[00:01] Announcer:
Welcome to Principal Center Radio, helping you build capacity for instructional leadership. Here's your host, Director of the Principal Center, Dr. Justin Bader. Welcome, everyone, to Principal Center Radio.
[00:13] SPEAKER_00:
I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to welcome to the program Joe Davis. Joe is managing director and senior partner at Boston Consulting Group, where he's had a successful career spending more than 40 years, ultimately leading more than 7,000 people as the head of BCG in North America. And he currently serves as chair of BCG's Center for Inclusion and Equity, as well as chair of the board of trustees at his alma mater, Whitman College. And he holds an MBA from Harvard University. And he's the author of the new book, The Generous Leader, Seven Ways to Give of Yourself for Everyone's Gain.
[00:45] Announcer:
And now, our feature presentation.
[00:48] SPEAKER_00:
Joe, welcome to Principal Center Radio. Thank you, Justin. It's great to be here.
[00:52] SPEAKER_01:
I look forward to it.
[00:53] SPEAKER_00:
Well, I'm excited to talk about the book because I appreciate your approach to generosity that is not based in any expectation of reciprocity, you know, a give and a take. If you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. Tell us what it means to be a generous leader.
[01:09] SPEAKER_01:
Yes. Well, by generous leader, I mean quite simply, although it's quite complicated, really, a leader who gives of themselves freely, to your point, without expectation of direct personal benefit, so that others can develop, grow, and thrive at their full potential. That's really what it means to me. Now it's obvious there, if you really do that well and your whole team is thriving at full potential, there is going to be benefit to you as the leader, right? I mean, that's just a given, but it's not the objective or the goal. The goal is to ensure your team or your people are thriving and, you know, delivering at their full potential.
[01:46] SPEAKER_00:
So in the book, you talk about the seven ways to give of yourself for everyone's gain, and it starts with communicating and connecting. As you put together the book, what came to mind as some of the pitfalls for leaders around communicating and connecting? Because sometimes as leaders, we don't want to hear bad news. We don't want people to have the opportunity to complain to us when they get our ear. Where do we go wrong? with connecting with people.
[02:10] SPEAKER_01:
You know, the first one is connecting personally and deeply, as you said, and also really listening to learn and hearing where others are coming from. And I think the biggest pitfall to the combination there is it can be a leader, but quite frankly, any person is stuck in their own head and what they think the answer is and what they think they need to hear. And that what I think, for example, you need to hear Justin and then not even engage in what are you hearing? That's the biggest pitfall. And it crosses Any aspect of life, right? For sure, business, anyone leading something, you could actually go to your home.
[02:41]
If you don't listen to your spouse, it's not the most effective conversation. That's the biggest pitfall is people think they already know it all. They know the answer, et cetera, and are not actually listening. I'd say one of the seven traits that I think are quite important is, you know, really actually working hard to develop and grow others. And by that, I mean a couple of things. Actually recognize and create a relationship with somebody so you can actually give feedback and then understand a person's strengths and their areas for development, not just yelling at them what they have to be better, and then leverage both of those to help somebody be better.
[03:16]
Now, I think it's interesting. I've gotten several pieces of feedback in my life. One was in the middle of my career at BCG, and my manager at the time, or boss, it's a consulting firm, so your boss is kind of come and go, but it was my mentor. He said to me, he said, you know, Joe, if I were to put you in a room with four white walls, no door, no window, and another person, it'd give you a very complicated problem. and say, you can't come out of the room until you solve it. You probably wouldn't get out of the room.
[03:46]
This other guy, his name is Philip, will get out of the room every time. But however, when you get out of the room and we say, okay, now let's actually get it done. Let's do it. He will never get it done. And you will get it done 100% of the time, which, you know, you have to take the little bit about maybe I'm not the smartest guy in the world, but the point of, I know how to surround myself with people that build my capabilities, leverage their capabilities to surround myself with smarter people, et cetera, how to collaborate and team. You know, the message he was giving me, that's your real strength, or as you know, the word we like to use now, superpower, and make sure you think about leveraging that.
