How to Fix Performance Management in 2026
In this episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, we speak with Michael D'Ambrose, Board Director at SHRM and former EVP & CHRO at Boeing, about why traditional performance management is failing today’s workforce.
Michael exposes the flaws of annual reviews, rigid rating systems, and outdated HR processes that demotivate employees and prevent real growth. He shares how empowering managers with real-time feedback, flexibility, and practical leadership can transform company culture, drive business results, and create workplaces where people truly thrive.
🎓 In this episode, Michael discusses:
Why annual performance reviews demotivate employees
How real-time feedback drives better results and engagement
Why HR must simplify performance management to stay relevant
How empowering managers to make smart exceptions builds trust
The danger of rigid rating systems like 5-point scales and 9-box grids
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Michael D'Ambrose 0:00
Performance Management is supposed to be something we do to make people better performers. I can tell you, the one time I sat in an office with my CEO and and I got rated a three, I said, I'm a three. That means I'm average. I didn't leave there very motivated. In fact, it didn't do much to improve my performance. Waiting to the end of the year to give me feedback didn't make me feel very good. It's things like that that we need to take a step back as a function and say, what's the outcome we're trying to achieve, and how do we get there? In a way that makes sense, it's real. I'm very much believe in a meritocracy, but I don't believe that we're refined enough to rate people into five different boxes or nine different boxes. I don't think that they make a difference in terms of driving better performance. I think feedback waiting to a certain point in time isn't feedback that matters. I don't know. I mean, I have children and grandchildren, and I certainly don't wait to give them feedback. When I see something that they could be better at, I tell them at that moment, and I use that moment as an opportunity, how do we make that real? And I think in the function, it's one of my great learnings, is, how do we take every aspect of what we do, rethink it in a way that's practical and real and takes the bureaucracy out of things so you get the outcomes that we seek? I think the function is at a moment with the leveraging of AI and other things that are happening, we have a chance to rethink things and to be bold and courageous. I'm excited for the function. In fact, I wish I was 20 years younger, because I think there's a moment now like never before. I uh,
Chris Rainey 1:54
Mike, welcome to the show. How are you, my friend? I'm good, good. How are you? I'm good. I'm glad we're we're making this happen. Me too. I've been like, when Mike's on my bucket list of guests, and now you're finally you're finally here. Yeah, you waited until you retired and then you joined. How's retirement treated you? I say retirement, but we should rebrand that word, because you're not retired. A new chapter, let's say that a new chapter. Let's say that new
Michael D'Ambrose 2:22
chapter. Yeah. I actually been working with a company called My next season, and that's what I call it. It's my next name, yeah. So I'm kind of rethinking it. Instead of it being just one company, it's more of a portfolio of things to continue to make a difference. So I'm having a lot of fun.
Chris Rainey 2:39
Imagine if we lived a life through the lens of seasons like, like TV shows, like in this season, you have the little trailer of what's come of what's coming up before we do that for people to obviously haven't come across you before. Give everyone a quick background and your background and journey to where we are now.
Michael D'Ambrose 2:59
Yeah. I mean, I'm I'm one of those rare people who always wanted to be in HR. So I'm
Chris Rainey 3:03
kind of, oh, you all wanted a very how, though, is it someone in the family? Like, yeah, accidentally. No, yeah.
Michael D'Ambrose 3:10
I It's ironic. My dad was the head of it was called personnel at the time for New York City. Oh, so as a kid, my dad would bring me, and I would sit through negotiations with, you know, the sanitation workers and fire department, and go to grievances and arbitrations and talk my dad talked about HR stuff every night at the kitchen table. And when it came time for me to apply for college, I had originally graduated and went to work as a welder and a diesel mechanic, and I thought, now I'm not going to go to college, but after talking to my dad and the union, I thought I'd go to college to get be active in the union and make a difference in the world. Always thinking about HR, I applied to only one college. Thank God. I got in and I went to Cornell ILR School and and I've been blessed in a career just doing what I love, and I love the field of HR, I can't stop thinking about it every single day of my life. And even in the midst of that, I ended up buying my own company and growing it across the United States, and eventually selling it to a public company, which I got to run as the COO as well. But every minute of that time, I'm thinking about HR, I'm thinking about the function, and I'm thinking about how to make a difference in the world and in the businesses I was part of. So I've just been blessed. I've worked in every industry you could think of, from heavy manufacturing to financial services, insurance, tech, agriculture and aerospace. So I've been everywhere, and I've been the head of HR since my late 20s. So I've been at the, you know, the top role for quite a while. I know I'm not 25 anymore. You probably still think I am, but I'm not.
