How ERG Leaders Can Drive Measurable Organizational Performance with Greg Jenkins

Joe Santana: This is ERG Power Talk and I'm your host, Joe Santana. This program is for ERG and BRG leaders, executive sponsors and business unit leaders who want to unlock powerful, measurable business impact through their ergs while championing the goals and needs of the communities these ergs represent. Our vision is a future where ergs aren't just appreciated. They're seen as essential to business success, driving revenue, cutting costs, powering marketplace growth, and creating workplaces where everyone can thrive. Our, uh, goal is simple but powerful. To help you deliver so much value that your organization sees your ERG as a must have investment worthy of more resources, greater influence, and stronger support. We know you'll get top value from every episode. So now let's get to the show. Hello and welcome to another episode of ERG Power Talk. I'm your host, Joe Santana. Corporate ergs are under more scrutiny than ever. Executive sponsors want to see a return on time and resources invested. And ERG leaders who cannot connect their work to revenue growth, cost reduction, or operational performance are finding their budgets and their credibility a bit at risk right now. The question is no longer whether inclusion is a good idea. The question is whether your ERG can prove it moves the business needle. So what can ERG leaders do to help us address this and other related topics? We have the perfect guest. Our, uh, guest today spent over 28 years leading high performance teams in one of the most accountability driven organizations on earth, where inclusion efforts were measured not in sentiment, but in operational readiness and mission outcomes.

Greg Jenkins: Hi, everybody. My name is Greg Jenkins and I am the founder and principal of, uh, Greg Jenkins Consulting.

Joe Santana: Greg, thank you for joining us on ERG Power Talk today. I've been looking forward to this conversation since we had the last conversation, which I wish I had taped.

Greg Jenkins: As I said earlier, it was a good conversation.

Joe Santana: It was a very good conversation. So, Greg, you spent more than 28 years in the U.S. army where you led military equal opportunity efforts in environments where performance is really measured on, uh, mission readiness. It's not measured by engagement scores or by surveys or happy faces. And when you transitioned into the corporate world, you started working with ERG leaders and executive sponsors. What was the single biggest performance accountability gap that you observed?

Greg Jenkins: The single biggest gap? I think it's not understanding the power and the value of what an ERG can provide to an organization. And I don't make that as a condemnation. I think that's more of a like, of an innocent ignorance, if you will. So the way I would frame that is, let's say, for an Example, we're an organization and we make goods or services focused on women, right? Or at least a percentage of our efforts are marketed exclusively to women if we have a woman's erg. And yet we're not tapping into the understanding the backgrounds, the likes and dislikes that women would have for the maybe the goods and services that we're producing. And we're not listening to them. We're not asking for their opinion, their advice. I think there's a huge gap right there, and we could probably lay that, that, that framework over probably any group of people in an erg, whether it's African American or Hispanic or Asian or the LGBT community or veterans or persons with disability or single mothers or whatever, right? So if you've got, uh, an organization with an erg, the gap oftentimes is just to innocently ignore or not realize the value that group of people can provide to your organization and what they do. From a business perspective, in my own

Joe Santana: career, I've seen that gap and how costly it is in a number of organizations. I've seen organizations pay millions of dollars to do focus groups to look for the answer to the same questions that you were posing now about a particular product and you're trying to sell it to, let's say, women or any other demographic group. In the meantime, the organization has their ERG with women or their ERG with Hispanics or other groups, and they've got them busy preparing to do a monthly cultural celebration. But they're not saying, hey, look, these people probably have the answer to the questions that we've got about this product or even spending. I think I read somewhere that organizations spend somewhere north of $400 billion a year on, uh, management consulting, another maybe 40 to $50 billion a year in HR consulting around topics that have to do with figuring out what's inside the heads of their employees and of their marketplace. In the meantime, they've got these groups that have all that information. So spot on in terms of what you were just talking about now that that is a huge gap. You've described inclusion work publicly as a powerful business strategy. Not a program, not an initiative, but a strategy. In your consulting work, what does that practically look like when an ERG makes a transition from operating as a program to functioning more as a genuine business strategy with defined outcomes?

