Leading In The Time Of Virus
"FEARLESS CREATIVE LEADERSHIP" PODCAST - TRANSCRIPT
Episode 136: Have Her Back Founders
Hi. I’m Charles Day. I work with creative and innovative companies. I coach and advise their leaders to help them maximize their impact and grow their business.
This episode is part of Season 2 - which we’ve sub-titled, “Leading In The Time Of Virus”.
In today’s world, leadership means meeting the challenges of two viruses - COVID-19 and racism.
In this environment, unlocking creative thinking has never been more valuable or essential.
This conversation is with Pamela Culpepper, Erin Gallagher and Caroline Dettman. They are the three founders of Have Her Back Consulting. They describe themselves as a culture consultancy working with companies to tackle equity for all.
When I interviewed Caroline in January - in what now seems like an almost unimaginably different world - we talked extensively about the steps that businesses and society needed to take to create gender equity.
With George Floyd’s murder, conversation - and in some cases - action has now shifted.
As leaders struggle to come to terms with simultaneously fighting these two viruses - corona and racism - what happens to the efforts to create gender equity, how do we design companies and society for the future and who risks getting left behind?
Here are the Have Her Back founders.
Charles: (01:28)
Caroline, welcome back to the show and I'm really happy to welcome Pamela and Erin, your two co-founders and partners in Have Her Back. Welcome all three of you.
Pamela Culpepper: (01:37)
Thank you, sir.
Erin Gallagher: (01:38)
Thank you.
Caroline Dettman: (01:39)
Thank you, Charles.
Charles: (01:40)
Let's start with each of you telling us where you are in lockdown, and who you are with. Caroline, let's start with you.
Caroline Dettman: (01:47)
I am in my home in Elmhurst, Illinois. I've been in lockdown with my three teenage boys and my husband, I guess going on four months now, right, as we're looking at this. And we are thankful that we have outdoor space and all of those things, but I will tell you when we moved here, we rehabbed an old house, which was a dream of mine to do, and so we made a very old house a very open concept house, as was the style and is the style right now and in these four months of myself, my husband working from home, and my kids doing e-learning, the open concept has become something that has not been that exciting to us, and in fact, I think all of us would welcome more doors moving forward.
Charles: (02:39)
Yeah, like a lot of people's office spaces going back, right? The whole notion of shared open plan has suddenly become a very old fashioned concept, quickly, the past three months. Pamela, where are you?
Pamela Culpepper: (02:50)
Charles, I am in Scottsdale, Arizona, new home as of March, and I am in lockdown with myself. I have various statues that I have regular conversations with but it's just me.
Charles: (03:09)
And what's that been like, because you're one of the few people I've talked to that are actually spending this time by themselves completely, what's that like for you?
Pamela Culpepper: (03:16)
Yeah. So by myself completely doesn't include the daily FaceTimes that I have with my son, so it's like he's here, and I'm also an introvert, so I love being alone. I'm not lonely, I love being alone. What I do, what I am realizing now though is I enjoy being alone more when I've been taxed with being with others all day, right? You just look forward to that downtime. Well, I have downtime with myself every day all day, so I actually am a little bit anxious to get, to be with people so that I can appreciate being alone even more.
Charles: (4:00)
I can understand that completely. And Erin, where are you and who are you with?
Erin Gallagher: (04:04)
I want to be alone, like Pamela. So Charles, I am in Chicago, in our condo with my husband who's working remotely, my four-year-old, William, and 22-month-old, Charlie, and we actually just returned to Chicago on Saturday. We've been quarantining in Michigan at my mother's home for more than three months and she was an incredible help to us and it was something that we will never be able to repay her for, all of that support, but I will say that having your own mom at a front seat to your marriage and your parenting is, it's a lot, it's a lot. And right now, I'm doing this call from my car in front of my home so that you might be able to hear me, so I'm sure we'll talk a bit more about all the things we're doing to adapt right now, but this is not something I ever would've expected I would be doing for a very important work call.
