Empower Your Team: Learn to Lead Across Differences

0:00I was like, this, I found it. I found that this is what I've been looking for. I can honestly say has genuinely changed the way I run my business. It's changed the results that I'm seeing. It's changed my engagement with clients. It's changed my engagement with the team. I couldn't be happier. Honestly, it's the best investment I ever made. What you just heard was a testimonial from a recent graduate of the duct tape marketing certification intensive program for fractional CMOs, marketing agencies, and consultants. Just like them, you could use our system to move from vendor to trusted advisor, attract only ideal clients, and confidently present your strategies to build monthly recurring revenue.

0:38Visit dtm.world.scale to book your free advisory call and learn more. It's time to transform your approach. Book your call today. dtm.world.scale

1:03Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is Jon Jantz, and my guest today is Stephanie Chung. She's a bestselling author, business leader, and strategic innovator with over 30 years of experience in driving growth and transforming businesses. She's a former chief growth officer for Wheels Up, was the first African-American to lead a private jet company, JetSuite. She's also the author of a book we're going to talk about today, Allied Leadership, How to Lead People Who Are Not Like You. So, Stephanie, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, John. I'm excited to be here.

1:41I typically find myself doing this, getting definitions on the table of terms that are in titles. So how would you, if somebody says, I'm hearing a lot about this Allied Leadership thing, what is that? Yeah, so ally is actually an acronym. So it's a great question, right? So the reason I didn't write and call the book Allyship is because it's a little bit different. So ally stands for ask, listen, learn, and you take action. And the reason why I wrote the book, John, is because at the end of the day, the whole world's changing. Right. And we as leaders have to get on board and realize that the train has left the station and sticking our head in the sand isn't going to be helpful for any business leader.

2:19So when you think of the work climate, right, we've got five soon to be six generations working, which is unheard of. So trying to lead a boomer versus a zoomer can be a challenge all within itself. So we have the six generations working. We have women as the majority of the population. So that changes the dynamics as well. And then we have the ethnic demographics that are shifting. Right. So the, you know, ethnic races are growing, non-ethnic race shrinking, not to mention people with different neurodiversities or different, you know, abilities or LGBTQ plus communities. So what leaders have now is an entire workforce of people who are not like each other and not like them.

3:00Right. And so the real goal is how do we lead people who are not like us? And that's really the point behind ally leadership. The only way you're going to be successful is to ask, listen, learn, and then you take action. You know, one of the things I find really fascinating about you writing this book, so applicable, as you just said, to many leadership roles, but we're so used to this coming from somebody who looked like me, a white male, right? Who is saying, oh, you're going to work with different generations now. And so I think it's so fabulous, but also fascinating that it's coming from an African-American female.

3:36Well, thank you for saying that. Thank you. You have no idea because that is that was that's actually why I wrote the book, John, because I felt like the entire conversation was, you know, Mr. White guy, you've got to figure out how to lead women and people of color. Right. Right. And so so, you know, yes, I address that in the book because obviously I can't, you know, avoid the elephant in the room. But I felt like the conversation needed to go deeper and wider. The truth of the matter is all of us, it's not just the white guy. All of us are going to be leading people who are not like them. And so how do you do it successfully?

4:09I'll take myself as an example. You mentioned in my bio, I come from private aviation. That is a male dominated and specifically a white male dominated industry. And yet I've been able to reach the highest level. And so I, as an African-American female was, I remember, and you know, I opened the book with the story on how I look at the first team I've been given. They're all white men and they're looking at me like, where'd she come from? Right. I'm looking at them like, oh boy. Right. And so at the end of the day, you know, it really isn't just, you know, white men have to know how to lead everybody.

4:45It's everybody has to know how to lead everybody. I always say the leader of today, John has to know how to lead all God's children, every race, every creed, every gender. That's the job. Right. And so that's what the book is really designed for is to hopefully give tools and to help people who find themselves in that predicament as to here's what I did really good. Here's what I did horribly wrong, you know, and hopefully those tools can be helpful for them as well. Unfortunately, a fact of life that a lot of people grow up without a lot of cultural diversity in their life. And so, you know, how do you, how do leaders start gaining that cultural intelligence?

