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Future-proof your leadership with High Octane Leadership, a place where business leaders (whether by title or aspiration) share cheat codes for unlocking workplace excellence, lessons learned along the way, and insider tips for future generations of next-level professionals. With two decades of experience leading and growing multi-million dollar firms, host Donald Thompson is a serial entrepreneur and investor who worked his way to success with hustle and humility. He’s an expert in goal achievement, influencing company culture, and driving exponential growth. A Certified Diversity Executive, Donald is also CEO and co-founder of The Diversity Movement, a multi award-winning product-driven consultancy which offers an employee-experience product suite to personalize diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) through data, technology, and expert-curated content. Each week on The Donald Thompson Podcast, he talks leadership, competitive learning, diversity and inclusion, and business growth through personal development with guests who are shaping the future of work. Find him on Linkedin, and listen here to learn how you can become future-proof too.
Transcript
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00:00:04 - Donald Thompson
Welcome to high octane leadership with Donald Thompson. This season we're diving deeper with more solo episodes where I'll share the experiences that have led to recognition by EY, Forbes, Fast company and others not as a boast, but as milestones on my entrepreneurial path from growing multimillion dollar firms to successful business exits and building high performance teams with a global perspective. I'll reveal the insights and strategies from my journey and share them with you so that we can win together. Alongside these solo episodes, we'll have industry visionaries and thought leaders and we'll explore effective leadership ready to empower your leadership journey with real success stories. Let's embark on this transformational journey together.
00:00:54 - Dana Alligood
We are excited to have you join us today for our discussion with the authors, the co authors of the Inclusive Leadership Handbook which you have in front of you so everybody gets a copy. We also have a couple copies of Donald Thompson's Underestimated book too, so we're going to make sure we get those signed. Donald, if you won't mind, we've got a couple of those. Let me first do an introduction for Donald and for Kurt Meriwether, the two authors, and also for Roderick, who is going to be moderating our conversation today. So let me start with Donald. Donald Thompson is the CEO of the diversity movement, a results oriented, data driven strategic firm offering clients a DEI journey built on digital learning tools and content, conversational AI and analytics, and the companies based in Raleigh, North Carolina. Donald is the recipient of the prestigious EY Entrepreneur of the year award. He has built an extraordinary career spanning diverse industries from tech sales and it leadership to digital marketing and pioneering DEI programming. Donald's strategies are forged from decades of hands on experience and have proven effective in propelling businesses to greatness. His approach also focuses on creating culture centric leaders and organizations ready to win globally. Donald is a graduate of East Carolina University, right? Played football.
00:02:20 - Donald Thompson
I played football there.
00:02:21 - Dana Alligood
Yes, I saw that. And he is a certified diversity executive. So please welcome Donald. All right, next we have Kurt Meriwether. Kurt is the co founder and vice president of marketing at the diversity movement. He led fundraising, product development and strategic partnership efforts that contributed to the diversity movements significant growth and acquisition by workplace options. He is also a certified diversity executive and a thought leader on building teams through the integration of DEI and innovation. Kurt has worked for global brands like Discovery, AOL and Procter and gamble, and product development and business development leadership roles. He is an avid speaker, a workshop leader and a patent holder. Curt holds a b's in electrical engineering from the Ohio State University and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business. He is a south by southwest pitch advisory board member and recently served on the American Marketing association nomination committee. Curt is a lover of jazz and plays piano whenever he can find time. He lives in Durham, North Carolina, with his wife, Valerie, and four children. So welcome, Kurt. And finally, Roderick Lewis is joining us from Wake Forest University, where he is the executive director for global inclusion and community impact with the Wake Forest University School of Business. Lewis is responsible for the development and implementation of school wide strategies to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion geared towards fostering a global and inclusive community. Prior to joining Wake Forest, Roderick served as the executive director for the university Career Services at UNC Chapel Hill, where he led the strategic initiatives to foster meaningful connections between students and employers. Additionally, Roderick is currently serving a two year term as the director of diversity inclusion for the Southern association of Colleges and Employers. He earned his bachelor's degree also in engineering, electrical engineering, from the University of Alabama and an MBA from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He holds dual citizenship in the US and Portugal. So please welcome, Roderick. All right, so, with those introductions, I'm going to turn it over to you, Roderick, and cover anything I missed in the intros. And then I know you've got a full set of questions, so we look forward to having you.
00:04:52 - Roderick Lewis
Thank you. Well, thank you so much for the warm introductions, Dana, and thank you to everyone here today. We definitely appreciate your attendance. And before I get started asking these two gentlemen questions, I just want to let you know, I read this book, and it was just really one of my favorite books I read this year, and I reached out to Kurt and let him know that I read a lot of leadership books, and it's just something I'm constantly doing. And I just found when I started reading this book, I literally couldn't put it down. And so easy, just kind of flip through the pages and really follow the strategies and lessons. And I just found each page. I was just learning more and more, and I really was thinking about, okay, how can I apply this? How can I apply this? And I think that was probably one of the goals of the book, is really that application mode. It's like that. Think and do that, read and apply. So, with that, I do want to start off my first question, and this would be for both of you, but we'll start with you. Kirk, could you tell us what was the impetus behind writing this book? Because there's no shortage of leadership books in the marketplace. No shortage of Inclusive Leadership books or podcasts. Or information. So why this book?
