[{"_1":2,"_3":-5,"_4":-5},"loaderData",{"_5":6,"_7":8},"actionData","errors","root",{"_137":-5,"_138":-5,"_139":140,"_141":142,"_143":144},"routes/clips.$id.$slug",{"_9":10,"_11":12},"clip",{"_13":14,"_15":16,"_17":-5,"_18":19,"_20":-5,"_21":22,"_23":24,"_25":26,"_27":28,"_29":30,"_31":32,"_33":34,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":40,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_44":45,"_46":-5,"_47":48,"_49":50,"_51":-5},"canonicalUrl","https://howleaderslead.com/clips/2035/cultivate-a-challenge-culture","id",2035,"title","Cultivate a challenge culture","subtitle","transcript","WEBVTT\n\n1\n00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.160\nWhen you're people naturally are pleasers, largely, right?\n\n2\n00:00:04.160 --> 00:00:06.880\nAnd they typically respect hierarchy.\n\n3\n00:00:06.880 --> 00:00:10.780\nSo if Johnny says this is the direction that we're going in, by virtue of his\n\n4\n00:00:10.780 --> 00:00:11.440\nposition,\n\n5\n00:00:11.440 --> 00:00:13.000\nhe must be right.\n\n6\n00:00:13.000 --> 00:00:16.600\nOr Johnny's chiefs, or they're the leaders, they say it.\n\n7\n00:00:16.600 --> 00:00:20.400\nWhat we found is there were some really good ideas coming up from the bottom.\n\n8\n00:00:20.400 --> 00:00:24.080\nYou know, there's a grass top, it was at rooftop, green, tree top strategy, and\n\n9\n00:00:24.080 --> 00:00:24.960\nthere's a grass\n\n10\n00:00:24.960 --> 00:00:26.600\nroot strategy.\n\n11\n00:00:26.600 --> 00:00:28.600\nAnd what we found is there were some great ideas.\n\n12\n00:00:28.600 --> 00:00:33.720\nThere were mistakes that we were making as an entity that our people at the\n\n13\n00:00:33.720 --> 00:00:34.360\nbottom of\n\n14\n00:00:34.360 --> 00:00:37.990\nthe organization knew and would have helped us prevent, that we could have\n\n15\n00:00:37.990 --> 00:00:38.760\navoided those\n\n16\n00:00:38.760 --> 00:00:42.560\nmistakes, if they thought they could challenge things that we said.\n\n17\n00:00:42.560 --> 00:00:46.650\nSo this idea of a challenge culture was very much about giving people, creating\n\n18\n00:00:46.650 --> 00:00:47.240\na culture\n\n19\n00:00:47.240 --> 00:00:53.040\nwhere people actually believed that we wanted them to challenge our ideas.\n\n20\n00:00:53.040 --> 00:00:57.120\nRespectfully, civility, all of those good things.\n\n21\n00:00:57.120 --> 00:01:02.430\nBut at the end of the day, you've got to give people the freedom, the safety to\n\n22\n00:01:02.430 --> 00:01:02.960\nactually\n\n23\n00:01:02.960 --> 00:01:05.440\nchallenge ideas.\n\n24\n00:01:05.440 --> 00:01:10.470\nAnd that's hard work, because I gotta tell my executive team, this is the way\n\n25\n00:01:10.470 --> 00:01:11.000\nwe're\n\n26\n00:01:11.000 --> 00:01:12.200\ngonna operate.\n\n27\n00:01:12.200 --> 00:01:15.660\nIt's okay for a person no matter where they are within these ranks to come in\n\n28\n00:01:15.660 --> 00:01:16.120\nand say,\n\n29\n00:01:16.120 --> 00:01:18.400\nI'm not so sure that's a good idea.\n\n30\n00:01:18.400 --> 00:01:22.360\nAnd then you've gotta take it and not just hear them, but you've actually gotta\n\n31\n00:01:22.360 --> 00:01:22.800\nembrace\n\n32\n00:01:22.800 --> 00:01:26.870\nit and then let them start to see that some of the things, the positions that\n\n33\n00:01:26.870 --> 00:01:27.080\nwe have,\n\n34\n00:01:27.080 --> 00:01:31.020\nwe're really held, we're willing to change if people, and then once you do that\n\n35\n00:01:31.020 --> 00:01:31.200\n, over\n\n36\n00:01:31.200 --> 00:01:36.120\ntime, you create a culture where people believe challenge is not negative, it's\n\n37\n00:01:36.120 --> 00:01:37.200\npositive,\n\n38\n00:01:37.200 --> 00:01:41.400\nbecause ultimately the entire organization is better for it.\n","pretty_transcript","start_time",826359,"end_time",926580,"keywords","people pleasing, grassroots, hierarchy, lead up, safety, freedom","slug","cultivate-a-challenge-culture","origin","cms","mux_playback_id","fyEPbJAeG0102013EjlQ5fZgdvwZpBYXK9rjYBcuCVsXmo","mux_asset_id","00d02301T498qH3OV00J6ebExoncheRtDGZBAAXUj7IKKqc","leader_id",88,"episode_id",236,"updated_at","2025-02-26T19:50:20.000000Z","meta_title","meta_description","og_image_media_id","web_url","https://www.howleaderslead.com/clips/2035/cultivate-a-challenge-culture","og_image_url","leader",{"_13":36,"_101":102,"_103":104,"_105":106,"_25":107,"_108":109,"_62":110,"_59":110,"_111":112,"_69":113,"_39":114,"_115":-5,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_116":117,"_89":118,"_44":119,"_120":121,"_122":123,"_46":-5,"_124":125,"_126":127,"_93":128,"_51":-5},"episode",{"_13":38,"_15":52,"_27":53,"_17":54,"_55":56,"_18":57,"_20":58,"_59":60,"_61":-5,"_62":60,"_63":-5,"_64":65,"_66":67,"_68":-5,"_69":-5,"_70":71,"_72":73,"_74":-5,"_35":36,"_39":75,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_76":77,"_78":79,"_80":81,"_82":83,"_84":-5,"_85":-5,"_86":87,"_88":-5,"_89":-5,"_46":-5,"_90":91,"_92":-5,"_93":-5,"_51":-5},"og_image_media","Treat Empathy as a Business Skill","treat-empathy-as-a-business-skill","Learn why empathy is a business skill, not a soft skill – and why it’s absolutely key to creating a work culture that’s healthy and productive. Plus, a goldmine of practical tips for anyone who works with people: how to hire, retain talent, and embrace the benefits of remote work while avoiding its major pitfall.","summary","

Today’s guest is Johnny Taylor, President & CEO of SHRM, the Society of Human Resource Management, which is the association for over 300,000 human resource officers in 165 countries.

The formula for success in any business is to get your people capability right. That’s how you’re going to satisfy more customers. That’s how you make more money. And more importantly, that’s how you make a bigger difference in the world.

When it comes to getting your people right, Johnny Taylor has figured out a huge piece of the puzzle. And it’s something a lot of us overlook: empathy. Not sympathy! But empathy – the ability to see a situation from someone else’s perspective and respond with compassion.

He says empathy isn’t just a mushy feeling or moral idea. It’s a business skill – something we actively need to be working toward in our organizations and developing in our leaders.

If you’re not sure how to do that, don’t miss this episode!

You’ll also learn:

Three benefits of remote work (and one huge danger)
The paradigm shift every HR department needs in order to shake the bad rap
The #1 reason you’re overlooking great talent
How to keep your best people
Specific ideas to drive diversity and inclusion

Take your learning further. Get proven leadership advice from these (free!) resources:

The How Leaders Lead App: A vast library of 90-second leadership lessons to stay sharp on the go

Daily Insight Emails: One small (but powerful!) leadership principle to focus on each day

Whichever you choose, you can be sure you’ll get the trusted leadership advice you need to advance your career, develop your team, and grow your business.

