In this episode of The SAFE Leader Podcast, Dr Frank L. Douglas shares his remarkable journey from growing up in Guyana to breaking barriers in the global pharmaceutical industry. A distinguished physician, scientist and author, Dr Douglas opens up about the discrimination he faced early in his career and how those experiences shaped his philosophy of reframing challenges into opportunities. He takes us behind the scenes of his time at Xerox and the boardrooms of top pharmaceutical companies, offering a deeply personal perspective on resilience, leadership and systemic change.
Dr Douglas introduces his reframing methodology and the Equity Inclusion and Individual Engagement principle that underpins his work today. With reflections on history civil rights and the current climate for DEI, he offers urgent insights into why the pendulum of progress feels like it is swinging backwards and what leaders can do to shift it forward again. This is a conversation about identity courage and the power of contribution over control one that will leave you questioning how you lead and what legacy you want to create.
Read the Transcript
Mark McBride-Wright 0:01
Mark, hello. Welcome to the next episode of the safe leader podcast. I’m your host, Mark McBride Wright, and I’m delighted today to be joined by Dr Frank l Douglas, who is a distinguished physician, pharmaceutical executive, author and advocate for systemic change, with over three three with over three decades in the pharmaceutical industry, he made history as the first black member of the Board of management and executive vice president responsible for research development and Regulatory Affairs at a top global pharmaceutical company. Frank is the author of, until you walk in my shoes, a reframing methodology to overcome systemic discrimination, and the author of and the originator of the equity, inclusion and individual engagement principle. Through his leadership at safe haven dialogs, he helps individuals and organizations confront and reframe systemic injustice using storytelling, panel dialog and strategic tools to foster inclusive transformation. His career spans roles as CEO of the Austin bio Innovation Institute, Professor of the Practice at MIT, and advisor to numerous biotech and healthcare startups. He has been honored with the black history maker award and named a rock star of science by the Jeffrey bean foundation and GQ Dr Douglas, brings unparalleled insight into how leaders can drive equity and innovation in parallel. Frank, welcome to the safe leader.
Dr Frank L. Douglas 1:38
Thank you. Thank you for the invitation. I’m looking forward to our to our conversation.
Mark McBride-Wright 1:45
You’ve had some incredible achievements there, and I I love the variety of people that I get to meet through running through recording these, these shows, recording the podcast. And one of the things I love to get under to find out more about is the inspiration of what led you to do what you do now. So if we get in that time Time Warp, if we get in that time machine, even get my words right, and we travel back what what inspired you to do the work that you do today.
Dr Frank L. Douglas 2:27
Often young people ask me the question, How did I know that I would be doing what I am doing now, and how did I prepare for it? Yeah, and the truth of the matter is, I didn’t know when I was a youngster what course, life would be like. I grew up in Guyana, the poor family. At that time, you had to pay to go to high school. So I went to high school on a scholarship. And at that time. Also, there were no universities in Guyana. The first one is the only one we have. Actually, was started in 1966 I fortunately got a Fulbright scholarship to come to America to do my undergraduate work in 1963 and just from there, you know, I got a call from the United States Information Services that told me that I was going to get a scholarship and I could choose which university I would like to go to In America. They thought, because of my performance in what we call the A levels, the British system, that I should probably do engineering and Lehigh was a great engineering school. I knew nothing about, about American universities. I grew up in British Guyana, so you know, my idea was that after two, three years, I would have made enough money that hopefully I could go off to to England and attend one of the universities. So here I was, and I started at Lehigh
Mark McBride-Wright 4:19
as an engineer. And what did you What did you study when you were in the US? What engineering background do you have?
Dr Frank L. Douglas 4:29
Chemistry? I started, actually as a chemical engineer. Okay, my second year, I became really quite interested in physical chemistry. So I switched to chemistry. I remained in the engineering college, but there was a chemistry major, and my PhD is actually in physical chemistry. Okay, I did a PhD at Cornell University in physical chemistry, and that I thought was going to be my life. I would be a professor in physical chemistry, and. And I got a job at Xerox, and because of discrimination at Xerox, I ended up going to medical school, so I also have an MD. I’m also trained as an intern internist and what is called a neuro endocrinologist. And most of my life has really been being between the scientific part of things and the medical part of things. And as it turns out, I became really ideal to be ahead of research and development, research being the pre clinical side of things, and the development being the clinical side of things,
Mark McBride-Wright 5:46
interesting. And so that is what then took you from Guyana to working in the boardrooms of the global pharmaceutical sector.
Dr Frank L. Douglas 5:55
Yes, that’s, that’s the path I started off actually, as an academic physician, okay, discovered, because of some work I had done a couple of studies, I was discovered by the pharmaceutical industry, and so they kept offering me jobs, and so I finally went to the pharmaceutical industry, and remained In the pharmaceutical industry for about 24 years,
Mark McBride-Wright 6:22
and how, how you know you’ve you’ve spoken about the importance of reframing problems. Can you share a personal moment when this approach changed? How you moved forward? You’ve mentioned some experiences in your you know professional arc where you’ve then pivoted and then moved to another, another, well, another discipline, almost another, another industry, another sector. So have you had to, like, reframe moments in your life in order to move to the next step?
Dr Frank L. Douglas 6:56
Well, the following happened after I completed my PhD, I was actually hired by Xerox, and for three months I couldn’t get a good project, and one day, a young white man joined the group, and within a week, he was placed on one of the most exciting projects we had in research and development at Xerox at the time. So I went to have a chat, yet another chap with my manager, and I was stunned to see the expression on his face when I said to him, you know, Steve, don’t think of me as though I’m Frank. Think of me as though I’m Bob. And he looked at me and he said, you know, you’re right. Bob has been here a week, and I’ve put him on the archery project. Well, I was furious. I ran out of his office down the hallway to the office of the senior vice president to give him yet another example of my being discriminated against. Now, two years later, I’m sitting in medical school thinking about that episode and realizing that I had made two errors. The first error was that Dr tribus, the senior vice president that summer, had hired three young, black PhDs, I being one of them to join the single the one black PhD that Xerox had at the time, and he had made it very clear he wanted to have more underrepresented minorities in research and development at Xerox. So I missed that. The second thing that I missed is that I was not clear about what my desired outcome was. It was not for the senior vice president to have tough words with my boss. I wanted a good project for heaven’s sake. I was a freshly minted PhD. I wanted to share my stuff, of course. Now in 2018 when I was writing my memoirs, and I was writing that episode, I then recognized something that I had actually learned from it, because from thereafter, I started doing what? When I was writing my memoirs, I called reframing, but I didn’t think of it that way, but I started looking for what I did call what was a better problem to solve. So even in medical school, when I was facing discrimination, I looked for the better problem to solve. Same when I went to the pharmaceutical industry, I looked for the better problem to solve. And a better problem to solve is a problem which is similar to the one that I have, but is being shared by others. Because I discovered that if you go to your supervisor to discuss a problem that is being shared by many, they are more likely to listen to that than if you go to them and say, Here’s my problem. What are you going to do about it? And so that was what started reframing, and it evidently worked well for me, because in spite of discrimination in the pharmaceutical industry, as you’ve read in my. Uh, in my bio, I became the first black to be on the board of management of a top three global pharmaceutical company,
Mark McBride-Wright 10:12
fantastic and and so you’ve so when you were writing your first book, then until you walk in my shoes, did you? Did you have to go through your entire history? You know, I’m an author as well, so the process that you go through the story, mining the revisit in element, past moments in your life, and almost going back to when it happened, and then writing it out and reliving the emotion, um, how? How did you find the process of writing your your first book?
