Ep 14: Linda Aiello

This series we're looking look at a new campaign by MHFA England; My Whole Self. To create mentally healthy workplaces, people need to feel safe to be their ‘whole self’ at work. So how can we create workforces, wherever that may be, where everyone has the freedom to do this? To find out, Simon has gathered leaders from across the worlds of business, sport, and more...

Our final guest of the series is Linda Aiello, Executive Vice President, Employee Success Business Partner at Salesforce. Tech giant Salesforce has regularly appeared in international best places to work lists, and Linda has been at the heart of ensuring customer and employee satisfaction. She joined Simon over a video call to discuss:

• The importance of trust and authenticity in the workplace, particularly in the current climate, to create psychological safety
• Why Salesforce have encouraged a remote working culture for years and the best ways to do it
• The power of data and the ability to use it to improve workplace wellbeing, diversity and inclusion
• Zoom calls, the new normal, and managing your mental health during lockdown

We also learned a new Hawaiian word, 'Ohana' and the fact that Linda has lived in seven countries in her lifetime! We hope you've enjoyed this series and look forward to bringing you another one some time soon.

As always, we'd love to know what you think. If you could take a moment to rate and review wherever you get your podcasts we would very much appreciate your feedback. You can do this on most platforms including:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• Google Podcasts
• Stitcher
• TuneIn

Don't forget to get involved on social media using #JACPodcast and check out all the My Whole Self fun on our website.

More on Linda: europe.businesschief.com/leadership/2848/
'Supporting employees' mental health': peoplemanagement.co.uk/voices/comment/supporting-employees-mental-health

More on Simon: twitter.com/Simonablake
Simon Blake OBE is the Chief Executive of Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) England. His mission is to improve the mental health of the nation and help build an inclusive and  society where attitudes and behaviours around mental health are normalised. Simon received an OBE in 2011, is Deputy Chair at Stonewall, and enjoys running, equestrian eventing, and walks with his dog.

More on #JACPodcast:
MHFA England: mhfaengland.org
Email: media@mhfaengland.org

More on #MyWholeSelf: mhfaengland.org/my-whole-self/

Transcript

spk_0:   0:03
Hello, I'm Simon Blake, and this is just about coping For our final episode of the series, I was delighted to be joined over. Zoomed by Linda Hello, executive vice president, employees success business partner at Salesforce. For those of you who don't know, Salesforce's, an international software company which provides one of the world's leading customer relationship management service, is salesforce regular features in best places to work this around the world. And for the last three years, Linda has been one of the key drivers behind this and customer satisfaction. We talked about the importance of trust in the workplace on why this has become even more prominent in the current climate. We talked about transparency and authenticity in leadership, around decisions, the power of data on how we could use it to improve equality, diversity and well being within the workplace. On why Ohana, which is the Hawaiian word for family, is at the heart of the sales force work facing culture. As I mentioned last week, our conversation took place remotely. So apologies. If there's a drop off in our sound quality, I'm sure you will understand. So this is what happened when I spoke to Linda, Linda, Hello. Thank you so much for coming and talking. This is the first podcast that I've done by Zoom eso. Thank you for for going on this journey with me. If you could just tell us in five words or phrases, how would you best describe yourself? What would those words or phrases beer and why,

spk_1:   1:41
sure. First of all, I'm delighted to be her. Simon, thank you so much. I'm used to doing my days on Zoom. So this this doesn't change my life for me very much. I just get to do it from my couch instead of an office somewhere in the world. But in terms of words that describe me, it's I think it's really linked to my values s My 1st 1 is relationships, and I'm a person who has lived around the world. I've moved country multiple times this year. I'm actually gonna do it twice because everybody loves to move country twice in one year. Um, but my relationships are or how I operate in life on, and it's the family that I was born into, which is a wonderful one. And it's also the family that I've created in each of the places to which I've moved and also my family at work on. And I do my work very much through relationships as well. Um, I would say the 2nd 1 is influence and I think you know when when we use our when we use our abilities to influence people and make things happen in that way, rather than forcing things and pushing things, I find the adoption is better. You know how people live. It organically is so much better. The 3rd 1 is courage, and this is the one that can get me in trouble. Sometimes I think it's ah, it's the piece that you almost wish wasn't there. But I can't quite help myself. You know, I definitely believe in a world where we're sort of kindness and caring for each other is actually gonna bring us to a better place on also, you know, fighting for the things that matter is very, very important on I will. My team has seen me do it. I will fall on a sword for certain things if need be. Um e think the 4th 1 is joy on. That's one that, actually, my team assigns to me when I was talking through the values with them and they said, We think you're missing one, Andi it's joy and I do. I do find joy in all of the small successes, all of the learnings that we have sort of unique times that are going on right now. Even there there's some wonderful things that are coming out of this Kobe 19 pandemic on. I love that. And I would say it's sort of, well, you know, were worlds creature of the world. You can tell by May Accent. I'm American. I find it a compliment when someone tells me I'm the least American American they know, and I've spent my time living overseas the past eight years. But I grew up traveling internationally a lot, and I find that our greatest learnings, or when we really invest in other people's cultures and communities and you learn so much about the world but so much more about yourself in those moments

