91: Why Most Leaders Get HR Wrong and How To Fix It With Celeste Warren

What role should HR truly play inside organizations? Compliance police? Culture architects? Or trusted business partners? In this episode, Celeste Warren — Global HR and DEI leader, consultant, and author of The Truth About Equity — joins Sean to answer that question with 40 years of hard-won experience. 

Celeste shares her journey from leading HR and DEI at Merck to launching her own consultancy, and explains why equity is not a “nice-to-have” but a core business strategy. We dig into how HR can become a force multiplier, what inclusive leadership looks like in practice, and why today’s leaders must learn to facilitate hard conversations in an increasingly polarized world. 

If you’re leading people and shaping culture, this conversation gives you actionable strategies and a long-term playbook for equity that drives business results.

Main Topics & Timestamps

• [00:39] Celeste’s career journey — from Merck to launching her own practice
• [04:50] Why HR isn’t compliance police — it’s a strategic partner
• [09:29] The CEO–CHRO partnership and how culture flows from the top
• [14:23] Building influence as an HR leader — business acumen and persuasion
• [23:35] Why Celeste wrote The Truth About Equity — and why DEI is under attack
• [27:36] The pendulum swings: social activism, backlash, and the speed of change
• [35:58] HR’s role in building inclusive policies and guiding hard conversations
• [43:24] Why facilitating productive dialogue is now a core leadership skill
• [44:49] Where to find Celeste’s book, consulting, and YouTube channel

Links

• Celeste's website: crwdiversity.com
• Book: The Truth About Equity — Amazon link
• Celeste’s YouTube: Celeste Warren Equity
• Connect on LinkedIn: Celeste Warren
• Subscribe to Sean’s newsletter: www.nolimitleaders.com/growth

No Limit Leadership is the go-to podcast for growth-minded executives, middle managers, and team leaders who want more than surface-level leadership advice. Hosted by executive coach and former Special Forces commander Sean Patton, this show dives deep into modern leadership, self-leadership, and the real-world strategies that build high-performing teams. Whether you're focused on leadership development, building a coaching culture, improving leadership communication, or strengthening team accountability, each episode equips you with actionable insights to unlock leadership potential across your organization. From designing onboarding systems that retain talent to asking better questions that drive clarity and impact, No Limit Leadership helps you lead yourself first so you can lead others better. If you're ready to create a culture of ownership, resilience, and results, this leadership podcast is for you.

Transcript

Sean Patton (00:00)
My guest today is Celeste Warren, Global HR and DEI leader, consultant, speaker, and author of The Truth About Equity. With nearly 40 years of experience, she's helped reshape corporate culture worldwide, making equity practical, accessible, and a driver of success for everyone. We had such a rich pre-interview conversation to get ready for this, ⁓ and we have so much to talk about. So this is going to be, I feel like it's going to be like rapid fire because we have so much we want to talk about in a short time. But thanks for being here Celeste, I'm excited for this.

Celeste Warren (00:32)
Thank

Thank you for the invitation, Sean. I am excited as well,

Sean Patton (00:42)
And you you retired after a long career at a large pharmaceutical company called Merck and started a new chapter as a consultant. ⁓ we were talking a little before we started rolling about the changes in lifestyle and, and skill sets, but what, motivated you to, ⁓ to move into this next phase of your career?

Celeste Warren (01:02)
Well, I have actually been planning for this for a few years. ⁓ A colleague of mine said to me about five or six years ago, said, well, Celeste, what do you want to be doing in five years? And you hear that when you are interviewing for a role. I remember hearing that years and years and years ago. It's what we tell college students as well, when they're out and they're getting ready to go and get their first full-time job. But I didn't really have a plan.

I was basically saying, you know, well, I'll just do this thing for a while and when I feel like retiring, I'll retire. And ⁓ that was not a good way of thinking about how you plan for whatever your next chapter is gonna be. And so about three or four years ago, I really started making plans for, okay, what do I wanna do post-merge?

And I couldn't see myself as somebody who retires and then just doesn't do anything. I believe I have a purpose in life. And I looked at my role as the Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, not as a job, but as a calling. Because it was a job that I sort of ran away from for a long time in my career. And so I know I'm in this job for a reason. And so it wasn't something that...