00:06:00 - Kurt Merriweather
Yeah, it was a little daunting. It's not like we created a new category, so that is true. I think we have learned lots of different lessons in working with executives over the years, and we felt like there was a gap in how people were thinking about it. And the idea of Inclusive Leadership is that, and I was just having this conversation before we started, is there needs to be a new model for how people are leading, because the world around us is changing. The idea that one person is going to have the best idea and have that one idea and then change the world alone. Those days are behind us. And so we wanted to introduce this idea that you need teams to work. Well, there's a different expectation in terms of how people are going to lead. And because the world is complex, it's volatile, it's uncertain that you need teams around you to help guide the organizations forward. And so we wanted to codify some of those concepts and put them into one place. One of the things that Don and I do a lot is we have lots of discussions, and we had a long discussion, even on the way here, about ways that we can continue to grow. And so we wanted to share some of those lessons from the conversations that we've had working together for many years and wanted to get that all in one place. And so that was the impetus for taking some of those conversations that we have in boardrooms or c suite discussions and get them into one place and to help people think about that from a cultural intelligence lens. And so that's the area that we felt like was missing. Thinking about leadership is how to be more culturally intelligent as the world around us is changing. So I think those were some of the key things that we were thinking about as we put the book together.
00:07:49 - Donald Thompson
One of the things I would add, and I can be super brief on this part, is that leaders are struggling right now. Things were simpler when you just had the bottom line results to manage and focus on. And now leaders are expected to be excellent communicators, supposed to be empathetic. They're supposed to understand well being, the mental health of your organization, and meet the numbers, but do so in an empathetic way where everybody leaves the building each day feeling good. That's kind of hard, right. And these changes in leadership expectations have really come to bear overnight. And so one of the things that we have the ability to see is leaders at a more vulnerable state and the tools they need to regain their strength, because a lot of leaders keep quiet because it's easier to say nothing, for fear of saying the wrong thing. And so we wanted to create Inclusive Leadership, to incorporate inclusive language, to incorporate belonging, but also incorporate those things as it pertains to winning in the marketplace. Because if you don't link winning in the marketplace, you don't have sustainability as a leader. So then why are you learning all these things anyway? And so one of the things we wanted to do is bridge the gap between kind of the social justice element of inclusivity and empathy, and marry that right with empathy and economics. And we think the book is a handbook form is very action oriented because, like Roderick was saying, there's a lot of leadership books out there. But the way that I do the mental math is if I read a book and I get two or three things that help my business tomorrow, it's worth the book. And so we wanted to give 1520 things right, because we're overachievers like that. And the thing I will say is, Bob Batchelor and Jackie Ferguson and the team that helped us pull all this research together have been phenomenal in helping us be able to put out a great product.
00:09:40 - Roderick Lewis
Thank you very much. And just to piggyback on what you said, and this is not to give too much away in the book, because, seriously, I really hope you read it, it was well worth the price of admission. One of the things I liked about the book is the way you structure. So for each of these competencies or values that inclusive leaders should have, I like how you broke it down into kind of these three components. It would be like, okay, this personal, like this component or this value as a personal strength as an aspiration and then as a team aspiration. Can you talk a little bit about why you set it up like that? And kind of, what does that mean in practice with organizations?
00:10:19 - Donald Thompson
I'll start and then let you finish. So, one of the things that we learned through talking to hundreds of companies, lots of leaders, most of us have taken, Myers Briggs has 360 degree feedback. We've done disk surveys and different things, but very few things. Look at your organization through the lens of your leadership team as a unit, that team of one, so to speak. And so we wanted to structure this book to have impact not only to your personal development and growth, but also the development of those that are closest around you. Because if you get a leadership team to perform better together and look at those seven competencies, when we talk about things like collaboration, I'll use that as an example and breaking down silos. But most people think about collaboration from the things that they're not getting from others versus what they need to learn to give to others to create a better team and environment. And so this book is a great entree to our leader view tool that does assessments for leadership teams. And we use those seven core principles that build up that methodology to kind of create the foundation of the book.
00:11:23 - Kurt Merriweather
The other thing that we thought about is that organizations often focus, to your point, don, on individual skills and capabilities. So what do I need to do? A lot of those tools talk about what do I need to do to be ready for this next role. The reality is what you do in one team is going to be different than you do in a different team. And so being able to give the team the competency to work well together is really important as the team is gelling and coming together. And because there is so much change, the team that you work in today may be different than the team that you work in next week. And so understanding how you show up in each of those teams is really important. And so when we were thinking about that, the key thing was also to think about what can we apply. And so we spend a lot of time, I think, working on strengths and weaknesses versus thinking about what's my area of strength, and how do I master that area of strength and multiply that so that I can be stronger in everything else. And a lot of what we talk about is trying to improve weaknesses. But if you only focus on your weaknesses, then you just become average versus being excellent at the one thing that is your superpower, and then really figuring out how to double down on that thing in the context of the team that you're on, and then also providing reflection so that we can then say, what should I do differently next week? So from my product development background, one of the things we often have is these agile teams. And so in an agile team, the thing you're thinking about is, how do we start a week? How are we making progress? But the most important meeting, perhaps, is the end of the week where you said, what worked, what didn't work, and how can I get better? And so we wanted to make sure that we added the what didn't work, how can I get better part of that to this book, because I think that's something that's missing in a lot of books, is not talking about how to apply things in a way that's going to work. And so that reflection piece was really important for us as we were putting it together.
00:13:18 - Roderick Lewis
All right, thank you. And we're gonna have some application this evening as well, with some of the questions I'm asking these two gentlemen, one of the questions I have for you, and I'll start with you, don. Sure. Successful leaders often learn from failure. You're a leader yourself. You've started multiple businesses, and you've worked with organizations that have gone through various tropes and peaks of failure, if we wanna call it that. Can you share a time when a failure led to a pivotal changing your leadership approach? And then a follow up question to that would just be, how did that experience shape your leadership traits or habits moving forward?
