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She Built the Well-Being Strategy for the CIA. Here Is What Every Company Is Missing | Ep. 336 with Dr. Jennifer Posa
00:36:57
Daniel Robbins interviews Dr. Jennifer Posa, former Chief Wellbeing Officer of the CIA, on what resilience really means inside high performing organizations. She explains why wellbeing is not “wellness,” how leaders can use data to treat culture as a performance strategy, and why the human machine partnership will define the next era of work. Dr. Posa also shares the leadership behaviors she saw in the best executives, including self awareness, judgment, and a bias for smart action, plus the simple moments that build trust fast.
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Dr. Jennifer Posa
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Interviewer Doug
So Dr. Jen, something I've I've realized with you is you are so passionate about the well being and culture of an organization. I think we can obviously see like if you have a better culture then the organization might be better. But why is it that you care so much about the well being of the employees at an organization?
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Dr. Jennifer Posa
So I do really care and I think the reason is because a I've gone through my own struggles in terms of my own career trying to find the right leader, the right team, the right organization. Right? I've been lucky to have incredible organizations to work for, but I've also had those ones that just weren't a great fit for me. Or maybe I didn't have a great fit with my leader. But I think at the end of the day, I mean I have three children and so these three young ladies are growing up to go into workplaces and I think about them walking through the doors or you know, if it's a virtual door, if you will, or being cared for by an employer and I want to make sure that they're set up for success not only to perform, but also to just be really good people and be taken care of. And that's really what happens is you join an organization so that they can not only help you succeed, but also they're caring for you in many ways through their benefits, their services and the environment they're providing you. So it really impacts your whole life. So I care a lot because of my own experience and what that's taught me and how much you can do to improve it. But also for the leaders of tomorrow and including my children, we're at a
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Interviewer Doug
fascinating crossroad right now, I feel, because on one end you have companies are obviously always trying to maximize profits, which many times is at the expense of lessening the amount of people. On the other hand, you have technology advancing enough where it could potentially in the very near future replace. It already is large amounts of people, AI, robotics, et cetera, agents. How do you see all this playing out when you, when you have, it's almost conflicting things. You have people that obviously want to work somewhere. You have companies that are obviously looking to replace people.
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Dr. Jennifer Posa
Yeah. So I mean, I totally agree with you. I mean, it's a time of significant change and it's really important to recognize that things are changing. You're not going to be able to stop the change. And technology can actually help us advance. So in my opinion, it's not either the machine or the person, it's both. And I think the organizations that are going to win are going to be the ones that can not only optimize the technology that's available and the new technology, but make sure that people stay within the center of it. Because it's our utilization of that technology and the power of both the human and the machine together that's actually going to advance us exponentially. We hear and we talk a lot about what is AI going to do for us. And I'm, you know, with all qualifications, I'm not an AI expert, but what I can say is that the judgment, the critical thinking skills, the relationships that we form within, with those that we're working with, whether they're on our own teams or partners that we're working with out in the field, I mean, those relationships are critical. In fact, if you don't have the human relationship, you won't actually utilize the technology in the right way. You might not be playing the roles that you're supposed to be playing. Maybe there isn't a level of accountability that's possible. Right. So there's so many dynamics in it. And my, my hypothesis and What I believe is going to happen is the organizations that understand the relationship between individuals and the machine and identify those and truly map them out for highest performance of machine along with alongside in collaboration with highest human performance are the organizations that are going to win at this game. But that requires us to learn different skills, change how we're working together and create new success metrics. And that's hard. I mean it's hard for everyone, not only the organization, the leaders driving the change, but but it's hard for the individual employees who have to actually also manage that change to understand how they have to change their own behavior.
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Interviewer Doug
You've had an incredible career being the first and former chief, well being officer of the CIA. How fascinating is that? I imagine you've worked with the most high performing leaders possibly in the world throughout your career. What makes somebody, based on all the people that you've talked to, what makes somebody, what makes them really excel as a high performing leader?
