Embracing Kintsugi: The Art of Turning 'Broken' into 'Whole' in Leadership and Life w/Damon Utsey

SHOW DESCRIPTION

In this episode, I explore the concept of Kintsugi, an ancient Japanese art of mending broken pottery with gold, and how it parallels personal and professional growth. Special guest Coach Damon Utsey, a leadership coach, joins the conversation to discuss the significance of personal development in leadership, the importance of male allies and sponsors, and how to recognize and cultivate true leadership skills. We also explore the impact of emotional intelligence and how creating safe spaces can empower women in their careers. This episode features a moving spoken word piece that celebrates the journey of self-acceptance and embracing your unique "wholeness" after experiencing setbacks.

TL;DR

Learn how the ancient art of Kintsugi can inspire your personal and professional growth. This episode features a leadership expert and explores topics like male allyship, emotional intelligence, and creating safe spaces for women leaders.

Time Stamps

00:00 Introduction and Personal Story

02:36 Exploring the Concept of Being Broken

02:51 Introduction to Kintsugi with Coach Damon Utsey

04:58 Damon's Background and Leadership Philosophy

11:03 The Art of Kintsugi Explained

15:48 Applying Kintsugi to Personal and Professional Development

23:59 Feedback and Personal Development

25:53 The Importance of Women in Leadership

29:24 Cultural Perspectives on Leadership Styles

29:55 Proving Ourselves in the Workplace

31:32 Emotional Intelligence and Growth

34:14 Creating Safe Spaces for Women

37:36 Identifying Male Allies

40:26 The Role of Sponsors

42:53 Challenges for Young Leaders

46:10 The Importance of Allies

50:15 Closing Thoughts

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Credits

Podcast Editor: Payton Cross Productions 

Transcript

0:00

Coming up next on Coffee, Cocktails, and Clarity.

Shai Boston, CPTD: 0:04

If you leave a job crying, if you have nightmares about your job, if your job drives you to the hospital or to mental health therapists, it's time to go. Attitude reflects leadership.

Damon Utsey: 0:15

Kintsugi is ancient Japanese art, it's about 400 years old. They fill the cracks with gold and it becomes something that's beautiful, piece to be displayed and it still has use.

Shai Boston, CPTD: 0:26

I am chipped, not broken. I no longer call myself broken when I am and was always only chipped. I. Am. Whole. and so are you. Several years ago, I was working for a gentleman and we had kind of an interesting working relationship. I won't say it was the best relationship, won't necessarily say it was the worst one I ever had, but what was interesting about it was I had been contemplating whether or not I was going to leave the department or leave the company. Every time I had a conversation with this raise his voice. He would say that I was condescending to him and talk in a condescending tone. He would have his office door closed. He was in another state, but he would have his office door closed. And I would get DMS, instant messaging, from his secretary or the secretary that worked in the office saying,"What are you saying to him? He's talking so loud. What's going on?" And I'm like, I'm not even talking. I'm not saying anything. And I knew that it came to an end, which is my personal philosophy of if you leave a job crying, if you have nightmares about your job, if your job drives you to the hospital or to mental health therapists, it's time to go. I will never forget that Friday. I was on the phone with him, getting ready to leave, go on vacation, and when the conversation was done, I was not only bawling my eyes out I felt very much broken...

2:04

Hey girl, have you been looking for a safe space for women to have authentic conversations around everything that impacts our life, careers, and relationships? I'm Shai Boston, and on this show, I talk about all things connected to our personal and professional development so we can live our best and authentic lives. Grab a drink. Sit back and let's have a chat. It's time for some Coffee, Cocktails, and Clarity.

Shai Boston, CPTD: 2:36

That's what we're talking about today in our discussion. We're talking about what does it mean to be broken? In fact, we're talking about the Japanese art of Kintsugi and are we really broken? I have a very special guest with me. He's a friend of mine that is also a leadership coach and he specializes in coaching using the foundation of Kintsugi which we're going to talk about today. Welcome to the show Coach Damon Utsey. How are you today?

Damon Utsey: 3:07

I am doing well Shai. Thanks. How about yourself?

Shai Boston, CPTD: 3:09

I'm doing good. Well, I'm glad that you can be here today. And of course I start every show talking about what beverages that we have. So what beverage are you having today on the show?

Damon Utsey: 3:19

Today I am enjoying a cup of Spanish almond loose leaf tea, purchased from a local farmer's market here in Colorado. It's delicious. I love loose leaf tea. That's all I have in my cabinet now.

Shai Boston, CPTD: 3:30

Nice. I have to try that. Well, I have a combination of things because I couldn't make up my mind what I wanted to drink. So I have my trusty old water here. If you guys know me, you already know I love KPop. So it's in my Suga, who is from BTS, in his water bottle. And I also have some cranberry juice, which I'll probably sip on. Mm All right, let's get into it. We're talking about being broken and what that exactly means. And for many of us listening, for many of you ladies, you have been laid off this year. You may have been forced to resign from a job or you may have had to make some difficult life choices. Some of us have had to turn to being caregivers. Some of us became new moms and also have to make choices about returning to work or not. Not only that, we've also had to deal with workplace trauma in many cases. Yes, this is a show about women and we have a man on the show today, so we're going to get back to that in just a moment and why we have him here. But we all have dealt with something in our personal or professional lives that has made us feel like we were broken, much like the situation that I dealt with a few years back. And so today, that's one of the things that we're going to talk about, and I have all of my little trusty notes here so that we can make sure that we're hitting all the key points that we want to talk about today. But we're going to talk with Damon and talk more about Kintsugi, what it is, and we're going to tie that into our personal and professional development. Before we get started though, Damon, why don't you tell us a little bit more about you and what you do, and how you came into leadership development?

