Journey Towards Anti-Racism Ep7: Conversation with Raphael Bemporad & Bryan Miller (EP.60)
Updated
April 10, 2022
In episode seven of the 12-part podcast series, "White Men & the Journey Towards Anti-Racism," Tim interviews Raphael Bemporad (Founding Partner) and Bryan Miller (Chief Financial Officer) of BBMG, a branding and social impact consultancy.
This series was created to be a resource for white men who might be wrestling with questions like, “What’s my role in anti-racism, equity, inclusion, and justice work as a white man with power and privilege?” and “How might my personal commitment to do this work manifest itself in the organization I help lead?”
Are you new to the series? Check out episode 54 where podcast co-hosts Lauren Ruffin and Tim Cynova introduce and frame the conversations. Download the accompanying study guide. And explore the other episodes in this series with guests:
Ted Castle (Founder & President) & Rooney Castle (Vice President), Rhino Foods
Ron Carucci, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Navalent
David Devan, General Director & President, Opera Philadelphia
Jared Fishman, Founding Executive Director, Justice Innovation Lab
Jay Coen Gilbert, Co-Founder, B Lab; CEO, Imperative21
Kit Hughes, Co-Founder & CEO, Look Listen
Marc Mannella, Independent Consultant, Former CEO KIPP Philadelphia Public Schools
John Orr, Executive Director, Art-Reach
David Reuter, Partner, LLR
Sydney Skybetter, Founder, CRCI; Associate Chair & Senior Lecturer, Theatre Arts & Performance Studies Department, Brown University
Want to explore related resources primarily *not* by white guys? Check out our compilation of 30 books, podcasts, and films. Read Rha Goddess's "An Open Letter To My Beloved White Male Allies," mentioned in this episode.
Host: Tim Cynova
Guests
RAPHAEL BEMPORAD As Founding Partner of BBMG, Raphael unites branding, sustainability and innovation to help organizations create sustainable growth and positive impact in the world. An expert in brand strategy, public affairs and social innovation, Raphael is a passionate champion for a new approach to branding that’s driven by empathy, collaboration, shared values and mutual relationships.
“I’m a passionate champion for a new approach to branding that places our humanity at the center. At BBMG, we help clients unlock the human truths in their brands and unleash the humanity in their businesses so they win hand in hand with the people they serve,” Bemporad says. “We believe the imperative of our generation is to unite the power of business with the meaning and influence of brands to shape our aspirations, behaviors and relationships for a more just and sustainable future.”
He has directed recent branding and marketing programs for clients such as Adidas, CLIF Bar, Disney, Earthbound Farm, Eileen Fisher, Estée Lauder, Johnson & Johnson, L’Oréal Paris, NBC Universal, Nespresso, Target, The North Face and Walmart. He has also worked with many leading nonprofits including ASPCA, Giffords, Greenpeace, OceanX, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Rainforest Alliance and Urban Teachers, as well as the Case Foundation, Ford Foundation, Kresge Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Raphael also has an extensive background in political communications, getting his start as a press aide to Texas Governor Ann W. Richards. He also served as communications director for the Texas Democratic Party, as communications director for Texas State Senator Rodney Ellis (D-Houston), and as press secretary for U.S. Congressman Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas).
Raphael received his BA in Philosophy with honors from the University of Texas at Austin. He currently serves as an adjunct professor of marketing and communications at the NYU Stern School of Business, and he sits on the advisory boards of Sustainable Brands and the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business.
BRYAN MILLER spent twelve years on Wall Street, navigating between theory, strategy, and execution as well as the ever-present unknown. He’s our go-to problem solver and helps us all to thrive, as people and professionals. Bryan is also BBMG’s main ambassador to the B Corp community, and a Founding Board Member of B Local NYC. Superpower: Radical transparency and empathy.
Host
TIM CYNOVA (he/him) is the Principal of Work. Shouldn’t. Suck., an HR and org design consultancy helping to reimagine workplaces where everyone can thrive. He is a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) and a trained mediator, and has served on the faculty of Minneapolis College of Art & Design, the Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity (Banff, Canada) and The New School (New York City) teaching courses in People-Centric Organizational Design and Strategic HR. In 2021, he concluded a 12-year tenure leading Fractured Atlas, a $30M, entirely virtual non-profit technology company and the largest association of independent artists in the U.S., where he served in both the Chief Operating Officer and Co-CEO roles (part of a four-person, shared, non-hierarchical leadership team), and was deeply involved in its work to become an anti-racist, anti-oppressive organization since they made that commitment in 2013. Earlier in his career, Tim was the Executive Director of The Parsons Dance Company and of High 5 Tickets to the Arts in New York City, had a memorable stint with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, was a one-time classical trombonist, musicologist, and for five years in his youth he delivered newspapers for the Evansville, Indiana Courier-Press.
Transcript
Raphael Bemporad:
I think it just is an opportunity to reflect on why we show up, in whatever role we're in, in whatever context. At BBMG, we have a series of aspirations, rooted in why we created the business in the first place. And they all came from my dad, the rabbi.
Raphael Bemporad:
It was really lovely, it's literally the napkin before our business was born, and we were writing down what my dad was encouraging us to think about in creating a company. Like my dad knew anything about business as a rabbi, but boy, he knows a lot about humanity.
Raphael Bemporad:
And he said, number one, "Whatever is most deeply creative in you, and each of the team members, that that would be nourished every day." Big seed creativity, not just the design team, but the creativity that connects you to the creativity of the universe.
