Lead With That: What Tesla & Downsizing Teaches Us About Leadership

Interview Transcript

INTRO:  

Welcome back to CCL’s podcast, Lead With That where we talk current events in pop culture, to look at where leadership is happening, and what’s happening with leadership. 

Ren:

This week at the time of recording, Tesla told the Texas Workforce Commission it plans to lay off around 2,600 people over a 2-week period in June. Now this is amidst a more than 10% layoff of Tesla’s global workforce. Some numbers track it as high as 20% of Tesla’s 140,000 global headcount. But like many of us out in the world and on LinkedIn, I didn’t know about Tesla’s firings from Forbes, or Fortune, or the news. Nope. I heard horror stories from countless Tesla employees about robo-emails, badges not working, and cold shoulders from bosses that used to be friends.

Nico Murillo, a former production supervisor at Tesla, has a brilliant post about how much he cared about his work and how little he was cared for when they let him go. But why should companies care, Ren? I mean, we talk about this all the time. Who cares? As Samsung knows, they’re instituting a 6-day work week for their senior executives to inject some “crisis energy” — their words, not mine — to respond to their lowest financial year in decades. But I’m sure if the 6-day work week doesn’t pan out, those employees will be treated with respect and kindness if they have to be let go, right? Right?

So join us today as we explore some of these corporate decisions and their immediate impact on the people that work at these places, or they used to work at these places. And maybe what you can start to do to help lead in the face of all these things. Imagine if you still had to lead a team at Tesla. How in the hell would you do that? So welcome back everyone. I’m Ren Washington and as usual, I’m joined with Allison Barr. Allison, how would you convince someone to work at Tesla, now?

Allison:

Do I have to? Because I wouldn’t.

Ren:

Yeah. Imagine you worked there and you were one of the people that Tesla still will tell you they respect and appreciate and would never let you go by a robot email. “And we need you now, Allison, we need you. We need you to rally the troops. Numbers are flagging, so do better, Allison.” How would you convince someone to work, or come to work at Tesla, or stay at Tesla?

Allison:

I have said in previous podcasts that one of the best things that you can do is look at your workplace objectively. And I stand by that for the reasons that we’re talking about. Your workplace is going to look at you objectively if and when the time comes for layoffs. And so, if I am being me, representing me as Allison, that is the career advice I give people personally. So I don’t know that I would do a great job of convincing somebody to work at Tesla. I might say, “It depends. Do you need a paycheck? How desperate are you?” Those are some of the questions I might ask. What about you?

Ren:

Yeah. I don’t know. I was floored. Well, we talked about this a little bit, I thought right when it was happening, and Nico’s post wasn’t the first one I saw. I saw a post from another woman, and she talked about she was at Tesla and her great experiences. “It’s been such a great time at Tesla, and I stayed there for the people,” and what we normally see. And then I was like, “Oh wait, what happened ?” Oh, Tesla fired her, and they fired a whole bunch of people. And then the way that they did that, I guess only if I had real insight into what senior level, whoever pushed that button to make that decision, only if I had a real insight that their behavior would change. Would I be able to maybe honestly try to tell someone, “Hey, have faith in Tesla”?

Allison:

Right.

Ren:

I think what I might try to do is … maybe we can have faith in each other?

Allison:

Maybe. I don’t know, right? That’s hard to say too because leaders, sometimes leaders are tasked with the firing, as a lot of times they are too. So I can understand so clearly how people don’t trust leadership. And it’s interesting, Ren, right before we got on this call, I was talking to one of our brilliant researchers, Jean Leslie, all of you who are listening give Jean Leslie a Google. Some of her research is fascinating, and we are, I’m just very grateful that we work with her.

We were talking about the state of future, really what is needed, one of the things rather for future leadership that’s needed that perhaps we’ll get into a little bit later, is the ability to think more broadly about your workplace. This is not what Jean said, by the way, what I’m about to say. This is how I’m interpreting it for this conversation, is really thinking about leadership now and future leadership. Leaders have no choice but to think about things in a more global way. It’s not just about work anymore. The Elon Musks of the world, I think we’ve gotten used to just hearing about layoffs, especially in the tech world. But also, this story’s really interesting too, because if you rewind and back up, what’s very interesting about this story is that the state of Texas gave Elon Musk $64 million in taxpayer money to build this facility, this super center really, with the agreement that he would create jobs.

