212: Scaling Up Insights — Coach Panel with Lisa Ridley and Daniel Marcos

Are you thinking about how to grow your business with near and offshore staffing, but you're also wanting to make sure that it's reliable, cost effective and really well done. I think docsa talent is the way to go. Here's why. They don't just fill your jobs. They bring integrity, top talent and a people first approach that's hard to find. I've known the people at Doxa talent for over 20 years now and I say that you can count on them. I have. Talk to Docs of Talent and you won't be disappointed. Go to docsatant.com Bill G. Again, that's doxatant.com Bill G. One more time. Doxatalent.com Bill G. Check it out today. Hello and welcome to the Scaling Up Business Podcast. I'm your host and scaling coach Bill Gallagher. I'm joined this week by Lisa Ridley and Daniel Marcos. Lisa, you're in the Phoenix area, right?

Yeah, Phoenix, Scottsdale, Phoenix area.

Lisa is also an advisory board member. Just a badass coach in the world of scaling up. Her company's CompassGroup coach and Daniel Marcos joins us. Daniel, it looks like you're in Toronto today.

What's wrong with thee?

And that's a totally Toronto accent.

Oh yes.

Daniel's originally from Mexico. His Business Growth Institute has all of our online learning as well as being an advisory board member and an international coach of some accomplishment, serial entrepreneur, that kind of thing. Lisa, say a little bit more about your background and your work before we get into our topic of today.

Yeah, sure. I spent my first 15 to 20 years working in high growth entrepreneurial firms and realized that while I loved high growth entrepreneurial companies, I didn't so much love any particular business. I just love the foundations and what it takes to build the business. So that's what led me to coaching. I've been doing that for about 15 years.

And Daniel, I've been an entrepreneur for 20 years. Built my first company when I was 26 in Mexico. I've done three or four, some great exits, some bad close ups or closing companies. So I've been all over and I've been a CEO coach for last 11 years and today the CEO of the growth Institute, co founder with Vern, bringing thought leadership to mid market companies all over the world. Yeah.

And the need to bring that in the online sort of asynchronous style. Right. People can learn on their own schedule and their own time as well as live makes a huge difference.

Yeah, we have both. But our most popular programs are the ones that are half asynchronous and half synchronous.

Yeah, the hybrid, right?

The hybrid method.

Yeah, yeah.

That's usually our most popular programs.

Well, and I want to remind folks that we have recorded now 218 episodes. Right. So we've been doing this for like four years and we have thousands of listeners around the world, but there's a huge backlog. So on virtually any topic in the world of scaling up, you'll find something on itunes, stitcher, on our website, scalingcoach.com or wherever you go to get your podcast, that kind of thing. YouTube Also, our audio is there as well as some of these that are. That are video as well. So we've got a big range of them and lots of downloads of the tools. So every time we're on, you'll find the notes and links to our guests and hosts and that kind of thing there. Scalingcoach.com we're also, any one of us are happy to help you find a coach. There's more demand now for coaching than there ever has been before and people are just hungry for it. And we have created collectively, the 200 plus coaches around the world have created more flexible options for you to do it, whether online or hybrid or live or like that. We're doing probably more work collectively as a group than we ever have because so many people are in so many things. Starting with the pandemic now. Well, first we had labor issues, then suddenly there's abundance of that. But we have work restrictions globally pandemic, travel restrictions, that kind of thing. And now suddenly we've got profound social unrest in the country. So we thought we'd talk about our compounded crisis and inclusion and diversity and like that. Now we're depending on your classification. We're two pretty white people and a brown person.

By the way. We'll talk about that. Mexico, we had our first civil unrest.

Yeah, well, but I think even beyond this and is how to. Verne shares in the quote, Dr. Francis Fry saying that one of the most important decisions we'll make is how to remove barriers to people's unique capabilities when we don't have diversity, when we have these biases. Of course we don't. We aren't getting the best of our people and all of our people. Right.

And by the way, Bill, the link is available. Vern share. It'll be important we share it below this podcast. Yeah, but I thought Francis Wry was on spot. That was a YPO exclusive webinar that we run three weeks ago and Francis Rye was one of the speakers at the summit and did brilliant. And her whole presentation is available for everyone to watch.

Yes, it's well worth watching. I checked it out last night.

So we see when things go well and when there's a diversity of thought and perspective and type and that kind of thing. And we're also now seeing the profound social cost when there is a lack of respect and an ignorance and a lack of safety and all of that all over the world. What's happening in your worlds and with your clients and the communities that you're in. What are you noticing now?

You know, I think it's interesting and one of the things that both is so disturbing about all of this, as well as gives me hope, is the transparency, the forced transparency. Right. I think that there's so many images and so many things that we're seeing that are really difficult to see. And that's the point. And these things have been going on for a long time. It's forcing conversations that I haven't heard before. And people are being willing to speak up and stand up. And I think that that's really. I mean, that's the first step. It's a very weak step, but it's the first step that has to happen. And I've been really encouraged to see that from people that I have not seen that before.

Yeah.

I really believe a crisis amplifies everything, the good and the bad. And this health crisis is amplifying the financial crisis, but it's amplify the social crisis that we have. And you just bring it up. I lived in the US for 15 years and I saw this kind of things happening for the last 15 years. And it was an unrest of a week or whatever, and then he died and just in a city. And now it's spreading globally. It's crazy. We're seeing the same people marching or people marching in England, in Mexico, all over the world now. People are really, really tired of government control and how the police have acted in the past with too much control, too much force, and they're just using this opportunity to be able to share that. And by the way, social distancing is gone. It's crazy how people are in the streets really close to each other. I have seen no social distancing at all in the marches. Just people are more worried about and more infected or affected by the social issues that they're not caring that much about social distance. And of course, the numbers are coming up again. That was the discussion. Just we. We could go back to that later, but we were Saying that probably when the summer was here, the virus was going to go down because of the weather. The climate, they say, died after 44 degrees or something like that. And now it's pretty hot in all Latin America. Brazil is really hot now and the numbers are climbing really, really fast. So that's a new thing that we're learning about this. So I think we're having a lot of unrest, health, financial and social. And that's complicated things even more.

