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Brenna Garbelman is a Director of Strategy at Phenom who initially pursued a career in marketing and advertising, but shifted to recruitment after witnessing how placing a homeless individual into a job and home could fundamentally change a life. She is a staunch advocate for the human “X factor,” believing that AI can’t replace the cultural intuition a recruiter provides.

In this high-energy episode, Garbelman challenges recruiters to embrace their new roles as culture champions by using technology to find passionate candidates who will one day cure cancer or reach the stars. Get ready to move beyond the boundaries of traditional HR and launch into the blue sky of organizational transformation.

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Edward Amey, CEO of Jay Nolan Community Services, shares a transformative vision for supporting the neurodiverse community by focusing on “presumed competence” and individualized care. By fostering a culture of curiosity, Amey’s team constantly explores what is possible for those they serve, ensuring that every person has the opportunity to define their own path.

Technology can serve as a GPS that enables deeper human connections rather than replacing them. Amey explains how Jay Nolan Community Services utilizes advanced tools to revolutionize recruitment personalized interactions, such as CEO welcome videos, to demonstrate their value from day one. By leveraging technology as a connector and maintaining a steadfast belief in universal potential, the organization strives to ensure that no one’s contribution is stifled by societal barriers.

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The industrial age is sunsetting, and the era of dynamic, AI-enabled talent is here. Modern organizations must transition from static job descriptions to a future-looking model centered on the mobility of skills. Leadership is a critical factor in digital adoption, but many leaders remain change-averse due to legacy technology restrictions or outdated management styles.

Join Jane Mehringer, Global Talent Attraction Lead at ABB, and digital transformation expert Alan Segal as they broadcast from the historic NASA Kennedy Space Center to dismantle the myths surrounding AI and job security. This episode dives deep into the human in the lead philosophy, challenging executives to stop hiding behind legacy systems and start embracing the innovation readiness mindset required to survive the next 20 years.

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Jeremy Bono leads Phenom’s North American account management team, a sizable business that represents most of the company’s revenue. His team partners with nearly 500 employers to extract value out of the technology. That requires understanding all aspects of the customer’s business such as revenue drivers and strategic priorities.

Asking good questions is critical to salespeople’s success. That’s why Bono has account managers use an “open, probe, confirm” framework to ask open-ended questions, probe further and confirm what they heard with customers. Artificial intelligence is a great way to get information faster and allows for deeper conversations, which is why the sales team is trained on the technology to do their jobs better.

In this episode, hear Bono’s famous “Rule of Five” sales strategy for value-selling and why he’s always in a state of constant learning.

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A simple fact of innovation, and all of the speed, efficiency, and automation that comes with it, is that technology will break down from time to time. Engineering is inherently human and iterative. The same principle of forgiveness should apply to technology as to people – viewing failures as a moment in time in a long journey, not a final endpoint.

Mark MacDonald knows a thing or two about the importance of accepting and learning from breakdowns. As the top executive in charge of Phenom’s Global Professional Services and Customer Care team, his team helps more than 700 organizations overcome tech challenges. Accepting temporary setbacks is crucial for progress and efficiency in a rapidly evolving tech environment. 

Tune in to this episode to hear why curiosity and continuous learning are vital in leadership roles, particularly in exploring new tech and addressing hiccups along the way.

Great leaders at any level of an organization are notable for two traits: they admit their weaknesses and hire to compensate for them. That explains why Panasonic Automotive’s CHRO, Stephen Childs, once laid bare his gaps and weaknesses in front of his team before sharing them with the entire company.

“I literally became a better leader over a period of a few weeks after doing that,” he said in this episode of “Unusual Attitudes.” Vulnerability humanizes leaders and not only assures others on the team that it’s OK to have flaws, but that each member has a strength that benefits the broader organization. That’s how amazing teams get created.

Tune in to this episode and hear how a conversation with his teen daughter paved the way for Childs to become a better active listener.

Guest: Stephen Childs, CHRO, Panasonic Automotive, executive coach and author of “Just Be Undeniable”

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As the scion of elected officials, Kellan White grew up in Philadelphia around the politically powerful. He would dream of the day he entered City Hall, where people would address him as “Mr. Mayor.” But that’s not how things turned out.

