What if some of the biggest problems affecting your company’s performance are things your executive team will never discover by reviewing reports, studying spreadsheets, or attending management meetings?
That question gets to the heart of a fascinating conversation I recently had with Debbie McKinley on The Workforce Alchemy Show.
Debbie is a U.S. Naval Academy graduate, former Marine Corps officer, and former Vice President of Human Resources at The Home Depot. Today, she serves as Chief People Officer at Herschend Enterprises, the family entertainment company behind attractions including Dollywood and Silver Dollar City.
With that background, you might expect Debbie’s leadership philosophy to revolve around executive strategy sessions, sophisticated analytics, and corporate management systems.
Those things matter, but there’s another side to her approach that business owners and executives should consider.
Debbie believes leaders need to get their hands dirty. Literally.
She’s worked as a cashier, stocked store shelves, helped customers, operated amusement park rides, made corn dogs, and even spent an entire shift cleaning hotel rooms.
Those experiences have influenced how she approaches leadership, strategic human resources, employee engagement, operational efficiency, and executive decision-making.
And they help explain how she built the credibility necessary to become an influential voice in the C-suite.
What a Chief People Officer Learned Cleaning Hotel Rooms
During our interview, Debbie shared what happened when she spent an entire shift working alongside the housekeeping team at one of the Herschend Enterprises resorts.
She quickly discovered how physically demanding the work was.
Making beds, cleaning bathrooms, dusting furniture, and preparing guest rooms gave her a new appreciation for employees whose work directly influences the customer experience.
But the most revealing discovery came when she started vacuuming.
The vacuum cleaners had 12-foot electrical cords.
That meant employees repeatedly had to stop, unplug the vacuum cleaner, find another outlet, and resume their work as they moved through guest rooms.
The housekeepers had adapted to the inconvenience because those were the vacuum cleaners management had purchased.
Debbie recognized an operational inefficiency that could be addressed with a simple change.
The team obtained appropriate extension cords, and she recommended purchasing vacuum cleaners with longer cords in the future.
It wasn’t a complicated solution.
The important question is whether the problem would ever have come to her attention if she hadn’t personally done the work.
For business owners and executives, that’s worth thinking about.
What unnecessary obstacles have your employees learned to tolerate because nobody with the authority to change them has experienced their jobs firsthand?
Why Frontline Experience Makes Executives Better Decision-Makers
During our conversation, Debbie explained that understanding a business requires more than reviewing its financial and operational data.
Executives also need firsthand knowledge of how work gets done.
A staffing report may show how many employees are scheduled.
A financial report may identify payroll expenses.
A customer satisfaction report may reveal declining service scores.
But none of those reports necessarily explains what’s happening between employees and customers at a particular moment.
Frontline experience can help executives interpret the data more intelligently.
It can also reveal situations in which the problem being discussed in executive meetings isn’t the problem that actually needs to be solved.
Debbie shared an excellent example from her experience at The Home Depot.
The Home Depot Staffing Problem That Didn’t Require a Massive Hiring Increase
At The Home Depot, operational leaders were concerned about customer service and the availability of employees to assist shoppers.
One proposed solution was to increase staffing.
But adding employees across thousands of stores would have created an enormous payroll expense.
Rather than automatically assuming the business needed more people, Debbie and her colleagues examined how existing employees were being deployed.
They walked stores, reviewed operational data, studied customer traffic, and considered the differences between various shopping periods.
What they discovered helped reframe the problem.
The issue wasn’t simply how many employees were available.
It was whether employees were in the right places at the right times to serve customers.
The solution involved creating an additional leadership role that could help coordinate employees and connect them with customers who needed assistance.
That approach also created opportunities for employee advancement and leadership development.
Instead of addressing a customer service problem solely by increasing payroll, the company identified an opportunity to improve how existing resources were managed.
It’s a compelling example of how operational knowledge, financial discipline, and workforce strategy can work together.
