The Power Shift Podcast – Disruption and Power with Charlene Li
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
Charlene Li helps people see the future. She’s the author of six books, including the New York Times best-seller Open Leadership, and co-author of the critically acclaimed Groundswell, and her latest bes-seller, The Disruption Mindset. She is the founder of the Altimeter Group, and named by Fast Company as one of the most creative people in business.
Charlene isn’t here today to talk about digital transformation. She’s here today to talk about disruption. She believes we need to stop talking about disruption and start doing it. She’s even going to give you ways to make disruption a part of your agenda every day. Charlene Li, welcome to The Power Shift Podcast.
Charlene Li:
Thank you so much.
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
I am so excited to have you on. We are going to dish about all things power here. So, maybe just get us started, how do you even define this term? Kind of, what’s your relationship when you think of the word power?
Charlene Li:
I think that power is at the root of all that is good and all that is bad in the world, because it is how we see ourselves in our relationships. We are humans because we are social because of our relationships. We’re defined by them, and what are relationships but the give and take, the communications that you have? Power is the underlying structure for all those relationships. So, the way that we work, the way we connect in all of our relationships all come down to power. Again, I love this topic. I’m so excited to be talking about this with you Sharon, because I think that so much of what we do and what we want and fear, and especially when we think about disruption, power lies at the root of all of that.
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
I think that’s right, and I think power is in every interaction as you’re saying, and I think there’s levels to it. Like the way that I think about it, it’s kind of, there’s being in your power, so that’s like what you bring to it, right? Then there’s the power structure that’s going on in any given interaction, and as I’m sure you’re going to be talking to us. Then there’s power that’s embedded in the overall kind of social structures, and how we actually create change.
Charlene Li:
Yes, absolutely. I think about, from a disruption point of view, the reason why we feel disrupted is when the status quo of power relationships are torn apart. Until we can put them back together again into a place where we know where we stand as individuals, but our team, our organizations, our company, our society stands in terms of this relationship to other people, we are going to continue to feel disrupted.
What was interesting in my research, I wanted to understand why is it that some disruptive companies are able to be in their disruptive states and feel completely in their power? They do not feel disrupted. They know where they stand, even though they’re creating a huge amount of disruption around them. It’s because they’ve been able to put enough of that scaffolding in place to hold that container of what those power relationships look like, and be able to just, maybe not completely smoothly, but move from disruption to disruption. I think that gives us some inklings of how we can do that ourselves.
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
Okay, so let’s do this, because few people in the whole world have studied disruption as deeply as you, and know it inside and out in companies and communities. So, let’s break it down. So, what you’re saying is, by definition, disruption is a change to the status quo, right? And to some kind of existing power structure. So just help us understand, what needs to be in place in order for disruption and change to happen? Then, we can kind of break down what the power dynamics are, and how each one of you as a listener can kind of bring this into your own life, or maybe you’re being subject to this and you want to know how to have power going through it.
Charlene Li:
Right, so let’s talk about what disruption is called often times inside of organizations. It’s called innovation. I think of innovation as a false promise. The promise is that we’re going to make this change and it’s going to be easy. We’re going to hand you an easy button. All you have to do is push it and poof, things will be beautiful and change, and we’ll be growing like gangbusters, and it never happens that way. What really happens is, we’re going to go through this change. Innovation is the right thing to do, we believe in this future, and it’s going to be brutal. It’s going to be ugly, and we have to prepare ourselves for that journey ahead.
One of the ways to prepare is to understand what bonds will be broken, what places are we going to be disrupting, and as quickly as possible put those things back together again. So, we can minimize that time of uncertainty, that way you are able to go from one place, one state to the next one, fairly quickly. It doesn’t have to be big, huge jumps. In fact, the most disruptive organizations are making these little jumps, but they’re doing them very quickly, and they’re doing them very frequently. So, it’s not doing one big disruption every two years, it’s doing a small disruption every two days, and it [crosstalk 00:13:44]-
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
Wow, okay that’s a whole new paradigm for change.
