Interview Transcript

Intro:

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

Today, we’re diving deep into the human side of strategy, talent development. It’s more than just training programs and upskilling checklists, it’s about building collective capability in a world that’s anything but predictable. We’re leaning on fresh insights from the Center for Creative Leadership and our new research supporting talent development, creating collective capability in unpredictable contexts.

Spoiler alert, traditional approaches aren’t cutting it. In today’s reality where volatility is the norm and certainty is a luxury, organizations must shift from individual-centric development, to building systems of shared learning and adaptability. Think less, star performer, more resilient team. In this episode, we’ll unpack the research’s key takeaways, explore why context is the new curriculum, and share stories from leaders re-imagining what it means to grow talent, or those who are just stuck in the old ways. And whether you’re in HR, a team lead, or just someone who believes people are the real edge, this one might just be for you.

Ren:

So let’s get into it. Welcome back everyone. I’m Ren Washington, and as usual, I’m joined with Allison Barr. Allison, what’s your best talent development perspective? If you were leading an organization and you were like, “Hey, I got to develop talent,” or you’re on a team, like what’s the number 1 thing that you would do?

Allison:

Well, I have 2 answers depending on, like you said, if I was an organizational level leader or a team / function leader. So if I was an executive or a more senior leader, I would start by identifying leadership competencies that are necessary for success in alignment with the business goals. That’s simplified, of course, I know it’s easier said than done. And I think if I were a team leader or a function leader or somewhere in the middle of management, gosh. I was thinking about this before we started, and it’s important to note that those mid-level managers play a pretty critical role in talent and development. They sit in the middle, right, so they’re a bridge between strategic goals and frontline execution. So I think, from a mid-level manager perspective, the first thing I would do is identify the strengths and development areas of my team. That’s the first thing, there’s a lot more to say of course, but that’s the first thing I would do. What about you?

Ren:

Yeah, I think that makes plenty of sense and I was thinking about this and not unlike in the research that we’re going to be going through today, there’s a conversation I think that’s undergirding all of it and we’ll talk a little bit around the end. But this idea of like really focus on an organization’s unique context. And I think talent development starts with identifying internally, for myself, my team, your organization, like who we are, what we are, and how close we can get talent to that. And so I don’t think there’s a wrong answer here, but I think it’s interesting to start to explore this idea of talent development.

I think you bring up an interesting point, like middle managers, you play an important role, but you don’t really get to create, necessarily, the massive policies that guide this kind of talent development. And so I think that’s what I’m looking forward to looking at today. There’s kind of 6 points in our research, maybe we’ll get through all of them. I can imagine just kind of going through them as we go. But ultimately, I think the challenge in talent development is really twofold. And I think we talk about this with our clients, Allison, a lot of times. It’s like first, figuring out the skills, the behaviors and the mindsets that matter the most for the organization, and then supporting the learning of those things across the organization. So sometimes I think people identify it, but then they don’t support it. And I think that’s an interesting challenge.

Allison:

Yeah. And I’m interested to talk about some of those challenges too, because the culture has to support the kind of behaviors that are needed to have a strong talent development strategy and execution. I’m curious, Ren, have you ever had a manager who was really, really good at talent development, or not good? And what did they do?

Ren:

Yeah, interesting. Yeah, I don’t think anyone’s really popping up for me right now. And I don’t know if that’s just a space that I am in my career, because I think we were like go, go, go. And it’s funny, I’ll talk to people or reflect on going to a workspace and one of the characteristics is find a job where they care about developing you. And I think that’s an interesting frame, because people could care about developing you, but then they just don’t have the time to develop you, which is something I think we need to subvert.

But I think generally, have I had a really good one? I think the managers who, yes, actually, okay, just think of one. One of our leaders in our organization, I found this person to be really always transparent, clear with me, tells me things even if I may not like them. And then I think one of the ways that honed in my development, was less like maybe structures or opportunities, but helping me get a little bit more focused on my skill set. I just wanted to kind of do things and he just said, “Yeah, you’re kind of scattershot though, let’s aim more of your energies in a singular place.” And so I think maybe that was a manager who made a difference on me from a talent development standpoint, kind of helping hone my focus, maybe. I don’t know if that works.

Allison:

Yeah, yeah, that works. And it’s curious too, you mentioned, I’m paraphrasing what you said, the impact that it has on an organization, which I’m sure we’ll get into. But I was looking at, not only our research, but some research from McKinsey and Deloitte and some other folks out there as well, around current workplace desires of employees based on generation. And what’s really interesting is that across 5 generations, what those generations have in common in terms of what they want from their workplace is, career growth and development. So I thought that was interesting. And we found in our research that 41% of employees who move to a different organization, said that they left because they weren’t getting professional development. So I thought that was interesting.

Ren:

Yeah. And what an interesting bridge I think, to maybe the first bit of our research, when we’re helping organizations think about talent development differently. And we’re kind of outlying, if you could do these 6 steps, you’re going to be better positioned for it. And one of the tensions I think you just highlighted is, like the number one step in our research, is pipeline.

Allison:

Yeah.

Ren:

And how do we bridge the leadership gap or what we would consider the shortfall between current capabilities and forecasted leadership needs? And I think organizations have, maybe not unlike people in our relationships and stuff, Allison. It’s like we have this, like we take things for granted.

Allison:

Yeah.

Ren:

And we don’t look at the pipeline and be thinking of like, people leave organizations, because they’re not being developed. And, oh, by the way, organization, if you develop people, you’ll be able to maintain your success because knowledge stays in the institution. And so I think that idea of like, what is in our pipeline from a talent development standpoint, externally and internally? Can we-

Allison:

Yeah.

Ren:

Fill in roles or stay as effective if people leave the organization?

Allison:

Right. And yeah, you think about too, if any employee could leave at any given time, for various reasons, it could have nothing to do with not being pleased with their workplace environment. It could be anything, right, any employee could leave tomorrow. And so when an organization isn’t focused on pipeline, it creates, of course, a lot more work for other folks as an organization work to fill those roles. But something you said made me also think about culture too, loosely of course, when it comes to pipeline.

The workplace culture needs to support continuous learning and it needs to support empowering and enabling people to take calculated risks and grow and take opportunities. And I think sometimes at workplaces, leaders press the easy button. And instead of developing talent now, even though they might not need to utilize those skill sets right now, they press the easy button and create a hero culture and rely on the people who can do X, Y, Z versus developing everybody, even though they might not need to be deployed for said skill set right now. So it’s an interesting mindset shift I think that some leaders, not all, will have to make, given some of the external variables that we know are impacting workplaces right now.

Ren:

Well, it reminds me of present bias and I think what I’m kind of tracking with you is saying is like, why should I develop this person when I don’t need them in the role? And an example that’s just recently, that I think is really interesting. I don’t watch tons of basketball and these days sports is so far away from my life just because of everything else in my life. But there was a time where I would care a lot more, but I don’t know if you know much about, do you watch a lot of basketball, Allison?

Allison:

Basketball, no.

Ren:

Basketball, yes.

Allison:

No.

Ren:

Well, the New York Knicks, do you know who the New York Knicks are?

Allison:

Yes, I know who the Knicks are, yes.

Ren:

Okay, just making sure everyone out there knows who the Knicks are, basketball team, right from, you guessed it, the New York. And their coach, this long-standing coach, he led them to their best season in a long time, their best stretch of play this century, which sounds fun, but it’s like in the past 25 years. He won a playoff series in 3 consecutive seasons, advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals this year for the first time in 25 years. And they fired him. And they fired him, because they publicize this idea of like, we are trying to win a championship now. And it’s such an interesting idea, a weird kind of sense making that the organization does, like we’re trying to win a championship now, he didn’t win a championship, so we’re going to let him go. We’re looking for someone to give us more energy to get us over that hump.

Allison:

Yeah.

Ren:

And it’s like, if you look at the record, these things build, he’s trying to build this idea. So it’s almost like a short-sighted pipeline, because the success they’re having now isn’t because of a magic pill they took this year, it’s like over the past 4years of development.

Allison:

Right.

Ren:

And so I think organizations that are able to keep that idea, like, I will need this later, or this is building to something, versus, I’m not going to do it, or worse yet, you’re not winning as much as we need you today, so you’re out of here.

Allison:

Right.

Ren:

I don’t know, it’s such an interesting idea

Allison:

Yeah. And there’s a time and a place, right. It can make sense, but it can also hurt you in the long run. And are you ready for me to just stick with sports analogies for a second? I’m sorry to our listeners who don’t like sports.

Allison:

I’m sorry about it.

Ren:

Please. Yeah. It’s okay everybody.

Allison:

Ren, do you know who the Pittsburgh Steelers are?

Ren:

I do know who the Pittsburgh Steelers are.

Allison:

So I grew up in Pittsburgh and by blood I am required to be a Steelers fan, though, with full transparency, I don’t really care, I could care less. But the Pittsburgh Steelers are bringing on Aaron Rodgers, I don’t know if you saw that.

Ren:

I did not.

Allison:

Aaron Rodgers, who’s, in football years, considered to be outside of his prime.

Ren:

Geriatric. 

Allison:

Yes.

Ren:

Yes.

Allison:

Outside of his prime. People in Pittsburgh are up in arms about it, because, if I can make the analogy here, or make a connection, they just did not create a pipeline from Ben Roethlisberger, who won, I don’t even know, however many Super Bowls, and went to the playoffs pretty much I think every year that he was on the roster. They did not develop, they didn’t, again, I’m sorry to my Steelers fans, because I’m sharing what I know, which is very minimal, they didn’t backfill, they didn’t develop. So it’s a bit of a reach, but it’s the same concept. If you’re a star player, if your top performers, your top 3 performers on your team all left tomorrow, what would your team look like? And it’s something to consider.

Ren:

Yeah.

Allison:

It is, like people don’t always love sports analogies, but it is the same thing. If your star people left tomorrow, how much are you relying on them, number 1? Are you overworking them and what’s your pipeline look like? Would you be shooting yourself in the foot if they all left tomorrow?

Ren:

Yeah, I think that that’s exactly the point. And yeah, I know, probably some Steelers fans, I would love to watch you debate someone about Steelers football, Allison, that’d be super fun.

Allison:

Listen.

Ren:

New podcast idea.

Allison:

I won the fantasy football championship this year, I’m just saying.

Ren:

You know what? I hung up my spurs after winning 2 in a row and I’m like, I don’t think I’m ever going to come back, I get to end up on top. And football is an interesting thing about pipeline and I think just like the experience that goes on there. But something that you said that I think is the point, is that anyone on any team, if you’re not prepared for your best people to leave, if you couldn’t pick up the slack, then maybe you’re missing something. And I think there’s a reality, like the organization will do what it did without you when you leave again.

Allison:

Right.

Ren:

It was working before you got there, it will work afterwards.

Allison:

Right.

Ren:

And so maybe I think that’s too, something where we can lose sight of developing talent, is that we just know the truth that,in like your example, I’m not going to develop talent because I don’t need it today. And it might hurt when someone leaves, it might sting, I might say to people, in an all staff, “We should develop talent different.” But I think this whole purpose of our research is, how do you start to create a culture of that? Because if we don’t have the attitude to sort of do that, then we’ll just replay the pain.

Allison:

Right.

Ren:

And yeah, you sort of see that in some of the things there, but that’s something that I … I think you hit the nail on the head, it’s like, just how can you prepare yourself, insulate yourself if your top 5 performers leave tomorrow? Will that crater you? If it will, then you need to guard yourself.

Allison:

Yeah. And just to highlight your point even more, building a talent pool now with needed skills across however large your team is, across the team and preparing for what obstacles we know are going to come down the pipe, it’s essential. It’s absolutely essential, for the greater good of the organization too, it’s not just about your team functioning. But focusing on pipeline really helps to sustain the organization’s success, it really does. Why do you think people avoid doing it?

Ren:

I think it’s that present bias.

Allison:

Yeah.

Ren:

And it kind of goes to the conversation around like, I think the next piece of our research is this idea of, if the pipeline’s important, then focus is the next shift. And we would, I think, boil it down to these 3 primary areas of focus. Like how do you strengthen your pipeline? You help people identify areas of personal growth, you manage people and the work they need to get done. And you manage across the organization that kind of network. And I think the business goes too fast a lot of times, and so we don’t think about what we need to inform. And some of the need for pipeline development or talent development strategy through this focus, is this question of, and you highlighted this a couple of times already, it’s like, what do people need and want now? That’s one question that we have to ask for development, I think. So the answer to your question, like why isn’t the pipeline strong? We’re not asking that question.

But then the other questions we’re not asking is, what do you know that you need to be ready for?

Allison:

Yeah.

Ren:

And you just said that.

Allison:

Yeah.

Ren:

And then additionally, maybe most importantly, what do you need to be ready for that you don’t know about?

Allison:

Yes.

Ren:

And what is that next thing that is coming around the corner that you have no idea. Because you should prepare for eventualities that could happen.

Allison:

Right.

Ren:

And then you should be preparing for eventualities that you don’t think could happen? Like, “Oh, that’ll never happen.”

Allison:

Yeah.

Ren:

I’d be like, “You need to be careful.”

Allison:

Right. Right, don’t say that.

Ren:

So I think all of that probably is in the cocktail. Yeah, definitely don’t say that, “That’ll never happen.” So I think that’s all in the cocktail of why people don’t do that. But I don’t know, why do you think people don’t fill the pipeline or don’t focus on those things, or what’s getting in the way?

Allison:

Well, sometimes I think people don’t know how, or they will see some companies who say, well, that’s HR’s job. And it’s part of their job, but it’s also a manager’s job to get to know their people. And if I can simplify it as much as I can for somebody who might be a mid-level manager, who’s not going to create strategy for this, who’s not going to create a talent development and capabilities strategy for the organization, getting to know your team’s goals is really important. And that stays the same for people who … Some people are happy in their role and they want to stay there, they want to stay in that role. Some people have goals to be at the next level.

That’s a really simple in concept, place to start, because what I can say is, as a manager, “Hey Suzy, you want to be the VP of Ops or whatever, here’s where you are now and here’s where you need to be.” It’s like 2 plus 2 equals 4, you can look at job descriptions and start there and know people’s goals. I think where some mid-level managers get hung up, is they don’t know how to do it and they don’t know how to give feedback, or are afraid of it. We talked about this a little bit at the start, which was like, creating a culture that can allow for a pipeline. And same with the focus, which is the second step, to develop people, you have to have honest conversations with them, like the manager you mentioned, was always straight with you. So knowing somebody’s goals and then being able to generate feedback conversations around that, is really important.

Ren:

Let’s chase that rabbit right now. Point 5 in the research is conversations.

Allison:

Yeah.

Ren:

And it’s so interesting, it’s like why don’t we talk more? And you ask the question, why isn’t the pipeline filled and why don’t we talk more? And again, I think this idea of one of these scariest false paradigms is, I don’t have the time. Which is realistic, because it connects to the third point in the research, was this idea of overload. How do I reach overloaded employees?

Allison:

Yeah.

Ren:

I think it starts with some conversations, where we have to have a real conversation with each other around what’s happening, what’s going on. But really, I think too, this idea of conversations rooted in candor and psychological safety and trust, those cultures of feedback yield better business outcomes. And I think sadly, we’re not equipped to have those conversations anymore, like from childhood on upwards, from what I observed and even in my weaker states, do not really revel in conflict, don’t engage with conflict with people who have really oppositional views from me. I find myself in cocktail parties fiercely agreeing with one another, you know what I mean? Where we’re outraged around the same stuff.

And so I think there’s a muscle that can be built up in conversation, I think it starts with feedback. I think it starts too, with accountability. Like I let one of my teams down recently and that sucked for them, and it sucked for us too. It wasn’t a good look, it wasn’t a good look for the org, it wasn’t a good look for me and I just had to own that. And it reminds me of leadership disclosure. I had to tell people more about what was going on, my weak points, why they didn’t work and ask for feedback.

And so I really vibe with the idea of like, as a manager or as anyone in the organization, feedback can help you get into that talent development space. And real conversations, honest conversations about growth, about failures, about limiting edges, that stuff makes a difference for talent development.

Allison:

Oh indeed. And it’s interesting you brought up conflict. Can you share more about conflict as it relates to these conversations?

Ren:

Like talent development conversations?

Allison:

Yeah, is that what you were saying? Like conflict in a talent development conversation?

Ren:

No, I was just saying more like generally, I think Americans don’t know how to have tough conversations with each other.

Allison:

Yes, yes.

Ren:

Because we’re like-

Allison:

That’s another podcast.

Ren:

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think everyone finds themselves fiercely agreeing with people so much that when they meet someone in the opposite end of the spectrum, whatever spectrum it is, they start shouting at each other, because they finally have a chance to tell the other person on that other side, everything that’s wrong.

Allison:

Right.

