1711 – Nadine Hack on the Art of Connection and Collaboration

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0:58with us right now it's nadine hack nadine you are a speaker you're a connector you're an author you're a strategist and you are the ceo of because global consulting your website is because.net nadine thank you so much for joining us thank you it's my pleasure well you have a long and storied background of working with quite some amazing, notable people. Would you give us maybe just a quick overview of your work today? Sure. I've been at this for a long time, and my main focus is making connections, which is why I'm connected to so many different types of people. My company, Because Global Consulting, was named the best stakeholder engagement consulting firm.

1:48for bettering connections across the corporate world. The book I'm writing, The Power of Connectedness, has a forward by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu. My TEDx, Adversaries to Allies, about the power of engaging others with conflicting perspectives has had over 15 ,000 views. My Forbes articles often focus on the value of different ways to broaden your spectrum of stakeholders for greater impact. And in fact, they published a success story on my work to help companies, governments, and nonprofits find common ground to solve the seemingly intractable problems of our world. Yeah.

2:35So you've mentioned, I think, or, you know, certainly you've worked with some amazing folks. And would you mind, And before we kind of get into this, just you mentioned Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, you know, just kind of spoiler alert, pulled that from your website. But would you mind maybe sharing some of the other folks that you've had the unique opportunity to brush elbows with or rub shoulders with? Sure. Well, I've worked with many Nobel laureates. I've worked with many heads of state. The ones you would probably know are the American ones, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter. You can see that my inclinations lean toward the Democratic Party, although I have worked with George H.W.

3:29Bush, the first President Bush. And, you know, I've worked with heads of corporations around the world. the entire board of Unilever, Coca-Cola, other major multinationals. In fact, when I was shortlisted as responsible CEO of the year, it was with the CEOs of Patagonia, Accenture, Danone, and other global companies. And at that time, I believe you know that I was the first female executive in residence at IMD Business School where I leave sessions on the processes to make connections. And the IMD president spoke about how I teach that it's possible to do well by doing good. Because I really believe that no one individual, enterprise, sector, or nation can solve problems on their own.

4:32But when you work in cooperation with others, it increases the likelihood that first you'll achieve your own goals while simultaneously, ideally contributing to societal advancement. Yeah. And why is this so important, particularly today, that we think about our ecosystem, our network, and who we connect with? And by the way, I think we should say this, right? That this is not just about getting to know celebrities and getting to know - No, no, no, no, no. Let me make this clear yes when people ask me how do you know all these famous people yeah i always tell them i know them before they were famous when they were like like i when nelson mandela was in prison i was working his law partner before he went into prison was oliver tombo and oliver tombo was leading the african national congress in exile from lusaka zambia and i worked closely with Oliver Tombo and all these other names that don't mean much to most of the people in the world.

5:39But because of my work with them, as soon as Mandela was released from prison, he invited me to his home in Soweto and we began to work together. And that's why you probably saw on the homepage, on the landing page of my website, there's a quote from Nelson Mandela saying, When I was in prison, it was good to know that I had people like Nadine Hack working on my behalf. Yeah. And so what would be, you know, in terms of like activity that, you know, particularly for someone that just says, I'm just a small leadership consultant. I've got a few clients. What might be some great activity that they can start expanding their network, their reach, their impact?

6:25And certainly, you know, again, there's this kind of this social good that you advocate for that seems to be a great, like if we're focused in that direction, my impression is it's quite a lubricant to just get to know people. I just I'll just tell you this. I don't think there would be an up my influence were it not for the opportunity I had to start volunteering in my local community because I ended up meeting the right people and they encouraged me. No, no, no. You should go and continue in this way. I did. And lo and behold, here I am today. I don't know where I would be otherwise, but here I am today where I am.

7:05Well, I truly believe that whether we're talking about the personal sphere, like your family, your friends, your neighbors, or we're talking about the professional sphere, your colleagues, your competitors, or we're talking about a global scale. the issues that are facing humanity right now, climate change, global pandemics, social inequality growing, that whenever we can make an effort to have a deeper relationship, um there's something i have you know created in proprietary work that i've done over the decades called strategic relational engagement and it's all about that the deeper you kind of plumb your own self and you know own all the parts of you because we're all so multifaceted and we have the good, the bad, and the ugly inside of us.

