Building a Thriving Company Culture In Our New World of Work with Claudia Chan

To stay competitive and successful in our new world of work, business leaders must develop a company culture of positivity and productivity.

Joining Carrie Charles today is Claudia Chan, leadership speaker and culture change expert. In this thought-provoking episode, Carrie and Claudia discuss the challenges many business leaders are facing in developing company culture, and explore the strategies and solutions needed for success.

In this dynamic conversation, they tackle discussions of diversity, inclusion, equity and belonging in the workplace, delving into the importance of elevating women into leadership positions, the future of remote work, and engaging the next generation of employees.

This episode is a must-listen for leaders who want to stay ahead of the curve in our ever-evolving world of work. Listen along for valuable insights on developing a culture that supports growth and innovation to thrive for the next decade.

For more business leadership insights from Claudia Chan:

Follow Claudia’s whole-life leadership on Instagram: @ClaudiaChanWagner
Sign up for her newsletter at ClaudiaChan.com for spontaneous leadership messages
Check out her book, “This Is How We Rise“
Listen to her “How We Rise” leadership podcast

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Building a Thriving Company Culture In Our New World of Work with Claudia Chan

Thanks for joining me now on the show. We have a wonderful episode for you. We have Claudia Chan, who is a culture change expert and global leadership speaker. She is the creator of the award-winning S.H.E. Summit. She’s also a New York Times celebrated author of the book, This Is How We Rise, and a UN Women Champion of Innovation. Her company, SHE Globl, offers powerful learning and coaching experiences that pull leaders and organizations toward their highest vision of social, business, and talent innovation.

Since 2012, over 400 corporations have put their people through their programs to elevate purpose, inclusion, and well-being in the workplace companies, including Google, Samsung, Konica Minolta, ESPN, Morgan Stanley, American Express, Bacardi, PepsiCo, and more. Claudia, welcome to the show. I know everyone is dying to hear what you have to say.

I’m so looking forward to this. Thank you for having me.

How did you get into this world? Tell me about your story.

I have been an entrepreneur for 23 years. I’m from New York City originally. I always have such a passion for people and connection. I just knew that I wanted to build businesses in the people space. I became a person of faith too, which also deepened that connection to humanity, how extraordinary human beings are, and the possibility and potential inside people when we get to know them.

I couldn’t agree more. I know that you had this incredible event, the S.H.E. Summit. I want to talk a little bit about diversity when it comes specifically to women in tech. Technology or telecom is a male-dominated industry. Companies are desperate for strategies and ideas around attracting, engaging, and retaining women. From your perspective, what can we do differently to help bring more women to companies and promote them to leadership roles?

Building on that first question that you asked me about my journey, I had gone to an all-woman’s college and high school. I’m a Chinese-American. It’s a typical immigrant story where they came to America with very little and ended up starting their first Chinese restaurant. My mother always raised me and said, “To own your independence, you have to own your own business.” My journey was unintentionally very rooted in the women’s space, having the all-girls education, and having such a strong mother. I didn’t even realize that women were not equal and had equity. Equity to me is having an equal starting point. Do all women have the same opportunities to start at the beginning?

Equality is the end goal, which is, “Do we have equality in these roles? Are we at 50/50 versus equity? Do all the women in the room have the same opportunities to advance and to get to that next level as the men do?” I grew up in a world where I didn’t even realize that women didn’t have those equitable opportunities. Learning and studying at Smith College, an all-woman’s college, and starting to enter the workforce, I was blown away by the statistics. I remember years ago, 3% of Fortune 500 CEOs were women and 70 cents of the man’s dollar. Even globally, women do 70% of the world’s work and own 2% of the world’s real estate.

These were stats about ten years ago. Sadly, we have not gotten much better. Fundamentally, over the last decade, I started the S.H.E. Summit conference. Wanting to create empowerment opportunities to expose women to role models and stories because you cannot be what you cannot see, I noticed the difference. It’s one thing to empower women, but you also have to change the culture that the women are working in. Those are two separate things.

Globally, women do 70% of the world’s work but own only 2% of the world’s real estate. These were stats from ten years ago, and we still have not gotten much better.

What type of culture do women thrive in?

