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Stone Payton: Welcome to another exciting and informative edition of High Velocity Careers. Stone Payton here with you this morning. And of course, my buddy Tom Devaney, the Executive Director of the Kennesaw State University’s Executive MBA program. How ya been, man?

Tom Devaney: Been well? How about yourself?

Stone Payton: I’ve been good. It’s great to have you back in the studio. I have so thoroughly enjoyed producing this series. I’ve learned a ton, I’ve met some marvelous people, and I’ve really been looking forward to this one. You and I even got on a zoom call with Michael Cabe trying to plan this some time ago. We finally herded the cats. We’ve got them in here. I got a ton of questions for all of you. We may not get to them all, but I am really looking forward to this. Michael, it’s good to see you again, buddy.

Michael Cabe: Hey, thanks for having me. Good to be here.

Stone Payton: Maybe a good place to open up. Would you share with with me and our listeners your role in the organization and maybe a little bit about your career path, because you just have the coolest job. I think at one of the coolest places that I’m aware of, I love it.

Michael Cabe: So I work for The Home Depot, and I’m currently a senior manager of Learning strategy, and what that means is I help figure out what our leaders need to have. So if you think about the population that we have at the Home Depot that is considered people leaders, that’s 45,000 people that have direct reports. That’s the size of most large businesses in this country. So my job, in all honesty, is how do we keep those folks growing? How do we keep them developing? How do we keep them building leadership skills? And how do we make sure that we’re reinforcing the behaviors that we want them to see? Because if you think about those 45,000 people leaders, those people have to go home. So they also are working with their associates who have to go home. So how do we make sure that they are creating environments for themselves and their associates that when they go home, we leave them better than they came into the business. So that’s what my job is. How do we make sure that we have great leaders? We have the best leaders in retail out there, and it’s really awesome just to keep them on their toes and on their games. That’s what I do, uh, career wise, start out in higher education. So I worked there for several years, moved over into healthcare, where I helped build some pipeline development programs, and then came over into The Home Depot eight years ago, where I started off in our executive development program. So started with our most senior leaders helping them develop and grow. And I think that’s very unique in the fact that our senior leaders do the same thing that all of our leaders do. They’re always looking for growth. They’re always looking for ways to come in and do their jobs better. And we are pushing that throughout the organization. So that’s what I get to do every day. I get to work with our associates and help them understand, you know, how do I show up better today? Better than yesterday.

Stone Payton: So, eight years in, what’s the. What are you finding the most rewarding? What’s the most fun about the work these days for you?

Michael Cabe: I think the impact that we get to see, you know, we are doing some really cool things. I think, you know, I think there’s a misconception that at Home Depot, we just sell hammers. Yeah, we do a lot more than that. And when I talk with peers out in retail, we’re we’re not sitting here just saying, hey, here’s the best way to sell a hammer. We’re saying, how do you think about this? What do you think about the business? How do you build your business better? And in doing so and enabling you to do so, are the people that you work with every single day. So how do you grow them? How do you develop them? And Home Depot is notorious for building internal pipelines and building internal talent. And that’s what gets me excited every single day, is I get to see these folks day in and day out, grow and develop, and we get to be a little part of that. That’s that’s what keeps me up and what gets me up every day.

Stone Payton: So also filling out this all star lineup we have with us Paterson. Paterson, you’re in the software side of the of the work. Is that accurate? That’s correct. Yeah. So tell us a little bit about how you landed it. Because I could tell how much you enjoy your job. We had a chance to drink some coffee before we came in the studio, and it was obvious that you could see it in his eyes. You could hear it in his voice, the passion he has for the work. Tell us a little bit about the work and how one gets to do this kind of job.

Paterson G. Nya: Yeah, well, I started at a Home Depot a little under a decade ago, I believe it was on the 2nd of September, 2014. I still remember that date very, quite vividly. So when I started, I was a contractor basically working in our store systems. So we were working on resolving some of the issues that were coming from the store and all, and eventually got hired as a full time in HR. So I was responsible of multiple applications. I worked on things like I-9 compliance, and most recently I was working on the workday implementation. Uh, Home Depot was switching to start working, uh, just to have our users use workday. So I was part of that project. And, uh, while in the MBA program, I got a promotion which led me to a whole different side of the of the company still in HR, but this time around on Ukg dimensions. So I’m leading a team of nine people there, and we are doing great things for our store associates.

Stone Payton: How’s that for an endorsement, Tom? We got to carve that out, right? Make a promo out of it. I went to this thing that Tom is running and, uh, got a promotion. I think we’re done here. We’re good, we’re good.

Tom Devaney: It happens in every cohort, and almost 80% of our students get promotions while still in the program.

Stone Payton: Fantastic. And our headliner, Diana. How are you doing? Hi.

Diana Fonseca Wilkinson: Nice to meet you.

Stone Payton: And what are you doing? And how did you get there?

Diana Fonseca Wilkinson: Uh, so I’m a merchant for Home Depot. The home depot. I’ll go back to what Michael said. And how did I get there? I actually was hired in 2020 during the pandemic. June 22nd. I remember my first day to Paterson. I get it. And, um, during the pandemic, was hired as a.com merchant. And I was buying all of hardware for Home Depot. And so when you talk about hammers, I was buying all of the fasteners nails, screws and then, um, hinges, you name it, door locks. So all of the hardware for Home Depot for.com and just tremendous growth there. I did that for four years, and shortly after graduating, I actually moved over to the core side of the business and now I purchase all of. I purchase and sell because we’re merchants. We buy and sell all of the nailers and compressors and air tools for Home Depot, including the collated nails. And so it’s been quite a journey. I’ve really enjoyed it, I love it, and the program had a lot to do with my success.

Stone Payton: And if you buy it online, Diana bought it first. That’s right. That’s right. What do you like the most? What’s the most fun about to work for you?

