Episode 12: Genny Winter's Leadership Journey of Embracing Feedback and Promoting Inclusivity

On Board with Transparent Leadership Podcast

July 3, 2024

Episode 12 Show Notes

In today's episode, Genny Winter, Board Chair of Easterseals, Inc., shares her insights on leadership and mentoring. The conversation begins with Kendra emphasizing the need to stay open to positive and negative workplace behaviors as avenues for growth. She passionately encourages taking personal responsibility for one’s learning, moving beyond the confines of employer-provided education. This sets the stage for a broader discussion on how nonprofits, like Easterseals, foster inclusive, judgment-free environments for individuals with disabilities.

With her extensive energy sector and nonprofit leadership background, Genny Winter elaborates on the value of board diversity, particularly the inclusion of individuals with disabilities. She discusses how diverse experiences enrich nonprofit boards and why aligning potential members’ missions with the organization’s goals is crucial.

Kendra and Genny also discuss the increasingly important topic of work-life balance. They explore how today’s employees prioritize this alongside job fulfillment, presenting unique challenges for nonprofit leaders who must manage resources while creating an appealing work environment.

Links:

• Learn more about Genny Winter
• Connect with Kendra Davenport.

Transcript

Genny Winter:

I think, especially women in leadership roles, there is a need to know that what you're doing that is hitting the mark. You know, 1 of the things that every leader needs to do and I've always had somebody there who was willing to be the realist and the open eyes that are just observing, not judgmental, just playing back what happened type of feedback.

Kendra Davenport:

Welcome to On Board with Transparent Leadership, an Easterseals podcast. I'm Kendra Davenport, president and CEO of Easterseals, and I am thrilled to be joined here today by Genny Winter. Genny is the board chair of Easterseals National Board, and I've been really excited to speak with her because she brings so much leadership experience to the fore. Genny accumulated more than 32 years in the energy sector with Shell before retiring from the company in December of 2018. She joined Shell immediately after graduating from the University of Alabama with a BS in mathematical statistics and a minor in computer science. During her tenure, she served in a variety of leadership roles at Shell and drove its workforce planning diversity and inclusion initiative in its early stages as was Shell's general manager for trading and supply IT globally at the time of her retirement. Her diverse career at Shell provided her with experience in many domestic and international oil and gas disciplines. She also served as a formal and informal mentor for many Shell employees throughout her career, and she was on the executive advisory board for the Shell USA LGBTQ Network.

Genny is a community leader and is a founding member of the Gateway Academy, a Houston based high school for children with learning disabilities, which was established in 2005. Gateway Academy has expanded its focus to include a post high school transition program, Advance Houston, for which Genny is the board chair. She has served in a variety of volunteer leadership roles with community nonprofits throughout the years, including Easterseals of Greater Houston. As a resident of Houston, she and her husband have 3 grown children with whom they enjoy traveling and all outdoor activities. Genny, welcome. Thank you. Thank you for joining me. I feel like I'm talking with an old friend today, but I I have been excited to have this conversation to ask you things that we don't cover in a board chair CEO relationship.

So as a mentor, you're a mentor to me. I mean, you're my board chair, and I ask you for advice and counsel frequently, and I'm always really grateful for it, as you know. But as an adviser and a mentor to junior employees, what is your rule of thumb? You know, what do you tell junior employees wanting to advance in a company? What are some of the key things you you encourage them to focus on or to avoid?

Genny Winter:

Hey, Kendra. Thank you. And it's great to be here, and I, too am looking forward to this discussion. When I get an opportunity to mentor, younger people in newer into their career planning and very early stages, early jobs, first ones out of college, etcetera. I actually have a daughter who is, fairly recently graduated from college and reaches out quite a bit. She also sends her friends to me, and so I've got some real life experience in having these conversations. And, you know, I think 1 thing that I learned through my long tenure in the oil industry is you need to really be prepared for to self advocate. There is nobody else that's gonna watch out for your career like you're going to watch out for your career.

And 1 of the things that I look back on is there were many times where I just said, well, I'll do what the company finds best, or you make those decisions to where you think I could get you most efficiently or most effectively. And I think it's really important that you have a game plan. You know where you wanna get to, and you take the actions and stuff and know enough about your own career to really drive that. And don't sit and wait for anybody else to make those decisions for you. Know where you wanna go. Figure out how to wait, you know, multiple ways to get there, and then be your own advocate and, you know, I love the focus on mentoring, and I couldn't agree with you more.