[04:17]
You know, so actually it's interesting because he could have said, well, wow, he had to wrap it in harshness too. But you're not just going to solve the problem by yourself. So don't plan on that. Plan on really teaming to drive results, which you will get. Um, that was, I've never forgotten that for the good and the bad of the feedback, you know, or the directness, you know, which is another point on, so dwell on the feedback issue for a bit. You know, I also believe you don't want to give mush feedback.
[04:42]
Like, Hey, Justin, I enjoyed your podcast really quick. You know, you might work on a few things and leave it at that. What do you want me to work on? And you know, that's not productive. The direct feedback like he gave me is productive, but we had to have a relationship if we hadn't had a relationship. I might have only heard the first half and decided, you know, whatever, swear word.
[04:59]
Forget you.
[05:01] SPEAKER_00:
Yeah, and I think as school leaders, often we're hesitant to give feedback that we know will be hard to hear because we wonder, you know, what relationship have I built and how can I build that relationship? So, you know, one of the things I always emphasize is visiting teachers in their classrooms frequently, having lots of conversations so that the bad news is not the only news. The hard conversations are not the only conversations. And one thing that you talk about in chapter five of the book is that I think goes a long way to building relationships is standing up for your team and being an ally for people. What does that mean? What does that look like to stand up for your team?
[05:36] SPEAKER_01:
My mom was a second and third grade teacher. And there was a time, I was probably 12, so I didn't really know what was going on. I don't think she was doing that well. And the principal was in her room all the time. But it was always negative. She came home so depressed.
[05:50]
But I appreciate your comment, because actually that person, the principal had thought about, hey, Sue, you got to do this, but you're not doing that, as opposed to the constant pressure. Therefore, she wasn't able to, you know, overcome as well as she might. So allyship, I mean, this could be mentorship too, or just, you know, having somebody's back. But what I mean by that, and especially, you know, you can take in two contexts. I actually mean in this context, really helping people who have structural disadvantage or systemic disadvantage. We can debate that, I know, but I think some people in our country do.
[06:22]
But it doesn't matter. Even if you're helping a mentor, you know, what people want is not someone in the context of the disadvantage, just wearing the Black Lives Matter or the Pride Month badge. That's nice, but that doesn't do anything. Or just driving metrics as far as diversity, but actually really helping somebody, opening doors for them and allowing them to walk through. I mean, everyone I talked to said, you know, Joe, you really want to be an ally or a mentor. Open the opportunity.
[06:49]
Let me go through. Let me deliver. If I fail, that's my business. But give me the chance to get in. Help me get in. Of course, give me your best coaching, give me your top 5%.
[07:00]
And by the way, if things get rough, don't run away. Too many of my colleagues talked about how mentors, allies run away when it gets tough. You know, when the person they're supporting stumbles a bit. Now, I don't think anyone wants you to carry them, but they sure as hell want normal coaching. But the important thing there I thought was even insightful to me is open the door and I'll go through and do my best. I'm not asking you to do it, but I will do my best.
[07:24]
And that's what I meant by that, which can apply to any mentor coaching relationship, quite frankly, you know?
[07:30] SPEAKER_00:
Yeah. And I think especially of hiring where a lot of the hiring decisions that matter are made outside of the formal process in the sense of networking, knowing who to call and, you know, often putting in a good word for someone, putting out feelers for someone can go a long way to opening that door. And of course, they're still going to have to apply, interview, do all of that to take advantage of those opportunities.
[07:52] SPEAKER_01:
You've got to earn it. Nobody's saying don't earn it. But some people are saying, you know, get me a shot. Who may have a harder time getting a shot, you know?
[08:00] SPEAKER_00:
Now in your world, so with Boston Consulting Group, I know you work mostly in the corporate world, and there are things like stock prices, profits, financial metrics. And in the education world, often we are accountable for other kinds of metrics around student learning, test scores, and things like that. We have tried various approaches to holding people accountable for, whether it's teachers or principals or districts, holding people accountable for test scores. Thinking about your experience across sectors, what do we need to look at besides the numbers to evaluate a leader's impact? Because it's easy to look at the numbers that we have because they fit in a spreadsheet. How do you think about accountability and evaluating leaders beyond those numbers?
[08:46] SPEAKER_01:
Right. And, you know, I will say something in case a listener worries that, you know, a generous leader is not just fluffy clouds, unicorns, and rainbows, because any leader has to get results. You know, the numbers may be different, but if you don't actually drive to positive outcomes, you don't get to be a leader. That's just pretty simple. So this is both. You know, I'm just arguing you bring the heart more and the generosity side in.