The mainstream conversation around women in the workplace, and gender equity in the workplace for women was refueled about ten years ago when Sheryl Sandberg wrote Lean In. Prior to that, Xerox started the first women’s employee resource group in 1968. Women’s groups were the first solution at companies, “Let’s start a women’s network. Great.” You’re approaching a very successful senior-titled woman. It may be a VP or an SVP, there are a few of those. You’re like, “Carrie, can you be the head of our women’s ERG?” Meanwhile, it’s additional labor and work, unpaid. There’s barely any budget and resources. Historically, for decades, this is what was happening in organizations.

Company reputations and corporate bias are saying, “We strongly support women. We have a women’s group.” We’ve got women in the same room talking to women about the same problems. We’re also not speaking to the dominant groups that have those influences to change the culture. One is to realize that it’s a double parallel effort. You need to empower and equip women with tools and opportunities so that they can be in the room also to have those opportunities.

At the same time, you also have to make sure of the culture. Who’s creating the culture? It’s the managers, leaders, and heads of the divisions. It’s critical that it’s a 360 strategy on our corporate values and our cultural values that are not only going to be put on the wall but are also going to walk that talk. At the same time, it’s making sure those programs are also there to lift women.

Diversity is more than just bringing in more women. Where are we with diversity and inclusion in general in our workforce now?

I still feel that many people don’t understand what diversity means. Someone was like, “Diversity and inclusion is its worst enemy,” because women were the largest underrepresented group. That’s why within diversity and inclusion initiatives, women are the first category that gets typically started in terms of initiatives and programs. The other dimensions of diversity that you’ll see in a lot of organizations will be the other underrepresented groups. It could be people of color, the African-American community, Latina communities, veterans, disabilities, or LGBTQ. Those are other dimensions of diversity.

There are also many other dimensions. It could be socioeconomic and generational. I like to think of diversity as your diversity of stories. You could take two White individuals and two Black individuals, and they could have completely different stories of what their challenges and invisible barriers are. There’s the generic definition of diversity and inclusion, which now has changed. It has evolved into diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging or DEIB. We can also dive into that a little bit more and what those differences are.

I think companies are all figuring out what diversity, equity, and inclusion mean that is unique to our company, and the story and heritage of our company.

Maybe it’s who founded the company, where we’re located, what kind of industry are we in, what kind of people we attract, and what type of people. For example, if you are in tech and telecom, it’s a very male-dominated industry. How do you create more pathways for women and other diversities to come in? It’s unique to every organization, and you need to define what those words mean to you.

Diversity, equity, inclusion, and belongingness are unique to every organization. You need to define what these words mean to you.

I couldn’t agree more. We are living in this new world of work. It’s confusing to a lot of leaders as we navigate this and say, “Who do we need to be over here? What can we do? What can’t we do?” In your view, how have things changed in the last three years?

Back to the very beginning question, and the twenty-something years of work that I’ve been doing in creating experiences and platforms that elevate the human experience, and the human experience of work. I know you work in talent in the global workplace in these specific industries. I feel like diversity, inclusion, women, and all these conversations and topics were big over the last decade. Once COVID hit, in a way, humanizing work because flexibility happened. All of a sudden, many people got permission to work from home or in hybrid settings. We proved to big corporations and employers that we can be just as productive or even more productive working from home.

5TT Claudia Chan | Company Culture — Company Culture: We proved to big corporations that we can be just as productive—or even more—when working from home.

I know that depending on the industry you’re in like some consultants, some people might have had a lot of work from home. What COVID overnight did for people in the workplace was what the disabilities movement has been trying to do for decades. For a lot of folks in that disability category and mental health, it impacts people at work. They were required to still come into the office. COVID did that pretty immediately. We learned a lot over the years. I believe that the conversation now is that even though there’s this new benefit of being able to see your family more and take care of personal matters more because you get to work from home, the challenge then is productivity, talent engagement, team engagement, and connection.

In my work in corporate culture, the biggest challenge that I hear about is how we create that connection, community, and engagement. That’s hard, especially with the younger generations. Right now, what I see happening is we also came off the Great Resignation. That happened. What were the movements? It was lean in about women, Black Lives Matter, and George Floyd. Race was a massive conversation in the workplace. COVID happens and now, it’s the Great Resignation. That’s a new movement. We then hear about the quiet quitting, but then now that the economy is where it is and inflation is high, tech companies are letting go of a lot of people. Now, we’re in quiet firing.

