading and changing and helping people to grow and develop organizations than to be in human resources. And that's why it's so such a delight for me to think about, you know, our conversation today.

Kyle Roed: 5:49

Absolutely. And and, wow, what a fascinating trajectory of the career to go from the the nlr. brb. Right? Ah, I mean, it's it's, yeah, it's kind of like playing both sides of the fence. But did you find the common ground in the middle?

Mike Horne: 6:10

Well, I think yes, of course. And if I've learned anything, some of what I did at different points in my career was consulting to large corporations, HP, Exxon Mobil, Darden restaurants. And in all of those experiences, I think, you know, training managers and leaders and interacting and engaging with them as a coach, what I've learned is that it's essential to look for common ground. And even when people don't think they can find it. Often in an organizational context, what you can do is just keep looking up to the customer, right? And, you know, where's the connection to? What engages every employee of an organization? So there's always a way to find common value, but usually, it's by lifting up rather than focusing down on tasks. I wonder, what's your experience in that regard as well, right? missions and values lift people?

Kyle Roed: 7:13

Yeah, absolutely. One of my, one of my favorite roles in HR was being an HR generalist at a, at a manufacturing facility. And, you know, we didn't call it labor relations, we call it employee relations, but it was the same, it was the same job, it was just trying to find ways to help individuals Connect themselves to, you know, connect their personal mission, to the company's mission, and try to find that common ground and that connection to to how they could be set up for success in their mind and out and how they can help the company. And you don't always find common ground. But But at some point, you do find some sort of a resolution. And hopefully, it's, it's, it's good for both parties. But

Mike Horne: 7:58

well, there's so much that everyone can learn from a manufacturing environment. I supported the executive vice president of global technical operations, essentially manufacturing, for Roche pharmaceuticals, at about 13,000 person organization, inside the much larger Roche organization of 100,000 plus people, but 23 sites at that time, just manufacturing a global manufacturing network. And as a change agent in that organization, I've loved working in manufacturing environments, because there's always some sense of hair on fire and hygiene factor. There's a crisis that needs to be attended to. And it's what I have found about manufacturing leaders is their focus their disciplined approach, to quality and to improvement, to agile, you know, as early adopters, it's just great to work in those kinds of environments. They do differ from other environments. You know, if you've ever had a, you know, time supporting the CFO organization or something, it's it's just different qualities. I learned as much from the CEOs Marriott, when I supported the CFO of Marriott, what I learned from him, I was facilitating at that time, at that time, when I was developing career to eventually support the chief operating officer of Marriott International. What I was facilitating a lot of meetings, Marriott was doubling in size at the time going from 1000 to 2000. units, US facilitating a lot of executive meetings, given that I had, you know, a background now in organizational consulting and some global experience that I gained at Willis towers Watson as a consultant. And what I learned from the CFO was I think, one of my most valuable business lessons. I was facilitating away and they were talking about this number and that number in the financial reporting and analysis that they were Doing, and I was somewhere distant, you know, not paying attention. And he said to me at that time, he said, you know, Aren't you interested in our business? And it was a good wake up call for me. And it made me a better HR person in the long run, right? Because what I was doing was sort of valuing the process, the how the relationship, maybe at the expense of really looking at the goal directed behavior that, you know, the team and others were engaged in for the enterprise.

Kyle Roed: 10:29

Yeah, what a what a, what a wonderful, wonderful lesson and a powerful lesson. I think, my opinion is any any good HR person understands, or has learned, at one point throughout their career that they have to also understand the business?

Mike Horne: 10:47

How'd that happen for you? Or how is that happening? For you?

Kyle Roed: 10:50

Yeah, well, I mean, it continues to happen for me, and I'm, I'm certainly I think I'm wired similar to you, where I like to focus on relationships, and, and attitudes, and, you know, I tend to focus, you know, on on culture, versus details. And, yeah, there's been a number two, I mean, it's like, hard to pick one, but you know, a number of times where, you know, I've been more focused on the, on the interactions, as opposed to the, the tasks at hand, probably the more the more recent one that comes to mind, I'll go back to the time of manufacturing, just I, I'm with you, I love manufacturing. It was the the interaction with the woodworker, who was was hand sanding the face of a cabinet at this factory that I was running, and I'm trying to work through a problem with them. And you know, and try to understand the the concern, and I was just kind of like, Uh huh. And and I could, you know, in my head, I was thinking, he's really mad. How do I get him less mad? And He kind of looks looks me in the eye. And he's like, you don't even know what I'm talking about. You don't know what my job is? You don't care, you know? And then he got mad at me. And then I was like, Oh, yeah, I wasn't paying attention. He didn't. And he called me on it. And, and no, he's right. I really don't know what his what his true pain point is, because I don't understand where he's coming from. And so you know, and I think those interactions are real, and they happen all the time. And if you're, if you're a good HR professional, you listen to him.

