Todd:
Well, welcome to the podcast. We are honored today to have Frank Reid, who's the senior manager of diversity, equity, inclusion at Blue Cross Blue Shield, also, a former member of our board of directors and the person most responsible for the DEI work that we're doing at the Chamber. Frank, welcome.
Frank Reid:
Thank you. Thank you. It's great being here, Todd.
Todd:
It's good to see you, my friend. Well, I'd like for people to get to know you a little bit, so a little bit about your background and maybe something about you that wouldn't be on your bio.
Frank Reid:
Wow, how much time we got?
Todd:
Let's hear it. We're good.
Frank Reid:
So I joined Blue Cross Blue Shield two years ago. And prior to working with Blue Cross Blue Shield, I was consulting and actually, started consulting after a career in the human resources area, spent over 30 years in HR and was fortunate enough to lead several HR departments for a couple of multinational companies. Retired, took a little time off and then, started by consulting. And eventually, I wanted to pursue this passion I had in diversity, equity and inclusion. And the timing was such that it happened right around the time when we started to deal with some of the social unrest issues and some of the police reforms, which led us to what we're doing at the Chamber currently. So all this stuff kind of collided at the same time.
Todd:
That's so true.
Frank Reid:
And it created the opportunity for us to say, as a Chamber, what role do we have to play, and doing our part?
Todd:
And I think it should be said, you came to us from Minnesota, correct?
Frank Reid:
That is correct.
Todd:
Okay.
Frank Reid:
That is correct.
Todd:
So big change.
Frank Reid:
Huge, huge. But we were fortunate enough, we had a place here so we could get away from the tundra every now and again, come down and thaw out before we had to go back. And I think in 2015, '16, we decided to move here full-time. So it's been a great move. It's been great being a part of the Phoenix community, and its been great becoming a part of the Chamber and being a part of the business community. It's been fun.
Todd:
Well, and you did, you hit the ground running when you got here, and I think you got engaged very quickly, which was really nice. Tell us something about you that's not on your bio.
Frank Reid:
So a couple things. My guilty pleasure in life is my monthly pedicures.
Todd:
Okay. That's awesome. All right.
Frank Reid:
Oh, sure, I-
Todd:
A good guilty pleasure.
Frank Reid:
Oh, I cannot do without my monthly pedicures. And another is that for years I was a drummer in a jazz band.
Todd:
Those are two good ones.
Frank Reid:
Two good ones.
Todd:
That's a top five right there.
Frank Reid:
The rest of them, my wife promised that if they asked me the question, not answering it-
Todd:
No go.
Frank Reid:
... just to cut it off-
Todd:
We'll leave it there.
Frank Reid:
Okay. Good deal.
Todd:
Excellent. Well, so DEI, I will say, probably before meeting you, I really hadn't had a lot of exposure to it. Maybe for people who maybe haven't heard a lot about it or wondering, what is it and why is it important?
Frank Reid:
Yeah. Yeah. So Todd, it's really interesting because DE&I, the three words, diversity, equity and inclusion are, of themselves, not very controversial, but somehow or another, it's kind of morphed into something that has become a controversial or kind of a topic that nobody wants to discuss. But the reality of it is that when I think about diversity, equity and inclusion from a layman standpoint, without trying to do a professional definition, I heard someone say, years ago, "Diversity and inclusion is like, diversity is extending an invitation for you to come to the party, and inclusion is asking you to dance when you get there." So that's kind of the one way to look at it. And then, the equity part has to do with making sure you create a kind of level playing field so that every employee, no matter what company they work, have an opportunity to reach their full potential.
So when you hear those things, there's not a person in the world that will say, "I disagree with that," but somehow or another, we've allowed... And this is one of the things I hope we get to talk about when we talk about companies who want to start on this journey because they realize that they really need to be doing something to help create an environment to retain your employees and to have those employees fully engaged. Because I say, oftentimes, that working on DE&I and making sure we get engagement is just like a personal relationship. If you feel that you're putting more into the relationship than your partner is, it's not sustainable. And work is the same way, if employees feel like they're working for companies that don't care about the things that they care about, they will never get engaged.
