The Talent Sherpa Podcast

Jackson O. Lynch
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Where Senior Leaders Come to Rethink How Human Capital Really Works This podcast is built for executives who are done with HR theater and ready to run talent like a business system. The conversations focus on decisions that show up in revenue, margin, speed, and accountability. No recycled frameworks. No vanity metrics. No performative culture talk. Each episode breaks down how real organizations build talent density, set clear expectations, reward the right outcomes, and fix what quietly kills performance. The tone is direct. The thinking is operational. The guidance is usable on Monday morning. If you are a CEO, CHRO, or senior operator who wants fewer activities and more results from your people strategy, you are in the right place. Keep Climbing.

  1. Why Decisions Stall When Nobody Disagrees

    2D AGO

    Why Decisions Stall When Nobody Disagrees

    Send a text McKinsey found that organizations with clear decision rights are 2.3x more likely to achieve above-median financial performance. And yet most organizations have never mapped who actually owns a decision versus who gets consulted versus who gets to veto. Here's a scenario you'll recognize. The vendor was chosen two months ago. The business case was approved. The budget exists. And yet you're sitting in another meeting. Because someone in finance asked a clarifying question. Then legal wanted to review the terms again. Then the CFO's chief of staff mentioned the CEO might want visibility. Everyone in the room is reasonable. Everyone is collaborative. And everyone is waiting for somebody else to say yes. This is not a decision meeting. This is a permission meeting. What You'll Learn The structural mechanism behind organizational slowness: Ambiguity creates risk. Risk creates caution. Caution creates consensus-seeking. Consensus-seeking expands the stakeholder set. More stakeholders slow cycle time. Slow cycle time reduces accountability. Reduced accountability increases ambiguity. The loop closes and accelerates.The system is teaching your people not to decide. A director who makes a hiring call without executive visibility gets questioned in a leadership meeting. She learns the cost of deciding is higher than the cost of delaying. Next time she escalates earlier. The time after that, earlier still.Empowerment speeches don't work because empowerment is not a speech. It is a grant of authority with defined boundaries, explicit escalation criteria, and known consequences. Without that architecture, empowerment is an instruction to guess.The four plays: Map your permission loops. Pick your five highest-friction decisions. Trace the real path, not the official process. Most delays happen not because someone said no, but because someone was uncertain whether they were allowed to say yes.Define irreversibility. For every role that owns significant decisions, answer three questions: What decisions are irreversibly yours? What decisions require consultation and from whom? What decisions must you escalate and under what conditions?Separate consultation from consensus. Consultation means input is gathered. Consensus means everyone agrees. The first is efficient. The second is paralyzing. Five consultants is collaboration. Five vetoes is gridlock.Make escalation faster than socializing. When escalating is easier than scheduling alignment meetings, the permission loop loses its power.Key Quotes "This is not a decision meeting. This is a permission meeting. And your organization is full of them." "Empowerment is not a speech. It is architecture. You cannot ask people to be decisive in a system that has made decision authority ambiguous." "The organization begins to treat decisiveness as recklessness. It begins to reward the people who are best at managing stakeholder politics, not the people who are best at making decisions." The Diagnostic Questions How many of your recent delays were caused by someone saying no versus someone being uncertain they could say yes?Can your direct reports answer what decisions are irreversibly theirs without asking you?When a decision takes three weeks that should take three days, is that complexity or is that the permission loop?Support the show Resources My Talent Sherpa: mytalentsherpa.com Talent Sherpa Substack: talentsherpa.substack.com Scott Morris / Propulsion AI: getpropulsion.ai Dripify: try.dripify.com/talentsherpa

