Dermot O’Brien – Building DEI Into a Company Framework

Connect with Dermot:

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Connect with Dwight:

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• dwight.brown@salary.com

Connect with David:

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• david.turetsky@salary.com

 

Podcast Manager, Karissa Harris:

• HRDataLabs@salary.com

 

Production by Affogato Media

Resources:

• SemperVirens
• HR Data Labs Season 4 Episode 22
• HR Data Labs Season 4 Episode 20

• “[Within an] HR talent acquisition team, whether it's sourcing internal people or sourcing external people, I have found that there's a lot of bias. A lot of the problems are actually in the talent acquisition area. . . . And so nobody wants to admit it at first, but then when you really get in there, you realize, ‘Nah, [talent acquisition] is not as strong as it needs to be.’”
• “One of the greatest, fastest strategies for DEI that I've ever put in place is take diverse people and put them in seats of power.Just do it, and then guess what happens? You put an African American female in, like the top executive level, guess what happens? More African Americans are showing up on her team.”

Announcer: 0:02
Here's an experiment for you. Take passionate experts in human resource technology. Invite cross industry experts from inside and outside HR. Mix in what's happening in people analytics today. Give them the technology to connect, hit record for their discussions into a beaker. Mix thoroughly. And voila, you get the HR Data Labs podcast, where we explore the impact of data and analytics to your business. We may get passionate and even irreverent, that count on each episode challenging and enhancing your understanding of the way people data can be used to solve real world problems. Now, here's your host, David Turetsky.

 

David Turetsky: 0:46

Hello, and welcome to the HR Data Labs podcast. I'm your host, David Turetsky. Like always, we're joined by our friend and colleague, Dwight Brown from Salary.com. Hey, Dwight, how are you?

 

Dwight Brown: 0:55

Hey, David, I'm good. How you doing?

 

David Turetsky: 0:57

I'm okay. I'm okay. But I'm phenomenal today. Because as we say, we like to find the best and the brightest inside and outside the world of HR to bring you what's happening in HR data analytics and technology. We have my dear friend long term dear friend, Dermot O'Brien, who needs no introduction, but we're gonna give him one anyways. Dermot hello, how are you?

 

Dermot O'Brien: 1:20

Great, David, how are you doing? Good See, Dwight as well.

 

Dwight Brown: 1:24

Good to see you. Thanks for being here with us today.

 

Dermot O'Brien: 1:26

Happy to be.

 

David Turetsky: 1:28

So for those of you who do not know Dermot. I don't know what rock you've been hiding under. But Dermot is a rock star in the HR world. He has so many years of experience. It's the reason why we have gray hairs. And some of us don't have many hairs at all anymore. But Dermot is one of those people who has lived the global HR life working around the world. Dermot, why don't you give a little bit of your background. Beyond that. Beyond the bland one.

 

Dermot O'Brien: 1:53

Sure. And just for people listening, David and I have known each other several decades. And it's been great worked in different organizations together. And it was so nice in the last one to to reconnect a great guy a great character, and totally committed really over your career, David to this to the space that is HR, my accent is mainly gone now. But I grew up in Dublin, Ireland. And I moved to the states and university financial services 25 years in HR. I was in Hong Kong, I was in Japan living about five years in total, came back to the states and really have lived here ever since. I've been fortunate that I've been in multiple CHRO roles at TIA for nine years, two different CEOs at ADP where I was head of HR, but then we had a big activist investor, maybe we get to talk about that a little bit later. And a new role was created a Chief Transformation Officer role, which I took over reporting to the CEO to really help the company deliver on some big promises it made in response to beating this big activist investor in terms of the proxy battle, etc. So really HR, I tripped into it, I've schooled in finance, but I tripped into HR loved it. And then I retired from ADP about a year ago.

 

David Turetsky: 3:06

And since then you've been doing a lot of work as an advisor, right? helping organizations grow and understand how to really be able to execute.