Charlene Li:
It’s a completely different way of changing. So, they’re moving really quickly, and from the outside, like, “You did what in two months?” They’re like, “Yeah, but we did it every day. We did it all the time.” And I think that’s the big difference. That’s the secret, is that they know where they’re going to, they know what they have to do today. They’re making the changes, looking around and saying, “Okay, is everyone here? Is everybody in this new state? Are we stable? Okay, let’s do it again.” And they just do it again. So, it’s expand, recover, expand, recover.
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
Wow, okay.
Charlene Li:
Athletes do this all the time. We push ourselves, get a little bit of sore muscle, and then recover. And [crosstalk 00:14:27]-
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
Right, [crosstalk 00:14:28] recovery way of going through your day, which is recommended for all of us in these exhausting times that we’re on our way to burnout. So okay, so this is what happens when Charlene Li is whispering in the ears of leaders of a company, but this is really different. Because when we think of disruption, it has the kind of glamor and sexiness factor to it, but inside the organization, people think of it as there are winners and there are losers like we do with power, right? There’s people who were in power who then are going to lose power, and other people who are going to come into power. So how do you help people not think of it that way, and then think of it in this very kind of constructive way that you’re teaching companies?
Charlene Li:
Yeah, I mean one of the most interesting dynamics is something called the monarch’s dilemma, and it was delivered by a Political Scientist at Harvard named Sam Huntington. The idea is as if as a monarch, I’m a benevolent monarch, benevolent boss, and I want to give people power. They’re not used to it, but how do I maintain power, maintain control, as I’m giving power away? Because at some point they’re going to come for my head, right? If I give them too much power. So, I want to give enough, because I think it’s the right thing to do to get people motivated and going, but at the same time, how do I make sure we’re moving in the right direction? This is the conundrum that people have. I think the biggest issue is, how do you still command when you’re actually not in control? It’s a really interesting thing. And [crosstalk 00:16:04]-
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
Okay yeah, break that down for us.
Charlene Li:
Military do not talk about control, they talk about command when they talk about power and they exercise power. It always has, always come down to the same thing, is do I have credibility as a leader, and do I have the competence to prove it? Do I have the capabilities? All these wonderful Cs that happen to come together, but I think the most important one is the courage. To be able to go and lead into an uncertain future. I mean, you can’t guarantee everybody that we’re going to succeed, but we have the confidence that no matter what the outcome is going to be we’re going to be okay. That’s the key difference that allows these leaders to keep going through, and to give up that power. And at the same time, maintain the strong relationship inside of this new power relationship where everybody around them has agency, believes that they are part of the leadership and ownership of this outcome together. This is not about empowering and giving away power. This is about helping people and awakening the power that they already had inside them.
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
Right, which I totally agree with you. People have the power inside.
Charlene Li:
So, this is about growing power and not about giving away power. Those are two very different ideas.
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
Okay, that blows my mind. Tell us more about that.
Charlene Li:
Okay. So, if you believe in agency, this idea that people already have the power to make decisions, you’re not actually handing them power. What they’re doing is they’re stepping into that power that they never knew they had. So, think about an organization, right? Where it’s a top down, and you have to tell people exactly what they have to do, and it cascades down in a waterfall way to everybody, it’s really slow moving because you at the top have to think for all the thousands of people from throughout the organization, right? Not great.
Charlene Li:
Now if you actually give them the power to do that, and the key is you have to define for them, what is the power that they have to do? It’s a lot harder to open things up and to say yes to things, because you have to be clear, what can you say yes to? What do you have power and responsibility and accountability for? That takes a lot of work versus saying, “None of you can think on your own. None of you have any power. Just do what we tell you to do.”
So, when you can awaken that, but your power is used to create that container, that’s what you’re using your power to do. Not to control them, but to put a container so that they know, within that container they’re fine, they can do anything within that container. They can even fail within that container, it doesn’t matter, but live inside of that container. That’s what my job as a leader, and my ability of command is to say, “Anywhere within this, you know what we’re trying to accomplish. Go for it.”
