How I Built This with Guy Raz - How I Built Resilience: Cynt Marshall of Dallas Mavericks

Episode Date: October 10, 2020

When a Sports Illustrated article exposed internal abuse and harassment in the Dallas Mavericks organization, owner Mark Cuban knew he had a culture problem. So he hired Cynt Marshall as CEO, and she tells Guy how she started to turn things around, and how she's leading the organization through this unprecedented moment. These conversations are excerpts from our How I Built Resilience series, where Guy talks online with founders and entrepreneurs about how they're navigating turbulent times. Order the How I Built This book at:https://smarturl.it/HowIBuiltThisSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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moment in human history and the creative ways they're trying to figure it out. So back in 2016, I got a chance to talk with Mark Cuban. He's one of the sharks on Shark Tank, of course. He's also the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, and it was a really open and honest conversation, and you can check it out in our feed if you haven't heard it. And so recently, I was really excited to talk with Sint Marshall, who Mark brought on a couple years ago as the CEO of the Mavericks. Sint is actually the first African-American woman to be the CEO of any NBA team. Now, this is only her second season with the Mavericks. Her first was in the 2018-19 season last year, and when she got the call from Mark Cuban, she didn't even know who he was.

That is kind of embarrassing that I didn't know him. No, it's not. Totally. It's cool. Actually, it's better that you didn't know what he was. No, it is. I mean, I worked for AT&T for 36 years. Then I came to Dallas to do culture transformation and HR work and something completely

different for AT&T. And after six years of that, I retired. And then on February 21st, 2018, I started getting all these text messages. And actually, I thought it was one of my kids. I have four kids, so I thought it was one of my kids looking for money. So I handed my husband the phone and said, one of the kids need money, they're blowing up the phone, kind of, you know, handle it. And then he came back and said, I think you need to return this call.

It's Mark Cuban. And so, of course, I asked him who was that and all that. And so when I went to see him, he talked to me about a Sports Illustrated article that had just come out and was very genuine about wanting a culture transformation. Just to clarify, this was the article that came out about like 20 years of, of sexism and it was a pretty devastating article about the culture of the Dallas Mavericks. And Mark Cuban, he came to you saying, we got to begin to solve fix this problem. Yeah, he said, I need your help. I need your help. And so we talked for about almost an hour.

And I still hadn't decided that I was going to do it. And then two women talked to me as I was leaving his office. What they say to you? They said, like, please, we need you. They said, are you the person who Mark Cuban said is going to come in and save us? I said, well, first of all, I do not have the power or ability to save anybody. but yeah, we are talking about me coming in to help out. And they said, you have to come. And they started telling me some things that were happening. And I said, well, you know, I'm going to go home and pray about it. And, you know, maybe I'll come back tomorrow.

And so I did go back the next day. And I was there for about three hours in a conference room with people just coming in and out talking to me. And Mark didn't even know I had come back. But just met some wonderful people who needed leadership. And that's what Mark wanted. That's what he asked for. And so I said yes. And sent, from what I understand,

When you got there, and I think this is pretty common in a lot of corporate environments and certainly maybe in the sports world, from where I read there were like no women in leadership positions or very few in leadership positions and actually wasn't incredibly diverse either. And that was one of the first things that you wanted to tackle. Had to, had to. And so I had a recipe. So the first thing I did was set out of vision. And the vision just basically said the Dallas Mavergues would set the NBA standard for diversity and inclusion by 2019. team, meaning we had about, what, nine months to do that. So that was the vision we set out because I know the business case for diversity. And you have to have a diverse group of people

around the table if you really want to be as successful as you can be. And then I had one-on-one with all the employees and then made some leadership changes. And so now we have almost 50% women in leadership and 47% people of color. And so diversity matters. It matters. So your goal was to set the NBA standard for diversity and inclusion. And are you now the most diverse and inclusive leadership team for an NBA organization? I know we're somewhere at the top. We actually ended up getting the MBA's Diversity and Inclusion Award in January for all of the work that we have done. So that was pretty special for us because we have a lot of people working very hard. I'm not just diversity because, you know, there is a difference. Diversity is about the

mix. It's about race, gender, ethnicity, all of that. But inclusion is about the climate, the sense of belonging. It's about, you know, what do you do with that mix of people? And so we've been very focused on all of that, including equity, including equity, fairness and all that. And so to have it recognized by the NBA was big for us. I mean, obviously, we still have a lot of work to do. We'll always have a lot of work to do. But I think we've made some progress. It definitely looks different and feels different from March of 2018. According to what the folks are telling me. Wow. But it's interesting because you had no experience in the sports world. You worked for AT&T and you worked in the corporate world and they sought you out. And that it sounds

