S7E7 | Breaking barriers: Navigating E&C as a woman of color

What you'll learn in this podcast episode

What does it look like to navigate and excel in today’s business and legal worlds as a woman of color, and how does having an E&C background impact that experience? In this episode of the Principled Podcast, LRN Strategic Communications Director Jen Uner talks with Nadine Jones, General Counsel of Kuehne + Nagel USA and co-founder of The Initiative: Advancing the Blue and Black Partnership, an organization born in the weeks following the murder of George Floyd. Listen in as the two discuss Nadine’s professional path, her productive approach to activism, the value of DEI programs in the workplace, and her advice for E&C professionals advancing their own careers. 

 

Additional resources:

LRN’s new DEI Program provides companies with a multi-faceted training solution—a ready-to-deploy learning campaign with curriculums, asset packs, and customizable courses, plus the option to add bespoke content, learner experiences, and communications campaigns developed in association with LRN’s E&C experts. You can preview some of our most popular course content (just one piece of this program!) by clicking here. 

  Principled Podcast shownotes

• [2:25] - How Nadine got her start in the law industry.
• [6:15] - Nadine’s experience in ethics and compliance
• [13:13] - How Kuehne + Nagel shapes their DEI programs.
• [20:32] - Nadine’s intentions as she enters her new leadership role.
• [23:55] - Nadine’s opinions on the notion of breaking barriers.
• [28:25] - The genesis of The Initiative.
• [32:37] - How The Initiative’s programs were received by police officers.
• [37:18] - Advice for the next generation of legal and ethics and compliance professionals.

  Featured guest: Nadine Jones

Nadine Jones is a graduate of Howard University School of Law and a seasoned Vice President of a multibillion global logistics company. She is a collaborative leader, solutions-oriented, and has expertise in developing and maintaining a corporate ethics & compliance program for a multi-billion logistics company. As a graduate of Howard University School of Law, Nadine also has a strong sense of social justice and equity. In June 2020, she co-founded along with two other Howard Law alumni an organization called The Initiative: Advancing the Blue & Black Partnership (“The Initiative”). The Initiative was established to end systemic police violence and implement a collaborative approach to building healthy, scalable, community policing models.

  Featured Host: Jen Uner

Jen Uner is the Strategic Communications Director for LRN, where she captains programs for both internal and external audiences. She has an insatiable curiosity and an overdeveloped sense of right and wrong which she challenges each day through her study of ethics, compliance, and the value of values-based behavior in corporate governance. Prior to joining LRN, Jen led marketing communications for innovative technology companies operating in Europe and the US, and for media and marketplaces in California. She has won recognition for her work in brand development and experiential design, earned placements in leading news publications, and hosted a closing bell ceremony of the NASDAQ in honor of the California fashion industry as founder of the LA Fashion Awards. Jen holds a B.A. degree from Claremont McKenna College.

  Transcription

Intro: Welcome to the Principled Podcast, brought to you by LRN. The Principled podcast brings together the collective wisdom on ethics, business, and compliance, transformative stories of leadership, and inspiring workplace culture. Listen in to discover valuable strategy from our community of business leaders and workplace change makers.

Jen Üner: Hello, and welcome to another episode of LRN's Principled Podcast. I'm your host today Jen Üner, strategic communications director for LRN. Today, I'm joined by Nadine Jones, general counsel of Kuehne+Nagel USA, as of April 1st, actually, which is part of the 18 billion global logistics company. Nadine is also co-founder and associate executive director and immediate past director of the initiative, Advancing the Blue and Black Partnership. This is an organization she founded with friends from Howard University in the weeks following the murder of George Floyd. We are going to be talking about the initiative, but we're also going to be talking about her career, her advice for E&C professionals advancing their own careers, the unique challenges women of color face navigating business and legal worlds and her own, I must say hyper-productive approach to work and to activism. It's women's History Month in the US, and so I think it's a good time to reflect on where we are. Nadine, thank you for joining me on the Principled Podcast.

Nadine Jones: Thank you, Jen. Thank you for having me.

Jen Üner: Nadine, I have such admiration for what you do. I'm kind of amazed at how you actually do all the things that you do. You're one of those women who like slays dragons and leaps tall buildings in a single bound. I know this because we had the chance to work closely together for the launch of the initiative last summer, or at least the launch of the courses that we produced for you and are continuing to produce for the initiative. We're going to talk about that a little later though. I want to focus first on your career. You were just promoted to general counsel and congratulations on that, by the way. I think our audience of E&C professionals they'd really like to learn from your trajectory and your experience like how did you get where you are today? I mean, this is a very big job. I know about Howard University, but not much else. Can we start at the beginning? Can we start with your background? Like where did you grow up? How did you choose Howard? Get me started.

