Building a culture of empathy (Part 1 of 2)

Building a culture of empathy with Claude Silver (Part 1 of 2)

Putting the 'human' back into HR

I'm so grateful that you're joining me. I have a really special episode for you. I hesitate to say this because I don't want to take anything away from the more than 100 other episodes I've done before this with successful, inspiring people in the world of talent development, but this one might be the favorite that I've done so far. There’re a couple of reasons for that, but first, let me introduce you to the woman I'm interviewing. Her name is Claude Silver. She calls herself an emotional optimist, a coach, a manager, a mentor and most importantly, she is the Chief Heart Officer at VaynerMedia. VaynerMedia is an advertising and marketing company in New York City.

They're global, and their headquarters in New York City. She reports directly to Gary Vaynerchuk, who is the CEO and Founder of VaynerMedia. If you haven't heard of Gary Vaynerchuk, who's most like often known as Gary Vee, he is an absolute sensation on social media. He's an entrepreneur. He started many companies. He's involved in a lot of things. He's a big-time speaker, and he's someone that I follow closely and really enjoy and have been inspired by. He has truly changed my life in my career with all of his teachings, videos and messages that he shares on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube. He is actually everywhere and he's someone that I try to follow and learn from.

It’s cool to connect with Claude, partly because she gets to work directly with Gary and has such a close relationship with him. Also, as I dug into all the things that she has done and accomplished and her philosophy on things, I realized how aligned we were on stuff. I loved her passion for what she does, and I can’t wait to share it. I was so excited about this interview that I asked her if I could come meet her and do it in person because most of the interviews I conduct over Zoom. I went to New York City. I had another meeting up there earlier that day. I gave a keynote speech presentation at a company up in White Plains north of the city, and then facilitated a panel of executives and then hustled down into the city and went to VaynerMedia.

I did this interview in person with Claude and it was well worth it to meet her in person and see the office. We talked about how she ended up at VaynerMedia. All the things she's done in her past. We talked about her mission to put the human back in human resources. We talked about the business of people. We talked a lot about the empathetic culture they're creating. We talked about the role of HR as a coach, the employee experience, self-awareness, which is really big at VaynerMedia. We talked about bravery and culture. We talk about the idea of people over profit, hierarchies, and authority.

We talked about why you should hire someone as a culture addition and not a culture fit, which he's big on. We talked about the stay interview, which I mentioned in a solo episode, and manager development. We talked about her biggest accomplishment, she vulnerably shares a failure that she had, that was something she still regrets to this day, and it's HR-related. We talked about the trend that she's following as well as her advice. We talked about so many things in this episode. I'm actually going to break it up into two parts. This is going to be part one. I know that it's going to be something that you enjoy and are inspired by. I'd love to hear your thoughts after you read it. Without further ado, here is part one of my interview with Claude Silver.

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I'm here with Claude Silver, who is the Chief Heart Officer of VaynerMedia here in New York. VaynerMedia is one of many companies run by Gary Vaynerchuk, or Gary Vee. Probably the biggest and most famous company he has. I don't know how many of my readers follow Gary Vee, but he's got a huge following on social media. Over six million on Instagram and many other places. I've been a fan for a long time. I've been checking out a lot of stuff that you've been doing Claude. I’m amazed and excited to have you on. Thank you for agreeing to this interview.

Thanks, Andy. It's great to be here. Hello to your audience.

Normally I do most of my interviews over Zoom, but this is one where I felt like I wanted to connect with you and had a trip plan to New York. You've been here for how long?

I've been at Vayner for a couple of years.

How big is VaynerMedia?

It’s about 600, 650, and then we have VaynerX, which is our umbrella company, our holding company. That takes us to about 805, 850. It depends on the day or the week. That encompasses Gallery Media Group, VaynerSports, The Sasha Group.

