About This Episode
In this 2nd part of a 2-part interview, we welcome back Heather Moyer, Founder and CEO of HNM Systems. Heather provides great insight into what is an “A” player, what she believes people can do to “stand out” and become an “A” player, and why it is important to do what it takes. She also discusses why self motivation, training and educating yourself is critical. She also tells what is the most important relationship you should have today. Why having a “can do” and “will do” attitude will serve you well during your working years. Finally, we discuss leadership, servant leadership, communication, conflict resolution, focus, philanthropy and giving.
Heather referenced the book titled: “The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results” – you can purchase on Amazon.
Listen to the conversation here.
Originally Posted by Paying It Forward
Key Highlights
How to Stand Out and Become an A Player
“The folks that are willing to take a job to get into an organization they want to be a part of and prove themselves—those are the ones who promote rapidly and succeed.”
Heather explains that creativity and persistence matter more than mass applications.
She advises candidates to target-fit companies, get resumes in front of real decision-makers, and use creative methods (like drop-offs and direct calls).
Young professionals should focus on self-education, leveraging tools like LinkedIn Learning, blogs, podcasts, and books like The One Thing.
Advice to the Next Generation
“Know yourself. Know how you can contribute both to the organization and to society as a whole.”
Heather urges early-career individuals to define their personal “why”.
She emphasizes that the most successful employees continually invest in personal growth and lifelong learning.
Leadership, Development, and Building Future Leaders
“We need to shift away from the belief that we have to train people—and really embrace that we need to develop people.”
Heather discusses her approach to identifying leaders by looking for resilience, problem-solving, and self-reflection in interview scenarios.
She highlights the “can do, will do” test: Can they do the job? Will they do the job?
She recently hired a coach and uses the Situational Leadership Model in her leadership practice.
Communication & Conflict Resolution
“There is such a thing as healthy conflict—and that’s where innovation happens.”
Encourages transparency and normalizing conflict as a path to alignment, not personal attack.
Shared her own journey: “I used to avoid conflict… it’s one of my biggest regrets.”
Leadership lesson: “If you would not hire this person again or put them in this position, your path forward is clear.”
Most Important Relationship
“The most important relationship you have is the one with yourself.”
Heather’s top personal advice centers on self-awareness, purpose, and service.
Professional advice from a mentor: “It’s a long life in a small world.”—a reminder to think about long-term impact and integrity in decision-making.
Top Qualities of a Great Leader
- Listening
“Your ability to listen is the single most important quality.” - Vision
- Communication
She discusses how to be a better listener by detaching from your own emotional reaction to what’s being said.
Tip: Repeat messages 17 times—then people start to hear them.
Advice to Her Children
“Understand your personal why. Take risks. Invest in learning and development.”
What’s Next & Her North Star
“We’re evolving from me managing the organization to managing a team of people who manage the organization.”
HNM is expanding through new service lines, innovation, and complexity.
Ultimate goal: positively impact 3 million lives.
Philanthropy & Boards
Echo in the Valley – supports frontline workers and families.
PEERS Network – supports first-gen college grads, and housing/supplies for homeless youth.
Believes deeply in giving time, not just money:
“In serving, we often get more than we give.”
Episode Transcript
Unknown Speaker 0:00
This is the paying it forward podcast episode four. And
Unknown Speaker 0:15
I think the other thing that I really see is particularly with the generation that’s just coming into their own career, the folks that are willing to take a job to get into an organization that they want to be a part of and prove themselves, those are the folks that get into the organization first, promote very rapidly and succeed. Hi and welcome to the paying it forward podcast. My name is Steve Richards. Thank you for listening. I believe if you want to attain a C level position in your career, you need to understand what it takes to achieve that level of leadership. When you have access to successful entrepreneurs and senior executives who want to help you develop the skills and traits to become a great leader, it’s like having your own mastermind group to mentor and guide you. In a nutshell, that’s our podcast.