","WEBVTT\n\n1\n00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.670\nWelcome to How Leaders Lead, where every week you get to listen in while I\n\n2\n00:00:07.670 --> 00:00:08.480\ninterview some\n\n3\n00:00:08.480 --> 00:00:10.480\nof the very best leaders in the world.\n\n4\n00:00:10.480 --> 00:00:13.690\nI break down the key learning so that by the end of the episode, you'll have\n\n5\n00:00:13.690 --> 00:00:14.260\nsomething\n\n6\n00:00:14.260 --> 00:00:17.840\nsimple you can apply as you develop into a better leader.\n\n7\n00:00:17.840 --> 00:00:20.400\nThat's what this podcast is all about.\n\n8\n00:00:20.400 --> 00:00:24.620\nToday's guest is Johnny Taylor, President and CEO of Shurm, the Society of\n\n9\n00:00:24.620 --> 00:00:25.560\nHuman Resource\n\n10\n00:00:25.560 --> 00:00:32.710\nManagement, which is the Association for over 300,000 Human Resource Officers\n\n11\n00:00:32.710 --> 00:00:34.640\nin 165 countries.\n\n12\n00:00:34.640 --> 00:00:38.440\nI always say the formula for success in any business is to get your people\n\n13\n00:00:38.440 --> 00:00:39.160\ncapability\n\n14\n00:00:39.160 --> 00:00:40.160\nright.\n\n15\n00:00:40.160 --> 00:00:42.560\nThat's how you're going to satisfy more customers.\n\n16\n00:00:42.560 --> 00:00:44.320\nThat's how you're going to make more money.\n\n17\n00:00:44.320 --> 00:00:48.480\nAnd more importantly, that's how you can make a bigger difference in the world.\n\n18\n00:00:48.480 --> 00:00:51.880\nThat's why I'm really excited for you to hear from Johnny, because he has\n\n19\n00:00:51.880 --> 00:00:52.720\nfigured out a\n\n20\n00:00:52.720 --> 00:00:56.360\nhuge piece of the puzzle when it comes to getting your people right.\n\n21\n00:00:56.360 --> 00:00:59.080\nAnd it's something a lot of us overlook.\n\n22\n00:00:59.080 --> 00:01:02.920\nEmpathy, not sympathy, but empathy.\n\n23\n00:01:02.920 --> 00:01:07.260\nThe ability to see a situation from someone else's perspective and really\n\n24\n00:01:07.260 --> 00:01:08.040\nrespond with\n\n25\n00:01:08.040 --> 00:01:09.720\ncompassion.\n\n26\n00:01:09.720 --> 00:01:13.640\nHe says empathy isn't just a mushy feeling or moral idea.\n\n27\n00:01:13.640 --> 00:01:17.930\nIt's a business skill, something we actively need to be working toward in our\n\n28\n00:01:17.930 --> 00:01:18.880\norganizations\n\n29\n00:01:18.880 --> 00:01:21.120\nand developing in our leaders.\n\n30\n00:01:21.120 --> 00:01:26.360\nAnd fortunately, he has a lot of practical advice for how we can do just that.\n\n31\n00:01:26.360 --> 00:01:27.840\nSo let's get right to it.\n\n32\n00:01:27.840 --> 00:01:35.240\nHere's my conversation with my new friend and soon to be yours, Johnny Taylor.\n\n33\n00:01:35.240 --> 00:01:42.600\nJohnny, thanks so much for taking the time to join me in this conversation.\n\n34\n00:01:42.600 --> 00:01:44.400\nOh, thank you so much, David.\n\n35\n00:01:44.400 --> 00:01:49.440\nAnd listen, I shared with you it's a big deal to be able to spend time with you\n\n36\n00:01:49.440 --> 00:01:50.120\nbecause\n\n37\n00:01:50.120 --> 00:01:54.960\nall of the CEOs as of late, frankly, have jumped on the people bandwagon.\n\n38\n00:01:54.960 --> 00:01:57.600\nBut you've been doing this for a very long time.\n\n39\n00:01:57.600 --> 00:01:59.400\nThis is not new to you.\n\n40\n00:01:59.400 --> 00:02:02.930\nAnd a long time ago, when people were talking about financial capital,\n\n41\n00:02:02.930 --> 00:02:04.000\nfinancial capital,\n\n42\n00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:05.400\nyou were talking about human capital.\n\n43\n00:02:05.400 --> 00:02:09.880\nSo thank you for being ahead of your time and being a frontiersman on this work\n\n44\n00:02:09.880 --> 00:02:10.200\n.\n\n45\n00:02:10.200 --> 00:02:11.880\nWell, thank you very much, Johnny.\n\n46\n00:02:11.880 --> 00:02:14.080\nI know your organization pretty well.\n\n47\n00:02:14.080 --> 00:02:17.480\nI've spoken to a couple of your big conventions that they're big.\n\n48\n00:02:17.480 --> 00:02:19.240\nI mean, I spoke to one in Orlando.\n\n49\n00:02:19.240 --> 00:02:23.080\nYeah, close to 15,000 people there is the biggest group I ever talked about.\n\n50\n00:02:23.080 --> 00:02:25.720\nAnd I taught everybody the yum cheer.\n\n51\n00:02:25.720 --> 00:02:30.920\nIt's the only time, Johnny, that I've I've I've trended on Twitter.\n\n52\n00:02:30.920 --> 00:02:32.360\nYou know, so that was kind of cool.\n\n53\n00:02:32.360 --> 00:02:33.360\nVery cool.\n\n54\n00:02:33.360 --> 00:02:37.840\nBut I want you, can you tell us about the purpose of your organization, Sherman\n\n55\n00:02:37.840 --> 00:02:38.480\n, and\n\n56\n00:02:38.480 --> 00:02:41.680\nanything else that you think will put it in the proper context?\n\n57\n00:02:41.680 --> 00:02:42.680\nYeah.\n\n58\n00:02:42.680 --> 00:02:47.050\nSo, Sherman, let me describe what it is for people who just need sort of an\n\n59\n00:02:47.050 --> 00:02:48.600\nelevator pitch,\n\n60\n00:02:48.600 --> 00:02:49.600\nokay?\n\n61\n00:02:49.600 --> 00:02:52.840\nWe represent HR professionals across the globe.\n\n62\n00:02:52.840 --> 00:02:53.840\nAnd what does that mean?\n\n63\n00:02:53.840 --> 00:02:56.840\nIf you were a lawyer, you'd be a member of the American Bar Association.\n\n64\n00:02:56.840 --> 00:03:00.560\nIf you were a physician, you'd be a member of the American Medical Association.\n\n65\n00:03:00.560 --> 00:03:05.180\nSo is the professional association for people who do what we do, which is human\n\n66\n00:03:05.180 --> 00:03:06.040\nresources?\n\n67\n00:03:06.040 --> 00:03:08.200\nIt includes HR practitioners.\n\n68\n00:03:08.200 --> 00:03:11.030\nIt includes lawyers because you know, there are a lot of lawyers who focus in\n\n69\n00:03:11.030 --> 00:03:12.480\npeople issues.\n\n70\n00:03:12.480 --> 00:03:16.280\nIt includes all sorts of benefits people and talent acquisition people, etc.\n\n71\n00:03:16.280 --> 00:03:19.800\nBut anything related to people is what we do.\n\n72\n00:03:19.800 --> 00:03:22.200\nWe are the go-to organization for that.\n\n73\n00:03:22.200 --> 00:03:26.380\nHowever, and most recently, and about three or four years ago, because of what\n\n74\n00:03:26.380 --> 00:03:26.840\nyou've\n\n75\n00:03:26.840 --> 00:03:30.350\nbeen preaching for decades now, the idea that people are at the center of\n\n76\n00:03:30.350 --> 00:03:31.480\nalmost everything,\n\n77\n00:03:31.480 --> 00:03:35.930\nespecially when it comes to industry, we've broadened our remit a little bit so\n\n78\n00:03:35.930 --> 00:03:36.560\nthat even\n\n79\n00:03:36.560 --> 00:03:41.420\nemployees now come to us to say, you know, what should I expect from my\n\n80\n00:03:41.420 --> 00:03:42.440\nemployer?\n\n81\n00:03:42.440 --> 00:03:45.000\nWhat is the right way for me to ask for this or that?\n\n82\n00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:48.910\nSo it's more than just representing HR professionals, we're representing work\n\n83\n00:03:48.910 --> 00:03:49.880\nand everything that\n\n84\n00:03:49.880 --> 00:03:51.480\nhas to do with work.\n\n85\n00:03:51.480 --> 00:03:55.080\nWell, you've really broadened that definition and I want to want to get into\n\n86\n00:03:55.080 --> 00:03:55.600\nthat a little\n\n87\n00:03:55.600 --> 00:03:56.960\nbit more later.\n\n88\n00:03:56.960 --> 00:04:00.660\nBut first of all, the reason why I was so excited about doing this podcast is I\n\n89\n00:04:00.660 --> 00:04:00.960\njust\n\n90\n00:04:00.960 --> 00:04:03.320\nread your excellent new book.\n\n91\n00:04:03.320 --> 00:04:05.000\nIt's Chock Full of Insights.\n\n92\n00:04:05.000 --> 00:04:11.080\nIt's called Reset, a leader's guide to work in an age of upheaval.\n\n93\n00:04:11.080 --> 00:04:13.640\nWhat do you hope to accomplish with the book, Johnny?\n\n94\n00:04:13.640 --> 00:04:20.790\nYeah, so I hope that again, not just HR practitioners or just CEOs, but that\n\n95\n00:04:20.790 --> 00:04:22.920\nbroadly, we all read\n\n96\n00:04:22.920 --> 00:04:26.200\nthe book and say, okay, what's my reset moment?\n\n97\n00:04:26.200 --> 00:04:27.200\nWhy is that so important?\n\n98\n00:04:27.200 --> 00:04:31.510\nDavid, I think you'd agree and anyone listening to this would agree that we all\n\n99\n00:04:31.510 --> 00:04:32.240\nthought back\n\n100\n00:04:32.240 --> 00:04:36.680\nin March of 2020, it feels like centuries ago now, right?\n\n101\n00:04:36.680 --> 00:04:39.040\nBut we thought this was a pause.\n\n102\n00:04:39.040 --> 00:04:45.360\nWe thought 14, 21 days, 30 days, the entire country and indeed the globe shuts\n\n103\n00:04:45.360 --> 00:04:45.960\ndown and\n\n104\n00:04:45.960 --> 00:04:49.520\nthen we will be past this COVID-19 thing.\n\n105\n00:04:49.520 --> 00:04:55.440\nNone of us, as time marched on, three months, six months, nine months, now 15\n\n106\n00:04:55.440 --> 00:04:56.640\nmonths later,\n\n107\n00:04:56.640 --> 00:05:01.510\nthought that we'd be here still frankly in the middle of the pandemic in many\n\n108\n00:05:01.510 --> 00:05:02.160\nways.\n\n109\n00:05:02.160 --> 00:05:08.900\nAnd so as opposed to a pause, this period of time to reflect, rethink, reset\n\n110\n00:05:08.900 --> 00:05:09.760\nwas very\n\n111\n00:05:09.760 --> 00:05:11.880\ndifferent than what any of us expected.\n\n112\n00:05:11.880 --> 00:05:17.740\nI'm hoping that what the book does, as it says, here's a framework for taking\n\n113\n00:05:17.740 --> 00:05:18.480\nthis,\n\n114\n00:05:18.480 --> 00:05:22.720\nrethinking how you're going to operate in work going forward, either as an\n\n115\n00:05:22.720 --> 00:05:23.640\nemployee or\n\n116\n00:05:23.640 --> 00:05:27.280\nan employer, a leader, a follower, whatever.\n\n117\n00:05:27.280 --> 00:05:30.700\nThat's the point is for it to give some thoughts, as you said, some real\n\n118\n00:05:30.700 --> 00:05:31.720\nthoughts about how\n\n119\n00:05:31.720 --> 00:05:36.400\ncan, how will I be really different coming out of the pandemic?\n\n120\n00:05:36.400 --> 00:05:41.260\nYou're obviously a leader who really walks the talk and I want to get into how\n\n121\n00:05:41.260 --> 00:05:41.920\nyou lead\n\n122\n00:05:41.920 --> 00:05:46.380\nand how you're resetting shurm with a real live example of how to really\n\n123\n00:05:46.380 --> 00:05:47.280\nperform in this\n\n124\n00:05:47.280 --> 00:05:48.640\ncrazy time.\n\n125\n00:05:48.640 --> 00:05:51.440\nBut first, let me take you back a little bit.\n\n126\n00:05:51.440 --> 00:05:53.120\nTell us about your upbringing.\n\n127\n00:05:53.120 --> 00:05:54.520\nModest.\n\n128\n00:05:54.520 --> 00:05:57.280\nThat's the best way to describe it, right?\n\n129\n00:05:57.280 --> 00:06:00.450\nAnd I just had lunch with a colleague the other day and described why I think\n\n130\n00:06:00.450 --> 00:06:00.960\nthat makes\n\n131\n00:06:00.960 --> 00:06:03.640\nme what I am because I can relate, relate to everyone.\n\n132\n00:06:03.640 --> 00:06:05.800\nI've been in the best of worlds.\n\n133\n00:06:05.800 --> 00:06:08.840\nThis was the Charles Dickens story, The Best of Times, The Worst of Times.\n\n134\n00:06:08.840 --> 00:06:09.840\nI've lived it all.\n\n135\n00:06:09.840 --> 00:06:12.040\nI was born in Fort Lauderdale.\n\n136\n00:06:12.040 --> 00:06:13.720\nOne of three children to my parents.\n\n137\n00:06:13.720 --> 00:06:14.880\nThey ultimately were divorced.\n\n138\n00:06:14.880 --> 00:06:19.690\nSo raised by a single mom, went off to college because it was clear to me that\n\n139\n00:06:19.690 --> 00:06:20.480\neducation\n\n140\n00:06:20.480 --> 00:06:24.560\nwas going to be the great equalizer at the University of Miami, the U, for\n\n141\n00:06:24.560 --> 00:06:25.560\nanyone watching\n\n142\n00:06:25.560 --> 00:06:26.560\nout there.\n\n143\n00:06:26.560 --> 00:06:30.250\nAnd then went on left Florida where I was raised and did my undergraduate work\n\n144\n00:06:30.250 --> 00:06:30.480\nto\n\n145\n00:06:30.480 --> 00:06:33.260\nlaw school, went to Iowa of all places.\n\n146\n00:06:33.260 --> 00:06:35.560\nSo if I have any Midwesterners in there, thank you.\n\n147\n00:06:35.560 --> 00:06:40.420\nYou gave me an amazing foundation and then spent my life on the corporate side,\n\n148\n00:06:40.420 --> 00:06:40.880\neven though\n\n149\n00:06:40.880 --> 00:06:45.940\nI'm at Sherm now, which is a dot org and a nonprofit, I spent most of my life\n\n150\n00:06:45.940 --> 00:06:46.640\nin major\n\n151\n00:06:46.640 --> 00:06:51.400\ncorporations, Viacom, Paramount Pictures, Blockbuster Entertainment.\n\n152\n00:06:51.400 --> 00:06:53.840\nYes, there once was a blockbuster.\n\n153\n00:06:53.840 --> 00:06:56.790\nAnd as I've mentioned, Dave, something that you would know, I was in the food\n\n154\n00:06:56.790 --> 00:06:57.280\nservices\n\n155\n00:06:57.280 --> 00:06:58.280\nbusiness.\n\n156\n00:06:58.280 --> 00:07:01.630\nIn fact, I was general counsel for a company out of the UK called the Compass\n\n157\n00:07:01.630 --> 00:07:02.280\nGroup, the\n\n158\n00:07:02.280 --> 00:07:04.920\nworld's largest food services company.\n\n159\n00:07:04.920 --> 00:07:07.120\nAnd so I was general counsel there.\n\n160\n00:07:07.120 --> 00:07:11.630\nI've had throughout my career opportunities as a chief lawyer, chief HR officer\n\n161\n00:07:11.630 --> 00:07:12.040\n, and\n\n162\n00:07:12.040 --> 00:07:13.840\nnow CEO.\n\n163\n00:07:13.840 --> 00:07:20.080\nSo Johnny, you were at Blockbuster, which was totally disrupted by Netflix.\n\n164\n00:07:20.080 --> 00:07:24.120\nWhat did you learn from that experience that sticks with you today?\n\n165\n00:07:24.120 --> 00:07:27.320\nThat if you don't change, you will die.\n\n166\n00:07:27.320 --> 00:07:28.320\nAnd it's just that simple.\n\n167\n00:07:28.320 --> 00:07:31.080\nIn fact, I talk about Blockbuster a lot.\n\n168\n00:07:31.080 --> 00:07:33.710\nYou remember, and for anyone who's too young, maybe the millennials in\n\n169\n00:07:33.710 --> 00:07:34.440\nparticular, the\n\n170\n00:07:34.440 --> 00:07:36.800\nGeneration Z, we were everywhere.\n\n171\n00:07:36.800 --> 00:07:40.650\nI mean, there was a blockbuster store opening every 20 seconds we used to brag\n\n172\n00:07:40.650 --> 00:07:41.440\non the planet.\n\n173\n00:07:41.440 --> 00:07:45.040\nThere was not a corner you went to and everyone made it a blockbuster night.\n\n174\n00:07:45.040 --> 00:07:48.920\nAnd it just became a part of life, right?\n\n175\n00:07:48.920 --> 00:07:53.280\nAnd then almost overnight, I'm talking five to seven years, it went from Wall\n\n176\n00:07:53.280 --> 00:07:53.760\nStreet's\n\n177\n00:07:53.760 --> 00:07:59.800\ndarling and pure ubiquity from a brand standpoint to nowhere, to bankrupt, to\n\n178\n00:07:59.800 --> 00:08:01.640\nlike nonexistent.\n\n179\n00:08:01.640 --> 00:08:06.480\nAnd I saw that because we refuse the whole idea of innovation within a business\n\n180\n00:08:06.480 --> 00:08:07.000\n, the\n\n181\n00:08:07.000 --> 00:08:11.290\nidea of not listening to the next generation of customer internally or\n\n182\n00:08:11.290 --> 00:08:12.680\nexternally, it caught\n\n183\n00:08:12.680 --> 00:08:13.680\nus up.\n\n184\n00:08:13.680 --> 00:08:17.880\nAnd so for people who think that companies can't go away, they do.\n\n185\n00:08:17.880 --> 00:08:19.840\nAnd I lived through it.\n\n186\n00:08:19.840 --> 00:08:25.960\nYeah, absolutely, that's a lesson that well worth remembering by everybody.\n\n187\n00:08:25.960 --> 00:08:31.640\nAnd then you've become CEO of Sherman 2017.\n\n188\n00:08:31.640 --> 00:08:35.860\nWhat did you do to get up to speed on the people and the challenges that you\n\n189\n00:08:35.860 --> 00:08:37.080\nhad at hand?\n\n190\n00:08:37.080 --> 00:08:41.320\nWell, fortunately, I'd spent almost all of my career really focused on people-\n\n191\n00:08:41.320 --> 00:08:41.840\nrelated\n\n192\n00:08:41.840 --> 00:08:45.560\nissues, either as an HR person, as a lawyer.\n\n193\n00:08:45.560 --> 00:08:49.550\nAnd then I spent a period of time in my life working in colleges, right, in the\n\n194\n00:08:49.550 --> 00:08:50.080\ncollege\n\n195\n00:08:50.080 --> 00:08:51.720\nspace, higher ed space.\n\n196\n00:08:51.720 --> 00:08:54.950\nBecause if you think about it, those are the very people who will ultimately\n\n197\n00:08:54.950 --> 00:08:56.640\nbecome employees.\n\n198\n00:08:56.640 --> 00:09:03.130\nSo I had a really good understanding of how the talent machine, from K through\n\n199\n00:09:03.130 --> 00:09:04.640\n12 to college\n\n200\n00:09:04.640 --> 00:09:06.760\nand ultimately into the workforce.\n\n201\n00:09:06.760 --> 00:09:11.750\nWhat I had to spend my time doing in the earliest part of my tenure here at SH\n\n202\n00:09:11.750 --> 00:09:12.640\nRM was really\n\n203\n00:09:12.640 --> 00:09:15.520\nrethinking our purpose.\n\n204\n00:09:15.520 --> 00:09:20.080\nA friend of mine who is now deceased, a name that you'd likely know David Stern\n\n205\n00:09:20.080 --> 00:09:20.720\n, was the\n\n206\n00:09:20.720 --> 00:09:24.440\ncommissioner of the NBA and had spent a lot of time with me.\n\n207\n00:09:24.440 --> 00:09:29.320\nAnd I remembered when I joined SHRM, he called me a cold call, right?\n\n208\n00:09:29.320 --> 00:09:33.160\nAnd he said, so Taylor, I see you've joined this big organization.\n\n209\n00:09:33.160 --> 00:09:34.440\nIt's called SHRM.\n\n210\n00:09:34.440 --> 00:09:36.680\nAnd he said, tell me about it.\n\n211\n00:09:36.680 --> 00:09:41.520\nAnd I rattled off at that time we had 285,000 members in 150 countries.\n\n212\n00:09:41.520 --> 00:09:43.040\nAnd I rattled off those sorts of stats.\n\n213\n00:09:43.040 --> 00:09:46.640\nAnd he said something that will forever stick with me.\n\n214\n00:09:46.640 --> 00:09:48.440\nHe said, well, that's great.\n\n215\n00:09:48.440 --> 00:09:51.520\nSo you got a big club of HR people.\n\n216\n00:09:51.520 --> 00:09:52.520\nAnd it was his pause.\n\n217\n00:09:52.520 --> 00:09:53.520\nI was like, what?\n\n218\n00:09:53.520 --> 00:09:57.560\nAnd he said, what does that mean to me as a business leader?\n\n219\n00:09:57.560 --> 00:09:58.560\nNothing.\n\n220\n00:09:58.560 --> 00:10:02.660\nHe said, the fact that you've got 285,000 HR people doesn't necessarily mean\n\n221\n00:10:02.660 --> 00:10:03.160\nanything\n\n222\n00:10:03.160 --> 00:10:04.320\nto me.\n\n223\n00:10:04.320 --> 00:10:08.960\nWhat you've got to do is tell me why SHRM should matter to me.\n\n224\n00:10:08.960 --> 00:10:10.240\nAnd with that, I came back to him.\n\n225\n00:10:10.240 --> 00:10:11.840\nHe said, never forget, he ended.\n\n226\n00:10:11.840 --> 00:10:14.720\nHe said, how many people do you impact every day?\n\n227\n00:10:14.720 --> 00:10:16.040\nSo I don't know.\n\n228\n00:10:16.040 --> 00:10:17.200\n285,000 people.\n\n229\n00:10:17.200 --> 00:10:18.400\nHe said wrong.\n\n230\n00:10:18.400 --> 00:10:19.680\nThat's not your number.\n\n231\n00:10:19.680 --> 00:10:21.800\nYour number is the multiplier effect.\n\n232\n00:10:21.800 --> 00:10:26.270\nHow many people do those people impact every day in a workplace somewhere on\n\n233\n00:10:26.270 --> 00:10:27.000\nthe globe?\n\n234\n00:10:27.000 --> 00:10:28.000\nThat's your number.\n\n235\n00:10:28.000 --> 00:10:30.400\nSo I went back to my team and I said, what are the numbers?\n\n236\n00:10:30.400 --> 00:10:33.520\nHow many people, when you take our members and we go to each one of them and\n\n237\n00:10:33.520 --> 00:10:34.040\nsay, how\n\n238\n00:10:34.040 --> 00:10:38.720\nmany people do you oversee every day in your HR practice with your organization\n\n239\n00:10:38.720 --> 00:10:38.760\n?\n\n240\n00:10:38.760 --> 00:10:39.920\nWe have 5,000 employees.\n\n241\n00:10:39.920 --> 00:10:41.000\nWe have 300 employees.\n\n242\n00:10:41.000 --> 00:10:42.000\nWe have 20 employees.\n\n243\n00:10:42.000 --> 00:10:43.040\nDo the math and come back.\n\n244\n00:10:43.040 --> 00:10:44.040\nHe came back.\n\n245\n00:10:44.040 --> 00:10:49.680\nA research team said 115 million people go to work every day in an organization\n\n246\n00:10:49.680 --> 00:10:49.800\nwhere\n\n247\n00:10:49.800 --> 00:10:52.120\nthere's a SHRM person working.\n\n248\n00:10:52.120 --> 00:10:53.120\nAnd I said, wow.\n\n249\n00:10:53.120 --> 00:10:54.680\nNow that is our impact.\n\n250\n00:10:54.680 --> 00:10:56.800\nSo that really is what I early on.\n\n251\n00:10:56.800 --> 00:11:02.360\nI had to get up to speed on why SHRM mattered to anyone other than HR people.\n\n252\n00:11:02.360 --> 00:11:06.560\nAnd it was when I realized that people spend most of their time, the time that\n\n253\n00:11:06.560 --> 00:11:07.040\nthey're\n\n254\n00:11:07.040 --> 00:11:08.880\nawake at work.\n\n255\n00:11:08.880 --> 00:11:14.710\nAnd so we have this huge opportunity to literally transform people's lives by\n\n256\n00:11:14.710 --> 00:11:16.160\nproviding a livelihood\n\n257\n00:11:16.160 --> 00:11:17.240\nto them.\n\n258\n00:11:17.240 --> 00:11:20.520\nAnd you can do all sorts of things with that sort of setting.\n\n259\n00:11:20.520 --> 00:11:21.960\nAnd that's what we're doing right now.\n\n260\n00:11:21.960 --> 00:11:25.810\nAnd it's what I learned early on is this job is more than growing my membership\n\n261\n00:11:25.810 --> 00:11:26.280\nbase by\n\n262\n00:11:26.280 --> 00:11:27.920\nthree or 4% a year.\n\n263\n00:11:27.920 --> 00:11:30.600\nIt's about impacting people's lives.\n\n264\n00:11:30.600 --> 00:11:34.630\nYou know, Johnny, what was the culture you inherited and how are you shaping it\n\n265\n00:11:34.630 --> 00:11:35.000\nto be\n\n266\n00:11:35.000 --> 00:11:36.720\neven more powerful today?\n\n267\n00:11:36.720 --> 00:11:37.720\nYeah.\n\n268\n00:11:37.720 --> 00:11:38.840\nInternally and externally.\n\n269\n00:11:38.840 --> 00:11:40.840\nSo let me start with externally.\n\n270\n00:11:40.840 --> 00:11:45.190\nThe external meaning our members, the culture was one of HR people talking to\n\n271\n00:11:45.190 --> 00:11:45.840\nHR people\n\n272\n00:11:45.840 --> 00:11:48.120\nabout HR stuff.\n\n273\n00:11:48.120 --> 00:11:52.600\nAnd so imagine me coming and trying to say, but guys, that's great.\n\n274\n00:11:52.600 --> 00:11:55.590\nThere's a little bit of an echo chamber going on because we're talking to each\n\n275\n00:11:55.590 --> 00:11:56.080\nother about\n\n276\n00:11:56.080 --> 00:11:57.560\nthe same stuff.\n\n277\n00:11:57.560 --> 00:12:03.750\nHow are we going to get people outside of our world to validate us, to say that\n\n278\n00:12:03.750 --> 00:12:04.240\nwhat\n\n279\n00:12:04.240 --> 00:12:08.040\nwe do matters and to show talk about impact.