Todd:
It's hard to have their heart and soul.
Frank Reid:
And then, at some point, it's unsustainable. At some point, they would just check out.
Todd:
Well, and you tell a really interesting story about, I think, a moment for you that was kind of an eye-opener when you all interviewed a young lady, I think, that was someone who you all really wanted to hire and she ended up not coming, not accepting the offer. You want to talk a little bit about that?
Frank Reid:
Yeah. So in my previous life, we had an MBA program and we recruited from the top schools in the world, both Cambridge, we did Oxford, we did Harvard, and we did NYU and several other schools. But we had a group of about 12 female college students that were in MBA program that we had come through our organization. And actually, Todd, it was six that we ended up offering jobs to, all six turned us down.
And we immediately do what most companies do, you get together and you do a debrief. And everything was about blaming the applicants, the candidates. And we didn't have any issues with us, so it was the candidate. And I just felt like there has got to be some reason that these six young ladies said no to us when they didn't even know each other, they were from different schools. And so, I decided to call them and we had a conversation. And to a person, every one of them said, during the interviewing process, they loved the company, they loved what they heard, they loved what they saw, but the one thing that was missing for all six of them is that they did not see any women that looked like them in leadership positions that did the interviews.
And the interesting thing about this, and this is why we get into things like being intentional and benign neglect, they all turned us down because they didn't see women in that leadership rotation during the interviews, but the company was 60% women and 60% of our leadership team were women. Because there was no one being intentional about those interviews, they assigned someone else on their team to do the interview in their absence. It wasn't important enough to interview, so they had someone, a junior level person do it.
And we started to realize that when you're not intentional about doing something, you unintentionally create other issues. And so, in addition to having a firm understanding of DE&I, the other word that I would say you need to really understand is being intentional. Nothing happens in a company without someone intentionally saying, "This is what's going to happen," and owning it.
Todd:
And I think that's something you instilled in us [inaudible 00:07:12]. So it's interesting. So you've got this idea of these simple concepts, which they are, they're simple. And you're right, no one's really going to disagree with those. And certainly, there's a bottom line component to that. Why are there so many misconceptions?
Frank Reid:
So I think a couple things, Todd, and my career, one of the things that I think is that we allow, this is companies and individuals, we allow people to create the narrative we accept. So whenever we say, "All right, this is something we want to look into, as a company, we want to do DE&I," and oftentimes, rather than sitting back and understanding, as part of the toolkit we did for the Chamber, before you start getting into the weeds of DE&I, you have to answer three questions for employees in your company. Why are we doing it? What is it? And how do we accomplish the goals [inaudible 00:08:06]? Why, what and how, those are the questions that you got to tackle before you start trying to figure out what you're doing.
And oftentimes, people jump into it, they start trying to do the thing and it fails. And so, it becomes like, "Well, we tried it, it didn't work, so we won't do it anymore." So that's one of the controversies, "We don't want to invest the time because we tried it and it doesn't work."
The other thing people talk about a lot is, talking about things like race and talking about things like inclusion and equity is uncomfortable and we shouldn't be doing that in an organization. And the other thing, Todd, that I think makes it controversial is just the whole narrative, we have in our mindset, for most of us, that in order for someone to gain something, someone has to lose something.
Todd:
So addressing that narrative. Correct.
Frank Reid:
So the zero-sum game.
Todd:
Yes.
Frank Reid:
And when you see the world in that point of reference, you can see why people refuse to accept changes and they refuse to accept being in a different place than they are now and they can't see the longer-term. And I just think that understanding, what is your narrative for why you want to do this? What does success look like for you? All those things have to be discussed with your leadership team and your employees. And you need to come to a decision that says, these are the things that we think will measure success in our company. The easy thing for a lot of companies to do is to say, "I sent Frank to the conference. He saw three or four presentations, and he comes back and says, "We ought to do this."" And inevitably, you're going to fail because no two cultures are alike. No two management teams alike. And not all of us are looking for the same things when they're looking for success within this whole construct of diversity, equity and inclusion.