Greg Jenkins: I think the way to answer that question is that you got to look at it, I think, in two different realms. So there's an internal aspect to your question and an external aspect to your question. So I think when the organization can see both of those aspects. So, for example, again, going back to an organization that has an erg but then doesn't use them, they're missing out on the organic internal, uh, expertise, experience and backgrounds of that entity within the organization. And so they miss out on the internal aspect of it. And that can translate into the, the external aspect. Let me give you an old, but I think pretty good example of that. And I'm, um, not trying to pick on General Motors or the Chevrolet car company. Years and years ago, they used to produce a car called the Nova. Nova. And Nova in English is. It's a star exploding, right? It's kind of, it's an exciting kind of thing. Maybe it's a good name for a car. But when they tried to sell the Nova in South America, had they listened to the Hispanic speaking peoples of that part of the world, they would have quickly gained the understanding that Nova means no go. So, you know, not a lot of sales there from a car that is communicating to a population at no go. Why would I buy a car that is called a no go? So those are the examples of, uh, things not working well. When they do work well, though, I think what you get is you make that leap in finding out, wait a second, we have the CRG and they have these insights to this business effort that we're trying to achieve or overcome or whatever the case may be. Let's see if we can engage them. Wells Fargo many years ago was struggling as to how are we going to get more Hispanic market share for our organization. And long story short, what they found out was that even though they had a significant percentage of Hispanic employees in their workforce, they didn't have Wells Fargo accounts, savings or checking accounts. And once they were able to tap into those folks within the organization that are Hispanic, were Hispanic, and they would, they could find out why is it that we don't have, we got this percentage of Hispanic workers or how come they don't have accounts. It's because they didn't have tellers, they could speak Spanish. And so there's a perfect example of tapping into an ERG or a population within your organization that understands that market share, and then clearly explaining that to leadership, and then leadership having be open enough to want to hear what these folks might have to say and then developing a strategy and then voila. And in that case, Wells Fargo was able to really capitalize on, um, increasing market share within their own organization, of their own employees and others by leveraging the value that an ERG can provide.

Joe Santana: That's A great story. If you've got employees that belong to a particular demographic segment and you're selling a product and your employees don't buy it, that's a big red flag.

Greg Jenkins: It sure can be. Yeah, that's a big red flag. I wonder why that's happening.

Joe Santana: They work for us, right?

Greg Jenkins: Right.

Joe Santana: You've done some work for the United nations on intercultural leaders platforms involving managing community engagement, communications and reporting, which means that someone was holding you accountable for measurable inputs or outputs. What metrics or outcome categories did that engagement use to evaluate its success? And what can ERG leaders inside corporations take from that model?

Greg Jenkins: I don't know if I could speak specifically to the outcome metrics. I can share that during my time in that role, the focus of the work that we were, myself and others were tasked for was to work with second and third world budding entrepreneurs. And so I think the thing that was kind of fascinating to me anyway was if you would sit down with, as a coach or a mentor with a, somebody who wanted to start a business or they were an entrepreneur or they wanted to increase whatever it is that they're trying to do to, to whatever goals they want to achieve, uh, it would be a very different conversation. For example, I remember working with, uh, a couple of folks in one of the countries of Africa and their goal was, how do I write a memo? And at first I was like, what do you mean? Everybody knows how to write a memo? And then I have to think, wait a second, this, these are folks that are in the development track of developing a business, really are going back to the basics. And that's one very simple example there. So I think the way the metrics were measured, at least in my experience, was were we delivering on the requests and the needs of the. In this, I'll use the word client, even though this was a volunteer position to be in. And so I think it was fascinating to me to realize that how much more developed we are in terms of a first world nation versus a third world nation. But I think the metrics, Joe, was did we meet the requirement that we were asked to provide for that particular client?

Joe Santana: You've done other work also, I think you wrote an article for the Financial Planning association on how organizations should structure their ergs and specifically define the roles and the responsibilities of chairs, co chairs, leadership teams and so forth. And I think that's pretty powerful because I think a lot of times when organizations start these groups, they say, we want to have a women's group, because obviously, let's say Close to half of our workforce is women. But there's a lot to be said for making sure that these are structured correctly.

