Join Cindy Moehring as she talks with Dina Howell, board director for Spin Master and former CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi X. Moehring and Howell discuss how critical it is for companies to have a strong, shared purpose and the importance of building trust between all stakeholders in the business ecosystem.
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Episode Transcript:
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0:00:15.5 Cindy Moehring: Hi everybody. Welcome back for another episode of The BIS: The Business Integrity School, and I am so excited to share with you that today, we have Dina Howell with us. Welcome Dina.
0:00:26.9 Dina Howell: Thank you so much, Cindy.
0:00:28.6 Cindy Moehring: So good to have you here. I've known Dina for a while, but let me tell you the rest of you about Dina so that you get to know if you don't already a little bit about her background and her career. Dina has had an extraordinary... That's to put it lightly, 30-year career in business. She worked for 22 of those years at Procter & Gamble, where she pioneered in the field of Shopper Marketing and served as SVP over global media and brand offer operations. She retired from P&G in December of 2010, and went on to serve for five years as the Worldwide President and CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi X. That's a Multinational Communications and Advertising Agency network, it had over 12 offices in nine different countries. And in that role, Dina succeeded our now very own Andy Murray who went on after his stint at Saatchi & Saatchi to do many things. And now, as you know, is the Founder and Executive Chair of the Walton College Consumer Centric Leadership Initiative. Now, Dina, after she retired as CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi began serving on the board of Spin Master, and that's where she still serves today, and she chairs the human resources committee there. Spin Master is a publicly traded company and it is a leading global toy and children's entertainment company, creates play experiences through innovative toys, entertainment franchises and digital games, and some of the best known brands are things like Paw Patrol, Air Hogs, Hatchimals and GUND. Some of my favorites actually.
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0:02:02.6 Cindy Moehring: I really liked Hatchimals, I have to say.
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0:02:05.5 Cindy Moehring: That company Spin Master has over 1800 employees, 28 offices globally, and they distribute products in more than a 100 different companies. Throughout her career, despite being very busy, she has always focused on giving back. She served over 16 years on the board of Give Kids The World. It's a non-profit organization that's focused on providing magical cost-free vacations for very critically ill children and their families. And she was also a former member of our very own Walton College Dean's External Advisory Board. So Dina, thank you so much for coming back and spending a little time with us today here at Walton College, virtually through this wonderful video and podcast.
0:02:45.8 Dina Howell: Thank you very much. I appreciate it. I'm always delighted to give back to the Walton College, you can see the razor back on the wall behind me. I'm not an alum, our daughter is an alum, and so we are really delighted to have this conversation with you, so thanks so much.
0:03:05.3 Cindy Moehring: You are very welcome. Alright, so let's dive in. And what I wanna really focus on in this particular video and podcast is connecting the classroom to the corporation in some really important ways, including how do you grow business responsibly? And that has become this really big topic lately, ESG is the big buzz word, and that's on everybody's minds, but 20-25 years ago, that wasn't something that was being talked about hardly at all, in businesses or in business schools. Yet some companies, I think were early adopters, even if they weren't calling it that, P&G seems to me to be one of those. So tell me a little bit about... Well, first of all, whether or not you agree with what I just said, talk about P&G's purpose, how did it shape your career? Were they an early adopter of this responsible growth in business?
0:04:02.3 Dina Howell: So Cindy, I think this topic is so critically important. Certainly as I sit here today after a 30-35-year career, being able to look back at some of the most important parts of my career, and one of those, in my view, was going to work for a company like Procter & Gamble. P&G in the very early days, had and put together what was called a PVP, it was purpose, values and principles, and all of our business dealings were expected to live by those purpose, values and principles. They were in every conference room on the wall, every employee was actively trained in those, and it was so incredibly important, especially as you start to work all over the world. Because one of the things to understand is that all of us grow up in different households, in different countries, under different social norms, and to get everyone grounded in the same expectations is critically important. And as we think about this, and I would like to actually read the purpose that P&G had established because it I think is crystal clear and helps people to understand what is expected. So the Procter & Gamble purpose is: We will provide products of superior quality and value that improve the lives of the world's consumers. As a result, consumers will reward us with leadership sales and profit growth, allowing our people, our shareholders, and the communities in which we live and work to prosper. And this is at least 30 years old.
0:06:00.3 Dina Howell: And so...
0:06:00.4 Cindy Moehring: Amazing.
