How to Be a Purpose-Driven Leader

Keith Ferrazzi:

Hi, I'm Keith Ferrazzi. The host of Shifting Grounds by TriNet. TriNet is a full-service HR solutions company committed to empowering small and medium-sized businesses by supporting their growth and enabling their people. You can catch our new episodes of Shifting Grounds on the third Tuesday of every month on Apple, Spotify and RISE.TriNet.com.

Today, we have a special treat—somebody that as I've gotten to know her, she's been deeply inspiring to me in terms of her work. Tori Lyon is the CEO of the Jericho Project, but before we go into a quick introduction, I wanted to let each of you know, the listeners, what are you in store for today? And I'll give you three things that have been most inspiring to me and my preparatory work with Tori. One is I ask you a few questions. Are you a purpose-driven leader yourself? What does it mean and how are you gonna get there?

Second question I would ask you is, have you really addressed diversity and inclusion in your organization and how? And the third, have you ever been puzzled by the problem of homelessness as I have personally? And have you ever asked yourself intrinsically, what do we need to do to truly address that problem? Well, with those three learning objectives in mind, let me introduce our extraordinary guest. Tori is the CEO of the Jericho Project. Now, the Jericho Project is a nonprofit that is ending homelessness at its roots by enabling formerly homeless or at-risk individuals and families to lead independent and fulfilling lives.

They also have a very rich focus that Tori initiated herself on homelessness of young adults in the LGBTQ community. Tori has overseen the development of hundreds of units of supporting housing, which we'll learn a little bit more about, and she's more than quadrupled the annual number of people served. Now by way of background, with all of this to say, she is a Wharton graduate, class of '89. She's also a mother of two. And when I've been talking to Tori, it's very clear that one of her most primary motivations is striving to be a role model and show the power of impactful, purpose-driven work to her own children.

All right. With that in mind now, Tori, tell me how you go, and we don't have to spend too much time on this, but how do you go from Wharton, one of the most... the meccas of financing capitalism, how do you go from Wharton to the Jericho Project?

Tori Lyon:

Yes. Thank you. My friends who I went to University of Pennsylvania with, they always tease me that I'm the only one of our group who works in a nonprofit and also the only one who went to Wharton. So I really... I caught the bug actually for nonprofit work when I was in college. I had a work-study job and it was working for an organization called the World Game that was founded by Buckminster Fuller, and was a global organization that studied inequities among the, you know, 160-plus countries that existed back then.

And it was very data-driven, but it was also very tactical and hands-on and I loved it. I really caught a bug about equity and social justice. And, you know, after a brief stint in executive search after I graduated... I graduated during a recession, so, you know, the job market wasn't too great, I moved to New York and I started raising money for Catholic charities out in Brooklyn. And since then, I've worked for nonprofits. And I've been at Jericho actually for almost 26 years, and so Jericho really is my life's passion.

You know, I never pictured myself as the CEO of a nonprofit, but I love it. It's so motivating to me. I'm so passionate about it. And I'm just happy that my life led me to this. And, you know, I like to think that I can use some of the stuff I learned at Wharton as a CEO of a nonprofit.

Keith:

Well, and I think what's gonna be exciting about today's conversation is we're gonna flip that around as well. How can a CEO of a nonprofit teach the rest of us as leaders some of the critical lessons that you've learned? You know, I wanna dive into... you mentioned your commitment to Wharton and I read something in the "Wharton Magazine," which I wanted to spend a good bit of time on. At the peak of the George Floyd crisis, you wrote a piece about the exploration of your own organization around having a more diverse and inclusive Jericho Project.

And to that end, I admired the piece that you wrote and I thought that the five critical points that you made around diversity and inclusion could be valuable to our listeners. You started with demand more diversity. I mean, that seems obvious, but maybe you could explore that a little bit more.

