[Upbeat theme music plays]
[0:00:02] Female Voice: Welcome to the Triple Bottom Line, where we reveal how today’s business leaders are reaching a new level of success with a people-planet-profit approach. And here is your host, Taylor Martin!
Taylor Martin: Hello, everybody! Welcome back to another episode of the Triple Bottom Line. Today, I have a very interesting guest because I found her through a long-winded session of trying to find answers. Answers to what answers to corporate anthropology. That may be something that some people know about and some don't. I wanted to know more about it. It’s something that I've always appreciated because every once in a while, I'll get a report in a slide deck or something that points to some information that came from somebody who was a corporate anthropologist, and I just find what they bring to the table so incredibly enlightening. And in so doing, I wanted to know more, so I started searching online. And I found this book called On the Brink, and I went to Amazon. I saw it had 43 ratings, 93%, five stars with zero one star, so I was like, “Okay, that meets all my criteria! Buying the book.” Read it. And shortly thereafter, I was like, “Okay. I really need to reach out to this Andi Simon person.” And that's who we have on today, and she is a corporate anthropologist. She has her own business. She is a published writer with a book, and she also has written for Forbes multiple times- Forbes magazine. She does speaking engagements. And I'm just really happy that she was able to be on our show today. I know she's got a busy schedule. So, Andi, I want to introduce you to our listeners, but I also want you to take a moment and tell our listeners about yourself and what a corporate anthropologist is and does.
Andi Simon: Taylor, this so exciting because I've spent my career trying to take the whole idea of anthropology and make it relevant in our society. Right now, anthropology was voted the worst major to have in college because business and others didn't know what to do with them. But what is corporate anthropology anyhow?
I am an anthropologist. I'm trained in cultural anthropology, the four disciplines, linguistics, paleoanthropology, archeology. Anthropologists began to study societies to understand what they were really doing. You said about truth. People don't really know what they're doing. They do them. Habits take over. The brain is great at giving you a perceptual map of reality; a story that you believe to be true. And then you live that. And you only see the things that can form to it. So, what anthropologists would do is go in and observe as participants. They would live in small-scale societies. People think of Margaret Mead or Malinowski and the Trobriand Islands. But, in fact, the methodology is extremely applicable to business- to corporations- because they are basically small-scale societies. They have their rituals. It may not be face painting and there may not be potlatches, but if you hang around long enough in a business, a hospital, any kind of organization not for profit, what you begin to realize is that there is a culture of values, beliefs, and norms that people adhere to. You'll hire people who match their values and our style and look for others like ourselves. We're herd animals. We like to be with others who make us comfortable. And, by and large, our organizations have different cultures. As anybody who has been in a merger and acquisition phase knows that when you buy two companies and merge them together, you have aardvarks and giraffes. And you're not quite sure why they can't talk to each other. The English is there, but they don't mean the same things. Maybe seventy-five thousand years ago, there was a quantum leap in our brain, and we began to put meaning onto hard things. And so, a rock becomes ritual or spiritual, and humans take relationships of any kind- kinship or otherwise- and give it meaning well beyond the actual factual stuff. So, for us, and you said it so well, “I want to understand better what's really going on.” Because people ask you to do things for them, and you ask them “Why?,” and they'll tell you a story. And if you listen closely to the story, you'll get closer to the why. If you asked them again, and you get your five whys, all of a sudden, I'll have that aha moment. They'll go. “Ahhhh! That’s why!”
So, my little bit about my career, just to set the stage: I was a professor and had my tenure, and I said, “I'm all into change. What am I going to do here?” And by chance, I got into banking during deregulation. And I'm someone who loves change. And I was working in banks for 14 years as an executive in three banks, helping them change. It was humble because it's one thing to study it. It's another thing to help them do it. And then you realize they don't know how. And they don't really want to. And they don't know what the words mean. But how will I sell? ‘Because I've always been a service person. What does that mean? And then it becomes really interesting to help them do it. And then I got into healthcare during managed care, and I helped them change to healthcare systems. And after 9-11, I went into my own business as a corporate anthropologist that helps companies change. So, that's the short-long story about why I get so excited about sharing this.
Right now, I'm an author. I'm a podcaster. I speak widely. And I have a bunch of clients across the globe who really need to change, but they also need to step out and look at what they're doing through a fresh lens. And that's my job.
