Evolving Culture for Industry Success with Bonnie Tully of Evonik

And I think one of the things that's important about that is, uh, is to get that engagement with them is, um, your social media presence. It's, it's so huge.

Um, Hm. Mm. Mm. We dug deep into the evolution of industry roles, the future of work and the critical need of middle management. In maintaining employee cohesion. Bonnie shared her transformative experience, starting a plant in Singapore. And highlighted the importance of respect and cultural inclusivity, and a really unique collaborative approach for solving team conflict.

We also talked about the ongoing war for talent and how innovation and sustainability are a key attractant for future talent in the chemical industry. This episode. Is a lesson in leadership and culture. Now speaking of leadership, head on over to the chemical show.com/leadership. To download the guide to top 10 career and leadership lessons from chemical industry executives.

These are insights that are harnessed from dozens of interviews that I've done with industry executives this year on The Chemical Show. And we provide not just the insight, but also some actions that you can take as you reflect on how you want to. Develop as you go into 20, 25 and beyond. So again, that is the chemical show.com. Slash leadership. And by the way, Bonnie's tip, which is the power of speaking up is number five on that list. Don't miss it.

But what I think is interesting about Bonnie, what some of the insights she brings, is this diversity in her career, in terms of types of companies, size of company, different experiences, is. Starting up plants in Singapore and helping to build things building organizations here and throughout it all recognizing that culture and people and evolution is part of this so /Thanks for joining me today Bonnie You've been part of the industry for your entire career, right?

Um, several companies and countries, how is it different today versus where it was when you began early in your career?

So, um, but when I think back over my career, um, Three things come to my mind really. So technology has changed a lot since I started my career, but we've talked a lot about that already today. Um, And then the two other areas I think have changed a lot and they go a lot with culture is I think the concept around safety has changed a lot. So when I started my career, he said started working for Rohm Haas right here on the Houston ship channel.

And, uh, you know, it was kind of like "accidents happen, you know, like you try, you try really hard to not get anybody hurt, but you know, sometimes things happen." And, and, um, if you, you know, So if you doubt that, I challenge you to go watch the old movie, Urban Cowboy, it's a 1980s movie and just watch that movie.

You can, you don't have to watch the whole, you know, writing the, the, the mechanical bull and all that, but how they represent, um, the chemical industry and working in the refineries. And, you know, it was just a real cowboy culture, right? Some days you make it, some days you don't. And, uh, we know now, no. can go home safely every day, and we can control that, um, in our industry. So I think that one, and then I would also say, I'll call it, uh, regulations or, um, respective regulation.

So again, uh, let's just, just start talking in round numbers, uh, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act. They come around 1970. All right. I started my career and I saw it 1990. And when I came into the industry. There were still people who were fighting the Clean Air and Clean Water Act. They were, there was still legislation fighting it, uh, in the courts.

Um, and I think if you look now and you look, you know, I don't think anybody would argue against the Clean Air and Clean Water Act now, like we all like clean air and we all like clean water. But I bring that up because that has been a major change. And, um, it's, uh, been something that society wants as a culture, the culture wants this change. And I also think it gives us some kind of some messages around the sustainability changes that are going on now.

I feel like that is what it felt like 30 years ago, where you still have legal challenges and some people are accepting it and some people are fighting against it, but the tide is moving in a direction. So I think 30 years from now. We'll be looking back and saying, like, Oh, I can't believe we were fighting whatever, you know, uh, Carbon Capture. What were we thinking?

So, but, but it's, it's really with the people in the vast majority of people are in manufacturing operations, supply chains, the things that are producing, moving, et cetera. Um, how do you see, um, How do you see that evolution? And I think there's this aspect, certainly with sitting where we are today in 2024, where people are fighting the going back to work and back to the office, and yet manufacturing has never left the manufacturing office.

Do you see bigger differences today in manufacturing versus non manufacturing roles? Is it all part and parcel of the same?/

So, um, so I'll talk about the operations people in a moment. Like you said, they never, they never left. But if you talk about people who are like in home and in the, um, corporate offices, um, right. As you know, as we all had to leave the offices and we had a lot of managers saying like, I need to get my people back. I need to be watching them. I need to be seeing what they're doing.

