Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:04 Hi everyone. I'm Dr. Diane Hamilton. Welcome to Leaders Playbook, a show about how to drive transformational impact in your organization. We talk with innovative leaders across multiple industries to hear about the best tools, resources, practices, and strategies to help you reach the top of your game. I can't wait to share our leaders' insights with you.
Speaker 1 00:00:35 Hello everyone. I am your host, Dr. Diane Hamilton, and I am the CEO of tanera. I also serve on the board of advisors for the Global Mentor Network. And thank you for joining us today. Our guest is Ava Andres of Juniper and American Multinational Corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. The company develops and markets networking products including routers, switches, network management software, network security products, and software defined networking technology. As Juniper's SVP C H R O. Ava brings deep experience from her prior senior leadership positions at Virtue Stream, which is Dell EMC document, 'EM and DuPont. We're excited to have Ava join us to talk about what they're doing at Juniper to face what many consider a work revolution. Welcome, Ava.
Speaker 2 00:01:24 I am so thrilled to be here and thank you so much and Diane, for the opportunity. I am humble and ready to share whatever I can help with.
Speaker 1 00:01:34 Well, I am humbled as well because we've talked before and I was so impressed with the level of success you've reached and everything you've done. So I think a lot of people could benefit from just hearing your backstory. Would you mind sharing that?
Speaker 2 00:01:49 Absolutely. You know, and I think Diane, you, you asked me what is or how do you do what you do and what drives you? And I will say I am super lucky to do what I love. I just like my job and I always believed on businesses achieving success through people alignment. I think that I knew what I was doing when I, I started studying psychology applied to organizational behavior. And I truly believe on this. I didn't know what human resources was at that point in time, but I knew that I wanted to align a business mindset with the human behavior mindset for organizations to achieve their maximum success. And that's what I love. Discovering and learning every day what works best, aligning the company objectives, Juniper Networks at this point with the talent inside of the company and aligning priorities to get the best results. So that's what I do every day and every day is a new challenge and a new opportunity. And believe me, for the last two and a half years, we all had more than our shares of challenges of, I will say, rebalancing that business mindset with, with where people are at this point in time in the world.
Speaker 1 00:03:08 Well, that's a lot to do right now and everybody's kind of struggling with it, but you obviously are doing something very well at Juniper because you've made all these lists. I mean, and of just impressive lists and so many HR executives struggle with doing what you've done at Juniper. And I wanna just have you share some of the things you've done. And I wanna start with what you've done to improve internal branding. We talk a little bit about that and I wanna get your insight.
Speaker 2 00:03:34 You know, I joined Juniper Networks about four years ago, and I will say Juniper, as any great engineering driven company, was so focused on building the best networking products in the planet, right? Which Juniper has done really well. The piece missing in my mind when I joined is could we apply that branding and all of the focus that it's been put on the great products to the brand, to the people? So a key initiative that we have been developing, and I know that this is not rocket science, but Diane, it has been really hard to build for a non-marketing, non-sale driven company, right? Very engineering driven to build an employee value proposition and to build an employee value proposition that truly aligns with what Juniper stands for and the type of talent that we need now and in the future. So my intent was to work with marketing, we partner really well with marketing and we decided to treat this as this initiative, the employee value proposition as any other product marketing branding campaign, just let's brand for people internally and externally.
Speaker 2 00:04:58 And that lets us into a journey of capturing and talking to all the managers, all of the individuals outside internally on why, why are you a Juniper right now and why anybody externally should join Juniper. So that allowed us the opportunity to put together the great things at Juniper, the not so great things at Juniper, right? And then to be able to treat it as any product, branding, marketing campaigns. So that was the starting point and it has been phenomenal, phenomenal because it has been a whole branding strategy with, you know, we have the digital marketing, we have the external views, et cetera. So that has been like a breakthrough for us.
Speaker 1 00:05:50 You know, as you talk about that, I used to teach a course where I had students do their own personal SWAT analysis and their marketing themselves as the product. And there is not a better thing that they learn from that course because when you look at your weaknesses and threats coming up with ideas and things to, to get better, it just kind of focuses the light on just everything that you bring to the table and things you could work on, don't you think?
