CB Bowman LIVE: Challenges of the C-Suite: Cynthia Burnham Episode 7

Hi, Cynthia.

Hi, CB. How are you?

I am awesome. It's so good to see you. I haven't seen you since the conference last.

Ah.

Mm-hmm. How are you?

A million, a million, hundred million years ago.

Pre-COVID. It seems like that.

Yeah. Everything seems that way now. Yeah. Yeah.

Cynthia, I'm really glad that you're joining us on the Challenges of the C-Suite, which is brought to you by ACEC, the Association of Corporate Executive Coaches. And we want to— I hate this expression, but I'm going to use it— pick your brain on what you feel are the biggest challenges that people in the executive suite are faced with today. And give us some insights on how you coach them to move through these challenges. But first, I would love for you to tell the audience more about you.

Well, I am a corporate dropout. I dropped out of being the Senior Vice President of Employee Relations and Learning for UBS Financial Services about 15 years ago to move back to San Diego to be with my mother. who I said I need to move home because she's 85 and in 2 weeks, she'll be 100.

Wow!

So, I've had the gift of being with her all that time. And my background really, I think I spent all my corporate years doing field research to try to help people be more successful when I came back out to be a consultant in this particular arena. And I worked for UBS Financial Services, although I did start my career in consumer packaged goods sales with Gillette and and Duracell. I was the national sales training manager as well as running sales districts. So I have this— I like to tell people I have a 2-humped camel background. I was in the corporate world, in corporate, in, in consumer packaged goods sales. Then I dropped out to become a freelance trainer. Then I got enticed back in by Salomon Brothers, uh, and then eventually PaineWebber, uh, and then I dropped out again. So I've gone in and out of the corporate world over the past And with luck, it's given me a perspective and an ability to help people see how to succeed in that corporate world as sort of an outsider perspective. Is that— what else can I tell you? What else would you like to know?

That's perfect. But I also— this little birdie told me that you are also into music.

Yes. Yes, I am a— I call it a semi-professional singer because I sing with my husband, who is a full-time musician, or who was a full-time musician previous to COVID, and he gets paid, but I don't necessarily. And I also sing with the San Diego Master Chorale, and the Master Chorale gets paid, but the singers don't necessarily get paid. So I guess that qualifies me as semi-professional, but I've been doing that for a long time, and it's really been an important part of my life.

Yeah, I'd call that professional. I think you need to talk to the powers that be for the, you know, the dollar aspect.

Oh well, it's all fine. You know, I figure once I start getting paid for it, it won't be as much fun.

You know, you have a good point there. You have an excellent point. For some reason, the psychic doesn't gel with that. And I remember when I started executive coaching, which is a field that I had no plans on being in, Mm-hmm. Coming out of the corporate world. And I was seeing a career counselor who was also a therapist, who was also a friend. And anyway, he said to me, CB, I was trying to figure out what I was going to do next after corporate. And he said, I think you would make a great executive coach. And I said, nah, I don't like people that much. I mean, can you believe? And he said, I—he stuttered—and he said, "But people like you," and I said, "And I said, yeah, I don't understand that. Why?" So he said, "Well, why don't we do some testing and figure this out?" And he did, and it turned out on Myers-Briggs I was an INTJ.

Oh, dear.

Extremely high on each of the nomenclatures. And he said, so it's not that you don't like people, you're a high introvert. And I said, well, doesn't that equal not liking people? He said, you're gonna be stubborn about this. And I said, yeah, isn't that the J part?

So there you go. By the way, I said, I said, I said, oh dear, because I'm an ISTP. So you can see that.

Oh my goodness, that is funny. So it turned out he was right and I was wrong. And I love what I'm doing. It turned out it's just that I process things internally. And saying good morning to people while walking down the halls of corporate America just didn't equate to me. I'm figuring out the problems for today. So what I would love to talk to you about with all of your experience in working in corporate America and as a coach, as a master-level coach, what do you see— and we could take each one at a time— what do you see as the top 3 challenges that executives are faced with today?

So if I can, if I can even narrow that down a little bit, because what I'm, what the work that I do is largely around, I do coaching around personal and executive presence, around advanced presentation techniques, and also around how do you build and maintain productive, targeted, thoughtful relationships within the corporate world. So my expert, so the challenges that I'm looking at are probably going to be in those arenas rather than things that relate to how do you get new business in the door, because that's not, that's not where I play. Is that all right?

As we are talking to many people like yourself, we're talking to psychologists, we're talking to communicators, and, you know, my goal is to talk about your area of expertise because, you know, being at the top of the organization is a complex role, so we can't just eat it in one bite, right? We have to break it down into various areas. So what you're doing is perfect for the areas that you're talking about. Talk to us from that perspective.

