The Power of Purpose: Building Strong Cultures in a Digital World with Maria Farrow S4 I Ep4

In this episode of the Career Transitions Podcast, we're joined by Maria Farrow, former Chief Human Resources Officer of Sephora. Maria brings a wealth of experience in driving innovative HR practices and navigating the evolving landscape of work. 

We discuss:

* The challenge of balancing leadership experience with the need for fresh, tech-savvy perspectives.

* How AI and automation are shaping the future workforce and the importance of continuous learning.

* Sephora's strong company culture and commitment to purpose, employee development, and a positive work environment. 

* Why purpose is crucial for attracting and retaining talent, especially among younger generations.

* Practical advice for future-proofing your career, including embracing lifelong learning and seeking purpose-driven organizations.

Connect with us on LinkedIn:

· Vanessa Iloste (Host)

· Vanessa Teo (Host)

· Aaron Wu (Producer)

Transcript

[00:00:00] Vanessa I: Welcome to the new episode of the Career Transition Podcast. We continue our research on the future of work and what it will take to be successful. 

[00:00:13] Vanessa T: Today we speak with Maria Farrow, former Chief Human Resources Officer of Sephora, a beauty retailer. 

[00:00:19] Vanessa I: Maria shares about the balancing act of integrating digital technology and the human touch of leadership.

[00:00:25] Vanessa T: And what struck us was also what she shared about the importance of purpose driven work, and the need for organizations of the future to champion a strong culture. Centered on making the world a better place. 

[00:00:36] Vanessa I: We hope that you will be inspired by Maria's wisdom and insight.

[00:00:48] Vanessa T: Welcome everyone to the next episode of the Career Transitions Podcast, the show where we explore what it takes to successfully navigate through career transitions, no matter which stage of life or career you're at. Today, we have a very special guest with us, Maria Farrow, a seasoned HR professional with a wealth of experience in driving innovative HR practices.

[00:01:10] Maria, welcome to our show. 

[00:01:12] Maria F: Thank you so much for inviting me. I'm absolutely delighted to be here with both of you, Vanessas, it's a privilege. 

[00:01:18] Vanessa I: Maria, it's an honor to have you with us today. Let me introduce you to our audience. You were born in Ireland and after graduating from university, you joined Procter & Gamble in their sales division.

[00:01:30] You then made a fascinating transition into HR and worked at Procter & Gamble in this field for many years. After nearly 20 years with Procter & Gamble and Kellogg's, you joined the LVMH group, first in the perfumes and cosmetic division and then at Sephora. At Sephora, you played a pivotal role in transforming the company's global HR strategy, focusing on digital transformation, employee engagement, and diversity and inclusion.

[00:01:56] Your leadership during challenging times, such as the COVID 19 pandemic showcased your ability to adapt and prioritize employee wellbeing. Having worked with you on your team, I can say it was a pleasure. 

[00:02:09] Vanessa T: Vanessa and I have embarked on a research project on the future of work and we're dedicating this season to exploring what it takes to be successful in the future of work.

[00:02:18] And we really value the perspectives of seasoned HR professionals like yourself. And your experience at Sephora, with its very youthful workforce, must have given you a unique perspective in the evolving nature of work. Love to just hear how you would describe the future of work. 

[00:02:36] Maria F: I'm going to start by saying, in some ways you're talking to the wrong person, because I'm 61 years of age and I'm not sure that any of us who got to C suite level and who are late 50s or early 60s are in fact the right people to be talking to about the future of work.

[00:02:54] It brings one of the big paradoxes of our age, which it's quite difficult to marry in a way, the experience that you need to run a successful company with the freshness of thinking and the youth, in a way, and openness to change and understanding of technology and AI and where it's going. To marry those things together, I think, is one of the big challenges facing all C suite executives.

[00:03:24] Because almost by definition, by the time you get to the top of the company. You're going to have grown up through a certain set of transition and technology and ways of working and yet the world is changing so rapidly now that very often it's the youngest people in the company that are at the forefront of what the latest platform is and so I think one of the big challenges genuinely for the future of work has going to be how do we marry those different insights and voices together to a traditional hierarchical way of managing a company where the assumption was that the person at the top of the company knew the answers. They would hand them down and they would be cascaded down through the organization. 

