Would you have fired Kanye?

Ahoy legend. Welcome to another episode of the team buffalo podcast. I'm your host, Travis Thomas. Today's episode is going to be about a particularly topical and really recent media topic around a particular celebrity who will name in a moment. And you probably glean that already in the title. But it's an interesting one in that we don't often talk about real examples, right? We will give you situations where we can unpick it, I use experiences and things you might have navigated, and I know because we've worked together, and I've worked with others and listen to this, around the nuances of those things that we want to work there. But this is interesting, because it's really about unpicking and understanding. Where do you draw the line? Right? Where do you draw the line as leader to go? If I were in that situation, I probably wouldn't do it or in that situation, I don't know exactly what I would do. And it's easy to sit on the sidelines and go off probably the way I would have done it, maybe not. But that's not what we're talking about today. So today's episode is about a particularly topical thing. And that's around Kanye. You see the stuff around Kanye last week? You know, you made some comments around. They were anti semitic comments. There's no debating that. But the bit that becomes challenging and why I think it's a really good topic for today for you to get your really complex thinking skills involved as a leaders, it's easy to sit on the sidelines and go drop him get him out of there. But what if Kanye was your top performer you think about added us or Adidas For those playing in the States. Yee had a $2 billion deal with these guys. They were generating massive, massive amounts of revenue. I love added US products. I've got multiple pairs that if I'm not in some sort of like vans or something else, I'm usually in a pair of Editas. So they're great shoes, right? They're known for performing particularly well. They good branding, good releases, and they've got a mega star, they've done deals with Beyonce there, they've got a good line, right? And they know what they're doing. But people immediately called for him to be removed. And I think the question you have to ask yourself is where would you draw the line. Now, the complexity here, and the bit that a lot of people don't think about or don't give a $hit about because it's too complicated. And the world's easier if I just tell people what I think they should do, and they do it is that Comey has been quite open that he has mental health challenges. He's been really upfront about not being properly medicated. He shared the kind of trials that he said, he said, a marital breakdown, and he's no longer in that relationship. And so there's all these really complicating personal and psychological factors, you know, we're no longer in a point in humanity, you know, and I have a psychological background, I do MBA, so I understand the human meets business dimension really, really well and work with clients a lot in that space. But we're no longer a point in history and humanity where we say, Oh, well, psychological problems are not the same as medical problems. They are. They're clinically accepted things like depression, bipolar, they are accepted as clinical diagnoses. So now we've got this thing, right. So we've got someone who has a clinical psychological condition, who is affecting their ability to make good sense, you know, he's spoken about the need for medication not been on medication. And then you've got that tied now with he generates a massive, massive amount of value for shareholders and for the brand, and for the people involved in leadership, who brought him on board and have these really impressive deals. So you've got this kind of Man, this guy generates a ton of money, and the, oh, this is really bad for the brand. And the he's got some mental health issues, he's been pretty open and transparent. And if he wasn't a normal corporate setting, that would have gone well, but they wouldn't have been able to quickly just like that, particularly not here in Australia, you know, fair works and other rights that employees have, where if they've signaled that they have an issue, you have a duty of care not to just discharge them from that. Now, that doesn't mean he would have stayed in that role. But he surely would have just been ejected within two days, it just wouldn't have happened that way. So the question I have for you then is, what would you do? How would you unpick that I want you to take a second and really think, you know, I, I've got the emotions, it's anti symmetric, I don't believe he represents my brand. But let's say he did, let's say at a point in time, he really represented the brand. He performed phenomenally, but he's having a personal breakdown. He's no longer in the relationships, he's spiraling. There's clear instances of him being out in public and not really doing the right thing or being seen to be doing the right thing. And even I have this conundrum about where to cut it off. And I think as leaders, you can go well, that's an extreme situation, but it's, it's unlikely to be real. It's not true. I mean, with the leaders I work with there, once you face psychological challenges with their own team, there's people who have a financial crises and that affects the quality of their work. There's then fast comes on the back of that or the breakdown of performance. There's such an array of things that affect the human condition and how that plays out in your business and your organization or not for profit. for whatever you're in, that you have to stop and go, well, where where is that, and then where do my values and ethics come into tension with the expectation of shareholders, that's particularly challenging because if a shareholder or a large group of shareholders go, I don't want this, and I'm not going to allow it, or you're going to pay a consequence, but then you've got a larger group of shareholders going, that's fine, then you have an even trickier kind of nuances to work through. So you compile all that together. And I ask you, well, when's the last time you had to face a particularly challenging personal situation for an employee who was on your team? Or who's in your department that you've had to manage? And then how have you worked through that? And so I will weigh in with what I think from an added US perspective, is that I think they move too quickly. So I think, yes, they could have made a statement or we do not support or condone the opinions of Kanye West and the things that he said, and we will use this as a guidepost or a point of a catalytic event, to review our engagement with Kanye, and what that looks like in the future. I think that would have been enough, you know, I'm not saying let people cool off and drop