Sure. The, the main—

Define each of those. I'm sorry.

That's fine. Yeah. All right. I think of executive presence as having the inner confidence and the external behaviors that cause other people to believe in you And be open to listening to your leadership and your data. So that when I think of executive presence, it's like, how do you show up in your style, in your body, the words that you use, the way that you present yourself, so people are inclined to believe you and see you as powerful, charismatic, and a person worth following?

Mm-hmm.

The subsidiary of that is presentation techniques, which Does the def— I look at, there's the how do you present yourself, which is the executive presence, and then how do you present your data, which is how do you organize and create meaning through the props that you use or the words or any of that.

Mm-hmm.

When I talk about developing productive relationships, a lot of that has to do with how do you determine Who you need to enlist as an ally? How do you determine who you need to influence, and how do you create relationships with those people that are open, productive, diplomatic, and respectful? So that's really what I'm this, and that's really what I'm talking about, and and that's what I care about. Is I will tell you I I. I have reached what I think of as the legacy years, and I am at the point where I say my job in the universe is to get information from one place to another so that my clients can live happier lives. Because when I'm on my deathbed, I want to be able to say somebody has been happier because I showed them something, I had some information that was helpful for them.

Mm-hmm.

So I'm seeing Did you have a question, any question about that? Otherwise, I'll just steam right ahead.

I have lots of questions, and I'm going to relate some of them back to the challenges of today in a sort of a roundabout, direct way. So the 2 areas that are just flaming with fire right now are COVID-19 and Yes. So I imagine that your phone is ringing off the hook with regard to how somebody in the C-suite leads their firm through Black Lives Matter, COVID-19, in terms of being believable, especially if they haven't paid attention to these areas before. How— what are the words? What's the body language? If they're presenting to their staff, how do they present so that they're believable? How do they present so that they are credible? And then in terms of developing relationships, who do they align with now? I mean, do they align with a big body like the news or individuals or both? So let's take each one. Presence.

Okay. Okay. So the good news about presence is that all the things that work in person are also relevant to the virtual world. One of the places my phone has been ringing off the hook has been around how do I show up on screen and look credible? And there are— I have a zillion comments on that particular thing and the challenges. And they also do tie back into both the pandemic and Black Lives Matter. So, let's see if I can— So let's talk about it.

And we may have to divide this up into several sections, okay?

Okay. So there are 3 things about— so as far as executive presence is concerned, things like teaching yourself to pause before you speak, Teaching yourself to confirm before you answer, teaching yourself to be upright in your body posture— those are all the same things. Because if I'm, you know, if I'm like, okay, tell me all about it, CB, there's all kinds of weird things that happen with the camera that make the body language worse. So you have to be conscious of the same kinds of things that you would be conscious of in person. But there are another— there are a couple of other things that come into play. One is that we are used to people on screen looking professional from watching TV for years and years.

Mm-hmm.

We are— the screen changes the perception of how people see us in a couple of interesting ways, some of which are good for things like Black Lives Matter. And also, there is this weird dichotomy that exists between— we are both more distant because we're in 2 dimensions, so we're on screen, so we feel more distant, but we are also more intimate because whenever we're talking to somebody on screen, we're like, we're only looking at one person at a time. We can't look at a group the same way that you can if the people are in the room. So there's all kinds of— There are requirements that go along with all of those things. So if I— and I can, I can give you tips from what do you, what do you think about in your body language and your setup and all of that? Also, what do you think about in terms of how you present yourself in that intimate world? And then also, I think about what do you think about the other distractions that people have that are pulling them away?

Yeah, let's go through it. And I will practice as you're talking. Because, you know, I tuned into webinar that was presented by a Fortune 500 company, and their administrative assistant— the administrative assistant to the CEO was introducing the CEO. And because of COVID-19, the person was speaking from their apartment.

Mm-hmm.

Not so bad. However, they were speaking from their bedroom. And the bed was unmade, and they were introducing the CEO, and I thought, oops, okay.

Yeah, uh, I think what's happened— I think, first of all, my mother is a professional artist and has been and is still working and does beautiful artwork. And she was a person who would come—

She is 100 years old, did you say before we started?

Yeah, she'll be 100 on next— a week from Sunday.

Wow.

Knock, knock wood, God willing, creek don't rise, all that stuff. She would look at me when I came in a room and she would say, honey, do you know your blacks don't match? I mean, who notices that, right? So I was raised to be a highly visual person that I noticed details, and I also was trained in anthropology, so I noticed how details affect behavior sometimes. And tribalism and all that kind of stuff. We could have another talk on that.