Diana Fonseca Wilkinson: Oh, gosh. Um, the most fun about the work. The challenge of making sure that you’re taking care of not just the end user and the customer who gets it in their hand. Number one, getting it to them however they want to receive it, and then giving them the information that they need, whether it’s through.com or on packaging or any of those avenues, but also helping the store or our field, our store associates get the information that they need to sell it and take care of our customer. And so just so fun to see when you find an item, how many can you sell? And then knowing that a lot of the product that we sell help people in. You know, the thing about Home Depot is we’re there for them and some of their best times, right? When they buy a house, and they’re just so proud that they’ve been able to buy a house and to protect their family and provide. And then also we’re there for them. Sometimes when things are at its worst and something happens and the, you know, there’s a leak in the ceiling, or unfortunately, if there’s a natural disaster and being there for them. And so that is the most satisfying to know, is that we’re there for them during those times and be part of it.

Stone Payton: So we’re going to swing back around to Michael here in a little bit and probably get a far more detailed answer, but I would love to get some insight from this perspective on this topic from you and Paterson. First, I want to talk a little bit about culture at Home Depot and part of what is, um, the catalyst for asking this question. I’ve had a string of very positive experiences at the Home Depot, one of which is it’s really easy to get to and get back from my house. So thank you for putting it where you did right there on 92 and 575. But the most recent one really stands out for me because I went in. It was a younger person and I don’t even remember what I was asking for, but I was asking for the item and a little bit of advice on it. And you know what he did? He said, I don’t know, but I know who does. Come with me. And to me that you talk about a reflection of leadership and culture and leadership. To me, that was the epitome of a really strong leadership development employee development program, because rather than try to fan it off or whatever, he just flat out said, I don’t know, but I know who does follow me. And we got it and we got it handled. So I’m interested. How would you describe the The Home Depot culture?

Diana Fonseca Wilkinson: Uh, I came to the Home Depot because of the culture. I. A lot of people don’t know this, but when I started, when I started interviewing, um, I actually got an offer from Lowe’s the night before, and people at Home Depot don’t know that. But I guess now they do know.

Stone Payton: I guess they do now. All right. There’s edit mark, edit number one, but we just we refer to it as the blue brand and it’s way across the street. It’s hard to get to.

Diana Fonseca Wilkinson: We refer it to probably across the street. Um, and I didn’t I purposefully didn’t pick Lowe’s. And the reason for that was because of the culture that exuded when I was going through the interview process and the leadership that interviewed me and the people that interviewed me, it just came. It shined through. It was a no BS. Uh, we want to make sure that we take care of our people. The values that we have, we have an upside down pyramid where the CEO is at the bottom of our pyramid and at the top of our pyramid are our store associates, and we have our culture wheel. Our value wheel. And, you know, doing the right thing is on there. Creating shareholder value is on there. There’s just the it just resonates with me. And what’s great about our culture is that and what I could tell from the interviews is it’s not just something that they put on the walls. When you walk into the store support center, our home office is called the Store Support Center. Oh, wow. It’s not corporate office. It’s it’s the store support center. And when you walk in, it’s not just something that’s on the walls. I mean, people live it. We live it. We mean it.

Stone Payton: We mean it. I’m so glad I asked. And I believe you, and I believe that you believe it. Paterson I’m sorry you have to follow that answer, but you got any you got anything to say? About what? Can I answer.

Paterson G. Nya: So yeah, talking about the culture at Home Depot. It’s it’s really something that stands out, right? Just. Just like Diane says, the inverted pyramid, which you mentioned is part of the training. Like when when we come in, when you’re doing the different trainings that you’re doing, you have to take care of the customers, right? Us working at the store support center, we have to make sure that we are taking great care of our store associates because they are the front. They are the front line taking care of those customers. So if the store support center is not taking good care of those associates, that associate that told you that, I don’t know, but I know who can help you would probably give you a different answer. Right. So everything is goes back to the training. And Gabe mentioned earlier about the training that he’s giving to the executives and all. It kind of flows down. Right. But but one thing that I love a lot about working at the Home Depot is also the respect, right? There is a lot of respect, be it from the leaders downwards to the to the their direct reports or from their direct reports going upward. They are all about respect, and it’s one of the things that we values.

Diana Fonseca Wilkinson: On our value wheel. Wheels.

Paterson G. Nya: And for me, that’s even my personal life. Respect is very, very important. So I got into Home Depot ten years ago. I haven’t left since. I haven’t thought of leaving. I don’t know what the future holds, but yeah, I’m still here.

Diana Fonseca Wilkinson: So let me I’m going to share a story with you. Please. Um, when it comes to our culture and what we do, first of all, I’ll share this. We just had a fundraiser. We have something called the Homer Fund, and we also have a foundation. And the Homer Fund is, um, money that the company raises the associates within donate in order for if there’s something that happens to another associate in their time of need, that we can give them a grant or we can, you know, help them. We just raised internally at the Store support Center, just from the merchandizing division, $215,000 to donate that we just raised. And since the hurricanes, we’ve had a lot of associates that have been affected. We’ve donated over $500,000 to our associates in need just to make sure that they’re safe. I mean, our company, we we build buckets with equipment and, you know, water and food, and we have gas trucks that go to the stores to where the associates are located to make sure that they have gas, that we we fill up tank tankers of gas and send it out to those disaster areas. It is just absolutely incredible. And the thing is, is that we build stuff and, you know, the other foundation that we have our our foundation that we do.