Ren:

And I think too then, when you think about, well, that’s a value-based issue, then likely in someone’s talent development, that’s a value-based issue. Someone’s trying to develop their career or themselves and then, it can get heated with a manager or a system that’s not developing it. And so we don’t talk about it or we don’t talk about it effectively.

Allison:

Yeah. Yeah, that’s interesting. And I think talking about it effectively, the more you can just normalize having conversations about performance, the better. Which I know is easier said than done, depending on your organization. But again, I always encourage people to remember that you can love your job and find purpose in your job, you also don’t have to, but you can find great joy and heart in your job, but also be objective about it and remember that your job is to do what’s on your job description. And it can be as objective as that, to look at your job description with your manager and say like, “Where am I doing well, where are my gaps?” Because it’s an agreement, “We’re going to hire you, run to do these things. Here, we’ll let you know if there’s other things we need you to do. How are you doing? We hired you to do it. How’s it going?”

It can be that objective. So you can hold those2 truths together at the same time, sometimes people get really hurt over critical feedback, when really, critical feedback can help you to grow and it absolutely helps you to grow.

You’re also making me think, Ren, about psychological safety, which I know we’ve talked about ad nauseum, probably on these podcasts. But you have to find ways to engage people in a way that you can have those candid conversations that develop trust and growth. And when I think back to the sports analogies, or let me even take it a different way. If you were in a band, you would want to know if you were sharp or flat, right. Because it impacts the rest of the band, and it’s not a personal attack on you as a human. So finding ways that you can create alignment, that feedback is for the greater good.

Ren:

Yeah, that’s real growth mindset stuff. And I think thinking with an abundance mindset too, there are no real failures, just a failure to learn from those things. And too, in a talent development space, I think that makes sense, like you’ve got to create an appetite for failure. As we have the learning curve, where we know that we try a new thing, we’re doing really well, we plateau, we’re great, get a new task, and all of the sudden the performance dips, because we’re not as effective as. And then we get better at it, then our performance lifts. And I think, often, talent development doesn’t happen because in order to develop talent in spaces outside of one’s comfort zone, they’re going to have to get uncomfortable. And sometimes, when you’re uncomfortable, you don’t know what you don’t know and you’re not performing that well.

And so I think there’s something to recognize, like, “Hey, A, take the feedback, ’cause what do you want to know? B, be willing to give the feedback. And then C, also create an environment where we’re more than our outcomes.” And something about the people first kind of perspective that you said, I think connects to what I’d mentioned a little bit over, like this idea of overload. Where organizations struggle to develop an overloaded employee base.

Allison:

Yeah. 

Ren:

Where it’s like, “Hey, we have a development calendar, sign up for these learnings.” And people are like-

Allison:

Yeah.

Ren:

“I can’t, I have too much job.” Or worse yet, they mandate learning, the organization does, where they’re like, “Here, get developed, but also, don’t you dare underperform. You better work 2 jobs this week.”

Allison:

Yeah.

Ren:

And that’s super hard, the human element, I think, is something that needs to get managed. So the human element showing up in that space for feedback, matters, like how you interact with someone, it’s not personal, but creating an environment of trust and safety. And then recognition too, that once you can see the human in the overloaded space, maybe you can do some different things with talent management.

Allison:

Yeah, that’s interesting, because you’re right, a lot of organizations will have opportunities for “talent development,” “Come to this webinar, come to this speaker.”

And they do invest time on that and then can become frustrated when people don’t attend without digging into the why. And if employees are overloaded in their roles and overwhelmed, it’s going to be hard for them to make those types of decisions. Even for, like thinking about the immediate future and their immediate growth and development, when they’re busy and overwhelmed, it’s just very, very hard to make time for that. As we know, the research finds, with employees and athletes and musicians and top performers across industries need breaks and constant overload does not foster a growth mindset. In fact, it sets you up to make more mistakes and fail, so. It’s just something to look at, is there an easy answer to that? Probably not. But to your point, focusing on, or identifying overload will help you to reach those busy and overloaded employees in a better way, just to be able to understand where they are.

Do you know what’s funny, is I once had, this was years ago, not at CCL, somebody I managed said, “Please don’t develop me. Please don’t focus on developing me.”

Ren:

That’s funny.

Allison:

And we laughed about it. He laughed, so I laughed and I was like, “Okay, what do you mean? Why?” And he said, “I’m so overwhelmed in my role right now that I’m just doing what I can to make sure I’m hitting all the objectives that I have to for this role specifically.” So, important to have those conversations.

Ren:

Yeah, it’s interesting. And you asked the question, like is there an easy answer? And I guess, I think our human centered approach would be our answer at CCL. And I was looking up other perspectives on talent development too, saw this quote from Sean O’Hara, the Director of Accounting, Reporting and Internal Controls at Nissan North America. So a nice simple title for this guy. But he manages a team of over 140 people, pretty high in the organization. And his motto is, “People, quality, then profitability.” He doesn’t say, “Then,” then he says, “And profitability.”

And there’s something, I think the answer to the overload is, starting with the person. I think there’s other ideas to continue to build development into the jobs that people have to get done. Which is sort of what we talk about in the final idea of scaling this kind of talent development conversation. But I think it always grounds into people, and where we just left, it’s like safety too. The guy felt safe enough to tell you, “Hey, I don’t want development,” right. And that could be dangerous.

Allison:

Right.

Ren:

But then you were like, “Well, tell me more.” And he says, “I’m just trying to succeed in the job, I don’t have time.” What a candid and real conversation. So we start with that people part, and then we start to ask ourselves, how can we maintain the quality of our product while also trying to achieve your individual development goals? I think that’s the stuff that leads to profitability, versus people contributing and then leaving, so.

Allison:

Indeed.

Ren:

Yeah, yeah.

Allison:

Indeed. And I encourage managers to get away from the hero culture mentality too, which I already mentioned, but it is. Don’t be afraid to develop your “underperformers” that a lot of times cultures will punish instead of develop. And what I’m not saying is to ignore gross misconduct, that’s not what I’m talking about. But your folks who are struggling, it is your responsibility to help them and stop relying, holistically, on your heroes, because that drains everybody.

And one thing that we loosely mentioned but haven’t named yet specifically, is that adaptability. So, Ren, you talked a lot already about being future oriented in mindsets, and it’s interesting to think about the mindset that is needed now. Again, just given some of the obstacles that a lot of organizations are facing. People just need to adapt how they’re working and adapt their frame of reference and their frame of mind to be able to approach challenges in new ways. So again, I’m paraphrasing something you said a few minutes ago, which was, what is it that we don’t know? Like-

Ren:

Yeah.

Allison:

Getting into those conversations right now, like what are the things we don’t know? What should we do? Like how can we generate a conversation about that? So, expanding of mindset is not an easy thing to teach necessarily, if you lead a team. But there are ways you can ask the right questions and generate dialogue with your team just to think about challenges in a new way.

Ren:

Your example of developing your underperformers is such a great example. I think, probably, if any leader has some underperformers, it might even be triggering for you. You’d be like, “I don’t want to do that.”

Allison:

Yeah.

Ren:

And that might be the perfect sign of your need to change. Because I think you’re right, it’s like, the only guarantee I have for you is that change is coming.

Allison:

Yeah.

Ren:

And adaptability is required. Maybe shifting our perspectives, I think your example, again, maybe they’re underperformers because they don’t get developed. There might be-

Allison:

Yeah.

Ren:

Performance there, with time spent sharpening that saw.

Allison:

Right.

Ren:

Especially if other people are doing the job well. So yeah, I think that adaptability, the need to shift our looking, our mindset, I think adapt how we’re adapting to execute business strategy. I think things that used to work don’t always need to keep working and they’re worth observing. And I think people too, really matters. We say in our research, “Effective leadership requires not just skills but also greater capacity. While growing leadership competencies is necessary and important, it’s no longer sufficient.” And I think that’s the root when you and I talk vertical mindset or use our assessment, the vertical mindset indicated, it’s not like adding another framework. It’s changing the way we use the information-

Allison:

Right.

Ren:

And looking at, or trying to seek new information and use it and apply it in different ways, even future proofing.

Allison:

Yeah. And I like the question too, on that note, is, to consider whether you’re an organizational leader, C-suite executive, senior leader or not, and this question can be considered by all types of leaders. Which is, what type of future are you building toward with your team? And sometimes that’s an easier question to start to generate ideas around, versus, what are the challenges that are coming our way? Because sometimes we don’t know, and other times we get stuck on the challenge then, instead of what are we trying to achieve? What can we do? What are some of the actions we can take? So I like that question as a place to start, but you’re right, it can be complex, for sure. I think we’ve touched on all of them so far.

I’d love to get into a little bit more of talking about scale. So what are some tips we can offer people to start to scale this kind of thing?

Ren:

Yeah, I think it’s hard to do this work across the org, and I think all of these things kind of build up to this point. One of the things that I think, we have these little takeaways in the research, these little blips of, ultimately I think scaling is rooted into the idea of developing the whole organization, not just your high pos, not just your execs. I said in the beginning, it’s like this idea of getting focused on your unique context. What is the organization trying to achieve? How do the people fit inside that? Tie people and development to the people, in the work that they’re doing, and then just starting to be honest about starting where you are, I think are ways to start to set the stage for this scale.

I mean, all of it starts to come into this environment, what is the functional environment that we have? Do we support development? What does support look like for development? How can we add development into the stuff that must be done? I think these are the conversations that we can start to have when an organization or leaders are interested in scaling some of that development.

Allison:

Yeah. And I think too, even adding to what you just said and focusing in on some tacticals, is that you can start by offering development opportunities for people. Again, keeping the story I had in mind, making sure that your people have the space for it and the appetite for it, but offering development opportunities where people can learn new skills. And that will be different, again, depending on the organization and the industry. But also, emphasizing learning as a benefit for everybody and not being afraid to take the long way, knowing that it will sustain your organization.

Again, I think a lot of leaders just say, let’s press the easy button, “Ren, you’re really good at X, Y, Z, so we’re going to keep putting you on that.” Even though Susan over there really wants to be learning in that space, but we haven’t given her the opportunity just for sake of like easy button. So get away from the easy button, understand what’s coming down the pipe and understand your organization’s context too. Again, I know some of our listeners probably are responsible for strategy, some probably aren’t. And I think you can take action, really from wherever you are in the business.

Ren:

Hey, I was just reflecting on what you were just saying there and some of the stuff we’re saying, and it’s going back to your question of the pipeline. Why isn’t the pipeline full, or why do we develop talent? I think we have to change our metrics, not to hit us-

Allison:

Agreed.

Ren:

With the deep philosophical conversation, as we do right when we close the door.

Allison:

Yeah.

Ren:

But I think it’s just this idea of, if a quarterly performance, if year over year numbers weren’t the only thing that indicated an organization’s success, then you could start to develop talent in the confines of the organization. Whereas, pipeline, succession planning talent across the organization, ready to do any job, as a success metric, then that could rise to the top, versus I think the truth of just publicly traded companies. Investors expect that their money is returned and with interest.

Allison:

Yeah.

Ren:

And so I understand the organization’s standpoint and any leader working inside of one who’s like, “Look, this is our prerogative. And it’s not even a personal challenge, it’s just like, if I don’t do this, then I don’t have a job, then you don’t have a job, then we don’t have a job.” And so I think there’s, in some places, there’s probably not much from a cultural organizational, how do we look at talent as part of our win? But maybe as that individual manager, there’s probably a couple of things you can do, helping see people make sense of the development, trying to minimize the overload and burden, I think help them get developed in the confines of their own work so it doesn’t feel like it’s extra. I think really with your people, I think some of the scaling factors probably are in the power of a few hands. But geez, I don’t think it’s easy in an environment where someone says the thing that matters is return on investment, therefore I can’t afford to develop my talent even though it might hurt in the future, the pressure of today is just too much.

Allison:

Yeah. And I’d be really interested to know, gosh, I know we’re doing the doorknob thing. I’d be really interested to know what percent of publicly traded companies who are in the top, financially I mean, what percent of them have a talent development strategy or invest year over year. Like I’d be very curious to know those metrics, I’m sure I could probably… It’s got to be out there somewhere.

But again, you do have to know when your organization is ready for it. And if your organization is not ready to scale it, that does not mean that an individual leader has to prevent or not develop their team. And we talk about scaling, like one of the metrics, or one of the things that we do, actually, here at CCL, is help organizations define what competencies they need at the organization. Which is a huge project, it’s a huge undertaking and can serve the organization pretty holistically once you get those nailed down. But it does take some time. So scaling can look different depending on the organization’s readiness, et cetera. And the culture, as you mentioned, and the culture. I mean, we have to be real too, gosh, do I even want to get into it, because now I feel like I’m going to just take us down a rabbit hole.

Ren:

I mean, we have a few more minutes.

Allison:

Yeah, you know-

Ren:

Say it.

Allison:

I know.

Ren:

It’ll be nice.

Allison:

Okay. Okay, it’ll be nice. So, we also have to be honest too about competition within organizations. We have to be honest about power structures. We have to be honest about leaders who intentionally prevent development, like those things happen too. So there’s a whole other conversation to be had around some of the behaviors that can prevent development even if you do have a good strategy. I don’t want to leave us on that though, because that feels pretty heavy.

Ren:

Well, I think it’s perfectly reasonable when we think about the complexities of all of this. It’s the tension between strategy and culture, and I think the old adage, strategy eats culture for breakfast, or culture eats strategy for breakfast. And I think, I don’t know, did I tell you that story about that strategy guy I was working with, and he said-

Allison:

I don’t know.

Ren:

We were having that conversation and we have that picture of the elephant, which is culture eating the piece of loaf of bread, which is strategy. And we’re like, culture eats strategy. And he goes, “I’ve only ever heard HR people tell me that.” And it was very funny. I think I have told you that, because I think you had the exact same reaction. You’re like, “I don’t know. I may not agree, sir.” But I think it’s a polarity, where it’s like-

Allison:

Yeah.

Ren:

I mean, you could have the best plan in the world, but if you have people actively subverting it, or an institution that doesn’t incentivize the growth of other individuals, then it’s not necessarily going to vibe.

Allison:

Right.

Ren:

And I think that’s probably a good reminder of, whether or not you have the talent strategy, you’ve got to find an ebb and flow between the work that has to be done and how to develop between the tensions that exist around you and your goals or the people around you in their goals. And I think that something too that’s interesting about talent development, maybe one of our last thoughts or my last thoughts, is that it also comes down to the individual.

Allison:

Yes.

Ren:

No one is going to care about your goals more than you do, because they have their own goals, it’s weird like that, isn’t it? And so it’s not like no one doesn’t care about you, it’s that people wake up and they have their own stuff to take care of. And an organization may not look out for you first, because they might be publicly traded, or they might not be. But either way, there’s something about like you as the individual just sussing out your own path, creating some energy around you if you’re able to, try to build some of that connection, so maybe scale starts with the individual.

Allison:

Yeah, I like that. And I have to tell you, so I’m sitting in front of my window, okay, I just need to give you this picture right now, this feels like a metaphor. There has been a hawk that’s been circling right outside the window this whole time.

Ren:

Yeah.

Allison:

I don’t know if you’ve noticed Ren, but it just passed again, it’s enormous and it’s been chasing off this little bird, that I sort of feel bad for. It just seems like there’s a metaphor in there somehow, with what you just said about your culture eats strategy story. But maybe that’s a reach, I don’t know. Regardless, I like what you’re saying, is there’s a responsibility for the employee too to take on their own development and communicate. There is, and your manager is your partner in that. It can be really helpful to think about your manager as a partnership for you to sort of help you to create a plan for your own development. And again, it’s never going to hurt an organization to develop talent, maybe you’ll fight me on that Ren, I don’t know. Maybe that’s conversation for another time, but it can only help. It can only help the success of a business strategy to have a solid plan for developing talent at your organization.

Ren:

Yeah, I think someone could debate it, but I won’t. I agree with you, I think.

Allison:

Okay, thank you for that.

Ren:

I think it’s a boon, so I agree with you.

Allison:

Well, are there any last thoughts you want to leave for our listeners? Well, what I’ll say first is that CCL has a really excellent research paper out on talent development. That really outlines all of the steps that you can take, whether you’re an organizational leader or not, with some links to things like difficult conversations like Ren and I were talking about just now. So I would encourage you if you are listening, to seek out that article and you can find it on the Google, if that’s the easiest way, and on our website. The title of that is, “Supporting Talent Development.” So you can find that. But in the meantime, Ren, any other tips you want to leave for our listeners?

Ren:

Just echo, I think, some of that adaptability. Just ready to future-proof yourself.

Allison:

Yeah.