Greg Jenkins: Yeah, I think an absolute critical component of that structure is there has got to be an executive sponsor, somebody in the C suite or in, uh, an equal position, either laterally next to the C suite or in the C suite, somebody. There has to be a champion. I think there's a lot of organizations out there with all the best intentions in mind and in their hearts and they'll look at an organization and we want to support our employees. And they mean this with great intention. I'm, um, not taking anything from organizations that I'm describing here. And so it's various employee resource groups or business resource groups of various populations within the organization and then they're just left there. And I suppose there's some value in that inherently, just in the fact that we took the time and provided the resources and the facility and the time for those things to occur. But if you really want to get some horsepower or some results or whatever metaphor you sounds good, right? You're meeting the bottom line. It's are we providing some top cover? And I don't mean top cover to control them or to direct them, but to support them. Because I think one of the things that in the design and structure and then, um, the execution of an ERG that is lost is it's a two way street. So not only can senior executive champion come to the ERG to provide insights and guidance and some coaching and mentoring and to help them see parts of the organization that the ERG cannot see or does not know about, and then vice versa. The other way up is, wow, what a great body of people that can provide information that the top cover doesn't or is not aware of. So what are the struggles, the trials, the tribulations that are going on at the ERG level of the organization? Because that's usually more of a junior, it's at the bottom of the pyramid, if you will. And so it's a really, it can be a very healthy symbiotic relationship if you build that structure with top cover. And communication goes both ways.

Joe Santana: Talk a little more about what do you think are some of the qualities that an executive sponsor should have? Not only qualities, but also, let's say, what would be the ideal executive sponsor for let's say an erg, uh, of, let's say a women's erg?

Greg Jenkins: Sure.

Joe Santana: What would be the ideal sponsor for, let's say as a second example for an ERG of, uh, let's say people of Asian. What are some of the qualities, not only their level within the organization, but certain capabilities, their own business focus that they have all these different things. If you were to paint the picture of, hey, for a women's erg, here is a, here's an approximate general sketch of what the right person would look like. For an Asian erg, this is the sketch of what the right person would look like. Who would be the executive sponsor of that group? What would be your thoughts on that?

Greg Jenkins: Uh, I think regardless of the group, the executive sponsor has to have some, just basic fundamental components. You got to care. That sounds very simple. It's a four letter word and it's a really powerful one. You have to care about what's going on here. So I think an executive sponsor, to fit this profile that you're asking for us to paint, if you will, there's gotta be some care and compassion. There's gotta be a willingness to, gee, I am really curious about this erg. I want to, I'm the sponsor, I want to invest into them. And in order for me to do that, I got to really care about what I'm doing. And I think not only the care and compassion component, but also cross cultural need there. I think when I say cross cultural, people will sometimes say, we're not talking about a foreign country. I'm like, I'm not talking about one either. We have different cultures within organizations, all over the place. And if you think of differences of culture as, uh, filters. So the greater number of filters is going to make it a little bit more challenging, the more filters we have to navigate through. So if I'm a man and I'm the executive sponsor and um, I'm the sponsor for a woman's erg, there's a gender filter. So I'm going to have to make sure am I communicating correctly? Am I aware of my own blind spots? And if I'm, I think I going back to care and compassion, I've got to want to know, am I missing something? Am I communicating well enough? Am I being able to meet that group where they are and I think be a good listener to understanding what their experiences are in the organization and, and their ideas for helping our organization forward while at the same time helping out that erg, that population of people? Uh, I, I think cross cultural, cross cultural skills, good communicator, good listener. And then of course I got to care about them.

Joe Santana: It sounds like a nice combination. If I were to reduce it to a couple of words, it would be you got to have the level within the organization to make that connection, got to have the iq, you got to be smart enough to leverage and you've got to have the EQ as well in order to be able to work effectively with people across different, different backgrounds and different types of, of interests. Moving on to something a little deeper in that same topic there of the executive sponsor. So you've done a lot of training for tens of thousands of mid level senior executives and others. You've looked at this from different vantage points. What are some of the most common reasons executive sponsors can go from being uh, a champion sometimes to being a skeptic? What are some of the things that can go wrong? Where the ERG can lose the executive sponsor? Or what are some of the things that an ERG leader, chair and others can do to make sure that they fully engage that executive sponsor?

