The Talent Forge: Shaping the Future of Training and Development with Jay Johnson

Leading Through Change: Succession Planning at Scale with Ernesto Gómez

• Jay Johnson • Season 1 • Episode 44

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What happens when nearly 150 leadership positions need to be filled simultaneously due to a wave of retirements? For Ernesto Gómez, former VP of Human Capital at Grupo Alpha and CHRO at Sigma Alimentos, this wasn't a hypothetical scenario—it was the challenge that defined his career transition from business leader to HR innovator.

Ernesto shares how he approached this daunting succession planning challenge by reframing it as an innovation problem rather than a traditional HR issue. With no formal HR background but extensive business leadership experience, he crafted a comprehensive talent development strategy involving partnerships with elite universities including Wharton, Stanford, Chicago Booth, London Business School, and MIT.

Whether you're facing your own succession challenges or simply looking to elevate your talent development approach, Ernesto's practical wisdom offers a masterclass in innovative human capital management. His journey demonstrates that sometimes the most effective HR solutions come from leaders who bring fresh perspectives from outside traditional HR pathways.

Meet the Host
Jay Johnson works with people and organizations to empower teams, grow profits, and elevate leadership. He is a Co-Founder of Behavioral Elements®, a two-time TEDx speaker, and a designated Master Trainer by the Association for Talent Development. With a focus on behavioral intelligence, Jay has delivered transformational workshops to accelerate high-performance teams and cultures in more than 30 countries across four continents. For inquiries, contact jay@behavioralelements.com or connect below!

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayjohnsonccg/
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Speaker Website - https://jayjohnsonspeaks.com

Jay Johnson:

Welcome to this episode of the Talent Forge, where we are shaping the future of training and development. Today, I am joined by a special Ernesto , who is the VP of Human Capital at Grupo Alpha, a major Mexican conglomerate with more than 83,000 employees, before becoming the Chief Human Resources Officer at Sigma Alimentos, a global consumer packaged goods company with 43,000 employees. Ernesto has incredible experience to share. Welcome to the show, ernesto.

Ernesto Gómez:

Hello Jay, I'm very happy to be with you.

Jay Johnson:

So you have had an incredible career. I mentioned a couple of those different spots, but I want the audience to get to know you. So how did you get into this human capital, this HR, this training and talent development space, Ernesto?

Ernesto Gómez:

Looking at hindsight, I don't know how really things just got organized in a certain way, because my intention was never to be in the human capital space. Actually, I run businesses. I started small, you know, as an independent, had about 15 different businesses throughout my career, and then I got into consulting and a company hired me to turn around an operation that was in bad shape, and you know it was. My contract was for six months and we were able to turn it around and that, you know, converted into a 23 year old. 23 year lifespan on different roles, lifespan on different roles. At first, many of my roles were head of businesses and, you know, at some point I was the business that was $1.3 billion in revenue, so it was a large business and for some reason, the CEO of the company thought it would be a good idea to have somebody that had experience in the trenches to, you know, the human capital function. I was also very, at the time, very critical about you know, how the HR was, you know, performing, and he said well, since you have so many opinions and seem to be unhappy, why don't you take over and see if you can do better? And, quite frankly, that turned out to be my calling. I'm so happy that that happened. I mean, I just retired, you know, the positions that you mentioned, of course, were positions that I held in the last few years. I retired about a year ago to look for some other projects. I just changed venue.

Ernesto Gómez:

But ever since I was in HR, actually my first challenge was in talent development, specifically in succession planning. So the challenge that I had in front of me was very intimidating for me because this is a large company, you know, 50 years old more or less, when I was there at the beginning and people had long tenures and many of the key positions were going to be refilled just because people were retiring. You know, got into work at their 20s, 40 years after they are in their 60s, and so you need to. You know plan for that and the challenge was major. You know plan for that and the challenge was major At the moment. You know, when I took over, in the next five years, the same amount of people that have retired in the whole lifetime of the company were going to be retiring and we needed to fill up at about 140 positions. Wow, in different, you know, layers and of course, the pipeline gets to be complicated because you start kind of moving the, the, the pyramid and then you know things open up real quick.