Kendra Davenport:

I love the focus on mentoring, and I couldn't agree with you more that everybody has to be their own best advocate. And I know, annually, whenever we get to, you know, that time just before performance reviews, I always send out an email to our entire team saying, you are your best advocate. Yes. You have a supervisor who can vocalize for you, but if you don't believe in yourself and in what you're doing, how can anyone else champion you? So I think that's wonderful. In terms of mentoring, I also think the generation that is just coming into the workforce now has an advantage on us because mentoring has gained such acceptance, in fact, encouragement. But you and I came up in a very different time. Can you talk a little bit about whether or not you have mentors? Did you have mentors at Shell? And I'm gonna I'm gonna make it a 2 part question because I think very different today than than it was likely when you started at Shell, but very male dominated industry. So can you relate that into whether or not you had mentors and how you navigated that?

Genny Winter:

Yes. Absolutely. Mentors were a big part of my career development, and I had what I would call a board of mentors. I found as many different people, both informal and formal mentors, that could, provide insights into things that they did that helped them get where they wanted to go and also the things that they learned along their path that didn't work so well. And, and I tried to find a lot of women mentors, which was a little bit of a struggle in the in the oil industry. But, in the IT aspect, I grew up in the IT partner shell. There were a lot of women that were slightly ahead of me in their career that were, you know, very welcoming to have these kind of conversations and reached out to them. And then, you know, but there is a difference between having what I would call someone who can be your mentor in that formal sense where you have agreed meetings, you have agreed targets, you have agreed actions that you're taking.

And and those informal mentors that almost everything I consider you to be an informal mentor. I consider, you know, so many people to be, you know, anybody that's ahead of you or that has a slightly different perspective. And the value also of having, you know, the mentor in the relationship, learns as much from the mentee in those relationships a lot. So, you know, so many times when I was involved in a mentor relationship with someone who was similar, to, you know, in a different in a different path, or I would reach out to people in the business side of things versus being on the IT tech side of things so that I could also then understand how things happened, you know, in the my client groups and other types of things. And and to me, it's important that you find people of all varieties that, you know, both those ones that you enter into formally and those ones that are just, can I go have a cup of coffee and just bounce an idea off of you and make sure that you follow on having those discussions and broadening your view of things? And people that know you and are willing to give you the the difficult conversation. Right? Have that tough conversation about what you may need to improve. A mentor doesn't help you if they don't provide really good constructive feedback to help you move forward.

Kendra Davenport:

That's true. And I think I have both type mentors. Happy to happy to have those that I bounce things off of and just ask an informal opinion of, and I think you're right. I think that can be equally important. You and I have discussed from time to time because, you know, you I come to you for for advice, and I've said before how pragmatic and even keeled you are and how much I value your insight because I think you are removed. You know? You're an arm's length away from it, but you've experienced virtually everything I experience it in some way, shape, or form. Can you talk a little bit about how you got this even keeled? Were you always this way, Genny, or is it easier to arm to your quarterback? What influenced you and what what I guess I guess what led you to be such a strategic, thoughtful, level headed thinker?

Genny Winter:

So, I've had a couple of opportunities to learn from what I would call less than stellar performances. And, and, you know, if nothing else, we can always be a good bad example, but I can remember a meeting. And this was with 1 of my favorite managers, during my whole time at Shell, and we were going through what was going to be a major change for the organization. And we were in her leadership team meeting. I I can remember sitting in the room. We were in the Netherlands, and and I kind of just went off this whole very emotional this is gonna be so hard, and what are we thinking about? And and do have we thought about all of the different communications, and our people are gonna rebel and and just and it was really, like, over the top that I just, you know, I had but I would almost call 1 of those breakdowns in the room and everybody got to witness it. And it was at that point that, she pulled me aside and she said, okay, that was kind of uncharacteristic for you, but it was a very emotional based response. And, she said, but let's work through the process.

Let's go through the change. I appreciate that there is gonna be some challenges, but let's reconnect on it. And so after I left that meeting, I had a long, you know, intercontinental flight home and, got to think about it. And I said, okay. That can't happen again. And and so, you know, maybe 2 or 3 months passed and it came time to roll out the change that we were gonna go do, and she came into my office fully expecting that I was gonna have another meltdown type of an emotional response. And it was at that point that I had made my mind that that that was not going to be an effective leadership representation for my people going through this change, for other you know, for how we were going to successfully achieve what we needed to. And I also realized that they weren't really asking for my, input a lot.

They needed me more to be, no. We need you to drive this, and we need you to be the 1 that can help make this happen. And something switched at that point, and it was a, a mark change. In fact, when she left my office after doing that, she said, I just kept waiting for that emotional response to come out and it never did. But it also helped me to go through that and see the negative outcome of something like that, and really have that experience to say that's not who I wanna be, and that's not how I wanna react. So I very quickly shifted to being very clear on what my role is and knowing what they're asking me to do. It helped me identify my buttons so that I would find ways to, you know, stand down or deal with the emotional response before it made me get much better prepared, going into discussions around change and and how I would play in that. And it it left enough of a sour taste in my mouth where I'm like, I I'm not going through that 1 again.

