Leading with your heart might be a scary phrase to some old-school leaders out there. But my guest today knows a thing or two about leading a fast-paced, successful company – without sacrificing human connection.
Claude Silver believes showing up with heart and humanity is the key to unlocking greatness in people. Today, she shares her incredible personal story, what a Chief Heart Officer does, how it differs from HR, how empathy has fueled Vayner Media’s growth, and their value of kind candor, as opposed to radical candor. We debunk myths and fears many leaders have about empathy at work, and she shares so many examples of how Vayner Media walks its talk in being a people-first organization while still holding everyone accountable and achieving success.
To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
- The old models of command and control leadership are not going to take you into the future, they will not attract top talent, and the companies will be gone in less than 20 years if they aren’t willing to evolve.
- Empathy doesn’t just roll downhill from leaders to staff, it needs to roll up hill to so that we’re partnering, no matter what our level, but also we’re accountable, no matter what our level.
- You are a giant. Create your mission statement, your northstar statement, that will help you to understand what your purpose is every single day, not only when you have time to do it.
- You were hired for a reason – amplify your skills and your strengths. You are not anyone else around you, you have your own light to shine and your own greatness to bring to your organization at whatever level you are at right now.
“People are not assets, people are your company. Heart is the central operating system of any human being and human beings right now, and probably tomorrow, are the central operating system of your company and culture.” — Claude Silver
About Claude Silver: Chief Heart Officer, Vayner Media
Claude Silver believes showing up with heart and humanity is the key to unlocking greatness in people. As the world’s first Chief Heart Officer at Vayner Media, she sees it as her job to infuse empathy into every aspect of the organization. As a speaker, podcaster, and LinkedIn influencer, she’s now inspiring other leaders to do the same.
At a young age, Claude was repeatedly told she thinks too much with her heart — something she has now learned is her superpower. As a non-traditional learner, she left college after two years and had an epiphany while on a 93-Day Outward Bound trek: it was up to her to change the narrative of her life, and in order to do so, she had to change her thinking. This power has evolved into what Claude calls “Emotional Optimism”: a concept that is key to her Heart-First leadership style.
With Claude as Chief Heart Officer, Vayner has grown from a team of 400 to a Global team of 2000. She has proven that empathy plays a role in fueling growth and does everything she can to make each and every human feel safe, seen, valued, and included. This involves taking a hard look at how leadership is showing up, identifying cynicism and toxicity, and taking the crucial steps to flush it out.
Claude’s success coaching and leading people and guiding client relationships come from a mantra that she teaches to everyone she crosses paths with: “Be someone people want in the room”.
Connect with Claude Silver:
Website: http://www.claudesilver.com
VaynerMedia: http://www.VaynerMedia.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/casilver/
Instagram: https://instagram.com/claudesilver
Don’t forget to download your free guide! Discover The 5 Business Benefits of Empathy: http://red-slice.com/business-benefits-empathy
Connect with Maria:
Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com
Learn more about Maria and her work: Red-Slice.com
Hire Maria to speak at your next event: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross
Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy
LinkedIn: Maria Ross
Instagram: @redslicemaria
Twitter: @redslice
Facebook: Red Slice
FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:
Welcome to the empathy edge podcast the show that proves why cash flow creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host Maria Ross. I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society, it’s great for business. Lead leading with your heart might be a scary phrase to some old school learners out there, but my guest today knows a thing or two about leading a fast paced, successful company without sacrificing human connection. Claude silver believes showing up with heart and humanity is the key to unlocking greatness and people as the world’s first Chief Heart Officer at VaynerMedia. Working alongside influencer marketer and best selling author Gary Vaynerchuk. She coaches inspires and empowers everyone to uphold the culture of connection and empathy that Gary has built as a speaker podcaster and LinkedIn influencer, she’s now inspiring other leaders to do the same. With Claude as Chief Heart Officer Vayner has grown from a team of 400 to a global team of 2000. She’s proven that empathy plays a role in fueling growth, and does everything she can to make each and every human feels safe seen, valued and included. This involves taking a hard look at how leadership is showing up identifying cynicism and toxicity and taking the crucial steps to flush it out. At a young age Claude was repeatedly told she thinks too much with her heart, something she’s now learned is her superpower. As a non traditional learner. She left college after two years and had an epiphany while on a 93 day Outward Bound track, it was up to her to change the narrative of her life. And in order to do so she had to change her thinking this power has evolved into what Claude calls emotional optimism a concept that is key to our heart first leadership style. Today Claude shares her incredible personal story what a Chief Heart Officer does, how it differs from HR how empathy has fueled VaynerMedia is growth and their value of kind candor as opposed to radical candor, we debunk myths and fears many leaders have about empathy at work, and she shares so many examples of how VaynerMedia walks its talk and being a people first organization while still holding everyone accountable and achieving success. This was such an enlightening conversation. Take a listen.