I feel like we’re in this moment of time where we can look at it as terrifying or we could look at it as such a ground for innovation, and for companies to build that solid foundation the right way, which is about humanizing work. How do you balance humanity with productivity? How do you balance and create a culture that is efficient, but also has high levels of empathy? That is what I believe will create the future for the most successful companies.

How do you balance humanity with productivity? How do you create a culture that is efficient but also has high levels of empathy? That is what will create the future for the most successful companies.

I love everything you said. As leaders, we humanize work through this experience of COVID and the experience of remote work. I have so many clients that are saying, “I want to get people back in the office,” and they’re having a hard time. Also, the candidates that we talk to on a daily basis don’t want to come back to the office. They want to remain remote. There’s a conflict happening now. The leaders need to still perform, produce results, and have a high-performing team. How do leaders still drive those results, hold people accountable, still humanize work, and make sure they check all of the boxes in that empathy area?

We talked about one of your earlier questions about how we hire that diversity and retain them. Forget about diversity, just talent. How do we hire the best and retain the best? It’s about getting those candidates, but your culture has to be in place. Especially post-COVID, people want to understand your culture and the culture they are getting into because “I am a dad. We just had our second or third kid. My wife wants to move.” You have that mid-level career woman whose daughters are going to be teenagers soon. They’re dealing with a lot more emotional labor and stress, not to mention mental health.

The surgeon general of our country has announced for the first time that his number one concern is a mental health crisis, especially in the workplace. He has created a framework for companies to practice mental health and well-being. I always say companies are micro societies of humanity. They are like a little city. If you’re 50, 500, or 5,000 people, you’re running your own city or your own little country. You’re responsible for the humanity within that body of humanity of people.

Back to what you were saying, historically, business was created to be a business. It wasn’t created to prioritize your family in your home, even though that was more secondary. Now, we need to integrate it all. I feel that the best companies that I see are clear in their culture. When somebody says to me, “Does this company have a good culture,” I’ll say, “How many managers do they have, and I’ll tell you how many cultures they have.” I don’t care if you manage one person or you manage five people, managers create the subcultures within an organization.

A lot of times, companies might say, “We’re going to be a culture that is respectful and prioritizes our customers but also checks in with our people. We’re going to be entrepreneurial.” You can have all these words on the wall. Unfortunately, there’s a huge gap between what you think your culture is and what is felt and experienced. You want to create a culture where the experience and what is felt match what is said and what the copy is.

Culture has to eventually match the copy. You’ve got to get those managers practicing those things. I think how managers want to practice and create those cultures can be very entrepreneurial, but that’s where the work is. The dads and moms at my school are all struggling. They manage teams, and I have these conversations with them. They’re like, “Claudia, I’m struggling with managing my people and getting productivity out of them.”

We need to bring in learning, development, and training that will help build more of those soft skills. We also need passionate leaders at the top who are walking that talk. They are holding regular town hall meetings and are inspirational. We live in Tampa Bay. How amazing is the culture in the city? Why is it? You feel the leadership in the city. We need to re-energize the leadership of the people.

You work with so many companies on a daily basis. You said that some companies that are doing this right do X. I’m just curious about keeping your remote teams because people are still pushing for remote work. I don’t think they’re going to give up on this. They want hybrid. They want remote. What are some ways that you’re seeing that your clients are succeeding in keeping their remote workforce engaged and accountable?

The ones that are successful are the ones where you can be highly efficient. You’re super clear on, “This is my role and my contribution to my job.” You understand the vision of the leadership. This is the leader. He’s the head of our city. It’s showing that vision of where we want to be. Here are the vulnerabilities of where we’re struggling. Here’s where we have the opportunity, and here’s where you can contribute. The transparency, the meaning, the purpose behind the organization’s work, and the clarity for individuals and those employees are important. Leadership communication, that sense of purpose and meaning, and how much my individual work will matter as a part of this bigger collective mission that we all have, they all matter.

Number two is there are boundaries set. For example, it’s clear that this is the goal of my role and this is what I own, but there are boundaries in my schedule. It’s holding meetings for a short amount of time, checking in, and being human, but then also getting to the outcome of this meeting. Keep those meetings short and productive. It’s having internal communications and policies around virtual meetings, or when you respond to emails. A lot of those are digital body language. My friend Erica Dhawan wrote a book called Digital Body Language. It’s getting clear on the policies.