5:19It's like going to another country almost, you know, right? It's like, I don't know how to act here, right? So how do they gain that? Yeah, well, I think it's twofold. One, you have to come to grips that you're going to make mistake. And I really want people to grab hold of that. It is none of us for I shouldn't say none of us, but most of us are not dealing with life or death situations. Right. So you're going to make a mistake. So that's the very first thing, because what I find, John, and the reason why I open with that is I find that people are so afraid to make a mistake that they do nothing.

5:49Right. And it's like, well, if you come to grips with you're going to make a mistake, then that will ease the pressure, I guess, so that when you make the mistake, then you're OK with it because people will know it's about your heart. It's I would say this whole thing is a head and heart issue, right? If someone is and I give a story in the book about a situation that I had 30 years ago with someone that was so not like me and I knew that I was going to walk in and make a bunch of mistakes, right, because it was just unfamiliar territory for me. But what I find is people who are not like you would much rather feel like they understand that your heart is in the right place.

6:26They'd rather you talk to them than not talk to them because you're afraid of making the mistake. So how to answer your question, how do you actually go about it? One, get your mindset right. I'm going to make a mistake and nobody's going to die in this process, right? The second part is, then you come at it with a heart, which is a curiosity versus dictating, right? Because nobody wants to hear your opinion on how you see the world when you don't even understand their world, right? And that's usually the biggest adjustment, especially we as leaders have to make. Nobody cares about your thoughts.

7:00What we care about is you actually trying to ask questions, not with the understanding of I'm trying to ask so that I can, you know, seem like I care. No, no, you really have to humble yourself and understand that this person's world is completely different than mine. I don't have enough education to start dictating to them how they should be running, you know, life. But I can ask questions out of sheer curiosity and truly listen. And one of the things I like to have people realize is you don't have to have all the answers. You don't even have to have all the questions. Just start off asking the basic questions like, you know, oh, how are you?

7:35Tell me a little bit about your upbringing, your childhood, et cetera. That will then guide you with the next set of questions. Again, I think because people are so afraid and let's face it, Society also hasn't been very graceful, right? People make a mistake and society cancels people and then people are afraid to make a move because they're afraid of being socially slaughtered or canceled. So everybody has to adjust. It's not just the leader. The whole world has to adjust. The world is different. And if we can give each other some grace and come at it through a head and heart perspective, then we're not that far off because we actually have much more in common than we do apart.

8:13So the easiest way to do it is ask questions, listen, learn, and decide to ask more questions. And then use your privilege, because we all have it, right? It's not just white people having privilege. Everybody's got privilege. So use it whenever you can to help the other person that you're in charge of leading. I suspect from the leader, a large amount of vulnerability, especially early on, has to be there too, right? To say, like in your case, you walked in, I've never worked with a team of all white guys, you know, right? I was like, acknowledge that, right? And I'm going to make mistakes. I think that probably goes a long way to at least getting some grace.

8:47Exactly. Exactly. And even when we think if we go even one step further, because I know a lot of your audience are small business owners, right? One of the best things that we can do when trying to solve a problem, I used to do this with my teams and I sold, you know, oversaw billion dollar sales teams. Very first thing I would do is sit down with them and go in front of a whiteboard and say, OK, listen, guys, here's what we're being asked to do. and I could really use your help on how you think we should do it, right? So when you talk about humbling yourself, it's true in every aspect of leadership.

9:16If you really wanna be an effective leader, you really have to know how to eat humble pie as your specialty, right? Because then people realize like, oh, no one is expecting you to have all the answers. That's true in business. It's also true in leadership. And so when you're leading people who are not like you, no one's expecting, especially the person who's not like you, they're not expecting you to know everything about their lifestyle. They're not expecting you to be familiar with the little nuances that there's no way you would know. What they are expecting of you is that you would ask, listen, learn, and then you would take action.

