My guest for this episode of Punk Rock HR is my friend Carlos Escobar, who is a seasoned HR, talent development, and change management leader. We discuss how Carlos uses change management and design thinking to drive meaningful change, what he expects from AI, and his personal philosophy about work.
Carlos has spent most of his career in HR and related roles, including recruitment, training, and development. Becoming an HR leader intent on being a force of good in HR and work, Carlos was an operations supervisor at Six Flags. His career continues to evolve.
“I’ve transitioned slowly over to talent development over the last few years, and I’ve kind of focused in on change management, some design thinking workshops and some of the processes that happen behind the scenes on those things,” he says.
Punk Rock HR is proudly underwritten by Betterworks. The world’s most dynamic organizations rely on Betterworks to accelerate growth by supporting transparent goal setting, enabling continuous performance and learning from employee insights. Betterworks is on a mission to help HR leaders make work better. Discover how they can help you by visiting www.betterworks.com.
How Do You Define Change Management and Design Thinking?
Change management and design thinking are common terms, but I’m not sure everyone understands them. So I asked Carlos to define them. He noted that change management is often described in terms of a project, but it’s really about how we want people to change their behaviors, mindsets, or viewpoints.
“Change management is just really getting on the people side of things and saying, ‘Hey, what will it take to get Laurie on board with this?’” Carlos says. “And one of my little turns of phrases I like to use is, ‘This is not just to survive change, but to thrive with the change.’
You don’t want people to comply with change but embrace it because they recognize its benefits.
Carlos says that design thinking is another way to help people move through change. Design thinking can touch on anything from product development to strategic planning, defining values to developing new ways to work.
“Design thinking is just bringing as many ideas to the table as possible and working through a framework to help groups make decisions,” Carlos explains. His personal approach to design thinking also strives to avoid brainstorming outcomes where the loudest voices dominate. “We try to raise all voices and give them the opportunity to be heard, and then make decisions in a rapid way while still being fair.”
How Should We View Artificial Intelligence?
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the buzzword right now. I happen to think HR, change management, and innovation itself will be disrupted by AI in a real way. I can see the footprint of AI very clearly right now in everything I’m doing and at every event I attend.
I asked Carlos about this, and he offered an interesting parallel to the early days of social media. He believes many people worried that if they didn’t jump into social, they’d fall behind. But while social media has become more accessible, it’s arguably peaked, and that might happen with AI.
“A lot of people are going to get ahead in that disruption,” Carlos shares. “The early adopters are going to get in there, and we all will benefit from doing that. There’s going to be a peak, and then it’ll settle back down into a normal.”
On the other hand, maybe in 15 years, “we’re being interviewed by AI ourselves instead of human beings,” Carlos adds.
Motivating People to Reach Their Potential
Carlos’ involvement in change management is an extension of his personal values.
“My personal philosophy on work is we have a responsibility to help people live and work to their full potential,” Carlos says. Helping people unlock their potential requires helping them, but not telling them what to do or doing it for them.
“If you’re leading a workshop like this or any workshop … you cannot be the center of attention,” he says. “You can’t be the person with the answers. You have to guide people to get those answers on their own.”
Throughout his career, even back at the amusement park, Carlos has always wanted to help the people around him.
“I wanted the people who walked through those doors and who were in my care, if I was their leader, to feel like they were able to do what they’re capable of at work and then, by default, at home,” he says. “So I think that’s what makes me try, that’s what makes me keep coming back to the table.”
People in This Episode
Carlos Escobar: LinkedIn, Instagram, Personal website
Transcript
Laurie Ruettimann:
Punk Rock HR is sponsored by Betterworks. The world’s most dynamic organizations rely on Betterworks to accelerate growth by supporting transparent goal setting, enabling continuous performance, and learning from employee insights. Betterworks is on a mission to help HR leaders make work better. Discover how they can help you by visiting Betterworks.com today.
Hey, everybody. I’m Laurie Ruettimann. Welcome back to Punk Rock HR. My guest today is Carlos Escobar. He’s a seasoned human resources leader based in San Antonio, and he’s worked for some leading brands out there, really helping organizations think through people management strategies, talent development, change management and design thinking.
