Video Replay | Running Into the Storm: Leadership, Resilience and the Future of Communication

This session kicked off our 2025 Page Spring Seminar featuring a fireside chat with Page CEO Dr. Rochelle Ford, APR and Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., President & CEO of SHRM, as he shared insights on navigating the complexities of today’s workplace, the evolving role of corporate culture and the communicator’s vital role in building trust and stability amid uncertainty.

With SHRM’s global reach—representing nearly 340,000 members in 180 countries—Johnny brought a unique perspective on the forces shaping work, workers and workplaces.

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Transcript

AI Generated, some errors may appear

Well, Johnny, I am so, so thankful that you have joined us today. And I also want to say a special thank you to Maril MacDonald and the team at Gagan MacDonald for helping us to have this morning fire side chat.

I always think when we have fire side paths that we should have like a fire behind us. Like to set the ambiance, but have you.

And I enjoyed listening to some of your comments that you guys are having discussions about the page principles. as you know, the theme of our Spring Seminar, John.

is really thinking about chaos, we're living in it. I think that we are absolutely living in it. And I know each of you have were talking about how you're dealing with the chaos that we feel like we're in the midst of and these challenging times.

And you have been a leader in so many different ways, right? You've been a chief human resource officer. You were a member of the, and one of the member leads of the first version of President Trump's HBCU commission.

And you've been a corporate board member and you still are on national and nonprofit boards. And so I really want to know, just as they've been talking about their leadership journey this morning, tell me about how you as a leader are navigating and attempting to thrive in this chaos.

And what advice would you, have for our CCOs and our other communication leaders here in the room on how they can maintain their well-being and empathy in times of relentless change.

Wow, that's a whole bunch to do. So I'll answer this, but let me say first of all, thank you all for having me here today.

I love Page, right? We are sort of sure if you think about it, you are to what, you know, communications professionals are.

I'm that to HR professionals. So we have about 308,000 members across the globe. in 160 countries just opened our Saudi Arabia office because business is growing.

want to talk about a place that's in the middle of change where actually we'll talk about it running into it.

How do I manage to this? Let me start with we've been in the middle of chaos for a minute now.

In some ways, I remind people today's the 13th, right? Today's the 13th. the 13th of this Thursday, the 13th.

Well, guess what? So the irony is, and I just inked a piece that's going to go on LinkedIn this morning about Friday the 13th, and it was Friday the 13th, 2020.

Five years ago, and it wasn't to the day because it happened to be a Friday and it's a Thursday, but if you remember, that was the day when all of the governmental officials that kept saying, remember Friday the 13th, not the latest Jason thriller, but the real life thriller called COVID.

And I remember where I was that day because my comms folks called and said, the White House is saying we've got to shut down and not just us the world.

People are going to start working remotely to that and you talk about chaos. Think about that. Go back and just say five years ago, and I dare suggest you that we have been in the middle of chaos since then.

And we say in the HR profession that COVID all wasn't bad with COVID because it gave us an opportunity and I know it was the case for you as professionals to elevate.

what you do within your organizations. We were just talking about that walking up, know, in the past, it was HR, you know, comms, people, blah, blah, blah.

Now all of a sudden, we were in the center of it. And they really, really needed us. I'll never forget meeting with a Fortune 10 CEO who said to me, Johnny, and he thought he was bragging.

was a weird conversation, but he said, you knew your comments words. But he said, have not had, I had said I had more conversations with my HR person in the last eight weeks.

I've had in the prior eight years, like, hmm, not sure if that's a good thing. But, um, somewhere near the point, okay.

But, but, but more to the point was it was because they found this weird in the middle of chaos.

And we've been there, we go from that to George Floyd. in the middle of that, we decide, okay, when we start bringing people back to work or not, do we vax?

Do we face mask? And they're each one of these issues as see the nods, they're just throw less into more chaos.

Yes, because our society, our workplace, our people are very divided in ways that I've never seen, like it's like clockwork, no matter what you do, you have a good chance that 49 to 51% of the population is going to be pissed off, no matter what you do, or say, no matter what words you choose, you can craft the perfect statement, and someone will find something to be offended by, and usually it's a lot of those people, right?

So that creates chaos in and of itself, because our leaders are asking us to help them, you know, be perfect, and the reality is you can't be, so that's my number one thing I've decided, I have to be okay with imperfection.

And I have to get my leadership team, all of, listen, we're not going to be perfect, none of us are perfect, and actually people relate better to your sort of imperfection.

