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!

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:

We’ve got 2 big things cooking for us today on the show. Number one, FuboTV sues to stop ESPN and Warner and Fox Sports and their streaming programming giant. And the FTC and some state’s attorneys generals are suing the Kroger-Albertsons deal to stop that happening. And so what, right? What’s the big deal?

Well, Fubo would tell you that the joint venture by those 3 giants would destroy competition and inflate prices for consumers. Bigger picture, this ESPN, Warner, Fox joint venture surprised distributors and sports league partners alike when it announced that they were doing it. In fact, it’s reported that the NFL and NBA were mad that they weren’t involved in the discussions of this planning of the sports packaging. And this has prompted a range of criticisms that will loom around the government’s reported review of the deal on antitrust grounds. And so when we talk antitrust, we look at Kroger buying the Albertsons brand, merging the 2 organizations in a $24 billion deal.

Now, according to the Kroger website, at the time of the recording, they said that they won’t close any stores or distribution centers or manufacturing facilities, and they’re not going to lay off any frontline associates as a result of the merger. But a part of this deal is also that in the sell, Albertsons is selling 400 plus stores to this group called C&S Wholesale Grocers. C&S though, and as the US government’s highlighting, may not have the capacity to keep those stores open. And so, Washington and Colorado’s Attorney Generals and the FTC suggests that the merger is anti-competitive. Not only because the 2 big retailers of Kroger and Albertsons are each other’s primary competition in many of their markets, but also because selling the stores to C&S doesn’t actually ease the pain of the competition. Because it doesn’t preserve the competition because C&S is not going to be able to keep those stores open. Oh, and by the way, then that negates the notion that people won’t be fired or lose their jobs during the sell. There’s a lot going on.

For us today on the episode, this one might be a bit more philosophical or bigger picture. We might be talking more about leadership at the highest reaches of our lives, leaders who literally decide how much your milk and eggs cost. But we’ll try and definitely work to ground this in your experience as a leader or someone who has led. Welcome back, everyone. I’m Ren Washington and as usual joined with Allison Barr.

Allison, does it worry you that one day there might just be a single corporation that runs the world?

Allison:

No, not in my lifetime. I don’t think that will happen in my lifetime. Does it worry you?

Ren:

Okay. Well, maybe it’s 2 separate questions. Do you think there’ll be one company to rule the world during your existence and you think not?

Allison:

No.

Ren:

And that’s why you’re not necessarily worried?

Allison:

That is a reason, yes.

Ren:

Yeah.

Do you think it would be worrying that we would just have one single company that runs the world?

Allison:

Do you mean if that was a reality, would that worry me?

Ren:

I do. I am doing one of my favorite things now. Have you seen that movie, Wall-E?

Allison:

Oh my gosh, do you know how happy I am that you just brought that up?

Ren:

Hey, are we Venn diagramming?

Allison:

Yes, we are. I’m going to answer your question with context because —

Ren:

Oh, let’s do it.

Allison:

Wall-E is one of my favorite kids’ movies. When I was, I don’t even know how old I was, 20 something, I used to babysit these 2 amazing kiddos almost every single week. We always watched the movie Wall-E. The younger kiddo would always cry when we watched Wall-E, but he would say, “I really want to watch it, but it makes me sad.” I’d say, “Why does it make you sad, bud?” He said, “Because what if this happens? What if this happens?” I would always say, “It’s not going to happen. Don’t worry, don’t worry.”

Now, I understand his concerns.

Ren:

He was hoping that maybe we wouldn’t toxify the earth and then all be so large that we exist in these floating chairs. I can’t remember the big company, right? But that was a satirist’s view of the future of one organization running the thing.

Do you think it could ever happen? Maybe, is the prospect of that maybe worrisome, that it could happen?

Allison:

I mean, for me it’s hard to conceptualize how we would get to that point because, just clarifying, you said the world. One corporation taking over the world. Is it out of the realm of possibility? Probably not. I don’t think anything’s necessarily out of the realm of possibility, and it’s hard for me to conceptualize the steps that would need to occur for us to get there.

