Carol:
Hello there and welcome back to the People-Forward Leadership Podcast. My guest today didn't set out to work in human resources. She studied geography and environmental science, and it actually took a motorcycle accident to turn her attention toward the work of developing people, and she hasn't looked back.
In 2022, Sonya Morrison became chief people officer at the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, an agency of more than 2,000 employees with 90% of them represented by four unions serving Silicon Valley. She arrived while VTA was still rebuilding its culture, and in the middle of a three-phase plan, the agency calls VTA Forward. Known for her energy, her clarity, and her ability to cut through the noise, she believes investing in people is what creates real organizational momentum. And with that, I'm excited to welcome the chief people officer at Santa Clara VTA, Sonya Morrison.
Welcome to the podcast.
Sonya:
Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.
Carol:
Yes, I am so excited. So you have to tell the story from Australia studying geography and environmental science to this accident and then being with the city of San Mateo and then ending up where you are. Tell me about your journey. I'd love to start off just hearing about your leadership journey and what pulled you to what you're doing and where you are now.
Sonya:
Sure. Yes. So the accent is Australia, just in case anyone out there is wondering about that, I've been here about 24 years now. And how I got to the US from Australia is just not wanting to grow up, just wanting to keep traveling and having experiences. And before you know it, 24 years later, this is my life. I live here, this is my home.
But my leadership journey has really taken me from small parts, special districts, to the large county to, like you mentioned, city of San Mateo, the city of Burlingame. And it really was a pivot from environmental. And I went off to Ann Arbor in Michigan and places to look at master's degrees and PhDs in environmental science and geography. And what happened was exactly what you said. I had a motorcycle accident and I missed my application window for school, for graduate school.
Carol:
Wow.
Sonya:
And I also thought I was going to lose my leg, and it took me a long time to recover.
Carol:
Oh, wow.
Sonya:
And I happened to be living with a friend at the time helping me to recover. And she worked at Apple, she'd done an MBA, and before you knew it, I was like, "That looked really good." She went to Santa Clara University and I thought, "That sounds like a great idea."
I didn't have a whole lot of plans. It was a long time ago. Didn't have a whole lot of direction in my life. And so I went to Santa Clara University, and that changed my career path and turned me from being parks... I worked at a park special district and they said, "We have a vacancy in human resources. Do you want to help us out while we recruit?" I thought, "Human resources? What do I know about that?" And I joined and I just loved it. I just loved it from the very, very moment. And that was really what put me on the path.
I loved public sector right away because of the connection to the community and how it was very mission-driven and it aligned with my values. So that was through growth and experience. I now have ended up here at VTA.
Carol:
That's an interesting story, but I love how it kind of happened on you, but the biggest thing is that you found something that you really loved and resonated with, and that really aligned with you. I mean, that doesn't happen often, but congratulations for you being able to do that and find that. Yeah.
Sonya:
I feel like I'm very blessed. And the great thing about human resources is it can take it from industry to industry. I was in cities and municipal government and I was looking for a new challenge. I was looking for a way to apply a special skill set that I felt like I was developing, but in a new industry. I wasn't quite ready to leave HR. I was looking for something else. And then this job came up at VTA, and it couldn't have been more perfect.
Carol:
Yeah. And I'm curious, so you come from this scientific background, you move into the people part of your work, fall in love with it. I want to go back to the thing that I said earlier that you believe in investing in people is what creates reorganizational momentum. And I would love to know where and how did you develop that kind of mantra and belief and how does that serve as a guiding lyre value in terms of your own people leadership?
Sonya:
There were a couple of pivotal points over my career that have really made me see that it's all about the people, that it really is about people. Two distinct real experience or maybe three, some experiences that I had. One was a long time ago, a real heartbreaking situation for me. I was involved in a very large scale layoff situation. Hundreds of people were going to be impacted. And I'll never forget this, but one employee, he was losing his job. I don't remember if he was a food worker, a custodian, what he really was, but he came to my office one day. It was in the evening and he brought his two little girls with me and he was in his work uniform. It was coveralls, that's why. And they were about five and seven or five and nine, something around that. And he came in and he just simply said, "I want you to understand the impact that losing my job is going to have."
Carol:
Wow.