 

Dermot O'Brien: 3:14

Yeah, I you know, I really wanted to take 18 months at least off I was calling at a timeout isn't really retirement, you know, because we don't know, nobody knows about anything till they really kind of try it. So I wanted to give myself an escape hatch, just in case. And but even during that time, prior to leaving ADP, I was approached by SemperVirens, it's a VC startup for, for HR kind of organizations. And I did a while at ADP thought it'd be good for ADP to get an insight into the early tech, you know, into this space. And then I stayed on and then I became an advisor also then so I'm on an Executive Advisory Board with them. And then I joined a bunch of their investment companies to advise so it's all in the PC space very new for me, I love new things. And I like to learn and I like to contribute. So, you know, they're trying to understand how their products and apps and, and platforms work in the HR space, and they're trying to learn how to scale and I think that's what I can help, you know, bring to the table for them.

 

David Turetsky: 4:08

Absolutely. And again, you have the global perspective, which is incredibly unique. Not only have you dealt with HR technology and HR people issues, but you've also seen it in lots of different cultures in lots of different industries. And people can learn a lot from listening to Dermot not only talk but also what he is working on. I think if you can follow him on LinkedIn please do because he's a brilliant and that's a thank you for what you had said before about me. But one fun thing you may not know about Dermot O'Brien is?

 

Dermot O'Brien: 4:40

you don't know if it's a fun thing because a lot of people don't know him I'm very open I play music you know, you know guitar piano sing a little no surprise for an Irishman. But one thing you may not know is to my mother's side, the eldest boy they've all passed on, there's four of them, there's one remaining the baby of the family is alive but the four passed on, but the eldest one was a priest, and he went to Miami when he was 18, father Brian Walsh, and he went on to really lead the largest Western child diaspora, you know, in the history of the world. And basically, it was 14,000 Cuban children were taken out of Cuba around the time when the Castro's took over. The parents were so concerned about these children. And so it's an incredible organization. It's ultimately became known as Project Peter Pan, Pedro Pan. It's pretty neat. It's something labial don't know. So I actually have a very nice connection, you know, into the sort of into Cuba and the Cuban story, man stay in touch a lot of people, you know, down in Miami, when he passed away. They had motorcycle cops on all the exits on highway 95 for this Irish preacher. And it was so amazing to see his impact on the world and particularly for these very vulnerable children that he had placed all around the country with the intentions which most were reunited with their with their families years later.

 

David Turetsky: 6:02

That's wonderful, that is really great and super incredible. Well, I can't beat that from a thing that we've learned about someone. I can't think of anyone that actually held a candle that one, Dwight?

 

Dermot O'Brien: 6:13

Hey, it's not me. I'm just in the sunlight of my uncle, Monsignor Brian Walsh. He was an amazing man.

 

David Turetsky: 6:20

And it looks good on you. It could be because of you know, Dermot, you know, he's a good soul as well. So he's got good roots.

 

Dermot O'Brien: 6:29

Thanks, David.

 

David Turetsky: 6:30

So the topic for today that we're going to touch on also is a really good topic, talking about how we do good things inside of organizations, when it comes to building DE&I into a corporate framework, and being able to really utilize DE&I as a corporate strategy. And so that's what we're gonna talk about today. We're really excited to get started. So, Dermot, our first question is, why is it actually important to have a diverse team? And actually a good diverse talent pool? Why is that so important? And why is it important to you?

 

Dermot O'Brien: 7:16

Yeah, I think I think we've all anyone who is listening has probably understands now that it is it is super important. And again, it'd be on societal issues of fairness and equity. And those have become even more obvious to people, I think, especially over the last few years, but it's, you know, we've all seen it, the research has been done with different people around a problem or an issue, you get better outcomes. And so, you know, I think of DEI not even call it a corporate, you know, effort, but it's really a business strategy. And you, I think a lot of people get it, then there's some people who really get and I feel like I'm in the group that really gets it because I've seen time and time again, how this better performance, better results that you get, the more diverse, you know, the people around the problem are. If you have a lot of the same people, it's pretty obvious when you do it the other way, when there's a lot of the same people trying to solve a hard challenge you can you see it time and time again, you don't get too far.

