129: Unconditional Love as a Business Strategy, with Meg Brown

When you think of manufacturing environments, compassionate leadership and unconditional love probably aren't the first concepts that come to mind. Yet at Cambridge Air Solutions, these principles form the backbone of a thriving culture that's delivering remarkable business results.

Meg Brown, Chief Operating Officer, reveals the surprisingly simple practices that have transformed their workplace. The most powerful is a ritual called personal-professional check-in, where team members briefly share their highest highs and lowest lows in work and life. With "thank you for sharing" as the only permitted response, this creates psychological safety while fostering genuine human connection.

What makes Cambridge Air's approach particularly compelling is its absolute clarity about values. Leadership has literally posted the definition of workplace unconditional love on their walls, describing specific behaviors that demonstrate this value: investing time to know each other, creating space for authenticity, staying curious during conflict, and offering forgiveness. 

The business impact speaks volumes: Higher retention, increased safety, improved productivity, and stronger financial performance.

In divisive times, this approach offers something increasingly rare: a community where people feel seen and valued regardless of differences in background or belief. 

Listen now to discover how compassionate leadership might be the strategic advantage your organization needs.

Ready to see this culture in action? Cambridge welcomes visitors—virtually or in person. Sign up at the website: cambridgeair.com/tours. 

Meg Brown is COO of Cambridge Air Solutions, leading supply chain, manufacturing, and people functions, driving operational excellence and leadership development. Previously, as VP of Human Resources, Meg shaped Cambridge’s employee experience, talent processes, and leadership growth. She is passionate about unlocking potential in others and her true focus has been growing heart based culture, building strong teams and fostering growth.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Young People Demanding Compassion
• 3:35 Introduction to Meg Brown
• 5:58 Compassion in Manufacturing
• 9:17 Scaling Compassionate Leadership
• 13:01 Personal-Professional Check-ins
• 20:08 Unconditional Love in the Workplace
• 26:12 Protecting Culture in Divisive Times
• 30:46 The Business Case for Compassion

Transcript

Meg Brown: 1:15

But what has really accelerated over the last eight years is our young people are demanding this of us. They need it. They require it and I feel like the tone has shifted from resenting them for being that way to more companies going oh, it actually is a better way to be Right. Actually, maybe they've got it right, maybe they're not all wrong about it, and it does feel better when we can see each other and we can do good work and I can bring my whole self to work, even if things are falling apart outside of work and I don't have to try to hide that from you and if all of that is true and compassion can exist.

Manya Chylinski: 1:57

Hello and welcome to Notes on Resilience. I'm your host, Manya Chylinski. My guest today is Meg Brown. She's the Chief Operating Officer at Cambridge Air Solutions. We talked about compassionate leadership, employee experience and the role of unconditional love and living your values as an organization. I think you're really going to enjoy this conversation. Welcome, Meg. I'm really excited to be talking to you today. I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for having me. Hey, before we get into the topic, I would love to know from you what is one thing that you've done in any area of your life that you never thought you would do.

Meg Brown: 2:43

Yeah, that's an interesting question. I want to answer it in two ways a personal one and a work one, because they're they both came kind of at the same time when I think about it. Personal is so it's two things, so I'm already not following the rules, but such as life, personal, I have four sons and I definitely knew I was going to be a mom. But the concept of and definitely probably would have said a bigger family, but the idea that they would all be boys and that I'd be in a very all boy environment, is definitely something that you could not, I would not have predicted would happen. So that's my personal thing. I've could never have said I would have done happen. So that's my personal thing. I could never have said I would have done.

Meg Brown: 3:21

The other one is a little more recent work-wise, certainly that I was recently promoted to being COO and when I think about that here at Cambridge, it's not something I would have predicted for myself, not necessarily not holding a leadership role, but the idea of doing that in such an operations heavy side of the business and in manufacturing is just couldn't have predicted it, given my degree, the trajectory of my career at one point like it was definitely not headed in this direction. And here I am, so that's kind of an interesting question to ask at this moment in time.

