- 54 minutes ago
Did corporate DEI initiatives fail because the mission was wrong, or because leadership failed to deliver? What if the real solution to workplace fairness, employee retention, and business performance has less to do with corporate programs and more to do with how managers lead?
In this episode of The Workforce Alchemy Show, Mason interviews Michelle Edwards, author of DEI Died, Leadership Lives, about diversity, equity, inclusion, employee engagement, and the leadership decisions that shape workplace culture.
Michelle helped build an agency three times more diverse than its industry without selecting less-qualified candidates to meet quotas. She also reveals how her team reduced employee turnover by 50% by identifying retention risks and addressing employee concerns before valuable talent walked out the door.
What if your highest-performing manager is actually one of your company's biggest liabilities?
Michelle challenges CEOs to reconsider how they measure leadership performance, develop managers, identify overlooked talent, and hold executives accountable for the people they lead.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:
✅ Why corporate DEI programs sometimes became symbolic activities rather than meaningful workplace improvements
✅ How to balance merit, workplace fairness, and equal opportunities for career advancement
✅ How Michelle's data-driven employee retention strategy helped reduce turnover by 50%
✅ Why managers with outstanding sales results can still damage profitability and workplace culture
✅ Why high-performing employees don't automatically make effective managers
✅ How to identify employee retention risks before valuable team members resign
✅ How transparent promotion criteria can reduce distrust and improve employee engagement
✅ Why rebuilding employee trust requires consistent leadership actions, not promises
✅ How Michelle's G.A.S. leadership strategy helps employees feel supported and positioned to succeed
THE BIG TAKEAWAY:
If everyone around a high-performing manager needs to recover from that person's leadership, should that manager really be considered a high performer?
Whether you're a CEO, business owner, HR manager, executive, or team leader, this conversation provides practical insights into leadership development, reducing employee turnover, building trust, and creating a workplace where employees can do their best work.
📚 ABOUT MICHELLE EDWARDS
Michelle Edwards is a leadership strategist and author of DEI Died, Leadership Lives. With more than two decades of experience, she has developed leadership systems to identify retention risks, pay equity gaps, and overlooked talent.
🚀 TAKE THE WORKFORCE ALCHEMY CHALLENGE
Want to reduce employee turnover, workplace drama, and unnecessary labor costs while improving employee engagement and discretionary effort?
Apply for the Workforce Alchemy Challenge and the opportunity to qualify for up to $1,000 in practical assessment tools.
https://workforcealchemy.com
In this episode of The Workforce Alchemy Show, Mason interviews Michelle Edwards, author of DEI Died, Leadership Lives, about diversity, equity, inclusion, employee engagement, and the leadership decisions that shape workplace culture.
Michelle helped build an agency three times more diverse than its industry without selecting less-qualified candidates to meet quotas. She also reveals how her team reduced employee turnover by 50% by identifying retention risks and addressing employee concerns before valuable talent walked out the door.
What if your highest-performing manager is actually one of your company's biggest liabilities?
Michelle challenges CEOs to reconsider how they measure leadership performance, develop managers, identify overlooked talent, and hold executives accountable for the people they lead.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:
✅ Why corporate DEI programs sometimes became symbolic activities rather than meaningful workplace improvements
✅ How to balance merit, workplace fairness, and equal opportunities for career advancement
✅ How Michelle's data-driven employee retention strategy helped reduce turnover by 50%
✅ Why managers with outstanding sales results can still damage profitability and workplace culture
✅ Why high-performing employees don't automatically make effective managers
✅ How to identify employee retention risks before valuable team members resign
✅ How transparent promotion criteria can reduce distrust and improve employee engagement
✅ Why rebuilding employee trust requires consistent leadership actions, not promises
✅ How Michelle's G.A.S. leadership strategy helps employees feel supported and positioned to succeed
THE BIG TAKEAWAY:
If everyone around a high-performing manager needs to recover from that person's leadership, should that manager really be considered a high performer?
Whether you're a CEO, business owner, HR manager, executive, or team leader, this conversation provides practical insights into leadership development, reducing employee turnover, building trust, and creating a workplace where employees can do their best work.
📚 ABOUT MICHELLE EDWARDS
Michelle Edwards is a leadership strategist and author of DEI Died, Leadership Lives. With more than two decades of experience, she has developed leadership systems to identify retention risks, pay equity gaps, and overlooked talent.
🚀 TAKE THE WORKFORCE ALCHEMY CHALLENGE
Want to reduce employee turnover, workplace drama, and unnecessary labor costs while improving employee engagement and discretionary effort?