So Carlos is my friend who is focused on innovation, and he also believes that there’s a force for good in the world as it connects to the world of work. So I love him for that, but most of all, I just like him for being my friend. And on today’s conversation, you’re going to hear us be friends, talk about real-world things and nerd out a little bit on the workforce and HR.
So if you know Carlos, you know he’s a fun, really great guy. And if you don’t know him, I invite you to sit back and get to know someone who really likes to think about the world of HR and the world of work in a critical and different way. So if you like all that, sit back and enjoy this episode of Punk Rock HR. Hey Carlos, welcome to the podcast.
Carlos Escobar:
Hi, Laurie. How you doing?
Laurie Ruettimann:
Oh my goodness, it’s real good to see you. Before we get started just talking about all the problems in the world that we’re going to solve today, why don’t you tell everybody who you are and what you’re all about?
Carlos Escobar:
Yeah, sure. I live in the San Antonio area, South Texas. I’ve been here my whole life. I’ve been in HR most of my career. So for a brief portion, I worked at a theme park, so an amusement park. And then I’ve transitioned slowly over to talent development over the last few years, and I’ve kind of focused in on change management, some design thinking workshops and some of the processes that happen behind the scenes on those things. So I was looking at my old bio, I think I’m up to 20 years now.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Oh my goodness.
Carlos Escobar:
In this space, in the industry, as they say.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Being amazing and talented and doing all of that.
Carlos Escobar:
Which is cool, but also a little bit sobering.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well, we’re going to tell everybody you’re 28 years old. You’re just a newbie in all of this. But I’m really curious about the theme park. Did you have a favorite ride?
Carlos Escobar:
So I worked at Six Flags Fiesta Texas. And at the time, I think that one of the big rides was Superman because it’s a smooth ride, super-fast, lots of loops and upside-downs. There was some other rides there that were a little rougher and kind of hurt my back. It’s a young person’s game working in a theme park, so.
Laurie Ruettimann:
For sure.
Carlos Escobar:
When you start getting a little older.
Laurie Ruettimann:
For sure.
Carlos Escobar:
Yeah.
Laurie Ruettimann:
The last time I was on a rollercoaster was in Las Vegas the weekend of my wedding, and it was so rocky and so terrible, and Ken and I emerged off that rollercoaster and almost threw up, and we figured marriage was enough of a rollercoaster. We have not been on one since. And so that’s 21 years ago. I mean, you’re right about theme parks being a young individual’s game. Oh my God, it’s disgusting.
Carlos Escobar:
I haven’t been on a rollercoaster since I left, so that was ages ago.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Carlos, I’ve just really enjoyed getting to know you over social media and spending time, so I’m glad you’re here today. You said two key terms that I don’t know that everybody understands, change management and design thinking. So can you tell me what those two are?
Carlos Escobar:
I would just sum up change management by saying if you have a project or you have a job to be done, if you want to get there faster, you need to manage that change, right? And I think we need to expand the definition of change, too, just because we can’t just think about it as projects. Because that’s way too easy to say, “We’re going to implement this new system” or whatever. That’s obvious.
But a lot of times when we train people, we’re asking them to change their behavior, we’re asking them to change the way they do things, the way they look at the world even. And change management is just really getting on the people side of things and saying, “Hey, what will it take to get Laurie on board with this?”
And one of my little turns of phrases I like to use is, “This is not just to survive change, but to thrive with the change, right?” To help people embrace it because they have to, but because they say, “Hey, this is going to help me. This is going to be something that’ll help all of us be better at our jobs.”
Laurie Ruettimann:
So that’s change management.
Carlos Escobar:
Yeah. With design thinking, I kind of say that’s another way of helping people through change in a broad way. So design thinking is, summary real quick, is just bringing as many ideas to the table as possible and working through a framework to help groups make decisions. Now it could be on anything from developing a product — so literally a physical product that’s going to go to market, a system, a software, anything like that.
It could also be strategic planning, creating values, developing new approaches to work. But the goal of those things is to not do the standard brainstorm, where the loudest voices take over, or the most powerful voices take over, and win no matter what. We try to raise all voices and give them the opportunity to be heard and then make decisions in a rapid way while still being fair. That’s how we use design thinking, my approach to it.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Before we talk about your job and what you do for a living and how change management and design thinking come together, you got somebody in the room with you that people may hear in the background. So who’s in the room?
