Season 2, Episode 38: Dr. Don Barden

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Jack Hubbard: So, as I mentioned in the introduction, I had an absolutely fascinating discussion with our guest today before we started the interview process, and he sent me this amazing book. Here come the girls. Here's the author, Don Barden, Dr. Barden. Thank you for being with us today. This is a real treat.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Hey? Thank you, Jack. The treat is for me. I'm just honored to be on this with you. I love your work. I love

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Don Barden Ph.D.: everything that you've been doing and stood for for are we going to say half a century now? But it's been a minute you and I both. But yeah, I just love your work. And most importantly, I love banking as an economist. That's the foundation of everything that we do. And sometimes you get a good rap. Sometimes you get a bad rap, but at the end of the day it's the single, most important part of the economy, and I'm honored to be here and to

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Don Barden Ph.D.: talk to your guest.

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Jack Hubbard: Well, speaking of banking, you have a tremendous background in financial services, and the economy as an economist. Talk about your background. And what got you to this point in your career.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Oh, sure, I really appreciate that. It's been a little bit of Forrest Gump meets Jason Bourne, you know, somewhere between. Unfortunately, it's more on the Forrest Gump side, not the Jason Bourne side. But yeah, I mean a lot of it was right place at the right time, and you're talking about the mid eighties. So it's 40 years ago coming out of undergrad and kind of finding my way. And I got really lucky that some people that when I was just trying to get started, pointed me toward

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Don Barden Ph.D.: financial services and told me that that's really the future. Industries change, manufacturing changes, everything changes. But the version we have of financial services and banking that's going to be around a bit. It's going to change, too. I don't want to make. You may think that it's not, but nowhere near the construct of what the other folks are going through. So I thought.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: You know, that's that's a pretty good thing. And then, as my career got going and I spent about 25 years on Wall Street or working for Wall Street firms and mostly international, I realized that at the end of the day it's just about communication and sales. It's about the transfer of value and being able to communicate subjects that a lot of people consider complex. But if you can simplify it and go out there and talk to people in a way that puts them first, st

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Don Barden Ph.D.: that says, Look as a bank or as a financial industry, or whatever we're here to help you grow your business, even if it's not with us, what can we do to help you. What are your needs? What are you looking at? How can we stimulate you in a way that will help you grow and partner with you in the future. It's amazing when you approach it that way versus just pushing a product

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Don Barden Ph.D.: what these businesses will open up and tell you. And so, because I kind of stumbled into it the right place, right time in that industry. I love it. I'm just so fortunate to say I've had a really long career in this. In this industry I spent 25 years, like I said, on Wall Street firms, or with Wall Street firms traveling all over the world left there, started my own shop, and have been sort of independent for the past 1015 years. But

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Don Barden Ph.D.: love every second of it. It's just the greatest industry ever.

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Jack Hubbard: Well, it really is a certainly a changed industry, and one of the things you mentioned was help, and you have a very, very unique company called The Perfect Plan. Talk about the company, and who you do help.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Sure. No, thank you. That comes from the very 1st book that I wrote called The Perfect Plan, and what it was was in the early 2 thousands I worked for one of the most gregarious Ceos on Wall Street, and he would send me everywhere, I mean, at a moment's notice, China, India, Europe, whatever to help push over these deals.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: But I started noticing that there was a commonality among the people that we were working with, and in full disclosure because of who we were. Our size, the type of deals we were doing. I kind of had the privilege of working with the A. Team. So when I would go into Europe, Italy, whatever Mexico, they would only send their best and brightest because it's important. We were doing big deals. But I started noticing that there was this common thread amongst them that superseded language and culture and the deal itself.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: and I noticed that these top performers, that we were fortunate enough to work with, regardless of culture, language, or the deal. They all had this commonality about it. So I went back to my boss, and I said, Hey, I think we need to study this. And he said, Why? And I said so we can replicate it, you know, so we can figure out, is there some secret sauce that these top performers have?

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Don Barden Ph.D.: And he said, look, kid, he said, if you can do that, if you can figure it out while you have your real job. I want to take a break, but if you have your real job and you go out there and study this thing, we'll fund it for you. But I really want to approach this in a way that helps us help other people, and I don't care how it is so. That was the origin of the perfect plan. That's where it all started, and the book sort of took office in 39 countries. Now, I think it's used by

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Microsoft Coca-cola. The Us. Armed Services uses it. It turned out to be a way that we were able to use science to help understand why things work the way they do. It wasn't just a Oh, do this, and it'll work

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Don Barden Ph.D.: which is easy to do. You can do that. But do this, and it'll work. And here's why. And here's the adjustments in science and culture that you can make to continuously progress your mission.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Then all of a sudden it became a scientific study and bam. That's why it took off so people can kind of turn it up and down at will, and I was able to infuse that into 3 different big Wall Street firms. We did fabulous work there. It was just fantastic, and I decided, after a few years that I think I could be a little bit quicker and serve a different type of professional organization out there by kind of going out on my own. So about 15 years ago.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: So I took it to myself, and we went around. And we've been helping companies all over the world do it. The vast majority of it is financial services, banking, accounting.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: traditional Wall Street work. And they come to us. And they say, Hey, look! And this is not how they say it. But this is what they're really saying. They're saying, we want to sell more things to more people faster.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: How do we do that with the highest level integrity and with guardrails set in place so that nobody ever questions what we're doing. We want to do it the right way, and organizations that are human centric and want to do it the right way, reach out to us or we meet them. And we just say, Hey, look! What valves do we need to turn on and off? What levers do we need to pull within your organization to get you on a path

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Don Barden Ph.D.: that that trajectory is sort of 10 x where you can just turn the valve up and down at will. So we've been able to share all these things we learned around the world, backed by science, with people to help them grow their business. And I don't care if they're big. Little Small doesn't matter. It's a beautiful thing, and it applies across the vertical

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Don Barden Ph.D.: for all businesses and all types. I do have a certain amount of expertise in banking and finance, and I love that those are kind of my people. So that's a lot of fun. But anybody who wants to grow and kind of remove

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Don Barden Ph.D.: historical barriers, that's who we want to help. The only thing we ask is that they be human centric, if they're just transaction oriented, which I know that's important, I'm not knocking that. But if if they're not in it for the humanity of it, if they're not in it to help other people in their community and in their team grow, we're not a good fit, but if they are.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: oh, man, get out of the way. We can go in there and break down barriers and and see things culturally and scientifically that can help your team grow internally and externally. And we've been. We've been pretty successful with it. So I'm honored by that.

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Jack Hubbard: That's just great. And you mentioned science. This is based on science, and I want to talk about your new book. But I got to ask you a question about Wall Street. We watched fairly recently a documentary on Martha Stewart, who, I believe in the 19 sixties, was a very as a very young woman, was one of the few women on Wall Street.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Yeah.

