People Everywhere Show_Claude Silver.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

People Everywhere Show_Claude Silver.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Claude Silver:
When you create that space, when you hold the space and create the space for anything to happen, you'd be surprised what can happen if a person truly feels like you're leaning in, they are the only thing that matters.

Andy Kitson:
Hey everyone, welcome to the People Everywhere Show. I'm Andy Kitson. In this episode, Niko and I talk with Claude Silver. Claude is the Chief Heart Officer at VaynerMedia, a global 1300-person creative and media agency. Claude shares a lot of wisdom in this conversation. We start by talking about how she got the title Chief Heart Officer, ..., what a great title that is. We then spend the rest of the episode exploring what it means to take a heart-centered approach to leadership and how to scale heart-centered leadership throughout your organization. This episode is a great mix of philosophy and practical techniques to help you and your team work and lead with more heart. One quick note before we get started. You'll hear Claude mention someone named Gary early on in the episode. That is Gary Vaynerchuk, founder and CEO of VaynerMedia. All right, that is enough for me. Let's, let's go talk with Claude!

Niko Skievaski:
Claude, welcome to the show.

Claude Silver:
Great to be here. Guys, how are you?

Niko Skievaski:
Lovely. It is a beautiful day.

Claude Silver:
It is, it is.

Niko Skievaski:
So I am fascinated by, first off, by your title, Chief Heart Officer. And I was, I was wondering, I thought it would be a good place to start if you could just share, why? Why is that your title?

Claude Silver:
Yeah, well, you'd really probably have to ask Gary. He loves to brand things, but I was at Vayner for about 16 months and my title was SVP of Client Services. And when I told Gary that I no longer wanted to do this role anymore, I was done with kind of being in the front of the house of advertising and creative advertising, he said, what do you want to do? And I said, I only care about the people here, I only care about the heartbeat. And he said, cool, I need you to do this job for 18 more months. And I said, I don't have 18 more months. So I left, I ended up resigning, and four months later he called me back. We sat down, we had breakfast, so that's it, you're coming back. You're going to be the Chief Heart Officer, and it just made sense. He and I were so immersed in the humans already at work, we called them hearts, we called them heartbeats. So it's an honor, for me. It's the greatest title in showbiz, absolutely. And it's an honor because I get to keep people's hearts at the top of mind, top of my heart. You know, it sounds kind of corny, but it really makes sense. I don't think about people as employees, really, I think about them as humans, just people, you know?

Niko Skievaski:
Yeah, I think we have, well, I have a pet peeve when people call people resources or FTEs, and I feel like calling them a heart is like the exact opposite of that. And can you just share a little bit more about how that translates into how, like policies and processes and like how the company is actually, yeah, how does that translate into the real world of, of running an organization?

Claude Silver:
Oh, I mean, it is everything because it's not only that we say we are people first, we are people first. And so you wouldn't have a role like mine if you didn't want to triple down on your people and make sure that people know that they're safe, that they belong, that they matter, you know, and we want them to spread their wings. And so my role and really the role of all leaders there is very high touch. It's really getting to know your people not only in the 8, 9 hours you're with them, but like, look, we get up 3 hours, usually 2 hours before we log on. So like, is your dog sick? Did you feed the kids? Did you work out? Did you sleep, sleep late? Did you have a fight with your spouse? Like all of these things you bring into the day and these are good things to know about because, A, we want to see the whole human, not just the person, the FTE, who we can charge out for, ya da da da amount. It's like we really want to know what makes that person tick. And so when we go back to what Gary asked me, hey, what do you want to do? That's a huge question for me to ask people. And so today, for example, speaking to a 25-year-old who's ready to make a massive pivot in her career, okay, she's 25. I get it, but she's, she's ready. And so for me to really try to pull out of her, what does she want to do is something where, it's not just in our four walls, like what makes you tick? She's a marathon runner, she teaches yoga, she wants to start a home health food brand. Like, cool, well, let me see who I can connect you to within our walls and our universe to see if they can help you move the ball down the field. And that's the cool thing about where I sit, which is I'm a connector, I'm listening, I'm holding space, I'm taking in so much data, but then I'm doing something with that. You know, for the most part.

Andy Kitson:
Could you go a little deeper on how you help people, like, figure out what they're growing into and it sounds like you've, you've done this process for yourself.

Claude Silver:
Yeah.

