Digging Deeper into DE&I with Shan Foster

Dane Groeneveld: Welcome to the Future of Teamwork Podcast. My name's Dane Groeneveld, CEO of HUDDL3 Group, and today I have the pleasure of introducing Shan Foster to the listeners, Shan's Co- Founder and CEO of Fostering Healthy Solutions. He's played some basketball at very high levels. He's got a podcast of Men Together and is doing a range of different projects out in the community, working with our youth as well. So excited to hear Shan's story and see how it contributes to our views on the future of teamwork. Welcome to the show, Shan.

Shan Foster: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

Dane Groeneveld: You bet. So perhaps for our listeners benefit, you can tell them a little bit of your story, how you came to be here today, driving forward in the business, and the various initiatives that you're a part of.

Shan Foster: Absolutely. So I grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana during a time when it was the murder capital world and turned to basketball as a way to get away from all of that, and was fortunate to earn scholarships all over the country and chose Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Got a chance to beat the number one team in the country two years in a row and play in March Madness and earned a ton of accolades, SCC player of the year, all American. Got a chance to play with the USA team in Rio, that was cool. And then I got drafted in the NBA through Dallas, Mavericks, spent some time with the Utah Jazz, played overseas in Italy, Belgium and Turkey. Got inducted into two hall of fame, got my jersey, retired at my high school and at Vanderbilt, and then moved back to Nashville trying to figure out what my second life and second career would be all about, and helped to start a charter school in the Nashville area, still serve on the board there and speak at graduations and all that good stuff. And did a lot of work in the community, specifically with the YWCA and building out this program that engages men to inaudible against women and girls called AMEND Together, and we're doing that in about 10 cities across the country, impacting about a million kids. And then decided with the partnership of my mother, actually, we started a company called Fostering Healthy Solutions, where we focus on healthy solutions to diversity, equity, inclusion issues with a focus on education, training and execution. And so had the opportunity to do sexual harassment, violence prevention training, diversity, equity and inclusion training, a lot of coaching with executives and teams across the country, and then also working with individual companies on not only their strategy and implementation, but ultimately helping us to change people's life. That's what this work is all about, not only for our workforce, but for the people who run those companies. This is an opportunity to have a legacy, one that prepares the next generation of leaders for what the future looks like. That is more diverse than we've ever seen before. There's some gains that we haven't had access to just because we haven't been as inclusive and as intentional about our culture as we could have been. And so there's opportunity to really maximize productivity, maximize our bottom lines, and really help not only our individuals, but also the companies themselves to reach our full potential. And so I'm excited about opportunities to make a difference. As you can see, that's what my professional career is all about, just making a difference where I can and helping leaders to lead in a way that's effective, efficient, but life changing for themselves and others.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, I love that. When we first met, you were talking to my Vistage group, and I know one of the ways that you opened up, you touched on it there with the Men Together program. You opened up about spending time with your grandparents growing up, and I think it was your grandfather that set some house rules. Can you tell us a little bit more about how that's shaped some of your views on the work you're doing around men's choice in terms of their behavior and how we drive healthier families, teams, communities?