Tori:

So just to kind of frame it a little bit, you know, Jericho Project, we provide services to... the vast majority of our clients are people of color, over 90% of our staff members are people of color. And so we didn't really have a diversity problem in the terms of hiring diverse people, but we wanted to go a step further than that and say, are we promoting a diversity of people? Are our outcomes among the different populations that we serve? Are they equitable? So we really dug a lot deeper.

We also looked at our vendors. Are the vendors that we use minority-owned? And if not, let's explore and find, you know, some vendors who are. You know, we really were trying to put our money where our mouth was. Diversity is a word that's kind of tossed around a lot and we really kind of wanted to make it more concrete. We've created more avenues for training, more coaching, more opportunities for staff to rise up within the organization. We provide internships for some of our staff who are getting social work degrees. We allow our employees to take up to four hours off every week to pursue a degree, a college degree or advanced degree.

So things like that, you know, that really are concrete ways that we can promote diversity and, you know, help our employees rise up within the organization. Whether they stay with Jericho or move to another organization, we really value that among our employees.

Keith:

Well, I picked just the first one of the five, but given this, and you've covered it, let me go to number two. Describe the process in your organization to do as you suggested, rooting out embedded racism? How did you manage that conversation?

Tori:

Those were some really difficult conversations. This really started, as you mentioned, with the George Floyd murder. You know, we were in the midst of COVID and we had established Monday morning meetings for all staff. So, we were having these every Monday morning and the Monday morning after the George Floyd murder, one of my colleagues said to me, you know, I think that we should really address this because, you know, people are really hurting. To people who work at Jericho, it wasn't just upsetting, it was traumatizing. It was triggering. It was actually impeding their ability to work.

You know, this was during COVID. We serve a very vulnerable population of chronically homeless people and families, and, you know, they're expected to come to work and help other people when they're really suffering themselves. So we talked about it. We talked about it there. We talked about it in smaller groups. We're still talking about it. Later that summer, there was a lot of focus on anti-Asian hate crimes and so we talked about that as well. You know, I just heard from so many staff members after those conversations that they just appreciated that, you know, as the CEO, that I recognized that people were suffering.

Keith:

Maybe you can double-click a bit and help us understand as a leader, how did you actually initiate the conversation? How did you facilitate it? What was the format? I mean, if you were instructing our listeners to follow in your footsteps, what are some of the advice you would give more practically?

Tori:

I mean, I think it starts with, you know... it started on these Monday morning meetings, which, you know, there's over 100, sometimes 150 people on these calls. So it's not as conducive to an intimate conversation, but what we did is from those initial conversations at our Monday morning meetings, we formed different work groups. We formed four different work groups and those work groups are still in existence today. And they were tasked with helping Jericho become more equitable and, you know, more inclusive.

We also had guest speakers come. We had a small group where it was almost like a book club, but we would watch videos, movies and sometimes books that were on, you know, topics of racial equity. So really, I think it's almost impossible to do too much. You know, you don't wanna just kind of put out a statement and then leave it there. I think what my staff really appreciated was that I wasn't just kind of giving it lip service. You know, of course, it's important to acknowledge how people are feeling and that this is going on in the world, but then also you have to show, well, what's gonna come of it.

Keith:

When were you the most uncomfortable or when were you out over your skis the most in this conversation as a white woman?

Tori:

Yeah. I remember one of my staff members asking me on this Monday morning call, you know, "Tori, why is it taking you so long to talk about this?" And I think she was reflecting what a lot of black people were feeling... were thinking at that time that, you know, this kind of violence against black people has been happening for centuries and, you know, why am I just addressing it now? And that was a really good question. And I was a little bit ah-hah. I was just honest, you know, I said, I need to hear from you. I know this is late in the game, but, you know, I'm committed to having Jericho move forward and making this a permanent part of the work that we do.

The work groups that we formed and the other work that we've done has really shown everybody including this woman who asked the question that I'm serious about this, even if I was a little late to the game.

Keith:

Well, look, I mean, that kind of humility and that kind of vulnerability is always appreciated. And it's something we need to keep being reminded of as leaders. Well, thanks for that conversation. And for anybody who's interested, there's a wonderful article in "Wharton Magazine." I was very moved by the piece. Tori, do you remember the actual article title?

