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1:00

majority of employees in the world would

1:03

prefer to work at a company that doesn't require them

1:05

to believe things that have nothing to do with

1:07

what the business is about. That's actually

1:09

diversity and inclusion. You're

1:15

listening to the Elevate Podcast and I'm your

1:17

host Robert Glazer. Join me as I

1:19

talk to world -class performers about how they

1:21

build their capacity and reach greater heights in

1:23

leadership, business, and life and how you

1:25

can do the same. Welcome

1:30

to the Elevate podcast. Our quote for today

1:32

is from Brian Chesky. Culture is

1:34

a thousand things a thousand times. It's living

1:36

the core values when you hire and when you

1:38

write an email, when you're working on a

1:40

project and when you're walking in the hall. My

1:43

guest today, who I'm thrilled to host for a

1:45

second time on this show, is Patrick Lincione. Pat

1:48

is the co -founder and president of the Table

1:50

Group and a pioneer in organizational health movement. He's

1:52

the author of 13 books which have sold

1:54

over 8 million copies and been translated

1:57

into more than 30 languages. As

1:59

president of the table group, he spends his

2:01

time speaking and writing about leadership,

2:03

teamwork and organizational health and consulting with

2:05

executives and their teams. And prior

2:07

to founding the firm in 1997, Pat

2:09

worked with Bain & Company, Oracle and

2:11

Cybase. Pat, welcome back to

2:13

the Elevate podcast. It's great to be here, Robert.

2:15

Can't wait to have this talk. This will

2:17

be fun. Yeah. So we talked about your life,

2:20

your work, your leadership and your first appearance

2:22

on the show last year, which I would encourage

2:24

listeners to go back and listen to. It's

2:26

episode 261. You're returning today with a

2:28

sort of specific purpose this time, and that's

2:30

to talk about a recent article you wrote,

2:32

How to Sew Unity in a Time of Division.

2:35

This article gets into the question of how and

2:37

if companies should be involved outside of their core

2:39

values and purpose. And it's a topic I've

2:41

really been interested in. I've been talking about for

2:43

a while in parallel. Your

2:45

article was a good prompt for a discussion

2:48

around this, and I'm hoping that's what we

2:50

can do today because I think there

2:52

are a lot of leaders and boards

2:54

grappling with this issue who need to decide

2:56

on a way forward and they're not sure

2:58

what to do and not enough people are

3:00

wanting to have that open and honest dialogue.

3:02

So to start us off, tell me about like

3:04

the premise for this article and what prompted

3:07

you to write it in the first place? Well,

3:09

the premise of the article is just that, I

3:12

mean, it's almost a social contract when you hire an

3:14

employee, as you said in

3:16

the opening, and you hire them because they

3:18

fit your core values. And

3:20

they can add value to your company and

3:22

fitting the core values are really important

3:24

because that's what says you belong here. Any

3:27

company that has a culture isn't

3:30

for everyone by definition so they

3:32

interview people and they say okay you might have

3:34

the records skills but first and foremost you need to.

3:36

Fit the culture and so

3:38

when you hire somebody and then

3:40

you accept them and you welcome them because

3:42

they're a cultural fit. If you

3:44

change that culture you have to tell them

3:46

and if they're no longer a fit

3:49

it's cruel. to actually change the

3:51

culture, not tell them, let them walk

3:53

around and wonder why they're no longer welcome

3:55

there, right? Or feel welcome

3:57

there. And that's what law

3:59

is actually done. Well,

4:02

I want to preempt something that's on a lot of

4:04

people's head. We may have talked about this last time,

4:06

but this term cultural fit, I think a

4:08

lot of people see this as a

4:10

pretense for hiring carbon copies of each other

4:12

or precluding diversity. I know you and

4:14

I agree that's not the case at all,

4:17

but that any organization needs to have

4:19

some common Values that it

4:21

sort of encompasses around so you talk

4:23

about why cultural fit does not

4:25

go against the concepts of sort of

4:27

diversity and inclusion. Well,

4:29

it's actually the the very thing

4:31

that makes diversity and inclusion real

4:33

because if unless you decide there is nothing

4:35

about us that we have in common.

4:38

And I don't think that's what we

4:40

mean by diversity what makes a

4:42

company or a country or any

4:44

organization families great is when they know what

4:46

they believe in what they're about. And

4:48

then they can be diverse around everything

4:50

else. But it would

4:52

be like take any company that you

4:54

know of, take Nordstrom and say, are

4:57

they welcoming diversity for people who don't

4:59

like customer service? No. That

5:01

doesn't mean they hate them. They just

5:03

say, hey, listen, you wouldn't like it here because that's

5:05

one of the things we're all about. And

5:07

every company worth anything should

5:09

have a culture such that somebody might

5:11

apply there. And they say, you're a wonderful

5:13

person, but you wouldn't like it here.

5:16

Because the things you value and the things we

5:18

value are different and you should find a

5:20

company where you would go to work every day

5:22

and your values would be congruent with theirs. That's

5:25

actually an active love and service. Usually

5:28

a company can only have two or three

5:30

clear core values and everything else outside

5:32

of that they can say hey diversity outside

5:34

of that is good we have to

5:37

figure out a way to welcome people

5:39

and include people but not around the

5:41

two or three things that make us

5:43

who we are by definition. Yeah, my

5:45

analogy has always been like a university,

5:47

right? There's a large public university in

5:50

a city maybe and then there's a

5:52

small rural liberal arts school and they

5:54

have totally different value propositions and they're

5:56

trying to appeal to the people who

5:58

want those value propositions and they might

6:00

be great schools and win all kinds

6:02

of awards but probably the kid at

6:04

one really wouldn't like the value proposition

6:06

at another. And that's good. Yeah.

6:08

See that because a university is not

6:10

a university is not a university. A company

6:13

is not a company. It's not a

6:15

company. Everybody should find that one that that's

6:17

just natural. And look, plenty of university

6:19

leaders are struggling right now to do the

6:21

exact way you're saying, this is who

6:23

we are and what we do. And we're

6:25

not changing it because a few people want

6:27

to change. And I think we're seeing

6:29

the danger of that. So go ahead.

6:32

No, no, no. I'm just listening. Well, I was

6:34

going to say, so the core tenet of the article

6:36

is that, as you said, the healthy culture comes

6:38

down to alignment. You need to clearly

6:40

establish these values and mission, hire,

6:42

reward, manage people based on that. And

6:45

you got to respect and support people who fit the

6:47

culture. But then you specifically argue

6:49

that when companies try to take stances

6:51

on so -so political issues unrelated to

6:53

the business, it really impacts

6:55

the culture. So, explain

6:57

for your viewpoint where that may not be intuitive,

6:59

because if we all share the same values,

7:01

how come we don't agree on all these issues?

7:04

Oh, well, it doesn't mean we all share all

7:06

the same values. which is a few values

7:08

that we share. So when a company decides,

7:10

OK, we've hired these people on X, Y,

7:12

and Z values. Everybody is X, Y, and

7:14

Z. It doesn't mean they agree about everything.

7:16

It doesn't mean they have everything in common,

7:19

but we have those three things in common,

7:21

let's say. Then suddenly,

7:23

a socioeconomic or sociopolitical issue comes around,

7:25

and they go, we're going to take

7:27

a hard stand on that. And

7:29

do they ask themselves, are

7:32

there a meaningful number of

7:34

employees here? As many as half

7:36

and many times sometimes even more

7:38

who don't necessarily agree with that they

7:40

fit our culture but now we've essentially

7:42

decided we're going to take on

7:44

a new core value. And i

7:46

don't even want to use an example because as soon

7:48

as you use an example people want that one i agree

7:50

and it's like yeah but that's not the point. Especially

7:53

if you're a large guy if you're

7:56

small if. any company actually has the

7:58

right to do this to support those

8:00

sociopolitical issues. As long as they say, listen,

8:02

we know there's a lot of people

8:04

here who don't agree with this. We just

8:06

want you to know you're no longer

8:08

welcome here. You're not going to feel welcome

8:10

here and you should probably move on.