spk_0:   4:26
on dhe. Yes, and some great words. And I guess the one which really strikes me at the moment is courage that we rightly are really clear that there will be a negative impact off Cove in 19. But there's also great courage to be taken from how well people have adapted on how much people adapted, how quickly. And I think it's really important that we we focus on that you're as much as the negative impacts. If we really goingto mobilize and recover on, move through it really

spk_1:   5:01
funny. It's a funny thing, you know, I think people sometimes don't realize how much they have inside of themselves and how capable they are adaptation and of changing and their their agility, etcetera. That's that's there and there's a fear that's usually associated with that with with change, something that's different with something that's unusual with something that's scary, that's happening in the world and they're scary things that are happening all the time in the world and in life, and we're forced to face it in this moment. So it's great to see the strength of that so many people have and that everyone really has in neatly on how they're able to bring that forward and live that at this moment.

spk_0:   5:39
And I guess that key bit is that actually we're so good at comparing ourselves to each other that when everybody is in similar situations. How how we actually can take inspiration and dig deep. Yeah, because everybody's having to do so at the same time,

spk_1:   5:58
for sure, for sure. So just to

spk_0:   6:01
talk a bit about the my whole self campaign, we started the campaign when we were in the office, and I think the really key bit of that waas Yet in the context off being professional, that's how we are able to take our whole self to work on. To be able to express that without fear of retribution or judgment really enables us to live at the end of our creative zone, if you like, and movinto t new innovation. But obviously it's no longer the case at the moment that many of us are working from home. I guess it just be interested what you've learned in your role about employees taking their whole self toe work during this time. You know so much more than what you physically do it much more about the mindset

