Finding Brave 98: How To Engage Male Leaders In The Gender Equality Movement At Work, Jeffery Halter

Here we go. Hello, everyone. Welcome to Finding Brave this week. I'm Kathy Caprino. I'm so excited to be with you today. I have such an amazing guest who now we know we've probably known each other maybe of each other at least for 10 years. And I can't wait to highlight Jeffrey Tobias Halter's amazing insights. So before we do this, we are talking about. We didn't even come up with a title for this, Jeff, but what would your title be if you could name it?

Well, I always like you're Finding Brave. And so I think the Finding Brave for your audience is moving from allies to advocates. Because I think advocacy is about being brave. I think allies are standing next to people. And what I'm finding in this work is we just don't have enough advocates, male or female.

I love it.

This is an evolving place I'm at. So Finding Brave to me is becoming an advocate for advancing women, which you are in space.

Oh, I love that. Thank you for titling the podcast. Appreciate it. And everybody, before we launch in, you know, I always love to if I can start with an idea or a thought or something I'm struggling with. So we are going to be really raw and authentic here and talk about challenges that women are facing, which you hear from me ad infernoftum, but how we can engage men in the process of supporting gender equality. And that is an ever increasingly complex issue with the Me Too movement. With a lot going on, it's not as easy as one would think to engender men fully in that movement. And that's what we're talking about. So I would love you to think about ideas that you have right now, jot them down, how you do it or how you wish you do it or how you see other people doing it. And we're going to talk all about that. But here we are. I'm so excited to welcome you, Jeff. Can I share with you all Jeff's bio, which is pretty impressive. And we're going to learn about how you got into this work, which is really so inspiring. And having done it for 10 years, you are so ahead of the curve, aren't you? You are up really in this. So Jeffrey Tobias Halter is a corporate gender strategist specializing in engaging men, women's leadership issues and initiatives. He's the president of why Women, which I love, a strategic consulting company and one of the country's leading experts on engaging men to advance women. Jeffrey is the former director of Diversity strategy of the Coca Cola Company, which I was just Reminded of when we saw each other at the new Leadership Summit and has consulted with leading brands including McDonald's, Deloitte, Bristol Myers Squibb, Mercedes Benz, GE and more. Jeffrey's book, why the Leadership Imperative to Advancing Women and Engaging Men, is the first business book written by a man on why companies and their leadership teams must create a strategic mindset regarding the retention and advancement of women. Thank you for being here.

I'm so glad. Oh, my pleasure. Thanks for having me on.

Oh, so now let's just start with this because when you were talking to me in September, I never really had understood this and it's so riveting. You went from. You were director of diversity strategy at Coke, Coca Cola, and you went into this. Can you tell us as honestly as possible what compelled you? I feel like this is a calling for you.

Sure.

If I'm not, how'd you get there? What, what spoke to you there?

Well, yeah, it actually happened about 11 years earlier. And so this is kind of the story that, that I didn't get to tell you. And so it's 2000 and I'm actually, I'm a sales guy. I'm a 20 year sales guy and I am working in sales training. And we had a massive restructure and they ended up giving me the lead on diversity education from sales.

You were the head of the sales team?

No, no, no. For the company. We had a 200 million dollar lawsuit and we laid off 8,000 people. And they handed me my paperwork and it said, you're now leading diversity education. And I'm like a straight white guy. And I wondered what meeting did I forget to go to get in charge of this project? And Kathy, it was like the really bad diversity training on the office. We had to train 4,000 people as a result of the lawsuit. And so I sat in my own program as a hostage. Now, realize this is 2001 before social media, and I knew a lot of people at the company. I didn't know why we had a lawsuit. I talked to African Americans. This lawsuit was brought by race, could have been brought by women. And what I heard every day was stories from people I knew and trusted around inequities that women were facing, that people of color were facing, that gay lesbians were facing. And I can remember to this day a colleague of mine stood up and he said, I run a production facility in a small Midwest town. I'm a black man, I live in a gorgeous suburb, I make a lot of money and I drive a white Jaguar. And at least once Every two weeks on my drive home from work, I'm pulled over for being a black man in a nice car, in a nice neighborhood, my car, my neighborhood. And you go pulled over, pulled over.

