Watch the full conversation with Lisa Thompson on MambaHR: The Playbook.
I just had a conversation that completely changed how I think about what's broken in HR and, more importantly, how to fix it. My guest, Lisa Thompson, FCIPD, founder of Iona HR Consulting and a 28-year veteran of the field, didn’t just give me theory. She gave me a playbook for leading through chaos that every HR professional needs to hear.
Lisa has made a career out of stepping in when things have gone off the rails. Whether it’s scaling fast, transforming leadership teams, navigating cultural shifts, or rebuilding trust after disruption, she knows what it takes to guide organizations through change that actually sticks.
What she shared challenged a lot of what we think we know about why HR struggles and what needs to change.
The Accidental Path That Led to Mastery
Lisa’s journey into HR wasn’t planned. It was accidental, like so many of us. She graduated with a classics degree feeling “qualified for nothing unless I want to teach.” Sound familiar?
She went back to college for business skills, learned typing, and discovered email when it was just becoming a thing. She ended up in the HR department of a waste management company and immediately felt at home.
But here’s what struck me about her story: she didn’t rush to the top. She spent time in the trenches, doing the work that many people try to skip. She still remembers the first recruitment interview she was allowed to sit in on, for a mechanic role where she memorized the firing order of a six-cylinder diesel engine because she was so excited to be part of the process.
This foundation became her superpower.
“There really is no substitute for not being able to look at absence data and spot a pattern,” she told me. “You spot that pattern from being the person that actually had to pull that absence data together and looked at it originally when you were younger.”
Why Most HR Professionals Fail to Launch
One of the most powerful insights from our conversation was about why so many HR professionals struggle to make real impact. Lisa shared a story about a graduate who said, “Well, HR is easy, isn't it? There's a textbook and there's legislation.”
She was horrified by this perspective because, as she put it, “it’s about the application of that knowledge.”
The problem isn’t knowing what the five fair reasons for dismissal are. It’s understanding how to use them, which one is appropriate when, and what sits around that decision. It’s about people and understanding people, not just policy and procedure.
This is where I see so many HR professionals get stuck. They focus on the technical aspects but miss the human element. They know the compliance requirements but don’t understand the business context. They can recite policy but can’t navigate the messy reality of organizational life.
The Power of Working from the Bottom Up
Lisa’s advice for anyone early in their HR career is counterintuitive in our instant-gratification world: don’t try to rush things.
“Don’t expect to walk straight into an HR manager role or a BP role,” she said. “Start at a role where you're learning the basics.”
She emphasized the importance of experiencing what she calls “the harder work at the lower levels,” the monotonous work that can feel demotivating but is actually building your foundation.
When you’ve personally pulled together absence reports, gone through filing cabinets looking at employee histories, and sat through countless onboarding sessions, you develop an intuition that can’t be taught in a classroom.
The key is finding mentors who can help you see the bigger picture while you’re doing the detailed work. Lisa credits two early mentors, Marjorie Haynes and Caroline Daley, with inspiring her and showing her the path forward. But she also emphasized that “you have to manage your own development ultimately.”
Her advice: find someone a few stages ahead of you and have honest conversations about your ambitions. Ask to be included in disciplinary hearings, decision-making processes, and strategic discussions. Show hunger and demonstrate that you’ll continue operating at a high level in your current role while seeking additional experience.
The Commercial HR Imperative
Perhaps the most important insight from our conversation was about being “commercial” in HR.
Lisa explained that when she first started, “HR was a separate function to the business. The business operated over here somewhere and then HR was sat somewhere else saying no, mainly, to most people.”
Her approach has always been different: get under the skin of the business.
She shared a story from her time in manufacturing where she would be out on the factory floor, watching what people did, understanding their roles, and learning their goals and targets.
“That was probably me being commercial ahead of my time,” she reflected.
Being commercial means aligning your HR strategy with the business plan and goals. It means learning the language that the business speaks instead of positioning yourself as separate or different.
As Lisa put it, “The success of the business relies upon the success of the people who are in that business, and in HR that's what we do.”
A Masterclass in Applied HR Strategy
Lisa gave me a perfect example of commercial HR in action from her time in the railway industry.
She worked with engineers who lived away from their families Monday through Friday, working on live railway lines under life-threatening conditions. The safety requirements were so strict that trains passing at high speed could pull someone under if they were within six feet of the track.
The pressure was intense. These engineers would finish work, go home, shower, and then head to the pub to decompress. They were eating pub food, drinking regularly, and sometimes showing up hungover. Not exactly ideal for safety-critical work.
Instead of implementing a policy against drinking or lecturing them about health, Lisa did something different: she got her safety certificate and went trackside with them.
She experienced their working conditions firsthand. She listened to their frustrations and understood their need for pressure release.
The solution wasn’t complicated. She changed the expense policy to cover gym memberships and helped them find appropriate gyms. The result was healthier, fitter employees, better engagement scores, and fewer hangover-related performance issues.
“We don't have to have all the answers,” Lisa told me. “We just need to talk to people and find out and listen.”
The Skills That Actually Matter
When I asked Lisa about underrated skills, her answer surprised me: humor.
