Cisco's Chief People Officer Returns To Discuss The Importance Of Being Hungry To Learn, How We Can Foster Risk Taking, And How Cisco Is Creating Killer Employee Experiences

Francine Katsoudas is the Senior Vice President and Chief People Officer of Cisco. She plays a major role in the company's overall performance, leading organizational strategy, promoting operational effectiveness, and elevating team performance through innovative leadership.

A 20-year veteran of Cisco, Katsoudas has extensive experience leading organizational transformations. Prior to her current role, she was the HR leader and business partner to the Engineering leadership team helping oversee its workforce of more than 25,000 people. She has also held leadership positions in the Service Provider, HR Operations, Customer Service, Acquisition Integration and Services groups.

A new venture at Cisco this last year was Leader Day. One day brought 8500 leaders together both in person and remotely, around the globe in 7 locations and it included leaders that report to CEO. Leader Day was meant to create a community for the 8500 people striving to be better and it was developed due to desire to align expectations for leaders . The event started with everyone listening to the same keynote speaker and scenarios. After that the entire group of 8500 were then divided into groups of 10 and each group had exercises that they discussed based on those scenarios.

Cisco looks at 3 pillars within the talent strategy:

1. What do we want individual experience to be?
2. Teams – create an environment that builds and develops world class teams
3. Team of teams – how do we work with 73,000 employees to drive alignment and innovation

In addition, Cisco has identified 11 'Moments that Matter’. Identifying the concept of ‘moments that matter’ has led to managers becoming more thoughtful about issues surrounding these types of moments. It has also driven a new level of appreciation.

What you will learn in this episode:

• The story behind ‘getting rid of annual performance reviews in 3 days’*
• The path that led to Katsoudas to her current role at Cisco
• What is ‘The best of we’ and ‘The best of me’
• Should you be aware of your personal brand?
• How do you deal with fear at work?
• An offer to other orgs to collaborate with Cisco on new topic

*Check out previous podcast with Jacob and Francine to learn even more about this subject!