CB Bowman LIVE! Challenges of the C-Suite: Guest Richard E. Boyatzis, Ph.D., Episode 24

Hello everybody, welcome to Thursday's edition of CB Bowman Live. And you know, on Thursdays we talk about workplace equality and equity, and today we have a fantastic guest. Richard will introduce himself and tell you all about himself. Oh my God, and he has An amazing book that he has written. I'm so excited to talk about it. Richard, tell us about yourself.

Thank you, CB. I'm a professor at Case Western Reserve University. I'm actually a distinguished university professor. I'm in departments of organizational behavior and psychology and cognitive science. I've been studying people and how people change as a psychologist Since 1967. That was when I, I was at MIT and I left the aerospace field. I got my degree in aeronautics and astronautics, and I was, I was actually designing, um, control systems and interplanetary vehicles, but I ran out of money, went out and worked in the field for a while, came back, finished the degree, but decided to change fields. And through the intervention of a few people like Dave Kolb and Ed Schein and a few others, Dave McClellan. They convinced me to go to graduate school, helped me get into a PhD program at Harvard, and been in the psychology field since. But it was the curiosity about why most managers don't help their subordinates that got me thinking about it, even when I was still an engineer. Since then, I've written, let's see, over 200 articles in academic settings, then I don't know, 50 or 75 in practitioner pieces, 9 books. There are over 1,300,000 people enrolled in one of my 2 MOOCs. Um, and I'm proud to say that, uh, of my 9 books, one, uh, 4 of them are written for normal people, not academic researchers. But, and the 2002 book with Dan Goldman and Annie McKee was an international bestseller. So that was cool. And, um, what was the name of that one?

Primal Leadership. Primal Leadership.

It's really about the story about how emotional intelligence fits into leadership based on decades of research. Then finally, after 3 decades of doing fMRI studies and hormonal studies, as well as longitudinal behavior studies, behavior change studies, Professors Melvin Smith and Ellen Van Oosten, who are close friends and colleagues, and I Published a book from HBR last year called Helping People Change, which is based on research on our evidence as to what's a more effective way to help people want to learn and change.

So first of all, I want to get— because I purposely didn't say it because I know I'm going to mess it up— the pronunciation of your last name.

My parents were immigrants from Greece, and when my father hit Ellis Island, his name was Kyriakos Eleftherios Voyadzis. So, and he couldn't speak English. This is 1938, and he spelled— he said it, and the person behind the desk on Ellis Island spelled it phonetically. So it actually is phonetic.

Let me try it. Boyatizi.

Well, it's— there's nothing between the T and the Z. So it's Boyatzis.

Boyatzis. Right. Let me write it. Try to write it. Boyatzis. Okay.

My middle name is Leftedius. If you want to call me Leftedius, that's okay.

No, I think I'll stick with Boyatzis. Dr. Boyatzis. Okay. So now the next question I want to ask you before we get into some more details, and by the way, Greece is my favorite country because that's where I was first proposed to. So—

Wow. Was that in your first marriage?

No, I didn't get married. I just said, thank you very much.

Oh, I see. Got it.

Ran for the hills.

Being picky, huh?

Yeah. And my second proposal was in Istanbul.

Wow. So you specialize in them in the kind of Mediterranean, huh?

Yeah. Yeah. And I finally picked one. January— July 4th, I got married and he's Italian and I proposed to him.

Okay. Well, so all that's left for future marriages are Spain and Portugal. Never mind Egypt, you know, Tunisia, right?

I let him know that every day.

Yeah, watch out, or—

Exactly. So, Dr. Boyazi, um, you said—

You can call me Richard, it's a lot easier.

Oh, but I love your last name. I'm, you know, I'm highly dyslexic, and so I'm trying to build my ability to pronounce different things. Um, so, which is why I speak very plain English, right? Um, what— can you just tell us what makes a person a distinguished professor?

Oh, and in most universities, it's not the same in every university, but Case Western Reserve being what's called an R1 top research university, the practice is that A distinguished university professor is an award given to, in our case, the top 1% of the faculty, of all the faculty at the university. And it distinguishes— and usually it's given because the person has done a lot of both research and distinguished themselves in research in multiple fields and in teaching in a lot of different areas and in service and leadership. Wow.

So can you tell us that— give us a list of the areas you teach in and give us a list of your service and leadership?

Sure. Most of my courses are about change, and the typical title of most of my courses is Leading Change. And what happens is— so one course I teach is for the Master's of Positive OD, average age about 40, 42. People fly in from different countries a few times during the year. I teach the course on— I follow Melvin Smith's course on emotional intelligence, and I really focus on dyadic relationships. I use coaching and coaching with compassion as a model to really represent all types of helping, whether as a parent or manager, physician, nurse, or coach, and get people to study the psychophysiology of it all and how to do it better. and then to analyze change at all different levels, from teams all the way up to country change. And I have my graduate students in small teams focus on countries or communities or organizations that have changed well and those that have failed at it. And I do a version of that course for the executive MBAs, which are about 40 years old. In that particular program, there are a lot of physicians from different hospitals around Again, they fly in, in that case, once every 5 weeks or so. And then in the executive doctorate, which are folks around 50, usually in their 50s, late 40s, early 50s, they fly in from different countries 3 times a semester. And I'm teaching a course on leading change, which starts with— because in that program they don't get Melvin Smith's course. So I actually have them start by building a personal vision, and then we go on to the coaching with compassion, and then analyzing change at all these different levels. Those are the 3 courses I teach now, and I've been teaching for about the past 14 years.