The healthiest companies I see are killing it. They are so productive, and their people have a lot of work-life balance. They have those boundaries built into their schedules. There’s also that collective mission, energy, and inspiration. I always say it’s purpose, inclusion, connection, and well-being. We know you got to hit your productivity, ROI, and KPIs. We know the data has got to get checked. We know that.

It’s those human practices of elevating the purpose and the meaning of my individual contribution to that connection, community, and inclusion, which create belonging. I belong here. I care about the five people I work with. I don’t want my boss to be stressed out because he’s not going to meet this quota. I want to be highly communicative with him or her about where I’m at. I feel safe telling him that I’m behind because my kid is sick.

That sense of inclusion and belonging is important for that connection and community, and then well-being, I’m able to not have impostor syndrome or have a mental health crisis or anti-anxiety medication because I’m quietly suffering in my job, which so many people are. The surgeon general shared the statistics. It’s these human qualities of purpose, inclusion, connection, community, and well-being, and embedding those into not just the wording but the practices.

Leaders struggle with empathy. It’s something that is challenging for many leaders. It’s absolutely desperately needed in today’s workforce as a leader, and to everything you just said to make all of this happen. How do we as leaders work on that empathy muscle? What does that look like? How do we still get our jobs done?

I was reading an article the other day. There was a study done that asked employees, “Would you rather have flexibility inside your work schedule of five days or would you rather have a four-day work week?” It was almost unanimous that they wanted flexibility in their schedule. This is challenging for some leaders. Especially for some of the Gen X-ers, Baby Boomers, and us old folks, I can say that because I’m 55, it can be challenging to have that empathy and say, “You can have this flexibility.” How do we develop that muscle?

One of the things we were talking about earlier was what leaders need to stop doing. This ties in with that, which is to stop looking at your people like they’re just pure productivity machines or they exist in your organization just to produce. See them for the wholeness of who they are and the whole person that they are. They could be to their daughters, sons, parents, sisters, brothers, wives, husbands, and all that, and reflecting on yourself. You are one of those things too.

It also connects to generational. I’m a Gen X-er. I’m 48. A lot of us Boomers and Gen X-ers are maybe older Millennials. Our strategy for success comes from where most people come from. Whether you’re half German, Jewish, or Chinese, there has been some level of trauma in our cultural backgrounds. We lived through a pandemic, but our ancestors came from colonization and so much, depending on if you’re European, American, or whatever is in your background. They came off of World Wars and that generation were the parents that raised us. Our nervous system and our sense of security and worthiness as individuals are so rooted in our ability to be productive. Productivity means safety and security.

For a lot of leaders, it’s about provision, safety, protecting those around us, and providing for your family. Culturally, we’ve had to go to Harvard or Yale, or have all these accolades and all these internal wins in order to get those promotions. We are a society and a culture that’s promoted based on merit. It’s so wired into our systems that productivity equals success. There’s a little anxiety and control that can get attached to that. I think it’s probably a cliché but think about the challenges that these very successful leaders have at home with maybe aging parents, a spouse, or a teenager.

At the end of the day, every human being wants to be seen and heard. They want to feel worthy. That’s the belonging. It’s a human experience. When we talk about empathy, if you’re a manager, your employees or the two people that work for you want to feel valued. If they don’t get that affirmation and empathy, depending on what their family of origin is and what their background is, there will be internal barriers, mental health, and impostor syndrome. You are actually creating invisible walls for your people if you’re only pulling them toward success through productivity and not through their humanity.

That’s a quote right there for the Millennials and Gen Zs. We hear it all the time. There’s that generational conflict though between those Millennials and Zillennials. That’s what they call them now. What do we need to do differently or how do we need to look at these younger generations as an opportunity? How do we get them engaged and keep them in a place where they’re growing and excelling, and they stay with us? I think the average Millennial maybe stays on the job for less than two years.

