The Leaders' Perspective

Dion Harrison - Chief Diversity Officer

June 24, 2022 Jason Goldberg Episode 1
The Leaders' Perspective
Dion Harrison - Chief Diversity Officer
Show Notes Transcript

In this episode we chat with Dion Harrison, Chief Diversity Officer of Elevate Credit about his career, with a deep dive discussion into diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), and how it has changed now that business has gone virtual.  We learn about Dion's perspectives on DEI, discuss how we can all improve DEI in our organizations (and in our lives), and learn about his views on triple threat leadership.

Jason Goldberg:

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion otherwise known as dei has been a hot topic in every type of business and academic institution for nearly a decade. D is the philosophy that every member of a community should have the opportunity to thrive. And that diversity is key to a community flourishing, excelling and advancing knowledge in any and all environments.

Voiceover:

Welcome to the leaders perspective podcast where we talk to Triple Threat leaders about the people products, trends and experiences that influence business. I'm now pleased to introduce your host, Jason Goldberg.

Jason Goldberg:

I am so incredibly excited to welcome everybody to our first episode of the leaders perspective. This is an idea that I've had for a while and I'm thrilled to be able to see this come to life. I've had the privilege in my career to work with some incredible leaders. And if you listen to the intro podcast, you'll remember that we focus on Triple Threat leaders. A triple threat leader is one who embodies the very best of leadership and who has strong IQ, EQ and DQ intelligence quotient, emotional quotient and decency quotient. And with that, I'm elated to welcome our very first guest, Deon Harrison. Dion is the Chief Diversity Officer and Vice President of Business Development at Elevate credit lending FinTech based in Dallas. He's been with Elevate for 10 years. He's also the co founder of a philanthropic organization called that's just good. He's a member of the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, and he's the chair of the DEI Committee of the National Association of Black compliance and risk management professionals. He's had an amazing career in financial services, having also worked for Citi Wells Fargo, urban Bank Trust and RLJ Companies. He's one of the most prolific volunteers for the tango tab, charity fighting against hunger in the DFW area. And if that's not enough, he is the dad of one amazing daughter. So thank you for being my first guest. And welcome to the leaders perspective.

Dion Harrison:

Okay. No problem. That's Thank you, Jason. for that. The nine year old is probably my favorite thing that I've been able to do so.

Jason Goldberg:

Yes, she, she I'm sure she keeps you busy. She does. Yeah. So I think we met what feels like 778 years ago. Now at this point.

Unknown:

Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Goldberg:

And, and so the audience has, has some perspective. Dion hired me a few times over in my career. So when I was a consultant, I consulted to Dion and, and one of his employers, he was gracious enough to bring me back a few times. And then when there was a job opportunity at that company, he, he hopped on the chance to recommend me and bring me on board. And then we had the opportunity, I had the privilege to work with Dion for the next few years after that. So so it's, it's been a while,

Unknown:

you're very humble about that. But I had so much confidence in you, Jason that I recommend it to bring you in so that I could work for you. So

Jason Goldberg:

we had a good time. And we have an I think when you know, when I talk in the intros about people and passion, that team that we had, you know, for those few years, are one of the highlights of my career.

Unknown:

I would agree with that. And I think it um, you know, I've always had a, obviously a passion for Dei, and, but the people that I work with, I've think I've used some of those same principles in being humble about, like, you know, who I work with, and where, you know, kind of how we build our teams with each other. I think far too often people think about building teams, just in the people that they hire, and that they come to work for them. But honestly, I mean, the reason why I bring that up, that I recommend it to work, you know, for that I would work for you is because you had a lot of the character a lot of the qualities that I was looking for, in, even in my leadership, to be quite honest with you. And I felt like we had a great rapport with one another great relationship in terms of us being able to collaborate with one another. And really, honestly, that's what dei is all about. I mean, you and I have very different backgrounds. You know, we've had some overlap and some of our career experience and whatnot. But the reality is that I think where we found commonality is in the purpose and the and what we want it to try to do for the customers that that elevate has so yeah, I, I think the principles of dei are not just something that is written on paper and put in a mission statement somewhere. It really kind of starts here and in here you No and and you have to allow it to kind of be real and tangible in everything that you

