Unlocking How Women Will Take Over Global Leadership with Don Barden

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Timestamps:
00:00 — Cold Open & Intro
04:21 — Kickoff: The Disruptor Nobody Saw Coming
07:57 — 2028: The Year Women Take the Wheel
11:53 — Revenue ×3, Retention ×2: The Data That Broke the Boardroom
16:13 — The Goodyear & Firestone Moment
20:03 — Single Moms, Superpowers, & the Impossible Equation
24:45 — Don’t Judge the Past, Lead the Future
28:56 — Collaborate – Conquer: Why Women Don’t Need Mergers to Win
33:20 — The Four Business Types That Will Survive the Shift
40:18 — DEI Is Out, DOI Is In
54:50 — Celebrate: The Future Is Female (And Everyone Wins)

Don Barden (00:02.294)
If I talked to hundred men and lecture about this to a hundred male CEOs, a hundred will stand up and cheer. Nobody’s against this. There’s more women questioning it than there are men questioning it.

If you ask the economy, this mythological creature, what’s the most important thing to you? It’s not going to say diversity. It’s going to say inclusion. Cause you’re bringing everybody into the market. Everybody have opportunity. Some have more opportunity than others. That’s just life. We said, why? Why did you want a female?

The first thing they said was we feel like they’re more caring. They’re gentle. We have no evidence to support that. None. Okay.

Skot Waldron (00:41.00)
When I’m not hosting Unlocked, I’m speaking at events all over the world. I’m helping leaders and I’m helping teams communicate better. I’m helping them build trust faster and actually enjoy working together. I’ve spoken for companies like The Home Depot. I’ve spoken at national architectural firms. I’ve spoken for pharmaceutical company offsites. I’ve spoken at associations, you name it.

With 99% of attendees of all those events, over 1800 people have reviewed me at this point. 99% of them saying they got some value. That’s pretty awesome. Even the caterers have thanked me. And if they are thanking me and they’ve heard a lot of talks and they’re busy doing their jobs, that’s saying something. If you’re an event planner looking for a speaker who’s really easy to work with, trust me, I want to be the last thing you’re worried about on event day. I’m going to take care of you. And who actually delivers value for your audience that they are going to use on Monday morning when they return to the office, then let’s talk.

Okay. All right, y’all. We’re gonna hit on this topic today of women taking over corporate leadership positions. And we’re gonna get in some crazy stats. Dr. Don Barden is full of them, and they’re going to make you kind of like perk up. I need to listen to this guy, maybe. Or you’re gonna want to fight him. That’s why he’s on the show, because that, you know, creates the best content for interviews, right? You either want to fight the guy, or you like totally wholeheartedly believe in him and you want to fight the cause that he’s fighting. Like that, that is what this is all about. getting the information out to you and Dr. Don Barden has it.

He just wrote a new book called Here Come the Girls, and it is all about this idea of celebrating this new movement, this of women taking over more leadership roles. And in fact, I’m going to share one stat with you. He says, by the end of all this transition, it will peak out around 68%-72% of our corporations will be held by women. Okay. Those leadership positions, 68%-72% of them will be women. And some of you kind of like, I don’t know about that. And that’s cool because that’s why you’re going to listen to this show.

Dr. Don Barden is a globally recognized behavioral economist, author, and speaker. I saw him speak and that’s where we got introduced, whose research transforms the way leaders build culture, how they retain talent, and how they drive growth. With 30 years in institutional finance, he has led billion-dollar teams and advised Fortune 500 executives and governments worldwide. He is the author of The Perfect Plan, maybe you’ve heard of that one, and this new book, Here Come the Girls. His work reveals the leadership shifts that will shape the global economy. He is named one of North America’s “Top 30 Most Transformational Leaders” by John Maxwell, Dr. Barden equips executives with evidence-based strategies to achieve sustainable, people-centered success.

This was a fun interview. I pushed him a little bit on some things I think y’all are wondering about. We talk about gender roles, we talk about stereotypes, we talk about why this movement is even happening in the first place and what happens if you don’t get on board. Everybody get ready because here we go.

Skot Waldron (04:20.014)
Alright Don, here we go, man. I’m excited.

Are you Don, the real Don Barden who goes out and talks about things that people need to hear that will rock their world, that will make people think and say, Hey, I don’t know about that, but I’m really interested in what this guy has to say. Are you that Don?

Don Barden (04:42.00)
I hope so. I mean, in my mind, that’s right. And if you’re making it up, it sounds really good. So, keep going. I appreciate that. So, no, but seriously, before we get started, Skot, thank you for your work. I tell you; I love your podcast. I love your shorts that you do. You’re really helping a lot of people get better with their branding and executive leadership. And I don’t want that to go unnoticed. So, thank you for your work and thank you for having me. I’m here. I’m the real guy.

Skot Waldron (05:04.00)
Well, thanks, man. I know you’re a giving soul. And the way, and I’ll say, I heard you speak and that was where I was like, as a speaker myself, I was like, this guy knows how to connect. And there’s an art to that. And I noticed it right off the bat. Like you were honing in on that one woman that whole time and it was like you were connecting with her and everybody else in the room felt that connection and it was awesome.

Don Barden (05:36.00)
Thank you. We probably need to co-set the stage of what that means.

Skot Waldron (05:04.00)
Not that way. We just noticed what that sounded like. Oh my gosh.

Don Barden (05:44.00)
That was a, she was amazing. I remember that lady. I can’t remember her name right now, but she worked for a home healthcare service that worked with, you know, elderly. And it just brought me emotionally back to when my father passed away about 10 years ago from Alzheimer’s and we had to have an organization like that help us. And I tell you, every once in a you do see angels. You do know what saints really look like and that field of those people that go out there.

So yeah, I wanted to highlight her because that’s eternal work. You know, you and I, talk, we enjoy this stuff, we make big impacts, we do things, but then there’s a whole world out there of caregivers and helpers who put their heart so far in advance. They do things that most people won’t do. I just remember wanting to recognize her. So, thank you for doing that. Thank you to her.

Skot Waldron (06:33.00)
And thank you for clarifying. Connected with that woman in the audience. It might have sounded a little bit interesting to me.

Don Barden (06:38.00)
That’s one of those sound clips that’s not gonna come out right, but it’s okay.