Jay Johnson:

So we need to have that's a scary proposition to have to replace 140 leadership positions right around the same time.

Ernesto Gómez:

Absolutely, absolutely. So what was?

Jay Johnson:

going through your, before we go into that. What was going through your mind when this challenge was presented to you? I mean, it had to be something where it was like hey, ernesto, this is what we're facing right now. What did that feel like?

Ernesto Gómez:

I was really intimidated, facing right now, what did that feel like? I was really intimidated. Of course, you know, I've always have a lot of, you know, drive and I'm a businessman at heart, so I look at this as a challenging proposition. But somebody that I wanted to, you know, prove me into this. And there was one pivotal moment, because at some point I was really in my office saying what am I going to do with this? Right, I was, you know, I had a good team and people that were knowledgeable, but in the end I was, you know, calling the shots. So I was in my office saying what am I going to do about this? And and also keep in mind that I'm not a HR person, you know, at heart, and also keep in mind that I'm not an HR person at heart. But an idea occurred to me so I could reframe the problem, and my reframing was well, I might not be an HR specialist, but what if I see this challenge as an innovation problem in HR? So I said, you know, I'm the innovation guy in charge of HR. So if I frame that, if I use that mental model, what would I do different so that I could, you know, tackle this major, major problem and I started saying, well, I know how to innovate because I ran businesses before and I just started, you know, opening up and finding out partners and people who could kind of guide me along the way.

Ernesto Gómez:

And also, having been in a leadership position myself, I knew that the most important part that we were going to be training for was not functional skills. Yes, it is important to have functional skills and to have them updated as much as you can, but it was much more about strategy and vision and a lot of soft skills. You know, because when you are up in the ladder, most of the time you are dealing with strategy, people. You know, market trends, things that require a perspective taking and judgment. So I say, how do I go in that way? And, to make a long story short, we did a lot of segmentation and it turned out to be okay. 100% of all the C-suite participants C-suite occupants today were part of the program. So I think it worked.

Jay Johnson:

Wow, yeah, that's an incredible ratio. 100% of your C-suite is from this program. The interesting thing and congratulations on your retirement, by the way. That's pretty awesome and I'm glad to see that you're not giving it up. I'm going to go back and ask a question about this in just a moment, but I want to stick with this succession because I find this super interesting.

Jay Johnson:

So you know, a lot of times when people are taking on a new position and maybe they're moving from salesperson to sales manager, sales manager to sales leader, sales leader to sales VP, each of those different levels just to exactly what you said requires a different mindset, requires a broader look at the organization. The tactical skills that we had at one level are not necessarily going to translate as you move up that leadership. You're going to have to have better visionary skills, better people leading skills, management skills, et cetera. You know what was the experience for you as you started to think about like, okay, we're putting 140 people this is going to be a fast track leadership exercise. People, this is going to be a fast track leadership exercise. How were you preparing them to essentially think?

Ernesto Gómez:

on that larger level. Well, first of all, as I was mentioning to you some of the things that I've learned being in business is you don't have a good segmentation to understand. You know, because this 140 people were part of, you know different levels, from the very top to the. You know I wouldn't say medium, because it was all of them were business unit. You know either leading functions or geographies or something that took a lot of responsibility, but you can tell, you know how many of those were technical experts, how many of those were emerging leaders, how many were more senior that were ready to step up for the next big deal.

Ernesto Gómez:

So, by doing that and kind of understanding where they were at that moment, we kind of figure out the gaps and the things that we needed to work with them. And we had two levels one more personalized, predominantly, with the more where the more responsibility was needed and so where we had to do not only specific programs that we partnered with universities, but also, you know, much more of a coaching and mentoring space with them. And then, as you kind of open up a little bit more, we figure out that talent portability is very tricky and I know this from firsthand experience because you can have have very talented person and you move it in. You know a different team, different processes, maybe network supports, and it gets to be different from where they used to be. So you have to prepare for you know the unexpected, a lot of resilience and many of uh, I would say that ability to network uh for them was also critical.

