A CEO once told me, flat out, “We don’t need that kind of thing.” I had asked for bonuses for a delivery team that had never had any upside. Not a soft no. A door-closed no.

I could have told myself the CEO just didn’t get it. A lot of executives tell themselves exactly that when a project gets shot down: the pitch was the problem, or the decision-maker was never going to be won over, and they walk away a little more cynical about the whole exercise. That’s not what happened here. What happened is I hadn’t done my due diligence, not on the business case, on the person deciding it.

Why does a well-researched HR proposal still get rejected?

Usually because the case was built in HR’s language instead of the decision-maker’s, and nobody stopped to find out what that language actually was.

It’s easy to take it for granted that because you work inside the company, you already understand how decisions there actually get made. Often you don’t. You know the org chart. You don’t nec...

When Talent Becomes the Revenue Constraint

There are few things more frustrating in business than staring revenue in the face and having to turn it away.

I know because I have been there.

Years ago, I was running a professional services firm. We had raised capital after 9/11, and the plan was to grow the firm quickly.

And business did come back quickly.

The demand was there. The sales team was doing its job. We had deals coming in.

But we did not have the talent to deliver the work.

That experience changed how I think about talent strategy.

Because when a company has demand, customers, capital, and sales momentum, but still cannot grow, the problem is not always sales.

Sometimes the problem is talent.

And when talent becomes the constraint, it becomes a revenue issue.

What happens when talent becomes the revenue constraint?

When talent becomes the revenue constraint, the company has demand it cannot fully capture because it does not have enough ready people to deliver the w...

CHROs: The Advice I’d Give You If I Weren’t Afraid to Hurt Your Feelings

1. The business isn’t ignoring HR because they don’t value people.

They’re ignoring HR because HR hasn’t always done the work to understand what the business is actually trying to solve.

Advisory starts before the meeting.

It starts with discovery.

What pressure is the business leader under?

What outcome are they being measured against?

What language are they using?

What problem are they actually trying to solve?

Then you bring your point of view.

In their language.

Not as a program.

Not as a list of HR best practices.

As a business solution.

1. Stop treating revenue like someone else’s number.

If the business is missing the number, HR should be asking:

Where is talent part of the constraint?

I recently heard a CHRO describe a business that was missing its targets.

At first, it sounded like a market problem.

But the real constraint?

Not enough people in revenue-driving roles.

Recruiting pipe...

The CHRO Skill No One Talks About Enough: Disciplined Ignoring

Most CHROs I know are not struggling because they lack effort.

They’re struggling because everything sounds important.

And when everything sounds important, attention gets scattered.

The CEO asks for something. A board member raises a concern. A consultant sends a 42-page report. A trend starts showing up everywhere. A peer mentions something that sounds smart.

Suddenly, the calendar is full, the team is running hard, and everyone is busy.

Busy is not the same as strategic.

The real skill most CHROs are not talking about is disciplined ignoring.

Not ignoring people. Not ignoring the business. Not ignoring the hard things that need to be faced.

Ignoring the constant stream of requests, meetings, projects, and trends that make you feel productive while pulling you away from work that actually moves the business forward.

This is exactly why I loved Erica Chapman’s talk on focus.

Erica Chapman, Vice President of H...

Listen to Audio file here on NotebookLM:

 https://notebooklm.google.com/notebook/a8334ea0-9fb7-4969-a41b-8185b7e4d10a/artifact/52ff8b2b-f5c8-4aab-9fa1-499643a725a8?utm_source=nlm_web_share&utm_medium=google_oo&utm_campaign=art_share_1&utm_content=&utm_smc=nlm_web_share_google_oo_art_share_1_

 Watch recording on YouTube:

In the 1950s, doctors used to smoke in hospital rooms.

At the time, it was normal.

A doctor could light a cigarette while reviewing a patient’s chart, and nobody thought twice about it.

Today, that feels absurd.

Last week, I asked my HR Mastermind members a version of that question:

What are we doing in HR today that feels normal, but should feel absurd in the next 1 to 3 years?

Not in 10 years.

Not someday when the technology is perfect.

In the next 1 to 3 years.

Because I think HR has its own version of smoking in the hospital.

Manual workforce planning.

Annual performance reviews that take weeks to complete and are outdated the moment they a...

Quick answer

CHROs should learn from CFOs that AI adoption is not a tool rollout. CFOs are treating AI as an operating model change that requires measurable use cases, workflow redesign, governance, role-specific skills, and new performance metrics.

That is the move CHROs should borrow.

Not generic AI training.

Not random pilots.

Not a “let’s get everyone using ChatGPT” campaign.

The better play is to redesign the work before AI pressure turns into rushed headcount decisions.

That is especially true in finance, where AI is already changing how work gets done, how teams are structured, and what skills matter most.

Why are CFOs ahead of many functions on AI?

CFOs are ahead because they are forcing AI into business discipline.

They are asking harder questions than “Which tool should we buy?”

They are asking:

• What value will this create?
• What process needs to change?
• What risk does this introduce?
• What controls need to stay human-led?
• What skills do we need?
• What wo...

I rolled my eyes at HR leadership advice

(And now I wish I’d listened)

When I started, everyone kept saying:

• Get the right people on the bus
• Hire for attitude, aptitude, and appreciation
• Don’t keep average players around. Move fast

And I thought, yeah, that makes sense. We’re a fast-growth company. I just need people with strong resumes and experience.

So that’s what I did.

• I hired people with impressive resumes
• I prioritized experience over fit, every single time
• I kept players around longer than I should have because replacing them felt hard

It cost me.

I missed my numbers for the first time in my career.
I dreaded going into the office.
We had infighting, CYA behavior, and real toxicity spreading through the team.

Eventually, I had to turn over the entire group. All of it.

The advice I ignored the most

“Don’t hire for resume. Hire for attitude, aptitude, and appreciation.”

I thought I needed people who had been there and done that.
That a great resume me...

Coinbase recently shared that it is rebuilding the company around AI, fewer layers, faster decisions, and “no pure managers.”

One line really got my attention:

Every leader is expected to also be a strong and active individual contributor. Managers should be like player-coaches, getting their hands dirty alongside their teams.

I understand why this sounds appealing.

It sounds practical.

It sounds lean.

It sounds like the kind of thing a high-performance company should say.

But I disagree with it more than I can probably say politely.

What is the risk of “no pure managers”?

The risk is that the player part of the job almost always wins.

The client deadline wins.

The urgent deliverable wins.

The revenue pressure wins.

The manager’s own workload wins.

And coaching gets pushed to the side.

That is the part CEOs and CHROs need to be very careful about as they redesign organizations for the AI era.

Fewer layers may be the right move.

Faster decisions may be the right move.