Todd:
Well, it really is interesting. And I think our journey, to your point, it turned from sort this idea, you and I sort of talking about something very intentional. But maybe talk a little bit about how this happened at the Chamber. I think it's a really interesting story.
Frank Reid:
Yeah. So when I joined the Chamber, fairly early on joining the Chamber, I set up a lunch with our chair at the time, Sarah Strunk, who was, I think, the chair at Fennemore Craig.
Todd:
Yes, she was.
Frank Reid:
A very dear friend of mine. And we were going to have a lunch and it was going to be a lunch to talk about protocol at the Chamber, talk about the different committees, and for me, to just kind of get orientated to what my life was going to be like working on the Chamber.
But unfortunately, Todd, our lunch happened the day after five police officers were murdered in Dallas, Texas. Correct. And we found out later that they were murdered in response to another murder of a blight young man in another city from the cops. And so Sarah and I sat there at lunch and we were just kind of having small talk. And then, she finally says, "Before we get into the Chamber stuff, I want to ask you a question, how do you feel about what happened?" And that started. And that conversation, we both agreed that what was really important is that we pulled you in as soon as we could to talk about what role and responsibility does the Chamber have in touching the lives of over 2,000, 3,000 businesses. What role can we play to help create a situation so we don't have to deal with what Dallas is dealing with?
Todd:
Correct.
Frank Reid:
And from that meeting, we pulled you in and had a meeting. And then, from that meeting, we start to get an idea of what success looked like for the Chamber. And the one thing that we constantly heard, Todd, was most of the Chamber companies felt we needed to be doing something we just didn't know what the heck to do. And so, we felt like we could provide them with the toolkit and a way to take a look at where they are in their maturation process. Because the key here is starting the journey at the appropriate place, like you wouldn't teach a third grade kid trigonometry. So you have to figure out where's the point of contact? Where do I need to make contact with this organization to start this process?
So we started realizing that because the Chamber had a vast number of different types of companies from all industries, all sizes, we wanted to do something that would allow every company from two employees to 2000 employees to look at this toolkit and figure out where do we need to fit in and then how do we build from there? But the toolkit is not designed to give you the answers, the tool kit is designed to help you think about the approach. And that's the hard part. The real tough part of DE&I is not doing the stuff, it's trying to decide what success looks like for your organizations.
Todd:
So true. And I'll give Sarah so much credit for giving you all that latitude. And what people might not know is that it wasn't staff, you took a group of HR, DEI professionals from the board level, and I mean, it was six solid months of work. This would easily be a couple of hundred thousand dollars out in the market if someone had done that. And you built this out and that's what we have today.
Frank Reid:
And it's a great... And it's meant to change, so you do your part and then you pass it on to the next part. But I got to tell you, Todd, it was a labor love, a lot of fun, a lot of hard work. But anytime you build something that's special, there are a lot of eyeballs and hands touching it. So if I could just take two seconds, Dora Garnett from Slalom was very critical and a very key part of the team, Amy Sena from State Farm, and then we had some other folk who've kind of passed through and they're no longer here in Phoenix and they moved on to other places.
But once we got the product done, we had to kind of take all of that stuff and pass it over to you guys and Janelle on your team, and her staff and marketing was able to take this thing over the finish line for us. And I think all of us, at the time we needed to kick in and do our parts were there, and we were able to hand it off to you guys and you did a beautiful job. And what's really neat about what you guys have done at the Chamber is not only are you using the toolkit, but you guys are now implementing some of these concepts within the Chamber, which is great.
Todd:
Yeah, I mean, we had to answer those questions too.
Frank Reid:
Oh, you are doing it.
Todd:
You are a hundred percent correct.
Frank Reid:
Oh, you're doing it. Yeah.
Todd:
What I like about this is, I mean, if large corporations, your IBM probably has their own way of doing it, but for a lot of us, where do we start? And to your point, we had to look at this since we had the process, but then, okay, what's success look like? And it's incredible what's happened at our Chamber and how that's evolved and it's really impacted our culture, our company culture, in a big way. Can you talk about that a little bit?