spk_1:   6:54
for sure, and that yet it's it's it's quite a time, but I actually I actually love these moments, and the zoom calls air the joy of my day because I get to see people in their sort of natural habitat, is it? Maybe I got a call the other day and I did kind of my my whole team and I did a split call one in the morning, one in the afternoon, in the afternoon call. There were 78 people on from all around the world. And there were people. There was someone holding her son in the U. S. Who was eating an orange skin and all on the call. Women in Germany who was rocking her daughter to sleep, you know, seen the rear end of someone's cat and dog in the in the screen on and you get an insight into people's lives. And it just brings us back to that spot where it reminds us that at the center of it all, we're all human. And I do think that that's actually a positive that's gonna come out of that. There's definitely that fear that people have it 1st 0 my gosh, My place is small. What if there's a noise? What if my kid runs into the room? You know what? If my buzzer rings would have What if What if? And it's okay that's life. That's what it is. That's what happens. And if it's not your kid running into your office for me, if I'm at the office, it's an executive running into the office, which is just about the same. But when we really thought about how to adapt to the situation that nobody is experienced before and as a company, we really referred right back to our number one value, which is trust. And this is This is why many people join sales force. And it's a huge part of the reason why people stay at Salesforce and people are really clear and they understand that they're being taken care of, um, that we are doing everything possible to take care of them through this time, give them whatever space they need in terms of that adaptation, give as many tools as we can as much support that we can so that they can also take care of their customers. But when we look at our response to this, you know, the number one focus that we have in our sort of strategy around the response and this is publicly available to all of our employees is around safety, health and safety. So they know that they can prioritize this safety and the health of themselves and their families, the people they're caring for above everyone else, which I think makes it a little bit a little bit easier for them to know where their priorities are. Um, we've also were very company that really, always embraces radical transparency. But this is kind of brought it to a whole new level, and it's it's around why decisions are being made when how decisions are being made to help people understand this and to really communicate with our employees. And we didn't we don't get this perfectly right at first. And of course, things happened really quickly. I've been sort of on the response for this since the 21st of January, when it first started hitting our teams in a pack. Um, and at first we were we were putting out notifications employee communications every time something happened, which means that then, if you're the person on the receiving side, you have this moment of fear. When you're clicking, that link of will go. What happened? What's the next piece that's gonna go? Uh, but we were. Then we started to say, OK, let's actually make sure we have a really single reliable source of truth that people can go to so they could be reassured and have. All of the resource is we have in the same place s O that everyone's going. So actually, now we have an email that we push out on every day. We use data that were capturing in the background through some employee surveys, pulse surveys through chatter, which is our internal messaging tool and communication tool To be able to understand what people are worried about. I'm thinking about and make sure we're feeding the content in terms of that. And I think you know this this learning piece. We're very open about the fact that we're all learning. So even the leaders are learning. We have, ah, global all hands call that happens every week, every Wednesday afternoon, and it's our executive team that are on there from home in their different spots. Kids coming on camera every once in a while, same as everyone else. Uh, and they're there and it's It's a very reassuring moment, but one of the things we've been very open about in our response to this is We're making an absolutely enormous amount of decisions at this time on an unprecedented environment, and we're gonna get some of them wrong and it's okay and we're gonna adapt and we're gonna fix it, and we're going to do the right thing. So generating that level of trust with our employees that we get it wrong, we will course correct and also giving them the space. So also maybe have a hiccup or fail a little bit during this time and knowing it's okay. And I would say the last point. And I talked a little bit about prioritization. We use a planning tool for a business every year called a V to Mom and stands for vision, values, methods, obstacles, metrics. And we do this for each employee. Each employee does theirs, but then for big project. So we did one fork over 19 response, and that's where I was saying we published that and we put you know, health and safety first, and then the second piece is around. Are our employees well being? And all of the different benefits, the adaptations that we're doing from that point in time, uh, to be able to do that. So it's it's It's really making sure that that people have that opportunity to do their work, to do their work as their authentic self and actually see a lot of other leaders and a lot of people doing it on The questions have been great on the all hands call where people, you know, some of them are very serious around certain responses. Thio. We're doing about hospitalized employees, and I'm really struggling, caring for my child and getting my work done. Thio. What is that thing sitting on the floor in Mark's office? Uh, which is really wonderful to see

spk_0:   12:51
Andi is how you keep that lightness at a time when people are worried is really important, isn't it be able to ask those questions with confidence? I was sat in a cool three other day and two people with completely different spaces. One was very Art Deco and on the other waas very much your child focused and lots of pictures, and it was just great to be able to see those contrasting whole Selves in one in one meeting space, the way which would never normally do Can I just told you a little bit about flexible working, which is something you've championed act sales force for a long time. And so arguably perhaps a slightly more prepared than some organizations have had fast track course in inflexible working. You talked a lot about trust in the previous question, which is absolutely, But how do you make sure on getting flexible, working right at any time, but even more so at a time where she say it's quite extraordinary and people having to manage all sorts of things in their real life as part of their working day?