Skot Waldron (06:41.00)
I know, like, who are you? Okay, so here’s my opener for you, Don. I’m gonna set this one up.

Don Barden (06:48.00)
Sure.

Skot Waldron (06:49.00)
You were talking about this idea of Here Come the Girls, and your book and this wave, this change that’s gonna happen. Now, you call it the disruptor though. You say that women in leadership, isn’t just the cultural shift that it’s really an economic disrupter. Maybe the greatest economic disrupter of our time. You’re going to go way out there and just say that, be blunt and bold. I’m going to say disruptors usually cause some pain. I mean, when you call it as a talk about a disrupter, it’s like, don’t know, that’s going to hurt a little bit before they actually bring progress.

What I want to ask you is what is that that pain you think that leaders aren’t quite ready for but are going to have to face.

Don Barden (07:42.00)
Yeah, that’s a great question. And to give your listeners, your viewers a little bit of a background. So, I’ve spent 35 years as an economist. I’m a behavior economist, which means I look for trends and patterns, and I try to put structure around the obvious sometimes. And then we work with cause and effect. Is this building in a certain direction? So, I have an academic side to me, which writes books and publishes articles and does research. And then I have the side where I actually engage with organizations and help them figure out how to get better. You know, breakthrough or frustration point.

But about 5 or 6 years ago, truly just through the power of observation, I started noticing that the organizations I worked with have more and more women in the C-suite. That’s no big deal. In fact, it’s not anything you think about until you do think about it. Because at 35 years almost of doing this, I’ve seen the times change, you know, a lot.

And so, I just had this idea thought, well, that’s really interesting that, that there’s more and more women in there. And then I started playing with it. Then my nerd hat, yeah, put it on. And I started looking at the numbers and really tracking where it was going. And it became very apparent to me that a mathematical anomaly was coming that we’re not used to. And that’s disruption number one. And that is in the year 2028, which believe it or not, it’s just barely over two years from now, more women are going to be in leadership than men.

And right now, just you know, it’s 42%. So, this is a slow disruption that’s been coming over time. So, we’re already at 42% and it’s going to tip over in the year 2028. And I think, I know if there’s a thousand different ways to get to your destiny, but the destiny of the math looks like it’s going be 68%-72% by the time it’s done. And so that’s really cool. Right? So, you look at it you say, Hey, this phenomenon is happening. It’s a phenomenological event.

Women are just going to take over global leadership. And when I say leadership, mean everything from the local deli to parliament. It’s going to be, you’re going to be able to see it. There’ll be a few industries that won’t, but you can see it. So as that thing comes up, you are a hundred percent correct. And I appreciate your academia. The word is disruption because it’s disrupting the old patriarchal model. Now I’m not against it. I’m not anti-man. This is not a dudes are bad conversation. This is a women are great. Their time is here and what can we learn from it?

And then the second thing we had to do from science is to say, wait a minute. there’s a thing called a null hypothesis that works in quantifiable math, which means no is good. You know, if you’re working on something and you say, this a yes or no thing and it turns out to be a no, that’s great. Cause now you know not to do that. Right? So, no is okay. I hit my heels hitting with a hammer and it hurts. Okay. You know, it hurts. Let’s don’t do that anymore.

And that’s the way science looks at it. So, when it came to the point of saying, okay, mathematically we can prove that women are going to be the vast majority of global leadership in a few years or any type of leadership, however you want to define that. The obvious question is to say, are they any good at it? And that’s not to point fingers. That is not to be judgmental. It’s just to say the next step in science is to ask that question. And that’s a very hard question to ask because now you’re talking about disruption number two.

Is it going to change the way we look at how we do leadership? And so, we dug into the numbers and we really studied it. And not only are women good at it, they’re great at it. And they do things which have a bigger impact than what we ever imagined. For example, if you take the same business side by side, one run by a woman and another run by a man, all the data tells us that she will out-produce revenue three to one over the man.

It also means she’ll out produce profits three to one over the guy, but then you dig deeper in a weird number that bounces around in this correlation is today. This is an interesting number for all your viewers to know. Today, the average American worker is 39 years old. That same 39-year-old changes jobs every three years. We live in a gig economy. You know, people just change jobs all the time. No big deals. What we’re used to. Right?

Well, here comes disruption Number three. Under a female leader, it’s not just a three-year turnover. It’s a six-year turnover. So, they’re staying twice as long. She’s keeping the workforce intact longer. Now the question is, but wait a minute, is that good or not? Cause you know, there’s an argument that they’re saying they’re too long. Well, no. The people who work for a woman go from an average turnover or attrition rate of three years to six years and their production, however, is measured. Everybody’s different, but their production goes up in years four, five, and six.

So now we have a phenomenon that we’re going, okay, they’re going to take over. No big deal. We can mathematically prove that. But the disruption is there’s a change in something that she’s doing and it’s causing her workers to stay longer, not transition, not turnover. As you know from your work, that’s an expense. You know, that’s big when they have to deal with that. Now they’re staying twice as long and they’re increasing production. Okay.

Now that’s a disruption worthy of exploration. So that’s how we ultimately got there is the disruption is not bad. The disruption is good. It’s going to be okay. If we know that businesses run by women, which are going to be the vast majority are going to do three X of revenue, three X their profits, double their retention and increase their production. That’s a dream come true in economics. So, we’re talking about a revolutionary impact equal to the agricultural revolution and then the industrial revolution. And you can probably argue the tech revolution, the dot com stuff.

Now that’s what we mean by Here Come the Girls. It’s going to be an incredible disruption. That’s going to help businesses and consumers, men and women around the world. And let me stress that again, this is not an anti-man thing. In fact, when we talk to men, if I talked to a hundred men and lecture about this to a hundred male CEOs, a hundred will stand up and cheer. Nobody’s against this. There’s more women questioning it than there are men questioning it. So, these are really good disruptions. Same as those other big ones in the past. It’s just going to be different than anything we’ve seen before.

Skot Waldron (14:00.01)
Okay. Thanks for laying that out. Those are big numbers, man. Those are big numbers, and when I think about it, you know, I wonder what’s going to get in the way. What’s the resistance that’s out there to this actually taking place. There’s always going to be resistance. And when you look at resistance, what is it?

