00:01
Kimone Napier
I want to ask you something before we get started. Think about the last time you hired someone and it didn't work out. What did you tell yourself was the reason? Maybe it was they weren't the right fit. Maybe the role wasn't clearly defined. Or maybe they looked great on paper but couldn't execute once they were in the seat. So now this is what I want you to really consider. What if the hiring decision wasn't actually the problem? What if the problem was already there? Your structure, your systems, your onboarding, or maybe even your management and the wrong Hire just made it more visible? That's the conversation we're having this season. I'm Kimon Napier, organizational strategist and founder of Hire Breakthrough. Welcome to season four. Welcome back to the Higher Breakthrough podcast. Or welcome for the first time, if this is your first episode.
01:05
Kimone Napier
Either way, I'm really glad you're here. This show has been quiet for a while, and I took some time away and stepped back from a lot of things, and I just came back with a much clearer sense of what I want this podcast to be and what I actually want to say. And what came out of that is clarity. So this is season four. In today's episode, I want to do three things. I want to tell you what's changing about the show. I want to be honest with you about who this season really is for, and I want to give you a preview as to what is coming so you can decide whether to come back every week, which I hope you will. So let's get started with what's changing. So this show started focused on hiring, which is no surprise to anyone.
01:48
Kimone Napier
You know, Hire Breakthrough is known as that being one of our signature services. And so we talked about a lot of things, like how to attract the right candidates, how to interview well, how to make better decisions about who you bring into your organization, all that great stuff. And that work is really important. So of course I'm not walking away from it. But here's the reality of what I've seen doing this work for more than a decade across startups, nonprofits, government agencies, Fortune 500 companies. You name it, we have done it. What I've seen is that the hiring process is almost never where the real problem lives. Let me give you an example of what I mean. So I've worked with organizations that were cycling through employees in the same role over and over again. And so they hired someone.
02:39
Kimone Napier
That person would leave or they would get pushed out within six months, and then they Hire again. And every time, leadership would look at the Hire and say, we just keep picking the wrong people. But when I went in and actually looked at what was happening, and I'm looking at things like the role expectations, management onboarding, like, I'm looking at this from a really strategic lens, things like your team dynamics, how you make decisions, all of that stuff, what became clear very quickly was that the organization had never given anyone in that role a real chance to honestly succeed. So the problem wasn't the people. The problem was the environment those people were walking into. So this is a systems problem, and you can't Hire your way out of a systems problem.
03:28
Kimone Napier
The work I've always done, which is the deeper work, is helping organizations look at the full picture, not just who they're hiring, but what those people are coming into. You know, the structure, the culture, you know, the management effectiveness, the people strategy, or even the lack of people strategy, because those things determine whether your Hire succeed or fail far more than the hiring process itself. So this season, this podcast is going to reflect that work. We're going beyond hiring. We're talking about people strategy, organizational design. We're going to talk about workforce development, leadership operations, which I love. You know, it's going to be fun and exciting. So stay tuned with me. We'll even be talking about, of course, building teams that actually hold together over time.
04:21
Kimone Napier
You know, I always say that I like hiring for longevity, and I encourage that for all of my clients and people who come to me seeking my expertise. So if that's a shift from what you came here for originally, I completely understand. But I think if you stay with it, you'll find that this is actually the conversation you needed to be having all along. So I want to be specific about who I'm talking to this season, because I think being specific is more respectful than trying to just speak to everyone. So this season is for the founder who is growing. You know, your revenue is moving in the right direction. You're adding people. Things look great on paper, but internally, something may feel off. Your decision making might be slow. You keep seeing the same problems coming up over and over again.
05:13
Kimone Napier
You feel like you're constantly putting out fires instead of building something. And maybe you're even working harder than you ever have, and somehow you still feel behind. So if that sounds familiar, the issue is almost never your effort. It's usually your structure, and we're going to talk about that. The season is also for the nonprofit leader, So I have a lot of respect for what nonprofit leaders carry, because, you know, you're running These big mission driven organizations and usually you have very limited resources, but the expectations are still high and there is a workforce that is deeply motivated by purpose but deeply susceptible to burnout. So turnover in the nonprofit sector is one of the most persistent problems that I see. And most of the solutions being offered don't even actually account for, you know, the really the unique environment of nonprofits.