00:13:53 - Donald Thompson
Yeah, I'm smiling. Cause my failure resume is deep. The reservoir of examples is significant. So I was going through my mental model of reading the room and which ones would be applicable. I would say the biggest, really, growth opportunity. About ten years ago, I had exited a business and was doing well and was working with a business coach. And we were talking about, I'm the son of a football coach, former athlete, and I have a pretty aggressive, assertive personality. And so in my businesses, even though it was successful, my turnover was high. Now, some of that turnover was fine with me. I'm allergic to lazy, right. But some of that turnover was very unfortunate, because if people had been treated better, if they had had career paths, if they had had better relationship with their managers, my coach said, how much bigger could your businesses have been? And that scared me. Right. And so I went on a journey and a quest to really redefine the way I looked at interpersonal relationships, right. Not just the goal for the day, right. Because people will do things out of fear, out of losing their job, out of harsh words, but they won't do it long term, they won't do it with joy, and they won't recommend you to others. Right. And so I had to go through that transformation of how to keep a standard very high, but keep morale in an organization at that same level and keep that care and concern together. And so my biggest failure, I would say, is that I was a bit too harsh early in my career. And the business boardroom and the business landscape is not a locker room. And I had to learn that. But I would say that transformation and how it's helped businesses in the past is you can be better, right. Because I flipped the script on that. And now I'm very, very focused on the overall wellbeing and output of my organization and team members. But I still keep a standard very high. The lazy answer is, I have to drive the results. But if you inspire people, they'll drive the results. And that was the lesson that I had to learn through failure, through some good people doing different things. And now the flip side is, whenever I start a new business or different things, I've got a lot of people that are open minded about doing it with me. I have a vast network of folks that are willing to help me evaluate new ideas, network, share leads for growing businesses, because I really changed how I looked at the interpersonal skills that align with the leadership responsibility for the bottom line.
00:16:29 - Kurt Merriweather
The area that I'm thinking about is I worked in large organizations before, so Procter and gamble discovery and the leadership model in those organizations is more command and control. So do this, get this done. You get started, you get an edict from on high, and then you start executing. The problem with taking that to a smaller organization or a startup is that first people don't have the same level of knowledge because the organization is smaller. And so one of the things that I would do is I would start assuming that I had agreement based on a conversation that I had with leaders in the organization. And the step that I would often skip over is explaining why we were doing what we were doing, not explaining the why behind the what. And so that's a gap that I've recognized and continue to work on. The is slowing down long enough to be able to explain why certain paths are the right paths and then having my assumptions challenged and being open to that. So instead of thinking I'm right, well, why am I wrong, and how should I be thinking about things differently as a leader? And so, in smaller organizations, while there might be a power dynamic, the reality is that you want people to do the work because they want to do the work, and they see a path for their own success and what you're talking about. And so that was the. So I've had multiple failures not doing that as well as I should and slowing down execution. The myth is, if I get started, I'm gonna go faster. If I get started right away, I'm gonna get there faster, versus making sure there's alignment first, that assumptions are challenged first, that we have everybody on the same page, and then we can move. And so that's one of the competencies that we talk about in the book around capability. So capability isn't just about your functional excellence. So we see this in technology industries, where you've got people who are promoted because they're the best programmer in the company. And then at some point, it's not about being the best programmer in the company anymore. It's about inspiring a team to get work done and so being able to educate your team so they can be successful is more important than your functional excellence. And so that's something that's important for folks to understand. And that's the root of all my failure. Well, not all of my failures. I've got a lot more failures than that. But the root of many of my failures that have been multiplied is because I haven't done that as well as I should.
00:19:07 - Roderick Lewis
Thank you. So I want to weave in some topics that are going on in society now. And I think that's where I talk about the application of. Of Inclusive Leadership. When you look at, like, the society backlash to a lot of corporate DEI initiatives and strategies, and sometimes a business can fail for many reasons, right? It could be a product design, it could be some environmental issue, legal, any number of breaches, competition. But there are some companies that say, like Harley Davidson, for example, Coors. But like, they made a change in strategy in terms of trying to expand their market, and then they faced some backlash from their traditional customers and they changed course. Where would you categorize that in terms of a leadership failure and a leadership opportunity if they were practicing Inclusive Leadership traits? And it's a long winded question, but.
00:20:05 - Donald Thompson
I think I get the gist of it. And the reason I laugh is I have so many things in my head and I have now a filter over the last ten years that kept me out of hot water. But what I will tell you, and let's use Bud light as the example, if you're not familiar with it. Bud Light did a lot of work with a trans activist, and a lot of their core customers backlashed against that. Stock price went down. That's the thumbnail of the story. Folks would ask me, what do you think about the Bud light situation? I said, the marketing team should have got fired. Your job in DEI is not to lose money and lose customers. Your job is to grow market share. So you have to understand if you as a company are ready to crawl, walk or run.
00:20:44 - Donald Thompson
Just because I believe in diversity, equity, inclusion, I also believe in a profitable business. I also believe in growing shareholder value. And a lot of times what we find that people get really enthusiastic about something and they don't test before they go production. And so when you're doing something that's controversial, when you're doing something that's pushing the envelope, you have to expect the downside and you have to already protect against that. And here's specifically what I think people are missing in some of the things out there. Two or one DEI backlash. I have about 20 videos on that go to our website, DEI under attack. We come up first, and I'm your guy, right? So I'm very happy to have that conversation with anyone. But most people that are attacking DEI don't really care one way or the other. They're in a power struggle.
00:21:31 - Donald Thompson
There is a political arc to this when you make DEI a functional business element, like I'm going to do in this phrase right now. I was talking to a VP of sales of a technology company. He said, I don't want to go to any more of these DEI meetings. They're not helping me get to president's club, and I'm not going to get fired because I have a $30 million quota with my team.
00:21:50 - Donald Thompson
CEO said, would you sit down with him? I said, yeah, we'll see how it works out. And so I sat down with the VP of sales, and he said, don, listen, I don't want to offend you. He said, you can't offend me. I said, I'm black in America. I said, so, like, what are you gonna like? So let's just have a conversation. When I said that, he was like, okay. And then we chatted a little bit, right? And I said, what does one of your sales reps carry as a quota? He said, between one to $2 million. I said, do you care where they went to school? Do you care if they're black? Do you care if they're white? Do you care if they're a woman? Do you care if they're gay? He said, no, I care if they sell $2 million of software.