Jason Goldberg:

do. I love that. So you just jump right in. So let's look, look how do you how do you define

Unknown:

the so DD di to me is a very practical thing. It's it's a, it's a way of you behaving every day, it's a humility that you have in terms of acknowledging who you are, and what you've dealt No, there's, there's, there's a sense of self worth, that comes from acknowledging who you are, and being willing to share who you are, I think you have to actively do that and not shy away from it and be fearful of sharing who you are. Because the reality is that nobody grows, nobody becomes, you know, we don't as a community don't become more tolerant and collaborative with one another. If we don't know, you know, I mean, there may be biases that we have that we just haven't spoken, spoken out in the open to, to challenge them, for ourselves, and also to kind of get clarification on where some of those biases come from. And I think we have to be a little bit more fearless and open about it. So to me, di gives us a vocabulary that we can use in order to, to substantiate that relationship and that engagement with one another.

Jason Goldberg:

Like that was interesting. I was doing some research prior to, prior to this, this podcast or the interview. And I came across a quote that I just loved it was from the chief diversity officer at University of Michigan. It said, diversity is where everyone is invited to the party. Inclusion means everyone gets to contribute to the playlist. And equity means everyone has the opportunity to dance.

Unknown:

That's very true. The only thing that I would add to that is not only when you're when you're dancing, I think you got to invite people to be okay with people attempting to dance the way that you dance. And also, show be not be shy about showing people how you dance, you know, because I think being being inclusive is not just you giving up everything. It's really learning something new and making it a part of who you are a part of your culture. I think I've told you several times that my daughter, actually, we're not a Jewish family, but we actually play Dreidel, and we celebrate Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur war. And we do that because we want her to be more culturally diverse and understand some of our neighbors, some of our friends and be able to have some relationships with them. So sometimes it takes you know, a little bit more of you breaking down kind of who you are, and changing who you are, to be more accepting and to be at least more cognizant of what other people come from

Jason Goldberg:

where your family is, by far the most culturally aware and inclusive family of any of me that I that I've ever met. And it's, it's inspiring. But that's, you know, that's something that's within you. Right, as soon as from from the earliest days that we've met your career path wasn't Dr. It wasn't diversity, equity inclusion, but you always did that off to the side. You're always interested in that. And what what drove that? How did that come about? What interested you Was there something in your childhood that sparked that?

Unknown:

Yeah, I mean, yes, it was absolutely. My childhood. I mean, the so I come from a very rural North Carolina family. We grew up basically on a farm. My heritage has a little bit of Irish in it has Ethiopian has Nigerian has Cherokee Indian in it. And my I have a history of my family having biracial, interracial marriages, all the way back to we traced it all the way back to like the 1700s. To the extent to where, you know, the state of Virginia didn't recognize interracial marriages until way into the 19th century. And I have family members that were interracial couples in Virginia and ended up having to move out of Virginia just to you know, to keep their family together because, right, yeah, just to survive. Exactly, it was not accepted. And the reality is that, you know, I grew up in an environment where I saw my cousins that were biracial kids and, and all the light and we all were just family like I never had, you know, them being biracial was never even a discussion. They just, they were who they were, you know, and going coming from that background, I will tell you that not just from an ethnicity perspective, but also from a socio economic perspective. My mom made $129 a week, when I was A kid all the way up through the time that I was in eighth grade. And I remember that because I used to see her paychecks. And, and I also remember when she finally got an associate's degree, and went and gotten another job, and I think she was making roughly around $50,000 a year, I thought we were just like, rich, okay, like I was just excited about, you know, being able to make that amount of money. And then I went to college, and I learned that we were actually really, really poor. You know, prior to her even getting this job, but but the thing that that resonated with me was the fact that I never grew up with a poor mentality, we were very self sufficient, very self reliant, I became a plumber. By the time I was like, 14 years old, my grandfather used to drop me off at people's houses just to, you know, help them out with doing things. And he didn't just drop me off at another black person's house, he dropped me off at everybody's house. And so, again, I was a kid, I had all these different interactions, and had the ability to, to, to kind of speak to and interact with people of all different backgrounds and everything. And so it definitely shaped my, you know, you know, me being willing, and to engage. But then when I went into the banking industry, I think, what really resonated with me, I first started my career at Citi Group. And what I, what I found very interesting with Citi Group is that, I mean, basically two thirds of the world's economy runs through it. They're a global company, right. So they had to shape and reshape and reimagine everything in their company, in order to fit the needs of the people that were local. And as much as they tried to be, as general as possible. They couldn't be in sometimes they had to be intentional about the markets that they went into. And you know, this as well, as I do when you go to Latin markets versus European markets versus Asian markets, they're very, very different in terms of the way that you approach customers and the products that you deliver to them. So

