In Season 2 episode 2 of I So Appreciate You!, co-hosts Nadege Souvenir and Melanie Hoffert have an open, honest and transparent conversation about setting the groundwork for successful leadership transitions with special guest Jamie Millard, executive director of Pollen Midwest.

In the discussion, the co-hosts address topics such as the great resignation, quiet quitting (featured in the Boston Globe) and the importance of “right sizing” expectations and creating realistic employee role boundaries. Jamie, who specializes in changing narratives, addresses how Pollen is working to live out its mission and purpose by the way it is exploring leadership with its staff and board.

Since 2020, Jamie has been planning her transition, which has helped her work to reshape the environment at Pollen. As an executive director, she believes leaders have to know when to let go and when their era has come to an end. Being a white woman in leadership, she understands that Pollen’s next leader should not only believe in racial justice and social change, but have lived experience that aligns with those issues.

"Leadership transition is a staircase. If you can bake in your strengths, the next person can take it to this next level.” - Jamie Millard

Links

Executive Transition Models - Harvard Business Review

Article referencing the quote from Jeanne Bell: What does an equitable executive leadership transition look like? - Race to Lead

Trading the Glass Ceilings for Glass Cliffs: A Race to Lead Report on Nonprofit Executives of Color - Building Movement Project

A Reading List on Nonprofit Executive Transition - Pollen

Pollen Midwest

Follow Pollen on Instagram or Twitter

Follow Jamie on Twitter

Nadege Souvenir:

Welcome everyone to, I So Appreciate You! A raw, funny and uniquely insightful podcast about the issues and opportunities we all face as values-based leaders and humans. I'm Nadege.

Melanie Hoffert:

And I'm Melanie. We're colleagues at the Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation and we're friends. When we get together, our conversations can go anywhere, especially when bringing a friend or two along for the ride.

Nadege Souvenir:

So we're inviting you to join us and some incredible guests as we explore the challenges and triumphs of people shaking up our community for the better.

Melanie Hoffert:

Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of, I So Appreciate You! And today we are talking about Intentional Leadership Transitions with Jamie Millard of Pollen.

Nadege Souvenir:

I know, I'm very much looking forward to this conversation. But it's been making me think, we're in this phase of transitions, right?

Melanie Hoffert:

Yes.

Nadege Souvenir:

The great resignation.

Melanie Hoffert:

Yes.

Nadege Souvenir:

Blah, blah, blah. People doing all sorts of stuff. So there's another transitional phrase that's big right now. I'm seeing it all over the place. Quiet quitting.

Melanie Hoffert:

Yes, quiet quitting.

Nadege Souvenir:

Okay.

Melanie Hoffert:

Tell me why you don't like it. Let's break this down.

Nadege Souvenir:

I have so many feelings about this phrase.

Melanie Hoffert:

I can see it on your face.

Nadege Souvenir:

We should probably define it though.

Melanie Hoffert:

Yes.

Nadege Souvenir:

Right. And so it's basically not going above and beyond the scope of your job. Doing the specific 9:00 to 5:00, the 40 hours of your job. Not doing anything more than that. Is that how you understand it?

Melanie Hoffert:

I think that is, yes.

Nadege Souvenir:

Okay.

Melanie Hoffert:

Almost like rebelling.

Nadege Souvenir:

Right.

Melanie Hoffert:

In your workplace. Yes.

Nadege Souvenir:

And I've seen some of these Instagram accounts I follow, some of the HR ones, people doing little videos about it and talking about it, recommending it to people that that's what they should do. This is the dumbest phrase I have ever heard in my life, because first of all, it's not quitting. Nobody has quit. The fact that we have a culture that suggests that we should all be overworking our jobs and literally getting to the core of your job is somehow a failure and an exit strategy. Are you kidding me? That's not quiet quitting. That's just reprioritizing your freaking life.

Melanie Hoffert:

Good. I wanted to understand what this is bringing out in you. So in other words, you're saying quiet quitting is actually saying, no, I'm going to actually do my job.

Nadege Souvenir:

Setting boundaries.

Melanie Hoffert:

I'm going to set boundaries. I'm going to make this a healthy work environment. And I think not a lot of people, given how frequent and big this is right now, have that luxury. They are in jobs where they're being asked to do way more than is reasonable.

Nadege Souvenir:

And the fact that it's being talked about, now I'm looking at a article from The Boston Globe and workers only doing as much as they're paid for.

