In light of this morning’s (June 24, 2022) Supreme Court decision and how it affects Roe v. Wade and safe access to reproductive care, what can we, as business owners, do to affect useful change- for the world, for our employees? How do we create the leadership that we need. How do we make sure that the things we make will not be used for evil?
Transcript
So, good morning to everyone, except the Supreme
Leela Sinha:Court of the United States, which seems to believe that
Leela Sinha:bodily autonomy and freedom are not somehow American values. I'm
Leela Sinha:confused. And this is a bonus episode of PowerPivot, where we
Leela Sinha:talk about power, ethics, leadership and community, and
Leela Sinha:how we as business owners can do something to make the world a
Leela Sinha:better place. So obviously, I could not keep quiet the Roe
Leela Sinha:decision just dropped this morning, I have been mulling and
Leela Sinha:chewing and drafting and redrafting, because, oh, my God.
Leela Sinha:What do you say? We knew this was coming. It's not a surprise.
Leela Sinha:But I'm still mad about it. And what happens now? What happens
Leela Sinha:next? All kinds of things could happen. I'm not a lawyer, I'm
Leela Sinha:not a jurist. I'm not qualified to be commenting on that. But I
Leela Sinha:do know that there is a narrative that has been building
Leela Sinha:for quite a while, that your average rank and file person
Leela Sinha:can't really do anything about it. That we're kind of helpless
Leela Sinha:in the face of gerrymandering, and the filibuster and
Leela Sinha:capitalism and all the other factors that are making the
Leela Sinha:world such a hard place to be right now. And making it
Leela Sinha:especially hard for us who are business owners, to function in
Leela Sinha:a way that feels like it has any kind of integrity, because so
Leela Sinha:many of the people around us are invested in the idea that we
Leela Sinha:don't have any power, that we can't do anything; and that if
Leela Sinha:we do have power, if we do amass power, then we're somehow
Leela Sinha:violating the code and that we're not supposed to do that,
Leela Sinha:we're not supposed to want to do that. As you know, that's not my
Leela Sinha:perspective. I think we are supposed to do that. We have to
Leela Sinha:do that if we want to prevent this kind of thing from
Leela Sinha:happening more, again, still, we have to accrue power, we have to
Leela Sinha:become more powerful ourselves. And this is hard. It's a values
Leela Sinha:conflict, because on the right they value conformity, they
Leela Sinha:value followership. And on the left, we do not. We value the
Leela Sinha:opposite of those things. We don't just not value, feel
Leela Sinha:neutral, about conformity, and obedience; we actually actively
Leela Sinha:fight conformity and obedience. Most of the time, a lot of our
Leela Sinha:identity is often shaped around fighting conformity and
Leela Sinha:obedience. So how do we get ourselves to pull together? How
Leela Sinha:do we get ourselves to work together, to move together? And
Leela Sinha:what, as business owners, can we do to actually affect some
Leela Sinha:useful change? Well, there are a couple of things. First of all,
Leela Sinha:if you're a business owner, and you stand out and you do
Leela Sinha:something clearly politically aligned that that makes you
Leela Sinha:distinctive, that makes you that kind of rebel outlier, that the
Leela Sinha:left likes so well. So go ahead and be a rebel outlier company.
Leela Sinha:And provide, like Dick's Sporting Goods, like a couple of
Leela Sinha:other companies that have crossed my feed, like Chili
Leela Sinha:Piper, provide financial support for your employees if they need
Leela Sinha:to access reproductive health care outside the place where
Leela Sinha:they live.You can do this, whether you've got all remote or
Leela Sinha:whether you're on site, you can do this, whether you're small or
Leela Sinha:whether you're large. If you have full-time employees set
Leela Sinha:aside just a little bucket of money to help them access care
Leela Sinha:if they're not going to be able to access care in their home
Leela Sinha:area, in their home state. You can make a public statement
Leela Sinha:about doing that. So you can lead. People will know. People
Leela Sinha:will align themselves with you because you have made it known
Leela Sinha:who you are, and how you are in the world, and that you are
Leela Sinha:putting your money where your mouth is. This is not
Leela Sinha:complicated. It's not hard. And it does make you an attractive
Leela Sinha:employer. It does make you an interesting employer, it marks
Leela Sinha:you in a good way. So you can be public about what you're doing.
Leela Sinha:And you can do something concrete for the people whose
Leela Sinha:lives you directly affect. If you have a database business and
Leela Sinha:there's any chance that the data is going to contain something
Leela Sinha:about reproductive health care, something about activism, you
Leela Sinha:can go ahead and make sure that your privacy is watertight so
Leela Sinha:that nobody can get to it. End to end encryption, that kind of
Leela Sinha:thing. You can take a look at whatever industry, whatever
Leela Sinha:space you're operating in, and ask yourself in what ways could
Leela Sinha:my business be used for evil? And then take steps to
Leela Sinha:counteract that.
