Navigating Workplace Politics: Respect, Empathy, and Inclusivity with Rick Hammell

[00:00:00] So there's a couple reasons why, and this is solely my opinion, but I think that diversity to me does include inclusion. Diversity means everybody. It means you have a diverse opportunity to bring everyone into the fold. It's inclusion.

[00:00:15] I think the reason why when people hear diversity, they initially think of women, people of color, LGBTQ. That's where I think we maybe went off the road a little bit. We went off the road there because diversity is everybody. It does not say everybody except for white men.

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[00:01:30] Hey, this is William Tidcup and Ryan Leary. You're listening to the You Should Know podcast. We have Rick on today. We've got a fantastic topic. I'll read it because I want to make sure everyone kind of understands kind of where we're coming from. It's the do's and don'ts.

[00:01:44] A professional discourse during an election year. And that's all to say basically, okay, listen, we're all we all know what's happening. We all know what year it is. We all know the elections coming up. We're seven months-ish from it.

[00:01:58] And Rick's going to kind of give us some guidance and some ideas and just got some thoughts things to think about around how to manage this. The chaos around an election. So Rick, why don't we start with introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your company and then we'll jump into the topic.

[00:02:16] Sure.

[00:02:18] Thank you for having me. So Rick Hamlow, founder and CEO of Thuleos, very much focused on simplifying the ability to manage your global workforce. And that's not just through technology, but it's also best practices to create an equitable and inclusive environment for employees and how they're actually operating on a global scale.

[00:02:39] And although we're talking about politics today, I'm actually going to talk a little bit about global scale because that's really important.

[00:02:44] Right.

[00:02:45] Bringing inclusivity into your organization.

[00:02:48] I was always told don't talk politics outside the house.

[00:02:52] Oh yeah, religion, sex, politics, no-no's.

[00:02:55] Which of course for me, when someone says don't do something, that's exactly what I do. So when I would go into social settings, I'm going through the pecking order. Like I'm going to talk about religion, sex and politics just to see where it's at.

[00:03:08] What's the room temperature?

[00:03:11] I'm in my house right now so I can talk about it.

[00:03:14] 100%.

[00:03:15] So it's going to be fun. Technically this is the workplace, but there ain't nobody else here.

[00:03:20] Well, the rule changed when everyone went from remote work. So I will say that it's hard to do that in the setting, in the world that we live in today because you may not speak about it or talk about it at the office or in a work setting, but most employees are connected to each other.

[00:03:37] And that social media, you're hearing it personal like a Facebook or LinkedIn, which is more business oriented. And although there are a lot of individuals like myself who try not to be political on social media like LinkedIn because that's business, there's a lot of that that's out there.

[00:03:52] Oh yeah.

[00:03:53] And it does trigger a lot of comments or posts or articles do trigger people to respond to that. And the way that LinkedIn, for example, works if someone comments, likes, supports their entire network will be able to see that.

[00:04:06] So it's hard to stay away from that.

[00:04:09] And so as HR professionals, the one first thing I talk about is you have to make sure that you understand that you're going to respect people's opinions and your political viewpoints regardless if they coincide with yours or not.

[00:04:22] We are here to do our jobs. We're not here to debate US politics or global politics from that aspect. But we have to walk in with a level of respect at all times.

[00:04:34] I think that's really important. And one thing that I like to do as a leader, when I was in HR and as an SEO and multiple businesses, I've had to go back to our teams and say, look, diversity.

[00:04:47] One thing about diversity is the inclusion of everyone's thoughts and everyone's opinions. And so we have to be respectful to hear everyone's thoughts and everyone's opinions.

[00:04:56] And then if you have questions, you want to talk about it, you're going to debate it. But we do it in a very respectful way.

[00:05:02] But my rule of thumb is we don't bring it up if it doesn't come up unless it's something that's created anxiety or uncomfortability with somebody within the organization.

[00:05:11] It's interesting, Rick, because nowadays, again, everything can be politicized.

[00:05:18] Like I remember very early on in the pandemic, I posted a photo of myself actually with a mask on.

[00:05:26] I was flipping people off, but it was a mask nonetheless. So and I got comments from people, you know, people that either pro like they believed in wearing masks or con.

[00:05:38] They didn't believe in wearing masks. I'm like, it's a mask.

[00:05:41] It's a mask.

[00:05:43] You wear it or don't.

[00:05:45] It's not my call. I don't really care. Yeah, you do you. I'm going to do me.

[00:05:50] But it's like I noticed in your introduction, you said inclusion and equity.

[00:05:57] You didn't mention at that time, you didn't mention the word diversity.

[00:06:01] And I've been monitoring closely monitoring the weaponization of the word diversity in our space.

[00:06:10] And it's just it's crazy because I've actually told some of the friends of mine, I'm like, listen, just just change to inclusion because there's no counter argument to inclusion.

[00:06:20] There's there's just no way that someone can say that's a bad thing.

[00:06:24] And if it gets you to the same spot, but it's it's even like like having to have that discussion because a word is polarizing one way or another.