Mike Horne: 12:20

Well, is that one of the key aspects of integrity and authenticity that I mean, what you relate to me and your story is part of what I relate that if you want to be a source of inspiration for people, I mean, what you say and think matters, you know, and in that case, I mean, maybe it's pretty obvious you weren't, you know, we get so distracted, right? I mean, sometimes we get so anxious to make the next point that we forget the moment.

Kyle Roed: 12:50

Yeah, I'm bad at that. I'll be honest, I'll be authentic with that. It's the I love that line in. In Pulp Fiction where they ask, I can't remember, I think it was john travolta, maybe I was getting asked the question, do you do you? Do you listen? Or do you wait to speak? Right? And I tend I, I tend to wait to speak more often than I'd like to admit sometimes. And my wife reminds me that all the time, too.

Mike Horne: 13:19

Yeah, that, you know, that's not a bad thing. Everybody can fashion participation in a way that expresses their intent, I believe. The challenges is that when we don't hear you until the end of the meeting, we often don't, you know, we miss, we miss you. And that's the job, I think in part of an authentic manager, right? You're trying to build relationships, regardless of whether you're a human resources manager or manager of some engineering group. It is about building relationships. And I think the way that we do that, is by being truthful and honest. And that all relates to integrity, right, having a sense of wholeness, a sense of completeness, a sense of identity, acting from some sort of ethical and moral compass, and people in HR have such a great opportunity to shape that.

Kyle Roed: 14:12

We do. But, you know, I'm curious on on your perspective here. I think sometimes being authentic in HR is, is hard. Because sometimes the truth is painful for people or challenging to share. So, you know, and I'm thinking specifically if, you know, if you're dealing with a problem performer, or you're dealing with a conflict between two individuals, and, you know, trying to de escalate the situation So, so,

Mike Horne: 14:49

as long as we have to make sure it's not a systems issue first, right, because if the company has performance management system in place that you know where employees are doing a self assessment, And they're saying I'm average, or I'm excellent. Or I'm superior. And we have a manager on the other end doing the same thing. There can't be any room for, you know, conversations that matter or that advanced things. And then we end up in these HR environments where, because some fear of risk, you know, engages in these protractor, protractor processes with people, but it's usually not the people, it's about a bad system that doesn't allow for us to work with each other as adults, and we say, sort of, say, confounded in Parent Child approach to confronting issues at work. Yeah, I mean, having worked in organizations without performance appraisal systems and those with them.

Kyle Roed: 15:47

Yeah. So so I want to dig into that a little bit more. You're talking about systems and performance evaluation. So are you in the camp of get rid of performance eval?

Mike Horne: 15:56

Sure. Yesterday,

Kyle Roed: 16:00

really, okay, help me understand that? What's your perspective on performance evaluations,

Mike Horne: 16:05

they are for organizations where judgment is required, or where judgment is seen as the objective of management. And it's difficult to create an environment for coaching behaviors, even though I don't think managers are always in the role of coach, but it's difficult to make them it to help them grow into being more coaches, with a judging system in place. You know, think about the Olympics. I mean, it's the common example. There are both judges and coaches, judges hold up numbers. At the end, people cry, people are elated. coaches are consistent. And I think that's what we find about integrity, and authenticity as well, that over time, leaders of integrity are happy people. And we know that correlates into people enjoy working for happier leaders. And I don't mean the kind of happiness that comes with the marriage or the birth of a child. But I mean, a sustained optimistic outlook on life, despite how difficult it might be.

Kyle Roed: 17:17

Interesting. So I'm just curious on on the judging comment, because I feel like it's, it's really easy to fall into that mode as HR of judging something as good or bad, or somebody as a problem performer or high potential. So, so how do you how do you work through that paradigm of assigning judgment? And, and make sure that you are, you know, being authentic and objective in an HR role?

Mike Horne: 17:50

Right, I think it's done through compensation, I think it's done through the reward systems. So you need better you need managers who are better skilled at offering intrinsic motivation, who understand the motivation, devices and tools that are available to them, and to focus differentiation and compensation and rewards.

