Creator of Culture: Hey, Sam, nice to see you. Thanks for coming out this afternoon to chat about your perspective about culture. There’s amazing topics that we prepped for this, and then I’m sure there’s gonna be things that come up that we just want to roll with and talk about… Well, I want to welcome you and thank you again for coming on and sharing your perspective here today.
Sam Lalanne: My pleasure, Mike, thanks for having me on. I’m really looking forward to this.
Creator of Culture: Alright, Well, you have an interesting background. You’ve been in corporate for many years, you have background managing a highly competitive athletic team, you’ve been at different places in your corporate background. You’re a dad, I know you have two children. You live in New York, I think you have a lot of different perspectives, especially with as of late and probably able to share during the covid times periods of crisis periods, even way back there in the financial crisis. I know you’re in the financial business, but I’d love to kind of start off about you, Sam, why are you passionate about culture, from your perspective, why is it so important today for teams, individuals, communities and organizations, why… So?
Sam Lalanne: Yeah, Mike, thanks again for having me on. Really looking forward to this conversation. And for me, I think my story starts off a little bit about my personal background, I’m first generation American, my experiences of navigating the US and going through college and beyond was really supported from the foundation I had from my parents, the values they instilled in me, the importance of community, importance of having a value system. I’m a man of faith, and that plays a large part of it as well. So I think my foundation to the core is about people thinking outwardly, and so for me, my experiences throughout going through school at a junior level, grammar school, high school, and then into college, it’s been a foundation around how do we support others? And that’s really the basis for a lot of my observations, so my curiosity around leadership, around culture has always been guided by how can I help others, and I think that has a lot to do with where I’ve gotten with my career and how I’ve observed society at large and what my role can be.
So a little bit about my background. I’m a Boston College guy with you, Mike. So I have that in my background. And I started working the financial services industry while at BC. I did three summer internships while I was in school, so I had a very early view into corporate America while I was going through undergrad, and then from there, I was able to fortunately get a full-time role and start my career post-graduation, and I haven’t looked back. I’ve stayed in this industry ever since I’ve moved around a couple of times, worked for two different companies, but within the companies that I’ve worked for, I’ve moved around into different departments, and the two companies I’ve worked for have been global companies. 38 to 96 countries around the world, thousands, tens of thousands of employees from different backgrounds, different cultures, different styles, so my experiences have been really based off of what I’ve seen in my career in 16 to 19 years of work in the industry… and not to mention a short stint of working internationally as well. So, I think those different angles play a large part to my view on culture, this topic that we’re discussing here today, and the intersection between culture and leadership, and as you mentioned in your opening, good times and bad times, and how that might permeate within an environment such as in corporate America?
Creator of Culture: Yeah, certainly Sam, the experience, particularly internationally, and able to mingle and work with, and socialize with, and understand, and listen to places from their natural cultures. When I say natural, it’s what someone has been grew up in, not either by choice, necessarily what’s been inherited and what those people have been around their whole life. There’s different perspectives and different lenses, and people are treated in different ways in various places, and now it’s interesting. So they all had to come into an organization which you’ve been working with those individuals, and they’ve somehow had to make it work and perform, produce, get along in this organization that you are a part of, so… That’s certainly challenging. That’s certainly interesting. And I’d like to jump in, if that’s okay with you, about those good times and bad times, given the challenges and given different places of people located, geography and such, can we go through maybe sometimes like the financial crisis, there was a time where you were working in the business where some tough times hit, I’d like to see your perspective on what did you see that was positive there on that time with all the people you are involved with, and what negative things maybe you’ve seen, just to kind of get an example of those…
Sam Lalanne: Yeah, sure, Mike. So thinking about the financial crisis as a particular example, a pivotal moment, let’s call it early in my career, towards the midpoint in my career, a pivotal moment, not just for me, but for society, corporate American… those that were impacted by the financial crisis. Just as a way of stepping back and appreciating what was going on at that time, to say that there was… Uncertainty would be putting it mildly. No one knew what the next day was going to bring, you felt it everywhere you went, you didn’t just feel the sense of the moment in the office. You felt it walking down the streets of New York City. You felt it at home. You felt it in conversations with your friends and your family, it impacted morale all across society. The hardest part about it was… You just didn’t know what was going to happen the next day. The markets were going crazy, large companies that have been around for decades. We were folding overnight, industries were collapsing, high unemployment rate, etcetera, so that was the environment that you’re in a period of intense uncertainty, and for me, my experience, to your point, I saw some good things and I saw some bad things, and they both restated around leadership, so I’ll give you an example.
