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I’m so excited to have Janet Hayes here with me. It’s a real pleasure and a treat, so I’m going to jump right in. And, uh, I remember when I met you a few years ago, I remember you telling me that your leadership style is what you called a modern mindset of human connection and purpose. So can you tell us a little bit about what that means and how you were able to kind of develop this style of leading? Yeah, sure, Shelly. Thank you so much for having me. And I’m thrilled to be with here with you, uh, modern mindset. So I have to go back and think I think we first met and did we meet in 2020, right? When we, yes, 2020. That’s right. So yes, I had started with the company in August of 2020. And I really took a moment to consciously think about what kind of a leader as I stepped into a new CEO position in the middle of a crisis, what kind of a leader do I want to be? And more importantly, what kind of a leader does this company need and what kind of a leader? Do employees lead today? You know, I’ve had the, the privilege of being in retail for over 30 years at again, the privilege of very successful companies with very successful leaders. Um, but a lot has changed over those 30 years and certainly a lot has changed in the last four to five years. And it was calling for a different kind of leader. And it was a moment for me to say, I actually want to be a different kind of leader. I want to be a modern leader. And it was the perfect time, you know, right at the edge of a, Crisis, if you will, to take a moment and consciously think about what does a modern leader look like? What do people, who do people want to work for? Even starting with that question felt like a fresh place. Who do people want to work for? So I went in with a mindset of being effective, clear, humble, and curious. And I feel like that embodied what it, the company needed at that time and what. Good human interaction. You know, I want to work with a company that promotes good human interaction. Um, I want to know who works with me, who works for me. Um, I want to know leaders, uh, and I want to know the people who work in the company. I want to be a leader that is in touch, not only with our customer, but for the employees that work in the company. And that’s about being curious, not standing in the expert role at all times. It’s about dropping an ego and going out and saying, tell me what you know. What should I know? And that to me, I hadn’t seen modeled before in a way that felt authentic. And that was what I began my kind of guiding principle to being a CEO at Crate and Barrel Holdings. Wow. That’s so impressive. I love that. And of course, one of your big themes is, you know, when you talk about decision making is you always talk about diverse perspectives and getting diverse. Perspectives along the way. So how do you do that? And not only how do you just get diverse perspectives, but how do those diverse perspectives have a tall voice? In other words. How do they get to contribute? Yeah. Great question. One of what I have found is it’s important to continually evaluate the definition of a diverse perspective inside your company, and it has to change. And I wouldn’t stick to a clear definition. You think, you know, a clear definition of the word diversity. Um, but what does your company need as it’s changing? What, what does a diverse perspective look like as it changing? You may go to a new country and you might not have that right perspective at your table, right? You may be trying to pick up a new customer. You don’t have that diverse perspective inside your company. So I’ve learned to let it change. When I first started, um, at Crate and Barrel Holdings, the first thing I noticed is we weren’t reflecting our customer as much as we needed to internally. So in the last three years, we’ve done a lot of work and we now have 60 percent of our. Leadership team is female, which is a great reflection of our customer. Um, I did some movement of my executive team and my time here, and I found it to be very important that now 50 percent of our executive leadership team is tenured and 50 percent of it brings new experience, new diverse perspectives from other successful, um, retailers or other successful, uh, markets that they were in. So I’ve got a diverse. A group at my table that can keep us rooted in what’s important from the past, but still have a fresh perspective. My tenured, um, team at the table has some of the freshest perspectives, but I had to bring in other markets and, and other industries to be able to really take in what our customer was doing. I think, I think to, you know, making sure that you’re really thinking about how your customer you’re reflecting your customer. When I first started here, I would say we had a very strong point of view about how the Midwest was living. This is where rooted in Chicago and just an incredibly proud. Brand coming from the Midwest, where we really understanding how people on the West Coast were living, or we really understanding how people on the East Coast were living. There weren’t a lot of people working here from the West