0:06:01.3 Dina Howell: It is so important, and the core values of P&G... So, they put together a Venn diagram, and the P&G people were always in the middle, and the values were leadership, integrity, trust, passion for winning and ownership. And I think, when you couple all of those things together, you end up with a very clear understanding of what the company expects out of each individual employee, regardless of how you were raised, brought up, and in what country.
0:06:36.0 Cindy Moehring: I think most people know, at least in retail, what a strong relationship Walmart and P&G have, and much of the alignment there that allows people to have long, flourishing careers is really important. And you mentioned in reading the purpose there, three things you mentioned are people, so the employees, you mentioned the shareholder and the communities that you serve. Those were three of the main constituencies that the Business Roundtable in 2019, 20-30 years later, finally made clear when they redefined in their statement of what the purpose of a corporation was, that those three constituencies were at the top, along with dealing fairly and ethically with suppliers. So, my question to you is, P&G was clearly living it many, many years ago. Doug McMillon, who now leads the Business Roundtable, I think has taken much of Walmart and P&G's strong values and principles and overlaid that on the Business Roundtable's statement. Do you think that switch from stakeholder theory... I'm sorry, from shareholder reigns supreme to the stakeholder theory is something that's here to stay?
0:07:54.5 Dina Howell: I do. You can't be in business just to make profits. It's important, we're not in a philanthropic type of endeavor when you're talking about a for-profit entity, but you also have to understand you're part of an ecosystem, and that is part of understanding, making sure that, as employees, they're treated fairly and given a fair value for the work that they are expected to do, that you do give back to the communities in which you live and work. And as you think about those types of things, it's very, I believe, second-nature for Walmart. And I can speak to Walmart, I lived there for a long time and worked with Doug since he was a DMM. And while I never knew Mr. Sam, I certainly have heard plenty of Mr. Sam's stories about when the individual who I worked for on the Walmart team, Tom Muccio, originally came down in 1986 and connected with Mr. Sam and built what were gonna be the rules of engagement between Procter and Gamble, who was the first vendor in West Arkansas and Walmart. And again, we lived by those every single day.
0:09:20.7 Dina Howell: So, I believe there are plenty of companies out there, Walmart and Procter and Gamble included, that have lived these values for 30-40 years, have proven to be company that is built to last. So, if you go back to one of those old books that I think is one of the oldies but goodies, if you go back, and if as a student, if you all haven't read that book, I believe that "Built to Last" is one of those classics that really makes a difference. And the key is, it's all about building on trust and building on shared purpose.
0:09:58.9 Cindy Moehring: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So, you're now... After P&G, then you went to Saatchi & Saatchi, which was worldwide, and now, you're on the board of a public company, but it's actually based in Canada. So, this public Business Roundtable statement that we're talking about was primarily a US-centric statement with US multinational companies. Do you think that same focus applies globally to companies that aren't based here in the US, like for example through the lens of Spin Master?
0:10:30.8 Dina Howell: I do. I happen to... I chair the Human Resources Committee, I happen to sit on the Governance Committee of Spin Master, and we are very focused on understanding and really staying very current in terms of what is expected of good companies and good governance at companies. And I think it varies as you think about each individual company. I believe the larger companies are expected to often lead in this area, but it's not okay, in my opinion, for companies to really not figure out how to continue to go forward in a very positive way for the employees and for the businesses.
0:11:26.0 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, and I think a lot of that has been driven by the transparency that is just pervasive in our communities today, in large part because of digital media and social media. That transparency and the requirements of public companies to disclose quite a bit, I think, brings that into the fore. Companies have ESG goals, they report on ESG goals, the large companies do, and they really think in those ways. They know they're gonna be held to a certain standard, if you will, by their shareholders. But what about private companies? I know you've been with Spin Master since they went public, and private companies don't have those same transparent disclosure requirements, so what do you think about the stakeholder theory when it comes to private companies?
0:12:16.0 Dina Howell: I would say it varies all over the place when you're talking about private companies. When you are a publicly traded company, your business is very transparent and very clear. I will say, though, I've done quite a bit of consulting with some private companies, venture capital-owned companies, and I would say far more are interested in this and leaning into it than not today, because there is so much pressure in the environment and transparency in terms of consumers choosing where they want to spend their money, and where they want to spend their time. And so those types of things create a much more level environment in terms of profitability for companies public and private. If you don't have consumers that are willing to participate with you, then you're gonna go out of business pretty quickly.