Dr Frank L. Douglas 10:49
Well, my first book, actually was my memoir, which is entitled defining moments of a free man from a black stream. Now let me explain the title. When I was leaving Xerox, a technician who was a Brit, and to whom I was saying goodbye, he said to me, do you know what your name means? And I said, No. And he said, Well, Frank is Celtic, and it means Freemason or free man. Douglas is Scottish, and it means from a black stream. And you walk around here like a free man from a black stream. My memoir is entitled defining moments of a free man from a black stream. And yes, you know, I did that book, you know, from, from age 12 in Guyana, growing up and through my my life in America, in academia, undergraduate, graduate medical school and then in the pharmaceutical industry, through to going back to academia, to MIT, et cetera, and at the University of Ohio, and the various experiences that I had and what I learned along the way. And as I say, the book is also a testament and a thank you to many people whom I met along the way who were also very helpful to me. I not only experienced discrimination and had to deal with that, but they were also wonderful people whom I met along the way.
Mark McBride-Wright 12:40
Do you find that, that, that things are Have you know what was talking about, the pendulum swing and you know social justice movements and equal rights, advancing pendulum, swinging forward, swinging back in the arc of your career. How much progress Do you feel we’ve made, and how much more do you think we How far do you think we’ve still got to go?
Dr Frank L. Douglas 13:08
My career is an interesting one. I arrived in America in August 1963 eight days before Dr Martin Luther King’s famous March on Washington, within those eight days, I had experienced discrimination, and what it meant to be discriminate, discriminated based on the color of my skin, because, of course, people didn’t know me. Later I learned that in his famous speech, he said that he hoped one day his children would be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. When I heard that, I knew precisely what he meant, because I had experienced that, but I lived through 6465 the challenges, particularly of the late 60s. That was the time when, now the National Organization of Women came into being, with all of the demonstrations against the Vietnam War. It was the Black Power movement, and there was just tremendous civil activity in 1965 there was a civil rights law that was passed, which was the first thing that the present president did. It was an executive order. He immediately got rid of that executive order. So I lived through. I came to America at the time of tremendous civil rights activity, saw the improvements I myself benefited from it. As a matter of fact, when I went to medical school, it was about five or six years after the predominantly white medical school. Schools had begun to accept minority students in medical school, so I benefited from that, and now today, it is worse than when I came in 1963 so this pendulum has really swung all the way back, and for me, it is just incredible to see, within just a few years, this tremendous change.
Mark McBride-Wright 15:32
Do you think that? Do you think it’s a it’s a function of society? People not having the roots of having lived when these moments happened in the past. And so it’s a bit like when you talk about corporate memory in an organization is on average seven years, and all of a sudden, the same things keep getting tried, but they’re thought of as new, if, if the the people coming up now and that are in that are living in society now didn’t grow up in a time when lived through real oppression and civil rights social justice movements. They kind of take it for granted, and they don’t realize they, well, we, we don’t realize I’m part of that group. We don’t realize just how how much energy and effort and movement and coalition building goes in to actually moving things forward.
Dr Frank L. Douglas 16:30
Well, there are two, two comments. The one comment is that, indeed, people who do not know their history are just trying to repeat it. And it is true that many of the young people don’t really know the history I lived through 63 is this? Absolutely many young people don’t, and unfortunately, they’re not. They’re not only not taught that history, but they’re tremendous efforts to ban books that talk about the history. So that’s the one side of the equation. The other side of the equation, however, that those who are making the laws, the those in the administration, those in the state governments, those in the Congress, they lived through those times. They know those times. So it is really very clear that what is happening is what we call buyer’s remorse. Many of them participated in these changes, and for some reason, they have now decided they would like to return back to the 360s and so they are supporting an administration that is really very clear that it wants to do that. And they are in allowing it to happen. They are encouraging it to happen, and they know that, of which, you know, I speak now, because they live through it. So we have the two things, the young people who don’t know their history, and those who lived through it, who, for whatever reason, want to return to those former days
Mark McBride-Wright 18:32
in the months, kind of earlier this year, after the change in administration, in networking with other fellow dei advocates, there was this idea of wintering, of coming together and weathering out the storm. And I listened to a fabulous podcast that spoke about actually, the history of change. This actually isn’t. Is not unsurprising. It’s, it’s, it’s a natural evolution of where things move. It’s just, it’s also, in this moment, a strange it’s a it’s a hyper sensitized combination of things, because we’re now in an interconnected world where you find out about everything straight away, whereas in history, like and I’m talking over the history of humanity, not just the last 50 years, we weren’t able to find out about atrocities that were happening in other bits of the world because we never had the news. We never had the media, you know. And so when the when the timescale is used, of the of the most recent period of history, the historian essentially said that we’re entering a. Period of winter, if we use the seasons as an analogy. But what will come is a beautiful spring where we blossom again, and that might be in 510, 15 years. Who knows? It’s a bit like what happened in the period you lived through the 60s, the 70s, the you know, the Flower Power Movement, the free love, etc, you know, and like, real liberation. And I wonder if, in now, mid 2020s, is it? Are we? We’re in a very dark period of humanity, of history, it feels like with all the chaos in the world. But I’m wondering, if you know, as I get older in the decades to come, are we going to live through, through that spring, through that summer? You know, where the pendulum doesn’t swing back as far as as it feels like it’s swinging, and I guess you have to have hope, you know, and that’s then, how do we in as thought leaders in the work that we do, in the work that we put out? How do we keep that hope ignited, so that we spark an interest in the young people coming through to learn their history and to role model positively and encourage the legislatures to not let things happen that take us back in time.
Dr Frank L. Douglas 21:33
Well, I have a very simple approach to all of this. What I said, you know, those who don’t know their history are just starting to repeat it. The other one is, there are no leaders. And what I think has happened is that during the period of the 70s, 80s, the 90s, those who were in leadership have gotten fat, and they don’t want to lose that which they have gained. Interesting, you know, the John Lewis’s, the Martin Luther Kings, the Malcolm X’s, etc, the Chavez’s of the day, okay? They were prepared, okay, to struggle to be beaten, to go to jail, not to have much of much in the way of financial, you know, rewards. But I think the present leaders are, frankly, fat and happy. Let me give you some examples. Okay, in the 70s, when the farmers were being really oppressed in China, and China started in California, and they did not want the United UFW, United farmers Workers Union, Chavez came forward. He led, in fact, at one time, did 1000 mile of March, okay, and took the farmers on strike, okay, and won that and won a lot of things for the farmers today, we have a situation where you have ice, as they’re called, running down people who are at work in the farms, etc. Okay, people can’t are afraid to go to work because they’re being picked up. Where is the Chavez of the day? Yeah? Okay, yeah, you know. And then the President says, well, perhaps we should, you know, not go after the farmers, because they’re the ones who put the food on the table and those who are in Okay, where are the shepherds of the day? It would be simple for them to bring all those farmers together. They’re not going to work. Anyhow, you know, and have an action. I’ll give you another example. Okay, the administration is attacking Harvard. So people ask me all the time, if I were Harvard, what would I do? I said I would reframe. They said, what you mean? I said, Well, for some reason, Harvard seems to think that Harvard is the set of buildings that sit in Boston. No Harvard are the scholars, the professors, the scientists and the students who come there. So if the administration says that they’re not going to allow foreign students to come to Boston, so what i. Make a collaboration with a university in Europe, in Canada, someplace else, where those students can go and live and where your fascinating, your faculty can teach, and they don’t even have to travel there. Use Microsoft Teams. We can use Zoom we can do whatever. So, you know, what is this? You know? Why is that a problem?
