Taking an Outside-in View with Nabeel Ahmed

“ If it doesn't lead to creating value for one of [our] stakeholders, then that's not the right priority.”
-Nabeel Ahmed

Have you ever thought about HR’s role from an “outside in” view?   How well do you and your team keep focused on what matters to your stakeholders?  Today’s guest and I explore what it means to set the table and be viewed as a business leader vs. “HR.”

My guest is Nabeel Ahmed. Nabeel Ahmed is SVP & Chief Human Resources Officer at Enlink Midstream, a role to which he has served since 2023. Previously, he served as Head of Human Resources, Operations and Talent Acquisition for U.S. Steel Corporation. Before joining U.S. Steel, he spent nearly a decade with Halliburton Company, most recently serving as Director of Global Compensation. Earlier in his career, he worked in HR roles at Baker Hughes and Weatherford International.

Ahmed specializes and continues to consult and coach both individuals and organizations in developing and executing people strategy to drive competitive advantage, transforming Human Resources into a strategic quantifiable value-generating function and building compensation strategy with practices to instigate a culture of superior performance and accountability.  

Ahmed earned a Bachelor's degree in Business Information Systems and a Master's degree Management from Mississippi State University. Furthermore, he has completed Executive Leadership programs in the areas of Strategic Talent Development, Finance & Sustainability Leadership from Harvard Business School, Texas A&M’s Mays Business School and University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.

In this episode of Talent Management Truths, you’ll discover:

• An example of applying David Ulrich’s Outside-In approach to HR
• A valuable phrase format to help you and your team keep focused on your why
• How to move from earning a seat at the table to setting the table

Links

Nabeel Ahmed on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nabeel-ahmed-0b9b0216/ 

Looking for a Team Coach or dynamic Keynote Speaker/Facilitator?

Book a call with me to explore how we might partner (serious inquiries only please):

https://calendly.com/lisa-mitchell-greenapple/clarity-call

Share the Show

Like what you’ve heard? Pretty please with an apple on top - kindly leave me a 5* review so that others can find the show and elevate their impact too! Here are the simple instructions:

• Launch Apple's Podcast app on your iPhone or iPad.
• Tap the Search icon (on the botton) and search for the show name.
• Tap the show's cover art.
• On the podcast page, tap the Reviews tab.
• Tap "Write a Review" at the bottom of this page.

Follow me

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-mitchell-acc-ctdp-7437636/

Instagram: @greenappleconsulting

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greenappleconsulting.ca

Transcript

Have you ever thought about hrs role from an outside in view, how well do you and your team keep focused on what matters to your stakeholders? Today's guest and I explore what it means to set the table and be viewed as a business leader versus hr. My guest is Nabil Ahmad, SVP, and Chief Human Resources Officer at EnLink Midstream.

Previously, Nabil worked for US Steel, Corporation, Halliburton Company, and several others. He's God. Bachelor and Master's degrees, and he's completed many different executive leadership programs. Nabil is a strategic and passionate talent leader who really gets what your stakeholders want. In this episode of Talent Management Truths, you'll discover an example of applying David Ulrich's outside in approach to hr, A valuable phrase format to help you and your team keep focused on your why and how to move from earning a seat at the table to setting that table.

Enjoy. 

Nabeel Ahmed GMT20240723-180805_Recording_separate1: Hello and welcome back to Talent Management Truce. I'm your host, Lisa Mitchell, and today I'm joined by Nabil Ahmed. Nabil is the SE Senior Vice President and CHRO at N Link Midstream. Welcome to the show, Nabil.

Nabeel Ahmed GMT20240723-180805_Recording_separate2: Thank you, Lisa. Pleasure to be on the show.

Nabeel Ahmed GMT20240723-180805_Recording_separate1: Yeah, it's great to have you. So let's kick off. Please tell us a little bit about what led you here. What's been your career journey?

Nabeel Ahmed GMT20240723-180805_Recording_separate2: Wow. Where do I start? So, I am currently the SVP and Chief HR Officer at EnLink Midstream. My journey really starts around 21 years back. Where right after grad school, I did get my grad degree in leadership. There wasn't an HR discipline at the time, so it was more kind of general business leadership.

