Inside Track

Doyle makes DEI his life’s work

His consulting company hones sustainable and transformative results without relying on a cookie-cutter approach.

Paul R. Kopenkoskey

Special to the Business Journal

Paul T. Doyle credits his mother, Mae Etta Doyle, for making it possible for him to become the man he is today.

“She provided for and raised the five of us as a single parent in our house,” said Doyle, who grew up in a government-owned housing project in Brooklyn, New York. “She provided me the ability to be empathetic, caring and sensitive to others. It’s settled in my core and influenced a lot of my relationships in my life.”

These days, Doyle is doing his part to shepherd empathy in others by staunching the bleeding of racism.

Doyle works to nurture diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) for companies that have ears to hear. In 2010, he launched Paul T. Doyle and Associates, since renamed Inclusive Performance Strategies. His company hones sustainable and transformative DEI results without relying on a cookie-cutter approach.

Doyle marshaled the fortitude to launch his own company thanks in part to his grandfather Stephen Joseph Doyle’s entrepreneurial, can-do outlook.

“My grandfather, who lived to be 102, had a newsstand in New York City on 42nd and Madison and it showed me the satisfaction of having your own entity,” said Doyle, whose professional background includes working as the director of service strategies for Spectrum Health from 1998-2008.

Word has reached the ears of C-suite executives and others who desire to spark inclusive change in their companies. Doyle’s clients include Steelcase, Spectrum Health, Wolverine Worldwide, RoMan Manufacturing, Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital, Blandford Nature Center, Ottawa County, University of Michigan HealthWest, Meijer and California Pacific Medical Center.

Doyle said his clients want to ensure they’re intentional with their diversity and inclusion practices.

“They appreciate the breadth and depth of our experience and our team of consultants’ customized approach,” said Doyle. “They appreciate we understand their context to make meaningful changes. One of the key components of our work is that we develop measurable frameworks to achieve sustainable results for optimal impact.”

Doyle said DEI work can be intense, but making a leap toward it means people feel more supported and even resilient when they learn to adapt to change.

“We believe at our core, organizations and systems can achieve their desired state by ensuring everyone feels valued and that they truly belong,” he said. “When people’s identities are affirmed and there is psychological safety, their sense of well-being increases, their ability to perform and participate increases. The behaviors, mindsets, skills that are necessary to do that (are) very vast and complex and require a lot of what we would call ‘sweat equity’ investment.”

The work Doyle’s company seeks to accomplish is ongoing and some would argue, never-ending. Overt proof of this conclusion comes to the fore with the scorched-earth rhetoric that comes from the pump of alt-right, white supremacist groups such as The Proud Boys who promote racism and incite violence.

As unsavory as these characters are, Doyle’s drive to make a difference is steadfast. He does not pause to imagine what he would say if he encountered such people.

“It’s not so much what I would say but how much I would ask,” said Doyle. “I would want to find out what is it that they feel they’re trying to achieve? We talk about freedom, being able to make things work well or be impactful. What makes them think they’re the only ones who have the market on that or the ability to make that happen?”

Doyle is convinced the fissures of hate would begin to close if he could get white supremacists to calm down and listen. That’s when change starts to peek through.

“In talking with people who are polarized, or on opposites ends, by the time you facilitate the discussion, they realize how much they have in common, or they really are desiring the same things for themselves and their families,” said Doyle.

“But because of how they feel, they’ve created an ‘us versus them’ lens that influences their behavior. People look at inclusion through the lens of scarcity versus abundance. What do I lose versus what does someone else have? Actually, it’s what do people gain when we all benefit? That’s the work to be done.”

Achieving such work dovetails into what Martin Luther King Jr. implored the world to do in keeping the eye on the prize: “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”

“Knowing that what you do, or have done, has not only provided an opportunity to support you and your family but also contribute to making the world a better place,” Doyle said. “I don’t accept, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ If it ain’t broke, improve it, should be more of our focus.”

Doyle was the youngest of five siblings who was the first to graduate from high school and college. That didn’t happen by chance.