Mark McBride-Wright 25:29
Yeah, you know. So
Dr Frank L. Douglas 25:34
people clearly know what the solutions are. So I’ve concluded that what it is is is that they’ve gotten fat and happy and they’re not prepared to have any type of issue that disrupts their present life, etc, and that’s what’s going on. So they are allowing, you know, these things to happen when indeed, a simple intervention would put a stop to it.
Mark McBride-Wright 26:07
Interesting. Yes, it’s, it’s, I love that suggestion. Yeah, about still using the brand of the institution, and it’s the people that make the culture. It’s the people that make it’s not a course, of course, of course. So with them,
Dr Frank L. Douglas 26:26
you know, and in the global world, these solutions are easy. In the global world, it was not that easy in the 60s and the 70s, but in the global world, believe me, these solutions are actually available. But when leaders are not embracing what are clearly straightforward, obvious solutions, it means they have another agenda. That agenda is not an agenda that is focused on what’s best for the institution. I talk about broad benefit, what’s best for, you know, most of the people, for the students, you know, what’s best for all of those patients who now are not going to benefit from the the research that goes goes on there and, you know, and health, etc, when you’re not thinking about it that way, but you’re thinking about the discomfort that you’re going to have if you no longer have your nice office and your nice labs, you know, to walk down Harvard Yard. I mean, you know, you’ve
Mark McBride-Wright 27:40
lost focus, yeah, so tell me then safe haven dialogs you use the equity, inclusion and individual engagement principle. Really keen to hear more about your work on and how your approach compares to traditional DEI efforts. What’s your toolkit that you come to leadership teams, to organizations, to boards with to help them unpack some of these complexities?
Dr Frank L. Douglas 28:10
Well, my basic principle and observation is that, whereas perhaps in the 60s and the 70s, there was a social consciousness that doesn’t exist, and the the contract between a company and employee is a straightforward contract. It’s around productivity. I am paying you for the capabilities that you bring to help us provide a product solution to patients, one case, to consumers in the other case, etc. That’s the contract. Since that’s the contract, it makes little sense to try to convince, in my view, to try to convince a leader of a company who is not personally there that it is socially important to hire diverse people, it is important to demonstrate to that leader that diversity drives innovation, yes, and diversity sits in people. It’s not a strange thing out there, yes. So when you hire people who come from different backgrounds, different cultures, trained in different institutions, are of different ethnicity, okay, who have different ways of looking at things, you tend to get more diverse opinions. And and innovation. So let’s not talk about diversity where you’re just, you know, counting your metrics about how many women you have, how many older people, how many people of color. Let’s talk about why we are here to be productive, and the one thing we do know is when people are valued, when they feel they belong, they’re motivated, they’re engaged, and when they’re engaged and motivated, you know, and the studies have been done, so, you know, productivity goes up. So that is why I say very simply, let’s look at individual engagement as the metric. Now, why equity and inclusion? And people have asked me, What’s the difference between equity and equality? And I say, you know, think of it the following way, it’s a family. Equity, inclusion is in every organization, starting with a family, but in a family, what does what do the parents do? They give each child what that child needs to thrive. Yeah, they don’t treat each child equally. They give each child what the child needs to thrive. That’s what equity is. So you give each of your employees what that employee needs to get to thrive in the work that they are doing.
Mark McBride-Wright 31:42
I love I love them. Bringing the analogy to family, you know, I love the analogy, bringing the analogy of equity to what you do in the family household. The number of times I’ve used slides that have boxes where the boxes are metaphors for some sort of positive action, and everyone gets the same box, but it doesn’t achieve the outcome. And actually, you need to give people different boxes in order for them to see over the historical fence. Just simply making it simple, simply making it simpler, you know, and relate it to family. I’ve got a son and daughter myself, and you’re right. They need they have different needs. They have different needs. So they get different interventions from us as parents with regard to achieving like that outcome, to thrive at school.
Dr Frank L. Douglas 32:40
And the same with inclusion. You make sure that everyone in the family feels valued, feels that they belong, etc,
Mark McBride-Wright 32:50
feels hard.
Dr Frank L. Douglas 32:51
Inclusion is basic in every organization, starting with the family. So I don’t debate about equity and inclusion if you’re an organization and you want to thrive, as long as you you’re using people and you’re not using robots, okay, you’re going to have to deal and understand the issues of equity inclusion so that those employees, okay, have what they need to thrive, are valued. They feel they belong, and as a result, they become engaged and they are productive, and your company, your organization, is productive and profitable.
Mark McBride-Wright 33:37
What do you see, then, as the common misconception organizations have about systemic discrimination, because, you know, when I work with leaders and you talk about inequality discrimination, people immediately respond with their own personal experience and emotional reaction, or how they are angelic and aren’t perpetuators of anything that’s upholding system. Like It’s like they don’t understand what systemic means, which, by definition, sort of decentralizes it from them specifically, and just talks about how we’ve got the system we work within, which has been built through history and sustained through current behaviors and what have you, and it’s the collective change that’s needed. So how do you sort of cut through that? When you’re working with a leader or an individual, you don’t have to be a leader, you know, or maybe leaders actually are enlightened to this understanding. And it’s further down the organization that there’s a misunderstanding. What’s your what’s your perspective, working with, with, with leaders on, on this stuff?
Dr Frank L. Douglas 34:52
Yeah, well, I mean, you’ve touched on it is that most people you know feel that they’re being. Attacked. And, of course, they are pure, and they’re not human. Namely, they don’t make errors. And, you know, and unfortunately, they take everything personally, yes, okay, so what I do is, since that is the case, I don’t go there. I simply ask, what is it you’re trying to achieve? Okay, in your organization, what’s your organizational goal? And let us look to see whether the actual things you’re doing are helping you towards that goal. Okay? And sometimes it turns out, although we think we’re doing the things that are helping the employees, you know, to get to that goal, sometimes we’re not. And so it makes a lot of sense to ask the employees, what is it they think they need that would help them to get you to your goal. Not them to get to their goal, but to help you to get to your goal. So have that conversation with them. So remove from move from the hierarchical type thinking more to a participative, distributed type of thinking, where you want productivity, and therefore you listen to those who have to deliver that productivity to tell you whether they Need a hammer or they need a pliers to do
Mark McBride-Wright 36:46
it. You know, you’ve had you’ve got experience in academia, you’ve worked at universities and and an industry. So from that perspective of working in those two communities where, how do we I’m always interested to hear a perspective about changing the future system with the people that we have now, but also expediting that rate of change by positively influencing those coming through the education system as we have it now. And so there’s two separate systems, almost the education system and industry. And if these are the leaders of the future, where are we embedding dei work in that? And then as they come off the conveyor belt and then into industry or leadership roles. How about we change the system as we as we have it now? So what do you think we should be doing at the education level, at the university or younger level, when it comes to having this reframing mindset that you, that you speak about.