I was going to stop doing. And so when I started thinking about what do I want to do post, do I want to continue in this work in diversity, equity and inclusion? Do I want to maybe be more general? Because I had many years of experience, decades of being a HR generalist. And I felt I wanted to focus on how you optimize the level of an organization through its people.

through understanding their individuality, through understanding how you need to create a more diverse and inclusive team in order to be successful. So it's a little bit of everything, but it really is bringing it from a broader perspective down to the impact that diversity, equity, and inclusion can have on a people strategy, on a culture strategy, on a business strategy.

Sean Patton (03:21)
Hmm. You brought up, you brought up how your, you know, had decade, as you mentioned, as an HR general. So you've been in that field and that people leadership field for so long. And, ⁓ me being in the executive coaching and leadership development space, I work.

with HR departments and sometimes I get to work with them and sometimes I feel like I have to work against them or around them. And I'll tell you a common problem I see and I want to hear your take on it. So common problem I see, and any HR people listening, maybe you're screaming in your car right now, but the problems I see are oftentimes there's sort of two paths where you get...

I would consider sort of HR dysfunction. So one is that people see HR either as the compliance police or ⁓ they see them as the sole owner of people development. So the current managers or leaders sort of saying, well, that's not my job to develop my people. ⁓ And I want to know, is that, do you see that dichotomy out there? And is it a false one? Is there another role that they should play?

Celeste Warren (04:36)
Yeah, it's absolutely a false one. I can't even tell you. So in different companies, close to 40 years in that space, how many times I had people tell me, managers and leaders say, well, you know, that's your job. That's your job in HR to manage the people, to put out policies and things like that. And with any group that I was,

leading ⁓ from an HR perspective, any client areas that I had, that was something that I, it was like taking your fingers on a chalkboard and scratching for me. It was just so annoying because as a manager and as a leader, your job is to manage and lead. That is your job. My job is to help you and provide resources, provide counseling, provide coaching to help you achieve that.

But at the end of the day, you are the decision maker. You're the D, the manager and the leader. You have the D and that's your decision. I will help you in your journey, but that's not my job. My job is to provide resources, policies, practices, procedures to help you to be a better manager and leader of your people. ⁓ That is full stop, that's it. And I have seen that as well.

And in different industries, it's different across different companies, I think. But there was definitely a few decades ago that HR was looked upon as the compliance, the police, if you will. And ⁓ what people need to understand that

HR should be looked at as no differently than how you would look at your manufacturing leader, your sales and commercial leader, your research and development leader. The only difference, they have to have business acumen, but they're doing it through a lens of how do we optimize the people in the organization to make sure that we're able to meet our business mission and vision.

That's how HR needs to be looked at if they're going to continue to evolve as an HR function in organization and continue to be relevant. Because you have legal, you have compliance, you have ethics and integrity, you have all these different organizations, ombuds organizations within a corporation that are responsible for compliance, if you will. And ⁓ if HR doesn't stress, you know,

become more strategic, become more, okay, how do I look at it from the standpoint of the business? How do I know what is keeping business leaders up at night? And then what are the people interventions that need to happen in order to achieve those goals and block away those obstacles and those barriers to optimal organizational performance? They're gonna wither away and die at the mine. I laugh, Sean, it's sad, but.

the whole scandal at the Coldplay concert that was in the news and memes and everything forever, the CEO and the HR lead. It's like, my God, is that such a cliche or what? And it is like happening right before my eyes. And I remember when I first saw it and I was thinking to myself, that has set back HR single-handedly probably decades ⁓ because there are people who

For whatever reason, they just don't trust HR, they don't trust business partners, et cetera, and ⁓ don't, especially employees, individual contributors, individual leaders. And that's a shame because that trust, you can't be successful as an HR person. You cannot be successful if you don't have the trust of the organization. You might as well just go and find some other thing to do.

Sean Patton (08:53)
So as leaders in organizations, your senior leader in organization, how do you, let's just look at it from different lens. So let's look at the very top. So C-suite level, CEO level, owner level. How do you ensure that you set up HR, ⁓ your human resources, department and leaders?

How do you establish a culture? it systems? Is it SOPs? what, how would you actually set up a culture so they become a, a ⁓ positive integrated force into the larger company? Like, it also, is it making sure that they're involved with and contribute to strategic business vision? Is it tying, you know, policies directly to business outcomes? So everyone sees ROI. Like what, how do you approach that?

to ensure you have that healthiest culture so that HR can be a force multiplier inside the company.

