Five Essential Insights for Leaders: Building a Positive Culture and Retaining Top Talent 

Arun Upneja: What does it take to truly redefine leadership in today’s fast-paced world? Lori Mazan, co-founder and chief coaching officer at Sounding Board, believes she has the answer. In her new book, Leadership Revolution, The Future of Developing Dynamic Leaders, Lori challenges outdated leadership norms with a fresh, innovative approach. Join us as we dive into our insights and explore how they can transform the way we lead and inspire. It might just redefine what you thought possible in leadership. Hello everyone, and welcome to The Distinguished Podcast, the show where we explore the frontiers of leadership and personal development. I’m Arun Upneja, Dean of the Boston University School of Hospitality, and today we have a truly special episode lined up for you. Welcome, Lori, to The Distinguished Podcast. 

Lori Mazan: Thank you, and happy to be here. 

Arun Upneja: In addition, I’m also excited to welcome Dr. Taylor Peyton. Taylor taught leadership and organizational behavior at our school, and is still involved as an advisor on special projects and executive education. Today, she’s our resident expert.  

Taylor Peyton: Happy to be back in the recording studio with you, Arun. 

Arun Upneja: Very happy to have you here. So let’s start. Can you share with us what inspired you to start Sounding Board and how does it aim to transform leadership development? 

Lori Mazan: It’s a really interesting story because a past coaching client reached out to me and told me like, hey, this executive style coaching leadership coaching is the best professional development I’ve ever had. And I want to bring it to all leaders in the organization. And at the time I was coaching this person, Christine Howe, my co-founder, she was in the executive suite. She had ascended very quickly and needed help kind of navigating how to move into an executive role. And what was interesting is I had been coaching CEOs and C-suite execs for 20 years. And they also told me the same thing. They would say, this is great, but I wish I had this earlier in my career. So Christine and I partnered up to bring that same style of executive coaching leadership development to all leaders in the organization and even future leaders, potential leaders. So that kind of personalized development is available for everybody, not just the people at the top of the house. 

Taylor Peyton: And Lori, you are speaking to the best professional development they’ve ever had, right? For people who are listening to this, who do not have a leadership development background or professional development background, could you just speak a little bit to the different methods people use for professional development, and in particular, what you mean by coaching? 

Lori Mazan: So traditionally for the last 50 to 60 years, professional development involves a lot of skill development, and that comes through training approach, either in-person training, online training, that kind of thing, and there’s nothing wrong with that, of course. It’s required and necessary and foundational development. But what coaching does, it’s personalized development. And it goes to the application of those skills. So we start with skills, and then the next level is capabilities, where people are combining skills for particular purposes, something like, say, strategic thinking or conflict management. That requires multiple sets of skills to be successful. So blending skills together, we call that capabilities. And then the next level up is called capacity. You know, what are those traits that you are developing internally to yourself that make you an exceptional leader? And that leap from foundational skills to capacities that moves leaders from good leaders to exceptional leaders. And one reason this whole field of coaching has developed is, you know, 30 years ago, I used to be in training as well. And we would teach the skills, and then the participants would always ask the same question, like, wait, how do I apply this in my context, in my environment with this particular person? And a large training approach really just doesn’t give you that personalized my own situation answer that lets you transfer the learning to your daily life. And this coaching approach helps you do that. It allows you to, it gives you help, a thinking partner to take the skills that you have and apply them successfully in your specific situation environment. 

Taylor Peyton: Lori, when we look to the history of executive coaching in terms of when it first took off, leaders were a bit resistant regarding the stigma of asking for a coach or accepting that they might need a coach. Can you speak a little bit about what you do today effectively, or what you’ve seen coaches do today effectively, to talk leaders into the value of coaching? 

Lori Mazan: Great question. So yes, when coaching started, it really was like the first visible coach was someone who had talked about derailed executives. So yes, of course, people didn’t want to be pigeonholed into somebody who wasn’t being successful. But I would say by the late 90s, early 2000s, it had already shifted so that leadership coaching was a developmental methodology, not a remedial methodology. So that’s why organizations use coaching for high potential groups. They’re preparing them for their next leadership role. They use it for succession planning. They use it for like, it’s, it’s even though with technology, we’ve been able to bring the price point down a lot. It’s traditionally very expensive. So organizations are investing their funds in people they think are going to be valuable to their organization in the future. So one of the ways to think about it is, hey, your organization is investing in you because they think you are high potential. They want to develop you to the next leader, to the next level. I think the other thing is, because it’s just a great form of professional development, what our coaches do is, they help the participant find out what their own personal motivation point is. Like, what do they want to really accomplish as a leader? How do they think they can do that? What’s the impact that they’re looking for? Because being a leader is not easy. You know, you have to really want to do it. It’s, it’s challenging. And so without sort of a personal value and goal around your role as a leader, it’s hard for people to do the work that’s required to get to the higher levels of leadership. 

Taylor Peyton: There’s a lot in this workplace today that isn’t easy. When you look at the way work has changed recently, especially during COVID and after. One of my favorite quotes from Richard Branson is, train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so that they won’t want to. And you just mentioned the value of organizations investing in their leaders. But the reality is we live in the kind of work world where people hang out in organizations not for very long before they depart. What do you say to these organizations to convince them that they should invest in their leaders that those leaders will not be running away? 

Lori Mazan: We can’t guarantee that those leaders won’t leave because that is actually one of the big changes in the work environment from the last century to this century. In the last century, you had 20 years to develop senior leaders in the organization. You know, employees were hired right out of their education and stayed all the way until retirement. Now you have three to five years. So, it’s an accelerated timeline of leader development. So, I don’t think we can say, hey, develop your folks into leaders. They’re going to stay for 20 years. But we can say, develop your folks into leaders. They will stay longer because they will feel the value of you investing in them. They will start to see their career trajectory take off, right? In other words, they’ll be promoted. They’ll be given more responsibility. And why do people leave organizations? Lots of reasons. But one is to move to a higher level position that they didn’t have access to in their current organization. So, instead of organizations letting people leave, why not develop them internally to the next level? It’s actually cost-effective because the cost of onboarding a new employee and getting them up to speed is significantly more than the cost of giving somebody a leadership coach. 

Arun Upneja: So, a few minutes ago, you were both discussing about, you were, Lori, you were talking about the differences in executives. Now, the longevity at the workplace is not as it was in the previous century. So, I want to, this is a good segue. I wanted to get to your book, Leadership Revolution, The Future of Developing Dynamic Leaders. In your book, you discuss how traditional leadership models, I’m assuming from the previous century, are often based on outdated principles. So, can you expand on what are these old principles that are obsolete, given this new generation, and what modern approaches do you advocate for in their place? 

Lori Mazan: Yeah, so many of the leader development models and 360 feedback models were developed in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. At that time, the work environment was primarily white male. Actually, for the first 10 years of my coaching practice, I only coached males because those were the only people that were in the C-suite roles. So, that’s changed fairly dramatically. Also, there was a much narrower number of generations in the workforce. You maybe had two, possibly three generations because at that time, people timed out at 60, 65. Now, you have four or five generations in the workplace. Of course, back then, you didn’t have nearly as much technology happening, so that information overload is very significant. Then, you also had a much more predictable environment. So, as Taylor mentioned, the environment is anything but predictable now. You never know what’s going to happen the next day, so the kind of leadership you need is a style that can adapt to the unknown. You no longer can predict what’s going to happen tomorrow, as you could back in 1970, let’s say. I think one of the biggest changes is the last century, there was a lot of leadership models, like five ways you have to have these five traits to be a good leader, or you have to have these three qualities to be a good leader. What has happened is people have realized, no, that’s not true. If there was only three qualities, people needed to be an exceptional leader, everyone would be an exceptional leader. Those qualities were really based on a more male-dominated leadership approach, because nothing wrong with that, but that was what was there at the time.  

Arun Upneja: So I’m assuming that you are working in-depth with what the person currently is and making minor tweaks here and there, or total personal? 

Minor or major. 

Lori Mazan: Or major. Sometimes major tweaks. But the reason why we don’t try to turn non-charismatic people into charismatic people is because that only works when the environment is easy. Under stress, people tend to revert back to their natural way of being. So, if we can enhance their natural way of being, then even under stress, they can still be successful. And the way we do that is we help them change their thinking, and then we apply behaviors to the, you know, right out of the new thinking. So, when thinking and behavior is aligned, then that tends to stick over time. And just like, if you’re a new manager, you’re going to think differently than if you’re an SVP. There’s a different way of thinking for each level of leadership, and to elevate yourself, you have to think differently, and therefore, you have to have new behaviors, behaviors attached to that thinking. 

