YouSaid · the spoken record

Shundrawn Thomas

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88
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2020-08-24
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2020-08-24
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  1. “And we think that sprint is lanes competing against others, and the metaphor of a race is probably better served a marathon. It's one that carries out over time and it's a full life journey, and now that I've run through marathons in my life, I understand you're not running against the other thousands of people, you're just running your own race. And if you take the time to just appreciate wherever you are being there, enjoying the grace of that moment or that day that you're not necessarily promising you might not get the next one, understanding like whether it's with my family or my sons or my wife or my colleagues or my friends, right, just the power of the experience of the journey, being able to reflect no matter how things came out versus your expectations to say that my effort and my intent and my experience was good. It took me a while in life to fully appreciate that I wish I fully embraced it earlier. It's certainly important to me day by day.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Oh my gosh. This one, I know it ties to something I said earlier. I had a mentor. He said, I got an important piece of advice for you. I'm going to tell you, you're not going to get it at first. And he says, and it's simple. He said, Wherever you are, be there. And then I got what he said. I got it, but then I really got it. And it has taken me, even though he gave me that advice earlier on in my career. It took me later on in my career in my life and with life circumstances to really appreciate the power of what he was telling me. Because we also don't appreciate that the metaphors we use for life, one of the popular ones is the race. And in some ways it is a race. But the problem is we think that race is a sprint.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Things that stick with me the most from them are always deduce into their teachings on humility and service. So in a two-part thing I would tell you, my dad would always say everyone has something to teach you if you're willing to listen. And my mom driven by how she works, she worked in social work as far as her career. She went back to school, got her degree, and then went into social work. I told you they also founded a church. And so she would always say whatever you do, you do it as unto the Lord. And that was her belief in her faith. But it was also, regardless of what your professed faith is, this belief in a transcendent purpose and that there was a service orientation, that part of our goal was to pour our life out for others. So those are the two things from them. I can wake up in my sleep. My parents aren't gone. So I can wake up in my sleep and literally hear them talking to me, but those things dominate a lot of lessons in life they taught me.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “I really, really intentional about a lot of things and time is a big thing. So my biggest pet peeve is people being late.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Yes, and I would say the thing for me is my motor run so hard, right? That I realize the habit that I have that's most important for me is the time that I spend in prayer meditation. Because I realize at those times left our own devices how little time we can spend our reflection and how important that is for the whole self. So for me personally, that's very important this one.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Sure, I would be a teacher and writer without question. I love teaching. In some capacity, I feel like it's something I get to do in a lot of roles that I'm in, the ability to translate maybe complex matter into more understandable concepts and help people in their learning and development. I love that.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “So I'm for most people as boring as you get. My hobbies are reading, writing, and running and reading by far. So I'm reading all the time. I mean, on average, I probably read three books a month, notwithstanding all the periodicals and things like that that I read.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Probably 14, 15 years ago. And those values are faith, love, wisdom, accountability, leadership, competence and generosity, and they are not throwaway terms. They really focus to drive how we think about the decisions that we make, what's important to us. For us, like what I try to encourage the organizations that I'm a part of, whether it's a company I work or the boards I serve on, it's a reflection of what I believe in what I do. We for ourselves, we give away a significant portion of the income that comes through our hands and through our homes. But that's, it's always been that way for us. And it's been regardless of what our level of income has been because the value was always important.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Just talk about what we value, talk about the ones that are common or shared among us, and let those be established for our family and as our kids get older, discuss those and establish those and talk about how they guide our decisions. And so those values, we came up with seven family values. And gosh, we did this. I mean,”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “So, the process was done many years ago in my context, if you're married, your family, you and your wife. Now, we have two wonderful sons, but they were very small when we went through this. And my practical reality is the commitment that I've made to my wife, whom I love and is better than I deserve is truly one for life. And so while my sons, to the extent we have raised them well, will leave and we will enjoy a different relationship, we will still be here. But one of the things that we said very early on is we wanted to have an explicit articulation of a mission for our lives because we knew how demanding our work was and the things that we were doing, but our articulation was, look, we'll work hard, but our work plan, because we won't work in the professional settings we are until we move on to the next life, right? That has to fit in the context of our life plan. And we said ultimately the most important decisions that we make are value-based decisions. And so we went through a process of saying, let's.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “I want to take a few minutes to turn to some closing questions. But before we do that, somewhere along the way, and I was preparing for this, I saw that you had not just worked on the values of the business at Northern Trust that you talked about, but you also have done a similar exercise within your family. And I'd love to hear about that process and the outcome of that process.