Carlos Escobar:
Wally, the dog who is all of 6 months old and 100% chaos. I adopted him at the very end of 2022, literally the 29th of December. And he’s amazing. He’s great.
Laurie Ruettimann:
He’s amazing. But he was also —
Carlos Escobar:
He’s a survivor.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Yeah.
Carlos Escobar:
Yeah.
Laurie Ruettimann:
He’s also expensive, right?
Carlos Escobar:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right after I got him, he got parvo and was really sick for a while. And so I always say he’s my little 401k, so.
Laurie Ruettimann:
There you go. Well, if we hear him in the background.
Carlos Escobar:
Yeah.
Laurie Ruettimann:
We’re going to be totally fine with that. So why don’t you tell us a little bit about your job and what you do and how all of this comes together?
Carlos Escobar:
The foundation of my work right now is around the processes that support performance appraisals or performance reviews. So that’ll be the competencies, the systems and things like that. But what we say is, our side gig or the work that we do in addition to that, is supporting teams through workshops.
And so those happen to be in the design thinking and change management space. So they might be as simple as helping somebody plan a two- to three-year strategy, but sometimes it’s a little bigger than that. Sometimes they can be multi-day workshops. I’ve done change management workshops, things like that. So that’s where we really love to spend time with teams, things like that.
Laurie Ruettimann:
So Carlos, this is some super-nerdy shit. Why do you do what you do?
Carlos Escobar:
Oh, I’m fascinated by ideas, first off. I think I’ve always been drawn to them. And then second, I just love being in the room when those light bulbs go off, when people reach their own conclusions. Because if you’re leading a workshop like this, or any workshop for that example, you cannot be the center of attention. You can’t be the person with the answers. You have to guide people to get those answers on their own.
And so it’s really about asking the right questions, setting people up for success, reading the room a lot, and then people will find their way. And it’s sort of like, I’m trusting you today in this podcast, right? I have to ask people to trust me and say, “Hey, I’m going to guide you for this. I have you in this room for the next six hours. It’s going to be different. You’re going to not feel normal because this is not our normal way of working, but I’m going to get you there. And I’m going to make adjustments if we have to.”
Laurie Ruettimann:
I think there’s probably a real fear of failure in a lot of corporations right now, even though we’ve talked about creating psychologically safe environments. But to come into a room, into a workshop, and to be vulnerable, to say ideas that may not resonate with a group or are just terrible ideas, right?
It’s hard under normal circumstances. But with COVID, with remote work, with coming back to the office and returning to the office, and then also with layoffs hanging over everybody in the world — if it’s not us, it may be our friends or our loved ones — it’s got to be difficult to get people to just calm down. And trust that they’re in good capable hands. So can you talk to me about that?
Carlos Escobar:
Yeah. Sure. I probably spend, all of us, we spend probably the first quarter of the day, no matter what it is, just sort of laying down the foundation of what to expect and some of the frameworks of how we’ll be making decisions. And then we talked a lot about what we’ve done in the past, kind of like to say, “You’re in good hands. We’ve pretty much seen it all.” And then there’s also this element of “We’ll get as far as we get.”
We only have so much time. Just because we don’t finish it all doesn’t mean that it’s a failure. It’s just we advance as much as we can, but we have to come back. We do it again. It’s really just level-setting and just sort of saying, this is one of the few environments where it’s not a zero-sum game. We end where we end. Whatever conclusions we draw are exactly what we’re supposed to do for the day.
Laurie Ruettimann:
No quirky icebreakers to make people feel at home? No little games to —
Carlos Escobar:
Oh yeah, of course.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Like what? Give me an example.
Carlos Escobar:
I always ask, “What was your first job? The best thing to happen to you in the last year?” Or I always say “the coolest thing” because the best and the coolest tend to be different. I want to hear what people think is cool, things like that. Sometimes I kind of ask, “What’s coming up? What’s on your radar?” So, personally and professionally. So professionally is easy, but then personally, people are like, “Oh, I guess I need to talk about that vacation I’m planning.” Really gets people to open up.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Yeah, I love that. I love that. It’s not quirky or goofy at all. I mean, these things serve a purpose. I just wonder, when I started out in human resources, I didn’t know your type of job existed because it almost seems like a luxury for many organizations. In my mind, HR was benefits, recruiting and maybe terminating someone. Right? The softer stuff, maybe some training, maybe payroll — once we outsourced that, we didn’t talk about that. But this idea of change management and design thinking, it’s still at the vanguard of many organizations. Or do you think it’s becoming normalized in HR?