8:15And the more you show up with your whole self, with your flaws and your foibles, like Renee Brown talks about vulnerability, you're presenting and kind of inviting the other person by showing up so fully for them to also show up more fully. And when you have that type of engagement, interaction, again, whether it's personal, professional or in any way there's it increases the possibility that you're going to engage on a deeper level that you're going to discover the humanity in each other even with people who may have um different views than you do but you can you can find that humanity and in that place engaging, I just think that the whole is always greater than the sum of the parts.

9:15As your example of how, you know, getting to work in a local community group exposed you to opportunities for you. And I think that's true for everybody. You know, in social media, I think sometimes, even though it connects us, it can also isolate us because we tend to retreat to echo chambers. I mean, I think this is well-documented and known. And so we tend to, or at least I was just heard the news and they were kind of talking about the polarization of politics in the United States currently. It's pretty hot. You know, the unfavorability of, quote unquote, the other guys, I don't think has ever been as high as it has in recent history.

10:08And therein lies a problem. And when we compare that to what you're talking about is, let's see what we can learn from one another. Let's see how we can serve one another. To someone who might feel like, how on earth can I build a relationship with this person? And they just believe in such far off ideas from where I am. How do we come together? Any tools or strategies that you'd recommend to find that common ground? Yeah. So first, let me be clear. It's not possible, or I have not yet found the possibility of doing it with everyone. Like, not everybody is open. Many people are extremely territorial.

10:55and they really play on the fear of the other, like me, my tribe, my nation, my people, my race, my religion, whatever it is that they define as their own insular bundle, we are good and the others are bad. And at the least we demean them and at the worst we destroy them. And we certainly see this playing out in today's world. not just in the United States, but sadly in many places, kind of authoritarian type, nationalistic, xenophobic leaders becoming elected and or becoming very popular and playing on people's fears. So there are some people who are just so closed and certain about that that they have the sole ownership of the truth, that you're just not going to be able to reach them.

12:01But the large part of the population, although those people may be extremely vocal, the larger part of the population, basically as human beings, we have very similar drivers. We all want to be happy, healthy. We want our families to be happy and healthy. We want to be secure. We want to be safe. We want to have our environment be clean and orderly and, you know, be able to go to school and get a job. I mean, really very, very fundamental, whether we're talking about people from like the least developed parts of the world or the most developed parts of the world. people have very fundamentally similar and simple needs to like feel safe, secure, have clothing, food, shelter.

12:57I mean, they're really basic. And so therefore, it is possible with most people to approach them in good faith and say, I'm interested in knowing who you are, what you are. You know, I often give speeches at conferences. And whenever I'm asked to speak for an hour and field 15 minutes of questions, instead, I say, can I give 15 minutes of presentation and instead do an hour of interaction with the audience? Because my experience is people learn the best when they're actually participating and not just kind of sitting back and receiving. And especially, as you said, when you're at your screen, it's like a one-way broadcast.

13:48So I have this little exercise where I ask the person to turn to someone they don't know and to introduce themselves. And I say, you've got one minute each. So I'm giving you two minutes. One person, tell the other person about yourself. And then at the one minute mark, I'll say switch. and then the other person do it. And then at the end of the two minutes, I say, okay, so how many of you just said, here's my name, and here's the job that I do. And invariably, almost everybody raises their hand. I say, okay, you've basically just done the military code of honor, you know, name, rank, and serial number.

14:26Like, you've done nothing about yourself. So now, take 30 seconds, close your eyes, go inside, let yourself feel, you know, what you're experiencing at this moment, what's going on in your life, you know, nobody else but you knows whether your mother has cancer and you're caregiving for her, whether you're afraid that you're going to be fired next week in the round of layoffs. I mean, there's so many things going on. Go into that place, access what's actually going on in your life. And after I give them about 30 seconds, because that's all it takes, to get in touch, I say, okay, let's do the same two-minute exercise.