Manya Chylinski: 3:53

Yeah, Well, those are two pretty big, important life trajectories that you're talking about your career and your family and interesting that you sort of had some of it in mind, just not the way it played out. Interesting, all right, I love that you are in a leadership role in manufacturing and we are talking about compassion and courage and unconditional love, which is going to be one of the topics that we talk about. I think for some people maybe many people manufacturing wouldn't seem like that's an area where we would be thinking a lot about those concepts. To get us started, I mean, what do you think about compassion in your organization and how is it that you have embedded it into your culture?

Meg Brown: 4:45

What I think about compassion at Cambridge.

Meg Brown: 4:47

I think many small examples come to my mind, like when someone loses a loved one, we have cards, like we just have a stack of blank sympathy cards and anyone can come grab them and send them home.

Meg Brown: 5:02

A lot of times when the word compassion comes up, people might think about losing someone they love Right, and that's a very small way that we we we do things at Cambridge that, I think, are how we act out, why compassion, or how we sort of impact each other in a compassionate way and otherwise.

Meg Brown: 5:20

I think really compassion and the ability to see each other as humans is foundational and absolutely necessary for the kind of culture we are striving to continue to build, one step at a time, because it's a never ending. You can, you got to keep on improving. But I think at Cambridge it becomes really important that it starts with you're a human, I care for you just because of that. There's no requirement beyond that for you to be worthy of love and care, and that that is actually going to help us do some freaking amazing work together. That's actually going to drive things like bottom line and good operational processing and taking really excellent care of our customers, but a lot of that is very hard to do if we can't first start with seeing each other as humans and being compassionate.

Manya Chylinski: 6:07

Yes, absolutely, and I appreciate the idea of the cards after someone's lost a loved one, because one thing you're showing is it doesn't necessarily have to be complicated to truly show compassion.

Meg Brown: 6:24

It's true. Yeah, it doesn't have to be fancy, it doesn't have to be, it can just be a simple card and I know people that have received them say it's the craziest thing. Like one day you go out to your mailbox and there's like lots and lots of cards from different people in your workplace and it really means something Like you feel like, oh, wow, they really like the place I work, really cares about me, and my extended family, right Like my family, has felt this impact, for whatever the loss is, and that's yeah. So I think it's one of these very simple ways and it's also interesting.

Meg Brown: 6:58

We're a family, second generation family owned business A lot of times. These kinds of feels are so common in family businesses because they can feel like family. But as you get bigger and scale, it can be really hard to keep these practices. And those cards are one very simple, very scalable. Anybody can grab one at any time and fill it out, and it doesn't matter if we have 50 employees or 300 employees. It's still something we can do and it doesn't, and it still feels so personal and good.

Manya Chylinski: 7:27

Absolutely, and everyone appreciates being seen, and that's what those cards do. Now you mentioned scale.

Meg Brown: 7:35

I think that might be no-transcript and something we continue to kind of grapple with at here at Cambridge. We have a couple of things that have worked really well for us that come to mind when I think about that. One is, I would say, the ability for one person to do it for all is doesn't work. Not, it's not possible, possible, right. You can't be all things to all people, and so that's. It doesn't matter where you're sitting in the organization senior leader, line worker, doesn't matter, you can't do that. And so, as in before I got promoted, is leading people. So leading, being the HR leader, and I'd be thinking, okay, how do I get more people thinking about caring for one another first, or compassion first, in their all day, everyday interactions, and how do we help them continue to grow the habit of starting from a place of love and care, the couple ways we do. That is one I learned pretty quickly and honestly myself that it doesn't work if I can't do it for myself. So if I can't be compassionate towards my own self and feel pretty good and healthy and giving my own self the care, then it's a lot harder to give it to others if I'm not giving it to myself. So in many leadership journeys they all. You know, I think all roads lead back to how are you? How are you showing up for yourself first? So we've tried to help our folks work on that, and one of the ways we do is there's and it's literally my very first day here, like it will be eight years in August I was joined the leadership team as the HR leader and I was in a leadership team meeting and the meeting started with this thing called personal professional check-in and I'm like what's that?

