E09: Legendary Leader-Tony Byers

Thanks for joining us today on Street Smarts with Harvey Mackay, where the biggest room in the world is the room for improvement. And now here's your host, managing partner and co founder of harveymckayacademy.com, cliff Jones.

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, Cliff Jones with Harvey McKay. And I'm pleased to introduce with us today to you Dr. Tony Byers, Ph.D. global Diversity and inclusion expert. Welcome, Tony.

Thank you, Cliff. I appreciate the opportunity to be here with you this afternoon.

Great to have you back with us. If you don't know Dr. Tony Byers yet, he is a contributor at Harvey McKay Academy, a global diversity and inclusion expert, graduate of Fielding Graduate University. Quite an accomplished background, including a book, new book coming out. We're going to talk about and this conversation next 20 minutes or so. Ladies and gentlemen, if you're listening on the Street Smarts podcast or watching the video is about the kind of impact Tony and his team is having with leaders in the realm of diversity and inclusion, corporate level. And is it fair to say, Tony, small business owners as well are among your audience, your readers when you speak and span the globe?

Absolutely, absolutely. We see a lot more speakers, small business leaders leveraging this work as well. So excited about that.

Okay, so I want you to talk about you. But ladies and gentlemen, just in the way of introduction, Dr. Byers is former director of global diversity at Starbucks. I want you to talk about that so our audience knows the impact you were able to have working with Howard Schultz and the other leaders at that company. Prior to that, you were with H.J. heinz Co. In the Leader of global diversity and inclusion capacity. And you were manager of corporate diversity at H.J. heinz Co. And prior to that, diversity development specialist at Cargill. So These are Fortune 1000 global leading and in many cases publicly traded companies that are big time on the radar. And that's where you developed your reputation as an expert in this field. Tell us about that.

Yeah, certainly. So thank you again. I've been fortunate. I've been fortunate enough to be able to interact with some of these organizations and organizational leaders, sharing a perspective around diversity and inclusion. But just real quick, prior to working with those corporate organizations, I also taught at two universities. I'm born and raised in Minnesota. I taught at the University State University in Minnesota, Metropolitan State, had a chance to do some adjunct work with University of Wisconsin in River Falls, some adjunct work with the University of Minnesota in the graduate school. And this all developed through my graduate studies on the subject of diversity and inclusion. It's funny how I got into the Corporate world. I was doing some general consulting and working with some organizations that were experts in culture change. And I was just finished my dissertation, which was a study on how to build support for senior leaders among diversity programs. And right after I finished that, someone at Cargill had a chance to read a white paper that I wrote on the subject, and they called me. Cargill was based in Minnesota and Minneapolis. I was there. They called me, and they asked me about the work that I was doing getting leaders involved. And we had this interesting conversation on the phone, and I went and sat with that organization, and we developed a process. We developed a strategy, I should say, where we were looking at how they could leverage some of that work inside of Cargill. I remember going home, being super excited, Cliff, about this opportunity to be a consultant with Cargill. And Cargill sent me this job description, which they believe would be perfect. I looked at that job description and said, you need to change it here, change it there, change it there. Trying to give them my best thinking. Sent it back to them. They sent me a note back, said, no, Tony, you misunderstood. We weren't looking for you to critique this. We wanted you to actually do this. And that was my foray into working with more of these global organizations. Cargill is a large global organization. Having a chance to manage diversity program with 47 different business units in Western Europe and throughout North America really gave me a broad perspective on how this work can be applicable to leaders across the globe.

Why this field? Why take such an intense focus, especially an academic focus? A lot of work. You have a PhD, that's a doctorate in the field. We'll talk about the new book again, but why? What really motivates you and why is this such a big deal now for leaders around the world at all levels?