Ren:

Maybe ESPN and Time Warner and Fox say, “We’re going to create a single place for you to access the world’s most popular sports.” When I say the world, I don’t mean America. I mean the world’s most popular sports. Professional basketball is a sport played by the world. If, for instance, we’re only getting access to viewing that through one organization’s aperture, that could be a pathway to eventually just having a single organization that’s giving us our food and giving us our media and telling us what to think and how to look and how to eat.

Allison:

Tell me a little bit more about your perspective. Are you concerned? Are you afraid of in your lifetime one corporation taking over?

Ren:

Am I afraid? Well that, I guess, would presuppose if there already isn’t one. I guess maybe if we’re thinking about the Cerberus or the Hydra here, there are likely many heads to that snake. It’s already in place. I told you everyone I’m going to be philosophical. It may be too much of a conspiracy theory.

Here, I’ll just ground it in a concern that I have around Kroger and Albertsons. I wanted to start with Fubo, but I think it might be harder to conceptualize our media, or that might be more of a sacred cow, to be insensitive and use a bad example. But the Kroger and Albertsons merger reminds me of some things that are already spooky. If they merge and this thing goes through, Albertsons and Kroger would amount to having a market share, which is to say representing who we get our groceries from, that would equal 17%.

Now you might be like, “Who cares what 17%? What about the other 83%?” Well, even currently right now there are 4 primary companies that control 65% of the grocery market. And so what that means is that there are 4 major companies that are deciding more than half of the nation’s marketing metrics for how much they pay for goods and services.

Now, am I concerned? Well, I might be if those leaders aren’t interested in the things we talk about at CCL, but are instead interested in perpetuating differentiation and othering and their benefit at other people’s loss. I’ll stop there and say that gets me a little nervous.

Allison:

Yes, I can understand that. Well, I have a few things to say. They might not be super congruent, but it will come full circle.

When we were talking about recording this episode, as we do, I started reading the articles related to the stories that you’ve mentioned, and deep dive and clicking on links that they suggest, and then reading, reading, reading. What makes me not feel a lot of fear, even knowing what you just said, is that the Sherman Act, in the United States at least, prevents monopolies from taking over.

However, I am not naive to the fact that laws change, and they can change. It would quite literally take an act of Congress for that to happen. That doesn’t mean that it won’t, and I don’t think it will happen in my lifetime.

To your point, there are giants, if you will. Big giants who are doing exactly what you just mentioned. Is it concerning? Yes, and I think it’s more frustrating from where I sit just as a regular human who’s not a billionaire, right? Because what happens is those companies then can dictate certain things like pricing, and it gets very masked to the regular consumer in a sense that it’s hard for consumers who don’t maybe have an educational background in this space, or the interest or the know-how to dig a little bit deeper, to understand where the pricing is coming from. If I’m putting myself in the shoes of a consumer, then it causes a lot of chaos and misunderstanding and, dare I even say, some conspiracy theories, right? It causes chaos amongst the regular humans of us, and that is concerning to me.

The only other thing I want to say … Well, actually I’ll pause because I saw you about to—

Ren:

Well, I don’t even know if we need to conflate the idea of conspiracy theory, because there’s no conspiracy theory that’s going on that currently there are 4 retailers that control 65% of the grocery market, Kroger being one of them, Costco … I have the list and I’ll be able to look at them.

But I think it’s easy for us to bound in this idea of, “Well, hey everyone, pump the brakes. It’s not as bad as we think.” I think there’s just a measured approach to this idea of these things are actively going on, and they are, I think, causing frustration, at least for you or maybe some of the consumers. That was only my reaction. It’s like, I don’t know if we need to talk conspiracies when we live in a free market society that incentivizes these things to happen.

That’s really what I’m curious to talk about is, when we think about incentivizing leadership to do what’s good by people, what are the reward structures for us to do that? I don’t know.

Allison:

And I want to clarify I wasn’t calling you a conspiracy theorist.

Ren:

For sure. No, no, no, no.