Meg Brown: 9:39

And so every person, every person took a turn and it was just a couple of minutes and you were meant to share highest highs, lowest lows, personally and professionally. In their case, it was in the last week, because they were together the week before. And here I am, this brand new person. Obviously had met a bunch of them in my recruitment process, but it was my literally first day, first hour for me even. But I got a chance to see what it meant Like these leaders are being really honest about, and courageously vulnerable about, things that are hard and things that are difficult and things that are amazing and that they're excited about.

Meg Brown: 10:42

And in a couple minutes, across six or seven different people, we were connected. We could see each other, we could feel each other, we knew each other, and one of the coolest things I learned then is that the only response allowed is thank you for sharing. There's no follow-up question. There's no. Oh gosh, if I save this and they're going to ask me all these questions, I'm going to have to explain, or no. I mean, you might privately circle back to somebody if you're, if you have a connection with them and you want to check in, but in that moment, right there, you say thank you for sharing. Yeah, so that has is a rhythm that exists in, I would say, most of our teams, if not all. They may vary in frequency, like it may not be weekly in every team, but we're definitely checking up on how are you, how are you really, and giving our folks a place to put hard things in the workplace that are personal in nature.

Manya Chylinski: 11:33

Yes, absolutely, and I really appreciate you recognize. Yes, share the hard things. We absolutely want to hear those. Those are important. And please also share the amazing things, because those are also important.

Meg Brown: 11:56

And please also share the amazing things, because those are also important. I feel that sometimes people are afraid of, if we make ourselves vulnerable or we talk about compassion, that it's going to be some sort of trauma dump Right and high highs, low lows. But guess what? You get to choose what your highest high like. You get to choose how far you take that.

Meg Brown: 12:09

And so I've been in the room long enough with some teammates, have been with me since that very first day, and I can tell you that even those that would not go as vulnerable, maybe out of the gate as others, there will be a time in their life I can confidently say after almost eight years, where they need to say something really hard and they need a place to put it in the organization.

Meg Brown: 12:33

And it might be a work thing and it might be a personal thing, but they need somewhere to put it so that the world around them that where they spend most of their time, which is work, can know I'm going through something really hard and if I'm not myself, or if I'm distracted, or if I'm short tempered, or if I need to leave a lot, or whatever it is I've just watched even those who keep cards a little closer to the vest, which is completely okay.

Meg Brown: 12:58

It's their decision. There will be a time in their life where they want to tell us something and we create this rhythm so that it's available whenever they actually need it, there for the taking to say this really horrible thing happened to my family and I'm reeling and I can't focus on work and I can't, you know, and we get a chance to say thank you for sharing and then sometimes we might actually follow up with like hey, what support do you need? And like you know there are some circumstances where you might follow up more specifically. But I've seen it be really neat in that perspective and I think it's a really small rhythm that actually is driving as I was getting ready to talk to you. It's like man, that really is. When I think about compassionate Cambridge, I think that simple check in is a way we are ensuring or at least prompting a connection point. Yeah, pretty regularly in almost all of our teams.

Manya Chylinski: 13:48

Yes, and it's an illustration again of that. It's pretty simple and the effect is deep and intense and important. But the act is fairly simple and it's easy to explain and I appreciate that you're mentioning it happens on some sort of rhythm, whatever that might be for the team, but it's an expectation and the other piece of it that I really appreciate is people get to share what they want to share. There's not a pressure to go deep. If you want to say that the worst thing that happened to you this week is they were sold out of your favorite pizza, you can say that it doesn't have to be a death in the family or a trauma or something. Truly. I think there can also be struggles with if people are sharing their stories. We want to make sure they feel safe and maybe that means not telling your story.

Meg Brown: 14:42

Yeah, it might sometimes, and that needs to be honored in the system as well right, that matters a whole lot, because it isn't you. Better tell us who you are. It's we want to know the whole you, and one of the ways we try to do that is this rhythm, and when you're ready, you can lower, if it's raised, the bar on vulnerability or some. I've heard it described as like the floor, like how low, how deep are you going to go? Whichever way around you like to think of it, like you're, actually each individual is kind of they are in control of that right For their own selves on that day, at that time, whenever they're and in this environment, right, it may be something they share with their friends and their spouse or their family and never bring it into the workplace.