Chris Rainey 4:59
Ha. Yeah, yeah, those people listening on audio had no idea, though you should have just pretended they would never have known. So your last role was a global chief HR officer at Boeing. Was that right? How long was you there for
Michael D'Ambrose 5:13
four years, four years, four years, wow.
Chris Rainey 5:17
How does it feel like, you know, and what was like the what was the moment? Was there a moment in time that made you come to the decision to retire? I'm just always interested in, like, yeah, yeah, when is the right time?
Michael D'Ambrose 5:32
Well, it's never the right time. You know. It's a tough if at least on a personal level, never right time. You know, for me, you know, when I joined Boeing, I was already at an age point where Boeing had mandatory retirement for its execs. At 65 I was, you know, quickly over that, and every year, there's an exception that's made for people who are over 65 the board has to review it. But when I looked at, I mean, I'm a pilot, by the way, the chance to work for Boeing was Wow. I didn't know that about you. My Yeah, mind blowing. So you have a pilot's license, you bet I do. And I've been so going to work for Boeing. I mean, I've been, I have watched Boeing met with their heads of HR my entire career. There's nothing about Boeing that I don't love Wow. And so getting a chance to go there was a gift from the Lord Himself. And but when, when, when there was another incident that happened, I knew that it was time for another HR person to go with a new CEO who was just about to come and spend the next decade with that person, and I wasn't going to be there for the next decade. And so part of the I think doing things right in the world is knowing not necessarily what's right for you personally, but what's right for the company you love so much. And I feel very honored and blessed to have worked at Boeing. It's probably one of the greatest companies I have ever been a part of, and the decision to leave was hard, but it was the right thing for the company. Maybe not the right thing for me at that moment, but the right thing for the company.
Chris Rainey 7:07
I mean, that truly shows your commitment right to the people the profession that you and the people that you serve, right and part of your why and your purpose to have that, to reflect on that and make that decision. Because obviously, I can only imagine. It can't have been easy to do that, but what you just shared makes so much sense. We're gonna have to at some point do a first ever HR leaders podcast in a plane
Michael D'Ambrose 7:34
with you flying. Yeah, Sign me up. I'll pick you up.
Chris Rainey 7:39
I would literally fly out to you just to do that, that'll be unbelievable. How does it work? Set that up. How does it work? Do you like, just rent a plane for the day. Like, what I mean?
Michael D'Ambrose 7:49
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've had different planes, you know, but you know, I've been flying since I was a kid. Really
Chris Rainey 7:57
knew this about you,
Michael D'Ambrose 7:58
yeah, yeah. I will tell you, there is nothing in the world like flying when you're when you're on the runway and the tower says, you know, clear to go. You push the throttle forward and, and I've taken off so many times, but when you roll down that runway and you just pull the yoke back and, and all of a sudden, you're you're like in the clouds. Part of, I can't even explain it. It is. It's still, every time I take off, it's amazing, and it is. It's a gift like no other. And every time I fly on a commercial airline, I'm sitting in that seat wondering if that one moment will come when the pilot or somebody will come on board, is there a pilot onboard? Run into the cockpit and fly some big jet? Yeah,
Chris Rainey 8:49
that's so cool. When was the last time you
Michael D'Ambrose 8:52
flew? A couple of months
Chris Rainey 8:55
ago? That's such a such a freeing experience, like you alone, alone up there, disconnected from the world, like, just, I can only imagine, like, how that must feel. It's,
Michael D'Ambrose 9:07
it's, it's a gift. It's,
Chris Rainey 9:09
do you have to do? Like, like, retraining ever so often? Oh, sure,
Michael D'Ambrose 9:15
yeah, yeah. And, you know, and Boeing, it's what's so great, is that for all of its employees, anybody who wants to get a pilot's license, the company pays for it. No way. So, yeah, so it's, it's encouraged and and it really is an amazing thing, and it, there's a lot of things about being a pilot that you know, you learn about HR too, about how to, how to, how do you kind of stay current? How do you kind of constantly learn, how do you how do you deal with stress in the moment and and, you know, things happen. So there's a, you know, I'm always relating everything in my life. I always relate back to what I do. I can't help myself. It's the dynamics of making each one of us, as, you know, as great as we could be, something I think about all the time. Yeah, I.
Chris Rainey 10:01
Have you having? How long has it been since you've retired? Now, about a year I haven't having had time to reflect back and look back on your career. What are some of the moments you're most proud of?