Charles: (05:10)
Yeah, the evolution that everybody has gone through is so extraordinary. I mean, Caroline, when you and I last spoke, the world didn't look anything like this, and that was not that long ago, right? The change, I said to somebody yesterday I think that 2020 will end up being the most influential and pivotal year in all of our lives, I can't imagine a year creating more fundamental, societal, structural, economic change than this one. Tell me to start with, how's business? How is your business evolving and adapting? How are you coping with this?
Caroline Dettman: (05:39)
Yeah, I mean, we love to say that we were built for this moment and while we never wished that it would come to this, right? This moment in time of 2020, I think we collectively feel that there is a new sense of urgency on diversity and inclusion and equity overall within companies that we haven't seen before, frankly. So we are busier than ever, which I think is a good thing. And I think we prescribe to what you said, Charles, which is we hope that this becomes the most pivotal year of our lifetime, and it will become that if we see changes, real change come from it. It could also become a very frustrating time if we don't, right? And so for our business, again, which was designed from minute one to be about equity for all, intersectionality within that, obviously, this is frankly what we've built for.
Pamela Culpepper: (06:44)
Yeah, and Charles, having spent 25 years in corporate America, in progressive roles that all included some level of diversity, equity, inclusion, this is a moment, I think, we all have been looking for and waiting on, so that we could operate in a much broader fashion than we've operated before. Inside an organization, you're an internal agitator, but you don't have multiple platforms like we do now to really leap into the heart of the issues. So I, this is, while it's still exhausting and uncomfortable at times, it's the right moment for Americans to be in.
Charles: (07:34)
I'm interested actually, and curious to know, Pamela, does this feel different to you? I mean, you've lived this obviously through a different lens than the three of us, does this feel different to you? I know it feels different to me, but it's more relevant, I think, if it feels different to you.
Pamela Culpepper: (07:48)
Yes, there are parts of it that feel different. I think some of the corporate responses feel like the rhetoric of the past and when there's no one to check back on what they said back then as to whether or not they did it, it feels like it could land the same way going forward. What does feel different is the amount of extra energy. I'm feeling partners say, "I want to be a part of the solution," and recognize that, and when I say partners, I mean, not my two partners, I mean colleagues and associates that I've worked with in the past, realize that there's something that they've been doing to actually be a part of the problem and not a part of the solution, and want to do something different now. So I am sensing that. I'm sensing a level of education that people are willing to have, and not just my white colleagues, but my black colleagues are actually delving even more into our own history than they have in the past, and I think it's a pivotal point of growth.
Charles: (09:01)
What's this been like for you, going through this while living by yourself? Because the ferment, the energy of protest, the energy of being able to share these experiences with other people in real time as the days go by, what's it like for you, as a black woman, living through this moment and living by yourself?
Pamela Culpepper: (09:18)
So, some of what I think is different is I'm in Scottsdale, and there are, there's a small number of black people that live in Scottsdale. So when I go to the grocery store, when I go to the doctor's office, I'm usually the only one. So there is a feeling of isolation in that respect. I try not to use the television as my only source of knowing what's going on in the world. I check in regularly with people that I worked with, that I am currently working with, and my clients are really interested in what they should be doing and saying next. So I'm involved even though I'm living at home. I don't know that that's made more of a difference, that I'm not sitting in front of people talking about it.
What I'd like to see more of though is my, so my white friends are checking in to make sure that I'm okay. They're not always ready to delve into the topic in depth. It's a buzz killer, right? When you asked me what my experiences have been, if I have to go back in time, it's not going to be pleasant, and there won't be anything that they could've done about it, but I think those are conversations that are being had that I look forward to having more of.
Charles: (10:59)
Yeah, I think a lot of people just still find it difficult to raise the issue directly. In some cases, I suspect, because they feel guilty they haven't done as much as they now realize they should've done.
Pamela Culpepper: (11:08)
Yeah, absolutely.