Starting and jumping careers

I'd love to start with a little bit of your background and how you got here because I know you have an interesting story with a lot of twists and turns and it's not traditional. A lot of people have different stories, so tell me a little bit about it.

[bctt tweet="If you don't treat your employees well and give them a good experience, they won't treat your customers well." via="no"]

My story is definitely not traditional and it's one that I've come to appreciate in the last couple of years. I was studying to be a psychotherapist a zillion years ago and I was in San Francisco. I was working at a very small little market called Harvest Market. This is pre-Whole Foods, Dean & DeLuca and all that stuff. I had this repeat customer come in and they said, “You surf right?” I said, “Yes,” and he said, “You snowboard?” “Yes.” He said, “I'm starting an Internet.com company and I think you'd be a good project manager.” This is 1997 at that point. I'm like, “What's that?” I happen to manage the store and away I went down to Palo Alto. I started in the dark arts of digital and never left. I'm still in it.

I did a lot of startups there in SF. That was the dot-com boom, and then the dot-com bust came. At that point, I had been laid off twice from different busts. I started an outdoor venture company with my friend, which was a surfing, rock climbing, mountaineering, mountain biking company. I taught surfing in Pacifica in Santa Cruz for about 260 days a year and have that really killer tan neck up, wrists down. It was awesome. We created it from scratch. We created the content hired the instructors made partnerships with Billabong and Quicksilver. Eventually, we sold it and I went back into what I knew, which was digital. That's when I started my career in advertising agency. That's about 2005, 2006.

What was it like working in Palo Alto in ’97, ‘98? This is the height of the dot-com. People are starting to think you're blowing up but I know it's nothing like it is now.

Nothing like it is now, but it was still pretty amazing when you had a ping pong table or foosball at work. That was never anything that I could have fathomed. You had these huge parties where they brought in Cirque du Soleil. It was wild times. For someone that was studying to be a psychotherapist, I wanted to deal with people, their problems, their openings, and whatnot, to be in this world was absolute Disneyland for me. It was like nothing I could have ever pictured I would be in. I had no business being in the world of communications, content and all of that stuff because I didn't study it, but it was the right place right time.

Also, that was a great place for people to jump into authentic careers that they didn't really study for because people were doing everything.

It was the wild, wild west. I know we're in the wild west when it comes to other types of content, but we had just gotten out of modem Ville and I still into AOL, Netscape. It was just a crazy time. I went back I went out advertising agencies and then one thing led to another. I found my way to a very big global agency called JWT in San Francisco. I was the digital expert at that time and they transferred me to London. It was wild. It was a year in, and one day, I got a phone call from a very posh sounding man on the other side of the phone and he said, “I hear we need someone with your skillsets.” Within a split second, I had that decision to make whether or not I was going to be a small person or I was going to be a big person.

I could have said, “What skillsets do mean?” Instead, I said, “Tell me more.” I took up space. I pretended I was confident. I had four days to decide if I was going to go and by that time, I had been in San Francisco for eighteen years. I love San Francisco and it had become very small. I moved across the pond and I was at JWT for two years. I was in Publicis London as Head of Strategy in their digital strategy for two years. When I was at Publicis was actually when I met Gary. It’s in August of 2013. My best friend introduced us and I had been following him since 2009. Since Crush It! came out.

His first book

Exactly. I was like, “Who's this guy?” He's a truth-teller. We had a three-minute phone call. He was boarding a plane and I was pacing up and down my floor back in London.

You’ve been following him, so this is already a big deal to you.

A month later, I came to New York and I met him and then it was like, “We're family. That's my brother.” It was very like symbiotic. It just made sense. Eventually, I got a job offer and then move to New York.

Did you come in as the Chief Heart Officer?

Culture Of Empathy: HR is about identifying, nurturing, and respecting the whole human being, not just the one that works for us all day long.