 

David Turetsky: 8:17

We've talked a lot to companies about from the DE&I perspective, is that it has to start from the top. That leadership really needs to buy into, as you say, this being part of business strategy, not just being an effort that gets kicked off by HR, but you know, might have some support, it really needs to be part of an overall business strategy.

 

Dermot O'Brien: 8:40

Yeah, totally agree. And because at the end of the day, the people who have the levers, you know, that's what it is. It's not, oh, you know, they don't buy in, but they have the levers of power to move and prioritize and, you know, kind of point to scarce, you know, resources and deploy them. That's why that is so important. It's not just, you know, about, you know, why the senior people, it's why the senior people because they have the leverage to control it. It's interesting, you asked me, you know, what it means to me, and people listening might go, Hey, this is a guy who's 56 He's, you know, white guy, you know, why is he so passionate? I have been my whole career, you know, around around diversity around inclusion, you know, in particular, and, and a lot of it started actually, before my whole awareness grew on the performance side of things, in terms of better solutions. Really was was was really more of a cultural issue. I remember going to see Man United my struggling, you know, pro football team. My dad, my dad took me over to Old Trafford, my brother came he's a Liverpool fan still is but we went there and then we look just like the young English you know, kids back then and and but once we opened our mouths and they heard the accents, it was amazing the difference and it wasn't a good difference. And that's just the way things were and and I learned early on what being treated like a second class citizen feels like. You don't actually, you don't actually take on that feeling you actually know people are trying to make you feel that way, you still feel very proud and happy to be who you are, where you come from. But you know that someone is looking at you and and judging you as as as if you're lesser. And it's just the way it was. So I was very young, when I kind of had that feeling. And, and I think that stayed with me through my HR career. And that's why again, I always say, even someone with my background can actually say, yeah, actually know what that feels like. And it's funny how the world then, you know, as time goes by, and I've lived around the world, I've had my wife here in the States, but she's from the Philippines. She was 10 when she came here, I was 18. You know, so again, I think it's probably just fairly typical for how I evolved over time, you know, my young, my daughter is now 28, when she was in eighth grade, or something, she you know, and she was my daughter's the way I looked at her. And she came home one day and said, Dad, you know, we've got five children, you know, five kids of color in my class. And I'm like, really? And she goes, Yeah, me, you know, and then she went on to list the others. And I never thought of her that way. But it's been good for me also, not just my work, but my family, you know, in terms of being around these issues.

 

David Turetsky: 11:17

Absolutely. And I think there's always been a case, whether it's bullying, or whether it's participation in sports, there's always been cases where as young young people, not even as young adults, but as young people we're treated different or separated out. And those people who take on that feeling and then utilize that as a as a method for trying to understand how other people live and standing in their shoes, then they understand what it feels like, and hopefully, turn that into something positive. And I congratulate you for doing that. And because you actually have the pulpit, of being able to speak on this topic with authority, hopefully people listen, especially again, given your position of leadership, so that they understand, they really do need to step inside those other people's shoes to understand what the impact of not doing these things, not building into business strategy means to being able to actually effectively lead a company and actually designed better business strategy, right?

 

Dermot O'Brien: 12:22

Really well said.

 

Announcer: 12:23

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David Turetsky: 12:36

The next question really is around how do we do this? And what strategies can be employed to actually making meaningful change?

 

