Traci Austin Podcast Transcript
Traci Austin joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, Home of the Digital Executive Podcast.
[00:00:12] Brian Thomas: Welcome to The Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Traci Austin. Traci Austin is the Chief Strategy Consultant and owner of Elevated Talent Consulting, a certified women owned business that impacts small business and HR professionals in exceeding performance expectations while being fulfilled in their work.
Traci is a certified HR professional with two decades of experience building HR departments from the ground up for small businesses. Her mission is to create the container for every employee if they choose to be fulfilled in their work while meeting business outcomes. She does this through employee development and engagement, performance consulting, training, facilitation and coaching HR professionals.
Traci uses her consulting expertise to serve clients and applying behavioral concepts to hiring and selection. Designing and implementing talent pathways, coaching, motivation, and leadership. She is a highly sought after expert on these topics and she hosts a weekly podcast titled Talent Optimization with Traci Austin and has been distributed to thousands of HR professionals and business leaders across the globe.
Well, good afternoon, Traci. Welcome to the show.
[00:01:16] Traci Austin: It’s great to be here.
[00:01:18] Brian Thomas: Absolutely. Thank you. And again, appreciate you making the time. We get a little conversation electronically, and then we get to speak a little bit before the mic. So, we get to understand each other a little bit, but when we hit that record button is when everybody gets to hear your story. So, Traci, again, thank you for jumping on today.
[00:01:37] Traci Austin: Absolutely.
[00:01:38] Brian Thomas: So, Traci, we’re going to go right into the questions here. Let’s talk about your career a little bit in human resources. You are a partner, consultant, entrepreneur, executive. Now you’re the Chief Strategy Consultant of Elevated Talent Consulting.
Could you share with our audience the secret to your career growth and what inspires you?
[00:01:57] Traci Austin: Yeah, absolutely. So, what really inspires me is fulfilling work. And I think, origin stories always come from what is our pain and what was our pain and what we create out of that. And work has a way of, either Making your life or breaking your life in so many different ways.
And, I’ve now spent over 20 years in human resources, and I just have such a passion for people and a belief that if we create the container for individuals to be fulfilled in their work while meeting business outcomes and what’s important to them, the impact that they are having on the world, we are going to have individuals that are so much more fulfilled in their work and happy in life.
[00:02:41] Brian Thomas: I love that. And you being an HR, obviously you want to work in that proactive mode versus reactive mode, but it’s at the really the foundation of it is finding out what pushes people’s buttons and makes them do the things that they love to do. So, I appreciate you breaking that out for us.
Traci, you help both employees and companies, I’ve read up a lot about you, you’re doing some great stuff out there. You’re ensuring employees are fulfilled in their work while helping companies create a culture in which employees can be successful while hitting key business goals. Can you just dive into that, just a little bit?
[00:03:13] Traci Austin: Absolutely. So, what we really do with this is we believe in data. I mean, there’s some amazing science out there and data to show, hey, what really makes people tick. And when we specifically look at what is the role, what is needed in a role for the role to be successful for the organization.
Organization and what is needed for the person to be successful, that’s where we want to make that match. And so, we use a people data tool called predictive index, and that allows us to look at that fit to role. The other kind of unintended consequence of doing that exercise is we’re aligning the leadership team on what are the expectations of the role because otherwise.
And I know I felt this way. I don’t know if you have, Brian, but people feel like an octopus being pulled in eight different directions by eight different leaders. And so really what we like to do is say, hey, what does the data say? Let’s match the person to the role. And that’s one of the key ways of ensuring that they’re engaged in the work.
The other things that we look at is the leader leading them the way that they need to be led. And are they on a team where we’re really turning up the strengths of each individual so that they can meet the business outcomes in the strategy that that team is executing?
[00:04:34] Brian Thomas: Thank you. That’s so awesome. If you can truly match the person with their passion or things that they’re really good at. That’s a winning solution and I love how you’re employing some of those solutions and sharing some of that with us today. It’s very helpful because we’ve got people from all over the world in different verticals and we can always use a little bit of help from HR.
So, thank you, Traci. We are a technology platform. I’m a techie. This is a tech podcast. So don’t feel intimidated at all. I know I get some guests that say that, but truly we like to ask, are you leveraging any of that new and emerging technology in your business? And if not, it’s okay. Is there maybe a cool tool or app you found useful?
[00:05:14] Traci Austin: Absolutely. There are several and the number one technology piece that we use is Predictive Index. It is a piece of technology, it’s software as a service of course, but we build it into the human resource information systems with our clients. And I think that’s something really important. For me personally in my business and the tech that we use that helps us run so effectively.
There’s two, I think, key pieces that I love. One is Calendly because my calendar is like a game of Tetris and I love the fact that it sends follow ups and all those things, and I love a piece of technology called 90.io. It looks at EOS and really how do we ensure that our team is executing to the highest level, and we don’t miss things.
[00:05:59] Brian Thomas: I love that. What I always share with my guests is we find, it seems just about on every podcast, a new application or platform that is being shared on this platform. And it’s like a free plug for these companies. So, I do certainly appreciate the share. Traci, last question of the evening, can you share something from your career experience that might be helpful for those listening, looking to grow their career in human resources or entrepreneurship?
[00:06:26] Traci Austin: Yeah, absolutely. And what I would say if you’re looking to grow your career is figure out what drives you. And I know that sounds cliche, but seriously, what is your passion? What drives you? What is it that has you go work is fun and it doesn’t feel like work. When you can figure that out and doggedly go after that and ask the questions of how do I either step into this?
How do I create this? Work will be so much more fulfilling for you and you will excel at a much higher and faster rate with ease and flow versus fighting against what you feel you have to do.
[00:07:02] Brian Thomas: Awesome. And that really was the theme of this conversation this evening is really finding out those hot buttons what people like, what they’re passionate about, and if you can do that thing, I know it sounds simple.
But if we truly can do that, that makes a world of difference. And Traci that certainly resonates with me, obviously being a leader for many years. I appreciate the nuggets this evening. Traci, it was a pleasure having you on today and I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
[00:07:28] Traci Austin: Thank you so much. Have a great evening.
[00:07:30] Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Traci Austin Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s podcast page.