Melanie Hoffert:

Oh I love that.

Nadege Souvenir:

And there are some people talking about this like this is a negative. Are your employees quiet quitting? Okay, stop it with a doom and gloom. Are you overworking your employees?

Melanie Hoffert:

Right.

Nadege Souvenir:

I mean, have they been working "for free"? Doing a bunch of stuff they shouldn't be doing?

Melanie Hoffert:

Yes. Digging into this a little bit, I was doing some research and I think a lot of times this can be a gender thing, because women are asked or expected to contribute more, clean up the kitchen after an event. Just like give, give, give, give, give. And so I also think it's important to acknowledge that this notion of quiet quitting, and I'm taking your point in a little bit of a different direction, Nadege, but in some situations there are people that are in positions where they can limit their jobs. And there are other people that are under a microscope. Women, people of color, that it's harder to just say, hey, no, I'm going to set a boundary here and this is important to me. So I think we have to recognize that too. Than not a lot of cultures are healthy in that way.

Nadege Souvenir:

I 100% agree with that, because even in this piece they talk about, it's time to lower expectations. I don't even like that framing because it's not lowering expectations. It's right-sizing expectations. To your point, there are people who are being expected to do things that are beyond the scope of the job or adding things because part of this great resignation, if coworker X leaves, coworker Y maybe got all of their job and that's it, they didn't get anything else. Just all of that work. And so I love that people are really thinking about their work and where they can, setting boundaries and reprioritizing. I hate that it's being labeled as quitting because it is not quitting.

Melanie Hoffert:

Well, we're going to be talking to Jamie who's a narrative change expert. And at her job at Pollen they work on narrative change. And that's what you're talking about. It's like, okay, this is a real thing. People are setting boundaries, but quiet quitting is actually putting a negative spin or connotation on people just actually saying, no, I'm not doing that.

Nadege Souvenir:

Anymore.

Melanie Hoffert:

[inaudible 00:05:31] me. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

Nadege Souvenir:

Yeah, so it's so fascinating right now. I feel like they're business cycles where we talk about different things and right now the cycle is all about transitions. It's about people leaving, it's about people quitting. It's about people not wanting to do what more than they need to be doing. And I find it so fascinating that we've come out of COVID, we've come out of this and people are really asserting the wholeness of themselves and trying to reclaim. They're trying to reclaim their time.

Melanie Hoffert:

Yes.

Nadege Souvenir:

Because that's what they're doing.

Melanie Hoffert:

I think it's also important to acknowledge where we work. I think the organization has been very intentional about saying, hey, we're going to understand what people are doing, how we can support them. We've made it permanent now where we have half day Fridays. Just acknowledging that people, if they have the opportunity, they can take that time and space for themselves. It's hard though. It's hard as individuals because there's so much work to do. It's hard as team leaders, it's hard as individual contributors. There's a lot of work. So I think that even though we're on the same page, we need to be sure that there's balance and boundaries.

Nadege Souvenir:

Yeah.

Melanie Hoffert:

That's hard. Even in an intentional organization.

Nadege Souvenir:

Yeah. So I think I'm on a crusade to try to rename this phrase, although it's too late--

Melanie Hoffert:

What are we going to name it?

Nadege Souvenir:

Because it's all over the place. But we got to work on this. It is not quiet quitting. It's like lack brilliance right now. Like I lack brilliance. But maybe we'll come back later this season with the brilliant--

Melanie Hoffert:

Oh yeah let's do that.

Nadege Souvenir:

Revisionist.

Melanie Hoffert:

Yeah, we're going to be on TikTok. That's what we need to do. Take this to TikTok.

Nadege Souvenir:

No.

Melanie Hoffert:

Come on. As the marketing team, we have to investigate new channels.

Nadege Souvenir:

I don't know about any of that. So I'm going to cut this off before you take us totally in a different direction. And you vonluntell us to do some extra things so that I have to quiet quit from it later.

Melanie Hoffert:

Oh my gosh. She's quiet quitting on me.

Nadege Souvenir:

And so when we come back, we're going to be joined by Jamie Millard, Executive Director of Pollen to talk about Intentional Leadership Transitions.

Nadege Souvenir:

The Facing Race Awards is an initiative of the Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation that recognizes anti-racism activists in Minnesota who challenge absent and harmful narratives on race, build solutions that unite instead of divide and push for justice and equity. Join us this year as we celebrate four incredible Minnesotans, with a special broadcast airing on Twin Cities Public Television this October. To learn more visit facingrace.org.

