Your host, Sri Chellappa, talks with the Founder and CEO of Two Rivers Partners, Barbara Spitzer. One of the most significant shifts Barbara discussed is the transformation occurring within the corporate sphere. The younger generations are exerting unprecedented pressure on corporate governance and leadership, demanding a level of transparency and authenticity previously unheard of. Companies are now expected to make public statements and take action on social issues that align with their values, and this expectation extends beyond mere words to genuine, impactful deeds.
Barbara underscored the importance of considering the ramifications of corporate decisions on a wide array of stakeholders. It's no longer just about shareholders; employees, customers, and the community are all part of the equation. This holistic approach to decision-making is crucial for companies that want to thrive in a world where social consciousness is on the rise.
To learn more about Barbara's work, click HERE and HERE.
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Want to learn more about Sri's work at Engagedly? Check out his website at https://engagedly.com/.
[00:00:00] People First Organizations will win in the future of work.
[00:00:06] Your only real asset is your people. We all want purpose for their work.
[00:00:09] HR led organization is the future.
[00:00:12] I'm sorry, but leaders don't leave empty desks and empty shop floors.
[00:00:17] Welcome to the People Strategy Leaders Show.
[00:00:20] I'm your host Srikant Chellappa, founder and president of Engaged Lee,
[00:00:24] and a serial entrepreneur in technology, films, and music.
[00:00:27] This is where we talk to people leaders, business strategists, and organizational savants
[00:00:32] about leading in the time of change.
[00:00:34] What is working? What is not working?
[00:00:37] And more importantly, what we should be thinking about.
[00:00:40] Stick around to the end of the show.
[00:00:42] We will reveal how you can be our next guest.
[00:00:45] And now let's engage.
[00:00:47] Hello and welcome to People Strategy Leaders Podcast.
[00:00:50] Today I'm joined with Barbara Spitzer.
[00:00:52] Barbara Spitzer is the founder and CEO of Two Rivers Partners LLC,
[00:00:56] a workforce strategy, organization effectiveness, and a strategy execution firm
[00:01:01] where she provides solutions to evolve operating models,
[00:01:05] build the future of work and human capital strategies,
[00:01:07] develop C-suites, and cultivate cultures.
[00:01:10] She also served as the board and CEO advisory lead at Accenture
[00:01:14] where Barbara led a 250 person team with $150 million in revenue
[00:01:18] and spearheaded business and technology transformation
[00:01:21] for large and small public, private, and startup companies.
[00:01:25] Welcome to the show, Barbara. It's a pleasure to have you.
[00:01:28] Thanks, Sri. It's so good to be here.
[00:01:30] Barbara, you work with a lot of boards, CEOs, and executive leadership
[00:01:35] both at Accenture and now independently with your organization.
[00:01:39] What do you see is changing today?
[00:01:41] Is it the same or are we just seeing a trend?
[00:01:44] Can you talk a little bit about the shift that you're noticing?
[00:01:50] Yeah, there's so much going on in the world that I don't need to list out.
[00:01:54] Everyone watches the news, reads the papers,
[00:01:57] and we know that the world of corporations are shifting pretty drastically.
[00:02:01] I spend a lot of time advising boards.
[00:02:04] I sit on boards and I work with CEOs and C-suites.
[00:02:08] I also spend a lot of time with youth.
[00:02:12] I teach at Columbia University.
[00:02:14] I just finished a course on how to be a good consultant,
[00:02:17] and I'm the board chair of a global nonprofit that trains youth to lead.
[00:02:22] So now at this stage in my career,
[00:02:25] post Accenture and whatnot operating at the top echelon
[00:02:29] of corporations, governance, and leadership,
[00:02:32] as well as being pretty intermingled with what's going on
[00:02:35] with the newer generations.
[00:02:37] And there's a wonderful newsletter that I read from the Longevity Project.
[00:02:43] It's a Stanford University effort,
[00:02:45] and there's a Gen Z writer who writes a newsletter
[00:02:49] and wants to debunk a lot of myths that people hold about the younger generations.