Frank Reid:
Yeah. So one of the dichotomies in building a strong DE&I foundation or organization is that you're also battling building the right culture. So when a company, by the time DE&I rolled around, let's say, for the most part, we've been doing it in some form or another, it was called affirmative action in the '70s, so a lot of different things, but now it's DE&I, and so, most companies have a pretty developed culture that they hire to. So people who are interested in working for you, most of the leaders of the company, the number one thing they look for is a company fit. And the dichotomy to that is if you have a culture that you believe is a strong culture and it's a successful culture and you're hiring to a fit, it almost works diametrically opposite to inclusion.
Todd:
So you're saying we interview a person, a candidate, a team of folks, and when that person leaves like, "Well, pretty qualified, but I don't know about the fit, I don't know if they fit," you're saying that's probably the opposite of what we need to be doing?
Frank Reid:
That is the problem because as long as you're hiring to a fit, you never get diverse. So it's not anything that's bad or good, it's just something, again, being intentional. If you're trying to create an inclusive environment, then by nature, you are having to bring people in different than you are.
Todd:
Which can be uncomfortable.
Frank Reid:
Which is uncomfortable and it doesn't fit your culture. So you're constantly having to examine those things. And a good strong HR department can make sure that the conversation is taking place. But that would be one thing I tell people all the time about a culture, the danger with the culture is if it's a successful culture in your mind it almost dictates the type of people you bring into an organization. So the balance is finding the diversity and maintaining a culture at the same time.
Todd:
Otherwise, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Frank Reid:
That's right. That's right. You never get to that point where you have that kind of representation across the board. And the reason we got to do that, Todd, is because the two big reasons, and this is why I don't understand what's so controversial about this, if you have multiple types of customers buying your product, at some point, they want to see their buying power represented in your organization. And if they don't, then that raises questions and it also could affect you in the marketplace when you're being compared against other competitors.
And the other thing, quite frankly, the example with the young ladies I was telling you from the college MBA program, if people look at your organization and they don't think they see a healthy representation of the world or the country that we live and work in, then they don't want to work for you. And the number one thing I share with young talent, and I have a son who is fairly early in his career, and the thing is, if you can't see it, you can't be it. So if they don't see someone representing leadership that looks like them, then, "I don't know if this company's committed to doing that." And so, it's a very complex... It's a lot of moving pieces and parts, but it's not impossible. And the companies that do best at this are companies who are intentional.
Todd:
And to your point, it's a stretch-
Frank Reid:
It is.
Todd:
... because it's not what you're used to doing.
Frank Reid:
It's not what you're used to doing. I have been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to work in enough companies to know that the companies that I thought I was at my best was around the teams of people that were not like me because all of us have blind spots and the more successful we are, the more we feel like we don't. But when you don't have blind spots, you have things happen like companies roll out major marketing campaigns that they pay hundreds of millions of dollars to roll out globally, and three days into a rollout, they're having to pull it off the shelf because there's an offensive character-
Todd:
There's a blind spot.
Frank Reid:
... that they've used. And whenever someone like me, as a Black American, see something like that, my first thought is if they had a Black person in the mail room, they would've found out before this thing was sent out that you can't send this out without upsetting a lot of people. And so, the fact that they were a fairly homogeneous population of people and everybody had the blinders on, they were all feeling good and agreeing and they roll out a campaign that two days later they had to pull back, the CEO had the issue an apology.
And the challenge happened when the CEO issued the apology, you had several Black leaders in the company who came forward and said that what she said is not consistent with how employees are treated in an organization, and she ended up resigning, that board ended up resigning and they kind of started over with this company. And those things, you think about it and you go, if there was just one person on that leadership team that had the sensitivity to say, "Let's check this out before we do this," that entire fiasco could have been avoided, but you got to be intentional about it.
Todd:
Well, I think you're right. It made me think of the example of GM or Chevy when they decided to move into Mexico and they wanted to sell the Chevy Nova, which in Spanish means it doesn't go. If somebody had been in their leadership team would've said, "Hey, you probably want to call it something."
Frank Reid:
Something else. Yeah.
