The HR Playbook: How Houston Texans' Anita Martin Drives Change

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Mo Fathelbab:

Welcome to today's episode of People and Strategy. I'm your host, Mo Fathelbab, President of International Facilitators Organization. People and Strategy is a podcast from the SHRM Executive Network, the premier network of executives in the field of human resources. Each week we bring you in-depth conversations with the country's top HR executives and thought leaders.

For today's conversation, we are recording live from the Visionaries Summit in Austin, Texas, at the SHRM Executive Network Conference. And I'm excited to be joined by Anita Martin, CHRO of the Houston Texans. Welcome, Anita.

Anita Martin:

Thank you, Mo. Excited to be here. And short drive, so I'm great.

Mo Fathelbab:

We are excited to have you.

Anita Martin:

Yes.

Mo Fathelbab:

Anita, you have an amazing role that I'm sure many people covet. I would love to know how you got there.

Anita Martin:

Wow, that's interesting. I grew up a fan of professional football. I've been watching professional football since I was eight years old. I never thought about working in sports.

Mo Fathelbab:

And what was your team then?

Anita Martin:

I grew up a fan of the other Texas team.

Mo Fathelbab:

Oh, boy.

Anita Martin:

There's a whole story behind that that we don't have time for, but how I came to this role was, one, having a network of peers who knew who I was, in HR Houston, knew I was a huge football fan, knew the team that I rooted for. And one of my peers actually worked at the Texans. And when the Texans decided several years ago that they were going through an organizational change, they upskilled the role and said, "We need a VP of HR. We need someone with strategic HR experience to come in."

And so she called me, she's like, "You like sports. This is what you do." And at first I was like, "Eh, I don't know." One, because of the team. One, in my loyalty. But what it was, it was an opportunity for me. I had been managing my career progressively upward to finally sit in the seat as the head of HR, to be at that table. To not only be there, but also influence.

And so that's what I had to focus on. I looked at the role and not necessarily where it was. So it wasn't about me working in sports and being a part of the team, it was about the role and what I would be able to do and go in and help change the culture of that organization.

Mo Fathelbab:

Okay. We're going to talk about changing culture in a second. But first, tell us more about your role so that we can understand all the wonderful that you do as CHRO of the Houston Texans.

Anita Martin:

Yeah. One of the things that surprised me, like I said, growing up being a football fan, my biggest decisions when it came to sports and what sports was coming on live TV and thinking about it is, "Okay, what am I eating for the game? What food am I going to have? Is it going to be wings? What adult beverages are we going to have?" Not really thinking anything beyond what you see on TV on Thursday night or Sunday or Monday.

But then going into the organization and realizing that it's a business, just like every other business that I've worked in. It has marketing, HR, IT, legal, finance, sales, all of that. And so it surprised me going in there and saying, "This is really no different than where I've worked before, what I've done before." And so it was a little bit of a mind shift for me understanding that, yes, this is sports, but at the end of the day, it's still a business.

Mo Fathelbab:

Does the seasonality of the football season affect your role in any way?

Anita Martin:

During the interview process I was told that my season as an HR professional, our team, we would have an off season when the team started playing because we would be using the off season to prepare for the season to start.

Well, that hasn't actually been true. There's a lot of preparation that goes into getting ready for a season. And you would think that once that's done, the season starts, everybody can sit back and relax because, hey, you've done all the planning. Well, that hasn't happened because, again, we still have people working every day, still having to deal with those issues. And then looking at the physical year is different, it's not a calendar year.

So there is no downtime. I joke with my peers all the time. I say, "You guys told me I was going to have an off season. I haven't had one yet." So it doesn't affect us in our department. We get a little more excited during the season, but other than that, we are 365 days just like every other organization.

Mo Fathelbab:

Anita, you're presenting a session here at Visionaries called Lessons Learned: Transforming HR Departments from Tactical to Strategic. You've helped three companies transition from tactical to strategic. Can you walk us through those changes and what you did?

Anita Martin:

This is my fourth role that I have gone into an organization, been asked to come into an organization, and transform that organization from being administrative and tactical to being more strategic, to being more of a partner to the business. It's what I've done. It's not something that I thought I was going to do when I got into HR. I had no idea that this is where I would end up, this would end up being my sweet spot. But I have the ability to actually go in, look at an organization, look where they are, what do they want. When they talk about strategic HR, does that organization even know what strategic HR means, what that looks like. Is the organization set up for it?