Melanie Hoffert:

Welcome back everyone. We are super excited to kick off today with our special guests, Jamie Millard. Jamie, Nadege and I have been waiting for this day for a long time. We're so excited for the interview and we might need a couple of hours. So with that said, how are you doing today?

Jamie Millard:

Thank you, Melanie. I'm doing well and I am equally very excited to be here and agree, we might need a few hours.

Melanie Hoffert:

Okay. All right.

Nadege Souvenir:

All right. Audience, listen in because we're going to be here for a while. Buckle up, get some popcorn.

Jamie Millard:

That's right. Buckle up. Get your notebook.

Melanie Hoffert:

Exactly. It's going to be a great episode. But before we jump in, just want to let our listeners know tiny bit about you. We're going to dig in more of course throughout this episode, but you are the Executive Director of Pollen. And Pollen is a media and arts nonprofit that does some pretty cool and beautiful storytelling focused on narrative change. In your tenure at Pollen you've literally taken it from a baby to this really thriving organization and we're very excited to learn a little bit more about Pollen. I also want to say that you're an incredible thought leader, an influencer in term of workplace culture. I know that I brought your name up several times thinking about, hey, can we try this? Jamie's doing it. And finally, I must mention, and anyone who follows you on social media knows that you literally have the most beautiful children in the world. They are really special little beans. So thank you for being with us here today. We're super excited to chat with you.

Jamie Millard:

Aw, thank you Melanie. I'm glad this is a podcast so everybody can't see me blushing.

Melanie Hoffert:

Aww.

Jamie Millard:

That was a beautiful intro. Thank you.

Nadege Souvenir:

All right, well before we dive right in, I know you've listened to our podcast, so you know we have to do the three quick questions.

Jamie Millard:

Yeah, I'm ready.

Nadege Souvenir:

All right. Here we go. Cider or hot chocolate?

Jamie Millard:

Oh, cider.

Nadege Souvenir:

That was definitive.

Jamie Millard:

Well, there's already so much sweets in my house because of the three girls that like, yeah, give me my cider. Hard cider preferably.

Nadege Souvenir:

Fair enough. All right. Hiking or sitting by the fire?

Jamie Millard:

Oh. Both. Hike first and then go sit by the fire.

Nadege Souvenir:

Okay.

Jamie Millard:

Okay. But if I had to pick--

Nadege Souvenir:

We'll take it.

Jamie Millard:

Hiking.

Nadege Souvenir:

Okay.

Jamie Millard:

But with friends so that it's still social.

Nadege Souvenir:

I love how you are controlling the narrative.

Jamie Millard:

I'm sorry.

Nadege Souvenir:

With all these answers. No, I love it. I love it.

Jamie Millard:

I can't help myself.

Nadege Souvenir:

All right. Here you go. Attend a party or host a party?

Jamie Millard:

Oh, definitely host a party.

Nadege Souvenir:

Okay.

Jamie Millard:

The art of hosting and gathering and you can set the context and invite in and welcome. I love it.

Nadege Souvenir:

Excellent.

Melanie Hoffert:

Maybe that's the next step after this podcast.

Nadege Souvenir:

We're coming over.

Jamie Millard:

Okay. Actually I want to attend a party, but help host it. Because then you don't have to clean up, you don't have to clean ahead of time, but I'm a great co-host.

Nadege Souvenir:

Excellent. Okay, good to know. Just making a note of that for future party planning. All right. So today we're going to talk about Intentional Leadership Transitions. And I was thinking about just that phrase, because we don't always have the time for an intentional leadership transition. Typically, maybe a retirement would happen and that's when it's coming up. But you're not retiring from the workforce, but you are in the middle of an intentional leadership transition. So I'd love to get from you at the beginning, how did you know or what made you decide that it was time for you to transition?

Jamie Millard:

I so agree what you're saying about, oftentimes with leadership transition it happens spontaneously or without the planfulness that Pollen has been gifted in our process. But you can always be intentionally fostering a culture of transition. If you're a supervisor and you have a team, how are you always talking to your team about their growth and what they want next and that they might not always be at that organization? And so for yourself as the Executive Director or CEO or President or that top role, how are you also being honest with yourself that you might not always be in that role? The organization might not always need you in that role. And you can be intentionally building a culture that nurtures and fosters transparent, healthy, healing, loving transition.