Okay.

And then, you know, I do some of the work to help out in our executive education, the programs that we do for companies or governments or nonprofits. That are custom and then open enrollments, and and then outside of school, I've also been on the faculty of Esade in Barcelona for twenty years. So I usually go there once a semester, give some talks. Mostly, it's really doing research with other faculty and doctoral students, and I give talks at a lot of other universities, but also University di Venezia. of course London Business School and University of Liverpool and all sorts of schools. But I also give a lot of talks to associations and now a lot of healthcare, large healthcare organizations, hospitals, and companies. And then in my writing, I still am active in collecting data and doing research on either the role of emotional intelligence, competencies or how to develop them or coaching and really trying to figure out— because I believe coaching works, but I also have plenty of data to show that most forms of helping don't work that well. So even among coaches, and I'm on one of the ICF boards, so I'm embedded in the coaching field, but I think there's a lot that we do in coaching that may or may not make people feel good. But then again, you know, Eysenck showed back in the '60s that if people were on the waiting list for psychotherapy, after a year they improved as much as the people who got psychotherapy. So I always look at any helping relationship, including coaching, with a certain degree of humility and say, look, until we're really clear from research, well-done research, that not only does it work, but under what conditions does it work? And what's the best way to go about it? So it was with that kind of open curiosity about it that we've discovered a bunch of things that a lot of people do in coaching that I think if they tweaked it a bit, they could be a lot more effective.

You know, I'm gonna put you on the spot right now, which I'm famous for. But I'm gonna reach out to you after this call in June. My association for coaches, which is very different from ICF, with all due respect to Magda and ICF, I love, you know, her. My association is the Association of Corporate Executive Coaches. And we have a different philosophy in coaching. And we believe that when you're at that master level, you're actually an enterprise-wide business partner with your client. And under that umbrella, we like for you to have in your portfolio experience and expertise in coaching, counseling, Right, everything. I know which is the most appropriate for your client and when to refer a client to the right person.

Because as your association explains and stands for this, I remember when I was running the 2 consulting companies for 11 years and we had about 100 PhDs in one and fewer PhDs but a lot of MBAs in the other, the market research company. And I ended up being a consultant to slash coach to a number of CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. And once you're at that level, it's very hard to separate out coaching from consulting from even counseling because the client wants all. I mean, those are artificial distinctions.

Yes.

And I don't— I can't remember if I've given any talks for The AOCE, but I have for the Association of Coaching, which I think is based in London.

Yes, it is.

And then the, um, CCCE that does the BCC coaching thing. So anyway, yeah, but I'm glad to hear that because I think one of the issues is, as humans, we're holistic. You know, it's like when people, when people say, well, I separate out my work life from my personal life. My answer is bull, right? First of all, you're being delusional. You can't. Secondly, if you think you separate it, you're putting a lot of psychic energy into compartmentalizing yourself, and you're wasting energy.

Absolutely.

Because emotionally, it all bleeds into one another.

So, Richard, I'm going to ask you to be a speaker at our conference. Oh, sure. Okay. And it takes place in May and June by Zoom this year.

So, well, that makes it easier for me because I, I mean, I got to say, one of the benefits of this COVID crisis is I don't have to get on planes once a week. Um, I mean, even though my job is in Cleveland, I only teach one day a month pre-COVID. So, and most of my students come from other countries, so I end up doing most of my work on Zoom anyway.

Yes.

Um, and so I now live in Boston. That's the picture from my condo. Behind me are the Charles River and MIT, which I pray to every morning. So, but, but I think for those of us, you know this because you're a speaker, over the past 20 years, air travel and travel has started to chew up more and more hours.

It's ridiculous.

And what used to be an overnight trip, you know, fly somewhere, give a speech, come back, Um, all of a sudden now is a 2.5-day event with a lot of stress. And so, yeah, my, my internist gave me a green light in July when for the first time in something like 50 years I had normal blood pressure with my meds. But still, I was, I was running high even with my meds, you know. So, but anyway, yeah, so yeah, let me know.

I will, I will. I've always been a proponent of coaching by Zoom or online or by phone. And, and, you know, coaches thought I was crazy. They said our clients won't go for it. I'm a COVID survivor. And I have to tell you, that is one of the best things that came out of COVID If there was a light at all, that is it.

And so now Yeah, I actually think there have been several. One is what I was saying is the reduction in stress for those of us who don't have to travel. The second is people talked with their family members a lot more.

Yes.

