Speaking up on a Global Scale with Jenifer Haskins

Cindy Moehring: 00:00:01

Hi, everyone. I'm Cindy Moehring, the founder and Executive Chair of the business integrity Leadership Initiative at the Walton College of Business, and this is the business integrity school podcast. Here we talk about applying ethics, integrity and courageous leadership in business and most importantly in your life today. I've had nearly 30 years of real world experience as a senior executive. So if you're looking for practical tips from a business pro who's been there, then this is the podcast for you. Welcome. Let's get started.

Cindy Moehring: 00:00:34

Hi, everybody. I'm Cindy Moehring. And welcome back to another episode of the business integrity school. We are in season six talking all about speaking up and culture building and what that looks like in different parts of the world and in different companies. And today, we're really fortunate to have a special guest with us who's going to talk to us and with us all about what that looks like internationally through the experiences that she had. So I'm really excited to welcome Jennifer Haskins. Hi, Jennifer, how are you?

Jennifer Haskins: 00:01:03

Hi, Cindy.

Cindy Moehring: 00:01:05

Jennifer is a former colleague, as you'll hear about here in a minute and also a dear friend and most importantly, she is a northwest Arkansas native and a University of Arkansas alum -- go hogs. After receiving her law degree, Jennifer served as a deputy prosecuting attorney and work for a boutique law firm before she joined Walmart. And she worked for over 16 years at Walmart, in various roles and legal and then an ethics and compliance. She supported the business basically all over the world, but definitely in the US, also in Latin America. And then she actually lived abroad for more than five and a half years and worked and lived in Asia and in Africa during that time and has some really wonderful experiences to share with us. What was she doing over there? Well, I'll let her tell you a little bit more about that. But suffice it to say she was growing and strengthening our ethics and compliance culture around the world. For Walmart and also integrating e commerce as we were building that out around the world, helping with supply chain partners and helping them understand our culture around the world. And then she retired from Walmart but passionate again about diversity and building inclusive environments, continued her quest post Walmart and did some work at Kansas State University as an investigator for discrimination and harassment claims and also training the faculty and staff on that really important issue. So Jennifer, I am just thrilled to have you here today, you and Jim or your husband, Jim are now retired, traveling around passionate about international and US travels, spending time as you should with kids and grandkids. And I love the names of your two cats, Pinot and merlot. So welcome, welcome. We're just so excited to have you with the audience today and to share with the students at the university and others and the business community passionate about the issues that we share an interest in your experiences. So can you just start maybe by telling us about living internationally? And what are some of the highlights that you have from your time abroad?

Jennifer Haskins: 00:03:24

Sure. Well, thanks, Cindy. It's it's an honor and a privilege to be here and, and to talk about something that I love. I do enjoy the experiences of being overseas, I was blessed to be given an opportunity to go and help grow our programs for Walmart in China to start a little reticent about taking that opportunity because I had a 15 year old daughter at the time. But with that an adventurous soul and was willing to move with us to China and go to an international school there. And I would say certainly that giving my child the opportunity to have that international experience and see the world from a different perspective was a huge benefit. And one of the things I loved about my experiences overseas, but I had an opportunity to go and spent three and a half years living in Shenzhen, China, but supporting our business opportunities throughout the Asia region, as we called it, which included our retail operations in Japan, China and India, as well as all of our sourcing and procurement opportunities. You know, in that in that region as well, so Bangladesh, Pakistan, Dubai, Vietnam, South Korea, so we had a lot of opportunities to I had a lot of opportunities to travel and see parts of the world through my work there which again was another bit but you know, it was it really was a life altering experience. And I don't say that lightly it to go go from your comfort zone into a place where you're definitely the minority. You can't really speak the language, you have to learn to communicate differently. Your patience has to be something that you work and grow on. You focus on and just learn about all of these different cultures and backgrounds and where the people come from. I think it took a lot for me coming out of the United States being very driven and very focused and very task oriented to have to stop and really listen and understand was a strength that I work to build and grow while I was there. Because that certainly wasn't the same. Yeah, it was not. Oh, it was definitely not in Northwest Arkansas anymore.