Kyle Roed: 18:09

What about the managers that don't want to make anybody mad? or, or, or want to, you know, quote, treat everybody the same? How do you? You know, how do you work through those types of situations or coach, a manager who might be struggling with that, that process or that thought process?

Mike Horne: 18:29

I recently had that experience when reviewing salary increases, and one manager I'm familiar with, gave everybody the same salary, increase my response back to the managers, what do you think we're running McDonald's here? I mean, if you don't want to differentiate, I mean, my goodness, I mean, then, what's the culture that you're building for innovation? And right, you know, I'm a believer, I

Kyle Roed: 18:54

mean, everybody.

Mike Horne: 18:55

Yeah. What's common about, you know, organizations? Let me You know, one question that I've often asked my students is, what do organizations have in common, regardless of whether they're in the for profit sector, the non for profit sector, whatever, you know, sector of the economy that you might be working in, you know, what's what's common to or to organizations, and really, the only thing that's common to most organizations is that they all expire. I mean, all organizations and, and it's really the ability of leaders with vision and with integrity. To that, that create and sustain organization. Some of the research that I report, in my book integrity by design, working and living authentically available in April, is that companies that bear the name of their founders, like Marriott, like Roche, like Dell with, you know, multiple exceptions like the Mars company like the Walmart, like The Waltons, you look at the returns of these companies generally that are attached to family names and some sort of values. And over time, their results are superior to other Fortune companies, it has a lot to do with values and values shape integrity. No, it doesn't mean that all those Oh, no families haven't been tested, their integrity hasn't been tested. microtel. You know, that's a good example of what I mean, I don't know how you feel about, you know, Walmart, I, you know, but I mean, the The results show that these companies have sustained value over time, and I think it has a lot to do with values,

Kyle Roed: 20:43

tell me about a way that we can impact maybe a value that is unintentional, or, you know, I'm just thinking about those companies that aren't, you know, don't have the name of the founder on the on the front of the Billboard, and maybe maybe have some some cultural challenges, is there? Is there a way to fix it? Do we just assume that the expiration dates coming and, and just, you know, move on with our lives? How do we approach that?

Mike Horne: 21:12

Oh, for leaders to never stop working on their happiness? And I, you know, I think that's around the push for authenticity. I think that's about the push for an effective blend. I think it's about, you know, the things that we all have to remain curious about around people and teams and organizations. Because so many of the challenges that leaders face are enduring challenges. And those are the things to work on. And a foundation of values helps most people work on the enduring organizational challenges, and particularly the greatest challenge that all of us have, which is, how do we create places where people can do their best work?

Kyle Roed: 21:58

So you're telling me that the guy that hates his job isn't going to be authentic and culture building and instill trust in an organization?

Mike Horne: 22:09

Oh, I think they're always you know, there is lots of ways that you can slice this in organizations, but we have to make progress where we can. And do I think that authentic leadership is for everyone. Clearly not right. I mean, we have a long history, despite what we know, from the social sciences, where managers or people are promoted based on their technical skills. The literature has been clear for 40 years, that technical skills are not an indicator of manager or leadership success, yet we persist. So Kyle, I'm grateful for any small progress, right? I'm grateful for that. Manager of two or three or four people who's making a difference. And in making a difference helps those people in turn, you know, feel the value of their contribution. Absolutely.

Kyle Roed: 23:10

Yeah. I love that. I'm a I'm a big fan of rampant incremental ism, just, you know, just Yeah, a little bit of progress every day. Right. Right. 100%.

Mike Horne: 23:19

Right. I think that's what creates engagement.

Kyle Roed: 23:23

Absolutely, it's

Mike Horne: 23:24

the sense of progress sense of moving forward with a mission.

Kyle Roed: 23:29

Right, winning, winning, even if it's a little win.

Mike Horne: 23:33

Yeah, sure.

Kyle Roed: 23:34

Yeah. So So one thing I want to explore a little bit about authenticity is, is it's one of those things that I I, I preach to people, I'm with you, and especially in the context of, you know, talent, acquisition and interviewing, and, and, you know, and career building, it's, it's all about, you know, you really do need to be yourself in those types of scenarios. So that you don't get into the wrong position for yourself or get into the wrong company for for you and your personal goals. And one of the things I don't know about you, but I struggled, especially early in my career in HR was that I almost had to compartmentalize The, the, the negative parts of HR, you know, the the, you know, terminations and performance management, corrective action, and all this stuff, that mass layoffs,

Mike Horne: 24:31

laying off 1000s of people yeah.