[00:06:35] And again, I don't for against the issue.

[00:06:38] But the thing is, is a word like diversity ten years ago.

[00:06:44] Like that was a bit like, OK, cool.

[00:06:47] Now when people bring it up, it's like you're either for it or you're against it.

[00:06:52] There's no gray matter.

[00:06:54] There's a number of those. There's diversity.

[00:06:57] You have abortion. You've got politics.

[00:06:59] You've got Democrat, Republican, like though there's a subset of words that I have always abstained from, not just in my life, but because I say a lot of things.

[00:07:10] But at work or around work, people outside of like a very small circle of people.

[00:07:17] But diversity is like diversity and abort.

[00:07:20] So to compare diversity and abortion to me and Rick, please school us because you do you know this stuff better than we kind of feel like he wants to unload on us right now.

[00:07:33] Well, as he should, because abortion again, you can kind of understand the argument.

[00:07:40] You might not like the argument, but you can understand the argument.

[00:07:45] I don't understand the argument.

[00:07:48] Like I and maybe in time I will maybe maybe in time I will.

[00:07:52] But I mean, it's under attack and I don't understand why.

[00:07:56] So there's a couple reasons why.

[00:07:58] And this is solely my opinion.

[00:08:00] But I think that diversity to me does include inclusion.

[00:08:03] Diversity means everybody.

[00:08:05] It means you have a diverse opportunity to bring everyone into the fold.

[00:08:09] It's inclusion.

[00:08:11] I think the reason why when people hear diversity, they initially think of women, people of color, LGBTQ.

[00:08:19] That's where I think we maybe went off the road a little bit.

[00:08:23] We went a little bit there because diversity is everybody.

[00:08:26] It does not say everybody except for white men.

[00:08:30] That's not how it's defined.

[00:08:32] And I think we need to really bring this back in and say when we say diversity, we mean inclusion.

[00:08:38] We mean we need to have, you know, the world needs to look like businesses.

[00:08:43] We need to look like the world we live in today.

[00:08:46] And that's with everybody.

[00:08:48] And I think that there's a from what at least the conversations I've had with some of my conservative friends is that they feel like there's a war on white men and the workplace.

[00:09:00] You know, there was an overturn of, you know, what was the college admissions?

[00:09:07] And they were like, this is great.

[00:09:10] It's like affirmative action review.

[00:09:12] And with affirmative action, they're like, wait, there's, they weren't including nothing to have an opportunity.

[00:09:17] And it's like, well, you did have opportunity.

[00:09:19] The reason why affirmative action was created was not to say you don't get the chance.

[00:09:27] It means you already have the chance.

[00:09:29] You're most likely going to be selected anyway.

[00:09:31] It's just giving other people opportunity who have the same background, but maybe not have the same economic means that you do to be able to come here and get an opportunity to have the same level of education to be able to step up.

[00:09:42] You know, post the Civil War, during Jim Crow, you know, a lot of people of color did not have those opportunities.

[00:09:51] And a lot of people say, well, that was so long ago.

[00:09:54] Not that long ago.

[00:09:56] Yeah, to give a fact on that, my father was born in a segregated hospital.

[00:10:00] My father.

[00:10:02] Not that long ago.

[00:10:04] It seems like it's long ago, but it's really our parents.

[00:10:08] Let's just, you know.

[00:10:10] Yeah.

[00:10:11] Oh yeah.

[00:10:12] And my dad's 20 years older than me.

[00:10:13] So it's not that different.

[00:10:15] No, it's not that long ago.

[00:10:16] My mom and dad, now they're a little bit older than y'alls, but my mom and dad, they fought the poll tax in Texas.

[00:10:22] We had a poll tax in the 50s, as early as the 50s.

[00:10:28] The 50s weren't that long ago.

[00:10:30] And they fought, I remember, because they were with Kennedy and on the Kennedy's election campaign in Texas.

[00:10:37] And they were advocating against the poll tax.

[00:10:41] And there were a lot of resistance in Texas and probably a lot throughout the South.

[00:10:46] There's a lot of like, you had to pay a tax.

[00:10:48] I don't know if y'all know much about this.

[00:10:49] You might not, coming from the North, but you had to pay it to vote.

[00:10:54] You had to pay to vote.

[00:10:57] And that was called a poll tax.

[00:10:59] And of course, it's like disproportionately impacting poor people of all shapes and sizes and also the different groups of people.

[00:11:12] Right.

[00:11:13] And so like that wasn't that long ago.

[00:11:16] The Civil Rights Amendment in the 60s, that wasn't that long ago.

[00:11:20] I think affirmative action, I've had this discussion with folks before.

[00:11:25] I'm like, first of all, I think affirmative action should have been for four generations.

[00:11:30] Like put a time limit on it.

[00:11:32] And so that way, it just stops the discourse around, hey, listen, we had X number of generations of slavery, whatever that is.

[00:11:41] We're going to do affirmative action for X number of generations.

[00:11:44] We're going to try to equalize and balance things out.

