Simplifying DEIB Initiatives: Lessons from the Inside with Victoria Rodgers, IDEA Strategy Director, TiER1 Performance

In this episode, Wendy Horng Brawer speaks with Howard Behar. Howard Behar's career in business spans over 50 years, all in consumer oriented businesses covering several industries. He retired from Starbucks Coffee after 21 years where he led both the domestic business, as President of North America, and was the founding President of Starbucks International. During his tenure, he participated in the growth of the company from 28 stores to over 15,000 stores spanning five continents. He served on the Starbucks Board of Directors for 12 years before retiring. Mr. Behar is committed to the development and education of our future leaders and has been a longtime advocate of the Servant Leadership Model. He has also authored two books on leadership titled It's Not About the Coffee and The Magic Cup.

Wendy and Howard focus their conversation specifically on the Servant Leader Model that Howard cultivated during his tenure at Starbucks. Howard defines what servant leadership is and how he first encountered it. Wendy and Howard discuss how companies can adapt and develop this people first model in any iteration of the business while sharing personal experiences. 

They also discuss how the emerging workforce shaped their social emotional skills through their educational experiences. With expectations for a people first approach growing amongst the workforce, the time is ripe for leaders to value the perspective that they are first and foremost in the people business over being in business. It’s evident that employee retention, productivity, and the overall health of the company increase when Servant Leadership is in the DNA of the business. 

To learn more about Howard’s work at howardbehar.com. 

To learn more about Intune Collective and the services they offer, go to intunecollective.com. You can follow Intune Collective at @intunecollectivesf on Instagram, @intunecollective on Facebook and @intunesf on Twitter.

Today’s The Business of Being Human discussion is all about how applying experiential design to the workplace is shifting the way companies' cultural touchpoints are physically and conceptually structured. 

In this episode, Lisa Hardy, Chief of Brand/Design Strategy at Intune Collective,  speaks with Jamie Shaw. Jamie is the co-founder of LMNL Studio, an experience design company specializing in spatial solutions that bring more humanity into the workplace. Previously, she was the Global Head of Creative at Cogs & Marvel, working with well-known brands like Adobe, Disney, Tik Tok and Google. 

Jamie defines what exactly is Experiential Design and why businesses need to develop this type of thinking to attract and retain top talent in this tight market. Lisa and Jamie discuss why the times we are finding ourselves living in, have been one of the most important catalysts for the need to bring experiential design to the forefront. They both offer ideas on what’s possible for the future workplace. Finally, Jamie offers some quick tips on how companies can build a culture from the inside out.  

To learn more about Jamie’s  work at LMNL Studio, go to lmnlstudio.com. 

To learn more about Intune Collective and the services they offer, go to intunecollective.com. You can follow Intune Collective at @intunecollectivesf on Instagram, @intunecollective on Facebook and @intunesf on Twitter.

Today’s The Business of Being Human discussion is all about the CEO. What current challenges they are facing and how they can lead in a manner that empowers people.

In this episode, Christine Hildebrand speaks with Scott Johnson, the CEO of Motivosity. Scott is a founder and technology entrepreneur, for the last three decades has founded two companies. Launched in 2013, Motivosity is a software platform that helps employees be happier at work through tools that generate gratitude and connectivity. 

Scott shares with Christine his own journey as a CEO and investor. He highlights the tension CEO’s often face while managing a board and investors while leading a management team, managing the people side of the operation while maintaining focus on strategic priorities and productivity. Christine and Scott discuss how to cultivate a company culture that is built on purpose-driven, human centric tactics over fear-based practices to accomplish business goals.

They discuss current challenges CEOs are facing as they address the new demands of the  ‘people side’ of business and how gratitude plays a major role in team building. They highlight how investing in your people through coaching and skill building versus getting rid of people cultivates a deeper level of accountability and leadership. They detail the new critical partnership between the CEO and the CHRO as core practice for retention, culture building, employee morale, and overall business success.