It does seem amiss, doesn't it? And like, I'm concerned personally about the social distancing and the need to be safe and smart. And I think that whatever the reality of things are, that it's smart to be kindful and respectful of other people. Right. To take care to like, you know, when I walk around my neighborhood, as I pass people, I put the mask on. If there's nobody around, I carry it in my hand. And so that. That kind of mix of stuff is important. But you're right, we're seeing this stuff and it's like the concerns are so, the tensions, the feelings are so high that people are just abandoning some of these things, but not 100%. Right. There's an awful lot of mass in the crowd, but not all, not 100%, nor a demand for them across the.

Board or people just very close to each other.

Yeah. So I, you know, I've always been a straight white male and I laugh and I joke and maybe that's insensitive and inappropriate in this time, but I recognize with each year the profound privilege of being born in my skin, in my place and that kind of thing. And I've only had momentary inklings, either from sharings of people that are close to me, who've shared experiences with me and that I've had with empathy an ability to sense something of their world. And then a couple of moments in my life where I was like, oh. Where I wasn't the dominant important one. I can remember being in an airport in Pakistan in. In a remote place and like, being the only face that looked like me around and not knowing the language and feeling completely, like, vulnerable and out and uncomfortable. And I can remember being a child. But these are like two moments in my whole life. What would that be like to be every day? I can remember as a kid being in a couple places that were very dangerous, where I was definitely like a minority and maybe not loved or welcomed. And what would that be like to walk in or find yourself jogging or mistreated at the bank or everything like that. And I Think back about that. And it's like, I don't think I'll ever get under my skin what it's like to do that. But if I'm listening and interested in what it might be like to be somebody else, I can appreciate some of that.

Yeah, I think that clearly as a white woman, I have much the same experience. Certainly as a woman, I can say that I've experienced marginalization, if you will, or attempted, but nothing can compare to the black experience. And I think that's really kind of the point. And it's not an either or, but it is a enough is enough. This has to stop. I mean, it has. And I think that's, as I said earlier, I think that's so much of this is just so disturbing and heartbreaking. And at the same time, the videos and the transparency that is being forced here is one thing that does at least give me hope that this conversation won't die down, it won't stop, that everyone is finally realizing, I mean, looking at Colin Kaepernick and looking at the change in conversation about that, the condemnation that he received, so crazy for his actions, and now how the narrative is changing. It's ridiculous that it's taken this long for that narrative to be changing, but now people are finally getting. It's not about the flag, it's about the injustice. And that that has to be the conversation. Let's quit trying to divert the conversation to the things that aren't as meaningful and let's talk about the right things, because talking is the first step. We have to have to stop being silent. Then I think it's having some clarity on what actions people can take. And that means being willing to do some research. There's a lot of articles this week about the difference between saying, well, I'm not a racist and being anti racist. And really it's about being willing to take action and being willing to invest yourself. And how willing have all of us been to do that while we sit safely on the sidelines? I think that's for me anyway, and for those I've been engaging with and hearing and leaders I've been talking to. That's a shift in the conversation that's finally taking place as people are recognizing they have to take some action.

So that's. Verne shares an HBR article in the Update US Business must take meaningful action against racism. And the need to take meaningful direct action, not not simply to not propagate it, is insufficient given what's happening in our culture. And I have to admit, with Deep apology and sadness that I have heard headline after headline and thought, that's horrifying, that's tragic. But that's what happens. It's like a horrible, mean world and people are. Things happen. But that's. I just, I'm ashamed to admit that. But. But it's honest. When I saw that video. So when I read about the case of Brianna and the no knock warrant and here's a woman asleep who shot dead by police serving a warrant in a case of mistaken location. We've read of the. It was kind of like, oh, that's just horrifying. But I didn't think about it that much when I saw. And I, and I saw the headline about the Floyd case and I was like, oh, that's just another horrifying, tragic thing. But when I saw the video and the casual callous indifference of these police as this man's life ends, I wept and I was gutted. And. And now I hear people screaming about unrest and the destruction of the property and whatever. Like we're talking about lives versus a store, your insured property. I mean, it's. I don't. Justified. But the rage of people is justified. Their actions may not be appropriate or helpful. But. But I think you got to get that right. There's.

Yeah. And I am certainly the last thing from an expert on this. But what's even more disturbing about that is how so many people don't realize that a lot of the destruction is being caused by whatever label you want to put on them. But white supremacists who are just trying to change the narrative that it's not yet. Literally. I mean, I live in the Phoenix Scottsdale area. There was a protest earlier this week in Scottsdale Fashion Square, which has got to be the cheechiest high end, you know, most ridiculous, you know, example of consumerism. There were riots and people looting and it's just like. And there was a bunch of white people walking around doing that and it's just like, are you kidding me? Like, are you kidding me? Then. So then that's the story and that's the conversation. And that's ridiculous. It's not. Yeah. So to your point. Yeah. And that's where I think, you know, the video and, you know, one of the things that I've looked into this week and where I put my money, you know, where my mouth is in terms of taking action, are organizations that are pushing for more body cams and more, you know, making sure that the police. That things have to be recorded. We can't Keep letting that stuff slide under the table, if you will.

Let me just add a different perspective to that and something that I think is important to add. All of this started by a video of a 17 year old teenager that she was walking on the street or she was there, she got her phone, her reaction, that's what created all of this unrest.

So I think not the police body cam.

Right, but that's correct. Right, so exactly. I would love to come back later to talk about cell phones and the tool that's happening. The other day I was watching an interview of an ex mob guy and he said this is the worst time to be in the mob business. Like there's phones everywhere, there's cameras everywhere. Like before we used to do things no one knew that we did today.

Under the rug, I think some video. Yeah.

So now every citizen is a media company working to make money, to report things, to complain on the. It's crazy the availability and the tools that we're having today and I think that's been amplified by this, by technology.

No, I mean the Central park incident, you know, with Christian Cooper, the, you know, CCTVs, I mean. Yeah, no, absolutely. You're absolutely right, Daniel. It's not just the police body cams, that's in fact more often it's going to be individuals with cell phones and CCTV and all the cameras in stores that are going to make the difference.

How many cameras have you seen about the guy with a guy on the knee? Like how many cameras? Six or five or six. Different.

Yeah, it's crazy. That's actually a pretty powerful thing about both the Internet and, and the wide. Like everybody's got a high quality video camera and still camera in their pocket now and can capture things as they are disturbed by. And they need to shine a light on something. Right.

