In this essential episode of “Courage to Advance,” host Kim Bohr and global inclusion strategist Mason Donovan tackle a critical challenge facing today’s leaders: maintaining organizational cohesion in an increasingly polarized world. Their timely conversation cuts through the noise to deliver practical wisdom on fostering productive workplaces where differences drive innovation rather than division.
Through real-world examples, Mason and Kim explore how thoughtful leadership can transform potential friction points into opportunities for organizational growth. Drawing from personal experience and extensive client work, they examine why some corporate inclusion initiatives soar while others stumble, offering senior leaders a strategic framework for making decisions that align with mission and market realities.
To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
- Inclusion is for the entire organization, no matter if you are in the majority or the minority group. It is more than just policy, it is operating with a lens of inclusion in every aspect of the organization.
- Everybody has to own inclusion. While leaders may have a greater impact, they cannot be the only ones carrying the inclusion bucket.
- Politics in the US have put almost everything, every cultural decision, in either the red or the blue. Think about those connections, think about what may be said to others by those decisions, then make a decision.
- Hard, uncomfortable conversations will come up. Get ahead of them before they begin with policies and training.
“When you’re a head of organization, everything that you do in public is a representative of that organization.” — Mason Donovan
From Our Partner:
SparkEffect partners with organizations to unlock the full potential of their greatest asset: their people. SparkEffect helps organizations manage change, sustain growth, and chart a path to a brighter future through their tailored assessments and expert coaching at every level.
Go to sparkeffect.com/edge now and download your complimentary Professional and Organizational Alignment Review today.
About Mason Donovan:
Founder/Consultant of The Dagoba Group
Mason was Managing Director of Client Solutions for Personified, a human capital consulting firm, before becoming a principal for The Dagoba Group, a New England-based consultancy that specializes in leadership development in inclusion and diversity. He has over 20 years consulting clients in the areas of talent acquisition, performance management, and leading inclusive teams. Mason holds a long list of sales achievement awards for direct sales and sales management. He believes diversity and inclusion is a marketplace differentiator. Co-author of The Inclusion Dividend and SET for Inclusion. Author of the Golden Apple.
Connect with Mason:
Website: thedagobagroup.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/masondonovan
Connect with Kim Bohr and SparkEffect
SparkEffect: sparkeffect.com
Courage to Advance recording and resources:
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/sparkeffect
LinkedIn for Kim Bohr: linkedin.com/in/kimbohr
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
X: @redslice
Facebook: Red Slice
Threads: @redslicemaria
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
00:03
Kim Bohr
Welcome to Courage Advance. Welcome to Courage to advance leadership and transformation. I’m your host, Kim Bohr, and I’m joined today by Mason Donovan, a longtime friend and former colleague. And we’re here today to talk about leading through polarization. And before we dive in, let me tell you a little bit about Mason. So he is a global inclusion strategist and managing partner of the Dagobah Group, an integrated global corporate culture engagement consulting practice with specialties inclusive leadership, wellness, unconscious bias, work life balance, workplace dynamics, and client engagement. He’s also the author of three books, the Golden Apple, the Inclusion Dividend, and Set for Inclusion. I am so thrilled to have you here and excited for our conversation today, Mason. Welcome to the podcast.
00:59
Mason
Thank you. Thank you, Kim. It’s a pleasure being here. It’s honored being here with you and your listeners. I look forward to our conversation.
01:06
Kim Bohr
I think our listeners are going to really appreciate what we’ve, what we’re going to talk about today. And you know, although we’ve talked a little bit about what that’ll be, we’re really, we’re going to just lean into where our conversation goes. And just so our listeners know, we’re recording this just days before the US Presidential election. And we can all probably agree that there’s high emotion there feels like high stakes regardless of what side you’re on. And there’s a real opportunity to try to understand how do we move through this, not knowing what the outcomes are going to be. And yet we all still have to work and live together in pursuit of common goals that we share.
01:54
Kim Bohr
And so this felt like a really important conversation that you and I wanted to have in order to just talk through what’s going on and trying to see if we can bring to our listeners perhaps some tips and some ideas of way to think to try to you bridge that polarization that we all are just the reality of our society today. So from that perspective, I’d love for you to start to talk a little bit about what has brought you into the work of inclusion and really where do you come at, especially in this type of time that we’re in.
02:35
Mason
Sure. First I want to make a bold prediction though. So this podcast will drop a couple weeks after the election. So my bold prediction is by then we will know who is the president.
02:49
Kim Bohr
So I think that is a good prediction.
02:51
Mason
That’s my full prediction. Probably not the day after.
02:56
Kim Bohr
Agreed. We definitely feel that’s not, we definitely can agree that is not going to be a clear.
03:02
Mason
I’m not saying not that night so yeah, it’s. We are living in a world polarization. I think there’s not a single person out there that doesn’t feel it. It’s in our personal life, but it seeps into our work life. Right. So how do you keep that outside conversation, either keep it from coming inside or when it does come inside, how do you keep that from really deteriorating sort of the inclusive teamwork that you’ve created as a corporation? So I’ll go back to the question you have. What drew me into inclusion is that we both worked for a company called careerbuilder.com where we met.
03:45
Kim Bohr
Yes. Many years ago.
03:47
Mason
Many years ago. It was a really dynamic company, but it had. I’m not sure if you agree, but I’ll say it had a bro culture. What we would say is sort of, even though it wasn’t Silicon Valley, it had that Silicon Valley what you have broke culture. And I can tell you, as a gay man in that organization and not being out, realizing, feeling like I could never come out because it just didn’t ever feel like it filled the culture. There was inclusion. At the time, I didn’t fully understand what it meant to me personally, but also the organization. And there was a time when we created a human capital consulting firm, when I started working for them and we started to outsource some inclusion work.