We haven’t even talked about Gen Z and this younger generation that are probably like our kids starting elementary school. To build off of that last question, sometimes I can get deep into thought. It’s the culture. I’m a culture person. I get into the layers. The practical thing that managers can do with empathy is to think of that person on their team as a family member and bring home their family experience. Think about if you got into a fight with your wife or if your teenager is acting resistant. They’re not feeling they can be themselves at this moment. They’re not feeling heard or there’s something there.

You’ve got to stop and pause. Even if I want to be productive at this moment, I need to realize that this person is having a different human experience. They’re clearly triggered. Instead of trying to change everybody else, how do I change myself? That’s one of the top leadership qualities. I can’t change other people and control them through command and control. That way is fleeing. We’re seeing the retention challenges there. It’s about how I work on myself and be more empathetic. Using those family relationships. Think of it as if this was my cousin or my niece. Thinking of it that way could be a quick tool to help you with empathy.

Moving on to the question about Gen Z and these younger generations, forget about it. There’s new research that shows they don’t even want the pressured jobs. They see the burnout of their parents. They’re reading the news and the mental health statistics. Being Chinese, I have relatives and family in China where I’m hearing about how young people don’t want big lives where they make huge salaries. They want quality of life and well-being over that paycheck and this extravagant life that maybe older generations were trying to get. The key is we need to create cultures that have a lot of human values and practices built into them.

Young people care about meaning, purpose, and well-being. They care about relationships and community. They care about diversity and all of these issues. I think also entrepreneurship, but starting to invest in cultures, innovation teams, and innovation initiatives where there’s an opportunity to be entrepreneurial within your organization. That’s another huge quality, the innovators.

My advice to those who work in corporations is you want to be the market leader. If you have three big competitors, you want to be the leader. You want to be the company in your space next to your three competitors, that has the best reviews on LinkedIn, Indeed, or Fairygodboss, which focuses just on the workplace. You want to have the best reviews on your culture. You want to show the most programs and initiatives. You want to be the leader, not the follower. Those companies are going to be the ones that are ahead of the game in getting the best talent and the most innovative young talent that’s coming through.

Our audience is made up of leaders from all different roles and levels. There are some leaders that may not be able to make a major impact on culture because the company may be too large. There could be a leader who is at the helm that can make the change overnight. Speak to the leader or speak to one person who is saying, “What can I do from my seat? How can I cause change and create a team that is engaged?” There’s no quiet quitting here, and no quiet firing either. What can I do as a leader to make sure that I’m the best leader for the next decade?

I would say to that leader, “You should assess your culture.” That’s the first thing. Understand the state. I know that a lot of HR divisions will send out the company surveys and all of that, but it’s innovating those culture assessments and that survey. There’s a great company here in Tampa Bay called livingHR. I’m close to their CEO, Keri Bigelow. It’s incredible the work that they’re doing by humanizing work, and powerful culture tools that give you a state of the union as to, “This is how your people are doing and feeling about your culture,” and getting deep and wide in some of those invisible topics that are so easy to go, “Yeah,” and then it gets ignored.

Those are blind spots. Companies have so many blind spots. Asset management versus investment banking versus sales and trading are going to have very different cultures depending on wireless. The sales division versus the engineering department is going to be a very different culture. It’s getting the lay of the land as to where you are at so you know the problems, what your blind spots are, where you are doing well, where you are not doing so well, and where you need help. It then goes to your leadership and the people in that leadership. I always say that you transform culture when you transform people. People create culture.

You transform culture when you transform people.

Oftentimes, even after COVID or after George Floyd and all the Black Lives Matter stuff, people were like, “Do you think that corporate is going to change now?” I’ll be like, “Tell me who the leaders are, and I’ll tell you whether or not they’ll change.” It’s very much around those leaders at the top and who you are as a leader. Do you need to do some work? Do you need to do some personal growth, leadership development, and reflection? Are you at the level of the leader of the whole leader you want to be to create the future? The future belongs to those with the courage to create it. That’s one of my favorite quotes.

I often say that culture innovation starts with courageous self-development. At the end of the day, it’s hard to change people, but we can change ourselves. We can always get better. How do I need to grow and how do I need to expand? Even working with trusted organizations or coaches to help you, to come in, and support you that’s not currently internal. Definitely bring in somebody externally because you also want somebody that specializes in this work, but also bring in that other right hand internally. That could be your SVP of sales, your CHRO, or your chief of staff who you know has the character.