Arun Upneja: So, a quick follow up here. So whenever you are working with people who are moving into new situations, or they have moved into new situations, and the culture is different, do you sort of try to figure out if they are adaptable, if they have an intrinsic desire to adapt? Or is it that you try and some succeed and some don’t? 

Lori Mazan: We try to help them adapt, and here’s why. They already chose that job, right? If we were coaching them before they chose that job, we might want to ask the question, is this the right environment for you? Right? But since they already chose that job, we try to help them to adapt. One of the ways of adapting is knowing when you can apply a different approach successfully and not. So if you’re more a go-get-em task-oriented style, hey, there’s other people in the organization that you can use that approach with and they’ll appreciate it. Right? And there’s people in the organization who won’t appreciate it, and that’s when you need to be flexible or adapt your activities to that other style. And part of that just has to do with knowing it. Like if you only have one approach, you know that old saw about if you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. One of the ways to be successful as the leader is you have a very wide variety of approaches that can be successful in a wide variety of situations. So really, leadership coaching is about expanding your toolkit and then helping you have the wisdom to know which tool to apply in which situation for the highest level of success. 

Arun Upneja: I’m very curious to know since you deal with so many CEOs and senior executives, what percentage of executives need to change and how agreeable are they to changing or how many executives you’ve seen that have totally transformed the way they function, either because there is a new leader on top or they’re going to a new organization which has a very different culture. 

Lori Mazan: I mean, a basic capacity model suggests that you never reach the end of the journey. So, theoretically, every leader could use coaching because there’s always more places to learn and grow and adapt, especially with a very changing, unpredictable environment. How many executives actually want to do that? Yeah, I would say that that number has been going up and up over time. And it’s still pretty high because even 20, 30 years ago, I was coaching those folks. When you are at the top of an organization, you don’t have to be the CEO. But let’s say you’re in the C suite or a VP or even a senior director where you have a lot of people underneath you. You really don’t have anybody to talk to that is neutral. Everybody wants something from you. Your employees want something from you. Your peers want something from you. The people above you, even if you’re the CEO, the board wants something from you. The street wants something from you. Your family wants something from you. It’s so valuable to that leader to have a neutral sounding board, a neutral thinking partner, to help you work through all the complexity that’s going on. And that person doesn’t want anything from you. They only want to support you towards your success. Like, where else do you get that in your life? You don’t get that anywhere, even from a friend or a spouse. They might want to support you, but they’re not neutral, right? They have skin in the games. So, they want something. And your coach, especially if it’s outside the organization coach, you get this very neutral, non-judgmental ability to just think through what’s going on and make the best decision from your own frame of reference. 

Taylor Peyton: It’s lonely at the top and it’s hard to find a neutral party. 

Lori Mazan: Very much so. So, that’s why people are motivated to have a coach. Like, if you look at there, you see, I think it’s about between 80-90% of CEOs have a coach. They may not make that visible, but they have that person. 

Arun Upneja: Okay. So, I want to pivot to, since you are doing leadership development at scale, so clearly there has to be, and you use a tech-driven approach to leadership coaching. And I wanted to find out what does that mean and how do you balance the human element of coaching with the technological tools that you have in your platform? 

Lori Mazan: So, that’s a big question, especially with the popularity of AI right now. So, the technology is really great at automating repetitive tasks. It’s very good at tracking activity, even development. We have a little model called leadership roadmap, where we track insight actions and results. It’s great for tracking goal and goal accomplishment. It’s great for summaries. It’s even good for prompting thinking sometimes, like based on what you said last time, here’s some topics, something like that. But we think that the human element is really the key element to development. It’s the human that can see the patterns of operation, the patterns of thinking and figure out what’s keeping those patterns in place, so that those patterns can be shifted. So far, artificial intelligence or any of the automated tools of technology have not been able to touch that. I also think technology doesn’t touch the relationship. Like, part of the basis of a coaching relationship is deep trust, right? Because if you’re a CEO or any leader in an organization, you have to trust that this person has your best interest at heart, that they are helping you be more successful, you know, that what they’re saying is useful. And so, technology is more generalized while that human relationship is very personalized and specific to those two individuals. 

Taylor Peyton: Absolutely. And from a leadership lens, you must change and adapt to this high-tech world, otherwise, you won’t be able to keep up. And so, that’s part of what I appreciate very much about your book, is that you are helping leaders ask the right questions about what they value, what they believe, to help them get unstuck and realize where there might be points of resistance for their own change. 

Lori Mazan: I mean, at this point, we can’t stop technology. You know, you’re not going to be able to stop the river. So unless you adapt to it and find ways to use it, and you know, in human ways, in technological ways that blend together, it’s going to be hard to be successful down the road. 

Arun Upneja: So I’m assuming you’re not yet scared of ChatGPT releasing a leadership development bot? 

Lori Mazan: No. In fact, I asked ChatGPT for like, what’s the difference between a coaching bot and a human coach? And it actually knows the difference. It knows it can’t do the same thing as a human. But we at Sounding Board, we use ALFI also. We use it for our matching algorithm, where we match a coach and the participant on relationship traits first, and then more functional traits like their area, where they live, that kind of thing, their level of leadership. So we use it there. We also use it to create summaries from the coaching conversation so that it’s tracked and it can then event, we’re in the process right now of having it automatically populate this leadership roadmap. So then the participant only has to go in there and edit. It doesn’t have to start from scratch. So we’re using in a way it’s kind of like to enhance the tracking and the engagement, but not in any way to replace it. 

Taylor Peyton: Hey, even though this technology is good at synthesizing and helping us do our work faster, I am still nervous about spilling my guts to a coach and having my data privacy invaded. And I don’t have any control over that as the coachee. I’m worried. 

Lori Mazan: Oh, yeah. I mean, we have lots of process in place so that there’s a firewall between the content that is being talked about and the development that is being talked about. So those content pieces are not visible anywhere. We have collaboration tools. So like a participant can include their manager, but they don’t have to. They can mark their goals and their development private, or they can make it public. So it’s all up to the individual being coached. But one reason we try to help them determine what is public information is because if the company is investing and me as a leader, and I don’t in exchange, let them know how I’m developing, it goes into a black hole. So it creates a perception of no development. So we work with the person being coached to create a perception of development, and that does mean revealing some information. But that information is the choice of the person being coached to reveal. Not the coach, not the manager, not anyone in the organization. The organizations we work with understand that completely. They never ask us for that information. 

Arun Upneja: So we are at the university at the School of Hospitality at Boston University, and we are trying to educate our students so that they turbocharge their careers and become accomplished leaders. So those students and young professionals, those students who are still in college or young professionals, just starting out their careers, what advice would you give them? What should they focus their leadership development skills on? What are the growth areas that they should focus them so that they can prepare for future leadership roles? 

Lori Mazan: I would suggest first just once you feel like you have your foundational skills under your belt, start working on your leadership capacities. In the book, there’s a list of the one that generalize list of the ones we use. But we got that list from the top 10 MBA schools teach in terms of the leadership capabilities needed from a business perspective. That’s a very good list to look at. I would say developing your skills and capabilities would get you about half way there. But to move from being a good leader to an exceptional leader, you need capacity and one of the primary capacities is your own internal compass. So, especially for younger students, but even older students, to be an exceptional leader, you have to be able to develop this way that you ultimately are making your own decision that matches well internally with what’s true for you. Sometimes this is called central equilibrium. I always talk about this as being the eye of the storm. So, if you see like the big hurricane and it’s swirling around with all those 100-mile winds, but in the center of that is this little place where it’s calm and the sun is shining. And if you see those, like the plane can sometimes fly through those, and right in there, it’s like perfect. So, as a leader, you have to cultivate this eye of the storm place that you can stand in so that when all the pressures and the forces are coming at you from all directions, you don’t lose your balance, you don’t lose your internal compass, you don’t lose your equilibrium and end up making choices that aren’t the best for you or your team or your organization or your industry. So, that’s a long-term development process that I think people can start really young. I think they get even started in childhood depending on the kind of parenting you get, but it’s certainly a lifelong development opportunity around that capacity. 

Taylor Peyton: Lori, that takes experience and maturity and sometimes when I ask students to get a leadership coach or to consider getting one, they come back to me and say, I don’t have the money for that. What words of wisdom would you give to those early career leaders? 

Lori Mazan: Well, coaching has become so inexpensive these days that I would suggest they might just check. Is it that they don’t have the money or that that’s not a priority for them and something else might be a priority? So if you really are on the leadership track, you might want to invest in yourself pretty early on that track. But there’s lots of other ways to develop that are not coaching. So mentoring is a really great way and the mentoring can happen in the organization. You can find your own external mentors. I think most of the successful folks had very good mentors. I’m guessing you have mentors available right inside your program as well as ways to help students find mentors outside of your program. So that’s a generally free opportunity. And an up-and-coming leader can have multiple mentors. So they see and hear multiple points of view. And all of that information goes into them creating their own internal compass. 

