How Seattle, Strategy and Service Intersect - Bobby Humes

In today’s episode, I chat with Bobby Humes, an experienced executive and leadership coach with a wide range of expertise in human resource operations and organizational change strategy. Bobby previously served as chief HR officer for the City of Seattle, providing executive leadership consultation to executive cabinet members and their HR teams.

Bobby’s also a friend. We met during the early days of the pandemic. I messaged him out of the blue to pitch an idea for an HR virtual reality conference. A few months later we collaborated in the metaverse, and have stayed in touch ever since. 

Our conversation covered a lot of ground: from Bobby’s background in the armed forces, and ultimately, the transition to public service leadership, to the importance of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging initiatives. We closed with a stroll down memory lane, and our times spent together in VR headsets. 

It was great to reconnect with a friend. And I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did recording it.

Bobby Humes

Bobby is an experienced executive and leadership coach with a wide range of expertise in human resource operations and organizational change strategy. He is known for his presence, discernment, and sense of humor when working with clients. 

He creates a supportive space to help them effectively plan, identify barriers, and leverage their values and strengths to optimize their superpowers. Bobby believes in his clients' resilience and capability to achieve their goals with focus, presence, and accountability.

Bobby has led change management initiatives throughout his career to enhance HR policy and employee engagement at the enterprise level. Keenly skilled and experienced in developing and supporting dynamic leaders and teams, Bobby previously served as chief HR officer for the City of Seattle, providing executive leadership consultation to executive cabinet members and their HR teams.

As a revered HR professional, Bobby is focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), organizational culture, labor and employee relations, and talent acquisition. He is a sought-after speaker on workplace culture and DEI topics and also serves on several community boards providing leadership for DEI strategies, policies, and programs.

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Matt Burns

Matt Burns is an award-winning executive, social entrepreneur and speaker. He believes in the power of community, simplicity & technology.

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Transcript

Bobby Humes: I think we are in a space with the conversation on Dei in the same place that we are with the conversation on innovation. Everybody wants to talk about what it is and how to do it and what it feels like, but sometimes, most times, it's just performative. We're not really doing the things necessary to move that needle in innovation. We're not really launching new products and service and testing them out and measuring them in such a way and shifting our internal practices to make that innovation happen. And moving funds from one place to the R and D so we can make the thing scale. We talk about it, but we're not committed to doing those things because it's painful.

Matt Burns: Constraint strive innovation. Hey, everyone, it's Matt, here for another episode of Thinking Inside The Box, a show where we discuss the innovative ways organizations and their leaders overcome complex issues at work. If you're interested in checking out our other content, you can find us at our shiny new website insidetheboxpodcast.com and on all your favorite podcast platforms by searching Thinking Inside the Box. And if you enjoy the work we're doing here, consider leaving us a five star rating, a comment and subscribing. It ensures you get updated whenever we release new content and really helps amplify our message. In today's episode, I chat with Bobby Humes, an experienced executive and leadership coach with a wide range of expertise in human resources, organizational change, and strategy. Bobby previously served as the Chief HR Officer for the City of Seattle, providing leadership consultation to executive cabinet members and their HR teams. And Bob is also a friend we met during the early days of the Pandemic. I messaged him out of the blue to pitch an idea for an HR virtual reality conference, and a few months later, we collaborated in the Metaverse and have stayed in touch ever since. Our conversation covered a lot of ground from Bobby's background in the armed forces and ultimately his transition to public service leadership, to the importance of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging initiatives. We closed with a stroll down memory lane and talked about some of our times together in virtual reality headsets. It was a great reconnect with a good friend, and I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did recording it. And now I bring you bobby Hubes. I feel like I've been prepping for this conversation for at least three years. Bobby Hubes. How are you, sir?

Bobby Humes: Matt Burns. I'm doing fantastic, man. It's good to be with you again.

Matt Burns: It's great to have a chat. It's been a minute and, there's a lot's happened for both you and I. before we get into where we've come from and where we are today, let's learn a bit about Bobby Humes, your background, your experiences, and what you're all about.