For nothing, driving while black. This is, you know, said to me.

Yeah, and realize this is before social media and all the, the public stuff. And he could see said, you go through this whole range of emotions and he said one of the worst days of his life was when he was pulled over and his 14 year old son is with him. And in your complete anger and angst, all you can do is drop your hands in your lap and be as polite as possible because you know your son is going to get pulled over in the next two years. Now Kathy, I have to tell you, I'm the father of a son and a daughter. And in that moment I said my children would never experience that. And so I didn't become an advocate, I just chose to get curious. And so I started talking to people who weren't like me and I discovered what white male privilege was and the fact that the world revolves around me and I'm always the default number in any room, especially in corporate America, and my voice is always heard. And so that led me on a path to my last role at Koch, which was now eight years post lawsuit. We were award winning, all kinds of best practices. And what dawned on me is that companies really don't have good strategies. They have a bunch of disjointed programs, but they have no scorecards, they have no accountability, they have no measures like you would approach a business initiative. And so I was going to start this.

Wait, Jeff, you mean they have no diversity? They have no successful way to achieve diversity. They have ideas, they have a bunch.

Of programs, well meaning people, but they have no strategy, nothing you would call an end to end strategy. And so I was gonna start consulting company doing that. And then it dawned on me as I'm getting ready to leave, I'm doing a lot of women's conferences and there'd always be like five or six men there. And I'm like, what are you doing here? And what they would say is, we want to be part of the solution. And so when you look at D and I, it's very hard to start with race, it's very hard to start with gender identity. And so women is the obvious default. It's the most present, it's the most global common denominator. And so I said, I'm going to choose to focus on women, an entree to race, age, sexual Orientation. And then I'm gonna go help men who want to get better.

At what?

Get better at being advocates. Because even in today's environment of me too, and everything that's going on, and I don't have any research on this, but my belief is 30% of men want to help and they don't know what to do. And then another.

Afraid to do the wrong thing.

I think, well, you know. And that gets into the rest of this then. Right. So 30% want to help, don't know what to do.

Right.

There's another 50% that say, I could probably get on board with this. I'm a little afraid. And then 20% of men, and this is where most company training programs just don't get it. 20%, that number might be high or low, will never get it.

And I need to know why.

And Kathy, who do we train against in companies? We train against these idiot knuckleheads at the 20%. So I choose to focus on the 30% who want to get better. Because if I get that 30%, I call them ready now men. Then we'll start to impact the 50. And if I can get 80%, oh, my gosh, that's a huge win.

That's a tidal wave. Now, can I ask a few questions here?

Yep.

The most burning one is. But I don't even want to ask this yet. I'm curious from a career coach perspective, Jeff.

Sure.

What would have made. What do you think made Coca Cola say we want you for this when you'd never thought of it? You were the head of the sales. Say you a sales guy. Why do you think someone signed you up for this? I just want a career.

I would tell you it's probably because I had been with Coke for 12 years. I knew people inside and outside of headquarters, and I think they just had a comfort level because I was very late. I wasn't a career HR person or a career DNI person. I was an ex sales guy. And so I just think. I think they said he knows a lot of people, and I've never asked this. I'd like to think maybe they thought he can bring some street cred to this topic. But I honestly never asked the question.

Is there a lesson? So I'm hoping everybody today you're putting on your hats as a leader, a manager of an organization, a woman, a man, a CEO. Do you think there's a lesson in this? Don't have it be run by the head of HR who's a white woman.