Kyle Roed: 24:34

Yeah, so, you know, it's almost like, in my coping mechanism was I had to, I almost had to flip the switch and become a different person to make it through that emotionally. Because it's, it's, it's not something I wanted to do. So, and since that I've kind of I don't do that anymore. But But what advice would you give to an HR profession Maybe struggling with that. And, you know, I think 2020 is one of those years that also stretched a number of a number of us to try to, you know, stay calm, cool and collected. And maybe we're absolutely freaking out on the inside. So. So as you're dealing through those kinds of challenging situations, what advice would you give us to continue to work, live, think and present ourselves authentically and continue to, to, to have that integrity.

Mike Horne: 25:31

I'm reminded of the first line in Scott pecks book, the road less traveled. And the first line is life is difficult. So, you know, next, what I'd say is that it takes both courage, and resilience. And I believe those are renewable resources. People can renew those resources, HR leaders can renew those resources. The approaches will differ from one HR leader to another HR leader. But if if a goal if a goal of authenticity is to have our words, and actions match, then it I think it often requires a lot of courage. It's the courage just as you refer to earlier, Kyle around the courage to address performance with an individual, the courage to work with, presenting an opposing point of view. And in one other example, you had the courage to listen, right? To that finisher, to that finisher. So all of that takes courage in. And then beyond that, I think there are some, you know, other advice that, you know, maybe HR professionals could follow. And that would be, you know, don't cheat, don't skimp, you know, and strive to bring more of who you are to every situation. And part of that, you know, that is not skimping, you're cheating on yourself. When those are out of balance, need to find other solutions, if those are seriously out of balance, you need to find other organizations. And that is much easier said great advice, or your change the organization. You know, the best way as, as Kurt Lewin, sort of the founder of organization development described is the best way to understand a system is to change it. So that for me, going back to the origin stories that you asked earlier, certainly benefited my human resources careers to think if I really want to get into understanding, let me see what happens when we try to change.

Kyle Roed: 27:45

What was interesting is, and I learned this the hard way, through some very, very pointed feedback that, you know, when I wasn't being authentic, when I was flipping that switch, I turned into a jerk. Yeah, right. I wasn't being myself. I wasn't being a good manager at that point. So yeah, I mean, I, I would agree it took, it took experience, and it took confidence in what I was doing, and confidence that I was treating people with as much respect as I possibly could through a tough situation in order to be authentic to those types of situations. But it was really hard. So right

Mike Horne: 28:27

on, I think, Kyle, I mean, because, you know, given the opportunity. Most people I think most people in human resources, people like you, I mean, everybody wants to progress through meaningful work. Because, you know, adherence to integrity means doing the difficult work that often requires some decisiveness, some deliberate action, and integrity increases, when we act when we act authentically, right, your integrity just increases. Because you commit to the goodness of the character that you displayed. I mean, I love what you said about being able to take a break, you know, from it, because that that does go to character, it goes to our noble intentions. And, you know, when we're challenged, I mean, we ought to be able to deliver on integrity through the kinds of discussions and dialogues that we have with people. Because, you know, we're working on relationships and authentic leadership, and we build goodwill, and loyalty as integrity, because integrity, increases intimacy, and then decreases achievement as well.

Kyle Roed: 29:33

Right. I mean, yeah,

Mike Horne: 29:37

I mean, I'm thinking about Right, yeah.

Kyle Roed: 29:42

That's good. That's good. Yeah, it's, it's good. You know, I think that you know, it's, it's just really it's easy to forget that the first word in HR is human.

Mike Horne: 29:52

Right? Yeah, there you go. You know, and

Kyle Roed: 29:55

yeah, but but

Mike Horne: 29:56

even in the newer, you know, expression around people and culture. People First thing right. Yeah.

Kyle Roed: 30:02

Right. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. So so I want to, I want to talk a little bit about, about culture. And I think it's, it's one of those terms that it. It's so thrown around. It's a kind of a buzzword, you know, culture change and driving culture. And so but but I think it's one of those areas that it can have a huge impact. So as you as you define culture, and as you define an authentic culture, What kinds of things do you see in a successful and authentic culture? That that's, that's running on all cylinders?

