Evolving to Exceptional with Jessica Tietjen

Join us in this week's episode as we dive into the world of human resources with Aaron Cole, the HR Director of American Industrial Transport (AITX), a renowned manufacturing organization. Discover Aaron's passion for creating a positive HR reputation and establishing strong connections within the organization. In this engaging conversation, Aaron shares his journey in the HR space, his role at AITX, and the satisfaction he derives from bridging gaps and improving relationships. Gain valuable insights into the challenges faced by HR professionals and learn how they can overcome the “boogeyman” perception. We also discuss the impact of transitioning from a publicly traded company to private equity and the foundational elements necessary to create a unified and strong HR approach in a growing global organization.

If you're interested in the dynamic world of HR and want to gain valuable insights from an experienced HR leader, this episode is for you. Join us as we explore the ever-evolving landscape of HR, the power of relationship-building, and the steps organizations can take to create positive HR experiences for employees.

In this powerful conversation, we are joined by Jessie Torres, the Founder/Owner of Fierce Grace Transformation. Jessie is a motivational speaker, a heart-driven performance coach, and a beacon of inspiration. Having overcome immense challenges in her life, Jessie is dedicated to helping others reach peak performance and live their best lives. Through sharing her personal journey of resilience and transformation, navigating through darkness to find her calling, Jessie emphasizes the importance of recognizing that suffering is a choice and that we have the power to overcome pain and live a fulfilling life. We take a deep dive into the impact of trauma and victimhood, shedding light on the transformational power of self-awareness, kindness, and forgiveness.

As leaders and aspiring leaders, it’s important to embrace uncertainty and step into the unknown, igniting your inner fire and unlocking your full potential. When we acknowledge the strength that comes from overcoming challenges both in our personal and professional lives, we can use our inner wisdom and experiences to find a path to greatness.

Tune in to this episode to gain powerful insights and learn how to awaken your own spirit and tap into your limitless potential. Join us as we explore the depths of personal growth and discover the path to exceptional living.

We’ve all been there. We’re desperately looking for a job, applying to tens if not hundreds of jobs looking to catch a break, when, finally, someone reaches out, only to find ourselves waiting weeks on end to schedule an interview or talk to an actual human. The job search process.

In this week's episode, we are joined by an extraordinary guest, Allison McCutcheon Barcz, the Chief Strategy and People Officer at Largely, a dynamic startup organization that is revolutionizing the recruitment process by creating a more humanized experience.  The conversation delves into the concept of marketing to the candidate pool, going beyond initial attraction to truly sell candidates on an organization's unique value proposition. Allison addresses the challenge of differentiating an organization's value proposition in a saturated market where everyone claims to care about their people. She emphasizes the need for tailored and personalized messaging, leveraging the power of real content consumed in today's social media-driven world.

Tune into the episode to learn how they are shaking up the traditional process to bring diversity and fresh perspectives into their organization. Find out how this innovative practice has already made a significant impact and gain insights into the importance of flexibility in today's dynamic work environment. Explore the learning benefits that arise when employees are empowered with autonomy to shape their work execution. Don't miss this opportunity to stay ahead of the curve and unlock new possibilities for your business!

What challenges are facing workplaces in this new post-pandemic world?

In this engaging episode, we're joined by the remarkable Kyle Cross, Senior Director of HR at Lexicon Services. Prepare to be inspired as we delve into Kyle’s unique perspective on putting employees first, creating a workplace culture of trust, and equipping leaders with the skills they need to navigate the challenges of a post-pandemic world to positively impact the employee experience.

Join us as we uncover the game-changing contributions Kyle has made in HR, propelling the growth of people leaders within his Shared Services organization and the law firms he collaborates with. Gain invaluable insights into the essential elements of effective leadership that are often overlooked in today's ever-changing landscape. Don't miss this thought-provoking episode that will revolutionize your perspective on HR and unlock the true potential of your workplace!

Are you ready to tap into your true leadership potential?

Then, you won't want to miss this week's episode of our podcast, where we sit down with Regina Huber, a visionary Career & Transformational Leadership Coach and CEO of Transform Your Performance. Regina’s passion to drive bold, value-driven, and heart-centered leadership of self and others fuels her work with leaders in all levels. She knows that leading yourself is the first step to leading others, and in this episode, she'll share her insights on the importance of self-awareness and managing internal energies for leaders to truly grow and develop.

