The last few weeks have been a rollercoaster for me here as this little engine that could solopreneur. It may surprise you to know that even though I'm very much a Capricorn, I'm also very much a woo woo astrology girlie. Whether any of that is factual or not, I do believe that whatever energy you focus on is what gets fed. Sometimes we spend a lot of time on parts of things or stories in the workplace that don't need our focus and we leave other areas on the table that desperately need us.

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For example, the Bolt CEO that shall remain nameless in my book, doesn't need more focus just because he came out hot and wrong with his directive to get rid of HR and replace it with People Operations (I always giggle when I hear this because it's like changing out your navy t shirt for midnight blue but ok). What does need focus is why some business leaders seemed determined to willfully dismiss how HR/People Operations/Whatever You Want To Call It are actually strategic arms of the business. If you hire, your teams need a strategy so your business can grow. What does need focus is those employees at Bolt who watched their leader publicly state that getting rid of HR helped them get rid of problems when a lot of them know that the problems didn't go away, they just likely aren't sure where to go with their problems (is People Operations the same? Are they safe if my manager is not treating me right or if my co-worker is sabotaging me or if I need to find out my FMLA before I actually need it or….). What needs focus is what that CEO thought about HR and also does that indicate there is a lack of understanding of internal business operations across the organization and are our jobs going to be affected by these seemingly whimsical decisions. What needs focus is how one deals with a leader who seems to only be concerned with his analysis and not anyone else's. I mentioned this in one of the two panels I did for Lattiverse but more on that below.

What also needs focus is the people we decide to spend time with. I had a dear friend of almost 30 years pass away suddenly and while attending her memorial this past weekend (if you want to donate to her family, please click here) I realized that time is such a precious commodity that we all take for granted. That's not really deep but I don't think we all think about this practically when it comes to who we spend our time with. We sometimes go on autopilot and allow people into our lives who will either be there for a season or shouldn't be there at all but our grace meter doesn't alert us (because it's grace). I have lost two friendships in the past couple of years specifically because I have boundaries and basic requirements of friendship that don't have to do with just the fun parts of friendship (dinners, concerts, etc) but the hard parts (are you someone who can make safe decisions for yourself and your loved ones, can you accept accountability, if I go wayward can I trust you to pull me back and vice versa). I'm actually quite fine with this editing and I don't think this just pertains to personal life but also workplaces. I posted a video here and awhile ago about how we seem to rush towards the label of friendship and go straight past the colleague or associate stage as though there's something not of value in those stages. You don't always need a work bestie. Your work bestie might just be a work associate you have fun with. And that's ok. I think friendship is when you go through hard things, learn, and come out on the other side for the better together.

I also always focused on one of my favorite clients, WIPA. They challenge me so often to come up with new ways to embed inclusion into their organization and I love every minute of it even on the days when I'm building the training and wondering what in the world I got myself into. This past season we dove into Serving Diverse Markets since all of them want to be vendors with authentically diverse communities as their clients. We studied how to use data to understand these communities and how to build cultural competency and fluency as a means to build relationships authentically over time for long lasting healthy business.

I needed to FOCUS at Lattiverse 2026. Why? It was my first one and I was on two panels! I'm eternally grateful to Morgan Williams at Peak HR for introducing me to the Lattice team. This conference was a full day of really diving into what makes a company run better from the people perspective. It's not just about selecting the right AI agent because as the Lattice CEO said, as smooth as all of this AI output sometimes looks, it's because people are working to make that output better. My two panels Managing Up: Making DEIB Impossible to Cut and Building Your Personal Brand as an HR Leader both spoke to my heart in different ways. As you know a pillar of Equity Activations is embedding the work of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging into operations so it's not just an initiative with fun speakers and themed lunches. It's about equity audits, ensuring your Talent Acquisition program is capturing ALL of the talented people who can make your business stronger, ensuring your Performance Program isn't going off vibes and favorites, and really making your Employee Engagement program something that moves the needle towards innovation and collaboration by acting on the feedback your people give you. And let me tell you I didn't set out to have a personal brand. I started speaking publicly when I was Head of TA to get more candidates to be interested in the company I worked for when asking leaders to do the same fell on deaf ears. That worked in my favor because when I was laid off, I had a name - not a big one - but one people knew. I talked about how I built an ethical Talent program and how our company at the time would be a great place to work. Now I take that conversation with me for my own company, maybe my future company (I haven't even ruled out going back in house), so people know what I put my name on means something.