Bobby Humes: Yeah. So, I'm originally from Long Beach, California. The north side of Long Beach. and about 17 years old, I joined the army, went away from home, did that for ten years, learned a lot about myself, learned a lot about leadership. Things that, I still lean into today that took me all around the world. Different countries, different ways of life, different ways of thinking. And after ten years of that, I dove right into public service. And so worked at, ah, lots of state agencies across western Washington. But all of that culminated with a job where we met when I was a Chief HR officer of the City of Seattle. Since then I've branched into executive coaching and started this really amazing brand BH consultancy with some really talented, individuals who are helping us do things across executive coaching, team coaching, facilitation, all kinds of really cool things, that is focused, on people, focused on teams, focused on leadership. These are things that have always been as I look back at my life, I've always been close to the leader. I've always been someone where the leader is like, hey, I got this idea, what do you think? And I've always been able to give it to him. And I think that's really paid off well over time.

Matt Burns: Well in an era where there seems to be more coaches than there are human beings on the planet, I think most people's first reaction is, I roll another coach. and yet I'm glad that you started out the explanation by talking a bit about your background because it is unique and I think it certainly does uniquely qualify you for a conversation around leadership. One thing, as I was doing research for this conversation, one thing we never talked about before at, ah, any point, was your armed forces background. And ten years in the armed forces is an incredible experience. The amount of stuff that you've learned, the amount of people you interact with, and then bringing that into seemingly a completely different professional context in the city of Seattle, going from the military into the city of Seattle, I know there's steps in between, but those could not be more different work environments. so that uniquely, I think, positions you to provide perspective to leaders who are maybe operating in one or more of those modalities. I'm just curious. What did that experience in the armed forces teach you as you brought it to the public service and to your.

Bobby Humes: Current you know, Matt, I would tell you and any veteran listening to this podcast would tell you that, those who've served in our armed forces are uniquely positioned at this point in time in our organizations. We live in a world we say a lot in the coaching world that ah, we live in a volatile, uncertain, unpredictable, ambiguous world. And because we live in that world, we need leadership that is adaptable, that owns, there's a felt sense of ownership in that leadership. And that, is accountable. And the military, for me, the United States Army has a fantastic playbook for that. Now, transferring that out of the military takes skill and art. Because when you come into a workplace or a Fortune 100 500 company, those folks aren't necessarily in a uniform. But, those cultural elements of what it means to be team, of what it means to have a, long term focus, a, ah, strategy, if you will, what it means to resource your teams. Like all of these really nuanced things you get in the military. Day one. For me, it's just been an opportunity to show, how flexible and malleable that leadership paradigm is, and how it continues to serve me and the organizations that I work with.

Matt Burns: One thing that struck me about your background, despite the fact that it's varied and has a number of different chapters to it, is public service. Whether it's you at 17, joining the armed forces, then moving into, as you mentioned, a number of public service organizations in western Washington. Public service seems to be a through line in terms of your professional background. I'm just curious where that comes from. Is that like a upbringing in the family? Is that like a personal like, where does the idea of if you're going to spend your time doing a million different things, public service, why does that land on Bobby Humes'doorstep?

Bobby Humes: Yeah, I blame, my high school. I went to a high school, lakewood High School. Shout out to the lakewood. Lancers I went to Lakewood High School back in, lakewood, California Civil. service was big. It was just a thing that we did when I was in the marching band. We did things in community when I was in the Naval Junior Reserve ROTC, we did community service. Community service just felt like a thing to me. And then going into the army, being a part of a lot of, humanitarian and peacekeeping missions, it was just an extension of that. And so coming back, getting out of the military, coming to Washington state and finding this, community of public servants who were talented, extremely talented, and had chosen to bring their talents to serve their neighbors, their family members. The rest of the state of Washington, I think we have some of the most phenomenal public sector talent in Washington state. I think that's why you have a lot of innovative policies that come out of Washington State. you have government that leverages the technology that comes out of Washington State. So it felt good. at the time, I was one of the first people to bring LinkedIn to the government here in Washington State. So it just felt like it was a space that was ripe for innovation and change. And it just really worked with where I was in my career at the time. And then once you're in it's kind of like you're in, and it's its own industry with its own network and its own opportunities, and a lot of fantastic opportunities. Being in the public sector. I've had an opportunity to sit with, panels with Bloomberg fellows and mayors from across the, nation, and talking about leadership, talking about teams. so it's been really enriching, and I feel really blessed to be in this space.