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Dr. Jennifer Posa
So it's a great question and I will tell you. I've had the pleasure of working with not only exceptional leaders at the agency, but also when I was at Johnson and Johnson at Mayo Clinic and the various other organizations that I've had the privilege of working with. In my opinion, what makes a leader the highest performing is first their own recognition of their humanness I'll call it. We oftentimes talk about and you hear about vulnerability, but vulnerability comes from self awareness and understanding what you are good at doing and maybe what you need others to help you do.
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Interviewer Doug
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Dr. Jennifer Posa
exceptional leader does anything alone. So that would be my first point is the self awareness and understanding that and then applying it to the way that you work, how you hire teams and how you operationalize the work that you're doing. The second is in my opinion, having a bias for action. And even today's environment is a great example of that. If a leader is scared of the changes that are taking place in the environment, it'll reflect in everything that they're doing. And there's a sense of bias of action, if you will, that needs to be present so that there's a level of risk taking that you're taking. It doesn't mean that you're going to take silly risks, but it means that you're going to take smart, informed data, informed risks. Right? But that risk and that bias for action combined with judgment, which would be transparency, able to differentiate what is noise versus important data and facts to be listening to, understanding the, if you will, emotional aspects of what's in the environment, what might drive you, not those types of things like bias for action and judgment combined are incredibly important because that leader is performing at peak levels because they're making the right decision at the right time for the situation.
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Interviewer Doug
What do you think is the biggest misconception about well being in an organization? I think we hear a lot about resiliency and burnout, but I wonder, is there certain misconceptions around these phrases?
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Dr. Jennifer Posa
You know, I. So thank you. One of my favorite questions because a lot of people think well, well being first. They think well being is wellness and let me differentiate the two and then I'll talk to you about why what that misconception is around well being. And I've certainly worked and done that work for about 30 years. So a lot of people assume that well being might be the same as wellness. And it's in my opinion, not and at all. So while wellness oftentimes people think about, you know, physical health, maybe go to the spa, maybe you know, doing a run, going to do a workout. So it's oftentimes the perspective around physical well being. So I'm not sure if you're a runner or you like to go to the gym and do strength training, whatever that might be. But a lot of people like associate that, if you will, self care kind of habits with, with their well being is holistic in nature. So I want you to think about not only your physical wellness and your physical well being, but think about your mental and emotional well being, maybe how much focus you can have on the work that you're doing or maybe the emotional regulation that you are able to manage when you're in a high stress situation. Then think about social well being. There's a tremendous amount of data in the last 10 years around how social connection is incredibly important for us and our overall well being and our health, even our longevity. And social well being is critically important, especially in workplaces. How do you form friends at work? What is your team environment like? How are you feeling supported when you actually need your help with work or maybe help with something else that's challenging you in life? Right. And then there's the spiritual well being, financial well being, and then obviously your occupational well being. So when I think about well being and when I think about your question around misconceptions, a lot of people just assume, oh well being is going to the gym or up, it's eating really healthy food. That's not it at all. It's much more holistic. And if you think about your life, there's nothing that doesn't relate to your well being. It could be the space in the environment that you're living in or that you're working in. It could be anything really. So it's very holistic. Which then I'll bring you to kind of my next response on your question. What's the greatest misconception? The misconception in my mind and what I help to dispel in my work is that organizations shouldn't be paying attention to well being and the well being of not only individuals but the organization when they are looking to drive people peak performance of their leaders, their teams and their individual employees. Because if you're not paying attention to whether or not someone is able to do the job and if I'm not emotionally regulated and I, you know, something set me off this morning, I drove to work or got in an argument with one of my children and you know, I'm emotionally like through the roof and I show up and I'm managing a team of 10 people. Do you think that I'm going to do a great job if I don't have the skills to manage that level of emotion or what might have hit me sideways this morning? And then, you know, another which is very obvious is the, from the physical perspective, we find that a lot of people will be working super hard not paying attention to their health and their well being. So by the time they get to their 40s or their 50s, they're nearing retirement, but they can barely get up and go take a mile walk or they have back strain and musculoskeletal issues because they've been sitting crunched at a desk for the last 25 years. You know, being an analyst or something to that effect. Or worse yet, they're feeling very disconnected from their team. And this is where the safety element comes in.