Shan Foster: Absolutely. So those first six years of my life living with my grandparents, grandfather served in our country's military. And the two rules he had in our house was to be respectful to adults and be respectful to women. Anything else we can talk about and come to an understanding. But those two things were always non- negotiable. And so I've tried to embody that in my own life, seeing how he interacted with my grandmother and the love and care and concern that he had for her, and the way in which he communicated the way in which he showed love and affection and emotion, and the way in which he reared me. I also saw him serving as a deacon in our church, a person that really valued faith and wasn't afraid to pray in front of our family. And so he normalized things for me in my life that out in the community, you run into other people who those things weren't normalized for them. They weren't as comfortable talking and expressing and being one that is deeply concerned about the wellbeing of others. And so that's where that comes from. For me, that's my foundation. My grandmother was a missionary in the church, and I remember times being a kid where we would go and sit with people who were sick or were bedridden or were in the hospital and just bringing them food and just trying to put a smile on their face in any way we can. And then of course, my mom, early on in her career, she was working in the healthcare profession and working primarily with people that had mental and physical disabilities. And so seeing her serve in that capacity and really value people that in many ways our country just hasn't provided a ton of opportunities for. Growing up in New Orleans, seeing her make sure that those individuals got a chance to celebrate Mardi Gras the same way everybody else was. So she would throw a party and bring beads and make sure that they had king cake and the whole nine yards, just being intentional about the experiences of people. And I certainly draw on those experiences as I continue to do work with companies and organizations across the country.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah. I've only spent a little bit of time down in New Orleans. We've got a number of team members down there. My sister- in- law grew up in New Orleans, and there's something very like... That Mardi Gras is something that we all know, but there's also something in the culture there, which is quite captivating at times when you see community working at its best. You talked about murder capital. Obviously the community's had some challenges too, but there is a richness to the community down there and getting together around those routines key events for everyone. It's a nice way to serve others and to build that reinforcing fabric, isn't it?

Shan Foster: Absolutely. Growing up and experiencing New Orleans as a community, everybody loving on each other, sharing resources, sharing food, always having a party around, just everyday life, celebrating birthdays and festivals and Carnival, and it was all about making sure that people had balance in their life. People have really hard lives and many of them are working jobs that they wouldn't work other than them just needing to make money and really coming from backgrounds of oppression that led to poverty and different struggles and relationships. And so there's a ton of issues that people just have just trying to live life. And so being intentional around culture and music and community is what New Orleans has always been about. I just love it, man.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah. Yeah. It's funny that you talked about Rio earlier as well. You got to play with the US team and the Olympics down there. Rio's another city where I've been, they obviously have their own carnival and celebrations. And again, there's a little bit of parallel there when I've seen the people and the way that they enjoy each other and enjoy those daily rituals. Yeah, it's fascinating. It's not something that every town or city in the US or anywhere else in the world gets to enjoy and take to other places.

Shan Foster: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. It's a place of its own man, and the people who come there realize nobody's a superstar in New Orleans and there's no paparazzi running around. Everyone just comes and is able to enjoy life, take part in the community, and no matter who you are, you'll constantly hear people say, come in here, get a bite to eat. Come get some food, come get some gumbo and some jumbalaya, some pasta. Come experience what it's like to just be a regular, good, loving and caring person.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah. No, I love that. I think that's important. It's funny when you talk to people what the important foundations of their life and the work they go on to do are. How would you take that early time with your grandparents, early time in New Orleans into explaining your success on the basketball court and going to Vanderbilt. I mean, that was a next chapter, a very impressive chapter in your life. And no doubt there was a lot of hard work and effort and teams to get through that too.

Shan Foster: Absolutely. Seeing my grandfather who served in the military come home and he bricked homes and schools and actually had a part in building a Super dome.

Dane Groeneveld: Wow.

Shan Foster: He worked hard and it's work that it's hard to find people to do today because it's hard work. It's physical labor and it's out there in the heat and sweating. But that's what I saw him do every single day. And sometimes I would go out there, I would watch what he was doing and would just be in awe of his skill and how meticulous he was about making sure every single aspect and the small details were correct. And the same made me successful in basketball where yes, I was athletic, yes, I was tall, but it was always paying attention to those small details that made me the most successful. Basketball is a game of angles and being able to use your body and in the right way, and being in the right position on the floor at all times, defensively, staying in between the ball and your man and the basket and always being in the right position helps you be a better defender offensively. Being able to know where you are on the floor at all times in relation to your teammates so that you can just play the game. You're not having to think about every single thing. Mastering those small details of pounding the ball on that last dribble before you go into a shot so that the ball comes up into your shooting pocket. Little things like that that just make you more consistent really helped me to be that more efficient on the basketball floor. And especially as a shooter, my shooting percentage was the thing that I lived and died by. And as a result, I only shot maybe 15 shots a game my senior year, but I averaged 20 points a game. That's what you want. And unfortunately, I was the number one student guard in the country for an entire year, my senior year in college. It was amazing. But it is, it's that small details, it's the work ethic of being able to work when nobody's looking right, not working so that you get a pat on the back or get an accolade, but working because you want to perfect your craft. And so that's the way that I was brought up and it helped me on the basketball floor and it helps me, even the work I do now.

