Interview Transcript

INTRO:  

Welcome back to CCL’s podcast, Lead With That where we talk current events in pop culture, to look at where leadership is happening, and what’s happening with leadership. 

Ren:

This week at the time of recording, Tesla told the Texas Workforce Commission it plans to lay off around 2,600 people over a 2-week period in June. Now this is amidst a more than 10% layoff of Tesla’s global workforce. Some numbers track it as high as 20% of Tesla’s 140,000 global headcount. But like many of us out in the world and on LinkedIn, I didn’t know about Tesla’s firings from Forbes, or Fortune, or the news. Nope. I heard horror stories from countless Tesla employees about robo-emails, badges not working, and cold shoulders from bosses that used to be friends.

Nico Murillo, a former production supervisor at Tesla, has a brilliant post about how much he cared about his work and how little he was cared for when they let him go. But why should companies care, Ren? I mean, we talk about this all the time. Who cares? As Samsung knows, they’re instituting a 6-day work week for their senior executives to inject some “crisis energy” — their words, not mine — to respond to their lowest financial year in decades. But I’m sure if the 6-day work week doesn’t pan out, those employees will be treated with respect and kindness if they have to be let go, right? Right?

So join us today as we explore some of these corporate decisions and their immediate impact on the people that work at these places, or they used to work at these places. And maybe what you can start to do to help lead in the face of all these things. Imagine if you still had to lead a team at Tesla. How in the hell would you do that? So welcome back everyone. I’m Ren Washington and as usual, I’m joined with Allison Barr. Allison, how would you convince someone to work at Tesla, now?

Allison:

Do I have to? Because I wouldn’t.

Ren:

Yeah. Imagine you worked there and you were one of the people that Tesla still will tell you they respect and appreciate and would never let you go by a robot email. “And we need you now, Allison, we need you. We need you to rally the troops. Numbers are flagging, so do better, Allison.” How would you convince someone to work, or come to work at Tesla, or stay at Tesla?

Allison:

I have said in previous podcasts that one of the best things that you can do is look at your workplace objectively. And I stand by that for the reasons that we’re talking about. Your workplace is going to look at you objectively if and when the time comes for layoffs. And so, if I am being me, representing me as Allison, that is the career advice I give people personally. So I don’t know that I would do a great job of convincing somebody to work at Tesla. I might say, “It depends. Do you need a paycheck? How desperate are you?” Those are some of the questions I might ask. What about you?

Ren:

Yeah. I don’t know. I was floored. Well, we talked about this a little bit, I thought right when it was happening, and Nico’s post wasn’t the first one I saw. I saw a post from another woman, and she talked about she was at Tesla and her great experiences. “It’s been such a great time at Tesla, and I stayed there for the people,” and what we normally see. And then I was like, “Oh wait, what happened ?” Oh, Tesla fired her, and they fired a whole bunch of people. And then the way that they did that, I guess only if I had real insight into what senior level, whoever pushed that button to make that decision, only if I had a real insight that their behavior would change. Would I be able to maybe honestly try to tell someone, “Hey, have faith in Tesla”?

Allison:

Right.

Ren:

I think what I might try to do is … maybe we can have faith in each other?

Allison:

Maybe. I don’t know, right? That’s hard to say too because leaders, sometimes leaders are tasked with the firing, as a lot of times they are too. So I can understand so clearly how people don’t trust leadership. And it’s interesting, Ren, right before we got on this call, I was talking to one of our brilliant researchers, Jean Leslie, all of you who are listening give Jean Leslie a Google. Some of her research is fascinating, and we are, I’m just very grateful that we work with her.

We were talking about the state of future, really what is needed, one of the things rather for future leadership that’s needed that perhaps we’ll get into a little bit later, is the ability to think more broadly about your workplace. This is not what Jean said, by the way, what I’m about to say. This is how I’m interpreting it for this conversation, is really thinking about leadership now and future leadership. Leaders have no choice but to think about things in a more global way. It’s not just about work anymore. The Elon Musks of the world, I think we’ve gotten used to just hearing about layoffs, especially in the tech world. But also, this story’s really interesting too, because if you rewind and back up, what’s very interesting about this story is that the state of Texas gave Elon Musk $64 million in taxpayer money to build this facility, this super center really, with the agreement that he would create jobs.

And so that was sort of the excitement was around, “Oh, well you’re going to create jobs for our hard-working Texas folks.” And the messaging was sort of around this Texas pride and working pride. And now here we are, he’s laying off 2,700 people at the super center at the same time. Consequently, he is asking for a $56 billion payment package for himself. So it’s just an interesting story to look at from a lot of different angles. So I’m curious, you mentioned a couple of stories from employees, which I’m sure a lot of people have seen. I’ve seen them too. Employees being responsible for the work of 7 to 10 people, not receiving the legal safety training that they need to do their jobs, not receiving proper equipment for worker safety.

I saw a story of somebody who lost a couple of fingers, a woman who inhaled so much dust, she wasn’t given a mask, that now she has respiratory problems. So it’s no surprise that worker injuries have skyrocketed. But all that to say, this is a much bigger story that’s, in some ways kind of complex, in some ways it’s very simple. But what is your response to hearing about the backstory of this, asking for the money from the state of Texas, and with the whole messaging around that was “jobs, we’re creating jobs,” but now we don’t have the jobs.

Ren:

Well, I mean, we can get into a big socio-economic conversation and think about what are people really incentivized and rewarded to do? And frankly, in America, we are incentivized. Businesses are incentivized by a bottom dollar. And so what I was thinking as you talk about this, what is my reaction to this? And I go, “God, it’s so disappointing or it’s so discouraging.” Or I keep on thinking about maybe things will change. But then sort of like, if not for this most recent story about the Texas layoffs, would we still be talking about Tesla? And frankly, who is still talking about Tesla? Because at a moment I was like, “Oh dang, how is anyone ever going to want to work at Tesla again after hearing about these stories?” But then Elon asked for a $56 billion package because Tesla is still valuable in the world and people still want to work there. So I think my reaction is, I’m quickly becoming apathetic or maybe numb to this idea. Why could I expect anyone to change when they’re not incentivized to change?

Allison:

Do you mean the Elon Musks of the world, or generally?

Ren:

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Or we were talking about the Spotify CEO too, and they did their layoffs in December, but now they’re feeling, like, the reverb from letting a big chunk of your workforce go. And it’s like, “Ouch, that stings.” But these people seem so tone-deaf; moreover, they’re so elevated from a standpoint of what does a $56 billion payment package look like or when you’re a part of, when you’re taking some of that money, how attached could you be to someone’s real experiences? And so then, too, if your bottom dollar is not limited, and if you’re investing in Tesla and you’re on the board, your home in the Hamptons isn’t being diminished because Nico Murillo doesn’t have a job anymore.

Allison:

Right, right. And both stories are a bit of a bootstraps mentality. Some of the research that came from the World Economic Forum about the future state of workplaces really in the economy ties directly to this. And I’m going to get to that in a second. But when we’re talking about Spotify, that story blew my mind a little bit. Knowing that layoffs will have an impact on your workplace seems obvious. However, I know that in the tech world, Spotify — again, this is in the tech world — Spotify is a bit smaller. It is a global company, but it is a little bit smaller. And the larger tech companies have sort of started a bit of a trend of mass layoffs, continual.

That’s what we’ve been hearing for years with the assumption that the work is just going to get done. And again, from the top down, it just feels like a bootstraps mentality. Just work harder. Okay, well you’re asking people to do the work of, depending on the organization, 10 to 20 people, or more than that, with the same resources. So how could you not think that that’s going to impact your operations at Spotify? I don’t understand.

Ren:

Or make a conscious, I am going to curse out loud because it’s so frustrating, make a conscious freaking decision that if you’re going to cut your workforce, then maybe that should coincide with a natural dip in output.

Allison:

Perhaps.

Ren:

And then everyone in the organization, stakeholders included, have to be like, “All right, we’re reducing 10% of our flow.” And it’s not because people were doing 10% less work, which I think is what “suits” might be thinking, “Oh, we can just push them to do more.” But if you’re going to do that, have a recognition that perpetual growth is a weird viral thing, a contamination like we’ve talked about. It’s okay maybe to slow, to rebuild, to flatten a little bit, and then arc back up. It often reminds me of why so many organizations stay private, because the moment you go public, then you’ve got public investors who are only demanding one thing, which is what they’re incentivized or rewarded to demand, which is more money, more revenue, increase in product and profit.

Allison:

And to your point, we’ve talked about it before, it cannot be about endless growth. There’s a cost that comes with that. And again, Tesla’s related to this as well. But going back to the World Economic Forum research that I was just talking about, what’s interesting in some of that literature is that they found that “systems thinking,” like air quoting here, which we’ll get specific about in a minute, but that systems thinking is such a non-negotiable competency right now, especially for senior leaders and above. Because if you can understand that if something negatively impacts a system at your workplace, we can’t afford to have all of these employees. So we’re going to cut some employees. That’s system A. Taking a hit on that system is going to impact the rest of the systems. It’s a domino. It’s impossible. It’s impossible not to. And so it is a bit surprising to me to hear some of that commentary from these very, very senior leaders.

And I don’t know, maybe they’re showboating, playing dumb. I have no idea if it’s actually true that he didn’t think it would impact the rest of the organization. But that systems thinking is an absolute non-negotiable competency that leadership needs to have right now and moving forward. And not to mention the psychological impact that layoffs have on human beings. Even if you lay off, Ren, you and I have a small team of LSPs and if half of our team got cut, which for me and you this is actually a reality from the semi-recent past, but we would feel that. That would be glaring. It would be glaring. So there’s a psychological impact that layoffs have on human beings as well. And I think that needs to be factored in, too.

Ren:

Well, I like the systems thinking, and I think that’s where I wanted to start, because it’s the idea of how do you even ask someone to work at an organization where, think about the promises, and maybe Tesla has a really clear value proposition where you walk in the door and, “Guess what? We don’t really value you as human, but we have really, really competitive compensation packages. There’s just no guarantee that you’re going to get fired by a person. You might just find out one day when you wake up in the morning, waking up at 4:30 in the morning to drive your first 2-hour path to work to then find out that you’re removed. That might happen to you, but still work here.”

So I guess maybe then when I think about the system impact, if I were trying to recruit people for Tesla, maybe that’s the pitch. They’re being really honest with people, saying, “Hey, that was crappy, and it’s not going to change, but you can make a difference here. And we work for the people.” For me, it’s like these discretionary efforts and … so many parts removed for me can impact my desire to contribute time, effort, energy. The CEO of Spotify said his people were doing too much work around the work, and that contributed to the fire or the layoffs in December. And now he’s realizing that, “Hey, maybe there’s that, the work around the work is some of the things that makes our company move and go, and makes it interesting, makes people want to put in more effort.” Even if I spent 30 minutes at the coffee station talking with someone about something I enjoy, does that mean that I put in an extra 90 minutes doing work that I like to, that I feel good about? I mean, we think so, but these companies think not.

Allison:

Right. And he proved himself to be incorrect anyway. I mean, right?

Ren:

Yeah.

Allison:

Again, I don’t know the details about, more specifically, what he meant other than what you’ve mentioned around the work around the work. However, there’s research, not even just at CCL, there’s research in a lot of organizational development firms stating you have to have some level of connection amongst employees. I’m not saying you need to be best friends, but some level of connection between employees to have an effective workplace. So his argument, not only did he prove himself to be wrong, it’s just not factually true either. And people aren’t robots. What do you expect? So I think this is a good case study, too, of what can go wrong if you do assume that people can behave like robots at the workplace: go to work, put your head down, get your work done, no small talk, no nothing. Get your work done. And that’s an example at Tesla, too. People are getting injured, people are having life-threatening injuries from that. So it doesn’t work.

