This episode explores the vitality and richness of a diverse and inclusive leadership approach to help the success of organizations.

The guest of this episode of Pity Party Over is Wagner Denuzzo, a Latino HR leader specializing in the future of work, talent strategy, and leadership development.

Growing up in São Paulo, Brazil, Wagner moved to the United States at 22 with little means and big dreams.  As a minority leader, Wagner's professional career has been committed to creating inclusive practices in organizations to foster effective leadership.

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TRANSCRIPT

Stephen Matini: You were born in São Paulo.

Wagner Denuzzo: Yes.

Stephen Matini: And then what happened? How did you get to the States?

Wagner Denuzzo: A convergence of things because I was finishing college. I was working during the day to make a little money, and I did college a night. In Brazil at that time in the early eighties, in mid eighties was important for you to know people to get somewhere. 

It was important for you to belong to a social class that had connections to get you in. I didn't have that. I didn't have connections and I start feeling that although I felt I had some talent, I didn't have an opportunity for me to start my career in Brazil. 

And I didn't wanna do clothing. I was actually manufacturing women clothing with a friend of mine that worked to get some money, but it's not something that I wanna do for life. 

So I decided right after college to give the manufacturing, small manufacturing company to my partner and decided to come to United States. And actually it was my first flight ever. And the first flight I ever took was outside my country and had four stops, cause it was the cheapest fair. So between some polling Orlando, I had four stops in my first flight ever. I'm glad I wasn't afraid of flying. It would be really difficult if I did.

Stephen Matini: How old were you back then?

Wagner Denuzzo: 22

Stephen Matini: 22, God, so young

Wagner Denuzzo: And I came to tonight and I came to United States not knowing English. I didn't have English and I had $600 with me. So it was an immigrant story. 

Then it is interesting because I'm very resourceful. I think living in Brazil, Brazilians are very resourceful. We've figured out how to do things with very little resources. Arriving in Florida, I immediately start getting to restaurant work, being a busboy, trying to learn English. 

A lot of bullying, a lot of people making fun of you when you're an immigrant without the language. I went through all that ,and after a year I decided that Florida wasn't for me. New York could be. A friend of mine said, let's go to Florida, and we drove up in one of those cars that you help people drive their cars in, into Manhattan. And that's how we came. And was really interesting because it was very rough in New York.

I remember having $1 and thinking, I eat pizza or I smoke cigarettes. I chose cigarettes because they last longer . And that day I found two jobs as a dishwasher and a food runner. So I quickly understood that I had to act fast and there was nobody to ask for help. 

New York was a real challenge because it was very difficult. However, little by little I started learning the language. One person that was so remarkable in my history is this Canadian waiter. After I became a waiter a few years, he said to me, Wagner, you have so much to offer. 

Read this book because this book is about enhancing your vocabulary. Because being here, you're gonna need to enhance your vocabulary. It was so beautiful. He gave me, that was the first person that extended their hands and said, Hey, this is how you're gonna get through and be successful.And I will never forget him. 

Stephen Matini: You started communication, right? 

Wagner Denuzzo: Mm-Hmm. . Yes. 

Stephen Matini: How, how did that come about? 

Wagner Denuzzo: Communications is because I, I, I love the idea of advertising, marketing and radio and TV. I specialize on radio and TV. I love writing as well. So to me that's how I would make a living. But clearly in Brazil, communications, is something that's, you know, reserved for very few. 

In New York actually. It really helped me to think broadly about how can I connect with people, you know, taking pictures and, and doing things that could enhance my experience here . I did that, but inevitably you have to do what you need to do to survive. So being in restaurants, I worked in restaurants for 10 years. 

Patience was so incredibly important to me. I didn't have an office job until I was 29, 30. When I start volunteer, I volunteered for gay men's health crisis during the AIDS epidemic and then they gave me a job. That was my first real job in an office. 