[0:05:15] Taylor Martin: Well, I love that. Just to give some context for our listeners, what are some examples where your services had the biggest impact for a company- better financial growth or better operations or manufacturing? What are some great success stories that people can kind of relate to and kind of put this all into context?
Andi Simon: Well, I will use some of the case studies in the book that you so highly endorsed. One, the company was Telerx. It was a $90 million division of Merck, and it was in the call center business. And they had lost three RFPs. And I was invited in by their new president of the division to figure out what was happening. And there were a couple of things that we did, and we worked for a year with them to go and really rethink their business because what was going on that people weren’t hiring them to do a better job at the call center? So, we sat on the phones on listened, and the average age of the person calling was over 50. And young people, and this is 10 years, 12 years ago, and people weren’t using the telephone the way they had been to find out things. The internet was clearly becoming the place to go. And Jenny Craig and Dannon and others… These were, you know… This was Merck, so they had very big clients. But nobody was paying attention to the trends, and slowly but surely, I sent them all out to go explore. What better way to understand what their customers, who were using them were doing, and those who refuse to use them we're doing. And what we heard was that on the one hand, those who were using them were beginning to shift to lots of online types of things. And those who weren't using them, were trying to figure out other ways of doing customer care. And next thing you know, there were lots of opportunities. And so, the woman who was the President, Linda Salinger, took it from 90 million to twice its size, beginning to realize it wasn't what they were doing now, it wasn't incrementally doing it better, it was innovatively adding value to their clients. If you looked at… I'll use Jenny Craig because it was one of their clients. If you looked at their website then, and the 800 number was a big spot. If you look at the website now, you can't even find an 800 number. And so, the whole industry was going to go through a great transformation. Could we anticipate it and go faster?
I was working for four years with a healthcare client in a hospital, and they are my chapter in the book as well. Because they were… Saturated the market. They took care of all the women and all the women's needs, but the unmet need there was for men. And then we're losing $25 million, and they really had to do a turnaround. And so, when we began to look for these unmet needs and who could be using them, it was, how do you see what's going on through a fresh lens- through an anthropology lens? And we hung out in their lobbies. We hung out in their cafeteria. We took them to hang out and to listen to what people were talking about. People in geographically distributed areas. People who weren't using them. It's one thing if you're going to take better care of your customer, but we're real believers that it's the non-customer who should be using you and offers you the growth opportunity. So, that $25 million went down. It started to turn into a positive. And it's a real interesting process to watch people hate you because they have to change, love you because they did the change. That was easy. That was hard. And people's emotions get all going. But once they discover it, it becomes much easier for them to do it. And so, I’m a big believer that it isn't what I see, it's what they see, and I work hard to take them exploring with me. And a little anthropology helps them. So, it's a very interesting observation that if “I don't see it, I can't be it. I don't know what it is.” And my job is to help you open your mind to what's going on. So, I can give you lots of stories because we're working with an accounting firm for three years now and a healthcare client again, and a manufacturing client. Most of the time, we just help them see what's right in front of them.
Taylor Martin: Yeah. I feel like… You know, I mentioned this to you before about… I almost feel like you're a truth-sayer. You know, you go in there and you mine out the truth. And you find out what that truth is, and you compare it to what their goals, aspirations, their vision is, and you try to find out, “Okay. Here's the truth. And here's what their goals are. Their vision is.” And how do we connect those two together to overcome hurdles or to rearrange things to make things more fluid, either operations wise or customer wise or however wise… whatever the hurdles are for the company that they want to be able to overcome. Would you agree with that? Is it like a truth-sayer?
Andi Simon: Yes, but the challenge is that… The way your mind works is it takes data and creates a story. Which of out of that story… That becomes your illusion of reality. There is no reality. And so, wouldn’t you have it, you only see the things that can form to it. Your brain is really happy when the habits take over, and that story becomes truth. You're willfully blinded to your point about the truth. You're willfully blinded to anything that disrupts that, isn’t consistent with it. And you say, “No. That's not how we do it. No. That's not what's done.” So easy to resist and discount. And so, in some ways, we have to get your story to begin to change. And I must tell you, there's nothing more exciting…
[0:10:17] In a battery design company… And he had resisted what was going on in the industry. Exactly why, I can't tell you. But it took me to help him begin to see what was going on for him to have that epiphany, that aha moment. He basically said, “Holy crow! I'm not paying any attention to what's going on in the industry. I'm trying to do a better and better battery, but everything's going to recycled and rechargeables. And I don't do that.” And I said, “Why don't you do that?” And he said, “Well, that's not what we do!” I said, Well, why don't you do that?” And he said, “I don't know why I don't do that! [Laughing] But…”
Taylor Martin: Yeah!