Nadine Jones: I actually grew up in Montreal, Canada, working class parents, working class family. I did visit Howard, not as a student, we visited for homecoming. Howard's homecoming is the world renowned, practically. And I didn't really think anything else about it. I did always want to be a lawyer, but I never seen anyone in my family be a lawyer. And I didn't think I was smart enough to be a lawyer. And it was just, might be nice, but that's not for me. Get a good job and which I did. And it was Ama, who is one of the co-founders of the initiative and we'll talk more about later, she got into Howard Law. So we did undergrad together and she went on to Howard Law and I mentioned, I always wanted to be a lawyer, but I'm not smart enough. And she's like, "But we're the same. If I can do it, you can do it." And I thought, we actually are the same, right. Because we'd been friends for years by then, herding together. I don't think she'd mind if I shared that and whatever shenanigans we were getting into.

And I had just never really thought about it in that way, that we are the same. And it was a great example of representation mattering. And I believed her when she said, if I can do it, you do it. And so I applied and I got in and I don't mind saying I did great. I was pretty good at it. But it took someone breaking down a barrier and showing me that it was possible. And somebody that I could relate to showing me that it was possible. And I then believed that it was possible and she was right, it was possible. So that's how I got my start at Howard. And I've been in the United States ever since then. It's my adopted home. I love it and we can talk about it's flaws, it's challenges.

Jen Üner: Oh my God.

Nadine Jones: I see it. But I...

Jen Üner: We have so many.

Nadine Jones: I love, I chose this country. I wasn't running from anywhere. Canada's pretty cool, if you've ever been there.

Jen Üner: I got to ask you Montreal, do you speak French? Isn't it French based there?

Nadine Jones: It is. It is French based there and I'm considered what they all Anglophone. So my parentage and so forth, I'm not Francophone and language is heavily politicized in Quebec. And it felt very oppressive as an English person. What is the point of that story? It's you can politicize anything people, anything it's not just race and ethnicity, it could be language, it could be geography.

Jen Üner: I think you're absolutely right. You can politicize most anything.

Nadine Jones: Most anything. Yep.

Jen Üner: So you went to Howard. I think it's interesting you always knew you wanted to be a lawyer.

Nadine Jones: I did. I always knew. My mother thought that I should be a teacher. She still does. She's accepted that I'm a lawyer, but I think in her heart of hearts, she always wanted me to be a teacher, but somehow I just always felt it. I always knew that this was what I wanted to do. I just thought it was out of reach.

Jen Üner: Yeah. Well, I'm glad that Ama helped you see that wasn't necessarily the case and that you were able to apply to law school and get in. And of course now here we see you absolutely succeeding. A question for you about your E&C experience. That's your background now in law? Is that correct? I don't want to make an assumption.

Nadine Jones: It's the reason why I joined can KN, Kuehne + Nagel was to head up their corporate ethics and compliance program. And I still wear that hat, which is something we can talk about, you might change roles, but you still have insights that you carry with you from whatever experiences that you've had. And it's a plus, it's not a minus. So yes, I'm still involved to some degree, particularly in areas of where I have some background like antitrust, for example, I'm still heavily involved in that, but it is no longer my full-time role. I moved out of ethics and compliance in December of 2017 and moved fully into the general counsel's office of the same company but supported compliance, supported the new officer and still continue to this day. I'm still seen as the go-to person for certain ethics and corporate compliance matters, certainly for DEI as well as a woman of color, as a black woman in a still heavily male dominated space.

And I have a title to my name. I have a lot of visibility and a really good platform from which to speak. So I do speak as much as I'm invited to speak to help highlight certain issues for our women's International Women's Day. So it's a privilege. It's actually a great space and a comfortable space to be in. And I don't like to play the age card because I think it makes the younger folks feel uncomfortable, but it is so rewarding to see how they react act and how excited they are and just to hear their comments. And they'll come by my office, they don't know if they should come in, if they can't come in and just the enthusiasm that they have. So I consider it a privilege to be able to enter their space. They sometimes feel nervous to enter into my space, but I tell them my door is always open and I love it. I do love that part.

Jen Üner: I think that's always a case as you move up in your career. I think you do find that happens where there's that... Somebody in the C-suite, for example, you're never going to just, even if they're really welcoming and saying like, "Come on in." You're always a little bit hesitant, right? Because there's a bit of that hierarchy, right? You don't want to overstep, you don't want to do something wrong.