I will figure out how to do it. And I need to get a much broader view of other people's perspectives and other and and and it and that's how it started to happen. And I started to realize and and this was an interesting, dynamic that came out to that that worked really well in the rest of my career. What I what I started to do then as I became, you know, a leader driving change, I had when 2 people below me couldn't agree on something, I started to have them come into my office and say, I'm happy for you to come in and bring any problem to me. But the thing that we're gonna do is when we're gonna bring a problem that the 2 of you can't agree on, we're gonna talk through it, but you each have to represent each other's viewpoint on something.

Kendra Davenport:

And change your opposite. Take the opposite of the way you feel.

Genny Winter:

Yes. And you have to be able to we're gonna we're gonna kick off the discussion with you explaining to me why your other person should be their point of view and what they're advocating for. And doing that 1 thing, 1, it stopped the number of people want needing to come into my office. And and 2, it forced you to look at things from the other side of the coin, which has helped me to build that, you know, that broader sense of, okay, these are all the different factors at play. These are what we need to be considering, and this is how we can move forward with this change in a way that meets everybody where they are and addresses the concerns across the board. And so I think, you know, again, being that bad example, living through that, and having the aftermath of that be, that's not what I want my professional reputation to be, was enough of a dynamic to change that really forced me to think about other ways of doing things.

Kendra Davenport:

You're pretty self actualized, though. I'm not sure everybody would've would've gotten on the plane and beat themselves up enough to say, okay. I'm not gonna let that happen again. You're pretty competitive and self actualized. So I love the example you give, though. It reminds me of, 1 of my children is in law school, and she hates when she has to argue the side she doesn't believe in, but she always comes away from it saying, this will make me a better public defender. So I totally understand that, and I'm gonna I'm gonna use that technique. You and I recently had a conversation, and I was sort of questioning something, my ability to do something.

And you said very little, but what you did say was very positive. And you used an example of something else I'd done, and you said you have the capability of doing this. You know you can do this, Kendra. And I hung up the phone and thought that positive affirmation from you was really all I needed. It was sort of a, I guess, a a path it helped me clear a path to doing what I knew I I had to do, but I just felt better about it after I spoke with you. Is there somebody in your career who has served as that sort of, you know, enabler, facilitator from whom you've gotten just positive, honest feedback? Maybe they're a mentor. Maybe they're not. Maybe they're just somebody in an advisory capacity or maybe they're someone close to you.

But is there someone for whom you rely on you know, who you rely on for that or who you go to for that positive reinforcement or did when you were managing?

Genny Winter:

Yeah. So, you know, 1 of the things I do think that, I think, especially women in leadership roles, there is a need to know that what you're doing, that that is hitting the mark and that you're and you need to have it. So I do believe, you know, 1 of the things that every leader needs to do and every time that I have, been successful in leading in particular ways, I've always had somebody there who was willing to be the realist and the and the and the open eyes that are just observing, not judgmental, just playing back what happened type of feedback. And, sometimes it is that, you know, positive affirmation that, hey. You've done this before. You know what you need to do. It's that extra boost. And it has been different people through my careers, but but almost invariably in every new role that I took, I would seek out that person and, they would bubble up either 1 of my leaders or my leadership team or etcetera.

But you have to create that culture that people are willing to be the bearers of of constructive feedback or the realist in the room that's saying, yeah, that might work in this other world, but it's not gonna work here. Let's work through that a bit more, etcetera. And the 1 thing I will say, the same leader that helped walk me through my meltdown that I I mentioned a little earlier, She was the 1 that told me that, sometimes I give people the benefit of the doubt too long, and I continue to coach and I continue to coach. And she said, you know what? Coaching is really, really great, but at some point, you have to accept that you need to make a tough decision and you need to move things really quickly. And so she said, if you could get to that a little further, quicker and make that. And and when you've coached and it's just not turning things around, be willing to make a change faster, then it will serve you well going forward, and that really did. And and and so, you know, it's the kind of people that will, you know, help you bring what your strong suit to the table is and help you minimize those gap areas by really laying them out in front of me so you can see them. That will help you get further.

And I can remember I used to have, you know, performance reviews and, I I used to have this 1 woman who would come in to my she was on my leadership team, and she would come in and she would lay it out. This would be her 1 on 1, you know, monthly 1 on 1. And she would tell me everything I was doing wrong, and I couldn't stand to, you know, I knew as she was coming into the room that it would be that way, but I, you know, she was 1 of the ones that drove me, you know, drove me further and made me accept some things that, I was doing that did need to get changed. And unless you surround yourself with people who are willing to point those out, and it can be, again, people that report to you, It can be people that you have as mentors. It can be your bosses who are observing things. You're constantly getting feedback, and you have the opportunity to either do something with it or not. But making sure you have people that will really tell you what's going on is is is vital, to, you know, continuing to further and to really be a leader that can be an authentic leader and work across everybody in the organization.