And so that was sort of the excitement was around, “Oh, well you’re going to create jobs for our hard-working Texas folks.” And the messaging was sort of around this Texas pride and working pride. And now here we are, he’s laying off 2,700 people at the super center at the same time. Consequently, he is asking for a $56 billion payment package for himself. So it’s just an interesting story to look at from a lot of different angles. So I’m curious, you mentioned a couple of stories from employees, which I’m sure a lot of people have seen. I’ve seen them too. Employees being responsible for the work of 7 to 10 people, not receiving the legal safety training that they need to do their jobs, not receiving proper equipment for worker safety.

I saw a story of somebody who lost a couple of fingers, a woman who inhaled so much dust, she wasn’t given a mask, that now she has respiratory problems. So it’s no surprise that worker injuries have skyrocketed. But all that to say, this is a much bigger story that’s, in some ways kind of complex, in some ways it’s very simple. But what is your response to hearing about the backstory of this, asking for the money from the state of Texas, and with the whole messaging around that was “jobs, we’re creating jobs,” but now we don’t have the jobs.

Ren:

Well, I mean, we can get into a big socio-economic conversation and think about what are people really incentivized and rewarded to do? And frankly, in America, we are incentivized. Businesses are incentivized by a bottom dollar. And so what I was thinking as you talk about this, what is my reaction to this? And I go, “God, it’s so disappointing or it’s so discouraging.” Or I keep on thinking about maybe things will change. But then sort of like, if not for this most recent story about the Texas layoffs, would we still be talking about Tesla? And frankly, who is still talking about Tesla? Because at a moment I was like, “Oh dang, how is anyone ever going to want to work at Tesla again after hearing about these stories?” But then Elon asked for a $56 billion package because Tesla is still valuable in the world and people still want to work there. So I think my reaction is, I’m quickly becoming apathetic or maybe numb to this idea. Why could I expect anyone to change when they’re not incentivized to change?

Allison:

Do you mean the Elon Musks of the world, or generally?

Ren:

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Or we were talking about the Spotify CEO too, and they did their layoffs in December, but now they’re feeling, like, the reverb from letting a big chunk of your workforce go. And it’s like, “Ouch, that stings.” But these people seem so tone-deaf; moreover, they’re so elevated from a standpoint of what does a $56 billion payment package look like or when you’re a part of, when you’re taking some of that money, how attached could you be to someone’s real experiences? And so then, too, if your bottom dollar is not limited, and if you’re investing in Tesla and you’re on the board, your home in the Hamptons isn’t being diminished because Nico Murillo doesn’t have a job anymore.

Allison:

Right, right. And both stories are a bit of a bootstraps mentality. Some of the research that came from the World Economic Forum about the future state of workplaces really in the economy ties directly to this. And I’m going to get to that in a second. But when we’re talking about Spotify, that story blew my mind a little bit. Knowing that layoffs will have an impact on your workplace seems obvious. However, I know that in the tech world, Spotify — again, this is in the tech world — Spotify is a bit smaller. It is a global company, but it is a little bit smaller. And the larger tech companies have sort of started a bit of a trend of mass layoffs, continual.

That’s what we’ve been hearing for years with the assumption that the work is just going to get done. And again, from the top down, it just feels like a bootstraps mentality. Just work harder. Okay, well you’re asking people to do the work of, depending on the organization, 10 to 20 people, or more than that, with the same resources. So how could you not think that that’s going to impact your operations at Spotify? I don’t understand.

Ren:

Or make a conscious, I am going to curse out loud because it’s so frustrating, make a conscious freaking decision that if you’re going to cut your workforce, then maybe that should coincide with a natural dip in output.

Allison:

Perhaps.

Ren:

And then everyone in the organization, stakeholders included, have to be like, “All right, we’re reducing 10% of our flow.” And it’s not because people were doing 10% less work, which I think is what “suits” might be thinking, “Oh, we can just push them to do more.” But if you’re going to do that, have a recognition that perpetual growth is a weird viral thing, a contamination like we’ve talked about. It’s okay maybe to slow, to rebuild, to flatten a little bit, and then arc back up. It often reminds me of why so many organizations stay private, because the moment you go public, then you’ve got public investors who are only demanding one thing, which is what they’re incentivized or rewarded to demand, which is more money, more revenue, increase in product and profit.

Allison:

And to your point, we’ve talked about it before, it cannot be about endless growth. There’s a cost that comes with that. And again, Tesla’s related to this as well. But going back to the World Economic Forum research that I was just talking about, what’s interesting in some of that literature is that they found that “systems thinking,” like air quoting here, which we’ll get specific about in a minute, but that systems thinking is such a non-negotiable competency right now, especially for senior leaders and above. Because if you can understand that if something negatively impacts a system at your workplace, we can’t afford to have all of these employees. So we’re going to cut some employees. That’s system A. Taking a hit on that system is going to impact the rest of the systems. It’s a domino. It’s impossible. It’s impossible not to. And so it is a bit surprising to me to hear some of that commentary from these very, very senior leaders.