Sonya:
"I'm asking you, can you help me keep my job?"
And I didn't have any influence in that area. That wasn't my decision. I was just carrying out the layoff process. And it really stuck with me for a really long time that what decisions that we make, they're not just numbers on pages, they have very real impacts on people. And so that was a long time ago. That was the first thing that really stuck with me, that really pointed me into the human component of large scale organizational change.
Carol:
Wow.
Sonya:
The second was probably a little bit completely different. I worked at another organization. I was new. I was a HR manager, so that level. And I had a style of communication. It was very direct, very straightforward, fast moving, both in my email and in my personal communication, verbal. And somebody higher than me said to me, "You work in human resources. Try to be a little bit more human." And it wasn't said very kindly, like, "Ouch." I was completely embarrassed and had no idea what she particularly meant, and I didn't want to ask because I was just like, "Oh gosh."
So I asked a peer, another manager about, "What is it that... This is what was said to me." And she said, "It's about culture. We have a culture here at this organization that we're very warm and friendly. Your communication style isn't warm and friendly. So I would recommend that you start with a friendly salutation, you end with a kind or warm ending. And in the middle after you write your email, go back and put in fluffy kittens and puppies. Think about fluffy kittens and puppies to bring out that kind of warm feeling or that warm communication style that we have here." I thought, "Okay, I can do that. I can work with that." And so I did that.
And what I learned from that experience was that, one, I never want to be the kind of leader or executive who shames somebody else. I don't want to be that person. Two, that communication is measured at the ears of the listener and not at the mouth of the speaker. That's not my original saying, but that's true. Three, that I can adapt my style to the audience and my tone, and so I need to ask a lot of questions around that to understand what the culture is before I really dive in. And then four, it's really great to have somebody at an organization that is a low stakes peer that you can go to ask the embarrassing questions, that you can ask those kinds of things. And so I try to be that person. And so I think those were kind of the two pivotal things that taught me that leadership is about people and about human impact and to keep those things in mind.
Carol:
Yeah, those are fantastic examples. I love the humanization of it by bringing it forth because you can get lost in the details and the goals and the objectives and the things that have to get done and forget that there are people that are involved or at the other end of it. I love that you said that.
And I love the four points. They're amazing. And I love this idea about what I heard you say or what I took from it was the concept of feedback and adaptability, because both of those examples could have made you ignore them or hardened you to it or thinking "How dare you?"kKind of thing. But what you did instead was actually, it wasn't maybe delivered easy as you said, but you sat with it and asked for feedback and you used that as an opportunity to even hearing in the hard things to think about the way that you lead.
One of the things that in our framework, in the People for Leadership framework, the first thing is leader awareness, and leader awareness is about being aware of how you lead, really checking into those blind spots and getting that feedback and exploring when people tell you things. "Is that really true? Should I really listen to that?" And I love that these are two prime examples of you getting that feedback and then adapting to it, which is an amazing trait and should be something that all leaders should be engaged in. Yeah. Yeah.
So speaking of really leaning into your values, one of the things that you said was you really resonated with public sector because the work, the impact on the community and how that aligns with your values. In March of 2025, you all had a large union walkout or stop of service, and not all leaders live through that. That could be really a disruption in terms of things that are happening. So I'm curious when things like that or other things, when the pressure is high and stakes are real like that, what helps you stay grounded to your values so that you're not reacting to what's happening, but you still allow those lessons learned and those values to continue to be your guiding light?
Sonya:
I think it's about boundaries and balance. That's how I think about it for me. And what I mean there is taking care of me, like the whole me. So when pressure's high and stakes are real, I have to bring my best self to the party, and I can only do that if I'm taking care of myself.
Carol:
I love that. Yeah.
Sonya:
You put your mask on before helping others, and I really practice that. It's one of the key components actually of my leadership style. Ask anyone on my team, this is important to me because I think it's important to the team, and I think it's really important to culture. So it looks different to everybody, what your boundaries and what balance is for you. But some things that work for me is that I rarely work on weekends or evenings. I turn off my work phone from 9:00 PM to 7:30 AM. I don't text or call or email my staff after hours, and I ask them not to do so either. So I model what I ask them to do. I take vacations and I don't take my work computer with me. That is big at VTA. Yes, that is big.