“That would not have been possible without delivered decisions to reimage policies and behaviors for someone like me,” said Doyle. “It was intentional to make that happen. I feel I’m a living and breathing example of what happens when communities and systems invest in ensuring equitable outcomes.”

Doyle said he’s fortunate an elementary school was launched within his housing project that hired some of the best teachers in the city to staff it. The school was filled with educational resources in the sciences and arts.

“They intentionally named the school after Dr. Dale Hale Williams, who is the first surgeon to do an open-heart procedure,” said Doyle. “It was an intentional effort to surround us with quality education, have resources around us that would help us to be able to learn, and support us to the point of being able to apply to college. This was a product of the 1965 Civil Right Acts and the things that came with it.”

The new school provided Doyle the means to whet his appetite for music at an early age, learning to play the French horn, percussion and the trumpet in elementary school. He went a step further when he competed in a drum and bugle corps from the time he was 13 through high school, playing the French horn.

“That really enhanced discipline and a work ethic for those who understand what’s involved in that,” said Doyle. “There is a lot of sweat equity and a lot of work to be a member of the drum corps to work together and be competitive.”

Doyle chuckles.

“Don’t ask me to play anything now. It’s been a long time,” he said.

Still, vestiges of his years as a budding musician remain with him.

“When I go to the symphony now, I always look at the French horns,” he said.

Twenty years ago, Doyle was co-founding board chair of the Grand Rapids African American Health Institute (GRAAHI) whose focus is to bridge health care inequities.

“One of the most significant disparities was infant mortality among African Americans,” he said. “There were actually more African American babies dying per capita than (in) Detroit at that time.”

GRAAHI urges Black people to get the COVID-19 vaccine but therein lie some hurdles to clear, said Doyle, including access to health care and what Doyle said are “trust issues” that emanate from the past.

“There’s a trust issue with so much experimentation, nonconsensual testing from the Tuskegee Institute experiments,” said Doyle, referring to the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis on a group of nearly 400 Black males who were not informed of the study’s purpose, which was conducted between 1932 and 1972 by the United States Public Health Service and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 100 men died as a result.

Doyle has his eye on writing a book that would be part biographical with a dose of leadership tips mixed in.

“I’ll probably focus on leadership by using my life’s journey as a backdrop of how basically the challenges and my pathway led to me accumulating leadership qualities in my life’s journey by intentionally navigating challenges as they’re presented to you,” he said.

“My life’s journey is still a desire in me to pursue pathways where I could be a leader who’s committed to inclusive growth because I’m a product of that. And I see what value that brings to everyone.”

PAUL T. DOYLE

Organization: Inclusive Performance Strategies Position: Founder/CEO Age: 66 Birthplace: Brooklyn, New York Residence: Caledonia Family: Wife Celeste, three adult daughters and four grandchildren Community/business involvement: Chair of the Grand Rapids African American Health Institute; board member of Grand Rapids Symphony Orchestra, Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital, Ferris State University Foundation, Economic Club of Grand Rapids and RoMan Manufacturing. Biggest career break: Attending the Executive Leadership Institute at Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. “It gave me the insight and understanding of effective leadership and also provided me with the final incentive to launch my own business.”

Photo by Paul Kopenkoskey

Paul Doyle was the first in his family to graduate high school and college.

Greenleaf Trust breaking barriers for women

Firm’s intentional professional development is designed to leave no one behind.

Rachel Watson

rwatson@grbj.com

Local wealth management firm Greenleaf Trust is reaping the results of years of work to bring about a more inclusive financial services industry.

The firm — based in Kalamazoo, with offices in Grand Rapids; Traverse City; Bay Harbor; Birmingham; Midland; and Greenville, Delaware — has about 160 employees and offers wealth management, trust administration, retirement planning and other financial services.

Karen Baldwin, senior vice president and director of human resources who has been with the firm for 12 years, recently spoke to the Business Journal about Greenleaf Trust’s work toward diversifying its corner of the financial services industry.

Greenleaf’s current executive leadership team is composed of 32% women, and at least 70% of promotions during the years 2019, 2020 and 2021 were of women. As of last month, of the promotions so far in 2022, 57% were of women.

