Join the epic Joan Garry for a chat about how we attract and retain talent in the sector, how to prepare for the next generation of leaders and why talking to your board about Hawaii makes sense.
Joan has a long history of leading, consulting, and advising in the nonprofit world and it’s a delight to speak with her. She and I bring our soapboxes so get ready!
Connect with Joan Garry
Quote from Joan:
“A lot of people leave because they don’t have good managers, they’re not paid fairly and they feel their voice doesn’t matter”
Episode Transcript
Rhea Wong 00:05
Welcome to nonprofit lowdown. I’m your host Rhea Wong. Hey, listeners it’s rhea wong with you with nonprofit low down. I am so excited because today my guest is someone who has been a personal inspiration and hero in the space for not just me but many, many of you out there.
Rhea Wong 00:23
The one, the only, the incomparable, Joan Gerry. For those of you who don’t know, Joan Garry, where you’ve been? under a rock perhaps. Joan Gerry is an internationally recognized champion for the nonprofit sector and highly sought after executive coach for CEOs of some of the nation’s largest orgs. She is called upon by large organizations to tackle substantial change management, crisis management and leadership transitions requiring a compassionate truth teller, a hands on strategy advisor, a communications expert and a focus on strong internal and external messaging. Welcome, Joan.
Joan Garry 00:56
Hey, thanks rhea, I’m delighted to be here.
Rhea Wong 00:59
I am excited to have you. So before we jump into our topic, which is who’s going to run the sector, you and I have a lot of thoughts on this. But we do tell us a little bit about your journey and nonprofit because I love your story. And it coincides with so many of us who find ourselves as accidental executive directors or accidental fundraisers.
Joan Garry 01:17
So it’s, it starts in corporate America, I found myself out of college on the lawn, the management team that launched MTV. And I learned a lot about startups, which was actually a very valuable set of skills to bring to the nonprofit sector because I think they have very similar Gestalt. And I like to say that corporate America, plus personal aha moment equaled nonprofit executive director job for Joan, that my wife and I decided we wanted to have a family.
Joan Garry 01:51
My wife did all the birthing, I did all the catching, I think I got the better deal. And because there was no marriage equality at the time, we filed a suit in the state of New Jersey so that I could be legally connected to our kids. And we won that case. And it was really this sort of cheesy thing, one person can make a difference. It became so easy for LGBT families across the straight state of New Jersey to create that same kind of legal connection.
Joan Garry 02:19
And I just thought, I wonder how I might be able to sort of scale that. And so I applied for a job that I was completely unqualified for as many people are, who apply for nonprofit Ed jobs. And I became the Executive Director at GLAAD, one of the larger LGBTQ organizations it focuses in on the media, and how it tells the stories of LGBT lives as a way to change hearts and minds.
Joan Garry 02:47
And then I left I left GLAAD and I became, as you said, an accidental consultant. I became an accidental consultant and a semi accidental blogger and blog takes off and blogger slash accidental consultant becomes an unabashedly advocate and champion for nonprofit leaders. I think that’s the story.
Rhea Wong 03:11
Okay, well, I think you’re being a little too modest. You’ve really established yourself as the dare I say influencer in the space, and certainly a very well known brand. But can you walk us back a little bit? Because sure, one of the apocryphal stories that you tell is you get into the seat at GLAAD. And all of a sudden, you’re like, oh, wait, there’s no money. There’s no money into the bank account. What am I supposed to do? And I think that’s a situation that so many of us in the sector have found ourselves in that we we enter. We think everything is hunky dory, and then we start finding where the all the skeletons are buried.
Joan Garry 03:49
Yeah. So I think the first thing to know is that leave it to a nonprofit board of directors to hire somebody with absolutely no fundraising experience to come in and run an organization that was in financial disarray. And that’s like, I think that’s a kind phrase. So I think there was $360 in the bank. We had about.This was 1997, about a quarter of a million dollars in outstanding slash ancient accounts payable. And I’ve never asked anybody for money before in my life, and there’s nothing quite like a determination not to lay people off. That drives you to become a really bold fundraiser. I also came with pretty solid communication skills. And I knew where I wanted where I thought GLAAD ought to go. And I sold the destination to people and I dug us out of the ditch and I bought enough I dug us out of the ditch and raised enough money to put new tires on the car. And we ended up Traveling to some pretty impactful places.