Apply for the Workforce Alchemy Challenge and the opportunity to qualify for up to $1,000 in practical assessment tools.
https://workforcealchemy.com
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LifestyleTranscript
00:05welcome to the mason duke check show presented by workforcealchemy.com where business leaders
00:12discover practical ways to select engage and retain their best employees today's guest michelle
00:18edwards has spent more than two decades building leadership systems that reveal retention risks
00:24equity gaps and overlooked talent she is the author of dei died leadership lives a practical
00:31challenge to executives who believe leadership should be measured not by promises but by the
00:37decisions that shape people's careers and business results so let me set the stage there are differing
00:42opinions and perceptions of what dei really is and what it was meant to accomplish and if leadership's
00:49goal is to create an environment where everyone feels included treated fairly and capable of doing
00:55their best work then it's hard to argue against it as a worthwhile objective and i certainly won't
01:00however if the means to that end makes others feel that opportunities for advancement are tied to
01:07things like age sex or race instead of merit or accomplishments then i can see how people could
01:14claim reverse ageism sexism or racism and you could easily end up with an environment where nobody
01:20feels included treated fairly or capable of doing their best work and you end up with the exact opposite
01:27of your intended objective so i'm hoping michelle can offer some insights that those listening or watching
01:32might be able to use to challenge their preconceived opinions and see opportunities where they've only
01:39seen obstacles in the past michelle welcome to the show thank you thank you for having me i'm so
01:44happy to be here so if creating an environment where people are treated fairly is the objective what
01:50are the alternatives to trying to fight perceived unfairness with perceived unfairness well i think
01:58language language matters so i will first say that the unfairness that we are talking about was real
02:06the history of our country has created a history of discrimination racism exclusion
02:13so it was real and documented and it is still happening and dei was created to address that but i
02:23will say that i have
02:25never dismissed anyone's unfairness no matter who they are because what i was doing was targeting the
02:34inequities targeting the unfairness i wasn't necessarily targeting demographics so when we think about in 2020 when
02:43dei became so popular and it was trending and and you know it was the words diversity equity and
02:51inclusion were in every boardroom or most boardrooms of course across corporate america my company had
02:59already been the most diverse agency in health care advertising before it happened so when it started to
03:07trend we got thrusting up spotlight everyone wanted to know what we did what we were doing and i i
03:15got my 15
03:16minutes of fame everybody was interviewing me and i quickly learned that everyone wanted the diversity
03:24we achieved but no one wanted to do the work we did to get it right so i think at
03:31the time we were
03:32talking about certain demographics of people being you know treated unfairly and so the response was to you
03:42know do things for the demographic of people and that's where i think it exposed the opportunity to
03:50kind of be attacked and we and we hear we hear things like reverse racism which i completely don't even
03:57believe in but if we target the root cause of the inequities in the first place that's where we see
04:05true change is because and and the the the the root cause is usually leadership it is leadership it's
04:13leadership decisions and behaviors and you know whether well-intentioned or unknown or not like
04:20leaders are carrying on historical unfairness and it is because they have their own biases and once you
04:28start to confront that and unpack that and you're doing the real work you start to see real change
04:34so i had a because this is something i i i have friends on both ends of the political spectrum
04:40i have
04:40friends that anybody could consider hard left and i have friends that are considered hard right and i'm still
04:47friends with all of them and i value their insights i value their input i value their honesty and while
04:54i might not agree with them always i do seek to understand them and they because of that and they
05:02know
05:03me like i can have conversations a lot of other people can't have and don't have and i think it
05:07makes
05:07me yeah much more capable in a lot of different situations and i understand when and it doesn't even have
05:17to
05:17be race it could be sex or age or whatever whatever category you want but when i understand the
05:23argument of promotions or opportunities should be based on merit and achievement that is there's
05:29evidence of and i can i can understand the other side that says hey differing perspectives different
05:36life experience makes people more valuable too i understand both sides of that but if someone who has
05:42achieved merit and has accomplished things says hey i'm being denied opportunities and i've achieved
05:49results that quantifiably are superior to other candidates regardless of age race or sex how they
05:57could feel that they are being treated unfairly if the quality of their work is it's like i say i
06:03understand that and i had the opportunity to visit with a guy by the name of keith whedon killer he
06:08was
06:08head of human resources for amc movie theaters for a long time headquartered in kansas city they have
06:14movie theaters all over the place and all across the country and he did the best job of explaining it
06:20to me he said mason because i i again like i seek to understand i'm not judging anybody i'm just
06:26saying i
06:26seek to understand and and and form my own opinions upon what i think is right and wrong and sometimes
06:31it
06:31varies depending upon the circumstances i get it but he he tried to describe it to me he said mason
06:36he goes
06:36if you're the captain of a ship and your goal is to get to this island just outside of alaska
06:43and you
06:44chart your course and you start veering hard to the left he goes and you're getting off course you
06:51might have to take a hard right to get back on path and if you go too far right you
06:56might have to go
