Unlocking Emotional Optimism for Joyful Service with Claude Silver
Welcome to We Are Human Leaders. In this incredibly heart-centered conversation we speak with Claude Silver, the world's first Chief Heart Officer at global company VaynerMedia.
Claude proudly states her personal life's purpose is 'to be of joyful service and unlock emotional optimism in all.' This conversation delves into Claude's story, how she lives her purpose, what it means to be Emotionally Optimistic and how this impacts our ability to be heart-centered in business.
Claude and the entire VaynerMedia company are doing business very, very differently from the norm. A company built on values like empathy, CEO Gary Vaynerchuk introduced Claude's ground-breaking Chief Heart Officer role announcing that “We want to build the best human empire in the history of time.”
Claude is wise, insightful and kind, and her authenticity is infectious. To connect with Claude Silver and her incredible work around Emotional Optimism and more, find her at https://www.claudesilver.com/
Claude is a shining example of a Human Leader. If you deeply resonated with Claude and her story, start rewriting your own to be the authentic Human Leader you are. Join us at www.wearehumanleaders.com
For accessible access, view the podcast with closed captions below and access the full conversation transcript.
Episode Transcript:
Spk0 Sally Clarke Spk1 Alexis Zahner Spk2 Claude Silver
[00:00:08] spk_0: Welcome to the we are Human Leaders podcast. I'm Sally Clarke and today my co host Alexis Zahner and I are speaking with Claude Silver, Chief Heart Officer at global company Vayner Media as a motivational speaker, thought leader and industry trendsetter. Claude focuses on teaching how to disrupt the traditional HR model with the use of emotional optimism and heart centered leadership to develop elite performance, create cultures of belonging empower teams to be purpose driven, efficient and strong and infuse companies with empathy, humanity and joy today we explore what it means to be a chief hard officer, how Claude lives her purpose of being of joyful service, her definition of emotional optimism and the day to day measurable impact of heart centered leadership at vein and media Claude is an absolute delight. We hope you enjoy this deep exploratory conversation as much as we did. Let's delve in,
[00:01:08] spk_1: Welcome to We Are Human Leaders Claude is an absolute delight to have you with us today and before we get into a little bit more about your role at Vayner Media. We'd love to get to know you a little bit more first and your personal journey that's brought you to the current role that you're in as Chief Heart Officer at Vayner Media.
[00:01:27] spk_2: Okay great, well thank you so much for having me and I love the title of your podcast. So yay right, so I don't come from the world of HR I started well I should say I grew up in santa fe new Mexico which is not new york and it's not L. A. It's in the southwest. So my love of the outdoors and just being in nature really has been with me my whole life and thus than playing with people in the outdoors. So team has always been very important to me. I was a really poor student, so fortunately I had the outdoors and I had sports to fall back on, I should say, to help me with my own confidence and all that other stuff. I was in san Francis, So for 18 years and that's really where I got my start in this digital world. I spent a lot of time kind of schooling myself in life, I did a lot of clairvoyant training and intuitive reading training and Buddhism training, things that really like speak to me and that every day today and I found myself anyway at advertising agencies, it was the time, it was the dot com boom, the first one right in 1998 or so, and I just went straight into the digital world and one thing led to another and I found myself in London in 2009, working for a very large agency and Really I was a strategist, so really getting, you know, trying to figure out insights and audience and getting a product into your hands. London was amazing for me because I left 18 years of San Francisco and kind of started again in many ways and all along. I've always been that kind of player coach, that kind of mentor, just like gathering people, you know, I'm a late bloomer, so I'm always there for like late bloomers and people that I just want to be like an island that people can swim too, I would say, and I met Gary Vaynerchuk, my CEO in about nine years ago and one thing led to another and he moved me to new york where I started at banner Media, so I've been there 8.5 years and I love it, it's the longest career I've had, the longest place I've ever been, longest relationship,
[00:03:40] spk_0: Fantastic, I love that, it's been the journey, it sounds like that's quite intuitive as well, like you've been not in a particular and if I'm understanding correctly might be projecting a little, because this resonates for me, but not with a particular goal of this is what my career path is going to look like, but really sort of following what intuitively feels like the right shift at the right
[00:03:59] spk_2: time, totally spot on and I have to say, you know, I'm a gen xer and you know, everyone around me was, you know, had their eye on the prize, I'm going to do this, I want to go to law school and I didn't, I really didn't and I think, you know, I really had to work that through with my parents, that there was another way a for me to learn and be for me to figure it out and fortunately it has worked out, I mean the red thread in my life is really keeping the heartbeat going whatever I'm doing, if I'm, you know, coaching tennis or getting people into the water surfing or you know, working on a spreadsheet, it's like how can I facilitate go growth and transformation here?
