LEADERSHIP LESSONS FOR EXTREME TIMES
Let's Talk, People: Episode 15
[00:00:00] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I'm really excited to give you an opportunity to meet Josh Dorfman, who is the co founder and CEO of Supercool, which is a media company that's focused on sharing stories of extraordinary climate solutions. This is something that gives me so much hope. It is also a podcast, the same name.
[00:00:55] Super cool that I encourage all of you to take a listen to
[00:00:59] Josh is a serial climate entrepreneur, author and podcast host. Most recently he co founded and was CEO of Plantd a carbon negative materials manufacturer where he raised the company's seed in series a funding rounds, generated millions in revenue and built the brand through accolades, including the U S.
[00:01:20] D.O.E.'s epic prize for cleantech innovation and Fast Company's world's most innovative companies awards. Check out Plantd. It's absolutely incredible and fascinating company. Josh historically had a nickname that turned into a brand called the Lazy Environmentalist. He had an award winning primetime television show on Sundance.
[00:01:44] TV, a daily radio show on Sirius XM, two books, and a popular newsletter and website. It is a pleasure to have Josh on to talk to us about how we find at this moment in time, hope, agency, and drive change in the context of climate and possibly in leadership overall.
[00:02:12] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Josh, I am thrilled to have you on Let's Talk People.
[00:02:15] Josh Dorfman: Great to be here, Emily.
[00:02:17] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: So I, I like us to really get to know one another on Let's Talk People. So for the people who are joining us, we like to go deep. We're going to start with a question about your childhood. So tell us just a little something. Give us a little window into something about your childhood that tells us a bit about who you are today.
[00:02:37] Josh Dorfman: Well, some of my earliest childhood memories, perhaps one of my earliest most vivid about five years old with my Yankees hat on my heart, watching the Yankees game 1977, probably against the Red Sox. I've been a sports fan my whole life. And. I was thinking about this and, and reflecting back and sports really were, were just such a big part of, how I grew up, a lot of the life lessons I learned being part of a team really wanting to excel, being very ambitious and certainly wanting, you know, a lot of the glory, but that always felt much more rewarding when it was, when I was doing it with friends and, you know, people who I really loved and worked hard with.
[00:03:18] So that was a big through line through my childhood
[00:03:21] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Hmm. And it sounds like you enjoyed the playing and the watching equally.
[00:03:28] Josh Dorfman: that that is actually an interesting question. I did. I really did because I think I've also just personality wise. I am an observer. And so, yeah, so I could sit 5 years old, you know, and my friends would be like, come on, let's play. Let's go outside. Let's play. And I'd be like, no, I gotta wait till Reggie Jackson comes up, you know, and that's like, I can't leave until that happens. But yeah, always love to play, always outside, certainly, you know, my, my folks, my mom, especially we were one of those households, you know, and it was different areas like outside out. You go can't come back till dinner. We were playing all the time. And and when I got to high school, you know, I was raised in a way.
[00:04:06] It was like, okay, you're going to play tennis. You're going to play soccer. You're going to be safe. And I had in my head that I was absolutely going to play football because I want I had a different like, self conception of the person I wanted to become. And I did, and we were, you know, grew up in a small town in Westchester County, Armonk , went to a small high school, but we had incredible coaching and we were so well prepared and very coachable.
[00:04:30] We used to be in teams, like, much bigger than us, and they used to be shocked when, like, these, little, little kids were like, you know, pushing them around. We knew what we were doing. It was, it was, it was a lot of fun.
[00:04:43] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I love that. I have a warm place for our monk. I spent many years there at IBM. So I know it well. And I, I think there's something In that, that I'm not sure, but may show up in kind of your leadership today, there's a couple of things, the being able to imagine what's possible, even sometimes beyond what other people can see for us.
[00:05:04] The other thing you said that struck me was, Like the joy of doing it with others, I think is a big part of why we choose to lead or choose organizational settings. Yeah, and, and just like when you have a passion for something, it's like, It's almost like you can't not do it. , you could not walk away.
[00:05:22] And so there's so much there that I bet is an eye into how we might experience working with you or , seeing you in action as a leader. So I, I love that. It's great. So let's, let's kind of cut to the more recent times. Maybe if you could share a little bit, Josh, about what you've been up to.
[00:05:39] I know you, We're recently co founder and CEO of a company that I'd love for you to tell people about. It's fascinating. And that was at a point when you and I were able to connect and meet. And then I love your current endeavor as well, which ties to a history of kind of putting your voice out there into the world and helping to elevate that of others in the context of.
[00:05:59] Climate and change and environmental impact and all the reasons we wanted to have you on to help give our leaders out there some great advice and guidance. So, let's start a little bit with what you're up to.
[00:06:12] Josh Dorfman: Yeah. Thank you for that. Emily. So the, the company you, you referenced that I co founded now, 4 years ago. So we met last year was Plantd and Plantd really came about because I, I've spent the bulk of my career working in sustainability, entrepreneurship, can be manufacturing, it's been media, it's been retail, the pandemic, I had a furniture company called assembly, which was like simple assembly, this direct to consumer modern design, stable furniture company.