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Interviewer Doug
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Dr. Jennifer Posa
So what if there isn't any what we call psychological safety on the team? And I'm worried that I'm being asked to perform a mission, for example, or do something that's a high pressure project and get it to deadline. What if I see that there's something wrong with that plan or maybe there's a risk that we're taking that we shouldn't be taking. I think back to my Mayo Clinic days and you know, physicians or, you know, that's very intense work. Maybe even some of the therapies and devices that Johnson and Johnson employees were making. I mean, when you have A crossroads. And you've got a member of the team that says, hold on. I actually think that this might not be the right path. We might be doing harm to a patient. We might be putting ourselves at risk. On a mission, you want that employee to stand up or make a quick phone call or ask the boss for a meeting to say, hey, I just noticed this. Do you think we should look into it? And that type of environment actually matters. So what a cheek wellbeing officer does and what I do as an organizational psychologist is I take a look at those pain points, the environments, you know, what we're working within, whether it be a physical environment or psychological environment, and say, this is how we could further support the teen's well being so that we can drive that performance level. So if there's low levels of trust, if there's high levels of burnout, if there's low levels of connection, we want to pull that back and say what's causing that? Or what could we do to mitigate that risk? And then on the other side of it, what are the opportunities that we could take advantage of to actually build trust or make sure that there's more social cohesion, cohesion among teams. Or maybe we reduce the level of burnout because we're realizing that there's a driver based on how we're managing rewards and recognition or whether or not the policies are fair. So that's really where the misconception is, is that people think it's soft. And it's probably the realest thing we could be managing not only in our individual lives because it impacts us every day, but as leaders, it's critically important to manage what I call your organizational well being. Because if your systems, your processes and your policies and the way that you're structuring your organization is not supporting well being, it's actually hurting well being. And if your employees aren't well, they're not going to perform at peak levels.
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Interviewer Doug
I can relate to that. I've been at companies where there was, they said there was a focus on wellbeing, but my manager didn't think that there was a focus on well being. Made my life miserable. Everyone around us was miserable. Our organization was pretty much not performing well. When you think about all the leaders that you felt, non government leaders, was there a person that stood out that really did things well? Or maybe after you worked with them, they were, these were incredible. This person was incredibly great at being a leader. And can you talk about a specific one or two things that they did?
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Dr. Jennifer Posa
So I had an exceptional leader at Johnson and Johnson. Her name is Jennifer Bruno. She since retired. She was the VP at the time of the organization I was in. And I'll never forget when Covid hit. I was the global head of employee mental health and well being at the time. And the pandemic had hit. I had been doing this work. And as every organization around the globe, these were unprecedented circumstances. Similar to today, but different. Right. Nobody really has all the answers because it hasn't ever happened before. And I remember us kind of putting our heads together, the entire leadership team. And she looked at me and said, I can't make this meeting because I have a conflict and I want you to go for me and, you know, talk to. I think it was board members at the time. And I looked at her and I said, you know, we obviously didn't have a lot of answers yet, but I did know what individuals and employees needed and I knew what we needed to do as an employer and to build that strategy to make sure that we were successful. But this was a meeting she should have been at. She was.