Oh, I'm interested.

Yay. So people— but people who are not necessarily wired to be heavily visual don't think about the fact that people are expecting a different kind of background. And they, they do that kind of weird stuff. This morning, I was on a call with a coaching client who I was talking to about just these issues of what do you want to— how do you want to show up visually? And she said, wait a minute, let me show you a picture of a Zoom call my boss was on. Her boss is the CEO. He was— he had a laptop which was basically taking the picture up his nose instead of straight on. And he was wearing— he was sitting in a living room, sitting there wearing a white V-necked t-shirt. Did he think it was Simon Cowell? I don't know. But, and everybody else was in like collared shirts and jackets, and, and here he shows up like this. And I thought, she said, I thought that was a little odd. And I thought, well, it wouldn't have been my choice, and that wouldn't have been my coaching to him under those circumstances because he was talking to clients. Maybe if he was only talking to his internal people, he could be more casual. Anyway, so a lot of people don't think about that. So my first suggestion to people is to think about your background like it's a TV set, not like it's your room, and look at it and say, what do I want people to see? And we don't all have access to the rooms where we can do that, but there are lots of ways you can fake it. I can show you my situation. I'm going to turn my camera around. So I have this very plain background. It looks like I'm against a wall with a painting to the side, right?

Yes.

Well, I am. There's my painting. That's not my mother's, but it's a painting. But I will also show you— Oh my God! This is a folding screen that I covered with— tightly covered with a sheet with no wrinkles. So that— and there's my plants, and there's my husband's drum set.

Wow.

And I did that for 2 reasons. First of all, because I couldn't get the lighting right because there's a window behind me and I didn't— and I don't have a place that's, that's another room where there's anything better. And I got a folding— this folding screen. The other reason is other people in my house have to use the printer, and which is in my office. Now they can come in, I can be on a Zoom call, they can walk around in back of the screen and go to the printer without having to have me be interrupted on the call that I'm, that I'm working on. And so I tell people, if you can afford it, buy yourself an inexpensive folding screen to block you off. Or if you have bookcases, are always good. Bookcases make you look credible. I am not a big believer in the virtual backgrounds for most of the time for most people, because you have to have really good camera and you have to have other things, unless it's your own teammates. If you're with your teammates or you're with friends or you're with a peer group, go ahead and have fun with the virtual backgrounds. But if you want to look professional and you want to look like the senior executive, then you need to find some way to make a background that is in keeping with the role that you want other people to believe that you deserve, if that makes sense.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, that brings to mind Funny, but not so funny story. I was on a group Zoom call. And one of the people that was speaking was high level, speaking from his home. And he had a nice setup, like you and I. And then he got up to move something. And He had on boxer shorts.

Well, and we know, we know that's happening everywhere, but we do have to be a little more conscious of that when we, uh, when we, uh, maybe a little more thoughtful. But, you know, a year from now, this will all be second nature to everybody.

Yeah, you know, but we were talking about it, the people that were on the call, and I said Oh, you know what, those are probably swim trunks. And one of the guys said, CB, no, they were boxer shorts. I thought, okay.

You know, sometimes people give you more information than you really need, but there it is.

With little designs on it.

Oh, well, you know, that is in keeping with one of the suggestions that I have in the other part of this, which I'll come to, which is about making an effort to be more real. And I'll come back to that. I do want to mention a couple of other things about being on camera.

Yeah.

And that is, if you should have just a small amount of space above the top of your head, you know, not like a huge gap between you and there. And you should have your shoulders and maybe like the top, you're Like you're sitting, CB, you— I've seen you and I've seen you on camera many times and you do a great job.

Thank you.

Because the, the problem and the other piece you have to be conscious of is if you were in a television studio, the camera would be 6 or 8 or 10 feet away, and therefore the perspective that it was capturing would be from that distance. But when you're on camera, when you're on camera on the computer, you're maybe what, 18 inches, 16, 18 inches away? So the perspective gets squashed. So all the perspective gets in, so you get this what I call the big hands effect. Now my hands are less than a foot in front of my face, but because of the squashing perspective, all of a sudden they're gigantic. So I suggest— and also if you move closer to the camera, all of a sudden you're huge. Or if you move back from the camera, you get really tiny really fast because of that squashed perspective. So you have to, you have to keep a mental eye about where am I in the screen, what am I doing to create that sense of that I'm not, you know, going from really tiny to really big. And I also suggest that if you're going to gesture— that lots of people like to gesture, it's okay to gesture, it shows your body is moving, but keep your hands below the level of the screen unless you're trying to make a deliberate point, and then keep them close to your body so you don't get that woo effect, right? So, and this is because I don't want my senior leaders to have people looking at them and being distracted by weird stuff. And that's why that's one of the big challenges, is because we're not used to doing this. We're not used to thinking about these things. And people are used to waving their arms around and doing all kinds of things. And I said, no, you gotta learn to be still. Because, yeah.