[00:06:41] We were manufacturing in North Carolina and I love that little company we were doing great when the pandemic started and then suddenly our factory was shutting down. We couldn't do product design. I couldn't get materials and this material thing really stayed with me. And kept thinking about the prices were going up.
[00:06:58] Quality was going down and I was fortunate. So living in North Carolina, you don't get a lot of, Not even rocket scientists, rocket engineers, builders of rockets, but someone who had been a space expert for nine years leading teams moved not far away in to Durham, someone put us together. And so I connected with Wada, we got on the phone, he expressed similar interests as mine and I said, you know, I think here's what we need to do.
[00:07:24] He had a little manufacturing coming to, I think we need to shut our little manufacturing companies and go after this really big play of, can we develop a material? Can we find something that grows faster than trees can pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere very quickly? Since that's what trees do, but could we add an accelerated rate?
[00:07:39] And could we, with a space X team, build a new kind of factory that has no smoke stack? That's all electric . So if we take that carbon out of the atmosphere by this, and we found this fast growing grass to do that, which we now make products with, if we could pull it out with this grass, and we could turn it into something useful without giving all that carbon back up a smokestack, then we could effectively sequester.
[00:08:01] Carbon from the atmosphere as we think about solving climate change, and we're going to go try and do it in homes and buildings because we are inventing building material. So that's what Plantd does. It's been an incredible journey. So I ran that. I was the CEO through the 1st, few years. I'm still on the board that companies.
[00:08:16] It is on a rocket ship kind of startup trajectory. It's been really just a blast. And what's interesting from a team perspective, we're now. We're probably pushing close to 150, 200 employees. We have operations , in multiple states. We're in North Carolina. We're in Texas.
[00:08:30] You have this combination of, world class engineers. We're in rural North Carolina building this company. So you get also some, a real, a real mix of, of employees. And we just find, you know, mission is so important to. Having everyone kind of buy into that, in our hiring process, are you going to buy into the mission?
[00:08:47] Are you going to be aligned with us? So that's a bit about Plantd. What I'm doing currently I'm kind of going back to some of my roots in media. I used to have a TV show, radio show called the lazy environmentalist. This was about over a decade ago where I would go around, help lazy Americans go green without having to work very hard.
[00:09:03] It's very American centric
[00:09:05] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: know. I'm like, it feels, it feels very much like us.
[00:09:09] Josh Dorfman: It still feels current, it still feels current. But as I kind of picked, kind of lifted my head up and started canvassing around and reading up and saying, okay, let me understand what else is happening in climate. I've been so focused on materials and construction for three or four years.
[00:09:23] What jumped out at me was I, started to feel like we're, we're actually in this new moment in this new era where climate solutions for, I would say several reasons are actually reaching scale where they're having impact, impact, not just in cutting carbon something will stay like Plantd, like I just described, but in doing it in a way.
[00:09:42] That also makes life better in the process. So to stay unPlantd, maybe the building materials are less flammable, stronger, less, more resistant to mold. But at a similar price where you're just going to get a better house, the builder is not going to have to do anything different. The materials works installs exactly the same, but life gets better.
[00:10:00] And I start seeing that. Across not just technologies, but policies that small towns and large cities were putting in place to get bike lanes faster, make their cities more walkable, more delightful , at a speed and scale that I felt was underway, but underrepresented in the media. And so that's what's super cool.
[00:10:20] My current company aims to do is shine a spotlight on those kinds of innovations and stories.
[00:10:26] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And we need it. We need the hope, which is, I think made this conversation that you and I are having so timely because, you know, we have these moments, especially the way this year is starting where it it feels a bit scary to think about what's happening with our planet and what, what we reflect on a lot on this, on this show is the fact that, We all have our own internal experiences as leaders, so fear about, you know, life events, climate events, and then we have to deal with our own stuff and our own feelings, and we have this whole, you know, team of people that we're holding space for and trying to help them through it, so if you just think about what's happened even recently, you know, unexpected snowstorms just happened devastating fires in California, and it feels like it's almost nonstop at this point, and it might have been a time where we would say, as leaders, it's not really our thing to worry about.
[00:11:27] It's like, get yourself to work, you know, get back on your computer. Let's go. We know that doesn't work either, right? Like, we know that that's kind of an old model. And I think you know, in some ways, this is symbolic for so much about leadership, but just kind of using this as an as an example, you know, how do we help leaders to balance having tremendous compassion for people going through kind of difficult, unexpected climate events or having loved ones, friends who are going through it?
[00:11:59] And the fact that we're constantly responsible for getting work done. Like nothing stops like in the middle of these moments. How do you think of that just from kind of a leadership perspective? how do we hold space for all of that?
[00:12:11] Josh Dorfman: Yeah, it's a great question. Can't really have a more timely question. There's obviously no silver bullet, right? I think the best that leaders can do is continually try to figure it out. Certainly, like you said, the model of, you know, just. Suck it up, right?