Jamie Millard:

And that's been Pollen's mindset for a very long time, even from our founding, Lars Leafblad is our founder. When he transferred power of Pollen to myself and Meg Lionel Murphy, he modeled for me what transition can look like and how to gracefully hand over something so that the next era can take it to a catalytic place that you couldn't even possibly imagine. And so it's just part of our culture as an organization.

Nadege Souvenir:

I think we're definitely going to dig into that a little bit more. But you used the phrase era. How did you know that it was time for the Jamie era to wind down?

Jamie Millard:

I'd started this in 2019, I put on a board agenda, we need to talk about succession planning. And I knew because Pollen had itself been growing, I could just feel like I had baked in my strengths into the organization and it felt like a relay race. Like I've gotten it as far as I can get it. And I think of leadership transition as a staircase and if you bake your strengths in, then the next person can take it to this next level. And it really is an embodied feeling for myself. And I knew that our work was going in a way that was focusing more and more on narrative change, especially centered with racial justice as an approach and a methodology and the narrative change process.

Jamie Millard:

And myself as an expert in that and a passionate follower and believer in it and I'm also aware of my positional power as a white woman leading the organization in a direction that I could feel in my body wasn't aligned with the values of lived experience, reflection that the organization was practicing and modeling in all parts of our work and knew the potential for the organization if we could align both a leader who has the expertise in nurturing power of narrative change and also the lived experience and commitment to racial justice within their own identity reflection.

Jamie Millard:

So that was a very beginning indicator that was like, this is what's right for the organization. And then in addition to that, there's also what's right for me personally. And I was ready to grow. I was ready to be uncomfortable. Pollen is a dream job. I love Pollen, I love everything about it. It's creative, it's fulfilling, the community. But I wanted to be challenged in really unexpected ways. So I just knew I was ready. I thought we would kick the process off. I was actually researching for this podcast and found an old timeline and I had the transition kicking off in March of 2020.

Melanie Hoffert:

Wow.

Nadege Souvenir:

I'm sorry. I don't mean to laugh.

Jamie Millard:

So, that didn't happen.

Melanie Hoffert:

Jamie, so much of what you just said, I'm writing down these words and one I wanted to just pick on for a second is this transparency. Because I think a lot of really big corporations, let's say behind the scenes, they're planning and plotting and thinking about their bottom line with that transition, but they're not always transparent about it and what you've created or what Pollen as an organization is doing, and you said starting with Lars, it's like this transparent process. Can you talk just a little bit about how you got there with the culture and how you're doing that with this transition? Because I think that, that's not always the case.

Jamie Millard:

Oh my gosh. I mean, yes and transparency is an activity. It's a value, but it's also an activity. And so when you think about traditional leadership transitions in any kind of sector, but also especially in the nonprofit sector, because they are so guided by the board of directors, there's often a lack of transparency, because we think as it's a personnel activity that needs to be protected. Then once the staff experience in that process, and if you talk to any people who have been through big leadership transitions on staff, they say oftentimes things like, this was isolating, this was scary. I felt uncertain. It was an experience of harm that they go through. And so whenever we hear indicators of experiences of harm, it's our job to pause and say, why is that happening that way? It does not have to. We don't have to go through a process that is going to cause people to feel more harm.

Jamie Millard:

How can a process actually nurture? How can a process heal? And transparency is one of the things that invites people in to feel included, to feel seen, to feel motivated and energized. And also staff have really incredible insights to add, they're there every day. They know the work better than anybody. Their point of view should be centered. So transparency, it's critical and it's even important we're sharing about our process. We're not done with the leadership transition yet. And we wanted to announce my leadership transition while we're in the thick of it, so that we can share, so that we can then also, not only model transparency internally, but also externally. So that we can invite community in and we can be part of a healing for the organization. So much transition is connected around disconnection. Loss and how can leadership transition instead be about nurturing, healing and deepening connection.

Melanie Hoffert:

Just bookmark one thing you said, you're also doing storytelling through this process. You've produced already beautiful content, you shared with the community what you're going through. And I do think it's allowing for a learning moment for other organizations to follow this. Because I think sometimes people have in their mind they want to be intentional, but there's self-preservation too that often comes up and so this is the way you can do it, both honoring yourself and your journey, but also the organization.