And I know a lot of folks who had conversations with their adolescent children that they never would have had before. The third is, you know, I did my first MOOC back in 2013. And being a many-decade adversary to online learning, I learned something very important when in the first time we ran this 8-week course, 110,000 people enrolled. And then as I did the course more and more, and it's now, like I said, over 1.3 million have been participating, I discovered that there is a lot of learning that adults want to do. Lifelong learners, but it tends— people want to tend to get it in smaller doses.

Yes, we do.

And they want it, and you want it more convenient.

Yes.

So I think that for a lot of— I've been advocating for faculty to use asynchronous and synchronous as well as face-to-face processes with graduate students, even with undergraduates. And now, because of the COVID faculty have been forced to explore at least the synchronous. So I think we're going to see an upgrading in the learning retention and the interest level of a lot of collegiate experiences as a result of this.

That's— that is great to know. And I'm looking forward to the MOOC. I love it. But there's one missing component to me, and that is Accountability. I signed up for a program and I go, okay, I'm going to do this, and then something else pops in the way. So I have to have something a little more accountable to attend those classes.

Well, and that's, that's why I think that if they're synchronous and the asynchronous ones like the MOOCs, I mean, my MOOCs all have 10.5-minute videos, you know, 24 in one, 15 in the other. And it's all designed so that people could do it on their phone or on their laptop, you know, riding a bus or the train to work. But when you do a synchronous course where you want people to be involved, what it means is you have to use this interactive technology more effectively so that people are involved.

Yes, absolutely. I see we've got— Julie says, preach me too. We've got a lot of people that are writing in, so you're triggering a lot of conversation. But I want to— the people that are writing in, keep writing in. I'll try to leave some time to come back. People are saying, glad to hear you say that, Richard, at various points. We've got Jordan who's listening in and said, I would add, it's a lot of gray area between coaching, counseling. We talked about this yesterday. And he would love to hear you speak at the ACEC conference. That's wonderful. I'm going to snag Richard, so don't worry.

Great.

We have to get to the theme of this program.

Right.

Workplace equality and equity. So here's my question to you. You've done a lot on change, but actually, you know what? I want to take a little detour, another detour. Richard, did you hear Amanda Gordon's presentation yesterday?

No, but I heard a lot about it, and I do want to listen to it. I'll have to catch a YouTube of it or something.

Well, I just— you're linked to me. I just posted it this morning.

Oh, great. Okay.

And I want to tell you, I write poetry. And when I heard— and I was so glad that last year on America's Got Talent, somebody won for the written word, which we now call poetry, right?

Yeah.

When I heard this young 20-year-old speak, I didn't know whether to cry, smile. All I could tell you is that my heartbeat went up 100%. She just— she represents our future, and boy, are we in for a good one.

I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to it.

Oh my God. You must, you must. Okay. Jordan says it brought tears to his eyes, and it's not typical for me. I think it did that for everybody. We're just so proud to be in a world which allows her to speak that way. Okay. So let's talk about workplace equality and equity. And I might ask you some tough questions, but I know you could deal with it.

I signed up for it.

Okay, great. All right, your book on change, how does that help? Or what models can you advise for organizations who want to start a D&I program?

Sure. Let me start by asking you a question. When you're involved in D, E, and I programs, Why are you doing it?

So, okay, you're gonna, you're gonna tear me up. When I was a young kid, I worked in the corporate world for Fortune 500 companies, 2 of which I had to sue for race discrimination and work there at the same time. And so Yeah, the scars, the experience that did not break me. And I always said to myself, you're going through this pain for the sake of the generation coming next.

Okay.

And so it's now time for me to say a little bit more than that. So I started a company called WE, which is Workplace Equality and Equity. Its focus is to support organizations and individuals, specifically coaches and organizations who want to change the workplace environment so that it is more equitable and there's a lot more equality. Our platform is that we don't do this training by making people feel guilty. We do experience-based training where it says whatever is on your mind is okay. Let's come together and discuss it because that's the only way change is going to happen.

Okay, so you answered my second question, which is when you— and certainly the experiences that you talk about are both disgusting but also a sign of your courage. and fortitude. And your quest, which I'm sure existed even before that, towards fairness and equity in that sense.

I'm actually a soldier's daughter, which you can see. Okay.

