Growth requires intentionality

Cynthia Stutsman, VP of People Experience at Sinch, sat down with Jason Lavender of Electives for a People Developing People interview.

During their conversation, Cynthia shared her thoughts on:

• How HR and L&D are shifting
• How people grow
• Prioritizing people and connections
• Why authenticity matters
• The importance of giving grace

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Jason Lavender, Co-Founder + CEO @ Electives: Welcome, Cynthia. Thanks for chatting with me today. Do you mind sharing your career path and what led you to your current role?

Cynthia Stutsman, VP of People Experience @ Sinch: Thanks for having me! 

My career started in sales, and I realized I gravitated toward training all the new hires. I just really liked helping train and develop them. And that's a terrible trait for a salesperson, because training other people will not help you meet your quota. So, I quickly pivoted to a sales trainer role.

I sort of grew up at one company [CenturyLink]… I was there for 17 years, and I rose through the ranks. I led sales training, then I took over customer success training and eventually just took over the whole training organization. We had training under one umbrella in HR, so I learned a lot about all the business functions.

I dipped my toe into talent management for a while and ran performance. And that's how I started doing leadership development and then found my way to Sinch.

Jason: Amazing. Everyone always has such an interesting path to HR and Employee Experience..

Cynthia: I would've bet money that I wouldn't have ever been in HR. But I'm glad I'm here.

HR and L&D are shifting

Jason:  You have an interesting perspective after being in one organization for a long time and then transitioning to another. Over the past 5 years, what changes have you seen regarding roles and responsibilities for People leaders?

Cynthia: There are 2 big shifts that I've noticed:

Starting around 2017, there’s been a real push for HR to be “at the table.” We started thinking much more strategically instead of just focusing on tactics.

We started talking about the organizational impact of developing people. All of a sudden, there was value in the work we were doing outside of the typical new hire or system training. It became much more about behavior and skill set changes. We were developing employees instead of “buying” them out on the street.

The second shift was in 2020. As horrible as COVID was, it was also an amazing time to slow down and realize that our people were people. Up until 2020, we separated business and personal. And then the pandemic made it so you couldn't do that anymore. 

I remember seeing a kid running into view of the screen, or hearing a doorbell ring and dogs went crazy. People became so much more empathetic as we started to blur the lines between who we are at work and who we are personally. That's been a huge shift, and I hope we don't swing that pendulum too far the other way to go back. 

Growth requires intentionality

Jason: Absolutely.

Some organizations are successful at developing their people, and some organizations struggle. What do you believe are the factors that create those differences?

Cynthia: It comes down to intentionality.

Companies that truly value growth and development make time for it and tie it to some sort of incentive reward opportunity, which makes them more successful.

We're a society of limited attention spans. People aren’t usually thinking, “Let me take a class…” or “Let me crack a book open…” 

Organizations that push intentionality are more successful. A top-down approach works really well. If you role model it, people will do it.

It’s all about the people

Jason: It often feels like there's tension between the People and Finance sides of the business — especially when times are tough or when the economy's down.

Why do you think that happens? And have you seen relationships with finance where investing in people is a no-brainer? 

Cynthia: We overcomplicate things and forget that it's just people.

Everything we're thinking about from an L&D perspective (or even HR in general) is just to make people happy. Happy people do better at work. That's the crux of it all, and no one will fight you on that.

Everyone grows differently

Jason: Brilliant. This is a fill-in-the-blank question. Building a learning culture at work would be easier if ____?

Cynthia: If you could monetize growth.

If some magic data point demonstrated impact, it would be a no-brainer [to build a learning culture]. But it's challenging because people are different, and they grow differently.

The contracts of professional athletes are so visible and transparent. Their statistics are also very transparent. Imagine if it was like that in the corporate world…

Cynthia signs a 2-year contract, and all of Cynthia's performance data is live… Oh, she's in a little bit of a slump… Now she's crushing it.

In sports, it’s expected that you're going to wax. But in corporate America, we expect everything to be only up and to the right. It's inconceivable that you would have a hard year. It's unthinkable that your personal life might take you away from work priorities

In the world of sports, sometimes you just have a bad year. And you're not fired. 

Authenticity matters

Jason: I know you wear a million hats on a day-to-day basis. What is your favorite hat to wear? What are you most passionate about?

Cynthia: Growing people to be their most authentic selves at work.

I spent a long part of my career being everything I wasn't, because I thought that would get me to the next promotion.

I was hesitant to be girly. I was hesitant to like pink. I remember telling myself, “You're not going to wear pink to the office anymore, because everyone wears black and gray and and white, and that's what you should wear.” I changed who I was.

I love the push for DEI, being your most authentic self and the idea that you are a value-add, not a culture-fit, for an organization. I'm passionate about letting people be their most authentic selves. Be your greatest version of who you can be, because it's impossible and exhausting to be somebody you're not.

Human connections make a difference

Jason: I like that perspective a lot. 

How have you facilitated connections in a meaningful way?

Cynthia: The culture at Sinch is amazing. It's like nothing I've seen before.

We truly have the most remarkable people working together for the common good. The really tough thing is being remote, and we are extremely globally dispersed. 

I go back to intentionality. Everyone is busy. It's easy to start every call by jumping into whatever the next thing is that we need to be doing. “I've got a deadline. We've got 15 minutes. Let's go!” 

So, I intentionally try to spend time with people and have it not be about work. I work to get to know people as humans. And somehow, that always ends up seeping into our work.

AI readiness + soft skills training will be prioritized in the next few years

Jason: What are your predictions for the most in-demand types of training in the next few years?

Cynthia: People need to get on board with generative AI. If you can't figure out how to use it, you will get left behind. 

On the flip side, because AI will take over the world, interpersonal skills like empathy, emotional intelligence and difficult conversations will be in heightened need because they are impossible to program into a computer.

Jason: I agree. Related, what does the term “modern L&D” mean to you?

Cynthia:  Modern learning is agile. There's a sense of agility to it. Old-school videos don’t work nowadays because we change things so often.

Modern L&D is also cool and calm and not as buttoned up as people assume HR and L&D to be. 

Give yourself + others grace

Jason: 100%. What advice do you have for People and L&D leaders?

Cynthia: Be okay with failing through innovation. Also, give yourself grace and give your learners grace.

Sometimes, it seems like you put your whole life into building content that no one consumes, which can be so tiring and unmotivating. So give yourself grace through that. 

But then also build in extra grace for your learners. They're juggling a lot of plates, and growth takes intentionality. 

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About Cynthia Stutsman

Cynthia Stutsman is a visionary HR leader with more than 15 years of expertise in talent management, learning and development and organizational transformation. As Sinch’s VP of People Experience, Cynthia brings a human-centric approach to creating innovative, high-impact talent solutions that drive organizational success. She has a proven track record of designing and executing transformational programs that elevate engagement, reduce costs and streamline processes for global teams.

Throughout her career, Cynthia has demonstrated an exceptional ability to blend strategic foresight with operational execution. Her leadership has led to significant organizational improvements, including increasing training adoption by 30%, reducing employee churn by 20% and achieving a 20% boost in engagement sentiments.

Cynthia’s journey reflects her unwavering commitment to growth and excellence. Rapidly rising into executive roles, she successfully led global teams and managed multimillion-dollar budgets while maintaining her passion for people-focused strategies. Cynthia’s core competencies include culture transformation, diversity and inclusion initiatives, program management, executive coaching and performance enablement.

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