06:57hard left and it's it's a back and forth to get you to eventually your outcome now it'd be nice
07:03if you
07:03had a straight line but he goes that's just not how it works right and i he did a really
07:09good job
07:09explaining to me so i could understand the logic between trying to take an organization from where
07:15you are to a destination and i could see hey we've our organization has drifted in the way we do
07:21business
07:22so we need to counter that right so so i'm gonna ask your opinion and like how how do what
07:30do you say
07:31to someone that says that might even acknowledge that the shift and i'm not talking politically i'm
07:35just talking directionally call it whatever you want give you age race or sex whatever but if you
07:40say hey we've drifted so far to the left and wrongs have been done here acknowledging wrongs have been
07:45done here yeah so we need to go correct to the right so we're gonna do wrongs again just the
07:50other
07:50direction how do you explain to someone that doesn't believe two wrongs make a right well that's a tough
07:56question i know i'm just curious what your opinion is i mean i get i get the the head of
08:02hr that of
08:04amc his analogy makes a lot of sense to me but i never did that so i can't really fair
08:10enough fair
08:10enough i just asked for your thoughts yeah and i never i never had us choose someone who was less
08:18qualified just to reach a quota like i never did that see that people need to hear that i think
08:25because they assume that that is the case and that doesn't make it right so right thank you for
08:32saying that so please send me interrupt people thank you people yes people yes people think dei was
08:38giving people something that they didn't earn or taking from one to give to another you're correct and
08:46that's not it and the fact that we became the most diverse agency in health care like we were so
08:53we
08:54were three times more diverse than our industry and we did not do it by chasing diversity we did it
09:01by
09:01taking care of the people that we already had and creating fairness within our organization and
09:09broadening people's understanding and collaboration and care for one another and it bred diversity
09:18believe it or not and the more diverse we got diversity started to breed diversity so i think
09:25you know i get some companies needed to you know bring in bodies but i also think that if the
09:34organization isn't ready for those bodies that you'll still find you'll you haven't moved the needle so
09:41you and i talked offline and i i will share some of this publicly because i i think it matters
09:47there
09:48was a i'm a huge tony robbins fan and he talks about the reticular activating system the reticular
09:54activating system is a part of our brain that tells us what to pay attention to and what to ignore
10:00because we are so we are so overwhelmed with stimulus we can't absorb everything at once i mean whether
10:05it's the sound of the fan above my head or the direction of the light or the temperature of the
10:10breeze i mean there's so much going on that our brains have to filter out what is important and
10:16what isn't and he hasn't he did an exercise i watched him demonstrate and he talked about it i
10:21think his book awaken the giant within i'm not positive but what he did was and and i have actually
10:26implemented this as part of workshops i've done where i have shown a picture of let's say 13 items
10:32and i've told the audience like hey here's a picture i'm gonna show we're gonna have a memory
10:36test and i'm gonna show you 13 items i'm gonna give you five seconds to look at it and then
10:42i'm
10:42gonna turn it away and we see how many you remember and then i say here's the thing i want
10:46to see how
10:47many items with red you're going to be able to recall and i show it on the screen one two
10:52three four
10:54five and i shut it off and then i asked him the question how many blue items were on the
10:59screen and
10:59can you name them and you know what happens next they can't name it they do terrible i mean they
11:06might get one or two maybe and the reality of it is there's way more blue items on there than
11:12there
11:12were red way more yeah and what i tell and then i show them afterwards and i said hey what
11:19did you
11:19notice i said i didn't trick you i said the same stuff that was on the screen before is the
11:24same stuff
11:24was on and then i show them all the blue items and we count them and it's a huge number
11:29and they're
11:29like i go just because you didn't see it it doesn't mean it wasn't there right right so how
11:37that's that's the power of the reticulating reticular activating system and you have people like
11:44there's there's there's discrimination or oh there isn't discrimination or there is ageism or sexism
11:50racism or there or there isn't just because they don't see it it doesn't mean it's not there correct
11:55correct and as a decision maker or a leader my decisions are only as sound as the facts on which
12:02they're based agreed right agreed and if i am incapable of seeing all of the red the green the blue
12:09the orange the black the yellow and i don't surround myself with people who have the ability to see things
12:14that are invisible to me and they don't trust me enough to say hey here's what i see then by
12:20default
12:21i am incapable of being the best version of an executive that i can be yeah so i value people
12:28around me and i talk about that i actually wrote a book on that called inclusive leadership where i
12:33describe that because it was an aha moment for me and what i realized is that i had heard and
12:39we
12:39visited i was i was an army officer back in the day when we paid for my college and i
12:44had to have
12:44people who were from all different walks of life whether it was puerto rico or the backwoods of
12:49kentucky or the streets of philadelphia or la i had people from all kinds of different backgrounds and
12:55we had to work together yeah and where you talked about the importance of having a an organization with
13:01diversity i'm gonna say that my approach might be or my instincts might be to say i just want the
13:07best organization i could have and if that involves more diversity or less diversity then so be it
13:11but i know from the reticular activating system that diversity isn't my goal making the best
13:17decisions as fast as possible and creating an environment where people can make can do their
13:22best work where everyone treats feels like they contribute and they're hurting and their voice