Don Barden (14:24.00)
Sure. There’s a lot of friction points, obviously. Change, and Sharma said it the best, there’s three stages to change. It’s scary in the beginning, it’s messy in the middle, but it’s glorious in the end. We’re done with the scary part of it because I think as a culture, we just don’t care anymore overall. There’s a few naysayers out there, there’s a few old school, but you know what? I always joke about those folks who are just anti-change or anti-women and they’re out there.

I always tell them, say, know what, Darwin was right. If you take Darwin’s work, Origin of Species, and read it, doesn’t say half the stuff people think it says, but what he does say is nature has a way of getting rid of the weak and the non-compliant, and that’s natural selection, right? So, I always say if Darwin, if you look at Darwin from biology point of view, he was 50-50. If you take Darwin and apply Darwinism to economics, he’s batting a thousand, knocking it out of the park.

So, I think what’s going to happen is those naysayers are going to either get on board or get pushed out because this is bigger than us. This is something that is going to happen. And we see two sectors that are going to be very, very slow if nonconforming ever. But the rest of the sectors out there, which are millions of them, are going to be jumping for joy on this because it’s going to align with the male and female workers. It’s going to align with the male and female consumers. It’s going to increase production across the line.

So, it really is going to be the best thing that we’re going to see in our lifetime as far as economics go. But those naysayers and the people that are against it. You know, oh well, it’s always been there. There’s nothing we can do about it. I tell a story, and this is very fictional, but you get the point. About a hundred years ago, instead of a Starbucks on every corner in the towns, there were blacksmiths, farriers, guys who made the horseshoes, right? Every corner had blacksmiths on every town. Well, about 110, 15 years ago now, they look up and a car, a horseless carriage comes through and never seen one before. They’d heard about it but never seen it. And everybody gets together; all the blacksmiths get together and they’re, “we got to stop this”, “we don’t want this change”, “we’re, scared of this”, “we don’t want anything to do with it”. Well, there’s two blacksmiths in the back of the room going, I’ve got an idea. Maybe we can work with this. Well, their names were Goodyear and Firestone.

So, if you look at that and go, wait a minute, there’s a couple of people that saw a disruption and they turned it into something better. We have more people employed in the tire industry now than we’ve ever had blacksmiths or horses to put shoes on. Right. But those people that were scared, they got eaten alive. They got eaten by the young. It was natural selection. Those people who raised their hand and said, “I can be scared and courageous at the same time and embrace this phenomenon that’s happening.” Well, change the world. And I think that’s what we’re having. But I think more people are going to embrace this than, than be against it.

Skot Waldron (17:19.00)
Okay. So, the women, are they embracing it? I mean, seriously, like I want to ask that because I’ve, I’ve seen women leaders and I’ve coach them and train them and consulted a lot with companies that have a lot of women leadership kind of rising up. I mean, first time, you know, they’ll, it’ll be the first time a woman has been in this circle of male leaders, right? And there’s a lot of imposter syndrome and there’s a lot of expectations. She was, and I’ll just say single mom and a lot of pressure. And then they want her to travel a lot. And then she’s like, well, I’ve got my kid and I’m not going to be able to do that a whole lot right now. So, some accommodations that have to be made, right. And the way that we work and the way we adjust.

I mean, what do you see in that space as far as women? Is there a reluctance there? They’re like, no, we don’t really want that. We like what’s going on. Or are they saying, no, we want that, Don. Like, we’re on board. Like, here we come.

Don Barden (18:24.00)
Yeah, well, you’re talking about the micro versus the macro, right? You’re going to have individuals that are going to say, as a single mom, I just can’t do this. I won’t be able to take this. I made a choice. Men do the same thing. It might not be as per, you don’t hear people talk about single dads, although it’s a big deal. You don’t hear that. You usually talk about the single moms, and I love single moms. Thank you for bringing that up.

One of the sidebar things we learned from this and people ask me all the time, cause we spent five years studying this. They say, was there anything that emotionally rocked you? And I always go back to the single moms. I just never thought about it the way I realized the power and the work that the single mom puts into just life. And I always tell people, and there’s a two-part answer to this, I tell people all the time, it’s not hard to be a single mom. It’s not hard at all. It’s impossible.

So, these women are getting up every day and doing the impossible and they’re making decisions that are right for them and their family. But you know, as of that self-correcting as kids get older and you do things, then they might be able to change, but they’re making decisions in the micro and they’re making the right decision. But we did have one female leader that we studied, and I asked her about the single mom syndrome and she said, you know what, if I could do it right now, I would fire everybody I’ve got or for every hundred people I fire, I would rehire 10 single moms, 10 single moms while produce and outwork a hundred regular employees. And she was being a little joking, but not really. She was pretty serious.

So, there’s enormous power in that part of somebody’s life to make a decision. And that decision might be not now, you know, in the future I’ll be there, but when the kids cycle out, if she still wants to do it, the world’s going to embrace it and be ready for you.

But back to the hard part of the question is do women embrace it? The answer is overwhelmingly yes, but it depends on where they are in their career cycle. Here’s some interesting data for you. It takes on average to become a leader in a large company. Take out the unicorns and the one-offs and the luck. On average, it takes 23 years. So, you’ve to put 23 years of your career into something before you rise up to that level. And that’s men or women, doesn’t matter.

Men had to put in 23 years, women had to put in 23 years, that seems to be the tipping point if you’re in the corporate structure. So, you go back over time, and you see what women had to do 23 years ago to get noticed. You go back before them and you say, okay, how did you fight in the 70s, in the 80s to get your attention and to change the way people think about things? Where did you change your education trajectory? Where did you say, no, I’m not gonna put up with this type of stuff?

So over time, what we can look at in the study is see that older women who are already in leadership, they had to work so hard to get there that they’re going to have a different bias than somebody who’s maybe in their thirties and they’re in the middle of that 23 year track. Life is different for them than it was for somebody who’s maybe a female in her sixties in the workforce and what she had to go through. But that’s life. That’s not just a female thing. That is life.

So, we do see different versions of how they embrace this, but it’s almost always to where they are and what stage they’re in. So, the title of it, Here Come the Girls, is very specific because below it, it says a celebration of why women will take over global leadership in the year 2028. So, there’s some people that look back on their career and they don’t have a lot to celebrate or they’re mad or they’re bitter about it.