    14 min
  2. The Orchestration Layer Nobody Designed

    6D AGO

    The Orchestration Layer Nobody Designed

    Send a text 92% of companies are investing in AI, but only 7% are generating returns. The gap isn't technology. Organizations are automating broken structures instead of redesigning work. McKinsey found that high performers are 3x more likely to have fundamentally redesigned workflows before adding AI. Everyone else is bolting AI onto existing processes and wondering why nothing changed. So here's the tough question: Are CHROs ready to be architects, or are they about to become implementers of very expensive dysfunction? What You'll Learn Why the playbook isn't new: Strategy first, structure and roles second, talent thirdThe same principles that worked in digital transformation apply to AIThree types of AI strategy require three different organizational structuresWhy agents need job descriptions: Role clarity becomes more important, not less, when you add AINow we're designing roles for humans and AI agentsTransparency matters: what the agent does, what we expect, how we give it feedbackThe orchestration layer: Coordinating humans and AI toward outcomes is the new workThe number and frequency of handoffs between humans and agents mattersYour orchestration layer may be your most valuable IPThe trust problem: 45% of employees are hiding their AI use from employersGen Z in particular feels like using AI is cheatingThis is a mindset shift we have to train them onThe junior pipeline problem: 37% of companies plan to replace entry level roles with AIEntry level jobs are where people learn the businessThe answer: accelerated apprenticeship, getting people to higher value work fasterKey Quotes "You take a bad process, you add technology, and now you have a faster bad process." "If AI hits fog, it's going to scale the fog. You've got to get the fog out of the way." "Agents need job descriptions so that the humans can know and have full transparency in what the agent is there to do." "We're not choosing among different human talent, we're choosing human talent versus AI talent. What is the best horse for the course?" "The CHRO who figures this out is going to become indispensable. The one who doesn't is just going to be an implementer of really, really expensive dysfunction." The Diagnostic Questions Is your AI strategy clear: new product, new channels, or back office efficiency?Have you designed the organizational structure to match that strategy?Do your AI agents have job descriptions?Are you tracking the number of handoffs between humans and agents?What is your data privacy bill of rights for employees?Support the show Resources My Talent Sherpa: mytalentsherpa.com Talent Sherpa Substack: talentsherpa.substack.com Scott Morris / Propulsion AI: getpropulsion.ai Dripify: try.dripify.com/talentsherpa

    46 min
  3. Lou Holtz Has Entered Hospice. What He Taught Me.

    FEB 9

    Lou Holtz Has Entered Hospice. What He Taught Me.

    Send us a text Lou Holtz stood 5'10" on a generous day. He joked he had a face made for radio and a lisp made for silence. He didn't command a room by walking into it the way some leaders do. But he commanded a room nonetheless. And he did it by how he treated the people inside of it. Please take a moment and watch this speech: https://youtu.be/veSXqc4otKE?si=4dRrvD9PZ9mzACEX Jackson Lynch recorded this the morning he learned Coach Holtz entered hospice. As a Notre Dame Class of 1996 graduate, Lynch watched Holtz treat groundskeepers the same way he treated boosters, remember names of people who had no business being remembered. Not because it was strategic, but because that was his operating system. What You'll Learn Why ability is table stakes: Organizations obsess over credentials, then act surprised when capable people underdeliverMotivation determines whether you engage the work; attitude determines whether it produces anything worth havingIf strong hires keep underperforming, it's not selection. It's the operating environment.The architecture of attention: Most people are managing their own constraints. They don't have bandwidth for yours.The discipline is knowing who has both capacity and alignment to help before you spend capital askingThe say-do gap: Every organization has a gap between declared intent and executed reality. Coach named that in eleven words.Talking feels like progress. You leave the meeting feeling like something happened.Your job is to close the gap by making execution measured, visible, and consequentialDesigning how you carry the weight: Two leaders can have identical pressures. One thrives. One fractures.The difference isn't resilience as a personality trait. It's the architecture of how they've structured their response.If you haven't built that architecture, you're relying on personal tolerance. And that's a depleting resource.Key Quotes "Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. And attitude determines how well you do it." "Don't tell your problems to people. Eighty percent don't care, and the other twenty percent are glad that you have them." "When all is said and done, more is said than done." "It is not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it." The Diagnostic Questions Are your systems selecting for capability while ignoring what shapes motivation and attitude?Do you know who has both capacity and alignment to help before you ask?What's the gap between what your organization says and what it does?Have you designed how you carry the weight, or are you relying on resilience?Support the show Resources My Talent Sherpa: mytalentsherpa.com Talent Sherpa Substack: talentsherpa.substack.com Scott Morris / Propulsion AI: getpropulsion.ai Dripify: try.dripify.com/talentsherpa