Damon Utsey: 5:07

Sure. Absolutely. first off, I am a husband to my beautiful wife of 28 years, Andrea. I'm also a dog dad to my two fur boys, Bennett and Boulder. We have a lot of fun out here in Colorado. We're in the Denver metro area. We love it out here. Right now we're enjoying the snow in the mountains. I love all things outdoors. That's why we're out here in Colorado. Cause it helps me ground myself, as a leader I think that's very important that we ground ourselves and that we have a release at times, and what better way to do that than being outside, right?

Shai Boston, CPTD: 5:40

And you got Weimeraners, so they're runners.

Damon Utsey: 5:42

They are runners, so they keep us busy. They do. Five and nine year olds. My background, little over 30 years I've been in the retail, and I like to call it the hospitality space because I believe retail is a part of hospitality. When we think of hospitality, we think of restaurants, hotels and things of that nature. But retail is the same thing. We're inviting people in our places of business, our storefronts, whatever it may be. And those are our guests when they come in. So that's why I consider retail to be hospitality also, because those are our guests coming in to spend their hard earned money with us. And, I've been in various positions, leadership roles in retail, whether it be working in purchasing, location operations and logistics and distribution. So I've run the gamut of it. And over that course of time in restaurants and retail, I've seen a lot of leadership styles. I've seen the good ones and I've seen the not so good ones. We're going to be nice, right? For the ones where there's some deficiencies or some gaps, which has led me to in the past year, pivot, being actually in the trenches and working that and working with individuals there and developing those leaders there, and seeing that there's a need for this in all organizations. And leadership is a passion of mine because I'm actually having an impact on someone's life. So when we work together and I help them with those skills that they already have, and watch their careers grow and their trajectory, we are literally changing their lives. We're changing their families. We're giving them an opportunity to create a better future for themselves and their families. And I also believe that you don't have to have a title to lead. That's kind of a misconception when people talk about what does the leadership look like here? I believe you can lead from every level from the most junior person on your team to the most senior person. You don't need a title to lead. I mean, I've had several leaders on my team that had no interest in going into"an official form of leadership" with the title and all the responsibilities, but they would run my operations and run my teams when I wasn't there just as good, if not better than, I would, because I empowered them and gave them the tools that they needed to succeed. And that's what I do now when I help other individuals as well as organizations, entrepreneurs in particular, those that are trying to grow their business and trying to grow their teams, I come in and help them grow those leaders on their team so they can go out and focus on the hospitality side of their businesses.

Shai Boston, CPTD: 8:17

Understood. And you know, you said two things there. I just wanted to piggyback off of, because it's my personal philosophy. Number one attitude reflects leadership. We talk a lot about culture. You hear that a lot being the right"culture fit". I'm looking at LinkedIn. I'm looking at people that are looking for jobs. I'm looking at recruiters and things like that. And some have removed that out of their terminology, if you will, when it comes to doing job searches, but a lot of them still have it there. We want the right culture. You will know the culture of an organization based on their leaders. You will know the culture of an organization when you look at the employees that are there. Even as entrepreneurs, if the people that they're hiring to work with them, the other contractors they may be working with, the other employees they may be hiring, because attitude reflects leadership. If there is a funky attitude going on or sporadically you're getting some good vibes and you're getting some not so good vibes that tells you the culture isn't very good. That tells you that the leadership is not very good. For those that might be looking for jobs or looking for a fit, and you're wondering about culture, that's one thing to keep in mind. The other thing that I noted, that I'm a firm believer in, and I tell everyone this, you can lead and communicate effectively from every seat at the table. Doesn't matter if you're at the head, if you're at the middle, or wherever you are, you can lead from every seat at the table. And that's something that I learned years ago. John Maxwell has a book called"The 360 Degree Leader", and it was probably one of the first leadership books I ever read, but it talks about how to lead up, laterally, and to lead down. And when you can learn and master those, you definitely become a well-rounded leader. So I agree with you on all of those points. And just to give a little background, Damon and I actually had quite a few friends in common, but we just had never met. And one day I get this notification on LinkedIn, like this guy wants to connect with you. And I'm like, who is this? And I'm looking at all his connections. I'm like, I know this person, this person, these are people I know personally. So I'm like, Why do I not know him? But he looks familiar." So we connected, we did a Coffee Chat. Whole vibe. I don't have anyone on my show that I don't have a vibe with. Damon's a whole vibe. And the one thing he asked me towards the end of our coffee chat, we talked about some of everything. He goes,"Hey, have you heard of Kintsugi?""Yes, I've heard of Kintsugi!" And so we went off on a tangent on that. So that's how we met and connected. And that's one reason why I wanted to bring him on the show and also to have a male voice because we also need male allies, which we'll talk about in a little bit. But, going back and talking about leadership and everything, let's go ahead and ease into talking about the concept of Kintsugi. What exactly is Kintsugi?

Damon Utsey: 11:06

So Kintsugi is Japanese art, ancient Japanese art, it's about 400 years old. Started with tea ceremonies. And what, basically what happens is if a vessel breaks, say, for example, my coffee cup. Okay, you see my cup that I have my tea and I have this crack here. This a daily reminder for me actually that we all have, cracks. But this crack, what would happen is most people would look at their mug. When the person chipped this mug, my wife was like, we got to get a new mug because the mug is chipped, we can't do this. That's generally what our culture is like. It's broken. It's chipped. It's not, technically, pleasing anymore. But what the Japanese art of Kintsugi does is they take that piece and they still believe that piece has value, and they'll take that piece, they'll mend it. They'll fill it with, a lacquer or a putty, sand it down, restore it to it's place. But then what they do with the cracks, once they're done, they take and fill those cracks with the precious metal in the lacquer, so gold, silver, platinum. And what happens is that piece actually becomes more valuable, more beautiful, than what it was to begin with. So say, for example, I have an example here. This nice bowl is whole. It breaks most of us with throw it away. Japanese art of Kintsugi, they take that same bowl and they fill the cracks with gold and it becomes something that's beautiful, piece to be displayed and it still has use.