I saw firsthand during the financial crisis 2008-2009, that period of uncertainty, what good leadership looks like and what bad leadership look like. Now, here is the case, and the leaders that were operating that time, we’re dealing with the same situation, things that are outside of their control and things that they have control over. What we saw first hand was good leaders not having all the answers, but not hiding, be able to talk to leaders, be able to talk to employees, be able to communicate effectively and say, “Hey, I might not have all the answers, but I’m not going anywhere. I’m right here.” Just to throw some anecdotes out visually, I can remember this… We’re talking years ago. I can visually remember some leaders standing on top of desks talking out to the entire floor, being demonstrative in terms of the effect of communication and not shying away from the tough conversations. That was great leadership in a time of uncertainty, and then you juxtapose that to bad leadership, leaders that were around people for a long time, 10, 15, 20 years, and couldn’t be there for them when they were walking out the door and their last day hiding in their offices are not coming in at all.
When employees were looking for answers, nowhere to be found, those are some examples of bad leadership, so even though you don’t have the answers, still being in front-facing and being in front of your team helps to show that the culture is strong despite those uncertainties, despite those challenges and that together you can accomplish and get through a tough time. A difficult time.
Creator of Culture: Yeah, that’s interesting. You’re talking about the panic and the uncertainty of that particular time. One of the things after hearing you was how does a person react under stress and when there is a panic? It seems like some people were able to rise above that in a certain way, and then some people seem to fold a little bit and maybe went into the self-preservation mode and self-survival. Is that a natural reaction? Do people have to… does that have to be coached with reaction to be the person standing on the desk or is that something like from their youth and their upbringing that they’re… they’re able to rise above that stress and panic? Maybe they had tough experiences in their life personally, that this might not be as big of a shock maybe to someone who was, say as fragile in certain areas, because they’ve never been exposed to the tough times. I wanted to see your thoughts on that in particular, do people get over panic and shock or they can fall within and get over consumed?
Sam Lalanne: Yeah, it’s a great question, Mike, and just taking a step back, I think looking at it, it probably works, it’s probably a balance, balance of personal experiences, upbringing, how are your raise where you raise, what other experiences you had prior to that experience, how you dealt with challenges in the past, how you dealt with peers of unreal, you dealt with bouts of anxiety and not just general uncertainty is definitely one piece. A lot of that is innate. You’ve learned how to deal with on your own that either resonates well with a population or it doesn’t, but I think there’s also a second part to this, which is, how do organizations help their leaders to be ready to face those situations proactive in the moment and then reactive. So, from a proactive standpoint, we think about… And I’m in the diversity and inclusion space, primarily in my current role, when you think about how do you develop talent, how do you support talent to advance and take on greater leadership, what abuts and qualities you work to support future leaders? Well, that’s the role of organizational support management to be able to help with that training, those workshops, those areas of development, to be able to meet those needs, whether it’s through executive coaching, whether it’s through ad hoc training in-house or external, and through just giving exposure, wide exposure so that you can learn some of those skills and those opportunities and those environments that will help you to get ready for the next time or next environment.
So, I think it’s a balance of both. There are some people that are natural sales-people, they never had a training sales, but their natural salesman or sales women, they just get it, they know how to connect with people, and then there’s others that… They have to be trained on it, and over time, they get to pick up those skills and they could do a good job, and then they could have a successful career in sales, but… It depends on the individual.