Celeste Warren (09:52)
Sean, I think it's art and science. So the science part of it is it starts with the CEO, it starts with the board, and then it filters all the way down to the executive team and then all the way down through the organization. If the CEO and the CHRO are aligned, are integrated, the CEO looks to that CHRO as a trusted partner, a trusted confidant.

a trusted business leader and is visual about it. That's where the art comes in, is visual about it, not just with his or her executive team, but also in public spaces, in town halls ⁓ with all employees, with his leadership team and the leadership team below. He is demonstrating what effective partnership with an HR leader looks like.

He's showing it. He's showing it to his team. So they mirror that behavior with their HR leaders. ⁓ For my career, when I was a generalist, I was the head of HR for our manufacturing division and also the head of HR for many of the corporate staffs as well, IT, HR, ⁓ communications, legal policy. And I made sure that I had a very good relationship with my lead client

with that business leader. So that business leader, so let's take manufacturing. the head of manufacturing at the time, we were joined hip to hip and we discussed things, we talked about things. He saw me as a trusted partner and confidant. And we would demonstrate that in the manufacturing leadership team meetings as well. He would turn to me, not just about people stuff or culture stuff,

But he would turn to me and he would say, well, what's your thoughts, Celeste, around ABC strategy and supply chain? What's your thought around this? What's your thought around that? And he would demonstrate that partnership with his team in those meetings so they could see what good looked like. And that was really important for me because then when I was with my team, who were the business partners for those senior leaders in manufacturing,

I basically helped them to understand what good looked like and that when their senior leader is asking their opinion around certain things, they needed to make sure that they understood the business of supply chain, of quality, of technology, of et cetera, fill in the blank. And so they would be that trusted advisor. So it was an art and a science.

it goes through the organization business partner to ⁓ line client. I think that is very, very critical because people see and emulate what they see their leaders doing. And the relationship with their HR partner is very, critical. If they see them disrespecting them, then they will disrespect their HR partner.

Sean Patton (13:11)
love that call out of also if they see them only go to the HR person when it comes to compliance or hiring firing or other check the box whatever you call it you know that's the only time they ever go or get that input that's also demonstrating that's the role HR plays in the in the culture so I love that

Celeste Warren (13:21)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Sean Patton (13:37)
creating culture intentionally at the top so they can set that relationship. And so let's speak to those HR folks. What I'm hearing you say is, you're an HR leader or you're in HR, what you need to be focused on is, besides developing that relationship, is you need to have ownership and responsibility for understanding larger business practices. And if you can't speak intelligently about like,

how the business runs in other divisions and sectors and understand the big picture, you're not doing your part to be able to step up and create that relationship. Is that what I'm hearing from you?

Celeste Warren (14:15)
Absolutely,

absolutely. It's not enough to just have a seat at the table. You need to know what knife to pick up, what fork, what spoon. You need to understand the essence of what's on the plate, what goes where, and all of that. You have to understand all of the aspect of your line client's business, because you can't be successful. They will not look at you as a credible source of ⁓ information.

Sean Patton (14:43)
So let's get tactical then, because I love that as a vision and a strategy. So you're talking everywhere from ⁓ HR business partner with individual contributors to VPs to say, like, whatever level you're at. Right now, you're speaking to them. What are the steps? What's the plan for them to be able to step into that role? What are your expectations for them? What should they be doing?

Celeste Warren (15:09)
Yeah, so the first thing, as I said, was having strong business acumen, knowing your client group backwards and forwards, ⁓ understanding what keeps them up at night, what are the key issues, and then understanding how you can create strategies and interventions to be able to remove obstacles and barriers. And I'll give you an example. ⁓ I traveled with our manufacturing leader all over the world. We had like 40 or something different plants in different countries.

and we would travel ⁓ to these different plants. And we were about to embark on a strategy, a manufacturing strategy to really look at how do we ⁓ better integrate the various different plants in the system so they're more integrated, more interdependent ⁓ across the network. And so he had been talking with his engineers, he had been talking with his quality people, he had been talking with all of those folks that

live and breathe inside the plant and inside the network and outside of it, call it above site. And so I'd been in all of those meetings and listening and it was very clear to me that what he wanted to do, what they wanted to do to evolve the supply chain ⁓ system, they didn't have the essence of what they needed, which was, okay, you have this strategy,