Dr Frank L. Douglas 38:03
Well, you know, one of the sad things is that, and I remember this, this distinctive book for myself as well, when I became a leader, you know, we hired these brilliant students with their PhDs, etc, come from the university, brilliant, and then they come to the company, and we’ve got to teach them simple things like, how do you work in a team? Simple things like recognizing that people have different types of approaches they had, you know, and some people are introverted, some are extroverted, you know, people are different, and what you have to do is to recognize that and then to determine how you work together. They don’t get those types of of real life things in the university. And in fact, the unfortunate thing about universities is that the further up you go, particularly as you get in the graduate school, it’s dependent on the individual leader. Yes, okay, yes, you know. And I have told said to people, is that you know, one of the things when you look at organizations, you take the university, it’s the best example of the difference between a value or a principle that an organization aspires to. I call it their aspirational values. Yes, all the way down to what is actually practiced, and you go into the university. And so here are their aspirational values. It has different colleges, and you’ll find those values are practiced differently in different colleges depending on the leader of that college, and then in any particular college, it’s practiced differently in. In different departments and labs, depending on the leader of that department, you know. So I think it’s a bigger problem in the universities with respect to preparing students for life, because they are going to live the rest of their lives, okay, not in the some of them will, but there’s just a small number will remain as faculty, etc, but the bulk will be large. So, so I think the universities, more than, more than the the organizations and yes, really needed the DEI type,
Mark McBride-Wright 40:42
yes, we’ve had that actually. At my company, equal engineers, we do our training programs with employers, and then we’ve got a mentoring program that engineering students are paired up with engineers in industry. And then we’ve approached universities to, you know, market the fact that we offer this to try and get students in. And then through doing that, we’ve also shared, you know, the work that we’re doing with with with industry. And it was a couple of years ago when one of our now, they are now a university partner, they saw the work that we’re doing with professionals in engineering, and said, Hmm, actually, we could do with some work like this for help and support our leadership development and our workplace culture, because, actually, it’s not a very nice place to work right now. And it’s exactly as you said, Frank, it’s determined by the how committed the lead the principal investigator might be of a research group, you know, and how much alignment there is between the aspirational goals and the lived goals, the values.
Dr Frank L. Douglas 41:54
If that leader, that investigator, is well funded, you know, he or she doesn’t have to be part of the team.
Mark McBride-Wright 42:05
Unfortunately, yes, that is the way that it’s structured, isn’t it? Yeah. So what gives you the most hope then, looking ahead about the future of equity in business and society,
Dr Frank L. Douglas 42:21
young people and weird. So I look, I look at my at my daughters, who are now, you know, young young women. But you know, their friends are both black and white and Asian. That’s whom they grew up with in elementary school, high school and college, and they they their friends, they know each other as people, as individuals. Yes, okay, and that’s my hope was that the young people, of course, right now the young people are struggling because of a lack of jobs, etc. And so that’s the, you know, their major focus. And unfortunately, the you know, administrators are taking advantage of that, particularly in Dei, you know, saying some of them, okay, you don’t have a job because it’s going to underrepresented minorities, and they’re trying to make these but the young people, they know, and I really do believe, as it was in the case, as a matter of fact, if you go back and you look at the 60s, and particularly around the Vietnam War, etc, it was the young people. In fact, it surprises me now that the young people in the universities are so docile and they’re not really raising the questions in a recent about how they are going to be educated and how they’re going to be educated now?
Mark McBride-Wright 44:04
What advice?
Dr Frank L. Douglas 44:05
There? There they are. Our hope.
Mark McBride-Wright 44:08
What advice? So you think about a leader who’s working mid career now, leading departments, teams, organizations, who wants to engage in this work, but for the climate that we’ve described thus far, feels unsure or afraid to make mistakes. What advice would you give to them?
Dr Frank L. Douglas 44:29
Oh, the air is human. To forgive is divine. Nobody has the answers, but not doing anything is not an excuse. You know, fear of making mistakes is not an excuse. You know, when you have, well, you know, I’m a physician, you know, if I have a patient who is very sick, okay, and I don’t know what the diagnosis is, that’s not a reason for me not to try to do. Something to help that patient, I can at least look at the symptoms. Okay, even though I don’t know what the diagnosis is that’s causing those symptoms, I can at least start treating the symptoms and to help to improve the suffering until I can get to the root cause
Mark McBride-Wright 45:18
of that analogy. I love that so simple, so simple. That’s something people will really resonate, resonate with. What legacy do you hope to leave behind? Then, through the work you’ve through your history,
Dr Frank L. Douglas 45:34
the legacy, I hope, is just that that I spent my time focusing on contributing and not on controlling. When I ran, when I ran, large, you know, groups of scientists, etc. That was one of the things I used to say to them, focus less on what you control and more on what you contribute. Because I found, you know, many of the scientists, you know, they were concerned about the size of their lab and and in Europe, you know how many windows their office had. And I said, you know, what I want you to be able to do is to be able to say you worked with teams that put that drug and that drug and that drug on the market. Yeah, that’s what I would like you to say. That is what I am really very proud of, that I’ve had the opportunity to work with teams that is well over 25 now that have put 25 drugs in the market that are helping millions of people whom I don’t know.
Mark McBride-Wright 46:49
Fantastic. Okay, quick fire question, rounds. Are you ready? Yes, right. What’s the best piece of leadership advice you’ve ever received.
Dr Frank L. Douglas 47:01
Listen to your people.
Mark McBride-Wright 47:04
What’s one lesson you’ve learned from adversity?
Dr Frank L. Douglas 47:09
I always used to say to people, if necessity is the mother of invention, Adversity is the father of innovation. When there’s adversity, it’s an opportunity to innovate, to reframe,
Mark McBride-Wright 47:25
what skill Do you think every executive should develop,
Dr Frank L. Douglas 47:28
the skill of listening and learning, to reframe
Mark McBride-Wright 47:34
tea or coffee,
Dr Frank L. Douglas 47:37
coffee in the morning, tea In the evening.
Mark McBride-Wright 47:40
What’s the one book that’s shaped your thinking, aside from your own
Dr Frank L. Douglas 47:46
book by Peck Scott Peck, The Road Less The Road Less well traveled.
Mark McBride-Wright 47:56
Who is a historical figure you’d love to have dinner with?
Dr Frank L. Douglas 48:00
I’d love to have dinner with Socrates and with Nelson Mandela.
Mark McBride-Wright 48:06
What’s your go to practice for staying grounded?
Dr Frank L. Douglas 48:11
Think thinking of the way I grew up.
Mark McBride-Wright 48:15
What scientific or social breakthrough are you most excited about right now? Ai, what’s one mindset shift that has helped you the most
Dr Frank L. Douglas 48:26
just to think, what’s the better problem to solve?
Mark McBride-Wright 48:31
Finally, what advice would you give to your younger self just starting out,
Dr Frank L. Douglas 48:37
be more prepared and open to be mentored, to recognize those who would like to mentor me and to be open to it.
Mark McBride-Wright 48:48
Wow, some great nuggets you’ve had in there. Frank, some great little little phrases there. I’ll definitely be going back and re listening to this to properly absorb them. If our listeners want to get in touch with you, to read more about your body of work, to find your books, to get in touch with you. How can they do that?
Dr Frank L. Douglas 49:10
Best thing is to go to my website, which is safe haven dialogs, hyphen, llc.com, safe haven dialogs, hyphen, llc.com, that’s a website, and you can get all the information. How to reach me. You can also, if you’re on LinkedIn, yeah, I post frequently on LinkedIn. You can find me on LinkedIn,
Mark McBride-Wright 49:33
fabulous. Well, we’ll put that information on the show notes as well, and a link to your website and profile so people can find that easily. Thank you so much. Frank, it’s been a pleasure.