Todd:
Yeah? It's a great example.
Frank Reid:
Simple things like that. And so, one of the things I really try to help people understand is this is not controversial, it's hard and your company will benefit tremendously from it if you're intentional about what you want to do and you take the time to really figure out what works for your organization.
One of the greatest companies we have in the valley here that is known and has been known for years for their work in this space, DE&I space, is ADP, they are a model company. And what happens with a lot of folk when they go to conferences and ADP presents, they want to take those concepts and kind of front-load them into their company. And when they don't work, they write it off as, "It doesn't work for us."
But you got to put the work in, you got to build the right culture, you got to understand what success looks like for you because it may be different than ADP's success. And so, like different companies have different financial results, we all have different goals and objectives and DE&I is nothing more than just understanding what does success mean for us and trying to figure out a way to measure it and then trying to put together a plan to get after it.
Todd:
And I noticed, at least at our shop, I think, the team kind of looked at me and said, "Well, are you in?" And if I hadn't shown my willingness to be a part that, I think it would've been hard.
Frank Reid:
It is tough. And one of the greatest things about life for those people who are working in companies where the leadership team is 100% in, it can be exciting, it can be fun, and eventually, it becomes a part of our culture and people start to grow and learn. And the other point I make, Todd, and I didn't mention this earlier, is education is a huge part of this journey. And so, we still do things that are based on 100%... The reason we are vested in this is because we want people to learn. And we know that the more you know about me, Todd, and the more I know about you, the harder it is to hate each other.
Todd:
Absolutely. You go have a cup of coffee with somebody, it makes it a lot harder to hate them.
Frank Reid:
And the other thing I tell people when I hear DE&I and hear people bantering it around and the vitriol and the angst, and I said, "Think about it this way, how can you be an effective leader of people that you don't understand? How can you be an effective colleague of a coworker if you don't take the time to understand? How do they approach problem-solving? Why aren't we communicating effectively? Why is it when I see this and we look at the same thing, we see something different?" All of us bring our shared experiences to the table when we go work anywhere and the more you can allow people to be accepting of each other's personal life experiences, the more it's easy to understand that, "Okay, Todd didn't see what I saw, but I understand why he didn't because this is his background."
Todd:
But I think that's always what I've noticed that people get really nervous like, "Am I going to say the wrong thing? Am I going to do the wrong thing?" And I think you were always really good with it, explaining to us, "Look, if you're trying, people accept that." But talking to a business leader right now that's watching this thing, "I want to do this, but I'm afraid that I'm going to be out of a job if I say the wrong thing," what do you tell them-
Frank Reid:
Absolutely. Absolutely. That's part of doing the work. And people say it, and I know it sounds cliche, but you got to create a safe space. And I don't say safe space just because talking about some of this stuff is not easy no matter how safe it is. But just an example of, another example of, real life example, and I think, if I'm not mistaken, the company was Starbucks. After the George Floyd situation, they felt this burning need to do something and did not probably spend the time doing the prep that was needed. So someone at the senior level, I don't know if it was a CEO or someone at that level, decided they were going to have a company-wide two hour discussion via Zoom on race and I think they shut it down after 15 minutes, had several resignations afterwards, out of control, and the CEO had to end up apologizing to the entire workforce.
And so, when you see that, it's hard not to say, "I ain't going to do that." So I would rather not touch it than to do it. But I would tell you something, I think that in the situations that I've been involved in in my career and throughout my career, if people know you're genuine about learning and you're asking questions because you want to know, because you think it can help you grow as a person and as a colleague and as a leader, people are willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. But if they don't think it's genuine, that's when you have the problem. But in most of the situations I've had to deal with in my career, very few have been someone saying the wrong thing when you create the right culture.
Todd:
So I'm hearing intentionality is a key part of this, authenticity and the time.
Frank Reid:
Yes.
Todd:
You need to take the time. Anything else that you would tell the business that think they want to get into this?