Arun Upneja: You know, one of the things I think when people think of mentors is people who are ahead of them in age and longevity and seniority in the company or some other company. I think people should be looking at mentors regardless of where they are in whatever situations. Younger people, even younger executives, to some extent can be your mentors. 

Lori Mazan: 100 percent, they actually named them, they called it reverse mentoring, which is people who are older in their age and their career path, get mentored by younger people who are more immersed in technology or generational thinking that’s not familiar to that particular leader. So 100 percent mentoring can go all directions. 

Arun Upneja: Yep, I know I have one such mentor right here in this room. Taylor has been a great, great mentor to me as well. Before I have a couple of fun questions for you, Lori, but before I start on those fun questions, what should, why should people contact Sounding Board? 

Lori Mazan: So Sounding Board offers very high-quality coaching from early leaders or pre-leaders all the way up through the C-suite, and that was our goal, provide that access for any leaders in an organization, because we’re a B2B organization, but the truth is coaching can be for any leaders anywhere. You can be a leader in your family, in your community, in your university, with your peers, however. We also offer the technology to deploy, manage, and measure all of the coaching and mentoring. Really, all of the human-to-human leadership development that you’re doing. Small group experiences, one-on-one experiences, whether that’s coaching, mentoring, small group training or development in some other ways. The software is what lets it scale to larger organizations, where traditionally there hasn’t been a lot of measurement around leader development. 

Arun Upneja: Some fun questions to end the podcast. If you could have a superpower that would enhance your coaching abilities, what would it be and why? 

Lori Mazan: Oh my gosh, if I could just read people’s minds, that would make things so much easier. And one reason is part of coaching is naming things that the individual isn’t really seeing themselves. That can be emotions that they’re feeling, that can be patterns they’re kind of stuck in that they don’t see. It can be ways of thinking that are blocking them. It can be a lot of things that the coach kind of shines the light on for that individual to see more clearly. That would all be so much easier if I could just read their minds. 

Arun Upneja: Lori, we know you’re a busy leader, but when you do get a break, what is your go-to activity? 

Lori Mazan: Oh, I have a long practice of the martial art called Tai Chi Chuan. It’s the non-martial form is that thing you see older people doing in the park where they’re moving really slow. Okay, Tai Chi. And I’ve done the martial version of that for 30 years. So that includes a slow moving form, a meditation, as well as the martial forms, which is called push hands. It’s more like sparring interactive. And we say, not only does it bring you some of that internal equilibrium and peace, it also lets you see how you interact with others in the sparring format. So it’s a very useful tool for observing yourself. 

Arun Upneja: Fantastic. Lori, it has been an enlightening conversation, and your insights are truly valuable. Thank you for joining and sharing your vision. To our listeners, we hope you found today’s discussion as transformative as I did. Remember, leadership isn’t just a role, it’s a revolution. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please rate us so others can find us and they can benefit from your insights. If you want to join the conversation and share your thoughts and suggestions, email me at shardeen.bu.edu, that is sha.bu.edu. Special thanks to the team that produced this podcast, producer Mara Littman, editor and sound engineer Andy Hallock, and the editor of our leadership series, Dr. Taylor Peyton, and the entire team at Boston University School of Hospitality Administration. To keep up with Distinguished Podcasts, be sure to subscribe. Wherever you listen to your favorite podcast, you can also learn more about BU School of Hospitality by visiting bu.edu/hospitality. Have a wonderful day.

Arun Upneja: Welcome to the Distinguished podcast, brought to you by the Boston University School of Hospitality Administration. I’m your host, Arun Upneja, Dean of the school. Today, we are thrilled to have Dr. Taylor Peyton with us. Dr. Peyton is at the forefront of organizational psychology as the senior psychologist for BiasSync, a company dedicated to fostering diversity, equity and inclusion within the workplace. Beyond this, she’s the co-founder and president of Mojo Moments, where she champions a certification program for coaches eager to merge human motivation science into their practice. While we were sad to see her leave her role as a leadership professor with us, her journey is a testament to the pursuit of one’s dreams, a path we are excited to explore today. Dr. Peyton is a maestro of organizational culture, a critical element for the sustainable success of any enterprise. She’ll share insights on why finding a company with a culture that resonates with you is more than just a comfort. It’s crucial for professional success and personal satisfaction. In her work with leadership coaches, she strives to instill that creating a robust organizational culture isn’t serendipitous. It is a deliberate act that requires ongoing attention and effort. So, let’s dive in and learn how to nurture a workplace environment that thrives on intentionality. Welcome, Dr. Peyton, to the Distinguished podcast. 

Taylor Peyton: Thank you for having me, Arun. 

Arun Upneja: So with that, let me start by asking you to define organizational culture. 

Taylor Peyton: Organizational culture is a force. It is both a visible and invisible force that exists at the group level or the collective level. And that force massively influences employee behavior and your organization’s chance of success. And I like to speak about organizational culture simply by saying, it’s the way we do things around here. Fundamentally, that’s what organizational culture is. And if you follow Edgar Schein’s work, former professor at MIT, he just passed at the beginning of 2023, and he was a huge contributor to the field of organizational behavior. He has a great way of describing organizational culture. He talks about three layers or three levels of organizational culture in his definition. He talks about artifacts, espoused values and assumptions. 

Arun Upneja: Wow, three things. Can you help me understand what those three are? Maybe some examples and more simpler explanation. 

Taylor Peyton: Sure. So I’m from Los Angeles, and I know Disneyland best of the Disney Empire. So I’ll use Disney to explain. 

Arun Upneja: I love that. 

Taylor Peyton: Artifacts and behaviors are the visible aspects of organizational culture. So if I were walking around Disneyland for artifacts, I might notice that their cast members, they call their employees cast members, is an artifact of their culture. I notice their cast members are smiling constantly to create this magical feeling. I also notice that Disney has a slogan that is the happiest place on Earth, and that’s an artifact of their culture. Maybe I’m hearing chimes in the air, the ringing sound of chimes that create a magical feeling. And so that’s all part of the experience they’re creating. It’s also part of their organizational culture. And so that’s the artifact’s layer of Shine’s culture definition. At Disney also, they have the espoused values layer according to Shine’s framework, which is, for example, the value of expressing happiness with their guests and with each other, and the value of optimism, and they also have the value of show being on to perform. So even when their cast members might be cleaning up around the park, they are mindful that they’re still on and they’re still performing. Those are values they say they have, and that’s part of Shine’s second layer. The third layer is the assumptions level that Disney would have, which might be the assumption that if cast members and guests are happy, then everything is better. Then our organization is more successful, our guests are happier, our job satisfaction is higher, and then that’s a better experience for all. And you know that it’s an assumption that you’re pushing on in a culture when if you say something to challenge that assumption, people start to get upset or feel uncomfortable. Because imagine walking into Disney and saying, your value for optimism and happiness, that really doesn’t matter. They wouldn’t stand for that. That’s really deep in their culture. So that’s why I love the assumptions layer of the culture definition, because it’s the most mysterious and difficult one to shift and examine. So artifacts, second one is espoused values, and the third one is assumptions. 

Arun Upneja: So that sort of extends into the next question which I have is, you know, listeners are trying to figure out, okay, what kind of culture is my company or my organization? So how do they figure out? Are these three, is this framework that you just described, is that a good way for people to figure out what the culture of my company is right now? Okay, so what are the artifacts? You start noting them down. What is the espoused values? You know, what is the leadership saying? And then the assumptions part. 

Taylor Peyton: It is a great way to observe your culture, to have that framework guiding you. However, the challenge of being a part of an organizational culture is when you are internal to that culture, it’s harder for you to see what the culture is because you’re absorbed by it. So another practice I like to encourage organizations to consider is to bring someone in to the organization who’s brand new, maybe a third party, even a family member of someone who just hasn’t seen the culture, and ask them, what do you see of our culture? And that will be very insightful usually because they’re not influenced by it. 

Arun Upneja: So this is what I was going to ask later, but this is I guess a good time to ask that question, which is we give advice to students that you go and don’t worry too much about the money or other aspects, but a culture fit is very important. So how do students when they’re interviewing or even a new employee when you’re interviewing with a company, how do you figure out if there is a culture fit between you and the company? 