Jamie Millard:

Yeah, we're not going to not make content. It's Pollen. We're going to tell a story. And there's so much to share here. And I think it's really important for me in our sharing, it's important to our team, this whole time we've been trying to analyze how do we not follow best practice, but how do we follow what's best for Pollen? And that's something that's a quote from Damon Shoholm, our Vice Chair, who started to see this pattern, that we question best practice to do what's best for Pollen. And I don't want any of this sharing to come off as a new best practice. That's not what we're saying. This is what worked for us and how we were able to listen to our felt senses to discover what's best for us. And how can you and your organization listen to yourself to find a way that's best for you and your organization's values?

Nadege Souvenir:

I'd love to have you lift up maybe in the process, where were some moments of tension or just challenging growth?

Jamie Millard:

I think there's been so much tension actually in our process, which to me is always a sign of really healthy org culture because then you can tell you have a safe space where people feel a sense of belonging and safety if they can voice, hey, this doesn't seem right. And we definitely have that at Pollen. Where we are now is very different than where we started, because we started in a place where I think a lot of organizations start, especially nonprofits. We had our staff being Pollen, we went in and we were like, we're going to do this in a different way. No one's ever done this before. We're going to do a staff-led process and the board can be a part of it. The board can have some input. And the board said, this is going to be a board-led process and we will have a lot of staff input.

Jamie Millard:

And we had to say, oh, hold up. We are actually not aligned. And it caught all of us by surprise, because Pollen is an organization where if we are going to be dismantling harmful narratives in our work, then we are constantly trying to dismantle harmful narratives internally, culturally as an organization. And we thought that this would just be easy. And so we had to go through pretty much all of 2020, the end of 2020, early 2021. And we've been doing this for over two years, this process. And so it was getting aligned and building trust, we already started from a place of high trust between staff and board, but we had to recognize that we were not aligned. We had to recognize that there's different opinions, that there's different point of views, that there is tension. And we had to work through that and we had to get to a place of shared values.

Jamie Millard:

And once we got to that place, once we were able to say, whoa, we actually really do agree on these values, then we started to move pretty quickly and we started to design a system that worked for everybody. And one of the tactical things that we did was we created, and this isn't revolutionary, but we created a working group, a leadership transition working group that was made up of four staff members and three board members. And we agreed that that body would hold the decision making and the responsibility of a shared collaborative effort. All staff would come to board meetings. And so there was some parts of the process where the staff would know a decision before the board. And then there were some parts of the process where the board knew a decision before the staff. But it was rooted in trust. But it was difficult to get there and it took a lot of honest, hard conversations.

Jamie Millard:

And I'm so grateful that we went through that process of having to get aligned because it made it, I think on the back end, so much more powerful and so much more inclusive and engaging, actually, for all of the staff and the board members.

Melanie Hoffert:

You're talking about really as a nonprofit leader and an organization getting alignment with your board. And I think a lot of nonprofit leaders have that challenge sometimes of how to really optimize working with their board. And so, that's of course another podcast that we could talk about. But I just want to--

Nadege Souvenir:

That's a whole other podcast.

Melanie Hoffert:

A whole other podcast. But what I'm hearing, and I just want to pull this out as a key learning it's that, maybe uncomfortable but honest conversations and not just letting it go. You are having those tough challenges, you're bringing up where you're maybe on different pages and you're working through it together. Is that fair to say?

Jamie Millard:

Yeah. You have to look at all the assumptions. We carry so many assumptions into any kind of process. And so we had to put all of those assumptions on the table and start pulling the threads. And so, one of those assumptions that some people had really strong in their head at the beginning of this was, the bylaws say that a board hires and fires the ED. The end. This is a board process. This is a board decision. And here I'm thinking, no, this is Pollen. We don't care about the bylaws.

Nadege Souvenir:

But also why do people forget that you can amend the bylaws?

Jamie Millard:

You can amend the bylaws.

Nadege Souvenir:

The lawyer in me is like, come on, folks. It's not carved in stone.

Jamie Millard:

I laugh at it almost, because I'm like, do you know where those bylaws came from? I googled them. I googled a template and I'm like, this is not going to come from Mount Bylaw. And so--

Nadege Souvenir:

Although it does feel like it.

