Write Your Own Rules
The latest addition to our Lieutenant Series – Heidi Spirgi -- is a brilliant example of what it means to write your own rules. Heidi started her career as an HR systems analyst in Switzerland and spent seven years in product marketing and industry strategy at Peoplesoft. She left the HR tech giant at its height to co-found her own HR consultancy, Knowledge Infusion, with no consulting experience whatsoever and sold it to Appirio in 2012.
Heidi is now Chief Strategy and Growth Officer at Cornerstone, and using her people-first philosophy to shake up how technology serves not just a business, but its employees as well. She is also an advisor for Tercera, a board member, a sought-after speaker, one of HR Executive Magazine’s top influencers, and a vocal advocate for diversity and inclusion. In between all that she is a mother, taught herself how to sail, and is now attempting to summit the four highest peaks in Lake Tahoe.
In this Q&A, she describes the disillusionment that inspired a major career move, how representation in the workplace is essential to cultivating innovation, and why every leader should embrace their unique strengths early in their career.
There’s a lot of ground we could cover, but let’s start with how you ended up in your current role at Cornerstone.
After 20+ years in the HR technology space, half of that in services and half in product, I became disillusioned by the lack of progress and impact we were actually having on businesses. If you look at how organizations operate with their people today compared to 10 or 20 years ago, we've certainly made progress, but not as much as I would have expected. We spent so much time building systems and processes that served HR and the business, but we weren't serving people in the process.
I saw all these adjacent industries outside of HR tech that were driving so much more innovation in the workplace and for people at work.
Living in Silicon Valley, there was so much innovation happening all around me. I saw all these adjacent industries outside of HR tech that were driving so much more innovation in the workplace and for people at work.
Just look at consumer industries. They’ve completely changed, seemingly overnight, how people learn, buy, communicate, and more. Today’s AI capabilities, from a marketing perspective, are second to none and can be downright creepy. And yet we haven't been able to do that to serve our people at work. I’m not saying we want to build creepy software, but why hasn’t the HR tech space made a similar impact? I realized it was time for a sea change in HR technology.
It sounds like you aim to shake up HR tech’s status quo in this new role.
Exactly. My focus is building upon these past two decades of talent software to create real value. The world is changing fast and people are struggling to keep up with the pace. This rapid evolution of skills isn’t going to slow down. Sure, software and content can help close the gap by taking workers from where they are today to what their job requires, but how can we help solve that problem and serve people in a completely different way?
This starts with serving the people, not the business. That's what I came on board to do.
At Cornerstone, we're aiming to help HR go from a top-down, process-centric model of talent management to a bottoms-up organic model. This starts with serving the people, not the business. That's what I came on board to do.
What we’re doing at Cornerstone might be unconventional for a software company, but look at Apple. They’ve created this beautiful fusion between software, hardware, and content that has changed entire industries. When you control the content and the software, you can do a lot of things that you wouldn't otherwise do.
You’ve always been a people-first leader and were a champion for diversity and equity inclusion before it was a talk track for most companies. What was the catalyst for that focus?
It all stems from personal experience. At the start of my career, I was made acutely aware of how differently I was treated as a woman. About 25 years ago I started my HR tech career working in Switzerland. At that point, they were far behind the United States in terms of workplace equality. For example, during the interview process, they asked if I planned on having children soon when asking something like that was already illegal in the US at that time.
It wasn’t until I started my own company and wrote my own rules that I was able to finally self-discover my unique leadership style. I realized I don't need to be like anyone else. I can be me.
Tech and software have always been a male-dominated world, but back in the early 90s, there were even fewer women in leadership. I couldn't envision myself as one of the many male leaders I was interacting with at PeopleSoft. To this day, I’ve never reported to women, and I think this is an aspect of every minority’s struggle -- to see themselves in a leadership position when they can’t relate to the leaders around them.
I know it took me longer to develop my leadership chops as a result of just being surrounded by men, but in the end, this is part of what influenced the way I lead people today. It wasn’t until I started my own company and wrote my own rules that I was able to finally self-discover my unique leadership style. I realized I don't need to be like anyone else. I can be me.
Why do you think diversity is so important to business growth?
I've always been fascinated by what drives innovation, and I believe cognitive diversity is essential to innovation. If you're going to try to be a leader in your industry and reinvent what has come before, which is required even more today than ever before, you have to have the best minds at the table. Not only the best minds but different minds.
If you're going to try to be a leader in your industry and reinvent what has come before, which is required even more today than ever before, you have to have the best minds at the table. Not only the best minds but different minds.
There's a great book called The Medici Effect that talks about this. The Medici were a family in Florence, Italy during the Renaissance who were basically the sponsors of the best thinkers across Europe. They brought them all to Florence. You had astronomers, playwrights, physicists, artists, and poets all coming together, and instead of having all of the astronomers talk to the astronomers and the physicists talk to only physicists, they cultivated an environment where they all interacted and shared ideas.