Nadine Jones: That's right. Yes.

Jen Üner: That's how I see it. So the fact that you've been very visible in the company on topics of ethics and compliance and you hold this visible role and people do seek you out for your expertise for example in DEI, is that something that you're going to continue to do in your new role?

Nadine Jones: Yes, it will be. If they will have me, it will be because one, I'm the only woman GC or only woman who will be holding that title in the next few weeks. I'm the only black person who was on the board ever. And the US company is about, I don't know, almost 70 years old. So it's a pretty big deal. And just by me being who I am, it has generated a strong reaction and it speaks to diversity and it speaks to equity and it speaks to inclusion. The fact that I'm homegrown in the sense that I joined, I'm in my 10th year at this company, and the fact that the company was able to develop me to the point where I would be even viable for this role speaks volumes to those who are here because it shows that the opportunities are in fact here.

We didn't have to outsource, we didn't have to find somebody from Europe to come in to fill this role. We were able to find a person here who had received enough development and mentorship to be able to handle this role. So I think just by the very nature of the body I occupy, the history of the organization, I think DEI is going to be something that I contribute to and happily do. So one of the things I like to do is show them my own evolution, my own biases, my own effort to be more inclusive. And I think it helps because as a black woman, the presumption is, oh, you know how to do this? You have no biases. You are automatically inclusive and welcome diversity. We all have our biases. We all have our blind spots is what I would call them. So when I'm invited to speak, I share and I share my own evolution and my own challenges in whatever area. It's so far, it seems to be well received.

Jen Üner: That's great. That's good to hear. And certainly we do all have our own blind spots. I think that's a great word. I have to say DEI is top of mind this month for us at LRN because we have big product news. We're releasing a new DEI program. It combines our customizable courses, which I'm not even sure if you're familiar with the coursework that we're producing now. We have a whole learn it work it prove it model. There are powerful videos included. And in fact, like the meaning maker video that we did for the initiative, we do similar kinds of assets for our DEI courses. But we're also now expanding that DEI program to include ready to go, out of the box, email templates, huddle guides, learning action plans. The idea is to create kind of a more meaningful multitouch program that sustains over time.

And so like all those courses and all of those things come together to keep the momentum going through the year. And I would say it's like how you would communicate about sort of any kind of corporate values. It's something that you do with repetition over time, across channels and moments. You don't just have like a one and done like, oh, now we're trained. So I'm curious how Kuehne + Nagel shapes DEI programs presently. And I mean, I know you're not necessarily directly working with them right now, but do you have any highlights or insights you could share about the programs there?

Nadine Jones: I want to say to give the company credit, KN credit, we started this, I can't give you the exact year, but I want to say 2018, 2019, the company invested, I believe millions of dollars in what it calls its Care Initiative. And from the highest to the lowest and everyone in between, we were in encouraged, strongly encouraged to participate in this program. And so we hired leadership to spearhead it, the head of DEI and so forth. And so we've been pounding this drum for years before, the upheaval in 2020 and the racial equity discussions that have since spawned or spurred from that. So I want to say 2018, we went full out into the Care Initiative, which is about inclusion, about hearing other voices. Internally, the focus was to start on internally with how we treat each other internally with an understanding that would spill over in terms of how we treat our customers.

We're still a profit for profit corporation, we care about our customers, but we wanted to create an environment where we had the touches. So I love what you said about you can't do one and done. You can't pass a policy that we shall now all care about each other, right?

Jen Üner: Right.

Nadine Jones: You need to create the infrastructure where you have the touches and I'll share a quick a story. We still do our care, it was maintained even through the pandemic periods when we were not physically in the office. So it started out with like physically in the office group, team meetings from different pockets within the company so that we get to see and meet and develop relationships with folks outside of our departments, outside of our wheelhouse. And then during the pandemic, of course, like everyone else, mostly everyone else, we moved to conference calls, Zoom, and other platforms. And I wasn't always the best, I'll be honest. I wasn't always the best about joining, which is something that I've decided to stop doing, especially now with my new position I think it's more important that I make the effort to make those calls.