Andi Simon: “…But that's where the market's going. Why am I not doing it?” It's a mirror. But I will tell you that if I presented to them a PowerPoint that said, “This is what we discovered.” They will delete me because their brains didn't see it. And part of it is the way the brain works. It's very efficient! And it has a very sacred story in there. Sometimes we're working to change an organization itself that people are so certain that what they're doing is right, that even when it's broken, they resist. And they'll say the words but not do it. We often use a metaphor. You can use a couple of them, but I love to use theater as a metaphor because people don't know how to change, so they fight doing it. I know I'm all for change as long as you're not changing me. And so, because we specialize in this, I say, “Listen, if Robert Redford can play lots of different roles or Vanessa Redgrave can get on stage and play lots of different roles, you can, too. You're not broken. You're not bad.
Taylor Martin: I think that was an aha moment right there. At least it was for me for really understanding the gravity of what you were talking about because I could see a lot of business owners or executives being caught in that loop cycle, you know, of their belief structure. And then having something challenging them and thinking, “No. No. No. I'm going this direction. I'm all blinders on” and everything and not realizing it. That's a huge aha moment.
Andi Simon: Well, we used to say, before the COVID 19 pandemic, if you want to change, have a crisis or create one. If not, don't hire us. So, every story in my book is of someone who was having a crisis. No growth. A new product that wasn't selling. You know, not sure where the market was going. So, it's always been interesting. Once this pandemic hit and the recession associated with it, I say, “Don't waste a crisis.” Because your folks are really open to the new. One guy said to me, “I finally can do things I've been trying to do for three years!”
Taylor Martin: That's great. That's great. You know, in your book, there was something else that you said that really just grabbed me viscerally. I have listened to other findings through other types of reporting, not through a corporate anthropologist, but other findings for companies. And having management see the report and just slightly discard it because they just are not open to seeing the big picture. And in your book, you talk about how sometimes you'll bring the management into your findings, like when you're out there in the field reviewing and observing, so you can show them. And I see it. Like, it's easy to dismiss a report, but it's… You can't un-see something.
Andi Simon: [Laughing]
Taylor Martin: So, once they see it, then it's like, “Oh, I totally get it! All the gears go, “Click!” in it, and they had their aha moment.
Andi Martin: I took Michael Coulton, President at the time of Benjamin Obdyke, a company that made patented house wraps and all kinds of wonderful things. It was after the recession of 2008. And they were looking for, “what do we do to grow?” So, we went out to their distributors to better hear what they were doing because if they weren't growing, we weren't. And we sat in meetings and then we would walk out, and we would write down everything we heard and compare notes. It was as if we were in two different meetings. Maybe three. They were looking to fit them into what they did, and I'm looking for the gaps at what they were saying. And because they were into house renovations and house construction, they didn't hear about stucco remediation. The man who was talking to us said, “Oh, the only thing that's growing is stucco remediation. All the contractors went into stucco and not in a new home building.” And so, we write it down. I said, “Do you do stucco remediation?” “No. No. We don't sell to the masonry world.” I said, “But they could use your product, couldn't they?” “Well, yeah, they could.” I said, “Well, so why don't you sell to them?” “Well, we never sold to them!” I said, “So, why don't we sell to them now?” [Laughing]
Taylor Martin: Right! Right!
Andi Simon: “Because they need you, and you need them!” And they actually went through a process of discovery to see how they could be in a new market. But this is the kind of way in which we help people see, feel and think in new ways. It is less about us.
I was listening to a panel at a conference, and the anthropologists were angry that their clients disregarded. One guy said, “I'm the box they check off for user experience, you know? I’m going out and doing it. I'm the box. And I said, “The problem is that you're thinking about it as an anthropologist, not as a business owner or a business leader or what they have to do. From the methodology of what we use, you should become part of them for a while. Hang out and see what their struggles are. Become bonded in the thinking process.