I think everybody who's interested in any subject has a story to tell about it. So the short version of my personal story is, growing up in Minnesota, I happen to have went to a high school that went through a desegregation process one year prior to my arrival. And when I arrived at that school, we had teachers who quit, took early retirement. We had teachers who were not interested in working with students who come from them, use this word, urban environments or diverse students. And then we had teachers who quit and stayed, which, you know, they quit on us, but they were still in the environment when we walked in. When I walked into a classroom, what I was able to feel is. Feel what it's like when a teacher did not want you to be present. You can feel the environment My classmates and I, who are also from my neighborhood, knew that certain teachers didn't want us in their classroom. They talked with their backs towards us. They didn't engage us. And as a result of that, what we discovered is that our performance was not as high as it could be. It was basically because we didn't care. We thought they didn't care about us.

Then you know what?

We don't really care about being here. And then you could go to a classroom environment where a teacher was being a teacher, doing what teachers do and engaging and really creating an environment for us to feel like we were just students. And in those classrooms, our performance was high. So early on in my life, I had a chance to understand that if you can create the right type of environment, you can increase levels of performance. And so when I fast forward and start to look at organizational culture, organizational change, how organizations can be innovative, creative, and drive growth through the value of diversity and inclusion, I'm able to think about some of those personal experiences I had in my past and apply them to cultures or environments and leaders that I work with from then until now.

So formative years early experience. Right. It didn't feel good not to be included in the classroom. Therefore, you and your friends basically return the favor. You detach, you do whatever you want to do. Now, a lot of young men and women get into sports, A lot of men and women get into arts. You know, all sorts of good, good things. But when that happens, there's a tragic consequence, not only in the classrooms, but for employers. You want to talk a little bit about what goes wrong when there is a lack of awareness and commitment to diversity and inclusion?

Yeah, certainly. I think when you have a lack of awareness, then lack of practice behaviors and people equate that to being a lack of commitment. What goes wrong then is that you don't get high levels of engagement, performance, discretionary effort. You lose the best ideas. You lose the ability to try to drive and create something that's innovative and new. Because a leader practices what I call a fixed mindset, meaning they only see one way of doing things, and so they don't learn to take advantage of other opportunities to do a process or to come up with an idea that can help that company, that team, move towards innovation and growth. So here's a different example about just the environment, because not everyone wants to go into environment, feel like there's hugs and loves. I'm not saying all of that, but what I am saying is that if you look at research, they say that exclusion when People are being excluded. It operates in the same area of the brain as pain. And so if individuals are feeling exclusion, there may be the brain is operating or processing that feeling in the same space where they experience pain. And so what the brain does is it tries not to experience pain. No one, well, very few people probably go and look for opportunities to feel pain. So you retract from that environment and then that doesn't allow you to bring your best self. And when you're thinking about growth, there are these opportunities for companies where they're looking at their growth curves. And as that starts to flatten out, they have to actually think of something that's new, creative, innovative, some way of creating a new growth curve. And my belief is that you can create a new growth curve by bringing in diversity and practicing the behaviors of inclusion. And that serves as a multiplier for these ideas. And those are the things that advance innovation. And that's what advanced growth. Look at the research. We know companies that do this well, they're 40% more likely to expand their current market share. They're 75% more likely to capture brand new markets just by practicing this behavior. Well, so when we start to move from diversity and inclusion, we can think about it as, oh, it feels soft. I need to create an environment where everybody feels loved. You can have that attitude, which in my mind is a fixed mindset, or you can take a growth mindset and you can say, actually this is about what we do to help drive and advance the business, to help drive and advance our team and our team members.

Let's go back to the basics for everybody listening. Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Tony Byers, diversity and inclusion expert with us today on Street Smarts. Talk about what diversity is and what inclusion is, because we can't assume everybody knows exactly what you are an expert in.

You know, the challenge of being an expert is you got a long definition. So I'm going to give you a short definition of both of them. I like to make it simple. I tell people that diversity is a noun that describes who we are. It's that person, their background, experiences. It is the gender, their ethnic identity. It's all of those things. It's sort of describes who we are. Inclusion. I like to think of it as a verb. It talks about what we do. And so when I go and talk to leaders, I say, would you be interested in supporting diversity? I met a lot that says, no, I don't really want to do that. They all say, yeah, I'm actually supportive of diversity. But the next Question they ask is about, Tony, what do you want me to do? And so it's hard for me to tell you what to do for diversity and easier for me to tell you what to do for inclusion, because those are a set of behaviors that you should be practicing that leverage just a diversity that you have. So one's a noun. One describes who we are, the other is a verb. It describes what we do. And then those two together allow us, if we leverage this correctly, it serves as a multiplier and advances our innovation and business growth.