Taylor Peyton: I would like to advise students to consider asking the question, what are the core values of this organization? Ask their interviewee or ask their interviewer that question because then you can see by how the interviewer responds if the company has done clear values work. Everybody in an organization ideally should be able to describe your top few values if they are faced with that question. Another thing I would recommend for students to do is remember that what an interviewer might say about their culture could be very different from what the reality of the organization’s culture is. And so look for implicit clues. Look for behaviors. Don’t only go off of what people say verbally when you’re exploring the culture of a new company. For example, maybe the company says that they value promptness, but they were 20 minutes late bringing you in for your interview. That would be a clue. What is this culture really like even though they say they might want to be something else? And then another thing I would recommend is, especially to an early career phase person, be courageous to experiment with a culture that you might not think fits you at first. Don’t only look for the culture that makes you feel comfortable because you might have a lot more of a growth edge if you join a very hierarchical bureaucratic culture when really what might feel comfortable to you at first is a family-oriented collaborative culture. So consider it part of your growth. 

Arun Upneja: You know, one of the things that people talk about a positive organization, a positive organization culture, but that word can hide a whole lot of things, you know, and you mentioned some of them if it’s a busy culture or if it’s a very intellectual type of curiosity type of culture. So obviously the leaders take a big role in establishing the culture. So what are some of the steps that leaders can take to cultivate a positive organizational culture regardless of the way they define their culture? 

Taylor Peyton: Well, one big piece is feedback and to do feedback immediately. So if I’m a leader and I really want positivity and high trust in my environment, in moments when I see people violating that, I intervene and I give feedback usually in the one-on-one. It’s safer and more comfortable. And then sometimes in a group to say, no, we don’t do things like that around here. So you know how I said culture is how we do things around here. It’s also how we tend to not do things around here because one of the assumptions of culture is that we need to be thinking about what doesn’t work for us as a group and nipping that in the bud and not letting that perpetuate. 

Arun Upneja: So in addition to building organization cultures involving positivity and trust, what are some other qualities of organization culture that leaders might find helpful to have in today’s world? 

Taylor Peyton: Well, culture is a unique thing. It’s like a fingerprint. And so it’s hard for me to recommend from a normative lens. Every hospitality company should have this kind of culture. It would be impossible to do. But I could add to the positivity and trust topic you raised, definitely being service oriented is that it’s such a big piece of hospitality and the philosophy behind a hospitality. And also, given our global context, we live in a pretty siloed world these days. And so what I also love to see in hospitality organizations from a cultural lens is the value for giving back to their surrounding communities and involving people in efforts for volunteerism. So The Breakers, Palm Beach in Florida is a great example of that. They, as part of their culture, give their employees volunteer time off. Full-time employees get two days a year to dedicate to charitable causes. And then they give an impact report at the end of the year showing, look at all that our employees did and they do that in their onboarding process as well. They, from the beginning, going into The Breakers, Palm Beach, you are learning how to do community outreach. And so that’s a value they instill within their people. And why that’s important for building a positive culture is you are helping your employees feel like they’re contributing to something greater than themselves. And that can cultivate feelings of deep meaning and belongingness in your people. 

Arun Upneja: There is this concept of psychological safety. And obviously all leaders want their employees to feel safe in their environment. So can you sort of describe this concept and tell us why it is an important aspect to note when analyzing an organization’s culture? 

Taylor Peyton: Yes, psychological safety is when team members share the belief that it’s safe to speak up or safe to express their differing opinions or to admit mistakes or to ask questions. They feel safe around doing that because they do not fear repercussions from doing so. And so it’s very important to have psychological safety in a culture because if you don’t, then it’s hard to observe what kind of culture you have because you have people who are hiding. And then you don’t receive those feedback loops that are so important in shaping and maintaining a culture. People are hiding instead and they’re quiet instead. And then your leadership doesn’t get the kind of feedback they need to make smart decisions about the future because people aren’t offering and they’ve withdrawn for whatever reason. They don’t feel safe. I have seen a company where the leadership very much values voice in the company. And so the head leader, they make sure that in a group setting, if someone gets interrupted while they’re talking, that leader will say, no, hold on, let so and so finish their point. And then the floor is given back to the person who was speaking. And so that reinforces the value of voice. And that’s the leader protecting the tendency of the team to interrupt each other, jump all over each other, and then distract. And so because the feedback is received well by the leader and the people speaking are given the space to do so, that’s perpetuated throughout the culture. There’s a culture for voice. 

Arun Upneja: So then employees can feel safe regardless of your level. If you’re a senior executive or you’re a relatively new hire, everyone feels empowered to speak, and that is one aspect of safety. 

Taylor Peyton: That’s the objective, yes. If you can achieve that, that’s a really healthy thing in a company to have. 

Arun Upneja: So we’ve just covered the dark side, which is a lack of psychological safety. Let’s turn to the light, which counters when the safety is missing, so trust building. You are the co-author of Trust Score, a specialized training program and assessment for trust in organizations. So can you describe to us what is Trust Score, how did you validate it, who’s using it, and more importantly, who should be using it? 

Taylor Peyton: Thank you. Yes, Trust Score is a project I embarked on maybe seven years ago with two co-authors, one based in San Diego and one based in Sweden. And it is a training program that helps leaders and their teams measure the level of trust that they have in their group and mainly the amount of trustworthiness that the leaders’ followers grant them. So we measure how capable, how reliable, how caring and how open-minded the followers perceive their leader is because all of those factors play into trust, the trustworthiness of the leader. And so we have a program for that to say, for those courageous leaders out there, if they want to know how their team feels about working with them to take this assessment and take this program. And the assessment has been validated statistically and it’s a reliable assessment. We’ve done three studies to support it. We now have over 3,000 respondents contributing to the quality of that assessment to make sure the items we’re using are the right ones. We do have the leaders rate themselves on how trustworthy they think their people will say that they are and then we put that score against how their followers actually feel about how trustworthy the leader is. And so part of the report gives the leader that gap to say this is the gap in your perception and if you want to move the needle more toward truth and to a higher trust culture, this is the direction to take. 

Arun Upneja: So we just talked about trust score. There is another concept, related concept, which is high engagement work culture. So for leaders who are interested in building a high engagement work culture, what recommendations you have for them? Any tips or special hacks? 

Taylor Peyton: Yes, I would recommend that as a leader make sure your people are getting their needs met fundamentally and that starts with a good compensation package so they can pay their bills, get good health care and all those things that good workers deserve. But also it involves making sure that your people’s basic psychological needs are met. And so here’s where I’m excited to announce the creation of an assessment for motivation that can help measure that I’ve designed for Mojo Moments, our motivation company. It can help leaders measure the quality of motivation in their team and also help leaders measure their own quality of motivation. So from taking this motivation matters for you assessment, it’s what it’s called motivation matters for you, leaders can learn the level of choice that employees perceive that they have, the quality of connection employees feel at work, or the quality of connection that they feel toward the mission and purpose of the organization, and also the level of competence their employees feel. Because choice, connection and competence are the heart of human motivation, according to Ed Deese and Richard Ryan’s self-determination theory. And so we have done some great scientific work to validate this instrument against existing academic measures in the literature that you would recognize, if I name them Arun. And so we’re doing this measurement of motivation at a very skillful level, and we also have a program to go along with it to say, all right, now that we’ve identified that thing you’re missing to create that highly motivated culture, what can shift in your favor? Where should you put the work? And so we have the motivation tool. And then the other thing I would say to leaders for an engaged culture is really think about what people find meaningful about working for your company. When they find meaning in the work, that is a very highly motivating factor. And we have researched, I’ve done lots of research with Dr. Dre Zegarmy on his work passion model to prove that. 

Arun Upneja: So can you talk a little bit about this tool now? Is this like a survey that you do of the employees? And based on that survey, the results of that survey, you would then have a follow up model or sort of a process for the leaders to engage in to improve them. 

Taylor Peyton: That’s right. So the version of the tool that’s coming out spring of 2024, it’s called Motivation Matters for Leaders. And that would be for leaders and their teams to fill out the survey. It takes 10 to 15 minutes. And then they’ll get the results in a report format. And then from there, there’s a program that they can learn about how to shift the needle in the areas where they might be most lacking. We also have an individual measure, which is Motivation Matters for You. And that is, anyone can take that as an individual. You don’t need a team around you to take that measure. But similar objective, we’re measuring the quality of motivation at work. For the leader assessment, we’re measuring the types of behaviors leaders can do to help create an autonomy-supportive environment for their people. 

Arun Upneja: Okay, so a few years ago, I was listening to a management guru who said the following, let’s get the right people on the bus and let’s get the wrong people off the bus. You know, frequently we see top leaders bring their own team when they take the top job in any organization. So the question for you is, can people change? Have you seen examples of where a leader can change the culture? Or is the best philosophy to completely disrupt the current culture and try to bring in a new team with a new culture? Now, I know that I’m conflating people and culture, but then you are the expert. Help us untangle this. 