[00:12:27] Like you're, you're here at work. When you're at work, you're going to work. You can go home. You can deal with your stuff. Like, you know, that's just not reality. Right? And so the reality is that people do bring their full selves into work. You want them to, but as you said, the work still needs to get done.
[00:12:44] And so, there's the playbook of how you do it. You say, okay, well, first of all, we're going to make sure, with our healthcare or coverage, do we have mental health benefits in there? Are we enabling people to get, you know, that certain type of health that not every, not every company can do that, but if you can, I think that's really important and still encourage that , in the workplace.
[00:13:02] But I do think it falls to managers. Often to be able to allow space for conversations that need to happen to happen, , I've seen it where people are coming and saying, Oh, this devastation you know, my experience has been, you, have the conversation, you talk it out, you allow that all those, those feelings to come out, but then it it does still have to get, Cut off at a point.
[00:13:21] It's like, okay, now, we need to get back to work. Right? And as a manager, I think, in those places, I think the 1st thing he says, like, you're going through it too. Or as a leader, you're going through it too. Right? And so, I do think that like a lot of other issues, you express some vulnerability, , if you can share that , with your teams, with your companies, that matters a lot too, just to even know, okay, well, he's going through it too, and then you got to model the behavior that you want in the workplace.
[00:13:44] Right? So I think you talk about, you know, as these things come up, you let people be heard, but then you also have to say, you know, here, we also have to get the work done and you just have to be very real about it. I think being real is probably. The best that a leader, you know, can be in those situations.
[00:14:00] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah. It was reading something where a was done that the emotion that has the strongest kind of measurable energy output is authenticity. I don't even think I realized that authenticity was an emotion and it really struck me so I think that that's right like the more we can share our feelings without kind of freaking out our teams because you are you're you're holding that space between being a Vulnerable, authentic, real, that this is affecting you too, but also being able to have the emotional capacity to hold space for others and practically, you know, figure out how things are going to get done when certain individuals are impacted emotionally, physically, like whatever is going on for them, I always feel like there's a lot we hold as leaders, right?
[00:14:49] There's a lot of juggling and, I love your point, Josh, that like We kind of learn as we do it. We figure it out, right? It's not about perfect. It's not that there's some kind of simple fix. I think it's important for us to be realistic about that.
[00:15:02] Josh Dorfman: you know, the, the other thing I would just add is, and that's why I think it's just ongoing is because things come up, right? And I remember with Plantd, we had an incident where. There was maybe a hurricane, something was happening and someone was feeling very, very strongly about a lot of things related to that.
[00:15:19] Right? And it was like, it wasn't just going to be okay to allow that to go on because , this person's views was actually now starting to . Impact the team. And so there's a side conversation that needs to take place too. That says, look, I know you're feeling this way and it's important to expect, but like there's X, Y, Z behaviors are still not actually okay here in this way, , and try to work through those things.
[00:15:45] Right. That's what I mean. There's, there's still that balance. And I think the best a leader can do is be courageous, help people be heard, , Speak openly and honestly, but also just you still need to have that level of professionalism that says this still is a professional place, right?
[00:16:01] Like there's certain behaviors that if they become toxic or they're too much, they need to be addressed outside of the workplace.
[00:16:07] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: that's exactly right. Sometimes when we bring too much of our feelings, it negatively impacts the others on the team. And one of your responsibilities as a leader, of course, is to hold the space for the team to function most optimally.
[00:16:20] Josh Dorfman: Yes, I agree with
[00:16:21] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I think that's a great, great example of it and that can't just be there's boundaries.
[00:16:26] We like to call them agreements. Like we have some agreements here of what's okay and what's not okay so that we can all, you know, deal with each other and ideally uplift each other. So the other thing we were needing a little bit of Josh, Talk on was given what we're seeing around extreme climate, it can start to feel a little bit dark and apocalyptic in terms of the direction things are going in.
[00:16:51] You're so embedded in this space and even from the little bit you shared about what you're seeing happening in cities and towns like we need a dose of hope, Josh, what are you, what do you got for us?
[00:17:04] Josh Dorfman: Well, no, it's, it's such a fair point. This ties so directly to what we're working on, how we see the world. I see all these stories of, you know, Lincoln, Nebraska, the city, figuring out their policies for low income housing.
[00:17:18] You know, low income housing can be in really bad shape. Right? And there's very little incentive for owners of buildings where there's low income housing. To do something about it to, you know, upgrade the buildings. So Lincoln, Nebraska came up with this way to provide grants. To the owners of those buildings. That could go toward improving installation, new windows, whatever. And improve the quality of life for people in those buildings, increase the value of those buildings. But by increasing the value of those buildings, it was also increasing the value of the neighborhoods.
[00:17:48] And so it came up with a way to say, we're going to sprinkle a very small tax over the whole area. That's going to get the benefit of these particular buildings and that's the first place in, in America that actually decided to, try it. And of course it works and when you hear things like that, there is a little bit of a sensibility of like, if it can, you know, , if this can happen in Lincoln, Nebraska, why can't this happen in my town?
