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Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Leadership Growth Podcast. I'm your host, Daniel Stewart, along with my brother, Peter Stewart. And we have a fantastic guest today. Cary Sparrow, welcome to the Leadership Growth Podcast.-Hey, thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be talking with you.-And folks, we're going to be diving into a very important topic, especially for all of us as leaders, figuring out how to best retain and engage people, particularly through the lens of hiring? What does that look like? How are we able to motivate folks and keep them motivated? How to find the right people? How to keep them. All of these, we want to look to Cary and his expertise and see what the state of things are these days. So, but before we dive into that, let me share a little bit about Cary's background. Cary Sparrow is the founder and CEO of WageScape, the world's largest next-generation labor market intelligence platform, that provides real-time hiring and pay analysis to organizations worldwide. He brings over thirty five years of leadership experience spanning nuclear submarine service as a U.S. naval officer. Strategy and Organization Consulting at Willis Towers Watson, and Global VP Level Leadership at Cargill. He holds engineering degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and the Institute and the University of Memphis, along with an MBA from Northwestern. Cary, again, welcome to the Leadership Growth Podcast. And as we're getting going here, give us a sense from your perspective, what is the state of hiring these days? We are, we're right now recording summer, midsummer 2026. What is the state of things from your perspective?-It's a little bit confused, to be honest with you. We're a global company. We track what's going on with hiring and pay across all countries in the world. But in general, I would say it's a little bit confused. We had seen coming into early 2025, through the middle of 2025, pretty robust hiring demand and commensurate wage growth as well, higher than historical. And then that flattened out. It just flattened out. Now, different parts of the world are a little bit, you know, are in different situations. But in general, there's a general overlay of uncertainty, economic uncertainty, political uncertainty, technical, technological uncertainty, especially around AI. So even though companies are advertising job openings at a rate that is well beyond what it has been in prior years, their actual hiring rates are going down. And, you know, that is carrying over into the workforce as well. You're seeing that the voluntary turnover of employees is going down also, as folks are saying, you know, do I take another opportunity with all the risks associated with the job change? Or maybe it pays more, but I'm going into a new place that not going to be established right away. Or do I just kind of hunker down and ride things out here, even if I'm not as happy as I'd like to be, or the job isn't offering as much fulfillment or growth opportunities as I'd like. And folks are saying, no, I'm going to just stick here. I'm going to stick here. You know, to a greater degree than they have this entire decade, right? And so except during a few months around the pandemic, obviously. And so it's confused, right? Because on the one hand, there are lots of optimistic signals about the strength of the... about economic strength and economic demand. But there's just this lots of uncertainty as well. And so companies are pulling back. Maybe they got the budget, but they're not willing to spend it yet. Because they just want to keep some powder dry, I would say. Now, there's certain areas where things are more pronounced. I would say tech is at the top of the list. The... the AI wave, if you want to call it that, or disruption, if you want to call it that, really is has hit home in tech. The hiring is has shifted pretty dramatically, has cut back in most areas, most types of departments and tech companies. It's extending now into tech in enterprises beyond just tech companies, too. And it's interesting with the advent of AI, folks are still trying to figure out like what's the best way to integrate AI capabilities into the organization and how to get the productivity and the return on investment from that. And that's all stuff that's getting sorted out, and it will sort itself out. But in the meantime, you've got, you know, coming back to the workforce a little bit, you've got this workforce of tech workers, or folks who are used to working in tech, and they are bifurcated. There's studies have just come out that have shown that you're either scared to death and feeling very depressed about what the future looks like, or you're completely energized at what the future can look like for you. And it's kind of like, you know, you talk about the K economy. At least here in the States we talk about the K economy and you've you've kind of got this the same thing going on with the workforce as it relates to what's going on with AI. You've got the K workforce where half of the folks are just like, I don't know what I'm going to do. And the other half are like, you know, the world is my oyster. I can do whatever I want to do.-Yeah.-It's really an exciting and scary time for a lot of folks, I think.-I think it really is. I think that word you use, it's confusing.(laughing) I think that really does summarize so many of the trends you're highlighting. And I think we can dig into a little bit more, particularly that the bifurcation of people who are scared and people who are excited. But let's just take a step back for you, Cary, because here you are, naval officer, engineering degree, all these things. How did you get deep into the whole labor market talent acquisition analysis?