Ren:

Some of talent development is preparing yourself for a future that you’re unsure about, that you’re always ready to flex, to be dynamic. I was just reading this idea of the 45 to 54 age gap, that space is that, if you have to leave an org at 45, that age group is widely employed, but once they’re not, it’s incredibly hard for them to get a job. They experience more ageism than any other kind of working group. And so it’s just an interesting example, like even when you think that you’ve got your perfectly built career, everything’s all stable, you never know. And so just be ready, just be ready. And I think organizations, the same, and so develop, continue to develop.

Allison:

Yes, future-proof yourself. I like that as a tagline for you as an individual and for your organization. So thanks for the conversation, Ren. For our listeners, you can find all of our podcast episodes and show notes on ccl.org. And check out our next episode, which will be likely this early fall, as we move to more of a quarterly cadence with our episodes. In the meantime, find us on LinkedIn, let us know what you want us to talk about. Let us know how your talent development is going. And to all of our CCL peers behind the scenes who make our podcast happen, a big thank you to all of you. And Ren, I’ll look forward to chatting with you next time.

Ren:

That’s right. Thanks Allison. Thanks everybody. See you in the fall. And find Allison on TikTok while you wait.

Interview Transcript

Intro:

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

This week we turn our attention to an extraordinary chapter in modern leadership: The life, papacy, and recent passing of Pope Francis, and what it means for the future of the Catholic Church. Pope Francis redefined papal leadership with humility, authenticity, and an unwavering commitment to service. He was known for his simplicity, choosing modest accommodations over the grand papal apartments, and for his relentless focus on marginalized communities.

Francis led with a powerful combination of moral courage and pastoral care, challenging the church to confront uncomfortable truths while emphasizing mercy over judgment. His leadership model wasn’t about authority alone, it was about trust, inclusion, and the sometimes radical act of listening.

Now, as the church faces the profound moment of electing a new pope, leadership dynamics once again come into sharp focus. The conclave of cardinals gathering behind closed doors in the Sistine Chapel will weigh not only theological direction, but also the character and the vision of the next pontiff. They must choose someone capable of uniting a global and often divided church. Someone who can build on or depart from the legacy Pope Francis leaves behind.

Today we’ll not only explore the leadership qualities the next pope will need in a world of political polarization, humanitarian crisis, and dwindling religious affiliation, but we’ll also unpack how the secretive, centuries-old process of papal election reflects both tradition and urgent modern realities. And you’ll stay with us, hopefully, as we reflect on the leadership life of Pope Francis, the lessons we can draw from his example, and the crucial leadership crossroads now facing one of the world’s oldest and most influential institutions.

Ren:

Welcome back, everyone. I’m Ren Washington, as usual, joined with Allison Barr. Allison, how long has it been since your last confession? I’m just kidding. Have you ever seen a pope, whether it be Pope Francis or anyone other? Have you ever met anyone who’s witnessed the pope drive by in his pope —

Allison:

Did you say in his popemobile?

Ren:

That’s what it’s called.

Allison:

I’m still just laughing because I didn’t expect you to ask me about my true confessions, but no, I have never seen —

Ren:

Yes, I know I snuck that one in there.

Allison:

I know, well done. I’ve never seen the pope in person, have you?

Ren:

No, no. I have never seen the pope in person. I guess John Paul was … I had the most understanding of the pope when John Paul was around, him and his red like Gucci slippers.

Allison:

Yes.

Ren:

And then I think when Francis came into style, I was like, “Cool. Pretty chill.” But no, I’ve never even met anyone who’s seen the pope.

Allison:

No, I don’t think I have either. But now I’m sort of questioning myself. I have to ask my dad, because I believe that my dad had visited Vatican City and now I’m having … Memory’s a funny thing. I was very young, so I’ll have to ask him. So there’s a possibility that Ed Barr might’ve seen the pope. To be continued.

Ren:

Seen the pope in the mobile. Well, I think today, regardless of if we’ve met the pope or people who have, I kind of wanted to take it in 2, I think part of our time reasonably can look to investigate kind of Francis’s policies, his life, some of the things he was known for. But I also think it’s interesting to kind of take a glimpse behind the doors and look at the conclave itself.

And by the time this recording goes out, there’s a chance someone may have chosen a new pope. The Cardinals are going to decide starting on May 7th. And the way that the ballot structure works, I think Francis was actually the fastest one selected. It took him 5 ballots and we can talk more about the process, but 24 hours to be selected. I think the longest time it took to select the pope was in the late 1200s, took 3 years to choose a pope.

So who knows where we’re going to be, but that’s sort what I’m thinking. A little bit of Pope Francis and a little bit of the conclave. How’s that sound?

Allison:

We can check back in a year. We might be undecided still. We’ll see.

Ren:

That’s funny. That’s really interesting.

Allison:

We’ll see.

Ren:

All right. So what do you want to start? You want to start with the system, or do you want to start with the man?

Allison:

Let’s start —

Ren:

Or is there a difference? No, I think there is.

Allison:

Let’s start with the man. Let’s start with the pope himself, which I think when we were talking about what to talk about today, I was thinking, “Well, the pope has a much different tactical job than most of our leaders, I would think, and a specific role to lead the worldwide Catholic Church.” And there are definitely some leadership highlights that we can take away. But upon initial thought, I was wondering where this conversation might go. But after reading about him a little bit deeper, I’ve found some really interesting qualities of him.

And I’m stuck a little bit by the comment that you made in the intro about listening being a radical act and just wondered if that was relevant, how that was relevant, and what your thoughts are there.

Ren:

Well it’s really interesting. There’s this idea of, and forgive me, I know the pronunciation is really interesting, synodality, which is promoting this idea of a culture of listening within the church and around it. Francis would hold these synods. And so it’s interesting that you talk about his role as a leader because globally, sure, he is the right hand of God in every literal sense for this religion and is kind of responsible for charting the path for one of the most globally dominated religion forces. And though, still, he’s kind of a president of a governing body, and he’s got to help manage the cardinals, I think dozens of the cardinals who are going to be voting on the next one were appointed by Francis.

And he really believed this idea that the church must walk together, listening to all voices and not just this top-down decision-making. So he would have these synods where bishops, laypeople, women, young people, would be able to contribute their thoughts and input on key issues like family life and youth engagement. And so the synodality, this posture of listening, I think from an organizational standpoint, it was like an innovation. He said, “I’m going to do this.” It wasn’t a standard practice, but what I think was really groundbreaking, or the part of listening, was as it related to some of the assault conversations that have happened with and around the church.

Francis took a posture of listening before being defensive. And maybe he was the only pope in modern history that anyone who’d ever been victimized by the structure or the system, he gave an ear to as opposed to try to silence them. So I’d say that radical listening for Francis, I think he changed the organization and he changed the informal posture of Catholicism, or the church rather.

Allison:

That’s so interesting. And along similar lines, have you heard of … there was a catchphrase that he used frequently, related to servant leadership, that had to do with sheep. Had you heard this at all?

Ren:

No, I am thinking of a different phrase. So what do you got?

Allison:

He often said that pastors should “smell like the sheep,” meaning that leaders should stay connected to the struggles of “real people” and their hopes. And that leadership requires a presence and not a distance, which goes along the same lines of what you’re saying, in a way, and that servant leadership commitment that he had. And he’s also known for leading by example and not command, which ties into what you were saying too.

He was really inspiring to a lot of people by living the values that he preached and being more of a bridge builder, or attempted to be a bridge builder, more so than dividing groups, and working to foster dialogue, rather than deepening divisions, which I think is really interesting. And it’s not always the position of a leader necessarily. And again, it’s a unique environment, the Catholic Church, but it is leadership, right? So I’m curious what your thoughts are on that, and how you might tie that to leaders in the work world.

Ren:

Well, it’s so cool that you highlight that posture for him because I think … At least for me, I had this interpretation that he was the closest to the peril of humanity than I was ever familiar. Granted, I mean, kind of the pope and selection is outside of my general experience. I don’t identify as Catholic, I’ve never mourned the loss of a pope, but there is this idea of humility and service. And as far as I could tell, he set a new standard for it. And anyone who’s listening, as we start to think about how does this global leader relate to me, it relates to how humble and how service-oriented are you in the teaming and conversations and leadership discussions that you’re having.

Even his name, Francis after St. Francis of Assisi, symbolizing a commitment to the poor and the marginalized. And I think there’s something around can you leverage your own humility, like this idea of leadership humility, this idea of human, the humanity and that humility, can you leverage that to impact your team, to change the vision or brand of a group? I think his visible humility really helped rebuild some of the credibility of the church that had often and continues to be shaken by scandal.

And so I think there is something around, as a leader, how close are you to the people doing the work? And can you be humble enough to recognize that you don’t have all the answers — and secret, leaders, you don’t have to have all the answers. But it’s like, can you be humble enough not to, and then find the place where the answers exist, and be close to the people that you work with. I think that’s like, I hadn’t heard that phrase, but I think it’s really cool.

Allison:

And I think underlining what you said too, and tying 2 things you said together, which was one around the listening and being close. And the closeness, I think it’s an important distinction because it doesn’t mean high oversight, it doesn’t mean micromanaging, if you will. It does mean listening, understanding, seeing the environment for how it is for folks on the ground, if you will. And another favorite message of his for me was, and I’m quoting him again, that “peacemaking calls for courage much more than warfare does.” And we don’t need to get into war. I’m just going to make the direct tie to the workplace and translate it there.

But I think it does take a lot more courage, a lot more nuance, vulnerability, listening, honesty to make attempts to resolve conflict than it does to not. I think it can be easier in a lot of ways for most people to avoid it. And I think you and I probably hear those stories a lot from our clients about the avoidance of conflict resolution or how hard it is, and how that can really lead to team and sometimes organization dysfunction as well.

Ren:

There’s something about the courage to be humble. I think we’re talking about leadership courage in that space too, and I think that kind of courageousness to … One of his other phrases is this idea, who am I to judge? What an empowering posture when in conflict. Because I think it’s so interesting when we talk about conflict in the workspace, so much conflict is value driven, but also I think we often talk about in the program here, systems thinking. You and I think we have conflict because of the walls that exist between us, but we don’t really see it.

And if we started from a place of understanding and listening, the more I learn about your experience, the greater I can ease it, as we often say. And so this idea of who am I to judge any of you as I explore the idea of conflict? Because then I can liberate myself from this idea of a binary right or wrong, and just start to learn what are everyone’s opinions, and really then ideally informing the polarities that we have to manage. Versus, Allison, you’re going to be right today, and well, how do we help you be right and me be right? So I think there’s something swirling around there.

And too, there’s something actionable for you, people who are listening, it’s like how courageous are you being, to being vulnerable? Which I think connects to the idea of service, that connects the idea of humility. Do you have the courage not to lead, to follow? Because as a leader, if you engage in followership, it doesn’t make you less important, it doesn’t remove your title, but it does take courage and it’s not always easy to do.

Allison:

And I think, too, that you’re underlining that it might not ever be a leader’s job to force agreement, but it definitely is often a leader’s job to open spaces where that trust can begin to grow, which is what you’re alluding to. And I’m hoping you can elaborate on something that you just said that really struck me, which was that it takes courage to be humble. Can you say more about that?

Ren:

Well, I think I highlighted it a little bit earlier. There is something around … For me, I think the leader’s role of being willing to embrace the idea of, I don’t have the answer. I was reading a post, I think on LinkedIn or something like that. It said, “When’s the last time you heard your boss say I don’t know?” It’s such an interesting kind of thought prompt, because the courageousness it takes to dismantle probably decades or just this conditioning of you’re the leader, you’re the one in charge, you’re the one calling the shots, you’re the one who has to have the answers. To just be brave enough to recognize that you don’t know everything — that’s wisdom in play.

Intelligence is knowing things. Wisdom is knowing that you don’t know everything. And so I think just cultivating that strong … Cultivating strength in that area, versus someone looking at you and then you have, “Hey, what’s the answer, Ren?” And you’re looking at you, you’re looking at your role, and you’re looking at your bank account, and you’re looking at how much you’re getting paid, and you’re like, “I should have an answer.” But maybe just being brave and being like, “You know what? Even though I’m the boss, I don’t have the answer to this.”

So that’s probably the courageousness I’m talking around and the humility. Boasting can be easy, but often untrue. I think being humble is really challenging, but often really honest.

Allison:

Yes, challenging and honest. And I’m wanting to dig into this a little bit more because we talked, when we started, about getting to the system level too. So I’m going to dip my feet in for a minute.

I was speaking with clients just last week around workplaces and their systems of reward, what you’re rewarded for at the workplace, versus what Pope Francis may have been “rewarded for” is different. And so I’m not insinuating that you shouldn’t be humble, and that’s not what I’m saying, but there is something to consider, right? There are certain environments where being brave enough to say, “I don’t know the answer to that” can be frowned upon, and it causes … just stay with me here.

It can cause some inauthentic behavior at the workplace, because leaders feel like they have to pretend and deflect, or say something like, “It’s a great question, Ren, let me find out the most recent information for you.” Versus just saying, “I don’t know.” And how powerful it can be to say I don’t know. However, sometimes the greater system does not appreciate that very much. And so it can be a bit of a dance for leaders.

Ren:

Thinking about reward and incentive. And I think that’s what you’re talking about. “Hey, how will the environment react to me if I’m honest, if I admit a fault?” And there are … I think you’re right. We work with clients in certain environments where failure is not an option, which is an irony, because then I think we both work in clients who are some of the most innovative in the world. And failure is a requirement. It’s a mandate to move the project forward. We always talk about failing fast, failing forward. Losing is not the problem. Failing to learn from your losses is the problem.

And so it seems like, in an environment where I have to pretend like I don’t know, and we just perpetuate this facade of unknowing — or no, we perpetuate a facade of knowing, but we don’t have the knowledge that could actually move the project forward. Where, in an environment where we’re all being courageous enough — and it starts with you, leaders, you get to set the tone for your team — it all starts when we’re humble enough to be like, “I failed, or I messed up.” And then, “Okay, let’s learn from it. Let’s keep going.” That team is going to win, 9 times out of 10, over the team that says, “We know every answer here, we never fail.” And I think only the reason the other team doesn’t win the 10th time is just luck.

So it is hard, especially if you’re listening out there and you’re like, “Please Ren, give me a break. I can’t tell someone I don’t know the answer.” It’s like, yeah, and maybe there are spaces where you could try to turn up the volume. Maybe you don’t say it all the time, but is there a safer team where you could admit your failure, where you could start to create an environment where you fail fast, or you move to create minimally viable products and therefore are always testing and retesting. That, too, takes courage. A courageousness to be like, “Our process isn’t locked in yet, but we’re going to find the answer.”

Allison:

I love that. And there’s something really unifying and trust building to say to somebody as well, “You know what, Ren, I actually don’t know the answer, but let’s figure it out together. Or do you have any immediate thoughts? I’d love to hear your perspective.” And it’s not to displace ownership, rather to invite ideas and to invite that collaboration that really can be trust building.

And you also said something too, you’ve got a couple of one-liners today that are really sticking with me, I mean you always do, but especially today. You also said that, I’m paraphrasing, conflict can sometimes be a result of a values, I think you said a mismatch or something like that. Can you elaborate there?

Ren:

I mean, I’d ask any of us to think about the conflicts that are the heaviest for us to manage, or those environments where we kind of shrug our shoulders like, “That’s not a big deal.” And for me, it always boils down to the values. If we have a values conflict where I value one thing, and then you value something that’s opposite and might even challenge my values, then you and I have a conflict conversation, not about the issue, but we really start to get issues about ourselves and how we identify with our values, or really how we identify with what’s right and wrong.

And so I think a lot of times, and especially in personal relationships, conflict, I think, stems from these things that we identify with that we hold true as real values. And then I think that can be extrapolated into the workspace, where you’re on a team and you value your team, or you value the work that they put in, or you value the principles that they’ve presented, and another team presents as if they don’t value those things. And then all of a sudden there’s conflict, and conflict that we can’t move past. And so I think some of it is recognizing that we probably share more values than we don’t.

And when conflict is really hard to move through, it’s likely because we don’t know what we value and we don’t know what we need from one another, or we don’t tell people what we need from them, and then our conflict persists. I don’t know. Is that —

Allison:

That’s interesting. That’s interesting. And I think, too, a reminder that 2 people can have differing values and still be okay and accepted / respected. And I think about organizational values as well, and how those can come into play. And this isn’t really … this is just sort of a statement unless you have something to add to it, Ren, is like, I’m just noodling a bit on if your personal values as a leader conflict with the organization’s values, how that might work and if it can work. I don’t really know, but I would think for somebody like a pope, your values would have to align pretty tightly to the “organization,” I would think.

However, Pope Francis sometimes veered — I can see you, I think we’re on the same page here — sometimes veered. What are your thoughts?