Frank Reid:
The biggest thing is, your leadership team has got to have a strong, strong self-awareness, you can't start this process without that because the people who know you best are the people who work closest to you. And so, if they don't think that you are aware of your shortcomings and what you do and don't know... In fact, when I was growing up and working, it was almost like a fatal flaw to admit you were wrong to your staff, a manager would never do that, a leader would just kind of stay the course and even if you were wrong, you would stay the course and you'd bluff your way through it because it was key to be strong. And the workforce we have in place now, they just don't buy it, and matter of fact, they think you're an idiot.
Todd:
Yeah. I think you're right. You have to be-
Frank Reid:
So different work, different time, different place, different mentality, different workforce. And one of the things that I find very effective is when you are in tune with who you are and you're self-aware, it allows you to have those kind of conversations with people and not have that angst and uncomfortableness around you.
Todd:
I do. And I think people recognize that.
Frank Reid:
Oh sure. And even today, as someone who is leading the DE&I charge, even now, when I'm working with a group that I've not had a lot of life experiences around, I'll say, "Hey, I got a dumb question." And even though we try to work in an environment where we say, "The only dumb question is a question you didn't ask because you had the opportunity to get the answer and you chose not to, that's dumb, so there are no dumb questions," but sometimes I feel like, yeah, this is a little dumb and I probably should know this.
But growing up in the Southeast in Georgia is a lot different than growing up in the Southwest in Arizona, a lot of different cultures, a lot of different history. And I'm still learning, but I tell you what, I embrace it and every chance I get to learn something new about it... Another thing, Todd, is cultural curiosity.
Todd:
Yeah, true.
Frank Reid:
If you have no desire to learn anything about anybody, you shouldn't be working in an organization, you should be self-employed. But if you really truly want to be the best at what you do with colleagues, with leadership or whatever, you've got to have some level of curiosity about different cultures.
Todd:
Well, I know we've all learned a lot from you and hearing these stories and hearing the approaches, and I think you also provide some really good examples. That takes me to resistance to change and so, that seems to be out there. And I think we've talked about this, but is it better to pull people along with you or to push them into this word? What should it look like?
Frank Reid:
So yes. I think if you're truly trying to create an environment or culture to have people learn and grow, you got to give them that space to push back. But you got to have a positive response and you got to have an approach because a pushback with nothing following that it's not constructive. So you build a process to allow those disagreements to take place and to allow those different opinions to take place. But Todd, when I was doing this as a consultant, with all of my clients, I would say, you got to create the space for people to have those differences of opinions and you got to create a space where people can have discussions, meaningful discussions, and some spirited discussions. But at some point, you got to shut it down and say, "This is the direction the organization's moving because this is a part of our values."
Todd:
Right. Well, it's a value discussion?
Frank Reid:
That's right. And it becomes a value discussion. And the piece for all of us who are driving these initiatives is trying to figure out how much runway do you give people to have the discussions and at what point are the discussions over now and the company has made the decision that this is what we value? And I've seen CEOs say, "If you can't get comfortable with these things, then maybe this is not the right place for you to be working." And it's not personal, it's not vindictive, it's just you should always strive to work at a place where your personal values are consistent with the company values.
Todd:
So with that, I know that one of the things that I think was impactful for me, you talk about the fact that as we learn, we get very excited we've learned something where we're very passionate about it, but don't assume the next person is where you are.
Frank Reid:
Absolutely.
Todd:
I think that's so important.
Frank Reid:
Absolutely. I agree with you. And all of us on this journey to learn about other cultures, other ways of life, how people perceive life, we are not all getting at the same place at the same time. Being able to say, "This is where I am now and because I'm ready to be there, I'm not expecting everybody else to be there and I have to give the grace to allow people to work through whatever it is you need to work through to get there." And I don't think we are that far away from creating a kind of an environment where people can get to be accepting of others and our differences, but timing is always the issue. And Todd, the thing I share with people is there are some things that I look at our past president who did not openly start to accept gay marriages until his second term and after going through four years, and I think the term he continued to use was evolving.
Todd:
Oh, President Obama.