Unknown Speaker 1:03
In just a few moments, we’ll sit down with Heather Moyer in part two of our two part interview, Heather will touch on a players, recruiting a players, and what you could do to stand out and become an A player. We will also discuss specific things that you can focus on, such as educating yourself and taking advantage of the tools that are out there. How the book The One Thing impacted Heather along her path. We’ll talk about what the most important relationship is that you should have, how a can do and will do attitude will impact your future greatly. And finally, we’ll touch on servant leadership, communication, healthy conflict and conflict resolution. Since this is part two, let’s pick up the interview where we left off. Hi Heather. Welcome back. I appreciate your time again. Thanks for having me. Is it difficult hiring these days? I think actively recruiting a players has and will continue to always be difficult. So I think the performers, the people that perform at the top 10%
Unknown Speaker 1:58
those people are generally always employed or working on something, they are hard to engage. They’re selective, and they’re very well networked. So oftentimes they don’t need a whole lot of help in finding their next opportunity. Now, all that to be said, you know, everybody at one point in their career is looking for an opportunity, so I think there’s a lot of hustle that goes into attracting a players, maintaining relationships, and what I call candidate pipelining, and really developing those relationships to your earlier point with potential A players, and then making sure that you have that good alignment and core value and skill set. So how do I stand out to what do I need to do to be one of those 10%
Unknown Speaker 2:45
so I think creativity is what I’ve seen be the most successful recently,
Unknown Speaker 2:51
not necessarily just throwing your resume out to 100 different positions at one time, but really finding a company that is a fit for you and relentlessly pursuing that opportunity, getting your resume in front of the right person, calling in, dropping off snail mailing you know, really being professionally assertive, being creative in your approach to getting reviewed. And I think the other thing that I really see is particularly with the generation that’s just coming into their own career, the folks that are willing to take a job to get into an organization that they want to be a part of and prove themselves, those are the folks that get into the organization first promote very rapidly and succeed. So
Unknown Speaker 3:41
be willing to do what it takes. And it might not be that. Out of college you’re gonna get a director level title in 90k it might not be that.
Unknown Speaker 3:51
So a very pointed question, what specific things you’ve sort of elaborated on most of them or some of them, but I’m really curious if there are any additional specific things that you think either the younger generation or the next generation of workforce really needs to focus on in advancing their career, like one or two, three key points where, if you guys just do this, it’ll be fine, but don’t, don’t do this, or whatever it may be, I would say,
Unknown Speaker 4:19
know yourself what you’re looking for in your career,
Unknown Speaker 4:25
how you can contribute both to the organization and to society and to society as a whole, and educate yourself. There are so many tools that are available to incoming workers that have not been available to generations past. There are incredible podcasts, where you get you get access to C suite executives from around the world. There are books, there are blogs, there are seminars, there’s online learning. LinkedIn has a great online platform, which, during Coco.
Unknown Speaker 5:00
Has been free. Even better, what a beautiful gift, what a beautiful gift. Take a training, commit to doing something. I read this great book called The One Thing, and it has the simplest, most impactful framework, which is whatever your end goal is. So let’s say Heather wants to buy a house by the time she’s 30.
Unknown Speaker 5:20
The one thing really gets you to focus on, what’s the one thing you have to do today, this week and this month and then this year, to get you to that goal at 30? So what is the one thing that you can do today to get yourself hired where you want to be
Unknown Speaker 5:38
in previous generations? It seemed that there was a certain way. You just went about getting a job, progressing through your career. Got the watch at the end. Life was great. But then there’s the traditional I’m an employee, or I’m a business owner. When you describe ownership, accountability, researching, studying, learning, progressing, being true to yourself, teaching yourself, learning, training, all that stuff, great stuff. They find a job, they get in that job, and then people just kind of
Unknown Speaker 6:09
drift down the river. I think the smart ones, the smart ones, are really working ahead of themselves. They’re looking out and saying, I can get that ring. I can go after that brass. I can get there, you know, Steve, I’ll say, though, and I’m gonna challenge you on that, and not in a way that I don’t agree with you. I do agree with you, but my challenge is, I think as leaders, we have a responsibility to shift away from the understanding and belief that we have to train people and really embrace that. We need to develop people. We are in a situation where we have an influx of new employees and talent that are a certain way, and we’re not going to be able to influence that at this point, the only thing that we can do as leaders is develop our managers to learn how to work with this generation and to inspire and require them to develop their skills. Society is so interesting and so different, even than it was when I was growing up. There’s a lot of pressure on young people. Social media is
Unknown Speaker 7:17
very neat in some ways, and I think, very damaging in other ways, in the comparison standpoint,
Unknown Speaker 7:25
and what I see in the incoming workforce is, is that there is a real lack of self worth and competence in their own ability truly, right? So I’m not talking a bit about ego and fake confidence and the parts of people that show up to get the job done, but the real, true self worth and competence, I think, is lacking, and I think in so many ways, that’s because of what’s happening in our society and as managers, I think We have a real opportunity and gift to learn how to develop this generation into being whole, fully developed, wonderful contributors to the workforce. So how do you go about identifying or take just take that one step further. How do you go about identifying somebody to be that next leader. Like, if I said, Okay, there’s a succession plan for your company. There may or may not be, but let’s suppose you need to, you’re going to develop that next set of leaders. How do you go about doing that? What are you identifying? Because I like the we should get out of the training aspect, we should get in the developmental aspect. I think that’s huge. I liked everything you said there a lot, and I’m thinking, Okay, if you’re developing people, you’re developing them for a result, either to be a better person, better worker, or even a leader. So how would you take what you just said and help others become the next leader?