[00:11:47] And there's a reason, there's a methodology.

[00:11:49] And I think people would understand that.

[00:11:53] And again, I listen to conservative radio, talk radio in Texas.

[00:11:59] And it is wheels off.

[00:12:01] Like it is every time I turn it on, I'm like, I want to go listen to sports talk radio.

[00:12:07] But it's so outside of my line of thinking and line of sight.

[00:12:12] But I'm like, I'm perplexed yet somehow strangely attracted to it.

[00:12:19] Like it doesn't change my beliefs.

[00:12:21] Like it's more entertainment than anything else.

[00:12:24] Why would it not be?

[00:12:26] I think, like I watch Fox News, not because I'm eating my jollies off of Fox News.

[00:12:33] But I honestly want to understand.

[00:12:36] Yeah.

[00:12:37] I think when we talk about diversity and inclusion, especially in the workplace,

[00:12:41] it's my responsibility to understand everyone's viewpoints.

[00:12:45] And I have my, I'm a grown adult, and I have the ability to say,

[00:12:50] okay, I can take this viewpoint and this viewpoint and come where somewhere that makes sense for me and my beliefs.

[00:12:56] But I think it's really important to again have these conversations if it's in the workplace or with friends

[00:13:01] and in a social setting is that be very open in conversation.

[00:13:05] Right now we've gotten very disrespectful.

[00:13:07] I think that's where in business we have to say, look, we don't bring politics in here.

[00:13:11] But if we are going to talk about it, we're going to do it in a very respectful way.

[00:13:15] But I like that those viewpoints because that's what makes America quote unquote great again is we are a melting pot here.

[00:13:25] We are descendants of immigrants.

[00:13:29] The only ones that have been here before us were Native Americans.

[00:13:32] And so we have to be able to say, look, we're going to talk about immigration.

[00:13:36] Is this the same policies you would put on with your grandparents or your great grandparents?

[00:13:40] Is this the right decision that we're making?

[00:13:42] Why are we only talking about immigrants from Mexico or Latin America versus immigration from Europe or even Canada,

[00:13:50] which by the way are higher numbers in our country where people overstay their welcomes.

[00:13:58] But we're not talking about talking about immigration there.

[00:14:01] They also take jobs.

[00:14:02] They also work.

[00:14:03] They do all the things that all the republics are saying, but we're not focusing on that.

[00:14:06] We're focusing on people of color.

[00:14:08] And that's where I think I disagree with is like if we're going to have a conversation, let's have a conversation and let's look at a solution.

[00:14:16] The solution is not just your solution.

[00:14:18] The solution is what we can collectively think of as a country.

[00:14:21] Getting back to the workplace, though, it's the same thing when we talk about global politics.

[00:14:26] Right.

[00:14:27] It's interesting when Trump was elected and I had moved to Spain, no correlation.

[00:14:33] But I'm out.

[00:14:35] See most people threaten to move to Canada.

[00:14:37] You're just like, fuck it, I'm out.

[00:14:39] Is that causation or correlation?

[00:14:41] I moved to Spain.

[00:14:43] Fair enough.

[00:14:45] Where in Spain?

[00:14:46] I was in Barcelona.

[00:14:48] And wonderful, wonderful place.

[00:14:51] Architecture.

[00:14:52] The one thing that I had to deal with was having to constantly explain why Trump became president.

[00:14:59] And because I was American, it was your fault.

[00:15:03] Well, technically, Brexit happened six months before Trump was elected.

[00:15:09] So technically it was Brexit's fault.

[00:15:12] Yeah.

[00:15:13] Well, everyone wants to point fingers, right?

[00:15:14] That's right.

[00:15:15] And I think that even on a global scale, let's say I was a Trump supporter.

[00:15:21] I was not.

[00:15:22] But if I was a Trump supporter and someone came to me in the workplace and asked those questions, that's the proper way to do that.

[00:15:28] Right.

[00:15:29] And so we have to look at a way that we can be respectful of everyone's beliefs.

[00:15:35] We have to be respectful of what they are doing personally.

[00:15:39] And then to have a conversation.

[00:15:40] If you want to ask questions, let's ask questions.

[00:15:42] But let's make them questions that are solution based or fact based.

[00:15:47] I think that's really important.

[00:15:48] Fact based, not alternative facts.

[00:15:50] And really think about how we can collectively understand that.

[00:15:53] Because like I had to tell a lot of people in Barcelona and other countries, I was perplexed when Trump got elected.

[00:16:00] I was a Hillary supporter at that point.

[00:16:03] But I voted.

[00:16:04] I was voting for the right candidate.

[00:16:06] I had this debate the other day.

[00:16:08] If Colin Powell was still alive and ran against Barack Obama, I would have probably had a conundrum.

[00:16:18] Because I love Barack Obama and I loved Colin Powell.

[00:16:22] And Colin Powell's got a big trucker.

[00:16:24] He's a Republican, but he works for all parties.

[00:16:27] Sure.