I think that's brilliant.

Well, we saw where was the city where the 75 year old protester is. An old white guy is pushed back by the police. Buffalo.

Wasn't that Buffalo?

I think so.

75.

75, right. He's a serial peace protester. He's like my parents really like, you know, they're a little bit older but they've been peaceniks their whole life. And here he's, he's shoved by police from. With no physical altercation, there's some discussion or something that's going on. He falls back, he's bleeding from his head. People call out and the police walk by and one policeman appears to say to another to leave the person alone. And this is horrifying. In the middle of protests around police violence. We've got police violence.

Well, I think Bill, it's a great point and it's not a great point, but it's important. It's an important point. And part of I think that institutional attitudes and it's not just the racism, but it's literally just the training and the accountability that has to change. And not just police. I mean police is obviously a huge focus of this but it's so systemic and institutionalized across the the U.S. but there's. Until there's a change in both the training and how we hold people accountable then.

But you've got that. You've got an unchecked bro y thuggish police force in some places. I also know I have met lots of really deeply caring, good police officers. We're talking particularly about the US right now. And I've witnessed horrifying things and seen like really nasty, mean spirited, obnoxious and they're, they're out in a, in a deeply like tense, violent, armed, especially in the US highly armed environment. And so their whole attitude becomes more and more militarized every day. But then against that we've got this deeply rooted racism. We've got the Confederate flag still being waved proudly and all that that represents with people who still honor and cling to that, who haven't quite given up on that kind of view of reality. Right.

Yeah.

It's deeply disturbing. Now this is the fabric that and background that we operate in and other countries have their own versions of it. Right. We've got now protests going on in Paris and around the world in solidarity and expressing the need to control this dominant militaristic forces and inherent racial biases. And virtually every country's got some form of something going on like that. This is our particular.

So let me tell you this story that happened yesterday that I think it's important outside of the U.S. perspective.

Yeah.

So we. That there's some marches about black lives matters and everything in England and things.

Yeah.

But something happened in Mexico that I thought it was, it was very interesting. It was a group of citizens.

Yeah.

They were against the government.

Yeah.

Against rich people in the country. Segregation of wealth. And they were walking from the US Embassy. They started outside the US Embassy and they were walking to the representation house of Jalisco State is one of the wealthiest states in the country where a police officer was recorded on camera being too aggressive on a citizen. Very similar to what happened in the US but they were saying police officers are tougher to people that are poor than people that are rich in the country. The division of poor and. And rich is very wide. And there's a belief, and yes, I believe it's true, that there's been a better treatment for people of money. So these people were walking from one part of the city to the other, marching and then in a street that they're getting closer to this representation of the state of Jalisco. They go through a street with beautiful buildings with doorman and like a really, really nice. And they begin breaking all the glasses of all the buildings, breaking the entrance of the stores, looting on the street and spray painting with black ink that police officers are corrupt and then the government, whatever. And this is the problem of the rich. Really, really aggressive. So of course the Mexican government sends a group of police officers and the police officers react very aggressively. That what they have shown. But they were going against people breaking into private property and all that. And they acted aggressively because it was a really big group. And now there's a huge attack against the police. And we're having the same similar feeling in Mexico that we're having, but instead of being Black Lives Matter, it's rich against poor. But they're also. The police was in the middle. And now we have the same feeling. So this is what we're seeing. I know we have a huge difference in the U.S. and I've lived in the U.S. i said for 15 years and felt it personally being Hispanic. But also I think we have a deeper social unrest in the world and we all have our own differences in every country. This is the difference that is bringing society outside of the U.S. but I think we're going to start seeing it.

All over the world.

And yesterday for me was the perfect feeling of in Mexico having the same social unrest and just being shared in a different way.

Well, I think that. And I think Bill, you brought it up earlier, it's been an interesting year to say the least. Right. People are. There's. We've got the pandemic, we've got the oil crisis, which has gotten lost in this whole shuffle. But that certainly has impacted a lot of businesses. We have a lot of uncertainty and we don't do well. Human beings with uncertainty, we crave answers and clarity and control. And I think that all of this is sort of a perfect storm which has contributed to this where we're almost looking for an outlet for that fear and uncertainty and unrest.

The stress increases, right? Enormously.

Yeah. And people are under financial stress and health stresses and they're worried about loved ones. They're worried about the future. And then you add this to it. And I think that this is an outlet that people have in some way been craving, a place to put their energy. There's up and downsides to that. I think the upside is people are putting their energy behind this in a way that hopefully will not let it just die down as, oh, gosh, that's too bad. Right? And then we move on.

So we saw Apple CEO Tim Cook's letter and message on the subject, and obviously he represents a massive and important company in the world. But what communications are you seeing from business leaders that you think are helpful or not helpful?

So let me just share on our side. Growth Institute, we had a really big discussion internally if we should react and set a communication. And we first agreed, yes, we have to stand by our core values and at least share what we believe. Yeah. And we had a big discussion of what we should share. And then we got to a discussion saying, hey, at Growth Institute, we have these thought leaders from all over the world and we realized we did not have any thought leader of color. We are recording a class with someone from India today. We have two thought others from India. We had a couple from Latin America or a couple of Hispanics, but most of our thought leaders are white male. So internally we had a big discussion and said, hey, we could not say anything about the world if we are not living this internally. So we send an email saying, hey, when we begin having a discussion, we realize that we are not doing it right because we don't have the right representation of the world. So we have a commitment for us to start looking at for great thought leaders that are black or of color and all kind of race of the world. And if we want to be a global company, we have to represent the globe like that. And we even got a lot of hate mail just saying, hey, we made it wrong. We want to make it. Well, internally, we got a lot of prices of email, but we had a lot of people very aggressive against us saying, hey, unsubscribe me. You're blah, blah, blah.

Really?

We were attacked of being white male, and I'm a Hispanic guy.

You were attacked for being it or for suggesting that maybe you were gonna de emphasize.

So I got an attack by saying that I have to represent the world and have people from all races.

Yeah.

And we got a couple of attacks from, I don't know if you want to call it white supremacy or white people saying, you should do the best and if you try to balance, you're Going to decrease your quality kind of. Right, we got some of those and I thought they were terrible and by the way, we delete them from the database. But then I also got attacked by saying that I was promoting violence in the world and I was promoting making this bigger. And I said, I'm just making an internal reflection that we're. You do it better. Right. But that shares how much people are unhappy with life. I really believe when someone makes. Makes life hard on you is because they're having a hard time themselves and this a reflection on what they're feeling and what they're going through.