Dane Groeneveld: Perfecting craft is an interesting one. I was talking to a friend the other day and he said, some people look at work as something they have to do, but some people love their work, and like you said, it's what they do when they're not being watched. It's the satisfaction and the joy they take from building on their talents, on their skills. That's some real rewarding stuff if you're so inclined to enjoy it.

Shan Foster: Absolutely. And I think it's important for people to be able to, once they get to a certain part point in their life, just to be able to assess what am I good at?

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah.

Shan Foster: What do I enjoy doing? And how does that mess with the marketplace? What job opportunities are there out there? What can I create that allows me to operate within my gifts, my passions, and things that I would do? I would do it for free, right? I've spent the majority of my life being in a position to be able to help people, whether it was in high school where I was the president of the youth department at my church, or being in a college doing so much philanthropically in the community, going and speaking to kids, and then mentoring people on my whole pathway up. And then once you're able to go and gain some education, some knowledge, some expertise in the area, now I'm just doing all of those same things for companies, but I'm still relying on my foundation in order to be able to do it. So I get paid to do it, but I don't consider it work. This is why I was created, this is who I am. And the beautiful thing is I literally don't have to change anything about myself to do my job. I just show up and be as close to the best version of myself as I can and try to bring value to other people, try to bring value to companies and do it in a way that has a lot of integrity behind it.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, I love that. And that's getting in the zone too, because if you don't have to try to be something, if it's just being, then there's just so much more energy and flow that comes with that.

Shan Foster: Absolutely. Yeah.

Dane Groeneveld: So you touched on, obviously we talked about growing up basketball and now the work that you're doing with Fostering Healthy Solutions, obviously diversity, equity, inclusion is becoming better understood. I wouldn't say it's well understood, but it's becoming better understood every day, every week we move through it as a society and in the companies and communities that we're a part of. And there were a few really profound takeaways that I had from meeting with you that first time. I think the first one was, and you touched on it just briefly in your introduction, is that we've all inherited this life, these values, these systems that have prevented us from having truly diverse, equitable inclusive environments, communities, education systems, you name it. And I think the way that you described inheriting was actually really powerful because, well, certainly for me personally, it takes away the whole intentionality. It's not like I've got bias because I've chosen to have bias, it's I've got bias'cause I was born into this world. Therefore, the question is not what bias do you have? The question is how are you going to intentionally start to recognize it and overcome it? And so that was really big. Can you tell me a little bit more about what you've seen in your work and how some of those inherited biases are preventing people from certain opportunities, whether it's through education or in business and where you're seeing some good work, some better understanding of the landscape right now?

Shan Foster: The most things that we experience in life from other people are learned behaviors. Very few things are things that individuals have come up with on their own. Most of it is learned behavior. So when you think about racism, racism is a learned behavior. There's not one child who comes into the world thinking that someone who looks differently than me, someone who speaks a different language, someone who grew up or was born in another country is somehow less than or deserves less or provides less value than another. All of that is learned from generations prior. And some countries have dealt with that head on and been able to have huge strides in moving closer to a more equitable and inclusive country. Some countries have a long history that has been under discussed, that has been, for lack of better words, leaned upon or leaned into in order to build its systems. And thus there hasn't been any reconciliation. And in the United States of America, that reconciliation, that acknowledgement of our history and the role that it's played and how things are being experienced today is something that we have yet to fully lean into. And as a result, everyone who lives, who grows up, who does business, who experiences life in the United States has really been a part of this entire system. One that has nurtured us to apply a negative connotation to things that are different than us. Different is not inherently worse or negative, but because we live in a society where different has historically presented different challenges, then now that comes alongside all of these other areas of our lives. So when you think about education, the fact that your quality of education is determined primarily by where you live and the income of your parents.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah.