Yeah, I know. This is so Funny. And this is counter. And you wanted to be a little provocative, please. I believe that the chief diversity officer of the company should be a high potential rotational assignment for two to three years. Come in, treat it like a business priority. So Kathy, you're going to come in, you're going to run diversity, but your background is field ops, P and L supply chain. I can teach you the HR stuff. What I need is a business mindset. Now the best CDOs have a business mindset. But and again we're going to, you know, we're going to throw some controversy here. I believe many CEOs when they put a person of color or a women in the CDO job, say done, if we have any race issues, they're going to go talk to the person of color who's in charge of diversity or the women are going to go talk to the head of hr. We know most heads of HR are still predominantly women. And I think it's a big CEO letdown because the organization knows you put your best people against your biggest priorities. And so this also goes back to I'm going to throw another one in there. And that's just a lack of funding and a lack of commitment. So if you think your company is committed to diversity, what's your budget? I guarantee you most companies spend less than $100,000 their total diversity initiative and that's for networking and little one off events. So you've got employee resource groups, well meaning volunteers. So picture this, Kathy, you're a business person. Cathy, we're going to go do a big M and A. We're going to go buy a company for $20 billion. So I'm going to give you $200,000 and 30 really well meaning volunteers to go take on this ma. Are you going to be successful? And yet how many companies leave their women's strategy to the women's ERG or their people of color strategy to the African American or the Hispanic pbrg? These people are amazing, but they're doing it in their spare time. How many full time equivalents? If this is important, how many FTEs do you have against diversity? Best in class companies. I'm thinking, you know, IBM, AT&T, maybe 30, maybe 30. That's best in class. Most companies couple maybe part time. Maybe we'll have a chief diversity officer, but maybe we'll just have a director reports to the head of hr. And so if this is important, show me. Prove it to me through your actions just like you would anything else.

Wow. I love it. Now let's go to the heart of the group that you don't focus on. But I want those who are listening, who are in this group to listen and those of us who aren't to listen. Why do you think 20% of men working in organizations are going to think that's never going to be me? I don't get behind this. Why?

Well, I'm going to tell you as I do this work, the four barriers that I have encountered, and it's really most of the reasons around men not engaging fall into one of these four areas. And so I'm going to give you the barriers, and then we give you the solution. Okay?

Yes.

So the first one is a lack of empathy. I don't believe men and women or people of color are in fact, having a different experience than I am. So lack of apathy, empathy, empathy. I'm sorry, Lack of empathy. The second one is.

Let me ask this for a minute. That's almost something else. That's despite. That's like saying what I hear sometimes when I put out something on what is feminism? I don't care about the data. I don't care about the research. I don't care what these women are saying.

Yeah.

They're running the world and they're suppressing us.

Yeah.

So it's a little more than lack of empathy, isn't it?

Well, and that's where I'm going. Okay. I'm going there.

Let him speak.

Hey, Kathy, let's do this. Let's start this whole thing over, okay? Because I misspoke around empathy and apathy. So let's pick it up there.

Okay?

Okay, go. So here are the four barriers, and here are the four solutions.

Okay?

So the barriers are lack of empathy, lack of empathy, apathy, lack of accountability, fear. And I'm gonna define those for you. So lack of empathy means I don't believe men and women are having a different experience in the workforce. I just don't see it. Apathy is. I don't understand what the big deal is. Lack of accountability. My boss never talks about it. It's not important to my job or my paycheck, so why should I care? And then the last one is fear. I am scared to death that I may say or do the wrong thing, so I choose to do nothing.

Can there also be fear? Honestly, Jeff, that if I support women and I've worked so hard to get where I am, there's less of a piece of a pie for me?

We'll talk about that. We'll talk about that as we Address solutions.

Great.

It's a valid one, right?

All right, go for it.

Take the notes. So to solve lack of empathy, I want you listeners to do one thing. Take a woman to coffee and ask her a simple question. Marie, are you having a different experience in the workplace than I am now? Marie's not going to say anything. Marie does not want to be the flag bearer for all women. So ask again. This is a man asking the question. Ask again in a very genuine manner. Marie, is there something I don't understand? And she might volunteer a little something. Don't interrupt her. This universal phenomenon of men interrupting women. Don't say, we have a program or policy. Just shut up and listen. And then ask a third time. And in that last 10 minutes, you're going to hear root cause issues you had no idea existed in her life. And you will choose to get curious. And then you're going to go have coffee with another woman. And another woman and a person of color and a millennial. And you're going to start to see that there is, in fact, inequity in the little daily ways people are treated.

I get choked up, Jeff. Imagine if people did this and come in.