0:13:15.1 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, I think that's really true, and it makes me think of the Edelman Trust Barometer Report. They just did their 20th anniversary edition of that last year, and a couple of different supplements because of COVID, and they weren't focused on public or private companies, as I recall, necessarily, but they were just looking at, "What do you have to do to maintain trust with your customers?" and found, interestingly, that customers care primarily about a company's ethics and their integrity, kinda their purpose and their principals, first and foremost. And then if you don't focus on that, what they found is you're not gonna be able to maintain that trust that you just mentioned with your customers. So let's talk about that through COVID, you've been in the unique position of being on the board of a public company and having to advise that company on, "How do we survive and get through this COVID pandemic?" I'm sure there are some real pearls of wisdom that you learned along the way and seeing the company you gotta work through and struggle with, so what are some of the lessons that you learned by being in that position through COVID, in terms of figuring out how to maintain that trust with customers and with employees and with other stakeholders in general?
0:14:38.1 Dina Howell: What are some of the lessons learned? Well, I think the first is, if you can't figure out what's gonna happen in the future, you better hope that you have very agile teams. So agility, I think has become more important than ever. We used to always talk about that in the companies that I worked for. It has been demonstrated over the past year. And in fact, some people get really tired of the word pivot, because everyone is pivoting and figuring out. And again, that's just in my view, another word for very fast agility is figuring out how to move and which way the puck is going. And so that's one of the things that I think's been really important to understand. I would say the other is... I would say if you are selling a product and you, I hope, have figured out how to do e-commerce and online, and figure out what is the mix. So if we take it back down to Walmart being in Northwest Arkansas, understanding that commerce for Walmart today is omni-channel. If one of your students is planning a future to work in Walmart, they likely will not work in-store or online, they will work where the consumer is present, where ever that happens to be at that point in time. And all vendors, including Spin Master, the toy company that I work with, we have to understand that. And we have to make sure that our systems are ready to go regardless of where consumers want to buy our brands.
0:16:20.5 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, yeah, regardless of where. I totally agree. And I think the pandemic forced disruption on all of us to think that way, even more so than maybe we were ahead of time. It's like you have to live the experience to really get it, and we've all had to live it in the last year.
0:16:39.0 Dina Howell: It speeded up the learning curve for sure.
0:16:41.2 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, it sure did. So we've been talking a whole lot about what I call the macro view of ethics, kinda ESG and the stakeholder theory versus shareholders, but there's this whole other side that when people hear the word integrity or ethics, there's the personal side of it, what I call kinda the micro-view of ethics, which is equally as important, if not more so on an individual level in terms of how you carry yourself in the workplace and what you represent to those you work with and those you may lead. And you, interestingly shared with me a fabulous list of kinda your top 10. Your top 10 list of tips for personal success. And as I was reading through those, Dina, I was just thrilled to see that at least three of them, directly, three of 10 directly related in some way to ethics or integrity. And so do you mind just sharing a little bit about what you think those three are and a story or two about them?
0:17:46.2 Dina Howell: Sure. So I put this list together about 10 years ago. The Walton Business school had asked me to come in for a number of speeches with some of the international students, as well as some of the MBA classes. And they just said, "People kinda always wanna understand, how did you get to where you are? What did you do? What were your grounding purpose? How did you figure it out?" And so I literally said, "Okay, I wanna put together the 10 parts to me that I would give as the best advice." My kids laugh at me. This was the kind of thing I used to do around the kitchen table, but since you never listen to your parents, I was able to reuse it for someone that perhaps might listen. So I'm gonna share with you the three that have been on this list for more than 10 years, and really kinda go deep and again, they haven't changed. Some of the stories over time evolve as I gain more experience, but they haven't changed.
0:18:46.0 Dina Howell: The very first part and the best piece of advice that I always say to people is make sure you understand what is your character, your purpose and your personal brand, and understand your integrity is all woven inside of that. Because if you become a disingenuous person, no one will trust you. Right out of the gate, you have to decide who are you and it's very difficult to be a different person at home or in one company and then change to another company and have a different persona. That's number one, and I could... When I give this speech, sometimes I talk 15 minutes on this because it is so critically important to understand what you will and won't do. There are people that feel comfortable with little white lies. I'm not one of those people and I don't wanna work for a company that I think does that. And again, you've gotta be congruent with the company that you work for, so think about that, students, as you're looking at it. The next part that I felt was very, very important is... And the words that I always use are, decide early and reaffirm often to yourself what you will and won't do for your career, okay? You will be happier because you cannot optimize every part of your life at the same time. What will you do? Will you lie? Will you tell a company that you're willing to relocate and then when they're ready to relocate you, you go, "I was just kidding."? Again, it's connected to number one that I talked about.