Dr Frank L. Douglas 49:47
Well, thank you for the invitation. I enjoyed the time we spent together. Thank you.
Mark McBride-Wright 49:51
Thanks. Thank you. Thank.
E029: Free Man from a Black Stream
Podcast Description
Read the Transcript
Mark McBride-Wright 0:01
Mark, hello. Welcome to the next episode of the safe leader podcast. I’m your host, Mark McBride Wright, and I’m delighted today to be joined by Dr Frank l Douglas, who is a distinguished physician, pharmaceutical executive, author and advocate for systemic change, with over three three with over three decades in the pharmaceutical industry, he made history as the first black member of the Board of management and executive vice president responsible for research development and Regulatory Affairs at a top global pharmaceutical company. Frank is the author of, until you walk in my shoes, a reframing methodology to overcome systemic discrimination, and the author of and the originator of the equity, inclusion and individual engagement principle. Through his leadership at safe haven dialogs, he helps individuals and organizations confront and reframe systemic injustice using storytelling, panel dialog and strategic tools to foster inclusive transformation. His career spans roles as CEO of the Austin bio Innovation Institute, Professor of the Practice at MIT, and advisor to numerous biotech and healthcare startups. He has been honored with the black history maker award and named a rock star of science by the Jeffrey bean foundation and GQ Dr Douglas, brings unparalleled insight into how leaders can drive equity and innovation in parallel. Frank, welcome to the safe leader.
Dr Frank L. Douglas 1:38
Thank you. Thank you for the invitation. I’m looking forward to our to our conversation.
Mark McBride-Wright 1:45
You’ve had some incredible achievements there, and I I love the variety of people that I get to meet through running through recording these, these shows, recording the podcast. And one of the things I love to get under to find out more about is the inspiration of what led you to do what you do now. So if we get in that time Time Warp, if we get in that time machine, even get my words right, and we travel back what what inspired you to do the work that you do today.
Dr Frank L. Douglas 2:27
Often young people ask me the question, How did I know that I would be doing what I am doing now, and how did I prepare for it? Yeah, and the truth of the matter is, I didn’t know when I was a youngster what course, life would be like. I grew up in Guyana, the poor family. At that time, you had to pay to go to high school. So I went to high school on a scholarship. And at that time. Also, there were no universities in Guyana. The first one is the only one we have. Actually, was started in 1966 I fortunately got a Fulbright scholarship to come to America to do my undergraduate work in 1963 and just from there, you know, I got a call from the United States Information Services that told me that I was going to get a scholarship and I could choose which university I would like to go to In America. They thought, because of my performance in what we call the A levels, the British system, that I should probably do engineering and Lehigh was a great engineering school. I knew nothing about, about American universities. I grew up in British Guyana, so you know, my idea was that after two, three years, I would have made enough money that hopefully I could go off to to England and attend one of the universities. So here I was, and I started at Lehigh
Mark McBride-Wright 4:19
as an engineer. And what did you What did you study when you were in the US? What engineering background do you have?
Dr Frank L. Douglas 4:29
Chemistry? I started, actually as a chemical engineer. Okay, my second year, I became really quite interested in physical chemistry. So I switched to chemistry. I remained in the engineering college, but there was a chemistry major, and my PhD is actually in physical chemistry. Okay, I did a PhD at Cornell University in physical chemistry, and that I thought was going to be my life. I would be a professor in physical chemistry, and. And I got a job at Xerox, and because of discrimination at Xerox, I ended up going to medical school, so I also have an MD. I’m also trained as an intern internist and what is called a neuro endocrinologist. And most of my life has really been being between the scientific part of things and the medical part of things. And as it turns out, I became really ideal to be ahead of research and development, research being the pre clinical side of things, and the development being the clinical side of things,
Mark McBride-Wright 5:46
interesting. And so that is what then took you from Guyana to working in the boardrooms of the global pharmaceutical sector.
Dr Frank L. Douglas 5:55
Yes, that’s, that’s the path I started off actually, as an academic physician, okay, discovered, because of some work I had done a couple of studies, I was discovered by the pharmaceutical industry, and so they kept offering me jobs, and so I finally went to the pharmaceutical industry, and remained In the pharmaceutical industry for about 24 years,
Mark McBride-Wright 6:22
and how, how you know you’ve you’ve spoken about the importance of reframing problems. Can you share a personal moment when this approach changed? How you moved forward? You’ve mentioned some experiences in your you know professional arc where you’ve then pivoted and then moved to another, another, well, another discipline, almost another, another industry, another sector. So have you had to, like, reframe moments in your life in order to move to the next step?
Dr Frank L. Douglas 6:56
Well, the following happened after I completed my PhD, I was actually hired by Xerox, and for three months I couldn’t get a good project, and one day, a young white man joined the group, and within a week, he was placed on one of the most exciting projects we had in research and development at Xerox at the time. So I went to have a chat, yet another chap with my manager, and I was stunned to see the expression on his face when I said to him, you know, Steve, don’t think of me as though I’m Frank. Think of me as though I’m Bob. And he looked at me and he said, you know, you’re right. Bob has been here a week, and I’ve put him on the archery project. Well, I was furious. I ran out of his office down the hallway to the office of the senior vice president to give him yet another example of my being discriminated against. Now, two years later, I’m sitting in medical school thinking about that episode and realizing that I had made two errors. The first error was that Dr tribus, the senior vice president that summer, had hired three young, black PhDs, I being one of them to join the single the one black PhD that Xerox had at the time, and he had made it very clear he wanted to have more underrepresented minorities in research and development at Xerox. So I missed that. The second thing that I missed is that I was not clear about what my desired outcome was. It was not for the senior vice president to have tough words with my boss. I wanted a good project for heaven’s sake. I was a freshly minted PhD. I wanted to share my stuff, of course. Now in 2018 when I was writing my memoirs, and I was writing that episode, I then recognized something that I had actually learned from it, because from thereafter, I started doing what? When I was writing my memoirs, I called reframing, but I didn’t think of it that way, but I started looking for what I did call what was a better problem to solve. So even in medical school, when I was facing discrimination, I looked for the better problem to solve. Same when I went to the pharmaceutical industry, I looked for the better problem to solve. And a better problem to solve is a problem which is similar to the one that I have, but is being shared by others. Because I discovered that if you go to your supervisor to discuss a problem that is being shared by many, they are more likely to listen to that than if you go to them and say, Here’s my problem. What are you going to do about it? And so that was what started reframing, and it evidently worked well for me, because in spite of discrimination in the pharmaceutical industry, as you’ve read in my. Uh, in my bio, I became the first black to be on the board of management of a top three global pharmaceutical company,
Mark McBride-Wright 10:12
fantastic and and so you’ve so when you were writing your first book, then until you walk in my shoes, did you? Did you have to go through your entire history? You know, I’m an author as well, so the process that you go through the story, mining the revisit in element, past moments in your life, and almost going back to when it happened, and then writing it out and reliving the emotion, um, how? How did you find the process of writing your your first book?
Dr Frank L. Douglas 10:49
Well, my first book, actually was my memoir, which is entitled defining moments of a free man from a black stream. Now let me explain the title. When I was leaving Xerox, a technician who was a Brit, and to whom I was saying goodbye, he said to me, do you know what your name means? And I said, No. And he said, Well, Frank is Celtic, and it means Freemason or free man. Douglas is Scottish, and it means from a black stream. And you walk around here like a free man from a black stream. My memoir is entitled defining moments of a free man from a black stream. And yes, you know, I did that book, you know, from, from age 12 in Guyana, growing up and through my my life in America, in academia, undergraduate, graduate medical school and then in the pharmaceutical industry, through to going back to academia, to MIT, et cetera, and at the University of Ohio, and the various experiences that I had and what I learned along the way. And as I say, the book is also a testament and a thank you to many people whom I met along the way who were also very helpful to me. I not only experienced discrimination and had to deal with that, but they were also wonderful people whom I met along the way.