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “What I want to see companies doing is take a hard, honest look at what they're doing with the many suppliers that they work with and ask themselves are they providing opportunities equitably for people to earn the right to do business with them? And I think the answer in many cases is no. And so that's the single most important thing businesses can do. You know what businesses can do? Do business well and do business equitably and ethically.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “If I could wave a wand, I know exactly what the step I would be. Most established companies have Usually some level of charitable intent usually expressed in specific ways. They often have groups that focus on strategic philanthropy and often are involved in making meaningful contributions from a charitable standpoint. I think that generically is a good thing. What I'd like to see companies step back and do is say why don't we think about doing what we do well? We're about solving problems creating opportunity, driving economic growth. I'd like to see some of those dollars specifically invested in creating opportunities for equity. And by that I mean invest those in businesses in the community that you do business with. As opposed to just only giving out, and I don't want to in any way denigrate the importance of being able to give to charitable causes, but why not also give grants?”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “And so it means something to me when people are upset, when they find out that a police officer with a no-knock warrant went to someone's house unannounced and unfortunately the person gets shot and killed in their home. But here's the thing. First of all, law officers have a very difficult job. And before they serve that no knock warrant, some judge signed off on it. And before that judge signed off on it, some legislators decided that that was a law that makes sense. And so it is not an unfortunate incident, it is a systemic problem. And because it's a systemic problem that affects all society and less meaningful parts of society and members of society get involved in advocating and pushing for the solution, it does not get solved.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “That we have that, for instance, are baked into, say, for instance, our legal systems. And so I'll give a empirical example. We have to address the inequities in the criminal justice system. If I look at blacks, we make up 13% or so, depending on when the last time you do the census of the population, 13%, 14%, make up the same percentage of drug users. But we make up 36% of arrest for drug conviction and 46% of drug convictions. Something about that is inequitable. How can you have three and four times the number of arrests and convictions that you do of use? And so it's not a figment of anyone's imagination when people talk about systemic inequities, but they do not change if there is no change in the policies and the approaches and the laws and the policing.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “And so the vast majority of people are not looking for some sort of handout. They're looking for the same thing that people do in any relationship with people with whom that they respect and they trust and they care about involve themselves in. So we need to see that. And if we see that all of the boats will rise and the tide will rise. That's what we need to see out of business. What we need to see a resurgence of in terms of people's engagement in society, I think a lot of people, if we're honest with ourselves, we either have withdrawn from civic engagement or never really been in a meaningful way to begin with. And so it's hard to really say, and most people, if they're honest, they would count to this, that, for instance, we can call our government government for the people by the people because the people aren't engaging. But if we engage, we can actually begin to meaningfully impact the inequities.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Charitable intent is a good thing, but charity will not remotely solve the issue we have, and the issue that we have is not that we have not been charitable enough. The issue that we have is we have not taken accountability for the inequities that are conscious and unconscious efforts have created, that in many instances now require the charity that we give.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Here's where it creates the huge opportunity. Beyond expanding the dialogue, beyond hopefully making real change in all of us personally in terms of unpacking our own biases or views or prejudices and growing and coming closer together with our colleagues and the people in our communities in terms of really tangible and meaningful change in society, there are a couple of opportunities we have. Let me start with companies because look, a lot of what we talked about reflects businesses. Most important change that could come out of this and we need to see out of this is that businesses see the real opportunity to invest in with and alongside those in diverse communities.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “As we go through this period of the pandemic and hopefully come out of it before too long, a lot of businesses that go in with some level of strength come out stronger, composition of industries changes. You wrote a terrific paper recently and I'm curious to get your thoughts on with this particular issue of diversity and inclusion, how does the pandemic create actionable opportunities on the back end to make change happen?”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “The responsiveness I've seen in some people from initial dialogue to taking an action, I've never seen it in my career move that fast. And I think that's important because a lot of ways that you solve problems is you have to iterate. You have to try something. And in the past, what's happened is we've been satisfied with describing the problem, maybe analyzing it a lot, but not actually testing anything out. So those are the three things that I've seen on those issues that we need more of but are very encouraging to me, Ted.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Two, I'm also seeing a more comprehensive, in a sense, empirical or fact-based assessment of it. And the reason that's important is because it's easy when you're just talking about opinion sometimes to be dismissive of things. But I think people are really realizing, okay, now I can see in a tangible way why this is important not just to a segment of our community, but to our collective community. Why discrimination is not a problem just for people of color, but it actually retards the growth and economic vitality of our entire country and countries around the world. So I think that's an important advancement of the dialogue. And then the third thing that I'm seeing, which is powerful, but we need to see more of it, is sometimes what happens when we see problems, we spend a bunch of time describing the problem and analyzing it, and then the conversation fades away.