4. VP of HR, Golden State Warriors

Intro: Duration: (1:23)

Opening music jingle & sound effects

Jeff Hunt:

This is human capital, a GoalSpan podcast and I'm Jeff Hunt. Human Capital is the place where I interview top business thought leaders to uncover the deeply human aspect of working. On today's show we will talk about turning disruption into growth, the connection between diversity and belonging, we get to see what it looks like to run human resources and business operations at a sports franchise that has won six national championships and is valued at four point three billion.

My guest today is Erin Dangerfield who is vice president of human resources at the Golden State Warriors. She is a strategic thinker and HR executive whose career includes experience working in complex, multi-state, and multinational environments, in a myriad of industries, and at the Warriors she has the pleasure of managing all human resource functions. Welcome, Erin.

Erin Dangerfield:

Thank you! I'm excited to be here Jeff.

Jeff Hunt:

How are you doing today?

Erin Dangerfield:

I'm doing all right, you know, it's a clear air day here in Bay Area and so I think it's our third in a row. Very appreciative of it.

Topic 1. Guest's Background and Career. How Do You Run a Sports Franchise? (1:24)

Jeff Hunt:

So thankful after three weeks of being absolutely asphyxiated in smoke from the California fires, we finally have some good air so, I'm so thankful for that as well. I really appreciate you coming on the show today and just I'm looking forward to our conversation because I know you've got so much experience to bring to bear for our listening audience. So, I always like to start with a common question.

And that's, tell us your journey about your journey into business and so what I mean is who in or what in your younger life inspired you to go into business and specifically into HR.

Erin Dangerfield:

Yeah, so I don't think I even knew an HR was when I was a young person until I was actually doing HR, but I will start by saying that I was a big participant in youth sports. I'm a huge fan of youth sports. I was running track and cross-country at five-six years old, all the way into college, and I think that you learn so much about setting long-term goals, and dealing with setbacks, and incorporating feedback, and coaching really quickly. And you might run a race and fail, and have to come back an hour later and get right back at it.

So I think that those lessons that I learned over all of those years, really prepared me for a career in business, because so much of it is about looking out not just in your career, but in a business at what the goals are, and how you're going to get there, and work methodically towards them, and deal with setbacks, and incorporate feedback, and coaching, so for me I think that was really the foundation. And my dad was a coach for me, my mom showed up to every single event that I ever participated in, even when I didn't want her to in high school sometimes.

So I think that they just had a huge influence. My mom worked at a bank and I used to see her running with her trench coat and the 80s to catch the bus, and thought it was so glamorous, and I wanted to do the same. So, after college I moved back to the Bay area after a few years of working, and couldn't find a job in banking, and I got into HR, and I majored in economics, in part because of my dad.

I wanted to major on anthropology, and he had a very serious conversation with me about my career prospects graduating with an anthropology degree. And so, I picked economics because there is a big social science aspect to that, which I really enjoy. And HR has so much in common with economics and so I think that it was like a light bulb went off I was in a part-time temporary HR role and ended up loving it and decided to make it my career from there.

Jeff Hunt:

Fantastic. What a great story and really a story of inspiration how you're you know, it's about the people that are surrounding you and supporting you like your parents, and then the experiences you have. Especially in the sports arena, there are so many crossovers aren't there? With the competitive nature of it and the team orientation and having to work together with other people and achieving individual goals, so I think that's truly awesome and it's also kind of ironic and fun that you're now at the Warriors.

Erin Dangerfield:

I mean I grew up in Oakland so I would have never imagined working for the Warriors. in fact I don't think I've even known that you could have a job in sports that wasn't a coach, or an athlete, or like a trainer, until I was an adult and so it certainly wasn't something I was pursuing as a goal but, when the opportunity presented itself, I don't think you can turn down an interview with the Warriors.

Jeff Hunt:

Not at all, well that's great! Let's stay on that for a minute because I think so many of our listeners don't really understand what it looks like to run such a formidable sports franchise. Tell us a little bit about day to day, what does it look like to run people operations? Tell us a little bit about things organizationally.