Jamie Millard:

It does, it can. And they are important. And so to be able to say, okay, that does say that. Why? Who wrote that? With what intention was designing that and how do we open ourselves up to be able to pull that thread and imagine a different way? And the board had a transformative process and the board members really had to work the board through this. It wasn't something that, even though I was trying hard, one-on-one conversations with the board, doing what a ED does, the board had to do board to board work. And we had board members saying, look, Pollen is a narrative change organization. They're about imagining a new way. We ourselves must then imagine a new way. It shows up in every little tiny process and practice and it needs to also show up in this leadership transition so we can't be beholden to the status quo.

Nadege Souvenir:

What you're saying is so fascinating, and I know you prefaced it at the top that, this isn't intended to be best practices. But I think people will hear this and think, how can I do this in my organization? It's not probably practical in an organization with hundreds of people and a board of 50 or 60 or 70 people on top of that, to go through the process that you all are going through and have gone through. But there are probably nuggets of that that can be translated. Could you imagine how you might sit this on a different type of organization?

Jamie Millard:

Yeah. And even though we have this transparent process, I've been thinking about what have been some of these aspects of it that are scalable or applicable to non-Pollen-like organizations and this working group, that's a very common thing. There's search committees that are board and staff makeup. I think the process of creating that body and having, rest of the team had to fully say, I trust, I am empowering that group to actually make this decision. And they really did. And board members abdicated their own power making to that body and to say, we really trust the recommendations that are coming from this group. And then we did a lot of, we do oversharing probably. Too much sharing internally as an organization where, first of all, anyone's invited to those meetings. So there, that's the group. If you want to come be a fly on the wall, you can come sit in.

Melanie Hoffert:

Oh great.

Jamie Millard:

If you're an intern, you can come sit in. And not even just sit in, you can join in, but this is going to be the team that's there every month working on this. And then we share out lots of, oh my gosh, I was talking with another friend, Anika Ward, about this change management process and how we share the change constantly. So we are making capacity to work on this change as an organization. And part of that is sharing out. So when you think about a large scale organization, how are you using communications to foster trust and to create connection and to inform everybody at all the different steps along the way. When you're so focused on the work, you lose sight of how other people are actually quite curious as to what's going on and how much they do need to hear and how they want to hear maybe all the little things that are happening.

Jamie Millard:

And so you can over communicate and that's a good thing, especially when you're going through change management. And as I was describing this to Anika, she was like, wait, are you not using change management as a euphemism here for something bad? And I was like, no, no. This has been a really healing process and a connecting process for our team. And I think the other thing that can make this really applicable and scalable, I had another person tell me that you can't communicate your way through organizational change, because it's part and it's painful. And we even went through a org restructuring as part of this leadership transition. And so making space, I always try and ask people, what are you scared of in this?

Jamie Millard:

What are you afraid of in this change that we're going through? And providing that question to anybody at any seat within the organization has been one of the best ways for me to create a two-way dialogue that helps inform me, knowing what people are afraid of and what they're scared of in a transition is some of the best information and how you can iteratively shape and improve your process. So it's not just about updates, it's about also you getting updated and how the team is feeling, how their bodies are holding the uncertainty and making sure that they have space to share about their fears.

Melanie Hoffert:

There's a lot in this process that we're talking about, which is investing people in the process. And I'm curious about the process itself, since it sounds like this started, this is a two year unfolding, you're getting the right team, you have this committee. Is there anything different about the actual recruitment interviewing, decision making process that you're going through in terms of that technical selection of the new person?

Jamie Millard:

Yes. There's probably so many different things I could go into. I will say that a guiding principle in this process has been about investing in our current team. And so when that is a guiding principle for a leadership transition, it changes and informs so many decisions and activities. It made it so that we first looked at, okay, before we spend all this time, imagine yourself, you're on staff and all these conversations about this next leader and like, oh, then who do we want? And where are we going? And you're thinking, I'm pretty great. Not even that you want the job, but you're just like, I've been building this org, I've been part of this, building this organization, you spend so much time about this other person. And so before we went there, we really looked at, and Sarah Klein, our current board chair really encouraged this, invest in your team now.

Jamie Millard:

So we restructured the organization to make sure that we had promotions and key leadership positions. Before you invest in salary promotion usually for the next Executive Director between, but before that let's invest in the salaries of our current team. So just making sure that people are feeling appreciated and recognized for everything that has come in the past. Transitions are often so much about looking at the future. And so we wanted to invest in our team that has gotten us here. And then I think we've also brought that mindset to even thinking about the actual tangible parts of the search. And so we wanted to, and I think this thinking for Pollen started and in 2016, long time ago. This wasn't even part of, it's not the kind of thing that has been part of our transition thinking necessarily. This idea of investing in your current team is just so strong.