8:12

In other words, if they're willing to take

8:14

the hit on alienating many of their

8:16

employees to speak nothing of customers, then that's

8:18

courage. And I don't

8:20

begrudge anybody who does this. It's not virtue

8:23

signaling because you're saying we believe in

8:25

it and we're willing to take all of

8:27

the associated risks and benefits and rewards

8:29

of it. Right. But the problem is most

8:31

companies don't want to take the risks. They're

8:34

saying we believe in this and they

8:36

gaslight everybody in the organization and say, well,

8:38

obviously you believe in it too. And

8:40

what you do is then you have large

8:42

groups of employees in these big companies

8:44

walking around going, oh, I have to pretend

8:46

I believe in something that I don't

8:48

because they're assuming I do. They know if

8:50

they have any common sense that many

8:52

of us aren't aligned with that. But they're

8:54

just going to allow us to walk

8:56

around and pretend and feel excluded if people

8:58

find out who we really are. Here's

9:00

a great example. Look, Gen Z is driving

9:02

a lot of this and they come

9:04

into the workforce and I get it. Younger

9:06

generation, noble, want to change the world,

9:08

want to make it better. But

9:10

some of us have been in companies and

9:12

been through some of these cycles around what

9:14

this looks like. And one quote that in

9:16

an article about I wrote about what I

9:18

think Gen Z really wants at work, because

9:20

I thought a lot of the things were

9:22

frankly very misguided. But one of the

9:25

things I noted was that 41 % of

9:27

them said they want their company to be

9:29

engaged in social causes that the employees support. Great.

9:33

What about the causes that the company that

9:35

they don't support that fundamentally seems antithetical

9:37

to inclusion to me and the whole concept

9:39

of inclusion and that I'm on board

9:41

for the things that the company does that

9:43

I like. But what about the ideas

9:45

that you don't agree with? And I'll go

9:47

back to something you said before. When

9:49

you said we like who is we in

9:51

the company and this is really tricky

9:53

whether you're talking about a big company or

9:55

a little company. Yeah and

9:57

we is the leaders of the

9:59

company whose job it is to

10:01

make that organization successful which means

10:03

to engage their employees and let

10:05

them feel like they know why

10:08

there and how to be successful. And

10:10

this whole idea what I find the hypocrisy

10:12

of the inclusion thing is like. I want

10:14

to include the people who agree with me

10:16

and then exclude the people who don't. Or

10:18

I'm willing to include them as long as

10:20

they don't say anything about that they disagree

10:22

with me. I mean, the hypocrisy there is.

10:24

You can understand where that comes from because

10:27

you can see what's going on on campuses

10:29

right now. And clearly that is what has

10:31

been taught because that's the mindset that's coming

10:33

in the workplace. This is pretty obvious to

10:35

see right now for those of us who

10:37

want to pay attention, which is again, as

10:39

long as you agree with me, it's fine.

10:41

Or same, you know, we have. Greg,

10:43

Luciana, I've come in to talk about free

10:45

speech. Free speech is great as long as

10:47

it's ideas that I agree with. This fails

10:49

the basic principles test. Yes. The

10:52

funny thing is, though, even on those college

10:54

cases, I blame the administrators and the faculty more

10:56

than anybody because most of the college students,

10:58

if you, I have a kid in college to

11:00

the graduated one going next year, I spend

11:02

a lot of time on college campuses. The

11:05

kids don't necessarily agree with all the crap that's

11:07

going on. But they're not

11:09

allowed to speak up and they go to

11:11

class and they have to pretend they

11:13

agree with the professor. And when they walk

11:15

around campus they have to make sure

11:17

that the people who are supporting whatever cause

11:19

it is don't know that they don't

11:22

agree because they're going to get shouted down

11:24

and excluded by them too. I mean

11:26

it's a fundamental hypocrisy around what real diversity

11:28

and inclusion is. And so

11:30

the funny thing is these companies that are

11:32

doing it are actually listening to a very loud

11:34

group of people and they're doing it at

11:36

the expense. of others who are like,

11:38

listen, I'm not that kind of person,

11:40

but I don't agree. And most

11:42

of those people are thinking, if I could

11:44

get out of here, I would. And

11:47

I think those companies have to have the

11:49

courage to either let those people go

11:51

and say, you're right. You're not advocating. We'll

11:53

get to this later. You're actually

11:56

advocating pick one strategy, the other, not

11:58

that either is not OK. Right.

12:01

And really, at the article, what it

12:03

says is, if you're the leader

12:05

of an organization that's fallen into this.

12:07

and so, so, so many have.

12:09

I would say the vast majority of

12:11

public companies have and many, many

12:13

large, even private companies have. What you

12:15

need to do now is go,

12:17

oh, wait a second, we have to

12:19

pull back and acknowledge that we

12:21

did something inadvertently that is actually alienating

12:23

large groups of our employees or

12:25

confirm that you're glad that you did

12:27

that and let those groups of

12:29

employees find a place to work where

12:32

they're actually truly included and welcomed.

12:34

Either one, you just can't have your

12:36

cake and eat it too, because

12:38

that leaves people. You don't go to

12:40

Patagonia, work at Patagonia and trumpet

12:42

fossil fuel benefits, right? It's just not

12:44

the company has never been. Yeah. Yeah.

12:47

Right. Exactly. And people knew that when they

12:50

went there. Right. I guess

12:52

that right. I guess the equivalent back to

12:54

the university would be like, you accepted me into

12:56

the large state university. And then I found

12:58

out you ship me off to the. small liberal

13:00

arts campus, right? Which is this is not

13:02

what I thought I agreed to when I accepted

13:04

to come here. Right. As

13:06

somebody who went to a liberal arts campus, liberal

13:08

arts is the pursuit of the art, you know,

13:10

like the passion for learning. But

13:12

what we've tended to do is

13:15

make it seem more about socio

13:17

political causes that aren't necessarily even

13:19

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15:30

I wrote, as you said, the two,

15:33

there's a lot of just virtue signaling

15:35

here and trying to have your cake

15:37

and eat it too in terms of

15:39

I won't get into the nuances of

15:41

this, but I saw a very interesting

15:43

perspective when Target was going through some

15:45

of the problems last year around the

15:47

displays they had during Pride Month. And

15:50

basically, their answer was to go take

15:52

them of all of the stores in

15:54

the conservative states where the problem was.

15:57

Which is just such a clear

15:59

wanting your cooking needed too. Right.

16:01

And that's virtuosic. Either you believe in

16:03

this enough to take the pain and the

16:06

loss of customers and stuff that come

16:08

with it, or you're just putting different messages

16:10

to different audiences and you're just trying

16:12

to, it's kind of a marketing scam in

16:14

some way. Yeah.

16:16

What I believe it is is People

16:18

who have let themselves believe that

16:21

all reasonable people agree with us. Right.