Michael D'Ambrose 10:15
Oh, geez, I think I'm most proud of the cultures of the company that had a chance to work with and and the people I worked with, even to this day, I I have such deep respect and admiration for so many people who did so much to make companies great, make others great. In fact, you know, Chris, one of the things I've learned is that you know the definition of the great cultures, and I've had the pleasure to be part of many companies that had great cultures. It's it's when you work at a place where the person next to you cares maybe even a little more about your own success, not just at work, but in life, that you're living a great life than even maybe you do, and because you know someone's next to you who cares about you so much you have the ability to care about someone else. And it's a magical moment that happens in companies. And when you get there, it is so freeing, and it allows companies to find a new level of success. And I think that's what I'm most proud of. I've been part of I've been part of companies that have actually had that kind of culture, and it's it's created lifelong friends and relationships that matter, and great success, not just success at work, but people living great lives, which I think so critical. Yeah,
Chris Rainey 11:37
is, is? It takes time and a lot of commitment to build that level of trust and and that personal beyond personal relationship, beyond the work like I remember I worked in like a high pressure sales environment for the first 10 years, kind of like a like a Wolf of Wall Street type environment, which was like everyone versus everyone mentality, like the person next to you was your competition. It was pretty, pretty brutal, as you can imagine. And I moved my team when I became a director, off that sales floor, because I was I need to escape this toxic environment, and slowly but surely built a team where, yes, everyone's trying to hit their sales targets, but to the point where the whole team will stay behind after work if that, if one person on our team hadn't hit their monthly sales target, and we'd all jump on the phone and try and close a deal to help that person achieve their target. And I remember that I was being so proud of that moment, because I was like the first 10 or first six years I was there, it was like the opposite. And I managed to create that where I didn't even have to ask anyone, like people, like, we're staying here. AJ, needs to get his deal that's going to help him hit his commission target, which will help him achieve what's visible on our vision board. She had a vision board which everyone on the team could see, something so simple, so simple, so everyone knew what everyone was working towards. And I remember just stepping back being like, this wasn't a me thing. This wasn't a manager thing. Like the team just said, we're not leaving. Let's order some pizza. We're gonna stay here until we can help AJ get what he needs. And I was just like, so proud. But to your point, it wasn't about them, it was about the success of someone else. And then that kind of permeated throughout the whole team and became its own subculture in the business, if that makes sense, as well. And then when everyone, when anyone came into that from other parts of the business, I could see they were kind of shocked. Took them a bit, a bit of adjusting, because they're so used to sort of the it's me versus everyone else mentality, the me versus the we So, yeah, yeah. And once you create that, it's very special. It's very Yeah, it is and fragile, fragile. And it takes one bad apple coming in, and I had a few of those bad apples come in that I very quickly got rid of. The problem is, and I'm sure you've experienced this, some of those bad apples are, on paper, the highest performers. So I had people coming in that, you know, generating millions of pounds of revenue for the business, but weren't a good fit for that team that I had to then say to my CEO, I'm letting go of this person. And they're like, What do you mean? You're letting go this person? And I'm like, well, they're literally impacting the rest of my entire team's performance with their behavior as well. And that's how it's tough to do. And I'm sure you've been there before, where you've got some,
Michael D'Ambrose 14:33
yeah, I have been there before. And it's, it's, you know, building great teams. You know, we always focus on succession as HR leaders, right? So we're constantly thinking about, you know, this person for that role, and, and, and I think sometimes we often miss it's one of my great learnings, is that it's great teams drive success. And so when you think about the dynamics of teams and how to make them, you know, really successful. Useful. Interestingly enough, Chris, you know, there's really been a limited amount of research and team effectiveness. It's more now in the recent times, but if you looked at history, not as much. But there is a science to great teams and and great teams get great results. How do you make that work? And I think it's a lot about rethinking lots of things we do on HR today in terms of succession and development itself.
Chris Rainey 15:27
Yeah, I've seen all of the coaching companies out there pivot in the last year or so to coaching as a team sport. Yeah, and it's all even the coaching tech companies, if you go on their website, it's all around, teams, teams, teams, teams. So like, as opposed to what you know, where we grew up, the individual, right as well, because you could have a really high performing individual, but the team suffers
Michael D'Ambrose 15:53
on that. But it's interesting, Chris, while you're right on all the consulting firms, what's interesting, though, is, if you think about our profession, and it's one of the things that, you know, I'm trying to write a book now too, so I'm trying to get smarter here. But, you know, we still focus on succession, on individuals. You know, very often we'll actually have, oh, this is ready now, one to three, three to five, all these terms. And the reality is, succession is about teams. We have a new person and new role. How does that person impact the the rest of the team? What changes have to occur to make this person successful in this new team, or a new leader in a team successful? And I think there's a clear science to making that work, and it's something that you know we need to work on as a function as well.