Tori:

It's called "Building an Employee-Led Blueprint for Change."

Keith:

There you go. Perfect. And if anybody would like to search for that.

Tori:

I think it was like October or November 2020.

Keith:

Yeah. It was very influential to me. So thank you for that. You know, the core essence of your passion, before we address the purpose-driven leader, for all of us, I wanna talk a little bit about homelessness, and I would be a real miss if we didn't have an opportunity to ask you personally, what are some of the challenges with really fixing the problem?

I mean, my biggest struggle has always been that I trust that these major cities, Los Angeles, where I live, San Francisco, where I've just moved and now have a home, I see the problem. And I know that the government officials feel very strongly about fixing the problem. They run on platforms to fix the problem. And yet it doesn't seem like it's getting any better. Maybe I could get a little bit of an insight from you. Why haven't we solved this problem?

Tori:

Just by way of background, you know, there's a visible homeless problem in many cities. And those are the folks that are living on the streets that you see. I've been to, you know, Skid Row in LA. It's heartbreaking to see how many people are living on the streets there. What a lot of people don't realize about homelessness is that that's really just the tip of the iceberg. Here in New York City, last night, there were over 47,000 people who were homeless in the city, 28,000 of those are families, including 16,000 children.

So you don't see them living on the streets, but they're living in shelters. They're moving around. This doesn't even include, you know, families who are sleeping on their sister's couch or something. So, you know, I just wanted to kind of frame that, that the street homelessness is a very visible problem, but the problem goes much deeper than that. And the major driver of homelessness is still economic. Often it's triggered by one tragedy. Somebody loses a job, they get sick and then they can't pay their rent and they lose their housing.

And then, you know, it's really about a lack of affordable housing. It's about income inequality and those are really greater issues than, you know, an organization like Jericho can solve. But I did wanna let you know that there are solutions to homelessness and everybody knows it because they've been... you know, they are evidence-based solutions, they've been proven. And, you know, there has been some good news in the past few years. One of Jericho's major initiatives is to house homeless veterans.

Under the Obama administration, you know, a few years ago, there was a nationwide initiative to end veterans' homelessness. And there are some cities who actually did it, Phoenix and Houston being a couple I can think of off the top of my head. New York took up this challenge as well under Mayor de Blasio and the mayor himself personally got involved in ending veterans' homelessness. In New York City, we went from about 4,000 homeless veterans on any given day to about 500 now. So it was almost a 90% drop.

And it's not rocket science. It's resources. It's commitment. The city was able to house hundreds of veterans every month. Mayor de Blasio personally reached out to landlords to ask them to take homeless veterans in their empty units. He funded the construction of new veterans' residences, including three that Jericho runs now. And so there are blueprints for solving homelessness. It's a resource problem and it's a commitment problem.

So, you know, I would say that it's not an intractable problem. We have many examples of how to solve homelessness. To bring it back to Jericho's work, you know, the folks that you see living on the street in large part are people who have mental illnesses and people who have substance use addictions. That's the target population that Jericho primarily serves. And what we do is supportive housing and supportive housing is... it's a proven model. It's been around for almost 40 years. It's a very simple idea, that homeless people who are suffering from mental illness or substance use disorders need an affordable place to live, a clean, safe place to lay their head and combined with that is the services.

So that's what Jericho does. We give people the keys to their own unit, which is huge because living on the streets, it's constant fight and flight. And so we give them the keys to their own apartment. They have their own lease and then we provide the wraparound services. So it could be psychiatry services. It could be helping them get a job, reuniting with their family, exploring a hobby. We have a horticultural therapy program that we started this year. So we really look at every aspect of our clients' lives and see how we can help them, you know, reach their greatest potential.

Keith:

Tori, when I was researching my book called "Who's Got Your Back," the intention was to try to understand the power of peer-to-peer support and peer-to-peer counseling and peer-to-peer coaching as a part of the transformation of an individual. And I was so, so impacted by my research on the AA program and how powerfully that peer-to-peer support can transform lives of people who are literally in the street into vibrant, functioning members of society. It was inspiring to me.