0:20:34.1 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, it is very connected.
0:20:36.4 Dina Howell: But you have to know what you're willing to do and what you're not willing to do. I mentioned a couple of minutes ago, when we moved to Northwest Arkansas, my husband resigned his job and that allowed us the freedom to be able to relocate, to take on this great new opportunity bringing marketing to Procter and Gamble Walmart team. Without that, I never would have had the opportunity. But we took some negatives. We took a financial hit when we made that decision. But it ended up setting us up for a lifetime of being able to follow my career as it continued to escalate because we had made some of those choices.
0:21:19.6 Cindy Moehring: That's exactly right, and it reminds me when you're mentioning the first one and then this one, thinking about your purpose and talking about it to yourself but to others as well, and then deciding what you will and won't do. That harkens back to what two speakers we've had on campus this semester talked about. We've got a program, "let's talk about fraud," and our first two speakers were both former executives at companies who became white collar criminals, and when the students asked, some of the questions about "What do you wish you would have done differently?" and "Was it worth it?", it was interesting that when I read your list and the two that you've just talked about and having just heard them, how much you two were echoing each other because those two lessons... Your kids may not have heard you at the kitchen table [chuckle] but the students heard. Two speakers said they wished that they would have paid more attention to thinking about their purpose early on, thinking about what they would and wouldn't do early on, and those are the same lessons that they paid forward to the students, so it's... You're right, you cannot over-emphasize enough the importance of being very clear about who you are and what you will and won't do, and what your purpose is, what your character is, and the kind of person you wanna be.
0:22:40.4 Dina Howell: Especially in today's world with being on 24/7. Whether someone accepts it or not, our ability to be on 24/7 is there.
0:22:52.1 Cindy Moehring: It is.
0:22:53.4 Dina Howell: And it is difficult to shut off your life. And what I would say is lives are very integrated today. If you are inconsistent in your values, it becomes even tougher to be squeaky clean at work and not outside of work, okay? You will very quickly be found out, in my opinion, and that would be a big piece of advice that I would say to someone.
0:23:27.3 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, that's true. Okay, I think there was one more that related to...
0:23:31.4 Dina Howell: One more and it's very quick, I call it the New York Times rule. And what I say to individuals, employees or students or anyone, "There are no private conversations other than the ones you have with yourself. If you tell anyone anything, you can expect that at some point it could very easily or will likely get out." And this includes if you're dating someone and you share something that is, "Oh my goodness, look at this", and "We're about to buy this company", or "We're gonna merge this", or "This happened", whatever it is, okay, and then all of a sudden, you're no longer dating that individual and they go off and casually mention it to somebody. That is your responsibility. A big part of ethics is keeping things confidential that are entrusted to you. Again, we're back to that trust word.
0:24:31.2 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, it comes right back to it.
0:24:33.6 Dina Howell: And corporations expect that they can keep confidential information confidential and so if you find yourself saying something like, "Well, I'm not supposed to say this, but da-da-da-da-da." Don't say it.
0:24:48.6 Cindy Moehring: Yeah. That would be your first clue.
0:24:51.9 Dina Howell: You're headed down the wrong path.
0:24:54.1 Cindy Moehring: Right. [chuckle] Do you think that those lessons that you wrote... I don't know, 10, 15 years ago that you just shared with me, are as relevant today as they were then and will continue to be so in the future?
0:25:08.8 Dina Howell: They have served me well, they have served people that I've shared them with, well. Individuals who I respect follow these types of principles and rules and even at this point in my career, as I assess new boards, I have turned down some additional boards, because it was inconsistent with my values.
0:25:33.2 Cindy Moehring: So, Dana, if you think about the future and think about the future of creating trust, business ethics, integrity, whatever you wanna call it, on both the micro and the macro level, and if you had three words to describe what you think the future of business integrity should be, what do you think those three words would be to sum it up?
0:25:57.6 Dina Howell: Yeah. I believe it is more critical than ever... So critical is for me, key. It's really come to the forefront in all the conversation that we just had over the last bit of time. I believe it also will be more controversial, because we are very polarized, at least in the United States, right now.
0:26:26.4 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, we are.