Claude Silver 03:40
Hello, Claude silver Chief Heart Officer of VaynerMedia I am so happy we are finally having this conversation. Thank you so much for your patience. I’m delighted and honored to be here. We are speaking to each other from opposite coasts, which I always love. Let’s hear a little bit about you know, we heard your bio prior to us queuing up this interview. But tell us a little bit about your story and your epiphanies in your career just briefly, and then let’s get to what the heck a Chief Heart Officer actually does, because I think your story is important talking to how you got to that role. So tell us how it all came to be. Okay, great. Well, what I will say is I was a very poor student and because I was a very poor student, that’s probably the first time the first topic I guess, where I didn’t feel like I belonged. I was a great athlete, friend. My parents have degrees up the wazoo. My brother has my brother’s younger than me, but he now has degrees up the up the wazoo. And I was wildly dyslexic. My mom at the time was a elementary school teacher. So she figured that out it all those tests, whatnot. Now she’s a family therapist, social worker, but I’ve really struggled in school to just fit the pieces together. The things I could remember song lyrics, the things I could remember or poetry, the things I could remember were things that really spoke to me, right. But at the end of the day algebra didn’t speak to me. So taking that three times on time, taking the SATs three times on time does well, and I just had this I just felt like I had this missing chap, all throughout Junior High in high school, even though I was the captain of the tennis team, or the president of the student, class Council, whatever, I just didn’t feel whole, quite frankly. And I spent some of my adolescence and early 20s trying to fill up those holes in the ways that we do it with substances with relationships, and so forth and so on. Until I took myself out of college. When I was at my sophomore year, I was going nowhere fast I was making bad decisions with with bad boys and bad drugs. And I told my parents that I needed to find the longest wilderness course I possibly could, because I needed to get my ass kicked, quote, unquote, and be careful what you wish for I found a 93 day wilderness Outward Bound course, that took place in start in the Colorado Rockies, then went into the canyon lands and Grand Canyon and Joshua Tree. And off I went and I was the only young woman with nine young men, we were all 1819 20 years old, carrying 80 pounds on our back. And the first day, I literally just wanted to break my leg, I was breaking my ankle would break we were it was snowing, we were climbing traversing up these mountains, you know, 13,001 mountains. And I was so unprepared. And I was at the bottom. And the story is actually very significant for me. I was at the bottom of the trail all the guys were in front of me. And I was crying and it was snowing. And it just stank, right? Even though I asked for this, this was day one. And the instructor came all the way down, down. I had a female instructor for this time. And she said to me, what is going on in your head. And I said to her, Well, I’m singing Nine Inch Nails had like a whole black is your soul, I’d rather die than give you control. And she says to me, you better get another song in your head. And that was the first time ever it clicked that I can change the story up here. I can change the narrative. I don’t have to be the dumb dyslexic. I don’t have to, you know, I don’t have to be that person. I don’t have to be that person that’s into drugs. I don’t have to tell myself the stories or sing those songs. And so that I will say 93 days later, I came out a very different person. That was when I first learned the term servant leadership. And I wanted to be a servant leader. That’s what I knew I no longer use the word serve and use the word empathetic or heart based. That’s what I came out knowing I came out really like getting in touch with who I am my strengths, my superpowers and the fact like I’m a feeler, that’s who I am. And that’s okay, more than okay, so what I’ll say is I eventually went back to school, studied a lot of psychology and human development and everything I could possibly get my hands on in terms of spirituality and growth and development, and clarify buoyancy and all of that stuff. And then I was in San Francisco, right place, right time. 1990 eight.com. Boom, the first one. And there I went, I found my first internet, internet. I was here then too. So I’m assuming I see where this is going. Yeah. So off I went. And the rest is really history. When I say I’ve only worked in digital companies. I’ve only worked at advertising companies, you knowing San Francisco at that time that was ripe for innovation and creativity in the wild, wild west. And I was part of that, which was incredible, especially someone who didn’t know what they wanted to do. It didn’t have options necessarily. I just kept on going to where the job was. So one thing led to another. I had an incredible career as a strategist. I moved from San Francisco to London, I was moved for a role right before I turned 40. And my whole world kind of opened up in a new place, learning new things about myself. It didn’t have people to hang on to I didn’t have kind of old stories and beliefs and and I and I had a wonderful time in London and had a really, really successful career. And I met Gary Vaynerchuk and I met him in August of 2013. We hit it off. We had a three minute conversation on the phone. I came to New York in September of 2013. And we had a great meeting of the heart over a coffee and a grapefruit at a coffee shop on 70 up in Lexington. And the rest was history. I left that meeting, saying to my best friend, I know I need to work with this guy. And I have a feeling he needs to work with me. And so I joined VaynerMedia nine years ago, which is my longest relationship and certainly my longest job and
10:00