And that's how, the only way I can control, uh, whether they're going to be, you know, productive or not that message in, in a short period of time, maybe six months. You know, I really don't want employees that I have to manage like that. I want, I want employees who self manage. I don't want to have to worry. I want to be able to give them tasks. I don't care where they're sitting in the world. And it's one of those tasks done and that self managing self motivated.

I see that, uh, in the, uh, people want that in operations people as well. We want, we want operators, uh, uh, who are self managing and self motivated. Um, and. I think if you look again, it's, it's been fun kind of thinking about this because if you go back, uh, again, when I started in the, in, in, um, in the industry, you had some people that they just wanted to be order takers. They wanted their shift foreman to tell them what to do.

And then they would do that task and then they would wait for the next task. We don't have operators like that anymore. We have people who are, who are quite self-driven. And I, I always say, um, when I look at the control rooms, uh, in our, in our plants, and we have about 45 here in North America and we have hundreds across the world, those, uh, control rooms and what those operators have to do is more complicated than like an airline pilot. You'll look at it.

I mean, look at a cockpit and then look at what our operators are running. I think our operators have the harder job. So. To do that, you need somebody who is self managing and self motivated. So, that's why I think they're so similar.

That's Data, Data. I always think about like Data, like Star Trek Data, right? Something that's, that's as part of the team that you can ask them, you know, How, you know Data, how many Romulin ships are around us, and this is 491 or whatever, right? Um, as part of the team, you're gonna have your expertise and you're gonna have data, and you're gonna be interacting with each other, um, uh, to solve a particular problem. But I That's down the road.

Yeah. I think there's some, uh, we still have a ways to get there, and right now we're still, we're still very organizationally structured. And, uh, one of the trends I, I'm kind of, it's kind of, uh, making me nervous right now is, uh, wiping out middle managers. So I don't know about your companies, but I know my company, everybody's getting lean and mean and taking out middle managers.

And you just saw Google's getting rid of 13, 000 or, or rumored, rumored to be getting rid of 13, 000 middle managers. Well, you know, that future that I talked about where we're all just kind of working in projects, trying to solve the problem. We're not there yet, and right now, a lot of the care and feeding of our employees happens with those middle managers. They take care of the people. They keep people connected to our companies.

They help develop people, and all those things about, you know, people don't leave a company, they leave a manager. Well, if there's no manager there, there's not gonna be a company. People aren't going to be connected to their companies. And so this is, so I think where we're going again are going to be these self organized teams, but in the interim, um, I don't like this trend of losing middle managers and I think we're going to be worse for it as a, as an industry.

It's stressful when you're executing it. It's stressful to be the person that you're told, Hey, you know, one of you guys is going to go because we're getting rid of your lair. How do you help people navigate that?

If, if you've got no other tool, have one tool, which is that like sit, when you sit across from that person, realize they're another person, how would you want to be treated if you were sitting in that chair? And I think a lot of times it's, you want, you want to. You want to be dealt with honestly, like you said, Hey, some of this is just the reality. And, and I think, uh, people want to know what's really coming.

And, um, uh, you know, being able to hopefully help them find whatever the next opportunity is, whether it's within the company. Or outside the company. Um, but, uh, you know, these are, these are never fun conversations to have. And so, like I said, if you have like just one thought in your mind as you're having them, that's what it is.

And um, I'm blessed with a very supportive husband. He said yes. He put his career on hold. We went to Singapore with two little kids. And I was there for five years, two years to build the plant, uh, um, three years to run the plant, uh, and could not have done it without him, you know, uh, sacrificing his career for a few years to be able to do that. So I say all that to say, uh, sometimes, um, people want to be superheroes, super women, super men or whatever.

Sometimes you need help to do that. Um, and, um, So two years to build the plant and then three years running it. Uh, we get there and, um, we, uh, in Singapore, we were able to bring together a very international or Asian international workforce. So I had employees there from seven countries, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, India, China. So, um, and so, um, very early we had to set up some ground rules.

