Jeff Ma
Hey folks, we have some exciting news for you all. We have just launched a brand new company founded on the tenets of our love as a business strategy philosophy, the same philosophy that you've grown to know and love. This new venture is called Culture Plus, Culture Plus is a culture as a service company that provides training experiences, consulting services, and digital tools to help companies achieve high performing and high reliability cultures and teams. To learn more, visit culture-plus.com. That's culture-plus.com. And now, let's get to the show. Today's guest is Gena Cox who is an organizational psychologist and coach, she gives us almost 40 minutes plus of nonstop pure wisdom in this episode, she paints an incredibly clear and insightful picture of what leadership, inclusion and organizational culture looks like in workplaces today. And her stories and examples and insights are going to give you a lot to think about. So I hope you enjoy

Hello, and welcome to love as a business strategy, a podcast that brings humanity to the workplace. We're here to talk about business. We want to tackle topics that most business leaders shy away from, we believe that humanity and love should be at the center of every successful business. I'm your host, Jeff Ma. And I'm joined today by my co host and co author, Chris Pitre. Hey, Chris, how's it going today?

Chris Pitre
Hello, Jeff.

Jeff Ma
Chris, we like to dive into different elements of business strategy on the show, and we love to invite guests that'll help test our theory of love. So today's guest is an organizational psychologist, executive coach, a speaker, a soon to be author with a book coming out this year. And someone who knows that things are a thing or two about cultures in organizations. So with 30 plus years in business, 20 plus years in advising and coaching, and even 10 plus years in measuring employee experiences. I think we have a lot to learn from our guests today. Please welcome Gena Cox. Gena, welcome to the show.

Gena Cox
So much fun to be here. And you know, great to meet you, Jeff and Chris, and to talk about the things that I love to talk about non stop. Always happy to talk about any of this.

Chris Pitre
That's why you talk and we listen.

Jeff Ma
We'll just mute ourselves, you have the next 30 minutes. Before we go a little bit of an icebreaker. I'll make Chris go first Gena, so you can prepare yourself for the same question. Chris, what is your 22 New Year's resolution?

Chris Pitre
I don't make resolutions. So I don't have any. But I guess to continue with, you know, what am I doing in 2021? And 2020, which is to survive this pandemic?

Jeff Ma
Fair enough. Gena? Same question. What is? Or do you have a 2022 New Year's resolution?

Gena Cox
I don't have a resolution. But I have a word someone asked me last year at the end of the year, what is your going to be a word for 2022. And I realized I had one and my word is ease. Ease as opposed to easy. It's not the same thing. But by ease. What I mean is, this is the year I'm really going to focus on just sort of being Gena in her fullest and her authentic fullness. And just focusing on that just then that happens or more naturally, I tend to be fairly uptight person. And you know, after spending all these years in corporate America, I kind of came to the epiphany that I present myself in a sort of scripted fashion. I speak in a certain way. And this is the only way I know how to speak. But I'm just saying it's sort of like, sometimes I'm just wanting to breathe out more, and savor and savor, savor and ease and that's my resolution.

Jeff Ma
I love that so much. And what a way to start coming on our show. We're going to be all of our authentic selves, we're going to practice that resolution right now together. But before I guess where I always want to begin, Gena for any guests is I really want to hear your story and obviously doesn't have to be your whole entire life story end to end. But really what brought you here, where your passions lie and where those come from, as well. I'm most interested in,

Gena Cox
like, you know, my passion is that every employee should just have the best experience when they show up for work, whatever that means, wherever it is what regardless of what they're doing. That's the simple idea. But how I got there is it's like a lightning tale. I won't take a long time to tell it but you know, I discovered psychology when I was a teenager, but I only knew about clinical. And my dad had given me a book and I devoured it. But when I went to undergraduate college, I met this woman who came from the Institute for Social Research at University of Michigan, she was a social psychologist of like, what, what, what is that? And she, she was the one that showed me all the disciplines within psychology. And she said, Because I had done some work as a journalist and I loved the business, she said, you know, you might look at industrial and organizational psychology, like Oh, my God, that's a long name, and who knows what that is, and, but I fell in love with it, because it was the juxtaposition of like, the human. And then the business stuff. I also was intrigued by, when I had the opportunity to design MBA PhD. And it was, it was definitely, there wasn't really a competition, it was going to be the PhD, because I wanted to really delve into human behavior. So you know, unfortunately, itself in all of the years since then, since a PhD, on 30, something years, a long time, we haven't really made a lot of progress on some of the things that I care about, which is really about, again, how can every individual employee feel like they are thriving, like this is the place they want to be, they come in, it's not a burden. It's something that they do, they get paid for it, but they enjoy their colleagues. They feel fulfilled and purposeful. You know, I think we can all get there. But organizations have to really be themselves purposeful, and helping everybody get to that Nirvana, if you would.

Jeff Ma
Yeah, I love that. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna dig a little deeper, I want I want to hear like specific, can you be specific on what you're seeing, like, what, what is over the last 30 plus years is happening? What is the problem here?

