Audio transcript:
Do you ever wonder what the role is of a leader when it comes to allyship and creating an inclusive work environment? We're gonna get to that topic with award-winning advice. Just sit tight. (upbeat music) - My name is Zee and I'm Rich. Welcome to our insightful podcast. See what I did there? Today's focus will be on the ally leader connection,(...) nurturing safety and support. With the global push for equity, diversity and inclusion, it's more important than ever and a spotlight to make teammates feel supported.
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Now, what does it mean to have a leader be an ally? And how do we use those actionable insights and strategies to make this vision become a reality?
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- Yeah, and speaking of that, that is a topic that here at Insight, we really truly hold to our heart and live by. A lot of talk, a lot of organizations and leaders talk about it, but it's the actions that really, really, again, it's the strength of an organization, the strength of a leadership is that what are you doing or how are you in creating that environment? And that's what we're gonna talk about today. And what I love about this episode and what we've been doing this season is we've had several guests, several leaders, insightful leaders here at Insight. And today, of course, we're gonna do the same, but it's a special episode because we have a leader that's been with Insight for several years and a lot of teammates and leaders within the organization have looked up to this leader because of their ability or the way they lead in their philosophy, especially how they truly live as an ally.(...) And not only that, they won an award this past year and we recognize that and we had that all over our social media pages.(...) But I will tell you right now, when it comes to this leader, he is all about, hey, it's not about me, it's about the team, it's about the organization and how I can serve and help others. So with that, let me go ahead and introduce our guest today. He's our previous SVP and GM for Insight Canada, but also the Ally of the Year, actually the first ever Ally of the Year CRN 2023 Women of the Year Award recipient, John Dathan. Welcome, John.
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- Thanks, Lee, I so appreciate being here with you guys today. - Yeah, it's a pleasure having you. I know that since the beginning of the year, you kind of passed on the responsibilities to Raim, who's been an amazing addition for us there in Canada.
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And now it looks like you're typically doing what people do when they're like, all right, I need some time off or I need some time, and you're in Florida, like a lot of people typically do. So enjoying your time in the sun.(...) - Well, not quite. I am sort of working remotely and trying to work on a few different things, but as many Canadians do, if you have the opportunity to do that from a warmer climate,(...) we take full advantage of that when we can. - 100%, yeah. A lot of my neighbors come from the great up north and enjoy our weather during this time here in Arizona.
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For those John, who don't know you, or haven't had the pleasure of working with you alongside, can you do a quick introduction, tell us about yourself, and then we'll lead into the award.(...) - Yeah, so I've had the privilege of leading Insight Canada for five and a half years.(...) Really, really proud of what the team has done. Very excited for Marine taking over and she'll see you can take it to a different level.(...) But me personally, I've been in this industry a very, very long time. I think it's 41 years. I'm excited to kind of move on to a new phase.(...) It was really an unbelievable honor to win this award as I was closing out my time with Insight.(...) And I do want to talk about that a little bit. I mean, first thing I do is I really want to do a shout out to Rachel Crumb. She was the one who came to me and said, you know what? We really appreciate what you've done. We want to nominate you for this. And I was taken aback by that. And then a whole bunch of women at Insight participated in putting together the nomination.
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And so, thank you to the team that did that.
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I do have to say, it feels odd to get an award for doing what we should all be doing. I recognize that they want to give attention to it and they want more people to participate,(...) but it was just an incredible honor. And then the evening was actually in New York City and there was over 30 women from Insight who participated in the conference. So all in all, it was really, really special.(...) A lot of people have asked me sort of when that journey began and it wasn't by design. And so I'll just share with you a little bit my personal story is almost 36 years ago, I became a single father. And so throughout many, many years, I was raising my daughter. And I learned so much about what was going on around things and it was good and bad that I learned, but I learned personally how to grow, but then realizing that there are some injustices that are out there and the differences between men and women even in those circumstances. And I think that's really where it began for me in terms of how do we improve on this? How do we do things better? How do we make things more inclusive? And quite frankly, a whole lot more equality
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in our overall society.(...) - Yeah, that's amazing, John. And again, I wanna echo that, that totally well deserved. I mean,(...) starting the allies in action group here at Insight, it's a, what would you call that? It was just a program that we have here internally where we read a book called "The Good Guys" and we meet every two weeks and just really take this time to be curious and learn and create a safe space for us to be vulnerable really, right? To say, "Hey, I've done these things," or "I'm not proud of some of the things that I've seen "and haven't spoke up about in the past," but the ultimate objective and goal is to learn and then start speaking up and start being a true ally in action, right? And taking action. And one of the things in the book that talked about a lot was that so many men and even just people in general who wanna be allies, they're allies in secret.