[09:08]
So that's a good question. And I think a couple of things. It depends on the context. but I'm a big believer in several kinds of metrics. One is just the whole survey, people survey scores, you know, whatever that be. Now in schools, we, at least I'm in the world, I operate in the college world where they're quite nervous about students actually judging them.
[09:26]
But I actually think maybe look at any professor at Whitman College and say that. But You know, so people type scores, you know, surveys and how is a leader and, you know, in the business world is one thing for the company to have a score, but then you might look down, okay, this manager in this division, what's that person's score? And they may have a terrible score with the company overall. So that's one important metric I do believe in. Yeah, their metric I think is interesting, which would apply for principals and superintendents and the like is how is the person's team performing? You know, if all of your teachers are humming and have the highest scores of whatever it is, I don't care what your individual scores are.
[10:02]
You're doing something right. It just is, you know, now maybe you just got lucky. Maybe you hired well. You know, so that is a criteria that I think is quite important. I went to the West Coast with BCG and tried to help grow it pretty dramatically. The numbers were quite good, but it's funny, the feedback I got from my colleague when we did the review process was, Joe, we actually looked at all the partners on the West Coast and they're all just doing a hell of a lot better.
[10:25]
And that was more powerful than whatever the overall and the scores and all that. I think that's a very important criteria to look at is how is that person's team doing, not just how they're doing. And that applies easily in the academic world.
[10:39] SPEAKER_00:
Absolutely. And one of the things I wanted to ask about in that regard is turnover, because you mentioned, you know, in the consulting world, you work with a lot of different people, you have a lot of different bosses. And if I think back on one of the best high school principals I knew, she had a lot of turnover in her assistant principals. And it wasn't because she hired the wrong people. It wasn't because she drove them off. It was because they got promoted so incredibly fast.
[11:03]
She couldn't keep them and she would help them move on. Help us think about generosity in that sense.
[11:08] SPEAKER_01:
Well, I think she's just doing that. Isn't that just the example of what we just talked about? If your team is actually performing well, they ain't going to be around you for very long because they're moving into other places. Well, that's wonderful. And whether that person just hired well to your point of where they actually trained, probably gave them delegated, let them have some rope, let them learn. They probably coached them effectively and clearly and not just mushy as I said.
[11:32]
I'll bet you, I'll bet you the leader you're talking about put all the packs together. The other thing I'd say there is You know, why do I even argue this kind of leadership's required? I mean, you know, we can say times have changed in Gen Z years and all that, but it's not, you know, I get pushed back every time I say that. You know, the truth though is work life from the Blackberry through to COVID has just blurred, you know, neither of us in our office. You know, it's just, it's blur. And people are no longer a cog only in an organizational's wheel.
[12:02]
You're not a podcast host. You're Justin. And I'm not just a guest. I'm Joe. And I have other time. And people want to be seen as a human.
[12:11]
They need to be seen as human in the workplace, of course, as well as at home. And that's why this type of leadership has changed, you know, the need to connect personally, need to actually listen to them, you know, to show respect to what the input, et cetera. And I bet you a million dollars, that leader you talked about practiced most of those traits.
[12:31] SPEAKER_00:
Yeah, absolutely. And we don't necessarily want to be generous with other people, with the talent within our organizations in terms of it leaving and flowing out to other organizations that are not under our purview. But one of the big things I've appreciated as I've worked with lots of leaders and have seen the lack of this type of generosity is, you know, just the willingness to invest and to let go and to trust that that will come back in some form. You know, it's not a give and take directly, but I can't tell you how many times I've heard from leaders who said, you know, I tried to get a recommendation letter from my boss and they wouldn't give me one because they said they don't want to lose me.
[13:10] SPEAKER_01:
You know, I'm 66 years old, not here or there, 37 years of BCG. you know, eventually legacy matters. And if I look back, people say, well, what matters the most? I get emails, letters, calls from people 25 years ago, you know, and Joe, I was leaving and you said this and that, and I took this route and it paid off. That's worth more than if they had stayed and worked for me for 20, unless the route was staying with Morgan at BCG. You know, that is so powerful.