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Not like they're new, right? In many respects been laying there in plain sight. And you've had some people that are, I would say, on the forefront of many of these causes, so how they think about social responsibility articulating that. And we certainly have had adopters. That's something that's important as part of our business, but not necessarily moving at the scale or scope that some of us would think that it might naturally do. And then when you think about, again, for all of my useful life and for decades preceding me and honestly for generations preceding me, we've had the issues of race and racial discrimination. And I think what I'm seeing now in the conversation is number one, Ted, and openness to have a conversation that people have been reluctant to have in a fulsome way for most of what I've seen in my professional career. So that's number one.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “One of the things that I'm seeing is the dialogue, and this is important Does feel different this time. What I would say is some of the unfortunate things that have been brought to bear in the pandemic in terms of some of the gross inequities in our society.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “As you talk to your peers that are running other asset managers, and particularly more recently started maybe with ESG a year ago and now Black Lives Matter has certainly picked up, what are you hearing of interest and action in the industry?”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “No one can show me that. You can show good, consistent, high performance over time, and those distinguish themselves, but there's a mean reversion in performance, and that means the ability to maintain your business and keep clients over time is not solely a function of investment performance. As a matter of fact, it's proven in our business once you have a certain level of performance, there are a lot of other things that become more important determinants of actually perpetuating your business and your business model. And so the performance that you have to deliver to shareholders, trust me, Ted, it depends on that.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “Aren't doing well in the female demographic, well, you might not pay attention to that if you have no senior women leaders. And so, what happens is you have a fallacy in your mind about how well you're actually performing. And so now you have the opportunity to not only enhance and improve your performance with that group, but expand your business opportunities with that group. So that's another element of performance. The other thing is in investments, this is the inconvenient truth. We talk about investment performance, and it is important, but investment performance is mean reverting. Which means that even when you are a great investor, you're not going to have the top, in a sense, performing funds or products or however you measure it all the time.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “Diverse teams are particularly well adept at solving more complex problems. And it's kind of a simple reason. It actually makes sense intuitive. Like if you and I, like once you get a certain level of IQ, everything above that is just limited incremental benefit. So you got to have the requisite amount of intellectual capital. But after that, it's like if you're trying to solve a complex problem, you want as many like tools or tool sets as you can get to put towards it. And if we all have the same tool set, it just doesn't expand what we do. And so one, that's one component of the performance. The other component of the performance is what I call the opportunity cost that we forget about. And so a lot of times we don't realize that we haven't been performing optimally because we've been blinded to an area or a gap in our performance. So because maybe as a starting point, all of the decision makers looked alike, we didn't realize, for instance, I'll make this up.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “First of all, it's interesting because you see it in a couple of different ways. The first thing I would say is with respect to performance, we have to perform on a lot of different levels. We have to have investment performance, but we also serve clients, so we have to excel in terms of the client experience or the relationship. We have to perform in terms of how we work with other vendors and suppliers. We're often part of an ecosystem and we alone don't determine solely our success. We have to perform in terms of our ability to raise capital. We have to perform in terms of our representation of the firm in the marketplace, in the building, the brand through media. So I can, first of all, there are a lot of important elements of performance. Many of those elements involve solving oftentimes complex problems. And it's proven, and I can give you 20 different formidable branches of research that will show that”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “As you look at the asset management industry as a whole, it's such a performance outcome driven industry that you wonder sometimes will people across the food chain of capital, do they really care? They care about performance. They care about returns. Maybe they are completely colorblind and gender blind. All they care about is their performance. How have you seen the benefits of”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “To say we really want to change our diversity, so our starting point in our focus is going to be the establishment or expansion of our internship program. Now, let me be clear. I'm big on internship programs. I think we should multiply those exponentially and give lots of young people opportunities. But here's what will happen. If we do that, but we don't change the leadership of the boards or we don't evolve, especially the executive leadership of the company, if we don't have women and people of diverse or ethnic backgrounds and client-facing roles, first of all, as a young person, I don't even see those as realistic possibilities for me to ascend to in my career. There's no example of it in front of me. And the reality is when key decisions are made that are affecting diversity on any angle and you don't have any of those people at the decision table, it's hard, I think, exceptionally difficult to come to the very best answers.