Allison:

I mean that you see this every … Let me clarify. I see this everywhere. I hear it everywhere. Prices are high for gas, for example, because of the most unique beliefs, right? Our president does not set gas prices, for example. That would be one example, right? The prices of milk, for example, are astronomical right now because so-and-so is trying to take over the farming industry, which is not true. That’s what I mean.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again on this podcast, that it’s a really good idea for your career to understand business and economics. I know that not everybody has access to a formal education in that space. However, it’s a good idea to understand this stuff as best you can, so that you can tackle the right obstacle and not go after each other or the wrong thing — so that the right obstacle that you, consumer, listener, whomever, are passionate about, that you’re tackling it in the right way.

When we talk about monopolies, and just I’ll practice what I preach here, we’ve mentioned a couple of things already. For our listeners who maybe don’t know, a monopoly is a market structure where a single seller or a single producer takes a dominant position in the industry. When that happens, things like prices become controlled by them. There’s no, necessarily, incentive for them to have competitive pricing. They can also be inefficient, and monopolies can cause a pretty strong lack of innovation as well. The quality of products that you receive, whether it’s the groceries or something else, there’s no incentive for quality control either.

Just some things to think about. I want to say that just for those listeners who might not know what it actually means.

Ren:

I think as you were exploring all of those, I’m finding a space for us to maybe drill this down for you that’s listening, and you’re working in a work environment maybe where you’re looking around at the leadership structure. You’re like, “How are these people able to operate so freely and so inappropriately? Why am I fighting my coworkers when maybe I should be directing my energy elsewhere?”

Something you were saying in your reflections, I think, is making sure that you know where to put your energies. When I looked at these topics of conversation, the reason that it got me inspired to discuss was back to our original question. Does it worry me that the world will be ruled by a single company? Yeah, it does. It does worry me, because I’m seeing shades of it right now. Private industry controls every aspect of public existence. If it doesn’t directly control it, it has a direct hand in it.

And then for someone who is operating within organizations, who has to lead people, or who has to be led by people, you are inherently led by these bigger meta structures. For instance, if Kroger and Albertsons work together — Kroger has Harris Teeter, Ralphs, Metro Market, King Soopers. Albertsons owns Safeway. These are where you get your medicine. This is where you feed your family. These people all of a sudden have less incentive to have a real conversation with you, who’s being led.

And so I think it’s really interesting to get informed. And then, maybe as someone who’s in these positions or places, start to ask yourself around what am I putting up with? What things am I allowing to occur around me? What can my protest look like, if that’s not the right word, but how can I have my voice be heard if something is directly diminishing my ability to think freely, act freely, be free?

Allison:

Are those things diminishing your ability for freedom?

Ren:

Well, I mean it depends on how meta you want to go. I mean, I would say in an esoteric or existential way, freedom is what I make it from an agency or internal perspective.

Yeah, I would say absolutely. For instance, let’s say ESPN, Disney, Warner, Fox, they now say you can only get your sports through me, which is a big concern from people. Because TV deals, for instance, you can still watch America’s pastimes in sports if you have no cable packages. Now a long time ago that happened with the digital transponder changing, but you could still get ABC, CBS. Those core public programming, you can have access to it.

But even now, the gates for access are being reduced, so how can one be informed? Like you were asking, how can we be informed to make wise decisions if the information we are getting is curated? I can assure you — not curated for your benefit, but curated for the benefit of perpetuating the systems that I think they’re designed for. To answer your question, yeah. I think it can limit my freedom because I don’t even know what information I don’t have access to. So I don’t even know what information or freedom is being restricted from me.

Allison:

I’m getting very philosophical here, but you’re reminding me of some conversations I’ve had. Are there any benefits to not having access to all the information out there?

Ren:

Maybe. I don’t know if I need 6 guys in a room telling me what information I should and should not have access to. I think that’s more of my issue. These mergers create concentrations of control and power, and then they dictate access, so that’s my issue.

Allison:

It’s interesting how that last point that you just made, about a handful of people dictating, how that can show up at the workplace, too.

And what also came up when you were talking was, this is complex issue. I know that. Right now I’m talking about what I know about the United States, most of North America that is, is that if we’re talking about sports specifically. I’m a tennis fan. I’ve talked to you about that before. I cannot watch tennis unless I get the tennis channel. It’s very annoying.