Did you know that whether we can trust someone or not is formed in the first 0.07 seconds we meet them? Regina will explain how connecting with the heart can help leaders manage their energies, increase trust with their teams, and make better business decisions.

If you want to optimize your performance and make the best of yourself, learning how to manage your energy is crucial. Regina will show you how to do just that, so you can take your leadership skills to the next level. Tune in to our podcast now and let Regina Huber inspire you to become the leader you were meant to be!

Are you tired of the traditional, inflexible, and unsympathetic financial services industry?

Do you want to learn how to stay competitive in a "war for talent" market and retain top employees?

Then tune into this week's episode featuring Meredith Osborn, an exceptional Senior Vice President/Director of Human Resources at Parkside Financial Bank & Trust. Meredith is actively working to break stereotypes within her organization and create a culture of flexibility, change, and empathy.

Discover the challenges and benefits of offering hybrid and remote work options for traditionally in-person roles and the essential role managers and leaders play in this significant cultural shift. The environment and level of flexibility in which people work remain hot topics in the world of HR and are critical for employee attraction, performance, engagement, and retention.

Want to know what unique benefit Parkside Financial offers its employees to make a true, lasting impact on their lives? Don't miss this opportunity to learn how you can bring something like this to your own organization. Trust us, you won't want to miss out on this week’s guest expert advice and actionable insights.

It’s no secret burnout, stress, and employee disengagement have been on the rise over the last couple of years as a result of the new challenges that came along with the COVID-19 pandemic. As we get acclimated to a new “normal” coming out of this unprecedented situation, it’s important to shift our focus from merely surviving to thriving within our organizations.   

Check out this episode with Ashley Keegan, a passionate Vice President of People who is playing a vital role in changing how employees experience their work at Electro Savings Credit Union. Join us as we discuss the implications the challenges of burnout, motivation, and the war on talent have had on HR professionals and the entire workforce. Through research and application, we know changing the systems and structures within an organization can have a significant positive impact on the well-being, performance, and engagement of our people. But we know outdated, out-of-the-box, surface-level solutions are no longer the answer; this is where we have to get creative and innovative.

Early on in my career, I found myself in a position where I had the opportunity to build an HR/Talent Management department from the ground up in an organization that was growing at an exceptionally fast rate. Not an intimidating endeavor at all, right?!

Check out this episode with Melanie Hiller, a phenomenal HR Manager who is building the HR function at Professional Environmental Engineers, Inc. Together we have an in-depth discussion about imposter syndrome and the struggles with comparison, especially when you are the only HR person in a small business. There are many challenges when creating a new HR department, particularly when they functioned without HR for many years. The key to being successful is creating effective partnerships and the most important partnership is with managers. We know Managers have the biggest impact on employee engagement and retention, and intentional on-going development of Managers is necessary if you want to optimize the performance of your people.

One of the biggest challenges I faced during my time in the corporate HR space was communication.

Miscommunications, lack of clarity, or simply a lack of communication lead to significant challenges for both leaders and employees in an organization.

This week’s episode features Teri Powers, VP of Operations at ITF Group, who has a passion for being the liaison between operations, leaders, and people in workplaces. Join us on this week’s episode as we discuss the challenges Teri experiences working for an international company dealing with different people, cultures, and languages and how she bridges the gap between Operations and HR. We take a deep dive into how Teri is creating a safe space for people to communicate openly and honestly and be seen as people to truly make a difference in her workplace.

Why is receiving feedback so difficult? With so much research, countless articles, and endless training courses on how to effectively give feedback, why are leaders and managers struggling to provide effective feedback to the people they serve? What role do our emotions play in receiving feedback? This week’s episode features guest Carole Stizza, a certified ICF Coach and Senior HR Professional with a background in industrial-organizational psychology, who has decades of experience working with leaders and HR and a passion for working with leaders who want to embrace and elevate their relationships with their employees. Join us for this episode as we share the role our emotions and brains play in how feedback lands with the receivers and provide helpful strategies for leaders to ensure the feedback they provide is effective and impactful.