Leela Sinha:In the book 'Stealing Fire,' which I do not 100% endorse at
Leela Sinha:all, but it is interesting. In the book 'Stealing Fire,' the
Leela Sinha:authors write about a DARPA experiment where they were
Leela Sinha:working on figuring out how to direct a donkey. Like how to get
Leela Sinha:a donkey to go where they wanted by implanting pleasure-oriented
Leela Sinha:electrodes in the donkey's brain. Right? Better than
Leela Sinha:hitting the donkey when it goes where you don't want it to go.
Leela Sinha:Give it a jolt of pleasure, when it goes where you do want it to
Leela Sinha:go. Seems like a great plan, right? Yeah, well, you know what
Leela Sinha:they use that for? Walking a bomb into a desert.
Leela Sinha:Anything can be misused. So take a look at whatever it is you're
Leela Sinha:creating, and figure out how it could be misused, and see what
Leela Sinha:you can do to prevent that misuse and to promote good use.
Leela Sinha:Now, of course, to do all of this, you have to have an
Leela Sinha:ethical grounding, right, you have to have an ethical basis,
Leela Sinha:you have to know what your personal ethics are, what your
Leela Sinha:company ethics are, you have to have a way to uphold those
Leela Sinha:ethics in an unfriendly environment. And you have to
Leela Sinha:keep your ethics up to date, you have to keep moving them forward
Leela Sinha:as our collective understanding of what is right and what is
Leela Sinha:wrong moves forward. It's not a static thing. The tradition is
Leela Sinha:alive, right? So in order to do that, you might need supports,
Leela Sinha:you might need structures. I do this kind of training with my
Leela Sinha:client companies, I help them figure out like, what do you
Leela Sinha:believe, what are we going to do about it? But also, but also,
Leela Sinha:you can take a look at, you can take a look at what you what you
Leela Sinha:mean to be doing in the world, what your, you know, Simon
Leela Sinha:Sinek's "big why." You can you can take a look at what you mean
Leela Sinha:to be doing in the world as individuals and as an
Leela Sinha:organization, and make sure that everything you're doing is
Leela Sinha:aligned with that. And then again, be public about it. One
Leela Sinha:of the hardest things is being out there doing something that
Leela Sinha:is countercultural, when you feel like you're really the only
Leela Sinha:one doing it. When suddenly there are 10, or 20, or 50
Leela Sinha:people doing it, or 100, or 1000, or 10,000 or millions, it
Leela Sinha:becomes a lot easier to do because you know you're not
Leela Sinha:alone. You know you're not alone. Humans are social beings,
Leela Sinha:our brains are wired to want to be in sync with other human
Leela Sinha:beings. And so when we find ourselves alone, it's very hard
Leela Sinha:to persist. When we find ourselves in good company, it
Leela Sinha:becomes much easier. As a leader, you also have access to
Leela Sinha:spaces that a lot of people don't have access to, you might
Leela Sinha:have access to business owner spaces, you might have access to
Leela Sinha:accelerator spaces, you might have access to spaces of
Leela Sinha:particular kinds of wealth, or prestige, or whatever it is. You
Leela Sinha:have access to some spaces that nobody else has access to. Use
Leela Sinha:that access. And it doesn't necessarily even have to do with
Leela Sinha:your status as a business owner, you might have access to places
Leela Sinha:because you're white and blonde, you might have access to places
Leela Sinha:because you're not white and blonde. Wherever you have
Leela Sinha:access, you can make inroads, you can make changes. You can
Leela Sinha:shift the culture, you can communicate clearly and expect,
Leela Sinha:and require, clear communication back. You can help people
Leela Sinha:understand what they need to know so that they can be in
Leela Sinha:better relationship with you. And you can develop better
Leela Sinha:relationships with them. And that creates not only a good
Leela Sinha:setup for your business, but also a good setup for other
Leela Sinha:kinds of interactions, interactions around heated
Leela Sinha:topics, interactions around politics. You can violate the
Leela Sinha:rule about talking about politics and religion in polite
Leela Sinha:company. We do talk about politics and religion and money
Leela Sinha:and sex in polite company. That's what we do. That's how we
Leela Sinha:change the culture, is by saying those things. It's like that
Leela Sinha:invisible rule about not talking about your salary with your
Leela Sinha:colleagues. No, no, you got to talk about your salary with your
Leela Sinha:colleagues. You know why? Because the only person who
Leela Sinha:benefits from not talking about your salary with your colleagues
Leela Sinha:is somebody who's making a profit off of somebody not
Leela Sinha:knowing what their work is worth. And that's not an ethical
Leela Sinha:setup. So if you're an employer, you want to create an atmosphere
Leela Sinha:where people do and can talk about what they're getting, why
Leela Sinha:they're getting it, and where you can have open conversations
Leela Sinha:with people if they feel like they're not being fairly
Leela Sinha:compensated. So all of this is like, it's business owner
Leela Sinha:ethics, but it's also business owner, socio-political
Leela Sinha:engagement. Because when you change the atmosphere when you,
Leela Sinha:like Chani Nicholas did, when you publish a job description
Leela Sinha:that lists all these amazing benefits that most people have
Leela Sinha:never even thought of, then other business owners feel like
Leela Sinha:they have to step up and meet that standard. And that's good.