However, there are ways that you can stream certain things. Social media allows for streaming. There are other ways. While it might not be me sitting on my comfy couch looking at my big screen TV, I can still watch it. All that to say, is that I agree with you. I’m not disagreeing with you. There are loopholes still based off of some of our laws.

Ren:

Well, you said something earlier around the act, and I wish I knew better around our laws. The Sherman Act. There we go.

As I was reading some of this, I was momentarily inspired by the American experiment because there are actually positive actors, I think. Like these state’s attorneys generals, started in Washington and then in Colorado, who are doing their job, who are legitimately looking at a deal and going, “This does not benefit people who work at 400 stores and really doesn’t even legitimately benefit people who would now have a single corporation operating upwards of 39 separate grocery chains.”

People were like, “Is this sus to anybody else?” Everyone was like, “Yeah, a little bit.” When I said, “Okay, cool, someone did go to a CCL program,” and they were like, “Oh, this is a social process of leadership, we’re engaged.” I was like, “That’s cool.”

But I worry. It’s like it’s the gentle probing that happens in sports. Maybe it’s like, you see this in soccer or even in pugilism and maybe in tennis, so you’ll have to tell me this. But people push boundaries and they push back a little bit, but they gain some ground. And then they stay there, right? And so now the Sherman Act is working great. It stops Kroger and Albertsons from connecting.

But need I remind you that 4 brands, Kroger, Walmart, Costco, and Ahold Delhaize, I don’t know how to pronounce that, they own Giant and Food Lion, 65% of the grocery market is currently in their hand. Do they push us to the brink? And then we all of a sudden go, “Hey, hey, hey, stop,” and then they pull back a little bit. They’re like, “Don’t worry, we’ll be back in a few years and then you won’t mind as much.”

Allison:

No, you’re right. There’s a lot to give our attention to right now.

I think what also happens is exactly what you said, and these lawsuits take time as well. I might be grateful that a lawsuit is coming and hopefully the right thing will happen. And tomorrow, something else will grab my attention. You’re right. I will probably lose track of this lawsuit because it probably won’t make mainstream TV, mainstream news. I probably will have to look for it. So there’s a diligence that’s involved in all of this too that can become really frustrating.

Back to the Sherman Act too, I want to read something to you if I can find it quickly. Humor me. Here we go. Part of the Sherman Act states, and I want to read this word for word so I’m not butchering, “At its core, section 2 makes it illegal to acquire or maintain monopoly power through improper means.” Tell me what improper means. What does that mean? How do we define that? Do you know what that means?

Ren:

Well, actually I think in one of the suits, part of the suit is … And it’s Fubu. Fubo. I keep calling it Fubu, “for us, by us.”

I had a jersey once, everybody. He’s like people are screaming out there, “It’s not Fubu!” Fubo, they actually want a grand jury trial for their suit. They are curious, what is improper means? They think they convince a group of well-meaning Americans that this is indeed by improper means, so question mark. I don’t know what it means, but I think you raised an interesting question that there’s enough curiosity in our lexicon where there’s freedom of movement.

But what are you highlighting there?

Allison:

Well, a couple of things. That the law, then, is open to interpretation. And when we talk about masses in power, who benefit from certain decisions and homogenous leadership if you will, and I’m talking big picture here, but this is also relevant to the workplace, then it would benefit them to interpret that in the same way.

To your earlier point then, having 2 similar interests in the room, the metaphorical room, does not benefit the masses. It benefits a very small handful of people, and that is a concern to me.

Ren:

Yeah, those in the room.

Allison:

Right. Because then you have lawyers who are arguing to convince 7 people what that statement actually means. If I can convince all 7 people and feed to them what benefits them, then the whole system, as you mentioned, works exactly how it was designed.

That’s very meta, what I just said, but hopefully I’m making sense.