Being a CEO today requires courage, trust, and faith in your people and your mission. This episode is seeped with practical and visionary actions that will encourage and inspire CEOs to get clear on their vision, invest in their people, and take more leadership in creating more happiness and fulfillment at work.

To learn more about Scott’s work at Motivosity go to motivosity.com. You can connect with Scott on LinkedIn. Check out this article about the ripple effect of Extreme Appreciation.

To learn more about Intune Collective and the services they offer, go to intunecollective.com. You can follow Intune Collective at @intunecollectivesf on Instagram, @intunecollective on Facebook and @intunesf on Twitter.

Today’s The Business of Being Human discussion is all about the employee and how leadership in companies can care and support their employees with concrete, practical steps, all from a human centered approach.

In this episode, Wendy Horng Brawer speaks with Leslie Forde, the CEO and Founder of Mom’s Hierarchy of Needs. Leslie Forde has been a leading voice for policies that will benefit working families, such as increasing access to affordable and quality child care and transportation, expanding mental health initiatives, preserving child tax credits, and canceling student loan debt. 

Currently, she’s running a national study of 2500 parents on the pandemic’s impact on their lives and careers. She’s a frequent speaker, researcher, and consultant who’s working to help employers support parents in the workplace. 

Leslie and Wendy deep dive on the current state of employees and their needs. Leslie’s been conducting a survey for parents since the pandemic. What’s glaringly evident in the study is that for a long time work conditions haven’t been humane. There is a power rebalancing occurring due to a labor shortage and employees are now more than ever holding power to advocate for a more humane work environment. 

They discuss the top four needs of  employees now: psychological safety, flexibility, subsidized mental health care, and child/elder care. Wendy and Leslie discuss how employers can shift their company culture, policies, structure, etc to be human-centered and address these needs. Making these shifts benefits everyone! Employees can be productive at work and still have the energy and time to care for their families, their health and more. How can workplaces make this possible?

To learn more about Leslie and the Mom’s Hierarchy of Needs go to the website. You can follow Mom’s Hierarchy of Needs @moms_hierarchy_of_needs on Instagram, @momshierarchy on Twitter and @MomsHierarchyOfNeeds on Facebook. Want a practice on self-care? Check it out  here. 

To learn more about Intune Collective and the services they offer, go to intunecollective.com. You can follow Intune Collective at @intunecollectivesf on Instagram, @intunecollective on Facebook, and @intunesf on Twitter.

Today’s The Business of Being Human offers a simpler way to approach DEIB. This approach puts human beings at the center and  addresses the fear that is so common around taking on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging within organizations.

In this episode, Wendy Horng Brawer chats with Victoria Rodgers. Victoria is the IDEA Strategy Director at TiER1 Performance and is responsible for the establishment of IDEA - Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility. Victoria has a combined 20 years of leadership in business development, culture transformation through DEIB, learning development, leadership coaching, master facilitation and strategy consulting.

Wendy and Victoria share insights on how they have learned, grown and experimented in the DEIB space and share helpful tools that help simplify what DEIB is essentially about - creating spaces where people feel that they belong and can have productive and authentic relationships with one another. 

Fostering belonging is another topic Wendy and Victoria touch on. Belonging is a two way street, meaning that organizations can do a variety of things to foster equity and inclusion, and individuals can close the loop to create belonging within a system by choosing to accept their company’s invitation to belong. Both sides take responsibility for the mutual relationship together. 

Other tools discussed and shared include design thinking and applying it to creating lasting and generative human experiences within organizations that celebrate diversity. How might we foster empathy, connection, respect, and collaboration and build trust, safety, vulnerability and agency. These seasoned leaders of inclusive spaces share in this fireside chat.

You can connect with Victoria on LinkedIn.

To learn more about Intune Collective and the services they offer, go to intunecollective.com. You can follow Intune Collective at @intunecollectivesf on Instagram, @intunecollective on Facebook and @intunesf on Twitter.