Erin Dangerfield:

Yeah, So, it's really not that much different on a day-to-day basis than running HR at any other organization. We have all of the function that you typically expect at a business finance, and accounting, and marketing, and IT, and so a lot of my day-to-day work is dealing with the same types of issues that you deal with anywhere else, how do we compensate people in a way that motivates them? and what employee relations issues are we trying to address? and how do we train and coach and provide feedback and all of those things? so we on a day-to-day basis deal with. The same thing that most HR people do.

We do have an arena, that we operate and put on events, although we're not doing that now unfortunately, and so we have thousands of employees come in, and some of the work directly for us, some work for third-party partners, and dealing with that can be interesting.

These aren’t folks that you see every day, but they’re absolutely critical to the success of the organization. So, figuring out how to make those connections, and make people really feel belonging, and understand the role they play, is a big part of what we do, and partnering with their managers. And then we have the players, and everybody always wants to know, do you do HR for the players? And we don't get that involved in basketball operations obviously workers comp, benefits, things like that we handle, but on a day-to-day basis we don't deal too much with bb ops.

Topic 2. T.E.A.M. Core Values. (6:58)

Jeff Hunt:

Really cool. So, you mentioned all these people, you have internal people, you have contractors, you have quite a number of people that are actually running that entire organization, and that brings me a little bit to the values that you feel are most important for your organization. Talk to me about your core values and maybe you can also share what some examples are of how you've seen those lived out in the workplace?

Erin Dangerfield:

Yeah. So, our core values spell out T.E.A.M. Trust, Empathy, Accountability, and Modesty. And I think that going into shelter in place, it's a moment of adversity for many businesses, and we're certainly no different, and any time you find yourself in that situation as an organization or as an individual, it brings out the best in you, and also shine the light on some areas of opportunity, and so I think that we found that while we were doing pretty well in our values and everybody could name them and we have that apart of our performance of appraisal process, that we needed to beef up in some areas.

Over the summer, we introduced seven weeks of anti-racism training, following the murder of George Floyd, and had huge participation, and we found that people were having really authentic conversations, and being very vulnerable with each other, and there was a lot of trust and a lot of empathy, which are two of our values. And we and we wondered why we weren't getting that level of depth in some of our other conversations, and really had to examine what about that was causing people to be more vulnerable and how we could really duplicate that in the organization. So, for us values are our values really are about constantly trying to identify ways to improve.

With trust we have talked about setting sort of core understanding, then a baseline understanding of how we expect everyone to behave, and come to work in an effort to build trust. Accountability is definitely part of that as well because you have to trust that the feedback we're giving you is from a good place, and assume has been intent so, we constantly talk about assuming positive intent. Empathy again really trying to understand where people coming from, and I think shelter in place has magnified the need for that, and I believe we stepped up to the challenge there. And then modesty is particularly important when you've had a run like we've had last. We've had a really great run, on the court and off the court, and so, making sure that we stay humble, and say modest, and continue to push towards our goals, and not rest on our laurels, has been a really important part of the organization something we've stepped up even more now that we find ourselves in this uncertain time.

Jeff Hunt:

That's great. I'm just reflecting on how much more people want to follow leaders that embody humility versus those that embody pride and it's all about them, so I really applaud you guys, and it's also something that's easily destructed or destroyed but it's very difficult to keep up and maintain, isn't it?

Erin Dangerfield:

It is! you know, everyone says when you're winning team, there's kind of a joke in the industry, when you're winning team the hot dogs taste better and the beer is colder. And so it can be easy, I think for organizations to make the mistake of, particularly in sports of thinking that, there's nothing to improve, or that you are the best at everything because things are going well on the field or on the court and so, we really make a concerted effort to make sure that we don't make that mistake in thinking, oh no our hot dogs really do taste better than everyone else’s. That's not the case all the time is that we have to continually strive to make things better, and to innovate, and to do the best we can.

Topic 3. The Masks We Wear. (11:06)

Jeff Hunt:

Exactly, well talking about trust and sort of staying on this theme of your core values. I want to talk about you know, reflect on the fact that Halloween is just around the corner and so you know to play on this theme.

People wear masks, and they wear them in the workplace even though they're they may look invisible, and thinking about your comments about trust, masks are often worn when there are low trust levels, and wearing a mask might mean me not sharing my true self with my boss or my coworkers because my vulnerability may be used against me, it might mean that I'm not going to share my opinion out of fear because once again it could be used against me.