Speaker 2 00:06:14 Exactly. Absolutely. And you discover again, what, what we are doing really well and what we are not doing that well and we should improve, right? So it puts things on balance.
Speaker 1 00:06:26 I think that a lot of people are afraid to say the things that aren't doing so well. And I, I think the things that I've been hearing, a lot of companies, a lot of CHROs and VPs that I talk to have been saying that, that things that are changing right now that they're struggling with is kind of like in the interview process. You, you get people coming in telling you, this is what I expect and do you, does Juniper have what I want more than Juniper telling the employees, you know, this is what we offer. Are you seeing a lot of that? And what are you doing to meet those needs?
Speaker 2 00:07:01 I am seeing a lot of that. But let me give you a broader context if I may. And this is part of the conversation you and I were having about how the way we work is shifting quite significantly, right? So I will describe this to me. You know, I heard Gardner this morning talking about, well, it's, it's a revolution I will call it, if I may use more of a romantic word as a, as a renaissance. I think that we are in the middle of a renaissance of the human beings at work. And this is what defines the way we work. We, in my opinion, is becoming more of a partnership between the employee and the employer versus one directional as many corporations in the past used to be, right? So the image of a US corporation was very unilateral, very one direction. Let me tell you, Diane, what I need from you, if you feed the envelope grade, otherwise you're out right now for high-tech companies, we are all looking for the same skill sets.
Speaker 2 00:08:16 We all need the same people, and there are not enough of those people in the planet. That talent and those skill sets, there are not enough, right? So we need to think differently. And that makes it more of that, even the interview that you were talking about, I need to be able to see more than the four or five questions that I am asking you about. I need to see who are you as a person. And perhaps, perhaps there is not the best match for that job that I have opened right now, but perhaps you are a great addition for something else that maybe a year ago, two years ago, I will not even pay, be paying attention to, if that makes sense. So the interview process has become a much more broad conversation to get to know the person and to get to know the skillsets and the profile and everything else versus just very, very directional.
Speaker 1 00:09:18 Are there like specific questions you like to ask or you'd like to see them ask you in an interview? I mean, I, I'm always curious about that.
Speaker 2 00:09:27 I always, and I, I tell managers and hiring managers all the time ask about what do I believe in, what do I stand for? Why should I be at Juniper Networks right now? Right? And I asked the question also to the employees that are at Juniper, not only the external people is what, why, why, why do you want this? Okay, right? Yes, you need a job, <laugh>, yes, you may want a change of the job you have, but why Juniper? And what can I do for you, right? How can I apply? Tell me, tell me about you holistically so we can partner on the best opportunity for you and Juniper. So that is the question that I want. And then we can get into the, of course, the functional expertise is needed, right? Again, we hire the best networking engineers, so we need to know that they, they know about silicon graphics and software and AI and all of those things of course. But also a question about who are you as the person and why, why should you be a Juniper? Why do you think that that this is going to be a good thing for you and for us?
Speaker 1 00:10:43 You know, that's so interesting. Before I interviewed you today, I interviewed Tom Peters who wrote in Search of Excellence and yeah. And we were talking about some of these issues and he was saying how it's all the hu humanism of what he wants to see in people. So when you're asking these questions of people, are there specific things you wanna see in their responses that show that they'll be a good culture match for you?
Speaker 2 00:11:08 Well, and it's interesting Diane, because I think that all the hype right now, we were laughing right now with the Lloyd because all the hype is about the most, he was showing on a slide how the question about CEOs nowadays is being, being a human c e o is, is what people are looking for. And of course I smile because the first thinking is human CEO versus what, where we hiring aliens before or hybrids or, but of course we understand the meaning, right? The humanistic side is about understanding that we get to the work and we get to the growth and we get to to the results through people. So again, understanding that, you know, the code, understanding that you are going to improve sales, understanding that product management is going to be better with you as part of the company, but also understanding how are you contributing in other ways?