Unknown Speaker 8:55
I think, starting with the interview process for me, when I talk about alignment and having a fit and identifying whether or not someone has the capacity and aptitude for that initially, is asking for examples of times in their lives where they’ve had conflict, struggle or challenge, and They were able to self reflect and move forward. So for me, I ask a lot of scenario based questions around times in their lives where they’ve had to be an overcomer. Because for me, it’s important for me to see that they can they’re resourceful, they can solve problems and that they can succeed from that perspective, once an individual is in your organization, you have the can do? Will do? Question, can you do it, and will you do it? And if you can do it, but won’t do it? Is there a way that we can get you to identify what that is?
Unknown Speaker 10:00
For you, and if not, then you’re probably not going to be a good fit, right?
Unknown Speaker 10:06
So, but you may be a great fit somewhere else. So I think it’s just, it’s an interesting it’s an interesting thing. I also hired a coach recently who’s just really helped to develop me,
Unknown Speaker 10:21
and he uses the Situational Leadership Model A lot, which is, you’re very
Unknown Speaker 10:26
it’s interesting. I found, I found, over my career that servant leadership, to me, is a huge thing as a leader, giving before taking. I think it’s important. What’s interesting is when you look at various situations and put people in them. People either sink or swim, some flounder, some float. That’s fine. Like you, I like people that will
Unknown Speaker 10:49
if I interview well up front who I’m bringing in, the opportunity for success is even greater. I don’t, I don’t harbor this. I’ve got this person still here. I’m still paying them. I gotta get room. You know, it’s slow to hire, quick to fire, kind of deal. I had a mentor actually ask me a question I was having an employee conflict years ago. And he said, Well, this is the question I always ask myself. He said, Would you hire that person again? And if you did, would you put them in this position?
Unknown Speaker 11:18
And when you’re having an employee conflict, by asking yourself honestly those two questions and answering them honestly, you, in ways, have your path forward. So let’s talk conflict resolution. It comes up every day in almost every company, somewhere along the way, I think about people who can cope or not cope. I’m not sure the generation coming out of college or the generation coming up in the workforce, is all that really great at either identifying or dealing with conflict? How do you any recommendations for how to handle conflict resolution in addition to what you just described as a leader, I encourage my staff two things, transparency and embracing healthy conflict. They hear me say this at least once a week. This is healthy conflict. Let’s talk about it. I believe that there is such a thing as healthy conflict, and I think that’s in a lot of ways, where innovation happens in an organization. When you have differing opinions, you have the opportunity to see and look at things differently and use it as a platform to innovate. And so I really encourage my people to do that. I think why we’ve been successful is because when somebody comes in to me or to their manager and talks about a conflict that they’re having, it’s a safe place. There’s no judgment. There is a conflict. It’s not about a person, if you think of like the hero, villain, victim triangle, we don’t focus on the person in the conflict. We focus on the actual conflict. So what’s the conflict? How can we potentially solve it? And hey, at the end of this, wasn’t this discussion Great? Wasn’t it healthy that we solved this problem and didn’t make it about a person that’s been really impactful for us? So setting egos aside is important. Being able to say it’s not so much my role or my title as it is the item we need to resolve. It seems like people just aren’t really good at it. People aren’t really good at doing exactly what you described, where they can see it for what it is, open and honestly talk about it, recognize we just have to figure out how to get over this, or get rid of this, whatever it may be, and move forward well. And to be fair, Steve, I mean, I’m 17 years into a leadership position, and I probably am just getting really good at it. 17 years later, I would avoid conflict. You know, I would, I would do my best to solve the problem without asking for help or or needing a lot of input, probably until the last several years, when I got to the point where I just couldn’t do it alone anymore, right? And, you know, one of probably my biggest regrets in my career was some moments where I could have picked up the phone and said, Hey, there’s a misunderstanding here. What you think is happening is not happening. You know, this is what’s happening. How can we resolve this? You know, I’d love respect. Want to work with you, whatever that conversation looks like. You know, those are some of my biggest regrets, that I didn’t have those conversations. And so I think it’s an opportunity for me to teach my folks growing up professionally that that is very impactful and powerful. You’ve been 17 years into it as a leader running your own company, you had five or six years before that in your career. So you’re you’re well into this. Let’s say, just round it up to 20 years. Might be a little less. Might be a little more, but let’s say, over the last 20 years, if you could go back today, you could go back to your younger the younger Heather. Is there any advice? Single piece of advice, anything that you wish you’d have known then that you now know?