Shai Boston, CPTD: 12:36

Exactly. And it's interesting because I remember, I heard about Kintsugi from, I was listening to a lecture that was being given and they talked about that and I thought it was fascinating. So I went and looked it up and for those of you, who might be listening to the podcast rather than just watching it on YouTube, you've definitely seen Kintsugi somewhere. Just imagine anytime you've seen a broken piece of pottery or something like that, and you saw the gold inlay, more than likely that was the Japanese art of Kintsugi that you saw. And so when the person mentioned it in their speech, I was like, I need to look that up and when I looked it up, I was like, this is me. I get this. I so get this. And so what ends up happening a lot of times is that we are dealing with situations whether in our personal or professional lives, like I said earlier in my first example, that we feel that we are broken. We feel that it breaks us down and we sometimes feel valueless. We feel useless. And when we think about the whole art of Kintsugi and what it stands for, we are then made to believe not only can we be made whole again, and put back together, and yes it's a new version of you but you're also still very much valuable. And so that's one of the things I like. What was your introduction to Kintsugi?

Damon Utsey: 13:57

Much like you Shai, it wasn't through conversation. I actually saw it on a TV show. It was Ted Lasso we we're watching. It was Ted Lasso one night and I had some stuff going on with my team and it was mentioned, and same thing, I said,"Let me dive this rabbit hole." And then when I saw it, I recognized them like,"Oh, wow, I know exactly what this is." And it's been something for the past year and a half that I've been studying and really seeing how it correlates to us as people and with our teams and how we can build better teams. But yeah, that's, that was my experience with it. But then my wife and I were able to take a trip to Japan. One of the things on my list that I wanted to do was I want to take a Kintsugi class. I want to learn more about this and what better place to learn from it than its birthplace. And that's where I learned that it's an art that's 400 years old. It started with the tea ceremonies. But then what I also learned is that it's a very long, tedious process. So for an actual piece, if it's done the correct way in the correct style Kintsugi, it takes about two months for a piece to able to get to where it's able to be used again, because once that they're filling in the cracks, takes time for the lacquer to dry for your gold to dry. I mean, so it's a whole long drawn out process and actually I have our pieces. We did a quick version of it and this one of the pieces that I did, and this is the piece that my wife created. And, but like I said, it was, two hour class. And just in that two hours, it was very, very, very tedious. And they come around and they look at you and no, you know, we need to focus on this area a little more, sand this out, feel this with your hands, it is very sensory. And the instructors, for the class, if you looked at their hands, they had calluses and a lot of them had no fingerprints just from really moving over the edges and feeling to make sure everything is smooth. It takes time to do.

Shai Boston, CPTD: 15:45

Wow. You know, that is so interesting and fascinating to me. Let's tie it back to the leadership for a second. You'll hear stories about people are just born leaders and things like that. I don't know if I necessarily agree with that per se. I think some of us might be born bossy, but I don't know we're born leaders. You ask my

Damon Utsey: 16:02

siblings, that's what they'll say. I'm the oldest. We're bossy. Yeah.

Shai Boston, CPTD: 16:05

Yes, same here. I'm the only child on my mom's side and the oldest on my dad, so I was definitely bossy. But I think one of the things that can Kintsugi teaches us, is that leadership skills takes time to develop, that we need to smooth out our rough edges, that we're going to face challenges that are going to break us. And even just in life in general, we're going to face challenges where we feel like we're broken. And we still smooth out those edges to bring them back together. And when we bring them back together, we're going to fill them with all the skills and knowledge and everything that we've gained. Keep smoothing it out, keep smoothing it out. And then it starts getting filled with the fine metal, the gold and things like that, that keeps it valuable and makes it even more valuable. It was already valuable and now it becomes even more valuable. So it's the same thing with us when we're talking about the skills that it takes for us, the things that we need to cultivate to do our personal and professional development. For me, I always say personal development changes who you are. So like your communication skills, things like that, that actually changes you from the inside out and your professional development changes your knowledge. So Kintsugi is a way of describing the way that we transform ourselves. We're already valuable. We're gonna take those pieces, add more to them and transform ourselves into something even more valuable. And we do that when we're working on becoming better leaders, no matter what seat we have. We do that when we work on our communication. We do that when we work on owning our voices, owning our spaces, and owning our presence. So with that in mind. What are some lessons that you have seen that can be applied to women in particular, with the art of Kintsugi, leadership, and so forth.