Carlos Escobar:
I don’t know about HR. I’ve read some articles that say that it’s becoming normalized in organizations. It’s almost, they’re even saying to the point to where maybe it’s had its day. But in a lot of organizations, they actually have innovation teams that do this. This is their primary job. And some organizations have changed management offices, too, just like they have project management offices.
My work over the last, probably, five to 10 years has been evolving, and I’m a big believer in job crafting. So I think you keep developing your skills, and you keep trying to find ways to use those skills in whatever job you’re in. And so I’ve been lucky enough to be in roles where I get to kind of test those spaces and kind of say, “All right, I’m going to go get a change management certification, and then when I come back from that, I’m going to get a chance to do a couple of these workshops even though it’s really not my job.”
And then over the years, it sort of becomes your job. It becomes the thing that people come and look for you to do. I mean, the same thing with innovation. We all have that same opportunity. You just kind of stick with it. Test your patience, of course, because you want to jump in and do it all. But I always say, we have our day jobs, right? And then we have our strengths, and we have what we’re interested in, and we just got to chase those things down.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well, it reminds me of something you’ve said over the years that you do kind of a couple-year life plan and you see how things go. You kind of have some ideas of where things are going to go, and then you intentionally revisit it. Well, why don’t you tell me about this process and what that’s done for you in your career?
Carlos Escobar:
Yeah. And actually, it was funny, I was thinking about that today because I think the last few years in the COVID era, I’ve sort of let go of that. I’ve sort of just kind of like, what’s right in front of me” Plan on that, figure that out, stay one step ahead of things.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Oh, what, being human and just surviving?
Carlos Escobar:
Yeah.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Like everybody else.
Carlos Escobar:
Yeah. Yeah.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Yeah, that makes sense.
Carlos Escobar:
What I was thinking about today was how I have been slow to reengage with that process. I’m still kind of just doing the month to month, week to week. And I was thinking today about how I probably need to get back to that. Where are things going to be in five years, two years — the kinds of things that we do in our workshops, right? I need to do those for myself.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Right.
Carlos Escobar:
The “cobbler’s children have no shoes”-type thing. So in the before times, I would just kind of take two years and just be like, “OK, two years, commit to this set of work, to this set of goals.” And then it doesn’t mean at the end of two years that you just burn it all down and move on. It’s just kind of a reassessment to just be like, “OK, are we still on track? Do things still feel right?” And whether that be work, volunteering. So I’ve done a lot of volunteer work with SHRM in the past. Anything. Where I’m living, all those things. Every once in a while, you got to install these little checkpoints to just make sure, do a temperature check, “is it still right for me?”
Laurie Ruettimann:
Yeah. But that’s brave because I think a lot of people are like you in the current times and me in the current times, we’re just trying to make it through the day. And if we assess where we’ve been and where we want to be in the next two years, I think we’re faced with a lot of uncertainty, and it feels like we can’t control things. But I would argue, and maybe you have a point of view on this, that we can control more than we think. We can design our environment to really determine some outcomes. But I don’t know, what’s your take on that?
Carlos Escobar:
We can, we just have to choose to. I think we have to make a conscious effort at it. Otherwise, it’ll be just like me this year, and you look up one day and it’s April 20-something, or it’s spring going into summer, summer going into fall, and I don’t know where the time has gone. To me, that is a red flag. It’s sort of like, “OK, I’m not being intentional. I’m not being planful about things because in January, lost a couple of weeks for COVID and then poof, half the year’s gone,” just being busy. Just being busy and not having anything, not to show for it, but just sort of not being intentional about the time.
Laurie Ruettimann:
So you’re doing some of this work right now. I’m fascinated about that. So if you’re vulnerable enough to share, what have you observed about where you’ve been in the past two years and where you think you want to go? And I’m actually driving towards a broader question because I think human resources, change management, all of that is going to be innovation. It’s going to be disrupted by AI in a real way. Everything I’m doing right now, writing, speaking, going to conferences, I can see the footprint of AI very clearly. So I wonder if that’s something you’re thinking about personally, professionally, what are your next two years going to look like?