00:22:23 - Donald Thompson
I said, okay, good. I said, second thing. I said, do you understand that you're gonna be selling to more women in leadership than you ever have before? He said, I absolutely have been seeing that. So do you understand that if you say, you guys, would it be okay if we taught your team how to say person hours instead of man hours? He said, well, that makes sense, right? We'd want everybody to be included.
00:22:42 - Donald Thompson
I said, okay, good. Would you want your HR team to look at a various group of universities? Because if you only recruit for certain universities, you might not have recruited me, who, in my experience, have had a multimillion dollar technology quota. He said, I want people to find the best talent. And we went through a couple of examples that applied to his business, and what we ended up realizing is he wasn't against DEI.
00:23:04 - Donald Thompson
He was against the way it was explained to him. He was against that. It was shoved down his throat. He was against that. Nobody linked DEI to how he could make more money. Nobody linked DEI to the way that he could grow market share and beat his competition. And so when I talked to him about DEI from a sales perspective and how to win in the marketplace, then he invited me to talk to 50 of his global salespeople.
00:23:24 - Donald Thompson
What I do when people are talking about backlash of DEI or negative, I think about it like this, and this is super important in terms of thinking about dealing with folks with different points of view. I don't assume they're negative for no reason. I assume I don't understand the reason. So before I'm trying to fight them, I'm on a point. I want to understand how they came to that perspective. And what I found is a third of the people are not movable. It doesn't matter what the conversation is. It's not movable. And I don't spend a lot of time with that group. A third have just got a lot of bad information, and nobody has slowed down to give them enough education of how DEI can be practical in the way they work, live, and grow. They're curious, and we can move people from curious to committed. And then there's a third of people that love it, that understand it, that believe in it. And so I focus on the folks that are curious. I don't try to convince the actors that have already made a very, very firm stance of what they're for or against.
00:24:27 - Donald Thompson
But in that curious component, people want you to slow down and communicate to them in a way they understand, in a way they see benefit, in a way they can grow their business and their career. And then when you do that, you start to develop conversational momentum, and now people start asking questions. And then when I did that with an executive, I won't name the company, but it was a local company, actually, here in the triad.
00:24:48 - Donald Thompson
And the gentleman was very strong, Christian, and had an allergic reaction to a lot of the LGBTQ education that we were delivering as part of the DEI service. He said, why do I need to do this? I'm a Christian. You're shoving this down my throat. What about my rights? I was like, whoa, hey, listen, man, I get paid either way. Like, let's just turn the temperature down, right? But I listened, and then here's what I described. I said, number one, if you feel like we're shoving it down your throat, then we need to change our tempo. And thank you for that feedback. Number two, we're not trying to change your point of view, your upbringing, your religious stance, but do you have customers that think and live different than you? He said, yeah. Do you think they should be treated fairly in your business? He said, absolutely. He said, that's what we're talking about. Do you think people should be promoted and feel comfortable at work based on their merit? He said, I absolutely want to do that.
00:25:43 - Donald Thompson
So you may not believe in using pronouns, but if it's important to someone else, you should at least realize that the people that are client facing in your business, if you want the trillion dollar buying power from the LGBTQ community, you might want to learn a little bit about it or make a corporate stance that you don't want that money. And so we had a business conversation in a DEI context, and my goal is not to convince people. My goal is just give them a platform of understanding if they'd like to.
00:26:12 - Donald Thompson
And that's how we approach it as an organization a little bit differently. We're not trying to argue with people. Right. That's not productive. There's no money in it. Not for us. Right. For politicians in different things, the more people can get each other mad at each other. That's how they roll, and that's a winning strategy for many. But in business, it's all about how do you get people to do things together for a common goal, that there's money at the end of the rainbow for your shareholders and growth. And so that's kind of how we think about some of the woke stuff and all this different things. When people say this stuff, they don't even really know what it means. Why do you think that? They're repeating gibberish they heard. But when someone says, I feel like I've been left behind in this discussion. That's a very real dialogue. That's a real articulated feeling. I talked to a white business leader, middle aged guy.
00:27:00 - Donald Thompson
He said, I feel like I'm always under attack. Why would I want to go to more meetings, read more things that are always attacking me as an individual. Those are real concerns that we have to manage the communication of the work we're doing so that it is a truly inclusive movement versus one that unintentionally excludes people under the covers of inclusion.
00:27:23 - Roderick Lewis
You want to add anything to that, Kurt?
00:27:25 - Kurt Merriweather
I do not.
00:27:28 - Donald Thompson
I'll get off my soapbox. But you had a hot button question, so that's on you.
00:27:32 - Kurt Merriweather
I think Don is available nights and weekends to talk about this topic.
00:27:37 - Donald Thompson
Yeah, I'm available 24/7 man on the negativity piece. You take the next two.
00:27:45 - Roderick Lewis
Hey, I love the response. Thank you. And I do have a question for you. Kurt. And this is related to what Don just talked about, because that role of that leader within an organizational context, it sounds easy. You read the book, say, oh, this is easy. Wow, you just do ABC. But we know in practice it's not easy because you're dealing with those very barriers and challenges, and change is hard. So my question for you, Kurt, when we think about employee engagement, because a lot of this is around engagement, high performance, productivity, psychological safety and all that. Why is employee engagement a key ingredient in creating an inclusive work environment?