13:27matters that's the environment i want to build that's the goal diversity diversity is the is the outcome
13:32not the objective to me outcome yes thank you i think you just did the interview to me that's the
13:38outcome that i'm after not the not the right objective so when you said earlier hey i wanted a
13:44diverse organization no i i want an amazing organization does amazing things and and and my
13:48outcome may be a different now if diversity is a path to that great right but what i know is
13:54that
13:54a manager that sees you take a look at a manager who says i got i got over i got
14:01overlooked for that
14:01promotion and they gave it to that young that young person this is ageism well if if that's a manager
14:07let's just say a mid-level executive and i'm the ceo i might have seen something that that person
14:12didn't see correct doesn't and just because that person didn't see it didn't mean it wasn't there
14:17that could be potential on the part of the young person it could be liabilities in the part of the
14:22more experienced executive but just because that experienced executive didn't see it didn't mean it
14:27wasn't there correct and if in fact i am being discriminatory then as the ceo my business suffers
14:34so i pay a price for my inability or unwillingness to see what's really there or to get input to
14:42help
14:42me get a more accurate picture of of the the variables involved in the decision yeah i know my ceo
14:49always he's the founder of the company he retired but he always said that he surrounded himself
14:56with people who knew more than he knew about different things so all the things that he did
15:01he wasn't good at he hired someone for that and i think like if you think about organizations and
15:08their goals and and their profit goals you want to find people that are good at certain things not
15:17people that are exactly like you and i think because we were looking for different perspectives we were
15:24looking for ways to innovate and just ways to elevate the work that diversity became organic
15:33like i said we achieved it before it was trending so you argue the dei did not fail because the
15:40mission
15:40was wrong but because many companies turned it into theater what's your definition of the mission and
15:44can you tell us what you saw going on in organizations that led you to that conclusion yes so i
15:50will say that
15:51my definition and i'm only going to talk speak to my definition because i don't i'm still unclear what
15:57everyone else's definition was but my definition that might be a moving target by the way so good for you
16:05so my definition is very similar to my definition of the gas strategy which is give a shit we'll talk
16:12about more of that later but the gas strategy is the relentless pursuit of making sure every single
16:20person in your organization feels cared for and put on the path to succeed that is the mission
16:27that everything that i do my foundation of all my work stems from and i think that that is the
16:35mission
16:35of dei like i think dei is supposed to address that mission and what we saw play out in reality
16:44was a lot of
16:45activity a lot of things were happening but you cannot confuse activity with impact because with all the
16:53activity that was happening it was not changing the day-to-day experience of the employee we were talking
17:00about heritage we're talking about celebrating heritage moms we're talking about mandatory dei
17:06trainings we're talking about um putting black squares on social media we're talking about hiring
17:13a chief diversity officer we're talking about the ergs the dei departments and when all of that was
17:19happening it was a lot of activity corporate america was doing a lot and all of that was happening i
17:26was
17:26speaking out and saying hey this is not it this is not it because it's not changing the day-to
17:34-day
17:34experience like you if you think that making people go to unconscious bias training one time that's like
17:41sending someone to the gym and expect them to be ripped by the end of the year it's not going
17:45to
17:45happen if we're celebrating heritage moms i love celebrating heritage moms i love it but then we go back to
17:52our
17:52desk and our manager still having the same making the same decisions that affect our day-to-day it's not
17:58changing the day-to-day experience of the people and that's why i felt like a lot of it was
18:04theater
18:04because we we were confusing activity with impact i learned a lot i i there's a coach his name is
18:12bryant wright and he i had him on as a guest on my podcast several months ago we ended up
18:17writing a
18:17book together called built right w-r-i-g-h-t and what this guy did was amazing he in
18:22the last 17
18:23years the worst finish for his boys cross country team was second place in the state at the state
18:29meet in 17 years he won 13 state championships eight of them in a row no one's ever done that
18:33before i brought him on the podcast say how'd you do it and one of the first things he talked
18:37about
18:38was belonging he said whether it was a brand new freshman or a senior that was a state champ he
18:43goes
18:44i wanted everyone to know that they belonged and that their place on this team wasn't conditional
18:49based on their ability to produce results he said what i asked of everybody was 100 effort because
18:57that was a currency everybody could give me the brand new freshman that was chubby and never run
19:01before and it was slow could still give me the same 100 effort of a lean mean state championship
19:08machine he goes and i go can you tell me why you feel that way or why you felt that
19:14way he said
19:14mason he said if people feel that their effort matters they'll give more of it if they feel that
19:22it's contingent upon their ability to produce results or whatever he goes right out of the gate
19:26he goes the ones with the exceptional talent will lean in and everyone else backs off and plays it safe
19:31and they know their place and he said and me to take a role like that would be telling them
19:36that some people matter more than others and he goes and this is how he built an organization that
19:42won seven 17 years in a row they don't do worse than second in the state so he's talking about
19:46winning
19:47now and winning later and he built a culture that because he knew that that chubby freshman who's slow
19:54by the time that kid's a sophomore junior might be setting records and be the best runner in the