Shan Foster: Right? Your ability to safely and quickly get from point A to point B has more to do with your economics than it has to do with anything else. When you think about the poverty that exists, why some people grow up in extreme poverty and have a very difficult time getting out of it, and others are born into middle class or upper class. All of that has to do with our history. And when we're able to be honest about it, I was on a call with when someone earlier today, and we were talking about the mere fact that when you look at the actual stories of many of our leaders across the country in companies, it has less to do with merit and more to do with proximity. You have people who have just spent more time with one another, people who have deep relationships and families, people who share similarities, all of these things have contributed more to the mobility in their careers than it is their work ethic. Work ethic is the prerequisite, everybody has to work hard, you don't have a choice. And those who are in more physical labored positions, they actually, I would argue, work harder than those who get paid to think, strategize, and problem solve.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah.

Shan Foster: And so we got to go back and really look at and ask the question as Simon Sinek does all the time, why? Why is that the case? Why is it that we have a business structure where the majority of our workforce will never be able to retire based on the wage that they're being paid? Yet in business, we're constantly trying to hoard talent and keep people in those positions even though our company values say that we care about our employees.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah.

Shan Foster: And we constantly use language, my wife and I was talking about this, how the language that we use in business is that we treat each other family, we're a big family here. Well, I would hope that my family would want me to retire someday.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, that's right.

Shan Foster: I would hope that my family would want me to make more money in five years than what I'm making today, that they would want me to advance in my career and be able to put my kids through college and to be able to move into a neighborhood where we have a better school and we have access to healthcare and access to clean and better produce food quality and all of these things, right?

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah.

Shan Foster: But somehow we exclude those things from the family type culture that we're talking about professionally. And so a lot of that has to do with its roots being in racism in our country and being in the descendants of slavery in our country and not really reconciling those things. And so this is not something that we all chose. This is what we inherited, but as leaders, we have a responsibility to decide how we're going to use whatever privilege we were born into.

Dane Groeneveld: That word that you used there, proximity, that's a word that's just resonated with me a lot. And there was another phrase you touched on when we first met. You said, we don't do life together. And that was just like smack. Of course, we don't. And so why do we think we can walk into a small business and start to fundamentally change some of these inherited values and problems that we've all got out there when we're not doing life together at the grocery store, in the park, when our kids are playing, in the school systems? There continues to be this theme of people going and being with their people regardless of whatever their creed, race, religion, whatever it is, people just do that. And so I found that very, again, profound because it's a call to action to start addressing diversity, equity, inclusion in all facets of life, not just in your hiring policy or how you run a meeting or the language that you choose on your company statements.

Shan Foster: Yes. So it's interesting. So when you started talking about in some ways our inherent desire to find our people, yet no one wants to be honest about the fact that how we've lived our lives define our people by the way that people look. Because there are people of color who play golf. There are people of color who like to go skiing. There are people of color who are in finance, there are people of color who are entrepreneurs. So every other thing that we enjoy doing that we spend time in every single aspect of life, there are diverse communities who do all of those things. So then how we define our people is less about what we say and more about what we do. And the fact of the matter is we choose segregation. When we choose the neighborhood we live in, and it's not very diverse, we choose that. When we choose the school that we send our kids to, and it's not very diverse, we choose that. When we choose to go and join a country club that's not very diverse, we choose that.

Dane Groeneveld: Yep.