16:23

And since we really don't want

16:25

unreasonable people working here or shopping here,

16:27

and what they don't realize is

16:29

there's plenty of reasonable people who don't

16:31

agree with them. Yeah. And

16:33

there's plenty of issues, right? On

16:35

most issues outside of the

16:38

core. I mean, it's like, it

16:40

would be like in and out burger is

16:42

a big burger place. If you don't like

16:44

meat, you go eat somewhere else. Yeah.

16:46

I asked them that. I did some work with

16:48

them once and I was once like not eating

16:50

much beef. I was like, Hey, are you going

16:52

to have a turkey burger? Like, Hey, we're a

16:54

beef company. Okay. That's what we do. Now

16:56

you do that knowing that certain customers and certain

16:58

employees are not going to want to work there

17:00

because they're like, I don't like that. I'm a

17:02

vegan. That they're okay with that.

17:05

And that's what that means. So they

17:07

hire people that are okay with

17:09

beef and they have a few core

17:11

values and they go now, as

17:13

long as you're okay with those things,

17:15

you can be almost anything and

17:17

work here. And so I'm not actually

17:19

saying that a company shouldn't adopt

17:22

very powerful values around something as long

17:24

as they realize they're going to

17:26

lose it. Right. Values have to cost

17:28

you something, right? Yes. So

17:31

we're not going to take this

17:33

money because, well, you said

17:35

in the same way, I think companies have

17:37

historically stayed out of religion, which none of

17:39

us. Unfortunately, I think politics is the new

17:41

religion, which is maybe why this is becoming

17:43

uncomfortable. But companies used to

17:46

stay out of socio -political issues. And I

17:48

think some people understand the social changes

17:50

that made pressure for company leaders to

17:52

take action. But can you talk about

17:54

like where that pressure comes from? Well,

17:57

I think it comes from a

17:59

culture that shames certain people for

18:01

what they believe and not others.

18:04

In other words, I think when

18:06

academia and media became like

18:08

people now know there is no

18:10

source of news. That

18:12

is actually trying to just tell you

18:14

what's happening and let you figure it

18:17

out. Right. Right. And

18:19

it used to be that most colleges you

18:21

went to and professors were like, hey, listen, I

18:23

want to teach you how to think and

18:25

I want to teach you about these issues. And

18:27

I'm going to present them and let you

18:29

figure them out. My job is not to be

18:31

biased. My job is actually to help. And

18:34

I'm going to make you debate the position you

18:36

don't agree with. Right. White and it's the

18:38

university means the pursuit of truth whatever we all

18:40

have to kind of try but they decided

18:42

no no no no there is our definition is

18:44

X and again that would be okay if

18:46

you were willing to if a college were to

18:48

say this is the truth where we believe

18:50

and we don't want you to pursue anything else.

18:52

If you believe in that come work here

18:55

come study here and here's the deal there are

18:57

some companies and universities who do that and

18:59

they have every right in the world to. Again

19:02

i'm not saying that. There

19:04

should be companies out there that

19:06

say, hey, there are Christian

19:08

companies. There's other Jewish. There are

19:10

atheist leaders. And they

19:12

could say, hey, if that's uncomfortable for

19:14

you, this probably isn't a great place

19:16

for you. That's actually honest and kind. Yeah.

19:19

So three years ago, at

19:21

the end of 2020, beginning

19:23

of 2021, actually, I think it was the

19:25

end of 2020, a couple of leaders.

19:27

And obviously, there was a big

19:29

push. after George Floyd opened up a

19:31

lot of discussions and a lot

19:34

of this stuff started becoming front and

19:36

center in organizations. But

19:38

I thought it was interesting because two

19:40

companies in particular, Coinbase and 37 Signals,

19:42

which has been known for a while,

19:44

founders, David Heinemann Hansen, Jason Freed, they both

19:46

been on the podcast and are known for

19:48

kind of doing the opposite of what everyone

19:51

else does, right? They've been building this profitable

19:53

SaaS company that was an oxymoron for years.

19:55

They issued venture capital. They weren't big. They

19:57

were remote before everyone was remote. And they

19:59

have great lives and make a ton of

20:01

money. And they both kind of came out

20:03

and said, we're not going to have politics

20:05

at work. And Brian wrote a whole piece

20:08

and there was kind of an uproar. They

20:10

actually, and what they said to your point

20:12

was, if you don't want this, you can

20:14

leave, we'll pay a severance. Like if this

20:16

wasn't what you thought you signed up for,

20:18

but really don't want this at work. And

20:20

And in the case of 37 Signals, Jason

20:22

talked recently, people jumped all over them, friends

20:25

told them they'd be at the wrong side

20:27

of history. No one would work for them.

20:29

And you know what? People left. But

20:31

plenty of people lined up to come in

20:33

and said, I don't want politics at work. And

20:35

Jason was just saying in the last couple

20:37

of months that a lot of these people who

20:39

sort of told him he was going to

20:41

be on the wrong side of history, actually reached

20:44

out to apologize as it looks like they

20:46

are on the right side of history. And their

20:48

companies are Doing great things and having great

20:50

performance and not getting distracted with things that they

20:52

don't control. Exactly. And

20:54

the problem here, the suffering that's

20:56

going on because of this, the reason

20:58

why I'm passionate about this is not

21:00

intellectual. It's not because like, well,

21:02

are they on the right side? There's people,

21:05

there's employees suffering who are being told, you

21:07

work here, your livelihood is here. We invited

21:09

you to come here and now, if

21:11

you believe different than this, you

21:13

should just shut up. and realize

21:15

that your livelihood is on the line if

21:17

we find out. I mean,

21:19

this is not unlike, this

21:21

is what happens in totalitarian

21:23

countries. And I think

21:25

that honesty and transparency around this would

21:27

be much better so those people could

21:30

opt in or out, but they're not

21:32

doing that. And when I think about

21:34

what you just said about Coinbase and

21:36

the other company, and I remember with

21:38

the crap they took for that, think

21:40

about the fact that we've made

21:42

it politically incorrect. to declare

21:44

yourself non -political. Right. And to say, look,

21:46

we can talk about this later. I

21:48

was with a coach of ours last week.

21:51

We've worked with for years. He works

21:53

with a bunch of high -growth companies. And

21:55

a lot of these teams are talking

21:58

about succession and next generation, and no

22:00

one's raising their hands to lead. No

22:02

one wants to be the CEO. They

22:04

see these increasing numbers. I got to be

22:07

good at the people stuff, the operation

22:09

stuff, the product stuff. Now I got to

22:11

worry about all these other things that

22:13

are not part of the organization. It looks

22:15

really exhausting. And it's also

22:17

just, it's making it really hard for people

22:19

to want to lead. It used to be

22:21

amazing enough thing maybe 10 years ago, if

22:23

you had this little tomato canning company and

22:25

you said, I'm going to treat people really

22:27

well and have a really great product. That

22:30

could have been enough. But

22:32

for a lot of employees, no, no, no,

22:34

we need to get into all these

22:36

other things. And every piece of data

22:38

that you have, or every coach I

22:40

have around organization that lose focus or try

22:43

to tackle too many things is that

22:45

their performance suffers. Exactly.

22:48

And the performance ultimately suffers. And so,

22:50

but what I don't like is

22:52

when they change their view because of

22:54

that, the real value is if

22:56

you really believe in inclusion, then tell

22:58

people what they need to believe

23:01

to belong there and don't start adding

23:03

things and excluding people. And to

23:05

me, it's fundamentally dishonest and cruel. It

23:07

really is. There's cruelty going on

23:09

in many of the largest companies in

23:11

America these days, because it's basically

23:13

saying, hey, whatever values you thought you

23:15

had, starting now, those are

23:17

no longer acceptable, and you should just be

23:20

quiet about it. And think about it again.