[00:18:11] Why can't this? And what I mean is like, it's not happening on the coast. Not everybody is all bought into, we got to, you know, deal with it. And you see solutions everywhere. We do because we're looking for them. And so I think that, yeah. That's what gives me great hope is that there's so many. Different places that are really taking action.
[00:18:31] The other thing , that started to key into, and maybe it's because of my age, I think it's also because I'm looking for interesting trends on our podcast and our newsletter is we've just happened to have a lot of entrepreneurs coming onto the show, doing things like inventing how to pull heat out of sewers.
[00:18:50] You got all this water sloshing through sewers, right? It's warm and reusing it. To he, , in Vancouver, thousands of apartments, millions of square feet of commercial space. It's happening in Denver, it's happening in Washington, D. C. And the guy who running the company, he's now 70 years old.
[00:19:06] He's so old, and he knows I say this a little bit tongue in cheek, he's so old that he worked for the Hudson Bay Company. Do you remember that coming from, like, fifth grade social studies? Like, the fur company, right? Like, he worked for that company, and he told me his first job. Out of college was actually taking freezers up into the northwest territories of Canada to the fur traders because the ice was already not staying like frozen throughout the summer.
[00:19:31] He was already experiencing, right? So, but the guy's 7 years old and , down in Florida, there's a real estate development called hunters point, which is right on gulf just south of, sarasota and this real estate development is the first in the country where all the homes, no one pays an energy bill because there's like solar and batteries and they're really insulated and they're hurricane proof homes.
[00:19:55] They've like stood. Every hurricane. And the guy running that company is in his 60s. , and he created Arizona jeans for JCPenney back in the day. Like he was in a totally different industry. And so what you start seeing is like, you know, everyone says, Oh, it's going to fall to the next generation.
[00:20:10] The generation is going to be most impacted to deal with climate. But meanwhile, you've got people who are taking their extraordinary life lessons and
[00:20:18] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Hmm.
[00:20:19] Josh Dorfman: And building incredible solutions that are having impact right now. And so what I see is it's, you know, it's intergenerational, multi generational solutions are coming no matter your age.
[00:20:29] And it's those kinds of things that give me hope. , I don't see people just sitting on the sidelines and saying, Ah, like the young people figure it out. It's like, people are really like, you know, rolling up their sleeves and getting to work. And so I tune into those types of things.
[00:20:40] It gives me hope.
[00:20:42] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Hmm. That's a real shift in the narrative. And what I really appreciate about what you're sharing too, is there's some sort of a mindset. Like where people can see what's possible. Many people have incredible ideas. You know, if you talk to people, they've incredible, but there are certain people who make it happen.
[00:21:00] So there's something about these examples that you're giving where they are the people who make it. Shit happen
[00:21:09] Josh Dorfman: that's right.
[00:21:10] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: and it what I also appreciate is I can come from anyone and anywhere as long as you have that tenacity To make it happen. Like I think about the people in Lincoln, Nebraska who are behind that Grants approval.
[00:21:22] I mean what they must have had to go through to make it happen, but it's possible. I just think that tenacity like for me when I think about that feeling of doom It's because you don't feel Like you have any power in driving change, but the examples you're giving really challenge us to think about.
[00:21:43] No, no, like anything is possible if you just have the grit to do it and to keep making it happen,
[00:21:50] Josh Dorfman: I think that's so right. Yeah, I think that's spot on. I think. When you hear stories like that, when you, when you hear the unexpected, and I think that's probably why the unexpected delights me, whether it's the unexpected entrepreneur or the unexpected location, it does change your frame, right?
[00:22:06] Does change your friend. And it does. And I think that's probably it. It probably does go to something, stir something that might be really dormant inside that says, Hmm, do I have a little more agency here than I thought?
[00:22:17] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: right?
[00:22:18] Josh Dorfman: And so I do think that can serve as, you know. Inspiration as fuel, you know, and I think the more these types of stories creep into our consciousness into the narrative, it does change.
[00:22:33] It can take time, but but you never know if 1 can be just like you know, a lightning bolt. It can hit someone because it resonates on some core level. And they say, oh, my gosh, I can do that. And when you get to that point, you know, then someone is moving into. More toward action and I think that is pretty crucial for feeling, more hopeless less despair
[00:22:53] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: That's right. And I feel very grateful for the work you're doing that you're playing a role in bringing those to the attention of the lazy environmentalist like my myself. So thank you for that. I am going to shift us and turn it over to Abigail on our Let's Talk People team to bring us the questions that we're getting from managers and leaders out there.
[00:23:17] Abigail Charlu: Yeah, great. Thanks, Emily. And thanks, Josh, for being here with us. We have a few questions that came in from our managers relevant to this topic. The first question from a manager, they said, As a human, I care about the planet and my environmental impact, but I'm not sure if we are doing enough. Are my hands tied or is there something I can do as a manager and leader at a team or department level?