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
Okay, that is absolutely brilliant. What you’re talking about here, so you’re saying the leader has to kind of “give up” this power, but that leader is sort of redistributing the power or enabling, empowering right, all these other people who are on the front lines and actually know what’s going on with the customer or the patient, right? Or the client. I love that actually, so that they don’t have to do all the thinking for themselves, which is totally exhausting and makes things feel out of their control. You work with leaders and help them make this transformation, right? So, what has to go on in the mind of a leader? Because it seems to me, not to overuse the word, but they have to be “in their power,” right? And not needing to control, right? So, do you know what sets up those facilitating conditions that leaders can actually do that?
Charlene Li:
That’s such a great question. It’s the reality that they don’t actually control people. I mean, it hits them in the face, right? And they go, “Well I can’t give up control,” and I go, “Tell me how you actually control things. I mean truly control things. What do you actually have control over,” right?
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
You put the mirror of reality up to them, okay, good. What else do you do?
Charlene Li:
Yeah, so that’s one thing, and I just go, “What is it that you do here that it creates the impact over here, the change over here, this action over here? And is it really you? Is it the structures that you set up? Is it the alignment against the goals? I mean, what are these things?” We start dissecting really, what are the sources of their power, the sources again of their credibility. I started doing this in the world of social media, where a CEO came to me and said, “I get it. I need to go out there, be more social, be more human and authentic and open and transparent.”
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
Blah, blah.
Charlene Li:
“Tell me, how open do I need to be?” I thought, that’s a really darn good question. I did a whole research around it, I think it came out in my book Open Leadership. The answer is again, if you think about leadership in the context of your followers, you need to be as open as your followers need you to be to accomplish your common objectives. So, your definition isn’t about what you’re comfortable with, it’s about what the people you’re leading, what they need in order to understand the strategic intent that you have, to understand their power, to understand and live in their agency. And again, how are you going to change the relationship you have with them because of the openness, which is a way of transferring power, of increasing power?
Openness is one of the most amazing tools that you can use, because openness encapsulates so many things. It’s not just information sharing, but it’s also opening up this world of vulnerability when you open up and you really show what’s in your heart, what’s in your soul. What’s really bothering you? And I like to say to people, nobody really cares what you had for lunch. Please don’t post pictures of what you had for lunch on Instagram. Actually, what they want to know is what did you talk about over lunch, and what’s on your mind? You as our leader, do you think we’re doing a good job? Do you think we’re succeeding? Where are we failing? How are we doing? I want to know, you’re my leader.
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
What do you care about, yeah, so that we can care about it. We want to be willing to follow you, you know what I mean? Give us what’s in your heart about where you want to take us and why. So, what’s interesting about what you’re saying, and of course the grand irony is you’re sort of giving up power with a small P in a way that’s just you, and what you think you can control, for this larger power with a capital P maybe, which is the collective sum of all these people, with their intentions and with their know how who can work in concert to do something and make a change. I really appreciate the way that you’ve worked with those leaders in those moments where they’re like, gulp. You know what I mean? Like I have to make this change.
Charlene Li:
Well, the most astounding thing is that I find that disruptive leaders in particular do something very different than just regular everyday leaders. They create movements. I love this book called The New Power, and they talk about how new…
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
Yeah, right here on the bookshelf.
Charlene Li:
Yeah, it’s great. I see it behind you. So, they talk about how, a movement, you know if a movement is successful when it will run. It will just work, and it will just have its own momentum without you being there at the front of it. That is the epitome of power, that you can direct it, and it so moved by the structure that you set up, by the mission of what you set up, that it just takes on a life of its own. The brilliance of Black Lives Matters is that it is leaderless. Who’s the leader of BLM? There isn’t one. It was intentionally designed to be that way, as a [crosstalk 00:24:09] movement.
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that example, we’re going to be coming back I think to talk about more examples of power in the kind of social justice realm. Just tell us a little more about how leaders transfer power, and then how people who are on the frontlines let’s say, or employees in a company, how do they take that and own it, and use it? Because you’ve seen, literally witnessed that transformation. Take us onto the front lines.