23:22

What Brian did and what David and Jason

23:24

did was say, we understand if this wasn't

23:26

what you wanted or you want something different,

23:28

we'll actually help you leave and we'll pay

23:30

your severance. They were not mean about it.

23:32

They just said, look, we've made a decision.

23:34

And in fact, they probably thought they helped

23:36

the people. I think in the reverse situation,

23:38

people are like, you know, I could get

23:41

out. That's not what they said, but they

23:43

owned it. And again, a lot of people

23:45

focused on 25 % of people that left Basecamp

23:47

that year, also under the great resignation time

23:49

frame anyway. So I'm not sure the alpha

23:51

and beta, what they don't focus is on

23:53

the 20 ,000 applications they got, I think,

23:55

within the next six months. Right.

23:58

And see, that should be the proof that

24:00

Like, hey, there is a market for companies

24:02

that don't do this. In fact, I would

24:04

say the vast majority of employees in the

24:06

world would prefer to work at a company

24:08

that doesn't require them to believe things that

24:10

have nothing to do with what the business

24:12

is about. That's actually

24:14

diversity and inclusion. And

24:16

the crazy thing is the majority of people in

24:18

the world would like to work at a company

24:20

where they're actually respected, regardless of what they believe,

24:22

as long as they believe in the core values

24:24

and they want to add to the company's value.

24:27

And somehow all these companies got hijacked

24:29

into doing things that the majority of

24:31

their employees didn't want. Yeah, there are

24:34

things that they can do that align

24:36

with their values, right? And I think,

24:38

so, I'm bad at a lot of

24:40

things. One thing that I'm good at is

24:42

seeing around corners. And when a lot of this

24:44

started in 2020 and after I said to

24:46

our team, like, someone's going to get hurt. Like,

24:48

there's too many issues. There's too many things

24:50

going on. You can't, once you start in this,

24:52

each one of these, you could say we

24:54

should do this. But someone's going to get hurt.

24:57

And so in my last year as CEO,

24:59

I tried to put a stake in the ground

25:01

on this and looked at a lot of

25:03

the things that people had written. Let

25:05

me just read this. I'd like to get your

25:07

reflection because I wrote this and it took me

25:09

a while, but I was trying to make some

25:11

of these points. So here's a piece of what

25:13

I wrote. It said, we've always

25:15

believed that what we do is

25:17

just as important as what we don't.

25:19

And while there's a sense of

25:21

obligation to respond to all two developments

25:24

happening today in real time, Doing

25:26

so tends to overlook nuance and complicated

25:28

issues and favors expediency over thoughtful

25:30

reflection, commitment, and most importantly, action.

25:33

News and social media cycles should

25:35

not be the barometer of morality,

25:37

gravity, or prioritization. And while

25:39

outrage is a powerful, emotional tool and can spark

25:41

lights, it can be the spark that lights

25:43

the fire, it's not the same as action. Ultimately,

25:46

we believe social change requires sustained

25:48

focus, action, and prioritization. This means not

25:50

putting the urgent ahead of the

25:52

important or prioritizing the latest headline ahead

25:54

of existing work that's already being

25:56

done. We need to acknowledge that

25:58

it's very difficult for a company to represent the

26:00

full range of viewpoints that employees hold. And

26:02

even in cases where people agree that there is

26:04

a problem, they may not agree on the solution. Additionally,

26:07

choosing to speak out on some issues

26:09

but not others has the unintended consequence

26:11

of alienating employees who may be upset

26:13

that an issue or cause did not

26:15

receive an official company response. Because

26:17

the sad reality is there are just too

26:20

many important issues happening around the world for us

26:22

to take a company position on all of

26:24

the ones that our employees, clients, and partners care

26:26

about. So while as an organization,

26:28

we may not and cannot respond to every

26:30

headline, we will advocate for our

26:32

employees and give them a platform and voice. To

26:35

facilitate this, we give our employees

26:37

the time support and resources they need

26:39

to advocate for the causes they

26:41

are passionate about, guided by our company

26:43

purpose, values, and platform. We offer

26:45

paid time off for employees to do

26:47

volunteer work. We match personable charitable

26:49

donations to nonprofit organizations that matter to

26:51

our employees. And we provide internal

26:53

support for affinity groups, learning sessions, and

26:55

employee organized activities around specific issues. The

26:58

result is a balanced employee driven approach

27:00

to social action. That's not about AP

27:02

the company, but about AP's people. That

27:05

is beautiful. And

27:07

hopefully, that will,

27:09

I think that for most employees at your

27:11

company and in the world, they would go,

27:13

that's great. And I hope if it doesn't

27:15

piss off a few people, then they're not

27:17

understanding it. Then you're trying to write. Someone

27:19

said to me, if your speech doesn't, someone

27:21

doesn't hate your speech, they won't love your

27:24

speech. Like if it's a warm cup of

27:26

tea, it doesn't mean anything to anyone, right? Right.

27:28

And there's people that are going to go,

27:30

no, that's not good. You should take a stand.

27:32

And what you're just saying is, hey, listen,

27:34

though, you don't, these are unreasonable people. the stand

27:36

you want us to take is the opposite

27:39

of the standard. And they think that they're the

27:41

only reasonable people in the world. Yeah.

27:43

I struggle, again, as someone who

27:45

was the leader of the organization

27:47

in a power dynamic, why

27:49

my voice should be the company's voice and

27:51

how a company could possibly speak for anyone.

27:54

And I think I used a line similar

27:56

to Brian around, again, what's also interesting is

27:58

a lot of us agree on the problem,

28:00

but we don't agree on the solution. And

28:02

so I think, go ahead, speak up. There

28:04

are some issues I'm speaking up very strongly

28:06

now, but I'm not pulling the company name

28:08

into it. There are things that I'm personally

28:10

passionate about and someone should have an equal

28:12

opportunity to do the same about things that

28:14

they're passionate about. I

28:39

think you're on mute. Workday

28:41

is starting to sound the

28:43

same. I think you're on

28:45

mute. Find something that sounds

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better for your career on

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LinkedIn. With LinkedIn job collections,

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you can browse curated collections

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for you. Get started

29:05

at linkedin.com/jobs. Finding where you

29:07

fit. So this episode is brought to you

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by State Farm. You might say all

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kinds of stuff when things go wrong,

29:14

but these are the words you really

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a real person when you need to

29:34

talk to someone. Like a good neighbor,

29:36

State Farm is there. There's also this pressure in

29:38

a lot of organizations. A

29:41

lot of phrases I don't like my one

29:43

of my top someone should do something right and.