Dermot O'Brien: 12:46

Yeah, well, look, getting back to your point about ownership at the top, I think this is where CHRO, you know, really needs to be hands in. And I can give you the example when I started at ADP. And we were really making this a focus. And ADP for many years worked in a very vertical, P&L line and a big part of what I was trying to help with Carlos Rodriguez, the CEO is really to continue to have that strength, but actually make it more horizontal. And so a lot of the ways you do that is really around people, and culture and engagement. And so what I ended up doing was was the ADP, senior leadership team, on the HR side had a process every month where they would look at 60,000 people, they look at the top 600 leaders, because again, they're the people with the power to make decisions to make changes around the people make up. So we would sit down at these monthly meetings. And, you know, again, they would have these monthly meetings, but then not be happy maybe with you know, who's in what role, et cetera. And so what what I ended up doing, start saying, like, let's get very data driven around these conversations, we know we're really trying to change and the top 600, want more women in global leadership roles, we wanted more diversity in the US roles in particularly African American, we had pretty good, you know, sort of Hispanic representation, at ADP in leadership. But you know, there were certain areas where we really wanted to focus on and just to be more representative, and again, with the intention to get the business results, you know, we believed would come from from doing that very intentionally. So, so we started looking at jobs, and we might say, Okay, we have this, we have this, you know, executive leadership role over here. And then we really started looking at, okay, who's the leader for that? So what's, what's their background? Right? How many positions at this level have they filled in the last two years? What is their background? Who are the candidates for the current job? What are their backgrounds? And it doesn't take long to start to realize that Johnny's hiring a lot like himself, right, for example, and so we would be able to then have really great information that basically says, you know, if we had to which we did stop the presses. You know, you've had these opportunities, four opportunities. You're a white male leader, you've had these up four opportunity over the last two years, you've hired white male leaders, you got a great opportunity now and look at your candidate slate, they're white male leaders. Now I've probably oversimplified this a little bit. But it was it was just the rigor of getting in like that, and then actually having the, I don't think you need much but the guts to stop the process and probably piss off a hiring leader. Because you know, you're you're saying no, we can't proceed. It's not a healthy pipeline. Now, that's one part of it. The other part of it is the HR Talent Acquisition team, whether it's sourcing internal people, sourcing external people, I have found that it's not that there's a lot of bias people out there. I think a lot my deep hands in research and looking at problems in multiple companies, is a lot of the problems actually, in the talent acquisition area. It's just the sourcing of the quality talent that's diverse that you need. And so nobody wants to admit it at first. And everyone's like saying, hey, no, we do you know, but then when you really get in there, you realize now, it's not as strong as it needs to be.

 

Dwight Brown: 16:06

Do you typically find that that comes from a lack of knowledge of how to even start to source these things? Or what do you think on that?

 

Dermot O'Brien: 16:16

Yeah, because I think we're all creatures of habit. And we've all learned what we've learned. And so, you know, you start to say, Okay, well, let me look at the diversity of my talent acquisition team. You know, when I went out, we had a built ADP had built a six or seven person executive recruiting team, there wasn't one person of color on it. How would they, you know, unless they kind of broke out of their, you know, traditional ways? How would they know where to go? Right? So So, so part of this is, HR has to put a big mirror up to itself, make sure that it is leading by example. And that's in everything that HR does has to be, you know, has to be diverse. And, and one of the things for example, I've met a lot of chief diversity officers over the years. And one thing that I sometimes find lacking is that if you really want to, like a chief inclusion officer, look at their, usually the teams are small, like even when, you know, when we brought people into the role at ADP, we'd say, hey, you've got 60,000, you've got a team of 60,000 strong, because that's your job is to leverage everybody. But a lot of them for example, you know, they would be very much focused on maybe, maybe they're an African American female, and they're very focused on African Americans. Well, that's not inclusion. So my challenge, which sometimes I think annoyed some people was No, no, you need to mean something to everyone. That's what inclusion means, we may double down and have a need to have greater African American females in our executive roles. But you gotta mean something to everyone. And so I have found even in that seat, there's a lot of advocacy going on, but sometimes for small part of the population. And by the way, what that does, is a lot of people are watching, and it turns them off, and it's not helping the cause. So I know, for people who will probably listen to this, they may get a little annoyed at what I'm stating, but everything you do, you will need people. So for example, what's the diversity of the diversity team? Right? Is there a white male over 40, maybe who's gay, you know, or is it all women? And so you have to challenge yourself and you have to be open to be challenged, to make sure that everywhere in HR, you've got the backgrounds, the experience that can come together, to put together better solutions to kind of get better results at the end of the day.