Diana Fonseca Wilkinson: And, um, a lot of that money goes to veterans, but we don’t just donate money and equipment to veterans. We get out there and we build veteran homes. We go out and we help people build their houses that are in need. We’ve done it for Atlanta. Habitat for humanity. We work with our vendors. We don’t just get the supplies like we’re not just sending money. Like I have, I have swung a hammer. I have framed out a house. I have built a deck, I have, I have you name it, I’ve done it. You want to know how to do a project? We get out there and we get our hands dirty and we roll up our sleeves. Every single one of us at the store support center. And frankly, also our associates in store and anywhere in the distribution centers, we roll up our sleeves, we get out there and we do it. And I don’t know of any other company that can actually say that they do that. So yeah, I can pull my wallet out and give you some money, or I can go out there and actually build you something. And that’s what we do.

Stone Payton: I love it, Michael. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah.

Michael Cabe: I was actually going to say last Thursday we had 175 folks from the HR team actually go out, and we worked in Atlanta on four veteran homes where it ranged from exactly what you’re saying from we’re replacing the entire home, helping them renovate it to a ramp to get into their house, to just painting, to cleaning up the yard. So 175 folks from H.R. took the day and went into our neighborhood and worked and swung hammers and cleaned up yards and painted. And that is the mission behind the Home Depot is we’re not just here to sell you something here. We’re here to take care of you. We’re in your neighborhood. We are your neighborhood, and we are your neighbors. So that’s a big thing you feel at the Home Depot, and we.

Diana Fonseca Wilkinson: Don’t just come in and do, like the easy job of, like, sometimes, you know, painting is a little bit easier. I mean, I have I have hammered in Hardie board, I have put in siding on a house. We, we build.

Stone Payton: And that’s how you know, you’re selling good product, right. Because that’s what you’re buying the good hammer and your stuff.

Diana Fonseca Wilkinson: That we sell. That’s right.

Stone Payton: So Diana’s field testing this stuff. That’s fantastic to know. So, Michael, say more about this, this value wheel and this upside down pyramid. You know, if it’s not too proprietary, you don’t don’t share any secrets you don’t want to, but.

Michael Cabe: Well, it’s not proprietary, because if you walk into any store and y’all can’t see it where I am right now, but I am holding an apron that every single associate has and over their heart is actually our value will. Ah, and so you actually get to see these and we tell our leaders every single day, we tell our associates that as long as you are making decisions and you have run it through the lens of the value wheel, then you’re doing the right thing and you’re taking care of the customer and you’re taking care of our associates. So that is huge for us. And the other piece, you know, Diana mentioned here just a minute ago about the inverted pyramid. We believe in servant leadership. And there are there are some times at our high watermark. 500,000 plus associates at the Home Depot. There are thousands of job descriptions. There are thousands of titles. But at the Home Depot there’s only two roles. You are either selling a product or service to a customer, or you’re supporting someone who does. So there’s only two roles at the Home Depot. So if you think of that, our job every single day is to make sure that our customers are first, and then our front line associates have everything they need every single day to take care of all of the issues that our customers come in. So if you think about it, a customer doesn’t come in to the Home Depot just to walk around and peruse. This isn’t Macy’s, this isn’t another. They’re not coming just to look. Whoa whoa.

Diana Fonseca Wilkinson: Whoa. I was going to say I.

Tom Devaney: Do all the time.

Diana Fonseca Wilkinson: I walk down the hand tools aisle and tell me how many people you see going, oh, I’m wife’s just looking. I’m just looking.

Tom Devaney: Wife says it’s my. It’s my candy store. Yeah.

Michael Cabe: Well, um, we got. We’ll talk later. Uh, but, you know, we do have those, uh, but for the bulk of it, if someone walks in our doors, um, they’re either looking to fulfill a dream or solve a problem.

Diana Fonseca Wilkinson: Mhm. That’s right.

Michael Cabe: And if they walk out of those doors empty handed and they’re not Tom, then we failed them. Right. So the culture here is how do we serve that customer. How do we make sure they are taken care of. And that starts with making sure that everyone knows what their job is. They’re either selling a product or service directly or supporting someone who does. And when you line up behind that mission, you understand we’re all going in the same direction. You know, we’re all sitting here working to make sure that we are removing roadblocks and ensuring that our folks have what they need to be successful. And that’s the culture. The culture is take care of those that have been put in your charge. Make sure they can live up to their highest potential, and make sure they can bring their best self to work every single day. That’s what Home Depot does. As we take care of people in the process, we build communities.

Stone Payton: Tom I find this inspiring on the one hand. And then if I were in your shoes, I would find it very intimidating. How do you help a company that has got. I mean, they’ve cracked the code on this thing. What is it exactly that the MBA program can bring here? That’s that’s actually adding value? Because I’d be a little intimidated going into this environment and saying, you know, I think we can help.

Tom Devaney: Well, really, in an executive MBA, we focus heavily not just on business acumen, but on leadership skills development, conflict resolution, how to deal with team members in a positive way to help grow them rather than cut them down. Listening to Michael, it’s inspiring because, you know, most big organizations have silos, and those silos turn into big barriers and they inhibit you from getting your job done. It makes it so complicated or gives me so many barriers to do something as simple as get someone hired to get get through personnel or make some type of change where you hear Michael explain it so simply, we got two roles. I love that. I love that you got you got how many thousands, hundreds of thousands of employees. And you say we got two roles. I mean, that really resonated. And I never heard something articulated that that concisely. And that message is easy to understand. Okay. But, um, two of them in the room going through the program and it’s good question for them rather than me, as how did the curriculum help them better achieve those objectives with their teammates, with people in other functional areas of the organization that they support, you know, handle them in a way that is in line with their culture, which is obviously pretty positive culture.

Michael Cabe: I want to throw something in there real quick, and it’s something I’ve noticed over my eight years. And then what I really would love to do is maybe to throw it to our our rock stars here. Just to really kind of emphasize this is Home Depot is a place where you can have a lot of careers, you can do a lot of jobs, you can do a lot of roles. You look at Ann Marie Campbell, who is one of the most incredible humans in the world. She runs all operations, y’all. She started as a part time cashier.