\n\n280\n00:12:08.040 --> 00:12:11.360\nSo that's a culture that was very, very much insular.\n\n281\n00:12:11.360 --> 00:12:13.560\nThat was number one, externally.\n\n282\n00:12:13.560 --> 00:12:19.520\nInternally, it was one where we had a lot of pride, but it was stayed.\n\n283\n00:12:19.520 --> 00:12:23.600\nKind of, you know, 1% a year growth, nothing that you would accept in the food\n\n284\n00:12:23.600 --> 00:12:24.120\nbusiness\n\n285\n00:12:24.120 --> 00:12:26.960\nor any business that you'd run.\n\n286\n00:12:26.960 --> 00:12:30.300\nAnd you know, people would come and they would go and we'd accept it a little\n\n287\n00:12:30.300 --> 00:12:31.680\nkind of sleepy.\n\n288\n00:12:31.680 --> 00:12:37.180\nAnd then all of a sudden, here I come, Mr. Disruptive, and I pride myself on\n\n289\n00:12:37.180 --> 00:12:37.840\nthat, and\n\n290\n00:12:37.840 --> 00:12:41.600\nit comes with, and I hope we get to talk about it, it's uncomfortable.\n\n291\n00:12:41.600 --> 00:12:45.000\nIt's uncomfortable for people who are going through the change with me.\n\n292\n00:12:45.000 --> 00:12:49.100\nAnd frankly, leading through this is the most uncomfortable thing you've ever\n\n293\n00:12:49.100 --> 00:12:49.400\ndone.\n\n294\n00:12:49.400 --> 00:12:53.080\nBecause as much as people say they want change, they really don't.\n\n295\n00:12:53.080 --> 00:12:57.440\nAs much as people say they want transparency, they really don't.\n\n296\n00:12:57.440 --> 00:13:01.000\nYou know, as I said, live from the movie, you really can't handle transparency.\n\n297\n00:13:01.000 --> 00:13:02.280\nWell, that's true.\n\n298\n00:13:02.280 --> 00:13:04.760\nAnd so this process was painful.\n\n299\n00:13:04.760 --> 00:13:09.600\nThe first two to two and a half years of it was absolutely painful, externally\n\n300\n00:13:09.600 --> 00:13:10.840\nand internally.\n\n301\n00:13:10.840 --> 00:13:15.000\nBut I'm pleased to say in about three, year three, we started to see the\n\n302\n00:13:15.000 --> 00:13:16.200\nbreakthrough.\n\n303\n00:13:16.200 --> 00:13:18.960\nWell, maybe a lot of that, not maybe.\n\n304\n00:13:18.960 --> 00:13:23.340\nI'm sure a lot of that is this importance that you seem to be put on having a\n\n305\n00:13:23.340 --> 00:13:24.040\nchallenge\n\n306\n00:13:24.040 --> 00:13:25.040\nculture.\n\n307\n00:13:25.040 --> 00:13:26.040\nYes.\n\n308\n00:13:26.040 --> 00:13:27.880\nWhat do you specifically mean by that?\n\n309\n00:13:27.880 --> 00:13:30.360\nAnd what are you doing at Shurm to make that happen?\n\n310\n00:13:30.360 --> 00:13:32.240\nSo it comes alive in your organization.\n\n311\n00:13:32.240 --> 00:13:33.240\nRight.\n\n312\n00:13:33.240 --> 00:13:34.240\nYes.\n\n313\n00:13:34.240 --> 00:13:38.080\nSo my communication is people hated when I called it the challenge culture\n\n314\n00:13:38.080 --> 00:13:38.840\nbecause they were\n\n315\n00:13:38.840 --> 00:13:40.920\nlike, that just doesn't feel right.\n\n316\n00:13:40.920 --> 00:13:42.120\nI said, but that's what it is.\n\n317\n00:13:42.120 --> 00:13:44.520\nLike, let's use real words that people can relate to.\n\n318\n00:13:44.520 --> 00:13:46.560\nWhat do we mean by that?\n\n319\n00:13:46.560 --> 00:13:50.160\nWhen your people naturally are pleasers, largely, right?\n\n320\n00:13:50.160 --> 00:13:52.840\nAnd they typically respect hierarchy.\n\n321\n00:13:52.840 --> 00:13:56.650\nSo if Johnny says this is the direction that we're going in, by virtue of his\n\n322\n00:13:56.650 --> 00:13:57.400\nposition,\n\n323\n00:13:57.400 --> 00:13:59.000\nhe must be right.\n\n324\n00:13:59.000 --> 00:14:02.560\nJohnny's chiefs, they're the leaders, they say it.\n\n325\n00:14:02.560 --> 00:14:06.320\nWhat we found is there were some really good ideas coming up from the bottom.\n\n326\n00:14:06.320 --> 00:14:10.470\nThere's a rooftop, it was a rooftop, green, tree top strategy, and there's a\n\n327\n00:14:10.470 --> 00:14:11.160\ngrass root\n\n328\n00:14:11.160 --> 00:14:12.560\nstrategy.\n\n329\n00:14:12.560 --> 00:14:14.560\nAnd what we found is there were some great ideas.\n\n330\n00:14:14.560 --> 00:14:19.640\nThere were mistakes that we were making as an entity that our people at the\n\n331\n00:14:19.640 --> 00:14:20.320\nbottom of\n\n332\n00:14:20.320 --> 00:14:23.780\nthe organization knew and would have helped us prevent that we could have\n\n333\n00:14:23.780 --> 00:14:24.520\navoided those\n\n334\n00:14:24.520 --> 00:14:28.480\nmistakes if they thought they could challenge things that we said.\n\n335\n00:14:28.480 --> 00:14:32.570\nSo this idea of a challenge culture was very much about giving people, creating\n\n336\n00:14:32.570 --> 00:14:33.160\na culture\n\n337\n00:14:33.160 --> 00:14:39.000\nwhere people actually believed that we wanted them to challenge our ideas.\n\n338\n00:14:39.000 --> 00:14:43.040\nRespectfully, civility, all of those good things.\n\n339\n00:14:43.040 --> 00:14:48.360\nBut at the end of the day, you've got to give people the freedom, the safety to\n\n340\n00:14:48.360 --> 00:14:48.920\nactually\n\n341\n00:14:48.920 --> 00:14:51.360\nchallenge ideas.\n\n342\n00:14:51.360 --> 00:14:56.580\nAnd that's hard work because I gotta tell my executive team, this is the way we\n\n343\n00:14:56.580 --> 00:14:56.920\n're\n\n344\n00:14:56.920 --> 00:14:58.120\ngoing to operate.\n\n345\n00:14:58.120 --> 00:15:01.580\nIt's okay for a personal matter where they are within these ranks to come in\n\n346\n00:15:01.580 --> 00:15:02.040\nand say,\n\n347\n00:15:02.040 --> 00:15:04.320\nI'm not so sure that's a good idea.\n\n348\n00:15:04.320 --> 00:15:08.180\nAnd then you've got to take it and not just hear them, but you've actually got\n\n349\n00:15:08.180 --> 00:15:08.720\nto embrace\n\n350\n00:15:08.720 --> 00:15:12.950\nit and then let them start to see that some of the things, the positions that\n\n351\n00:15:12.950 --> 00:15:13.760\nwe held,\n\n352\n00:15:13.760 --> 00:15:15.560\nwe're willing to change if people.\n\n353\n00:15:15.560 --> 00:15:20.080\nAnd then once you do that, over time, you create a culture where people believe\n\n354\n00:15:20.080 --> 00:15:20.800\nchallenge\n\n355\n00:15:20.800 --> 00:15:23.160\nis not negative, it's positive.\n\n356\n00:15:23.160 --> 00:15:26.960\nBecause ultimately, the entire organization is better for it.\n\n357\n00:15:26.960 --> 00:15:31.270\n>> I never really liked the word culture, Johnny, it sounded too much like a\n\n358\n00:15:31.270 --> 00:15:31.760\ngerm to\n\n359\n00:15:31.760 --> 00:15:32.760\nme.\n\n360\n00:15:32.760 --> 00:15:36.470\nI define it as work environment and the behaviors that will get the best\n\n361\n00:15:36.470 --> 00:15:37.200\nresults.\n\n362\n00:15:37.200 --> 00:15:38.840\nWhat's your definition of culture?\n\n363\n00:15:38.840 --> 00:15:42.880\n>> Yeah, so I too, I've struggled with it because growing up as lawyer culture\n\n364\n00:15:42.880 --> 00:15:43.240\nfelt\n\n365\n00:15:43.240 --> 00:15:44.240\nsoft.\n\n366\n00:15:44.240 --> 00:15:46.440\nI was like, well, what is that, right?\n\n367\n00:15:46.440 --> 00:15:50.920\nBut I tell you, I've come up with those sort of working definition, it's how\n\n368\n00:15:50.920 --> 00:15:51.640\nthings get\n\n369\n00:15:51.640 --> 00:15:53.520\ndone around an organization.\n\n370\n00:15:53.520 --> 00:15:55.520\nIt's unique to every organization.\n\n371\n00:15:55.520 --> 00:15:59.400\nI found that there's no perfect culture, there are no good cultures or bad guys\n\n372\n00:15:59.400 --> 00:16:00.120\nlike families,\n\n373\n00:16:00.120 --> 00:16:01.120\nright?\n\n374\n00:16:01.120 --> 00:16:04.720\nThere are illegal, immoral, unethical cultures, I got that part.\n\n375\n00:16:04.720 --> 00:16:09.280\nPutting that aside, culture is how things really get done.\n\n376\n00:16:09.280 --> 00:16:12.600\nSome of the rules are written, some are unwritten.\n\n377\n00:16:12.600 --> 00:16:18.150\nAnd it's incredibly important that you in recruiting people, that you describe\n\n378\n00:16:18.150 --> 00:16:18.560\nyour\n\n379\n00:16:18.560 --> 00:16:24.470\nculture and describe the specific behaviors to your point, that manifest what\n\n380\n00:16:24.470 --> 00:16:25.200\nculture\n\n381\n00:16:25.200 --> 00:16:26.200\nfeels like.\n\n382\n00:16:26.200 --> 00:16:29.760\nBut if you ask me a short version of it's how things get done.\n\n383\n00:16:29.760 --> 00:16:31.600\nI mean, that's how they work around here.\n\n384\n00:16:31.600 --> 00:16:35.490\n>> I really believe in purposeful recognition where you recognize the behaviors\n\n385\n00:16:35.490 --> 00:16:35.880\nthat you\n\n386\n00:16:35.880 --> 00:16:38.120\nknow get great results.\n\n387\n00:16:38.120 --> 00:16:41.800\nWhat are those behaviors at shurm that you really think are critical?\n\n388\n00:16:41.800 --> 00:16:45.200\n>> Right, innovation.\n\n389\n00:16:45.200 --> 00:16:47.960\nAnd very, very close to that.\n\n390\n00:16:47.960 --> 00:16:51.980\nPeople from a behavioral standpoint who are willing to take risk and innovate,\n\n391\n00:16:51.980 --> 00:16:52.640\nwhich means\n\n392\n00:16:52.640 --> 00:16:54.520\nsome things will fail, right?\n\n393\n00:16:54.520 --> 00:16:58.080\nYou think about Silicon Valley, you think about the private equity world.\n\n394\n00:16:58.080 --> 00:17:01.400\nYou gotta just a lot of Prince Charming's to find that one, right?\n\n395\n00:17:01.400 --> 00:17:02.960\nYou're told, rather, to go, right?\n\n396\n00:17:02.960 --> 00:17:04.760\nSo that's the way the process works.\n\n397\n00:17:04.760 --> 00:17:09.380\nSo from a behavioral perspective, what we do is we like to see people who are\n\n398\n00:17:09.380 --> 00:17:09.980\nwilling\n\n399\n00:17:09.980 --> 00:17:12.520\nto do things, some of which will fail.\n\n400\n00:17:12.520 --> 00:17:16.760\nAnd then we've gotta celebrate that failure as much as we do the success.\n\n401\n00:17:16.760 --> 00:17:19.800\nAs long as they say, well, executed failure, right?\n\n402\n00:17:19.800 --> 00:17:22.790\nI don't want people who are failing just because they didn't take time to think\n\n403\n00:17:22.790 --> 00:17:23.240\nthrough this\n\n404\n00:17:23.240 --> 00:17:24.760\nstuff, right?\n\n405\n00:17:24.760 --> 00:17:28.400\nResponsibly, and use our resources in a responsible manner.\n\n406\n00:17:28.400 --> 00:17:30.040\nBut you've gotta celebrate failure.\n\n407\n00:17:30.040 --> 00:17:31.040\nThat's a behavior.\n\n408\n00:17:31.040 --> 00:17:33.990\nAnd so when I look for people, one of the things we ask in interview processes,\n\n409\n00:17:33.990 --> 00:17:34.520\ntell me when\n\n410\n00:17:34.520 --> 00:17:35.960\nyou failed at something.\n\n411\n00:17:35.960 --> 00:17:39.620\nThere is nothing that stops an interview faster with me when someone says, I\n\n412\n00:17:39.620 --> 00:17:40.480\ndon't think\n\n413\n00:17:40.480 --> 00:17:41.640\nI've ever failed at anything.\n\n414\n00:17:41.640 --> 00:17:45.080\nAnd I said, well, that means you're not gonna, this won't be the culture for\n\n415\n00:17:45.080 --> 00:17:45.680\nyou because\n\n416\n00:17:45.680 --> 00:17:49.720\nyou'll come in and you'll constantly be the person who blocks innovation\n\n417\n00:17:49.720 --> 00:17:50.640\nbecause you're\n\n418\n00:17:50.640 --> 00:17:52.000\nafraid of failing.\n\n419\n00:17:52.000 --> 00:17:54.690\nYou've never had it, you don't wanna have it, and so you're not gonna do it,\n\n420\n00:17:54.690 --> 00:17:55.120\nwhich is\n\n421\n00:17:55.120 --> 00:17:58.630\ngoing to ultimately slow down the progress that we're trying to make in an\n\n422\n00:17:58.630 --> 00:17:59.640\norganization.\n\n423\n00:17:59.640 --> 00:18:00.640\nThat's one thing.\n\n424\n00:18:00.640 --> 00:18:06.220\nThe other behavior that I'm really pushing and more and more now is we can't\n\n425\n00:18:06.220 --> 00:18:07.160\nhave rumors\n\n426\n00:18:07.160 --> 00:18:11.150\nand backbiting and meetings after meetings, a lack of transparency with each\n\n427\n00:18:11.150 --> 00:18:11.720\nother.\n\n428\n00:18:11.720 --> 00:18:16.100\nI have found that organizations are struggling a lot because of the intentions\n\n429\n00:18:16.100 --> 00:18:17.280\ninternally.\n\n430\n00:18:17.280 --> 00:18:20.250\nEmployees, I just read something the other day, a specific example that'll make\n\n431\n00:18:20.250 --> 00:18:20.520\nthis\n\n432\n00:18:20.520 --> 00:18:21.520\npoint.\n\n433\n00:18:21.520 --> 00:18:26.100\nSo, I guess the woman's the chief marketing officer at Netflix and a group of\n\n434\n00:18:26.100 --> 00:18:27.080\nher employees\n\n435\n00:18:27.080 --> 00:18:31.640\non a Slack channel decided that they were going to complain about everything\n\n436\n00:18:31.640 --> 00:18:32.280\nwrong with\n\n437\n00:18:32.280 --> 00:18:35.440\nher leadership in the organization, right?\n\n438\n00:18:35.440 --> 00:18:38.290\nSome of which may have been true, some of which may have been false, I don't\n\n439\n00:18:38.290 --> 00:18:38.680\nknow.\n\n440\n00:18:38.680 --> 00:18:43.140\nBut interestingly, Netflix from a behavioral standpoint fired those people and\n\n441\n00:18:43.140 --> 00:18:43.840\nthey said,\n\n442\n00:18:43.840 --> 00:18:45.160\nlet me tell you what we do here.\n\n443\n00:18:45.160 --> 00:18:48.880\nIf you have something to say about someone, you say it to them.\n\n444\n00:18:48.880 --> 00:18:50.680\nYou don't talk behind their backs.\n\n445\n00:18:50.680 --> 00:18:53.160\nYou will not operate that way.\n\n446\n00:18:53.160 --> 00:18:58.130\nThat behavior has to be built into design and you have to be intentional and\n\n447\n00:18:58.130 --> 00:18:58.840\nenforced\n\n448\n00:18:58.840 --> 00:19:00.280\nwithin an organization.\n\n449\n00:19:00.280 --> 00:19:04.280\nTherefore, you don't have the organization competing within itself.\n\n450\n00:19:04.280 --> 00:19:08.810\nWe're all just, now you spend more time worried about what people are saying\n\n451\n00:19:08.810 --> 00:19:09.680\nabout you.\n\n452\n00:19:09.680 --> 00:19:11.840\nThat's destructive and counterproductive.\n\n453\n00:19:11.840 --> 00:19:15.660\nSo I love those sorts of things and I found that that has harmed a lot of\n\n454\n00:19:15.660 --> 00:19:16.760\norganizations.\n\n455\n00:19:16.760 --> 00:19:22.960\nThis pettiness, this incivility, this rumor mill, you've got to put an into it.\n\n456\n00:19:22.960 --> 00:19:26.090\nIf you can't tell, I feel very passionate about it because I have learned that\n\n457\n00:19:26.090 --> 00:19:26.760\norganizations\n\n458\n00:19:26.760 --> 00:19:30.280\nlose a lot of their energy within fighting.\n\n459\n00:19:30.280 --> 00:19:31.920\nAbsolutely.\n\n460\n00:19:31.920 --> 00:19:33.880\nYou talked about COVID a little bit earlier.\n\n461\n00:19:33.880 --> 00:19:40.860\nHow are you using the crisis of COVID-19 and now Delta to do organizational\n\n462\n00:19:40.860 --> 00:19:43.080\ngood at shurm?\n\n463\n00:19:43.080 --> 00:19:44.600\nWhat's your specific reset?\n\n464\n00:19:44.600 --> 00:19:50.040\nRight, my specific reset has everything to do with, well, I have to say two.\n\n465\n00:19:50.040 --> 00:19:53.960\nOne is flexibility, workplace flexibility.\n\n466\n00:19:53.960 --> 00:19:57.240\nNot to be confused with work from home because I think that's a problem.\n\n467\n00:19:57.240 --> 00:20:00.320\nWe've sort of decided that this is all about work from home.\n\n468\n00:20:00.320 --> 00:20:02.400\nMost people don't want to 100% work from home.\n\n469\n00:20:02.400 --> 00:20:05.000\nThey like interacting with other adults, right?\n\n470\n00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:08.400\nThey like the interactions of the human experience.\n\n471\n00:20:08.400 --> 00:20:12.570\nBut the idea that everyone doesn't have to work in the office nine to five,\n\n472\n00:20:12.570 --> 00:20:13.160\nfive days\n\n473\n00:20:13.160 --> 00:20:17.640\na week, that it could be three, two, three days in, two days out.\n\n474\n00:20:17.640 --> 00:20:21.600\nIt could be four, one, it could be whatever that people that we have to bring\n\n475\n00:20:21.600 --> 00:20:22.160\nthe true\n\n476\n00:20:22.160 --> 00:20:25.000\nconcept of work flexibility to life.\n\n477\n00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:27.000\nThat was a big reset moment for me.\n\n478\n00:20:27.000 --> 00:20:28.000\nI'm a lawyer.\n\n479\n00:20:28.000 --> 00:20:31.480\nI'm sort of conservative on these things and this is the way work gets done.\n\n480\n00:20:31.480 --> 00:20:36.570\nAnd now we have been forced during this process, this reset moment to say, does\n\n481\n00:20:36.570 --> 00:20:37.240\nit have to\n\n482\n00:20:37.240 --> 00:20:38.240\nbe done that way?\n\n483\n00:20:38.240 --> 00:20:44.230\nI could tell you, if you had told me that my EA could work remotely effectively\n\n484\n00:20:44.230 --> 00:20:45.160\n, my executive\n\n485\n00:20:45.160 --> 00:20:48.920\nassistant, that is, effectively for me, I would have said there's no way.\n\n486\n00:20:48.920 --> 00:20:49.920\nThere's just no way.\n\n487\n00:20:49.920 --> 00:20:50.920\nI need that person here.\n\n488\n00:20:50.920 --> 00:20:53.120\nI know you probably can relate as a chief executive.\n\n489\n00:20:53.120 --> 00:20:55.640\nYou're like, I need this person right here with me.\n\n490\n00:20:55.640 --> 00:21:01.470\nIt was amazing how two days a week she could be quite effective for me working\n\n491\n00:21:01.470 --> 00:21:02.480\nremotely.\n\n492\n00:21:02.480 --> 00:21:13.600\nAnd that was a true reset moment for me in the biggest way.\n\n493\n00:21:13.600 --> 00:21:16.480\nEvery company has had to work virtually.\n\n494\n00:21:16.480 --> 00:21:20.350\nWhat have you learned to show them about how to keep remote workers truly\n\n495\n00:21:20.350 --> 00:21:22.160\nengaged and productive?\n\n496\n00:21:22.160 --> 00:21:23.160\nIt's a big challenge.\n\n497\n00:21:23.160 --> 00:21:25.800\nYeah, and that is my takeaway.\n\n498\n00:21:25.800 --> 00:21:27.400\nIt is incredibly hard.\n\n499\n00:21:27.400 --> 00:21:30.520\nI'm not even sure that it's possible.\n\n500\n00:21:30.520 --> 00:21:33.760\nSo that might be a little provocative for you.\n\n501\n00:21:33.760 --> 00:21:37.640\nThere's a reason why we have the adage out of sight, out of mind.\n\n502\n00:21:37.640 --> 00:21:40.790\nAnd the reality is if you have an employee who's fully remote and you have\n\n503\n00:21:40.790 --> 00:21:41.640\nanother employee\n\n504\n00:21:41.640 --> 00:21:44.740\nwho's next door to you every day and you're running into them in the coffee\n\n505\n00:21:44.740 --> 00:21:45.280\nroom, the\n\n506\n00:21:45.280 --> 00:21:48.760\nwater cooler, whatever you go out to lunch, you are building relationships with\n\n507\n00:21:48.760 --> 00:21:49.640\nthat person\n\n508\n00:21:49.640 --> 00:21:55.200\nthat cannot be replicated with all of the HR interventions in the world.\n\n509\n00:21:55.200 --> 00:21:58.310\nSure the person who's on, I can bring them in and I can make sure they show up\n\n510\n00:21:58.310 --> 00:21:58.680\non the\n\n511\n00:21:58.680 --> 00:22:02.690\nzoom screen and we can have touch spot, you know, touch ends and we can do all\n\n512\n00:22:02.690 --> 00:22:03.160\nof that\n\n513\n00:22:03.160 --> 00:22:04.200\nstuff.\n\n514\n00:22:04.200 --> 00:22:10.000\nBut trying to replicate, fully replicate, the in person human dynamic is not\n\n515\n00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:11.080\nrealistic.\n\n516\n00:22:11.080 --> 00:22:15.430\nWhich is why I think those companies that have gone too far, you can work from\n\n517\n00:22:15.430 --> 00:22:15.960\nwherever\n\n518\n00:22:15.960 --> 00:22:19.220\nyou want, you never have to come into the office, we don't have to see you know\n\n519\n00:22:19.220 --> 00:22:19.520\nyou.\n\n520\n00:22:19.520 --> 00:22:24.080\nI think over time they're going to see that their major disadvantage is to that\n\n521\n00:22:24.080 --> 00:22:24.360\n.\n\n522\n00:22:24.360 --> 00:22:26.840\nNow, can you make it better?\n\n523\n00:22:26.840 --> 00:22:28.320\nShould there be true?\n\n524\n00:22:28.320 --> 00:22:32.340\nCan you take two different work experiences, working remote and working in the\n\n525\n00:22:32.340 --> 00:22:32.880\noffice and\n\n526\n00:22:32.880 --> 00:22:37.640\ntry to make them more alike, reduce the similarities?\n\n527\n00:22:37.640 --> 00:22:38.640\nSure.\n\n528\n00:22:38.640 --> 00:22:41.240\nBut one thing that I, and that's hard, that's going to be really hard.\n\n529\n00:22:41.240 --> 00:22:43.960\nI just did a meeting and I'm sure you've seen it, I'm on boards, right?\n\n530\n00:22:43.960 --> 00:22:45.160\nAnd you're at a meeting.\n\n531\n00:22:45.160 --> 00:22:48.770\nThe people who are joining the board meeting remotely do not have the same\n\n532\n00:22:48.770 --> 00:22:49.480\nexperiences\n\n533\n00:22:49.480 --> 00:22:51.880\nof people who are there and we are all equals, right?\n\n534\n00:22:51.880 --> 00:22:55.750\nThis is not hierarchy or anything, we're all independent board members but the\n\n535\n00:22:55.750 --> 00:22:56.200\npeople\n\n536\n00:22:56.200 --> 00:23:01.410\nin the room have a much different and I would argue more impactful interaction\n\n537\n00:23:01.410 --> 00:23:01.600\nthan the\n\n538\n00:23:01.600 --> 00:23:02.680\npeople who are remote.\n\n539\n00:23:02.680 --> 00:23:04.400\nSo can you do it periodically?\n\n540\n00:23:04.400 --> 00:23:05.400\nSure.\n\n541\n00:23:05.400 --> 00:23:10.030\nBut every day if you're going to compare remote to in person, you're going to\n\n542\n00:23:10.030 --> 00:23:10.920\nstruggle over\n\n543\n00:23:10.920 --> 00:23:11.920\nthe long term.\n\n544\n00:23:11.920 --> 00:23:15.780\nYou know, what do you think are the biggest workplace innovations that have\n\n545\n00:23:15.780 --> 00:23:16.560\noccurred because\n\n546\n00:23:16.560 --> 00:23:17.560\nof COVID?\n\n547\n00:23:17.560 --> 00:23:18.560\nRight.\n\n548\n00:23:18.560 --> 00:23:25.390\nFor us, and I'm going to name two, one, we have now found a way to recruit\n\n549\n00:23:25.390 --> 00:23:26.160\npeople.\n\n550\n00:23:26.160 --> 00:23:31.640\nOn board people, like train people fully remotely.\n\n551\n00:23:31.640 --> 00:23:35.640\nAnd I would have told you two years ago that that just doesn't work.\n\n552\n00:23:35.640 --> 00:23:39.880\nWe actually now, and I want you to think about this, conventional thinking was\n\n553\n00:23:39.880 --> 00:23:40.560\nyou can't fire\n\n554\n00:23:40.560 --> 00:23:42.840\npeople remotely, right?\n\n555\n00:23:42.840 --> 00:23:44.160\nYou bring them in.\n\n556\n00:23:44.160 --> 00:23:48.080\nWe do all of that now remotely.