Greg Morley
Appearances
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
And when we talk about then why is the word inclusion important or the concept inclusion is, to me, I always imagine the image of an orchestra. So in an orchestra, there are many different instruments and they all have their own role. And at some point they come together in a piece to create a beautiful piece of music and experience a feeling.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
And it's the job of the manager, the leader, to understand which pieces they need to bring to different projects, different work streams, different situations to create a beautiful piece of music, which can only be done in an orchestra by an incredibly diverse audience. field of instruments, which is also what we see at work.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
Outcomes at work are better from an innovation perspective, from a profitability perspective, from a risk and compliance perspective when you have diverse teams and going back to this diverse diversity of all the different elements which are seen and unseen.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
Thank you for having me back. Really pleased that you and I met each other more than a year ago. And I'm really proud of you and the work you're doing and what you're bringing to the conversation about humanity. So thank you for that. Today, what we're going to talk about is this, the book that I've written called Bond Inclusion and the Keys to Belonging and Connection. A little bit about me.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
Yes. So the manager is the conductor, but also think about the conductor as a rotating role. If you're project managing, then you could be the conductor. If you're running a business or employee resource group, you could be the conductor. It's just a matter of appreciating the differences in the workforce, trying to get the best out of the people so that they feel included.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
And then what does included mean? It means that... When I'm at work and I'm doing work, I feel like my... voice is heard, I feel like I'm respected. I feel like I am in a safe place. I feel like I'm recognized for the work that I do.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
And all of those things get back that point about incremental effort, which is when those things happen, then people will do more work harder and feel a real connection to the organization and ultimately a responsibility for the success of the organization and for the person's colleagues.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
Yeah, great question. And my belief is that it's easier than it seems. And it's easier than, than we make it out to be. If you're trying to change the culture of an organization, it takes time. Let's say culture change of cultured organization takes three to five years really to change one. And that's with everybody working in alignment and understanding.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
To change the culture of a team, like you experienced, can happen almost overnight for better or for worse, depending on the leader. In the book, in my book, Bond, I identified five different keys to inclusion, which we called them. And I'll just highlight a couple of them because you talk about example CEOs.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
So there are a couple of things that I picked out from my own experience and in the interviews I did with others, which I think are critical. The first one is that leadership matters. So inclusion starts with the CEO or the most senior person in the organization or a manager. and assume that your own team is a company, the manager is the CEO.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
Inclusion is not a matter for HR, inclusion is a matter for the organization. And when employees see leaders practicing inclusive behaviors, calling on people in meetings, making sure that people have a voice, recognizing good work, sharing their own stories as you've shared your own story. These are all the things that make a difference.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
So I've spent most of my life in HR as an HR business leader and, and a good part of the latter part of my career in inclusion and belonging and diversity. I did write this new book, which I hope is a guide to inclusion and belonging in the workplace.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
And just the physical presence of a senior leader in moments that are important to the organization as it relates to inclusion are important. And I'll give you a specific story that happened when I was in Hong Kong the last time. So I was doing a talk about the book and the lessons of the book at a pretty large organization.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
And I was told that the senior management don't normally come to these kinds of events, which is unfortunate because they matter. Right before the talk started, the senior management team, the CEO and the senior managers all came into the room.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
I took the opportunity during that talk to them and encouraged them to be there and be present because what I saw when they walked into the room was a room full of a hundred plus people really brighten up and lighten up. And so that's what I say when leadership matters, just being there makes a big difference. I think there's maybe one or two other things that are particularly important.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
It's important that we start with ourselves. So there are many things in an organization that we can and cannot change. And the more senior you are, maybe you have more impact over a larger organization. group and the more junior you are, your impact is narrower, but we can all start with ourselves. So we all have stories of feeling included or excluded.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
And I like to, when I'm talking to groups, I like to ask people to reflect on that. What's something that they think about when they were included or when they were excluded, how did that make them feel? And I think that's a real source of power for creating a sense of inclusion for yourself and your coworkers and even your customers. So if you start with yourself, you can impact a lot.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
Then you have to build out from there. And I think the last thing I would say in the keys of inclusion is it's very important to search for common ground. It may sound counterintuitive to say we build these very diverse teams and then we want to search for common ground. But in fact, we all want to rally around something. It could be the mission of the organization.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
It could be a project that we're working on. It could be a colleague who's stressed and we're trying to help that colleague. I had a situation with a very good friend of mine from university. And when marriage equality was being talked about in the U.S.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
15 years ago, it was a very important topic to me because as a member of the LGBTQ community and as somebody who was in a long-term relationship relationship, Access to marriage was important for us and for my help, myself and my to-be husband.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
But for my friend who's straight and has four kids and he didn't see the, he wasn't interested in marriage equality, which at first took me very much by surprise. And we had a discussion about it and I said, why is this important? It's important.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
I've had the experience and great good fortune of leading diversity initiatives in the U.S., Europe, and Asia at major multinationals such as General Electric, Disney, Hasbro, and most recently, my experience with LVMH Moet Hennessy. And I wrote the book to share what I believe are really life-changing lessons I've learned