Ren:

It’s really interesting when you present the idea of the pope, maybe the expectation of being aligned with, I guess, Catholicism’s values is really important. I mean, Francis is considered the most progressive pope we’ve had in recent memory for multiple generations. And he still really held the line. I mean, he’s been in the Catholic Church for nearly his whole life, ordained in ’63 or something like that, Jesuit priest on the real front lines in Argentina when they had a government that was violent and had a military dictatorship. And ironically, too, kind of got ousted from his first posts in the system because he had this command-and-control style of government where he didn’t have a lot of involvement from the people.

So I think the question around do I, as a leader, need to have the same values as my organization? I think we’ve surfaced this in a lot of conversations we’ve had. And again, for me, that’s not a problem to solve. No, I don’t need to fix you, Allison. I need to get you in the team to do your best work. So how do we meet your values, and how do we meet my values as the organization or something?

And how do we have real conversations with each other? Just talking to a group of leaders last week around this, it’s being honest. “Hey, these are what we value. This is what you value. I want to do my best to meet your values, and sometimes I won’t be able to.” And we’re going to have to do that ebb and flow.

So I think probably as a leader, someone who’s listening, you don’t need to have the same values as your organization. I think you need to be honest if your values are being met, and then find a way to do that “both / and.” And maybe, though, if your organization represents values, then you’ve got a little bit of a different challenge. If you are like, “No, I don’t value this thing that we valued for millennia.” So probably easier, maybe attainable without the badge of Catholicism. That’s interesting though.

Allison:

And again, we don’t need to deep dive, or maybe we do, I don’t know. There’s interpretation too. There’s interpretation of values too, and we don’t need to get too philosophical about it, but what courage means to me might be different to you and so on.

But I like what you’re saying too about the ability to hold 2 truths or more than that. You can hold several things to be true at the same time. And that’s especially important at the workplace and at the organizational level for a leader right now, given just some of the challenges that workplaces are facing. There’s often what we hear from our clients and participants in program is that there’s not one straight answer to this.

And I was working with some scientists last week who like an answer, it’s their job to find the answer, the best answer at least. And when it extends outside of that practice of science, just to the organizational level and how do we navigate complexity, it can be very important to live in the gray there. And that can occur when you have a mismatch in values too, and it occurs at the workplace every single day.

Ren:

I mean just exploring the idea of the subjective of the objective. It’s like this idea of we’re subjective humans trying to define objective truths that are going to be interpreted subjectively. I mean, as an example, there are 22 cardinals who, at least one area called the College of Cardinals Report — it’s a “dot com,” so take that as what you will — but it’s identified 22 cardinals who believe are the “papabile,” I think. That’s my best Latin. You’re all welcome. Would it just be people who are most likely to be elected. I saw a shorter list of 9 individuals, but then I was reminded, too, that for Francis, he was not on many papabile lists in 2013.

And so there is this thing, like, the conclave will have to decide. This group of cardinals, all under 80, and anyone who can execute their orders … Before the voting begins, they hold sessions where they talk about the viability of who would replace the pope. And in doing so, they naturally are going to be talking about their perspectives of “objective truths.” ‘This is what Catholicism looks like, therefore this guy should be it, right?’ And other people are going to be like, “I don’t know. I think it looks like this.”

I think one of Francis’s claim to fame was he’s the first Latin American pope. There’s a couple of new cardinals on the docket who are kind of front-runners. There’s a couple of guys from the US, which is really interesting. I cannot imagine there’ll be a US pope. That would be mind-boggling. There’s a guy, a younger guy, kind of this dark horse from Africa made a cardinal by Francis. But there’s a lot of these deeply rooted European folks who are going to be positioning themselves. Parisians, and Italians, and other things that are the seat of the Holy Roman Empire. They seem to be a better position. And for me, that doesn’t seem like an objective truth so much as a subjective preference.

Allison:

And it makes me wonder about, I’m going to change my language, of course, because I don’t sit in those meetings. So I’m not sure how they would phrase it necessarily, but it makes me think of bylaws almost, like when organizations and groups or teams have bylaws that they need to align on before appointing said leader, or hiring even. And it doesn’t even have to be that written in stone, if you will, but the alignment of, again, translating it to the workplace, where are we now? What is it that we need as an organization? What do our teams need? What’s coming down the pipe? What do we see in the future? There’s a lot. There’s a lot to talk about there.

And I often wonder how frequently organizations consider those things. And when we talk about DAC, our Direction – Alignment – Commitment model, it just brings me right to that place. And it helps to understand, if you are a leader, that alignment piece is so crucial and often is the piece that takes the longest, is the most likely to be revisited. And again, not to simplify what it takes to elect a new pope, but I would imagine some of the types of conversations are similar. I would imagine.

Ren:

I just think it’s a brilliant mirror, because we talk Direction – Alignment – Commitment all the time. And I think it’s pretty standard, Allison, you can keep me honest, but when we have groups score themselves, score their teams, score their organizations, alignment typically is the lowest one. And direction is this idea of, what are we trying to achieve? And I think the conclave knows, we’re trying to elect a new pope. Commitment. Are we committed to our shared success? Yes, the conclave has to be committed to selecting a pope because everyone’s eternal salvation is based on this selection, but the alignment of it all is the struggle. How are they going to align on the agreement of who the pope is, in service of what they’re committed to?

And a lot of these guys, the progressive nature of Francis, I think, has empowered some progressive front-runners. And the ebb and flow of societies and cultures, I mean, there’s going to be 135 cardinals who are electors, who are going to convene and talk. And there’s not 135 progressives, just like there’s not 135 … just like when we look at the statistical distribution of any group of people, there’s so many varied positions. And so I think, their challenge will be, how do we get to where we’re going? And I just wish I could see behind the doors.

I think everyone’s got to revisit the movie Conclave as we talked about in our Oscars video, because what a timely thing, and just how people are voting, and the conversations. I think you even alluded to Francis’s savvy, though maybe like an interpersonal savvy, the way he was able to manage people, be close to the flock as it were. But there is loads of political savvy happening, conversations around what the environment is, who’s the front-runner, how can I put my support behind your candidate? If we can assure that what I would consider a Catholic objective truth is indeed part of the pope’s new plan or something. The alignment is going to be super hard.

Allison:

You’re exactly right. And even if you and I share some similar values, we still might not agree. Even if on paper, yes, we have X amount of values that are similar, you and I, it doesn’t mean we’re going to be on the same page either. And there’s probably a lot of other things that play there, too.

Well, I’ll transition that to the workplace. If we were at the workplace, there might be some ego involved, too. There might be some other things that come into play. And I have to share, last week, a participant, we protect our client names of course, but this woman asked a brilliant question in a group of 20-some leaders, and she said, “Have we defined as an organization what it means to be a leader?”

And there was sort of a quiet in the group, and I asked her to clarify. I said, “If you knew that, what would the outcome be for you?” So if you knew the answer to that, if you had a list or definition or whatever, what would the outcome be? And that generated a really, really important discussion for them specifically as this group of leaders.

And so I wonder, too, what kinds of conversations are framed. Again, we’re talking about the pope here, but I wonder if they align on that, too. What does it mean? What are the behaviors? What does it look like? Almost building out the non-negotiables of this person. And if they are, given what you said, how long it could take to get to that agreement where it’s good enough, not perfect, but good enough.

Ren:

That’s interesting. I love your follow-up question. I mean, what would that give you if you could define it? And it’d be interesting to explore, and I don’t know how the conclave … I imagine they have some definitions of what a pope must do, or who the pope is, rather. They understand that the pope does have this position higher than any other in this religious structure. But it’s really interesting.

The idea of it makes me think, and I say this to folks all the time, you probably said it in the podcast. How do we make explicit what’s thought to be implicit? And often leaders walk around and they’re like, always incredulous, “How could you not know this is how we operate and and XYZ?” And I’m like, “Well, we never talk about this thing, so why don’t you, instead of assuming that I know what you know, why don’t you tell me what you know.”

Now, it’d be interesting, because I actually think that this is some of what the conversations are going to be in the conclave, not only in the general congregations when people talk about the merits of each papal prospect, but during the voting, it’s going to be refining on, “Well, we know that these are some of the non-negotiables, and now we’re going to see how our candidates match up to it.” And I just kind of bristle at the idea of this idea of non-negotiables in leadership.

I mean, I might even say the only non-negotiable you should have in leadership is maybe not having any non-negotiables, because your job as a leader is to fit what your people need from you and what the organization needs from you, not to be like, “No, this is who I am as leader, therefore everything must shift around me.” That does happen sometimes. I don’t know if it works all the time, and it’s certainly not sustainable.

Allison:

I love that you just said that because it’s another … maybe it’s a polarity, I’m not sure yet. But yes, have some intrinsic values, have a compass from which you operate. Definitely. And, to your point, Ren, being able to adapt to what the organization needs, to see, to listen, to create some openness around challenges and needs, needs of the organization is, I don’t want to say more important, but just as important. You have to be able to shift as needed, especially when there’s volatility, uncertainty, et cetera. Leadership can be a lot easier when the conditions are easy. It’s when you experience challenges that you might have to shift those things a little bit.

And it doesn’t mean that you’re changing who you are as a human being. It is that you are being leaderly in your actions to support the greater good, which comes back to direction, alignment, commitment too, right? Are you committed to the greater good of the organization?

Ren:

And have you defined the greater good of the organization? And then do people agree with the definition?

Allison:

That’s an interesting point.

Ren:

I think you called it, right? It’s like this idea of … or the woman in the program did. She’s like, “Have we defined this term?” And then we go, “Well, what would it give us?” And I think, too, we just really quickly fall into these habits of “this is what it looks like,” or I always joke with participants … One of the scariest things I hear is from leaders is the phrase, “But this is how we do it here.”

Allison:

Yes.

Ren:

And yeah, and is there more to that? Because if this is how you’ve been doing it your whole life, I can show you a whole bunch of organizations who are like, “Netflix is stupid, digital cameras are dumb.” And they don’t exist anymore. And so I was like, “I don’t know if that’s enough, ‘that’s just how it works here.'” And so there’s something around … If you’re listening right now, and you’re working on a project and you’re having issues, or you’re working with your team and you’re just trying to help each other succeed more … just ask where your shared definitions are and see if you can do it.

That’s why I love the DAC assessment, because a leader will be like, “Oh, the direction is super clear.” And then they give it to their team and everyone said, “No, there’s 5 people on the team. They have 5 views of the direction.” So there’s something around that. You have the abundance of flexibility, and then again, maybe back to the beginning, be humble enough to recognize that the answer doesn’t lie with you, because it can’t. It lies with the people who are going to be executing your plan. So make sure they are aligned.

Allison:

And everything’s up to interpretation, like you just said, right? Using that DAC assessment, which you can Google by the way, that’s available to the public, to our listeners, and strongly recommend that you do use that. Because you can be as clear as day to yourself — the sky is blue, period — but 6 people heard you say something completely different.

I also like what you said about, this is how we’ve always done it, or this is just the way we do things around here. Those are 2 catchphrases that can be dangerous, and dig into that, right? Dig into that if you feel that way, or if folks say it on your team, there’s usually more to that statement. Often it has to do with a resistance to change and a fear that we don’t have the skillsets to do it. There’s usually a lot more to that statement than just that statement, right? I always want to ask people to like, “Keep going with that sentence. Fill in some more blanks.”

Ren:

That’s not how we do it here, because … I built my career around these behaviors, I’ve done it for 20 years, if we change it, what does that mean for me?

Allison:

Right?

Ren:

And that’s interesting. Because I think that zooming back in on the pope and the process, they’ve got thousands of years talking about “This is how it’s done here. This is what it means.”

And Francis, he changed some things. He kind of loosened up some of the structures around what divorce looks like inside Catholicism, enabled remarried Catholics to receive communion, which is really interesting. As I say, really interesting, I think the idea of communion is welcome into this spiritual space with Jesus and you are loved, and Catholicism has a lot of rules that says, “Well, you’re loved under these circumstances.”

And so it’ll be interesting to see how the borders are defined, or maybe the borders are clear; they’re behind the Vatican City walls. But the amoeba of how far do we flex inside those boundaries? It’s an interesting metaphor for leadership. A part of your job as a leader is to define some boundaries and then let people fluidly move inside of it to kind of fill what works. And maybe it shifts. Likely it does shift depending on the day, depending on the project, depending on the market.

Allison:

I mean, I think you highlight, too, that a foundation of an organization can remain the same while things inside of it shift a little. Again, Catholicism and the Catholic Church has a different foundation than most workplaces. And if you find yourself resistant to that shifting and the adapting and changing how you do things, again, I think it’s just worth some investigating.

And I know we’re probably coming up on time here soon … but I think that the last thing that I want to say that really stuck out to me, that is a direct translation to leaders, that Pope Francis did not pretend that obstacles and problems don’t exist. He did not pretend that. However, he consistently offered a message of resilience and hope, which can be really important if you’re navigating difficulty or shakeup at your workplace.

Being honest about challenges and also painting a clear picture and a clear vision of how the team can move forward is a really important takeaway. I think people can usually handle tougher news better if they know where they’re going. It’s that uncertainty that can be very disruptive.

Ren:

It makes me think, too, when we were talking about the idea of the person who says, “This is how we do it here,” and then they link their whole identity or career to it. Now, some of what you’re talking about is what we tell leaders to lead change. It’s recognizing that someone’s kind of having to let go of something, and that’s changing their environment, their experience, and so help understand that, give people a sense of where they’re headed, but also space to recognize that you’re experiencing a loss.

Change happens the moment the pope dies. The transition happens as we select a new pope, as we talk about what the future of Catholicism looked like. Change happened in an instant. Transition is going to be the hard part in helping people in and out of the conclave. I imagine the most influential players balance the line between that mourning of what’s lost, the recognition of all that had been, and a clarity on where we’re headed.

And there has to be some visioning from these leaders too. I don’t know. I don’t think people are standing on a dais or giving a podium speech about things. I think that happens in large group discussion and likely has been happening for years. It’s not like all of a sudden now we’re trying to select the pope. I think the papacy, they’re always looking at who’s going to be filling the shoes.

I mean, Francis wasn’t on any lists because he was considered to be too old to be the pope, whatever that means. Now he’s been rocking for, I think his papacy was 12 years long, nominated in 2013 or chosen in 2013. And so, it’s really interesting. I think in that space, helping people identify the transition, identify the loss, see where they’re going … that tends to help people be a lot more effective. In the very least, it helps you lead the people that you’re around.

Allison:

Indeed. And as I consider, in this conversation, the future of leadership as well, it will mean utilizing some of those more human-centered behaviors that we both spoke about today. And we saw this frequently from Pope Francis, of course, anchoring in core values, leading through service and not necessarily status, communicating with hope and honesty, and utilizing some emotional intelligence in the process.

So I think if I could leave our listeners with anything, it would be that, and also to Google the DAC assessment, D-A-C DAC assessment, that would be a great tool for you. What’s one thing that you would like to leave our listeners with today, Ren?

Ren:

Let me ponder on that. But one thing I think I alluded to at the top, and I highlighted some of how the conclave works, but I want to help you because you might be listening to this while people are behind the doors in the Sistine Chapel. And I think it is this kind of mystical thing around what do they do, how do they do it? And so I’ll answer that maybe takeaway as we set the stage for the conclave.

I think there’s some rule after the pope dies, you have 21 days to start the voting. And as the Vatican confirmed, the conclave will begin on May 7th, but leading up to May 7th, there are all these general congregations, as I mentioned, where we look at the merits of who might be the next papal prospect.

There’s 5 rounds of ballots before we take a break. “We” and “break.” So the first ballot is held on the first afternoon of May 7th, and the ballots are placed into one of 2 small ovens, depending on how it goes. And the idea is that in order for people to select a new pope, there needs to be a 2/3 plus 1 majority in the conclave. So I guess, 135 … let’s do some math real quick. Half of that is … we’re going to do it together. So 90, maybe a hundred people need to say yes to who’s going to be the pope. And that happens not … and I don’t think it’s ever happened in the first ballot.

Then the next day begins, they do 2 ballots in the morning, 2 ballots in the afternoon. If the voting process continues and they haven’t found someone, they take a break on that third day for prayer, for brief spiritual exhortation as it’s called, just to think a little bit more about what’s going on. And then they have to sit in that room and decide, and that goes on until they make a decision.

And it’s interesting. I wonder, when we think about the structures, when we think about the nature of how to create the buy-in from people … 135 individuals, you got to get a 2/3 plus 1 majority … I think one of the things that we think about when we are building coalitions as leaders, when we’re trying to lead effectively, I think there’s got to be something about helping people, putting people first.

I think, like you said, with Francis, the shepherd should smell like the flock. And this idea that maybe, as people are lobbying for their best choices, maybe the Pollyanna-ish part of me thinks that if you can recognize, you can speak to people’s feelings or values, what they care about, you can communicate that to them in a way that they feel seen and heard, then I think that’s mostly what people want. “I’m going to choose my candidate because I want to be seen and heard. They’re going to see me and hear me.” What if other people see me and hear me? Maybe that loosens my rigidity around how I am seen and valued.