Frank Reid:
Yeah. "I'm getting there. I'm not there yet." And he was very open about it. But then after six years of presidency, he finally said, "I'm there. I've evolved." And we would all want, as a Black American, I want everyone to think everything that should be right and good with the world should happen tomorrow, but it doesn't work that way. And I think we need to build a grace and we need to build a sustainable approach to keep all of us focused on the things that really can help make a difference and not get sidetracked with some of the distractions that we see all over the place right today.
Todd:
Absolutely. And I think that's a perfect way to wrap this up. Before we do finish, we're going to do a quick lightning round with you.
Frank Reid:
Okay, lightning round.
Todd:
All right. So just these are quick answers. First job?
Frank Reid:
Baskin-Robbins.
Todd:
What did you learn there besides ice cream is good?
Frank Reid:
Well, I didn't learn that either because I worked at Baskin-Robbins at Six Flags Over Georgia. And when we first started, when the park opened up, we had 31 flavors. And the line at the park during the summer was almost two and a half miles in the park. And we realized that half the folk was sampling all the ice creams, so we figured out that we probably need to do strawberry, vanilla, chocolate, and one sherbet and the lines started to move.
Todd:
So what'd you learn from that job then?
Frank Reid:
I learned I would never want to do it for a living, I'd go home with wrist cramps. It'll take two days for me to be able to get used to my hands again.
Todd:
So do you go to Baskin-Robbins now?
Frank Reid:
Hadn't been in years.
Todd:
Okay.
Frank Reid:
No, hadn't been.
Todd:
All right. So obviously, you love your job, but what would be your dream job?
Frank Reid:
So I've always, as an athlete, played ball in both high school and college, so I would think probably coaching kids.
Todd:
Nice. And you've done some of that?
Frank Reid:
Yeah, I've done a little bit of it, but I would love to be one of those guys that had five state championships over a 10, 20-year period with a bunch of kids and you get to watch them all grow up because nothing warms my heart more than seeing someone pretty raw and watching them develop and grow. And now, one of the greatest joys of my career is having people who I work with and have been colleagues with on staff now becoming CHROs in other companies.
Todd:
It's phenomenal.
Frank Reid:
It is pretty neat to see it.
Todd:
I agree.
Frank Reid:
It really is. Well, I agree with that.
Todd:
So if you didn't live here, which of course we're happy for you to do, where would you want to live?
Frank Reid:
Switzerland.
Todd:
Switzerland?
Frank Reid:
Switzerland.
Todd:
Why?
Frank Reid:
Love it. Love it. I worked there for years, fell in love with it. I like the culture, I like the scenery, I love the mountains. I love the weather. Even in the winters, their weather's not super extreme. And summers are all in the 70s. I love Zurich. Our office was in Bern, I love Bern Switzerland. I'm more in tune with the Bavarian side of Switzerland rather than Italian or the French side. But yeah. And the food.
Todd:
Yeah, I can imagine.
Frank Reid:
Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. So I do. I do. Yep, Switzerland.
Todd:
You're making us hungry.
Frank Reid:
Yeah.
Todd:
All right. And the last one, so Derrick Hall says, we want you to come play for the D-backs, what would be your walk-on music? What would be your song as you walk to the plate?
Frank Reid:
Wow. And the only thing that pops in my mind is the Eye of the Tiger.
Todd:
Hey, that's a good one. That is not a bad one.
Frank Reid:
Yeah, but well, with my luck, I'd played the song, get everybody hyped up and then strike out.
Todd:
We won't tell Derrick that.
Frank Reid:
Okay.
Todd:
Well, thank you for spending so much time with us.
Frank Reid:
Enjoyed it, Todd, enjoyed it.
Todd:
And Frank, thanks for your leadership. You absolutely changed the course of our organization and hundreds of businesses here, if not thousands of businesses here, plus you should know that the toolkit that you built is now in use in Chambers around the country.
Frank Reid:
Yeah. Fantastic.
Todd:
So we thank you for that. And we'd love to have you back sometime.
Frank Reid:
Fantastic. Enjoyed it.
Todd:
Thank you, sir.
Frank Reid:
[inaudible 00:36:01]. Right. Thank you.
Todd:
All right.
Frank Reid:
All right.