Kendra Davenport:

Completely concur. 1 of the things I've been dying to ask you because I I have really had somebody with the perspective of both nonprofit and for profit. You are a a very active volunteer. Some would say you have as much responsibility as a board chair of a national board than a paid employee has, if not more. And you really worked your way through Shell up to the upper echelons of management. In your mind, what's the difference? What's the difference between for profit leadership and nonprofit leadership, or is there 1?

Genny Winter:

I lost you. I I did I I didn't hear anything after upper echelon of management. I don't so I didn't hear the question.

Kendra Davenport:

Hear me now?

Genny Winter:

Yes. Uh-huh.

Kendra Davenport:

Okay. You froze. So you worked your way up to the upper echelon of management at Shell, and you, you have volunteered in major capacities for nonprofits. And some would argue that your role as the chair of a national board of directors is a tremendous amount of responsibility. So I what I've been dying to ask you from from my perspective as someone who's only worked in the nonprofit sector is do you think there's a difference in leadership in the for profit and leadership in the nonprofit? And if so, what is that difference, or do you feel they're very similar? What's your feeling?

Genny Winter:

So, I feel that, you know, leadership of an organization is the same regardless of whether you are leading a a corporation, a for profit, or a corporation that is a nonprofit. I believe that, you know, leaders are responsible for setting culture. They're responsible for ensuring, you know, the sustainable growth of the area. They're responsible for getting the right people and and and managing the product and looking at all the business numbers and all that stuff. And that is the same whether that is in a corporate or in a nonprofit environment. What is different, though, is the the resources that are associated with being a leader in a corporation that is a for profit. You know, I worked in, you know, in in big oil for for 32 years, and we had the resources that we need when we were putting together proposals or when we were needing to travel to go to different places to do things. And, when we needed professional development, or we had people on our teams that we wanted to bring together for, because we needed to work on some changes and other types of things.

So I think you have to do much more with fewer resources in the nonprofit world. The other thing, you know, we had I had a team of lawyers and a team of HR professionals and a team of financial people that that were all helping me pull together everything. And sometimes when you're in that nonprofit world, it's you. There's 1 person. You don't have the luxury and the extra money that you can go and bring someone in to do that. So you have to be much more effective and much more broad in the the different hats you wear in an organization when you're in key leadership roles in nonprofits, I find.

Kendra Davenport:

Thank you. Thank you for that. You know from working with me, as long as you have now, a few years now, Transparency is something I strive for. And, in a federated model such as Easterseals where there are 70 separate affiliates. And as 1 of my newer staff members says, you meet 1 Easterseals, you meet 1 Easterseals. They're all different. Can you think of a strategy you employed when you were in a leadership role and work that promoted transparency or conversely 1 that you implemented that backfired and didn't promote transparency?

Genny Winter:

Yeah. So, for the first part of my career, I worked in US specific roles, and I tended to like the types of roles where I had a, you know, 30 to 40 person team, and I could see everybody. And we could, you know, run into each other in the coffee place and and and, go to lunch together, and you got to know people on a very, you know, familiar basis, and and that worked really, really well. And, there became a time where I was asked to take on a team of people in, the Philippines, and I was like, I don't even know how to manage people that aren't in the same building that I'm in, much less in the same country, you know, or and how and how what does that look like, and how does that work, and what do I do? So at the same time, I was I had 3 young children at home, and I, you know, and I was juggling with my husband. We both were, you know, had big jobs in the in, the oil business, and so, we were trying to juggle all that. So I took on this team of people at, in the Philippines, and 1 of the things that they said was, we want you over here once a quarter. And I said, that's not happening. I'm not gonna travel to the Philippines.

I'll come once a year. I said, but you will we will feel connected enough such that you will know and you won't need me any more than that. You won't feel that there's a gap, etcetera. And and what it took was is it took, being willing to meet with them both individually and as groups in all kinds of communication styles. Right? It took really you know, so being on instant message people could, you know, you know, talk to me if they needed to. They knew when they could reach me. We could be accessible by phone. We could be accessible by, you know, in group meetings where we were on teleconference using video conference, using a lot of that.

There was no 1 way to communicate with them. It was always being there to them. And so I think what's important about communication strategies is, you know, sometimes people like emails and that's how they're gonna do it. Sometimes people wanna talk to you. Some people, you know, wanna talk to you in groups. Others, it needs to be 1 on 1. The communication strategy and the creating that open door policy and, you know, people know that they can ping you and say, can do you have a few minutes? I need to talk to you about something. All of that was really critical to creating that environment that felt like I was just next door even though I was literally thousands of miles across the globe in doing that.