Matt Burns: It's a great observation, because I think you're right. Washington is unique. California similarly, in that they're the epicenter of a lot of technological innovation. I mean, people, of course, know about Silicon Valley, but some folks may not be as familiar with Seattle. When you think about companies like Microsoft, among many, many others that are based out of the local area, the fact that it's kind of led its way into the public service and into the broader marketplace isn't surprising. it's less surprising knowing what I know about you, because in 2020, I reached out out of the blue. Hi, my name is Matt. Nice to meet you. Do you want to participate in a virtual reality conference? And your first reaction was, Heck yeah, I'd love to do that. So your passion for innovation has something I've experienced over the past three years. I'd love to learn a bit about I never got a chance to ask you this, but when I originally reached out, what were your thoughts when I said, hey, I want to do a virtual reality conference, I want to make it about HR, do you want to be part of it? you were super excited, but I'm curious about what were your first thoughts about the experience?

Bobby Humes: Like, let's go. My first thought is, finally a huge gaming nerd since forever. And, found VR on my device with the whole when the VR first started with the cardboard and all that stuff, and was like, wow, there's some opportunities here, right? And so moving away from sort of gaming and the community that comes from gaming and bringing commerce and more focus, bringing HR people there to say, look, there's another space for us. And the timing couldn't have been better, right? We're shut into our homes, dealing with this pandemic and kind of navigating a new reality. And it felt like the ask was, hey, this is a moment we could potentially change the way we do some things. Do you want to be a part of that? So to me, it was just like, this is an awesome opportunity to kind of see what's there. I linger on VR still. I'm still on VR, and there's a lot of great opportunities in that space to think critically about. I mean, we had a conversation about just learning and development and what was possible with learning and development through VR. and that was fascinating. It was so fascinating to me that I started having conversations with utility providers under my purview who were having similar challenges. Right? We're going to be remote. We need to train hundreds of people. How do we do that? And so it was just a different paradigm. And, it felt like, you know what? This is the right time. And it was great. I think I was on a panel, that was all about parenting in the new workforce, and we were able to talk about some of the challenges of doing the thing, being the parent and sitting with COVID and it was packed. I think it was, like, a few days of content. so thanks for that invite, and we'd, love to do that again someday.

Matt Burns: No pressure.

Bobby Humes: M.

Matt Burns: Hey, everyone, it's Matt here. I hope you're enjoying today's conversation. And before we continue, I want to update you on my latest creative project, this Week at Work. Every Friday at 07:00 a.m Pacific Standard Time. That's 10:00 a.m. Eastern and 03:00. P.m GMT. My good friend Chris Rainey of HR Leaders and I discuss the latest trending topics on the minds of executives globally. From organizational culture to technology and the future of work, we cover it all, and we invite some of our favorite colleagues to join us, from Dave Ulrich to Whitney Johnson, and executives from iconic brands such as NASA, Krispy Kreme, and WebMD. What can I say? We like to keep things interesting. And if you've been following us for a while, you'll no doubt recognize the fun partnership chris and I have developed over years podcasting together. We're not afraid to be real, share our own challenges, and ask the tough questions. Joining? Well, that part's easy. Follow me on LinkedIn, click the bell icon on the top right of my profile, and you'll get notified when we go live. And now back to our discussion. The amount of effort to bring that to life, I promise you, is not insignificant.

Bobby Humes: It was a lot.

Matt Burns: It was a lot. And I was learning like you were I mean, I was very honest about upfront. That when the pandemic started in 2020. March. Everybody's watching tiger king. Yeah. Everyone's baking banana bread.

Bobby Humes: Got you.

Matt Burns: Right? Like, everyone's doing that. And I'm sitting in my apartment going, I need something to do. So I did three to. I bought a guitar. I, bought a virtual reality headset, and I bought a now sorry, an Xbox. Now, the Xbox is because my brother lives in Victoria. I'm in Vancouver at the time. I wanted to connect with him. Video games as kids. Let's do that. Because when we're in your 30s, it's like, at least the two of us. Do you want to pick up the phone? Not really. Do you want to play a video game? Absolutely. And then we chat. So that made sense. Never touch the guitar, by the way. Never touch the guitar. It actually sits in the office here against the wall. Looks great. Looks amazing.

Bobby Humes: It's actually too nice.