Ren:

Yeah. It reminds me, I know our Office episode just released, but it reminds you too of that scene in the office where Dwight’s like, “No wasted time.” And then Jim’s got a stopwatch, and he’s kind of teasing him for every waste of time. And so Dwight’s so stuck up in his own rigidity around rule-following that he loses sight of how silly that kind of thing is. So in Jim’s tracking him for time, Dwight’s contributing to an environment that wastes more time. And so it is funny, these ideas. It becomes a vicious cycle and not a virtuous cycle. It’s like, you guys can do more with less. You can do more with less people, and we want you to do more, and we need you to produce more. And it’s like producing more with less availability actually contributes to more time, more space, less institutional knowledge, more injuries in the workspace. I want to start to take a different tact here, and I want to press us because I don’t think anyone cares. I don’t think anyone cares. It’d be interesting to see how damaged Spotify is, and now we’re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars, and we’re thinking about $3 billion in revenue versus $3.67 billion in revenue.

Allison:

Right.

Ren:

So I mean, what’s a failure or not? And so what I think I’m coming to is … I don’t know if I could help anyone feel like they would work there, because I’m feeling discouraged. I don’t think companies care. And prove me wrong. What would make them change their minds? Is it the 0.36 billion versus the 0.67 billion that really does it?

Allison:

Yeah, and I hate that I agree with you, because I want to be able to provide a different perspective, but you’re right. So long as we have people who need to work and who might even be desperate to work because of whatever situation they’re in, then we will have these same structures, if you will, these same types of environments where … Elon Musk is going to have no problem finding more people to do the work that these people are complaining about — rightfully complaining about, by the way — because people need to work. So it’s not that people don’t care. I think that the majority don’t have a choice. You still have to work. And so if Tesla is willing to employ somebody who really is in dire straits financially, they’re probably going to take that job.

Ren:

So we work to benefit leaders and leadership for society worldwide. And I think it’s no surprise, listener, that our postures probably have a lot of distaste for these decisions, or maybe distaste for this tone deafness from these senior leaders. But what are we to do? I don’t know. Do we start a letter writing campaign? I mean, do we get on X and tweet … or X, its owner? I mean, I just wonder how we, or in the workspace, start to change the tone or the tenor or just our experience.

Allison:

Yeah, I mean, that’s a loaded question, isn’t it? And I want to go back to what I was saying. I was talking to Jean Leslie about, I keep name-dropping her. So if Jean, you’re listening, you’re amazing.

Ren:

Jean, what up?

Allison:

We’re talking about, and allow me to get sort of heady for a minute, what her research is focused on is the poly, what she calls the polycrisis, which in a very simplified way is understanding that, very literally outside of your workplace — what’s going on in your community, expand that to your country, expand that to the world — all of that’s going to impact your leadership, and all of that’s going to impact your workplace. It would be silly to not consider that in your leadership. So we’ve talked about “VUCA” before, Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous, and now what organizational development researchers and leadership development and economic, by the way, economic researchers are saying now, is that we’ve moved from VUCA to a different acronym called BANI, B-A-N-I. Have you heard of that one yet, Ren?

Ren:

Nope. Lay it on us. What does that mean?

Allison:

So BANI stands for Brittle, Anxious, Nonlinear, and Incomprehensible. The first time I heard that I felt, “Well, cool. That sounds like —”

Ren:

That’s a BANI statement.

Allison:

… I knew nothing. Right, exactly right. It doesn’t sound like there’s a lot I can do to navigate that. However, one of the things that will be expected of leaders, whether you’re in a traditional leadership position or you don’t have that title, you’re still a leader. One of the things that you need to do is start to look at the impact that broader society is having on your organization. So another example is stakeholders are much broader now than just looking at a company board. So you’re looking at your clients, your customers, your suppliers, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. There’s a war going on in X country. Guess what? That’s going to have an impact on your business. It will, period. So unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, it’s a really good idea to look externally at the world around you and how that’s going to impact your business. It sounds like a really —

Ren:

I don’t know.

Allison:

… scary thing.

Ren:

I mean, principally I understand and I get. It’d be interesting for someone to define brittle for me or anxious, I think. Nonlinear and, what was the last one?

Allison:

Incomprehensible.

Ren:

Incomprehensible.

Allison:

I would actually love to, because let me talk about brittle for a minute, because we’ve talked about it without defining it actually. So the brittle piece is shedding light on how fragile systems are in structures in a workplace environment. Dare I bring up COVID for a minute? I’m going to. But we remember COVID hit the medical system, as a system, and then what?

Ren:

Okay.

Allison:

It’s shedding light on how fragile systems are. We weren’t created to handle, as workplaces I mean, this type of crisis.

Ren:

Well see, this is an interesting, and I know there might be more definitions, but I want to stop here because this is maybe my heuristic that I’m really trying to explore as a leader. What things were built for. We have private medicine in America. The health system did exactly what the whole industrial complex was designed to do, which is create more money, around the illness, that was created from money-creating procedures. We had a virus created in a lab ,because money supports those decisions. Those viruses impact a system that is not designed to help you or me. It’s designed to make money, that’s why Band-Aids cost $400, and then it gets thrusted. And I mean, I guess the people inside of the systems really felt the brunt, but —

Allison:

But that impacted work. You think, okay, something that it would impact, and make a medical system, I hate to even simplify it this way, but “busy,” impacted CCL. It impacted Starbucks, it impacted gas prices, it impacted people being dead or alive. We’re talking about a much bigger global impact that did not simply just impact how medical systems are run or a hospital is run.

Ren:

Yeah. And what I think I’m trying to tap into here is this idea of, remember when we had the financial crisis, the “too big to fail”?

Allison:

Which one?

Ren:

Yeah, which one? Right. In The Big Short, where we had those big banks who were doing the crazy mortgage practices, and then the US government says, “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to make you even larger and even too bigger to fail, because we’re going to link you all together more intertwined into, like, your survival is our survival.” And then when I think about these systems, I wonder who gets punished for these system failings? The people who are punished are the clients, the customers, the employees. And I keep on exploring, but not to go back in time, but whoever Jamie Dimon equivalent is in, you name it, pharma or healthcare or the banking or gas industry, all of the things impacted by COVID, they’re cutting themselves huge bonus checks.

And I think what they’ve been able to navigate through is this idea of, “Well, our primary driver is still to create revenue-generating businesses and products.” The systems are continually designed to support that. So how brittle are they? I mean, I guess, and I’m spinning around here, because I guess it is brittle because it’s fragile, but it will just crumble into, what, diamond dust and then recreate into a phoenix of its own commercial ashes? I don’t know what’s incentivizing anyone to change how we’re operating.

Allison:

I mean we’re going to have to, I think is what your researchers and economists are saying. We’re going to have to, because what I’m —

Ren:

They are?

Allison:

What I’m hearing you saying is almost like, it’s brittle for who? It’s brittle for the vast majority of people, it might not be brittle for Elon Musk. It’s definitely not brittle for Elon Musk. He’s going to be fine. He will be fine. But it’s brittle for 99% of humans.

Ren:

And it reminds me, I think you helped me there, because it’s like in Japanese homes, ancient Japanese homes, there’s something in the infrastructure where the floors creak. And it’s something like, so you know if someone’s in your house or something like that. So it’s intentionally built with an error in the system. And so I’m like, “Who’s it brittle for?” That’s a really good question, Allison, because it’s not brittle for Elon. In fact, maybe he’s building a system that is just on, it’s teetering all the time, and one gust of wind or one big financial decision might spin it in a certain degree, and it’ll hurt people at Tesla who get fired. But I don’t know, it doesn’t seem like it’s paining Elon too Musk. Well, Elon too Musk. That’s funny.

Allison:

I thought that was intentional. That was funny.

Ren:

It was.

Allison:

But yeah, it definitely was. So, let’s think outside of your Elon Musks of the world, because there’s only a few of them, actually, who are billionaires. And to even a small business, or a corporation that’s even smaller, too, leaders are going to really have to think about their risk tolerance. What is our risk tolerance? How are we going to define that?

Ren:

Well, and, as if one could though. I think risk tolerance is being defined for you.

Allison:

How so?

Ren:

The systems of reward and incentive.

Allison:

Say more.

Ren:

We call ourselves at CCL a nonprofit or, I prefer, a not-for-profit, because we do profit off of the work we do. We just put our profit back into the communities that we serve and into our business. So we’re not-for-profit, but even that’s an incentivized tax structure. There’s not a lot of businesses in America that are nonprofit or not-for-profit. In fact, we’re profit-driven centers. We have cost centers, we have P&Ls. And what I think is that the structures of incentive and reward don’t enable us to take risk, or the risk that is taken is empowered by venture capital firms that follow very, very traditional standards about what is acceptable risk, determined by the primary systems of power that would lead to people getting fired by robot emails, because who gives a shit, people want to work at Tesla. I don’t know. Is that, I feel like that’s —

Allison:

Yeah. I mean I think I get what you’re saying, but what are some other risks that companies face that they might have to measure?

Ren:

Like other risks that may not impact the bottom line, is that what you mean?

Allison:

Well, probably every risk will impact the bottom line, right? I don’t know. Either / or.

Ren:

Yeah, I think we’re probably exploring, what are we here to do? What is our business here to do? And again, I think for Samsung or Tesla or Spotify, these people would look at me and say, “Hey Ren, you’re not making a billion dollars a year. You’re in no position to tell me how to run our business. And by the way, our business is designed to do one thing, make money.”

And so I guess in my family circle, we’re talking about how, I don’t know if I can change world legislation, but what I can hope to do is expand my circle of control, which is to start to give back to the communities and places that I live in a way that I want to, where results, or financial results, aren’t the only driver. But what I keep on coming to when I read these stories is, like, how do you incentivize conscious capitalism, right? This idea that we have to rely on the MacKenzie Scotts of the world to just be good people, versus creating reward for people to be good. I didn’t even care if someone’s not even morally invested in being a good person. If I can incentivize them to do so, though, then I’m okay with it. And I know we talk about that a lot …  it’s just some … I feel discouraged when I see stuff like this.

Allison:

Yeah. And I think a lot of people do. So, to your point, I think you’re touching on something important, which is controlling what you can control. And it just depends on where you are, what kind of company you’re working for, what your personal needs are. I mean, it’s a much bigger conversation, and I hate to get philosophical, but we almost have to. Why are you working in the first place? What do you value? What are your needs for your family, assuming you have a family? All of it’s very complicated. And conscious capitalism, that’s a whole other topic. What does that even look like? Should we pause that for now, or can you answer that simply, or should we sidebar it?

Ren:

What does conscious capitalism look like? No, we should have a separate maybe episode around the socioeconomic political structures, maybe digging deeper in Jean Leslie’s kind of that poly-impact. I mean, I think when I allude to conscious capitalism, and you might bristle, listener, because that’s kind of branded when Bernie Sanders was running, because it was like, socialism is a dirty word. And God forbid we have a society that is designed to benefit each other. And I have no problem with capitalism. I’m all about making money. And I think the idea of conscious capitalism, can you make some money that’s enough to help the business thrive, to help your family be okay, and then help others be okay, versus hoarding more. But I think, yeah, there’s probably more to discuss, but as maybe we ground this again back into what an individual can do.