04:34
Mason
And that’s when I really started to lean in and understanding what is inclusion, why is it important to me, how does it make me feel, but also how does it connect me with the company? So I leaned more into it and it wasn’t too long after that I realized I had a big passion for it and what it could do for, to allow somebody to be fully realized in their life. And so we ended up, I joined with my partner, Mark Kaplan, we created the Dagobah Group. And from there we really started to leaning and it blended to so many other areas that I am passionate about within the organization. And obviously we think of talent acquisition, but there’s talent assessment, there is the client engagement, there’s product creation.
05:25
Mason
There’s so many stories and where inclusion has really created a inclusion dividend as the name of the book has created that dividend that’s paid back many times over. And for me personally, I saw myself and how once I was able to bring my full self to work, how that made me more productive, how it increased my morale, increased my connection to. To the corporation. And I see that with our clients as well. And when they have a more inclusive workplace, what that means for everyone. And when I mean everyone. Whether it is you find yourself in the majority stakeholder group or the minority stakeholder holder group, inclusion is really for the entire organization. So that’s really sort of my lean in with inclusion. How to get connected.
06:16
Mason
On the point of view, for our corporation, we really look at inclusion of a way that can advance a company forward. So there are three types of inclusion firms out there. There’s the academic, the civil, and the corporate. So the academic are like Dr. Banaji, that’s really studying about unconscious bias. How does it impact our brains? How does it impact our decisions? Daniel Kahneman does the same thing. Is that whole academic world’s really doing that strong research that we use. The civil world is in the civil world. What they’re doing is really trying to push the legislation to be more inclusive. So out there and really working a lot of organizations out there, whether it’s HRC or NO W or naacp, they’re there to create a more equitable workplace in society and they’re there to really change legislation.
07:11
Mason
And then there’s the corporate, and that’s where we sit. And that’s how can we fully leverage our people to advance our company, to make our company better than it was before or if you’re nonprofit, to advance towards your mission. So that’s how we look at it. And it’s really about a. An actionable going beyond awareness. So because we think awareness is necessary, but it’s not sufficient, you have to move to action. And it has to be an alignment with the path forward for your company overall.
07:44
Kim Bohr
And I absolutely agree with you where that culture we came from was very much that bro culture. And it really did limit so many different areas of innovation. And I think that lack of inclusion was certainly a predominant reason why. And so when I think about the work you do with organizations, what you’ve shared with me before, and I think would be interesting just to elaborate on a little bit further with our listeners, is that it’s, it’s beyond just policy setting. It’s really operating from a lens of inclusion in every aspect of an organization. And so I’d love to have you just share a little bit about that because I think that is perhaps a little bit different than the way some people think of inclusion in maybe stopping just at a policy level.
08:38
Mason
Sure. And it’s, you know, it’s about putting inclusion. Anytime there is a people decision or a people challenge, inclusion should be part of that thought process. I give you an example. We had A company we’re working with, who are working with them on inclusive leadership. They called me up and just out of the blue and say, hey, we’re building a brand new headquarters. So this is a very large Fortune 1000 company. We’re building new headquarters and we’re thinking about how the conversations we had with you, how inclusion should be part of our everyday conversation. We think we never looked at the build out from an inclusive lens. We just looked at it from a functional lens. Could you come in and speak to us about. And we have a design team, we have those interested to talk about the building of our headquarters.
09:36
Mason
And I’d love that. We had a great conversation. We did visioning of them, like walking in, what do they see? What do other people see? Because diversity is, goes beyond just sort of those five or six or seven dimensions of difference you typically see in the EEO statement, right? They go beyond that. They go to areas such as parents and non parents, they go to areas like introverts and extroverts. They go to areas of economic class. And when you’re building out this headquarters, which will be their headquarters for the next 30, 40, 50 years, they need to look beyond what, you know, what is our functional need today? But what is our need for our people socially? Like, do we need social groups, do we need pods? How do we work with that?
10:24
Mason
How can we make this flexible enough to build for the future? And it’s always interesting when somebody thinks about, well, we’re spending a lot of money to build for this small group of people. And it always reminds me of the ada. So the American with Disabilities act, they came in and said that we need to make corporations, not corporations, we need to make spaces, buildings, spaces more accessible to those that have some ableness challenges, those that are in crutches or in wheelchairs or whatnot. And so what did, what happened? They put in cuts into the sidewalks, they put wheelchair ramps in, they put in elevator space, they probably put in some bathroom stalls that were bigger. And guess what happened? The majority of people using them was not the target audience. So I remember doing an audit once for a company.
11:17
Mason
We sat outside for three hours and all we did is look at the front of their building after they build a ramp. And the people who are using it, whereas it was 90% were, did not have even a challenge. It was the delivery guy, it was a person coming with the bike. It was the, it was somebody pushing a baby carriage. It was in the list went on and on to somebody that might have sprained their ankle. That weekend or somebody had a lot of roll on luggage to going in, out for business. So when we build out, we got to think of, you know, all the additional impacts, how this impacts everyone and not just that particular group. And another clear example of that, well, another one with it.
11:59
Mason
I used to travel quite a bit and I remember sometimes I would need to change my clothes in the airport because they’re going there and going to another firm or heading home. And the only stall you could do that is within the handicap stall. And I would find, oh wow, the majority of people going to those stalls or actually ones that were changing or had suitcase or other things with them. And one thing I always make sure, if I’m using this, I make sure that nobody else is there. So if somebody else did have a need, a verified need for that stall, that’s Jesus. But it just gives you another idea of when we’re building something out for individuals, it’s an entire group.