You know what else needs focus? Brand partnerships. I don't do a lot of them but the ones I do are ones that I care about and are vetted. I'm currently working with Lavalier from the people that brought you Textio and it has been a blast experimenting on how to tell the story of why I think this product can change some of the biggest challenges interviewing processes have to date. I spent a lot of time teaching interviewers of all stages of their careers on how to give quality feedback and not feelings as facts. I also spent more time than I wanted to, chasing down scorecards that barely had 100 words on them. Most interviewers are bad at note taking. So Lavalier solves that by doing transcripts, summaries, and real time coaching during the interview for interviewers to ask questions related to the role. You know what this does? It lets you give detailed helpful feedback to candidates. My dream is for all candidates to get feedback and in the digital age, I don't see why we can't. I suspect some don't want to because they are still vibe hiring. But I digress. I did a post for Lavalier that generated some of the highest engagement I’ve had. It was all about a post I saw on my favorite Threads where someone posted helpful feedback from an interview and said they didn't want it. Was it fake? I don't know. The company wasn't. Was it a gimmick for something else? Probably. Was it AI generated? Could be. The biggest takeaway was that people engaged with it because they are HUNGRY for feedback. So it wasn't really about the person who posted. It was about how many candidates are saying they aren't getting ANYTHING at all. As someone who has written paragraphs of feedback, stayed on the phone with a devastated candidate who didn't get the job, and someone who has rearranged schedules to accommodate sick people, childcare, power outages, and the works - I never forget that Talent is about your relationship with people whether it's a candidate market or a company market, the people who use their resources to build strong humane relationships will always stand out.

Do you know how much focus it took me to do this Work With Me deck? I will always name the people who inspired me: Katrina Kibben, Kim Minnick, Rhona Pierce, Rocki Howard, and dani herrera. This crew, mind you not just a group of colleagues, have poured into me at various stages of my budding entrepreneurial journey - some from day one and some just as recently as last week. Because when you're building something that asks people to trust you with their organizations, their people, and their budgets, you need people around you who have done hard things and can speak to what's possible. I absolutely believe my skills and background in People Operations from being plucked from the Executive Assistant role by Beverly Carmichael many years ago, building my first HR program at Metacloud, and everything I did at Leaf Group thanks to many including Jill Angel, that my unique perspective will help some businesses build their strategy in a way that is equitable, healthy, and achieves the goals of the org and all of its members. We don't do half stepping here. No vague goals. Data for decisions and storytelling so you bring everyone along with you. So I thank everyone who has ever helped me in refining my way of helping others. And the Work With Me deck is how you see all of that in one place.

Lastly, what kind of Detroiter New Yorker living in LA would I be if I didn't relate this focus theme to the Knicks? Yes every person has done a LinkedIn post on the stats and the resilience. But that's because we love a story where, showing up no matter what, especially in this market and in this current climate where it can feel like EVERY SINGLE THING IS HARDER THAN IT NEEDS TO BE. You just show up. 29 points down? Show up. Winning in the last few seconds? You won. This has been a huge lesson for me these past few years where jobs I've wanted have gone elsewhere, RFPs go unanswered, companies pull back on their People Operations budgets, colleagues disappear, and so called friends show sides you can't condone if you are in the people helping people business. You just show up.

Also, no I won't focus on the Stanford Hiring Report that most people are getting wrong because my homegirl Keirsten Greggs and also the equally smart Katrina Kibben have already addressed it.

Thank you for your focus on this long update on what I've been focused on. And if there's an area of your People Operations that needs some love, definitely click the  Work With Me  and reach out. I'm here for audits, training, Fractional People Operations, and speaking engagements. We can do this.

Talent Acquisition Week is coming! I'm on a panel and would love to see you there virtually.

WIPA SoCal is inviting me to speak at their August Event. Details TBD!

My first CNBC Make It appearance in the article Should You Resign By Text, inspired by the FDA official who did just that. This topic inspired some generational debates on my LinkedIn and frankly the TLDR is that trust is broken in the workplace so I don’t look for companies to model the behavior I’m going to walk in. I don’t intentionally burn bridges because the world has a funny sense of humor. I only like to think of what my future self would appreciate.

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