Matt Burns: Piece, beautiful, accessory. But the virtual reality headset like you, I picked up and went, oh, wow, this is something special. And as two HR professionals, it was pretty easy for us to see the applications for a technology where, to your point, we weren't able to spend time in the same room because what's now? 2020 March, we're all scattered all over the Earth, but yet we still are feeling a loss of intimacy. And some things are better in virtual reality than they are over zoom. In fact, a lot of things are better in virtual reality than they are over zoom. And yes, when I think about HR, I think one of the things I look back on my career as a CHRO that I really tried to bring to the role was the sense of journey mapping the employee experience. I get it. A lot of the stuff that people know me for is technology and data and innovation. And, yes, all that is important as a vehicle to realizing a compelling employee experience in the same way a marketer looks at the customer experience and says, what are the special moments I want to have to bring a customer into the fold? And virtual reality, to me, was an opportunity to say, okay, how does technology create those special moments where hiring I want to have intimacy. When I hire somebody, I want to get to know them at an individual level beyond just the job description and the interview questions, because now you're part of the culture, you're part of the community. I want to get to know you when you're onboarding and you're new and everyone's been there. Everyone's been a new employee in an organization and felt that, like, where's the washroom? Where's the emergency exit? Who do I go to for that? Who's my boss? We've all gone through that awkward first day of school type feeling, and then you mentioned training. And I think about as somebody who traditionally bucked against the educational system, I mean, I was lucky. I went to a number of great schools and was in classmates with a number of really brilliant people, and school never really felt like it fit me. I'm much more of an experiential, learner much more conversational. Like, get me into a debate class, get me into a philosophical conversation. That's where I thrive. I'll learn as much in that dynamic than I would here's a textbook. Read it and tell me what chapter seven said. So, for me, virtual reality was an opportunity to transform education such that you could create experiences that were compelling and engaging, and then transfer knowledge for people for things that matter, like health and safety and diversity and inclusion, and, yes, operational training and things in leadership and things of that nature as well. So, to me, it made sense. I think, looking back, to be honest. We were early. like everybody for the last 50 years, VR has been early, and we had a chance to meet Tom Furness, who is based in the Washington area, as another, university, of Washington professor who invented the technology 50 years ago, and lamenting the fact that the market just simply hasn't caught up to the Use case. I think that's changing. I think it's easy to say this now, three years later, that it's closer because it can't be further away, but it's closer in the sense that the technology has gotten better, the hardware has gotten smaller, it's gotten less expensive, and we now have artificial intelligence to thank for the fact that that's going to completely transform everything. When you talk about simulations right now, simulations in VR are limited to decision trees. So if we're simulating a leadership experience, if you say X, then I say Y or Z and then the simulation bases off of the choose Your Own adventure with artificial intelligence, it's going to allow for real time customized personalized feedback and simulations, which is going to only increase the one efficacy to the engagement, but ultimately the output. And I get excited about that, but you should, again, as a means to improving the employee experience at work, I'm not a technologist. I can't write a line of code. I'm not a data scientist. But I care about people and understand that we're entering into a world where people and technology are becoming symbiotic, if they aren't already. And we have to figure out how to play nice each other in the sandbox. Let's let the technology do the things that we don't want to do. I don't want to manage a spreadsheet. I don't want to chase people around for a signature. What I want to do is brainstorm and collaborate and build teams and build community. But I can't do that. I'm spending 6 hours a day behind an Excel spreadsheet. So that, to me, is the exciting part of virtual reality. I'm curious, as you think about that experience, and having sat in the panels and attended some of the sessions, what things linger for you about the technology? Do you think about your current practice, either coaching or in a professional context or even at home? Because I know, as an aside, Bobby, you were the person among all the 60 speakers that we trained, and we trained 60 speakers how to use virtual reality headsets every time I went into alt space. Who's there? Bobby Humes hanging out. Just hanging out, just hanging out, popping around. What's been the lingering effect for you with VR?