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Like they see the benefit, they see all this stuff, but they don't speak up because of the fear. There's so many factors.(...) So 100% well deserved, John. And again, so glad that Rachel reached out and made that call or nomination to bring that out. But we have a good topic to discuss. We have a lot of questions for those leaders who are listening and going, "Okay, I'm resonating with this," or, "This is important to me. "How can I start taking action?" - Yeah, so John, your recognition as ally of the year by CRN is a phenomenal testament to your leadership and your advocacy for gender equality.(...) Definitely excited to dive into some of your insights surrounding the essence of ally leadership,
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how to go about measuring the "unmeasurables," right? For somebody to be an ally and to cultivate a safe and supportive work environment. So let's sort of dive into that. What does it mean to be an ally leader? What does that mean to you? And how do you advocate for this?
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- So I wanna just preface that, Rich, by saying,
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I don't wake up feeling that I'm doing something special. I'm just a guy who's doing what he thinks is right and who's really privileged to work with great people. And so the motivation is all around me to do the right things. I think what's important about allyship is really, are you fostering an environment where people are proactively looking about how they can do things? And one of the things that's been great through the pandemic is we've gotten to see very clearly most of our meeting scenarios. And I use a lot of humor and do things, but I will literally call out when a meeting is not diverse or I'll thank somebody for attending and making it diverse. Right, because, and I think it's that kind of little steps that you do to sort of proactively recognize things, make sure it's important. Because at the end of the day,
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diversity is important for all corporations. Because if we're only coming up with the same old, same old ideas, because the same old, same old people doing things, you're not gonna grow and you're not gonna prosper. And so there's a part of this that's just doing what's right, but there's also a part of it that's doing what's right for the business. And that's bringing out the best of all of the people around us so that we have all the right ideas. That to me is why allyship is such an important foundational behavior. - Yeah, and that's definitely the first step, right, that we learn is that awareness is opening up our eyes a little bit or looking at it from a different point of view or different lens actually, and going, hey, I've never, and it's funny, once we really kind of take notice,
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I always make this analogy actually, you know when you buy a new car
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and you feel like you're the only one that has it, right? But then you start driving it and you're like, you notice it's everywhere now, you're like, whoa, how did I not know that this car was out there?(...) Like anything else. - You're spot on, awareness is the first step. And if we start to get people to think about it and be consciously aware of it, then it comes to the top. It's top of mind and it's what we do and it's the way we behave, for sure. - Yeah, 100%. So I think, I mean, when we talk about allyship is like, okay, take a moment, take inventory, take notice, how are the meetings run? Who's being heard?