Andy Kitson:
It's part of your role to help that happen throughout the organization. Is it really just kind of an informal reflection or do you have more of a set of questions process, a methodology behind that?

Claude Silver:
Yeah, I love the question. I have a methodology that I pull out when I feel like I need it. So just being a, being a coach on the side, I have normal coaching questions that you would ask someone or Claude's coaching questions that you would ask someone that really helped me get to the root of are they operating from an imposter syndrome? Are they operating from a negative thought process or are they like in a growth mindset? Are they really looking at the truth? In these 15-minute meetings with people, though I am literally asking them questions to just hear how they're answering, watch their response, watch their engagement with me, see where they light up, see where they don't light up. So if someone says to me, you know what, I love being a copywriter, but I am, I'm just, I'm not good on these brands. I would much rather work on a comedic brand. Tell me more about that? How do you know that comedy is your sweet spot, so forth and so on? Let me connect you to a couple of comedy writers I know of in our network. Or, you know, it could be someone coming on and saying, like, I'm really struggling with depression. And, and we had this happen once, I had this happen, which was mind-blowing a couple of times. But the kid came on, he was about 23 and I had no idea, you know, people put time into my calendar, comes on Zoom, you know, hey, how are you doing? Nice to meet you, Eric. And he said, well, Chris told me I should talk to you because I struggle with depression. Now, I could have gone eight different ways in that conversation. And I said to him, what do you do when you feel about of depression coming on? A human question, right?

Andy Kitson:
Yeah.

Claude Silver:
Not like, well, how does your performance suffer? I said, you know, what do you do? And he says, I write poetry. And I said, I would love to hear some of your poetry. And he said, only if you share with me your favorite poem. Now, this conversation only lasts for 20 minutes, and we were both in tears, and he ended the conversation by saying, now I know why Chris told me to come talk to you. So it's not that Claude has the silver bullet, but making people feel comfortable, making people feel like what they, they can say anything. This is our special space here, you know? And also bonus, I don't have to have the answers because I don't. I don't, I have answers for Claude, and I'm trying. So when you create that space, when you hold the space and create the space for anything to happen, you'd be surprised what can happen if a person truly feels like you're leaning in. They are the only thing that matters. And that's, that comes with years and years of training, obviously, like this is not these conversations aren't about me. This is about what can I do for you? I work with you, I work for you. So the more I, the more you're willing to share the, the more we can do here.

Niko Skievaski:
One thing that I struggle with as a leader is being people first versus company first. And I bet you have a lot of thoughts on that and how maybe those things aren't mutually exclusive, because I think of my first and foremost job is, is the success and safety of the company. But the company is made of people. And so I want to be people first. But there's, there's that sort of conflict in my head. How do you think about that?

Claude Silver:
Yeah, I really love the conversation because for me, everything comes down to hospitality. Like everything comes down to how you leave a person feeling. So I could be working at the steakhouse, say, say I'm a server. And I and I did wait tables for a long time. I'm a server. I'm at the steakhouse or I'm over here at the, the chicken shop, whatever, it don't matter. What matters is their experience, the customer's experience. I'm serving meat or I'm serving chicken or whatever. I could be any place. So for me, the most important thing is that, and this is why I changed the name from HR to people and experience, the people and the experience they are having in our four walls and the dimensions in which we work in, that is what matters. They are working under the logo of VaynerMedia, but they, you know, that's a choice for them. So for me, it really, I think it's 51% people, 49% logo, quite frankly, because to me it all comes down to that person. And even when that person leaves us still having that relationship, or if I have to make a, just have to have a hard conversation where it might be an exit of some sort, we have an alumni program, so we're catching people. We want them to know, like just because you're leaving us, that it wasn't the right fit for us, doesn't mean it's not going to be the right fit at, you know, Johnson&Johnson or Nike, so let's help you. I love the question. And it really to me comes down to the experience that that person is having under the roof of X, Y, and Z.

Niko Skievaski:
Yeah, yeah. And I love that you mentioned alumni program because it really shows a perspective of taking care of people regardless of if they still fall under the logo or not. Something that I think a lot of our listeners are grappling with right now, myself included, is we're entering a tough time in the economy, which comes with making hard choices, and sometimes that involves layoffs where you have to be company, in my perspective, you have to be a company first and say we have to cut costs and that means reducing our headcount. I would love to hear your thoughts on how to do layoffs. How did, how did you, and I don't know if you have experience doing them directly, but we've seen a lot of companies, tech companies doing layoffs these days. And I think a lot of our listeners are probably grappling with how to, either how to do them or how to, how to survive them, how to be a part of it in a way that that makes sense.