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
I believe to everyone, because it has to do with people being able to love and build relationships and family and support structure with people that they love. And so we came to this point of common ground because that's what that was important to him too. Whether we called it straight marriage or gay marriage was not the issue. So I think it's critically important to search for common ground.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
as a way to bring people together and create a sense of inclusion and belonging in the workplace.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
The power of a leader's voice goes beyond, I think, what we can imagine. I have had many situations in my career where individuals who worked for me or with whom I worked or we worked on projects together would mimic back to me things that I had said to them that had an impact on them, either an impact on them personally or their career or the work they were doing.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
And those are things I don't even remember saying. And as leaders in an organization at whatever level, don't underestimate the power of your voice and your presence. And in my six years at Moet Hennessey, working on launching and working on diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
The number one key to success of having a great outcome or great outcomes was that for a period of time, the CEO, who's a very respected individual in Moet Hennessy and in the LVMH group, would, every time he stood in front of a group, talk about why it's important that we have a diverse and inclusive organization. He didn't have to spend 15 minutes.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
He could spend two minutes talking about why that was important to the innovation, the evolution, being an attractive company, being an attractive brand or brands to consumers, knowing consumers, all of these things. People pick up on that. Now, he probably would do that in the top of 25 or 30 minutes. He'd take a minute or two to talk about diversity and inclusion.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
It made a huge difference because people picked up on those cues. If it's important to the CEO, then it might be important to me. And that's how the voice of a leader has impact on others.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
for how leaders and teams can be more inclusive and embrace company diversity to be even more successful in the companies in which they're working.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
It's a great question because it's one of the reasons I wrote the book, which I saw this kind of fraying of the core of what I believed was important, which is creating inclusive environments. There's a great article, which I would encourage anyone to read. And it was published last week by our mutual friend, Todd Sears, who's the CEO of Out and Equal.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
And he was addressing the issues that have arisen in recent weeks with large companies backing away from targets and commitments in diversity, equity and inclusion. And he makes a point.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
makes a number of points which i think are just absolutely spot on which is in none of the cases where you've seen large companies back away from commitments in terms of measurement or commitments in terms of public accountability have they backed away from initiatives that they are doing internally with their employees or even with their marketing initiatives so
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
What I know about what's happening in the world is that there is a very public stance that some companies are taking, and that's, I think, to align with the views of probably the majority of their customers. Then there is a back of the house or internal discussion around these topics, which hasn't really changed.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
So take, for example, a company, a large company, extends benefits to nursing mothers. Nowhere are people taking those benefits back because they've now become the normal. Companies are extending benefits to domestic partners or spouses, maybe where they can't marry in different places around the world. Companies are not retracting those benefits. What companies are doing, which is...
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
to play a safer game, which is to be less high profile during this period of, I think, more intense scrutiny over diversity, equity, and inclusion. And I may be a contrarian in the field, but I would say that diversity, equity, and inclusion should be scrutinized like any other investment in the company.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
And unless we have a strong case, then there's a responsibility by a company to push back on it. The political external view is going to be quite intense, I think, for the foreseeable future. What we have to do as practitioners and companies and as managers and companies is go back to the core, which is we know inclusive environments have better business outcomes.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
We know diverse teams create better business outcomes. We know that inclusive leaders drive better business outcomes. And so that's what we need to be focused on. And if for a while companies need to be less public about that, then so be it.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
Sure. It's a great question. And let me maybe start by why I wrote the book, what inspired me to write the book as a way of addressing sort of the belonging, inclusion, and connection terms of the book. Over the decades of experience I had, both in and in HR roles, but also in roles such as marketing, sales,
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
Great question. And the insight about culture is spot on. The evolution that I went on from Disney to Hasbro to Mullet Hennessy was important because Disney, it's basically an American multinational company. It has a way of doing things, which is fairly consistent around the world. Hasbro, similar.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
Moet Hennessy, very different because as you mentioned, Moet Hennessy is a conglomerate and it's a conglomerate within a conglomerate, which LVMH is a holding company and a conglomerate. So of the 26 different companies that exist within Moet Hennessy, and when I talk about companies, it's things like Dom Perignon or Belvedere Vodka or Hennessy Cognac or Vaux-Picot champagne, Cloudy Bay wine.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
It's very different products that come from very different places and therefore have very different cultures. What's important about the practice of creating inclusive cultures is you have to understand the culture of the organization before you come up with a solution.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
And I tell this example in the book where a guy I was working with, a friend of mine from Hong Kong, he did a lot of development work in East Africa. worked for an NGO, and one of their mantras was, don't just do something, or don't just stand there, do nothing. Now, most of the time you say, don't just stand there, do something, right?
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
If there's a fire or there's refrigerators open, don't just stand there, do something, close the door. But in development work with their view is sometimes doing something right away is the worst thing. So we need to have positive intent about how we want to change organizations. But we also need to be observant. We need to understand the culture.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
We need to understand what's important to the people in the organization. And again, back to your powerful story, we need to understand the stories that exist in the organization. So why is that relevant then when we talk about a kind of East-West approach to diversity and inclusion?