19:58history of the program but if that kid doesn't develop and he isn't given a culture where he
20:03can do his best work and develop they'll never see the fruits of that right so i love what you're
20:10talking about mason you you do an interview this is it this is it this is the stuff that i'm
20:14talking
20:15about because yeah not because and it's funny because we talked about fairness and and what i didn't
20:22want to interrupt you but as i was listening to you describe i go well what you're describing who would
20:27argue
20:27with that but when people's perception is you're going to get promoted because of your age your race
20:33or your sex not your accomplishments and they're assuming that that's the case and they think it's
20:40a bunch of hooey because what they've seen is a bunch of hooey for lack of better word
20:47you can understand why you can understand why there would be resistance to what they think is a bunch of
20:53mess and you called it out yourself so yeah that was a mess that wasn't what the objective was
20:57and right some organizations may have done a better job than others at executing your definition but for
21:03all those that didn't that's where the light got shined on and that's where people said this is bad and
21:08here's why it's bad because yeah their definition and or their execution of their definition landed
21:15nowhere near what you've described to me yeah yeah i think dei was definitely misunderstood by
21:22opposers of it as well as supporters of it and and and a lot of times it was misexecuted and
21:29it became easier to target it and so now when you when we talk about the performance when it died
21:37down
21:38and the pressure went away and you know the pendulum shifted all of those all the performances ended didn't
21:46it the curtain the curtain it was curtain called now it's over it's over so if that's not proof it
21:53was a performance i don't know what is so can you share maybe a moment when a company appeared
21:59committed to fairness publicly but an important decision behind closed doors told a very different
22:03story well i think like that's what we've been talking about right like in 2020 we had a real
22:10moment and so it was many companies not one company and not necessarily behind closed doors because you
22:17can see that the decisions behind closed doors played out publicly we had a moment where leaders
22:25started to really try to put humanity first and we're talking about dei diversity
22:33equity and inclusion trending but also you know flexibility work from wherever you need to
22:38take care of your mental health there was a lot of things put forward and and publicly stated
22:45by companies during that time and what happens when you when you when you collectively are talking
22:52about this in this way you give people hope you give people hope that makes them change their lives
23:00so it people moved away people relocated people took jobs as chief diversity officer and now got laid
23:09off like you played with people's hope by pulling back the curtain and pulling the rug from under people's
23:17feet when you rolled back all of the things that you said you said come back to work or else
23:23and the
23:24person who disclosed their mental health issues quietly got transitioned out of the company like you played
23:32with people's hope and when you play with people's hope in that way it's another kind of devastation
23:38because it's hope that they can't get back like they literally changed their lives for the things that
23:44people said in organizations and then rolled it all back what are the biggest mistakes leaders make when
23:50they try to rebuild trust after employees conclude that the company's values are just mostly words
23:56think that the biggest mistake companies make is try to talk they their way out of something their
24:02actions did you know people will start to trust you after they watched you long enough to believe you
24:11you have to show them something differently long enough for them to believe you actions speak louder in words
24:17yes yes yes they have to experience you differently and i have in the book commandment nine
24:23transparency please it's all about the lies we tell right
24:28and um there's a whole list of the lies we tell and the thing is is that we don't know
24:37we are lying
24:38when it happens we believe the lies we are saying in that moment but it's it's perceived as a lie
24:46to people
24:46when you say something and your actions don't line up with what you said but i think that it is
24:52important
24:53to admit when you were wrong like companies need to be able to say three words we were wrong or
25:02i was wrong
25:04and they need to be able to consistently make actions to earn that trust back and when i talk about
25:12that
25:13i personally am the head of hr and so in hr i always say people don't trust hr i say
25:20that all the time
25:21and for good reason you know for years we show up as untrustworthy because char was trained to protect the
25:29company and sometimes that's almost in opposition of protecting the people and so when people come
25:37into my organization i know i start with that like i know that it's going to be hard to earn
25:45the person's
25:46trust but i work really hard at earning their trust until i keep doing things and my behavior keeps
25:53showing up as in support of the of the person because i believe you protect the people and the
26:00company is protected you protect the people and the company is automatic protected it's funny you say
26:07this because i i did some work internationally and one of the people that i was responsible for that
26:13led directly was russian her name was olga so if olga's ever listened to this i'm giving you props
26:19but english was not her first language and in dealing with international customers particularly those in
26:25russia she had way more experience way more knowledge and knowledge of the culture than i had
26:31way more she was the expert now technically i was responsible but she was the subject matter expert
26:38and there were times that we would go round and round and i would argue with her and more pretty
26:44much
26:44all the time i'll admit she was right and i would tell her just like you said olga i was
26:49wrong you were
26:50right i didn't understand you i appreciate you persisting long enough to get me to understand
26:57because she knew that my heart was in the right place i just didn't understand it because that's