And I started my career in technology. 18 months into that kind of got bored, wasn't really good at it, I guess. And I had a, I had an interaction with my HR director at the company at the time in an oil and gas company. for some reason he thought that I would do well in HR and kind of gave me a break, was my first mentor an industry stalwart in, in the HR space.

And he kind of coached and mentored me in the HR field. Started off in generalist hr. Worked my way through that and the whole all facets of hr, starting with talent acquisition generalist, hr, HR MS, and kind of work through my way into running an HR MS project implementation of Oracle. Again, kind of a good mix between technology and the HR space.

And that was a huge success implementation and from there on my HR career. Kind of went on into, in the oil and gas, in multiple different companies and HR leadership starting from a country level, HR internationally to region whether it's Asia Pacific, middle East Europe, Sub-Sahara Africa, covering those regions and all, all the way to North America.

During that time I worked for three oil and oil field service companies. Including Weatherford Baker, hugs, Halliburton and through that entire journey, I learned and I progressed and did a couple of different roles in running HR service centers, global compensation. Took a sabbatical as I like, I like to call it, and went out of the oil and gas for a year and worked in the steel industry for a year.

And then quickly realized that I really enjoy the energy space. So I came back to work for the energy industry back in 2003, January and 2023. And this time I was working in the midstream space. So overall it's been, hell of a career, like as I put it like learning going places, working globally.

Working with a diverse group of people, you know, literally around the world.

Nabeel Ahmed GMT20240723-180805_Recording_separate1: Yeah, it's fascinating with the, all the different global regions that you've mentioned and now you are in Texas, I think in the US.

Nabeel Ahmed GMT20240723-180805_Recording_separate2: Yes. I'm based out of Houston, Texas. Yeah.

Nabeel Ahmed GMT20240723-180805_Recording_separate1: Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. Okay. So, so lots of diverse experience globally based on region, but you spent a lot of time in, in oil and gas. What, what do you, what do you appreciate about the industry? 

Nabeel Ahmed GMT20240723-180805_Recording_separate2: I think the one word that comes to mind when I think about the oil and gas as a whole is resilience. I think this is an industry which makes, as I like to put it life possible by providing the energy source for human life. And in doing so, there's a lot of challenges. There's a lot of cyclical downturns that comes into, goes.

There's a lot of technological challenges, but the industry as a whole has been extremely resilient in the space of all these challenges, keeps coming up with solutions, options, and continues to, for, to that bigger purpose of providing energy to human life. So that, that's what.

That's the aspect that over the course of my 20 years when the industry I've thoroughly enjoyed,

Nabeel Ahmed GMT20240723-180805_Recording_separate1: It

lights you up. I can see. 

Nabeel Ahmed GMT20240723-180805_Recording_separate2: I mean we say, we say there's never adu moment in the energy space. the only thing that's constant has changed. That's perhaps true generally in life as well. But I think the energy industry itself is a classic example of that, that where you see that all the time.

Nabeel Ahmed GMT20240723-180805_Recording_separate1: Yeah, I have two oil and gas clients and, and and it is, it is interesting. Very intriguing industry. I haven't worked in it directly myself. But just supporting. Okay. So, so tell us a little bit about N Link midstream, where you are now and what are they all about?

Nabeel Ahmed GMT20240723-180805_Recording_separate2: So EnLink Midstream is a, it is a midstream company primarily focused on. Gathering, processing, transporting natural gas. That's the core, core area of our business. We also have got a business vertical in terms of where we are driving carbon capture and transportation in the energy transition space.

We actually, we have a life project today in the North Texas area where we capture and transport carbon for our customers.

So it's, it's not, it's not a conceptual topic. It's actually a, a practical business for us, but for the most part, primarily our, our focus has been on natural gas transportation, and we have four assets.

In the Louisiana, the Permian Basin the Oklahoma and the North Texas area. Those are probably our four assets where we operate in. We've got natural gas pipelines that, that we use, and then these gathering and processing plants all across those four assets. And it's a growing company. It's, it's a company which has come a long way over the years and we see tremendous growth opportunity for handling in the next coming years as well.