But now, are you structured appropriately to be able to implement that strategy? And so I needed to be able to have a conversation with the head of the division. And so I took the opportunity when we were sequestered on the company plane coming back from wherever it we were coming back from. I had not a big 20, 30 slide deck.

three slides on paper that I was ready to talk to them about it. And I introduced it by saying, know, we've been doing all of these meetings. We had a great meeting, XYZ plant that we just came from and talking about what we were trying to do to make it a more interconnected network, what needed to happen, what type of technology we wanted in place, da da da da. And I said, but let me ask you something. Do you think...

that we're structured in the right way to be able to deliver on what you see as your vision. And he looked at me and he said, well, what do you mean? And the structure that was in place was one that had been in place for, you know, it predated both he and I in our roles. And I said, because when I look at what you want to do in the technology space, in this space, in that space, the way that we're structured now,

does not facilitate being able to enable an integrated and interdependent plant system across the 40 or so sites. so it perked up his ear because anything that you say that says you're not going to be able to achieve your vision, this plan that all of a sudden it's like, well, what do you mean? And I said, you thought about everything else and your team has thought about everything else except for how do we deliver on that with the people?

and where they're structured right now. And so as a result of that, I had the conversation and I had been thinking about it through all of these meetings that we'd had. And in three very clear slides, was able to say, here's the way we look now, here's what you wanna do, and in order to deliver on that, this is what we need to look like. And of course there's a lot of detail underneath all of that, but it got him thinking,

And we put in place an entirely new infrastructure to be able to implement his vision in that strategy. that took, that's how you influencing and making an impact. Influencing skills are critical for HR people and being able to speak the language, understand the essence of what they need to get done. And I was able to put it in a format, sitting on a plane and pitch it to him in 15 minutes, literally.

and then go into the details as he's asking me questions around, okay, well, what about this and what about that? You need to have all of the detail in your, you and then when you sit down with them though, you need to just have the tip of the iceberg, if you will, and let them just see the tip and then get them intrigued. And then they start asking questions and then you're able to show all of the other stuff. So that's to me how you develop that relationship. You have to do it from that perspective. And then,

From that point, was getting with my team. And I had actually been with the team ahead of that discussion with the leader. And we had been working on that together. And then it was, you and their thought was, you know, manufacturing guys and engineers, don't think, and that's just not, they're not wired that way. ⁓ And so thinking about it from a people perspective. ⁓ my team, after we had put everything together,

They said, well, Celeste, know, this is all well and good, but how are you going to make them see that this is what needs to happen? This is a pretty big undertaking. And I said, let me worry about that for now. And then ⁓ let me just come back with you and say, I'm going on this trip. I'll be gone for a week. When I get back, we're going to be ready to go. And that's exactly kind of what happened. ⁓

Sean Patton (20:59)
Mmm, I like it.

Celeste Warren (21:03)
But you have to be able to, you have all of these yells, you know what you need to do, you know what you need to put those interventions in place, but you as a leader, as an HR leader, you need to be able to influence and you need to do it in a way that makes them ask more questions about what you're talking about.

Sean Patton (21:27)
I know I, when I'm hearing from you, you know, as I take that away as a HR leader at any level is like one, you've got to make sure you're in the meetings and in the rooms and having that where these business conversations are happening. Then you need to build relationships and ask, ask right questions and build the, your understanding of where they want to take the business and then be able to have the ability to create a, a. ⁓

people plan or influence and be able to ⁓ sell or influence them with your plan. Does that sound about right? That's awesome.

Celeste Warren (22:04)
Yes, that is exactly it, Sean. That is exactly it.

You can have good ideas, but unless you're able to get others to see that it's a great idea and then have a strategy for how you put it together and how it comes to from an idea in your head to an actual implementation plan, it's just an idea.

Sean Patton (22:29)
Mm-hmm. I couldn't agree more. think it's funny, was, and maybe I'll amend this one day ⁓ when someone or myself comes with a better one, but better construct. But I was thought of like, are the three sort of skill sets that separate people that truly like reach their full capacity of like success and influence versus those who don't. And I always think it came down to like sales, public speaking and leadership.

Celeste Warren (22:54)
Mm-hmm.