[00:04:41] spk_0: That's a beautiful red thread. And I think it brings me to my next question, which is I'm curious about this concept of emotional optimism, which you speak about on your website and I'm really curious specifically if you can sort of tell us a little bit and help us break it down and understand it and also differentiate it from what we might think of as positivity.
[00:05:01] spk_2: Yeah, so it's nothing like toxic positivity, you know, toxic positivity is like the sky is falling, but hey, even though you still have a job right? Like Chin up, that's what toxic positivity is about. And you know, in this day and age, no one's going to Chin up, there's no need to Chin up anymore. And so emotional optimism for me is the, you know, taking the idea of understanding, we're all emotional, we all have tons of emotions everything day, every hour of every day using those emotions not to define us, but rather to inform us as it's not, I am sad that situation made me sad, you know, that conversation made me sad, I'm not sad using those as guide posts if you will or data and then knowing that we, with the support of other people have the opportunity to change that narrative. So emotional we're emotional but to change the narrative to one that is more hopeful that has more of a blue sky that will show you the possibilities for yourself. And I do think this is for anyone, not just corporate America. I think it's for anyone. So it's the fact that we have the ability to change the narrative and that there is support around us to do that, especially in the workplace. And that's the shift we need to make.
[00:06:20] spk_1: I would totally agree with you there Claude, and I think for a very long time I was certainly one of the toxically positive people or had the discomfort of being in my emotions and the constant need to reframe them almost immediately. But what I'm hearing from this is that emotional optimism isn't about bypassing or avoiding or denying our reality, but it's about experiencing it knowing that their future still has light at the end of the tunnel, even if today feels really crappy or were really angry or we're really sad or everything's gone wrong in life and work there still will be out at some point.
[00:06:56] spk_2: Yeah, the sun will shine again. Yeah. Right. And even if you're at the bottom of the sea, you will float to the top at some point. Yeah
[00:07:05] spk_1: agreed. And I think using those emotions as you mentioned, Claude to be a marker to be a messenger for what's going on inside us, Especially things like anger like fear, frustration in the business environment. They're really beneficial to signal to us. Hey, maybe I need to stop and think about my needs being met in this job or has this person wronged me in a way that I'm actually not comfortable with and is it beneficial for me to just bypass that experience and say everything's okay or do I need to set up boundary here? Do I need to address this head on versus sweep it under the rug? And there's recent research published here in Australia that suggests that's really our leadership style is avoid conflict, avoid this comfort and it does us a huge disservice in the leadership realm as well.
[00:07:49] spk_2: Yeah, it sure does. And it puts all of the onus on the individual to figure it out. Not everyone has tools or access to tools or support systems to figure therapy to figure it out. So the anxiety just, just continues and continues. Cortisol levels shoot up and your performances forget it, you know, you're not no longer performing at a high level. So it only behooves all of us to get real about what's going on, not only in the world, but the cultures that we inhabit knowing that nothing is Yuto pick, you know, and there are going to be bumps in the road and together we can figure this out.
[00:08:30] spk_0: I love also called the you zoom in also on this sort of language that we use around emotions like you said, rather than saying I am sad
[00:08:38] spk_2: describing the
[00:08:39] spk_0: way the situation is making me sad and sometimes I feel like when I bring this point that people think I'm just being a really sort of pedantic about the use of language. But I really believe that how we talk about our emotions and states and allowing them to be a temporary state that really does have a connection with our brain within your own. That really has an impact on how we experience life and even our beliefs about what we can expect in life as well.