    11 min
  4. Why Your Talent Problem Isn't a Talent Problem

    FEB 5

    Why Your Talent Problem Isn't a Talent Problem

    Send us a text W. Edwards Deming said 94% of problems in organizations are system driven. Only 6% are people problems. We all nod when we hear that. We love the quote. We put it in our slide decks. And then we go right back to building performance improvement plans. The Work Institute found that 75% of voluntary turnover is preventable. Three out of four departures did not have to happen. And yet we're spending our energy on the 6% while ignoring the 94%. Imagine you're a surgeon and your patients keep dying on the table. You blame the patient. You get a new patient and they die too. At some point, do you start to wonder if maybe the problem isn't the patient, maybe it's the operating room? What You'll Learn The faulty assumptions that get leaders stuck: "We need to hold people accountable for results" assumes performers control the variables that determine success. Research shows 70% of the variance in team engagement relates to managers."A good performer can succeed anywhere" assumes talent is portable. A role that burns through three leaders in 18 months is a role design problem, not a talent problem."PIPs help underperformers improve" assumes they're developmental tools. In reality, 67% of employees say performance evaluations are based on subjective observations, not clear metrics."High turnover means we need to hire better" ignores that 71% of voluntary turnover stems from poor management, not bad hires."Fixing individuals is faster than fixing systems" ignores the math. A PIP plus recruiting plus onboarding takes 15 months. Redesigning a broken system takes 6 weeks.The four questions to ask before any PIP or exit: The pattern question: Is this the first time the role has failed to deliver?The load question: Was this role designed for a human or for a superhero?The attribution question: Are we measuring people or the systems they're in?The capital question: Where is your time and money actually going?The plays for next week: Run a failure audit on your last three exitsBuild a system load assessment for critical rolesChange performance conversations to start with what the person was asked to do and what they had to do it withRun stay interviews before exit interviews Key Quotes "A bad system will beat a good person every time. If your system makes failure likely, you will keep finding people to blame until you run out of people." "We're not saying individual accountability doesn't matter. We're saying most of what we call individual failure is actually a system failure wearing a name tag." "Fixing people is a low altitude mandate. Fixing systems is a high altitude mandate." "If replacing your top performers with average performers would break the system, you're relying on heroics. And heroics don't scale." "You can hear the problems while people are still on payroll, or you can hear them on the way out. That's a choice." The Diagnostic Questions How many people have failed in the same role in the last 18 months?If you replaced your top performers with average performers, would the system break?When someone misses quota, how much was actually in their control?What percentage of your energy goes to people problems vs. system problems?Are you running stay interviews or just exit interviews?Resources My Talent Sherpa: mytalentsherpa.com Talent Sherpa Substack: talentsherpa.substack.com Scott Morris / Propulsion AI: getpropulsion.ai Dripify: try.dripify.com/talentsherpa

    29 min
  5. Why Capable CHROs Hit an Invisible Ceiling

    FEB 2

    Why Capable CHROs Hit an Invisible Ceiling

    Send us a text Watch this happen to exceptionally capable people. CHROs who transformed functions, built credibility, did everything right in the mandate conversation, and still hit a ceiling they cannot explain. We talk about the identity shift the CHRO must make. Functional leader to business leader. HR expert to enterprise problem solver. But here's what no one talks about. The CHRO cannot complete that shift alone. There's a corresponding shift the CEO must also make. If the CEO doesn't make it, the CHRO's transformation stalls. What You'll Learn The structural trap no one names: Why the CHRO is the only executive whose job requires them to assess their bossHow capable CHROs become structurally trappedThe difference between being a trusted HR partner vs. someone the CEO lets see them clearlyWhat the CEO identity shift looks like: Moving from "I have a trusted HR partner" to "I have someone whose job includes seeing me clearly, and I have to let them"Signs the CEO has made the shift: used as confidant, in the room when decisions are shapedSigns the CEO hasn't: learning about decisions after they're made, execution without diagnosisThe four-move playbook: Watch how the CEO manages struggling peers: Are you confidant, neutral observer, or excluded?Name the dynamic before the board does: Have a direct conversation about what happens when the board asks about their effectiveness.Test the relationship early: In the first 90 days, bring an uncomfortable but grounded observation.Accept the limitation: You cannot assess whether the CEO has made the identity shift until things get hard. Key Quotes "This is the only executive relationship where a subordinate is structurally required to assess their boss as part of the job." "I've always made one commitment to CEOs I work for: I will never tell the board anything I haven't shared with you first. No surprises." "Some CHRO failures blamed on the CHRO are actually dependency failures. The CEO never made the shift." The Diagnostic Questions When you raise difficult observations, does the conversation continue or does nothing change?Are you positioned as confidant, neutral observer, or excluded when the CEO manages struggling peers?Have you discussed what happens when the board asks about their effectiveness?Are you in the room when difficult decisions are shaped, or only when they're implementing the plan? Resources My Talent Sherpa: mytalentsherpa.com Talent Sherpa Substack: talentsherpa.substack.com Scott Morris / Propulsion AI: getpropulsion.ai Dripify: try.dripify.com/talentsherpa