And I don’t know, maybe they’re showboating, playing dumb. I have no idea if it’s actually true that he didn’t think it would impact the rest of the organization. But that systems thinking is an absolute non-negotiable competency that leadership needs to have right now and moving forward. And not to mention the psychological impact that layoffs have on human beings. Even if you lay off, Ren, you and I have a small team of LSPs and if half of our team got cut, which for me and you this is actually a reality from the semi-recent past, but we would feel that. That would be glaring. It would be glaring. So there’s a psychological impact that layoffs have on human beings as well. And I think that needs to be factored in, too.

Ren:

Well, I like the systems thinking, and I think that’s where I wanted to start, because it’s the idea of how do you even ask someone to work at an organization where, think about the promises, and maybe Tesla has a really clear value proposition where you walk in the door and, “Guess what? We don’t really value you as human, but we have really, really competitive compensation packages. There’s just no guarantee that you’re going to get fired by a person. You might just find out one day when you wake up in the morning, waking up at 4:30 in the morning to drive your first 2-hour path to work to then find out that you’re removed. That might happen to you, but still work here.”

So I guess maybe then when I think about the system impact, if I were trying to recruit people for Tesla, maybe that’s the pitch. They’re being really honest with people, saying, “Hey, that was crappy, and it’s not going to change, but you can make a difference here. And we work for the people.” For me, it’s like these discretionary efforts and … so many parts removed for me can impact my desire to contribute time, effort, energy. The CEO of Spotify said his people were doing too much work around the work, and that contributed to the fire or the layoffs in December. And now he’s realizing that, “Hey, maybe there’s that, the work around the work is some of the things that makes our company move and go, and makes it interesting, makes people want to put in more effort.” Even if I spent 30 minutes at the coffee station talking with someone about something I enjoy, does that mean that I put in an extra 90 minutes doing work that I like to, that I feel good about? I mean, we think so, but these companies think not.

Allison:

Right. And he proved himself to be incorrect anyway. I mean, right?

Ren:

Yeah.

Allison:

Again, I don’t know the details about, more specifically, what he meant other than what you’ve mentioned around the work around the work. However, there’s research, not even just at CCL, there’s research in a lot of organizational development firms stating you have to have some level of connection amongst employees. I’m not saying you need to be best friends, but some level of connection between employees to have an effective workplace. So his argument, not only did he prove himself to be wrong, it’s just not factually true either. And people aren’t robots. What do you expect? So I think this is a good case study, too, of what can go wrong if you do assume that people can behave like robots at the workplace: go to work, put your head down, get your work done, no small talk, no nothing. Get your work done. And that’s an example at Tesla, too. People are getting injured, people are having life-threatening injuries from that. So it doesn’t work.

Ren:

Yeah. It reminds me, I know our Office episode just released, but it reminds you too of that scene in the office where Dwight’s like, “No wasted time.” And then Jim’s got a stopwatch, and he’s kind of teasing him for every waste of time. And so Dwight’s so stuck up in his own rigidity around rule-following that he loses sight of how silly that kind of thing is. So in Jim’s tracking him for time, Dwight’s contributing to an environment that wastes more time. And so it is funny, these ideas. It becomes a vicious cycle and not a virtuous cycle. It’s like, you guys can do more with less. You can do more with less people, and we want you to do more, and we need you to produce more. And it’s like producing more with less availability actually contributes to more time, more space, less institutional knowledge, more injuries in the workspace. I want to start to take a different tact here, and I want to press us because I don’t think anyone cares. I don’t think anyone cares. It’d be interesting to see how damaged Spotify is, and now we’re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars, and we’re thinking about $3 billion in revenue versus $3.67 billion in revenue.

Allison:

Right.

Ren:

So I mean, what’s a failure or not? And so what I think I’m coming to is … I don’t know if I could help anyone feel like they would work there, because I’m feeling discouraged. I don’t think companies care. And prove me wrong. What would make them change their minds? Is it the 0.36 billion versus the 0.67 billion that really does it?

Allison:

Yeah, and I hate that I agree with you, because I want to be able to provide a different perspective, but you’re right. So long as we have people who need to work and who might even be desperate to work because of whatever situation they’re in, then we will have these same structures, if you will, these same types of environments where … Elon Musk is going to have no problem finding more people to do the work that these people are complaining about — rightfully complaining about, by the way — because people need to work. So it’s not that people don’t care. I think that the majority don’t have a choice. You still have to work. And so if Tesla is willing to employ somebody who really is in dire straits financially, they’re probably going to take that job.