I may not be authentic or perhaps, there's a lack of alignment between my words and my actions and so. you know you just talked a little bit about this, but I'd love it if you could expand more on what some things you do are internally to promote this sort of vulnerability-based trust where people are really comfortable taking off their masks and sharing their true selves.

Erin Dangerfield:

I think that it starts from the top, and starts with your leadership team being vulnerable themselves. One of the commitments that our president and COO Rick Welts made when we went into shelter in place was to communicate to employees every single day. He started a daily update now it's just called the daily and it started with him every day writing things, and kind of his thoughts, and feelings, and things that were happening in the industry.

And I remember that he turned it over to one of the women executives in our organization, and she wrote this really heartfelt, and meaningful daily, about what it was like to be a working mother, and challenges that she had faced, and how she hid it for a long time when she was younger, because she thought that it would affect how people viewed, her and her career opportunities, and it was like something changed in the organization. All of a sudden you had all of these parents and women in particular saying, oh my gosh, I felt that way too. I thought I was the only one, and it created this opportunity for people to talk about this thing was under the surface. That nobody was talking about is a fear that a lot of women have, a lot of parents have, and since then we've had more people start writing dailies. In the beginning, it was mostly senior leaders, and now we have employees from all across the organization right about their lived experience, their experiences with racism, trauma that has happened in their past that has formed who they are, and it is just been this really transformational thing for the organization and allowed I think people to take off those masks and people vulnerable in different ways, we've also tried to set up an environment particularly now, where we understand that people are really in difficult situations.

People are parenting, they're trying to do distance learning, they have roommates walking around in the background, and dogs barking, and all kinds of things happening, and really normalizing that stuff and making it okay to bring yourself to work, it's okay that today, you know, your child just needs to sit on your lap during this meeting, and I really believe that allowing people to show themselves, and starting with our leadership team has created an environment where people feel more comfortable taking off those masks.

Topic 4. Turning Disruption Into Growth (14:46)

Jeff Hunt:

That's fantastic yeah, it's so clearly evident how, if you have one person who is willing to be vulnerable and share how that can be such a catalyst for everyone else, it's such a cultural builder by having starting with that one person, so I love that example that you just gave. We've already been talking about disruption and I'm gonna stay on that for a minute but, Friedrich Nietzsche said: “what doesn't kill you makes you stronger” and so the benefit of disruption is if we use it correctly, it's a catalyst for growth and change and we've already talked about what's been going on our country, but we just need to call it for what it is 2020 is basically the year of disruption. We're disrupted from COVID, we're disrupted with severe economic-medical-social disruption, communities of color continue to be disrupted from acts of racism and violence, and it's so deeply rooted. You guys as an organization or no stranger to disruption. Team operations, you know you look at the team like we're talking about they're no stranger with injuries they've had and turn over all sorts of things. And so if we think about disruption at the employee level that can be things like missing performance expectations, or as you mentioned earlier transitioning from to working from home, possibly could be, you know, being furloughed, or getting a new manager who's incredibly difficult to deal with, and so I would love for you to share your thoughts on disruption. In what ways have you grown personally from it? And how do you capitalize on it to promote growth and really build a better future at the warriors?

Erin Dangerfield:

Well, first of all, I love that you're talking about both sides of disruption because I think so often now the focus is on innovative disruption, which is great and something that we do a lot, but there's other types of disruption, and they don't always really feel good in the short term, and I personally one thing that I think about that is really changed my career but was a really difficult time personally was after I left Bentley, which is a company I was at for nine years, I went on to work at a solar company and I was quickly realizing that I was very unhappy and it was not a great place for me. And it wasn't the people it wasn't the company it was really me, and it not aligning with what I wanted to do, and in that moment feeling like if I just rub my career and try and leave this company, what's gonna happen to me?

I had all this fear around, is the problem me? I don't know how to adjust after being in a place for nine years. Is the problem that I don't know how to pick good roles for me and I don't know what I really want? Am I going to leave and then find myself in another job that I'm not happy at and be stuck there? Am I going to seen as a job hopper forever? And never be able to find another role. Or the biggest fear if I don't do anything, I kind of don't disrupt, what happens then? And I really had to push myself to just deal with all of those feelings, and figure out how to work through them and lean on my network and I ended up coming to ALCAL where we met and it and I had to take a step back in my career.