[0:15:15] Taylor Martin: I agree with that wholeheartedly. I mean, for 8 years of my 26-year career, I did nothing but annual reports. And doing an annual report for a company, you literally have to be the company. You have to think through their lens, through their eyes, understand all their problems in their market, understand their brand, how to push the message through their brand and make sure it's on message; the tone and everything is perfectly aligned. But you really have to see the world through their eyes to be able to effectively communicate. I'm using annual reports because that's a big, important product that we create. But, you know, we have to do it for websites or logo designs or whatever we are building for our company, whatever communication device. But you have to see it through their lens.
Andi Simon: Yep. A woman passed away last year, Judith Glaser, who has a marvelous series of books around conversational intelligence. And, if nothing else, as your listeners are thinking about this for themselves… What we've learned about the brain is when I say “I,” I have done research for you. The listeners brain immediately goes into an amygdala hijack. It flees it. It fears it. It appeases it. It worries about it. It's unfamiliar to it. The lack of familiarity is something that makes us run the other way. We're scared. But if we say, “we,” you know, what did “we” hear together? The word, really… It begins to co-create and build trust. And so, as your listener is thinking about their own business, whether it's better understanding their employees or their clients or potential clients, think about it in a co-creating, we-way. Try not to be the expert or the genius or the one who knows. Because what happens to the brain… it may not be personal… is that we try to figure it out what you're saying, how it fits into my own story, I don't really know what he's meaning. There's nothing better or worse than a president getting up in front of their 150 employees and to say, “This is what I think that we should do,” without any engagement with them because people are herd animals. They will follow a leader, but they won’t quite understand what it is you're doing from a linguistic point of view- a socio-linguistic. What do the words mean? And how do I best we-it instead of I-it. It's so subtle, but the brain loves. It creates all kinds of oxytocin, that love hormone, instead of all the cortisol, and I want to move away. The brain, the society, our culture and values, we're great humans, but we're also fragile.
Taylor Martin: That is fascinating. I mean, when you were saying that… I was just thinking about all the instances where that has taken place [Laughing] in my life. And I've seen that happen so many times.
Andi Simon: You watch their face, and you can watch the running away.
Taylor Martin: Yeah. You see them just disengaging, you know, kind of glassing over their eyes, just, “Oh, boy. I don't understand,” or “I'm not connected to that.” “It doesn't mean anything to me,” or “There he goes again,” or she goes again or whatever.
Having been in the business as long as you have, what are some of the biggest or most common issues that are holding companies back? Anything that's typical or maybe not for others? Is there anything that's kind of like something that listeners should think, “we should definitely check that out.”
Andi Simon: Because we have spent time both as an executive in a business, going through change, and helping companies do the same, I will tell you that most people… They come to work to make a living. And I don't care whether I was changing a bank and I had to change what people did or I'm working with a bank that needs to change. Most people don't come to work to change. It's scary. It's uncertain. They don't know what it will to do to their job. They don't know what the language means. So, rather than engage in the process of growing, we stay static. And the second thing is we get really good at what we do, and the idea that I should change what I do is terribly threatening. And what does it really mean? And how will it happen? So, a couple of things that we find often works.
We work with the GCC, a large cement company in Mexico, and they were having trouble recruiting people because they were in such silos, and they really needed to become more of a team collaborative. And so, the question is, “what will you actually do?” You can say the words, “we've got to stop being so siloed.” And people don't want to come into a hierarchical organization. Young people want a more collaborative one. And I said, “You have to start small wins. How are you going to actually break down those silos? Who's going to meet together to demonstrate how we can work together. Because if not, you're going to preach it but not do it.” And so, this becomes interesting for actually trying to show how to do it as opposed to not doing it. You asked an important question though. We still all… We stop growing.
There's a wonderful book called Stall Points. And 85% of the Fortune 500 companies have stalled. Because they start reading their own press releases. And they believe they're so good that that's what's happening, and they don't look outside. So, my last little part about it… Please go hang out. Go outside. They say, “what does an anthropologist do?” I hang out. Go watch what people are actually doing with your product. You spend a day in the life of a customer and see how they're actually utilizing the solutions you provide. And don't assume anything. Just watch. Ask them to talk to you about it. Listen with fresh, open minds because they will tell you all about the what ifs.