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Dr. Jennifer Posa
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Dr. Jennifer Posa
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Dr. Jennifer Posa
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- [21:25]
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Dr. Jennifer Posa
A senior at the time, and she looked at me and she said, listen, you're going to do just as well as me in that meeting as I could ever do. In fact, I think you're going to do better. So I want you to go to the meeting. And I have the utmost confidence. And if you need to prep beforehand, let me know. But I think you've got this. So that statement right there, when you as a leader, and it happens to every good leader, every leader that has a tremendous amount of responsibility in the job that they have, there are times when you can't be the one that has to deliver and you cannot do everything. It's part of that scalability thing that, you know, we all know the only way a business can scale is if, you know, you can actually have multiple people doing the same job. And she not only understood that as a leader, but she empowered me and gave me more confidence. So something that I try to do as a leader with people that work for me as well is I try to believe in them beyond what they believe in themselves. And that is the confidence that individuals need to actually take risks and grow because you not only know that the person has the confidence in you, but they know that they've got your back. And so she always had my back. And then there's another leader that I will say is. Stands out when you ask me the question. And I would say that's Director Bill Burns, who I had the privilege to serve with when I was at the agency. And he was an incredible leader because of the level of care he had for the workplace and the level of care he had for individuals. You know, when you understand that you're a leader, and you just spoke about this with, unfortunately a leader that you worked under at one point in your career. You know, when a leader doesn't care about you and you know, we're all really smart people, so I think it's really important to truly care for the people if you are choosing to be a leader. It's a position of responsibility. And I think Bill taught me even more about how this could be role modeled, exemplified, and then put into place. Because obviously when I had, well, not obviously to you, but when I had joined the agency as the first chief well being officer, he was the director. And that would be the other lesson I would share, is that, you know, the, the top leader in your organization is absolutely going to define whether or not well being is used as a strategy and a strategic priority to achieve peak performance because everything does come from the top. But what's really important is that leaders, and maybe what happened with that individual leader that you were reporting into, I'm going to give that leader a little bit of grace, although you might not want to. And the reason is because the leader might not have been getting the data that he or she needed to see to convince them that this was important. And that's why it has to be a strategy that's executed just like every other business strategy. Because if you don't identify the data and you don't give that data to leaders, how are they going to make actionable decisions? Right. So my job as a cwo, when I was a CWO and you know, in my roles that I've had, where I found the greatest success is when you do what I call a needs assessment, you understand what the drivers are that are driving your risks as well as giving you opportunity. And then you put that in plain language with data to leaders so they can decide the actions they want to take. So the leader that you were reporting up to might have chosen to take actions 1, 2, 3. But another leader might have said, you know what, that doesn't work for me as a leader. And the team and the work we're doing, I actually want to do 3, 4, 5. And so what I think is also really interesting is how every organization I've worked with and within their cultures reflect how much priority they place actionable priorities that they place on well being. But it's also whether or not they've done a strategic job, treated it as a business priority, and then held a leader like myself accountable to ensuring that that can be executed well. So I do think it's the responsibility and you, you know, of a senior leader to hold other leaders responsible and also be in partnership with them so that you can execute this well. It's not, it's really roll up your sleeves dirty work. I'm going to be honest with you. So sometimes you find out that the parking is the problem and other times you find out it's access to mental health benefits. And then sometimes it's our leaders don't know how to hold people accountable with the performance management system and we've got to change it so the drivers of well being are not health drivers always. And so that's the other misconception. I guess if I can go back to your other question, that's the other misconception. People think wellbeing and health are just, they're all kind of like rolled up into one little area. And that's not true at all. And if you think about your own work right now, I wonder what you would say. Would you say the driver of my burnout is, you know, square within the role that I'm doing? Is it the leaders that I work with? Is it my stress at home? Is it caring for an elderly parent? Is it the fact that I don't have a policy that reimburses me for going to the gym every month? So all of these things could be possibilities, but they all don't fall in that little, you know, box neatly tied with here are your benefits and programs that we can offer you because we're company ABC and we prioritize your well being. Like it takes a lot more than that.