And to be honest, it was worth go through all the experiences. I learned how to connect with people from all over the world, at all levels of expertise, levels of social, economic backgrounds. And it is beautiful how you can create empathy towards everyone because you can see that everyone has value. 

And to me this is a lifelong lesson to never discard anyone regardless where they are. Because the hidden figures, the famous hidden figures are our responsibility in HR to identify them. I really enjoyed that. 

So my first job, 29, 30 years old. Then I start getting burned out because then I worked for St. Vincents Hospital was an incredible experience. I work as a social worker in St. Vincents Hospital, in the immigrant program, was undocumented immigrants with HIV and AIDS and we had 43 country represented, 340 patients. And they all need us to figure out care, housing, living and all the immigration problems that they had, we had to help them solve for them. 

So was very enhancing in my life, the experience because you see how, how critical it is to have social systems that support people. The experience burned me out a little bit, to be honest. My, my boss actually said, hey, would you like to go to an employee assistance program? Somebody I know is hiring a counselor there. So I finished my social work degree as a clinical social worker and went to work for an employee assistance program. That's how I started my career in executive coaching, in training, in doing the, the work that I do today in HR.

Stephen Matini: Throughout all those years, those formative years, were there any person, any, any specific event? I mean you already touched some of them, but were there any specific person that somehow was really pivotal, you know, for the decision that you eventually made for your life?

Wagner Denuzzo: Well, several people. In, in sometimes I was thinking about this: many of the people that influenced me don't even know that they had an impact in my life. As an immigrant, I think you know this, you start becoming so hyper vigilant in hyper observant. You observe people at all times. You under, you try to understand how to adapt and assimilate new norms, cultural norms in the way of living. That's a survival mechanism. 

Many people influenced me, but what's really important to be influenced by one person in my life that I always carry with me was a teacher in college. I grew up in a, in public school system in Brazil. I didn't learn that much in the public school system. And she was the first person who believed in me and said, hey, I need an assistant, could you help me? I like the way you read. Do you write? And I liked your ideas. Come support me. 

I never forgot that because every time I have the imposter syndrome or those self-limiting beliefs, I go right back to the people who said, hey, now I believe in you. And she was the first one. And in fact, the funny thing is, last year I decided to contact her after 30 years and she loved that I contacted her and she remembered me of course. And we met in New York, it was a wonderful meeting because reconnecting to people who demand so, so much to you is was incredible. So she was one. 

There is always others, but it's, it's mostly my partner. My husband's amazing, you know, he helped me understand that actually I can be myself and always have the unconditional love at home. That was important to me. I didn't have any other support here. As soon as I met him, it was an incredible feeling of support.

Stephen Matini: I love when you said as an immigrant you become, I would assume a very empathetic, you know, you, you can read situations very quickly. Do you think that empathy is something that can be taught?

Wagner Denuzzo: I do believe they can. A few years ago there was an article in the New York Times about a research that showed, and this is related to positive psychology, which I really believe in. An individual who put themselves out there to help others during crisis are much more likely to develop empathy and be more resilient themselves during their own difficult times. 

And that was very interesting because not only you are helping others, but actually you are building capabilities for yourself to become resilient. And that's important. And that's how I think you start learning how to empathize with others. 

The other one is when things happen to you, you know, when things happen to you, so many crisis that happen to people health wise, economically or there's an accident, there's so many things that happen in life that makes you step back and say, how can I cope with this?

And then you notice the people that try to help you, usually don't know how to help you because it's overwhelming to help somebody. So this empathy towards others develops by experience, but you have to be open to that. I know a lot of people who are not really open to being helped or open to helping others, because if people accept that they need help or that people accept that others need their help, they might get in touch with a lot of feelings that they're not ready to be in touch with. 

And people try to protect themselves with mechanisms, what we call defensive mechanisms, right? We all do have them. But it's unfortunate that people don't try to go through the dark side of being a human being because it's worth it. It's more important to go through the experiences that enhance your abilities to be a human being fully than trying to hide and protect yourself from paying emotional pain, social pain or physical pain.

