Is inclusion the secret to high-performing teams? In this episode of Rotman Visiting Experts, Brett Hendrie sits down with Anne Chow, former CEO of AT&T Business and author of Lead Bigger, to explore why true inclusion goes beyond DEI — and why leaders who embrace it outperform those who don’t. From creating psychologically safe workplaces to rethinking flexibility and performance metrics, Chow shares practical insights on how leaders can cultivate cultures where employees—and businesses—thrive.
Is inclusion the secret to high-performing teams? In this episode of Rotman Visiting Experts, Brett Hendrie sits down with Anne Chow, former CEO of AT&T Business and author of Lead Bigger, to explore why true inclusion goes beyond DEI—and why leaders who embrace it outperform those who don’t. From creating psychologically safe workplaces to rethinking flexibility and performance metrics, Chow shares practical insights on how leaders can cultivate cultures where employees — and businesses — thrive.
Three takeaways
Brett Hendrie: Have you ever had a boss who made everyone on the team feel like their voice truly mattered? Maybe they made a point to ask for everyone's input before major decisions, or they went out of their way to celebrate accomplishments, no matter whose they were.
In other words, have you ever worked in a truly inclusive environment? It's an important question, especially now across the corporate landscape. Diversity Equity and Inclusion initiatives are being scaled back, often dismissed as part of the so-called "woke" backlash.
But are companies now risking becoming too narrow in their understanding of what inclusion really means, and could this be a moment to think bigger, to see inclusion as the key ingredient for building successful, high performing teams?
Welcome to Visiting Experts, a Rotman School podcast for lifelong learners, exploring transformative ideas about business and society with influential scholars, thinkers and leaders, featured in our acclaimed Speaker Series.
I'm your host, Brett Hendrie, and I'm joined today by Anne Chow who spent an impressive 32 years at AT&T, eventually becoming the CEO of AT&T business. As a leader, she oversaw a $35 billion enterprise with 35,000 employees serving more than three million global customers. Now she's an active board member and currently holds directorships at CSX, 3M and Franklin Covee. She's a senior fellow and adjunct professor at the Kellogg School of Management, and the author of a great, thoughtful and tremendously practical new book Lead Bigger: the Transformative Power of Inclusion. Anne we're so excited to welcome you here to Rotman and to the podcast.
Anne Chow: Thank you so much, Brett, for having me. I'm honored to be here.
BH: Anne maybe this is a good moment for us to actually define inclusion, because it's a word that really gets bandied around somewhat casually, and I think it would be helpful for audience to hear your definition of what it means to be an inclusive leader.
AC: I define it as widening your perspective to have greater performance and impact.
Widening your perspectives: This relates to the kind of people you surround yourself with, the types of stakeholders that you engage with, the different types of data and information sources that you seek - really widening your perspectives, but with the objective of having greater performance and greater impact no matter what role you're in. I would argue that the ability to lead inclusively is a core leadership competency of the modern world
BH: Anne, I think that the angle from your book that really resonated with me the most is that that widening perspective that you're trying to take in isn't just from your employees or from your team, it's from your entire stakeholder community. So can you share with us why that is such an important aspect for leaders to internalize.
AC: Leadership is simply the ability to motivate and inspire and importantly align a group of people towards a common goal. When you think about the purpose of inclusion, is to create connection, to create belonging, to create engagement. Do you not want to do that with your brand, for your customers and your potential customers? Do you not want to do that if you're an entrepreneur or a small business owner, with your investors, with your community members?
And so the idea and the imperative of inclusion really applies to all people in your purview, those that you care about, whether they're the ones that are working on your team, or whether they're the ones that you're looking to serve today or into the future, or that you're looking to engage in some way.
And so that ecosystem, goes far beyond customers and employees, which are typically top of mind for most leaders. It expands to regulators, if you happen to be in a regulated industry; expands to the media and analysts; if you happen to be in an industry that that has union partnerships, union leadership and union partners are an integral part of your inclusion strategy, and so the need to think inclusively and actually lead and practice inclusively is an imperative if you want to have the best performance possible in a lasting way
BH: You have a quote in your book, “Are we thinking about inclusion as being too small?” And I want you to expand on that, but also talk about it in this moment that we're in right now where diversity equity and inclusion initiatives are being rolled back. And how could a leader or an emerging leader think about this moment and what inclusion can do in terms of them advancing their goals?