And so, you know, I think leaders need to be accessible. I think they need to be accessible in multiple ways. I think they need to communicate in multiple ways. I think they need to when they're in, you know, 1 of the things I learned from a couple of different ones is when we are in the office and when we are in some of a different location, it's it is being out in with the teams. It's being very present, very visible, you know, and really spending the time working with the people because you build a lot of trust when you're walking around and when you're seeing each other and then you're having candid conversations and casual, connections with people, etcetera. And so it was those types of decisions around making a very multifaceted communication strategy, being accessible to people. And when you had the opportunity to do FaceTime, getting away from your computer and your email and the things that you, you know, that are so easy to get sucked into every day in your day to day work and being present. I had a boss 1 time that it she couldn't go to lunch unless she had an hour and a half because it would literally take her that long to get through the cafeteria and get out because everybody would wanna talk to her.

And, you know, and so she had to be very choiceful in when she was present and if she could block out that amount of time just walking around the cafeteria where you had other managers that went to cafeteria every day, but they were in and out in 10 minutes and didn't acknowledge anybody else along the way. And so, you know, setting up that that, you know, that kind of that culture of accessibility and wanting to talk and, you know, less presentations, more 1 on 1 communication whether it's through technology or through being physically present and standing in areas where you just have time to talk to people and not about just work, but about everything that's really going on. That's what really creates that culture of transparency. That's when you hear what's really going on and not going on. And and people are willing to come forward and tell you. It does not work.

Kendra Davenport:

Totally true.

Genny Winter:

It does not work when you only have 1 way. Right? No. And if I'm gonna sit here and send really great emails, but I don't get out and do that, I might touch the, you know, 10% of the people that don't wanna have engagement and other stuff. Everybody else, you're losing along the way. And those and that's when it's broken down in the past.

Kendra Davenport:

I agree with that. And I think COVID, this hybrid workspace we're working in, I think, has been, in many ways, very liberating for women, especially, who are, you know, I'll just say it, juggling oftentimes a lot more than their male counterparts. At the same time as a manager, I find it very difficult. I find it very difficult to have people who are a 100% remote, people who are in the office. There's all there's this new tension, between those who are in the office who have to be in the office, and they feel, you know, a little bit maligned. It is it's a very tricky balance, and that's why I think communication is so important, consistent communication. So I couldn't couldn't agree with you more. Is there something you have a bird's eye view into into national nonprofits, into local nonprofits.

Is there something that stands out in your mind that you think is a challenge that most leaders, nonprofit or for profit, are facing today that maybe they didn't face a decade ago? Is there is there anything you think that is intrinsically current in today's leadership roles?

Genny Winter:

Yeah. So I what I observe is I think this is affecting the workplace in general, but I think nonprofits are specifically susceptible to donors and to money availability and whether it's corporate donors, foundations, individual donors, and also people, you know, staff, employees, finding the right kind of people who, you know, know can come in and work. I think, nonprofits today, there is we're all competing for a very, limited set of funds. There's so many great causes that are competing for this money. There are, and, and, you know, we've had some economic downturns since COVID. Right? A lot of the foundations and a lot of the corporations and a lot of, you know, individual donor habits really had to shrink when we had the downturn in the markets, etcetera. So, you know, to me, I think the thing that I see right now that all nonprofits really struggle with is, it's it's naming their vision and naming their mission and aligning that to revenue sources that really help in this very competitive marketplace when there may be fewer funds and, you know, more competition to get those funds and many worthy causes that are, you know, that that really do need to be funded. It's just a matter of, you know, there there's a lot of need out there and how to you know? So I think the leaders at nonprofits right now are really having to figure out how to compete for this money that is out there.

There is money out there. The good news is is there's all types of that, but you have to find mission alignment, and you have to find those areas that those synergies where, you know, people want to invest in you as a nonprofit, and you have to prove their viability as a nonprofit. And, you know, Easterseals and others, you know, we have cyclical types of things. Sometimes, you know, we we are in the, you know, media and we are getting the visibility and people are seeing us and donating to us, and sometimes we have to work harder for that. And and so it's just a matter of keeping all these, you know, things juggling in the air. And then you also throw in the governmental changes and what programs are funding and then the amount of competition for that funding. It is hard to to to get this money and to be, you know, constantly in competition with other people who are also putting great stories out there and competing for the same funds.

Kendra Davenport:

Agree. Feel it, live it every day. So I I do agree with you there. Is there in your mind a quality or qualities that every leader has to possess? And if not, is there something that distinguishes a good leader from a great leader in your mind?

