Marie
Hello Heather, thank you so much for joining me on the Companies that Care podcast.
Heather
Thank you so much for having me.
Marie
I listened to your great Ted talk, which was a wonderful introduction to your background and you talked about the adversity in your life. Can you share just a little bit about your story with our listeners?
Heather
So my mom is white and Jewish. My dad is black and Christian and I'm the only child and when my mom and dad were married, interesting enough, my dad would have a friend of his who was white come to my mom's house to take her out on a date and that gentleman would take her to my dad. They dated. They had me. And my mom's parents were not at all happy about this union. They wanted her to, you know, marry a nice Jewish boy, Orthodox Jewish family.
She didn't. Then I was born and I was a constant reminder to them of basically the mistake that was made in their mind, and I wasn't invited to family gatherings, bar mitzvahs, weddings. I was just explicitly excluded. I would go to occasionally to my grandmother's house. My father was never invited there. You know, spending a lifetime as an outsider, feeling like that, you know there were no pictures of me hanging on my grandparents’ wall. And it was a very close knit family, but I was not included.
I felt like I wasn't worthy for many years, had a complex related to this up into my 30s. I didn't even get to go to a large family gathering until I was 36 years old. Which by the way was my grandmother's funeral. It was an interesting way to come up. And there are other kind of things happening in the background as well. All that that really created this sense in me. I don't know where the drive came from.
I think I, you know, I think in every in there in life with adversity we can all choose different paths. And you know, I could have chosen to be the person who turned out to be kind of curmudgeon and blaming the world and not being kind. And I chose not to. I chose to be the person who made other people feel included and engulfed with love and care, and I said, I'm a big hugger. I like to bring people into the fold, who are ones who look like they're on the outside, so I chose that different path. I chose the path of more of uplifting and encouragement and support, and that's just who I am now.
Marie
That must have felt so lonely when you were a child.
Heather
It was. Luckily I had really good friends. One thing I found as an only child I had this really. It was bad actually. A bad way. I'd have like a really good friend and I'd be like super attached to them and I get super jealous if they had any other friends, this is part of the only child thing too. Then I would like move on in my life like something like. Let's say I'd go from elementary school. I'd go to high school and they were in a different high school, so then I'd go and I'd have another best friend. And I had a really good best friend in high school and then she didn't go on to college and then I did and then I went on to law school. So I was really super focused and I just let that go. Was not a very good friend for many many years. I just had this. I don't know what it was, but and it wasn't until literally, probably late 30s that I got better. But in probably 40s is when I got really good at it. I'll be 50 this year so dating myself, but oh my gosh so yeah. So I think that you know it was lonely, but I think I had so much internal drive and I just had a desire not to be what many of the adults were in my life and you know some of the things that revealed themselves so.
Marie
Yeah, yeah, let's think about your career going back into the beginning of your career. Can you tell our listeners how you got here? What led you down this particular career path?
Heather
Well, I mean part of it is that back story the back start of feeling like I was an underdog. You know, as if I wasn't being listened to, was wasn't respected or important. That was kind of the foundation of one had a driving me to want to make sure others felt the same and then.
Several years ago I was working in an organization and there was a merger of five companies that were coming together. I was leading customer experience at the time and I could sense a major shift in the culture of the people. Just like all this mistrust was everywhere. People were joining the company with titles totally different than the title. They were very similar. Sorry than the titles of the people who already were there. And they were hiring other people with the same titles. In fact, so much so that I even lost my position, not my job. I got moved, but I lost my position. Uh, I didn't even know about it till I looked on this internal Facebook group. I went on there and I saw that people were congratulating one particular person for this particular role and I was like, huh? That's my role and then I had to go back and talk to the leader and say hello like the way you do this is not to let the person doesn't have that job anymore find out on an internal group.
Marie
Oh my gosh, that's awful.
Heather
And it was awful, so that was the kind of the culture that kind of those things were happening. People were fearful and I and people would come to me. They always have come to me to be like this voice of like what's happening with my leaders, what's happening with, you know? So I went to the head of HR and I said, listen, you've got to do something. I mean our trust is downhill. Culture is going bad and I could feel myself slipping into it too and she said, you know, I think you're right. We should go do something about that. I'm like I should go do something about that, like I'm coming to you ahead of HR and I am leading customer experience.