Mark McBride-Wright 12:40
Do you find that, that, that things are Have you know what was talking about, the pendulum swing and you know social justice movements and equal rights, advancing pendulum, swinging forward, swinging back in the arc of your career. How much progress Do you feel we’ve made, and how much more do you think we How far do you think we’ve still got to go?
Dr Frank L. Douglas 13:08
My career is an interesting one. I arrived in America in August 1963 eight days before Dr Martin Luther King’s famous March on Washington, within those eight days, I had experienced discrimination, and what it meant to be discriminate, discriminated based on the color of my skin, because, of course, people didn’t know me. Later I learned that in his famous speech, he said that he hoped one day his children would be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. When I heard that, I knew precisely what he meant, because I had experienced that, but I lived through 6465 the challenges, particularly of the late 60s. That was the time when, now the National Organization of Women came into being, with all of the demonstrations against the Vietnam War. It was the Black Power movement, and there was just tremendous civil activity in 1965 there was a civil rights law that was passed, which was the first thing that the present president did. It was an executive order. He immediately got rid of that executive order. So I lived through. I came to America at the time of tremendous civil rights activity, saw the improvements I myself benefited from it. As a matter of fact, when I went to medical school, it was about five or six years after the predominantly white medical school. Schools had begun to accept minority students in medical school, so I benefited from that, and now today, it is worse than when I came in 1963 so this pendulum has really swung all the way back, and for me, it is just incredible to see, within just a few years, this tremendous change.
Mark McBride-Wright 15:32
Do you think that? Do you think it’s a it’s a function of society? People not having the roots of having lived when these moments happened in the past. And so it’s a bit like when you talk about corporate memory in an organization is on average seven years, and all of a sudden, the same things keep getting tried, but they’re thought of as new, if, if the the people coming up now and that are in that are living in society now didn’t grow up in a time when lived through real oppression and civil rights social justice movements. They kind of take it for granted, and they don’t realize they, well, we, we don’t realize I’m part of that group. We don’t realize just how how much energy and effort and movement and coalition building goes in to actually moving things forward.
Dr Frank L. Douglas 16:30
Well, there are two, two comments. The one comment is that, indeed, people who do not know their history are just trying to repeat it. And it is true that many of the young people don’t really know the history I lived through 63 is this? Absolutely many young people don’t, and unfortunately, they’re not. They’re not only not taught that history, but they’re tremendous efforts to ban books that talk about the history. So that’s the one side of the equation. The other side of the equation, however, that those who are making the laws, the those in the administration, those in the state governments, those in the Congress, they lived through those times. They know those times. So it is really very clear that what is happening is what we call buyer’s remorse. Many of them participated in these changes, and for some reason, they have now decided they would like to return back to the 360s and so they are supporting an administration that is really very clear that it wants to do that. And they are in allowing it to happen. They are encouraging it to happen, and they know that, of which, you know, I speak now, because they live through it. So we have the two things, the young people who don’t know their history, and those who lived through it, who, for whatever reason, want to return to those former days
Mark McBride-Wright 18:32
in the months, kind of earlier this year, after the change in administration, in networking with other fellow dei advocates, there was this idea of wintering, of coming together and weathering out the storm. And I listened to a fabulous podcast that spoke about actually, the history of change. This actually isn’t. Is not unsurprising. It’s, it’s, it’s a natural evolution of where things move. It’s just, it’s also, in this moment, a strange it’s a it’s a hyper sensitized combination of things, because we’re now in an interconnected world where you find out about everything straight away, whereas in history, like and I’m talking over the history of humanity, not just the last 50 years, we weren’t able to find out about atrocities that were happening in other bits of the world because we never had the news. We never had the media, you know. And so when the when the timescale is used, of the of the most recent period of history, the historian essentially said that we’re entering a. Period of winter, if we use the seasons as an analogy. But what will come is a beautiful spring where we blossom again, and that might be in 510, 15 years. Who knows? It’s a bit like what happened in the period you lived through the 60s, the 70s, the you know, the Flower Power Movement, the free love, etc, you know, and like, real liberation. And I wonder if, in now, mid 2020s, is it? Are we? We’re in a very dark period of humanity, of history, it feels like with all the chaos in the world. But I’m wondering, if you know, as I get older in the decades to come, are we going to live through, through that spring, through that summer? You know, where the pendulum doesn’t swing back as far as as it feels like it’s swinging, and I guess you have to have hope, you know, and that’s then, how do we in as thought leaders in the work that we do, in the work that we put out? How do we keep that hope ignited, so that we spark an interest in the young people coming through to learn their history and to role model positively and encourage the legislatures to not let things happen that take us back in time.
Dr Frank L. Douglas 21:33
Well, I have a very simple approach to all of this. What I said, you know, those who don’t know their history are just starting to repeat it. The other one is, there are no leaders. And what I think has happened is that during the period of the 70s, 80s, the 90s, those who were in leadership have gotten fat, and they don’t want to lose that which they have gained. Interesting, you know, the John Lewis’s, the Martin Luther Kings, the Malcolm X’s, etc, the Chavez’s of the day, okay? They were prepared, okay, to struggle to be beaten, to go to jail, not to have much of much in the way of financial, you know, rewards. But I think the present leaders are, frankly, fat and happy. Let me give you some examples. Okay, in the 70s, when the farmers were being really oppressed in China, and China started in California, and they did not want the United UFW, United farmers Workers Union, Chavez came forward. He led, in fact, at one time, did 1000 mile of March, okay, and took the farmers on strike, okay, and won that and won a lot of things for the farmers today, we have a situation where you have ice, as they’re called, running down people who are at work in the farms, etc. Okay, people can’t are afraid to go to work because they’re being picked up. Where is the Chavez of the day? Yeah? Okay, yeah, you know. And then the President says, well, perhaps we should, you know, not go after the farmers, because they’re the ones who put the food on the table and those who are in Okay, where are the shepherds of the day? It would be simple for them to bring all those farmers together. They’re not going to work. Anyhow, you know, and have an action. I’ll give you another example. Okay, the administration is attacking Harvard. So people ask me all the time, if I were Harvard, what would I do? I said I would reframe. They said, what you mean? I said, Well, for some reason, Harvard seems to think that Harvard is the set of buildings that sit in Boston. No Harvard are the scholars, the professors, the scientists and the students who come there. So if the administration says that they’re not going to allow foreign students to come to Boston, so what i. Make a collaboration with a university in Europe, in Canada, someplace else, where those students can go and live and where your fascinating, your faculty can teach, and they don’t even have to travel there. Use Microsoft Teams. We can use Zoom we can do whatever. So, you know, what is this? You know? Why is that a problem?
Mark McBride-Wright 25:29
Yeah, you know. So
Dr Frank L. Douglas 25:34
people clearly know what the solutions are. So I’ve concluded that what it is is is that they’ve gotten fat and happy and they’re not prepared to have any type of issue that disrupts their present life, etc, and that’s what’s going on. So they are allowing, you know, these things to happen when indeed, a simple intervention would put a stop to it.
