5 Things to Do and Not to Do in Corporate

They say time flies when you're having fun. Well, the last show of the season is here! It's been a fantastic inaugural season of The Bail Yourself Out Happy Hour podcast. Creator, host, and entrepreneur Kandice "With a K" Whitaker has released nine exceptional episodes exploring the business world from an employee or entrepreneurial space. Kandice finishes the season strong with empathy advisor Deron Hogans. This  Hampton/Georgetown University Alum and corporate consultant is this week's co-host in a lively discussion with Kandice on the do's and don'ts in the corporate space. So, pull up a chair and a drink for the last show of the season; the lounge is now open, and happy hour has arrived. 

On this episode, Deron and Kandice discuss the corporate influence on media consumption, Sigma personalities, and when to ask for a raise. The hosts cover so many valuable tidbits; the only problem for the listener - trying to digest all the info! From critical thinking to professional development at work and knowing when to leave, the episode keeps the gems coming. Having saved the best for last, join Bail Yourself Out for the last episode of the season, but bring a pen and a pad to take notes because this episode is the gift that keeps giving.

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Transcript

Speaker: 0:00

Welcome to the bail yourself out Happy Hour Podcast where each week we'll help you navigate the corporate jungle. Here's your host Kandice Whitaker

Kandice Whitaker: 0:10

Nope its happy hour. I'm your coworker Kandice with the K pull up a chair and your favorite drink for the bail yourself out Happy Hour is about to start now. What's good, y'all welcome to the bail yourself out Happy Hour podcast. As you probably already know, bail is an acronym I created for my proprietary resilience framework. Resilience is important your your success is tied to your resilience. So I created the bail framework to help people remember the steps required to harness and activate resilience in their everyday lives. So today, we're going to focus on the L in the bail framework which represents learn learning is crucial to your individual growth. And the great thing about living in a community and having a great tribe is the opportunities that you'll have to increase your knowledge from personal experience, but also from the experiences and the lessons learned of those in your tribe. Today, our guest is empathy advisor to Deron Hogans Jr. Several years ago, I met Duran on a work group chat and thought, Okay, this guy is cool as a fan. He's a Hampton University and Georgetown alum. And just like me, he was a fine arts major that transitioned into corporate consulting. So right after the break together, we'll do the five things challenge, Happy Hour style, we'll be back.

Pierce Taylor: 1:42

Welome to the bail yourself out Happy Hour podcast. The bail acronym is used to outline the steps to implementing resilience in your life B, believe you can win A accept change as part of the journey. I Inventory strengths. And L learn from what's happened together will impact the bail framework in action. Now back to the show.

Kandice Whitaker: 2:04

Hey there, hey there good people. Welcome to the bail yourself out Happy Hour podcast, I am super excited that you decided to join us in the vibe. I'm happy, super excited to introduce my guest today empathy advisor to Deron Hogans Jr. who I've known for a couple of years now, we work together, we are both recovering top four consultants. And we have an interesting conversation today because we're going to continue the vibe of the top five trends. Do you remember that a couple of months ago on social media, you had people from all walks of life talking about the top five things that they never would do. I did the top five things that I would never do in corporate. So that's what we're going to talk about today with Deron, we're going to start there. But then we're just going to kind of see where it goes. Let's do it. That's what's up. All right, man, I spoke enough. What do you want the people to know about you?

Deron Hogans: 3:06

I like to people to know quite a few things about me. I like the people to know that I'm currently deep in the country in South Carolina with family handling some business. And I think this is important because it required me to take two days off this week to come down here and spend some time. And so I would like to people to know that I'm very, very bullish on PTO, I need to take time off, I need to make sure that the things that are important in life are centered. You know, work is important. Making money is important. But it's not as important as checking in on your people. So that's how we can that's how we can start this thing off.

Kandice Whitaker: 3:42

You know what I definitely feel that whole vibe. But here's the thing, man, I think language is important. Are you bullish about PTO? Or are you setting an appropriate boundary? Because if in fact, you've been given PTO, which is paid time off? Shouldn't you be allowed to take it without feeling away?

Deron Hogans: 4:00

Absolutely. And let's and that's a great opportunity for me to clarify. You know, I don't feel like I had to wrestle my PTO away from my employer in any way, shape or form. They offer unlimited time off. So call Oh,

Kandice Whitaker: 4:15

that's huge.

Deron Hogans: 4:17

It is huge. Yeah. And calling it bullish, I think is probably an artifact of some time I spent back in the day in the consulting world. So let me be clear, I don't feel like I gotta wrestle my time off and risks in my current situation is just as a leftover of previous experiences.

Kandice Whitaker: 4:36

You know what, I'm going to reach out and give you a hug because when I started the conversation, I said that we were both recovering top four consultants. And that's like part of the thing that people need to understand. There's a reason we have the reputation of being smart go getters, but that is earned that is absolutely earned with a whole lot of your hours and a whole lot of your time and I tend to error more On the side of Durand, like family is everything. To me. They're so important those relationships that make you feel love and where you can express your love are so important because you know what, at the end of the day, doesn't matter who your employer is, if you check out here tomorrow, they don't post your job as saying your family edible arrangement. So make your decisions accordingly. For real,

Deron Hogans: 5:22

absolutely, I 100% agree. Now, don't get it twisted. Now I took PTO, but I still got put to work. Sometimes I walked in the door. My grandma had a different kind of work. My grandma had a list of things for me to get done. So I've still been working, but

Kandice Whitaker: 5:35

started with coming look at this remote.