And so when I think about leaders, your takeaway for this is, as you’re working with teams, as you’re working with people, do you know what your people need? Do you know what they value? Do you know what they care about? And have you had a conversation with them about how you’re working to either achieve those goals, and are being honest with them about when you can’t? And so I think those are some really practical things that you could likely do. I don’t know if it’ll make you the next pope, everybody, but I think it could very well make you a leader that people want to work with and a leader that people want to work by.

Allison:

I mean, we’ll see. Today is the 28th of April. We’ll see how long this takes. I mean, your guess is as good as mine, Ren, because … thank you for explaining that process. I wasn’t clear on it either. And now I understand why it could take so long. So we will find out.

And again, to all of our listeners, another question you could ask yourself is, who needs me to be a bridge today? And how can I step into that role? That’s one thing that Pope Francis did quite well. And we know that your jobs are difficult and often quite nuanced. And one of the best things that you can do is ask yourself, what does my team need?

So thanks for the conversation, Ren. I wasn’t sure where it was going to take us, given that you asked me about my confessions. Maybe we’ll talk about that. Maybe we’ll talk about that in a later episode. But to our listeners, thank you for joining us. Find us on LinkedIn. Let us know what you thought about this episode. Let us know what you’d like us to talk about next. And to all of our CCL teammates who help this podcast to get off the ground. Thank you, and we will look forward to tuning in next time. Thanks, Ren.

Ren:

Thanks Allison. Thanks everybody. See you next time. Find Allison on the holiest of TikToks.

Interview Transcript

Intro:

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

Ren:

Today, we’re diving into the world of direct-to-consumer DNA analysis. Companies like 23andMe and Ancestry.com have revolutionized personal genomics, empowering millions to uncover their ancestry and even get a glimpse into their health risks. And some of these pioneers now in genetics who soared to billion-dollar valuations now face some staggering challenges.

Specifically, with the stock value plummeting by 99% and a recent mass board resignation, 23andMe, the one-time genetic giant, is on the precipice of disaster. As 23andMe teeters on the brink of collapse, we’ll explore the implications for the millions of people who entrusted them with their most personal asset, their DNA.

The collection and use of massive genetic data raises urgent questions about privacy, leadership and ethical business practices, and how to navigate the fallout when business models fail. And as the future of these businesses becomes murky, we have to ask, what happens to all that sensitive genetic data of over 15 million customers? What happens to your genetic legacy when a company’s business and leadership falter?

While 23andMe’s product was groundbreaking, a combination of market saturation, privacy concerns, leadership struggles, and an unsustainable business model have led us where we are today. So, stick with us as we unpack the lessons on leadership from this unfolding story, how visionaries in the genetic space revolutionized an industry, and where they may have gone wrong in managing the responsibility that comes with it. Let’s get to it.

Welcome back, everyone. I’m Ren Washington, and as usual, joined with Allison Barr. Allison, have you ever used a genetic testing service?

Allison:

I’ve only used it for my dog. And I’m going to guess we’re talking about humans here, but I did use it for my dog. And if you had seen my first dog, you would have thought that he was a German shepherd, but we knew he was a mutt. And it came back that he was part Dalmatian, which made me very skeptical of the results. But hey, you never know. So I’ve used it for my dog, but not for myself. What about you?

Ren:

Were you satisfied with the results? You said you were skeptical, but did it work?

Allison:

Yes. Well, it worked because, and don’t judge me, I was much younger, I had to submit proof to the apartment complex that I was applying to live in that I didn’t have —

Ren:

Sure.

Allison:

… a German shepherd or “bully breed.” And I said, “Here you go, he’s part Dalmatian,” which … So yes, I was satisfied for that from that perspective.

Ren:

Well, see, now we’re starting to already get into the scary parts about genetics, like access. Every time I talk about this kind of discussion, I think about the movie Gattaca. Have you seen the movie Gattaca?

Allison:

No, I’ve never seen it.

Ren:

Yeah, see it. Young Ethan Hawke, young Uma Thurman. It’s really just a story about overcoming the limitations that society puts on us, Allison.

Allison:

Okay.

Ren:

But do you know anyone who’s ever done one of these genetic testing things?

Allison:

Yes, my sister. Uh, now I’m questioning if it was my sister. Somebody in my family did it many years ago. So I suppose what we’re getting at, part of what we’re getting at is, by proxy, I guess my data is out there.

Ren:

Oh that’s interesting. Some of your genetic data, because you’re related to the people, is out there.

Allison:

Yeah.

Ren:

Yeah. I’ve never used one of these, but when I brought this topic up to Heather — my wife, for those of you who are listening, and I’m trying to make a concerted effort just to call her Heather instead of my wife, because she’s a multifaceted, complex human being — but when I told her about this topic, or we’re talking about 23andMe, and she’s like, “Oh, what about it?” I said, “They’re about to be bankrupt.” And before I could even talk about the topic, she looks at me and it’s like, “What’s going to happen with all that data?” Because it’s like, her, and I think her parents have done it.

And so yeah, I have personally never found the desire, like 23andMe or Ancestry.com, I actually don’t even know what their value propositions are or how they differ, but I think maybe that’s sort of one of the things we’re starting to talk about today.

I think some of this story is rooted in the product and the business. I can’t help but think about Shark Tank, where they always talk about, do you have a product or do you have a business? Even for people who use the service once, I don’t know, if you map my genes, haven’t we won? You’ve mapped my DNA, so we’re finished, aren’t we?

Allison:

Then what? Then what? In theory, as I understand it though, some people have used it to find family members that they’ve lost or didn’t know existed. There are some who say it’s helped them to understand their potential health risks. But to your point, what’s next after that, in terms of what the company offers? I’m not really sure. There’s a lot of different ways that we could take this, I suppose. And I think one thing that you just raised was business or product, and I don’t know how long we want to talk about the CEO of 23andMe, but one of the reasons that the board eventually left the company was because she couldn’t provide a business plan that was either sensical or sustainable. So that’s an interesting question that you raise.

Ren:

Yeah. Well, so Anne Wojcicki, the CEO, facing a lot of criticism over kind of the company’s financial struggles, but her approach. So when 23andMe went public in 2021, its opening price was like $13.32. Then it started to raise by 20% before it dropped down to where it was trading yesterday at 29 cents. I guess I could look. But that’s where that 99% drop comes folks. It’s not hyperbole. It went from 13 —

Allison:

Right.

Ren:

… and plus to less than a dollar. And so her pitch to the board was, “Let me buy you all out. I’m going to make it private. I’ll give you 40 cents a share.” So it opened at 13. While she’s not offering them 30 cents, she’s not offering them much, so people were pretty pissed about that. And I think the board cited concerns about the lack of premium, of course, but also the overall insufficient way to protect the shareholder value. And they don’t know what she’s going to do with the business. So I don’t know. It’s interesting to explore how much of her … Could any CEO save them?

Allison:

I don’t know. I guarantee you there are probably people out there who are incredibly innovative also in that industry who could think of many different ways to sustain customers or have client retention or … It just to me, from the outside looking in, does not look like you’d have any sort of retention or any incentive really for one consumer to come back, right? Even further, your family then doesn’t need to. There’s no incentive for your family, either. So I don’t know. Again, I’m sure there are probably some innovative people out there who could think of many ways that they could add to their product line, so to speak, but I’m not in that business. What do you think?

Ren:

Yeah. As I asked, and I am listening to you talk, I was thinking about that discussion we had once with the grocery stores, like merging, and then cutting off and selling parts of the business. I guess what you just alluded to was that there may not be a family need. Because if you get ancestry in me and I’m your sister, and then I find out where your history’s from, then I now know where mine is, presumably. I don’t need to get it also to know that we have French ancestry. So maybe that’s something like your diversification there. I guess there might be some additional add-ons for the genetic testing and some of the, “Hey, we’re continuing to map XYZ DNA. We’ll update you. Get a subscription service.”

Allison:

Right.

Ren:

But yeah, I guess there might be a CEO who could innovate the business model, but I don’t know if the product, what can change. And that’s what happened with 23andMe, and all of them. At one point, I think … Who knows who got there first? Remember? I think it was just a show on TV where they brought celebrities and they told them where they’re from, and then that kind of evolved into this business model.

But as soon as there were major players in this space, there were many players in this space. You can spit into a tube today for almost any company, and they’ll tell you and what your dog are supposed to be. And so I think maybe the innovation doesn’t come in the product, but the innovation comes in the relationship with the client. And maybe even then, the relationship with other businesses. They’re going to have to have an inorganic growth strategy to make this happen,

Allison:

Sure.

Ren:

… which is to say some of them are going to have to merge and acquire one another, I think.

Allison:

Sure. And I could think of it, too, going many ways. Part of my family is Italian and part of my family is Irish. I could almost see there being some tie to travel. Okay, now that you’ve done this, now you can partner with whoever agency to get a trip to wherever to visit your homeland, so to speak. So yeah, I think to your point, they’re going to have to do something. And there were so many other things that came up for me with this story, too. And I don’t want to take us too far down like a philosophical rabbit hole, so humor me for a minute.

Ren:

No, those are my favorite. Please, let’s dive in.

Allison:

Okay, good. Humor me for a minute. So on the one hand, technology and AI as we know it are moving very quickly, almost to the point where humans can’t keep up with as fast as they’re moving. So on the one hand, I think about data breaches, which happen to any company. So any company is at risk of a data breach. But when you’re talking about genetic information, that’s unchanging. That’s people’s very personal information. It’s not like I could just change my password, and then all of a sudden, the person who hacked no longer has access to my DNA. It’s such a much bigger risk, to me. It’s just interesting. I’ll pause before I take us down the other rabbit hole.

Ren:

Well, I’m just grateful that, I think you alluded to a little bit of it, maybe the world is so far advanced. I don’t know if anyone on the dark web, for instance right now, someone has your, Allison, your Social Security number. I’m convinced of it because they have mine.

Allison:

Oh, sure.

Ren:

Because I am attached to Sony. I’m attached to Experian. They’ve had massive data breaches that have my personal information on it. They’re like, “Change your password so someone can’t use it,” but that stuff exists and is being peddled in a massive file of tens of thousands of other people’s data. So I guess I’m probably glad that, right now, no one can take my genetic information and synthesize a new version of me and make me better and stronger.

Allison:

Right.

Ren:

Thank God there’s not a black market for cloning science. Though who knows? There might be. But I think I’m grateful that there’s nothing to be done with that. But maybe as we ponder this, it is like, someone has it. Someone’s going to hold onto that database, and I guess leverage the information until we’re societally advanced enough for it to be used. And so I guess maybe … I don’t know if you had a question necessarily so much as, I guess some of the advantage of the fact that we are leaping ahead, technologically, we can collect this data, but what is someone going to do with it? Is a hacker going to … like they would hold my computer hostage? “Hey, if you don’t pay me, I’m going to email your genetic code to your workers.” It’s not like NSFW stuff. It’s like —

Allison:

Right.

Ren:

“I’m going to email this guilty picture of you to your coworkers. I’m going to let everyone know that you have an ABG genetic coding.” They’re like, “Don’t do that to me.”

Allison:

Right.

Ren:

So I don’t know. I guess what are they going to do with it?

Allison:

I don’t know. Right? That’s the question. And I fall in suit with you, where I’m kind of like, okay, well, I already got hacked once and somebody has my social already, and that’s not changing either. My Social Security number is not changing. You do all of the things to protect yourself so that people can’t buy a house or whatever with your social.

So part of me also has a high level of trust that we will catch up to it. And whatever folks are thinking they’re going to do with people’s genetic information, I have a certain level of trust in me that policyholders or whomever will catch up to that so that there is a solution, but I do know that’s one worry that folks have.

So no, I didn’t necessarily have a question, just something to ponder. But the other thing that was top of mind for me just got me thinking about the future of leadership in general and how complex challenges are now and will probably continue to be.

So I’m getting way broader right now, so you can rein me in if you want, but even consumers, too, are going to face challenges that are new that we almost can’t predict necessarily. And I know you and I have talked a little bit about this before, but I do think the degree of complexity for leaders right now is dialed up, and will continue to probably be dialed up, again because technology is just moving faster than our understanding. So what are your thoughts?

Ren:

Well, you used a really important word, trust, and then a couple of things are spinning around in my head right now, especially as a leader and a consumer. I think … And I was about to say, never more in history has your education been more important about what you consume or what you lead, but I don’t know if that’s true. If you were in the horse industry and the cars were coming along, you needed to be pretty freaking aware of how your industry was going to die.

And so I wonder too, some of what I was about to say previously was, I think for some of these genetic companies, they’re almost like Kodak or Blockbuster. They were swimming in the money. They couldn’t see past their own success to the inevitable evolution or the desire of it. And so I think, too, leaders are going to have to be aware of what can happen with this information, how to navigate it. When I think about 23andMe, I think about being informed.

Allison:

That’s it.

Ren:

As we think about information that’s either being given away or being taken away. A leader has to know … No one can point their finger and talk about, “Oh, well, you knew the risks here, and now your private information or your genetic data is in the hands of so-and-so.” Someone will try that, but it’s not working for Anne. And so there’s something coming up for me, this idea of accountability, of curiosity, of balancing between …

[Sneezes.] Excuse me. Keep that sneeze in. It’s human.

Allison:

Bless you.

Ren:

Thank you.

… of balancing that nature between how much can I delegate? I need someone else. I need an expert who’s going to manage this stuff. And then how much should I really, really know? And so there’s something in there for me around, like, I’ve got to trust the people I work with, and I cannot put some of these decisions in the hands of someone I don’t trust. Moreover, I’ve got to trust that this person knows what they’re doing because when we’re in the forefront of this information, someone’s going to know. Someone knows more about AI right now than me. They could use that for nefarious means, or they could use that for positive means. And so, as someone who’s driving the ship, I’ve got to know who I’m putting my trust in.

Allison:

Absolutely. So how do you know?

Ren:

How do you know who to trust?

Allison:

Yeah, I know that’s a really big question I just asked you. We can narrow it down. Let me get very specific. Who are you going to trust to know and foreshadow AI conditions that will potentially impact your job and your work? Put yourself in the shoes of a CEO even. How do we know? Sure, you can hire a CTO. You can hire people who have advanced degrees in technology. Is that enough? I don’t know.

Ren:

Yeah, I think you’ve got to trust what you’re trying to accomplish. And that’s an interesting idea, because is that what 23andMe did? It’d be interesting to talk about, what were they trying to accomplish? Did they ever have a conversation about the evolution of their business?

But I guess for now, when we start to carve into these frontiers, I have to trust some expertise. I have to trust someone whose character is reliable, but also willing to flex. I got to trust my competitors, too. There’s something about … if you can run a 4-minute mile, then I can liberate my thinking to run a 4-minute mile. Sometimes all of our success is my success. And that’s not too far away from some of our frame of reference on leadership.

But I think, starting to comb out who you might want to rely on, but also asking yourself, well, what am I trying to do? And then make sure that I can cultivate trust in the idea and then cultivate someone’s trust in the connection in that idea.

But I don’t know. Especially when we talk about 23andMe, and we talk about, just, the way they try to keep their business alive will sell genetic data. And now, albeit it’s anonymous, but they’re like, “Hey, we’ll sell information to pharmaceutical companies for drug discovery.” And so I don’t know, is that … I guess I can trust them to do what they need to do, what they’re rewarded, incentivized to do. So, how do you answer that question though?

Allison:

Oh gosh. I should have known better than to ask you, because you’re going to ask me back.

Ren:

Yeah. Yeah. You know I’m coming for you.

Allison:

I don’t know. I’m not sure I have the answer right now. But you mentioned something about having people around you who can consider, or start to investigate, the evolution of your business and how you need to evolve. And I thought that was a really interesting thing to say, and an accurate one, even more so than ever, having folks on your team or within your business who can think about now, right now, how you might need to evolve your business. And I would think that’s relevant to any industry. Can you convince me that’s not relevant to any industry?

Ren:

Well, I don’t know. Probably not. I guess the sentiment of your question is no. Everyone needs to innovate, but think about some things that don’t change. When’s the last time a table changed?

Allison:

There are all kinds of tables out there, Ren.

Ren:

Yeah. When was the last table invented? I hear you. I guess some of the principles might remain because actually I’m thinking of … I just saw this clip of these new compact furniture that … a table turns into a shelving unit, like 4 shelves, and then flattens out and turns into a table.

Allison:

Right.

Ren:

Yeah. I guess all things need to innovate. I guess you’ve got to trust someone to be honest with you, trust not to have a bunch of yes people around you, and then trust to learn the balance between that innovation and that steadiness.