So that's what I've done. This is the fourth role I've gone in, assessed the organization, looked at policies, looked at processes, and most importantly, looked at the team, looked at the HR team. Do you have the team in place to be able to move from being tactical and administrative to strategic? So I give people ... walk them through my journey over these last 10 years that I've done this.

Mo Fathelbab:

And for those that may not know what you're talking about, can you give us a little bit more of a definition of what strategic HR is?

Anita Martin:

Right. Great question, because that's the first question I always ask the leaders when I walk into organizations, "What does that mean to you?" When you think about tactical versus strategic, a lot of it is about making sure that you're using the right words and the right vocabulary in HR. When you think about tactical, tactical is more administrative, being more reactive versus being proactive. It's usually things that you can get accomplished in a day, in a week, in a month.

When you talk about strategic HR, strategic HR is looking at the entire employee life cycle from recruitment to retirement, if you will, and everything in between. And when you look at recruiting, is it about just posting a job and getting people into an organization, or is it about talent acquisition? Are you looking at not only attracting the best talent, but how do you retain them? Do you have the processes in place to retain talent? Are you competitive? Are there career paths? Is there career development? Is there coaching? Is there mentoring? You look at total rewards, benefit, how people are paid. Do you have a compensation structure in place? How are you paying your people? What is your compensation philosophy? Do you look at market trends? Do you want to lead the market? Do you want to lag? Do you want to meet it?

So all of those are the things that when you think about HR just on the surface, people don't really go that far into it. They think that HR is about just hiring people, bringing them in, and then if need be, firing people. But there's so much more in between that life cycle from recruitment to retirement, whether it's on they desire to, or like I say, we like to promote people to fans.

Mo Fathelbab:

Yeah. And succession planning obviously is part of the strategic HR process I would-

Anita Martin:

Succession planning is absolutely a part of strategic planning. Again, that's going in and looking at the organization. One, is the organization set up for that. Talking to your leaders. Understanding, is your successor here? If they're not, what do you do?

And then having those uncomfortable conversations with them about what does that look like for you? What is that timeline for you? And that's probably been one of the most uncomfortable conversations I've had to have with executives to say, "Hey, be honest. What are you looking at?" Because again, having to look at the organization, are you here for five years, 10 years? If you're not, we need to start looking at a plan. And it's not about replacing you, it's about making sure we get the right person, and having that opportunity to then ... that tribal knowledge, make sure that that's passed down so that there's some continuity in the organization.

Mo Fathelbab:

We always talk about you could just get run over by a bus. What happens if you get run over by a bus?

Anita Martin:

We like to say win the lottery. We try to be a little more positive.

Mo Fathelbab:

That's more positive. I like that.

Anita Martin:

Some people [inaudible 00:09:40] run over by a bus. It's like, win the lottery, and yeah.

Mo Fathelbab:

Yeah. I want to talk specifically about the role of HR and perhaps the CHRO as it relates to culture change. So what is it that HR's responsibility, what is HR's responsibility in that regard?

Anita Martin:

That's a good question, and you can look at that a couple of ways because a lot of people tend to believe that HR should not be the drivers of the culture, but we should be more so the keepers of the culture. And I tend to look at it a little differently because when you look at HR and our role and who we are accountable and responsible for, we're the people. And what drives the culture? It's the people. So if you want to take a back seat and say, "We'll let the organization decide what the culture needs to be," as an HR professional, you're not doing that organization the best service in your role.

My role in that is helping identify, establish the culture. What do we want this organization to look like? When a teammate or an employee walks in every day, what do we want that person to experience? What do we want them to take away from here every day? How do they feel? Do they feel valued? Do they feel respected? And when you have the business functions, they're focusing on numbers, they're focusing on marketing, how much of that goes into the culture? You have people that are in the marketing department, in your finance, in your legal, that's driving what that looks like every day, their lived experience.

So HR has to be a part of defining, or if you walk into an organization that already has a very well-established culture, making sure you help sustain that. What can you do or how can you even help make that culture better. So I don't believe in HR taking a back seat and saying, "It's really not our job to drive the culture." It absolutely is our job to not only drive it, but even in this case, in the role that I'm sitting in, I've actually helped change it.

Mo Fathelbab:

I love that. Speaking of culture, is the culture different on the field than it is from the back office?

Anita Martin:

It depends on what day it is and if you win, lose.

Mo Fathelbab:

Win, lose. Right.

