Speak Louder or Shut Up? Rita Johnson-Mills on What Happens When DEI Becomes Too Controversial || EP. 196

[00:00:00] When you think about healthcare and not focusing on conditions that impact people of color and different ethnicities, sickle cell disease, different types of cancers, we're going to see treatments stop. We're going to see people die. We're going to see people not being able to see a physician because of the color of their skin.

[00:00:28] This is Inspiring Women. I'm speaking with Rita Johnson-Mills. And Rita, you are a legend. You are a legend. You are a veteran in healthcare. You have been the CEO of multiple organizations for over 20 years, including UnitedHealth in Tennessee. You have so many accolades. I have to read them because just you are the most influential corporate director.

[00:00:52] You are a most admired CEO in all of Nashville, which is, I think, you know, where healthcare was born. You have done many things. You've had responsibility for millions of people in terms of how they access and get their care. You have been instrumental in pushing for serving the needs of black and brown communities. And you've done it all. Rita, I'm so happy to have you on Inspiring Women. Thank you for being here. Thank you. I'm happy to be here.

[00:01:21] So let's dive in. We're here in New Orleans. We're here at the Women Business Leaders Conference. If you can just think about the arc of your career for all the things that you've done, can you just go back to the time when you began to know that you were on the path or the first step towards leadership? When was that?

[00:01:43] You know, it's an interesting question because, honestly, that occurred before I ever knew I was going to be in healthcare. I'm one of 12 children born to a single female and right in the middle of the pack. And I grew up on Medicaid. So I could not even dream of doing what I've done across my career.

[00:02:12] My little small town in Missouri didn't make people that do the kinds of things that I've been blessed to do. So I didn't have a dream of being a CEO. I knew I wanted to do more. I knew I wanted to be more than a product of my environment.

[00:02:32] But it was the kind of thing that when steps are ordered and people that you don't even know are doing things to influence your trajectory and the direction that you're going to go. And that happened to me at The Ohio State University. The Ohio State University. My husband's a Buckeyes fan. I know how to say it.

[00:02:57] And I received a scholarship to work on my master's there. And in the master's program, what I didn't know at the time was in the master's of public policy and a master's of labor and human resource management. But they created a resume book of all the minority students that had gone through that program. And I had no idea my resume was in that book.

[00:03:26] But someone at the state of Ohio, a new administrator, came in and went to the school and said, I want to see your resumes of minority students that have graduated. We need to have some diversity in the Department of Health. OK. And that was the trajectory that started me in health care. Yeah. Was getting that phone call. So I don't know if you've heard of the book, Seven People You Meet Before You Go to Heaven. OK. And one is a blue person.

[00:03:52] And the blue person is the person that does something for you that you don't even know that they did it. I don't know this one. OK. And it influences your direction. So I feel like I had a blue person someplace at Ohio State and had no idea. That is amazing. That is amazing. But it takes a lot more than that one blue person. You're 11 siblings. So and you're a single mother and you're a hometown in Missouri.

[00:04:18] And I have to imagine that you are a unicorn in all of that sort of community that you had. So what does your family do? What do your family members do? You know, I have a lot of ministers in my family. My brothers, I have seven brothers and they were mostly all military. My mom never who passed of COVID for three years ago, never knew what I did.

[00:04:48] She was just proud of what I did. And I remember all the time growing up because we were so poor. She would always say, keep your head up because God don't make no junk. And those words still stick with me today to where I was like, no, God, don't make no junk. Yeah. And he gives you the ability and put the right people in your path to help you.

[00:05:15] So within my family now of 11 with myself, one of my siblings died in the military. You know, it's like they are so proud. They have an idea of what I've done. Yeah. But again, I don't believe they fully get the breath of it. Right. Right. And I can imagine that.

[00:05:37] So Rita, in terms of those first steps, so you had a blue person in your life who opened a door for you, but you stepped through it. And you didn't step through it because you had a lot of, you know, people in your life who were, you know, like you. So what were those first couple steps? How did you, I don't know if it was courage or not knowing or what was it? And then you took so many other steps.