Damon Utsey: 17:52

Oh, so many lessons. So many that can be applied. Throughout my career, I've worked for many influential powerful women leaders. When I started working, it was in the co-command and control style of leadership, where you're going to do what I tell to do because I'm the boss. And it was very male dominated. Most of the leaders they were male. So it was very rare when there was a woman leader, and when she did come up to the ranks, you would hear the talk from the men, oh, this, that, you know, and once working for them and being on their team and actually having them develop me as a leader, cause those were my first steps into leadership roles were under women leaders. I learned so much from them. There was so much that I learned, but the one thing that I did see is that they, a lot of times, allowed that negative speak from the other leaders or even other team members or other people on their team, devaluing what they had to offer, which didn't make sense. So once I got an opportunity to, get rid of that stigma, because even, with that the way I was raised, my mom was a very strong woman, so she always made sure that we respected everyone regardless of your gender, age, race, whatever. I would take the opportunity to get to know them and get to see what I can learn from them and then come to their defense when things would happen. But see that those cracks that they thought they had, or that they had, it would help them fill those with gold by really having their back as whether I was their assistant or just the person on their team, really coming to their defense and and to their back and upholding their values and helping them to progress. So that's what I will say to those as far as Kintsugi goes, regardless of what anyone may say or the view that they may have of you, those cracks or those deficiencies that we have, you have an opportunity to fill those with gold. You can go two ways with it, right? You can either let it remain broken and in pieces, or you can take it and build yourself back up, build whatever it is that they're saying, and it take those pieces and fill those in with gold. And I appreciate the fact that you spoke about personal development because that's one of the most important things is the first question that I will ask someone when I start working with them, What are you doing for personal development?" and a lot of times, like"Personal development, what are you talking about?" Okay. What books are you reading? What podcasts are you listening to? What videos are you watching on YouTube? What are you doing to build yourself up as a leader or just as a person in general? What are we doing to work on ourselves? That's how we're filling in all of those cracks that we may have, that's the gold that's going in. Like you said, you're working on yourself and those qualities that you have, once you start putting all that stuff together and you start seeing how it works, that's where the self confidence comes in. And that's where whatever anyone else says doesn't really matter because you know you're worth, you know your value as a woman in a leadership role or a woman on a team. You know what you bring to the table. And that's the one important thing that I always stress is make sure you know your worth, you know your value because a lot of times that noise that we hear and the things that people are throwing at us is they're intimidated. A lot of it's intimidation. A lot of it's their own insecurities that they're projecting on you. So you have to kind of cut through that mess and see the gold really stop and pause. This is another thing I teach is, the power of the pause. Before you allow someone else's negativity to affect you and see, okay, where's this really coming from? What do I know about this person? What do I know about their background? Why would they hurl this at me? Or make these accusations or whatever. And once you really dig deep and find out where the source is coming from. It's just that it's just a lot of noise that you can ignore.

Shai Boston, CPTD: 21:46

Exactly. You know, it's interesting because in, I did a series of episodes, it was actually going to start off as one episode, possibly two, and it ended up being three. So episodes 9, 10 and 11, all talked about owning our power and owning our voice, our presence, and our spaces. And that's one of the things I talk about is knowing what your value and your worth is. And those are two different things in my eyes. In the sense of, your value is the knowledge and the skills that you're bringing to the table and I define the worth as the number that can go to quantify what those are worth, as far as dollars and cents and things of that nature, those can fluctuate in other people's eyes because they may not have ever seen your value, your worth and what you bring to the table. And we know for us women and especially if you're women of color, but you know that when you come into a room, when you're coming into these spaces, your value starts getting diminished in the eyes of the ones that are in that room, in most cases, because they don't know what you bring. they don't know not just what you bring as far as skills, but what you just bring as a person into the space. And then, there are times when they know what you bring and they still want to devalue you because they don't like the package that it's coming in. Whether it's a woman or that you're a woman of color. Those are some really key points as far as what you said about knowing the value and worth of our personal currency. That's what I call it. My personal currency. Those are the things that I'm bringing. And when you know what you bring you know how to better counteract some of those things that are happening. We're going to take a quick ad break and when we come back, we'll continue our discussion.

23:29

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Shai Boston, CPTD: 23:52

Coming back, we we're talking about our personal currency and all of those sorts of things and the feedback that we receive. One thing that I want to put out there before we move on and continue this, because there's some other really important things I think we should talk about. As a coach and a trainer, I do not use the words criticism. But, a lot of times when we hear feedback, people confuse constructive criticism and feedback. When I hear the word criticism, what that says to me is"I want to cut you down" but I'm not going to give you any type of solutions. I'm not going to commend you. I'm not doing anything else. I'm not even recognizing what you've brought to the fore, I'm just telling you what you didn't do right and I'm walking away. When you're taught how to give proper feedback, it's actually considered a sandwich. You're going to say something good, recognize what this person brings to the table, the middle part the meat of it is here's some areas of opportunity. I don't call them weaknesses. These are areas of opportunity. We all have them. And then you close out with something else good that they've done. And you've created this nice little sandwich that someone can say,"Oh, I can feed off of this. I can take this with me." I just want to put out there for our audience, if someone is coming with you with constructive criticism, you can take what they say. There might be some legitimacy to it that can apply today. There may not be. Take what you need out of it, and throw the rest away. When it comes to the feedback, if it's presented the way that I've talked about, take it, feed on it, eat on it, marinate on it because there's value in that. And that fills up those spaces as well, to allow you to become even more valuable. I just wanted to throw that out there because I loved your point about when there's feedback and how do we take it? Because more often than not, we're going to be criticized as women more so than our male counterparts are going to be for a lot of things, depending on the leadership situation. We talked about leadership and all these sorts of things. I want to touch on, a little bit, you clearly are an ally for women, which is one reason why I wanted to have you on the show. I do not have men on the show that are not allies to women that do not know how to center women's voices in conversations. You touched on it a little bit, about why you became an ally for women. Why was that so important for you? And how did it help to enhance your career, as well, when you did center women more, in conversations and you showed the value that they brought to the table?