Greg Jenkins: I think what the ERG needs to do is they need to understand the business of which, of where they are, what they're in. You gotta know the language of the leadership. You gotta understand the business bottom line. At the end of the day, whether we're talking ergs or we're talking community service or we're talking whatever, the business has to make money. Unless we're talking about a non profit organization, I'm making assumptions here that this is a corporate for profit organization. They have to meet their bottom line and it is incumbent upon every single individual in the organization, much less the erg, to understand what that bottom line is and why that's important. So focusing specifically on the ERG or the brg, right? If I'm not, if I don't understand what it is that this business is trying to do, man, I can see why, and I have seen why executive sponsors become skeptical. Because for whatever reason, the communication for the ERG or the goal that was set for the ERG was not clearly linked and aligned with the business's overarching goals and objectives. That has to be there because as an executive sponsor, he or she is really busy trying to make this organization function right, make sales and make shareholders happy and manage all the resources that cascade down upon leaders every single day. And so I would urge ERG leaders and ERG members, do you understand very clearly what the organization is doing and through your presence, through the work that you can do, how are you supporting and aligning with those business overarching goals and objectives?

Joe Santana: You really need to know the business you're in. You need to know the things that are the focus of that executive sponsor for sure. And for profits. It's all about that bottom line. It's all about improving the stakeholders value. Uh, even in non profit they have

Greg Jenkins: bottom lines as well. It may be different, but they also have bottom lines.

Joe Santana: Absolutely. Exactly. They have bottom lines and they have missions.

Greg Jenkins: Absolutely.

Joe Santana: And they have to use the dollars that they're given in a wise way.

Greg Jenkins: Of course.

Joe Santana: Uh, they can't appear to be just taking the dollars that are donated to them and just flipping them out like pancakes.

Greg Jenkins: Yeah. They're accountable too.

Joe Santana: Absolutely. We're all accountable to someone for something. Right. For some kind of. And even in the military where you came from, the mission readiness is not, uh, a financial accountability, but it is a mission accountability.

Greg Jenkins: Oh, big time.

Joe Santana: Yeah. So absolutely. Every organization has that and it behooves every person that is in one of These groups, these ERGs or BRGs, to understand what the accountability is of the organization that's hosting them that they're living within. Okay, so what did we learn from the first half of our discussion with Greg? 1, you need to stop positioning your ERG only as a cultural or social club and start positioning it as a source of business insight that can help your organization solve problems, improve products and grow market share. Two, look for opportunities where your erg's lived experiences can help the organization avoid costly mistakes and uncover opportunities faster. Three, actively and intentionally educate senior leaders on, um, the business value your ERG can provide instead of assuming they automatically understand this because many executives simply have never been shown how ERGs can contribute to performance. Four, build a strong two way value relationship with your executive sponsors who are willing to listen and advocate for your group and help you connect your ideas to real business priorities and decision making channels. Five, learn how your organization makes money, serves customers, measures success and evaluates performance or meets a mission if it's a nonprofit so that you can frame your ERG contributions and terms that these leaders of these organizations already value and understand. And finally, six, make your ERG the two way communication bridge where employees share insights upward and leaders share strategy, priorities and organizational realities downward so that your group stays aligned with the business while growing visibility for yourself and your members. In the first half of our discussion, we learned that ERG leaders become more influential when they position their groups as business focused insight engines that help organizations reduce blind spots, improve decisions and better understand employees and customers. In the second half of our discussion, we will explore how ERG leaders can measure their work, connect it to business outcomes more tightly, identify costly organizational blind spots, and reposition their groups as practical contributors to growth and operational performance. All of this and more when we come back. But first this I'll see you on the other side. Are you an ERG group or committee chair struggling to balance your ERG activities with your day job responsibilities? Well, you're not alone. There are hundreds of thousands of passionate ERG leads all around the world that find themselves in the same boat. The only solution found by many is to give up lunch hours and personal time with family and friends. But there is a better way. And that better way is to master the powerful skills that enable you to 1 set realistic and achievable compelling goals and priorities 2 distribute the workload by effectively delegating tasks and responsibilities to others 3 communicate in a way that increases your impact with less time and effort on your Part 4 Secure the full and active support of executive sponsors and other senior business leaders and five Fit your ERG leadership work into a reasonable set of time boundaries. And that and more is exactly what tens of thousands of your colleagues have learned to do effortlessly by participating in supercharge workshops. Supercharge Workshops was developed by us along the same easy and powerful how to framework found in our popular Supercharger ERGS book. The modular customizable programs are loaded with fun exercises and tools that will immediately give you back hours of time each day while increasing your ability to achieve high impact and measurable results in both your ERG work and your job. For more details on how you can schedule a Supercharged Workshop session in your organization, go to supercharge workshops.com that's HTTPs://forward/supercharged workshops One word with no spaces so don't suffer silently. Take that first step towards stopping your struggle today. Check out Supercharged Workshops. Let's talk about measurement. Energy leaders often struggle to connect their activities to financial or market outcomes because they're measuring different things. They're measuring how many people went to their event, happy faces on surveys and stuff like that. Awareness metrics. We had a big splashy event. It's all over the website so we're really putting a lot of information out there. What measurement framework do you recommend ERG leaders use to capture impact? In terms that senior level executives like CFOs and so forth can see and actually care about can say hey look, I see that's doing something that's moving one of the needles that I watch.