\n\n557\n00:23:48.080 --> 00:23:50.240\nAnd we've changed the norm.\n\n558\n00:23:50.240 --> 00:23:51.880\nI can hire you, fire you.\n\n559\n00:23:51.880 --> 00:23:53.560\nI can promote you, demote you.\n\n560\n00:23:53.560 --> 00:23:57.280\nI can celebrate you, all of that remotely.\n\n561\n00:23:57.280 --> 00:23:59.320\nTo me, that is the biggest change.\n\n562\n00:23:59.320 --> 00:24:03.120\nAnd in particular, the learning and development side of it.\n\n563\n00:24:03.120 --> 00:24:09.340\nThat now, asynchronously, people can upskill and reskill at any time remotely\n\n564\n00:24:09.340 --> 00:24:10.200\nand quite\n\n565\n00:24:10.200 --> 00:24:15.080\ncost effectively now than in any, than something we've ever seen.\n\n566\n00:24:15.080 --> 00:24:19.320\nPeople are learning now in their living rooms at three o'clock in the morning\n\n567\n00:24:19.320 --> 00:24:19.800\nor at three\n\n568\n00:24:19.800 --> 00:24:20.800\no'clock in the afternoon.\n\n569\n00:24:20.800 --> 00:24:22.120\nIt is just amazing.\n\n570\n00:24:22.120 --> 00:24:26.690\nSo that entire way that we manage and develop and find talent has been\n\n571\n00:24:26.690 --> 00:24:28.160\ntransformed during\n\n572\n00:24:28.160 --> 00:24:29.160\nthis reset.\n\n573\n00:24:29.160 --> 00:24:34.450\nYou know, human resource, Johnny, as you well know, it's a, can be a really mal\n\n574\n00:24:34.450 --> 00:24:34.960\nigned\n\n575\n00:24:34.960 --> 00:24:37.960\nfunction in a lot of organizations.\n\n576\n00:24:37.960 --> 00:24:42.520\nWhy does HR have such a bad reputation across so many organizations?\n\n577\n00:24:42.520 --> 00:24:49.510\nWell, so HR in its earliest stages, we called it personnel, was responsible for\n\n578\n00:24:49.510 --> 00:24:50.480\none, administrative\n\n579\n00:24:50.480 --> 00:24:51.480\nfunction.\n\n580\n00:24:51.480 --> 00:24:53.160\nWe didn't decide what you got paid.\n\n581\n00:24:53.160 --> 00:24:54.440\nWe just made sure we paid you.\n\n582\n00:24:54.440 --> 00:24:57.800\nSo it was a very kind of administrative clerical function.\n\n583\n00:24:57.800 --> 00:25:02.120\nSo that's not something that typically gains you any repositive.\n\n584\n00:25:02.120 --> 00:25:07.000\nAnd the only time you go see HR is when the pay didn't come one time, right?\n\n585\n00:25:07.000 --> 00:25:09.480\nOr if there was a mistake in your paycheck or whatever.\n\n586\n00:25:09.480 --> 00:25:14.710\nSo you start with a very administrative function that, that didn't help with\n\n587\n00:25:14.710 --> 00:25:15.680\nbranding.\n\n588\n00:25:15.680 --> 00:25:20.260\nBut the other side of it is so much as we evolved from personnel to more human\n\n589\n00:25:20.260 --> 00:25:21.200\nresources.\n\n590\n00:25:21.200 --> 00:25:25.360\nAnd as late as the 90s was very much a compliance function.\n\n591\n00:25:25.360 --> 00:25:27.240\nIt was the no department.\n\n592\n00:25:27.240 --> 00:25:31.220\nThey use where the people you went to who said you either weren't doing well or\n\n593\n00:25:31.220 --> 00:25:31.520\nhear\n\n594\n00:25:31.520 --> 00:25:35.790\nthe policies that you had to follow that stopped you from doing those things\n\n595\n00:25:35.790 --> 00:25:36.680\nthat human beings\n\n596\n00:25:36.680 --> 00:25:37.840\nlike to do.\n\n597\n00:25:37.840 --> 00:25:41.960\nSo you became the no department as such between saying you're only\n\n598\n00:25:41.960 --> 00:25:43.720\nadministrative clerical\n\n599\n00:25:43.720 --> 00:25:44.800\nanyway.\n\n600\n00:25:44.800 --> 00:25:49.240\nAnd whenever I do come to you, it's about no or some rule.\n\n601\n00:25:49.240 --> 00:25:53.050\nWhen you put those two things together for four or five decades in the\n\n602\n00:25:53.050 --> 00:25:54.040\nworkplace since\n\n603\n00:25:54.040 --> 00:25:58.640\n1938 or so when the Fair Labor Standards Act was first put in place.\n\n604\n00:25:58.640 --> 00:26:01.960\nThen that's a reputation that has been well earned.\n\n605\n00:26:01.960 --> 00:26:06.560\nAnd it's no necessarily not necessarily a fault of HR, but that's the answer.\n\n606\n00:26:06.560 --> 00:26:11.080\nWell, what do you think then makes an excellent human resource leaders today?\n\n607\n00:26:11.080 --> 00:26:12.080\nRight.\n\n608\n00:26:12.080 --> 00:26:14.960\nSo obviously it depends upon the level.\n\n609\n00:26:14.960 --> 00:26:18.560\nSo what will make a great CHRO might be very different than an entry level\n\n610\n00:26:18.560 --> 00:26:19.640\nemployee relations\n\n611\n00:26:19.640 --> 00:26:20.640\nperson.\n\n612\n00:26:20.640 --> 00:26:25.480\nBut at the end of the day, it's the department that tries to get you to yes.\n\n613\n00:26:25.480 --> 00:26:32.190\nThis mindset that our role is to be there to enable your people success,\n\n614\n00:26:32.190 --> 00:26:34.200\nworkplace success\n\n615\n00:26:34.200 --> 00:26:37.280\nas opposed to constantly saying no.\n\n616\n00:26:37.280 --> 00:26:41.070\nAnd we have to be so that's the number one thing that we have to do is the\n\n617\n00:26:41.070 --> 00:26:42.000\nwhole mindset\n\n618\n00:26:42.000 --> 00:26:46.420\nthat the paradigm shift necessary from I'm here to tell you why you can't do\n\n619\n00:26:46.420 --> 00:26:47.160\nsomething\n\n620\n00:26:47.160 --> 00:26:51.440\nto I'm going to tell you how we can get what you want done.\n\n621\n00:26:51.440 --> 00:26:54.000\nI've preached this to HR professionals.\n\n622\n00:26:54.000 --> 00:26:56.520\nThere will be times when the answer is no.\n\n623\n00:26:56.520 --> 00:27:00.800\nBut it should be the absolute last sort of line of defense.\n\n624\n00:27:00.800 --> 00:27:05.580\nLike I've done everything I can to work with you, Madam People Manager, to help\n\n625\n00:27:05.580 --> 00:27:06.320\nyou figure\n\n626\n00:27:06.320 --> 00:27:09.360\nout how to get what you want achieved.\n\n627\n00:27:09.360 --> 00:27:13.280\nThen we change our mindset and compliance is always an issue.\n\n628\n00:27:13.280 --> 00:27:17.440\nBut even then, explaining to people, listen, I'm trying to get you there, but\n\n629\n00:27:17.440 --> 00:27:18.160\nthere's this\n\n630\n00:27:18.160 --> 00:27:21.640\nthing called Title 7 that says we can't do this.\n\n631\n00:27:21.640 --> 00:27:23.640\nBut let me tell you, I have some creative ways.\n\n632\n00:27:23.640 --> 00:27:26.200\nThink about what we do with our tax advisors.\n\n633\n00:27:26.200 --> 00:27:31.280\nYou sit down, any tax person can tell you what the IRS tax code says.\n\n634\n00:27:31.280 --> 00:27:35.160\nBut then a very creative one sits down and says, let me tell you, this is how I\n\n635\n00:27:35.160 --> 00:27:35.640\n'm going\n\n636\n00:27:35.640 --> 00:27:39.880\nto help you, there are ways to get what you want to achieve.\n\n637\n00:27:39.880 --> 00:27:42.120\nThat to achieve what you want to try and to get, how do you want to sit\n\n638\n00:27:42.120 --> 00:27:42.760\ndifferently.\n\n639\n00:27:42.760 --> 00:27:46.940\nBut the point is, that's what we've got to get to is yes, there's a compliance\n\n640\n00:27:46.940 --> 00:27:47.360\nworld\n\n641\n00:27:47.360 --> 00:27:48.680\nin which we sit.\n\n642\n00:27:48.680 --> 00:27:52.600\nThere are all sorts of labor and employment laws and more and more coming every\n\n643\n00:27:52.600 --> 00:27:53.080\nday.\n\n644\n00:27:53.080 --> 00:27:58.590\nBut the question is, how can I get you, Madam HR person or Mr. HR person, how\n\n645\n00:27:58.590 --> 00:27:59.400\ncan you help\n\n646\n00:27:59.400 --> 00:28:04.120\nme as an HR expert get what I want in this world full of rules?\n\n647\n00:28:04.120 --> 00:28:09.040\nI love that notion of getting people to yes, that's very powerful.\n\n648\n00:28:09.040 --> 00:28:13.860\nI noticed that also in addition to having your other functional leaders, you've\n\n649\n00:28:13.860 --> 00:28:14.440\ncreated\n\n650\n00:28:14.440 --> 00:28:19.600\na Chief Knowledge Officer, and tell us about that.\n\n651\n00:28:19.600 --> 00:28:21.840\nThat's building no house important.\n\n652\n00:28:21.840 --> 00:28:23.240\nI know, big time.\n\n653\n00:28:23.240 --> 00:28:27.010\nSo I'm naturally a person trained as a lawyer who believes we need to have\n\n654\n00:28:27.010 --> 00:28:27.920\nfacts, evidence\n\n655\n00:28:27.920 --> 00:28:30.080\nto support our positions.\n\n656\n00:28:30.080 --> 00:28:33.740\nOne of the challenges for the HR professionals, we oftentimes relied on our\n\n657\n00:28:33.740 --> 00:28:34.680\ninstinct and what\n\n658\n00:28:34.680 --> 00:28:38.880\nwe know is the subjectivity of instinct is all over the place, right?\n\n659\n00:28:38.880 --> 00:28:42.150\nSo one of the things that SHRM has actually been doing for a while, but I've\n\n660\n00:28:42.150 --> 00:28:43.120\ndoubled down\n\n661\n00:28:43.120 --> 00:28:48.650\non during my tenure as a CEO, is to find evidence to support the positions that\n\n662\n00:28:48.650 --> 00:28:49.760\nwe take.\n\n663\n00:28:49.760 --> 00:28:55.560\nAnd so we really, we dumped a ton of money into building out a team of PhDs, is\n\n664\n00:28:55.560 --> 00:28:57.480\niopsychologists,\n\n665\n00:28:57.480 --> 00:29:01.810\nstatisticians, researchers, so that when we say this is the way something\n\n666\n00:29:01.810 --> 00:29:02.600\nshould be,\n\n667\n00:29:02.600 --> 00:29:05.320\nwe actually have evidence to support it.\n\n668\n00:29:05.320 --> 00:29:08.360\nCase in point, everyone's jumping on early on.\n\n669\n00:29:08.360 --> 00:29:13.720\nThis happened April, May of 2020, right after we were locked at home.\n\n670\n00:29:13.720 --> 00:29:17.090\nThey were employers jumping out saying, the way of the world, the future is\n\n671\n00:29:17.090 --> 00:29:17.600\ngoing to be\n\n672\n00:29:17.600 --> 00:29:18.920\nremote work.\n\n673\n00:29:18.920 --> 00:29:20.640\nAnd we said pause.\n\n674\n00:29:20.640 --> 00:29:26.130\nAnd they all said, oh, because we see major efficiency and employees are more\n\n675\n00:29:26.130 --> 00:29:27.080\nproductive\n\n676\n00:29:27.080 --> 00:29:28.080\nin everything.\n\n677\n00:29:28.080 --> 00:29:30.720\nAnd we said, but now let's do the research.\n\n678\n00:29:30.720 --> 00:29:34.510\nLet's ensure that from a knowledge standpoint that we have also measured the\n\n679\n00:29:34.510 --> 00:29:35.280\ndownsides.\n\n680\n00:29:35.280 --> 00:29:40.800\nWe know that one in four employees by June of last year were reporting burnout,\n\n681\n00:29:40.800 --> 00:29:41.600\nisolation,\n\n682\n00:29:41.600 --> 00:29:45.160\ndepression on account of not having human interaction.\n\n683\n00:29:45.160 --> 00:29:48.480\nSo maybe the answer isn't everyone works remotely forever.\n\n684\n00:29:48.480 --> 00:29:51.500\nSure, the CFOs are telling you that you can save a lot of money because we shut\n\n685\n00:29:51.500 --> 00:29:51.920\nthese\n\n686\n00:29:51.920 --> 00:29:52.920\nbuildings down.\n\n687\n00:29:52.920 --> 00:29:53.920\nI'm not running air conditioning.\n\n688\n00:29:53.920 --> 00:29:54.920\nI'm not buying coffee.\n\n689\n00:29:54.920 --> 00:29:56.080\nI don't have security guards.\n\n690\n00:29:56.080 --> 00:29:58.960\nBut there are some other costs associated with it.\n\n691\n00:29:58.960 --> 00:30:03.570\nI wanted our term and our leadership team, specifically our knowledge\n\n692\n00:30:03.570 --> 00:30:04.880\ndepartment, to say\n\n693\n00:30:04.880 --> 00:30:09.320\nwe're going to have data and evidence to support both sides of the argument.\n\n694\n00:30:09.320 --> 00:30:12.680\nDecide what you want to do in your shop, but you should have the data.\n\n695\n00:30:12.680 --> 00:30:15.400\nYou should have information to make well-informed decisions.\n\n696\n00:30:15.400 --> 00:30:20.120\nAnd that's part of the role of a society for human resource management.\n\n697\n00:30:20.120 --> 00:30:21.600\nMakes so much sense.\n\n698\n00:30:21.600 --> 00:30:26.120\nAnd I always talk, Johnny, about the fact that the change is never over.\n\n699\n00:30:26.120 --> 00:30:30.440\nAnd you say, make constant reset your friend.\n\n700\n00:30:30.440 --> 00:30:32.920\nHow do you go about doing that?\n\n701\n00:30:32.920 --> 00:30:33.920\nIn your head.\n\n702\n00:30:33.920 --> 00:30:36.600\nSo I tell you something, people joke with me.\n\n703\n00:30:36.600 --> 00:30:39.840\nI move the furniture in my house every six months or so.\n\n704\n00:30:39.840 --> 00:30:40.840\nJust move it around.\n\n705\n00:30:40.840 --> 00:30:45.000\nPeriodically, people take up nuts, right?\n\n706\n00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:49.600\nIt's because one has to get comfortable with change.\n\n707\n00:30:49.600 --> 00:30:51.520\nWe are sort of naturally as human beings.\n\n708\n00:30:51.520 --> 00:30:54.800\nAgain, as much as we say, we embrace change, we don't.\n\n709\n00:30:54.800 --> 00:30:56.360\nWe get into the rut.\n\n710\n00:30:56.360 --> 00:31:00.200\nI told someone the other day, I have this little practice of mine.\n\n711\n00:31:00.200 --> 00:31:06.320\nEvery periodically, every month or so, I turn off my GPS and I say, let me try\n\n712\n00:31:06.320 --> 00:31:07.080\nto find my\n\n713\n00:31:07.080 --> 00:31:10.960\nway home through a different route.\n\n714\n00:31:10.960 --> 00:31:12.360\nYou're a weird guy, you know that, Johnny.\n\n715\n00:31:12.360 --> 00:31:13.360\nI am weird.\n\n716\n00:31:13.360 --> 00:31:15.040\nBut think about it.\n\n717\n00:31:15.040 --> 00:31:18.190\nLet me tell you, it's paid off on occasion when the main thoroughfare has an\n\n718\n00:31:18.190 --> 00:31:18.760\naccident or\n\n719\n00:31:18.760 --> 00:31:21.610\na shutdown and while everyone else is just sitting there pissed and turned\n\n720\n00:31:21.610 --> 00:31:22.440\ntheir car off,\n\n721\n00:31:22.440 --> 00:31:26.000\nI'm like, yeah, but I know there's this third street that does this and this.\n\n722\n00:31:26.000 --> 00:31:27.520\nAnd so, curiously, I get home.\n\n723\n00:31:27.520 --> 00:31:29.320\nIt happened just the other day.\n\n724\n00:31:29.320 --> 00:31:34.480\nBut my point is between curiosity and embracing change, you've got to exercise\n\n725\n00:31:34.480 --> 00:31:35.440\nyour mind to\n\n726\n00:31:35.440 --> 00:31:36.440\ndo that.\n\n727\n00:31:36.440 --> 00:31:40.660\nWe are naturally curious to think as human beings and we can't embrace change,\n\n728\n00:31:40.660 --> 00:31:41.040\nbut those\n\n729\n00:31:41.040 --> 00:31:42.520\nmuscles have atrophy.\n\n730\n00:31:42.520 --> 00:31:44.800\nThey really have because we don't use them.\n\n731\n00:31:44.800 --> 00:31:50.980\nSo I am very intentional about just creating change in my world in small ways\n\n732\n00:31:50.980 --> 00:31:52.040\nso that when\n\n733\n00:31:52.040 --> 00:31:56.310\nbig change happens, when there's a change of direction with, for example, who's\n\n734\n00:31:56.310 --> 00:31:56.840\nsitting\n\n735\n00:31:56.840 --> 00:32:01.610\nin the White House, all of the direction at the Department of Labor, the EEOC,\n\n736\n00:32:01.610 --> 00:32:02.120\nOSHA,\n\n737\n00:32:02.120 --> 00:32:03.200\nhas changed.\n\n738\n00:32:03.200 --> 00:32:07.240\nBut if you've not used that muscle and gotten comfortable with it, you're going\n\n739\n00:32:07.240 --> 00:32:08.080\nto really,\n\n740\n00:32:08.080 --> 00:32:09.440\nreally struggle.\n\n741\n00:32:09.440 --> 00:32:12.500\nYou know, you're such, you know, you talk about the need to change and reset\n\n742\n00:32:12.500 --> 00:32:12.960\nand you're\n\n743\n00:32:12.960 --> 00:32:16.130\nliving an example of that, obviously, you know, and you're passionate about\n\n744\n00:32:16.130 --> 00:32:16.840\ninnovation.\n\n745\n00:32:16.840 --> 00:32:22.290\nSo what would be the biggest innovation you've seen recently at Shurm, inside\n\n746\n00:32:22.290 --> 00:32:24.000\nyour own company?\n\n747\n00:32:24.000 --> 00:32:27.640\nYeah, so it would be the biggest.\n\n748\n00:32:27.640 --> 00:32:33.380\nI hate superlatives, but I think the biggest at its core would be we have\n\n749\n00:32:33.380 --> 00:32:34.800\ndecided, we have\n\n750\n00:32:34.800 --> 00:32:35.800\nthis tagline.\n\n751\n00:32:35.800 --> 00:32:36.800\nI almost wore the shirt today.\n\n752\n00:32:36.800 --> 00:32:41.760\nA tagline that says, \"We're about policy, not politics.\"\n\n753\n00:32:41.760 --> 00:32:45.420\nOkay, now you asked yourself, \"What does the society for human resource\n\n754\n00:32:45.420 --> 00:32:46.200\nmanagement have\n\n755\n00:32:46.200 --> 00:32:47.280\nanything to do with that?\"\n\n756\n00:32:47.280 --> 00:32:50.830\nWell, at its core, when I talk about all of the workplace laws that are coming\n\n757\n00:32:50.830 --> 00:32:51.440\ndown,\n\n758\n00:32:51.440 --> 00:32:53.160\nwe have to impact that.\n\n759\n00:32:53.160 --> 00:32:57.280\nAnd you can't just show up when the party that you like is in control.\n\n760\n00:32:57.280 --> 00:33:00.290\nSo I announced this idea from an innovation perspective that we're going to\n\n761\n00:33:00.290 --> 00:33:00.800\nraise the\n\n762\n00:33:00.800 --> 00:33:03.120\nvisibility of our policy work.\n\n763\n00:33:03.120 --> 00:33:06.680\nI also said that what we're going to do is we're not going to be bipartisan, we\n\n764\n00:33:06.680 --> 00:33:06.960\n're\n\n765\n00:33:06.960 --> 00:33:09.400\ngoing to be nonpartisan.\n\n766\n00:33:09.400 --> 00:33:14.270\nWe will take on issues coming out of our, as supported by the data and evidence\n\n767\n00:33:14.270 --> 00:33:14.680\nin our\n\n768\n00:33:14.680 --> 00:33:16.320\nknowledge department that creates it.\n\n769\n00:33:16.320 --> 00:33:18.680\nAnd we're going to say, \"This is what we believe.\"\n\n770\n00:33:18.680 --> 00:33:21.700\nThere'll be times when that makes the Democrats happy, and there'll be times\n\n771\n00:33:21.700 --> 00:33:22.320\nwhen it makes\n\n772\n00:33:22.320 --> 00:33:24.120\nthe Republicans happy.\n\n773\n00:33:24.120 --> 00:33:27.520\nSometimes when no one will be happy with our positions, but the biggest\n\n774\n00:33:27.520 --> 00:33:28.280\ninnovation that\n\n775\n00:33:28.280 --> 00:33:32.970\nwe've done in terms of raising the visibility of the profession is to have a\n\n776\n00:33:32.970 --> 00:33:34.080\npoint of view,\n\n777\n00:33:34.080 --> 00:33:36.920\none informed by data when we go to policymakers.\n\n778\n00:33:36.920 --> 00:33:40.550\nSo it's just not the HR people who are carrying out rules and laws that are\n\n779\n00:33:40.550 --> 00:33:42.000\ncreated by government,\n\n780\n00:33:42.000 --> 00:33:46.240\nwe're influencing those on the front end so that we make for a better workplace\n\n781\n00:33:46.240 --> 00:33:46.360\n.\n\n782\n00:33:46.360 --> 00:33:49.920\nThat is the thing I'm most proud of if I'm forced to pick one over the other, a\n\n783\n00:33:49.920 --> 00:33:50.280\nlot of\n\n784\n00:33:50.280 --> 00:33:51.380\nthings I'm proud of.\n\n785\n00:33:51.380 --> 00:33:55.340\nBut that was a mindset, and more than a mindset shift, a resource shift, I had\n\n786\n00:33:55.340 --> 00:33:55.800\nto spend a\n\n787\n00:33:55.800 --> 00:33:57.160\nlot of money to do it.\n\n788\n00:33:57.160 --> 00:34:02.080\nAnd then we had members who joined us because we were more left or more right.\n\n789\n00:34:02.080 --> 00:34:06.480\nAnd for Sherm to say, we ride right down, it's not even bipartisan.\n\n790\n00:34:06.480 --> 00:34:09.230\nWe're going to pick policy and sometimes you're going to like it, sometimes you\n\n791\n00:34:09.230 --> 00:34:09.800\n're not, but\n\n792\n00:34:09.800 --> 00:34:13.680\nit's really sound policy was a huge shift for us.\n\n793\n00:34:13.680 --> 00:34:18.200\nWell, that mindset is definitely unique in today's divisive world.\n\n794\n00:34:18.200 --> 00:34:19.200\nNo question about that.\n\n795\n00:34:19.200 --> 00:34:21.200\nEspecially in Washington, D.C.\n\n796\n00:34:21.200 --> 00:34:22.200\nAbsolutely.\n\n797\n00:34:22.200 --> 00:34:27.230\nAnd Johnny, I know you agree people and specifically talent is it's basically\n\n798\n00:34:27.230 --> 00:34:28.280\neverything.\n\n799\n00:34:28.280 --> 00:34:30.600\nYou've got to have great talent around you.\n\n800\n00:34:30.600 --> 00:34:34.280\nAnd you talk about the pitfall of a safe hire.\n\n801\n00:34:34.280 --> 00:34:35.280\nExplain.\n\n802\n00:34:35.280 --> 00:34:36.280\nYeah.\n\n803\n00:34:36.280 --> 00:34:40.860\nSo here we are, and there are a whole bunch of reasons that's a pitfall, but\n\n804\n00:34:40.860 --> 00:34:41.720\nthe idea that\n\n805\n00:34:41.720 --> 00:34:45.720\nwe have that most of us look for the safe hire.\n\n806\n00:34:45.720 --> 00:34:49.820\nWe look for the person who has a perfect background, who comes out of central\n\n807\n00:34:49.820 --> 00:34:50.640\ncasting for the\n\n808\n00:34:50.640 --> 00:34:54.320\nrole, has this number of years, like we do that.\n\n809\n00:34:54.320 --> 00:34:58.400\nAnd what we end up in a lot of situations is one, we have no diversity.\n\n810\n00:34:58.400 --> 00:35:01.860\nAnd I don't just mean civil rights diversity, but I also mean civil rights\n\n811\n00:35:01.860 --> 00:35:02.600\ndiversity.\n\n812\n00:35:02.600 --> 00:35:07.130\nWe get a whole bunch of people who look the same and that lack of diversity,\n\n813\n00:35:07.130 --> 00:35:07.560\nincluding\n\n814\n00:35:07.560 --> 00:35:11.160\ndiverse experiences, including someone who's been to jail, for example.\n\n815\n00:35:11.160 --> 00:35:16.410\nYou need all of this diversity to actually compete in an increasingly diverse\n\n816\n00:35:16.410 --> 00:35:17.440\nworkplace,\n\n817\n00:35:17.440 --> 00:35:18.440\nright?\n\n818\n00:35:18.440 --> 00:35:21.770\nSo the pitfall, the number one problem is you just lack diversity when you're\n\n819\n00:35:21.770 --> 00:35:22.400\nlooking for\n\n820\n00:35:22.400 --> 00:35:23.400\nthe safe hire.\n\n821\n00:35:23.400 --> 00:35:28.040\nYou also overlook incredibly, incredibly unique talent.\n\n822\n00:35:28.040 --> 00:35:33.070\nBecause sometimes the unique talent, the most talented people, don't look like\n\n823\n00:35:33.070 --> 00:35:34.000\nwhat we think\n\n824\n00:35:34.000 --> 00:35:36.880\nis the right perfect safe candidate.\n\n825\n00:35:36.880 --> 00:35:41.230\nAnd so again, we're overlooking incredibly good talent because we are looking\n\n826\n00:35:41.230 --> 00:35:41.680\nfor the\n\n827\n00:35:41.680 --> 00:35:42.680\nsafe hire.\n\n828\n00:35:42.680 --> 00:35:46.250\nWe do the check box, check box, check box, and then we hire that person and a\n\n829\n00:35:46.250 --> 00:35:46.600\nlot of\n\n830\n00:35:46.600 --> 00:35:48.160\npeople like them.\n\n831\n00:35:48.160 --> 00:35:52.960\nThat's at its core, the concept of just the safe hire.