And we often talk about the clarity of your own personal drivers, but I’ll go back to that question. How would I convince someone to work at Tesla? I’d be like, “This is your chance to show the world that, despite your environment, you can be the best version of yourself, where you come to work and you’re driven because of the commitment you have to yourself, and the commitment you have to the work, and the commitment you have to the people that rely on you.” And that’s where I would encourage people to harness discretionary effort, because so many of these Tesla folks were, that’s what their pitch was. In their remorseful story of being let go, they were talking about Nico, “I wake up at 4:30 in the morning, I get this weird email like, ‘Oh, you can’t log in because your thing’s been revoked.’ Oh, I’ll deal with it after my 2-hour drive when I get to the office. Then I get to the office at 6:30 in the morning and I call …”

And so he’s painting this picture of his diligence, his commitment, his hard work, his bleeding Tesla willingness. And I think that’s something that, for any of you, you can’t change the wind but you can always adjust your sails, which is to say that expanding your circle of control simply is, who do you want to be known as? What do you want to be known by? And how do you want to show up, despite how poorly people might be treating you?

Allison:

Yeah, and I know we’re about what, 30 some minutes in, so I’m hesitating to say what I’m about to say, but I’m going to say it anyway.

Ren:

Do it.

Allison:

Which is, the types of employees that you were just referencing at Tesla have been, and probably will continue to be, exploited. So telling —

Ren:

Damn.

Allison:

… telling that person … It’s just tricky. It’s a much bigger, it’s a much bigger topic.

Ren:

I hadn’t thought of that.

Allison:

Tell me to control what I can control. Yes, you are absolutely right. For the majority of us, too, control what you can control. And there’s actually, that’s an interesting topic we might get into in another episode, and specifically how to do that. But telling somebody who probably will continue to be exploited, it’s a little bit different. So anyway, we don’t need to get into it. I only say that for a perspective.

Ren:

No, I appreciate it because it is tough, and I think you and I might fall in that kind of bucket, where despite the environment around us, we’re always going to give our best. And then I won’t let myself be exploited, because I have to give someone permission to exploit me. I have to embrace the mental paradigm of, well, I’m being exploited. Even if someone is exploiting my efforts, or my time, or my willingness, I think I can control some of my approach to that. But it is interesting to say to someone, “Hey, you have a badge. You have a brand for being super diligent, hard work. Here was your reward. You were summarily fired without any pomp and circumstance, so keep doing you.” Right? Well, that’s … how disempowering and how sad might that prospect be. And I think that’s the tough part though.

One of our [faculty], Roberta Kraus, giant in the field, she used to say to people in the room, “You’ve given up the right to work less hard than other people because you’re in this space.” And I think she was talking about this idea. Once you’ve stepped into a role, like many of our participants in our programming, they are stepping in a role, whether implicitly or explicitly, where they are committing to being more, doing more. And in that space, people don’t make it into our classrooms who go, “Ah, I’d like to do my 35 hours a week and I’d like to go home.” Not to say there’s anything wrong with that, but for the most part, there are people come to our programming and say, “Hey, I want to elevate and lift myself. I want to do more.”

And so there is this recognition, and it is incumbent on us who are thrust into those positions where … like imagine you talk to Nico or some of these other Tesla people and you tell them, you’ve got 2 options. You’ve got 3 options, maybe 2 options. I’m really proud of the person you are, and the only thing you can control is continuing to be that hard worker. And yes, you may be exploited, but in the very least you’re honoring yourself and what you’re committed to. Or the other option is, you’re right, you’ve never been rewarded for this, which is not entirely true, you were just recently punished for it. So stop doing that.

And then, at that point, you’re telling someone who’s driven, committed, hard-working, who has the capability of more, to say, in my mind, give up. Because they’ve won. Now their poor treatment of you is going to make you decide to be a lesser version of yourself. And it’s just such a bummer because there’s no win. I try hard to be treated like crap, or I try less hard and am still treated like crap. But I’m sorry, I think you were about to say something.

Allison:

Well, there’s so much to talk about in what you just said. I’m not sure where to start. I just appreciate what you just said. And again, you said just a moment ago, I’m going to paraphrase so please correct me if I misheard you, but something along the lines of like, for you, there’s a little bit of choice in whether or not you’re exploited. Did I understand that correctly?

Ren:

Yeah. I probably think you could … I bet you and I both could feel exploited if we fed that narrative enough. I think that’s sort of what I was alluding to.

Allison:

And I would argue there’s a gray area there. What you said is true.

Ren:

Sure.

Allison:

And in a way that, A, is a bit of a bootstrap mentality, and B, also takes away responsibility from the fact and the ownership of the people who are doing the exploiting. So I’m not claiming to be exploited. I do not feel exploited. Just clarifying that.

Ren:

Nor am I.

Allison:

Just clarifying that, I know you’re not either. But then if you tell the employees of Tesla, and the one woman who now has respiratory problems probably for the rest of her life because she wasn’t given proper training by the company, sure she has choice if you want to be technical about it. Everybody has choice, technically speaking. But there’s a different consequence for somebody like her. So you could never convince me that that woman has choice in being exploited or not.

Ren:

Yeah. I so appreciate that point of view. And it’s harder as we pontificate here in our padded rooms, not because I’m crazy, but because I have pillows, but it’s easy to talk from these super cozy places. And I was just having this conversation with my wife around this kind of idea around what do we let people do to us and how does that change our mindset? And a character that we cite often, I think, in this leadership world, is Nelson Mandela.

And Nelson Mandela was imprisoned, and I won’t even say wrongfully in prison, because wrong and right was determined by the power structures. He was in prison because he had political views that differed from that of the prevailing area. And whilst he was attached to a maybe more violent political arm, for the most part, he was in prison because of his ideas. For 20 years, he spent in jail because he disagreed with another person. That was it. And then he was released when apartheid ended, and he was summarily freed, and they just knocked on his door and were like, “Our bad.” That was it. He had a choice, and he reflected about his choice often. He said, “I had a choice, 2 choices. One, I could keep myself in bondage because I was arrested wrongfully.” Who could be more righteously screwed than Nelson Mandela? 20 years in jail, had a right to just be mad, had a right to be pissed, had a right to say, “Screw all of you.”

But he recognized that that would be him still in jail. Or, he had a choice. He could change his approach and his point of view. And harder still for me to talk about this woman who now has respiratory injuries for the rest of her life. And there is a real option for her to feel righteously victimized, righteously so. Someone, at their own failing, now you have to pay for the rest of your life for their shortcomings. But if she were to stay and give them that power, that resentment, they continually did this to me and continue to serve as the righteous victim. — I have some guests coming, which is fantastic. They’re too early. That’s real time, people. — These people who are righteously screwed, if they continue to say how could I, or how could they, then they’re going to continue to put themselves in this space of being exploited or marginalized. And maybe it’s harder still for this woman who’s got the actual physical disabilities. But the premise is, do you continue to give your victimizer power over you, when I can assure you —

Allison:

They’re going to have power regardless. And I’m sorry to interrupt you, but I just have to, I can’t help myself. Yes. What the stories you’re describing are very inspiring and feel good, and what you’re actually talking about is an ability to regulate, an ability to process a really awful situation. That is not even service to Nelson Mandela, but let’s take it to what we’re talking about at the workplace. Sure. Process it in a healthy way, so that you’re not resentful and angry at everybody around you. And also, I can’t help but think what you’re describing also is upholding a system. You’re also upholding a system, because you’re taking yourself away from any sort of action and just going, “I’m going to have a good mental attitude about this.” But guess what? It’s still happening. So I just think it’s a bit of a gray area.

Ren:

Yeah. And I don’t want to marginalize anyone who’s ever been righteously victimized and like, “Shrug it off, dude, don’t let them continue to punish you.” What I think is the reality is everything is happening at the same time. All of these truths are going on.

Allison:

Yes.

Ren:

And I think part of what I’m speaking to, or what I would hope to communicate to someone, is that these people don’t give a shit about you. They aren’t thinking about you anymore. And so to give them any more free real estate is probably going to continue to, just as maybe my point of view is continuing to perpetuate this environment, it continues to perpetuate an environment where we start to fight over personal responsibility as opposed to the systems that are thrusting this stuff onto us. And that’s probably not the discussion. And so I think maybe more … and I think you’re right, there’s gray areas, especially with personal injury where it’s not so easy as like, “Hey, don’t continue to victimize yourself, because your victimizer isn’t thinking about you anymore.”

But like you said, thinking of your environments objectively, realistically, knowing that your company historically maybe doesn’t care about you as much as you might care about them, and that’s okay. And you don’t have to give people the space or the control over, to let the place that you work or the people that have punished you be part of your identity, is I think maybe some of what I’m starting to think about. And maybe that’s the takeaway from Nelson’s story. And it may not directly serve this woman who’s got respiratory issues.

Allison:

Or the guy who lost 3 fingers.

Ren:

Or the guy who lost 3 fingers. However, I mean, yeah, there likely too could be something around, damn, it’s like, that did happen and they deserve to pay for that. And I think a lot of people just pay for their injuries for the rest of their lives, even as the other group hasn’t.

Allison:

Yeah, agree. Right. And so I think, I know we probably have to wrap up. I feel like we’re just getting into some good stuff, so maybe we can continue it. But I think too, going back to what I said earlier is related to what you just said as well, is thinking more broadly about your organization. Like Tesla, for example, legally was not providing the legal training for these employees. Was not providing it. That’s an organization’s responsibility. And one of the reasons why they’re going to just, that’ll just get swept under the rug, is because of the money that they have to get that swept under the rug.

So again, it’s like, yes, just think about things more objectively. So you asked me at the beginning how I might convince somebody to work at Tesla, I think is what you said. And it is talking about, we’re understanding workplaces objectively, understanding that they’re there to make profit, regardless of what their mission says on their website. That’s lovely. I’m sure that’s accurate too. But at the end of the day, they’re there to make money, and some organizations take advantage of that and exploit people in different ways that you might not want to be part of. So I don’t know, there’s a level of being objective, and understanding bigger systems, and how organizations are handled legally, that can be very helpful. I know that’s not an easy thing to do, but —

Ren:

No, I like it.

Allison:

Perhaps I’ll just leave it at that.

Ren:

My one piece of advice for you maybe is, if you’re really feeling spicy out there in the world, is recognize that the hidden mission statement for any for-profit organization is make them ducats. And then maybe if you go to management like, “Hey, can we paint on the wall, ‘Mission statement number one, make money.'” I mean, that’d be really interesting if people were super honest enough about, “We’re here to make a difference for our people.” Yeah, I bet you are. So forgive me for being a cynic, but I think that’s really interesting, that objective reminder.

And then, too, I wasn’t trying to marginalize anyone who’s ever been victimized, because I know that it’s hard to navigate those spaces. And all I mean is to allude to your objective awareness that these big systems aren’t thinking about you. And if we think about them so much, and our lives just crumpled before us, and we’re like, “Well, what am I now?” You were the great person that you were when you walked into the door. You were that person before they gave you an identity, and you’ll be a better person after you get out of this. And so I think that’s just my reminder and my hope for any of these people who’ve been summarily displaced because of things in the system that they have no control over.

Allison:

Yes. I like how you’re wrapping us up here, because what I hear you saying is, yes, a really awful thing happened, and that doesn’t change your identity and your humanity and who you are as a human being. And I appreciate that. That’s a good reminder, because we spend a lot of time at work, most of us, and our identity can get wrapped up in our work for a lot of us. And if that gets taken away from us, it can feel … there’s an impact, a tremendous impact. And I think perhaps what I’ll add to that is, if you’re somebody at the organizational level who’s thinking, “Well, what are the skill sets that are needed? What do I do? What is one skillset that I can take away from this to tell my leaders, or I am a leader?” One of the things that came out of Jean Leslie’s research, and the World Economic Forum, is the ability to be more of a complex problem-solver, and more specifically, being able to hold multiple truths at the same time, and even perhaps have more than one solution.