So in that case, you know, you've been a part of a system that has both wrestled with and at times led diversity inclusiveness efforts in all organizations. Still wrestling with it, but nonetheless. The second question would have been something you actually already answered, which is, well, how do you think you can go about it? And your platform already recognizes what we've proven neurologically and hormonally. Which is that when you want to help someone change or learn something, you don't start by telling them what they should do. In fact, Melvin Smith and I started talking about this comparison physiologically in 2003, and we ended up calling the approach that we have found really works to help people open up to new ideas and change. and sustain the effort, we call it coaching with compassion. But we use coaching with a small c so it can apply to any helping— a parent, a physician, a nurse, an executive, a therapist— coaching with compassion. And the reason we called it that, we're using more of a Confucian interpretation of compassion, of openness to others, is we think most of the time when people try to help someone, they use coaching for compliance. That I'm trying to get you to do what I want you to do. And even if it's well-intended, CB, how does a person feel? Like you've been exposed to a coaching bully. So what we have found is that the intricacies of how to engage this— in my intentional change theory, it's called a positive emotional attractor state. and you have the negative. You need both. One's thriving, one's surviving, both neurologically and hormonally and affectively. You need both, but you have to start efforts at change in the positive emotional attractor. Why? Because if you go into the negative, you set off the stress response, which closes us down. Literally, it calls— it moves our peripheral vision from 180 degrees down to 30 in the research, and it closes us cognitively. As well as shutting off our immune system. But what happens is, as soon as— and this is one of my arguments with a lot of the coaching certification groups— they say you have to maintain the person's, the client's presenting problem as the context for your coaching conversation. I think that's all absolute bull. I mean, that's like me feeling sick Going on the internet, diagnosing my malady, going to my internist, and oh, and then going on the internet and seeing what medicine I need, going to my internist and say, okay, here's what I have and this is the medicine I need, write the script.

Right.

And if, if, if my internist writes that script, he should be let— fired and let go from the profession.

And by the way, we do know, we do know a couple of rock stars, musicians who did that, and Sadly, they're not here anymore.

Yeah, that's right. Well, and the fact is that my point is the client's presenting problem is of course relevant to the conversation. But if you set it as the context for what you're talking about, you've put everything into a very narrow spectrum of problem solving. And we now have the data to show that when you focus on metrics, analytics, or problem solving, you activate a part of the brain called the analytic network. The label is that of Professor Tony Jack, who's a neuroimaging specialist at Case Western Reserve and a psychologist and a philosopher. But, but he, he's been able to show that this— he calls it the analytic network, which is a better name than the task-positive network. We need it. We need it to solve problems. But when you do that, it suppresses this other important network called the default mode network, technically, but Tony likes to call it the empathic network. I think it's a better name. And the empathic network, which is different parts of your brain, ends up being the network you have to activate to be open to new ideas or people, even people who are different than you are. So at the heart of it Anything we do that creates more focus actually suppresses the ability to be open, especially to other people and to new ideas. So when we think about change, it's really amped up to when we think about change around diversity or inclusiveness, because now if I have to be open to an idea of relating to another human being who doesn't look like me or doesn't sound like me or has a different background, I need the empathic network in the brain, not the analytic.

Hmm.

In coaching or in any helping, you need both. Like in managing, you want to use analytics and you want to use empathy and the empathic network. But the question is, what do you start with? And that's where your platform of your practice is exactly what we've found. If you start with a person's dream or sense of purpose, not goals, the big picture. If you start with a caring relationship, which we call a resonant relationship, you actually activate things. We are technically, you know, the empathic network, the parasympathetic nervous system, positive affect things and what I call the positive emotional attractor. And that enables, that activates all these parts of the brain and the body to open you up. I mean, there was even a study done on one of the dimensions of my thing of parasympathetic versus sympathetic, which is what I call renewal versus stress. And by the way, the parasympathetic or renewal aspects are the only antidote to stress. You can't You could try to lower stress, but that's not going to help you. What you have to do is introduce more of these moments that allow you to rebuild your body and mind and spirit. Well, one of the hormonal indicators of when you're in a stress episode is secretion of epinephrine. It's an endocrine. And one of the indicators in the parasympathetic, or the renewal, is secretion of oxytocin, primarily in women.

Wow.

a group of psychologists did a study in England in which they used nasal sprays of epinephrine or oxytocin, and they showed people photographs of acquaintances— not friends, not close friends, but acquaintances, you know, like Facebook friends kind of thing. And when people were under the stress or epinephrine, they looked at a picture and the first thing they said was, well, this person's Pakistani, this person's Caribbean African, this person, um, is Irish. When they had it under the oxytocin spray, which is the parasympathetic, the first thing they said was, this person has a great sense of humor, this person's a good dancer, this person is really good to have when you're meeting new people.

Yes.