[0:20:32] We did a workshop… and then I'll pause… but I did a workshop. And one of the guys said, “Oh, my gosh! The client was going to buy our product, but he kept saying, ‘What if?’ ‘Could you?’ ‘Have you thought about?’ He said, “That's where all my revenue was, and I didn't pay any attention to his questions. I just went for the close, got my commission and close the sale.” He said, “Now, all we sell are “what ifs.” We don't even sell the product. We listen to what they're asking. So, it's a great time to go out backward thinking, “What are people asking for?” No. Sit on the phone and listen to what they're calling for.
Taylor Martin: That's really fascinating. It also makes me think in our fast-changing market that we have these days. I always think about scalability because everybody who talks about scaling… Scaling. Scaling. It's always what is holding people back. And sometimes, I mean, they'll even hire a CEO because that CEO is very good at scaling, you know? They may not know the business very much, but they know scaling. How do they scale? But at the same time, how do they work in a system like what we were talking about, where you're observing or bringing in new knowledge all the time? Because I feel like things are changing so frequently, so much, so quickly that you have to kind of do both. You have to scale and be ready to move in all different directions. At the same time, you also have to be listening to your users of your product or service or whatever it is you're doing. And moving in that capacity at the same time. It's extremely organic.
Andi Simon: Well, and that has become one of the benefits of this pandemic because they… You could preach that, but until you experienced it, you wouldn't know what it was. Remote work was everywhere but not really ubiquitous. And now it's ubiquitous, and people are wondering, “how did we live without it? Why do we need an office for?” So, sometimes we have to experience it.
But one of my favorite stories in the book. It may have been one of yours. But Jim Riley, who owns Laclede Chain, and he made chain for snow tires. [Inaudible] And he sat in one of my workshops, and I urged the CEOs to go back and listen to the telephone calls coming in. And he and I had become colleagues and friend, and he laughs about it. So, he sat on the phone for a couple of hours, listening to Susie answer the incoming calls. And all she kept saying was, “No. I'm sorry. We don't do that.” “No. I'm sorry. I don't know who does that, but we don't do that. And finally, he said to her, “How come you keep telling them we don't do that?” She said, “You told me we don't do that.” He said, “But why?” She said, “I only answer phone calls from people who want something we don't do. They never call us for what we do do. They know that. They call us for what they need.” So, last time I saw him last November, he was building chain for the U.S. Navy, for their aircraft carriers. The strongest chain that's ever been created. And I said, “And how did that happen? “Well, they asked for it.” This is sort of like one of those aha’s. [Laughing] I just listened. Instead of saying, “Let's make a better snow chain for snow tires and hope that we have a lot of snow,” let's figure out what can we do. What people need. And they're asking for it.
Taylor Martin: Yeah. You're, you're sitting there in a posture position where you're just receiving, writing down the notes and saying, “Okay. We have a lot of people asking for this. Let's make that. We have a lot of people asking for this. Let's make that.” And then you have all these new products that are being actually given to you in terms of direction…
Andi Simon: [Laughing]
Taylor Martin: … from your clients! Your future clients.
Andi Simon: He brought his entire manufacturing back to Mississippi and created a native America chain, and there was huge demand for that. And so, he would laugh and say, “It's coming to you.” Are you turning it away or are you listening? One woman actually created a “we don't do it person.” So, when the calls came through, they gave it to the, “we don't do it” person who had to assess whether or not we should do it.
Taylor Martin: So, you're telling me the person, the “we don't do it person,” was somebody who would be there to assess those things and say, “Okay. That's a good idea. We should start looking.” Ahhh, man! That's an aha moment. Definitely.
Andi Simon: It's a non-innovative innovative person, right?
Taylor Martin: Yeah!
Andi Simon: She just was taking and beginning to realize that the questions were coming, but nobody was paying attention because it was too much work. You know, the customer service desk couldn't go searching for it and a sales guy who heard it couldn't do anything with it. And so, they created a culture that encouraged innovation but through what customers were asking for. You didn’t have to go too far. You were on the edge. It was okay.