 

David Turetsky: 18:41

Dermot. Um, I'm remembering when I worked at ADP, there was so many people who were basically sourced out of local areas. So obviously, there's Roseline, New Jersey suburb of New York City. There's Alpharetta, which is a suburb of Atlanta. Even Augusta had a extremely large population. And you know, there are those and you know, obviously, there's California there's Colorado, there's lots of different places where ADP has has people, Arizona, even Florida now. So it seems like that organization did a good job, at least putting themselves in centers where they could find diverse talent, because they're, they're basically going all over the US and the areas where they are, whether it's Alpharetta, whether it's Augusta, whether it's Florida, there are places where they can find diverse talent, because the population who lives there are, by their very nature, very diverse, culturally, you know, very disparate and wonderful with lots of different types of people that you can find. And as you're saying, it's not just about ethnicity. It's not just about race, it's also about background or it's about in some people about age, it's also about LGBTQ plus status. So you know that organization did a good job from a location perspective? And I think one of the other things I wanted to ask you about this is, is that looking at non traditional sources of hiring, you know, we always talk about, you know, you go after the Ivy League for the elite people when it comes to the financial services world. And we've seen the rise of historically black colleges, universities, when it comes to trying to find really good people, especially in those areas in those states, where you may not have been able to find diverse talent in the past. So have you seen a rise in kind of those sources and those educational centers, where we've been able to find really good people?

 

Dermot O'Brien: 20:37

For sure. And again, like anything, you need to nurture those relationships, part of that nurturing another way of saying is to build trust, right over time, and deliver on the promises that you make? So yes, I think there's, there's a lot being done. But again, I see posts, you know, I'm retired now. So I see posts on LinkedIn, and people are now some very prominent CHRO 's talking about the pledges that were made, you know, one two years ago, and people not delivering on them. And it's very frustrating when, you know, just because, again, I'm an operator, a hands on sort of person, that, you know, you can make a difference. So, you know, during my five, six years as the as the as the head of HR there at ADP, you know, before moving into the transformation role, it was over 50% increase in the Executive Women representation, it was over 40% African Americans in the US, so that's global women, you know, US for African Americans. And, you know, those are big percentages. And by there, they've they've increased even obviously, Sreeni Kutam's running HR, they're doing an amazing job with the team. And it's increased even more. So the they are, they are making in tremendous steps. Some of them by the way, it was in the rigor of the process I just told you to stay on that week in week out, and then something I always say to people is, you know, that we all go to training, you know, the unconscious bias. And, you know, for me, the one area where I think a lot of people don't take advantage of so you can have all these programs. And they're important, by the way, you need to have a lot of things around a system, especially a cultural system of inclusion, you know, to make sure it happens, you know, to some degree of, of progress. But the other thing is, it's like a, you know, sort of judo move is to me is weird to say instead of fighting the bias, embrace it. So one of the things I've learned is that, the reality is, we're all biased, because we all have our limited upbringing. This is the world whatever it is, wherever it is, whoever you are, we're all limited by definition, and that is bias. And then there's biases in that, like, we've I mentioned, my 17 year old cockapoo here and the preamble before we got on. And, you know, her hearing isn't good anymore. But for years, she'd hear something and she put her paw up, you know, like, she's pointing towards the bird. I'm not a hunter. I never took her hunting, but she had been, it's ingrained in her DNA. It's just centuries of, you know, kind of ingrained behavior passed down then to her right? So the same thing with us so so instead of fighting it, because think about the old cave, man, cave women days, anyone looks different than you. They're probably from another tribe. And they're dangerous, and they're going to kill you. So that is a core thing that I think we really need to talk about more, and then embrace it. So for example, one of the greatest fastest strategies for DEI that I've ever put in place did a TIA did ADP is take diverse people and put them in seats of power. Just do it. And then guess what happens? You put a senior you know which we did it ADP put a senior African American female in an executive leadership, like the top executive level, guess what happens? More African Americans are showing up on her team, right? It's just she's she had the relationships she had the network, she had that she made the commitment, right to build out her team. And so therefore, then now they get, we get to see them in action a bit more than we did before. And now we can take them and put them over here into this business unit. So, you know, put diverse people in these higher big senior positions. And I say this really nice play to the bias. Because the bias is there, rather than sort of fight it and either pretend it doesn't exist, and it's soft. And of course, nobody wants to be, you know, viewed a certain way, but we are who we are, and the more we can be honest with ourselves. That's inclusion, to me.

