Rahshea Cardiff
Appearances
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
That is a wonderful point to bring up, to be transparent with you where some of those leaders that are still in that traditional mindset, and maybe they're a bit resistant or they're struggling with some of these shifts, particularly as it relates to technology-based solutions.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
I do think, to be honest, that some of that is rooted in some apprehension around what you just shared of technology superseding the human element. And there's a few things I think have to be considered within this, right?
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
So with HAPI, we very much so believe in the value of that human leadership, that human coach, that human consultant, which is one reason why we have our partnership program and why we know there's value in collaborating with leaders within that realm.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
Because everything that we deliver in terms of our behavioral science insight, in terms of our coaching content that we share, it is all exceptional and very impactful. But the meaning of it, the connection of it, And the application of it is next level when a human leader is involved that can tell a story in there, that can make a connection for that employee.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
That is what really takes it to heart, if you will. And so I think that it's important that that we consider that. And the other nuances within this is when we look at scalability, which she mentioned, and I think scalability is one of the greater challenges right now. For example, if an organization brings in an executive coach or consultant, they often work most closely with upper leadership.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
And then the goal is that impact scales out to the team. I'm sure in some instances it does, but in many others, again, due to how much we're striving to accomplish and how fast we're moving every day, unfortunately, it doesn't always scale out to the rest of the team. but they need that, they deserve that. And it's necessary for their continued growth and success as well as the company's.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
So having a technology that can compliment and work alongside that human leader or coach, but helps scale it out, I think is really important, especially for the challenges that we're seeing today.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
The other thing I would share on that is within a happy profile, for example, and when we think about society today and just in general, the way that we tend to socialize and interact, some of us are very outgoing. We wear a fart on our sleeve. We're as open as a book, we'll tell it all.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
Some of us are very introverted and it is just not in our nature to really share or convey or give all of that information. And so that can be challenging when you're a leader overseeing a diverse team of individuals and you don't have all of that more meaningful understanding of each of them. What is the best way for me to communicate with them?
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
What is the best way for me to keep them in an open, healthy, productive mindset and space? Whether we're having to have underperformance conversations or we're celebrating wins and recognition, right? But to have that insight that someone who's more introverted may not just naturally share with you,
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
is so helpful and it's helpful to ensure that you can lead them and help develop them in the most healthy and productive way possible for them. I think that's the important thing is that you can personalize your approach and your development to them. And so I think having that insight can be so impactful.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
But those are really three key things I think of when you posed that question, which again is one, we're gonna have all of that wonderful insight, regardless of how extroverted or introverted someone is and what we may be able to gain understanding of them otherwise. And it's gonna help us in the way that we coach, train, lead and develop them. And then that discussion we talked about scalability.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
How can I scale it out so that I can ensure even if I am overwhelmed as a leader or I do have too much on my plate this week and it has impacted my time to coach and develop my team, that they're still going to have a resource at their fingertips.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
to be able to continue to do that and then i can come back in there one-on-one and let's talk about what did you go pursue development-wise last week what are the areas that you're working on coaching training and developing and how can i best support you as your leader in that and then i think again it's being thoughtful that technology offers us some terrific benefits
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
Specifically for us with HAPI, the manner in which we're using it, again, still that significant value in that human leader and that human coach, being able to take that content and connect it to something more meaningful, to tell a story with it, to really take it to the next level of impact.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
Yes, it is one of my favorite quotes. Maybe it's not about becoming anything. Maybe it's about unbecoming everything that isn't who you really are. You know, in the initial part of our conversation, we talked a little bit about that conditioning. as we're growing up. And these are the things that we accomplish. These are the things we do.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
And when we approach our career, it's that continuous climbing the corporate ladder and obtaining a certain title to accomplish and obtain other things within your personal life as well, right? And really throughout the journey and those pivotal points where I paused and I took a step back
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
to reassess my priorities and to reassess how I wanted to move forward and the way I wanted to live my life and the impact I wanted to have. It really put me in that space of, here I worked so hard to get to this certain status, right, this certain point in my career, only to get there and realize