Yeah, I think that, I think that you just raised a really interesting point. And that's, you know, I, you know, like all of us, it's, it's like, okay, so what do we say? What do we put out there? And you don't want to just be me too. Social media crap, you know, actually not using MeToo as the movement, but just saying literally, you know, jumping on a bandwagon to try to do something from that perspective. But at the same time, I mean, that's why, you know, I put a post on LinkedIn and Facebook, just a very short one. And what I said was, I think so often people are silent because we don't know what to say or we're afraid of saying the wrong thing. And what you just said, I think is, I think we, I guess we have to be willing and I know you are, to be attacked for in the right or the wrong way. Because I think that is why so often people stay silent. I am ashamed to say that certainly publicly, like on social media and out there, I haven't said a lot for probably that reason. And also because I feel like I'm a white woman who was raised in a very privileged environment. And yes, as a woman I have experienced things, but nothing to compare to certainly the black experience. And who am I to talk about it? There's almost that feeling where I just feel like it's inappropriate in a way. It feels inappropriate for me to be commenting on it now. Yet we all have to be willing to. And what I found very interesting is that I don't post a lot. I'm not a big social media person. I put it on LinkedIn. I just looked it up just now. There's been three likes. Three, like I posted stupid links to articles, very non controversial leadership articles before where I've gotten, you know, hundreds of likes. And so I look at that, I'm like, wow, are people scared to like it? It's A very short, innocuous post simply saying black Lives Matter. I find that very interesting and sad because there's been over 200 views but three likes.

We were surprised by the response and the diverse response, but I agree with you. We're afraid of having been criticized and we just prefer to be quiet, and I think that's wrong. Or people are afraid of going to the streets for them to be attacked by police or being hurt and they're being silent.

People are really afraid of provoking something. And I think the key thing. Right. Is if you do provoke some negative response is not to get defensive. Right. If somebody lays into me for this or for anything else, I think I'd rather say, oh, thanks, I got it. Okay, good. Let me consider that. Right. But people are terrified of this kind of thing. And what makes it worse is to try to defend or explain right away instead of simply to accept and embrace. And we see that in our interactions between folks. Right. And like, I know, Daniel, you've. You maybe need to add some interesting and influential African American other groups, but you probably had Raj Sisodia, you probably had Salim Ismail.

We're recording with Raj from India. We have, from Latin America, we have some Asian thought leaders.

Yay. You've probably had Blitzscaling.

Yep.

Right.

No, we have a lot of diversity.

I do applaud you for recognizing the gap. And that's what we. I think that's what we all have to do. Right. When we look around, who am I.

To criticize anyone else?

Yeah. I mean, and we all have to. I mean, I noticed it, you know, as a coach, I. Some of my clients have very. Or started out with very non diverse executive teams.

Right.

I mean, most of my clients are. Are white males. Not because that's who I target, but because most CEOs are white males. That's just the demographic reality. Right. So demographically, that's gonna happen. As coaches, are we willing to speak up and say, hey, where are the women? Where is the diversity? Where are the non white that we should be seeing around this table?

And there's been a lot of good research out there that the boards that have women usually outperform companies with boards that have not women on the board.

Absolutely. And boards that have diversity of all kinds are going to have.

They're going to perform better. Right. Broader diverse. Not all aligned with the same reaction. And I think that's the thing that, like when you talk about that, Daniel, and you get that backlash, you've got people of limited experience and exposure. And in lots of places it's possible to live your whole life, even live a big life, and not be exposed to people that don't look that much differently than you, that live, you live in and operate in a community, a company that has a lot of people that look like you, that enforce your worldview, and you get like, oh, why should we have anything? Let them do that over there, where the hell they are, they. That kind of mindset is messed up and misses the opportunity of having big, rich, diverse employees and like that kind of thing. And I think it's an ignorant and I mean that in the most technical sense, not in the nastiest emotional side, but it's just kind of clueless. I'm inexperienced, I don't know any better. I haven't lived anywhere, I haven't done been anywhere. I've barely seen things as I stayed in a Marriott hotel and went around some countries, right? That kind of mindset, you know what I'm talking about?

So, Bill, let me talk about that. The best explanation of that that I've seen Reed Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, calls the lottery of life. And he said, I won the lottery of life. I couldn't get better ticket. I was male, white, growing up in Silicon Valley in the technology and cheap areas, like, you could not have given me a better lottery winner ticket. I said, it's my duty to do a big impact in the world precisely because of what I got. And I love that perspective. There's a couple of interviews of him online talking about it, and I really, really admire him for that. And he said, hey, compared to black women growing up in, I don't know, South Africa or Kenya or an Arab country where they could not even drive today, it's like, why did that happen? For me, it's been a big shock. I go to Latin America a lot, and whenever you're driving in cities in North America, you get a lot of kids in the streets asking you for money, no shoes and all things like that. And I look at my kids and I was like, why that soul grew up here and why that soul was born there. Yeah, it's crazy and it's just what it is in life. But that tells you our responsibility. Like if we grew up here and we had the good fortune of being in the family, My parents both are still married, they're still alive, they're still great health. They supported me going to any kind of school that I wanted. Best degrees in the world, as you said, Bill, I was extremely fortunate on the life that I had up to now. And I have a duty to really do something well in life. And I command.

Let me share a personal experience that I think for all of our listeners and viewers may be something so I too, straight, white, male, North American, English speaking, a life of upper middle class thing. Great educa. Like all that, right? And yet some of the most important pieces of education in my life have been and most memorable things have been walking and being out in Gaza, being in sketchy crowd situations in North Africa as a very young person, being on the street when things went crazy in Panama, in Panama City, in a bad neighborhood that I shouldn't have been in late at night. And one of the scariest ones, walking down the street in Cologne on the Atlantic side of Panama. An old long. I don't know what it's like today, but 35 years ago, I'm 20, fairly clueless, walking down the street with an expensive camera, watch, et cetera. And a van pulls up next to me and the door flings open and a familiar face like mine says to me and my two friends in English, quickly get in the car. You're not safe.

Oh, wow.