29:45

So I think again if you have a

29:47

group that wants to comment or post or take

29:49

the page and represent their opinion on something

29:51

for the day great give it to them. And

29:53

then when the next person says someone should

29:55

do something we can say well the company didn't

29:57

do something Sarah and Jim were passionate about

30:00

this issue so they wrote a blog post about

30:02

it and we gave them a platform if

30:04

you're passionate about this issue. You can do that

30:06

and that way you don't have to answer

30:08

the question why are we jumping into this one

30:10

and why are we sitting out this one

30:12

because there's not a we there's a people who

30:14

wanted to do that and so it's like

30:16

you can have the time you can have the

30:18

resources you can have the co match and

30:21

jump go ahead and as long as it's not

30:23

offensive go do the things you're passionate about

30:25

but it solves this someone should do something thing

30:27

which i drive me insane. There's

30:29

a great saying that somebody said about

30:31

surgeons i think it was there's a

30:33

saying they have like. don't do something

30:35

just stand there there's a time to

30:37

just think about what you're doing. If

30:40

you're constantly doing stuff and so

30:42

it's like don't just do something stand

30:44

there there's a time to stand in

30:46

it and contemplate and i pray about

30:48

it and say what is the right

30:50

thing to do here and sometimes

30:52

it's nothing. What i find

30:54

interesting robert is that there are companies out

30:56

there today like there's an airline i can't

30:59

remember which one it was where. They actually

31:01

surveyed an employees about how they felt about

31:03

something. And one of the people in the

31:05

employees said, I wasn't comfortable with the socio -political

31:07

stance you took and they got rid of

31:09

it. That's not safe.

31:11

That's not inclusive, right? Oh, no. But

31:14

this was a company that would have preached inclusion.

31:16

Right, right. You know, like, we're the most inclusive,

31:18

diverse company. Oh, you don't agree with that one

31:20

thing over there? Then you don't belong here anymore.

31:22

And what I say is this. But you could,

31:24

I was just going to say what you could

31:26

have said was to your point, like, This is

31:28

actually our belief and we're going to go with

31:30

it. So if it makes you uncomfortable, then maybe

31:32

this isn't the right organization, right? Right.

31:35

The thing about it is if you were

31:37

to ask the leaders of that company outside of

31:39

HR maybe, are you comfortable with

31:41

40 % of our employees looking to

31:43

work someplace that says, hey, we're not

31:45

going to make you believe anything that

31:47

you don't believe other than this about

31:49

how we do business. They would say,

31:52

no. I mean, ask any

31:54

of the Silicon Valley companies that are the worst at this,

31:56

by the way. Do you want

31:58

to lose 30 % of your engineers who

32:00

don't sociopolitically align with the things you're

32:02

doing? They would be like, no, we'd

32:04

be screwed. But as long as we're

32:06

paying them a lot, we think we can get

32:08

them to be quiet and still work here. And

32:11

that, to me, is absolutely

32:13

cruelty. Truly cruelty. I

32:15

think people also notice the double standards.

32:18

Look, I give Google a lot of

32:20

credit recently when they were pretty swift

32:22

with the response when people started Taking

32:24

over offices and doing things that were

32:26

clearly against their policies related to some

32:28

of the stuff that's going on and

32:31

they fired all the employees and they

32:33

said We are not gonna not uphold

32:35

our policies and if you think we

32:37

aren't you're fooling yourself now What's interesting

32:39

is Google's a fairly progressive company and

32:41

I actually think a lot of the

32:43

people and maybe the leadership team even

32:46

supported some of what the people were

32:48

the cause that they were doing but

32:50

what leadership was supposed to do and

32:52

say These are the rules irrespective of

32:54

anything else and you broke them and

32:56

we're not going to start taking over

32:58

offices here and so you're out. That

33:01

to me is when you're really willing

33:03

to uphold something when it probably goes

33:05

against something you believe is when you

33:07

have integrity as a leader. That

33:10

is a great step in the

33:12

right direction and the question is so

33:14

ask yourself. Like what's

33:16

the opposite of that I what's interesting I find

33:18

is like that you called them a progressive

33:21

company now I know. Progressive. Yeah, I'm just on

33:23

a face value like the issues and things.

33:25

More liberal than what we used to consider liberal.

33:27

Yeah. We call it progressive. I hate

33:29

that word because it sounds like, oh, and if

33:31

you're not progressive, are you regressive? Yeah. So,

33:34

and what's the opposite of progressive? I

33:36

mean, very conservative, I would say. Right.

33:38

Yeah. And so where's the big public, very

33:40

conservative company? Where are they? Yeah,

33:43

where are they physically? Which

33:46

ones are they? Oh, yeah. I mean,

33:48

there's look, they're probably privately held companies

33:50

more in the south. They're probably not

33:52

as much the public. They're definitely not

33:54

the Silicon Valley company. Well,

33:56

and that's the funny thing about

33:58

this, I think that's it's a

34:00

telling sign that there's not big

34:02

public conservative companies in a world

34:04

of real like openness. You

34:07

would have big progressive ones and

34:09

big conservative ones. And yeah,

34:11

like the universities with the different

34:13

Value props. Exactly. Where's the

34:15

big conservative university? Yeah. And

34:17

that's what I think is so interesting

34:19

about it. It should be fine for a

34:21

company to say, we are progressive. But

34:23

what they should be saying is, and if

34:25

you're not, this is not a

34:27

good place for you to work. But they're

34:29

not doing that. Because that would alienate people

34:32

that they put that they need. So this

34:34

is the core of your argument in this

34:36

article. And so let's double click on this.

34:38

So. You're basically saying that leaders need to

34:40

make a choice. They can either recommit to

34:42

their original values and mission and mea culpa

34:44

and be honest with employees that they're not

34:46

going to focus on sociopolitical issues anymore and

34:48

that this was the wrong thing to do

34:50

or they can go all in on changing

34:52

them. And this is what I like because

34:54

the other or they can go all in

34:56

on changing the world in these sociopolitical areas.

34:59

I would argue they should probably pick

35:01

one or two, not all again,

35:03

like any focus, but trying to straddle

35:05

the two will just be untenable. Yes,

35:08

I think if you're a public

35:10

company, I think you almost because you

35:12

have shareholders too. And

35:14

this is the like when companies go

35:16

public, I always say, oh, my condolences

35:18

because suddenly it's a different animal. Right.

35:20

Trying to appease everyone. Yeah. Yeah. And

35:22

by definition, that's the structure. It's like

35:24

people invest in your company. And

35:26

if you play with that investment to

35:28

do things that aren't actually advancing the company,

35:31

but are advancing some political issue you

35:33

have, that is actually to me,

35:35

that's actually should be. I don't know.

35:37

That would be unethical, right? Because

35:39

I invested in your company because I thought the

35:41

market for widgets was going to go up. Now

35:44

you're taking the money people are giving you for

35:46

widgets and spending it over here on these other

35:48

things, which are alienating some of your customers and

35:50

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And

35:52

so what does that have to do with why

35:54

I invested in your company? Now, if they, if

35:56

even the investors were told, hey, if you're investing

35:58

in our company, we're going to use some of

36:00

that money to this. And even if that hurts

36:02

our bottom line, it's worth it. then the investors

36:04

would have their eyes wide open and say, OK,

36:06

yeah, I did that knowing. So it's fundamentally dishonest. And

36:09

so I think if you're a

36:11

public company, you should almost have

36:13

an ethical commitment to saying we

36:15

are not going to alienate our

36:17

customers or our employees or our

36:19

investors, because we have a contract

36:22

with them to help them achieve

36:24

a return on investment. That is

36:26

as long as we're legal. an

36:28

ethical in how we do that

36:30

now i think a private company

36:32

is a very different thing. But

36:34

nonetheless it's the same thing that

36:36

would apply as if you're going

36:38

to take a stand. Then

36:40

let everybody know it and be willing

36:42

to accept it and actually treat the

36:44

people who don't belong anymore with dignity.