Because it is an interesting tension that 23andMe, or all this DNA mapping, is maps like innovations in science. But then if it hangs its hat solely on the innovation of science, then it’s hanging its hat on something that happens every 30 or 40 years, maybe faster, but still it’s like, all right, when’s the next big genetic wave of materials, products, I don’t know, coming along? Who knows? They’re waiting too long.

So it’s like, yeah, innovate your product and then innovate your business model. Hold on to what made you unique, which is selling DNA mapping. But then maybe like you said, how do I evolve? Do I look for partnerships? Find out where you’re from, and then we will link you to Expedia or something where you can freaking —

Allison:

Right.

Ren:

… get a ticket. Yeah, broadening your mind, not getting too stuck on your own idea. Like authors, be willing to kill your darlings. It’d be interesting to explore what things they tested in the market, but it just seems like they doubled down on the idea of selling DNA kits for the past 2 years.

Allison:

Right.

Ren:

And it has not worked.

Allison:

Yeah, understandably. And if it’s okay, I want to broaden us again so that for those folks who are listening who are not in the industry, have also just some things to think about.

I was speaking with one of our brilliant colleagues, Renita September, who also has the best name, Renita September, who was sharing some research with me around the future of leadership and future of the future of work, future trends, and some of the research that we found was that economic pessimism, as she called it, will dramatically impact how leaders lead and how workplaces operate.

And I know this is kind of a bit of a turn for us, but I’m just wondering if we can talk about that a little bit, because part of what we’ve already mentioned, part of what will impact these industries as well, is if their consumers trust them. And part of economic pessimism has to do with lack of trust. And so, how can organizations continue to gain their, not only their consumers’, but their employees’ trust, given some of the obstacles that the world is facing right now?

And I’ll say one more thing about that before I let you answer, is that she and I also talked about how things that occur across the globe from you, no matter where you are, will impact your business in new ways now that leaders didn’t necessarily have to consider maybe 15 years ago. So, any thoughts, reactions?

Ren:

Yeah. What was the term? Economic what?

Allison:

Pessimism.

Ren:

Economic pessimism. God. Well, coming from a pessimist, this’ll be fun. Well, I have this idea, thinking about, gosh I think about structures of economics and governance. The stock market’s an interesting animal, and so too is crypto. If you believe in the idea of cryptocurrency, that it’s not going anywhere, then it’s a good investment. And … a no duh, Ren. Wow, you’re saying something novel. But so, too, goes the stock market. If you believe in the US economic system, or rather the global economic system, the stock market is a good bet because what you’re doing is you’re betting that people who are incentivized to keep that economy alive will keep it alive.

Allison:

Right.

Ren:

It’s ultimately what you’re saying to yourself. And so I guess when I think about some of my reactions to this idea of trust, it’s how can you as a leader or an organization, or me as your customer, how can you incentivize or demonstrate to me that your idea is tried and true? And maybe it’s just like, do I have to believe in your product, or can I believe in you? And there’s something about the sustainability, too, to believe in us. Not just believe in the product that I bring, but believe in the industry that we are creating.

That was sort of what solar’s early pitch was. And granted, solar got … I think they got flushed into a public market too soon, and a lot of people paid for that. And solar could be further along, I think, in human adoption than it is right now, but a lot of solar is not just betting on me as your purveyor, but betting on us as the industry. Our competition helps us give you a better product.

And so maybe there’s something in there. As an organization or a leader, how can you use competition to your advantage, and then tell people, “Hey, this isn’t just for our betterment, it’s for your betterment?” I don’t know. That’s sort of what’s cooking for me.

Allison:

Yeah, that’s interesting, and I think there’s probably a lot to say there. And I want to go back to something that you mentioned a few minutes ago, which was around … you mentioned something around accountability, too. And something that another researcher of ours, Marcia Dawkins, who’s a brilliant, brilliant author, she asked me this question once, rhetorically, of course, but I’m curious, what we can dig into here is, how can an organization balance the need for strategy and public accountability to sustain a business? That was a very interesting question. And then she simplified it to the question of, what does it mean to be a trusted partner or a trustworthy brand?

Ren:

Public accountability.

Allison:

What’s that?

Ren:

Public accountability for what though?

Allison:

Well, I think there’s probably a lot of things that we could say. I’m cautious because I don’t want to take us down a rabbit hole that will turn into sound bites. I think trusting information, trusting sources, sharing sources that are “trustworthy.”

Ren:

Frankly, we don’t live or operate in an economic system where many people have enough buying power to hold organizations accountable. Moreover, the regulations and governance they experience don’t require them to be accountable.

I think conscious capitalism is, whatever, increasing in some vogue, and new generations want new things from their consumers, but not when you dig into supply chain. Anyone who’s talking about global warming and also is wearing clothes is engaging in some kind of cognitive dissonance. Unless you out there had made your own clothes, or you’re one of those really, really serious people, and I know a few of them, who look at the supply chain of their clothing. And I’m not blaming any of you or any of us. Frankly, I’m wearing clothes right now that I know were not made in the best human or environmental conditions.

Allison:

Right.

Ren:

And there’s got to be some kind of withholding of your own culpability. So how do you become a trusted brand? There’s probably a few ways. You could engage in the illusion that people are buying into, helping them not feel too badly about their decisions. I think consistency is something. Offering somebody a unique product, but then continuing to offer more.

And so maybe that’s where 23andMe came. Do I trust 23andMe to do genetic coding? Yes. Do I trust them to do anything else for me? No.

And so maybe there’s something about the variability of your business. I cultivate trust in Apple, for instance, because it’s pretty, it’s fast, it’s smart. They have great customer service. They have a built-in ecosystem for blah, blah, blah, or blah.

I think maybe once you start to unpack your brands, you start to realize that they aren’t a one-trick pony, to say. And maybe this is a full circle for us here around 23andMe is, as a leader, part of your job is to make sure that you’re reveling in your success and you’re looking for the next one.

Allison:

Yeah.

Ren:

So a long answer to your question, as is my way.

Allison:

Yeah, that’s all right. Yeah. I think too, what’s interesting, and this is a me thought, not a CCL research thought, a me thought, is that as sustainability becomes more of a conversation in the masses, I have a curiosity around some of the brands, like Apple and some of the larger brands. I’m an Apple user, by the way, because let’s all knock on wood before I say this, but their products last, and so I’m not having to replace it every 6 months or so. I believe in their product. It’s user-friendly. It’s easy for me to use as well.

And as we learn more information about sustainability, now I’m not talking about Apple, I’m just talking broadly about a lot of different organizations … Like you said, do consumers have the “power” to change the way major companies operate and their contribution to things like global warming and the environment?

Ren:

Coordinated, yes. But some of what you said earlier, trust too, it’s Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, just basic human psychology, that if you’re worried about where your next meal is coming from, you’re not elevating your conversation to what brands I trust or what their supply chain looks like.

Allison:

Sure.

Ren:

And so, when we think about most Americans, or most people involving in modern Western economic systems, most of us fall in the middle to lower range of what we can or cannot do in that space. And so we’re probably having different conversations about trust because we’re too worried. Like, I don’t have the time to do the research, nor do I have the money to get the goods that are like this. We talked about with Bryan Johnson and his blueprint protocol, it’s like the things that are good for you and potentially good for the environment are not accessible by most people.

So it’s like, consumers … don’t get me wrong, I think consumers can change the world. They do change the world … coordinated consumption. And then, too, enough when … I have to address some other people’s needs before I start pushing them to think maybe differently about where they buy their cotton T-shirts from.

Allison:

Sure. Yeah. I realize that just took us a huge left turn, so thanks for humoring me.

Ren:

Well, I don’t know if that is a huge left turn. I mean, I can see a few anchors into this idea of the business, and leading in this business, and some of this idea of … How many people listening actually give a crap? Who’s invested in 23andMe right now? Would it matter if they shut their doors? Is this a relevant and useful conversation? Now, that’s … I think there’s plenty of connection.

Allison:

Yeah. Yeah. When I read about 23andMe, it just took me — and it still continues, in this conversation, to take me — broader, and what does that mean for organizations that are not in that industry? What does it mean for the future of work as we consider not only just people’s data, but again, the advances of technology? You mentioned … You didn’t say these words, but what you were alluding to is things that are systemic that one consumer likely isn’t going to be able to change by themselves, right?

And so again, when I think about trust and I think about the future of leadership and the future of work, I can’t help but think people just have to collaborate in new ways and in different ways. And what does that look like? I’m not really sure yet. But brain power, bringing different minds together that you wouldn’t necessarily bring together, today, right now, is going to be a necessity for organizations to stay ahead of those trends.

Ren:

And transparency.

Allison:

Yes.

Ren:

We talk this idea of leadership disclosure. Ask for more feedback. Share more about why you make the decisions you do. And when I think about Anne’s relationship with the board at 23andMe, I wonder how much Johari window she’s doing. That’s inside speak, folks, for what I just said. It’s like, is she getting enough feedback? What’s working? What’s not working about the business? Is she asking those questions? Is she telling people about why she wants to give a 40 cent valuation on the shares?

And so, I think, transparency is critically important for these things. Especially once we start playing around in the idea of digital information. I don’t know. I mentioned this to you, and I don’t know how many of you saw this, but in California, they finally made legislation that  anyone purveying in digital media has to let the consumer know that the consumer actually doesn’t own that digital media.

For instance, if you buy anything on Prime Video, people, if you buy any video on Netflix or something, you don’t have a physical copy of that medium. That data exists in their cloud, and that data only exists in their cloud because of a licensing agreement they have with the studio. So if they lose that agreement, you lose your movie.

And it’s kind of the same deal. It’s like, what happens when I give my data to an organization and they close their doors? I lose that information. And that’s some of what’s happening with 23andMe and their partnership with some of these pharma companies, is that their data’s anonymized. So even if you went to the pharma and said, “I want my data back, I want my DNA back,” they’d be like, “I’m not going to ‘unanonymize’ this. There’s no way for us to find it out anyway.”

So I think, as these things evolve, there’s got to be real transparency of decision making and implications on the consumer, and likely some stopgaps, like … Yeah, you can’t give 15 million people’s information to something, and then not give me, as your consumer, recourse.

And so maybe that’s more of that trust. And so, leaders, maybe that’s a method. It’s like, how transparent are you being, and how much recourse are you giving people when faced with decisions you’ve made? Even if you can’t change the decision, can you give them some agency in altering their experience?

Allison:

As you were talking about if I download a movie from Prime, and then I don’t know, Netflix or somebody else takes over the rights, and the communication there and the transparency, one other thing that I can’t help but think about that came up when I was reading the 23andMe story are privacy policies, which … Do you ever read privacy policies?

Ren:

Nope.

Allison:

Neither do I. I don’t read those. Yep, you don’t either, and my guess is that most people don’t. However, even if you did read them, a company very well might have a privacy policy right now, today, that they’re not going to share with third parties, for example. They’re not going to share your data, for example. And in a month, they could change that privacy policy. Now, are they legally required to communicate that with their consumers? That’s up for debate. There’s a little bit of a gray area.

Are consumers going to read it anyway? Does it matter? Yes, it still matters. To your point, you should still be transparent. All of that to say is that I do think consumers are going to have to pay a bit more attention to these little things, like the privacy policy, like the legislation that you just mentioned. And, at the same time, I also can’t help but think that humans are going to human. Am I going to read privacy policies? No, I’m not going to. I probably won’t.

Ren:

The privacy policy thing was the biggest, the most hilarious sense of “Involve me, but I don’t want to be involved.”

Allison:

Right.

Ren:

Because now, every website I go to is like, “Hey, we have cookies.” I’m like, I freaking know you have cookies.

Allison:

Right.

Ren:

And now I have to accept or deny. I got to go through this whole new process. And then I see so many people who are like, “Okay, we raise our fist together.” Consumers, together, we shook our collective fist. We hate these user agreements. You’ve been selling your information. So now everyone just puts these cookie notices. And you know what people do? They just accept all the cookies anyway.

Allison:

Yes. Yes, I do.

Ren:

Yeah. You were talking, too, about reading the little things in the user agreements, but it’s like American legislation. They’re so onerous. User agreements are like hundreds of pages long. Who’s going to read through all of that legalese? And again, so it reminds me, so it’s not only being transparent, it’s like, are you being candid? Are you being honestly transparent? It’s not like, here, I’m transparent. You can find this needle as long as you look through this haystack.

Allison:

Right.

Ren:

Is that real transparency? And so I think, again, maybe that’s where this is all swirling around, is as these businesses evolve, as you evolve, leaders and people, being honest with yourself about what you actually have an appetite to do, and then sort of being honest as a leader about what you’re expecting from your clients or the people that work there.

Yeah, I’m not going to be … It’s okay for you to just click yes on my user agreement because I’m not peddling your information to a company. Oh wait, I am. So maybe there’s some spookiness happening there, but I don’t know. Do people care? Yeah, humans are going to human. Because do I have time to care? And if I do, shouldn’t that be —

Allison:

Are you going to spend it reading privacy policies?

Ren:

Yes. Maybe I should be doing something else.

Allison:

… that are in font size 3 and a half by the way, 25 pages?

Ren:

Yeah, exactly.

Allison:

Yeah.

Ren:

They’re hiding all that stuff.

Allison:

But I think where you’re getting me to consider, or what you’re getting me to consider, is something that we might say around change leadership that is maybe applicable across the board, is just to communicate. There will be people who skim your email. There will be people who get onto the all-staff meeting and they’re sort of paying attention. But the people who really do have a valid investment or want the fine print or want the details, they’ll be very grateful, right? They will be very grateful. So I think there’s no harm in communicating. I think there’s no harm in being transparent to the point where you’re being helpful, right? Well, we could have a whole other podcast around can you be too transparent.

Ren:

Helpful transparency, yeah.

Allison:

Right? So I won’t even take us down that rabbit hole, knowing that it’s been 37 minutes. So yeah, I think if I were going to offer a takeaway, I’m not going to steal yours. But if I was going to offer a takeaway for leaders and what they can take away from this episode is silo reduction and starting to think about, who else can I involve in this conversation? And it sounds very simple in concept.

And what I know from lots of research, not just CCL, is that people are meeting heavy. They spend 60 to 75% of their time in meetings. We’re on autopilot. Some people are working on the weekends to get their work done. A lot of organizations are slim right now, so the last thing people want to do is take the time to invite Joe from accounting into an R&D conversation. But I’m telling you, take the time to do it. You just might have a new perspective that could help evolve your business. What are your thoughts?

Ren:

There’s a few things in there for me. Again, our classic CCL thing. I was talking to a client about this the other day. So, I’m going to get to the classic CCL thing. And I was telling them one of the scary … The most powerful lies have a little bit of truth in them.

And one of the hardest false paradigms that I think I work with leaders, and you probably do too, is they tell me they don’t have time. And I get it. They’ve got families, they’ve got jobs, they’ve got kids, they have a life. They don’t have kids, whatever. People are so busy. And I understand the feeling of they don’t have time, but that’s not really a true statement. It’s more like, I make time for what I want, some things I don’t want to make time for, is really what that sentence is.

But “I don’t have time” stops people from doing some of that, and I think doing some of any of the good work, some of what you’re talking about or anything else.

And I think some of the “slow down to power up,” that’s the CCL gem that we always say, is time spent on the front end is time saved on the back end. People are like, “I don’t have time to get so-and-so involved,” or “I don’t have time to break down the silos, Allison. What are you talking about?” I’m like, “Well, you don’t have time not to. You can’t afford not to do that, because then you’re spending all this time on the back end.” And so I think something, too, around the silos in this 23andMe story is this idea of the way information gets stuck in tubes.

I have this one client, and they’re starting to roll out their 2025 planning, which was finished in 2020, and now they’re beginning their 2030 planning. Now too, I think we understand the nature of strategic planning is that you should be reevaluating your 5-year plan every year, but people look at me sometimes and go, “Who’s doing 5-year plans?” I’m like, “You know who needed to? 23andMe needed to do a 5-year plan.”

Allison:

Yes.

Ren:

Because if you’re not thinking about how you’re going to evolve your business or your product, or you as a person, my takeaway here is, and as you were talking, I think I got, is get uncomfortable. I think 23andMe is like, “We don’t want to change the model. We don’t want to do so too much different. We don’t want to move from our true north.” And I understand that, but then now they’re looking at closing their doors.

Allison:

Right.

Ren:

So the idea of getting uncomfortable is “try something new.” As a person, get uncomfortable every once in a while. Because if you’re never uncomfortable, you’re just doing the same things. And are the same things going to serve you 5 years from now? Maybe. Tables don’t look too different, even though they are augmented. But are we all in a table situation, or do we need to innovate?

And so always be keeping your eyes on that moving target, I think, being flexing. And revel in the successes, hold on to what makes you good, and add new things. Get uncomfortable.