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Interviewer Doug
You know, it got me thinking about something. When I used to manage into a retail store, I used to go to the salespeople like they would be helping somebody. I'd go up to them and I'd whisper, I believe in you. And the funny thing is like many, many years, like 10 years later, I got a message from one of those people and they're like, hey, I believe in you. Because I guess even 10 years later, like they always remembered that I used to do that to them. And they thought it was funny, but I actually thought it worked. It gave them like, I noticed because it would give them like a little bit of confidence to close the deal. I could see them wavering, right? And I'm like, ooh, hey, I believe in you. And then they would like push a little bit harder. But yes, this is the reason why I don't like to work in the corporate environment. It's been been a while and I probably would never go back. My boss at the time was hell bent on getting promoted. And in order to get promoted they thought you need to follow X, Y, Z, which means at the expense in my opinion, of the well being of the people. And that was how they were to get promoted. And of course that's not every company. And I don't know if they were correct in their thinking because I don't think they ever even got promoted. But still, like I found the corporate environment for me was not a place I actually excelled in. I excelled when I was left alone and did what I needed to do the minute that somebody came in. Because then it became this environment that I don't like. I, I am not good at getting promoted. I was not good at it. I should have been like CEO, but I never would have been because I couldn't Play the game. But that makes me think too about. There's a really well known CEO that recently came out. He is a very large publicly traded company who was bashed as being like the worst CEO before. And I think many years ago he was ousted from the company by the investors. He finally came out and said what happened. And a lot of things happened in his life, he was saying. And basically the investors took that, his personal issues and basically got him ousted. And it got me about how employees just want to have a great experience. Investors, shareholders, C suite. I don't know if it's always aligned, right. Like this obviously created a really bad experience for employees because at that time they were complaining about how things were the culture. And I wonder like it fascinates me just how maybe misaligned things are when you're thinking as a shareholder, profits, you know, stock prices. And then you're thinking like employee culture well being might not necessarily make that tomorrow a better shift, but maybe over time. But they're thinking like, I need the stock price to rise today.
- [30:58]
Dr. Jennifer Posa
Yeah. So I mean, in my opinion, I'll go back to what I said before. It's not either or I mean for profit businesses, capitalism, like that's very important. But to place the individual not as the priority is, is not sustainable. You know, think about you leaving that organization that the leader really didn't care about you. The team just cared about themselves. I mean, it didn't make you want to stay. It certainly didn't help you perform at a higher level. You weren't recruiting your friends to come and join you and work there. So their retention was probably in the toilet. So I mean, think about all the dominoes that happen based on the relationship you had with your supervisor. So I'm going to even share that the relationships we form, we oftentimes love to talk about the relationships we have with our spouses and with our kids and with our parents. And you know, it's like you, this is like almost like. I don't want to say it's like drama, right? But it's definitely like something that we are so comfortable talking about. I want us to be as comfortable talking about the relationships we have in the workplace and then having the difficult conversations and saying, hey boss, you know, this isn't what motivates me. Like what motivates me is giving me three hours by myself, uninterrupted time to figure out that problem that you guys can't figure out. Because I love solving problems, but I need to do it in my own space. With my headphones on, with the music blaring. And, you know, then I'm going to come out and I'm going to be like a magician to you, and I'm going to show you things that you haven't even thought of yourself. Like, that's the energy I want you to bring to me as a leader. But the only way I'm going to understand that that's how you operate is by investing in the relationship I have with you. And so I. I wrote about this recently. There's a Japanese kind of framework. Ikigai is how you pronounce it. And I don't know if you've seen it. It's like the four Venn. You know, the Venn diagrams, right, the four circles. So it's about, you know, what, what you're good at, what you love, what you can get paid for. So I had a brilliant strategy that one of my leaders used. Every time a new employee joined his team, he would sit down with the picture of that and he'd put it on the paper on. On the table with him, it was just him and. And the employee in the office. They'd talk it through, and he'd say, what do you love? What are you really good at? What do you think you're in this job for? Like, what do you like getting paid to do? So after an hour conversation, he learned about the person, their motivations, who they were, how they thought they had strengths and skills to bring to the team and make sure it was successful. And he was successful in his job, but the team was successful. But then the most important part happened at the meeting. He said at the end of the meeting, he not only learned about the person, but he said, I'm your leader. My number one priority is to keep you safe. That employee walked out. And then every time there was an opportunity where that leader, who didn't work every day with that employee, saw him in the hallway, saw him at the water