Bobby Humes: Yeah, I mean, I love people, man. Matt, that's what I'm on the planet for. And so having access to people from all over the country, i, saw some avatars just kind of grouped up in this one session. And I went over and they were speaking this different language. And I introduced myself and they expressed that they were from France and they were in, a class and their job was to go find Americans online and ask them questions so they could get better at the, language. And I sat and held a class for, like, eight foreign students on the use of colloquial English. Right? That's the opportunity. And as you talk about AI, what I truly love about VR is the immersive qualities that you can create and bring to a learning environment. And so I've been, building my own worlds, right. These places where you can go and, you can have peace if you want to listen to some really nice yanni or something in the background while you walk through a meadow. Nice, right. And so it's all these different ways of kind of, playing with the sensory, pieces of who we are as people. But what I'm really excited about is talk about being early. I'm excited about when VR is not early and it's optimized. And we can put leaders through the type of experiential learning that they're going to have in real time. What's it like to have an employee having an emotional outburst in real time. What do you do? Because often, many of us, as leaders, we don't get a chance to get that badge until we're in it. And oftentimes we don't navigate that well the first time. So, no, that's what I love about VR. It gets to put us in these spaces where our sensibilities are challenged, enhanced. It's really awesome. And it can also be very dangerous without the right type of focus, and goals. There's a lot of noise there. For all the good that Matt and I, that you and I are talking about, there's also a lot of disturbing things.

Matt Burns: Know, you and I grew up in an era where there wasn't an Internet, right? You remember what it was like to go to high school without a cell.

Bobby Humes: Phone, do a decimal system, right?

Matt Burns: You got to making that work. And then some, point along the way, you got a cell phone or a BlackBerry, and you realize, okay, I can check my emails from home now. And the world then changed overnight. Right?

Bobby Humes: Right.

Matt Burns: And as a consequence, you have an appreciation for a world before technology. We're now entering into an era where the new people entering the workforce don't know a world without technology. They've only grown up in a world where there's social media and the Internet and things of that nature. Artificial intelligence, VR, Internet, all those things have pros and cons. And ultimately, it's incumbent upon people like us who use them to do right by the technology understanding. There will be people who will choose to bad actors will be bad actors will be bad actors. But, rather than demonize the potential of things like even AI, for example, and I hear every other day, I see an article about AI is the best thing that's ever happened. And then AI is the worst thing that ever happened? The answer is both are true.

Bobby Humes: Yes. Right.

Matt Burns: And it depends on how you define and use it. I think what I get excited about in particular, about all of this, technology, beyond just the corporate application, is technology is a major force for diversity and inclusion. Major force. Absolutely. And when I remember sitting in the VR, one of the first times I put the headset on, and I'm an Avatar, and like you, I'm like a different color, and I'm doing my thing. I got my outfit figured out, and I'm doing all that whole thing. But I realized that as I was meeting people, we all have an opportunity to choose how we got to portray ourselves in the world, and we could change that. If I wanted to be an alien, I could be an alien. If I wanted to be a different gender, I could be a different gender. If I wanted to change the color of my Avatar, I could change, like, the amount of inclusive possibilities to me, was mind blowing. And Bobby, when I think about the lingering experiences for Mean, there's many one that sticks out in particular is I don't know if you were there. Were you there when Nick Vuichic did his keynote?

Bobby Humes: no. Remind me.

Matt Burns: Okay. Nick Vuichic, is a gentleman, born in Australia, lives now in the United States, born without arms, born without legs.

Bobby Humes: I was on for that.

Matt Burns: Okay. Did you also cry in your headset? Because I cried in my headset.

Bobby Humes: I didn't cry, but my mouth was just open. Yeah.

Matt Burns: So I remember two, three weeks before we actually did the conference, nick is he's just like, I'm in. I want to be in here. I want to do this. I'm totally in, and I'm going to need some help because I don't have arms and legs. We laugh, but there's a level of practicality to it. So I said, you know what? Let me send you the headsets. Let's figure this out. I'm teaching him how to use the headset while he has an assistant putting the headset on his head.

Bobby Humes: Wow.

Matt Burns: And then we're figuring out how he can use his limbs, the limbs that he has to be able to orient himself in the space and move and speak.

Bobby Humes: Because on, the VR headset, there's, like, control controllers.

Matt Burns: Yeah. You move in your arms with your controllers. He's taped them to his shoulders.

Bobby Humes: No kidding? Okay.