36:47

And love them into a place where they

36:49

belong. Well there's an interesting let's just

36:52

go to the bucket that you're going to take a

36:54

stand and let's go to the sort of premise

36:56

of focus. You probably want

36:58

to pick a domain. Tied

37:00

to your business that you want to

37:02

take a stand and if you're Tom shoes

37:04

and you're trying to end whatever it

37:07

is and shoes and walking it out like

37:09

you probably shouldn't weigh in on vaccines

37:11

and likewise if you're a company that's trying

37:13

to cure blindness and you're focused on

37:15

that so it's interesting even if you want

37:17

to go that route. If you try

37:19

to boil the ocean I'm not sure that

37:21

that's gonna work either right. Yes and

37:24

the companies that take a stand productively are

37:26

the ones that their business is. And

37:30

even if they're progressive, even if it's

37:32

a company like, hey, like you mentioned

37:34

Patagonia or REI or something, they're like

37:36

environment. You're like, okay, people are buying

37:38

camping equipment, they're going out in the

37:40

environment. Maybe my view on environmental stuff

37:42

is not the same, but I kind

37:44

of expect that. And so I get

37:46

it. You would understand why they would

37:48

be vocal around issues of fossil fuel,

37:50

right? It's consistent with what they're doing,

37:52

whether you agree with it or not,

37:54

right? Exactly. And

37:57

then if you don't, and gosh, what would

37:59

be interesting is if an employee had a

38:01

different perspective, like, hey, let's take a look

38:03

at like what we're looking about electric cars

38:05

right now. We're realizing the environmental and human

38:07

cost of electric cars is actually great. There's

38:09

kids in Africa being forced to mine cobalt

38:11

in what looks like a blood diamond factory.

38:13

That's how they get cobalt. Go to China

38:15

and there's like all these smelting factories that

38:17

are making these batteries that are horrible for

38:19

the environment. And then they don't know how

38:21

to, so there's actually an argument to be

38:24

like, hey, maybe there's another way to look

38:26

at this. I would like

38:28

to think a company would actually be able

38:30

to entertain that conversation. But

38:32

let's just say a company said, listen, by the

38:34

way, a company with great values should, if

38:36

they're presented with something that shows them

38:38

that their values are inconsistent, they should look

38:40

at that, right? And they should adopt

38:42

the, yeah. And very few

38:45

of these companies today are doing that. In fact,

38:47

they're saying to disagree. is

38:49

tantamount to not wanting to work here. But

38:51

again, you and I agree. There's companies where

38:53

it makes sense for them to take on

38:55

that value, or they were founded upon that

38:57

value. Right? I mean, Tom's

38:59

shoes, I met Tom, or the founder, not

39:01

Tom, but he said, yeah, I did this because

39:03

I wanted to give back shoes to kids

39:05

in Africa. And that's why I did

39:07

it. And it was actually not just a

39:09

company for shoes. It was a cause. And

39:12

so people bought into that. They went to

39:14

work there for that. They bought their shoes

39:16

for that. And if somebody, by the way,

39:18

doesn't like that, they know. I

39:21

can't imagine somebody not liking that. Well,

39:23

investors who might want them to push the

39:25

profit dial more at the expense of

39:27

cost should know that that's probably not going

39:29

to be the priority, right? Exactly.

39:31

So really what this is about

39:33

is having the courage of your

39:35

conviction and accepting the consequences of that.

39:38

And you know what I find interesting, Robert?

39:40

People don't want to talk about this. I

39:42

will take this article. We've got no feet

39:44

about this article. What's interesting

39:46

is, I think they're struggling with it, so I'm

39:48

curious why they don't want to talk about it.

39:51

I wanted to talk about it. I

39:53

think they know that the take and

39:56

eat it to line is ending, and

39:58

they have to choose their poison. And

40:00

they're like, I don't want to choose either poison,

40:02

which means it's just going to continue to descend.

40:05

And the culture of their company suffers, and

40:07

the productivity suffers, and morale suffers. But

40:10

for them to choose one of these two ways

40:12

means they would have to actually step up and

40:14

say, yes, we will take the hit for that.

40:16

Yes, we will take the hit for saying

40:18

we went too far. And there's going to be

40:20

some small group of very angry, loud employees, many

40:22

of whom work in HR, who will be pissed

40:24

off at them. And they have to say,

40:27

we're OK with that because it's not the right

40:29

thing to do. Or they're going to take a stand

40:31

and say, we're going to support all these things. And

40:33

there's going to be a bunch of employees and

40:35

customers who say, OK, now that you're clear about that.

40:37

And you're telling us that you don't want us

40:39

around, we have to find another place. One of those

40:41

two things has to happen. And I think most

40:43

of you are like, I don't want either one. Let

40:46

me give you an analogy that won't be

40:48

controversial, but has the same dynamic just to see

40:50

this at work. So after COVID, I

40:52

wrote a book on how virtual teams work.

40:54

And I did a lot of speaking and talking

40:56

to companies around figuring out what was next,

40:58

right? And one of the things in my speech

41:00

was, look, you have some options, right? You

41:02

have we're all coming back to the office. And

41:04

that's how it is. We have We're all

41:06

going remote, and that's how it is. We're doing

41:08

some sort of hybrid. What I was saying

41:10

at the time in talking to the employees is

41:12

that the stress from these employees of not

41:14

knowing the companies were all hedging, they

41:17

were afraid to tell the people which model

41:19

they want. I really respected some of the financial

41:21

services ones. Again, they may be on the

41:23

wrong side of history or whatever, but they said,

41:25

look, it's back to work, and if that

41:27

doesn't work for you, go somewhere else. The others

41:29

said, look, we're getting rid of the office,

41:31

and if you need an office, go somewhere else,

41:33

or here's our hybrid. But the ones who

41:35

were hedging because they didn't want to lose anyone,

41:37

I think they were going to lose more

41:39

people than losing the people that weren't going to

41:41

be part of their go forward model, which

41:43

they would have done if they said, look, we're

41:46

actually, this is what we're doing and will

41:48

help you if this isn't what you thought it

41:50

was or you moved or otherwise. But the

41:52

hedging just made a mess for everyone. Yeah. Clarity

41:54

is kind. Clarity is

41:56

kind. And when you do that, if

41:58

you think about how markets work, Like

42:00

if people were just really honest, then the market

42:02

for people that want to work at a

42:04

progressive company and those that want to work at

42:06

a conservative company and those that want to

42:08

work with a neutral company sort itself out. Yeah.

42:11

And that would be okay. And actually, then people

42:13

be like, I'm going to work at a progressive

42:15

company and I get to be progressive and I'm

42:17

going to work at a conservative company and I

42:19

get to be or I'm going to work at

42:21

a company that's not that will I don't want

42:24

either of this at work and I'm an independent

42:26

and I'll take my politics outside of work. Thank

42:28

you. And there's probably a bell curve. But

42:30

what's interesting today is it's not a bell curve.