Sean Patton (22:55)
Like those,

like you need to be able to like persuade, you know, one person and whoever that is of, of what you want done or what your idea, then you need to be able to communicate it in mass. You mentioned like beginning with your whole team, right? ⁓ cause otherwise you're going to, can't just run the whole company one to one. And then once the vision's emotion, you've got to lead the team to do it. And so if you can't get those three things down, you're sort of like destined for, you know, ⁓ individual contributor or low level manager for.

Celeste Warren (23:07)
Mm-hmm.

Sean Patton (23:25)
for your ability to influence outcome, I think.

Celeste Warren (23:27)
Yes,

yeah. Influencing is so very, very critical. I mean, taking it and then, you know, I laughed about how I didn't want the cheap diversity role. I didn't want it because I was so passionate about diversity inclusion. And then I'm sitting in the manufacturing space. I have a great relationship with my client. I am integrating inclusion and diversity and equity in the people strategies, in the work that we're doing in, you know, in ⁓

sailing along, great relationship with my client, loved my team. And then, you know, I get asked to for the third time, by the way, you can only say no two times. That's it. And I consider myself a generalist. was like, I'm a business partner. That's what I do. That's what I love to do. I don't want to be a specialist. And so

But you can't say no to your boss a third time and or to the CEO, which he came into the play as well. And so in that space, it was you talk about influencing. my God. All of the the skills that I developed as an HR practitioner and leader were on steroids in this specialist role.

Sean Patton (24:54)
Well, that's obviously you are passionate about that and continue to be passionate about that because that's what your new book is about, The Truth About Equity. So what inspired you to write that book now?

Celeste Warren (25:08)
Well, over the past two three years, we've seen this attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion. It didn't start with the new administration. It was happening before then. And I had been able to strategize and manage it.

as the chief diversity officer in the company. But really keeping a pulse on the external environment. And it was just very disheartening for me that number one, as a black woman, seeing that it was being politicized, it was being weaponized, it was being bastardized, all of those things, and for the wrong reasons. And then also as a

D &I leader as an HR leader, people not understanding that this was the essence of how you are and become a good manager, a good leader, a good business person. You have to understand as a leader and a manager, you have to understand the people on your team, their individualism. You have to understand what they need

to be able to optimize their performance, what they need to be a better team member on your team and meet them where they are and provide them with whatever those resources are to make them a better performer. You want a team with good performers. You want as a leader, an organization where you've been able to say, how do I get the most from my people?

And these are not robots. These are individuals who have different needs, come from different life experiences, come from different cultures, and their needs are different. And so how do you put things in place to bring them along to that collective purpose that you have as an organization? That's diversity, equity, and inclusion. Being able to say, okay, I have different people, that's diversity. I have different perspectives. They have coming from different life experiences.

I need to make sure that I'm surrounding them with a culture of inclusion so they feel empowered and able to be able to do what we need them to do. The things that I put in place are the acts of equity to get Joe from this place to this place, to get Jane from this place to this place. And they might be different things and different levers that you need to pull. And so it's that from that perspective of being a good leader.

And also from a business standpoint, if I'm going to be able, whatever industry I'm in, if I need to be able to meet the needs of my customers, I need to understand the needs of my customers. I need to understand ⁓ what are the obstacles and the barriers that are getting in the way of my product or services being able to help them and meet their needs. And I have to segment the customer base.

and you segment them on a variety of different aspects. And those include their demographics. It includes the differences of the diversity of them. It includes their backgrounds, their cultures, all of that. That's marketing 101 and sales marketing 101. And people are not understanding that's the essence of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

It's people strategies, it's leadership strategies, it's management strategies, it's business strategies. And so that's what I try to help people to understand in this book, the truth about equity, what it really is, what it isn't, and why everyone wins when we get it right. It isn't a dirty word.

Sean Patton (29:21)
When you look back at that, said, you know, started before this even previous administration. Where'd it go wrong? Like, why did this start?

Celeste Warren (29:29)
Yeah, Sean, you know, that's a good question. Throughout history, and let's just talk, it happens globally, different countries, but let's just talk about the United States for now. Historically, there has been, whenever there's been a heightened, heightened social activism, whatever that the social activism might be, whenever it has been heightened,

you find right after that throughout history there is a swing or a pendulum swing back to a more conservative side as a reaction to the heightened social activity. You saw it, you know, back in the civil rights movement, you saw it in the LGBTQ plus movement, Stonewall, you see it in the women's movement and suffrage. You see

Social activism, and then all of a sudden there's some aspect of conservatism that sort of swings the pendulum back. And this happens throughout history. Throughout history, it's just a fact of life. And so after the murder of George Floyd in 2020, you saw that heightened social activism. And then it started by 2022, just two years.