Charlene Li:
Yeah, one of my favorite examples is from Comcast. Not exactly known for great customer service. A couple of years ago, they made Net Promoter Score, NPS scores, the measure for everything in the company. Huge transformation over two years. One of the things they did as a part of that process is, at the frontlines of their call centers, this is where the battles are done. They gave those people, encouraged them to meet on a regular basis in these huddles, and they would talk about trends that they were seeing. If they notice something that they thought somebody in product or in finance, or wherever it is this should go, they would put together this little telegram and it would get escalated to them.
Charlene Li:
So usually, the people on the frontlines get everything dumped onto them. They’re the end of the line, right? And you have no power. They reversed the power structure, so that if you get one of these little notices, you have to respond, and you can also escalate them up. The CEO of the company said, “I’m going to look at three of these every week, and respond to those people at the frontlines about what is different.” Where did the power now suddenly shift? The power shifted to the front lines, because the recognition that they have the biggest impact of influence on that NPS score. They’re the people, they’re the face of the company. They’re the power source.
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
They’re the untapped potential and the energy. That’s where all the energy is.
Charlene Li:
Right. So, you can imagine, you’re on the frontlines there, word spreads really quickly through these call centers of what’s really going on. You just got a call from the CEO. He said, “Hey, your message got through to us. We’re looking into this. Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention.” Where did that power just shift to? Did it cost the CEO anything to do that? No, it didn’t cost him anything, and yet the power completely shifted, inverted itself with just that one small little move.
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
Wow, yeah. That’s a really inspiring story. There’s a lot of changes that are going on in our world right now. You’re very plugged in, and kind of a social observer and a participant in life. Tell me if this is too vague a question, but where do you see issues that have to do with power and disruption these days? In what realm of our work lives or our personal lives do you have kind of a lot of energy that you want to share with us around where you might be seeing this power invert or where it needs to? What, as such a keen, insightful observer, where should we be bringing our conversation to?
Charlene Li:
Yeah, I very much was touched by all the social injustice that was happening, and the frustration for so many of us. So, what can we do? It’s so systemic. Now where do we turn? Where can we… I mean, it’s just this sense of helplessness in the face of overwhelming systemic injustice, and my research says it’s in our backyards. It’s happening in our organizations, in our teams, in our families, in our communities, it’s everywhere if we would just open our eyes to see it.
So, my passion is really around this intersectionality of race and gender. As a woman of color, I’m Asian-American, second generation. My parents emigrated from China. I’ve been looking at some of the statistics about how we’ve been making some good progress in corporate America, where the promotion of white women and the promotion of men of color has really gotten so much better in that very first level, it’s at par. For if you’re entry level, the same percentage of people get promoted to that first level. It does decrease over time, but it’s about a third less than what you would normally expect, but when it comes to women of color, right? That very first step, it’s already a third less than you would expect. By the time it gets up to the executive levels, it’s like .17% of what you’d expect. It’s absolutely dismal.
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
That has been shown by the McKinsey report over the last several years and many others.
Charlene Li:
It’s just when you see the magnitude of the difference, because it’s so hard to see in the numbers. I saw this other report from Mercer that said only 13% of their responding companies, thousands of companies, actually had programs for women of color to address this particular problem. So, I am very motivated as you could say, energized, to highlight and talk about underrepresented women in our society, because you get it from both directions. Especially the pandemic, it’s hit everyone so much worse, but especially women of color.
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
Yes, it has.
Charlene Li:
I’m in a very fortunate position to be in a position of power. I have a platform and a voice as a woman of color, and it reminds me of my youth when I was growing up in Detroit, which is interesting as an Asian in Detroit, and having absolutely no role models. There were no Asian-American women in business, and no role models in my family. My family’s all doctors and nurses and engineers. So, to strike out in that area and discover my power was quite the journey along that way, and if I can do anything to help just create a stronger platform to support that development of that power, it could make such a huge difference.
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
Yeah. The world is ready. Can I slow motion that a little bit, and can you tell us a little bit about when you said, so you’ve had this journey into being in your own power, so you’ve referred to power that you have as kind of how you can use your power, right? Because I always talk about kind of, there’s being in your power, and then there’s using your power. You have this platform, you’re a respected kind of influencer. But tell us a little bit about that journey to maybe coming into your power, and maybe even how you’re facing issues around that today so that we can understand what your message is in terms of using your power.