Taylor Martin: Yeah. You mentioned salespeople. I've been in situations where companies have had their salespeople, you know, they come back and say, “Listen. I’ve had, you know, 50% of my clients ask us to do this one thing with this product that you've been relentless to do. We have got to do it because we are losing this market.” And, you know, competitor X and Y are starting to get into it. And it's like that thing I was talking about earlier, where you have to be able to be malleable. You have to change with the market and the needs of the customers and what they want while also trying to figure out how to grow and scale. And scaling might be more products and more services, you know? That how you're going to grow your business.
[0:25:11] Andi Simon: Scaling is an interesting word that we've had too many $10 million clients who want to get to a $100 million. Your question is a very important one. And I don't know if I answered it. But they really don't know how to get to a $100 million, and they don't have the skillset. And so, part of it is training them on how do you delegate? How do you hire people who are going to get the job done? The tendency for an entrepreneur is taking the business from 0 to $10 million is to do everything. You know, [inaudible] boxes, and do the innovation. At some point, they have to be the strategist who really has the vision and begin to understand how other people can run this and hold them accountable for. They really often don't know how to do that. Sometimes they need a professional manager to come in and do it for them.
Taylor Martin: Yeah. I agree. Sometimes you'll have a manager that is really good at taking them from 0 to $10 million and, after that, they're just not as effective. And then they find someone else to replace them or to add to the team and then they take it from $10 to a $100 or $200 million and that's their specialty. I find those to be very interesting.
But one of the things that that's kind of interesting, I think we're kind of talking about, but indirectly talking about, is how do you make this part of your everyday DNA for your company? I mean, we talked about the no-call call service person. We talked about the salespeople that are out there maybe gathering information and bringing it to somebody. I feel like they had to have, you know, “an ear open” to bring in those wants and needs of the customers out there. And they have to have some sort of structure in place, or many different types, to bring it in.
When I use a product… I don't want to list any, but there's one… There's a food product out there that I wish was better. And I kept emailing them because I love what they sell, but I wanted it to be better. And I know the system very well. I know the product good enough to give them examples of how to be better. And then finally, they put me on some sort of review system for their website. And I reviewed their new website before it became live so I could get them feedback and everything. And I said, “Okay. I’ve given you feedback on your website and, by the way, I am a user experience, user interface, graphic designer, so I understand web design extremely well and that’s coming from this point of view. But can I add these 20-point items on your products itself?” And the guy was like, “What?” And I said, “Please. Get this to them and tell them these are the things I wish you would change. Your business would be so much better if you could just add these things to it. I'm telling you! This is what I want!” So, I can see it from that point of view as well because it's something I'm very passionate about- what the product was.
Andi Simon: You know, you were doing something very gracious for them, and often businesses begin to fail because people have many options today. There's far more supply than there is demand. And if they don't listen to the customer, then who are they listening to? Their own folks?
But you said something important, which is “how do we build it into our daily life?” And I used to ask CEOs at the workshops I would do, you know, “what's your strategy?” Sometimes they couldn't tell you. I said, “When do you spend time on strategy?” “Well, sometimes we have a business meeting once a year and we do more like a business plan and a strategy.” I said, “So when do you listen to customers?” “Hmmm.” And so, it's not part of the thought process. They do what they do but don't pay attention to you as you're giving them the feedback. But there's some companies like CEMEX, who in the cement business, have a whole culture where innovation and idea generation is part of the way we do things. And some companies have an innovation room that concretizes it. And I tried to build this for one hospital system because they had the ideas, but no place for ideas to live. So, the room had pieces of paper in it where people could write down their ideas. Once a week was an idea session, usually Fridays. They week had sort of wound down, so it's a good time to think about ideas that have come through and a strategy. And sometimes there was a process for evaluating the ideas and really giving credit to the people who came up with them. Part of it was putting it into an innovation group or team to take care of it. Procter and Gamble had an innovation gym in Chicago where they would bring people in for a week to take an idea and see if it could be turned into a business that was valuable and could monetize it.