You started to see this narrative around, we went too far. ⁓ that's preferential treatment. ⁓ It's not inclusion, it's exclusion of certain ⁓ identities. ⁓ You've forgotten and left people behind. All of that narrative started happening and it started happening through

various different anti-DE &I activists, different things that you were seeing on social media. And it started sort of, it was like a crescendo. It started small and then it just started just developing and developing and you started seeing signs of it in 2023 with the SCOTUS decision, with the Harvard and University of North Carolina. You saw it with Roe v. Wade. You started seeing things happening.

⁓ that started giving you an indication that, we're starting to see that pendulum swing again. And then, you know, in the height of all of that, the election last year to what's happening now.

Sean Patton (32:14)
Hmm. There's so much. mean, thank you for that explanation. And, you know, it's also very interesting that I think that this is what I'm seeing and you can feel free to disagree, is because of technology and the speed of communication, along with the, ⁓ increased use of algorithms and in people's feeds.

that there's a pace of change, as you mentioned, pendulum almost both ways, right? Like there's a pace of change that can happen even from a social activist side, let's say, right? That used to start in, know, if you, I don't know, go back to maybe like anti, know, whether it's like Vietnam War or Civil Rights, like it started in a few epicenters and like slowly rolled and sort of hit this crescendos, as you mentioned, maybe that's over years.

Celeste Warren (32:50)
Hmm?

Sean Patton (33:13)
Now sort of like, can feel like those things are happening in months or in decades, right? Or actually in months or like in a year, it's like, okay, here are the things that we want to see or want to change. a lot of times, well, and they're good, a lot of things that could be like really good things where they have a really good perspective, but they like go out as soon as someone hits send instead of, and on top of that,

they didn't get vetted through the ABC nightly news to sort of like give a different thing. And so we have so many people that are living inside of their own echo chambers and seeing reactions to it or seeing only the extremist version of whatever perspective is being put out. And so then the pendulum swinging in that same sense harder, you know, the other way. so you're a

Celeste Warren (34:06)
Yes.

Sean Patton (34:09)
You're so right. And it's, it's such an interesting time because while we may see one or two those pendulum swings over a lifetime a few decades ago, like in our parents generation or something, I feel like that's one reason, especially, you know, I'm 42 people that are even younger than me are feeling so much chaos because they're seeing these pendulum swings, as you mentioned, happened in two year increments instead of 20 year increments. Does that, do you think that is, something where we're sort of

Celeste Warren (34:30)
Mm-hmm.

Sean Patton (34:39)
dealing with as a society right now in this space.

Celeste Warren (34:41)
It's absolutely whiplash. It's exactly it. Sean, with the advent of technology, social media, AI now, you can go on and I mean, I've seen it. It's scary when it happens to me. You know, I'm on whatever platform and I like something or I

spend a little bit more time reading something, all of a sudden, bam, next thing I know, my feed is just that echo chamber. Everything is that. You see it for the simplest things like on Instagram, all of the sponsorship ads or whatever. I see some outfit that I like and I look at oh, that's nice. All of a sudden, within seconds, all of these different...

vendors in solicitation on my Instagram feed of the same type of thing, same types of outfits or same types. It's just, it's scary. It is very, very scary. And you're absolutely right. Because of this admin of technology and the sophistication around the AI algorithms, you can be swung so far to your whatever point of view.

that you don't hear or see or understand or don't even have that ⁓ filter that basically says this is not right or this is incorrect information or misinformation or disinformation. You don't have those filters in place. And it's funny because ⁓ I started ⁓ downloading

news feeds direct to my email that basically they advertise themselves to say we are not affiliated with any party, we're not affiliated with anything, we bring you the news full stop. And that's what I read when I want unfiltered news. I go and I get this newsletter every day and it's basically it's unfiltered it just says this is what's happening you can

interpret it however you want to interpret it, but this is what's happening. And because it's so easy for people to be stuck in their way of thinking and get corroborating, whether it's right, wrong, or indifferent, get corroborating feeds that support their mindset without being able to see. What that does is it basically on a

either an individual basis or aggregate basis, it supports whatever viewpoint that you have and everybody else is wrong. You can't even have a good debate because you're just not even seeing different perspectives at all to be even able to have a healthy debate and conversation and dialogue.