So I play cards and I have breakfast every morning with my wife. We spend time to connect in the morning. I go to the movies every single Wednesday night with my group of friends and we've been doing it for 15 years.
Carol:
Oh, wow.
Sonya:
I have other things. I have to backpack every summer, at least once. I go for walks in the morning and I listen to podcasts, or I just listen to the quiet morning. And every single week I make time to do something that brings me joy. So for me, that's what balance is. I know that when I do those things consistently, then I can show up as my best self. I am more creative. I'm a kinder person. I'm a better problem solver. I'm a better leader. And I get out of the telling people how to do things and I sit back and I can ask questions and I can let people... I have that balance, I have that, I can breathe and I can let people shine around me. And if I don't do those things, things start going fast. And when things going fast, I can just start making decisions left, right and center and firing off things. And I feel like I'm being productive, but it's not helping at all.
That's really important. And then I can make fast decisions if I need to, but I have the brain capacity to decide what action is needed in this moment.
Carol:
That is so powerful. And I hear leaders, people talk a lot about self-care boundaries and people are so bad at it. Or they bend them and break them so many times. And as a leader, of course you tell your team, "We want to have boundaries," but wow, what a great model for your people that they learn that. And so as they step into leadership, they know how to do that as well.
And I really love what you said that when you're able to do that, you can think more clearly. So when things come up, you can really make decisions from your rested and relaxed prefrontal cortex and not from the amygdala that's been hijacked so it doesn't make you reactive or make poor decisions or things of that nature. Because I know things happen and there's a fast-paced environment and you have to make those decisions, but by protecting your space, your mental health, your physical health, your spiritual health, it allows you to be much more productive there. That is such great, great suggestions and guidelines.
How long, I would say, did it take you to go from, "I need to do this to do it"? Or was it just an easy practice? And I'm curious, do people on your team struggle with like, "Okay, I'm not going to check in on the weekend," but then they check in on the weekend?
Sonya:
It took me a long time to realize. You can see on my LinkedIn, I worked in a hospital early on. And I think on my first day they said, "You are either in the hospital or you're in the hospital." And that was the culture of the work ethic there. And so it took me a long time to unlearn that and to learn a different way.
Carol:
That's great. That's awesome. You're either in the hospital, meaning you're working in it or you're a patient in it. Those are your two options, but you're always there. That is a powerful kind of visual to be indoctrinated in and to have to unlearn that. And I love that you said that, that you can be indoctrinated to a way of thinking and a practice, and it takes the time to break out of that and unlearn that, deconstruct that so that you can create and construct something new.
Sonya:
And I had a manager that modeled that for me. I learned that. And I mean, she was as high up as you can go on the food chain in the organization, and she did this. And I will never forget the example that she said and how that created an executive team that was just magic. We were creative, we were collaborative, we laughed, we got stuff done and we enjoyed our work. And so I learned that from her. So I had to unlearn, and then I learned that from her.
And so I've been four and a half years nearly here at VTA, and I am consistent with this. I am relentless in how it is when I see one of my team sending an email after hours, the next day I'm like, "Hey, I just saw you send an email. What's going on?" And sometimes they're like, "Oh, well, I had to get it out of my head." That's what they'll say. "I had to get it out of my head."
And I say, "Great. Outlook has delay sent. Use it. Might need to get out of your head, but it does not need to get into somebody else's inbox at that particular time. Have it hit their inbox at 9 o'clock the next morning." And so now they just know, and then they do the same for there. And they've told me that alone has changed the culture here in HR at VTA.
Carol:
Yeah. And it makes you rethink. We always say things are so urgent and it makes you rethink about what really is urgent and what people can take their time with. And that is such a great example of what we call creating empowered ecosystems, where you're really leaning into the understanding that when your people can take care of themselves and have permission to take care of themselves, that they can function at a higher level. So it's like we always say when your people thrive, organizational success is inevitable. And so helping to create the space for that is such a powerful example. And you're reinforcing that with your people, not just, "Well, I'm doing it. And if they do it, it's okay." But no, we really want to create a culture where people have that balance is amazing.