Yeah, listen is first. So then to solve apathy, you have to operationalize the business case. What's the big deal? So for that, what I'm talking to companies about is you have to find their pain point. Why does this have to work? And so I've got a client. Now, this is a fascinating pyramid. At the top of the pyramid, Cure cancer, okay? Cure cancer. This is what they're about every day. They wake up every day trying to cure cancer. Big pharma company. You'd know them if I mentioned them. The other corner is workplace flexibility. I'm having trouble keeping people. But the Third one is 247 work culture. Right? And as I talked to this leader, he said, jeff, we're trying to cure cancer. If I could have people around me who could work 247 as a scientist, that's my goal.

Oh, dear.

Here's the pain point. I got to figure out how to make flexibility work. Because today I have 16 openings for organic chemists. And within 50 miles of this headquarter, there are 75 other biotech companies who also needs 16 organic chemists? And he said, I don't care whether you're white, black, gay, straight, disabled. I need chemists. And you know what? Tomorrow I'm going to need 17. And so flexibility goes against my two pillars of 247 and curing cancer. And I have to Figure out how to make it work or I'm going to have 17 openings tomorrow. Or 18 openings. And that's not going to help me cure cancer either. So that's the apathy piece. What's the pain point? And I guarantee you, I don't care what company you're with, if you need, oh, by the way, we need truck drivers in this country. We need plumbers in this country. We need it people in this country. LinkedIn today has 20 million job openings. No way. So think about this. If you don't satisfy, if I don't satisfy you as an employer, you're going to go someplace else. And then this is compounded by 10,000 boomers a day leaving the workforce mostly old white men like myself. So 10,000 a day, every day, every year for the next seven years until all the old white guys are gone.

Being pushed out, kind of not retired.

We're tired, we're going to reach retirement agent and leave. The new workforce is 85% women and minorities and people of color. So what's your pain point? What's your business case for change? Accountability. We solve that by being leaders. What that means, Kathy, is I've heard this story a hundred times. A job comes open and I go to Jim and I've looked at the slate of candidates he has and I say, jim, I noticed you don't have any women on the promote now list. And Jim goes, yeah, you know what, we just can't find any. Now I'm a senior leader. And I go, you know Jim, you're right. And we stop there. Leadership means, Jim, what are you doing to get some ready? Or this crap about the fact I can't be alone in a room with a woman, I can't mentor a woman, I can't take a woman on a business trip. That's not leadership. You know, that is weak leadership. This notion that if we dust off the values, these hundred year old things that we've carried forever and live those hostile workplace and sexual harassment will not be an issue. But how many CEOs stand up and tell that story? And the reason they don't is this last one. And that's fear. That's fear for many men. What's the statute of limitations? You know, I'm a CEO now, but you know what? I don't even remember what I did in my 20s. And so I can choose to do nothing. I would say that's not leadership. And so the way you overcome fear is through a personal connection. And that's how you become an advocate. No one will advocate for anything. Or it's pretty tough to unless you have equity. And this is the last part. Most men never make the connection that if we're not advocating for women, we are betraying our wives and our sisters and our mothers and our daughters. And I came to this very late in life. I was well into my 50s when this dawned on me and I've been doing this work. But I never made the connection that if I'm not advocating for women today, what workplace is my daughter going to face when she gets out there? When I don't address Ron, who makes the off color joke if I don't correct his bias in the moment, do I want my daughter working for Ron and Kathy? I tell women this and they just look at me incredulous. But men never make the connection that if we're not advocating for women today, it's hurting the women in our lives. It's because we lead such siloed lives. And I'm not justifying it, but I'm saying that's where advocacy lives. And so you got to find that personal connection.

I want to say a few things and hear your thoughts and aware of our time. Let me give you a few more minutes. I think that there's one other thing and I'm writing a whole chapter in my next book, most powerful you on this, which is power gap number five.

Okay.

Acquiescing instead of saying stop to mistreatment. This is what women need to overcome. The other thing I've seen as a woman on the receiving end of gender bias and sexual harassment.

Yep.