Anita Martin:

No. One of the things that I've been appreciative of is our head coach, a lot of how he reacts and how he looks at his players and what he expects from them and what he's building over on that side mirrors a lot on what we want and expect from our teammates over on the business side. Basically it boils down to we want good teammates. We want people to be good teammates. We want them to be good teammates, not only in the organization, in their families, in the community.

And it's some of the same things that we built off of over on the business operations side. So we don't yell at our teammates when they make mistakes or there's not half times where we have to go in and readjust, but it's pretty much ... it's the same. And that's been one of the surprising things over the last year and a half that we are looking at mirroring the culture on both the football side and on the business operation side. Because at the end of the day, we're all there for the same thing, and that's to get those wins on Sundays.

Mo Fathelbab:

There you go. I love that. How do you deal with employees and teams that don't embrace these cultural shifts? Or how do you create the buy-in?

Anita Martin:

A term that I will use, and I'll have to say that I can't take credit for it, is having strategic patience. The first thing is I have built my HR career on three pillars. That's fairness, consistency and transparency.

And when you talk about culture and getting people to buy-in, transparency is absolutely key. People have to understand why. They want to know why, why are we changing. Walking into this organization it was told to employees that we're going to be different, but coming from our ownership, we're going to be better. That meant that we had to change and they wanted to know why. What we've done. We've been here, this organization has been around 20 years. Yes, we've had some good seasons, some bad seasons, but why? So getting them to understand that what got us here 20 years ago is not what's going to keep us going within the next five years, 10 years, 15 years.

So, one, making sure, first of all, that people understand and that they understand where the organization is going. And then understanding their role, their role that they play, that yes, it comes from top down, but you have a role in this organization and in this change. And if they understand that, then people have a choice. You can either say, "I've been with the organization, this is what I'm used to. You guys are going in a different direction. I don't want to be a part of that. It's not aligned with who I am. It may not be aligned with my values." And then sometimes conversations have to be had.

You'll have some employees and teammates that will say, "Okay, I'm on board." And you will have some that say, "That's really not for me." And so sometimes you have to have those hard conversations with people to say, "This may not be where you need to be."

Mo Fathelbab:

Yeah. What advice would you have for other companies that are about to undergo a similar change?

Anita Martin:

First, the thing I would ask every organization is, is the change necessary. A lot of times you'll have situations where there'll be one or two things that'll pop up, and leadership will all of a sudden be on fires, like, "Oh, we need a cultural change. We need to do things differently."

You need to make sure that you are not changing for the sake of change. Or because there's something that's come out now and it's like, "Oh, well, this is the way that organizations is going. This is what the trend is saying." Does that make sense for your organization? That would be the first thing, because again, making change for the sake of change, you're not going to end up where you are.

And then you need to understand that change takes time. It takes time. It is not overnight. Having a strategic plan in place, here's where we are, here's where we want to go, then how are you going to get there. And then most importantly, understanding that it's a journey. It is a journey. You may decide that yes, this is where we want to be, and it takes you three, four, or five years to get there, and then things have happened. The world may have changed, your business may have changed, and now you're looking like, "Okay, we have to shift. We have to pivot again."

So understanding that it is a journey. And I don't think any organization will ever be to a point where, "This is who we are. We are fine with this and we're never going to change. We're never going to do anything differently." Understanding it's a journey and that it's okay,

Mo Fathelbab:

And it's okay.

Anita Martin:

It's okay.

Mo Fathelbab:

Something that strikes me as I hear you say that is I think a lot of us were forced to deal with change during the pandemic. Have you seen that affect how people are more willing or less willing to make change since the pandemic? Have they become more willing to make change?

Anita Martin:

I think they have been because they understand that we didn't think we could. No one expected us to be in that position, and we did. We pivoted on a lot of things. The work from home, that has been the biggest thing that has come out of COVID, that organizations have been able to see that we don't necessarily have to have everyone in the office every day. We can change.

I've worked in the oil and gas and working with skilled labor, punching clocks, people having to punch clocks in and out, but there are other positions in an organization that you don't necessarily have that. You can have people working remotely. And so I think when people saw that with something as major as that came in and we were able to change and we accepted it, that you have to look at everything now and yeah, change is possible.

Mo Fathelbab:

Change is possible. Something else you said really caught my attention, strategic patience. What is that?