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
So what I found in Asia, because of the more collective environment and collective culture that exists, is that we really do need to start with the stories of people in the organization, rather than starting with the KPI that we want to achieve. So we know that in Asian Eastern culture, family, collective culture is much more important than it is maybe in many places in the West.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
and communications and distribution, what I saw was there is an essence of crisis of loneliness at work for some people. And there's a very important role that organizations play in fostering a culture of belonging and inclusion.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
So it's important to understand what are the stories of people in the organization and how do those stories get told so that the people around those people can
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
create inclusion or create inclusive environments not because we're doing it because somebody gave us a kpi we're doing it because it's part of the family and that i think is a important nuanced approach to way we develop diversity inclusion strategies in asia versus the way it would be done in the us or to some extent in europe
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
So you have to start with the culture of the organization and the culture, which is the dominant culture in which the organization works. So if it's Hong Kong culture, it's Japanese culture, or whether it's Taiwanese culture, and then build out from that versus saying we're going to have 50% target on gender.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
And then we cascade that to the whole organization, which is much more of a Western way of approaching something.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
And the fostering of that culture of belonging and inclusion is not just a nice thing to do and everybody feels good at work and we go and we have parties and we're happy and we have lunch together. There is data that reinforces that when an organization is diverse, inclusive, and has leaders who lead in an inclusive manner on many measurable aspects, those companies do better.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
No, and get back to why is it important? It's important that company cultures are inclusive because we know that the outcomes are better. It's important that company cultures are diverse in the context of the diversity of the workforce and the consumer base where they operate, because we know that there are better outcomes for the business.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
How you get there has to be tailored by the individual location and the individual company. It's not what I would say is something we have to avoid is that diversity and inclusion doesn't work in Asia. That is just positively wrong.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
It doesn't work in Asia from a Western perspective or in a Western application, but it's as or more important that in Asia or in Africa or in Europe, South America, North America, that inclusion is practiced and is part of the culture that creates better outcomes for an organization.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
They do better in terms of innovation. They do better in terms of avoiding risk. They do much better in terms of getting profitable products to market. And they do much better in terms of what would be obvious, which is keeping good people and attracting good people. So there is a business imperative to being good at these things.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
And what encouraged me to write the book was I saw all of these sort of good and bad practices over my career, both within the companies I was working with and with others that I had become associated with. And that's why I got to the point of, okay, there's something to be talked about.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
And I think finally, what was a driving factor for me was I believe in my core that these things I just talked about are important to individuals and to businesses. And what I saw was we were in the world of diversity, equity and inclusion getting too far away from what I believed was the important
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
Part of diversity, actually, and inclusion was diverse workforces working well together and creating great business outcomes and great outcomes for individuals. And so that's how I got to the point of writing the book.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
There are many aspects to this, but let me focus on a couple of them. The first is that the world is changing in terms of the work, and especially since COVID. And I just read an article this morning which highlighted this. The arrangement or the agreement that employees and employers have has flipped.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
It's a buyer's market in a way now for employees to go and work places where they believe they're going to be recognized, they're going to be rewarded, they're going to be heard, and they're going to feel like they belong. Now, that's happening in a time when individuals are more and more isolated because of things like social media.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
And social media has this double-edged way of impacting people, which is it makes us much more connected, but much less connected. And when we talk about belonging in the workforce, what we're talking about is an individual coming to work and feeling like they can do their best work there, that they're going to be recognized for what they do, that the workplace is a safe place.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
Many people don't have safe places outside of work, and it's a responsibility of employers to create a place that's a safe place to work. And why is all of this important? It's important because we want people on our teams and ourselves to do the incremental effort. We all get hired and we get a job description and it says all the things that have to happen.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
The reality of jobs is, you know, people do some things on the job description and some things off the job description. And many times a career like the one you were talking about, Vince, where you work hard, you put in a lot of effort and you get ahead and you get promoted, comes from the fact that somebody is doing something beyond their job, the incremental effort.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
So belonging is important because it creates this connection somebody has with their role, with their company, with their boss, with their peers, which allows them to feel encouraged to do the incremental effort. And that's how companies win when employees are fully engaged and doing the incremental effort.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
It's a case study, which makes the point of the lessons of the book. And I think it's important. I want to recognize you for sharing that story because many people go through those kinds of episodes. And oftentimes the loneliness occurs because we don't believe other people have had that experience or are going through those things either in the past or people that we work with.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
So it's very powerful that you share a story like that that's personal and that can give encouragement to others. There are, you made this mention about you were working hard and you were loving what you were doing and you were getting recognized. but you weren't necessarily feeling like you were being well paid.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
At some points in our career, maybe all along our career, people will feel like they're not being well paid. But the payment that you are getting in terms of satisfaction, encouragement, self-worth and the longer term development in your career far outpaced what you believe maybe you should have been earning. And there are two critical people in the organization. It's us and our manager.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
And one of the reasons that I believe it's often difficult for managers to create a sense of belonging. And you experienced it with a manager who knew you, knew how to motivate you, knew what it was important to you, knew how to encourage you. And then you changed to a manager who didn't know you as well, didn't know how to encourage you, didn't know how to recognize you.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
And ultimately you left the organization in a probably quite fragile state. Was that second manager, my guess is didn't spend the time to get to know you and understand what was important to you and make you feel that regardless of who you were working for, you were still important and you were still valuable even at your low salary that you felt.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
So I think that part is maybe the advice I would give coming out of your very heartfelt sharing is that managers need to get to know the people that work for them. And in a way that you can understand what's important to them, what's important to them in their life, what they need to be successful in their jobs.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
And those are the conversations that oftentimes we're not training managers to have, but they're just human conversations. They're just born out of curiosity. And I think that those things are much more important than we give time for.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
So when we define DEI or diversity, equity and inclusion, most people think of diversity, equity and inclusion is relating to things like gender and skin color, perhaps because they're the most visible forms of diversity.
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
And what I would say is also critically important, and I've seen this in my experience, is it's just as important to understand what experience both life and career experience somebody brings to their job. You know, what generation they come from, what languages they speak or understand, who, do they have any disabilities? Do they have any exceptional abilities?