[00:09:02] spk_2: Yeah, I love that you said that their temporary they are temporary. I mean real ca says you know, no feeling is final. You know, it's very, very true and I believe that if we can bring this into our workplaces more and more and language is extremely important, making sure that we're speaking to someone's here hearing right? Because all three of us here things very differently based on who we are. We have the opportunity to becoming more authentic, more transparent and certainly more vulnerable in the workplace and that's not a weakness. We have to change that stigma of that word, vulnerable and burn a brown obviously has done a great job and doing that.
[00:09:45] spk_1: Yeah, it does feel like we're coming leaps and strides in that space right now and creating the space for organizations to do. That certainly feels like there's still a level of discomfort or understanding how we actually truly shift into that, but I'm very optimistic that we're headed in the right direction and you know, I want to move into this question now, Claude around the concept of what leadership actually means to you. And again, looking at some of your previous work around emotional optimism, but also you speak to this term called joyful Service and I'd love to dive into that a little bit more and understand how it is joyful service, part of leadership to you. What does this mean? Can you break it down for us?
[00:10:22] spk_2: Joyful service is actually my purpose. It's Claude's purpose to be of joyful service, I could just say to be of service, but why not put some joy in there, why not Sprinkle it with some positivity, some possibility, you know, a little bit of like Morocco shaking every now and then because this is it, we get one shot here, we got one shot. And so my purpose, Claude's purposes to be of service to facilitate growth and change every single place I can and to bring that emotional optimism that joy not saying I'm bringing joy to sad times, that's not what it is, but to create and hold space for another human being for me is not only an honor, it does bring me joy, It fills me up to be a passenger with someone else. So I don't think everyone has to have joyful service on their, you know, their signature, that's every leader that's for them to decide. But I do believe as leaders, we are not the heroes, We are here to turn other people into their better best selves to get them to be the champion that they know they are inside, but they need some help. Look, I needed help. I needed a lot of help for several, several years and little by little I was able to find mentors or to find things that I was very interested in in terms of educating myself. That helped me change that narrative or the limiting beliefs that I had going on and I think that's the one of the many rules of a leader which is to, you know, I don't even want to say service. I don't want to say servant anymore but to provide space to provide safety, you know, to run into the fire to make sure like I got your back. Like I got your back is a very empathetic thing to say. And where do you hear that in the working world? Not very many places
[00:12:18] spk_1: it comes after. We've proven ourselves or something like that, doesn't it?
[00:12:22] spk_2: Yeah, because we're so good at praise. Great job, did a great job. That was awesome but praises like yeah, we all need it, but praise is also cheap and cheerful praise isn't getting to the heart of it. Like hey listen, you matter to me and these are the ways you matter to me,
[00:12:41] spk_0: praise almost feels to me like there's an element of conditionality about it, it's like you've done something good, therefore I will give some approval. It's conditional on you having done something good. Whereas holding space for someone and really listening to who they are seeing them for who they
[00:12:55] spk_2: are is almost
[00:12:57] spk_0: an unconditional sort of space to be in. And I think that in terms of our basic human psychological needs such a massive gift to be able to give someone and to give teams as well in a work setting,
[00:13:10] spk_2: echo that for sure, I'm
[00:13:12] spk_0: curious Claude, I believe that when your role of Chief hard Officer was announced that Gary Vaynerchuk said we want to build the best human empire in the history of time, I'm curious about this term human empire and I'm wondering if you can explain to us what that means? A human empire.