    17 min
  6. How to Close the Strategy Gap Before Month 7

    JAN 29

    How to Close the Strategy Gap Before Month 7

    Send us a text You've diagnosed the problem. Now here's how to fix it. In Part 1, we unpacked why 31% of first-time CHROs are fired within 18 months and why doing a "good job" on HR metrics isn't enough. The issue? A strategy gap that starts as unclear language, becomes structure, and ends with a quiet exit. In Part 2, we're giving you the playbook. Scott Morris (former CHRO, founder of Propulsion AI) and Jackson Lynch break down the three concrete moves you can make starting Monday morning to close the gap before month 7, before the CEO's tone shifts, before the compliments land oddly, before the narrative moves against you. This isn't about working harder. It's about working differently. What You'll Learn The fundamental shift: Why sounding like the CFO doesn't make you strategic (and what does)The difference between presenting about your function vs. diagnosing the businessHow to move from "here's what HR is doing" to "here's where the strategy will break"What co-authorship actually looks like: Three things strategic CHROs do consistently that operational CHROs don'tHow to articulate where strategy breaks before it shows up in resultsThe difference between being in the room vs. being inside the business modelThe three-move playbook: Contract altitude explicitly: Define "strategic" with your CEO in business terms, not air quotesTranslate strategy into constraints: Identify where the business will break and move talent to fix itRedesign your operating model: Build systems that keep you upstream instead of reactiveThe execution traps to avoid: Moving too fast without trustTrying to change everything at onceConfusing strategic language with strategic contributionNeglecting operational excellence while chasing relevanceThinking this is a solo act (why CFO/COO partnerships matter) Key Quotes "A strategic CHRO doesn't deliver a section of the deck. They shape the story the deck is built around." "Access is earned by demonstrating that you see things others don't. Not by asking for a seat at the table." "The shift isn't do more. The shift is do fewer things that remove constraints." "If you think your role is building people up, you go one way. If you think your role is driving the business forward by building people up, you go a different direction." "Organizations where CFOs and CHROs co-lead initiatives are 2.4x more likely to achieve transformation outcomes." "You cannot neglect operational excellence while chasing strategic relevance. Operational excellence is the foundation. It's not the ceiling." The Diagnostic Questions Is your people strategy inside the business model or sitting next to it?Are you being rewarded for reliability over authorship?Are you being evaluated on enterprise outcomes or how well HR runs?Are you mistaking activity for leverage?About the Hosts Jackson Lynch is founder of Talent Sherpa and creator of the CHRO Ascent Academy. Scott Morris is a former CHRO and founder/CEO of Propulsion AI. Connect Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTubeLeave a review to help us reach more leadersTag @TalentSherpa with your takeawaysListen to Part 1 for the diagnosis: why 31 Resources My Talent Sherpa: mytalentsherpa.com Talent Sherpa Substack: talentsherpa.substack.com Scott Morris / Propulsion AI: getpropulsion.ai Dripify: try.dripify.com/talentsherpa

    34 min
  7. They Knew. They Didn't Tell You.

    JAN 26

    They Knew. They Didn't Tell You.

    Send us a text Every organization running a transformation has people who see exactly what's going to fail. Most of them stay silent. Not because they lack courage, but because they lack permission.  In this episode, Jackson breaks down the red team pre-mortem: a structured way to surface uncomfortable truths before they become expensive failures.  He shares a real example from his time at Nestlé Dryer's, explains why most pre-mortems produce nothing useful, and walks through five plays that actually work. What You'll Learn: What a red team pre-mortem actually is and why it matters now more than everThe five reasons most pre-mortems fail before they startWhy "staffing with believers" guarantees you'll miss the real risksThe difference between a leader explaining intent and defending a decisionHow to use the People, Process, Technology frame to structure the conversationWhy your incentive structure might be rewarding the wrong behaviorFive actionable plays to build a red team that captures real intelligenceKey Moments:  [[02:15] Why most organizations never get the benefits  [04:30] The Nestlé Dryer's story: "Is this going to go perfect?"  [07:45] The five reasons pre-mortems fail  [12:30] Psychological safety defined: belonging after dissent  [15:00] The People, Process, Technology frame  [17:20] Five plays to make your red team work  [22:00] The flaw-finder problem: who gets celebrated?  [24:30] Four takeaways to put into practice Quotable Moments: "You're asking people to find the fatal flaws before they become fatal. That's the genius of this.""The person who catches a problem before launch gets a polite thank you. The person who heroically fixes it afterward gets celebrated.""One defensive reaction teaches everybody what's actually welcome.""Psychological safety means you can put an uncomfortable truth on the table, argue about it, maybe even be wrong, and still belong to the team.""You already have the diversity. The question is whether you've built a structure that lets it speak."Resources My Talent Sherpa: mytalentsherpa.com Talent Sherpa Substack: talentsherpa.substack.com Scott Morris / Propulsion AI: getpropulsion.ai Dripify: try.dripify.com/talentsherpa