I started, let’s see, I was it was May of 2014, I was one of the three or four oldest people, a woman in a fairly kind of machismo boys club at that time, it was amazing. Off I went, and I was his first senior vice president that he hired. And I’m almost gonna get to the point where we got Chief Heart Officer, but I’m gonna stop in a second, I ran our largest account. And while I was running that large account, I kind of had a team of 60 people, and really just was, we were teaching each other liberal arts, I would have them read poetry, I would have them bring in Jim Morrison poetry. And we would digest that rather than going through kind of like the campaign we just launched. And Gary started to have me go to the other offices. And I said to him, hey, super cool, love to go to San Francisco. I’m happy to go to London. But you know, my work is over here in New Jersey. And he said, just go to that thing that you do, the thing that you do. And that was it. Bingo. He saw, he saw me not for the strategy or the client schmoozing. And all that stuff. He saw the superpower of being able to change narratives, being empathetic, having a big heart caring, having a group of 60 people, and literally just having a good time making them feel good. And one thing led to another and I actually decided to quit, because I didn’t want to do advertising anymore. All I wanted to do was be with people. So I went to him. Thank you so much. This is the best place ever love it here. You’re the best. I no longer want to do advertising. I just don’t care. And he said, What do you want to do? And I said, I only care about the people here. I only care about the heartbeat. And that’s where I’ll stop. Because then we created the role. Chief Heart. Yeah, oh my God, that’s like, long, that was much longer than you wanted me to go on, but meandered about meandered. I don’t have a linear Yeah, career journey at all. So there’s so much in there to unpack for a second, because first of all, I’m sending my nine year old an outward bound when he is old enough to go because that sounds amazing. And he I think he needs it. But also the fact that you finally embraced a model of leadership that was heart LED. And I think we’re in a time where these discussions are starting to happen. I do keynotes, I do leadership trainings, and I’m being brought in to talk about empathy. And like you, my background is marketing and brand strategy, I came to this empathy, work through connecting and engaging through marketing with people as human seeing their humanity, and having that be effective. And then building that out now into researching my first book, and now on my second book, which is about how to be an empathetic leader without losing yourself in the process, because that’s the struggle now, now that there’s enough converts out there to what you got converted to, and really not converted to you actually just uncovered and unearthed what was already inside of you. And understood that that was a superpower for business success for leadership success and for unleashing potential in people. And that’s where all of us, I call all of us empathy warriors, we’ve got to keep banging the drum for the skeptics to say, Hey, this is a bottom line benefit to your business to operate in this way. And the old models are dying, the old models of command and control and Work is work. And it’s nothing personal and all this crap, we’ve been fed our whole careers, it’s not going to take you into future success. And I even with the book that I wrote, one of the generational experts I spoke to went so far as to say the companies that have those cultures are going to be dead in 10 to 20 years, they’re not going to be able to attract top talent. So I love that you found this place and you carved out this role. And tell us a little bit more about what you do in that role as Chief Heart Officer and what how that differs from I assume you have a head of HR, maybe you don’t, I don’t know. But how does that differ from a classical HR role? Yeah, first, just to echo what you said. I mean, those leaders in those corporations are going to be our care very, very soon. And Gen Z is here. And they’re proud. And they’re feelers, and we’re all going to be working for them very soon, which is a great thing. So when Gary said, you’re going to be Chief Heart Officer, cool. I knew what that was. It made sense to me in my soul. And I said a couple of things. One, I’ve already been at this company for 16 months, what are we doing? What are we building? And he said, we’re building the single greatest human organization in the history of time, wonderfully aspirational. And that is our vision still today. That’s great. Okay, I need to know that too. What is success look like for me? How do we know if I’m successful? I’ve never done HR, I never wanted to do HR. He said you will touch an impact every single employee and fill the agency with empathy. So we were 310 people then or 2000 across the globe. Many many companies under
Claude Silver 15:00
Have the umbrella of Vayner x. And so the first thing I did first things I did one, I could not step into an HR role, because I never did HR that would be out of integrity, and I don’t believe in HR. So I changed the department name to people and experience to, I changed the way we hired from culture fit, which we had been doing, which is how we grew very quickly to skill set fit and culture edition. And that allowed us to start to look in different places for people. And that allowed us to diversify the floor, which was very important for me walking, three, I removed the need for college education. These are all things I did within the first month that was like, boom, boom, boom, why? Because it’s college isn’t for everyone. And you’re looking at someone who struggled through my first rendition with college, I mean, so, which is fantastic. And we now have an incredible residency program where we bring people in at 17 a team. And that’s fantastic. And then I really had to work on scale. So to touch every single human being means high touch means I need to be available and accessible consistently. And so I have what I call 15 minute meetings, and I’m able to get a lot out in 15 minutes, people come to me i proactively go to them, we do now have someone that oversees the people and experience department, it’s not me, my job is literally to, to mirror Gary, in those rooms. And wherever I go is to really help someone feel safe and seen and that they matter. And then north really helped them get out of their own way so they can thrive so they can soar. Right. And you know, I’m sitting here in my office here, I don’t have an any desk in the office, I never wanted a separation. You know, I wanted to be a psychotherapist when I grew up. And then I figured there were other ways to be of service. And I found a wonderful way where I can be here in the great thing is that I have all that business acumen I’ve worked for 20 years on the floor. I know what a p&l is. I know when we work with p&g, one of the things they’re going to talk about is efficacy and peace of mind. You know, I know these things I can help people out. So my job is really to put their hearts in the center of my heart, and to hold space to create and hold