Ren:

Well, I think as we wind around this and then, I think, telescope in and out of real leadership lived experiences, there’s a couple of things that are coming up for me. Because if you’re leading a company and you’re one of the many CEOs (you’re welcome) who listen to this podcast, you’re like, “Wait, are you telling me that I got to get this …? You’re going to create a riot, you’re going to create a mutiny in my organization. I make decisions all the time in the C-suite. Are you telling me that’s an invalid point of view?”

I guess that’s not really what I’m presupposing. Maybe a rabbit I wanted to chase with you earlier could answer this, and maybe I will talk about what I’m presupposing here is, instead of being concerned about the rooms that we aren’t in or how to get into the room where it happened, it’s how can we have a broader conversation around what leadership behaviors should be happening in rooms that I’m not in.

I know CEOs have got to make decisions, and they don’t need to ask me about them. I can only hope that they’ve done their due diligence to ask what is important to me, what is valuable to me, and what is going to benefit me. Now, I think the biggest fears here are that these things aren’t going to benefit me as in me, the American, or me, the consumer. It’s going to benefit them, those 6 dudes.

But you asked an interesting question to me around, is it bad to restrict information, or something like that? Something akin to it. I answered and I said maybe. It depends.

Allison:

What are the benefits to not having all the information? Are there any benefits?

Ren:

Yeah, so how would you answer that question? Maybe in the scope of, it’s reasonable for people who might see more of the puzzle to make decisions without our involvement, and maybe they are trying to help us.

Allison:

I don’t know the answer, and I fluctuate because there are certain things that I don’t educationally understand. I don’t know if I need to. Maybe I do. I don’t know. I don’t know what I don’t know, so it makes it hard to answer the question that I also unfairly asked you.

But when I’m thinking globally and big picture and how … I’m careful with my words here, because I don’t want us to get into a political conversation because that’s not what this is about. But this is the easiest example that I can give is, when I think about international finance for example, or decisions that are made from consumer goods that we pull from Australia, wherever, right? There are certain things that I do not understand how … I mean very tactically how. I understand big picture how those are made, but very tactically how those decisions are made, I’m not part of that conversation of how Bob’s decision impacts Susan’s decision and then impacts the consumer. There’s so much minutiae that happens globally that I’m not privy to, and I don’t know that I would understand it anyway. And so I don’t know that I want all of the information. It might be overwhelming.

This is relevant, but a separate example. There’s a conversation in the psychological world happening right now around live-streaming on social channels of certain war zones. It’s in some ways beneficial to be up-to-date and to know what’s truly happening. But I don’t know that human beings are wired to be inundated with that kind of thing, so I don’t know.

Ren:

It naturally comes up. Who gets to make those decisions? Who gets to tell me what I’m wired to handle or not?

Allison:

Right. To your point, I don’t think the people making those decisions … I can tell you that I’m pretty sure it’s not psychologists who have a human perspective.

Ren:

Well, tell me more. You mean the study of psychology and the human mind and brain and existence, they may not have a human perspective? I’m curious. What do you mean?

Allison:

No, no, no. They’re not making those decisions, is what I’m saying.

Ren:

Oh, okay. The human-centered professionals aren’t necessarily making the human-centered decisions, yeah.

Allison:

I hope I didn’t say that, but if I did, that is not what I wanted to say.

I mean, they’re not making those decisions. It is more of a market decision is how I understand it, right?

If we think about TikTok for example, it’s more of a regulation. It’s a regulatory decision which, again, that gets bubbled up into politics eventually. It’s not necessarily “let’s ask the experts what the impact is on the human” when this kind of thing happens, and “let’s prioritize the human being’s health,” for example. That’s not happening.

Ren:

Yeah. Well, speaking of TikTok and China regulation, it’s really interesting because I was reading somewhere that microtransactions in gaming are a very caustic thing that happens around the world. If you’re familiar with gaming, or if you’re not, microtransactions are, you can get a game for free, but then you can buy things to expedite your process. Or you can just buy things that add a cosmetic value to your process. You can buy a shirt with real money for your digital character to make them look different.

