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Description
The Talent Sherpa Podcast is where senior leaders come to rethink how human capital really works.
Hosted by Jackson Lynch and Scott Morris, this podcast cuts through the noise of traditional HR chatter and zeroes in on what actually drives business performance.
No fluff. No filler. Just hard-hitting insights, dry humor, and tactical guidance for leaders who are tired of HR metrics that measure motion instead of impact.
Each episode challenges outdated thinking and replaces it with a sharper, more operational approach to talent. Keep Climbing!
97 Episodes
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Send us a text Skills based hiring sounds like the future. The research is glowing, the consultants are excited, and every conference panel is certain that skills first is how CHRO strategy wins the next decade. There is only one problem. Most companies cannot get managers to turn in performance reviews on time, let alone maintain a living skills architecture. In this episode, Scott and Jackson go head to head on one of the buzziest ideas in HR leadership. Scott plays the evangelist and argue...
Send us a text This episode of the Talent Sherpa Podcast unpacks one of the least discussed realities of senior HR leadership: the structural loneliness of the CHRO role. Using Notre Dame Coach Marcus Freeman’s quote, “I do not have anybody to talk to sometimes,” as the anchor, Jackson explains why the CHRO becomes the emotional center of the organization with almost no place to put the weight they absorb. Listeners learn how the CHRO becomes the confidante for executives, employees, an...
Send us a text Most leaders blame people when performance stalls; this episode argues the real culprit is the invisible system wrapped around them. In this Talent Sherpa conversation, Jackson O. Lynch and Scott Morris sit down with Dave Foley, founder and CEO of Vendi, to talk about a problem every CHRO and senior operator feels but rarely names: you cannot manage what you cannot see, and right now most companies cannot see how work actually moves. AI is speeding everything up, but your opera...
Send us a text Every senior leader has seen it. Some pretend they have not. If your CEO is running a quiet little “after meeting” once everyone leaves the room, the team has already failed. And the performance hit is bigger than executives like to admit. In this episode, Jackson breaks down one of the most uncomfortable leadership truths: when decisions migrate out of the room, power does too. That is the silent audit. And most leadership teams fail it long before they notice the consequences...
Send us a text Most executive teams can quote their strategy and rattle off values. Ask what they believe about talent and you’ll get a different answer from every leader in the room. That’s not a system, and you need a system. In this episode, Jackson and Scott unpack the hidden operating code behind every promotion, pay call, and hiring trade-off: your talent philosophy. You already have one. The question is whether it’s explicit and consistent, or manager-by-manager improvisation. Wh...
Send us a text Most leaders talk about AI with the confidence of someone who skimmed a headline and called it research. They love the idea of transformation, but not the part where they must change how they lead. That is the tension we dig into in this episode: AI is replacing excuses. It makes work visible. It exposes gaps leaders have glossed over for years. And it audits leadership in real time. In this conversation, Jackson breaks down why AI surfaces something deeper than productivity. I...
Send us a text Gratitude shows up every November, usually squeezed between pie logistics and Q4 panic. Most leaders treat it like decoration. Nice sentiment, zero business value. The truth is the opposite. Gratitude is one of the simplest and most reliable performance systems you have, and most organizations barely use it. In this episode, Jackson reframes gratitude as operational fuel, not seasonal fluff. When people feel seen, they contribute at a higher level. When they do not, performance...
Send us a text Most executive teams can quote their strategy and rattle off values. Ask what they believe about talent and you’ll get a different answer from every leader in the room. That’s not a system. In this episode, Jackson and Scott unpack the hidden operating code behind every promotion, pay call, and hiring trade-off: your talent philosophy. You already have one. The question is whether it’s explicit and consistent, or manager-by-manager improvisation. When you make your belief...
Send us a text Every CHRO loves a good aspiration. Build an engaged culture. Be the employer of choice. Create a world-class talent strategy. The only problem? None of those are measurable—and none of them move the P&L. In this episode of The Talent Sherpa Podcast, Jackson Lynch goes straight at one of HR’s most expensive bad habits: the addiction to aspirational goals. These lofty slogans sound good in PowerPoint, but they don’t allocate capital, lift margin, or speed up execution. Jacks...