I'm curious, where does the peer-to-peer element... and the reason I ask is I don't think we use enough of the peer-to-peer element in our own companies. Sales reps coaching sales reps, managers coaching managers, but relative to this point of sort of destitution and peer-to-peer coaching and 12 steps, is that something that is a part of your support services?

Tori:

Yes, definitely. We hire many people who have experienced homelessness themselves. You know, as I mentioned, over 90% of our staff members are people of color, as are our clients. That's a very important part of what we do. We have specific peer counselors that we hire, who work with... we have specific ones for veterans and specifically for young adults. And as you can imagine, both of those populations, you know, they don't necessarily wanna hear from somebody outside of their age group or experience.

So, you know, a veteran who can be engaged by another veteran, that's gold. You know, that's how we really are able to engage folks who, you know, are often wary of any kind of system. Whether it's a nonprofit or the city, whether it's a shelter or, you know, somebody who's trying to help you, there's a trust issue there. So the peer-to-peer is key, especially in the veterans and young adult world that we work in.

Keith:

So let's shift gears a bit. When I first was introduced to you, I was a little jealous. I was sitting thinking, "Oh my gosh, this amazing individual gets to live her life purpose-driven." I mean, because there's a direct integration between what you're doing in your job as a CEO of a nonprofit and this principle of purpose. And I was wondering how we would get around to what we can learn for the rest of us who may or may not be leading organizations that feel as directly purpose-led as a nonprofit. But perhaps you can step above the actual job of running a nonprofit and its purpose and talk to us a little bit about how you define purpose-driven leadership and what do you look for?

Tori:

Yeah, sure. So I think, you know, the first and possibly most important step is to look at yourself as a leader and find what your purpose is. At Jericho, it may be more obvious because we are a nonprofit, as you mentioned, but, you know, in the corporate world, in the for-profit world, this is a huge driver. You know, customers are demanding it that companies be more purpose-driven, but you have to start with yourself and you have to define, as a leader of your organization, what is your purpose? What gets you up every morning?

You know, for me, it's being able to hand the keys to a homeless person, you know, for possibly the first apartment they've ever had in their whole lives. But if you're trying it, maybe it's, you know, helping companies get excellent healthcare. There's lots of purposes in companies.

Keith:

Can I stop there for a second? I feel like some of the lessons that I learned from your Wharton article could also be applied here, which is let's ask our own people. I mean, obviously, as a leader and a founder for myself of an organization that we consider ourselves very purpose-led, transforming teams that transform the world. But sometimes I think I overlook asking our people what gets them out of bed? What makes them proud of what they're doing? What's the purpose that they find in the work that they're doing?

And I think it's something that we can take a lesson out of your book for writing the Wharton piece in terms of crowdsourcing among the organization. What do we really think our purpose is? I think that's an important element of it, not just something that's handed down.

Tori:

For sure. That was one of my points too is to stay close to your stakeholders, and especially your employees and your clients. You know, I have a resident advisory council that we have folks from each of the supportive housing residences that we run. We meet quarterly. And I've learned more from them over the years than I have from anybody else. And so that's where I get a lot of my ideas for new services. You know, it also inspires me obviously. So I think that's really important, to stay close to... and to always be open to feedback. I think that's always important.

You know, I think you also want to... if you could be consistent and clear in what your purpose is and the vision for the organization, then you need to, you know, constantly convey that to those around you. You need to hire people who buy into your vision and feel the same purpose, and then you need to keep leading by example and being consistent. And I wanna be clear, like this is... it takes a lot of work and it's hard. You know, sometimes you just... you wake up in the morning and you're just not feeling it. You need to take care of yourself.