Manya Chylinski: 15:27

How do you, or do you have a way of measuring the impact that this has made on the business, this level of compassion and sharing? I know people ask me how can I draw a straight line between taking this action and showing that it's improving the bottom line? I don't know that there is a straight line, but I'm curious how you navigate that.

Meg Brown: 15:49

I don't know that there is a straight line, but I'm curious how you navigate that, yeah, so a couple of things come to mind. Straight line, I would agree I have yet to find one, but we have a couple of ways that we use that together. Give us an idea of it. One is that we use Gallup's Q12 engagement survey. We do it once a year, with a checkpoint mid-year to see if anybody, if teams, have been following up on the actions they choose to improve engagement on their team, and the reason I bring it up is that there are questions in there that are pointed at this very idea.

Meg Brown: 16:26

One of them is my supervisor. I feel I'm going to get the exact wording wrong, but it's basically my supervisor cares about me is one of the going to get the exact wording wrong, but it's basically my supervisor cares about me is one of the questions. Another question is I have a best friend at work. Another, you know there's, and so there are questions that are actually getting at a compassionate I.

Meg Brown: 16:41

I'm seen as a human here and therefore I and I think my teammates are too, because a couple of questions are like as you look across, you know, my, my peers do quality work and some of that kind of stuff, and so we've been able to use that to have a sense of how are we doing on some of this stuff, and I can say that in our most recent Gallup, which was the end of April our supervisor cares about me, I think it might've it was definitely one of our top two of the 12 questions, and so that was remarkable to us. Like to know that, because, to your point, scale is really hard and it honestly comes down to the leader Like it's not because they need to be seen as an expert and amazing. No, they actually need to be seen as human and they need to engage other humans in a human experience and so our supervisors and our people better at it and that we together can keep improving the culture in that way.

Manya Chylinski: 18:04

Well, first of all, congratulations, congratulations. I mean that's a testament to the work that you and the other leaders have been doing with these check-ins and with all of your work. That it's one of the top answers that people really feel cared about. So I know that you guys are workplace unconditional love in the same sentence and I'm curious what that means to you.

Meg Brown: 18:40

Yeah. So to me it means that I already and I said some of it. Some of the words I've been using are come straight from our definition of unconditional love here at Cambridge, which is that you don't have to do anything to earn or to be worthy of being seen as someone lovable and to be loved here at Cambridge. And what we do have, and we've described that with behaviors like investing time and getting to know each other, building a culture where we can be authentic, transparent and vulnerable, getting curious when there's conflict and forgiving. These are behavior statements that we have published, that are all over our walls, that we talk about in daily huddles, that explain what we mean by unconditional love.

Meg Brown: 19:29

We're really trying to love each other for who we are and not what we do, and we want to extend benefit of the doubt.

Meg Brown: 19:34

That's really really hard and you're right, it's a little odd in a workplace, because we do have to get work done right and we do have to have goals and we do have to make progress, and it's not just, it can't all just be love and, however, we do think here fundamentally, humans do their best work when they are feeling that way Right.

Meg Brown: 19:55

So it feels foundational to us, but we balance it with its back half, which is unconditional love and high expectations. So we don't tend to talk about them separately, we tend to talk about them as a package deal, because at high expectations is like look, we want to. We want to be clear about our expectations and we want to hold each other accountable for good results, while also being loving and not judging each other and not getting upside down relationally while trying to do that. Does that make? I hope that makes sense. It's like some of those behaviors are celebrating all accomplishments, learning through failure, communicating clearly about where we are and where we want to go, and by doing that with this benefit of the doubt, we're able to deliver what I think is a balanced approach that is more accessible in a workplace environment, right your values and you're enabling the employees to live the values as well with the reminders, with the actions that you take.

Manya Chylinski: 21:01

You mentioned the Gallup survey. The number of times I've heard employees say did an employee engagement survey or we did a XYZ survey and we never found out what happened and we never heard the results, and I don't think they even looked at the results is that's what most people say and I think that's because that's what happens and you start to get too much data as the leadership team and you kind of don't know what to do with it. There's an expectation, when you ask a question or you ask for somebody's opinion, that you're going to listen to it. You may not do what they want, but you're going to listen and it sounds like you have figured out the cadence of being able to listen and respond to the answers that you get, which I so appreciate.