-It's really kind of a winding and definitely unpredictable road. You could have never predicted it. I could have never predicted it. I've always loved anything digital. You know, which is why I went to school way back, like when the IBM, to date myself, when the IBM PC first came out, one year later, I started engineering school. And I like doing cool things, which is why I got into the submarine force. That and the fact that the Navy was gracious enough to pay for my college education. And they were kind enough to give me a job afterwards. So, you know, I went and and did submarines. But I could have, I could have done I could have gone in the Air Force Air Force or I could have gone in any branch of the military. And I chose the Navy because it seemed really exciting. And it was, by the way. And so I've always been really interested in finding new things, right? And I've been interested in, I've always been a geek at heart. I'm a hardcore geek, geek dad. I love solving puzzles. And along the way, I just, you know, began to work more and more with finding ways to collect data that brings insights to problems. And that served me really well when I got out of the Navy and was in consulting. I was, you know, I did a lot of cool things, worked with lots of organizations. You know, I got a lot of experiences where I was working on all kinds of business problems and with all kinds of companies. But the thing that we always brought to the table that ultimately I built capabilities and businesses around in consulting, was the ability to collect data that brought insights that weren't otherwise available. And look at kind of data structures, data collection methods, and analytic methods, and presentation methods, and things like that that had real business value. And so that was something that I really grew to love. And then brought that into kind of the corporate environment when analytics was kind of exploding, especially in the people, you know, management areas and help build capabilities there. And so like I said, it's been kind of a winding, unexpected road that started with kind of two things, you know, a high degree of curiosity and an interest in working with really cool people doing cool stuff. And, you know, so that carried forward. And along the way, I grew to love setting up businesses. When I was in consulting, the idea of seeing a business opportunity and then going and creating, you know, going after it, building a capability that was actually a real business. That served me well in in in that setting. So, you know, when I was at Cargill, I was responsible for upgrading the workforce management infrastructure, the HR infrastructure worldwide across sixty five countries and over a hundred different business units and functions. And it was a... there was a lot that had to be sorted out in that. And along the way, I realized that the biggest barrier to doing that was actually data and data integration. And I looked and said, simultaneously, the way that companies bring outside data in is horrific because and it usually doesn't exist, you know, because it's so difficult to collect and to interpret. And I realized that it didn't have to be that way and did a little bit of diligence and that ultimately led to founding WageScape, you know. And I've been— that was eleven years ago. So, you know, it's, you know, what I thought was going to be a few-year, you know, fast-burn startup effort has turned into a real job,(laughing) you know, a real kind of career in its own right.-With everything you've just described, I think many of us can relate because you kept going from kind of a sense of security and purpose to uncertainty and adventure and risk. And that so often dominates all of our, all of our career trajectories. So let's take this into some of our listeners as they're listening to this, trying to figure out what's next for them. Should I stay or should I go? What does this look like? And perhaps they're in the scenario that they're looking at their situation and going, I might be interested in going somewhere else, but you know what? I'm going to hunker down, and I either can accept my current fate, and I might not like it, but I'm gonna— or they might say, I'm going to accept it, but I'm going to seek to change and improve. And I'm going to have a sense of optimism about it. As you're hearing these potential scenarios, what guidance, advice would you have for leaders who have chosen to I'll say hunker down, although that might not be the best term, but to stay in their role instead of venturing out. What would you suggest for them? You know, the best leadership advice I ever got was know yourself. I mean, a leader cannot be a good leader unless you really know yourself, right? And I think that's the first thing because like I have a risk tolerance that is on the end, you know, towards the end of the scale that is willing to take on more risk. But other people don't, right? Other people have personal situations where they can't afford that, and, uh, or other situations where that's just not their style. That's not their preference or their values. You know, so you got to kind of know yourself on this. Like, what do you want to, you know, where are you headed? If you're, you know, earlier in your career versus if you're later in your career, it's going to lead to different conclusions there. But like, I know plenty of folks that are my age that kind of peaked out in in corporate roles. They they got to very, you know, senior, they're very accomplished.-Mm hmm.-But the organizations kind of at some point is they always do move past, move past them. So what do they do? Well, they could, you know, transition into something that's at a lower pace, or they pursue other things not related to work. Or there's a growing number of them that are becoming fractional executives. I mean, the whole fractional field has exploded in the last five years.