Zach has the honor of speaking with Great Place to Work CEO Michael C. Bush about GPTW itself and the process of creating a great place to work. Michael generously shares what he believes executives should be thinking about when it comes to building better trust within organizations and talks about where he sees Great Place to Work continuing to grow and expand to capture more marginalized voices and experiences.

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Interested in Michael's book? Find out more about it on Amazon.

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TRANSCRIPT

Zach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and man, you know what we do. We center and amplify underrepresented voices in the workplace by having authentic, available, and frankly incredible conversations with some incredible guests, and, you know, today is no different, right? Like, we've had who, we've had Robin DiAngelo on, we've had Ruchika Tulshyan, we've had--we've had professors, we've had executives, we've had activists--we've had DeRay Mckesson--we've had all types of folks on the podcast, on the platform, and today is just incredible because we have Michael C. Bush. Michael C. Bush is the CEO of Great Place to Work, the global research and analytics firm that produces the annual Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For lists. So you know when y'all, you know, see companies and they have, like, the little badge and it'll say, "Oh, we're, like, #5 great place to work," this person we're speaking to is the CEO of Great Place to Work, y'all. This is a big deal. I'm not trying to overhype it. I don't think I can overhype it. I'm just trying to give proper context to who we have on the show. You know, the 100 Best Workplaces for Women list, the Best Workplaces for Diversity list, and dozens of other distinguished workplace rankings around the world. Since 2015, Michael Bush has expanded Great Place to Work’s global mission to build a better world by helping organizations create Great Places to Work not just for the some, but For All. Under his leadership, the firm has developed a higher standard of excellence that accounts for fair and equitable treatment of employees across demographic groups, as well as executive leader effectiveness, innovation, and financial sustainability. His book, A Great Place to Work For All, outlines the compelling business and social benefits that come from these efforts. Michael, first of all, how are you doing?




Michael: I'm doing great. Thank you, and honored to be with you today.




Zach: It's a pleasure. Now, I'm asking--you know, we're in the midst of a global pandemic, and I would be remiss if I didn't ask how are you doing with your family. Is everyone safe and well? Friends and family, loved ones?




Michael: Thanks for asking. Yeah, the world has really changed in the past 45 days, but I'm doing well. I'm sheltering in place here in Oakland, California, with family nearby, so everything's good, and I hope the same for you.




Zach: You know, everything is good. It's interesting. It's an interesting time. My wife and I just welcomed our first child into the world just a handful of weeks ago, and it's just an interesting time to be new parents, right, with so much chaos, you know, seemingly all around us, or uncertainty around us, but life is beautiful nonetheless.




Michael: Well, congratulations to you and your wife, and yeah, you couldn't have brought, you know, a baby into the world at a crazier time, you know, but things are always a little bit crazy, and what a story you're gonna be able to share with your baby, you know, and we're just gonna do what we're always gonna do, which is make the world a lot better from here.




Zach: I love it, absolutely. So let's get into it, right? We talked about it a little bit in the bio that I read. You've been the CEO of Great Place to Work for over 5 years, going on 5 years. Can we talk about your first 100 days as the CEO and, like, what did that look like, you just kind of stepping into that role. And then, you know, in these past five years--I guess Part B to the question is what have you been most proud of since taking the helm?




Michael: Yeah. Well, when I stepped into the role in 2015, I got into the role in a strange way. I was actually hired by the founder of Great Place to Work to sell the company, and I had done a lot of turnaround work in the past, and so I came in and worked to do that, and to make a long story short I ended up getting an investment partner and buying the business. So that's how I got into it, and then one of the things that I knew is that I felt like having the analytics of what really was going on for working people all around the world and knowing that there are a lot of working people who never really get a fair shot at being developed, never get a fair shot at being promoted, never get a fair shot at being recognized and rewarded, that I could use--I hoped--the data and the analytics to use recognition to get organizations to change, and so that's really when we made the change, almost instantly, to Great Place to Work for All. I thought that we'd have a platform, and at that time, you know, you never know how things are gonna work out. The business was technically bankrupt, so the first 100 days were what you have to do when you're turning around a company that's bankrupt, which is you have to stop all the money flowing out of the company. So a lot of tough decisions, a lot of tough days where you're just pruning the rose bush so that you can grow, and those times are very difficult, but that's really what the first 100 days were about. Not too much about the future. A lot of pain in trying to cut costs, but we got through it.




Zach: When you talk about, like, Great Place to Work for All, like, clearly that's a point of pride for you and, like, kind of continuing to shift and expand the platform or the position that you stepped into. Can we talk a little bit about what it was about that particular--like, why you took that angle, and, like, why was that your point of determined growth for Great Place to Work?




Michael: Yeah. Zach, I think the thing that helped me was having a lot of business experience and having been a CEO before as well as working with CEOs. One of the things I knew is that most CEOs, while they talk articulately and clearly and passionately about diversity and inclusion, it's not something they think about that much, you know? They think about it during Black History Month, you know, or other things like that, but beyond that they really don't think about it that much, so it's kind of a head fake because you can hear these things that are very optimistic and passionate, but in fact they just don't think about them that much, and so--they're CEOs, which means they're thinking about other things like shareholder value, stakeholder value, but this one isn't one of 'em. They delegate it, and so they typically delegate it to a chief of diversity and inclusion or maybe a chief of people or a CHRO, but it's delegated, you know? It's not something that they lose a lot of time thinking about, and so I knew that and knew a lot of people, you know, doing diversity and inclusion work, and the common experience was "If you get to a CEO and you say, "Hey, I'd like to talk to you about diversity and inclusion," and they go, "Oh, talk to my chief of diversity and inclusion and I'll see you later." And so they're gone. So I was trying to find a way of keeping them in the conversation by not bringing up diversity and inclusion, and we did that. So when you talk about Great Place to Work for All, they don't leave the room because they're like, "Hey, I'm into that because, you know, that includes me," and also Great Place to Work for All has superior financial business performance. We've got all the data on that, so now they hang in the room, and now they're there and they're present, and now you have an opportunity to share data and information with them to get them into the conversation and hopefully leading the conversation. So it's really--for me it was a Trojan horse. It was how to get into the castle walls and not have somebody come out the castle walls, you know, that was delegated to talk about diversity and inclusion. I felt that the CEO needed to be in that conversation just like they're in the conversation when they're buying the company. They have a head of M&A, but they're in that conversation, so I thought that we could make that happen, and so far so good.




Zach: Well, no, it's a great point, and something that you just said rung true with me. I think another example is, like, HSC, right? Like, you talk about health and safety environments, like, the CEO is going to be involved in that conversation by some degree because they recognize the business value and just, like, the imperative of safety for their workplace. Like, they may not be in every single part of the conversation, but they're going to be engaged. If there are other parts of the organization that executive leaders, that CEOs want to be plugged into, I think it's interesting. As much growth as diversity and inclusion has seen, I think that certain language and buzzwords kind of, like, trigger disengagement from the senior-most people. So I find that really interesting and powerful that you were able to figure out kind of, like, I don't want to say the cheat code, but, like, the way to kind of mitigate that a bit.




Michael: Yeah, yeah. Cheat code. I hadn't thought about it like that, but that's kind of what it is, and whatever works, you know? Kind of by any means necessary, and so we found that this works, and