I think at the end of the day, if you're honest and I heard the term authentic about it, people perceive that, so that's one of the things that I do a lot is just say I admit, and not in a way that happens.

across as, you know, inauthentic, but I make mistakes, you know, you take the best information that you can get, and you synthesize it all, and you make the best decision that you can make.

So that's number one, is that really, really, and I think each of us, as you think about taking care of yourself, is give yourself a break.

You're not going to be right every time. And frankly, I'm not even sure what right is. And if you were right yesterday, you're probably wrong the next day, and you might write, because it's just, it's so much, so you have to get comfortable with that.

The second one is aligned with some of the principles of your organization. It's, and George Bush told me this during an interview, now about four years ago, on a stage, I had the good portion of interviewing him, and he said, you know, talk to me about a leadership principle that you spouse and commit yourself to, and he said two words, calm.

I'll never forget that. He said project calm. So it's not enough to be calm. You must project calm. It's not quite as brown out, but I didn't take care of myself.

We too often are, you go from fire to fire to fire to fire and even the fireman gets tired.

so this time to sit down, they sound like I'm just calling out name. So we're on a Huffington was, you know, started this new company called Thrive Global.

And she and I actually worked with her back in the day when I was at IAC as its head of HR.

And she told me, she said, you've got to get sleep. You must, you underestimate the importance of sleep. I grew up with the grandma who lived.

My grandma was so crashy. know, the generation worked really, really hard. She's like, when you die, you got forever to sleep.

Don't worry about it. was like, what? was like, I'm trying not to do it early, Granny. But get your sleep.

And probably the most fine, the one or two or three things that you actually like to do, that you find joy in.

And they could be any number of things and make a point. Once a month. I do one of those three things.

just literally take time away and say, I've got to do this because it's the only way that you can survive in chaos is to take care of yourself.

So whatever is, you know, one of my good friends, he's our chief knowledge officer. He likes golf and he likes massages.

So guess what? I know I don't work for this good deal. So what do I do as a leader?

I give them a gift certificate, we have a membership to a golf club and then a gift certificate to go to, they got these little details.

It's like 89 bucks a month or something. kind of cheap, but every month go and get a one 90 minute massage or whatever it is.

But it's amazing what you can do for yourself and what you can do for your teams if you allow them to put in what really brings them happiness, peace, and give it to them and make sure that they experience that self.

That's what the self care is all about. Can I say amen? I can come from the tradition of the black church and I just really want to say amen because everything you said is so critical.

It's okay that we are in perfect human beings. We might strive, practice towards perfection, but it doesn't make perfection.

You're striving for that, but it's okay to be authentic and to own our mistakes, or we're gonna fail forward, I used to tell people, and make sure that we take care of ourselves.

So if y'all don't see me at the bar tonight, or I'm at the spa, it's gonna be one of the two.

And the closest is at seven, so if it's after seven, I'm probably asleep, but I appreciate that because that is in line with what we say remain calm, but it is projecting calm because your heart might be racing.

That's right. But you're gonna have to demonstrate calm to your team, to your leadership, to be able to move forward.

Can I tell you to that point, I just gather and reject it. So we were in the middle of, I'm gonna go to my D and I stories.

So we had all sorts, if I may, matter, Dr. Ford, may I? But we last year at term we did some intense research and we discovered we saw from the legal side, the political side, which is your elected officials, et cetera.

We saw that there was a lot of confusion specifically around the E in the middle of DE&I. So there wasn't as much pushback and resistance with the D for diversity, wasn't a turnaround inclusion, but that E just set everyone on fire.

So we were hearing that from employees. We began again talking to the courts. walked the kit. We're based here.

So we're always on Capitol Hill talking with elected officials. And we said, you know what? We're going to reposition this.

Well, I got to tell you the fire that unleash. I was like, Oh, my gosh, the next day. I didn't even I remember that Tuesday, like clockwork July night.

was like, Oh, my gosh. But we had some of our own cons people who freaked out. And it was so unnerving to me.

It's like it's one thing to call. and say like Johnny we need to get in the front of this but they were freaking out and every time there was a spike on LinkedIn or a spike on this like they were like freaking out the entire organization and I just got to tell you that you know that that really bothered me as a CEO not having my comms professionals helped me be calm but also project calm 340 000 members and about 170 000 felt this way and another 170 000 felt the other way and I needed people to help us me walk through this and it created a lot of stress within the organization unnecessarily so I would tell you you are a key here I have two members of our comms team I got to drop them out Abby and Amanda please stand because they literally are my heroes thank you you know I appreciate that since you opened up the door

DEI, can I just dive on through that old idea was just to give you a you open the door.