Jason Goldberg:

even in the US, right, how, how you interact with, with customers on the buy us, Louisiana is dramatically different than the way you do it in San Francisco.

Unknown:

It totally is. And I think, you know, I think that's part of the what I feel like is very rich about the US is the ability to, to be forced into doing that more often. Because we have such a culturally diverse country, we have an opportunity to engage, I think, you know, by and large, most companies try to be as general as they possibly can to avoid offending and to avoid, you know, you know, discriminating against folks or whatnot. But I think the from the prism of Dei, it doesn't mean that you ignore the fact that you have a diverse group of folks, you can still deliver a credit card that functions the exact same way and has the same billing rights and so forth, to you know, customers all across the US and still have, you know, be cognizant of who they are, who it is that you're actually delivering it to, in your marketing and in the way that you, you know, you know, you talk about the merchants that they can use and so forth. So, dei has a very practical way of actually engaging customers to feel like they trust you to feel a sense of rapport with you to feel like you actually even understand them, as you're, you know, being more cognizant of, of, kind of pushing those, those types of things out to them.

Jason Goldberg:

It's such an important point, because we talk all the time in the corporate world about di and its focus on inward right on employees. Yeah. And there's this notion of unconscious bias, which we have, right, everyone has, you have it, I have it, everyone has it. And it's in US based upon our environment and our upbringing. And as we build products as we build experiences for customers, those unconscious bias biases, without a doubt, are embedded in those experiences. So absolutely incumbent upon all of us to really become aware of what those are, and try to extract those. So absolutely. This is interesting, because this is actually this helps me transition to something I really want to talk to you about because we talk about diversity, equity, inclusion, dei, chief diversity officers, which you are most people in that function come up through a traditional HR human resources. Right. And they find they find an opportunity, you know, and it's more often than not, you know, a person of color who finds an opportunity to step into a CDO function, which is which is terrific. You came up with a different path.

Unknown:

Yeah, very different.

Jason Goldberg:

Can we talk about that touch a little bit about your career? And then, you know how you sort of moved in parallel?

Unknown:

Yeah. So I think the the point of my career that I think was very pivotal for me, from a DI perspective is when I went to work for Robert L. Johnson, in DC, who was the founder of bt. And he had a portfolio company of about 15 Different companies. I had always admired him as an entrepreneur himself, but also just work having the opportunity to work in his company. It was really, I came into that company thinking to myself, that I knew everything that there was to know about credit cards, because I spent almost 10 years at Citi Group, all in their cards group. And I had done a bunch of different stuff from risk modeling to compliance to being a business analyst to just any and everything that you can think of. I had a very unconventional pathway there. But it was all because I was curious and was willing to try something different. But I went to RLJ Companies. And the reality was, I got to this company, and they basically said, you know, you are the credit card team. So Have at it and go build this credit card. And

