Conscious Culture Cafe Kathy Miller Perkins

Why do we hear so many fancy words about company values while corporate scandals rage? According to ethics expert and corporate consultant, Bettina Palazzo, leaders love to talk about values because the exercise creates a nice fuzzy feeling. Yet lists of corporate values will not move the needle on company decisions nor affect day-to-day behaviors. Why? Because anyone can come up with fancy feel-good words. But you can't merely throw a beautiful values "cherry" on top of a questionable culture. Leaders have to work from the ground up.  Their role is to engage the organization in clarifying a values vision and  inventing the plan for making it real throughout the organization.  In this episode, Bettina lays out the problems and solutions to the corporate ethics dilemma so prevalent in our world today. 

During the months of the pandemic, women left the workforce in droves.  Why? Because women still bear the lion’s share of family and home care responsibilities. And they can't find the work/life balance they need through the companies employing them. They make less money and receive fewer promotions. We need women's voices in the workplace. Maureen Higgins talks about why the problems persist - especially with STEM women - and what to do about it. 

Why does a liquor business like Brown-Forman spirits company take action against bad behaviors in bars? Because they want to ensure people have a good experience with alcohol when they drink. The harassment that sometimes occurs when people are drinking is not ok.  And Brown-Forman wants to do something about it. Taylor Amerman, Emma Briscoe, and Melissa Emmal share the details of how they teach bartenders and others to intervene in those sticky bar situations. And they describe how any of us can put a stop to harassment when we see it. 
 

Do Black people matter? This is the question Nikki Lanier, posed last year on this podcast. Nikki is a senior Vice President of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Louisville Branch.  And she returns to reflect and advise one year after the murder of George Floyd. Nikki lauds corporations for condemning racism while she offers direction for what must come next. Her view of corporate DEI is that it is infantile. And she outlines the first steps companies must take to remedy the problem. Her experience working within corporate Human Resources, as well as her law degree, her experience working for the Fed, and her tireless activism towards social justice give her a unique perspective on where we stand and what we can do to fight racism. 

Fashion brand EILEEN FISHER set and achieved audacious sustainability goals. Now they are helping the fashion industry transform. Eileen believes business can become a movement. In this episode the two who guided the journey, Amy Hall and Sara Schley share how they did it and how you can create real change by bringing the system in the room.

“Hey we gave this unconscious bias training and hired a Chief Diversity Officer. Isn’t that enough?” My guest this week, Kelley Bright, says she has heard these words countless times from clients in her 25 plus years with global professional consulting firms. She claims companies aren’t getting into the nitty gritty of race because they don't want to say the hard, scary things that make people really understand. In this episode, she offers critiques of how companies handle DEI today and what they should do instead.