Stephen Matini: Acceptance, empathy, representation, everyone feeling included, which leads to things talked about these days, you know, diversity, inclusion. But oftentimes I had this sense that it's almost like a box to tick. A lot of organizations seem to have a hard time understanding how can this be of any advantage to me? Based on your tremendous experience, you had so many professional experiences, what would you say that it is the first step for an organization to build an environment that really feels inclusive?

Wagner Denuzzo: What I believe is the first step is acceptance. Leaders must accept the stage of maturity of the organizations and how far they have come in their efforts to create an inclusive environment. 

What I see is that we have mastered the ability to narrate a good story. We have mastered the ability to talk about our values, our principles and our mission and our commitments. But those do not correlate to actions.

And I think the acceptance that actually just been committed to something in talking about something is just the first step. But the first step to actually make a change and create a more inclusive and more diverse organization is acceptance that actually we have failed in the last 20 years to bring to fruition our wish for a more inclusive organization. 

I was thinking about this now we have data. People rely on data to assess the representation and all this. Representation is not influence, it is just representation. And how you create a culture that's more inclusive demands a lot of self-awareness. Because many organizations that I see, they use data insights to confirm their biases. And it's so easy to do that. 

So I tell people, don't use technology to confirm your biases because then everybody settles back in their comfort zone and say, see we have representation, we have the opportunity, but people are not taking the opportunity. I don't think it's like that. 

I think we need to stop putting programs in place, start thinking about taking chances on people who have potential, cause we all have potential, and start placing people. 

Ginni Rometty, CEO for IBM, once said, even herself had some biases when we are doing talent reviews for example. And she noticed that in her environment sometimes the male mindset was that men had the experience, and could take a new role to challenge themselves. Women usually were said to be in need of further development for some reason. 

There is a huge problem about self acceptance. If we accept ourselves at having negative biases towards others who don't look like us, I think we go much farther because then we can take the risk, provide support services for the person that we place instead of putting them outside on a program. 

Because it's very easy right now to mask our biases by putting people in programs, oh put so and so in the Latino program, put so and so in the affirmative action program. It's not a program, you are delaying their advancement when you don't take a bet on them.

Stephen Matini: It seems to me there's an awful amount of white men in a powerful position. That seem not to be self-accepting, but somehow are very vocal in terms of telling other people what they should be doing. What would you say it is the first step towards self-acceptance?

Wagner Denuzzo: I have a lot of empathy for senior leaders today, because they're being asked to represent their companies publicly about all issues from political issues to social issues and economic issues. We're asking them to be empathic towards their own workforce because workforce is very diverse. 

And I think one thing we need to realize is that the workforce has changed dramatically. They're distributed. We can't get away from that. They're distributed, they are dynamic, they wanted the next experience. Cause they know growth comes from a variety of experiences. So they're dynamic. You have three years to convince them that your company is the right one for them. And they are diverse and they're growing diversity just by the sheer number of people in the world. And they are digital. You have to be a digital leader if you wanna manage a digital workforce. And the last one I think is something that we are still struggling with: discerning. 

Our employees are discerning, they're paying attention to the narratives, they're authentic, those they are not. They're paying attention to leaders who have a consistent approach to values-based principles. They're paying attention to companies on sustainability and the work life harmonization is very strong right now. It's not work life integrations, harmonization. They wanna have the control and autonomy over their life. And that's very important. 

Senior leaders are dealing with all this and they have to respond to the needs of the board, shareholders, stakeholders and the public in general. They are in a really difficult spot. 

I think, I know a lot of senior executives who truly believe in inclusion, truly, truly believe in the actions that they wanna take. But there are so many nuances because your organization, let's be real, might be led by a few senior men if you put it that way, but the organization's, the collective of hundreds, sometimes thousands of people who need to be aligned to that strategy. 