Claude Silver:
It's tough. It's really tough. I mean, I have a lot of years under my belt doing them. The thing that I will say is for me, before I enter into that conversation, I have to make sure I'm I'm right. Because I want to be as gracious, as graceful as I can. I want to have a generous spirit. Obviously, I want to be empathic, but I also have to deliver the news. And so what I've learned, first and foremost, I should say, if I'm going to have you have to do a round of layoffs or have some hard conversations, I will take a walk around the building or walk around the house and I'll like do it like a little mantra to myself. Always, always, always, because I need to get me right. I can't assume, like, I'm just going to be fantastic with it. But I have to understand again, Claude, like, where do I want to come from? How do I want to show up in this conversation? And then I will tell you, I go right to it. Hey, Bob, this is going to be a difficult conversation due to X, Y, and Z or your performance, or it's come to our attention that we have to make some hard decisions here. And unfortunately, we are reorging. Unfortunately, we don't have that client, you know, whatever it is, but I go straight to it. I don't peter around because they're sitting here on pins and needles, why am I, why am I here with her? And so it's not an easy conversation. That person's all of a sudden going to be in shock, most likely mad, pissed off, sad. They're going to miss their friends, they don't have a paycheck. And so then I go to as soon as I can a package that we could offer. So that's really it. By the time I have that conversation, we have enough information or quote-unquote, feedback on whomever I'm speaking to or whoever my team is speaking to so that it's not just like arbitrarily, I just pick people that have the name that starts with N today. Oh, Nancy, sorry. No, it's like Nancy, whomever else, they are probably the lowest performers, if we have to use that terminology, those are the ones that we're going to go for if we have to make that type of change. That is the nature of it, but it's always going to be one on one. It's always going to be on Zoom or in the room, depending on where we are in the world. It's always going to be a senior level person doing the conversation. So it'll be me for a certain level, it'll be people on my team for certain levels. And these people have been trained, they've been with us, they understand the people first focus, they understand the alumni group, they understand that this is the worst news that this person's probably getting in a long time. So how can we go in, be graceful, be honest, and hopefully exit on the other side with this person eventually feeling, if not today, tomorrow, the next day, like, you know what? That was the right move and they're going to help me get a job that pays me twice as much or whatever.

Niko Skievaski:
You mentioned at the beginning of this that you spend time to make sure that you know you're right. How do you know that you're right?

Claude Silver:
Oh, that what I mean is not that Claude's right, like right or wrong that I get myself in check.

Niko Skievaski:
In like the right headspace?

Claude Silver:
That's right. Yes. So I'm not thinking about the meal I'm cooking for my family later or, you know, I'm not singing some Nine Inch Nails song. I'm like, I can do this. And I just, it's like a little mantra, a little prayer, quite frankly, because these are, no one gets into business wanting to exit people from a company. I mean, jeez, that's the last thing I want to do. So my, my whole person is rooted in a bunch of psychology, a bunch of, of spirituality, a bunch of, I would hope, understanding human behavior. And so I'm going to really, really be as empathic and compassionate as kind, and kind as I can be. And I also have to, like, put the gavel down. But by the way, most of the time, let's remember that most of the time when we're exiting someone, yes, sure, it might be a lower performer, but they're subjective calls anyway, right? It's not that this person's a bad person or like can't do creative to save their life. It just might not be the right fit. We might be too fast of an organization, so forth and so on.

Niko Skievaski:
So getting a little tactical, can you speak more about the alumni network? I think that's, I don't think a lot of companies do that. So how do you actually support alumni and why does that make sense for the company?

Claude Silver:
Well, it makes sense because we care about people, that's the first thing. Like, we want to make sure we are leaving people feeling good. We always say we want them in our ecosystem forever. So before I even answer that question, one of the things we're very big on is promoting from within and helping people pivot within, so such as that woman that spoke to me earlier today. The alumni network started because Gary, my, my boss, Gary Vaynerchuk, has a number of clients come to him all day long and say, hey, we're looking for the CMO of this new sneaker brand, or we need a social media manager or we need a data analyst. And so we've got these lists of job openings that they're coming to us because they trust the work that we do. And so, for example, if we're going to let go of Nancy, who's a great copywriter, just not for our brands, then before I even go into that conversation with Nancy, I've looked at that list, and I know the two or three places we can introduce her to. Now, we can't, we can't get her a job, but we can certainly get her the conversation started. And that's amazing. That's a huge leg up, especially when you are feeling like you just got your knees kicked out from under you. So we started it, I would say, probably five years ago, and I would say in the last 18 months, it has a life of its own. It has a life of its own. We have one person that owns the entire sheet of X employees that reaches out to them on a quarterly basis, checking in. Are they good where they are? Do they want to move? Because it's not only us helping people that have exited. It's us being like, wow, that company is looking for a killer digital director and we have someone that used to work her three years ago. Maybe we can just like, do an alley oop. You know, we're not we're not getting any money from it. It's just the right thing to do.