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Jack Hubbard: As we start to get into this book. Here come the girls. What are you seeing on Wall Street? What's the transition? How? How are women transitioning more into wall streets.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Yeah, okay, let's let's flip that over and do it in reverse. Let me tell you what I've not seen, and almost a 40 year career on Wall Street 25 years at the highest, highest levels. And when I mean highest levels, it got to a point where I wouldn't work on a deal unless they had a billion dollars in cash on the table. So my career really really progressed. I worked with some of the most famous people, you know, on Wall Street names that are pretty common out there, and I'll tell you what I never heard.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: and I heard a lot. I heard a lot of colorful stuff, you know, when you're in those meetings there's no filter but what I never heard was anybody ever putting anyone down because of their gender

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Don Barden Ph.D.: ever. I never heard it. It was all about the deal, the integrity, the Roi. Are we doing the right thing? And can we progress together? So when people talk about how hard it is for women on Wall Street there's a documentary out, I think Bank of America funded it recently about women only getting a small percentage of PE money. That might be correct. But I tell you it's never been a negative to be a woman.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Now, with that being said. We just look at social construct, and that's what the book is about. We went back and analyzed it, because with observation

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Don Barden Ph.D.: it's very easy to look around, and if you notice and you pay attention, there are a lot more women in leadership than there used to be. So I started noticing this compared to what I was doing 40 years ago, when I go to a committee meeting or working with the C-suite. It was all men compared to now.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: and I started looking at it about 5 or 6 years ago. And I said, Wow, you know, this is everything's really changing here. I wonder if there's something here. So I just started playing with basic numbers and looking at trajectories. Population, what's happening? What the real numbers are versus, what the skewed numbers are. The bias and unbiased. And I looked at. And I said.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: This is insane, I said, you can see the rise of women coming, and it's it's like you can't stop it. It's there. So what does that mean? And and how do we look at it?

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Don Barden Ph.D.: And I was able to look back and think to myself.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: wall Street's never cared. They just haven't. Now you hear things now and then you hear stories. Martha Stewart obviously has got a very creative past from being a model to a business owner, to a Wall Street person to being, you know, spending some time rethinking her career choices and behind bars and doing some things. You know what a fascinating

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Don Barden Ph.D.: story, but I think you can easily go back and say there's a few jerks along the way. But overall it's never been about gender. But we can look at it and say, Yeah, but there was social construct. There was a patriarchal system in place, and a few women like her were early adopters, but they paved the way to what's happening now, and what we did with the book is, we looked at this power of observation.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: And we said, It's all around. You can't deny that it's happening. But what does that really mean? So we decided to put doctoral research behind it. So there was actually an academic paper of Britain with doctoral philosophy around it, saying, Look, there's 2 ways of looking at this quantitative and qualitatively, quantitatively. Is the math. Does the math prove it? And qualitatively is about the quality of it. Is it any good?

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Well, fun, fact in science? Never, or rarely, I should say. Rarely, are the 2 done side by side, because it's either a math problem or it's a phenomenal problem. Phenomenological problem. So what pick one, you know, you have to go one of the 2 ways. This one actually was one of those few cases in economics where we saw both.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: we're able to look at it, and mathematically prove, without any doubt, no question about it, that women are going to have that tipping point occur at the year 2028, where there are going to be more women in leadership and business ownership than there's ever been before. It's going to be the majority. And by 2032. It's going to be a super majority. It's not going to be something that you can stop. So we look back. Going back to the Martha Stewart age

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Don Barden Ph.D.: and said, Okay, when did this start? It was about 1958 or 59 is when it started, and it's been a slow progression coming up. And then we see tipping points starting to occur that nobody correlated and paid attention to. For example, 25 years ago medical schools were 98% men, PA schools, dental schools, all men. Now, it's 75% women.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: So the future of medical science is women. If you look at the 8 big firms on Wall Street. 6 of those 8 are run by women now, the 2 that are not have a woman in the queue to take over if she's the right person. And you look at banking, you look at all this stuff that's going on. Banking is a little slow, but I think a lot of that's because of the commonality of the community banks and the small neighborhoods getting together in which of the local patrons are.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: or consolidating to form a bank with whatever their their model. Their goal is. That's a little bit different. But overall you look at it and you can't.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: You can't look away. It's there. So we were able to prove that that's going to happen. And it is happening, for example, today in 20, what is this may of 2025. When we're filming this, it's at 42%.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: So 42% of all the businesses around the world, all leadership around the world is women. And so just look at that momentum over the past few years, and you can easily get in your head what's going to happen in 2028. But then came the hard part.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: The hardest question in science, or the hardest thing in science to approach is what we call the null hypothesis, and it's mostly math. But it could go either way. And basically, that's the willingness of science to ask difficult questions. So if you look at it. You say quantifiably, mathematically. We know that in 2028 there will be more businesses run by women than there are run by men we know by 2032, the super majority is going to happen. That's quantifiable. It's math. Can't deny it.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Well, the hard question to ask is, are they any good at it.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: And that's where qualitative steps in. And so we weren't afraid to ask that question, not from a biased or an unbiased position. It's just science. Okay, this is going to happen. What does that mean, you know? Are you any good at it? Well, dude.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: they're not only good at it, they're great at it. It's phenomenal what they're doing. In fact, if you take a female owned business side by side in the same geographic area as a male owned business. And I tell people that's very important. You can't compare somebody who owns a Deli in Manhattan to someone who owns a Deli in anchorage, Alaska.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: not the same thing. Right? So let's just look at Manhattan. If you take a business owned by a man and a business owned by a woman, it's the same business in the same geographic area. The female business out produces 3 times the revenue of the man, and 3 times the profit.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: and that is undeniable. It is across the board. So we were looking at doing okay, what's their secret? And then other things started to reveal itself. And this is the same in financial services and banking when they pulled the trigger on it. And this is a fun fact. In the United States today, the average American worker is 39 years old. That same 39 year old man or woman doesn't matter changes jobs every 3 years. So these kids coming out of college are told to expect 13 year careers. That's how much their people are jumping around.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Unless you work for a woman. If you work for a woman, it's not every 3 years. It's every 6 years now. There's an economic argument that wait a minute. We might not want to keep people 6 years. When do they peak out? Maybe they peak at 3 years and they start declining. And we're just babysitting, you know. We don't want to do that.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Nope, not for a woman. So someone working for a woman tends to stay twice as long as they work for a man. But here's the interesting thing. Instead of being 3 years at 6 years, but in years 4, 5, and 6, their productivity goes up