Deron Hogans: 5:40

Read beyond that, she already got her media set up in the house. So this weekend was really all about moving some things around in the house and getting the house straightened out after some remodeling was done. Plenty of paint Dubai, plenty of furniture to buy, and plenty of things to move around. But it's been absolutely lovely. She is the greatest manager in my life. It's been cool.

Kandice Whitaker: 6:02

You know what, Give Grandma a hug and some love. As long as you have her, I lost both of my grandmother's a month apart and 2013. And they were the biggest influences on my life. And I didn't even realize that until they will go on. So cherish these moments, man 100% 100% cherish these moments. So the reason I wanted to have this conversation with you is because our backgrounds are so similar. You know, I know we met on the yard of sorts. The yard, right? We were both traveling for work. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about. We're both traveling for work for the consulting company that we worked for. And we happen to meet on a group chat. Right? And so it was like, oh, yo, are you here? Okay, yeah, great. So we met, we had dinner, and it was a vibe. He's been a homie ever since. So I never actually looked up your background. Up until recently preparing for the podcast, I didn't realize that we were both fine arts majors and undergrad.

Deron Hogans: 7:15

I did not know this either. This is new information for me.

Kandice Whitaker: 7:18

See, was just the vibe. We was just out there on vibes. We were both fine arts majors. Yeah, I was an opera major in undergrad. Wow. Yeah, I am a retired singer. And when I looked at your LinkedIn, so a man, he was an arts major too. So recently, and the reason that was so interesting to me, is recently, I was quoted in an article about making a transition from having a foreign Fine Arts degree to a different field. And we both did that. So I know why I made my switch. And I'm happy to talk about that. But I'm curious to know why you made your switch.

Deron Hogans: 8:06

Well, just to make folks aware, my specialty in Fine Arts was communication. I went to school for broadcast journalism. And the initial intent was to go into radio and television. I very much wanted to be a media personality at a urban radio station, and I play r&b, contemporary urban and rap, or go into television in a similar space. That was my intention for going to college and getting a major in broadcast journalism. While I was attending university, I had opportunity to work quite a few internships in Essbase, I was a production intern at 93.9k, ys and DC. I was an intern at a couple of different news stations around the country, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Tampa, Florida, to name a few. So I got the experience of producing top 40 urban radio. And I also got the experience of producing local TV news. And through those experiences, I really can't find that I didn't want to be in that space. The way news is produced was not how I thought it was I thought that I would really be going out there talking to people writing stories, getting the scoop, quote, unquote, and turning those into the stories that you see on your evening news. That's just not how it works. Typically what would happen is in the morning, you'd be show up at the news station and there was a agenda really from a national organization, whether it be NBC ABC, or you know, whatever broadcast organization it was, or the associate Associated Press, and they would tell you What's the cover that day? What's the national news that we want that we want John to cover? What's the local news that we want you all to cover, and you had to go find local stories to match the coverage that they set. And for me, that really was not a good thing. Like I thought that that was the most ridiculous thing I had ever seen. And people talk about media personalities like Kanye West, when he says things like, there's an algorithm. And there are people who force things to be a certain way and in pretty much confiscate your attention, and make you focus on the things they want you to focus on. And people laugh at him. But it's true. There's literally a news wire that sends out things that these stations are supposed to cover day after day, and I didn't like that. So I decided that I would move away from that. And on the urban radio format site, you know, I had worked those internships for four or five years. And the things that they would have you do as an intern to try to like, you know, I don't know, show them that you deserve the opportunity. But just ridiculous to me. I mean, like I had worked at a in in that internship since I was a freshman in college. And I mean, you telling me after four years of school, I can't produce a tape to just use like, as an audition tape for y'all, I can get an opportunity to like produce one show. And like at 3am in the morning, like I can't do any of these things. Like I got to compete with people from other locations who've been doing radio for 1015 20 years. It just was a very complicated competitive space that burned me out and I needed to find out how to do something different.

Kandice Whitaker: 11:45

we've never had this conversation. But I don't know if you know, I was a radio personality on 94.3 WBC in New Haven, Connecticut, which is an urban AC radio station. Yeah, I was the host of a couple of different shows,

Deron Hogans: 12:09

intersections in our experiences, can continue to multiply.

Kandice Whitaker: 12:13

Absolutely. And my conclusions were very similar to yours. Of course, more in the radio station space. You know, you have the people who are large conglomerates, like the Steve Harvey's, the former Wendy Williams radio show, the DL hewgley, where you have a show that is mass produced even Erica Campbell, in one location, and then several markets buy it? Well, you know, we talk about automation in the grocery store taking away cashier jobs, but I would venture to say that radio DJs get paid more than cashiers. Right, those jobs are being taken away by syndication. So it's like a blessing and a curse. And then the point about uniformity and messaging, I could have a whole different podcast about that. And I think we should, but I will say this, do you think this setting of a national agenda of sorts, is due to large conglomerates in media, like Murdoch, like Bloomberg, who own several stations and several media outlets. And so for them, in a way they've basically McDonald alized, or standardized how they will send messaging to their other markets, which we know from business makes things cheaper, and it makes things move faster.