And it was amazing how clear the difference is between looking at someone and making attributed characteristics versus looking at someone and appreciating who they are individually. So when you start to raise the question of diversity, and of course we all everywhere in the world, we have diversity issues, and without diversity we die because diversity, either for the major and important reason of social justice, of equality for all, and/or for the fact that we need diversity of ideas to continue to adapt individually or in families or organizations or countries. But the problem is diversity is almost always threatened by the people in power. And having spent a lot of time in my graduate school days and then afterwards studying a lot of cultures of the world, and, you know, like you, I travel around the world a lot giving speeches and all that, I mean, it becomes very clear that the issue of the biggest threat to diversity is not any one particular race. It ends up being whatever race or group is in dominant power. So yes, in America it's whites, but in Nigeria it's the Yoruba tribe because they hold the most dominant positions. Ask an Igbo, you know, how it is to get around there, or Hausa. In Kenya, it's the Kikuyu. In China, it's the Han, the Han ethnic group. So what we find is that there are very visible differences in terms of races, and then of course ethnicities, very clear around gender, and now even clearer when you look at the full spectrum of gender identification. And I think the one that is underacknowledged right now but is a major source of misunderstanding and not being fair is social class issues. Jennifer Borton, who's a philosopher at Princeton and a Hispanic immigrant herself, wrote a magnificent book And it was— it's called On the Way Up, Don't Lose Your Way, or something close to that. And it's the first time I've seen in the last 30, 50 years somebody talking about the social class issues in this country, in the U.S. People are very, very aware of them. in a lot of other countries because, you know, at any rate. So the point, I'm drifting too far. To go back to it, if you want to help somebody be open to learning or change, you have to start in the positive emotional attractor. And I would contend, I mean, I was in the movement in Boston and started working in '67, working with Roxbury Businessmen's Association and and involved in a lot of the efforts with a bunch of my classmates from Harvard and some of the faculty at MIT to try to do programs. And then my company, my former company, did a lot of programs with the SBA for minority business people in the early and mid-'70s throughout the U.S. And what becomes very, very clear is that if what we want to do is help people of differences come together and be able to work and live and enjoy each other, we have to, as you said, not start in the negative emotional attractor. And most diversity programs do that. They're based on venting somebody's anger, which is righteous. I mean, there are a lot of things that people should feel angry about from their own experiences. But if that's your strategy for trying to get somebody else to change, then be clear. You know, what you're doing is using vomiting and revenge.

Yes.

You're not using inducing change and learning. So that it's through the more positive and inducing the more positive parts, open parts of your hormonal system and your brain, your neural network, that you actually have an opening. Then there are times to introduce some of the negative. I'm not saying you can't do anything negative, but a part of it is exactly what you said your platform is. But I happen to think it works. It's the key for any learning and change, but it becomes very visible when you look at places where we're looking for equity and social justice because the tendency of folks championing those efforts, I think, is very often to— because they've been feeling the dregs and the oppression and repression of it, they've been feeling it for so long that when they finally get a chance to do something, they're blasting away. But that's really what we've been studying and finding, and that's what our recent book is about, is how do you use this approach of coaching with compassion you know, with, you know, and we have stories of physicians and executives and people dealing with their teenage children and, and all of these kinds of things, uh, because it's a lot more enlightening and effective.

It's interesting. I'm going to swing out and then swing back in. Um, I had a conversation yesterday with, uh, Theresa Russell, my friend Theresa, uh, who present— now, you know, she's with the, uh, NASDAQ. She's, uh, Director of the NASDAQ.

Oh yeah, my son, my son is a PR executive at NASDAQ.

Oh, really?

He's talked about really enjoying meetings with her. Right.

So, okay, through MG100, you've introduced your son to her because she's a member of MG100?

No, he works for NASDAQ.

Oh, yes. But does he— has— oh, in his work, he's met her.

Yeah.

Well, she's also a member of MG100.

Ah, got it.

So she presented last week to a group of PR and marketing people, which I was part of, about what's going on in our country. And Theresa is a Republican. I'm a staunch Democrat. My husband is a staunch Republican. And I was so impressed with this woman because she was able to bring She was able to unite in a way that I hadn't heard before. And she called me up and she said, CB, how do you think I did? And I said, I was so proud. I was so excited. I was so honored to be your friend because what you did is—

Pardon?

She used a new term. I said to her, you presented on a hyphen. She said, what? And I said, what you did is you presented data and facts without blame. And so it really allowed people, regardless of the platform that they support— Democratic, Republican, liberal— to listen to you and to take what they needed from the conversation. I said, that was just genius. And so it ties back to what you're saying now, is that she she touched the human emotional side without my feeling guilty being a Democrat. This was before the election of— not before the election, before the inauguration.

Right.

Right. And I said to my husband last night, I said, you know, the way you present your arguments for the Republican Party, You need to take a few pages from Theresa, because if you want me to listen, you're approaching it all wrong.