Is that there are senior men who contribute and make a lot of money for the company and they will not be removed.

Yeah.

They will not be censored or censured.

Yeah.

And to me, I mean, in the, in my most generous mood, I might say there's fear of the CEO and the senior leaders. They all know when it's happening. I mean, When I was second harassed, 20 people knew it. That's how he is. He's trying to sleep with every attractive woman that comes in.

Yeah.

To me, people, if you are allowing that, you are being worse than a bad leader.

Yeah.

What do you think about this?

No. And I'd be very Pollyanna to say that's not taking place. Right. You know, companies are famous for promoting bad behavior with good results. What I'm going to tell you is much like your talent strategy, much like you're not advancing and retaining women, it's not a sustainable business strategy today. And so I talked about Pain points. I'm give you one more and that's the fear factor. As I talk to CEOs and the one thing that is keeping them up at night is they are scared to death about a PR fiasco. You know, and I tell them this, you know, let's contrast Uber with Starbucks. Now, Travis Kalanick woke up one morning and front page of paper, right? Expose. Well, you have to realize millennial women are not calling hr. Now, I realized in the Uber case, HR was culpable. You're going to be front page of the paper before you know it and it's going to cost you your job. Contrast that with Starbucks. If you were to ask me a company that really gets diversity and inclusion, I'd put Starbucks on that list. But you know what? Are you ready for your worst manager to be videotaped on their worst day? Now, Starbucks, to its credit, said, we screwed up. We're closing the stores, we're training our people. I don't know that it went far enough, but I'm not going to judge that. But think about this. Starbuck got the benefit of the doubt because they're already a great place for D and I. They took action and it was. Now it's a non factor. And so if you build this moat, if you have these strategies, if you're doing this work, you're already insulating yourself and creating a culture where this isn't going to happen and all the lawsuits in the world are not going to make a difference. You know, the one thing that. Wait a minute.

What do you mean by that, Jeff? What do you mean?

The lawsuits?

Yeah, the thing is whose lawsuits and what difference is it not going to make?

Yeah, the, the. Until forced arbitration is taken out of every employment contract. Kathy, if you're sexually harassed today, what most people don't know is when you join a company your first day and you're really excited and you sign 30 pages of papers, you don't have to be some contract high level employee. There's a clause in there that says if you bring a suit against a company for a whole host of things, including sexual harassment, we have the right to pay you off. You can never talk about it. And over and done. And so here's the problem. The perpetrator. And Gretchen Carlson's done a lot of work on this. Have your readers go read Be Fierce if they want an education on forced arbitration. But 99% of the time, the woman who reports sexual harassment is asked to leave the company. She's given a settlement and many never work in their industry again. And to date, there's less than five companies that have chosen to take forced arbitration out of their employment contract. I'm drawing a blank on a couple of them. I know Microsoft has been very aggressive in doing this. And so the lawsuits are going to continue to get buried unless women say, I'm going outside the corporate realm. Unfortunately. So many women who are harassed, they need a paycheck. You know, they can't be a whistleblower. And I don't want to be that person. And oh, by the way, again, is HR even capable of handling this? Do you have an outside third party? And so the entire structure is not set up to support the victim. And this is still an issue, whether it's societal or corporate. Well, what were you wearing? You know, it's still. This burden of proof is on the woman. And it just, it's just appalling, you know. And the one more thing I'll get back to on this father of daughter.

Thing, that's what I want to talk.

About is again, go read Gretchen's book. Up to 25% of college students, women are sexually harassed. And so if you don't think this is happening, you're just, you want to not believe it.

You want to not believe it. It's your choice.

And if you haven't told, talked about this with your daughter who's going to college, and you don't think it's taking place in your workforce, you need an education.

Oh, Jeff, you're so amazing. Let me ask this one thing. Leave everyone with this one thing.

Yeah.