Mark McBride-Wright 26:07
Interesting. Yes, it’s, it’s, I love that suggestion. Yeah, about still using the brand of the institution, and it’s the people that make the culture. It’s the people that make it’s not a course, of course, of course. So with them,
Dr Frank L. Douglas 26:26
you know, and in the global world, these solutions are easy. In the global world, it was not that easy in the 60s and the 70s, but in the global world, believe me, these solutions are actually available. But when leaders are not embracing what are clearly straightforward, obvious solutions, it means they have another agenda. That agenda is not an agenda that is focused on what’s best for the institution. I talk about broad benefit, what’s best for, you know, most of the people, for the students, you know, what’s best for all of those patients who now are not going to benefit from the the research that goes goes on there and, you know, and health, etc, when you’re not thinking about it that way, but you’re thinking about the discomfort that you’re going to have if you no longer have your nice office and your nice labs, you know, to walk down Harvard Yard. I mean, you know, you’ve
Mark McBride-Wright 27:40
lost focus, yeah, so tell me then safe haven dialogs you use the equity, inclusion and individual engagement principle. Really keen to hear more about your work on and how your approach compares to traditional DEI efforts. What’s your toolkit that you come to leadership teams, to organizations, to boards with to help them unpack some of these complexities?
Dr Frank L. Douglas 28:10
Well, my basic principle and observation is that, whereas perhaps in the 60s and the 70s, there was a social consciousness that doesn’t exist, and the the contract between a company and employee is a straightforward contract. It’s around productivity. I am paying you for the capabilities that you bring to help us provide a product solution to patients, one case, to consumers in the other case, etc. That’s the contract. Since that’s the contract, it makes little sense to try to convince, in my view, to try to convince a leader of a company who is not personally there that it is socially important to hire diverse people, it is important to demonstrate to that leader that diversity drives innovation, yes, and diversity sits in people. It’s not a strange thing out there, yes. So when you hire people who come from different backgrounds, different cultures, trained in different institutions, are of different ethnicity, okay, who have different ways of looking at things, you tend to get more diverse opinions. And and innovation. So let’s not talk about diversity where you’re just, you know, counting your metrics about how many women you have, how many older people, how many people of color. Let’s talk about why we are here to be productive, and the one thing we do know is when people are valued, when they feel they belong, they’re motivated, they’re engaged, and when they’re engaged and motivated, you know, and the studies have been done, so, you know, productivity goes up. So that is why I say very simply, let’s look at individual engagement as the metric. Now, why equity and inclusion? And people have asked me, What’s the difference between equity and equality? And I say, you know, think of it the following way, it’s a family. Equity, inclusion is in every organization, starting with a family, but in a family, what does what do the parents do? They give each child what that child needs to thrive. Yeah, they don’t treat each child equally. They give each child what the child needs to thrive. That’s what equity is. So you give each of your employees what that employee needs to get to thrive in the work that they are doing.
Mark McBride-Wright 31:42
I love I love them. Bringing the analogy to family, you know, I love the analogy, bringing the analogy of equity to what you do in the family household. The number of times I’ve used slides that have boxes where the boxes are metaphors for some sort of positive action, and everyone gets the same box, but it doesn’t achieve the outcome. And actually, you need to give people different boxes in order for them to see over the historical fence. Just simply making it simple, simply making it simpler, you know, and relate it to family. I’ve got a son and daughter myself, and you’re right. They need they have different needs. They have different needs. So they get different interventions from us as parents with regard to achieving like that outcome, to thrive at school.
Dr Frank L. Douglas 32:40
And the same with inclusion. You make sure that everyone in the family feels valued, feels that they belong, etc,
Mark McBride-Wright 32:50
feels hard.
Dr Frank L. Douglas 32:51
Inclusion is basic in every organization, starting with the family. So I don’t debate about equity and inclusion if you’re an organization and you want to thrive, as long as you you’re using people and you’re not using robots, okay, you’re going to have to deal and understand the issues of equity inclusion so that those employees, okay, have what they need to thrive, are valued. They feel they belong, and as a result, they become engaged and they are productive, and your company, your organization, is productive and profitable.
Mark McBride-Wright 33:37
What do you see, then, as the common misconception organizations have about systemic discrimination, because, you know, when I work with leaders and you talk about inequality discrimination, people immediately respond with their own personal experience and emotional reaction, or how they are angelic and aren’t perpetuators of anything that’s upholding system. Like It’s like they don’t understand what systemic means, which, by definition, sort of decentralizes it from them specifically, and just talks about how we’ve got the system we work within, which has been built through history and sustained through current behaviors and what have you, and it’s the collective change that’s needed. So how do you sort of cut through that? When you’re working with a leader or an individual, you don’t have to be a leader, you know, or maybe leaders actually are enlightened to this understanding. And it’s further down the organization that there’s a misunderstanding. What’s your what’s your perspective, working with, with, with leaders on, on this stuff?
Dr Frank L. Douglas 34:52
Yeah, well, I mean, you’ve touched on it is that most people you know feel that they’re being. Attacked. And, of course, they are pure, and they’re not human. Namely, they don’t make errors. And, you know, and unfortunately, they take everything personally, yes, okay, so what I do is, since that is the case, I don’t go there. I simply ask, what is it you’re trying to achieve? Okay, in your organization, what’s your organizational goal? And let us look to see whether the actual things you’re doing are helping you towards that goal. Okay? And sometimes it turns out, although we think we’re doing the things that are helping the employees, you know, to get to that goal, sometimes we’re not. And so it makes a lot of sense to ask the employees, what is it they think they need that would help them to get you to your goal. Not them to get to their goal, but to help you to get to your goal. So have that conversation with them. So remove from move from the hierarchical type thinking more to a participative, distributed type of thinking, where you want productivity, and therefore you listen to those who have to deliver that productivity to tell you whether they Need a hammer or they need a pliers to do
Mark McBride-Wright 36:46
it. You know, you’ve had you’ve got experience in academia, you’ve worked at universities and and an industry. So from that perspective of working in those two communities where, how do we I’m always interested to hear a perspective about changing the future system with the people that we have now, but also expediting that rate of change by positively influencing those coming through the education system as we have it now. And so there’s two separate systems, almost the education system and industry. And if these are the leaders of the future, where are we embedding dei work in that? And then as they come off the conveyor belt and then into industry or leadership roles. How about we change the system as we as we have it now? So what do you think we should be doing at the education level, at the university or younger level, when it comes to having this reframing mindset that you, that you speak about.