Matt Burns: Yes. So he's moving his shoulders to move his hands. And I remember him pausing about 15 minutes in. He's, like, getting all set up and getting straight up. He's taping controllers to his shoulder. He's got his headset put on, and then he's very, very silent. And Nick's not a silent guy. Nick likes to talk like you and I, and I heard nothing for about 15 seconds. I'm like, Nick, are you okay? Is everything fine? Technology issue. And then I hear this soft. And I'm like, what is it, man? And he's like, this is the first time I've ever felt like I'm like somebody else. Wow. I walk into VR, nobody knows I have controllers taped to my, shoulders. Nobody knows that I don't have arms and legs. I'm just Nick and I'm in VR, and this is incredible. And he's like, for somebody who's always been different, now I feel like I'm one with everybody else. And he's like, thank you for giving me that gift. I've never had that gift before. I've always felt different. Not lesser than not greater than different. He came to the conference, he did his keynote, and he conveyed a level of authenticity and vulnerability that was so compelling for those of us that were there. I am going to release that content at some point. I need to, because although it's Avatars and those who weren't there live with the immersive environment won't get the full appreciation of it, the message that he delivers around the diversity and inclusion of that tool, to me, will always linger. I know that for you, diversity inclusion is absolutely cornerstone to what you're doing. I'm curious as you think about diversity and inclusion in today's world, in a world that has VR, it has AI, it has technology, it's future of work, all that stuff, where are you at with diversity and inclusion?

Bobby Humes: Yeah. Well, where I'm at is it's as important today as it's ever been. here in the United States, there are states that are attacking, the idea of diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging programs. And this is the reason, I'll back up and say the tactics that they're using is the reason why we need diversity, and inclusion training in the first place. But one of the things that some of these states will try to say is that the historical context of some of the reasons why we have diversity, equity, inclusion programming isn't valid. So we think about racial, trauma and harm that's happened here in the United States and elsewhere. There's a historical context there. And that context has limited people's opportunity. There's no doubt about that. We think about gender equity, we think about the LGBTQ community, we think about these marginalized communities. There's a historical context to the harm that they're facing. And because that historical context has not shifted significantly, and that harm and that injustice still exists, and this work is still important for us as we work across different clients. It's important that we don't walk in with our righteousness of the work, right. That we are thoughtful about what that organization means by their policy, their words on it. Because some of us, some organizations, after the murder of George Floyd, said a lot of things about what they were going to do, and haven't come about to make those things real. What BHC is good at is helping organizations make those. Things real and help them navigate their journeys in such a way where they're committed to the hard stuff. M I think we are in a space with the conversation on dei in the same place that we are with the conversation on innovation. M everybody wants to talk about what it is and how to do it and what it feels like, but sometimes, most times, it's just performative. We're not really doing the things necessary to move that needle in innovation. We're not really launching new products and services and testing them out and measuring them in such a way, and shifting our internal practices to make that innovation happen, and moving funds from one place to the R and D so we can make the thing scale. We talk about it, but we're not committed to doing those things because it's painful in some cases to say, you know what, we've been doing this wrong. You know what? We've been creating harm. So, yes, my short answer is very important. It's nuanced. And when we do it, when we do it well, organizations thrive. Those numbers are out there. That data set is there. And so it keeps us coming to the table.

Matt Burns: Yeah, we're at a stage now where it's no longer does diversity and inclusion and equity and belonging in an organization make a financial difference. We know it does. There's tons of reputable studies that point to the fact that, especially in a knowledge based economy, when you involve people in the journey, you're leaving stuff on the table if people feel excluded. So, that's a discussion I think we could just put to rest. To your point, though, it's what do you do with that level of awareness? And it's not easy. It's tough sledding to go from wherever you are into a world where you need to make progress. And it's something I always struggled with because as somebody who benefits from privilege, it's very hard for me often to put on the hat of, I can appreciate, I can have, ERGs, employee resource groups, I can do surveys. We can be thoughtful about using the appropriate nomenclature in our policies and procedures, and we removed all the unique identifiers and gender identifiers and policies. We can do the kind of the table stakes pieces, but ultimately, it needs to be an organization and therefore an employee led initiative. And organizations at times can struggle to turn over I'll, use the word control, but turn over agency to their employees to craft the future for the organization. That's a scary place to be if you've always operated in a top down. I am the boss, you shall do what I say to a world where it's, let's do this together, which is a world that you and I live in that's tough for some leaders to do. And diversity and inclusion is the manifestation of that conversation in the most personal and intimate of ways, because it exposes you to have to face your biases and your privilege and your background. And that makes it really difficult for leaders to say, I want to take that first step. But so I'm glad there's people like you again with your experience and your background to help take them on that journey. Because if they do it alone we've seen organizations sometimes lose steam, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for not good reasons. But, I applaud you for the work that you're doing because it's a necessary conversation that we need to have. We need to advance beyond trivial issues into real world problems. And we're not going to do that unless we address some of the systemic hurt and pain and trauma that exists in a number of different avenues. So thank you for doing it.