Speaker 2 00:12:13 Because that ties with the concept of so much has changed on the partnership and on the contract between employers and employees, that it's not loyalty appeal is not there anymore, right? The loyalty, and this is why ATRI and rates are so high, et cetera. But what is there is, if I find a reason and a purpose to be part of the community of Juniper Networks, in my case, that is what anchors people, because I choose to be part of this community. And why do I choose to be part of this community? Because I am treated well. I believe that my contributions matter. I believe on the purpose of what we do. All of those questions have become much more relevant. And that's to me how I interpret like the humanistic, like the whole scope of the person
Speaker 1 00:13:11 That ties in to what you and I had talked to when we spoke before, of the needs that people have. And you, you, I think you said we need to look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs differently and consider what our employees need. I think, you know, it's not just what the employers need, it's what the employees need. And I, I was curious, can you elaborate what you meant on how it ties into Maslow's hierarchy?
Speaker 2 00:13:32 That is one of the pieces of the evolution or revolution, right? On the way we work, it used to be I need a paycheck. Of course we all need a paycheck. I need a place where whatever I've learned in a school or in my previous experience can be applied for now the first question I hear, and Gen C knows how to do this really well and that's why I love, you know, one of my favorite initiatives is the internship program that we do every year and the new college grads events, right? Because the first question, this p and we are desperate for those, I will say career professionals, we are desperate for those. And the first question is, what's the purpose? Why do you do this? Why networking? And how much do you spend on carbon commitments? And it's all those questions before I can even start talking about the job. And I love it, right? Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:14:38 Because
Speaker 2 00:14:38 Interviewing me, Uhhuh, they put me on the spot just saying, Uhhuh, tell me why I should be a part of this community. Tell me the purpose. And that's going back to the Maslow pyramid, right? Is purpose and the reason why we do what we do and we choose a job right now, and I'm talking from the lens of, of high tech, of course I sit in the Silicon Valley, you know, I have the luxury to be part of one of the prime companies and organizations in the world, but people choose to be here or not. And I love that as a priority is like, because that pushes the envelope for me to do good things. And when we pledge for social responsibility, then I push my people to be really thoughtful about the commitments we make socially and for the employees and for the people. So yes, the pay should be there, yes, the benefits should be there, but we all use the same surveys. If we don't pay competitively, of course that that's a non started, right? It it's like, okay, if I don't have a degree in finance, I may not get a job in finance. But those right now have become more like the basics of, and then the priorities are tell me what you do for the world and then I will choose if you deserve of or of me or not.
Speaker 1 00:16:12 I, I love that cuz it's, it's so interesting to look at the curiosity of different generations and the things that people are looking for and the questions they ask. You said at the beginning how you have a passion for psychology and how it ties into business. And I do too. I am just so fascinated with that. And I'm curious if that Juniper anywhere else we've worked, if what kind of soft skills training, emotional intelligence training, whatever it is that you're doing that's preparing for this new not revolution, renaissance <laugh>,
Speaker 2 00:16:43 What,
Speaker 1 00:16:44 What kind of, you know, in the soft skills realm, is that a big focus for you guys and how important is that?
Speaker 2 00:16:50 It is a huge focus and we are developing, in fact right now we are developing the people strategy for 23 and leadership and middle managers development and training is a core component of it. And I know that this is like, okay, what's new, right? Always manager training. But this is a very different type of training. I'm not talking about again, functional, I am not talking about time management. What I am talking about is concepts that are not only tied to emotional intelligence, but how to manage on a flat world, how to manage on a hybrid environment, how to make it very purposeful because it's the same concept over and over. And that ties with the empathy. So how to be more empathetic. What does that mean to be empathetic and have emotional intelligence as a manager is, I should understand that before the company or Juniper or I make a recommendation to our C E O on hybrid environment based in the office, everybody's talking about the same thing, right?
Speaker 2 00:18:01 In office, out of the office. What does that mean really? And before you come up with that determination is why do you want people in the office is understanding the why And to understand the why. You need to train the managers on being empathetic and understanding if you have a team of 200, right? Why do you want them in the office or not? And understanding what are you going to do on those days. It's not just because to have people, right? It's to make purpose and make it very purposeful. So all those are aspects that managers and leaders didn't used to have before. Because again, it used to be one direction. They, because I say so and because I like to see people in the office that that doesn't work. And we see it even on the, you know, like the best companies in the world, it, it doesn't work. They will say effective such and such, they three days in the office, everybody, oh no, they don't show up.