Creator of Culture: Sure, yeah, there’s certain people definitely, who have the raw skill, but how to grow that to a certain point and apply it in an environment successfully. You mentioned about the executive coaching and training, and there’s a concept of working just beyond a comfort zone to grow and expand, kind of like a rubber band to stretch it a little bit beyond the comfort zone, growth happens. Whether it’s internally, or a skill set that’s technical or externally, the skill is interesting, it’s a fascinating subject that kind of rolls up into culture. Because if you have a performance-based, a strong point of a culture, skill development is very important, but you talk about maybe putting people in those situations that will be on their comfort zone, do you think someone that maybe had some training in that it had experience over time, going through programs or just dealing with everyday scenarios could have reacted differently? They’re in the crisis because of that, what they have hid in the office, so to speak, like that, those people did? Do you think there’s more of a chance that they would get on the desk? It is dramatic.
Sam Lalanne: And what I would say about that is not everyone has to get on the desk, right, the particular leader that I’m thinking about, it made sense, it was authentic to that person, right then a great leader doesn’t necessarily have to get on the desk to be able to communicate that way, but it’s the visual. The optics that I remember, along with the substance of a communication, I think the training, the development opportunities, the practice, the preparation can certainly help. And that’s part of the process, but part of it’s going to be what you do with that information and how you deal with the situation in the moment. But I’ve always felt that the more you know what lies ahead, the better prepared you are for a potential situation, the better, you’re going to deal with it when that time comes, if you’re caught off-guard, if you’re not anticipating, if you didn’t even know that that was a reality of possibility, you’re left to your own devices in the moment, and that might not have the desired outcomes that you like you immediately regret how you might have dealt with a particular situation. So for me, that’s why we from an organizational standpoint, creating that structure, support for our future leaders and our current leaders will mitigate the risk of not reacting to a situation in the right, way.
So one example that, if I may.. We spent a lot of time… A popular topic nowadays is you’re recognizing what unconscious bias is in the workplace and in society, another popular topic that we spend a lot of time on is an inclusive leadership. So that in most parts across corporate America is through trainings or workshops to help leaders to understand how they can become a more inclusive leader. So you go through examples, you go through scenarios, you get a feel for the environment, but really at the end of the day, what it helps you to visualize is not your own impact, but the perception of others thinking of the perspectives of other people, your team, your peer group, your seniors. Thinking outwardly about those around you, rather than how you might your own impact on a certain action.
Right, so we think back to the financial crisis. In the moment, you’re thinking, you could rationally think, “What’s going to happen to me? What’s going happen to my career? I’ve been working 15, 20 years to be the senior leader. And it could be gone tomorrow.” You could spend a lot of time thinking about just at one point, and as you’re thinking about that one point, there’s a fire happening around you, and you’re not thinking about those around you, the teams that you hired, the peers that you go out to lunch with, spend time with, but thinking about how to be an inclusive leader helps you to think about other people first, so how might this situation, the situation that you’re worried about. How might other people be thinking about it and understand that everyone’s different, everyone has different family structures, different needs, there are different places in their career that come from different backgrounds, as you mentioned before, they’re from different geographies, how might this one event impact all those people differently? And what is your role as a leader to better to one, understand that’s the case, that is not going to impact everyone the same way, and two, what can you do to make everyone feel, as you mentioned earlier at the top, that sense of belonging that they are heard that they are seeing that they’re uniquely identify, and how that can help going forward, give a sense of belonging.