Ren:

So we work to benefit leaders and leadership for society worldwide. And I think it’s no surprise, listener, that our postures probably have a lot of distaste for these decisions, or maybe distaste for this tone deafness from these senior leaders. But what are we to do? I don’t know. Do we start a letter writing campaign? I mean, do we get on X and tweet … or X, its owner? I mean, I just wonder how we, or in the workspace, start to change the tone or the tenor or just our experience.

Allison:

Yeah, I mean, that’s a loaded question, isn’t it? And I want to go back to what I was saying. I was talking to Jean Leslie about, I keep name-dropping her. So if Jean, you’re listening, you’re amazing.

Ren:

Jean, what up?

Allison:

We’re talking about, and allow me to get sort of heady for a minute, what her research is focused on is the poly, what she calls the polycrisis, which in a very simplified way is understanding that, very literally outside of your workplace — what’s going on in your community, expand that to your country, expand that to the world — all of that’s going to impact your leadership, and all of that’s going to impact your workplace. It would be silly to not consider that in your leadership. So we’ve talked about “VUCA” before, Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous, and now what organizational development researchers and leadership development and economic, by the way, economic researchers are saying now, is that we’ve moved from VUCA to a different acronym called BANI, B-A-N-I. Have you heard of that one yet, Ren?

Ren:

Nope. Lay it on us. What does that mean?

Allison:

So BANI stands for Brittle, Anxious, Nonlinear, and Incomprehensible. The first time I heard that I felt, “Well, cool. That sounds like —”

Ren:

That’s a BANI statement.

Allison:

… I knew nothing. Right, exactly right. It doesn’t sound like there’s a lot I can do to navigate that. However, one of the things that will be expected of leaders, whether you’re in a traditional leadership position or you don’t have that title, you’re still a leader. One of the things that you need to do is start to look at the impact that broader society is having on your organization. So another example is stakeholders are much broader now than just looking at a company board. So you’re looking at your clients, your customers, your suppliers, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. There’s a war going on in X country. Guess what? That’s going to have an impact on your business. It will, period. So unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, it’s a really good idea to look externally at the world around you and how that’s going to impact your business. It sounds like a really —

Ren:

I don’t know.

Allison:

… scary thing.

Ren:

I mean, principally I understand and I get. It’d be interesting for someone to define brittle for me or anxious, I think. Nonlinear and, what was the last one?

Allison:

Incomprehensible.

Ren:

Incomprehensible.

Allison:

I would actually love to, because let me talk about brittle for a minute, because we’ve talked about it without defining it actually. So the brittle piece is shedding light on how fragile systems are in structures in a workplace environment. Dare I bring up COVID for a minute? I’m going to. But we remember COVID hit the medical system, as a system, and then what?

Ren:

Okay.

Allison:

It’s shedding light on how fragile systems are. We weren’t created to handle, as workplaces I mean, this type of crisis.

Ren:

Well see, this is an interesting, and I know there might be more definitions, but I want to stop here because this is maybe my heuristic that I’m really trying to explore as a leader. What things were built for. We have private medicine in America. The health system did exactly what the whole industrial complex was designed to do, which is create more money, around the illness, that was created from money-creating procedures. We had a virus created in a lab ,because money supports those decisions. Those viruses impact a system that is not designed to help you or me. It’s designed to make money, that’s why Band-Aids cost $400, and then it gets thrusted. And I mean, I guess the people inside of the systems really felt the brunt, but —

Allison:

But that impacted work. You think, okay, something that it would impact, and make a medical system, I hate to even simplify it this way, but “busy,” impacted CCL. It impacted Starbucks, it impacted gas prices, it impacted people being dead or alive. We’re talking about a much bigger global impact that did not simply just impact how medical systems are run or a hospital is run.

Ren:

Yeah. And what I think I’m trying to tap into here is this idea of, remember when we had the financial crisis, the “too big to fail”?

Allison:

Which one?

Ren:

Yeah, which one? Right. In The Big Short, where we had those big banks who were doing the crazy mortgage practices, and then the US government says, “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to make you even larger and even too bigger to fail, because we’re going to link you all together more intertwined into, like, your survival is our survival.” And then when I think about these systems, I wonder who gets punished for these system failings? The people who are punished are the clients, the customers, the employees. And I keep on exploring, but not to go back in time, but whoever Jamie Dimon equivalent is in, you name it, pharma or healthcare or the banking or gas industry, all of the things impacted by COVID, they’re cutting themselves huge bonus checks.