[00:16:28] And so I don't vote on a party line.

[00:16:31] I vote on what makes sense for me and my beliefs.

[00:16:35] I think that's what we've got away from.

[00:16:37] Right now it's Trump regardless of whatever you do.

[00:16:41] It's Democrat regardless of whatever you do.

[00:16:43] And we need to think about how we're going to as a country, how are we going to come together and deliver that's going to allow us to be very successful?

[00:16:52] Not saying the country is bad right now.

[00:16:54] The unemployment rate is low.

[00:16:56] Jobs are coming back in.

[00:16:58] That's great.

[00:16:59] That doesn't mean that we're perfect.

[00:17:00] There's still things that we need to work on.

[00:17:02] We need to do it as a country, as Americans.

[00:17:05] And that's the conversation you can have is how do we collectively do it?

[00:17:08] And using that from a business perspective is when you have discourse in an organization, you're not going to have one side or another.

[00:17:15] You're always going to say, how do we do this together?

[00:17:18] I wish that our politicians can really look at how we run businesses successfully and then take that into how we need to run politics, how the Congress, the House and the Senate need to come together and partner because they have one goal, one way to do it.

[00:17:32] They have one vision and that vision and that goal is to make America successful.

[00:17:35] But they've got to do it together.

[00:17:37] And that's how we operate at Work2.

[00:17:38] Is it okay for a company to say no politics in the workplace?

[00:17:44] Yeah, I think there are many companies that will say that.

[00:17:47] And I think that I respect that viewpoint.

[00:17:50] The issue with that is getting back to social media.

[00:17:53] It's going to come out and people are going to see it.

[00:17:56] So you're going to have to figure out a way to recognize that and figure out how to.

[00:18:01] There's no politics at work yet.

[00:18:03] Your Instagram or your Facebook account is loaded with all kinds of whatever candidate stuff.

[00:18:10] And so people find out about it.

[00:18:12] But a company can't control that, right?

[00:18:13] No, they can't control your personal stuff.

[00:18:16] They can control if they want to.

[00:18:18] They can put guardrails around what happens at work.

[00:18:22] I think Rick, doing pre-show, kind of brought up the idea of like, hey, how many people are going to an office?

[00:18:28] I mean, global, you've got 50 employees in 20 different countries.

[00:18:32] They're not going to a box.

[00:18:34] Back then, if you wore a t-shirt, if you wore a Republican t-shirt or a Democrat t-shirt, there'd be some like people would make fun of you.

[00:18:43] And then people would also like support you.

[00:18:45] Like it was kind of a bit.

[00:18:47] Now, there are some calls with people.

[00:18:49] Well, your background, right?

[00:18:51] Not your specific background.

[00:18:54] But I mean, Rick, you could have an Obama post hope behind you.

[00:19:00] Right.

[00:19:01] And we may look at that and say, what the fuck?

[00:19:04] Right.

[00:19:05] Like so as a company, can I control your background?

[00:19:08] I mean, I have no company say use a blurred background or use a virtual background approved by the company.

[00:19:17] And this is where I get conflicted.

[00:19:20] If a company can tell me I cannot talk politics at work, which personally I would never do that anyway.

[00:19:27] But don't talk politics at work.

[00:19:29] Don't talk sex, drugs, Iraq and role at work.

[00:19:32] Just talk work.

[00:19:34] That company is probably not for me, not because I can't talk about those topics, because now they're controlling what I can and can't do even at work.

[00:19:45] And I just don't feel comfortable with that.

[00:19:48] So I think that there's you're referring to a Frenchman offering speech.

[00:19:53] And I think there's a component of that that you can caveat that by saying this is the way that you're going to have those conversations is always going to need to be respectful.

[00:20:02] Because you're absolutely right.

[00:20:04] You can't say don't talk about something.

[00:20:06] You could go to a lunch break.

[00:20:07] We're not getting paid at those hours.

[00:20:08] That's your free time.

[00:20:09] Yeah.

[00:20:10] So the conversation and that conversation is being brought back into the office.

[00:20:13] Those things happen.

[00:20:14] I think it's important that as leaders we constantly remind people that regardless of politics, regardless of religion, you're respectful.

[00:20:21] Using the example, when there's a lot of rhetoric right now about Muslims and also what happened in Israel.

[00:20:28] Right.

[00:20:29] And that created a lot of polar opposites and businesses between that.

[00:20:34] And so you have Ukraine and Russia.

[00:20:36] Ukraine and Russia.

[00:20:37] Right.

[00:20:38] I'll give a story.

[00:20:40] I had one of my employees who is Russian.

[00:20:43] She lives in Spain.

[00:20:45] And she, you know, I called her when everything was going on.

[00:20:50] And I called her and she thought for a second that she was like, oh my God, I'm going to get fired because I'm Russian.

[00:20:55] And I actually called her to say, are you okay?

[00:20:59] Is your family okay?

[00:21:00] Because the world was anti-Russian.

[00:21:04] She has nothing to do with it.