9:50And the reason why I keep driving that take action home, John, is because you can't call yourself an ally. Like this isn't a trophy, right? A participation trophy. You cannot call yourself an ally. Somebody else can call you an ally, but you can't call yourself an ally. and the only like just like I can't call myself a nice person like you can go you know I met Stephanie she's a nice person but I can't go you know what I'm a nice person like based on what right so same is true for ally you know when you take action people will see it and then they will say you're an ally if they don't see it they're not going to say it and just because you said it doesn't make it true yeah so is there an example of kind of a challenging moment that you had that you think really not only tested your ability, but maybe kind of informed some of what shows up in the book?

10:40Yeah, there's a story. It seems like it's everybody's favorite story. I won't go too far into it because I won't spoil it. But I tell a story about I was asked to meet with a person because at the time I was in the cosmetic industry. And this friend of mine who was a behavioral specialist had asked if I would meet with one of her patients. And I was like, you know, no problem because the patient had a desire to get into the makeup cosmetic industry. And so he just wanted to pick my brain. So once I said yes, then she shared with me that this person was transgender. Now, this was 30 years ago, John.

11:13So I honestly had never heard the word, right? I didn't know anything about transgender. I didn't know what it meant. Like, I just didn't know. And so once she told me that and I said yes, then I told her, you know, teach me, educate me. Like, what does this actually mean mentally, physically? you know, the whole thing, right? I need to be armed so that I don't look like a complete idiot now in this function. And so she did her best. But what was interesting, and I tell the story from several different perspectives. What was interesting is when I had that meeting at the restaurant with the transgender person, and I tell the story from my perspective sitting there, from the restaurant attendees perspective sitting there, because again, this was 30 years ago.

11:56It wasn't like recently, right? And just every single role that happened as you're looking at someone, in my case, as a person who's not like me. Now, I'm used to walking into a restaurant and maybe being the only woman or being the only Black person or what have you. So I understand the dynamics that go on there. But what I saw and witnessed from what the dynamics were for them walking in the room was very different, something I'd never seen before. And so that's an example. And again, I won't go really deep into the story because I spent a lot of time on this story because I know that everybody who reads the book can find themselves in that restaurant scene.

12:35I never give, you know, direction as to what's right, what's wrong. That's not for me to do. But what it does do is I promise you, when you read the book, you're going to find yourself in one of those settings, either as the waitstaff or the person sitting in the restaurant or the person sitting across the person or, and you will find yourself there and literally probably have a moment of like, wow, because I end the chapter with what would you have done? Right? So yeah, this book is for making people think, John. Awesome. Even if you think it's a bit overhyped, AI is suddenly everywhere from self-driving cars to molecular medicine to business efficiency.

13:13If it's not in your industry yet, it's coming fast. But AI needs a lot of speed and computing power. So how do you compete with costs spiraling out of control? It's time to upgrade to the next generation of the cloud, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, or OCI. OCI is a blazing fast and secure platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, plus all your AI and machine learning workloads. OCI costs 50 % less for compute and 80 % less for networking, so you're saving a pile of money. Thousands of businesses have already upgraded to OCI, including MGM Resorts, Specialized Bikes, and Fireworks AI.

13:57Right now, Oracle is offering to cut your current cloud bill in half if you move to OCI. For new U.S. customers with minimum financial commitment, offer ends 12-31-24. See if your company qualifies for this special offer at oracle.com slash duct tape. That's oracle.com slash duct tape. Unfortunately, we know there are a percentage of people that are biased and bigoted. Yeah, that's how it is. However, there are a lot of really well-intentioned people that have pretty deep unconscious biases. They don't mean to have them. They don't mean to have them show up the way they show up. So how do people, especially this leader that you're talking about, how do you get people to start recognizing and overcoming know?