No, I think, I think that's very evident. And part of it is, you know, I am a scholar of leadership. I do research and write about leadership. And there is nothing more difficult to talk about, even among my 40- and 50-year-old students in my classes, Yes. Um, part of the reason is that, uh, our minds, our brains are open-looped in the sense that we're open to picking up the emotions of people around us. And unless you're on the, uh, autism spectrum disorder— or the spectrum, rather— you're going to pick this up. And, and Joseph LeDoux showed you're picking it up in 8 to 40 thousandths of a second. So it's deeply unconscious what people are feeling. Now, one of the things that's interesting is that if you have an emotional disposition to like someone, you give them what Ed Hollander, a former professor at Bernard Baruch and a mentor of mine decades, many decades ago, called in the late '50s idiosyncrasy credit. Now, I benefit from this because I'm a leadership scholar. And I'm politically a moderate, which has the odd distinction of nobody trusts me of all of my friends. Because— and honestly, I got into an argument with one of my closest friends a few years ago. And I finally— and he said, well, everybody says they're a moderate, but they're not. I said— and I went back and I went— the next lunch I had, I said, Mike, I've checked my voting record since I started voting. And let me just limit it to national elections. 40% of the time I voted for Republicans, 40% of the time I voted for Democrats, and 20% of the time I voted for independents. I said, I think that qualifies me for a moderate. Now, what that means is when I look at an election, I'm a little more sensitive to what happens when people do this idiosyncrasy credit. And I remember watching the George W. Bush-John Kerry election. And, you know, coming from Boston and having known about Lieutenant Kerry, you know, when I was teaching graduate students in the late '60s, early '70s, who were also in the Vets Against the War movement, I remember a bunch of stuff. So here I have this view. that you could never have found 2 candidates for president who were more alike. And despite what everybody liked in Europe to say, they had almost identical IQ scores from published tests that they took. One was fluent in Spanish, the other in French. They both went to Ivy League schools. They both grew up quite well-to-do. And honestly, from my viewpoint, although I don't know the inside stories, I think they both screwed up in their military service. So you have all of this stuff going on, and that happened to be one of the many acrimonious elections recently in the last 30 years, because I never ran into anybody who was voting for one. Almost everybody I ran into in Boston, in Atlanta, in Cleveland, in places in New York where I was hanging out or working, were voting against the other person.

Why?

Psychologically, I think it's this idiosyncrasy credit. So you see something in one person which you like, and you forgive them their other things. You look at the person you don't have this emotional disposition for, and you're disgusted by the very same thing you're forgiving over here. So part of the dilemma that we have is people have these strong emotional reactions, and at some point in the last few years, people started using a term from psychology called confirmation bias. It's a little bit of the same thing, um, but the dilemma is the only way we can go ahead is if we break those patterns.

Right. Yeah, absolutely. So I'm going to swing back in.

Sure.

So one of the things that keeps coming up and people are asking me and my colleagues, what's the difference between equity and equality? And, you know, I kept thinking about it and thinking about it, and I kept giving definitions of it, and suddenly I realized that it's personal-based.

In what sense?

In the sense that, can you say one is more important than the other in the D&I space, or one means more to an individual? And I think when people define the difference between the two, that definition is based upon your personal experience.

Right.

And I'll give you an example. The cartoon that came out with the 3 little boys trying to look over the fence to see a sports team, that was defined as inequity because one was short and couldn't see through, one could barely see through, and one saw through clearly. And so when they raised the benches so that they were uneven and all 3 could see over the bench, They said, well, people said to me, is that equity or is that equality? Right? And my response to it was, here's how I look at it. If I'm paid the same salary as somebody else, I'm going to feel equal. Right? For the same job. But if I take that salary and I go to buy a house in a neighborhood Where my colleague who is white bought a house, who's making the same amount of money as me, and I'm not allowed to buy a house in that neighborhood. That's not equity, right? I have the money. Yeah, I'm not allowed to. So is that equality or is that equity? Which is—

Yeah, I I think the— I agree with you, CB. I think the distinction between these words have more to do with the eye of the beholder and what you're interpreting it as. One of the reasons I like the current trend, which is to talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion, the 3 together.

Richard, your camera may go off because you went out of focus for some reason.

Oh.

I'm not sure if that's your bandwidth. I think you're coming back in a little bit. Okay.

Well, what I was saying is I was very excited when people in this area started referring to it as not diversity or gender studies or race studies, but diversity, equity, and inclusion, because each of these 3 things are very important. But which is important varies according to the people involved in the situation. So it's not just to have diversity. I mean, Diana Bellamoria, a senior colleague of mine in my department and our department chair, did her PhD thesis at Michigan before she joined our faculty at Case on women in boards of Fortune 1000 companies.

Oh, wow.

And she was the first to show No, well, listen, she was the first to show in 1989 that the number of women on a board is not a signal of equality of gender because you have to look at which committees they serve on.

Yes.

And she was showing that regardless of how many women were on the board, they tended not to be on the finance committee or the strategic committee. You know, they were on some of the other committees. So it raises the issue that yes, diversity in terms of having different points of view and diversity of race and gender, ethnicity and social class, all these things are really important. But when you ask the question a slightly different way or go at it a different way, why are you doing it? Well, you want people to feel included, you want people to feel invited, and you don't want people to feel that they're shut out. I mean, it's one of the reasons why, you know, the current, uh, kind of brouhaha going on with the cancel culture and the, um, excuse me, but from a perspective of looking at the media, the sheer hypocrisy of all forms of media to think that there's anybody who's balanced is crazy. I mean, at least in Europe, everybody knows which, uh, broadcast stations and which newspapers are biased along the you know, conservative to liberal, extreme conservative, extreme liberal program. We haven't gotten used to that in this country yet, but they all are.

You know, I have to break in because it reminds me of my days at the New School for Social Research.

Yeah, that's right.

Where one of my assignments was take the same subject from 3 different— same headlines from 3 different newspapers and write how each one is influencing the reader. And those were the days of Marcia McClellan, of course, you know. So I'm sorry I had to interrupt.