Charles: (11:09)
Erin, Have Her Back was built as a culture consultancy. When Caroline and I talked, obviously, the large amount of the focus, certainly of that conversation, and I think of your work, was around gender equity. Obviously you weren't built exclusively for that, but that was certainly what you were becoming known for, and where the energy was, a large part of the energy was being placed. How are you adapting and evolving to balance the conversation so that, obviously that work is still critical and essential, but the focus obviously, and the emphasis has shifted over the last few weeks, certainly. How are you adapting the business?
Erin Gallagher: (11:42)
Yeah, well, I think that part of it is because of intersectionality, even focusing on women still meant we were focusing on black women and women of color, and LGBTQ, and women of different generations and ages and ethnicities, and so that was always there, it maybe wasn't the complete call out. I believe that if we can solve this for black women and for women of color, then we'll be able to solve it for everybody, right? And so, we still believe that women are sort of the entry point for this and it's because of the statistics that we all know quite well, right? We're 51% of the population, we're over half of the workforce, we're 85% of consumer buying power. You can't ignore women regardless of whether or not you're also focused on black women right now, or just diversity in general.
So that is still at the heart of everything that we do, but because of what's happening in culture and this zeitgeist of this becoming the number one priority for almost every company in the Fortune 500, that is the entry point to this conversation, right? And we can make sure when we're having a conversation about diversity, whatever that means to that company, that gender is a part of that diversity conversation because it has to be. So I think that we always knew we were focused on women for those reasons, but it spans every single type of woman, and again, if we can do right by women in this conversation, then they're going to lead us, they're going to lead culture towards a better future.
Charles: (13:32)
Yeah, I'm desperate for a world that is led by women. I think we would do a lot better across the board, so hopefully in my lifetime that will happen. So Caroline, based on where the world is going, and to Pamela's point, it's easy for companies to say the right thing and much much harder for them to do the right thing. What should we be looking for in terms of the behavior of businesses? How do we recognize a company that is actually truly, authentically interested in changing the way they show up, the way they operate, and how they contribute to society in the world?
Caroline Dettman: (14:07)
So I'll say this, we haven't seen it yet, and we're not surprised by that, actually. So, in this seismic moment, I think where companies tend to go is they want to go to the traditional playbook, in dealing with these crises, and so a couple things. Traditional approaches have never worked, and they're certainly not going to work now, so those are null and void. And also, this isn't a game, right? And so companies are realizing this, and listen, I think some of the most forward leading companies are stepping in it every single day as we've been seeing, and I think it's because they are following that traditional playbook.
So the old playbook was bring together community leaders, issue an apology, and write a check. That was what worked before. And we're seeing companies essentially do that now. So when the first sort of expressions of solidarity from corporate America, and CEOs particularly, those were expressions of outrage, which was good to see, but very quickly recognizing that we need to move beyond expressions of outrage into outrageous plans of action because this takes a collective audacity to make real change happen, right? And that's the part that companies are struggling with and so, listen, human nature, we tend to go back to our history, to how do we fix this, how do we fix this, and we look back. But actually it's not a time to look back, it's actually a time to look to new ways to tackle this authentically, which means you have to tackle it differently, which means you have to work with different experts to do it, who aren't ground in the old way.
So, it's been really interesting and I think what we're seeing right now is that we believe, at Have Her Back, that external actions like, as an example, writing a check or any kind of monetary things that companies are doing, those are good things, but now you cannot do that in lieu of looking at your own house and getting that in order. So what we're seeing right now, which companies are trying to sort through, is that they're getting called to the carpet even with some incredibly generous corporate donations that are being made, but they're still being questioned and called to the carpet from an authenticity standpoint because what they actually have the most control over, which is their own workforce, and the diversity of that workforce, corporate America has failed in that regard, right?
Pamela Culpepper: (16:59)
And Charles, if you don't mind me answering that as well, the company that would get my attention is the one that says, "You know, we have $400 million, but rather than give it externally, we're going to invest in our hiring processes. We're going to invest in our own infrastructure to make sure that as we increase our diversity, we have the right infrastructure internally to receive it. We are going to give more budget to the folks that are leading our DE and our practices. We are going to invest internally so that we can manifest what we've done inside to the outside, and it doesn't look like just a check." That's the company that would get my attention.