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Don Barden Ph.D.: so we can look at it and say, Okay, now, we know the majority of business is going to be run by women. We know that it out produces a male run. Business 3 to one. It out, produces a male run, business and profits 3 to run, and it doubles its retention of its workforce. And that same time, while it's doubling, doubling the retention, it's increasing that workers productivity

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Don Barden Ph.D.: drop the mic and walk away. That is all anybody cares about in economics. So we were able to prove that and then go deeper and ask these women all over the world that we interviewed in leadership. There are thousands of them and say, You know, what's your secret? What do you do. And another fun fact in science saturation happens around 70%. That means if you've got a hundred people, you're you're studying a hundred of them

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Don Barden Ph.D.: around 70, you should know, you know, you should get a vibe of what's happening.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Ours happened at 2.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: The second person matched the 1st person. The 3rd person matched it, but they weren't connected. They weren't related. They were different industries. The only thing they had in common is they were females in leadership, and when we asked them, What's your secret? They all told us the same thing. So instead of waiting to get 70%, we were at saturation at

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Don Barden Ph.D.: one or 2%. And then it was like, Okay, let's make sure this isn't just a fluke. And it wasn't the consistency among these women. And they they told us what to do. They just said, This is what we do, and the big takeaway from it is, it's not a girl thing. It's just something girls do, which means we can train the guys.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: So if everybody is working in this era which the workers are screaming out, saying, we don't like changing jobs every 3 or 3 years we want to stay, and we want to be more productive. Here you go. She's showing you how to do it. If your Wall Street's looking at just the numbers. They can look at 2 businesses or 10 businesses whatever. Pick out the ones run by the women and they're out producing the ones run by guys. So who do you think is going to get the attention.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: you know, going forward? But then we went to consumers, and we said, Hey, look, you know, the best part about being a consumer today is choice.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: There's plenty of choices out there, and there's plenty of good choices. So if you're looking at Red Bull, or Monster, or Pepsi and Coca-cola, whatever, why do you choose the ones that you choose? What creates that loyalty other than convenience. What is that thing that connects you to it? The consumers, men and women, told us the exact same thing that the workers, men and women said about working for a female.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: So now we're looking at consumers, and we're looking at workforce people saying, we want this. This is what we want. And the only person delivering it is a woman. And we see this incredible surge of women coming into leadership to the point that the tipping point is going to go over. So you look at this and you say, what's about to happen? Or more specific? What's about to happen in banking?

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Well, if businesses start to grow 3 x at will now. And I'm talking significant growth year over year. And here's another fun fact. We learned that women don't necessarily dig mergers and acquisitions. They're okay. It's necessary. But they don't have an ego to grow that way.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: What female leaders want is collaboration. How do we collaborate? How do we lift each other up, men and women? How do our businesses coordinate and collaborate with each other? Well, as you know, in math

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Don Barden Ph.D.: you can't add percentages, you can only multiply and divide. So we look at this and go wait a minute. If your business is growing. 3 x, your business growing 3 X, and your business is growing 3 x, and they all start collaborating.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Now it's 3 x cubed.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: So you look at this. You're like, my God, you can't unsee it. It is right there. So, barring a zombie apocalypse, a meteor strike or zombies, or something, I don't know another plague.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: We're good. This economy is about to take off. So people in the financial services or any industry that serves communities and serves businesses like banks, they need to buckle up because it's about to shift, and it's about to change. But what's really, really important, I'll shut up after this because I get really excited, Jack, what that book really told us, study women in leadership was not just the quantitative and the qualitative.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: What it really told us was she, that business leader is telling us how she runs her business, how she runs her employees, and how she engages customers, and in reflection of that, what she's really saying to you is, here's how to sell something to me.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Here's what I do for my people, and I expect that done back to us if we're going to collaborate. So if a bank is trying to figure this out

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Don Barden Ph.D.: and say, how can we be impactful? Whether? And I know margins are squeezed? Everybody's looking for things beyond the basic loans and and the checking and just the moving of assets around. But when you look at that and you say, wait a minute. She just gave us the playbook. So now Banks can look at this into the future and say, this is what we need to do to be a part of this unbelievable economic growth that's about to hit.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: and luck favors the prepared. So those banks that reach out to you that reach out to folks like us and say, Hey, we just want to be prepared, you know. What can we do?

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Don Barden Ph.D.: It's a game changer for them. So, and it's not a again. It's not a girl thing. It's just something men and women can do, because this is about to hit the economy. This social structure is about to change, and the banks, or anybody who understands that is prepared for it

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Don Barden Ph.D.: gonna be the best time of their life. Those that don't. They're gonna be scratching their head, wondering what happened and why the world just left them behind. That's how powerful this is.

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Jack Hubbard: Well, you know, and and the book is fast. I have never read a book like this.

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Jack Hubbard: and let me tell you why. The 1st chapter is 109 pages, and and that's all the data. And then you get into the how of it. So I'm a father of a of a woman who is a head of people, chief people, officer of a company. There are a lot of women who listen to this and go. This all sounds fabulous.

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Jack Hubbard: How do you make this happen? I'm a female, I hear you. I want some of this. I want to get in into executive management own my own company. How do I go about doing it? Take me through some steps of this.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Sure. Well, thank you for saying that. And congratulations for your daughter. Cpo, that's a big job that is, actually. And this is why I love anybody in Hr. Which is 82% female. By the way, when we look at Hr. Teams like hers, I've seen a little bit of a drift. That was one area that was really heartfelt for us, because Hr. Is really the consciousness of a company or a bank. So they represent the life, the heart of the organization.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: They've been at the table. They've been at the Senior Executive level. Hr. Cpos. That C is big. They should be in the C-suite sitting there making tactical strategic decisions about their organization, because nothing happens if the people aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing, and that Hr. Is not creating that environment to do it. And that's a tough job. But

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Don Barden Ph.D.: what's happened lately is because everybody's changing jobs so much. Hr, the Cpos out there, mostly women, 82% women are now having to go back and just sling bodies. They've gone back to recruiting because they've got such a heavy turnover rate, and I don't know what your daughter's company is, but if you look at it, if you say the average person changes jobs every 3 years, that means that it's 33% turnover

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Don Barden Ph.D.: year for any organization. Now, some of them are going to say, well, it's a little different. Yeah. But the vast vast majority of them are facing 33%.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: That means, if you have a thousand employees, then 330 of them, or 30 per month

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Don Barden Ph.D.: are changing and leaving. So these poor Cpos and Hr. Directors have had to leave that strategic world and come back and say, I can't wait to get back to that. But right now I'm a recruiter, you know. I'm just trying to replace it. So what to answer your question to start with. Hr. What they're doing is they're coming back to the table and saying, Stop.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: we have to get a hold of this. We have to adjust our culture in a way that allows people to say, Oh, my God! I want to work here forever. I want to work here for a long time, and then better yet. And this is something that's interesting when we see female driven leadership and female. Hr. Which is kind of occurring naturally. What we're seeing is when those employees do leave at 6 and 7 years