[00:06:03] You know, I think it was the tenacity of when you're one of 12 and you don't have much, you're always taught to do the best with what you've got. And my high school counselor was not an advocate for me. I was very smart, always at the top of my class. When I went and asked her about college, she looked at me and said, colored girls don't go to college. So I didn't get encouraged there. Yeah.

[00:06:32] It was because I had a brother in college that I decided to go anyway. Yeah. And so it was that tenacity, the hard work, the stick-to-it-ness, the figuring out, and just the ability to see things. And I believe it is a God-given talent to be able to see beyond yourself and to see things in others that they don't even see to help them to move on and develop.

[00:07:01] I have to just, like, continue to dig at this a little bit, Rita, though, because, like, you know, I hear tenacity and I hear hard work. But you had 15 years of leadership. And then you took the leap to CEO of major health plans, major health plans, you know, for 20 years. And you have been acknowledged as the top CEO, the most admired. So you also happen to be pretty great at it.

[00:07:27] So that leap, that leap to CEO, saying yes to that and then succeeding at it, okay, which you undeniably have done. So how did you get good at it? Did you find mentors? Did you just stick to it? Was it just something about you? Is it something that you learned from someone else that other women who want to be like you could learn? You know, it was step by step.

[00:07:57] You know, it was a ladder. It wasn't straight up. You know, it was spending 10 years in state government in Ohio and meeting people and learning to deal with the legislature and having people have your back in those situations. It was making mistakes and being given the ability to make those mistakes and not those mistakes being held against you.

[00:08:22] I learned at an early age that I could make the 10,000 foot mistakes on my own and ask for forgiveness. Yeah. But if I'm going to make the 50 or 100,000 level mistakes, I got to have somebody behind me that's championing me that has my back.

[00:08:39] And I ended up having that throughout my career because obviously they saw something in me that I didn't know and gave me that chance and mentored me and put me through training programs and allowed me to be authentically me.

[00:09:00] And to be free to speak my Southern accent versus telling me to change because that Southern accent is not professional. I saw other people being told that throughout my career, but I didn't have anyone stopping me and holding me and trying to change my dialect. So I was allowed to be me with the support of both men and women.

[00:09:27] That's actually really quite incredible, remarkable actually, because I think that we've all spent the past probably like five to seven years where people have been talking about bringing your authentic self to work. There's some backlash against that happening right now. Back when, longer ago, that was absolutely not the case.

[00:09:47] And for women, women of color, you know, even your hairstyle was very sort of, you know, not regulated, but it was there were ways to fit in and not in the professional settings. And I'm sure you dealt with all of those rules. I absolutely did. And with one of the large health care companies that I worked for, I'll give you this little story. I wear, I would wear different, what I call my girlfriends, but there'd be different wigs that I would put on.

[00:10:15] And one day I went into the office and I had on a straight haired wig. And one of the executives came up to me and he, we were peers, but he was still an executive. And he said to me, oh, you're wearing your pretty hair today. I looked at him and I thought, okay, I can get really angry.

[00:10:43] I can file a case on him or I can educate him. And so I pulled him into one of the little cubbies. Whoa. And I educated him. And at the end, he thanked me. You told him. Yeah, I told him. I said, don't, you can't do that. I said, every hairstyle I wear in here is my pretty hair. Yeah.

[00:11:13] It's not just because this is straight and that's what you're used to. Yeah. And that's your definition of beauty. And if it is, you keep it to yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Because I may not wear this pretty hair again for a year. Well, you know, it's like you're speaking to that tenacity. I'm seeing it come through because I've been in so many conversations. There are so many women who have had that uncomfortable situation. And what happens is they don't capture that moment and face it.

[00:11:43] They think about what they wish they had said or done at the time later on, but you actually did it. That speaks to a lot about who you are, Rita. I want to go back to the work that you did. And if you think of the long arc of all of the things that you've done, what are you most proud of?