space with them. Learning and Development, recruiting, retention, scaling, whatever it is, we’ll build it, and it will dot line to me, right? So I love that you had discrete things, concrete things that you wanted to accomplish when you first came into this role. You mentioned earlier that Gary especially has a value of empathy. I’ve heard him speak about that. How does that show up? How does that value of empathy or being able to strengthen your empathy? Can you give us some examples of how that shows up in the business? One or two just notes in terms of how meetings are run, or how you work with clients or dealing with folks that are having difficult circumstances? Give us some examples about how that value shows up in practicality, because especially in my work, what we’re talking about, we want to be an empathetic organization or brand. Great. What does that actually mean? How are you walking your talk? And so I always want to get to what are the actions and the behaviors that happen at VaynerMedia. So you all know you’re going in the right direction, and you’re continuing to maintain that value that’s so important to Gary and the entire executive team of empathy. I mean, it’s who we are, we call our culture the Honey Empire. It’s not the empire of honey is 51%, honey 49% Empire. 51% is how we treat people, how we show up in rooms, how we make people feel, this is what it’s all about. This is it. This is the Alpha and the Omega, removing fear and cynicism and confronting that with a kind in a kind way. We are rooted in kindness and compassion. Empathy is an emotion, the way that comes out is the kindness and compassion. Which Yeah, yeah, we learn when we’re two years old, three years old, basically, right? It just gets there we go. We forget about it. And we stop being you know, are these imaginative mystical beings that we are as children and start to live this very linear, I have to follow the rules. And there are no rules we trust first, how does that show up? Every single person that comes in here, every single one, you can be a CFO, you could be a copywriter, we all have you in one orientation, which we run every two weeks. And in that orientation, they are sitting down with subject matter experts, three days, subject matter experts, they’re sitting down with me, they’re going through our culture, why we think the way we do, how we think the way we do, why, how this organization was built, it’s, you know, we’re built from an entrepreneurial mindset. We’re built from a disrupter mindset. We’re not built from an agency guy. We’ve just so wonderful. We put ourselves first our consumers Second, our clients third, how does that show up? We really do our best to hold people account trouble for themselves, their team, and then the work to be done the job to be done, which is reaching those consumers with videos, which is what we do. Removing fear is not hard, if you know where to look and you know how to do it. Providing psychological safety is not hard if you know how to do that to yourself. And so we teach a lot of these, what is called soft skills can stem that word, universal skills, human skill, a long human skills, we have vast trainings on how to give feedback, how to get feedback in a very kind and clear, specific actionable way. We have manager training up the wazoo one on 1102103. And you learn how to walk in this world how to walk in this agency, and I truly believe that has an incredible knock on effect to how you are in the world, I really believe we are teaching hard and universal human skills here. And this is so interesting. And this is what I knew would happen is we’re going to go into all these topics because I couldn’t wait to get my hands on you. With the book I’m working on right now I’m talking about the pillars of being an effective empathetic leader, as I mentioned, while still expecting excellence, while still setting boundaries, and while still avoiding burnout. And one of the pillars is this idea of self awareness. And across all of this, though, is this idea of accountability that you can have empathy and accountability can coexist. So what does that look like for folks listening that are like, how do I tie those things together? In my culture? Is there a specific way that you tie that together? Is it through rewards and recognition? Is it through performance evaluations? Is it through peer nominated recognition? How do you actually tie the empathy and the accountability together? Or the compassion, heart led leadership and the accountability together in your organization? Can you give us some examples? First and foremost, it’s everything that you said. And it’s well being concentrating on that it’s making sure that we’re providing people in a very holistic way. With wellness programs, it’s making sure that we are leaning in on creating an inclusive place inclusive, yes, religion and race and ethnicity and seen and unseen disabilities, we have the CR G’s learning resource groups, which are for people that identify as LGBTQIA plus, or allies as Latina, X and allies as African American or black and allies. And these are wonderful, wonderful groups that people join, because they want to be even closer to those that they identify with, which is really, really cool. And that is all over the place. That is one way that empathy and compassion come out, because we have places for people to go, that really, really want to feel like they belong, because that’s it. That’s the ball game pair. You give people psychological safety, and then you create spaces where people feel like they can belong. They don’t have to deal with a title. They don’t have to, oh, I have to be quiet, because my managers managers in the room, and oh, we know that he or she is really smart. No, anyone can talk. In fact, we have roles here that we now we have entry level roles that we have now, put on a pedestal here to be like this is the role of the work we do. They’re called post creative strategists. And at the end of someone’s signature, or asking them to also put account director, post creative strategist, it’s that important because it’s the work that we do is finding ways in through emotion through empathy, to reach our consumers. So again, the trainings that we do, I would say, our leadership team is better than it’s ever been. It’s accountable. One of the things that Gary has taught me, and I know he’s taught many, many people is what real accountability looks like. And real accountability is being the bigger person. real accountability is taking the responsibility when you know, it’s yours. Now, I’ll give you an example. When someone leaves and