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “Expand, I started out heading our capital markets efforts and running our broker dealer business, and we were building out and expanding minority brokerage program. So the difference for me is like we have people with good intent who were going down that path and starting that program before I stepped into it. But myself in another one of the senior leaders there, we personally knew the leaders of many of those firms. So the ability to do that and partner with them and accelerate it changes in a different way. I also think, to be frank to you, there is a sensitivity that you have when you have a certain experience. So when you're coming from a diverse background, when you're an ethnic minority, frankly you spent your entire career thinking about this, navigating it or whatever. It's not an interesting idea to you. It's a practical reality. And so people take it for granted. And that's why I say this respectfully. I just don't fundamentally believe it's enough for firms.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “Better as a team because of it, and I will tell you we have more work to do, but it's moving down through our organization. And part of what enables that, and it's why I feel strongly about if you're serious about diversity starting at the top, a lot of times what happens is you have people of good intent, but they just may not have, say, for instance, connections to the diverse communities that we have. So if I think about my experience and I had a great working relationship and a personal relationship with my predecessor, once I came onto the team, if you think about things that we were looking to do in different areas, like if we were trying to recruit more diverse talent anywhere in the firm, I immediately expanded all those networks, everything from the schools that I went to being part of things like the Twego Foundation and things like that, those now relationships and networks in a sense become his and the entire teams. I can contribute that. When we wanted to”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “We've got a leadership team with 15 people on it. Nine of the members of our team are either women or ethnically diverse. So we have six people who are ethnically diverse. We have six women. Some of that overlaps. And frankly, we're one of the 20 largest investment management firms in the globe. I don't know the demographics for every team. I just know what I can see anecdotally. I have to imagine, Ted, that we have to be among, if not the most diverse or one of the most diverse leadership teams out there. But what I would tell you is I just described to you something that happened over the course of years. It happened, I always tell people this, not on accident, on purpose. There's no magic that you can just hope it will be so. It was through the intentional expansion of opportunities, and I fundamentally know, not just believe, I know that we're”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “Has to start somewhere. So I would say it started in effect with, say, my predecessor. When I joined the asset management executive leadership team, which was back in 2008, it was not a particularly diverse team. As a matter of fact, there was one gentleman who was an African American who moved to a different part of the organization when I joined and I joined. So then when I joined, I was the only, not only was the only African American, I was the only person of color on the team. We had an executive team of 16 professional and there were no women. But I want to point this out. But obviously there is a conscious decision of the gentleman who's leading the team to bring me on. So in his tenure, he not only brought people of color on the team as a starting point, but also we had our first women on the team. Now for me, that's good because it began a path that I was able to build on and frankly accelerate. So if you look at our team today,”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “Group in Northern Trust has quite a diverse leadership team, and I'm curious effectively how you got there so you've brought the people in through training, you've had these mentorship programs, but ultimately there's promotion and decisions as to who's running the organization. And I wonder if you could touch on how you were successful in getting to those positions today.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “Of the culture in that somebody and somebody's actually are interested and concerned about their career well-being, but also their teaching relationships. So that's the relationship through which the person learns to navigate the culture, which by the way we all have to learn, and that's the playbook that you don't get when you join. It's not in the ethics manual. It's not in the first day training manual. It's in the heads and the hearts of the people that work in the organization. And unless they choose to impart that knowledge to you, you will never have it in any meaningful or fulsome way.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “It probably feels less safe. That just would be a natural outcome of that. And if you're in the majority, you don't even think about a lot of times that element of safety because it's just the norm for you is feeling safe, right? The second thing, though, is the important role that mentorship and sponsorship plays. So what we have to do is get people, particularly the people that are, some of it is positional, but you know what? In any culture, even if you didn't know the titles, if you walked around an enterprise for about two weeks, you figure out who the high status people are. It would just be obvious. We signal it in all kind of ways through human nature. And so you need people in positional leadership roles, senior leaders, to actually consciously go out and mentor and develop relationships with individuals because it does two things. One, it not only makes them feel psychologically safe and apart.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “Now, what's one of the easiest ways to make an individual feel psychologically safe? It's to make them feel like they're part of the group or the coach. So one of the best tools at our disposition is actually providing individuals with strong mentorship. strong ways to develop relationships, especially organically within the culture. So think about, if I say start with the second one, develop”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “You know what's interesting? So there's no usually course that you're given, I can tell you. I know this is no secret to you that I'm an African-American. I can tell you in my entire career, no place that I've went to work has had this course that I've needed to take about how I can effectively navigate the culture as an African American. But what I would say is this it's actually a relevant question because in a sense it occurs. Now let me tell you how it does occur. It's an informal thing. I think what you need to do is when you understand that all enterprises and companies have to continue the evolution in terms of diversity have to work intentionally to be the most receptive place we can. What we talk about from a cultural sense whether it's not just diversity it's all kinds of elements. We have to make our culture psychologically safe.