After his dad lost a close race for mayor of Philadelphia, tragedy struck when his mother and grandfather died. Feeling lost, White walked away from politics and the city he loved, only to return to contribute to the greater good in another way: as a community connector. He compares himself to Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone in “The Godfather” – “I wanted to challenge myself somewhere where nobody knew my family.”

Tune in to this episode of “Unusual Attitudes” to hear White’s story about living at the intersection of politics, government and community.

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Bringing one’s whole self to work means personal and professional lives mesh in a way that can sometimes get messy. Lindsay Mareau knows that all too well. She is a former senior tech leader who has guided leadership teams and global organizations in outlining people, process and technology to complement their growth and change strategy.

She has been alcohol-free for more than a year, chronicling her sobriety journey on LinkedIn for everyone in her professional network to see. Sobriety is a gift that has given her so much that she had to find a way to share it with others, especially now that she runs her own consulting company dedicated to helping others improve their lives.

Tune in to this episode of “Unusual Attitudes” to hear Mareau’s take on making changes, be it a better leader or sales performer.

Innovation runs through Electrolux’s line of home appliances. Artificial intelligence embedded in washing machines, for example, determines the right spin cycle and water consumption while maximizing cleaning efficiency. The Swedish company brings that same modern mindset to acquiring and managing talent.

AI changed the way HR handles transactional work but it didn’t change Electrolux’s value system, according to Anna Ullrich, a senior talent executive. Educating the workforce on AI is key to understanding the tech’s benefits, but not to the point of stifling inventive, creative ways of working with it.

In this episode of “Unusual Attitudes,” Ullrich explains why leaders should let teams have the freedom to discover their own way of working with AI while staying within the bounds of the company’s guardrails — ultimately creating the innovation they need.

Ray Tavares’ career has largely been spent in one industry — financial services — not all that uncommon for Gen Xers. About 20 years ago, he pivoted into the HR tech domain, and has witnessed every conceivable transformation along the way. His kids jokingly accuse him of “HR-ing” them with fatherly advice.

That’s because of his passion for helping others succeed. In his senior level role at Truist, the Charlotte-based bank formed by the merger of SunTrust and BB&T, Tavares sees himself largely as a coach who helps fellow leaders navigate organizational blind spots.

In this episode of “Unusual Attitudes,” he explains why he loves work, but isn’t a workaholic.

Growing up a “Star Trek” fan, Ajay Patel marveled at boldly going where no one had gone before. It was only natural he would study astrophysics at university, but instead of building rockets and studying celestial bodies, his career pivoted to HR where he builds talent pipelines.

The figure-it-out mindset of an engineer came in handy when he arrived at Straumann Group in 2020 as vice president of talent acquisition. Though the Swiss dental equipment maker is more than 70 years old, the environment and culture felt decidedly like a startup. TA was a blank slate, with little in the way of established processes.

In this episode of “Unusual Attitudes,” Patel traces the excitement he felt building a function from scratch to keep pace with a rapidly growing enterprise.

When Ed LaPerche first entered tech sales in the 1990s he witnessed the industry gradually evolve from old school mainframe computing to the client-server network model all the way through to cloud computing. Today, it’s all about artificial intelligence and agentic AI.

Transformation for a sales professional means never being satisfied with the status quo. Seeking out opportunities to learn and grow are important ways to keep tabs on the next big trends. Because one of the distinctive traits about the technology industry is that its pace of change is much more rapid than other sectors.

In this episode of “Unusual Attitudes,” LaPerche talks about the time he took three companies public, including Salesforce and Workday. Watching them grow from small startups to tech giants has been a rewarding part of his journey.

Greg Muccio naturally followed in the career footsteps of his dad and brothers as a sales rep before realizing it wasn’t for him. He didn’t enjoy the role and admittedly wasn’t good at it – not exactly a winning formula for long-term success.

Luckily he was working at a staffing company when the epiphany hit. A manager asked if he’d be interested in learning recruiting, and the rest, as they say, is history. Today he’s the head of talent acquisition at Southwest Airlines, overseeing a huge team of 300 recruiters.

