Unpacked with Ron Harvey
People Always Matter. Join Ron as he unpacks leadership with his guests.
Unpacked with Ron Harvey
Gang Members Make Great Employees (When You Give Them a Chance)
Tom Vozzo's journey from corporate executive to CEO of Homeboy Industries demonstrates how leadership built on authentic relationships can transform lives, particularly for those society has most marginalized.
• Leaving a 26-year corporate career after questioning whether shareholder value should always come before employee welfare
• Discovering that former gang members and previously incarcerated individuals make excellent employees when given proper support
• Building an organization where two-thirds of management came from the formerly incarcerated population they serve
• Creating a community focused on healing trauma rather than punishing past mistakes
• Challenging businesses to hire from marginalized populations as part of their community commitment
• Breaking conventional leadership wisdom by treating people individually rather than worrying about precedent
• Finding deeper spirituality through serving others and witnessing their transformation
• Learning that people want to work hard and succeed when given genuine opportunities
• Recognizing that effective leaders find joy through others' success rather than personal achievement
Visit Homeboy Industries online or find Tom's book "The Homeboy Way" on Amazon to learn more about investing in people society has forgotten.
Connect with Ron
Just Make A Difference: Leading Under Pressure by Ron Harvey
“If you don’t have something to measure your growth, you won’t be self-aware or intentional about your growth.”
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Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and guests and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any organization or entity. The information provided in this podcast is intended for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered as professional advice. Listeners should consult with their own professional advisors before implementing any suggestions or recommendations made in this podcast. The speakers and guests are not responsible for any actions taken by listeners based on the information presented in this podcast. The podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice or services. The speakers and guests make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the information, products, services, or related graphics contained in this ...
Welcome to Turning Point Leadership Podcast with your host, ron Harvey of Global Core Strategies and Consulting. Ron's delighted you joined us and excited to discuss and help you navigate your journey towards becoming an effective leader. During this podcast, ron will share his core belief that effective leadership is one of the key drivers towards change. So together let's grow as leaders. Here's Ron Harvey.
Speaker 2:Good afternoon. This is Ron Harvey, the Vice President, the Chief Operating Officer for Global Corps. We're based out of Columbia, south Carolina.
Speaker 2:For those that follow us on a weekly basis, everything leadership. We spend all of our time trying to help leaders be better connected to the people that they really are responsible for and responsible to. I truly believe leadership is not about the leader, it's about the people that counted us to get it right, and so we spend all of our time helping organizations figure that out, as leaders are struggling in this space across the board. But we always pause and we do our recordings and we release the podcast every single Monday and it's from leaders across the globe with all different backgrounds, different perspectives, and I always want to invite those leaders to share, because we see it so many different ways, and I'm super excited I have Tom on with us who's going to share a lot of information throughout the podcast, but I'm super excited to have him, so I'm going to pause, hand him the microphone and let him introduce himself however he wishes and we'll dive into the unpacking piece of it.
Speaker 3:All right, thank you, ron, appreciate being with you. Okay, to introduce myself, I'm Tom Bozo. I'm the CEO of Homeboy Industries, and Homeboy is a nonprofit in Los Angeles, and our mission is to help men and women leave gang life. So when folks come out of the prison system, they really don't want to go back to their neighborhood and turn to the gang for help. They'd rather do something different, and so they walk through our doors and we help them with a whole host of services. We also run social enterprise businesses, where we teach them, really for the first time in their life, to be at a job and to show up, but what we're about, though, is helping people heal from their trauma. So I'm the CEO.
Speaker 3:Homeboy's been around for over 30 years. I've been in this role now for 12 years. Prior to that, I was Aramark Corporation, so I ran a $2 billion set of uniform businesses for Aramark with 18,000 employees, and it was quite successful, and I love that. Part of my first chapter of my career is to run a big for-profit business and really win in the marketplace and do well for its employees. But, through friends of mine after I left corporate America, they introduced me to Homeboy, and I became inspired to try to put my business skills to use in a different way, and now I've learned so much more about myself, about the struggles of the working poor, but also about leadership.
Speaker 3:and what other lessons are there from learning and working with folks who have been in gangs?
Speaker 2:Yeah, tom, thank you for sharing. I mean, you know so those of you that are listening, you know two different things you've done. You had a career and after that career you figured out what else was next and what was important. You know you're in corporate America, had a really, really successful career. Was it something that you were just missing that made you do the transition?