Meg Brown: 21:44

Yeah, yeah, it's funny, we were just talking about it this morning in our leadership team meeting because it's time to do Gallup, rollout or, and every team will meet. They'll meet about their results and they together not the leader deciding, but the leader facilitating the team and deciding what do we feel like working on, what's our data telling us, what do we like, what's not working and what do we feel like would really move the needle for us. So kind of like for us by us, and then they, they have to write it down and commit to it as an action item. And every single people leader at Cambridge has that expectation that you will conduct that meeting and your team will together come up with something. And that's been really awesome and it took.

Meg Brown: 22:23

This is our third time taking the Gallup, and so this is our third year of this rhythm and I'm actually excited about this year because I think the third year should be when leaders feel a little more practice and a little it's not the first time, except for a couple of new hires and that feels really good and I think you're right, that is one of our requirements, of ourselves ourselves, I should say or the organization, when we were looking for a new engagement survey was we have no business asking anyone to take a survey if we're not going to do something with the results, like we, that should just be a non-starter. So if we aren't, as a leadership team, aren't committed to following up on whatever we learn in this, then we shouldn't. We shouldn't do it. And so every year before we launch it, I just make sure everybody good, are we still ready to do what this is going to require of us? On the backside?

Meg Brown: 23:13

And so far it's been heck. Yeah, let's go, and so that's been really helpful, but I couldn't. I couldn't agree with you more, because too many times you get asked your you're just so right, you get asked your opinion and then it goes nowhere. And you wonder, did they even hear me? Like you know, it doesn't really work. It doesn't feel very compassionate Because, like, one of the basic potential skills on compassion is listening right, and so if you aren't able to effectively listen, either individually or as an organization, then you're gonna be really hard to claim compassion.

Manya Chylinski: 23:46

Yes, and I think as organizations get bigger, you get a lot of embedded processes, and maybe the survey is the thing you've always done and nobody stops to question should we continue doing it if we're not actually doing anything with the information? I know how it can be easy to get stuck as the organizations get bigger. So we are living in interesting times in terms of our political climate and our social climate, and I'm curious, thinking about your own organization and organizations out there, how are you seeing that influencing leaders?

Meg Brown: 24:25

I know one of the ways I've seen it influence us is that it can be a burden. It can be something that is really difficult to carry. In fact, maybe it comes up in that personal, professional check-in right as a thing that's weighing heavy on a leader or a group of leaders, and so I am seeing it appear in that way, and I think also we at Cambridge work really hard to protect our culture from some of these outside influences, and that matters to us. And so I'm trying to think about, like how to describe that, but really like, if we focus on our core values that you and I have already talked through some of them that should be a path towards seeing each other. No matter whether we believe the same, think the same, listen to the same news, I don't care, it doesn't matter, I can see you as a human, a half a shot at coming to a solution together.

Meg Brown: 25:20

That feels better, and I sometimes wish that our larger world could get in that same boat and work that same way. So we at Cambridge can feel like we sometimes joke that we're like the island of misfit toys, because here we are trying to do it differently and trying to prove that you can and saying like hey, there's a way to lead a business that's different and that allows for this kind of behavior. Not that we are not the only company trying, there are many and we we rely on each other and look to each other as like beacons and help and inspiration, but it matters to us. So I would say like one, it can be a burden that's heavy, and so having a place to put it kind of back to that personal professional check-in matters, and then two business can really make an impact and prove the model of seeing each other and working through hard things even though we're not the same, and I just wish more of the world could be like that.

Manya Chylinski: 26:13

I agree. I love the personal professional check and if we could find a way to build that level of trust out in the world, which I think is what we're in my own opinion is what we're missing is the trust. Yeah, through the lens of trust for sure.

Meg Brown: 26:29

Yeah, and high judgment, so much judgment, and that's just hard.