And dialing that in even further is, if you can, having people in the room to solve the problems who may have created the problem. I’m just going to leave us with that mic drop because people are going to be like, “Wait, what?”

Ren:

Next time.

Allison:

Next time. Yes. So thanks for the conversation, Ren, and —

Ren:

Yeah, yeah.

Allison:

We could, definitely could have kept going here. And to our listeners, we’d love to know what you think. Find us on LinkedIn, let us know what your reactions are to this episode. It was a meaty one. And a big thanks to Ryan and the CCL team who works behind the scenes to make our podcast happen. You can find all of our episodes and our show notes on ccl.org, and we’ll look forward to tuning in next time. Thanks everyone.

Ren:

Thanks, Allison. Thanks, everybody. See you next time. Find Allison on TikTok!

Interview Transcript

INTRO: 

Welcome back to CCLs podcast, Lead With That, where we talk current events in pop culture to look at where leadership is happening and what’s happening with leadership.

Ren:

Welcome back to CCL’s podcast, Lead With That, where we talk current events in pop culture to look where leadership is happening and what’s happening with leadership.

Picture this: you’re in a company where layoffs are looming, the air is tense, uncertainty hangs like a cloud, and morale takes a nosedive. It’s not just a numbers game, it’s the holidays, it’s about livelihoods, career trajectories, families, and the emotional rollercoaster for everyone involved. But let’s not forget the flip side; retention and attrition. Keeping talent engaged and motivated in 2023. How the hell do we do that? I mean, that’s the holy grail for any business. And when people start leaving for whatever reason, it’s a wake-up call.

But what if they don’t leave? As recent conversations in corporate America are to believe the new headache for bosses is employees aren’t quitting. No worries though if you work at Spotify, they fixed that problem for you. Yet again, Spotify has released more workers from their workforce this time, laying off 17% or cuts that affect roughly 1500 people. It seems like employees can’t win. First we told you that people were moving jobs too frequently, then people were just quietly quitting, then people were quietly leaving. Now, we’re being told people aren’t leaving their jobs enough or people are just being loudly fired.

Today we explore all of those things that a bit more and maybe hopefully give you something to take with you during these trying times. Welcome back everyone. I’m Ren Washington, and as usual I’m joined with Allison Barr. Allison, when’s the last time you were fired?

Allison:

Oh. Well, I would call this a mutual parting, which was … I think I was 23 or around there. And I was living in a ski town, and I was working 2 or 3 jobs, as a lot of people do in ski towns to be able to afford it. I was working at a wine shop, and was not very engaged. I’ll never forget my boss had a conversation with me, which almost was like a, “Coaching out” of a conversation, but it was the right thing, and I was looking for other work at the time so it wasn’t a firing like a layoff, but it was a mutual parting. What about you?

Ren:

Probably mine was just a straight-up firing, but probably in my early 20s too, at a restaurant. I had made my way through the restaurant industry being a bouncer and moving all the way to a server in this steakhouse. We did service teams, so it was a front and a back server. I remember someone telling me once, “Ren, you’re going to be a great back server.” As a young man with a chip on my shoulder, I was like, “Who the hell do you think I am? I’m going to be the best front server there is.” And so, that was the beginning of the end for me. I probably ruffled some feathers, tried too hard, didn’t do enough listening. And at one point I had talked like, “I’m never going back to being a busboy.” We didn’t call them busboy, but that’s what they were.

And so I got to a point where they’re like, “Ren, we’re going to wheel you back to bus. I think we may have jumped tried too far.” And so I was like, “Let’s just be real, man. You’re getting rid of me.” And they’re like, “Yeah.”

Allison:

Did you say that?

Ren:

Yeah. I said, and it’s something that I think about today, because I wonder if he was trying to cover for, to not pay the employee insurance or whatever, or, I can’t even think of that word. I’m embarrassing myself. Unemployment. Right?

Allison:

Unemployment.

Ren:

And so that was probably my experience. But I wonder, I think I have an idea. You said something like coaching out, and I think I might have an idea of what that looks like or feels like, but what does coaching out of the role mean? Or tell me?

Allison:

Well, this was a long time ago, so let me try to remember. We sat down, and I remember walking in and felt, I could sense something was up. I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced that; you walk into work or in your personal life and you can tell something’s up?

Ren:

Oh yeah.

Allison:

So, I knew something was up and I clocked in and put my things in the back and my boss said, “Can we chat?” And I said, “Sure.” Which sort of solidified something up being up. And she sat me down and she said something along the lines of like, “Are you happy here? I’m sensing that maybe you’re not.” And I actually to this day don’t know how she knew that. I was 23, maybe I was obvious, but I didn’t think that I was coming to work, I didn’t do anything specific necessarily. But full transparency, I didn’t like that job. I didn’t like it.

And I don’t remember what I said. And I was not a savvy 23-year-old. I think I might have asked her, “Why do you ask?” Or something like that. And again, I don’t remember what she said, but we had a conversation about my goals, what my goals in my career were. And if wine was in my future, which it was a not, I just needed a job, was what happened. And that was not. And the environment was, I remember some of the people I worked with wanted to be sommeliers, and they were very passionate about wine. I was not, I was just clocking in, and selling the wine, and leaving, and I did not want to grow. I didn’t want to, I wanted a paycheck. So she asked me about my career goals and we were not aligned. And she’s like, “Do you think perhaps you’d be happier somewhere else?” And I said, “Yes.” And she said, “I’ll give you a good reference and thanks so much for your time here.” I said, “Great, thanks.”

Ren:

Well, that’s such an interesting frame and I’ve heard, and I’ve met people in my life too, who are able to recognize that certain assets or resources on their team need to be transitioned. And with the right kind of coaching, they can walk themselves out. You can realize that in that spirit of partnership that maybe this thing isn’t happening. And yes, that dreadful, “Hey, we need to talk” is definitely that thing you got to look out for. So I think all of us can empathize with that. I wonder if I was in your seat and she said, “Is wine in your future?” I’d be like, “Look, every night.” But yeah, so it’s interesting and we talk a lot about, I think, value proposition and working with employees. And so listeners, some of the things that we’ll discuss today might swirl around some of those topics.

But I think for our purposes, Allison, I’d love to focus maybe on 2 areas in this conversation of attrition, and retention, and layoffs, and keeping people, and one of them was that Wall Street Journal article that said, “The new headache for bosses, people aren’t quitting enough.” And then almost right away then the Spotify announcement comes out and we can even read the CEO layoff memo. And so I’d love to just explore those ideas. We hear in a moment people aren’t quitting, and then the next moment we say, “Well, CEOs are going to solve that problem for us.” And so, starting first with that, people aren’t quitting enough. And I know we were both kind of frustrated with this, “What do you mean?” And so I’d love to hear your read, especially the community watches to say corporate American workers who responded to that idea. What’s your read on that article in the whole bit?

Allison:

Well, the first time that I saw that, and you and I messaged back and forth about it, there were 2 things that were top of mind to me. One was, employees cannot win. They’re quiet quitting, they’re not quitting, they are quitting, the Great Resignation, they can’t win, right? So what would you like employees to do? And the second part of that was something we probably don’t need to get into too heavily, but this notion of media literacy and how trends will spread quickly. Understanding that just because an article has a headline, and has some information that they might be seeing from companies does not mean that it’s happening at your company. And it’s something that I see and maybe you do too, Ren a lot with the people that we work with, our clients, conversations I even have with friends, even neighbors sometimes, “Oh, I hear that people are lazy, they’re not wanting to do…” And where are you hearing that? Right? So it’s very important to have a certain level of media literacy and understanding objectively what is happening at your workplace, or on your team before you come to work with that frame in mind because it might not be true for you.

Ren:

Yeah, I mean, Kim Kardashian told me that people just don’t know how to work. And so, if only we had Kim’s work ethic, I feel like I’d be better off.

Allison:

Right.

Ren:

I think when we start to explore this impossible position that people are in and we’re thinking about how folks can’t win and where we need to go from a company standpoint, I’m really feeling a little lost. And I think part of my feeling lost goes to some of what you said around this literacy idea, that maybe these big trends, these meta trends that we’re hearing aren’t trends but representations of tiny pockets of conversation. And not only do we need to have literacy when we’re reading these media blurbs, but then we need to be understanding the language that’s happening in our own organization.

Allison:

That’s it.

Ren:

And I immediately, when I start to see this, I wanted to ask questions of our own leadership around, “Well, what are our retention strategies? How are we managing attrition?” Especially in a year where so many companies are back on the upswing, but there’s still that looming and pending recession. And so, if I’m a leader and I’m hearing that people aren’t quitting enough and in fact I work at an organization that tells me, “Hey, we have mandatory reduction of staff every year to keep up with industry benchmarks of people quitting.” It’s like I feel like not only can employees not win, but employers are pretty stuck between a rock and a hard place, especially a manager who’s not calling the shots, but is the one releasing people.

Allison:

Yeah, it’s complex and it’s something that you and I’ve probably talked about in previous episodes, it got me thinking about a term that we used at CCL that’s not holistically used at CCL of course, but it’s VUCA, V-U-C-A, volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. And right now we’re certainly in a VUCA environment both at the workplace and external of that. That’s I would say been a trend for a couple of years. And that’s very real, that things are uncertain. Work environments feel uncertain. Economics can feel uncertain at times. And so, it’s inevitable that we’ll have to maybe encounter some bad news at the workplace. And as a manager, you might have to deliver some bad news. And back to what you said a few moments ago too, is that understanding at the leadership level, what your plans are for that is really important. But also balancing that with an inability to predict, at the grand scheme of things, it’s pretty hard to predict what’s going to happen for a company economically next year based off of global economics.

And one thing that I found interesting about Spotify, I’m jumping a little bit here, and we can come back to whichever topics feel most relevant, but Spotify’s memo went public, their memo on laying people off. And what I found interesting, and in some ways I really respected that he took a couple of paragraphs to explain, “Yes, we’ve had some high profits in 2021 and 2022, and here’s why we’re making this decision now.” I think that’s one thing that companies miss a lot when they have mass layoffs is that people will see this company is profiting. Why in the world are we having layoffs, and is it about greed? Is it about something else? They don’t know., And so I appreciated that he took a paragraph or 2 to explain the economics behind it. I think that goes missing a lot.

Ren:

Yeah. And then needing, like you said earlier, media literacy. I double clicked on some of those things trying to find out because I guess this quarter they turned a profit, so did Spotify. But Spotify this year has not made money, and like many service and streaming things, they have not made money their whole lifetime and they’re continuing to try to… Their revenue streams don’t always look positive, but they’ve got this huge brand, so people are like, “You just made millions of dollars this quarter, yet you’re releasing us. Someone help me understand.”

What I will say though, that I think there was something to the CEO’s commentary about giving us some perspective, but from my money, I wish I would’ve seen more kinds of ownership of decision-making. I think a lot of times, people in organizations as they would, are left to pay for the mistakes of the highest reaches of leadership. And when I think about the success of 2020 and 2021 for Spotify, there seemed to be this urgency, like, “The business is doing, good rates are down, we have a desire and a need to increase our work span.” And then in between now and then, there was some business decisions made by Spotify, one of which is doubling down on private or premier podcasts, which is to say exclusive podcasts. Podcasts you can only find on Spotify. And that was one of their plans, and devoting money into that didn’t really pay off.