cooler, saw him in the elevator, said, hey, how's the dog? Because he learned about the dog when he talked about the framework. So we have to intentionally create space in our days to build the relationships, because relationships are what develop the success in everything we do. So you might. You might have a bad taste in your mouth from the corporate environment. Spend a day with me, and I'm going to take you to a few organizations that are amazing, that you're going to be like, oh, my gosh, I want to join this organization because this is the one I needed to be at. That's about fit. So I do believe, I have a lot of faith in the leaders that I've not only. I've not only worked with, but I've also, you know, had the privilege of knowing that are building exceptional cultures that are building cultures that individuals can, you know, excel and get excited and have these experiences that, you know are going to make them shine and not only achieve their professional goals, but, but support their life goals. And that's the part that we always hear about, well, what happens at the end of this, you know, what happens on your deathbed? What happens at the end of the week? I look back on my 30 years of career and I say that the cultures that I've been privileged to help develop with leaders that are exceptional, the people that were in those cultures left with strong relationships, ones that they can look back on and they're likely still friends with those people they were working with. And there's that level of respect, that level of care. And even for me, being one of the employees that was on the payroll for the organizations I was with, they enabled me to have a roof over my head, have a beautiful home, send my kids to college. That's a huge win. Right? So it is a reciprocal relationship. I do think C suites can make decisions that are not great. That keeps me employed. I love that I get to go help them solve the problem. People call me when they have a problem. I wish they called me before, but oftentimes people call me when they have a problem because they say we have a culture problem. How are we going to fix it? Who can do this with us? Who can build it into our business strategy? How can we get out of the hole? And I don't think we're ever going to be able to change it. And we don't have somebody on the leadership team to help. This is what an organizational psychologist does. And I do it with a focus on health and well being. So I love my work. You can tell I love my work. I want to convince you that you should not think that every company is terrible because they're not.
- [37:03]
Interviewer Doug
Let me. I don't think every company is terrible. I think for me, like for me in my life, I eventually realized because I worked for what was considered the best places to work, but the corporate. As I continued to move up in the ladder, I realized at some point things change. You know, when you get to a certain level, things change in my experience. And I also was not. There's still no. Even if I feel like you're at the best place to work if you want to continue moving up in position, there is a game that you need to play. And I don't really like. I realized I'm not good at playing that game. And I got to a point where I would rather work for myself than continue playing a game for somebody else. And I'm not good at it. So now something that you said. I love the relationship piece because I
- [38:03]
Dr. Jennifer Posa
was going to go back to my comment on games. We can talk about it.
- [38:07]
Interviewer Doug
Okay. But we're running out of time, though. Running out of time. But I like the relationship piece. I think that's amazing. I learned so much there. And you got me thinking about this. I learned something working in this environment that I always said I don't want to just terminate somebody because this whole performance improvement plan, it's great. But the problem with it was a lot of times the people were not in the right position. So there was many people, many. As I continued moving up and I had managers and managers and managers working for me, I would always say, okay, you're like, if they're on the path to termination, because you can see many times the path somebody's in. I would tell them, like, maybe this is not the right role. And the problem before is no one ever helped you get to the right role. I would help them, and they would many times hate me for it in the moment because I wouldn't tell them, like, they're literally like, on days from being terminated. I would say, look, let's find you a better role. Many years after that, so many of them have come back to me, and I've seen them get promoted and I've seen them grow, like, way surpassed me. And they're like, oh, my God, like, thank you. Like, I couldn't see it in the moment, but we. We actually run out of time. Dr. Jennifer Posa. This has been amazing. We'll have to do another. Another session.
- [39:26]
Dr. Jennifer Posa
Let's build. Build systems off of what you did. So if you have a system of what you just said, it's easy to do it. And then everybody gets shuffled where they need to go. So thank you so much. This was an awesome discussion.
- [39:39]
Interviewer Doug
Oh, this was great. Thank you. I learned a lot today. I'm super excited. You might be helping companies who are only managing robots in the future. So that'll be an interesting robots, a robot relationships. I don't know what's going to happen.
- [39:52]
Dr. Jennifer Posa
I got to grow too, you know, I got to learn this stuff, right? I mean, just don't throw the person out. Just don't Throw the person out of the door. I'll do the robot and the employee. How about that?
- [40:02]
Interviewer Doug
I like that. Thank you, Dr. Jennifer. Post that you. You are helping the people at the organization which make the organization and it's the most important thing. So thank you for all that you do.
- [40:12]
Dr. Jennifer Posa
Thank you.
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Interviewer Doug
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