 

Dwight Brown: 24:35

A lot of awareness that goes into that.

 

David Turetsky: 24:37

Yeah. But but one of the things I was gonna say about that Dwight, in terms of awareness is measurement, right? If you measure the progress you're making, and as you said before, Dermot a lot of CHRO's pledged a lot of things, but they didn't exactly follow up on those pledges with the measurement and the external awareness. They didn't put it in there for 10 Ks. They didn't talk about an extra Generally, now with regulation SK as well as other regulations coming from the SEC, we might actually see that much more. So now where all of these things are now going to turn outwardly facing. So your customers will understand your makeup, they'll understand the progress you're making, or the lack thereof.

 

Dermot O'Brien: 25:18

Yeah, I love it. I, I'm a huge, I always have been David, since you and I first met, I love defining success, because a lot of times, people actually don't do a good job of defining success, whatever the whatever they're trying to solve for, in this case, define success, measure it, and then just be honest, which is helpful, either failing, you know, we're neutral, or we're making great progress. It's very straightforward. We, you know, at ADP, I can't say we anymore, but they, I'm still saying we, they, we built it into the executive team plan. So you know, the CEO and his team, you know, we built in, you know, a certain portion of their incentive. And it wasn't that Oh, money was the reason they're doing it, it was to keep it front and center, and reward the right behavior and the right actions and results that we wanted. And so, you know, if we did, if we did great people got rewarded for it, and it kind of encouraged that, you know, right behavior. And if we didn't, then you get dinged for it. And again, some of those things, I always say, you have to put in, when you're doing a big change, or you're trying to align an organization and you want it to go somewhere different. It's like digging a river and changing it's current, culture is like that, it's like that. So if you if you've got a culture current, and now you want it to go in a different way or direction, you need to get the diggers out, redirect the river, put this what I call full scaffolding in place for a while until you've rerouted the river. And then ultimately, you can take that stuff away, because it flows on its own. So for example, at ADP, this was sort of rerouting, let's call it the cultural diversity river with a few pieces of infrastructure put in place to help it, the idea isn't that it will still be there in 10 years, because hopefully, that river is flowing nicely getting the results they want. And they can reposition the need for incentives for other things that need rerouting, if that makes sense.

 

David Turetsky: 27:15

It does. You're overcoming decades of infrastructure, and policy and practice. So you need it to overcome it. So it had to happen.

 

Dermot O'Brien: 27:26

And again, just measurement measurement measurement. And then the beauty of measurement is because you know, it's not like there's never been effort. There's a lot of effort that's going on right now, there's a lot of effort five years ago, but the results weren't there. So part of this is when you have such a microscope that you can put on a process and you say, Okay, let's try this, let's try this. And the results change, and it was No, stop it, you know, because you can't just keep piling on, you got to know that the actions you're taking are having are moving the needle, and if they're not change them out quickly, because you know, then you just overwhelm the place with too much process too much training etc.

 

David Turetsky: 28:09

So, let's go to our third question, because I think this one actually takes a different lens on everything, which is, in the past DE&I used to be thought of as something that had to do with compliance. And there were immediate reactions to that. How does an organization and how do you suggest an organization overcome those kind of thoughts around this being just something we have to do because it's compliance? How do we how do we change that theory to being you know, in practice something different?