Deron Hogans: 13:36

It does all those things. And the most important thing is it influences our attention. And it commandeers our priorities. The worst part about it is, is we wake up every day, we think that we have freewill and ownership of our thoughts and our ideas, but we really don't. Because at least once a day, I talk to somebody, whether it's a family member or a friend, and they pose me with a hypothetical question about a topic that doesn't have anything to do with either one of our personal lives. And if I investigate what motivated them to ask me the question, their typical answer is, I saw it on Facebook, or I heard on the news, or I saw it on Instagram. And it's like, well, if you are prioritizing ideas that are being filtered to you through these channels, do you really own what your priorities are for the day? Do you truly command your own thinking? You kind of don't. And that's why in my personal life, I've tried to like completely remove myself from hypothetical conversation, because if I can't apply it to any decision I'm making in front of me, at that point in time, I'm like, Well, what are we talking about? And when I asked him, and when I ask people that question, they like, Dang you right? What are we talking?

Kandice Whitaker: 14:54

And so those barbershop conversations, like Please miss me with that.

Deron Hogans: 14:58

I think thats the worst part. About the standardization of media is that it commandeers our attention. And it undermines our freewill to set our own priorities for what we care about.

Kandice Whitaker: 15:09

I see why you're saying that. But I would like to add to your consideration. My challenge with that thought is that that's what marketing is, in its essence, marketing is getting your attention and saying the same message multiple times in different ways so that you'll do what they want you to do whatever that is, I don't think the issue is with the messaging per se, because we experienced it at other times in our life, you know, it's as old as the world newspapers, radio than TV. It's just the pervasiveness of social media. And then add the fact that we're all walking around with these smartphones that I swear to God, listen, oh, yeah, because you can think of something. And then you see all these ads for it on social media.

Deron Hogans: 15:55

I was just sat here and talked a bunch of mess about standardization of media, but I actually kind of like that. I like when the AI have seen it helps me figure something out. Yeah. You know what I like? Bucha. Yeah, exactly. Like, I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to cook for dinner. I really think to sit there and think about it. I want somebody else to figure it out for me. So yeah, like that piece.

Kandice Whitaker: 16:17

And here's the other part that is problematic to say the least. It's Kanye saying that right? He literally is the most attention seeking person we have out there. So in terms of reliable source, you real marginal sir.

Deron Hogans: 16:33

Yeah, I think that's a good example of somebody who's figured out how to subvert media right and use it to their own advantage.

Kandice Whitaker: 16:40

He literally told you game, and then he does it.

Deron Hogans: 16:45

Exactly, exactly. So there it is. Exhibit A,

Kandice Whitaker: 16:49

oh, my goodness, this is already shaping up to be a really interesting conversation. I'm gonna put a paper clip in it right here. And when we come back more talk. In our virtual Happy Hour community, the party never stops. Follow Kandice with the K Whitaker on social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Tiktok. Now back to the show. Welcome back y'all to the conversation. And I have my guest, Deron Hogans, with us are talking about a bunch of things to give us a really interesting look into his life before transitioning into corporate. He didn't like what was happening in his major. But I also want to speak that to everyone who's considering a career change. There's nothing to it, but to do it. You know, you are speaking right now to two former fine arts majors who are definitely knees deep in business, like we totally did a complete shift. So if you're not happy doing what you do, is not off the table, change what you're doing. Because you know what, how you spend your day is how you spend your life. But I want to downshift into this article that came out recently from Forbes, it was really, really interesting, because it talked about the five soft skills that are needed in corporate. So for those of you who don't know, soft skills, are those skills that are non transferable. They are subjective, how we will say it is Do you know how to act? Yeah, that's basically what's you know, how to act. So here's what Forbes defined as the soft skills that are needed in corporate and I don't know how I feel about it, you know, flexibility is one. I think that's completely subjective, right? I know why they said that, from a corporate perspective, of course, you want the people to be flexible, but as a person who might be on the receiving end of that flexibility mandate, okay, I'm not available all the time. And I don't really care what you have to say about that. And that's it. And that's all. That's nice. I'll take that though. So that's number one. And it's odd that it is number one. So you know, kind of back to our previous conversation, I almost feel like not feeling like there's an agenda, man.

Deron Hogans: 19:00

I won't pull the agenda thread through. But I will say that flexibility is important for many reasons, primarily, because we are not singular beings, we have many dimensions to our lives, right work is just one of them. And I feel like for the longest time, corporate America rejected that corporate America would look at us and say you are singular, you are this person that shows up to work from nine to five, and you don't exist outside of it. And that's been a mistake that corporate America has made and it's also propagated a lot of equity denial to the people who need it and should have it. So what I've experienced in my career is shifting away from organizations that follow that traditional mandate of rejecting the person that is your employee outside of the workspace had the opportunity to go to an organization that accepts your many dimensions, and it's completely changed my life. I'm hopeful that the great resignation or whatever we're calling this phase we're in right now. Oh, now the great layoff will open up the door for more corporate cultures to accept the many dimensions of their employees and not reject them.

Kandice Whitaker: 20:10

I love the way you worded that we are multi dimensional people. And a couple of months ago, I wrote a blog about the great resignation. And I believe flexibility is one of the greatest factors, especially for women, especially for women who are working mothers. And I know that every woman is a working mother. But for those of us who are flexibility is key to satisfaction, because we have so many external things. And certainly people who are not mothers, people who are fathers, people who are taking care of their elderly family members need flexibility as well. And that extends beyond the corporates perspective of we need you to work this weekend because we're doing something right. We also need that to be reciprocal. And it is a mistake of corporate I love that you said that. But I believe that is what is fueled part of the great resignation, aside from the fact that there were all these jobs left by the over 800,000 people that guy, then there's that. So number two on the soft skills list is teamwork. Yeah, teamwork, I could see why they would say that not everybody does well on a team. But then you also have to understand how you show up in a team. I am interesting on a team. So I've been writing. Yeah, I've been writing dolo my whole life. So for those of you who don't speak urban, I'm an only child. So I'm used to doing things by myself. Teamwork is an afterthought. Doing things with people is always an afterthought for me. So that was definitely a challenge for me when I first entered into corporate, just because of my way of being in the world for so long. So when I show up on a team, I usually will sit back and observe that is always my default in any new situation. Because I need to know who's who in the zoo. Right? So I'm gonna sit there and I'm gonna look and I'm going to see who's who in the zoo. And if we don't look like we're going anywhere, that's where my driver shows up. Okay, we got to get the task done. And very much, then I stepped into my leader role. But I don't default there. I don't want to be the leader, but I will be the leader if I don't think you guys are doing a good job.