AC: Yes, and I love the fact that you pulled that comment out. It's actually my comment that you're citing, so I particularly love it. And I think the quote that I have in the book is something like, "Inclusion itself has been made too small, stuck at the end of the DEI acronym." So I will share that I have never really liked the acronym DEI, which, of course, stands for diversity, equity and inclusion. I never really liked it because it oversimplifies three very different, often interrelated imperatives as it relates to business and society as a whole.
Diversity, in my view, is simply a reality. The world is becoming more diverse, demographically, philosophically, perspectives-wise. You know, we would be hard pressed to say that the world is not becoming more diverse. Even in the United States, the fastest growing ethnic group is multicultural people. Many people are not just one ethnicity in their background. So diversity is just a reality, and you as a leader can choose to ignore that reality and those trends at your own peril. It doesn't just relate to your workforce, as we just talked about a moment ago, but it relates to how your investor base will evolve, how your customer base will potentially evolve, how key decision makers and your partner organizations will continue to evolve. If you choose to ignore it, you will lose to a leader who has chosen to embrace how the world is changing full period and stop.
Equity. What is equity? Equity, to me, is just simply fairness. Now every leader has to decide what dimensions of fairness are important to them, are priorities to them in the context of leading their business. Do you want fair and equitable access to promotional opportunities across your organization so that you can hire the best talent? Do you want fair and equitable access to jobs in your company, and are you in the places for which you're going to recruit and cultivate new talent from outside of your organization? So equity is simply a set of outcomes, but you as a leader, have to decide what are those outcomes that you're striving for, and that's what equity then means to you as it relates to the purpose, values and objectives of your company and your team.
Inclusion. Now, what is inclusion? Inclusion requires action, and this is why I wrote a book about inclusive leadership. Inclusion requires that we think more broadly, that we act more broadly, as I mentioned before, inclusion, and inclusive leadership is all about widening those perspectives, not just because it's, nice to do, a fair to do, or the right thing to do, but because it yields better performance, and that's why I believe that this notion of inclusion goes far beyond the misunderstood interpretation of what DEI is and is not. If I were to encapsulate what the biggest misunderstanding is from certain groups of people and individuals, it is that DEI is about representation of race and gender at the cost of everything else, That's the misinterpreted view of what DEI is when you think about inclusion, in my definition of inclusion and bigger leadership, it is about better performance. It's about optimizing your performance and optimizing your impact, which requires that you widen those perspectives continuously in your leadership practice, no matter what your role is, no matter how big or small your team or company are. You can't do that by yourself surrounding yourself with the same people. It's just like the old saying, "what got you here will not get you there." And the practice of leading bigger, is actually the practice of that, which is realizing that what got you here will not get you there. And it's about deciding where there is with the best information, with the best people around you, to deliver upon your commitments and your vision.
BH: What would your advice be for leaders, then, who are trying to create an environment for their team to speak up and share ideas and make sure that they feel are included, and that they create an environment of collaboration?
AC: So what leaders need to do first and foremost, as it relates to the practice of inclusion with their teams is to be sure that your team knows that you care about them. Caring is the precursor to inclusion. If you care about something or someone, you will work hard to include them. Right now, caring is kind of a loaded word. And, prior to the global pandemic, caring was not a word, just like empathy, vulnerability, that came up in the discussion of great leadership. But now caring is sort of elevated in our awareness of how important it is to engage our teams, to connect with them, to ensure that they feel that they belong, so that they can bring their best ideas.
So caring starts with an understanding of a couple of key points. It requires that you create an environment that is safe, not just physically safe, but psychologically safe. There's no doubt that most of us have worked in environments where we didn't feel safe. We did not feel comfortable or safe to speak our minds. We did not feel safe or comfortable to speak up. If the boss had a strong point of view and we disagreed with them, even with facts and data, we were not comfortable speaking up with a contrarian point of view. We've all probably worked in environments where they were much more risk averse, and therefore innovation and creativity were stifled because people were afraid to take smart, calculated risks, right, even though they could yield better outcomes and better performance, we wouldn't speak up in those environments. So as a leader, creating an environment of psychological safety that respects the well being of your team, that respects the boundaries of your people, that gives them the flexibility that they need to perform at their best, to make mistakes, to take smart risks, to hold people accountable, you know, in a in a caring but precise way, that's very performance based. These are all things that are foundational to building that inclusive environment, to creating that inclusive culture, where people can perform at their best individually but also collectively as a group.