Raphael Bemporad:
Two, that you work with people who share your values, that ultimately, what's important to you is important to them. Third, that you're learning and growing every day, and that who you are today, literally, professionally, personally, you find yourself expanding over time, through challenge and mastery in the flow state, like you're really evolving.
Raphael Bemporad:
Fourth, that you can use our precious time on Earth to make an impact in the lives of others, and in the community, and finally, that you can make a good living. And I think that if those are why we might want to create a company, or show up at a company, I think the reality is, there's no way to be in integrity with those things, unless we're facing the context of white supremacy, and structural inequities and racism.
Tim Cynova:
Hi, I'm Tim Cynova, and welcome to Work Shouldn't Suck, a podcast about, well, that. We've paused our regular podcast episodes to produce this 10-part mini-series, called White Men and the Journey Towards Anti-Racism.
Tim Cynova:
While you can listen to the episodes in any order, if you're joining us in the midst of this adventure, I invite you to check out Episode 54 of our podcast cast, where my co-host Lauren Ruffin and I, introduce the series, and frame these conversations.
Tim Cynova:
All of the episodes, as well as a whole host of amazing resources on the topic, not by white guys, can be found on workshouldntsuck.co. In this series, we're talking with a variety of white guys who are personally and professionally engaged in anti-racism work.
Tim Cynova:
When asked, they each define the work in slightly different ways. Some articulate it as anti-racism or anti-oppression work. Others say they approach it more through a justice lens, others, inclusion and belonging, still others, equity and impact.
Tim Cynova:
Through these conversations, we'll explore the moments that led each of them to do this work, including their initial realizations, that this was work for white guys to be doing. We'll discuss what's been most impactful and resonant to them in the journey, what's been the most challenging, and since this is a podcast about the workplace, we'll discuss how this work shows up in the organizations they lead, and the ones they work with.
Tim Cynova:
On today's conversation. I'm joined by Raphael Bemporad, and Bryan Miller. Raphael is the founding partner, and Bryan is the CFO of BBMG, a branding and social impact consultancy. You can read more about each and their bios included in the description to this episode.
Tim Cynova:
In the interests of time, let's get going. Bryan and Raphael, welcome to the podcast.
Bryan Miller:
Hi, Tim. Thanks.
Raphael Bemporad:
Hey, Tim. Great to see you.
Tim Cynova:
I'm really excited for this conversation, because it is the first time I've talked to two people at the same organization. So I know this is both a personal journey for all of us, and I'm really excited to see how we're intersecting, how you're intersecting at BBMG, working on this together.
Tim Cynova:
Before we dive in, let's just start with, how do you typically introduce yourselves in the work you do? And you decide who goes first here.
Raphael Bemporad:
Tim, it's great to be together. And I'm thrilled that Bryan and I could share the work and conversation with you.
Raphael Bemporad:
BBMG is a brand and social impact consultancy, and the way that we would describe our work, we've been around almost 19 years. And the way we think about branding is quite profound, in the sense that more than a brand being a logo, or a message image experience, of course, which it is, we're really conceptualizing brand as the systems we design, and the stories that we tell.
Raphael Bemporad:
When you think about brand as the expression of a business model, of value chain relationships with every stakeholder, and how you create value, and brands being the expression of the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, our sense of identity, aspiration, belonging, community, behavior, norms and culture, brands become a vehicle for transformation. It allows us to literally redesign the systems and retell all the stories that allow us to create the future that we want.
Raphael Bemporad:
That's the work that we do, with many businesses and mission driven brands, like B-Corporations, larger companies that are increasingly embedding sustainability, social justice equity into their business models, and into their communications, as well as many nonprofits and philanthropy. We believe we're at a moment, as we'll be describing all day today, or in our conversation, of not just shifting preferences in the world, but changing paradigms. And we believe brands can be a vehicle of that transformation.
Bryan Miller:
I can't do it better than Raphael about BBMG, but just to introduce myself, it's great to be here, Tim. I'm Bryan Miller. I am BBMG's CFO. And I've been working with Raphael, for now, almost six and a half years.
Bryan Miller:
My background is predominantly on Wall Street, and I had met Raphael and he told me about, "What if we could create this world together?" He painted this vision of, "What does capitalism look like? What does the future of business look like? And how do we do that through brands?"
Bryan Miller:
Frankly, brand, to me, in the past, was just something that's sat on the balance sheet. But now, I get to see it and live it every single day, which is really exciting. So this work has been really meaningful for me, not just personally, but also, to see the transformation, and what we're making with each business and each client that we work with. It's really exciting.
Bryan Miller:
I also do a lot of work with the culture. I sit in the precipice of finance, legal, HR, those things. And I think it's really exciting, because we also have a culture behind us that is able to fuel all the things that we want to do for our clients, but also give us the energy internally, to be able to take on work like this, specifically, speaking about justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion.
Tim Cynova:
So you both mentioned different aspects of your work, social justice, equity, inclusion, diversity. When you think about the work, I've talked to a lot of people for this mini-series who define that differently.
Tim Cynova:
Anti-racism, anti-oppression, equity, justice. What are the primary lens is that you two use, when both thinking about this personally, and then with BBMG?
Raphael Bemporad:
Bryan, perhaps you could share a little bit about our aspiration to become a multicultural organization, and I can build from there.
Bryan Miller:
Absolutely. I mean, personally, I would see this as anti-racism. We're just looking at the historical context, where we have built a society and culture and systems around the idea of being racist. So what I see it as, is being anti-racist to undo it.