And now it’s kind of like, “Hey, even I have some of the quote right here from the CEO, to align Spotify with our future goals and ensure we are right sized for the challenges ahead, I’ve made the difficult decision to reduce our total head count by 17%.” And he was talking about how because the cost structure is still too big. And there wasn’t anything, “Hey man, I made a bad decision. We made some bad business bets and now we’ve got to let you go.” Because it’s not like we’re running out of money. It’s like, “We put money in the wrong spaces. So now as he said, to be blunt, many smart, talented and hardworking people will be departing us.” And so I don’t know if I’m so much, I don’t feel as good about some of his messaging, maybe. Reactions?

Allison:

Well, yes, a few. Let me just go back in the future and remind you, if you’ll remember, do you remember BetterUp’s layoffs in 2021 where the CEO held a Zoom call and in the matter of 3 minutes, 3 minutes was the Zoom call, saying, “You’re part of the unfortunate group that’s being laid off effective immediately.” And it was pretty abrupt, lacking in any adequate compassion you might say. And so that would be an example of what not to do. And I’m curious from your perspective, what would an adequate ownership sound like from a CEO? What would’ve made you happy in the Spotify that you just mentioned? You said it didn’t feel like there was ownership.

Ren:

“It’s not just that the cost structure is still too big. We as leadership have failed to get the cross structure to a way where we can keep your jobs.”

Allison:

Got it.

Ren:

Now granted, I mean, Ren, it’s easy for you to say that to have someone sacrifice themselves on the altar of corporate America because like a CEO does that the board looks at it and they’re like, “Well, we can’t show weakness. You’re out of here.” And then all of a sudden we’re like ChatGPT, you got CEOs in 3 days. And so there’s this frantic reaction. So I understand that it’s not that easy, but I think if you’re a listener out there, especially a manager who’s in a rock and a hard place who has to let someone go, even though you didn’t have any part in it, I think what I would’ve loved leadership to do is recognize that, “You had no part in this, and this is a failure of the business, not a failure of you, it’s a failure of some decision-making.” And ownership in, “We needed to tell you earlier than through this memo, we needed to prime people for this eventual change.”

But I think it comes down to something that we always talk about, just a transparency, honesty, vulnerability. Leaders are holding cards so close to the vest and then all of a sudden it’s like, “Guess what? You’re cut. And why are you cut? Well, we couldn’t fix it, but it’s not like we, it’s just like the cost structure is still too big. We don’t know how it’s still too big, but it’s too big.” And so, I guess I’d probably want a little bit more of that leadership courage to say, “That’s on us.”

Allison:

Yeah, I think what is interesting that you and I are highlighting right now is that you can’t please everyone, because that to me personally, I don’t know that I would need that as much, as I would want to know more about financials. From what I know, granted, I might be lacking information because I might not be the CFO, I might not be on the finance team, but from where I sit, I see that we’re doing quite well. And maybe, I don’t know if this is true, but just maybe there hasn’t been that communication around financials being not great this year, for example. I would want to know why is this happening if we’re doing okay financially on paper, right?

But again, I think it’s really hard and I don’t think that CEOs can win and don’t want to downplay the impact this has on employees because those people who get laid off. A, might be losing a job they really like B, they’re losing their access and their compensation. Some of them might be losing their health insurance, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, right? And again, another thing that I liked that Spotify did was cover all of those bases outright. It’s towards the end of the article, I don’t know if you saw that, but they lay that out outright because that’s where my brain would go immediately is like, “Okay, I am going to have to find other work. I’m not going to have a paycheck for. How long am I getting severance? What’s health insurance going to look like?” I’m going to be thinking about how to take care of myself and my family. So that’s where my brain would go immediately and everybody’s different.

And I could also almost guarantee, I do not know this for fact, but I could almost guarantee you that they had either a PR firm help write that, or somebody in marketing or somebody who’s savvy about that kind of messaging, I would assume, write that memo.

Ren:

And I’m inclined to agree with you. I don’t know much about the Spotify CEO’s messaging capabilities, but typically, yes, some firm carries this and tries to do it. But it sounds like you were satisfied with that towards the end of The Layoff Memo as it’s being infamously called, is that there was some recognition and commentary about how Spotify will support those who are being let go. And that’s not just a cold break. And so, that’s something worth kudos.

Allison:

I don’t know. Kudos might be too big of a word.

Ren:

I’m not trying to trap you.

Allison:

I think it would ease my anxiety if I just put myself in that position. If I got a memo, the first communication about a layoff was a memo and not a conversation, again, we can get into this if we need to, but I understand why that happens too. But if I got a memo, I would have anxiety of not knowing, am I going to lose my job? Me being me, I will probably think the worst because that’s who I am. And I would start planning, “Okay, well I’m going to have to look for a new job. What if?” The what ifs would start to come. And I think that’s very natural and that was covered for me. So that would ease me a little bit. That would ease me a little bit. If I am part of this group, here are the things that will be provided for me which might buy me some time as I look for another job.

Ren:

And those what ifs, I think is what I’m trying to get at. And I’m reminded of our CCL adage, “Slow down in the power up, time spent on the front end is time saved on the back end.” And you and I we’re in this industry of learning and development and corporate America, and we are familiar with engagement surveys. And if you’ve never taken an engagement survey, it’s when your organization tells you that they care about you and then makes you do a survey every 2 years to see how much you’re being engaged. And we do ones, all of our partner organizations, most of them do them. And there’s the interesting metric in engagement surveys, which is the turnover metric.

Allison:

Isn’t it?

Ren:

Which is that there is an expected amount of turnover, in fact an encouraged amount of turnover. Healthy organizations have a certain amount of turnover. And so you would think to yourself, “Wait a minute, you’re telling me, Ren, that when organizations lose people, that’s good?” And what I’m telling you is that the industry would suggest that there is a healthy amount of turnover to make room for new talent, to make room for talent to evolve, and so on and so forth. So I wonder, would it be helpful if when I was brought into an organization and after a certain amount of time I was informed of the what if, that, “At our organization we anticipate X percent of turnover. And if we don’t get that turnover, guess what?” I guess, maybe I want to hear the what ifs-

Allison:

Do you?

Ren:

Earlier so I can be prepared to know. Well, wouldn’t you want to know that, “Hey, by the way, we turnover 10% of our workforce every year.” I don’t want to be surprised when I find out that, oh, I could be at risk that 10%, but you don’t want to hear that. Is that what I’m hearing?

Allison:

No, because well, I know that already, probably based off my job and my education. I know that. I do not need to be reminded of that. That feels, so again, we’re highlighting differences how hard it is to please everyone. Depending on the leader, that sounds like a threat to me.

Ren:

Like, depending on who’s delivering the message? 

Allison:

Yes. And how it’s delivered, like, “Just so you know, if X, Y, Z doesn’t happen by…” Maybe, but maybe not.

Ren:

It wouldn’t be individualized. It might be in the State of the Union or whatever that is. We have so many standing meetings and if layoffs are part of our DNA, rather, if an organization is expecting to honor those metrics, to have a healthy… Our favorite thing, people, I’m air quoting to do, “Healthy turnover,” I know I’ve just recently heard of massive organizations saying, “This is how we roll. We’ve got to make space for all of these new mergers, and acquisitions and new employees. It’s just policy.” And I guess I would want to know if an organization is going to make staffing decisions based off of that, then that would be really great to know upfront.

Allison:

Well, I think it also plays into that conversation that people have quite a bit that, you and I have already talked about this to some extent, a company loyalty. Why are you loyal to an employee when they’re not necessarily loyal to you? By the way, those are not my words, those are words that I hear out there in the ethers. Right? And the interwebs and such. I think it’s a good idea holistically, regardless of the position you are in at your workplace to understand objectively what a workplace is, objectively first, and then you decide how you react to it.

But to your point, Ren businesses plan for people leaving and it’s not the only thing that they rely on to keep their costs in check, but it is one of them. And so again, it’s just a good idea to know these things holistically. You also brought up engagement surveys. By the way, high engagement does not mean high productivity. It might, but that doesn’t mean that necessarily. So I caution leaders from relying too heavily on that, which is not what you said; I just want to make sure that is said. Because high engagement only means high engagement. That’s what that means. It does not mean that your financials are going to all of a sudden explode positively. It does not mean high success. It does not mean high productivity. It might, but it’s a bad idea to rely only on that to assess your organization.

Ren:

Yeah, I’d be wary of building causal connections. However, I might argue that there’s probably some strong correlations between higher engagement and higher organizational success. I don’t have the data, that would be conjecture. You’re shrugging, so maybe we’re in the same boat there maybe.

Allison:

Yeah.

Ren:

But I think something that’s important to what you’re saying is all of these are just points of data, multiple points of data, and you’ve got to collect all these bits of information to make sense. And I think as we’ve alluded, you can’t please everyone. You can’t be all things to all people. There’s never a world where 17% of the organization is gone and everyone’s going to be happy about how it happened. Unless the CEO is like, “Guess what I’m doing? I’m not taking a salary this year to make sure 1500 people can.” Now that would be fun and interesting, but I mean, what’s the realism of that when I have 4 kids who go to an Ivy League school, I could pay for it. Now I’m underwater because I’m living the American dream, which is to say, outside of my means. And so I think-

Allison:

But pause for a moment. Can I pause you for a moment?

Ren:

Okay, let’s do it. Yeah.

Allison:

So, I’m not disagreeing with you. I’m simply just asking, is that sustainable though? Let’s say the CEO doesn’t take a salary and that saves a year. Then what?

Ren:

Then we, I as a CEO, I am really committed for us to right-size the cost structure by next year.

Allison:

But what if the economic environment does not allow for that?

Ren:

Then you release your layoff memo, and you say, “Everyone, I tried. I tried. Last year I didn’t take a salary, I kept you off for one more year. And I told the entire organization, we need to fix this. Not for music, not for industry, but for the people that work here at this organization.” And then you say, “Look, I didn’t do it.” And so maybe everyone’s so enamored by your sacrifice that they keep you on a CEO for another year or maybe you lose your job and 17% get cut anyway, so I hear you. I’m not saying anything in perpetuity or forever, but what a weird world where someone says, “Sorry, I failed with the strategy I’m paid millions of dollars to execute. So sorry, everyone, you’re out.” I could see that a lot of people would read between the lines and say, “I had nothing to do with this decision making, but I’m paying the bill.”

Allison:

Yep, absolutely. I agree with you. And again, that’s why part of me really encourages people to look at their workplace from an objective perspective. It’s a workplace, it’s part of the economy, it’s part of driving the economy. It’s in a lot of ways, not always, but in a lot of ways is completely impersonal and transactional. At the end of the day, if this kind of stuff happens to a business, they have to find ways, whether it’s what you said with the CEO, there are a lot of different ways that companies navigate this kind of stuff, but, “We didn’t plan to lose money. The economy’s suffering.” Whatever the cause is, you will be looked at as an employee objectively you will be. So it’s a good idea to also look at your business, not in always. Again, I just want to clarify because you and I think could probably agree that you and I put a lot of heart and soul into our jobs, and a lot of people that we work with do. I’m not going to stop doing that just because my business is objectively a business, but I also know not to be too attached to that, and realistic.