Speaker 3:I had a great 26 year career, mark, and I love that part of my life, my first chapter. But look, a well-run company is three things it does well for its shareholders, so it's competitive in the marketplace, it's got products and services someone wants to pay money for and thirdly, you make it a great place to work for your employees. And so if you can keep all three in balance, you've got a great company, and we did. But there's one part of the corporate America that sort of always nagged at me. You know, listen, I'm a capitalist. Even while I do homeboy speeches, I still say I'm a capitalist, that well-run companies are good for our society. But you know, in our capital markets right now, it always has been that shareholder value, shareholders come before employees, and so when push comes to shove, it's the employees who sort of suffer.
Speaker 3:And back in 2008,. My seminal moment was in 2008, which we had a big recession. Back then Everything shrunk by 10% and I remember I had to resize my business, just like you do in the business world, and I thought we were doing pretty good. And so our businesses that year, my businesses that year, we're going to finish with $140 million of profit of profit, not revenue, profit and we're going to miss our number by $10 million. And I still remember being on the phone with the chairman and he was berating me that that wasn't good enough, that I needed to get that last $10 million back in the biggest recession in 50 years, and at that moment I thought I know what it's going to take to take that last $10 million out. I'm going to have to let more employees go, folks who have dedicated their life to the company, folks I know I'm going to need in a couple more years.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 3:I'm doing that because of short-term profits, and so something sat in me that this doesn't feel right all the time. Whereas I enjoyed, like I said, I enjoyed the business world, I enjoyed succeeding, leading the teams I wondered something that made me say is there a different way to conducting business where employees are at the same level of shareholders? And so a few years later I remarked a very successful story. It was a private company, public company, private company. So I got to be there for a few of those transactions and so I was able to leave and I didn't think I'd work again. And then I show up.
Speaker 3:A friend of mine asked me to meet him for Homegirl Cafe for lunch. And so that friend has been. I'm a friend of his because we're on the board of Salvation Army of Los Angeles together. Look, eric Mark always taught us, although we have a national business, international business, whatever community you live in, try to give back and be part of charities. And so when my Salvation Army board member friend invited me to Homegirl Cafe, which is right downtown Los Angeles, I come down to meet. And I knew nothing about Homeboy, what it was about, but I'm sitting there having lunch with my friend and he was clearly trying to get me involved with the Homeboy in terms of being a board member.
Speaker 3:But I'm having lunch and I'm looking at the employees and I'm realizing that I'm looking at them. They're doing pretty well, they're working hard, they're engaging with the customer, they're taking instructions from their supervisor, they're smiling with each other and look for me, like back in my last eight years in the corporate world I had made 40 acquisitions in eight years and sold five companies. So you get a sense for the workforce and whether it matches your values. And so sitting there in the Homegirl cafe looking at the employees, I'm thinking, oh, they're pretty good employees. And I'm also realizing I would have never hired any of them in my for-profit job.
Speaker 3:You know, they had tattoos on their face, they had felonies, they were gang members, no way. But here is this workforce that Homeboy is really lifting up and helping. And so it challenged me to think, oh, I'm a hotshot CEO. I thought I knew a lot about well-run companies and what that can do for society, but here's Homeboy really helping out the most demonized and forgotten. So when my friend asked me to get involved, I said yes because I wanted to see if I could put my business skills to use in a different way and I thought I'd be here for six months to a year to help them out, and they were going through a financial crunch at the time.
Speaker 2:And here I am, 12 years later, just love this chapter of my career.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I was fascinated by it as I read the bio and team reached out and to get us on the call together as you worked when you first came on as CEO, you came in without compensation, right. As you worked when you first came on as CEO, you came in without compensation, right, yeah, I mean because they were in a financial crunch. And when you think of leadership, did you pick that up in corporate America or was it always instilled in you from coming up as a kid that sometimes you got to give back? And it can't always be about money.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, it was definitely. My parents taught us that to give back and to share what you have. But you know it's a little funny dynamic though. All of us in our society, in our world, you know you sort of measure yourself against your compensation, right.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:Even when I say now I realize how silly that sounds right, but you know, you kind of validate yourself by what you get paid. I was a volunteer for a couple of months and then the founder asked me to come on board as the CEO. So I said yes, and so you know, I had some sort of nominal compensation there. And then, like two months later, we got into financial crisis. Yes, and I realized right then I mean it was right in front of my face. Look, this is.