Ernesto Gómez:

Yeah, so, quite frankly, what I did is I, you know, we separated, we did, we did a problem that we called a multi-university where we had, uh, four of the most important universities in the world talking about Wharton, stanford, chicago, booth and London Business School working with us, with our senior leaders.

Ernesto Gómez:

Then we had another program with Stanford to work more with the emerging talent. Then we had another one with MIT, also for the more of a technical experts that were going to be, you know, taking more leadership positions. So they were functional experts and all of a sudden they needed to over some broader functions and also some coaches, you know, and mentors, you know, targeted specific groups and mentors, you know, targeted specific groups. So we engineered a system that took, you know, approximately four to five years, you know, and we did a lot of evaluations, progress evaluations with them and also with the universities and, as I was saying, you know, I think we did well Interesting two-thirds of all the participants throughout the program and, as I was saying, you know, I think we did well Interesting Two-thirds of all the participants throughout the program had promotions.

Ernesto Gómez:

Wow, sixty-six percent, that's great. Two-thirds 60%.

Jay Johnson:

Yeah.

Ernesto Gómez:

And 25% of that, 60% had more than one promotion. So it may be, you know, two or even three along the way and you could probably say well, of course, ernesto, you picked good people to begin with, so of course you train them and they were kind of geared towards making progress. But we also measure the performance evaluations of all of them and broadly, in general, we had about a 10% increase in their performance evaluations too. So that meant that you know they were making progress, they were good and they became better. So those I would probably recommend, you know, design a framework, because that's what we needed. We had a specific framework uh, you know, to be going, for instance, with, with more senior leaders. We had a four piece framework. The first part was, uh, setting the goal and defining a plan. And then we had another model of working with and through others Uh, we had another one that had to do with, uh, uh, interpersonal skills, and then we had another one which was called selling the idea, so combining those models and partnering with different experts. I think that turned out to be okay Up until this time.

Ernesto Gómez:

I mentioned to you that I retired a year ago. I still have acquaintances that tell me how much they missed those opportunities. Of course, the company had money to invest. I have to recognize that there was a major decision and they decided that it was worthwhile, so that helped a lot. But in the end it's a big responsibility because you only get to do that once. I mean, you cannot fail. It's a lot of money and then, of course, if you fail, there is no way to redo what you did wrong.

Jay Johnson:

Right, so I had a good team.

Jay Johnson:

Yeah, and so that was going to be. The next question that I had for you is I'm thinking about this and I'm trying to think about you know the audience. They may be in a large organization, they may be in a smaller organization. How did you segment to start off with? Did you segment just by level? Did you segment more of? Hey, you know here's the list of you know here's the list of 2000 potentials. How did you get through that to determine what is the better person, or who's going to qualify to get into this training program? Like, what was that? What was that process?

Ernesto Gómez:

You know it's an excellent question because in my position I couldn't have a way to go to the very detailed, you know, elements into how a person is selected. So what we had is like sessions with the HR partners, you know, that were close to those people and they also had some, of course, a clear idea of were the individuals that had the potential to begin with. And we did a lot of work with them setting out a criterion so that we could have a common view among business units into which we were going to evaluate. And then we also had a final decision made by the CEO of each of the business units. Because you know as much as you can do pre-work and kind of select people, then you get to a point where you say, well, this is the group of people that you're going to be betting on, so tell us what you think. So we had a final go or no go by the senior leader of each of the business units and you know, kind of we started with very simple questions If some of these people were about to leave the company, would you be comfortable them leaving the company or not?

Ernesto Gómez:

That's a great question. Yeah, because they would say just imagine somebody wants to take you know from you what would you do? No, no, no, no, no way. So that told us something right. And when we saw like well, he's a good guy, but you know I can do without, so that's not a good idea. You're not going to be part of a program.

Jay Johnson:

And that's a brilliant question. To ask, though, is how much you know? How much does this person mean to you? How much would you do to save this person? And that's going to give you a good idea of whether or not that's. That's a really clever way to think about that.