[00:21:05] She's been in Russia for 15 years, but she was so scared because she was hearing that companies were just terminating people solely because they were Russian.

[00:21:14] And I told her, that's not how we're going to operate here.

[00:21:17] You are an employee here.

[00:21:19] My goal here is to make sure you're okay.

[00:21:22] First and foremost.

[00:21:23] Right.

[00:21:24] And we had employees who were Ukrainian.

[00:21:26] And I went with Shostin and said, how are you?

[00:21:28] How are your families?

[00:21:29] And we just did it.

[00:21:31] Like, I don't have anything to do with Russia.

[00:21:34] I have nothing to do with Ukraine.

[00:21:36] I have something to do as a business leader and making sure my employees feel safe and comfortable in their own skin.

[00:21:43] And that's the role of HR.

[00:21:44] That's the role of leaders within organizations is regardless of the politics, you've got people who are supporting your business.

[00:21:52] And it could be some of your top players.

[00:21:54] She was a top player in our organization.

[00:21:55] And we wanted to make sure she was okay.

[00:21:58] That's the empathy that we need to bring to businesses.

[00:22:01] I like how you're bringing it.

[00:22:03] You're bringing it back to the center and saying it all kind of comes down to respect.

[00:22:07] You're going to have different views on everything.

[00:22:10] We're talking about politics, but it's going to be your different views on everything.

[00:22:14] And so like your favorite football club.

[00:22:16] Sports can be just as polarizing.

[00:22:18] 100 percent.

[00:22:19] There you go.

[00:22:20] Yeah.

[00:22:21] And so you're going to have different Rines and Eagles fan on the Cowboys fan.

[00:22:24] Like we kid each other all the time about that.

[00:22:27] You kid.

[00:22:28] Right?

[00:22:29] Well, let's be clear.

[00:22:30] You kid.

[00:22:31] We haven't been relevant in 30 years.

[00:22:33] We're good.

[00:22:34] So but the thing is, is like anything can be polarizing.

[00:22:38] Yeah.

[00:22:39] If allowed.

[00:22:41] But if you come from a place, I think what I love about what you're saying is if you come from a place in the center that's respect where I understand you understand, we're not going to convince each other of each other's, you know, you're going to still feel a certain way.

[00:22:56] I might still feel a certain way, but we've listened to each other.

[00:22:59] We've given each other some time.

[00:23:01] We don't do that.

[00:23:02] I know.

[00:23:03] What is happening is those politics bleed into how you actually operate as a business.

[00:23:09] And just like we're seeing from a Senate and a House perspective, you're seeing where there's just no nonsense.

[00:23:16] No one's working.

[00:23:17] And so as a business, I get back to that that North Star.

[00:23:20] What's the North Star?

[00:23:21] Or a star, which is kidding your company goals.

[00:23:23] And if everyone has the same goal and the same vision for success, regardless of what you personally believe, you'll bring that together.

[00:23:31] And that's where it's bringing that empathy into the organization, bringing that respect and making sure you're getting the job done, regardless of your individual politics.

[00:23:40] That's where that's where I keep getting back to have the conversation.

[00:23:42] Fine.

[00:23:43] But be respectful.

[00:23:44] Always be respectful.

[00:23:46] So, Rick, I'm listening to it.

[00:23:48] Well, we're listening to the whole conversation.

[00:23:50] I'm part of the conversation.

[00:23:52] The.

[00:23:54] So I the question I have really is not not the original question I had in my head was how does an organization move to create an atmosphere that is comfortable for employees to understand and how to be respectful?

[00:24:11] The logical side of me says just be an adult, right?

[00:24:15] Like being an adult, be respectful.

[00:24:17] It's not the company's responsibility to teach me how to be respectful.

[00:24:21] Now I get it in the workplace.

[00:24:24] You've got to control that.

[00:24:25] Right.

[00:24:26] So all of that aside, what is that line for the company?

[00:24:31] What's that line of demarcation for the company to say, you know, we're not going to waste time teaching you how to be respectful.

[00:24:36] This is the company.

[00:24:38] This is how we react.

[00:24:39] We care about the business.

[00:24:40] You are the employee.

[00:24:42] And like you said, you reach out to your employee.

[00:24:44] Hey, how are you doing?

[00:24:46] How is your family doing?

[00:24:47] But you reached out on both sides.

[00:24:49] Right.

[00:24:50] How does a company put that process in place or put that in place so that HR or the leaders of the company understand we're not here to control people's thoughts.

[00:25:01] We're not here to control responses and teach them to be respectful.

[00:25:05] But we are here to let them know that we have support, that we care.

[00:25:09] And in our environment, business is number one.

[00:25:12] Well, I think some of that's action and some of that's going to have to be policies and procedures if you put it in the organization.

[00:25:18] So, you know, it sounds like one on one adult, but being respectful.

[00:25:24] And if you are not respectful, there's consequences behind that.

[00:25:28] And as adults, we've learned that there are consequences behind our actions.

[00:25:32] So businesses have to say, look, if you're going to do that, if you're going to have those conversations, this is the parameter that we're okay with.