Small-to-midsize startups or large, Fortune 500 companies?

What are the key differences between how HR operates within each environment?

Have you considered which option is right for you?

Join us on this week's episode as Paige Galka, an HR Professional who has worked with HR teams in both startups and Fortune 500 companies, discusses the differences between working on large, corporate HR teams versus small, single-person-led HR departments. We also address the process of how a small startup identifies training needs and evaluates different solutions to bring the most value to the people they serve. Finally, we talk about how our own physiology impacts our ability to be productive in the office and leads to greater productivity while working remote.

This episode features Rachel Boehm, a Well-Being Consultant and Coach, who helps workplaces and individuals improve their workplace well-being practices. In this episode, we discuss a variety of approaches that can help workplaces positively impact employee well-being. We also address the importance of aligning any well-being techniques with the overall workplace strategy to improve results and the likelihood of adoption. Finally, we talk about how important it is for leaders to demonstrate support of the techniques or practices being implemented. Join us for this episode featuring tons of valuable content and suggestions for improving workplace well-being.

Why don’t managers and leaders do what they know they should? I had a little epiphany yesterday about the difficulty of actually doing what we know we should do. I've trained hundreds of managers/leaders and I often got frustrated with their inability to take action on what they learned.

Over the years, I've learned that true change requires much more than a focus on behavior. We must go much deeper to understand our emotions and physiology to truly make long-lasting sustainable changes in our actions and performance. Every single human has the capacity to truly perform exceptionally if they learn how to expand their capabilities through transformational growth.

Join us on this week’s podcast with special guest Emily Dirkers, an HR Leader from a local St. Louis tech startup who shares the toughest challenges facing HR Teams today. Learn more about the impact of reductions in force, a post-COVID world, and high levels of burnout on HR professionals and employees.

New Year, New Start, New You! Every year millions of people set new year's resolutions to accomplish new goals and address their challenges. Unfortunately, statistics show most people fail at their attempts to make lasting change in their life. We've found most people fail because they lack support and tend to implement surface level and generic solutions.

Are you wanting to create change in your life? Overcome challenges or accomplish new goals? Are you struggling with

In this week’s episode, you’ll learn:

I’ve made plenty of mistakes throughout my career that span from my early career overconfidence to inadequate management of people at the start, to ultimately allowing myself to become so stressed I experienced burnout. But do you what to know what I consider to be the biggest mistake of them all? Not getting coaching from a third-party coach sooner!

Learn more about how coaching can change your development and overall life.

With the recent wave of layoffs major companies like Twitter, Meta, and Salesforce are doing, we need to address an issue that accompanies these situations...the trauma they cause. We cannot continue to downplay the impact these situations have on not only the employees who are let go, but all those who are involved in making the tough decisions and executing on them.

Listen to this week’s episode to find out how we address and heal these traumas to continue to move forward in our life journeys.

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We are excited to announce that we have been working on a brand-new Evolving to Exceptional app that will be launching later this month. One of the key features of this app is our Peak Performance Certification Program which we have been working on over the past year to ensure we incorporate as much of the latest research-backed people practices as possible to help you evolve your performance both at work and at home. This program is designed to support your growth and evolution to operate at your peak in all the roles you serve.

Learn more about this transformative program in this week’s episode.

Make sure you hit subscribe and get ready to start evolving your performance!

I recently discovered a year ago when I left my job, that I was more than stressed, I was in burnout. As, I talked with others I discovered I was not the only one who wasn't sure what the difference is between stress and burnout. I am now realizing how serious burnout truly is and what an epidemic we have going on with burnout today. Join us as we take a closer look at the effects of burnout, figure out if you have it, and identify what the best step is for starting to deal with this issue.

Make sure you hit subscribe and get ready to start evolving your performance!

Traditional training on effective leadership fail to incorporate the unique needs of female leaders in today's workforce. Female leaders within corporate and entrepreneurship settings are experiencing high levels of burn out in their leadership roles because they are being expected to fit the molds of traditional leadership styles they do not align with. In this week's episode, we discuss our new Evolving Female Leaders program that aims to equip aspiring female leaders with the skills, tools, and community they need to find their unique leadership style and confidently move into leadership positions. 