Then there’s some who are saying, thank you for plowing that field, man. Thank you for going ahead. Thank you for taking the shots. Thank you for doing that because we’re in a world now that’s still going to exist a little bit, but it’s a whole lot less, thanks to those women. And I think that that’s where you’re going to see various opinions and bias. If that answers the question. Overall, nobody’s against it. Everybody, everybody knows that women are better. So, every guy knows it. So, we know that’s Adam and Eve, but we figured that one out a time ago.

Skot Waldron (22:36.116)
And if let’s address the gender role thing here. OK, so our patriarchal society, you know, even if you look at Christianity and the way corporations and all this military and all the things in authoritarian type environments where we’ve had this kind of top down hierarchy, there is a male figure at the top, right? Maybe a white male figure we can even say.

Don Barden (23:03.00)
Oh, yeah, the pasty or white guy is what we call them.

Skot Waldron (23:05.00)
The pasty or white guy. So, we’ve got that. And you know, the two middle-aged white guys on the phone, on the call right now talking about this thing. If we talk about gender roles, and, and we think about what is the impact on society? When this happens? What is the impact on culture or the family? Because if like it or not, the woman, the female has been more of the nurturing one at home raising children and the male has been the one to go out and kill the food and bring it home. That is not as much the norm, it’s very much accepted that women are in the workforce now. They are out there killing the food with us and men are taking more roles at home, which is that shift. I mean, my wife and I play that role very much so at our home.

But when you think about it, with societal and cultural norms and all the things, is there fear of, if the women are at work, who’s gonna raise our kids? Who’s raising the next generation, right? I mean, is that concern, did that concern ever come up at all? Are we done with that?

Don Barden (24:23.222)
Yeah, we’re done with it, but it is a concern. But that’s a really deep and brave question. So, thank you for asking that. Most people don’t have the guts to say what you just said. There is a patriarchal system, but there’s two things we need to look at from an academic and an economic perspective. Number one, be honest and say, okay, how did we get here? Why do we have that male patriarchal system? Even though we see it crumbling, even though we see the change, the scary, messy, glorious part.

It is changing right now, and it’s accepted. There’s very, very little mental bias against any gender in the workforce. Now it’s just not. It’s that has gone. We’ve retrained ourselves, but you go back economically, and you say, well, how did we get here? Where, where did this male pasty or white guy dominance come from? And the answer is very simple in science. We know this. The answer is red muscle mass. That’s it. Okay. I can plow a field a lot better than a 5′ 210 lbs. woman can, or at least probably can. I can cut down the trees faster than they can and clear the fields. I can fight off the saber tooth tiger, not very well, but better than her. All she’s got to do is outrun me, right? I’ll deal with it. So, you look back over time, and you see when we lived in a different status of our system, there became dominant roles. And yes, you even go to the agricultural revolution and women stayed in, ran the household, had the babies. They didn’t just have babies, they were growing the workforce. So back then you’d have 10 kids and pray that 5 would make it, right?

So, it was all part of an economic dynamic that was there. And because men had the deeper, more dense red muscle mass and was doing the hard labor stuff and the woman was doing something separately, then it just grew from that. That’s how we got to where we are. But any kind of change needs a slow thinning out of it and letting go of it.

And everybody gets that, but I’ll tell you Skot, what I tell everybody, especially when I’m at universities and teaching, I beg students to consider this. Please don’t judge the past. Ever. There might be things you don’t like. There might be things of our interpretation of morality today that we look back and go, God, those people, how did they do that? But learn from that. Think about it, but don’t judge it. And here’s why we think we know we’re probably the most advanced civilization that’s ever been on this planet. We see the best of our knowledge, right? We’re doing amazing things right now. We’re doing heart transplants. We’re doing, we’re building bionics. We’re especially medical science. We’re doing things we’ve never dreamed of doing. And we’re really proud of that. Well, guess what, Skot? Your future self, your great grandchildren, they’re going to look back at us and call us barbarians. They’re going to go, Ooh, those people cut into each other. They use scalpels and stitches. Those people move body parts. My God, whether they just grow another one. That’s coming. So, we are going to be judged by our future selves. So, let’s mature a little bit and say, let’s don’t judge the past. Let’s learn from it. Cause there’s nothing we can do about it, but it got us to this inflection point. And this inflection point is so good right now, looking forward. Those days are gone.

But there is a patriarchal system in there. Like I said, there’s two main sectors that are out there that I think are either going to collapse or they’re just going to be the lag and drag of the economic formula that aren’t going to do it. Every other sector we know, and we work with are excited about this and embracing. In fact, Wall Street now, I think I just read of the big money movers, think six out of eight of the firms are now run by women, the CEOs of women on Wall Street. And of the two that’s not, women are in the queue to be the next CEO. And it doesn’t mean they’re hiring women because they’re women. It means they’re hiring them because they deserve it. They’re the right choice for it. And they’re going to lead into this new future. So yeah, that was a patriarchal system, and we know why. And there’s some things we disagree with based on our construct today, but let’s don’t judge that. Let’s just accept where we are and learn how we got here and celebrate this thing that’s about to go. And the people that don’t do it, let’s go back to Darwin.

They’re going to get eaten by their young. You know, it’s just not going to work out well for them. And so that’s going to be the curious part is watching those who don’t change and thinking, man, you had your chance. You just didn’t do it. So, they were too much in the past instead of the future.

Skot Waldron (28:58.324)
And those, so there’s going be companies that get eaten. Okay. And in different ways. I mean, is there any research out there to show? I don’t know if you did any or looked at the numbers, as far as market share or even lost revenue if people don’t adapt to this change. I mean, what’s at stake really besides, you know, the figurative being eaten by your young and how is that going to happen?

Don Barden (29:27.00)
So, here’s one of the sidebar things we learned and this is a little bit of data math here for you. What we learned is we know women are going to take over. We know that the average female business outperforms a male run business three to one because the males haven’t adapted yet to the methodology that she has and it’s not a girl thing, it’s just something girls do. But they haven’t adapted yet to say, oh my God, she’s doing exactly what my workforce and what my consumers are crying for.

So, all they’re gonna have to do is adjust and do it. And so, when that happens, it’s the entire economy is gonna continue to grow at exponential rates because they can mimic what she’s doing. And so, you look at that, and you go, okay, well, what else do we know? Well, in our study, we studied thousands of female leaders around the world and interviewed them and talked to them. What we know is that they don’t dig mergers and acquisitions as much as they love collaboration.