Chief Change Officer
#174 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part Two
Those are all things that are important in determining how you build a diverse workforce. The reality is most of the diverse elements that we bring to work are unseen. Now, who I'm married to is unseen. Do I have children or not is unseen. Do I have a cognitive ability or disability is unseen in most places. So this is why we have to get to know the people that work for us.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
We went to the next step, which was to open the door and train employees to be able to start employee resource groups. We also then went to the stage of starting to put some measurement in place. measurement around representation, measurement about employees' sense of well-being, measurement around employees' sense of inclusion in the organization.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
Certainly it had to be reinforced by communication and a sense of what was our message internally and externally and how are we going to amplify that. So each one of those pieces was a kind of change management agenda. which continue to this day, although we've now pivoted more towards speaking specifically to the topics of representation, inclusion, and leadership.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
And those things that were the rewiring are really embedded. If I think about the kind of benefit things we were working on four years ago versus what we're working on now, the landscape's changed. hugely impacted by COVID and people's expectation of the organization and the organization's expectation of people.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
But a lot of those fundamental early pillars still exist and are still part of the constant rewiring. There's for sure constantly change.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
Great question, and one I could probably speak with you on for hours, but let me try to condense it. One benefit for us as an organization, when I say we're the leader in luxury wines and spirits, is from the business perspective, we know what our place is. Wines and spirits is a huge category globally. And we very much play in the luxury, maybe more select area of the market.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
Now, that being said, If you go from spirits to champagne, to wines, to the other products and maisons we have in the organization, it's a complex culture. On the surface, you can imagine there's the culture of I work in France, so I deal with French culture, or I work in Hong Kong and I'm dealing with Hong Kong culture, or I work in Argentina and I deal with Argentinian culture.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
So there's that cultural element. Then there's the layered on cultural element of our different maisons and where they're from. We have some maisons that are French, some maisons that are in the US, India, China, around the world. So that puts a different sort of cultural complexity on the work. And then there's another element of what I would say, which is sort of the maturity of the business.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
So when I was talking with you about visiting a Maison, I was visiting specifically the Hennessy Maison. Now Hennessy is the largest Maison we have in Moet Hennessy, and it's the third largest Maison within all of the LVMH group. So it's a huge part of the business. And it has an incredibly diverse consumer.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
The consumers of Hennessy in China are very different than the consumers of Hennessy in say North America or the UK. So from the perspective of knowing the consumer, we know that Hennessy is a very diverse consumer around the world. When you go back to where it came from, which is Cognac, France, which is in the southwestern part of France, this is not a very diverse part of the world.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
It's a relatively small community where people know each other. And even within our facility in Hennessy, oftentimes you have people who have worked in the organization for many decades. And maybe their parents worked in that same role they have, and maybe their grandparents worked in that role.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
So diversity in Cognac, France, looks very different than what we would say of diversity in, say, Hong Kong or New York or London or Paris. So why this, you know, kind of sandwich approach is important to the success of any diversity and inclusion initiative or strategy is that there needs to be some strategic orientation.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
And I talked about that, which is understanding the consumer, being close to the consumer, having a representative organization.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
What does representative organization look like in Konya? Or what does representative organization look like in Tokyo? What does representative organization look like in Kuala Lumpur? It looks different, right? We're not talking about the same demographic and the same representation in all of those places, yet we are talking about being diverse and close to the consumer.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
So we have to make sure that there's a structure and an overall strategy and an overall direction Yet each business unit, each maison, each location is left to really imagine their own success in this space while understanding that no one's exempt from the discussion.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
That we could say just because we're in a certain place in a certain part of the world that we're not taking part of this discussion. Back to my recent visit to Cognac, they're doing some amazing work on the cognitive diversity element. They're doing some great work on bringing different ability individuals from the community to work in the facility there.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
So in terms of diversifying the way they work, they're doing it really well in their context. And that's what I think it looks like when it's done well anywhere in the world.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
I was talking with somebody earlier today and we were talking about career management and this person said a number of years ago, I would have been very hesitant to even raise my voice in terms of being interested for other roles. I mean, you imagine like that kind of energy and enthusiasm for one's career and the person felt, I'm not sure that that's the right call for me to raise that.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
So what happens in that situation is that person would ultimately leave the organization because they would feel safer somewhere else than in the organization. I think that has, as she said to me, fundamentally changed so that she feels liberated to have those discussions. And that's what I hope those are the kinds of conversations we can have more of to help
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
organizations and the leaders in organizations understand that bringing forth the ideas of everyone in the organization is good for the organization and good for them as leaders. So there's personal interest as well in their success.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
I'm thrilled to have heard that from this individual. And I was even more thrilled to have heard it from this individual because she's a person of color. So she feels like in an organization like ours, which can be traditional, relatively male dominated and relatively not color oriented that she feels like now she has a place. So that to me is huge progress. And I felt very good about that.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
And it's not to say that we have finished the job because I hope that there are more individuals like her who feel like they have a place to grow and they have a voice to be heard. So in that way, if I think about your intention in this podcast.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
The more I get close to finishing the book, the more excited I get about it. So this is an effort I started a couple of years ago. And it was an idea that actually somebody gave to me and said, hey, you know, you've got these experiences that you really have an obligation to share. And I had never really thought of my experience as an obligation to share.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
But when this person gave me that advice, I thought, okay, maybe I could do this. So we started to pull together some ideas about what does it take for any organization to create that true sense of belonging?