In this episode of “Unusual Attitudes,” Muccio talks about why he encourages his team to be thinking two roles ahead in their careers. He thinks of career growth as a lattice instead of a ladder.

Most talent professionals will say they didn’t grow up actively wanting to be a recruiter. Not Hung Lee. He was fascinated by the qualities that make one candidate stand out from others with similar resumes. It just took some time for that deep interest to develop.

That’s because HR would have been an unthinkable path in his teens when he actively avoided anything corporate. “Hell on earth” was putting on a suit and going into an office. Then came the “a-ha” moment that as one gets older, the more responsibilities begin to pile up, which constrain choice. Pivoting to recruitment became a conscious decision, then, as age and wisdom made him realize his own obligations.

In this episode of “Unusual Attitudes,” Lee talks about the advice he would give to early career professionals (including his younger self).

Guest: Hung Lee, Editor, Recruiting Brainfood

There are few continents Neil Crumpton either hasn’t visited or recruited from. He even once did a search in Burkina Faso! Crumpton is a natural at navigating cultural boundaries.

His career as a global recruiting executive was forged in his early 20s when he led a multinational team comprised of different cultures, languages, and perspectives. The experience taught him how to find common ground and bring multiple nationalities together.

In this episode of “Unusual Attitudes,” Crumpton describes how assimilation is a part of understanding others, a crucial skill in recruiting.

The first title on Stephanie Worley’s LinkedIn is “Mom.” The second title is “Vice President Talent Acquisition at Bright Horizons.” The mother of three doesn’t want her children to be just like her, nor does she want her teams to be carbon copies either. She wants them to make her a better parent and leader.

Building teams with people who are different yet complementary to one another is key to creating success at work. The key is bringing the right type of talent into the mix. Surrounding herself with people who empower and support was a valuable lesson when Worley worked in an organization primarily run by women. “Sometimes we were our own worst enemies,” she said.

Tune in to this episode to hear Worley’s advice about how men can advocate for women in the workplace by listening, valuing their opinions and asking for more details if something isn’t clear.

Tim Sackett thought he was destined to go the corporate HR route. He was running talent acquisition for a large health system when he received a call one day that would upend his career ambitions: His mother had had a heart attack.

Lured back to the family-owned staffing firm where he worked earlier in his career, Sackett has experience on both sides of the TA equation. Automation is one of the biggest advancements he’s seen in recruiting, providing access to new data sets that help HR work smarter, not harder.

Tune into this episode of “Unusual Attitudes” to hear Sackett’s advice about how organizations should be looking at better sourcing access through technologies.

Dr. Ben Waber is the author of a New York Times bestseller on using analytics to gauge how effectively (or not) people work and collaborate. The data offers insights into building a more productive and profitable organization.

Big companies often make big people decisions while flying blind. Tune into this episode of “Unusual Attitudes” to hear how little tweaks such as changing the way call center employees spend their breaks can boost performance while significantly reducing stress.

Lavonne Monroe of Hewlett Packard Enterprise doesn’t call life’s obstacles and challenges “failures.” Rather, they are “opportunities for learning.” And she has stared down a number of them throughout her professional career to become a better leader and learner.

Adapting to new lines of thinking, flexibility, and perseverance are traits that business leaders would do well to consider the next time they’re faced with an obstacle. Tune in to this episode to hear Monroe’s advice about how to stare adversity in the face and emerge victorious.

When people ask Jonathan Berlan, global head of talent acquisition at Brussels-based biopharmaceutical company UCB, what he does for a living, his answer is simple: he tells stories.

Berlan is an avid reader who considers himself a storyteller at heart. For fun he writes restaurant reviews not to draw his audience to the restaurant but "to tell them the story of a meal I had there," he said.

But Berlan's most powerful story is deeply personal. One morning, he went to work feeling perfectly fine, only to return home later that day in agonizing pain. What makes his journey compelling isn't just the chronic pain itself but how he responded to it. Instead of letting it take control, Berlan made the bold choice to reshape his life on his own terms. His perspective is raw, unfiltered and refreshingly honest — offering a unique and inspiring way to think about living through the unimaginable.