Rhea Wong 05:02
Yeah, that’s so important. I always talk about this idea that you have to sell Hawaii, like no one wants to talk about the tickets that you’re gonna pay, you have to sell the dream.
Joan Garry 05:13
So totally true. And and there’s a longer conversation about strategic planning. But this is what people miss about strategic planning, is it strategic planning is not about KPIs and OKRs. It’s about Hawaii. Right? It’s about getting alignment around the fact that you all want to go to Hawaii, that everybody wants to go there that they’re totally pumped up to go there. And they’re going to do whatever it takes to get there.
Rhea Wong 05:39
100%. Right. And we, when we get too into the weeds and the details, and we suck the life out of the thing, it’s like no wonder people don’t like strategic planning, because we want to talk about why.
Joan Garry 05:50
Right. And the other thing is that you spend your time in the weeds. And that’s exactly where your board goes. And so you spend a time talking about oh, well, which which hotel? Should we stay at on our way to Hawaii? And how much is that one going to cost? And is there is there a Motel Six nearby, and like you’ve just totally lost sight of the fact that you’re going to Hawaii!
Rhea Wong 06:17
Joan, you and I have so many things you could talk about, but 100% agree with you. But let’s transition a little bit because you and I are here to talk about who’s going to run the sector. So your point about the Board of Directors bringing you in with no experience in fundraising. Similarly, I was a 26 year old ed, and I’m grateful for the opportunity. But really, I had no business for running a nonprofit at 26.
Rhea Wong 06:41
So my question for you is let’s talk about investment in talent. And the fact that we are just really bad at it as a sector, we don’t invest in our people the way that we should, we don’t provide the professional development for them to do the job that we’ve hired them to do. And then we’re surprised when they leave or they get burnt out, or they’re not very good at their jobs,
Joan Garry 07:02
professional development gets cut out of budgets, although I have read some recent articles that indicate that the nonprofit sector is waking up and smelling the coffee, about retention and the connection between retention and professional development. And and it makes me endlessly happy.
Joan Garry 07:22
So I run a membership site for Board and staff leaders of small nonprofits of the nonprofit leadership lab because I felt like there was a big old gap in professional development, that small nonprofits, we’re never going to have budgets for coaches or consultants. And and I have people who we have 5000 members and I have people who hate that money out of their own pockets because the board won’t put it in the budget, they make the case for it ultimately, because they raise some money or they have some impact as a result.
Joan Garry 07:54
So professional development, and the lack there of that it’s seen as sort of a nice to have rather than a must have. So we don’t invest in our internal people. That’s a problem. Right? We don’t we actually have not addressed pay equity that far. To me, I just can’t even in the 20 years I’ve been doing this Rhea, the number of times I have heard executive directors say that their boards literally say, you don’t have to be paid a lot because you’re you have such a job of meaning and purpose.
Rhea Wong 08:30
My head is literally gonna explode. Right? It makes me crazy. Because I’m sorry, as investment bankers, do you do it because of the passion who?
Joan Garry 08:43
Well, I mean, it’s just more there’s a when I was in the LGBT movement, the Washington blade, which is probably the one of the most well known LGBT papers, used to publish like the top 10 High most highly paid executive directors in the LGBT movement. And it was like, they might have made a dartboard out of the faces of the people because like, you didn’t want to be number one on the list really.
Joan Garry 09:10
So anyway, so pay equity is a big issue. And then I think the other piece, and you and I talked about this, and it relates to who’s going to run the sector is we hired young people, right? We hired so many, many nonprofits are run by by boomers who are starting to retire or have been in their jobs for 20 years. Right?
Joan Garry 09:34
I do a lot of coaching of organizations that are in those transitions. And they don’t look to different gender multigenerational talent and invest in them because that because that talent has a completely different mindset. And they in fact, I’d say that many baby boomer, nonprofit executive directors see people in their 20s and 30s as entitled brats if I can be so bold, when in fact, they are the future of activism in our country, because we’re all going to die.
Rhea Wong 10:14
Alright, Joan, you said so much, I’m gonna back it up, because like you did those points, we’re going to get a little bit deeper on. But let’s talk about let’s start with professional development because I mean, it makes me crazy as well as I coach people on how to fundraise. So they come to me and they say, I’m not raising any money, I say, okay, I can teach you how to raise money, they say, We don’t have the money for you to teach us how to raise money and like, well, then what’s going to change, like, I don’t understand what investment, we’re why you wouldn’t make an investment into building the capacity to do the thing that you’ve been hired to do.
