How I Built Resilience: Cynt Marshall of Dallas Mavericks

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And what we do for you. Do us one back. And pick up how I built this wherever books are sold. Hey everyone and welcome to How I Built This Resilience Edition. On these episodes, we talk with entrepreneurs and other business leaders about how they're dealing with this very challenging moment in human history and the creative ways they're trying to figure it out. So back in twenty sixteen, 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, Synthe 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 kinda embarrassing that I didn't know I'm both. No, it's not. Totally it's cool. Actually, it's better that you didn't know he was. No, it it is. I mean I I worked for ATT for thirty six years. Then I came to Dallas to do cultur transformation and HR work and something completely different for ATT. And after six years of that, retired. And then on February twenty first, two thousand eighteen. I start 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 a phone and said, One of the kids need money, they're blowing up the phone, kinda 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 I asked him who was that and all that. Um and so when I when I went to see him Uh he talked to me about a sports illustrated article that had just come out. and uh was very genuine.

about uh wanting a culture transformation. Just to clarify, this is the article that came out about like twenty years of sexism and And Mark Cuban He came to you saying uh we gotta begin to solve fix this problem. Yeah, he's that needs your help.

I need your help. And so we 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'd they say to you? They said, Like, please, we need you. They did. They said, Are you the person who Mark Cuba 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. Uh but yeah we are talking about me coming in to 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 go home, 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. Uh, 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 since From what I understand, when you got there and this I think this is pretty common in a lot of corporate environments and certainly maybe in in the sports world

From what I read, there were like no women in leadership positions, or very few in leadership positions, and actually it 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 I had a recipe. So the first thing I did was set out of vision. And the vision just basically said the Dallas Mavericks would set the MBA standard for uh diversity and inclusion by two thousand nineteen. 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. uh 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 fifty percent women. And leadership and forty seven percent 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 in in for an NBA organization? Uh I know we're we're somewhere at the top of we we actually ended up getting the MBA's diversity and inclusion award in January. Uh, for all the work that we have done. So that was uh That was pretty special for us because we have a a lot of people working very hard. I'm not just diversity, because you know there is a difference.

Uh, diversity is about the mix, it's about race, gender. ethnicity, all of that. Uh, 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 two thousand eighteen. According to what the folks I tell him D Well.

But it's interesting because you had no experience in the sports world. You were you worked for ATT 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 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. uh before I executed on it because I put together a one hundred day plan. And it was a one hundred day plan that had four main pieces to it.

The first piece was to model zero tolerance, complete an investigation. Uh, and to really let people know that we have zero tolerance. For sexism, for Input behavior, sexual harassment, misconduct, and false allegations. I mean all of it. We're just not gonna 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 man's women's agenda. empowering women, elevating women. And then we laid out a whole cultur transformation agenda. What needs to happen around here. What's our diversity and inclusion strategy? How are we gonna address culture?

Uh 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 m imagine that you probably at times faced resistance or

You know, um maybe people didn't fully understand what was happening or what you were trying to achieve. Were there were there difficult moments? I think the hardest part Is to try to Institutionalize a a new culture.

While you're purging the oak culture. Because keep in mind when I got there, there were you know, there were people there who had 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. Uh she's asking to be done because she won't be here in ninety days.

Wow. And that's unfortunate because then you have a whole group of people who are also impacted who wanna have the positive changes. But their leaders are saying Don't get involved. But we address that. We address that.

Uh, but you have to just keep going. I had one on ones with every single employee. Yeah 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 tenth season at the Mavs and I said okay, back up. Were you born here? I wanna 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. Hm.

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 um I asked the two women who I brought in with me. I told him 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 hundred day plan and every time um 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 have 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 uh out of human resources and say 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 out because It's not done.

And so I said, Oops, I said, Okay, guys, I guess this is premature. I guess it's 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 dip 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 you said there and I want anybody watching or listening to this right now

This is so important. Um And it's a reason why how I built this, our our show resonates and connects with 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 n 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 you learn about

their struggles and and their obstacles and the challenges they went through. It changes about somebody when you know their story. It really does, and 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 uh 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.

Right. 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 crash.

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. uh working. And I've been in a situation where I've I was asked not to be who I am. And so I've lived those days and and 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 from my conversation with Cent 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's CEO Synt Marshall, I asked her about how players might hold owners.

Accountable. Do you think we're in it at a time and a place now? Where players We'll 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 Mavs, I can talk about what's happened with the NBA. We're playing in the bubble. With the court that says Black Lives Matter. Okay, because our players

Decided it. 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 Ah, for the players. uh to say we wanna take a stand, we wanna have something on our jerseys. Uh, we want to speak out on this. I mean they're grown in, they're able to do that.