So, what we’re seeing is, and that doesn’t mean they don’t buy other companies. They just, they’d rather collaborate over whole. That’s the vibe that comes out. So, if you think about this, if you’ve got all these businesses that are growing three times what they were growing before, and then they start collaborating with each other, go back to elementary school math, will tell you, you cannot add or subtract percentages. You can only multiply and divide.

So, when we see all these companies starting to collaborate together, they’re all growing three X together and they’re all sharing supply chains and, buying from each other and they’re growing and the methodology is happening. So now you have to multiply that number and it’s not three X, it’s three X cubed. So, we’re going to see such a gigantic growth out there that even those who don’t adapt the crumbs that will fall in front of them are probably bigger than what they budget or expect.

And those people are going to hang in there and they’re going to say, huh, wow, I see the world’s over there growing, but hey, we’re up 30% this year. Never saw that. Well, yeah. Well, you’re up 30% while her business, the exact same business is up 400% or 300% or 500%. So, people are going to take their 30 and be happy with it, but the rest of the world’s going to be 10 X that. And when that anomaly occurs, then you’re going to have boards and you’re going have investors going back to those companies going, yeah, back in the 2020s and 2010s, we would have taken 30%. How come we’re left behind? That’s going to be the question. That’s where some of those patriarchal systems are going to try to hide in the shadows and brag about their growth. But when you compare it to everybody else, oh boy, is it going to be a mess. It’s just going to be a real mess. So that’s kind of how it’s going to go.

Skot Waldron (32:11.00)
And what is, what is the, you know, the thing that’s going to cause them to be in that spot, whether it’s a blind spot of some kind, they just don’t see it. Maybe they’re just trying to stick their head in the sand, because they don’t want to admit it because of their own, like they’re going to fight you on it, Don. They’re going to be like, Don, you’re full of crap. I don’t know what you’re talking about, man, that’s not happening, that’s not going to happen. I mean, what are you hearing as far as that specific resistance? What is the thing that you’re hearing that’s going to keep them?

Don Barden (32:49.00)
It’s excuses for sure, but we know where it’s coming from. Sullivan’s theory, Dan Sullivan’s brilliant when he said this years ago, and we kind of took it and ran with it, but Dan gets all the credit. There are only four types of businesses, which ironically exact same four types of people, because businesses, they don’t really exist. They’re a reflection of the conglomerate of people that are coming together with a light cause, right? That’s what a business is.

And you’re trying to transfer value because you can do something that somebody else can’t, and you can help them get to where they want to be faster. Right? So, we look at this, and we say, where is that resistance coming from? Well, there’s only four types of businesses. You’re a failure. You’re frustrated. You’re traditionally successful or you’re transformative. Those are it. So, a business can be a failure. It can be frustrated. It can be traditionally successful, or it can be transformative. That’s it. And the same four type of people exist.

But here’s where it gets weird. So, most consultants, we don’t do this. Most consultants, when they’re out there trying to grow their business and trying to help people, they go after the wrong two. Most people want to go after the failures because they think, well, they’ll do anything to not be a failure. So, they’ll pay us. Well, they’re failure for a reason. And I’m not being ugly here. That’s just the truth. And when somebody’s failing, what are they going to do? Or they feel like they’re failing. They’re looking to blame somebody else. That’s what they want. That’s what they’re doing. So, people who are in failure mode, they’re going to come up with every excuse possible of why it didn’t work and why it’s wrong. Just let them go. That just needs to be done. But the other problem, which gets to the very specific part of where you are, the other place to avoid, and economics looks at kind of cockeyed like, hmm, and that’s the traditionally successful. You do such great work in brands and brand development. I’d like to know your thoughts on this.

But usually people when they have a brand that they creates such an aura, not an aspirational aura, but a vision of traditional success, those people aren’t going to change anything because they don’t want to disrupt their version, their perception of success. They’re not willing to take risks. So, the two laggers are going to be the failures and the traditionally successful. Now, some of those traditionally successful, we’re going to figure it out quickly because their boards and their other leadership are coming in going, we’re not picking up crumbs here. I know those crumbs were 30%, but they’re growing at 300%. What do we got to do? So, they’ll change.

But the key, the success to this is the frustrated and the transformative because frustrated companies are raising their hand saying, we’re up against the wall. What do we need to do? We’re good. We just need help. We need advice. We needed somebody like you to push them over and figure out what it is. We’re too close to the problem. So, they’re willing to look at it and the answer might be, well, here’s what’s happening in the workforce. Your turnover’s too high. Here’s what’s working out here. And by the way, this model, Here Come the Girls, might be a good solution for you. They’re gonna say, great, thank you.

And then there’s your transformative. They’re always gonna look at something new. They’re always gonna think, okay, if this is something I need to try, let me try it. Because they realize that failure’s a two-way door. If you try something and it doesn’t work, okay, walk back out the door and try something else. Go to another door, you know, but they’re constantly looking for that.

So, the people that are going to lag behind are the failures, but that’s Darwinism. Let it go. And then the traditionally successful who have a patriarchal system or who think, well, this is just a fad. They’re the ones to watch out for. They’re going to be the ones in trouble of that. But the frustrated who raise their hand and the transformatives are going to drive this.

Skot Waldron (36:33.00)
And do you think is this, I mean, I have all these different thoughts in my head about like, what I want to ask you and how the shapes, but like, why is this happening? And are we just trying to give more women a chance? I mean, is it that we’re starting to finally value women and what they bring to the table? Or is it a generational thing that the generations as they’ve moved on are just accepting diversity and wanting the different voices at the table and aren’t as keen on this whole hierarchy type of thing. I mean, what is driving all of this?

Don Barden (37:20.00)
You asked the deepest questions, dude. Oh my God. That’s great.

