Get to know our Endeavor Mentor Martin Stier, SVP, Recruiting, Diversity and Culture and Chief Diversity Officer, HP Inc., in this mentor spotlight.

Why did you decide to join the Endeavor Network?

I have a passion to help people achieve their goals. For the past 25 years, and especially the last 10, I have been a coach and mentor to many C-level executives in driving their businesses forward and transforming businesses, functions and companies. I would like to continue contributing and partnering with great entrepreneurs who can benefit from my experience in large and global corporations as they build and execute their business plans and develop their companies. 

Could you tell us about your background and why you became a mentor?

I have been in Corporate America for the last 25 years, performing different roles in Human Resources functions, living and working in 3 different countries, playing regional and global roles. Also, I developed my career in different industries, from consumer goods, logistics services, to technology and traveled all around the world, visiting over 40 countries and learning how to do business successfully in different geographies and what capabilities and skills you can find. In an advisory capacity, I helped partners and entrepreneurs expand their business in Latin America and coached executives on how to build sustainable organizations. 

Could you share a successful strategy you’ve implemented that helped create healthy and inclusive team dynamics?

It starts by getting to know the leader and understanding their vision, leadership style, and doing a full assessment of where they are and where they want to go. Building inclusive teams requires investment, time, and intentionality. Thinking and evaluating how to bring your team can become a huge enabler of business success. The role that the team members play in the selection of new members and in onboarding new members is absolutely critical so I pay a lot of attention to the identification, sourcing, and selection of team members. Designing the team leader assimilation framework is also very important and many times it is the critical success factor that makes teams succeed or fail. It requires a very robust process that can take up to 6 months to help the team build their norms, practice their norms, and adjust as they evolve. Check-ins and frequent feedback conversations allow the team to keep a healthy and inclusive environment. 

What has been the greatest challenge you’ve faced in adapting HR strategies to local contexts? 

It is very important to understand the market and business you are in, the local dynamics in talent attraction, the capabilities you need, and what you can get and understand whether you can buy everything you need or you have to develop. In product development terms, you need to have a solid understanding of what your minimum viable product is from an organizational standpoint and assess what you need to get to that stage and what it would take to get to the end-state/ideal state. The challenge is when you are not clear on what the MVP and the end-state are. Not knowing leads you to think that any HR strategy, any HR process or any HR tool can suit your needs. 

What should founders expanding to new markets take into consideration?

First, have a clear value proposition and a clear understanding of the problem you are trying to solve. Second, become very familiar with the market, the customers, the competitors, and whether you believe there is a profitable business out of your idea. Third, recognize that the team around you is critical, be selective in who you bring on board, what capabilities and expertise you need and how your team maps against those, and acknowledge that you cannot do everything by yourself. Finally, be surgical in defining your priorities and short-term goals and articulate to the team what success looks like from the get-go so you can create an environment where everyone knows where you want to go and understand how to help you get there. 

What are you reading?
Atomic Habits
Multipliers
Doing Agile right

These responses have been edited for grammatical purposes.