[00:23:46] Josh Dorfman: . what's what's interesting to me about that question, and I think there I think there's been a A shift. I put that question. I remember to someone who was a leader and an expert and author on leadership about 20 years ago. The exact same question. I said, if I'm in my company and these are my values
[00:24:05] let's say my company is, is not one of the foremost leaders , this isn't super elevated and prioritized, within my company, , what could I do? And his answer was, you need to leave because life is too short. And I felt like, I don't, I'm not satisfied with that.
[00:24:20] But I do think that for a long time, there was probably, unfortunately, a lot of truth. And I think today we are in a different moment. it's maybe the less consequential, even who, you know, who occupies, let's say the white house and our leadership. I think that there's more opportunity because I've seen it for people to, you know, Task force together, teams together within companies to start to affect change.
[00:24:45] Now that might be things like, we see a need to recycle more here. Right? Or we seeing that everyone's leaving the offices and, and the lights are on, and I think we can do things around, cutting energy here, whatever it may be. Or go more into, , operationally , what the company does.
[00:25:00] Microsoft, as an example has a big mission , sustainability does have a lot of visibility and prominence across that, you know, giant size company within that you've seen teams form that have actually now gotten funded through Microsoft who are doing things about thinking about how do you integrate, you know, green design principles or sustainable design principles into software.
[00:25:21] And these are, Sort of teams that have been self generated by employees having interests that, have aligned with what they're doing with what company wants to also see happen. And maybe you get to a better product. Maybe you're shipping something that's better.
[00:25:35] And they're having a lot of success. And so I think there's a way to do it right. But I also do think that it can be done today and be very effective.
[00:25:44] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I also really like that there was two scenarios or two versions of it that both are important like one is just the caring about our impact on our planet, and that can just be like a soulful need, and then I also like that there's this like commercial, you know, element of doing it as well.
[00:26:05] I think sometimes we can think You know, it has to be one or the other, but you're right, it can show up in both ways at work. And what would you say, Josh, just to kind of build on on the question, Abigail, like, how does a manager kind of encourage it, support it, role model it, like, you know, if we want more of those kind of both scenarios, just like the doing good as a human at work, and then the, you know, seeing the commercial opportunity around it, like, how do we encourage it?
[00:26:33] Do you think that's a responsibility of ours as leaders these days?
[00:26:37] Josh Dorfman: Well, I, I think the bigger response, realistically, if I'm a, a manager, a leader in a company, I'm pretty attuned to either what my, you know, division, you know, leader, president, or the, the C suite you know, where do we stand on these issues?
[00:26:54] I think the dynamic. Okay. That I've seen more play is okay. I'm a manager. My team comes to me or someone on my team comes to me and says, I would like to do X. I'm frustrated that we're not recycling enough, right? Or I'm frustrated again that I just see all this waste in the amount of paper we're using.
[00:27:12] , I've had kind of all these conversations and I think the most constructive way to move forward is to say to that, person or team who has it great, let's put together a plan like, what are, what are the actions we're going to do?
[00:27:26] You know, what are the objectives? , we're in a workplace here. What are the goals? Let's come up with a mini plan. Let's not over plan it because we're going to take some, you know, small steps here and see, right. , but show it to me, show me that you're serious, you know, and you're thinking about it in a way that that make it easy for me to say yes, because I see that you've really thought it through and when that dynamic starts to happen, you get so much by it, right?
[00:27:48] Reason why I start to immediately think like, okay, is this beneficial to the company? from a couple lenses, if you're telling me, you're going to come up with a way for us to. Recycle more well, okay, in some places, maybe actually, there's some cost associated.
[00:28:00] If so much. This has to do with efficiency, right? If we're going to find a way to make sure we're, turning the, you know. Reducing energy, we're cutting paper, we're doing whatever great. That's probably going to have some savings for the company.
[00:28:11] You can frame things in a way where we're going to reduce, or we're going to reuse or whatever. Like, that's usually good for companies to do. And so I just think you can find the ways to get to alignment between what employees want, whether the company's doing it already or not.
[00:28:28] If you position things from a, you know, from kind of the language, the company speaks I've seen that happen. And I've seen it get elevated. I've seen things work
[00:28:36] this was years ago, at Bristol Myers Squibb, so pharmaceutical, right?
[00:28:40] no one's thinking. Oh, Bristol Myers Squibb bastion of sustainability. But they had a team that was championing these types of things internally. Rose up to the CFO. She caught wind of it. She liked it. and then teams, you know, started to be created across the company. Speakers started to come in and got prioritized.
[00:28:58] And it was, ground up. So , that would be the way that I would handle that as a manager and what I would encourage.
[00:29:04] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah, I think that's really good advice. I think in general, , how do we help our team members to think the way that leadership thinks, you know, if they if they need support to do what they're doing, you don't always need support, right? There's things that you can just do and go ahead with it.
[00:29:17] But yeah, if you do need sponsorship, support funding, Attention. I love the teaching people kind of , how do business leaders think? that is a skill that will benefit them in, in all realms. I, I also really believe that when we tap into people's passions, we just better productivity and engagement period.