Cindy Moehring: 00:05:46

Yeah. Dorothy's not in Kansas anymore, right? Well, kudos to you. And hats off to you for being that adventurous and willing, willing to take those those opportunities and really harness them and make a real difference. So we're talking all about creating a speak up culture, in this particular season of the video podcast. And that can be very heavily influenced by the geographic location that you live in, in the world. So can you just like think about compared to the US? What was the Speak Up culture like in the places that you lived? And work? How are they different from the US? And how are they different from each other?

Jennifer Haskins: 00:06:35

It's a great question. And they were very different. And and I should mention that I also spent time in South Africa supporting our business opportunities in that continent as well. I think 11 Different countries at the time in the African continent, all radically different in terms of their, their culture, and their, you know, I think one of the things that was very interesting for me and enlightening to me is I would go into a country or an area, I would try to do a little bit of research into their political background. So I had a little bit better understanding of, you know, why people might be more reticent to speak up. And I think we take for granted coming from the United States, you know, long established democracy, where we're actively encouraged freedom of speech. Right? Up we voice things that we see, we have a an ingrained sense of justice in the United States, I think, a pretty robust both in terms of our what we expect of our businesses and corporations, but also what we expect from our government and our leaders. So to go to a country that isn't a democracy, at like China, where speaking up is not necessarily encouraged. And there are real consequences to people that do speak up against their government or against things that they may see as being done, maybe not in line with their values or their beliefs, real, you know, real personal challenges that come there, you know, Japan coming into a place, people were so quiet, no one ever spoke. But why? Well, you know, part of the issue was, to me as an American speaking rapidfire English, they might not understand, right, everything that you're saying, things don't always translate either, which was something that I had to stop and learn. But, you know, countries like South Africa and India, in these places in terms of democracies are in creating environments where people speak up, they they only been, you know, democracies or independent for 50-60 years, you know, they're not 250 years of that culture of speaking up. So definitely ran into challenges with people being very reticent to speak up. And again, like I said, there are opportunities, you know, the things that happen, if they do, one of the things that was eye opening to me, Cindy, when I first got to Asia particularly. In the United States, if someone had asked me to pay a bribe, I would be outraged and on the news and escalating that people were paying bribes to get survive and their personal life, the culture there, you know, to get a driver's license to get a medical certificate for your job. Your utilities turned on in some situations. It was an unfortunate part of their everyday environment. And so one of the things that I think I had to quickly adapt to is kind of using American language to do the right thing. When I was saying that when I first arrived there, people were kind of tuning me out a little bit, because you're making a moral statement about them and the way they behaved. So doing the wrong thing is paying a bribe and yet that That's how they have to, you know, survive in their day to day life. They're not going to be very open to hearing what I had to say. And so repositioning or reframing how I would talk about the expectation and our ways of working for Walmart, and talking really leaning into that about it's not it's I'm not making a moral statement about what is right or is wrong, I'm making a statement about this is the way we do business. This is route ins and to work for us and to be successful with us. This is the way you need to behave, everyone has that that desire to succeed independently or individually. And so trying to reframe it took me a little while and and I think the other thing is that they're they, understandably, the citizens in these countries don't trust if someone says speak up that that that's true, or that there won't be consequences and that it will work. It'll be effective. And so it took a lot of time and patience, to build trust in the program. Both in Asia and in Africa as well.

Cindy Moehring: 00:11:08

Yeah, yeah, that trust is so critical, and it does take time to build that kind of kind of trust. So are, are these internal kind of companies speak up programs that we're familiar with, from, you know, the big multinationals? Are those pretty much only in these other countries, a byproduct of the multinational companies? Or do they exist organically in some local companies in those countries?

