The HR Skills That Separate Strategic Leaders From the Rest | Nahed Khairallah

Founders, teams, and rocket fuel for growth — this episode is for anyone scaling from the scrappy startup stage to an eight-figure powerhouse. On the Learn-It-All™ podcast, Damon sits down with Nahed Khairallah, global HR strategist, entrepreneur, and founder of Organized Chaos. Together, they pull back the curtain on why so many founders stall—not because of their product, but because of people problems. Nahed shares playbooks for getting out of your own way as a leader, common traps in delegation, and how HR can go from back-office bureaucracy to driving exponential business results.

From hiring wisely to leveraging the real business impact of training, this episode is packed with actionable tools for building structure, scaling smoothly, and making HR your biggest strategic advantage. If you've ever wondered why investing in people is rocket fuel (not overhead), or how AI is poised to reshape the future of HR and hiring, you won’t want to miss this candid, insight-rich conversation.

In this episode, you’ll learn:
Why founders are often their own biggest growth roadblock—and how to get out of the weeds
The critical difference between working in your business vs. on your business
How to avoid the most expensive mistake in scaling: hiring without structure
The real ROI on training and coaching—and why it shouldn’t be the first thing cut
How to transition top performers to managers (and spot who actually wants the job)
What it means to make your organization “AI-ready”—and why transparency is everything
How HR leaders can earn their seat at the table by driving business, not just compliance

Timestamps:
00:00 – Why founders bottleneck their company’s growth
00:43 – From back office to rocket fuel: the new role of HR
01:34 – The #1 roadblock for startups cracking seven figures
04:07 – Advice for self-aware founders ready to scale
09:37 – What actually goes wrong with hiring and workforce management
13:45 – Nahed’s framework: goal-setting, gap analysis, and action planning
17:12 – When and why founders finally prioritize HR
19:30 – Debunking the myth: HR isn’t your bottleneck
22:47 – Saas case study: business-driven org design
26:24 – Cut $1M+ in recruiter fees: Nahed’s playbook
32:41 – The strategic impact of training (and how to budget for it)
38:38 – Common pitfalls: promoting great ICs to manager
42:37 – How to assess (and coach) new managers
46:16 – HR as infrastructure: how to make people your competitive advantage
47:08 – Getting AI-ready from the ground up
53:46 – Nahed’s #1 tip for founders: build people infrastructure early

About Nahed Khairallah
Nahed Khairallah is a global HR strategist, entrepreneur, and founder of Organized Chaos. With over a decade of experience helping startups and scaleups grow from seven to nine figures, Nahed is an expert in transforming HR departments from back-office support into growth engines. He specializes in workforce management, strategic hiring, and aligning people operations with business outcomes.

Resources & Mentions:
Nahed Khairallah’s website: https://organizedchaos.fyi/
Connect with Nahed on LinkedIn:   / khairallahnahed  
Korn Ferry: Business Acumen Study: https://www.kornferry.com/
The quote from David Katz, CEO of Plastic Bank: "Learning without doing is treason":   / david-katz-4b66178  

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