And but then I thought, well, it made sense because at that point I had already proven myself as kind of that culture bearer, the one who's always uplifting people, whether they are my team or not. And you know, just trying to encourage other people for just whatever they did. And so I did that. I just I decided to create an employee engagement council, brought people from all the different companies that were in the Denver office. But they were stationed or sitting in that office, and I bring all those companies together and we would think about how we could breakdown barriers, how we could break down silos. How we can get people to know each other.
We did sense a shift 'cause we did a lot of fun things to try to connect people. And we sent a shift and things start to go better on the culture side. In that regard with the people, the people relationships. But then the merger didn't go so well through it all though, is I realized that there needed to be a bridge between those who move a business forward day today and those who are like kind of not traditionally in the ivory tower. And one who could bring it to them in a way that would be synthesized, they would speak their language, who just knew that. And that was me.
And so I decided to create actually not right away, not right away did I created I through this whole layoff process. I started to write a lot on LinkedIn. My very first, second and third article were about how to lay people off at dignity. Because these people were the model for how to do it. At least at the very end of it, people started to come out and reach out to me and ask me like boy, could you come help our organization with this and that and this and that.
And finally, I'm like, I better create a company so I created the company. I have now which was, I think when I created in 2015 and I was full time with it in 2017 because even after that happened and I created the company I ended up working at another position, first leading customer experience and then they moved me into organizational development. Then there were re orgs there and I still was there, but I my side hustle had gotten so crazy busy successful that I needed to just leave. I was gonna be in a straitjacket. I was really going out of my mind having to do the full time job traveling with my business. Having my 4 kids so I did that. I made a decision to just take the lead; that was October of 2017.
So this year will be four years and I haven't looked back since. I'm going to be honest. I mean the only time that scared me was right at the beginning of the pandemic. Like a lot of my business halted but I wrote my next book, I wrote this book called The Art of Caring Leadership. This is my second book, actually I I think I forgot to mention I have a first book, the Seven Intuitive Laws of Employee Loyalty and that took place while I was doing a side hustle and working full time after that.
Marie
Oh my gosh, how do you do it all?
Heather
I did tell you that I was going nuts. I was doing a little bit and I was and I when I took I'm like. I am not smiling when I'm telling you that it was a bad time.
Marie
Oh, you must not have been sleeping a whole lot.
Heather
I would be writing like late at night and ah, I did a lot of the writing while I was I was unemployed for 13 months. I started the business, had some consulting things, was writing, but it still wasn't in a place where I was comfortable enough to say I can do this full time right at that moment. But once I got to the point where the side hustle’s revenue brought in as much as my day job. I'm like this makes no sense. I'm gonna give it up.
Marie
So you have been described as the employee whisperer. Can you explain?
Heather
Yeah, there was a movie called The Horse Whisperer. Basically, this ability to deeply to sense the desires and needs and wants of employees. And I have read personally over 25,000 employee engagement survey comments or DEI survey comments. I've sat in and facilitated over 100 employee focus groups. I do listening sessions and things like that with employees. And so I spend so much time either talking to leaders about their people or talking to the people themselves about what the leaders need to do to change their experience. So that's where the name was dubbed.
Marie
Wow, so what has your experience been like as a biracial woman in the workplace? That's a big question, I know.
Heather
It is, yeah because of my background, and I think I already told you my frame of how I see things. I don't like victimhood. I can't say that like things that didn't go well for me. I can't say I would attribute them to my womanhood or the color of my skin. I mean, I'm not naive or either, but I don't recall like really, really blatant or even something that was super obvious. But were there times where decisions were made to go one way or another. There was one promotion thing that happened where I actually had submitted a full business case to be promoted to a particular role and they ended up leaving that position at some point, going to work for the company. Before that, the other company that actually end up doing it ended in a layoff. But after I left after I was at the other job, I left the other place. I was at the other job, then like that next year later they hired a white guy in the role, but I had a whole business case up for doing and so that could have been something, but again, when that happened, I did not go oh, it's because I'm a biracial woman no. I didn't even think of it all. I just thought you know what? They're such idiots, yes, right?