14:43Yeah, that's such a great question, because what I love is that you started with the fact that we all have it. There is nobody that doesn't have it. And one of the one of the best ways to get over it is to once you realize, OK, I've got it, is just to realize I have to I've been programmed to see people a certain way, period. Right. Doesn't mean it's right or wrong. It's just what I've been programmed. And I do spend some time in the book talking about the science behind unconscious and conscious bias. Because it really does start, again, I go as a head and heart issue, right? The brain is going to do what it finds the easiest thing to do.

15:18And so the brain will, if it sees something that's not familiar or not like it, right? For part of it, sometimes bias is actually a good thing, believe it or not, because there's a safety mechanism as well, right? Now, when it gets becoming bad is when you're judging everybody, clumping them in their, and you're in group or out group with absolutely no conversation to be had or because you've read something and you've never actually met a person like that. So the very first thing that we have to do is to realize that we all have got it. The second thing you have to do is really to over, because our default system is to automatically put people, whenever we meet them, and we can just be looking at a picture of them.

15:56We don't have to physically be having a conversation. Our brain will put them in an in-group or out-group. First thing it does, it's an instinct that you can't change, right? Those were from our caveman days. And again, there is safety in that. However, what you can change is to override that default system. And how you override it is by making the unfamiliar familiar. And the only way you make the unfamiliar familiar is to literally step out of your comfort zone. Simple stuff you can do, right? Go into a neighborhood that you're not used to going to, you know, and usually in different neighborhoods, they have museums that are there, they have different restaurants, they have different cultural, you know, activities that you can do, galleries, etc.

16:36You must take the bull by the horns. You will not get culturally fluent sitting on your couch or hanging out in your same neighborhood with your same people working the same job, having the same conversation. That's not how it works. But if you're serious about this, and I hope that every leader is, because again, world's changing. Train is left to the building. Either you're going to jump on board or you're going to be left behind. Those are your two options. But if you're that person who says, OK, I realize I don't know everything and nor do I need to. I'm going to make that effort. So now what I'm going to do is, you know, if I have a neighbor that maybe I've never spent time talking to, maybe have them over for coffee and get to know them and ask them questions.

17:15Or you don't want to do that. Go to a neighborhood that you've never really spent a whole lot of time through. You know where it is. Go in there, go to the museum, go to the local, you know, small business, talk, shop, ask questions. All of that is just mechanisms that will help you get more familiar so that when your brain meets somebody who's not like you, it doesn't automatically stick it in the out group. But now that person becomes a little bit more familiar. And so, or at least people who fall under that category. It's simple things. And the reason why I keep faking it really like do step one, step two, step three, is because I feel like part of the problem that we've got in society, John, is people feel like this is this big, grandiose situation.

17:55And because the bigger it gets, the more overwhelming it gets and the more scarier it gets and the less we do. But if I just say to you, listen, you're going to make mistakes, accept that, right? And then make those little steps here and there. You're going to feel like, okay, all right, all right, I've got permission. And what I will tell you, especially as a person of color, you know, you can tell when people are coming and asking you questions because they really do want to know versus they're asking you questions because they're trying to trap you or get you, you know, put your defenses or trigger you or gaslight you, whatever.

18:27Everybody knows, Right? So if your head and your heart is in the right place, you would be so surprised on how welcoming people would be to actually have that conversation with you. Talking about going in that neighborhood, if you really want the MBA, like the crash course, go to the beauty salon, right? Yeah, right. Or the barbershop, right? Or the barbershop. So, you know, it's interesting. Obviously, I know where you're going with lead people who are not like you. But really, nobody's like me. Yes. Right? Yeah. And so some of the practices you're talking about really are just human contact practices, aren't they?

19:05100%. It's all about human connection, right? And as leaders or small business owners, we're in the people business, period. And people really, we were designed, we were created for human connection. We are best when we're connected. If you look on the news, there's always that story that we all hate. But at the end of the day, the core is they didn't have anybody that they were connected to. Right. And so human connection is really why we were created. So what my whole focus with the book is to really try to pull on the point that you just said. None of us are alike. Right. I mean, we are wonderfully made.