Charles: (17:50)
So one of the things I've noticed over the last few years, I'm not alone in this, but I'm really interested, Pamela, to get your perspective, specifically on this. More and more companies have Chief Diversity Officers. I don't know what percentage of them are black, but the vast majority of the ones that I see are black. Most of the time they don't have direct access to real decision making, they don't have direct access to the CEO, they don't have real budget. So is that one of the things that has to change?
I was watching some panel last week and somebody said, "Black people don't want to be the Chief Diversity Officer, they want to be the CMO, they want to be the CEO.” How much should we be paying attention to those kinds of cues?
Pamela Culpepper: (18:29)
I think we should be paying a lot of attention to those cues because those are the people who have been tasked, unfortunately, with raising issues to the organizations and the further down they get pushed in the organization, the more muted their voices are. So, they are sometimes hired into these positions with the expectation that they will do what they've been hired to do, so the notion that they're getting more of an opportunity now is important, but it's also important to know that they've lost credibility over time because they weren't able to do anything in their organizations. Now all of a sudden, the onus is back on them to help make those adjustments and sometimes it's without the budget, and a lot of times it's without the influence.
So to me, I think there needs to be some reconciling in terms of where they sit in the organization, how much time can they spend in front of the executive committee, or on the executive committee, can they be in front of the boards? Because they're going to need much more than just the budget to make the internal shifts that need to happen.
Charles: (19:53)
Absolutely, I think that's so right. So Erin, there are two elements to this, I think, there's oversimplification a little bit, but there's really fundamentally two elements, right? There is the way the organization supports and embraces people who are minorities, and whether you are actually built to create an environment that allows different people to actually create their own cultures, that allows them to feel comfortable, and allows them to fully invest themselves.
And then there is also, as Pamela mentioned, there is also the hiring practices, which have to be changed, but to me the problem is more significant than just the hiring practices because in fact the entire talent supply chain is completely lopsided. The talent supply chain generates white candidates at an enormous ratio, so we can't, I don't think we can wait for the supply chain to get fixed by the supply chain. Corporations have to step in and actually fix it as well. How do you reconcile, where do you see the emphasis needing to be in place between creating a culture that is welcoming and supportive of everybody, ultimately, and also addressing the supply chain issues that are fundamental?
Erin Gallagher: (21:02)
So Charles, you have to do both and the thing is you cannot pick on or the other in this situation because that has likely been the problem up until this point. You've either focused just on recruiting and then really never set up the infrastructure of your workplace to include, welcome, and make those that entered into it feel like they belonged, then they left. Or you focused a lot on that piece, or you thought you did, and you never even brought anyone into the org that could help you to transform the culture. So you have to do both, and you need to invest in leaders that can help you to focus on that full time and make that an integral piece of the business.
We said from the beginning when we launched Have Her Back, that we're not doing this because it's a nice to have, it's because it's a business imperative, right? We've all seen the statistics, we don't need to see them anymore, that if you have more diversity in leadership, and within your organization, you perform better. It's something like 30% on average is how much higher your performance is than those that don't have diversity in leadership, or within the organization.
So you need to do both, but when you talk about prioritizing, what I think you do need to sort, because every org is different, is having someone else come in and help you look at what is happening and where you're vulnerable, where you're most vulnerable, where your biggest opportunities lie, that's where you can have the quick wins. Where you can make some quick adjustments to start to see action and traction faster while you continue to also focus on both of those pieces, but you may be farther ahead in one of those than the other, and so put the gas pedal down and really get it done. If you do things the way you always did them, you will get what you've always gotten.
Charles: (23:00)
So within the context of that Caroline, we're obviously seeing structural change happening in society, we're seeing structural change happen in business. The workplace is clearly going to be different. I interviewed Carl Johnson from Anomaly last week, and he said he's spending a huge amount of time with his partners thinking about what is an office. Nothing less essential than that.