Ernesto Gómez:

I like that yeah, and and in the end, of course, you you see how they have skin in the game right into into making a decision. It's not just corporate bringing people into a program, it's just something that was going to be a more uh strategic for them as well yeah.

Ernesto Gómez:

So we did all that. What was, quite frankly, difficult for us is that are we going to open up that? You know this group of people are participating in a program? What about those who are not attending? You know what kind of ill will may this generate, or not? So, and also, when you start to groom somebody, some people feel like you know, I made it and they stop. You know making the best effort they can. So what we did is like saying, well, we are developing a talent pool and people get into the talent pool and exit the talent pool at any moment. So it's up to those who are in the talent pool to remain there. Or maybe somebody who is, you know, doing a very good job, end up, you know, participating there. So it's not really a decision where nobody will ever get here. If you were not selected first and if you were selected, of course, you knew that if you don't keep on, kept on doing your best, you may, you know, end up exiting the talent group.

Jay Johnson:

So there was a level of competition almost inside of there of hey, you've made it this far, but your seat's not guaranteed. You need to keep earning, keep working and keep pushing in order to keep going here. That's an interesting concept to add into that space as well.

Ernesto Gómez:

And also because people need to have ownership about how bad they want to be there to begin with, because it's a big investment of time, of resources and it's a lot of people involved behind the scenes. So we wanted to make sure that people appreciated this. They didn't feel entitled. On the contrary, they were, you know, and also we, of course, were open to this is what we're trying to do. If you want to complement this by yourself, if there are some other things that you have in mind, you may go and take them on your own, or probably we can talk about that and see if we can support you.

Ernesto Gómez:

But it became a project, as I mentioned to you, where the conviction from people you know, both in those who participated and and leaders of the companies, were very important and we measured a lot, we shared results with the business leadership a lot, how much we were progressing, just to keep the interest going, because it's a long time, yeah, and sometimes you know, businesses go. This is another thing. I had a budget and businesses have good and bad years or just mediocre years, so we didn't want to stop when they had headwinds and then we take it because you lose momentum. So we separated the budget for the whole program at the beginning, so there was a big economic commitment from them as well. Well, and that's so.

Ernesto Gómez:

We separated the budget for the whole program at the beginning, okay, so there was a big economic commitment from them as well.

Jay Johnson:

Well and that's interesting because I know that a lot of my L&D folks experience that of, hey, it's a good year, we've got this amount of money for programs and the next year is not so good, and, oh wait, we've already invested into a new LMS and invested into this, and now what are we going to do? Do we have to drop? So it's smart that you were able to get that investment up front to make sure that this would be a continuity of programming. I did have a question, and I'm thinking about this right, like when you're looking at 140 leaders in a secession plan, I've got to imagine that there was probably some surprises. And what do I mean by that?

Jay Johnson:

You know, hey, I'm looking at Ernesto, and Ernesto is my front runner for the CEO position, definitely. And then all of a sudden, maybe that doesn't happen or somebody else steps in. What was that like? Did you have a lot of surprises where maybe there were some people that you expected to go higher and didn't, or maybe some people that barely got in and then really showed that they belonged there and went further? What was that experience like, and how did you navigate some of those maybe surprises as they came up?

Ernesto Gómez:

some of those maybe surprises as they came up. Well, excellent question. First, one of the things we measured, you know, during the program and at the end, was the churn in terms of, because some people ended up leaving, but we had a churn below 3%, so most of them remained in the company and just a very few left the company. And then the other thing is that for me it was frustrating and also very self-critical of what we were doing. If you ended up training a person that didn't make it but it's like everything in life If you ended up training a person that didn't make it, but it's like everything in life You're not going to hit 100% of all the things that you do in life.