Today’s The Business of Being Human discussion is all about addressing common roadblocks that growth companies are facing.

In this episode, the Intune Leadership Team, Christine Hildebrand, Sofia Chancey, and Wendy Horng Brawer discuss the most common growth limiting themes facing CEO and Leadership Teams as they navigate multinational and national growth. 

These 5 Growth limiting themes are impacting company growth regardless of industry:

1. Investor Expectations vs. Company Capacity: CEOs feel pressure from board/investor expectations and balancing this with leader performance and organization capacity
2. C-Team Balancing Human vs. Business Needs of Operation: CEO Founders are overwhelmed with balancing the human side vs. the business side of the operation, in some cases they must evolve into executive leaders or transition the role
3. Leaders working from outdated enterprise models and identities: The Leadership Team works from outdated identities gained from historical enterprise approach vs. progressive and innovative approach, mindset and behaviors
4. Talent Market is the New Market to Compete In: The Great Evaluation and Talent Market putting increased pressure on attending to human and cultural needs of the organization
5. Shift into Fully Operating Company Mindset: Companies and Leadership Teams challenged by scaling from ‘start-up' mentality into fully functioning mid-size companies.

With each of these roadblocks Christine, Sofia and Wendy address the underlying drivers that cultivate these issues and fears. They also offer Intune’s solutions to support growth companies to move beyond the roadblocks for the betterment of their entire organization. 

Intune’s Work with Clients centers around building strength and skill in 3 primary areas. By addressing these areas, growth is amplified.

Leadership Team Cohesion

• Values in Action, Leadership Modeling and Impact
• Trust-Based Relationships
• Organization Design for the current company stage (founding/building, scaling, sustaining)
• Governance

Strategy

• Board to Company Vision Alignment + Strategic Clarity
• OKR Identification + Implementation Depth
• Product Roadmap
• Cross-Functional Collaboration
• Agility/Change

Culture

• Organization + People Strategy
• Values Based Culture
• DEIB

This episode is seeped with practical and visionary actions that will bolster any immobile leadership team.

To learn more about Intune Collective and the services they offer, go to intunecollective.com. You can follow Intune Collective at @intunecollectivesf on Instagram, @intunecollective on Facebook and @intunesf on Twitter.

Today’s The Business of Being Human Salon discussion is about Corporate Racial Equity and what role Companies and Employers play in creating Racial Equity within company culture.

In this episode, Christine Hildebrand speaks with Nikki Lanier, JD of Harper Slade. Nikki Lanier is the CEO of Harper Slade. A racial equity advisory firm focused on helping organizations advance equity for some and equality for all.  An experienced leader with over 25 years of career achievements that span Banking, Labor and Employment Law, Collective Bargaining, Human Resources, and State Government.  A Private and Public Sector CHRO adept in a multitude of HR disciplines, Nikki is experienced in managing multi-site operations, ensuring compliance with all federal and state employment laws and employing comprehensive approaches that effectively align human capital priorities with the overall organizational strategy. 

Christine and Nikki define the meaning of  Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Racial Equity. They expand these definitions within the context of the growing data that suggest by maintaining gaps in equity between race and gender that businesses and our US economy are losing productivity and economic growth. 

Nikki centers on how business can begin to create racial equity through her metaphor of The Garden. Nikki and Christine identify what roles employers and companies should play in creating equity. They discuss current limitations in DEIB work and how structural inequity plays a role. They talk about how companies can cultivate employee engagement through racial equity during this changing hybrid era of work. 

This episode is steeped with so many clear and concise ideas on how you can begin to make the necessary changes for your company to cultivate a garden of racial equity and, in the long term, create cultures where top talent will want to work in addition to spurring  economic growth for your company and bottom line.