Andy Kitson:
I love that. It really changes a lot of conversations that can be had and kind of more of a scarcity mindset around promotions, saving, let-gos, things like that into something that is much more, like there's no real scarcity about it because there are many potential jobs in the world and like being here is like part of maybe your journey to one of these other places.

Claude Silver:
Yeah. Andy, one of the greatest things that happens is we get boomerangs. We get people that voluntarily leave that want to come back three, four or five years later. And we, on some occasion, we have people that left or that we've exited them, that we find out what they're up to in three years. We talk to them, wow, they've really matured, wow, so forth and so on. And we bring them back.

Andy Kitson:
Yeah.

Claude Silver:
Just amazing because, you know, speed is a huge KPI for us. So anyone we bring in already knows the pace at which we work and anyone, anyone we bring in, I should say, that has already been in the company. On the other side of that coin, the book, The bookend over here is anyone that's starting day one tomorrow or day, week three tomorrow. We have to give them ample amount of time to understand how different we really are, how we trust first, how we want them to succeed, how this is a place where kindness is much, I mean, it's just, that is what a high performer is, someone that operates from that place of kindness, being the bigger person, opening the door for someone else and opening the door in real life, but also opening the door, sharing opportunities with that person. So, yes and is where we want to come from. Pretty cool, really cool. I mean, I've been there eight and a half years, like my longest relationship.

Andy Kitson:
You just mentioned that, you know, leadership is operating from that place of kindness. And maybe that's a good segue to talk to you a bit more about how it's not just you operating, say, with this more heart centered approach, but, but how do you scale that throughout your organization where having 50 minute conversations with everyone is it's impactful, I'm sure, but doesn't get you all the way towards towards where you need to be?

Claude Silver:
Yeah. So I think one of the things I do just personally is I have rather not I'm having 15 minute convos with one person or I'm having half an hour, 45 minute jam sessions with 20 people. So that's, that's one way immediately to scale. Secondly, I have found what I call culture champions throughout the organization, and this is people that understand our DNA, understand why we're different, have been here for a while and can speak to not only our differences, but like the proof is in the pudding. Like really no, we're, we're really like good people here. Like, we want you to be happy in your life. So they're called culture champions, which I will set people up with. And I'll say, oh, hey, Sarah, you know, have you met anyone else rather than just your team? No. Let me introduce you to five people and hey, friends, please meet my new friend Sarah, so forth and so on, and find 15 minutes to take her virtual coffee, whatever. And then I have a great team, the people and experienced team, and some of them are OGs. Some of them come from the world of quote unquote HR, and some of them have hearts to help and they know what it is to serve, quite frankly. And then I'll also say we have, which I'm so proud of, I'd say in the last two years, we have three years, we've brought in a swath of very experienced leaders that have been at the holding companies or been at the platforms, and their career was on a skyrocket, but they wanted to do something different. They didn't want to work at a company that was based around fear. So I lean on them in a big, big way. And in fact, this past week, we, I ran an offsite for our global leadership team. 35 people from around the world came into New York to have these conversations with us, with myself, with Gary, with facilitators, to really understand how important it is, how we make people feel, and how much power we have to make or break someone's day. So let's make it.

Andy Kitson:
There's so much I want to dig into from here, at least, I wrote on probably eight things, but I'll choose a couple here. For those off sites, it's how do you help leaders understand that power of being able to make or break someone's day?

