We recently connected with Jeff McGee and have shared our conversation below.

Jeff, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

Our mission statement is meaningful to us because it drives what we do, and it was created out of personal experiences albeit, negative ones. Over the course of my career, I worked for a nonprofit that really opened my eyes to the need for organizations to be inclusive and create space for everyone to experience a sense of belonging.

In my experiences, I had the unique position of being both involved in upper leadership meetings where I heard what they were saying about the lower income, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Color) community they were serving, and at the same time close enough to this community to hear what they were saying about needs. Upper leadership lived and worked in an affluential community while the clientele they served lived in lower income communities. Although I was invited to the meetings, I experienced years of not being included and not taken seriously on the perspectives I offered. I did not feel at all like I belonged. In leadership meetings, I would communicate what the community was saying, but felt unheard and undervalued. As other employees of color approached me about similar experiences, I knew something was definitely wrong with the organizational culture.

Because of my experiences and the experiences of others, I wanted to start an organization that worked with leaders to shed light on the experiences of their workforce. I wanted to help them build an organizational culture where everyone feels appreciated, valued, and accepted. To accomplish this, we knew we had to work with executive leadership because they are the ones who can change and/or establish culture.

Our mission statement: Cross-Cultural Dynamics partners with leaders in organizations to cultivate a framework for sustainable, innovative, and healthy organizational culture through diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

At Cross Cultural Dynamics, we take a unique approach to our work because we view it as a partnership and collaboration. We use the strengths the leaders possess and build from those. This enables a positive and healthy culture to be sustainable over time. DEIB (diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging) is the framework we use to shape or reshape leaders not the other way around. Rather than seeking to interject DEIB in organizations, we seek to interject DEIB in leaders as part of strengthening their leadership. This is the secret to creating an inclusive and belonging culture.

We work with leaders in several ways, but to be successful we take the time to get to know each leader on the team, hear their hopes and dreams, their goals, and aspirations, etc. We then customize a plan to move forward. The plan could include executive and leadership coaching, data collection and analysis to inform organizational cultural strategies, and guiding the implementation processes. A one-size-fits-all model does not work because every leader and organization is different.

One of our core values is relationship building. Most of our clients are repeating clients or clients that hire us on retainer. We strive to build professional and personal friendships with each of our clients. No matter where our clients are located, we highly value in-person connections to kick off each project. We want to meet you, tour your facilitates, see what you value and appreciate, get to understand your local community, and build connections with your team.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

In our current culture, we value money. While valuing money isn’t a bad thing, it is placing the value of money over valuing people that causes problems. Whether you work for a nonprofit, for-profit, government agency, etc., most of the time, money takes precedence over people. When managing a team and maintaining high morale, you can never lose sight of the people you lead by valuing money (or services, programs, etc.) most. People want to work at an organization where they feel they belong and can utilize their unique talents, abilities, and gifts. One of the ways I maintain high morale is by getting to know each of our employees and contractors. I ask questions about their families and friends, I listen to their dreams and goals, and I establish a family-first environment. Because of what we do, everyone works from home and that is a choice we have made collectively.

As a leader, whatever you value the most is what you invest the most in. If you value money the most, then that is what you are most concerned with. If you value people the most, then you are most concerned with investing in them. That is how you recruit top talent, retain current people, and grow a healthy organization.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

As a business owner, you have to learn different ways of growing your clientele. Unfortunately, there is no magic wand you can wave that will grow your clientele right away. If you are a new business owner, you will go through failures and successes as you progress in your business. The key I’ve learned is to improve on successes and learn from failures.

The most effective strategy for me has been through relationship building. I have tried several methods of growing my clientele over the years, but I have found that through building relationships whether by networking, volunteering, or attending events, I was able to grow my clientele. I always joke and say that I have probably been to over 1,000 coffee meetings in the last 5-7 years. While that is probably a little far-fetched, the fact is that it was in those one-to-one coffee meetings that I started building each relationship. Now, most of my business comes through referrals and meeting with leaders from my networking events.

My advice to you as a business owner is to find your niche in growing your clientele. Don’t overthink it. It takes time to build clientele, so don’t rush the process. This advice will save you countless hours and money.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ccdynamics.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/crossculturaldynamics/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/crossculturaldynamics
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-jeff-mcgee-38185468