\n\n832\n00:35:52.960 --> 00:35:55.080\nAnd there are major pitfalls.\n\n833\n00:35:55.080 --> 00:36:00.080\nThere's something that I remind people increasingly no one safe anymore.\n\n834\n00:36:00.080 --> 00:36:01.640\nI mean, all of us have something.\n\n835\n00:36:01.640 --> 00:36:04.760\nThe internet divulges all of our dirtiest secrets, right?\n\n836\n00:36:04.760 --> 00:36:07.360\nEven if you were 12 and you wrote something, right?\n\n837\n00:36:07.360 --> 00:36:09.520\nAnd so we've got to get away from that.\n\n838\n00:36:09.520 --> 00:36:13.700\nAnd that's something that HR professionals have to get to fully embrace as well\n\n839\n00:36:13.700 --> 00:36:14.160\n, is the\n\n840\n00:36:14.160 --> 00:36:16.680\nidea that talent shows up in different places.\n\n841\n00:36:16.680 --> 00:36:21.560\nI'm a big proponent of hiring and you've seen this in the book, but untapped\n\n842\n00:36:21.560 --> 00:36:22.200\npools of\n\n843\n00:36:22.200 --> 00:36:23.360\ntalent.\n\n844\n00:36:23.360 --> 00:36:26.310\nGoing into the market, when we have very low labor participation rates,\n\n845\n00:36:26.310 --> 00:36:27.400\nrelatively speaking,\n\n846\n00:36:27.400 --> 00:36:31.280\nyou got a third of the population sitting on the sidelines, not working.\n\n847\n00:36:31.280 --> 00:36:35.880\nAnd it's because we and HR and you people managers are always looking for the\n\n848\n00:36:35.880 --> 00:36:37.840\nsafe hire.\n\n849\n00:36:37.840 --> 00:36:39.760\nWhat made you an unsafe hire?\n\n850\n00:36:39.760 --> 00:36:42.440\nOh my gosh, I'm so many of those.\n\n851\n00:36:42.440 --> 00:36:43.920\nI am a disruptor.\n\n852\n00:36:43.920 --> 00:36:44.920\nThe safest hire.\n\n853\n00:36:44.920 --> 00:36:49.270\nIf you want to talk about my role right here in Shurm, it's a 70 now three year\n\n854\n00:36:49.270 --> 00:36:49.720\nold, but\n\n855\n00:36:49.720 --> 00:36:54.280\nwhen I came in, it was a 70 year old organization that had done just fine.\n\n856\n00:36:54.280 --> 00:36:55.280\nNumbers are looking good.\n\n857\n00:36:55.280 --> 00:36:57.880\nYou've grown, your bank account is your balance.\n\n858\n00:36:57.880 --> 00:36:58.960\nYou just great.\n\n859\n00:36:58.960 --> 00:37:02.900\nAnd so you could have hired someone like that to continue what has gone on for\n\n860\n00:37:02.900 --> 00:37:04.360\nseven decades.\n\n861\n00:37:04.360 --> 00:37:07.160\nInstead they looked for someone who's very different.\n\n862\n00:37:07.160 --> 00:37:10.840\nListen, I'm not trained, classically trained as an HR person, right?\n\n863\n00:37:10.840 --> 00:37:12.440\nI come from private sector.\n\n864\n00:37:12.440 --> 00:37:16.000\nI'm not a nonprofit leader in the traditional sense.\n\n865\n00:37:16.000 --> 00:37:17.800\nThere are a lot of things about me.\n\n866\n00:37:17.800 --> 00:37:20.160\nI'm pretty aggressive out there.\n\n867\n00:37:20.160 --> 00:37:24.320\nI'm the guy that says, let's do non partisanship.\n\n868\n00:37:24.320 --> 00:37:28.930\nThose are things that the board had to get its arms around because they were\n\n869\n00:37:28.930 --> 00:37:30.000\nsafer hires.\n\n870\n00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:33.000\nI would submit to you that we wouldn't be where we are now.\n\n871\n00:37:33.000 --> 00:37:35.200\nWe've grown this business significantly.\n\n872\n00:37:35.200 --> 00:37:38.240\nWe've grown our influence significantly.\n\n873\n00:37:38.240 --> 00:37:44.930\nAnd people like you, CEOs have said, \"Hm, Shurm is actually now relevant to me\n\n874\n00:37:44.930 --> 00:37:45.240\n.\"\n\n875\n00:37:45.240 --> 00:37:48.400\nAnd ten years ago, not so much.\n\n876\n00:37:48.400 --> 00:37:52.200\nOnce you have the talent, Johnny, you've got to keep it.\n\n877\n00:37:52.200 --> 00:37:56.280\nWhat are the top three things you're doing at Shurm to keep your people?\n\n878\n00:37:56.280 --> 00:38:00.720\nWell, number one, that we've all avoided for years, you've got to pay people.\n\n879\n00:38:00.720 --> 00:38:03.520\nThere is a true war for talent.\n\n880\n00:38:03.520 --> 00:38:07.920\nThere are real wage inflation issues right now to ignore them means you're\n\n881\n00:38:07.920 --> 00:38:08.760\nignoring it.\n\n882\n00:38:08.760 --> 00:38:12.070\nSo the number one thing I've done is I've had to go back and say, how do we\n\n883\n00:38:12.070 --> 00:38:12.800\ncompete?\n\n884\n00:38:12.800 --> 00:38:16.250\nDo not just compete with nonprofits, but how do we compete for talent in the\n\n885\n00:38:16.250 --> 00:38:17.240\nbroader market?\n\n886\n00:38:17.240 --> 00:38:20.850\nNow, I understand that I can't compete with companies who can throw a lot of\n\n887\n00:38:20.850 --> 00:38:21.880\nequity, etc.\n\n888\n00:38:21.880 --> 00:38:25.280\nBut I've had to look at compensation and total rewards.\n\n889\n00:38:25.280 --> 00:38:28.480\nThe second thing that we've said is we've got to listen to our employees.\n\n890\n00:38:28.480 --> 00:38:31.600\nNow, let's be clear and I hope everyone hears me.\n\n891\n00:38:31.600 --> 00:38:33.720\nI listen to my daughter all the time.\n\n892\n00:38:33.720 --> 00:38:36.800\nI have an 11-year-old, but that doesn't mean I do what she says.\n\n893\n00:38:36.800 --> 00:38:41.300\nI'm listening and I'm listening to truly understand, not listening to check the\n\n894\n00:38:41.300 --> 00:38:41.800\nbox.\n\n895\n00:38:41.800 --> 00:38:45.560\nBut listening is something we've not done enough of over time.\n\n896\n00:38:45.560 --> 00:38:49.480\nWe never thought we had to do it like you work here or you don't.\n\n897\n00:38:49.480 --> 00:38:53.920\nAnd so we've said to keep people, they have to know that they are heard.\n\n898\n00:38:53.920 --> 00:38:56.480\nAnd then finally, communicate back.\n\n899\n00:38:56.480 --> 00:39:00.360\nSo it's pay, it's listening, and it's communicating.\n\n900\n00:39:00.360 --> 00:39:06.950\nThat third category of work, which is communicating, even if I hear you and I\n\n901\n00:39:06.950 --> 00:39:08.360\ndecide for X, Y,\n\n902\n00:39:08.360 --> 00:39:12.040\nand Z reasons we're not going to go that way, what we've not done is\n\n903\n00:39:12.040 --> 00:39:13.520\ncommunicated effectively,\n\n904\n00:39:13.520 --> 00:39:14.520\nY.\n\n905\n00:39:14.520 --> 00:39:18.080\nSo then people think you're actually not listening and then they leave you.\n\n906\n00:39:18.080 --> 00:39:22.280\nSo those are the three things that we, I think we've really had to focus on.\n\n907\n00:39:22.280 --> 00:39:23.760\nBut I'm going to start with pay.\n\n908\n00:39:23.760 --> 00:39:27.520\nAnd David, you know, we've all heard the line, people don't leave for pay.\n\n909\n00:39:27.520 --> 00:39:28.600\nThat's ridiculous.\n\n910\n00:39:28.600 --> 00:39:29.720\nOf course they do.\n\n911\n00:39:29.720 --> 00:39:33.860\nAnd we're seeing it right now in this great, the turnover tsunami or the great\n\n912\n00:39:33.860 --> 00:39:34.840\nresignation.\n\n913\n00:39:34.840 --> 00:39:38.850\nPeople are leaving for significant increases, wage inflation is real, and you\n\n914\n00:39:38.850 --> 00:39:39.400\n've got to\n\n915\n00:39:39.400 --> 00:39:42.040\nhave that top of mind right now, or your head is in the sand.\n\n916\n00:39:42.040 --> 00:39:46.000\nI think competitive compensation is basically table stakes.\n\n917\n00:39:46.000 --> 00:39:47.520\nYou have to have that.\n\n918\n00:39:47.520 --> 00:39:48.520\nOkay.\n\n919\n00:39:48.520 --> 00:39:50.800\nBut a lot of research I've seen says people leave for two reasons.\n\n920\n00:39:50.800 --> 00:39:54.240\nOne, they don't get along with their boss and two, they don't feel appreciated.\n\n921\n00:39:54.240 --> 00:39:56.440\nWhat's your perspective on that?\n\n922\n00:39:56.440 --> 00:39:57.440\nSpot on.\n\n923\n00:39:57.440 --> 00:40:00.340\nNumber one reason that we know that most people leave is they don't quit their\n\n924\n00:40:00.340 --> 00:40:00.920\ncompanies,\n\n925\n00:40:00.920 --> 00:40:05.120\nthey don't quit their HR department, they quit their people manager.\n\n926\n00:40:05.120 --> 00:40:09.320\nAnd so this is an area that we have, we launched a new product called the PMQ,\n\n927\n00:40:09.320 --> 00:40:09.800\nwhich is people\n\n928\n00:40:09.800 --> 00:40:10.800\nmanager qualification.\n\n929\n00:40:10.800 --> 00:40:15.010\nIt's not for HR people, it's for frontline managers because you're why we're\n\n930\n00:40:15.010 --> 00:40:15.520\nlosing\n\n931\n00:40:15.520 --> 00:40:16.520\npeople.\n\n932\n00:40:16.520 --> 00:40:17.680\nI can recruit people all day.\n\n933\n00:40:17.680 --> 00:40:20.900\nAnd if you burn through them, I'm just, and you know from a retail environment\n\n934\n00:40:20.900 --> 00:40:21.200\nwhere\n\n935\n00:40:21.200 --> 00:40:26.240\nit's not unusual to see 80, 90% turnover, most of those people left because\n\n936\n00:40:26.240 --> 00:40:27.240\nthey experience\n\n937\n00:40:27.240 --> 00:40:29.440\nbad people managers.\n\n938\n00:40:29.440 --> 00:40:33.660\nAnd you can blame the people managers, but oftentimes we as an organization\n\n939\n00:40:33.660 --> 00:40:34.440\nchose people\n\n940\n00:40:34.440 --> 00:40:37.640\nwho weren't necessarily going to be great people managers and then we didn't\n\n941\n00:40:37.640 --> 00:40:38.520\nequip them\n\n942\n00:40:38.520 --> 00:40:42.000\nwith the skills that they needed to be great people managers, right?\n\n943\n00:40:42.000 --> 00:40:43.000\nI'm a great engineer.\n\n944\n00:40:43.000 --> 00:40:45.800\nThat doesn't mean I'm going to be a great manager of engineers.\n\n945\n00:40:45.800 --> 00:40:48.080\nI just am a, I'm the best engineer on the team.\n\n946\n00:40:48.080 --> 00:40:50.240\nI'm near the longest and so I get the job.\n\n947\n00:40:50.240 --> 00:40:54.580\nSo people managers training them, equipping them with the skills to be empat\n\n948\n00:40:54.580 --> 00:40:55.320\nhetic, for\n\n949\n00:40:55.320 --> 00:41:00.600\nexample, something that you may not naturally be as a human being is a part of\n\n950\n00:41:00.600 --> 00:41:00.920\nit.\n\n951\n00:41:00.920 --> 00:41:04.990\nNo question you're right, pay is table stakes, but increasingly this idea that\n\n952\n00:41:04.990 --> 00:41:05.560\nbecause it's\n\n953\n00:41:05.560 --> 00:41:08.400\ntable stakes, we don't have to think about it is naive.\n\n954\n00:41:08.400 --> 00:41:12.360\nBut people manager, absolutely how to manage people is number one.\n\n955\n00:41:12.360 --> 00:41:16.030\nAnd then this idea that you said they don't feel respected, they don't see them\n\n956\n00:41:16.030 --> 00:41:17.400\nfeel valued.\n\n957\n00:41:17.400 --> 00:41:20.930\nThis gets to culture and it's the point maybe you cut to the chase on it, but\n\n958\n00:41:20.930 --> 00:41:21.920\nthat's why\n\n959\n00:41:21.920 --> 00:41:26.680\nlistening to people and then communicating whatever decisions you come up with\n\n960\n00:41:26.680 --> 00:41:27.000\nis so\n\n961\n00:41:27.000 --> 00:41:28.160\nimportant.\n\n962\n00:41:28.160 --> 00:41:33.680\nPeople have to feel like they ultimately are valued, heard and belong.\n\n963\n00:41:33.680 --> 00:41:38.960\nYou know, you're a person who said that empathy is not a soft skill.\n\n964\n00:41:38.960 --> 00:41:41.440\nYou think it's a real business skill.\n\n965\n00:41:41.440 --> 00:41:42.440\nThat's right.\n\n966\n00:41:42.440 --> 00:41:44.680\nDo you differentiate those two things?\n\n967\n00:41:44.680 --> 00:41:45.880\nYeah, I do.\n\n968\n00:41:45.880 --> 00:41:46.880\nI do.\n\n969\n00:41:46.880 --> 00:41:51.610\nAnd I think it's because one, people here empathy and conflate it with sympathy\n\n970\n00:41:51.610 --> 00:41:51.720\n.\n\n971\n00:41:51.720 --> 00:41:53.920\nThat's the number one problem.\n\n972\n00:41:53.920 --> 00:41:57.480\nAnd sympathy is softer by definition, right?\n\n973\n00:41:57.480 --> 00:42:03.250\nIt's you, someone loses a parent or sibling, whatever, and you sympathize with\n\n974\n00:42:03.250 --> 00:42:04.160\nthem versus\n\n975\n00:42:04.160 --> 00:42:09.800\nempathizing this whole concept of every day trying to experience life, not just\n\n976\n00:42:09.800 --> 00:42:10.360\nthrough\n\n977\n00:42:10.360 --> 00:42:13.610\nyour eyes, but through the eyes of the person on the other side of the\n\n978\n00:42:13.610 --> 00:42:14.520\nconversation.\n\n979\n00:42:14.520 --> 00:42:18.900\nIt's built into why I think we've had this real diversity problem in our\n\n980\n00:42:18.900 --> 00:42:19.960\norganizations\n\n981\n00:42:19.960 --> 00:42:21.480\nis because we can achieve diversity.\n\n982\n00:42:21.480 --> 00:42:24.120\nWe go higher people who are different by definition.\n\n983\n00:42:24.120 --> 00:42:28.450\nYou get diversity, but then we're not looking at them through their diverse\n\n984\n00:42:28.450 --> 00:42:29.520\nexperiences and\n\n985\n00:42:29.520 --> 00:42:31.840\ntrying to do it through the lens of empathy.\n\n986\n00:42:31.840 --> 00:42:36.040\nAs a result, you're bringing them in and they're leaving very quickly.\n\n987\n00:42:36.040 --> 00:42:39.560\nSo it is now a business imperative and a knowledge-based economy, David.\n\n988\n00:42:39.560 --> 00:42:43.000\nYou don't have the luxury of having people just come and leave.\n\n989\n00:42:43.000 --> 00:42:44.200\nWe don't have enough human beings.\n\n990\n00:42:44.200 --> 00:42:47.890\nI remind people that the American birth rate has dropped for the last two\n\n991\n00:42:47.890 --> 00:42:48.600\ndecades.\n\n992\n00:42:48.600 --> 00:42:53.680\nIn fact, last year during the pandemic, we dropped 4% more, fewer babies being\n\n993\n00:42:53.680 --> 00:42:54.200\nborn in\n\n994\n00:42:54.200 --> 00:42:55.280\nthis country.\n\n995\n00:42:55.280 --> 00:42:57.600\nAnd what that means is we're going to have a people problem.\n\n996\n00:42:57.600 --> 00:43:00.000\nThere's just a shortage of people.\n\n997\n00:43:00.000 --> 00:43:02.700\nAnd when you have that, bringing people into an environment that's not\n\n998\n00:43:02.700 --> 00:43:04.000\nparticularly empathetic,\n\n999\n00:43:04.000 --> 00:43:07.720\nwhen they can go get other jobs means you're going to lose them and thus lose\n\n1000\n00:43:07.720 --> 00:43:08.360\nthe game.\n\n1001\n00:43:08.360 --> 00:43:10.800\nWe did some research just recently at SHRM.\n\n1002\n00:43:10.800 --> 00:43:16.280\n93% of employees said they would leave a job that they like, okay?\n\n1003\n00:43:16.280 --> 00:43:21.800\nA job we're imperfectly fine to go work for a more empathetic organization.\n\n1004\n00:43:21.800 --> 00:43:26.270\nSo if that doesn't make the case that this empathy is a business imperative and\n\n1005\n00:43:26.270 --> 00:43:26.680\nnot just\n\n1006\n00:43:26.680 --> 00:43:30.120\na feel good moral imperative, I don't know what does.\n\n1007\n00:43:30.120 --> 00:43:34.930\nNine out of 10 of your employees are saying, listen, I'll go to the guy across\n\n1008\n00:43:34.930 --> 00:43:35.720\nthe street\n\n1009\n00:43:35.720 --> 00:43:38.720\nin a place where I think people are more empathetic in their approach.\n\n1010\n00:43:38.720 --> 00:43:42.920\nAgain, not to be confused with sympathy, it's empathy.\n\n1011\n00:43:42.920 --> 00:43:43.920\n>> Yeah, so right.\n\n1012\n00:43:43.920 --> 00:43:47.160\nI think there are a lot of people out there like to fire their boss.\n\n1013\n00:43:47.160 --> 00:43:48.160\n>> That's right.\n\n1014\n00:43:48.160 --> 00:43:55.520\n>> You're a black CEO and there's only five Fortune 500 CEOs.\n\n1015\n00:43:55.520 --> 00:43:58.120\nWhy so few in your opinion?\n\n1016\n00:43:58.120 --> 00:44:01.160\n>> Well, oh gosh, that's a complicated one.\n\n1017\n00:44:01.160 --> 00:44:07.840\nBut let me tell you, part of it is most of us are first generation, right?\n\n1018\n00:44:07.840 --> 00:44:12.820\nAnd so you make a lot of mistakes along the way in your career because you don\n\n1019\n00:44:12.820 --> 00:44:13.400\n't know.\n\n1020\n00:44:13.400 --> 00:44:17.410\nNow, my daughter will have the advantage of a father who's been a CEO in the\n\n1021\n00:44:17.410 --> 00:44:18.080\nfor-profit\n\n1022\n00:44:18.080 --> 00:44:20.920\nspace as well as the nonprofit space like a shurm.\n\n1023\n00:44:20.920 --> 00:44:25.720\nI ran a business for IAC as well and I can help her avoid making some of those\n\n1024\n00:44:25.720 --> 00:44:26.440\nmistakes\n\n1025\n00:44:26.440 --> 00:44:30.360\nthat often derail people on their way to become CEO.\n\n1026\n00:44:30.360 --> 00:44:37.180\nI think over time as we have a black population of more CEOs and they can then\n\n1027\n00:44:37.180 --> 00:44:38.440\npass down the\n\n1028\n00:44:38.440 --> 00:44:42.080\nmessages about this son, don't do that.\n\n1029\n00:44:42.080 --> 00:44:45.940\nEven when you're 20 in college, don't do that because that's going to show up\n\n1030\n00:44:45.940 --> 00:44:46.400\nwhen you're\n\n1031\n00:44:46.400 --> 00:44:52.210\n50 and some search firm who's considering you for a CEO is going to say, when\n\n1032\n00:44:52.210 --> 00:44:52.920\nyou were\n\n1033\n00:44:52.920 --> 00:44:58.500\n20 you said X or Y on social media, which by the way is the nightmare for these\n\n1034\n00:44:58.500 --> 00:44:59.160\nkids.\n\n1035\n00:44:59.160 --> 00:45:03.410\nSo the short answer is there's no shortage of black Americans who I think God\n\n1036\n00:45:03.410 --> 00:45:04.160\nwas pretty\n\n1037\n00:45:04.160 --> 00:45:08.560\ndamn fair and equal egalitarian and is giving talent.\n\n1038\n00:45:08.560 --> 00:45:12.340\nI think what we've got to do is we haven't had the experiences and people who\n\n1039\n00:45:12.340 --> 00:45:12.880\ncan help\n\n1040\n00:45:12.880 --> 00:45:16.800\nus guide the way so that our careers aren't derailed on our way to the top.\n\n1041\n00:45:16.800 --> 00:45:17.800\nGood point.\n\n1042\n00:45:17.800 --> 00:45:22.400\nJohnny, you're on the President's Advisory Council for historically black\n\n1043\n00:45:22.400 --> 00:45:23.200\ncolleges and\n\n1044\n00:45:23.200 --> 00:45:25.000\nuniversities.\n\n1045\n00:45:25.000 --> 00:45:27.280\nWhy are they so important today?\n\n1046\n00:45:27.280 --> 00:45:30.680\nSo let me tell you why they're important to me.\n\n1047\n00:45:30.680 --> 00:45:32.480\nI didn't attend an HBCU.\n\n1048\n00:45:32.480 --> 00:45:36.260\nI attended the University of Miami-Andrea University to higher-end majority\n\n1049\n00:45:36.260 --> 00:45:37.880\nprivate schools.\n\n1050\n00:45:37.880 --> 00:45:42.810\nBut what I know is that the HBCU created the black professional and middle\n\n1051\n00:45:42.810 --> 00:45:43.560\nclass.\n\n1052\n00:45:43.560 --> 00:45:49.230\nSo I am a product of the HBCUs, although I never matriculated on an HBCU campus\n\n1053\n00:45:49.230 --> 00:45:49.600\n.\n\n1054\n00:45:49.600 --> 00:45:53.990\nAnd so they are as important today as they were historically because they\n\n1055\n00:45:53.990 --> 00:45:54.800\nrepresent a\n\n1056\n00:45:54.800 --> 00:45:58.200\npoint of pride from the African-American community.\n\n1057\n00:45:58.200 --> 00:46:04.030\nIt says, we can create an institution for us, by us, and actually improve the\n\n1058\n00:46:04.030 --> 00:46:04.560\nlot of\n\n1059\n00:46:04.560 --> 00:46:05.560\nour community.\n\n1060\n00:46:05.560 --> 00:46:08.680\nThey just stand for so much symbolically.\n\n1061\n00:46:08.680 --> 00:46:13.700\nAnd I have to ask you, how did the tragic murder of George Floyd affect you\n\n1062\n00:46:13.700 --> 00:46:14.520\npersonally\n\n1063\n00:46:14.520 --> 00:46:19.600\nand what are you doing today differently because of it?\n\n1064\n00:46:19.600 --> 00:46:22.440\nSo tough one.\n\n1065\n00:46:22.440 --> 00:46:25.480\nPersonally, and someone answered that in a truest sense.\n\n1066\n00:46:25.480 --> 00:46:27.360\nI grew up in the South.\n\n1067\n00:46:27.360 --> 00:46:29.000\nI was always aware of this.\n\n1068\n00:46:29.000 --> 00:46:31.680\nI'm also old enough to have remembered Rodney King.\n\n1069\n00:46:31.680 --> 00:46:35.320\nI mean, I can go through the list of names, right?\n\n1070\n00:46:35.320 --> 00:46:38.000\nAnd this may bother some people, but I'm going to be honest.\n\n1071\n00:46:38.000 --> 00:46:41.200\nI was like, yeah, I got it.\n\n1072\n00:46:41.200 --> 00:46:44.640\nThis is what happens and can happen to you.\n\n1073\n00:46:44.640 --> 00:46:48.360\nSo personally, to be very transparently, not a lot.\n\n1074\n00:46:48.360 --> 00:46:53.080\nI was already fully appreciative of the country that we live in.\n\n1075\n00:46:53.080 --> 00:46:55.080\nIt's good and it's not so good.\n\n1076\n00:46:55.080 --> 00:46:59.720\nI was appreciative of how I should interact with police officers.\n\n1077\n00:46:59.720 --> 00:47:02.600\nWhen I'm a true minority, I grew up in South Florida.\n\n1078\n00:47:02.600 --> 00:47:03.600\nBut guess what?\n\n1079\n00:47:03.600 --> 00:47:04.800\nI went to law school in Iowa.\n\n1080\n00:47:04.800 --> 00:47:09.520\nOK, Iowa, which could not be a wider place, right?\n\n1081\n00:47:09.520 --> 00:47:15.680\nAnd so personally, it was like, OK, now, when I broadened personally\n\n1082\n00:47:15.680 --> 00:47:19.120\na little bit more, what did happen to me over the last year\n\n1083\n00:47:19.120 --> 00:47:21.320\nas I began, even as an African-American,\n\n1084\n00:47:21.320 --> 00:47:22.120\nI want you to follow me.\n\n1085\n00:47:22.120 --> 00:47:24.840\nIt's a very important and nuanced point.\n\n1086\n00:47:24.840 --> 00:47:28.040\nI did not appreciate how much of an impact it had\n\n1087\n00:47:28.040 --> 00:47:31.320\non some of my fellow African-Americans.\n\n1088\n00:47:31.320 --> 00:47:31.920\nDo you follow me?\n\n1089\n00:47:31.920 --> 00:47:35.400\nSo even though I was fine with it, not fine with it,\n\n1090\n00:47:35.400 --> 00:47:37.600\nand I want to be clear, of course, it was horrible.\n\n1091\n00:47:37.600 --> 00:47:38.280\nIt was tragic.\n\n1092\n00:47:38.280 --> 00:47:39.120\nIt was senseless.\n\n1093\n00:47:39.120 --> 00:47:41.680\nI actually grew up in Fort Lauderdale with Benjamin\n\n1094\n00:47:41.680 --> 00:47:44.160\nCrump, the lawyer who represents George Floyd\n\n1095\n00:47:44.160 --> 00:47:45.680\nand therefore his family.\n\n1096\n00:47:45.680 --> 00:47:48.280\nAnd then I had the Floyd brothers, his two brothers,\n\n1097\n00:47:48.280 --> 00:47:53.080\ncome here to Sherm to talk with my employees about just that.\n\n1098\n00:47:53.080 --> 00:47:55.120\nThis is their experience.\n\n1099\n00:47:55.120 --> 00:47:56.920\nIt's not an experience that I had in America.\n\n1100\n00:47:56.920 --> 00:47:59.360\nHere you are, three black men on a stage.\n\n1101\n00:47:59.360 --> 00:48:02.560\nMy experience was very different than their experience.