Marie
Well, sometimes things are so subtle that you don't really notice them right away, so.
Heather
I let so many things roll off my shoulder. Again when you're born into a family who doesn't accept you.When you have a your entire your family itself is racist …Then it's almost like anything outside of that is kind of wrong. Unless it's like blatant bad bad stuff.
Marie
So you haven't had to deal with like microaggressions in the workplace very much.
Heather
I mean I've had some. But it wasn't the kind that, like, leaves me going.
Marie
Well, that's good. You're really lucky.
Heather
I really don't know how to explain it. It hasn't been huge, it's been subtle over my life, and because there's really not much that can compare to your own blood not accepting you. My level of resilience was built up at a really young age.
Marie
Wow, that's a really interesting perspective so you don't feel like you've ever had to code switch when you're in the workplace. You could just be yourself all the time, as much as possible?
Heather
I wouldn't say that. I think I am mostly me all the time, but you're right, there's code switching. We definitely are code switching around people who are not people color, that's for sure. I mean at the same time you have to remember my frame. I was raised by a white woman.
Now my dad’s side of the family. Of course they were African American and I was with them quite a bit, but that was only up until about 9 years old. Most of my other years after that were with my mom a lot and just like other neighbors and friends and things, and I was almost always the only one like I went to law school and I wasn't the only one there. There were probably about 20 of us in the law school. There were a couple microagressions that happened there that I'll I won't ever forget, but did it stop me never and never did, never will.
Marie
So let's talk about Employee Fanatics. How are you a company that cares and what's your company mission?
Heather
Our company mission is to help organizations create cultures of listening. Listening really is at the foundation of, I feel like almost all of our world issues, like almost totally relate when you think about things related to race relations. Listening implies the ability to clear our minds, remove our filters, remove our lenses standing the shoes of the other person, empathize with them, be allies, or be compassionate with them and take action on their behalf. Listening is more than what we think it is. It's a process and it leaves people feeling good things when it's been done to them. When someone has listened to someone else, they feel heard. They feel valued, they feel respected. They feel important.
The opposite of how I felt to my own family, right? And that's why it is so critical for me to be like how do we create these environments to be created by other people, feel cared for it where they feel hurt, they feel valued, they feel important. How do we do that? And so it's going down and showing them in practice what that looks like, and we use the voices of their people and true listening strategy to actually give them what they need.
Marie
Yeah, so you have published 2 books now. Can you just give an overview of each of your books?
Heather
Yes, so the one that just came out in April is the Art of Caring Leadership. So what I've done is I've completed between all of the surveys I've you know obviously read all the comments. I've read all the interviews. Their voices come in there. And so I just corralled all that to create 9 behaviors that represent caring leadership and the behaviors are represented in there with stories that align with that that really bring the point home and it's so it's like a guidebook for those who want to show that they are carrying leaders to their people. The first book I wrote, the Seven Intuitive Laws of Employee Loyalty. Interestingly enough, it kind of raises up if you think of The Art of Caring Leadership as like the 10,000 foot level. The Seven Intuitive Laws is at the like 25,000 foot level, and that's because the first chapter of that first book is on giving them good supportive management. And the second book I wrote is about like what does good supportive managers look like, and so now I've created a book that really kind of defines that first chapter, but the other one had the seven laws, and it was much broader organizationally about what you do, and this one brings it right down to the leadership level, so they're both good for what they're good for. And this won't be my last book. Like before, the year is up, I'll probably start writing the next one as well, and I'll be focusing on listening, just fully listening.
Marie
So since we're talking about leaders, do you have a particular leader in your career that stands out for you as the epitome of leaders? Or like your role model for leadership?
Heather
Here's what I would say about caring leadership. None of all of us are on a journey and none of us are perfect at it. I write about it. I talk about it. I research it. I like live and sleep it and I am not perfect at this.
There's at least 20% error rate on me, right? And so I just want to make sure that we say that there are folks that I look at, like when I tell I'll tell you some, you know, I'll tell you a story and that story and that instance and that interaction and that choice by that leader is an example to emulate. But would we emulate every single thing that leader did every single day? No.