Speaker 3:While I ran a $2 billion set of businesses, I had a lot of challenges, right, this homeboy job is one of the hardest jobs. High cost of failure, because I know they're out running with the gangs and doing violent crimes and going back into prison system High cost of failure. And so you know, thankfully. Again back to the Aramark days. I went through a couple of transactions my wife and I did well, so I didn't need the money, and so the money at that point was more about sort of just saying you know, whatever, it was just some false measurement, right, but here it's like no, I can hire four more homies for the same salary. So one thing led to another and that's how we ended up playing out the rest of the 12 years, but I just love this job. I love what it has done for me and how I've grown in my own spirituality, my own view of people, and it's just been wonderful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love it. I mean, my wife and I run a business and I always tell people in Columbia, south Carolina, that if we can help them be successful, that's what it's about. We're better. We're retired Army 21 years and wanted to do something bigger than you know. Even going into the Army was bigger than me. It was about serving the country, and now in my community, it's about serving the community.
Speaker 2:You mentioned something earlier, though. Tom, I want to unpack with you. I mean you have a phenomenal resume. There's a lot of stuff we can talk about. I mean, you've had a stellar career, but for the people that's listening you mentioned something earlier two things. One was if you are going to make money in the community, give back to the community, like as a business owner or a corporate company. How important is that for leaders to really do that and do it consistently? Because you're making money in the community, how important is it for us to give back as business owners or people that are earning a really good living in our communities? How important is it to give back to our communities?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it's important to give back. I mean, obviously none of us would be successful without the community around us, without the people who come and transact, buyer goods or services and all that, the obvious thing. A vibrant community sort of lifts all businesses up right. So it's important to give back. I want to say give back is really in three ways. Give back is obviously donate money, which is fine. So for a lot of years I made a lot of money, I donated a lot of money, so that's good. Second, give back is volunteer time. If you're running your business you don't always have a lot of time, but if you can be on a board or if you can send one of your employees to, if you've got a marketing expert, go send them to a local nonprofit because they don't have any marketing experts. Just give them those free services along the way.
Speaker 3:And the third thing I want to say if possible, please hire the working poor. And I want to talk a little bit more about this. I've learned at Homeboy. Look back at Aramark we had. You know there wasn't a sexy thing. We were a uniform business. We picked up dirty laundry. We have food at stadiums, we delivered, we served food, hot dogs and coffee, that type of thing. So we had a lot of frontline employees. So we had a lot of frontline employees.
Speaker 3:But Homeboy was able to learn is that we're able to take the most demonized, forgotten people in our society and lift them up out of poverty by coming to Homeboy and learning to heal and learning job skills. Poverty rate in America has been the same 45 years. We haven't changed. It's still a narrow band of 12 to 13% of our society is in poverty. And how do you fix that? You get more people, jobs, more people, a little bit better paying jobs, quality jobs. So I'm saying at Homeboy boy, if we can take the most demonized and be able to get them a job after they are with Homeboy, then business America, corporate America, you know, take the next 10% of your hires and hire the working poor, but you have to give them services around, you have to help them.
Speaker 3:And let me say one more thing about that. First of all, my point is third point investing into people, giving them jobs, is going to make a difference in our societies, in our local communities, right. And then for our folks who are the working poor they got challenges, got a lot of challenges. They want to do a good job all the time. What gets in their way is their home life and sometimes we as businesses we have programs need to give them the extra chance. So when my assistant, who's a homegirl, you know, does a wonderful job, lives in a shelter with her daughter, just is fiercely loyal, wants to move her daughter forward, you know, tough gang member, all that stuff right, but she does a good job for me when you know she's.
Speaker 3:You know this is a couple of years ago. We had a. We're a nonprofit, so we have a quarterly board meeting. You know we have a board meeting at 7.30 in the morning. You know she would get here at 6.45, make sure the papers are out on the table, the water's there.
Speaker 3:The night before one of our board meetings her parole officer calls her up and says that she needs to be reported to his office at 8 am the next day and she says no, I have a job, they need me to do this job. And he said I don't care, if you're not here by 8, am I'm going to violate your parole, which means go back into prison, because he was going on a power trip right Now. We're a homeboy. We said go take care of your business, it's fine. Probably other companies would say fine, but would she be so shameful that she wouldn't tell her employer yes, she's got to report in and then thereby she would have a tardy or late and then be viewed as a problem employee. So my point is our folks are great, loyal workers, hard workers. You just got to give them more latitude and leeway to help them through their struggles in life.