Deron Hogans: 22:24

Yeah, and the leadership thing is interesting, because I feel like I've read a ton of material of leadership because I have never truly viewed myself as a leader archetype in corporate America. Oh, my God, you so are, well, I've always felt like my best contributions are made as a quote unquote, individual contributor. But that's because I had limited my perspective on what a leader in corporate America could be to this, like managerial role, or this managerial persona. And I've come to find through research and through, you know, conversations like this one that many times the best leaders are the ones who don't want to want to be leaders that are, yeah, they're the ones who want to get the work done. And they're the ones who want to have relationship with the people that are on their team and in other collaborators. And I've seen that in my work experience currently, that all my managers are former ICs, who worked primarily as ICS in their careers leading up to that point, and I see for the people listening, oh, individual contributor, in many ways, were slow to accept managerial positions, meaning that it was a hard choice for them to make. And I don't take that lightly. I think it should be a thing that you think about consider and mull over when somebody offers you the responsibility to lead other people at a formal capacity. So I've definitely flipped my perspective on leadership in the past few years,

Kandice Whitaker: 23:53

that is an excellent perspective, we definitely should be leery to a certain extent of people who rushed to leadership, there's a lot of responsibility there and to whom much is given, much is required. And so the fact that you would be thoughtful about that, that speaks to your character and your leadership ability. Um, get ready to jump down a rabbit hole, I already know it, but let's go. You know, people always talk about alphas, right? I'm an alpha male. I'm an alpha female. And generally that conversation is connected with dating, right? So I more than once in my life had been referred to as an alpha female. That never resonated with me because I know that I don't want to be a leader. I am the reluctant leader, right? Like I If y'all gonna mess up then. Okay. And I did a little bit of research into that. And it seems like I'm gonna sigma. And based on what you're saying, and now we're not talking about Greek life, y'all. We are talking about kind of your personality type of how you show up in the world. Everybody knows that alphas and it seems like betas get a really bad rap. But nobody talks about segments. And if you look Get up segments have many of the characteristics that our have meaning that we are leaders, but we don't really want to be leaders, we are the reluctant leaders almost the lead from behind people. Exactly. Yeah. And it sounds like you might be one of those.

Deron Hogans: 25:14

I absolutely agree with that. And I you know, I was taking the personality quizzes for the different various, you know, Persona archetype development courses that you get a chance to participate in, in corporate America. And I would say almost 100% all the time, my persona matches up with the sigma or, or for those who have participated in a particular organization's personality type development, the pioneer, these lofty names that basically mean people who are creative, and can lead with their creativity, but reluctantly choose to do it.

Kandice Whitaker: 25:51

I am a pioneer, too. I'm a pioneer driver. So the Pioneers are the idea people, we want to launch out and think about things, but the drivers are they get the work done, people, I am very task focused, especially when I'm given a deadline or something that needs to be completed. So I'm going to jump back up to the top five soft skills. And we're up to the number three, which is making decisions and taking responsibility, which is interesting, that is an interesting, soft skill. So the ability to make decisions. Personally, I can say that I definitely can make decisions. I think I'm good at making decisions because I approach things very analytical, however, experiences a good teacher and has told me that over my lifetime, sometimes I make decisions a little bit too fast. Just a little bit. And so that in a corporate space to relate that back to work, sometimes meetings frustrate me when we talk about the same thing multiple times for a month. But now I understand the value of being able to revisit conversations and to think about things from a different perspective. Because when you don't talk about things multiple times I've realized is that you don't get all the information. Sometimes you need to ask people things because they think of things later. You know, where is your thinking space, my thinking space is the car. So I'm definitely not getting my good thoughts when I'm in the meeting talking.

Deron Hogans: 27:19

This resonates with me a lot, because I personally don't believe meetings are the best place to make decisions anyway. If we, yeah, if we have to come to a meeting, the meeting is a place where we align our thinking like, this is my understanding of the challenge that's in front of us, what is yours? Do those two things match, if they do, let's make a decision and reconvene if they don't, let's do the things we need to do to achieve alignment. For that reason. In itself, I find myself doing my best thinking decision making when I am not working. When the insights come to me in the gym, they come to me, when I'm walking around my neighborhood, they come to me when I'm making my omelet in the morning on Saturday, they come to me at times when I'm not working. And for that reason. Also, I purposefully build in a call it like creative time into my day, whether it's to read a book and take notes and like come to mind wandering on understanding of what I'm reading, or to TRY TO TINKER WITH something like raise the seat on my bike, just trying to do something that involves my hands and me like trying to process how to complete something like at least four days out a week I cook. That is also an example of me trying to like just work through a process and not think and it seems like on the other side of those moments is when I come to realizations about things and I like find myself running back to my laptop or running back to my phone to try to capture an idea.