Rhea Wong 10:47
Oftentimes, I feel like the blockage is really the board and the board to say, we don’t have the budget for it, we don’t have the professional development, etc, etc. And yet, I don’t want to paint too broad a brush here, but it is largely true. These are also folks who come from the corporate sector who understand the value of investing in your town who understand the value of building the capacity and skills and competencies of your staff. So I’m confused. What’s the disconnect? Why do people in their professional lives not bring that level of commitment and investment in their volunteer nonprofit lives?
Joan Garry 11:25
Because it’s not the lens, they see board service through. So they see board service as providing oversight. And for them, for many of them. Oversight means risk management.
Joan Garry 11:48
So just a quick side note.There are three levels of governance, fiduciary, strategic and generative. Most for so fiduciary, making sure nothing goes wrong. Strategic what’s, what’s the variance between x and y? And how do we solve that problem. Generative. Generative is let’s go to Hawaii, or where should we go? That high level, imagine what’s possible, eliminate constraints, most organizations boards see themselves as risk managers, making sure nothing goes wrong.
Joan Garry 12:28
And because of that, they bring to every conversation, a scarcity model. Now a lot of people will say, Oh, well, it’s because they don’t want to raise the money to cover the professional development expense. And I actually think that’s a little bit too easy and answer. I think it’s more systemic than that. I think that boards don’t see they see their jobs as making sure nothing goes wrong. And so as a result, if you set your fundraising budget too high, and you don’t hit it, that is something that goes wrong.
Joan Garry 13:10
So that’s, that’s my take on it, is it it’s the that we don’t educate board prospects, about those three levels of governance, we as executive directors, don’t actually take our boards to the generative level, which I call cruising altitude, we keep them at fiduciary, we do reports with OKRs, and KPIs and MOUSEs, and all of that stuff, right. And so we amplify the message that they’re in the risk management business.
Joan Garry 13:44
Anyone who’s been in fundraising for any amount of time knows that it’s about telling a story. It’s about telling the story of Hawaii, and helping people to imagine what is possible. And if you can imagine what is possible, then you start to think about, Okay, what does it actually take to get there. And that might mean investment in your people that might mean investment in the capacity to fundraise. I love that.
Joan Garry 14:05
Well, there’s, there’s another piece of history, if I may, I’m sorry to interrupt you that pandemic, what challenging times make possible and I do believe that there’s a treasure in the darkness of the pandemic, is it so many organizations had to be innovative, they had to try new things. They had to pilot. Board needs constant reminder that pilots in innovation are part of what got your organization through the pandemic, and that it should become part of the DNA of the organization.
Rhea Wong 14:41
I love that you said that I was just reading a book quote. I’m gonna mess up the quote. But essentially, Jeff Bezos talked about the failure of the Fire Phone. And he said to the board, the Fire Phone was a failure, but just get ready. There are much bigger failures in the pipeline. And I’m not kidding. Like we’re only going to move this organization forward but through failures and innovation.
Joan Garry 15:03
But think about that for a second think about what I just said is my job is to make sure nothing goes wrong. And I’m supposed to embrace failure. Help me understand that, right?
Rhea Wong 15:12
I know, I know what it is. And it’s so tied to like the scarcity mindset of like, we just need to hold on to what we have and make sure that it doesn’t go away versus like, what is the possibility of the world if we actually make a dent in the universe.
Joan Garry 15:28
Right. Which, by the way, also, what does that do that ignites competition, doesn’t it? I can make sure I have to make sure it doesn’t go away to that other organization in town.
Rhea Wong 15:37
I know, I know. It’s like, we’re all fighting over these crumbs, when really we need to be looking at making a better pie. All right, anyway, soapbox over I think you and I are very aligned on that. But let’s let’s talk about pay equity.
Rhea Wong 15:50
Because I think to look, the fact of the matter is, if you’re not going to be able to compensate talent that are going to go out the door. And especially with the younger generation, I think the possibilities for making money are certainly much more varied and diverse than when you and I were coming up, right?
Rhea Wong 16:07
You could go be a tiktok influencer, you could start a small business, all you need is 100 bucks and internet connection. So my question to you is, are we like, are we in trouble? Are we able to attract and retain the younger generation who see a different path forward to make money and make a living?