Speaker 2:I totally agree. I mean, oftentimes what you see on the surface is not the issue. And how do you just dig a little deeper, care a little more, do a little more? You know when you think about leadership and if you're making profit or nonprofit, what is it about you that you've learned about you caring a little more? Because I got it, you took care of stakeholders and profit share, but now it's this thing of was something triggered where you realized that you really care a little bit more, and it's not just about the numbers.
Speaker 3:It's interesting how you ask that question.
Speaker 3:It's realizing that all of us, and even you know the business world, can impact other people's lives. Even though I didn't grow up a gang member I didn't, I wasn't incarcerated right by being there, in relationship with them, they are changing their life. It's not like I'm telling them what to do, wagging my finger, it's just being in relationship with them changes life. And then and that's the beauty of being a homeboy I put in these terms I don't know if this works for your audience or not but, like you, see God. I see God's presence every day at homeboys, because we're with our folks. They're with us for 18 months. So you see, when they come in at the beginning they're raw, they're angry, they're broken, and then we see them all through those 18 months and how they just sort of just develop and learn to smile and be authentic and move their life forward. And just by me doing my job as a CEO I'm part of that team that helps that happen and that's realizing wow, all of us can make a difference in other people's lives.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes and yes, you're using all the right language. So everybody knows I invite people from all walks of life. So thank you, you do get to see God in those things. If you just do the right thing, you'll see it show up. You mentioned something earlier, tom. If you can unpack it for us you talked about organizations and isn't in alignment with your values. So when you're running an organization and you think about profit but sometimes you can work for organizations out of alignment how do you help leaders make sure that their personal values which I believe we all have these personal values and then you walk into organization and they're not in alignment? How do you help leaders make that distinction that, hey, figure that out. And how important is it to be in alignment with what your values are, along with core values of an organization?
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's a lot in there. I've done a lot of thinking about this and why we're doing this. One of the reasons why we do this interview is because I wrote a book about Homeboy right and so it's called the Homeboy Way and why I started my. I'm going to be a long answer to your question.
Speaker 3:When I first came into Homeboy like it was 26 years in corporate America, like I kind of grew up with the philosophy, hey, show me the rules and within the rules I'll win and be successful, right. Other people want to break the rules. I'll stay within the lines Right and be successful. So I come to Homeboy and it's like I'm like they didn't need me to improve their mission. They do a wonderful job. I've done a wonderful job of helping people leave gang life behind. They needed me to kind of run their work. How do you run a successful? How do you thrive? How do you find the money? How do you keep it going right? So it was a great learning situation for me, because I know I didn't have to sort of do much about the mission. I just had to sort of just had to listen and it's that listening that makes the biggest difference in realizing that how I would treat a certain employee situation. From all my 26 years, homeboy did it differently, almost like 180 degrees different.
Speaker 3:And so from early on I wanted to write a book about oh my gosh, there's so much to be learned here at Homeboy. If I would ever go back into the corporate world, what would I bring back? And so in writing the book then I sort of sort of you know, then you have to make a big book, you have to make enough content. So then I started thinking about your question about values and about how that situates right. And so I guess I want to say it this way now, if you're a leader, you get to set the values.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, you bring your culture along, you hire the people that sort of have same values, may not same style, may not same abilities, but same values. Right, there are very few like sole leaders, whether the owner of the company, but like even me, when I ran a two billion dollar company, I reported the chairman. So what I want to say don't be so stressed if, like the company, higher ups don't have your same core values. Right, obviously never do anything illegal, immoral or unethical. Right, you can't always change the company's values from your one position in that company, but do great for your team, the people who work for you right, and make sure they understand your values, because you're leading them every day along the way and, importantly, it's okay to have a good paying job and you're doing well for them.
Speaker 1:But you have a life outside.
Speaker 3:Of work, that's the other thing. I've learned it's important to balance your life with. If you want to live out your values. It doesn't always have to be at work, it could be at home, and what you do outside of work is also important. So it's now through the leader you get to set the temperature and the template and then go for it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love it. I mean so you've been in the role now going on 12 years. You don't have the background of the people that you're serving, and so thank you for sharing that. But what did you learn about yourself from people that, as you said, the most demonized? You know part of our population that people don't want to appreciate. What did they teach you about you?