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The relationship between employee and employer has long been transactional – employee gives work, employer pays employee. If we could instead transition these relationships to transformational relationships, they would have the potential to bring about transformation results in our businesses. By entering into a shared agreement that creates clarity, confirms commitment, and has constant communication we have the potential to change the lives of people everywhere. To create better results for people and our world. Learn more about how to do this in this week’s podcast episode.

Make sure you hit subscribe and get ready to start evolving your performance!

Make sure you hit subscribe and get ready to start evolving your performance!

Our workplaces have a long and dark history of separation, isolation, and disconnection that lead to negative experiences for people working within them. This week's episode we focus on how cultures of isolation are created in the workplace and why it's important we shift from isolating people to creative inclusive cultures that encourage connection.

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In a previous episode, we discussed how traditional business models primarily focused on profit can lead to significant challenges and negative consequences in the workplace. In this week's episode, we explore an alternative approach called "purpose grounded direction" that can help evolving workplaces achieve even greater results.

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How would business practices look if we used all three of our brains? In this episode, we explore each of our three brains and how an evolving workplace can incorporate each to create an engaging environment and experience for employees. 

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About mBIT (multiple Brain Integration Techniques) - https://www.mbraining.com/

Hello! Many businesses today operate within a transactional relationship model with their employees. This approach can lead employees to feel like they are mere means to an end rather than true assets. Learn more about why employers need to make a shift from transactional relationships to relational relationships.

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Special Offer - FREE First Chapter of Fiercely Cherished Beings https://www.evolvingtoexceptional.com/fiercely-cherished-beings

Hello! This week we’re discussing the dangers of fear-based cultures in the workplace. Learn more about how instilling fear in your people can hinder your evolution to becoming an exceptional workplace.

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When businesses are created, it can be easy to get pulled into the need and want for profits. However, when businesses focus on profit, their real purpose can get lost in the midst. Learn more about why a focus on profits can do more harm than good for businesses. 

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Hello! Our brain does some pretty amazing things. But it's not the only brain we can rely on to help us navigate our toughest challenges. Learn more about how only "thinking" our way out of problems is creating more challenges in the workplace than solutions.

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Hello! Workplace trainings shouldn’t stop at just teaching employees skills that can only be applied to their roles at work. To date, entire workforces are still not getting trained on the knowledge, skills, and capabilities they need to perform exceptionally in all their roles. Join us on this week’s episode as we discuss how organizations can offer training that teaches employees how to reach peak performance not only in their jobs, but in their lives!

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Hello! What would happen if organizations weren’t run like static, rigid machines but as live, evolving beings? Join us on this week’s episode as we discuss a new approach to operating businesses as we see the exit of the traditional corporate culture.

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Hello! We’ve existed for so long with all the organizations and institutions reflecting the same type of cultural existence – one of high achievement, competition, and defined hierarchy. Much like everything else in the world, this traditional corporate culture seems to be changing – or rather the demands of the employees within them. Join us on this week’s episode to hear about how and why we can expect to see an end to corporate culture very soon.

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Hello! Join us on this week's episode where we discuss the factors contributing to the burnout of Talent Management and HR teams across America today.

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Hello! Learn more about our three-step process to reaching your maximum potential and performing at your peak. We will provide an overview of each of the three steps and discuss how you can start your performance journey today!

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Hello! Explore a new approach to performance that focuses on the journey rather than the destination. Learn about what E2E is doing to help people everywhere enjoy their experiences more than ever before and achieve their peak performance. 

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Meet another Evolving to Exceptional Team member! Meldina Alibasic shares who she is and why she is passionate about helping everyone live exceptional lives and reach their peak performance.  

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Hello! Get to know what Evolving to Exceptional (E2E) is all about as we discuss why and how E2E was created and our mission to change the lives of those who want to achieve their peak performance.

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Hello! My name is Jessica Tietjen. Let me tell you who I am, how I got here, and why I want to help people reach peak performance by living their most exceptional life. 

My core purpose is to show companies that providing a better culture to operate creates happier employees which in turn leads to profits.

Make sure you hit subscribe and get ready to start evolving your performance!