Like, um, we were going to use, um, English, um, In the control rooms and on the radios and that type of thing, which is okay. It's the, it's the language of business over there, but we had a rule that people could, you could go back to their mother tongues in the lunchroom. So I always said it sounded like a mini UN in there, right? Cause everybody, everybody switched back and just get relaxed and go back to their mother tongue.

Um, and, um, but you had this opportunity to set up a culture like from scratch. There was nothing there. Right. And so, uh, when I hired my managers, we really sat down and said, what do we want our culture to be? All right. So you're creating out of scratch, you know, how do we want to treat each other? Uh, what are our values going to be? Um, we're bringing together this international team. How do we get them to work together?

And then, um, and like literally made slides like, okay, we think this will be what our culture should be. And then we hired the employees and then we, Um, we went over that with them. What do y'all think? Good culture? Yes is what you want. Yes, yes, yes. We like, everybody got bought in. Um, we build the plant. We, we, uh, we start up the plant. And, um, like I said, I've, I've, I've started up other facilities, built other facilities. And, um, Any of y'all have ever started up even projects.

I call it, I call it the startup hangover, right? Like, so you have this whole team, you've been working together, shoulder to shoulder. You, you know, you get to the top of the mountain and then all of a sudden everybody starts picking on each other and, and fighting with each other. And, and you're like, what is this? Like, I know these are great people. I know they like each other. They've liked each other for two years and now they're all picking at each other.

And, um, so I brought in a coach. Okay. to work with us. Um, and just see if we could kind of turn the culture around. And the coach and I had set up three days of coaching, very strict, you know, I'll call it very standard stuff, trust circles. And, um, you know, what should we start doing and stop doing and this kind of stuff.

And then at the, on the side, she had this sheet where you could sign up if you wanted to have her facilitate a critical conversation or difficult conversation with somebody else. And we realized after the first day of, of all these, you know, exercises, everybody had signed up on that sheet and every manager had signed up to talk to every other manager and in a meeting. So she now had this list of like, you know, 60 conversations she needed to have.

And so we said, scrap, scrap the next two days. We are just going to let you facilitate one on one conversations. And what we found Was that transition from when you're fighting the big fight to like, just to the day to day minutia of running a facility. You, um, you have to like totally change the conversations you're having with each other. And so everybody got to vent.

With a third party there to facilitate the conversation, you know, what, what you've been doing, you know, is what's been driving me crazy is, and you know, QC got to tell production and production got to tell maintenance and maintenance got to tell RD and I, and everybody got to air all that out. And after that, and I would have never thought of doing that. Right.

But after that, after two days of that, I watched our, like, so we had been like our, um, our operations, you know, we had been running pretty good. As startup. And then we really started dropping off. And then after everybody just got to vent, it shot back up again and our PR our productivity went really went very high.

So I, this was one of my, like a little tip or trick that I learned, uh, that these critical conversations one on one, like if you just ever have that where you're just like, what the heck is wrong with this organization? It just seems to be falling apart. I've gone to it again. I was going I've used it again and and it, it, it helps. It really, sometimes those little, uh, whatever niggling topics, they, they just ruin productivity.

And frankly, even in the non COVID world, when we think about manufacturing and expectation that people come to the office every day, um, it can be difficult. And then, and then adding on top of it, Evonik as well as many companies have a pretty distributed workforce. Number one, how are you tackling this and this attraction, the talent attraction perspective? That would be part one. And then part two is how do you create a unified culture when you're very distributed?

During Covid we were running about 13%, so we're down off the peak. Um, but it's still pretty high. And, um, you know, one of the things that, um, we've, we've seen is, uh, we of course, um, we are now competing with brand new markets, right? I mean, we're losing people to battery manufacturers, to SpaceX, to Amazon, to like, and, um, that is a kind of a new reality and that we have to position ourselves to be interesting. as interesting as SpaceX, but you know what I'm saying?

Yeah. Well, we're not just competing against chemical industries anymore, um, for that talent. So, uh, We have to have a different value proposition. And, um, I think part of that, um, is these topics you've been talking about today, right? AI and sustainability and, um, showing the people who are coming into the labor market, um, that, um, Um, we are cutting edge and that we are the solution providers, right?