-Yeah.-If you have skills, you know, corporate level skills in any of the functions of a corporation, even just general management, there are companies out there that want to bring you on for, I mean, it used to be called consulting, but now they're like, no, you're going to come in and run something until we make it through this period of transition, or until we find somebody permanent, or we get through this merger, or whatever it is, right? And if that's the kind of thing that excites you, then, you know, you define how long you want to you want to extend your career. If you're earlier in your career, I would say that you should try and find ways to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. I mean, that's just... you got a long road in front of you, and there's lots of uncertainty. There's more uncertainty now than there ever has been. And at the same time, there's more opportunities now than there ever has been. And so every time you take advantage of an opportunity that presents itself, I mean, that's the definition of being lucky, right? It's not that luck showed up at your doorstep, it's showing up, shows up at all of our doorsteps all the time. It's that you recognize it and then take action on it. And so if you see an opportunity that sounds pretty cool, but you're like a little bit, you know, you're not sure about moving and it seems a little risky, I would say get used to being a little bit more uncomfortable. Because right now, it is easier to start your own business than it ever has been. I mean, you can start a business of one that in the past you couldn't have done with a hundred people. I mean, you can absolutely do— we do that in our business. I have, you know, I have a very small team that we leverage technology in a way that's easily twenty times, you know, the headcount five years ago, wouldn't have done what we do every single day.-Mm hmm.-So starting up a new business is super easy. Doing things in entirely new ways is super easy compared to what it used to be. Learning new things is super easy compared to what it used to be. You've got more information at your fingertips than has ever been available before. You've got entire new fields that are showing up. Invest, you know, the other thing I would say is, regardless of where your career is, the one thing that compounds, I heard this the other day, and I thought it was brilliant. It was a refutation of Einstein saying that the most powerful force in the universe is compound interest. And they were like, no, the most powerful force is relationships, because those compound over generations. And investing in relationships is the best investments that you can make. And I agree with that. And when I look back over my own career, that's kind of part of my own DNA. So you asked a really broad question, and it starts with kind of know yourself. There's a few things that are going on. There's a lot of uncertainty, but that means there's a lot of opportunity. Know where you want to go and invest in relationships.-I think the relationships part is so powerful. And I think that's the angle that I think so many of the leaders that we are working with are trying to tune into. And I think that's why they're very much aware of this bimodal distribution of their workforce of those that are scared to death and thinking technology is going to take over their role and those that are super excited about where it moves to the future. What advice do you have for a leader who's trying to message to their workforce progress, you know, focus, advancement, recognizing that there's these two very significant camps that they're needing to deliver a similar message to.-Yeah. Well, and and it's complicated by the fact that you're constrained to a degree by the culture and the norms of the organization that you're in. And so if you're in an organization that doesn't reward innovation, that doesn't reward risk-taking, your well, first of all, you can have a workforce that shares to some degree or is at least models those values, right? So it's going to be a little bit tougher, I think, to paint a picture of opportunity and reassurance if at the same time you've got significant competitive pressures or financial pressures bearing down on the organization. And I don't claim to be an expert in how to message that. It's something that I struggled with in a couple of my roles as we went through different economic phases. And I think, you know, being able to, you know, for the folks that want to move on to other things that aren't available in your organization, I think one of the most genuine things you can do is be sincere and authentic about what the broader picture looks like for them, even if that broader picture doesn't necessarily include staying where they are right now. And for the folks that are hunkered down and they're scared, I think being able to help them pull up and say, okay, well, why are you really in this? And what do you want to get to personally? And getting to know that. And again, being an authentic leader that's helping to draw, helping people, you know, get clarity around where they want to go themselves and get clarity around, you know, what what are the options beyond just me, you know, what I can see here in this role, I think is a really valuable role for any leader, any leader. I don't, I personally do not ascribe to the belief that you paint a rosy picture when it's a s****y situation, you know? And I know that, you know, I've been in situations where everybody at the top knew that there were going to be layoffs coming. And the expectation