Skot Waldron (37:25.048)
I know you’re a deep guy, Don

Don Barden (37:26.00)
I know. You’re going to do it. First of all, it’s a math thing. And the best thing about math and numbers is they don’t lie. They don’t care if math is not bias. It just is what it is. So, the phenomenon is driven by math. Now that means it’s a destiny. We can do the mathematical formulas and say, this is going to happen. No, sure there’s standard deviation. Sure, it’s off a percent or here, whatever. That doesn’t matter. This is going to happen. This train has left the station. Now there’s thousands of things in the past that have led up to this. It takes 23 years. Women started birth control in the late 50s and early 60s, which gave them choice. Schools and universities started encouraging more women to do it. Like for example, you go back 25 years, you go to medical school, 37% of the people in medical school were women. Now is close to, I think, 58% or 60% are women. You go to dental schools 25 years ago; it was 3% women. Now it’s 72% women. And you look at that and go, why? Well, we ask them, we ask the students, why did you choose medical profession? Why did you choose dentistry? Number one, they’re all caregivers at heart. But when we asked the women specifically, why, why? Why did you choose this? The number one answer is in that field, they can be a caregiver, nurturer, whatever we call it, but we can control our schedule, and we can also make as much money as we can make within that time.

So, wow, now you’ve got a phenomenological shift where we’re seeing this thing happen and the medical industry is going to be dominated by women. You can look at the supply chain coming out of the universities and say, here they come. So, then you got to go back and say, but wait a minute, what does the consumer, what does the person wanting healthcare want?

We went to them, and we said, hey, would you prefer to have a male or female doctor, overwhelming requests for female doctors? Now here’s where it gets funny. This is the economic phenomena. We said why. Why did you want a female? The first thing they said was we feel like they’re more caring. They’re gentle. We have no evidence to support that. None. Okay. And then my favorite in the dental world was, well, they have smaller hands. And I’m like, dentists don’t put their hands in your mouth. I’m sorry. I don’t know where you’ve been the last 30 years, but they don’t put their hands, the tools do the work.

So, the perception of the consumer is radically different than the math and the supply chain. So, this train is coming. There is nothing you can do about it, but there’s thousands of ways to get to your destiny. But that destiny is set by the math. Now you ask a big question, and this always comes up. It’s the diversity thing, the DEI question right now, which I know is a hot topic around the world. But here’s what I tell students all the time. This is very important to hear me out before somebody starts throwing things. If the economy is a real thing, which is not, but let’s just say it’s a real thing and you go to the economy and you ask the economy about diversity, it’s going to look at you with total amazement. Like it doesn’t understand the question.

So, when you go to the economy, and I’m talking about the global economy and you say, hey, let’s talk about diversity. If the economy was living, it would look at you and say, I don’t understand that word. And the reason it doesn’t understand the word is because it’s already diverse. The economy is a moving living thing that’s out there that looks at the entire world and says, okay, I’ve got a playground here that’s amazing. You guys figure out your little homogeneous micro stuff.

But the economy is already diverse because there’s everybody out there. Now people get some of the physio white guys, okay. I’m a 61-year-old blue eyed white guy. Thank you to my great grandmother, I got a little bit of a tan, but other than that, you know, it’s okay. But you look at that, and you say to yourself, well, these guys, because of imperialism and banking in Europe and all this kind of stuff, they’re the dominant. Yeah, you’re right. For the past couple hundred years, it’s been that way. Right. But guess what? The blue-eyed white guy is the smallest minority in the world. Think about that.

So, when people look at diversity and say, you older white guys out there, you’re the dominant. No, we’re not. You’re skipping the math. Okay. Now economically, yeah, there’s some paths that got it there and I can understand the conversation, but you go talk to the economy and the economy doesn’t understand it at all.

Diversity is from the eyes of the holder, not the eyes of the economy. And the economy just doesn’t care. And so, when you talk about DEI, which I love, I’m the first one to wave the DEI flag. It is something that’s out there, but I’m saying it’s already there. And if you look at the math and what’s coming with women and choice and all these things that are happening and the consumer saying they don’t care anymore, it’s not DEI. It is what Jamie Dimon said at JP Morgan lately. He said, “I don’t ever want to hear that E word again.” It’s DOI.

It’s diversity with the opportunity for inclusion. So, if you ask the economy, this mythological creature, what’s the most important thing to you? It’s not going to say diversity. It’s going to say inclusion. Cause you’re bringing everybody into the market. Everybody have opportunity. Some have more opportunity than others. That’s just life. But when you give the world a chance to consume without bias, you can’t stop the machine.

So, it’s really about diversity, which creates opportunity to include everybody, whatever it is you are, want or think, or whatever your belief system is, or whatever you look like, everybody’s included. And when we look at this rise of women in leadership, they’re almost curious as to why you’re asking that too, because they’re a product of feeling the backend of the diversity argument. And now they’ve risen to power and they’re kind of shaking it off and going, that was silly. You know, because let’s see what we can do now working together, collaborating, moving forward together. And so, I think that we’re about to go through an inflection point of that where women are going to help us more than we’ve ever been helped in history because we’re not plowing fields like we used to. We don’t have to chase the T-Rex or the saber-to-tiger anymore. We don’t have to cut down the forest like we used to have to do. So, it’s sort of a level playing field and the great reveal is happening. And I think that’s going to be a great thing for every one of your viewers. I’m excited for everybody.

Skot Waldron (44:02.00)
It’s a big movement and there’s a lot of stuff. There’s a lot of factors that we’re all weighing in. I mean, we’re just, just looking at, and some people also talk about, you know, the birth rate idea and like, you know, women are waiting later to have children and this is economic thing, but this is also a preference for, you know, their own careers and where that’s going to go. And you know, we’re already down. I mean, I was looking it up briefly. I think we’re down and birth rate 19% over the past two decades, and that’s a concern for certain individuals. Is this going to perpetuate that? Do you believe that that’s a valid concern?

Don Barden (44:47.00)
I think they are unrelated. Correlation and causation. Correlation doesn’t always equal causation, right? So, in the most famous study on that was ice cream sales and murder rates. Ice cream sales and murder rates track each other and so do shark attacks. So, if you look at shark attacks, ice cream sales, and murder rates, they all go together. So, there’s an argument to correlate those, and are they caused by each other? You can absolutely correlate it, but they’re not caused by each other. The denominational Chi ratio on that is heat. When it’s hot, people get angry, and they murder each other. When people get, when it’s hot, they buy ice cream. When it’s hot, they go to the beach and do stupid things and play with the sharks. So that’s the issue.

So, we come back to this with women in the workforce and we say, well, there’s all these things, birth rates and all that kind of stuff. It’s no conclusive evidence to say it’s going to affect leadership. But there is another data point inside of that. If you go back 25 years ago, the maximum point of spending for a family or an individual was when the household heads, the mom, dad, whoever, whatever the tradition is. But when the household hits 49 and a half years old, so when the person, the head of the household or the mom, dad, whatever the structure is, is at 49 and a half years old, that’s when their spending goes up. And the reason why is that’s when they used to become empty nesters.