Jason Goldberg:

by the way, I don't think most of our listeners have any perspective of what RLJ is, and who Bagh is, you want to give a quick background on that? Yeah, so he's been so incredibly influential on this country. He

Unknown:

has, he has Robert L. Johnson was the founder of Black Entertainment Television. And he sold that company to Viacom. And in selling that company to Viacom, he became one of the first the US verse, black billionaires. He has had a long career and still continues to have a long career, that he owns himself. He was even like a former lobbyist, and so forth. But he, but he has always been a serial entrepreneur and Black Entertainment Television was really his dream of being able to allow African Americans to have to own their own content, and to be able to deliver content that was relevant to black lifestyles, black culture, and so forth. And even in his portfolio of companies, which consists of a number of different things from jazz studio to EBIT, actually having owned, he was the largest minority owner of Hilton and Marriott brand hotels for quite some time, he still owns a publicly traded REIT right now. And again, his portfolio company has about spans about 15 Different companies, but he himself has been a very vocal, you know, figure public figure for advancing not just the the the opportunities for black Americans, but also just diversity and inclusion altogether. I mean, he is a strong believer in equality for all and, and he manages all of his portfolio companies in that way, he wants to be able to deliver products that are, are great for all people, and especially, you know, those people of color he wants to make, make sure that there is an intentional market that goes directly to them. And that satisfies the needs that they have. He's, he's actually made a lot of African Americans, millionaires over his lifespan, but genuinely, because he cares about the products that they want to bring to market. And RLJ allowed me the opportunity to, you know, kind of create this credit card portfolio, and use legal leverage all of the different experiences that I had at Citigroup. But what I started to see with this, you know, with with this company, in particular, is that I could take everything that I learned from like a city group and be far more intentional about delivering it to groups that were disadvantage, those have been files, because they're immigrants, or even those that are disadvantaged because of, you know, discriminatory practices that had been in the past, like redlining and things of that nature, we could deliver it to those folks, we just needed to break down some of the barriers and the biases that we had in order to deliver it to them. And sometimes that meant taking a little bit of a risk and making sure that we could deliver it to those folks, and not necessarily because there was some data that told us that those probes were more dangerous for us, but really, because we just didn't know. And a lot of times, credit companies have not offered these products to you know, people of color and immigrants and so forth, because of the unknown about what they think that they might get into and then there definitely been moments where they will test a little bit and then they come back and they find out well we shouldn't have done that. But quite honestly, there's there's a everybody that you know only credit card when they first got it didn't always manage it well, right, especially if you weren't taught how to use it. So people of color immigrants, all the like, have to be taught how to use these products the proper way. And I think this company allowed me the opportunity to work with a lot of our vendors to say, like, let's be more intentional about how we communicate the customer journey, so that we can teach them the right way, what let's lay out our expectations. And, and fortunately, I've been able to do the same here at Elevate, because RJ financial, actually ended up getting acquired by Elevate, and I became, you know, part of the elevated family as a result of that acquisition. And, and I've been able to do the exact same thing through here, and always advocating for, you know, looking at disadvantaged groups and try to create different products that were focused on that and being cognizant of how we communicate everything.

Jason Goldberg:

So you see, you've you've had clearly a, you know, an opportunity to be in business leadership roles. Product management, operations risk across the board, right? Yes, you're a true General Manager in that sense that you've played in so many different areas. So how did chief diversity officer come to be? Because right now you serve as both chief diversity officer and in a business development role? Yeah, correct.