Charlene Li:
Right. I mean, growing up in Detroit, I was the only person of color in my neighborhood. So, there were Irish, Polish, and Italians, and then there was my family in working class Detroit. So, I grew up being a disruptive force in my classroom with my friends, and I think that really prepared me for just having strength and knowing that I could hold my own and be completely different, be the only in the room. There have been so many times in my career, even today, where I’m the only of whatever group you would think about.
So that was very key, and I remember in my very first job, brand new college minted person going out into the business world as a consultant, having no idea what I was talking about, and having my manager pull me aside. He goes, “You’re way too quiet in meetings. You need to speak up. You have ideas,” and he goes, “I don’t care if the other people are like 50, 60 years old. If you think that there’s something there, it’s your responsibility to speak up.” So, he was planting in me very early on in my career the sense of voice and agency. So incredibly powerful quick conversation, but that’s when I realized I had to have that voice.
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
Right, change the course of your life. Can I ask you, when you say, “Just by showing up I was a disruptive force,” what does that mean to be a disruptive force?
Charlene Li:
Again, I think anytime you’re making people feel uncomfortable and challenging again that status quo. Because when somebody sees you as not part of them, not inclusive and not part of the tribe, it sucks the energy out of the room. They’re using a lot that energy that would normally be productive, focused on learning or achieving a management goal, instead of that it’s being distracted to say, “Who is this person? How do they fit in? How do I think about them?” The more different you are, the fewer points of commonality, the harder it is. I mean, I have Sterling educational credentials.
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
Yes, you do. Harvard undergrad, Harvard grad.
Charlene Li:
That definitely helped me bridge so many gaps, because at least, “Oh, we know you. You went to HBS. Okay, you can be a member of that club.” But not completely that. You know that there’s something going on when really people you know really well, have been going to school with or working with for years say to you, “I don’t think of you as Asian.” This is that issue I think that I’ve been working through, and I think many other people have been. We are the model minority. We often times fit in. And yet how do stand out? This conundrum of fitting in and standing out, but I think it’s the fact that we do fit in, and therefore get power because of it, gives us the social capital to be able to spend it to stand out. I think the challenge I’ve heard from so many of my Asian-American friends is that we’ve never exercised that power before, this part of our identity, so we’re very uncomfortable using that social capital, using that power in this capacity. It feels very unfamiliar and fairly dangerous, because it jeopardizes our ability to fit in because we’re standing out.
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
Right. So, over the last year, we’ve been paying more attention to hatred and discrimination against Asians, talking about in the US. We’ve had some recent experiences that have caused a reckoning and more of an awakening and visibility to violence against Asian-American women in this case. So, can you just share with us, first of all what has that been like for you to experience, what has been your experience of those events? When you talk about finding your voice and using the power that you do have, could you tell us what goes on behind the scenes for you? What are all the considerations and all the swirl that goes on for you to get to the point of what it is that you actually say?
Charlene Li:
Yeah. I’ll give a good example. This happened about maybe two years ago. I was at a meeting with a group of other executives in a membership group I’m in, and somebody made a kind of crack about Asian women and massages and everything. It was kind of a joke, and I went, “I don’t think that’s very funny.” And I’m the only woman of color. In fact, I’m the only person of any color in the room. There were no men of color in the room. I turned to the man next to me and I go, “Am I off to think that was off-color and inappropriate?” And he goes, “Yeah, that was really inappropriate.” And I go, “Well what do we do about it?”
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
But he didn’t say anything, yeah.
Charlene Li:
He didn’t say anything. I talked to maybe a dozen other people, none of them said anything. So, the next day, at the end of the meeting I raised my hand and I’m like, “Is anybody going to say anything?” They didn’t say anything, so I have to raise my hand. The person who’s been put out-
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
I have to be the one to make it a teachable moment, right.