Speaker 3:First of all, it's the community here at Homeboy. Father Greg, our founder Jesuit priest, started Homeboy Industries 38 years ago as his first stop as a parish priest was in East Los Angeles, which in the 90s was the gang. Half a cent of gang violence in Los Angeles and even today Los Angeles is the gang capital of the state, which makes it the gang capital of the country, which makes it the gang capital of the world A lot of gang members. And so Father Greg, hit upon if you get these young men a job where they can make enough money for the basics of food and shelter, they're not running with the gang to get that money for food and shelter and then over the years moved into more helping folks heal. And so at Homeboy we have this beautiful community that we accept everybody in. We don't judge them for the gang they were in or their felony or their tattoos. We don't ask too much about their past. It's about helping them heal and forming positive relationships. For the first time we have social enterprise businesses that help them job skills along the way. There's nothing better than having two rival gang members at the bread table rolling go to make bread for the day, because it breaks down the barriers and breaks down their hatreds and they know they've got to get a certain amount of bread baked that day. And the beauty is recognizing that you don't demonize somebody relationship with.
Speaker 3:And the other learning is there's a lot of learning. One of the other learning is back to the beginning. Like people want to work hard, so just just don't. If they're not getting their job, then it's not because they don't care, it's just that something else is in their life that's causing the situation. Another learning is there's no such thing as bad people. All good, we all have God's goodness in us along the way, and so I was happy to have it because all those three things I just said we grew up learning those stuff, but I see them in action at Homeboy, which really cemented it in my brain.
Speaker 3:But what Homeboy has helped me is on my own faith journey, and obviously we're founders. A Jesuit priest, one would think. Well, that's why I'm on the faith journey. But no, no, it's the homies. It's seeing how they are transforming their life. And they transform their life when they start learning to love themselves. When they love themselves, they can love their family and they can form those positive relationships. And this is my observation and they say it this way, they start loving themselves when they finally understand deep down that God loves them no matter what. Yes, and that is an amazing lesson to learn and to try to follow. And when I've now stopped judging myself, I've stopped trying to measure up, I've stopped all those things, because if a guy can been in solitary confinement for three years, he comes out and he knows God loves him and he's changing his life. I can do it as well. Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:So when you think about your role as a leader and what you've learned from the homies, what do you share with leaders? You talked a lot about relationships and you said that it's the relationship that you're having. I can say that in my 21 years of serving in the army that I learned more about relationships probably the latter part of my career than I learned the first part. I thought it was about my knowledge and my position and my control and all these other things attributes that you want to say. How would you share with leaders that are listening to help them understand the real value of a authentic, helpful relationship?
Speaker 3:Hmm, you're right. I mean, what makes my life balanced is I find joy. I decided I'm working to find joy and there's no doubt that you find joy through others and it's that sense of I'm going to find joy with the people at Homeboy. Now I know I'm in charge and that's the thing. Like in the corporate world, there's hierarchy. You think like you can't have a relationship with somebody too down. Yes, like how am I going to get these frontline homies coming in? Whether it's a quick meal in the lunchroom or talk about the football game or just you know, they come into my office and ask for individual advice for things. It's having that relationship where joy happens.
Speaker 2:It's mutual. That's what we all need to learn. Yeah, I mean because you're going from this position of hey, see me where I am, and if you don't do a really good job, that disconnect doesn't allow you to serve or help the people that you really are supposed to help, the people that can really use you at the level that you're at. The people that can really use you they're not the ones that's closest to you, they're the ones that has the furthest distance away from you that can really use what you're there for. I think that's important. What do you tell a leader that gets stuck in titles and positions and ego? How does that get in the way of you helping? Because I really believe leadership is service? How does that get in the way of serving those that need you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, no doubt. I mean serving leadership is the way to do it. You have a great team around you. You keep investing in them, like everywhere has ever been. It's like, hey, my team makes me look better, right, and so we all succeed together and that's a value thing. So I don't know, I don't know, I'm going to like maybe not answer your question. Either you have that value that you're going to be team oriented or not.
Speaker 3:I mean, if you're going to be a lone Ranger. You're going to be a lone Ranger. You know I'm not going to convince you. Otherwise may not have a happy life, but it's about seeing other people rise up. Your pleasure should be in other people's success.