Chris Rainey 16:35
Yeah, one of the things I'm interested to ask you now you're not now you can speak a bit more frankly an open No, you're not in a role. What are some of the sort of unspoken truths that as HR professionals, we don't talk about enough publicly, that we really should. That's quite tough when you're in the role.
Michael D'Ambrose 16:56
Well, I've always been an outspoken soul, so there's very little that it wasn't
Chris Rainey 17:00
speaking about when I was in Oh, you're one of a few. Yeah, but I would say
Michael D'Ambrose 17:03
that there's, there's some learnings for me that I think we need to be really frank about, like for example, I think that performance management, for example, is supposed to be something we do to make people better, to make them better performers. I don't know about you, but I can tell you, the one time I sat in an office with my CEO and and I got rated a three, I said, I'm a three. That means I'm average. I didn't leave there very motivated. In fact, it didn't do much to improve my performance. Waiting to the end of the year to give me feedback didn't make me feel very good. And and I think it's, it's things like that that we need to take a step back as a function and say, what's the outcome we're trying to achieve, and how do we get there? In a way that makes sense, it's real. So, you know, I've been somebody like so, for example, I think I'm very much believe in a meritocracy, but I don't believe that we're refined enough to rate people into five different boxes or nine different boxes. I don't think that they make a difference in terms of driving better performance. I think feedback waiting to a certain point in time isn't feedback that matters. I don't know. I mean, I have children and grandchildren, and I certainly don't wait to give them feedback when I see something that they can be better at, and I tell them at that moment, and I use that moment as an opportunity. How do we make that real? And I think in the function it's one of my great learnings, is, how do we take every aspect of what we do, rethink it in a way that's practical and real and takes the bureaucracy out of things. So get the outcomes that we seek. And I think we've really, I think the functions at a moment, with the leveraging of AI and other things that are happening, we have a chance to rethink things and to be bold and courageous. And I think it's I'm excited for the function. In fact, I wish I was 20 years younger, because I think there's a moment now like never before, the ability to make dramatic change that would be accepted by organizations hasn't been like this in decades. Yeah,
Chris Rainey 19:17
no, I agree with you on that, by the way, and we've never, ever done performance reviews that HR leaders and people like, why? Well, I give feedback every day, literally every day of the week. I mean conversations. We have a culture of radical candor and and leading with positive intent and and we see that as feedback, as a gift, and not something that should be isolated and and building. We all remember the anxiety that you have when you know you've got a performance of you coming up, both for the manager and the employee. Right. As a manager, I used to be so stressed that I've got to be able to have these conversations, and it's almost like you have to find something wrong. Wrong, like, you know, to give feedback on, like, I have to find something negative or positive. It was like, why am I doing this? This is insane.
Michael D'Ambrose 20:08
Or worse, we'd tell you, Oh, you better have this percentage of people that are average, yeah, or, or, you know. And the reality is, most companies, you think about how hard we work to hire people. We don't just somebody applies in one interview and, bam, you're hired. We're using AI tools. We're using assessment tools. We're interviewing dozens of people in many cases, before we make a higher decision. And then you get there and say, your average, you know, yeah, that's, you know what? Chris, it's broader than just performance too, when I think about things, you know, I know how hard I always work to create policies and practices that were making sense, and as I got later in my career, I learned that what makes policies and practices drive the culture you want, drives the performance you want. It isn't the policies and practices. It's the smart exceptions you make. And I have so many powerful lessons around that, everything from, oh geez, you know, a family who has a child who needs a medical procedure that's not approved, and you make a decision to make an exception, to approve it, and all of a sudden, hundreds of people find out about it and say, What a great company this is. I'm never going to leave here. Or recognizing that the more you trust people, the more you empower them, the more you get back so things like, by the way, if you need to take time off, it's okay. And you know, you have to have a good reason. I get it within the limits, but if there's exceptions, we can make them. And when you make that exception, that person comes back and says, I'm so loyal and so grateful for that exception, I'm going to work my tail off to make up for it. Yeah, and it's it's making understanding, to empower the lowest level managers and people to be to make smart exceptions to policies and practices is what makes great companies. But boy, that's hard, and it took me a while to figure that out, because I kept trying to design the perfect practices and policies, and then I realized they're never going to work for everybody, and so I got to make this real and treat people with the Golden Rule of, how would I want to be treated? And then have managers know they're empowered to do the same?