Going back to that that layoff that happened. During that process where they were about to, you know, do the layoff with everybody was a lot of people. I said, listen, I told this one particular person. Her name is Heather as well. I told her I said you probably don't know this, but my husband quit his job two weeks before and he ensured our entire family. And like what I didn't know that. She goes, let me go back and see what I can do. A few days later she comes back and she goes, we've decided we're going to ensure your entire family on our COBRA for three months. COBRA is very expensive.
That was just like a really big indicator for me, because you know that that right there was a sign of caring leadership, right? She didn't just empathize with me. She expressed compassion. And by going back, researching and taking action on the behalf of my family, I'll never forget her. And in a funny twist, she ended up endorsing my first book, and she's actually one of the stories highlighted in this second book.
Marie
Yeah, one of those lessons I always have believed, which is you never burn your bridges. I'm really proud of all of the relationships that I've kept. Back when I was in the corporate world, people would leave a position and then all of my colleagues would get really ticked off at that person 'cause they left the company. That is just not worth our time.
Heather
It's stupid, isn't it? Like hello.
Marie
I know it's for me. The example that I have that I would share is that when my oldest son was born, he was born at 24 weeks and was in the NICU for four months. So my first exposure to motherhood, I was thrown into crisis and my boss at the time he was a finance guy, so he was our regional business manager and I as a publications manager was part of his management team. He was a great boss in many ways, but during that period of crisis he was incredible. I mean he was a bachelor. He did not have any children, but he was so great at saying to me like don't worry about your job, you just need to do what you do and I've always been so grateful for that that he didn't have a personal experience of fatherhood. He did all the right things.
Heather
Umm, and that's I think that's the key. I mean you try to do all the right things and when you don't do it well you ask for forgiveness.
Marie
Yes, yes, and he was of course far from perfect. I was quite young, I was 30 or 31 when I took on this major management role and he really believed in me and he really mentored me. One of the first things I had to do as a new manager of a multi office publications group was I had to lay off 3 graphic designers in an office that had not embraced me as a manager. They wanted their person as the manager. And I had to come in and lay these people off, and so he helped me through that he did most of the layoffs. I was there. So that kind of set me up for you know, how do you try to lay people off in a compassionate way, which is really awful. Really hard to do.
So in your Ted talk you talk about how you reframed yourself as not a victim. You refer to that a little bit earlier in our conversations you said a set back is the setup for a comeback. I liked that phrase. Can you explain a little bit about what you mean by that?
Heather
Well, I just mean like ever if people were to say you know what's like part of your big success story, or like your part, your big success calculation or what was the formula to get you here? And I would say that my adversity is what got me here, and my adversity is what is what's going to get me to go where I'm going to go and that's because I told you about that kind of the voices in the head thing, voice in the head is like you're not in good. Another voice in the heads that you don't belong or those kinds of little voices and they kind of chirp at you. It is the thing that actually continues to propel me forward. It doesn't stop me. It actually makes me think more creatively. It helps me be able to kind of leap over barriers because I refuse to be the thing that's in my head. I refuse to be not worthy.
And then at the same time outwardly, I refuse to allow others to feel that way in my presence. It's a gift I was given. I'm giving to others now, every day, you know.
Marie
Yeah, that's your superpower. Yes, so many companies have taken steps to invest in DEI, especially after the death of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and others killed at the hands of police. And I recently read that businesses have donated less than 1% of the money they promised to spend our racial justice and DI, and less than 1/3 of them have examined racial pay disparity, or set goals to change employee demographics? What are you seeing in the corporate world in this area and what do you believe are the most important steps for companies to build successful DEI programs?
Heather
So the organizations that come to me want to do something there so they they have a self awareness. They have an awareness and their organizational awareness that something is broken or they're getting very close to it or that they want to get better even if it's not broken. And so when they come to me, they already at that place. So what I see in the work I do is that there is an intent to act to some degree now. I don't think many of them are prepared to act in the ways they really need to, so it's I mean, culturally, it's like it's like a whole level of mindset at the top, and as we know, most top you know, most of the people at the top are the ones who are, we might think of as privileged ones, that you think that already have had you know, certain type of life, life experiences that many have not, and they've had different opportunities and so to a certain extent they have to give away a little bit of that, and they're going to fight against it even when they think they aren't. They're going to fight against it so that that's that is going to be a really tough hill to climb.