Damon Utsey: 26:25

Most of the leaders that I worked for were women, and I learned a lot. When it came to just different lessons. How to be stern, how to communicate, or in some cases what not to do. I took it and I valued those lessons and some of those women leaders, I'm still in contact and in touch with them to this very day. They check in on me"Hey, I just want to see how you're doing, how things are going." I believe that everyone has, like you mentioned before, a seat at the table. I've seen so many male leaders or men that were in leadership roles that they were no better than the woman leader. I just believe that they bring a lot to the table that we as men don't have at times that don't bring to the table. Cause if we look at our workforce now, a good majority of our workforce are women, they're working mothers, someone trying to put themselves through school, they're daughters. Having that woman in a leadership role, they can address things or they can approach situations that we as men, we're coming sometimes as a bull in a China shop, we want to break things. What I've learned over the years is that no, there's different ways to approach things. And like I said, I've learned those from my women leaders, they bring kind of a different perspective to things. And that perspective is, I'm gonna say it, it's better than what we as males can do at times. That's one thing that I always speak to those that I am mentoring or that I'm working with or someone that I see that wants to move up, is you never let someone take your voice away from you. Everyone has a voice and many times as women, what I've seen in the past and my experience has been that, men will a lot of times trying to take their voice away from them or try and silence them. It actually kind of reminds me of one of your episodes where you were talking about a balloon and filling, and not letting the air out, and not allowing someone to take your voice away from you. And that's a piece of advice I tell every woman leader that I work. I will always stress it. Do not let anyone take your voice away from you. That's the one thing that we all have that we need to use and we need to exercise is our voice. Many times we'll find the leaders are the ones that have the loudest voice. They talk over people, they're the highest paid person in the room and many people, they'll fall in line lockstep, where many times our women team members, leaders and other team members, they have better ideas and that's what I came to learn over the years of being in leadership roles. I was that young leader. That young 20 something year old. I was 20 when I first had my first leadership role, and boy, I failed horrifically because I was still leaning on that whole, I'm the man, I'm the command and control type deal, but over time, and of course through my beautiful wife kind of corrected me and checking me a lot, she keeps me in line. But actually listening and really knowing what I don't know, because as a leader we don't know everything and we don't have all the answers.

Shai Boston, CPTD: 29:17

You know, let me ask you this, not to get into anything divisive, but it's something that we do have to address. Do you find that from a cultural perspective that there is a difference in leadership style in men, let's say, white men versus men of color, there's a difference, or do you find that they kind of overlap in a way because they're men number one, and then maybe two because of the various cultural aspects, they're coming at it from those perspectives. There is. They overlap. I will say this, there is a lot that's

Damon Utsey: 29:50

very similar. As far as the brute bull in China shop. But then I find with men of color that there is also we have to try and prove ourselves also to our white counterparts. That I'm capable of doing this job. I can do this job. So many times you find yourself coming in a little hot, a little harder than most, cause we feel as if though there is something to prove. I will say, cause the many years that I've been doing this, I've been guilty of that. Yeah, I've been in that situation where it's"No, I got, I've got something to prove" because I was the only person that looked like me, I was the only person of color in a leadership meeting when we had our manager meetings. But then realizing, once again, with little age, this is why I have these gray hairs, and maturity, and learning and personal development is like,"You know what I don't have anything to prove to anyone but myself." If I'm the type of person that lives by the morals and the standards that I was raised with and the way I want to be treated and realize that's the way I need to approach my teams. That's how I need to talk to people. A thing with me, I would always sometimes buttheads with other leaders because I thought,"Oh, you're too soft.""You're not hard enough on people.""You got to come in and break them.""Stop having these conversations with them.""Stop engaging." But guess what? The teams that I had versus other teams because of the engagement, because of treating them like they were human, not coming in trying to prove something. They were higher performing teams. They were loyal teams. They were the teams that I could go away for two weeks and not worry about anything because they would run it the same way, or like I said, or if not better than I would run it, because I would allow them to have that autonomy to do what needed to be done.

Shai Boston, CPTD: 31:32

So it sounds like, too, that part of this growth that you had in recognizing how to become a male ally to the female team members and leaders, was growth in your emotional intelligence. Would you say that that's something you also learned from women? Because, generally speaking, women tend to be on the emotional side and men tend to be the logical. So would you say that that helped you in your emotional intelligence growth?

Damon Utsey: 31:58

Oh, a hundred percent, a hundred percent, absolutely. To the point where my women team members or other fellow leaders, they felt comfortable enough to let me know if I had taken a misstep or if I had said something that would hurt their feelings. They knew that I was vulnerable enough to allow them to be able to come and speak with me and let me know. And like I said, it only made me a better person. And it continues to do that, on a professional level and a personal level, just listening because I had a really bad, bad habit of speaking over people because I'm the oldest, so I know everything I'm trying to prove my point. I'm always, was into the arguing and there was one team member in particular on my last team, she would always address me with"Sir." and that was kind of like my cue that would snap me out of it. So now it's something where I'm more cognizant of realizing that's not respectful. I want the same respect, so I'm gonna do the same thing, but they felt comfortable to where they could do that or, if I hurt their feelings, or if I said something out of line, they know that they could come and say something to me, they were comfortable with me because I gave them that permission. I gave them that autonomy to do that. Okay, talk to me. If I step on your toes, if I do something that's not right or that may be a little off, let me know. You ever watch those videos where they let a calf out or a cow that's never been on grass before, and they're kind of cautious but then as soon as they get out and they realize what it is, they're like all over the place? And that's how it was at first, I would do something and they would be kind of sheepish. They wouldn't say anything. I'm like, no, please tell me. But then after a while, the floodgates are open. It was like,"Hey, you're doing this.""Hey, how about this?""How about that?" And then all of a sudden, my team began to grow, as far as being cohesive. They were working well together. They would come up with ideas, things that I would not think of. They would look out for me if something was happening."Hey, I just wanted to give you a heads up on this. This is what's going on.""Okay, great. Thank you. I appreciate that." But once again, see it builds a strong, cohesive team. And it made me a better leader. And from that pool, I had other leaders that grew, that were promoted. So many other women that rose to a leadership position.