Taylor Peyton: Well, you and I have been around in circles about organizational change and organizational culture, so this makes me smile you’re asking this question. But what I know about change management is that 70% of organizational change efforts fail. And so what’s funny about your wording is you’re asking, is the best approach to completely disrupt the current culture? And that’s a very negative connotation, because the reality is with change comes loss. It’s like tiny deaths that people have to endure whenever something big is changing. And so it’s very much the work of leadership to figure out how to work through the repercussions of the change to anticipate what people will suffer from as part of this change, but know and help people see how this change is ultimately in service of something greater. And so my question back to the leader would be, how long do you want this change to take? And also, how long do you have for this change to take? Because some organizations will not survive if the change doesn’t happen immediately. So of course, bringing in your own team is the faster road to change. You see pro sports teams do this all the time, but it is a matter of how much time do you have. And I’m a Leadership Studies PhD, and so I believe very much in development and growth and how you say, can people change. I say Arun, wholeheartedly, absolutely. And it’s a strong personal value of mine. And professionally, I do a lot of work in that area. 

Arun Upneja: Fantastic. So I hope all the leaders who are thinking of taking new jobs are listening. Okay, now I have to admit that when you were here on the faculty and we were trying to implement huge amounts of organizational change, you were very, very key in helping me go through that entire process. So I am forever grateful. And what I would like to ask you next is to teach or coach the entire workforce one small bite-sized lesson here that would help move the world, even if a little bit, in a more psychologically healthy direction. What would that be? 

Taylor Peyton: I love this question. This is a great question. I would love to encourage people to always take responsibility for their own happiness and to not let their happiness be contingent upon other people, other things, rewards that might come their way, an outcome that could go one way or another. I think if we all take more responsibility for our own happiness, then we can show up more whole, more well, stronger for everybody else around us. 

Arun Upneja: That is an outstanding direction for everyone to take. So really appreciate that. Thank you, Dr. Peyton. It was a pleasure to talk with you today. Special thanks to the team that produced this podcast, Mara Littman, Andy Hallock and the entire team at Boston University School of Hospitality Administration. To keep up with the Distinguished podcast, be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. Please remember to rate this podcast as well. You can also learn more about our undergraduate and graduate programs at Boston University School of Hospitality Administration by visiting bu.edu/hospitality. Thank you. 

Arun Upneja: Welcome to the Distinguished Podcast, produced by Boston University School of Hospitality Administration. I’m Arun Upneja, Dean of the school, and my guest today is Quendrida Whitmore, executive coach and career consultant. Quendrida helps leaders and organizations transform their futures. She gained experience in executive positions, leading teams for over 25 years. Prior to launching her consulting firm, Quendrida was Senior Vice President in Hospitality and Operations with WeWork, as head of community in the United States, Canada, Peru and Costa Rica. Quendrida has been involved with our school, first as a speaker at our school’s Hospitality Leadership Summit, on the subject of the importance of values and building a purpose-driven culture in the workplace. That happened last year, and a couple of students introduced you, you walked up on the stage. It was impressive, but it’s when you started speaking, Quendrida, that a bolt of electricity ran through the entire leadership of Shaw. We all looked at each other, very impressed and said, we need to get her involved in our school. We did, full disclosure, we did try to hire you as a faculty member here. You have your doctorate. But of course, today is not a very, very good day. It’s snowing out in the Boston, and you didn’t want to leave sunny Dallas for snowy Boston. However, we did manage to get you involved. So you are here this week as an executive in residence, where we are fortunate to utilize your experience and expertise and leadership as a guest lecturer in several classes and mentorship sessions with students, and executive coaching with the faculty and staff. It’s a pleasure to welcome you back to our school, to Boston, and here on this podcast. 

Quendrida Whitmoree: Thank you so much. I definitely did not want to move from Dallas, but I enjoy every time I come and spend time with everyone here at School of Hospitality. So I definitely appreciate the invite back, and I will come back as many times as you invite me. So thank you so much. 

Arun Upneja: Just be careful what you say because we will get you back very often. So let’s talk about hospitality, which is something that we all love, which is a profession. At its root, it’s to give without the expectation of getting a reward in return. And that’s how, generally speaking, the whole world understands hospitality. It’s also about welcoming the stranger. Of course, and we are in the business of hospitality. The agreement between the employer and employee is to provide compensation for these efforts. Nevertheless, significant emotional labor goes into hospitality. Do you think this is a unique characteristic of our business?And does that make hospitality much more complex to operate than any other business? 

Quendrida Whitmoree: Yes. I do think that the emotion and the labor of the emotion that goes behind it is definitely a different beast in hospitality. And I think because of that, the type of people that are attracted to hospitality are the people who love serving and who love making sure that people get what they want and need. But with that is a toll that comes with this emotional giving of everything. And does it ever come back to them, you know, from the customers, from the other side? And I think people who build a phenomenal partnership and people who get repeat customers back, it is very fulfilling for them. I think in other times, it may be a little bit more challenging. I do think it is a little bit more unique to hospitality than some other industries. 

Arun Upneja: And I guess that’s part of the reason why so many people leave hospitality. So it’s a passion for you, myself and everyone who is listening to this podcast. However, in recent years, in large part accelerated by COVID, we’ve seen a high number of people leave hospitality. So you wrote an article, Rebuilding Hospitality Strong for Boston Hospitality Review, which is our school’s online journal. In your research and observations, why do you think many people left hospitality during the pandemic and they leave? 

Quendrida Whitmoree: Yeah, I think it’s a great question. And I do think that COVID was extremely challenging for the hospitality industry and especially the front lines. It became where it was, what your life could have been in danger. And that became the balancing point of what’s the pay and compensation and the fulfillment that I get from this versus what I’m now having to put is a possible safety issue. And then staffing became a challenge in the COVID for all these companies. And so that was more that you had to give. And then compensation and benefits may not have been enough to cover that. Along with the personal things that people were going through at home with loved ones that were sick or having to take care of the children that just who weren’t in school physically, but at home, there was a lot going on. And I think a lot of people left because of that reason. I do think getting them back is absolutely possible with an attention on the pay and benefits and making sure that we do what’s right there. But then also with an attention on engaging and developing and a specific intentional focus on talent and making sure you have the right people. And giving them and engaging them the way that they should be so that they can continue to advance, continue to promote and continue to grow within the hospitality industry. 

Arun Upneja: So I do want to get into this compensation package and what all is needed in a little while. But I want to just stay on the pandemic for a moment. Generally speaking, many people did think and talk about service employees as being frontline employees, frontline workers. But it was not universal. I think some people did pay lip service, but the compensation levels, the rewards from the society, from the government, none of that matched up to the reality. And that’s pretty distressing and that could be one of the reasons why they left. 

Quendrida Whitmoree: Yes, absolutely. I agree and I think that there was a realization as we were all going to the grocery stores, right, with our mask on, deciding when we could go, what we were going to do, the workers that were there, the people who were delivering all of our food to us, all of right from grocery stores and just from the restaurants that fought to stay open, to make sure that they could also deliver food to people. I don’t know that it was universally appreciated. The danger that people were putting their lives in, the stress that that caused, and how much people gave of themselves during that time. And I agree with you 100%. I don’t think that it did match with an acknowledgement of what was given from those folks. 

Arun Upneja: You know, what is interesting is that the people who are working in restaurants and in general the service employees, some people might think that it’s voluntary. It’s, you know, you’re going there to earn a livelihood and so forth. But you know, as the pandemic has shown us, we are, as a society, we are human beings, are very social people and we crave companionship and we crave going out and meeting. And in the long run, it’s good for our industry that, you know, people have come to realize that. But it was during that time at the pandemic when people didn’t really appreciate that. And you know, that was pretty distressing to a lot of us. 

Quendrida Whitmoree: Yes. Absolutely. Even the introvert in me, there’s a point, right, where it’s time to connect and it’s time to make sure that I have the places to go and the people to enjoy. And so it is absolutely human to connect and to want. And I think to your point, the pandemic underscored that for us. And it’s a blessing for our industry. But it’s unfortunately that it takes so long. 

Arun Upneja: What’s been called the great resignation, you refer to as the great reflection. Can you tell us more about this distinction? 