[00:02:53] I'm not a big fan of generational labeling, by the way.
[00:02:57] I'm a cusper, boomer, Gen Xer in between the two,
[00:03:00] and I think it's not helpful because I think like ageism works both ways.
[00:03:04] But there's a lot of upward pressure, I think,
[00:03:08] being exerted on corporate governance and corporate leadership
[00:03:12] from younger generations, whether they be customers or employees
[00:03:16] or other stakeholders.
[00:03:18] Transparency, people want way more transparency.
[00:03:21] They want authenticity.
[00:03:23] So if a company comes out with a statement on Me Too
[00:03:27] or when George Floyd was murdered
[00:03:30] or against gun violence here in the U.S.,
[00:03:33] they sure as heck better not be funding organizations
[00:03:36] that fight to keep guns flowing through the nation
[00:03:39] or have any sort of history of, I don't know where that came from,
[00:03:43] any history of speaking out against some of DEI initiatives.
[00:03:48] They're being held to account much more so than ever
[00:03:51] by multiple stakeholders, especially the younger generation,
[00:03:54] to be very authentic and transparent in what they are and are not doing
[00:03:59] and what they do and don't support.
[00:04:01] I can go into a bunch of stories, but Dylan Mulvaney,
[00:04:04] the TikTokker who was promoting Bud Light,
[00:04:07] Anheuser-Buth just completely backed down from their desire
[00:04:11] to make a pro LGBTQ plus message
[00:04:15] and fired a couple of executives
[00:04:17] and said we're just going to focus on music and sports now.
[00:04:20] And they really backed away,
[00:04:22] and they're not going to cause more damage than it caused good.
[00:04:25] So I think there's this expectation that companies are clear
[00:04:29] on whatever stance they're taking
[00:04:31] and put their money where their mouth is.
[00:04:35] Yeah, so does that mean that CEOs and boards have to look beyond
[00:04:39] just the P&L and the balance sheet
[00:04:42] and growth and things of this nature
[00:04:43] and look at all these other stakeholders
[00:04:45] that are asking for more of a civil investment
[00:04:50] into their citizens and being a better citizen of the world, if you will?
[00:04:54] Yes. I'm going to cite a workshop, a conference I went to last week
[00:04:58] hosted by the National Association of Corporate Directors, NACD,
[00:05:01] the New York chapter.
[00:05:03] And it was non-traditional risks and what boards need to know.
[00:05:06] And it was a really good panel.
[00:05:08] It was very provocative, and the discussion was really deep.
[00:05:11] And basically that what you just said is very true,
[00:05:14] although with political systems under threat right now,
[00:05:19] with more sort of authoritarian tendencies
[00:05:22] and social backlash happening with some of the belief systems inside countries,
[00:05:29] companies, corporations are wondering,
[00:05:31] should we back away from having a bold stance or do we stay the course?
[00:05:36] And it's a conundrum.
[00:05:38] But it isn't going to go away, right?
[00:05:40] Just because right now I think there's a little bit of a pullback
[00:05:43] on diversity, equity, inclusion, and speaking out and whatnot.
[00:05:47] I think that's a temporary thing.
[00:05:50] I think that the days have passed when companies can ignore
[00:05:54] some of the social issues that are really bubbling up around the world,
[00:05:58] climate injustice and things like that.
[00:06:00] There's just a tremendous...
[00:06:02] Yes, I'm a capitalist.
[00:06:03] I believe in profit.
[00:06:04] I believe in shareholder value, 100 percent.
[00:06:07] But I believe in putting people in planet right alongside profit.
[00:06:10] And I think that's where we are right now, trying to figure that out.
[00:06:14] I think as a CEO and as an executive in the leadership roles,
[00:06:19] especially I would say more like a similar of a CEO perspective in there,
[00:06:23] it becomes a hard tightrope walk,
[00:06:27] because they have to balance now saying something
[00:06:32] and offending one group of people, not saying something,
[00:06:35] or not taking a stance and offending a different group of people,
[00:06:37] when they would rather just not do anything about that
[00:06:40] because it's not something they really want to do anything about sometimes.