19:41You know, we're unique in so many different ways. And so it and that is if you if you start there, then then automatically it makes you realize also that people are not better or worse than you. Right. And because sometimes that's the issue as well. If you feel like you're better than other people, then you're going to treat them a certain way. But if you realize that you're no better than everybody else. Right. We're all, you know, wonderfully made. then that allows you to come into the conversation with a different heart stamp, which then allows the person who you're speaking to to receive you a certain way as well.

20:15What are some of the barriers that, you know, we always have to drag out, like, here's the hard part. What are some of the barriers that you've seen have really prevented leaders from truly embracing this approach? Usually it's when they make a mistake. They may have said something wrong or come off, you know, the wrong way. And then all of a sudden they're chastised, right? Right. So that's usually and then that kind of scathing review makes them never want to do it again. So that's usually what I've seen. The flip side, though, because we do talk a lot in especially in our country about inclusivity and things of that nature.

20:47What we don't really talk about the fact that leading diverse teams actually can be very challenging. And it's not because the team is diverse, right? A diverse team that there's enough statistics out there. Diverse teams simply perform better. So from a sheer business perspective, it just makes good business sense to create a team of all-stars versus, you know, just like in sports, right? Nobody's going to have a basketball team with all forwards. It's like you're never going to win. So you have to have a team where everybody plays a different position, has a different gift, talent, et cetera.

21:16And that then means that the team has to, by default, be diverse. And, you know, because people think of diversity as far as just race, diversity and communication, diversity with how they think, diversity of perspective. diversity is a big word that covers a lot of things. So that's the first thing. But that's usually what happens is people feel like they've made a mistake. And so that's what stops them in their tracks. But the flip side is what I would say is, yes, leading a diverse team can be hard, not because of the team, but because you've got to make sure that you're letting everybody speak their piece and how they may speak their piece, because how they see the world may be very different.

21:54So as a leader, you got to have like real leadership skills, right? To make sure that you can manage those conversations and the differences that will come from it and the different perspectives, because that's the secret sauce and how you get a different, more powerful result, right? But you as a leader have to check yourself. If you're kind of an okay leader, it's going to be tough, right? But if you're a real leader that is very strong in communication and bringing out the best in people and you're secure enough to be able to allow people to challenge each other or even challenge your thought process.

22:25Now you've got a team that is unstoppable because if you get a bunch of people presented and focused on a common cause, they literally will live like they will not be stopped. But that's the job of the leader. What are we doing? Why are we doing it? And what is it the role that you play as to how this business is successful? You know, it's funny you talk about that diversity. I've always contended the best marriages are very diverse. Yes. You know, individuals, right? And the best partnerships in business. You know, people bring a whole different side of it. I love that. I love that. How does a leader create a safe place for employees, a psychologically safe place for employees, given what you've been talking about?

23:05Yeah, absolutely. The easiest way to do it literally is that when people voice their opinion, you almost want to create healthy confrontation. Yeah. Right. And so how you do that is, you know, I used to have one of the best CEOs I ever worked for it. He mastered this. He had come over, taken over the organization. And what he realized very quickly is that the team got along to get along. Right. So there was, you know, and if anybody didn't agree, then instead of bringing it up in the middle of that executive meeting, they would then not say anything. And then the meeting's over and we know the type.

23:39Right. And then they go to the water cooler and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. So it drove him crazy. And that was just a dysfunction of how the team was used to operating because the environment wasn't as such where you could actually voice the fact that you maybe didn't agree with, you know, your colleague or what have you. So one of the very first things that he did, and it's funny, I used to watch him do that. And then every company I've ever overseen, I've done the same thing where he would try to get us to break that dysfunctional habit. Right. And the way that he would do it is I would say he'd drop a grenade in the middle of the, get us all worked up.