Bobby Humes: Absolutely. No, thank you for mentioning that. I appreciate, the, flowers there. I'm working on a book. It's called the table. Transformative leadership for Today's modern leaders. And it's all about that. It's all about that ability to create a table ah. And hold what's on that table with others. That's inclusion, right? And if you do diversity, when you do diversity well, and you're able to create tables, watch out, because you're going to start seeing your goals being met, because you're creating a space for those bright minds that you've brought to the table to really flourish. That's the leader's job, right? To set up the problem, set for what success looks like, to ground others in what it takes to make that happen, to resource them well, and to get the hell out of their way. That's the stuff. When I start adding my bias, when I start adding my lived experiences, my perspective is the only thing that we can see through. That's a small porthole, Matt, and you can't do much with it. So the tenets of diversity, equity, inclusion, healthy diversity, equity, inclusion, programs, policies, training, learning, all those things that whole world is not just good for the communities that are harmed by us not doing those programs. This work is good for everyone. It's going to make you a better leader. It's going to make you a better spouse. It's going to make you a better neighbor. that's how much I believe in this work.

Matt Burns: I couldn't agree with you more. and I think it makes better teammates. I think it needs better leaders. I think it needs better employees. I think it creates a more cohesive culture, and it starts with the people you bring into the organization. And we've talked about diversity and inclusion in the context of business results. One of the strong correlations about doing this well is, again, we're talking about a knowledge based economy. We're also in a situation, Bobby, as you know, that demographically speaking, in Washington State and in Canada, US and Canada, the baby boomers are leaving. And there's more of them leaving every single day than there are Gen Z and Gen Alpha entering the workplace. So talent the air quotes war for talent is only going to get more difficult. I remember 20 years ago starting out in HR and being told, matt, 20 years from now we're going to be in a real tough spot, demographically speaking. Well, here we are and we're right. they didn't mention the pandemic, but everything else they got. Right. And the ability to offer a, workplace that recognizes people's unique contributions, that makes them feel welcome to show up as themselves is going to be a differentiator for organizations as we compete for finite talent. I'm curious how you've been able to embed Dei and B into talent attraction, talent strategy, employer branding. How does that work for you?

Bobby Humes: Yeah, for us, it is in every conversation that we have with our clients about their intention to bring us someone new. Right. So it's going to start with, hey, what is this person going to need to do in their 1st 90 days to be successful? We want that to be as clear as possible because we're hiring smart people to a lot of these jobs. Right. In these firms, smart people want compelling work and so you've got to be able to broadcast that work. It's about having that realistic job preview. It's about having a hiring process that doesn't wash people out, but welcomes them in. Right. I'm not saying you give people jobs who aren't competitive, but I'm saying if someone has taken the time to apply and they're not right for that job, don't give up yet. See if you have other jobs and see if there's another place to place them because they took time to knock on your door. HR teams have to think differently about those kind of things. Like we're not screening people out, we're screening folks in. We're building relationships. The old school picking up the phone and calling people that's back. I think that I, know that that's what we have our affiliates do. If we're working on a project with a client and we find somebody through our Boolean search or through LinkedIn, we want to pick up the phone and say, hey Matt, I found this role for you. Here's why I think you'd be great for it. Because we want to build relationships with people. I'll tell you that. Internship programs, bring those back. If you can do anything where your company is in community, get out into your community. Start really sowing seeds in the talent spaces. I have some clients that we're talking about talent, pipeline as early as middle school. Right. Planting seeds in middle school so that they have that relationship with talent. Long term talent is becoming the long tail game. It's about establishing that relationship that you may not see for another five years. Right. And so I also believe it's about we're figuring out what we're doing with return to office. I think a lot of the labor force is committed to not returning or to not returning full time. And I think some employers haven't come to grips with that yet. And, I don't know, that's still shifting sand. And right now, I think the competitive firms are those who have hybrid or who have remote. Folks are not being drawn into offices, that I'm seeing. But that's how I think of it. I think of it as make sure you have compelling work. Make sure your onboarding is good, especially in the dei conversation. we know that historically, when onboarding doesn't work, it hurts people of color most. black women mostly. Because onboarding is where you're supposed to be adopting all the things of the organization and learning all the customs and learning where things are. If you're not feeling welcome in that space, it's probably a guarantee you're not going to stay long. So really put some effort into your onboarding and your offboarding and your offboarding, even as people exit, making sure that you're brand conscious there, and that there's something, but in that middle frame, while the person is in your organization. We have to move from talent acquisition into talent management. That's got to be compelling work over time. That's got to be growth opportunities over time. and it's always not going to be about what you pay people. What's that Gallup survey that was from a long time ago, said that people leave for $0.05 on the dollar if they're not engaged with their work. And we know that engagement is a paradigm that lives with the supervisor. So if you're really serious about your talent management strategy, make sure that your supervisors are resourced and expected to have some retention goals, right? all of these things work together to really make a competitive talent acquisition and management strategy.