Quendrida Whitmoree: Yes, absolutely. So I think that when we saw people starting to leave all industries really and really reflect on what they wanted out of life, I think for the first time ever, it definitely in my time on this earth that everything sold down and everyone had time and with that time people started realizing as they got a chance to not be on the road every week from their family right to not be at work for 90 hours a week all of these pieces they started realizing that there was more to their life than just the company that they worked for and so they started reflecting on what they really wanted and if they really wanted to return back to what they were doing previously and I think that that’s what the great resignation is is that people were reflecting and they were going I this isn’t enough and this doesn’t match my values and I want something more and I want something different. I think the challenge with that is that some people absolutely took that time to reflect when they jumped from something and other folks didn’t reflect and they jumped from something to jump to something else and then that’s what created that you know the great boomerang is I think what people started calling it is people started going back to where they were before or they went to a company that ended up being the same or possibly even worse than where they were and so I think that reflection is really important right learning happens in reflection and if people didn’t take the time to reflect that is what they absolutely needed to do to make sure they were moving into something that they were they would thrive. 

Arun Upneja: Is this reflection part uniquely American? When I travel around the world, I find that this single minded pursuit of money that we kind of have in the United States is not very clearly reflected in other societies, for example, in France, you get right in your first job in your first year, you get more vacation time than people who have worked for decades in a company would get. So I guess this reflection piece, this morning to seven, morning to night, work, work, work culture, at some point it needed to be pulled back and I guess it needed a pandemic to pull us back. 

Quendrida Whitmoree: Yes, I don’t know that anything short of a pandemic would have pulled us back. Right. And then my fear is that we will forget, I think we have short-term memories and we will forget and get back into this rat race. I’m hopeful that this younger generation that is entering into the workplace right now, that they won’t allow us to because it is not their value to work, work, work and right from sun up to sun down and go back and do it again the next day. They have much fuller and much things that are more important to them outside of the work life is how I should say it. And so I don’t know that they’re going to allow us to go back to that, what I call a rat race all the time. And I completely agree with you when I visited Spain and there were Madrid specifically, I was in and your unemployment was high and people’s spirits were high. And the one thing that they did, regardless if they had a job or not, regardless if they were, it was spend time with family and friends. And that was the most important thing in their day. And I took so much from that and understood the importance of it. And that goes back to the connection that you were talking about. 

Arun Upneja: You know, I’m so happy you mentioned this generation as well. So on one side, we have the pandemic and you mentioned the other side, we have this generation of young people coming, entering. In a way, it’s going to benefit even us older generations who are used to working, you know, around the clock. When I started at the age of 19 in my first job, I would go on a 7 to 4 shift, and 4, 5 p.m. 6 p.m. 7 p.m. at 7 to 8, somewhere I would make an excuse and say, I have this work to do, so I have to go. But why would I have to make an excuse? Four hours past my shift ending time to say, okay, I need to leave now. But in a way, I’m very happy that this young generation is sort of pulling that bank because so much work is not good. 

Quendrida Whitmoree: I completely agree. And I think that they are very, they’re very artful in the way that they are teaching us. Because to your point, I’d do the same thing. And if you had to leave when you were supposed to be gone at 5 o’clock anyway, you had to leave at 8 p.m. and everyone else was still there, you would make an excuse of, oh, you know, I really got it, instead of just saying like, I’m leaving, because I actually have something else outside of work to do. I remember the first time that I was leading this up and coming generation and someone talked to me about a mental health day. And it took me a moment to go like, okay, so what is that? And that like, is that real? And then I had to stop myself and realize like, wait a minute, this is real. And it is something that we haven’t paid enough attention to. And good for her for letting me know that she’s not okay today. And that she actually needs some time to get back to where she wants to be so that she can thrive in this environment. So it definitely is, we have to, we’ve got to slow down, we’ve got to learn our generation because it is not how we grew up. 

Arun Upneja: Right. And you know, when I speak to people of our generation, sometimes many of them are very contemptuous of these young people and saying that they are soft, they just don’t know how to do hard work, and, you know, there’s some, for some reason, I think there is in some people that attitude of, you know, be on the job all the time just has persisted, and they’re not seeing that, you know, family time, like you said earlier, is important. 

Quendrida Whitmoree: Yes. And I think that sometimes we get into this mode of, well, if I had to do it, you have to do it. Right. And I worked hard and I, what’s that old saying that people used to say, I walked uphill both ways in the snow, right, all of those pieces, which most of that wasn’t true. But it was this communication that like I have worked, right, tooth and nail to earn this and you’ve got to do the same. And what we are, what’s lacking in that is the innovations that have happened, like the technology that’s happened, all of these things that this generation, they’re working much smarter than we ever were able to just from the tools that they have. And so for us to still put this hard work, day and night, uphill both ways on them is actually, it’s a little old school of us. And some of us are stuck in that, not learning and growing with the new way of doing things. 

Arun Upneja: Well, just for clarification, I did go uphill both ways when I was growing up. So yesterday, AHLA released a survey results. They’re saying that 71% of respondents, obviously hotel owners, are increasing wages, 64% are offering greater flexibility with hours, 33% are expanding benefits. But 81% say that they’re still unable to fill open positions. So what is it going to take for companies to be able to fill this position? They need to offer, like you mentioned, creative total compensation package. So how should companies think about creating that total compensation package so that they can not only hire people but also retain the employees that they have? 

Quendrida Whitmoree: Yeah, I think there’s a couple of things in there. And I do think that there’s a lot of companies doing some of the right steps of looking at the flexibility, both in time and in place, right? The hybrid of like you can spend, you can work three days at home and two days in the office. Those types of things, because we do know that innovation and that, right, that creativity happens when you’re in groups. And so that togetherness time is important to make sure that we’re getting the creativity out of teams. But then there are other times where you don’t need people in the office and just forcing them to come in just because is has really right. It’s a it’s a it’s passed. And so people are looking at it differently. And even a good amount of companies that have come out and said they’re doing a four day work week now. And they’re finding that it is it is equally as productive. I think some of the other things is a little bit of what we were talking about right before this was kind of that mental health. And our companies is focused on the mental health programs and making sure that we are right for people and for teams. And that we give them, excuse me, what they need, not just what they want out of a company. I think the other piece of that is living your values. There’s a lot of companies that put those values on the wall and then they don’t actually follow through on a good amount of it. And I think that this generation is keeping us honest to that they’re actually pointing that out and saying, well, wait a minute, you told me this and this and this, and you’re actually not living that, and so I’m actually not willing to stay anymore. I think some of the other pieces will be that total compensation a few extra days off, especially, I think we’ve got to get really creative, especially for the frontline worker, right? I come from retail, I come from hospitality, right? There’s the customer in most cases is actually in the building in brick and mortar. And so we have to have people in the building, but it does it does mean we have to get creative with some of the other pieces. I used to say when I was in retail, right, like the customer, you just got to take the money at the end, right? That’s that’s what we have to do. We got to treat the customer right and take the money at the end, and we’ve got to have people in the stores to do that. But it doesn’t mean that we then close our eyes to some of the other things that we should be doing. 

Arun Upneja: Right. So you mentioned values that the company espouses and puts them on the board somewhere all over the place, but they don’t live by them. So what are the elements of a positive work culture and what are the challenges of creating a positive work culture in any organization? And could you also address how developing the culture of an organization plays into rebuilding hospitality from the inside out? 

Quendrida Whitmoree: Yeah, I think that cultures can be a lot of different things, right? You think about family and groups and all those things, they represent a lot of different things. But I think that there’s a couple of things that are probably core to it is being good to people, right? And assuming good intentions. And in the workplace, what I call that is giving people great bosses and hiring right. And so, there’s a lot of times where we get into this panic mode and we just hire whoever. When if we actually had a structured interview process that we actually took the time to do, then you would be able to ask people about what’s important to them, what motivates them. They would then understand more about you and the company and understand if you’re a match, right? I’m going to talk later in a class about an I culture versus a we culture. Neither one is right or wrong. But the people that you would hire for either one of those cultures should really match that culture. Because if I’m a we culture person and I go and work for an I culture, I’m not going to be happy and they’re not going to be happy with me. And so truly understanding what’s the culture that you want to build and then hiring the people that match that I think are really important. I think the other piece of it is, is that overwhelmingly in majority of surveys, right? And research everywhere, somewhere in that research and in that survey, people have said that they are not getting developed. They are not engaged by their employer and by their boss. And they are not seeing advancement opportunities. And so that is something that’s really important to people. And I would even say the development and the time and energy spent on their development and engaging them is probably even more important than the actual promotion that happens. And when we don’t spend time giving people these fantastic bosses that truly understand that, that understand the holistic person and develop to that, then I think it is a challenging culture, whether you have an I culture or a we culture or either one you want to build. I think that that is challenging when you don’t hire the right people and give them great bosses. 