06:07
Kimone Napier
And so I really feel for nonprofit leaders and what they're working with. So we're going to address that directly. This season is also for government agency leaders or executives at larger organizations who are dealing with the complexity that comes with scaling. You know, you might have multiple layers of management, legacy structures you have to deal with unions, compliance pressures, you know, workforce planning challenges. And so in that kind of environment, the stakes are really high and the margin for error is extremely low and limited. So I know that environment very well and I want to show you how this show can be useful to you. And of course, this season is for the leader who's just getting started. I have not forgotten about all of you.
06:56
Kimone Napier
You know, you might be building your first team, trying to get the foundation right before things get really complicated. And if you're here, the best thing I can tell you is that the decisions that you make right now about how you structure your company, your organization, how you Hire, how you manage, the thinking about the culture that you build, those decisions compound. And so getting them right early is one of the highest leverage investments you can honestly ever make. So wherever you are in that range, there is something in the season for you. Now taking a deep breath. If I just take a quick pause here, I just want to let you know if you're tuning in. My name is Kimon Napier. I run Hire Breakthrough, which is a strategic HR and organizational consulting firm.
07:44
Kimone Napier
So we work with founders, nonprofits, government agencies, and growing organizations to build people systems that support real sustainable growth. Now, if you've been listening and something is resonating, if you recognize in your organization in what I'm describing, the best first step is the free Pulse check@higherkbreakthrough.com Pulse check. It's a short assessment that gives you a clear picture of where your people system stand right now. And so just so you have that link again, that is higher. H I r e breakthrough.com pulse check. So go take it and then come back next week. Now let me tell you what we have coming over the next few weeks because I think it's going to be a strong season and I want you to know what you're signing up for.
08:35
Kimone Napier
So of course next week we're going to talk about AI and specifically what is actually changing in the workforce with it. So this is not the hype or the fear. This is going to be practical, strategic reality of what AI means for how you staff your organization and how you think about roles, your skills and what you as a leader need to be doing right now before you're caught reacting. And then after that we're going to go into of course, some retention. One of my favorite subjects and one of the most misdiagnosed problems in organizational lives. Like most leaders try to solve a retention problem with retention solutions. We need like better pay benefits, you know, doing engagement surveys and things like that.
09:19
Kimone Napier
And sometimes those things do help, but most of the time the real reason people leave has nothing to do with any of that. It started much earlier. And so we're going to trace it back. We're also going to talk about organizational structure, specifically how to know when your organization has up grown the way it was originally set up. Like we all know, businesses and companies have phases. So there are five signs that I specifically look for consistently and I'll walk you through all of them. We're also going to cover onboarding, pay, transparency, multi generational teams, nonprofit HR and even some skill based hiring. And honestly, including when it makes sense and when it doesn't make sense, I think is also key for a lot of the topics that we'll be talking about because honestly the answer is not the same for every organization.
10:11
Kimone Napier
So I just want to say that up front so you know that I do understand that. And of course we will be spending time at the end of the year people planning how to build your people strategy for the new year before January 1st. So you're executing a plan instead of scrambling to build one. Because most people, what happens as a leader, you know, they're rushing to finish everything at the end of the year and then come January they want to start hiring that and start to think about strategy. That's the wrong way to do that. And so we're going to address how you plan for in advance.
10:48
Kimone Napier
And of course I'm going to take you into the actual work that I do when I assess an organization's people systems, what I look for, what I almost always find and what it really means for the organizations that we work with. And it's going to be one of the most transparent episodes that I've ever done for the duration of this show and I'm really looking forward to it. So I also have another Surprise. New episodes are going to be dropping every week, so make sure that you subscribe on your podcast app right now so you don't have to remember to come back. So it'll just show up. Now, before I let you go, I want to say something directly. A lot of the leaders that I work with waited longer than they should have to address their people systems.
11:32
Kimone Napier
And it's not because they didn't care. They honestly they cared a lot. But it really is because the day to day demands of running an organization makes it easy to push this kind of work to the back burner. So there's always something more urgent, there's always a fire to be put out. And so what I've seen is that the organizations that invest in their people systems proactively before things break, they build something that holds, right? They're, they're able to retain their best people. They scale without chaos and they make better decisions faster because there's cloud and how the organization works. So that's what this show is all about and that is what I want for you.
12:13
Kimone Napier
So if you want to know where your organization stands right now, what I want you to do is go to higherbreakthrough.com pulse check and take the free pulse check. It's going to be a great starting point, so I encourage all of you to do that. And if you're ready to go deeper and if you want to work together directly, go to higherbreakthrough.com start and book a call with our team. We'd love to talk to you about what we're building. So thank you for being here for the season four premiere and I'll see you next week.