Greg Jenkins: I think I can make the argument that the Kirkpatrick model of measurement could apply to ERGs as well. And Kirkpatrick is a, ah, measurement for the effectiveness of training. And yes we can measure training as smiley faces. And, oh, I felt good going to that. It was a great conversation. And there's four levels. I think there's five levels of Kirkpatrick now and the fourth or the fifth level. And I can't recall exactly the image in my mind of that model, but it's return on investment dollars. And bottom line, return on investment is the absolute pinnacle of an outcome. The whole creation behind or the idea behind ERGs is taking groups of people, having them come together, having them know that they belong, that they are welcomed and they are respected, they are valued and they are heard. And so from their humanistic standpoint, that in my estimation, in my experience, is by far the most important. But along with that, being welcomed, respected, valued and heard is what is the return that we're getting by having a group of people come together to make themselves whole and the organization more understanding of the various populations within the organization. And also how is that translating into what we do as a business and propelling or at least, uh, striving towards those goals and objectives? I mentioned earlier, you need to make

Joe Santana: that connection that, uh, these are the goals of the organization and this group is doing this.

Greg Jenkins: And I think so, yeah.

Joe Santana: And it's helping the organization to further that goal.

Greg Jenkins: Yeah, in some organizations, it's really. It's dependent on the organization and the organization's top leadership. Because some organizational leaders might say, I just want to have spaces for women, for veterans, for persons with disability, for single mothers, for. And if that's the goal and you're meeting it, that's great. I think it goes back to. Everything goes back to leadership. What does the leadership want? What's the mission? What's the vision? What are the values and what are the standards? And are those same mission, vision, values and standards applicable, uh, to the ERG and the outcomes of which the leadership wants them to meet?

Joe Santana: We both talked a little bit about this earlier. Market expansion is one of the business outcomes that organizations, especially for profits, are looking for. Even nonprofits, in some case, they're looking to expand how many people they can serve in their particular mission. So that expansion is something, it's pretty common to most organizations, and it's something that, as we were talking about before that ERG groups and BRG groups, they're particularly pretty well positioned to help in that area because they represent different segments of that marketplace, as well as representing different segments of what make up that organization's team or workforce. Have you worked with any organizations where the ERG directly contributed to that revenue Growth or market penetration in, uh, a way that you could draw a straight line and say, they did this and it produced that.