spk_1:   14:05
For sure, I think you know the piece that goes along with trust is accountability. So it's, we trust one another, were also accountable to one another. So how we get things done and you know what? Values are one thing, but how you actually operationalize those and how you live them every moment and and we have. We have that agreement with our employees, and I know it's It's very hard for many people to make the leap from working in an office. Thio working remotely. We have all mouse seen what this can be. We can't unsee it. So anyone who thought before that it's not possible to do job, x, y or Z from from home. I think we've disproved most of that. Um, really making sure that on the other end that you're accountable and what we've seen over time to is first of all, when you give employees permission and we give them that trust on our clear about the accountability people step up, people rise up. Uh, people do this together as teams. Also, we've done a lot of work with our teams around fearless teaming, psychological safety, these air, these air two topics that we know actually impact the bottom line when you can get this right. This work. So some of that actually leaves weaves into this and again that you know that trust that trust piece coming back, like where people can ask whatever they want. Ask openly. And when our employees are asking questions to our executive team, we use our internal chatter tool and people they're not anonymous. We have put ways in which people can actually ask questions anonymously, but it's incredible to see how many people actually post on, and they post openly, and then people can kind of vote those up and down in terms of in terms of what's asked. So it's it's the hard things. It's the easy things, but coming back to sort of this, this flexible work. But we really understand that people have very different situations and you know, there are a lot of there's a lot of focus on people that have to care for Children at home and what that may be. They're also people who are alone, who are really isolated, said, thinking about how do we meet those people where they are in their journey? Um and how do we give them space to take care of themselves when one of the one of the things that we did is we, we recognize that this is a really important piece that people need to take time for, and in these days that are back to back soon calls. When is the moment that I take time for myself? We've started twice a day well, being calls there 30 minutes and we have different people on different days. Sometimes it's some of the monastics from Plum Village you're doing meditation with us. We've had Arianna Huffington on sharing the importance of getting enough sleep We have different doctors who are talking about health nutrition. We ever a chef that comes on and talks about, you know how to cook from thing with things you might have in your house. And it's reminding people that taking care of yourself is of utmost importance and actually scheduling that into their day. And we hope this becomes more natural cadence for people that they'll start to schedule that into their own day. But if we intentionally do that for people, we know that that's a big piece and a lot of it way also know that sort of still having fun and having camaraderie, having connectedness in a time where were otherwise disconnected. But this is This is not just about this time we're a global organization. As I said before, I'm used to being a beast, working remotely from people. My team is all over the world. How do you believe? How do you maintain this connectedness on? That's, you know, some things that are virtual coffees, making sure we start calls by actually checking in on each other, Um, and truly meaning it and asking this s o really encouraging people to take a break and remind them that we're all going through this same thing together

spk_0:   18:03
is one of things that I think is really interesting. Actually, I mean, we I'm trying as much possible to make calls 50 minutes rather than our. So there's a bit of a break in between, which I'm sure, is something that lots of people are doing. But notice how much of the meeting is the checking in on how, as long as you do that well, the business can be done actually much quicker. It seems so a meeting might take the same amount of time, but actually the proportion time spent on being human with each other and then fast tracking your that business and still making good decisions feels to me that seems to be something which is happening more and more.

spk_1:   18:40
And that's the piece that I want people to take out after this. How do you make sure What are the habits? What are the things that we're learning this time that serve us really well in all times? And how do we make sure we are truly checking in on one another? And when I think about the time that we spend with our colleagues is far greater often than the time that we spend with our families with our friends. And we have the ability to notice these small changes in one another that other people might not. And I live with. And when I ask personal, you know, how are you? And they'll say, Well, you mean at worker personally, I'm like, Well, if one isn't working out, the other one's not working out either. So let's let's have a whole conversation. Talk to me about where things are, Uh and, you know, sort of this a CZ work continues and thinking through and, you know, the future of work is here. We've landed in it. Um, this sort of work life integration doesn't mean that you work more that you spend more time being on its again about that authenticity and having those moments to step in and step out when you want to. And truly if you're doing something that you're passionate about and you really love it, you know it feeds your salary. Not your I'm sorry. Your soul, not just your salary, huh? Then then you do you do stay connection to these pieces. But then you have to have that balance and how both things. They're both things working in both aspects of that life for that full human

spk_0:   20:12
on. Do you think you talk about? We can't un see this. Do you think there are If you if you were to look six months, nine months, who knows how long your head do you think there are only things which you have a gone forever. The 9 to 5. What would your predictions?

spk_1:   20:32
Yeah, yeah. No, I have idea. A few predictions here. I would say I would say yes, the 9 to 5. Unless that works for someone. In which case you did. That's fine. I think this this idea that you have to you have to show up in person for a lot of internal meetings. Every day we spend an enormous time a CZ professionals meeting with each other, and we have people here commuting an hour and 1/2 each way, so three hours a day to have internal meetings sort of How useful is that of that person's time? And imagine if we can give that three hours back to a person. What that could mean for them. How they would spend that they also they're sort of equality of voice that happens when we're all separate and on a zoom call. Um, I'm often in a position where I'm the one person who sort of overseas, and I'm on a call with a bunch of other people who are sitting around a table somewhere in the U. S. And sort of having my voice heard can be tougher as certain moments and what I have seen the shift and I do think people will look toe, have more of that voice from each other and from from the group that's there. And that actually makes a much richer conversation, and it makes for better business, and it really allows people to feel included. So we're so far away from each other and we feel isolated, and yet we're possibly more included than we've than we've ever been before. I also I also see you know, the sort of the level of gratitude that I'm seeing with people about things that are a bit more simple, uh, and realizing also how important sort of kindness compassion is in these moments. But is all of the time we don't we don't lose anything by taking the time to be kind and compassionate and also but the other. The other prediction I have is that that will be more present, um, going forward as well, so that as individuals, when we can be together in person, that will really relish that time that we have with one another.