27:01why i kept arguing with her she's like yet i guess that's no in russian yet but she was like
27:05yet like
27:06you don't and she was persistent enough to instead of just saying okay you're i'll do what you say
27:12she fought and fought and fought and fought and fought until i understood it and then i was like
27:17you're right again olga now i get it thank you for persisting and and because i could and did
27:24often admit hey man i was wrong i didn't understand that she was willing to keep battling with me in
27:29the future and and to keep arguing with me in the future until i did understand and now i've got
27:33a
27:34string of things that could have been disasters none of which occurred because i listened to her
27:39one two i did say when i was wrong and three she cared enough to persist long enough where if
27:45someone didn't say because i mean think about that think about the opposite of that happening
27:49yes that olga just gives up and says okay i'll do it your way and things go south now of
27:55course
27:56it would have been a disaster multiplied multiple times because of me it wasn't but if i didn't have
28:02someone of olga's strength and and personal sense of personal responsibility and care for the customer
28:09to do the right thing which in this case was persist until i understood yeah way different outcomes
28:14yeah that and that's grace there's a there's a chapter there's a commandment commandment 10 is
28:20grace so i have 10 commandments in my book and that is staying in it long enough to see transformation
28:26because i love so you're encouraging your book you're encouraging people stick with it keep
28:32persistent until they understand because yeah i don't think people show there's exceptions of course but
28:38i think most people show up they want to do the right thing they want to help people they want
28:41to
28:42build the company and they're not trying to do bad on purpose right and if they don't know what they
28:47don't know i get it yeah and i and in that case i didn't know what i didn't know but
28:53i was willing
28:53to listen willing to learn and she was willing to persist until i got it and i think you i
28:59think you
28:59just described the relationship of me and my presidents so you help build systems that identify
29:05retention risk pay equity gaps and and stalled stalled talent which warning signs should executives
29:12examine before strong employees start leaving so my founder had told us early on the founder of the
29:19company told me early on that he was just so grateful for his people and he said you know our
29:27employees
29:27made a choice to choose to share their talents and their skills with us and we needed to be worthy
29:35of
29:35that choice and that was just like putting a battery in my back because then i became you know very
29:42kind
29:43of obsessed with with retention and trying to be worthy of people's choice to choose us every day
29:51not just that once when they came on but every day and so i remember when i cracked retention and
29:59you
29:59know we were we were having a little bit of turnover and i was trying to really understand it and
30:06i was
30:06exploring the data and analyzing the data and you know just kind of like studying who left why where they
30:14were in their career um you know what department they were in who their manager was like i was just
30:21really really studying the person the people who left and i started to realize that there was a
30:28a period in their tenure that people started to leave so then i just stopped studying the people who left
30:37and started to turn my attention to the people who were still there i targeted a group of people that
30:43was kind of in that sweet spot that danger zone of leaving and you know i had my team we
30:49split it up we
30:50we split the list up we had check-ins we had surveys we had focus groups we met with the
30:56managers and
30:58we learned that each person kind of needed something different whether it be flexibility more money some
31:05some were ready for the next level like it was different things that we could do for different
31:12people and we did it all and we cut turnover by 50 percent and we and it stayed down year
31:18over year
31:19because you know the profile of the lever changed over the years but we kept looking at the data and
31:27paying attention to the data and we started to use data as a way to interrupt the future rather than
31:35study in the past and i became so a little bit obsessed obsessed with data and so i created this
31:42like
31:43almost like this people intelligence system and it could tell me all of the warning signs of things
31:48like when you have to track like how long someone's in a role in comparison to their peers what's the
31:56average time that it that a person should be in a role and compare it to that you know pay
32:02who's who's
32:03slipping under the pay who who's you know teams the team dynamics are changing who who went from team
32:10to team whose managers are changing um who's being recognized if you look at your high performance and
32:17making sure that they are being recognized for doing a job well done and that could be a lot of
32:22different
32:23things that we used to use to recognize people to just say thank you for a job well done is
32:28you it's
32:29tracking things that most companies don't even track so you mentioned high performers let me
32:34take an angle on that what should a ceo do when a high performing executive consistently delivers
32:39results but maybe there's a cost associated with that maybe they damage trust morale or opportunity
32:45for everyone around them so i mean if they're doing all of that i wouldn't call them a high performer
32:50well i mean if they're delivering the results i mean the kpis are where they're supposed to be
32:53let's just say a sales executive and his sales numbers are high he's setting records
32:58as far as sales production customer retention's high i mean that's something that sales executives
33:04count but hey how much revenue did you generate what's as far as new revenue and and how's our
33:09client retention and if they're killing it there that by definition they would be a technically a
33:14high performer but if their results are damaging trust morale and opportunity for everyone around them
33:19what should a ceo do yes so i personally would stop calling somebody a high performer if everybody
33:27around them needs to recover from their performance so that's the one thing to me i think they're
33:32underperforming and i i would point that out and i'd also question the results right that you're