Tune in to this episode to learn how a color-coded spreadsheet helped Berlan put pain in perspective and transformed his approach to both life and work.

Antonio Howard, known as “The Rebel” for his curiosity and questioning nature, describes himself as an introverted individual with extroverted traits. His leadership style at Regions Bank is to value understanding and maximizing each team member’s unique talents. Howard emphasizes soft skills like openness to learning and friendliness over technical proficiency. 

He also values the power of community. Tune into this episode of “Unusual Attitudes” to hear how his neighbors banded together to support him and his family after a house fire that took nearly three hours to extinguish. The incident reinforced his belief in finding the silver lining in life’s clouds.

Andrew Lipke’s lifelong goal was to conduct other musicians. He achieved that and plenty more, leading some of the most talented musicians in the world. It is no easy feat conducting the 1% of the 1%, yet Lipke has been successful because his sole aim is to help others reach deep into themselves and play their very best. With Lipke, it is never about his success alone.

To watch him work at his craft is a thing of beauty to behold. Tune into this episode of “Unusual Attitudes” to hear how Lipke inspires and energizes everyone from school children to accomplished adults to hit those notes with deft precision.

Guest: Andrew Lipke, professional musician

Janet Gipson was a mechanical engineer on a nuclear aircraft carrier before pivoting to a sales engineering role at DISH network. That’s where she learned to love technology, people, and leading teams — passions that eventually led to talent acquisition roles including her current position at one of the nation’s oldest universities, Yale.

Gipson’s competitive spirit means she does not like being told what she can’t accomplish. She’s driven to prove her doubters wrong and has first-hand experience in the power of coaching and mentoring — traits she instills in her teams today.

Tune in to this episode of “Unusual Attitudes” to hear how this daughter of a NASA aerospace engineer and a high school physics teacher found her own leadership path, and in doing so, her own definition of “leader.”

Finding college “boring,” Stephanie Waite left school early to work at a friend’s fledgling telemarketing business. With no degree, she almost had to beg for roles early in her career. But the experience made her work harder than everyone else and instilled a work ethic that has driven her to the pinnacle of professional success as a VP of talent acquisition at a mortgage company.

Tune in to this episode of “Unusual Attitudes” to hear how other challenging moments in Waite’s life, including the diagnosis of an autoimmune disease, turned her into a self-described scrappy fighter.

Lugging a typewriter from one desk to another to write credit reports was not what Ryan King had in mind when he embarked on a career in finance. Later, after sending his resume to an executive recruiter for a financial analyst role, he was told he had a knack for engaging with people. Thus began King’s journey to the top of the recruiting profession, becoming Head of Talent Acquisition at Regions Bank.

Tune in to this episode of “Unusual Attitudes” to hear about King’s eternal curiosity, his zest for problem solving, and how to leverage the latest in HR technology to draw in talent — and keep it.

Tragedy is a test of mettle. It is often in the face of crisis that we find out who and what is most important to us. Triumphing over hardship develops the musculature of our character and molds the unsurrendered into leaders.

Tune in to this episode of “Unusual Attitudes” to hear how a human resources VP’s epiphany while she lay injured in a hospital bed led to her working for one the world’s largest companies.

An inherent challenge some people have is that they don't know how to connect with their roots or embrace their history, good or bad. In order to create a value system, people should actively understand where they came from and be honest with themselves about the impact it had on them.

Tune in to the inaugural episode of “Unusual Attitudes” to hear from an HR executive about her journey from algebra teacher to scientist to digital transformation leader — and the lessons she learned from each experience.

The most challenging situations are often the most rewarding. 

A video podcast hosted by Cliff Jurkiewicz, a strategist, musician, pilot, and evangelist who loves to explore the extraordinary lives of individuals, showcasing their stories and accomplishments — the personal journeys that have shaped these remarkable individuals. Through compelling storytelling and thoughtful reflections, the discussions inspire listeners to embrace their own journeys and strive for greatness.