Gena Cox
So, frankly, the problem, the core issue, I think, is that we haven't really set expectations for employees to let them know that they, you know, they're important. And they have, they should have a point of view. And they should be able to have this great experience that I'm describing. So this expectation that the workplace could be a place where you have those good feelings, it hasn't really been established as a norm, the norm has more been you come in, you do the job, and you get paid. And if you're lucky, if you're one of those lucky few, for whatever reason, you might have that fulfillment, you might get to fully thrive. On the other side of that, though, it's we haven't set the expectations that managers who I call designated hitters, by the way that managers would be responsible for creating that kind of environment, we sort of let that part of it been a sort of a laissez faire approach where you might get it depending on you know, if you get manager, err, A, you might get it manager B, not so much manager C, not at all. And it's okay, we sort of say, you know, managers vary, humans vary, so managers vary. And, you know, some managers have strengths, and some aren't as strong. But I challenge that because I say, if you're going to have the nerve to take a human and put them in charge of humans, then it is required that all managers that each manager be held accountable for at least a minimal effort to manage all of those employees in a certain way to manage the environment in a certain way. So when I think about the manager and an employee relationship, that partnership, I don't make a lot of room for, you know, for, I don't make a lot of excuses for either party. For managers, I say there's some certain things that leaders at the top of the house should expect from every single manager. And then for employees, I say, if it's the pandemic that has caused you to have this epiphany that some people call the Great resignation. Yay, I think that's great, because, in fact, you shouldn't have to feel less than in order to get a paycheck.

Chris Pitre
I love that. That's awesome. Um, this has been one year, like talking to, you know, all of my passions, as well as your sharing. And I'm curious to know, in your career and your experience, like what, what are some of the issues or challenges that you see between manager and employee or leader and employee, like the specific like, again, to the nitty gritty tell stories? And you have to?

Gena Cox
Well, absolutely. So again, a lot of this has to do with the definition of what we think managers and leaders should be all about in organizations. And while many managers have MBAs, and while many managers do various kinds of training, I do believe that there is insufficient focus on the interpersonal aspects of the manager relationship with those that they lead. So the things that I see tend to fall into that bucket because managers tend to disproportionately focus on getting the tasks done and everybody knows they're going to make sure you get the tasks done. But what if there's a situation where Gena has a situation where she needs to take a few extra days off from work that were unplanned, she couldn't have predicted it? She needs this to take care of her daughter, who has developed some sort of a, you know, some hopefully short term problem. And she has to take that child to the doctor or whatever, whatever the specifics are, traditionally, not only do managers sort of frown upon that, but even coworkers colleagues will find it frowned upon that, because the whole system is sort of set to say Gena ought to be there, if Gena, you know, hurt her performance or my judgment about her as an employee hinges upon her sort of being there, regardless of what's going on in the rest of her life. And so, you know, one of the things that we're seeing in the pandemic is that more employees are saying, you know, frankly, I can't do those things, even if I wanted to, because either the school is closed, I'm, I'm now the, the, in addition to doing this job, I'm a teacher, I'm a school teacher, for my child, I'm caretaker, I'm really taking care of the medical aspects of the care and cooking the meals, I'm doing everything, I can't do it. And for the first time, I think managers are starting to realize that there's a whole person that shows up to do this job. You know, if I, if I think about my own personal experiences, I once worked in a company, where, and this was a great company, by the way, relative to some others. But there was this one executive who used to always say, I love it when I loaded a parking lot. And I see it full at seven o'clock. That was his he was in financial services, he thought it was just a great idea that people were just sort of working their fingers to the bone, I had to leave the office every day by five, I had to do that. Because childcare here closed at six. And I needed to have enough time to maneuver through the traffic get there before that six o'clock hour, not only because I didn't want to pay the late fee. And now, you know, I wanted to see my daughter, but also because I knew that the staff, they wanted to go home and take care of their personal obligations as well. So every day, I'm all stressed about oh, my gosh, you know, I know, I'm like waited to the very last second before I close my office door, I'm sort of sneaking through the hallways quietly, I don't really want to be noticed. And I'm wondering long term, you know, is it likely that this is going to have a negative impact on my career mobility, versus the other person who stays till seven o'clock every day and develops the relationships that sometimes happen at the end of the day when people are starting to wind down and standing around and just shooting the breeze and so on. So that's an example that I always take with me, because there are so many lessons to be had from a scenario like that where that senior leader has set a tone for the organization, in fact, probably doesn't realize the extent to which those words I love seeing in a parking lot full at seven, are having that trickle down effect that are defining a culture that is not sustainable. And unfortunately, particularly detrimental to those employees who are who are parents and caretakers and have other obligations that they must satisfy. But they still want to do a really good job. Another aspect though, that of the manager employee relationship, where I see a lot of, you know, there's the rub, there's this friction has to do with really, and truly understanding the impact that they have on the other person I want. I went to a business meeting with someone who was a senior executive in an organization where I worked. And we're sitting at breakfast in the lobby of a hotel. And it so happened that I had met that person's family, like about a year before, it's some kind of social event. So making small talk, I said, you know, you have a wonderful, beautiful family and I said something more specific and this person, sort of they recoil. I mean, I could see them recoil, and they went, how do you know, my family? And I in the moment, and instantly I thought, oh, okay, so this person feels a little bit threatened by the fact that I said something about their family. So that must mean that they feel somewhat threatened by me. And they're certainly not thinking of me as a peer. And, you know, why do they learn it? Why do you get asking me this question? The bottom line was from that moment on, I never had the same relationship with that person never trusted, that they would have my back because I felt other I felt like so distant from that person in that moment. Yeah, that person was an executive who could have a significant impact on my career destiny. I think the what I what I always feel when I tell that story, is that there were so many things that could have been different, but that was truly one of those situations where I'm not even sure the individual was aware of how they reacted. But what it also meant was that I just judged that was not an effective leader, I in that moment, I decided this person is not an effective leader, because he or she doesn't hasn't quite mastered this ability to just interact with anybody in their organization and just sort of relax and have some ease, and create some ease.