[00:04:11] Vanessa I: It's very powerful what you're saying.

[00:04:13] I think that this is also something we are experiencing ourselves when we are being asked actually to bring the right level of leadership into our organization. We have this paradox happening all the time. Do we choose the wisdom and maybe the experience? Do we choose something more refreshing for everyone?

[00:04:31] One of the themes we have been exploring this season is the impact of technology on the workplace. How do you think emerging technologies like AI and automation will shape the future workforce? 

[00:04:42] Maria F: It's a huge question and I think it's a question where the answer is galloping away faster than many people are able to keep up with it.

[00:04:49] I think the people that truly understand what AI is and can be and can do and can become, I think it's a tiny percentage of the population. Even when you talk to someone who's an expert in AI, which I happened to do recently, and this person said, yep, I don't know. And I thought that's interesting. It was a real sign of intelligence and humility, actually, that this person who was an expert said, I don't know.

[00:05:12] This thing is growing so fast and so exponentially that it would be foolish for any of us to sit and predict what it can become. I had a look at the PwC survey recently. You can see a bit of that coming through. There is an optimism about what AI can be and what it can bring, but there are some very real fears.

[00:05:30] I've seen quite a lot of discussion of what some of those fears are. Every new breakthrough comes with a kind of an equilibrium of how it can be used for good, and then how it can be used for bad. That's just the way of the world or the universe, even there's always this duality I think the difference that's been happening and is now happening with AI is the speed at which these things come at us.

[00:05:53] Nobody's an expert anymore. As soon as somebody thinks they're an expert, there's somebody else over there that's just leapfrogged. That requires shifts in our own mindset more than anything else, and it impacts how company cultures will evolve and work. You cannot anymore rely on your previous experience.

[00:06:11] Therefore, you have to become comfortable with being a continuous beginner and a continuous learner. And in some ways, it reminds me of some of the things that you hear if you read about zen philosophy, some aspects of Buddhism, which I'm interested in, but I know there's the thing in zen, which talks about being continuous beginner, right?

[00:06:30] I think it's going to become one of the soft skills that we haven't talked about much in the past, but that will become increasingly important going forward. What do you think? 

[00:06:42] Vanessa I: I think it reminds me a lot of the beginning of the COVID 19 and when we got all together and you were supporting us, I remember the tone of your voice saying something that sounded like this is a marathon.

[00:06:53] It's going to be a long battle. And we are going to go through it together, but we need to have the humility of acknowledging the fact that there are many, many things that are not possible for us to know yet. I thought that these were the best words of wisdom that we had heard for many weeks. It was very empowering.

[00:07:12] Maria F: I remember you giving me feedback a while afterwards and I remember you saying to me, I was so surprised when, instead of telling us what to do, you came back and you said, it's the first time in my career, instead of telling us what to do you were saying, well honestly I don't know either but we're in it together and we're going to figure this out.

[00:07:27] We're going to hold hands as a team and we're going to step into it, not away from it, and we're going to step in together and we're going to figure it out. And we did. I think COVID is a very good comparison because in a situation like that, if someone is acting as though they know exactly what to do, then that person is, I'm sorry, but lying because you cannot live through an experience that no one has lived to you for and say that you know what to do.

[00:07:50] And if you're doing that, then that's just ego talking, right? That's the kind of, I need to be in charge and my ego needs to be in charge and I have to look like I'm on top of this. The rapidity of the change that's going to come with AI. And I know another analogy that I used to talk about quite a lot when I arrived in Sephora.

[00:08:08] It was a new one. It was a new analogy, at least in the organization, where I would say, look, what we're going to build for the future, it's going to be an ecosystem. The way these build a hive, it's the way organizations are going to work in the future where there are no more firm walls. And so that effort to, uh, hold hands, to break down the imaginary division that exists in every company, they're imaginary.

[00:08:35] And when I say they're imaginary, I know that they're real. When you're working in, and I'll continue with this, when you're working in finance and you're reporting to your finance leader. You're working in HR, you're working in a HR leader. When I say they're imaginary, they are imaginary to all of the people who are working in our stores, who are just wondering about, do I have a job or not?

[00:08:54] Am I going to get, you know, am I going to get help through this crisis? They don't know whether or not HR and finance are talking to each other when they're adding up the numbers. Our customers who care about, I want to be able to buy my stuff, and what am I going to do now, and how do I get a delivery?