of the managers was to just pretend that wasn't happening with the staff in order to kind of keep them focused and motivated. But everyone in the organization knew that was happening. So they were getting completely disingenuous about the whole thing, right? And I think that's not the way to go. I think you've got to be authentic. I don't think you undersell the possibilities, but at the same time, I think you give people assurance that, you know, at the end of the day everybody's career, you know, and life, frankly, is in their own hands for the most part. And, you know, helping people gain confidence that they're going to be okay. They're either, you know, they're going to thrive one way or another. They're going to thrive if they stay hunkered down, they're going to thrive if things take a turn that doesn't go the way that they want, and they're going to thrive if they take a risk and they're going to go out. Early in my career, I was facing a pretty tough situation where it wasn't clear if the organization was going to continue to have room for my department. And my boss said, Cary, you're a smart kid. You'll never starve. And I was like, oh, you're right. I'll never starve, you know? I don't know what's in front of me, but I'm pretty sure I can figure it out, right? And so I think helping to bring a more grounded perspective to things especially when we talk about this like K workforce, you know, the managers are in the, you know, on both sides of that K, too. You know, you're either super excited, in which case you tend to underplay the fears that a sizable portion of your teams are facing, or you're hunkered down yourself and you're not sure where it's going to go, and you're in a risky spot. And in which case you're, you know, that just kind of oozes out of you, in lots of nonverbal ways that your teams pick up on. And so it's, you know, it's why leaders get paid to be leaders, is to bring an inner strength that even when when they're facing a lot of fear.-Yeah. So let's get into a specific example then, Cary. The the classic situation of somebody who looks at what they're bringing home each day and saying, I think I need more.

And so then the thoughts go through: 20:58

how do I go ask for that raise? How do I ask for the promotion? How do I ask for an increase in some ways? And yet, with so much uncertainty, they're not sure what to do. And yet, hearing messages just like we've talked about today, it's in your own hands. Take ownership of your own career. Yes, be smart, balance these things. What are approaches for somebody to consider as they're potentially in that circumstance? So a number of things, you know, that come to mind on that. One is, I always think it's a good idea to know what you're worth, right, in your current, in your current job. And to know what you could be worth if you, you know, moved your career up a— A lot of times people think, you know, if I moved from being a supervisor to a manager, a manager to a director, you know, what would I be worth and what's required for those kinds of jobs? And do I have the ability to show up for those jobs? I think it's always important to stay in touch with what that picture looks like. And there's lots of ways you can do that, especially now. I mean, we're in the business of helping companies provide insights on that. But there's lots of resources available to people. you know, that are online, for an example, but also lots of resources by professionally networking, going and talking to peers in other organizations, developing mentorships, both being a mentor, but also having mentors, and not just one, several that are more experienced than you, that can help bring some perspective to that. Because that grounds the organization. Because now we know what we're talking about, right? If you feel like you're not making enough money, is it an issue that you're being undervalued by the organization, or is it an issue that what you need in your life, the income you need in your life, is not being met by the company, right? So and those are two totally different situations. If it's the first situation where you're being undervalued,-Yeah.-then, you know, I've always ascribed a belief, and this has always worked, you know, for me, but it's an opinion of one, recognize that. But start showing up as the level or the job that you want to have, and people will recognize that. And then, with that intention and recognition, those opportunities will come your way. And they also will realize that if they don't give you those opportunities, that you're at significant risk of finding opportunities elsewhere for that. But show up. You know, so do what it, you know, learn what it takes, do what it takes to show up to be the position that you want to move into before you get, you know, if you're hoping for a promotion but you haven't proved yourself at that level yet, then most managers, myself included, I would never promote somebody that's like that if I hadn't seen them actually demonstrating the kinds of skills and behaviors that are needed for what they needed to move into. So that's one thing is show up where you want to be and not just where you are. And then the other thing is to have constructive conversations with your managers. And I think it's perfectly acceptable to talk about your career aspirations, and to even, you know, [unclear] and enlist your managers in helping to problem solve a little bit to chart things out. And if they say, I don't see that for you, well, that's good feedback, right? And then you got to look at how do you work around that? You either bring them onto your side or you kind of surround them with other influencers in the organization that are advocates for you, or you find a different opportunity. That's, you know, that's if you're being undervalued by the organization. If the organization is actually valuing you properly for the job that you're doing, but you know you could be more, but just not in not in that job or not in that company, then you got to go find a way to get experience and get skills for the thing that will open the doors and create the financial rewards that you want to see. It's up to you to kind of develop yourself and chart that course there. And in a lot of cases, that's not going to be with the same company that you're working in. But I would start with that fundamental question. Is this an issue with, you know, I'm being undervalued by the company? Or is it an issue which is the company's you know, the job is just not paying me what I need?