Speaker 1 00:19:07 Well, you know, in the tech industry, yesterday was on a panel for Forbes with Susan Sly, the CEO of Radius ai. And, and their company is high tech, right? It's a startup here in Arizona and mm-hmm <affirmative>, she said they require people to be in the office because you can't really work on their testing and different things remotely as you can, you know, and I think each industry is so different each job, right? Absolutely. And so I think that there's a lot of talk, actually it was a really interesting event that I, I participated in yesterday cuz there were, we were on a panel talking about whether organizations should be flatter or not and the pros and cons and all the problems, you know, with communication with multi-levels versus not, and then what motivates people and, and that, but what I thought was kind of interesting is just how everything kept coming back to culture no matter what levels they had. But if you have, somebody comes from Apple and they've been, you know, in this functional hierarchies in different ways of how they organize things and they come to you and you've gotta train 'em completely differently to not go pick their team or whatever it is like they do there, how is, is there challenges within the tech industry of teaching them the hierarchy and the communication patterns?
Speaker 2 00:20:24 Absolutely, absolutely. And this is why it is. So it is really hard to bring people from outside organizations and adapt. And to your point, it's all about the culture, right? So when I personally interview for leadership roles, I spent a lot of time explaining to my best how the culture works at Juniper. Because some people come from startups and then they get overwhelmed by, oh my god, 10,000 employees, right? If you come from a 100 people company, that's huge. And then it's like, oh, who makes the decisions becomes a aosis, et cetera. If you, if somebody from Apple or Google is interested in a role in a leadership role with Juniper, then it becomes the opposite, right? It's like no, you are part of defining the future of the company. You're not in a box, right? So we need not only you with your skills as a cio, but we need also your skills as the direction of the company and those understanding that from the beginning that I am not just hiring ahead of sales, but I am hiring a executive that is shaping the future of Juniper Networks and all of the 10,000 employees, not just your yourself organization, but the 10,000 employees and you have a role in supporting and educating the C E O in your function and you have a role with your peers on improving all that.
Speaker 2 00:22:00 So those are one, there should be a cultural match. And then there is a lot of time that we spend internally on coaching every leader especially, or people on leadership positions on how to go about it. And it's not easy. It takes a long, I mean it's a lot of effort
Speaker 1 00:22:21 I imagine, and as people are in the interview process, they must be asking for certain things that tell you whether or not they're a good match to your culture. But I'm just curious, what kind of things have they asked for that are just not feasible to offer? I mean, do you get wild requests at all?
Speaker 2 00:22:38 Well, of course, and of course money and titles are the, the first ones, right? It's like, oh, you know, 5 million is the starting base and like, okay, well good luck, right? And I want this title with three D and, and that is where it is fascinating to me, Diane, and you see this every day and that's what I love what I do because seeing the mix of the different mindsets and the different generations and what made executives successful in the past or employees in general successful in the past is changing so much, right? And then titles used to be a good thing. So I know in the interview process when somebody, the first thing that they do is to try to impress me with, I have been the E V P and C I R O of the blah blah blah, blah, you know, like, like three minutes of big titles.
Speaker 2 00:23:36 I'm thinking, okay, red flag, in this culture, this is not going to fly, right? That is one of course the the money side, it used to be, and this is one of the things that post pandemic is changing as part of the evolution location was like a big, oh, I wanna work from Hawaii, right? And that used to be seen like, yeah, no <laugh> both, both you and I wanna work from Hawaii, but, but to your point, for your job, if you are in a lab and you need to test equipment, you have to be here. So no things have to be both ways, right? But I will say those usually go mostly on the, the money, the titles. And it's super interesting how see how the corporate America is changing in terms of titles. And I love the analogy, I think that Gartner was using that that said, you know, it used to be like we use a flat map to follow our careers and the ladder and now it's like a whole G P s I can go in many different ways towards the different route, right? And I don't have a final destination as long as I meet some of the expectations. And that applies to, to pretty much every job. Again, I'm, I am speaking from my day-to-day experience, but it's fascinating to me how this pursuit of title in the next, I, I hate it when people is like, I should be a software engineer 3.2 because I've been in the job for two years. Like, oh my god, that is, that is not the way to go.