Chris Rainey 22:26
Yeah, I love the concept of smart exceptions. Is so important. We had a Citro session this Wednesday, yesterday. So yesterday I'm using my mind. Is Friday today, two days ago. And one of the powerful examples, one of the Citro shared, which is, I would class as a smart exception was they found out that there was an employee who someone had passed away in the in their family, and they didn't take any bereavement leave because they didn't know. It wasn't that the length of it wasn't within the policy, and that person had was using their holiday entitlement to take those days. So now they don't have any holiday because they took the holiday days as the bereavement days, right? And she found out, and was like, No, you don't mean we're happy to you know, I know the policy says X, but we know the holidays and now you can take the time off. You've got the holiday still and and she's like that. This was like a story from like, a year ago, and she was saying that that person so engaged, so, you know, motivated, is going above and beyond this. And tells that story about, like you said, that's something that they will never forget, about how you made them feel and what you did in that moment when they really needed it. But you have to have the culture where your managers feel empowered that they can make those decisions right without having to go up to HR and ask for permission and saying, Oh no, that's not a policy. The minute
Michael D'Ambrose 23:56
they have to go to HR to do it, you lose the power of the exception it becomes, you know, HR is,
Chris Rainey 24:04
how did, how did you communicate that? Because it's quite tough, because it's really, there's no, I mean, that the whole point of a smart exception is it's within the it's not binary, right?
Michael D'Ambrose 24:16
No, it's not binary. I think it's, I always tell managers, and I always have treat people the way you would want to be treated. And, you know, we have policies and practice the great guidelines, okay, great. And then we make smart exceptions, you know, you know, it's also important to recognize that, you know, I know we think people come to work and they leave behind the rest of their life. That's not true. People are whole people. They carry with them the burdens of life everywhere they go, and in an understanding that an exception at one moment can drive all kinds of positive things, and you got to just be smart about how to do it, you know? I. I got to tell you, Chris, one of the things I found is the more that I, you know, I would explain about smart exceptions, I would trust managers to do it. And, you know what, they were tougher than I would be. They, they're the, you know, trying to figure out how to do that they struggled with, but they love the empowerment. And I think, you know, but it's part of where the function has to think differently, you know, like for me, you know, we run businesses, and sometimes we have to make tough decisions about letting people go, whether we have a layoff reduction in force or whatever. And it's, it's it to me, it's one of the cultural things that happens. It's a good example of exceptions. Typically, companies say, Well, we're going to pay you severance, and the severance is whatever, and there's a policy and a formula, and that's all great, but the metric that matters when you have those situations isn't how many people got let go, and did we do we do this in an orderly way, it's how quickly did those people that we let go get landed in something else. And in fact, that's the metric that matters in that I've always looked to measure. So if we had X number of 1000 people that we had to unfortunately let go, not because of performance, but because the company had to make some restructure, then how do we make sure they bridge to something else? And the impact on that was not just for those people impacted, but for every other person that wasn't impacted that knew here I worked for a company that cares so much that that is actually helping people proactively find something else.
Chris Rainey 26:25
Yeah? And you'll see a lot of times if you do that the right way, like you said, with empathy and care, many boomerang back,
Michael D'Ambrose 26:35
yeah, and you nailed the magic word care. The reality is we can be tough and great companies that are driving really extraordinary, you know, performance on a consistent basis, and deeply care about each other and deeply care about, you know, you know, the company. And the way to do that is to make sure that we also care about living a great life, having a great career and a great life. And if you don't do both, by the way, as a company, you're not you're not succeeding. You got to be able to figure out how to do both. And that's what great HR work is about great companies with extraordinary performance, with people living great lives. Yeah,
Chris Rainey 27:18
in in Vegas last week I was, I was at a chro dinner with 20 of the top CHROs on the largest companies in the world. It was an incredible group, and it became very clear after the first couple of conversations, that many were really struggling. You know, there's a lot going on right now where it's political, political, you know, yeah, the economy, it's social injustice, you name it, you know, AI, you know, like the wars, you know, they're going on and all of it. A lot of this is falling on the HR in the ways that they and and it seems to be just never ending. And there was a couple of citros around the table that at the end of the meeting said, hey, if I didn't come to this dinner today, I think I may have walked away in the next couple of months, but you guys have given me a new found sense of purpose and inspiration. What are your thoughts on that? Do you feel like it's just another moment in time. Or do you think this is one of the toughest times we've faced as a profession, but also the most exciting as well?