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Don Barden Ph.D.: is they're coming back and thanking. Hr. They're going to people like your daughter and saying, Hey, look! I never thought I'd leave this place. But I just got a career opportunity. That is a dream job for me and my family, and I want you to know I couldn't do it had I not been here, and had I not experienced these past 6 or 7 years working here with you, and I just want to say, Thank you.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: So we're seeing this shift right? But the overall, overwhelming thing is it's gotten oblong. It's gotten out of whack because women weren't there doing it. So to answer your question. You have 2. 1's going to be Darwinistic. One is going to be just natural evolution where businesses are struggling. They're looking at these turnover rates, and they're saying, How do we stop it? Somebody's going to read the book. Somebody's going to think about something different. And somebody's going to say, wait a minute, let's give it to her.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Let's see what she can do to rebuild that culture. So that's going to be a top down authoritative. The other side of it is just going to be the math. It is undeniable. When a young woman is moving her way up through the system. She's going to bump into jerks just like you and I did in our career. It's not a, you know. There's just some

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Don Barden Ph.D.: somebody told me the other day and pardon my French, it's not illegal to be an asshole. So you know, you're going to bump into those people out there. Just buckle up. That's going to be it. But when we see these girls now, young girls coming out of college and working their way up early in their career, they're going to get opportunities that the people before them didn't have.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: because the the genre has changed. The philosophy has changed everything is there, so what they need to do is be prepared, but be committed to being true to who they are. So when we look back at what women do differently, and how they do it. It was really very, very specific.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: And she, what we tell these young ladies is don't try to be in the Boys club.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: be you? The future. Is you so 1 1 fascinating thing in this study of the thousands of women that we interviewed, and they were all

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Don Barden Ph.D.: every variation you can imagine. We talked to them. Everybody was humanity at its best, right, but 100% of them, regardless

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Don Barden Ph.D.: of whatever thing that was happening in society, or whatever they felt or or whatever it doesn't matter.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: 100% of them celebrated their femininity. Nobody wanted to be a guy, so I'm sitting there going. Wait a minute. You don't want to be a guy, but you're acting like a guy. Why don't you start acting like a girl? Why don't you just do what you do best, and I think if any of these young girls coming up through the system can be committed, can be courageous, and can seek capabilities and learn everything they can about what they're doing. In other words, be good at what you do. But be you?

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Don Barden Ph.D.: That's what the world is crying out for. That's what the consumers want. Men and women. That's what the workers want. Men and women go, be you. But you got to learn. You don't get a job just because you're a girl. You're not any good just because you're a girl. You're good because you took some inherent thing that you had, and you sought those capabilities, that education, the experience, the time that it took, and just, you know, to make it to

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Don Barden Ph.D.: top leadership in any organization, especially say anything more than 2 or 300 lives in it, employees, especially a thousand 10,000 100,000 employees. It takes an average man or woman 23 years

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Don Barden Ph.D.: of experience to get to that level, and I don't know if you agree with me or not. But, man, at our age it goes pretty fast, you know. 23 years isn't what you think when you're at the bottom looking forward when you look back, you think well, that's a couple of loops, you know that's not so bad. But when you're growing through the progress or the progression of your career, be patient, but be you, and know that it's just going to take time, and then, when that window opens.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: take it and go with it and try to maximize it, but always seek the education and the capability to be a better leader. You're not a great leader just because you're a woman, you've got an advantage. And but now we've got a society that's embracing that we got a consumer side. That's saying we want that you got workers that are saying we need that. We're tired of changing jobs. We want to stay committed.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: What are you doing to help me be the best I can be for you? I want to be a good employee that only comes by her natural instincts and what she's doing differently. But it coincides perfectly with the economy and everything else that 2028 numbers real. But it's

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Don Barden Ph.D.: any of these young girls just hang in there, be you? But don't think it's going to be handed to you. You got to learn how to be a leader. Leaders are not born, leaders are made, and if they can go out there and learn that they're going to own the place, I mean literally.

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Jack Hubbard: You do say that females have a huge advantage, and I can hear my banker friends yelling at me in my ear, saying, ask him. Why? Why are women so much better at this than men? What are the skills and behaviors that women bring to the table that cause you to say women are better than men at this.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Sure it's actually pretty easy. It's what they're doing. Their style of leadership is rising at the exact time that that style is needed by the consumer and by the workers. In the past it was different. But now all these things are converging at one time, and that's the most important part. So when I talk to a bunch of men, and this is interesting, usually when I talk to. If I had 100 men in the audience, only men, and I'm talking about here come the girls.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Nobody's pushing back. Everybody agrees. I've never had a man say, well, wait a minute. I don't like that or whatever. 1st of all, they don't think that second, I won't tolerate it if they do. But you know it's just, it's different. But if a banker or anybody saying, but why? Why? Why, now, let's just back up and ask, Well, how did we get here?

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Don Barden Ph.D.: And I tell people from social economics when we look at men in leadership, guys were the dominant gender for one reason and one reason only, and that was red muscle mass guys are better at plowing the fields than girls are doesn't mean they can't do it. We're just better and faster. Guys can cut down trees and clear fields.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Yes, we're good at that. We're better at fighting off the T. Rex. We're not good at it, but we're better than her, so all she's got to do is get away from us right, and we'll get eaten and she'll be fine. So we look back at society. And we realize, okay, we lived in an agricultural world. We lived in an industrial world where we needed men, and because those men were in the workforce, they were given a chance to rise up.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: So we have a patriarchal system of men because of that, and that alone had nothing to do with brains, had nothing to do. There's some social construct around it in certain sectors. But

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Don Barden Ph.D.: really not. It was just. Is the guy the right person for the job at the time? Can he do it? And we're talking about heavy lifting, plowing fields, cutting on trees. Yeah, guys are real good at it. And they grew up and they controlled it. And they made it work. So that happened. Now we're looking at it, saying, Well, wait a minute. We've got automation. We don't have

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Don Barden Ph.D.: like Henry Ford. When he 1st made his cars. Somebody told me it took 120 people for the men from the time it started to the time a car finished the assembly line. Now it's 3,