Leela Sinha:You're changing the entire business, you're disrupting the
Leela Sinha:business of hiring. Likewise with providing reproductive care
Leela Sinha:access. Likewise, with being public about the fact that
Leela Sinha:you're providing reproductive care access. All of these things
Leela Sinha:will change the atmosphere, will change, the conversation, will
Leela Sinha:change what's normal. And when you change what's normal, you
Leela Sinha:are actually changing the world, the space that you occupy. Maybe
Leela Sinha:just a little piece of the world at a time, but you change your
Leela Sinha:industry, and then it leaks across to the next industry
Leela Sinha:that's adjacent. And suddenly everybody wants, I don't know,
Leela Sinha:good, good benefits and reasonable working hours and
Leela Sinha:great pay? And then suddenly, you have a stable, healthy,
Leela Sinha:happy workforce.
Leela Sinha:This doesn't seem like a complicated business question.
Leela Sinha:That's a great business decision. You want a stable
Leela Sinha:workforce, you want a happy workforce, you want a healthy
Leela Sinha:workforce. So when you're moving yourself into public space, when
Leela Sinha:you're recognizing that, as a business owner, as a business
Leela Sinha:and as a business owner, your business occupies volume, it
Leela Sinha:takes up space in the world, and that people will pay attention,
Leela Sinha:people will perceive you people are going to follow your lead.
Leela Sinha:That's a great time to decide deliberately what your lead
Leela Sinha:should be, and how you're going to show up. So that it doesn't
Leela Sinha:happen under pressure. Ideally. This is a moment when it might
Leela Sinha:be happening under pressure, because this decision just came
Leela Sinha:down. A lot of people are under stress. Somebody in Texas gave
Leela Sinha:his company the rest of the day off to celebrate. But you know,
Leela Sinha:not everybody that took the half day off was celebrating. You can
Leela Sinha:recognize that, especially the more vulnerable people in your
Leela Sinha:employe or in your company, or clients, everybody is going to
Leela Sinha:feel more vulnerable right now. They're going to feel like their
Leela Sinha:rights are more at risk right now. And so you can offer a
Leela Sinha:little flexibility, you can offer a little more grace, you
Leela Sinha:can offer a little more room, if there's something that you can
Leela Sinha:send out to people that will be comforting, do that. If there's
Leela Sinha:something that you can send out to people that will be
Leela Sinha:invigorating, do that. If there's something that you can
Leela Sinha:send out to people that will be nourishing, do that. Give people
Leela Sinha:whatever it is you have, you don't have to have everything,
Leela Sinha:we're all out here doing something. But give people
Leela Sinha:something; recognize that this is not a non-issue, that it's
Leela Sinha:not a non-moment. That it actually is occupying a huge
Leela Sinha:part of people's brains right now. Because it impacts our
Leela Sinha:lives so heavily. Just publicly recognizing that is a great
Leela Sinha:step. But then do more, take it further. Make it bigger. Ask
Leela Sinha:yourself, if you were your own employee, or if you were your
Leela Sinha:own client or customer, what would you really want? What
Leela Sinha:would you really want to get from the person that you're
Leela Sinha:connected to? What would you want to see them putting out in
Leela Sinha:the world? What would make you feel better about what they're
Leela Sinha:putting out in the world? What will help? Because when people
Leela Sinha:tell us that Mr. Rogers said "look for the helpers,"
Leela Sinha:sometimes it turns out the helpers are us. And we're all
Leela Sinha:going to help differently. And not every kind of help is going
Leela Sinha:to help every kind of person. But we are not powerless. And we
Leela Sinha:don't have to do nothing. A final note, if you know someone
Leela Sinha:who would be good in office, start cultivating, nourishing,
Leela Sinha:supporting that right now. Encourage them to run for
Leela Sinha:something, something small and local to start. Right now. Get
Leela Sinha:them involved. Because, especially for public service, a
Leela Sinha:lot of people don't even think about it until somebody says,
Leela Sinha:"Hey, have you considered running for office?" Because if
Leela Sinha:we want a different kind of leadership, we have to not just
Leela Sinha:elect it, we have to create it. And we do that in our businesses
Leela Sinha:by offering people leadership opportunities, by offering
Leela Sinha:people support, by offering people encouragement. The skills
Leela Sinha:that people develop with you, they can take into the world. If
Leela Sinha:it occurs to them, if you encourage it, and if you model
Leela Sinha:it. Take a deep breath. Make sure you're staying hydrated.
Leela Sinha:Take lots of naps. We're gonna get through this. Talk to you