Jeff Ma
I love that I, I love those examples you're bringing because you know, we we work in this space a lot ourselves within the people we work with people we talked to, and it is a constant battle. And it's it's it really comes down to what you just said self awareness is probably the largest hurdle that that we face. In general, once you realize that you have a problem, a lot of lot of times, it's much easier to then go down a path of understanding the problem and committing to change and things like that, which takes time, which doesn't make you perfect. But it's it's often leaders who have gotten to a certain place over 20-30 year careers that don't know any other way or don't know that what they're doing, you know, has that type of impact. I'm wondering, in your in your work, how do you break through? Like, how do when you face this? I'll just say extreme or severe lack of self awareness in the people in the people you coach and organizations that have these present, which I'm going to assume you deal with? What where do you start?

Gena Cox
Yeah, and and by the way, it's not coincidental that the two stories, I shared our stories about senior leaders, because one of the things that is very, very clear to me is that exactly what you described is part of the challenge. You can't expect managers to behave one way if the senior leaders don't set the tone, I'm all the way and make it clear that these this is a part of effective leadership. But so for I've been an organizational consultant for many years, and as you know, you know, I'm often consulting to the C suite when, frankly, for all the work that I do, it's always about enhancing and changing something in an organization. And that means that you've got to get the C suite involved, there's often data involved, and they want to, they want to hear the story first before the rest of the organization hears it, ostensibly, because they want to be the ones that drive that change in the organization. But another thing that I have noticed throughout my career is that many leaders will sometimes focus so much on the data disproportionately on the data, that it then becomes a hindrance to actually taking action. You know, you analyze you overanalyze, you talk about this, you focus on that you ask about all the what ifs scenarios that you can imagine, but what what gets in the way is actually doing something. So interestingly, since George Floyd was killed, one of the things that has changed and that has been gotten a little bit easier for me in the job that I do, is that that those very stories that you ask that I share, I never used to share stories as part, I hardly ever shared stories as part of the consulting work, because leaders would insist we want data driven strategies. But they were sort of conflate these ideas they could not understand they didn't realize that to truly understand what is happening with that data point that you have averaged an average to the nth degree, an average is useful for understanding a big pattern, but it doesn't really guide you to the to the actions that need to be customized, you know, in various parts of your business at various levels, and so on. But stories do. So I have become a much more effective storyteller. I've gotten more room to tell stories, leaders are listening to stories more often. And I tell you that when when the thing that is has that is clearly the most effective is when you say okay, here, here is the data, you've got 10,000 people over here in Japan thinking this way, and then another 5000 over here in Germany, who said this other thing, and they'll let me tell you what their experiences are like on a day to day basis that have led to these average scores. And for now, let's put away the data. And let's talk about what does that mean, in order for the slope over here in Germany to be telling you that X, Y and Z is happening, it must mean what what is likely to have proceeded that in order for them to be feeling this way. And as we have those kinds of conversations. The other thing I say is, make sure you read the comments. By the way, these data, don't just read the quantitative data. But I can tell you the story, what it means is that our what we're seeing is that we've got managers over here doing this thing, or not doing this other thing, or disproportionately doing this other thing. And so what I tried to do to get executives to understand is I try to tell them more stories, and not. And I don't only rely on that. The other thing that is really important for leaders, is I try to guide them to talk to their employees in new and different ways if they're not already doing that. So I certainly think that many executives suffer from the challenge of you know, of sifted data. Ron Carucci talks a lot about sifted data, this whole notion that you get to a certain level of organization, people stop telling you what you need to hear. They tell you what they want to hear. And if that is true, that means that you've constantly every day got to set up some alternative ways of getting that piece of information that your direct reports might not be telling you.

