An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Diversity is an organizational expectation. — Increasing diversity can help the bottom line as more and more companies have an expectation that organizations bring people of color and women to the table so that the people working on the company’s projects reflect the diversity of that company, and the world at large. Some organizations have lost business because they could not field a diverse team.
As a part of our series about “How Diversity Can Increase a Company’s Bottom Line”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Stan LaBat of Segal.
Stan is a Senior Vice President at Segal, a leading employee benefits and HR consulting firm where he leads Segal’s new client acquisition business for the corporate market. Stan is responsible for building the team, developing infrastructure, and acquiring the tools that will provide a seamless experience for new clients. He is focused on understanding companies’ business and human resources needs and assuring that Segal delivers an outstanding experience.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive into the main part of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit more. Can you share a bit of your “backstory” with us?
I’ve been happily married to a wonderful woman for nearly 32 years. I’m a “girl dad” (that term was used in my house way before it was popular in our current times) to four beautiful adult women, all gainfully employed and off the payroll! My professional career includes experience at blue-chip firms like Xerox, Amex, and Gartner. I have been in the HR consulting business for about 15 years with stops at the old Hewitt, Mercer, Buck, and now Segal. My focus has always been on adding value to what our clients are trying to accomplish by solving their toughest issues and challenges.
Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? Can you tell us the lesson or take away you took out of that story?
One that immediately comes to mind is that years ago sales leaders had “ride days.” We hopped in the car with our salespeople and visited companies with them. During one product demonstration, a prospective client interrupted the demonstration and said: “You can stop now, I’ll take two.” My rep replied with: “But wait, I have a demonstration quota and I’m not done yet!” Everyone turned to me and I said: “Consider your demo quota fulfilled.” It’s so important to read the room. When the customer is ready to buy, they will tell you. Listen, listen, listen, and don’t worry about demonstration quotas at that point.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you tell us a story about how that was relevant in your own life?
“It’s the person that is listening that is in charge.” Listening is paramount during every human interaction. If you ask a few questions and sit back and listen, you will learn all you need to know to help solve any problem. I’ve been told I come across as very contemplative, calm and even unflappable. I call it being a good listener. This skill has served me well in life and in the consultative selling profession. I once had a client meeting when my team was the last meeting of the final round for this business opportunity. The decision makers started the meeting by rattling off responses to questions that we hadn’t even asked. It turns out they had been conditioned by our competitors in prior sessions that this is how our competitors reach a resolution and so the company just wanted to get this portion over with. I suggested we take a step back and talk more about what they were trying to accomplish, what problem they were trying to fix, what would a solution here mean to them both personally and professionally, how would the solution fit in the grand scheme of what they were trying to accomplish, and discuss their overall business objectives. The client thanked us for slowing them down and really listening to them. They enjoyed talking about their business, their goals and their challenges. In their words, we were consultative. In my words, we listened, and held an interactive dialogue rather than reciting a canned presentation. We won that work.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are?
You are absolutely correct in that we all have lots of help along the way and we are all the sum total of all of that input. My parents and teachers always come to mind, and I had a professor of Ethnic Studies that I thought was especially hard on me. He wanted all of his students to connect the dots between differences in people and how we interacted with them, particularly in business. He later helped me understand that he was in fact much harder on me, but only because he saw this as a way to help me reach my potential. The world was going to be hard on me and he was getting me ready for it. Building resilience at a young age definitely helps us in life. Incidentally, I stayed in touch with this professor long after my undergraduate days were over. We often discussed how his “being hard on me” was helping my life and professional career. He loved hearing how any success I’ve achieved was in part due to him.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
Our people is what makes Segal stand out. We care, we’re objective. We don’t treat each company the same. The organizations we work with tell us all the time that our objectivity is apparent. In consulting, objectivity is everything. Maybe being a privately held company has something to do with that. We are employee-owned and don’t have financial analysts breathing down our necks in 90-day increments causing us to do unnatural things to comply with where they think the company should go. We take the time to look at each situation and truly craft a solution that fits their specialized needs. We don’t pull products off the shelf and force-fit them just because we invested in products before we knew what a client needed. That’s why I really like a phrase we use to describe Segal’s point of difference — “We provide solutions as individual as the lives we touch.”
Let me share an example with you. Lots of businesses like to debrief with prospects after they do not win a project. I like to debrief after a win. I recently asked a decision maker, “Why did you choose us?” They responded: “Segal was different. You took the time to understand our business first. You didn’t pretend to know the answer before you asked your questions. Your answer wasn’t what we wanted to hear, it was what we needed to hear. You were objective, thorough, tough — when you needed to be, and it was refreshing. We felt that your solution was tailor made for our situation.”
Are you working on any new or exciting projects now? How do you think that might help people?