You bring up a couple of points. One is that you mentioned before, and I'm not gonna get it right, but stop before you speak. What does that mean? Because I've heard people that start talking like this. Well, I think— well, let me think about this. And I'm like, come on, spit it out, spit it out. So what do you mean?

What if, what if they instead said, hmm, let me make sure I get this exactly right. Okay, here's what I think, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. What if they did that?

Yes.

That took about the same amount of time. They didn't stop— that person didn't stop before they spoke. They just stopped intermittently. It takes roughly 3 seconds for information to get from the neurological emotional part of the brain to the intellectual part of the brain. There's a lag time because we're hardwired to jump first and name it later. I say, imagine if you're in New York City, you're about to cross over the street, 79th and Broadway, pick up— I know you know where that is. And all of a sudden, whoosh, around the corner, something happens. Well, your body jumps back and then you go, oh, it's a frigging Uber car. Right?

Yes.

So the distance between your jumping back and your naming it is the difference between the reactive brain and the logical brain. So if you get in the habit, and most of the time when you get a question or somebody asks you something, your tendency is to, you wanna give an answer right away. But the reality is, if you, what I tell people to do is embrace the pause. Nod, breathe, and then put— sometimes if you need more extra time, put in a time-buying statement like, let me see if I can put that exactly right, or, oh my gosh, that's such an interesting question, or, huh, I'm so glad you brought that up, you know, let me, let me see. That then, after that, you get time to go. And you get 3 more seconds. By the time you've done that, you come up with a much more competent-sounding, much more logically organized answer than if you went, well, let me see. I think I know, I think I want to know what I want to talk to you about that. And I just used less time than I did before. And you're going, what, what, what, what, what?

Exactly.

No, you're going, come on, say yes, get to the point. So, but if you, if you practice, and I make my leaders practice this, and it works on camera, especially on camera because camera is disorienting to us for ourselves to go, wow, that's such an interesting topic. Let me see if I can explain it. So what you wanted to know was blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, because you can also restate the And then you, then you, your brain, you give your brain time to process a coherent answer. So that's when I was talking about people don't give themselves room before they start to talk. My mantra is always embrace the pause.

Yeah, I have found that. Sorry, Cynthia. No, no. Because I'm an introvert. I've got to process. And so what I started doing is saying to people, let me process that. And for some, I thought that it wouldn't work. But people respect it. Yes. And that's why—

Great. Give you the time. I'm stealing that.

From one introvert to another.

The By the way, I stole this from someone. Do you know what R&D stands for?

Research and development.

Rob and duplicate. Rob and duplicate. So I will be stealing that. You can steal mine, by the way, is I tell people I don't have Q&A sessions. I only have Q&O sessions because I don't necessarily—

Q&O.

Yeah, I don't necessarily have answers, but I do have opinions on pretty much everything.

That fits introverts so well. Yeah, I love it.

I can't give you any answers. You're on your own for that. But if you want my opinion, I'll give it to you.

I'm writing that down. Q and O.

Q and O. Yep. Yep.

Q and O. All right.

I'm stealing your processing.

So, so one of the things I've heard in this new Zoom world— I'm not even going to call it a digital world, it's a Zoom world. Yeah, Zoom land. Speakers who used to go out and make money for speaking are struggling with this, and I don't understand it. And we're talking about high-level people, and we're also talking about the C-suite who can go out and, and do speeches for half a million dollars or $50,000 or whatever. They're suffering, and they feel that they can't reach out and touch their audience by going through Zoom. And I argue that it's actually the opposite, because you have an opportunity now to be a voyeur into your audience. If you're looking at their background, if you're really paying attention, it allows you to have more focus, more attention on your audience, and it allows them to give Immediate recognizable feedback. What's your take on this?

It's a very interesting topic, and I have lots of opinions. Okay. The first, the first is some, in my opinion, there are two major types of speakers. There are what I think, and and they require two different kinds of presence. They overlap, you know, they're overlapping, but there's 2 categories I think of. One are the— what I think of as the big room speakers, the motivational speakers, and they're the charge around the stage, lots of big movements, lots of intensity, all of that kind of thing. Those people, though, that is much harder to translate onto the small screen.

Ah.