Claude Silver:
So great question. First and foremost, we are like a company that's run on osmosis. So the more we spend time with each other, certainly the more time Gary spends with us and we can hear what matters to him. That is one way to just get it right and an IV straight to the arm. So that's a huge, huge part. But then workshopping it, you know, talking about the difference between being in a group and being on a team and really having deep conversations in a safe space with this crew, with the crew of 35, really talking through like, here are the Vayner values. How do you bring these to life every day, Andy? How do you bring these to life, Niko? Okay, now how do we bring these to life? And like literally getting up with the whiteboard and doing the work, getting action items, leaving with action items that we can really take away that we can assign to people. So whether or not that's, you know, we need to create more connection with one another in a virtual hybrid world, well, maybe we should have town halls, global town halls where Singapore can also join, you know, So it's it's getting tactical. It's not, sure it's philosophical to an extent, but then it's like, how do you actually show empathy? How do you actually, how does, where does humility come from? How do, how does it, how do you display it? How do you not display it? You know, what's working, what's not working? So we get real deep and real. And this is in the past couple of years, COVID was a big, I think, initiator of this because we had to find ways to stay connected and staying connected when you can only see someone from the shoulder up, you kind of, you know, you want to capitalize on the intimacy that that the virtual screen does give you. And so, like, let's, like, what else are we? The thing is, is what else are we doing here if we're not getting real? Like what? What else are we doing? There's no point in just mailing it in anymore unless that's your MO. But I don't know how many people at Vayner want to mail things in.

Andy Kitson:
We'd love to hear you talk about hiring leaders, especially outside leaders have such a large impact on the organization. They often are developed at a point where they have their own set of values that need to overlap with the organization, but sometimes you're looking for them to inject something new, other times, and I've always found that to be setting aside kind of like the functional skills, like really understanding what is the impact on the values that an outside leader is going to bring and how do we have confidence that's going to land in the zone that we're really looking for is one of the harder things about just anyone at that more executive level.

Claude Silver:
1,000%, right, because they're already kind of baked, right?

Andy Kitson:
Yeah.

Claude Silver:
They've been doing it for a long enough time, most, most, most often. So I think A, one, the people that we hire are people that we've networked with for the most part. It's not necessarily going to be a LinkedIn person that's coming into the C-suite, but it's a person based on relationships. And we spend a lot of time, all of us in the C-suite or all of us on the executive team are spending time with this person and maybe going to lunch, having a casual conversation, and really getting to know the person, really listening for that generous spirit, really listening. Is this a person that needs to be right all the time because there's no such thing? Is this a person that is going to be malleable and really, over time, will they understand our ethos and will they understand when we say the only thing that matters is how you make someone feel? Like, will they really understand that? Will they really understand what it's like to take accountability so you can just move on with things? So we do an extensive, I would say, and a very extensive period of chatting, interviewing, I'll be brought in. So right now we're about to make a really senior hire and I'm brought in sometimes at the end to just do that final check. Is there anything that doesn't, they don't get or can we spend more time talking about what is it like to really run a team and put people first? Now people are going to come in with their own DNA and their own ways of doing things, that is going to work to a point. But at the end of the day, and this usually takes a year to two years for any seasoned leader to shed their rust. At the end of the day, it's very, very simple. You're either creating fear or you are creating safety, period. And that's really the that's the only judge and jury. And how do we know? Well, we either have intuition, we either pick up on it in meetings, we get people to feedback and and do peer reviews. You know, we have like, we have quant and qual on it. So that's a great question and it's something we think about a lot. We're just going to instill a 100 day process for any new leader that comes in. And our hope is that for the first 30 days we don't get them on a project, but they literally shadow all of us in different departments, shadow meetings, that meetings, and understand, start to understand some of even the nomenclature that we use, you know, and and why and why we think about strategy and insights and cohorts the way we do and why today it's TikTok and tomorrow we're so agnostic, it could be Schmick Schmuk.

Andy Kitson:
Look forward to that. There is a Schmick Schmuck.

Claude Silver:
Schmick Schmuck.

Andy Kitson:
I want to hear more about cultural champions. And in particular, is, is that a, how formal versus informal is the role?

Claude Silver:
It's informal. Everyone has their own job, but these people are definitely known within the areas in which they need to be known. And so maybe, you know, maybe Jack came in five years ago and we just kind of like fell in love with Jack. And one day we said, Jack, you need to spend some time with Gary. So Gary got to know Jack and it's like, okay, we can call upon Jack or it's people that I get to know pretty well and they're like, hey, if you ever need something, if you ever need like a hand, I'm like, yes, I always need a hand with getting people more into the mix and helping people feel like they're more a part of us, that they belong here. And so I have probably a list of 30, 35 people that I just keep. Some of these people have been there on the list forever. Some of these people started nine months ago, but they just whether or not they have a heart to help, whether or not they get it, they have the confidence to know that they don't have to, that the conversations aren't going to be about them. It's not going to be about their ego, but making someone else feel like they matter, so it's informal. However, they all know I call them culture champions, which is pretty cool, I think. And I would like I would love to create a badge on LinkedIn, you know, VM or VXCC, Culture Champion. I used to, in the beginning I used to use the word culture carriers. And then I was like, yeah, they do so much more than carry the culture here. They really champion like head first. They are, if I didn't show up in a room, I feel completely confident with them talking about our culture or running orientation for me.