Stone Payton: Whoa.

Michael Cabe: What Home Depot does is we don’t like to share talent. We don’t. We like to grow talent. We like to keep it in house. And you’ll find that the top of our senior leadership, those folks came from working those hourly roles. So what I would say Home Depot really does is we’re really great at knowing who is the great talent, who is the right culture fit, and who we think can help move the needle forward and move the business forward, and then investing in them. And then they invest in themselves. And the two people you have sitting here in front of you are exact images of that. They were given an opportunity to invest in themselves. They did so and Home Depot said, thank you. Let’s leverage that. Let’s leverage you because you belong here. We need you to grow the company. So we want to help you grow your career. So oftentimes we have people that move into roles, and then we help them develop the skills that they need. And then sometimes it’s the other way. Sometimes they develop the skills that they need.

Michael Cabe: And we move them into that right role because we want to keep them in here. You know, these are incredible humans that are orange blooded. They get the culture, they know what’s going on. Now. They know a little bit more. Let’s leverage that and let them move forward. So you’ve got two incredible examples of how when you invest in yourself, the company will invest in you as well. What I did was I did a certificate program with Kennesaw, and I worked and I did a program where I kind of got the appetizer version. Yeah, and got to take some courses to understand what was out there. Uh, toying with the idea of coming in for an MBA. So, Tom, don’t don’t send me an application just yet. A little busy, uh, but, you know, I’ve got to experience KSU and what they’ve been able to deliver. And for me, it opened my eyes on business areas that I needed. But you’ve got two alumni here that are prime examples of investing in yourself. And then Home Depot rewards that.

Stone Payton: So I’ll ask you, Diana, what what made you pull the trigger on this thing? What made you decide to do it?

Diana Fonseca Wilkinson: Um, for me, I always wanted to get my MBA program. And it’s funny, when I started in retail, um, I had an executive who was like, you don’t need an MBA. This is an MBA. This retail thing, this company that you work for is an MBA. And, um, they weren’t completely wrong. But what the program did for me is it helped me gain confidence. It allowed me to be able to have the confidence to sit at the table and know that I understand what’s going on. Now, when I hear my earnings call and I hear competitors earnings call, or I hear a vendor manufacturers earnings call and what’s happening in their business, and how does that affect The Home Depot, our purchases. And then in the long run, our customer. And um, that was really important to me. But more than anything, what the program helped me do was understand where my strengths were and where I needed to lean in, and also how to control some of them, Because sometimes, sometimes your strengths can also be your weaknesses.

Stone Payton: That is an excellent point.

Diana Fonseca Wilkinson: And so I’m a very passionate person. If you can’t tell. And so you know sometimes passion sometimes there sometimes there actually can be a little bit too much passion. And you need to be able to just reel it back a little bit. The program at KSU and the MBA program was fantastic in helping me understand who I am, why the whys of how I think, the whys of how other people think, how to communicate and interact with them so that we can have I can share the vision, and we can have the direction and the vision to move in the same path together in order for us to accomplish our goals. It’s just a remarkable program. And what I also loved about it is It. You know, the executive MBA program doesn’t start at square one. We didn’t take accounting 101 all over again. It really says, hey, let me teach you. We’re going to brush over the fundamentals and give you a reminder, and we’re going to take you right to what you need to learn. And so in statistics, for example, yes, you know, we we did a couple of assignments or small assignments running um running analysis. But what they taught us isn’t you don’t need to really understand how to run all of these analyzes. You need to understand how to read it because you’re going to be at the table and someone’s going to bring a regression analysis to you. And you need to understand how to read that regression analysis. And so that you can make the decision that you need to make, unless you want to be a statistician and actually go do that, then go be in that field. Yeah. And so I loved that. And like I said, it just gave me so much confidence to be able to sit at the table, to have the conversations, but to know myself, to know others, and how to influence and how to unlock people’s talents and how to unlock my own extremely just, just extremely well spent.

Stone Payton: Now, Paterson, there’s a pretty heavy experiential learning. Is that the right there’s there’s a lot of like, really applying what you’re doing to some cases. Right. And having to interact with other people in my accurate about the curriculum. Did you find yourself working in teams and being part of a team? Yeah.

Paterson G. Nya: So so for me, going into going into the program from from the onset. Right. Uh, earlier in my career, I’ve always wanted to go into management. Right. So I didn’t want to do an MBA or a master’s degree immediately after I came out of college with a computer science degree. So my idea was, I’m going to go into the work field and see if I actually want to do this management thing, or if I’m going to be a gig and just keep going into technology. So, uh, six, eight years down the road, I decide that, oh, I really want to go into management. Right? And so I start looking and saying, oh, I’m an alumni. It used to be a Southern Poly, which is now Kennesaw took part of that. So, uh, it was an easy choice for me to go to Kennesaw State for the executive MBA. Right. And I selected the executive program because of the flexibility, the fact that the way it was sold to me, they said, well, you’re going to come to school once a month and just during the weekend. So I saw it as not impacting my, my work life. Well, uh, that, that that was not a very good calculation because you have to put a lot of time to, to, to, to go through the program. But, but but I digress. Right.

Paterson G. Nya: The most important thing that I took from the program for me was the ability, as Diane was saying, to understand my strengths was the ability to learn on those soft skills. Right. Because me coming from a me being an IT guy is usually just you and your computer, right? You you have to build something. You boom. They tell you this is what you’re building. You go, you can go in a silo or maybe you can pair program with someone else. But understanding working in a group of, say, ten people and understanding how different people are behaving or why they are doing what they are doing, how you are able to convince, are you able to convince people to go in a particular direction or not? Right. That is the value that I took from the executive MBA. So I don’t get me wrong. Prof. Devinney the financial part was good because I remember once one of my senior managers came and he said, hey, you’ve been doing this program for some months now. What? What have you been learning? And I remember it was after one of those earnings calls and I told him that, hey, look, you see those financial statements that are sending I can read them and really follow the money. I can understand what they’re talking about. He was like, oh yeah, maybe you should do a, a, a, a session where you’re explaining to people what it’s about.