To me, senior executives have to be the most authentic today and really walk the talk. Make sure that they are looking at the he figures, make sure that give access to those people, to leadership, give them exposure and show their value. Leaders now have to do that, represent an advocate for diverse populations. And I think that's the first step.

 

Stephen Matini: Being authentic. How to be a genuine role model. You can ask to your people anything you want, but you have to be willing to provide the example. But for a lot of people, being authentic is a risk.

Wagner Denuzzo: Authenticity is one of those words that is becoming a buzzword, right? Everyone is talking about being authentic. The reality is human development demands, reflection, introspection, and a lot of self-knowledge because authenticity is not about behaving the way you want to behave anywhere in any settings. 

Being authentic is really having this sense making skill, of understand the context you're in, the situation you're in, and responding accordingly, but always consistently according to your values, your principles and who you are. That's being authentic. 

I see a lot of people that confuse authenticity with rigid behaviors that people say, I am who I am, I'm gonna behave how I always behave. That's a big mistake. That's somebody who is not aware of themselves, that's somebody who didn't have the introspection to think the authenticity is about integrity, values, principles, but how you communicate and how you engage with others have to be a confluence of understanding the context, listening to others and really being empathic to not cause harm.

Stephen Matini: If I said that emotional intelligence could be the main competence to become authentic, would that be a fair statement?

Wagner Denuzzo: It’s a fair statement. The only thing I would go a little farther because what we are seeing now, you also need to understand cognitive mastery. Emotion intelligence allows you to understand how you react to things. Cognitive mastery allows you to step back and respond appropriately to stimuli. 

It is the Viktor Frankl’s famous quote. I love that quote. Between the stimuli and your response, there is a pause in that space. In that space is your chance to create your response, in your response is your growth and your freedom. I love that because that's exactly the essence of being authentic with a positive energy towards others in the environment.

Stephen Matini: There are so many leadership development programs, they use different approaches. You know, some of them, they're deeply imbued in emotional intelligence, others use different types of framework. You know, some of those frameworks could be a bit more normative, more prescriptive, you know, this is how you do in this situation, this is how you read a specific context problem, whatever that is. Based on all your experiences, is there any specific approach to leadership development that as of now you would recommend?

Wagner Denuzzo: I think there are some things that are timeless and some things that have to be very contextual. So for example, timeless things, vulnerability. We talk about this, but we haven't seen really coming to fruition at the highest level of leadership. When I was the head of leadership development for this global technology company was really important to start executive programs with the facilitator who was also a leader in the company to tell a story. 

They actually change them emotionally or kind of radically in their perspective of the world. That creates a safety. And we talk about psychological safety. That creates a safety you can't create through frameworks. It has to be a vulnerable leader, allowing others to share the vulnerability and experience something that has an emotional, transformational impact. I find that incredibly important. So without that, it's very hard to do leadership development if it's not an experience, it has to be a an emotional, cognitive experience.

But, when you think about the contexts we are in today, I think that's very different. You have to use the timeless vulnerability and all the emotional intelligence perspective, but also you have to help leaders understand that distributed power for distributed teams is the way to go forward. They will only be successful if they allow this collective leadership, shared leadership, sharing their knowledge, sharing more their vulnerabilities and their expectations. It's about sharing and letting the teams do the work to come to fruition. So I think leadership development today is missing the opportunity to create situations and experiences where leaders can get in touch with themselves. 

I recently did an executive program where I asked the leaders to do a breathing exercise for three minutes just for them to be present, to be in their own body, to focus without judging. Because right now, if you ask leaders, I think they're not having a great time, they don't know how to act forward. They are having imposter syndrome, feelings of imposter syndrome because it's hard to not know where to go. And I think they're not in touch with themselves because it's easier and it's less painful. 

I urge leaders to start being more introspective and allow themselves to just breathe and be in their bodies, being the moment. Because if you're not in the moment, you're not listening. If you're not in the moment, you're not learning.

Stephen Matini: I like when you talked about shared leadership, you know, and you were talking about teams. Do you think that that could be the next step for really, leadership?