We all know people who are working for big corporations in major cities, I've got clients who are in New York who are looking at their office space on the twelfth floor, and they can't actually figure out how to even get back into it because they said that it would take three and a half hours lining up on Fifth Avenue six feet apart until they could get into an elevator with no more than two people. So you've got physical dynamics. It struck me very early on as the pandemic hit, that this would be a substantive change in how professional women could reenter the workplace on their terms because we've proved virtual working, working from home, works. What do you think is going to be fundamental in terms of how businesses get structured? How do we see this moving forward from a foundational standpoint?
Caroline Dettman: (24:07)
Yeah, we actually took a real early look at this, right at the beginning of COVID-19 because our intuition, our gut instinct said that the remote working, the acceptance of remote working, was going to actually be really good for women and for diversity overall. But we did a study that confirmed that very much. And so, it's been fascinating to see what's happening. But in terms of the acceptance of remote working, that is incredibly great for women, because men are going through this for, really in many respects, the first time, and they're doing it without the resources that they had prior to COVID-19, because childcare is not, schools, everything's closed and is continuing to be closed, likely into fall, if not later, and daycare and what have you.
And so what was really interesting about one of our first studies that we did at the beginning of COVID-19 is that men overwhelmingly, I believe it was 87% of working men, said that women's careers would greatly benefit from the acceptance of remote working, particularly after having children. So it's one thing if you have the female saying that. I think it's quite another when you have the men recognizing that this is going to cause quite a shift. And actually that I think men and women will be united together in terms of what that all means. So I think that's one area in which I think is really interesting.
I think the other piece is the, what has been held against women forever, particularly after having children, was if you had a flexible schedule, or if you did any remote working, you were not productive. It was not possible. That was the bias. And one that things that were held against women was in fact, needed to have that office face time to advance your career and that was held against women. Certainly what COVID has proven is that you no longer need office face time, to be able to get ahead. And so, I think that is going to go a long way into contributing to the end of one of the biggest biases against working women and all working women, in the workplace, I think that's interesting.
And I think in terms of environment, I know companies are obviously having to spend a lot of time because they've got a lot of real estate and they're trying to source what they're going to be doing. I think where we're trying to counsel our clients is what you need to be thinking about right now is actually the benefits of not having all of that real estate, and particularly as it relates to diversity inclusion because not only do you have women from a remote working standpoint, men want to be remote working now, so it's not just women, and also as it relates to diversity and all this talk about needing to hire and retain, which is obviously on everyone's minds right now, people don't necessarily want to work in the cultures as they currently exist.
This gives an ability, and an opportunity for minorities and women to join companies that they would not have, that would've required a move, that would've required an in office situation, so I think we need companies to expand their minds and their remits in terms of where they can look for talent, right? And so I think ultimately, that can be really really good for both diversity and inclusion for the companies that take it really seriously.
Charles: (27:48)
This is a strange question, but do you think men appreciate, recognize what women do in a different way coming out of this reality? Are we seeing a shift in terms of how the sexes see each other, do you think?
Pamela Culpepper: (28:00)
Charles, I'll start and I'm sure there are other responses but I think yes, they are. I also think though that they're coming to know better their own limitations, or the areas that they weren't as well-versed in. Being the disciplinarian, the school teacher, the lunch maker, all of those things while trying to attend to business calls and presentations, is a lot. And so, it's… in some ways they're seeing that it's not as easy as it once looked, but they're also in their own feelings about how hard it is on them to be in the positions that they've found themselves in as a result of the pandemic.
Charles: (28:55)
Erin, what's your take?
Erin Gallagher: (28:57)
Yeah, I mean, here's the deal. This is the reality training, virtual reality training in empathy that the world has needed on lots of different fronts. We're seeing it on the gender front, on the race front, all of it, socioeconomic front. We are experiencing other people's lives in a more intimate than we ever have before. You're having work calls and you're seeing people's families walking around behind them. And the thing that I said to someone recently was, for women, specifically, when you see these kids walking around behind them, that to me is just a physical representation of what it's like to be inside of our minds, because even though we are at work doing these things, we often are carrying that unpaid emotional labor with us at all times. You don't drop it off when you drop off the kids, you're continuing to do that.