Paterson G. Nya: I said, oh yeah, maybe sometime. Right. So it sheds light on a lot of things like the finance is good and all, but for me the most important thing was understanding myself, the people aspect of it, those soft skills, those that is what I was lacking in and that is what made me move forward. Right? One other thing that I got from the program was just tapping from different people’s experience, because the cohort is not just you’re not just sitting there with, you’re sitting with people that are at the top of their game in different industries. Right. And so every Saturday, every Sunday when we went to that class, me sitting there and listening to people talk about their experiences in their fields, like you have people that are top executives in their companies, and they’re explaining a problem that they may be faced. Right. You learn a lot from that. Me sitting in the at the back of the class saying, oh, I want to be a manager. I want to be a senior manager. I want to get into this management stuff. And I’m listening to these guys saying that, oh, when I was back there, this is what I did, this is how I did it. And all those are the kind of invaluable things that I took from from the program.

Stone Payton: Michael, clearly these two are life learners and if I understand the least little bit about this value, will the upside down pyramid, their journey is nowhere near over in terms of their professional development. Tell us what they might expect, what we might expect if we had them back in the studio two years from now, five years from now, there’s plenty for them to to do and to gain through your professional development curriculum, right?

Michael Cabe: Yes. And what I would also say is that Home Depot fully believes in investing in our leaders. So we’ve got two amazing examples of that right now. And you know, they’re leading great teams. So one of the things that Home Depot is going to continue to do for you all is we believe that learning doesn’t stop when you get the title. Learning doesn’t stop when you hit the goal. And that learning is something that you’re going to be doing all day, every day on the job and through your people. So we have programs for our people, leaders, and even for, uh, everyone else who’s not a people leader that says, hey, listen, here’s how we continue to develop you. We have ongoing leadership programs that happen that every six months or each half, we focus in on certain leader behaviors. So we have programs that are our leaders are getting exposed to. They’re practicing leadership behaviors. They’re learning something new. We even throw in some of that functional skill there. But if you think about the different roles that we have, the functional development has to be very siloed.

Michael Cabe: It has to be very specific. Leadership doesn’t. Leadership. We understand what we’re seeing, what what we as a company can do better. And so we love what our what our associates go out and they invest in themselves. They get these great skills. And then what we want to do is we want to say, listen, that’s amazing. Let’s keep you growing, keep you a lifelong student. Let’s keep moving that needle forward for you. And you know, Paterson, one of the things I love that you, you said is learning from other people. And we want to be able to do that. We have programs where most of the learning, if not 95% of the learning, is sitting around a table, just like we’re doing right now, saying, what keeps you up at night? How can I help? What can we do differently? And that is a keystone to The Home Depot. Success is we like looking around corners. We like understanding what’s happening out there. And development doesn’t stop with the promotion, the goal reaching or the degree. It’s constant.

Stone Payton: Your responsibilities, Michael, strike me as broad and deep. I’m trying to get my arms around. What a day in the life of Michael might. Might be like. Can you describe, like, a day or a week? Because you got a lot going on and I’m sure you’ve got some great people, people helping you.

Michael Cabe: But I work on an amazing team and there isn’t a typical day in the life. Uh, what I would say is there are seasons, and what that looks like is we are consistently out there talking to our leaders. What’s working? What’s not working? Where do you need help? And that has to be not just our store support. That has to be in our field and our stores. We have to be out in our supply chain. We have to be the folks that are listening at all, every single corner of the business. So every single day I’m doing some form of listening and that’s the coolest part of my job. I just spent three days in a classroom listening, and I have so much passion and energy to go back and do work. So what we do is we focus six months. Well, I focus currently six months at a time. What can we do for six months for that half on a leadership behavior? Where can we focus? Where can we move the needle? What can the entire organization look at. And then we validate that and then we measure that. And so a season really is what do you need right now. What is the business need. And then how can we help move the needle for our leaders. So it’s more seasonality. You know what. Yeah. What do you need today. Because what you needed six months ago. And if these folks in front of me can probably tell you, you know, we’ve had more change in retail in the past five years than the past 50 years combined. So for me to go and say, in two years, we’re going to be focused on X, Y, or Z. I can’t do that because we might have George Jetson’s car out there in two years from now with how fast things are changing. And so it’s always, what do you need right now? How can we help you be successful today? How can we make sure that in the next half, in the next year, you can win and get you those skill sets? So it’s all about just listening and then delivering what they need.

Stone Payton: So you mentioned a couple of terms that in my experience, not all leadership development, talent development people are super excited to talk about. But I have a feeling maybe you would be. You talked about validating and measuring. So you really are staying on top of this, seeing what’s working, what’s not tweaking it. Can you speak a little bit more to to incorporating that into a leadership development program? Absolutely.

Michael Cabe: So we have a survey that goes out to every single one of our associates. The voice of the associate. A lot of you all out there probably know it’s an engagement survey and we ask our associates, how are you doing? Is everything going well? What’s working for you? What’s not working for you? And what can we be doing better? These are long surveys that you’re open to. Comments. We get a lot of comments and then we break it down. We say you know you know is this the benefits issue? Is this a leadership issue. Things along those lines. And we break leadership down at the Home Depot into four main behaviors. And Paterson hit one of them. So respect, celebrate, develop and inspire. If you do those four things well you’re going to have a great team. So we are measuring those four leader behaviors. We have multiple questions that ask about that. And our goal is to always do a little bit better every half on those four behaviors. And where we see ourselves starting to slip, we go right back into them because we have the saying and you all have probably heard this. We take care of our associates. They take care of the customers. Everything else will take care of itself. So if we live those four leader behaviors, and we teach people how to show those and role model them every day, then we’re going to win. We’re going to continue winning. But we got to keep a pulse on that. Where are we slipping? Where do we need to be a little bit better? Where can we dive back in? Where can we reinforce. And so we measure that because if those four leader behaviors are strong, our cells are directly tied to that. We know that at the end of the day, we sell better when we have fully engaged associates, because those engaged associates take care of the customers. And if we take care of the associates, it all takes care of itself.