Unknown:

Yeah. So it, it essentially came about when I, I have worked with Elevate for quite some time, even at RLJ, they were a client of ours, and we work with them. So I have a very unique understanding and knowledge of all the products that elevate has had throughout its history. And the opportunity came up for him within our government affairs group, to tap, you know, a business, a business person to go and advocate for Elevate, to tell our story to congressional members up in DC. And I volunteered, because I felt like it was a great opportunity to really kind of tell, you know, the story of our succession. And the things that we hit a ball from. The first panel that I actually spoke on, though, was it was a group called the Financial Services Innovation Council. What I didn't know at the time was that it was actually made up of an entire panel of African American panelists, who all came from different walks of life in terms of the banking industry somewhere in treasury management, somewhere in, you know, in the stock exchange, and I was the only one that was actually in consumer and consumer finance. Interestingly enough, whenever you talk to congressional staffers, many of them are very young folks that were in the room. And I think what I taught spoke about, you know, from a consumer perspective, really resonated with them. And I hit on a lot of hard topics that, you know, hit the average American pocket, right. And I think these kids, they are, there were a few of them that came to me after the conversation was just like, I need to get my budget together. But I didn't realize you know, that by doing X that this was going to happen, and so, so forth. And I really appreciate, you know, you're saying that, and I talked a lot about how do we be more inclusive with different groups. And that, just because you had some financial trouble doesn't make you a bad person, it doesn't mean that you intended that to happen, there's just a series of different things that can happen. Sometimes they cause you to get into that, into that scenario. And I think that broke down a little bit for these, for these folks in this audience in particular, that it was okay for them to come and talk to me, right. And so that opened the door for me to actually speak to more congressional members. In fact, that day, I think I had five more meetings that were basically, you know, booked right after the session. And it was great conversation to actually speak to our congressional members, and to their staff, and really identify that there are people just like us and the constituents that they serve, are the people that we that we create these products for every single day. But they just hadn't looked at things from the prism that I was speaking to sometimes. And, and I think, because I was so willing to continue those conversations and to keep doing it. I ended up actually being, you know, doing a testimony to a the House Financial Services Committee, and Congress to talk a little bit about how banks can partner with fintechs in order to broaden their ability to reach, you know, communities of color and to reach those folks that are disadvantaged. And I think that, you know, that in itself, again, was building building building on me becoming more of an advocate for diversity for elevate and telling the story of how our products evolved to serve those those groups and how we can potentially, you know, enable other institutions, especially banking institutions to serve those groups a little bit more. There's far too often in the industry, many people have said that people colleges don't trust banks. And I think to some degree, that's true. But I also think that the larger reason that there's such hesitancy, and a disconnect between the relationship is because most of the banks just don't have the actual product that these customers need. And they haven't had the ability to innovate and change those products, because they've been stuck with either capital restraints, or just not having or understanding the innovation that they needed in order to deliver it. And I think what elevate does well is, is really talk to customers, consumers, get their data, get their information, and translate that into actual real products.

Jason Goldberg:

Yeah, I mean, that I remember a time where the two of us had an opportunity with a group to go out. And we were, you know, feet on the street, right? Yeah, it was, it was, it was like a really, really disturbing treasure hunt. You know, we we were there lists of tasks of what lower income consumers would do or try to do on a daily basis or, or how they would engage with, you know, the less traditional financial services system. And it was just a sly remember that, you know, like it was yesterday, it was a slap in the face, because, you know, it was just such a wake up call for me, because, you know, the, the way that some groups are exploited is pretty terrible.

Voiceover:

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Jason Goldberg:

All right, we're back. So again, we're back with with with Deon Harrison, who is Chief Diversity Officer of Elevate credit, welcome back and just want to remind listeners to like the podcast follow. And we're available on all of the platforms where we're at podcasts are streaming, Apple, podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. So Dion, you were talking to us about your experience with Congress. And I remember shortly after that, you were tapped to shift into a chief, divert or expand your role into a chief diversity officer roles. So more specifically, how, what's the benefit to an organization for having a chief diversity officer that comes out of the business line, instead of a traditional HR path?

