Reflections

I’ve struggled with the words to capture my thoughts, feelings, and questions over the past week.

As a white, blonde hair / blue-eyed, middle-class male, safe to say I’ve experienced my fair share of privilege. Hell, my Dad was a 20-year Disney executive working in the sports industry. Safe to say my life has been filled with privilege. I can't remotely imagine the prejudice black men and women experience on a regular basis, by both those with bad intentions and from those who don't mean intentional harm. We’re listening to your voices and continuously learning. 

We stand with the black community to stop injustice and indifference.  

But that’s not enough. 

Our company quite literally helps other organizations create cultures of service. We aren’t about inspiration, we’re about action.  We don’t do keynotes, we get our hands dirty. So a simple “we stand in solidarity” statement wasn’t going to be good enough.  

When we don't understand something, our team goes right to asking "how" and "why"?

How is someone like Derek Chauvin allowed to be patrolling the streets? Why did none of his fellow police officers stop him? I believe it largely comes down to organizational dysfunction. And that’s something every organization has a little of, including yours and mine. 

Within that Minneapolis police department, what behaviors were recognized and rewarded? How were officers measured for success? What were the consequences internally for when an officer didn’t live up to the clearly defined behaviors? Were clearly defined behaviors even trained? What’s a more important metric for determining promotions, direct metrics like the number of arrests and fines issued, or indirect metrics like direct observation of behaviors or peer reviews? How often did Chauvin’s leaders ride alongside him to observe and coach him in action? 

No matter how much progress we make as a society or as an individual organization, there will always be bad actors. Picture a bell curve. On one side of the curve, you'll always have a small percentage of people who actively detract from the organization. On the other, you'll have good actors who always add value to the organization, those who move us forward. But the majority of people reside in the middle for various reasons, people who just want to go about their business. The indifferent. It's our job as leaders to shift that bell curve to the right. 

When there is no accountability within an organization, bad actors like Derek Chauvin are allowed to continue working every day. Truly, it comes down to leadership and the culture leaders create.

Here are four leadership traps you can avoid in your own organization to help minimize injustice and indifference.  As a leader, what's important to you?

• Encouraging team unity and loyalty? If so, are you pushing that agenda so hard that you willingly overlook cancerous sores within your own team?  
• Personal ambition or organizational ambition? If your goal as an individual is to move up the corporate ladder and find that next job, you're going to be less willing to upset the apple cart and fight for what you know to be right. Going against the grain usually sucks in the short term, but is for the best in the long term. 
• Do you catch yourself saying, “don’t come to me with a problem, without a solution”? You may be honorably trying to encourage a spirit of entrepreneurship within your team. But for bigger, sticky issues, your team probably won’t have the solution. Those are the issues you really need to know about, as quick as possible. Instead, encourage a culture that identifies potential obstacles and solves problems quickly, together.
• Are you recruiting people who “fit your culture”? If so, you will likely fall into the trap of hiring a homogeneous work-force, one that acts, thinks, and even looks like one another. This inevitably facilitates a culture that lacks diversity. Better than hiring someone who “fits” your culture, hire someone who will “advance” your culture.  

We certainly don’t have all the answers. And we make unintentional mistakes everyday. But we’re humbly listening and actively seeking ways to get better and make a difference.