It’s pretty predatory, and it’s often a gambling scenario. And so China just recently put in some legislation like capping all of those things, continuing to reduce access to the uninformed consumer for those things. Now, I’m always a little bit wary of any state’s motivation to curb business for their own means, but it does seem like this well-meaning decision, that maybe we’re positioning the experts to know that this is pretty toxic and predatory.

I’m thinking this grounds us now, again, in the personal reflections of anyone listening who give a shit about other people, and then see potentially that there are some risks here if it’s not managed the right way. That’s all I’m saying. Maybe someone has the information in Kroger and Albertsons. They’re like, “You have no idea how bad the infrastructure is right now, and this merger will actually save you money.” That’s what they’re saying it will do. Forgive me if I don’t take them at their word, because what is their incentive to help me?

Allison:

Right. Yeah, I agree. I totally agree.

You raise a broader question too for me, and I’m mindful of time so we might come back to this later. I’m not talking about our job, okay, I’m talking big picture here. Is it a company’s responsibility to think about you and your family?

Ren:

Is it a company’s responsibility to think about me and my family? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not me and my —

Allison:

The general you. Not you, Ren.

Ren:

It’s probably you could even think, I’ll take —

Allison:

Inclusive.

Ren:

It’s probably incumbent on a publicly traded company to boost revenue for themselves and their stakeholders.

Now, if you want to get into the conversation of never ending growth cycles, that’s an unnatural occurrence. There’s nowhere in worlds that that happens other than the spread of humanity, the spread of disease, and year-over-year growth — weird comparisons. But I think a business should be asking itself, “What can I do to make sure I maximize the bottom dollar?” If I care about Ren and his family, I can maybe make that work.

Now, what does care about my family look like, if I’m an oil rig roughneck versus a pediatrician in a rural town versus a metal worker in Pittsburgh? I mean, those things all matter differently. I don’t know. It’s not someone’s job. Can it help them be more successful? Yes. And more importantly, maybe if I work there, do I know they care about me and therefore give them my best self? That’s my answer.

Allison:

Yeah.

And then, with that said, how would you know if they care about you? How would you know that?

Ren:

I would know it through maybe an examination of the beliefs, which is stated values, and then the actions, which is concurrent behaviors.

And so by them demonstrating that they do what they say, that you … Finding a way to articulate that I was heard, or in the very least — I’m glad you asked me that; I think I found my answer on Kroger’s website right now. They’re legitimately saying this is not going to hurt anybody. They’re saying that we are not going to have people lose their jobs. And there is, as it was just revealed in the antitrust settlement in this deposition, the C&S president who was leading at the time says, “Do we have to say we’re not going to close stores? Because how are we going to keep them open?”

That, to me, is indicative of, I might be cautious. That, to me, is a read that maybe I can’t trust them. I guess that they did what they say they would do. If at the end of this, I go to the store and my eggs are cheaper, and my cousin who worked at Albertsons still works at a place, I’ll be like, “You know what? They did care about me.” I guess the proof would be in the proverbial pudding aisle.

Allison:

Yeah, and that resonates with me too because, just because there’s a statement on somebody’s website, just because there’s a statement that we care, I personally am skeptical because I want to see it. From a leadership perspective, I think that is one tangible that we can think of as a takeaway, that doing what you say you’re going to do is a lot more impactful than just saying the thing.

You mentioned trust, and that is how you garner trust. That’s one way out of many. That is how you foster trust at a workplace and get the best out of people and retain them, have a happy workforce, have a productive workforce, is by having that. And so sometimes that can look like saying, “I don’t know the answer,” right? But it is having integrity and doing what you say you will do. Not just poetically making a beautiful statement that we care about you. We care about you here at X, Y, Z company. Show people that.

Ren:

I’m going to put myself out there too that we have a fantastic assessment at CCL that examines our EDI perspective, equity, diversity and inclusion, in an organization. One of the metrics is what do I believe about these things, and then what have I done about these things?

It was so refreshing for me because I’m an EDI practitioner. This is one of the fields of study that I engage in. I talk to clients all the time about cultivating inclusion so we have belonging. I fill out this survey and I’m answering a question about do I believe diversity in the workplace is important? I’m like, “Hell yeah, this couldn’t be a number high enough.” And then the next question was in action. When’s the last time that I sent a job request to someone that would qualify as an underrepresented candidate? I was like, “Holy crap.”