And I think what they’ve been able to navigate through is this idea of, “Well, our primary driver is still to create revenue-generating businesses and products.” The systems are continually designed to support that. So how brittle are they? I mean, I guess, and I’m spinning around here, because I guess it is brittle because it’s fragile, but it will just crumble into, what, diamond dust and then recreate into a phoenix of its own commercial ashes? I don’t know what’s incentivizing anyone to change how we’re operating.

Allison:

I mean we’re going to have to, I think is what your researchers and economists are saying. We’re going to have to, because what I’m —

Ren:

They are?

Allison:

What I’m hearing you saying is almost like, it’s brittle for who? It’s brittle for the vast majority of people, it might not be brittle for Elon Musk. It’s definitely not brittle for Elon Musk. He’s going to be fine. He will be fine. But it’s brittle for 99% of humans.

Ren:

And it reminds me, I think you helped me there, because it’s like in Japanese homes, ancient Japanese homes, there’s something in the infrastructure where the floors creak. And it’s something like, so you know if someone’s in your house or something like that. So it’s intentionally built with an error in the system. And so I’m like, “Who’s it brittle for?” That’s a really good question, Allison, because it’s not brittle for Elon. In fact, maybe he’s building a system that is just on, it’s teetering all the time, and one gust of wind or one big financial decision might spin it in a certain degree, and it’ll hurt people at Tesla who get fired. But I don’t know, it doesn’t seem like it’s paining Elon too Musk. Well, Elon too Musk. That’s funny.

Allison:

I thought that was intentional. That was funny.

Ren:

It was.

Allison:

But yeah, it definitely was. So, let’s think outside of your Elon Musks of the world, because there’s only a few of them, actually, who are billionaires. And to even a small business, or a corporation that’s even smaller, too, leaders are going to really have to think about their risk tolerance. What is our risk tolerance? How are we going to define that?

Ren:

Well, and, as if one could though. I think risk tolerance is being defined for you.

Allison:

How so?

Ren:

The systems of reward and incentive.

Allison:

Say more.

Ren:

We call ourselves at CCL a nonprofit or, I prefer, a not-for-profit, because we do profit off of the work we do. We just put our profit back into the communities that we serve and into our business. So we’re not-for-profit, but even that’s an incentivized tax structure. There’s not a lot of businesses in America that are nonprofit or not-for-profit. In fact, we’re profit-driven centers. We have cost centers, we have P&Ls. And what I think is that the structures of incentive and reward don’t enable us to take risk, or the risk that is taken is empowered by venture capital firms that follow very, very traditional standards about what is acceptable risk, determined by the primary systems of power that would lead to people getting fired by robot emails, because who gives a shit, people want to work at Tesla. I don’t know. Is that, I feel like that’s —

Allison:

Yeah. I mean I think I get what you’re saying, but what are some other risks that companies face that they might have to measure?

Ren:

Like other risks that may not impact the bottom line, is that what you mean?

Allison:

Well, probably every risk will impact the bottom line, right? I don’t know. Either / or.

Ren:

Yeah, I think we’re probably exploring, what are we here to do? What is our business here to do? And again, I think for Samsung or Tesla or Spotify, these people would look at me and say, “Hey Ren, you’re not making a billion dollars a year. You’re in no position to tell me how to run our business. And by the way, our business is designed to do one thing, make money.”

And so I guess in my family circle, we’re talking about how, I don’t know if I can change world legislation, but what I can hope to do is expand my circle of control, which is to start to give back to the communities and places that I live in a way that I want to, where results, or financial results, aren’t the only driver. But what I keep on coming to when I read these stories is, like, how do you incentivize conscious capitalism, right? This idea that we have to rely on the MacKenzie Scotts of the world to just be good people, versus creating reward for people to be good. I didn’t even care if someone’s not even morally invested in being a good person. If I can incentivize them to do so, though, then I’m okay with it. And I know we talk about that a lot …  it’s just some … I feel discouraged when I see stuff like this.

Allison:

Yeah. And I think a lot of people do. So, to your point, I think you’re touching on something important, which is controlling what you can control. And it just depends on where you are, what kind of company you’re working for, what your personal needs are. I mean, it’s a much bigger conversation, and I hate to get philosophical, but we almost have to. Why are you working in the first place? What do you value? What are your needs for your family, assuming you have a family? All of it’s very complicated. And conscious capitalism, that’s a whole other topic. What does that even look like? Should we pause that for now, or can you answer that simply, or should we sidebar it?