[00:13:28] spk_2: Yeah. And the other way he has said it is we want to build the single greatest human organization in the history of time. I like that sentence more than empire. I know what he means by empire, which is really ecosystem, it's a places for people to flourish and so when people are at Vanner we want to make, I want to make this the best career choice of their life whether or not they're there for two years, seven years, 13 years, five months. I want them to be able to look back in time and say, you know what, those seven years I spent at banner, they were life altering. Maybe they met their spouse, maybe they got a double promotion, maybe they learned a new skill or skills, maybe they enjoyed work and didn't go to work with sunday, scare, ease, whatever that is. So Gary has always said, we want people to stay here forever. What that means is in the ecosystem or in the empire and that doesn't mean with vain are attached to it. It means that someone leaves, we have a very strong alumni organization, someone leaves and we help place them at that next role. You know, there's a, we get hit up, you know, all day long about from other cmoS and whatnot, looking for people that we have. So that's how you keep the organization full quite frankly. That's really what that means. And human, we're human. I mean we're not robots, we have heartbeats and we need each other
[00:14:56] spk_1: interestingly Claude. It feels like that approach is almost the opposite or the antithesis of what people would consider smart business. Normally. It feels like it's very, almost on a spiritual level, like an abundance mindset. We want to enhance the lives of people so they move through the world in a better way and they then have their best experience adventure and then potentially go on and work for our competitors and have their next best experience there because we've built them into this or supported their journey as a human being. And I think so many
[00:15:24] spk_2: organizations
[00:15:25] spk_1: see commodities, including we have commoditized human beings as a finite thing and so they need to be protected. They need to be rule bound. We need to keep them here and scare them that we're the best organizations so we don't want them to leave. And it feels like Vanna has done the exact opposite of that. And I'd love to hear
[00:15:42] spk_2: what has
[00:15:43] spk_1: that been a success for you guys at the media or vain or X. I guess if this is your kind of like bigger company wide policy, has that felt success or has that been measurably successful for
[00:15:52] spk_2: you? Yeah, I mean, I'll give you just an example of today, you know, having a conversation with someone that I know because I've been told was having a rough time, a rough go of it for the last two months. I've never met this person we met today. And I basically said, as I weaved my way through into the conversation holding space, asking him how his experience has been letting him know that this just stays here. I'm not like putting it on alert and I said, listen, are you ready to throw in the towel? And he said, no, I'm not. And I said, if you ever get to that place before, right before you feel that please hit me up? And I said to him, I'm not going to convince you to stay and I'm not going to convince you to go, I just want to have the conversation because as you And I know the most important email that I get every day and Gary gets is an exit interview and it's too late. So actually a year ago, maybe 18 months ago I had my team start a stay interview. So within your 1st 4-6 months you're getting hit up with three questions and it's literally the questions are have have you met your manager and understand the roles and responsibilities and have you made friends outside of your core group? Have you met people? And it's an effective, You know, if someone's like, no, I don't have any friends, Well guess what? We've got plenty of people to introduce you to. And then I write an email, I say, hey friends, please meet Sally. She's from Australia, loves surfing and just started on the creative team. Please find 15 minutes to take her out for a coffee or a zoom. It's all the connective tissue is what makes our culture, the culture it is and the connective tissue at work is built on eliminating fear as much as we possibly can. So by telling this guy today or asking him like, hey, I know it's been really rough and I know you've been working hard core hours like are you, do you want to quit? He could have said, yeah, I want to quit or he could have said what he said like no, I'm in it. But like there was nothing to prevent me from asking such an honest question. I
[00:18:00] spk_0: think that's such a key component of what is essential. I think for creating a psychological safety that harmonious workplace needs is having that level of trust and respect between people. And I can imagine that your role as chief heart officer is a big component of that psychological safety. And I loved also that you use the phrase connective tissue because it almost feels like there's something living breathing about this this organism, this ecosystem.
[00:18:26] spk_2: Yeah. Oh for sure. I mean I always I say that to anyone. And so every single monday we've got new joiners and they all do a three day orientation before they get sent out into their groups or whatever, whether or not your C suite or you're a brand new resident quite frankly. And they all go through the same culture program with me and other people, you know, and letting people know that this is a very different place. Like we trust you, we trust you, you already, the value can show is getting in here and listening and asking questions and meeting as many people as you can. Like you already made it. You already got the, you know the willy Wonka the chocolate bar, you know, sharing, like how do you win here? It's not a word I use often, but like your kind person, you're guided by kindness. You do your best to eliminate toxicity around you. If you see someone crying in the corner, you say, hey, what, you know, those types of things, you try to be the bigger person in every situation and we're here together, we're here to turn each other into heroes and champions. Like that's literally it. So it is living and breathing and what I love is that they all know that culture is everyone's responsibility. It's not Claude's, it's not Gary's, it's everyone, it's bob Susan Sarah, you know, Ishmael Allah, it's everyone's