Leadership presence is, I think of it as like being a mountain. That I am the leader. You can trust me not to be moved by the arbitrary things. And it requires more stillness. Because I don't want a leader who's crazy, except that there are certain circumstances under which that can work. I had the privilege of working with Sam Walton, not as a, not I was selling to him, not as an executive coach. And he could be extremely dramatic on stage. But most— and the people who have made their living doing that, again, that is harder to translate.

Hmm.

Because those movements are about it. You're all part of this big room. Whereas if I am a leader, I can take advantage of just what you're talking about, that increased intimacy. That you have. When I— when you see me, my face is right there. It's not like you're way up on a stage. So there's an opportunity for you to be more real to your people than you've ever been before. So I— and I think that can also translate into the world of virtual conferences where, depending on what you want, and some of the speakers are now developing big rooms and places they can walk around and do all of that. I don't— I haven't seen it work yet. I haven't seen it not work yet. But what I've seen work with leaders is when they really are willing to get real and recognize that to the person they're talking to, it feels like they're right in front of them.

Yes.

And right, and you have to both respect that and honor it. And also you can take advantage of is not quite the right word, but you can use that to help develop the relationship that, that you wished you had face-to-face in a completely different way. I will tell you that since this whole Zoom thing started, I have had much deeper conversations with my coaching clients than ever before.

I agree.

And, and part of it was kind of the one of the second challenges that I would be talking about is that everybody is reevaluating. Everybody that I talk to is reevaluating and saying, what do I— what's my life going to be? What do I want to do? Is this, you know, is this the right life? I've had some Black clients and we've had some very, very heavy conversations about some of the things that are going on. Not that I can necessarily give advice, but at least I can listen. And although I will give opinions, always will continue to give opinions. And so I do think there's a tremendous opportunity for people to develop more real relationships in this Zoom world. The, the big room speaker thing, I have to tell you frankly, I don't know what the outcome of that's going to be like.

You know, I agree with you because I feel that With Zoom now, and I don't want to call Zoom, but this digital communication, you really have a chance to observe body language in the face so much. And, and the person you're speaking to is not distracted with 20 million things. Well, they could be if they're calling in from home, but that's part of understanding their communication, right?

Right.

Absolutely. You know, I feel like it really gives you a chance to listen, and people now get a chance to see that you, the coach, are listening versus you're looking all around and, you know, you're thinking about other clients. Because you have to stay present, you have to stay in the moment when you're working in this kind of direct in-your-face kind of environment.

It, you know, I have a little tip that I sometimes give to people. This is an aside tip, and I— it works in person or it works— it also works on camera. It's so easy to get distracted. It's so easy to get distracted by looking at your own stupid picture and saying, oh my God, should I really be wearing those earrings? Um, yes, you know, or whatever. And, uh, I, I do 2 things. First of all, I have gotten— gone on Zoom with my— I'm on a desktop, I'm not on a laptop. I've gone on Zoom and I've recorded myself looking in different places on the screen to find out where do I look so I look like I'm looking in somebody's eyes.

Mm-hmm.

And in my case, it's about 3 inches below the camera. So if I look at the camera I'm looking too high. But if I look right about here, I should be looking more or less like I'm looking you in the eye, right?

Mm-hmm.

If I look at your picture, then I'm going to look at— you're going to be looking down over here. So you have to choose when you look at somebody's picture. So I have a little star on my screen that tells me where to look, to remind me. So that's one tip. The second tip is if I feel myself becoming distracted, I don't worry about the eye contact, and I definitely look at the person, and I look them right between the eyes, and I think to myself, I'm sending you blessings. Oh, and it could be— if you're a religious person, you can think of it being that way, but I think even a non-religious person wants somebody else to have blessings, right? And that, that brings me back into the attention that I should have for that particular person. In the conversations that we're having. And so I do also recommend it to the leaders is when you're going to get distracted, if you want to bring yourself back, find yourself a little mantra like that that brings you to thinking about my job is to show up for my people. And therefore I must focus on them and doing something like sending blessings works for me and has worked for some of my other clients.

Cynthia, I want to get a little bit more into the grit of this.

Okay.

In relationship to what's going on. How do you advise— okay, based upon the 3 elements that you specialize in, how do you advise CEOs to tackle some really difficult questions right now? Black Lives Matter. Let's take that one first. When confronted with things like— I'm working with a CEO and he was on stage and He was challenged. He was challenged as being part of the white privilege. And he was asked, do you have any samples? Are you really aware of what white privilege means?

Hmm.

And he stumbled. What do you do when you get hit, when you think you've been blindsided by a question?

Well, by the way, first of all, embrace the pause, breathe, nod, get a time-buying statement. You're going to see politicians do this now from all— they— that's what they ever— that's what they do. They do it to get their thoughts together before they open their mouth and stick their foot in it. Although some of them stick their feet in there.

