Lead With That: What Corporate Mergers & Monopolies Can Teach Us About Leading People Through Change

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.