So a lot of executives don't get all the information that they need to get. And they don't know that they haven't gotten all that information. So talking to employees in new and different ways means or it means adding to your portfolio, the ways that you relate to employees to look for more opportunities to hear directly from people at different levels in the organization. It means that if you're an organization where sales is a dominant function, because that's the nature of the business, if engineering or technologists are the ones that run the show, make sure you're also talking to the people who are on the opposite end of the spectrum of power from those who are in the forefront, right. Because the folks that run the organization from an intellectual perspective, we all have our vested interests, we all have our, you know, our little silos or little fiefdoms or little things we want to influence we all do, right. And I'm not saying people are doing this with ill intent. It's just the nature of humans and business. So if you talk to people who are in customer service, and if you talk to more customers, and if you talk to more whatever the case might be is when you really find out what's going on. Here's an example of this that really resonated with me over the over the pandemic. I, let's see, I volunteered this early on, I volunteered to be a participant in a research study, something relating to the, you know, to the vaccines, this is early days. And I was contacted by someone from the university that was actually collecting the subjects, you know, so that I could get all the details. And I had this conversation with this lady, who I remember was from Trinidad. I'm from Barbados, and she was from Trinidad. So at the very beginning of the argument of the conversation, we then we started to talk in the way that Trinidadians because Trinidadians, they talk like everything they saying is a poem. Nobody knows why I love it. So I was teasing her about that, and you're having a good time. We talked, I think we talked for 30 minutes, and we took care of she took care of business. But what I realized in that conversation was that that lady, who was whatever her job was, she needed social interaction, she had contact, she needed something, to let her feel like she was still alive as I'm not just talking to people on a telephone, one after the other. And I was the one you know that for whatever reason she got that she got that for me that day. But organizations don't necessarily as they're, as they're scheduling the work of customer service professionals, think about the experience of that customer service representative, what does he or she need, so that he or she can feel they can thrive right and might not have anything to do with pay might not have anything to do with title might not have anything to do with the equipment. In that case, it had all to do with the, with her social support that she that she had lost, maybe she worked in a call center before. So So one of the things that I think is really important is to is to think about where you're getting your information from that is leading you to make the judgments and the decisions that you make about how you manage talent, how you optimize talent. Another example I want, I was new to an organization. And I flew to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, because we were going to have a client meeting the following day.

And you know, consultants like to have dinners we have these dinners for two reasons. One, we're spending the company's money and eating delicious food and, and we're hanging out with one another. And then we do some strategizing for the meeting the next day, right? That's supposed to be the focus. Honestly, we do all of that. But we enjoy this as a social opportunity. So I was new. And I came to my hotel room about six and I freshened up and I got ready because I knew that we would really be going out for dinner that day. But I never heard from anyone so I started texting and emailing. I'm still not. So nine o'clock after I had already taken my clothes off ordered some or even something. I'm eating it in the hotel room. I got a text on the booth that says we are at restaurant XYZ Would you care to join us right? So what do you do? I decided, you know, I'm new. I still want to know what's going on. So I hop in a cab. This was in the cab days and I went to the restaurant and when I got there, my colleagues were there. The client and the client's husband were there. It was the weirdest thing. So you know, you're kind of trying to figure out what was going on. Ultimately, what it turned out was that, you know, that was they were they were together because they were accustomed to being together. I was the new person. They really weren't focused on me it was coming from a different city. They were choosing But, you know, they had worked together before. And I immediately understood there was no norm in this organization for collaboration. Right? There, there was nothing, they didn't think about me because there was no expectation that they were thinking about me, I'm a functionary, I was there to be the expert tomorrow in the meeting, but we will have fun. Why I'm telling that story is that, I bet that I know that the people who run this very large organization of which I was a part of the time have not have very little clarity about the experiences of their employees, especially those who are working in situations where they're depending upon other colleagues, to provide that nurturing and support. So it's an example of why leaders can't assume anything they can't think they know. And that only somebody who had walked in those shoes could ever tell a leader, let me tell you what happens when I'm on the road. And let me tell you how it feels to be on the road. And let me tell you that the negative feelings come more from my colleagues than from my client, or what you know. So leaders have got to just always look for ways to get information in places they might not typically look.

Jeff Ma
Chris, what's that thing you say about, like people data versus normal data?