Shai Boston, CPTD: 34:14

I love that because basically you created safe spaces for us. That's what holding space means. There might be women out there now who don't fully understand what that means. Holding space basically means that you are creating a safe space and environment for not only your voice to be heard, but for other voices to be heard, such as other women. So when a woman holds space for another woman, that means she's helping to center that woman's voice. That means she's including them in conversation. That means when there's a meeting going on and there's brainstorming, she's making sure that that person, that other woman in the room, is being heard. And it's the same thing with men. When men hold spaces for women they will do the exact same thing. I think I shared this in an earlier podcast, but earlier in my career, I had two managers that I supported, that I was never going to be an engineer, but they held space for me. They made sure I was included in all these different meetings. They made sure that whatever it was they felt like I needed to learn to help me grow, they made space for me to do that. They didn't block me from taking extra classes. They didn't block me from"Okay, well, we got a slow time. Well, here you can do X, Y, and Z to learn more." One of my managers, I'll never forget his name is Steve. It was Steve Husar and Chuck Laustrap, I love them dearly. Steve would say, it's my job to train you to replace me."I'm like, Steve, I don't want to be an engineer. I don't like coding and I'm not into that." He felt like, even though I was his administrative assistant, there were things that he could teach me, which he did, that would help me to uplevel my skills. And it was the same thing with my other boss, Chuck. Chuck often flew to China to do work. We worked in supercomputing. He was always over there doing deals. If I had to come in on a Saturday to put together a PowerPoint presentation for him, Chuck was in the office with me. He came in, he worked. If he didn't have work to do, he was in close proximity. He might've been reading a newspaper. He didn't care if I blasted my music, he didn't care what I did. He was like, if you have to come here and put in four or five, eight hours, I'm going to be here with you. I'm a buy you lunch. I am going to sit here and talk to you if you have questions, I'm going to answer them. And which he often did."I'm like, Hey, I've got to put this map of China on here. Where exactly was Beijing again? And where else are you going to? He taught me a lot about just being present and what that means. And how that impacts people. Because going into an office by yourself is the loneliest thing in the world. When you have to work and everybody else is gone, I don't know how many people have experienced that, but I've experienced that one too many times in my life, and you're going up onto your floor and it's dark and you got to turn the lights on and nobody else is on your floor. It's creepy. It's scary. And you got to sit down and work. And him coming there and physically being present. And then also being present to offer me support if I needed help in doing anything was great. I will never forget those two gentlemen. They were absolutely amazing. They created safe spaces for me. I know that's what women need from their male counterparts, their male colleagues. Let's go into one other thing I wanted to ask about too, is in thinking about going into culture, which we talked about going into spaces. From a male perspective, how can a woman identify a male ally, maybe even before he speaks, but how can she identify a male ally in the room?

Damon Utsey: 37:48

It's a good question. They can identify a male ally by getting to know who's around them, know who's in the room, and observe how these men are treating their other team members. And I'll give you a good example. One day I had a young lady approach me. And she wasn't on my team. She was in a totally different department, and she approached me and she's like,"Hey, Can I talk to you for a second?""Yeah, sure." She's like, I'd like for you to mentor me. And"I'm like, really?" And she's like,"Yeah, I've observed you. She's like, I'd like for you to mentor." And I asked, I was like"Okay, may I ask why? Because you have like a whole department full of managers, supervisors." And I was honored. And she said, because you know my name. I'm like, know your name? She's like"Yeah, you know my name. And you say good morning to me every morning, even though I'm not part of your department. You would always speak to me. You always say, good morning. And you would use my name. And then I began to watch you and how you dealt with your team and how your team speaks about you. You're the person that I want to mentor me." And I was blown away by that just to know that one, saying good morning and knowing someone's name for me, that's one of the most important things that a leader can do cause a name is all some people may have, but that's the most important thing to them. And if you don't know their name and you can't get their name straight, we need to look at why you're in a leadership role, especially if they're on your team. I was blown away by that, and then knowing that I am being watched at all times as a leader, that was one of the things I'm like,"Okay, others are watching me." There are the conversations going on about me. So that's what I would tell someone that in order to find a mentor, an ally, or a sponsor. Watch, observe other members. And it doesn't just have to be within your ecosystem or your department. Look within your organization. Are there other people, other men that have these qualities that are producing these other leaders, other women leaders, that are approachable, that have those qualities and those are the ones that you want to approach. Those are the ones that you want to ask. That's another thing I will say is make sure you ask. If there is something that you want and there's a role that you want or something that you want to learn, ask someone. If it's a male leader, ask them; because many times they don't know what you want until you approach them. If you don't ask, it may just go by the wayside and you're wasting a beautiful talent. So make sure that you're asking things. But yeah, get to know people, form those relationships outside of your area, learn, make yourself visible. ask questions, ask a lot of questions. If it's another department, go ask those questions. And then that way you'll get a feel for that male ally, that male sponsor or that, mentor. And one other thing, I know you mentioned, allies. I want to talk about sponsors. Because there's a difference between a mentor, an ally, and a sponsor. The sponsor can be the one that behind closed doors they're going to be the one that's pounding the table for you. They're going to be the ones that are going to bat for you. They're going to be the ones that are going to have those conversations that you can't have or that you don't feel comfortable having. They have that capital, where they're going to go and do that. And I've done that for several women, on my team in particular, where they have gone out for putting in a promotion or gone out for a leadership role. And several times they're told, no, no, no. I have one client that I just finished working with, five times she was turned down. And it got to the point where it was like, you know what? We need to have a conversation. I build sponsors because I had the capital, and I've done this to several people. I'll use my capital because I've been with the company for 24 years. What are they going to do to me? So guess what? I can use my voice. That's the reason why I went through a leadership role. So I can use my voice in behalf of whose voices have been muffled. Where I can go, I can stand on the table. I can say things or ask certain questions, knowing that I'm using that capital that I have for them in their behalf. And we've had results. That's what I will say. I mean, look for someone that's going to do that for you. Ask someone to sponsor you and ask them"Hey, can we have a weekly meeting? Can we have a monthly meeting? Can we have these quarterly meetings?" To where we can come up with a career path or a career plan to work it and really work it. If they're like,"Well, I don't have time" then guess, that's really not the ally for you. If they're, Let's sit down, let's do it", you know, they're checking in with you, holding you accountable for your goals, not being all nice, soft, and warm and fuzzy. They're going to have the hard conversations with you when they need to have the hard conversations. But at the same time, they're going to get you to the level where you need to be. Cause that's my belief. And I'm sorry, I'm on my soapbox right now, cause I'm very passionate about it.