I read their exit interview, and they say, Jack really treated me poorly, and no one did anything about it. Well, most often, they didn’t tell anyone about it. But guess what? That is on me. I oversee every person and their experience here, the culture, and that’s on me, which then means I go and talk to my team, whoever’s covering that discipline and say, hey, my friends, when you see smoke way in the distance, because you have a spidey sense, because you’re intuitive because you’re human. And that’s what we do here. We work on intuition. You need to let me know about that smoke. And then you need to go in there with with an extinguisher way before it gets to be 10 feet away or the alarm goes off. That’s how you get rid of cynicism. And that’s how you get rid of fear. By being kind and brave. We are kind, compassionate and countable and wildly ambitious people here and that all works together. It’s called the Empire. After you put the people first is how to get now that it’s us first, then our consumers, then our clients that’s like funky. It’s very, very funky in today’s day and age. And when a client says to us, no, make it red or make it blue, what we say to them is, actually, we provide them with the data, and we provide them with the intel that what your consumers aren’t going to want it blue, and they still say, You know what we want it blue. And we say to them, okay, we are going to go into this with our eyes wide open, we’ve had this conversation, we want the best for you. We are in partnership with you remember, we don’t serve them, we are in partnership with them. And we’re going to go into this with our eyes wide open, which means we have accountability. And you my friend, the client have accountability, because you’ve just made the decision to go against what we know is happening out there on tick tock today. So it’s walking the walk, it’s not just talking the talk, there’s nothing hanging on these walls here in any of our offices that says, Be empathetic VaynerMedia citizen, you are kind like no, you have to act these you have to take action consistent. Is that action in evaluations is that put in meaningful examples of actions for people so they understand as they look around? I’m asking this question because one of the companies that I spoke for health care system last fall, their change management team did this amazing thing. And having a background in change management from earlier in my career, I was really impressed by this. They took their company values, which are often just a pretty poster on the wall. For a lot of organizations, they don’t actually mean anything in day to day activity, but they took their company values, and they created documentation, not a lot of documentation, very simple to say these are examples of this value in action. And as you write your reviews for people, these are the types of things you need to be looking for. So that when you evaluate them on that value or that value, there’s something concrete behind that. And I just thought, so simple. So almost so obvious, but never done in so many organizations where they just again, they just have that pretty poster on the wall. But they don’t give folks any guidance of here’s what we expect that to look like in practice, is that something at VaynerMedia that is talked about is documented is highlighted, how is that brought to bear so it’s a continuous learning cycle for people. I’m really glad you brought that up. So it took the PTT a year to create core competencies, we have just rolled them out, core competencies are both foundational how we behave and functional are skills. Foundational comes first honey comes first before the Empire. And the foundational skills are leadership communication, accountability and growth mindset. And within those four buckets, there is a this is how we expect you to act for every level, every department, and then we can do that for the functional ones. And that is in your peer review that’s in your quarterly review. That’s in your annual review. That’s everywhere. I love that because then everyone’s speaking the same language. And this is why one of the other pillars in the new book is about clarity. Because clarity is kind clarity is compassionate, because now we can understand each other and there’s no guesswork, there’s no assumption, right? So you can be responsible for your growth, I’m going to help you, I’m going to help I’m going to do everything I can can’t change your behavior, I have no control over you will give you training, we’ll give you this, you want a meditation app, we’ll give you that too. But at the end of the day, very clear. This is what you’re expected to do here. And to get that promotion right here. And so what that has done, because I have a feeling you’re going to ask me about this in a second is that has removed a big chunk of entitlement, a big chunk of coddling. And that’s huge because as a very empathetic and kind organization that can be our kryptonite, and was our kryptonite for sure for a while there when we didn’t have such structure and such rigor because we are osmosis learners here, but we’ve grown up, and now we have to hold ourselves accountable. You know, I had to go to a very, very, very senior person the other day and say, I just need to let you know that your client has come to us with this set that you said this, what do you got to say about it? Like, I’m not here to punish you. I’m just here to say like this is an issue. What happened in that meeting? When can that person rise to the challenge? I’m not here to punish I trust them. But I have proof right here in writing that there was pretty big misstep. So what are we going to do about that? And how are we going to prevent that from happening because that’s not who we are. Well, and that’s such a great example because again, talking with leaders
30:00