Uh 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. I'll look at some of the injustices.

And what I always say is we don't just We're here. We don't just play here. We live here too. And the things that are important Ah, to our community.

are important to us. Fortunately, we have a terrific owner. who understands what's happening in the country, who understands the community and and I know it's uh 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 ask for a refund. because of our stand on some some issues. And I like to talk to them.

I like to have a conversation because this is about we had a courageous conversation on June ninth. We said we are normal conveners. We unify people as a basketball team. We bring people out. So we're gonna have the socially distant courageous conversation. We're gonna 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. uh to address and some of these issues are four hundred years old. And so I think we're all holding ourselves and each other accountable. I know that's what we're trying to do here in Dallas and at the Mass. A question from Rayhan Adatia. Through Facebook, Rayhan asks um

What's it like working with a vocal owner like Mark Cuban? He's probably the best known owner in in basketball and one of them in professional sports. And how much you know, 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 I like having A boss like that.

And so I'm blessed. Uh, 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 One hundred percent of his attention. I love that as busy as he is. Uh 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 and at the end of the day he'll say send is your call. I mean that's one of his favorite lines sent is your call, but he is involved.

I mean he's he's involved from this standpoint. Um being there as kind of my coach. And my mentor. I'm learning the business of basketball. Of them, 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. Um sin а on the business side. Can you kind of give us a sense of what it means to be the CEO of an NBA team, you know, versus like a an owner or a general manager? Like what is what is a CEO of the an NBA team do. Uh I manage the business side of it, so

Ticket sales operation serving our Fans. I'm making sure that we have a full house in the arena when we play at home, are the marketing brand identity sponsorships So

Uh three of us report to Mark Cubin. 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. Kinda walk us through the the business challenges here because I m imagine that a huge part of a team's revenue comes from fans appearing at the arena, buying snacks, buying s beer, buying merchandise, and a lot of that's virtually all that's gone. So does television de do television deals and and maybe you know merch sales does that make up for the loss? Well not not not one hundred percent. So we're um Uh we're trying to be creative.

We did some things uh in the bubble uh 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 the online signage on the court.

So It's a challenge. Online merchandising has uh increased. We have to pivot quickly. You know, we gave away a lot of mask and a lot of, you know, PPE. But we also started 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.

I at the end of the season because uh we shut down and so we had to uh Fortunately for us Most of our fans Didn't ask for a refund. Most of them said either carry it on, give me your 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 so we did a lot in the community. And so they wanted to be a part of that. Uh 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.

Uh so knock on wood, yes, it is challenging financially, but it could be much, much, much worse. Yeah. This is a question from uh Ahmed El Masiri. 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 uh employee resource groups or affinity groups. Usually those leaders of those groups Will pull people together and pull the business together. to have those conversations. Uh, but even if you don't have them, I think uh somebody has to be

I'm 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 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 Covet nineteen. And then we've got the issue of social justice.

So we've got two two pandemics going on in this country right now. And we need to be talking about both of them. I mean when when the George Floyd thing happened Some of our African Americans. Somebody call sent. We we need to talk like today. And so we talked for three hours that Friday night. Wow. And then that Monday my leadership team call turned into a whole conversation around race.

Then our entire weekly How do we have Albies? kinda touch points. For a solid week. All of them.

were around what was happening. With social justice. Just like previously. We were talking about Call it. 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 gotta 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 from sending somebody an email. Uh, leaders have to respond to that. Especially when it's coming in mass. when a lot of people are saying we're going to talk about this. Yeah.

You know, Cynth, 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. Yeah. All right, be f before I let you go. A lot of people are are wondering whether professional sports gonna be changed forever, or 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 there'll ever be a return to normal professional sports as they existed before, you know, March twenty twenty.

What do you think? I mean, w do you think that the NBA let's say there's a vaccine. Do you imagine that like in the fall of twenty twenty one, 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 mask, we need to wash our hands, keep our distance, all that. Uh but I I'm optimistic. I'm I'm an optimistic person if you can't tell. And so I think 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 uh once is deemed safe.

We'll be back in there and so we're we're making plans. We hope we have a full arena. It may not start out full. Uh 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 and we can't wait. That's an excerpt from my conversation with Synt 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 JC Howard with help from Liz Metzger, Will Mitchell, Bruce Grant, Matt Adams. L. Mannion, 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.

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