I would say this. Like diversity is amazing. Diversity of thought, diversity of background is amazing, but what I am seeing, 'cause again I'm just knee deep in this work I got to tell you and I would just say. Don't bring in the numbers, the numbers say let's not go back into the quota system. This is not what it's about when we bring people in, we need to bring make sure that we're bringing the diverse people that were prepared to deliver a great experience to them so that they stay with you. Don't bring him in for the numbers. Check in the box. Say we did it, then they get there. They have no mentorship. They have no support system, they have nowhere to go they. They haven't. You know they're not being elevated.They're given work that's subpart of their skill set. Don't do it. So I would say make sure that before you're focusing on the numbers, focus on the on the process. Focus on the structure. Focus on the systems that are inside your organization that would be making sure payrolls align as you talked about making sure there's a support system. Some kind of mentorship system for them. Making sure that there's equity at all levels of your organization.
And same thing with inclusion. So I would say kind of focus on the the EI stuff before you get to the D stuff, because if you try to bring them in to check the box, they're going to leave it out the back door and you really have accomplished nothing.
Marie
That's a good way to look at it. Focus on the E and I before you focus on the D like that.
Heather
It's true, 'cause I mean, I mean obviously you have zero there. Then you can't do any experience, but you know, here's the thing too. Is that what we need? To look at employee experience holistically. It's not just about the diverse employees, so we need to look at the entire employee journey, which would include diverse employees coming in. But that would be the entire employee journey. And if that employee journey right now is bumpy for even those who aren't from the marginalized groups. I have bet your bottom dollar. It's gonna be like twice is bumpy for those who come in from marginalized groups, so fix what you got now and we can talk about that.
And then we can insert some of those other layers of things, but it's not a one and done, and it's not an overnight with any of this culture work. It takes time. It's multi year cycle, three to five years when you really start to see some big uptick, you can have some small wins along the way. Some little changes you can make so that people can feel successful right off the bat. But in the end, it's a long term journey, yeah.
Marie
What advice do you have for women who are just starting out in the workplace? I think back off into what you know what I was like when I started out what I wish I'd known. What do you wish you'd known back then?
Heather
Well, I never say never. That's one thing I learned about myself. I learned not to do. I did that a lot. And boy I have eaten a lot of crow afterwards. I really have because I've I just said yeah so I'd learned that part, I would say. That's you know, I think, no matter what, you have to have a belief in yourself and find that passionate thing that that gets you up in the morning and never settle for something that doesn't give you that. Do not stay at a place for 30 years that does not fill you up with a thing you're called to do. And we're all I'm telling you call to do something. I don't care if you're religious or not, like there is a reason why we're on this earth and you have to figure out what that is for you and find that passion spot and stick to it. And don't let it even get in your way.
Marie
Yeah, I used to tell my staff that if they were not happy or and you know feeling engaged in their job more than 50% of the time that they needed to look for another job. It's yeah, and it's interesting as my college educated grown son, he really was struggling to find the right kind of job.
Heather
So true.
Marie
He has a theater degree and he worked for Whole Foods during the pandemic and you know it was interesting coaching him through some of that. Like you know he was applying for a like a supervisor job. And when he didn’t get it, and I said, is that really what you want to do? Do you really want to be a supervisor? I just didn't see that in him. I was able to use some of my own experience and say, you know, maybe you need to find a job at a place that has more opportunity for growth where you don't actually have to be a supervisor of people you know.
Heather
Yep, exactly.
Marie
So that might be a good new book for you or something. What would you teach the young women entering the workplace? Or maybe not just women?