Ernesto Gómez:

Baseball at the bat which has a 400 score means that fails 60% of the time and still is considered to be on the top of the game. So at some point in time we said, well, we're going to do as thorough as comprehensive screening process in the beginning, but then we have at some point in time to let go, because if you don't, you start kind of frustrating and it's a mind thing. You know, am I doing right? Is this going to work or not? And, as I say, you know, measuring and keep on evaluating progress gave us an idea you know to what extent we were doing a good job or not and some of them ended up remaining. As I mentioned to you, two-thirds didn't get a promotion, two-thirds got a promotion, but a third didn't.

Jay Johnson:

Yeah, yeah. So that's still an incredible six. I mean 60% of your participants walking into a promotion at least one promotion and it sounds to me like you saying 140 people ended up moving into these leadership positions. You've got to say at least 200 people at that point in time. Exponential the amount of I think the most recent data out is one underperforming leader can cost your organization up to $126,000 a year. So if you take 140 leaders that you had elevated into these positions and you were able to 10% of that is 14, that's $1.4 million return on investment, year after year after year. So I love that you were quantifying the impact of mobility as well as longevity as well, as I mean that complexity is really really smart. I'm a big fan of that.

Ernesto Gómez:

Yeah, we had about well, not about we had 300 people in the group, so to fill up 140 positions, we ended up training 300 people. And also we measured. For instance, in the case of the MIT, we had a very interesting and, I would say, very, very profitable program with them, because they even portray that as a success story it's in the MIT webpage because we ended up developing projects with them that had a return. So we not only trained the people who participated, but we made a few million dollars just from those participants and so they ended up paying their own training and left some residual and I'm saying measured by projects that they, you know, efficiency or whatever on top of what talent brings you, on top of what talent brings you. What I have seen, at least, and that I've read, is a talented CEO explains about 20% of the value created by a company. So you can have a plus 20% or minus 20% value, you know, just related to how a CEO is performing 20%.

Jay Johnson:

you know, that's a big swing.

Ernesto Gómez:

It's a big swing when you think about how a balance sheet and a profit and loss statement works. You increase the top, you know the revenue, by 20% and you keep your expenses place. The value creation profits are amazing because there is a lot of absorption of what you do, so pretty much it goes all the way to the bottom line.

Ernesto Gómez:

So, it's a lot of money that you can create and even for me, as I was before I got into this program, you know heading this effort I went to an executive session myself with some colleagues of mine and we, as a result of that, we made some changes in the strategy of the business field that I was heading and we also created a lot of money. So there is tangible resources that you can produce by betting on your talent, and you cannot afford not to have good talent these days.

Jay Johnson:

I want to stick with this topic for a second because I find it to be really, really interesting, and what I'm referring to is the opportunity to pair real-world, real-impact projects alongside of the training programs, and I'll share a little bit where this is coming from. So one of the programs that I've worked on at Wayne State University for the better part of two decades was the Engineering Management Master's Program, which is a partnership between Ford Motor Company and Wayne State, and actually MIT consulted on this program back in 1995. This program back in 1995. So just to give you some longevity of this, but this program runs the last year of the program is all about a leadership project, in which case these high performing, high talented engineers who are getting their master's degree take on a real world problem, and one of the impacts of this has been that these projects have actually saved, over the course of 30 years, over a billion dollars in cost savings and revenue generation for the organization.

Jay Johnson:

Ernesto, is any L&D groups right? I'm not seeing L&D groups implement something where there's real world projects or real world challenging projects. For, okay, I'm delivering a communications training, now what are you going to do with it? Or I'm delivering this conflict resolution training. Now what are you going to do with it? What project are you going to take on? Can you talk a little bit, maybe, about what was the experience in incorporating these real-world projects and what made them successful? Because I think every L&D person out there would go wait a second, I can incorporate a project that ends up paying for my budget that covers the cost of these things. That's a very novel concept. So you've got experience in this. I've got experience from the university side of things. Talk to me about your experience in those projects and what did that look like?