It’s not just about the skills and the ability, it’s also about the character and who they are. Your schedule is less about what you get done, and more about who you want to become. Get the right people with the right character and the humanity to care. Prioritize the people over productivity for a moment. We’ve always done the opposite. We need to do that for a moment to recalibrate the culture. One is to assess your culture with the right resource. Two is making sure that you have the right internal and external advisors. Start building your internal think tank, brain trust, and leadership team to start this journey, and then know that we’ve got top-down and bottom-up problems to solve.

That could be cross-functional too. It is definitely designing, going on a journey of culture, and innovation. I like the word innovation over culture change. It’s more positive. I do think that diversity, inclusion, and women dominate group leadership in a way that has been defensive. The dominant culture is like, “Wait a second.” They’re just trying to do the best they can, coming from where they came from. Forget about who’s more valuable than who. It’s more about the world and your customers are made up of diversity, culture, experiences, and everything.

You’re going to be more successful in the future if you create a business, a culture, and products that support that diversity. You need to have that diversity in your leadership to do that. It’s about innovation. I like to motivate leaders not by, “You got this problem and you got to fix it, and unconscious bias.” It’s more about how you actually be the best and make a real impact going forward. That is what I would start saying to that leader.

Claudia, this has been fantastic. This is one of my favorite subjects. I’ve taken so many notes. How do you work with companies? What services do you offer? I love coaches. I have coaches for broad staff and for all of our leaders outside coaching. I was an executive and life coach for many years. I am so all about hiring outside coaches and consultants. How do you work?

I do basically two core things. I go inside organizations or go to conferences. I either bring my keynotes or workshops. It’s different also when you’re keynoting a large group versus workshopping a smaller group. If you’re workshopping smaller groups, you’re able to create some of that reflection and connection on a deeper level. I go inside and speak at these companies. I also do coaching and advising. Part of it is coaching in the sense of that self-reflection piece and that development piece. When I think about a coach, I think of elevating your vision and your mind, and getting you thinking about the highest vision of the kind of leader you can be and where you can take your organization.

Oftentimes, we don’t even have the time to vision because we’re so busy producing and being productive. It’s inspired visioning, as well as impossible creation thinking or possibility creation thinking. The coaching piece is about that, but it’s also advisory because there are some real practices that some of the best companies are doing right now that I have perspective on. It’s those two core things.

How can we contact you?

You can go to ClaudiaChan.com. That’s my website. It gives you more of an overview of me. Contact me there. There’s a form that you can fill out. I also have a book, This Is How We Rise. You said many managers or folks in the audience might not have the influence, but my book, This Is How We Rise, is all about leading from where you are. You have influence. You don’t have to have a huge following. You can be an intern and have influence.

Sometimes you see things that people higher up can’t see. It’s just the question, how do you lead change from where you are? This Is How We Rise is a great book for unlocking that corporate change agent inside of you. I have a podcast too. That’s got some episodes. Claudia Chan’s podcast on Spotify and Apple. I’m on social as well. I’m on LinkedIn.

I am so glad that you are my neighbor here in Tampa because we are going to have fun and change the world together. Thank you for being on the show. This has been wonderful.

I want to commend you for your leadership too. It’s extraordinary what you have built.

Thank you so much. I will see you soon.

About Claudia Chan

Claudia Chan is a culture change expert and global leadership speaker, the creator of the award-winning S.H.E. SummitTM, a NY-Times celebrated author of This Is How We Rise and a UN Women Champion of Innovation.

Her company S.H.E. GLOBL offers powerful learning and self-reflection experiences that pull leaders and organizations towards their highest vision of “whole-self” to unlock social, business and talent innovation. Standing for advancing SHE, HE and Equity for All, over 400 corporations have put their people through their programs to elevate purpose, inclusion and well-being in their workplace since 2012, including Google, Morgan Stanley, ESPN, Morgan Stanley, American Express, Bacardi and Pepsico.

Building on 20 years of designing human experiences that impassion and awaken “the changemaker” within people, Claudia has developed The Whole-Life Leadership
Membership in response to the global mental health crisis and her personal story.
Today is most focused on helping individuals create a more whole and thriving inner world of thought-life and experience—so they can not only unlock their highest levels of creativity and contribution but also show up more intentionally for their families, colleagues and communities.

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