Heather
I feel so compelled to let people know people whether you have a title or not, but especially if you have a title. If you are in the power position. To uplift others to make others feel important in your presence. Use that power. That's the message I'd like to leave people with. Use the positive power, not the authority, not the title. Use all that that power entails and it can be so positive. For people you can leave people with such positive impressions. I have very few people, literally than less than one hand, who left me with stories and ideas and feelings of what caring leadership looks like. They left a legacy with me that will come to my grave and I think we just all need to decide whether we want to leave that kind of legacy or not.
Marie
I agree, can you share some examples of perhaps your clients of companies that are embodying compassionate leadership in your opinion?
Heather
I have one company that I work with that's doing a lot that that to me is an expression of compassionate, caring leadership. But it's so inaccurate. And of course, when I'm talking about, you know, caring leadership in lot of times I'm talking about a person in their shoes and how they're showing up in that moment. But if we're looking at organizations like what are some of the actions they're taking? Are they, for example, allowing their people to shine like I talk about. They're making their people feel important or they important meeting included in like they belong so that they have programs. Do they have just all everything they do?
Does it create feelings of being included in like the people that are there belong in the organization in that role on that team, and when they're doing that as a whole, we can look at them at being carrying organizations.
But I would say now I'd like to take them one by one because every organization is made up of individual people. Individual team players aggregated to make a whole and we have to make sure that we're kind of grabbing each one. Hopefully the ones that have the most impact to see if we can in fact, like change their mindset and and change their behaviors.
Marie
Yeah I have a no bullshit rule that I use. As I was setting up my firm I thought, OK, this is something that I absolutely believe in because I've worked in big companies where certain people are allowed to get away with bad behavior and it affects the whole work, the workplace culture. So let's talk a little bit about women that are leaving the workplace in droves right now because of the pandemic. Do you have any creative ideas for what companies could do to get women back into the workplace?
Heather
Well, I mean, I think you're gonna have to be flexible. I mean, there's just no way around that. You're going to have to talk to them. I mean, goodness is that's a novel concept, isn't it? We're just going to make assumptions about them, but we're never going to talk to him.
Marie
Right?
Heather
This is a listening side of things. This is where we go to them. We say we want you back. We want you here. We may not be able to meet you fully in your shoes with full time remote, but maybe we can do this at this step, but we need to go talk to them. We'd ask them. That's the only way to get to the truth. We make way too many assumptions in corporate America. We have got to get to the truth and the only way to do that is to go straight to the source.
Marie
Yep, can you tell us about how you are involved in your community?
Heather
You know, right now there's only really a couple things I do in the community outside of I just said like so. I have a podcast. I have 4 kids. I'm a full time speaker and a consultant so things get busy. We do a a food truck. I don't tend to get to it every month. Or we do something called Crisis in the City, which is going to help you know the homeless. Feed the homeless. Talk to the homeless so that they know that they are important. So I try to do those kinds of things. I try to help out.
I'm on the board of the American Cancer Society, so helping with any of the gala fundraising for Cancer Research, I just am going on to the board of this National Speakers Association. I do a little bit too much in order to keep my sanity caring. Leadership starts first with us, and if I do not care for me, I cannot care for others, and so I'm releasing things I'm turning.
I'm being very thoughtful about where I volunteer my hours, and so the things that mattered the most again, like the Cancer Research and the other things related to like my industry, I want to volunteer there and then anything with my kids when possible trying to volunteer their school and stuff.
Marie
Yeah, that's a lot. Have 4 kids and then. Juggle all these other things. Mine are kind of fairly spread out as well, so that there's an advantage there, but yeah.
Heather
Yes, mine are all kind of it's like 11 to 18, so they're kind of, you know, they're all kind of in that age bracket and so I have, you know, three teenagers and one tween. Now 1 going off to college, two years in another two another. So I'll have two in college, two in high school.
Marie
So you have been talking to your Leaders with Heart on your podcast for quite a few years now, right? I was trying to go back to when you started and I couldn't even find it, but what are some of the recurring themes that have that come up on your podcast in your conversations?
Heather
Oh, it's interesting 'cause that that's the foundation of this newest book. I boiled up mostly the 9 behaviors all came from my conversations with about 150 liters, so that's kind of funny that that you asked that 'cause it I started the podcast and then I got to like episode 25 and I was like, you know, a lot of people don't listen to podcasts and this is so darn good that I have got to put this in a book like I you know, what other ways can I do it so I'm I am socializing this message on the news. I'm socializing it in print. I'm doing it on videos for YouTube I'm doing it in the book I'm doing. I mean, I'm doing it anywhere I can where people are hearing this loud and clearly.