Joan Garry 16:26
Well, so I’m not gonna let any board off the hook about pay equity, actual pay equity, like the money that goes into your account. But I do think that my, my job satisfaction and how long I stay somewhere for profit or nonprofit pay is a piece of it. But it’s not the only piece of it.
Joan Garry 16:51
I mean, there’s a recent study on I can’t remember the source 70% of a person’s job satisfaction is not how much money they make, 70% of their job satisfaction is tied to their relationship with their manager. Think about that for a minute.
Joan Garry 17:11
And how are we investing in people’s ability to manage well? That’s a good question, right. And so, professional development, creating a climate and a culture in your organization, where you are a field where you are seen as a three dimensional person, where you are feel valued.
Joan Garry 17:31
This is the potential secret sauce that the nonprofit sector has, that the for profit sector hasn’t really completely caught up with yet, in addition to the fact that if we can actually figure if we can learn to embrace what people in their 20s and 30s are bringing in terms of their juice about meaning and purpose, if their activism, they’re wanting to be part of a movement, I think they stay.
Joan Garry 18:04
And I think that a lot of people leave because they’re, you move around, because you don’t have a good manager, you’re not paid fairly. Right. And your voice doesn’t feel like it matters, especially if a boomer. If a boomer thinks why do you want to have a voice in that decision?
Rhea Wong 18:26
It’s so funny. You mentioned that I just released a podcast with Leslie about generational differences. And she talks about the difference between transparency, right, that’s what everyone talks about transparency, transmit, and visibility. And these are two very different things. And I think young people can expect visibility into this is what’s happening. I’m going to communicate with you as your manager. But transparency doesn’t mean that you get to weigh in on the budget. Like that’s just not that that’s what that means.
Joan Garry 18:56
Right. But, and that distinction has to be made really clear. There’s an educational process. I mean, we have to really remember there’s a really wonderful book by a Time Magazine columnist, and actually a friend of my daughter’s Charlotte altar, wrote a book called I think it’s called the ones we’ve been waiting for. And it is all about millennials. And one of the big takeaways of that book for me is that millennials, don’t trust institutions, because institutions have failed them.
Joan Garry 19:34
And and she takes a case by case by case, whether it’s government, I mean, it just it’s really quite stunning. So to bring in millennials and Gen Z’s into institutions, in nonprofit institutions, they are not coming with a Pollyanna view of what that institution is going to be I in some ways, they come in as disruptors.
Rhea Wong 19:59
Transition because when you and I spoke, you said that we have a marketing problem when it comes to attracting talent. What do you mean by that? And what can we do about it?
Joan Garry 20:07
So the great resignation isn’t just about money, it is about people during the pandemic, who said, at least I think so anyway, right? Life is short, I might not make it out of this pandemic, I might not make it till I get a vaccine, I gotta rethink, or I’m working remotely, and I don’t want to waste three hours of my day anymore.
Joan Garry 20:29
Right, some control, some ownership of what time means to me. And I believe that it also injected in people, I want to be able to say, I mattered, that I did something, to fix this broken world, to add some meaning and value to my existence. And in that regard, the nonprofit sector is holding the Willy Wonka golden ticket. That’s what I think.
Joan Garry 21:03
And I think we need to stop already with this scarcity model approach. And we need to start talking about that if you want meaning and purpose. We got it right here. Right? What we don’t even think about, like if you ask people, so I live in Montclair, New Jersey, it’s a town of about 40,000 people that 10 miles outside of midtown Manhattan.
Joan Garry 21:28
And if I asked, people hear to rattle off nonprofit organizations in this town, and there are many, many, many of them, they’d give me a small handful. And when I then rattle them all off, they’d be like, Oh, my gosh, that’s a nonprofit, they do that, oh, I didn’t think about that. And I just don’t think that we do a good enough job of marketing that the nonprofit sector, as I like to think about it here, in my community, turns a town into a community, a community of neighbors, a community of people who care about one another, who care about the green space here that care about jazz music and care, but, they care about art.
Joan Garry 22:18
And I think that, that I don’t like the phrase hidden gems, because most gems are not hidden. Right. But I just think that we just do, we are a sector full of people who just do our good work. And we don’t tend to be marketeers, we don’t tend to I, I worked with a client wants and I said, you’re gonna get an A on every book report, but you don’t give her you don’t give a damn about the cover. And actually, the cover matters.
Rhea Wong 22:54
But during this sort of symptomatic of what we talked about with budgets and boards, that in fact, if you look at a for profit company, a substantial amount of the budget goes to marketing and sales, right? And yet, they’re these disincentives from a funding standpoint to actually invest in the thing that would help us to raise more money.