Carlos Escobar:
This sounds very familiar, this AI disruption, or pending disruption. I remember in the heyday of HR social media — so there was a point when we were all talking about how, and I was right there at the forefront of this, saying, “Hey, if you’re in HR, and you’re not on Twitter and you’re not on LinkedIn and connecting with as many HR people as possible, you’re going to fall behind.”
And for a while, that was the case. I mean, that’s how we met. And now fast-forward 10 years, whatever it was, 15 years now, it’s a different space. Right? There’s sort of a luxury to not being in there. I still think though, that we have a connection and I have a connection with a lot of different people because of that. And I wonder if the same will be true for AI in the sense that there’s going to be a disruption. A lot of people are going to get ahead in that disruption. So the early adopters are going to get in there, and we all will benefit from doing that, and there’s going to be a peak, and then it’ll settle back down into a normal. Or maybe we’re kind of, at some point, let’s say, in 15 years, we’re doing another podcast here, or we’re being interviewed by AI ourselves instead of human beings.
Laurie Ruettimann:
No, no, we’re on CNN. That’s how famous we are.
Carlos Escobar:
Yeah.
Laurie Ruettimann:
In 15 years.
Carlos Escobar:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, who knows? I think of everything in cycles. There’s going to be the hype cycle. Right? But I do think there will be some winners and losers in that process. I’ve been playing with it, trying to understand it. I am by no means an expert, but that’s definitely on my list of things to consider.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well, I think about all the things we’ve been through in the past three years, and one of the really interesting commitments — I mean, you’ve always made this commitment — is your drive for wellbeing. And I think more than ever, I’m seeing that in you, but you’ve always been someone who wants to be outside, who vacations with REI. You’re an outdoors hiker guy, but you’re a runner. How do you think wellbeing fits into your next two years?
Carlos Escobar:
I have been lucky to not have a whole lot of health issues so far in my life. Getting COVID at the beginning of this year — and again, I was lucky to get it after vaccinations were available and after treatments and — but it was still eye-opening to just sort of, I guess, there was almost a sense of complacency that kind of took over for a while there. Kind of like, “Hey, I’ve made it almost three years and I haven’t gotten it. And it sounds like when everybody else gets it, they’re just fine.” But COVID kicked my butt for three weeks, and I did not have it nearly as bad as others. I am completely aware of that fact, but I don’t want to do that again.
And there was just this wake-up call of like, hey, it’s not just that. It’s not just COVID. You can only control for so many things in your life, but I got to lay off the burgers.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Yeah.
Carlos Escobar:
And the tacos and I got to, and as much as I run and walk, I probably need to be more committed to those things. And mental health, as well. It was just the big picture, all of those things. And I think we’re also, you and I are both at the stage in life where we’re not getting there, but we’re starting to get there, where maybe we’ll have more challenges in our life. We’re not the spring chickens we used to be. And I never thought I’d actually say that, but.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well, I am struck by our little journey that we had in January, where we ran a half-marathon together down in Austin. I mean, that’s the slowest half-marathon I’ve ever run intentionally. Right? I was not trying to kill it. I have inflammatory arthritis. I don’t want to bust anything. Right? But also you ran it without even knowing you were infected with COVID, which is just amazing.
It’s just amazing. And I felt like, though, that experience for me was really lovely because we got to spend some time together without a computer, without a mobile phone, just running and walking from time to time and talking about life and catching up. And then you got COVID.
Then I got COVID right away shortly thereafter, and it really further cemented our relationship. So your point earlier about how it felt like we had to be on social media at one point, but now there may be a benefit to not being on it and crafting these one-on-one relationships. I absolutely see that point. I feel that point, and I feel more connected to you for what we’ve been through. I don’t know. What’s your reflection on all that?
Carlos Escobar:
So I have running friends that I used to be in training groups from 2009, and we are still friends. Maybe we don’t see each other often, but we still message each other and anytime there’s a big life event, we’re all over it with each other. And I think there’s something about putting a challenge in front of you. Literally, you and I were running side by side, and the challenge was always in front of us.
Right? So every hill or cobblestone street that we were like, “Oh my God, really?” All of that was always in front of us. So instead of us talking about things that were elsewhere, we were always talking about what was in front of us or addressing it. Right? And of course, our conversation went all over the place, which is incredible.