And I jumped in the car. And he described how somebody's hand had been cut off to steal their watch. Recently in this area, a careless visitor, right? It was a dangerous. It's just a poor place, right? And in extreme poverty, an ignorant white guy who looks like he doesn't have anything, doesn't know what's up, is likely to get robbed and perhaps violently. Right? I think about that and I think about one of our family friends who stopped by our house but lingered outside. A young African American male lingered outside for a minute to finish a phone call or text. And a car pulled up slowly beside him and rolled down the window and asked if he was lost or needed directions. And the implication is clear. He doesn't belong there. Right. But what's that like to have that every flipping day of your life on the other side? Yes.

So I yesterday I got a video from a friend in a small town in Mexico.

Yeah.

And I cried when I saw the video. It was outside a supermarket and it looked like a mom going to a supermarket. She has all her bags and stuff. And while she puts the things on the car, these two guys come. And while one is telling her, hey, can I get your card so you don't have to drop it? I'll take it back so I could go to the supermarket myself. She gets distracted. This other guy gets on the back of her car. She gets into her car, nothing moves Using the camera on the outside. And then the other guy comes through, the driver. So it looks like the other guy that came on the back already pulled her back. Yeah. You don't see it because inside the car.

Yeah.

And the car just walks outside. I got completely cold when I saw. Could be any mom just going on supermarket. It really made an impact on me. But, hey, that's what we're seeing, and that's the inequality we're creating. I really believe that all of the base of this is the financial inequality. Everyone in the world had enough money to live well. We would have much less crime around the world if we had opportunities to work for everyone, if we have good education for everyone, good health for everyone, and we have a more balanced equality in income. Who needs to have $131 billion? What are you gonna do with that? It shouldn't even be allowed for an individual to have $130 billion billion dollars. And of course, if you cannot feed your kids and you see that someone, the news has 131 billion, then what do you say? Then I could do it because.

Yeah, Daniel, I think that's true, but I think that it's also. I think it's. It's part of it, but I think it's. It's more than that. I think that, you know, I saw it. I'm not sure where I saw it. I'm going to misquote it, but it was. I was watching the Michelle Obama documentary the other night, and someone, I think it was, her brother, was wearing a shirt. Basically just the writing. I just noticed the writing on his shirt. And it said something like, it's hard to hate up close. And I was like, yeah, because here's the thing. If you get to know anyone, you lock any two people in the room. I don't care who they are. Eventually you're going to figure out some common ground. You're going to figure out some things to love about each other. Right. I remember one of the greatest leadership lessons that I ever Learned. I was 28 years old, had just become president, general manager of a company. I had 300 plus employees. And I used to see people. I had an open door policy, of course. I had just taken over after a Teamsters union campaign, really flawed leadership, was fired and I was brought in. And so there was a lot of problem. There were a lot of angry employees. And they had justification for that anger. They had not been listened to. They had not been treated well. So I had obviously an open door policy. And I spent a lot of Time talking to and listening to employees. And some of those employees, I could see through my window, you could see people coming down the hall. And there was one individual who, he was a really smart guy and he had really good points, but he was angry. He was very angry. He came at me with that anger. And I could see him coming. And every time I saw him coming, it's like, oh, crap, right? And I realized, I kind of internally felt myself saying that when I saw him coming one day. And I was like, I can't do that. I can't. I can't cringe when I see an employee come. I have a responsibility as a leader to listen to him with an open heart and mind. I have to shift my narrative here. So I thought about it and I don't know how I even came up with this, but it was one of the best things I ever learned was I realized, what if I find something to love about this guy? What if I find I can't just like it? Because he was a real pain in the butt. Liking something about him is not going to be enough. I've got to find something, something to love about him and maybe I can listen to him then in a different way. So doing that forced me to ask him different questions. And I discovered that he was an absolutely, like, get him talking about his family like most of us, and his whole demeanor changed and his face lit up and how he talked about his wife of almost 50 years and how he talked about his grandkids and his kids. And then learning more about his life experience and who he was completely shifted. How I listened to him, he didn't change, but how I listened to him changed. So it changed the interaction. And guess what? He wasn't pissed at me anymore. He wasn't angry when he walked through the door. And that lesson for me, that has stayed with me always. And it really shapes how I approach people, how I approach coaching. I think that we have to be willing to find something to love about everybody. And that sounds so cliched, and I'm sorry for that, but it's so true. I hate up close. And people are not willing to get close.

You know, it's one of the most powerful things that I've ever done was I went last year with my wife, with Rich Manders, with his wife, with others, to coach in a federal maximum security or not state, State prison with Catherine Hoak. Right. And we had. She's a past guest on the show. We did a recording right after that session, but it was the most altering Experience. And here are these people and we're not talking about minor, trumped up crimes. Most of these people readily admitted that they had murdered people. Some of them, quite a few people. And they also shared their stories with us. And this is part of a coaching program to rehabilitate and improve their lives. And many of them were in with life with no possibility of parole, and yet they were in the program because they were given access to stuff. But as these people told me their life stories, I didn't have. I let go of the judgment. Well, you made bad choices and was like, it was the most obvious thing, like this is the way the world occurs for me. And so I did this. They grew up in such profoundly screwed up, violent. What's the word I'm looking for? Economically disadvantaged, uneducated. Like they grew up in the most effed up environments. And the acts that began the thing that led them to prison were the most natural and obvious things in the vast majority of cases. And some were in for some pretty wacky, bizarre things too. A handful. But I had one man who stood across from me and took my hand and he said, I killed so many times I didn't feel anything. And I hugged him and I told him I got it. And he said, there's no excuse, there's no whatever. It just became the way that I lived. It was the water he swam in.

I remember a interview, Tom Friedman, the guy from New York Times.

Yeah.

They were asking him, hey, this is five or six years ago. They were asking him why we get a lot of terrorists coming from the Arab world. And his response made something brilliant. And I think Bill is going to come similar to your story. He said whenever you have a bunch of 18, 20 year old male, they've never showed them love, they've never gave them education, they never gave them power or show them power, they've never showed them respect. And then the last thing he said, they never hold the hand of a woman. Then they become terrorists. And I thought that was the coldest response. But he was so true because life put them in that position and they became who they are.

Yeah.

Because of what the society did to them. When we're all kids, we laugh, we love, we like we all have the same DNA.

Yeah.

