The Exchanges

Q What'd they say to you? They said, like, please, we need you.

A Yeah, they did. They said, are you the person who Mark Cuban said is going to come in and save us? I said, well, first of all, I do not have the power or ability to save anybody, uh, but yeah, we are talking about me coming in to, to help out, and they said, you have to come, and they started telling me some things that were happening, and I said, well, you know, I'm gonna go home and pray about it, and you know, maybe I'll come back tomorrow, and so I did go back the next day. And I was there for about three hours in a conference room with people just coming in and out talking to me, and Mark didn't even know I had come back, but just met some wonderful people who needed leadership, and that's what Mark wanted, that's what he asked for, and so I said yes.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, they did. They said, are you the person who Mark Cuban said”

Q you met with every single member of the staff. You had a one-on-one with them. You listened to them. You asked about their life stories. It wasn't just, hey, what's bothering you, or, What's on your mind? You wanted to know about their childhoods and their passions and their interests. Um, how did you know to do that? And tell me what that accomplished, because it's a really interesting approach.

A Well, you're right. I mean, you said it earlier, by the time I got to the Mavs, I had 36 years of experience being a leader. And then just as a human being, I know what has always worked for me is someone who actually cares about me as a person. And, uh, my first thing I would say to the employee when they sit down, I said, give me your whole life story. And nine out of 10 times they would say, oh, this is my fifth season at the Mavs or my 10th season at the Mavs. And I'd say, were you born here? I want your whole life story. I want you to talk to me. I want to get to know you. I want to know, you know, about your family, all that. And then they would just open up and talk to me. Then we'd end up talking about some of the workplace issues. And then I would end with the same thing. I said, tell me where you see yourself Five years from now, personally and professionally. You know, I want to know about the past, but then I wanted their vision of the future, because my job as a leader is to kind of meet them where they are, but then to help them get to where they want to go. And I will tell you, after having over a 120 of those sessions, I fell in love with the folks at the Mavs. I was just, I was just all in after that.

AI assessment note: “I had 36 years of experience being a leader. And then just as a human”

Q If somebody wanted to convene some kind of session where everybody would feel comfortable and safe, um, how would you suggest they start?

A Ok, I'll, I'll just lead out on that. Uh, I think you start small. Sometimes it's better to start with kind of individual conversations because sometimes people are better, uh, one-on-one. Uh, sometimes they're a little fearful in front of, uh, other people. Uh, we have, uh, small circles. We have things called experiences of understanding. Uh, so when something happens, uh, like hate that's rising in our, uh, Asian American Pacific Islander community, or today is the one-year anniversary of the death of George Floyd, Uh, we have small circles that talk about those kind of issues, how they're feeling, what's going on there, and you start individual, then smaller groups, and then before you know it, you have a huddle, and so we have an organizational huddle every Wednesday, and it's not just covering, ah, work items. I mean, anything could come up, ah, in that huddle. We literally evolved from the one-on-ones to the, ah, circles of understanding to larger huddles, and somewhere along that continuum, You will meet somebody along that way, and you'll get, you'll get to them, and then you'll learn what works for them.

AI assessment note: “I think you start small. Sometimes it's better to start with kind of individual conversations”

Q say, you know, in their work environments, um, to have more power in how work in their lives are structured. What have you learned this past year trying to lead through video Trying to maintain morale, trying to be a great leader. I mean, it's a completely new environment. So what, what did you learn that you think will make you a better leader in a post, truly post-pandemic environment?

A It was all about compassion, and I always talk about meeting employees where they are and all of that. It really, really became a Focus for me because people were going through so much. Some people all of a sudden had kids at home that they had to school. Their roles had changed. It was just crazy, and so I realized part of what I needed to do was have a lot of compassion for people in their individual circumstances and demonstrate that and then try to help. The same with the community. Even though we weren't playing the game of basketball, I told my team we're playing the game of life With people and with each other, and the sense of community has to elevate, and then our communication had to go to new heights. We thought we were great communicators, but now all of a sudden we are remote, so what kind of structure do we actually need to put in place to help us communicate on a regular basis, and what kind of things do we naturally communicate on in the office, but now we need to set up that structure, and I had to be very diligent About that. Our leadership team had to be very diligent about that, and so we're going to carry that into, uh, into kind of this new world. The things that we have put in place around those things, we're going to carry that forward.

AI assessment note: “It was all about compassion, and I always talk about meeting employees where they are”

Q Yeah. This is a question from Ahmed El Masiri. Ahmed asks, what advice would you give to other minorities and women in the business environment about leading conversations around diversity and inclusion in a company, especially if we're not in leadership roles?

A Depending on the size of the company. So if you have a employee resource groups or affinity groups, usually those leaders of those groups will pull people together and pull the business together. To have those conversations. Uh, but even if you don't have them, I think, uh, somebody has to be, uh, bold enough to step up and to talk to their leaders if they're not doing it. I mean, hopefully you have leaders who are, but if they're not doing it, somebody has to say, we need to talk about this. And I, and I played that role years ago. Somebody has to step up and do it because there's no way we can have a double pandemic going on. And we truly have a double pandemic. We've got COVID 19, and then we've got the issue of social justice. So we've got two pandemics going on in this country right now.

AI assessment note: “somebody has to be, uh, bold enough to step up and to talk to their leaders”

Q So your goal was to set the NBA standard for diversity and inclusion. And are you now the most diverse and inclusive leadership team for an NBA organization?

A I know we're, we're somewhere at the top of, we, we actually ended up getting the NBA's diversity and inclusion award in January. Uh, for all of the work that we have done. So that was, uh, That was pretty special for us because we have a lot of people working very hard on not just diversity because, you know, there is a difference. Diversity is about the mix. It's about race, gender, ethnicity, all of that, but inclusion is about the climate, the sense of belonging. It's about, you know, what do you do with that mix of people, and so we've been very focused on all of that, including equity, including equity, fairness, and all that, and so to have it recognized by the NBA was big for us. I mean, obviously, we still have a lot of work to do. We'll always have a lot of work to do, but I think we've made some progress. It definitely looks different and feels different from March of 2018, according to what the folks are telling me.

AI assessment note: “we're somewhere at the top of, we, we actually ended up getting the NBA's diversity”

Q many team owners often hold values that are at odds with the players' values, and sometimes even their fans. So when I spoke to Dallas Mavericks CEO Sint Marshall, I asked her about how players might hold owners accountable. Do you think we're at a time and a place now where players will start to or will be able to hold owners more accountable for their public positions and views?

A Here's what I'll say to that. And obviously I can talk about the Mavs. I can talk about what's happened with the NBA. Uh, we're playing in the bubble with a court that says black lives matter. Okay. Because our players decided that they wanted to be able to speak out. They're not in their home market. So they're not able to do some of the things they would normally do. Uh, when you have this kind of a situation, like we've been in post George Floyd public lynching. And so For the players to say, we want to take a stand. We want to have something on our jerseys. We want to speak out on this. I mean, they're grown men. They're able to do that. But it's not just the players. I mean, it's all of us. I mean, at the Mavs, we launched something called Mavs Take Action. It's our own plan to address racial Uh, inequities. Promote social change. Uh, look at some of the injustices. And what I always say is we don't just work here. We don't just play here. We live here too. And the things that are important, uh, to our communities are important to us. Fortunately, we have a terrific owner. Who understands what's happening in the country, who understands the community, and I know it's, ah, you know, you have a lot of situations where people just have differences, and that's okay. It's okay to have differences. We've had some season ticket holders who have called and asked for a refund becau…

AI assessment note: “Fortunately, we have a terrific owner. Who understands what's happening in the country”