Stone Payton: One of the things that I’m really inspired by in hearing you speak specifically is, I guess the best word for it is simplicity. Or maybe it’s it’s focus. I got to believe that those four things lead to retention. Those four things lead to other specific green dollar results that everybody needs and wants to to generate. But I I’m inspired by the way at least you but it sounds like maybe it’s a product of the culture to are able to articulate in very simple terms that provide for some, some immediate and ongoing focus on the things that are really important.

Michael Cabe: Everyone wants to be respected. They want to feel developed. They want to be inspired to come to work, and they want to be celebrated for their wins. That’s four things we can in the leadership environment, focus on a million different things. You look, you know, we use Korn Ferry leadership. That’s over 30 competencies. I can try and have you be great at 30 competency competencies. You know Diana was saying this earlier. She’s like, listen, I know where my strengths are. I know where my opportunities may be and I know where to kind of take care of that. But if as a leader, you have so many things to do every single day, if I say there’s only four things you need to do to be a great leader, and if you’re good at those four things, the rest will take care of itself. So you have to drive that simplicity. We aren’t in a simple business. We’re not. We’re in a very complex business. If you think of what happens with our talent when you work at another retailer. So let’s say you’re working at a company like target. That’s a very different job than when you’re working at Home Depot. People don’t go into target and say, how do you how do you plumb a toilet? They don’t do that, but they come into our associates and they say, how do you plumb a toilet? And you mentioned it earlier. Someone says, well, I don’t know, but let’s find someone who does. Yes. And our associates deal with a level of complexity that a lot of other folks don’t, Do. We also work in warehouses? There are forklifts out there. There’s a lot of complexity that our associates have to deal with. So if we don’t lead with simple and very applicable, it gets lost in the noise. There’s just too much else to do.

Stone Payton: In just a few moments, I’m going to go around the table and get a little piece of advice, a pro tip about that you might offer based on your experience, your education, your experience within the Home Depot, for people who may be seeking a career or seeking to advance their career. Because I have a feeling you guys could drop some really powerful nuggets, so maybe be thinking about that. But before we before we go there, I am genuinely curious. And I’m going to start with Diana interest, pursuits, hobbies, passions completely outside the scope of what we’ve been talking about, about the work. Most of the people that listen to shows that I produce or co-hosts know that I like to hunt, fish, and travel. Anything you like to nerd out about that doesn’t have anything to do with this.

Diana Fonseca Wilkinson: Um, well, I think we were talking about it earlier. I’ve got two little girls, and so, uh, outside of Home Depot, my world really revolves around them. And my husband and I’m a soccer mom. I never thought I would be saying that, but I am. I’ve often thought about strapping a GoPro to my head and seeing if I could make a reality show. Out of all of the other soccer parents out there. Sometimes, um,

Michael Cabe: I would watch that.

Stone Payton: I would too.That’s funny.

Michael Cabe: Real Housewives with the soccer field.

Diana Fonseca Wilkinson: Yeah, exactly.

Tom Devaney: Do you drive a, uh, SUV?

Diana Fonseca Wilkinson: I do. I drive a Jeep, I drive the L so that it can have the third row.

Tom Devaney: I got it.

Diana Fonseca Wilkinson: Oh, yeah. Um, and we just got a new puppy. His name is Jersey. Uh, originally from new Jersey. It just happened that way. The the the people who owned him prior had named him Jersey, but. So, yeah, I mean, my world revolves around the girls and doing things with them. And I’m a big socialite, so I like to go out and I’m a foodie. I love to have good food. I’m lucky I’ve married a fantastic husband who cooks a lot. And so I got really lucky. And so that’s that’s really what I do. I’m very family oriented. My parents still live in new Jersey. They fly in all the time. Oh, neat. Um, and I mentioned earlier, I’m Cuban, so we’re again, that’s all very social fun. Dancing, eating, drinking. Family.

Michael Cabe: Way to call her out.

Diana Fonseca Wilkinson: Maybe a maybe a little rum and coke every now and then. Yeah.

Stone Payton: And, Paterson, you’re from a little east of Cuba, aren’t you?

Paterson G. Nya: Oh, no no no, no. So I’m from Cameroon, central Africa.

Stone Payton: All right. So what are you into, man, when you’re not doing the software thing?

Paterson G. Nya: Uh, more software out of Home Depot.

Paterson G. Nya: So together with some friends, in addition to the family and everything. But together with two of my friends we are creating. We’ve created started this startup in Cameroon. So it’s, um, we we are trying to, uh, give the possibility to ask people in the diaspora to be able to manage their money back home. So because we’ve had we constantly have this issue where, let’s say you have a business back home and, uh, you, you, you want to get money from customers or you want to send money back home and all. So you have to pass through third parties, right? Let’s say your mom, your brother and all. And if your mom spends that money, there’s nothing you can do about it, right? Uh, if your brother spends that money, there’s nothing you can do about it. You can’t sue your brother back. It’s going to be like a big family meeting, and they’re going to say, hey, what the hell are you doing? So. So our app is, uh, we want to use this app to, to make sure that the diaspora is able to take care of that. Right. So we are currently working on that. Working on getting the different licenses and all. Tough job. So thank you David for all those financial.