So, we could look at the economy, and we could take a population curve like this up and down and we lay it on top of the Dow Jones, and it was exactly the same. Because the Dow Jones is reflection of earnings. Earnings is a reflection of spending. And if we know that the population when they hit 49 and a half years old spends the most, boom, you can track it like clockwork. That’s fine. But you’re right. They’re having kids later now. So that means they’re not going to be empty nesters as soon as moving up to 53 and 54 years old now. So, we can just look at the trends and see when that impact of spending is going to come. And it’s directly affected to that.

We cannot correlate that would cause an effect around women in leadership. Other than while that’s happening, the leadership style of these women who are coming of age is directly aligned with the consumer. We can track when the consumer is and we can track the choices the consumer has and those correlate to a good thing, not a bad thing. So, it’s just a variable that moves the math. So, you’re right. Yeah, we’re having babies later. Later, we’re having fewer babies. There’s a movement of disconnection of a thousand different social constructs that we never saw before. All that stuff’s happening, but you know what? We thought the world was going to hell because the Beatles had long hair, you know, you look at it you’re like, it wasn’t that bad. But so, we all go through questions of ourselves and I think that’s what makes us human, but, it’s all about the science. It’s all about the data. And then you throw in the humanity of it. And when those things correlate and it’s good. Wow, man, watch out. And I think that’s what’s about to happen.

Skot Waldron (47:46.00)
Thanks for addressing that. I think, you know, I’m just asking questions I think other people would be asking.

Don Barden (44:52.00)
You are. I apologize for talking so much because you’re asking questions that are usually assigned to an entire semester of a doctoral class.

Skot Waldron (48:00.834)
Sign up for your class.

Don Barden (48:03.00)
And you’re throwing me the fastballs in my head I appreciate it.

Skot Waldron (48:05.39)
We were at a concert last night with my kids and I was down there by Georgia State and down by underground Atlanta, and I went to Georgia State and I was showing the kids where I used to go. And then we went to like this little gas station, but there’s college kids all around. It was like 11 o’clock at night. And I’m going, ah, I miss this. And I was thinking I should go back to school. And now you just gave me an idea. I should just go to one of your classes. Right.

Don Barden (48:31.00)
There you go.

Skot Waldron (48:32.00)
I should just sign up for one of your courses. That’s what I should do. You got a student right here.

All right, man. I really appreciate you addressing this. We’re gonna go into like a little lightning round here. Sometimes my lightning rounds end up not being so lightning.

Don Barden (48:47.00)
You’re gonna trend here, but that’s okay.

Skot Waldron (48:49.00)
But we’re gonna try. Okay, all right.

What’s a one leadership behavior you think men should unlearn today?

Don Barden (48:57.422)
Fix it. You know, men are trained to fix things. And sometimes if it doesn’t need fixing, guys will break it just so they can fix it. There’s another theory out there, a Sullivan theory called Who Not How, which I love. Great leaders don’t have to know how to do things or have to fix it. They need to know who knows how to do it and who knows how to fix it and empower them. We see that as a monumental shift in female leadership where they’re leaning in and they don’t try to fix it. They let their team fix it.

And a data point that we found is when somebody on your team brings you a problem, if you take that problem away from them, which is what men do, and try to fix it yourself, not only have you neutered them, but you eliminated the mathematical probabilities of success because this is an interesting point. On a team, if somebody brings you a problem, the data suggests that 94% of those people bringing you the problem know how to fix the problem.

So, what men do is they neuter that person. This is on average, I’m not, some guys are gonna listen to this, go, I don’t do that. I know, but most guys do. So, most guys are gonna take it and go, I can handle that, I’ll fix it. You’ve neutered them and said, no, you’re not gonna be my who, you’re not gonna be my hero, I’m gonna have to do this now. Women look at it, and women say, wait a minute, hey, that’s a real problem. I’m sympathetic to that problem. So, they separate the problem from the person. They look back at the person and say, hey,

I’m empathetic to you, man. I know this is hard. I know it’s your responsibility. You didn’t cause that dock worker strike or whatever. But how do you feel? Are you okay? And then women say, “hey, how would you, if you had a magic wand, how would you fix this?” And then like I said, 94% of them do it and they know how to fix it. And she says, go do it. So, she’s empowered her team.

Guys still have a tendency to want to fix things and do it themselves. When they expand and they let their team do it and show sympathy to the problem, empathy to the person, and then lean in, you’re gonna see the monumental shift. Because now you have a valued workforce, and you have a valued workforce that’s empowered, they’re gonna drive that 3X growth for you. So, men need to learn how to stop trying to fix things.

Skot Waldron (51:12.342)
What’s the best leadership trait women bring that companies undervalue? You might’ve just answered it.

Don Barden (51:19.00)
Wow. Yeah. No, let me think about that. I think the connectivity with the team that allows them to be free to be themselves. Women make hard decisions in leadership. Women aren’t afraid to do whatever they have to do. There’s no softness in it at all, but there is a connection that they have with their workforce that creates a different level of wanting to follow so they’re not disappointing them. They want to seek the female leader’s approval and not disappoint them because they know it’s the right thing to do. Traditionally, under the male leadership, they want to seek their approval and not disappoint them because they’re afraid of the consequences. So, the way women can motivate a team is through an inspirational transformation versus a hierarchy authoritative transformation.

Now, I’m not talking about every guy. Everybody’s different, but nobody’s going to deny that that’s the balancing thing that we’re going through in this scary part of the change that is happening. It’s not really scary. It’s just different.

Skot Waldron (52:27.00)
Different. Different can be scary for some people.

Don Barden (52:30.00)
Oh yeah.

Skot Waldron (52:31.00)
What’s just in the overall leadership space? What’s an overrated leadership cliche that just kind of like…

Don Barden (52:39.002)
Servant leadership.

Skot Waldron (52:40.00)
Servant leadership?

Don Barden (52:42.00)
Servant leadership is a very real thing. It didn’t come around to the mid-seventies. I think it got in Greenwald or Greenwood (Robert K. Greenleaf) or something like that was the first one to coin it. And it’s great. It’s brilliant. It’s fine, but it’s so grossly overused. If you’re in the C-suite, if you’re a business owner, okay, you’re not a servant leader. You’re a steward leader. So, the pinnacle of leadership is not servant leader, although everybody wants to talk about it. That’s the overused part.