Ren:

What does conscious capitalism look like? No, we should have a separate maybe episode around the socioeconomic political structures, maybe digging deeper in Jean Leslie’s kind of that poly-impact. I mean, I think when I allude to conscious capitalism, and you might bristle, listener, because that’s kind of branded when Bernie Sanders was running, because it was like, socialism is a dirty word. And God forbid we have a society that is designed to benefit each other. And I have no problem with capitalism. I’m all about making money. And I think the idea of conscious capitalism, can you make some money that’s enough to help the business thrive, to help your family be okay, and then help others be okay, versus hoarding more. But I think, yeah, there’s probably more to discuss, but as maybe we ground this again back into what an individual can do.

And we often talk about the clarity of your own personal drivers, but I’ll go back to that question. How would I convince someone to work at Tesla? I’d be like, “This is your chance to show the world that, despite your environment, you can be the best version of yourself, where you come to work and you’re driven because of the commitment you have to yourself, and the commitment you have to the work, and the commitment you have to the people that rely on you.” And that’s where I would encourage people to harness discretionary effort, because so many of these Tesla folks were, that’s what their pitch was. In their remorseful story of being let go, they were talking about Nico, “I wake up at 4:30 in the morning, I get this weird email like, ‘Oh, you can’t log in because your thing’s been revoked.’ Oh, I’ll deal with it after my 2-hour drive when I get to the office. Then I get to the office at 6:30 in the morning and I call …”

And so he’s painting this picture of his diligence, his commitment, his hard work, his bleeding Tesla willingness. And I think that’s something that, for any of you, you can’t change the wind but you can always adjust your sails, which is to say that expanding your circle of control simply is, who do you want to be known as? What do you want to be known by? And how do you want to show up, despite how poorly people might be treating you?

Allison:

Yeah, and I know we’re about what, 30 some minutes in, so I’m hesitating to say what I’m about to say, but I’m going to say it anyway.

Ren:

Do it.

Allison:

Which is, the types of employees that you were just referencing at Tesla have been, and probably will continue to be, exploited. So telling —

Ren:

Damn.

Allison:

… telling that person … It’s just tricky. It’s a much bigger, it’s a much bigger topic.

Ren:

I hadn’t thought of that.

Allison:

Tell me to control what I can control. Yes, you are absolutely right. For the majority of us, too, control what you can control. And there’s actually, that’s an interesting topic we might get into in another episode, and specifically how to do that. But telling somebody who probably will continue to be exploited, it’s a little bit different. So anyway, we don’t need to get into it. I only say that for a perspective.

Ren:

No, I appreciate it because it is tough, and I think you and I might fall in that kind of bucket, where despite the environment around us, we’re always going to give our best. And then I won’t let myself be exploited, because I have to give someone permission to exploit me. I have to embrace the mental paradigm of, well, I’m being exploited. Even if someone is exploiting my efforts, or my time, or my willingness, I think I can control some of my approach to that. But it is interesting to say to someone, “Hey, you have a badge. You have a brand for being super diligent, hard work. Here was your reward. You were summarily fired without any pomp and circumstance, so keep doing you.” Right? Well, that’s … how disempowering and how sad might that prospect be. And I think that’s the tough part though.

One of our [faculty], Roberta Kraus, giant in the field, she used to say to people in the room, “You’ve given up the right to work less hard than other people because you’re in this space.” And I think she was talking about this idea. Once you’ve stepped into a role, like many of our participants in our programming, they are stepping in a role, whether implicitly or explicitly, where they are committing to being more, doing more. And in that space, people don’t make it into our classrooms who go, “Ah, I’d like to do my 35 hours a week and I’d like to go home.” Not to say there’s anything wrong with that, but for the most part, there are people come to our programming and say, “Hey, I want to elevate and lift myself. I want to do more.”

And so there is this recognition, and it is incumbent on us who are thrust into those positions where … like imagine you talk to Nico or some of these other Tesla people and you tell them, you’ve got 2 options. You’ve got 3 options, maybe 2 options. I’m really proud of the person you are, and the only thing you can control is continuing to be that hard worker. And yes, you may be exploited, but in the very least you’re honoring yourself and what you’re committed to. Or the other option is, you’re right, you’ve never been rewarded for this, which is not entirely true, you were just recently punished for it. So stop doing that.

And then, at that point, you’re telling someone who’s driven, committed, hard-working, who has the capability of more, to say, in my mind, give up. Because they’ve won. Now their poor treatment of you is going to make you decide to be a lesser version of yourself. And it’s just such a bummer because there’s no win. I try hard to be treated like crap, or I try less hard and am still treated like crap. But I’m sorry, I think you were about to say something.