[00:29:37] So even if it has nothing to do with what that person's doing, but helping, you know, even in small ways around improving, you know, our impacts on the planet. Awesome. Like let's activate that person so that they feel like they're in an environment that cares about what they care about and supports them to be the person that they want to be in the world.
[00:29:56] You know, even if their day job has nothing to do with it.
[00:29:59] Josh Dorfman: . My one note of, I don't know if caution is the right word, but I will say this. have seen this go awry as well. I have seen an experience and this was actually a recent experience. Someone who was extremely passionate about recycling And what she was keying into is like, yeah, we had to recycle more , the way that this particular woman who was a leader in our company went about it, she was so frustrated when she actually made this, she made a video showing of like I'm teaching you, but it was really more like I'm scolding you type video and then shared it with the company, you know, and that required a side conversation that said, okay, you know, I respect your view, but you are a leader, you know, that we can't.
[00:30:41] If this were something other than recycling, if this was something about the business and someone handled it this way, that would not be okay. , we have to find another way, right? To like, activate here. That is one going to encourage, not alienate but, you know, while, you know, respecting like, yes, this is an issue and you're right, but we have to find, the way to, to handle this here that, that actually is going to be productive and constructive.
[00:31:04] So. Yep. You know, can't get around it if you're, you know, running teams of people, all that stuff's always coming up. And that's what I mean. It's just an ongoing, you know, conversation.
[00:31:14] Abigail Charlu: Yeah, absolutely. This is great because we already covered our second manager question, which is how do we coach employees who see an opportunity, who want to take initiative and do something so definitely making that business case speaking to the numbers and the cost savings And I, I like this other point about, you know, we don't want to come at it from an angle of shame, so say , it is a recycling program, how does that employee, you know, get buy in across the company , for folks to participate in that initiative
[00:31:49] Josh Dorfman: , it's a great question, , but this comes back to, you know, we're talking about taking environmental initiative in a company, the playbook isn't really not that different than anything else
[00:32:02] you know, change, you might want to affect, right? And so how do you do that? If you don't have authority, right? If you don't have top down managerial authority to actually just do what you want to do, right? so you obviously that takes a lot of influence. That takes a lot of getting creative buying from people in other departments who are also interested, right?
[00:32:21] And bringing a probably a group together that says, okay, I'm in the I'm on the design team on the engineering team. I'm in supply chain. Probably having a representative and getting folks to come together , who share that passion you know, and then you carve out the steps. I mean, all the playbooks are going to be different, but maybe you're starting with, do we just need to put up more signs or reminders, or do we need to actually put like, you know, symbols on the bins and just make it clear what the expected action is?
[00:32:51] Do we need to start taking those steps and then actually see if we can go get a leader in the company also to send out a notification that says, Hey, you may have seen that there is more, you know signage and symbols around what we want. This is important, you know, . So you're trying to figure out through influence. How do you manage across your company? How do you manage up? Those are incredible skills. For employees to learn and in truth, if you're succeeding, you know, I've seen that type of thing on a resume. You know, I was on the green team at name your company and we we increased recycling, you know, compliance by 25 percent and you think, oh, okay, this is a person. Who the soft skills that are really important that I want in my company too.
[00:33:34] So I think , that's just, that's the way you got to go about it.
[00:33:38] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Totally. I completely agree. And yeah, I think the, how to move people, how to influence people is probably one of the most core human skills that we learn or should learn at work. Cause you're right, Josh. It shows up everywhere and I don't even think it ever ends depending on how senior you get.
[00:33:56] Like I think it continues to every level of leadership. So I'm really glad you called that out. I want to go back to the scenario of the woman who sent out the teaching video, because a lot of what we support leaders and managers on is like, okay, what do you actually say? Like, what do you say in that situation?
[00:34:19] I think sometimes when things are awkward like that, you like lose your words. There's no language like, you don't have to obviously, you know, we say exactly what. , what do you say? Like, what, what is the way that you enter into that conversation? How do you make the person not feel really embarrassed or to ignite even more anger, frustration, passion in them, but how does that go?
[00:34:42] Josh Dorfman: Yeah, it's, you know, you're saying that and I'm having this, this flashback, I think I learned it from my, mom, my family's business is a children's sleepaway camp. Up in New Hampshire
[00:34:53] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Oh,
[00:34:54] Josh Dorfman: my parents ran it together for 25 years. my brother runs it now and, so you have like 250 staff.
[00:35:00] They're coming together for, you know, 10 weeks. He got kids coming up for the summer and my mom, you know, it almost used to become like a joke because they'd be like, Oh, here comes Jancy. She's going to make me go on a walk. And you knew if she was making you go on a walk that you were going to have one of these conversations.
[00:35:13] And, for me, my brother, we didn't actually go on walks. We just were told what we needed to, but that also became my style of kind of management this way. So I, I remember in this specific instance saying, why don't we get, let's go on a walk, you know, and say, kind of get out of the office setting, go a little walk.