So we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna slide on in through that door. We just did a study, released it in December, page did in partnership with Malansky and partners and the acronym DEI, it sets everybody off nearly and no one knows what it even means and particularly the E right we have diverse perspectives and we nobody wants to go into an organization where you feel left out and don't feel like you belong.

People want to feel inclusion and belonging but when we think about that term DE and I they said you know it doesn't have a whole lot of meaning diversity globally whether you are in and we have I don't know if any of our Saudi members are here but we have Saudi members and we have some members from the UAE and and so we're we're we're we're

all up in the least as well as Asia, APAC, Europe throughout Europe. And it's important over there, but it means different things.

All over the that's right. And at the same time, I'm sure you guys, and I say you guys, a valley girl from Ohio.

Okay, it's a valley from Ohio. Okay, I know that's like weird, right? And so I say you guys, and then I learned to say y'all, but anywho, that's diversity, that's geographic diversity there.

And you can't judge a book by its cover either, right? And ESG, right? Environmental sustainability and governance. And those all have become really polarizing issues.

And so when we think then about those terms, it's been rallying cries, it's been polarizing. And we've seen that particularly between 2016 with the media.

you know, movement starting to what we literally saw in protest just yesterday, maybe it's a day, I don't know.

But with the businesses increasing being pressured to take political stance, how does Sherm, how do you all resist the pull of partisanship while still driving meaningful change?

And what should communicators you do when when caught between these stakeholder demands and and diversity and equity inclusion is one of those and it might just be the term denied because our researchers Malanski said if we call it responsible business people are like oh yeah right who can just be responsible but tell us how I was sure I'm that right so let me unpack a little bit of it so the funny thing about this term the E&I is it's relatively new but those of us who've been around in this business for a long time, for years it was just diversity then it was

diversity and inclusion. Then it was diversity, equity, and inclusion. Then it became diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. DEIA, and then somebody added a B.

And so this thing is now DEIA. I don't mean to be glib about it, but it's kind of insane.

I think well-intended, but what's so amazing to me is that when people are like, you have to focus on these words and not using that phrase, and I said, gosh, it's relatively new.

How about, and this is, I think we'll resonate with you all, focus on the work and not the words.

If you get hung up on the words, well, the words have changed every two or three years. have just told you they added a new, the acronym just grows and grows and grows.

And some people are really offended if you just stop at DEIA, because they want you to say the A and the B.

And so the start is, and words do matter. So right, I get it. But if we organization, one of the terms that we've used within our organizations, let's focus on the work and less the words.

Let's figure out what matters to the employees within our organizations and let's show them how to be diverse, how to be inclusive, how to make people belong, et cetera.

The second rule that we have in achieving this goal is we actually do try to stay away from polarizing terms, especially ones that are hyper-polarized, like equity.

Part of the problem with equity is no one can define it. It means different things to different people. Some people say it's access, equal opportunity, some see equal outcomes, and here's a dirty little secret from the lawyer in the room, and I'm sure some of you are here, we don't have an equal pay act.

I mean, we don't have a pay equity, equity of an equal pay act. So when people go around saying pay equity, I'm like the law doesn't even provide for that in the United States.

There's some countries that do have a pay equity construct. We don't. We have an equal pay, and those are very different terms.

So even then the legal folks get involved and say, well, you can't eat, there's no No reason for you to use that language.

And then you find it polarizing amongst your employees. So employees aren't happy, the lawyers aren't happy, the politicians aren't happy, but we dig in and say, but we're still going to say it.

Because what? We've only been using it for the last five or seven years anyway. So I start with that on ESG, parallel sort of experience.

Larry Fink, as you all know from BlackRock, coined it, right? And then a year ago, he famously announced, I'm never going to use it again.

Never. I'm just not going to use it. It's not that we don't care about the environment. don't care about social issues.

We don't care about governance, but this has become so polarizing that it has divided our workforce, not unified it.

And goal, right? Ultimately, is to figure out how to unify people around the work who cares what they call it.

So I think we decide to follow a lot of that, that sort of strategy. And I think it's helpful to the extent the word is extremely divisive.