So there is a multi-tasking that is just innate to us and I think again, like what we were just saying, when men who maybe have not had to play as big of a role in that, are playing a bigger role now, it feels like a lot to them because it's a bigger, the gap between what was and what is is so much bigger than it is for us. And one of the studies that we did showed that 37% of men said they were having an extremely difficult time balancing work and caregiving right now and only 14% of women said that. And what we wanted to make clear to people when they saw that statistic is that it's not that women aren't having a hard time, they're just more used to it. They've been doing it more. So just because they're carrying it, doesn't mean it's not heavy. So, so much of this, again, is about the perception and about what people present to their colleagues and to the people outside of their home about all the things that they're navigating. And I think we're all just being a little more honest about the challenges.
Charles: (30:56)
Caroline, what's your take?
Caroline Dettman: (30:57)
So, I agree with all of that, and I also think there's a reality happening, and we've done a more recent study too, that's actually quite interesting. But I think knowing that 70% of the essential workers out there are women, so think about that. Men are actually having to do and be primary caregivers in COVID, it necessitated that because 70% of them are on the front lines, right? And so that's having also, to Erin's point, a huge impact on what they're experiencing and seeing firsthand what's going on. So I think that is all absolutely real.
And then I think the only other thing that I would say is that these dual crises that we've been all watching in center stage, if you think about the leaders that are emerging, right? So if you think from a global perspective, you've got Jacinda Arden and what she's accomplished in New Zealand, Angela Merkel, obviously in Germany, and then let's look at the US. I haven't been this excited about a VP nomination since HBO announced they were having Veep with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, right? And so when you think about the people that are emerging here, you're talking about Kamala Harris, Val Demings, Keisha Lance Bottoms, who has really exploded in all of this, and they are exuding leadership on a stage that didn't exist prior to these crises and everybody's watching and seeing that. So I know Charles you're a big fan, and you believe it, you've said, "We need more women leaders." I think we're seeing in real time the impact that they have when they're given the keys. So it's, I think it's a combination of all the things that are going to really drive this change.
Charles: (32:47)
So two last questions for all of you, and Pamela, I want to have you answer last, if you don't mind, each of these questions, so let me start with the other two. Erin, we'll start with you. What have you learned about yourself as a leader over the last three months?
Erin Gallagher: (33:00)
I can handle a lot more than I thought I could. I think that it's one of those things where resilience is a muscle, where it expands the more you exercise it and strengthen it, so there are things that you look at and say, “There's no way I can do this,” and then once you do them, you have now up-leveled what you're able to do.
So I think that if we had told ourselves, this is going to happen in the middle of your first year of business, you're going to have a global pandemic that requires you to be quarantined, and by the way Erin, you're going to be quarantined at your mom's house and doing calls from the unfinished basement in the chair that you had in college, I would've said, "Yep, I'm going to go right into a mental institution. That's not going to work for me." But you do it, right? Every day you do it, you just put one foot in front of the other, and you can't think too far ahead because it will scare you into moving, not moving, so you put one foot in front of the other and you just tackle what you need to that day and then you get up and you do it all again.
Charles: (34:08)
Caroline?
Caroline Dettman: (34:10)
I think the biggest thing that I've learned, and I credit my partners with this, Pamela and Erin, but I think the biggest thing that I've learned since all of this began is that we have to use our platform as white leaders differently, and it's not enough to think that you are not racist, you need to be anti-racist and that is something that I don't think I thought about before this and I think that's so incredibly important because as everyone is looking to their black friends and black colleagues, in what to do, and that's very tiresome, I think we need to take it upon ourselves now and think about how we can show how we are anti-racist, which means use your platform, which means take action, which means show up, protest, use your power and voice to make change.
Charles: (35:08)
Pamela, what about you? What have you learned about yourself as a leader?