 

Dermot O'Brien: 28:43

Yeah, it's a really big question. And, you know, to me, I sort of mentioned a little bit earlier, which is, you have to mean something for everyone. And I think that's really important to respond to that. Because I think a lot of people diversity, oh, that's not for me, that's meant for this group of people. And I've been, I've got to do my hour a year in my diversity training. And, and I felt very much like you said, compliance, administrative, not adding value, and really just a waste of productivity, and probably a drain on the energy, the positive energy that you want to actually put towards the effort. So I think you need to really engage, let's say it was ADP 60,000 people, what do they want to see from inclusion, like everybody, and then start really working on those things. So that again, like I said, the 40 plus year old white male, can see himself in the diversity and inclusion strategy as opposed to this is not for me. This is targeted towards women. This is targeted towards, you know, other racial groups, whatever it might be, and I think you need to do that, and really work on that and constantly be open to, you know, everyone's got different views on it. So a lot of it is really around engagement and conversation as well, to move it along. But to me, that's the biggest step is make what you're doing resonate and be meaningful to really everybody in your organization.

 

David Turetsky: 30:20

I think one of the examples that that former company you keep bringing up did very well was having BRGs. Because what BRGs did was it said, we're going to have a lot of groups of people to support. And there'll be supports of lots of different things, whether you're a veteran, whether you're an LGBTQ ally, whether you're African American, whether you're whatever you want to identify with, will give you support. And that enabled people to feel like they were in a safe space, and not be judged, and help other people. So there was mentoring opportunities or answering questions or feeling like they belonged, which is what you're trying to get to right. Dermot. It's, it's, it's giving people who might not necessarily put themselves in a box to actually feel like they belong to something, so that they feel a part of the organization and that they're being heard specifically with whatever their problems are, and to be able to reach out to other people and get people across an organization that they may never have met before. Right.

 

Dermot O'Brien: 31:24

Totally agree. And that word, I've loved it, you know, use it a lot in prior companies, but belonging, you know, is the ultimate sort of descriptor of inclusion. And it may have nothing to do with how we've sort of boxed in the sense of diversity. It could be someone who just said, I just feel like I belong here, right? That can you know, and they may not even be able to describe, you know why it's so yes, and it's interesting. So they started out as associated resource groups, re dimensions, did a great job of rebranding and re launching, she was the chief diversity officer to relaunch those. And I remember going to lots of them by there's all different facets as exciting to see, you know, the really the the umbrella of areas of focus, but I remember going to one of the the women's leadership programs, and speaking at my first year, and I was like, what's wrong with this picture? And they were all looking around and I'm like, where are all the men? Same thing, the same thing, if I, you know, you know, if I, if I went to the Hispanic group, like, you know, where were all the white people. So the reason I say that is because it's good to have a sense of belonging and coming together. But the whole point is inclusion is actually to, let's call it penetrate the organization, have more opportunities, be able to, you know, contribute more, whatever it is. And, for example, in the women's leadership team, I said, Look, we should use this, as a forum, when you meet once a year, work with HR will bring in the best male leaders who nurture women's careers, right. So that you can get to know them, they can get to know you, and now that, you know, maybe it'll work for them, you know, at some point, and then also, I call it the barbell approach. Also, on the other end, the men who are not who have no women on their team, let's not say let's not blame them and say, Hey, they've got a, you know, they've got some sort of, you know, faulty mechanism, let's say, maybe they just haven't met great women talent. So now bring them into your forum, let them meet you. And now they get access to talent that they have, you know, haven't been able to place on their team. So these were all the actions and steps that over time, you know, breaks down a lot of barriers, brings the resources to bear as you said, and ultimately helps with a sense of belonging.

 

Dwight Brown: 33:44

Ways to mix and embrace at the same time?

 

Dermot O'Brien: 33:48

Yes, yeah. Yes. And, and David, and, you know, you know, we've been around the world, you know, you've been around the world as well. There is nothing like learning from different people, to at the end of the day realize how similar we are. It's kind of this, you know, it feels like an oxymoron, but it's, it's when you live just in you know, if you live in your little cocoon, Little Italy, you know, for example, are you part of Queens is all the Irish are there, you know, you don't mingle, you don't you know, this is what you know, and you think that person on the other side of the street are, you know, so different from you, you know, how could they kind of have anything in common, but, you know, living in Japan becoming very close friends with local Japanese, or, you know, Hong Kong, Hong Kongers. You realize, Oh, my God, just give it a chance. Yeah, maybe a little different because, you know, you don't know where to start. But once you meet different people, you just constantly brings me back to wow, you know, what, they're not different. It's just we have we have this predisposition that they're different. They're just humans, you know, trying to try to make their way through life and families the same way we are.