spk_0:   22:54
Which is It's interesting, of course, because without technology, this last month would've been very, very different. But actually, you perhaps have been intruding into our our moments of being present with people a bit. Thio. Yeah, I certainly think there's some interesting a ways, and you've Obviously Bean, a real champion of technology as a key way to improve employee experience in business, I guess would just be interesting. Just has a bit about how how you seem that whether you think this moment in time will amplify that within the business context. But whether it is going to shift any of our personal relationships as well.

spk_1:   23:38
Yeah, I mean, that's it that you use the bird amplify on, and technology needs to amplify sort of culture and how we work. It's not a replacement for it. It's those two things together on also using data that you're able tohave from technology That makes that really, really, really powerful. And, you know, so we sort of we start with that piece around culture, but we're really intentional about this, and I'm really always urging businesses to think about that and think about how they can operationalize their culture. What does this actually look like? What does this feel like with it? How do you How do you action this piece? Um and so we think about a CZ much time as you spend thinking about your products for your company or whatever, that peace is your customer experience and you're my title is employee success the the same way that we think about making customer successful? My team spends that time that energy and that technology making our employees successful. So how do you remove friction from experiences? And that's where technology can really have a big ad so you know, can scale the culture doesn't create the culture, but its scales it, um So we want to make again make sure our employees have this sort of consumer like experience, and so often you sort of see this gap between how a person experiences their own life at home. On a normal day, I would get up and I brush my teeth of my Phillips connected toothbrush, you know, on a nap. And and I might I'll pre order my coffee and my breakfast and pick it up along the way. You know, pick up my jump bike or get on my again and my uber through my phone and then get to the office. And then, you know, so many people get to the office and there, then you have a dongle or 56 different things. They have to sign on, and they don't have the ability to really leverage technology. And then also that data peace that comes out of utilizing technology. So, you know, it's it's a very funny things. People are this whole world where privacy is also important. And how do we sort of balance the tension between really the rich data that we have and what we can do with that Versace into the privacy that someone has. But when you are capturing data from technology, you're able to have insights on you're able to see changes, you're able to start to predict things uh, nothing to think about a world where we can actually see change in employee behavior and understand if an employee is likely to be starting to burn out or or have issues what we could do, how we could intervene, how we can kind of, you know, get there before something happens. How come we nudge something so that it moves in the right way? So we really use a lot of different data sources. I talked about chatter I talked about, You know, our view to Mom are online learning, which is called Trail Head. And we make sure that we have really insightful information about our people. And then again, that piece on trust and transparency, Um, we really make sure that we utilize technology to give transparency to our people and to make sure that they're they're sort of scene that we also we put them on journeys as if they are a customer. So a marketing journey, uh, the same way. If you were to go to the shop and buy something and or buy online, and then you get an email a couple months later asking how you like your products suggesting something else et cetera. We can do this with our teams and with her people as well. We can put them on journeys and whether that's about working towards a new role in the company or whether that's with someone. We have some great journeys going on right now, around around meditation and mental health and wellness, where people could opt in for a 30 day journey to try to build habits around. This s So that's some of the really wonderful ways that technology can can sort of change a person's day chains a person's a person's life and make their make their life easier and better

spk_0:   27:54
on dhe. That's one of things which I know you talk a lot about personally, but also a za company. And you got Ohana with Salesforce. Andi, just be interested. That psychological safety you talked about your having mental health. First aid is going just talk to us a bit about what harm them means. Rice Salesforce's embraced the idea because at the heart off data and technology being used for good, yours talk about trust and accountability, and those all obviously come together to create that psychological safety