[00:09:10] They don't care. So in that sense, when you start thinking about it from the point of view of how does the receiver of this work feel? They just know that they need to get paid. They need to know whether Sephora is going to train them while they're working from home. Seeing it from that point of view rather than seeing it from the point of view of this, how we're internally structured.

[00:09:35] And if you're able to broaden your mind to think that our internal structures are an imaginary construct in a way, it's something we've created for ease of administration. 

[00:09:47] Vanessa T: Maria, I like when you talk about this culture that exists at Sephora, and I've always been very fascinated. Sephora is well known for a very strong culture and commitment to development and to really building a really strong employee culture.

[00:10:01] What were some of those initiatives that you had spearheaded in Sephora that really helped to build and to place you in a way that Sephora is placed for the future of work? 

[00:10:11] Maria F: Oh, that's a great question. I can take very little credit for the amazing culture that we've, you know, to a large extent, already in Sephora when I arrived.

[00:10:21] And one of the things I've come to believe over time is that a really important part of culture is actually what are the stories we tell around here? How do we talk to each other about where we work? How do we feel about it? What are the things we celebrate? There are some things that AI cannot do. And those things have to do with really understanding what's underneath creating culture to a large extent is about the humanness of the stories we tell each other about the company, about the culture. 

[00:10:52] What happened when we were on that training together and do you remember that there was that night or what happens when we're going through tough times as a team and we pull together and we bonded and we worked a really late night but it was so fun at the end and in the end somebody brought in pizza and you will never forget it.

[00:11:09] Those are actually in my belief system. An observation. Those are the things that create culture in a deep and profound and very human way. And I think that those are the things that AI cannot replicate. We know that when you walk into a Sephora store, there is a buzz about it. There's a feeling about it.

[00:11:29] One of our real values is that we want every single person who walks into a Sephora store to feel more beautiful about themselves when they walk out. And that's a very deep value. And you can't invent that. It evolves over time through the actions that are taken, through the examples that are shown, through the stories we tell each other.

[00:11:51] What's magical in a culture from what AI can do and cannot do. And I think that's going to be having those insights and being able to value them will be what helps us as HR in particular chart the way forward. I really believe companies that are able to do that and celebrate that and live that will have better results going forward than companies who think, oh, it's okay.

[00:12:18] You know, I can sack HR and AI can do everything. 

[00:12:21] Vanessa I: One of the things that is closely connected to culture is purpose and purpose is very dear to your heart and I still remember when we started the journey about purpose a couple of years ago, I wanted to know why you have always advocated for purpose in the workplace and why you have often mentioned that the new generation will not be attracted to a place without purpose.

[00:12:42] Maria F: Well, I'm going to tell a little anecdote I told it to the Sephora lead team. When we first started to work on purpose, my daughter is 26 now. When she was 16, we always used to have dinner together as a family. And she said, I have a question. Is the world a better place because your company is in it? And she asked it to my husband, who at the time was working with an NGO.

[00:13:00] And she asked it to me. And at the time I was working for Kellogg's. And she said, I really want to know, is the world a better place because your company is in it? I thought, wow, what an amazing question it is. And so I really stopped and I really had to think about it. And I carried it with me as a great question, is your purpose, I think, or it should be, is the world a better place because your company is in it?

[00:13:21] And so then years later, I found myself Sephora with the executive team and we were working on strategy and all of the rest of it, what pillars should go into our strategy. And I remember I just spoke up and said, I think we're missing one. I don't think we've answered the question. Sephora is a fantastic company. But I don't think we have answered the question for ourselves. Is the world a better place because Sephora was in it? Someone tried to bring it back to business and then someone else said, oh, that's interesting, but then we need to move on. We probably have enough pillars already.

[00:13:52] And it was one of the times, um, I know Vanessa's seen me do this, but it was one of the times where I would not let go. And I just kept coming back and saying, Is there a more important question we need to answer? Is there a more important question we need to go home and tell our children about? And then three, four, five voices around the table said, No, Maria's right.

[00:14:09] That's a really good point. Is the world a better place? We should be clear on this. It links to what are our values? How do we treat employees? What's our position on CSR? Are we sustainable? How do we improve in that? And then, in turn, that led to the idea that we should have a chief purpose officer. We should have somebody who's looking at all of these areas.