Mike Horne: 30:46

Yes, wonderful question. So let's get to a couple of those points. So by culture, culture, is described as how things get done in organizations, it's as simple as that. It's often very difficult, despite the simplicity of that statement, and a culture is how things get done in an organization. A lot of the times when we're inside an organization, it's difficult to describe it, it would be sort of like asking me, for you to describe what it's like to be an American, you'll have your perspective. But that's a perspective among many, in a country like the United States. So it's often helpful to be guided by some external framework or some external agent to describe culture. So culture is that's it, you know, culture, simply the way. And you might refine that in terms of how decisions get made in the organization. That's often a good way to get some insight into culture, you could do it through from two exercises, lots of ways to do that. Okay, let's talk about what an authentic culture that is. So we've got culture way we get things done, authentic. It is about building connectedness between people about openness, honesty, transparency, communication, stewarding organizational resources, and about having some fun. I think that's driven out of humanistic values, about a belief that you're not Kyle, you're not an element of my production. But rather there, you're a unique human being with your own wants and needs. And my role as a manager is to connect with you to be honest to myself and transparent with you. So that I can encourage teamwork. And within that team, we can do great things. And the literature will bear that out that in these authentic teams produces a superior performance, you might say the same for engagement, however, you want to slice that up that that pie, which I think it's your third point and then think about culture, here's what it is, here's what an authentic cultures, and then what are the measures for that? I think the most important measures are well, how leaders, what leaders and employees express in their reports, you can do all kinds of quantification. I'm not a stranger, I'm not a stranger to quantification. I lead the first people analytics practice and one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the US at Genentech. So there are lots of measures and methods. But I think the most important measure is in listening carefully to what others say about the organization. Certainly, you could look at in terms of its accomplishment, two goals. It's combination of both task and process.

Kyle Roed: 33:43

Yeah, I mean, I mean, I just think that, you know, it's, it's interesting to, it's interesting to try to answer that question. I know, I get that question all the time. How would you describe your company culture, you know, and it's, it's, it's, it's just, it's not necessarily always easy to answer. And it's so it's, it's so dependent upon, you know, well, which which department? Are you talking about? Or, you know, which location? I mean, there's, you know, there's 26 distinct different cultures, I almost view it, it's different. It's, it's, it's individual, almost like all of us, right? I mean, the team's culture might be different than a company culture, right?

Mike Horne: 34:25

And maybe the superior way to think about it now is in terms of communities, right? And the communities that we form at work, I mean, you can be a member of multiple communities, but it is the small groups, it's, you know, groups of three and four people who make a difference and they form communities, in organizations. Most organizations are beyond superheroes and it takes you know, most most change efforts happen because of the interaction of at least two people. The pair is a powerful agent in an organization. You know, I've never liked that term, early HR business partner, and I think it's just so loaded with so many things. But, and I think when you have an effective partnership, you get a lot of praise from your client.

Kyle Roed: 35:13

Yeah, and I, I don't know about you, but I've had the experience of being the being viewed as the adversary. And being viewed as the partner and and, yeah, it adversarial is not an approach, I recommend.

Mike Horne: 35:29

Some, you know, HR business partners like that, in some European HR communities, it's often defined as being a sparring partner for your client, that's often a descriptor that you might see in, in some HR jobs, particularly in Europe around the sparring quality part. I don't really understand that, you know, to the extent that it represents, you know, be candid know how to speak truth to power, of course.

Kyle Roed: 35:58

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I think, yeah, there's, there's a difference between being, being everybody's friend and being complacent. And, versus being the, you know, an adversary, you know, it's, it's, you've got to, you've got to be authentic and hold integrity, when people aren't doing the right thing and speak truth to power when it needs to be spoken. I think that's, yeah, it's it's an interesting balance. But that's kind of what I like about it. It's, it's, it's not black and white. I'm not a black and white guy. I don't know about you. But you know, the the CFO talking about numbers to you, my you know, my eyes would probably be crossed. digging through, you know, all that stuff I like, I like the gray.

Mike Horne: 36:46

There's a lot of truth to that. And when we think about integrity, some things are very dichotomous, they are very black and white, right? You want Financial Integrity in your business. And I write about that, and I talk about that. And I talk about, you know, how integrity gets tested differently and people relationships and people and culture experiences, but we have to see integrity, you know, as that, that there are litmus tests in some cases.

Kyle Roed: 37:11

Yeah. And it's in it's never when you expect it. Right. Right. Right.