Bryan Miller:
At BBMG, what we're trying to do is, we're creating a multicultural organization, using this framework, of how do you not just be compliant, but how do you become anti-racist, through not only the way that you are staffed, but also in the work that we're doing for our clients? I think our aspiration, really, is to be an anti-racist learning organization that is on a path to progress.
Bryan Miller:
One thing that's really helped us think about it is, here's where we're going, in terms of what we want to be as an organization, and the steps to get there. But it's progress over perfection. That's something that's been guiding us is, it's not something that's going to be easy. It is something that we need to be vulnerable with, but we want to continue to make progress.
Bryan Miller:
What we're doing is looking at it through the lens of, for ourselves. So what is our own path, and personal journeys, and learning to uncover, what is the real work?
Bryan Miller:
Also, what can we do for the business? So that's looking at things through policies and practices. What can we do for our clients? So that's how we design our own programs and processes for the clients.
Bryan Miller:
And then, what can we do for our industry? Because I think our industry is predominantly, in the creative field, is very predominantly white and Asian. What can we do to try to bring more people into the world, that this is a place that you can make a life and a living, which is something that BBMG is always done.
Bryan Miller:
I think it was born from an idea that if you align your passions, and you can make a life, and make a living, that is the work for us. So what we're trying to do is just bring more people into it, through those four lenses.
Raphael Bemporad:
My only build is I think that anti-racism is the work to do, but is not the destination. I think it's on the path. Because anti-racism, in its definition, is accounting for and seeking to correct systems and structures, norms that have created the world that we're in.
Raphael Bemporad:
But I think the invitation is actually more, in my heart and mind, what Rha Goddess invites us to, which is rehumanization. I think that's ultimately the destination, and yes, we have to more directly account for structural inequities, and dynamics of justice and inclusion. At the same time, recognize that energy of anti, just creates the opposite energy of anti.
Raphael Bemporad:
So what we have to understand is not just what anti means, but what for means, and what embodying means. So for us, yes, the path is very much to move toward being a multicultural organization, which welcomes diverse experiences, perspectives, backgrounds, benefits from the rich diversity of heritage and ideas and experiences and creativity, which also happens of course, in nature.
Raphael Bemporad:
And at the same time, start to identify and embody what we mean, when we find our humanity in and through and with each other. That's ultimately the work to do. And I keep Rha Goddess very close, in that rehumanization is ultimately the work.
Tim Cynova:
And I had the really great privilege of sitting in on a conversation that me and Raphael had with Rha Goddess, during one of our White Men For Racial Justice groups, and really appreciated that conversation that he had with them. And I'm curious if you can unpack maybe a little bit more about your personal journey, Raphael, and then Bryan, what got you to this point?
Tim Cynova:
Why are we three white guys on a podcast talking about race and racism? Why would you say yes to that? What has this journey been like for both of you?
Raphael Bemporad:
I'm not sure exactly how far back to start that journey, which could be generational, or it could be the summer of 2020. If I could try to tie those two horizons together.
Raphael Bemporad:
The son of a very progressive rabbi and a social worker, my dad was born in Italy. He was a refugee of the Holocaust, has spent his life, not only as an incredible preacher and teacher, but as a peace negotiator, working with different religions, to find common ground and heal one another, and heal what's failing the world, by identifying our common humanity. Then my mom was an extraordinary social worker and childcare expert, who rooted all of her work in relationship, which went all the way back to the first moments in the years of childhood, and having a consistent, caring, loving relationship.
Raphael Bemporad:
If you think about the journey of my dad and his parents, my grandparents, Enrico and [Vanna 00:11:52], escaping the Holocaust, my mom, building a future for children, that was rooted in deep bonding, and building a trusting relationship, you actually see the building blocks of the work, which is relationship and repair, and relationship and repair, and relationship and repair. This is ultimately the journey we're on.
Raphael Bemporad:
Then, as a professional, I started my work in politics. I was a speechwriter for a governor of Texas named Anne Richards, worked in community activism, and really co-founded BBMG, under the premise that brands could be a force for change, and still believe that of course, every day, I think what happened in the summer of 2020, and I would really invite your listeners to check out Rha Goddess’s “Open Letter to my Beloved White Male Colleagues” that she published in June of 2020.
Raphael Bemporad:
But it turned from, yes, I've absolutely been raised by extraordinary grandparents and parents. Yes, I've internalized values that I cherish, and yet, when experiencing the summer of 2020, experiencing and really taking in quietly and honestly, Rha’s open letter, one starts to appreciate that good intentions, well-meaning values, are just simply not enough, nor sufficient.
Raphael Bemporad:
What I had shared in a conversation with Rha, as I recognized that I thought it would be sufficient to be a conscientious objector, and say, "Well, what's happening in the world, those are not my values."
Raphael Bemporad:
And then, recognizing that it was no longer sufficient, and never has been, to be a conscientious objector. One has to join the work, and own the work, and create the change.
Raphael Bemporad:
I think what has been such a gift of White Men For Racial Justice, in our Tuesday nights, over the last year and a half and more, has been an opportunity to take more ownership and accountability for our own role, and the unearned privileges that we benefit from, the power that we hold, but also, the sort of dismantling, in our own minds and hearts, and dismantling in our organizations, and dismantling in our society, the structures of dehumanization and supremacy, and ultimately, separation, that keeps us out of relationship, out of integrity, and move toward finding a path toward more right relationship, as Jessica Norwood would say, that is rooted in interdependence, rooted in self-care, mutuality and love, and a fierce accountability, really, for the role that we play, in the society that we're in.
Bryan Miller:
I think, for me as, just looking at the last year and a half as it lines up, I think, really, it's just for me, I think the world held a mirror up to us. And that's something at BBMG we love to do.