[00:14:28] I felt really strongly about this and was kind of a bit evangelical about it. But the other side, I know it resonated with a lot of people, was I said, look, Sephora deserves this. Sephora deserves us. We are now at a point in our development, we've had people working so hard in countries and regions, and we're now at a point, look at the size of us and we're growing.

[00:14:47] We deserve to have a global purpose and a coherent point of view on some of these very important topics. I am very proud to have initiated some of those discussions. 

[00:14:59] Vanessa T: I'm struck by what you said. Is your company a better place? Is the world a better place because your company is in it? What a powerful question to ask and what a powerful question to really put in people's minds.

[00:15:11] When Sephora appointed your Chief Purpose Officer, I remember seeing the news on then and thinking, this is truly quite an organization that really puts purpose at the center of everything you do. 

[00:15:21] Maria F: Nobody would be surprised to hear me say, we're to fight for that. I had some very tough questions, like, what are you guys doing?

[00:15:27] Is this some kind of made up job? There is still a point of view in certain aspects of business. We're not a charity. And I genuinely understand and respect those questions. But I think a lot of what's going wrong in the world is because organizations think they can avoid carrying the additional tough questions.

[00:15:45] We have so much to do, the numbers are so hard. And for me, I don't know that there's a more important long term question than is the world a better place because your company is in it. You can have more important short term questions. 

[00:15:58] Vanessa I: Yeah. 

[00:15:59] Maria F: I don't know that there's a question you would be more proud in telling your grandchildren than, oh, you know, I worked for this company and we did this and I feel incredibly proud of that because I think the world is a better place because we did that.

[00:16:13] Vanessa T: A purpose driven organization indeed. And when we think about the evolution of the workforce and with hybrid styled working and with dispersed remote teams all over the world. How do you maintain this type of strong company culture and the belief in purpose with disparate teams all over the world? How do you go about doing that?

[00:16:35] Maria F: I think very specifically, it's important that you have the right leaders. I think it's been my experience that the desire to do the right thing exists incredibly strongly at all levels of most organizations. And I think it's only ever stamped out or dimmed by leaders who are very understandably in many cases dressed or pressured or under enormous time commitment and who lose sight of helping organizations to remember who they are and who lose sight of how important it is to allow people to demonstrate and live the good things that they want to do.

[00:17:15] I've never yet, in any organization I've been in, found that people don't want to do good things when you give them even half a chance to do it. People want to have meaning in their lives. We all want to win. We want to get the numbers. But you want to feel that you're doing that in an ethical way.

[00:17:32] Ideally, I think most people want to feel like they're doing it in a way that's ethical, in a way that has meaning. And if I can lead the world a little bit better because I did this, then most people find that, I think, deeply motivating. 

[00:17:44] Vanessa I: We have gathered so many valuable insights from you. We wanted to, um, actually hear, uh, the three tips that you will have for our listener when it comes to future proofing their career.

[00:17:56] Maria F: Listening to young people, I think, really have that attitude of humility. I don't mean that in an unbalanced way, because I think I was very careful to say at the beginning that I think going forward, it's going to need to be a marriage between the understanding and insights of new technology and platforms, et cetera, but it's a marriage of that with the experience and the knowledge and the know how and the savoir faire of the people who've been around.

[00:18:21] And so I think it's the bringing of those things together. And I think that requires openness, willingness to learn, willingness to admit you don't have all the answers, realizing that change is going to be constant and fast and that organizations that learn to operate more like ecosystems will manage that fast, constant change better than organizations that try to hang on to traditional hierarchical designs.

[00:18:48] You know, and asking you people in the various ways that you can, we put in place one thing that I'm really proud of with Charlotte, putting in place the surveys that allow people to give feedback globally for the first time ever. We didn't have it before, but in a way that works and it's simple. And then really listening to that feedback, listening to it and acting upon it.

[00:19:06] Vanessa I: Well, thank you so much, Maria, for joining us today. We wish you all the very best for the next chapter of your career, next chapter of your life. We look forward to following your adventures all over the world. Thank you so much, Maria, today. 

[00:19:19] Maria F: Thank you so much, Vanessa. It's been a real pleasure.