Manya Chylinski: 26:37

There is. It can be very difficult when people believe something diametrically opposed to what I believe in. It can be hard to find that empathy and that compassion and that humanity we on both sides it can be difficult to find. So I love that you talked about your culture as its own entity, this thing that you need to protect, and I think that just says so much about how important compassion and unconditional love are as values in the organization. I think certainly many organizations they just get a culture without necessarily thinking about what do we need to do to focus on culture, and I just love that you are so focused on it. I mean, obviously, given what I talk about, but I just it just sounds like an amazing place to work well, we are certainly trying for it to be, so, thank you it's still a place of work and and there are still things I know.

Meg Brown: 27:30

I understand that, but I mean, look, we have good, we have good retention, low turnover. We have people who leave and come back Like we've got some signs that are almost the traditional HR signs that they're working for us. Yeah, those are encouraging too, for sure.

Manya Chylinski: 27:46

Yeah, those are very encouraging, especially the rebound employees, people who leave and come back when they realize, oh wait, the rest of the world doesn't do it this way.

Meg Brown: 27:54

Exactly. Yeah, we always say those are a good sign of a good indicator. And then the other one is referrals, and what I mean by that is, like you like it so much that you want your other people you care about to work here. That's another kind of cool sign, yeah.

Manya Chylinski: 28:09

Yes, that's an impressive sign as well. So what do you think is the biggest risk for organizations if they're not thinking about compassion and culture the way that you guys are?

Meg Brown: 28:22

Yeah, you know, something I've come to understand and I think has even gone faster over my almost eight years in a culture like this and I sometimes joke that Cambridge is the culture I was like I've participated in building what I needed as an employee myself, and so that's kind of funny. And I sometimes joke that Cambridge is the culture I was like I've participated in building what I needed as an employee myself, and so that's kind of funny. It's very like oh, wow, this is like a self fulfilling in a way, like it feels very rewarding to pour into something that is also, at the same time, helping me, fueling me, and I think I know I'm not the only one here that feels that way. But what has really accelerated over the last eight years is our young people are demanding this of us. They need it. They require it, and I feel like the tone has shifted from resenting them for being that way to more companies going oh, it actually is a better way to be right, like actually, maybe they've got it right, maybe they're not all wrong about it, and it does feel better when we can see each other and we can do good work and I can bring my whole self to work, even if my, if things are falling apart outside of work and I don't have to try to hide that from you and if all of that is true and compassion can exist. So I think there's that happening.

Meg Brown: 29:33

If you don't do it, your young people are going to compel it and I think you're going to get left behind in the talent wars and in all the things that are happening. I just think that it's just so important. And then also what Gallup was excited. One of the reasons we chose Gallup is they showed that you see all the data and you're like hey, if you do these things, it actually drives productivity. It lowers accidents like safety accidents. It drives I mean, it drives all bottom line the data is clear that this way of leading actually does grow the business and there, so there is a real life business case for those that want to find it, and so I think that's pretty compelling too. So if you don't do it for the increases in the in the right things and the lowering of the wrong things, then your young people are going to demand it of you sooner. They're not going to want to work for you if you don't have it.

Manya Chylinski: 30:24

Right, right, absolutely, oh, meg, thank you so much. I've really enjoyed our conversation and before we wrap up, is there anything I didn't ask you that you wish I had asked you?

Meg Brown: 30:37

Well, I think some of the things that it's not necessarily a question, but we at Cambridge you can come see us virtually or in person, kind of get a sense of how we do some of the things we do with some of our daily rhythms. So that's kind of cool. So if your listeners ever want to be like what, what, what, how do they do that? You can go to cambridgeaircom slash tours and you can come see us. Whether it's from your own home virtually, or you're happy to be in the St Louis area, you can come see us. We love to do that because it helps us less alone in this compassion journey and in this culture journey. But then also we want to, you know, we want to be in it with other companies.

Manya Chylinski: 31:13

So that's great. So we're going to put the link in the show notes so folks can find you more easily. And, meg, thank you so much. It was such a pleasure to talk with you today.

Meg Brown: 31:25

I enjoyed every minute. Thanks so much for having me.

Manya Chylinski: 31:27

Hey, and thanks to our listeners for listening to this episode of Notes on Resilience. We'll catch you next time.