Bryan Miller:
How we talk about our own work is, we kind of look back and say, "How did we really do?" And I think, what happened a year and a half ago, with George Floyd, really was the world saying, "Enough is enough. Here is the mirror, and let's take action. Let's do it together."
Bryan Miller:
For me, just looking at those last 18 months, the work has been with me for quite awhile. I had married a Jamaican woman, so I now experienced a little bit of a different world, being with a woman who is black, going through society, and seeing how it's treated, and how people show up differently for her, than me.
Bryan Miller:
So the work has been, then, with me, but I think the last 18 months has really been the eye-opening moment to say, "There is a better world. This is not even something that we could even try to agree with. It's something that we actually have to overcome together."
Bryan Miller:
For me, that's really what brought me to the work, is not only my wife and her family, the world is asking us, and telling us, that we need to create a new world together.
Tim Cynova:
How has this work looked like in BBMG, as you wrestle personally and professionally, with the company that you've built?
Raphael Bemporad:
Well, I think, as Bryan shared, we're really trying to embed justice, equity, diversity, inclusion, inside of what we do for each other in our own personal journeys, what we do inside the business, what we do with our clients, and what we do in our industry. And I would say, our commitments, from the very beginning, was recognizing, that to hold this with integrity, it had to be transparent.
Raphael Bemporad:
We had to hold a mirror to ourselves and each other, and we just had to welcome, and walk the path, step by step. One of the things that's been most illuminating and painful, we are a small and mighty team, and everything that we're doing has been quite transparent.
Raphael Bemporad:
So we do, listening to the whole team, we codify it in a survey, that helps us really set a found for learning, about how are we doing across a whole set of policies and practices. But inside of that, when we asked our team to give voice to their experience, many folks recognized and appreciated well-meaning intention, but they also just surfaced some hard truths and some brutal facts, disproportionate number of white people leading our organization, the entire leadership is white.
Raphael Bemporad:
The way of when you're joining a team like ours, which is, we're about 58% white, 42% nonwhite, that we're asking folks to come into a culture and an experience isn't necessarily their own. We're well-meaning people, and we're kind people in our company, we have a very loving and caring and supportive culture.
Raphael Bemporad:
And yet, just listening and seeing that people's experiences were tough, and hard, and that they were looking at the makeup of our team, and in particular, our leadership, and not seeing themselves reflected, that's both, structurally, a challenge for a small company, and culturally devastating to know that one doesn't feel welcomed, even despite one's intention, to create a welcoming environment. It's just the reality and the truth.
Raphael Bemporad:
One of the ways that we've tried to hold this with integrity is making everything transparent from what we're learning, to our policies. And then, as you've helped us, Tim, in the work that you've been doing, that the practices that we can hold, from how we hire, casting a deeper network to seek team members, to take names off of resumes, amazed to have more than one person involved in each step, all of those things that just help us move toward the organization we want to be, the industry we want to help steward in the world we want to create.
Raphael Bemporad:
I would say, of all the lessons, it's been, as Bryan said, taking an honest look in the mirror and knowing that there's beauty there, but there's also brutal truths. And just to honor that, and to walk in and through those realities, and then, just make intentional decisions to keep pausing at every decision point, keep reflecting on checking yourself to pattern, checking yourself to previous norm, and asking in this moment of choice, "Do I have alternative choices, broader opportunities, broader ways," is what we've done in the past, serving us in the future that we want.
Raphael Bemporad:
Literally, that intentional moment of pause, and then stepping into asking, "What does it mean to be at choice in this moment, and in this moment, and in this moment," has been really helpful, and it's a profoundly humbling reality. We have so much to do, and so far to go. And yet, I think we've tried to hold the conversation and the work with integrity along the way.
Bryan Miller:
To build on that, I think Raphael had pointed out one of the biggest things that we're working on, given our current visibility, in terms of our diversity metrics is the inclusion. So we had done a internship program last year, where we had one intern across each of the four disciplines in the business. That is our account, our design, our marketing, as well as strategy team.
Bryan Miller:
And it was a really fun project, where we did a pro bono project for Black Women's Player Collective, which is something that's passionate of Raphael and myself. We love soccer, well, we have to say "football," Raphael, and some of our team members, that we had come to create a brand for black women, to help educate young women, and to give them the opportunity to become professional players.
Bryan Miller:
But I think, one of the things through that program is, we found a lot of our blind spots, not just through the surveys, but the experiences that have been lived, just from the first moment that somebody comes to BBMG's door. As Raphael said, we are a very kind and caring culture, we have well intentions, but what are the unintended consequences?
Bryan Miller:
Just opening ourselves up to that vulnerability has given us a lot of work to do, to think about, what does inclusion look like? Of course, there's a lot of things that we can do on the policies and practices, but really thinking about, what is the experience?
Bryan Miller:
We're taking the employee experience and breaking it down into parts, as Raphael said, and asking, "What are different choices that we can make? What are different ways that we could be doing this, to make it be more inclusive, not just more diverse, but more inclusive?"
Bryan Miller:
Because I think also inside the organization, I think that's a lot of the work, and that's how we communicate, that's how we lead. One of the things that I appreciate about our team is 100% transparency, and we get to share everything together.
Bryan Miller:
One of the policies that we did create is, we will not make big decisions without consulting the full team. So every big decision in the business, whether that's from hiring, or creating a strategic plan, all of that goes out to the team. We share it, get feedback and inputs, which is not something that we've done in the past.