or the East. We weren’t even taking interns from. The, we were, our internship program needed to actually diversify. So we now have a coastal living approach, which we didn’t have three years ago. We’ve picked up a lot of new customers because our definition of diversity became, Hey, we need to see how life is lived. We can’t sit in the Midwest and know that without bringing in people who have had that diverse perspective. So letting the definition of diversity expand to where your business needs do has been a place that has served us really well. I think for me, no matter if you’re, you know, trying to define it on race or gender or living experience, something that stays as a common denominator. In making sure people are heard is respect, right? Respect and tolerance to learn. There’s got to be a tolerance to learn your way isn’t always the best way. So practicing respect and tolerance to get those voices out at the table, to get the voices out in a meeting, because that’s, what’s really important. When you have respect, you have trust. When you have trust, you can share knowledge and it just becomes a quicker, smarter environment. That’s a great approach. What other, what do you think are some of the most important skills other than the ones you mentioned with the, um, modern mindset and diversity and having this kind of fluid diversity perspective, which I love, by the way, um, what are some of the other important skills for a leader to have in today’s environment? I think adaptability. Probably, probably underestimated, um, to be able to continue. I mean, we have been through a lot. If you just say just the last four years, we have been through so much and sure. Resilience has to be there, but adaptability as well. You can come back from hard things, but how quickly are you adapting and changing continually believing that. You know, things are going to keep changing under your feet and how do you keep your priorities straight, keep focused, but make those small adaptations to make sure you’re not falling out of relevance with your customer. So, I think adaptability, resilience, you’re not going to get it right. And that’s okay, as long as, you know, you’re out there trying and then a skill we’re really working on here is anticipation. We have to do more about anticipating what’s next. We have to. We’ve been, I think, in the last four or five years buried in pretty big, you know, crisis, if you will, change in our customers life. And we’ve been working on that. But now we have to anticipate more. We have to get in front of it and anticipate more. Excellent. So, I’m sure you faced some challenges on your path to leadership. Can you tell us maybe a little bit about some of those challenges and maybe how you overcame them? Yeah. Challenges. I mean, the most recent one was what I had mentioned before. I think the biggest challenge I have faced was not only being new to the CEO role, but being new. In August of 2020, I walked into a building with very few people working in it. Everyone, you know, was sheltering at home. I was given the opportunity, I was living in California at the time, and headquarters were in Chicago, and I was given the opportunity to work from home. And I said, no, I, I, I have to be there, I have to feel it, I have to put my feet in the building, I have to See who I can see. Um, so the biggest challenge for me was beginning a job in the middle of, um, COVID trying to find my way in the dark and how I overcame it was listening, getting two or two or three good people around me in the middle of the crisis, being decisive, trusting intuition. Just there was a lot of intuition we had to trust, but surrounding yourself with two or three good people that you can have a good, hard conversation with, being decisive for employees and customers. Um, was critical during that time. I think if I had to go back further, cause you, you asked about kind of over my career, what have I faced? I, the funniest one for me that I, that I, I often think about is my first review I ever had, and I was young, I was an assistant buyer and I was really looking for, I was in earnest working my job in earnest and I had my first review. And it was horrible. It was a horrible review, and I still can feel the pit in my stomach now. Um, and it surprised me. And I remember I was crushed, but I still will say the same thing. I never want to be surprised again about, um, how I’m doing. I learned a lot from that. I didn’t know, really know what my job was. So of course I wasn’t doing a good job. I never asked really what my job was, and it was never told to me really what my job was. So I learned a lot from that first. Moment of feeling terrible, um, which by the way, I deserve that review of feeling terrible. And I just said, you know what? I’m going to continue to ask questions. I’m going to check in and I still do it today. I do. I still do it today. I still say to my boss, how can I help you? Am I doing the right thing? You know, I think being humble is critical. Don’t get overconfident where you are. Keep asking people how you’re doing, um, and adapt. Wow. Thank you so much for sharing that story. That’s