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Don Barden Ph.D.: not 303, because of automation and robotics. So we don't need that red muscle mass anymore. So the barriers that were prevented by society are created by society, for valid reasons are now gone. So you look back and you say, Okay, now that all the dust has settled and we're looking at this world differently than we did.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: What is it that a woman's doing in banking? Let's say she's banking that's radically different from a man, and it comes down to how she handles critical problem solving.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: That's it. Now. Because guys, even though we're younger than the Industrial Revolution, or whatever guys have been taught to fix things. We're real good at fixing things. In fact, I used to have a boss that said guys, if it doesn't need fixing, I'm going to watch you go break it just so you can have the pleasure of fixing it so guys will break something just so they can fix it right.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Women don't do that. And the reason why is, if somebody comes to a man. And this is general. I'm not saying every guy does this, but the vast majority do. And if you're being honest, everybody's going to agree with me. If there's a problem, it goes to a male leader. The male leader usually takes that problem with them and says, Okay, I'll fix it. I'll get back to you. Just give it to me. I'll get on the phone. I'll do whatever I'll fix it.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Women don't do that. So here's the steps that a woman does, and this works for sales banking anything. What happens when somebody on her team comes up and says, Hey, here's a problem instead of taking it and fixing it, which, by the way, neuters your team when you do that, it tells them that you're not important. I can handle it. You can't. She doesn't do that.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: She follows 3 steps that are radically different than the guy and those 3 steps are so needed right now, and so required

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Don Barden Ph.D.: by society, the workforce, and the consumer, that she's just in the right place at the right time, and the 3 steps are real simple. When somebody comes up to you with a problem or a customer at the bank comes up and says, hey? I got a problem. I need a loan. I need a bridge. I need something, you know, and I want you as my partner. A bank should be a partner with business, and 100% of the banks say they are

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Don Barden Ph.D.: 9 out of 10, aren't. They're just not. They're looking at their margins. And they're looking at how we can make a transaction going, and they're going to have trouble in the future.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: The banks that are sitting there embracing this and saying, Wait, we need to get back in that partnership mode. When people are coming to us, they're coming to us because we can help solve problems which will stimulate the economy and the business and everything else. And if we know that the economy is about to go through a 3 x jump.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: and we know that more women are out there in collaborative means, and that M. And A is going to fade off. And these other things are there. But she's going to be growing faster than she could probably keep up with. She's going to need a bank to do it. Okay, what do you do? Will you follow her process, and her process is real simple.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: When somebody comes up with a problem or something broke. The 1st thing she does is she separates the problem from the person or the business. She acknowledges the problem as being on its own. And she literally shows sympathy to the problem. Like, yeah, I know, that's a problem that's really tough. We didn't anticipate those dock workers going on strike and slowing down our supply chain. That's a real problem.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: So she doesn't say Oh, what happened, or who screwed up, or whatever she acknowledges the problem and separates it from everybody in the contingency. So now the problem is standing on its own.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Then, second, she leans into the people that brought her the problem, and she shows empathy toward them. She says, Hey, I know you're in charge of supply chain. That's not your fault. I mean, we didn't see that dock worker strike coming, or whatever it is. Are you okay? I hope you're not losing. I know this is your responsibility. You take this seriously, but it's okay. Breathe. It'll be okay.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: So think about those 1st 2 steps. There's a problem that was brought to her. A man would have taken it and said, Let me fix it, and just gone with it. She breathes a little bit, and she says, Wait, that's a very real problem. I'm sympathetic to that problem. But I'm empathetic to you. How are you? How do you feel about this. So she's teed up this perfectly, and then she does the most magical thing ever.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: She leans into the person who brought them the problem. She's already separated the problem. She's shown empathy to them. And then she says something like, Hey, if if you.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: how would you fix this? If you had a magic wand. What would you do? Now, here's what the data supports. 96% of the people on your team that bring you a problem, know how to fix the problem.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: but through authoritative construct they know they have to take it to you@firstst So what she does is by leaning in and saying, Hey, what would you do? How would you solve this? Knowing that 96% of the time they can solve it on their own? She listens to them.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: She needs to agree. She's the boss, but most of the time she's going to she listens to them. They say here's what I would do, and then she does the most beautiful thing

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Don Barden Ph.D.: she leans in and says, Do it.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: and she empowers that person to go solve the problem that they know how to handle, but only after she's shown them empathy and shown sympathy to the problem. But here's what that formula does by separating the problem being sympathetic by showing empathy to the person, and then by leaning in and asking them how they would do it, and then giving them permission to do it. What she told her team was, I see you.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: I hear you and I understand you. I see the problem. I hear you. I know that you're okay. But I understand that you're the person who can fix this so you can go do it. You are empowered to do it. And let me tell you, Jack, I don't care if it's a man or a woman if they feel seen, heard, and understood. That's the formula for feeling valued.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: So now you have a valued workforce that's empowered.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Man. You have a valued workforce. Men or women that's empowered get out of their way.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: They're going to move mountains for you, and that's what they're doing. But here's what really happens.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Go back to the traditional way, and a guy goes. I'll just fix it. Give it to me. He literally neutered his employees, he literally said, You're worthless. I'm the only one that can do this. So every single problem that happens goes to him, and he has to fix it, which means he's not being innovative. He's not being creative. He's not meeting new customers and thinking about new ideas. He's not doing anything. A leader is supposed to do. He's actually doing his employees job for them.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: She, on the other hand, empowers her employees, who feel valued because they feel, seen, heard, and understood. She absorbed it. She gave them permission to go. Do it, they go do it.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: You know what she's not doing. She's not wasting her time fixing the problem. She's going back and being innovative and creative, and figuring out how we can grow this bank. What are new customers I need? Where? Who can I go? See? Who can I help increase the volume? With? What can I do to help be innovative and creative, and lead this company to literally steward the organization. But what she really did by doing that was next time. There's a problem.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: It doesn't come to her until it's solved, because those empowered people know that they have permission to be themselves. They have permission to be the best they can be. So now, when there's a problem that's elevated to her

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Don Barden Ph.D.: is, hey? Here's what happened with the dock workers yesterday in Charleston, and we fixed it, and she'll look at it and go okay and keep going, you know, and get back to work. That's why she's growing 3 X. And the guy's not because it's the workforce. Men and women who feel seen, heard, and understood, which means they're valued, which means, and if they're empowered they can go out and do anything for it. That formula alone changes everything.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: But here's what it really does. I mentioned this earlier.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: She's telling you how to sell to her. So if you're a bank, you're looking at a business coming to you, female or male. Let's just say female.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: And they're saying, Hey, we're growing at 7 x, and you know what we've got a 90 day payment thing coming on. So we're in this embryonic growth stage. And because of that, we're going to need a bridge to do this and this, and we'd help. We need help, and we're going to hire some people and cover it. Here's our projections.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: You look at that and do the same thing she just did to her employees. You look at it and go. Wow! What a great problem! Man! I get it! I know that's scary growing at this rate. But congratulations. But I'm sympathetic. I get it. I understand that that's going to be a problem. You're gonna be short on cash flow for the 1st 90 days I get it. Hey? Are you okay, boy? I hope you're not losing sleep over this. This is something you need to be doing a victory dance any any one of my clients would jump up and down for this problem. But are you okay?