Michael D'Ambrose 28:30
You know, I, I am. I am. What's the right word? I am just constantly overwhelmed with a growth mindset. I guess, the way I put it to you, I live life waking up in the morning saying, God gave me another day. What a gift. So I look at things in a positive way. I would tell you this without any question, we are at a moment in time that there's a lot of stress on the function and a big burden and but I think it's a gift to be able to rethink things like we just talked about in performance management and make dramatic changes that you know, what would have been really hard before, and would have taken many, many years and lots of steps along the way to get accepted. So I think this is a moment in time where we can be bold and courageous and we can take a step back and say, what's the right way to handle this, whether it be how we implement AI into this, into the, you know, our companies, into our teams, to just thinking about things like learning. You know, Chris, when you think about learning, whether it be Boeing or ADM or Citigroup, I've been with huge companies, and we had huge learning centers, and we would fit people in classrooms, and we would have all these learning experiences, and very little of it got applied, maybe because my boss wasn't there, and so they don't use the new tools. Maybe because when I'm in a crisis, I go back to doing what I did before. Four so is it time to rethink how we develop people? Is it time to rethink about how we reward people? Is it time to rethink about how we think you know about opportunity and creating the meritocracy we all seek? I think the answer is yes. And what an unbelievable gift, what a chance at a moment in time. And, yeah, it's stressful. And by the way, when wasn't it? I mean, to be honest with you, I've worked with so many CEOs, and every company I've been in has been some kind of transformation, or, you know, transitionary period or challenges that were significant, and you could say they were stressful. I always looked at it as an opportunity to learn and think of new things. How do we come up with better solutions? How do we prioritize, in a way, to work on the things that matter? So yeah, and I think getting together and sharing one of the things I've learned in my career is that great gifts I've gotten from my peers, I've been blessed to, you know, know, an awful lot of my peers work with. Many of them, they're brilliant and gifted and talented in so many ways, and in the meetings like you just described, when there's true psychological safety, people really trust. All of a sudden, the doors open up and ideas flow, and maybe your idea, and another idea and another idea comes up with the bigger idea that nobody thought of, which is the gift of those kinds of sessions and meetings, which I honestly enjoy and miss.
Chris Rainey 31:33
Well, first of all, my second tell, and I love the fact that the combination of leading with gratitude, like you mentioned, like I'm alive another day, and having that growth mindset combined is very powerful. But outside of that, how do you ensure that you take care of your own well being, though, during those tough times, what are some of the practices you've had over the years? Because despite what you just said, It can't be easy.
Michael D'Ambrose 32:00
Oh, can't be easy. And to be honest, I don't think I am a great role model. It's what you may be. One of my lessons is that I didn't do as good a job. It's like when I look back Chris, you know, I can't tell you how many times I missed you know, a boy scout meeting, you know, you know, class play. You know, I have this unbelievable wife and partner who's my best friend and always been there for me. But, you know, I sometimes think so I didn't do as good a job at that as I think I could have. I prioritized travel and work and other things when, you know what, I really wasn't as big a deal, and I never wanted an exception. I never asked for an exception. But it taught me a lot to be better to others, and it taught me a lot about how to build a better culture. I can tell you when I find an employee that works for me, and when I did who has a family event going on and they're still coming to an office or going to a meeting. I'm the first one that helps them pack their luggage and get out the door, and I do it in a way that makes them feel good about it. When my teams would go on vacation, I would do everything in my power to make sure no one talked to them. In fact, if I could, I would have shut off their email and taken their phone hostage, you know. So I think you know, in my life, I probably could have done a lot better, a lot better, and I think God helped me through that so that I could make it better for others. And so at this point in my life, I kind of, I did it my last two jobs where I talked about, you know, that every day, living a great life, and Boeing, I think you couldn't find a Boeing executive didn't hear me talk about, we're not successful as a company if we just have people have great careers. They have to have both great careers and great lives. Yeah, and so, you know, if I were to, if I were to go back in time, you know, I wish you know you can't do that, but maybe someday there'll be a time machine that I could fly and go back. I'd probably tell my younger self to not be so obsessed with going ahead. You know, like many Chris, I started out with nothing, you know, literally just a bunch of student loans and and a toaster and a couple of irons and, you know, so making money and providing was a high priority, and I was willing to sacrifice a lot for that, and instead, I probably should have rethought it over and over. I wish I had a boss that did what I get the gift to do many times, did many times, which is to get people to stop and take a deep breath and say, this meeting is not that important. It's fine. You're not not going to get promoted. You're not not going to get a bigger raise. It's okay, and it doesn't mean that there aren't moments there are things that are critical, but having a boss that helps you do that understand what is and what isn't would help you live a great life. And that's what I think I've been able to do in the latter part of my life.