Bryan Miller:
I think it's just another way for us to try to make a business that's more inclusive, but also, people feeling ownership of their futures. And I think that's really exciting about the model of BBMG that we've been practicing, to try to make things a little bit more inclusive.
Tim Cynova:
That's really cool. I also find, while there are hard truths and personal work we need to do, this is some of the most exciting stuff that I personally I've ever been a part of.
Tim Cynova:
It's fun to be like, "How do we actually want to create this company, in a way that's not the way the book from 1985 says you should run a company," and making this all up. Do you, do you find that same fun and exhilaration in the work that you're doing?
Raphael Bemporad:
1,000%. And I would say the building blocks of the joy that you're naming, and almost the childlike wonder, and curiosity and excitement, comes from trying to embody and manifest to being a B-Corporation, and really deeply embodying all the dimensions of impact, that being a B-Corp invites, about what we learned, back in the day, from [inaudible 00:22:19], now common future, about relationship, and embedding and rooting all that we do in the company and relationship.
Raphael Bemporad:
And then, our journey together, which is building on both of those, in White Men For Racial Justice and our equity advisors, has just been a path of such great gratitude, as we've learned and grown together, with and through, that our equity advisors are helping to guide and hold us to account. And I agree with you, it's like, the blessing of being alive in challenging times, is that it opens up, and can welcome us to our full humanity.
Raphael Bemporad:
And I think that has been, as Bryan said, we exist to not just make a living, but to make a life. And we're alive at a time where we're called to deepen and broaden what we mean by work, how we see ourselves in relationship with one another. And then, ultimately, look quite directly at the systems and structures we've created and inherited, and then, asking if they serve us, which obviously they don't.
Raphael Bemporad:
We're at such a great moment, historically, of transition and transformation. So in community together, exploring this, and co-creating where we might go, it's truly just a glory. It's a glory to behold.
Bryan Miller:
As I've been doing this work, I've been co-leading it with Raphael, and there's other team members that have, the whole team has been engaged. Particularly, there's been a strategist that's helped us, Jen Louie on our team, who's really been the one holding the mirror to Raphael and I, in every single conversation.
Bryan Miller:
Her and I would always chat. And I always told her, if I didn't understand money, this would have been my work, this would have been my career, this would have been my path. Because I think it opens up such different conversations, when you're just not talking about business, but you're talking about the relationships, you're talking about people, their lives, their lived experiences.
Bryan Miller:
And I think the idea of curiosity and the need, the one, the desire really makes this work something that's been super exciting for me. The moment is here, and I'm glad to be a part of the moment.
Tim Cynova:
Let's talk about the transparency that you both have mentioned, because I think this is one of the things that we strive for, sharing information, sharing power, sharing, decision making. At the same time, it introduces other things that aren't necessarily unintended consequences, but the work shows up in different ways.
Tim Cynova:
We have different conversations. People often say, "Yeah, I would love shared decision making, but that takes so much longer, it's so much easier for me, just to make a decision, and then go with it," rather than saying, "All right, well, do you have to backtrack on that decision? Who's involved, who's impacted by that decision?"
Tim Cynova:
So I'm curious if you can unpack this a 100% transparency a bit more, where have you seen it? You're like, "Wow, that would have never happened, had we not done this?"
Tim Cynova:
And where have you seen it? "Oh, God, this transparency thing, maybe we need to think about again, because that sort of spun out in a different way that was unintended, or caused us to wrestle with it more in different ways. Had we just done this the 'normal' way? We've been past this."
Raphael Bemporad:
If I could just speak philosophically to it, and then, maybe, Bryan could speak pragmatically to it. But I think we're at a moment, and I did have recently an absolutely glorious conversation with Lorna Davis, who is a global B-Corp ambassador, former CEO of Danone in the USA.
Raphael Bemporad:
She just reinforced something that has increasingly become a truth for me, which is that none of us have the answers. None of us know what we're doing. None of us have solved or lived through what ultimately is in an emergent space.
Raphael Bemporad:
The transparency isn't so much, "Oh, I had all the answers, and I'm on high, I'm going to gift you my knowledge." It's not that at all. It's quite the opposite. It's just a recognition that I have no idea where we're going. I have idea how to do this elegantly.
Raphael Bemporad:
So, hey, can we think this through together, might we stumble, and create, and navigate this together? Because we just recognize that this is something that we all care about, it's something that we all own, and hope to embody. To me, the transparency, isn't some, "Woo-hoo, we're great, enlightened leaders, ceding power." It's much more, just a deep recognition that we don't know what we're doing, and that we welcome everybody's not knowing.
Raphael Bemporad:
Frankly, not knowing at a time of great change is a huge and important gift, because knowing has not done what we thought it would. We add a lot of false consciousness in the past about what knowing meant, so I just think, living in the emergent, welcoming it, acknowledging, knowing, and not knowing, which is what Lorna was sharing with us, that is more the posture here.
Raphael Bemporad:
As a consequence of that, we'll share all of our survey, including every verbatim that had brutal, brutal comments in it. But that's, it's almost thanking the difficulty, thanking the hard truth as a gift, rather than putting up defenses and walls and saying, "Oh, how am I going to navigate that, once our crisis comes?"
Raphael Bemporad:
It's not that impulse. It's saying, "Whoa, thank you for that brutal truth, because now, I get to see it, and dance with it." That's the posture. And we are trying to, it's shared, and it's now a policy in New York, publishing pay bands on every job, and all those things.
Raphael Bemporad:
But that's kind of, those become more obvious, when you allow yourself more of the posture of just not knowing, and welcoming the fact that we're all guiding our way through an emergent space.