Nadege Souvenir:

What I really love about what you're saying and the process is, actually let me back up. At the top, when you talked about why it was time for you to transition, you named that it might be time for a person of color to be in this role. And one of the things I know from conversations with friends and things like that is, sometimes people of color, I'm just going to name it, black women, sometimes black women show up in these jobs as a new leader and they're unsupported, they're thrown to the wolves. Staff has no connection because weren't a part of the process. And it's almost like they're literally set up for failure. And people power through it sometimes and sometimes they don't. But there's a lot of emotional labor, there's a lot of work outside the work. Pahoua and I talked about this last season--

Melanie Hoffert:

I was going to say, [inaudible 00:33:09].

Jamie Millard:

I was taking notes.

Nadege Souvenir:

If you haven't heard that episode, go back to it. There's a lot of work outside the work and it feels like what you have set up is a space for a new person to begin to lead in a very, I don't want to say safe space like a hokey term, but they have the tools around them and the staff is ready for them and the board is ready for them. And so it's a path towards success, instead of setting up all the barriers.

Jamie Millard:

It's fundamentally critical and I don't think we're explicit about this enough. I think especially in the transition between white Executive Director, founding white Executive Director to the next leader being a leader of color, which is a goal that a lot of these transition processes have throughout the sector. But we're not explicitly even talking about the implications of that. I've got a great resource here for the audience called the Trading Glass Ceilings for the Glass Cliffs: A Race to Lead Report on Nonprofit Executives of Color. And it outlines the catastrophic impacts of the transition going from a white predecessor to a leader of color when the organizations are unprepared and aren't focused on the setting that leader up for success.

Jamie Millard:

And it begins so much further than before the transition. What do the direct reports identities look like? What does the organization's commitment to justice look like? So often, actually one of the interesting facts in this report is, when an organization does prioritize wanting to recruit specifically a leader of color for the top role, it's coming from an issue, a problem of justice festering in the organization and it's unstated that they're hoping that this new leader will just Boo-Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo like be able to solve that.

Nadege Souvenir:

Will magically fix it. Like this one person will come in and be able to wipe out the heat years because the problem is never new, it's always festering. And so somehow one person on their own will just get to do it. But I think we all practically know that's not how it works.

Jamie Millard:

No. And who wants that? You're starting the role, you want to make relationships and get to know the staff and you're figuring out a whole new.

Nadege Souvenir:

I feel like there should be casualty pay for that.

Jamie Millard:

Oh absolutely.

Nadege Souvenir:

If you're bringing someone in, and you're like, so here's your comp. But also, P.S. here's the disaster back here. Here's your disaster pay for that.

Jamie Millard:

Disaster pay. That's exactly what is needed. And I got some more stats for you.

Nadege Souvenir:

Look at you.

Jamie Millard:

I know, I love my [inaudible 00:35:46]

Nadege Souvenir:

You're more prepared than we are.

Melanie Hoffert:

[inaudible 00:35:48] look at this research.

Jamie Millard:

I love my stats. One of the things that we've been talking about too, in this transition, especially in this aspect of it, is not only calling it a transition of power, but a transfer of trust. So in this report I was just talking about, when a new white leader comes in, they report saying they feel like they have 90% of the board trust them immediately. And then for a leader of color coming into that role, they report 70% feel like, yeah, I've got the board's trust. That's a really wide gap.

Nadege Souvenir:

Yeah it is.

Jamie Millard:

Of trust building that's needing to happen. And so, what can we do to design a process that is just setting that up for success? Setting that person up for success. And it starts, like I said, way before the transition and it needs to be factored in to all sorts of decisions even within the leadership transition.

Jamie Millard:

So oftentimes organizations report that they have a DE&I effort plan, but there's not a specific layer of that that applies to how they are approaching a leadership transition process. They just have that as an outcome goal, but it's not changing any of the activities or methodology that they are going through in the transition. So this is a great report and I really recommend, especially for any of the white Executive Directors out there that are listening that are thinking about their own transition or boards that are responsible for a transition, how they are honestly having these candid conversations as a team about what they need to start doing now and what are the implications that that next Executive Director, CEO would be experiencing.