42:33

It's really slanted in one direction, which

42:36

means, and if it doesn't matter which

42:38

direction it's slanted in there, that means there's

42:40

a lot of people working places that

42:42

feel like I have to hide who I

42:44

am and what I believe in order

42:46

to be considered accepted. Yeah. And again, not

42:48

to get into the political thing, but

42:50

we're about to have election that's going to

42:52

be 51 -49. Right one way or

42:54

the other so it is not going to

42:56

be a 7030 land side where everyone can

42:58

say. This viewpoint is in

43:00

the majority it's going to be close

43:02

which would imply that. Across the basket

43:04

the viewpoints are pretty and by the

43:06

way I think the fastest growing component

43:08

of that and obviously people have to

43:10

pick unfortunately the way we haven't set

43:12

up with one or the other. But

43:15

are there probably middle group

43:17

that doesn't see themselves. affiliated

43:19

with either side, but they have to choose

43:21

there. But if you made them to their own

43:23

group, they might actually be the largest. Well,

43:25

those are the ones that usually turn it. It's

43:27

the ones, the common sense in

43:30

the middle. Yeah. And that's an interesting

43:32

one, because now if you want to talk about

43:34

that and talk about, like, think of the country

43:36

as a company, and that is, are

43:38

there any core values left in America? That's

43:40

totally different. I'm not sure there

43:43

are. And I

43:45

will put equal blame across all the

43:47

side. I think that it's only a

43:49

value if you're willing to stick with

43:51

it when it doesn't go in your

43:53

direction. And what I have

43:55

seen equally from both sides is

43:57

the ability to just embrace double

43:59

standards and change the rules to

44:02

get the outcome that is desired

44:04

in the short term. And

44:06

yeah, so it does beg the question. Like you

44:08

can't say these things are values. Again,

44:10

free speeches is an easy one to sort

44:12

of look at. No, but free speech is not

44:14

agreed on anymore. No, no, I know, I

44:16

know. But I'm saying when I hear someone say,

44:18

I believe in free speech and let me

44:21

tell you where I defended the person who I

44:23

completely disagree with and think who is morally

44:25

reprehensible. But I thought that they had a right

44:27

to say it, right? That to me is

44:29

you actually then I then you believe in that

44:31

value. Right. Yeah, I go back to you

44:33

go back to like the core and you go

44:35

like, so let's go back to the core

44:38

of when they started the country in terms of

44:40

what did they think like free speech, freedom

44:42

of religion, freedom of expression, and

44:44

like, do we really believe those things anymore?

44:46

And I say this just as an observer.

44:49

I'm not sure there's even anything close

44:51

to a majority of people who actually

44:53

have anything that people, the majority of

44:55

people agree on anymore. And that's changed

44:57

so much in the last 20 years

44:59

and last. As you said, I think,

45:01

and this is the organism that being

45:03

right or winning the argument of the

45:05

day becomes more than the principles to

45:08

be true. And once you do that,

45:10

Once a leader normalizes double standards, and

45:12

I think this is why so many

45:14

universities are just because they've openly normalized

45:16

double standards. And if anyone wants to

45:18

argue about that, I'll sit down and

45:20

it doesn't matter which side you're on,

45:22

but they have different rules, different applications

45:24

of the rule book and different scenario.

45:26

And when you do that, you lose

45:28

your legitimacy as a leader. And the

45:30

whole point of these rules, whether it's

45:33

the company rules or values or the

45:35

constitution, otherwise, is they're during peacetime, right?

45:37

So that when you have very difficult

45:39

situations, if you try to rewrite

45:41

the rules during those situations, it's really hard.

45:43

If you fall back to one of my

45:45

favorite business stories of the whole, whoever was

45:47

when Johnson and Johnson, when he was dealing

45:49

with the Tylenol recall and put the company

45:51

out of the business, the CEO

45:53

went back to the founding credo of the

45:55

company and used that in the press

45:58

release decision about why they decided to conduct

46:00

the recall, even though it was only

46:02

10 bottles or something like that. Well, and

46:04

that's what we do is organizational health

46:06

and we say that's why you have core

46:08

values and core. And a reason you're

46:10

why we exist as a company, the fundamental

46:12

reason. You go back to those again

46:14

and again and again to say what is the

46:16

right thing to do. And if you stop using

46:18

those, you're essentially into the company and started a

46:20

new one. But you know, I will with the

46:22

one thing I'll weigh in on like things that

46:24

are going on right now with the Middle East,

46:26

what amazes me more than anything is like the.

46:29

I can't believe the things that are being

46:31

said about a race. and

46:33

a religion right now that

46:36

are accepted. I mean, I

46:38

never would have thought it wouldn't be

46:40

accepted two years ago. Right. So, yeah. Well,

46:42

exactly. And we're like, I mean, my

46:44

wife and I watch movies about World War

46:46

Two and about the Holocaust. And we're

46:48

like, oh, shit, is this

46:50

even popular or that people think this

46:52

was horrible? Because it feels like

46:54

I can't believe in my lifetime. This

46:56

is going on here. that people

46:58

are saying the most vile things about

47:00

a people, regardless of how you

47:02

feel about the sociopolitical realities of what's

47:04

going on, that you could do

47:06

that. Then it comes back down to, well, is

47:08

that free speech? And if it is, then it

47:10

has to be applied to everyone. But

47:12

there's certain. Right. And then to your

47:14

point, some apologies are needed from the last

47:16

few years, if that's the case. Exactly.

47:19

We can't pick and choose. And when

47:21

it comes down to, I think, Robert,

47:23

to look at this as very liberal

47:25

artsy, it's integrity. And integrity means that

47:27

the whole is complete and it makes

47:29

sense. And integrity means if we're

47:31

going to tolerate free speech, then we have to

47:33

tolerate it around all of these things. Or

47:35

if we're going to not tolerate this kind of

47:37

speech, then we can't pick and choose when

47:40

we're going to not. And that's what's happening in

47:42

our society today. It's like, what

47:44

does free speech mean? I don't know. Get the

47:46

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48:19

back to the leader who's listening to this.

48:21

And I think it's important that we sort of

48:23

went far and wide because I think these

48:25

same issues are impacting all sorts of leadership now.

48:28

There's a group leader, there's a CEO,

48:30

there's a board chair listening to this,

48:32

and they realize like they need to

48:34

start somewhere, the directional shift. So in

48:36

terms of a CEO, bring it to

48:38

their leadership team. Like, how do you

48:40

recommend even framing or starting this conversation?

48:42

Let's say they don't even know what

48:44

the outcome they want it to be

48:46

but they look after the last couple

48:48

years like we need a revisit on

48:50

this and we need to reset like

48:52

how does that conversation start? I

48:54

think it has to do with suffering

48:57

is going to be involved in any

48:59

difficult decision and are we willing to

49:01

choose it or do we want to

49:03

just let it keep happening and it's

49:05

going to become more difficult to do.

49:08

So in other words, do we realize when

49:10

things get astray pain is involved in

49:12

bringing it back? And are we OK

49:14

with the fact that we're going to choose the

49:16

pain that we think is better aligned with who

49:18

we are that's going to make us stronger in

49:20

the future? Or are we going to be choose

49:22

a way that's going to create more pain that's

49:24

going to make it harder to correct in the

49:27

future? So in other words, if you go in

49:29

and say, what's a solution that's not going to

49:31

involve pain, you will do what you're doing now.

49:33

Well, there's an adjunct to that, I would say,

49:35

which is, who do we want

49:37

to make happy? We are not going to

49:39

make everyone happy. So clearly, it's hard to

49:41

make anyone happy. We're not going to make

49:43

it. So who is it most important that

49:45

we make happy? Right, exactly. And

49:48

the way I look at it, it's like, and

49:50

so if a board member, you need to have

49:52

this difficult conversation. But I even think

49:54

in the board meeting, the board, the board, I will

49:56

tell you. Do you think do you

49:58

think board should be bringing this to their

50:00

CEOs or CEOs should be bringing this to their

50:02

boards? What which is the chicken and which

50:04

is the absolutely. Well,

50:07

the board is supposed to be saying,

50:09

hey, Are you doing what's best in the

50:11

best interest of this company, truly? And

50:14

it's like, are you trying to please the

50:16

10 % of employees that are going to go

50:18

protest? Are you trying to please the 70 %

50:20

regardless of their political views that just think this

50:22

is stupid that we're even doing this? Right

50:25

now, they're pleasing the 10%.