Ernesto Gómez:

You know, the funny thing is that at the beginning I didn't want to do it. I went to MIT and I met just outstanding individuals. I went to MIT and I met just outstanding individuals Stephen Eppinger, kurt Chilton, I mean, this guy is our first class and we were designing the program. They suggested to do projects and I was resistant to that because I said you know what? I haven't seen that work in the past. It's very difficult, it's something a waste of time. People are really busy doing their jobs and then they have a program that is part of the university that's not going to work. I was just very negative about that. And as I was explaining my position, they were saying well, we have something that we call men and menus, which it means hands and thinking. So we, we are very familiar with that. That's our ethos at MIT. And I was still, you know, resistant. And they paused for a minute and said you haven't worked with MIT, haven't you? Well, we make these things happen. And I saw them so convinced they said you know, I'm going to give it a try. And I was humbled by that. I said, well, and how are you going to make it work? So what they came up with.

Ernesto Gómez:

It was a three-model part where, at the beginning of each of the models, together with you know the program, certain groups gathered and started to figure out what things they saw at their organizations that needed to be fixed and that probably could return an interesting amount of money, kind of an evaluation of those and through a framework that they have in terms of you know what are the steps that you have to follow, from the detection of the opportunity up the way up into the implementation and how you measure through, they decided, well, we're going to figure out how to do this. So we had three sessions and in first session you decided on the programs, and then they also had a call in between sessions where they evaluated each group uh, you know, on their progress, how, what problems they were facing, you know, etc. So that in the next session they would share, you know, findings and and where they were doing different. And then in the third session they would share findings and where they were doing different. And then in the third model they presented the results. So all in all, we had about three groups where, or three cohorts where they were in presence, and then about two or three times more where they were following up on, you know, the progress of each team.

Ernesto Gómez:

So this guy, you know they had a lot of supervision, and so it's not just like you know figure out a project and then, you know, make it work and see what happens. It was a follow up process from people that are very knowledgeable about how to do these things work and they have a. They also are tough guys. I mean they don't take no for an answer and when they say, you know, I didn't make a lot of progress, well, shame on you, you have to do better. So they apply a little bit of pressure and I mean a good partner makes a big difference and that's why I was so happy about that, and actually that's why they suggested to use this as a success story in MIT, because it really worked.

Ernesto Gómez:

MIT because it really worked. At the moment where we've measured the results, I don't know $6, $7 million that we end up capturing, but those projects continue delivering value Five years after that. I don't know how much money they have produced, but it's a lot.

Jay Johnson:

Well, I love that you bring this up, ernesto, because I think at this point in time, the EMMP has generated 172 different leadership projects at Ford, all cohort based, so like three to five people per team, some of them very, very impactful, some of them less, but a couple of things that I think that you said are so important. So, if you're listening and you want to run some kind of project one thing I heard you said was stakeholder buy-in, and that was something that we learned early on at Wayne State University is okay, it's great that this engineering team is doing this project. Who does this get handed off to? Who has responsibility for it afterwards? What is your implementation? And actually, in the EMMP program I can tell you there's an entire semester that is dedicated to a project management course that is related to setting up the scope of a project, what it's going to entail, what it's not going to entail, and, by the time that they get to their year, actually executing the project, gathering the data, et cetera. I mean their scope is so well determined, so narrowed, so defined, and there's already buy-in from senior executives that are saying, when this project comes to conclusion, this is how we're implementing it.

Jay Johnson:

I heard you say something similar. It sounds like they were having to report up. They were getting the buy-in early on, so by the time that the project come to conclusion, there was no surprises. It was like, yeah, this is here and it's ready to go type things. Is that what I'm understanding from you? Absolutely.

Ernesto Gómez:

Absolutely. And for projects to work, you have to be very thorough in the way you implement and the way you measure and the way you share progress. And I would say that, at least in my case, I was negative because I didn't see that work before and it was because I haven't worked with MIT before. So these guys were very good and I would say just you know, find the best partners that you can get and the projects are going to be successful and they're going to return your investment. I'm sure about that, 100%.

Jay Johnson:

Well, and I think it's very wise to make sure that, hey, do we have a partner who's actually done these types of projects before? Who has experience? Who's you know, after 30 years of Wayne State doing it? It's buttoned up. There's five different faculty that all oversee different aspects of it. I mean, it runs like clockwork, and I imagine that's got to be what MIT is doing as well, where it's just hey, we've been there, we've done that, we've seen this, and now it's just a question of can we execute or can the people engage in that?