And speaking of that, I'm curious about how do you... Some people may listen and think, "Yeah, that won't work for us," or, "That's too much," or, "No, we need to have people in," or, "How do I know they're being effective if they're not responding to my emails at three in the morning or over the weekend when something comes up?" So how do you balance the hard calls that you have to make as a leader when you're weighing making sure that your people are taken care of what's right for them and what's best for the business? Sometimes people feel like it's an either/or, and what I'm hearing you say is that no, it's an and, and there's a way to do it successfully and creating a culture that does that.
So when you have to make those hard decisions that may feel impactful, how do you make that balance to make sure that you're weighing what's right for your people against the business need?
Sonya:
I think thinking about if I need to make this hard decision or I make this hard call, how is it going to impact the people. So that is what I lean into. When I have hard calls to make, then I think about, "Okay, how's this going to impact people and who needs to know about this and in what order? Who am I going to tell? How are we going to roll this out?" But keeping the thought about... And the message is... And sometimes the message is, "This is a really hard conversation, but it's for the better of the team." I come back to the impact on the team. I always come back to the team or the individual. Or if it's a decision between the individual and the team, then I always come down on the part of the team because... Yes, just thinking through the impact.
Carol:
Yeah, yeah. And exploring that before you step into something. And again, if you have the boundary set, you can think through that more clearly than making those-
Sonya:
Yes. More creative.
Carol:
Yes. Yeah.
Sonya:
I can come up with different solutions. Making the pie bigger, as they say in negotiations. It's not one pie that we're all taking the peach. We're going to make the pie bigger and come up with different solutions.
Carol:
Exactly. And sometimes instead of thinking outside the box, let's just build a new one. Let's think what 2.0 looks like instead of refurbishing the first one.
So when you're balancing between people in business, I'm curious, how do you build trust across functions, personalities, and priorities so that your people can actually execute together? And in line with that, I'm curious where does psychological safety play into that, if at all?
Sonya:
Yes. So part of the reason that I came to VTA is around how do I rebuild the trust in human resources in the team? So that's kind of a different story. But I think to build trust or the way that I look at it, it's about competency and consistency. I'm competent, I'm consistent. That's going to lead to my credibility. And that's the approach that I took with VTA's HR team. And then it's about connection. If you can connect to each other, you can find commonalities. There's a lot of C's. And the third thing is collaboration. True collaboration, that's making the pie bigger.
So trust, that's how I think about building trust. Somebody said to me recently, "To get trust, you have to give it. And are you giving trust in this situation, Sonya?" I was like, "Whoa."
Carol:
Yeah, whoa.
Sonya:
Thank you. Thank you for that gift. And so now when I'm feeling like I'm not being trusted or I'm in a low trust situation, I have to start thinking, "Am I giving trust or am I only expecting trust back?"
Carol:
That's powerful.
Sonya:
Because that's really hard. It'll be uncomfortable.
Carol:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it is a give and take because it's almost like you can't want trust and be untrustworthy. So you have to be able for it to go both ways, which means there has to be a level of vulnerability.
Sonya:
Vulnerability, which is the psychological safety piece, right?
Carol:
Yeah. Yeah. So tell me more about that. Where does that come into it in terms of, particularly with your four C's of competency, consistency, connection, and collaboration in this given exchange of trust? Where does that vulnerability and those aspects of psychological safety work within that?
Sonya:
So here, psychological safety is one of the questions on our engagement survey at VTA. So the way we define it is I can speak up without fear of being punished, retaliated against, or humiliated. So that's how we... Psychological safety is where people feel safe to express their opinions and to take risks and to not be fearful of those consequences. So I think vulnerability plays a lot into this.
For us, for me and my team, psychological safety, I think it's misunderstood and overused at times, maybe particularly in VTA. I'm not sure if it's... But sometimes I think it is. So we have in HR what's called a high five moment. And so high five moments are for us not when something amazing happens, it's when we make a mistake.
Carol:
Ah.
Sonya:
So I model vulnerability by doing high five moments when I have taken a chance, taken a risk, made a mistake, and it hasn't worked out. I'm like, "Please, somebody high five me. I tried."
Carol:
Oh, I love that.
Sonya:
And so my team all do that, and that way we can model vulnerability and risk taking. And we celebrate rather than hide our failures because nobody wins when you're hiding the failure.