[00:35:31] You're moving and say, look, I know this is, this is important. Right. To you, it's important to the company. We're not doing enough. You're absolutely right about that. Whatever the words are, the message that needs to be conveyed is like.
[00:35:47] You want the company to recycle more, I want the company to recycle more. But the way that we're going to get there is not through a video like that or communication that makes people feel bad about what they're doing because what that's going to do is have your message not be heard. And, , to me, that's the thing that needs to be communicated just very clearly, and once you say that to someone who is, you know, has some self awareness, they know, right.
[00:36:17] And so, you know, it's, it doesn't take a lot of conversations like that. It might take more than one, but I think , just really calling out the, the behavior, right. It's like, you're right. Right? You're absolutely right in what should be happening, but the reality is right to be effective. specific behavior, right?
[00:36:36] And you know, we all know this, like getting into the specific behavior, right? You're not a bad person. There's but that specific behavior was unhelpful. And let's correct that behavior. That's how I would approach a conversation like that.
[00:36:48] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yep. That totally resonates with me as well. Sometimes we make it too personal. Like, that wasn't appropriate, especially in your leadership role, like, and then, of course, the person either shuts down or gets defensive. But I think that's exactly right which is you find a place of alignment, in some cases, the leader may have a different point of view, right?
[00:37:12] They may not be fully aligned, but I, like finding your way to. What I would call some form of connection, like starting from a place of like connection, I think was a really important call out to then share the specifics of what could be done differently and how much you need to tell the person versus kind of co create the what's a different way we could approach this.
[00:37:34] Josh Dorfman: Yeah, I'm thinking about that now. Emily, like, if I did think at recycler, who cares about recycling? And now I see this, but now this person is someone on my team.
[00:37:43] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Mm hmm.
[00:37:44] Josh Dorfman: Could I approach that conversation? in the same way it, you're right. It would take more work, right? It would take more work on my part as the leader to make sure that I, yeah, wasn't raising someone's defenses.
[00:37:56] Yeah, that's a really good point about finding that where's that common ground to then have the more difficult part of the conversation. That's a very good point.
[00:38:06] Abigail Charlu: Good stuff. Our, our last manager question, the manager said, my company has a pretty robust ESG strategy, but I fear some of the emphasis on this may decrease in the coming years. What do you think ESG policies going forward?
[00:38:26] Josh Dorfman: I would say, of course, that's a very timely question and timely for me because I asked a guest on our podcast, that question just a few days ago and this woman, Britta Von Essen, she's one of the foremost investment bankers for renewable energy. In the country.
[00:38:40] So she puts together really big deals, right? Billion dollar solar plus storage deals. And, and of course, if you're doing deals like that, , policy has a big impact because there's tax credits, there's incentives, right? And so I had a chance to, to ask her, like, , what does she think is going to happen?
[00:38:54] And this is the E of ESG, right? So that's more, , the environmental of, , environment, social governance. her response was, well, at least with regard to the environmental side, if you go back 20 years, the policy environment is constantly shifting at the federal level, at the state level, you know, some things go into place, some things get sunset.
[00:39:15] You know, you're getting paid if you have solar power on your house, maybe that's getting reduced. Maybe now they want you to have batteries. , she's like, so the industry, if, you just look at the growth curve of clean energy today, right,, and I was actually just looking at this data, you know, in 2024, it was the first year that global investment in clean energy doubled.
[00:39:38] Fossil fuel investment. And the numbers, it was. Two trillion dollars invested into cleanest solar, wind, hydro, electric vehicles and about a trillion, and it's, it's starting to flatline, maybe decrease slightly for fossil fuels, and that trend line, I mean, it's crazy to look how, how fast that investment dollars are flowing and it's not just through the Biden administration. , I mean, it goes back over 1520 years. And so that really hardened me made me feel hopeful. Her view is, you know, when you start looking at, which is.
[00:40:09] Where we are today from a technology perspective and a cost perspective, the cost of solar , it's gotten to the point in the cost of wind that if you're going to create new energy and you're not doing renewables. Then you are violating your fiduciary responsibility to your investors, because those are the cheapest forms of energy.
[00:40:29] And so the economic argument for, you know, for the continued momentum, , is, is really strong. Now, the thing that I would say that we still have to wonder is. Two trillion dollars is massive, but if you look at the International Energy Agency or the folks who are compiling all the data, what they'll say is it's got to be, it's got to double again by 2030.
[00:40:51] And so that's the hope, but , it's almost incomprehensible , how much momentum is in place. I mean, the numbers are still so massive of where we need to go. But I'm hopeful too. And the last thing I would say is. When we started to do super cool, there were three things that we were looking at that made me feel this is a new moment for progress around climate.
[00:41:10] And certainly one is technology. Like I've talked about, I think you've had a decade of, you know, nascent technologies developing, maturing, getting to a commercial scale now being proven. We're seeing like Popeye's and Sonics and Taco Bells. They're all swapping out their old equipment and getting new energy efficient equipment.