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All these different things that we probably just, we're just so, and that's just kind of, what you get is so in the weeds in business and doing a day to day, that we forget a moment to take that strategic pause that we talk about or that moment and kind of take a step back and going, oh wow, I did not notice all these other things that are happening around me, right? So, yeah,(...) John, to follow up on that question, some folks are asking, maybe thinking like, okay, but doing the right thing and all that. So is there a difference between allyship and let's say mentorship or coaching,(...) or can they, are they kind of interwoven or are they the same? What are your thoughts when somebody's wanting the difference? - So there's definitely similarities
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in terms of what we do. I think the biggest difference between allyship and mentorship is really who initiates it. I mean, it's rare that a person would go up to somebody and say, hey, I'd like to mentor you. It's traditionally a conversation that starts with somebody saying, hey, I'm looking for growth in my career, would you consider mentoring me?(...) In this scenario, I think out of it as,
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what are you doing proactively, right? To create the right environment, to seek out
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people for advancement, things like that is in allyship. It's really a proactive, what am I doing? How do I make this different? How do I improve our over environment versus mentorship, which is kind of, people are coming to you. So some of the traits are certainly very, very similar, but I think that's a big difference. I look at one as being proactive and the other kind of being somewhat reactive. - That's a great call out. Yeah, definitely great. So ally of the year, that's an amazing accomplishment.(...) And I know you've touched on this in some of your responses just now, but how would you say you embody this role? What are some key characteristics of embodying this?(...) - Yeah, so, and this one, I would encourage people to think about in their world. One of the things that we did differently over the last, probably 18 months, is many people are aware that,
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general statements here, but if a woman has 90% of the capabilities of a role, she focuses on the 10% and doesn't put her hand up because she doesn't have all the skills that are needed. For guys traditionally, we have 40, 50% of what's being asked for, and we put our hands up all the time and say, I got this. And so I asked all of our leaders inside of Insight Canada to look for the people that are ready to be ready. And that means proactively go through and think, you know what, this is somebody that we should invest in time in because with the right coaching, they can do that next role. And the side effect that came out of this that I didn't realize is how vested those managers are when they put somebody's name forward. And so we proactively went out into the organization, and I'll use a role about this, a woman who's running our Cisco practice in Canada, and we literally said, we know you have the capabilities, you don't have the experience today, but we're gonna give you those experiences. And we created a role for her where she became a team lead and she's now a manager and she's growing and she's getting recognized for the work she's doing. And it was literally through this campaign of find the people that are ready to be ready.(...) - Yeah, and I know we're talking right now about allyship of women in the workplace, but this is like any group in the organization, right? That is underrepresented or doesn't have a big voice in the organization. So, and it's going back to when we were meeting as well in the book is that all the, everything we talked about is applicable to all types of scenarios where, when we see that, we see those opportunities. And I think the key word that you just said so far, John has been proactive.(...) A lot of times we just kind of wait for those teammates or individuals to practice for their honor and to reach out and all that. But sometimes that environment hasn't been created enough for them to feel comfortable to do so. Also adding to what you said about,(...) I don't have all the skillsets where I'm only like 80, 70% there, which is holding me, I don't feel comfortable. Where again, some, hey, 40% is good enough for me, I'm going for it, right?
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It's leveling the playing field and knowing, hey, you can do this and I see you and I want to mentor you, I want to help you along the way. And I love that. And there's another thing that we talk about, another layer besides mentorship is sponsorship,(...) right? And that's just that next layer where you, not only, again, going back to proactively, that you're proactively praising this person or bringing them up in conversation. Hey, this individual has been amazing, this is what they've done, that you proactively are actually going out of your way to put them in front of others, right? - The other element though that has to be mentioned is it has to be genuine.
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There's lots of pretenders out there, there's lots of people that are looking at things because it's trending now on social media and other things.(...) And so we want people that are genuinely interested in the right outcomes, right?(...) And so to me, if you're genuinely going after, you know, the people that are ready to be ready, you're proactively helping them, sponsoring them, doing different things, then it's coming from the right place. And as I said to people, what we need to do is do the right things and then shut up, right? It's not about doing the right things and then using that as a platform to show how you've done the right things.
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- Yeah, and again, going back to what we've been learning is that 100% that it's not to go and rescue, right? It's not to go and take credit yourself and all that. It's really just to go alongside, right? And not to take that role. And you totally nailed it. Yeah, I think a lot of times, and that goes back to what we were talking about in previous episodes about building trust and executive presence.