Speaker 2:Yes, I love it and you watch it in sports all the time. You try to be the one player that has all the answers, make all the points and you destroy your team in the locker room. Once you lose the locker room, you're in trouble.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, no doubt about it.
Speaker 2:Yes, you're in trouble For the work that you're currently doing. You mentioned earlier that people that have been formerly incarcerated they're not trying to go back. What do you say to other businesses and communities paying attention to those people that have been incarcerated to give them a second chance, to help them become productive in society so they can have a good job and take care of their families. They're not really trying to be incarcerated again. What do you say to the community everybody that's listening, because I think in America we're finally having the conversation. 15 years ago we didn't want to have this conversation, you're right.
Speaker 3:No, no, you're right, I want to, you're right. No, no, you're right. I want to take the kind of the pure business talk point of view. Yes, listen, most of the folks who refuse incarcerated, come out and take on frontline entry-level jobs. Right, minimum wage, a little bit more than minimum wage jobs. If they wanted to run and do crime and gangs, they can make a lot more money on the street. Yes, I mean they're. By them taking on that job that pays a couple bucks above the minimum wage, they're saying, hey, I want to earn an honest day's wage. Yes, they do, they do, they do. They know deep down in the heart what they've been doing is wrong, but they've had no other way of surviving. People have survival skills and so we at Homeboy recognize that. We're not saying we're going to look past those crime and they have to go do their time and then when they come out, let's help them. And so they want to do a good job because they're getting that paid. Hey, they've never worked.
Speaker 3:Most people that have been incarcerated that we've worked with they've never worked. Most people that have been incarcerated that we've worked with they've never worked anywhere in their whole life, so it's their first job you've given them, so you've got to really like the rest of us, since I had this muscle memory of things we just kind of take for granted that people should know at work. Right, they don't know. Think about the last guy that comes out in the 15-year stint. He doesn't even know what a smartphone is Right, and so he's not going to know some of the stuff at work. So A you have to overtrain them or train them a lot and teach them. You know they're going to want to do the work and they're going to have other challenges whether they have family reunification issues, whether they abuse drugs in the prison system so they're going to have challenges they're going to have to work through. So while they may not be the best worker right away, you hang with them. They're going to be among your best workers long-term.
Speaker 2:You've managed to earn the trust of the people that you're responsible for serving, and I know the organization brought you in for what they needed, but to have a relationship and take care of the people that need it the most. How do you help leaders that are listening, whether they're new in leadership or whether they've been there for a while, to build more trust with the people that need their help?
Speaker 3:Well, let me give you two the answer in the frame of Homeboy and maybe it resonates with folks and their roles right. On one hand, they see me fighting every day to help get resources for Homeboy.
Speaker 3:Homeboy's really their only spot that's ever invested in them and tried to help them. And so, yeah, they see me fighting at it and working hard and to do all that and there's not just called the way it is. I mean, like up here is white man, old white man, profile at a corporate executive, coming in right dealing with folks who are very, very diverse population, and so on the surface they, you know, look, there's all sorts of racism. Yes, the folks that we work with have all sorts of real racism and discrimination in their background, and the way gangs' culture is set up, it is gang against gang, race against race, and so people come in really bitter, bitter, bitter, and we help them. Don't deal with the race issue, don't deal with the gang issue, deal with the gang member or the person, and we help. Kind of quell that.
Speaker 3:But they see me fighting for them. They see me sort of going to Governor Newsom's office and saying here's the money we need, right, and so they see that. So every day, showing up and working to help them out. Second, though, is and this is where I think other people can learn as well I've worked really hard to grow our leadership talent from within, so now two thirds of our management team were once former clients, and so to me it was really important to have these men and women who are really I mean, they're great natural leadership skills, and so I kind of taught them the managerial skills as well and then put them at all this, so not just frontline managers they're at the director level, VP level five, my executive team, Right.
Speaker 3:And so when the new homies that we call them trainees see, hey, I knew that guy in prison from 10 years ago. Now he's running this big department, Right, that goes a long way. And look, I'm not doing that just to get credit, I just doing that. Know that for homeboy to thrive in the future he needs to be run by homeboys. So sort of investing in the population is really makes a difference.