To learn more about the research and data showing the projected demographic changes in the American workforce and the need for racial equity for economic growth, please read the articles below:

• $3 Trillion a Year and Growing: Potential Economic Gains from Equity
• Confronting Inequity: A Framework for Change
• New Tool Reveals Potential GDP Gains from Closing Racial and Gender Gaps
• The US will become ‘minority white’ in 2045, Census projects

To find out more about Nikki’s work at Harper Slade, please check out Harper Slade’s website. You will find out more about Harper Slade at 12 - Webcast, Racial Equity Index, The Garden Program, and upcoming events Harper Slade is hosting. You can follow Harper Slade @HarperSladeRacialEquity on Facebook and @harpersladellc on Instagram. 

To learn more about Intune Collective and the services they offer, go to intunecollective.com. You can follow Intune Collective at @intunecollectivesf on Instagram, @intunecollective on Facebook and @intunesf on Twitter.

Today’s The Business of Being Human Salon discussion is about Corporate Culture in the Great Re-evaluation.

In this episode, Wendy chats with Candra Canning, founder of Live Bright Now, to discuss what companies can do to retain talent and create empowering work cultures. Candra is a certified leadership coach and a master facilitator who has been coaching corporate leaders and teams to brighten their performance for over 20 years.

Starting with how to bring joy into the workplace, Candra outlines the importance of honoring employees’ strengths and asking “what is the larger why of the company.” Candra shares how the "culture conversation" is a conversation around performance and doing great work together as a team. In a business culture that allows people to play with their strengths, there will be collective ownership in the larger WHY of the company.

The Great Resignation is calling quits on meaningless work; companies are needing to intrinsically inspire people to join and do something. Candra recognizes that it’s important that the CEO embodies the inspiring vision of the business to cultivate an empowering culture. In her work, she creates co-horts among team members to cultivate a place of openness and safety for employees to share their full experiences.   Candra fosters intimacy between teams by taking companies out of the conference room and into the outdoors, incorporating The Science of Awe.

This conversation will help you reimagine how performance is linked to its culture.

To learn more about Candra Canning and Live Bright Now, go to her website. 

To learn more about Intune Collective and the services they offer, go to intunecollective.com. You can follow Intune Collective at @intunecollectivesf on Instagram, @intunecollective on Facebook and @intunesf on Twitter.

Today’s The Business of Being Human Salon discussion is about Human-Centered Design or Design Thinking. 

In this episode of the Business of Being Human, Wendy Horng Brawer, our Chief of Learning and Innovation,and Sofia Chancey, Head of Strategy at Intune Collective, discuss how Design Thinking can be used as a tool to face the unknown future in ways that can identify possible solutions, bring teams together, give leaders more information, and activate a more innovative spirit through the organization. Sofia and Wendy outline the framework of Design Thinking and give examples they’ve put into practice in real life.  Wendy shares a few examples of her own experiences. They both discuss how Design Thinking will unpack the fear of failure and help organizations become more comfortable with taking risks.

With the next generation being trained in Design Thinking, this conversation will introduce you to how the future will approach ideation and customer service. 

To learn more about Intune Collective and the services they offer, go to intunecollective.com. You can follow Intune Collective at @intunecollectivesf on Instagram, @intunecollective on Facebook and @intunesf on Twitter.

The Business of Being Human podcast discusses the future organization. What new structures are required and how to evolve existing frameworks and leadership styles for continued growth.

In this episode Christine sits down with Sofia Chancey, Head of Strategy at Intune Collective, to discuss how organizational structures are evolving and what is required from leaders to generate growth and optimize talent. They share the kinds of changes they are seeing with clients, what trends they are noticing across industries, including why people are leaving their jobs. Noting the shift to remote work, distributed teams, and the great resignation, they consider what types of structures will support both people and business growth in the future. And what leaders need to be looking out for when it comes to re-inventing their own leadership styles that will serve their organizations and teams.

This conversation will help you gain insights into reimagining your organization's structure for future growth.

To learn more about Intune Collective and the services they offer, go to intunecollective.com. You can follow Intune Collective at @intunecollectivesf on Instagram, @intunecollective on Facebook and @intunesf on Twitter.