Unknown Speaker 15:00
My favorite piece of advice is that the most important relationship that you have is the one with yourself, because really knowing who you are and what you want and what you give back to this world, that’s where your power really is, and it’s not about you, it’s about what you have to give. And so that is, that’s the best advice I ever got from a holistic standpoint, from a professional standpoint, I would say, in a transition, in a career transition. For me, one of my mentors said, Heather, it’s a long life in a small world, and for whatever reason, that really resonated with me, and I’ve used that and remembered that moving forward, and I keep that in my decision matrix, right? So that’s I’m really, I’m really curious about that. Can you? Can you elaborate more on how that, how that motivates you, like, how that stayed with you? Yeah. So, I mean, I think so often in moments, we want to make decisions, which is human nature for our own best interest, right? And when I heard that it’s a long life in a small world, what I heard was understand the impacts that your actions have, not only today, but for your life and throughout your career, and the ripple that it will also have for all the other people that you impact. So for me, it was looking at things outside of myself and looking at the ways that we can impact others and make decisions that are good for the collective and not necessarily just good for yourself. What’s the single most important quality you find being a leader, your ability to listen, great. That is the number one consistent answer I get. You have to be a good listener, which most people think. Most leaders don’t listen at all. And the number one thing they’re really good at is listening. As a worker on my career, I got in here word I said, he heard every word and they and you have to be able to listen. Give me the second one after listening. What do you think’s the next best thing? Most important quality, I should say, in my position vision, yep. And I would say a really close third is communication. That would have been the next one, because I would have asked you, would like to ask you, when you’re listening, how hard is it to be a good listener, and then how hard is it to actually get others to communicate clearly?
Unknown Speaker 17:28
Not the not the chuckle I expected there, but I like it.
Unknown Speaker 17:35
What I find, for me personally, is when I’m in a conversation and I’m thinking about how I’m going to respond, it’s difficult to listen. That’s human nature. If I’m unattached from my own response, I find listening to be much easier. So what can people do to be better listeners? Aside from just listening, what can people really do to be is this? Is it active listening? Is it really reiterating what you’ve heard? I think it’s it’s separation from the message that somebody else is trying to give you. So a lot of the things that I work on with my staff is not taking things personally. Sometimes when we’re listening to somebody else, we’re already thinking about how that maybe is impacting us, or whether or not they’re telling us this, because it’s a reflection of us. I think it’s human nature to take things personally, and so that’s something that we work on here within the organization. The other piece of really impactful advice I got a few years ago, I was frustrated. I was having a conflict with someone who had worked for me for a really long time, and I remember telling a friend of mine she’s not hearing me. She’s not hearing and I don’t understand why she’s not hearing me. And he said, Well, Heather, as the deliverer of the message, you are responsible for making sure she hears what you were trying to tell her. And Steve, the light bulb
Unknown Speaker 19:06
went off, no, she’s not listening. And he was like, No, you’re not communicating. Clearly, it was a gift. So I’m thinking about people who are poor communicators, or lack of communicators, or let’s call it, very quiet communicators. How can someone be a better communicator?