Jay Johnson:

So let me ask you one other question, as it relates to the participants that were doing these projects, because you said at first you had some resistance and it was like, ah, these people are busy, they don't have time to do this, that these people are busy, they don't have time to do this, that and the other thing, and I don't know what the return on investment is. What was the experience like? I guess getting buy-in from the participants to say, yes, let's take this on. And how did you paint a value proposition for them, being able to say you know, we're doing real world impact, we're doing this or anything else. Did you see any resistance from the participants Like I'm already busy and you're making me do X, or did you? You know what was that sort of motivation level of the participants in general?

Ernesto Gómez:

Well, first of all, you know, as we presented, you know, the first day that we were, you know, kind of kicking off the project, that was included, as you know, a very important part of the process and also it was kind of very well explained that this allowed them to get practical knowledge about how to make things happen in the long run throughout their careers and in the company. So it was an opportunity more than a hustle. So you say, you know what I mean. You may go to have a very good session and hear about fantastic ideas from MIT, but this time you will have the opportunity to be guided by an expert. So if you learn about this, you will be able to apply it. You know. So the why behind what is in.

Ernesto Gómez:

For me it was clear that they would be trained also, you know, in that part, of course, you know life is hectic and you know, throughout the program they had also many responsibilities, but they looked up, you know, slowly but surely got engaged themselves into this. So it was not really an imposition, it was more seen as an opportunity for them to continue their growth. I think that that framing helped and also the fact that we said that in the end they will be. They will going to be presenting their findings to the CEOs of their own companies, so it's your chance to shine in front of them and show them what you were capable of doing. So that also really was a carrot, so to speak, and not only sticks to motivate people. You know, positive reinforcement, I think, goes a long way and and there was a lot of pride in that. So so it's the combination and just being close to them and kind of hearing what they you know if they hustle for a reason why and and kind of get him energized.

Jay Johnson:

I love that. It's the same. It's been my experience as well. It's like, wait a second, I get to do a project that's going to have a meaningful impact on the company and I'm going to get to present this in front of senior leadership or participate and engage with senior leadership on a quarterly, monthly, weekly, bi-weekly level. Yeah, I'm in, so I was wondering if the experience was the same on that. So, ernesto, you've had an incredible career. You've had a lot of success. You've also authored a book called Regrowth. Can you tell me a little bit about the book and what the frame is for that book?

Ernesto Gómez:

Well, you know, throughout my life, as you were saying, I've seen a lot of business problems and transformation, you know, and initiatives going in place. And one of the things that really motivates me a lot is to find out how can you unlock potential in people, because I'm a firm believer that people have a lot of potential that is just waiting to be tapped. And if you create the right conditions in the team and, of course, throughout the company, that happens. And I wrote this book Regrowth, because if you take a short-term perspective on failure, and sometimes when you get stalled you kind of see only that things didn't work out, but if you take a long-term perspective, it's just a step in the process. It's just, you know, life is not a 45-degree ascending line all the time. It's not that way. No business creates value that way. Even us as individuals are not really that way. So regrowth it's a title that reflects that you can recalibrate and you can. You know, when you stall you can regrow. It's just the fact to you know, put in place the right levers to make it happen.

Ernesto Gómez:

So I wrote this book on business transformation and pretty much what I define is on the talent density level, what is it you have to do in the company On the cultural level, what do you have to do in the company and also what kind of collective mindset you have to really pursue so that you get into this regrowth pattern.

Ernesto Gómez:

I don't know if you know this this hasn't been really documented scientifically but the amount of performance that people leave in the table, it's more or less 40 to 50%, so you can double your productivity. It is amazing. I've interviewed many CEOs throughout my life and I asked them this question what makes your people? What percentage of potential are you getting from your people? In other words, actual performance versus potential. And they tell me you know 40, 50%. I'm sure they can do better. So what do we have to do to help them do better? Because it's not just applying pressure, it's just, you know, potentially something that you have to work with your people to unlock. And that's why I wrote that book to kind of share my experience in doing that and to show what has worked for me and maybe can work for somebody else.

