Great leaders don’t just walk in and start making changes—they listen, learn, and then lead.
Jason Desentz, Chief Human Resources Officer at Toshiba America, has built a career on this principle. From consulting to leading HR at major corporations, he has mastered the balance between business impact and cultural legacy.
In this episode, Jason shares how he navigates massive organizational shifts, why he believes influence is about trust just as much as strategy, and how being proactive in your career can open unexpected doors.
Jason also talks about:
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[00:00:00] Jason Desentz: People make decisions more on the right side of the brain, which is very subjective. It's about trust, it's about belief, and the business side, they don't wanna talk about that. So I believe if you meld the two together, you actually have a higher impact on influence, and that has really been my success in being able to influence all of that, has helped me become a better person as an HR leader.
But more importantly, really have high impact to the business in a shorter period of time.
[00:00:24] Dave Travers: So what does it really take for your business to attract world-class talent today? I'm Dave Travers, President of ZipRecruiter, and on Talent All-Stars, we shine a light on the people and the day-to-day processes behind recruitment and retention at some of the world's most influential businesses.
Today's talent all-star has a wealth of experience across a wide range of industries. Jason Desentz is the Chief Human Resources Officer at Toshiba America, which employs about 5,000 team members in the US. Jason started his career. Thinking he would be a police officer, but stumbled his way into HR and then had increasingly greater and greater responsibility across multiple companies before finally becoming a CHRO at Horizon Global.
He then went on to become a consultant to multiple other HR departments on their HR strategy, and then recently joined as CHRO at Toshiba. Along the way, he was identified as a high-potential leader. So let's start the conversation right there.
[00:01:22] Jason Desentz: One thing that I learned growing up, and this really comes from my parents, is my mother used to always say to us, if you just work really hard, good things will come to you.
It sounds really simple, but it, but if you think about it, I wasn't focused on the money. I wasn't focused on the title. All I knew was whatever job I was going to be in, I was gonna be the best at it. I was gonna study, I was gonna educate myself. I wasn't just clocking in and clocking out. It really did require a little sacrifice on my end where I would, I would always volunteer, what did you volunteer for?
Gimme an example. Yeah, so this is how it worked out. So what, what I did was, is I talked to some my, uh, my boss at the time, and that was probably a lonely little trainer at the time, and I, this was at Chrysler. I said, look, I'm interested in learning the other areas of the business and seeing where I could go.
Is there like a path you guys have that I can look at? Is there a person I can talk to? My boss was like, yeah, not really. So I said, well, where do all the heads of each of the departments in HR sit? And he says, actually, they're on the eighth floor in the building of Chrysler, and their offices are all next to each other.
So I literally knocked on their doors and just introduced myself, said who I was, and just said, I'd love to learn more about your organization and what you do here. You share a little bit about myself. Would you be open to a 30-minute conversation? Everyone said yes. Wow. And after that, I started getting asked to apply to jobs.
I started, I got them put in the high-potential program, and I think that's what really caught their eye.
[00:02:49] Dave Travers: There's such a nugget of wisdom in what you just said because you were interested, you were a go-getter, you proactively raised your hand and you phrased the question as, and it was a yes or no question.
Is there a way I could go learn more about the business? And you got the no. What you brilliantly and instinctively did is you asked a follow-up question that was no longer a yes or no question. So where would I go to learn more about the question? Like, thanks for the no, and, and now where would I go?
It's not, there's no no to that question, and that's a great way to overcome an obstacle and get somebody out of a framework of just saying no to you. Um, so a tongue to be learned from that. So you took the advantage. And then started going and talking to people. And when you haven't talked to people before like that, what's the key to ingratiating yourself and getting people to deal with you
[00:03:36] Jason Desentz: Talk about awkward, right?