Let's talk about fundamentals of business. As Harvey McKay says, there are a million words in the English language. If leaders can't learn and practice one of them extremely well, they just can't be successful. That word is H I R E hire. So when we're hiring from a diversity perspective, we're looking to build a diverse set of skills, skills that fit the roles and responsibilities called for by the strategic plan of action based on the goals and objectives of the organization. Strategic Planning 101. So that's one level of diversity. But give us an example of a deeper level of diversity in how a leader like me, small company or large, maximizes the approach to hiring and then motivating, including for maximum ROI. You're talking about performance outcomes 40% superior to those that don't practice these behaviors for inclusion. So what is it really underlying this that makes the biggest difference?

It's a great question, so thank you for asking that one. So here's actually what happens. Well, not every company, with many companies, as we start to think about the process of hiring, one of the things that we do is we try to find people and hire people that we believe will be a good culture fit. We want them to have different skill sets or backgrounds, but we also want them to fit inside of our organizational environment. Because we believe that when they're a good cultural fit, that in a short period of time, that person can jail with the team, get up and running, and we can come to new ideas. The problem with cultural fit is that cultural fit has a tendency to be based on who you are as a person. So here's an example. We go out someone and hire someone who looks like us, who acts like us, who talks like us, and went to the same school or wanted similar to the one we went to. And then we bring that person on the ideas onto the job and we say, give us a creative and innovative idea that we've never thought of before. It becomes changing when you hire someone who's very, very Similar to you. Now, what I've discovered with some organizations is that they'll say, okay, Tony, we'll go out and hire someone who is a different background, experience, perspective, whatever that is, and allow them to come in and contribute to our organization. So I'm going to use images of shapes just to kind of give people a visual. So if I have six people on my team and five of them are squares and I decide to hire one triangle on my team because that is me practicing going out and having diversity. Well, what ends up happening is that all of the squares on that team expect that one triangle to act like a square. So that's where we say, now we recognize you're different, Cliff, you might be a different type of diversity, but come act like us if you want to be successful here. So the challenges with some of the hiring has been we want to make sure that we have diversity in thinking, diversity in perspective, diversity in background. Those are all important. One way that we know is that there's that can help is that there's a strong correlation between some cultural diversity and perspective, background and idea. So having that becomes important, then it is how do I create an environment where I'm leveraging that diversity? And to me, Khalif, that that's the key. It's not having it because an organization can be diverse and not inclusive. It's really about the ability of the leaders to practice and tap into that diversity that makes them stronger. That's how you get to the growth in the marketplace. That's how you get the innovation, innovative ideas. That's where you get the biggest best of having a diverse organization, is when you practice those inclusive behaviors.

So if we as leaders, managers hiring people, professionals bringing the right people to the skill sets we need and the cultural value, personality, a culture emerges. Not necessarily the culture defined by the leader or leaders, but the culture defined by the collective contributions of a diverse group. Because that's the beauty of diversity. And, and in that regard, how do we as leaders, because our leaders love street smart stuff they can start using right away. What do you tell our leaders, viewers and listeners about what they can do starting right now, to make a bigger difference at home, at work and everywhere in between?

Yeah, it's a good question because there are a number of things. I try to recommend seven different behaviors that people can practice to drive inclusive environments. But one of them that I like to talk about more than others is, well, maybe two. Being really curious. How do you as a leader practice curiosity and how does that curiosity drive you to interact with individuals who have a different perspective, a different background, a different way of doing things than you. If you are one of those leaders that can engage in a curious manner, you're able to extract information and ideas from your team that are different than. Than just having a status quo or interacting the same way. So curiosity becomes a big driver. But of all the drivers, there's one called consistency that's really, really important. And because when I've met leaders that say, well, Tony, I was curious once and I didn't get the right idea. Yeah, one time you were curious, huh? And so really what he had to say is, how do we identify what those behaviors are that I'm going to practice? And if curiosity is one of those, how do I consistently display that behavior with my team so that I'm creating a culture that they understand that the behavior. Curiosity is something that we value around here. It's not something that we're going to try once because we saw this wonderful podcast or we heard it from somebody who studied the subject before you got.