Wagner Denuzzo: I truly believe that that's the way we are going forward in organizations. I've been advising a lot of HR startups. These startups, they're most successful. They create a community. They don't create a workforce. They create a community where members are mutually accountable for each other and care for each other. And with that, naturally they have to start sharing power, sharing knowledge, and becoming less fearful of becoming irrelevant. 

Senior leaders are afraid of becoming irrelevant because with the digital transformation of the last 10 years, people have access to a lot of data, a lot of information, a lot of everything. So leaders have to be comfortable and embrace that because that's the new, the new world that we are in. 

So I do believe shared leadership because in my concept of shared leadership is about consciousness. Consciousness speaks to the idea that you need the mental power to understand where you are, sense make, understand who you are, who you're talking to. Having this consciousness allows you to be present. Then you have to be curious because I think being curious allows you to always learn from others before you start talking. 

And you have to be curious about what's happening around the corner. You have to be curious about things that you never thought about, and you have to be courageous. 

When I was in this global company, we had early career folks interviewing MD’s, managing directors who are very successful and one of the early career folks. As the leader, do you really have authority? How much authority do you have? And he just turned to him and said, I have as much authority as my courage allows me to have. So it is about courageous acts of sensible leaders who are actually really centered, aligned, and know that courageous acts will lead to different outcomes. And many times courageous leaders lead to very positive outcomes.

Stephen Matini: When I read the news, everything is polarized, everything is sensationalistic, trivialized, you know, reduced to cheap bites to eat without much thinking. So how do you keep your energy up? How do you keep your strength?

Wagner Denuzzo: Let's put it this way. From my clinical background, we use to say that depression might be the most logical and normal reaction to the reality of the world. Period. But what you need to understand is that those emotions you need to experience, but you cannot isolate them and they become bigger than they are. 

What I advocate is for clarity. Clarity creates capacity for you to think, for you to grow, for you to cope but you need to be clear. Be clear about how you're feeling and what you are feeling is about in your organizations. Be clear about your strategy. Don't guess like people.

Now there's another term that's emerging, gas lighting. It is true when you're saying something to the public and internally you're saying something else. The way I approach life is you only have one job. Manage your energy, generate energy, manage positive energy in groups, in workshops and teams. Because I love what somebody said to me once, a good leader is a thermometer. You can get in the room and you see the temperature. A great leader is a thermostat. You set the temperature in the room, but you need to know yourself. You need to have the capability of doing that. So be clear about what your intentions. So clarity creates capacity. 

And the last thing that I would say is having a realistic optimism is important because regardless what's happening in the world, you always can find nuggets of hope and aspirations that you have in inspirations everywhere. 

You do need to start stepping back and feel comfortable being on your own because that's when you have the time to start assessing who you are. What are you feeling and how you can cope with this. 

One thing that we say in mental health is when you feel depressed, one of the best things you can do is to socialize. I think it's more important for you to engage in something social, engaging in the flow of life, engaging something that takes you away from that moment. Because actually it is important for you to take action.

Stephen Matini: Maybe the first step it is to understand that it, it's okay, a good leader, you don't need to be perfect,

Wagner Denuzzo: Nothing is perfect. You might try to control the environment, you might try to control things around you. And that's a natural tendency that human beings have, especially leaders. Leaders have to have this sense of control over their environment, over their actions. But that's a false sense of self because it's not about control. It's about understanding and sensing, making sense of things. 

Because I have so much information, so many data, and I always say focus on progress, not perfection. And I think now the world is asking leaders, you have to start focusing on progress even when it is not the most lucrative. 

That's why sustainability now is coming to fruition. That's why people sometimes are even taking their salary a notch down because they know that there is pressure socially. We are much more aware of the situation of the world and there are some positive pockets. So that's why I still feel optimistic.

Stephen Matini: If you have to come up with the name, a noun, an adjective for this new paradigm, which one would you pick?