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
I really did just want to prioritize my loved ones and to make a positive impact on the world and to do meaningful work. It wasn't about all of these things that I think I had been conditioned to feel were what I needed to be working on and what I needed to be working towards. And so you start to peel back the layers
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
And I really realized just that it was really about unbecoming all of these things that weren't me. And if we connect that, just for example, within the context of happy, you know, throughout my corporate career, As shared, I'd always been a people first leader. I've also always been a very optimistic and a very positive perspective leader.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
And there were many times that I was told I needed to be different or I needed to be different. tougher or an employee shouldn't come out of that performance management discussion seeming so optimistic or seeming that they're in a healthy and productive mindset. I felt many times that I was told I needed to change who I was just to fit into somebody's picture what they thought I should be.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
Really, I learned instead to just step into who I am, to stand strong in who I am and to be proud of who I am and that my uniqueness and the positive perspective I bring, the joy and the energy I strive to bring, me fully stepping into my superpowers
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
is what is going to support me having the greatest impact on the people I love, on the people that I have the opportunity to connect with, whether that be personal or career-wise, and on the work that I'm doing. And within HAPI, there's so much of that built into it, that it's really about understanding each person as the unique and talented individual that they are.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
and embracing that and celebrating that and rather than trying to tell someone they need to change or become something they're not instead we shift our perspective to how do i celebrate who you are and position you to have the greatest impact And so that shift has happened for me, like both personally and professionally.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
And now I feel that I get to step into a role that enables me to spread that perspective and impact to the community and to teams and organizations. for the individuals out there, that is something that I would strongly encourage people to take a moment and reflect on. Are you in the space you're in, on the path you're on, because it is truly who you are and it is truly what you want?
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
Or are you in that position or on that path because you've just been working towards becoming all of the things or the thing that you were conditioned to think you should be doing. And really, truly, I think where we step into our highest and best self, which again, when we're operating from that space, supports us having the greatest impact on the people in the
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
When you are able to step into that, it will change your life. It really will. And so I would just always encourage folks to take that time to really ask themselves those deep questions. And when you're ready to make the shift, of unbecoming, there may be some sacrifice in there. There may be shifting your mindset. For me, I had to make some shifts financially.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
I chose to change some of the ways that I was spending or prioritizing money so that I could prioritize my family and my loved ones over my career. But ultimately, the space I'm in now, that's where I feel I've reached is that unbecoming everything that wasn't really who I am and stepping into who I am.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
And that's positioning me to have just an entirely different level of impact in the people in the world around me. So that's what I would encourage you to do is take that time for deep reflection and really choose to be intentional and purposeful with how you move forward and how you choose to do what we've talked about, Vince. Live in the moment. Make the most of every day.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
Know that you're living your life with purpose and intention and making positive impact.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
Absolutely. HAPI, our mission is really to improve the way people and teams interact at work and to improve the way they work together. There's a couple of interesting challenges within the work environment and culture right now. One of them being that since the pandemic, we've seen this shift from primarily in office in person to hybrid and remote work settings.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
And we know that's going to continue to be there and likely continue to grow. And then we've also seen this challenge that many organizations are facing. They're really in a position to accomplish more with less resources, whether that's less staffing, less budgeting, whatever the case may be. Naturally within business, those growth targets continue to increase each year.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
So again, how do we accomplish more with less? It's interesting because despite that, I believe many leaders know how important that people component is to their growth and success. it often tends to fall down the ladder of priorities as they get very focused on those bottom line deliverables and the growth expectations and things of that nature. It's a challenge.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
And then when you look at how do we still build highly effective, highly collaborative, highly connected teams, even in the midst of remote and hybrid work environments. It's a challenge. It's a very big challenge. With HAPI, we take the power of behavioral science. Our HAPI assessment is rooted in DISC.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
And so we take the power of behavioral science and we really position it to be actionable insight within a team. And so it really helps leaders get a snapshot of every member of their team and really understanding them on a more meaningful level. How are they wired? What is their natural approach to certain things such as communication, problem solving, the people dynamic and the team dynamic?