Nabeel Ahmed GMT20240723-180805_Recording_separate1: Awesome. How many employees do you have there?

Nabeel Ahmed GMT20240723-180805_Recording_separate2: So we right now have close to 1100 employees full time.

Nabeel Ahmed GMT20240723-180805_Recording_separate1: Okay. Okay, awesome. So, tell us about your team. So you are heading up HRO for, for EnLink. And so what, what's, how's your team comprised and and what are they focused on right now? I.

Nabeel Ahmed GMT20240723-180805_Recording_separate2: Yeah, so give you a little bit of context. I joined EnLink Midstream as the head of HR in January, 2023, so it's been a little over 18 months. And I was hired by the, our, our CEO, who was relatively new at the company. I. Like I said, EnLink has had tremendous past success from where it started as a founder led company to being a publicly trading company or an NYSE right around the end, mid of 2022, when they hired a new CEO Jesse, who comes from the industry.

And he hired me. The objective was to transform the end link of the, to the end link of the future, really driving a culture of performance accountability. Empowerment and development. And also along those lines focus on re like more success, more performance driven accountability. So the first thing, first when I started off, inherited a team, which was a great HR team in terms of HR execution.

we identified the opportunity for where we could really add value to the organization from an HR people strategy perspective. And in doing so, I restructured the organization in the three tier approach of the classic Alrich model of. the back office sent HR functions you know, your benef, your payroll and HR s administration.

That was one aspect. The second piece was around our centers of expertise or centers of excellence around compensations and benefits and, and recruitment. And then the front of front hr, the HR business partners working directly with the business and operations leaders. Working with them to provide them solutions and create value right in, in the face of business.

Right. So that was the, the structure that I put in place. And obviously with that we did bring in some new talent into the team as well. So right now we've got a team of about 19 people. And it was largely a centralized model in the beginning, but we have decentralized it to where our HR business partners are more focused and, and, and based in the locations, in our assets in the, with the business.

And then we have some in the, in the corporate office in Dallas, and then we've got some in Houston as well. So between that, that's kind of like the structure and how the model is working.

Nabeel Ahmed GMT20240723-180805_Recording_separate1: Yeah, so, and for listeners, I mean, many of you would recognize that as a very very common model. That works really well with HR VPs embedded and, and your centers of excellence to support. Okay, excellent. So when, you know, you and I first met, something that you talked about that I really appreciated was, you know, your particular HR philosophy, which you called.

I think your words were taking an outside view and I was hoping that you could expand on that for us.

Nabeel Ahmed GMT20240723-180805_Recording_separate2: Yeah, look I've been a big advocate of Dave Ulrich's work in the space of hr, and I've read, and I've, I've spent time with him. I've, I've been fortunate enough to learn from him quite a bit, and he's, he talks a lot about, I. Taking an outside end view, and I've actually practically applied that through my HR organization.

What, what that really means is a lot of times what we are focused within the HR organization is in activities that we basically believe is the right thing to do for the organization. And so it's, it's like an HR for HR perspective. We need to take a completely different outlook and say, when you look from outside, who are our key stakeholders?

It's the investors, it's the leadership, management, and employees. Those are our outside stakeholders. And from their perspective, what matters should be the priority of the HR organization. So that's the outside end view is like, and, and the way to test that out is anytime I talk to my team is like, okay, this is a great initiative.

We're going to be doing this so that it creates value for this stakeholder. When you start to think in terms so that a lot of times the activities start to get better priorities. You know, a lot of times, I mean, I'm guilty of that through my career is like, okay, I go to a conference and say, okay, that's what I heard.

That's the next best thing. Let's focus, let's get the, let's get a survey done. Let's do this. Those are all great, nice, fancy activities to work on. But if that doesn't lead to creating value for one of those stakeholders then. That's not the right priority, then we're wasting time and we won't be getting, we won't be creating value for the organization.

So as Dave Woolrich put says, is hr is hr hrs exist, or hrs purpose is not for hr. It's not hr. For hr, it's ultimately HR for creating value for your stakeholders. And those in my, in my mind is like your investors, your leaders, managers, and employees.