Chris Pitre
Oh, many times when you have, just as you were mentioning, the results of surveys and whatnot, you're have this people information, and many times want to take a scientific lens, and, you know, rule out the outliers and sort of, you know, look at the mean, and average and all these things. But you know, it only takes one person to build a simple case, it just takes one, right? It only takes one one story and one experience to create change, right? You can look at that positively or negatively. But many leaders when they get data, as you you know, mentioned, they start to question and interrogate it as if it's not attached to a human or humans, right. And they can find ways to rule things out to question it to second guess it. And as you said, overanalyze it and get paralyzed in certain situations. But that's something that we try and help, you know, when we are working with clients help them understand, like, I know, it's very easy, because it's uncomfortable to get received this data and see that there are three areas of improvement and opportunities, you know, somebody might look at them as challenges or problems or, you know, elephants in the room. But no matter what your perspective is, right? It's it's easier as a leader to rule certain things away. Because the, I guess, the process is difficult, because there isn't a science, you know, or a manual that can give you say, Here's how you make your culture more inclusive. If you just follow these three steps, you know, it magically change, as you mentioned, everybody's unique. Everybody has a different experience, and everybody experiences, you know, conversations and interactions differently based on history based on perspective, based on upbringing, based on all of these factors that are in Confluence inside of the workspace. Yes. And it's really hard for some leaders who have been trained to look at things one way, and their way has been successful for them. So now challenge that and say, like, Stop, what you've been doing has served you very well. So this is not on not a knock against that. But now we have to now look at new tools or bring in new tools and bring new ways of looking at the same problem, despite, you know, the success that you may have seen in just that one way.

Gena Cox
Absolutely. And actually, Chris, what that reminds me of is that, you know, again, in those situations where I work, have worked closely with leaders on using data to drive insights, there's that I noticed over the years, that very little would be different from time one to time, two, in terms of whether the leaders had used the insights from the previous pieces of data to drive significant change that would then result in something meaningful. Rather, they were obsessed with trends, this whole notion of, you know, the trend from year to year. And, and it was more in an academic sense, in a way because we want scores to go up. Everybody wants scores to go up, you know, great. But it wasn't to say, well, you know, what, folks told us a year ago that they were dissatisfied about something over here. And then did we do something about that? Or no, it's more like let's just look for this aggregated improvements at the enterprise level so we can say that there's an improvement, but that is contradictory to the employee experience, because my experience is always local.

Chris Pitre
Yes, exactly. And that's, that's honestly been one of the biggest aha that we've given to everyone that we meet is that in most situations, when you get survey results, you look at the 80% Right, you might look we're doing 80% of people love it here. When you talk about inclusive cultures and D&I what's happening with that? 20%? Like, whoa, like, that's what we should like, we want to retain 80% where they are. But the 20% is like, that's, that's where we need to be looking into. And are there trends and patterns in that 20% that are reflective of marginalization, of exclusion of, you know, problems that might be flying under the radar simply because it's not the experience of the dominant group. Right, right. And, you know, helping break that down in a way that doesn't feel accusatory, is often the challenge that I'm pretty sure you might face, right? Or that we face, sometimes it's like, it's not, it's no one's fault, per se, unless there is a clear bad actor here. But it's like, as a leadership team, we all have to come together and just own this, once you own it, you can find a solution, right? You know, and I think that that's sometimes the biggest, one of the biggest commitment gaps that we see, you know, and sort of bringing people along that journey, especially if they just inherently feel like they haven't done anything wrong, or things are not broken because of how they have experienced the organization.

Gena Cox
Yeah, and I don't know what you're seeing. But you know, the whole idea of improvement, the concept of improvement, there's a new baseline, there 10 New baselines, there's a new baseline because of COVID, maybe they're even three, there's a new baseline, because of COVID, there's a new baseline because of the change in the work environments, and so on. And there's also the May 20, baseline, where in each of these were, these were disruptions to any kind of straight line that you might have had. And we have to really study to understand what what is the bottom, you know, and where, what is, when we talk about the trends and so on, we have to be really careful. And, you know, we have to also be careful about comparing our organization to other organizations, because we're all of these three things, the environment is so complex, that something that worked for another might not. And so, right now, I'm just telling you, leaders, focus on you, meaning your, your organization, and really understand what's happening in it. And think about, what are the things that you can do for this group of humans who are in this unique situation and do those things and spend less time worrying about you know, who else is doing what and how they're doing it, because it's just too complicated. And you got to experiment too.

Jeff Ma
Sometimes we go even more narrow, we say, literally, think about you first like you, as you a leader yourself, then think about your team, before you even think about your organization. Because I think that's where people are just missing a complete part of the picture, where you're over here digging through data and survey results in custom, you know, employees satisfaction, and you haven't even turned the mirror on yourself yet to kind of look at what about the few people who report to me what about what I'm doing in this space, you're so worried about fixing trends or things other places, that there's all this space right around you that you have not yet even addressed. And then and then you go and try to fix that problem with that mindset. And you create bigger problems, because you come up with solutions and processes and tools and changes that are built off of a mindset that already doesn't see the problem that already doesn't understand what needs to be done. So when you do the work on yourself, then you go, Oh, you know what, I've been part of this, and, oh, there's more that I can do from my position, then when you go address those problems, you're able to empathize and see that 20% and see people differently, and then those solutions you come up with have that built in and are more inclusive naturally and more holistic.