Charlene Li:
I will do that. I will do that to the ends of the earth when I see an injustice being done, that I will speak up and say that. But my goodness, all these other people have so much more power than me. For them to be able to say something versus me saying something, it becomes so much more powerful. I have a colleague who shared early on in her career, had a client who said something to her that was inappropriate, talking about her and her being Asian-American. So, she mentioned it offhand to her manager. Manager got extremely offended, went to the partner, partner went to the client lead, and then made that client person, that client manager apologize and said, “This is unacceptable. This is never going to happen again.” That kind of allyship is what I would hope that all of us would do. I don’t believe it for a minute that we begin to even know how we would behave in those kinds of situations.
That’s where I think of this. This is not just about the people who are oppressed having injustice done to them finding their voice. It is about everybody else around them finding their voices to speak up against injustice and oppression, and it comes from a place of principled leadership. This is what it is. This is about, what will I use my power for? When I look at those numbers for the advancement of women of color, and organizations say, “Yeah, we’re really inclusive. We’re belonging, we’re a meritocracy. We’re fair.” I’m like, you look at those numbers, and how can that be true? How can that be?
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
Yeah, I definitely experience that, and that they’re award winning, and yet I’m coaching their women because their women are saying, “I’m not experiencing this personally.” So, tell us about principled leadership, or even just tell us from your heart. If you had a stadium and a vast social media network of people who are allies, who are in the rooms who haven’t been speaking up, speak to us.
Charlene Li:
If this was your daughter.
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
Thank you.
Charlene Li:
I mean, I go back to the mama bear, papa bear instincts. If this was your daughter, if this was your son, what would you be doing? What would you hope that somebody would do for your daughter or son? And to what extent will we exert our power for the people that we care about? How much will we do? What are the scenarios under which we will do this? You have to have thought about this.
Charlene Li:
I was so impressed by Jamie Dimon and his response to the latest shootings in Atlanta, because the next day they had a fully prepared statement, and people would say, “No, that’s just a great PR team.” I’m like, no. You don’t take those things from the PR team. That comes from the very top of the leadership that says, and the subject line of the email to employees says, “Enough is enough.” In very clear, forceful tones says, “This is unacceptable and it always will be, and this is what we’re going to do about it.”
It was astounding to me how few statements were made, and the excuses that I heard from leaders, “Well it just feels like we’re going through the motions.” I’m like, just listen to that. The fact that you would be saying we’re just going through the motions and not putting anything behind that is the problem. I would take even just to support, performative support would be better than the silence, and even that wasn’t done, because people were like, “Oh, we don’t know what to say yet. We need a couple days to figure it out.” Like, let me make it very clear to you. Say that this is not right.
I think my other thing is, again, even with this, this is about stop Asian hate, it isn’t just about Asians and hate. I think also two things that were lost in it is that this is hate… it’s not even hate, because I don’t think anybody is saying, making offhand jokes out of hate. These are the small everyday slights that cut into us. Then, the other thing is, in the midst of all of that, the constructs that we have around Asian women in particular was completely lost, have been completely lost. The fetishization of it, the sexualization of Asian women is something that we just have decided not to address. That was a big part of that shooting in Atlanta.
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
Yeah. How do you think we should be addressing that?
Charlene Li:
Saying that’s what it was.
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
Calling it what it is, yeah.
Charlene Li:
The targeting of Asian women who were seen as representations of, they are the persons who are at fault for causing this white man to have a sex addiction. It’s their fault because they’re Asian women.
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
Right. He couldn’t deal with his own addiction so he had to externalize, just get rid of the input to him, and right, in the way he saw them.
Charlene Li:
But again, it’s that discomfort about even talking about that. Or there was a presumption right from the very beginning that these women were all sex workers. Even if they were, they were making a living.
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
They’re humans, yeah.
Charlene Li:
They’re humans.
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
Who were innocently doing, right, their lives, and not causing anyone else, right, any…
Charlene Li:
Yeah. As somebody who, I used to travel and I’m traveling more now. I travel a lot, I get that. I mean, I get the stares. I get the awkward moments like, “Oh, I’m talking to an Asian woman. How do I behave around that?” I get asked constantly where I’m from. Where am I from? Where are you from, where are you from? With the implication that, “You don’t belong here.”
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
Right. Just the question implies that you don’t belong here, even though the people asking you might be justifying it by kind of interest, or they’re making you exotic or whatever. By definition, it’s coming from a place of, “You don’t belong.”