I took a lower-level role in title, in pay, and it ended up being the absolute best decision ever. And so I think keeping sight of the fact that even in difficult moments there are opportunities, and that where you are today is not where you have to always be, and if you can just find a way to get through it, even if someday it's just like, I just have to make it through today and then tomorrow, let's see what happens tomorrow. So for me personally, I've dealt with some really great, you know innovative disruption in my career but that was a time where it was very disruptive and not in a positive way in that moment. As an organization, we have had a lot of disruption in the last six months particularly, when we talk about the front office side of things, and we've always leaded into innovation, and we decided to really try and look at this as an opportunity. This is a really tough time for all of us, there's a lot of uncertainty but now more than ever, we need to be thinking about, how can we do things differently? How can we improve? What kinds of innovative ideas can we come up with? There are no bad ideas. And it's been critical in continuing to engage employees, because we have a lot of employees whose jobs are our focused on events, and so when they're not events, what do they do? And that as you can imagine, in an already uncertain time, can create even more uncertainty about, am I value to the organization anymore if I don't have anything to do? So, try to really be creative and think of ways to continue to use our employees, and keep them engaged, and use it as an opportunity to make some improvements we've overhauled a lot of things. There’s a lot of projects getting done, and we've redirected people to work on things like our disaster relief fund, which was hugely engaging for them, because they felt like they were doing really great work, and really useful for the organization as well because we needed that work done. So I think disruption for his opportunity, is not always easy to see that because it's tough, but you look at the team, you know, we had some injuries it gave our young players an opportunity to have far more minutes than they ever would have under normal circumstances and so there's opportunity and it all you just kind of have to find it.

Jeff Hunt:

Yeah, that's great. Well, and one of the things that just resonated with me in terms of what you were sharing, especially about your career change was, you ended up not making those decisions based out of fear. Even though the fear was there you didn't make your decisions out of that, and it's a lesson I think for everyone that, when we do make our decisions out of fear, they're usually not good outcomes, if we can get surrounded and supported by people that can help us make these decisions and also do an internal evaluation that's not fear-based, then we end up with a better result. So, I really love that.

Erin Dangerfield:

Yeah, definitely. I mean, I probably ended up at that job somewhat out of fear to your point, because I was leaving Bentley, and I knew I was leaving, I was thinking gosh I needed to get a job, and maybe if I'd give it more thought. And not been so afraid to be unemployed, I would have made different decisions but, you can't let one bad decision color how the rest of your career goes, or your life goes.

Jeff Hunt:

Not at all. And I think those people that do struggle more in terms of building resilience and grit, and that's also another such a great sports analogy because, the best athletes you just look at the Warriors, the best athletes really don't focus on making mistakes. So, that's just what happens and they're resilient in that regard to so I really appreciate that.

Topic 5. Boosting Diversity Through the Culture of Belonging. (21:58)

Jeff Hunt:

A key trend, that we're seeing in the HR space is creating a culture of belonging. Which is really seems to be the fertile soil for growing diversity and organizations, and without this sort of feeling and sense of belonging for employees, it's I mean, I'll go out on a limb and say it's really almost impossible to create sustainable diversity in our in organizations that we lead.

And just to kind of be clear on how I'm defining belonging. I would say that it's, feelings of being included, and respected, and fully involved at work, and that means with your peers, the team that you work with, the organization, your manager, being more of an insider than an outsider, and so creating this culture of belonging can lead to improved diversity as a byproduct, rather than making it this check the box event.

And so, I'm just curious, you guys have had some great discussions you mentioned about, racism and internally and diversity and creating this sort of, these healthy conversations. What else are you doing to create this high sense of belonging regardless, of whether you're a custodian at the Chase Center or you know, you're, somebody running, Rick Welts you know.

Erin Dangerfield:

I really think that we have a lot of initiatives that we do. And we have wellness in place challenges and we have our employee resource groups who are so critical to belonging for many employees, and we really use them, as not only a place for employees who share a background to get together, and share ideas and thoughts, but also as a place where their developmental opportunities, and opportunity to learn how to navigate that organization, and make connections that you may be normally wouldn't make.