[00:12:03] I'm most proud of the fact that I can look back and identify no less than ten women that are in positions of CEO and executive roles. Not in spite of me, but because of me. And how I took them under my wings and mentored them and really taught them how to be an executive,

[00:12:32] how to be a CEO. The majority of them are women of color, but not all. And so to me, that's a legacy that I stand proud. And they will tell you today, if it had not been for Rita, I wouldn't. That's what I'm most proud of. Well, that is choking me up. And that is absolutely incredible. We need more women in the C-suite.

[00:13:01] We need many more women who are CEOs. And to have ten of them that you can point to, that is incredible. I hope they all do the same for the next ten as well. That's amazing. If I want to talk about some of your work that you've done in the boardroom, because that's where you're spending some of your time now. So as you choose board and you do board service, can you just talk about what's happening in the boardroom?

[00:13:31] There's been a lot of effort over years to bring more diversity, starting with gender diversity in the boardroom. All of those laws have been repealed and overturned. We've seen progress slowed. Yet we know that in the boardroom, that when we have diversity around the table, diversity of color, diversity of thought, diversity of gender, that we have better business outcomes for companies. What's happening here?

[00:13:58] Well, you know, it's something that I think about and I worry about, not necessarily for myself, because I've established myself as a credible corporate director, both in the States and internationally. I serve, that's why I was in Brussels, because I serve on an international board. But I worry about when more board seats come open.

[00:14:24] Are they going to give lip service now or no service because they can go back to the good old boy network? Yep. So that is my, and those are things that we've talked about in the Owens and Minor boardroom. Owens and Minor is probably, it is the most diverse board. That I have ever served on.

[00:14:49] And we've got a chair that makes sure that everyone's voices are heard. And that level of diversity has made a big difference. It makes a difference to the employees when they walk by and they see someone that looks like them in the boardroom. Mm-hmm. As a female, because I'm the second, with the two females on the international board,

[00:15:16] the second one I brought on because we didn't have another. Mm-hmm. And as you know, you get tired of being the only one. Right. Right. Well, let's see what Rita has to say about this. We need a different opinion. Yeah. And so I brought another female director on from the United States to that international board.

[00:15:39] And my, I wonder in four years if there will be anyone that looks like me on boards. I intend to serve on boards maybe another five years. So I'll be out of that. Mm-hmm. And how do I make sure that there's not, that that void is not there? That is my biggest concern. Yeah.

[00:16:05] Well, maybe talk a little bit about just like now, you know, I think for many people, the how boards work is really different. I mean, when there are executive positions in companies, there is an entire industry of executive recruiters that are out there. There's somebody to shepherd you to navigate a process. Boardrooms, it doesn't work that way. It's who you know, and you don't know when those seats are going to open up.

[00:16:31] And oftentimes they are, you know, sort of like plum picked for someone else. So being on the boards like you are, like what are the important committees or just how to just give us a little perspective. I serve on NOM and GOV committee. So I have a very direct influence on who gets interviewed to serve on the boards.

[00:16:58] And so one of the things that I've talked with our chair about and that I did when I was chair of NOM and GOV for another corporate board was to blind resumes, take anything out that could identify gender or ethnicity. Yeah. And let's interview based on quality. Yeah. And then see who comes through the door. Yeah. So I would love to see more of that done.

[00:17:25] My current board chair with Owens and Minor, I mean, NOMGov chair with Owens and Minor has agreed that that makes sense. I implemented it again with another board. I just think we have to have the conversations with everything that's going on nationally with DEI. Although I think that maybe they don't really know what DEI means. Yes.

[00:17:52] Has caused some companies to back off. But what I haven't seen, thankfully, yet is companies terminating board seats of diverse directors. Yep. Yep. That would be, I am not willing to say that could never happen because there are so many things that are happening right now.

[00:18:19] But just that point of, I think many people don't appreciate that on boards, there are committees. And if you have the opportunity to be on a board, what I like to tell women is just like, get on the committees and get on NOMSGOV. Get on NOMSGOV. Like whatever you do, there's so many things that you can serve on by get on NOMSGOV because that's the committee that makes the nominations. It's the gatekeeper. The gatekeeper. It's the gatekeeper. The gatekeeper as well as the shepherd to bring in the talent. Yes.