Andy Kitson:
Yeah, so it sounds kind of like there's this informal network and I kind of like hearing you talk, I wonder to what degree, like if you were to try to formalize that it might lose some of the magic. Like if it becomes a role that people vie for and like, I'm sure there are elements where like you could help people develop into it, but I don't know, like there are some things where formalizing it does undercut some of the value that it delivers.

Claude Silver:
Yeah, I totally agree. Because also, like, they're great at whatever it is they're doing and they're also just like great with people. Now, there are times when some of those people want to pivot and try their hand at in the People and Experience team, in the resource team. You know, they want to get more into the texture and the fiber of our people, which is really cool. And if we can make that move without it costing an arm and a leg to backfill or whatnot, unless we can backfill from within, that's golden. But most of the time these folks love being called on and doing their day job.

Andy Kitson:
I have to ask, what is a jam session?

Claude Silver:
Oh yeah, well, it's just getting a bunch of people together and we either do like ask me anythings or I will throw a couple of topics out there and we will, we will all raise our hand and contribute. I guess it's a, it's a community contribution convo, if you will. And it's, I call it a jam session because everyone's participating. So I'll, I'll get maybe 20 people on the screen if I'm doing it in the screen. And we'll start off with a quick like fun icebreaker. Like what's the last show you binged or, you know, whatever, how many times have you ate chicken in the last week or whatever? And then I'll throw out a topic that I think will be fun for us to talk about. And the topic isn't going to be around your work. Oh, what is the Ford account doing today or what is the Diageo account? No, it's going to be very much in the emotional intelligence space or I should almost say like the liberal arts space, because that's kind of like the leader I am is much more of like a liberal arts leader.

Andy Kitson:
So Claude, you're talking, you mentioned People and Experience team, and there was something you said that I'm not sure if I, if I really heard this quite right, but it sounds like you might bring people on to the team who have like more nontraditional backgrounds, say, who aren't like, sure, I'm certified and kind of coming out of that. I'd love to hear you just talk about what are the core set of values and also capabilities that you look for in bringing someone onto your team.

Claude Silver:
Yeah, great. Yeah, you did. You did hear me correctly. Unless you are going to do benefits or are you going to be working with payroll platform, then you really need that experience, right? You need to know what's up, you need to know that California is different than New York. And let's not even talk about Global because we've got all of Southeast Asia and Europe, which have very, very different employment laws. And if you're going to come on to recruiting, we'll take coordinator. So we'll teach them, they'll do more of the admin, the calendaring, or we'll stack a recruiting team, people that have done that for several years. And so the recruiters usually have recruited because there's an art to that. I definitely think you're really on the front. You're the first face they're going to see. So what does that face look like when they come on to Zoom or in the room, so that's really important. And then in terms of being a business strategist, a PET or HR business strategist, that's something that we want, depending on your level, I would say director on op or maybe senior manager, but director on op, we really want you, we want to know that you know how to hold space for people, that you know how to strategically try to find solutions for people within our world, and you know that this isn't your first rodeo. So maybe you have a background in psychology or coaching, or maybe you just have a knack to really be a great listener and I need someone who listens and does something. So the proactivity portion of this role is really, really high. And again, depending on where you are in the role, I mean, we've got 66 residents right now in our halls. We have a huge resident program, residency program. And I have one person who is probably a PET manager who's growing, but her one and only job is to take care of these 66 people and take care of, make sure they have their trainings, make sure they do this, make sure they show up here, make sure all their questions are answered, makes everything so I don't need anyone that has a college degree. And in fact, I removed the need for a college degree period at Vayner with the exception of a lawyer almost seven years ago. And I want someone that can roll up their sleeves and be creative and be fast on their feet. And the person has to enjoy people, and the messiness that we bring.

Andy Kitson:
With that messiness is a, it's a key part. It's what leads to everything wonderful. And it also leads to all the things that you have to sort through.