33:38talking about because you know likely in this particular case i'm going to give like they're
33:44setting records like more sales than the company's ever had i mean customer retention is higher than it's
33:49ever been so just by observable data or facts their results are better than anyone's ever been
33:55but they're wreaking havoc behind so i mean they might be able to do better
34:01that's my point yeah that's my point so so so the results are based on probably a team and and
34:10a team
34:10is before i would i would question if the team is performing because of their leadership or despite it
34:16you are talking about people that are probably being left undeveloped so an undeveloped person has
34:23untapped potential and untapped potential to me is money on the table you probably have people
34:29leaving because of this person so that is you are spending money to replace people and then when you
34:36think about people a team like that they're probably operating at 60 percent because all the 40 percent is
34:43about recovering from the toxicity that this person so it's it's almost like i might have answered my own
34:49question there it's like hey you maybe set records it compared to what sales numbers may be higher
34:53than they've ever been but compared to what they could be a fraction exactly so i'm saying i'm saying
34:59that what we we see we see his results but we don't see what his leadership has prevented you could
35:07be
35:07you could be saying he made five million dollars but how do you know he did he didn't leave 30
35:12million
35:13dollars on it gotcha and compared to what and i'm saying that because i had a situation like that
35:20so we had there's a story in the book about a woman named allison she had a really toxic manager
35:28we held on to that manager um we had we'll call her ann we held on to ann for two
35:35years longer than we
35:36probably should have because ann was so tight with the with our biggest client they were like best
35:43friends and we were so afraid to address ann's behavior in a way that kept her away from the team
35:51and removed her from the leadership position she was in that we kept her two years longer than we
35:57should have finally when we finally got the courage to fire leaders who refuse the lead that is commandment
36:04three in my book when we finally got the courage guess what happened the client got really close to
36:10a great leader in our company and that great leader built up the team developed the team the team grew
36:18and flourished and they made more money in in the history of that client so that's why i say what
36:26i say
36:26sometimes we are fearing something that is not real so how do you evaluate whether someone's truly ready
36:33to lead others well we well first first of all if we're talking about like new leaders like i do
36:39not
36:39believe in automatic managers like i kind of nixed that because i think that we confuse being good at
36:48your craft with automatically being good at leading people that's not the case and so when people are
36:56good at their craft and they're in it you know they're they're high performing an individual
37:01contributor and they need to keep growing in their career and they get promoted and all of a sudden
37:07they're in charge of people i think that's where we fail so i never stopped anyone from getting promoted i
37:13let them get promoted i let them get their bag but i did not give them direct reports until they
37:19can prove
37:20that they had they knew the responsibility it was to have another human in your care and so that meant
37:27that we we created a manager manifesto which is like the standard of what we expected from managers
37:34and i think that all companies need that i think all companies need to establish what does good
37:40management look like in my company and then we we made we trained them on that they had to spend
37:46five hours in three parts with me for manager boot camp and then we had an internal coach where they
37:53had to go through group coaching and at that point they had put so much commitment in learning how to
37:59lead in the way that we needed them to lead that then they were able to get direct reports and
38:05that's what
38:06i think companies need to do is to make put together some mechanism that helps people build the leadership
38:15skill before putting them in a role where someone else's career and life is in their hands i guess
38:22that goes back to what we originally started talking about creating an environment where people can do
38:26their best work and they feel like they belong imagine that we're coming full circle on this so when
38:32employees believe that promotions and opportunities are decided in the meeting before the meeting what
38:37specific actions can an executive take to make those decisions more transparent i think that i don't really
38:43mind the meeting before the meeting keep the meeting but kill the mystery get rid of the mystery i think
38:50that if every single person in the organization is aware of the process they're aware of what is
38:58expected of them at at their level as well as the next level everyone has a clear path so we
39:05we created
39:06these career family things where every single title had what is expected at that title and the next title
39:13and if you give everyone access to it that means you are making the path clear to everyone and you
39:22are
39:22making sure managers are having the conversations with every single person in the organization in terms of
39:29where they stand in terms of moving to the next level what milestones they have to still you know
39:37get to what you know what other things they need to improve if you are having these conversations
39:43regularly you are removing the ambiguity around promotions for me that is promotion equity make it clear
39:50and make it accessible to everyone and you can have whatever meeting in the room in the meeting before the
39:57meeting you want we know that we know who's on track for promotions and because me as hr am so
40:05involved in
40:06all of the departments and and speaking to all the department heads and i kind of understand
40:11who is rising so there's really no surprise of who finally got the promotion because it's it's talked
40:20about so much so you know we talked a little earlier about theater what should a ceo measure
40:25if they want to know whether people are actually experiencing fairness opportunity and strong