Shai Boston, CPTD: 42:23

It's okay.

Damon Utsey: 42:25

A leader's job is to train and develop their team to become leaders.

Shai Boston, CPTD: 42:28

Exactly.

Damon Utsey: 42:29

So, leaders develop other leaders If you're working under a leader and they don't want to share information or share knowledge with you, then it's time to start looking elsewhere for another leader that will. There should be nothing that they're holding back from you when it comes to operations or how to do their job that they're afraid,"Oh, well, you know, you're going to take my job. I'm not going to share that with you." No, that's gatekeeping.

Shai Boston, CPTD: 42:49

Exactly.

Damon Utsey: 42:50

We have to stop that.

Shai Boston, CPTD: 42:52

I agree.

Damon Utsey: 42:53

That's why we have so many leaders that are, especially young people, that are getting into roles of leadership. And within the first year, they're burnt out. They don't want to, they don't want to move on because they're promoted. They get this new role, and those that promoted them they're not giving them the information that they need to succeed. It's one those,"Well, no one told me you figure it out for yourself." Yeah, yep. That's not what a leader does.

Shai Boston, CPTD: 43:14

Oh, I've heard that so many times. Yes.

Damon Utsey: 43:16

That's not developing. That's the opposite. And then we wonder why organizations and stores or operations are closing their doors because they don't have the qualified people to run their organizations and to build these teams Because we're hoarding information.

Shai Boston, CPTD: 43:33

And you know, it's interesting. you had said, I hear that from, especially from a lot of younger people that are so disgruntled in their jobs. They're excited. We all have heard that some of these millennials are lazy. We have all heard Gen Z is lazy. Don't want to work. I tell them those are the two richest generations that we have existing right now. We at least have five generations, from boomers all the way down to Gen Alphas. So that tells me number one, they're not lazy, the vast majority. And then that also tells me number two, that they do have a good work ethic. It's just that when they come out and they're being put into jobs and things like that, they are not given the tools, the skills and things like that, I shouldn't even say the skills. They can come in with skills, they're not giving the tools to do their job, they're not given the bandwidth to do their job. They're not giving the space to do their job. I totally agree with you on that. And I think, too, based on a lot of what I've heard, it's definitely impacting women quite a bit. One of the things that you mentioned that I wanted to throw out there that I will definitely testify to is asking. Once you do your observations, you come in, you get the lay of the land, so to speak, you figure out who's who and what's what, I listened to word choices, too. I listen to not just how things are being said, but what is being said. That also lets you know, if especially a male, is an ally or not. But asking for their help and their guidance is huge because a lot of times they want to help. They're not sure how to approach because quite frankly, men are on guard just as much as women are on guard about the opposite sex. They're on guard about the opposite sex. They don't want to be, called on the carpet and misunderstood for intentions and things of that nature. And I know for me, I talked about this in a previous podcast episode. I had a complete disaster on my hands when it came to doing budgeting. I went to, the director of finance for a different sales department, but he and I had always had a friendly relationship and I just scheduled a one on one with him and I sat down and I said, One,"I need to vent about the situation because I don't know what I don't know." And then number two, I'm asking you if you can assist me. I know that you can't do the budget and forecasting and everything else for me, but can you be there to help guide me? Can you help answer some questions I may have?" And he was there every step of the way. I've had just as many male allies as I've had women allies. And I think you need that balance for a number of reasons. When you do get those male allies, when you talk to them, they can open doors for you. Unfortunately, we do need allies to do that for us. That's why they're called allies. We can't do anything in this world without someone else. You might think you're doing it without someone else. I don't care if you're an entrepreneur, solopreneur, whatever you want to call yourself. I don't care if you think that you're the first to do whatever, you still needed to probably get a bank loan. You probably needed to get a grant. You probably needed to make a connection to somebody that was willing to manufacture your item. You didn't do it alone. You may have had to work to find those connections. Well, if you're using the internet, you still didn't do it alone because why? People had to build that in order for you to be able to do the search to begin with. I know that's extreme, but my point is we all need allies. And so, when we have good male allies, they can do a lot of things for us that we may not be able to do that other women may not be able to do. In harmony with that, I was reading a post on LinkedIn that talked about how there are women that get put into positions of power, with"title" what I mean by power, and then it turns out they have no leverage. They have no capital, so to speak. They have no power. They're put there for show. They're put there for diversity. They're put there to try to demonstrate equity and all these other things, right? Inclusiveness. So, even they still need somebody else as an ally. And generally speaking, when those kinds of situations happen, it's going to be a man. Let's just keep it real and put that out there. I

Damon Utsey: 47:51

can't tell you how many situations I've seen like that where my leaders, team or managers, same thing, someone will come in, they'll say something to them, or they'll act certain way. And I'll have to step in. Are you going to let them talk to you like that? So sometimes as an ally, it's that giving them that push and showing that confidence boost. If there's a role that's come up,"Hey, have you thought about applying for this role? Let's see what we need to do to get you there." Are there gaps? What are you not sure of? What are you not certain of? Okay, I'm going to help you get there. Let's do that. They give you that push. And when you talk about asking, you said you can't get what you don't ask for. That's why it's important. Same thing, use that voice. And if you're, timid or sheepish, or you don't know how to use that voice, get with that ally, ask them,"Hey, help me, amplify my voice. Be my amplifier for me, help me get there to take those steps where I need to be."