Allison:

Well, there’s so much to talk about in what you just said. I’m not sure where to start. I just appreciate what you just said. And again, you said just a moment ago, I’m going to paraphrase so please correct me if I misheard you, but something along the lines of like, for you, there’s a little bit of choice in whether or not you’re exploited. Did I understand that correctly?

Ren:

Yeah. I probably think you could … I bet you and I both could feel exploited if we fed that narrative enough. I think that’s sort of what I was alluding to.

Allison:

And I would argue there’s a gray area there. What you said is true.

Ren:

Sure.

Allison:

And in a way that, A, is a bit of a bootstrap mentality, and B, also takes away responsibility from the fact and the ownership of the people who are doing the exploiting. So I’m not claiming to be exploited. I do not feel exploited. Just clarifying that.

Ren:

Nor am I.

Allison:

Just clarifying that, I know you’re not either. But then if you tell the employees of Tesla, and the one woman who now has respiratory problems probably for the rest of her life because she wasn’t given proper training by the company, sure she has choice if you want to be technical about it. Everybody has choice, technically speaking. But there’s a different consequence for somebody like her. So you could never convince me that that woman has choice in being exploited or not.

Ren:

Yeah. I so appreciate that point of view. And it’s harder as we pontificate here in our padded rooms, not because I’m crazy, but because I have pillows, but it’s easy to talk from these super cozy places. And I was just having this conversation with my wife around this kind of idea around what do we let people do to us and how does that change our mindset? And a character that we cite often, I think, in this leadership world, is Nelson Mandela.

And Nelson Mandela was imprisoned, and I won’t even say wrongfully in prison, because wrong and right was determined by the power structures. He was in prison because he had political views that differed from that of the prevailing area. And whilst he was attached to a maybe more violent political arm, for the most part, he was in prison because of his ideas. For 20 years, he spent in jail because he disagreed with another person. That was it. And then he was released when apartheid ended, and he was summarily freed, and they just knocked on his door and were like, “Our bad.” That was it. He had a choice, and he reflected about his choice often. He said, “I had a choice, 2 choices. One, I could keep myself in bondage because I was arrested wrongfully.” Who could be more righteously screwed than Nelson Mandela? 20 years in jail, had a right to just be mad, had a right to be pissed, had a right to say, “Screw all of you.”

But he recognized that that would be him still in jail. Or, he had a choice. He could change his approach and his point of view. And harder still for me to talk about this woman who now has respiratory injuries for the rest of her life. And there is a real option for her to feel righteously victimized, righteously so. Someone, at their own failing, now you have to pay for the rest of your life for their shortcomings. But if she were to stay and give them that power, that resentment, they continually did this to me and continue to serve as the righteous victim. — I have some guests coming, which is fantastic. They’re too early. That’s real time, people. — These people who are righteously screwed, if they continue to say how could I, or how could they, then they’re going to continue to put themselves in this space of being exploited or marginalized. And maybe it’s harder still for this woman who’s got the actual physical disabilities. But the premise is, do you continue to give your victimizer power over you, when I can assure you —

Allison:

They’re going to have power regardless. And I’m sorry to interrupt you, but I just have to, I can’t help myself. Yes. What the stories you’re describing are very inspiring and feel good, and what you’re actually talking about is an ability to regulate, an ability to process a really awful situation. That is not even service to Nelson Mandela, but let’s take it to what we’re talking about at the workplace. Sure. Process it in a healthy way, so that you’re not resentful and angry at everybody around you. And also, I can’t help but think what you’re describing also is upholding a system. You’re also upholding a system, because you’re taking yourself away from any sort of action and just going, “I’m going to have a good mental attitude about this.” But guess what? It’s still happening. So I just think it’s a bit of a gray area.

Ren:

Yeah. And I don’t want to marginalize anyone who’s ever been righteously victimized and like, “Shrug it off, dude, don’t let them continue to punish you.” What I think is the reality is everything is happening at the same time. All of these truths are going on.

Allison:

Yes.

Ren:

And I think part of what I’m speaking to, or what I would hope to communicate to someone, is that these people don’t give a shit about you. They aren’t thinking about you anymore. And so to give them any more free real estate is probably going to continue to, just as maybe my point of view is continuing to perpetuate this environment, it continues to perpetuate an environment where we start to fight over personal responsibility as opposed to the systems that are thrusting this stuff onto us. And that’s probably not the discussion. And so I think maybe more … and I think you’re right, there’s gray areas, especially with personal injury where it’s not so easy as like, “Hey, don’t continue to victimize yourself, because your victimizer isn’t thinking about you anymore.”