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
Whether it's a big organization like LVMH or a volunteer organization like Hong Kong Gay Games, there are certain elements that bring people closer to the mission, create a safe working space and create a place where people want to thrive and grow.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
It was also informed a lot by what I saw in terms of the discussion that was happening around DE&I, which I think were amplified by the loudest voices on the margins. So whether someone was considered woke or anti-woke or pro this, anti that, my view has always been about diversity and inclusion, that those voices are always going to exist and that they've certainly been amplified in recent years.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
But the reality is that most people that I know want to work in organizations where they feel like they're listened to, where they feel like they can come to work and it's safe. They feel like they are heard and that they can do their best work and grow their career to whatever extent they want to. That's to me the essence of belonging and the essence of inclusion and connection.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
And that's really what I wrote the book about. I was able to meet some incredibly interesting people and highlight their stories and their voices in the book. And I hope that it's something that will help others to understand that this middle ground in our world is one that's much larger than oftentimes we like to believe by the loudest voices on the margins.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
I hope so. I hope that the inspiration people take from the book is that connection and belonging happen in many, many different ways. And again, it's not a discussion of sort of woke or anti-woke as one would be led to believe by reading social media these days that, again, people want to generally feel included. I want to, wherever I live or work, I want to feel like I belong there.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
And when I have that sense of belonging,
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
i'm willing to do more i'm willing to give more if in my neighborhood i feel like i belong in my neighborhood maybe i'm more willing to pick up trash on the street when i see it if i feel like i belong in my organization i may be willing to do a little bit more on a project because i feel like i'm connected to the organization i'm connected to my team and my boss and the mission of the organization
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
So that's the power of a sense of belonging. It's not just a safe space or a buzzword. It's really a business driver and organization driver and a mental helper. And I think that this is the right time to have this discussion.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
I think actually the role of Chief Change Officer is imperative to a success of anybody in a company now, because where the best ideas come are certainly not always from managers. So the best ideas come from anybody.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
Thank you. With great pleasure.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
Thank you, Vince. We had the opportunity to meet at an Out Leadership event in Hong Kong during the Hong Kong Gay Games. So I'm really happy we finally made it happen.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
And maybe I can start there as a place to introduce myself. So while I recently relocated to Paris, working for Mellet Hennessy, which is the leading luxury wines and spirits company in the world, part of the LVMH group, I spent prior to that 17 years in Hong Kong. with Moet Hennessy, with Hasbro, and before that, Disney, which is the reason I ended up in Hong Kong.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
And I was very pleased to be part of the original organizing committee of the Hong Kong Gay Games, which was the first time Gay Games had come to Asia. And it turned out to be a huge success. with great support from participants and an amazing team of volunteers that made it happen.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
I'm originally an American, still an American, but become a bit more of an internationalist, I think, during my career and have now worked outside the U.S. longer than I worked in the U.S.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
And way back when started my career in commercial sales and marketing and distribution world, which was a great platform for me to spend then a good bit of my life in HR, in diversity and inclusion, and now on the verge of publishing a book that I've been writing, which I'm quite excited about.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
Good foundation and good question. The first professional job I had was working in a call center. And there's nothing like working in a call center to prepare yourself to be a good communicator. 80% of the incoming calls were complaints. And so you really had to be able to think quickly and help people solve problems.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
When I was in high school and in university during the summer, I used to work in a warehouse pulling orders and preparing orders. And then after my graduation and my call center experience, I worked in an outside sales role for GE, General Electric Company, in different roles.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
Why is that very critical to my life now is that I understand things like a supply chain from the very basis of it in a warehouse. I understand what people who work for the companies I work with when they're trying to handle customer complaints, customer issues.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
uh solutions i understand what it looks like to be a sales rep with targets and and pressure from your boss about getting things done and sold so those things were helpful to me and i continue to have an appreciation For those people, I like to be out with those team members, even doing my current role in diversity, equity, inclusion, and certainly within HR.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
Because those people, those individuals are the ones that make the business come to life and make the business alive and are basically the client. for HR and DE&I. So I love that part of the business and the energy there. And I feel like I understand it from working in the summer in a hot warehouse in less than ideal conditions, but that's where work happens.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
The most savvy leaders of people are those that know how to work with an HR team or with their HR partner. I've worked for a number of individuals who quite rightly said to me, on my right hand is my CFO and on my left hand is my CHRO. And that's the way I run my organization, because most organizations are fundamentally made up of people who then work with teams who deliver the business.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
So the business is an outcome of having a great team and great leadership. And so smart people leaders, smart organization leaders know that it's important. For example, you talk about the H.R. people potentially not knowing the business is to bring a new HR person and say, hey, let me tell you about my business. Let me tell you what we're trying to achieve here.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
Let me tell you about, you know, what successful profiles look like in this business or not. And that's where a good HR person can come in and help that leader think about what's the change or what's the profile that is going to accelerate their business.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
If I think about when I've had conversations with leaders and they've struggled to build enough competence in their organization or enough experience. depth in their organization to have real success, that's a partnership that we could have together where I can help them. Again, the business is being driven there, not by HR.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
HR does play certain roles in an organization, certain control roles, certain investment roles, development roles, hiring roles. All of those are part of creating a dynamic, resilient, evolving organization. And I think the best partnerships are those like I explained when a senior leader can say, on my right hand is one function, but on my other is HR.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
Sure. If I think about my experience within diversity, equity, and inclusion, even that has changed since I was first involved with diversity at Disney, say 20 years ago, and then leading it for a while at Hasbro. And then of course leading it within my most recent experience in MOA, Tennessee. I would say that my experience was one of learning from my own failures in the past in this space.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
Also trying to diagnose over time why in the organizations I worked and in other organizations where we had really not made significant progress over such a long period of time on something that's so fundamental to the business. And I'd start with why is it fundamental to the business? In any business, it's fundamental that your organization understands the consumer, the end user, the client.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
And that understanding, I think, comes mainly through the people who are on the front line of the organization working with those clients, consumers. It comes from the people who work in the research part of the organization. It comes from the leaders who are reflective of the markets in which we work. So representation is critical.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
And then making sure that when we have a representative company, that people can be fully participating and heard and work in a safe space and really be adding value to the organization. So those things are part of how I sort of, when we started to kick off this effort four years ago in Moet Hennessy, thinking about, okay, how do we get started?