But the challenge was always one step at a time, right? And it was courageous because there were times when I had to say, “Hey, I need to slow down.” And you said, “Let’s slow down.” That’s just stuff you don’t do very often. I don’t want to say it hot-wires connection, but I think running or hiking or doing those kinds of activities together have definitely helped cement connection in ways that it’s much harder to do online.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Yeah, for sure. One of the things that I thought was really beautiful to your point was the wide-ranging nature of our conversation, because we tackled it all. We fixed HR, we fixed work, we fixed our families, we talked about our dreams, we talked about vacations. And it was just another dimension of a human being that you normally don’t see. So that was really rewarding for me. And then coming back and automatically you caught the COVID, you caught it right away.
And then you had the rebound, if I’m not mistaken. Right? So this was a significant moment in your life. And I just, I don’t know, it’s so funny how we had this high of completing a very tough and not always downhill marathon, like they promised, right? There were plenty of uphills to the downhills. And so we had this really interesting accomplishment, and then we were both thrown into the depths of sickness. That is a very private and individual thing to do. I don’t know. It was a tale of two cities for me. How about you?
Carlos Escobar:
Oh yeah, definitely. I mean, I felt like running that half-marathon, I mean, I was just as untrained and unprepared as you were. So to me, it was just like we finished that thing and I was like —
Laurie Ruettimann:
I mean, good for us.
Carlos Escobar:
I was excited.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Yeah.
Carlos Escobar:
And happy that, yeah like, hey, look, we just did 13.1 miles without much preparation. That was awesome. And then just a couple of days later, I’m sneezing and just not feeling great. And then of course, get the first positive test, and it’s like come crashing back down.
And then when you got sick, it was kind of like, I remember just being like, “Well, crap.” I don’t know what or how that all happened, transpired. But our conversation continued for another two or three weeks in a way that we probably didn’t prefer, but we were just there checking on each other every couple of days, “Hey buddy, how you doing?”
Laurie Ruettimann:
Right.
Carlos Escobar:
So.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Still in your jammies? All right.
Carlos Escobar:
Yep.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Oh my goodness.
Carlos Escobar:
Yep. “Oh, I got up today. I did this.” But the next day, “Oh, I’m back feeling bad again.”
Laurie Ruettimann:
That’s exactly right. Well, it was definitely some highs and lows. And I just think, again, we were lucky to catch the COVID at the very tail end of what has been a terrible three years. But during those three years, organizations made promises to their workforce. Right? Compassion, empathy, we’re here for you, work from home. “Change management can be slow. We don’t need you to ramp up your productivity. We don’t need you to adopt any crazy new things because we’re all in this ‘new normal.’”
Remember that phase and that phrase? And now I think the world is so different. So Carlos, what happened? What happened to all these promises that companies made? And is HR to blame?
Carlos Escobar:
I don’t know if anyone’s to blame. I think it’s just sort of, if we’re left to our default mechanisms, we just go back to the way things were, right? So I mean, this happens in organizations everywhere. Right? So well, this is just the way we’ve always done it, right?
I think we’re in that pendulum swing right now. So we swung all the way one direction for COVID, for peak COVID, and then we started swinging more and more back to normal. And I think where there’s probably going to be a swing back to the other direction of like, well, let’s correct for the last three years, if you will. Right? And then it’ll probably settle somewhere in the middle, eventually, a more hybrid workplace. But the cost of that for people, the swing is mental health challenges, burnout, stress.
People designed a life in 2019 that they had to completely redesign and change. But they did that, and now they’re having to go through that process again, slowly but surely, redesigning to the new normal, a new, new, new normal. And then whatever it ends up settling on, that’s going to reshape workforces all across the board. Some organizations are going to win, and some are going to have challenges because they didn’t adjust to whatever gets settled on.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Is there anything that we can do in human resources to make this change — that we don’t control and we didn’t mandate — a little bit easier for our workers? What do you think about that?
Carlos Escobar:
I really think the big thing is just to tell people, be upfront about what we don’t know and what we do know. So it’s good to kind of say things like, “Well, we think this is the plan right now.” So in the early days of the pandemic, organizations were really good about saying, “We’re thinking in three months we’ll do this, and it may be in six months, or we’re going to hold off because right now we just don’t know what’s going to happen.”