Matt Burns: It's a lot of data.

Bobby Humes: Lot of data.

Matt Burns: And again, at the risk of making this an inhuman conversation, when we look at this at the individual level, this is not a data conversation. If I'm talking about Bobby or Matt, this is an individual conversation. It's customized, it's bespoke, it's curated.

Bobby Humes: Right.

Matt Burns: When you're doing this as a leader for teams of 510, 15, 5100, 5000, 10,000, 10,0000, it then becomes the lens in which you view the problem is different. And the lens in which you view the opportunity is different. And unfortunately, you're not able to have 50,000 unique conversations. But what you do have is the ability to roll up data, to look at trends, to look at things in the macro. I'm curious. For someone who has invested so much time in innovation, technology, diversity, inclusion, what's the role of data in your practice?

Bobby Humes: Everything. Whether we're working with a client to come in and facilitate, a board retreat, or whether we're working on helping a client attract a new VP, whether I'm working with an executive who wants to get more, increase their awareness, there lies data and there lies our approach to it. and so it's in everything that we do. It being having the right questions, like having the right wondering what are we trying to solve for first, starting with that. Because I think sometimes a lot of us are, data rich, information poor. Like, we don't know what we're looking at in the data. So I think it's important to go to the data with some idea of what are we curious about. I like to use before and after that. I like that pre and post data collection, especially when we're working on an intervention with a client. So we want to be able to measure what's happening in the culture right now. and we want to do our intervention and measure what comes after that's. The only way that we get better. What we use a lot, we use a lot of SurveyMonkey, we do a lot of heat mapping. And all of these things just help us understand where issues might be. And it's a tool, it's much like AI or a ham or anything else. We're using it as a tool to kind of give us an awareness and that helps us grow a hypothesis that we can then leverage to test and see what comes. We're also really interested in helping clients sit with data. It's remarkable sometimes how leaders don't like to ask staff questions because then we'll have to do what staff says and that's not the case. we can leverage what staff sentiments are to start conversations right? Even if that conversation is, hey, we hear that you want this thing, we can't do it for you, here's why that's a good thing. And so, we love data. it informs our strategies, small and large and something, that I'm consistently looking to get better at. And what I mean by getting better, I want to get better in the how do we tell the story with the data that we have? What does it look like from a graphical, from what you can see, but also what information is it giving you so that you can use that as business intelligence?

Matt Burns: It's a fun world out there and it's only going to get more interesting and more complex. Bobby, for those who want to get a hold of you, where do they find you?

Bobby Humes: Find me, ah, at www bhconsultants co. Again www. Bhconsultants co. You can email me at Bobby at bhconsultants co. Find me on LinkedIn under Coach Bobby. And I'm really easy to talk to, and so ask me anything, I'll probably give you an answer.

Matt Burns: I can vouch for that. And I will put the details for this in the show notes of this podcast. Bobby, it has been too long and it is always a pleasure. Thank you so much for your time today, for your collaboration, for the conversation, and looking forward to connecting this offline.

Bobby Humes: As I may. Sir, always a pleasure to see you. Let's get together soon.

Matt Burns: Bento HR is a digital transformation consultancy working at the intersection of strategy, technology and people operations. We partner with organizations, private equity and venture capital firms to accelerate value creation and identify the organization's highest leverage initiatives. And this can take place in many forms, from strategic planning and alignment to technology procurement, implementation and integration, along with organizational design, process reengineering and change management. With our proven track record of working with complex, high growth organizations, we provide a lens that goes beyond the balance sheet, increasing enterprise readiness, resilience and value. For more information, check us out@bentohr.com. Bye.