But like you said, thinking of your environments objectively, realistically, knowing that your company historically maybe doesn’t care about you as much as you might care about them, and that’s okay. And you don’t have to give people the space or the control over, to let the place that you work or the people that have punished you be part of your identity, is I think maybe some of what I’m starting to think about. And maybe that’s the takeaway from Nelson’s story. And it may not directly serve this woman who’s got respiratory issues.

Allison:

Or the guy who lost 3 fingers.

Ren:

Or the guy who lost 3 fingers. However, I mean, yeah, there likely too could be something around, damn, it’s like, that did happen and they deserve to pay for that. And I think a lot of people just pay for their injuries for the rest of their lives, even as the other group hasn’t.

Allison:

Yeah, agree. Right. And so I think, I know we probably have to wrap up. I feel like we’re just getting into some good stuff, so maybe we can continue it. But I think too, going back to what I said earlier is related to what you just said as well, is thinking more broadly about your organization. Like Tesla, for example, legally was not providing the legal training for these employees. Was not providing it. That’s an organization’s responsibility. And one of the reasons why they’re going to just, that’ll just get swept under the rug, is because of the money that they have to get that swept under the rug.

So again, it’s like, yes, just think about things more objectively. So you asked me at the beginning how I might convince somebody to work at Tesla, I think is what you said. And it is talking about, we’re understanding workplaces objectively, understanding that they’re there to make profit, regardless of what their mission says on their website. That’s lovely. I’m sure that’s accurate too. But at the end of the day, they’re there to make money, and some organizations take advantage of that and exploit people in different ways that you might not want to be part of. So I don’t know, there’s a level of being objective, and understanding bigger systems, and how organizations are handled legally, that can be very helpful. I know that’s not an easy thing to do, but —

Ren:

No, I like it.

Allison:

Perhaps I’ll just leave it at that.

Ren:

My one piece of advice for you maybe is, if you’re really feeling spicy out there in the world, is recognize that the hidden mission statement for any for-profit organization is make them ducats. And then maybe if you go to management like, “Hey, can we paint on the wall, ‘Mission statement number one, make money.'” I mean, that’d be really interesting if people were super honest enough about, “We’re here to make a difference for our people.” Yeah, I bet you are. So forgive me for being a cynic, but I think that’s really interesting, that objective reminder.

And then, too, I wasn’t trying to marginalize anyone who’s ever been victimized, because I know that it’s hard to navigate those spaces. And all I mean is to allude to your objective awareness that these big systems aren’t thinking about you. And if we think about them so much, and our lives just crumpled before us, and we’re like, “Well, what am I now?” You were the great person that you were when you walked into the door. You were that person before they gave you an identity, and you’ll be a better person after you get out of this. And so I think that’s just my reminder and my hope for any of these people who’ve been summarily displaced because of things in the system that they have no control over.

Allison:

Yes. I like how you’re wrapping us up here, because what I hear you saying is, yes, a really awful thing happened, and that doesn’t change your identity and your humanity and who you are as a human being. And I appreciate that. That’s a good reminder, because we spend a lot of time at work, most of us, and our identity can get wrapped up in our work for a lot of us. And if that gets taken away from us, it can feel … there’s an impact, a tremendous impact. And I think perhaps what I’ll add to that is, if you’re somebody at the organizational level who’s thinking, “Well, what are the skill sets that are needed? What do I do? What is one skillset that I can take away from this to tell my leaders, or I am a leader?” One of the things that came out of Jean Leslie’s research, and the World Economic Forum, is the ability to be more of a complex problem-solver, and more specifically, being able to hold multiple truths at the same time, and even perhaps have more than one solution.

And dialing that in even further is, if you can, having people in the room to solve the problems who may have created the problem. I’m just going to leave us with that mic drop because people are going to be like, “Wait, what?”

Ren:

Next time.

Allison:

Next time. Yes. So thanks for the conversation, Ren, and —

Ren:

Yeah, yeah.

Allison:

We could, definitely could have kept going here. And to our listeners, we’d love to know what you think. Find us on LinkedIn, let us know what your reactions are to this episode. It was a meaty one. And a big thanks to Ryan and the CCL team who works behind the scenes to make our podcast happen. You can find all of our episodes and our show notes on ccl.org, and we’ll look forward to tuning in next time. Thanks everyone.

Ren:

Thanks, Allison. Thanks, everybody. See you next time. Find Allison on TikTok!