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “So once you've been successful in bringing some of these candidates in, I'm curious if there are any unique or differentiated methods of training that are important in a variety of roles. It could be entry-level roles all the way up because of the sensitivities and the biases that present themselves through someone's career.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “From time to time actually put the thumb on the scale. And do we as leaders need to do that with diversity? Absolutely. And you know why, Ted? Because we do it in every other area. When my teams come to an impasse on an important decision and they can't work it out, who has to push forward to make a decision? I do. And yes, it's informed by all these different inputs, but it is also informed by whatever my disposition or quote unquote, if you wanted to call it bias so that the hope is that you're getting good information and you have an informed bias. And that is no different as it pertains to pursuing better diversity.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “Increase the opportunities of it, people will adjust. Because what happens is we're all part of the culture. And so if people start to believe, you know what, diversity is really important here and I understand why and I buy into it. Here's what will happen, Ted. Without being forced in most instances, because remember I said we had that open emotional loop. You know what we'll do? You'll do it, Ted. You say, you know what? I'm close on these two people. I mean, let's be honest. I'm not a perfect judge. And because People will make the marginal decisions that achieve the outcome that you want. Now, here's what I will say. There are always the exceptions. And so if you're in a culture, and despite the best efforts to expand opportunity and despite changing the processes, you're not getting better outcomes, it ultimately then falls on the leader to make some decisions.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “And that's why we have the outcome that we have, right? So, what you try to do is, I think as it pertains to diversity, whether you're trying to improve gender or ethnic diversity, there is often a very adverse and in some instances negative reaction in cultures if you say we're going to in a heavy way put a thumb on the scale, so forth and so on. Interestingly enough, The challenge there is the very inequity that's often been created is because of the biases. And so then people are fighting against any conscious effort to offset that. I think what you have to do is you start with creating the expansion of what I call opportunities. I found in the majority of cases, Ted, not all, in the majority of cases, when you truly create as a value a cultural norm around diversity.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “So, if you have biases, it's reasonable to believe that from time to time you act on those biases. So keep following this logic. So it means that of the many decisions we've made, including hiring decisions, those have been informed in part by our biases.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “The ironic thing is if you ask people this question, do you believe you have any biases? What do you think most people would say?”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  46. “Question that I hear from time to time where there's sort of pushback on this diversity issue is in the hiring decision. If you're able to broaden the funnel, you have more candidates. And at the end of the day, there's only one slot. People say, oh, all else equal. Well, all else isn't equal. You have two different individuals, two different experiences. How do you go about thinking about, particularly in an organization that hasn't started with the diverse space, of is it appropriate? When is it appropriate to incrementally favor someone on the margin? This is all incremental and on the margin to foster that diversity.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  47. “Low base, or the situation looks difficult, it's sometimes easy to stow up your hand and say, well, just forget it. We just don't have this stuff in place. We can't find the people in all those different things. I think you have to have an affirmative approach to starting where you are in a meaningful and consistent commitment.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  48. “Change the dialogue around diversity, that you can't train the partners and especially the leaders that are there to have not only a greater appreciation for diversity, but train them in areas like unconscious bias. That doesn't mean that if you don't have a lot of existing, say gender diversity or ethnic diversity, that you still can't put into practice or policies that at least allow you to do things like to see more diverse candidates. Or it doesn't mean that you cannot, and in fact what it means is you should, expose the leaders that you have, particularly if they're not very diverse, to organizations, networks where they can interact with more diverse people. You ask a really good question because what happens sometimes, Ted, is, you know how you can do this with any issue, but I think it's sometimes, particularly as the case with diversity, if people are starting from”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  49. “You have to actually start from wherever you are. So here's, I think, something that we can comfortably say Ted. I've spent roughly twenty six years working in financial services. I am grateful for all of the firms I've worked for, and I think the reason I've been at Northern Trust for 16 years as accounting is because of what I think about the culture. And I can tell you for the industry and in every place I've worked, we've got meaningful work to do as it pertains to diversity. So there's no place that I've been a part of where I've been on a continuum and I say, gosh, we really nailed it and we can fold up our tent and go home. So if that's the case, because your question is a very fair one, but to your point, there might be some companies at mass or there might be certain parts of an enterprise or a company that there's just very little diversity as a starting point. That doesn't mean that you can't.”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  50. “Push a little further on two aspects of that. The first is probably less so of Northern Trust than a lot of organizations. But if we have an existing diversity issue within the hiring organization, and therefore makes it that much harder at all different levels to have the woman in this case be part of that interviewing. How do you think about solving for that issue?”

    2020-08-24 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source