But within my sub care team, I have one Ukrainian national and we were talking weeks ago, this was before the actual invasion. And these are my words. I know that other people might have different views, but that's how I'm seeing what happened. And she mentioned that her family was in Ukraine and I said, "Oh there's still there. They didn't leave." She said, "No, they didn't leave." And I said, "Okay, but you are seeing the buildup that's happening." She's like, "I see it. And they see it." But I said, "Well, look, we pray for the best and that everything will be okay." And a few weeks after that, we all know what happened. Putin invaded Ukraine. I woke up that morning, maybe it was a Friday morning. Anyway, at some point I woke up and saw what had happened. My first thought was to my care group and I logged on and I Zoom chatted her. And I said, "I'm just seeing what happened. And I want you to know that your family is in my prayers and I'm praying for their safety."

Now, would that have been my first thought had I not had a relationship within my care group? I would've sympathized with Ukraine. I don't know if I would've had that level of empathy had I not known this person over the course of however many years, I've been in her care group four years, that human element where her family, I could almost transpose my family onto her family. And that's when you move from sympathy to empathy, I think for me anyway. So that's an example of the importance of continuous touches in seeing each other and being able to empathize with each other. If you're just in your silo or if it's just an academic exercise or if it's just a mandate from your CEO saying, thou shall care with nothing else behind it and no infrastructure to have those human interactions, then you just have what we all know in the E&C world. You just have a program on paper. You don't have it in reality.

Jen Üner: Check the box.

Nadine Jones: It's a check the box, right.

Jen Üner: Yeah. I think that's a really interesting example and certainly a really poignant one with everything that's going on right now. And I think it does really speak to the company that you work for and the care that they take around care. And I think you're absolutely right, you might not have thought of that first, if you hadn't been involved in that program, which then it makes me think of something that I overheard the other day from one of my colleagues, she was talking to a VP of diversity and inclusion, who's like maybe 90 days into the job. And this person was saying that the real value of DEI programs is that most people aren't really going out there to read books or even know who Brené Brown is, for example. It's not something like you don't put it necessarily on your agenda, just like you wouldn't have necessarily put on your agenda connecting with this person from the Ukraine.

It's because the company took the initiative to increase awareness and understanding and building a culture of respect in the organization that you guys were exposed to this, exposed to each other on a regular basis. So that became the first thing that you thought about. So in a way it's kind of the whole idea of this is really... Because if you don't find it outside the company, it really is kind of a tone from the top sort of thing, the company prioritizes it. And then there you are, it's actually shifted your perspective and your behavior, what you thought first. So that's a lot of words to just say, you're going to be at the top, right? You're going to be part of the group that is forming priorities going forward for the company as part of the leadership team. Are there any items that you're going to want to surface in your new role?

Nadine Jones: I'll be the new kid on the block. So I will just be... I know most of them from my role in E&C ethics and corporate compliance, which is a great role actually, to expose you to people from all walks of the organization. It's a very high, should be anyway, a platform where you do have exposure to the board from the receptionist to the CEO, to the global CEO. And no one has told me this, but I can't help but think that exposure helped to launch me into this general council role because you make relationships and you keep them wherever you go. But that's a bit of an aside. I'm going to, they will now be my peers. And I will be the second woman on the board, first person of color. I don't know what their expectations are. I think they're watching me and I'm learning them in this new role. But here's the thing, I don't have to go in with an agenda in particular.

I just see the world differently than they do, and I feel empowered enough to voice that. So for instance, even before being appointed the next GC, I sit on the investment committee. I was invited last year to sit on the investment committee, which is the fiduciary committee, right, from obligation for 401(k)s, and make sure that we are investing soundly and that things are in compliance with applicable law and so forth. First woman and one of the questions I had almost maybe the second meeting, like how are the women doing? Do we know if there is any gaps in terms of investment or use of the company's offerings between genders? And the response was we never really thought about it. And that's a great idea. That's an example of inclusion. It was quickly, quickly supported by the men. And I was just curious, I just wanted to see if there were any gaps, so I don't have a clear agenda. I'm just bringing my whole self into this role.

Jen Üner: Yeah. I, that's a great way to put it. I had a boss once that would say, "You don't know what you don't know." And I think that's kind of a great example, right. You're in this group and they had never considered something. You're just there with you yourself in the room and realizing, hey, what about this? And no one had even considered that before. I think that really does speak to the extreme value of inclusivity and diversity in the workplace. So, I mean, clearly you're pioneering a bit, you're breaking barriers. You're the, I think you said the second woman on the board and the first black woman. This notion of breaking barriers, do you think that's a big deal, a small deal? Does it not really matter? Because it's the right thing to be happening anyway. I'm just curious your perspective on that.