Gena Cox
I love this because clearly, you know, we are we are in sync on this for sure. That is exactly the way that I think about it. It's why I keep talking about the top of the organization and, and why sometimes I feel like I'm saying the same thing over and over and over and wonder if I should stop saying that, but but I don't because it's it's 100% clear to me, you know, from years of doing this, that that's absolutely true. And that it does have that personal component and that your purse that personal component that that that no one human who's at the top component, really. Sometimes I think IG senior executives not only underestimate the impact that they have on others, but they under analyze themselves, if you would, you know they're the it's it's the introspection and the quietness that is necessary before you get to really tackle these big challenges that have a human.

Jeff Ma
Okay. Sorry, Chris. I can't tell you how many times we've gotten to a company who definitely needs this. They even recognize it, they call us in and then the CEO whoever on top just like, alright, we'll get to work and let me know. And let me or like, no, no, no, no, no, we're like, we're starting with you and Did we close the door? And they're like, wait, what? Oh, like, yeah, very funny.

Gena Cox
But you know, in defense of not defense, but in sympathy or empathy with those leaders. That is another cultural norm is that number one, they should they should be perfect. They should acknowledge no vulnerability, they should have all the answers. You know, they should keep themselves above the fray. All of those are norms that we have established at the University of Rice, University of Houston, at the Doerr Institutes they're doing some great work. I think the book that came out in 2021, might have been 2020 is called Leadership reckoning. And in that book, Thomas Colditz is basically saying, we have got to reexamine the way that we have the way that we teach leadership in our MBA programs in particular, especially at the top schools. You know who they are? Because what, what are you saying is that there is a lot of focus on leadership, and we talk about leadership, but there's less focus on leader on being a leader, what does a leader do, and so you're talking there, he sees that there's just this great opportunity to re examine, and that he thinks every leader should have every person coming out of the MBA, for example, should have a coach, that, that coaching should be coaching of that person should be part of their preparation to be a leader, as opposed to someone who understands leadership, because it's the component of looking at yourself, and having that personal accountability, will is a differentiator. So it's very interesting book to read. And, and I like it, because it aligns with my ideas, right. But I do think it's very important, because it speaks to this notion that as a society, we have created some behaviors of leadership that are no longer servicing us that we can see it now. And we have an opportunity to do something different.

Chris Pitre
wholeheartedly agree. So I have written I've read a lot of your articles on HBR, and one in particular. And in one, you talk about the efficacy of leadership training, especially when it comes to inclusive building inclusive cultures. And so not trying to make you repeat everything that you put in that article. But I know that a lot of organizations still questioned the value, and the ROI on these types of trainings. And you being in your role and seeing all that you've seen, I'm curious to understand if you've sort of if you can share what you have seen to be more effective inside of that space. And what you will recommend that our listeners consider if they are about to invest or want to invest or are still unsure about investing into into that area.

Gena Cox
So training is important. I don't mean to underplay the importance of training. But But certainly, it needs to, it can only be effective within a broader framework that is defined by the top of the house truly understanding what the issues are, that are at stake, and then say, Okay, this is our North Star, this is what we're heading for. This is our strategic intention. And then within that now, here, we can create this training to support that strategic intention. So what I don't like is training this one oh, is this We did some implicit bias training last week, are we going to do some, you know, like it, everything has to have a purpose. So implicit bias training has a purpose. It's not it's not value less, it is valuable, but within a broader context, because there are these other things. So training that makes a difference has to be very clearly targeted as to what is the intended outcome. So there's obviously training that has to do with just even communicating the senior team strategic intention for whatever we're talking about, let's call it diversity and inclusion. If you don't have that, well, what's the what's the training for not only will you not know what kind of training to create, how to how to define it, who is going to get the training, how to measure success on that training, but the participants in that training are going to go what? Why am I doing this? I don't know. I don't get it, why what for and they're not going to do anything with it. So you got to have that Northstar as a starting point. But so there's training about what are we up to, there's training for the leaders to really understand the behaviors that you know, want them to adopt are the new things that they have to start doing and saying, right, and they, as you say, you've got to start at the top of the organization. So it is not useful to say let's just do let's do training that starts at the bottom of the house, or let you know, and let's it may be a little cascade up because there is no such thing as cascading up because gravity doesn't work that way and leader behavior somehow. So, so you've got to get those leaders, you know, trained and having a shared point of view and then being able to know what you want them to do. But the key people that really make the difference in this kind of work are managers. It's local. It's a local experience. So the individual managers, and I, by the way, I am kind of cynical, I assume that at least 50% of whoever I meet in organizations don't agree with any of this. I don't, I don't, I don't think everybody agrees that any of this stuff matters should matter should be on it should be a conversation or anything. So I assume only 30%. And, and so so if I assume that only 50% even care about this, i that means that I know that somebody has to make this something that is, is our cultural norm, I don't want to use the word requirement. It's a cultural norm, that this is how we treat humans, this is how we do certain things is how managers behave. Here are the behaviors that we expect a manager to exhibit. So there's training about, you know, sort of even really understanding what are the expectations for managers. But here's the other thing. There's also a disproportionate focus on these interpersonal implicit bias kinds of things in the training curricula. But it's really the systemic bias that I'm mostly interested in, I'm mostly interested in the fact that any individual manager has discretion to make all kinds of decisions. So how have you How have the processes been established, for how you identify your talent pool, how you select from your talent pool, how you promote within the talent pool, how pay and compensation decisions are made, and who gets the fancy bonuses and the stock options and who doesn't. And all of the the talent management decisions that have traditionally, for decades, the talent management decisions that have been in place have have often been a part of the problem, if we're talking about diversity, equity inclusion. And if that is the case, I'm interested in training managers interested interested in training, HR and leadership and development people to more effectively design those systems. And then I'm interested in training managers to be more effective users of them so that they don't have either intentional or unintentional bias in the decisions that they make. So the truth is, in the end,