Send us a text Most advice to CHROs stops at “speak finance.” Useful, but incomplete. Financial fluency earns your seat. Integrated business fluency earns your voice. In this episode, Jackson and Scott make a sharper case: the modern CHRO cannot be a junior CFO. They must be a complete operator who connects capital, capability, and culture to competitive advantage. We break down a four-front campaign that turns credibility into authority: build a real CFO partnership by modeling ROI and...
Send us a text Every HR leader loves a good slogan—Build an engaged culture. Be the employer of choice. Create a world-class talent strategy. They sound great in a slide deck. They also sound exactly the same at every underperforming company. In this episode of The Talent Sherpa Podcast, host Jackson O. Lynch goes straight after one of the costliest habits in human capital: our addiction to aspirational goals. Jackson breaks down why HR keeps reaching for inspiration when the business is star...
Send us a text Senior leaders love values until they cost something. In this episode, Jackson O. Lynch and co-host Scott Morris put a hard edge on a soft topic and ask the only question that matters to a CEO or CHRO strategy leader: do your values change decisions under pressure, or are they just branding? Guest expert Ann Melinger, CEO of Bink, makes the case that values are only real when they shape rewards and consequences. Together, the group breaks down the difference between permission-...
Send us a text Most executives don’t fail because they lack ideas. They fail because they can’t find the time to think. In this episode of The Talent Sherpa Podcast, Jackson O. Lynch takes aim at the quiet killer of strategic leadership: the overcrowded calendar. He argues that most leaders have confused being available with being aligned, and the result is a company that is busy instead of effective. He tells the story of an executive team that filled ten hours a day with meetings and still ...
Send us a text Senior leaders say HR and Finance are partners until budget season exposes the truth. In this episode of The Talent Sherpa Podcast, Jackson Lynch and co-host Scott Morris tackle the uneasy marriage between the CHRO and the CFO. Finance measures what is. HR argues for what could be. Between those two truths, the business either scales or stalls. Jackson makes a simple point with sharp edges. If there are three leaders in the triangle the CEO, the CFO, and the CHRO and two are al...
Send us a text In this episode of The Talent Sherpa Podcast, Jackson O. Lynch explores a new reality for HR leaders. More companies now trust AI to run entire hiring processes from start to finish than they trust their own recruiters. What began as simple task automation has evolved into full-scale workstream control. Jackson explains that when AI takes over end-to-end processes, it no longer just supports decisions. It makes them. Without a clear understanding of the system’s design logic, H...
Send us a text More than half of all CHROs are replaced within twelve months of a new CEO taking the helm. That is not just turnover. It is a signal. In this episode of The Talent Sherpa Podcast, host Jackson O. Lynch and co-host Scott Morris explore why the CHRO seat has become the most volatile role in the C-suite and what sitting HR leaders can do to survive the transition. They start with a blunt truth. A new CEO is not only a leadership change but a mandate change. If HR keeps pushing ye...
Send us a text Most CEOs will ask it eventually. That gut-punch question that silences the room: “Are our people good enough?” In this episode of The Talent Sherpa Podcast, Jackson O. Lynch breaks down why that question rarely gets a straight answer and why the real problem isn’t about turnover, engagement, or even outcomes. It’s about the absence of a performance philosophy. Most companies mistake outputs for performance. They chase sales targets, project deadlines, and green dashboards with...
Send us a text Most executive teams like to say they are aligned. The truth is, most are not. What looks like unity is often a polite fiction hiding competing agendas, resource battles, and the quiet scramble for CEO attention. In this episode, Jackson and Scott pull back the curtain on how a CHRO builds peer relationships when collaboration feels more like competition. They dig into why alignment and trust are not the same thing. You can agree on the goal and still fight over how to get ther...
Send us a text Executive teams often inherit a bloated structure: too many chiefs, not enough decision-makers. In Episode 77 of the Talent Sherpa Podcast, Jackson Lynch explores the hidden cost of letting the wrong people in the room and how it quietly kills speed, execution, and accountability. Through real-life stories, he shows how meetings devolve into status updates and turf wars instead of driving the big calls that actually shape a business. The true expense isn’t the compens...
Send us a text In this episode, Jackson Lynch and co-host Scott Morris dig into a hard truth: high performance starts with unambiguous outcomes. When leaders assume “smart people will figure it out,” they create hidden drag on speed, trust, and accountability. The conversation separates roles with precision. The CEO must demand clarity. Line managers must deliver it in day-to-day execution. The CHRO must build systems that make clarity consistent and measurable across the org....
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