No, no, that's— but that's exactly the point. So, so part of the oomph behind inclusiveness is that's what you're trying to do. You're not just trying to say we want to have percentage proportional representation in composition. We want people to be involved and included And we want— and we don't want people to feel excluded, which means their voice is somehow silenced. At other times, we're really focusing on the issue of what's fair and what's equal opportunity. I think the equity issue for many of us, not all of all people, but for many of us, comes down to real equal opportunity. not phony equal opportunity, but real equal opportunity. That's a little bit different than equal benefit. Um, I'm, I'm not sure. I mean, I, I think to really work on equal opportunity means you have to bypass and overcome an awful lot of historical biases that you as an individual have, the people you're interacting with have, the city or community you're in has. So the issue of creating that kind of— I would call equity, which is equality. So my sense is, I agree with you about differences between equity and equality, but I think that diversity, equity, and inclusion are 3 different parts of the same thing.

Mm-hmm.

And that's why I'm excited that people are talking about it that way. because I think it also invites the addressing of it for more than just one violation, like looking at sexism or racism, but looking at all of these things that we do.

You're not saying diversity, equity, and equality are the same thing. You're saying it's part of the same globe that we put together.

Yes. Yeah, there are different parts of it, And I would say at any given moment, they may be differentially crucial, you know, in terms of which one you need to work on the most. But all of them are really important because they represent different parts of this whole larger whole, which, you know, given last week's celebrations of the Reverend Martin Luther King, you know, I mean, as a person who transcended a lot of differences, as somebody who remained committed to nonviolent change, that didn't shirk from standing up for or going to jail for change needed. He was one of the few people who were— has been— had been consistently standing for a position where everybody came together. I mean, it's one of the reasons why decades and decades later people still feel a response to the I Have a Dream speech because it was one for all together.

Mm-hmm.

By the way, I was reading The Sword and the Shield, a book about Malcolm X and Martin Luther King and looking at different parts of it. And one of the things that struck me Because back in the late '60s, I was in Boston and Malcolm X was very active still here, as was Elijah Muhammad. One of the things that was very interesting is that Martin Luther King didn't authorize or allow any protests at night.

Hmm.

And he stayed away from them. And I, I think it's a part of his, his great insight into the fact that, you know, when it gets dark, sometimes people's demons come out.

Yeah. Well, you know, that expression is nothing good happens after midnight. You know, be careful.

But anyway, but, but this idea of the real purpose that we're after. is to have every human be treated with the respect that a human deserves and be given a chance and to be heard.

So I want to ask you, we, we only have a few minutes left, unfortunately, but I am absolutely going to ask you to come back on.

Okay.

I want to listen to the recording, take notes, and And quiz you on some other things. Okay, so we've established that the first step in putting together a D&I program is to develop a program so that people can respect the true north of others and to share learning. What is the second step?

Well, I think the first step, I would phrase it a little differently. I would say the first step is to create a sense of purpose or vision for the big picture. And this is not goals because it turns out goals work the other way. So, and, you know, an example that we were just talking about, if somebody pushes metrics and goals, they're going to start to argue, well, yeah, we've achieved this because, you know, 13% of the population of America is African American, and we have 18% of the people in this group, you know, are African American. That's what happens when you start using metrics first. You reduce the possibilities. So I think the first step is to create some shared vision, which can also be shared sense of purpose. Now, that can create the context for the other activities. The dilemma we have is in some settings, the obstacles may be so severe that you have to do your step first to get to this other one, which is you have to teach people to listen.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, so a simple thing like listening ends up being complicated because are you listening to the person Or are you listening to your voice? I mean, we called one of our chapters in our recent book Focus on Others, because when you're trying to help someone, the question is, are you trying to help them or are you trying to express yourself? And when we're in a helping role— manager, parent, coach— we should be concerned about the other person. So I think that that's where these sounds simple but are very sophisticated listening skills might actually come first, then the shared vision.

Wait, would you say— hold that— would you say that part of the listening skills is understanding your own bias, or is it—

Oh yeah, definitely.

Absolutely.

No, because I mean, when I was going through training as a psychotherapist, because I did a lot of psychotherapy in the '70s with alcoholics and drug addicts, One of the first things you learn is to operationalize all the ego defense mechanisms. So we need projection to start a conversation with somebody. But at a critical point, projection closes you off to who the other person is. And what you're doing is seeing a reflection of yourself, not who they are.

Okay, so we've got teaching people to listen, shared vision. What's next?

Then we find from the research, the next immediate step is building relationships where you have a real feeling of caring for each other. So if somebody says to me, is caring for each other more important than respecting each other? I don't know. I'm not sure that's a fair exchange, but I'd go for caring.

Why?

Because I think caring is deeper. I know people who can say, well, I respect this person because of this issue, but I really don't like them. And that's not going to help.

In a workplace environment, is respecting enough? Do you really need to care?