This is where I think all HR people who are in the field should take a standup comedian course, or a, my son actually who's an, who's an actor. I, we were maybe talking before. He does improv. And what improv does, and I, and I, I'll tell you why this connects. Improv is quick thinking on your feet, knowing how to take a question, and then following up with sub-questions just like you did with me.
That is an art, and I, I learned how to hone in on that and to me it was, I had no clue what questions to ask. All I did was just start talking. And even Simon Sinek, who I adore will say he has a, a really good phrase when you're talking to people. It's not just active listening, it's tell me more. That actually starts to change the conversation.
It's weird. He's right. And, and I, I, uh, somehow instinctively would say something similar like, oh, help me understand. And I would use the words, help me understand, help me understand a little bit more about that. Or, but something like that. It starts to, two things, in my opinion. It gets the leader to think, wow, I need to sell my department anyways.
This is a good, uh, opportunity for me. Here's this kid in front of me who knows nothing, and how do I explain it to him in kinda layman's terms? 'cause you know, if I'm talking to the head of benefits, what's a 5,500? What's, you know, you're like, your head starts spinning. And I'm like, I have no idea. So it was really an opportunity for them as well to who normally don't do this.
So for me, all I would tell people is just go in there. You may not get the questions right, but just start talking and then start listening. I have a philosophy, listen, learn and lead. And I talk about this a lot and I follow it a lot. And I usually start off with those first two quite heavily.
[00:05:12] Dave Travers: So listen, learn, and lead.
Like for somebody who hasn't used that framework before, tell me more about how I apply that for success.
[00:05:20] Jason Desentz: Yeah. Apparently, I say it too much because my new staff, one of them came in with a T-shirt that actually had it printed off. They had it made for me. Listen, learn and lead. 'cause I must say that enough.
[00:05:28] Dave Travers: That's good listening. When you print what your boss says on a t-shirt, like you're listening. I get it.
[00:05:32] Jason Desentz: I'm half tempted to wear the shirt at the next conference. I'm speaking at just, just, just a, you know, frame of reference. Anyways. So here, here's a quick way to think about it. So, whenever a leader, and, and it doesn't have to be a leader, it's whenever you walk into a situation and you're trying to connect and influence or trying to understand something, you know, people tend to walk in with the last part, leading part.
Let's say you start a new job and you're a director, or you're a VP, whatever you, you're the head of. A lot of people think that your job is to come up with answers. Your job is to immediately respond and come up with something. No, that is not your job. Your job is to first come in and listen, uh, and try to hear why things were done in such a way and learn.
It's not about just listening to how, let's say, for example, how we do, uh, performance reviews. Well, the next part learned. Can you tell me how or why it was set up the way it is today? And, and then I always follow that up with another question, which is, and if you could do it all over today, would you do it the same?
And then even the leading part, um, it isn't commanding voice rather than saying, you should do this, or I've seen Chrysler do this, or I, I would say something like, um, have you considered or have you thought of, and that is a way to lead that isn't intrusive to their current process. 'cause people. Look at a process as if it's their baby and you're, you don't want to tell someone that you know, that it's, it doesn't look good or it's, it doesn't work.
So it's a softer way of leading that I found. And I do that approach every time I walk into a situation, and it hasn't failed me yet.
[00:07:01] Dave Travers: Wow. Okay. So it's interesting. When I first heard listen, learn, and lead, I thought, okay, listen and learn. Those feel like a nice like loop that you could do for a while, but then when you decide to start leading.
What's interesting about what you just said is that leading is part of the listening and learning loop, where the way you lead is actually a gateway to learning more. So when do you decide, like, I'm gonna start probing a little bit and start leading a little bit. Like how do you, how do you make that transition in a relationship?
[00:07:31] Jason Desentz: Yeah. It's usually I give someone, I, I really don't put a time limit on it unless we're in, you know, we're cut on time. I let them just talk. Because usually what I feel is, is when people just start talking, venting also occurs. It's kind of interesting. So it's almost like they have to get it out and they get it out.