Nabeel Ahmed GMT20240723-180805_Recording_separate1: I could not agree more in a lot of the consulting or professional mentoring that I do with, with HR and talent leaders, it's, that's one of the things we're often adjusting and fine tuning is that relentless focus on. What, like how do, how do the people relying on you qualify, quantify value, right?

Versus what you think is the right thing to do based on research and what the, you know, what the lingo of the day tells us in the HR sphere, so to speak. So with this, so something that you mentioned in there that was. Important is this very practical language technique. And I wanna break it down for listeners 'cause I think it's, it's helpful because it sounds like it's something that the, the way you phrase things and get your team to phrase things helps them connect to the purpose of satisfying stakeholder needs, right?

So it's this idea, we'll do this or I want to do this so that. So how does that like, show up? How have you kind of baked that into your world? Is that something that you say or I, 'cause my understanding was you taught your team to use

Nabeel Ahmed GMT20240723-180805_Recording_separate2: I think initially it was a different mindset. It was all about thinking differently. It was about engaging the team to think with a different thought process. Right. Like other HR functions, other HR departments, we were, we, we were in the same fallacy as, as an EnLink, hr, like, okay, we're gonna do this benefits, we're gonna introduce this benefits, or we're going to have this compensation survey done.

this is, we went to a conference. This was a design. So I started initially challenging them. That with that thought process, said, okay. What's the why behind it? Or think in terms of, and explain to me that we are going to do this so that it generates value and ideally let's start to quantify that value, right?

And once you start to quantify that value, then, then, then it makes a lot of objective sense. The other piece is a lot of times what I challenge them to do is tell me what does success look like? What would, if we implement this or we change this what does, what is your driver for success? Is that an internal driver within hr, or is your stakeholder that we are all serving or catering for, are they going to measure that as a success?

Right. So it, it was initially a lot of coaching and like really brainstorming discussions around that. And, and there was obviously there was natural changes and comforting and discomforting for people. Like, look, well, that's not how we've done that in the past. And, and now I think people in my team, the leadership in my team actually gets it and they think in those terms.

And a lot of times we challenge each other back and forth in those terms. So yeah, it, it's a journey. It's not like a search on switch off button that I come along and then change the mindset almost immediately. It took some time

Nabeel Ahmed GMT20240723-180805_Recording_separate1: Of course.

Nabeel Ahmed GMT20240723-180805_Recording_separate2: help you know, getting a good healthy balance of team between the long-term ending HR team because they had the institutional memory and how things got to where we got to.

And then also inculcating and bringing some external talent into the team who brought that perspective, who, who were kind of like, they didn't have the memories and they didn't have the, the way, this is how we've always done additive.

Nabeel Ahmed GMT20240723-180805_Recording_separate1: Yeah.

Nabeel Ahmed GMT20240723-180805_Recording_separate2: So embracing that change was simpler for them than perhaps the ones who've used to doing a certain way.

But I think now, 18 months in the role we, there's still work to be done. However, I think the group is rallying in the right direction with that mindset and approach.

Nabeel Ahmed GMT20240723-180805_Recording_separate1: Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. So, you know, I guess what, what I'm, what's going through my head right now is I'd love to. Get some sort of examples or or practical tips that you could offer listeners around how do you quantify value for stakeholders? Like how have you done that in the past and helped your team be sure that, Hey, we are on track.

This is what the stakeholders want. What techniques or tools have you used to ensure that kind of alignment?

Nabeel Ahmed GMT20240723-180805_Recording_separate2: Yeah, look, one of the most strategic projects that we've talked about is in terms of the, in the space of talent development. And, and that's one area where we had a gap at N Link. And, and there are reasons for that. But what we did was we said, we are going to focus on talent management as a whole piece.

And, and one asset of that would be talent acquisition, which is identifying, acquiring talent externally. Also a talent development piece where we identify who we have in the organization, what's their true potential looks like and how do we provide them the opportunities and foster the environment for them to be able to really achieve that potential, right?