-Yeah. Really good insights. Really good insights as we look into that mindset that each individual can bring as they think about growth. I want to dig into your self-appointed data geek mindset for a little bit. As obviously you've—-Scary territory.-Yeah, but you've looked at a lot of organizations. You've looked at a lot of large data sets. What are the, what are the metrics, some of your favorite KPIs, so to speak, that really help be indicators for you on the overall health of an organization from a talent perspective? And maybe what are some of those unsung metrics that people don't pay as much attention to, but they should.-So I tend to I tend to look at qualities in an organization that are more behavioral, like organization behavior than actual KPIs. I think as a leader in an organization, there's a couple of things that you got to always be paying attention to that relate to what is going on with engagement and turnover in the organization? And engagement's been measured for many years. And I really am not satisfied with the way that it that it's measured. It's, you know, it has more to do with and and you can combine cost here. Like, can you have a a team that is performing their, for lack of a better term, mission, what their purpose is. Do you have to pay extra for that team? Do you have to hire people at higher rates? Do you have higher turnover that you have to compensate for? Are there other costs associated with doing that? Or can you engage your team in a way and maybe even bring in slightly more junior folks that can perform at a higher level because they love what they're doing and they love the people that they're working with and they feel like they make a difference. And so your productivity is higher and your costs are lower. If you're just looking at costs, you run a significant risk that you're going to run the organization into the dirt, I think. But if you can take a step back and say, we're mission first and people first, and oh, by the way, the costs, you know, we're able to get so much more for lower cost by doing that, those are the kinds of things that I tend to look at. I also, you know, we've had different, you know, we've gone through different ebbs and flows. And right now it's kind of a, you know, a fraught time to be talking about diversity and inclusion, but I look heavily at that. I don't think the issues there have gone away. You know, 51% of the workforce is women. If you have a culture that favors, you know, the bro team, then you're missing out on, you're putting your business at a significant disadvantage because you just cut out half of your potential talent pool. Half of it. It's the same thing with, you know, when you look at age diversity, when you look at ethnicity, when you look at any of those, if you're not recognizing that the world is a big place, and you, in order to compete, you've got to be able to attract talent, the best talent, regardless of what they look like, regardless of their gender, regardless of how old they are, and create an environment that really brings out the best of that kind of melange and diverse group of employees, then you're competitively disadvantaged. And most leaders still do not— they look at DEI as a buzzword. They do not look at it through the lens of we're, you know, talent is our lifeblood. And if we're creating barriers for folks to come into the organization or thrive in the organization, then we are really screwing ourselves from a business standpoint. And in costs that aren't necessarily apparent, right? And so that's another feature that I look for in organizations, which is how inclusive is the culture and how do they sustain that? You know, what processes are in place to sustain that? How do they handle hiring? How do they handle promotions? And then, frankly, there are some metrics, like what is the executive level gender representation, I think is a really good barometer, to be honest with you. And there's a gazillion excuses for why there's not enough women at the top levels in the organization. And we have been at this now for over 20 years, and that's all they are anymore is excuses. It's just poor sustained leadership, if you ask me. So for those of you out there who that fits your organization, that's a little bit of, again, the opinion of one, but think about it. If you wanted to make it happen, it would have happened. So if it's not happening, it's an issue with organizational will. So you ask kind of what I look for. I mean, those are a couple of the things that I look for. Can you get more out of your workforce than other companies can because you really bring out the best in them. And extending that to say how inclusive are you being? Because that's a representation of how well you're tapping into the broadest possible talent pool. By the way, none of those things have anything to do with any concepts of justice. It has everything to do with are you creating a workforce that's going to allow the business to really succeed and dominate going forward.-Yeah.