\n\n1102\n00:48:02.560 --> 00:48:05.680\nAnd so it was really an important point for me to even say,\n\n1103\n00:48:05.680 --> 00:48:08.280\neven though we appear to have common experiences,\n\n1104\n00:48:08.280 --> 00:48:10.120\nwe were different even amongst black people.\n\n1105\n00:48:10.120 --> 00:48:13.080\nThere it is, the diversity amongst three black men\n\n1106\n00:48:13.080 --> 00:48:14.720\ngrowing up in America.\n\n1107\n00:48:14.720 --> 00:48:19.400\nAnd so what it did was it literally made me more empathetic.\n\n1108\n00:48:19.400 --> 00:48:22.920\nBelieve it or not, the George Floyd moment, you know,\n\n1109\n00:48:22.920 --> 00:48:27.400\nhere I am, I've had a very incredibly successful career.\n\n1110\n00:48:27.400 --> 00:48:28.480\nGod has been good.\n\n1111\n00:48:28.480 --> 00:48:29.360\nI have resources.\n\n1112\n00:48:29.360 --> 00:48:33.120\nSo I don't know what it's like to be a George Floyd.\n\n1113\n00:48:33.120 --> 00:48:34.120\nI don't know.\n\n1114\n00:48:34.120 --> 00:48:37.320\nAnd so I became more empathetic.\n\n1115\n00:48:37.320 --> 00:48:40.040\nAnd his brothers talked about working in warehouses\n\n1116\n00:48:40.040 --> 00:48:42.080\nand not being given fair opportunities\n\n1117\n00:48:42.080 --> 00:48:44.480\nwhen they discussed it with my employees here.\n\n1118\n00:48:44.480 --> 00:48:47.960\nAnd I was sitting there saying, wow, I never thought about that.\n\n1119\n00:48:47.960 --> 00:48:51.040\nPeople managers, they talked about some great people managers\n\n1120\n00:48:51.040 --> 00:48:53.640\nand some horrible people managers.\n\n1121\n00:48:53.640 --> 00:48:56.960\nSo that's what it's done is actually made me more empathetic.\n\n1122\n00:48:56.960 --> 00:49:01.320\nYeah, that's really a very insightful point.\n\n1123\n00:49:01.320 --> 00:49:02.760\nAnd you mentioned this.\n\n1124\n00:49:02.760 --> 00:49:04.800\nThis is such a complicated subject.\n\n1125\n00:49:04.800 --> 00:49:09.280\nBut if you're forced to give just three bits of advice\n\n1126\n00:49:09.280 --> 00:49:13.920\nto leaders on how to drive diversity and inclusion\n\n1127\n00:49:13.920 --> 00:49:16.040\nin their organization, what would it be?\n\n1128\n00:49:16.040 --> 00:49:17.320\nThree bits.\n\n1129\n00:49:17.320 --> 00:49:17.840\nLove it.\n\n1130\n00:49:17.840 --> 00:49:21.880\nNumber one, I can judge you by who you hire to lead your diversity\n\n1131\n00:49:21.880 --> 00:49:24.400\nand inclusion work.\n\n1132\n00:49:24.400 --> 00:49:25.960\nPutting someone in there just because they\n\n1133\n00:49:25.960 --> 00:49:29.920\nhappen to be black or a woman or LGBTQ or whatever\n\n1134\n00:49:29.920 --> 00:49:32.240\nwithout any real skill at doing it\n\n1135\n00:49:32.240 --> 00:49:34.640\nis tantamount to hiring somebody to be your CFO who\n\n1136\n00:49:34.640 --> 00:49:36.680\ndoesn't have background as a CFO.\n\n1137\n00:49:36.680 --> 00:49:39.600\nAnd so number one, if you're serious about diversity,\n\n1138\n00:49:39.600 --> 00:49:41.240\nequity, inclusion, then hire someone\n\n1139\n00:49:41.240 --> 00:49:44.960\nwho has an evidenced background of being\n\n1140\n00:49:44.960 --> 00:49:47.720\nable to drive DE&I strategies.\n\n1141\n00:49:47.720 --> 00:49:48.440\nThat's number one.\n\n1142\n00:49:48.440 --> 00:49:50.840\nNumber two is you've got to resource it.\n\n1143\n00:49:50.840 --> 00:49:53.200\nThere's no way that you can say go do this job.\n\n1144\n00:49:53.200 --> 00:49:56.560\nBut here's your $25,000 budget to be split amongst community\n\n1145\n00:49:56.560 --> 00:49:57.320\norganizations.\n\n1146\n00:49:57.320 --> 00:49:57.920\nCheck the box.\n\n1147\n00:49:57.920 --> 00:49:58.800\nWe've done it.\n\n1148\n00:49:58.800 --> 00:50:01.320\nYou've got to put financial resources against it.\n\n1149\n00:50:01.320 --> 00:50:05.280\nAnd number three, this is a change management initiative.\n\n1150\n00:50:05.280 --> 00:50:07.240\nYou got when it comes to specifically\n\n1151\n00:50:07.240 --> 00:50:09.120\nthe diversity dimension of race.\n\n1152\n00:50:09.120 --> 00:50:11.000\nWe're 400 years out of slavery.\n\n1153\n00:50:11.000 --> 00:50:13.120\nIt took a long time for us to get to this point.\n\n1154\n00:50:13.120 --> 00:50:16.040\nAnd it's not going to be overcome or affixed overnight.\n\n1155\n00:50:16.040 --> 00:50:18.280\nSo this is going to take time.\n\n1156\n00:50:18.280 --> 00:50:21.440\nAnyone who decides that they're going to embark upon a real\n\n1157\n00:50:21.440 --> 00:50:25.120\ncommitment of changing their culture around DE&I\n\n1158\n00:50:25.120 --> 00:50:27.720\nmeans they're going to do this for five, seven years\n\n1159\n00:50:27.720 --> 00:50:28.360\nat a minimum.\n\n1160\n00:50:28.360 --> 00:50:31.040\nSo don't think that you're going to see immediate results\n\n1161\n00:50:31.040 --> 00:50:34.360\nand that this is all going to be sort of an initiative\n\n1162\n00:50:34.360 --> 00:50:35.800\nthat you can check the box on.\n\n1163\n00:50:35.800 --> 00:50:36.480\nThose three things.\n\n1164\n00:50:36.480 --> 00:50:38.800\nWho you put in the job, how you resource it,\n\n1165\n00:50:38.800 --> 00:50:42.760\nand then you're a willingness to be patient while you transform\n\n1166\n00:50:42.760 --> 00:50:44.280\npeople's hearts and their minds.\n\n1167\n00:50:44.280 --> 00:50:48.200\nUsing your parlance, it's definitely a constant reset.\n\n1168\n00:50:48.200 --> 00:50:50.560\nAnd Johnny, self-awareness-- I know you agree with this.\n\n1169\n00:50:50.560 --> 00:50:52.880\nSelf-awareness is critical for every leader.\n\n1170\n00:50:52.880 --> 00:50:55.760\nHow do you go about self-coaching yourself?\n\n1171\n00:50:55.760 --> 00:50:59.280\nAnd what are you working on today to become a better leader?\n\n1172\n00:50:59.280 --> 00:51:02.440\nSo believe it or not, I have two executive coaches.\n\n1173\n00:51:02.440 --> 00:51:04.720\nAnd listen, I wish I had gotten to you earlier,\n\n1174\n00:51:04.720 --> 00:51:06.240\nbecause I would have loved for you to join me.\n\n1175\n00:51:06.240 --> 00:51:07.320\nI have two of them.\n\n1176\n00:51:07.320 --> 00:51:08.600\nAnd I split them into two.\n\n1177\n00:51:08.600 --> 00:51:10.920\nI have someone who helps me on business strategy.\n\n1178\n00:51:10.920 --> 00:51:12.920\nI told you, I'm first generation.\n\n1179\n00:51:12.920 --> 00:51:14.560\nI don't know how to do this necessarily.\n\n1180\n00:51:14.560 --> 00:51:15.960\nI don't want to make all of the mistakes\n\n1181\n00:51:15.960 --> 00:51:16.800\nand learn on the job.\n\n1182\n00:51:16.800 --> 00:51:19.040\nSo I have a business strategy executive coach.\n\n1183\n00:51:19.040 --> 00:51:21.840\nAnd then I have a leadership coach, someone who\n\n1184\n00:51:21.840 --> 00:51:24.880\nhelps me understand how to be more empathetic.\n\n1185\n00:51:24.880 --> 00:51:27.640\nI, for example, back to this question of diversity,\n\n1186\n00:51:27.640 --> 00:51:29.920\nI don't assume that just because I'm black,\n\n1187\n00:51:29.920 --> 00:51:31.240\nI'm a diversity expert.\n\n1188\n00:51:31.240 --> 00:51:32.920\nI know what my experience is.\n\n1189\n00:51:32.920 --> 00:51:36.880\nSo I use an executive coach to be the person who steps outside\n\n1190\n00:51:36.880 --> 00:51:40.640\nand helps me understand how a person of the LGBT community\n\n1191\n00:51:40.640 --> 00:51:43.320\nfeels, how someone who's been incarcerated\n\n1192\n00:51:43.320 --> 00:51:45.800\nfeels like I need that person to help.\n\n1193\n00:51:45.800 --> 00:51:48.080\nYou know this more than I know.\n\n1194\n00:51:48.080 --> 00:51:50.480\nThese are lonely jobs as a CEO.\n\n1195\n00:51:50.480 --> 00:51:53.400\nYou actually don't have a lot of people you can turn to.\n\n1196\n00:51:53.400 --> 00:51:56.360\nAnd even if you're in a community of other CEOs,\n\n1197\n00:51:56.360 --> 00:51:58.680\nthey're all swamped and stressed too.\n\n1198\n00:51:58.680 --> 00:52:01.960\nSo what do we do all get together and drink ourselves out\n\n1199\n00:52:01.960 --> 00:52:03.520\nof these roles, right?\n\n1200\n00:52:03.520 --> 00:52:08.440\nBut seriously, so I've used two executive coaches in my case\n\n1201\n00:52:08.440 --> 00:52:11.800\nto keep my hit in the game.\n\n1202\n00:52:11.800 --> 00:52:12.720\nThat's number one.\n\n1203\n00:52:12.720 --> 00:52:15.400\nWhat am I personally, personally working on?\n\n1204\n00:52:15.400 --> 00:52:17.600\nOne, it is empathy.\n\n1205\n00:52:17.600 --> 00:52:21.400\nAnd I say that because I haven't always been.\n\n1206\n00:52:21.400 --> 00:52:24.560\nI'm a very hard driving business leader.\n\n1207\n00:52:24.560 --> 00:52:27.720\nAnd I'm the guy who said to someone,\n\n1208\n00:52:27.720 --> 00:52:29.600\nand now I can reflect on it.\n\n1209\n00:52:29.600 --> 00:52:32.800\nAnd we all are hopefully better today than we were yesterday.\n\n1210\n00:52:32.800 --> 00:52:35.880\nBut I told someone who, a woman years ago,\n\n1211\n00:52:35.880 --> 00:52:38.240\na lawyer on my team was telling me about the challenges\n\n1212\n00:52:38.240 --> 00:52:41.120\nshe was having at home because she was trying to be a mother\n\n1213\n00:52:41.120 --> 00:52:42.640\nand a lawyer and da da da da.\n\n1214\n00:52:42.640 --> 00:52:44.520\nAnd I said, listen, you and your husband\n\n1215\n00:52:44.520 --> 00:52:46.040\ndecided to have children, not me.\n\n1216\n00:52:47.440 --> 00:52:50.560\nNow I look back because I can't believe I said that to someone.\n\n1217\n00:52:50.560 --> 00:52:52.720\nBut I did, and I meant it.\n\n1218\n00:52:52.720 --> 00:52:56.200\nMy true self is like, I've got to balance my life.\n\n1219\n00:52:56.200 --> 00:52:58.840\nYou've got to figure out how to balance yours.\n\n1220\n00:52:58.840 --> 00:53:04.320\nBut that was so '80s, 1980s, right, of a management philosophy.\n\n1221\n00:53:04.320 --> 00:53:06.280\nAnd so, but I will.\n\n1222\n00:53:06.280 --> 00:53:08.720\nLiterally, that's still a part of how I think\n\n1223\n00:53:08.720 --> 00:53:12.840\nbecause I'm so like the guy who has to solve his own problems.\n\n1224\n00:53:12.840 --> 00:53:14.680\nLike you consider and tell me your problems all day,\n\n1225\n00:53:14.680 --> 00:53:17.320\nbut Johnny, you've got to solve your own problems.\n\n1226\n00:53:17.320 --> 00:53:20.800\nSo as a result, I am working on being more empathetic\n\n1227\n00:53:20.800 --> 00:53:23.880\nand trying to understand how not to be so hard driving\n\n1228\n00:53:23.880 --> 00:53:25.600\nand so absolute.\n\n1229\n00:53:25.600 --> 00:53:27.640\nThat's a big effort for me.\n\n1230\n00:53:27.640 --> 00:53:31.280\nPeople see this guy who's lovely and he loves people\n\n1231\n00:53:31.280 --> 00:53:34.200\nand I do love people, but I also believe very strongly\n\n1232\n00:53:34.200 --> 00:53:35.840\nand sort of personal accountability\n\n1233\n00:53:35.840 --> 00:53:37.360\nin figuring out your own problems.\n\n1234\n00:53:37.360 --> 00:53:39.040\nI don't, but that's how I'm biased.\n\n1235\n00:53:39.040 --> 00:53:41.520\nSo I use, I'm working on that.\n\n1236\n00:53:41.520 --> 00:53:43.680\n- You know, I think that that kind of transparency\n\n1237\n00:53:43.680 --> 00:53:47.080\nis very motivational and unique and inspiring to your people.\n\n1238\n00:53:47.080 --> 00:53:49.320\nSo good for you for being so open on it.\n\n1239\n00:53:49.320 --> 00:53:51.200\nYou know, this is so much fun, Johnny.\n\n1240\n00:53:51.200 --> 00:53:53.160\nAnd I've enjoyed this conversation.\n\n1241\n00:53:53.160 --> 00:53:54.440\nI wanna have a little bit more with you\n\n1242\n00:53:54.440 --> 00:53:57.120\nwith a lightning round of Q and A,\n\n1243\n00:53:57.120 --> 00:53:58.520\nhave some fun with it here.\n\n1244\n00:53:58.520 --> 00:54:01.160\nWhat three words best describe you?\n\n1245\n00:54:01.160 --> 00:54:06.160\n- Demanding, funny, and capitalist.\n\n1246\n00:54:06.160 --> 00:54:09.800\n- If you could be one person beside yourself,\n\n1247\n00:54:09.800 --> 00:54:13.240\nwho would it be and why?\n\n1248\n00:54:13.240 --> 00:54:14.440\n- Oh gosh.\n\n1249\n00:54:16.960 --> 00:54:18.520\nThat's a tough one.\n\n1250\n00:54:18.520 --> 00:54:22.520\nI would want to be Oprah Winfrey.\n\n1251\n00:54:22.520 --> 00:54:26.800\nAnd it's because she literally has made herself\n\n1252\n00:54:26.800 --> 00:54:30.120\na household name and just been incredibly successful\n\n1253\n00:54:30.120 --> 00:54:31.680\ndespite the odds.\n\n1254\n00:54:31.680 --> 00:54:33.160\n- What's your biggest pet peeve?\n\n1255\n00:54:33.160 --> 00:54:37.840\n- Lazy people.\n\n1256\n00:54:37.840 --> 00:54:40.480\n- What's something about you that few people would know?\n\n1257\n00:54:40.480 --> 00:54:44.640\n- As a young man, I was on Wheel of Fortune\n\n1258\n00:54:44.640 --> 00:54:46.240\nand I won Teen Week.\n\n1259\n00:54:46.240 --> 00:54:49.120\nI was the winner of the week on Wheel of Fortune\n\n1260\n00:54:49.120 --> 00:54:50.480\nwhen I was 13 years old.\n\n1261\n00:54:50.480 --> 00:54:51.320\n14 years old.\n\n1262\n00:54:51.320 --> 00:54:53.120\n- Do you have any hidden talents?\n\n1263\n00:54:53.120 --> 00:54:55.680\n(laughing)\n\n1264\n00:54:55.680 --> 00:54:56.520\n- No.\n\n1265\n00:54:56.520 --> 00:54:59.440\n(laughing)\n\n1266\n00:54:59.440 --> 00:55:01.600\n- You've written a very insightful business book\n\n1267\n00:55:01.600 --> 00:55:02.440\nwith Reset.\n\n1268\n00:55:02.440 --> 00:55:04.080\nWhat's your favorite business book?\n\n1269\n00:55:04.080 --> 00:55:06.680\n- Good to great.\n\n1270\n00:55:06.680 --> 00:55:10.080\n- The most exciting thing you have to look forward to.\n\n1271\n00:55:10.080 --> 00:55:13.520\n- Hopefully this book's selling\n\n1272\n00:55:13.520 --> 00:55:15.960\nand I make one of the big lists\n\n1273\n00:55:15.960 --> 00:55:18.040\nin your Times Wall Street Journal lists.\n\n1274\n00:55:18.040 --> 00:55:19.240\n- Good luck.\n\n1275\n00:55:19.240 --> 00:55:21.880\n- Two more questions for you.\n\n1276\n00:55:21.880 --> 00:55:24.880\nFirst, what are the three traits you see\n\n1277\n00:55:24.880 --> 00:55:26.600\nin the most successful leader?\n\n1278\n00:55:26.600 --> 00:55:28.720\n- Empathy,\n\n1279\n00:55:28.720 --> 00:55:35.680\ncuriosity, I mean true curiosity\n\n1280\n00:55:35.680 --> 00:55:39.080\nand how do I describe it?\n\n1281\n00:55:39.080 --> 00:55:41.840\nI don't know if this is the right way to describe it,\n\n1282\n00:55:41.840 --> 00:55:44.800\nbut incredibly competitive.\n\n1283\n00:55:44.800 --> 00:55:46.960\n- Now, that's a good one.\n\n1284\n00:55:46.960 --> 00:55:48.440\nI got two more questions.\n\n1285\n00:55:48.440 --> 00:55:49.720\nI'm gonna ask you two more, okay?\n\n1286\n00:55:49.720 --> 00:55:52.520\nReal quick, what's your favorite interview question?\n\n1287\n00:55:52.520 --> 00:55:54.200\nHad to ask you that one for goodness sakes.\n\n1288\n00:55:54.200 --> 00:55:56.160\n- My favorite interview question is,\n\n1289\n00:55:56.160 --> 00:55:59.680\nwhat are you bad at?\n\n1290\n00:55:59.680 --> 00:56:01.600\n- And why do you ask them?\n\n1291\n00:56:01.600 --> 00:56:05.360\n- Because it goes to something we mentioned a little earlier.\n\n1292\n00:56:05.360 --> 00:56:07.120\nPeople who are great at everything,\n\n1293\n00:56:07.120 --> 00:56:09.040\nthey lack self-awareness.\n\n1294\n00:56:09.040 --> 00:56:11.240\nAnyone who can truly answer,\n\n1295\n00:56:11.240 --> 00:56:13.280\nwhat are you not so good at?\n\n1296\n00:56:13.280 --> 00:56:15.240\nOr bad at, outright bad.\n\n1297\n00:56:15.240 --> 00:56:16.440\nSo it's just not moderately good.\n\n1298\n00:56:16.440 --> 00:56:17.920\nLike I'm not good at this.\n\n1299\n00:56:17.920 --> 00:56:22.240\nIt has a real good, I believe it's an indicator\n\n1300\n00:56:22.240 --> 00:56:23.840\nof their self-awareness.\n\n1301\n00:56:23.840 --> 00:56:28.640\n- And lastly, I understand that you're a single parent flatter.\n\n1302\n00:56:28.640 --> 00:56:29.480\n- Yes.\n\n1303\n00:56:29.480 --> 00:56:32.720\n- How do you balance all that comes with that?\n\n1304\n00:56:32.720 --> 00:56:33.720\n- You just do it.\n\n1305\n00:56:33.720 --> 00:56:34.680\nYou wake up every day.\n\n1306\n00:56:34.680 --> 00:56:36.760\nMy parents divorced, as I mentioned earlier.\n\n1307\n00:56:36.760 --> 00:56:38.000\nI have three siblings\n\n1308\n00:56:38.000 --> 00:56:39.680\nand my mother raised three children\n\n1309\n00:56:39.680 --> 00:56:41.920\nwith far fewer resources than I have.\n\n1310\n00:56:41.920 --> 00:56:43.720\nSo I just wake up every day,\n\n1311\n00:56:43.720 --> 00:56:45.320\nput one foot in the front of the other.\n\n1312\n00:56:45.320 --> 00:56:47.960\nMy number one job in the world\n\n1313\n00:56:47.960 --> 00:56:50.880\nis to be a great daddy to that 11 year old girl.\n\n1314\n00:56:50.880 --> 00:56:52.120\nThat's bigger than charm,\n\n1315\n00:56:52.120 --> 00:56:54.440\nit's bigger than being a son or anything else.\n\n1316\n00:56:54.440 --> 00:56:55.400\nIt's number one.\n\n1317\n00:56:55.400 --> 00:56:58.640\nAnd so every day I just wake up and my guiding,\n\n1318\n00:56:58.640 --> 00:57:00.480\nthat's my contribution to this world.\n\n1319\n00:57:00.480 --> 00:57:02.680\nPeople will forget how much money I have,\n\n1320\n00:57:02.680 --> 00:57:04.000\nwhat my titles were, et cetera.\n\n1321\n00:57:04.000 --> 00:57:05.040\nBut they're gonna remember,\n\n1322\n00:57:05.040 --> 00:57:07.800\nthey'll look at me and judge me\n\n1323\n00:57:07.800 --> 00:57:10.920\nbased upon how that little girl grows up.\n\n1324\n00:57:10.920 --> 00:57:14.400\n- You know, Johnny, you're a terrific guy.\n\n1325\n00:57:14.400 --> 00:57:16.120\nCongratulations on your new book.\n\n1326\n00:57:16.120 --> 00:57:17.960\nIt's pretty clear why you're the CEO\n\n1327\n00:57:17.960 --> 00:57:20.280\nof this huge organization.\n\n1328\n00:57:20.280 --> 00:57:22.360\nI wanna thank you so much for taking the time\n\n1329\n00:57:22.360 --> 00:57:23.800\nto be with me today.\n\n1330\n00:57:23.800 --> 00:57:24.640\n- Thank you, my friend.\n\n1331\n00:57:24.640 --> 00:57:25.480\nI appreciate you.\n\n1332\n00:57:25.480 --> 00:57:26.320\nHave a great weekend.\n\n1333\n00:57:26.320 --> 00:57:37.960\n- Well, I knew I was going to enjoy that conversation\n\n1334\n00:57:37.960 --> 00:57:40.160\nbecause I just love talking about people\n\n1335\n00:57:40.160 --> 00:57:41.800\nand the importance of people\n\n1336\n00:57:41.800 --> 00:57:45.720\nand the importance they have in every organization.\n\n1337\n00:57:45.720 --> 00:57:47.280\nNow, if you work with people,\n\n1338\n00:57:47.280 --> 00:57:49.840\nthere was so much to learn from Johnny about hiring,\n\n1339\n00:57:49.840 --> 00:57:52.640\nabout retention, about how to come into an organization\n\n1340\n00:57:52.640 --> 00:57:54.120\nthat's maybe a little sleepy\n\n1341\n00:57:54.120 --> 00:57:56.480\nand then really drive some big time change.\n\n1342\n00:57:56.480 --> 00:57:59.400\nBut I gotta admit, there was one moment\n\n1343\n00:57:59.400 --> 00:58:01.200\nthat really shocked me.\n\n1344\n00:58:01.200 --> 00:58:05.640\nAnd that was when Johnny shared that a whopping 93% of people\n\n1345\n00:58:05.640 --> 00:58:08.640\nwould leave a job that they actually liked\n\n1346\n00:58:08.640 --> 00:58:11.840\nto work at a more empathetic organization.\n\n1347\n00:58:11.840 --> 00:58:15.080\nThat tells you just how important empathy is.\n\n1348\n00:58:15.080 --> 00:58:17.480\nWe have to actively develop empathy\n\n1349\n00:58:17.480 --> 00:58:21.240\nand look for ways to see situations through our employees eyes.\n\n1350\n00:58:21.240 --> 00:58:23.280\nWe can't afford to overlook it.\n\n1351\n00:58:23.280 --> 00:58:26.640\nAnd hey, because you're listening today, you won't,\n\n1352\n00:58:26.640 --> 00:58:29.280\nespecially with this quick bit of coaching.\n\n1353\n00:58:29.280 --> 00:58:32.600\nThis week, as a part of your weekly personal development plan,\n\n1354\n00:58:32.600 --> 00:58:35.040\nI want you to come up with the one initiative\n\n1355\n00:58:35.040 --> 00:58:37.440\nthat will make your organization more empathetic\n\n1356\n00:58:37.440 --> 00:58:39.120\nto your employees.\n\n1357\n00:58:39.120 --> 00:58:41.640\nJohnny had some great ideas that they're using to term\n\n1358\n00:58:41.640 --> 00:58:44.760\nto help their members' organizations develop empathy.\n\n1359\n00:58:44.760 --> 00:58:47.280\nFor example, you can coach your HR department\n\n1360\n00:58:47.280 --> 00:58:49.080\nto find ways to get to yes,\n\n1361\n00:58:49.080 --> 00:58:52.320\ninstead of just blindly following a compliance handbook.\n\n1362\n00:58:52.320 --> 00:58:55.560\nOr you can work towards what Johnny calls a challenge culture\n\n1363\n00:58:55.560 --> 00:58:57.720\nthat helps employees feel safe\n\n1364\n00:58:57.720 --> 00:59:00.280\nspeaking up about what's not working.\n\n1365\n00:59:00.280 --> 00:59:02.720\nBoth of those ideas are driven by empathy,\n\n1366\n00:59:02.720 --> 00:59:04.440\nby understanding the situation\n\n1367\n00:59:04.440 --> 00:59:06.200\nfrom our employees' perspectives\n\n1368\n00:59:06.200 --> 00:59:08.720\nand really responding to their feedback.\n\n1369\n00:59:08.720 --> 00:59:11.360\nI bet you've got some ideas of your own too.\n\n1370\n00:59:11.360 --> 00:59:13.880\nWhen we can see empathy as a business skill\n\n1371\n00:59:13.880 --> 00:59:15.240\nthat we can develop,\n\n1372\n00:59:15.240 --> 00:59:18.320\nthen we can tap into all kinds of creative ways\n\n1373\n00:59:18.320 --> 00:59:21.320\nto grow stronger and more loyal teams.\n\n1374\n00:59:21.320 --> 00:59:23.320\nSo do you want to know how leaders lead?\n\n1375\n00:59:23.320 --> 00:59:25.560\nWhat we learned today is the great leaders\n\n1376\n00:59:25.560 --> 00:59:28.400\ntreat empathy as a business skill.\n\n1377\n00:59:28.400 --> 00:59:30.760\nThanks again for tuning in to another episode\n\n1378\n00:59:30.760 --> 00:59:32.040\nof How Leaders Lead,\n\n1379\n00:59:32.040 --> 00:59:33.960\nwhere every Thursday you get to listen in\n\n1380\n00:59:33.960 --> 00:59:37.160\nwhile I interview some of the very best leaders in the world.\n\n1381\n00:59:37.160 --> 00:59:39.160\nI make it a point to give you something simple\n\n1382\n00:59:39.160 --> 00:59:42.000\non each episode that you can apply to your business\n\n1383\n00:59:42.000 --> 00:59:44.680\nso that you will become the best leader you can be.\n\n1384\n00:59:44.680 --> 00:59:47.280\n(upbeat music)\n\n1385\n00:59:47.280 --> 00:59:49.540\n(buzzing)\n\n1386\n00:59:49.540 --> 00:59:51.800\n(buzzing)\n\n1387\n00:59:51.800 --> 01:00:14.120\n(buzzing)","