Now, granted, I don’t talk to any human beings for the most part unless it’s in the confines of my job, but it was definitely one of those places where I said, “Oh man, my beliefs and actions were different.” I think I’m not saying that it’s always easy to make sure that what you believe always comes up in your actions. Sometimes, and often as a leader, it’s not a negative occurrence, or you’re not maliciously doing it.

I know too something that you said to me, and I think we come back to it a lot, is this idea of the leadership disclosure. You said admit that you’ve done something wrong. I was just talking to a client before we hopped on the call. They were saying, “We’re doing this development at the top of this leaders right now, here with this strategic committee and then this oversight group, and that’s 18 people. What about everyone else in the organization? How do we help them feel supported or involved?” I said, “Just transparency. Let them know about what’s happening.”

I can tell you that a lot of these closed-door deals don’t feel transparent. A lot of them feel like that they are designed to perpetuate more inequities, not designed to cultivate more belonging. And so that thing, I think, another grounded takeaway, I’m loving the idea that — as a leader, disclose more, ask for feedback about how you’re being impacted or how you’re impacting people. And then ask about yourself. What kind of information, tell more about yourself, what you’re doing, why you’re doing a decision, and ask for more feedback so you can see how you’re impacting people.

Right now, the world is concerned. They’re telling Kroger and Albertsons, Fubo in the very least is telling these other people, “Hey, I’m concerned.” Now they’re getting the feedback, we’ll see what they do with it.

Allison:

Yes. And I want to give you another tangible example that’s a little comical but also related. I don’t want to get sued, so I won’t mention names of companies or people. I was in a grocery store the other day. There is a coffee shop in the grocery store, so I got a cup of coffee while I was, that’s nice, getting my groceries.

While I was waiting for my coffee, the folks who were making said coffee were having a discussion about how their manager doesn’t get to make the schedule anymore, and everything’s terrible because now the regional manager is making the schedule. One of the people who works there said, “Well, do you think there’s a reason why the regional manager has to … It’s probably was not their decision, right?” And then there was just an interesting conversation that took place.

This is related. These are the conversations that happen at your workplace, by the way. These are the conversations that happen. One of said workers was, whether or not she will, wanting to put in her 2 weeks because of the schedule. I’m highlighting this because of the domino effect that can happen when we are not transparent. A small example: this is a coffee shop that’s franchised in a different business. There are certain controls that the coffee shop itself does not have because it’s franchised. That is what I mean when I say, the more you can learn about organizations, the more you can learn about business, the happier you will be at work. Because you start to realize that a lot of things are coming from the top down. A lot of them are. A lot of them are outside of the control of your manager. A lot of them probably didn’t come from HR. HR might’ve communicated it, but it didn’t necessarily come from HR.

My point in all of this is to say yes, transparency as much as possible. Because if you prevent all of those background conversations from happening, potential turnover, potential misunderstandings, potential gatekeeping, all of these behaviors that really prevent a company’s success or team’s success, you get the best out of people when you are able to be transparent.

I’m not saying you need to throw leadership under the bus. Rather, saying something like, “This was outside of my control. Here’s why we’re doing it this way.” Here’s why we’re doing it. That’s it. And asking for that feedback. Is there something you want me to know? How can I help?

Ren:

And as an individual, I mean, holy smokes for that person who was like, “Well, do you think they made that decision? Why would they do that?” That takes a presence of mind — talk about peace at the workplace. If you can ground yourself in the reality that, rarely is anyone doing or saying a policy that they themselves individually divined and devised and that are giving it to you to make your life more painful, liberate yourself from that.

Because kudos for that person. What a thoughtful reflection of, I can’t imagine that Gary wants to do this. He doesn’t like us and know us, so I can’t imagine he asked, “Hey, can I make the schedule for all the regional stores?” That’s a really thoughtful question. What a good pause to think more systemically about it, and so I love that for an individual.