Allison:

Get uncomfortable. Yeah. I will resist the temptation to dig in with you about the “every lie having some truth to it,” although I want to. I want to.

Ren:

Well, the most effective lies, I think it is, have a little bit of truth.

Allison:

Did you say the most effective?

Ren:

That’s what make them so good.

Allison:

The most effective lies.

Ren:

The most effective lies have a little bit of truth. And that’s where that scary paradigm is like, “I don’t have time, Ren.” And I look at someone, and I’m like, “I get it. You work 50 hours a week. You have 2 kids.” And I hate saying that. Remember, kids aren’t a validation of you being busy.

You work 50 hours a week, and then you serve your community, and then you come home, and you’ve got to take care of your whatevers, right? But it’s that idea there is some truth to it, but it validates the lie, and that’s why some of the best lies just have a little inkling of truth.

Allison:

Okay. Well, we can leave it at that, because I want to take that and run, but maybe next time.

Ren:

Yeah, no, that’s for us … and our therapists!

Allison:

Yes. Really. Okay. Anyway, well, perhaps we can leave it at that, right? So get uncomfortable. Point 1, get uncomfortable. Point 2, do your best to reduce silos, because the future of leadership is going to require you to think and work with folks in new ways. And perhaps we can just leave it that for today.

Ren:

I think so.

Allison:

Great. Well, thanks, Ren. Thanks for the interesting conversation, and thanks to —

Ren:

Yeah, for sure.

Allison:

… our CCL team who works behind the scenes to make our podcasts happen. To our listeners, you can find all of our podcasts and show notes on ccl.org. Find us on LinkedIn. Let us know what you thought about this episode, and let us know what you want us to talk about next. And we’ll look forward to tuning in next time. Thanks, Ren.

Ren:

Thanks, Allison. Thanks everybody. See you next time. Find Allison’s DNA on TikTok. I hope not.

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 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:

We’ve got 2 big things cooking for us today on the show. Number one, FuboTV sues to stop ESPN and Warner and Fox Sports and their streaming programming giant. And the FTC and some state’s attorneys generals are suing the Kroger-Albertsons deal to stop that happening. And so what, right? What’s the big deal?

Well, Fubo would tell you that the joint venture by those 3 giants would destroy competition and inflate prices for consumers. Bigger picture, this ESPN, Warner, Fox joint venture surprised distributors and sports league partners alike when it announced that they were doing it. In fact, it’s reported that the NFL and NBA were mad that they weren’t involved in the discussions of this planning of the sports packaging. And this has prompted a range of criticisms that will loom around the government’s reported review of the deal on antitrust grounds. And so when we talk antitrust, we look at Kroger buying the Albertsons brand, merging the 2 organizations in a $24 billion deal.

Now, according to the Kroger website, at the time of the recording, they said that they won’t close any stores or distribution centers or manufacturing facilities, and they’re not going to lay off any frontline associates as a result of the merger. But a part of this deal is also that in the sell, Albertsons is selling 400 plus stores to this group called C&S Wholesale Grocers. C&S though, and as the US government’s highlighting, may not have the capacity to keep those stores open. And so, Washington and Colorado’s Attorney Generals and the FTC suggests that the merger is anti-competitive. Not only because the 2 big retailers of Kroger and Albertsons are each other’s primary competition in many of their markets, but also because selling the stores to C&S doesn’t actually ease the pain of the competition. Because it doesn’t preserve the competition because C&S is not going to be able to keep those stores open. Oh, and by the way, then that negates the notion that people won’t be fired or lose their jobs during the sell. There’s a lot going on.

For us today on the episode, this one might be a bit more philosophical or bigger picture. We might be talking more about leadership at the highest reaches of our lives, leaders who literally decide how much your milk and eggs cost. But we’ll try and definitely work to ground this in your experience as a leader or someone who has led. Welcome back, everyone. I’m Ren Washington and as usual joined with Allison Barr.

Allison, does it worry you that one day there might just be a single corporation that runs the world?

Allison:

No, not in my lifetime. I don’t think that will happen in my lifetime. Does it worry you?

Ren:

Okay. Well, maybe it’s 2 separate questions. Do you think there’ll be one company to rule the world during your existence and you think not?

Allison:

No.

Ren:

And that’s why you’re not necessarily worried?

Allison:

That is a reason, yes.

Ren:

Yeah.

Do you think it would be worrying that we would just have one single company that runs the world?

Allison:

Do you mean if that was a reality, would that worry me?

Ren:

I do. I am doing one of my favorite things now. Have you seen that movie, Wall-E?

Allison:

Oh my gosh, do you know how happy I am that you just brought that up?

Ren:

Hey, are we Venn diagramming?

Allison:

Yes, we are. I’m going to answer your question with context because —

Ren:

Oh, let’s do it.

Allison:

Wall-E is one of my favorite kids’ movies. When I was, I don’t even know how old I was, 20 something, I used to babysit these 2 amazing kiddos almost every single week. We always watched the movie Wall-E. The younger kiddo would always cry when we watched Wall-E, but he would say, “I really want to watch it, but it makes me sad.” I’d say, “Why does it make you sad, bud?” He said, “Because what if this happens? What if this happens?” I would always say, “It’s not going to happen. Don’t worry, don’t worry.”

Now, I understand his concerns.

Ren:

He was hoping that maybe we wouldn’t toxify the earth and then all be so large that we exist in these floating chairs. I can’t remember the big company, right? But that was a satirist’s view of the future of one organization running the thing.

Do you think it could ever happen? Maybe, is the prospect of that maybe worrisome, that it could happen?

Allison:

I mean, for me it’s hard to conceptualize how we would get to that point because, just clarifying, you said the world. One corporation taking over the world. Is it out of the realm of possibility? Probably not. I don’t think anything’s necessarily out of the realm of possibility, and it’s hard for me to conceptualize the steps that would need to occur for us to get there.

Ren:

Maybe ESPN and Time Warner and Fox say, “We’re going to create a single place for you to access the world’s most popular sports.” When I say the world, I don’t mean America. I mean the world’s most popular sports. Professional basketball is a sport played by the world. If, for instance, we’re only getting access to viewing that through one organization’s aperture, that could be a pathway to eventually just having a single organization that’s giving us our food and giving us our media and telling us what to think and how to look and how to eat.

Allison:

Tell me a little bit more about your perspective. Are you concerned? Are you afraid of in your lifetime one corporation taking over?

Ren:

Am I afraid? Well that, I guess, would presuppose if there already isn’t one. I guess maybe if we’re thinking about the Cerberus or the Hydra here, there are likely many heads to that snake. It’s already in place. I told you everyone I’m going to be philosophical. It may be too much of a conspiracy theory.

Here, I’ll just ground it in a concern that I have around Kroger and Albertsons. I wanted to start with Fubo, but I think it might be harder to conceptualize our media, or that might be more of a sacred cow, to be insensitive and use a bad example. But the Kroger and Albertsons merger reminds me of some things that are already spooky. If they merge and this thing goes through, Albertsons and Kroger would amount to having a market share, which is to say representing who we get our groceries from, that would equal 17%.

Now you might be like, “Who cares what 17%? What about the other 83%?” Well, even currently right now there are 4 primary companies that control 65% of the grocery market. And so what that means is that there are 4 major companies that are deciding more than half of the nation’s marketing metrics for how much they pay for goods and services.

Now, am I concerned? Well, I might be if those leaders aren’t interested in the things we talk about at CCL, but are instead interested in perpetuating differentiation and othering and their benefit at other people’s loss. I’ll stop there and say that gets me a little nervous.

Allison:

Yes, I can understand that. Well, I have a few things to say. They might not be super congruent, but it will come full circle.

When we were talking about recording this episode, as we do, I started reading the articles related to the stories that you’ve mentioned, and deep dive and clicking on links that they suggest, and then reading, reading, reading. What makes me not feel a lot of fear, even knowing what you just said, is that the Sherman Act, in the United States at least, prevents monopolies from taking over.

However, I am not naive to the fact that laws change, and they can change. It would quite literally take an act of Congress for that to happen. That doesn’t mean that it won’t, and I don’t think it will happen in my lifetime.

To your point, there are giants, if you will. Big giants who are doing exactly what you just mentioned. Is it concerning? Yes, and I think it’s more frustrating from where I sit just as a regular human who’s not a billionaire, right? Because what happens is those companies then can dictate certain things like pricing, and it gets very masked to the regular consumer in a sense that it’s hard for consumers who don’t maybe have an educational background in this space, or the interest or the know-how to dig a little bit deeper, to understand where the pricing is coming from. If I’m putting myself in the shoes of a consumer, then it causes a lot of chaos and misunderstanding and, dare I even say, some conspiracy theories, right? It causes chaos amongst the regular humans of us, and that is concerning to me.

The only other thing I want to say … Well, actually I’ll pause because I saw you about to—

Ren:

Well, I don’t even know if we need to conflate the idea of conspiracy theory, because there’s no conspiracy theory that’s going on that currently there are 4 retailers that control 65% of the grocery market, Kroger being one of them, Costco … I have the list and I’ll be able to look at them.

But I think it’s easy for us to bound in this idea of, “Well, hey everyone, pump the brakes. It’s not as bad as we think.” I think there’s just a measured approach to this idea of these things are actively going on, and they are, I think, causing frustration, at least for you or maybe some of the consumers. That was only my reaction. It’s like, I don’t know if we need to talk conspiracies when we live in a free market society that incentivizes these things to happen.

That’s really what I’m curious to talk about is, when we think about incentivizing leadership to do what’s good by people, what are the reward structures for us to do that? I don’t know.

Allison:

And I want to clarify I wasn’t calling you a conspiracy theorist.

Ren:

For sure. No, no, no, no.

Allison:

I mean that you see this every … Let me clarify. I see this everywhere. I hear it everywhere. Prices are high for gas, for example, because of the most unique beliefs, right? Our president does not set gas prices, for example. That would be one example, right? The prices of milk, for example, are astronomical right now because so-and-so is trying to take over the farming industry, which is not true. That’s what I mean.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again on this podcast, that it’s a really good idea for your career to understand business and economics. I know that not everybody has access to a formal education in that space. However, it’s a good idea to understand this stuff as best you can, so that you can tackle the right obstacle and not go after each other or the wrong thing — so that the right obstacle that you, consumer, listener, whomever, are passionate about, that you’re tackling it in the right way.

When we talk about monopolies, and just I’ll practice what I preach here, we’ve mentioned a couple of things already. For our listeners who maybe don’t know, a monopoly is a market structure where a single seller or a single producer takes a dominant position in the industry. When that happens, things like prices become controlled by them. There’s no, necessarily, incentive for them to have competitive pricing. They can also be inefficient, and monopolies can cause a pretty strong lack of innovation as well. The quality of products that you receive, whether it’s the groceries or something else, there’s no incentive for quality control either.

Just some things to think about. I want to say that just for those listeners who might not know what it actually means.

Ren:

I think as you were exploring all of those, I’m finding a space for us to maybe drill this down for you that’s listening, and you’re working in a work environment maybe where you’re looking around at the leadership structure. You’re like, “How are these people able to operate so freely and so inappropriately? Why am I fighting my coworkers when maybe I should be directing my energy elsewhere?”

Something you were saying in your reflections, I think, is making sure that you know where to put your energies. When I looked at these topics of conversation, the reason that it got me inspired to discuss was back to our original question. Does it worry me that the world will be ruled by a single company? Yeah, it does. It does worry me, because I’m seeing shades of it right now. Private industry controls every aspect of public existence. If it doesn’t directly control it, it has a direct hand in it.

And then for someone who is operating within organizations, who has to lead people, or who has to be led by people, you are inherently led by these bigger meta structures. For instance, if Kroger and Albertsons work together — Kroger has Harris Teeter, Ralphs, Metro Market, King Soopers. Albertsons owns Safeway. These are where you get your medicine. This is where you feed your family. These people all of a sudden have less incentive to have a real conversation with you, who’s being led.

And so I think it’s really interesting to get informed. And then, maybe as someone who’s in these positions or places, start to ask yourself around what am I putting up with? What things am I allowing to occur around me? What can my protest look like, if that’s not the right word, but how can I have my voice be heard if something is directly diminishing my ability to think freely, act freely, be free?

Allison:

Are those things diminishing your ability for freedom?

Ren:

Well, I mean it depends on how meta you want to go. I mean, I would say in an esoteric or existential way, freedom is what I make it from an agency or internal perspective.

Yeah, I would say absolutely. For instance, let’s say ESPN, Disney, Warner, Fox, they now say you can only get your sports through me, which is a big concern from people. Because TV deals, for instance, you can still watch America’s pastimes in sports if you have no cable packages. Now a long time ago that happened with the digital transponder changing, but you could still get ABC, CBS. Those core public programming, you can have access to it.

But even now, the gates for access are being reduced, so how can one be informed? Like you were asking, how can we be informed to make wise decisions if the information we are getting is curated? I can assure you — not curated for your benefit, but curated for the benefit of perpetuating the systems that I think they’re designed for. To answer your question, yeah. I think it can limit my freedom because I don’t even know what information I don’t have access to. So I don’t even know what information or freedom is being restricted from me.

Allison:

I’m getting very philosophical here, but you’re reminding me of some conversations I’ve had. Are there any benefits to not having access to all the information out there?

Ren:

Maybe. I don’t know if I need 6 guys in a room telling me what information I should and should not have access to. I think that’s more of my issue. These mergers create concentrations of control and power, and then they dictate access, so that’s my issue.

Allison:

It’s interesting how that last point that you just made, about a handful of people dictating, how that can show up at the workplace, too.

And what also came up when you were talking was, this is complex issue. I know that. Right now I’m talking about what I know about the United States, most of North America that is, is that if we’re talking about sports specifically. I’m a tennis fan. I’ve talked to you about that before. I cannot watch tennis unless I get the tennis channel. It’s very annoying.

However, there are ways that you can stream certain things. Social media allows for streaming. There are other ways. While it might not be me sitting on my comfy couch looking at my big screen TV, I can still watch it. All that to say, is that I agree with you. I’m not disagreeing with you. There are loopholes still based off of some of our laws.

Ren:

Well, you said something earlier around the act, and I wish I knew better around our laws. The Sherman Act. There we go.

As I was reading some of this, I was momentarily inspired by the American experiment because there are actually positive actors, I think. Like these state’s attorneys generals, started in Washington and then in Colorado, who are doing their job, who are legitimately looking at a deal and going, “This does not benefit people who work at 400 stores and really doesn’t even legitimately benefit people who would now have a single corporation operating upwards of 39 separate grocery chains.”

People were like, “Is this sus to anybody else?” Everyone was like, “Yeah, a little bit.” When I said, “Okay, cool, someone did go to a CCL program,” and they were like, “Oh, this is a social process of leadership, we’re engaged.” I was like, “That’s cool.”

But I worry. It’s like it’s the gentle probing that happens in sports. Maybe it’s like, you see this in soccer or even in pugilism and maybe in tennis, so you’ll have to tell me this. But people push boundaries and they push back a little bit, but they gain some ground. And then they stay there, right? And so now the Sherman Act is working great. It stops Kroger and Albertsons from connecting.

But need I remind you that 4 brands, Kroger, Walmart, Costco, and Ahold Delhaize, I don’t know how to pronounce that, they own Giant and Food Lion, 65% of the grocery market is currently in their hand. Do they push us to the brink? And then we all of a sudden go, “Hey, hey, hey, stop,” and then they pull back a little bit. They’re like, “Don’t worry, we’ll be back in a few years and then you won’t mind as much.”

Allison:

No, you’re right. There’s a lot to give our attention to right now.

I think what also happens is exactly what you said, and these lawsuits take time as well. I might be grateful that a lawsuit is coming and hopefully the right thing will happen. And tomorrow, something else will grab my attention. You’re right. I will probably lose track of this lawsuit because it probably won’t make mainstream TV, mainstream news. I probably will have to look for it. So there’s a diligence that’s involved in all of this too that can become really frustrating.

Back to the Sherman Act too, I want to read something to you if I can find it quickly. Humor me. Here we go. Part of the Sherman Act states, and I want to read this word for word so I’m not butchering, “At its core, section 2 makes it illegal to acquire or maintain monopoly power through improper means.” Tell me what improper means. What does that mean? How do we define that? Do you know what that means?

Ren:

Well, actually I think in one of the suits, part of the suit is … And it’s Fubu. Fubo. I keep calling it Fubu, “for us, by us.”

I had a jersey once, everybody. He’s like people are screaming out there, “It’s not Fubu!” Fubo, they actually want a grand jury trial for their suit. They are curious, what is improper means? They think they convince a group of well-meaning Americans that this is indeed by improper means, so question mark. I don’t know what it means, but I think you raised an interesting question that there’s enough curiosity in our lexicon where there’s freedom of movement.

