How do we retain diverse talent?

- [Speaker] So if you're authentic in the pipeline if you're really, really wanting it, you're going to make mistakes. We all make mistakes. It's got to be compassionate company. You've got to recognize that we're going to learn together. Terminology and what's appropriate in Singapore is different than China is different than Russia. I mean you got to understand the world is a big, amazing beautiful thing but it's evolving. And so to retain talent is to have that always learning mindset. What can I do to be better? It's a journey not a destination, we'll never nail it.

But if you know it's a journey then I'm going to be listening to you, when I have a hotspot, when something's wrong I will fix it. I will work with you to fix it, I'll make it more human, more graceful, more respectful. I will train managers. I will put breaking bias and learning bytes and making an offer or looking at promotions or doing calibrations. We will evolve stronger by your feedback, trusting that I will take it, listen and act in good faith. And when you do that people trust.

And when you trust and you belong you're going to stay. I think on the retention side of diversity also and creating this community is teaching each other how to belong. It's through taking courage and having my story be told. It's reaching out and saying this is what it was like for me to join this team. What worked, what didn't work. And so others leap off your shoulders so to speak and you shorten the aha and the joy and then you learn your toolkit if you will, so when I transfer from marketing to finance or finance to sales, wherever my journey takes me, I have the strength of conviction, I can belong where I need to.

I know how to give belonging moments, I know how to build my community. And I will have faith that this will be welcomed and so the more you share those cycles and those stories I think you build up the resistance and the trust because if you've not had it then your glass is half empty, you're waiting to be proven that you don't belong. If you've had belonging opportunities, if you've had that vibe, you know what you're seeking and you know it can happen. And so knowing that human, knowing that employee, is your glass half empty? Is it half full? Cause if it's half empty I'll give you more reasons to believe.

And give you that belonging sense, I'll take that path with you and if you're glass is half full and you've been there, done that, let's shorten that aha with you, tell me what it takes. You know what it means for you. Cause it's individualized, it's not cookie cutter. And so I always wonder, half empty, half full glass. I love building teams, I love leading teams. I geek out on it. And even before I started thinking about belonging I would see these individuals I would recruit and court and either became their manager and I adopted them.

Right? They became part of my team and you would find some employees that I would call bruised. They weren't trusting, I had to earn their trust. I get it. And there are others that had an amazing manager before or once before I look familiar, I acted similarly, something, and they were so excited. And they're like "Okay I can see potential and "opportunity and we can do it this way." And they felt more free to speak up. And the ones that half empty glass, the bruised ones, they'd sit back, they'd wait, they wouldn't verbalize, they wouldn't add their two cents off.

And so you nurture them. And you ask them for their stories over time and you take them on walks, I do a lot of walking one on ones. It's easier to talk shoulder to shoulder than it is eye to eye sometimes, when you feel insecure. And in those bruised stories when the glass is half empty, you recognized that they took risks and were shut down or they took risks and they were blamed for a mistake. And we don't operate in a vacuum, none of us do, that are listening and doing this in our day to day jobs, we operate in an ecosystem with a lot of people helping us be great everyday.

And so how do you share in that joy and that learning and not take the world on your shoulders? And so how do you impact someone's bruise? How do you teach them that the glass really is half full, that I will slow down and listen and then pull that out and show them what it means to trust and the gifts you get when that happens, and then they'll never accept anything less after that. And that's when I think it's amazing.