like you basically came in and said, I'll do this job, but I've got to make some big changes here. And it sounds like you were supported in that endeavor. Oh, I was definitely supported by Mark. I mean, he wanted to see some changes. He did give me free reign to make the leadership changes that needed to be made. Some people didn't think that was going to happen. And he said, No, do what you need to do. I mean, obviously, we talked about the plan before I executed on it because I put together a 100-day plan. And it was a 100-day plan that had four main pieces to it. The first piece was to model zero tolerance, complete an investigation, and to really let people know that we have zero tolerance. For sexism, for racism, behavior, sexual harassment, misconduct, and false allegations. I mean, all of it. We're just not going to tolerate it. And so that means that if some people need to go, then they need to go. The second piece, was to develop a MAVs women's agenda, empowering women, elevating women. And then we laid out a whole culture transformation agenda. What needs to happen around here? What's our diversity and inclusion

strategy? How are we going to address culture? And then just basic operational effectiveness, looking at gender pay equity, looking at market-based compensation, performance reviews. Just the basic things you need to run a business, which is what I have been used to for 36 years. What's been the hardest part about making cultural changes at the organization? I mean, I imagine that you probably at times faced resistance or, you know, maybe people didn't fully understand what was happening or what you were trying to achieve. Were there difficult moments? I think the hardest part is to try to institutionalize a new culture while you're purging the old culture. Because keep in mind when I got there, there were, you know, there were people there who had.

have been involved in some of the unfavorable activity. And so, I mean, I had one situation where somebody actually told their whole team, don't respond to her. Don't do anything she's asking to be done because she won't be here in 90 days. Wow. And that's unfortunate because then you have a whole group of people who are also impacted who want to have the positive changes, but their leaders are saying, don't get involved. But we address that. We address that. But you have to just keep going. I had one-on-ones with every single employee in the organization. I'd start out with the same question. I said, give me your whole life story. And so most of the time, they would start off with, oh, this is my fifth season at the Mavs or this is my 10th season at the Mabbs. And I said, okay, back up. Were you born

here? I want to know your whole life story. So then they'd back up because usually they were surprised that I actually wanted to know their whole life story. Then they would give it to me. And then at the very end, after we had all of our conversation, the last question I would ask is, I said, where do you see yourself five years from now? And what was very clear to me, Guy, and I mean, one night I just started crying because I realized I had all these people who set out to have a career in sports, not just jobs, but a career. And all of a sudden, I'm leading these people. And so my job is to make sure they get to have the careers in sports that they wanted to have, just like the career in communications that I was able to have. And so I just, I asked the two women who I brought in with me.

I told them one night, I said, you know what? I need to know if you're all in. Because I'm all in with these people. I love these people. And so after that, we started making some leadership changes and did what we needed to do. But it was all based on that 100-day plan. And every time we felt like we checked something big off, we would have a big kind of ceremony, a huddle, if you will. And we check it off.

As an organization, we had to all agree that this particular, item had been checked off. And so I remember one time I was getting ready to check off compensation and everybody started looking kind of weird. And I thought, what's going on around here? And I whispered over to my head of human resources and said, why is everybody looking kind of strange? She said, we haven't covered it yet. I said, oh, it's like they were calling me on it. Like, no, we're not checking this off because it's not done. And so I said, oops. I said, okay, guys, I guess this is premature. I guess this is premature, everybody. And so then they gave the feedback and gave everybody, you know, the information.

And then we came back and had a ceremony and checked it off. And on the very last day, we checked it off. We left our building. We walked back in, uncovered all of our values, our new mission statement, all that. I had a little ceremony where everybody dipped their hands in paint and had this wall where we just basically said we're all in. That is so cool. There's something you said there, and I want anybody watching or listening to this right now, this is so important. And it's a reason why how I built this, our show resonates and connects to so many people.

You asked people to tell you their story. And that's something that not enough of us do with our work colleagues, even with people we've known for decades. We don't always know their story. When you know someone's story, there's no way not to develop empathy. There's no way not to, you learn about their struggles and their obstacles and the challenges they went through. it changes your perspective about somebody when you know their story. It really does. And we all have a story.

And you said it. I mean, it's about perspectives. We all bring different angles to things. We bring different perspectives. I mean, I don't know if you've ever seen the diagram where it's a, depending on what side you're standing on, either you see a six when you're looking down on it or you see a nine. And the caption underneath says, it's not that I'm wrong and it's not that you're right. You just haven't seen life from my side. And so we need to know all of those perspectives.