So other aspects of vulnerability is I ask my managers like, "How would you like to handle that?" Or, "How would you handle something in this situation?" And I invite them to tell me how they would handle it or to move forward rather than me just telling them. But then I have to be okay with how they're going to do it, which might be different to the way that I would do it. So for me, that takes my own... I make that a safe environment for them to proceed in the way and to fail if they fail because they're all brilliant.
So I think that another way that I do this is either in one-on-ones or in meetings, if I have an opinion, I always say, "You can disagree with me. Please, somebody disagree with me. I don't need a whole bunch of Sonyas or Sonya opinions around here." Especially in transit, one year it's this administration in, the next year it's a different administration. So we are always dealing with people that don't necessarily think like us or have the same values or the same viewpoints as us. And so if we can practice that in our teams, then it makes it a way that we do things. Invite in that differing opinion with respect, acknowledging and truly acknowledging that a different opinion might be the best way [inaudible 00:27:47].
And then recognition, we start all of our HR meetings with wins and recognition, what we've been doing for the week, so that people feel respected and that this is a safe place for them to be themselves and show up as themselves. So there's just some of the ways that we practice psychological safety rather than just talking about it, I think.
Carol:
Well, I love that you're creating... I mean, it's what it's about, creating the container for there to be trust and learning and engagement. It's how you have a continuous adaptive learning environment because you learn through the failures.
It was interesting, I was doing a leadership training the other day and I commented that for me, failing is a learning opportunity. It's not really a failure, it's a learning opportunity. And I thought about the cough syrup Vicks 44, and I think I was watching a commercial recently and I realized that it's called Vicks Formula 44, and they talked about how it was the 44th formula that worked. That's why the cough medicine is called Vicks 44. It just got me thinking what if at 23 they were like, "Eh, this is just not going to cut it." But it took 44 opportunity because every time one did work, they were like, "Well, what can we do to improve it? What can we do to improve it?" And so when that's your focus, then everything becomes a learning opportunity for growth.
And I love that you ask your people, "How would you handle it?" Because it gives them an opportunity to grow in their critical thinking skills, to grow in their decision-making skills, and to know that, "Maybe that decision didn't work, but okay, now we know that, but at least it was a decision that I learned to make. And now I'm confident in decision making and confident in knowing that even if it didn't work the first time, maybe we can try something different the next time because I can learn and grow from it."
And creating that container, wow, is so powerful. I've unfortunately been in too many spaces even recently where leaders have a gotcha attitude or they set you up to fail. They don't give you the clarity or the rules of engagement, but when you break the rules, they're right there with the gotcha kind of thing. And boy, does it set up... Toxic is not even the word for it. It's so much worse and volatile in terms of what that environment creates. So building that with your team, starting with the four C's and the trust that leads into this vulnerability I think is amazing. And it seems like it's been a success within your group and the culture transition that you've been able to make at VTA.
Sonya:
Yeah. We set up right at the beginning with this. I noticed when people come in, especially if they don't come from transit, like me, I didn't come from transit. So they come here to VTA, they're so excited to be here. They've got so much to give. They've been successful in getting the job. And they get here, and for me it was three days into the job. Other people, it's been five days a month or that I watch it in HR. For me, it was like three days after I got here. I'm sitting in my office. There was crying, like snot, tears, hiccupping, ugly crying. I can't leave my office because it's a long walk to the parking lot. And I was just sitting here thinking, "I made a mistake. I don't know anything about transit. What on earth am I doing here? They're all talking in acronyms. I don't understand what's going on. I made a mistake."
And so I called my wife and I said, "I made a mistake. I don't know what they're saying. I don't understand what they're talking about. I'm in over my head and I don't know what I'm doing here."
She said, "Take a deep breath." She said, "They didn't hire you for your transit experience, of which you have none. I'll remind you, there is nothing on your resume that says transit. So think about why they hired you. They hired you for your leadership. They hired you for the things that they think that you can do, and they hired you because they believe in you. So go and do the things that they hired you to do."
Carol:
Wow.