Speaker 2:I love it. I mean you're working hard for him every day, investing in the population and you know the future is homeboys. You know being able to run that organization at some point, that has experience with it, and I love that. You're being transparent. You know you say hey, I'm walking in as an older white guy. You know racism is challenges, they're in gangs and they come with a lot of hatred, but that doesn't mean that it has to stay that way. So you know you invest it. Yeah, there's opportunities to change it and make it go better, which I'm sure you touch in your book. I mean, can I mean, can you share? I mean I know you have the book and I want to make sure people know about it because we're trying to work better with our people that have been incarcerated, formerly incarcerated. Tell us a little bit about the book. What do you want people to walk away from? You wrote it and you had to make it longer. What do you want people to walk away from?
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, one is that invest in this population, hire the working poor, hire the people I'm talking about and provide support services around it. You know cause? Not everything is sort of the way we learned in corporate America, right.
Speaker 3:And in the end, I sort of talked about 50, 50 rules of thumb and we all need to break 50 conventional wisdom ideas. We need to kind of go against the conventional wisdom, but like one, like one that we grew up with in the corporate world is like, as anybody growing up doing well, you want to get promoted. And so you say to that somebody hey, do the job for three to six months. If you do well, we'll give you a promotion and we'll give you a raise. Well, homeboy world, that doesn't work, because all their life our folks have been promised things, been told things, and that they would be helped out, and they just never get there.
Speaker 3:So what I had to realize? Oh, have to sort of see the talent and put them in the job and then say what we expect of them, and then they rise, and they rise to the occasion. And so there's sort of this, this concepts of treating people individually. Right, don't worry about setting precedent in your company, just treat people individually. So there's a bunch of these concepts in there. And so there's that. There's how a guy like me who grew up in corporate America, while I was a churchgoer my faith wasn't so deep I found my deep spiritual faith, and there's a whole bunch of stuff in there about social justice and how, as a society, how we invest in people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love it. Thank you for allowing us to unpack a lot with you. I mean, you went deep on a lot of things and for all you that follow us on the podcast, you know we just have a conversation about the person that's in front of us. They never know the questions, but I will tell you that it's never failed that they come on and talk about what's useful at the moment and where we are. I mean, I couldn't think of a better person to talk about where we are as a country and dealing with our people that have been formerly incarcerated.
Speaker 2:If we say we have a workforce shortage, then there's a population that we can bring in to help cover those gaps across board. And they're coming in and they're saying I just want to earn an honest living. And you're right too, tom. They can go in and make money, more money, doing it the wrong way, but they've chosen they don't want to do it the wrong way anymore. So they'll take that job and they'll figure it out, but make sure you reward them and get to them. Is there anything you want to share as closing remarks? I would love for you to tell us where to find the book. Any closing remarks you leave with leaders.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for sure. So books on Amazon Come also at Homeboy. We have a lot of content about people, about compassion, about kinship, about how our secret sauce is love and nonjudgment along the way. So come to our web pages, our Facebook pages along the way. So come to our web pages, our Facebook pages. But you know, let me just sort of end by the lesson I've learned in listening to Father Greg. Pretty quick, pretty short. God is too busy loving us to be judging us. Yes.
Speaker 2:Just hold on to that.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you so much for sharing and for all of us listening, we released a podcast. You know, tom, thank you so much for sharing, thank you for what you're doing in that community. It's needed, and coming out of corporate America and finding yourself again. Thank you for being transparent about that For everyone that's listening. Feel free to reach out to Tom or myself If you want to hear more of his story. Please go to Homeboy's website. There's a ton of information out there for you to be able to get access and resources. If you want to reach Tom, you can reach him there as well. I'm sure he'll be happy to come on the podcast.
Speaker 2:If you're hosting podcasts out there to talk about this. Let's help to get the message out more than just to LA or to California. It's across our entire country. So thank y'all for following us on Unpacked with Ron Harvey. As always, we appreciate you. Share the link, tell people about what we're doing here. We want to make a difference and not just make it look good. We talk real and we answer real questions. So, tom, thank you and for the rest of you, have a wonderful day, and thank you for joining us on Unpacked with Ron Harvey.
Speaker 1:We hope you enjoyed this edition of Turning Point Leadership with your host, Ron Harvey. We're so glad you joined us. Remember to join us every first and third Mondays and expect to receive real answers for real leadership challenges. Until next time, make a difference where you are and with what you have. There are those who are counting on you for effective leadership.