Charlene Li:
Yeah.
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
People have to be aware of that.
Charlene Li:
You can tell when somebody’s asking, “So where are you from,” out of a point of interest to get to know you and your background, to understand you better, versus asking to put you into a bucket. So, I usually get a little sly smile on my face and I go, “I’m from Detroit.”
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
Great, great. Great. So, there’s two things that I want to ask you about that. One is, since you’re a deep expert in change and disruption, you know, you understand what goes on when people are fearful of change or uncomfortable. I mean, we know that there’s just a collective bias that’s going on in those situations, like can we deconstruct, what else do you understand about maybe the power dynamics, or fear of change, or discomfort with discomfort that’s going on there that you can help illuminate so that we can kind of make moments of allyship feel natural and human, and not something that you have to wait three days for your PR people to tell you what to say?
Charlene Li:
Yeah. I mean, the major reason why we do not act is because we’re afraid of being wrong. We’re afraid of losing power. We’re afraid of shame and people judging us.
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
That’s what’s really going on, okay. So, tell us about that.
Charlene Li:
There’s a lot going on in that split second, right? So, the thing I always talk about, going back to this question about fear. Like what are you afraid of if you speak up, if you say something, right? You deconstruct that. I think the difference between Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan, what they did, they had gone through that entire exercise. They had figured out what are the pros and cons of this. They had already thought through all the scenarios. I’m a big believer in scenarios and scenario planning as a way to tackle out the uncertainty of the future. You maybe map out, the world looks like maybe one of three to five different flavors. That’s what it’s going to look like. And then you develop strategies for every single one of those, contingency plans, and you see, what is a common denominator across all of them? These are your no regret moves, and you move forward with those.
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
I love that.
Charlene Li:
Then you know, and you’re watching to see which of those other scenarios are starting to come through. You have [inaudible 00:45:43] smoke signals out in the background, and so you can go see them. And that’s a very systematic, pragmatic approach to dealing with the unknown, and dealing with the shifting of power. So, when I apply that to systemic injustice that’s happening, we can be as analytic and pragmatic about it as that too as well.
I mean, let’s break it down. Let’s look in our own backyard, look at the places where we’re being unfair. Are we even tracking [inaudible 00:46:13] questions and rooting out and looking for these places that are happening? Versus assuming that doesn’t happen in our organization. Well, how do you know?
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
Yeah. Also, what you’re saying there is that the power issue is, I think that you’re saying that you first have to start with a vision of the future, right? And that everything starts there, right? That’s what enables you to kind of set disruption in motion, it’s what makes it worth it for you to not have to hold all the power, and to be able to share power with very clear instructions so that people in your organization can use their power. What I see going on in those situations is that people are playing their small game. Your small game is about not wanting to say the wrong thing, and afraid of doing something that will make you feel ashamed, right? And kind of being stuck in your own shame. The big game, what you’re saying is sort of what a disruptive leader does, is like having a vision of the future that’s going to be better for you and for everyone, and then acting in the service of it, not acting in the service of kind of your small, personalized concerns in the moment. That’s what you’re calling leaders, or anyone in your life to do, so you can be a disruptor and that you can contribute to the kind of society we all want to live in.
Charlene Li:
Right. I mean, my definition of a leader is not by title. A leader is somebody who creates change, and if you’re not creating change then you’re not a leader, you’re a manager. Managers are great, we need managers, but we really need leaders at this moment, and we need leaders who can think big, play big, who know how to exercise power. And frankly what it comes down to as a leader, your power is about the ability to set the agenda. Is your agenda going to be small or is it going to be big?
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
Amen.
Charlene Li:
Right? So, the advice I give to people, the advice I wish I had had earlier in my career, is to play big. To think big, to dream big, and not be constrained by just what I think are my capabilities. So, it’s about, how do I harness the capabilities of this movement that we are creating to create a change that’s much bigger than what I could ever do by myself.
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
Amen sister. So, I want to be that change agent, and our listeners want to be that change agent. So, from a world expert, can you just give us some ways to get started? How we can be that disruptive leader, other than the first thing I’m going to do is go out and get your book for me and everyone in my circle. But what else can we do?