You could run into it and decide I'm going to do it anyway and sort of put it in the face of people But then people don't fear you and the people who don't hear you are the people who you need to hear you Right, that's why the words are so important.

So we've decided I was writing and you tell me where this is So we have a phrase that I came up with in the car.

have to say writing I had been appointed now mind you I was Hillary Clinton's North Carolina father. need this director of both times issue right now.

I Promise you my team is here is the truth from the White House the president would like to see you in Trump won Really?

Okay, what am I gonna be banned from the country? So this is my face Here you're good To my surprise he invited me in to serve as his advisor on historically black colleges and university So I was the chairman of his board of advisors on HBC use now I didn't attend an HBC you would be clear bless you.

I didn't attend an HBC you but I had served as the CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College one so he needed a subject matter expert in the work so I said well this is interesting and great meeting I come in he said you didn't vote for me didn't you?

That was the opening of Salma. Well because I was on Hillary's team you could probably guess I didn't but okay um but it was a great conversation I accepted the gig accepted me and I served as the advisor for three plus years but I say that to say I learned I once he called and said would you do this I'm writing and I looked at my head of comms who was with me as well as my governmental affairs and by the way I I go with them you know oftentimes I say you're a person you're a CFO that's not my two I got my governmental affairs in Washington DC and my comms person I say go with me we're writing into town into the White House and I said how can I explain this to my members because I've got a large swap of my population it's gonna be really pissed about this and it came to me Sharma's about

policy, not politics. And it literally was something, I was talking it out, and this team, the three of us, all riding in the car, said, that's what we're gonna talk about that.

We're gonna be about policy, not politics, which means there are times when we're gonna support policy that the Democrats don't support, and there are times when we're gonna do things that Republicans gonna not gonna support, but we're gonna be true to what we do.

And just the nuance of saying, we're not bipartisan, we're nonpartisan. Just that nuance of words, and sometimes you have to explain to people because they use them interchangeably, but there is a difference between saying, we're just nonpartisan.

And there are gonna be times, for example, when the President, President Trump, this decided that he was gonna be anti-visa, know, allowing legal immigration.

We said, oh, cowboy, that's so good. I feel like we need these talent, people. have a birth rate prop in America, we have a lot of problems, retention, you know, the great resignation, it's a lot going on.

And he pulled back. Because we had been positioned not as a partisan group at all, but one that will focus on good policy for our country, no matter who sits in the White House or who controls which of the houses of Congress.

So that's it, and the more that professionals like you can help us craft unifying language as opposed to divisive language, we all have our personal point of view about anything.

I mean, we saw the electorate. It's very divided. The workforces are very divided. For the first time in 2019, we captured data.

We survey and some would argue surveil They do nothing but survey all day. And what we learned was people are really divided.

But everyone actually wants to find what we have in common. So what we said is we have a lot more in common than we have different.

But we focus so much on the difference that that's a problem and I'm going to end with this. is, or at least this subject, was one of the things as I reflected on, what's been this pushback of diversity?

Why is this so bad? Why are people so angry about it? And I think when we, you know, take a, we reflect as an HR profession on this topic, one of the things we did forever, we focused on our differences and not what we have in common.

We ignored the fact that if I go to a reception and I meet this gentleman in front of the table, I don't go up and say, are we different?

Tell me how we're different. No, I say, where'd you go to school? Where are you from? Which major in?

I'm trying to find what we have in common. Human beings naturally want to find commonality, particularly when they meet someone who's diverse to them, sometimes visibly diverse, sometimes not.

visibly diverse. You know, we have invisible diversity dimensions as well. So that's what we've done and how we get through it is everyone in DC knows and I hammered to my team.

I've actually had to maybe controversial separate employees who could not embrace that. That is our culture. That is our mission.

I'm not telling you who to vote for. I'm not telling you who to like. I don't even care what you think about these issues.

But when you show up as sure and more importantly, outside in your personal life, if you're on LinkedIn or wherever your Instagram name the social media and you're trashing, that follows our brand as well because you really can't separate it now.

So we're really clear when you come work for sure, you've got to be able to walk into the White House whether it's a Biden White House or Trump White House.

We ultimately, if you're not there, policy is not going to not be, you know, just won't be not done because sure isn't there.

So you've got to be there no matter what policy, not politics. I so love this. think you are just reiterating so many things that Paige is ultimately about.