About 83% of the firm’s middle management members — e.g., team leads, assistant directors and coaches — are female, and about 68% of its middle management-track employees, such as mentors and intern leaders, are female.

The rising number of women in the ranks has come about because of Greenleaf’s intentional actions to treat its employees as its most valuable asset and to give equal opportunity to all who wish to advance through the ranks, Baldwin said.

“We are always looking at ways that we can take every measure to make sure that our people are well cared for and that they’re prepared to take advantage of the opportunities for advancement that come about,” Baldwin said.

Greenleaf has created several ways to equip its people to reach the next milestone in their careers.

It has created special committees and work groups that allow people in different divisions to work together cross-functionally, learning about the other parts of the firm and how they can work together to create positive change within the organization, Baldwin said.

Greenleaf also offers quarterly coaching for all team members to listen to them and understand where they want to grow. If a team member so desires, they also can receive one-on-one leadership coaching on a weekly or monthly basis.

“We take all that information, and those leaders come and sit with me and with our president a couple times a year,” Baldwin said, “so that we can talk through every single team member and what their goals are, what plays are being put in place for them, what kinds of things they might need to learn, what gaps of knowledge they have, who we can partner them up with, what projects are out there that we can have them lead or be part of so that they can gain those skills to move forward in those roles.”

Additionally, Greenleaf strives to put new hires into roles where they can continue to develop and grow into a leadership position if that’s a future goal of theirs.

About one-third of Greenleaf’s employees wear a leadership hat, Baldwin said. Although the gender makeup of the lower ranks and mid and senior levels are becoming more diverse, just a year ago, 100% of the executive council — a select group within the executive leadership team — was male. Now, the 11-member group has one female. With so many women rising through the ranks, the gender balance is expected to increase, Baldwin said.

“When you start in the financial services industry, the majority of people that are in those executive positions are men,” Baldwin said. “And we recognize that, and so we’re working very diligently on these next-level leaders who are coming up within the organization to groom them for these executive-level positions. All the way down that line, there’s a huge effort for women to be in those leadership roles and to be moving up that path to that executive level.”

This year, the firm has invited its new leaders and its mid-level managers to join a cohort of people who will be learning together via book discussions and coaching meetings with Baldwin and the firm’s president, Michael Odar.

Baldwin, the HR team lead and an HR specialist also will work with the brand-new internal leaders and mentors to help them navigate their journeys to management and leadership.

“We’ll be working together … and providing opportunities for them to see, what does that really look like if you decide to become a leader? What’s involved in being a leader? What is family medical leave? What do you do if you have somebody who is struggling? How do you coach, and all of those kinds of things?” Baldwin said. “It’s a transitional opportunity for them to learn, what does it look like to be a coach, what are some of the things that you’d be responsible for? Then moving into that next level where they’re meeting with me and the president, and we’re talking through, what are some of the scenarios that you’re dealing with now? How can we best

support each other? Who can we partner you with on the executive team (who) can help you learn and grow? What opportunities are there for you to take on and to be able to showcase those talents within the organization?” Baldwin said many of the leaders who were just promoted went through this process, which also included hearing from special speakers on best practices for leadership. Outside of the opportunities for professional development and mentorship for women, Baldwin said during the pandemic, the firm increased its flexibility for working mothers. “There has been so much that has changed in our world, and for all of our team members in their homes and at work, but because we’re so committed to our clients and to our team members, we’ve really worked hard to go back out to them and listen to them to find out what is going on and what’s causing them stress,” she said. Time was a huge issue for the parents whose children were in virtual school, so flex time increased — with some parents who needed to take the morning hours to help their kids with lessons adjusting their hours to afternoons and evenings. The firm also created a relief Baldwin fund that was in effect during the first year-plus of the pandemic, called Greenleaf Cares, which allowed full-time employees to be reimbursed for resources related to working from home, such as office furniture, internet costs, child care, additional computers for their children, etc. “We partnered with them to be able to give them what they needed to make sure that they had every obstacle that could potentially be in their way removed so that they could do what they needed to do,” Baldwin said. The firm also allowed employees to use dollars from the firm’s wellness fund to be reimbursed for housecleaning services if they wished. That policy became so popular that it still is in effect. The firm, which always has emphasized cross-training, relied on its division leaders to ensure the work was divided as evenly as possible between parents and non-parents, and when extra work fell on cross-trained non-parents, they were encouraged to take time off later to make up for it, Baldwin said. Besides its efforts to increase gender equity, the firm also is working to increase racial and ethnic diversity, equity and inclusion in the industry through its scholarship and internship program, which the Business Journal previously featured; its wealth developer program with Kalamazoo Public Schools; and through its recruiting of new employees. Baldwin said the scholarship program, founded in 1999, is starting to pay dividends. “Those students who have graduated and have gone on to work in the world now have great