No. I was hired as his first SVP. I had come straight from strategy. Being very client-facing and running very large P&G accounts, had done my share of oil and gas, and Vicks. Anything you want to buy in Walgreens, I basically touched except for dog food and a couple of things. I started as his first senior vice president. I was a female, which was awesome for the company where I was employee 389th. I ran the Unilever account, which was pretty sizable, then it was Dove. I also ran the Mondelez account where we had Chips Ahoy, and Nilla wafers and all that.

You’ve been a very Senior Account Manager at that point. He needs someone to run his biggest accounts. You have a lot of advertising strategy and digital experiences.

I was older than a lot of the people there.

It’s a very young company

I had created a mini agency within the agency. I had about 50 people and we had a marvelous time. We did exceptional work. We did hard work. In our team meetings, I used to have people read poetry and do a lot of like, avantgarde things because that's where my head is. On my year anniversary, I went to him and I said, “Thank you so much for this opportunity. I love it. You're the best. I'm really done selling. I'm not interested in the art of advertising anymore. I had done it for a long time.” I had that voice in my head saying, “I’m just done.” He said, “What is it that you want to do?” I said, “I only care about the heartbeat of this place. I only care about people.” He said, “I need you to do this for 18 more months.”

I said, “No, I'll give you 6.” I found a backfill, who's still here and kicking butt. I ended up resigning. Four months later, almost to the day we had breakfast, he said, “That's it. You're coming back as Chief Heart Officer.” I knew what that was because I've always been this type of person, very much a mentor, player, coach. Let me help you. I had been that person here already at the company being an elder and a guide. I said, “How do we know if I'm successful?” His magic words, which still, to this day of the only job description I've ever gotten, which is, “You'll touch every single employee and infuse the agency with empathy.”

Empathy is a big word for him

It is. I've been doing this job for years.

Becoming a Chief Heart Officer

I'm curious about the title of Chief Heart Officer. Is it something he came up with or something you came up with?

When I had originally left when I said, “I only care about the heartbeat of this place.” He actually said something to the effect of, “We're going to write the book called The Heart Empire.” He and I had always spoken about the world of HR as a heart. At that point, we didn't really have HR. He came up with the title. We based it on his and my personality. Scaling him is the job, creating and cultivating this culture day in and day out no matter what comes my way. Assisting and guiding people to be their best selves, I believe inside and outside of work. It's amazing. I love it. It's an honor. No day or hour is the same. I love working for him.

You come back in this role of Chief Heart Officer. You’re obviously both very aligned on what that means. It sounds like it is in the realm of HR, and then maybe different, so I'm curious how you see it compared to maybe a traditional Chief HR Officer. I've also heard you say that you want to put the human back in human resources. Tell me more about that.

The role is to oversee all of HR. I've hired wonderfully skilled HR practitioners who can do the actual craft of HR. They've been doing it for years, which is great because I actually had to learn quite a bit about compliance and labor laws.

[bctt tweet="As with human nature, we must know thyself to be truly able to sit with another." via="no"]

You studied psychology, but you didn't have an HR background.

Intuitively I could tell you what to do, but it's not by the law or by the book. I have a wonderful team and an SVP named Jen Russo that looks up looks after the HR. For me, I had always been told that I was an HR person's dream because I don't cause problems. I always thought that was interesting. Meaning HR is only there to dispense, solve problems and put out fires. They're not on the offense. They're just on the protection side. The way I see this role is very much as hospitality, as we're in the service of. That comes from my love and my passion of servant leadership and how I was raised for sure. That's the first thing, but also, we're in the business of people. If you use the term human resources, I couldn't even tell you what that meant. Humans as resources? That seems very transactional and functional to me. Rather than humans as heartbeats. As actual human beings that have a life before they come in here at 9:00 AM. What I’m talking about when I say putting the human back into human resources. It's identifying, nurturing and respecting the whole human. Not just the one that comes here and creates for us all day long.