00:28:28 - Kurt Merriweather
Employee engagement is one of those areas. So the challenge with DEI is that people are often misinformed about what it means. And so when you have a conversation with someone, you're already starting from a place of misunderstanding versus starting with employee engagement. So I can't imagine talking to somebody who said, yeah, I'm not really interested in employee engagement. I don't think that matters. And so starting from a point of agreement is really important if you're trying to have dialogue. And so that's one of the things that we found when we started thinking about how to reposition what we're talking about. We wanted to change the conversation, so we weren't spending so much time having these discussions. Like, we were just having a. And the thing that we saw was there's been some work done by the Drucker Institute. So, Peter Drucker, is the culture eat strategy for breakfast or lunch or dinner, depending on how you've heard it. And there were five different drivers for organizational effectiveness. Employee engagement is one of those key drivers. So if you look at companies like Nvidia or some others, Microsoft employee engagement, on that survey that they've done, they rank in the top ten. And so it's also connected to financial performance as well. And so as we looked at employee engagement, the thing that we saw was there is a misalignment between what leaders want and what employees need. And so employers are often interested, and they speak in the language of, well, we need to improve our margins by x. We need to make sure that we're getting this much efficiency out of the system. So we want you to work overtime this week to make sure that we can get this done. And that's not getting people out of bed in the morning. What they wanted to have is their individual needs met. And so when you think about individuals in a team and how to get them excited, how do we think about that in terms of well being, belonging, trust, and making sure that they have a career path? And so that's the thing that as we've thought about DEI is not the end point, but an ingredient into driving employee engagement along with some other strategies, Inclusive Leadership being one of those strategies. But how are we communicating more effectively to people? Do they have a place where they feel safe, both physically and psychologically? What's the relationship like between my manager and me? One of the things that we found looking at Gallup data, is that 70% of the variance in employee engagement is directly tied to the relationship with the manager. So that means individual managers are the ones where culture really lives. So this idea that culture is this amorphous thing isn't true. Most people don't leave companies. They leave managers. And so it's important to make sure that that point is connected as we think about those individual leadership strategies. And so making sure that I'm thinking about the folks that worked for me in our teams and making sure that they've got a career path and that they know that we care about what that path looks like as they go forward. So those are some of the key strategies that we think about. And so starting with this idea of employee engagement in the world, where Gallup says two thirds of people were disengaged in the workplace, about 17% of people are actively working against their employer. So it would be better if they never showed up. That's a sad state of affairs. And so we want to make sure that we're creating an environment where we're using those strategies, where we're meeting individual needs, but at the same time, the organization has the supports so that everyone can be successful, and managers are the ones that are thinking about how to meet those individual needs. And so that's how we think about employee engagement, so folks can be energized and bring their best ideas to the workplace so that the organizations can grow.
00:32:12 - Roderick Lewis
So my follow up question on that, since Dunn said, I can give you two questions. We got two for one here, two for one special. Two for one special. Is that dependent on the size of the organization? And what I mean by that is, as organization gets more complex, it just gets more complex. Right. So you can have these things from the top down. And to your point, they don't always really, like you just said, the troops, the frontline supervisors, if they are not the ones that are executing that message, it's like the last mile for Amazon or last mile for the cable companies back in the day. Remember Taiwan and all that? It doesn't matter. Like, you can have the best intentions at the top. It's like a restaurant. I always tell people my restaurant example, if we found a restaurant together, nowhere, we sit in here and say, hey, man, we want to treat that person like this. We want to treat that person like that. We want them to like, you know, you want the consistent experience because you want the repeat business referrals and all that. So we have that as the founders and owners. But if my service staff awaits staff, waiters, waitresses or what have you, if they're treating different customers differently and not in the way that we want. Now you've created a brand for yourself that you don't want. So the question then becomes, how do you get that message that you talked about, that employee engagement, having everybody march into the same sum, wanting to innovate with it, basically want to treat their job roles like entrepreneurs. They want to create value for you. What are some thoughts around that?
00:33:40 - Kurt Merriweather
Right. So first, it's understanding what our roles are as a leader. And so it's back to the competencies that we were talking about before. So part of my job isn't just to hit the numbers. I don't want to be that toxic. Rock star would be one way that I would talk about it. So you've got folks in the organization that are amazing. They hit their numbers every quarter, but they're burning the people out at the same time. And so there's a significant kick cost to that first glass door exists. And so people look at glassdoor ratings for companies, and that can damage your reputation externally if you've got that happening. And so leaders need to be aware of the impact that they have when they're not thinking about their people as a key resource. And so the core is balancing taking care of the people but also performing at the same time. But you can't have one without the other. And so that's the key thing to think about. And so the organization should be rewarding and recognizing that behavior. And so that happens through compensation, it happens through promotions, it happens through understanding what motivates folks. And so whether it's going to President's club or other things or other awards the organization has, making sure that that model is lifted up is this is what good looks like for a leader and then also providing the education the leader needs to be able to do that. And so professional development is really important. And so whether it's using Inclusive Leadership principles or leader view or the other tools that we have access to, but making sure that there's some sort of focus where people are spending time sharpening the saw. And so we're always getting better as leaders. Leaders are. I believe leaders aren't born. They're made, but you can always get better. And so I think the organization providing time for that to happen, providing support for that to happen is critical. And you can do this no matter the size of your organization. And so that's the thing that I would also say, is that it's easier to engage your teams when the organization's a little bit smaller. Once you start getting to the kind of 5100 people range, then you start to have challenges. And so that's where you have to be more intentional about doing those things as you start to grow as an organization. But that's the key thing, is making sure the managers have the supports they need to support their teams, and then having resources available to team members that might be under distress. So having access to wellbeing solutions where they can talk about work life, family challenges, and making sure they're getting the needs met that way, and then their managers pointing them to that. So it's not the, why aren't you doing this? Do more, do more, do more. It's, well, I've noticed that your performance has been falling off a little bit. Tell me a little bit about what's going on with you and being curious about how to solve some of those problems. So those are some ways that organizations, no matter what size they are, can start to employ some of those employee engagement strategies.