I knew you were gonna go there. I knew it. I'm gonna leave you silent.

Well, you know, you could— that could work. That could work no matter what your perspective is, so I'm not taking a side on that. Uh, so the, the first thing that I tell them to do is absolutely, you have— there's a— I have a slide in one of my presentations that says, uh, cowboy wisdom: be sure to remember to load your brain before you shoot off your mouth.

I love it.

Yeah, so I'm real hardcore with my— the people that I'm coaching on these kinds of things. I make them do that every single question when they practice with me. So on the spot, that's what you do. Ahead of time, why did that person not know that they were going to be asked questions like that in that kind of a forum? You mean, that's a good question. If you're going to go in and talk about Black Lives Matter and you have not done some research and you have not done some thinking for yourself and have had some, frankly, have had some coaching, possibly from Black Americans or people of color, possibly from someone else, that would be the first mistake. Because how could a CEO right now never have heard of white privilege at this point? At this point, no.

You bring up a good situation. I was in a meeting with advertising and marketing people, and most of them were men. And not that this matters, but they were saying, my God, CB, I'm so sorry for what you're going through. I don't understand why I didn't see this. And so we broke up into breakout groups on Zoom. It was the same thing. I feel awful that I didn't see this happening. What— I don't know what to do. I said, stop. First of all, let's not assume that I'm experiencing what you think I'm experiencing. That's number one. Number two, you're implying that you want to do something. Have you figured out what you want to do? No, because I just can't get past the fact that I didn't see this. And I said, okay, stop. I was a little bit more liberal than you're being. Because I'm going into motivation before scolding, right?

Oh, no, I would never do that to the person to their face.

Right, right. I mean, I'm using scolding lightly. But what I said to them was, think about this analogy. If you scratch your eyeglasses and you put them on, eventually you don't see the scratch. Your eye becomes adjusted to it.

Mm-hmm.

If you drop and shatter your eyeglasses and you try to put them on, you won't be able to see through them. They're shattered. There's no safety area. What we're experiencing here in America right now is a shattering of the glass.

Yeah. So that's a great metaphor. Yep.

So let's not blame yourself for not seeing it. Let's instead focus on what can I personally do about this, and then go ahead and do it without guilt.

Yeah, and looking forward instead of backwards, and analyze it for yourself. And, and, you know, I've had heart-to-hearts with myself on this topic as well. I have. And I will tell you, I had a very interesting conversation with, uh, a Black female client of mine, and she kept saying to me, I just don't understand how they say they didn't know. And I said, I said, or maybe we knew, but it was far away. It was the same as like when COVID started happening, and it was like a science fiction movie happening on another planet. We didn't really think about there were people dying, the Chinese people dying, when it first came out because it was like a movie far away. And to a certain extent, when, when groups are segregated and where classes are created, which we have in the United States, we have a terrific, deeply ingrained class structure, which— of which race is a part, a big part, and that we imagine that it doesn't have anything to do with us.

Yes.

Right? And I said, you know, I went to a high school which was very diverse in that we had 30% of the population were Mexicans and Latinos, And there were a lot of foreign students from the, from the Middle East and also from Asia, but there were no Black kids. There were none when I went to high school. There were 2 when I was a junior in high school, and there were 4 when I was a senior in high school out of 450 students. Oh no, excuse me, my class was 450, so out of, call it, 1,300 or 1,400 students. There were. And I, I think, and I even then I thought it must be really weird for them. So what did I know of the experience that they were having? And the, the woman that I was talking to said, you know, it's funny you should say that. I never had any white kids in my school. And I didn't actually work and interact with other white girls of my same age until I was 17 and went to work for McDonald's as a summer job.

Mm-hmm.

So I'm— I am forgiving of people not knowing what is there. I'm not so forgiving of people now not paying attention to it because it was there all along. And it— not to relate, say that my experience is by any means the same, But I started out in the business world a long time ago, and I experienced— if you want to talk me too, I can, I can give you lots and lots and lots of examples. And people had come to me and said, I don't understand why people have gotten— they're so sensitive now. And I'm hearing that with the Black Lives Matter. Everybody's gotten so sensitive about everything. And my answer is always, you know what, they were always that sensitive. They were always offended. They were always hurt. They just didn't feel they had the right or the opportunity to say that. And I have had that conversation with a CEO who was, you know, going on and on about why— Let me stop you a second.

It's not necessarily feeling that you had the right. It was concern about retribution.

Oh yeah. Oh yes, absolutely. Absolutely, totally, totally agree. Yeah. And legitimate fear of retribution. And, and way more retribution than I would have ever encountered. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah.