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Okay, sympathy. The problem in the person. And then you say, well, what do you need? What can I do to help you? And they say, I just need a rolling 90 day thing until we catch up. But then, honestly, once we get going through this, we're going to have to build a couple more factories. I'm going to need you to help me on that, too.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: So what what did you just do? You just sold her

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Don Barden Ph.D.: a relationship. You you showed her commitment to partner. You showed her collaboration because now she is your customer. She feels seen, heard, and understood. She feels like you've empowered her to say, What do you need? You know? Let me be that partner to help you do it.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: A banker that goes out there and says, Okay, well, here's you need to fill out these 10,000 forms here and get a colonoscopy and do this and this and this and do it. It's like, my God, guys, yes, I understand underwriting. I understand compliance. Understand? Gap ratios. I understand capital. We all get that. That's part of the system that makes it work.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: That's not her problem. And if if you don't treat her the way she's treating other people. You're not going to get that business.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: and we live in a world of choice. She has choice. So what I think is going to happen in the banking industry is, it's going to be one of the slower industries to catch on. But those early adopters that go out are going to ride that same wave.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: and the success is going to be so great and so grand. You're going to see economic expansion within single clients in certain regions like we've never seen before, and those banks that survive the banks that are there are going to be the banks. That truly, partner, I'm not talking about running a commercial with some banker walking down Main Street, acting like you're you're well known, and you're buying flowers from everybody.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Everybody knows that's not real what they're looking for is a partner, somebody who understands them, and somebody who says, I respect you enough to learn how to grow, to learn how to communicate with you to

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Don Barden Ph.D.: bid for the opportunity to be your partner in this? There's no assumption, there's no arrogance. There's a privilege of saying, How can I best serve you while you're stewarding this organization. And while you steward it, we're going to be one of the many people are here to serve you, and we're going to do it because we see you. We hear you and we understand you. We're going to do it because we value you. We're going to do it in a level of empowerment. That means that you're in control.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: How fast of a check can I write you? How can we make this work for you. How can we create this attitude of gratitude that is so simple

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Don Barden Ph.D.: in this ease of business that we're here for you? No, I get you got forms to fill out. Don't anybody go? Oh, you don't know. I know exactly what I'm talking about with this. I'm talking about engagement. You're not going to have any customers filling out your underwriting forms. If you don't have the engagement, if you don't have that relationship, if you don't have that moment where they're engaged with you to a point that they say, Wow! When I'm working with this bank, I don't know what it is, but I feel seen, heard, and understood.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: They value my relationship. They're not seeing if I'm worthy of working with them. They're actually asking me if I would consider partnering with them. So banks are going to have to adjust and adapt quickly on this, or you're going to see Darwinism at its finest. And that's.

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Jack Hubbard: They are slowed down. I mean, if you, if you look at the 4,400 banks, there's only about 300, maybe 330, I think.

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Jack Hubbard: female, Ceos. So we know that that's kind of a lagging industry and making being conservative, etc. But I'm curious if you saw any specific industries in your research that were really leading in this effort. Where there's where you're seeing a goodly number, maybe a majority of women who lead that particular industry.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Wall Street is number one. No doubt about it. Wall Street has happened just nobody's paying attention to it. So Wall Street, for sure, because

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Don Barden Ph.D.: money doesn't care about diversity. Money doesn't care about anything. Money cares about doing it the right way. So Wall Street's leading the way up top medical absolutely is all women now, and so is the education system. So the system that builds us up and helps create who we are. Our education system totally run by women. Now the medical world that keeps us healthy keeps our hearts ticking

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Don Barden Ph.D.: and going 100, not 100%, but vast, vast majority are women, and in the next few years it's going to be a super majority. It's going to be women. So when you see education and those others coming along. And then 42% of every business you walk by, every daily, every dry cleaner, everything. 42% are owned by women right now around the world.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: So it's happening all around us. I think an easier question to say who's not going to do it. I think Banks are going to do it, but they're going to be slow, and when you throw out those numbers and you, you know the old joke correlation doesn't equal causation all the time, and that comes from the ice. Do you know the ice cream story.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: ice cream and murder rates? Correlation doesn't equal causation, which means, just because something is moving side by side doesn't mean that they're related. And the most famous study on that was murder rates and ice cream sales, murder rates and ice cream sales track each other perfectly.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: When murder rates go up ice cream sales go up. When ice cream sales go up, murder rates go up, and so all these scientists are trying to figure that out, and somebody goes. What if they're not related? What if there's another variable, a Chi variable that's outside of this that caused it, and it turned out there was. It was heat.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: So when it gets hot outside, people get a little anxious and they're they're they're not being kind to each other. They also buy a lot of ice cream, so that works. So we look at this and say, Wait a minute. Not everything is going to be correlated, you know, on this, banks are just traditionally slow, and banks at the same time as much as they're slow. They're also quick

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Don Barden Ph.D.: to change when several of them start working successfully, they all just overnight jump on it, good and bad. That's been banking since day one. They'll jump on something if everybody else is jumping on it. So I do think while Banks might not tip over in 2028, like the rest of the world does. Maybe it's 2029, or 2030 it's going to. But to correlate those numbers you were just saying, what did you say? 4,400 banks out there, and only

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Don Barden Ph.D.: basically 10% are run by women. Yeah, so we look at that and say, Well, what is the vast majority of the banks, and the vast majority of banks, as you know, in this country, are small community banks. Small community banks as a whole are brought together by civic leaders who are big industry in a certain town who says, we want to form a bank. So for obvious reasons, so we can grow some of its investment. Just ease of business, whatever the lag on. That is a lot of those community banks are formed by businesses run by men.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: So it's called conitive cloning. They just

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Don Barden Ph.D.: they hired people just like them, and they put people on the bank board just like them. But now we're starting to say, wait a minute. In fact, if you go to that 10%, the 300 and something that are run by women, I would guess those are bigger banks.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Is that true? Yeah. So you look at these big banks. They've already adjusted because they're not playing that local game. And I love community banks. And I love credit unions, too. I love the credit union movement, everything that's going on in banking all the way back, and, thank God! The play made Hamilton a little bit more famous than he was outside of the economic nerd world. But our system is built on banking, and oh, my God! I just forgot his name Charlie.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: the right hand, Guy Berkshire Hathaway. He's.