[00:25:38] If you go beyond that parameter, there's consequences and that can be right next to automation employment.

[00:25:43] And people have to understand that we're not turning you because your politics, we don't care about your politics.

[00:25:48] We turn it because of your actions in the business and how you actually treat it to your fellow business, your colleagues, and also the disruption you may have caused the business because of your actions.

[00:25:59] You need to create policies and procedures on that. It needs to be clear all employees need to understand the policy procedures.

[00:26:04] Now, once you create that parameter for employees, guardrails, you have to be able to step back and say, okay, you're adults and you understand the consequences.

[00:26:14] We made it very clear on those consequences. Yeah.

[00:26:17] Now is your responsibility to uphold them? If you can uphold them, then we know what we have to do.

[00:26:22] And I think that's what it is. I don't think that, you know, if businesses, I think I'll give another example we had when Trump was elected and this was in a Chicago office.

[00:26:35] We had employees crying.

[00:26:40] And that was the first time I ever saw that and had to deal with that. It was really like, okay, what do we do? And so we actually had a town hall and we brought everyone together and we allow people to express their feelings.

[00:26:53] And we had employees on both sides, but we had quite a few that were very anti Trump.

[00:27:00] And we said, look, we want to make sure you're comfortable. We gave them an extra day off and we said, look, just, you know, we gave them the AP and so whatever you need to talk about, we were there.

[00:27:11] We put the foundation in place to make sure we were taking care of our employees. And it was the opposite. We would have done the same thing for the others as well.

[00:27:21] Quick question there because that's really interesting to me.

[00:27:25] Did you give the extra day off and did you have that town hall because you felt, the company felt pressured and cornered that, hey, we've got to do something here because this is going to affect the business?

[00:27:39] Or was it more from a place of, you know what, we care about this and we care about our employees. I'm just curious on where the business fell there.

[00:27:48] When we walked into the office that day, it was very evident. It was very somber in the office and so we wanted to make sure our employees were okay.

[00:28:00] We saw some people were crying and they were concerned and we wanted to be able to support our employees. And again, if it was the opposite, we would have had, we've done the same thing.

[00:28:11] We had some, we have some Trump supporters in the organization. At one of my other companies, this is during that time I was with my other company and we wanted to respect that when he lost the election, they were not, they weren't very happy about it as well.

[00:28:25] And we set them up with EAP. We set them up what we gave them some time off. We also, by the way, within our organization, we also gave election day off.

[00:28:33] Yeah, so we want you to vote. Like if you're not going to vote, then come vote.

[00:28:37] I do like that. I actually really like that and I think, yeah, I would love to see companies adopt that.

[00:28:46] I think it should be a federal holiday.

[00:28:48] It should be.

[00:28:49] Yeah, take it out of the company.

[00:28:50] Vote at 8 o'clock or 6 o'clock.

[00:28:52] Take it out of the companies because then you'll, again, you can politicize that. Just make it a federal holiday.

[00:28:58] Take one of the like flag day or some other shit. Just take that away and make it a national holiday so that businesses, banks, nobody, if you don't vote, you have no excuse not to vote.

[00:29:12] So here's the thing. We didn't take it just because of the US politics, but because we took about, we talk about equity and equitable benefits for our employees.

[00:29:20] So we have employees in that company that I own as well, had 65 countries that we had employees in.

[00:29:28] And we looked at most of those countries allow employees. It was a holiday that they had. They were legally required to vote.

[00:29:37] And we said, well, if they get a pay day off to vote in those countries to be equitable, we have to do the same thing for our staff.

[00:29:44] So it was an equitable benefit that we wanted to put in place for our teams.

[00:29:48] And we said, look, you're going to go vote. If you don't vote, come to work.

[00:29:54] But I think you said something that I found fascinating a second ago, Rick, where you said anti-Trump.

[00:30:01] And I think this is the way that we can kind of normalize things is you can as an individual, you can be anti-Eagles.

[00:30:09] You know, the Philadelphia Eagles or anti-Trump, but you're not anti the person like the person themselves.

[00:30:18] You still work and love them and respect them. And they still add value and all that other stuff.

[00:30:25] You might not like their politics or their religion or their whatever the bid is, but you still like them.

[00:30:32] I think that gets back to your core of respect. It's like separate the two bridges, bifurcate the two and say, OK, I don't like your politics.

[00:30:40] However, I like you.

[00:30:42] I think the thing is, you know, there's there's someone said that the other day said if you're anti-Trump, you're anti-American.

[00:30:49] You're like, isn't this worse than disagreement in a democracy?

[00:30:54] Voltaire 101.

[00:30:56] That's what makes us American. We are rebellious.

[00:31:01] We left the British Revolution.

[00:31:05] Turns out built this amazing country off of the backs of immigrants and and you know, they're the melting pot of who we are.

[00:31:11] I think a lot of people don't understand that.

[00:31:15] No, because they don't understand history.

[00:31:17] They don't understand history. Right.