Jennifer Haskins: 00:11:40

Yeah, I would say in my time in Asia, I didn't really experience a lot. And not to say that there weren't any kind of industry wide kind of beyond the multinational efforts. Each of these countries, interestingly enough, all of them had laws on the books against bribery. For example, every country that we were doing business and whether it was being enforced or applied effectively, you know, is a different story. But I was very impressed. When I got to South Africa, South Africa had one of the most robust ethics and social and ethics boards were required to have social and ethics committees. I hadn't seen and that wasn't for multinationals, that was for you know, all businesses. So it was, you know, over time and byproduct of issues that had come up in within their country, and they reacted to that. And they pass legislation, and we're becoming more robust on that. And there was more enforcement in in a country like South Africa specifically. And yet there were other countries where, yes, there's laws and things on the books, but you really weren't seeing it being implemented. You weren't seeing stories about it. And in fact, in my time in China, a lot of the enforcement stories were against multinationals. So I'm here in the media, about enforcement of those laws against local businesses, but more against multinationals more as a kind of a setting of an example. But But again, you know, they do have, it is changing, I think countries are getting more robust. business reputation is a huge issue. People don't want to do business with a company that has a bad reputation of operating outside the bounds of the law, or unethically. And I think that's something that is becoming more and more prevalent, people make choices about where they shop, and where they, where they do business where they get their utilities or services from based on that, to the extent that choices, right, but they're making those decisions with a more informed, you know, mindset than before. So I think that all factor in these countries getting more, I'll say, rigorous in terms of their enforcement around these issues.

Cindy Moehring: 00:14:10

Got it. So, you know, there was a recent report from the International Business Ethics Institute, that dove into some of the reasons why people don't speak up and in certain countries, and so at least in the countries where they were doing their survey US, South Africa, Australia, many of the European countries, there were three main reasons why people don't speak up that they found a long list but the top three, one afraid something was going to happen that would jeopardize their job that didn't want to be seen as a troublemaker, number two, and three, they didn't believe that corrective action would be taken. So the first question is, do you think that those reasons are universally true and would hold true in say, China and India and Japan or where there may be other reasons why people or weren't speaking up to. So let's start there.

Jennifer Haskins: 00:15:04

I would say, first off, absolutely those reasons are legitimate and exists by across the board. I think that one of the things that took time, people needed to know that they could speak up and how to speak up. So I think move past. So in maybe some of my early experiences in these countries, we were building our programs to make that more known or more available, and to build that same muscle in terms of talking a lot about speaking up and how to do that. It again, took time, we had, were blessed at Walmart to have a great corporate culture with values that were universal and universally understood, right, for the most part, are acting with integrity, took some definition of people sometimes and what that meant, from our perspective, or our lens, but things like respect and service and taking care of your customers, or or, you know, stakeholders, those were universal things people want. And I do believe that most people want to treat others well. And, you know, make sure that they're providing quality service and quality things and tell the truth and be honest, and that people want to do that I found. But in terms of other reasons why people might be reticent to speak up, I already talked about the fact that in their personal lives, there, there are things that are happening. If they do speak up, and so coming in, you know, all of a sudden, I've lived my whole life where I'm really told, don't talk about that. Don't, don't speak up, don't be a troublemaker, don't, you got to be perfect, you got to know all the information. You can you can't guess, you know, you don't want to be wrong. If you come from those kinds of upbringings right into a place that says, if you have any, any doubts, you know, you don't have to have all the proof, you don't have to know, we want you to tell us so we can try to look into it and fix it. Well, they may not come forward until they have all the proof themselves ready to go. Because they don't want to make a mistake. You also have experiences for people, you know, they've had consequences in their personal life or know of people who've had consequences in their personal life when they spoke up, and so they are not going to do that until you can let that program being placed long enough to build that reputation and build that

Cindy Moehring: 00:17:31

and build that trust. And so that that sounds like it's in a way, that's somewhat what I was going to ask you in terms of how do you overcome those, what you would describe as universally kind of psychological hurdles, regardless of where you live. I mean, I don't want to be seen as a troublemaker, I want my job and I need it. And I you know, I'm not sure corrective action is going to be taken. But when you build a program over time, and they have trust in the reporting in and then can see the proof in the pudding, if you will. Did that did that help in terms of making a difference in and establishing the programs?