Sean Patton (37:52)
I totally agree. And we have people living not just in two sides, living in like two different Americas, but increasingly four or five, six different, ⁓ depending on what you're into and what you watch. ⁓ And so knowing that that's the environment sort of external to whatever company you're in, like that's just like the societal and technological environment we live in. And we're aware of that. So now inside of companies, when you talk about

Celeste Warren (37:57)
Mm-hmm.

Sean Patton (38:20)
DI or just, you know, yeah, just like if you have a DI or you talk about knowing that that's the environment that your whole employee base is living in outside of work. So what role can HR and DI play in a way that brings people together to create a collaborative team, knowing that outside of this, the world is in some ways pushing them up to the extremes or apart.

Celeste Warren (38:49)
Yeah,

more divisive outside. So basically, one of the things that needs to happen and it's very, very important that it happens. by the way, Sean, this is not easy because people don't just shrug off the external environment when they come into work. It's a part of them, especially depending on what identity that they are a part of and what community. But it starts with the foundational elements of your company.

⁓ mission and their vision and, you know, the foundational elements of, you know, we treat people with respect, we treat people with dignity, we have ethics and integrity, and we want and support an inclusive culture where everyone can succeed or thrive regardless of how they identify. So you start with a core value statement and not just a statement, but

It has to be alive within your organization. People have to see it demonstrated by leaders, managers, et cetera. They have to see them demonstrating inclusive leadership and all of those things that we talked about earlier. So it has to be a core value within the organization. And then you put change in communication strategies together to be purposeful and planful.

about how you build off of those values. ⁓ Each leader has, they have staff meetings, they have one-on-ones, they have ⁓ town halls. You need to make sure from a communication standpoint that an organizational change standpoint that you're reiterating these values, not in a performative way, but in a real way, in an authentic way.

As you are talking about your giving your business highlights in a town hall, you're talking about various different things. You need to make sure that that is woven into and integrated into your overall message, whether that be through emails, through whatever, but you need to make sure that you're doing that. have policy HR people, need to look at your policies, look at your practices and procedures and say, is it?

being inclusive? Is it inclusive of everyone? Are we leaving anyone behind? Are we leaving different perspectives behind? And if we are, how do we make sure that we are rewriting those policies so they are more inclusive? And then also too, looking at what you don't have as policies. ⁓ Last year, had, you you have all of these differing viewpoints and different perspectives. As I said, they don't shrug them off when they come into the workplace.

And so managers were struggling with, ⁓ how do I do this? How do I, do I say, remember years ago, you don't talk about politics in the workplace, you don't talk about religion in the workplace, you tell a millennial or a Generation Z that now they look at you like you have three heads. And so one policy that we didn't have in place was how to effectively talk about things in the workplace.

And so guidance and personal expression in the workplace. And you might think, the boomers and the Gen Xers say, well, we had those rules. We were told when we came into the company, an unspoken rule was you didn't talk about politics, you don't talk about all that stuff in the workplace. You just talk about business. You talk about this and that. Well, that doesn't work in today's world with the generations now. And so how do you predict?

productively have those conversations in the workplace. And we leveraged a framework from a friend, Mary Frances Winters in the Winters group with how do you have bold, inclusive conversations in the workplace? And we leveraged that and taught people, not just managers and leaders, but individuals, employee resource groups, et cetera, to have productive dialogue and what that looked like and what it didn't look like when it was

unproductive dialogue and how that manifests itself. So a lot of work had to be put in place to be able to do that. And looking at our policies and saying, well, you we don't have guidelines for personal expression at work policy. Why not? In this day and age, every company needs to have it. A policy for, as a corporation, our external and internal engagement strategy.

When are we going to speak up on an issue? When are we not going to speak up on an issue? What are those principles by which we would? So people understand them. And you don't get people saying, well, the company doesn't care about x, y, and z. They haven't spoken about it. They haven't this. haven't that. If you're able to say, when we are saying, if we are thinking about speaking up on an issue, either internally with our employees or externally, this is the thought process and the decision tree that we go through.