15:07And we do it. And then I say, so how many of you feel like you know the other person better and you feel better understood? And there's always like laughter and everybody raises their hand. Because when you share from that kind of deeper grounded place of who you are, not just what you do in the world. People respond to authenticity. I mean, particularly, and you mentioned earlier about the highly divided world we live in. It's, you know, where people can't trust anything. They really, human beings have an innate sense of like, this person is being authentic. This person is being honest. This person is accessible.

15:58This person is truly interested in who I am. And it just makes all the difference in the world. So whatever level you're operating at and whatever sphere you hope to do this in, it's a simple, deceptively simple, but it takes some work. It takes some effort without a doubt. Yeah. Nadine, who do you work with today? Organizations, like what types of organizations And what does that work look like? What I'm looking for specifically, someone may be listening to us right now, and they should probably reach out and connect with you because you could likely help them with some significant issues within their organization, within their leadership, maybe, you know, some cultural type things.

16:48Who needs to reach out and why? Okay. So I work with individuals and I work with organizations from all sectors, from business, from government, from civil society. And I help them first connect to their own core purpose. Just as I was describing to you that I help individuals in an audience of where I'm giving a speech, I help them connect internally. I help the organizations remember what their core purpose is because that can easily get lost. I also help them connect across silos within their enterprises. And as you know, with companies spread many beelines, many regions, there's often a really big disconnect or, you know, at least a lack of solid ongoing communication.

17:50And in fact, sometimes people who are sitting in cubicles side by side aren't telling each other what they're doing. So I really help them work to break down the silos and release the synergy that will come from having their organizations work more cohesively. cohesively. And then I help them connect to external stakeholders, like their friendly ones, like their vendors and their suppliers and their customers. And because it's not just a check the box on a, you know, what is it called? Those forms, like how satisfied are you with our company? It's not a check the box or an internal check the box like what's your satisfaction working here as an employee.

18:43It's more of a discovery of what those stakeholders, your willing stakeholders, really want to get out of their relationship with you. And that's a really important point is to be clear up front. These are our mutual expectations. This is what I expect to get out of this relationship. And this is what I'm able to put into this relationship. And I even do that to help them work with their external adversarial stakeholders. So like, for example, if they're a business that has a government regulatory agency or a nonprofit watchdog group that doesn't like what they're doing, then how do you come together?

19:36The way, for example, the people at Nestle came together with the people at Greenpeace when Greenpeace was protesting their use of palm oil. So their first efforts, they were just fighting and it was going nowhere. Each side was like just accusing the other. But as they began to talk, they began to realize that there were ways that they could do things. In fact, that's what my TEDx is about. It's about bringing together loggers, environmentalists, governments, and communities back in the 1970s when environmentalists were chaining themselves to trees. So each of those stakeholders viewed the other as the evil other.

20:28And through my efforts, and the TED Talk is all of 13 minutes for anybody who's interested, I was able to get them to see, like, let's just take the environmentalists and the loggers. Through our work, we got the logging companies to agree to plant two trees for every one tree they cut down, which was the very earliest steps of what we now call renewable resources, which is, you know, quite a, you know, in the common lexicon, but it was not then. At that point, they were just strip logging and then moving on to the next million acres. so they began to see that it was in their own enlightened self-interest to do something different and I've done over the decades since the 1970s I've done multi-sector partnerships with two of the companies I mentioned Coca-Cola and AIDS activists in the continent of Africa with Unilever and people working for child malnutrition issues in India.

21:40And, you know, multi-sector partnerships to me are really super important because, as I said earlier, the problems of our world, they cross all boundaries, you know. Well, Nadine Hack, it's been wonderful having you. Your website is because.net. And again, you are a connector, you're an author, you're a strategist, a speaker. And of course, at Because, you serve as the CEO. Nadine, it's been wonderful having you. Thank you so much for this conversation. Thank you. It's a pleasure to talk with you, Josh.

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