You talked about respecting the whole human and there's a movement around this. I've done some interviews with people who are with bigger more progressive companies talking about diversity, inclusion and connecting with the whole human. There's always been in the past, when I was back working in the corporate world, there was a lot of people that felt like there needed to be this division between home and work life. We don't talk about the home stuff. What we realized is, you're missing out on opportunities to help people. I know you're very big on having those open conversations and creating space for people. I'd love to know more about your philosophy there and how that's helped the company, not just the people.

My philosophy is, we are teaching life skills and hard skills here. This is very much a Master’s or PhD program depending on what you want to get out of it and how hard you work. It's a culture based on meritocracy and belonging. The bottom line is, I couldn't imagine being here and only talking to someone about their work. There's so much that goes into someone just getting hair every single day whether or not you are a Millennial, just graduated from college. You are a mom of two, an expecting father, dealing with parents that are ill.

This is called life on life's terms, I got it all. I'm not a therapist, I'm not a professional like that. How I set the room up is there’s nowhere to lay down but it's very chill. It's peaceful and what happens in here stays in here. I'm here and Gary's here. All of our leaders are here to promote people in the best way we can and to help them be their best selves. That's what a guide and a coach do. I believe that the role of HR is moving towards that of being much more of a coach. At least that's my hope and that's what we're doing here.

I changed the department name immediately to People and Experience. We don't even call ourselves HR. We call ourselves People and Experience team because let's be honest, that's what we're dealing with, people and their experience. Their experience starts when they send their application in. Their experience starts on their first day when every single person that joins is in a four-day orientation. No matter if you're a C-Suite or you’re a junior copywriter, you're sitting next to each other for four days. We're not in charge of your experience, but we're here to absolutely guide, provide and serve you in the best way we can without holding your hand.

There's so much autonomy at this company, and so much not micromanaging because we're people first and we believe that people have the right to their self-awareness. We want to promote them in the best way we can and that is making sure that they are getting training and development. That is making sure that we have a diverse floor. Diversity of every shape, size, curiosity and seen an unseen handicap. It's making sure that our salaries are on par with the market. It's making sure that while London, LA, Singapore and our other geographies out there have our same DNA. We're all drinking the same water. They have full reign to create whatever it is they want to create and not replicate this.

I'm so glad you brought that up. I didn't even know we were going to talk about this. I've talked a lot on the show about employee experience. I'm big on that. I heard a quote a long time back that stuck with me, which is, “Your customers' experience will never exceed that of your employees' experience.” If you don't treat your employees well and give them a good experience. They won't treat your customers well and let's be honest, they have tons of options. They have skills. They can go anywhere if they're not having a great experience.

It is absolutely wild that there is so much choice now. When I have conversations or my team is having conversations with people that are poo-pooing the experience here, it's like, “You have a choice. You certainly don't have to be here, but if you are here, these are the things we need to see from you.” That's going to strengthen you, your character, your skillset anyway, so why not come along for the ride?

Creating a culture of empathy

We've mentioned empathy a couple of times. I know that empathy is big for Gary, your boss. He even started a new line of wines called Empathy Wines. I ordered a case actually.

Which one?

The red. I was waiting because when he started it was white, red and rosé and I didn't want the white and rosé. I was waiting for him to go red. I knew he would listen to his customers. I knew the customers would speak up and that they wanted red, which is what I wanted. I also signed up for WineText and ordered some more of that, too.

Culture Of Empathy: Leaders promote people in the best way they can to help them be their best selves.

I'm addicted to it.

It's a little bit out of control. While I was on my way to your office, in a Lyft, I got the text for some Chianti and I watched one of Gary's videos on Instagram. I ordered six boxes of it. I could get in trouble with this.

You're going to get in trouble. I'm putting wine in cabinets that shouldn't have wine.