0:26:27.7 Dina Howell: And what I perhaps believe is very clear as a purpose going forward, someone else may think is not clear.
0:26:36.9 Cindy Moehring: You're right, yeah.
0:26:38.1 Dina Howell: And so just the difference between right and wrong, and you think about some of these ethical dilemmas and how people, different people see them. And so, this to me is critical. I know certainly at any company, at any organization, making sure that everybody really is grounded in what the company or the entity believes is kind of grounding, because it is, it could be very controversial. And for me, the third is consumer-facing. I think it's really important to remember that trust is not just between employees and entities inside of the company, that trust is given and granted based on a consumer buying into your proposition, buying into your brand, believing that when they open whatever it is, that it's going to be as stated. And that I don't have to worry about whatever it is, manufacturing processes or child labor laws, or whatever it is, it could be purity standards, whatever it is, I don't have to worry about that. And if you're dealing with a retailer, same thing. What are the principles? What are the policies? Do I feel good about... Do I feel safe in that environment? If I'm going to a brick and mortar store, if I'm online, are they gonna deliver it on time? Is it going to come as packaged as stated. So for me, critical, perhaps controversial, and consumer-facing.
0:28:20.7 Cindy Moehring: Consumer-facing, that's a really interesting take. I like that, and I think that certainly sums up where we are at this point in time, and the things that I think we're gonna be facing in the future. That's fantastic. Dina, this has been a very wide-ranging conversation. I have enjoyed it immensely, and I know that our audience will benefit greatly from hearing all of your pearls of wisdom, but I like to end these conversations on a fun note as well. Thinking about things that you have read recently, watched recently, or maybe listened to in terms of a podcast that you could recommend, so something for fun that you've done during COVID, when you had a little more time on your hands, but that you found also had this ethical dilemma to it. So what... Is there any recommendation you have of a good podcast series or a good Netflix series or a great new book you've read recently?
0:29:10.0 Dina Howell: Sure. So I'd say the best, interesting book that... Not a business book, one that really, I just read for interest. I read the Ben Carson story. It's called Gifted Hands, and it was just someone referred it to me and didn't really know much about him as an individual. It was fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. He grew up in Detroit, and the ethical dilemma in there is, thankfully for him, he had a really strong mother. But his mother never admitted until much later in life that she couldn't read. So she was pushing her two sons to become better and to become strongly educated, and she, for a long time, talked about the fact that she needed new glasses and she couldn't read the words on the page or whatever it was. And so... Again, with the right intent, but there was definitely an ethical dilemma there, and I would highly recommend it. It's a book. And then I found out later it's a movie as well. And Cuba Gooding Junior is in it. And it's really fantastic. So that's one. I would say my favorite TV or video kind of show right now that I thought had many ethical dilemmas was The Queen's Gambit. I don't know if you've seen it.
0:30:39.9 Cindy Moehring: I have.
0:30:40.9 Dina Howell: Absolutely, it is littered with ethical dilemmas, probably what a bit of what makes it so interesting, but certainly the fact that... I can't remember the leading character's name, but that she performed better when she was on, I don't know, Quaaludes or anti-depressants or whatever it was.
0:31:00.9 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, yeah, whatever it was, yeah.
0:31:01.5 Dina Howell: Then unfortunately, according to the storyline, she was forced to take when she was in the orphanage at the beginning. But for me, that was... Boy, that was something.
0:31:16.2 Cindy Moehring: It's an amazing series.
0:31:17.8 Dina Howell: It's an amazing series. So those are the two that I think, for me, I would recommend both of those two.
0:31:27.2 Cindy Moehring: Oh, awesome. Well, I can endorse The Queen's Gambit, having watched it, and I will add the Ben Carson book and movie to my list.
0:31:34.4 Dina Howell: Great.
0:31:35.2 Cindy Moehring: Great. Dina, thank you so much for your time and your pearls of wisdom, and just sharing all of the stories. It's just... It's been fabulous. Thank you very, very much.
0:31:45.2 Dina Howell: My pleasure. Thank you so much for the invitation. I'm delighted to do it, and thank you again, and hopefully we'll get a chance to visit again some time.
0:31:53.5 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, I hope so. And thank all of you for listening or watching this podcast today and or the video. Be sure to join us again next week for another guest in the BIS, the Business Integrity School podcast video series. See you soon. Bye-bye.
0:32:08.3 Dina Howell: Go Hogs.
0:32:11.7 Cindy Moehring: Go Hogs.
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