 

Dwight Brown: 35:00

Everybody's got hopes and dreams and loves, you know, getting it down to that basic level. But we miss it a lot, you know.

 

Dermot O'Brien: 35:09

We do we miss the human connection.

 

David Turetsky: 35:11

When I went over to London, Dermot, you may remember this to work in the Office of Development in London for Morgan Stanley, I was the young Yank, who came over to do compensation. Well, I literally had to re relearn compensation on a global basis, learn about the dare gente in Italy, and learn about how compensation was done, as you know, in Tokyo, and how conversations around performance and compensation happened in Tokyo. And so you think you know, everything, and I thought I did. And I was a real smart aleck about it. But when I met Tamsin, she sent me straight. And Amanda Sams, they sent me straight is that me on the right path of forget what you think, you know, let's relearn it together. We'll teach you you'll teach us. And culturally, I understood. Just being a, you know, this, this young kid who thought he understood compensation didn't mean anything. Because I had to relearn not only the processes, and learning compensation basically, from scratch again, I had to learn about culturally, how not to be a bull in a china shop. And so it totally opened my eyes,

 

Dermot O'Brien: 36:20

I get it. Yeah, I get it. And that's the that's the trick, you know. So like I said about it, we're all sort of bias because we come by definition and our limited worlds, you went over that you were in your world and your space, you were the expert. And now you've crossed over international waters. And you're taking that sense of expertise, which some of it applied, but probably most of it, you still have to learn and then think about how you grew up how you grew by being open. So that's key to be open and listening. So I, you know, I always tease myself, I'm a big talker, like, I love to chat. But I listen a lot. I listen to people, I listen to organizations, you always get mixed messages, when you've got leaders around you, maybe some of them are trying to tell you what you want to hear, get down in to the troops get down to the coalface where the people are dealing with things. Undercover Boss is a great show, I love it for that reason that you know, you got this policy up here. But by the time it you know, gets gets translated and hits the ground, it could be awful. So the greatest, the greatest thing that leaders can do is be just down there with the people who are talking to clients who are getting the work done, you know, in the call centers, etc. You won't go wrong in your strategies if you listen to the people as opposed to thinking you're the expert. I'm going to architect it from my podium of expertise. There's a lot of failed CHRO's are getting job 1 2 3 years and then they're out. Because they had a big attitude, not a big aptitude for how this stuff actually gets done.

 

David Turetsky: 37:57

Totally agree. Dermot, this has been wonderful. So just to recap, we've talked about DE&I as a business strategy. We've talked about why a diverse team matters and why it's important. We've talked about what strategies can be employed to actually move the needle, and make a big change and make a big impact on your organization. We've also talked about how to overcome the common misconception that diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging is just a compliance issue, because that's where it was positioned in the past. Is there anything else you wanted to add before we conclude today?

 

Dermot O'Brien: 38:43

No, other than to say like, I really appreciate you, you know, doing what you guys do here, you know, for the HR community. And you know, this topic is so important that we just have to keep challenging ourselves to make it bigger and wider, the more narrow we become in our focus, the more it doesn't mean something to too many people. So that is a challenge I put out to everybody. You can double down in certain areas, but don't neglect anybody, if you really want a true inclusion strategy.

 

David Turetsky: 39:16

Well said. Thank you very much, Dermot.

 

Dermot O'Brien: 39:19

All right. Thanks, guys.

 

David Turetsky: 39:21

Thank you, Dwight.

 

Dwight Brown: 39:22

Thank you. Thanks for being with us today. Darmot. It's been enlightening for me.

 

Dermot O'Brien: 39:26

Appreciate that, Dwight.

 

David Turetsky: 39:27

And thank you all for listening. Take care and stay safe.

 

Announcer: 39:31

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