12:45
Mason
When we think of maternity leave and then we think of paternity leave and then we think, oh wait, what it really is, it’s really caregiver leave. And when you start thinking that and moving back and taking a broader range of what the leave is for and the leave is for to caring for a loved one, sometimes that might be an elderly mother or father that’s living with us or an adult child that needs more help and more care, or it might be a newborn baby or adopted baby. So when we start looking at these policies, how it impacts the entire organization and how it can really start to have a huge impact on us as a community within the corporation as well as, you know, the productivity, the morale, how that really moves a company forward.
13:36
Mason
So yeah, inclusion is not just about sort of our traditional approach to diversity. Like we need to get X number of women in or we need to represent the society and percentage of this particular group or another, it’s really about how we feel. It’s really about that climate that then allows. Inclusion is something that you can lead with globally. 50% of our clients are outside the US inclusion you can lead with globally and then you can allow for the diversity challenges at hand. Because your diversity challenges in London are probably going to be different than they are in D.C. Or Taipei or Tokyo or even within your department. I can tell you diversity challenges of almost any organization for their, say their HR support department are going to be very different from their technical service department or the sales department.
14:26
Mason
So inclusion allows for that diversity challenge locally. Then you can have this consistent approach for Everyone. And a guideline to go by.
14:38
Kim Bohr
I think that’s so important how you’ve described it, because it’s really at the heart of the design, and it doesn’t sound like it’s housed in one particular functional area. It’s really in the way you describe it. And what you encourage clients to think about is everybody has a piece of ownership in this area of. Of thinking from an inclusive place by how we. How we think about designing for the business and everybody in it, not just from a, you know, not just a sole function of maybe an HR lens. And I think that’s sometimes perhaps where this conversation gets stalled because it. It is maybe thought to live there versus everybody has a piece of ownership in it.
15:19
Mason
Yeah, I agree. It’s, you know, we. We all need to own it. We can’t just put it on the shoulders of the leaders, and we can’t just put it on the shoulders of who has D and I in their title. I typically have a metaphor. We will. I will ask a client, you know, if we’re in a workshop, how many here have digital security in the title? Maybe one hand might go up. And I say, okay, how many here feels, though digital security, data security is part of your responsibility? Every hand goes up. Because if we only allowed and focus on that one person that had digital security, they’re the only ones that worried about digital security, the only ones that cared about it. Well, guess what? You would. You would not have a secure data. You would not have a secure site.
16:05
Mason
You would not have sort of secure systems, because that. The first time somebody hits one of those. Those scam emails or gives information away on the phone when they shouldn’t, then it’s gone. So everybody has to own it. Another example, safety. We used to work with Dupont, who’s now owned by Dow. I remember the walking up. They had this grand staircase in Delaware, and the CEO was walking up and she had things in both arms, and somebody stopped her right away. Someone just out of the blue stopped her and say, hey, you can’t do that. You have to hold on to the railing. They had a rule, a safety rule, that if you’re going up the steps, you have to have one hand on the railing. And the CEO said, thank you. You know, you’re right.
16:52
Mason
And then she asked somebody if they can hold the other thing that was in her hand, and she walked out with their hand on the railing. And it was that individual that had the. Because the company owned safety so much, that had the power to stop. As CEO of a Fortune 500 company from making that step. And the CEO received it really well in the way you expect. So that’s ownership. Right. And same thing comes through inclusion, diversity, inclusion. Everybody has to own inclusion, whether you’re the entry level person or you’re the CEO. Obviously as leaders, you have a much greater impact and influence on the culture as those individuals. But you can’t be the only one that’s carrying that bucket.
17:37
Kim Bohr
Right? Right. And I think that’s such a powerful example of that in action. And so thinking about what we have in front of us today, we are well aware of CEOs that are perhaps more public figures that are really taking very maybe polarizing stances. And you know, it’s that maybe starts to become a conflict. Right. With what is maybe stated or implied or intended. And so I think the example you gave is such a great example of alignment. And yet maybe a lot of our listeners are feeling that’s not the kind of environment that they’re in. And so how do we start to think about when there is this clear, you know, do as I say, not as I do type of a situation that pops up where we all feel.
18:41
Kim Bohr
So I don’t know, maybe there’s this sense of like fairness that starts to creep in, especially when we’re seeing the dynamics and at play. So how do you start to address that type of scenario?
18:55
Mason
You know, it’s corporate culture is really started from CEO on down. And there is a culture of Simon Says in every organization. So if you remember the game of Simon says, and when I did my research on that a long time ago, I found that Simon Says is actually played in almost every country around the world. A different name for it, you know, somebody else says, but it’s the same exact game. And as we remember, it’s kids. Simon says, what happens is the leader says, does something different, but tells you to do, say they’ll tell you to pat your stomach, but they’ll pat their head. And we lose by doing what they do instead of doing what they say. And because we are just trained as humans, so often we follow the leader.
19:40
Mason
And so if your leader is saying one thing but doing another, we’re going to follow what they do, we’re not going to follow what they say. And so that’s, it becomes difficult. So we talk about polarization. There are leaders out there of CEOs, organizations that are very public with their political stance. They might even within their organization have a policy of not talking about politics. You know, it gets sticky because CEOs are people too, and they deserve to have their own personal opinions and their own political preferences. And so there’s that one argument is that they need. They have their own personal life. But when you’re ahead of organization, unfortunately, you give up a lot of that. Everything that you do in public is a representative of that organization. So let’s. I could just call one out. Elon Musk.
