The Chief People Officer as PM: Rethinking The Systems & Tools That Run the Company

“Code is easy. People are hard.” Colleen McCreary picked up this phrase from a senior engineer in the early days of Zynga, and it’s stuck with her ever since.

“I think universally founders and early startup leaders underestimate how hard people work is,” she says. “So many leaders end up playing catch-up in the people space later on because when they’re starting, building and selling the product is what seems hard — they think they can handle ‘all of this other stuff.’”

As a repeat Chief People Officer, McCreary has more than 20 years of experience in HR, operations, and recruiting, working at a fascinating set of companies through multiple IPOs and acquisitions — including Zynga, The Climate Corporation, Vevo, and her current role at Credit Karma.

These experiences have clarified McCreary’s understanding both of her own role and how to better approach essential elements of the people function. “As Chief People Officer, I'm not the CEO of culture. I’m really not the CEO of happiness,” she laughs. “I think that I am like the product manager of the systems and tools that run the company. And so like any great PM, I do think it is my job to consistently be looking at all of these tools and seeing if they’re working.”

This constant tinkering often leads to implementing new approaches, and occasionally, less-than-conventional ideas — from doing promotions quarterly, to eliminating bonuses, to making peer performance feedback optional.

In this exclusive interview, McCreary walks us through her approach to the systems and tools in her purview, including compensation, rewards and recognition, performance management, company communications and leadership training.

By taking us through some of the most common missteps she sees, McCreary offers up advice on how to assess if your own tools are working in each of these buckets. She also shares strategies on how you can approach them in a fresh, new way — from how rewards and recognition were incredibly different at Zynga and Credit Karma, to why career growth isn’t just about a promotion.

As always, thanks for reading and sharing!

-The Review editors

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