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
And one of the things that I recognized from my experience and again, some of my failures is you really have to start with the end in mind. So what was it as an organization we were trying to impact positively by becoming more diverse, more inclusive, and more equitable?
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
And for us, it was creating an organization that was more reflective of our consumers and customers so that we could make sure that as we were growing the business, that was able to scale up because we understand better the consumer and the customer and that we create more of a reason to be in the company. So one could take two different approaches.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
One could immediately go out and start saying, okay, I want every profile of every recruitment to have a diverse candidate slate. That's an approach, which we did some of that in some organizations. The other way to go is let's rewire the system. And so we took very much, I would say, a rewire the system.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
I mean, making sure that the processes, policies, structures in the organization were prepared to post a more diverse and inclusive workforce. So things like making sure we had domestic partner policies, making sure that we had a relatively clean hiring process that was as free as possible of bias.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
making sure that when we were selecting people for development opportunities, it was done in a equitable way, not in a way that maybe there was some bias or unconscious bias. And then making sure that our communication to the whole organization was consistent and thorough about what was happening. And over time, we started to see impact in certain metrics.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
The other thing that was critically important in this success story, which is still being written, is to make sure that we had senior leadership, not just supporting, but advocating. There's nothing more powerful than the CEO saying something's important and saying it over and over and over for the rest of the organization to think that must be important if he keeps saying that.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
And that created, I would say, a bit of a sandwich. which was we had this top direction from the top, voice at the top, sort of passionate way of speaking of diversity and inclusion. And then we were firing up the organization, so you had a bit of a grassroots energy as well.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
I think the first challenge was in a way rewiring the way people thought about themselves. So on the surface, if you ask somebody, do you discriminate? I would say 99% of people are going to say, of course I don't discriminate. I have a equal view to everybody on my team. I'm open, I'm accessible. So the way we started was we took every employee through an unconscious bias training.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
And that gave people a sense of, oh, maybe I do have some bias. It may not be intentional, but it could be for whatever reason, where I was raised, it could be through experience. So that allowed us to create the first rewiring, which was everybody having a better understanding of themselves.
Chief Change Officer
#279 Greg Morley: Built, Not Bought—The Gen X Playbook for Real Inclusion
And it also opened the door for people to be having conversations about bias, about diversity, about inclusion at a very early stage. And I would say then we moved to the next level, which was like, OK, how are we going to make sure that our policies, processes and procedures are at least contemporary, maybe progressive?
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
We went to the next step, which was to open the door and train employees to be able to start employee resource groups. We also then went to the stage of starting to put some measurement in place. measurement around representation, measurement about employees' sense of well-being, measurement around employees' sense of inclusion in the organization.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
Certainly it had to be reinforced by communication and a sense of what was our message internally and externally and how are we going to amplify that. So each one of those pieces was a kind of change management agenda. which continue to this day, although we've now pivoted more towards speaking specifically to the topics of representation, inclusion, and leadership.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
And those things that were the rewiring are really embedded. If I think about the kind of benefit things we were working on four years ago versus what we're working on now, the landscape's changed. hugely impacted by COVID and people's expectation of the organization and the organization's expectation of people.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
But a lot of those fundamental early pillars still exist and are still part of the constant rewiring. There's for sure constantly change.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
Great question, and one I could probably speak with you on for hours, but let me try to condense it. One benefit for us as an organization, when I say we're the leader in luxury wines and spirits, is from the business perspective, we know what our place is. Wines and spirits is a huge category globally. And we very much play in the luxury, maybe more select area of the market.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
Now, that being said, If you go from spirits to champagne, to wines, to the other products and maisons we have in the organization, it's a complex culture. On the surface, you can imagine there's the culture of I work in France, so I deal with French culture, or I work in Hong Kong and I'm dealing with Hong Kong culture, or I work in Argentina and I deal with Argentinian culture.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
So there's that cultural element. Then there's the layered on cultural element of our different maisons and where they're from. We have some maisons that are French, some maisons that are in the US, India, China, around the world. So that puts a different sort of cultural complexity on the work. And then there's another element of what I would say, which is sort of the maturity of the business.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
So when I was talking with you about visiting a Maison, I was visiting specifically the Hennessy Maison. Now Hennessy is the largest Maison we have in Moet Hennessy, and it's the third largest Maison within all of the LVMH group. So it's a huge part of the business. And it has an incredibly diverse consumer.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
The consumers of Hennessy in China are very different than the consumers of Hennessy in say North America or the UK. So from the perspective of knowing the consumer, we know that Hennessy is a very diverse consumer around the world. When you go back to where it came from, which is Cognac, France, which is in the southwestern part of France, this is not a very diverse part of the world.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
It's a relatively small community where people know each other. And even within our facility in Hennessy, oftentimes you have people who have worked in the organization for many decades. And maybe their parents worked in that same role they have, and maybe their grandparents worked in that role.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
So diversity in Cognac, France, looks very different than what we would say of diversity in, say, Hong Kong or New York or London or Paris. So why this, you know, kind of sandwich approach is important to the success of any diversity and inclusion initiative or strategy is that there needs to be some strategic orientation.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
And I talked about that, which is understanding the consumer, being close to the consumer, having a representative organization.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
What does representative organization look like in Konya? Or what does representative organization look like in Tokyo? What does representative organization look like in Kuala Lumpur? It looks different, right? We're not talking about the same demographic and the same representation in all of those places, yet we are talking about being diverse and close to the consumer.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