Bryan Miller:
Yeah, and I would just disprove the notion that things take longer. In fact, I think it takes the same amount of time. It's just a matter of what types of conversations and questions you're asking, right?
Bryan Miller:
This is one of the first years we've done our strategic planning. So typically, from September until December, we start to think about what does the future look for us, in one year, three years, five years?
Bryan Miller:
And I would say the same process took the same amount of time. We had such better ideas come to the table, because we had shared, as Raphael said, "We don't have all the answers, but we think these are the assets that we can build upon. These are the opportunity spaces for us to go build into. What do you guys think?"
Bryan Miller:
And I think the result of our strategic plan is much better, because we had the whole team involved in it, and as Raphael said, "It's not about, every decision doesn't need to go to the team. For me, the inclusion part also needs to be empowered. So not every daily decision needs to be, in my mind, brought to a committee, ticking down time."
Bryan Miller:
It's a matter of giving somebody the tools, and the learning, to be able to make that decision, through the lens of all the work that we're trying to do in our building a multicultural organization, but then, also taking some of those decisions, and asking for the inputs.
Bryan Miller:
Frankly, back to the strategic plan, it took us the same amount of time. I would honestly disprove the idea that things take longer. I think it's giving the people in decision making power, the right tools, to be able to ask the right questions, and to be able to make the decisions in a timely manner.
Tim Cynova:
I'm curious, from an HR perspective, when you talk about 100% transparency.
Raphael Bemporad:
I don't know that we have 100% transparency, but we have pretty close to that. And I would say we've had, broadly, open books for the team, every quarter. We open the books to share, how are we doing at the end of the year? We have a series of metrics, both financial and cultural, and all around quality of work and health of the team.
Raphael Bemporad:
And at the end of the year, we share from whatever we're ending up with, where it goes and why, and how we're enumerating and rewarding the team, how we're reinvesting in the future. And that's broadly available, because we're all navigating it, and we're all leading that together.
Raphael Bemporad:
We do publish pay bands, both for every job posting, but also, just within one's own growth path, from being a junior team member through a senior team member. All those pay bands are transparently, and available.
Raphael Bemporad:
The thing, though, that I'm most excited about with transparency is, and I would welcome Bryan building on the HR policies, but part of it is the cultural way. And we have a great ally and beloved BBMG team member over the years, named Joseph Ingram. When he served as our managing director, we brought in something called growth feedback.
Raphael Bemporad:
The idea is that at the end of the year, when you do your performance reviews, that should not be a surprise. Actually, you should have a very clear sense of how things are going, because throughout the year, you've checked in with different team members.
Raphael Bemporad:
The way that this works is so lovely. Throughout the year team, members have growth feedback sessions. One, I appreciate the premise of growth feedback, because it's in real time, and in planned sessions together, we're sharing three beats.
Raphael Bemporad:
One is identifying an experience. "Tim, do you remember when we had that podcast conversation? It was thrilling."
Raphael Bemporad:
The second beat is, after naming the experience, the impact. "Well, that gave me, it impacted me in this way." In this case, it gave me great appreciation and inspiration for the work we do together, and in the future, it has an invitation. Those things can be strengths, but also opportunities for growth.
Raphael Bemporad:
Now, that's part of transparency, too, because we're opening up honest and brave conversations in service to each team member's, and each other's growth development, and full creativity and humanity. So what happens at the end of the year is, you're able to look at the broad experience of your year, and hopefully, you feel yourself growing, because you've had a team of mirror holders, loving mirror holders, helping to see yourself from different perspectives, and grow. That's also transparency to me, which is having a brave culture to share and celebrate how we're doing throughout the year, over time.
Raphael Bemporad:
So I think those are some of the building blocks from sharing our numbers, talking about the different pay bands, and then, ultimately, having honest and open conversations about how we're doing together throughout the year. I think the biggest conundrum for an organization like BBMG is our leadership team, because our leadership team is an amazing group of folks who are representing the different disciplines.
Raphael Bemporad:
So our leadership team has our head of creative, head of accounts, head of strategy, our leader of people, Bryan, on our financial officer side, and myself. We're all white. And the folks on that group have been with BBMG for 11 years, for 10 years, and they just have built a life, and made a living through the organization.
Raphael Bemporad:
The way that we can help to address this is having to grow the business sufficiently enough, that we can hire at the top as well. What that means for sales, what that means for our growth, year over year, to be able to do that.
Raphael Bemporad:
That's what I'm most grappling with, is how do we diversify, and welcome a more broadly diverse set of leadership in the short term, while I think that's something we can absolutely do in the long term, as we grow our team, and the financial constraints, and the structural constraints that I don't know yet, how to navigate? That's on our mind.
Bryan Miller:
To build, both from a cultural perspective, and then, also, how I'm thinking about it from an HR perspective, we see ourselves as a culture of growth. Inside of it, we have five values that kind of drive us every day, in the way to that we operate as a team, the kind of filters we go through, and thinking about how we manage the business.
Bryan Miller:
Through that is the growth and transparency for each other, because we care about each other, we want to grow together, so we're going to give each other feedback, but we're also going to call hard trues when hard truths, need to be, as said, in service of the growth of the organization and the individual. Being a growth mindset is something that we're always been aspiring to do, and I think we've had great success to do it, but this is just the next journey on our growth.
Bryan Miller:
So the transparency needs to come through, the culture that we already have, to be able to share the experiences and metrics, and things that we just haven't even uncovered in the past. Then, I think, on the HR side, there's, to me, [inaudible 00:34:25] lags, the culture, of what the culture needs, so it's about being compliant.