Creator of Culture: I definitely would like to jump into that as you just mentioned, because it’s very healthy, it’s being a part of something. It is a nice motivational, fuel for performance that’s been written about by many people, but it’s also it just… it makes great natural common sense. How do you create that leader that you talk about, to understand it’s a lot of perspectives, and someone in that position may not have the intimate knowledge of every single person and how they tick, so to speak, from those perspectives, but hopefully over time with learning and about the person and getting know the person and having that education about unconscious bias and how we perceive things? Because we’re human and our brains are wired certain ways and brought up in certain ways, either by choice or by not… But how do you create that sense of belonging? What have you seen, Sam that works really well and that can just blow it? What the process may be?
Sam Lalanne: Right, so from an unconscious bias and point, the first step is recognizing we all have biases. There are people that know that they have biases, and there are people that don’t think that they do it. So it’s recognized that we all have biases. That’s the first part of the unconscious bias kind of paradigm. The second piece on what the role of the leader is and thinking about others and being inclusive is just recognizing that it requires work. It’s easier to not have inclusion as part of your leadership qualities, to only think about yourself and how you’re portrayed or how you lead. It’s hard work and it requires effort, time, commitment, and a lot of outreach to do exactly what you had described, how to be included. How to think about other people. So it’s just recognizing that it’s work, it’s not easy, so within that sense of belonging, it’s in every facet of what we do. So it’s not just process, it’s not just can this employee fulfill the roles and responsibilities that they are hired to perform, it is… What can I do to create the right type of environment that allows every employee, no matter their background, no matter where they’re from, no matter their language, no matter what else other characteristics you’re thinking about to allow them to reach their fullest potential.
Now, I like that and thought about helping employees reach full potential because it tells us a couple of things, tells us, one, that we all have different potential. We all have different needs, as I mentioned before. And by thinking about how can we create an environment that allows everyone to reach their full of potential enables us to get the most out of that individual or a series of… Set of individuals. And then if we think about the bigger picture, what does that do that allows everyone to come into an environment that they feel like they’re part of it, they’re not on the outside looking in. They’re part of the team, that they’re recognized not just for their technical contributions and the execution of their responsibilities, but they’re recognized for who they are, that they can be their authentic selves, that they can talk about what they like to do on the weekend and feel like… There’s listening ears that will gladly take in that information that is more than just their profit margin or their expense management performance. So that sense of belonging, it’s… How can we allow every employee to feel like they can be who they need to be at work to get the job done and to bring the best version of themselves to work, that they no longer have to walk into the office and shed off the layers of who they are.
Before they walk through those doors, I think I bring that all in with them, and now, if you think about from a practical standpoint, what type of impact does that have? Right, so you have this one individual, if we just have two scenarios, you have one individual that doesn’t have that sense of belonging, that doesn’t feel like they belong. That’s going to impact the way they perform, that’s going to create unnecessary anxiety, that’s going to create uncertainty about how they’re perceived. So that is going to impact their ability to be efficient at what they do and how they do it. Now you have someone on the other hand that does feel that sense of belonging, they’re going be totally focused on just being part of the team, less anxiety, less stress, they’re going be able to deliver more, they’re going to be able to get along with their colleagues in a better fashion. And then you think about the outer ring of influence that that has, if that employee is performing and feeling that sense of belonging, the way they interact with others is also going to increase and have a positive reaction, then the team starts to perform better, and the team performs better.
Morale increases performance, general performance of the team increases and that’s a nice outcome. I think it’s recognizing the larger impact on creating the right type of inclusive environment that allows everyone to have that sense of belonging, to increase performance, to increase morale, to increase teamwork, to increase collaboration, and we know that if you can do all those things, you’re working in a much better environment with much better ability to succeed at a higher level and continue to grow.
Creator of Culture: Sam, you’ve mentioned a bunch of big concepts that roll onto his “mother culture”, we talk about. It’s the belonging and inclusion, all these important factors that were open to say like a performing positive culture, so to speak. You talked before about, I say, those natural sales people that just have the skill, they just know it, this natural raw skill, and it gets refined over time with training and experience. Does being inclusive come naturally for some people more so than other people? And say… Those people that it doesn’t come natural to, how do they get to be more inclusive, for example, or provide the opportunity to include it… I guess create their environment, whatever level it is, if it’s a group, a team, a community, an organization? What can they do? I guess to finish off, is there a process, so to speak, that they can maybe follow… some idea… and then they can figure out how to become more natural… and that it becomes who they are?