BH: And you actually write in the book, For years, we've been chasing work-life balance, but what really matters is flexibility. So can you unpack that for that us? Why is flexibility actually the key ingredient that leaders need to pay more attention to?
AC: So one of the things that I feel is part of a discourse that it is getting even louder right now, I would say, Brett, is this tug of war between employees and employers around flexible work. If we were to ask 10 people, professional people, what does flexibility mean in today's workplace, my guess is nine out of 10 of them would say it means the ability to work from home. It means that I can work from home and I can work from wherever I want, And the tug of war that we're seeing right now is this RTO return to the office struggle. And the struggle, I think, is misplaced, because the struggle appears to be one of control, as opposed to one that understands flexibility is really the key to leading in a way that brings forth your best talent and enables your talents to do their best work. Flexibility means that you respect the fact that people don't have a personal life, they don't have a professional life. They have one life. It has personal aspects and professional aspects. You as a leader, you have the relationship with the person based on the professional dimensions of their life, but it is incumbent upon you to respect the boundaries and the priorities of their personal life. And what that means for you as the inclusive leader, as the bigger leader, is that you must put in place, performance measures, accountability, clarity, as well as benefits and support structures that enable people to live a meaningful life that has professional and personal goals and contributions.
I'd ask our listeners here to think about yourself in your own careers. When have you been the most happy and when have you been the most dissatisfied? My guess is you were the most happy when you were doing meaningful work and you felt respected and valued, and appreciated, and you were able to live your life. The times you were least satisfied, I suspect, have to do with situations where you may have felt an immense amount of stress, burnout, dissonance with the people around you, maybe even your boss. Maybe you felt that you were in a toxic environment that was really harming your health and wellness, your emotional health, your physical health, your mental health. And the practice of flexibility, in my view, is a responsibility of leadership, because leadership is all about people. And you will never be able to fully put in place policies that accommodate all situations And of course, as a leader, you have to be accountable and hold your people accountable for performing on their role. After all, it is a job. When you're a leader, you're about some kind of work, So you must always stay focused on that work. But the vehicle to delivering that work, the way you the way you accomplish your objectives is 100 per cent through people. And so that's what I mean by flexibility, this acknowledgement and this embracing of the fact that leaders have a responsibility, organizations have a responsibility to enable people to bring and be their best selves so they can do their best work.
So as we think about leading bigger, one of the one of the biggest fears, I think, that employers have now is this belief that if they can't see their people in person, that their people are slacking off and they can't control the outcomes or the outputs. So some may be wondering, how do we build culture without in-person connection? And look, I have been a people oriented, relationship oriented culture leader for the predominance of my career, and there's not a single person that I've talked to, at any age, at any level, who doesn't believe that in person is better to build relationships, okay? It's not a young, old, generational factor. But I think what's missing is this point of, does it have to be every day? So as leaders, the way to think through this, in my view, is to hold your team accountable. What does great performance look like? And look, maybe it's "we all need to come in these days, and we're going to have in person team meetings that will cover these things, because the serendipity of being present together in person will help us." Or, "We're going to, anytime we onboard a new employee, we're going to all commit, to spend more time in person as a team, so that we can culturally integrate them. We can ensure that they get to know us." But we'll set clear measures. I'll give an example of a sales organization where the leadership in this organization basically said to their reps, "If you do not make your number, you need to come in, because you clearly need more help. But if you make your number, we're going to give you even more flexibility, because it's clear that you have earned it because you have made your number." And so I think part of this, in fact, I know part of this, is about clarity of roles, clarity of responsibility, clarity of outputs and outcomes, and being much more intentional about what help is needed, and what help is better provided, and what support is better provided in person, as opposed to remotely, virtually or otherwise.
BH: You touched on the performance part of teams, and one of the interesting ideas that you raise in your book is that inclusive leaders need to really understand the difference between performance development and career development. And it's a fine distinction, but an important one. And I was hoping you could share your thoughts with us about that.
AC: There's this going view of we have to manage the life cycle of employee. And I've never really liked that noun, because it implies a beginning and an end. And I think in today's world, your employee, current and former employees, are key stakeholders.And in today's world of technology and instant information everywhere, whether it's real information, facts or fiction, that has power and it also has risk. So I have always preferred to talk about employees in the context of the vitality of my workforce.