Nadine Jones: It matters, it's intimidating, but I'll separate the answer. It absolutely matters, right. Remember I told you it was Ama and my ability to relate to her and see myself in her that gave me the courage I needed to step out of my comfort zone and try law school. It absolutely matters. We have to see someone that is relatable break the barrier to know that it's possible for ourselves. So it does matter. It is encouraging, it brings hope, it's validating. When the announcement was made public, there were women, especially women of color, Latinx women who can see themselves in me that they were overjoyed, but also really emotional, really emotional. And that first day when the announcement went out, it was overwhelming for me to see the reaction of mostly the women, not just women of color, just women in general.

And it confirms the importance of representation, of seeing what's possible even if it's through somebody else who was like you. It's intimidating in the sense that I feel, I'll speak for myself, I feel the magnitude this appointment, I feel the magnitude of being on the board, of looking like me and being a board member, the magnitude of it. That said my CEO, and I feel supported. So if I were in an environment where I had to claw my way to the top against people who were less than supportive, maybe even antagonistic, but doing it because it's the new social norm, maybe that's how they might look at it. It's the new trend and there's no real support, can you imagine what that must feel like? Actually, I can't imagine what that must feel like. But because I feel supported internally, even though it's a new role, a big role, it's a historic role, as one woman told me, this is a historical moment in our organization, I don't feel like I'm set up to fail.

I feel like I'm set up to succeed because I know the board member or my CEO in particular, who I won't prefer to put words in his mouth, but at least how I perceive him, my interactions with him, so supportive, even the global parent who's light years away from the United States, incredibly supportive and encouraging. So it is important, you can't just plop a woman on the board or black person for the first time and say good luck and expect them to thrive. You need to support us. That is an element of inclusion. That is part of equity. That is part of diversity, if you really want it to work. And I do feel supported, I do.

Jen Üner: That's so good to hear. And it is so important. And I think in any kind of environment where collaboration is going to be really key, you need to have that, you need to have that respect and appreciation for each other and what they bring to the table. And the skills, knowledge, experience, perspective, everything, those are all valuable inputs into whatever problem the team needs to solve.

Nadine Jones: Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah.

Jen Üner: Taking a whole turn, I would love to talk about the initiative. We worked together that on the initiative last year, it's continuing this year, I can't wait to catch up on what's been happening. But before we dive into that, can you share with us a little bit of the Genesis story of the initiative?

Nadine Jones: Yes. So the initiative was launched in July of 2020, actually it was June of 2020, and it was birthed out of trauma, I guess is the right word. If we all recall, and some of us don't even want to look back to 2020, it's the year that she'll never be mentioned again, I get it, but let's look back a little bit of what was happening and there was incredible up rest or...

Jen Üner: Unrest.

Nadine Jones: ... Unrest.

Jen Üner: Unrest, and uprising.

Nadine Jones: Yeah. Unrest and uprising in the area of policing, police interactions with black and brown bodies. And being the mother of a black son myself, it was at the point where we really could not just sit back and do nothing, myself and the other two co-founders, black women, Howard alumni as well, mothers of black sons and daughters, I'm the only one which is a son. And we decided that we were going to use our corporate knowledge and experience in terms of building sustainable, scalable solutions, along with our Howard civil rights training, and we were going to enter this space. It was kind of a bit of woman arrogance, if you want it done right, just going to have to do it ourselves.

And we were thinking about it in terms of the measures that we have taken generationally to protect our children, which is having the talk, what to do if encountered by the police, you're black, you can't do what your white friends do. You be respectful, make sure they see your hands, all of those things that we do, which basically just kind of steals and takes their innocence way too young. We decided it's not working and that we need something that's more sustainable. And we entered this space with the purpose of building something that lasts, and in order to do that, reconciling those two groups, the blue community, the black community in particular, but to do that, we knew we had to work collaboratively. And that's our corporate upbringing that's telling us that, you can't do anything in a silo and expect it to work and be sustainable, it's not. It's not going to work and it's not going to be sustainable.

And you touched on this Jen earlier, just simply having something on paper and saying, go forth and prosper, so to speak, is not going to be enough. You need to have some touches there, you have to create some infrastructure to bridge divides, to create positive relationships. So that's why we got into the space. It was not just because of what we all witnessed with the George Floyd video, it was not just what we've witnessed with the Ahmaud Arbery being gunned down by civilian, but a former police officer and the handling of that murder, what we can now say is murder by that police department was shocking. And it wasn't the slew of others that we have seen, it was simply a point of decision that we're entering into the space and we're going to do it collaboratively. But we are emerging from this space with the fervent hope and belief to make everybody safer, the blue community, because now you've got members of the civilian community that have humanized them how the blue community views us, and the us is no longer just black folks.