20:38
Mason
We all know that Elon Musk, the head of Tesla and of X and other companies, is very outspoken. I think people know he’s. He’s a very outspoken individual. And so the idea is, well, the concept is if you have a CEO like Elmox that’s very outspoken and very outspoken of who he favors and how strongly favors, if you have individuals within your organization that don’t agree with him, is there the safety to say that without reprisal? And those who do agree with them, do they feel more emboldened to be more political within the workspace? Because the CEO’s doing it, and so why can’t I do it? The CEO is doing it. So that becomes a very sticky wicket for the manager because the manager, organization realized to have inclusion, you really have to have a term we can discuss further on psychological safety.
21:40
Mason
People have to feel as though being themselves and be able to express themselves without the fear of reprisal. It’s interesting because in diversity inclusion, often you hear that we’re doing this to bring your full self to work. We want your whole self. Full self to work. Well, I always say, well, not fully. Right. Because our full self is. Some of us are very political outside of work. Some of us are very religious outside of work. Some of us have maybe a vocabulary that we would typically not use in work. And when we say, when organizations say bring your full self, what they really want to say is bring your full professional self. Right. You realize you’re in a profession, you’re in a community of colleagues in which you have to have respect.
22:30
Mason
In order for us to all work together, you have to have respect, and you have to look at some clear boundaries of where conversations go beyond the professional. Some are just legal. There are just some things that you don’t say that you’re just going to get. You know, you’re crossing line. You’re. Yeah, you’re. You are going to open yourself up to all kinds of litigation. But then there’s stuff that’s in the gray area, like talking about politics. So it’s as challenging for the manager. It’s challenging for a Manager. When you have an outspoken CEO one way or another, whether it’s a one sided party or another party, it doesn’t matter which party it is.
23:14
Mason
And how do you make it a safe inclusive space for those who might disagree with that or have whole different opinions as well as those who do agree that also might feel like they can’t speak as much as they can because of the policies. I think one of the things we look at with organization when this comes to hand is it’s not a surprise the election’s coming. The election is not a surprise. It happens every four years. When it comes to presidential election. Every two years we’re having some type of other election at the Rep or the senator level. So get ahead of it, create policies. Understand that the outside talk. When it becomes so passionate, we get close to the election like we are now, it’s going to happen. People are nervous. Both sides are nervous, both sides.
24:07
Mason
And in the end one side will win and one side will lose. And we’re talking about the parties. Hopefully everybody wins and whoever is elected works for all of us. But one party will win and one party will lose for that presidential spot. That’s just how it works. And they will.
24:24
Kim Bohr
That’s the heart of our democratic institution, right? Is the competition and the ideas that you know there’s going to be a trade off, you know and hopefully we get into the. Where we’re all trading off something that we gain something too.
24:39
Mason
Yeah, you do. And then you know, you sort of, either you cry or scream, you scream whatever you need to do, brush yourself off and you move forward with what you have. But the. Within the organizational space, you know it’s coming. So get ahead of that conversation. Create some, create some policies that in place of. Do you allow from attire. Do you allow political slogans coming into work? Not just coming into work. If you are a hybrid or remote organization, do you allow that? What’s in the personal space? Like if I had a political presidential sign behind me, is that allowable? Get that ahead of time.
25:15
Mason
Put those out in policies, communicate with that and understand, talk to people, open communication and realize that they will say, hey, I recognize there’s a lot of passion out there during this time and we want to talk about it, but we also have to respect each other and realize after the election is over, we’re still working together, we’re still in the same organization and we still have the same goals. Regardless of who wins the election. Our goal is XYZ for this corporation or for this Nonprofit mission. But as a CEO and understanding and as a leader organization, understanding your actions, no matter what the intent, have a huge impact. Now I’m going to bring something up you and I discussed before.
25:59
Kim Bohr
Yes.
26:00
Mason
Behind you. You have two pictures.
26:03
Kim Bohr
I do.
26:04
Mason
I want to ask you, why do you have, you know, RBG and MLK behind you? Why? What’s the reason for you to have that? And you know, you’re a CEO of your organization. These are behind you. These individuals are behind you in this talk and I’m assuming other business talk. Tell me why they’re there. What do they mean to you personally?
26:28
Kim Bohr
Yeah. So actually as the president and COO of the organization, you know what I found in back during, I think it was during the pandemic. And one of the things that I had a friend who, as an outlet during the pandemic, when were all shut in, started painting these pictures and she started doing everything from, you know, musicians all the way through some political figures. And when I happened to see these two that she had posted, you know, and was sharing online, I was really drawn to them. And what I was drawn to was the essence of the values that I shared with what they stood for, the, the doors that they opened that the work that they had to do that was really hard work to give all of us better opportunities.
27:33
Kim Bohr
And so when I saw these, I was really drawn to them. And I felt that so much of the work, even what we do at Spark Effect, we very much are working to help broaden the conversation, help leaders find understanding not just growth for themselves, but growth with their team in alignment into their organizations. And so I felt that it was very much aligned with my values and the values of our organization and the brand. And what was really interesting is you and I started talking about this topic in this moment. I had this light bulb moment together where when were talking around, oh, maybe I’m, as much as I feel like what I reflect doesn’t feel political to me, it feels a supportive, kind of more historically supportive of movement that has been around inclusion.
28:36
Kim Bohr
Maybe that’s not the full message I’m sending to those who join me in this setting that maybe don’t see it the same way. And that was really eye opening to me in our brief conversation we had as were talking about this because I had not, I hadn’t thought of that way. And I had my own maybe blind spot, if you will.