And then I learn, they teach me about, you know, the history of why it was done that way. And even in then you learn, a lot of times it's like, you know, we haven't really done this since the nineties. We, we probably should relook at that and say, is it applicable? That's interesting. And they, in the moment, in some cases, they start to realize that when I do lead and say, you know what?
Based on what you told me, I heard this, I, I repeat back chronologically. Okay. You told me about the process and, and then you told me about how it was created, the genesis of it, and then I started probing some questions and you said this and you said that if in the conversation it's the right time, I will provide a cursory recommendation.
Usually that recommendation is, you know, based on what you told me, it sounds like we have some opportunities to explore. Uh, and I always approach things on making sure the impact to the business and the experience by the employees are all in the thought of my mind. So I would always say, okay, I like for us to do X, Y, and Z to start.
And even then, it's not all, let's boil the ocean. It's sometimes chunked up into phases because Toshiba this year. Blessings. It's 150 years old. We're celebrating 150-year-old company history. Incredible milestone, right? Try changing and turning a ship that long and that big. It's not something that's gonna happen overnight.
So phased approach, even in your leading is something that I consider because there are some things that make sense. My recommendations. And there's some things that I would recommend to one company that I would not recommend to Toshiba. So I have to know that in the back of my head. And if I don't listen and learn, I'm not gonna understand some.
'cause a lot of times in that moment, they tell you what other people had tried and then it didn't work. And then I, then I, another probing question is, well, why didn't it work? And then you start to say, and sometimes it's cultural. Sometimes it's just the way it always is. Jason. And you're like, okay, that's not an answer, but if it's cultural, then I even break it down generationally.
Well, is that kind of, you know, how long has that been in place? Oh wow. Okay. Is that something you think the new generation coming in would respond to? Again, asking probing questions, and even as I start my recommendations, I'm already starting the next listen, learn, and lead.
[00:09:49] Dave Travers: Listen, learn and lead. I'm gonna use that.
Okay, so now speaking of listening and learning, one of the things that I've seen that you've listened and learned is about being on both sides of the company and the service provider advisor side of the divide. Those of us that are in companies have external advisors and those of us who are external advisors always wonder what it's like to be in the trenches of the company.
You've been on both sides of that. You've gone back and forth. What is the difference and what should people think about as they map their careers about what's right for them?
[00:10:20] Jason Desentz: I literally was just on the phone with a former Chrysler colleague of mine who called me out of the blue. I was explaining to him, he was thinking of going into consultancy or being an advisor, and I said, I tell you what, what advising taught me.
And he goes, he goes, he asked me. He is like, what's still like. I said, you know, you don't have that much time. And I say, time is money and business development and building relationships is that much more important than maybe it might be with your inside. And here's what I mean by that. I might get 90 days to change a process inside of Toshiba, for example, but outside as an advisor, they're not gonna pay me 90 days for 90 days of work.
They're gonna say, well, could you do all that in 30 and less time and less money? So what it did teach me is an ability to take what I learned in the business side and trim out some of the areas that maybe didn't have as much value add. And actually it made me a better process and implementation person because of that, because then I would only focus on the things that had high impact and quite frankly, low cost.
It just naturally comes with that side of the business. So from my perspective, being inside and out, it's a blessing for me now to go back into Toshiba and take those lessons and I. I'm probably way quicker and efficient. I wouldn't say quicker, let's say the word efficient. I'm more efficient in how I create process, how I look at process, and quite frankly, asking along the way and building the trust with the leaders to change the process is something that I learned.
Think about that, right? Business development side. So I go in in parallel when selling something that's new, you got the socialization piece that has to happen, right? So I'm using my consultant experience on the outside in service orientation. To help me with that and that it's building that trust. In fact, I'm speaking about this in Vegas in May, about how to influence, and I've created this thing where you, it's called the leadership influence zone, and it's understanding the brain and the left and the right side.