Waugh draws women to the construction industry

Fishbeck’s marketing operations director leads by example, collaboration.

Danielle Nelson

dnelson@grbj.com

What once was just a marketing job opportunity for Jenny Waugh now has turned into a career-long fascination with the construction industry.

Waugh has made her presence felt for 20 years in the male-dominated industry. Only 11% of the construction workforce nationwide is female, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. She is the marketing operations director for Fishbeck, an engineering, environmental sciences, architecture and construction management consulting firm in Grand Rapids.

Waugh oversees business development, sales and marketing, and public relations for the firm. She is responsible for brand development and management, strategic planning, community relational and charitable giving, media relations and event planning for particular projects.

Waugh’s path to construction was by way of the health care and financial services industries. She briefly worked at Spectrum Health before joining Rockford Construction as its marketing manager. Waugh said it was her female boss who became her mentor and helped to guide her as she entered a new industry.

“There is just something about construction that once you get into the industry, it's like no other, so I'm always going to stay in this industry,” she said. “When I had the opportunity to leave my last position and come to Fishbeck — it's a little bit different, we’re more of an engineering and architecture firm than a straight-up construction company. It’s been so interesting to see the whole side of the industry from the design (perspective) and how important engineering is to the whole process, and then moving into construction. I feel like this has been the whole circle of that AEC (architecture, engineering and construction) industry, now I've got to see all the parts. I see behind the scenes before our project starts, like the environmental work and the site work, and then the design of a beautiful building and the construction of it. It has been fun.”

She said the industry has changed since she started 20 years ago as the roles of women have evolved from secretarial positions to executive and onsite construction roles.

“You would find women in the construction industry or AEC, but it would be more like accounting positions, marketing positions, finance, administrative assistant — in that secretarial role,” she said. “You wouldn't find women in the field. You wouldn't find construction superintendents or project managers or property managers as much as you would in what you could maybe call support positions. You didn't find as many women on the board level or in the executive positions as you do now.” Waugh said women bring more diversity to the table; diversity of thought, creativity and a different point of view to a project or a neighborhood or a development. “If you have too many people in … an industry that all think the same or come from the same background, then your buildings are going to be the same Waugh and your projects are going to be the same and the impact on the communities will be the same,” she said. “You need variety, you need creativity, you need different viewpoints to really bring a new perspective to a project and I think that is what women in the field can do. We will think about something different than a man will, and we can bring a new perspective. That is how I think we can have the biggest impact. We can be that change agent in the board room, out in the field, on the construction project or even in the design room because we are going to think about things from a different perspective. It is just natural.” Waugh said there is a concentrated effort in Grand Rapids to get more women involved in construction. That, she said, is evident in the new West Michigan Construction Institute that opened earlier this year, and Grand Rapids Community College President Bill Pink’s effort to create a space where people can pursue a career in the trades or AEC positions. Waugh said she wants to help and be a mentor to other women who are just entering the industry so they can be successful. She is intentional about introducing women to the construction industry. Outside of her work at Fishbeck, Waugh is involved in the community and is on various local and national boards that support the construction industry. She is the chairperson of the Algoma Township Planning Commission. She also serves on the panel’s site plan review committee. She is a board member and public relations director for the American Institute of Architects, Grand Rapids. She also co-chairs its annual gala committee. Waugh is the committee chair and a member of the American Council of Engineering Companies Ohio Chapter’s communication committee.