At Segal, we solve problems and improve lives. Whether it’s inventing a new benefits design, reimagining compensation, or updating an employee value proposition to attract talent, we’re always helping people at the end of the day. Every project I get to work on is exciting! But one project that particularly excites me is that an organization we work with has tasked us with running their training program materials through a DE&I lens. This organization has received feedback that if they didn’t update their materials they would risk losing business. Talk about mission critical! This type of transformation is huge in terms of helping an organization with a critical and timely solution. That’s exhilarating and extremely relevant for today.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
Giving back is part of my DNA. I taught my kids from a very young age to give away 10 percent of everything they earn. They recognized the importance of donating their talent and also their time. Whether it’s volunteering at a soup kitchen, delivering food to the needy, leading a youth group or helping write resumes, I’m proud to say that we all still do these things today.
Ok. Thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the main part of our interview. This may be obvious to you, but it is not intuitive to many people. Can you articulate to our readers five ways that increased diversity can help a company’s bottom line. (Please share a story or example for each.)
- Diversity is an organizational expectation. Increasing diversity can help the bottom line as more and more companies have an expectation that organizations bring people of color and women to the table so that the people working on the company’s projects reflect the diversity of that company, and the world at large. Some organizations have lost business because they could not field a diverse team.
- Diversity sells. Diverse teams bring diversity of thought, ideas, innovation and creativity. Think of the explosion of marketing to diverse audiences today. Dennis Haysbert is selling Allstate Insurance because people that look like him buy insurance. That’s not by happenstance or accident.
- It’s a talent attraction imperative. From a talent attraction perspective, the workforce of today and tomorrow expects diversity. If you haven’t noticed, current workforces dictate what employers need to have in order to compete for their services. Diversity, equity and inclusion is at the top of their list. We see employees and potential employees voting with their feet these days. If you don’t have what people are looking for, they will find it someplace else.
- It’s a talent retention imperative. Diverse talent attracts diverse talent. What you have on the inside acts as a multiplying effect. Those employees that you already have will attract external candidates and this in turn increases employee retention. Throughout my career at Xerox we never had to look far to see “someone that looked like you.” I later understood that was purposeful. I believe Xerox was probably ahead of its time in retaining and promoting diverse talent. From the initial interviews, to upper management positions, there was always someone to gain perspective from that knew exactly where you were and what you were experiencing. I stayed there for nearly 17 years because of that diverse network. I believe many of my diverse colleagues stayed even longer in large part due to the large diverse network that had been easily built. It’s not the only way to retain talent, but it’s one of the best ways.
- Diverse teams drive institutional and cultural change. To help the bottom line, always look internally first. If you don’t reflect the external environment internally, how will you know how to serve them? Diverse teams drive the change that is needed from within by providing much-needed insights. We need not look further than today’s marketing, communications and advertising. Let’s all learn from those communities on how to increase our bottom lines. Look at whom and how they are targeting their messages across a variety of media. You will see that those messages and audiences have been diverse for some time now. They wouldn’t continue doing it if it didn’t produce an ROI. Another way diversity can impact the bottom line is by making sure that diverse teams are included in the early stages of product development. I was involved in a project where a company was going down the wrong road because they didn’t realize that a diverse perspective was needed. This company was going to name a product that had a totally different and negative connotation from the perspective of one of its key ethnic markets. We were able to save much embarrassment by soliciting input from their diverse business resource group and changed the name of the product before it went to market. Diversity can impact the bottom line in a very positive way! A case in point: people of color don’t usually contribute to savings programs at the levels that other communities do. Diverse employees can aid in the design of benefits plans that “speak the language” of targeted groups and increase savings levels. I’m aware of consultancies leveraging their business resource groups to build solutions that target diverse populations. That surely helps the bottom line, in addition to helping those targeted groups save more for longer-term needs and retirement.
What advice would you give to other business leaders to help their employees to thrive?
Be sure to set a diversity, equity and inclusion strategy. Make it more than just lip service. It’s the price of admission today. Potential employees are looking for it, current employees expect it. Highly productive work environments thrive due to diversity of thoughts, ideas, creativity and sustainability. You need this at all levels in the organization. And customers and outside communities expect you to look like they do.
What advice would you give to other business leaders about how to manage a large team?
Leaders need to hire great managers and encourage them to lead on their own. Give them the room to succeed. Set expectations and hold them accountable, but never micromanage. Check in and be present during encounters. Make yourself accessible and available.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this 🙂
I would love to dine with Martin Luther King, Jr. People often don’t know how young he was (just 32) at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. The strength and courage he had to muster over and over had to be exhausting. Yet, he always seemed poised, cool and collected. I would like to know what he really thought about lots of things!
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/stanley-labat-21722511/.
Thank you for these excellent insights. We wish you continued success in your great work.
Stan LaBat of Segal: How Diversity Can Increase a Company’s Bottom Line was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