00:36:52 - Roderick Lewis
Thank you. And that's a perfect segue back to you, Don, because building on that kind of idea of this personal care, this caring about your employees, the psychological safety, health and well being, all those things where a lot of times I would say it's hard to quantify, but it makes all the difference. And so one of the questions I have for you is in pursuit of high performance, because you can't confuse having a culture of care, meaning you don't care about high performance. It's almost like saying a nonprofit doesn't care about making money. It's like they do. It's just not going back to them. That's the only difference. But if we say, in the pursuit of high performance, can that be the pursuit of happiness as well? And what I mean by that is, how can leaders ensure they're not overlooking the well being of their team members?
00:37:43 - Donald Thompson
Yeah, Kurt mentioned being curious, and a way that I will say that's very similar is give people space to share where they are and what's going on with them. And so a lot of times we are living by the Zoom meeting and the calendar and going from thing to thing. One of the things I found is that most meetings are not as productive as they should be. So if you have an hour meeting, you have a few minutes to see how people are doing before the meeting gets started. Right. If you have 30 minutes, you can take four or five. Right. And tighten things up. But what I found is by doing that, by really opening the session, especially in the one on ones with, how are you doing? Tell me about the kids. What's going on with you? I don't want to have a different tempo than that person is ready for in that moment. So if I'm listening to a leader and like, oh, man, Don, thanks for asking. My son Jeff, he sprained his ankles to game last night. I'm not sure it's a broke. Anything wrong with someone's kids is on their mind, large or small. That's probably not the moment to give Sarah a lot of instructive feedback of where she's missing the boat. You don't get those signals if you don't ask. When you ask, and you sincerely want to know and want to care and be helpful, what really happens is that people outside of their experiences with you are going to work as if you're there, because now you're a part of the team with them, both in business and in life. We spend so much time at work and so much time with the people that we work with. And so trust is something on that trust barometer that can really go down really quickly with one single interaction that goes wrong, and especially with the new generations coming into all the generations that are mixing within the workplace. So the number one thing to be specific is be really thoughtful and open to just checking on your folks. The second thing that is most important is when you're giving feedback where people need to upskill, get to the next level. Make sure you let them know that you're gonna partner with them to get there. I don't limit my judgment or my perspective on what good looks like, but when I'm describing something isn't to the level that we expect, I also then describe, here's a couple of ways that I can be helpful. Are there any other things that you need so that we can get this project, this deliverable, this revenue goal, to where it needs to be? And now we're in it together, right. And so, again, I'm not absolving them of their part. I just think about it very simply as we're either a team or we're not a team. And if we're a team and we've got a challenge, let's work it together. And when people feel that it's more motivational for them to go attack the challenge, right? And here's the thing. They don't want to disappoint you a second or third time. They're going to go work harder than if they feel demoralized or browbeaten and all those different things. Then they're going to be thinking about, why am I here? Why should I be here? All those negative feelings versus taking the tools and the temperament and the training that you're trying to give them so that we get it right the next time. And that was a big learning for me in terms of how to give feedback, because it was confusing to me. I was like, I'm paying money, okay? And I need these results, right? And to me, it was like a simple calculus, right? But people aren't a simple calculus, and motivation isn't a simple calculus. And so I had to slow down and speed up in the businesses that I run.
00:41:03 - Kurt Merriweather
Just to add to that, I think this is even more multiplied if you think about working in a hybrid in a remote environment. It's even more difficult to have some of these conversations. And so it's more important because you don't have the benefit of walking past somebody to see how they're doing and reading body language, and so requires being intentional. And I was talking with someone who talks about some of the strategies to work well in that kind of environment. And she said, I spend 25 minutes checking on my folks and five minutes talking about projects. And the reason that I shift that balance is because if we're okay in terms of a relationship and I understand what's happening and I can convey that I care about you as a person, then the work is the easier part. And so I think flipping that ratio is even more important in the environments that we live in. And to be intentional about having those check in times, because it is more difficult to operate in this hybrid world that we live in. And so being able to make sure that we're checking in with folks and we're being intentional about that and trying to create rituals like we would when we're in person and then making those in person times even more valuable, almost planning a meeting like it's a big event and making sure that there's a value proposition, proposition for that event and making a reason for people to come to those events. And so those are some other things in addition to the care, but also the ratios and the time that people need to be successful. And the other thing that we found is it doesn't really matter level in the organization. You would think that leaders don't need that, but they do, too. And so making sure that we're providing that level of support, no matter who is in the organization, because everyone's struggling with the same level of anxiety and stress, and we need to make sure that we're taking time to acknowledge that and then do the work. Not doing that and pushing through it always, but making space for both.
00:43:06 - Donald Thompson
I want to add one thing, because I'm pretty granular when I'm teaching or talking or different things, so I want to leave it. A couple of examples from an executive standpoint. Think about things that are going on in our world. There's more school shootings than ever before Roe v. Wade was overturned. There's a lot of employee feelings about these things that are affecting productivity. And so when I talk with executives, executives have their own personal views and preferences on all of these major issues. And so a lot of executors are like, well, my board feels this way. My shareholders don't want to hear about it. They just want the money. Your employees need to know that you care. They don't need to know that you agree with them politically. So you saying nothing if there's a school shooting and you've got 50% of the people that work for you that have school age kids that are now super anxious about the safety of their kids. The email doesn't need to talk about the second amendment. The email needs to talk about the fact that I know some of you are hurting. I know there's a little bit more anxiety. If you feel like you need to take a little extra time to get the kids to school to make sure that you feel comfortable, I want you to know as a leader that we're thinking about you and you care. Just let us know what you need. We have an EAP program. We have folks that you can talk to. We just want to let you know that more than just the productivity of the dollar, we care about you and your family. That's not difficult. That doesn't talk about your personal point of view. That's not what it's about. It's about your ability to understand that other people are hurting in these situations. And those are some of the tactics that we talk to leaders about. So that leaders that amplify Inclusive Leadership don't stay silent because silence is interpreted by your teams is you not caring. And that's something that we really encourage leaders to think about. The silence is not the safety that you think. And so you might as well spend the time to learn how to say something positive, affirming, empathetic, that holds with your values as a company that manages all the things that you have to deal with. But take the time to do that, because I do think a lot of leaders stay silent out of fear, and they don't understand that they're getting the negative feedback within their organization because they've said nothing about things that people are going through in the world.