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
And what are the things that make them tick? What are their energy drivers? On the opposite side of that, what are their energy drainers? And what are the unique strengths and superpowers that they bring to your team? And then once you have that snapshot, you have that deeper understanding of each person and leader on your team.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
Now, how can I utilize that insight to position people to be having the greatest impact to the business while simultaneously thriving in their genius and their superpower and their passion? Because when we can get a team to that space, they are going to unlock higher levels of potential and they're going to accelerate the results and outcomes.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
And then when you consider, if I have all of that incredible insight to better understand each person on my team, How can then we utilize that to have more effective communication with one another, stronger collaboration with each other?
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
And then even if we're hybrid or remote, we have this incredible level of connectedness in the way that we are working together and we're achieving stronger outcomes. And it takes that and it allows you to scale it throughout your organization.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
The other thing that I think is so important, connecting to some of those challenges we talked about in today's work environment, people leaders, for example, are stretched very thin right now. But we know that coaching, training, and development of every person on our team is so critical to our continued growth and success.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
And with Happy, we take all that amazing insight that we learn about each member of the team and we're able to weave it into a very personalized coaching platform. And it essentially puts a one-on-one coach at the fingertips of every leader and employee within a team. Okay.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
It has unlimited self-coaching where they can understand themselves better and work on their own development, whether that be understanding their blind spots or elevating how they communicate with emotional intelligence.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
For leaders, there's really wonderful content that helps them understand how can I have greater effective motivation amongst my team and within my meetings or my one-on-one conversations. But then it also has a very unique collaborative coaching concept.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
Where the example I shared with you earlier around that employee who I had to have those one-on-ones with and we had to really dig into their development and performance. One of our collaborative coachings in HAPI would allow me as a people leader to pull in my behavioral insight and work style and to also pull in that employee's
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
And it will give me hyper-personalized guidance on how to approach this underperformance conversation with them. And it's done in a way that just helps me understand their kind of natural thought process and the way that they're wired. And how can I be thoughtful of that to make this a healthy and productive conversation?
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
And so it really is taking that people component, prioritizing it, leveraging the unique strengths and superpowers of every person on your team to position your team to achieve growth and success. It's really just been an incredible project to be a part of. As you mentioned, that transition from over 20 years in corporate America to being a part of a startup team, it's definitely different.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
But it's also so exciting to be doing meaningful work and to be creating something that I passionately believe is needed as we look at how leaders and organizations are going to build this next generation of people-centric teams, even in the midst of hybrid and remote work environments.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
Serving as VP of partnerships predominantly I do a number of things. I say predominantly, I'm like really in a startup, we all tend to wear many hats, but I really, I have the joy of connecting with CEOs, founders, C-suite leaders, HR leaders on a daily basis and just understanding what are their pain points?
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
What are the challenges that they're striving to resolve or find a solution to around the people component of their teams? And what are their future forward growth goals that may be connected to that people component?
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
For example, there's a lot of organizations that for this next fiscal year, they're striving to put together remote work packages and what tools and things are really necessary for remote teams to be successful. I also have the joy to work with executive coaches and consultants.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
So folks who are out there coaching executives, consulting companies, again, to help them solve those pain points and challenges. And many of them have different tools in their tool belt. And depending upon the problem or the solve that an organization needs, They make recommendations of those solutions.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
And so they collaborate and link arms with us for positive impact when they feel that happy is a great fit for an organization. And so I had the joy to work within both of those realms. It's been very eye-opening, very insightful, and really just a pleasure to get to connect with so many different leadership mindsets. because there are so many out there.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
And so you get to see and hear different perspectives. And there's some leadership out there that is still in that more traditional mindset. And then you have leaders who are more on that forefront. They're ready to embrace technology, innovation, creativity, different ways of doing things. And then you have folks in the middle.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
It's just very interesting to be able to see and experience and hear feedback from all of those different perspectives. I get to be a part of helping those leaders consider that as we move forward, There's going to likely be a need to embrace innovation and to embrace some out-of-the-box strategies and solutions as we continue to evolve with two things, really.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
Where the work environment is evolving to, being as diverse as it is, and also... where the demand of what people, applicants, candidates are asking for from an organization, because we've also seen a shift there and they are asking for more in terms of Some of what you talked about earlier in the call, we were talking about that structure and that rigidness.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
But where is the balance with really considering the nuances of the people component and all of these unique individuals we have on a team? And candidates and employees are really looking for their experience to be more prioritized. They're seeking more balance. They're seeking more flexibility in work schedules and work environments.