Claude Silver:
I mean, we're, you know, human beings are messy and I, I, for one, enjoy the mess. I didn't, that doesn't mean I always enjoyed my mess. But I can now, I have more appreciation for the growth and the development and the aches and pains that we all have, usually in our adolescent twenties.

Niko Skievaski:
Speaking of messiness, people are affected by the outside world, right? By societal issues, by things going on in their personal life. I love to hear we've had a lot of civil unrest and policy changes in the country that things that affect people emotionally. How do you help people deal with that in the workplace? We've seen a number of different companies take different approaches to that, and I would just love to hear this this heart centered approach that I imagine you would describe.

Claude Silver:
Yeah, So a number of ways. One, I think when it comes to people's mental and emotional health, you know, we certainly have apps and we've brought on companies that can that can help support us in supporting them. So whether or not it's coaching apps that we have, a mental health prevention app that we use is kind of like the Netflix for mental emotional health. So if you want to do a meditation or you want to do the breathing exercise or you want to watch a video on maybe alleviating stress in the workplace or stress at home, you got that on your phone. You can do that any time, you can listen to it while you're working. So we've got our apps in place and this is globally, in certain regions, in Europe we have therapy, so people can have three sessions. We have, something I'm really proud of is our Community Resource Groups, CRGs, which are sometimes called ERGs or BRGs in other companies, and those groups are autonomous, they're self named, they get a budget, they get to go and do what they want to do, but they really, really do a wonderful job of staying in community. Allies are included, of course, but really wrapping arms around one another in a support group type of way. So whether or not that is .... Or if you identify as Black, African American, Afro-Cuban, Desi, Southeast Asian, Shalom, Jewish, you know, Hispanic, I mean, name it, we just launched our something called Vay-bilities for people with seen and unseen disabilities, which I'm really proud of. We launched actually yesterday, so that's a huge one, huge, huge one. And we're about to launch parents. So that's a way to find your micro people, your micro communities, and that might feel safer to you in times of need. And also, I will say, you know, talking to people on my team, talking to me like there's nothing that's off limits. I have, I send out a lot of newsletters or emails when something is happening, when something's going down in the world, whether or not that's the war in the Ukraine, what's happening in Haiti, so that everyone feels, for the most part, touched in some way, seen in some way. And then we're always going to do, try to do a contribution to usually a smaller organization, not like the NCAAP, but Black owned business in Harlem, for example, or Disability, a company that focus on neuro, neurodiversity, and we'll focus in raising money for them. So there's a lot of different ways that are either 1 to 1, you in the app, or one to many that seem to really soothe people. Next week I have my first mental health jam session where I put it out there on Slack. Anyone that wants to come and talk about mental health, we're going to make space here. And in that conversation, not only can people talk about themselves if they feel courageous enough and safe enough to do so, but really, where do we want to focus our attention as a global company now? Do we want to focus on ADHD? Do we want to focus on autism? Do we want, you know, for the community that we have inside. So what I love about that is it removes the othering. That's my hope, is to remove othering like, Oh God, you're different, you can't spell or, you know, like, no, we're all, listen, there's not one person who's got it all on lock right now. It's a move. I think we're, our emotions are moving targets, you know, they're fluid.

Niko Skievaski:
That's beautiful. For the sake of time, I want to get us into our rapid fire questions, because I think you're going to have some really fun responses here. So I'll kick us off and Andy and I will we'll switch back and forth. But to start off with, what's a story that illustrates what culture means to you?

Claude Silver:
Gosh, that's a really good question. A personal story is my nana, who was my person like my person, she died at 101 about five years ago. Lived a hell of a long life. She called me Heart from age seven. We called each other heart, which is beautiful. I wrote a medium article about it. It's just so incredible. She lived to see me get this incredible job title. And Nana, I'd walk her into Trader Joe's or the Pharmacy or wherever she was going, whenever I came to see her and she, she handed, you know, the cashier her card and Niko would hand the card back to her and she'd look up at the nametag and she'd say, Niko? And you'd say, Yeah? Would you do me a favor and have a peaceful day? And then she would walk out. So talk about leaving someone feeling better, making someone feel seen. You know, you're, you know, you're a cashier. You're just like transaction, transaction. No, stopping the moment with a generous spirit, because my belief is then you pass that on. There's no way that Niko doesn't run to the back or on his lunch break and go, oh god, this little old lady said the most coolest thing to me. And emotions are contagious. We catch that, you know, attention and generosity. They unlock serotonin and oxytocin, and who doesn't want a dose of that? So I would, I would probably have to say, my nana, she's it. She's, she's it. She's, she's the one.