You have the power to show more care this year. So yeah, so I would say I've done a lot and some of the themes are again, the things that you do are like making people feel important, creating safe spaces, leading the whole person, making sure that you don't just. You're not just taking into consideration what's happening to them at work, but what's happening outside of work and leaning into that you know, since this pandemic we have learned so much more. We have seen so much more to the zoom lens through the to the teams lens but we were able to see dogs and elderly parents and our college kids at home when all other things right? And what I'm afraid will happen, which will likely happen to many people is that the leaders who saw what they saw and the team members who saw what they saw will forget it.
Marie
I know.
Heather
You'll purposely forget it. The priority of people and human relationships may go bye bye. And my goal is for that not to happen. So it's always like trying to talk to leaders or traditional leaders about how do we maintain that closeness? How do we maintain that whole person leadership? Once you return to office or go to a hybrid model and that's really the thing that we need to be focusing on. How do we maintain it?
Marie
Right, I think that companies or individuals are already seeing a little bit of that fray. Some companies are being really good about saying you can continue to work remotely, but others are insisting that people come back. There's going to be a tension there.
Heather
Yeah, yeah exactly.
Heather
I think we'll have to see where all that boils up. And I gotta tell you, there's gonna be a lot of people leaving their jobs so we're gonna better brace themselves, that's for sure.
Marie
I think so too. If you're not going to be flexible, you're going to lose people, that's for sure. And so my final question is, which you've pretty much already answered, but in case you want to add anything, which is what advice do you have for people who want to create companies that care?
Heather
You gotta ask yourself why you'd want to care. Why does your organization specifically want to show up with more care because you have to know the why before you embarked on. Any culture change, any strategic change in your organization. You have to know the why you have to know why you lead. You have to know why you want to change and once you feel figure out why and hopefully it's not just again to check the box type situation.
I would say the very first thing you do, the very first thing if you haven't already done it, is either review your recent diversity, equity inclusion or employee engagement survey comments every single one of them, and if you haven't done that, or if you haven't even done a survey, administer a survey and read through all your comments. And of course we help with that. So if you don't, we have analysts that can do that for you. But if you don't want to do that, you can listen to your people, your people who are the ones in the front line who are in the business every day. They’ll tell you almost everything you need to know, so I would say that's the 1st way to care is to listen, and then there's a whole process of listening. So it's not just listen and then leave it there.
It's listen and follow through and make sure you communicate to them about following through what you're going to do and involve them in that process of follow through. And Oh my gosh, it's so rich, even as I describe it, I can visualize it and I visualize it for every client I talked to and always tell them trust the process. Trust the process. I promise you, once you know your why and you listen deeply to those who drive your business forward, you're going to have almost 90% of done. Now it's just time to get to action and and we can get that done.
Marie
In your experience, do you ever have people in your client companies who actually don't want some of this that are pushing back on companies being too caring?
Heather
They wouldn’t come right out and say that. The other day I was like talking to someone and I said OK. Here are the things that you know we're going to do what I'm asking you is are you prepared to change the real key things in order to get there and their heads are like, Yeah, I know. And so because of that I have to continue for them. I have to push. I have to push with them. I have to help them peel back the onion to decide what they're prepared to do 'cause once we know we're prepared to do what we are prepared to do, we. We can make sure we're not over promising the people who are looking to us to make changes you know, right?
Marie
Gosh, so do you have anything else you'd like to share with our listeners before we close Heather?
Heather
I would just say that caring leadership is really about showing concern and kindness for those that we lead or for those who look to us for guidance. This is whether you have a manager title or not. Each of us has a choice on how we show up and we have a choice on how we treat people and how we leave them feeling, and I would just say I would invite you to consider the power you hold and to use that power in a positive way.
Marie
Wonderful thank you so much for your time. It's been great spending time with you. Thank you so much.
Heather
I love it. Thank you so much for having me.