“I can't lose my sense of humor in the midst of the chaos,” she said. “You've got to just laugh at it.”
She treats challenging employee situations like a game of chess, finding ways to appreciate even the most difficult moves.
But beyond humor, Lisa emphasized curiosity as the most underrated superpower in strategic HR.
“Ask the questions,” she said. “There's so much we don't know. Somebody comes to us and says, ‘This is what we need, this has happened,’ and we're so programmed to just go, ‘Okay,’ and start writing things down and working out what we should do to fix it. We've only got like a third of the story.”
This resonates deeply with my own experience. How often do we jump into solution mode before we fully understand the problem? How often do we assume we know what’s really going on without digging deeper?
Navigating the Compliance Reality
One of the most eye-opening parts of our conversation was learning about the differences between UK and US employment law.
In the UK, Lisa explained, there are five fair reasons for dismissal, and you have to follow a specific three-step process: investigation, hearing, and appeal. You can’t dismiss someone on a first offense unless it’s gross misconduct, and there’s a ladder effect from first written warning to final written warning to dismissal.
“I've never been laid off in my life,” Lisa told me. “We don't do that.”
The employment protections are so strong that what we consider normal business practice in the US simply doesn’t exist in the same way there.
But here’s what’s interesting: despite these constraints, Lisa has built a successful career helping organizations navigate change and transformation. The limitations force creativity and strategic thinking. They require HR professionals to be more thoughtful, more collaborative, and more focused on prevention rather than reaction.
The Organization Systems That Enable Success
Lisa shared her personal productivity system, which I found incredibly practical. She uses a combination of physical notebooks and digital tools like Trello and Microsoft To Do.
But the key insight was her end-of-day routine. She blocks out 10 minutes every evening to go through her notebook and transfer actions into her digital task management system with dates and priorities.
She also uses AI tools like Otter for note-taking and exports transcripts to ChatGPT for additional processing.
“It’s a game changer,” she said.
Her time-blocking approach includes dedicated blocks for client work, business development, and a spare hour each day for meetings. On Fridays, she has a two-hour block to plan the following week and check for diary conflicts.
The Entrepreneurial Leap
Lisa’s decision to leave corporate life and start Iona HR wasn’t taken lightly, but her advice for others considering the same path is surprisingly straightforward: plan, but don’t overthink it.
“There is no substitute for just getting out there and trying it,” she said.
She emphasized the importance of understanding what parts of HR you love, researching whether there’s a market for your expertise, and packaging your knowledge into offers people will buy.
But she also stressed that “nothing is forever.” You can pivot and change direction as you learn what works.
The reality check: “You will work harder than you have ever worked before.”
But she also emphasized the importance of setting boundaries and sticking to them. “If you don't stick to them, no one else will respect them.”
Her advice about asking for help particularly resonated with me.
“There are so many people out there who will help you,” she said.
If you connect on LinkedIn and ask someone for 30 minutes to talk about what they wish they had known when they started, many people will help.
The Mindset Shift That Changes Everything
Perhaps the most important insight from our entire conversation was Lisa’s perspective on response time.
When I asked about the best career advice she’d ever received, she said: “Very few things in this life need an immediate response. Take a breath, relax, think about it, speak to somebody else if you need to. A knee-jerk reaction rarely is the right response.”
This is profound in our always-on, instant-response culture. How many of us feel pressure to have immediate answers to every question and immediate solutions to every problem? How often do we react instead of respond?
Lisa’s approach is different. She takes time to think, consult, and consider multiple perspectives. This isn’t about being slow or indecisive. It’s about being thoughtful and strategic.
The Future of HR Leadership
When I asked Lisa about her dream HR tool, she described something that would pull data from everywhere: engagement surveys, financials, objectives, goals, and more, then create a comprehensive people strategy automatically.
But listening to her throughout our conversation, I realized she’s already doing this manually through curiosity, business understanding, and a systematic approach to problem-solving.
The future of HR isn’t only about having better tools, though they help. It’s about developing the mindset and skills that Lisa has cultivated over 28 years: curiosity, commercial awareness, humor, strategic thinking, and the ability to truly listen to people.
What This Means for Your HR Career
If you’re early in your HR career, don’t rush to the top. Embrace the foundational work that builds your intuition and understanding. Find mentors who can help you see the bigger picture while you’re learning the details.
If you’re a seasoned HR professional, ask yourself: are you truly commercial? Do you understand your business as well as you understand HR theory? Are you curious enough to ask the right questions, or are you jumping to solutions too quickly?
If you’re considering going independent, start planning but don’t overthink it. The market rewards expertise and authenticity, not perfection.
The Bottom Line
HR fails when we focus on policy instead of people, when we react instead of respond, and when we separate ourselves from the business instead of integrating with it.
HR succeeds when we’re curious, commercial, and genuinely focused on helping people and organizations thrive.
Lisa Thompson has spent 28 years proving that HR can be a strategic force for organizational success. Her playbook isn’t complicated, but it requires discipline, curiosity, and a genuine commitment to understanding both people and business.
The question isn’t whether HR will evolve. It’s whether we’ll evolve with it.