The pinnacle of leadership is the steward leader. So, a steward leader, a CEO, a business owner recognizes that they have an opportunity for a short period of time or a finite amount of time to do something great. And then you’re going to pass the baton to someone else. So, your role is to steward it through the process. Now, in order to steward it, you’re going to have a team of servant leaders that are focused on the consumer, the workforce, the innovation, the development, the processes, all that stuff in a business has to be done. That’s the servant leaders.

But real, the pinnacle of leadership is stewardship. Now here’s what I always tell people. A steward leader, a hundred percent of steward leaders are servant leaders, but not all servant leaders are steward leaders. So, stewardship is really the pinnacle of it, but I think we don’t talk about that as much because the cliche of servant leadership has kind of gotten in the way and it’s grossly overused right now.

Skot Waldron (54:03.00)
And finally, what is a word of just hope or encouragement or vision that you would give to all the female leaders out there? Cause let’s face it, the path for them at this point in time is probably not as easy for them to get through as it is for the, you know, middle-aged white man or whatever to get through this corporate hierarchy and the challenges and the obstacles and the pay gap and everything that we look at. Gender roles, all the things that we’ve kind of talked about.

What is the word of vision, hope and encouragement you would give them based on all your research and all the things you’ve been studying?

Don Barden (54:50.094)
Yeah. Celebrate. It’s time to celebrate. It’s not time to judge the past. It’s not time to worry about the future. It’s time to celebrate that a lot of people paved a really hard road, you know, to get here. And you know what? That’s male and female too. Guys didn’t have it easy. I mean, pterodactyls are kind of mean. T-Rexes we know, fighting wars, doing things. I mean, it’s been hard for everybody, but we’re at a point where there is inflection and we do know the math. We do know the science. We do know the economic impact. That is an undeniable destiny. However you get there, it’s going to be up to you.

Like I said, there’s infinite ways to get to your destiny, but please stop and celebrate because your kids, my boys are adult. They’re going to be a byproduct of this and it’s worthy of celebration. It’s worthy of saying, yeah, we still got a way to go, but I know our great grandkids are going to look at us curious and call us barbarians, but man, let’s breathe, let’s celebrate what we’ve accomplished and let’s just let it happen. And what can we learn from the past? What can we do to live in the present? And what can we do to prepare for the future? Because luck favors the prepared. And when people can know that, but celebrate and not get in its way, man, that’s going to be a great train to ride. And it’s even better if you’re celebrating along the way. So, I think it’s celebration.

Skot Waldron (56:19.00)
All aboard, Dr. Don Barden, all aboard, man. That’s awesome. I love it. And as a little gift to all my listeners, I would like to ask you to give them a free copy, I’m just kidding. I’m not going to ask you because you’ve been so generous to tell me that that’s what you’re going to do.

Don Barden (56:36.00)
Yeah, we talked about that before you had me.

Skot Waldron (56:39.00)
What are you doing for all my people?

Don Barden (56:40.45)
If somebody comes today, I was listening to Skot’s podcast. I heard you on there. I’d love to have a free copy of the book. Send us a note on LinkedIn and just say, say that I heard you know, Skot’s podcast. I’d like to be a part of it. Can you send me a free copy of the book, and we will happily send you an e-copy free. That’s their gift for being smart enough to listen to your podcast and to hang in there. Cause I’m telling you, you’re doing great work, man. What you’re doing with branding and leadership and having people take a breath and step back.

I love your work, man. So, thank you for having me and I want to give that to all your listeners. All they gotta do is reach out on LinkedIn and let me know and I’ll send it to them.

Skot Waldron (57:13.00)
What a gift. Thank you, man. That’s awesome. I really, really appreciate that and appreciate the kind words and it’s only, but I’m going to throw it back at you and I can, I’m only, you know, 20% of this equation. You all bring the goods. Like you are the one that, you know, I see is like my audience needs to hear you. They need to hear your message, and you bring it, and you did not disappoint.

So, thank you for being here and thank you for friends that connected us and keep doing the good work you’re doing.

Don Barden (57:46.45)
Thank you. You do the same. Thanks for having me.

Skot Waldron (57:53.75)
If you want more profit, you want more revenue, you want higher retention, then let’s look to those women leaders. What are they doing? How are they showing up? Practicing empathy, sympathy, leaning in. And I’m going to, and I’m going to go along with Dr. Barden and just say, well, Don, I’m just going to call them Don.

I’m just go along with Don and just say, you know what, there’s a lot of male leaders. And I was in the audience listening to him, y ‘all. And I was thinking, who is this guy? Like, I don’t do that. I’m not that kind of leader. Like that male dominating, you know, like my people love me. And like, there’s, there’s that feeling that that defensiveness that, my gosh, that self-preservation coming into my world. And that, it seems like a threat.

And I don’t think that Don’s trying to present this as a threat. I think to those who are trying to fight it and those who are sticking their heads in the sand, you know, it might be a threat to them, but those who welcome it, those who are embracing it, they will move along with the change. You got Goodyear and you got Firestone and you know, they could have seen the automobile as a threat, but they saw it as an opportunity. And if we see this as an opportunity to expand our economy and the way we do work here in this world of today, I think there’s a lot to celebrate as Dr. Don Barden would say, a lot to celebrate.

So, let’s keep it up. You know, the scary part, the messy part, the glorious part. I don’t think we’re quite at the glorious part yet. It’s probably a little bit messy right now as we’re thinking about gender roles and women and leadership and how we play that out in today’s atmosphere, right? We had a woman vice president, and we haven’t quite had a woman president yet, but it’s coming. It’s coming. It’s going to make up part of that 68%-72%. I’m sure of it.

So, everybody, thanks for listening. Thanks for being here. Dr. Don, it was awesome talking to you.

If you want to find out more information about me or check out the show notes where there’s going to be more information and links to the things referenced in this episode, visit skotwaldron.com. And lastly, I’m asking for a little bit of love, just a little bit. So please take a moment, follow, rate the show. The algorithm is like that; it helps me get the word out. I really appreciate it.

Thank you. And until next time, stay Unlocked.