Greg Jenkins: I can't say that I was directly involved in an organization that had that direct line, but I can share an example that I've shared with others that are trying to make that direct line connection. So this is a little dated, but I think it's still apropos in terms of the example. So years ago, there was a electronics company. I'll just leave it at that. And this is in the time of pagers before cell phones. Right. So it's dated a little bit. And this electronics company, this communications company, wanted to develop a new pager. And instead of asking the women within the organization, within their brg, they went ahead and developed a pager that had a belt clip. And so for the men in the room, um, they're like, yeah, what's the problem? A belt clip, that's good. I'd wear one. Not a lot of women wear belts. Some do, sure. Of course, it can be. It can be an accessory to an outfit for a woman, but for the most part, and the feedback was to this communications was like, you just missed out on 50% of the market here, because maybe the pager could have been designed a little bit better. The first iteration had. We had some women in the room when we were doing research and development. And so I, uh, think it's a very sound example. And again, without naming this company, they learned their lesson after their initial launch of that particular product didn't go so well. And then they designed it more with the aspects of women in mind and to market it to women. And then, of course, sales went up. It's very simple example, but it's really easy to miss out also, uh, as to how are we going to. How are we gonna. How are we going to make that direct line? I'll give you another example. United States Navy, many years ago, they were just trying to figure out, how are they gonna put women in submarines? Because up until not too many years ago, it was men only. And the Navy leaders said, okay, I want a panel of 20 people, and I'm gonna give you six months. And these 20 people, you're gonna go out and you're gonna study the impacts of women in submarines. So 20 people were selected. They do their studies and their research, and they compile their analysis and their data. And their OUTCO is. Is six months later, they go to report to the top leadership of the Navy, and they all sit down in front of the chief of Naval operations. And he goes, oh, where's the women on this panel? And so they had picked 20 men. And, uh, I'm not trying to beat up the Navy. My, I'm the son of a sailor. My father was in the Korean War, and the Navy was a torpedo man. So I'm not trying to beat up the Navy at all. I'm not trying to beat up any of these organizations. It's easy for us to fall into this innocent ignorance thing where we're thinking, where our intentions are really sound, our heart and minds are in the right place, but maybe we're just blind a little bit. We have some blind spots because what the chief of Naval operations then did is said, okay, let's stop this for a moment. I want half this panel to be men and half it to be women. I'm going to give you another six months. And I want you to come back and report later with. With the opinion of 50% of this panel being women. Smart move on that very senior Navy leader. And I think again and again, you're going to have organizations that just innocently, through their ignorance, through their blind spots, aren't seeing those kinds of things and aren't planning for them correctly. We make some mistakes along the way. Obviously, today. There are women in submarines today. So, uh, they've figured it out.

Joe Santana: I want to keep going on this. I want to double click on this and keep going on this, because I think that brings up an interesting point, which was something I was going to ask you about in terms of what are some of the losses that organizations have as a result. And you went there. You preempted the question somewhat because you went right there, which is great. No, this is great. Because I think that's an important topic that a lot of organizations miss, which is that that not having all the people with all the different perspectives at the table can be damaging to them in terms of the size of the market that they can serve. It could be damaging in terms of properly engaging all of the employees that they have. It could be damaging in so many different ways. So I'll share two stories of mine, and if you could share a couple of more of yours, I think along this line. So one of the things that that came up, a story that I came across a long time ago, was how when sports utility vehicles were first being developed, one of the executives, they had their daughter visit the plant. And while she was visiting, he said, hey, take a look at this new vehicle that we're coming out with. And so she goes into the to see it. And it's a nice sports utility vehicle. It's got good visual, nice seats. Everything is great. When she's talking to her father, she goes, it's great except for the fact that it's very hard for somebody my height, she was like 5 foot 2 to get into this thing because it's so high up from the ground compared to a car. And, and also it's uncomfortable when you're wearing a skirt to get your leg up that high to get in there. And that was what got them to think about, hey, maybe we should put a step. Yeah. And it just turned out that just because this daughter happened to be visiting her father, that they got that insight. But they had women working in this plant at the time, and it didn't occur to them that they were going to miss a large chunk of the market that would be using these cars. Women especially would like cars that are sturdy and strong and stable like that because they usually have a car seat in the back with kids. And yeah, so it just, it made sense to make sure that piece of the market was going to be satisfied with this vehicle and was going to find that it was adequate for them. Never occurred. The other thing has to do with benefits. For years now, organizations, literally, let's say, for example, reimbursement policy. For years now, organizations have reimbursement policies where if you and I take somebody out for a drink, right, and for a meal, we get reimbursed for it. But child care expenses are not reimbursable. So let's say if you're going to take a client out for a meal on a Saturday and your usual daycare or other sources are clothes and you have a toddler, you got to pay for that. So that means that not only women who tend to still have the bulk of the child caring responsibilities, but even some men in our society who now share more equally who don't have a family that looks like families look like. In the 1950s, Ford went to work and the Beaver and Wally were home with June. Families that don't fit that model are put out in terms of if they want to take a client out on a. On a Saturday. And of course, that means that despite the fact that they may want to do this, it's a burden to them. It diminishes productivity, it has a negative impact. Even holidays. There are organizations that I would think even to this day celebrate Christian holidays separately from your PTO bucket. If you happen to belong to any other religion, you got to take a PTO day, and you're forced to take a day off that you normally would work because, uh, the place is closed. And so there are so many things like, they're just like blind spots where organizations are dripping little bits of market share or little bits of profitability. In the meantime, they got people all around them who can give them those lenses and say, hey, you know what? If this food was a little spicier, I would probably buy it. But even though I work for your food company, I actually go across the street to eat. I don't go to one of the restaurants that you have out there. I don't utilize them because they're not suitable to meet my needs. In the meantime, there are people in their organization that have all that data. So I'm sure that as I'm talking about this, it's popped a couple of other stories in your mind. So I'd love to hear some of yours in terms of other things that you've seen.