[00:41:30] It's like, it's, staggering. And so, you know, and you certainly see what our federal government has done in terms , of. hundreds of billions of dollars, and that's been emulated by governments and other countries. But the thing that I love is that there are 13, 000 cities that are united. I believe it's the mayor's covenant on climate and energy around the globe and
[00:41:50] At least 600 of them are in the US that are all have action plans in place around climate, and they've turned their cities and their towns into living laboratories for
[00:41:57] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Mm hmm.
[00:41:58] Josh Dorfman: And that's not changing. That's only ongoing in one direction, where there's more and more of that. And, that's where I draw inspiration because this really is now a global movement.
[00:42:09] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Thank you for saying that. The stats, , the proof I think that's, that's really grounding and as you said that the trajectory is on kind of a positive track and why couldn't that continue? That's
[00:42:23] Josh Dorfman: I'm so glad. The way I feel today is the way I felt. 20 years ago, when we started building the lays environmentalist, I mean, I'm fortunate to be in a position where I'm, I'm seeking solutions where we're covering solutions. certainly the climate changes are a reality, right? You can't just. Change the reality, but you can change your perspective on on it. Right? And so you can seek out doom and gloom, and you don't even really have to seek it out. It's just you just turn on the news and there's doom and gloom, but you can seek out solutions.
[00:42:54] You can seek out to understand, you know, what is proactively happening and that, just psychologically. It can have such an impact on how you can feel in your daily life. There's no question. Yes.
[00:43:06] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: That feels like a, a, a metaphor for life right now. You know, you can see a lot of darkness fear, tragedy, right? I mean, little literal tragedy and you can also see hope and I'm just so, I'm grateful that you're helping to shine the light on what's possible and what's actually happening that is evidence that yes, while we have already had an impact on our planet, it does not mean it's only going to continue to exacerbate it, like an exponential rate of Demise.
[00:43:43] And that we play a role in it. Like I love the stories of anybody can drive change either like within an org or creating new solutions. And yeah, why shouldn't we be the leaders who help? those people to find their voice, you know, even if it's in small ways, you know, within our organizations or who knows, like maybe you have somebody on your team who's the next, , kind of entrepreneur out there.
[00:44:07] And because of the way you listen to them and held space for them or coach them on how to bring their ideas forward, it positioned them to do something incredible.
[00:44:17] Josh Dorfman: Yeah, I think that's a great summation. And I just think that thing that's still triggered for me is that, you know, it's not Pollyanna to say, I'm going to go look for solutions and I'm just going to have this space. It's not denying the problem, but I think the more we cultivate the, the seeking of, of what is good that's out there, , and we can hold on to that, the easier it is for us to, to then contend with and deal with what is clear catastrophe that still is also underway, . Right. We're more buoyant.
[00:44:49] We're more girded to be able , to, you know, see the world and it's good and see the tragedy but do it from a place where we still feel more hopeful, more powerful. I think that that's very helpful for , cultivating a helpful state of mind.
[00:45:03] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: So true. So, so true. Josh, thank you for the work that you're doing between Plantd and putting all of this knowledge out there on Supercool. I'm really happy to know you and to know that you're helping all of us through the work that you're doing. So thank you and thank you for joining us and helping us to think about it in the context of how we lead and manage.
[00:45:26] Josh Dorfman: Absolutely. My pleasure. I appreciate the chance to talk with you about it.
[00:45:36] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I feel so much better having spent time talking with Josh, and I hope you do, too. I think we need proof at times that innovation happens. It can change the trajectory we're on in this case, of the health of our planet and that it can come from anywhere. I think we have a stereotype that we're just going to keep waiting for things to get worse and worse, but there's people of all generations who are showing us that that is not the case. That they are doing the work today to find solutions to some of our toughest environmental challenges.
[00:46:09] The takeaways for us to consider are.
[00:46:11] How we lead with empathy, as well as guidance to our teams on how you bring forward your desires to drive positive change, how you share your frustrations, in ways that can enlist others versus alienate them.
[00:46:28] and how we, can. Believe that while we're at a difficult point in time in terms of climate catastrophes and, you know, kind of an uncertain political landscape that the trajectory we're on still is positive. And there is so much reason to have hope.
[00:46:50] For the start of this new year in 2025, we are going to be taking your toughest people management and leadership questions and situations and answering them. So you're going to get free coaching that will help not only you. But your colleagues who also are a part of our let's talk people community.
[00:47:17] So send them in. You can either send an email or do an audio memo. You can send it to Abigail on our team at Abigail at a rose group. com. So again, you can send in either a written note, an email, or an audio memo to Abigail at Abigail at a rose group. com. We will anonymize what you share, so it will remain highly confidential.
[00:47:41] And you will also be very, very clear when you listen that we'll be answering your questions and giving you the advice that you desire on your challenges.
[00:47:54] Thanks for joining today’s episode of Let’s Talk People. For more insights, visit arosegroup.com and connect with me, Emily Frieze-Kemney, on LinkedIn and Instagram.
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That’s a wrap, friends. Until next time, when we come together to talk people.
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