29:01
Mason
Yeah. And you know, it’s, we’re talking about sort of our at Dagobah we have a methodology when you’re making a decision, it’s called set Self awareness engages into. So the self awareness is what we, when we started having this conversation, you’re like, oh, wait, it’s something I didn’t even think about these pictures behind me because it’s of everything you just mentioned. They align with what you say, align with how the company works, with how Sparke looks at things. You know, moving people forward, opening doors. And then the engage system too, which is built off of what Daniel Comlin made popular, which was System one is our really quick, reactive decision making. It’s really sort of the back of the head thinking. And the majority of our decisions during the day are made that, whether you know that are made.
29:52
Mason
And they’re usually fairly accurate, except when it comes to people. When it comes to people decisions, they’re not so accurate because we’re going off of sort of our biases that we’ve, our experiences we’ve had and we stop looking at the individual. I mean, we think make decisions on our experience with the group. And so System two is when we really have to reflect and stop and reflect. I always tell people it’s like if you drive home as a commute every day, you probably, sometimes you realize you get home, you’re like, oh God, how did I get here? Did I go through stoplights? Did you know, did I hit somebody? Yeah, because you’re on system one the whole time.
30:29
Mason
System two is usually in the summer when all of a sudden there’s a detour and maybe you’re on the call, you’re like, hey, wait, hold on. I have to think, I have to figure out this is gone that system to your engagement system too. So we talked to a self awareness engaged System two. We had this conversation like, okay, this is what you think about what they bring. But what else might they represent in this conversation? Talking about polarization, they obviously represent the liberal side of the party politics. The politics in the US have put almost everything, every cultural decision on either the red or the blue. So I can say, you know, why not have a picture of Clarence Thomas up there? He was another Supreme Court justice.
31:14
Mason
There’s a lot of things that he has done that people can say that opened up the door. But I can guarantee you somebody who associate Clarence Thomas very differently as they would Ruth Bader Ginsburg. They’re both Supreme Court justices, they both served a long time, but they are connected very often to a one party or the other. And so the System two is. Am I sending that message beyond there is this something that. Beyond what they stand for, beyond party. Are they connecting to a party and my putting people off by having these. If they’re connecting politically to it and then Taylor is the last part of this. Okay, then make a decision. We thought about it. You raised your self awareness of what’s going on. You thought about what you’re doing now. Make decisions, take them up, put them down.
32:06
Mason
It’s a really good sort of very quick and easy mythology methodology to when you’re thinking about making decision now CEOs let’s take Elon Musk as an example again. So Elon Musk, as we said, is very public and he’s a good figure to use in these examples because he’s very well known, he’s very public. He’s ahead of a lot of the companies that we use or connected with. Whether it’s X or Tesla or one of the charging stations. Anything that’s connected to there, the self awareness some people would say is something that he might lack. Does he fully understand what he’s saying, how it impacts him? Now I can tell you a lot of shareholders think what he’s saying.
32:51
Mason
He’s not self aware because it’s impacting the sales of Tesla who that every time he tweets or says something that alienates a particular group of individuals, that’s a group of individuals that won’t buy another Tesla. And so there’s that engaged system too of like oh wait, what am I saying? And how is that impacting sort of the overall corporation? Again, as a CEO, whatever you say is magnify a hundred times.
33:19
Kim Bohr
Yeah.
33:20
Mason
Whatever you do is followed through. And you and I as being in the heads of our organizations, what we do and say and we think, well we’re not ahead of Fortune 1000. They still have an impact on who we work with and how we go about. So when we think of managers, when we think of even the manager level, we don’t have to look at the CEO level. When we think of managers, what they do and what they say has a big oversized impact on their team than one of the individuals on their team. And it’s really to take themselves through that piece and self awareness is the first step. Right?
33:54
Kim Bohr
Yeah.
33:55
Mason
So often we are, we have friends and family like they’re just, they just, they’re really well intended but they just don’t know how well how they’re being received.
34:05
Kim Bohr
Right.
34:06
Mason
And a lot of times we might think that with our. It’s funny, we, a lot of people Here, say about their mothers or their fathers, their parents. Oh, how can you say that? That’s sort of. That the fun personal side. But we see it in the professional side too, right? We see things that are, that might be a little off and then we see things that are a lot off and have a huge impact. And one of the things we look at is the little off. Are they happening a lot? Are there a lot of these sort of micro exclusions some people might call microaggressions? We prefer micro exclusions. These things that people are saying, they don’t know they’re saying. Like they may call the younger people in their and their group kids. Their intent might be just fun, you know?
34:51
Mason
You know, I have kids and I say kids. It’s just sort of a fun way of saying it. But how are they receiving it? Right?
34:57
Kim Bohr
Yeah.
34:58
Mason
How are they receiving as full grown adults that work in those organizations being called kids or when women are called girls in an organization? Because men, I can tell you, I never hear them call boys in a corporation. And I can tell you that they are, they’re not going to like it. But you know, when people, a lot of times it’s meant with good intent or no intent at all, like they don’t think about it. It’s not meant with ill intent, but is if these little things happen over and over again, these little sort of behaviors or words that builds up over time and there’s this accumulation effect that then has an outside of impact on your team or your organization and your culture, regardless of your intent.
35:42
Mason
I often will ask, tell somebody, okay, let’s believe a CEO is talking to a group of shareholders. And the CEO said, well, we intended to make 36 cents a share. Well, we came in at 29 cents a share. Do the shareholders really care what the intent was? They understand, of course, the company wanted to do well. Intended to do well. They really care about the impact.
36:05
Kim Bohr
Yes.
36:06
Mason
Really. What was the result in the end? And that happens with when our actions, what we say, whether it’s in the office, outside the office. So let’s go back to polarization. When we’re bringing politics and we’re discussing politics on the office, what is the intent? Yeah, Is it intent to persuade somebody? Is it intent to, you know, have camaraderie or just do off steam? But what is the impact of that?