a great story. Can you share maybe an example of a difficult decision you had to make and the thought process behind that decision? You know what? For me, that decision lives in my personal life. Probably the hardest decision I have made in my life was moving my family in the middle of the pandemic. From California to Illinois, from the San Francisco Bay Area to Chicago. Um, and I had two daughters who were just finishing up freshman year in high school. And it was hard. I had to, um, rely a lot on their support. But it was really a difficult decision as a mother. To say, is this the right time to move them in high school? Is this the right time to move them in the middle of a pandemic? Um, but ultimately I knew. They needed a fresh start, as much as I was looking forward to mine, that we were going to have each other’s backs, that we were going to support each other. Believe it or not, being stuck in a house together for almost a year was the best thing that could have happened to us, but it came with tears. It was, um, difficult. And now, the entire family looks back and says, Thank God we moved. We have found such strong roots here and really gelled and defined ourselves as a stronger family. So, it was worth it. It was, um, an experience. As I always say, it’s, to get through it, you have to go through it. The anticipation of asking them and telling them was harder than doing it. Oh my gosh. That is amazing. I’m so glad that when your girls look back that they see. Our greatest thing we’ve done. I do. That’s, that’s really great. And I’m, I’m so grateful to them. They are, uh, so let’s talk about balancing leadership in life. Cause that’s always a challenge. I think, I think that’s harder for women, uh, because we have a lot of different, uh, priorities, but you know, what strategies do you maintain to kind of keep your wellbeing, avoid burnout? And what advice can you give to future women leaders who are trying to like, do it all? Yeah. Um, the best advice I can give is love what you do. Uh, it makes such a big difference. I get up every morning excited to come to work. I can count on one hand, the bad days, so to speak, I’ve had at work and you have them. When you love what you do, you can find the energy to get that done. You know, I think the second piece of advice is put your oxygen mask on first. You’ve got to take care of yourself. There’s, you know, for me, I have to work out, I have to get fresh air and I have to have sleep. Those three things keep me going as simple as it is critical life skills and to be able to make that time. So, you know, just take care of yourself and in turn for me, taking care of myself has allowed me to want that for my employees. And I really do want them to, you know, I say to them all the time, get some sleep. If you’re having a bad day, take a walk, get outside, reset, come in my office, I’ll talk you off the ledge, whatever it is, but you know, having the ability to take care of yourself and create some of that space, it’s hard. You got to clear the calendar and do it. Yeah. Now that’s great advice too. So let’s switch so innovation and adaption is really important, especially in our industry. And I know you’ve made so many great changes, um, at Crate and Barrel Holdings, but you know, how do you encourage this innovation and ability to change, uh, in the industry or in your particular market? I mean, it might be, honestly, just trailing off your last question. First of all, have the energy to do it, create the space to do it, to really think about innovation, um, and think about entrepreneurship. You know, I try and maintain an entrepreneurial spirit. And empower my teams to lead with purpose. I want to give them the ability to be agile and adopt quickly and continue to innovate in the retail space. Uh, cause there’s a lot going on. There’s so much, um, innovation we’re doing here at Crate and Barrel Holdings. And we’re doing it both operationally and creatively. So I think those two things are important to continue to balance those two things. I mean, if you just take AI, right, it, even what’s happening in the world, let alone what’s happening at this company, we are innovating operationally here. We’ve got a big plan to innovate operationally over the next three years, but I don’t want to fall out of balance innovating creatively. Um, just two months ago, we launched our first ever virtual store. It’s this beautiful, immersive recreation of our New York City flagship store. It’s fully shoppable, virtual environment, features interactive personalization tools. There’s different rooms you can go to. You can grab things off the shelf and create bouquets of, I mean, it’s just beautiful. We’re going to make it shopable in the future. And to me, it was low effort, high creativity. A lot of energy and it gave us more power under our digital strength. So it was a moment that came out of creativity, but it’s led to an innovative idea that Maybe that’s how we should be shopping digitally and we have so much digital strength now that that moment of balancing the operational strength and the creativity might lead to a whole other experience for our