I love what you're saying, that if we don't address this, this is what our daughters are going to be facing. But a lot of feminists say and have said it to me, why do they need that argument? Why do you have to think about your daughter to understand this has to change. And I want to tell everyone my perspective, then I want to hear yours. My perspective is whatever frickin way you can feel a connection to helping someone feel it. There's nothing wrong with the point that you made in the beginning. And we talked about this over coffee. I'm a part of a dominant culture as well. White woman. Yes, for middle class. And I saw it 15 years ago when I was helping a nanny of ours who had lost everything and her car was impounded and the guy wouldn't let her into her car to get anything.

Yep.

I said, stay there. I called and I said, I'm coming over. And I watched how he looked at her, you know, on the Wrong side of the track. I watched it and then I watched what he did when I walked up to him. You know, I guess whatever he saw, hello, sir, I am responsible for this woman. We need to get into her car. He frickin threw the keys at me, handed them, Couldn't be quicker at it. And I saw what it is to be looked at as trash.

Yeah.

And I cried for five hours.

Yeah.

So my point is, whatever way the person of the dominant culture can feel connected to the person who isn't, I'm all for it.

Now, what do you think about that? No, I'm in. I'm in complete agreement with you. I don't care why they get there. And you know, and the whole point about advocacy, I tell the joke that most people don't do things because they're the right thing to do. They really don't. You know, I know that diet and exercise is the right thing to do. And yet we have an obesity crisis, bar none, in this country. And so advocating for women because it's the right thing to do, I would love to say, yep, sign me up for that. I am telling you, it takes a personal connection. And I'm not saying it takes a daughter. And I'm not saying treat women in the workplace in a pat your, pat you on the head daughter way. But you got to realize, and by the way, again, this is just one element, Right. I go back to what I talked about earlier. Listen, learn, lead and have the will. Now, if you listen, if you figure out that people are having different experiences, you understand the business case and you built in accountability. Quite frankly, I don't care whether you buy into gender equity because you will come to this on your own and you won't need this personal connection. Because basically what I'm saying is how do women buy into this or how do you know people with no children buy into it? And my point is you don't need that. I'm saying you need a way to become an advocate, whatever that might be.

And I love the honesty. We're not speaking honestly enough about what gets in the way. And thank you for the work that you're doing.

Oh, thank you.

And I know you have a ton of resources, free tools. Can you tell us where we learn more, Jeff?

Yeah, certainly. Go to my website, www.y the letter y women. And I have a number of free white papers. Download them, read them, and start a conversation. This is what I'm all about. I have a newsletter that comes out once a month and it just takes an article or an ad. And it has three questions. Because all I want you to do is have a staff meeting where you talk about gender. And the last thing I have is a self assessment. It's called the Male Advocate profile or the Gender Advocate Profile. And it's free. Download it from my website. The first 10 questions ask how you think about gender equity, and the next 10 questions ask about the actions you take. And even women score higher on thinking about advocacy than taking action. And so my goal is, if you're unaware, I want to move you up a little bit. If you're an ally, great. I want to move you to champion or advocate. You know, before we got on the call, we were talking about, I think the word ally is being way overused. I don't think it applies enough action. I hear this stuff around men as allies. Yeah, that to me is I'm standing next to you. Maybe I'm mentoring you, but I'm not sponsoring you. I'm not taking action. It says, oh, I support your pain. Well, that's not going to change anything. We need advocates, so. And we need more men. And so everybody who's watching this podcast, which I presume is a largely female audience, you'd be surprised.

I have some great men following.

I know you do, but I want every woman listening to find that one guy they know and start a conversation. That's it, bar none. That's my free gift.

Love it. Jeff, I am riveted by everything you're doing. Thank you. And thank you for being a pioneer. Thank goodness that Coca Cola said, yeah, him.

I've never been asked that question, Kathy, So I gotta go do some research.

I can't thank you enough, people. We want to hear from you. You're on LinkedIn in a big way, Jeff. I think you are. And connect with us. Share your questions, share your challenges. If this perturbed your system and got you mad, let's hear about it. What do you agree with? What don't you agree with? Let's have a discussion that finally talks about what is in the way here and how we can make everyone an advocate for something that they can actually uplift in other people. Please. I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did. Thanks again, Jeff. Come back soon. And everyone have a great, brave week being an advocate for something that matters to you. Thank you and see you next time. Wow.

So.