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Others can tell, right? That like, okay, I'm hearing you, but your intentions and your actions are actually countering what you're doing. It's about you. It's not about others, right? And people can sniff that out quickly, for sure. - Yeah, and that just kind of goes back to some of the right reasons for leadership, right? It kind of lends itself very nicely to that. John made a statement earlier, doing the right thing because it's the right thing to do, not only because of that, but that's amazing. It's the right thing to do, so you should do it. - You should do it, and it shouldn't be one of the, and that's, I get the ultimate goal. Eventually, we don't have to do these things. This is part of how we communicate and help each other out. I love it.(...) Next question we have for you, John, is, some leaders are thinking like, okay, I hear you. I mean, I think I clearly understand the benefit of doing this, right? As a leader, we have influence, and we can definitely make an impact. But what are some strategies or best practices on creating a safe and supportive environment(...) from your experience? What are some things that leaders can start doing to start creating that environment?
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- I think the number one thing, Zee, would be, you have to create an environment that encourages people to take calculated risks.
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What I talk about with the team quite often is, there's only two outcomes. You either win or you learn, and both of those are good things.
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What's interesting, and I know that you're a big believer in this,(...) a way to demonstrate that is exactly how we behave. And so for those of you that are familiar with the term, the AAR, the after action review, that's something that's been embraced at Insight through some of the training that we've done. And it's really taking a pause after a situation and really going back and saying, okay,
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did I, what would we have done differently? What did we learn from this? All of these types of things, and really reviewing it. And that to me demonstrates the actual action that we want. Like it's one thing to say, okay, we want this to be a comfortable environment, we want this. But it's when you demonstrate it through an AAR that truly does say, okay, what did we learn? How did we learn? How do we do this differently? All the different things that can do this, that really demonstrate to people that the environment you're talking about is real. And that's when I think when people are able to make mistakes, when they're able to learn, when they're able to kind of think through and talk with their peers about how to do it differently, you've demonstrated an environment that is safe and that encourages people to take some risks.(...) - Wow, yeah, that's amazing. Can you, is there an example that you can share with us of cultivating that sort of inclusive environment where it's led to very impactful results or just something that's top of mind that you can think of with the exclusivity?
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- What I would talk about is again, in using the technology that we use today, I will look for people in meetings that are quiet, or I'll look for people whose body language is saying, I don't agree with this. And I really probe with people to come out, okay,
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person A, you're quiet, what are you thinking about? Why does your body language tell me that you're not agreeing with this conversation? In creating an environment, to be honest, where they can say, okay, it's on me, I was multitasking, or you're right, I don't agree, right?(...) And so those are the kind of regular things that we wanted in our team meetings, so that it was just, it wasn't an occurrence, this is just the way that we run our meetings.(...) And so, no, I can't think of a specific, we did this and this was the exact outcome, but I think over the time, we've just created that environment where people are very, very comfortable saying, hey,(...) I gotta stop this conversation, this isn't flowing the right way, or I wanna call BS on that point or whatever, it doesn't matter to whom, right? We're all peers in this meeting, we're all trying to get what that outcome is. And so, yes, there's a hierarchy, but for the purpose of that meeting, the goal is the outcome that we're trying to have. And so to do that, we are peers trying to solve whatever that is. - Yeah, and I think that's a great example, John, and I think that when we think about it, just whenever,(...) one example that I've seen is we have various events here at Insight, right? Where we bring in practitioners, sales reps, and so forth throughout the year.(...) We had an event, this is a couple years ago,(...) we had an event and one of the events, it was a breakout where everybody will put in, I guess, signed up for a title or a topic that they wanted to present on or whatever.
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And most of those topics were really male-centric topics, right, very common male topics. And I was tapped on the shoulder to say, hey, I would love for you to do one of those sessions and talk about allies in action. So I'm like, I'd love to. So I went there, I took some of the books,
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and during a session, there was a comment from one of the participants, a women participants, and she brought up and saying, hey, can I be honest? Like, this is the only topic that resonated with me because all the other topics I could not relate to, right? And I feel like next time when they have these conversations
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that we include more voices to capture that, and I took note of it immediately, right? And took it up the chain and figure out who was the decision-makers, and that was brought up in the After Action Review. What have we learned from this event? And that was one of the things. And now, the next year, this past year, there was more different diverse topics, right, where we can come together and all that. So I think one thing is that, pay attention, like listen. And then when you hear these concerns or you hear these types of suggestions, not just listening, but going, it's a great topic. Let me go ahead and put this in front of the right audience to make that decision next time. So that's a big part of being an ally, right, is your influence and what you have. I have the ability and power to find those connections and those decision-makers. Let's go ahead and make this happen for next time so we can have, make the, and now, guess what? I imagine that team now moving forward is gonna open up more, feel more comfortable speaking up because they've been hurt.