Rhea Wong 23:16
So whether it’s our board, whether it’s foundations that look at the percentage that you’re spending on quote, unquote, overhead, tuk tuk the perverse incentives, talk to me about that.
Joan Garry 23:27
so I have been, I have been carrying around a soapbox for some time that communications and social media is program work of the highest order, right? And that foundations and funders who see that as overhead are totally missing the boat, because people equals power.
Joan Garry 23:49
And so I’m not suggesting that you use your communications vehicles to get press about your organization. What I’m suggesting is that we’re not doing a good enough job of using our social media platforms, to engage people to bring more people to us, so that we have a bigger footprint so that more people know about us and us could be an organization.
Joan Garry 24:20
It could be a collaboration of organizations, it could be a coalition, right? We’re not using the tools we have very well. And I and I think that that’s a piece of it. I also I recently did a podcast about because I was at GLAAD. And one of the things that I know is that media is remarkably influential in shaping hearts and minds about all kinds of things.
Joan Garry 24:49
And what are we doing? What are we doing to jump on a hot show streaming on Netflix? So and I think the example I used was made, right. And all of the different ways that the nonprofit sector supported or let down the main character as she navigated her way through her being housing insecure and all of those things. And so, I think that we have many more tools up our sleeve than we think we do.
Joan Garry 25:23
And so that’s what I mean by marketing. I mean, about, if you don’t have a lot of people who know about you and care about you and want to be close to you, then you’re not going to have the kind of power and impact that you that you set out to have when you joined the shop to begin with.
Rhea Wong 25:40
Yes, yes. And yes, I mean, I think part of it too, is for myself as a newbie ED, it’s not like I had any kind of communications background, like I didn’t know how to market. And and I think that’s probably very common to many EDS, like we don’t actually have training for them as to what good communication looks like or what marketing actually is.
Rhea Wong 26:03
So it falls down to the bottom of list is like one of the other million things I have to do in my day, right? When I was an ED I had my hair was on fire to social media to me, and like I just couldn’t even. But if we reframe it as a way to bring resources and people to the table, then it becomes a different value proposition.
Joan Garry 26:24
Completely right.
Rhea Wong 26:27
But different because like I said, communications, I’m just like, I can’t do another press release, like, please leave me alone.
Joan Garry 26:32
Right, right, that I think we should eliminate the words press release from our, from our vernacular, because they’re useless. They’re useless. Don’t write press releases, don’t build relationships with journalists, get an intern, to find to do a scan of the media, in your state, town community, whatever it is, the journalists who cover your beat.
Joan Garry 27:01
What stories are they writing about the thing you the thing that you do? Right, start to develop some relationships with them, pitch them a story that’s actually not about you. Right, so that you become a value proposition to them. Right, there’s or start up communications campaign, see communications as programs and outreach to bring power to your organization. It’s, it’s essential.
Rhea Wong 27:34
I love that. Let’s transition back to transitions, again, because we have boomers who have been leading organizations. And what I’m seeing is both simultaneously, boomers retiring, or people leaving the sector feeling very burnt out. And my question to you is, do you see a leadership gap? Because I’m just really wondering, who’s there to take up the mantle of leadership, because we’ve under invested in our staff, so it’s not that they are necessarily ready to step into those seats? We have the younger generation who may or may not see the nonprofit sector as a viable career choice, like, what do we do? Who’s going to run the sector?
Joan Garry 28:15
Well, some of some of what we need to do is learn some lessons from what’s happening today, right? This is actually endemic to corporate America too. Oftentimes, Number Two’s get passed over. Right. They’re not the bright, shiny object. And so succession planning is actually an activity, it’s, it shouldn’t be a value in your organization across the board, right. And what what we’re seeing today, in the context of the pandemic, in the context of the racial reckoning, in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, is we are seeing organizations that are trying to check boxes.
Joan Garry 28:58
And we have organizations that have made very little progress on their own Diversity, Equity and Inclusion journey. And they go to headhunters and they say, let’s get a young bipoc person to run our organization. And their organization is not ready for that. I actually coached quite a lot of leaders of color and and it’s just a it’s it’s a fascinating, it’s just fascinating how, how it plays out.