Shan Foster: And so to the extent that we can make better choices in our personal life, now, some of the cultural competency that needs to be learned happens more organically. And we don't have to do diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace because we're doing life together, and thus the decisions we make corporately will effect the decisions that we make personally. But until we begin to do life together, now you have no choice but to put strategy and cultivation in place so that it can actually produce the outcomes that we should be doing on our own.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah. When you were sharing that with me, what also jumped up, just from my frame of reference, I've got a good friend who's Irish, grew up in Belfast, when the troubles were going on, obviously between Catholics and the Protestants. And he explained to me when he was a teenager, he used to play the flute and they bought an orchestra together and the orchestra would practice together, and they had kids from the Catholic community and the Protestant communities, and it was around that orchestra that a lot of really good community behaviors started to change. And I believe there's a documentary on it, but there's a perfect example going back to what you are saying, why aren't we just picking the simple things and creating more life together, choosing to do things that do, I like that word, you use cultural competency that do help us build that cultural competency in the right way from the ground up.

Shan Foster: It's important, and it's much easier to do life together than to have to go and read all the books and the research and the documentaries and rehashing out every aspect of our history that's impacting how people live. And there used to be a phrase that people would use, they'd say, I don't see color. Well, if you can't see that I'm a Black man, we got to have a different conversation.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah.

Shan Foster: Right? And I think the heart behind that saying was that we don't treat people based on the color of their skin, but the truth of the matter is we do.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah.

Shan Foster: When we're choosing who we hire, we do. When we choose where we're looking for talent and where we choose to promote talent, I mean promote open positions and where we don't, we're making those choices.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah.

Shan Foster: And so as a result, in many ways, we contribute to where we are as a country today in those spaces by making those decisions. Just things as simple as what food vendors we use when we're hosting events and parties and stuff at the office. If we're only choosing vendors that look a certain kind of way, then we're still contributing to the problem.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah.

Shan Foster: Right? And so it's incumbent upon us to really live out the things that we're trying to say. Right? It's one thing to say, well, I'm not racist. Maybe not, I hope not. But as another movie producer put it, are you standing by idly when racism is occurring?

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah. That came up in when we were talking to Lauren Jones the other day about allyship for women in the boardroom. And that standing by idly is a problem. Whether it's bullying in the schoolyard, whether you've got a female colleague in the boardroom or black colleague or an LGBTQ colleague, whatever, whoever it is that's underrepresented or is not being appropriately given time, respect, an ear by the team, you need the other members of the room to stand up and say, hey, that's not how I heard that person say it, you can't claim credit for that idea. So I think that whole allyship movement becomes really interesting, that too.

Shan Foster: It's important. I had bought this speaker from Target the other day, and I like to go and read the instructions, right? I want to know how to fully get all I can out of the product that I bought. So I go read the instructions, and it finally dawned on me that every time I buy a new product, oftentimes the instructions are in multiple languages. I've worked with clients that have extremely diverse workforce, but all of their communications are only in English?

Dane Groeneveld: Yep.

Shan Foster: Why does that make sense?

Dane Groeneveld: You're absolutely right.

Shan Foster: It's the little things, it's not always these overt... And when you think about racism, we tend to think about police brutality or somebody using the N word, but there are little decisions that are made every single day that show we really don't care about people the way that we should.

Dane Groeneveld: No.

Shan Foster: Regardless of how people identify.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah. No, you're absolutely right. And that ties back into your comment there about working hard and paying attention to detail. It is stringing the little things together. I think that was when I got a bit of tension in my chest when we were talking about how you put a good plan together. Obviously with your business fostering healthy solutions, you come in and do assessments for companies, and then you help them build these strategic plans. And here's me thinking with most problems that I try and solve in life, there's a playbook for this. I can turn it on, I can work hard, and in six months we'll be making progress. And you turn around to me and you're like, hey, Dane, this is going to take you a good three to five years because you really need to lay this out and start doing the small things well. What I think was really important that I took away from that is, it's not only you do the small things well, so everyone really starts to get behind the new program, but it's that you give people time to work their way through what is new and you don't overburden them with these vast statements or changes. You bring everyone along on that journey to understand why we're doing the small things well and how one thing will lead to the next.

Shan Foster: Here's the thing, and Dane, and I appreciate your vulnerability here, and you certainly aren't alone. Most leaders across the country, and when I say leader, I don't necessarily just mean leaders within companies, people who are leading their families, people who are leading their teams, just people who have a leadership mindset, we tend to want to move fast.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah.