[00:06:43] Even if they have a personal opinion about it,
[00:06:45] they'd rather keep that to themselves but focus on the business.
[00:06:48] And some CEOs have gone that way, where they're like,
[00:06:50] I'm not going to talk about this. It's not my business.
[00:06:52] And some of them are very vocal about it.
[00:06:54] The recent last couple of years, we've had this issue with Disney
[00:06:58] and the state of Florida, where it swung both ways.
[00:07:02] And now Disney apparently did end up taking a stance
[00:07:05] and staying with the stance for the most part.
[00:07:07] But in some cases, like Bud Light, the issue with Anheuser-Busch,
[00:07:10] they back down, and I'm not sure if it's going to actually help or hurt
[00:07:13] in the long run in terms of profitability.
[00:07:15] So what is your advice to the CEOs who are put in a position
[00:07:19] where they are almost forced to take a stance,
[00:07:22] especially if you're a big public corporation,
[00:07:24] you're obviously more pressured.
[00:07:27] Yeah, so look, I heard one of my favorite former clients
[00:07:30] speak on a panel last week, Aranda Morris.
[00:07:33] She's the CHR of Chevron, and they pretty much have a policy
[00:07:37] where they don't speak out about issues very much.
[00:07:40] They have a council where she shared this, where they surface issues
[00:07:43] and they make a decision whether or not they're going to take a stance.
[00:07:46] So my biggest piece of advice from that and what I learned last week
[00:07:50] and what I talk to my clients about is just have a plan.
[00:07:54] There's a lot of guidance that says your decision,
[00:07:56] what to say and what to do should be relying with your values.
[00:07:59] This is something that came up in the conference that I attended.
[00:08:02] But if you read corporate values, they will all then say,
[00:08:05] we better speak out, right?
[00:08:06] Because corporate values speak to really important things
[00:08:10] that are goodness in the world, right?
[00:08:12] So the values can only take you so far.
[00:08:15] But it really is about, to me, having some sort of a process
[00:08:19] for getting out ahead of issues because they're going to continue to arise
[00:08:23] or deciding what is your stance going to be.
[00:08:26] And then if you decide to publicly speak out,
[00:08:29] which sometimes it's appropriate, no matter what you do,
[00:08:32] you're going to exclude someone.
[00:08:33] That is just the way it goes.
[00:08:34] I think the Hamas-Israel war right now is a good example of that.
[00:08:39] It's really hard to speak out about that situation
[00:08:42] because it's so complex and multidimensional.
[00:08:45] So there's a lot of, I know CEOs right now
[00:08:47] who are just getting bashed by their employees,
[00:08:49] then their ERGs for not taking a strong enough stance,
[00:08:53] pro-Israel, pro-Palestinian.
[00:08:56] It's a no-win situation, okay?
[00:08:58] So first of all, have a process for deciding what to say and not to say.
[00:09:03] And then every time something comes up, run it through your process.
[00:09:07] And if you decide to speak out, game it out.
[00:09:10] Run out the scenarios.
[00:09:12] What's the reputational risk?
[00:09:14] What's the revenue risk, the financial risk?
[00:09:17] Are we going to lose revenue and profit like Anheuser-Bisted
[00:09:20] during that situation?
[00:09:21] What is our employee engagement and retention risk?
[00:09:24] So go through those risks, game it out,
[00:09:26] and figure out what your tolerance is.
[00:09:29] If you know what your risk tolerance is,
[00:09:31] then you can decide how far to go.
[00:09:33] But it has to be planned out, preparedness,
[00:09:38] treated like it's cybersecurity, frankly.
[00:09:40] There's no SEC rules right now saying you must speak out on issues.
[00:09:45] No, there's not.
[00:09:47] But treat it like you would a cybersecurity breach.
[00:09:50] Yeah, I think gaming it out is very good and important advice.
[00:09:56] And what I would also add to that,
[00:09:58] which you might have meant as well,
[00:10:00] is game it out three, four, five steps ahead.