Speaker 1 00:25:18 You know, I've heard it, uh, described as a snake-like pattern when it's flatter, you know, you don't have the titles. It is hard for people who want that promotability and the, the, the mark, the things off the list that you've made it here, you've made it there. How do you motivate people like that when there aren't as many opportunities within the company? Or do you just think it's a bad culture fit people who wanna have that and that you just don't hire them?
Speaker 2 00:25:46 I'm just both. I think that when, from the beginning, that is a critical, and I am not minimizing for people who see those titles and the check marks as motivators. Great. I mean we all need our a again, our G P S, right? But it will not be a good fit for the Juniper culture. It was not built on terms of titles. I will say as organizations get really big, it's more understandable that there are more sense of hierarchy and then titles are a way to separate what people do. So culturally I will say, well probably you will be a better fit for an organization where titles are a thing, right? And, and that will be a better start for you versus constantly fighting for something. On the flip side, I will say those are motivators for everybody. That's human behavior, right? I'm not saying titles don't matter because I will be lying to myself and internally as well, we deal with that. But I think it's more if you have an or if you build an organization where it's recognition for what really matters and for what people do, it's more of a conversation is, okay, what is the role? What are your responsibilities? And of course you have to be recognized externally and internally representing what you do. But again, to me adding three comas on a sentence, I just think that that tells you about the, a lot about the individual.
Speaker 1 00:27:22 It, it was interesting, I don't know if you saw that Wall Street Journal, just I think it was a week ago, had three pages dedicated to the hierarchy opportunity that are available for more promotability in within companies and which ones offered that. You see that. But then you'll see the next week they'll have something about flattening of organizations, how that helps with communi communication. And it's just seems like nobody can really agree on what's gonna happen. And there's this current evolution, revolution, renaissance, whatever we're in right now. Are we in the beginning, the middle or towards the end of all of this? Or is there any way to know?
Speaker 2 00:27:58 I don't know that anybody knows, Diane, to your point, one week is this, one week is that people have different, is is the lens that you bring to the table? What I could tell you is I don't think that we are at the beginning. I think the pandemic has transformed truly the way we work, not only for high-tech organizations, right? And it's, I am not only talking about being in the office or working remotely, it's much more about what we just talked about. It's about finding purpose on what we do and leading with humanity and empathy above everything else. And that is a big change. So I will not call that just the beginning. I think that a lot has changed already on terms of, of the way we work. And it's interesting to me, fascinating when there is so much written about in-office, out of office, like the office is just a representation of the holistic way. And that's why I ended up calling it at Juniper is just the way we work, can we stop about returning to the office? Not the office is if to, to your point is getting back to the basics, what role you and I have then according to that, what's our contributions to the organization that we are in, right? And based on that, let's understand how to get the best of what we both offer.
Speaker 1 00:29:29 Yeah, I mean it's so critical and I, I think it's really hard to make predictions about what's gonna happen. Yesterday Steve Forbes made a joke and I wish I could do it justice. It was something like if he could predict what'll happen in five years, he'd be on the, the Forbes list of most wealthy people, whatever, <laugh> in the world. Cause nobody could do this. Right? And so with that in mind, how do you anticipate future needs and prepare for them if you're not even sure what they're gonna be. How do you prepare to tell your boss what I'm gonna do for you in a year or five years from now?
Speaker 2 00:29:58 I see the trends, Diane, and I think that I will not even pretend to define the future. And this is why we talk about the future of work. The future of work. Where to me the future of work is today. But if I do my job well, I see the trends and I see the trends with data. I look at the dashboards with attrition where we hire, I talk to the managers, I talk to what do we need for talent. I sit on the interviews, I am with the interns program. So I try to see new generations. I try to see people who have been at the company for 25 years, right? And if we look at the holistic view, right write that gives you trends. And the trend to me is what leads the path to quote unquote the future. So it's building on trends that prepare for the next thing.