These gatherings blew apart existing patterns of thinking in their niche corners of expertise and inspired world-changing ideas. Cognitive diversity is so important that it became part of my business and leadership philosophy. I also think promoting it is what’s right to do for the world.
What advice would you give to a group of founders or leaders who know diversity is important, but are growing fast and just trying to keep pace? Where should they start?
The first thing I would tell them is that you need to agree that it is a priority, period. Then how are you going to hold each other accountable to the fact that it's a priority? Because, as we all know, it’s very easy to say something's important and believe it in your heart and soul. But when you're moving fast the individual decisions don't always add up and align with that importance.
If it's a small or early-stage company, make diversity a recruiting priority from the onset. It’s so much easier to solve for in the early stages.
If it's a small or early-stage company, make diversity a recruiting priority from the onset. It’s so much easier to solve for in the early stages. That means ensuring and demanding that whoever's doing your recruiting is presenting a diverse slate of candidates. It means having a diverse interview panel. It means questioning certain decisions to make sure they align with your goals.
Every single time I'm approving a hire I make the hiring manager justify a non-diverse candidate hire. That's not to say you shouldn't hire according to merit, but every single hire adds up, and it's easy to get to 1,000 people, look around and realize everyone looks and thinks the same. You have to understand the market you're in and the availability of talent so you don't set yourself up for failure but set a goal. Look at the data, figure out the target ratios for a slate of candidates, and set that as a benchmark and expectation.
Every single time I'm approving a hire I make the hiring manager justify a non-diverse candidate hire.
Minorities want and deserve visibility for opportunities, and creating opportunity doesn’t mean giving away jobs. It means helping build an equal, accessible playing field. Creating a truly diverse and inclusive environment goes far beyond recruiting, but it's a great place to start.
This has me thinking of the diversity of your career. You’ve worked in public companies and private companies, start-up environments, and large global organizations, in consulting and product organizations. What are some lessons you've learned building teams and companies in all these different environments?
Sometimes your lack of experience is actually your strength. It’s also known as the beginner's mindset. It’s easy for leaders to get into a rut when leading with expertise instead of curiosity. All that does is shut down possibilities. The world needs so much reinvention and innovation is scarce. It's far easier to copy and paste the things we’ve learned or assumed from prior experiences. Real innovation requires fresh thinking, and that’s hard to get if you've been steeped in an industry of function and you believe you're already an expert.
It’s easy for leaders to get into a rut when leading with expertise instead of curiosity.
When I started Knowledge Infusion I had never even been part of a consulting project. I wasn’t bringing the Deloitte, IBM, or Accenture consulting models to the table. Instead, my team and I approached every engagement with open minds and eagerness to use our tools and build along the way.
Another thing I’ve learned is that change needs to be an executive’s number one responsibility.
Another thing I’ve learned is that change needs to be an executive’s number one responsibility. That means changing an industry, changing your company, changing your customers, changing your team, and where they work. Change is undervalued and a lot of leaders don't focus on it enough. You have to start with your vision, then define and build it, but most importantly, guide your people into being part of it.
You should also spend time early in your career discovering your unique leadership stripes.
You should also spend time early in your career discovering your unique leadership stripes. I took a strengths assessment for the first time in 2012 and it was earth-shattering. I finally had a language for what made me unique and good and valuable. Those things might be different than what makes you great, but embracing your strengths can accelerate your path to leadership.
Do you aspire to be a CEO someday or do you prefer being a lieutenant?
I'm going to give you an unfulfilling answer -- maybe. After starting my own business it's been challenging at times not to be at the helm, but it’s more complex than just not being the boss. It’s because I love to build businesses and think through all of the angles of growth and execution. I thrive on taking risks and owning the choice and dealing with the consequences.
I thrive on taking risks and owning the choice and dealing with the consequences.
Since selling Knowledge Infusion, I’ve made deliberate career moves to build different experiences and prepare myself for either being a CEO or sitting on a board. I like breaking rules, and I like doing things that no one's done before. It's much easier to do that as a CEO than as a lieutenant.
Since you’re a risk-taker, what’s your next risk?
I'm currently working on summiting. My goal by the end of the summer is to summit the four tallest peaks in the Tahoe area. It's more bouldering than rock climbing, but there are unique challenges. Dealing with the heights and safety risks really pushes me.
Heidi at the summit of Freel Peak in Lake Tahoe, CA.
In a sentence, what do you want your professional legacy to be 20 years from now?
It's very simple and very short. That I helped people and companies achieve things they didn't think were possible.
Do you know a game-changing lieutenant that we should feature? Shoot us an email.