Be curious and be consistent.

Third, biggie, people can use be a change agent. You have to be committed to driving that change inside of your environment. I mean, there's. Because when you're thinking of innovative ideas, creative ideas, those ideas might go against the way that you've practiced it before. And it takes a person to be. To want to be a change agent, to say, actually we're going to drive towards this because we believe this to be valued, valuable for us, and we expect the outcomes to be big because you can be comfortable, which is not one of those areas where you look for ideas that you think are new, but they're comfortable to you. Or you can be cutting edge and you can look for ideas that are very different in your environment, and you can advocate for it or be a change agent for it. So you can be a change agent for an idea. You can be a change agent for the way that your team works and operates, and you could be a change agent for the culture of your environment so that you're shaping and training people to respond to this type of work or to this type of behaviors with very little effort from you. And that's when it becomes, what I like to say, a habit. How do you build habits so that people start thinking this way without having to spend effort and time to be effective at it?

So really what you're saying is, because change, effective change, lasting change, only happens over periods of time through repetition. Leaders, right? When we act curiously, we're curious on a consistent basis. And we're committed to being an agent of change in our organization as leaders. Right? And it carries right through to the community level and can impact everybody. Small business owners to teachers, to civil servants, everybody. Our communities, which are at each other's throat. It seems diversity inclusion couldn't be a better time to be in the business you're in. And to that point, you're about to launch a book. You've got the title prominently, brilliantly. Great marketing team there, by the way. The Multiplier Effect of How Diversity and Inclusion Advances Innovation and Drives Growth. Tell everybody about the book and where we can get it, because this is a must read for leaders.

Thank you very much. So the book is. It is based on my 25 years experience of working in the space. And what I've been able to do is just filter down and think about what are those questions? What are the ways in which we should be thinking about this subject? What can we start to do and make this practical and real that people can get engaged in and start doing right away? A lot of the books are around diversity inclusion. I read most of them and know most of the authors. I think they're great. But it is written for diversity leaders, can be highly theoretical, can go into a lot of concepts. And when I was inside of organizations and now on the outside of organizations, I received a number of calls from organizations inviting me to help them think about their diversity strategy. Am I going the right direction? Where should we start? And there's a series of questions, a series of things that I always ask every single organizational leader who invites me to talk about the subject with them. And so one day I was just thinking, why not somebody to just put this all in a book? Then that way those individuals can go and grab it. You don't need an individual. And that was the impetus for the book. I wanted to try to find a way to make a contribution to the subject of diversity and inclusion. And I wanted to find a way in which all organizations, whether you're for profit, nonprofit or community, wherever you are in the organizational system, you can take it and apply it. And once we all get better at this subject, then we're building the habits on how to drive a more inclusive culture and become more innovative, going creative. So the idea for me was, what's the contribution that I think I can make? What's the information that I can put in the book to give people at least the right reflection questions, the right starting points and right behaviors to practice that they can put into place right now? And how Can I make sure that it can be beneficial to them? That was my attempt. And so the book that just came out in mid September here, I'm excited about it. I've got some nice reviews from friends and nice reviews, unsolicited reviews from other individuals. It is available on Amazon and a few other kind of online book places, but we're just getting started. And now we're in a place where I'm having more and more conversations like this that talks about how can we get better in this subject. And that was the goal. So super excited about that.

Big wishes for huge success, Harvey and I look forward to having you as a contributor here at the Academy. Everybody, if you don't know this, Dr. Byers spans the globe as a professional speaker. You're a member of the National Speakers association, where we met in Dallas recently, had the honor of meeting you there through Kathy Paper. And of course, we saw you in action and we thought, we got to have this guy show up at the Academy. Your work, the timing couldn't be more important. You're obviously, you know, the track record with Howard Schultz and your corporate pedigree, your education, your PhD. Just no question in our minds that you're going to be a continued success. I want you, in closing, to talk a little bit about the things we can do from a diversity and inclusion standpoint at home, as parents and leaders, because Harvey and I are deeply committed to helping the next generation of emerging leaders in the real world, at work and at home. In closing, share some things that relate to diversity inclusion that we can practice at home, not just at work.