One thing, prove it with action. That's one of our core principles, you have to prove it with action. And when you walk into a room, and I think we shared this on so many calls, including the ones that we have with you on civility or project dialogue.

So Bob Feldman, don't know where you are. Where's Bob? Bob? He was here. There he is. Thank you, Bob.

So Bob Feldman, he has one of our distinguished service award from Paige. And one of the things he said, we need more civility in society.

And so he talked about what some of those steps might be. And then he said, you know what? I'm going to lean into this.

And he created the dialogue project at Duke. And then he said, and Paige, y'all need to come together to help companies and their individuals come together have dialogue on these critical topics to find that commonality.

so I really appreciate that and thank you for your partnership and I think that on the slide there you'll see you can go to the resources on having these civil conversations and this is a tool that you can use and I think it's a great opportunity for chief communication officers, agency leaders, educators, know everyone that's in this page communities that gives search to go and see what resources are and then how we can partner with our colleagues and human resources to make this possible because too often we're afraid to talk and I think that's part of what the pushback has been is folks are like I don't know I'm gonna I can't say the right thing I'm gonna step on toes and what have you so we have to create that space but the other thing that you were saying about your approach of policy not politics I would call it what we call corporate character at page so how do we come this authentic enterprise not just authentic we were talking about for our own self

air, but authentic on what our enterprises, our companies, our nonprofits, et cetera, what we stand for. It goes down to what's our purpose that we're trying to serve?

What's our purpose? What's our mission? Why are we here? Right? But then it also goes into what are the things that we value?

And if you're going to be part of our team, you have to believe in these same values. So for sure, it's going to be policy over over politics, finding those commonalities, let's say, away from divisiveness.

But each of our organizations have those same sort of values and they articulate things differently. And so how do we use that as a litmus test?

What we're going to talk about? And what we're going to talk about, because that's not in our life. And who's going to work here and who's not going to work?

I'm just saying, I've been very sometimes controversial position on culture. what we're talking about, and I think between HR and communications professionals, we help about organizations.

We're the facilitators and brokers of culture. within our organizations. should be. How do you articulate? See, the work culture means a whole much, but you know it when you see it.

Justice Potter Stewart said about obscenity of biography of one of those. like, you know it when you see it.

We have this notion, at least I do, in terms of researchers supporting it, there are no good or bad cultures, workplace cultures, safe or illegal, immoral, Let's take those off to the other side.

other than that, there are no bad cultures. You just have to articulate very clearly to people what I call have cultural clarity.

So many of our organizations, this is where you all as a profession come in, you haven't articulated and given clarity to what your organization believes.

How do things work? And it's the worst thing in the world to recruit someone into an organization because they can technically do the job.

At this many years of experience, I went to this college, then when they get there, they're like, Oh my gosh, this is a disaster.

There's a. little disconnect. Most of our turnover, our data at Shurm will reveal to you, is because people are not culturally aligned.

They didn't understand what they were walking into. And therefore, what we say is, you know, during the interview process, for example, you know, you ask them, do you meet these criteria, can you do job?

Here's the task of the day. But then you also say, here are cultural values. Here's who we are. And you describe it.

It's not a yes or no. Give me an example where one of ours is that says everyone is, you have to be smart and curious.

And so, course, people are oh, that's such a smiley. That's a no. Who wants to work with the dumb person going to get a grip?

Like, no one wants to do that. But you can be smart with that one in MIT. That's the point.

That's the point. That's point is that they heard or thought smart men college degree, many of them from the right school's top of your class and said, no, no, no.

I worked for three billionaires, Barry Diller, Sumner Redstone, and now two of them are deceased, Wayne Heiziger. Because I was

Blockbuster guys there once was the thing I was the third lawyer at Blockbuster. I still car carry but anyway There was one lesson a lot one left but the point is we Two of them didn't have college degrees at all and they were the some of the successful people in the world Right, and I'm not talking about I went to Harvard and dropped out to go pursue my business idea like didn't go It was not going to go that kind of thing So what we have to do is we had to articulate to people.

What does that mean, both purpose we Articulating your culture if you do nothing else getting that right will help your organization in ways that you can't imagine Because on the way in people understand who you are and who you aren't and they can then decide if there is a line That and we literally will say perfect this person could do this job and they're asleep But they're not aligned with our culture for exam and so going to this civility conversation So let me just quickly tell you where this come up

2019 we did some research and for the first time the word toxicity showed up but it wasn't in the care areas that we thought.