And then life gives us a certain experience or experiences that made us that. So that guy that you're.

That environment. Yeah.

Well, so what next, guys? I mean, what, what do you think? I mean in terms of. I mean, we each have however much influence, but we have some spheres of influence and we have the ability to impact others. We all do.

I don't think our CEOs for the most part are talking about this. I had a woman in one of the workshops in the last two weeks. It was last week, actually, female CEO, entrepreneur of color, and they are in a business downtown area. And they'd had an active shooter during the protests in their building. And her workforce is because it's also Bay Area High lgbtq, mostly people of color, so highly diverse and disadvantaged workforce. And then one right leaning white woman, she's like, she was just at her wit's end. And I said, look, you can let me have it. You could just shout and scream and rant at me. I could take it. I'll represent that white male, whatever you need for a while. And she's like, I think I'm done. I just need to go sleep now and recover. She was so exhausted by it. But I think that's a kind of a notable exception. But for the most part it's not yet something that my clients are talking about. They're not a lot talking about protests. They're not much in downtown areas. They're still dealing with the other crises. But I think it's going to come right. Are you guys hearing people talking about it yet and asking about it? Because we're going to talk about. Vern made a recommendation of one thing, we'll talk about some other stuff. But is it yet a topic?

Hearing it? Very little.

Yeah.

From the level that we need to be discussing it to really have a change. And Lisa, you said something earlier that I hope this stays and really opens the conversations that we need. And I don't think we're at that level yet. We're still in shock at most and we're also very worried for the economy and the virus and we haven't really fully as a society have the right discussion at the right level for that. I haven't seen any discussion on the politics level on that.

I think the timing of this in terms of pre elections that are coming up in the fall is interesting and I hope it shapes how people vote. I think that there's no easy fixes, obviously, but the amazing lack of leadership that has been exhibited in this country, I hope that that is impacted by this. I think, Bill, you said something earlier that I think is true too though is I think that on one hand, video and the transparency that is happening is going to continue to be very powerful. It's ubiquitous. There's not going to be anywhere to hide the flip side of that. Is that we are so inundated from media and social media with. We almost become numb to things. Right? I mean, there is a very real psychic numbness that comes from just being. There's. It's too much. We can't take it in. We can't keep taking it in. And so I think that we need to be careful of that. We need to be careful not give ourselves permission to say, oh, darn, that's too bad. There's another. There's another bad thing that happened. And I think that. That certainly a lot of us have been guilty of that. I have. I mean, you just kind of, you just sort of shut down. I think that we have to be willing to. Or I certainly, I can't speak for others. I have to be willing to say, okay, what can I do about that?

Right.

There's a lot I can't do. What can I do? Or who is doing work that I believe in? What organizations can I contribute to, both my presence and my dollars that I believe will make an impact and that I can get behind and support and maintain a commitment to. Because this isn't. It's not okay. It's got to stop.

So Vern talks about a company and then I have a past association with a guy who did work on trying to reform criminal justice. I mentioned Kathryn Hope talking about reforming prison and incarceration rates. And then I worked very briefly years ago with Van Jones, who had the Ella Baker center for Human Rights and has been a campaigner against. He's now a CNN host. But Verne talks about Fog Break justice and Shanty Breen, and they are working to transform law enforcement and try to change the criminal justice system and promote things there. And they have a blog post what action people can take right now other than protesting. How can you lend your voice and offer support and speak up in a positive way? So that's. We'll put the link to that in the show notes as well.

But lottery, it's.

What's that?

I would love to read it.

Fog Break Justice. What actions can people take right now? Has a range of things listed in there. What can you do? So communicate with law enforcement, do a personal assessment on race, bias, privilege. Ask yourself, are you working to become anti racist? Not simply are you not racist, but how are you working against those things under the surface? And I can think of almost every place that I've worked in over the years where there have been nasty comments about other races and other women that have come along at different point, other race, other genders. Right. And including sexual orientations, that kind of thing. Oh, don't be like those people. Right. Or whatever it was. Oh, well. And then eye rolling about one group or another. But how do we speak out and say, no, that's not okay, that's not enough. My favorite of the last little bit has been Chris Rock's statement that we can't afford to have bad apples in the police force. It's like pilots. You don't say, well, we're mostly great pilots, but there's a few bad apples and they'll fly you right into a mountain. Like there's a zero tolerance for that kind of thing. Right. As soon as one happens, they eliminate that pretty quickly. We need to have that same kind of thing. And we can't have groups rallying around and protecting the same. I mean, we've seen this in like the Catholic Church where protecting the church meant protecting abusive priests and that kind of thing. My apologies to you. I do not mean to attack it, but I am willing to speak out against those that would do horrible things. Right. And the same thing true with if you don't take an active thing against. So they talk about that, that they talk about supporting organizations that are making a difference and the importance, as you said, Lisa, of voting yes.

Yes, we've got to vote, literally and we've got to vote with our wallets and we have to vote with our actions.

You can't afford to tell yourself, oh, they're all the same, both sides are the same. It's all just nonsense. I'm going to vote for whoever. No, it matters. It makes a difference.

No, that means being willing to educate ourselves. It's, you know, I have the great Blessing of having two kids, 21 year old and an 18 year old and they have won a lot of time on their hands right now. But they are, you know, very informed and they bring a very great perspective to the table. And so they bring me a lot of information and they inform me on a lot of things and boy, they let me know if somehow I need to research something further, learn more information. We have to have people in our lives that push us and force us to. Like, if you, if you don't, it's not okay to just say, oh, well, I don't really understand that issue. We need to understand it. You need to read, you need to research. There are books, there are articles, there are like, there's no excuse for us not being educated and informed and understand what actions to take. And I think that is the conversation that I'm Going to shift in terms of even just my conversations with clients. One of the things that I look for in prospective clients is do they have any kind of diversity on their executive team in their organization? And I think that those questions need to become even more pointed in my conversations with them.