So as we wrap up this conversation, here's kind of the last question for you, Cary: 31:09

Let's take out your crystal ball. Let's look into the future, even just two to three years. What are the main issues, topics that we as leaders need to keep in mind, and to adopt and focus on even more as we look into the future? What would you say?-Well, I would say that the degree of kind of uncertainty that exists right now is not going away anytime soon, you know? It's going to be here for a few years. And folks now have had some time to adapt to that. And I would say lean into, you know, that is a feature of the economy, a feature of the society that you've just got to work with. Because I, you know, I would be open to hear scenarios, credible scenarios, where that goes away anytime in the next three years. So that would be one thing. Technology, the pace of technology changes faster than it's ever been. And AI in particular. And I would say you've got to, you've got to get to, you know, any leader, at any level, has got to get to know AI. You've got to understand what it's doing. You've got to stay on top of it because it's changing so fast. AI doesn't evolve by budget cycle, right? It doesn't, you know, it's not like today, so June, there's lots of folks now that are laying the groundwork to be able to request money that's going to go for projects where the money gets spent 18 months from now, that are just part of the normal corporate doing business. We're not talking massive 30-year construction products. We're talking about just basic internal investments, right? That's not how AI works. The life cycle of AI capabilities is, you know, is leapfrogging itself every couple of months. I mean, it's not even at the pace of change that semiconductors have been at, right? And so you gotta get in, you gotta get in and you got to experience it. And you frankly got to get your hands dirty a little bit. You got to start using. It's super easy to take advantage of AI capabilities now. So get in there and start using it. Don't be afraid. Don't hide. But if you want to, you know, the next two to three years, it's going to be a dominant part of the organization. So I would say, get used to, you know, learn how to thrive in a higher level of uncertainty and learn how to take advantage of the changing technology, and do it in a way that keeps pace with that technology, which is faster than it's ever been.-Yeah. Well said, Cary. This idea of for all of us to be able to embrace and manage this level of uncertainty is so key, and you mentioned earlier, all of us have different risk tolerances, and we've got to understand ourselves and how do we approach this. And yet the fact remains, uncertainty is our... it is the friend that is not leaving.(laughing)-Right, right.(laughing) It's right there next to us and we got to say, oh, you you're not going anywhere. All right, let's figure out how to live together.-Well, there's organizations, believe it or not, and Cargill is one of them, where I work, that embrace uncertainty in the markets. They know how to manage the business opportunity of the uncertainty and volatility in financial markets and commodities markets. And so they lean into it, right? They're like, more uncertainty, that's great for us, right? Most people are not like that. Uncertainty... Most businesses, in fact, except in that kind of narrow case that I just mentioned, most businesses are trying to drive uncertainty out. They want to create predictability and they want to manage risk out. I would say get better at understanding what risks you can drive out and which ones, frankly, you're going to the face of the risk is going to change before you can do anything about it. So don't spend any time on it.-Well said. Cary, thank you so much for hanging out with us today and being a guest here on the Leadership Growth Podcast.-It's my pleasure. It's always fun to talk.-Absolutely. Cary, thank you so much. Peter, always a pleasure hanging out with you too. Listeners, thanks for joining us. We certainly hope you've been able to take some practical tools and ideas away from this to help you grow and develop yourself as a leader to show up as your best self each day. Please like and subscribe, and we look forward to having you join at a future episode on the Leadership Growth Podcast. Take care, everyone. Bye. If you like this episode, please share it with a friend or colleague, or better yet, leave a review to help other listeners find our show. And remember to subscribe so you never miss an episode. For more great content or to learn more about how Stewart Leadership can help you grow your ability to lead effectively, please visit stewartleadership.com.