spk_1:   28:31
and this this this Ohana piece. It's It's really at the center of our culture and who we are in the word actually means family. So it's Hawaiian word on a lot of the roots of our company came from marks time, his experience in Hawaii on how he experienced the world around him. And this is really about, uh, no one being left behind, and everyone has stood up by each other. So your ohana again, it's not the family you're born into unnecessarily. It's your community around you. It's your customers. It's your it's your colleagues, et cetera. And how do we make sure that we have that responsibility toe one another? Ah, that one. That one wouldn't and hopefully does with their family as well. And it's it's It allows us to then go into those things around psychological safety, making sure that people have space to fail to question toe learn, because this really adds to kind of the collective intelligence of the organization and the safe. Please. It was speaking up. I talked about one of my one of my values and one of my words being courage. Um, there are a lot. There's a lot of bifurcation of opinions right now, that's the sort of downside of technology and technology targets. Sort of your own biases, and you're you're Then did I just fed Maur information that you believe in? But how do you have the opportunity to to raise your voice and to share that opinion? I'm one of five Children, and I explain this to my my team often where I said, like, we did not always get along. Um, but you know what? At the end of the day, we all still have each other's backs. We debated things wholeheartedly. Google, maybe ever has ruined that for us because used to actually be able to have a really brilliant dinner conversation and debate around some facts. Now we can look it up a little more readily, But there, you know, how do we make sure that we give space tow one another to be able to do this? And also, how do we make sure that our our family, our Ohana, is representative of what the world looks like so that you're not on Lee again, feeding yourself with the the same information, the same ideas, the same thoughts that other people that other people have that other like minded people have that people who are the same. So how do you make sure you're actually seeking out points of view that are different and incorporating those and learning from those and actually realizing how rich something is? You know, we have employee resource groups, as many companies do, or quality groups of and such as, you know, out force, which supports our LGBTQ community, bold force for black employees and allies. And really, these individuals are also helping make sure that our ohana really reflects what the world looks like beyond beyond. Beyond the walls that were used to seeing

spk_0:   31:40
is really interesting that you're struck by talking about different points of view. We we often talk about healthy conflict at work, and it just feels like it's the wrong wrong terminology to have healthy and conflict together. It's actually just different ideas and different points of view, and if you can use them, where is conflict tends to put us into that sort of negative frame of mind, So you just think it's so important to have that diversity of you and of opinion and off experience in the room in order to help better ideas and be more innovative.

spk_1:   32:19
That's it. And that's you hit on it right there to that innovation. So innovation doesn't happen without breaking things without some conflict. And really, I think really strong and great organizations. And I've seen this with some of our customers as well. There's some amazing examples of companies out there that have these these tensions on its these pieces that are pulling, you know, they're pulling apart. But I almost think of this like rubber bands stretched to the max. And, you know, it's kind of pulling it back together at the same time on, and that's that's really something that that makes us stronger. And I know it's funny with different cultures shy away from it in different ways. I worked for a French organization for seven years, and it was a great exercise and learning debate, a cz, a child in school. I was not to debate my teacher in the French school system. You get a bit more of that and there's a real level of comfort around a table. Oftentimes there where you know, if the question is a or B, it doesn't really matter if you choose a or B just like have a good case behind it because someone else at the table is gonna choose the other one and you're gonna have a really healthy debate. You may make a decision about six other things and not the thing you initially planned done. But again, the richness and conversation when there is diverse point of view and diverse thoughts makes it makes it such a such a more interesting in a more innovative place at the end of the day.

spk_0:   33:43
How how in your experience have you seen that done best in terms of workplace cultures? What, given that there is no work perfect workplace culture? But how? How have you seen this done your best in your in your experience or, Yeah,