Kandice Whitaker: 28:49

In a different conversation. My guest and I on the podcast Yolanda, we were talking about how at work, you're under duress. I think we really don't think about that though. It is in those moments where you get an opportunity to step away and allow your creative mind that's not under stress to be part of a thoughtful decision. Like I totally get that. And by the way, you mentioned a lot of things that were very appealing. He's single y'all. He's talking about cooking four days a week. It's like really, I have to cook Yes, you can cook four days

Deron Hogans: 29:23

a week. And I mean, we talked about this ain't no like throw something in the oven and walk away. This is like chopping onions chopping tomatoes season me so you

Kandice Whitaker: 29:32

really trying to have my DMs filled up asking about you. This is what's happening right now.

Deron Hogans: 29:36

Alignment is the name of the game if they feel so enthused to do so. I'm just stating truths about my life. That's all.

Kandice Whitaker: 29:47

Oh my goodness, this is such a great conversation. Number four is interesting to me. And I mean interesting in a kind of sarcastic way, because the number four soft skill that Forbes put out there as necessary. Are you for corporate is empathy? Really? Yeah, is that so it's a

Deron Hogans: 30:05

strange thing to put out there because I feel like it is very hard to find empathy in some of these traditional corporate spaces. Okay, preach thing that I think about the most is an experience I had at a former employer where I was required to travel for work week all the week, leave on Monday morning and come back Thursday night or Friday morning. And there was an understanding and awareness that I had a at the time, a six year old son that I'm raising and caring for. And it was my preference to those weeks where we would come back on a Wednesday or Thursday night work from home for the rest of the week, so that I could be at home with my child. And there were quite a few knows no, we're going to the office on Thursday and Friday. And it was very weird to me, because typically, by the time we had come back from a trip, most of the work for the week was done, anything that we had to address could be addressed via zoom via email via teams via slack via many of the asynchronous platforms that were available to us to leverage to get work done remotely. And not very long after that the pandemic happened. So

Kandice Whitaker: 31:09

yeah, so this is the employer that I know that I'm thinking of. And I think part of that was the culture, the culture of that company. And I know because I worked there as well. Many of the people who were lifers, we weren't lifers, right? I was an experienced hire. So aka an experiment. Uh huh. They had this weird fraternity thing going on, it was almost like they want to hang out together. And I definitely feel like those of us who were not part of that inner circle were like, Yeah, I got my own life going on here. Aside from that place, my experience with empathy and corporate has been lacking, which probably has led to my overall jaded view of most places, they have all the right words that HR propagate for them. But at the end of the day, when the HR manual is closed, and nobody is looking, what do you do? And many organizations don't show up in a way that reflects empathy, unfortunately. So that's confusing to me. Yeah.

Deron Hogans: 32:15

And empathy. As a word that begins with E, I always find somehow has relation to the word equity, which also starts with EA, and I think interesting little formula, it's like, it's like, is equity present and available to the another E word, the employee, if yes, then you'll typically find that organization being more empathetic. If the equity is not available to the employee, then typically, you'll find that is not an empathetic organization, or not as empathetic as others. And I just think that's an interesting correlation. I think people who work in organizations where they have equity in the stock, or they have stock options, or they have something that ties them into the DNA of the company, the corporate structure, are afforded more empathetic interactions with their employer than the ones who are working in organizations where they may not have access to that that equity that DNA structured, I don't know, have you? Have you seen or since that, in your experience,

Kandice Whitaker: 33:12

I'll say this, I've been a consultant for so long, partially because I was frustrated with the lack of empathy that I'd seen in so many corporations. So I developed a self preservation strategy to basically treat them like dating them be incorporations. And it has been so long since I've been emotionally invested in any way. But I can't even really answer that question. I keep it like dating, like speed dating, actually.

Deron Hogans: 33:45

Show me who you are. Show me what you are? Yeah,

Kandice Whitaker: 33:48

and I've just seen so many people disappointed and hurt and frustrated that the choice I made was really based on self preservation, and the understanding that you're only going to get so far here. And that's okay. What's another Maya Angelou say, when someone shows you who they are, believe that the first time so that doesn't mean I'm not going to give you the opportunity to show me who you are. I do. But then when I see what's up, then that's that one that?

Deron Hogans: 34:17

I think that's an Yeah, I think that's an important piece of it, too. Sometimes the discourse around corporate life, or corporate American life is weighted very heavily on the employer, but the employees have a responsibility to themselves as well. And I think two of those things are one recognizing the limitations of your experience at an organization. If you come into an organization and you see that the empathy or the equity or whatever you care about is not in alignment with your needs. You should be ready to be there for a short period of time.

Kandice Whitaker: 34:54

Always have that resume ready. Yeah, right. Yeah. And

Deron Hogans: 34:57

so that's one thing and then the other thing is just having the willingness to know when it's good when it's good, a good time to walk away. I've seen so many examples in you know, my peer network and friends of people just stay in somewhere for years, just because. And it's like, you know, yeah, there's opportunities for you elsewhere, either through other jobs or you know, doing your own thing. And these jobs and as safe as you think they are. So that part

Kandice Whitaker: 35:28

told us, You got to know when to hold them know when to fold?

Deron Hogans: 35:32

Absolutely. So, so yeah, I hope people out my hope is that in these in these, these upcoming weeks and months, people feel more encouraged to do the things that they want to do when they want to do it. And to, you know, recognize that all these corporate opportunities, they, they're not going to all of them are going to meet your expectations. That's okay. And that's an opportunity for you to go forward, learn some lessons and take those days elsewhere to flourish.