So we have to make sure that there's a structure and an overall strategy and an overall direction Yet each business unit, each maison, each location is left to really imagine their own success in this space while understanding that no one's exempt from the discussion.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
That we could say just because we're in a certain place in a certain part of the world that we're not taking part of this discussion. Back to my recent visit to Cognac, they're doing some amazing work on the cognitive diversity element. They're doing some great work on bringing different ability individuals from the community to work in the facility there.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
So in terms of diversifying the way they work, they're doing it really well in their context. And that's what I think it looks like when it's done well anywhere in the world.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
I was talking with somebody earlier today and we were talking about career management and this person said a number of years ago, I would have been very hesitant to even raise my voice in terms of being interested for other roles. I mean, you imagine like that kind of energy and enthusiasm for one's career and the person felt, I'm not sure that that's the right call for me to raise that.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
So what happens in that situation is that person would ultimately leave the organization because they would feel safer somewhere else than in the organization. I think that has, as she said to me, fundamentally changed so that she feels liberated to have those discussions. And that's what I hope those are the kinds of conversations we can have more of to help
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
organizations and the leaders in organizations understand that bringing forth the ideas of everyone in the organization is good for the organization and good for them as leaders. So there's personal interest as well in their success.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
I'm thrilled to have heard that from this individual. And I was even more thrilled to have heard it from this individual because she's a person of color. So she feels like in an organization like ours, which can be traditional, relatively male dominated and relatively not color oriented that she feels like now she has a place. So that to me is huge progress. And I felt very good about that.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
And it's not to say that we have finished the job because I hope that there are more individuals like her who feel like they have a place to grow and they have a voice to be heard. So in that way, if I think about your intention in this podcast.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
The more I get close to finishing the book, the more excited I get about it. So this is an effort I started a couple of years ago. And it was an idea that actually somebody gave to me and said, hey, you know, you've got these experiences that you really have an obligation to share. And I had never really thought of my experience as an obligation to share.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
But when this person gave me that advice, I thought, okay, maybe I could do this. So we started to pull together some ideas about what does it take for any organization to create that true sense of belonging?
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
Whether it's a big organization like LVMH or a volunteer organization like Hong Kong Gay Games, there are certain elements that bring people closer to the mission, create a safe working space and create a place where people want to thrive and grow.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
It was also informed a lot by what I saw in terms of the discussion that was happening around DE&I, which I think were amplified by the loudest voices on the margins. So whether someone was considered woke or anti-woke or pro this, anti that, my view has always been about diversity and inclusion, that those voices are always going to exist and that they've certainly been amplified in recent years.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
But the reality is that most people that I know want to work in organizations where they feel like they're listened to, where they feel like they can come to work and it's safe. They feel like they are heard and that they can do their best work and grow their career to whatever extent they want to. That's to me the essence of belonging and the essence of inclusion and connection.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
And that's really what I wrote the book about. I was able to meet some incredibly interesting people and highlight their stories and their voices in the book. And I hope that it's something that will help others to understand that this middle ground in our world is one that's much larger than oftentimes we like to believe by the loudest voices on the margins.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
I hope so. I hope that the inspiration people take from the book is that connection and belonging happen in many, many different ways. And again, it's not a discussion of sort of woke or anti-woke as one would be led to believe by reading social media these days that, again, people want to generally feel included. I want to, wherever I live or work, I want to feel like I belong there.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
And when I have that sense of belonging,
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
i'm willing to do more i'm willing to give more if in my neighborhood i feel like i belong in my neighborhood maybe i'm more willing to pick up trash on the street when i see it if i feel like i belong in my organization i may be willing to do a little bit more on a project because i feel like i'm connected to the organization i'm connected to my team and my boss and the mission of the organization
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
So that's the power of a sense of belonging. It's not just a safe space or a buzzword. It's really a business driver and organization driver and a mental helper. And I think that this is the right time to have this discussion.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
I think actually the role of Chief Change Officer is imperative to a success of anybody in a company now, because where the best ideas come are certainly not always from managers. So the best ideas come from anybody.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
Thank you. With great pleasure.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
Thank you, Vince. We had the opportunity to meet at an Out Leadership event in Hong Kong during the Hong Kong Gay Games. So I'm really happy we finally made it happen.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
And maybe I can start there as a place to introduce myself. So while I recently relocated to Paris, working for Mellet Hennessy, which is the leading luxury wines and spirits company in the world, part of the LVMH group, I spent prior to that 17 years in Hong Kong. with Moet Hennessy, with Hasbro, and before that, Disney, which is the reason I ended up in Hong Kong.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
And I was very pleased to be part of the original organizing committee of the Hong Kong Gay Games, which was the first time Gay Games had come to Asia. And it turned out to be a huge success. with great support from participants and an amazing team of volunteers that made it happen.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
I'm originally an American, still an American, but become a bit more of an internationalist, I think, during my career and have now worked outside the U.S. longer than I worked in the U.S.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
And way back when started my career in commercial sales and marketing and distribution world, which was a great platform for me to spend then a good bit of my life in HR, in diversity and inclusion, and now on the verge of publishing a book that I've been writing, which I'm quite excited about.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
Good foundation and good question. The first professional job I had was working in a call center. And there's nothing like working in a call center to prepare yourself to be a good communicator. 80% of the incoming calls were complaints. And so you really had to be able to think quickly and help people solve problems.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