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But it's also a great opportunity to challenge that individual to exercise some of their leadership capabilities to help lead that discussion. They've got passion, which is half the battle, right?(...) And so if they've got passion around a topic, and what can we do to help you to be part of or to actually lead the full conversation because we need that passion to guide us through. - There you go, I love that. That's that next layer is actually encouraging them to exercise their voice and have them be a part of it. And that's a great call out as well. I have had several examples of that too, encouraging and opening the doors or the pathway for them to do that. - Yeah, definitely a great example. And not to mention the one you gave, I know it wasn't a specific situation, but that scenario illustrated it greatly, you know, being inclusive.
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One question I do have is how do you go about measuring
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or, you know, developing some sort of KPIs for the success of being inclusive and creating that environment?(...) - It is hard because it's not a black and white thing, right? Like we're used to measuring in dollars and cents or things that are really easy to count.
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What I do, and I do this with my calendar and I'll use it as an example, but I think it's important to almost color code your org chart.
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And so here's what I do with my calendars is I have about seven or eight categories, including personal, including, you know, clients and partners and teammates and financial and all these sorts of things. I color code them differently so that I can quickly look at something and say, is this balanced?
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I did the same thing when we merged with PCM and I built out the organization for what Canada would look like, is I literally color coded the people to make sure that we had balance(...) between PCM and insight because that was what the future looked like. And I think it's the same thing today. If you start to look at your org charts and say, okay, you know, find a way that visually, you know, hits you with a bat that says, this isn't right, right?
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Again, when I go back to my example of the meetings, it's so clear now when you're doing a virtual meeting, it should be just as clear when you look at your org charts and say, okay, is the life I have, is the team I'm building balanced? And so that I'm encouraging to get diversity of thought and diversity of ideas so that we can be an extra special team. What you don't wanna do is build a leadership of people that look and sound and feel just like yourself.
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- No, I think that's a great first indicator, right? Kind of, yeah, take inventory, look at your org charts. Couple other things that, you know, you can do, maybe just finding trends or finding commonalities. I mean, surveys are always good, kind of going back to those events, right? After action review, let's collect some surveys. That opens a door for other voices to be heard and it could be anonymous, right? To say, hey, you know, I noticed this, right? Did it not feel included or this is what I observed. So now you have this and you can find those trends.
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You know, TPS surveys come out as well, kind of finding those trends, reading the comments. I'll tell you one thing that,(...) you know, when you're talking about leadership,
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is one thing that, you know, when Ken was here and now continuing with Joyce, is that our leadership really does look at the comments. They don't, you know, quickly, they really dive into them. They try to understand and then they move forward to what's an action plan afterwards, right?
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- Because the comments are real. I mean, the problem with surveys is we're all surveyed to death, right? - Yes. - And to be honest, the motivation of the person doing the survey isn't always admirable, right? It's, you know, I mean, you know, you walk into a store and they're saying, please, you know, respond to this and give us a nine or a 10, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And clearly that person's got personal benefit that can be achieved from that. That comment section is where you can really explore how people are feeling as opposed to just that numerical assignment. - Oh yeah, 100%. Yeah, because that number only tells you so much, right? Now you're diving deeper into it.(...) And then just finding the patterns and the trends, right? That's one of the things about those as well. There could be maybe, you know, one off or one instance. Still not ignore it, but those ones that are repetitive is like, okay, this is like legitimate. There's several, right? What is going on here? Let's dive into this even more.
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But again, things like that are huge.
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Another way to measure it too is just like, you know, for me, and I don't even say measure it, but one of the things that, you know, when even this topic of allyship is, you know, getting to a point where we're comfortable saying, like speaking up, right? And saying, you know what, that isn't right. Ouch, you know, that comment, that comment hurt. I don't think you meant it that way. It is, you know, one of our values, hunger, heart and harmony.