Well, I like what you said a minute ago as well, Daniel. That goes along. That is terrorists from the Middle East. Right. I've spent a lot of time in the Middle east on all sides of the region and working with companies there. And I would say we have more cases of. Of murderous violence in the United States propagated by disgruntled, angry, disadvantaged, messed up, emotionally troubled white males than anything else against whatever group they perceive as, and they're carrying guns and like out there, whatever. And again and again and again with an element of male messed up ness. How is that any different? For one reason or another, we call the other terrorism. And we don't call that terrorism. When a guy drives a car into a crowd of protesters on the east coast, what do you call it? When somebody drives a car into a crowd in London, we call that terrorism because that person happens to be that. But in my mind, those are completely the same thing. When an angry white guy drives a car into a crowd. And we've seen two or three cases, to my knowledge, just in the last week here, where, where somebody drove a jeep into somebody in California and somebody ran somebody over here and then backed over them. In my mind, that is the same thing.

So how can we do something? I always, as we had discussion early, instead of telling people what to do, we need to internally.

Right.

So as business coaches, the three of us, we influence a lot of very influential people. We help a lot of CEOs that have a lot of employees. Some 20, 30, some hundreds.

Yes.

What's our right thing to do, Lisa? What kind of conversation we need to start to have with them against in favor of diversity? As an example, what other conversations do we need to have to be able to do our own small part in the world? Yeah.

What do you guys think?

I think the first step is being willing to simply ask the questions, you know? Right. I mean, I have. When I join with a client and look around the table and I don't see women and I don't. And I see a bunch of white people. In fact, I've had clients hire me. I mean, one of my favorite clients, he said, you know, he was talking to me, said, well, I think I need to hire you because we were a bunch of middle aged white guys and we need someone who's not to be sitting at our table. I'm like, okay, yeah, you do. That's great. So I guess as a woman, I'm a good start, but let's take that further. But I mean, are we. I think we have to be willing to ask the question if we're not seeing it and if we're not seeing it in their organization to at least ask the question, what do you think about that? Why is that? Is this okay with you?

That's a start.

Yeah, it's a start. I'm not saying it's everything, but I think we. A lot of. Are we having the conversations? Are we asking the questions?

And let me ask on the other side. So we're talking about the employees and the team members of the companies we advise. What about their clients? The other day we were working with a client and we realized that all the marketing, all the positioning, the product, the pricing was kind of entitled for white males. Right. All the pictures were like that.

The messaging.

The messaging, correct, Right, Yeah. And we asked the question, said, hey, why you're doing this? And they said, well, most of the clients that buy our product at the pricing that they buy is because of or most of them are white males. So we target white males. If you see a lot of the ads of pharma, most of it it's to adults, older, 70s or so white males. So I think we have to also do it internally, but also externally and really be able to drive a message of inclusion in the services and products we offer and our clients offer.

Well, that brings up for me, I think, something that's fundamental to, like, all of our coaching and fundamental to leadership, period. That starts with me as a coach and then out to the CEO and then out around. You have to look in the mirror first around any subject. You've got to ask yourself, who am I in this matter? What is it that I haven't considered? And you've got to look, you know, look searingly into your own eyes and say, what is there? That's not okay here. That should not see the light of day. What do I need to deal with with myself? And then around, right. What do I need to deal with with my team and with my company? And then out. That kind of thing. So that, for me is first and foremost, like, start with you and then work out. And then the other one is when interacting with others, ask yourself, what's it like to be them? Not asking what's wrong with Daniel or what's wrong with Lisa, but Asking yourself, God, where are they coming from? What's this like for them? How might this be for them? And considering that, I mean, that's the core to empathy. Right. But considering that their worldview is one of my favorite business books from my background, Three Laws of Performance says that performance is a function of action or a result of action. And our actions are naturally and completely correlated with the way we see the world. Right. So I see the world one way. I take certain actions, I get certain outcomes. If you want to change the performance, you need to change the way you see the world. So if I'm interacting with either of you or one of my clients or whatever, I want to consider, how might you see the world right now? And is there any way to alter your view of the world so that. That kind of thing? But the first question is, how do they see the world? Like, why do they keep doing this stuff? Oh, because it looks this way to.

So how do you change the view of someone? We talk about travel. Travel, I think, by far, right.

Education. Travel.

Education, travel.

But non traditional education is travel. Right, sorry, Travel is a kind of non traditional education.

Correct.

But now that we're all home and by the way, one of the big.

Things that we used to be.

It used to be. Yeah. One of the big things that I'm seeing that is going to stay here is international travel. I really believe international travel is going to significantly decrease and we're going to do way more national travel. And regions like they're calling the Bridge between Australia and New Zealand. Right. They already opened planes, but it's just New Zealand, right?

Yeah.

So North America, we're going to have just us, Canada, Mexico to start. Are we going to have Central America? Like, what are these groups of countries that are together? They're going to have a lot of trouble inside the group of countries, or just one country, but not that international as was before.

And I think even. I think even domestic travel is. I don't have a crystal ball, but I think that's going to be one of the last things to really come back.

There's the people, right. If I got on a plane and it was 2/3 empty, I'd probably.

So if you Google TSA traffic, they have a website where they're showing daily traffic.

Yeah.

Today we're 85% down.

Right.

And it got to 95% down.

But if you get on a plane, if they're only flying 10, 20% of the planes and you're still getting on a full airplane. Right. And that's the Idea where we've packed and more people into smaller, smaller places, especially if you're not affording the expensive seats up front, is a particular challenge. Right. If I got on a plane that was packed full of people, I'd be really uncomfortable. If I got a plane that's packed full of people and nobody's wearing a mask until something changes, I'm not comfortable.

Yeah. But going back to the. What we can do, I think that. I think that part of it is we're doing it. As I said, in some ways, I kind of, you know, when I saw the topic, Bill, you sent it to me last night, I was like, I kind of. Well, because, you know, I sort of just. I feel presumptuous even having a con, like, who am I to have this conversation? Right. I feel like it's almost not my place, but I think it is all of our places to at least talk about it. How interesting that is to others, I don't know. But to at least be willing to have a conversation and talk about it. And I think that continuing that and asking these same questions to our coaches and clients and being willing to continue having this conversation and asking, what are we doing? What can we do? Taking that to action, it can't just be talk. We got to look at the actions. And if literally every single person that we're influencing takes action and continues to take action and following through, whether it's supporting some of the great organizations that are already out there already doing work to try to impact this, it's voting, it's continuing to read and not turning off the news and being like, oh, my gosh, I can't take anymore, but being willing to watch the hard stuff. I think that that. That's the only thing that I know of so far in all of the thinking and reading that I've done this week, that's at least the first step.