[00:18:49] And then to make sure that the new directors that do come on board have a buddy, that they have someone they can talk to, that they're oriented to the company in the right way. Yep. Because you've invested a lot of time and energy in bringing them on. So I love NOMSGOV for a lot of reasons, but today in particular, because of the ability to have an influence on who walks through that door. Yep. Yep.

[00:19:19] So I do want to go back to DEI. You mentioned DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusivity. What could be anything more than important than that? And yet, you know, as much as you have spent a considerable amount of your professional attention ensuring that there is diversity, that there is equity for people, that there is inclusivity for bringing people to the table. It's now a trigger word. It's a bad thing.

[00:19:49] There's backlash. So first of all, can you comment on the time that we're in, what you're saying, what you're most worried about, and then also what can we do about it? Yeah. What I'm seeing is people, companies moving away from the term DEI because it is so explosive in some people's minds. They're changing to words like they're using inclusion.

[00:20:18] They're using belonging. So they're trying to stick to it, but without having a target on their backs. So that in many ways, while you could say, well, if you believe in it, you believe in it. So why would you do that? But sometimes in order to achieve your goals, you have to outsmart those who don't want you to achieve them. Mm-hmm.

[00:20:47] It's like, you know, back in the slavery days, my ancestors used song to communicate because they had to outsmart their masters. Mm-hmm. And I feel like in many ways, we have reverted back to where we're having to outsmart the powers to be to not lose ground on what we've already gained. I am seeing a lot of, I would just say, anxiety and fear.

[00:21:15] Sort of a lack of, sort of just an absence of bravery. Mm-hmm. You know, I feel like I'm seeing a lot of people who are in the world who are in the world. So how do we outsmart it? How can you still stick to it? You know, when it's easier or not to, quite frankly.

[00:21:40] It's easier to just sort of like put the, you know, the trigger area, the hot topic to the side. You know, I'm not seeing the anxiety and fear in the companies that I work with. I'm seeing the change. Okay. I'm seeing how do we make this work. Outside of that, do I see anxiety and fear? Oh, you betcha. Mm-hmm. You know, when I think about Target, when I think about Amazon, when I think about Walmart, Yeah.

[00:22:10] and all of the rollbacks, to me, that's fear. Yeah. Yeah. And they're paying for it because of the boycotts. Yeah. And the impact on profitability. Mm-hmm. They may think it's not going to last, but as a people, when we decide we're going to do something, if it takes a year to not walk through a Target door. Yeah. We will do that. Yeah. And they will fill it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:22:40] Listen, I do understand. I mean, listen, you know, after, um, after the big oil spill 20 some odd years ago, my husband would not go to an Exxon gas station. And it's just like, you know, really? But he wouldn't. And it was very, very clear to him. So, but how do you outsmart it? So these companies are also filled with people who want to do the right thing, who believe firmly in, you know, the purpose of DEI and why it is a cause for, um, for better.

[00:23:10] So, so how do you, how do you, as a person, how do you, as a leader, how do you help from the outside or the inside, despite what else is going on? I really think that, you know, the corporations need to do some focus groups.

[00:23:26] Their boards need to listen and be a part of those focus groups to hear how people are feeling and to see if there's a common ground to where you can still invest in all people and make people that walk through your door feel value.

[00:23:47] Make people that utilize your services feel value and that it's okay to spend their money with you because you value them doing that and not feel like they don't care about me. They don't care about my son or my daughter, my niece and my nephew, that my grandchildren that are coming up. So why should I support them to listen? I think listening is what has not happened.

[00:24:16] There's one way communication and not pulling in those voices to see where can there be a happy median or at least give people the opportunity to be heard. Reed, if we don't focus on these issues, I mean, is it okay to just sort of like, it's too, it's too hot right now. We're just going to push this aside and not deal with it.

[00:24:38] But if we don't, you know, particularly in healthcare, if we don't focus on these areas, what would be the impact? I don't think we cannot focus on it, especially in healthcare. What will be the impact is hundreds of thousands of people dying. Think about COVID and how the vaccines were distributed and what communities received them and which communities did not.