Shan Foster: We tend to want to solve problems quickly so we can get on to the next thing. And the problem with that is we can't be inclusive and fast at the same time.

Dane Groeneveld: Great point.

Shan Foster: It's not possible.

Dane Groeneveld: No.

Shan Foster: Right? We always end up leaving somebody out, and as a result, we get passionate and we get out and we want to just do stuff, and we don't realize that diversity, equity, and inclusion is less about what we do, and it's more about how we be every single day.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah.

Shan Foster: So you get companies who will get out there and they'll just start doing all of these different initiatives and doing some education and doing these projects, and they get excited about being able to tell everybody what they're doing, but the people who work for the company never get a chance to experience the value of being intentional about diversity, equity, and inclusion, because we're constantly doing stuff.

Dane Groeneveld: Yes.

Shan Foster: I'm way more concerned about people's experience when they experience your company, their experience when they experience your leadership, their experience when they're interviewing for open position, their experience when they're turning into RFB for your business. Those are the things that matter way more than any project, any philanthropic effort, any educational program that we can do.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah. That is big, and it's difficult because like you said, we're so used to moving fast. There's this saying in business, move fast and break things. Silicon Valley's been all about fail fast, fail forwards, whatever it is. And it's not that easy. You're not being intentional if you're not doing that, and you're certainly not being inclusive. And I think about that even in little ways that you mentioned family, even in little ways in my home when I don't explain to my kids why we do something a certain way, that's not helping them, they're not learning. They're just being told that they've got to follow what dad, mom and dad say, and they're sitting there scratching their head.

Shan Foster: And it's costing us. To fail when it comes to people, it's costing us. A city group did a study, I could send you this data that racism is costing the US 17 trillion dollars.

Dane Groeneveld: That's big money.

Shan Foster: To the GDP. Right? We're not talking about a little bit of change, we're talking about 17 trillion dollars. That's a lot.

Dane Groeneveld: That's the global FinTech financial services market twice. Yeah.

Shan Foster: Yes. That's what is costing us to not be inclusive, to not be intentional about people, to not include people in our spending and in the access to capital and access to professional development. And in that is job production and innovation and all of that is wrapped up in that 17 trillion dollars.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah. So there's no denying that there's a massive bottom line impact for a country, a local community, a business, you name it.

Shan Foster: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. The data speaks for itself. Now, it's just a matter of whether or not people want to do it. And that's where we are right now because diversity, equity, and inclusion, as you alluded to, is something that has become more mainstream. We're talking about this, major businesses are talking about this, government is talking about this and putting investment into it such that now we're in a place where our leadership integrity is on the line.

Dane Groeneveld: Yep, it really is.

Shan Foster: And so we can't continue to say we care about people and do things that still diminish opportunities.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, absolutely.

Shan Foster: And so we're really being challenged as leaders across the country to put some integrity behind our stated values in this regard.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah. And I know you and had a great sidebar conversation on, it was just one little thing, we were talking about education and how education historically has been a reason that we haven't driven inclusivity because there was a time in our history where you had to go to a school that only allowed white students to get this certification to get this job. So when you think about that, which we've inherited, that there are professions that we're lacking diversity number one, and we're not creating any inclusion for others to come in and state their views on how we could change that role or change the requirements and the certifications we need or change where we go to look for talent that might come into that role or corporation. I know you've got a very detailed playbook on the five years, but perhaps for the benefit of our listeners, what do you see as some of the small steps for those companies that are finding out hard to start with doing the small things well, what would the small steps be for a small to medium business that's just starting to think, gee, how do we open our doors? How do we open our minds to bringing in a wider contribution of talent in our communities?

Shan Foster: Absolutely. So a couple of things. One, we got to give ourselves some grace. This problem of access didn't start overnight, and it's also not going to be solved overnight.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah.