[00:19:48] spk_1: and it's an empowered place for employees to be and understand that in their way they're contributing to that bigger connective tissue and the feel of that ecosystem. And it leads me sort of nicely into my next question Claude because obviously chief hard Officer until this position was appointed to yourself. We hadn't really heard of this position before. So I'd love to know a little bit more around, you know what a day in the life of the Chief hard Officer actually looks like and maybe how this job function differs from our traditional HR
[00:20:17] spk_2: roles. Yeah, we'll start there. So, I think of myself very much as Switzerland. I am not here to be the judge and jury, but I am here to be able to deliver candor? So I may not, you know, I'm not here to judge anyone's creative or whatever. And I'm not here to say you're a high performer or low performer, but I am here to say, hey, your managers or we have all of this information that's telling us that you're not meeting the mark or you've had so many absentee days or by the way, you know, people really don't want to work with you. You know, that that is my job. That is part of my job. Now, the fact that I get to bob and weave anywhere I want to in the company wherever. If I see smoke over there like I did with the guy today. If I'm just reaching out to people that started on monday and I want to know how they're doing whatever it is. And I'm involved in High level recruiting meetings, people operations and re sourcing figuring out like who do we have, who's the best person to put over here? You know, who should we move around? That's not the right fit finance meetings. Jam sessions. You know, today I had a jam session, I do these things called 20 and 20 and You know, 20 random people sign up. They get get going to my diary, I open up zoom here they are. And it's 20 minutes of like who are you, what do you do? Where are you? And then today's icebreaker was you know, who are you going to invite alive or dead to dinner and who from Vanner are you going to invite? Also just like let me know that either they were inviting their boss or they were inviting their friend and that was such a great feeling you know like they've made friends but people from all over the world are joining so it's like you could say I want to invite Eddie vetter because I love Pearl Jam and that person in in Amsterdam could say I love Eddie vetter too and then they go off and talk about Pearl Jam. There's something very real about just bringing people together and having fun. It costs nothing right and playing a little bit taking 15, 20 minutes out of your very busy day to just chill for a second. You know and remember that this is a very big organization even though your office or your team is the a big, there's a lot, I do so much with D and I and learning and development and you know making sure that we are hiring for skill set fit and culture addition, you know not as you all like Pearl Jam or not because we surf together like because you can do the roll.
[00:23:00] spk_0: Yeah, I love the email, the word play in there as well because I think that's something there's so much research to show how important that component of life is which we tend to sort of file as adults as undermining how we're going to be perceived in an organization and yet it's so key to our creativity and connection as well. I have two very quickly ask if you gave the answer as to who you would invite dead or alive to a dinner party. I have to know who your, yours was.
[00:23:25] spk_2: Oh, I wanted to invite Christian work from 100
[00:23:30] spk_0: percent
[00:23:32] spk_2: and also tina fey, but
[00:23:35] spk_1: I just
[00:23:36] spk_2: wanna jam with them. Yeah, Yeah. Someone said jesus today and I was like, okay, alright, cool. I mean go for Obama was mentioned and all kinds of people, but you know, to be able to dream with each other and just piggybacking off of what you said. You know, here we are, we're kids say, you know, I have young kids, they're dreaming. They're talking about magical unicorns and this and that and frozen and that and they just believe in fairies and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And sometime along the way we, we go to school and school says to you, you can't bring your mysticism into here in your imagination. You need to be a linear thinker here rational. And so we hide all of that dreaming and then we go into the working world and we've already hidden that part of ourselves, right? And then here I am Claude Silver saying, no, no, no, let's chip away at that. Let's chip away at that armor, it's a lot, it's a whole, it's confusing if that's how you've been, if you've hidden yourself away to all of a sudden be in a workplace that's like no, no no, actually we want you to be your authentic self, you know, our fire thrower or a flamethrower on the weekends. Amazing. Maybe you can show us how to do that.
[00:24:59] spk_1: Yeah, I appreciate that claudine, you know, it's interesting because what I just heard you sort of mentioned was this concept of belonging that we know is really important now and belonging on our own terms not this sort of conformity to a normal an idea and I just want to backtrack to something I heard you say for a minute, because I hear the opposite of what you mentioned very often and that is you hire for skill set fit and not cultural fit. And I think that's really interesting because I hear a lot of companies say we hire for the person who fits our culture and you know, we can build their skills, we can build their aptitude. And I just thought that was an interesting discernment because I think what I see when that is the language or that's the hiring process is we get a lot of the same people looking the same way, enjoying the same sports, liking the same band looking like us feeling like us. And so in terms of D. E. And i it's almost the antithesis of that, isn't it? And it's almost the antithesis of belonging because you're saying no you can't work here unless you look like us and you think like us and you feel like us and yeah, I just wanted to sort of pause on that because I often hear the opposite language to what you mentioned there.