These are the principles that we take it through in order to say what we're going to do, if anything. And once employees understand that, then they say, OK, I get it. Yeah, I understand why you didn't speak on this issue, or I understand why you spoke on this issue. ⁓ It's better. But those are the things that HR needs to do. They need to look at their current policies. They need to say,

in this day and age, what's missing and what's not missing, and then effective change in communication strategy.

Sean Patton (44:35)
And there's, so there's two things that I just want to call out. I thought were so brilliant. One was the time when the heated social, whatever it is, is top of mind. Everyone's, uh, you know, or everyone or certain groups are fired up about it is like not the time to have the discussion on why you're going to have, like not the, not the time to determine whether you're not going to have the, have a position on it. Right. Like when it, like,

beforehand, like laying out, these are our values. These are the things we will, these things we won't. This is why everyone's on the same page. So then when whatever thing pops off or becomes a maybe decisive or controversial issue, you're like, no, no, we decided this last year. Like, you know, this is how it fits in, not seeming to be reactive to the moment, right? ⁓

Celeste Warren (45:06)
Yes.

Yes.

Sean Patton (45:31)
is going to be so much better received by your company and probably the general public. ⁓ And I think when you don't have that, see companies struggle with that messaging and flip-flopping or saying one thing internally or one thing externally or having it not aligned and they're having to backtrack. And as opposed to saying, we put this out, we decided this years ago, this is where we stand and when we will, I won't speak out. So I think that's a great call out. And then also I love the way you

Celeste Warren (45:35)
Mm-hmm.

Sean Patton (45:59)
Structured the the role of HR and a leader. is a leadership issue and an opportunity to Gain in a skill set. That's going to only become more increasingly Important and critical is the ability to facilitate Productive difficult conversation like how do you set ⁓ a place that's psychologically safe and open?

for two people to have, like, it wouldn't be great if your business can be the place that becomes the town square where people, two people can have a spirited debate or discussion around an issue they're passionate about and have it be about an issue, but still maintain trust and respect for each other. Like, how cool is that?

Celeste Warren (46:45)
Mm-hmm. Yep. Even if you agree

to disagree, you walk away from it still treating the other person with dignity and respect, and you can go and work on that marketing strategy in the next meeting and not be sitting there looking at them and... You know, because when you don't have that productive dialogue, you can't... It's unbelievable how that...

Sean Patton (47:04)
Yeah.

Celeste Warren (47:13)
transfers into the rest of the day. Because most meetings, you're back to back to back to back meetings. three meetings later, you're still thinking about that exchange that happened. And believe you me, there's a lot of passive aggressive people in corporate America who they're sitting in a meeting and they remember the conversation, the unproductive conversation that you had in the cafeteria or in the hallway by the water cooler. And it manifests itself in behaviors

Sean Patton (47:31)
You

Celeste Warren (47:43)
in that meeting that are definitely not productive and definitely get in the way of you being able to do what it is that you're paid to do.

Sean Patton (47:51)
Hmm. So true. And there was, ⁓ there is so much here and we just scratched the surface of all the awesome stuff that's in your book and the work you do with your consulting practice. ⁓ thanks for coming on today. This has been great. So as what people are trying to find you and they want to check out your book. again, we've just outlined this as a critical.

Celeste Warren (47:53)
Mm-hmm.

Sean Patton (48:14)
not just, Oh, that's a great H R you know, a DI thing that we do sometimes. Like this is everything we just talked about today was like critical leadership culture, business case stuff. So this is an issue that we need to leaders need to lean into as a way to strengthen themselves as a leader individually and as, the culture of their company. So where do they find you? Where do they find your book?

Celeste Warren (48:39)
You can find me on crwdiversity.com and you can find all kinds of information there. You can find information that links to lead you to the book. And also the book is on amazon.com, The Truth About Equity. And Celeste Warren, you'll come right up to it. Also you can find, I have a YouTube channel as well, Celeste Warren Equity.

You can go on there as well. And so there's lots of ways to find me. I'm on Instagram. I'm sorry, not Instagram. I'm on ⁓ LinkedIn. ⁓ I love conversing with people. So check me out in either CRWdiversity.com on LinkedIn. And let's start up a conversation.

Sean Patton (49:24)
Awesome. Thanks so much, Wes.

Celeste Warren (49:26)
Thank you, Sean.