[00:31:19] They think we're American.

[00:31:21] You're not because you come from Canada or you come to every I can go through every immigrant group just because I'm here.

[00:31:29] I can go through every immigrant group and tell you when we hated the Chinese, when we hated the Irish, when we hated the Italians.

[00:31:36] Like we we could go through all of them.

[00:31:38] So Rick's point very early on in the show, like what is this current curiosity of just paying the people that are coming through Mexico?

[00:31:47] It's just kind of dumb.

[00:31:49] It's always been dumb, but it was dumb when we hated the Chinese Chinese built our radio railroads to buy and large built our entire railroad system.

[00:31:57] We wouldn't have railroads.

[00:32:00] There's a there's a thing about our culture that I would love for us to improve is we always as human beings, there's someone has to be better than someone else.

[00:32:11] Integrity you look at communism will never work.

[00:32:15] Yeah, like we always have to be better than someone else.

[00:32:18] And as Americans, we don't want to think I'm so I'm true American.

[00:32:23] You're like, are you like, yeah, your grandfather is like, I'm the first ones on the Mayflower.

[00:32:30] You're like, that was still a boat.

[00:32:33] Yeah, turns out it was floating in water.

[00:32:38] In the movie, Gangs of New York, the group, one of the groups is called Native Americans.

[00:32:47] They weren't talking about Native Americans.

[00:32:49] They were talking about native born being Americans against immigrants.

[00:32:54] I'm like, yeah, you're fighting against people again.

[00:32:58] They're fighting against Irish at the time they were fighting against people that are no different.

[00:33:03] You've just been here a couple of generations longer, but you're still an immigrant.

[00:33:07] Eva Longoria said it actually really, really good.

[00:33:10] A few years ago, if you remember at the DNC, she said that she goes, we were Mexican and overnight we became American.

[00:33:18] Like we didn't cross the border.

[00:33:20] The border crossed us.

[00:33:22] Yeah, this country is built on the evolved over so many different ways.

[00:33:29] Florida used to be a Spanish colony.

[00:33:31] If you ask the Americans, they're Americans, but they were Spanish 100 years ago.

[00:33:38] So it's based on where we're at today.

[00:33:42] And who knows?

[00:33:44] Canada may consolidate with the U.S. in 150 years or the U.S. may become Canada.

[00:33:49] I don't think Canada wants anything to do with us.

[00:33:52] You never know.

[00:33:54] People didn't think that Louisiana Purses was going to happen.

[00:33:58] Or that Spain would sell California.

[00:34:01] And how many times has the U.S. asked to buy Denmark?

[00:34:04] I mean, not to Denmark, to Greenland.

[00:34:06] So you never know what that can be.

[00:34:09] And so we just have to remember we're a melting pot.

[00:34:13] The one thing that I think is really important about diversity in the workplace, this is a little bit off topic, but what I've done before for our teams, all new employees, we used to give 23 and me kits.

[00:34:26] And we used to say, you know, the world is global.

[00:34:29] Figure out where you're from.

[00:34:31] When you find out who you really are, it really does change your dynamics behind them.

[00:34:38] And everyone that said, oh, I'm American, most of them were American.

[00:34:46] So it was really interesting.

[00:34:49] You were born here.

[00:34:50] But nationality, like everyone else, your family migrated here for one reason or another.

[00:34:55] And you're here.

[00:34:57] And just remember that that's someone else's journey.

[00:34:59] Their ancestors, maybe did it a bit earlier, but they're doing that journey today.

[00:35:04] Oh, yeah.

[00:35:05] So, Rick, as you say that, it reminds me of the story of a friend of mine who did the same, took the 23 and me or one of those.

[00:35:13] And it came back where he was a much higher percentage Neanderthal as opposed to others that he had knew.

[00:35:21] And it was enough that it wasn't just like point zero, zero, zero.

[00:35:25] Like it was in there and he struggled with that.

[00:35:29] He struggled with that because he would always make jokes.

[00:35:33] Oh, you're a Neanderthal or you're the assistant.

[00:35:35] And he's like, holy crap.

[00:35:38] Like I am like it's like there.

[00:35:41] Like it's significant on the baseline of like where I'm at, not just listed under 10 rows down.

[00:35:47] And so when you say that, so curious, I have a question here around this.

[00:35:52] So you give these to the employees.

[00:35:54] Did that cause any discomfort or did it cause any employees to feel kind of weird?

[00:36:01] It didn't have to do it.

[00:36:02] It just gave them the opportunity.

[00:36:03] No, thank you.

[00:36:04] And I love the gesture.

[00:36:05] I think that's actually really interesting.

[00:36:08] Yeah, we didn't cause any concern.

[00:36:11] It did create questions in some families that came up and one, two, three, four brothers you didn't know about and three sisters and ten kids.

[00:36:20] Yeah, yeah.

[00:36:21] Good job.

[00:36:22] There was one story that stood out to me.

[00:36:25] It pulled my heartstrings a little bit.

[00:36:27] So there we had an employee.