And that's why we need to know people's stories. I always say one of our values is authenticity. So our values spell crafts. So it's character, respect, authenticity, fairness, teamwork, and safety, both physical and emotional safety. And so on the authenticity piece, our hashtag is do you. I want the person who gets up out of bed in the morning, all the issues they have, the backgrounds they have, the stories they have, the perspectives they have. That's what I want to walk into our workplace every day. You don't have to leave yourself at home.

You don't have to leave your story at home. You don't have to park it in the parking lot. That's what makes us a great place to work to have all of those backgrounds and cultures and perspectives working. And I've been in a situation where I was asked not to be who I am. And so I've lived those days. And I don't like that. I don't like that. The person who gets up out of bed in the morning needs to be the person who walks into the building.

and we as leaders need to meet people where they are. When we come back in just a moment, more for my conversation with St. Marshall and how NBA team owners often have values that don't align with their players. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This Resilience Edition from NPR. Hey, welcome back to how I built this Resilience Edition. So the NBA is basically a case study on professional sports leagues that depend on athletes of color. And yet, so many team owners often hold values that are at odds with the players' values and sometimes even their fans. So when I spoke to Dallas Maverick CEO, St. Marshall, I asked her about how players might hold owners accountable.

Do you think we're at a time and a place now where players will start to or will be able to hold owners more accountable for their public positions and views? Here's what I'll say to that. And obviously I can talk about the Mabs. I can talk about what's happened with the NBA. We're playing in the bubble with a court that says Black Lives Matter, okay? Because our players decided that they wanted to be able to speak out. They're not in their home market. So they're not able to do some of the things they would normally do when you have this kind of a situation like we've been in post-George Floyd public lynching.

And so for the players to say, we want to do. take a stand. We want to have something on our jerseys. We want to speak out on this. I mean, they're grown in. They're able to do that. But it's not just the players. I mean, it's all of us. I mean, at the MAVs, we launched something called MAVs take action. It's our own plan to address racial inequities, promote social change, look at some of the injustices. And what I always say is we don't just work here. We don't just play here. We live here too. And the things that are important to our communities are important to us. we have a terrific owner who understands what's happening in the country, who understands the community.

And I know it's, you know, you have a lot of situations where people just have differences. And that's okay. It's okay to have differences. We've had some season ticket holders who have called and asked for a refund because of our stand on some issues. And I like to talk to them. I like to have the conversation because this is about, we had a courageous conversation on June 9. We said we are normal conveners. We unify people as a basketball team. We bring people out. So we're going to have the socially distant, courageous conversation. We're going to talk about the reactions to the George Floyd situation.

We're going to talk about biases and stereotypes and all that. Our theme was, listen, learn, unite. Because that's what it's about, listening to each other, learning our stories, learning what people are going through, and then uniting around an action plan to move this country forward. Because we still have some issues to address. And some of these issues are 400 years old. And so I think we're all holding ourselves at each other accountable. I know that's what we're trying to do here in Dallas and at the maps.

A question from Rahan Adatia through Facebook, Rehan asks, what's it like working with a vocal owner like Mark Cuban? He's probably the best known owner in basketball, and one of them in professional sports. And how much control does he have over organizational decision making? Okay, well, I will tell you, it's wonderful working for him. He is, I love the fact that he is vocal. he's bold, he's courageous because I'm all of those things too. So I like having a boss like that.

And so I'm blessed. But he's one of those bosses where he makes you feel like you're the only person in the room or the only person on the phone because he'll give you 100% of his attention. I love that as busy as he is. And I can run all kind of things by him. I do have the decision-making power on the business side. I mean, I make my own personnel moves. I make the decisions.

And at the end of the day, he'll say, sit is your call. I mean, that's one of his favorite lines, Sent, is your call. But he is involved. I mean, he's involved from the standpoint of being there as kind of my coach and my mentor. I'm learning the business of basketball from him, which is great. And he claims that he's learning some things from me about leading people and diversity and inclusion and all that. So I don't know. I'm sure he's learned an unbelievable amount from you.

I'm sure it's been absolutely, like, revolutionary for him. On the business side, can you kind of give us a sense of what it means to be the CEO of an NBA team versus like an owner or a general manager? What does the CEO of an NBA team do? I manage the business side of it. So ticket sales operations, serving our fans, making sure that we have a full house in the arena when we play at home are the marketing, brand identity, sponsorships. So the three of us report to Mark Cuban. So I have the business side. Rick Carlisle is our head coach and Donnie Nelson is the general manager, all the scouting and all of that.