So, they are absolutely critical. Our diversity equity and inclusion council focuses on belonging. But beyond that everyone's role is critical to the success of the organization, but I don't know that we always do a great job of making sure people understand that, and understand how they're critical. So that's something we've really worked on, particularly for those in roles like custodian, and ticket taker, and tell people at Chase Center, we want people to come and have unforgettable experiences.

If you come to a basketball game at Chase Center, and you're very first interactions with a ticket taker, and it goes poorly that's gonna color the entire experience that you have. And so, we tell them you're the first person that somebody sees when they get here, and how you interact with them is critical to how they feel about their entire experience. So making sure that everyone understands that if you go to a game, and you see trash flowing everywhere, and you know, broke and stuff places you're not gonna feel really great about that experience. But I don't know if and we'd really, really, really work hard at this but, not every organization does a great job of explaining that connection between what the business is overall goals are, and the role they play in that.

So we tried to do that with our front lines staff, do that with our staff internally, and during the time like this particular where I talked about, you know, some people's roles have had to change fundamentally creating new ways that they play a role in this success, and understand that, and feel like real contributors, I think that builds belongingness, in addition to those other initiatives I've talked about where have you know all types of events going on.

I think our volunteerism program is a huge part of people feeling like they belong and giving back to our community, and understanding the that's a huge part of who we are as an organization. So, lots of little things happening, but the biggest thing is just making sure people understand the role they play.

Jeff Hunt:

Yeah, and having I think people truly understand their connection to the big picture is really important that, it sounds like.

Erin Dangerfield:

Yes, very, very important. We spent a lot of time talking about that.

Topic 6. The Benefits of Giving Back. (26:30)

Jeff Hunt:

Yeah, exactly. And you were just talking about kind of community and giving back, how does the employee population at the Warriors give back to the community? And what are the internal benefits you see that result as an organization?

Erin Dangerfield:

Well, obviously like I said engagement is a huge part of the community aspect but, also during this time where we talk about mental health, and people feeling like a lack of connection many times, being able to volunteer and give back, makes you feel good about yourself and can help improve those things, but we have a wears community foundation and that's run by people within the organization. Just last year we gave over 5.2 million dollars as part of that. We announce 1.7 million in grants dedicated to improving educational equity in the Bay Area.

And following the hiatus announcement, we committed to a million dollars in disaster relief funds to frontline workers at Kaiser Permanente in San Francisco, where our G League team the Santa Cruz Warriors plays, and a center and that's increased to 1.6 million, and we had employees working the disaster relief fund as customer service agents, a lot of my team acted as translators, and giving back in that way, made them feel so good about what felt like a really, difficult time. You know people are income, and you're hearing all of these stories around, that was very early in shelter in place. But in addition to that, we have a ton of youth programs that go on all the time, we have our math hoops program, peaceful warriors that's just an anti-bullying program, that we do in schools, we have financial wellness training for high school students, STEM programs, nutritious distribution programs, and literacy programs. But probably the thing that I'm proudest of, is our helping hands, which is the employee portion of this where we donate our volunteer time. We contribute over 5,000 hours to area communities, in the last season, since we've gone into shelter in place we offer 250 volunteer opportunities, virtual volunteer opportunities to our staff members, and we held a virtual week of service, we're in place donated 1,000 hours in just that week, things like blood donations and partnering with elderly community members just to call and check in on them, also running errands for people in vulnerable populations, and people continue to do that work, and so I'm really happy about that, and I think it has been a key part of our continued employee engagement.

Jeff Hunt:

Sure. And do you see it translating to more of a selfless culture internally with your employees? So they're willing to help and serve others internally better than they would have otherwise?

Erin Dangerfield:

I do think so, I think particularly some of the stuff that we've been doing now, because some of the programs are more long term were your partnered with somebody, and it's an ongoing thing opposed to a one-day event where you go in and build care packages for troops like that. I definitely think it has created a more caring culture, a more empathetic culture.

Topic 7. Diversity (29:50)

Jeff Hunt:

That's great, okay, and then I have one more question for you before we'll jump into some lightning round questions, but it's going back to diversity for a minute, but it's talking about diversity not necessarily only racial diversity, but diversity of viewpoints gender age background experiences.

When two people come together that are different, whether it's manager and employee, or to peers, or people from different workgroups, what are the ways that you see those interactions being different and possibly better, versus just dealing with people that are like ourselves.