Greg Jenkins: What I'm thinking as I'm listening to you is we've got a pretty distinct challenge in this country. Maybe I don't know if we are. If we have the most diverse nation on earth, but it's got to be up there, right? In terms of ethnic diversity, racial diversity, of religious preference, national origin, the list can go on and on. And those differences don't come without challenges. No question about it. We're having this conversation because of how do we manage differences, right? And so there's a challenge here, but I think it's also a fantastic opportunity because if I'm. I self identify as an older white straight male. And so if I'm surrounding myself with a bunch of older white straight males, hey, great, there's a bunch of good guys like that, like me. But we don't have the perspectives of women. We don't have the perspectives of somebody that migrated into the country from a different nation, from a different religious background, different sexual orientation, different. And it's those differences that give us those perspectives, that depth of understanding, this understanding of market share, that kind of a thing. And I think if we. I can't. We've shared a couple of different stories now where through blind spots and innocent ignorance, we've missed some things that organizations had to get right the second or third iteration. But it just keeps going over and over again. And. And maybe that's the challenge of a very diverse nation. That's the homework. That's the hard part to. To get through them all. There's. I don't think there's any Shortage of stories. I. I'm not recalling another one here off the top of my having this conversation, but just the acknowledgement that, yeah, it can be a little tough when you got a whole bunch of different people and trying to put them together in an organization. I think that is one place that the military does a pretty good job. Now, I want to really hasten here, Joe. I think it's really important to mention that there are no perfect organizations because there are no perfect people. We make mistakes, we're flawed, we're going to step on toes, and sometimes worse. But I think the thing that I have seen in the US Military is the US Military has historically tried to be a reflection of the society of which it serves. It's a microcosm. Now, that doesn't mean that it has done it right a lot at all over many years and instances, because there's been times when we've done that pretty well, and there's been times when we've been absolutely discriminating to the detriment of its people and probably to, uh, our ability to do our jobs. But I think when you have an organization like the US Military that is recruiting from all various walks of life, and again, we've got different policies right now, so there's some differences going on there. But when it's working where we're valuing difference of people and groups, you're getting that representation from across from a broad spectrum of the country. Oh, man, it's pretty. It's a pretty. It's a pretty wonderful thing to be part of and be in.

Joe Santana: As you were saying, what you were saying before, I was thinking about the fact that because we are that combination of so many different grounds, so many different perspectives, so many different value systems and so forth, from a business standpoint, organizations that operate out of this country or that were born and raised in this country have an opportunity to capture a much larger marketplace if they actually leverage that, uh, asset as an advantage. Because it's like we can literally sell, uh, our products, services, and our way of coming up with a solution into a Latin American society, yeah, European society, or, uh, any society around the world. Because we can get inside the heads of what it is that people in these different places want to some degree, by understanding the people that work in our company who actually appreciate or have some of those different backgrounds or have enough information on those backgrounds because of their own heritage, to be able to understand what it is that will click and will satisfy the needs of people in these different parts of the world. So that's really a, uh, powerful thing. And that brings me to my next question, which is, when you look at the landscape of ergs right now, everything that's going on, everything we've been talking about in terms of what their value is, is in terms of supporting their organization as well as their communities and so forth. What's your specific advice to ERG leaders who need to reframe their value propositions? If you were reframing a value proposition now, in the past, the value proposition might have been, we're creating a home and hearth for people of our community within the organization. But if you needed to reframe that or to expand on that, what are some of the things that you would point out that I could say, let's say to a senior executive in the organization, hey, this is what we do that's of value to the organization, to the community that we serve, and to the clients and everyone in, uh, this ecosystem.