Unknown Speaker 19:21
My head of people, and I joke that by the time we’ve said something 17 times, people are starting to hear
Unknown Speaker 19:28
us. So repeat what you’re saying. I think is important as a leader, but as someone who’s trying to develop their communication skills. I mean, some of the tools that I’ve used our journals, sitting down, writing out your thoughts and feelings,
Unknown Speaker 19:46
understanding the difference between facts and feelings, I think, is really important, and getting some clarity around what it is you want to achieve by having a conversation and what.
Unknown Speaker 20:00
What would feel important for you to be heard around and oftentimes and still in difficult conversations? I’ll take notes for myself to make sure that I’m clear on what those two answers are for myself. Okay, so trick question. Fast forward, your your daughter and your son about to embark on their career as a mom, you have a vested interest in their starting off strong as a entrepreneur and a business owner, you certainly want them to be a good contributor.
Unknown Speaker 20:29
If I asked you for the one single most important piece of advice that you would give the two of them,
Unknown Speaker 20:39
what would it be as they’re about to embark on their career. What’s the one two things they absolutely need to never always do, but never forget to do. Well, first is foundational, which is, understand your personal why? What is it that is important and impactful for you to make a difference in in this world? So that would be my goal for my children in their whole life, is to understand their own personal why, and to work to achieve that tactically, I will encourage them to invest in themselves, in learning and development and taking risk. But is there anything else I didn’t ask you? You You know, I don’t think there’s anything else you haven’t asked me, but I think the the message that I would like to send today is wherever you are listening to this podcast. You know, wherever you find yourself in your career or personally, if you’re feeling stuck or frustrated or defeated, just know that you have everything you need within yourself to succeed. And you got this awesome looking ahead. What’s down the road for you that’s got you excited? What are you working on? What do you see ahead of yourself? You go, Ah, just I’m stoked for this. I’m really excited. Gosh, the business is in such a transformation right now. We have really started to develop these new service lines. It’s so much more complex than it has ever been before, somewhat out of necessity and somewhat just out of innovation, I’m really excited as I move from managing an organization to really just managing a team of people that manage the organization, how that will develop each of them, how that will improve and increase our footprint throughout the United States, and ultimately get us to achieve our end goal, our North Star, which is to positively impact and improve the lives of 3 million people. Are there any causes or charities. I know you’re involved in EO and YPO. Are there any causes or charities or foundations that
Unknown Speaker 22:48
would be very beneficial for our listeners to know? Yeah. Well, I think philanthropy is so important, and not necessarily just from a financial and monetary standpoint, but from a time standpoint, I think in serving, we often get so much more than we give, and that’s just been a gift. Specifically, I sit on a couple different boards, echo in the valley, which is a nonprofit that supports frontline workers and their families during covid, which I’m really passionate about as the wife of a firefighter paramedic, I also am part of peers network here in San Diego, when we are supporting a lot of organizations that help first generation graduates of college and other organizations that provide shelter, food and supplies to homeless teenagers and young adults. Those are the those are the organizations right now really have my heart. If a if a listener wanted to reach out to you, what is the best way for them to reach out to you? Is it LinkedIn? Is there any other way they could reach out to you? Yeah, absolutely. So LinkedIn would be the best place to reach me. So Heather Moyer at H and M systems. My email address is H Moyer at H and M systems.com, and I would love to hear from you. Thank you very much, Heather. This has been fabulous. I’m so glad we got to connect.
Unknown Speaker 24:13
She is Heather Moyer, President, CEO and founder of H and M systems. And as you just heard Heather has quite a bit to say on how you can stand out and be an A player, particularly utilizing the can do will do attitude, knowing the most important relationship you need to have, and how educating yourself with tools such as LinkedIn or the book The one thing can help you grow and provide more value in your career. This information and more is in the show notes section of this episode on our website, simply go to www. Dot lessons from the C suite.com, forward slash. Episode Four. You can follow our podcast for free on Apple podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, Libsyn, SoundCloud or your favorite podcast player, if you happen to think this is a five star worthy.
Unknown Speaker 25:00
Podcast, and you leave a written review, I’ll be sure to mention your name in an upcoming episode as a small way to say thank you. If you’re not yet following this podcast, please go to www dot lessons from the C suite.com sign up or subscribe. It’s free, and you’ll receive a PDF on various ways you can pay it forward every day, as always. If you have any questions or suggestions for the podcast, any guest suggestions or any feedback in general, please send us an email at feedback, at lessons from the C suite.com, or go to our website and submit a message directly. Thank you for listening until next time you.