Kandice Whitaker: 35:56

Well, you know, what, you bring up so many interesting points. But I do believe this time period that we're seeing right now, the great resignation slash layoff represents a paradigm shift. And the paradigm shift is that most Americans, most working Americans, that means people our age and younger, we're seeing corporate for what they really are, right? And we're learning to play the game in a way that makes sense for us. You know, that turns into articles in the media that say things like, Why does Gen Z and millennials move jobs so much, you guys have nothing to offer us. And we get that. Gone are the days of the pension, and the watch that our parents and our grandparents look forward to. And then also from young, I think we're socialized to believe that if you are committed and faithful to a company, it will work out for you. And certainly that was true for a different generation. But our generation just has not realized that, in my humble opinion. I'm going to take a break right here. But when we get back, we're going to continue talking about the top five soft skills that you need in corporate.

Pierce Taylor: 37:13

Are you ready for more keep up with Kandice with a K on social media. Now back to the show.

Kandice Whitaker: 37:19

Having a wonderful conversation with my guests Deron Hogans, we were almost at the end of a Forbes article talking about top five soft skills that you'll need in corporate. So I'm going to read down the first four that we already went over flexibility, being able to make decisions and take responsibility, teamwork, empathy. And the last one, the last soft skill that Forbes says is important is critical thinking, yes, please be intelligent. Absolutely. 100%, please be able to be open to perspectives that are differing from yours, say that one more time, ie open to perspectives that are different from yours. Being able to see things from a multi dimensional perspective, I think, more often than not in leadership, the my way or the highway. And that's not good leadership to me. It's not. It's not. It's not. I think that was another causing factor of the great resignation.

Deron Hogans: 38:16

Yes, you know, I'm a researcher, so I got to pull out things. But I think it goes back to this whole discussion about equity, right? When you reject people's ideas, or if you require people to sign on to your perspective, then you're not fostering equity. And when you don't foster equity, people don't feel like they really involved and when people feel like they're not really involved, they don't have any motivation to care about the outcomes, they don't have any motivation to care about some customers, they don't have any motivation to care about your performance. They really at that point, just showing up for a check. And you may have them as employees, but are you able to produce the outcomes that you need to achieve your, your product or your company or your services mission? Absolutely not. Because you have a workforce that is motivated by just by getting a check, like they just trying to show up and get and get the money. And you really

Kandice Whitaker: 39:10

just like my dating scenario, meaning that that's why I treat it like dating, it is transactional, because unfortunately, many corporations are of that mindset. So you have to keep it transactional, only the ones that are dynamic, only the ones that are leaders are able to critically think and see things from more than just their perspective. And $1. Productivity bottom line, because at the end of the day, I think if you really think about people as individuals, you give yourself the opportunity to go further. So what exactly what you're saying,

Deron Hogans: 39:44

Yeah, and this makes me think of silly. I think he's the CEO of Chase Bank. Jamie Dimon. Are you familiar with him? No, but

Kandice Whitaker: 39:51

I can Google.

Deron Hogans: 39:53

Jamie Diamond is one of my favorite corporate executive figures because he there Pretty much as a believer in the value of equity in the corporate structure, both for the employee and the benefactor of the customer. And he even came out to say, at one point a few years ago, that customer experience like how customers rate, their interaction with your organization should be a key metric for shareholders to consider in their decisions about the value of the stock and for the board to consider in their decisions about what they're going to do with the company. And that was just such an interesting thing to me, because the shareholder structure of corporate organizations has always primarily benefited the shareholder to say, we're going to do as a company, whatever is important to ensure that our shareholders don't sell our stock. Right? Right. And him considering the customer at the middle of that was a complete flip on that, it's like to say, actually, Yala shareholders, but if customers don't value our service, and they hate it, or they feel negatively about it, then we as an organization, aren't as valuable as we think we are. And he also believed the same for employees. So I really think that adopting that mindset of putting customers and employees at the center of the value of a company, it doesn't matter how well the stock is performing, if we can figure out a way to connect the value of the organization back to the people that are center to it, the more organizations have better corporate experiences. That was

Kandice Whitaker: 41:31

absolutely. So I very quickly Googled you, dude. And of course, he is from New York, shout out to my New York people listening. And he's a Harvard guy. So of course, you know, he's super smart. So he definitely understands that people connection related to productivity, even if he's just saying all the right things to increase productivity, like, who cares? You know what I mean? I'm gonna play devil's advocate for a second. And I very quickly Googled him and Harvard Business Review has a story from a couple of years ago. But they they are quoted in saying, Jamie Diamond America's least hated banker. I thought that was hysterical.

Deron Hogans: 42:15

He's that guy . He is that guy for the things that he says right for the ideas that he puts out there.

Kandice Whitaker: 42:21

I love that. I love that it does go back to that soft skill of critical thinking, being able to think outside of the box and do something different tied to that is courage. They might not be the conjoined twins. But they're at least fraternal.