Unknown:

Yeah, so I think anyone that's willing to be in the DEI space gives gives you a different perspective from that based on where they come from. I think my unique kind of contribution to my organization is that I actually understand a lot about our business. And what I hope to achieve over time is to be able to change a lot of the perceptions and perspectives of our of our employees, to be more cognizant of the customers that we serve, to be more mindful of the communities that we serve, and to be actively engaged in doing so and understand how they can translate those learnings, those lessons and those that level of engagement into actual better products for in our financial system. But those of us that come from the HR perspective, I mean, I think there's still some advantage there because they understand human capital, they understand the the advantages of leveraging, you know, all of the policies, procedures, and things of that nature. But I will say di is just very different than than HR. And it is because dei really kind of deals with the reason why someone adheres to a particular policy, or a particular procedure. And I'll give you an example of that. The first Equal Pay Act was actually contemplated back in the 1940s. Okay, and then the 1961 It was 1963. There was an actual Act that was signed that basically said that we have to pay women the same that we pay men for comparable jobs, right? Yep. So from 1963, and then again in 65, and then again in 71, and then several times over all the way up through 2015. There were several iterations shins have the exact same act, that that just added a little bit something extra to it to say, hey, we really have to pay women, the same thing that we pay men for the same job, and all the way up until President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Act that basically just gave more rights in order to sue right to how to bring and gave instructions on how to bring a class action lawsuit whenever that discrimination has happened. But if you think about that, we're talking about 1940s, all the way up through 2022. That's years and years and years of several rules and laws, procedures that have been written to tell us exactly how to not do that. And yet, but it still happens. Right? Absolutely. dei is that X factor that gets to the heart of why someone is doing and what is the incentive, what is the motivation. And a lot of times, it's our biases, a lot of times, it's our background, our experiences. And what dei tries to do is change all of that by making people engage with one another and be more mindful and cognizant of the differences of that we have, so that we can be more accommodating and understand that maybe those laws, you know, those laws are good, because they help to keep us accountable. But at the same time, we as humans, can actually self manage, we can still be good people without a, you know, without these laws being in place, that keep forcing us to say to say and to do thing, we don't need necessarily all of that. But that's that's where I feel like dei is just very different. It's the intangibles that that speak to our character speaks to our integrity, and why we actually are accountable to that.

Jason Goldberg:

That's a great point. I want to pivot just a little bit. So we're now you know, for the last two years now, we've been operating in a virtual environment, largely in a virtual environment. Companies are a little bit all over the map. Right? There's some some are back in the office. Some are back part time, and a lot of them are just have embraced digital first. But right. Either way we have we we have distributed employees. How has the efficacy of dei changed now that companies are in a virtual working environment doesn't matter who changed it all doesn't make it more or less relevant?

Unknown:

Does it I think it makes it more relevant to be quite honest with you, because we're now with this virtual environment, actually able to attract people that we weren't able to attract before from other cities from other states. And being more cognizant of even their environments is very different, right? Like, we're Fort Worth based company. And we have an office in Dallas. And we're very Texas, right. And it's just part of our persona a little bit, you know that, you know, we love and endear Texas, right. But the reality is that we're becoming a much more national type of accompany in the fact that we have people that work out of Seattle and California, Hawaii, and my even myself in Florida, we have to be cognizant of the environments that all those folks are in, in order to stay engaged with them and to give them opportunities to stay to feel like they not that they're not isolated just because they're they're working somewhere else, but that they are engaged in the programming. So the from a DI perspective, we have had to be a little bit more creative. leveraging a lot of the tools, Zoom teams, we do a lot of education, we are now starting to work on our website a little bit more, so that we can have better communications, we've had to think of different ways that we can interact with with, with our employees, and even you know, to the extent of finding community organizations that all of our, you know, remote employees can actually participate in. And given them that opportunity. We were very fortunate to have a great relationship and I'm on the board of Junior Achievement. And it's one of those organizations that has evolved over time they've, you know, kind of leaned into their virtual environments themselves. And what's been great is that, you know, because they have this these virtual platforms within Junior Achievement, we've been able to have some of our employees, even our remote employees to participate in teaching pilot financial literacy to kids K through 12. We just recently did one for an organization called LGBTQ saves, which works with at risk LGBTQ youth that are between the ages of 13 and 20. And we were able to deliver a financial literacy class to them, where traditionally they wouldn't have have been able to take advantage of that, because they may not have been, you know, in the environment in order to receive it. So I definitely think that it matters. And and I think you have to lean into it a little bit more, just to make sure that you're still keeping your employee base engaged.