36:29
Kim Bohr
So let’s talk a little bit about how do we address the reality that maybe it’s not politics explicitly, so maybe something’s not coming in as explicit, but yet we pretty you know, we, we certainly know we come at something differently because we’re sure, you know, we’re maybe on the opposite political spectrum, but yet what we find as we come together is that without talking politics, there’s still really misaligned dynamics.
37:04
Kim Bohr
And I know from, you know, the work we do when we’re trying to, when we do executive coaching with leaders and we’re trying to help them look at impact, there’s so much around the, you know, looking at it from a real, you know, what are the behavioral components, what are the behavioral elements of that are causing those, you know, the actions to be, to try to get to creating a better, bigger understanding around self awareness and inclusion. Yet that’s one layer of it. But not everybody’s going to have the luxury of an executive coach or somebody who’s pointed out. And so how do you suggest individuals who may be, you know, listening or they’re saying, you know, I’m. It’s not a specific political conversation, but there is. Clearly we do not see the world the same way.
37:58
Kim Bohr
And now it feels like we can’t, we’re not even working in an aligned fashion.
38:04
Mason
Yeah. And we’ve seen that. And it could be something that just happened in society. So the killing of George Floyd, it wasn’t political when it started. It was an event. It was a very sad event and tragic event that got a lot of people talking in the organization. It didn’t have a red or a blue attachment to it. It came with a lot of passion. And there was other incidents that happened time and time again after that. But people needed to have the conversation in work. Right. So they need to have the conversation. But then it would veer off. It would go veer off into politics or veer off into other areas and which people are uncomfortable with that conversation.
38:51
Mason
So you know, if you’re an individual and you don’t, you’re not a manager of the organization, the best thing you can do is just say, tell somebody, hey, you know, can we table this conversation? It’s making me feel a little uncomfortable in the area. I’m not ready for this conversation within work. Can we talk about the AI project? Like redirect gently, so gently put it aside and redirect the conversation to something that is, doesn’t have that sort of passion or flair with it. If you are a manager and then if it’s something that keeps coming up, then you need to, as an individual contributor, you need to discuss it with your management. Team.
39:32
Mason
And if it’s something that is just not stopping and if it’s making you feel or if you see it’s making somebody else feel left out or excluded or really feeling like it’s not a welcoming sort of conversation or culture. If you’re a manager, you can do a lot more, especially if a manager that sets policies or procedures. The first thing you need to do is, like I said before, is you need to get ahead of it, understanding it’s coming. If it’s not this election, it’s going to be the next. If it’s not this incident, it’s going to be another incident. And have a clear conversation. First thing you can do is have this clear conversation. Say, you know, we are a workplace of respect. Detail what that means. Detail what that means. When we come, this is what we do.
40:23
Mason
I remember that I used to work with Pfizer and one of their. They had these values and one of the values was no jerks. They just. I love that. It was just so plain and simple, no jerks, just don’t be a jerk. We don’t want a jerk here. And so. But it was very plain and simple. And I’m not saying adopt that, but I’m saying is they got ahead of it, right? And as a manager, you can get ahead. You know, this conversation is going in, going forward or might come at some point and just explain what is our policy around conversations that make us feel uncomfortable, whether political or not, how do we manage that? And second is provide training. It does not come as something that is innate to us to handle sensitive, these sensitive topics.
41:09
Mason
Because we’re at home, we talk about anything we want to talk about because we have family and we grew up with family. And you just say all kinds of things, right? And the end you can say, I’m sorry if something happened, right? Do that in work. It doesn’t work so much like that in work. So you really have to start to understand. Let’s develop our team, develop our managers, how to manage difficult conversations, but also develop our entire team about what is an inclusive workplace, what is a respectful workplace and what does it mean to us and what is sort of the actions around it. And what do you do when you come head to head when something’s not inclusive, something’s exclusive and you can do it. Sometimes it’s very simple. Again, assume good intent. We always say assume good intent, right?
41:50
Mason
But sometimes the very simple things you can do, it could be something talking in a group meeting and you notice that somebody that might be little bit More introverted or shy. Or it could be somebody that their native language is not the one that’s being spoken at the table. And every time they go to say something, they get cut off. And it’s not people coming off because bad intent, but just the conversations going that way, right? Everybody’s kind of jumping in, cutting everybody off, but this person, because they don’t have the command of the language or don’t have the sort of the extroverted character to put themselves out there. What they have to say is not heard. So what can you do about that? Well, an individual, whoever it is that notices that can say, hey, you know what? Deborah has something to say.
42:38
Mason
Can we all be quiet? Because I would like to hear what Deborah has to say and give Deborah that space.
42:44
Kim Bohr
Or John, I love that.
42:45
Mason
Or Jose, wherever it happens to be, give them that space right this week. So it could be something teaching your team and training your team and coaching your team to be able to do those very simple interruption techniques. So get ahead of what’s getting out there, the conversation. Create those policies and let people understand what is respect, what is the conversation. Where’s the culture of your team? Second, provide training. And third, provide space and time for those conversations. So I’ll go back to the. The incident I talked about with the killing of George Floyd. It was a tragic, as I said, a tragic incident that happened. And people had to talk about it, right? Couldn’t just quell it. People had to talk about it. So a lot of companies gave space. Okay, let’s just.