Jennifer Haskins: 00:18:09

It absolutely did, it helped. And I think that talking within the business is important about, you know, the health of your program, talking about the fact that people are encouraged to speak up making positive examples of individuals who do so, you know, we had a recognition program for people that that individuals within their business or their country could vote on and select as a person, they wanted to hold up as an example of doing the right thing and acting with integrity. And we recognize them we've we've brought individuals from around the world to the United States, you know, as role models, but also as kind of a reward for doing the right thing, those kinds of programs and showing that there's a positive benefit to doing the right thing and that the business is celebrating that went a long way in many of these countries to saying wow, people were more inclined to to get their name in the hat to be eligible. So they're willing to speak up, you know. So I don't think that we should deny the value of you know, the carrot. In building programs like this, it having recognition mechanisms is really important. And I think too, is you know, walking the talk. One thing to say it's something else if if you aren't making examples, and you don't take proactive steps to remedy issues when you identify them. So I think that we were blessed. I was blessed in the times in the countries where I was that we had strong tone at the top. We had leaders who were who were onboard and put voting and advocating this and if they weren't, frankly, they didn't last in our business very long. That was a blessing and and for people who weren't necessarily always being the type of leaders that we would need them to be, we didn't let them continue to influence, you know, and kind of detract from the health of the program. So I think that's a very healthy, very positive environment to work in. And, again, way to showing individuals that look, if you speak up, there are things that can happen. You know, all the way around.

Cindy Moehring: 00:20:39

Yeah. So there is a way to build a strong culture within a company, even though you there may be different geographical cultures that exist within the country. But the point is, it takes a lot of time, or can take some time, we should say, right, and they have to be able to trust it. And so to trust it, it can't just be something that's written on a piece of paper, it's got to actually be something that they can see. Walking the talk, and having leaders who understand that and support that and actually do walk, the talk goes like, probably 10 times further than where in the US that may just have to be the expectation, right? may feel a little different when you're internationally. And so it goes further when you do it. And I do agree with you, I think that with the strong leadership that was at Walmart, it, it helped establish that kind of a culture.

Jennifer Haskins: 00:21:36

And I would say, one of the things when I first got to China, and most people who are going there, from a business perspective will hear about guanxi, which is, you know, face or relationships, business is built in countries in the United States, we're very capital, environment, you know, capital, capital ism, and we are focused on business and, you know, working really hard and doing all of these things, and entrepreneurial and having, you know, just going out with an idea and launching that. In other countries, relationships are such a backbone of business, how things got done was based on building relationships. And so back to why you had to build that trust it you, no one is going to trust you until you build that relationship with them. And, and that was very true in China, but also in India, and in Japan, and all the countries that I interacted with having taking that time to build the relationship made all the difference in the world.

Cindy Moehring: 00:22:50

No, yeah, I mean, that it just does. And then in some countries, it's well, and a lot of countries, it's like what you described, they're not going to do business with you, until they have pretty deep, trusting relationships. So that's, that's interesting. Well, let's switch gears for a minute and talk about you've left corporate America and jumped into higher ed and did some interesting but related and very similar work there. So at K State, you were an investigator for discrimination and harassment claims and helped build, you know, a program there and help train the faculty and staff. So what do you see as some differences, let's say in, if there are any, what are so the similarities and speak up cultures at universities, as opposed to the corporate world?

Jennifer Haskins: 00:23:40

Sure, well, it was a little bit interesting. Coming in to the higher ed environment from a corporate environment. I think that freedom of speech is highly valued and promoted in the education higher ed environment. People are encouraged faculty live for the opportunity to speak openly about their views and their opinions. And that's in many cases protected. I think that we were maybe a little bit more politically correct in the corporate environment, maybe a little bit more reticent to say things. That's just the nature I think of being in a in a corporation versus in a business versus in a higher ed environment. In terms of speaking up, though, I would say the opportunities people are people, and that is one thing I would just kind of say universally is that I've learned that everyone kind of comes from, you know, it doesn't matter what industry you're in or your background. People have the same challenges. So where individuals maybe didn't come forward early, because they were worried about tenure or worried about their role. They didn't want to be seen as the troublemaker in the department. They you know And, again didn't, didn't want to impinge on that particular person's way of working. And so they were, they were hesitant to speak. Interestingly enough, and at least at Kansas State, and I'm assuming most other higher ed institutions, it was a melting pot. We had people from all over the world here, both as faculty and staff, and undergraduate students, graduate students, doctoral students, people working on some very interesting and intriguing work coming in and you had a lot, I began to see cultural challenges people coming in from one country who may say something that was misinterpreted by someone from a different country or a different culture, and really kind of practicing, Hey, everybody, take a deep breath, let's step back. And let's kind of figure out from whence people are coming. But also saying, again, similar to what I did at Walmart, in terms of this is the way where you're expected to behave here. You know, this is our ways of working well, this is expectation of behavior when you're involved are part of the Kansas State University family organization. So again, trying to reshift that in some situations from not right or wrong, but this, you know, don't want to alienate people. But this is the expectation of how you need to, to engage while you're here. But again, I would definitely say the same challenges around speaking up exist. People don't want to have that reputation as a troublemaker, they don't want to risk their job or their career, or their, you know, being able to get their paper, you know, graded or, you know, their thesis signed off on I mean, whatever it is, same similar situation.