Jason Goldberg:

That's great. All right. So last question for you. So obviously, want to come full circle back to this notion of triple threat, leadership. And obviously, I think you're a Triple Threat leader, you know, you've you're obviously the first guest. You know, when it comes to triple threat, leadership, right, high, intelligent quotient, intelligence quotient, high emotional quotient, high decency quotient, you know, I've always felt that it's, you know, mostly nature, healthy dose of nurture in there. But that, you know, being a Triple Threat leader isn't necessarily learned, it has to come from within. But I also know that, you know, as leaders we grow and improve by watching and experiencing from both great and terrible leaders, right? We experienced it from both sides. So can you maybe share a little bit about one to two triple threat leaders who you've learned from or you know, even even if there's a leader that's on the bad side of the spectrum, we've learned these that that's not what I want to do. But But either way, if there's, you know, somebody who's been deeply influential to you, and your career, if you can just tell us about that experience, that would be

Unknown:

great. Yeah, so there's a, there's a few things, obviously, that I think really influenced me, there was a gentleman by the name of Nipsey, hussle, who actually said that if you are surrounded by people that if you have a circle of friends that aren't teaching you to be better than what you are, then you don't have for really a circle of friends, you have a cage, right? And I've been very cognizant of what he meant by that. And I've been very intentional about looking for the people that I want to surround me. Because I want people that are going to tell me when I need to do better, right? I need people that are going to be honest with me about what my growth looks like and where I might be faltered. And that doesn't mean those people have to be malicious or mean about it. No, it can be very constructive, you know,

Jason Goldberg:

and both ways, right, that that constructive feedback should come from above and from all around you on below.

Unknown:

Absolutely. And so I think, part of my experience, at RLJ, I was very fortunate to work with Kathy Bowden Holland, who by far is one of one of the most premier leaders that I've I've ever worked with. I mean, there were there were things that Kathy taught me that, you know, I still use today, even though we haven't worked with each other a few years now. But the reality is that I, I appreciated her example. And from the perspective that I think one of the biggest lessons that I learned for Kathy is to not be shy about who you're advocating for. And it's okay to advocate for who you are, also, and to make sure that you're getting the best deal that you could possibly get out of what but, but also always make that deal equitable, right? She always used to say, you get you get one once, one chance to make a bad deal. And that is not a lie. You take, you make a bad deal once and it lives with you, no matter who you try to go, who else you try to have a relationship with. It'll follow you, right? Because it follows you in terms of your own behavior, it'll follow you in terms of your reputation. And I think that she by far is one person that has always shown me how to make make sure that we were I was being cognizant of other people's perspectives, right, which is another dei quality, cognizant of other people's perspectives and their incentives and what they can actually gain from the relationship and always make it equitable. Right. And then honestly, Jason, like, I learned a lot even working with you. I mean, I think when you and I work together, I think we we were I never looked at us, like, you know, far too often we use this like Batman and Robin types, you know, analogies or whatever, but it really wasn't like that. You created a team of equals. And I felt like everybody that we brought on whether they work for me or whether they work for you in my peer group or even, you know, folks that were subordinate. We always were a team of equals. We never know it. And you always made sure that everybody had an equitable contribution at the table. You never made a decision without talking with the collective group and you make sure that you were very intentional about bringing people When, even when it was a tough conversation, and you knew that, you know, either I or somebody else had an opposing view, you and I always had like a couple of different things that were just like, I don't think that's right. But you know, but that's, you know, but it created this this environment that was so much more productive. That you know, as well as I do, we have a tiny team compared to the rest of the enterprise, and elevate, but I think that that is what makes us that is what made us very efficient, is because when you apply kind of those dei qualities amongst each other, where you're collaborating, where you're open, where you're listening, actively listening to one another, and you're in, you're okay with talking about the tough, tough subjects, because at the end of it, what you're really working towards is a common goal and finding commonality amongst one another, and trying, right, trying something and then figuring out how you feel about it, and then course correcting over time. So, you know, quite honestly, I think that those types of environments, the one that you create it, and also the mentorship and partnership that I had with cathodic howling are two that have really kind of catapulted my career over the last few years, to where I haven't been shy about being that advocate for elevate as a chief diversity officer, and being an advocate of even for the city of Fort Worth, to become a more diverse city and to show itself as being a more diverse city, so that we can invite people in and take advantage of the talent that's out there because we have so much more than we can do. And the potential is there.