Ren:

Yeah, I love that. I often, I tell the kids this all the time, it’s like, “Don’t let other people’s behavior change the person you want to be.” And so I think we talked about too, in the realm of quiet, quitting, I think the biggest solve for that is cultivating pride in yourself and your own work. And so, I refuse to perform lower because the environment says you should perform lower. So I think we agree with that. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. I think though you can only really make that decision if you are coming into the circle, eyes wide open. And it’s interesting, as I love to do, I just cite movies and I just watched the new Netflix movie called The Killer, Michael Fassbender, and I think the guy who did the movie Se7en, I don’t know, super weird, lyrical kind of slow burn, but there’s a scene where Michael Fassbender and Tilda Swinton are talking at the end and it’s 2 hitpeople… (You see how inclusive I am?) …2 hitpeople talking about this and she’s reflecting on, “I know I deal in this business and I prepared myself for this moment. And no matter how many millions of times I’ve thought about it,” she’s like, “I’m surprised that I’m not ready.”

And it’s interesting, I think of CCLers, I think of people put their heart and soul into the work, who care about the people they work for, work with the people that we get to work for, and then we get hit with like, “Hey, the business,” we did, a lot of us had to experienced it during COVID where we had that massive reduction in force and it was just like, “Uh, me? This could happen to me, but I thought we were different.” Or no matter how many times I prepared myself, I didn’t think it was going to be me.

And I guess maybe that’s as we start to shift our attention to what people can do about this, whether you’re leading it or part of it’s how can you steel yourself for the eventuality? I love what you said there earlier; the business will eventually look at you objectively. They’re going to have to, regardless of how you’re not a number, the business is numbers. And at one point you’re going to be part of that calculation, so just recognize that as part of the data, I can give my heart and soul to CCL, and I am a number in the system and I don’t resent the system for it. I know it.

Allison:

Yeah, I mean, we talk a lot at CCL in different ways than you and I are talking today about navigating the system that you’re in and the system that we are in right now. Again, objectively it will be business first, and businesses have to do certain things to exist as businesses. So again, I don’t want to reiterate what you’ve already said and what I’ve already said, but I’m going to anyway. Is to broaden your knowledge as much as possible. I know that’s easier said than done for some of us, but be able to understand the components of business, and navigate the system that you are in the best ways that you can. Do your job, do it well, fulfill your commitments, and also understand what’s happening in the environment, in the economy, at your own workplace as best as you can. Sometimes that information’s not going to be available to you at your own workplace, but this also takes me back to media literacy and clickbait because this is part of it too. Understand when you’re looking at clickbait as well, which is maybe a whole other podcast, because that can create levels of anxiety that might not be real for your organization. If it’s an opinion piece, that means it’s an opinion piece.

Ren:

Right.

Allison:

Right. So just know that. And a headline that says employees aren’t quitting and it’s bloating the infrastructure for companies, that’s probably not true for the majority of companies. It might be for some, but that’s top of mind for me too.

Ren:

Well, as we head into the political cycle, misinformation is going to be a great opportunity for us to discuss, and continue to navigate what information is there, and what information is representative and real, and what information is there for conversation, which I think all of it needs to be had. And then 2, I think as the people manager, part of what you’ve got to do is be prepared for people to say, “I hear people aren’t firing,” or “Spotify just laid off this,” or, “The recession is still looming,” or how many months have I been hearing about the looming recession? It’s like all these things that someone walks into your office and says, “What does this mean for me?” So not only that, you, I think as a leader, as someone who’s creating buy-in cultivating motivation, create that environment for space to explore those things and boost your own literacy. And if you haven’t read the article, be like, “Oh, let me take a look at that thing.” And then maybe you’ll be able to synthesize a takeaway where it’s like it’s not all doom and oblivion. And maybe it’s just Cutter’s point of view of, “I work for a news agency and I got to build some copy here.”

Allison:

Right. Exactly. They have jobs too, right? They have jobs too. And I think too, your point too, if you’re a leader really, or even a person who’s not in a traditional leadership position, you could still be a leader. It’s inevitable that you probably will have to have a hard conversation at some point, whether that’s with a client, a customer, a colleague, if you’re a manager, with people that you manage, it might not be to the level of mass layoffs, it might not be that type of hard conversation, but developing the skill of having tough conversations will help you to be more effective, not only in these volatile in certain times that we’re in, but generally speaking, it’s going to help you be more effective and have more of a positive impact when things are difficult. And I think if I could give listeners one takeaway on that note, it would be to practice being direct with respect and empathy. So a reminder that, “Direct” does not mean cold necessarily. “Direct” means clear. And having the right levels of empathy and compassion. If you have to deliver bad news, you might practice either in your head, write it down, share it with a friend. You might practice it first, if this is not a skill that comes easily to you.

Ren:

And I love the practice and I love the repetition, and I love the note that you’re saying around just the social process of leadership. More often than not, the manager has to deliver the hard news, but then it’s all the people around that person that have to carry the weight of that decision. Your coworker who was just let go, and your survivor’s guilt as it were, or dealing with just that tension, and pain, and having to help navigate those difficult conversations. I think all you and I would mind too, like a manager or someone who’s actively engaged in the social process of leadership, something else you said, Allison, was, “Often, this stuff isn’t personal, even though it feels like the most personal thing that they’re ever going to experience.” But to that end, people are going to be going through a lot of emotions. And sometimes I find my job as a coworker, or even a boss is to be a sounding board for them. And my best space, try to seek some understanding or just listen, because those things are never going to be easy, especially when you find out like, “Hey, Merry Christmas. Also, you’re all gone.” And I know Christmas is a little centrist, but still, what an interesting message.

Allison:

Right? Happy holidays.

Ren:

Yeah. As a friend, how do you help there, you have too.

Allison:

Yeah, and I think I like what you just said too, because you’re right, these decisions don’t exist in a vacuum. Even if there’s a layoff at your company and you were not part of that layoff, there will still be a trickle down and there will still be an impact to those who are still at the organization.

And so with that, I’d love to direct our listeners to either LinkedIn or CCL’s website, rather than me spending another 20 minutes talking about it, because I know we’re out of time. But there are 4 steps, high level, to having those better conversations when there might be some difficulty happening at your workplace, or there’s trickle down from a layoff or just tough decisions that happen at a company. And the first one is what you just said, Ren, which is listening, and listening from a place of understanding, asking powerful questions. Maybe if it’s appropriate, offering some challenge to people’s ways of thinking or supporting them. And to your earlier point, which is establishing accountability and next steps. And those 4 tokens come from CCL’s Better Conversations Every Day, which you can find a lot of information on our website about. So I just think it’s a helpful place for people to look rather than us spending another 30 minutes talking about it, which I would love to.

Ren:

Yeah, that model is really important to me, because I find it so applicable.

And if you heard Allison talk about, what do you mean challenge their thinking, sometimes someone loses a job and they think that’s it for them. There’s nothing left for them. And that’s maybe the thinking that you can do in a challenging and supportive way. Be like, “Are you sure? Because you’re more than this work and you’ve likely got a lot to contribute.” And so, I think those are really great behaviors to build and work toward.

And maybe too, from my last one, it’s just prepare yourself and without any malice or judgment or condemnation on yourself or the organization. But when times are good, it’s easy to be complacent. And then when times are bad, it’s easy to be reactive. And I think that there’s some really intentional opportunities for you when times are good, be proactive. Don’t find yourself caught in that delusion that you thought it was always going to be this way. And when times are bad, because you’ve been proactive, what can it look like for you to not be complacent and rest on your laurels, but continue to build your own future? I can’t encourage people enough to remind yourself that your agency, your ability to take control of some of your own decisions might just be the only thing that can keep you grounded and feeling empowered in an environment that, as you said, is absolutely volatile, and uncertain, and chaotic, and ambiguous and sometimes full of anarchy.

And so, all you can do is ground yourself in your actions. And maybe too, I said it earlier, and that’s as I’m wandering to it, just don’t let anyone else change who you want to be. What’s your best self? And try to achieve that, regardless of the things around you. And I think that you might feel a little bit more empowered and not so lost by these things.

Allison:

Yes, that’s a great tip. And it comes back to what we say at CCL a lot, which is lead yourself first and stay grounded in who you are first. So I think that might be a good place for us to stop for today. And Ren, I look forward to seeing you in the new year. It’s going to be here before we know it. I will resist the temptation to be cliche. I’ll resist it for now. And let our listeners know, thanks for tuning in. You can find all of our podcasts and show notes on ccl.org. And a special thank you as always to the CCL team who works behind the scenes in getting our podcasts up and running, and we will look forward to tuning in with y’all in the new year. Thanks everyone.

Ren:

Thanks everybody. See you next time. You can find Allison on TikTok.

Interview Transcript

INTRO:

Welcome back to CCL’s podcast, Lead With That, where we talk current events in pop culture to look at where leadership is happening and what’s happening with leadership.

Ren:

At CCL, our primary goal is to develop leaders and leadership for the benefit of society. At Lead With That, our hope is to look around the world, to see examples of developed and developing leaders who are making a difference and contextualize that, and just have a real conversation about it.

But so often, especially recently, we are continually faced with seeing a lack of developing and developed leaders and leadership. Time and again, I look around and I see structures of leadership failing, and time and again, we ask ourselves why? We ask, how can we do better? We ask, shouldn’t we do better? And I don’t mean humanity, though my answer is, yes, we should do better.

But I mean, at CCL and anyone who calls themselves a leader, and I’ll be honest with you, Allison and I often struggle to find glittering examples of leadership, and it’s hard being John Krasinski with the good news. And I’ll also be honest with you, we’re a bit tired of running away and avoiding talking about the real things that are happening out there in the world, and the real role leaders and people like you play in it.

So today we’re going to zoom out. We’re not simply going to talk about leadership in your work or with our clients. We’re going to talk bigger picture, about leadership in the world, about leadership in our future, about leadership and the role that all of us play in making this place just a little bit better, especially for those of us who lead.

Welcome back everyone. I’m Ren Washington, and as usual, I’m joined with Allison Barr. Allison, who’s the best leader you’ve ever had and why?

Allison:

The best leader that I’ve ever had was… Well, her name still is Ellen. I was going to say was Ellen.

Ren:

Great.

Allison:

I’ve had many Ellens manage me by the way, lead me, I should say. So this is Ellen G, should she be listening. Ellen with… Last name starts with a G, I won’t name her. She, I would say had a really keen ability to balance empathy with directedness. And she was consistently transparent, really willing to have conversations with people. She didn’t necessarily agree all of the time, but was willing to enter into conversations that might be difficult, that managers avoid. I would say she was consistent with developmental feedback. You always knew where you stood with her. It might not have been good news, right? But you always knew where you stood with her. I would say there were high levels of trust and consistency in her leadership style.

Ren:

And I couldn’t help but wonder, and I’m thinking too, did any morality guide her perspective as a leader?

Allison:

Any morality? We’d have to ask her, I suppose.

Ren:

But nothing you ever noticed or nothing she made explicitly clear?

Allison:

Well, tell me more about what you mean?

Ren:

Just talking about goodness, I think. The more I think about our work and what’s going on, the more I keep on thinking about a leader’s job to facilitate goodness, but I want to be careful because I’m not bound by moral goodness. Those of you out in the world who know me, well, I’d like to think I’m good, but maybe morally ambiguous, but I just wonder… So she made an impact. She had these things, she was a good leader. Did she facilitate a positive environment and how did she do it?

Allison:

I think what she did very skillfully was transparently help everybody to understand the environment that we were in. She was also, and still is a very positive person, and she didn’t shy away from the hard stuff. And that’s what I admire about her, is that sometimes things were hard. Sometimes we failed. Sometimes we didn’t make our goals. Sometimes we didn’t like her decisions.