David Novak 0:04

Welcome to How leaders lead where every week you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world, I break down the key learning so that by the end of the episode, you'll have something simple you can apply as you develop into a better leader. That's what this podcast is all about. Today's guest is Johnnie Taylor, President CEO of Sherm, the Society of Human Resource Management, which is the Association for over 300,000 Human Resource Officers in 165. Countries. I always say the formula for success in any business is to get your people capability, right. That's how you're going to satisfy more customers. That's how you're going to make more money. And more importantly, that's how you can make a bigger difference in the world. That's why I'm really excited for you to hear from Johnny, because he has figured out a huge piece of the puzzle when it comes to getting your people, right. And here's something a lot of us overlook empathy, not sympathy, but empathy, the ability to see a situation from someone else's perspective, and really respond with compassion. He says empathy isn't just a mushy feeling, or moral idea. It's a business skill, something we actively need to be working toward in our organizations and developing in our leaders. And fortunately, he has a lot of practical advice for how we can do just that. So let's get right to it. Here's my conversation with my new friend and send it to yours, Johnny Taylor.

Johnny, thanks so much for taking the time to join me in this conversation.

Johnny Taylor 1:42

Oh, thank you so much, David. And I listen I shared with you it's, it's a big deal to be able to spend time with you because all of the CEOs as of late, frankly, have jumped on the people bandwagon. But you've been doing this for a very long time. This is not new to you. And you know, a long time ago when people were talking about financial capital, financial capital, you were talking about human capital. So thank you for being ahead of your time and being a frontiersman on this work.

David Novak 2:10

Well, thank you very much, Johnny, you know, I know your organization pretty well. I've spoken to a couple of your big conventions. They're big. I mean, I spoke to one in Orlando yet close to 15,000 people. They're the biggest group I ever talked about. And I I taught everybody the young chair. It's the only time Johnny that. I've I've trended on Twitter. You know, it sounds kind of cool. But can you tell us about the purpose of your organization Sherm and and anything else that you think will put it in the proper context?

Johnny Taylor 2:41

Yes. So Sherman, let me describe what it is for people who, who just need sort of an elevator pitch, right? We represent HR professionals across the globe. And what does that mean, if you were a lawyer, you'd be a member of the American Bar Association, if you were a physician, you'd be a member of the American Medical Association. So is the professional association for people who do what we do, which is human resources. It includes HR practitioners, that includes lawyers, because you know, there are a lot of lawyers who focus on people issues. It includes all sorts of benefits people and talent acquisition people, etc. But anything related to people is what we do, we are the go to organization for that, however, and most recently, and about three or four years ago, because of what you've been preaching for decades now, the idea that people are at the center of almost everything, especially when it comes to industry, we've broadened our remit a little bit, so that even employees now come to us to say, What should I expect from my employer? What is the right way for me to ask for this or that? So it's more than just representing HR professionals. We're representing work and everything that has to do with work?

David Novak 3:51

Well, you've really broaden that definition. And I want to want to want to get into that a little bit more later. But first of all, the reason why I'm so excited about doing this podcast is I just read your excellent new book it has it's chock full of insights. It's called reset, A Leaders Guide to work in an age of upheaval. What do you hope to accomplish with the book Johnny?

Johnny Taylor 4:13

Yes. So I, I hope that again, not just HR practitioners or just CEOs, but that broadly, we all read the book and say, Okay, what's my reset moment? Why is that so important? David, I think you'd agree. And anyone listening to this would agree that we all thought back in March of 2020, it feels like centuries ago now. Right? But we thought this was a pause. We thought, you know, 1421 days, 30 days, the entire country, and indeed the globe shuts down, and then we will be past this COVID-19 thing. None of us, you know, as time marched on three months, six months, nine months now, 15 months later, thought that we'd be here still, frankly in the middle of The pandemic in many ways. And so as opposed to a pause, this period of time to reflect, rethink reset was very different than what any of us expected. I'm hoping that what the book does is it says, Here's a framework for for taking this rethinking how you're going to operate in work going forward, either as an employee, or an employer, a leader or a follower, whatever. That's the point is for it to give some thoughts, as you said, some real thoughts about how can how will I be really different coming out of the pandemic?

David Novak 5:36

You know, you're obviously a leader who really walks the walks the talk, and I want to get into how you lead and how you're resetting Sherm with a real live example of how to how to really perform in this crazy time. But first, let me let me take you back a little bit. Tell us about your upbringing.

Johnny Taylor 5:53

Modest, that's the best way to describe it. Right. And, and I just had lunch with a colleague the other day and describe why I think that makes me what I am, because I can relate relate to everyone I've been in the best of worlds. This was the Charles Dickens story, the best of times the worst of times. So I've lived it all. I was born in Fort Lauderdale, one of three children to my parents, they ultimately were divorced, so raised by single moms went off to college, because it was clear to me that education was going to be the great equalizer at the University of Miami, or you for anyone watching out there. And then went on, left Florida, where I was raised and did my undergraduate work to law school, went to Iowa of all places. So if I have any Midwesterners and Nick, thank you, you gave me an amazing foundation, and then spent my life on the corporate side, even though I'm at Sherm now, which is a.org, and a nonprofit, I spent most of my life in major corporations, Viacom, Paramount Pictures, Blockbuster Entertainment, yes, there once was a blockbuster. And as I mentioned, Dave, something that you would know I was in the food services business. In fact, I was general counsel for a company out of the UK call the Compass Group, the world's largest food services company. And so I was General Counsel there. I've had throughout my career opportunities as the chief lawyer, Chief HR officer, and now CEO.

David Novak 7:13

So Johnny, you were at Blockbuster, which was totally disrupted by Netflix. What did you learn from that experience that sticks with you today?

Johnny Taylor 7:23

That if you don't change, you will die. And it's just that simple. In fact, I talk about blockbuster a lot. You remember it for anyone who's too young, maybe the millennials, and particularly Generation Z, we were everywhere. I mean, there was a blockbuster store opening every 20 seconds, we used to brag on the planet, there was not a corner you went to and everyone made it a blockbuster night. And it just became a part of life, right. And then almost overnight, I'm talking five to seven years, it went from Wall Street's darling. And you pure ubiquity, from a brand standpoint, to nowhere to bankrupt to, like non existent. And I saw that because we refused the whole idea of innovation within a business, the idea of not listening to the next generation of customer internally or externally. It caught us up. And so you know, for people who think that companies can't go away, they do. And I lived through it.

David Novak 8:19

Yeah, absolutely. You know, and, you know, that's a lesson that well, well worth remembering by everybody. And then you became CEO of Sherman 2017. Yes. What did you do to get up to speed on on the people and the challenges that you had at hand?

Johnny Taylor 8:36

Well, fortunately, I'd spent almost all of my career really focused on people related issues, either as an HR person and as a lawyer. And then I spent a period of time in my life working in colleges, right in the college space, higher ed space, because if you think about it, those are the very people who will ultimately become employees. So I had a really good understanding of how that the talent machine from K through 12, to college and ultimately into the workforce, what I had to spend my time doing and the earliest part of my tenure here at Sherm was really rethinking our purpose. You know, a friend of mine who is now deceased, a name that you you'd likely know David Stern, was the commissioner of the NBA, and had spent a lot of time with me and I remembered when I joined, Sherm, he called me up Cole Cole, right. And he said, So Taylor, I see you've joined this big organization. It's called Sherm, and he said, you know, tell me about it. And I rattled off at that time, we had 285,000 members, and 150 countries, and I rounded off those sorts of stats, and he said something that will forever stick with me. He said, Well, that's great. So you got a big club of HR people. And there was this pause. I was like, what? And he said, What does that mean to me as a business leader? Nothing. He said the fact that you've got 200 85,000 HR people doesn't necessarily mean anything to me, which you've got to do is tell me why Sherm should matter to me. And with that, I came back to him. He said, it'll never forget, he ended. He said, How many people do you impact every day? So I don't know, 25,000 people he said wrong. That's not your number. Your number is the multiplier effect. How many people do those people impact every day in a workplace somewhere on the globe? That's your number. So I went back to my teams. And I said, What are the numbers? How many people when you take our members and we go to each one of them and say, How many people do you oversee every day in your HR practice within your organization? We have 5000 employees, we have 300 employees, we have 20 employees do the math and come back, he came back, a research team said 115 million people go to work every day, an organization where there's a Sherm person working, and I said, Wow, now that is our impact. So that really is what I early on, I had to get up to speed on why should share matter to anyone other than HR people. And it was when I realized that people spend most of their time, the time that they're awake at work. And so we have this huge opportunity to literally transform people's lives by providing a livelihood to them. And you can do all sorts of things with that sort of setting. And that's what we're doing right now. And it's what I learned early on is this job is more than growing my membership base by three or 4% a year, it's about impacting people's lives.

David Novak 11:30

You know, God, what was the culture you inherited? And how are you shaping it to be even more powerful today?

Johnny Taylor 11:36

Yeah. So internally and externally. So let me start with externally, the external meeting our members, the culture was one of HR people talking to HR people about HR stuff. And, and so imagine me coming in trying to say, but guys, that's great. There's a little bit of an echo chamber going on, because we're talking to each other about the same stuff. How are we going to get people outside of our world to validate us to say that what we do matters, and to show talk about impact. So that's a culture that was very, very much insular. That was number one, externally, internally, it was one where we had a lot of pride. But it was stayed, kind of, you know, 1% a year growth, nothing that you would accept in the food business or in any business that you'd run. And, you know, people would come and they would go, and we'd accept it a little kind of sleepy. And then all of a sudden, here I come, Mr. disruptive, and I pride myself on that, and it comes with and I hope we get to talk about it. It's uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable for people who are going through the change with me, and frankly, leading through this is the most uncomfortable thing you've ever done. Because as much as people say they want change, they really don't. As much as people say they want transparency. They really don't, you know, as is that line from the movie, you really can't handle transparency. Well, that's true. And so this process was painful. The first two, two and a half years of it was absolutely painful externally and internally. But I'm pleased to say in about three, year three, we started to see the breakthrough.

David Novak 13:15

Well, maybe a lot of that not maybe I'm sure a lot of that. Is this the importance that you seem to be put on having a challenge culture? Yes. What do you specifically mean by that? And what are you doing at Sherm to make that happen, so it comes alive in your organization?

Johnny Taylor 13:32

Right. Yeah. So So I, my, my communications people hated when I called it the challenge culture, because they were like, that's, that just doesn't feel right. I said, but that's what it is, like, let's use real words that people can relate to what do we mean by that? When your people naturally are pleasers, largely right, and they typically respect hierarchy. So if Johnny says this is the direction that we're going in, by virtue of his position, he must be right. And or Johnny's chiefs are you know, they're the leaders, they say it, what we found is there was some really good ideas coming up from the bottom, you know, there's the grass top, though it was that rooftop green and toe tree top strategy. And there's a grassroots strategy. And what we found is there were some great ideas, there were mistakes that we were making as an entity that that our people at the bottom of the organization knew and would have helped us prevent that we could have avoided those mistakes if they thought they could challenge things that we said. So this idea of a challenge culture was very much about giving people creating a culture where people actually believed that we wanted them to challenge our ideas respectfully, with civil, civility, all of those good things, but at the end of the day, you've got to give people the freedom, the safety to actually challenge ideas. And that's what that's hard work because I gotta make I got to tell my executive team, this is the way we're going to operate. It's okay for a person no matter where they are within these ranks to come in and say, I'm not so sure that's a good idea. And then you've got to take it and not just hear them, but you've actually got to embrace it. And then let them start to see that some of the things, the positions that we held, were willing to change if people and then once you do that, over time you create a culture where people believe challenge is not negative, it's positive, because ultimately, the entire organization is better for it.

David Novak 15:26

You know, I never really liked the word culture, Johnny, it sounds too much like a germ debate. I define it as work environment and the behaviors that will get the best results. What's your definition of culture?

Johnny Taylor 15:39

Yeah, so I too, I've struggled with it. Because growing up as lawyer culture felt soft. I was like, Well, what is that? Right? It's, but I tell you, I have come up with those sort of working definition is how things get done around an organization. It's unique to every organization, I've found that there is no perfect culture, there are no good cultures of AGIS like families, right? There are illegal, immoral, unethical cultures, I got that part. Because putting that aside, culture is how things really get done. Some of the rules are written, some are unwritten. And it's incredibly important that you in recruiting people, that you describe your culture and describe the specific behaviors to your point, that that should manifest what culture feels like. But if you ask me a short version of it's how things get done. I mean, that's how they

David Novak 16:30

work around here. You know, I really believe in purposeful recognition, where you recognize the behaviors that you know, get great results. What are those behaviors at Sherm that you really think are critical,

Johnny Taylor 16:41

right? Innovation. And part very close to that people from a behavioral standpoint who are willing to take risk and innovate, which means some things will fail, right? You think about Silicon Valley, you think about the private equity world, you got to you know, just a lot of Prince Charmings to find that one right, your toes rather. Right. So that's the way the process works. So from a behavioral perspective prospective, what we do is we like to see people who are willing to do things, some of which will fail. And then we've got to celebrate that failure as much as we do the success, as long as it's a well into executed failure, right? I don't want people who are failing, just because they didn't take time to think through this stuff, right? responsibly, and, you know, use our resources in a responsible manner. But you've got to celebrate failure. That's a behavior. And so when I looked for people, one of the things we asked an interview process is tell me when you failed at something, there is nothing that stops an interview faster with me when someone says, I don't think I've ever failed at anything. And I said, Well, it means you're not going to this won't be the culture for you. Because you'll come in, and you'll constantly be the person who blocks innovation, because you're afraid of failing, you've never had it, you don't want to have it. And so you're not going to do it, which is going to ultimately slow down the progress that we're trying to make an organization. That's one thing, the other behavior that I'm really pushing. And more and more now is we can have rumors and backbiting and meetings after meetings, a lack of transparency with each other, I have found that organizations are struggling a lot because of the tensions internally. Employees. I just read something the other day a specific example that I make this point. So I guess the woman is the Chief Marketing Officer at Netflix, and a group of her employees on a slack channel decided that they were going to complain about everything wrong with her leadership in the organization, right. Some of which may have been true, some of which may have been false, I don't know. But interestingly, Netflix from a behavioral standpoint, fired those people. And they said, Let me tell you what we do here. If you have something to say about someone, you say it to them, you don't talk behind their backs, we we will not operate that way. That behavior has to be built into design, and you have to be intentional and enforce within an organization. Therefore you don't have the organization competing within itself. You have people we're all just now you spend more time you know, worried about what people are saying about you that's destructive and counterproductive. So I love those sorts of things. And I've found that that has harmed a lot of organizations, this pettiness, this incivility, this rumor mill, like you've got to put an end to it. If you can't tell I feel very passionate about it. Because I have learned that organizations lose a lot of their energy with infighting.

David Novak 19:29

Absolutely. And you know, you talked about COVID a little bit earlier, how are you using the crisis of COVID-19 and now delta to do organizational good at Sherm, what's your what's your specific reset?

Johnny Taylor 19:44

Right, my specific reset has everything to do with Well, I have to say two, one is flexibility, workplace flexibility, not to be confused with work from home, because I think that's a problem. We've sort of decided that this is all about work from home Most people don't want to 100% work from home, they like interacting with other adults, right? They like the interactions of the human experience. But the idea that everyone doesn't have to work in the office nine to five, five days a week, that it could be three to three days and two days out, it could be for one, it can be whatever, that people that we have to bring the true concept of work flexibility to life, that was a big reset moment. For me, I'm a lawyer, I'm sort of conservative on these things. And this is the way work gets done. And now we have been forced during this process this reset moment to say, Hmm, does it have to be done that way? David, I can tell you, if you had told me that my EA could work remotely effectively my executive assistant that is effectively for me, I would have said there's no way there's just no way I need that person. And I know you probably can relate as a chief executive, you're like, I need this person right here with me. It was amazing. How, you know, two days a week, she could be quite effective for me working remotely. And that was a true reset moment for me in the biggest way.

David Novak 21:12

You know, every company has had to work virtually What have you learned at Sherm about how to keep remote workers truly engaged and productive? It's a big challenge.

Johnny Taylor 21:23

Yeah, it's, and that is my takeaway, it is incredibly hard. I'm not even sure that it's possible. So that might be a little provocative for you. There is there's a reason why we have the adage, out of sight out of mind. And the reality is, if you have an employee who's fully remote, and you have another employee who's next door to you every day and you're running into them in the coffee room, the water cooler, whatever, you go out to lunch, you are building relationships with that person that cannot be replicated with all of the HR interventions in the world. Sure, the person who's on I can bring them in, and I can make sure they show up on the Zoom screen, and we can have touch spot, you know, touch hands, and we can do all of that stuff. But trying to replicate fully replicate the in person human dynamic is not realistic, which is why I think those companies that have gone too far you can work from wherever you want, you never have to come into the office, we don't have to see you know, you I think over time, they're going to see that there are major disadvantages to that now, can you make it better? Should there be true it? Can you take two different work experiences working remote and working in the office and try to make them more like, reduce the similarities? Sure. But one thing that I and that's hard, that's gonna be really hard, I just did a meeting and I'm sure you've seen it, I'm on board, right. And you had a meeting, the people who are joining the board meeting remotely, do not have the same experiences that people who are there, and we are all equals, right? This is not a hierarchy or anything. We're all independent board members, but the people in the room have a much different, and I would argue more impactful interaction than people who are remote. So can you do it periodically? Sure. But every day if there's if you're going to compare remote to in person, you're going to struggle over the long term.

David Novak 23:12

What do you think are the biggest workplace innovations that have have occurred because of COVID?

Johnny Taylor 23:17

Right? For us, and I'm gonna name to one, we have now found a way to recruit people on board people, like train people fully remotely. And I would have, I would have told you two years ago that that just doesn't work. We actually now I want you to think about this conventional thinking was, you can't fire people remotely, right? You bring them in, we do all of that now, remotely. And we've changed the norm, I can hire you fire you I can promote you demote you, I can celebrate you all of that remotely. To me, that is the biggest change. And in particular, the learning and development side of it, that now asynchronously, people can upskill and rescale at any time remotely and quite cost effectively now than any than something we've ever seen people are learning now, in their living rooms at three o'clock in the morning, or at three o'clock in the afternoon is just amazing. So that entire way that we manage and develop and find talent has been transformed during this reset,

David Novak 24:29

you know, human resource, Johnny, as you well know. It's it's it's a can be a really maligned function in a lot of organizations. You know, why does HR have such a bad reputation across so many organizations?

Johnny Taylor 24:42

Well, so HR in its early stages, we called it personnel was responsible for one administrative function. So we paid you we didn't decide what you got paid. We just made sure we paid you so it was a very kind of administrative clerical function. So that's not something that typically gets issue any real positive, and the only time you go see HR is when the pay didn't come on time, right? Or if there was a mistake in your paycheck or whatever. So you start with a very administrative function, that that didn't help with branding. But the other side of it is so much as we evolved from personnel to more human resources. In as late as the 90s was very much a compliance function. It was the no department they use were the people you went to who said you either weren't doing well, or here the policies that that you had to follow. This stopped you from doing those things that human beings like to do. So you became the no department as such, between saying you're only administrative clerical anyway. And whenever I do come to you, it's about no or some rule. When you put those two things together for four or five decades, in the workplace since 1938, or so when the Fair Labor Standards Act was first put in place, then that's a reputation that has been well earned. And it's no necessarily not necessarily a fault of HR. But that's that's the answer.

David Novak 26:06

Well, what do you think then makes a an excellent human resource leaders today?

Johnny Taylor 26:11

Right. So obviously, it did, it depends upon the level. So what will make a great CHR o might be very different than, you know, an entry level employee relations person, but at the end of the day, it's the department that tries to get you to yes, this mindset that our role is to be there to enable your people success, workplace success, as opposed to constantly saying no, and we have to be. So that's the number one thing that we have to do is the whole mindset that the paradigm shift necessary from, I'm here to tell you why you can't do something to I'm going to tell you how we can get what you want done. I preach this to HR professionals, there will be times when the answer's no. But it should be the absolute last sort of line of defense, like I've done everything I can to work with you, Madam people, manager, to help you figure out how to get what you want achieved when we change our mindset. And compliance is always an issue. But even then, explaining to people listen, I'm trying to get you there. But there's this thing called Title Seven that says we can't do this. But let me tell you, I have some creative ways. Think about what we do with our tax advisors. You sit down, you know, any tax person can tell you what the IRS tax code says. But then a very creative one sits down and says, Let me tell you, this is how I'm going to help you there are ways to get what you want to achieve. That to achieve what you want. You're trying to get Have you want to say it differently. But the point is, that's what we've got to get to is yes, there's a compliance world in which we sit. There are all sorts of labor and employment laws and more and more coming every day. But the question is, how can I get you madam HR person or Mr. HR person? How can you help me as an HR expert, get what I want? In this world full of rules?

David Novak 28:04

I love that notion of getting getting people to Yes, you know, it's very powerful. And, you know, I noticed that you also in addition to having your other functional leaders, you've you created a Chief Knowledge Officer, and sure, yes, you know, tell us about that, that that's that's building no house important.

