Doing (good) Business

D(g)B episodes are recorded weeks in advance, and this episode is no exception. Kelly & Lara preempt the interview with Hailey to share important thoughts on US events from late May to early June 2020. 

Taking action to solve social problems and communicate what you’re doing should always be top of mind in business, according to Hailey-Cavill Jaspers, Australian DoGoodologist. 

Hailey’s talking with Lara and Kelly, as the June theme of Altruism continues, about why CSR & Social Good is a robust, potent strategy for both boom and tough times is and why it’s important to increase investment in the coming months and years.

Hailey Cavill-Jaspers, DoGoodologist

Hailey has advised blue-chip companies and brands on CSR & Social Good for over 25 years through her company Cavill + Co in Australia. She’s built over 50 cause partnerships for clients including Disney Australia, Vodafone Foundation, Mondelez Australia and SEEK. She also teaches non-profits how to partner with corporations through online training program, BePartnerReady.com™ .

Free books for listeners

1.       DoGoodology – the science of doing good

Money CAN buy you happiness – if you give it away!  This is the science and neuroscience that explains the giving high.

Free download – not even data capture!

1.       Talking the Walk®2 – How to tell your social good story and resonate with Millennials

Why and how companies must communicate CSR & Social Good to cut through skepticism and the noise.

Free download to Doing (good) Business listeners until June 30, 2020.

Follow prompts to purchase the e-book, and when at shop put in DOINGGBUSINESS on the e-book and it will revert to $0

Notable stories mentioned:

Twiggy Forrest securing 10m covid tests

Atlassian

Altruism and business? Yup -it’s a thing!  While altruistic leadership hasn’t been well researched, it is defined as the guiding of others with the goal of improving their well-being or emotional state...and that’s definitely doing good business! 

Kelly and Lara discuss past guests (we’re looking at you, Dr. Kristen Donnelly of Abbey Color in Philadelphia!) who demonstrate this, and recognizing companies who clearly have altruism as part of their culture.

Examples include: 

Greyston Bakery, whose CEO said “we don’t hire people to bake brownies, we bake brownies to hire people” and the many publicly traded companies (like DaVita & Shake Shack) who are returning the PPP/Federal relief funds to the US government. 

Kelly shares 3 aspirational questions to ask your team when discussing how to bring more altruistic practices in your organization:

1. What attracted you to this conversation? What drew you here to talk about what possibilities exist for the company to demonstrate a selfless concern for others?
2.  What’s deeply important to us as a company (beyond making money) and why do we care about it?
3. When have you been involved in an altruistic act or an otherwise self-less project (no company ego) when you felt highly engaged? What made that possible?

This Seth Godin quote & a company called Eisai inspired Kelly: 

“All of us, whichever job or project we choose to take on, do something to change the culture. That social impact, positive or negative is our choice. It turns out that all of us are social entrepreneurs. It's just that some people are choosing to make a bigger (and better) impact than others. It's a spectrum, not a label.” 

Lara offers a practice to help leaders get clear on how to plan for whatever comes next.

Happy National Sleep Day (a little late)! Sleep is a big deal when it comes to energetic sustainability, and when you combine that with the CEO of a company that makes sheets from sustainable materials, you’ve got Colin McIntosh from Sheets & Giggles! Kelly & Lara are thrilled to welcome Colin to D(g)B. 

Colin quickly became a favorite guest, and it’s easy to understand why. In his own words, "I'm a millennial, a CEO, a progressive, and a free-market capitalist, and I don't think any of those things are mutually exclusive." This CEO really does give a sheet!

Join us to learn:

• Why sheets? 
• What’s the most important role in the entire company? The answer might surprise you.
• How do they help their employees sustain themselves - these are some of the most unique ideas we’ve heard in our 50+ episodes! 
• The public pledge Colin made in March at the start of COVID-19
• What Sustainability looks like at a corporate level, with program participation in things such as One Tree Planted and their own Give Two Sheets
• How in a pandemic they’re not scaling back - instead they donated 200 sets of sheets to a pop-up COVID shelter in Denver, CO, where they’re headquartered
• How does Colin sustain his energy during this time? As an admitted workaholic, it’s harder than you might think
• Meet their VP of Barketing: https://sheetsgiggles.com/pages/harvey  No, that’s not a typo!

If you give a sheet about sustainability and the way Sheets & Giggles is walking their talk, follow them on Instagram or LinkedIn. 

Episodes mentioned:
Casa Homes

Nolan Painting

Kelly and Lara are coming to you during what’s now being referred to as the Great Pause, AKA the global Coronavirus pandemic. Sustainability is a hot topic, and it’s the D(g)B topic for the month of May. Join us to learn about energetic sustainability, how the personal impacts the global, and how sustainable business is (obviously) good business, but why it’s so critical in the midst of a changing world. 

Sustainable takeaways:

• What is energetic sustainability & why is it important as a leader
• Return On Energy (hat tip Jen Pavich) 
• Sustainable energy is the practice of using energy in a way that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Wikipedia
• Effects of a lack of biodiversity 
• This HBR article talks about how the traditional food business is thinking about regenerative agriculture
• UN Sustainable Development Goals

Episodes mentioned:

Back to Earth Compost Crew

Disruption

Values

Humor might seem like the furthest thing from your mind right now, but the truth is, it’s times like this that we need it most - especially when we’re trying so hard to maintain connection!

What’s the point of humor in the workplace? Mary Fran Bontempo to the rescue! She takes the points Kelly & Lara made in episode 51 and expands beautifully. Yes, there are downsides of not having/allowing in the workplace! Humor humanizes and relaxes us and it’s a great tool in business. 