Anita Martin:

Strategic patience is, and I'll talk about it in terms of where we are in our journey here with the Texans, again, it was a well-thought-out plan. We have a plan in place that we knew it wasn't going to be one, two years, three years at least. And there are things that we put in place. As executives, we have our white board, "Here's what we want to happen." We have our timeline of when we want things to happen. One of the big things that we did in this organization is compensation was in behavior. We're not tied together. And that is something that we have done.

Coming from my background in working in oil and gas before sports, one of the things that I would see all the time is that you would have top performers, very smart people, very intelligent, able to get results, but they piss 10 people off in the process. No one wanted to sit with them in a lunchroom. And so behavior matter. And so that was one of the things coming into this organization that has said, yes, we are going to tie behavior to compensation.

Mo Fathelbab:

And how do you do that?

Anita Martin:

With the total reward. So prior to me coming in, bonuses. You looked at bonuses and how they were distributed. There was no process in place. It was discretionary as to who got it, how much they got. And what really woke me up was I started with the organization in April and it was the start of their physical year, and they had just finished all of their compensation so that everything went into place as [inaudible 00:20:17] one.

And middle of May I had a VP come to me, wanting to talk to me about an employee that he had been having some issues with. And so again, I'm a little over a month in, and he comes and he's talking to me about all the issues that he's had with this person. And so I'm taking notes, and I had looked up her file. She had just got a very nice increase on her base salary, had got a very nice bonus. So I'm like, "Wow, what could have happened in a month and a half?" So when I asked him, I said, "Well, how long has this been going on?" And he said, "Oh, this has been going on for years."

And so I'm sitting there and I'm looking and I'm saying, "Is this the same person that you just gave an above average increase to that, you just gave a huge bonus to, but you've been having these problems?" And so they weren't focused, they were focused on results. And what I said to them, and then eventually to the broader organization, is that there has to be an incentive for people. There has to be a tie. And again, you can come in and be the best employee, we have, the best teammate, but how you behave, how you show up every day, how you treat your teammates, it matters.

So we have a compensation structure now that people evaluate it every year on not only meeting their functional goals, but what we call their habits, how you behave. And it's 60/40. So what you get depends on meeting your goals and how you meet those goals and how you treat your teammates and how you show up every day.

Mo Fathelbab:

So 40% of the bonus is the how, and 60% is the what?

Anita Martin:

Exactly.

Mo Fathelbab:

Amazing. I love that.

Anita Martin:

Exactly.

Mo Fathelbab:

I love that. I love that. Okay. Ready for some rapid fire questions?

Anita Martin:

Sure.

Mo Fathelbab:

All right, here we go. What's the one word to describe your leadership style?

Anita Martin:

Ambiguous.

Mo Fathelbab:

If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

Anita Martin:

Clarity.

Mo Fathelbab:

When you were a child, what job did you want to have most?

Anita Martin:

I wanted to be an actress in New York City on Broadway.

Mo Fathelbab:

It's not too late.

Anita Martin:

I know.

Mo Fathelbab:

If you could master any new skill instantly, what would it be?

Anita Martin:

Singing, because that's one of the reasons why I didn't pursue my passion of being on Broadway, because I'm not the strongest singer. So if I could all of a sudden reach the levels of Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, I probably would be on Broadway right now.

Mo Fathelbab:

All right. Well, my fingers are crossed. I'm not giving up on you. Anita, last question. What is the one piece of advice that was given to you that has shaped you either personally or professionally?

Anita Martin:

A little bit of both. One of the things that my mom had me focused on was to focus on best, not better. Not growing up with a lot of means, one of the things that she would always say, it's like, "It's not about you being better than someone else. It's not about you dressing better or you living in a better house or having better things. It's about you being your best. And every day when you wake up, when you walk out of this house, make sure that your best self is walking out of this house. Make sure that everywhere you are and everything that you do, you are showing up as your best self."

So that has shaped me both professionally and personally, that I don't get into looking at what someone else has or what someone else is doing. What am I doing, am I being my best self every day?

Mo Fathelbab:

We all need to remember your mother's lesson. What a valuable, valuable piece of advice you got.

Well, and that is where we'll end it for this episode of People and Strategy. A huge thanks to Anita Martin, CHRO of the Houston Texans. You can follow People and Strategy podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Also, podcast reviews have a real impact on a podcast's visibility. So if you like today's episode, please give us a review so you could help others find the show. Finally, you could find all our episodes on our website at SHRM.org/podcasts. Thank you for listening, and have a great day,

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SHRM thanks Gap International for sponsoring this episode of People and Strategy. Learn more about our longstanding partner at gapinternational.com.