Sam Lalanne: Yeah, I definitely think there are some people that are more apt to be more inclusive than others. I kind of like the analogy we shared before about the salesman that it could be an natural quality they have. There are people that are naturally… That naturally show empathy. That naturally show compassion. Those are two really important facets of how to be an inclusive leader. Just by having those two traits or skills doesn’t necessarily make you a great leader, right. But those are two really important factors on how you can be an inclusive leader, so there are definitely some people that have it, some people that need our development, and there are some people that just need those reminders. Leaders develop then at plateaus or it’s developed in one area, but they don’t see the full picture, and that’s why we all need all leaders need that, those constant reminders and constant processes to help us stay on track and to think about how can we be more inclusive. So one example is, there’s a lot of little nudges that we can take and apply in our daily lives. We think about in the work environment, just being mindful of who you interact with, if you have a team of 10 people and you just track how you work how you connect, how you communicate with those 10 individuals, and if over a month period of time, do you look back and say, Oh, those 10 people, I spent the majority of my time with three people, what about the others, the balance of that group…
“Why aren’t you spending more time with them? Is there a reason?” And maybe that’s where you might identify some of your own biases, so being intentional about being inclusive is really important, and that’s a process. So for example, if you like to go out for an afternoon coffee or tea, Who do you invite to go with you… Maybe you just need to be explicit about how you do that rather than just making decisions and say, “hey, Mike, you want to go grab a coffee with me?” and that happens and you look back and more so than not, you’re asking Mike for coffee, way more than anyone else, or are you being practical about and intentional about your process and you almost have a calendar. This week, I’m going to make sure I go to Susie or John, and making sure in an intentional way that you’re connecting with as many people as possible in a very balanced way. So that example about coffee or tea seems like a minor one, but think about what happens in those situations, that’s when you learn the most about your colleagues, and if you extrapolate that over time, one person that you tend to do that more with, you’re going to have a tighter bond with you, learn more about them and their personal lives.
You’re going to learn more about their skill sets, they might not be utilizing on a daily basis in their current role, but then you might later on when it comes time to making a promotion decision, there’s a new role that opens up… I might think about Mike over Suzie or John, only because I’ve learned these extra things about Mike. So as a leader, it’s really important. Even if it’s something as small as going off for coffee, and you can say the same thing about when it comes to delivery of work assignments or initiatives, who are you giving those really cool projects too, that can help them to grow their careers. Are you thinking more broadly in an inclusive way around the talent you have?
Creator Of Culture: That’s really interesting. Small things can make a big difference Sam, and they say is just the small coffee, and be cognizant about the frequency of how often you get to know people and spend time with people, just that, If someone’s not in tune with that naturally, I think that was a really good suggestion, a good nugget, put something in the calendar, just a nice nudge, a nice reminder, and then over time, hopefully that catches becomes part of who that person is. So we touched upon a lot in 30 minutes, can you believe it that this so fast is already over, and I felt like we touched upon and some stuff, but it’s got each of those sub-topics we covered goes even deeper. So if I could ask you one more question, Sam, just to kind of finalize this and in a couple of words, what does culture mean to you personally? just to finish to a tough question, maybe give in a couple of words. Just to get your final thoughts.
Sam Lalanne: Yeah, for me, it’s core to how we create a better society, and there’s good culture and there’s bad culture, and so it’s the differentiating quality that exists within a group of individuals or a group that have a positive or a negative overall output of that group compared to a peer group. So for me, culture is all about the people and putting people first.
Creator of Culture: Thanks that was great conversation. Thank you so much. Insight was awesome.
Sam Lalanne: It was my pleasure, Mike.