And I think if, what we found is if you can just even engage in that conversation with, um, with young people coming out of, out of university or whatever, you can be impactful. You can say like, uh, you know, We're going to be industry that's going to create those materials of the future that we're going to need that don't exist today for whatever medical devices or going to Mars or whatever. It's this industry that's going to do it and, and they're willing to, willing to engage on that.

And I think one of the things that's important about that is, uh, is to get that engagement with them is, um, your social media presence. It's, it's so huge. And again, I'm going to guess people in this room have had that experience where you walk into an interview with somebody and they, um, they already know all about you and your, maybe you personally, uh, from your, uh, from your, um, social media, uh, they know about your company.

Uh, maybe they've watched your videos, uh, Chemical Show, Chemical Show. Shout out. They'll say, Oh yeah, I've seen you. I've heard you talk about that. And, um, they already come in with their opinion made about your company, what you stand for, uh, and whether they want to engage in you or not, just from your presence on social media. And I mean, I have that experience more than I don't now in interviews.

And then even potentially the retaining it. Cause again, with the company as big as Evonik, some of this, I imagine social media in some respects is also a rumor mill, right? So people, people like, well, I heard this, who'd you hear it from? Oh, TikTok. Okay.

Um, there's like, like, So, uh, you don't know what's going to speak to somebody. You don't know what's going to help, uh, uh, you, uh, retain them or, um, uh, interest have them get interested in your company. So you need a lot of voices putting stuff out there in social media saying this is who Evonik is.

So I think all of us, I mean this is not just a Millennial and Gen Z. I do think it's all of us have an expectation that we can be a bit more real. Um, that we can be, you know, authentic, that we should feel safe, um, not just physically safe, but emotionally safe in the workplace. Um, how do you see that playing out in a corporate environment?

We don't have to have, we don't have to have statements on everything, but maybe there are times when we want to have a statement on something. For our company I would say, Where we've really put our focus on that is with our ERGs, our employee resource groups, which, Those are very new to us. I know some some companies have had them for years or decades. We haven't ours really started coming up around 2019, right before COVID.

And then with COVID, they were really helpful, the employee resource group. So, oh, from then, so let's call it from 2020 to now, we now have six employee resource groups. We have one for women, uh, black professionals, Asia Pacific Islanders, veterans, LGBTQ.

And early career professionals, how it works in our company is, uh, a group of a minimum of 10 employees have to put together a charter of what they want to do and they have to present it to, uh, management and say, we would like to have an ERG for this group. And that's why we have the groups. We do. It's not picked, it's not from the management. It's from the employees saying.

And that we did that because we said, if we're going to create an ERG, you got to make sure you have some mass of people who want to go with you on that. Um, uh, also when we first started those, we had, we got some good advice. Uh, we, we were told make sure your ERGs have a purpose, make sure that the company provides them psychological safety to your point. And number three, don't let them get politicized.

So, um, make, and I think don't let them get politicized and make sure they have a purpose or tied together. Um, so, um, how do I say it? So our ERGs are not there to like change the world, but they are there to help and support our employees feel like they, um, uh, are supported and that they belong at our, at our company. Right? So they do a lot of like networking. Activities they have helped us change some of our policies around things that matter to them.

Like, like our, um, our veterans leave policy, our bereavement policy, our our parental leave policy, right? So these are things that matter to them. Our employees took it on. We had them actually put the, let's say, call it the business case together, present it up to, to, up to management. And then, and then just to be a network there for each other. Um, like I said, I guess the point I want to make in all that is this is very much a, uh, a pull, not a push.

It's there for our employees to support them. It is not that we are pushing any kind of agenda on our employees. And I think that's, uh, been kind of, uh, the secret sauce for us. It's worked very well. And we've got, um, really, we've got, uh, So we've got thousands of employees who participate in those now. Yeah. I think, I mean, it's one of these cases where the employees can define what they want better than management can.

And I can tell you, you know, that site I set up in Singapore where we, you know, years ago, we sat down and were very thoughtful about the culture and what we wanted to start there. It's still the culture in that site today. Crazy, right? Uh, but once you've created it, it stays.