Joan Garry 29:31
And we have if you’re right, so I think that that’s, that’s the biggest trend that I see in this sector today. Is boomers leave. Okay? We can’t this is not what I didn’t know what I believe, but this is what I hear. Oh, my goodness, well, we can’t hire another white man. We need a diverse pool of candidates. Right? Why? And then And then income someone that they’re not quite ready for, or has a vision for the organization to transform it into an anti racist organization. And the board members are like, huh, right.
Joan Garry 30:12
And so organizations need to start really doing this kind of work. So that when we diversify the leadership of our movement, that that we’re ready, we’re ready for all of what they bring. And we need to be able to invest in them. Right? We need to invest. It is very clear. I mean, I, like I said, I coach people who aren’t leaders of color, but so many leaders of color won’t ask.
Joan Garry 30:40
They don’t ask for coaches. And and I think it’s an I think it’s a big issue. And we have to just I, this goes back to the very first thing you said, worry about professional development, we’ve got to invest in our people, and our people. Some of them are 20. Some of them are 30. And some of them are 45. And we have to be really open to thinking about organizations quite differently.
Rhea Wong 31:04
So let’s, let’s jump on it because I agree with you. And what I see is that there are many leaders of color that are not set up for success, right? And so it feels like boards bring them in, because they’re going to check a box, but they’re not ready for what that change looks like. So to your mind, what does it mean, for an organization to be ready to have a leader of color who is going to make them into an anti racist organization, I think you got to you got to clean the house before you bring new people in, right?
Joan Garry 31:36
My organization, which is 15 People in my consulting shop and my membership site, we have, we’ve brought in a diversity, equity and inclusion consultant to try to create a real sense of belonging, particularly in my membership site, for leaders of color, right? For that to be a place, it is an investment of time. It’s hard work. It’s a marathon and it’s not a sprint. It’s not just about oh, we have to change our board.
Joan Garry 32:06
Like if people don’t get out of the box checking business and start to really learn and educate themselves. I mean, many of these organizations are serving people that don’t look like the people who sit on their boards. And it’s a real systemic. It’s a real systemic problem in our sector. And I’m more of an essay question than a short answer. Yeah.
Rhea Wong 32:32
Well, I also want to talk about how we might set up leaders for success. So I think for anyone out there listening, think about requesting coaching as part of your package for people who are transitioning out, fundraise. So the person coming in has some, you know, some bandwidth to some runway, so that they’re not actually fundraising for budget for to cover the next month.
Joan Garry 33:01
Yeah, I would say also, I mean, I’ve talked with I’ve talked with search firms that tried to persuade their clients to put coaching in the contract, and have heard less so today, I think, than a couple of years ago. And they have literally heard, well, wait a minute, you recruited us a rockstar, why would that person need a coach? And my answer to that is always okay.
Joan Garry 33:30
Would Roger Federer ever walk on to Center Court Wimbledon without a coach in his box, never, ever, ever. Coaches aren’t and is certainly as I see my role as a coach, my coaches, my coaching is, is not remedial, I won’t do remedial coaching. My job is to take someone who’s very good, and do everything I can to make them. Great.
Rhea Wong 33:58
So let’s talk about the younger generation coming up. And one thing that I have a dear friend, who’s actually been on the podcast, Tammy, Dolly Blackburn has said is that gen zs are the first generation that have come up without having works as part of their education, that they’re entering the workforce without any prior experience.
Rhea Wong 34:19
So I’m just curious as we think about longevity and sustainability in the sector, what might we do to make sure that the younger generation, the millennials, and the Gen Z actually are attracted and stay in the sector and that we’re setting them up for success?
Joan Garry 34:35
What I hear right I hear from managers and executive directors is that these young staffers are entitled that they have to be sort of, I’ve heard the word coddled, right. There’s a balance here that you have to realize that you’re dealing with a completely different generation that do have a completely different set of life experiences. You need to be open to understanding that and open to hearing what those are and why that puts them in the place. They’re in just like they need to be open to that.
Joan Garry 35:06
So I think that there’s a lot more relationship building, and a lot more conversation that needs to happen about what values you share, right? I think we spend a lot of time talking about what, what’s different between a Boomer and somebody in their 20s. But maybe we should actually talk about what we have in common, and really hook into that, as we start to educate them about what it means to be in a workforce, provide them the tools and begin to introduce accountability about their work in a way that is not coddling doesn’t let them off the hook.