That's the first time I've had that question, so that's good. I think one of the things that can. That can help is one exposure. And how are you exposing your family and yourself to different cultures, experiences, perspectives? You know, if you're a person who's involved in church on Sunday, just look around, see what your church looks like, and ask questions about how can we engage differently. You're a person that goes to a store or you go to a sporting event, or you go to any other type of community event. Just look around and ask yourself, am I exposing myself and my family to different perspectives, ideas, interaction? If not, find ways in which you can increase that particular exposure. The other thing is, I think that's important in light of where America finds itself right now is this whole notion about understanding different perspectives. The other side of the coin, every idea that is out there, there's a different perspective. And it's not about drawing a line in the sand and having an argument or fight over a different perspective. It's actually more about what is it that I can learn from that perspective and how am I engaging in a way that's going to allow us both to move forward. So it's a different mindset as opposed to my way is the right way. And so how do we say, how do I teach you how to engage? How do I teach you how to understand? And then how do I teach you how to practice the concept of inclusion? That's when it's hard, because when it's easy and when we all agree, cliff, inclusion's great, we all agree, we're saying the same thing. I can bring this different voice in. When we have different voices, a different perspective, the behaviors of inclusion become challenging and that then we need to find ourselves at our best. So those are the two things that I would offer given the question right now.

Well, of those two, I would say exposure touches home for me in a big way because I had the privilege of being a university student able to travel overseas to France and live and study and work among people from a completely different culture. And it was probably one of the biggest eye openers in my entire life. And it's fair to say that the exposure you're talking about has to do with getting out in the community, being open minded and receptive to different kinds of music, philosophies, worldviews, religious views, find the common ground. Not necessarily always have to be right because we see the cost of being right. And I think what I heard you say is when it comes to truth, absolutes, everybody has an opinion of the facts. You look at any big issue, scientists included, and they're trying to agree on the facts and it looks often like agreement. But you look at any championship team, you look at McKay, Mitchell, Envelope Company, 50 plus years in business, you talk about diversity, inclusion and the impact of that. It's many generations of jobs, stable jobs, jobs where people enjoy coming to work, feel like they're being heard and valued in the workplace. They're treated like family. Therefore there's less turnover, there's higher productivity, more innovation. You touched on creativity. All of these virtues are the byproducts of leaders being willing to be curious, consistent, Right. And then also committed to being agents of change. If we heard you right, is that a fair summary of your wisdom today?

Fair summary of the wisdom I tried to impart today. And, and you know, real quick, it's just the mind is a muscle and so the more we exercise it, the better. Or more effective it becomes. So if exposure happens at a young age, it's learning to challenge and be open and be consistent. The more we practice that, the more it becomes every day. So whatever the experience is, when we talk about creating exposure, even if it's just across the street, across town, across the state, once you start to build the muscle on how to breathe, increase that exposure and how to respect that, you can do it at different levels, at different times when it's needed. But you got to start somewhere.

Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Tony Byers, author of the new book the Multiplier Effect of How Diversity and Inclusion Advances Innovation and Drives Growth. As leaders, we all want more innovation, more growth. We want happier places of work, more productive, creative. Will you come back and see you soon, Tony?

Oh, anytime. I appreciate this opportunity and I look forward to the next one.

Thanks. Dr. Tony Byers, ladies and gentlemen. If you don't have a free membership at Harvey McKay Academy, get one today. Thanks very much for listening. I'm Cliff Jones. We'll see you next time.

Thank you for listening to Street Smarts with Harvey MacKay. If you've enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe. Subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or wherever you consume your favorite audio. Don't forget to leave a positive rating and review before you sign up for your free membership at harveymckayacademy.com. to learn more about Harvey McKay, make sure to visit www.harveymckayacademy dot com. Thanks for listening and we'll be back soon with a new episode.

Sam.