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Jack Hubbard: Early Munger.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Munger. Yeah. He gave a great lecture one time about currency and banking, and how banking is the heart and soul of the economy, and I got teary-eyed listening to it because I was like, finally, somebody's articulating the greatness of our banking system and what it's doing. But that doesn't mean that as you're entrenched into it, you're not slow to adjust these big banks.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: They're quick, you know. They made those adjustments. They had women come up through the system. They honored them, and they say we're better off with them. The smaller banks are just going to be slow to to catch on. My worry about them

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Don Barden Ph.D.: is that it might be too far ahead by the time they get into the race, because if banks are growing 3 x they start collaborating.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: They go 3 x cubed, and then you're the laggard

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Don Barden Ph.D.: who says, after a few minutes, Oh, man, it's 2032, maybe we should have paid attention. You'll never catch up to it, and you're going to see Darwinism kick in. So I think Banks will be slow, but they'll be quick once the thing pops over. So my question for your audience would be.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: you know Jefferson said it best, he said. I don't believe in luck, but I find the harder I work the more of it, I find that means that luck favors the prepared.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: So what are you doing to be prepared? That's what every bank board should be asking themselves right now, what are we doing to be prepared now? You don't hire somebody just because they're a woman. That's bad. You hire them because they're the right person.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: But there's gonna be more right persons that happen to be women now than there's ever been, and we know she has that trait to grow that bank 3 x, and then ultimately 3 x cubed. Right? So as you're growing and doing that, what you've really got to be saying to yourself is okay.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Our leadership in the future has to change and adapt to way we're looking at our customers. We're looking at our workforce. We're looking at everything we do, but the reality of it is, if that bank stands up and you and I joked about this, the pasty old white guys, you know who stand up there and say, I'm going to tell you how to do it. You fill out these 1,000 forms and we'll do it. These women are going to look at you and go. Yeah, I'm with her.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: and they're going to go to those other banks. They're not going to put up with patriarch, patriarchal,

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Don Barden Ph.D.: speaking down. They're not going to do that. So if you just go to basic economics, if I was a bank I'd be peeing on myself right now, and I'd be looking up there going. Okay, what do we have to do to sell more of our services to her?

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Don Barden Ph.D.: And it's not going to be the old way of doing it. It's going to be leaning in being a partner for real.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: showing them that I see them showing them that I value them. You're seeing you're heard. You're understood. What can we do to serve you as you grow this economy and help us do it? The banks that figure that out fastest, and they're trained, and it's top down, and it's an integral part of their culture. They're going to own everything, the ones that don't.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: You'll be questioning why Darwin didn't win the Nobel Prize in economics because he was 50 50 in biology, and he was a hundred percent in economics. So I always tell people watch that Darwin dude. He was right, but economics only.

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Jack Hubbard: Well, this is an absolutely phenomenal book, and it's not a female book. It's a business book, and it's great for men and for women, and there's so much good stuff in here. But and so I want to ask how people get a hold of you. But I've been thinking about this. I just got to ask you about this.

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Jack Hubbard: Women in business. 2028, a celebration of why women will take over global leadership in 2028. How close are we based on your research or your gut, or what you've seen. How close are we to electing a female president.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Oh, okay, wow! Throw a fastball at my head. Thanks, Jack. I appreciate that. So here there's 2 industries that I think are going to be the very last to tip over, and government is one of them, and I'm very honest. When I say this, we studied this, I was like, why isn't it working here? Why haven't we put the right

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Don Barden Ph.D.: person there yet to do it? And then it hit me. I don't know if I'm right or not, but I think I am.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: I think women are too good for it

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Don Barden Ph.D.: to be honest with you, because think about what I've been saying. Leadership in this new era is going to be about valuing people. It's going to be about saying, I see you. I hear you. I understand you. I'm empowering you. Therefore I'm going to walk away and let you do your job.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: That's not very governmental

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Don Barden Ph.D.: right? That's not the way the government works. They say those things, but then they go right back in the same system. So I don't know the answer to that question, but it's going to be the rise of a woman who's willing to stand up and take the punches to prove who she is. But on a side note. Look at Mexico.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: You know Mexico just elected its 1st female president, and and it's to me the mind blowing thing about her isn't that she's a woman. It's she's Jewish.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: they Mexico who and I know the Pope just passed away. We got a new Pope, Leo. Good Chicago white Sox fan. Give the guy a chance, you know. We'll see there's nothing wrong with that. Yeah, you're a home state guy, you know. So how do you like that? That's pretty cool.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: wait a minute.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: We're sitting there looking at this, and we're saying, Hmm!

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Don Barden Ph.D.: In Mexico they just selected their 1st female president. Mexico makes the Vatican look like amateur hour in the world of Catholicism, I mean, they're real Catholics. They're not Catholics for tradition. They're not Catholics out of guilt. They're not Catholics because they were told to. They're Catholics because they want to be so. This is the most Catholic country in the world

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Don Barden Ph.D.: just elected a female Jewish President.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: What does that tell you? It tells you that they looked beyond that.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: and they said, We've got the right, or we hope we've got the right person, you know, for this. Now, Mexico is a little bit different. They don't have a electoral college. It's basically a popular vote. You win Guadalupe, and you win Mexico City and you win. Okay, did it. But she did it. So now it's going to be. Let's let's see how she is. So

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Don Barden Ph.D.: I don't mean to be 2 sided on that, but we can look at countries like Mexico which I love, and to go. Wow! Here they come. Here come the girls right. But then we look back to the United States and go.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: I don't know. A woman's going to take that job. Why would you do it when you can go out there and do more impact on other things. So I think we get through this rush. We see women go through this exponential and embryonic growth stage that we're about to hit in the economy, maybe in 32, or 35, which isn't that far away? 10 years from now, maybe a woman's going to come through that system

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Don Barden Ph.D.: done great things changed the way we think about our thinking being innovative and creative, literally change the trajectory of humanity, and then she'll step away and go. Okay. Now, now, I'll do this, but I don't think it's going to be a career politician

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Don Barden Ph.D.: that comes up to be a woman and to be the President States. I think it's going to be somebody who's so gifted that it's undeniable what she's capable of doing, and she proved it in the private sector. That's the only way. Because I just I think government isn't. I think women are too good to be in government to be honest with you, and I don't know how to say that I might not be saying it right, but that's

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Don Barden Ph.D.: that's what I feel.