So we're surveying employees around the world and we're toxicity. I'm prepared to leave my job because of workplace toxicity.

We assumed Dr. that what they were talking about was race discrimination, harassment, the things that have led to and been sort of tied to the term toxicity.

For the first time toxicity was tied to my colleagues and their unwillingness to accept that I believe different things.

So political affiliation, worldview and perspective and we've never seen that it's always the demographic issues of gender, race, national origin, ethnicity that had sort of been tied to toxicity and other area of toxicity that we typically heard always my manager.

I have a bad people manager and that person creates a toxic workplace for. Well but the first time 2019 now to be fair we're going into the

the election, we're hearing it's not my manager and it's not based upon my demographics. It's the person sitting next to me who is being openly uncivil toward me.

And I'm not going to come here. I'm not going to stay here if you allow that to continue. Because I can do work.

And remember 2019 with very low unemployment. Like I said, great tsunami, people were turning over, resigning and walking out.

So people had choices. And so we began to do this work. And I'm so you're right. We reached out and worked with the folks at the dialogue project and others.

We have got to get our workplaces on control. People are incredibly uncivil toward each other in ways that are more than just embodied her.

That I said this but mean they hold each other in contempt if they don't agree with them. So we've got to retrain our workforces or otherwise we're going to lose our best people.

Because our best people are not going to work in an environment where it's that hostile. And again, I'm not talking about just harassment.

I'm talking about the hostility of showing up to work, little bit fine on tidbits. So we did some data collection and it shows that the average person takes 37 minutes to get back to themselves and get back to full productivity after experiencing the act of incivility in the workplace.

37 minutes. So you do the math. If people are coming in and being attacked and this is someone you need to, I always say that would you want, you know, you're going into having some form of surgery, any kind of surgery, even if selective surgery, and your physician has been under attack walking into the room?

No. No, I want you at your best and we allow our employees to be to countless acts of incivility and we expect them to perform well and for them to continue to want to work here.

It's a really bad idea. So this is a business imperative now. It's not a feel good, be civil to each other, but we've learned that you've got to teach people how to do it.

So two things. Be clear about what your culture is and art. Calculated along with behavior. So it's not enough to say here are five words I mean behaviors like this is what we do tolerate what we don't tolerate Etc and then you will have much better workforce and that's going to require you because HR people we're not This is what you do your communicators.

have to help us and they blow up to do the work that we have to carry out Well, I appreciate that, you know, I love doing this But supposedly I'm supposed to open up to questions to others.

I can't just hog the mic So if you have a question, we have some some runners that have a paddle So if we can bring one over here And and we can have I think that's and isn't and you get to ask the first question You were in New York at the New York regional and and I think you asked the first question there, too So I'm sorry and by the way, that means you're just a great does she have the paddle?

$10,000 sold Is this one okay? We'll collect my teams in the back. We take them over. I'm overly enthusiastic on this title and

hearing from GNS. I love this conversation for so many reasons. One thing I've thought about a lot is what is it that interferes between a manager and a manager or leader and a person that they may be leading, where they don't understand each other.

There are barriers, there are breakdowns. I always joke that Harvard Business Review makes a heck of a lot of money because it's hard to manage people, right?

So I was happy in the progress around aspects of DE and I, although I very much agree that the acronym and the lack of specificity has not helped us.

This has been highly hurtful. I'm going to be interviewing Cheryl battles on this for our podcast soon to talk about that issue.

But I think one of the things I was heartened by is that if you think about things like implicit bias, that's one of the things that may be interfering between a manager and a manager understanding each other.

But there's a lot of other things styles. Have I given you the keys to understand me? Am I asking you to perform something for me?

Oh, you did something. I mean, you haven't performed enough grief for me that you've versus that younger person may be just looking at you like, I don't know how to respond.

So I was excited that part of the conversation around DE and I was actually helping us unlock what are those barriers that makes us better people managers and then locks that connection between people.

And it's very depressing that now with this rollback of DEI that some of the language we have around microaggressions are around bias or about how do I take a courageous look at and really own where I may be at.

I think we've taken a great step back there because that's the hardest thing for people to do is look at I've hurt you or I have something in myself that's unexamined or I don't know how to articulate to you where I'm coming from or I don't even recognize that I'm putting a lens on you could be anything that is gonna interfere with you actually performing.

So it's a big question but it's one I'm grappling with and I welcome any thoughts you may have on.