Jay Johnson:

I love that perspective. The title caught regrowth. I was like, oh, that's fascinating. So, audience, it's available on Amazon. You can check that out. We'll make sure that a link to it is in the show notes. Author is Ernesto Gomez. So I have one more question for you. I know that curious. I would love to know. Just from just from our conversation I can tell you are somebody that loves to help. You are somebody that loves to be challenged. What was your experience in sort of this retirement? And then, obviously, now you're, you're, uh, you're you're leading a consulting organization. You're obviously doing great work with other people. What was that transition like for you, stepping out of the corporate sphere and more into your own space? You had mentioned you'd already been a serial entrepreneur previous to this, so I imagine it wasn't too scary. But what was that transition like for you, Ernesto?

Ernesto Gómez:

You know, being in HR, one of the things that I learned is that you have to avoid identifying with your position's title. I mean, you are not your position, you're a person who has talents and performs, because when you retire and you lose that position, it doesn't mean that your identity is lost and it's very hard for retirees to accept that they are no longer. You know such and such title and you have some other opportunities and in the book actually in chapter eight of the book, the last chapter I kind of share my personal transformation experiences so that you know things happen that lead you in a different way and how you can regrow yourself into doing that. At the personal level, and one of the things that I'm very clear about is what is what I'm here to do? What I'm here to do is to help individuals and organizations to get unstuck, renew themselves and unlock potential to thrive in an uncertain world. So that's my definition of what I'm here to do and based on that, you know I take each and every opportunity to either if a company needs my help, you know, as a consultant, or maybe an individual, you know I have to mentor or coach or whatever I get.

Ernesto Gómez:

You know what is this. Why are you stuck? You know, because you have to solve that first. If you don't get unstuck, it's very difficult to perfect everything else. And then how? The next step? How you renew, because the most important problem of any organization is renewal. The villain in an organization is stiffness. You end up doing the same thing over and over again, so you have to renew. And then, of course, once you start that renewal process, how you maximize that untapping potential and really get proficient into doing more of what serves you best. And that's what I'm a fair believer in, that, and I want to devote the next 10, 15 years of my life helping individuals and organizations. That motivates me a lot.

Jay Johnson:

Well, ernesto, I can tell that you have definitely helped some individuals today by being here with us, sharing your story and these incredible you know these incredible just way that you approached some major challenges and the insights that you're able to share. I want to say thank you so much for taking the time to be here with us and to share some of these insights and your knowledge and experience. This has been an absolutely wonderful conversation that I've learned a lot from, and I know that our audience is, so I just I can't say thank you enough for being here. If our audience wanted to get in touch with you, how would they reach out to you?

Ernesto Gómez:

Well, I'm in LinkedIn, ernesto Gomez, and I go by my second last name, because we Latins used to last names. It's Arzapalo A-R-Z-A-P-A-L-O, ernesto Gomez, arzapalo. So you can, you know, get in touch with me there, or you can go to my webpage, you know, aspenmindset1.com, and we can engage there. So I'll be more than happy to get in touch with your audience and see if I can help in some way. That's what I want to do, actually.

Jay Johnson:

I love it. Well, thank you, Ernesto, for being here. We'll make sure that those links are in the show notes so that way people can find you nice and easy. Links are in the show notes so that way people can find you nice and easy. But again, I just want to express my gratitude for your perspective, for your time, your energy. I can tell that you are just an incredibly passionate person about this and definitely an innovator. So thank you again for being here.

Ernesto Gómez:

Thank you, jay, it was my pleasure. I really appreciate you inviting me to your podcast.

Jay Johnson:

Absolutely so and thank you, thank you, audience, for tuning into this episode of the Talent Forge. Where we're together, we are shaping the future of training and development.

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Jay Johnson, CEO and Co-Founder of Behavioral Elements

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