Deron Hogans: 42:41

Yeah, because going out on that limb of putting customers at the center, it goes against everything that truly has made corporate America, corporate America, it's it's really been an exploitative industry up to this point. And I think they're getting to the point of diminishing returns, though, because the people, the employees, and the customer is just requires so much more now than they did in the years prior. And of course, like where all the money is now in tech, you know, you have issues about security and trust and privacy at play. And I think in very many ways, the exploitation continues in that space, right? People, absolutely. People breeze through Terms of Service and conditions. They don't care how the data is used. But I think a lot of that is because they don't feel empowered to do anything about it. I mean, really, what can they do, though? Yeah, right. But at the same time, the tech organizations, in many ways have tried to, in some ways, tried to enable or empower customers, users, whatever you want to call us in ways that the corporations of the past have not right. And so the exploitation has moved, but users can at least now you know, speak up, take a stand, refuse usage, refuse participation, and really forced corporations to either take a stand make a position publicly that they would didn't have to before or address the problem. So we're not quite there yet. But we are moving I think away from point in time when corporations could really just do anything they wanted to without repercussion, at the least

Kandice Whitaker: 44:13

they are mad about it. They're not going down without a fight. You have articles like the former president of Home Depot was quoted a couple of weeks ago saying that nobody wants to work because of woke culture, people fighting back about the great resignation, saying that, Oh, you know, people are just lazy because you let them work from home, not at all taking responsibility for the fact that wages are stagnant. We haven't seen an increase in benefits. As a matter of fact, they steadily decrease. And as productivity requirements increased, and you're expected loyalty for what?

Deron Hogans: 44:50

Right? The relationship is not there's really like you say, transactional,

Kandice Whitaker: 44:54

transactional. So I'm gonna take a break here and then when we come back from this break, I'm gonna let Deron answer what are his top five things that he'd never do in corporate? We'll be back. So tell me, are you enjoying the show? gone ahead and rate us five stars and leave a comment. Now back to the show All right, we're back. I'm talking to my guest, Deron Hogans, we've had a wonderful conversation about five things, five things we never do in corporate soft skills that Forbes recommends that you would have in corporate, and from this conversation, we're hoping that you will learn and be able to kind of put yourself in this context and figure out what you can use and what makes sense for you to carry on in your own personal life. So you're on the right for the world, I think you'd never do in corporate.

Deron Hogans: 45:43

Number one, I would never not ask for a raise.

Kandice Whitaker: 45:45

How often do you do that?

Deron Hogans: 45:47

I would probably say I do that maybe once a year. Honestly, word. Yeah, that caught

Kandice Whitaker: 45:53

me off guard. As you can see, we didn't talk about these beforehand. So I did not expect him to say that. Okay, number one. Any tips for that for the folks listening who are just as surprised as me, because I don't ask for a raise annually.

Deron Hogans: 46:06

Yeah, I think the biggest tip that I will offer is there's two, the first one is do your research always have a good sense for what the value of the service you are providing to your employer is. So you can know whether or not you are on behind in front of market rates. And I will also caveat, what I set my top thing not to do by saying if you find that you are a head of corporate, they average corporate spin for what you do, or you're on par, please do not go asking your manager for a raise because they go by yourself. Don't blame yourself. But the second thing that I would say is it's always good for us to take action in cycles. And after you've done things for a period of time, if you've grown, if you've done well in your job, if you've added value, it's fair for you to ask for more. And all they can say is no, it is a fair question. And if they say no, so be it, you go back to work, and you keep doing great things. All right, number two, number two, I would not stay somewhere I am not wanting that part. If you go to work in the days, and you look around, and you find yourself in a position where you can say I don't fit here, you should leave

Kandice Whitaker: 47:17

You will ruin your self esteem, have set aside for many other things.

Deron Hogans: 47:22

100%. So that's number two.

Kandice Whitaker: 47:24

I love that. All right, three, I would say number

Deron Hogans: 47:27

three would be I would never attempt to work more than one W two job at a time falls under don't play yourself. Again, it's not worth it guys, like I really want you all to understand this. I know it's hard out here. And there's many opportunities to take advantage of the way that things are with remote work and be at home and not having to be in the office. But it is not worth it. And if you do take two w two jobs or more, you actually kind of playing yourself because the IRS is gonna tax you at a rate of 28% or more, but the corporate tax rate is 15%. So if you work in three jobs, you may as well go full time business independent and take that 15% tax rate girl like so. Yeah, don't work more than one W two job at a time.

Kandice Whitaker: 48:15

That's really foolish. I was working on a contract. And I was at one of the little company things and you know how you walk around and get to know the people there one dude who I just met was like, Yeah, you don't work in a couple of contracts like talking out in front of everybody. I was like, man, bro, like, you don't even know me like how do you know I'm not the Mole? Like, what you

Deron Hogans: 48:37

not the model. And let's be clear, I did specifically say w two. So I'm not saying don't work more than one situation if you can figure it out for yourself, by all means, but man 1099 A thing like

Kandice Whitaker: 48:50

99 for that edge?

Deron Hogans: 48:52

Yeah, let's be let's be smart about how are we moving? All right, number four, number four corporate things I would not do I would not work in an organization and not take advantage of their training resources. I think it's super important to see what your organization allows you to do in terms of training. If you have a specific skill that you want to get sharp on absolutely take advantage of any resources that they offer to do that if they have their own classes that will train you or if they offer some type of stipend for you to take advantage of. Even if it comes with a requirement for you to stay on for a certain period of time after completing that course in exchange for them giving you the stipend. Absolutely do it. Because easy way to come out better. Yeah, it's gonna benefit you more than it'll hurt you in the long run. And people will always say like, oh, well, if I decide to leave, I don't want to pay it back. If you leave you get your sign on bonus. Just give them the signup bonus. Just take it and keep it moving because you'll end up better on the other side. Nine times out of 10

Kandice Whitaker: 49:51

I love that. Agreed. Like I tell people like a squirrel stalking nuts, man. Absolutely. Yeah. Number five.