[13:37]
So I hear you, and I've seen that in my world too, but it's such a short-sighted perspective. Because if someone's not happy, They will change eventually, you know, or if they see a chance to grow in a different place, they are going to move. Assuming they're talented, you know.
[13:52] SPEAKER_00:
Well, Joe, in chapter seven, you talk about small acts and big impact. What does it mean to be generous in the moment and have those small moments of generosity?
[14:02] SPEAKER_01:
That is, yes, I'll tell you, that is one of the most powerful, in my opinion, and in all the people I spoke with as they created this book, trait one can do and easy. And some of these things take a lot of work and a lot of the, we didn't talk about vulnerability, but that changed. That takes a lot of insights changes too. You know, but what I mean by that is first off, you know, quite simply things like, Hey, thank you for a great job. You know, an email congratulating somebody for results that you copy the rest of the team. So that person feels wonderful about it.
[14:34]
You know, I had a mom once who was business, her child got an email. I mean, she was 25 and the mom was so proud. The daughter was proud. You know, she shared with the husband and the, and she said to me when they even shared it with the daughters, the boss of the boss, and just, you know, the person was so motivated. So, you know, small acts and they're not hard. And when you do them, you know, you're humanizing yourself.
[14:57]
You're humanizing the other person. You're showing respect for the other person. You're showing your care. I had a colleague once who said if she speaks with her manager on a Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, it doesn't matter, and tells them something about her weekend. Let's say, for example, my child has a big soccer tournament, even if they're just a kid, and she's very excited. If that manager remembers on Monday or Tuesday and says, hey, by the way, Geraldine, how was the soccer tournament?
[15:20]
She just loves it. She's like, wow, you took the time. to remember what I told, to hear what I told you, remember what I told you and actually commented on five days later. And the whole thing takes 20 seconds, 10 seconds to maybe chat about it for two minutes. It's not like it's a waste of your day. So I think this idea of small acts, big impact, very powerful.
[15:40]
I'll tell a story. It's a whole different level. Scott Kirby, CEO of United. And I talked with him and he's actually believes this is one of the most important traits to being, you know, a heart led leader, a generous leader. And he said, after he said, it told me a story that his wife was on a plane and the captain came out and said, oh, Mrs. Kirby, I'm so pleased you're on my flight.
[16:00]
And I love United, love your husband. You know, I mean, there's a boss, et cetera. She's so great. Well, why what's going on? And this, the captain was a black female and she said, um, she said, well, when George Floyd was murdered, got your husband called every captain of color across United. Unfortunately, it probably wasn't as many calls that he wished he could have made, but, and she said it meant so much.
[16:25]
He didn't call with answers. He didn't call with prescriptions of what we should do. He just wanted to check in, see how we were and just make, let it, let us know that United was here for us. And you know, that was so powerful, obviously, and it took him a little time to make how many calls it was, but it wasn't hard. He didn't have to think hard to make sure he organized and did it. And here you now had a captain, you know, everybody's critical, like making sure the plane flies, but arguably quite critical person, really loyal and thrilled about how United was thinking about them.
[16:55]
A moment that mattered a lot to them. I think it's just a great example of, um, You know, a small act. It's a bigger, small act. They had massive impact.
[17:06] SPEAKER_00:
Yeah. Just to check in with people to see how they're doing, especially when we know that maybe something serious has happened. That might be a hard time. You talk in the book a little bit about getting through the pandemic and checking in with employees and knowing that you had employees maybe far from home. You know, there's a lot of travel in your industry. Yeah.
[17:24]
and people might be kind of uncertain and not sure what was going to happen. Tell us that story of checking in with your employees. I think you said you sent a personal email to 7,000 people to check in with them.
[17:37] SPEAKER_01:
Well, it's interesting on that. I woke up one morning, literally 4.30 in the morning, thinking about the team. And we all kind of go back and remember how we were feeling at COVID. And one way or the other, you weren't feeling that great, whether you were really scared or sort of scared or just what's next going on. And I wrote a note.