[00:36:29] She said she was Hungarian.

[00:36:31] She knew she was Hungarian.

[00:36:33] That's what her family told her.

[00:36:35] She lived in Spain, but she's from Hungary.

[00:36:39] She did the test and actually came back that she was Polish and Jewish.

[00:36:45] Yeah.

[00:36:46] And so that freaked her out.

[00:36:47] She said, what are you talking about?

[00:36:49] That's not what I'm told.

[00:36:50] My life is a lie.

[00:36:51] So she went to her grandmother and her grandmother said, I have to tell you something.

[00:36:56] And what she said was we actually were Polish and we were Jewish.

[00:37:00] But because of the Holocaust, we had to flee Poland.

[00:37:04] And they were so scared to tell anyone that we were Jewish.

[00:37:07] We assimilated into Hungarian culture and just said we were Hungarian.

[00:37:11] Yeah.

[00:37:12] That became the life that they lived.

[00:37:15] It was the life.

[00:37:16] And they never the grandmother never told anyone until she told her granddaughter.

[00:37:20] Because she didn't feel safe.

[00:37:22] Yeah.

[00:37:23] And then even for me, mine was I've got a mixture of things.

[00:37:26] My dad's side of the family is Creole.

[00:37:28] My mom gets some Spanish.

[00:37:30] We have a lot.

[00:37:31] I'm a big Muslim.

[00:37:32] I am American.

[00:37:33] But what was actually the most powerful about mine, and I think this is why I was very excited about doing this, as an American, my story of being African-American, that's what I identify as, is that my story was from slavery.

[00:37:51] And I was like, that's where I come from.

[00:37:53] This gave me an opportunity to tell me that my African side was not just from slaves.

[00:37:59] I did not just come from slaves.

[00:38:01] That was very powerful for me.

[00:38:04] 100%.

[00:38:05] In doing that because I realized that my American dream, what people thought of me as American was I'm just a descendant of a slave.

[00:38:13] And I realized that, again, I'm a lot of European.

[00:38:16] I've got a lot of those things.

[00:38:17] But my African genes showed that it was not just West Africa.

[00:38:21] I was Madagascar and I was South African.

[00:38:24] Oh, wow.

[00:38:25] That told me that there was more to my story on my African side that made it very powerful.

[00:38:30] So when I saw that, I wanted to make sure I gave that same gift to my team.

[00:38:33] But I did that because I think getting back to diversity, inclusion, and equitable environments, this is what it is.

[00:38:40] You never know where you come from.

[00:38:42] You never know who you're speaking to.

[00:38:44] I know a number of people who pass for whites but are of African-American descent or Latino descent.

[00:38:50] Advice first.

[00:38:51] Yeah.

[00:38:52] And so you never know who you're having conversations with.

[00:38:55] And so that's why I get back to respect because you never know.

[00:38:59] You never know.

[00:39:00] Well, you don't know, again, dealing with politics but also dealing with anything else that could be divisive.

[00:39:06] It's starting with respect and starting with the understanding of, hey, I don't know everything about you.

[00:39:13] We might not disagree.

[00:39:14] We are going to disagree.

[00:39:16] There's no two people that have the exact same alignment around everything.

[00:39:20] We're going to disagree on something.

[00:39:22] So whatever we disagree on, okay, we disagree on.

[00:39:24] So what?

[00:39:25] We move on.

[00:39:27] If you don't disagree, someone's lying.

[00:39:29] 100%.

[00:39:30] 100%.

[00:39:31] Do you think your last question for me, do you think your, geez, do you think there's a place where you can be a leader?

[00:39:36] Is there a way for them there to where they can either help with discourse or help with the guardrails?

[00:39:44] Is there anything that ERGs can do to help?

[00:39:49] I think it's there.

[00:39:50] I think there's always opportunities there from that perspective.

[00:39:53] Right.

[00:39:54] The business, the people have to be open to it.

[00:39:58] Right.

[00:39:59] There's opportunity for change.

[00:40:01] There's opportunity for training.

[00:40:02] There's opportunity for understanding.

[00:40:04] Right.

[00:40:05] We say this a lot that we could go on for hours.

[00:40:07] This is one conversation I think we actually could break that barrier and go on for hours.

[00:40:10] We may need to do a part two here, but thank you so much.

[00:40:12] Let's do a post-election so we can see how wrong we were.

[00:40:14] I hope that was a good one.

[00:40:16] I see.

[00:40:17] I hope that was a good one.

[00:40:19] Rick's view is change.

[00:40:21] Fuck politics at work.

[00:40:23] Yeah.

[00:40:24] No more.

[00:40:25] Let's just say that we're going to have to change the way we think about things.

[00:40:27] We're going to have to change the way we think about things.

[00:40:29] Let's just be real politics.

[00:40:32] We're just going to hire people that are like us and just keep making it simple.

[00:40:34] Yeah.

[00:40:35] But thanks again, Rick.

[00:40:36] Thanks for carving out time for us and our audience.

[00:40:37] We appreciate you.