spk_1:   34:02
I think it like again, it's It's coming back to the the importance of being again intentional about that. That culture it really needs to be actively defined. It doesn't just happen, Um, and you know, putting formal processes in place and I'm my team knows this of me. I'm not. I'm not a process person for process sake, but when it's when it drives something, and when it creates goodness when it removes friction when it opens doors. That's for you to do that, you know. So putting these really formal processes in place to foster to promote cultural values and, you know, on the tension piece, it's it's again, you know how How do we make sure we give examples? How do we actively show that as leaders that this is okay and this is meaningful? This is important on that. We face them head on right now is a great time to even discuss with your with your colleagues with your family is about some of the tensions that just exist in the world. You know, we have a a great tension between, you know, in many cases, keep it keeping everyone safe. And also the impact that this is gonna have on certain businesses or economies, like we're not going to get both in this moment. So how do we think through how to debate that? How to make right decisions around those pieces? I would also say, you know that, you know, is there Is there a perfect culture? Every culture is different because there were humans. We're all going to be different in the sum of those parts are never gonna be the same. That's the beauty of it. But thinking about making sure that things were deeply, deeply rooted inequality, Um, when I talked about, you know, making sure that things have processes behind them and we have deep, deep commitment to equal rights, equal pay, equal education, equal opportunity and we actively engage on those constantly. And that shows, you know, that shows our employees that this is important when we're interviewing. People were asking about those pieces, asking about those things and making sure they're there. And this is really, really essential to make sure that it's it's defined as a goal. And it's not just, you know, sort of taken for granted, and it really takes constant focus, constant adjustment, Um, and you know, from the top down, but also in every single in every single partner organization. And it's it's important that we each are accountable for also calling each other out when we're not living up to that. So going back to the Ohana, you know when when you're not living up to your your part of your role in the family and everyone everyone has there ever and has their role in everyone's contributing that you say You actually say, Hey, no, no, no, That's That's not who we are on being accountable for that accountable to one another.

spk_0:   36:59
And I know that you have very passionately driven and talked about more women in tech on Dhe. Clearly, that also extends toe all groups of people who otherwise wouldn't wouldn't necessarily be represented within the tech industry and other sectors. I'm sure you feel passionately about it being crustal sectors help. Where have you seen most progress and where do you think there is still much more to be done?

spk_1:   37:33
Uh, I should say it's one of the It's one of those topics that, like there's never a finish line for this. X is the world sort of shifts around us. This this always changes, and I've seen progress. They've seen progress within our own organization. I've seen progress in other organizations in the world, but I also see where where we take step backs. And I was actually just reading a book called Invisible Women, and it's one of those one of those things that you know. It's such a wonderful book, and it makes me so angry at the same time because, you see, actually, how data has actually excluded certain populations and decisions are made based on data. Um, And then without that data on the those people, you actually are making the wrong decisions for the people that they impact. Um, we've we've definitely seen movement. Andi, think this this piece again about transparency is important on more and more governments or forcing levels of transparency around gender diversity around pe pe fairness in a fur. For us, it was a really important topic on equal pay. On several years ago, my my former boss, uh, the lovely Cindy Robin's approached Marc Benioff, our CEO, and said, Hey, I think there might be an issue. I think we might not have fair pay. Um, kind of responded, saying, Of course, we get 08 minutes. This is part of who we are, uh, but made a commitment that we're gonna take a look at the data and see what you know. But what the answer is and correct it if it wasn't eso we did at that period of time, and then we did in subsequent years and, you know, we used to actually separate out how we talked about, You know, this is your increase and this is your equal pay adjustment if there was a variance and it's actually become such a part of our culture and such a part of our process is so we're actually checking this at every single moment and thinking about how do we drive us? How do we make sure that there's there's party? There's pay fairness, genders, one lens looking through underrepresented minorities. And you know, are we doing that? Are we taking that lens as well? I think it's It's also really important from a gender standpoint and that young women have role models that they can relate to that they can aspire to be. And they really need to see these women, like, represented across all levels, different achievements. The tech industry, I know is, is always put in a hard place and given given, given a a ah black mark for for the work done there. We've done a lot of work around bringing in female leaders and developing our own, so it's a combination of the two. We have a program called Future Force, where we're starting with people right out of university and we're having gender balanced classes or even greater. We had one of our classes in the UK they tend to range in about the 70% of them are women, and this is choosing the best candidates. It's not. It's not about having a quota. It's about making sure we look a diverse pool and choose the best folks each time. And then if you can grow your culture, grow your population through you know through the ranks and make sure you don't attrit and don't lose them and how do we keep them? Then you're able to see change long term and and and that's one of the key things. I think it's it's easy to say, Okay, we're gonna make this extreme choice. We're going to do this and we're gonna, you know, push for this number of people, et cetera. But you have to make active changes that are going thio. You're you're in it for sort of the marathon, not just the sprint, and, you know, it might not push the needle that much in your one or you're too. But if you replicate this every year for the next 10 years, what does that look like. And what future are you building? Uh, for for the people around you, but again, like using data is very important there, You know the numbers, the numbers don't lie. And how do we make sure we're actually showing this on and having conversations about it and and our each accountable for what we shape and what we bring in the in the organization

spk_0:   41:53
And talking of being for a marathon, not a sprint on your Audrey Lorde talked about self care being important part off self preservation. How how do you look after yourself? Particularly with a global roll? Different time zones, you know, how do you make sure that you get yourself care practice and you talked as we were beforehand about your daily walk at the moment? Yeah.