Andy Kitson:
Sounds amazing. Next one, is what book do you want everyone on your team to have read?

Claude Silver:
I would say, there's a few, Setting the Table by Danny Meyer because it really is about hospitality at its core, I believe, and leaving people feeling. Radical Acceptance, Tara Brock as a huge one and Atlas of the Heart, Brene Brown. That's a really poignant one or Dare to lead, that's a poignant one. And then I want people to have fun. So look, I love music and I love music biographies, autobiographies. So if they want to read like the new John Werner or the Rolling Stone, whatever, I'd like them to read something fun about someone's life and trials and tribulations.

Andy Kitson:
It's a good list.

Niko Skievaski:
Yeah, it is. What non-business hobby or interest has impacted your work the most?

Claude Silver:
So having kids, for sure has rewritten who I am. I was a workaholic for sure. That was like a hobby for me, my working and studying work. And so spending time with them and watching their creativity just like boo boo boo, it just like pops everywhere. And they're talking about dragons or butterflies or unicorns, and I'm sitting there just like, yeah, right. This is so mystical and magical. This is where I want to be all day. And so bringing that sense of wonder and inspiration, but really just like, whoa, yeah, like anything is possible, my friends, anything is possible.

Andy Kitson:
What do leaders too often under emphasize or overemphasize when it comes to remote or hybrid company culture? That is kind of what's, what do you think is overrated or underrated.

Claude Silver:
Or underrated is always listening. But I mean, like active listening and listening to learn for sure, because we're all students and we're all teachers and you never know what you're going to learn about someone or their work or their creativity. So that's always underrated. I think what's overrated is like a leader thinking they're the shit. Sorry, forgive my French, but like a leader thinking like, yeah, everyone loves them. Like, how do you know? How do you know, have you asked? Like, so I think, you know, the higher you get, the more opportunity there is for hubrism. And, you know, being Icarus and thinking that you can fly high. And we as leaders, I think, need to check ourselves, check our egos all the time and really practice humility. And if you don't know what that is, if a person doesn't know what humility is, then they need to like, go check out some of Mother Teresa's writings or they need to go spend some time in a soup kitchen or the needle exchange and doing some real, real shit with real people to see that life is not easy for everyone. And we got to, we got to give a lot more than we get.

Niko Skievaski:
Okay, last one here. What work changes have you made since the pandemic started that you plan to carry forward?

Claude Silver:
Personally?

Niko Skievaski:
Could be personal, or it could be for the company, I think either one or maybe both, if you have examples.

Claude Silver:
Yeah, I mean, this is going to be so like trite, but like I stand all day. Now, I stand and do my best not to sit. So that's been really helpful, really helpful for my back and I highly recommend other people doing it, which when people went home they got a stipend to get furniture or whatever. So hopefully a lot of people did that. And I think one of the other things is really, really leaning in on Slack. Like we have a very, very rich, vibrant Slack community. It's where a lot of learning takes place, a lot of jousting with one another, community resource groups live there, so leaning in hardcore there as a place to connect with one another.

Niko Skievaski:
Nice.

Claude Silver:
Yeah.

Niko Skievaski:
Well, one of the things that I try to do in figuring out how I feel is connect with my body. And one thing that tells me that I'm learning or having a profound moment is when I get goosebumps. And I have had goosebumps this entire hour that we spent together. And they come and they go. And I think that the way that you approach a lot of this work is just so refreshing and beautiful. And I so appreciate you sharing with us and taking the time.

Claude Silver:
Thank you so much. Thank you. I got goosebumps to like. That's when I know I'm alive and I'm here.

Niko Skievaski:
Yeah.

Claude Silver:
I appreciate you both so much and thank you. I'm honored to be asked to be on your podcast.

Andy Kitson:
And that's a wrap. Thanks for listening, folks. We want more people to listen to this show and you can help us by leaving your review, giving us your rating or sharing with a friend. If you have feedback or want to suggest a guest, email us at Hi, that's H I@PeopleEverywhereShow.com. You can also sign up for our mailing list at PeopleEverywhereShow.com up to get updates on new episodes and events. All right. Please do us a favor and have a peaceful day. We'll talk to you next time.

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