Bryan Miller:
So I think what we do is, that's our foundation. What can we do on top of that, that's better? So that's all the things that we are doing around our policies and practices.
Bryan Miller:
Thinking about, just hiring as an example, we've uncovered the hard truths of what brought us to BBMG, to have a white leadership team, as well as, I think we said 58% still, our white organization, how can we undo it? So thinking about our hiring, one thing that we found is we always go to our own network.
Bryan Miller:
We hear about somebody who's amazing, who's probably also white. We may have, in the past, hired without posting a job publicly. That will never happen again. That's one of our new policies.
Bryan Miller:
Also, every posting has a budget to specifically invest and recruit from diverse communities. Also, as Raphael said, have a transparent salary band. On the note of salary band, everyone knows what each band is, for each role. So a junior has this band, a senior has this band, a leadership team and executive team has this band.
Bryan Miller:
We also know that some of our blind spots are around the recruitment process. So we want to make sure that at every stage, we have at least 50% of a diverse pool, so that way, we're making sure of that. It's going to take time, and in the creative industry, everything has to happen today, or yesterday.
Bryan Miller:
One of the things is just being very mindful about the pause, and continuing to just kind of build guidelines and frameworks around, these were the blind spots for us in the past. This is going to, what's helped us get us closer to the multicultural organization, so we're just designing policies and practices around it.
Bryan Miller:
And Tim, you had shared previously, your recruitment process that you had run, and I'm really excited to see that come at it. But just helping us really take a deeper look at every single interaction that people have internally, as well as externally with us, to be able to create something that's a little bit closer to our aspiration of rehumanizing, and becoming multicultural.
Tim Cynova:
Talking about fun, that process of helping lead that search at Opera Philadelphia, for that new role, I would say, top five most fulfilling things in my entire career. It was the most fun I've had in that for a long time.
Tim Cynova:
It was just a group of people who are coming together to, "Yeah, let's figure out how we can do this, while centering equity and inclusion." It just was a beautiful process, and there's a lot of uncertainty and we talked a lot about, "That's just conventional wisdom. Why would we change that?" So yeah, excited to share that with everyone, and see where it goes next.
Tim Cynova:
One of the questions that we often get, when we're talking with the organizations about the work is, for people who aren't in positions of formal leadership and power, saying, "What if my CEO, or what if the leadership team, or what if the Board of Directors, doesn't believe that this is important work that our organization should be doing, anti-racism equity, justice, however, the frame might be?"
Tim Cynova:
Often, it's like, "We're an innovative tech company, and we want be an apolitical space. We don't want to bring politics in the workplace, or talk about racism or Black Lives Matter." When you hear things like this from people, how would you typically advise them to approach this, to think about this, or what they should do?
Raphael Bemporad:
It's a profound question. I think it is an opportunity to reflect on why we show up in whatever role we're in whatever context. At BBMG. We have a series of aspirations rooted in why we created the business in the first place. And they all came from my dad, the rabbi.
Raphael Bemporad:
It was really lovely. It's literally the napkin before our business was born, and we were writing down like what my dad was encouraging us to think about in creating a company. Like my dad knew anything about business as our rabbi, but boy, he knows a lot about humanity.
Raphael Bemporad:
And he said, number one, whatever is most deeply creative in you, and each of the team members, that that would be nourished every day. Big seed creativity, not just the design team, but the creativity that connects you to the creativity of the universe.
Raphael Bemporad:
Two, that you work with people who share your values, that ultimately, what's important to you is important to them. Third, that you're learning and growing every day, and that who you are today, literally, professionally, personally, you find yourself expanding over time, through challenge and mastery in the flow state, like you're really evolving.
Raphael Bemporad:
Fourth, that you can use our precious time on Earth to make an impact in the lives of others, and in the community. And finally, that you can make a good living. And I think that if those are why we might want to create a company, or show up at a company, I think the reality is, there's no way to be in integrity with those things, unless we're facing the context of white supremacy, and structural inequities and racism. I believe race, in particular is just one of the many ways that we, dehumanize or "other" folks who are different than we are. Race is a very devastating strategy, but not the only one.
Raphael Bemporad:
We do it in a lot of ways. And that, ultimately, my professor, Jon Rodden, said to have a conversation every day with the 80-year-old version of yourself, just imagine, again, in every moment, you're talking to the 80-year-old version of yourself.
Raphael Bemporad:
And you want that 80-year-old to look back on your life in this moment, and to be proud of the choice that you made, of what you embodied, of how you cared or loved. Ultimately, to the person who's saying, "The CEO's not on board," just ask, "Am I creative? Am I working with people who share my values? Am I learning, am I growing? Am I making a difference? And am I'm making a living?"
Raphael Bemporad:
Ultimately, talking to my 80-year-old version of myself, "Am I proud of what I'm doing and choosing?" And the rest will take care of itself.
Raphael Bemporad:
And what I ultimately believe is, the only path to integrity in that is facing the way we dehumanize each other, we other one another, because we're fearful. We feel a false sense of either superiority or power, or we're just scared.
Raphael Bemporad:
To me, that's the conversation to have. And if, as a consequence, you're working in a organization with a CEO who doesn't share your values, or minimizes everything to transactional relationships, well, you might not want to be part of that, anyway, despite this stock options. I'm not really sure what that buys you, at the end of the day, if you have that conversation with your 80-year-old self.
Raphael Bemporad:
I keep pivoting to philosophy, but I really believe it's a helpful way to center, when we think about these issues. And I think what we've all learned in the conversation that we're having today, and over the work of White Men For Racial Justice these last 18 months, and in life, is that the only path to the promised land is in right relationship, as Jessica Norwood has said.