    16 min
  8. The Strategy Gap That Quietly Ends CHRO Tenures

    JAN 22

    The Strategy Gap That Quietly Ends CHRO Tenures

    Send us a text The company hires a new CHRO. The CEO introduces them like they've found the missing gear in the leadership machine. The board nods in relief. The executive team exhales. And then, month by month, the narrative starts to shift. Around month nine, the CEO starts offering compliments that land a little oddly. Around month 12, the tone tightens. And by month 15, the question isn't coded anymore: Are we getting the strategic partnership that we need? This is part one of a two-part series naming the quiet pattern that ends CHRO tenures without a headline, without a blowup, and without a clean post-mortem. Today is the diagnosis. We unpack why this pattern exists and why it catches even experienced CHROs off guard. The data is stark: 31% of first-time CHROs are fired in their first 18 months. 52% are fired within a year of a new CEO being appointed. The CHRO thinks they're doing a good job. The system is grading them against a job description that was never spoken. What You'll Learn The enterprise context that's changed: Strategy windows are shorter, margin pressure is higherExecution speed has become a competitive advantageBoards have less tolerance for slow-motion operating modelsWhat CEOs need from CHROs has changed, even when the language hasn'tWhy the strategy gap exists: CFO and COO roles are standardized, CHRO expectations are all over the map"Strategic" means a dozen different things to different CEOsCHROs get hired into undefined versions and gravity takes overThe CEO says strategic, the CHRO hears make HR better, but the CEO means see the business in systemsThe boardroom diagnostic: The CEO opens with narrative, CFO sharpens with margin and cash, operators layer in execution riskIf the CHRO talks about engagement trends and time to fill, they're running a parallel narrativeParallel narratives get trimmed first when the clock runs outFour faulty assumptions that keep this pattern alive: Delivering results automatically creates strategic credibility (early wins set the altitude of the role, you build credibility as an operator and get evaluated as an architect)Strategic is a shared word that will align over time (ambiguity never stays neutral, it becomes muscle memory)Experience protects you (it doesn't, prior success isn't portable unless you renegotiate the value equation)The CHRO role has the same enterprise ceiling as the CFO (it doesn't, CHRO expectations depend entirely on the CEO)Four diagnostic questions: Is our business strategy inside the business model or sitting next to it? (Being in the room isn't being inside the model)Are we rewarding operational reliability over strategic authorship? (Reliability becomes a ceiling)Are we evaluating the CHRO on enterprise outcomes or on how well HR runs? (CFOs are evaluated on enterprise metrics, CHROs on departmental metrics)Are we mistaking activity for leverage? (Finance had external forcing functions, HR didn't)Four execution traps: Confusing trust with influence (trust earns access, influence changes outcomes)Waiting for permission to operate at enterprise level (no one's going to give it to you)Over-delivering operationally to compensate for ambiguity (this cements the wrong identity)Letting the board define youResources My Talent Sherpa: mytalentsherpa.com Talent Sherpa Substack: talentsherpa.substack.com Scott Morris / Propulsion AI: getpropulsion.ai Dripify: try.dripify.com/talentsherpa

    37 min
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About

Where Senior Leaders Come to Rethink How Human Capital Really Works This podcast is built for executives who are done with HR theater and ready to run talent like a business system. The conversations focus on decisions that show up in revenue, margin, speed, and accountability. No recycled frameworks. No vanity metrics. No performative culture talk. Each episode breaks down how real organizations build talent density, set clear expectations, reward the right outcomes, and fix what quietly kills performance. The tone is direct. The thinking is operational. The guidance is usable on Monday morning. If you are a CEO, CHRO, or senior operator who wants fewer activities and more results from your people strategy, you are in the right place. Keep Climbing.

Information

  • Creator
    Jackson O. Lynch
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    109
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Ninety Consulting LLC
  • Show Website
    The Talent Sherpa Podcast