Deron Hogans: 49:57

Number five things I would never do with corporate America would be never let anybody talk to me any kind of way. I don't care if it's your manager, Jesus, I don't care if it's your manager, your peer, or, ah, when people talk to you any kind of way, because once you let them do it, they don't keep doing it, that part. So speak up for yourself, even if it feels tough, if it gives you anxiety, stress, I understand all those things. But those typically are the moments where you really, really need to speak up for yourself because guess what, the anxiety and the stress and gonna go away, if you scared about your your situation dissolving in you potentially leaving that role. Here's also another thing for you, that's probably the best thing for you. So let's fill the fields, let the bad moments happen and go through those things. And then on the other side, I promise you things work out much better than it weren't while he was there going through whatever he was going through with the people who saw

Kandice Whitaker: 50:48

Well, let me ask you this. What is your strategy for when people come out crazy to you? I've had hollerin yelling and cussing. I had a boss come in and throw a stack of papers on the boardroom table and say this is all fucked up. Fucking figure it out. Those are the I've seen the gamut. Yeah,

Deron Hogans: 51:06

yeah, those are the moments when Darren comes out. So my name is My name is Deron. But family is from South Carolina. My dad's name was Iran as well. And you know, we got some country folk in my family. And you know, everybody, we didn't really pronounce the name correctly. So some people call him there. And they call me there. And they do it to this day and his family. So it's fine. So the people who know me know that Pete sometimes people call me there. That's just what it is. And if you know me enough to know that out there, and you know that sometimes Darren comes out sometimes there and shows up in those situations. And in corporate situations, you typically want to leave your shadow self at home. But when people bring

Kandice Whitaker: 51:49

not shadow, self somebody's been doing work,

Deron Hogans: 51:53

look, people bring their shadow to work, you got to bring your shadow to So in those situations, those are times where I got to take a step back and clarify like, Excuse me, sir, ma'am, we're not doing it. And that's just period. You're not doing it. And they typically understand we don't have to have another conversation about it. It's like no, pause here what I'm about to say, we're not doing it. Look me and

Kandice Whitaker: 52:16

that's very nice. That is that works. And to give a shout out to my home girl, Ingrid, who gave me my standard thing that I say because at first, I would match energy, which doesn't work, which is wrong. My canned statement is unless there's a medically documented reason for you to communicate with me in this way. That's how I start.

Deron Hogans: 52:38

I wish I had the wherewithal to say that, like, I wish I could. You know, if I talk too much, in those moments, I'm gonna start to say something my cane? I can't,

Kandice Whitaker: 52:47

I can't, I may as well just going to handle my badge. Right.

Deron Hogans: 52:51

Let me slide my badge across the table right now. Because I believe I'm done. So you so that's why my default is not we're not doing that.

Kandice Whitaker: 53:00

That's enough, that gives the message through. Yeah, this has been a wonderful conversation. But to sum it all up, if you had to give somebody your like, as number one in the whole tip, what is the number one thing that you've learned in navigating corporate, the number

Deron Hogans: 53:17

one thing I've learned in navigating corporate is that when you overthink a decision or conversation or strategy, you tend to mess up, go with your gut, use the data that's available. And if you don't know where the data sources are, ask for help tell people let people tell you where to go and put your perspective together and make a decision. You have to be decisive in corporate America, people value it even if you're going to be wrong, even if you end up being wrong about something because here's because guess what, you don't own the outcomes of the decisions that are made. And then they all do. They'll try to attribute responsibility to people. But honestly, these corporations when they make decisions, nobody knows how those things are going to work out. So you may as well just go balls in and say, This is what I think we should do. This is why I think we should do it. And let's do it.

Kandice Whitaker: 54:04

So that's what grandpa would say follow your first mind. That's right.

Deron Hogans: 54:07

Yeah. So that would be my biggest piece of advice is just do it. Just get get shit done. And let people know why you feel like they should go in that direction. And Do it confidently even if you don't have all the data to support it because they don't have all of this data to support their decisions either. Like none of us really know what we're doing. It's like no science is really alchemy. Like we just going in there and trying to figure some things out how things play out, they're gonna play out in the market. So that would be my biggest advice. Just go in there, be confident and do your thing. That is so

Kandice Whitaker: 54:38

true. I don't think people know especially younger people. We all are here scared and afraid. We just try it right. And I think the difference between those who do well and those who don't, or those who are willing to take the calculated risks, make a decision and to take a chance. Thank you so much to Ron for this really wonderful, insightful and tell it Yep, multisyllabic conversation.

Deron Hogans: 55:02

No, no problem. I'm so happy to be here. You know that the broadcast journalists inside of me was jumping with joy to get the opportunity to come in and have a conversation and to be in a podcast. So I just really appreciate you giving me the opportunity to think about some things and share my thoughts.

Kandice Whitaker: 55:18

Thank you so much for your time. And I'll talk to y'all next time. We out. Wasn't that a great interview? Hold up before you grab your hat and head out, make your way to facebook.com and join the Kandice with the K Whitaker's Facebook group. That's where you can find our free Happy Hour community, luxuriating enchanting, thank you for listening. And if you enjoyed the show, please leave a review. That's how we keep the lights on. If you're on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, feel free to shoot me a message and say Hey, girl, hey, I'm Kandice with the K Whitaker and I would love to hear from you. And with that, I love you. And I mean, you know why? Because there are people in the world who hate for no reason I choose to love for no reason. I believe as the great Martin Luther King Jr. said pain is too great a burden to bear and I choose to love peace y'all be great.