That's very, very important because you have to be able to face your employees, face your clients or your customers, always being consistent about the purpose and the vision of the organization, and sometimes that means stepping back and saying, "I need to recharge. You know, like I'm taking a break. Don't call me or bother me for a week or something.” So I think that's really important because, I mean, being a leader is hard enough, being a purpose-driven leader is another layer on top of that that's challenging.

Keith:

You know, I'm gonna use this as a segue I always like to do with our guests, which is to double-click a little bit and get to know you a little bit better. On a personal or professional basis, Tori, what's dialing up your energy these days and what's dialing down your energy these days?

Tori:

So I would say professionally, it's always my colleagues who get me excited. You know, we've been through so much over the past two-plus years. My organization was so amazing during COVID. It still inspires me. And I really feel like we've come out a much stronger agency than we were before. And because of some of the conversations that we've had and the various like workgroups and other kind of smaller, more intimate gatherings, I've been able to get to know some employees that I never would've gotten to know before.

We have over 200 employees in like 10 different locations, and I'm not always able to get to everywhere. So it's really my colleagues. I'm just so inspired by their stories. We just started this week a summer internship program for children of our employees. And so now I'm actually getting to meet the next generation, our employees' children. And so I met a couple of them yesterday. They just started. And that's what's really getting me excited right now is being able to even help the children of our employees.

Keith:

And draining your energy?

Tori:

Yeah. I think just like everybody, just what's going on in the world. Gun violence episodes, you know, another one just on Monday. It really affects me as I'm sure it does a lot of people who are listening, affects me personally. And it is hard to kind of find the energy to go and run an organization when you're just feeling just really demoralized and depressed.

Keith:

How are you thinking... By the way, I certainly have talked to a number of executives who are sharing some of those sentiments. Recognizing that your own people are feeling that, as a purpose-driven leader, how are you bringing that conversation into the workplace, if you are?

Tori:

I do a number of things, you know, some of which we already talked about. Our Monday morning meetings tend to be a venue for that. We also talk about it, you know, at the C level and kind of have it trickle down. We try to plan a lot of activities with staff that can help them unwind. I mean, a lot of it's over Zoom, we do fun events. We do trivia, you know, just anything to break up and have a little fun. So it's hard. You know, I often will address things head-on on the Monday morning meetings, just recognizing that people may be feeling a certain way. It may be triggering for people, retraumatizing some of these events.

I wish I had, you know, a magic wand. It's really just keeping the conversation going and making sure that we treat our employees well so they feel respected and safe at work.

Keith:

Well, as we begin to wrap up, I'm curious as you look to the future, either from your perspective as a leader or perhaps from the mission of Jericho itself, what's something that is making you most excited for the future, most positively geared, most revved up. And where do you see possibility?

Tori:

Yeah, you know, I think there's been so much great progress we've made over the past couple years in terms of racial equity and social justice. I think, you know, it's a little bit of a case of two steps forward, one step back in some cases, but I do feel very hopeful and excited that so many more people are talking about diversity, about gender equity, about transgender equity, about racial equity. And I just feel like we've come this far. And even though there are some forces trying to hold us back and bring us back, when I see... I live in New York City, which is definitely a bubble, but when I see thousands of people out marching...

You know, I live in Rockaway Beach and it's a big surfing community, and one of the best things that I see out here is they have… they call them paddle-outs and there's a couple of hundred surfers who go out, they protest... protesting gun violence, protesting police violence. And it's just really inspirational to me because I feel like, you know, you see all surfers out there on their surfboards and that's inspirational to me. I think that change is happening and there's really no going back.

Keith:

Oh, what a beautiful place to end. Thanks, Tori, for joining us today. And I personally thank you so much for what I'd been inspired and learned and grown in our brief getting to know each other. So thank you.

Tori:

Thank you.

Keith:

Totally our pleasure. Our podcast Shifting Grounds by TriNet is committed to helping small businesses and their leaders with timely and relevant business content just like today. Shifting Grounds drops the third Tuesday of every month. We hope you continue catching our new episodes on Apple, Spotify, RISE.TriNet.com.

Tori, again, thank you so much for joining us today.