Erin Dangerfield:

I think that they really challenge people to think outside the box, and we talked earlier about innovation and how important that is to us as an organization, and so when you're talking people who are just like you, it can stifle innovation, because it doesn't expand the box, it doesn't expand the ideas that people have. And I know I'm not going to name any of them but I'm sure anyone listening to this can think of some high-profile projects or ads, that they've seen, where it's clear someone was missing from the conversation, and the outcome it was either bad or not as good as it could have been. So, it's critical to have more voices in the room, you can't do a good job if you don't have a diverse set of that. We are the base team, we represent so many different people, coming from so many different backgrounds, and ages, and experiences, and how can we continue to be the base team if we don't reflect that diversity.

Topic 8. Lighting Round Questions. (31:30)

Jeff Hunt:

That's great. I love that, okay, so let's shift into some lightning round questions. I'm gonna throw these out and you can give me just top of mind. First thing that comes to mind. What positive or negative habit have you picked up since COVID?

Erin Dangerfield:

Oh snacking! I guess it could be positive or negative.

Jeff Hunt:

Join the millions of other Americans that are there with you! What's one thing on your bucket list?

Erin Dangerfield:

Oh, going to Machu Picchu.

Jeff Hunt:

Oh, nice. What is your top book recommendation?

Erin Dangerfield:

Oh, I have been reading the velvet rope economy right now. I think it's great. It's really interesting.

Jeff Hunt:

Nice. What is one thing that you're most grateful for?

Erin Dangerfield:

Oh, my son. I absolutely love him to death.

Jeff Hunt:

Yeah, that's great. And what is the best piece of advice you've ever received?

Erin Dangerfield:

Just say thank you.

Jeff Hunt:

Wow! that's great We could all just think of how much better this country would be if we all did that.

Erin Dangerfield:

Yes, right? It's so simple, but I've carried it with me since I was a sophomore in high school and I always remember that.

Jeff Hunt:

Yeah, exactly. That's great. All right, well one final tip for our listeners and this is not a lightning round question, but you know speak to the human capital community the HR community leaders and managers, what advice do you have for those leaders that want a better seat at the table? You know, if they’re wanting to have their views espoused, yeah, tell us what you think about that.

Erin Dangerfield:

All right. Well, I'm going to kind of give a story a little bit. I started a nonprofit as I mentioned, and it was a small nonprofit, so I had to do everything and knew everything about who our clients were, and what their challenges were, and what other organizations did work similar to us. I had to know all of this stuff and so when I went to my next job, I didn't realize that people thought HR should stay in their lane.

I didn't know any better. And so, I was very involved, and this is you know over a decade and a half ago where HR was viewed a little bit differently. I think our images improved quite a bit over the last and ten to fifteen years. But what I learned from that is that, you cannot let anyone put you in a box, and so you have to figure out what is your end, and each of us offers something that maybe no other person in the company, or a function in the company offers, and what that means for somebody listening maybe different than what it means for me, but figuring out what that is and figuring out how you can help somebody else, is how you'll get your seat at the table.

So, I know I bring unique skill sets that maybe most others don't bring and I have to figure out everywhere I go, how do I find a way to make sure other people see value in what I bring, and bring something you need to the table. But beyond that it's also really understanding your business, and your customers, and your competitors, and knowing all of that, because ultimately we are about reaching the organization's goal as many as much as any other department, you know, just much as sales and marketing and all of them, and so figuring out how we drive the success of the business through our people programs is critical to getting a seat at the table.

Jeff Hunt:

So it's much more of a strategic viewpoint really.

Erin Dangerfield:

Yeah, definitely.

Jeff Hunt:

That's great. Well, Erin, this has been such a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining me. It's great to see you again.

Erin Dangerfield:

Great to see you too. Thanks for having me.

Jeff Hunt:

Yeah and stay safe and stay well.

Erin Dangerfield:

You too. Enjoy the fresh air.

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Outro (35:00)

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Jeff Hunt:

Thanks for listening to the show this week. We release a new episode of Human Capital on the first and third Tuesday of each month, I would really like to know what you thought of this episode, send your comments to humancapital@goalspan.com. Human Capital is produced by GoalSpan, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and please share this podcast with your colleagues, team, or friends, thanks for being human kind.