43:36
Mason
They gave us some safe space for people to talk about. Just express. What are you feeling? What does this mean to you? How does it impact you? And everybody else could just listen, right? Not interrupt those individuals. And so people can really just have this safe space and time so they can express that, express their feelings. And then when they’re outside of that space or that time, they can go about work and they don’t feel as though they have this on their shoulders. So that third thing is really to give space and time when something comes up that you feel as though it has to be discussed within your organization. So those three things are something that a individual contributor can do at certain levels, definitely a manager. And certainly as you go up in leadership chain, you can create as a corporate culture.
44:20
Kim Bohr
So let me ask, I want to ask just you to elaborate one piece. And then I do want to spend a little bit of time before we wrap a little bit more on the individual lens. So back to the lens of, you know, thinking about how you start to create these elements in an organization, especially when you’re in a position of authority to do so. It sounds like there’s an opportunity to take an inclusive approach by including some of these diverse perspectives in how you start to shape the boundaries and the policies. Just very much as you said, when you think about it from a design perspective, even in a literal physical building, is that something that you would certainly recommend also as a best practice?
45:03
Mason
Yeah, certainly. And another thing I didn’t mention is that companies, when they’re looking at what they want to respond to, where their mission, what’s aligned with their mission, they don’t have to respond to everything. You don’t have to respond to every incident itself. You don’t have to respond to everything that happens in the world. Because when you do, what will happen if it’s not aligned with the mission? You’ll forget your audience. Remember your audience, right? Remember who the audience, whether is that your clients or your talent pool, remember who that is and who you’re aligned with. I give an example. So we’ve done a lot of work with Goldman. We did a lot of work within the LGTQ space.
45:46
Mason
They decided not only that they were very conscious that they wanted an inclusive space with that dimension difference within the workspace, but they also took a decision, a very conscious decision that they were going to take a position outside the organization and publicly. But this is well thought out, really well within their mission and alignment. And they wrote during the Defense of Marriage act, when it was at the Supreme Court, they wrote an amicus brief to overturn DOMA which would allow same sex marriage. So something, they were very much in alignment and understanding where it was with the mission. And it wasn’t something that was just knee jerk. It came up and they decided to do that. When DOMA was overturned, they flew the pride flag from the headquarters.
46:36
Mason
And so it was something, it was very much to their core of what they believed, inclusion, how it aligned with their mission, internally, externally. If you don’t have those conversations, if you’re a PR team, your DEI team, your HR team, your marketing and sales team, don’t have that conversation up front. You will find yourself knee jerking reaction to everything that comes your way, especially if you are a consumer facing organization. Right?
47:02
Kim Bohr
Yeah. And I think you and I were talking about a great example that I think our listeners will remember, which was the Coors Light experience that they had. And I think, you know, when you. And I think that just really resonates that you knowing your audience and trying to create alignment needs to be done, you know, in from that place of true understanding and not necessarily trying to, I don’t know, it’s like make a, you know, perhaps wish for something that is impossible. So for our listeners that don’t, maybe don’t remember Coors Light, I think it was Bud Light. Was it Bud Light?
47:49
Mason
I think was Bud Light.
47:50
Kim Bohr
I think you’re, I think.
47:51
Mason
I’m not a beard drinker, but I’m pretty sure it was Bud Light.
47:53
Kim Bohr
I think you’re correct. It was Bud Light. So. Excuse me, for Coors Light, it was Bud Light. And what they had done was they decided to do some custom cans with a trans influencer who, which was very much outside of the audience. It was outside of the audience who consumes the product. And they took a very bold statement in doing so and then received quite an extensive backlash from lost market share and. Lost market share. Yeah, very much so.
48:31
Mason
Yeah. They used to be the lead beer and they dropped. They lost market share to hurt their stock. And you’re right, it’s where a company sort of forgot who the audience was. Now, the intent was to be inclusive. Awesome, great intent. But the way that they went about it and pursuing out there, it didn’t feel like it was in alignment with their target market. Who was actually buying the beer, who was, you know, who was within that whole target demographic. Maybe they’re looking to expand the demographic, but you know, there’s other companies out there that, and they felt the backlash. They started pulling back. And then other companies, whether it’s John Deere or Ford or tractor supply company, are all recently just sort of say, oh, you know what?
49:21
Mason
We’re pulling back on all our DEI efforts, either scrapping it all together or minimizing it. But that’s the, that’s doing the same thing, but the opposite way. You know, there is, oh, let’s do DEI and let’s do everything. That’s whether it’s in line with their mission or not. And then there’s, let’s not do any of it. You know, there’s two, there’s two things that are not going to change. Their clientele is going to become more diverse, especially in America, especially if going global. And your talent pool is only going to become more diverse. It’s not becoming less so. So if you want to ignore how to deal with differences, it will only impact your company negatively in the future.
50:01
Mason
Give an example when John Deere was announcing that they were pulling back from their DEI at the very same time, this very same time, they were paying over a million dollars for discriminatory hiring practices.
50:15
Kim Bohr
Wow.
50:16
Mason
You know, it’s. You can’t just. There’s. First, there’s laws out there. The laws. Well, regardless of what, you know, somebody, your policies.
50:25
Kim Bohr
Yeah.
50:25
Mason
The laws are still there. You still have to be compliant. Okay. But then there’s also people out there that still want to feel included, still want to feel like they belong. And as we started this conversation out before is when you start looking at, when you’re looking at creating more equity and inclusion, how can impact a greater audience? Right. How can that, what you do, support the greater audience and support a greater group of people by what you’re doing? We talked about the wheelchair ramps. We talked about, you know, parental leave and caregiver leave. You know, when you’re looking at these pieces, these policies, how can it support you as a entire audience? And remember your audience, remember who your. Remember who your talent pool is. And yes, remember your mission and what it is.