[00:10:03] What happens if this faction sets up
[00:10:05] or if the faction suddenly gets louder?
[00:10:07] Because sometimes you underestimate the power of the faction
[00:10:10] that's going to speak out against what your stance.
[00:10:12] And it might be a small minority, but they usually are very vocal.
[00:10:15] It's usually a small minority that's extremely vocal
[00:10:17] and makes it sound like it's a massive disconnect with the audience,
[00:10:21] but then that's not the case.
[00:10:23] And so you really have to figure out a good game plan.
[00:10:25] So it almost becomes, I feel, based on what I'm hearing from you,
[00:10:30] is that the CEOs have to become a little bit political and nuanced
[00:10:34] in how they approach these issues
[00:10:36] so that it doesn't affect the overall organization in the long run,
[00:10:40] as long as they're on the right side of the issue for the most part.
[00:10:42] Another thing here in the US is some of the legislation
[00:10:44] against women's right to choose.
[00:10:46] I have a good friend who is a CEO,
[00:10:48] and they made a statement that said if anyone lives in a state
[00:10:53] where it's been banned, we'll pay for your travel.
[00:10:57] A lot of employees were not happy with that.
[00:10:59] They had an issue with that, and they were very vocal.
[00:11:03] But a lot of employees who felt good about it didn't necessarily speak out.
[00:11:08] So you have to make a decision,
[00:11:10] stick to it because that's what you believe is the right thing to do,
[00:11:13] and that is being a politician.
[00:11:15] Do it, and then don't buckle under the pressure.
[00:11:19] And that was just an internal thing.
[00:11:20] That wasn't something they did externally at all.
[00:11:22] Right.
[00:11:23] And I think as part of that,
[00:11:24] probably it's good to build some allies along the way
[00:11:26] that will be the rallying group for you
[00:11:29] in case there is something that,
[00:11:31] some other faction that becomes very loud against you as well.
[00:11:34] Yeah, and then I think corporations really need to go look at where their money is going.
[00:11:38] Are they donating equally to both political parties here in the US?
[00:11:41] Are they supporting PACs that maybe support causes
[00:11:45] that are counter to what they say?
[00:11:46] Sometimes it's not obvious that your money is going somewhere
[00:11:51] to pay for something that is counter to what your point of view is.
[00:11:54] So getting really careful about what,
[00:11:57] because people can find that stuff out these days.
[00:11:59] Yeah.
[00:12:00] So talking about the generational leadership,
[00:12:03] I know you don't necessarily put labels on it,
[00:12:05] but there is a difference, right?
[00:12:07] There is a difference between people of our generation, if you will,
[00:12:10] and the ones even came before us who are still in the workforce,
[00:12:14] and the ones coming after two, three generations down.
[00:12:18] Are you seeing that it is really driving,
[00:12:22] talking about the pressure that governance and the boards and CEOs have?
[00:12:26] Is that really, there's a direct correlation between generational shift in the workforce and that?
[00:12:32] Yeah, I believe that the generational categories make sense,
[00:12:36] and they're logical, and we always have generations.
[00:12:38] It's fine to label them.
[00:12:40] What I don't like is the stereotypes.
[00:12:42] And yeah, let's just take board governance, right?
[00:12:45] Being a board director is a great role when you are late in your career or post-retirement,
[00:12:52] but boards need a youthful voice on their board.
[00:12:56] So I heard a 35-year-old board director who sits on Disney Media's board speak
[00:13:02] on a panel of other board directors, and I found her quite refreshing.
[00:13:06] Like she said something like, as boards, we deal with really complicated issues.
[00:13:10] We have to make sure we set the right tone for the discussion
[00:13:13] to deal with what will be a very tricky, difficult issue.
[00:13:16] The other sort of sticker, sometimes a piece of music or a reading or a reminder of our values,
[00:13:23] kind of some little stickers went across the panel.
[00:13:26] And it's no, actually, that's actually a good idea, right?
[00:13:28] It's important to be conscious and aware of the behavioral psychological state of mind.