Allison:

Actually, what I admired more was navigating those conversations and facilitating dialogue around when things weren’t so great, which I think is a lot harder to do than to look around and say, “You know what? Everything, here are all the good things that are happening.” When you do that, the negative stuff still exists. So it’s a great thing to be positive, but especially right now, I think we have to be careful that we’re not bypassing some of the tremendous heartache and obstacles that people are facing. I think that’s worse.

Ren:

Yeah. Things are not good right now, and I hate to be so morose. There are pockets of goodness everywhere, but when I think yes, things aren’t good and we’re not able to, I don’t even think bypass the negativity because there’s so much negativity, but I did wonder how do you lead in an environment where even that’s debated? And I was just talking to my son’s friend’s mom. I was working out the math and that we were outside and we all, for those of you who know, we live in Highland Park, Illinois. My wife and I live less than a five-minute walk away from downtown Highland Park where that horrendous shooting occurred. And my son’s friends were there and everyone’s safe, but some people had… they all had to run and flee, and we’re all dealing with the fallout from that.

Ren:

But one of the things that we’re dealing with is we were just having a discussion around the playbook, the playbook of who comes out after a gun atrocity happens in America? About both sides who come out, about the NRA, who talks about, “Everyone, shore up, they’re coming after your guns now.” About the Dems or left who come out and say, Everyone, we want to get rid of the guns,” or whoever says that, or the people in the middle who are here to agitate. We had a rally to support those who are mourning and there were people who were advocating the protection of Second Amendment rights across the street as if there was a debate, instead of just the mourning.

And so how do you facilitate as a leader, or even have a conversation when people are so vehemently opposed with each other, when they look at each other and like, “Nope, not a tragedy that messes with me, or too bad for you, this is good for me?”

Allison:

Yeah. That’s a big question. And in some ways, it feels like it shouldn’t be that hard. Your experience is your experience. And for me to invalidate that would be a terrible thing. It seems like basic human treatment to acknowledge you have gone through a terrible experience. Your son did as well, your family, your neighborhood, your community, to hyper-individualize and experience where somebody has gone through great trauma and pain, and probably loss for a lot of people is a scary thing.

You asked me, “What can you do?” And I went the opposite way, only to acknowledge that you could have a differing opinion than somebody and still give them space to share their experience or grieve their experience, or navigate their own experience, versus saying, “Well, you’re coming after me now, or that was just deployed to go after your right…” Whatever, whatever people are saying, right?

It’s this focus on others that is holistically lacking. It’s a lack of community. It’s a lack of caring for people that has me feeling frankly, a little bit scared that we cannot acknowledge someone else’s experience. Your experience is your experience. So again, it feels very basic. At the same time, people aren’t able to do it.

Ren:

Well, I think we’re getting at some of the route that I want to start to explore here, and in talking about the things that we care about, that we have as our experiences, and that idea of community and how maybe we’re losing sight on that or that togetherness. And I wonder if you and I can’t use one of the spaces for conversation in this space, just thinking about you and I were talking about a couple of things that we could talk about today around leadership’s big picture role in society. One of them being the horrendous shooting there. Another one being the Supreme Court Roe v. Wade, and a plethora of other decisions.

But it’s really interesting as you use that language, and I think you and I share wholeheartedly our opinion on where we stand and what happened with Roe v. Wade. If I’ve never expressed that I’m aligned with you, I am. However, I wonder using your language as I contextualize leadership’s role and how damn hard it is to have meaningful conversation that makes a difference in people’s lives, you said we have to appreciate each other’s experience. For those people who think Roe v. Wade was a travesty and for those people who celebrated the overturning of it, how do you facilitate conversation that makes us better, as opposed to agitates us and makes us worse?

Allison:

That’s tricky because I think there’s a lot that goes into what you just said in the specifics of Roe v. Wade or the specifics of the Highland Park incident, and it’s very tricky.

Ren:

Yeah.

Allison:

I have friends who disagree with me, who… I will clarify. I have a friend who disagrees with me and was celebratory over the overturning. And I need to acknowledge my own mental state before I get into a dialogue with her because I want to have a productive conversation. And if I am feeling rattled, we’re not going to be able to, so we have to set ground rules.

I want to hear your perspective and my request is that you hear mine as well, otherwise I’m not going to enter into this conversation with you. I’m not going to, so it’s tricky. If you can’t have both people open to dialogue and controlling and regulating their emotions, these are 2 topics that are emotional for people, if you can’t regulate your emotions, then it’s not a good idea to be in those conversations.

Ren:

And maybe that’s what… When I was thinking about structures of leadership failing, our inability, damn it, our lack of practice and managing emotion.

Allison:

Yeah.

Ren:

And we talk about emotional intelligence all the time and I think maybe as we start to say, “Well, what is leadership’s role?” Damn it, I pause. You know what? Actually, I think some of the scariest leaders out there, they do manage emotions really well. They manipulate them. They use them for their own means. We were talking and we didn’t really explore it last time, but we could have in more depth, is Elon Musk a leader?

Allison:

Yep.

Ren:

And I was like yeah, a crappy one, but still a leader. And there’s so many people who are in these positions of power who are just miserable. And maybe he’s not an example. I’m sure he is a complex human being, as they all are. But when I look at the animus that exists between us, there’s no level-headedness like you just recognize around yourself. Even a recognition if I have to own where I’m feeling, to want to have a conversation. I don’t see enough people in roles of leadership doing that and it reminds me then, well, maybe those people who have the title don’t have all of the power.

Allison:

Yeah. I would agree with that. And I also want to acknowledge, these are precarious times. And when I managed people, these weren’t the conversations. These were not the conversations that we were having. I shared before that I was a manager in a time where there was a mass shooting too, actually, and those were handled as well as could be handled. And it’s so tricky because I remember a specific leader in that company saying, “We have to get on with business. We have to move forward. So we’re not going to be talking about this.” So it’s just interesting, right?

And in terms of having a toolkit to navigate these types of conversations, I don’t think a lot of people were taught these skills, like as human beings, even growing up. I think it’s okay to look at our culture. I think it’s okay to look at history. I think it’s okay to look at education or lack thereof. There are a lot of complexities that play into this. And interestingly enough, I was facilitating a session on influence this morning. And somebody said to me, “How do you differentiate manipulation and influence?” Which is sort of what you were just talking about using, controlling their emotions to a negative extent, right?

And part of the difference is, am I using my influence to think about what it is that you need? Or am I thinking about my own needs? And I think there’s a lot of leadership right now that is heavily focused on individual needs. What can I get out of this? Well, if I tell everybody that some made up science about a woman’s body just made up and consistently say it with clarity, and it’s shocking how many people believe that. So there’s influence that’s being used for bad, rather than good.

Ren:

I always think of that dynamic of the manipulation. And I use Michael Angelo, doesn’t he manipulate the clay to make beautiful pieces of art? So I think manipulation doesn’t have any inherent villainy to it, other than the fact that humanity has, at least Americans have used that word, in our lexicon to describe ill-behavior. And I think you highlighted there, influencing to what end?

Allison:

Yeah.

Ren:

Am I influencing to serve my own ends? And then you’d have to investigate, well, are those ends diabolical? Because I would actually tell some people, I’m one of them, I’m really introverted. If I don’t meet my own needs, I can’t meet the needs of others, and maybe that’s a different conversation that we’re alluding to. I think it is, but when I think about leaders and leadership, I think too often, I’m faced more and more with the idea that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. One of my favorite phrases.

And then I look at leadership and regardless of the titles and phrases that you would use, when I think about the people who are setting the tone for what happens, I keep on thinking about where power really lies and the social process of leadership? At CCL, we talk about the important distinction between a title doesn’t give you leadership power or authority necessarily, or maybe the more sustained power and leadership and authority comes from those connections that we have with each other, those people who don’t have titles, that silent majority. And I think all of us, a lot more of us, the silent majorities aren’t divided, we’re united. And I think we’re kept quiet by systems that are designed to maintain themselves.

Allison:

Yeah.

Ren:

When I look at leadership structures, aren’t they designed to perpetuate that leadership structure across most systems? And then, okay, well, when I think about people who really move and shake in organizations, sure, I need to talk to so and so to get decisions made, but if I don’t have one person on my side, then it’s never going to happen. And that one person is an executive assistant of so and so or something. And it’s trying to unlock more of that potential and power in those quiet places where leadership really thrives, is what I’m trying to make sense of.

Allison:

Yeah. And I want to back up if that’s okay, because this is important.

Ren:

Please.

Allison:

This is important to me, is that there is manipulation where you’re making art or manipulating, I don’t know, whatever, some sort of painting or whatever it is. And then there’s psychological manipulation, which is the means to exploit control or otherwise try to influence to one own’s advantage, and that’s the kicker there, is like, it is negative. Manipulation with people is not good. It’s negative, it’s inherently negative.

And so I think leadership in general, we could serve to investigate different avenues of leadership. I think you’re right. In the US, if you keep uncovering or peeling the onion, if you will, where did leadership start? Where did this come from? Traditionally in the United States, we’re a very Eurocentric model of leadership, and I think of this Roman Empire where it’s fighting and who can come out on top? And that’s not how CCL defines leadership. It is what you said. It’s a social process and how can we uncover those nuanced behaviors of leadership that aren’t so outdated, frankly outdated? This isn’t what people need anymore. So how can we shift it?

Ren:

And I think we, you, me CCL organizations like it, and anyone else who would fashion themself as a leader, we are it. My son was confused after July 4th. He was confused about a lot of things, but he was really confused about why things like this keep happening? And I’m inspired because his generation and generations after his are going to look around, much like we did when we look at past things and say, “What the hell were you all thinking?” And I always think about one of my brilliant examples. They were like, “Hey, pregnant ladies, smoke cigarettes. It’s good for you and the baby.” And now we all look at each other and we’re like, we’re freaking crazy. And I got to imagine, years from now, they’re going to look back and like, “Damn, how could you all be so dense?”

And maybe I’m just thinking about… I go back to the thing I said about goodness. I don’t know if there needs to be morality of what’s good or bad, but I know sure as shit that we’re not doing the right kinds of things if things like July 4th can happen, or if things like we are so desperately desirous to please these polls, when so many of us are like, “Can’t we find a middle path? Because so many of us would need it.”

Allison:

Yeah. And the interesting thing about what you said is that, gosh… See, this is where it gets messy because I feel like I have to be careful and I’m… Most Americans did not want, the majority of Americans did not want Roe to be overturned, and supposedly we’re a majority culture. The majority of people want reform in terms of what happened on the 4th, and what continues to happen. By the way, there were 15 more shootings since then, 15.

So most Americans want reform and that’s what I mean in going back to manipulation. The messaging that’s being communicated by people who have power is not true, and so that is inherently a very big problem, a very big problem.

Ren:

Yeah. I often reflect on marketing departments and their skill. If anything, the major debate for me, and we’re not going to dig too deep into this, but pro-life, pro-choice was just a branding win. How could you ever defeat-

Allison:

Oh.

Ren:

Pro-life? Who would stand in opposition to life? And I think what an unfair, balanced presentation of an argument that, going back to something you said earlier, is much more nuanced when we need to identify each other’s lived experiences, to have a conversation like, “You and your friend are going to be an interesting nexus of what the world can hopefully do.” Two people who care about each other–

Allison:

Yep.