00:45:25 - Roderick Lewis
One of the questions, I have to follow up on that, Don, one of the things I liked about the book, it references a lot of external things to the organization, like you just talked about. You have these internal types of activities and initiatives that go in the organization. Then you have the external things you just can't control external to you. And you talked about that in the book in terms of, I liken it to like basketball, this inside out strategy. It's like you take care of your inside, take care of your people. They're good. They understand the business they run through a bit raw for you that would pay dividends. External. And those strategies that are external to your organization. Right. You know, community relations and your supply chain and product, you know, safety, all these different things. Can you talk about that? And this is kind of under that ESG framework, if we're thinking about that model, which you also talk about in the book, but talk about the benefits external to the organization, when you have everyone roaring in the same direction and motivated and passionate about your company's business, what does that do in your external operations to build your employer, your company's brand and revenues and all of that.
00:46:31 - Kurt Merriweather
There are opportunities to do lots of things at the same time. If you think about how to leverage the areas where your team lives and works. And so there are organizations, I'll use a couple of examples that think about community service, and there are ways to amplify that community service in a really powerful way. So one is to pick causes that your team is interested in. So let's use your financial services institution. And so one of the things that you could do as a financial services institution is do financial literacy programming in the community to extend the brand and to make sure the brand is amplified. And then within that same program, you can use that opportunity to identify leaders or emerging leaders in the organization that need mentoring and sponsorship. And so by doing that, that allows them to spend time with executives that might have the same cause that they care about. They can take a leadership role in meeting the needs of the community, and then they're gonna be more engaged both in the community, but also at work, because they know that that organization cares about the same things that they care about, which means also that they care about them as well as individuals. And so trying to take ESG is one of those things. That's a loaded term. And trying to deconstruct it to talk about, well, what's the social element of that? I wanna make sure that I've got a strong brand in my community, so that way I can recruit more easily, that it allows me to get more customers because of how I show up. And then it provides a leadership development opportunity for people. And so, combining those three things, and one of the things that Don and I talk a lot about is this idea, if any of you play Scrabble, is triple word score. So it allows you to triple word score because you can do three things at the same time with one opportunity. And so that's how I would think about using things like ESG as an example, but putting feet to it, so it's more concrete. And then you can see through some programs like that and getting other people in the organization, across functions to get involved in those things. So that's an example of how I would see ESG coming to life.
00:48:48 - Roderick Lewis
Okay, so, next question. I know both of you like sports. I had a chance to talk with Kirk before I came here. We talked about it.
00:48:56 - Donald Thompson
I have to correct one thing. I played at ECU. I was a practice team, all american. All my good tape is at practice, but I was good, though. I was straight.
00:49:07 - Roderick Lewis
All right, we all were heroes at one time.
00:49:10 - Donald Thompson
Yeah, exactly.
00:49:13 - Roderick Lewis
But I use a lot of sports analogies, as I know you guys do like sports, and you're always in sports and corporate and military analogies. But thinking of a sports analogy, whether it's basketball, football, and I'll start with you, Dundee. And then Kirk, we come to you. What is a leader of a team, a current team or past team that you just say, hey, this is a coach or an organizational leader that practices Inclusive Leadership. And here's why. Explain to us why and give us examples.
00:49:42 - Donald Thompson
So my mom bought me a book for my birthday, maybe four or five years ago, and the title was eleven rings. And it was by Phil Jackson. And certain times I look at the COVID of the book, different things, but like certain titles, right, earn your respect just through the title, right? Eleven rings. And so he had coached some of the arguably best players to ever play the game, obviously, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal, just household names in the sport. But in order for those teams to be successful, the role players needed to be appreciated. They needed to do their part. They needed to make big shots and key moments. And so a lot of that book was how to get the stars and the role players to integrate in a very powerful way and how the egos needed to be managed. And that's why I enjoyed the book, because what we want to understand about leadership is how do we get that team synergy to be a part of our brand, that team synergy to be a part of our culture. And it takes a lot of hard work, it takes a lot of conversations, and it takes leaders who sacrifice. It takes leaders who understand that they could score more. But if they're going to get that rebounder right, to keep their head in the game, they need to touch the ball, too, and be able to participate. So now bring that back to a corporate setting and Inclusive Leadership. Think about the times and meetings that we're in, and there's two or three people that are dominating the conversation. At some point, a leader has to step in and say, John, can you hold that thought? I know you're excited about the topic. Let's just see if Susie and Joanne and John and Jeff have something to say, and then we'll come back to you. Most of the time, John doesn't even realize he's monopolizing the conversation. He's just excited about what we're doing. He's got some good ideas, he's done his homework, and he's really overzealous. Yes, there's some bad actors and teams in different things, but that's not normally the case. Normally when you remind that of John, it's like, oh, my gosh, I didn't. I got it. Yes, Suzette can't wait to hear from you. And they kind of fall in line because most people want to be thought of as good actors, but there has to be a leader that makes sure that everyone has the opportunity to share. And even if Susan or even if John doesn't want to add anything at that moment, that acknowledgement is still very powerful. And so when I talk about Inclusive Leadership, I really try to drive to the moments of interaction that affect our teams. Bad meetings. Think about if you had a bad meeting or you went to a waste of time meeting. You talk about it at home, you talk about it with your friends. It stays with you. The more that we can create positive interactions within a workday, the more that we're really generating well being and creating DEI in action, not in a philosophy, not in a talking point, but how do we really treat each other in a way that drives the business forward? And so I wanted to just give a couple of examples kind of in the corporate speak, as well.