And when I think about the vitality, the energy, the life force that is my workforce, there is a difference between performance development and performance management and career development/career management, This is what the difference is: performance development/performance management is about the person in their current job, in their current role, and it is the responsibility of the leader to be clear with their person about what does great performance looks like. It is also an incumbent upon the leader to work with their team member on developing that performance. Is additional training needed? Are there other skills that need to be developed? The leader has to provide very precise feedback around the performance process. And with every organization, there is a performance-based way that they approach financial treatment - raises and bonuses and things like that - as well as a performance lens on things like layoffs. Do you get to keep your job? Do you lose your job?
The difference between career development and career management is this, career has to do with the person's entirety of their professional history and professional aspirations. Think of it as three concentric circles. And the first circle is the job. The second circle around that is the person's career, the third circle around that is the person's life. So a person's career could last their entire lifetime. Their career could be directly related to their current job, or maybe not. Maybe their job is just a means to health benefits, financial stability. Maybe their job feeds different career aspirations. maybe their day job is feeding the aspiration of a career as a musician or as an artist or something like that. And so the responsibility of career development and career management is on the person. Now, what is the leader's responsibility? Great leaders recognize that the person's job is simply in the context of their career, their career which is in the context of their lives, every single one of us. Great leaders work at ensuring that they're helpful to their people on attempting to achieve their career goals. Sometimes those career goals will keep them inside of the company. Most of the time, those career goals will take them outside their current job. That Gen Z is out there? Do you think you're going to be in the same job for the next 30 years? Absolutely no way. Your career is going to take many shapes and paths, just like mine did, just like others all around us have.
And so that's the delineation. And Brett, I'll share a question that I got recently at a, you know, at an event that I was speaking at. And the question, I thought, was a fantastic one, and it was: "How do you do how do you distinguish good from great leaders?" My answer was good leaders are fantastic at performance management and development. So you know exactly where you stand. You know what it's going to take to get a certain kind of rating, where you stand in the context of your peers. You've got great feedback, and you feel like you're growing in your current job. Great leaders also provide you with career development opportunities. They recognize and seek in you a potential that goes beyond your current job. When I think about the great bosses that I've had, and I had 26 of them in my 30-plus year career at AT&T, the great ones always pushed me. The great ones always had my potential as equal priority as my performance. And potential is really what career management career development is all about.
BH: It's such a, such a valuable piece of advice. There's so much in the book that I want to get into, but to wrap up the conversation, if you have, you know, one piece of advice for leaders, or especially for emerging leaders who are stepping into management roles or have recently taken on management roles, about how they can be inclusive leaders? What would that advice be?
AC: One of my foundational leadership beliefs is that every business is a people business. It is people who drive the business. It is not the business that drives people. And as a result, you as a leader. When you choose to be a leader, you must be a leader of the people, which means that you have to understand that their job is in the context of their career, which is in the context of their life. What do some characteristics of that look like if you're an aspiring leader? It means that you listen more than you talk. It means that you seek many different perspectives, beyond your own, beyond people who have you feel comfortable. It means that you embrace the idea of being vulnerable, that you embrace the idea of being curious, that you embrace discomfort, because it means that you're learning and you're growing to the point of this podcast being about lifelong learners. You know, there is always stuff to learn, you know. And I have found that leaders that value lifelong learning, leaders who are curious, are almost by definition humble, because they know that they will never know everything. And so there's a sort of insatiable appetite to learn and to grow to be better. And that's would be my advice to aspiring leaders out there.
BH: That's a great note for us to wrap on, and very inspiring. Thank you, Anne, for sharing all of your experience and wisdom and for writing this book, which I really cannot recommend enough to folks, and thank you for being here at Rotman. The book, again, is Lead Bigger: The Transformative Power of Inclusion, by Anne Chow.
This has been visiting experts, a Rotman School podcast for lifelong learners, exploring transformative ideas about business and society with influential scholars, thinkers and leaders featured in our acclaimed speaker series to find out about upcoming speakers and events visiting us here at Canada's leading business school, please visit rotman.utoronto.ca/events
This episode was produced by Megan Haynes, recorded by Dan Mazzotta, and edited by Damian Kearns. For more innovative thinking, head over to the Rotman Insights Hub and please subscribe to this podcast on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Thanks for tuning in.