348. Zaklina Craig, Chief People Officer of Business NSW, on optimising role design for peak performance, managing differences in confidence between men and women, and navigating the decision to fire someone

The Inner Chief

“You're a business leader first, and a HR professional second.”

In this episode of The Inner Chief podcast, I speak to Zaklina Craig of Business NSW, on optimising role design for peak performance, managing differences in confidence between men and women, and navigating the decision to fire someone.

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Zak is an experienced people, culture and change leader with over 20 years of experience working with businesses in every aspect of their employee lifecycle.

She has led large teams in enabling core business functions delivering systemic and sustainable change. Her niche expertise is integrating strategy, systems, culture and leadership.

Zak commenced her career as a lawyer in private practice and is also degree-qualified in human resources management and industrial relations. She also holds several leadership and coaching qualifications and is one of few practitioners in Australia accredited in Requisite Organisation and Stratified Systems Theory.

She has also held senior roles with Sydney Water and the Australian Retailers Association, and has been the Executive Director - People, Culture & Workplace of Business NSW since February 2022.

In this episode we talk about:

✅ How to optimise role design, complexity and clarity for higher performance

✅ Overcoming the natural tension between operations, support and commercial teams

✅ The mindset shifts that HR leaders need to have in order to get a seat at the executive table

✅ Moving past confidence barriers for both men and women, and

✅ Hiring and firing people and having difficult coaching conversations.

Stay epic,

Greg

Connecting with Zaklina Craig

You can connect with Zaklina via LinkedIn.

Books and resources

• Dancing with the Divine - by Julie Vance

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