40:31leadership rather than simply participating in programs or theater if you will sorry repeat the
40:37question what should a ceo measure if they want to know whether people are actually experiencing
40:42fairness opportunity and strong leadership rather than simply participating in programs right so that's
40:48probably my data stuff like like i said i was tracking everything and i at some point you would call
40:55it
40:55the equity database because it was it was built so that no one got left behind and so in the
41:02in the book i have
41:04commandment four data doesn't lie and it lists out like all of the red flags you should look for you
41:10should
41:10look for someone falling below the the the average for their pay you should look for someone who is you
41:20know in
41:20in their in their role longer than it usually takes for someone to move up you should look for high
41:28performers who aren't being recognized um you should look for you should the the things that you track you
41:35should track by manager as well so that you can see where the inconsistencies are you should go beyond
41:41the averages and and and percentages and get deeper because what i was able to do was i tracked the
41:49the employee experience i i i i tracked the journeys because sometimes patterns exist in places where you
41:58didn't even think like if you know this particular a group of people are where the retention is let's see
42:07what's happening with that group of people of why that's that retention is there so sometimes there's
42:12connections to the data so i think the data is super important so with all of your experience wisdom and
42:19knowledge looking back over your career for those people who are watching or listening if there was
42:24only one piece of advice that you could give what would be the most important piece of advice you
42:28could give and why i think it's in commandment three fire leaders who refuse to lead to me i think
42:34that is
42:35the the most important thing i think that no matter what your business is trying to achieve if it's
42:43diversity it's probably you know profitability or high performance or culture transformation like whatever it is
42:51your leaders will make or break it and when i say leaders i'm talking about anyone with another person under
42:58their
42:58care we could be talking about the the supervisor for the intern over the summer all the way up to
43:04the ceo they need to be
43:06held to a certain standard of treating people well enabling their ambitions having one-on-ones going
43:13deeper when we get to the gas strategy truly understanding people so that you can help them grow and develop
43:19like that's the job i think a lot of times when people get that manager position they think the job
43:26is
43:26just to tell people what to do and to you know get the results like you talked about earlier and
43:31that's the job but
43:32if you're a leader i think the job is to lead people to inspire people to guide them to develop
43:41them to help
43:42them be all that they are capable of becoming i think that's the job of a leader and if you
43:48can if you can
43:49walk away with one thing from me it's do that okay tell me about your gas strategy yeah so the
43:55gas strategy
43:56like i mentioned earlier give a shit people think you know well that's easy i care but it's deeper
44:02than that and like i said it is the relentless pursuit of making sure every single person feels
44:09cared for and put on a path to succeed and i have it i teach it in my boot camp
44:16in in four pillars so
44:18the first pillar is go deeper see people you cannot see people succeed unless you first see them the
44:25second pillar is take a stand protect people that means advocate for them speak their room your name
44:32their names and rooms you're in that means interrupt bias you know interrupt any type of wrongdoing to
44:40the person take a stand the third pillar is lead with love so probably wondering what love has to do
44:47it that's care for people and love gives feedback loves holds people accountable to a high standard
44:55love doesn't give up on people love gives people the time and space to transform into who they are
45:03capable of transforming into and then the last one is self-efficacy i think self-efficacy is be the one
45:10and what that means is a lot of people you know underestimate the power that they have right now
45:17they're there no matter what their role is no matter what their title is no matter what department
45:23they're in no matter what level they're in that they have power to impact someone's life in a positive
45:29way someone's career in a positive way so the self-efficacy is be the one be that person and when
45:36we're
45:36talking about you know how that plays out in every day we're talking about hey stay in the extra five
45:43minutes that you don't have to really understand what's happening with someone that means not
45:48canceling the one-on-one because you got busy it means speaking up for someone in the meeting like
45:54it means helping someone recover from something that is happening outside of the the workplace but is
46:02affecting their performance inside the workplace like it means a lot of different things and by me
46:08holding our leaders to the gas strategy it made sure that i'm not going to say no one fell through
46:14the cracks but it made sure that we damn sure made tried for no one to fall through the cracks
46:21and i think
46:22that is what led to our diversity so if people want to know more about you your book and the
46:28work you
46:31help i help companies give a shit about their people so if you're interested in me helping you
46:38you can reach out the book is on amazon and it's on every other place that you buy your books
46:44um and
46:45you can get me on linkedin at michelle k edwards i'm also on instagram at michelle edwards speaks
46:52awesome before we wrap up i want to leave people listening with one practical next step if you want less
46:58turnover less workplace drama and more discretionary effort from your team i want to invite you to
47:03apply for the workforce alchemy challenge at workforcealchemy.com you'll receive expert training
47:08and have the opportunity to qualify for up to a thousand dollars in tools that you can actually use
47:13michelle thank you so much for joining us today it's been an absolute pleasure to have you on i
47:17appreciate you thank you thank you thank you
47:28thank you
47:28thank you
47:28thank you
47:29thank you
47:29thank you
47:29thank you
47:29thank you
47:29thank you
47:30thank you
47:30You