But what are you highlighting there?

Allison:

Well, a couple of things. That the law, then, is open to interpretation. And when we talk about masses in power, who benefit from certain decisions and homogenous leadership if you will, and I’m talking big picture here, but this is also relevant to the workplace, then it would benefit them to interpret that in the same way.

To your earlier point then, having 2 similar interests in the room, the metaphorical room, does not benefit the masses. It benefits a very small handful of people, and that is a concern to me.

Ren:

Yeah, those in the room.

Allison:

Right. Because then you have lawyers who are arguing to convince 7 people what that statement actually means. If I can convince all 7 people and feed to them what benefits them, then the whole system, as you mentioned, works exactly how it was designed.

That’s very meta, what I just said, but hopefully I’m making sense.

Ren:

Well, I think as we wind around this and then, I think, telescope in and out of real leadership lived experiences, there’s a couple of things that are coming up for me. Because if you’re leading a company and you’re one of the many CEOs (you’re welcome) who listen to this podcast, you’re like, “Wait, are you telling me that I got to get this …? You’re going to create a riot, you’re going to create a mutiny in my organization. I make decisions all the time in the C-suite. Are you telling me that’s an invalid point of view?”

I guess that’s not really what I’m presupposing. Maybe a rabbit I wanted to chase with you earlier could answer this, and maybe I will talk about what I’m presupposing here is, instead of being concerned about the rooms that we aren’t in or how to get into the room where it happened, it’s how can we have a broader conversation around what leadership behaviors should be happening in rooms that I’m not in.

I know CEOs have got to make decisions, and they don’t need to ask me about them. I can only hope that they’ve done their due diligence to ask what is important to me, what is valuable to me, and what is going to benefit me. Now, I think the biggest fears here are that these things aren’t going to benefit me as in me, the American, or me, the consumer. It’s going to benefit them, those 6 dudes.

But you asked an interesting question to me around, is it bad to restrict information, or something like that? Something akin to it. I answered and I said maybe. It depends.

Allison:

What are the benefits to not having all the information? Are there any benefits?

Ren:

Yeah, so how would you answer that question? Maybe in the scope of, it’s reasonable for people who might see more of the puzzle to make decisions without our involvement, and maybe they are trying to help us.

Allison:

I don’t know the answer, and I fluctuate because there are certain things that I don’t educationally understand. I don’t know if I need to. Maybe I do. I don’t know. I don’t know what I don’t know, so it makes it hard to answer the question that I also unfairly asked you.

But when I’m thinking globally and big picture and how … I’m careful with my words here, because I don’t want us to get into a political conversation because that’s not what this is about. But this is the easiest example that I can give is, when I think about international finance for example, or decisions that are made from consumer goods that we pull from Australia, wherever, right? There are certain things that I do not understand how … I mean very tactically how. I understand big picture how those are made, but very tactically how those decisions are made, I’m not part of that conversation of how Bob’s decision impacts Susan’s decision and then impacts the consumer. There’s so much minutiae that happens globally that I’m not privy to, and I don’t know that I would understand it anyway. And so I don’t know that I want all of the information. It might be overwhelming.

This is relevant, but a separate example. There’s a conversation in the psychological world happening right now around live-streaming on social channels of certain war zones. It’s in some ways beneficial to be up-to-date and to know what’s truly happening. But I don’t know that human beings are wired to be inundated with that kind of thing, so I don’t know.

Ren:

It naturally comes up. Who gets to make those decisions? Who gets to tell me what I’m wired to handle or not?

Allison:

Right. To your point, I don’t think the people making those decisions … I can tell you that I’m pretty sure it’s not psychologists who have a human perspective.

Ren:

Well, tell me more. You mean the study of psychology and the human mind and brain and existence, they may not have a human perspective? I’m curious. What do you mean?

Allison:

No, no, no. They’re not making those decisions, is what I’m saying.

Ren:

Oh, okay. The human-centered professionals aren’t necessarily making the human-centered decisions, yeah.

Allison:

I hope I didn’t say that, but if I did, that is not what I wanted to say.

I mean, they’re not making those decisions. It is more of a market decision is how I understand it, right?

If we think about TikTok for example, it’s more of a regulation. It’s a regulatory decision which, again, that gets bubbled up into politics eventually. It’s not necessarily “let’s ask the experts what the impact is on the human” when this kind of thing happens, and “let’s prioritize the human being’s health,” for example. That’s not happening.

Ren:

Yeah. Well, speaking of TikTok and China regulation, it’s really interesting because I was reading somewhere that microtransactions in gaming are a very caustic thing that happens around the world. If you’re familiar with gaming, or if you’re not, microtransactions are, you can get a game for free, but then you can buy things to expedite your process. Or you can just buy things that add a cosmetic value to your process. You can buy a shirt with real money for your digital character to make them look different.

It’s pretty predatory, and it’s often a gambling scenario. And so China just recently put in some legislation like capping all of those things, continuing to reduce access to the uninformed consumer for those things. Now, I’m always a little bit wary of any state’s motivation to curb business for their own means, but it does seem like this well-meaning decision, that maybe we’re positioning the experts to know that this is pretty toxic and predatory.

I’m thinking this grounds us now, again, in the personal reflections of anyone listening who give a shit about other people, and then see potentially that there are some risks here if it’s not managed the right way. That’s all I’m saying. Maybe someone has the information in Kroger and Albertsons. They’re like, “You have no idea how bad the infrastructure is right now, and this merger will actually save you money.” That’s what they’re saying it will do. Forgive me if I don’t take them at their word, because what is their incentive to help me?

Allison:

Right. Yeah, I agree. I totally agree.

You raise a broader question too for me, and I’m mindful of time so we might come back to this later. I’m not talking about our job, okay, I’m talking big picture here. Is it a company’s responsibility to think about you and your family?

Ren:

Is it a company’s responsibility to think about me and my family? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not me and my —

Allison:

The general you. Not you, Ren.

Ren:

It’s probably you could even think, I’ll take —

Allison:

Inclusive.

Ren:

It’s probably incumbent on a publicly traded company to boost revenue for themselves and their stakeholders.

Now, if you want to get into the conversation of never ending growth cycles, that’s an unnatural occurrence. There’s nowhere in worlds that that happens other than the spread of humanity, the spread of disease, and year-over-year growth — weird comparisons. But I think a business should be asking itself, “What can I do to make sure I maximize the bottom dollar?” If I care about Ren and his family, I can maybe make that work.

Now, what does care about my family look like, if I’m an oil rig roughneck versus a pediatrician in a rural town versus a metal worker in Pittsburgh? I mean, those things all matter differently. I don’t know. It’s not someone’s job. Can it help them be more successful? Yes. And more importantly, maybe if I work there, do I know they care about me and therefore give them my best self? That’s my answer.

Allison:

Yeah.

And then, with that said, how would you know if they care about you? How would you know that?

Ren:

I would know it through maybe an examination of the beliefs, which is stated values, and then the actions, which is concurrent behaviors.

And so by them demonstrating that they do what they say, that you … Finding a way to articulate that I was heard, or in the very least — I’m glad you asked me that; I think I found my answer on Kroger’s website right now. They’re legitimately saying this is not going to hurt anybody. They’re saying that we are not going to have people lose their jobs. And there is, as it was just revealed in the antitrust settlement in this deposition, the C&S president who was leading at the time says, “Do we have to say we’re not going to close stores? Because how are we going to keep them open?”

That, to me, is indicative of, I might be cautious. That, to me, is a read that maybe I can’t trust them. I guess that they did what they say they would do. If at the end of this, I go to the store and my eggs are cheaper, and my cousin who worked at Albertsons still works at a place, I’ll be like, “You know what? They did care about me.” I guess the proof would be in the proverbial pudding aisle.

Allison:

Yeah, and that resonates with me too because, just because there’s a statement on somebody’s website, just because there’s a statement that we care, I personally am skeptical because I want to see it. From a leadership perspective, I think that is one tangible that we can think of as a takeaway, that doing what you say you’re going to do is a lot more impactful than just saying the thing.

You mentioned trust, and that is how you garner trust. That’s one way out of many. That is how you foster trust at a workplace and get the best out of people and retain them, have a happy workforce, have a productive workforce, is by having that. And so sometimes that can look like saying, “I don’t know the answer,” right? But it is having integrity and doing what you say you will do. Not just poetically making a beautiful statement that we care about you. We care about you here at X, Y, Z company. Show people that.

Ren:

I’m going to put myself out there too that we have a fantastic assessment at CCL that examines our EDI perspective, equity, diversity and inclusion, in an organization. One of the metrics is what do I believe about these things, and then what have I done about these things?

It was so refreshing for me because I’m an EDI practitioner. This is one of the fields of study that I engage in. I talk to clients all the time about cultivating inclusion so we have belonging. I fill out this survey and I’m answering a question about do I believe diversity in the workplace is important? I’m like, “Hell yeah, this couldn’t be a number high enough.” And then the next question was in action. When’s the last time that I sent a job request to someone that would qualify as an underrepresented candidate? I was like, “Holy crap.”

Now, granted, I don’t talk to any human beings for the most part unless it’s in the confines of my job, but it was definitely one of those places where I said, “Oh man, my beliefs and actions were different.” I think I’m not saying that it’s always easy to make sure that what you believe always comes up in your actions. Sometimes, and often as a leader, it’s not a negative occurrence, or you’re not maliciously doing it.

I know too something that you said to me, and I think we come back to it a lot, is this idea of the leadership disclosure. You said admit that you’ve done something wrong. I was just talking to a client before we hopped on the call. They were saying, “We’re doing this development at the top of this leaders right now, here with this strategic committee and then this oversight group, and that’s 18 people. What about everyone else in the organization? How do we help them feel supported or involved?” I said, “Just transparency. Let them know about what’s happening.”

I can tell you that a lot of these closed-door deals don’t feel transparent. A lot of them feel like that they are designed to perpetuate more inequities, not designed to cultivate more belonging. And so that thing, I think, another grounded takeaway, I’m loving the idea that — as a leader, disclose more, ask for feedback about how you’re being impacted or how you’re impacting people. And then ask about yourself. What kind of information, tell more about yourself, what you’re doing, why you’re doing a decision, and ask for more feedback so you can see how you’re impacting people.

Right now, the world is concerned. They’re telling Kroger and Albertsons, Fubo in the very least is telling these other people, “Hey, I’m concerned.” Now they’re getting the feedback, we’ll see what they do with it.

Allison:

Yes. And I want to give you another tangible example that’s a little comical but also related. I don’t want to get sued, so I won’t mention names of companies or people. I was in a grocery store the other day. There is a coffee shop in the grocery store, so I got a cup of coffee while I was, that’s nice, getting my groceries.

While I was waiting for my coffee, the folks who were making said coffee were having a discussion about how their manager doesn’t get to make the schedule anymore, and everything’s terrible because now the regional manager is making the schedule. One of the people who works there said, “Well, do you think there’s a reason why the regional manager has to … It’s probably was not their decision, right?” And then there was just an interesting conversation that took place.

This is related. These are the conversations that happen at your workplace, by the way. These are the conversations that happen. One of said workers was, whether or not she will, wanting to put in her 2 weeks because of the schedule. I’m highlighting this because of the domino effect that can happen when we are not transparent. A small example: this is a coffee shop that’s franchised in a different business. There are certain controls that the coffee shop itself does not have because it’s franchised. That is what I mean when I say, the more you can learn about organizations, the more you can learn about business, the happier you will be at work. Because you start to realize that a lot of things are coming from the top down. A lot of them are. A lot of them are outside of the control of your manager. A lot of them probably didn’t come from HR. HR might’ve communicated it, but it didn’t necessarily come from HR.

My point in all of this is to say yes, transparency as much as possible. Because if you prevent all of those background conversations from happening, potential turnover, potential misunderstandings, potential gatekeeping, all of these behaviors that really prevent a company’s success or team’s success, you get the best out of people when you are able to be transparent.

I’m not saying you need to throw leadership under the bus. Rather, saying something like, “This was outside of my control. Here’s why we’re doing it this way.” Here’s why we’re doing it. That’s it. And asking for that feedback. Is there something you want me to know? How can I help?

Ren:

And as an individual, I mean, holy smokes for that person who was like, “Well, do you think they made that decision? Why would they do that?” That takes a presence of mind — talk about peace at the workplace. If you can ground yourself in the reality that, rarely is anyone doing or saying a policy that they themselves individually divined and devised and that are giving it to you to make your life more painful, liberate yourself from that.

Because kudos for that person. What a thoughtful reflection of, I can’t imagine that Gary wants to do this. He doesn’t like us and know us, so I can’t imagine he asked, “Hey, can I make the schedule for all the regional stores?” That’s a really thoughtful question. What a good pause to think more systemically about it, and so I love that for an individual.

Another good tangible: just give yourself a quick pause, and go, “Maybe I shouldn’t make life harder because I doubt they decided to do this policy.” I can ask my leader, “Can you tell me anything about what they told you?” And then maybe the leader can do what you said.

Allison:

Right, and just ask. And just ask.

I think this is a simplification, but what you’ve said a couple of times is, are the 7 people in the room, your leadership team, if it is that small, are they representing the needs of those who are on the ground doing the business work? That becomes important in so many ways, holding the perspective of different people are different from you. Not only in the ways that they do their job, but different in gender identity, all of that, age, all of the demographics. It’s really important to have different people in the room so that they can represent all of the different types of people that work in an organization.

We know this, right? This is in CCL’s research. This is in a lot of organizational research out there, but the more diverse teams you have in senior leadership, the more effective and successful a company is, period. That’s been proven time and time and again. That would be one takeaway as well.

Ren:

I’m loving it.

I think we zoomed around a little bit. We went big, we went small. Email us. Write Allison if we didn’t do it for you. Yeah, I think that’s it. I think we grounded in that personal agency, that leadership agency, making your voice heard, and making sure that you’re seen.

Allison:

I like how you casually just noted to email me if people didn’t like it.

Ren:

I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Allison:

You’re like, “Email Allison. She’ll take it.”

Ren:

She’s ready for you. She’s much more social than I am.

What did we do the last time we had this episode and I sprung it on us? What is it? Something that we’re working on, something that we’re trying to better ourselves with? Do you remember that?

Allison:

Yeah. Yeah, I think that was the question.

Ren:

Okay, what did I say last time? I said no cell phone. Journaling, everybody. Journaling. No more blue light, too, before bed. Journaling has been really useful and a little bit of synthesis time.

We’ve been really indulging in some of our favorite television recently, but I find that even that TV before bed can impact the sleep. Just really trying to give myself more space away from other people’s messaging and more time with my own messaging.

Allison:

I want to ask what TV you’re indulging in.

Ren:

Yellowstone. We will be talking about them, but we’ve been —

Allison:

Okay, we’ll get there.

Ren:

We’ve been feasting on 1883, 1923, and then Yellowstone. That’s been our guilty pleasure.

Allison:

We will get there. We’ll talk about that.

Ren:

That’s fine.

Allison:

Mine is I journal every single night, and that’s been something that I do for a long time now.

But my addition was, fun fact, I was a creative writing major in undergrad until my parents said, “Hey, do you think maybe you’d be interested in exploring something else in grad school?” But it’s still very much a love of mine.

And so for — I think I’m on day 75 now of writing a haiku before bed really to get my creative brain sparking. Not necessarily because I love haikus, although I do, but that’s not my primary love. But it gets that creative side of my brain working. And then, inevitably, I have hundreds of pages now of just stream of consciousness that comes from that writing. It’s very cathartic and it’s very creative. I like that a lot, so it’s been very helpful.

Ren:

So you start your session with a haiku, and then you begin the journaling?

Allison:

Yes.

Ren:

Well, how fun. So interesting.

Allison:

Yeah, it is fun. It is fun.

Ren:

Maybe I’ll have to poke around with that myself.

Allison:

Try it. We’ll do our next episode only in haiku.

Ren:

I wish I could do it right now. I’d try.

Allison:

Well, Ren, this was a fun conversation. As always, I feel like we could talk endlessly about it. There’s so much more to investigate.

To our listeners, find us on LinkedIn. You can also find us on Instagram. Let us know what you think about today’s episode, what you want us to talk about. Also, on Instagram, we’ll be doing some really fun polling in the upcoming month. Make sure you do check out our Instagram stories. I don’t want to give away the farm, but we’re going to be doing some polling of our listeners for some upcoming episodes. Make sure you check that out.

Ren:

That’s right. Get involved.

Allison:

As always, a thank you to the CCL team who works behind the scenes to get our podcast up and running. We appreciate you more than you know. Ren,  and to our listeners, we’ll tune in next time. Thanks, everyone.

Ren:

Thanks, Allison. Thanks, everybody. See you next time.

Find Allison on TikTok.