if you if you went by what I just said, what you see is that this is very complex. And that I don't I don't, I'm not saying you shouldn't do one off things, or you shouldn't say, within this part of our business, we have a unique problem, we're going to tackle that head on, we're not going to wait to have the whole system fix. I'm not suggesting you have to get the whole system fix I do, I do think you have to have the Northstar defined, and meaning that the top of the house has to be in on this and pushing it from the very top. And then I think you have to assume that there are some systemic changes that might have to be made. And you have to be prepared to make them. And I always say to senior leaders, you know, it might mean that there could be some people in your organization that shouldn't stay, maybe there should be maybe there's some people reporting, that have a lot of power that might not be able to make this change. And there might be some people who shouldn't be managing humans, regardless of those humans look like. So this notion of anybody could be a manager is one of the ones I try to tackle. And there's some people who might be glad to step away from management, but even if they're if they don't want to, to me, the holy grail of all of this is what is what is that local experience one of those managers like, and and have they been trained? Or are they trainable and willing to, to change so that they can manage everybody in that in that group?

Chris Pitre
wholeheartedly agree.

Jeff Ma
and seconded.

Gena Cox
Yeah, it's I mean, you know, to be honest with you, I used to have a very full career in assessment many early in my career, most IO psychologists will create assessments at some point, that's, it's one of our rites of passage, but we have to do it. And I was, so I wasn't I was an ardent proponent of selection assessment. At that point in my career, I hardly ever do anything with assessment selection at this point. Well, I have it for like 20 years, not not just now. And the reason is, I really came to understand that assessment will somewhat sometimes have the same problems that we're trying to tackle with AI that we have within H AI, when we try to apply them to talent management practices, which is that often the data universe of the data that was being used to make normative decisions was was small was restricted, did not represent the full characteristics of the applicant pool or candidate pool or what have you there was that so you had this range restriction in creating these norms? That really, I thought about that over and over and I wasn't quite sure you know, it, I never could get away from that from that problem. The other thing is that, you know, the tests themselves, you know, we as IO psychologists know cognitive ability tests are very effective at differentiating amongst care applicants for a job, let's say. So that's true. But But cognitive ability tests are also also have these characteristics in the way that they're created, where they are normed and the words that are used and the in the context of the questions, especially when you have questions that are not only math, but you know, other kinds of problem solving, there's there there, all of that is so tends to be so slanted to a certain portion of the population. That is it any wonder then that people who don't have the characteristics of those who are normally in that test, don't perform as well on that test? So then you have this challenge, for example, with the NFL, where the NFL, for example, might decide, well, let's use race based norms where we have a different cut score for a different group of people, because the scores are different. But but all of that, to me really just points to us needing to continue to do better meaning meaning our profession, because the question is, I could not really can't still I'm still struggling with this is what impact are these environmental differences? Having? Right? On the way that people are answering these questions, is it that this group of people is less clever, and they're, that's why their scores are lower? Or is it that they have had completely different educational backgrounds, they haven't been exposed to some of the social and environmental experiences that others have. I mean, during during the pandemic, if you look at, at, you know, everything on social media, and you see people who are talking about they're traveling here, or they're buying these new clothes, or they're buying this new house, or they're getting this new car, or even that they have access, they have the home tests to figure out if they have COVID. What what is really clear is that some people have things and some people don't. It's so I it's very as time has gone on, it's hard to differentiate, or it's hard to separate out the impact of that sort of those social disparities in access to whatever the experience is, from the disparities that we see play out within organizations when decisions are made about a wide cross section of people, including those who haven't had access to some of those experiences. So I'm a little bit off from the question that you asked. But but but the reason I'm mentioning it is, frankly, I anticipate that what we're dealing with now is a complete disruption of HR, talent management and leadership and development methodologies that have been sacrosanct. And I wrote an article a couple of months ago, with Katie Peters, where, you know, you know, if you Google thought leader, generally you will get photographs of people that whose names are very familiar to you, they'll tend to be white males, and nothing against white males at all. But, but it is evident that it can't possibly be that only those same 10-20 People are thought leaders for this whole country and world over and over and over. And, you know, where, are the other people how come you know, but but because I'm publishing a book, when you go into the system of well, how does one get a book published, so that one could become a thought leader? You realize it's an expensive proposition, both in terms of time and money, and, and everything? So, so all of these things are interrelated?