Well, it's, it's what I can appreciate about what's happening. And again, I'm looking at small movement equaling the big movement. is that we don't have to say Black Americans anymore. We don't have to say Caucasians anymore. Those labels didn't get to the grit. It's Black and it's white. That gets to the grit of not having these grandiose labels. That was another barrier.

Hmm.

So I've had some really in-depth conversations, some raw conversations with people who are in the middle of a conversation who have been very supportive to me in my career, and they'll say, well, you know, African Americans, I know— and I go, stop. It's Black. And they'll go, can I say that? Yes, you can say that. And so I think it's just peeling away You know, we've got to constantly peel away. I heard a comedian on a late-night talk show, and I won't name the show, who was being interviewed about the Black Lives Matter. And the interviewer, white, said, you know, how are you feeling about this? And the response from the Black woman was, frankly, I'm tired. And I— I'm tired of the ask. I'm tired of the questions, and I don't feel it's my job to educate white people.

Yep.

And I thought about it for a long time, and I— my response was, if not you, who? If not now, when? Because, you know, where would you expect somebody who's white to go to? to ask the question, to learn.

Yeah.

You know, I was fortunate, or maybe not so fortunate, it's the yin and the yang of always— I was brought up in white communities. Alert from Canada. And the question becomes, right, um, the question becomes, you know, which is the better? And the, the answer to it is Neither is the better. Yeah. You know, you have to allow yourself to experience both in order to understand both. But, you know, this is sort of getting us a little bit off track. And—

Oh, I'll go down any rabbit hole you want to go down, CB. I've got no problem with that.

You're so flexible. I love it. But I want to go back to— and I think we're going to have to by design, come back and interview you some more because I know we're running out of time. But I want to get into productive relationships because everybody's talking about networking, and networking is not the same as developing productive relationships. I think that's a beautiful phase.

Yeah. Yeah.

Tell me what you mean by that.

Okay, so when I think of networking, and I don't have a problem with networking except the fact that I'm an introvert and I really don't like it. And by the way, the aside on that is I look at it as I say, this is part of my job. I give it to myself as a job and then I'll do it. If I give it, if I just do it because it's me going out to meet people, hi, I'm Cynthia Brown, it's nice to meet you. Then it makes me crazy. So looking at it as a job is very, very helpful for people, especially those who are introverts. When I talk about the difference between productive relationships and networking, networking is like you collected all the cards. You get all the business cards or you get all the playing cards.

Yes.

And you know all these people and you meet all these people. But productive relationships within a business environment, I'm talking about how do you have the respect and understanding of mutual in order to get business results. So it's like, how do you understand that person's point of view, what they're like, what their style is, what their preferences are, and how do they like to be communicated with? And then how do you then adjust your behavior? Because you recognize, because since you're the one who recognizes it, you're the one who has to do something. Then how do you adjust your behavior so that those lines of communication stay open? So one part of productive relationships is understanding other people's point of view. And there are things like emotional intelligence, and there are all the style assessments that can help you, and there are pieces that fall into that. I heard somebody talking yesterday. I loved that they said something really cool. They said the biggest thing that we need from people now isn't emotional intelligence or isn't any of those other things. It's self-awareness intelligence.

Love it.

Yeah. Also stolen. I just stole that from somebody yesterday.

That's a good steal.

Yeah, and so how do you become self-aware so that you understand how you are coming across so you can make adjustments to help the other person communicate with you better so that you can get better results? And a lot of people say, oh, I'm just me. I'm just me. I hear that all the time. This is the way I am. And I say, well, that's great. It's good to be yourself, and I believe in authenticity. And certainly in this world in particular, I believe in authenticity in this current world. And if you got a job in France and you were sent over to France and you had to work there, what would be the first thing that you would do? And the answer is generally, well, I'd have to learn to speak French.

Mm-hmm.

So you'd have to learn to Speak that language. And what else would you probably want to do? Oh, I'd probably have to learn a little bit about the customs and what was normal there and all. And I said, and what happens if you then went in and got and just played the American and didn't take those into consideration? You think you'd do better, or do you think you'd do better learning the language and changing and learning something about their culture and making those adjustments?

Oh well.

And then they usually come around and they usually think in terms of And you can have all those examples. You can say, you're this friendly, outgoing, buoyant person, but you're working for a boss who's like a 3-bullet-point person. Why are you going in trying to be their friend? You know, and so making those kinds of adjustments are the kinds of things that I look for to enable you to create that line of connection So that you can get things done.

Yeah, I think it's, it's concerning when people feel that what you've just described, that adjustment, is really selling out. And it's not. It's—

It's speaking French.