Many of them who think they’re challenged by empathy are actually not practicing true empathy. Because empathy actually takes a lot of strength, you have to really be well grounded in yourself to be able to see another person’s point of view without defensiveness, right. I say that all the time on the show. But this idea of, I’m empathetic, so I’m going to avoid the difficult conversation is actually not empathetic, that no cowardly, you can have the difficult conversation with empathy. This is what I’m constantly beating the drum on. And that was just such a perfect example of you can be empathetic and not run from conflict, not run from difficulty, or what I call the crunchy conversations. Yeah, we call it having kind candor, but not radical candor, kind, candor. And that’s really what works for us, because this is a community and culture rooted in kindness. It is, I mean, how many times have I, we should have a drinking game? How many times have I mentioned kindness already? In this interview, but everything that we do is rooted in Hey, I trust you first, it’s not you’re guilty, and then get out of right. It’s curious how you’re gonna? Yeah, it’s like, well, just tell me what happened there. I’m really curious what happened. And like, let’s figure out what we’re gonna do about this. Now, that kind of stuff. But we have that conversation with people that are entry level jobs all the way up to the C suite. Because why? Well, we’re human. And that’s actually an important point, too, is that it’s at every level, it goes up and down the chain, if you are thinking of a hierarchy, and that’s the thing it doesn’t, the empathy doesn’t just roll downhill from leaders to staff, it needs to roll up hill to so that we’re partnering, no matter what our level, but also we’re accountable, no matter what our level, that’s the thing. And so you know, those entry level roles and the residency I told you about, like, we’re teaching accountability, we’re teaching what it’s like to try to be the bigger person in every situation. Whereas you and I have had more reps, and we’ve had more life experience. So we know that we need to be the bigger person in every situation. And we’re going to fail sometimes, because we are not perfect. And this is not utopia. I’m glad you said that. Because the pushback from a very small chorus of people with the work that I do now. But I’m not here to teach people how to behave. I’m not here to teach people values, I’m here to get the work done. And I always say actually, your work at this is the work as a leader, this is not additional work on top of your work, this is the work. So what would you say to that line of that narrative that some people have of like, well, we just need to get shit done. And I don’t have time to teach you how to be a compassionate person. People are not assets, people are your company. I mean, people will say to me, what is heart mean? And you know, love and this it’s like, heart is the central operating system of any human being and human beings right now, and probably tomorrow, or the central operating system of your company and your cultures. This is my responses, then what are you doing here? Exactly, then go be an individual contributor someplace, my friend. But like, if you can’t get involved are you’re not going to take down your armor in today’s day and age, and you’re going to let someone be vulnerable in front of you and you’re not going to extend grace, generosity, God forbid love, then you really should go someplace else. And that’s okay. Really, it is. What else are we doing here? This is life. And we are now in a very funky time in which it’s work life. It’s live work, I don’t even know, hybrid, it’s this but the pandemic did change us. And we’re not going backwards. And like vulnerabilities cool. My friends. Brene. Brown is like very famous for a reason. Right? There’s another speaker who has a talk called vulnerability is sexy. I always liked that one. So what can you give us some examples around how this culture has fueled growth? Are there any stories you can tell or specific things you can point to? That you definitively know that this is correlated with this movement within the company to codify and articulate empathy and compassion as central to the business model? Sure. I mean, I’ve real life examples, because they come to me all the day all day long. So we had a SVP who really was looking forward to a raise last August didn’t get the raise, and he was told by his manager, and it was stamped by me as well, that he had these things to work on. And those things were very interpersonal, very interpersonal. And so he asked me if I could coach him and we went on this four month coaching spree where he came in, have a lot of questions, I asked people and all that kind of stuff. And what really like came to fruition was that his insecurity and his imposter syndrome is so loud that that’s all people see and hear when he walks in the room. And he didn’t understand why he wasn’t
Claude Silver 35:00
being taken seriously. But I’m funny. I like to joke around, you know, this is how I dress. And all of a sudden it’s like, Yeah, but what do you cover? And guess what? We all have limiting beliefs. All of us do. So we got into, like, why this impostor syndrome was so loud? Where had it started? It’s kind of like therapy. I’m not a therapist, by any means. And we really work together on at the end of the day, what do you want? Aside from the race? What do you want? I want my team to really value me, okay, well, let’s figure out how they’re going to do that. What are the behaviors that you are doing now, in which you feel as though contradictory to you being valued, and he had a list of those, and we would work this every week, knee, and homework, and all of this stuff. And he finally landed on who these two might be hit, he got very clear, this is a very smart person, these are the behaviors I am going to change. And these are the behaviors I’m going to go all in on. What I will say is Yesterday, we were just done a talent planning meeting where his name came up. And every person on the C suite said, if you would have asked me this question, six months ago, nine months ago, the answer’s no. What I will say is this guy has grown and evolved. And he’s really a pleasure to be around. So things like it’s just spending time with people. It’s having high touch, it’s giving a shit about people. And these are things that I believe, like I believe everyone needs to embody. But certainly leaders need to embody in today’s day and age, and so this was a period of someone that’s probably very close to my age. But the way we do this with other people with all different levels is having these conversations, which is what is that behavior that you just did, preventing you from doing when you don’t manage your time and manage your energy? Well, like, what are you left with? Yeah, I feel burned out. Okay. Well, I understand that, let’s figure out what got you to this burnout place aside from work in an advertising agency, and we move fast, it’s today. And so really talking to people about how my job is facilitate growth and change. It always has been. And if I can do that, then this person can thrive, when they can identify what is blocking them, and make a pact to really move on from that, you know, I work with people on what I would call mission statements, or Northstar statements. And