This speaks to what he does and what you do with a company like this. How proficient the company is with digital marketing and social media that I'm in a car, ordering wine I don't need because I saw a video that Gary did on Instagram. Going back to empathy and personal connection, he's the king of that which I don't see anyone else doing it. With five million followers, he’s reaching out to people personally. I'm on his text community and he sent a text out to people in Florida about signing up for WineText and said write him back. I signed up and I wrote him a text and said, “I signed up and I bought a case of Empathy Wine.” He sent me a three-second audio message saying, “Thanks, Andy. You're the best.” I love them over the moon. I was already a fan. I'm a super fan now.

Gary is so high touch, which is amazing. Thus, I'm high touch and that I believe is our winning formula here, which is spending time with people, listening, and holding space for people. In turn, we believe that that has a knock-on effect, not only with our clients but then with the consumer. We want to spend time with them. You're a consumer of the wine and he's spending time with you.

Someone else from the company called me to talk to me about the wine. He doesn't get a commission. I asked him, “I was ordering it online. How do I give you credit for this?” He said, “I don't get the credit. We're just reaching out to our customers.” I couldn't believe it.

It's so awesome. I love working here.

We're talking about customers and about creating this culture of empathy. A big part of empathy is understanding others and where they're coming from. Part of your ability to express empathy is having self-awareness as well. I know that's big for you.

I actually don't believe it's possible to know what empathy tastes like or feels like, or compassion for that matter if you're not self-aware. If you're not aware of what's up with yourself and where your hiccups are, and where your strengths are, and what are the things you want to improve, and where your intentions are. I think that that's human nature, we must know thyself to be truly able to sit with another. It's a culture of belonging and bravery that we're building here. Empathy, connection, psychological, physical safety, diversity and inclusivity is a part of that. The culture that we're building is one of belonging and I've just turned to say bravery because you have to be brave to show up.

Especially in tough situations. I've studied fear and courage, and people think that you have to be fearless. Courage and bravery are not the absence of fear. It's looking at that fear and saying, “I'm scared of the situation. I’m going to have that conversation.”

Just walking through it, but being honest with yourself that you are shaking in your boots. One of the insights that I got is, there are tons of scary things. There are tons of things that we have fear around. We don't have to be scared of doing them.

The emotion of fear is always in the lead up to the act. I don't know if you've been skydiving. I went skydiving for the first time. It was amazing. Will Smith has a fantastic video about the first time he went skydiving. He talks about how you're terrified up until the moment you jump out of the plane and the fear goes away. He uses a metaphor to talk about how we're always scared of things that are actually not a real threat until we get in that situation and then it's fine.

[bctt tweet="It is not possible to know what empathy or compassion tastes or feels like if you're not self-aware." via="no"]

I have to go skydiving. It's definitely a bucket list and I’m afraid.

It's reasonable to be afraid, but I know the position you're in and this company and Gary are all famous to me. I was nervous coming here, but now that we're here having this conversation, it’s easy.

What you see is what you get. Not certainly with me and that's for sure, but also with Gary. I wouldn't be able to work for someone else because I'm so used to and comfortable with the real human being. I always like to mention that there's a difference between Gary, the man and Gary Vee, the brand. While the brand is a man, I work for Gary Vaynerchuk and it's amazing. I learn something every day.

No doubt.

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Thanks for reading Part 1 of my interview with Claude Silver. She is amazing. I hope that you learned a lot from this and I will have part two of the interview coming to you soon.

In the meantime, I would love for you to subscribe and share the show with your colleagues and friends. That is how it's been growing. I've had people in talent development of big companies telling me how they are sharing it across the organization. Using it to onboard people. They've been bringing me in to do some talks and things from it. It's amazing what is happening from this and of course, you may have heard we're also hosting a conference called the Talent Development Think Tank. Get your tickets at TalentDevelopmentThinkTank.com.

• VaynerMedia
• Instagram – Gary Vee
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• Stay interview – Previous episode
• VaynerX
• JWT
• Publicis London
• Crush It!
• Empathy Wines
• WineText
• TalentDevelopmentThinkTank.com