Greg Jenkins: I think the home and heart value should remain. To be very honest with you, I think at the end of the day, like I said earlier in this conversation, I think people, I think everybody, uh, 8 billion people on the planet, I think everybody wants to be welcomed, everybody wants to be respected, everybody wants to be valued, and everybody wants to be heard. I think those are enduring values. That's. I think that's just straight up humanity 101. But to expound a little bit more on the recount, the recasting of a value proposition is what is the organization struggling with? What are its challenges? And, and do I, in the group that I represent in my erg, do we have something that's unique to our understanding, our insights and our experience and background that can help reduce a challenge or increase a performance level? And so I got to do a little work to find out what those challenges might be. And I think then, based on my understanding of, uh, what are we struggling with? What are. What can we do better? And can my ERG do something to help alleviate that pain point or increase a performance or a market share or a sales number? I think that's. It should be a symbiotic relationship. Uh, I want to. I'm grateful that the organization put together an erg. And now what can we do to help the organization?

Joe Santana: Greg, how can our listeners reach you?

Greg Jenkins: Probably the best way would be on LinkedIn, just Greg Jenkins. You'll see. Easy to find, pretty active on that platform. And that's really the main place to go. Yeah, LinkedIn.

Joe Santana: Greg Jenkins is founder and CEO of Greg Jenkins Consulting. Thank you again. For being on ERG Power Talk today. I appreciate it.

Greg Jenkins: Thanks for having me, Joe.

Joe Santana: Okay, so what did we learn from the second half of our discussion with Greg? 1. Stop relying only on participation numbers, awareness campaigns, or event attendance as proof of value. Move up the Kirkpatrick scale and start measuring your return on investment. Start measuring and reporting outcomes connected to business performance, customer impact, market growth, or operational improvements. 2. Tie every major ERG initiative to a real organizational challenge because the leaders are much more likely to support ERGs that help solve problems the business already cares about. 3. Push to have your diverse voices be included early in product design, customer experience discussions, policy reviews, and strategic planning so your organization can avoid blind spots that damage revenue, damage customer satisfaction or productivity.

Greg Jenkins: 4.

Joe Santana: Recognize that your background, experiences and community knowledge are, uh, not just personal characteristics. They're a strategic asset that can help your organization better understand different markets and and customer needs as well as workforce needs. 5. Expand your ERG's mission to include helping the organization improve performance while still creating community and support internally, because both goals can and should exist together. And finally, 6. Regularly ask yourself and your ERG leadership team what important challenge can our group help this organization solve? Because that quality question changes how your executives see your relevance and value. One of the biggest opportunities ERG leaders miss comes from believing that their primary value lies in organizing events or running speaker series and creating internal engagement activities. The reality is that your deeper and greater value comes from what you know about employee and customer perspectives through your own lived experiences and observations. Organizations spend an enormous amount of money trying to understand why certain customers buy or do not buy, or why some employees disengage and why performance gaps continue to exist. Meanwhile, you're often the people closest to many of the answers to those very questions. Your ERG can become a source of practical insight that helps leaders make better decisions, avoid blind spots, improve customer reach, strengthen operations, and uncover opportunities that competitors might have missed. And as you do this, you also position yourself and your members as highly valued contributors inside the organization, opening large doors of opportunity for yourself and others in your community. So do not underestimate the value of what you and your members know and possess. The experiences, perspectives, and observations your group carries are often exactly what your organization needs to better serve people, grow stronger, and avoid costly mistakes. So start using your voice not just to be welcomed, valued, and heard, but to help build something bigger and better for yourself, your company, and the communities you serve. Thank you for tuning in to ERG Power Talk. If you enjoyed and got value out of this program, please like us and leave a favorable review at your podcast provider site. Also, invite others to listen to the show. By the way, contact me if you're looking for an ERG Symposium keynote or a leader for your strategy workshop, New Chair Onboarding and or ERG Bootcamp. I can run these for you either in person or in a virtual setting. Also, for more great ideas and Tips for your Ergs, Get My Books Supercharge youe Ergs 18 Tips to Power up youp ERG BRG Strategy and the New DEI and ERG Frontier how you and your efforts can rise and thrive in the new world of constant disruption. Both available on Amazon.com I'm Joe Santana. Thanks again for tuning in.