51:15
Mason
And if you’re a corporation, your sole mission, if you’re a far profit sole mission is to continue to make a profit. Because if you don’t, you won’t be in existence. If you’re not profit is to fulfill whatever your mission is. So when we look at, in our respect, when we’re working with companies, how do you align being inclusive with moving a company forward?
51:36
Kim Bohr
Right.
51:37
Mason
You can do good and you can be good and do good at the exact same time. But some companies just haven’t figured that out.
51:45
Kim Bohr
Right. And that’s a big miss because that is an opportunity for, you know, for, as you said, it’s the alignment and reinforcing the goals of the organization. And the bottom line, there’s those, they’re not mutually exclusive. You know, before we wrap up, let’s just. If we can spend just a couple more minutes on these individuals. So I think so many times we come into conversations, you know, and in this very charged environment, I think it’s very likely that this is happening where we make assumptions about what somebody is thinking or their perception or. And you know, when we’re working on projects together and we’re trying to move something forward and perhaps somebody reacts in a way that we don’t think is a way we would react to.
52:34
Kim Bohr
And all of a sudden we start to get the snowball effect in this, in the judgment that starts to lay blame. And then we really start to find the groups starting to break down and the team’s Breaking down. And I think that’s one of the concerns I have as I think about what may transpire as we come to the other side of this election. And I’m curious if you have any, just some, maybe some tips or things for people to think about that maybe will help try to, you know, try to help them reframe maybe what’s going on and try to find a common place for. For discussion. Commonality.
53:09
Mason
A great question. And I’ll bring something very personal to me into it. So we, as we mentioned right before this and something you didn’t know that was I was running in a state election. So I’m running for state. I live here in New Hampshire. I was running for state rep. I’m running for state rep. That’ll be over when this drops. I can tell you when I would go to our candidate forums, something I would always say and this first thing or the last thing I would say is everybody at this table, regardless of what part of the on loves New Hampshire. That’s why we’re here. That’s why we’re here. We might think of it a different way to get to that success and what we think is great for New Hampshire and. But we all love New Hampshire.
53:55
Mason
And you just substitute New Hampshire for your state or your organization or wherever you are that understanding and assuming good intent there, you know, they wouldn’t be there if they didn’t. So assume that good intent. But then understanding that the good intent you can help clarify. So for individuals that you think that they might have said something or did something that didn’t feel right, you say what do you mean by that? Like when somebody called, I mentioned calling them kids. Hey, I know what you call us kids. What do you really mean by that? Because we’re obviously not kids. What do you mean by calling us kids? And you might find that one.
54:37
Mason
They don’t realize they’re saying that or it’s really endearing to them because it’s something word that just feel because they have kids and it’s something that makes them feel like you’re like family and that’s why they’re saying it. And I don’t think you’ll ever find somebody saying that has ill intent typically. So understand that clarify when you find out what it is and in a very nice way, you don’t have to beat somebody over the head. You can just say, hey, could you speak more to that? Because I don’t understand. You know, this is how I took it. But you probably didn’t mean it that way. So when you assume good intent, clarify when you’re wondering whether it is there or not and then move forward.
55:22
Mason
We talked about that self awareness engages in two and Taylor and then move forward with that conversation and understand where you are. And when it comes to the polarization, realizing that I think both parties love this country and we’re talking about this election. We if we didn’t, we wouldn’t be so passionate. Right. We’d be so passionate of both sides is right. And we are very passionate on both sides if we didn’t love it. So let’s start there. Let’s start with that premise to move forward and discuss where we are. And and again, when you’re talking about your organization, use that as your premise as well.
56:00
Kim Bohr
I love that. Thank you so much for this rich discussion. So I think, you know, there’s a lot here that we’ve talked about and I think as we come through the other side of this election, there’ll be more conversations to be had and I hope that people will take from this time today some ways of reinforcing the opportunity inside their organizations, thinking about how to reach out to others and start to have a conversation that can be more one of that’s more around learning and growth. And so from that lens, we have some things that we want to be able to share as we wrap up. And we’ll have links in the show, notes for our contact information as well as some of these resources. But Willie, we both want to provide some free resources that are very relevant to this conversation today.
56:50
Kim Bohr
And so you’ll be able to download the core set from the courage to advance podcast.com and in that there’ll be, you know, both Mason and I believe very deeply in actionable, you know, tools and experiences that’ll allow you to move forward and not just feel, you know, just motivated alone or, you know, just the warm and fuzzies aren’t enough these days. We want to make sure everybody has something that’s really they could apply. So we’ll both be providing that. I think Mason, you know, you spoke to wanting to be able to do a little tailoring. Do you want to share a little bit about your thoughts there? Because you really wanted it to be personal.
57:34
Mason
I did. We discussed like building something ahead of time, but I wanted to see where our conversation went because as you said, we had a guide of what we’re going to talk about, but we didn’t exactly know where it would go. So it’s something I would build that’s bespoke, probably a one page based on our conversation here. They’re very bespoke to our conversation and it won’t be something that’s just off the shelf for somebody to download and bring this conversation further, maybe to bring it in with your team as well.
58:02
Kim Bohr
Thank you for being so thoughtful and doing that and I think that’s a very it’ll be a wonderful component that people get to take advantage of and as I mentioned, you’ll find the links to everything that we’ve been able to talk about and how to contact us and to learn more and links to Mason’s books and I want to again thank you so much Mason for sharing your insights. Thank you again to the Empathy Edge for hosting our podcast sub series and to all the listeners for tuning into this episode of Courage to Advance, where transformative leadership isn’t about having all the answers, it’s about having the courage to find them. Thank you again, Mason and thank you.
58:43
Mason
It was a pleasure. Thank you very much.