Dr Frank L. Douglas 38:03
Well, you know, one of the sad things is that, and I remember this, this distinctive book for myself as well, when I became a leader, you know, we hired these brilliant students with their PhDs, etc, come from the university, brilliant, and then they come to the company, and we’ve got to teach them simple things like, how do you work in a team? Simple things like recognizing that people have different types of approaches they had, you know, and some people are introverted, some are extroverted, you know, people are different, and what you have to do is to recognize that and then to determine how you work together. They don’t get those types of of real life things in the university. And in fact, the unfortunate thing about universities is that the further up you go, particularly as you get in the graduate school, it’s dependent on the individual leader. Yes, okay, yes, you know. And I have told said to people, is that you know, one of the things when you look at organizations, you take the university, it’s the best example of the difference between a value or a principle that an organization aspires to. I call it their aspirational values. Yes, all the way down to what is actually practiced, and you go into the university. And so here are their aspirational values. It has different colleges, and you’ll find those values are practiced differently in different colleges depending on the leader of that college, and then in any particular college, it’s practiced differently in. In different departments and labs, depending on the leader of that department, you know. So I think it’s a bigger problem in the universities with respect to preparing students for life, because they are going to live the rest of their lives, okay, not in the some of them will, but there’s just a small number will remain as faculty, etc, but the bulk will be large. So, so I think the universities, more than, more than the the organizations and yes, really needed the DEI type,
Mark McBride-Wright 40:42
yes, we’ve had that actually. At my company, equal engineers, we do our training programs with employers, and then we’ve got a mentoring program that engineering students are paired up with engineers in industry. And then we’ve approached universities to, you know, market the fact that we offer this to try and get students in. And then through doing that, we’ve also shared, you know, the work that we’re doing with with with industry. And it was a couple of years ago when one of our now, they are now a university partner, they saw the work that we’re doing with professionals in engineering, and said, Hmm, actually, we could do with some work like this for help and support our leadership development and our workplace culture, because, actually, it’s not a very nice place to work right now. And it’s exactly as you said, Frank, it’s determined by the how committed the lead the principal investigator might be of a research group, you know, and how much alignment there is between the aspirational goals and the lived goals, the values.
Dr Frank L. Douglas 41:54
If that leader, that investigator, is well funded, you know, he or she doesn’t have to be part of the team.
Mark McBride-Wright 42:05
Unfortunately, yes, that is the way that it’s structured, isn’t it? Yeah. So what gives you the most hope then, looking ahead about the future of equity in business and society,
Dr Frank L. Douglas 42:21
young people and weird. So I look, I look at my at my daughters, who are now, you know, young young women. But you know, their friends are both black and white and Asian. That’s whom they grew up with in elementary school, high school and college, and they they their friends, they know each other as people, as individuals. Yes, okay, and that’s my hope was that the young people, of course, right now the young people are struggling because of a lack of jobs, etc. And so that’s the, you know, their major focus. And unfortunately, the you know, administrators are taking advantage of that, particularly in Dei, you know, saying some of them, okay, you don’t have a job because it’s going to underrepresented minorities, and they’re trying to make these but the young people, they know, and I really do believe, as it was in the case, as a matter of fact, if you go back and you look at the 60s, and particularly around the Vietnam War, etc, it was the young people. In fact, it surprises me now that the young people in the universities are so docile and they’re not really raising the questions in a recent about how they are going to be educated and how they’re going to be educated now?
Mark McBride-Wright 44:04
What advice?
Dr Frank L. Douglas 44:05
There? There they are. Our hope.
Mark McBride-Wright 44:08
What advice? So you think about a leader who’s working mid career now, leading departments, teams, organizations, who wants to engage in this work, but for the climate that we’ve described thus far, feels unsure or afraid to make mistakes. What advice would you give to them?
Dr Frank L. Douglas 44:29
Oh, the air is human. To forgive is divine. Nobody has the answers, but not doing anything is not an excuse. You know, fear of making mistakes is not an excuse. You know, when you have, well, you know, I’m a physician, you know, if I have a patient who is very sick, okay, and I don’t know what the diagnosis is, that’s not a reason for me not to try to do. Something to help that patient, I can at least look at the symptoms. Okay, even though I don’t know what the diagnosis is that’s causing those symptoms, I can at least start treating the symptoms and to help to improve the suffering until I can get to the root cause
Mark McBride-Wright 45:18
of that analogy. I love that so simple, so simple. That’s something people will really resonate, resonate with. What legacy do you hope to leave behind? Then, through the work you’ve through your history,
Dr Frank L. Douglas 45:34
the legacy, I hope, is just that that I spent my time focusing on contributing and not on controlling. When I ran, when I ran, large, you know, groups of scientists, etc. That was one of the things I used to say to them, focus less on what you control and more on what you contribute. Because I found, you know, many of the scientists, you know, they were concerned about the size of their lab and and in Europe, you know how many windows their office had. And I said, you know, what I want you to be able to do is to be able to say you worked with teams that put that drug and that drug and that drug on the market. Yeah, that’s what I would like you to say. That is what I am really very proud of, that I’ve had the opportunity to work with teams that is well over 25 now that have put 25 drugs in the market that are helping millions of people whom I don’t know.
Mark McBride-Wright 46:49
Fantastic. Okay, quick fire question, rounds. Are you ready? Yes, right. What’s the best piece of leadership advice you’ve ever received.
Dr Frank L. Douglas 47:01
Listen to your people.
Mark McBride-Wright 47:04
What’s one lesson you’ve learned from adversity?
Dr Frank L. Douglas 47:09
I always used to say to people, if necessity is the mother of invention, Adversity is the father of innovation. When there’s adversity, it’s an opportunity to innovate, to reframe,
Mark McBride-Wright 47:25
what skill Do you think every executive should develop,
Dr Frank L. Douglas 47:28
the skill of listening and learning, to reframe
Mark McBride-Wright 47:34
tea or coffee,
Dr Frank L. Douglas 47:37
coffee in the morning, tea In the evening.
Mark McBride-Wright 47:40
What’s the one book that’s shaped your thinking, aside from your own
Dr Frank L. Douglas 47:46
book by Peck Scott Peck, The Road Less The Road Less well traveled.
Mark McBride-Wright 47:56
Who is a historical figure you’d love to have dinner with?
Dr Frank L. Douglas 48:00
I’d love to have dinner with Socrates and with Nelson Mandela.
Mark McBride-Wright 48:06
What’s your go to practice for staying grounded?
Dr Frank L. Douglas 48:11
Think thinking of the way I grew up.
Mark McBride-Wright 48:15
What scientific or social breakthrough are you most excited about right now? Ai, what’s one mindset shift that has helped you the most
Dr Frank L. Douglas 48:26
just to think, what’s the better problem to solve?
Mark McBride-Wright 48:31
Finally, what advice would you give to your younger self just starting out,
Dr Frank L. Douglas 48:37
be more prepared and open to be mentored, to recognize those who would like to mentor me and to be open to it.
Mark McBride-Wright 48:48
Wow, some great nuggets you’ve had in there. Frank, some great little little phrases there. I’ll definitely be going back and re listening to this to properly absorb them. If our listeners want to get in touch with you, to read more about your body of work, to find your books, to get in touch with you. How can they do that?
Dr Frank L. Douglas 49:10
Best thing is to go to my website, which is safe haven dialogs, hyphen, llc.com, safe haven dialogs, hyphen, llc.com, that’s a website, and you can get all the information. How to reach me. You can also, if you’re on LinkedIn, yeah, I post frequently on LinkedIn. You can find me on LinkedIn,
Mark McBride-Wright 49:33
fabulous. Well, we’ll put that information on the show notes as well, and a link to your website and profile so people can find that easily. Thank you so much. Frank, it’s been a pleasure.
Dr Frank L. Douglas 49:47
Well, thank you for the invitation. I enjoyed the time we spent together. Thank you.
Mark McBride-Wright 49:51
Thanks. Thank you. Thank.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Other Podcasts
E049: The Power of Unexpected Connection
E048: Walking Into Your Leadership Potential
E047: Engineering Resilience and Reinvention
Join The SAFE Leader Insights Newsletter
Practical tips, expert advice, and inspiring stories on leadership, safety, and engineering inclusive cultures.
Join The SAFE Leader Insights Newsletter
Practical tips, expert advice, and inspiring stories on leadership, safety, and engineering inclusive cultures.
Quick Links
Get In Touch
Copyright © Mark McBride-Wright LLC. All Rights Reserved.