Yes. Yes. No, that's, that's a part of my point, CB, is that we compartmentalize these things. And I know of a lot of people think, well, respect is the key. I don't need to be loved. I need to just be respected. Bull. If somebody is going to really work with you over time, then they need to know that they— you care about them and they care about you. It's, it's more, and it's even more than empathy. It's even more than understanding. It has to be an active thing.

So, Professor, you have to listen to my Tuesday program with Morag, who talks about this exact thing. But go ahead.

Oh, great.

Yeah, it was this past Tuesday.

Ah, okay, I'll look it up. Okay, so I think, I think once you have a shared sense of purpose or vision and you have, um, a reasonable basis, excuse me, for a caring, mutual caring relationship, a lot of things are possible. Because then you're able to bring the person periodically back into what I call this positive emotional attractor space. So you can be in a conversation and you could get to hot issues. You can get to issues that make you each angry, but you can somehow pull yourselves back. The problem that we often have if you don't have those things You're going down the, the whirlpool of negativity.

Yeah, it's much easier to discuss something that's negative if you're in a caring relationship. It's like saying to your spouse, okay, I think you need to go brush your teeth. Because, I mean, I am oversimplifying it, of course.

Right.

But, you know, it doesn't It's very different than saying that to a stranger. Oh, you have bad breath, right? Yeah.

Or, or to stay within the spouse or partner analogy, if you're in a heated argument, that's not the moment to say to your partner, calm down.

Yeah, especially the woman.

You know, what you need to do is agree, hug them, um, you know, whatever. But But that's— you're right. That's exactly the point, is that the question ends up being, I think the reason we're finding all this hormonal and neurological evidence and are seeing the behavioral changes that result is because this foundation is a different foundation. It's different than saying you have shared goals. It's deeper. You have a shared purpose. And it's different than saying you have a working relationship. It's different. You care about each other, which means you're human. You're not just human resources.

Okay, Richard, I have to stop you because we're at 12:01. But I just want to read a couple of points here. Jordan says doesn't work for men either. Meringue is listening in. She said thanks for the shout out, CB. I was listening and saying yes to everything Richard is saying. Caring is key. I know we had people who are listening in, you have to go to YouTube or connect with me and listen to Moreg's interview that took place this past Tuesday. It was exactly on point with what Richard is saying. Grace says, on this starting point being listening, that's why in Wells Fargo, one of our foundational D&I courses, It's just about having a conversation about difference. Safe self-disclosure first. But I'm not sure, Grace. I hate to say this, this goes all the way up to the CEO because of what happened a few months ago. It was great. He's talking about the Tuesday event. Jordan, wow, what a PowerPoint. Hold on one second. What a PowerPoint. The idea that whomever is in power represses diversity regardless of their ethnic racial background. I hope I have that correctly. Yes, I think you did. Julie, relationships matter most. Say it louder for the people in the back. I love Julie's sense of humor. Jordan, compassion, recognizing that someone is in pain or suffering. and having an impulse or intention to alleviate that suffering if possible and appropriate, as opposed to sympathy. And just lots of agreement with our earlier part of the conversation. And Dr. Hannah says, Richard, thank you for highlighting the importance of building the listening skills. I agree there is a difference between hearing And active listening. Listening allows us to become aware and take actions accordingly. Such great feedback. I love it. I love when you all write in. Richard, we are 3 minutes past the hour, and I just don't even want this conversation to end.

It's fun. It's been fun.

I thought you were going to be a starchy old professor. Instead, you're a young, fun, brilliant guy. Thank you.

I don't think it's because I had a glass of wine with lunch. I don't, I really don't. So if people like any of these ideas, the recent book with Melvin Smith and Ellen Van Oosten is Helping People Change, Harvard Business Review. And we have a MOOC through Coursera that people can take. And we also— The MOOC is called Conversations That Inspire.

Okay.

And again, the 3 of us did it. And then the 3 of us have an app coming out this spring called Helping People Change. That's a number of quick things people can do every day, uh, 28 days worth of them based on the book.

So you come back on when the app is released?

Oh, I'd love to. Yeah. Or have Melvin or Ellen. They're all, uh, they put me to shame with their power.

How about having all of you?

Oh, that, that would be good if you could schedule that. That's a little hard.

And when is it coming out so we can look at the time frame?

The app? They claimed it would be somewhere in the spring. They don't have an exact date. The MOOC's out. We, uh, launched the MOOC, uh, 4 years ago or something. And the book just came out a year ago.

So, okay. Well, we have to run. I know people will say, CB, you're running way over time. Listen, everybody, what is MOOC? I'll talk to you about that. That's an online university that's free that people could go to. Listen, everyone, I am so glad you tuned in today for an amazing conversation. with Dr. Boyazi, and, um, we want to have him back. Thank you for coming to CB Bowman Live on Thursday, Workplace Equity and Equality, and we'll see you next week. And listen, tune in to Tuesdays where we do CB Bowman Live Challenges of the C-Suite. Richard, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Thank you.

It's spelled MOOC, M-O-O-C. Thanks, Grace. Um, and stay safe, you all. Bye now. Bye-bye.