spk_1:   42:23
So, you know, I think if I had to learn how to become disciplined around self care and actually build it into my day's schedule it into my day, you know, I work through multiple time zones, so if I if I didn't take care of it, I could be working from five in the morning until 11 at night, just getting through all the time zones So I actively schedule my weeks so that I have a couple of these that are my early days with my team in a pack and Japan days that I'm more focused on San Francisco. So they go later into the evening. But then personally, right now, yes, it's about my walk every day and actually cherish this. My sister is staying here with me in isolation. We isolated together us instead of being doing it 3000 miles apart. And we take that time and we just discover new streets every day. I am a person who deeply believes that, and I know that my physical health very, very much impacts my mental health. So normally I would be in a class every day. Whether it's you know, aren't theory Barry's bootcamp a bar class, whatever that maybe, um, I don't have that right now, so I'm using either pellet on. I'm on my palate on every day on dhe. There's actually great social parts for that, and I have people who are on my team who also appellate on owners. We follow what each other is doing. I have my apple watch on me A with my team I also, we track each other and we cheer each other on in terms of our fitness. But I literally schedule that into my day. Um, and I'm also very thoughtful, especially at a time like this when it can be stressful about about eating as well. And, you know, I actually am. I'm having food delivered every day for my sister and I were someone, actually, preps are meals, which means that I am keeping a company that I really love in business during this time, Um, be I'm getting really well prepared things that were going to give me energy that are going to keep me Well, uh, and see, I don't have thio, you know, fight over groceries of people who need them every day over weight room's down the street from me. Uh, I'm also it's It's about finding, um, finding times to connect with my family with my friends and questioning also, why am I not doing this all of the time? Uh, and also finding, you know, simple moments of joy in the day. On a walk last week, there was an Italian cafe that had takeout that was open. I needed to grab something for Easter dinner and their coffee counter was open and I got a nice coffee and a pastry, and it seemed like such a deep luxury. And I realized how many moments that I've I've let happen that I just take for granted. So it's again like taking a moment to reflect on like, this is a This is a gorgeous moment, Um, and this is great. And that's one of the things I want to make sure that I carry forward as we come out of this to just really, um, experiencing great joy from simple things

spk_0:   45:33
and that feels like a really good place. Thio, end our fair zoom podcast, I think, doesn't it? Because actually, as you say, that that bit off moving forwards, we must never just go back and how we take those moments of jewelry, how we recognize the power that is within us feels incredibly incredibly important. So thank you. Thank you very much for for spending some time with me this morning. And I'm hoping that it's all recorded well on will be able thio t publish next week. So yeah, it's been a real pleasure. Thanks very much. Sounds great It's been

spk_1:   46:19
a pleasure, and may we all

spk_0:   46:22
bounce forward from this. It's not about bouncing back. It's about bouncing. Thank you. Thanks so much. So that was my conversation with Linda. It was an absolute pleasure on there were so many great ideas that we can all take away and think about for our own workplaces. In particular, I liked when Linda talked about decisions. We may not get all of them right at the moment, and that's OK because we will learn and adapt something I think we can all agree will help us through this particular period in time. That's the end of the second series of just about coping. I hope you've enjoyed it and thank you to Dara, Nat Adah, Mike Curl and Linda for their time and their expertise. I hope that you've enjoyed the Siris on we'd love to Hear from you. You can write and review the podcast on apple podcasts. Spotify and many other podcast platforms do join in the conversation with the hashtag J A C podcast. Like a lot of things at the moment, we're going to be pausing just about coping for awhile and having a think about what our next series may look like in this rapidly changing world, a reminder that if you're working from home, there are lots of resources available on our website for both. Looking after yourself and your team. We'll be back soon, but for now I'm Simon Blake and thanks for coping with us.