Johnny Taylor 28:22

No big time. So I'm naturally a person trained as a lawyer who believes we need to have facts, evidence to support our positions. One of the challenges for the HR professionals, we oftentimes relied on our instinct. And what we know is the subjectivity of instinct is all over the place. Right. So one of the things that Sharm has actually been doing for a while, but I've doubled down on during my tenure as a CEO is to find evidence to support the positions that we take. And so we really, we dumped a ton of money into building out a team of PhDs IO psychologists, statisticians, researchers, so that when we say this is the way something should be we actually have evidence to support it. Case in point, everyone's jumping on early on this happened April, May of 2020. Right after, you know, we were locked at home, you know, they were employers jumping out saying the way of the world, the future is going to be remote work. And we said, pause and they all said, Oh, because we see major efficiency and employees are more productive and everything and we said, But now let's do the research. Let's ensure that from a knowledge standpoint, that we have also measured the downsides. We know that one in four employees by June of last year were reporting burnout, isolation, depression, on account of not having human interaction. So maybe the answer isn't everyone works remotely forever. Sure. The CFOs are telling you that you can save a lot of money because we shut these buildings down. I'm not running air conditioning. I'm not buying coffee. I don't have security guards, but there are some other costs associated with it. I wanted out We're Sherm and our leadership team, specifically our knowledge department, to say, we're going to have data and evidence to support both sides of the argument, decide what you want to do in your shop, but you should have the data, you should have information to make well informed decisions. And that was, that's part of the role of a Society for Human Resource Management

David Novak 30:19

makes so much sense, you know, and I always talk to Johnny about the fact that the change is never over. And you say, make constant reset your friend, you know, yeah, how do you go about doing that?

Johnny Taylor 30:32

In your head. So I tell you something, people joke with me, I move the furniture in my house, every six months or so just move it around. Periodically, people think I'm nuts. But it's because one has to get comfortable with change. We are sort of naturally as human beings again, as much as we say we embrace change. We don't we get in, we get into the rut. I told someone the other day, I had this little practice of mine. I every periodically, every month or so, I turn off my GPS. And I say, let me try to find my way home through a different route.

David Novak 31:10

You're weird guy, you know that.

Johnny Taylor 31:12

I am weird. But think about it. Let me tell you it's paid off on occasion when the main thoroughfare has an accident or shut down. And while everyone else is just sitting there pissed and turn the car off. I'm like, Yeah, but I know there's this third street that does dismissive, circuitous Lee, I get home, it happened just the other day. But my point is between curiosity and embracing change, you've got to exercise your mind to do that we are naturally curious to think as human beings and we can embrace change, but those muscles have atrophied. They really have because we don't use them. So I am very intentional about just creating change in my world in small ways. So that when big change happens, when there's a change of direction, with, for example, who's sitting in the White House, all of the direction at the Department of Labor, the EEOC, OSHA has changed. But if you've not used that muscle and gotten comfortable with it, you're gonna really, really struggle.

David Novak 32:09

You know, you're You're such, you know, you talk about the need to change and reset your living example of that, obviously, you know, and you're passionate about innovation. So what what would be the biggest innovation you've seen? Recently at Sherm, we're inside your own company?

Johnny Taylor 32:24

Yes. So, it would be the biggest I hate superlatives. But, but I think the biggest at its core would be, we have decided, we have this tagline, I almost wore the shirt today, a tagline that says, we're about policy, not politics. Okay. Now, you asked yourself, what does the site for human resource management have anything to do with that? Well, at its core, when I talk about all of the workplace laws that are coming down, we have to impact that. And you can't just show up when the party that you like, is in control. So I announced this idea from an innovation perspective that we're gonna raise the visibility of our policy work. I also said that what we're going to do is we're not going to be bipartisan, we're going to be nonpartisan, we will take on issues coming out of you know, as supported by the data and evidence and our and our knowledge department that creates it. And we're going to say, this is what we believe there'll be times when that is makes the Democrats happy. And there'll be times when it makes the Republicans happy, or sometimes when no one will be happy with our positions. But the biggest innovation that we've done in terms of raising the visibility of the profession, is to have a point of view, when informed by data when we go to policymakers. So it's just not the HR people who are carrying out rules and laws that are created by government, we're influencing those on the front end, so that we make for a better workplace. That is the thing I'm most proud of, if I'm forced to pick one over the other day, a lot of things I'm proud of, but that was a mindset and more than a mindset shift or resource shift, I had to spend a lot of money to do it. And then too, we had members who joined us because we were more left or more right. And for Sherm to say we ride right down was not even bipartisan. We're gonna pick policy and sometimes you're gonna like it. Sometimes you're not but it's really sound policy was a huge shift for us.

David Novak 34:13

Well, that mindset is, is definitely unique in today's divisive world.

Johnny Taylor 34:17

No question about that, especially in Washington, DC. Absolutely.

David Novak 34:21

And Johnny, I know you agree, people and specifically talented, it's basically everything, you've got to have great talent around you. And and you talk about the pitfall of a safe hire, exploiting?

Johnny Taylor 34:35

Yeah, so here we are. And there are a whole bunch of reasons that's a pitfall but the idea that we have that most of us look for the safe hire, we look for the person who has a perfect background, who comes out of central casting for the role has this number of years. So like we do that, and what we ended up in a lot of situations is one we have no diversity, and I don't just mean civil rights. diversity but also mean civil rights diversity, you get a whole bunch of people who look the same and that lack of diversity, and including diverse experiences, including someone who's been to jail, for example, you need all of this diversity to to actually compete in an increasingly diverse workplace. Right? So the pitfalls, the number one problem is you just lack diversity. When you're looking for the safe hire, you also overlook incredibly, incredibly unique talent. Because sometimes the unique talent, the the most talented people don't look like what we think is the right perfect, safe candidate. And so again, we're overlooking incredibly good talent, because we are looking for the safe hire, we do the checkbox checkbox checkbox. And then we hire that person and a lot of people like them. That's at its core, the concept of, you know, just the safe hire, and there are major pitfalls. Here's something that I remind people, increasingly no one's safe anymore. I mean, all of us have something the internet divulge just all of our dirtiest secrets, right? Even if you were 12. And you wrote something, right. And so we've got to get away from that. And that's something that HR professionals have to get to fully embraces well, is the idea that talent shows up in different places. I'm a big proponent of hiring, and you've seen this in the books, but untapped pools of talent going into the market. When we have very low labor participation rates, relatively speaking, you got a third of the population sitting on the sidelines not working. And it's because we in HR and you people managers are always looking for the safe hire.

David Novak 36:36

Yeah, what made you an unsafe hire?

Johnny Taylor 36:40

Oh my gosh, on so many levels. I am a disrupter. The safest hire if you want to talk about my role right here in Sherm. It's a 70, now three year old, but when I came in, it's a 70 year old organization that had done just fine. Numbers looking good. You've grown your bank account is your balance sheet is great. And so you could have hired someone like that to continue what has gone on for seven decades. Instead, they look for someone who's very different. Listen, I'm not trained, classically trained as an HR person, right? I come from private sector. I'm not a nonprofit leader in the traditional sense. There were a lot of things about me, I'm pretty, you know, aggressive out there. I'm the guy that says, Let's do non partisanship. Those were things that the board had to get its arms around because there were safer hires. I would submit to you that we wouldn't be where we are. Now. We've grown this business significantly. We've grown our in our influence significantly. And people like you CEOs have said, huh, Sherm is actually now irrelevant to me. And 10 years ago, not so much.

David Novak 37:47

You know, once you have the talent, Johnny, you got to keep it, you know, what are the top three things you're doing at Sherm to keep your people?

Johnny Taylor 37:55

Well, number one that we've all avoided for years, you've got to pay people. There is a true war for talent. There are real wage inflation issues right now, to ignore them means you're ignoring it. So the number one thing I've done is I've had to go back and say, how do we compete and not just compete with nonprofits? But how do we compete for talent in the broader market? Now I understand that I can't compete with companies who can throw a lot of equity etc. But I've had to look at compensation and total rewards. The second thing that we've said is we've got to listen to our employees. Now, let's be clear, and I hope everyone hears me, I listen to my daughter all the time, I have an 11 year old, but that doesn't mean I do what she says, I'm listening, and I'm listening to truly understand not listening to check the box. But listening is something we've not done enough of over time, you know, we never thought we had to do it, like you weren't here or you don't. And so we've said to keep people, they have to know that they are heard, and then finally communicate back. So it's pay, it's listening. And it's communicating that third sort of category of work, which is communicating, even if I hear you, and I decide for X y&z reasons, we're not going to go that way. What we've not done is communicated effectively, why so then people think you're actually not listening, and then they leave you. So those are the three things that we I think we've really had to focus on. But I'm going to start with pay and David, you know, we've all heard the line. People don't leave for pay. That's ridiculous. Of course they do. And we're seeing it right now in this great big turnover, tsunami or the great resignation. People are leaving for significant increases wage inflation is real. And you've got to have that top of mind right now or your head is in the sand.

David Novak 39:42

I think competitive compensation is basically table table stakes. You have to have that okay. Well, a lot of research I've seen says people leave for two reasons. One, they don't get along with their boss and two they don't feel appreciated. What's your perspective on that

Johnny Taylor 39:55

spot on number one reason that we know that most people leave is they don't quit their accompanies. They don't quit their HR department, they quit their people manager. And so this is an area that we have, right, we launched a new product called the P MQ, which is people manage a qualification. It's not for HR people, it's for frontline managers, because you're why we're losing people, I can recruit people all day. And if you burn through them, um, just in, you know, from a retail environment, where it's not unusual to see 80 90% turnover, most of those people left because they experienced bad people, managers, and you can blame the people managers. But oftentimes, we as an organization, chose people who weren't necessarily going to be great people, managers, and then we didn't equip them with the skills that they needed to be great people, managers, right. I'm a great engineer, that doesn't mean I'm gonna be a great manager of engineers, I just am a I'm the best engineer on the team. I'm there the longest, and so I get the job. So people, managers, training them, equipping them with the skills to be empathetic, for example, something that you may not naturally be as a human being is a part of it. No question. Your right pay is table stakes. But increasingly, this idea that because it's table stakes, we don't have to think about it is naive. But people manager, absolutely how to manage people is number one, and then this idea that you said, they don't feel respected, they don't see them feel valued. This gets to culture. And it's the point maybe you cut to the chase on it. But that's why listening to people, and then communicating whatever decisions you come up with, is so important. People have to feel like they ultimately are valued, heard and belong.

David Novak 41:33

You know, you're a person who said that empathy is not a soft skill, you think it's a real business skill? That's do you differentiate those two things?

Johnny Taylor 41:44

Yeah, I do. I do. And, and I think it's because when people hear empathy and conflate it with sympathy, that's the number one problem. And sympathy is softer. By definition, right? It's it's you, someone loses a parent, or sibling or whatever, and you sympathize with them, versus empathizing, this whole concept of every day trying to experience life, not just through your eyes, but through the eyes of the person. On the other side of the conversation. It's built into why I think we've had this real diversity problem in our organizations is because we can achieve diversity, we go hire people who are different by definition, you get diversity, but then we're not looking at them through their diverse experiences and trying to do it through the lens of empathy. As a result, you're bringing them in, and they're leaving very quickly. So it is now a business imperative. In a knowledge based economy. David, you don't have the luxury of having people just come and leave. We don't have enough human beings, I remind people that the American birth rate has dropped for the last two decades. In fact, last year, during the pandemic, we dropped 4% More fewer babies being born in this country. And what that means is we're gonna have a people problem, there's just a shortage of people. And when you have that bringing people into an environment that's not particularly empathetic when they can go get other jobs means you're going to lose them and thus lose the game. We did some research just recently at Sherm 93% of employees said they would leave a job that they like, okay, a job where I'm perfectly fine to go work for a more empathetic organization. So if that doesn't make the case, that this empathy is a business imperative, and not just a feel good, moral imperative. I don't know what does nine out of 10 of your employees are saying, Listen, I'll go to the guy across the street. If we're in a place where I think people are more empathetic in their approach, again, not to be confused with sympathy. It's empathy. Yeah.

David Novak 43:43

So Right. You know, I think a lot of people out there like to fire their boss, you know, that's why you're, you know, you're a black CEO. And there's there's only five fortune 500 CEOs. Why so few, in your opinion.

Johnny Taylor 43:57

Well, oh, gosh, that's a complicated one. But let me tell you, part of it is, most of us are first generation, right? And so you make a lot of mistakes along the way in your career, because you don't know now my daughter will have the advantage of a father who's been a CEO in the for profit space, as well as the nonprofit space like a Sherm. I ran a business for IAC as well. And I can help her avoid making some of those mistakes that often derail people on their way to become CEO. I think over time, as we have a black population of more CEOs and they can then pass down the messages about this, son, don't do that. Even when you're 20 in college, don't do that, because that's going to show up when you're 50. And some search firms who's considering you for CEO is going to say, you know, when you were 20, you said X or Y on social media, which by the way is is the nightmare for these kids. So The short answer is there's no shortage of black Americans who I think God was pretty damn fair and equal, egalitarian is giving talent. I think what we've got to do is we haven't had the experiences and people who can help us guide the way so that our careers aren't derailed on our way to the top there. Good

David Novak 45:16

point. You know, Johnny, you're on the President's Advisory Council for historically black colleges, black colleges and universities. Why? Why are they so important today?

Johnny Taylor 45:27

So let me tell you why they're important to me. The I didn't attend an HBCU, I attended the University of Miami and Drake University to higher end majority private schools. But what I know is that the HBCU, created the black professional and middle class. So I am a product of HBCUs, although I never matriculated on an HBCU campus. And so they are as important today as they were historically because they represent a point of pride from the African American community, it says, we can create an institution for us by us and actually improve the lot of our community. So they just stand for so much symbolically.

David Novak 46:08

And I have to ask you, you know, how did the tragic murder of George Floyd affect you personally, in? What are you doing today differently because of it?

Johnny Taylor 46:19

So toughen, personally, and so I want to answer that in the truest sense. I grew up in the South. I was always aware of this. I'm also old enough to have you remembered Rodney King. I mean, I can go through the list of names, right. So and this may bother some people, but to be honest, I was like, Yeah, I got it. This is what happens and can happen to you. So personally, to be very transparently, not a lot. I was already fully appreciative of the country that we live in. It's good and it's not so good. I was appreciative of, you know, how I should interact with police officers in a when I'm a true minority. I grew up in South Florida, but guess what, I went to law school in Iowa, okay, I Oh, it could not be a wider place. Right. And so, personally, this it was like, Okay, now, when I broaden personally a little bit more, what did happen to me over the last year is I began even as an African American, I want you to follow me is a very important and nuanced point. I did not appreciate how much of an impact it had on some of my fellow African Americans. Do you follow me so even though I was fine with it, not fine with it, and I want to be clear, of course, he it was horrible. It was tragic. It was senseless. I actually grew up in Fort Lauderdale with Benjamin Crump, the lorry who represents George Floyd and therefore his family. And then I had the Floyd brothers, his two brothers come here to Sherm to talk with my employees about just that. This is their experience. It's not an experience that I had in America, here you are three black men on the stage, my experience was very different than their experience. And so it was really an important point for me to even say, even though we appear to have common experiences, we were different, even amongst black people there. There it is the diversity amongst three black men growing up in America. And so what it did was it it literally made me more empathetic, believe it or not, the George Floyd moment. You know, here I am, I've had a very incredibly successful career. God has been good. I have resources. So I don't know what it's like to be a George Floyd. I don't know. And, and so I became more empathetic. And his brothers talked about working in warehouses, and not being given fair opportunities when they discussed it with my employees here. And I was sitting there saying, Wow, I never thought about that people, managers, they talked about some great people, managers, and some horrible people, managers. So that's what it's done is actually made me more empathetic. Now. That's,

David Novak 48:57

that's, that's really a very insightful point. You know, and you mentioned this, this is such a complicated subject. But if you're forced to give just three bits of advice to leaders on, on how to drive diversity and inclusion in their organization, what would it be three bits.

Johnny Taylor 49:17

Love it. Number one, I can judge you by who you hired to lead your your diversity and inclusion, work. Putting someone in there just because they happen to be black or a woman or LGBTQ whatever, without any real skill at doing it is tantamount to hiring somebody to be your CFO who doesn't have background as a CFO. And so I number one, if you're serious about diversity, equity inclusion, then hire someone who has an evidence background of being able to drive DNI strategies. That's number one. Number two is you've got to resource it. There's no way that you can say go do this job. But here's your $25,000 budget to be split amongst community organizations. Check the box, we've done it. You've got to put financial resources against it. And number three, this is a change management initiative you got when it comes to specifically the diversity dimension of race, we're 400 years out of slavery, it took a long time for us to get to this point. And it's not going to be overcome or fixed overnight. So this is going to take time, anyone who decides that they're going to embark upon a real commitment of changing their culture around DNI means they're going to do this for five, seven years at a minimum. So don't think that you're going to see immediate results. And that this is all going to be sort of an initiative that you can check the box on those three things, who you put in the job, how you resource it, and then you're, you're a willingness to be patient while you transform people's hearts and their minds.

David Novak 50:44

Using your parlance. It's definitely a constant reset, you know, yes. And Johnny self awareness. I know you agree with this. So self awareness is critical for every leader, how do you go about self coaching yourself? And what are you working on today to become a better leader?

Johnny Taylor 50:59

So believe it or not, I have two executive coaches. And listen, I wish I had gotten to you earlier, because I would have loved for you to join me, I have two of them. And I split them into two, I have someone who helps me on business strategy, I told you, I'm first generation, I don't know how to do this necessarily. I don't want to make all the mistakes and learn on the chops. I have a business strategy, executive coach, and then I have a leadership coach, someone who helps me understand how to be more empathetic. I, for example, back to this question of diversity. I don't assume that just because I'm black, I'm a diversity expert. I know what my experience is. So I use an executive coach to be the person who steps outside and helps me understand how a person of the LGBT community feels how someone who's been incarcerated feels like I need that person to help you know, this more than I know, these are lonely jobs, as the CEO, you actually don't have a lot of people you can turn to. And even if you're in a community of other CEOs, they're all swamped and stressed, too. So what do we do? I'll get together and drink ourselves out of these roles. Right? But But seriously, so I've used two executive coaches, in my case to keep my my keep me my head in the game. That's number one. What am I personally personally working on? One, it is empathy. And I say that because I'm not I haven't always been, I'm a very hard driving business leader. And you know, I'm the guy who said to someone, and I, now I can reflect on it. And we all are hopefully better today than we were yesterday. But I told someone who, a woman years ago, a lawyer on my team was telling me about the challenges she was having at home, because she was trying to be a mother and a lawyer and data and I said, Listen, you and your husband decided to have children, not me. Now, I looked back and said, I can't believe I said that to someone. But I did. And I meant it. My true self is like, I've got to balance my life, you got to figure out how to balance yours. But that was so 80s 1980s, right, have a management philosophy. And so, but I will literally that's still a part of how I think because I'm so like, the guy who has to solve his own problems like you consider and tell me your problems all day. But Johnny, you've got to solve your own problems. So as a result, I am working on being more empathetic and trying to understand how not to be so hard driving and so absolut. That's a big effort for me, people see this guy who's, you know, lovely, and he loves people and I do love people. But I also believe very strongly in sort of personal accountability and figuring out your own problems. I don't, but that's how I'm biased. So I use I'm working on that.

David Novak 53:41

You know, I think that that kind of transparency is very motivational and unique and inspiring to your people. So good for good for you for being so open on it. You know, this is so much fun Johnny and I have enjoyed this conversation. I want to have a little bit more with you with a lightning round of q&a. Have some fun with it here. What three words best describe you.

Johnny Taylor 54:01

Demanding? Funny and capitalist?

David Novak 54:07

If you could be one person besides yourself, who would it be in NY? Oh, gosh.

Johnny Taylor 54:13

Gosh, that's a tough one. I would want to be Oprah Winfrey. And it's because she literally has made herself a household name and and just been incredibly successful despite the odds.

David Novak 54:31

What's your biggest pet peeve?

Johnny Taylor 54:36

Lazy people.

David Novak 54:37

What's something about you that few people would know?

Johnny Taylor 54:41

As a young man, I was on Wheel of Fortune. And I won teen week I was the winner of the week on Wheel of Fortune when I was 13 years old. 14 years old.

David Novak 54:51

Do you have any hidden talents? No. You've written Very insightful business book with reset. What's your favorite business book? Good to Great, the most, most exciting thing you have to look forward to,

Johnny Taylor 55:11

um, hopefully this book selling. And I make one of the big lists the New York Times Wall Street Journal list.

David Novak 55:18

Good luck. You know, two more questions for you. First, what are the three traits you see in the most successful leader?

Johnny Taylor 55:27

Empathy? Curiosity. I mean, true curiosity. And how do I describe it? I don't know if that's the right way to describe it, but incredibly competitive.

David Novak 55:44

Now, that's a good one, you know, and I got two more questions. I'm gonna ask you. Real quick. What's your favorite interview question? Had to ask you that one for goodness sakes

Johnny Taylor 55:54

favorite interview? Question is? What are you bad at?

David Novak 55:59

And why DSM?

Johnny Taylor 56:01

Because it goes to something we mentioned earlier, people who are great at everything, they lack self awareness. Anyone who can truly answer What are you not so good or bad at outright bad? So just not moderately good. Like, I'm not good at this. It has a real good. I believe it's an indicator of their self awareness.

David Novak 56:23

And lastly, you know, I understand that you're a single parent father. Yes. You know, how do you balance all that comes with that?

Johnny Taylor 56:32

You just do it. You wake up every day, my parents divorced. As I mentioned earlier, I have three siblings, and my mother raised three children with far fewer resources than I have. So I just wake up every day, put one foot in front of the other. My number one job in the world is to be a great daddy to that 11 year old girl. That's bigger than Sherm. It's bigger than being a son or anything else. It's number one. And so every day I just wake up and my guidance might, that's my contribution to this world, people will forget how much money I have, what my titles were, etc. But they're going to remember, they will look at me and judge me based upon how that little girl grows up.

David Novak 57:10

Oh, you know, Johnny, you're terrific guy. Congratulations on your new book, it's pretty clear. While you're the CEO of this huge organization, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to be with me today.

Johnny Taylor 57:23

Thank you, my friend, I appreciate you have a great weekend.

David Novak 57:35

Well, I knew I was going to enjoy that conversation, because I just love talking about people and the importance of people and the importance they have in every organization. Now, if you work with people, there was so much to learn from Johnny about hiring, about retention about how to come into an organization that's maybe a little sleepy, and then really drive some big time change. But I gotta admit, there was one moment that really shocked me. And that was when Johnny shared that a whopping 93% of people would leave a job that they actually like to work in a more empathetic organization that tells you just how important empathy is. We have to actively develop empathy and look for ways to see situations through our employees eyes, we can't afford to overlook it. And hey, because you're listening today, you won't, especially with this quick bit of coaching. This week, as a part of your weekly personal development plan. I want you to come up with a one initiative that will make your organization more empathetic to your employees. Johnny had some great ideas that they're using the term to help their members organizations develop empathy. For example, you can coach your HR department to find ways to get to yes, instead of just blindly following a compliance handbook, or you can work towards what Johnny calls a challenge culture that helps employees feel safe, speaking up about what's not working. Both of those ideas are driven by empathy by understanding a situation from our employees perspectives, and really responding to their feedback. I bet you've got some ideas of your own too. When we can see empathy as a business skill that we can develop, then we can tap into all kinds of creative ways to grow stronger and more loyal teams. So do you want to know how leaders lead? What we learned today is the great leaders treat empathy as a business skill. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of how leaders lead where every Thursday you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I make it a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can apply to your business so that you will become the best leader you can be

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