Stone Payton: Stuff really coming in handy over there too.

Paterson G. Nya: I’m not I’m not using it at work. But and I was going to mention that that’s one other thing that I got from the program. Right. Because on this startup we had three software engineers. So we were always thinking about the product, about how to develop better, about how to use the best technologies. Right. Then I started the MBA and I come back and I tell my two business partners, my two friends, and I’m like, look, we are spending too much time on the product. We need to work on the business and not in the business like we need to make sure that we are working on getting the business out there like this technology, we can spend the whole time and develop the best app, but if we don’t have a good business plan, if we don’t have proper financial statements, if we don’t really explain to investors that this is where what we’re going to do with your money, or this is where the money is going to be going. We’re not going to make it like so, so different perspective that I got from the program, right. So me coming back and being like, look, I’m not going to touch the product anymore. We need to start thinking about different things. But yeah, that’s one of the things that I do outside of work. But also most importantly is I’m a big family man, right? I do have two little girls just like Diane. And, uh, they really mean the world to me. Uh, I’m also very lucky to be married to a very capable, uh, wife, Monique. Small anecdote. She takes great care of the kids. Uh, just a little thing here. Last time I was passing in the living room and I saw my daughter. She was reading and aloud, and I’m like, turn to my wife. And I’m like, she reads.

Paterson G. Nya: She’s like what do you think I’ve been doing with her? Every afternoon when she comes back from school? I’m like, oh no, that is nice. That’s nice. And then I go back to my office and work some more. So so so but but yeah, I’m very grateful for that. But, um, hobbies I do love. Uh, I was going to say soccer, but I call it football.

Paterson G. Nya: It’s football. It’s football.

Paterson G. Nya: So I do love football. Right. The one. The real football. The real football. Kick with your legs.

Stone Payton: With the foot.

Paterson G. Nya: So yeah, that’s that’s that’s a big hobby of mine. Like I mentioned at the beginning of the show tomorrow I’m going to be watching the classical, so. Oh, very big on football. Yeah.

Stone Payton: So Michael, I don’t know when or where or how you’d find the time, but anything that you’d like to do outside the scope of the work we’ve been talking about.

Michael Cabe: Well, Paterson saving the world. So this is a really terrible have to follow. Uh, so, you know, um, huge wine nerd here. So I spent a lot of time in traveling for wine, going out and exploring it, seeing what’s out there. You know, it’s tons of fun to, you know, that’s something you can always learn something new about. And it’s so outside of my world of what I do every single day that you’re sitting here and you’re learning about agriculture and you’re learning about weather patterns and you know how just slight tweaks and changes can make a product just so wildly different. So that’s a lot of fun. So wine and traveling like Dana, you know, I love going out there and exploring. Atlanta has a crazy good food scene. And so getting out there exploring it, uh, one of my favorite things to do, in all honesty, is to try to rip off a restaurant. So out there and try something I’ve never tried before, and then go home and spend a couple of weeks just trying to make it.

Diana Fonseca Wilkinson: Oh, I’m glad you explained that.

Stone Payton: Yeah. Me too. At first I’m like, what is he doing?

Paterson G. Nya: I was going to say, that’s not….

Michael Cabe: I’m not a dine a dasher. So I pay my bills. But it’s, you know, you get a dish and you’re like, this is amazing. I think I can make this. And then you go home and you practice it, and you then it teaches you something different. It teaches you a new style of cooking, a new a new way of cooking. So, you know, love doing that, trying to myself and learning cooking from different parts of the world. That’s what I do. I have a.

Diana Fonseca Wilkinson: Question for you. Yes. Do you spit the wine when you’re in your wine tastings?

Michael Cabe: I’m not a quitter.

Michael Cabe: I mean, no.

Diana Fonseca Wilkinson: Just wanted to make sure you were enjoying it.

Michael Cabe: No. Always. Always. No, you don’t need one of those spitting buckets. No spitting buckets for me. I will make sure it’s handled.

Diana Fonseca Wilkinson: Okay. All right. Good.

Michael Cabe: If I don’t like it, I’ll just be like, thank you. And, you know, usually someone in our group does like it, so you can, you know, have your, your sip and then pass it to a friend.

Diana Fonseca Wilkinson: I like it. Sharing sharing sharing is caring. I love it. Absolutely.

Stone Payton: Tom, I know you’re 24 over seven helping people and making money, but I also know you got you have a couple of toys and you’ve got one parked out there right now. Are you into any new hobbies I don’t know about?

Tom Devaney: Not really, but I am getting ready to, uh, really start to slow down. Yeah. As you know, uh, I sold my CPA practice of January 1st of last year. The majority of it. Um, I took on the executive director role of the MBA program three years ago, while I’m still a full time professor. Across the studio is located in the innovation spot, which me and my wife run, and we have other businesses where entrepreneurs together. She’s amazing. Um, and I had a lot of eye openers last year, and I decided that it is time for me and Lori to enjoy life. Our youngest is 21 years old, bought a new Winnebago Navion 25 footer. The little the little Harley out in the parking lot. Our tow vehicle. She wouldn’t she wouldn’t get on two wheels with me anymore. So I had to sell my big two wheel bike and get a trike so that she’ll be back. She says, I’m too old. I might drop it. And I said, you know what? You’re right. So.

Michael Cabe: So you went back to training wheels?

Tom Devaney: Yes, I did.

Tom Devaney: Just as long as I don’t go back to diapers. I’m okay. Uh, you know so well. Well, so we are we’re we’re going to we’re going to really start enjoying life come next year. I am stepping down as the executive director January 1st, so I will continue in my faculty role. And I love teaching. And, you know, Michael’s an educator. You can you can hear his his enthusiasm about it and what drives us every day. I say it very simply, you know, in like three words, I change lives. And we literally do, you know, people come in so uncomfortable with some of the subject matter we teach and we’re like, you got this. This is not that hard. Just and take them to a level that they have the confidence that Diane talked about. And that is the most rewarding thing. I’ve had lots of businesses, I had lots of business successes, but there’s nothing greater than seeing someone else grow. And knowing you played a role in that, that is that’s that’s my drive in life and that’s what I love to do.

