Bringing one’s whole self to work means personal and professional lives mesh in a way that can sometimes get messy. Lindsay Mareau knows that all too well. She is a former senior tech leader who has guided leadership teams and global organizations in outlining people, process and technology to complement their growth and change strategy.

She has been alcohol-free for more than a year, chronicling her sobriety journey on LinkedIn for everyone in her professional network to see. Sobriety is a gift that has given her so much that she had to find a way to share it with others, especially now that she runs her own consulting company dedicated to helping others improve their lives.

Tune in to this episode of “Unusual Attitudes” to hear Mareau’s take on making changes, be it a better leader or sales performer.

Innovation runs through Electrolux’s line of home appliances. Artificial intelligence embedded in washing machines, for example, determines the right spin cycle and water consumption while maximizing cleaning efficiency. The Swedish company brings that same modern mindset to acquiring and managing talent.

AI changed the way HR handles transactional work but it didn’t change Electrolux’s value system, according to Anna Ullrich, a senior talent executive. Educating the workforce on AI is key to understanding the tech’s benefits, but not to the point of stifling inventive, creative ways of working with it.

In this episode of “Unusual Attitudes,” Ullrich explains why leaders should let teams have the freedom to discover their own way of working with AI while staying within the bounds of the company’s guardrails — ultimately creating the innovation they need.

Ray Tavares’ career has largely been spent in one industry — financial services — not all that uncommon for Gen Xers. About 20 years ago, he pivoted into the HR tech domain, and has witnessed every conceivable transformation along the way. His kids jokingly accuse him of “HR-ing” them with fatherly advice.

That’s because of his passion for helping others succeed. In his senior level role at Truist, the Charlotte-based bank formed by the merger of SunTrust and BB&T, Tavares sees himself largely as a coach who helps fellow leaders navigate organizational blind spots.

In this episode of “Unusual Attitudes,” he explains why he loves work, but isn’t a workaholic.

Growing up a “Star Trek” fan, Ajay Patel marveled at boldly going where no one had gone before. It was only natural he would study astrophysics at university, but instead of building rockets and studying celestial bodies, his career pivoted to HR where he builds talent pipelines.

The figure-it-out mindset of an engineer came in handy when he arrived at Straumann Group in 2020 as vice president of talent acquisition. Though the Swiss dental equipment maker is more than 70 years old, the environment and culture felt decidedly like a startup. TA was a blank slate, with little in the way of established processes.

In this episode of “Unusual Attitudes,” Patel traces the excitement he felt building a function from scratch to keep pace with a rapidly growing enterprise.

When Ed LaPerche first entered tech sales in the 1990s he witnessed the industry gradually evolve from old school mainframe computing to the client-server network model all the way through to cloud computing. Today, it’s all about artificial intelligence and agentic AI.

Transformation for a sales professional means never being satisfied with the status quo. Seeking out opportunities to learn and grow are important ways to keep tabs on the next big trends. Because one of the distinctive traits about the technology industry is that its pace of change is much more rapid than other sectors.

In this episode of “Unusual Attitudes,” LaPerche talks about the time he took three companies public, including Salesforce and Workday. Watching them grow from small startups to tech giants has been a rewarding part of his journey.

Greg Muccio naturally followed in the career footsteps of his dad and brothers as a sales rep before realizing it wasn’t for him. He didn’t enjoy the role and admittedly wasn’t good at it – not exactly a winning formula for long-term success.

Luckily he was working at a staffing company when the epiphany hit. A manager asked if he’d be interested in learning recruiting, and the rest, as they say, is history. Today he’s the head of talent acquisition at Southwest Airlines, overseeing a huge team of 300 recruiters.

In this episode of “Unusual Attitudes,” Muccio talks about why he encourages his team to be thinking two roles ahead in their careers. He thinks of career growth as a lattice instead of a ladder.

Most talent professionals will say they didn’t grow up actively wanting to be a recruiter. Not Hung Lee. He was fascinated by the qualities that make one candidate stand out from others with similar resumes. It just took some time for that deep interest to develop.

That’s because HR would have been an unthinkable path in his teens when he actively avoided anything corporate. “Hell on earth” was putting on a suit and going into an office. Then came the “a-ha” moment that as one gets older, the more responsibilities begin to pile up, which constrain choice. Pivoting to recruitment became a conscious decision, then, as age and wisdom made him realize his own obligations.

In this episode of “Unusual Attitudes,” Lee talks about the advice he would give to early career professionals (including his younger self).

Guest: Hung Lee, Editor, Recruiting Brainfood

There are few continents Neil Crumpton either hasn’t visited or recruited from. He even once did a search in Burkina Faso! Crumpton is a natural at navigating cultural boundaries.

His career as a global recruiting executive was forged in his early 20s when he led a multinational team comprised of different cultures, languages, and perspectives. The experience taught him how to find common ground and bring multiple nationalities together.

In this episode of “Unusual Attitudes,” Crumpton describes how assimilation is a part of understanding others, a crucial skill in recruiting.