[17:54]
It was, I don't know, six sentences, quite personal thinking about you, whether you're, you know, in a one bedroom condo or in a big house, whether you're tripping over your dogs or two kids and three dogs. And it took a while to write it one day. Cause you know, something like that, who am I as boss to know how they're feeling? You know, that's a risky thing. Do I put pressure on my other colleagues, BCG partners, that you better engage like this too, et cetera. So there's a lot of thoughts that went through my mind, but quite frankly, I didn't share.
[18:20]
I could feel that people wanted to connect. And it was amazing because I literally, I sent it at 5.15, 5.16 and I was on the East coast. So that means it was already late in the day. This was the United States and it wasn't global.
[18:33]
You know, I had an answer and then I had a couple more answers. It just, things, notes like, wow. Thank you for saying how I'm feeling. You know, thank you for connecting. Just the connection makes me feel better. I mean, it didn't solve anything, but it just allowed people to kind of release for a moment how they were feeling, right?
[18:52]
You know, you could almost argue this is an element of vulnerability, authenticity, whatever you want to call it. You know, just expose a bit of yourself, trying to connect with others. And you do that, and people just get to kind of calm down, expose their fears, and then more often than not, move past them, which is what you want. You don't want a team stuck because they're afraid, you know, just not a very productive place to be. You want adrenaline and all that, but you don't want fear that's holding you back.
[19:19] SPEAKER_00:
Maybe we could close with this. Tell us a little bit more about what it means to be vulnerable, because certainly we don't want to broadcast our fears to everyone. We don't want to send a kind of negative message or come across as untrustworthy or weak in the sense of not being the leader that people need. But you've mentioned vulnerability several times. I think there's something really important there. Tell us what you mean by vulnerability.
[19:42] SPEAKER_01:
You know, what I do mean is that given everything you just said, you know, quite frankly, if one just said you're willing to be honest and sure, you can't be a leader and say, I have no idea where the world's going. Good luck to all of us. Well, you shouldn't be a leader. But you might. I mean, COVID was the perfect example. Leader after leader.
[20:01]
I have to furlough you. I don't know when you're coming back. You know, I don't know when the airplane is going to fly again. I don't know when the hotel is going to fly again. but we're going to be here. We're going to make it through this.
[20:09]
We're going to do our best. And I'm only, it's only a furlough. If someone didn't say, Hey, you know, we'll all be flying in six weeks. They know it's garbage. And it's the same thing. And if you're a leader and everything always seems perfect in your world, I don't know how you lead quite frankly, because people are, they're going to, they're going to question you in a different way.
[20:26]
Like, wow, do you ever struggle? Does anything ever go wrong? So I think it's more of a personal thing. As you said, you don't have to get up there and say, I had no idea where this organization is going. And if anyone has any advice, let me know. Now you could say a different thing.
[20:40]
Wow, we're in confusing times. I got some ideas, but I need 16 other ideas. Any advice? Let me know. That's a vulnerability of, I don't know, inviting teaming. So that's, I think, you know, but I think the honesty and not a facade is at the core of what I mean.
[20:55]
Now, You made a poor coin. Vulnerability, different lines can be drawn for different people. I mean, for me, already successful white guy, 66, I could cry in front of you. It wouldn't cost me a dime. Maybe if you're new in the business, black female, you know, it might be different. You still aren't human, but I'm not going to argue, draw your own lines as you move down the authenticity path.
[21:16]
But I don't think you can get away being a leader without being honest.
[21:18] SPEAKER_00:
level of authentic honest real anymore well said i appreciate that about the honesty component there yeah that's a safe way to think about it so the book is the generous leader seven ways to give of yourself for everyone's gain and joe just in closing uh let me ask what are your hopes for this book what are your hopes uh for what this book will do now that it's out in the world
[21:41] SPEAKER_01:
I hope that more people who are already exceptional leaders or growing into leadership and maybe have great strategies and know how to drive change, bring their heart more into leadership, bring the human element into leadership. There's so many books written. There's books like this written. I'll touch one set of people. Someone else touches another. So I hope that the group that I touch, whether you encompass all of this or whether you pick up a couple of the traits and start practicing them, that's my hope.
[22:13] SPEAKER_00:
Joe Davis, thank you so much for joining me on Principal Center Radio. It's been a pleasure. Justin, thank you.
[22:19] Announcer:
Thanks for listening to Principal Center Radio. For more great episodes, subscribe on our website at principalcenter.com slash radio.