Chief Change Officer
#260 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part Two
They're seeking for there to be a greater balance and a greater priority around mental health and wellness and physical health and wellness. So we're also seeing a shift there. And so it's just really interesting to be a part of that. And HAPI is a tool and platform that I feel fulfills needs in multiple of those capacities.
Chief Change Officer
#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
Yes, it's one of the things that's interesting as we reflect on our journey is there tends to be some conditioning as we're growing up. We go to school, we get good grades. We go to college, we get married, buy a house, continue to climb the corporate ladder and achieve a certain title or a certain status.
Chief Change Officer
#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
And it's just kind of things that we observe, we see, we hear, we're taught as we're growing up. And it was always very important to me to be very independent, to be able to stand on my own two feet as I navigated the world. And I really was very ambitious from a very young age. And my mother was always telling me that was her concern for me.
Chief Change Officer
#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
You're such a workaholic and I know you're so passionate and you're so talented. But my biggest fear is that you're going to look back and realize you missed so much and by being so focused on your career. And I used to, in my mind, just be like, oh, she doesn't understand, she doesn't understand. And I keep climbing that ladder. And in 2016, my life really started to
Chief Change Officer
#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
go through some really challenging challenging life experiences i went through a divorce with the person whom i had spent half of my life with up to that point my mother went through multiple battles with cancer and she ultimately passed away in 2017 And so those were two tremendous losses, literally within a year of one another. And they really started to shift my entire mindset and perspective.
Chief Change Officer
#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
towards life, towards my priorities, just in general towards how I wanted to move forward in life. I then had my first son in 2018. That just continued this kind of intense internal evolution because now I had this amazing little person whom I wanted to provide a wonderful life for. I wanted to be the most amazing mother for, and I didn't want to miss it all.
Chief Change Officer
#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
I didn't want to be so focused on my career and working so much that in 10 or 15 years I'd look back and feel like I missed it all. You know, it was through those back-to-back experiences that I really started to ask myself, what am I doing with my life? What are my priorities? And how do I want to be very intentional and purposeful with how I adjust those moving forward?
Chief Change Officer
#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
When you go through a loss like a parent, just you realize that we fall into this mindset We're all moving so fast and like at the speed of light every day and there's so much going on that we just have this mindset of there's always tomorrow. It really takes going through an experience like that to help you realize, no, we're not.
Chief Change Officer
#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
And one of the biggest mistakes we can make is living as though we are always guaranteed tomorrow. And that really started creating some massive just internal transformation for me. And so at this season in my life, I was overseeing four states of business. I was traveling extensively. my son was right in that two to three-year-old range, I would come back and just feel that I had missed so much.
Chief Change Officer
#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
One of the questions that I like to ask myself a lot now, at the end of each day, I ask myself, am I at peace? Am I content? Do I have joy for how I spent this day? And if it were my last day, Would I be at peace with it? And if I reach a season where there's too many days that the answer is no, then I know that I need to pause, take a step back and recalibrate. And that is really what happened.
Chief Change Officer
#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
I started asking myself that question and there were too many days the answer was no because I was missing time with my son. I was gone a lot. Even when I was with him, I wasn't fully present because my role was very high responsibility and very consuming. And so I had to start asking myself, What changes are you going to make?