Sonya:
I was like, "Huh." And it really changed my perspective right then. And so now I offer that up because I see people starting and they don't want to look like they don't know. I would say to people, "I am not stupid. I do not know what you're saying to me. I don't understand that acronym." And so as the chief people officer, I get a little bit more latitude to do that, but not everybody feels comfortable enough or has a position where they can just say that. They don't want to look like they don't know. So I take that away from them. I say, "Look, this is how it happened for me. So don't worry, I hired you or we hired you because of X, Y, and Z."
Carol:
Yeah, yeah.
Sonya:
"Tell us when you don't, and let us help you get up to speed on the transit side of things." And I think that being human makes it okay for other people to be human.
Carol:
That's well said. Yeah. So first of all, kudos to your wife. That's amazing that she was able to share that with you. But I love the story that you share because I know one of the things that people become, particularly emerging leaders, are fearful about stepping into leadership because they think they have to know everything. Sometimes good people wait or don't go after leadership because they're like, "No, I still need to do this and learn that and make sure I'm savvy in this." But what a great model of leadership to know that the skills that I do have are what make me a great leader and the opportunity to learn and add to it is going to make me an even better leader. And that is such a great story because I think sometimes people struggle with that.
And so being vulnerable, saying, "I don't know," saying, "I'm learning with you," but still being confident in what you bring to the table and knowing that that doesn't disqualify you as a leader, but makes you a better leader, I think, is just amazing. So thank you for sharing that.
Sonya:
And people ask me to meet with them all the time about career advice and job advice. And I always say, "Look, if you can do 70% of the job, go for it." And I think this brings in... I think there's a gender difference between what jobs you'll go for and what leadership positions you will or won't, differences in the genders. That's what I see. And so I just say to everybody, "If you can do 70% of it, go for it. What have you got to lose?"
And so then I expect that the people that I'm hiring only know 70% of the job.
Carol:
Wow.
Sonya:
So I don't expect them to know everything because I'm hoping that they're the kind of person that is stretched and they're going to be learning and growing on the job.
Carol:
Yeah. I think it makes for a better employee anyway, because if they come in thinking they know 90 or 100%, they're unteachable, they're uncoachable, they're unlearnable. And so you do want people to come in with a sense of, "I know what I'm bringing to the table, but I know there's so much more for me to digest to really elevate it and develop my skills."
I love that you shared that about the gender because the studies do show that women feel they need to know 90% or more, if not 120%, before they apply for things or go after things as opposed to, "Listen, 70% is pretty incredible and I'm looking forward to filling up the other 30% with what I learned there." So thank you for sharing that. That's amazing.
I want to talk a little bit about AI because that is [inaudible 00:35:49] right now with everything that's going on. And I know in transit that's still an ongoing conversation in a variety of aspects. And VTA Forward explicitly set out to modernize HR to find technology that reduces administrative work.
So I'm curious as AI reshapes how teams work, how are you making sure that you're keeping people and not just technology at the center of those decisions, that you're keeping the human in the loop?
Sonya:
Yes. So HR, our team has been diving into ChatGPT since it sort of first came out and became really popular over the recent years. So we took the approach of, "This is a cool tool that we just found. Let's explore it." So long before VTA had a policy, because we are keeping the human in the loop, and I can see how this encouraging staff, encouraging my team to use AI makes us all better at our jobs. It's great for getting creative ideas, it refines our writing, it's great for a starting point, for analysis. It's a resource. And I say to people, "Look, the demands are increasing on us and we have constrained budgets. We are never going to be able to meet all of the needs or all of the demands of the community or we're an internal service of our other VTM with our current workforce. We have got to figure out ways of being more efficient and more effective and better at our jobs."
And so that's the approach that we've taken. So we're developing a couple of AI policies. I hope everybody is. I wish we were further along, but we're kind of at that, but it's not a job replacement. So for us, absolutely, yes, we need human in the loop for the oversight, for the output because AI makes mistakes all the time. As an AI health coach, my goodness, it's always making mistakes.
But we work very closely with the unions because people fear, and I think that that has been out there in the public as AI is coming for your jobs and I just don't see that happening. I see it as a way of making your job easier, more interesting. It might even provide different kinds of jobs that are available out there, but I don't see us losing any jobs. We have so many needs.