Chris Rainey 34:54
Yeah, no, I appreciate, I appreciate you sharing that, and I think myself and everyone can listen and can play. Relate to that, right? And it's you kind of just get caught up. I have a young daughter of six years old, and there's certain things that I've missed as well, and I'm trying to be better. I've kind of now put some guardrails in my calendar and my and some non negotiables that the team know that I'm not going to miss this. I'm going to be here at this time, and yes, I've got 50 emails in my inbox, but what? The world's not going to fall apart if I don't reply to them. But I'm not perfect, you know? And I, one of the things that my coach, Chester always helped me out a lot, is just to give myself grace. Yeah, give grace. Yeah, don't, don't beat yourself up, you know, because we have both similar upbringings, right? And I'm trying to, I'm doing it to try and provide a better, better, uh, future for my daughter and my wife. But you can't just use that as the excuse, because if you're doing that and you're not having time to spend with them, then why are you doing it? That's kind of the thing I used to make the excuse, oh, I'm doing it for my wife, really, Chris, are you? Because you what's the point? If you're not actually being there at the moments that matter?
Michael D'Ambrose 36:07
That's right, you know, Chris, this thing, there's this phone thing that we have. Yeah, I'll tell you a story that tell you how, you know, a bad you could get. You know, I go for my my my annual physical, my wife's with me. My wife goes to the doctor. I'm really worried about my husband. When we go out to eat, you know, he's running back and forth to the bathroom, and I'm, you know, really worried about him. Maybe there's something wrong. And I'm, I'm sitting there, I got to be honest, the truth is, I'm not going to the bathroom in there with every other guy that's in the men's room on the phone because I didn't want to do it while I was sitting across from you at the dining table in a restaurant, and I think that's how obsessive you can get. But you know, my boys are both grown now. I have two boys, both very successful doing leading great lives, and when I hear them talk about their childhood with with both my wife and I, unfortunately, they have great memories, but they still talk about the things I missed and and I reflect now, and it's, oh, geez, Was it really that important? Look, they're both successful. Life's good. Why did I have to go to that meeting? Why did I think that was more important for me to miss this then and then, then the and go to something, you know, for work?
Chris Rainey 37:21
Yeah, yeah. On the other side, though, you must be very you should be you should be very proud of what you've achieved, right? And what then the life that you created for them, right? It doesn't come without sacrifice. That's one thing for sure. So you so whilst we're saying, whilst we're saying all of this, like people always say that to my you know, my mum worries about me. She's like, you know, we don't see you. You don't come and find the house a lot. My my younger brother and sisters almost feel like I've just, like, disowned them. And I'm like, I'm trying to achieve something extraordinary, and in order to do that, it does come with sacrifice. So you have to be prepared to do that and understand it. It's going to be a little bit low. It's lonely as well, right? And you've got to ignore it's lonely. You've got to ignore everyone around you to saying Chris, like you don't care about us, and you know you're trying. And the amount of people that almost kind of like a routine from your failure in a weird way that are like because you're trying to push for something. They're like, who are you? Who are you to even try and achieve that from where we grew up, you know, where we had I get it nothing. Well, I think it's, yeah, yeah, you know. I think that, you know, people talk about balance a lot. I don't think that's ever possible.
Michael D'Ambrose 38:39
I think, I think what I talk about is being present, and that's the phone example is a good one for me, like the bathroom. You know your present? Yeah, yeah. When you're there and you're with your daughter, be with your daughter. I've
Chris Rainey 38:49
got better at that now. So when I get home from work, I would go out, walk in the house, and go straight to my computer, which is awful. And I sound saying out loud, now, embarrassed to say that whereas now, not only do I work a finished work early, as much as I can, to pick her up from nursery, which she's so excited now, to see me, yeah, to pick her up, yeah, and then all the time, just to be clear, but when I can, but, but when I do get in, I put my phone away and good between the hours of, you know, six till eight. You know, when we're eating dinner and just playing, I'm just fully present, no emails, there's no phone. You know, we're sitting there playing games, doing just dance, or playing some games, or doing some puzzles, whatever it may be, but I'm just there. And to honest, it's as much for me is it is for her
Michael D'Ambrose 39:42
well and and watch what will happen, Chris, because it's me. Someday she'll grow up, and maybe she'll have a family like my kids do, and you'll hear, you'll be sitting in a room, and you'll hear like I have my son talking to my granddaughter, talking about the good moments with dad, with grandpa. And you'll. Say, wow, it was all worth it. So I'm glad you're doing that. It's important,
Chris Rainey 40:03
yeah. How does it make you feel on when you reflect on the journey and what you've accomplished now and the life that you live?