Nadege Souvenir:

We could probably keep going for days here. I feel like once you all wrap up this process, this is the beginning of your own little moments, where you get to break it down bit by bit. We do have to wrap up. We get to that point.

Jamie Millard:

Boo.

Nadege Souvenir:

I know, I know. But I want to ask you one last question and normally I let people wrap up the theme, but I'm going to punt. What is bringing you joy right now? Because this work is not small work. And where do you find those moments of just joy?

Jamie Millard:

Oh I love that. I have so much joy in this process, which it's probably just obvious since I talk about this with a huge smile. I'm a person who thrives off of being in relation with other people and being in deep, authentic, meaningful connection. And when you think of a leadership transition as growing and not loss, it is an incredible exercise of connection. And so I feel more connected with my staff than I've ever felt. I feel much more connected to the board than I've ever felt. I've been surrounding myself with other Executive Directors. I got a whole gaggle of us who have been through the good, the bad and the ugly of leadership transition and hearing from them and their stories and this collective learning that we are doing together to try and make this aspect of leadership transition more nurturing and healing than harmful. It has brought me great joy to be surrounded by all these amazing people who also have those same ambitions. So even being here today, this is very joy giving for me. So thank you for having me on.

Nadege Souvenir:

Thank you for joining us.

Melanie Hoffert:

I was going to say, you've given us much joy. Just the thoughtful process and you as a human, Jamie, so thank you for being here.

Nadege Souvenir:

Wow, there is so much to unpack there. And I know we say this with a lot of episodes, we could keep talking for hours but I honestly feel like there are books here.

Melanie Hoffert:

Yes. She didn't disappoint. We knew that this was going to be a good conversation and it was actually very painful to cut it off. So there's a lot to boil down. What stood out to you?

Nadege Souvenir:

So I think for me, it's one of the simplest things. Her reference to best practices. I want to have a slogan, F best practices, because she's right. You should be doing what is best for your organization. Best practices are a model that might give you some ideas and suggestions, but at the end of the day, why are you following a generic rule book when you have critical real time live people knowledge, information and resources at your fingertips within your organization.

Melanie Hoffert:

Nadege, I wrote that down too. It really stood out to me. And I think partially because I don't know how many times I've Googled, what's the best practice for this. Seriously. What's the standard operating procedure? And today it liberated me in a way to hear her talk about that, because I think yeah, she was citing resources, she's drawing upon knowledge and we do that. I think we all do that, but I think you have to challenge those because where are those best practices rooted? Oftentimes in white supremacy, because that's what a lot of stuff is rooted in as we know. So it's really good to deconstruct best practices. So that was definitely a high point for me. And there's so many nuggets, I think, for organizations, organizational leaders and the other one that I wrote down was this notion of transferring trust.

Nadege Souvenir:

Yes.

Melanie Hoffert:

You're transferring power but you're transferring trust and if you don't do those together, especially with leaders of color that are going into new positions, you're not doing the organization or the person justice.

Nadege Souvenir:

Yeah, I really hope people dig into this one and take from it what speaks to them. And I know we're going to share a bunch of resources, but it is really important to think critically and strategically and I want to say emotionally and not in some whatever way, about how you make transitions. Not just at the top leadership level but across the board for key roles and all of this. I think it's applicable to so many organizations no matter the size, no matter the role.

Melanie Hoffert:

Agreed. And just one more point, I also think for individuals. Jamie shared not as much about her personal journey but it has to start with an individual saying, you know what? I'm not growing anymore, so what am I going to do about it? And a lot of people I think maybe slink around, try to feel it out. But if we create cultures of transparency, I think we could really nurture ourselves and others as we move on.

Nadege Souvenir:

Yeah, change canon is a beautiful thing sometimes.

Melanie Hoffert:

It's the only thing we can count on, as the cliche says.

Nadege Souvenir:

Thank you for listening to, I So Appreciate You. You can find us on Facebook @ISoAppreciateYouPodcast and on Twitter and Instagram @SoAppreciateYou.

Melanie Hoffert:

We'd also appreciate you taking a moment to write us a review. And if you like our show, be sure to follow I So Appreciate You on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening to us right now.

Nadege Souvenir:

Have a question or topic, suggestion? Email us at podcast@spmcf.org Thank you for listening to, I So Appreciate You.