• What happens when there’s resistance to humor and how do you incorporate it into even the most serious of roles and situations? 
• Where do you even start? Hint: you may have noticed a trend in that everything starts with you!
• What are some best practices for humor in the workplace? 
• Kelly’s nervous giggle is explained ...and we learn how her father (our unofficial 3rd host) used humor as a helicopter pilot trainer! 

Learn more about Mary Fran

Check out Brilliantly Resilient

Need a laugh? April’s episodes were recorded before all of our lives changed dramatically, and we wanted to offer them as a break from all-things-difficult. Tune in to hear Kelly & Lara’s funniest workplace stories, Kelly’s Scottish brogue (because April 6th, when this episode was released, is Tartan Day in the US!), and why it really is good business to use (appropriate) humor at work. 

Check out:

• Forbes on Why humor is a key to success at work
• HBR on Leading with humor 
• D(g)B’s Fear episode 

We’re talking about humor as an active ingredient in making work enjoyable, a break from the intellectual and emotional challenges we face at work.

Be aware of what the experts call “divergent conceptualizations of humor.” It can bring people together or push them apart depending on what you think is funny.

We’re talking about humor that brings us together. Why?

-          The research indicates that “people who express positive emotions at work, including humor, are more likely to receive assistance and support.” Humor gets people in a good mood, which is why even comedians have warm-up acts.

-          When people are feeling good and laughing, they are actually filling their own coffers with the social resources that are essential for cooperation because feeling good means we’re not feeling fear. When we’re not feeling fear, we’re more primed, as humans, to be part of a tribe.

Other ways reasons to integrate humor into your business – to improve cooperation which aids negotiations and customer relations.

Our key take-away? Intentionally integrating humor helps people connect, and when they connect, they're better able to collaborate and create solutions.

It’s our 50th episode and we’re taking you behind the scenes of Doing (good) Business!

• Get the scoop on the weird things Lara & Kelly have in common 
• What’s new with Kelly and Lara and why we do the podcast together 
• HOW YOU CAN HELP US grow (hint - spread the word, follow and share on LinkedIn or Instagram, rate and review us on iTunes or wherever you listen!)

Did you know that over 77% of the economy are service-based businesses, which makes finding ways to help teams flourish a necessary aspect of achieving success.

Kelly and Lara share favorite quotes:

• From Kelly “Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play.  It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials.  It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.” -Robert F. Kennedy
• From Lara “Compassion for others begins with kindness to ourselves” -Pema Chodron

Fun new things are coming starting in April, and we’re already lining up AMAZING guests for season 3, which will launch in Fall 2020. What would you like to see more of? Message us on LinkedIn or Instagram or fill out our form at www.DoingGoodBusiness.com

Ever made a great connection in line for the restroom? Well, that’s how Lara met today’s guest, Lisa Sordilla, VP of HR for Energage, a company that exists to help organizations have great energy! 

Lisa drops some seriously good energy including:

• Why you need to align purpose + performance 
• How to make culture a priority (and what happens if you don’t)
• As a leader, how she walks her talk so that she can create positive organizational energy for her team.

Did you know:

• Lara listens to other podcasts?  LOL! Specifically, the example of the impressive culture shift that happened at WD40 (oh, and it’s majorly positive bottom line impact) came from this episode of the Culture First podcast 
• If you see you company in resigned or corrosive, you can tune in to learn how to turn that around

Learn more about Energage and Lisa!

Sure, you probably understand that your energy impacts the people around you, but have you ever thought about the energy of your organization? Kelly and Lara explain what organizational energy even is, and lead you through an exercise showing you how to impact 6 toxic workplace energies! Join us for a little bit of geeking out and some real time expertise. While we hope you’re not experiencing all of these, our bet is that at least 1 or 2 of these scenarios will resonate. 

Most important? Lara believes that Self leadership has to come first - managing your own energy as a leader is the most impactful thing you can do to manage or shift your organization’s energy.

Get an organizational energy boost with:

• Kelly recommends the book: Fully Charged: How Great Leaders Boost Their Organization's Energy and Ignite High Performance (2011) by by Heike Bruch and Bernd Vogel - In the book the authors have provided a diagnostic questionnaire you can use to assess the current level of energy. (You can you can get a glimpse of it here.)
• Ideas for Leaders article on Organizational Energy (including the 4 types of Organizational Energy mentioned at the start of the episode)

Companies mentioned in this episode: Workzone, Push10

Check out our next episode featuring our March guest is Lisa Sordilla, VP HR at Energage - a company that exists to measure and impact organization energy! 

Empathy - in action! Kelly & Lara welcome HoneyBee President and CEO Ennie Lim to the podcast, because when the first word in a company’s About page is Empathy, you know they’re doing good business. 

Join us to hear how empathy not only is the reason Ennie started HoneyBee, but how she applies it to being a leader and operationalizes empathy (and audacity!) as a value in her organization. Started when Ennie realized the awful industry that is payday loans, this company gives organizations a chance to help their employees break the cycle of paycheck to paycheck living. 

We had no idea that:

• 52% Americans are tapping into retirement early and tapping into savings to make ends meet
• 78% Americans live paycheck to paycheck and have less than $500 in reserves for an emergency 

HoneyBee provides financial wellness tools and makes them accessible to the whole workforce, not only those who would traditionally fit into a 401K program. 

Ennie believes in the Transformational power of economic empathy and shares how she starts with empathy in her hiring process. 

Check out:

The 2 books Ennie gives to every new hire: Emotional Intelligence 2.0 & What To Do With an Idea 

Trends inspiring Ennie: the shift from tuition reimbursement to student loan repayment as benefit offering from companies 

Connect with HoneyBee: LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram | Website