Charlene Li:
Gandhi’s like be the change you see, you want to be, it is literally that. If you don’t feel like you’re a disruptive change leader, look for change. Look for the things that need to be changed around you, and you have to build up to it. You don’t get to do the big changes until you get good at the small ones, so what are you waiting for? I talk to so many people early in their career, they’re like, “Well, I’m waiting for somebody to make me a leader.” I’m like, no, you get to be a leader when you’re actually showing that you can create change. So go create change. Look around you. There’s so many problems, pick one. I say to entrepreneurs kind of jokingly, “Please, do not follow your passion.” That’s like the worst advice you can get. Find something you can be-
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
Find a problem you can solve, yeah.
Charlene Li:
A problem you can solve, but also something you can be excellent at. Because even if you’re not solving that problem, you know you’re doing excellent work. I was just talking to Tom Peters earlier today to prepare for an upcoming event, and he has this wonderful idea, how can you be excellent for the next five minutes right? Then just keep extending that, but always be excellent. Not perfect, but excellent at what you do. I love what his message is, because we can all be excellent. When we are doing that in the service of change, and knowing how you serve the world in that usefulness and with your excellence is what gets you up in the morning to face incredibly unsurmountable odds of success. Yet, you believe that this is the right thing to do. This is how you’re going to serve the world. You wake up in the morning so certain in your purpose. That’s a wonderful place to be, knowing that this is how you’re going to make a difference.
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
Charlene Li, I’m so inspired by you. My next five minutes, I’m so inspired to bring excellence in the next five minutes, and the next five minutes, and to play my big game. You are generous and you are wise, and you are heartfelt. You embody this idea of a disruptive leader. Is there anything else that you want to share with the listeners of The Power Shift Podcast about how to be a disruptor and create this change that you want to see in the world?
Charlene Li:
I think the hardest part of being a disruptor are the really bad days. I talk about how wonderful it is being in power. There are so many days when you just feel not powerful, just beaten down. I’ll be honest, I’m going through that little bit of a crater right now, Sharon. We were talking about this just before this, that I’m kind of feeling burnt out. I’m realizing it’s because after a year of pandemic, I had strong resilience up until now when I can see the tunnel at the end of the light. I have nothing to be strong for anymore. It’s okay to just go out there and kind of let it go and be okay with that. And it was okay to not be social and connected before, because there was no way to do that. But now, I’m feeling guilt about not being out there, and so I’ve just got to put all of that aside.
It’s those days when I have to plan, or these phases. I need that recovery right now, so I know to be kind to myself, to be generous to myself. Not to have to push every day. But I still everyday have an adventure. Everyday, I will live outside of my comfort zone. Just not right now, maybe not so far out there, but I want to be able to continue to learn and to be curious and to grow in new and different ways.
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
And I love the joy that emanates from you when you talk about that actually, because that’s that renewable energy, right? I think that the kind of power dynamics that you were talking about, I think when you feel connected to that source of your power, and not in a way that’s pushing right? But just kind of comes from all your creativity and your connection to other people, and I hope that it renews you when you think about the impact that you are having in the world. I love the way that Fast Company named you one of the most kind of creative people and impactful people, because you certainly have been that for me and for so many people, and I really want to thank you in a heartfelt way for being so powerful, really simply by being you. Because when a woman is in her power right, she raises everyone around you, and I think you are such an inspiring example of that. Can you tell our listeners, how can we learn more from you? How could our companies kind of gain your insights?
Charlene Li:
You can always come to my website, charleneli.com. I make it so simple. It’s just charleneli.com, and also follow me on LinkedIn, connect with me there. It’s probably, that’s the place where I concentrate most of my efforts. I do really mean that, I look forward to connecting with you. I want to hear from you. I learn and grow from the journeys that everyone is taking. So please do not stay distant, please share your story, reach out to me. I would love to connect.
Dr. Sharon Melnick:
So, every woman leader out there, every leader, not just a woman leader who wants to kind of live from that authentic place coming kind of integrated from heart and mind, listen and listen again to Charlene Li. So, appreciate you.
Charlene Li:
Thank you again for having me.