Pamela Culpepper: (35:11)
Yeah, I've learned to embrace the superpower that I've always had and never claimed it, and that was, and that is, that I have a way of talking with executives, male leaders who have had no economic reason to be different or do anything different, in a way that allows them to open up, talk about what they're afraid of, talk about what makes them vulnerable, and talk it through until they get to a place where they feel like they can stand on their own two legs on an issue that the organization already thought they were prepared to do. So the disarming, the non-judgment, the allowing the space for people to say things that they can't say anywhere else for fear of it being in the newspaper, is a superpower, right? And I never claimed it as such, I just though it was just what I did, but now I claim it.
Charles: (36:25)
That's incredibly powerful. Really insightful as well, and you're right, it is a superpower, no question about that. Last question for all of you. Caroline, we're going to start with you. What are you afraid of?
Caroline Dettman: (36:36)
You know, listen, it's funny because right this is the fearless leadership broadcast and I say this a lot, I've never been fearless, but I fear less and less these days, and I think that's important, but I think if the question specifically is what are you afraid of, I said it earlier, and I'm just going to reemphasize it, which is I am afraid that this moment will be just a moment and we will go back to where we've always been, which is status quo and not actually moving the needle.
So I think for me, what I'm scared of is that companies are not going to be invested in the hard work that this is going to take. That said, this work is doable. We can do this together and we were built for this moment, and again, happy to say that we've never been busier, but frankly, we want more, we want more. We want more companies invested in this, and really doing the hard work that it's going to take. So I'm scared that it won't happen, but I'm an optimist and I believe in us.
Charles: (37:42)
Erin, what about you? What are you afraid of?
Erin Gallagher: (37:44)
Well, my fears are very similar to Caroline's. I'm afraid of inaction, and we started this company because we're obsessed with figuring this out, and this was before the entire world was forced to reckon with themselves, both individually and as companies, as huge leaders in different organizations around the world. So I think that would be my fear, is that we don't take action, and that people are so overwhelmed by the work that there is to be done, that it paralyzes them.
So I think that so much of what we're trying to do is to take those steps. Don't try to bite off more than you can chew, just start to do something that's authentic to you and take steps in the right direction. There's a great quote that has come up a lot recently by Benjamin Franklin, “Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.” This applies to pretty much everything we do at Have Her Back, right? Gender, race, all of it. We have got to stop counting on those that are being disenfranchised, those that are not being treated equitably, fighting for it. We've got to stop putting the onus on women, on black people, on people of color, to solve this, and the rest of us need to get off our you know whats and get it done. So we have got to stop expecting that they're going to keep asking for what they need and then we'll make decisions. The tables have turned, and it's time for all of us to do our part.
Charles: (39:25)
Pamela, what about you?
Pamela Culpepper: (39:27)
Yeah, my fear is that we will rely on a few institutions to change, but not all. When there is a requirement for all institutions to adjust what they've done in the past that might be contributing to what we're still experiencing. I also fear that we will continue to nibble around the edges and not necessarily get to the heart of the matter, which will be the most uncomfortable, the most unsettling, and we won't, we will continue to do the little things that really don't impact us as much. I mean, giving millions of dollars from a multi-billion dollar company is just, it's pocket lint, right? It's not something that will make the difference. So how do we start to make sure that we're not just peripherally addressing the issues, but really going in on the heart of the issues?
Charles: (40:35)
Yeah, it's really well said. When Caroline and I met, I was struck by Have Her Back, and the mission that you have adopted and been drawn to, and obviously by Caroline herself, and now meeting the two of you as well, and living through the reality that we're all living through, I can't think of a company that I think is doing more important work than Have Her Back, and I can't imagine three people more suited to doing it well, so I wish you nothing but the best on what I think is a very important journey, for all of us, in fact. Thank you all for joining me today, I really appreciate you taking the time.
Pamela Culpepper: (41:09)
Thank you.
Erin Gallagher: (41:09)
Thank you.
Caroline Dettman: (41:10)
Thank you Charles, we have your back!
Charles: (41:13)
I very much appreciate that.
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