Chief Change Officer
#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
What are you willing to do differently moving forward to work towards the life that you really want to have? Which is being able to prioritize my family, my friends, my passions, and making a positive impact on other people's lives in the world. And so I chose to resign from corporate America and take a massive leap of faith into entrepreneurship.
Chief Change Officer
#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
I did that for about 18 months and then I ended up crossing paths with HAPI. And HAPI is just doing so much of the work that I believe the world and especially teams and organizations need. when it comes to prioritizing the people component of what propels them. And I ended up being a great fit. And now I have the joy to be contributing to meaningful work. I am close to home. I'm local.
Chief Change Officer
#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
So I still have that ability to balance and prioritize my family and the things that I'm passionate about. It's really put me in the position to live that more purposeful and intentional life that I want to live.
Chief Change Officer
#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
Yes, it is a gift. I'm so grateful for the learnings and the wisdom that I've been able to derive from the challenging experiences. And just an example of that, connecting to what you just shared. In the past, if I was having one of those challenging days, where it just seems like nothing's going right.
Chief Change Officer
#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
You lost the car keys or you ran out of gas or just any number of things that happened to us in the day-to-day of life. In the past, I would get very anxious about that when you just, okay, how do I fix it? How do I make everything work? Today, when I'm having a day like that, it really, to your point, it helps me be more present.
Chief Change Officer
#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
And I'm like, you know what, Rashia, if you can't find your car keys, maybe there's a reason why. Maybe you're just not supposed to leave right now. So let's just redirect that. our time and energy towards something productive and fun right now. Or if you're having just a difficult day, right? Maybe you had a challenging interaction at work or a challenging exchange with a client or customer.
Chief Change Officer
#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
I do so much better now at just releasing that once that situation is concluded. And shifting my mindset for, okay, how can we continue to go make the best of today? When it really does help you focus more on living in the present and making the most of today. And I think it's such a gift when we are able to shift our mindset and perspective to live that way.
Chief Change Officer
#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
Good evening. Thank you for having me, Vince. I'm so excited to connect with you this evening and dive into some great, thoughtful discussion. My name is Rishia. I currently serve as VP of Partnerships at Happy Companies. and went through some significant life experiences over the past several years that for myself really placed me in a deeply reflective space in terms of
Chief Change Officer
#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
what is my purpose in my time here what are the intentions and the things that i want to accomplish and the positive impact that i want to have on other people on the world and then ultimately really positioned me to consider what is most important in life and on this journey and that positioned me to make some shifts in life.
Chief Change Officer
#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
As I reprioritized my family, I reprioritized the things that bring me joy and purpose in my personal life. And going through that journey is then something that cascaded to my career journey and really positioned me to take some different perspectives towards doing meaningful work in the world and really wanting to connect that to the positive impact that I seek to have.
Chief Change Officer
#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
So that's just a little bit about that personal and professional journey that I've been on.
Chief Change Officer
#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
Yes. I have so much passion towards people leadership and just as a whole, the people component of teams and organizations. I'm very passionate, you know, that people are truly the heart of what propels an organization forward. They are the heart of what propels growth and success. And so that people first ethos has always been a very integrated part of my foundation and leadership.
Chief Change Officer
#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
I started out my journey in Best Buy and I was with Best Buy for over a decade in multiple people leadership capacities. and ultimately had additional wonderful opportunities within Starbucks. And most recently, prior to my journey with Happy, I was with Microsoft for almost a decade.
Chief Change Officer
#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
Within each of those opportunities that I've had, I always maintained the mindset that if I put my people first, if I hire the right talent, if I give them a thorough impact structured onboarding experience that sets them up for success, and I then follow that up with consistent talent development,
Chief Change Officer
#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
just understanding their individual goals, both personally and professionally, understanding their strengths and the things that they're passionate about. If I kept those things as a priority,
Chief Change Officer
#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
and I ensure that anybody within my team truly enjoys coming to work, truly has the opportunity for their talents and passions to have the greatest impact to our clients, to our collective vision and goals, then the results will follow.