So I think that as long as we're working closely with our employees and training them on letting people know, communicating when we're using it, training people on how to do it, committing to including people in the decisions that we make and not relying solely on AI. And in public sector, we have bargaining obligations anyway with people every time it affects wages, hours and terms and conditions of employment. So there are some legal protections I think built in for public sector that maybe don't exist in the private sector.
So there is that, but I think that... Oh, it's fun. It's just so much more... I just say play, have fun, learn how it can help you do your job.
Carol:
Yeah, I think that's such a great perspective because to your point, I know research has been out there that talks about that the over-reliance on it can cause us to have what they're calling a quiet atrophy in our knowledge and our skills because we're over relying on it and not using it, to your point, as a way to take things off our plate that are maybe redundant or repetitive or don't require a higher level of thinking so that it frees you up to engage at that higher level to be able to make a greater impact, to bring that innovation and creativity or the like, which are always going to be needed. I agree with you, that part of the human in the loop is going to be needed from that perspective, but understanding that it is a tool of support and augmentation and not a replacement. Yeah, for sure.
Sonya:
And I think for us, we're not exactly a 24/7 operation, but we're pretty close. We're certainly a lot more than the regular office hours. So for HR, I can see us using it as chatbots. And I do laugh and say, "The next person I'm going to hire is an AI agent," and I'm not, but it provides as that first question about or answer about benefits or answer on a policy for people that work on the weekends that can't reach us or people that work at night that can't reach us. So I think that it can expand the service that my HR team are going to be able to offer. It's going to take a lot of setup and testing and practice, and it certainly won't replace our folks, but it might provide better service to VTA at times when we're not available.
Carol:
Yeah, yeah. No, I would agree with that. I think it has that benefit and that ability, like you said, to do those repetitive things that, like you say, free people up. So if they want to just ask a question, yeah.
And I love the idea that "I'm going to hire an agent" because that is... Particularly if you hire an agent and the people have to manage it, so there's still people who still have to oversight it before to hire it. So I think that's amazing.
Okay, so one final question before we close up, because I love this conversation, and thank you for everything that you've shared. It's been amazing. Hopefully, people listening are taking notes or we'll re-listen to it and catch the gems that you share. But as I said, I know your bio says you believe in investing in people. Investing in people is the catalyst for real organizational momentum, and I want to send leaders out of this episode with something that they can do. So if you can leave leaders with one shift, one practice, one mindset to be more people-forward, what would you say that would be?
Sonya:
I'm going to repeat something that I said earlier, but frame it a little different. Don't create more negative stress for your staff than already exists for them in their regular job.
Carol:
Wow.
Sonya:
What I mean is don't email them after hours. Maybe you have 50-minute meetings instead of one hour or 25 minutes instead of 30 minutes. Give them time to have a break and go to the bathroom or get a drink. I would also say don't text them on the weekends, don't make them take their work phone on vacation, and also model the balance for yourself. And watch how you talk. Stop saying, "I know you're really busy," because saying, "I know you're really busy," just normalizes that hectic pace and elevates the stress around. Don't talk about working until 7:00 PM or working on the weekend like it's a badge of honor. It's not. It just creates the expectation that that's normal.
That's my takeaway. Don't create more negative stress on your staff than already exists in their regular day-to-day job.
Carol:
I love that.
Sonya:
That's my job as a manager, that's it.
Carol:
Yeah, yeah. That exists in the job or in life itself. So yeah, I love it. Don't add more to the plate. I love it. That is so amazing.
Well, Sonya, thank you so much for everything you shared about showing us what it looks like to put people at the center of the organization and how it could really pay off, and just giving us insight into your leadership and the things that you're doing that I'm sure emerging or existing or even established leaders can really learn a lot from. So thank you.
Sonya:
Well, thank you so much for inviting me. This has been wonderful.
Carol:
Oh, I'm glad to hear that. I'm glad to hear that.
So to everyone listening, if this conversation gave you something you can use, share it with the leader who needs to hear it. And you can learn more about how we help leaders and organizations build people-forward cultures at thriveaxisgroup.com. That's A-X-I-S. And you can reach us anytime at hello@thriveaxisgroup.com. Until next time, keep leading people forward, and I'll see you soon.