customers. So that came from a team member that wanted to do that. So I keep an ear open. I think. The other thing to do is try and balance innovation under your key priorities. If it’s falling out from your key priorities, for me, I probably have to put it on a shelf for a minute. But somebody came with this and I said, well, one of our key priorities is our, is our digital strength. This falls under that. Let’s do it. And we have the space, um, and the mind set to be able to do it. So I think as leaders are going through it, uh, there’s a lot out there. Everyone practices, you know, your best to keep your priorities straight. It’s hard. It’s again, it’s got to say no more than you say yes. But when you see those little nuggets and it falls under a strategic priority, I say yes. That’s great. Is, is there like a motto or quote or mantra that has guided you throughout your leadership journey? You know what? I have adopted one in the last, I would say five or six years. It didn’t always follow me. I’ve had to learn how to do this, but I now live with the mantra courage over comfort. Oh, excellent. Yeah. And I used to be, you know, uncomfortable with being uncomfortable. Um, but now I’ve realized and it’s taken, it’s taken me years to realize this when I’m most uncomfortable, I’m learning something. I have to be courageous. You have to keep moving forward, go through hard things. And now I love it. I love feeling a little uncomfortable, but I’m, I’m conscious about it now. Being courageous is something I, I want to instill in my kids. I want to instill in my culture here. Be courageous. There’ll, there’ll be big rewards. Well, and it goes back to your being humble, right? Yeah. So you got to be humble if you want to put yourself in a position to feel uncomfortable, right? That’s right. That’s right. So, uh, do you have a message of inspiration of encouragement you’d like to share with all women striving to become leaders? I mean, it’s a, it’s a. It’s a tricky question because, again, sitting in a humble position, do I have words of encouragement? Yes. First of all, anyone can be a leader, anyone, regardless of gender, anyone can be a leader. I would say put the work in, uh, put the work in, value time and experience. There are so, there’s so people who come with so much knowledge, but I want them to value the time and experience on top of that knowledge base. It’s really important. Be resilient, be courageous, be your self. When you put the work in and you’re not yourself, it’s, it’s a lot harder. Be yourself, find a company and a culture where you can be yourself. And I think you will fly. when you find that place. That’s great advice. So, um, thank you for that. So now we’re getting into what I call my rapid fire questions. So these are just quick, quick, quick questions I’m going to ask you. And off the top of your mind, you’re going to quickly answer these for our listeners. So you ready? Ready. Okay. There’s only three of them. So the first one is what one piece of advice would you give female leaders that are currently working? Female leaders are I’m not being very fast, am I? That’s okay. Be courageous, decisive, and humble. Love it. What three tips would you give students? Our emerging leaders ask questions at the beginning. Don’t get the bad review. Like I got asked questions at the beginning, ask questions all along the way, but particularly at the beginning, you might get too far down the road to ask that question. Ask questions, raise your hand for more. Like I said, experience you’re coming out of school with so much knowledge. I mean more than ever, but raise your hand and get the experience on top of that knowledge and it will. Take you places. And I think third, um, do your homework on values, find a company that matches your values. Uh, it is critical. I’ve made that mistake a few times. I think success is sustainable when you can be yourself. So the value matches is important. Excellent. Anne, what do you want to leave behind for the next generation? Oh my gosh, I don’t know if I know that yet, Shelley. Authentic leadership. Authentic leadership, being an effective leader. I want to role, I’m just trying to role model what I, what I want it to be out there. Just be a good role model. That’s excellent. Yeah, that’s so important too. Okay. This is your last question, and this is a fun one. It could be anything. It doesn’t have to relate to work. Okay? Okay. Okay. What’s your secret power? Surrounding myself with good people. Both personally and professionally. They just give me so much good energy. Surrounding myself with good people. That’s a great secret power. Awesome. I’m lucky. Is there any, is there any closing thoughts that you would like to share? You know, I, I find that it’s taken me a long time to learn to be myself, to be authentic. My closing thoughts are, I think that’s what makes success sustainable. Be yourself, work hard. Be smart. Be humble. Thank you so much. And thank you for your time. Really appreciate it. Great interview. And, uh, we’ll be reading all about all these great things that you’re doing. So keep it up. Thank you, Shelley. Take care. Thank you.