[00:13:34] And so I think that the younger generation is bringing just more desire for solutions
[00:13:41] instead of just a bunch of talk or sweeping some things under the rug.
[00:13:44] Mental health is a good example, but they don't want people talking about mental health just for mental health sake.
[00:13:49] They actually want them to talk, companies to talk about it
[00:13:52] and come up with real life solutions to solve the problem
[00:13:55] and not normalize mental illness, but make sure that it isn't something that is a reason to discriminate.
[00:14:03] I think that the younger generation is pushing just more openness and awareness
[00:14:07] on some of the unique differences that people's lived experiences require.
[00:14:13] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:14:15] So let me ask you a kind of a loaded question.
[00:14:18] Is this all these changes a good thing or is it maybe not so good?
[00:14:23] Purely from a running for profit corporation CEO's perspective.
[00:14:27] That's a tough question because you start to dip your toe into different values and belief systems,
[00:14:32] religious, political, whatever.
[00:14:34] And I started work when women had to wear skirts and pantyhose, no bare legs, no pants.
[00:14:42] That's bad, right?
[00:14:44] So that's like controlling leadership where that is very one of a kind,
[00:14:48] white straight males running these corporations.
[00:14:51] You're not going to get a diversity of voices, not into your product development,
[00:14:57] not into your innovation, not into your customer service, not into your culture, decision making.
[00:15:02] So I think that this is a good thing, right?
[00:15:05] To have a melting pot of experiences, ethnicities, genders, demographic characteristics.
[00:15:12] It's a good thing.
[00:15:13] There's plenty of research on the value of that.
[00:15:15] I think we're in a little bit of an in-between time, right?
[00:15:19] Because I think it's really hard for CEO's who have been working 35, 40 years,
[00:15:26] and I'm just speaking in general terms here,
[00:15:28] in more traditional industries or companies to make that pivot because they were trained in leadership,
[00:15:34] in one style of leadership and it was with what made them successful.
[00:15:38] And that's why they're really good at what they do.
[00:15:40] And so to make a change like that where you are more transparent, open,
[00:15:45] and all the other things that go around with that, it's not easy to do.
[00:15:49] So I think there's got to be a little bit of a turnover of generations in the leadership chairs
[00:15:57] for us to really feel the effects and for it to just be normalized as opposed to something special or different.
[00:16:05] So what, I don't know if you can maybe cite some examples of a certain CEO or a leadership that you've seen
[00:16:12] where they've demonstrated this pivot that you're talking about.
[00:16:15] Yeah, yeah.
[00:16:16] There's a CEO of a very large global organization, many multi-billions of dollars in revenue,
[00:16:25] quite traditional industry.
[00:16:27] And first of all, the board of this organization is one of the most diverse boards in the industry,
[00:16:33] gender-wise and ethnicity, race-wise.
[00:16:37] And so this person, CEO helped create that.
[00:16:41] And then there's a big pivot inside the industry to new technology to solve some pretty big world problems.
[00:16:49] And this CEO wanted to build a workforce strategy, a people strategy that would really tell them
[00:16:56] what kind of culture do we need? What kind of leaders do we need?
[00:16:59] What are the skill sets that we need?
[00:17:01] And opened up the listening channels to really hear from the workforce,
[00:17:05] whether they be the engineers who've been there for many decades
[00:17:09] and will probably be there for their whole career or the new data scientists
[00:17:13] who have come in to really help create the transformation.
[00:17:16] To really hear what kind of culture do people feel is really needed
[00:17:22] to make this a place where people really want to work?
[00:17:24] So this is a CEO who could just continue to, frankly, rake in the profits.
[00:17:29] It's a very profitable business and do the minimal necessary to meet regulators,
[00:17:35] other stakeholder, non-shareholder needs.
[00:17:38] But this person stepped in and embraced the needs and demands of multiple stakeholders
[00:17:43] and has done a number of interesting things, looking at equity,
[00:17:48] how equitable decisions around promotion and salary have been across the entity.
[00:17:54] Things like that.