Raphael Bemporad:
And it is about interdependence, and caring and healing, and repair and love, and that's the work. At least, that's the work we want to be part of.
Bryan Miller:
I'll double down a little bit on the philosophical, because I think it touches on one thing that I've kind of helped get me through this work is, I've turned back to all the great people in the past that have dealt with many struggles, one of them, in particular, I've always been reading a lot recently about, Marcus Aurelius.
Bryan Miller:
So stoicism is something that has really both touched on. What Raphael said is, in every moment, you have to ask yourself is this. It's going to be a struggle, but ultimately, you're being called to be greater.
Bryan Miller:
I would also ask somebody, "Is this something that you want to be able to teach your kids about? Is it something that you can have a right relationship with yourself, before you can have with the world?" Because you have to ask inside yourself to really understand what is it, and who are you?
Bryan Miller:
So that's something that's really helped me in the past, is just think about stoicism, and your own creativity. But then, also, I love things around behavior economics. So I would also ask somebody, something around loss aversion, if you're in a corporation, or if you are leading a company that isn't doing it, what are you giving up?
Bryan Miller:
There's a lot of risk there, there's a lot of loss aversion, because talent will follow where they want to go, and we've seen the culture flip. And I think people are going to ultimately weed out of buying the brands, working at the companies, that don't have this a part of their work. And it's something that we've seen in our own recruiting processes.
Bryan Miller:
I've asked myself these questions at every step of the way, and BBMG showed up in this way. At this type of conversation, for example, it would have been great to speak with other colleagues who are also diverse.
Bryan Miller:
Okay, that's a good learning, but I think that we have to look inside ourselves, and we also have to look at, what is culture doing for us? And then, ultimately, from a business perspective, what are you willing to lose, by not being brave, and not showing up, and being a human, and human for other people?
Raphael Bemporad:
Per that point, Tim, just the joy that you shared about the work, among the most profound experiences of your life. Why would anyone want to miss that be beautiful opportunity, and the noble struggle. And the beautiful struggle. And the journey that you've traveled?
Raphael Bemporad:
Yeah, okay. You can cash that check, or you can work in your tech company that's not thinking about this, or trying to embody it, but you're missing out on what Tim's about to tell you about, and the joy that Tim felt, and that we are getting to experience by facing the work.
Raphael Bemporad:
To me, it's maybe a self-fulfilling loop here, but I don't think it's a big choice. I think there's a clear side on the wager here, of where our joy and our creativity, and our sense of community and our creativity, will live.
Bryan Miller:
And I would just say, take three or four hours and read meditations. You will have a different perspective on the world, as well as people who've been in different struggles, really, I think is something that's personally helped me.
Tim Cynova:
This has been such a fun conversation, we're leaving so much unexplored, we're at time here. Is there anything else you want to add as we land the plane here, and wrap up our conversation today?
Raphael Bemporad:
The first is, we were together, Tim, maybe a week ago, and Dr. Zoe Spencer was sharing her birthday evening with the community of White Men For Racial Justice. And in that conversation, which was just remarkable and joyful, she said that, in speaking directly to our feelings of insecurity, and not just humility, but inadequacy, in embodying and trying to do this work as white men, she said, "Consciousness changes energy, energy changes space. And if your heart is in it, and you seek the truth, it will always be okay."
Raphael Bemporad:
Amen to that, and thank you, Dr. Zoe. And then, I was just thinking about this last night. I called my dad, because he gave a sermon, I don't know, 15 years ago. And I just remember the title. And the title was called, On Having Eyes to See.
Raphael Bemporad:
I called him last night, I'm like, "Dad, remember that?" He was, "Oh, of course." I was like, "Well, what's that about?" He said, "Well, that's Deuteronomy 29," and I'm not religiously a scholarly person.
Raphael Bemporad:
But so, through my dad, I'm sharing, it's Deuteronomy 29. Moses has brought the people through 40 years in the desert. They're on the precipice of reaching the Promised Land.
Raphael Bemporad:
And Moses said to the people, "Through this experience, you have eyes to see, ears to hear, and a mind to understand who you are as a people, and what you can create." The work of White Men For Racial Justice, above all, has been a great path of love and truth seeing, a growth journey, for sure.
Raphael Bemporad:
What I'm so grateful for, apart from the personal relationships, and our equity advisors' wisdom and generosity, has been having eyes to see, ears to hear, and a mind to understand reality, that we had chosen very intentionally not to see in the past. So that's where I would end, which is, the gift of eyes to see, ears to hear, and a mind to begin to understand.
Bryan Miller:
I don't know if I have anything as eloquent as that. But I would say, part of the White Men For Racial Justice that we've been a part of together, I would say, is just opening yourself up, vulnerably is, my only parting advice is, having a community to be able to experience this and go through it together, as somebody who's both curious, who's growth minded, who's very conscious of their unconscious biases, having somebody to go through that journey together has been remarkable.
Bryan Miller:
So if there's any that is looking for a community, White Men For Racial Justice is one of those. But also, just being in community with others, going through it, is probably my own partying advice.
Tim Cynova:
Well, Bryan and Raphael, thank you so much for your community, your support, your vulnerability, your insights, your expertise, for sharing a joyful hour together in this conversation. Thank you so much for being on the podcast.
Bryan Miller:
Thank you, Tim.
Raphael Bemporad:
Yeah, thank you, Tim. Really wonderful to be together, and thanks for all that you're doing to help steward us, as well.
Tim Cynova:
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