We've lost that language and that ground but what can we do to get back to it? unlocking some of that again.

So I remind everyone, how many of you, everyone's talking about the executive orders to be fair, how many of you actually read the executive orders?

I'm to you. Like about half of you. A lot of us talk about it, but what it really gets to is it says illegal or discriminatory DE&I.

So believe it or not, there is no prohibition against DE&I. There is a way to do legal, and I'm not so sure about the ease to that point.

So I'm going to focus on what we say, which is I&D. The inclusion work absolutely can be done, and it can be done legally.

De-work can be done, but we have to acknowledge, guys, and again, I hope no one is offended by it, but I'll be gone in few minutes.

it's okay if you're talking about that. And you're going to leave me here, because I brought you here. Right.

I thought it by my own passing, we'll get me out of here. But no, we have to be willing to look at and take an honest look at some of the not so good parts of the DE

you and I work that we engaged in. Our data is overwhelmingly that oftentimes DEI created more divide than good.

It did more damage than good in the way that it was practiced. may have come from a good place.

the reality is if you vilify any one group, all white men are bad, is bad, kids are bad, unborn, grandsons are bad, you can't do that.

That was a recipe for a disaster. We saw it coming and vilifying white men holding them accountable for it.

Everything wrong in America was a stupid idea. They did it and I told them constantly it was a bad idea.

You can do this work, but you can't do it in such a way where you only focused on groups that are historically underrepresented.

If we talk about inclusion, it should be inclusion for all. And we didn't do that. Oftentimes it's inclusion for certain groups only.

Built in that was all sorts of issues of, you know, and shame and all whatever. But that's, people were, that's not cool.

And the. Ita is overwhelming that it ultimately created in some instances bad. The other thing, and you are the communicators, words matter, words matter.

the way that we describe some of the language that we use, anti-racist. My gosh, like you thought someone was going to agree to that.

yeah, a racist. no one does that. was, it was whether right or wrong, the words offended people, one that drives me nuts and doc may not agree with me on this one.

I'm sure, but people of color, what the hell is that me? A white people translucent, I'm clear. mean, what the hell is that?

Do you not have a color? Yeah. have on a white shirt today. It's a color. could put on a blue shirt, another color, but we just, we chose an in our effort.

These people made up stuff. We have to be honest and unfortunately, those words got in the way of the work because it began to divide us.

You're communicators. And you, you should be better than that. should have advised us. whether we heard it or not in HR, which is typically where the diversity work sits, but we've got to be really, really careful about how we deliver this message that it doesn't end up dividing.

This is unifying. There's great work to be done on the inclusion side. Sharm was committed to it. We just bought acquired, for example, from PwC.

It's, I think it's called the CEO action for inclusion. We acquired that from PwC. so now that's a business that we're running and we're going to focus very much on legal, the type that can withstand legal challenge, inclusion, and diversity work.

I think you're right. All of those principles are incredibly important. But here's a big shocker where's diverse as we've ever been, yet where's divided as we've ever been.

So for all of us who did this diversity work for 30 years and assume that somehow it's going to bring it together, net, net is a big question mark.

We're going to do data. We're going to do a lot of research. We're going to actually. understand what works, what doesn't.

Do ERG's work, maybe, maybe not. You have to be willing to get to ask yourself the right questions. The law says you just can't do those things.

I'm going to have a women's only group and a black only group and well, I thought we were trying to bring people together.

So you bring them to work and then fight them back out. I get the point of meeting to be in an environment where you feel safe and you feel like you belong.

But two things, you got to comply with the law at the same time. So that's what we're going to do is we're going to help organizations do good inclusion and diversity work.

And once the E is sorted, we'll come back to that. said this, I guess they came out of my head from nowhere.

I said, you know, wish growing up, if the acronym E would have stood for empathy. Because that is the most important tool.

That tool would have helped us, to your point, understand the generational difference between, you know, 50 something year old manager and a 27 year old kid.

And they're not just in the understanding that single mother and what she has to deal with to get to your office by 845 every morning when her school says her kid's daycare says you have to drop them off can't drop off until 830 that's but they but when we started trying to bring this concept of equity I think it sent everything sideways and I'm not an anti equity person because I do believe in health care equity issues I do believe in educational equity so I want to be clear I'm talking about equity in the context the workplace because there are laws title seven there are laws that control how we address these issues at work but there are legitimate health care equity issues educational equity issues etc so I do want to clarify that I'm not anti equity and that's one of the things that we found in our study that we released at Davos before looking at the confidence in business yes and when we looked at the confidence in business and this is what 14 different countries and asking consumers what would whatever the issues and things that would help L.A.

a confidence in business, and we found a lot of commonalities across country, but some of the biggest differences that we found were among generations.