Genny Winter:

Yeah. So I think every leader needs to needs to be able to manage the cultural environment. They have the privilege of setting the culture and the, and the responsibility of communicating that, and they need to, and they need to really be able to communicate to people what it means to work in your corporation, why people and and this is profit, nonprofit, and, you know, for profit. They just need to have very clear vision about where they're taking the organization, what they want their people to be doing, how they want to feel, you know, how they want people to feel about working here. You need to be able to attract. And I think if you go back to, what I was, trying you know, attracting employees today is a struggle across the board, whether you're McDonald's or Walmart or, you know, Easter Seals, etcetera. Getting the caliber of people because there's so many, competing resources and, you know, the the job market is tight, and you need really good, resources and different than when, you know, early in my career. I I literally worked for 1 company for 32 years.

Right? That doesn't happen anymore. You don't have people that stay like that anymore. So I believe that the leader of the organization needs to be able to create that environment that's going to attract and retain the right people. The cost of changing out people over and over again is really expensive, and it's draining on the organization. It can be a good opportunity to get some new energy into organization and taking those opportunities is really good, but people come to work for other people. Right? People like that. They're gonna test the waters with the leader that's in place. And so I think right now, you know, more than anything as a leader, you have to be able to attract people, good people, people who you can develop, and people who are already on the ground running and and making sure, you know, that you're delivering on your product, and you have to be able to do it across a broad network because you have the good news is is we have people who can work remotely, and you can tap in to a much broader pool than just who sits in Houston or who sits in Chicago, etcetera.

Right? But that also means that everybody else has those opportunities with other very inspiring leaders that are, you know, that are out there that are also trying to attract the same top talent that you need to drive your organization. So I think it's different now because you do have to be, you have to be someone that people will look to to say, yes. I wanna go work for for Kendra. I need to be sitting there and and and, you know, that's an organization I wanna be a part of, and I love the culture. I love how they make me feel. I love how whatever it is, balance my work life balance and, you know, give me, you know, training opportunities. What I love about Easterseals is there isn't anybody you ever meet that doesn't say, yes. We need Easterseals.

We need to focus on disabilities. We need to have stronger accessibility. We need to have and I wanna go be part of that. And, and so it's just a matter of making sure you can be that leader that people want to come and work for and create that type of environment that will attract people across the the US.

Kendra Davenport:

I think that's true, and I think employees are looking for a lot more than they did 20 years ago. I think 20 years ago, we were grateful to have a job. We kept our head down, and maybe that's overstating it, but not by much. I think I think employees are much more vocal, and I use my own children often as a as a guide. And they all say, you know, we wanna be as successful as you, mom. We don't wanna have to work as hard. We don't wanna sacrifice our quality of life. Right? And I used to look at them and think, well, you little and great.

Now I think, no. You're onto something. You're onto something. There has to be a balance, and that's what I think is really challenging now as as a nonprofit leader because you are you are spot on. The resources the margins are always very thin. And even when you're working for a nonprofit that is doing exceptionally well financially, I think you are you are held to a higher standard. You can't just splash cash around to satisfy needs or to keep people. You have a you have a greater responsibility because that that money comes from a donor who entrusted you with that money.

So it is I think I think you're absolutely right. Creating that atmosphere where people want to be is is the job of a leader, and and I think people come to people they trust. You know? They will do more for people they trust that inspire them or that feel that you know, show them that they're valued. And I think the same applies to boards. So can you put your board hat on? And I'm about to wrap this up. We'll ask you another question or 2. But, in terms of leadership, let me let me end with this leadership question is, as a board chair, do you feel the same way about the board that that it's incumbent upon leadership board leadership, administration of the nonprofit to pull those those volunteers in? And can you speak a little bit about that, how the commitment differs or how attracting really engaged board members or keeping them engaged? I mean, it's a whole to me, it's a very, very similar, but a different animal.

Genny Winter:

Absolutely. 1 of the biggest challenges that I think boards have is making sure that they have a strong pipeline of potential new members that are coming through, and how do you make sure that you can identify people who would be good fits, that you, understand enough about the board's responsibilities so that you're attracting the all of the different types of experience spaces that you need to to, to have on your board, whether that's legal counsel or financial acumen or someone who knows the, development and advancement area and fundraising or someone who is, you know, gonna help you in your marketing spaces, grant writing. There's so many different types of experiences that you need to have on your board, and you need to be able to access people who are, 1, willing to give of their very precious time. Because a lot of the people, if I just take our national Easterseals board, you've got CEOs. You've got to be able to present the case of your organization and your board time and the commitment they're gonna make, and it's it is buying again you know, competing against definitely other very high priorities and very limited time. So I think, you know, having that ability to talk about and align find people who have aligned missions, whether that's industry service partners. And for Easterseals, you know, whether it's people that might be involved with veterans, it might be involved in the medical area, it might be others. But it's you creating that story, helping them know where their their talent is and what their expertise and how they can best use that.