Ren:

Who disagree on something that’s core to them. How do you come to the table and have a real conversation? Because frankly, that’s most of us. Regardless of how you feel about what Allison and I are talking about right now, we are ill-equipped, myself included, to have a healthy, measured conversation about things that I vehemently and spiritually, and philosophically disagree with because I just don’t have enough practice. And I think leaders don’t demonstrate space for practice. Instead, they demonstrate ways to shore up your defenses.

Allison:

Right.

Ren:

To manipulate in the worst kind of ways like you were talking about. Instead, I think about those uniters, those unifiers, those people who advocate, but bridge and connect, and do all of those influence tactics that serve as the glue in these communities. The people behind the scenes who get things done, not the people shouting the loudest.

Allison:

Yeah. Again, another interesting conversation, I actually overheard this conversation, if you’re listening and this was you at the airport, I’m sorry, but I overheard, which somebody said, “There are people I don’t want to be united with. I don’t want to be united with people who are violent.” And again, I’m being cautious here but, “I’m not going to be united with a White supremacist.” So what do you think about that?

Ren:

Right.

Allison:

White supremacists, by the way, White supremacy, that’s not a values conflict. I guess it is, but that’s not someone I would… I don’t know. Tell me what you think?

Ren:

Well, I often do this. So we talk polarities a lot in my household because we are leadership development people and our kids are going to hate us, and they’re going to go to therapy and be like, “Oh, I don’t like no leadership development stuff.” So my wife and I do this kind of work and we talk polarities management in this space, Allison UI and all of us, around a lot of things aren’t challenges or rather problems to solve, but challenges to manage. Inhaling and exhaling is a perfect example of the polarity of 2 things that you need to do equal of.

And I would say, White supremacy or hate, those aren’t polarities.

Allison:

Right.

Ren:

That’s a problem to solve.

Allison:

Right.

Ren:

When someone would marginalize, minimize and cause harm to someone, that’s not a paradigm… that’s not a polarity. I often use like racism is not a polarity to solve. I don’t know if there’s an overabundance of what are the good things of racism? Like that’s not–

Allison:

Right, but you will hear people say, “We all need to get into conversation,” and that’s not going to do anything.

Ren:

Well, we might need to have a conversation of… There are different things about a polarity. What the polarity of conversation and racism we could talk about is the in-group, out-group polarity, of over-indexing on an in-group, over-indexing on an out-group, and vice-versa, and that you could boil down, that’s just outside of race. So you could think about that in general human connection.

So what I couldn’t help, but think about though, when you were talking, was the subjectivity and combination of villainy. You were using White supremacy as someone who doesn’t want to coordinate, people not wanting to be united with. I know people who believe the same level of villainy for those who would broadly support legislation that supports a woman’s choice. That is on par with the villainy that is White supremacy.

Allison:

Right. And so, I think they’re in my point, right? There’s a quote, and I’m going to butcher it because now I can’t remember exactly who said it, but it’s like, “If you remain silent about oppression, you’re the oppressor as well. You are the oppressors. Can’t see oppression, you are perpetuating oppression.” So that’s a whole other podcast. I don’t know if we want to go down that rabbit hole. I’d be happy to, but I don’t know if we need to or want to right now, but a woman’s right to choose, taking away a woman’s right to choose, women are going to die. A lot of women, a lot of women are going to die, and it unequally will be worse for communities who have multiple marginalized identities.

So it’s going to be disproportionately impacted. If you cannot see, or even try to learn about that. Again, this is another conversation. That’s what I mean by if you’re someone who believes that a woman who has an ectopic pregnancy with a fetus that’s not viable in the first place, the fetus is not viable. The only chance that woman has to survive to live is to have that pregnancy terminated. So you’re telling me that… how pro-life is that?

Ren:

And what an interesting manifestation of how violently the pendulum swings around what we were talking around, where like the polls are making legislation or calling out these things when normal people would say, “Well, wait, isn’t it weird?” Even people in my life who know, who actually, who are looking forward for new kinds of legislation and conversation to manage this idea of a baby’s life and the sanctity of it differently, recognize that, whoa, whoa, whoa. If this means that we’re just going to throw women in jail for that very thing… Some of the legislation that I’ve read is talking about just zero excuse, for anything. Just like you’re talking about.

Allison:

Right.

Ren:

And if it happens and you happen to survive, then all that’s waiting for you is a jail cell because you’ve participated in the death of removal or something. That’s an interesting curiosity around, that doesn’t sound much like common sense. That sounds like a few people who are really leaning into a few central areas when a lot of people are like, “Well, how do we find a path where we can just have some more conversation?” And I think that is where… I don’t know what goodness looks like, and I know that’s a hard conversation to have, but I have to believe that people who lead have a responsibility to do better for those they care about.

And then here we are at the same point. Isn’t that really in essence, what the people who oppose each other on those sides is? Is, “I care about…” I don’t know.

Allison:

Well, you mentioned systems earlier. Sometimes it’s hard to see systems and how we are in a system that perpetuates all of those things that you just said. So we talked about racism, White supremacy, deep-seated misogyny, and sexism was a system that you just reminded me of, right? And it’s almost like… You talk about goodness. It’s almost like a philosophical conversation too, and is goodness possible in these structures? Is it? I don’t know. I don’t know. Is it possible?

And then did you ever take a philosophy class in college or anything?

Ren:

Yes. Big in… I have my existentialism thread, Buddhism, you name it. I’m currently a niellist, so let’s go for it.

Allison:

So I’m sure then, I’ll never forget this. This conversation went on way too long in a philosophy class that I took in college, where the professor said, “If a butterfly flaps its wings in Japan, what impact does that have on you?” And I lived in Ohio at the time, or I was in school in Ohio. “Does that have an impact on you?” And no, of course it doesn’t, but then you start digging, right? You start digging and that’s a more benign general example, but the point is perspective taking is so important, understanding how decisions are made and the impact and the domino effect and the trickle down.

And so that’s what I mean when I said at the beginning of this conversation, we’re hyper-individualized. “Well, it’s not going to impact me.” I live in a state in Colorado, it’s protected. I would be okay, but I care about other people. And I know that there will be a greater impact here, a much greater impact. So I think the ability to take perspectives and look at things and how they impact other systems and other people is a good place to start, but you have to be willing. You have to be willing to do that.

Ren:

You do have to be willing and you cited a friend or someone you overheard who said, “I just don’t want to unite with some people.” And I was talking to a colleague of mine the other day, and they were having a conversation with someone around how they’re just tired. They’re done extending the olive branch, that they’re shoring up their own ends and I resonate with it. Damn it, do I resonate with it? There’s so much that’s making me tired and I’m so… There’s so much in me that’s so tired in the fight that I… instead of stay open, I get closed and I get harder to deal with.

And I think when I start to… We zoomed out and think about leadership and leaders, and I want to zoom back into you, whoever’s listening. And if you would think that you want to lead or need to lead or want to do something different, then part of the onus is to push through that tiredness because a lot of us, we disagree. This nation is predicated off of disagreement. Even when we agree in large numbers, there’s still a whole crap ton more people who disagree in large numbers.

And so we don’t have a choice, but to find those things that connect us and leaders have to find a way to… I don’t know, to recharge because it’s going to be tiring, but we can’t. We can’t say, “I’m done talking to you,” because again, you and your friend, let’s say, that’s it. I’m done talking to you. Well, damn it. I guess, are we going to… Is that worth it? Is it worth it to lose our connection over something that maybe there’s more that binds us? And if we found a way to talk to each other, could we find something that works where someone could look at your ectopic pregnancy example and say, “No, wait a minute. Maybe this is a circumstance where all of us could agree, where there is room for common ground?”

Allison:

Yeah. It’s very complicated.

Ren:

Yeah. Right.

Allison:

It really is. I think if somebody’s harming me in a conversation, I absolutely will close the door on that conversation. That’s what I mean. You have to have norms and respect, and before all of that, you have to know yourself, and that’s where it becomes really hard. I had a conversation with somebody once and I said, “I want to continue this conversation. I have to exit it for now because this is my work. I’m getting really riled up and this is my work. So can we come back to it?”

And that’s hard for people to do. People don’t… It’s just hard. It’s just hard work. So I think it’s always going to come back to self-awareness for me and acknowledgement of like, am I helping or am I harming? Am I helping or am I harming?

Ren:

Yeah. And the hard work being… Reporter Krause, if you’re listening to this, how lucky are we? Mentor, trainer, facilitator extraordinaire, and she once said in a classroom that I was in and something that I say still to people that I work with, as a leader, you’re in this room now, you’ve given up the right to work less hard. You’ve acquiesced your… You’ve abdicated your chance to say, “Nah, let someone else do that.”

And so I just go down to our goal at Lead With That, to contextualize what’s happening out there. And I’m feeling it more now than ever and I’ve just had a conversation with our own leadership at CCL, so I’m not blowing smoke people, that I need to find a way to make a difference, and I need to find a way to bring people to the table that I care about, who disagree with me. I have got to find a way for us to look at tragedy and not get numb to it and shrug our shoulders. There’s way too many shrug emojis and there’s way too many of us relying on a few people who clearly care more about maintenance and maintaining their standard than doing things that a lot of us just look at and say, “Wait a minute, is there something missing here?”

And so I just want to get more voices in the conversation around all of us who kind of scratch our heads and suffer in silence and say, “Should we talk about this?” And it’s going to be hard, and it’s finding a way to push through it because we’re not always going to agree. You and I disagree and we like each other, and we’re on the same damn side, and know how hard it is when people don’t like each other and are on different sides.

Allison:

Yeah.

Ren:

So yeah. I don’t know.

Allison:

Yeah. I think from an organizational perspective, always, but especially right now,  organizations have a responsibility to create that wellbeing and the belonging, the things that you’ve described and overall inclusive environment, which is very hard to do right now. However, all leaders, like you said, need to nourish that inclusivity and it becomes really, really hard. It’s difficult. It’s okay to acknowledge that, it’s very hard. I would say that empathy and perspective-taking are crucial skills to harness, and thinking about… “This person disagrees with me” and just asking yourself the question, “Why?” 5 times. There’s a philosophical structure around this. I apologize, I’m forgetting the name of it. And it’s asking yourself the question, “Why?” 5 times. “I disagree with Ren on XYZ. Why do I disagree with him? Because it conflicts with my values.” Or whatever it is. You have to get down to that root, and then you’ll be able to take the perspective. Right? Okay. “Well, I understand where he’s coming from,” and it’s okay. You still might disagree. That’s okay, but then you start to understand people’s life experiences, the things that are happening right now that will cause people great harm, while it might not cause you great harm, it might for others, and that’s important. It’s important to be able to respect people’s lived experiences, especially those people who are different from you.

Ren:

Yes. And when you say that, I got to remind myself to take my own medicine.

Allison:

Yes. I hear you. I hear you. We can remind each other. I’ll do it too.

Ren:

Yeah.

Allison:

Yep. So I think we could go… I could go on and on and on. I’ll digress. What do you say? Should we… We can end.

Ren:

I know. Well, we got more, right? We’ll load it in, come back next time and we’ll keep talking about things.

Allison:

Yeah. And I think I just want to acknowledge to you Ren and to all of our listeners, it’s okay. Things are hard right now. It’s okay if you’re struggling. We understand and appreciate always the hard work of the CCL podcast team that gets our podcast off the ground and running, and you can find our show notes and all of the links to our podcast on ccl.org. And we look forward to tuning in next time. And as always, let us know what you want us to talk about. You can find us on LinkedIn. Thanks again, Ren.

Ren:

Yeah, we appreciate it. Thanks a bunch, Allison. Thanks everyone.

Allison:

Bye.

Ren:

See you next time.