Gen Z versus boomers, never talks about the Xs. I'm an X. Anybody else in the room? Hey, Xers, let's rise up.

Rise up, revolution. Xers. There we go. Hit me with your best shot. Come on, y'all. know, They'll do it these days.

Okay, I'll find another 80s song. But anyway, what we found is that there was a big generational divide, and with the Gen Zs, and they were saying mental health, and they have vocabulary.

They want their mental health days, and they were, well, I do too. You said that. love those principles, remember the spas, right?

mean, on the lobby level. But they also said, that they had higher expectations on issues of equity in the workforce, gender equity, right?

wanted to make sure that these issues were covered. so, establishing that culture is really, really important. And part of what our job as a member of the C-suite is to kind of help as an advisor, as a strategic advisor having a voice, we've got a minute and I want to toss this over to you to finish with this.

you can have two, you can take as much time as you want do this in half. I promise you.

Because they're going to do sound. Run us off. How do we be, how do we really own the seat at that table with all these generations that are in the workforce, establishing the culture, the corporate character, the mission, the purpose?

How do we partner, not just with you, but having that seat at the table. People, when you have one generation saying one thing, mental health, another generation like yo, just economic development, talk to me, what would we do?

And you close it out. you know, listen, I wish I had all of the answers, but the way that I think you has acknowledged that we now have six generations in the workplace.

For the first time ever in our history, most people talk about five, but the Alpha generation entered. Born in 2010, it's now 24.

So we have 14, 15-year-olds who are actually working, many in our workplaces. So for the first time, you've got these six generations.

And what we do is like any other market research group, understand your audiences, and understand where there's overlap, understand where their differences don't make huge assumptions because there's also the overlap and overlay of demographic differences.

It's amazing, when I say demographic, I should say on the map, like it's amazing what a millennial in the Midwest, Moines, Iowa thinks, and how differently they think than a millennial on the coast.

So, finding that actually if you break it down that millennial in the Midwest thinks more like many of you in this room because of just the differences.

So it's a very complicated and nuanced area that I think we're very careful not to generalize about generations. But within your organizations that goes back to culture, you're going to really if you survey your employees really well, you're going to understand the multi-generational difference.

I have a guy, kid who works for me, call him a kid now because I'm left to say, but he's like 30 years old, but he's like 60 in mind.

Like he was born both of his parents and military, born in the south, yes sir, yes ma'am, he shows up with the suit every day to talk him out of the tie.

Like really, but that's the way he, so I think we have to be really careful. That would be the biggest advice, but then you ask me how can you become your goal is to be the go-to trusted advisor of your CEO and more broadly your organization and frankly hopefully your CHRO.

I would love, I foresee a world, I see wrap-up, I see a world where we are operating hand-in-hand as professionals, as you know, you think about HR.

We've got our ears and eyes on the policy of the organization. You've got to help us communicate to that.

And as much as it is important for you to communicate outwards to your external customers, communicating with your internal customer is almost more important than these days, because they will go out with the legitimacy.

I work at CHIRM, I work at Apple, and no matter what they're advertising, this is the real deal. they will immediately undermine so much of your efforts to go to your external customers, because they will say, I can tell you it doesn't match.

What they say doesn't match with what they do. So let me just say this. The younger generation are going to wrap up really critical.

Try to understand what they're saying. I don't feel psychologically safe is a term that we hear a lot. Well, but I got to do this performance review, you understand.

It's probably not going to be comfortable. And I don't know what else to tell you. I'm overwhelmed. Got it, but we're going to get

through this thing. I promise you hold my hand and I'll talk you through it. But we do have to understand what they're actually saying and then do some translation.

think it's like translate. This is what you say. This is what you mean. This is what you want. It's nuanced, but it's why you are experts at what you're doing.

If you figure this out, you will be absolutely the profession. My HR people will kill me if they hear me saying this, but you become invaluable if you can teach CEOs like Dr. Ford and myself how to show up, how to communicate, and then the fewest number of people that you can.

That's the goal is to do that. Listen, I've really enjoyed this time. Thank you all so much for having me.

Thank you. appreciate you. Thank you. I love it.