Chief Change Officer
#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
And really, truly, that is what I attribute to the success that I experienced in my corporate career and reasons that I feel I've had such amazing opportunities was really keeping that people first mindset and trusting that the results and the growth would follow. That has ultimately
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#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
led me to many wonderful chapters in my career, and ultimately that passion is what has connected me to where I'm currently serving in my role with HAPI.
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#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
That's a really great topic to bring to the table, Vince, because you're absolutely right. We encounter that in corporate America often. And there's a myriad of factors within those situations. But what I will say is things that come to mind within that. Yes, in corporate America, we have that structure. We have those guidelines. And there's one thing that was reiterated throughout my career.
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#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
Fair and consistent. We have to be fair and consistent. Well, yes, that structure plays a role, right? And it's necessary. It is a necessity in many ways. It's also... there's a role of a leader to demonstrate leadership courage. And there are times when that should come into play. And so to provide an example there, if
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#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
I took over a market and prior to taking over that market, I was informed that these members of the team are currently on performance improvement plans and we would expect that they would likely be making changes soon, right? And so I came in and I said, I can appreciate that insight. I can appreciate where the process currently is.
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#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
However, as the new leader coming in, what I will ask for is the opportunity to observe the dynamics and the specific circumstances with these individuals and to gain further insight about their opportunities. and then have the opportunity to assess from there. And that's demonstrating leadership courage.
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#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
And I think it's super important that, yes, we have structure and we have policies and they do give us a guideline to work within and by, and create those standards to be fair and consistent. But there's also times that a leader needs to exercise discernment and exercise courage in navigating a conversation or a situation. For example, within that story I was sharing,
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#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
One of those individuals, I sat down, anytime I take over a team, one of the very first things I do is I schedule one-on-ones with every single person on my team. And I just seek to understand one more about them as an individual. What are they passionate about? What do they feel their strengths are in their specific areas that they bring superpowers to the team?
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#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
I like to understand a bit more about their strengths and opportunities in their performance and what plans they may have in place around that. And in general, just get a feel for what's going good. What do we say? This is awesome and we want to keep this going. And what are some of the pain points? What are some of the things that we really need to address?
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#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
and consider making some changes around moving forward. So within having those honest conversations with my team, these two individuals whom I had been shared this information with coming in to take on this team, I had heart to heart with them. We looked over their performance trends. We looked over their deliverables and what had consistently been shown over a specific period of time.
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#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
One of those individuals was able to really do some great reflection, some deep inward reflection, and accept some responsibility in those areas and said, Rashi, if I can have your support, if you and I can develop an action plan moving forward and I can turn this ship around, I would really appreciate that because these are the long-term goals I have that I'd like to accomplish.
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#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
And if I have the right leader working with me and the right support, I believe I can still do that. So I said, absolutely, let's make it happen. And just to share, that individual did just that. They turned that ship around. They became one of the top three performers in the nation in their deliverables. And that person is now serving in a corporate management role at our corporate campus.
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#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
And now on the other token of that, the other individual, it didn't end up being the right fit for them. It just wasn't the right role. And we did ultimately have to take that path, but they ended up making their own decision to find an opportunity that was better suited for them. But within that, you're given the context coming in. You're given the expectation coming in.
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#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
You know that you need to work within that performance management cycle. But as a leader, you need to exercise that wisdom and discernment and not be afraid to have courageous conversations, even if that means with your upper leadership.
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#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
And so in those instances, I went to my upper leadership and I said, listen, I would like to sit down and review these two situations with you and provide my perspective and my feedback, and then share with you what our plan of action is moving forward. I believe that we can turn this around. You can't shy away from having those conversations.
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#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
Again, whether that's peer to peer or that's to your upper leadership. So I think that was sometimes where some challenges come in play of I'm just going to go by the policy or I'm going to go by these steps that were issued to me. Are there times when that's the right process to follow? Absolutely.
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#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
But are there times where as a leader, you need to demonstrate that wisdom and discernment and have courageous conversations? Yes.