But you need to have a process and a culture, which isn't that we do more of the same cheaper, but we think constantly about customer experience and how to build better. That's sort of the approach that we take and our job as a gap filler between what the customers are saying and what you should be doing. Sometimes companies think customers are stupid. I had one like that. “That stupid customer!” Well, the customer wasn't stupid. They were just trying to help you do better, and you weren't hearing them. “Well, that's not the way we do it.” “Well, it’s time to change!” [Laughing]
Taylor Martin: Yeah. They weren't listening. In terms of how companies can change and change their DNA to make things part of their daily process so they're always listening to their audience, what about other things like sustainability? Like, this is the Triple Bottom Line. We talk about the triple bottom line in terms of people, planet and profit. And I feel like we've talked a lot about profit here with a corporate anthropologist, but I could see your services being drilled into sustainability effects. Like, how can we be more sustainable in our efforts? I mean, I could see somebody giving you that task.
Andi Simon: Yes.
Taylor Martin: And going into a company and saying, “Okay. You're doing these 25 things. Here are little ways you can be more sustainable.” Bah, blah, blah, blah. And a lot of different options. I could see that. And then also with your community engagement, you could say, you know, “You're reaching out to your customers in this certain way. You could spend more time by doing X, Y, and Z. These are all possibilities that you could explore and do.” So, I could see your services being used in a lot of different capacities.
[0:30:43] Andi Simon: Taylor, I couldn't agree more. In a sense, you're intuitively an anthropologist because the sustainability question is a profound one today. I don't care whether it's climate change or it's the air. I mean, how do we change what we're doing so we can actually not say the words? I'm all for it to actually do it. And it would be really powerful for companies to identify someone to actually observe how you're doing things and where you can in fact improve the environment in terms of what you're doing, sustainability in the raw products that you're doing, the whole… Just take the whole supply chain and do an analysis along it. The benefits have both cost benefits but also societal ones. And I don't think they're either/ors. And I do think that unless we actually engage our suppliers and our users across the whole thing, we really understand what it is we're doing. And I'm not going to preach what you should do but just take two or three of them and make small wins to start and begin to measure impact and celebrate. Humans love celebrations. So, take a win. Give yourself 30 days to make an impact. Celebrate. Then use that as a platform for the next 30 days and keep building on it. It doesn't have to be 10 years from now. It has to be tomorrow. We love to backward plan. So, if you're going to get to this a year from now, what will you do in 11 months, 10 months, 9 months, 8 months? Just go backwards so that you get your small wins to get you where you want to go. And next thing you know, you're on your way. And people say, “That wasn't so hard. We could do it.”
Taylor Martin: That's a great roadmap right there. That's easy. I mean, especially just… I love working backwards. [Laughing]
Andi Simon: It makes it happen. Isn't it interesting?
Taylor Martin: It is. And especially you're chunking it down into small, little morsal bites, you know, just making your way there. I always tell people…. I was on a podcast last week where we talked about how I was listening to a podcast weeks ago, and I was guilty of what the host was talking about, where companies say when they get to a certain size or a certain financial goal, they're going to do X. They're going to make some sort of effort. And I was like, “I am that person. I have been moving the goalposts.” So, we have made changes in our business to say, “Okay. We're going to start making some small changes. We're going to start investing in trees.org, which is a tree planting organization that's been around for a very long time in Africa. And we're going to engage with them. We are going to work with them, and I'm actually looking forward to maybe working with them on a more communicational level, just to donate our time pro bono.
We are running a little bit out of time but maybe to just plant the seed, I'm just going to throw this out there. I really like what you're talking about with sustainability, you know, looking at the manufacturing. That could possibly… I’m just going going to plant seed… That could possibly be a new book idea for you in the future. I don't know?
Andi Simon: [Laughing]
Taylor Martin: Sustainability is growing more and more traction these days.
Andi Simon: Well, we should talk some more about that because I have a hunch you already have the outline of that book. And it would be fun to talk about how to make it, not just a book, but actually a process for people to implement.
Taylor Martin: Yeah. I mean, there's many different ways and all different types of companies. We're just writing a blog post that's going to be going out in a couple of weeks that talks about how to be a more sustainable brand. And we're just highlighting different elements of what you can do to incorporate your brand. Just kind of giving people ideas that they may not have thought of before that have profound effects.