Jen Üner: One of the things that you started with, with the initiative was I think there were some dashboards for assessment of municipalities, and then of course, the courses that we are developing with you, the first one being on mindfulness, which are courses that police are offered to take. How is that going? What kind of adoptions have you been getting for the platform and the programs that you're doing? And what's next? I know that you were already working on ideas for the next courses that we can help you bring to the initiative.

Nadine Jones: Well, the mindfulness training that LRN developed for us is just remarkable. And we didn't ex we didn't do it for the purpose of it serving as an icebreaker, but it turned out that when officers saw that we were concerned about their wellbeing, as well as our own, it opened a door. I don't know how to explain it. LRN did it for free, that was their contribution to the space. It's phenomenal, it's world class, it's incredible quality, and we shared it with police communities for free, and there was no judgment in it. It was, this is brain science. We called it operation brain strategies because we were told by police, if you call it mindfulness, no self-respective officer is going to take a mindfulness training.

So we called it operation brain strategies, there was no judgment. It was, this is just the human species, this is just how we function. So it was a great way, it was like an offering, here we care about you. And we developed that first after we got through the pain and the horror of what we saw, and crying, we were sobbing all the time. It was just a mess in the summer of 2020. But the more we spoke with officers, we saw them more, we said, "Hey, this is tough. We're going to come out with something that shows that we see what they're doing and that it's not easy." And there's nothing defective about an officer who has a moment, it's a tough, heartbreaking job. So that was a great way to come out.

And the next one slated is to talk about, to show in the same similar image or format, how to actually engage with members of the community. And you're right, we did build two tools, one's called central, which is police agency facing, and the other is called central plus, which is community facing. And one assesses the police agency's readiness to engage in a collaborative, proactive type of policing with civilians, not all agencies are equipped to do that. They are equipped to be warriors, but they're not equipped to be collaborators. And so we help the agency self assess their readiness and maybe opportunities where they can make some changes to become a police agency that can engage in that caliber or that type of policing.

And then we develop central plus, which is community facing, which is basically an intake, just success your community. And we do it across policing, certainly public safety and policing, but other areas like education, access to resources, health, these are all areas that if broken will intersect with the police industry, and policing is not response for some of these breakdowns. So it's a way for the police leadership in a particular precinct area, we did it at a zip code level, can see what the concerns are and the top concerns and challenges within his or her precinct area. Thank you for asking about that. We're very proud of those tools, by the way.

Jen Üner: I continue to be impressed by it. And I know that we're all excited here to collaborate with you on building the next set of e-learning tools for this program. One of the things that I hear you say again and again, is about relationships, is about collaboration, is about empathy, kind of a last question for you here, I know we're like at time, past time, advice for those that are coming up behind you in the world, in the legal world, in the world of ethics and compliance, what advice do you have for the next generation on how to do those things?

Nadine Jones: Gosh, there's so much, and I don't want to push you over time. But relationships are key and don't be transactional with your relationships. You don't know where somebody is going to be tomorrow, and that shouldn't be your only basis for wanting to develop a relationship. So don't be transactional about it, spend the time, invest the time. I know not every day you feel like asking, how was your weekend on the Monday, some Mondays are tougher than others. It doesn't really take a lot though to be interested or for the other person to perceive that you do have an interest in them. It could be less than five minutes and you are like, "Oh, I got to call. I got to go," and you may not see them again for another two weeks or so forth.

But take the time, invest the time we are tied as a society. We are as you're basically creating an environment that's going to ultimately be better for you within the corporation, and I would add this, outside of the corporation. We are privileged to work for corporations that have invested in this space, take it with you into your spheres of influence outside of the corporation where others may not be privileged to have access to LRN teachings and resources and the like, and have some humility about it. Not everyone is exposed to this type of learning.

So that's my advice, just invest, take time, care about people, doesn't have to be anything major, and take that with you in all of your environments. Don't compartmentalize it and use it only in the corporate world. It is your obligation, I think, as a human being in this world to take that with you. If you know better do better, that's what I said on the women's meeting speech on the eighth here, Jen, if you know better, do better.

Jen Üner: If you know better, do better. That is a great note to end on Nadine. Thank you so much for joining me on this episode of The Principled Podcast. My name is Jen Üner, and I want to thank all of you listening for staying with us. We will be back next week with another LRN host and expert talking about ethics, culture, and compliance.

Nadine Jones: Thank you, Jen.

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