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Harmony, and I think John, something we've had a discussion about, I think harmony gets misunderstood as saying that we all get along and there's no disagreement, no arguments, all that. But harmony is not really that. Harmony is like, hey, you know what, that was not right. Like, I want to talk about it. Let's figure out, let's write in the root cause. Let's have a discussion. Let's have a little debate. But at the end, we're better off for it instead of ignoring it or artificially saying, okay, I think we're good, but we're not. And that is not what truly what that means. And I think allyship is about that is, hey, when I see something, I want to speak up and we're going to have a discussion about it in a healthy way where it's respectful and we're moving forward. So John, right? Your thoughts on that, I know you're passionate about that. - Yeah, you mentioned Ken and,(...) you know, it was with Ken that we first started publishing our leadership philosophy. - Yeah. - And the two that stood out for me from Ken's was we encourage messy meetings. So what that says is, you know,
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we don't want rooms full of yes people. What we want are people that are going to challenge ideas that are going to do all kinds of, you know, have that healthy debate and really have an environment where it's okay to disagree and kind of flush it out and figure out what's best. But then his second point was no meetings after the meeting. Right? So what we don't want to do is create an environment where people say, you know, whatever in a meeting, yes, yes, yes, this is right, I agree. And then you've got all these sort of sub meetings going on where people are disagreeing with it. And so, you know, that's part of that whole creating a safe atmosphere, right? You truly feel that you're participating in something that's doing it for the right things and with the same mutual goals in mind.(...) - Yep, 100%. Very well said. - And I think that's like the biggest thing, why is that it's having the courage, but also knowing that, hey, we all have the same goal in mind and that is creating an inclusive environment where people feel that they have a voice and they feel valued, right? So, absolutely.(...) - So we'd like to thank everybody for joining us today in the episode for Ally Leadership Connection, nurturing both safety and inclusivity. Also, if you enjoyed this episode, please give us a thumbs up, like, comment, Z, any final thoughts? - No, well, first of all, John, thanks again for joining us. I know, again, you know, again, I know that this new venture of yours, you're gonna do amazing. You're such a inspirational leader, not only to several teammates, but also myself. Again, highly respected, I look up to you.
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I know that you're moving on to bigger, better things and projects for yourself, but I know we're not gonna be strangers. We'll always have that connection, especially the fuchsia connection. I'm gonna have to take that mantle. I mean, nobody else is stepping up and you know what, fuchsia looks good on me, so I'm gonna move forward with that. My fuchsia does run pretty deep.
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(laughing) I guess if you allow me, I just, yeah, I wanna say that one of the things that makes Insight such an incredibly special place is our culture.
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And the reason I wanna call that out is because it comes from all of us. It comes from the individuals. It comes from conversations like this about how we apply them and how we do them. It's not corporate BS, you know, that's up on a poster. And so one of the ways that through the pandemic and ever since when I've sort of closed off communication with the team, whether it's verbal or in, you know, emails and things like that is I always end with, I ask people to be well. I ask them to be safe and to always be Insight because being Insight is very special.(...) - That's great. - Wow. - Yeah. - Way to close off. And again, just a quick word. Thank you, John. Well, way to close it out. And just to remind everybody, you know, the purpose of this podcast, you know, is to let others outside of the organization know who we are as an organization and how we see leadership and how we can grow and develop and exactly to what John said, our biggest asset, our biggest differentiator, besides all the amazing things that we do is our culture and our people. And that is again, what our leaders, you know, have that responsibility to hold tight.
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So again, thank you very much. - Yes. - My pleasure and I'll just offer it up to folks if anybody wants to have a conversation about this one-on-one, one on a few,(...) I would be privileged to participate in that conversation. - Appreciate that. - Great. - Awesome. - Thank you. - Well, again, thank you so much for this time. And again, we'll see you for next episode and we have more amazing thought leadership coming your way. Thank you so much. Until next time.(...) (upbeat music)