But I think once we’ve sort of gotten out of that acute phase of the pandemic, that’s fallen off. So it’s kind of gone back to normal in the sense of we’re only going to communicate when we need to. But I think there’s still a lot of people left in that phase where they’re wondering what’s going to come next.
And so even if it’s just to say, “We’re not sure what hybrid looks like for us, or we’re not sure whether everyone’s going to come back to the office and or we’re not sure what the next five years of our workforce planning is going to look like, but we’re working on it and we’ll keep you informed.” And to me, that is just such a breath of fresh air when you get that kind of communication.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Absolutely. Well, you’re a breath of fresh air. I just heard a quote the other day that cynics and pessimists are often, but optimists are often wealthy. So I love that in our friendship, and I just think if anybody’s going to be wealthy from optimism, it’s going to be you. So congratulations on that distinction.
Carlos Escobar:
I’m like, you’re talking about me and optimism?
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well, at least with the world of work. I mean, I think you’re a pragmatic optimist, but wait, am I wrong?
Carlos Escobar:
No, I think so. I mean, of course, we talked about being an introvert earlier, and so I joke around that people will say things like, “Oh, you look so serious.” And I’m like, “This is my happy face.”
Laurie Ruettimann:
Right.
Carlos Escobar:
Or I’ll say things like, “This warms my cold, cold soul,” just as jokes, because I’m a quiet guy. I don’t walk into the room and just light it up. I have to work at it. I have to work at those things. That’s why I was kind of laughing about the optimism thing.
Laurie Ruettimann:
For the purpose of this conversation, you’re definitely an optimist. And also I think in the work that you do, you have to see the good in people, the ability to change, the ability to get people to move forward and be inclusive and share goals. I mean, that’s got to be hardwired into you. Otherwise, why would you even try? And you, my friend Carlos, you try, that’s one thing you do. You don’t give up. You try with people, maybe even more than they deserve. I don’t know. What do you think about that?
Carlos Escobar:
So my personal philosophy on work is we have a responsibility to help people live and work to their full potential. And I say that in almost every workshop I do, everywhere I go, and I think that’s at my core why I do what I do. Whether it be in talent development, HR, any other roles I’ve had.
Even back to the amusement park, I wanted the people who walked through those doors and who were in my care if I was their leader, to feel like they were able to do what they’re capable of at work and then, by default, at home. So I think that’s what makes me try, that’s what makes me keep coming back to the table, even when sometimes I can feel like, especially during the high points of the pandemic, you’re like, “Oh, it’s just too much.” But you got to, I feel like, just keep on doing it.
Laurie Ruettimann:
That’s exactly why I love you, I respect you, I’m so glad to call you my friend, and I’m so glad you’re a guest today on Punk Rock HR. If people want to follow you, I’m not going to go, “Woo-hoo, follow them on Facebook,” because that’s insane. That’s very 2017. But where do you want people to connect with you? Where should they go?
Carlos Escobar:
I think right now the best place to connect is on LinkedIn, and that’s just because I’m sort of reorganizing my website and things like that. So LinkedIn, I think my username there is CEscobar78. Also, my website. It’s still up and running, it’s just going through a little bit of a, it’s going through a phase right now, just like we all are.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Yeah. Right.
Carlos Escobar:
So that’s also.
Laurie Ruettimann:
It’s human. Absolutely.
Carlos Escobar:
Yeah. Yeah. So CEscobar.com, it’s just really, I just write about work and life and whatever else pops up.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Yeah, not enough Wally, that’s for sure. We need more blog posts about Wally. Absolutely. Well, Carlos, it was great to see you. Thanks again for being a guest, and we’ll include all of your good stuff in the show notes. And I’m just really appreciative for you getting me past those 13.1 miles. So thanks again.
Carlos Escobar:
Yeah. Thank you, Laurie.
Laurie Ruettimann:
If you’re interested in learning more about today’s show, you can visit PunkRockHR.com. There you’ll find show notes, links, resources and all the good stuff. Now, that’s all for today. Thanks for joining us, sharing this episode, and leaving thoughtful comments on Instagram and LinkedIn. We appreciate your support, this and every week, on Punk Rock HR.
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