50:27

They're pleasing the noisy right

50:29

now. The noisy in our

50:31

society are getting an overwhelming

50:34

amount of attention. And

50:36

I think it's a board's job Well,

50:38

what does it look like fast forward

50:40

five or 10 years? What does it look

50:42

like if the status quo continues for

50:44

organizations and for employees in those organizations? It

50:47

looks like people with

50:49

certain values are going to

50:51

have fewer choices about

50:53

where to work. And

50:55

there's going to be

50:57

these ghettos of companies and

50:59

markets where people feel

51:01

comfortable. And then The majority of

51:03

people are kids. My kids getting out of college

51:05

are going to be told the same thing they're

51:07

told going into college now. And that is you

51:09

have to parrot whatever they tell you. If

51:12

you want a job or you want to get a good grade,

51:14

because this is what you tell your kids in college. I mean, this

51:16

is the reality in most college. If

51:18

you want to get a good grade, just tell the

51:20

professor you believe what they believe. And

51:22

if you want to keep your

51:24

job, just tell the head of whatever

51:26

program is that you're on board

51:28

with that. And then there's a personal.

51:31

Cost to that right I think there's living

51:33

your life feeling inauthentic incongruent right there's

51:35

I think we're missing what the personal we

51:37

go to work every day and instead

51:39

of being excited Time I bring your whole

51:41

self to work you are gonna feel

51:43

inauthentic right and that you just need to

51:45

do this job and get out of

51:48

there as fast as you can Yeah,

51:51

well, that's gonna definitely happen more and more.

51:53

We hired a guy from Cuba here recently

51:55

and essentially they are the living manifestation of

51:57

that. He got out of college and they

51:59

said to him, okay, you can have this

52:01

job. He studied nuclear physics. And

52:04

they said that you can have this

52:06

job and it'll pay you okay, and it's

52:08

a prestigious job, but you're gonna have

52:10

to rat on your friends if they're not

52:12

adhering to what we believe. They

52:14

were very explicit there. And

52:16

he was like, oh crap, what

52:18

am I gonna do? So they snuck out. Because

52:20

he realized that was the rest of his life

52:22

was going to be that. And that's why they

52:25

don't let people leave that country. Because

52:27

if wouldn't it be great if they said, hey,

52:30

this is how we live. Anybody that wants to move

52:32

to Cuba, move to Cuba. And anybody who does.

52:34

There's plenty of people who enjoy that stuff. I've worked

52:36

with them before. So yeah. Yeah.

52:38

But they don't want to live in Cuba because they want

52:40

their cake and eat it too. And there's not a lot

52:42

of cake there. I think. I would

52:44

actually admire people that said i want to live

52:46

there and i'm willing to live with the ramifications

52:48

of that but that's the problem we have today

52:50

is that people want their cake and eat it

52:53

too i really think that's the thing i want

52:55

to take stands on these issues. But i also

52:57

want to be considered inclusive and i also want

52:59

the benefits of all this and i don't want

53:01

to work with people that don't agree with me

53:03

but i want people to work here and get

53:05

things done and it's like you can't have it

53:07

all so board member a c e o needs

53:09

to say we have got to stop participating in

53:11

this. hypocritical, non

53:13

-inclusive, no integrity policies

53:16

because otherwise we are just

53:18

ushering our society down a

53:20

place where it's really painful.

53:22

I once heard someone say, you can have anything you

53:24

want. You just can't have everything all at once. Pick

53:28

something. And I love that. It's like, choose

53:30

your poison. Choose what you want. And that's why,

53:32

and people listening to this might go, I

53:34

can't believe they're not talking about issues. It's like,

53:36

because it's not about an individual issue. It's

53:38

not about the right or the left. It's about

53:40

true transparency,

53:42

inclusivity, and integrity. And

53:45

I refuse to say that's only on

53:47

one side or the other. It has

53:49

to be about the principle of openness

53:51

and true tolerance. And it's okay to

53:53

pick something and say, that's a core

53:55

value. You know, one the things I

53:57

didn't say at the beginning here, Robert,

53:59

is that a core value is, and

54:01

I love saying this, is the limit

54:03

of tolerance. That's a

54:05

great line. And I like to say

54:08

this to CEOs all the time. You

54:10

should be brutally intolerant. of your core

54:12

values being violated. And people

54:14

are like, ooh, brutally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If

54:16

you believe in customer service and people

54:18

don't like that, don't tolerate it.

54:20

If somebody goes, I want to work there, you

54:22

have a cool company. OK, great. But we believe

54:24

in humility. And they're like, no, I

54:26

want to be arrogant. It's like, hey, there's other

54:28

places to work. We are brutally intolerant of arrogance.

54:31

And there's companies that aren't brutally intolerant of arrogance.

54:33

They're like, people that are arrogant thrive there.

54:35

I've worked in some. And I thought, oh, my

54:37

gosh, this is actually acceptable here. But once

54:40

you pick what those are, then you got to

54:42

be tolerant of things beyond that. And that's

54:44

it. And stop worrying about everyone

54:46

liking you. And again, make sure that the

54:48

people that like you or love you are

54:50

the people that matter most because you just,

54:52

yeah, it can't be everything to everyone. Right.

54:55

Yeah, gosh, it's so funny. It's like if

54:57

you had a group of 10 friends and

54:59

two were really prone to vocalizing their displeasure

55:01

in you. And two were just the sweetest,

55:03

kindest people, but they would never like it

55:05

up in your face. And the other six

55:08

We're kind of like, hey, we just want

55:10

to keep the peace. Right now, we're

55:12

listening to the two angry ones that get in your

55:14

face. And the others are just not happy. But they're

55:16

like, I don't want to say anything because I'm

55:18

going to get the wrath of those two. And I

55:20

think that CEOs have to have the courage to say

55:22

no more. All right. Well, Pat,

55:24

thank you for joining us. I

55:26

think this is going to be a

55:28

really important issue in business leadership

55:30

in the upcoming years. And respect that

55:32

you've started the conversation and are

55:34

taking a strong position on it. And

55:36

by the way, It is aligned

55:39

to your work as someone who focuses

55:41

on organizational health. Yeah, because there's

55:43

a lot of strife in companies today.

55:45

Cosmet. What's funny is I'm taking

55:47

a strong position for inclusivity. Like

55:50

to clarity and inclusivity. It's weird.

55:52

That's a bold stance. Can you believe

55:55

that? Yeah. Strange times. Different

55:57

bedfellows. But look, I think we've had

55:59

plenty of examples of poor leadership over

56:01

the last couple of years. one of

56:03

the lines I've been using, I said,

56:05

coming to you at a business school

56:07

near you in five years are case

56:09

studies of 2024 leadership in universities. I

56:11

think they'll probably be taught for the

56:13

next few decades. Well, if the schools

56:15

are courageous enough to let them be

56:17

taught. Yeah. or some schools will have

56:19

them. There will be schools. There will

56:21

be plenty of schools out there that will

56:23

not hold them up as negative. All right.

56:25

Well, Pat, we look forward to the third time.

56:28

All right. Yeah, me too. I will, Robert.

56:30

Thanks so much. God bless you. right. To

56:32

our listeners, thanks for tuning in to the Elevate

56:34

podcast today. We'll include links to Pat and

56:36

his work on the detailed episode page at.com. If

56:38

you enjoyed today's episode, I'd appreciate it you

56:41

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56:45

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56:47

elevating.