Wagner Denuzzo: . That's a good one. I will pick several, but I would say versatile because that does not deny who you are and does not deny your authenticity. But versatility allows you to understand different realities because to your your point, a new paradigm is because we are in a paradoxical world. And being versatile to look at one's reality and not deny it. Look at your own reality and not deny it and accept multiple realities being part of your ecosystem. That's incredibly important.

Stephen Matini: Do you think you would've gotten to this mindset if you hadn't not been Latino? If you hadn't been part of a minority community, do you think you would've gotten to the same point?

Wagner Denuzzo: No, I'm clear. Valda, being a member of the LGBTQ community, being a a Latino immigrant from a lower social club, as in Brazil, I had to observe, understand, and overcome so much. All those messages made me who I am today. So I don't have any regrets about the paths that I took. They're very hard. Some people say, oh, I wanna go back to my twenties. I don't. 

I worked really hard on my twenties. It was really difficult, but it was worth it because I feel so much more integrated, because there is something in human development that I always tell people. Be aware that when you enter a different phase in your life, when you're more mature, some people get into despair, some people get into integrated moments. 

There are moments that are good, there are moments that are bad. There are moments that you fail. There's moments that you succeed. So try to integrate yourself because you're gonna be in a better place. If you're always trying to be defense, defending against what's happening to you, you're gonna be creating a false self that will lead to despair. It's not worth it.

Stephen Matini: When you go through a rough moment for whatever the reason, is there anything specific you do to get out of it?

Wagner Denuzzo: Sometimes it's important for me to be with the feeling, but I play a beautiful song. Sometimes it's just sitting with the feeling. But having something that creates a beauty in that moment. 

But I think also walking in nature, allowing yourself just to breathe, observe a bird. The little things in life can take you out of your self-rumination and your self-absorption. It's very easy to be self-absorbed these days. I think the best trick is to get to a place where you can get out of yourself a little bit. 

One thing that we didn't talk about, but it's so essential today for all of us, is being non-judgmental. When you feel you're reacting too quickly because there are triggers, right? People trigger you all the time. But you have to suspend judgment because you don't know exactly what the reality of the other is. It's so hard to step into a space where you don't have preconceived notions of how you're gonna respond to something.

Cause the moment you start judging, you start projecting others things that you accept on yourself. And that's where it is to do. Imagine the interactions, five generations in the workforce, how leaders can manage the cultural norms that lead to positive psychological safety? It's very hard, but I think starting with being non-judgmental improves the culture tremendously. 

Somebody that I really admire, Hitendra Wadhwa, he's a professor at the MBA School in Columbia University in New York, and I love his approach because he's one of the first leaders. He was at MaKinsey. He moved out of MaKinsey and he start growing this amazing theory that inner knowledge and inner confidence come to fruition as an outward success. 

And he talks about the energies, talks about love, energy, the growth energy, the self-actualization energies. And he's been very successful in transcending the business dialogue into a more meaningful dialogue. So he's been very successful in bridging the business and the self-knowledge and the human-centered leadership that we talk about. And I love that, you know, not many people are able to do that.

Stephen Matini: We talked about many different things, all of them are so important. Is there anything that you would like our listeners to know?

Wagner Denuzzo: The most critical thing to do is to nurture your leadership skills. In today's world and in the future, I predict the organizations are gonna rely on collective leadership, shared leadership, all members of the organization have to nurture those skills because you're gonna be in cross-functional teams. 

You're gonna be working in the no hierarchical environment, most likely agile teams are self-managed. So I'm advocating for leadership skills being developed as soon as you enter the workforce. 

I'm writing a book right now. Maybe it's gonna be ready by next year. It's called the Lead From Start. It's the idea that you are in charge of your success if you focus on leadership skills because it's the most important skills that you can have.

Stephen Matini: Wagner, you are so wise, you are so experienced. Thank you so much for the time you've giving me. I really, I really enjoyed this.

Wagner Denuzzo: Me too. Thank you so much for having me.

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