Shan Foster: And so we got to give ourselves the grace that we don't have to move fast. In fact, moving fast will cause more harm than good. Right? And so we got to slow down and truly do some discovery before we start trying to be intentional about bringing in more diverse talent. We got to stop and do discovery and understand what is the environment that we're asking diverse communities to come into? And can we be honest about that? What does our training program look like? What does our access to mentorship look like? How are we developing the talent that's already working here in the company? What is the experiences of those who have disabilities And handicaps? And neuro diversity?

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah.

Shan Foster: What is the experiences of those who are military veterans? All of those diverse categories that tend to get left out of this conversation, but those have no respect to color, right?

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah.

Shan Foster: There's people who identify as those things in every single community. And I talk to people who like to spot off that they don't have a ton of diversity in their community. And I'm like, that's not true, all white people are not the same. You have some white people in your community who they speak different languages, companies who have people from all over the country in other countries as well, who look like a white person, but their family heritage and background other country. And we're excluding them all because we're running after sameness and similarities that we don't even see the diversities that exist already within our companies and we're not doing well by them. And at the church, we used to say things like sweep around your own front door.

Dane Groeneveld: I love that.

Shan Foster: We got to do our own work first before we're intentional about adding more diversity to that. And it takes time because this is not something we've been doing with intentionality for the entire history of our company. And so with that comes the trust between our workforce and leadership.

Dane Groeneveld: Yep.

Shan Foster: So when we've been saying out loud that we hire the best person for the job, but everybody knows we're only looking for talent at certain universities, we've lost trust and we don't even know it. When we say that we have a merit- based promotion plan here. But people know that there are folks on our leadership team that got promoted into positions not because they were better than anybody else, but because they had proximity to the CEO or because they were friends with the CEO or because somebody that they really respect out in the community made that referral.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah.

Shan Foster: People know that, and that has nothing to do with color, that's how we are doing our business. That's right. And so we got to be able to really do discovery and figure out where we are, what we're bringing people into. And if you have a culture, it's the same thing that happens on the gender side of things. When you start bringing women into organizations like construction for example, where it's been primarily men and then you start bringing women into that, but you don't stop to consider what are the environments that men have been used to operating in, things that they're just accustomed to saying, and how is that going to impact women when you bring them into that fold?

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah.

Shan Foster: You didn't stop to think about that. We just said, we just need to bring more diverse. And so we started hiring women and never considered their experience. It's the same thing when we start talking about diversifying from a race and gender and language standpoint. What is the environment that we're asking people to come into? Have we done the work to ensure that it's going to be the kind of environment that they're going to want to work in long- term? Because what's also happening across the country is some companies are diversifying and then immediately they need to over.

Dane Groeneveld: Right.

Shan Foster: Immediately, they're not able to retain the talent that they're hiring solely because they didn't stop to consider the environment that you're asking people to come into.

Dane Groeneveld: Yes, yep.

Shan Foster: So if we're going to do this work in terms of where we need to start, we need to start with discovery, we got to sweep around our own front door and make sure that we're adding a level of integrity to the atmosphere and culture that is already there. And then, from there, we can begin to be intentional about where we're looking for talent. What are those relationships that we have and don't have that would give us access to diverse talent? And I tell people this all the time, there are people from every different backgrounds who are working in every single field. So the question is not whether or not there's diversity in the industry, the question is whether or not we as a company have access to the diversity that exists. So that's where I would start.

Dane Groeneveld: No, I think that discovery piece is huge, and I think you described it really well, sweeping around the front door, I think that's massive. And we've seen it, I've fallen foul of that before. Yeah. There's so many examples. And then thinking about where you look, that's become easier. COVID just did us a favor because we can now hire talent remotely.

Shan Foster: Yes.

Dane Groeneveld: They don't even have to be in this country with the technology that we have these days. So if you start to become more intentional about your existing culture and how you're adapting your culture, then you can become intentional about working with overseas talent, working with interstate talent, whatever that might be. Just opening those doors and finding them, like you say, already existing in your industry, your company's just not presently interfacing with those groups. Yeah.

