Don’t Stay in Your Lane

So you were a part of the first class of women at Johns Hopkins University. Did that play a big role in how you view diversity back then and now?

So it made me understand what it was like to be the minority person in a room. And it made me very sensitive to people that are struggling because they feel like they're the only one in the room. I've always tried to staff for diversity, not only diversity in the classic sense, but diversity of thought, I've always surrounded myself with teams that think differently. And it's when you create a team that is completely like-minded, you're going to make mistakes. You're all going to be very happy. You're going to violently agree with each other. And then you're going to walk off a cliff together because no one pushes back. So I try to staff for people that are strategic, that are tactical, that are operational, that are creative, that are contrarians, that love playing devil's advocate. And the team that I have at the American Red Cross, you can throw any problem in the center of that table and that team collectively will solve it because they come at it with so many different points of view. And embracing that diversity honestly, I think is what made me successful in my life because I personally don't have the need to be the smartest person in the room at all. I love teams when I'm not the smartest person in the room, because then I learn. And I like calling on people to answer questions that may be out of their lane because you get to see how they think. So, as an example, my chief financial officer is sort of the de facto chief strategy officer at my table, which is surprising, but he just thinks strategically. I’ve got a team where the least likely person answers the most complex questions because of how they think and are constructed.