So that's a one strategic area that we have put in a lot of effort. Still large work in progress. However we are starting to see results of that. And the first, the initial results of that. Now this was an initiative, this was a strategic initiative. Everybody believed in it, but it, it's very hard to quantify immediately because this is a long-term strategic project or initiative that takes time to re benefits.

However, when we started to do this the challenge that we were trying to address was partially attrition. Partially aging our workforce. Aging workforce. Right. And we knew that there was retirements coming. We knew there was going to be some natural attrition coming. So we looked at what would be the cost of attrition if we react and wait for the attrition to come in the next six months or a year, what would be that cost?

Right? And if we proactively build this strategic. Initiative around talent and development and gaps. How can we link and fill some of those gaps that is going to be created by the natural attrition? Right? And how does it quantify? And we looked at numbers in terms of, okay, if we're able to fill this particular job through internal talent development mechanism, then natural attrition doesn't cost us.

It helps us. Be more proactive and helps us really get, get that position filled. Now that's a very large example of, you know, something that we are still working towards, and it's probably gonna be like another 18 months or so where you start to see the true results of that. I'm, I'm just giving you conceptually how we look at quantifying that.

And in everything that we do, we look at those, those ideas so that, or in terms of quantifying, what value does it create now, some of the smaller, like, like simpler examples You know, we, we looked at our paid time off policy. As an example, right? That's a practical example of our paid time off.

We have a very generous policy, which starts from one 60 hours a year at the lowest tier to almost two 40 hours at the higher tier, depending on our years of service. However, what we looked at is like a lot of people don't consume all of those hours and they just carry forward from the next one year to the next year, and then they carry forward the next year.

And we said we're offering this really great benefit, which is generous for the market. However, what's the point if people are not using it? So is there a case for us to look at how do we create that culture of people getting the benefit, availing the benefits of getting the much deserved rest and be more productive out of that?

So we revamped that entire PTO benefit and policy, and we created some. Changes in that that essentially will lead to better utilization, more financial value for the employees because we also introduced a in catchment option in there,

Nabeel Ahmed GMT20240723-180805_Recording_separate1: Right,

Nabeel Ahmed GMT20240723-180805_Recording_separate2: and ultimately more financial value for EnLink.

Nabeel Ahmed GMT20240723-180805_Recording_separate1: right.

Nabeel Ahmed GMT20240723-180805_Recording_separate2: There was that three phase approach that we looked at in, instead of just coming up with an idea that, Hey, we saw this PTO change or with PTO policy that other companies are adopting.

We looked at what the market is doing. That was one data point. We looked at what we have internally, how it's consumed. Is it a benefit being utilized? What can we do to make it more beneficial for the employee, more financial value added for the company, and a better financial cash benefit for the employee. 

Nabeel Ahmed GMT20240723-180805_Recording_separate1: I remember years, years ago I can, you know, attest to that with our total rewards group at one company I was at Franklin Templeton and, and, you know, completely revamped the offering so that there was a healthcare spending account and there was different ways that you could stack your credits depending on your family situation and your own personal.

Preferences around the types of, you know, medical services that you would avail yourself of. Some people don't use paramedical, for instance, at all. Other people use lots. And so it gave some choice and yet in the end was a win-win for employees and the organization for overall costs. So yeah, kudos that, that's, I think that's a, a terrific example of, of, of looking at.

You know, how do we, this isn't about short-changing anybody. This is about making savvy decisions based on what we know is working or not working and tweaking and evolving as we go along. So we're, we're almost at, at the end of our, our time together actually. And I did have one other question for you that I wanted to dig into that's kind of linked to what we were just discussing, which is, I hear this all the time in the HR sphere or universe, right?

This idea of, you know. We need to get or earn a seat at the table and the proverbial table being, you know, with the SLT or with the business, right, that they are inviting us in versus, you know, sort of tolerating us coming in or nighting things from hr, that kind of thing, right? That, that, that we do see in some places.

And you, when we first chatted, you talked about this idea of instead of getting a seat at the table, how about we set the table in the first place? I'd love for you to explain a little bit about what you mean by set the table.