Shan Foster: Yeah. And I think it's also dangerous as a company, as a business strategy, constantly looking for ways to pay people less.

Dane Groeneveld: That's a good point. Yeah.

Shan Foster: We've accepted this idea that we can grow by cutting our cost and cutting the amount that we pay people as a result. So now you see folks who are outsourcing jobs overseas so that we can pay people less money that will have a long term, very detrimental impact on US society.

Dane Groeneveld: And that is a blind spot, I think you're absolutely right to call that one out, because working overseas with the best talent that's available that brings diversity is one thing, but just saving your way to a profit is short- term. And going back to fairness, what message you're setting for your internal team members and for your customers in the community?

Shan Foster: Right. And so you got a lot of people in the workplace who are now literally afraid that at any point they're going to be replaced either by technology or people in other countries who are willing to take less money to do those same jobs.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, you're absolutely right.

Shan Foster: Yeah.

Dane Groeneveld: So that brings me onto a final question. It's hard to think, we've already burnt through 45 minutes. It's just always so much fun catching up with you, Shan, and there's so much learning here. But there's this theme here about giving ourselves grace, realizing that we've inherited a lot of this racism bias, whatever it might be, that our existing businesses and cultures need some discovery and some intentionality before we really start driving change. And I love the way that you basically said you need to bring the team along and therefore you are creating, again, it ties in with the podcast, you're making diversity, equity, inclusion, execution a team spot, which it should be. Right? So with all of that in mind, when you then think about the changing technologies, which are allowing some companies to push labor offshore and reduce costs, surely there's a big opportunity now for us to invest in the up- skilling and the re- skilling of our talent in new ways. Not in the traditional ways, but in new ways. Embracing technology, embracing new work practices is a way to allow local communities to thrive and to build our businesses in a much more healthy, sustainable, and innovative way.

Shan Foster: It's important that we stop and consider not just how much money can we make, but how can we create the kind of community that we want to live in and utilizing business to help foster that?

Dane Groeneveld: I love that.

Shan Foster: Because when we're so focused on making as much money as we can, then as a result, we lose sight of how those decisions are impacting the people who live and work around us, which is going to have a detrimental impact on our quality of life. Nobody wants to be the one millionaire who lives in a neighborhood where everyone else is in poverty, right? Because as a result, everybody's coming to get your stuff. That's just survival. And so that's what we're seeing happening when companies are making the decision to move jobs elsewhere, when companies are making decisions not to invest in training and development of their workforce, we're basically saying, we're going to sacrifice our safety and wellbeing so that we can maximize profits.

Dane Groeneveld: Super dangerous. I love the way that you're ending on that note, because that's a call to action, not just to some of our listeners who are owning businesses or running departments, that's a call to action to big corporations who need to think about, like you said earlier, vendors for food, for supply chain, we've got to be driving, we've seen through COVID how supply chains have been stretched, particularly where we've had huge reliance overseas. But here's an opportunity to look at the way that you leverage your balance sheet, your resources to be buying services, buying products from businesses in your communities, I love the way that you put it, that are creating a community for the future that we all want to live in, that's powerful.

Shan Foster: Absolutely. You go to different places around the country and people get upset at the number of people that are homeless, that are walking on the street, that are living on the street, but then in business, we make different decisions. We have a lot of people here. We got a lot of people who are re- entering society, coming out of prison. We don't have a workforce issue, we have an issue of leaders not valuing the people that they have access to, and it becomes a heart issue, and it's dangerous long- term for us to make those kind of decisions that ultimately are not in our best interest.

Dane Groeneveld: Wow. Well, we've gone from a huge development in storyline from your story to where diversity, equity, inclusion is making strides. We're starting to get an understanding to ultimately how we should be building communities. It's been a wonderful conversation. It's the first of many, no doubt, Shan. But thank you for coming onto the show today.

Shan Foster: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. Enjoy the holidays.

Dane Groeneveld: You as well. Have a safe drive and happy holidays.

Shan Foster: Same to you, buddy. Have a good one.