00:52:34 - Roderick Lewis
Thank you, Kurt.
00:52:37 - Kurt Merriweather
Mine also from basketball. So, I'll pick Pat Riley in this idea of heat culture. So, if you follow the Miami Heat, one of the things that they have at Midcourt is culture, and that's emulated by lots of different companies and organizations in terms of how they build their team. And so there are a couple of attributes of the Heat that I think we can learn from. One is player development. And so if you look at most of the players that the Heat has, with the exception of LeBron and Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh many years ago, they spent a lot of time in player development. So, these are folks that weren't highly recruited. These are folks that you probably never heard of, but they have a strong scouting department, and so they're able to look for specific skills and traits and attributes because they know that these are the players that are going to do well in the heat system. And so, back to companies. That's up to us. When we're hiring people, what are we looking for for people to be successful in our organizations? Are we willing to look past the pedigree and the resume to the skills where you can see that somebody's overcome adversity, the skills that show that somebody's resilient, the skills that show somebody can learn something new? And so that's one element that they use in terms of scouting and then player development, and they really invest in training their. Their players and having the coaches thinking about how to grow them. So, eventually, they're gonna be stars for the team and then ultimately get plucked by other people. So there's player development. The other thing that they have built in is mentorship. So, he's no longer playing, but there's a player's name is Udonis Haslam, and so he had been on the team for 20 years. So they were paying Eudonis Haslam, like, $3 million to play three minutes a year. And you would ask, why in the world would the heat be paying him $3 million to sit on the bench? And it's because of his mentorship. He was such a strong reinforcer of culture, because he could bridge the gap between, here's what Eric Spoeltra is asking you for, and here's what Pat Riley expects. But I'm gonna tell you what this means now, as a player coach, and so being able to have mentors that understand how to do that and relate generationally, because one of the things that we're seeing in the workplace now is we've got five generations of people in the workplace, and so expectations of what baby boomer experiences experienced when they came to the workplace versus a Gen Z, it's very, very different. So I could go on all day about that, but trying to wind this in a little bit, the mentorship is really important. So Udonis Haslam's role is to bridge that gap. Here's the expectation, but I'm going to tell you in a way that you understand it because I'm still a player. And so being able to combine leadership, player development and mentorship is something that strong teams do so they can reinforce the culture. So why is the Miami Heat competing with talent? That's probably not as good as other teams because their culture is so strong and so we can apply those same things and use resources because our cultures are so strong inside our organizations that we can compete and win in the market.
00:55:46 - Roderick Lewis
I could talk to these guys all day about that. So one of the things, and you guys know this, most teams, there's three ways they think they get better. There's draft free agency and trades. And that fourth component is what, to me, very few teams do. And with the Miami heater, that's my team as well. They are the best, in my opinion, at that fourth dimension, which a lot of teams don't really invest in, which has those corporate implications as well. It's like, how good are you at your own internal mechanisms, building bench strength, succession planning the next leaders, versus always having to hire from the outside? We can go on all day. Last question. I have one more, then I'm done. And this is in the book as well. I just want to make sure they talk about it. Before we jump to audience, can you tell us about the TDM leader view?
00:56:38 - Donald Thompson
Yeah, I mentioned it earlier, and I'll take this one and then you take the final one. TDM leader view is different in some very simple ways. Right. And very specifically, it looks at the organizational strength and weaknesses of your C suite or your department leadership as a unit. And that's so important because when you're discussing individual strengths, we really don't overlay them and how they interplay sales between marketing, marketing and technology, technology and operations. And that's really what the CEO needs. Right. The leader of the business needs an organization at the top that is orchestrated and working well together. And Leadervue uses the competencies from the inclusive language handbook. And then what we do, once you take the assessment, and this is the other secret sauce of it, we create a personalized learning plan for each executive that has white papers, micro videos, very small, snackable content. Because we know if you take a leader to 2 hours of training, they leave that training. They're on the phone, they're on 18 different things, right. They might have taken one good thing, but they just don't have the ability for it to stick in that way. But if you give 15 minutes increments of education that applies to them specifically, now, all of a sudden, that seems very realistic to continue to improve over time. And then here's the thing that's awesome about leaders. They want to have the winning score, right? So that's one of the traits of a high performing team. Like, they care. They're looking at it. When we do one on one interviews with the leaders, they're like, okay, I don't agree with this one, blah, blah. But I agree with these two areas. And they develop an action plan, and they don't want to hear that again, because high octane professionals, right. We want to get it right. And they just need the direction, the training, and the plan, and then they'll go execute that plan. Right. And so, leader view is something that we do for leadership teams and people, leaders within organizations. But we try to combine it in terms of how they work with other parts of the organization.
00:58:34 - Roderick Lewis
Anything you want to add to that.
00:58:35 - Kurt Merriweather
Kurt, just real quickly, the other piece is providing data. So sometimes these conversations can be, well, I think I'm amazing. My team doesn't know what they're talking about. Everybody else is wrong. And so this gives us a database way to have that conversation. Cause don's point. I don't have a met a leader that doesn't think that they're amazing, typically. So this will help to diffuse some of that by having that conversation. Like, yeah, you're great, but here's some other areas that you might look at that your team talked about. Let's have a coaching session around that so you have the motivation to make some changes, and then we'll talk to the whole team together. So that's the other thing, I would add.
00:59:14 - Roderick Lewis
Thank you. Can we give these two a hand, please?
00:59:25 - Donald Thompson
Thank you for joining us on high octane leadership with Donald Thompson. Today's episode is a step in our collective journey towards leadership excellence. Remember, every story we share and every insight we gain is a piece in the puzzle of our leadership journey. For more insight and detail, hit the subscribe button so that we can stay connected. For deeper information and more episodes, go to donaldthompson.com dot. Continue to lead with vision and purpose, and until we meet again, embrace your role as a high octane leader in the ever evolving world of business.