Jason Goldberg:

I was one of the the highlights of my career, we actually had an incredibly passionate, hard working and diverse team. And the respect that we all had for one another was was incredible. Somebody asked me just last week, what was one of the highlights of my career. And it wasn't a product launch. And it wasn't, you know, a deal. It was when, you know, our small team started to grow. Yeah, somebody knocked on my door in my office door. And I waved them in. She came in and she said, you have a minute, I want to find out how I can join your team. And it was the culture of the team that we built. Right. It was absolutely an infectious culture. Other people from other groups wanting to come work there. And and that was my proudest moment. And I agree, absolutely love that. So you know, with that, I want to thank you. This was an amazing conversation. I've learned a lot about Dei. I've learned a lot about you. We've known each other for seven years, and I still learn more about you. Every time we talk, your passion truly shines through in every conversation. And I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for being my first guest here. Well, thank

Unknown:

you for having me, Jason. It's a it's a pleasure. And congratulations on your success with this. I look forward to learning some more from all the other guests that you have on there.

Jason Goldberg:

Thanks so much. Well, that was an absolutely amazing conversation with the esteemed Dion Harrison. And I want to thank the on again for for being our first guest. That was an incredible conversation. And I'm just so privileged to have been able to have him as our as our first guest. Since we've worked together a few times. He's a dear friend. And he is truly a Triple Threat leader who embodies all of the values that we want in a leader. So as you'll, as you'll see, in each of our episodes, we're going to conclude with just a quick recap of the key points that that we learned from our guests. And today, I really took away four different points. Number one, don't be shy about who you are, be your authentic self, in your community. And at work. Number two, learn something new from the people around you. We all have the opportunity to work with people of different cultures, different backgrounds, often different geographies and, and learn something new from them and make it part of your culture and of your life, as Deon mentioned, and I've seen it it's pretty remarkable. He and his family, celebrate holidays from all different cultures and backgrounds and religions. And they they bring that home, they bring that into their home. They they they do that with their daughter. And it's an amazing thing to see. The third key point that I learned from the honors that dei is even more important and more relevant. Now that we are in a virtual world. Why is that? It's because we're hiring people to work for our companies and we work we work with people from different cultures, different geographies. And even though we're Virtual, it actually creates, that creates a bigger opportunity for us to learn from others. And that the burden though, is on us and on di organizations and leaders, to bring that into our communities and to bring that to the employees through virtual media. So where you might have had di events in the past that were in person, you need to move those online so that everyone can participate. And we can learn from one another. And the last which is really more of a Triple Threat leadership trait not as relevant to dei but but actually certainly could be but certainly a Triple Threat leadership trait and and I'm glad Dion brought it up, is make every deal equitable. This is an important point in leadership and in management. You want to make sure that both parties when making a deal, walk away feeling positive about that deal. You don't want any one party feeling that they were strong armed, and you certainly don't want to leave the deal feeling that you are shortchanged. So go in with the mentality when you're negotiating anything that you want both parties to feel good about the outcome. So with that, we come to the end of our very first episode, I want to thank you all for listening and watching. It's been really exciting for me to bring this, bring this out to everybody and I'm looking forward to interviewing new triple threat guests every two weeks. Thank you for listening to the leaders perspective podcast. And as always, have a great day and be your best self.

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