Another good tangible: just give yourself a quick pause, and go, “Maybe I shouldn’t make life harder because I doubt they decided to do this policy.” I can ask my leader, “Can you tell me anything about what they told you?” And then maybe the leader can do what you said.

Allison:

Right, and just ask. And just ask.

I think this is a simplification, but what you’ve said a couple of times is, are the 7 people in the room, your leadership team, if it is that small, are they representing the needs of those who are on the ground doing the business work? That becomes important in so many ways, holding the perspective of different people are different from you. Not only in the ways that they do their job, but different in gender identity, all of that, age, all of the demographics. It’s really important to have different people in the room so that they can represent all of the different types of people that work in an organization.

We know this, right? This is in CCL’s research. This is in a lot of organizational research out there, but the more diverse teams you have in senior leadership, the more effective and successful a company is, period. That’s been proven time and time and again. That would be one takeaway as well.

Ren:

I’m loving it.

I think we zoomed around a little bit. We went big, we went small. Email us. Write Allison if we didn’t do it for you. Yeah, I think that’s it. I think we grounded in that personal agency, that leadership agency, making your voice heard, and making sure that you’re seen.

Allison:

I like how you casually just noted to email me if people didn’t like it.

Ren:

I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Allison:

You’re like, “Email Allison. She’ll take it.”

Ren:

She’s ready for you. She’s much more social than I am.

What did we do the last time we had this episode and I sprung it on us? What is it? Something that we’re working on, something that we’re trying to better ourselves with? Do you remember that?

Allison:

Yeah. Yeah, I think that was the question.

Ren:

Okay, what did I say last time? I said no cell phone. Journaling, everybody. Journaling. No more blue light, too, before bed. Journaling has been really useful and a little bit of synthesis time.

We’ve been really indulging in some of our favorite television recently, but I find that even that TV before bed can impact the sleep. Just really trying to give myself more space away from other people’s messaging and more time with my own messaging.

Allison:

I want to ask what TV you’re indulging in.

Ren:

Yellowstone. We will be talking about them, but we’ve been —

Allison:

Okay, we’ll get there.

Ren:

We’ve been feasting on 1883, 1923, and then Yellowstone. That’s been our guilty pleasure.

Allison:

We will get there. We’ll talk about that.

Ren:

That’s fine.

Allison:

Mine is I journal every single night, and that’s been something that I do for a long time now.

But my addition was, fun fact, I was a creative writing major in undergrad until my parents said, “Hey, do you think maybe you’d be interested in exploring something else in grad school?” But it’s still very much a love of mine.

And so for — I think I’m on day 75 now of writing a haiku before bed really to get my creative brain sparking. Not necessarily because I love haikus, although I do, but that’s not my primary love. But it gets that creative side of my brain working. And then, inevitably, I have hundreds of pages now of just stream of consciousness that comes from that writing. It’s very cathartic and it’s very creative. I like that a lot, so it’s been very helpful.

Ren:

So you start your session with a haiku, and then you begin the journaling?

Allison:

Yes.

Ren:

Well, how fun. So interesting.

Allison:

Yeah, it is fun. It is fun.

Ren:

Maybe I’ll have to poke around with that myself.

Allison:

Try it. We’ll do our next episode only in haiku.

Ren:

I wish I could do it right now. I’d try.

Allison:

Well, Ren, this was a fun conversation. As always, I feel like we could talk endlessly about it. There’s so much more to investigate.

To our listeners, find us on LinkedIn. You can also find us on Instagram. Let us know what you think about today’s episode, what you want us to talk about. Also, on Instagram, we’ll be doing some really fun polling in the upcoming month. Make sure you do check out our Instagram stories. I don’t want to give away the farm, but we’re going to be doing some polling of our listeners for some upcoming episodes. Make sure you check that out.

Ren:

That’s right. Get involved.

Allison:

As always, a thank you to the CCL team who works behind the scenes to get our podcast up and running. We appreciate you more than you know. Ren,  and to our listeners, we’ll tune in next time. Thanks, everyone.

Ren:

Thanks, Allison. Thanks, everybody. See you next time.

Find Allison on TikTok.