Exactly. Yeah. French. Yeah.

I love that. It's like if you went to a foreign culture that had really, really strong cultural beliefs around something, whatever it was— religion or dress or behavior or who's supposed to shake hands and who's supposed to look who in the eye— and you just decided to— I'm going to do the American thing just the same— you can do that. You're a grown-up. You have that right. It just might not work as well. Yeah. And so if your goal is the relationship, then you don't question so much what those changes might have to be.

Exactly. And if you feel that you're selling out, it may not be the right relationship for you. I mean, you have to—

Yeah.

That perspective too. So, yeah.

Yeah, we had— go ahead.

Go ahead.

I was just going to say I had an interesting conversation about masks and got off, got off the current mask situation and started talking about masks in general. And about how many people, and especially Black Americans, uh, uh, have— feel they have to wear a mask all the time. And the question is always, well, everybody does have to wear a mask from time to time. We, we all have things that it would not be productive if we went out. The question is, are you aware what the mask is and why you're making the choice to make that?

Yes.

And is there, is there a way to help people see behind the mask without putting yourself at risk?

That's a great, that's a great thought. I love it. I love it. And also, don't forget that just because you're wearing one mask doesn't mean that you can't change to another mask when you get home or at another time. It's all dependent You know, that, that old statement, the world is a stage and you're an actor in it. And so being an actor doesn't mean that you change yourself, your personality. It means that you're just rolling with the punches and participating in a play.

Can I tell you a story? Do we have time for one little short story?

Yes.

Okay, my husband and I a few years back went to Maui on a vacation, and we went to a slack key guitar concert, which is a particular way of tuning the guitar that gives Hawaiian music a particular sound. And in this particular concert, they were inviting people up on stage that were, oh, my cousin so-and-so and my sister so-and-so, and those people would get up and they would dance.

Mm-hmm.

And we were shocked when this young man was invited up on stage to dance because he had taken us to our seats. A young Hawaiian man, maybe 17 or 18, wearing a red polo shirt and a pair of khaki pants. He was— when he had seated us, he was so awkward and so, uh, uh, I'm not sure where— would you want to sit over there? It was just really— and kind of shuffling around. And we were preparing ourselves because my husband and I talked about this afterwards to clap like you do for a kid at a recital when he went up to dance. Oh, honey, it was so good.

Yes.

You know, if the kid is going— well, he got up on that stage and he kind of shuffled up there and he looked sheepish. And then the music started to play and they put a spotlight on this kid and it was like he grew and he got bigger and he started to dance. And he was so elegant and so powerful and so beautiful in every subtle movement. My husband leans over and he goes, he's like a Hawaiian god. And he said, he should have one of those big feather capes or a torch or something. And I said, well, maybe not both of those things at the same time. But we were totally amazed and mesmerized by this kid. Then the music stopped and he kind of dropped back down and smiled sheepishly as people applauded outrageously and went off the stage. And I bring that up because it made me ask the question, well, which kid was the real kid?

Hmm.

Was it the powerful, mindful, controlled, dynamic, leaderly guy, or was it this sheepish, nervous person? And maybe he was just nervous, and maybe that's why he behaved that way earlier. And you know what I decided? They were both him.

Absolutely.

They were both him. So it's really not about who you are and who's the real you. It's about who is the you you want to choose to be.

At that time. Yes.

At that time, or in your life, or on a larger scale. Yeah.

You know, this is a wonderful story you've told, and I've been watching America's Got Talent, and you see that often, and you just, you want to jump up in joy for this, clap and scream and yell congratulations to people who are able to transform themselves. Yep. It's kind of— it's very special. It's like opening a Christmas present, right?

Yes, yes, exactly.

You have to celebrate with them. Yeah, to have that kind of creativity, wisdom, willing to expose both sides of yourself. It's, it's a beautiful thing.

And it, it does go back to what I'm talking to leaders about. You have to be the real you. You have to be the real you because if you're not, it'll come across even more on screen than it does in person.

Yeah.

And also because of that feeling of closeness. So I got lots of exercises. Figure out who you want to be in the world. Figure out a way to show up as that person.

And with that powerful message, I'm going to say, Cynthia, I hope you'll come back and give us some more insights. Usually we keep these conversations light and with intense learning. Yours was intense all the way through, and the learning was all the way through. Thank you.

Oh, thank you, CB. You know I care about that.

You do. And it— and you know what? That self of yours comes through very strongly.

Thank you. Thank you.

And so with that, I'm going to say goodbye to our audience and success. And this has been brought to you by the Association of Corporate Executive Coaches. This is Challenges of the C-Suite, brought to you by CB Bowman.