Let me put it in business terms for folks. Opportunity and risk. Right? You do nothing. You put your business and yourself and your society at risk. You take action, you skate to where the puck is going, you address and you look at trends and you get ahead of them and. And you before what matters to people, then you're reaching into the realm of opportunity. And that is also good business. I'm selling now, if you will, saying why we should care, because if you don't take responsible action, you put everything at risk. In a time where things have been driven up so much, this isn't a thing to wait until it's over. And seeking, leaning into it and addressing it, because I had the same reaction. I'm like, oh, what are we going to talk about this week? We had this thing recorded coming up, and then the whole world's blown up like this. And Vern was really helpful in writing the insights in the way that he did this week because it was like, oh, yeah, that is what we should talk about. And I'm like, oh, God, I'm not an expert in this, but we each bring a little bit of something. And our first value in my business, my first, first leading value is courageous authenticity. Right. I'll share the things that I've done and said and where I'm struggling and be open about something. Right. And some aspect of that. We probably all have a little bit of that.

And Lisa, you mentioned something earlier when I was telling the story, how we are messaging this week. And you said you could not be afraid of sharing who you are and what you believe. So the values. Hey, did we got unsubscribes? Oh, yeah, we got people subscribing.

Yeah. But.

I'm happy that they unscribed. The other day. I was and said that.

I'm still shocked by that. Like, right. That's probably just the definition of white privilege. I'm like, what? Like, how could people not applaud you for being willing to admit that and do something about that? It's just.

Just like you saw the cyclist this week, that there was these young people putting signs of Black Lives Matter and he was riding his bicycle and he attacked them. Like, we're still seeing that.

So that's a either or. They're not like me. I can't be with that. I'm threatened by that. I don't even understand that. But it's upsetting to me. Right? That's threat and fear and then a reaction to that, a defensive.

But I believe that we have to start by being true to who we are and our core values and don't be afraid. The only way we're going to create the change that we need is if we act with our core values and deep as a human being and let people decide.

And I think too, though, I think though, that this, I love something, Bill, that you said, which is trying to understand where people are coming from and also being willing to listen to others with a little less judgment and willingness to sort of forgive stumbling. I mean, when people come out with racist and ignorant statements, that's really hard and ridiculous to hear. And we have to be willing to respond to that. At the same time, I think I've seen almost this brutality in how when people make some missteps or say something that maybe they're truly ignorant and not racist, but just not anti racist, we're really quick to jump on and attack people versus trying to educate and inform and see the perspective because we just keep attacking each other. No one listens to someone who if you're gonna attack me, I'm not gonna. It's really hard for me me to listen to you and vice versa. Right. So if we're being attacked or if we're attacking others, I think that trying to change that narrative and have the conversation not excusing any of the wrong headedness but we're not going to get anywhere if we just keep attacking each other. There has to be a dialogue, there has to be a narrative. I don't presume to know how to open up all of those narratives. But if we're so quick to condemn people without being willing to take the next step and try to share some information that might change their perspective and viewpoint, then how are we ever going to do that?

Well, I think you're suggesting is that everyone is redeemable. There is no one without redemption. There's no one who cannot apologize, reform, whatever. And we've seen people who've gone from like Nazi backgrounds to being pro racial harmony kinds of things. We've seen people apologize for their past actions and things and take an active role in repairing the damage.

Yeah, and I again I don't presume to know how to bring all of that about but I think that just vehement vocal condemnation of people without coming out with that next step of here's what you may not understand, here's something that can help. It's not going to get us anywhere. I mean that's really it just it's not super useful. It's not going to change the results. So what will is always a question, right?

Yeah. Well, so we've got some links and some suggestions for you. I think we don't have ready easy answers for people this time. We have some things to think about. So Dr. Frances Fry and her new book Unleashed the Unapologetic Leader's Guide to Empowering Everyone around you. The Harvard Business Review article US Business must take Meaningful action against Racism. We'll have those links in Cloud Break justice as well with their blog post of actions people could take right now and then I suppose maybe that what we have talked about is looking in the mirror, looking at what you're doing, asking yourself where you're complicit in some way or what you could have done that isn't living up to what you really care about unconsciously or actively and then starting to consider others points of view and perspectives and worldviews.

Right. There's a video that I just would like to close with. There's a video and I'll send you a link. Chick Fil? A has a part of the training, a video that it's in YouTube that it's called Everyone has a story if you're willing to hear it. And I think they got it right on if we're willing to hear the story. Like the story that you told about the guy that has killed a lot of people were willing to hear the story.

Yes.

And then that made the connection. Lisa said the same thing when you had this angry employee. You had listened his story understand something that you could love about him and that create a connection. I think that's what creates human connection. And we see someone else's perspective and thoughts and that will allow us to understand them better.

So some reminders for the folks if the show helped you, please share it with somebody else. Like it? Subscribe to it. We put out something every week, usually with a thought leader, sometimes with a few other coaches, clients, case studies, that kind of thing. We've got stuff all the time of things dealing with the world of leadership in growth companies. If you want to send us some feedback, if you want to rant at us or offer some support or anything like that, send an email to infocalingcoach.com I want to give special thanks to Vern Harnish with the topic for the week and the resources here. He's the creator of the Scaling up framework and the original, original Rockefeller Habits. Our show is produced by Lucy Summers who gets us all together and and arranges everything behind the scenes. The audio is edited by Albert Burge at Podfly Productions and our show notes will be written by Ein Kodina and proofread by Tim McGowan. Lisa Ridley is in Phoenix. Compassgroup coach, right. And Daniel Marcos is growthinstitute.com and of course, course I'm scaling coach. Scalingcoach.com thanks again everyone for listening. Keep scaling up. Are you ready to turn your goals into daily wins? You should check out our scoreboard software powered by Align, it's the official software for scaling up. With scoreboard, you'll get an AI driven coach for priorities and KPIs and it'll help keep your team focused on what matters most. With Align, you can track your goals in real time and you'll even see results on the go with their mobile app. You can rest easy knowing that Align has world class onboarding and support to set your team up for success. This is really more than just software, it's what I actually use to manage growth in our scaling up client teams. Unlock clarity and results with scoreboard by Aligned. To try it now, go to aligntoday.com Bill G One more time. Aligntoday.com Bill G that's aligntoday.com Bill G Check it out and try it now.