first of all, they come in and we do this whole whiteboard exercise here. They might say, Yeah, I think they might come in with a mission statement already, which is, I’m really good at this one by halftime. Okay, well, when I have time is not part of your mission statement. So let’s figure out what we’re gonna do. Change that sentence or win the battle when I have time? Yeah. Because we want this to be powerful for you. Not for me, I got my mission statement. But I want you to walk away after three or four weeks of working together, and be able to put the poster right on your laptop and on your refrigerator. And wherever else you need to see it. So you can be reminded that you are a giant, my friend. I love that. Talk to me a little bit about some of the challenges that come from operating the business this way, and creating a culture, what are some places where things might have gone awry, I’m thinking especially the people listening going, ha, my company will never get to that point. My company is so soulless right now, it would feel like a Herculean effort for us to ever get to that kind of point. If they’re even going to try they need to be aware of where some of the pitfalls might be. So what are some challenges that you have one or two challenges that you have with this kind of culture? So a challenge that we may have had, if this was a different company, we had a different CEO and CFO is Yeah, but like people are here to work. Like, what are you doing there? What are you doing with these trainings? Or what are you doing? Like why do we care so much about people? Like why is it so important? You know, it’s costing us money, those types of things. What I always say to people, and I’ll get to the question, but what I say to people when they say to me, well, we don’t work for Gary Vaynerchuk now Well, I didn’t either for X amount of years, and I was still may I was still me. I was still the same person. Let me help you out camino. Yo, you want to mentor okay, I’m happy to mentor you like can I do what they want? And we talk about that within your sphere of influence? You model and then people go well, clods killing it. How is she doing that? And you give people permission to act and lead in a different way when they see it? And so that they can like shine their own light. Let’s not go back to Claude, like Claude has taken and I got my own set of issues to deal with you don’t want my Gaby Karen go be Jack OB you know, do you that’s the most important thing. Now. The reason I say to you, is because that can be a pitfall when Pete When I can remember. So I’ve been doing this role for seven years now. I would say the first two years, maybe two and a half years Gary used the word hustle. And I would have a lot of people come into this office freaking out with anxiety. I want to be just like Gary, but I can’t work 18 hours a day. I want to be just like Gary I want to hustle harder, all of the stuff that I just, I can’t work like that. And I was like, hey, no one’s asking him to do that he does it because he loves it, his work is a hobby, this is what he does. You want to go play soccer on the weekends, that’s really important for you to carve that time out. And I want to help you help empower, you have that conversation with your manager that you need to shut off at seven, or at nine or at six, whatever that is, you got to go be you. Anyway, Gary does not use the word hustle at all anymore, which is awesome. And you know, he has an enormous influence out in the world. And I’m sure that he got a lot of information on, maybe that wasn’t the best word to use for the time that we’re in. So being you not wanting to emulate, yeah, it’s great to look up to people and learn from them. But here for a reason we chose you. And so let’s figure out how to amplify all of your life skills. Remember, we hired you for skill set fit, not because you like John Mayer, and I like John Mayer to like, Okay, that’s great. That’s how people hire, they’re like, oh, yeah, I can go six hours on a Greyhound bus with this guy. It’s I don’t want to talk to anyone for six hours on a Greyhound bus, please. So, you know, I don’t want to talk to my husband for that long. Yeah, exactly. So when we were not honest with people in terms of, and we brought this up already, when we were not forthcoming with really truthful feedback. And this is what you need. Right? Now, this is a vulnerability. And this is what we need to see. And we’re going to help you get there and hear the action. When we did not do that we created entitlement. And it felt as though people could just kind of hide out do their thing. I don’t know what they were doing YouTube for 20 hours, like, because we’re not micromanagers. It’s funny, because that’s actually what led to the second book I’m working on is that I was hearing from leaders going, I’m really trying to be empathetic. But folks are actually taking advantage of my empathy now. And they’re using the words and the language back at me, you know, I’m telling them to do a spreadsheet and they’re going, I’m sorry, that doesn’t bring me joy. And now you’re disrespecting my boundaries. So I’m going to need to take a break. So things like that, and we would talk through it. That’s not actually empathy. But also that idea that I said earlier is that empathy needs to flow both ways. And so there are groups of people, that muscle has atrophied. It’s innate to all of us as human beings, but it can atrophy. And if we don’t, if we neglect it, and we don’t strengthen it on a continuous basis, even when it’s hard to even when it it hurts to strengthen it, it doesn’t mean you stop, you don’t stop working out just because your muscle feels sore, right? And you also don’t expect six pack abs the first time you go to the gym. So for some people, it is that ability to keep working at it. Okay, Curiosity is the number one trait of empathic people, right. So let me ask questions. Ooh, the first time I ask questions as a leader, when I’ve never asked anybody on my team questions before, they’re like, what’s going on? Why is he interrogating us? Why is he asking about how our weekends went? It’s gonna be weird. And so but it’s okay. It’s okay to add, it’s okay to let people know, you, as a leader are on the journey, to strengthening your empathy and to share that with them and say, Hey, I’m working on this. It’s gonna be weird for a while, but just go with me on it. Right? That we just the vulnerable conversations. Yeah, or afraid to because we’ve been taught to armor ourselves from pretty much everyone except ourselves. And this is all a journey that we’re all waking up to. And