Andi Simon: And if you follow my train of thought about change, people hate it. They don't know what it is. They are afraid of what it will do to them in their job then changing their sustainability behavior is going to require a little like Weight Watchers. You know you need to weigh in every week. You need to have a plan of action. How much will you change? Even if it's you're going to reduce your meat consumption or you're going to ride your bicycle. I mean, how do you begin to measure and monitor it so that you can see progress as an individual? And also as a group because we do like others to celebrate what we're doing. Even an online thing could be fun.
Taylor Martin: I do love measurement. When you have measurements of things, it brings as, like, concrete facts to the table so that people can then feel, “Okay. We have done this. This is something that has been carved in the stone and now we can move forward beyond that.”
Andi Simon: The old adage: you manage what you measure is still [inaudible].
Taylor Martin: Yes. I agree. Speaking of books, I know you have a new book coming out early next year. Can you talk a little bit about that?
[0:34:58] Andi Simon: Yes. I'm so excited about it, and people can pre-order it at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. It's called Rethink: Smashing the Myths of Women in Business. And it brought together two things. One of which is that my husband and I launched the Simon Initiative for Entrepreneurship at Washington University in St. Louis to help entrepreneurs, women and men, begin to take their ideas and turn them into business. What I found was that the women needed role models. So, I started to write a book about role models, women I knew who had been successful. And then I realized that they weren't just their own personal journeys, but they were really smashing the myths that would hold other women back. A lawyer who became a woman who really is working on that. The woman in aerospace. The woman who is an entrepreneur. The woman who can lead. How many myths are there? And as an anthropologist, the myths or what we believe to be true. And now it's time to smash them so women can in fact achieve the kind of success that our society needs and that they really are entitled to. So, it's time for us to change what's possible for women and for who we are. So, the book comes out January 5th, and we're developing a program called Rethink Your Journey to help women in fact transform their own lives. And I can't tell you how many women are lining up to say, “How do I do this? I've gotten to success, but I'm not happy. I need more purpose.” So, it's a very powerful time for us to begin to change. That's a movement. And I can't tell you how many women are lining up together to try and make things better.
Taylor Martin: Awesome! People can pre-order it online at Amazon.com.
Andi Simon: Yes. So, it’s called Rethink: Smashing the Myths of Women in Business.
Taylor Martin: When I found your book, you know, the first thing I did was, of course, Googled you and I found you on Twitter, and I follow you on Twitter. And then I went, and I found your podcast through your Twitter feeds. I was blown away by so many of them. There's just so many different people and so many things to listen to. So, that's a great way for people to reach out. If corporate anthropology is something you're interested in, I highly recommend going to On the Brink with Andi Simon. Just search that through any podcasts, you know, software you're using and just dial into any one of those 232 episodes! So, that's pretty impressive.
Is there any other way that listeners can try to find you or follow you online?
Andi Simon: You can email me at [email protected] and I have two websites. One is andisimon.com where my book the new book and all kinds of stuff. There’s lots of free chapters and tools to use if you want to be an amateur anthropologist and a lot of podcasts and videos. And Simon Associates is about our business, and we work with organizations that need or want to change.
Taylor has been sort of tapping into some of the ways that we do this but, by and large, today we're Blue Ocean strategists. And everyone is really fried in terms of “what do I do next?” So, it's a great time for us to think about where are we going and how do we help you get there?
And it truly is a pleasure, and Taylor's a wonderful podcast host. I can't tell you how much pleasure I've had. Thank you for the opportunity.
Taylor Martin: You're so kind. Thank you so much. I really enjoy the podcasting, and I just get so excited every time I'm about to start a new podcast. So, thank you for being on, and thank you for answering my email and agreeing to be on the show today. I really do appreciate your attendance. Thank you so much.
Andi Simon: This has been more fun than fun.
Taylor Martin: [Laughing] Alright. Over and out!
[Upbeat theme music plays]
Female Voice: Thanks for tuning into the Triple Bottom Line. Your host, Taylor Martin, is founder and Chief Creative of Design Positive, a strategic branding and accessibility agency. Interested in being interviewing on our podcast? Then visit designpositive.co and fill out our contact form. If you enjoyed today’s podcast, we would appreciate a review on Apple podcasts or whatever provider you are logging in from. This podcast is prepared by Design Positive and is not associated with any other entity. We look forward to having you back for another installment of the Triple Bottom Line.
[Music fades out]
[End of Audio [0:39:00]