Why HR Professionals Struggle to Earn Respect in the C-Suite
Another topic we explored was one I’ve heard HR professionals raise repeatedly.
Why doesn’t HR receive the strategic influence and respect it deserves from senior executives?
Some HR leaders feel confined to compliance, policies, employee relations, and administrative responsibilities.
They want to contribute to major business decisions but struggle to establish themselves as strategic partners.
Debbie offered an important perspective.
Before HR professionals can consistently influence business strategy, they need to understand how the business operates and makes money.
That includes understanding financial goals, operational priorities, customer expectations, and how workforce decisions affect business performance.
Simply advocating for employees isn’t enough.
HR executives also need to demonstrate the business judgment required to evaluate competing priorities and recommend solutions with measurable value.
Debbie described two essential responsibilities of a strategic HR partner:
First, advocate for frontline employees.
Understand their work, their challenges, and what they need to contribute to business success. Bring that knowledge into discussions about strategy, resources, and priorities.
Second, coach business leaders.
Help executives and managers develop better judgment, solve problems, and improve their effectiveness.
But coaching doesn’t mean taking over their responsibilities.
As Debbie emphasized during our conversation, leaders need to lead.
HR’s role is to help them become more capable, not make them dependent on HR to solve every difficult situation.
That distinction has important implications for leadership development, management training, and organizational performance.
Company Culture Can’t Just Be a Poster on the Wall
Debbie also shared why she chose to leave a successful career at The Home Depot for Herschend Enterprises.
One of the deciding factors was the company’s leadership culture, which it calls “Heartspitality.”
At Herschend, leaders are expected to demonstrate behaviors grounded in the company’s philosophy of leading with love.
But those expectations aren’t simply slogans.
According to Debbie, quarterly leadership evaluations give equal weight to cultural behaviors and business performance.
Fifty percent focuses on leadership behaviors.
The other fifty percent focuses on financial performance and goal achievement.
This structure makes company culture part of leadership accountability.
It’s an approach worth examining for business owners who want their organizational values to influence how employees are actually treated and how management decisions are made.
After all, a company’s stated values and the behaviors it rewards are not necessarily the same thing.
The Leadership Principle Debbie Wants Everyone to Remember
Toward the end of our conversation, I asked Debbie to share the single most important piece of advice she would offer business owners, executives, HR professionals, and aspiring leaders.
Her answer was something she calls UHR: Unconditional High Regard.
It’s the practice of approaching each interaction with another person from a position of respect, even when previous interactions have been frustrating or difficult.
Debbie believes this principle is particularly important when dealing with colleagues who challenge our patience.
It requires leaders to recognize what others bring to the table rather than allowing past disagreements to define every future interaction.
It’s a deceptively simple idea with meaningful implications for leadership relationships, coaching, conflict resolution, and company culture.
What Can You Learn from Debbie McKinley’s Leadership Journey?
Debbie’s career spans military leadership, frontline retail operations, senior human resources leadership, and the C-suite.
Throughout that journey, she has emphasized understanding the business firsthand, developing leaders, making financially responsible decisions, and holding executives accountable for how they treat people.
Our conversation also explores how HR professionals can earn greater strategic influence, why business leaders need coaching rather than rescue, and how companies can connect employee experience to operational results.
If you’re a business owner, CEO, senior executive, or HR leader, I encourage you to listen to the complete interview.
Listen to “Why Great Leaders MUST Get Their Hands Dirty,” featuring Debbie McKinley, on The Workforce Alchemy Show:
Prefer to watch the interview?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ziBswLWQcU
About The Workforce Alchemy Show
Hosted by Mason Duchatschek, The Workforce Alchemy Show explores practical strategies for employee selection, engagement, retention, leadership development, company culture, and organizational performance.
Discover more at https://workforcealchemy.com/
Here’s a question worth considering: When was the last time you or another member of your executive team spent an entire shift doing the work of your frontline employees?
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