Nabeel Ahmed GMT20240723-180805_Recording_separate2: Yeah, look, I mean, there's a lot of work or pre-work to be done to be able to get to that stage mostly right? As HR professionals, it just doesn't happen like instantly because we desire that. We've gotta take the initiative and put in a lot of effort, I think where I have been mentored and coached by some great leaders all through my career, I've been very blessed in that sense.

And I have had the opportunity to take a lot of initiative and learning the business lingo, learning the financials of ultimately every business exists to make their financial numbers. That's what the investors are expecting. That's what the stakeholders are expecting. I mean, success is driven by financials and within that spectrum, there's, there's, you know, the organization, the culture, the benefits, the value, and, and all of that.

Other damage shifts. However, in order for us to get to that stage, first of all, we've gotta prepare ourselves in terms of having, understanding the business that we are in, how we make money, what resonates well when we are in that, on that table. We should be perceived as a business leader who understands people damage, who understands the people strategy, not the other way around.

We, the moment you start your peers and your leadership team starts to see the HR professional as a business leader as opposed to an HR person, the journey becomes easier to post that they would want you to be in that. You know, in that room. And they would, I mean, the next stage is really when you are setting the stage.

And, and it just doesn't happen overnight. It takes while to own that credibility. You would have to earn that before you get there. And I think I've, I've had tremendous success in doing that. And, and I, one thing people, and my peers in my non-HR P say is like, you're a business person. You're not a HR person.

You're not the classic. And what they mean is not the classic HR person.

Nabeel Ahmed GMT20240723-180805_Recording_separate1: Yeah. Yeah.

Nabeel Ahmed GMT20240723-180805_Recording_separate2: I mean, because a lot of times when I'm in, in these meetings, my questions around, you know, okay, how did we I mean, how did our revenue get to that number? Or what is the opex? Why is the opex increasing? A lot of those questions are driven from the fact that I understand how we make money, the financials of the business, right?

So my advice to HR professionals who aspire to be at that level where they want to be able to get a seat at the table and be able to set the table is. Invest time in their own development focus on learning the financials in the business. And that really helps you make headwinds. I'm a big advocate of reading the Economic Times, the Wall Street Journal.

Those are things which gets you a lot of macro level view of what the business is looking like. If the interest rate goes down, how does that impact us? How does that impact the industry, the commodity prices? Being able to correlate all of that. I. To ultimately what, what your job or what your role in the organization is, is doing, right?

And once that happens, then you are invited to get the seat at the table and get that, get that ultimate objective. Now, what you asked and what I talk about is like, you know, the next phase is really setting the table, like in every organization. The people piece is, I thi I think of it as the.

Competitive advantage, your talent and the people that you have in the organization could make the differentiation between your success and your competitive success. If you are able to attract and hire the right person, the right job at the right time, the value that it creates is going to be significant for the value for the business to ultimately achieve the financial objectives.

Right. So setting the table when I talk about it is like essentially there are ample opportunities for us to, because we manage that piece of it, which is the most critical competitive advantage, caliber aspect. why not drive, drive the discussion through that? You can, you can create that opportunity.

Like, and, and it's easier said than done, but it gets, it takes, it's a maturity cycle. It takes time for you to be able to get there. But I've seen tremendous success over the course of my career in different roles, whether it's at a region level, country level, all my business leaders have have valued the finance person and the HR person as their two advisors who really drive their success.

And in terms of that, drive the organization's success.

Nabeel Ahmed GMT20240723-180805_Recording_separate1: Well it comes down to, it really links back to, you know, some of, we've been talking about like the, you know, taking an out outside in. View and so on. It's, when I'm working with people, I'm always, asking the question, how is your client, your internal stakeholder, your external stakeholder going to measure success?

Be thinking them, not you. Right? Like, what does that look, feel like? What's it gonna, what's the impact gonna be ultimately? And I think that. When you've got that mindset, then you're asking questions that fit with it, and that's how you get that reputation as a business leader, somebody who really gets it and get that invitation.

So beautiful. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show today and, and, you know, giving us a, a peek behind the curtains at what you do at EnLink in your overall career and your philosophy. It's really been a pleasure.

Nabeel Ahmed GMT20240723-180805_Recording_separate2: Lee's pleasure.