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Jack Hubbard: That's fascinating. Well, this amazing book, and it's just out. So I was so honored to be able to grab Don for this interview. Don, you do speaking for associations, certainly, but you also come into companies and help them talk a little bit about how you work with companies and speaking engagements, and how people can get a hold of you.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Oh, you're really sweet. I appreciate you asking me that a lot of people don't do that. So thank you. Yeah, we can go in multiple levels. We do a lot of speeches. I do, probably 3 or 4 a week, and there's a fee for that. And we go out and we talk, and we can help, motivate and inspire your customers, your your workforce, whatever it is we do it, and

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Don Barden Ph.D.: I'll be honest with you. We tell people. We have some pretty decent fees on it, but I always tell people you don't pay us till we're done, and if it's not the best you've ever seen. You don't have to pay us, so I put us out there so on that the second phase is a lot of times they'll come in and say, Hey, look! We just need. We've got like 8 people on our Elt, our leadership team.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: What can we do to help them? And we go in there only for 3 months, and start working with them, sometimes 2 and 3 and 4 times a month, sometimes weekly, to work with your leadership team to make sure their heads on straight, and they're staying accountable and consistent, not only to the mission, but to this new wave of the economy that's coming in, and the reason we only do it for 3 months is I'm trying to get fired.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: And that's the weirdest concept, right? But I hate consulting firms who go in, and they're still there. 5 years later. I'm like, good Lord, no, this is like going to school. You graduate. If everybody does their job. You don't need us. So we go in there. We tell people it's 2, 3 months, Max, but we'll work with your leadership team. We'll still that includes doing the speeches and and whatever you need. We're not, bougie.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: We don't sit there and clock in and clock out and do things. We figure out whatever it is to make it work for you.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: And then the 3rd thing, which is the most opportunistic and what most people do.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: and and you'd have to call us and talk to us about that. But on the 3rd thing we're we're really leaning into. Hr, we're really saying, Okay, how do we build the culture of your workforce while we're working with our executive teams, your executive teams, and we're constantly reinforcing this. So we kind of roll all of it up into one. But it was really interesting. What we've learned on that, and that can be pretty expensive. But people don't have to pay for it.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: We figured out a way to do that, and they not have to cut a check. And that's fascinating. So if anybody wants to hear about that one, give me a call because it doesn't affect your budget. It doesn't affect anything. And I guarantee you on day one.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: we can make such a monumental impact that it changes your trajectory in how you do it, and I'll be honest with you, Jack. We're pretty bright, but we're not brighter than anybody else.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: What we can do is structure, the obvious and simplify the complex. We have a set of eyes that can look at an organization and say, Hey, let us help you. But we're going to do it with Grace. We're going to do it by saying, We see you, we hear you, we understand you. We value you. Let's work together so we can grow for a short period of time. And then the best day of my professional life is the day you say

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Don Barden Ph.D.: we're done.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: We've got there. We've graduated, and that's a fascinating thing. But on the big one a lot of times they don't have to pay for it. There's other ways of getting it done. And so if somebody wants to talk about that, we'd love to hear it, and I'll tell you what I will do for your folks and thank you. You were so kind to mention the perfect plan, the 1st book that was out there. If anybody hits me up on Linkedin and says, Hey, I heard you and Jack's podcast I'd like to have a copy of the Perfect Plan. I'll send them a free e-copy of that book as long as they tell me they heard it from you.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: So if they say I heard it on Jack's podcast and I'm in banking, or whatever it is, or just randomly listen to it. I will happily send them a free copy, and hope they enjoy it. Hope it can help them out.

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Jack Hubbard: Well, I'm happy you were here, Don. I'm blessed that you were. This is an amazing book. Follow Don on Linkedin, connect with him on Linkedin. Get a copy of the perfect plan. But you've got to buy this book. Here come the girls a celebration of why women will take over global leadership in 2028. Don Barden. Thanks so much for your time today.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Thank you, Jackie, thank you for what you're doing. I tell you I want to drag this out. You're doing great work for people that need you the most. What I see as an economist and as a consultant is industries like banking that have been around for so long. We know they're slow to change, but they're all raising their hands, saying they want it. And you've always been that bright and shining star in this industry, and I just want to thank you for the work that you've done for so long in helping these banks get to where they are.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: and you know there's plenty more to do. But thank you for being you. I really appreciate it. I'm honored. You had me.

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Jack Hubbard: Okay.

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Jack Hubbard: thank you, Don. That was awesome. That was just awesome. You're the best guest I've ever had. You answered every single question that I had that was fabulous.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: I really appreciate. I love what you're doing. I swear I'm not. I'm not blowing smoke here. You're doing great work for an industry that desperately needs you. So keep it up. And somebody told me there's a Chinese thing. A proverb kind of that says wisdom comes when you realize that you're planting seeds for trees that you might never enjoy the shade.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: But somebody will. And what you're doing is creating this sort of legacy memorial thing around everything that goes on in Jack's brain, and you're sharing it with the world. And there's gonna be bankers long after you and I are gone. They're going to be listening to your work and saying, Wow, this is still impacting me today. So don't take that for granted. You're doing incredible work. And I really am honored that you had me.

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Jack Hubbard: Well, thank you so much. You know you and and your colleague, and I was trying to remember her name.

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Jack Hubbard: and she's great.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: He's my heat seeking missile man she gets locked on. She's not letting go.

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Jack Hubbard: And and you asked me, and she asked me what you could do for me.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Yeah.

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Jack Hubbard: You mentioned, you were pretty well connected to John Maxwell.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Yeah.

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Jack Hubbard: I would love to have John Maxwell on my show.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Oh, okay, I'll ask if he can't. 1 of the other people can. But yeah, yeah, it's it's it's a timing thing with him. If.

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Jack Hubbard: And it's the default. It'd be the fault. So you know plenty of time. But if that, if you could make that happen, that would be.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: I can make the connection. I can make the connection for you to talk to him, and then it's all about scheduling and the audience and what I would do with him in in Rd. Which is his right hand Guy, who who's

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Don Barden Ph.D.: just as good, maybe better. But when you talk to them. Talk about how you know you have an audience where their work is needed, and that, you know, there's a big following in the banking community for Maxwell. That's kind of what they want to hear. But yeah, he'll do it as a favor. But if there's an economic impact where he can help other people.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: I think they've got the. They've got their model down where they know that whenever he speaks is it helps a lot of people, but there's enough people that pick up the phone and call that make the business side of it work. But he knows it's probably a 50 to one ratio for every one person that calls 50 people don't. But those are 50 lives that are impacted. And that's what drives him. So if you can say something on that when you do chat with them that'd be great. But yeah, I'll make the connection.

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Jack Hubbard: I appreciate it, Don. All the best with the book, and thanks again for everything you're doing. I'm going to get this to my daughter, you're

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Jack Hubbard: yeah, do you have? Well, you got an electronic copy. I sent you right.

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Jack Hubbard: I did. I sent it to her.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Okay? Good. Okay. Share that with whoever you want. We have no ego around book sales. We don't care about book sales. We care about what the book does for people, and and how that opens doors for conversation. So you have my permission to do whatever you want to with any of them. If that can help you. Put it on your show notes. Do whatever you want. I don't care. You're welcome to.

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Jack Hubbard: I really appreciate it. Thanks.

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Don Barden Ph.D.: Thank you, Jack. Have a great day.

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Jack Hubbard: Bye, now.