Chris Pitre
For sure. Now, having published a book, I can tell you, like, what you just said, is like, there's so many hidden things that people assume, you know, oh, getting on this bus. Oh, this is easy. And it's like, well, it's not according to numbers. It's who you know, in that game, right? Like, nobody reads as if, you know, it was a bestseller when it actually like, there's so much behind it, and so many, you know, who you knows, and how much do you have the you have to like, yeah, navigate? And yeah, you are, you know, coming from a place where you didn't have mommy daddy's money to get you to a place where you can have that certainty, right? Like, all of that then plays a role in your ability to publish. And it's, it's just this, this lockedbox that people oftentimes don't see or understand

Jeff Ma
with. Maybe the worst segue in history is, you know, to bring us to close, please tell us. Tell us a little bit about the book. I think you said it's coming out in October this year. But also go ahead and plug you know yourself a little bit what you'd like to share with our audience before we close out here.

Gena Cox
Well, thank you for that. So, you know, I really invite people who want to learn a little bit about me to go to LinkedIn. LinkedIn has a lot of information about me, but my business is FeelHuman.com. But I'm publishing a book on October 4 of this year. Very excited to get this book to come out the book is entitled Leading Inclusion, it is for business leaders. And it's really from I have to say, though the lessons in this book apply to all the various dimensions of difference. It definitely is written from a perspective of black woman in corporate America, who also happens to be a PhD in IO, psychology and executive coach a mother and has a particular and I have that perspective in there. But because I interviewed about 35, thought leaders, as well, for this book, one of the things that I try I'm trying to communicate with this book is that there is a place for leader a role that leaders must play in their if they desire to have organizations that are not just diverse, but inclusive. And unless they play that role, especially at the top of the organization, all of their efforts are going to be for naught, because it requires that much effort to move this big ship that has existed in its current form for so long. So look, for my book Leading Inclusion, you can go to Amazon, and all of the other big booksellers to find the book, although literally, the book cover has just been designed, you won't even see the book cover yet. But it is available for pre order. And I'm going to have a few more details that I'll share with you so that you can put it into the show notes. Jeff and Chris, and be happy to talk a little bit more with any of your audience who wants to know more about the book?

Jeff Ma
Oh, absolutely. After our conversation today, I'm definitely looking forward to reading it. Seeing looking, looking into your mind a bit more. I love the way you've really taken what we've talked about and really painted it in very clear and impactful ways. So appreciate what you brought to the table today.

Gena Cox
Oh, such a pleasure to be here.

Chris Pitre
I can't wait to read the book as well. And it's also a little bit of a gift because October 4 is my mom's birthday. Yeah. So the fourth days of the month are typically the best days. You know, my birthday is April the fourth? Beyonce's birthday, September the fourth.

Gena Cox
All right. Chris, I want to ask you so yeah, I did write the book for your mom. Chris, I wanted to ask about your last name, because I've not seen that last name before. It's a beautiful last name. So tell me about your last name.

Chris Pitre
Sure. So it's Canadian, French family from Louisiana. being black. It's we know the history right. But our our owners were from Canadia, Canada, and we're Canadian, French. So they settled they migrated from what is the Acadia and the came down to Louisiana. And that's where my dad's family's from. And then my mom's side of the family is from North Carolina. And there's a whole lot of mixture with Native Americans and African Americans. So my parents met in Houston. And that's Yeah, so it's, it's very interesting, because there, there's different spellings of it. Around Louisiana, so and some people just call them Pete instead of Petre. So you don't say the RE? And then some people who are Peter, Peterson, so it's different combinations, but from that original area, so

Gena Cox
Well, I gotta say one more thing before I let you guys okay, so Jeff Ma. Every time I'm sure this happens to do all the time, but I would see your name and my brain would do the thing where I wanted to call you Jack every single time and I'm sure I hope I never was you know called you by someone else's name. Never mind.

Jeff Ma
Well, my Ma was one of those like top I don't remember what it's at now, but top 10 most common last names in the world globally, because because the Chinese population is such a large part of it. And it's a common name there. But um, fun fact Jeffrey Ma. Jeff Ma, was also on the MIT was one of the one of the people on the MIT team that broke Vegas in the movie like the movie 21. Yeah, so if you Google Jeff mall, you're not getting me, that's for sure.

Gena Cox
There's so much fun. That is not gonna happen.

Jeff Ma
All right. Well with that. Great. Had a great time. Gena. Thank you once again for coming. Chris. Thanks for joining us to the audit,

Gena Cox
pleasure and happy new year. I hope this is ease for both of you.

Chris Pitre
Thank you! I will receive that for sure.

Jeff Ma
To our audience, we hope it's a year of ease as well and appreciate you joining us and staying with us. Be sure to check out our book Love as a Business Strategy, if you haven't. And please do look up Gena on LinkedIn and look out for her book as well. So with that, we'll see you guys