Mike Horne: 37:16

Yeah. It could be I think you're right. There's some truth to that. Well, that that's changed, right? Because changes from an external force. You know, again, thinking about Bill bridges and other people have been influential, at least to me in human resources. It's, you know, what do we do with the transition? That's what's internal. That's what we have the capacity to grow and to change and develop is how we handle transitions.

Kyle Roed: 37:39

Absolutely. Well, we are we are rounding out our time together here. So I want to make sure we get into the rebel HR flash round. Okay. All right. So brace yourself.

Mike Horne: 37:51

Brace. Okay.

Kyle Roed: 37:54

All right, hard hitting questions. Question number one, what are you reading right now?

Mike Horne: 37:58

Okay, I do all of my reading in chunks. So I because I'm a writer, and I'm a blogger. I hope people follow me on LinkedIn. I tend to do my reading in big chunks of time. So in the last big chunk of time. I took like about a month to read. Here's what I read. I read Bob Iger is the ride of a lifetime. It's a great story about him at Disney. I read educated tower Westover, I read the tunisie coats book between the world and me. I love the Dutch house by Ann patchett hillbilly elegy, I thought was okay. Woody Allen's book if you're a fan of his autobiography, apropos of nothing. Woody Allen's had a complex life, the glass hotel, the book that took the longest I think it was grant, but it's a great book. It's story of President Ulysses Grant, the Association of small bombs. I reread nor Efron's heartburn, where the crawdads sing the collected stories of Catherine and border, the last man my vanishing country by bakari sellers, and my favorite, the friend. It was a novel by secret Nunez and it's a about impart her experiences living with a Great Dane in a tiny Manhattan apartment. So that's my reading. I do. Oh, wow. Big blocks.

Kyle Roed: 39:26

Clearly, yeah, you Congratulations. You just won the award for Most books read in the shortest period on this podcast. So yeah, yeah. You know, I, I, I, I rediscovered my love for reading during covid 19 pandemic. I used to love reading and then I didn't read for like 10 years. It was it was on a website or a cell phone. And then I yeah, and then I started you know, grabbing a book and reading again and now I'm yeah, I'm starting to change Some things off my list. So yeah, I'm gonna have to play this back and write down the things because I can't get them all down.

Mike Horne: 40:05

Yeah. All good stuff.

Kyle Roed: 40:09

I tell ya and I did read I did not read grant, but I did read the Hamilton. Oh, right. You know, obligatory reading after watching this right? Yeah, Disney plus horse,

Mike Horne: 40:21

of course

Kyle Roed: 40:22

show and I finished it but it was hard.

Mike Horne: 40:25

Yeah. But Kurt's about three times longer. Yeah,

Kyle Roed: 40:30

yeah. I don't know. I might not pick that one up.

Mike Horne: 40:33

I'm sorry. Yeah, read it in chunks. Maybe you can read it over a couple of years. You know, why not? Okay.

Kyle Roed: 40:40

Sure. I'm with you. All right. Next question. Who should we be listening to?

Mike Horne: 40:45

Okay, easy. For me. I think Amanda goring, the youth Nobel Poet Laureate? I think we should. She's amazing. I think that I think you should also be listening to music that you love. But that's not very specific. You should listen to my podcast, authentic change podcast when you get a chance. And yeah, those are the three things I think about.

Kyle Roed: 41:09

All right. Last question, the most hard hitting of the mall? How can our listeners connect with you?

Mike Horne: 41:15

Oh, the easiest way to connect with me is through LinkedIn. And my public profile on LinkedIn is Mike horn, the number one. So Mike horn one, people can also reach me through my website, which is Mike dash horn.com. And those are the two ways that are the easiest to find me. But LinkedIn is preferred way. I'm there every day. I love people to follow me on my LinkedIn as well be great.

Kyle Roed: 41:46

All right, sounds good. We'll have all that information in the show notes as well so that you can get connected with Mike and continue to learn more. Looking forward to the the book coming out here. Sounds like coming out in April.

Mike Horne: 41:57

That's integrity by

Kyle Roed: 41:59

design, living and working authentically. Mike horn. Thanks so much for joining us.

Mike Horne: 42:03

Thank you so much, Kyle.

Kyle Roed: 42:08

All right. That does it for the rebel HR podcast they take you to RPS Follow us on Facebook at rebel HR podcast, Twitter, at rebel HR guy, or see our website at rebel human resources.com. Using opinions expressed by podcast was the official policy or position of any of the organizations that we represent. No animals were harmed during the filming of this podcast.

Jude Roed: 42:38

Maybe