[00:25:06] And all of the deaths that we saw, that was a result of inequity. Because different people had chronic conditions that weren't taken into consideration and people were coming in and out of their households, people in nursing facilities.

[00:25:21] So when you think about healthcare and not focusing on conditions that impact people of color and different ethnicities, sickle cell disease, different types of cancers, we're going to see treatments stop. We're going to see people die. We're going to see people not being able to see a physician because of the color of their skin. And nothing more.

[00:25:49] And I just, I think it's going to create, it would be horrible for my health. I think that we, there was so much, from my perspective, one of, you know, I look at my time at the American Medical Association and some of the proudest work I did there was working with the Center of Health Equity, with the founding, founding chief health equity officer, Dr. Aletha Maybank.

[00:26:13] And just the opportunity for me to learn information that, quite frankly, was always there. But I wasn't aware of it. I was not aware of it. And then when the pandemic happened, the level of inequity and injustice, you know, for particularly black and brown communities in terms of, you know, how they were impacted so differently than others was incredible. I mean, it was startling.

[00:26:40] And I was excited about what seemed like so much progress in the right direction. But I was always aware of how hard it was going to be. And one of the things that Dr. Maybank would always say is the door may be open now. We've got to shove everything we possibly can through it because it will close again. And wow, was that correct? That was just so correct.

[00:27:02] So I think about, you know, the time that we're in right now with a door that I do think is closing at many of the government and policy levels. And just trying to think about, you know, where's the groundswell? Where do we fill in the cracks? Where do we continue to make progress in spite of, you know, what are new, even larger obstacles than were there before? Because now you can't look away. I feel like you can't look away. No, you can't. That's why you can't.

[00:27:29] And one area that is very near and dear to me is Black maternal mortality. We know in the U.S., the richest country in the world, Black women die three times more often during childbirth than white women. You know, and there are HRSA grants out there now that's focused in those areas. And guess what?

[00:27:50] Those grantees are scared to death that they're going to lose all of that money and all of the impact of trying to get these women into care. That is a startling statistic that I was unaware of.

[00:28:09] And so I don't know that there's a solution at this moment in time, but certainly putting more light on these issues seems to me like one of the critical things that we need to do. Well, we're really concerned about many of the federal grants because they're viewed as DEI when they're health care. Yeah. Yeah. It's about health. It's about saving moms.

[00:28:37] It's about moms being able to live to be moms. Yep. Yes. Yes. Yes. These stories. Yes. We need to do that and we need to, you know, put light on these stories in perhaps even a greater way than before. Rita, I'd like to close out our conversation talking about women business leaders. We're both here at the WBL Annual Summit in New Orleans. You have come here many times before.

[00:29:05] You are a featured guest often as a speaker, whether you're speaking to women who aspire to do board service or about your, you know, enormous contributions as a leader, CEO for so many years. Why are you here? For those very reasons. To connect. Who else can I reach back and bring up? Who else can I mentor?

[00:29:35] And then also, what can I learn from them? You know, they're generations apart now. Yeah. And so I know that as much as I give when I come to WBL, I receive. Mm-hmm. I've heard recently that there's five generations of people in the workforce now, which sort of speaks to, you know, both opportunities for learning, but also the complexity that out there in the workforce.

[00:30:04] As we close out on Inspiring Women, Rita, I would just love for, you know, you have given advice to so many over so many years. If you could sum up, perhaps, you know, maybe one of those nuggets that was the most meaningful to you when you took a big step in your career, something that struck you that you might want to give to others.

[00:30:26] One thing that sticks with me that was probably 40, well, not that old, but 30 plus years old when I was very early in my career is one of my leaders said to me, five o'clock is not when you stop working and you stop thinking. That's just the time that some people go home. And that has always stuck with me.

[00:30:57] I bet there have been many times during any particular day that has been five o'clock somewhere, but that means something really different to you, Rita. This has been an amazing, inspiring women conversation. I've been speaking with Rita Johnson-Mills. Rita, thank you. Thank you so, so much. I appreciate this. Thank you. I appreciate it too.