Arun Upneja: So I want to dig a little bit into the culture issue. Do companies, I know that culture evolves independently of anything that people might want to do, but what percentage of companies or examples have you seen of companies where there is a conscious effort to create and say, this ABC is supposed to be our culture and we’re going to work towards creating it, and how successful is generally those kind of attempts? 

Quendrida Whitmoree: Yes, I think that not enough people are intentional with their culture. And I always say this about culture and personal brand, whether you’re intentional or not, you’re building one. And so there is one being built. And so if you can, if you intentionally are able to say, here are the things that we want and it’s important to us, the C-suite and the CEO really sets the tone for that. So what can’t happen is we can’t say, right, that this is important, like human being human is important to us and being kind to people. And then turn around and don’t show that. That is an intentional break of the contract that people have said that, this is what I signed up for, this is what you told me, and this is what you are doing that’s different. I think that you can be intentional, you can set the tone, and then it comes in with who you hire that upholds that culture and who you bring in that continues to uphold that culture. The C-suite and the vice presidents are really important. I was talking to a class this morning, and in my dissertation, I talked to a bunch of C-suite men in retail about women in retail and promotional opportunities, all these types of things, basically gender bias. And I had one CEO that told me, and I stuck in my mind because it was so impactful, he told me, he sets the culture at the top. And one of his number one jobs is actually finding the people who sit at the table and nod to him, yes, and agree, and then they go out in his culture and they actually do the opposite. He said it is very important for him to find those folks and get them out because they will ruin anything that they’re trying to build. And so I think being intentional, the follow through, and the accountability is really important to set the culture. And I think you can be successful in doing it. I think the challenges, time and money, and those are usually, I always joke when you say, companies are allergic to it, right? The additional time that it takes to be that intentional and to follow through and to follow up. Because a lot of times companies are up against time. And they’re up against, we’ve got to deliver this really fast. We’ve got to do this and we’ve got to move. And then of course, the time equates to money and resources. And so I think that that’s the challenge that’s budding up against each other. 

Arun Upneja: That’s very interesting. So the CEO has to sit around the table and say, okay, who’s saying yes? Who’s saying yes to me and then goes and does the opposite? How often, is it possible for people to change? So CEO says, okay, this person is saying yes to me, but then goes out and does the opposite. Can that person be retrained? Can that person change? Or the only choice you have is to say, once you observe that and you say, okay, this person needs to go, I need to get the right person. 

Quendrida Whitmoree: So yes, they absolutely can change. I think that what the boss or the C, whoever they report into, that’s the work that has to be done between them and that person, is to understand why there is a difference between sitting around the table and nodding your head yes and then going out and doing something different. Is there a culture or a courage challenge, right, that they don’t feel open to be able to tell their real ideas and their real thought process and have that discussion? Cuz I think the discussion would create possibly a different understanding. And so you have to create the platform for the discussion so you can understand. Is this person just really not right for our culture? Or is this person, you know what, they’re right for our culture. There was some misunderstandings. They didn’t understand this. We were able to have discussions. We didn’t understand this, right? So there’s that discussion that’s really important. I think the other part of change that I think every change model talks about is that what’s in it for me. And if people don’t understand the with them and the what’s in it for me, it is going to be more challenging to get them on board to the change. 

Arun Upneja: So this we talked about employees or people who are reporting to you. You worked with so many different managers and leaders for, obviously not everyone is perfect. So for culture to change, for someone to have been intentional about putting some sort of a culture, leaders need to look at themselves, be self aware of what’s and be willing to change. So first of all, in your experience, have you seen examples of leaders who, when pointed out, actually transform themselves and say, okay, this is what I’m messing up, I’m going to change? 

Quendrida Whitmoree: I have seen those leaders. I think to your point, I’ve seen leaders that also didn’t do it and they said that they were going to change and they did not. And then I have to, I think the leaders have a lot of responsibility. And I always say this, right, the leaders have to make sure that we’re communicating clearly, that we get alignment amongst the team, that people know their core roles, that we’ve trained them, that we’ve given the resources that they need, that we’re removing obstacles. A leader has a lot of work to do. And to remove all of these pieces to allow the talent to actually do what they’re great at. Now, I do think that in some cases, we may have just hired wrong. Right, where the person isn’t right for the culture and where we were trying to go. I think that that happens very often because when we get in, I always say when we go to the grocery store hungry, and then we get five packs of Oreos and no protein. Then we look up and all of a sudden in a month, we’re like, well, this is what we actually really needed and we didn’t get that. But that’s on us, that’s not on that person that signed up for the job because we didn’t communicate and we weren’t clear. I have seen people, especially through with coaching, have some great breakthroughs of saying, I don’t want to do, my intention is not to be seen as this person. That is not my intention when I ask questions, when I’m direct, when I do some of these things. So how do I change this behavior? And so we’ve had those discussions and sometimes people will slide back. There’s nothing perfect about it. But what is really important is the self-awareness to know when I’m feeling this or when I hear myself say this, that means I’m probably not where I want to be and I’m not probably not doing and acting and behaving the way I want to and to start pulling yourself back and to be self-aware. I think it’s a little bit, for lack of a better term, lazy when the leader always wants the team to just tell them, well, they should have told me and they should have given me that feedback and they should have, well, yeah, they should have. And maybe they did once or twice, but after a while and you don’t take it and you don’t act on it, then they’re going to stop and they’re not going to keep telling you and not going to keep coming to you. 

Arun Upneja: So, you work with large companies such as WeWork and Target and also most recently as a coach through your own company. So, what are the biggest challenges of coaching executives? This question is particularly relevant to me because you’re currently working with our team at the School of Hospitality Administration. 

Quendrida Whitmoree: Yes, I think some of the challenges of working with executives is a little bit of what we’ve chatted about is if someone is not willingly taking on a coach, I see too often where someone gets assigned a coach and that very rarely works out because if they don’t actually want the coach and they don’t see the benefit from it and someone is coming to them saying, oh no, you need a coach, that already puts up defenses and the key to a coaching partnership is this trust and being able to be honest with each other and being able to know that person and know that I’m there to help. I’m not there to judge. I’m not there to point fingers. I’m actually there to help and the intention is to get you where you actually want to be. So I think that that’s the first biggest challenge that I see is if companies hire me and then they say, and you’re going to go coach this person and my first question is always, do they want to coach? And before I commit to it, I always say I have to talk to them. And then that first 30 minutes is always, why do you want to coach? What do you think you’ll see the benefits of? And if I don’t get the sense that they wanted to coach, I will actually will not take the job. I think the other thing is that people, especially if they’ve been doing something for a while and they’ve seen success with it, it’s challenging to change that because that’s where their identity lies and that’s where they say, this is where my success is, and now you’re telling me that this isn’t what I should be doing. Well, you know, that book, What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There, and people getting them to believe that and getting them to see that things and times and people have changed and so they have to change with that is very challenging sometimes, especially when someone has seen great success with what they have done previously. So I do think that that’s a challenge also when I run into executives. And then I think the last one is time. You know, no company that I’ve ever worked with has said, you got all the time in the world to get the results, like just, you know, just take your time. And so there’s we’re always up against this time crunch of what do we need to accomplish for the year? And then how do we get you to do it in the right way? Because there’s a difference between getting it done and doing it in the right way that’s going to be sustainable. And I think that that’s a big challenge also. 

Arun Upneja: What advice would you give to leaders who are working on their world culture, being intentional about their work culture? So what are some of the low hanging fruit type of recommendations to get started? 

Quendrida Whitmoree: Yeah, so I’m going to give you the bad news is that culture, there’s not a whole lot of quick fixes in culture. So, but and that’s why, right, you can get some things done and people say, right, the execution is a lot easier, but you always have to be working on that culture and the back and the you’re in the background because the culture is what helps you sustain it. Because you can say, you know, you can say get it done. And then someone gets it done in the completely wrong way. It gets company values all those pieces. So I would say the low hanging fruit is to be very intentional and clear about values and higher to those values what we were chatting about before. Because if you have these values and you’re really clear on them and you’re clear on, yes, you can actually get that result. But we care about how you get the result. And if you get it through people, that fits our culture. If you get it through just bulldozing through people, that is actually not our culture. And if you spot that behavior and you call it out and you continuously really say that is not what matches here, that is low hanging fruit. And that is all about alignment, being very clear with the message and follow through. And the follow through is what usually happens to fall off, because we will see someone do something that’s not aligned with what we actually think, and then we’ll go, oh, I’ll just, it’s fine. It was one instance. That one instance is an impression in the culture, because how many people were watching. And so I think the follow through piece is the low hanging fruit, along with that structured interview process to make sure that you’re hiring right from the very beginning. And for people who want to be in your culture and who will thrive in your culture, you’ve got to make sure that you understand what that means, and that when you’re interviewing that people understand what that means. 