Stone Payton: Fantastic. All right, before we wrap, let’s get our our panel here to drop a little wisdom on us and we’ll just go around. We’ll start with your. With you. Michael, a pro tip, uh, anything to those pursuing a career, you know. Wanting to advance in their career. Drop some wisdom on a man.

Michael Cabe: I always believe in. We’ve all heard of the 80 over 20 rule, but I like to twist it a little bit. When you’re looking to make a change in your career, when you’re looking to grow. Your career, make a move or anything along those lines. For the most part, employers are willing to make a 20% investment in you as long as you have 80% of the skills that are ready. So as you’re thinking about what your next role is going to be, what your next job is going to be, what the problems are you want to solve. Make sure you have at least 80% of those skills that you can say, I got it. But if you’ll wager 20% on me to learn and grow in this role, I’ll learn it. But you got to tell them how you’re going to learn it. So the 8020 rule for me is if you’re looking out there, take a big swing. Make a change. Some people think it’s a massive change. You have to go from one industry to the next. It’s not. It’s that you’ve got to make incremental steps to learn where you’re going. Learn the skills that you need, get 80% of that well founded at least, and then folks will wager 20% on you as long as you tell them how you’re going to get that other 20%. So don’t look to do I’m going to do everything brand new. I’m going to learn everything brand new, and all of it’s going to be brand new. That’s too big of a risk. But figure out where your 8020 is and then start making slow pivots to the job you want to be. But always looking. How do I get that 80%, at least 80% skill set in the bank?

Stone Payton: Paterson. Again, I apologize for putting you in between two very passionate, articulate folks, but I know you might have a piece of counsel or two to offer. You had to follow Diana on another one. Now you got to follow Michael. Michael.

Paterson G. Nya: So for me, one thing I tell my mentees and most of my team and I got this from the program as well. Right? There are three things that you need in your career, right? If if you are going to want to grow and all, you cannot do it yourself. You need to get yourself a coach, right? You need a coach. You need a mentor. And if possible, you need a sponsor. Ah, it’s extremely important if you are going to grow in anything you do. Because we have kids, right? Our kids need us to to move in life, to do a lot of things professionally. Make sure you get yourself a coach, a coach. And what is it like? A coach is someone that listens to you and asks you tough questions and brings you to get to a solution yourself, right? A mentor is someone through whom you are going to learn, right? Through those experiences, you can learn to avoid some mistakes, right? And the last one, if you are capable of getting it. If you you can get it is a sponsor, and it’s usually someone who has power and is willing to use it for you.

Diana Fonseca Wilkinson: Great advice.

Stone Payton: And our headliner, Diana.

Diana Fonseca Wilkinson: You know, it’s funny, I have I have two things I would say when it comes to career one, and I know that people say this all the time, but find what you love to do and make money doing it so that you don’t feel like you’re going to work every day. And you know when you ask, what are my hobbies outside of work? My husband jokes all the time, but I can talk retail for hours. I just, I love it, I can talk about the economy, the things that are happening, the things that are happening out in the government and how that’s going to affect retail. I constantly I have retail brew on my phone, so I’m looking there. I want to know about, you know, what other retailers are doing, what they’re doing. Well, why is the a customer shopping that store? I am obsessed with retail. I love it, I love it that much. So I would say there’s for everything that people do. People love to do certain things, go make money doing what you love to do. And then the other thing that I would say professionally that has helped me in my career, from the day I walked into my professional long term career in retail is other people’s perception is your reality. And a lot of time, um, we say, well, you know, they think that this is what it is, or, you know, you’re trying to learn leadership skills or you’re trying and people have they they just don’t understand me or this is how I am.

Diana Fonseca Wilkinson: Other people’s perception is your reality. So how are you going to change other people’s mind about you? And for me, when I first started in in a corporate office, in retail, I would work from 7 a.m. in the morning until 10 or 11:00 at night. But the rest of the office was there at 6 a.m. in the morning and would leave by 5:00, maybe 530. No one saw me there late at night, and so the perception was that I wasn’t a hard enough worker. I started to wake up at 4:00 in the morning. I’d get into the office. I would run everyone’s reports and have it on everybody, including my leadership’s desk, by 6:15 a.m. so that when they walked in, they had a fresh report of what was going on on their desk. And and I would leave at night at with when they left. And just doing that, I remember the day that my boss walked in and said, gosh, I really appreciate you working so hard. All I did was change my hours. I didn’t change my personality, I just changed my hours. And like that, my the perception about me changed and suddenly I became a whole a hard worker. Other people’s perception about you is your reality and you need to figure out how to change their perception.

Stone Payton: Amen.

Stone Payton: Tom, thank you for putting this conversation together, man. You got to be beaming with pride to be hanging out with these, with these folks, and to know that you’ve had an impact on on their lives. Thank you for what you’re doing with the executive MBA program. Guys, I have thoroughly enjoyed. This has been such a marvelous way to invest a Thursday morning. I appreciate your insight, your perspective. Keep up the good work.

Diana Fonseca Wilkinson: Thank you for having us. Now we’re just going to I’m going to just sit here for a little bit and try to convince Michael to go into the MBA program at KSU, because I just I just feel it.

Stone Payton: You know, under the guise of a radio show, this is actually an intervention for Michael.

Michael Cabe: Wouldn’t be the first one.

Stone Payton: Guys, thank you so much. This has been a blast. Alright, until next time. This is Stone Payton for our guests today and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you again on High Velocity Careers.