I say all that’s a generalization, but many, many, many, many, many people are waking up to the fact that work can be done differently, and from different places, that it’s okay to be vulnerable. Be courageous, it’s okay to have emotion in the workplace. What we want you to do and we will help in any way we can, is to be able to regulate your emotion. We don’t practice toxic positivity here. We practice positivity. Emotional optimism is what I call it, which is the fact that shits going to happen, clients is going to yell at you, this is going to happen your dog is going to get sick. I don’t want to work with this person, but the sky is not going to fall. And that means listen, we are all going to go through emotions. We are all going to have hard days and hard moments, but we have hope for another day the sun will shine we will reach out for support. We don’t have to suffer in silence which is a huge thing. I think we just need to have posters across the sky right now please silence and that’s a whole nother issue. But most importantly going back to down before the one you serve the nine bench now story I told you about. You can change the narrative in your head. This doesn’t this might suck right now. It’s not gonna suck forever. You might feel really dumb right now. But if you reach out to someone, I guarantee you they are going to show you all the ways in which you matter. And what you’re smart and what you’re valued all that stuff. But if you keep everything in
Maria Ross 45:00
Inside, you will burn a hole in yourself. That’s dramatic, but it’s true. I mean, it is. And I think the thing we all want to get across that are trying to talk about this shift in leadership and the shift in culture is that I always talk about it as both. And it’s not either or it’s not empathetic, or competitive, compassionate or ambitious, it’s both they can coexist. And all the things you’re talking about, you know, a skeptic listening might go and go, Oh, my gosh, it’s gonna take so much time, when am I going to actually do work. And you’re doing all this in service of the goal of the organization, which is to get work done, which is to meet KPIs, which is to crush your goals, whatever that is, you’re doing this while you’re doing all that work. It’s not either or, and by the way, it is work, and you are getting paid, and you do have benefits. And this isn’t a free for all, we is not a playground, we don’t work on a playground, we can have fun. There’s ice coffee, but there’s no Foosball or ping pong. Like we have to remember like, there is a job to be done here. Just like there are journeys for us to go on. As humans, there are journeys and jobs for us to do hear, and you are being paid to do a job. That does not mean you need to show up every day and hit homeruns. That’s impossible, right. And for leaders that fear, this blurring of emotion being brought to work, number one, hopefully we’ve learned when I when I wrote the first book, it was pre pandemic, and people didn’t get it. They didn’t understand if it was a business book or personal development book. And I was like, No, it’s a business book. But now they kind of get it because those lines are blurring. And that makes old school leaders very uncomfortable, because they have spent their careers separating emotion and, and work or ambition and compassion. Now we’re saying there’s no rules, you know, and so I have empathy for them of like, they’re like, Wait, what just happened? Like, it’s 30 years, I was operating this way. Now you’re telling me I can do this. But at the same time, it also doesn’t mean when I talk to C suite, and I say that doesn’t mean you’re crying on the floor with your employees every day, because I know that’s what you’re imagining. That’s not what we’re talking about here.
Claude Silver 47:11
Might be crying, but not every day. Yeah. People take things to such extremes when they’re afraid. There’s nothing to be afraid of comes to letting a person be their authentic self. Like, that’s who you hired, I hope. And if by the way, you find out that you hired Jack, you thought Jack was like this, and Jack turns out to be that well, then you’re gonna have a conversation with Jack, like, Hey, what’s up, I notice like you used to be really peppy, or you said you crush up with clients. And you’ve kind of really been not going out to see clients lately. Like, you have to feel comfortable enough to have these honest conversations, again, kind candor. And back to you what you were saying one of our things that we say all the time is yes. And and that’s the growth mindset. Yeah, yeah, sound. And because there always is an ad. And people like to think in binary terms, it’s black, or it’s white, but it is gray. So much of what we’re talking about is gray. And so much of what we’re talking about was also extremely subjective. Well, that’s why empathetic and Compassionate Leadership can look different to your point, depending on who you are. You don’t have to fake it and be overly emotional, and sappy and whatever. You know, if that’s not you, you can find a way to tap into your human emotion and compassion in whatever way is still true to who you are. As a leader. Yes. And being a leader that leads with heart. I mean, you’ve now talked to me for 45 minutes. I’m there’s nothing gooey gooey about me. This is the real for not crying. So no, it’s not about unicorns and fuzzy rainbow exactly about life, life and having the acceptance that this is about life. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. You and I have no clue what’s going to happen. In 30 days. We’ll see what happens. We’ll see what happens. But I could talk to you for another hour, but I won’t keep you so thank you so much for your time and your insights today. We’ll have all your links in the show notes. But can you tell folks, where’s the best place to connect with you? Yep, thank you so much. Dan is awesome. My website, Claude silver.com. And you can always write me there. And I would love to hear from everyone. Awesome. Thank you so much. And thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you liked what you heard you know what to do, please rate and review and share it with a colleague or a friend. And until next time, please remember that cash flow creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind.
Maria Ross 49:50
For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit the empathy edge.com. There you can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources booked me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria. Never forget, empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.