Shai Boston, CPTD: 48:43

You know, or you can just hire you some really great leadership coaches that will help you do that and that are experienced in communication. I'm just saying. The other thing, the other thing, too, that, you mentioned, and I harp on this all the time. Leaders know how to be good followers and leaders know how to create other leaders. I'm not going to get to the leaders, creating other leaders, cause we already talked about that. But leaders being good followers, this is another thing to observe. And I like to tell my clients this when I talk to them, because when we're talking about reading a room, that also means look at whom is following whom. Take a look, pay attention because you want to know who are they looking at that's guiding them, that's shaping and molding them? I have been in rooms where there are people that I have admired greatly that I was like,"You know what? I like this person. I want to get these qualities and this and this and that." And then I see who they're following. Well, I'm not big on this person, so why are you following this person?" Now there could be a valid reason why they're following that person. So I'm not knocking that. And nine times out of 10, if you take the time to look, you'll figure out why they are following that person. But, you do take the time to look at that and analyze the situation before you write it off and say,"Nope, don't want to do that because I could see where this is going." Or, if you're seeing modeled behavior, modeled speech, modeled interactions that tells you right there whether or not you want to interact. That's really important as well. I want to round out our session today. First of all, thank you so much for being here, Damon. Your insights have been wonderful. Very impactful and very insightful. Where can my listeners find you?

Damon Utsey: 50:29

Your listeners can find me on LinkedIn. I'm very active there. Lots of tidbits and posts. It's just Damon Utsey on LinkedIn, or they can reach me at CoachDamonUtsey@gmail.com. That's how they can get in touch with me. And I have a lot of bits and pieces and information that I can help people get to the next level and watch that trajectory and their career grow.

Shai Boston, CPTD: 50:56

Thank you so much. Appreciate you being here today, sharing your insights, having these powerful conversations, especially from a male perspective of understanding how women can be centered in conversations. We went and talked about leadership and all of that. So I just want to bring this back around before I close out today. We talked about Kintsugi and so in coming back around, bringing that full circle to leadership. Kintsugi becomes more valuable. The more gold that gets laid on it, the more valuable it becomes. The older the piece is, meaning the more experienced it is, the more valuable it becomes. If you find that you have a chipped piece, go ahead and repair it. Do what you got to do to overlay it, smooth it out, keep working on it. That's your upskilling. And then, you have the goal that seals it and says,"Okay, I've learned that here's my value." Do not forget about your personal currency. That is the value of your knowledge, your skills and expertise, that intellectual capital that you're bringing to the table, coupled with the numbers that you can put behind that. That is your actual worth. How you quantify those skills, that knowledge, that value, the intellectual capital. I think that's one thing that we often forget is that we don't put the numbers on ourselves. Put that number on yourself, Boo. You got that! To end the show, I want to share a piece that I wrote, actually two pieces I combined into one. Didn't realize that pun. And it's all about Kintsugi. So I wanted to share that with you. And as Erykah Badu says:"I'm an artist and I'm sensitive about my stuff." So I'm gonna need you not to be making fun of folks on here and getting all up into my messages, talking about Shai, do better. Not a spoken word artist by any means, but these were some thoughts that I had around the thought of Kintsugi. I'd like to share them with you all today. I don't break down my poetry into symmetry. I don't know what iambic pentameter or if I'm a rambler, I do know that I am chipped, not broken. Ledisi said, these are the pieces of me. So when you look at my face, just know that it takes every ounce of me, every piece of me just to be. It's all my story. Embracing them, each piece, has helped me to start becoming more whole, feeling complete. When anybody decides to take a dip into the fountain that causes their pen to drip with petty and hurt against me, towards me, to thwart me, I look at the inflicted wound and think,"It's just a chip" but it doesn't have to be a piece of me. Whether I'm feeling salty like Fritos, being cheesy like Doritos. If I slay like Lays, have tingles like Pringles, I'm learning to love my complex layers of flavor to savor my rising above it all in self love, because I no longer call myself broken when I am and was always only chipped. Shards, I see. I am broken. Unexpectedly you betray me. Anxiety, PTSD, you shared them almost gleefully, giving out a PhD in lessons only you could give me. I am broken. Years of turmoil, pain, hating you, not loving me, searching for something, anything, to fill the black hole full of the voids you forced me to swallow. Kintsugi. The Japanese craft that describes me, the woman I came to be, living life finally free, filled with gold, my truth now told, I became bold, loving myself no longer on hold, shining bright, I see my own light, hardened from the fight, not living in fright, I'm not broken. Loving my entire soul, I've come to know... I. Am. Whole. and so are you. Thanks for joining us today.

55:00

I know your time is valuable and I appreciate you choosing to take the time to chat with me today. I hope our conversation helped you to see things more clearly. If you like this episode, don't forget to subscribe so you can always be alerted to my new episodes each week. Enjoy the rest of your day or night and let's get together again soon for some Coffee, Cocktails, and Clarity.