it. But to do things in the heat of the moment to not understand the nuance of the person in that situation, and then to act swiftly to jettison them. Without understanding really what that could mean, in the long term. I think it's problematic. Now I'm not saying added us doesn't know what they're doing. Of course, I mean, I'm here doing the coaching thing, they're over there doing the apparel and footwear thing. So I'm sure they had a reason for that decision. But what I do see a lot in businesses now is that we really quickly want to distance ourselves from anything that could potentially be contentious. And in doing that, we neglect the human in that process. And so by jettison ye out of the way, and making room for this big void in their commercial outcomes, they've left with a clean nose, but potentially deep, deep cut to their pockets, and the overall experience of their customers. So people loved his product. So it's not even if you took his face out of it, there were really popular shoes they did well they sell more for than what you sell them for added us can pump the price up and they still sell out there a good product. So now you've got that extra dimension of not only is he a good performer, he makes a f*cking good product. So it's a challenging one. Right. But I think the the lesson there for leaders in the bit that I would suggest that we need to spend more time on is when you know what decision is right move quickly. But I think you need more than a couple of days to understand the deep implications of someone's mental health or health challenges balanced by commercial impetus balanced by a stakeholder group. Now Kanye at a minimum, if he was still involved would be expected to issue a formal apology, but be expected to undergo some level of support. So I think that's the other thing is if we see that people on our team are having a breakdown or struggling with the things that are going on, we can't just sit by and watch that pan out. That's, that's poor leadership to just say, I'm gonna let you kind of sort your own $hit out. And, you know, good luck to you may the odds be ever in your favor, I think it's really poor performance to that as a leadership group. And now, as I said, I understand there's a contractual arrangement with Kanye, and he's not an employee of added us, but he's a prize winner. And I think to not have gone through that process is potentially jeopardizing a really good arrangement or a path to recovery for both parties where they could have gotten to a good place. We've seen other celebrities, look at the Tiger Woods scandals, and you go back to others. And of course, he didn't say anything anti semitic, but was clearly doing things that were untoward. And there are some things you do not come back from. But there are the things where we go, well, maybe there's a blueprint back from this, or maybe we don't understand it enough to be calling that now. And I think it's really important. So if we park EA for a moment, now that we've kind of got that out out there in the open, the bits that I've been highlighting for you that I think are really important is to understand, when I've got a performer who performs really well, whether it's my top salesperson, or someone on my team who's particularly strong at their role, but they've got some sort of poor choice they've made or they've done something really catastrophic is to understand what are the implications for today? Who do I need to bring on site? Or who do I need to be aware of? Or who do I need to consult around what that means for them? So for example, the parties impacted by Kanye comments. Third is what does it mean commercially? What do I need to consider there? And fourth is really what do I need to do for this person? So even if we do part way is to just discard the human and go Well, good luck to you, I hope you're okay. Is not good leadership. It's really poor leadership. And I think that's important to understand is that we do have a duty of care, you know, I was on the train several months back and there was this couple up front of me going to work you know, they're both in there kind of corporate where and I'm reading book and going through notes for the session, upcoming coaching sessions and I saw an article in the western giant and it was talking about mental health and the the call for mental health to be treated more from a leaf perspective in alignment with physical health. and the husband turns to the wife and he says, I think kids these days, they just need to suck it up. What rubbish. Why should I pay for people who have mental health to be looked after from a leaf perspective? And I just thought, how ridiculous like what backwards thinking, as I said earlier, these are clearly things that have been covered off on where we're no longer in a realm where we can even question if psychological conditions and health disorders are actually disorders and people just taking the Mickey Yes, like with anything like with the flu or any people will take advantage and there will always be those but to write off a whole portion of the population who's struggling with a real thing at peak pandemic post pandemic burnouts, recession, at our door, job mobility, you know, all kinds of technology, interconnectivity that we don't necessarily want, not being able to turn off work to go that people shouldn't be having mental struggles in the back of that, I think is f*cking idiotic. And I think really poor nonsensical thinking in the back of what should be a clear nod to the value of giving people leave when they need it to support their mental health. So I challenge you as a leader to think about that Konya case study and to understand well, how would I've treated someone in a particularly similar engagement or even in my own kind of one, look at those four principles I shared of kind of pulling that situation apart, and then to understand the duty of care, really, on that fourth point that you have for those performers. I'm not saying keep poor performers around that you if you've listened to me at all, for the last however many episodes, I'm not in that camp, I'm around that balance and actually a little bit more towards Let's manage people to the standards we expect without micromanaging. So the point on this was religious just go I think there's more complexity to the situation than people are prepared to sit with and to really deeply understand, and to understand that as a leader, I think and I deeply believe that you have a responsibility to look after the people around you, and do as best you can while balancing those commercial and shareholder requirements. That's been today's episode of the Team Buffalo podcast. I've been your host, Travis Thomas, and I look forward to seeing you in the next episode tomorrow. Have a kick a$$ day and keep being amazing.