Speaker 2 00:30:53 And then for example, we go through a very, we use the O K R system, the objectives and key results to set priorities and the objectives for every year. That's the exercise that my team and I are doing right now, setting the priorities for 23. Those priorities are very aligned with what the business needs for 23. So my job is not to predict that future. My job is to know that with those trends, if we are going to, to be accelerating the growth, which is what Juniper stands for for the next three years, I have to make sure that I hire the people who are able to accelerate that growth that is my future. That leads me to believe that I need to put together a location, a strategy. What type of platforms should I use to find those people? What type of profiles do those are? What type of skills do I need, right? That is my future.
Speaker 1 00:31:58 And I think a lot of what I keep hearing is mentorships a big part of what they're looking at in future leadership training programs and just preparing for how we're gonna get people together. You were talking about different generations and it, it brought to mind when I interviewed Ken Fisher about mentorship and putting, aligning people, he said he didn't think you would put like a Gen Z with a millennial. You would ju jump multiple generations for a mentor to help with mentoring a young person. You might do a, an X with a boomer or a Z with a millennial. Do you agree with that or does it matter the age or experience?
Speaker 2 00:32:40 I think it doesn't matter. And we go back to empathy and having the right person, it's understanding. So I will not do it that way because to me, those that that's again creating profiles and tags.
Speaker 1 00:32:55 Well I, it was an interesting outlook, you know, and, and I tend to think it's hard to put people into boxes like that. I think you sometimes a z might have as much profound wisdom as millennial or a, a boomer. Yeah. Right. So do you do any kind of personality assessments? Like do you do the like disks and things there? I mean, I'm just curious
Speaker 2 00:33:19 For, you mean for hiring, for
Speaker 1 00:33:22 Just, or training, just so people know their type versus someone else's type or in the hiring
Speaker 2 00:33:28 We, we do it not, not on the hiring and, and you know, there is so much, you know, better than anybody. There is so much literature about using personality profiles for hiring. We do not use it for hiring. We use it for coaching, for training, for teamwork building. We use it a lot. Right. Still the, this, the Myers Briggs that you are an expert on for team building. My experience, I, I think that it is, it adds a lot of value because understanding your team members and understanding how to leverage the, the different strengths and weaknesses help the team. So to me tho those are the most successful areas, but not for hiring.
Speaker 1 00:34:10 Yeah, I, I'm with you. I don't think you can really find the, what you're looking for in that, for the hiring process. I think cuz you, you, you're gonna limit yourself to only picking certain types. But I think it really is great when you can learn what other people are so you can work with them more effectively. So I'm kind of, you know, on your team on that one. But I think people use 'em for everything and, and I think it's really helpful in some respects. And I, it is just such an interesting time that we're in. I know you just listen to Gardner in all the things that were out. Is there anything else you'd like to share that I hadn't have had the chance to ask you today that ties into what we're talking about?
Speaker 2 00:34:47 I would like to share that I think, I know that there are a lot of unknowns, right? I think that this is where we sit today. Organizations, managers, CEOs are sitting on uncertainty and that is the first tagline from all of the research that is uncertainty with that uncertainty. I don't know, I am the eternal optimistic, so that's my filter, right? So I absolutely agree that there is a lot of uncertainty. I see a lot of bright lights on scene, the conversation we just had, yes to uncertainty. But if we stay close to the people and truly spend the time, the effort, the energy on that human and that empathy, understanding, uncertainty, then let's use it for what is going to work for all of us. The times that we have lived through have been very disturbing and have shaken all of us corporations included. That doesn't mean that, what I strongly believe is that trying to go back to what it was, pre pandemic is not the way to go. Absolutely. And I'm not just talking about in-office or out of the office, right? People have changed forever on the core and it is how jobs in organizations to understand what that is and to be able to mix it with the business needs again and form the new norm. But it's going to be a new normalization. It's not going to be the way, the way it was.
Speaker 1 00:36:32 I agree with you. I, I think, you know, you don't, and would we want that status quo way of thinking anyway. We, we kind of need to always be moving and I, I love that we ended on that note. I think this has been such a great conversation. Ava, thank you so much for joining us today on the show. It's been a great conversation.
Speaker 2 00:36:49 Anytime. Thank you for the opportunity.
Speaker 1 00:36:52 Oh, you're welcome.
Speaker 2 00:36:53 Thank you.
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