Transcript
Matthew: First talk track. Why HR? And I want to preface this by saying, I am just imagining this scene where you are, and listeners, watch the video when I do this. You are doing that thing on the ground, and then you have got the barbed wire above you. And then you are jumping over the wall, and you are covered in mud. And you turn to your buddy and you are like, man, I just really want to get into HR. And you are flexing.
Lee, why did you get into HR? And intentionally you have me, not Tony, because I am going to press you from the CEO seat on how I see HR.
Lee Cage Jr.: I told you I wanted to be this cultural anthropologist. Anthropologists study the way of the human. There is a lot of intersection to me in what ties into HR and culture, and how people see themselves, how they build tribes within organizations, how they build subgroups.
How influence and power works inside of an organization, which is typically not always the person with the fanciest title or the biggest check. Sometimes it is that executive assistant who is driving the entire bus by seed planting and doing the thing. She manages the calendar for the CEO, so she knows everything.
I like people and I like the study of people. And the best way for me to study people, to learn more about them, is to see them in their natural habitat. And that is work, where they are spending one third, sometimes two-thirds of their day.
I moved into HR for the Army and then became an HR manager for child support here in Nashville, which was an incredible experience, a life-altering experience, to sit in court inside of your building and see these things unfold, and to see the people who are representing custodial or non-custodial parents and how the kids are impacted by this.
So HR really has given me a lens to pair the cultural pieces, the technology pieces, and to view all of it.