People wanna join boards that they know they're making a difference. If they're giving of their valuable time, they wanna be utilized. They wanna know they're making a difference. They wanna have an, a, they wanna have impact in an area that is meaningful to their own personal lives. And I've you know, to be very transparent with that, we are the parents of a disabled child, right, and a disabled adult child, that we were Easterseals, clients at 1 point in time. How do you find people like that? And how you know, do you have, you know, the open processes and the and the insights into the people who you would want to bring on and how do you cultivate that pipeline. It is a challenge for every board I'm on, but when you do your board work right, when you make the use of the time, when you really tap into the talent and put them in the area of expertise, and when you find that aligned mission, then you you have to turn people away. Right? And, because people do want to, people want to be part of something that they know is making a big impact.

And, a lot of people and and I'll be very, transparent on this for myself, I worked in corporate America, but I volunteered so much because there were times when what I was doing for oil and gas or, you know, doing in my IT space wasn't necessarily the most enriching, fulfilling thing that I was doing. And and I got a lot of that personal reward, and it's why I wanted to, after my role in corporate America, be involved in the nonprofit sector because you do need to have those things that you feel personally connected to. And that's what board opportunities give you. And it is important to find those, people that align with your mission and get them in the pipeline and get them involved and figure out how to venue utilize them, and and then that's the sweet, you know, the sweet spot when that happens.

Kendra Davenport:

I think thank you for that. I think Easterseals must be doing something right because our boards to a person you know, each time I'm in the field and I meet with boards of of an affiliate as I did last week, it is so, you know, overused word, but it's truly inspiring because many of these people, as you said, are CEOs. They run companies, and yet they make the time. And last week, I was at our Easterseal South Florida affiliate in Miami, and I met with 6 of their board members. And they, you know, they took 3, 3 and a half hours out of the middle of their day to come tour a center. They've they've toured many times and talked with me. And a couple of times, I very cognizant of their time and their, you know, their commitments, said, well, I don't wanna keep you. And then they'd order another cup of coffee.

And I think, oh, this is amazing. This is amazing. But you're right. When people believe in something and they they derive fulfillment, personal fulfillment, they'll make the time. I think that's so true. Is there anything else you wanna say about Easterseals or about your role or about leadership? I I just I've so enjoyed this conversation. I've got another question for you. But is there anything you wanna conclude with or anything you wanna share about Easterseals board or your role?

Genny Winter:

Yeah. So I you know, I think the the thing that I would like to close on is, I do think it's imperative that boards reflect the constituency group that they're representing. And I know that an area that, Easterseals is working on is to bring more people with disabilities onto the board because we need to have people who have that experience base that are that can really help, you know, deepen the conversation, make it much more real, make it you know, bring their own personal experiences. And so I think, you know, I encourage everybody to make sure that, you know, whatever type of nonprofit you are, it needs to be inclusive. It needs to you know, we need to make sure that the types of people that the nonprofits are are serving, have representation at that board level, have representation at the staff level, and and make sure that we're working. And it's an area that we're working on, and I and I just so believe that the depth and the effectiveness will just, you know, just continue to to get stronger as we continue to make that type of focus.

Kendra Davenport:

Alright. Great. Thank you for that. Thank you. Thank you for being here today. We like to end all of our episodes with an ask me anything segment, so stick around for that. But before we do, I wanna ask our guest 1 final question, and anybody who knows me knows I I read an awful lot. Is there anything you're reading currently, Genny, that you would recommend? Can be fiction, can be, you know, self help, can be business, professional, anything.

Genny Winter:

So my, my 2 2024 goal for reading has been, it's a list of books called life changing books you won't be able to put down, and I've been working through them. And it has been a really great list of books, and, 1 of the things that I have picked up on is almost every 1 of them provide an insight into an area that I was unfamiliar with. And and and they had been everything from the count of Monte Cristo to, the book of joy by the Dalai Lama and other stuff. And so the, the the thing that I would say about this is I think finding a book and finding anything that helps you build an insight into an area that is not a personal experience for yourself is has been so enriching for me personally but I think for every leader because you need to connect with so many different types of people. So, 1 book, it's actually not on that list, but 1 that really had some very, a lot of impact for me was it's called Grant by Ron Chernow, and it was about Grant, and it was about, the all the different times he as a leader had to reinvent himself and how he had to work on his image and others. So if I had 1 book right now that was really impactful, it's it's not for the faint of heart. It's over a 1000 pages long, but it does give you great insight into what was going on, and at the leadership of our nation at the time that the civil war was going on and even before that. And, but what, you know, what gets thrown at leaders all the time and how you have to respond to that.

So I would recommend that 1, Grant, as a thought provoking way of looking at leadership.