And we're always trained in the, in the inside of the business world to use the left side, which is the more analytical, very structured, but people make decisions on more on the right side of the brain, which is very subjective, very, you know, it's about trust, it's about belief and the business side. They don't wanna talk about that.
So I believe if you meld the two together, you actually have a higher impact on influence and that has really been my success in being able to influence. So all of that has helped me, um, become a better person as an HR leader, but more importantly, really have high impact to the business in a shorter period of time.
[00:12:47] Dave Travers: So you recently took on this big new role at Toshiba, and so you've been a leader at Horizon Global in a company before and, and other companies before you went into advisory work. Now, having been on both sides of that, what's it like on the first day starting a brand new job? How do you organize? What do you say?
Like, you know, for those of us who've never walked in cold like that, how do you approach that?
[00:13:11] Jason Desentz: I love the first day on the job, you know, because it's, it's really, you can't mess up, really. You can't. It's, it's kinda one of those, like, it's a mulligan. If you're a golfer, um, uh, you know, one, you hope your IT equipment is there and our IT department is amazing.
God love them. They were there. Very super helpful. So to me, just like if, look at an engagement survey, there's an enga, you know, engagement index, but there's the enablement index. Enablement Index talks about do you have the right tools to do your job? So I immediately look at, do I have the right tools to start my day, my very first day?
And that includes IT equipment that includes meeting the right people or was there a schedule for me to meet people? And there was, so Toshiba did a wonderful job in preparing me for my first day, and it is drinking from the fire hoses, right. They had just been through a big turn, um, where they were, you know, were purchased by private equity and they're really going through a big change, but all in a good way.
And really, I was part of the beginning of some of the change in the Americas, and that's what they were looking for was someone to come in and be able to help with this change, uh, again, and making sure that it's process driven. And it's also someone who understands cultural values. And that's something that I, I also try to learn ahead of time is, well, what is Toshiba's cultural values?
And they really. Not so much the values itself, but are we living the values and do we really. Foster a culture of, you know, community at which we do as well as, you know, we try to tailor that with the technology that we use, and it's fascinating how Toshiba does it, and they are in every single industry. I feel like possible.
It's, it's, it's amazing. Super proud to be a part of them.
[00:14:43] Dave Travers: Awesome. Okay, I want to transition to the rapid-fire part of the conversation. Which is, I want you to imagine that we're coming together in the kitchen making a cup of coffee together at Toshiba HQ in the, in the us and a board member or the CEO comes by and is like, Hey Jason, you've been here for six months or seven months.
What's the most important thing for the HR team to accomplish over the next year?
[00:15:09] Jason Desentz: You know, my team I started with is making sure the camaraderie was there and making sure the chemistry was there and making sure we all understood our roles and responsibilities. That was first and foremost and was very paramount.
I'm not saying it wasn't there. I'm saying it wasn't as strong as I'm, I would like to see it and that is the first thing I worked on with my team is making sure we all understood what our roles and responsibilities were. Also it was preparing the team for all of this integration that we're starting to do, creating new programs.
If you can imagine the way Toshiba was structured, we had multiple businesses with multiple HR payrolls, multiple benefits plans, multiple pay practices. So I'm consolidating all all of that into one. So it's really then to say we can't boil the ocean. What can we do at first in phases? Remember I said earlier, things are done in phases.
So I looked at it and said, okay, team, now that we all know what we're supposed to do, now that we all know. That we've got all of, we had to go through an inventory and do an audit of everything that needed to be done. Now we're in the phasing and prioritization mode, and it just takes a little bit of extra oomph.
So you get that over the hump, especially when you make significant change that is so emotional to some people.
[00:16:16] Dave Travers: Yes. So speaking of change, next rapid-fire question, still farting over with our cup of coffee again. We're we at Toshiba? Like so many other companies you've been at and seen, et cetera, and so many other people listening to this have gone through are in the moment of change where we have to decide how much of our 150-year history to keep and how much this is a new era and we're changing from a people standpoint.