[00:17:55] So this is CEO didn't necessarily have to go there, but decided to go there,
[00:18:00] largely probably because had a very forward-looking CHRO
[00:18:04] with whom he had a very strong relationship.
[00:18:06] Yeah. And it needs to be more than just platitudes,
[00:18:09] because there's a lot of platitudes out there that CEOs and boards speak about,
[00:18:14] which doesn't translate to real action and changes.
[00:18:18] But the data is very clear.
[00:18:20] Diverse boards and diverse leadership organizations outperform
[00:18:26] non-diverse boards and non-diverse organizations' leadership.
[00:18:30] There is purely from profit perspective,
[00:18:32] from S&P's stock performance perspective, there is no question about it.
[00:18:37] So it is not only the right thing to do in many ways, and I agree with you on that.
[00:18:41] So I shouldn't have asked a little bit of a lower question.
[00:18:43] I do believe there's a good thing, that there's some pressure on that.
[00:18:47] But it's actually a profitable thing to do.
[00:18:49] It is. Yes, it is.
[00:18:51] All right. So last question, and then I know you have to run.
[00:18:54] So what are the one or two key tips you would give to maybe younger CEOs
[00:19:00] who are new in the role, who are like, OK, now I got to...
[00:19:05] Earlier, I was just expected to hit my KPIs and hit my numbers.
[00:19:09] Now I've got to play a little bit of a politician and do some balancing act.
[00:19:13] What are some other key tips you would give those people?
[00:19:16] We all know it's lonely at the top.
[00:19:17] And if you are the CEO, you truly do sit at the top.
[00:19:20] Although you report to the board, they're not your peers either.
[00:19:22] You might sit on the board as an executive director,
[00:19:25] but they're also overseeing your work.
[00:19:28] So it's very lonely.
[00:19:29] So to me, the first thing is to don't be afraid to ask for help.
[00:19:32] There are plenty of people out there who can mentor, coach and guide you.
[00:19:36] And I think the sign of a great leader is someone who knows their strengths
[00:19:40] and their weaknesses and know where to go find help.
[00:19:43] So that's one thing.
[00:19:44] I think the other thing is you do have to listen to a lot of different stakeholders.
[00:19:48] If you listen to just the board, they're just doing what they're being...
[00:19:51] Boards are there to protect shareholder value,
[00:19:53] which sometimes can lead to short term behavior.
[00:19:56] And sometimes you need short term behavior.
[00:19:58] But boards also need to take a long view and think about the long picture.
[00:20:03] The long view oftentimes is it is about shareholders for sure,
[00:20:07] but it's also about communities, regulators, governments, your workforce.
[00:20:12] So be a CEO who thinks broadly about the ecosystem within which they're operating
[00:20:18] and don't ignore one over the other.
[00:20:19] Lastly, I'll say the voice of the employee.
[00:20:22] Listen to the voice of the employee.
[00:20:24] Go out and really hear what they're thinking on the ground.
[00:20:27] Those would be three immediate ones that I would say where I've seen CEOs get tripped up
[00:20:32] because they haven't done those things.
[00:20:34] Thanks, Barbara. This has been an insightful conversation.
[00:20:37] How can people reach out to you, learn more about what you do
[00:20:40] and where do you exactly help them as well?
[00:20:43] Yeah, my company is Two Rivers Partners.
[00:20:46] So www.TwoRiversPartners.com.
[00:20:50] That's my website.
[00:20:51] And of course always on LinkedIn, barbara.spitzer on LinkedIn.
[00:20:55] I'd love to connect and just I love to share my my I love to I'm at a point in my life where I want to leave a legacy
[00:21:04] and share what I know, especially with the younger generations
[00:21:08] and help them lead through what's going to be a pretty complex tough world.
[00:21:12] It is over the reins.
[00:21:15] Yeah, I can already feel it.
[00:21:17] Yeah, it's only been the last two or three years have been like a tectonic shift in this.
[00:21:22] Yeah, great.
[00:21:24] Great. Thanks, Barbara. It's been a pleasure.
[00:21:26] Thank you for being on the show.
[00:21:27] Thank you so much.
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