So I don't scout. I don't coach. I handle the business side. Kind of walk us through the business challenges here because I imagine that a huge part of a team's revenue comes from fans appearing at the arena, buying snacks, buying beer, buying merchandise. and a lot of that's virtually all that's gone. So does television do television deals and maybe, you know, merch sales, does that make up for the loss? Well, not 100%. So we're trying to be creative. We did some things in the bubble with our sponsors.

And the big thing was trying to figure out how to make sure that our sponsors are still visible. Yeah. So we had some, you know, the online signage on the court. So it's a challenge. Online merchandising has increased. We have to pivot quickly. You know, we gave away a lot of masks and a lot of, you know, PPE, but we also started selling some things. So just really trying to figure out how do we meet the community's needs, but also figure out a way to make some money in the process.

So online merch has really, really gone up for us. But you're right. I mean, we had eight home games that we missed at the end of the season because we shut down. And so we had to, fortunately for us, most of our fans didn't ask for a refund. Most of them said either carry it on, give me a credit into next season and let's see what happens, or we'll donate it to, we were doing a lot in the community. I mean, we pivoted it, so we did a lot in the community. And so they wanted to be a part of that because this Dallas region is amazing in terms of just being there for the community.

And so a lot of people wanted to partner with us on that. So knock on wood, yes, it is challenging finance. financially, but it could be much, much, much worse. Yeah. This is a question from Ahmed El Maseeri. Ahmed asks, what advice would you give to other minorities and women in the business environment about leading conversations around diversity and inclusion in a company, especially if we're not in leadership roles?

Depending on the size of the company. So if you have employer resource groups or affinity groups, usually those leaders of those groups will pull people together and pull the business together. and pull the business together to have those conversations. But even if you don't have them, I think somebody has to be bold enough to step up and to talk to their leaders if they're not doing it. I mean, hopefully you have leaders who are, but if they're not doing it, somebody has to say, we need to talk about this.

And I played that role years ago, somebody has to step up and do it because there's no way we can have a double pandemic going on. And we truly have a double pandemic. We've got COVID-19. and then we've got the issue of social justice. So we've got two pandemics going on in this country right now. And we need to be talking about both of them. I mean, when the George Floyd thing happened,

some of our African-American men said, somebody calls them, we need to talk like today. And so we talked for three hours at Friday night. And then that Monday, my leadership team called turned into a whole conversation around race. Then our entire weekly huddle, we have all these kind of touch points for a solid week, all of them were around what was happening with social justice.

Just like previously, we were talking about COVID. And so you just have to respond. But it's because employees were saying, here's the agenda item. Here's what I want to talk about. And so we responded to that, and then that led to a big community conversation. So you just got to put it out there. Here's the agenda item. And hopefully there are ways to do that.

It's direct phone calls. It's through hotlines. It's through sending somebody in email. Leaders have to respond to that, especially when it's coming in math, when a lot of people are saying we're going to talk about this. Yeah. You know, Sint, the hardest part about this conversation for me is you're turning me into a Dallas Mavericks fan. Oh, my God.

We have such a great team. We have such a great team. Oh, my God. All right, before I let you go, a lot of people are wondering whether professional sports is going to be changed forever, at least for the medium term, right? I mean, fans might be scared to go back to arenas and stadiums. And some people are wondering whether they'll ever be a return to normal professional sports. as they existed before, you know, March 2020.

What do you think? I mean, do you think that the NBA, let's say there's a vaccine, do you imagine that like in the fall of 2021, you know, when the season starts again, it'll be back to normal? I sure hope so. Oh, my goodness. But I think a lot of that has to do with just what's happening, obviously, in our country. And so we need the vaccine.

We need to wear our masks. We need to wash our hands. Keep our distance, all that. But I'm optimistic. I'm an optimistic person if you can't tell. And so I think we, We will slowly work our way back. But I will tell you, the NBA is totally focused on safety, which is why we ended up in the bubble.

Safety first. I mean, safety first. And so once it's deemed safe, we'll be back in there. And so we're making plans. We hope we have a full arena. It may not start out full. We don't know exactly when we're going to start. But I'm optimistic.

I'm optimistic. I see a day out there when we'll all get back. And we can't wait. That's an excerpt for my conversation with St. Marshall, CEO of the Dallas Mavericks, the first African-American woman CEO of an NBA team. To see our full interview, you can go to Facebook.com slash how I built this. And if you want to see all of our past live interviews, you can find them there or at YouTube.com slash NPR. This episode was produced by J.C. Howard with help from Liz Metzker, Will Mitchell, Bruce Grant, Matt Adams,

El Manion, Gianna Cappadona, John Isabella, Julia Carney, Neva Grant, and Jeff Rogers. Our intern is Farah Safari. Thanks for listening. Stay safe, and I'll be back in just a few days. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This Resilience Edition.