Michael D'Ambrose 40:12
I feel blessed and still feeling obligated to give back. How else can I say thank you for the great gifts you know, Chris, I've worked with some amazing, talented people who've, you know, had great careers, and hopefully I've helped live great lives too. But I'm forever grateful and still humble that I have to give back. So in my quote next season, I keep thinking about, how am I giving back, whether it be helping the United States build a portfolio of skilled labor again, or, you know, in a broad case, or, you know, I'm on the SHRM board, and I enjoy being part of that, thinking about the function in a broader context. And, you know, I try to do some consulting and other things where I can kind of be a sounding board for the tough time that we're in about driving change, and taking the decades of experience I've had and say, here's a way to think about it. Here's another way to look at it, you know, and let people know that it's it's okay to be courageous, it's okay to drive change that's dramatic, and it's okay to get it wrong, because we reserve the right to get smarter every day. So when we trip, when we miss, it's a great learning moment. Doesn't happen twice, but we got to make sure that we we embrace that too. And so to the degree I can help people do that, I work hard
Chris Rainey 41:39
at that. Yeah, I love that. I just realized how much time flew by chatting, which means we're having a good conversation. What advice would you give to those HR leaders of tomorrow that may be coming into sitting in this seat for the first time, and even even those ones that are still sitting there, that have been around for for a while, who are facing a lot of challenges right now?
Michael D'Ambrose 42:04
Well, you know, it's, it's one of my, my pet things. In fact, I was just, I'm an exec in residence up at Cornell layers for a bit at the ILR School. And I had a lot of fun doing it. It's one of the things I preached everywhere. Number one thing, you know, we as a function, lots of consulting firms have said part of the components of being a great HR leader is business acumen, and somehow we have redefined the word acumen to mean a cursory knowledge. So what I would tell people in HR the number one thing for you to do is to get deep in your business, understand your business as well as your CEO does, and read all the investor reports, read read about your competitors, understand the financials of your business. And when you have that grounding, it'll give you the courage and the knowledge to prioritize what we do in HR, aligned with the business in a much more effective way. So that's number one, number two, and it's one of my, one of my learnings. And you know, over the last decade, particularly, no, I love hiring, you know, HR, you know, professionals right off campus, coming into the companies that I've worked with. And they all want the same. I want to be a generalist. I want a big generalist job. They want to go out in a plant. They want to go out and feel have general steps. When I look at my own career and I look at what's needed today in the future, it's probably the wrong decision. The right decision is as quickly as you can get, deep in every aspect of the function. Learn about rewards, learn about labor and employee relations in an effective way. Learn about, you know, the legal side of our of our function, be deep in talent management and assessment. Get certified in assessment skills, and then, when you have those then become a generalist. So number one, be a great business leader, not just business acumen, not a business partner necessarily, but a business leader. And number two, come to the table with the knowledge and expertise of our function that differentiates you from everybody else, because when you do that, you will be sought after by every business leader and every manager, because they know you can add immediate value with the technical knowledge and skills you have.
Chris Rainey 44:25
Wow, I love that, man. There's such good, good advice. I'm excited to share that with everyone before I let you go. Where can people reach out to you and connect if they want to reach out, say, on
Michael D'Ambrose 44:39
LinkedIn, you know, I've got a pretty good following on LinkedIn, you know. And that's, that's an easy way to do that. And I'd love to connect with everybody there. I will tell you, if I can help anybody in any way. I'm always there, and, you know, my emails there, and the rest of there, I'm, you know, I will say, Chris, one of the things about my next season, it. It's all about, how can I give back? How can I thank you know, the world I live in and so many people in ways to you know, for a life that I never thought I'd ever have, you know for for an opportunity and a set of accomplishments that you know weren't all mine. They were all the people I worked with. But Goodness gracious. I'm pretty blessed, so I'm happy to help anybody I can.
Chris Rainey 45:25
Mike, is a pleasure having you on the show. I appreciate you sharing your story and journey, and thanks for everything you've given back to the profession. And I'm super, super excited for this next season.
Michael D'Ambrose 45:38
Thanks a lot. Well, because keep doing what you're doing what you're doing too, and don't, don't underestimate the difference you're making. Because the reality is, you know, when you think about a simple post, I know you and your team work on, and other things you might say, you know, what's you know, how many people looked at it and whatever, you'd be surprised, not not just the views, but how many people talk about it. And I and I think, you know, you demonstrate care and the things I talked about just in our time together. Honestly, I know we didn't grow up together, but sometimes I think we're very aligned in how we think, and don't stop thinking that way, because you're right, and it's what makes great companies and what makes a difference in the world we live in.
Chris Rainey 46:16
No, I appreciate that. We're just chugging away, doing doing our best buy. I appreciate you listen show and I'll see you soon. All right, thanks a lot.
Michael D'Ambrose 46:28
You bet all the best. Take care.
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Michael D’Ambrose, Board Director at SHRM and Former EVP & CHRO at Boeing.