Joan Garry 35:48
Right? It will serve people, everybody is served well by the introduction of accountability, because it’s a way that they can demonstrate their value and their success. So those are the kinds of things I think about when I think about this multigenerational, I just don’t think we’re talking to one another about the values we share.
Rhea Wong 36:09
Yes, I would agree. And I wanted to add that I think we also have to make the implicit explicit, right. Like, we can’t just all assume that this is how we do email, and everybody should know that, or this is how we do meetings, and everybody should know that, like, you actually have to spell out what are the expectations and talk about what are the norms in this culture.
Joan Garry 36:32
Well, or even, like, I learned how to write a memo when I was 21. at MTV, right. And so I write good memos. Right. So like, and memos have value, like memos reports, they have value, writing things down, is important. And and if you expect a certain thing, and you if you expect X and you get y it may be because that person has doesn’t actually have any clue what x is supposed to look.
Rhea Wong 37:02
I have a comment here from April, I just wanted to sort of revisit the point about five Park leadership, asking for coaching and professional development because I know it’s out of my network, I would say, the older side of the millennial generation, especially as we’ve advanced in our careers, we do actively ask for coaching, professional development to be invested in and all of us have married experiences of just being outright shot. Yeah, those those apps get awfully exhausting over over time.
Joan Garry 37:31
Yeah, April, actually, I think I painted that with one big brush, I think you’re totally right, I have I was drawing on a very recent experience that I had with a woman of color who led an org who leads an organization is a client of mine, and she has a monthly dinner with 10 women of color, who run other organizations.
Joan Garry 37:52
And she talked about the fact that they did not feel comfortable asking for coaching. So that was a so I think what you’re saying is absolutely right. I also think there may be a there that I draw on that particular anecdote to for my for the comment that I made.
Rhea Wong 38:13
I think to that the other interesting point is, for folks of color for women of color, in particular that are thinking about entering these executive roles. You’re really in the driver’s seat right now. I mean, I don’t know how long this window of opportunity will be open, but we need to capitalize on it, and you’re in a strong negotiating position.
Rhea Wong 38:31
So anyone out there listening, negotiate for that coat as part of your package, negotiate the hell out of your salary, negotiate your time off, negotiate on, what sort of change management and anti racism work will happen at the organizational level, like negotiate all of that while you are in the driver’s seat.
Joan Garry 38:50
That’s so smart. And so smart. Yes, you have lots and lots of leverage.
Rhea Wong 38:57
Leverage my favorite word. Yes. And he wrote came in with a point about an April, I think we talked about this before you jumped on, but the fact that that organizations absolutely need to be doing the anti racist work before they bring in a leader of color, because we cannot expect a leader of color to have to do all of that work. If, if they’re if they haven’t done the work, right. You got to clean your own house before you invite people in.
Joan Garry 39:25
I like to think that and I think some search firms are very good about this, but others maybe not so much. Right? Is search firms should advocate for that work to be done. right? Because they’re the ones they’re the ones that are going to have go ahead and find the diverse candidate pool. They’re the ones that might actually be end up doing a do over search when the person of color decides to go somewhere else. Right. So it’d be nice if there were other voices, especially those among them For the recruiters and the search firms that are being asked to field a diverse candidate pool would weigh in on these kinds of issues to April.
Rhea Wong 40:10
Joan, as we wrap up, this has been a question I’ve been asking people, which is sort of a fun one, if you had a metaphorical billboard that you could communicate anything to the world, what would be on your billboard?
Joan Garry 40:21
Get out of the stands and onto the field. Life is just not a spectator sport. Right? I mean, I am a Jew by choice and grew up as an Irish Catholic girl from Long Island. And part of what speaks to me about Judaism is this notion of tikkun olam, which is that we are actually here to repair the world. Like that’s our job.
Joan Garry 40:50
There’s some question about whether there’s even an afterlife for Jews, because you’re actually just you’re placed here, fix it, fix as much of it as you can. And then your job is done. Right. You don’t do it to win valuable prizes. You do it because it’s your job. And so that’s, that’s how I think about it as is I’m supposed to be on the field.
Rhea Wong 41:13
Done with that, thank you so much for being here. Thanks to all of our guests for being here. I appreciate it. I hope people are listening and we start to change the conversation because we need really good leaders to lead us forward because there’s a lot of repairing that needs to be done in the world. Thank you, sir. And
Joan Garry 41:29
Thank you, Rhea. Thanks. Great questions. Great conversation.
Rhea Wong 41:33
Thanks, Joan. Take care.
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