Kendra Davenport:

Adding to my to my list. I am expanding my horizons. I used to my go to's used to be the same genre of of authors, and now I find I'm I don't know. Maybe it's just old age. I'm much more receptive to authors I never would have really picked up or listened to. And 1 I'm listening to right now is a professor at the Stern School at NYU, Stern School of Business, and his name is Scott Galloway. I happened to see him on a morning talk show. Right? I think it was MSNBC.

And he was talking about his book Adrift, which is about how business changed post pandemic, and and it is absolutely fascinating. And I find little pearls of wisdom as a leader in in books like that, but I also read garbage too. Just depends just depends on my mood. Thank you. Thank you for being so candid, Genny. I was really looking forward to this, and, of course, you didn't disappoint. You are you are a really, you're a gem of a leader. We're lucky to have you, and I consider myself lucky to have had this time with you today. Thank you.

Genny Winter:

Thank you for including me. It's been a great and, I love Easterseals, and I, really appreciate all your leadership and everything that you do. So thank you.

Kendra Davenport:

Now on to ask me anything. So today's question is, what advice do you have for middle managers on supporting young new staff members? Any anecdotes about managing a younger generation from your many years of leadership? Well, first of all, I I just wanna say I love managing younger people. I love having a staff that I work with that is really diverse in terms of its age because I think you you atrophy if you're not surrounded by younger people. As a leader, you are not as strong if you are not talking to people who are just coming into the workforce because they are seeing things through very, very different lens than your jaded 30, 35 years of experience. At the same time, it can be really challenging because you're managing expectations of of more junior employees. And oftentimes, that's emotionally difficult. Right? You don't wanna hurt people's feelings, but you do sometimes have to set people straight and say, we don't do that here or that this isn't gonna fly, or you have to be a little bit more dedicated with your time. That is really tricky.

It's a very tricky environment to manage in because everything is hybrid. We are in a very, very different space. And yet in the segment I just did with Genny Winter, I talked about the fact that I think it's been a very liberating thing to have a hybrid workforce and have what was once very unacceptable to work from home be part of the package for most most employees regardless of whether they're in a proprietary or a nonprofit company. I think if I could if I was asked as I as I was in this segment what advice I would give a junior employee would be to listen, to really listen and pay attention to social cues. Harder to do now because you're not in person, where I think learning was much more rapid. You learn from watching, and you learn in a way, I think, that, is a little bit more penetrating than what you're trying to learn over Zoom or in fleeting 1 off meetings in person. We are at Easterseals right now going through a a situational discussion about bringing our whole team into Chicago. We haven't ever done that.

I've been with Easterseals now a little more than 2 years, and we just have never had our entire team in 1 place. And I feel it's critical, because I do think we learn from 1 another. And I think those learnings are strengthened, fortified, if you will, when they're when they're learned in person. I also think meeting someone in person helps you really know that individual. And by knowing your colleagues, by knowing your coworkers, you are much less apt, I think, in most cases to gravitate to malintent when you're left off an email chain or you're not invited to a meeting. When you know someone and you know, gosh, this person has 3 children or his wife is sick or he this woman is managing her parents' care in addition to work, You empathize with people. I think that is almost lost when you are a 100% remote. You cannot get into the nitty gritty of what makes people tick unless you see them in person.

So that's becoming a a little bit of a challenge because it's expensive to bring everybody in when they're remote. The other thing besides listening that I would say to, you know, either a junior manager or just someone who is in a junior role that I'm managing is take time. As as Genny Winter and I just said, take time to advocate for yourself, but take time to build yourself, to enrich yourself, to strengthen your skills, whether that's reading or listening to a podcast or going to see a speaker series or just going to events that people speak at. If it's a conference, you're going to pay close attention. You know, Genny said something that really stuck with me. She said, you know, I learned a lot from a poor manager, you know, someone who didn't exhibit the traits I want to exhibit as his manager, and I think that's absolutely true. It resonated with me because I can think of multiple managers that I I once thought of as a very junior young employee in my twenties. I never wanna do that.

I never wanna be that person. I will never speak to someone that way. So negative behavior in the workforce can be a teaching factor just as positive can. But availing yourself to it, staying open to it, I think, is is absolutely essential. So listen and enrich yourself. Take it upon yourself to learn. It is not incumbent upon your employer to be the teacher all the time to send you to school. You need to take on some of that responsibility Easterseals.

And the more you want to learn, the more you're going to learn. Easterseals empowers people with disabilities and their families to be full and equal participants in their communities and within society. Easter Seals is where everyone can feel welcomed and people know that they aren't judged, but treated with the dignity that they deserve. Each day, we provide life changing services nationwide and advocate for policies that improve quality of life. From employment to housing services, to job training, childcare and respite care, adult day programs, and so much more, Easterseals is making a profound impact in thousands of communities every day. You can learn more by visiting easterseals.com. That concludes our episode. Thank you so much for listening.

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