How do we think about what to keep and what to change?
[00:16:41] Jason Desentz: If you think about Steve Jobs, he was let go from Apple and he was brought back to Apple, you know, and they said, we, we need your help again. We're we're, we don't know what we're doing. We're kind of losing our values, we're also losing money left and right.
We're, we're in everything, you know? And he said, we need to shrink to grow, to implode, to explode. And I believe that's what Toshiba's on and what he did at Apple was, is he said, okay, we are so diverse in our portfolio. We need to take a look at our portfolio and say what is truly we want to be an Apple? Do we really wanna be in some of the extra business of accessories and all that stuff?
Or do we wanna focus on our MacBook and then we got this whole I series that we're gonna come out with. And then, you know, as you know, we all exploded, but they had to shrink first to do that. Toshiba's in that mindset right now where we do call it shrink to grow, um, we're not shrinking. Uh, in the traditional sense where we're cutting heads and we're doing all that, we're just looking at our portfolio and saying, does this make sense to us now?
I mean, yeah, maybe it made sense to us then. And how does it complement our other businesses? You know, we're in retail, we're in, uh, hydropower, we're in gas, you know, gas and oil. We're in all these, you know, automotive, but a lot of 'em are complimentary. If you look at our products, so that is something that Toshiba's gonna continuously take a look at is that shrink-to-grow mentality.
And the only way to do that is look at your portfolio and say what makes sense now and maybe what makes sense for us to maybe pass this on to somebody else or outsource it elsewhere.
[00:18:05] Dave Travers: The hypothetical imposing about the the kitchen table making the cup of coffee is you're asked a people question by a business person.
You didn't fall into the trap of giving a people-specific answer. You give a business answer, which goes right to your core, in essence of being a business person who happens to be in people, which is the exactly the right way to approach that. Okay, one last one. You were identified early in your career, Jason, as a high-potential person.
There are all these amazing young people who are on their way up in the world, clearly at our company. How do I as the CEO do a better job of cultivating our high-potential leaders?
[00:18:42] Jason Desentz: The first question I ask is, do you have the right method to say they are truly a high potential in your company? And if so, what metrics are you using to determine that?
What I tell people is, is I'm very clear about what makes a high potential at your company's ZipRecruiter. What is it? Is it someone who has hark, who's a drive, who has, who's a volunteer as I call them, who is someone who has a good work ethic? You need to qualify and quantify that. For people to see. It's like a talent scout, right?
For baseball or something. You know, they're looking at a set of metrics and if they meet an RBI average, or they have a, you know, a earned ERA or something, they're looking at statistics to determine if that player's gonna be good. Yeah. They look at technique, yeah, they look at style, but what do they more care about?
They care about when they care about all these other statistics. Why don't businesses do that? We always take a subjective approach, so I, as the high potential, would say, oh man, what are those, what are those values that they're looking for? What does Billy have? If I know that, then I can shoot for that, right?
But if I don't know that, then it's like a buckshot. I'm hoping to hit the target. I'm not necessarily sure I'm going to. So being very clear with what a high potential is and then having the right tools that objectively do it, I. Now we all know there's subjectivity and performance management. I, I'm not the first to admit that there isn't, but let's make the best subjective decisions with the most objective data possible.
[00:20:04] Dave Travers: That's great. Jason Desentz, Doctor Jason Desentz, it's clear why you're a talent all-star. I really appreciate you taking the time today and sharing so much wisdom with us.
[00:20:12] Jason Desentz: It's been great to be on the show. Thank you so much.
[00:20:17] Dave Travers: That's Jason Desentz, the Chief Human Resources Officer at Toshiba Americas. We'll drop his LinkedIn page in the show description, and just a reminder, we put this conversation as well as all of our episodes on the official ZipRecruiter YouTube page. I'm Dave Travers. I'll see you back here with another Talent All-Star next week.