Cindy Moehring: 00:26:52

Yeah. And I would imagine, it's the same if they can, if they can see that the organization in this case, the the university, not only has it on a piece of paper, but there's both there was walking the talk, right, both in a positive way. So, so applauding those who do the right thing, and making sure action is taken against those who don't live up to the expectations that you've just mentioned, then that helps build and foster that sense of community. And belief in Oh, yeah, those are the expectations, I understand that. And that's something that I want to buy into, is a way that you can use to sort of overcome those those hurdles.

Jennifer Haskins: 00:27:35

Exactly. And I would also say that one of the things I saw was really important in the university environment. But equally important in the work we did at Walmart, is education and helping people understand, you know, what the program is about. And if they make a mistake, it's not always fatal. There, there's remediation efforts to kind of learn, give people an opportunity to learn what may be in a more appropriate way to deal with something or to engage in a practice or something that is important. And I think it builds it goes a long way, again, back to building relationships and building trust, people are more willing to come to you if you know about something that may be small, but you can fix and change the trajectory before it gets too, you know, too bad. If they believe that there's an opportunity for people to for remediation. Right.

Cindy Moehring: 00:28:32

Right. Right. Yeah, exactly. So it's, you know, we're humans, we're not perfect, right. But it's all about continuous improvement. And for both companies and individuals, and and universally, I would agree many of the struggles when it comes to culture building exists not just in corporations, they exist really in in life in general, which would include institutions of higher ed. And it's the same kind of issues when you have melting pots of people and you're trying to deal with cultures and geographies and everything else. Well, Jennifer, this has been fantastic to have a chance to hear from you and have you share your thoughts and wisdom from your time abroad and at K State. I want to end on one last question. Is there a good Movie or Documentary or book or podcast or anything that you've read or listened to lately that you think helps really highlight this issue of speaking up, particularly across like cultural lines?

Jennifer Haskins: 00:29:36

Well, this is going to be absolutely silly. Okay, but I had an opportunity and you use something very iconic, I guess, so to speak film series, but I don't. I have grandchildren, as you well know. And I was recently watching Harry Potter with my grands. And we had a very interesting conversation. Even when if you know the movie, and hopefully some of your audience will, hear it, and who called Neville Longbottom, he speaks up. He speaks up for against his friends who are sneaking out and he's trying to do what's right for everyone at his own personal to his own personal detriment, right? Because he's jeopardizing his relationship with these friends. But having a conversation with my granddaughter about why that was a good thing, why he was doing that, why he gets a reward at the end of the movie. Because what he did took a lot of courage. And speaking up is not easy. It's really, really hard, especially if it involves speaking up against people that you believe are your friends. And I use that as I'm going, again, a little hokey example, but something that I think relate to, because there are often a lot of adult moments in these things that trying to translate that to an eight year old, about what that meant. And hopefully that resonates with her and maybe with some of your listeners that, you know, even in children's films, you can find inspiration or learning points, talking points, and moments where you can say, hey, this is something that is important. And this is why you need to be the kind of person that in the future as you grow up. This is the kind of person you should aspire to be. So there it is, that shows the state of my of my life with my eight year old granddaughter.

Cindy Moehring: 00:31:40

Oh, I love it, though. That whole series is timeless. Right and lots of lessons in that series. So that's a that's a great one. And I love that you ended on that. Jennifer, this has been great. Thank you for your time today and for sharing all of that with us. I appreciate it very much. Good to see you.

Jennifer Haskins: 00:31:57

You too, Cindy. Thanks so much.

Cindy Moehring: 00:31:59

Okay, bye bye.