When I was in high school and in university during the summer, I used to work in a warehouse pulling orders and preparing orders. And then after my graduation and my call center experience, I worked in an outside sales role for GE, General Electric Company, in different roles.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
Why is that very critical to my life now is that I understand things like a supply chain from the very basis of it in a warehouse. I understand what people who work for the companies I work with when they're trying to handle customer complaints, customer issues.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
uh solutions i understand what it looks like to be a sales rep with targets and and pressure from your boss about getting things done and sold so those things were helpful to me and i continue to have an appreciation For those people, I like to be out with those team members, even doing my current role in diversity, equity, inclusion, and certainly within HR.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
Because those people, those individuals are the ones that make the business come to life and make the business alive and are basically the client. for HR and DE&I. So I love that part of the business and the energy there. And I feel like I understand it from working in the summer in a hot warehouse in less than ideal conditions, but that's where work happens.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
The most savvy leaders of people are those that know how to work with an HR team or with their HR partner. I've worked for a number of individuals who quite rightly said to me, on my right hand is my CFO and on my left hand is my CHRO. And that's the way I run my organization, because most organizations are fundamentally made up of people who then work with teams who deliver the business.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
So the business is an outcome of having a great team and great leadership. And so smart people leaders, smart organization leaders know that it's important. For example, you talk about the H.R. people potentially not knowing the business, is to bring a new HR person and say, hey, let me tell you about my business. Let me tell you what we're trying to achieve here.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
Let me tell you about, you know, what successful profiles look like in this business or not. And that's where a good HR person can come in and help that leader think about what's the change or what's the profile that is going to accelerate their business.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
If I think about when I've had conversations with leaders and they've struggled to build enough competence in their organization or enough experience. depth in their organization to have real success, that's a partnership that we could have together where I can help them. Again, the business is being driven there, not by HR.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
HR does play certain roles in an organization, certain control roles, certain investment roles, development roles, hiring roles. All of those are part of creating a dynamic, resilient, evolving organization. And I think the best partnerships are those like I explained when a senior leader can say, on my right hand is one function, but on my other is HR.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
Sure. If I think about my experience within diversity, equity, and inclusion, even that has changed since I was first involved with diversity at Disney, say 20 years ago, and then leading it for a while at Hasbro. And then of course leading it within my most recent experience in MOA, Tennessee. I would say that my experience was one of learning from my own failures in the past in this space.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
Also trying to diagnose over time why in the organizations I worked and in other organizations where we had really not made significant progress over such a long period of time on something that's so fundamental to the business. And I'd start with why is it fundamental to the business? In any business, it's fundamental that your organization understands the consumer, the end user, the client.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
And that understanding, I think, comes mainly through the people who are on the front line of the organization working with those clients, consumers. It comes from the people who work in the research part of the organization. It comes from the leaders who are reflective of the markets in which we work. So representation is critical.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
And then making sure that when we have a representative company, that people can be fully participating and heard and work in a safe space and really be adding value to the organization. So those things are part of how I sort of, when we started to kick off this effort four years ago in Moet Hennessy, thinking about, okay, how do we get started?
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
And one of the things that I recognized from my experience and again, some of my failures is you really have to start with the end in mind. So what was it as an organization we were trying to impact positively by becoming more diverse, more inclusive, and more equitable?
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
And for us, it was creating an organization that was more reflective of our consumers and customers so that we could make sure that as we were growing the business, that was able to scale up because we understand better the consumer and the customer and that we create more of a reason to be in the company. So one could take two different approaches.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
One could immediately go out and start saying, okay, I want every profile of every recruitment to have a diverse candidate slate. That's an approach, which we did some of that in some organizations. The other way to go is let's rewire the system. And so we took very much, I would say, a rewire the system.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
I mean, making sure that the processes, policies, structures in the organization were prepared to post a more diverse and inclusive workforce. So things like making sure we had domestic partner policies, making sure that we had a relatively clean hiring process that was as free as possible of bias.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
making sure that when we were selecting people for development opportunities, it was done in a equitable way, not in a way that maybe there was some bias or unconscious bias. And then making sure that our communication to the whole organization was consistent and thorough about what was happening. And over time, we started to see impact in certain metrics.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
The other thing that was critically important in this success story, which is still being written, is to make sure that we had senior leadership, not just supporting, but advocating. There's nothing more powerful than the CEO saying something's important and saying it over and over and over for the rest of the organization to think that must be important if he keeps saying that.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
And that created, I would say, a bit of a sandwich. which was we had this top direction from the top, voice at the top, sort of passionate way of speaking of diversity and inclusion. And then we were firing up the organization, so you had a bit of a grassroots energy as well.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
I think the first challenge was in a way rewiring the way people thought about themselves. So on the surface, if you ask somebody, do you discriminate? I would say 99% of people are going to say, of course I don't discriminate. I have a equal view to everybody on my team. I'm open, I'm accessible. So the way we started was we took every employee through an unconscious bias training.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
And that gave people a sense of, oh, maybe I do have some bias. It may not be intentional, but it could be for whatever reason, where I was raised, it could be through experience. So that allowed us to create the first rewiring, which was everybody having a better understanding of themselves.
Chief Change Officer
#173 Greg Morley: Can “Bond” Save Us From an $8.9 Trillion Employee Meltdown? – Part One
And it also opened the door for people to be having conversations about bias, about diversity, about inclusion at a very early stage. And I would say then we moved to the next level, which was like, OK, how are we going to make sure that our policies, processes and procedures are at least contemporary, maybe progressive?