At LinkedIn's Talent Connect a few weeks ago, Brené Brown said she won't work with a company unless its CEO and CHRO are in lockstep.
I've sat on both sides of that table, as a founder and as a Chief People Officer. She's right. And from where I sit now, I'd add one thing: "lockstep" is something you have to build toward, usually in the moments of disagreement.
One CPO I coach was handed her company's AI transformation. Before anyone bought a tool or rewrote a role, she built a framework to map how AI would ripple through the organization and asked for a leadership workshop to align first.
Her CEO questioned the framework's value. He pressured her to move faster.
Her instinct was to defend the work harder. I suggested she name her biggest fear instead: that the executive team charges ahead on AI without real buy-in. Then ask for the alignment directly.
A framework is easy for a CEO to dismiss as "process." A clearly named business risk is much harder to wave off. It puts the CPO beside the CEO, looking at the same problem.
What's one conversation that helped you move from order-taker to true performance partner with your CEO?