Arun Upneja: Fantastic. So that was the low hanging fruit. If anyone wants to go into it in more depth, please hire Coach Quen, and she will go as deep as you want on this issue. So I want to switch. This is the last question I have before we go to the speed round for someone looking for a job. So this is on the other end. You’re new, you’ve just graduated, and you’re interviewing for your first job after college or grad school. What are some of the red flags to look at when you’re interviewing that, okay, I want to get to know this company, and this is a red flag. I don’t want to work here, or I want to work here. 

Quendrida Whitmoree: Yeah, that’s a great question because I think so often, especially like when we want a job, and when we are interviewing, we just really want the job versus taking the time to interview that company also. And any great company will know and expect for you to come and interview them. So that’s a red flag if they seem to get irritated with your questions. That’s a big red flag to probably run. I think another red flag is the lack of clarity. If you get an opportunity to interview with multiple people, and they’re saying things that are completely different and disjointed, and this person, it’s very clear that this person isn’t talking to this other person, and they’re working in silos, I think if you’re a person that likes working in silos and individual contributor, then that may be the culture for you. That wouldn’t be the culture for me, because I’m very much a team-oriented, collaboration, cohesive workgroup. So I think that that’s another red flag is that when there’s not clarity, my fear is where are we moving towards, and are we all moving towards the same spot, and do we even know what we’re trying to accomplish? So I think that that would be another red flag. And then the last red flag, and it may be just because for me, it’s a high value, and it’s a sign of disrespect of if there’s chaos, and they’re not showing up on time, multiple people are showing up on time to your interviews. And then like I really, this actually happened to me. I had an interview where someone, they rescheduled it three times, which, you know, that type of stuff happens. People are especially at some of the levels that you’re going to be interviewing with. But then they showed up, and then they put me on hold, and I was on Zoom sitting there watching them in there, talking to someone else in their office, and then they’d come off, you know, mute, and then they would go back on mute, and then all of a sudden the interview was over because they ran out of time. That’s a red flag, right?And when that happened to me, I said, I appreciate it, but I don’t think so. Because the red flag is, are they really valuing that process? Are they really valuing people? Are they putting the importance into that? That time is so important to make sure that you’re bringing the right people in. And so when you don’t do that, then I think it’s a red flag. 

Arun Upneja: It’s very interesting. So many times, you know, when I’m interviewing people, I’m pretty much the last step in the process. And I say, OK, now I’ve asked you the questions I wanted to ask. What about your questions? And many times people look at the list of questions and say, you know what, I’ve already asked all my questions. I’ve met so many people. And generally I say, well, it’s fine. You can ask them again, because if you get a different answer, then you know that this team is not on one page. Perfect, yeah. So go ahead and ask. I don’t know what you asked and what answers you got. 

Quendrida Whitmoree: That’s very true. And that is someone who is possibly, they have prepped for an interview versus really there to find out about the company and be comfortable enough to go, I know what I’m bringing to the table. I’ve got to figure out what you’re bringing to the table also, and let’s have the conversation. And so yes, and so they’re trying to be, you know, respectful of, what if they go to each other and compare notes? Okay, great, then they’ll know that you were very consistent in what was important to you. So yes, I think it’s a perfect response that is like, go ahead, I would love for you to ask me those questions. 

Arun Upneja: And like you said, I think people are trying to make an impression, so they have the questions. It’s like, okay, candidates are asked, what is your weakness? And you say, you know, I am just, attention to detail is my weakness. So they try to have weaknesses that are sort of, you know. 

Quendrida Whitmoree: That are positives, yeah. You know what, it’s so funny, I’ve had multiple people do that. And my team will say that I am a detailed interviewer, which I accept that. I’m proud of that fact because I take it very seriously to really interview people. And when multiple people have given me an answer like that, and I will say, nope, I don’t accept it. Or I’ll say, okay, great. So you, what is that caused by? Is it time management? Is it lack of time management? Is it, right, something? And so then we start there. Well, no, no, it’s not time. Okay, well, let’s talk about what you really, because we all have our crazy. We all have the stuff that we’re not great at. So let’s have the real conversation. And it doesn’t mean that it just means that you’re self-aware. That’s what I’m looking for. So I usually don’t let people get away with the, you know, I just, people tell me I just work all the time. And then I, great, is that time management issue? Is that like, are you prioritizing work over other stuff in life? And then it gets them to open up and actually tell you the real stuff. 

Arun Upneja: Fantastic. You’re a tough interviewer. Okay, so I’m glad I’m the one interviewing and not you interviewing me. That would be scary. Okay, so for fun, we always end our podcast with a speed round of questions. Are you ready? 

Quendrida Whitmoree: I am ready. This is what makes, this part made me more nervous than anything. I’m ready, I think. 

Arun Upneja: When you were a kid and people asked you, what do you want to be when you grow up? What was the answer? 

Funny enough, I used to say that I wanted to be a brain surgeon. And I think the core of that is still the same. I just think of myself as a different type of brain surgeon. 

I just talk to people and kind of dig into their brains. But I broke that the first time I saw, I don’t know what I was watching, but I saw blood on television, right? Like someone doing some operation. 

Quendrida Whitmoree: I’m sure it was some television show. And I said, nope, I’m out. I can’t do that. So it shifted into really just, you know, digging in, trying to understand, being a problem solver. So that passion never went away. But I used to say brain surgeon all the time. And now I don’t even know what I was thinking. I could never do that job. 

Arun Upneja: Well, you are still a brain surgeon without cutting and opening. You are still going inside the people’s brain. If you could have dinner with any four people living or dead, who would they be? 

Quendrida Whitmoree: OK, so I want to sound smart during this question, but I cannot because some of this stuff I want. So first off, I’m going to cheat because I’m going to say the Obamas. And that’s one. That counts as one person. And I know that that’s not true. Because if you give it to me, I want all four. I want Michelle Barack and the two daughters because I actually really want to understand what it was like being the first in the White House and how they lived through that and how they really maneuvered in the family conversations that they had. I could only imagine. Before they went in, while they were there, and you see all of them a little more loose now, right? A little more like themselves. Yes. And so I would love to have that conversation. Brene Brown, Dr. Brene Brown, who’s a researcher down at University of Houston, but she has TED Talks out there, and she talks all about vulnerability and shame, and she’s done all sorts of research on it. And courageously living and courage being from like living from the heart, not that it’s, you know, just so simple for you. I think that’s why I like her, because she doesn’t pretend that anything is easy, right? She talks about vulnerability and how much she fought being vulnerable, right? And how much she hated and didn’t want to do it, and how she sometimes backslides. And I think that lack of, like, it’s not easy, but the courage to continue forward and the courage to actually push through it, I think is the important part. So I really like her. This next one, you’re going to probably think that I’m a ridiculous person, but Lee Harvey Oswald, because I want to know what happened. Like, I just want to know. There’s all these theories out there. There’s all these, like, I just want to know what really happened. And I want the documents to be open, all the classified documents that they still haven’t opened. So I figured that if I talked to Lee Harvey Oswald, that I’d be able to figure all of that out. 

Arun Upneja: I’m particularly intrigued, Dr. Renee Brown, because she’s from my alma mater, University of Houston. 

Quendrida Whitmoree: Yes, that’s right. I absolutely, I will watch and read anything that she does, because I feel like that is just such a genuine from the heart. And it’s real, right? I think there’s a lot of leaders out there, they will say all of this stuff is just like, you know, they’ll give you the advice and they’ll, but they don’t talk about the struggles that they’ve gone through. They don’t talk about like, this wasn’t easy for me. And I think that’s what makes it makes her real. And I think it makes it resonate with a lot of people. 

Arun Upneja: Two more to go. The next one is complete the sentence. Good leaders know how to. 

Quendrida Whitmoree: Meet people where they are and help them get to where they want to be. 

Arun Upneja: Engaged employees know how to. 

Quendrida Whitmoree: Take care of each other, take care of the customer, and in turn, take care of the company. 

Arun Upneja: Fantastic. Quenrida, thank you so much for joining us for our Distinguished podcast, sharing your time and talent with us as our executive in residence this week. I know there’s more to come. 

Quendrida Whitmoree: Thank you. I appreciate the time. Thank you so much for continuing to invite me back into your home. I appreciate it. 

Arun Upneja: And thank you, everyone, for joining us today. Special thanks to the team who produces this podcast, Mara Littman, Andy Hallock, and the entire team at Boston University School of Hospitality Administration. To keep up with Distinguished podcasts, be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. You can also learn more about our undergraduate and graduate programs at Boston University School of Hospitality Administration by visiting bu.edu.