[00:26:03] spk_2: Yeah. You know when I took this role 6.5 years ago and there's two things I did immediately, three things I did immediately. One I changed the name of the department of people and experience because that's what we're doing here, right? I eliminated the need for college education with the exception in some regions and geography is where you need that. And then I changed the way we hired from culture fit to skill set fit culture edition because I looked on the floor and we had apples and apples and apples and apples and we did not have any other fruits or vegetables. And that allowed us to hire for diversity on a holistic level. Which also includes seen in unseen abilities and neuro diversity and diversity of thought and language. And obviously the common diversity which we think of as you know, race, ethnicity, sexuality, religion. So yeah, like I want a ministry only soup and we need the oregano and the bay leaves and the tomatoes that
[00:27:02] spk_0: absolutely all the different flavors.
[00:27:05] spk_2: Yeah,
[00:27:06] spk_0: it sounds like what I'm hearing as well is that there's a lot of change that as chief heart officer, you've been able to bring to the company and a lot of shifts that you've been able to make. So I'm wondering for leaders who really do want to make a change within their organization and start to shift the way they're doing things the way the company is doing things, what advice would you have as a sort of a first or a next step on their
[00:27:29] spk_2: journey? And I love the question and the first thing I do want to say is I look I empathize that not everyone works for Gary and so I'm very fortunate that I have a ceo that believes in people and believes in the heartbeat and has given me autonomy to go and do. So I really recognize that the things I would do immediately is like I would go on a listening tour like what's going on, what is going on under the hood, under the bonnet as You would say and you know, are people feeling seen, are they feeling marginalized? Do they get their voices heard? You know, do they get picked for the team? Do they feel like they're on or off the island, all of that stuff. And then if you have a ceo that's data driven, then I would bring that person both quantum call and say here's the data, we've got 13% of people that are engaged. Everyone else is one ft out. Give me six months of doing some cultural activities, holding courageous conversations, making sure that people are, are finding their people give me six months and I'm gonna then go survey that crew and let's see if there's a movement like those are low hanging fruit things to do. The other thing you can do is pick up your phone and go on a slack or go on to text or WhatsApp and just write five random people and say, you know what? Thank you. I appreciate you. Thanks for being here. Thanks for knocking out of the park or whatever appreciation recognition is so needed and I don't mean the praise that we talked about earlier. This is like, hey, you know, Alexis like you matter to me, I'm really excited that I get to work with you on this project or thank you for, you know, going out of your way to bring cupcakes last week or whatever.
[00:29:18] spk_1: I really appreciate that Claude because everything you've mentioned isn't a complex or convoluted process. They're very simple, straightforward identification of hey, what are human beings need and how can we check in and make sure they're getting what they need on that level in the organization first and foremost. And having those questions listening, truly listening sets us up to say what we do next. It's not about, you know, trying to develop all these frameworks and just crazy things that we often go through to try and find solutions when we have misdiagnosed problems because we just haven't even asked the right questions first and foremost.
[00:29:51] spk_2: Right? We're not actively listening and we're listening just to interject ourselves and you know, top down leadership, we know what's right. Well do you really I mean when was the last time you took out the trash? You know,
[00:30:02] spk_1: agreed Claude. It's been an absolute pleasure to have you with us and we are human leaders today sally and I both have so much, I'm sure to go away and think about and ponder and yeah, I'm very confident that anyone listening to this conversation will as well. So thank you for being so gracious with your time, your energy and your wisdom today. It's been a delight to have you here.
[00:30:22] spk_2: Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you.
[00:30:24] spk_0: Thank you Claude, thanks so much for joining us for our conversation with Claude Silver. Claude's insights got me thinking what if Chief hard Officer was a standard C suite role? Use their space in your company for a Chief hard Officer and what might their impact be? You can learn more about Claude and her work at www dot Claude silver dot com. And if you're curious about heart centered and human focused leadership become a part of the human leaders movement at www dot we are human leaders dot com. Thanks for being here. See you next time